Archive for April, 2008
Baseball HoF Trivia Answer
Here’s the answer to our trivia question from last week (Click Here to review).
Long time Cardinals closer Bruce Sutter (hat tip to Sox Addict), back in 2006, became the first relief pitcher elected to the Hall of Fame without ever starting a game in his entire career.
Hoyt Wilhelm, Rollie Fingers and Dennis Eckersley [...]
MLB’s Who’s Hot: Week # 4
Swinging for the Stars!
This week’s hot hitter was by far, Houston 1B Lance Berkman. As you can see below, he hit for a BA over .400, OBP over .500 while hitting 4 HRs, 12 RBIs & even a SB!
Rounding out the top 5 hot hitters for week 4 would be the Ranger’s 5-tool CF Josh [...]
Roger, Say it Ain’t So!
First, the Mitchell Report and now THIS!
The New York Daily News has reported that Roger Clemens (currently retired?) carried on a decade-long (1990-2000) romantic affair with country star Mindy McCready, who’s star has fallen from the country music scene in recent years. They first met when McCready was a 15-year-old aspiring singer and Clemens was [...]
Baseball HoF Trivia
We haven’t done this in a while but this one stumped me so I thought I’d share it.
Who was the first relief pitcher to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame despite having no career starts?
The answer will be given sometime next week.
Help support Baseball Reflections and buy me a coffee with PayPal!
Baseball Links Exchange
David Pinto & Baseball Musings
This is the second in the series of link exchanges and it should have been the first (no offense Geoff). After reading David’s article on Baseball Prospectus entitled, “Evolving the Save Rule” which was written back on August 8, 2007 in his weekly spot called, “The Big Picture”. Now back then, [...]
MLB’s Who’s Hot: Week # 3
D’Backs 1B Conor Jackson
This week was a tough selection, but with 10runs scored, 3 HRs, 10 RBIs to go along with a BA of .480 and an OBP of .519, Conor just edged out the Tiger’s Miguel Cabrera, the Phillies’ 2B Chase Utley and Boston’s Manny Ramirez.
Cabrera had more RBIs (11), Utley had more HRs [...]
Future HoF’er Frank Thomas Released!
Toronto Releases $8M Man
If you haven’t already heard, the Toronto Blue Jays have released Future Hall of Fame 1B/DH Frank Thomas (long time White Sox, short time A’s & Blue Jays). Blue Jays’ GM J.P. Ricciardi was quoted as saying,
“I don’t know that we have the luxury of waiting two to three months for [...]
Lack of Velocity Trend or Coincidence?
Is it just me or does anyone else notice a fair number of major league pitchers (Borkowski, Verlander, Mussina, etc.) are experiencing a drop in their 2008 velocity? Could this mean that more pitchers than we had thought, were on the juice or is this just a coincidence?
Please report in the comments, for research’s [...]
Baseball in Korea
My sister-in-law, Kayla, has been working in South Korea, just south of Seoul, teaching English to elementary age students since October and recently went to her first professional baseball game over there. Here’s a report from Kayla in Korea on Baseball in Korea. Take it away, Kayla!
The Korean Baseball Organization (KBO) is made up of [...]
The Lost Art of the HOLD
It’s time to give the set-up men their own statistic again. Let’s reinstate the Major League Hold. After all, ESPN still lists it in their box scores. Seriously though, something needs to be done, statistically speaking, to differentiate a set-up man from a specialist (in just to face one batter). In some cases, a Hold [...]
Baseball Links Exchange
I have decided that if my readers are to read any other blogs IN ADDITION to Baseball Reflections then I should at least point you in the direction of some of my favorites on a weekly basis. So without further ado, here we go!
One of my favorite bloggers is Geoff Young over at Ducksnorts [...]
Hot Hitters: MLB Week 2
Here’s a listing of the MLB’s hottest hitters for the second week of the season. They may not have hit the highest number of HRs, but they hit 2 or more while hitting for a BA over .400 and an OBP of over .500
Player
Team
Pos
R
HR
RBI
SB
AVG
OBP
SLG
OPS
M. Holliday
COL
LF
6
2
10
1
.480
.519
.880
1.399
J. Upton
ARI
RF
4
2
8
0
.476
.500
.810
1.310
C. Kotchman
ANA
1B
4
2
5
1
.455
.500
.818
1.318
A. Pujols
STL
1B
7
3
7
1
.417
.517
.875
1.392
2 players did hit 4 HRs and 9 [...]
MLB Monopoly
Since the beginning of the 2007 season you can no longer listen to games online via your local radio station. Instead, you have to have an MLB GameDayAudio account, but the radio is still FREE. I just can’t get radio stations at work when games are played during the day in the early stages of [...]
Who’s Got the Hot Hand So Far?
I thought I’d give the starting pitchers a little more than a week before I decided to see who’s gotten off to the best start.
By looking at Wins (W), K’s, Innings Pitched (IP), ERA & WHIP; my choice for hottest pitcher thus far would have to go to Boston’s Daisuke Matsuzaka with 2 wins in [...]
MLB Shock & Awe
The St. Louis Cardinals, with their patchwork rotation is 7-2
The Baltimore Orioles are 6-1
The Kansas City Royals are 6-2
The Florida Marlins after their fire sale are 5-3
All of these teams are leading their divisions, but maybe more surprising than these four teams would be the Detroit Tigers being only 1-7!
But hey, it’s only April and [...]
HR Milestones
Pete’s Pick: My choice would be Ramirez because if he gets hot, he’s capable of hitting 10+ in a given month (although he needs 3 more than Griffey).
Help support Baseball Reflections and buy me a coffee with PayPal!
Opening Day at Fenway Park, 2008
Time: 1:10pm
Today’s events:
· Red Sox World Series Ring Ceremony
· Top Secret: Who will throw out the first pitch is being kept a secret, but after 2 World Series wins in the last 4 years, my prediction is exiled former 1986 1B Bill Buckner
· Pitchers: Dice-K (1-0) –vs.- Kenny Rogers (0-1)
· A Red Sox win brings [...]
Who’s Hot & Who’s Not: Week 1
Who’s Hot:
Team POS Player BA/HR/RBI/SB/OBP/SLG/OPS/Comments
Phillies 2B Chase Utley .412/3/6/0/.522/1.000/1.522/Can Utley follow in the footsteps of teammates Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins and be the third Phillie in a row to win the NL MVP award? This quick start might be a foreshadowing of what’s to come.
D’Backs RF Justin Upton .400/3/3/0/.429/.850/1.279/After a first [...]
Of Baseball and Church
Last night I read an article in World Magazine called, “Grinch in the press box: Baseball: Peanuts, popcorn, and proselytizing” by Marvin Olasky. The article is about New York Times sportswriter Murray Chass and his crusade “against voluntary Baseball Chapel services in major league locker rooms on Sunday mornings.” To read more, click on the [...]
And the Mets were Worried about Pedro’s Arm!
The NY Mets are sure glad they got Johan Santana today as Pedro Martinez told manager Willie Randolph that he might have heard a “pop” in his hammy on that last pitch he threw. Barring a miracle, it looks as if Mr. Martinez might be going back on the DL. The question is, will it [...]
The Author Who Cursed Tom Gordon
If I were the Phillies, I would call up Stephen King and ask him to write about some other ballplayer. Tom Gordon has been more or less “cursed” since King wrote the book, “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” (1999). Maybe if he writes about someone else, the bad luck that has been brought on [...]
