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 (Eck) had all been starters at one point during their careers!
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 Hamilton, the red hot Marlins have their own Josh (LF, Willingham) on this list, the…
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 a 28-year-old father of two, pitching for Boston.
According to the article, Mrs. Debbie Clemens knew…
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.
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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, I didn’t typically reply or comment on anything that I read online, but something struck…
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 (5) and Ramirez also had more HRs (4), but Conor had the overall better numbers.
Honorable mentions: the Cubs’ Derek…
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 somebody to kick in because we can’t let this league or this division get away from…
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 sake, all of the big name pitchers who have this early 2008 illness with their…
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 nine MLB-comparable teams. Here they are (in their current standings, just for fun):
Lotte Giants
SK Wyverns
Samsung…
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 can be even more important than a save (in my opinion). Look at it this…
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 and until recently, over at Knuckle Curve, too. More on what Geoff is up to these days…
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 others hit 3 HRs (Pujols also hit 3 HRs) this past week, but none of…
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 baseball in April.
Now you can watch games right on your computer, but like TV, you…
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 three starts, an ERA under 1.50, a WHIP under 1.00 and almost double the K’s than…
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 just ask the 2007 Yankees about bad starts before you take any of these numbers too seriously.
For all…
HR Milestones
Loading …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).
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 them to .500
· A Tigers win will be their 1st of 2008
My game prediction is a Red…
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 week like this, he’s sure to quiet some doubters in the stands who thought that B.J.’s little brother needed…
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 link above or you can either send me an e-mail or make your request in 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 be the 15 day variety or longer? Good thing they didn’t trade Jorge Sosa as…
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 Gordon will be released, sort of like an exorcist of sorts. Or, maybe Gordon, at…
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