Archive for March, 2011
How to Teach Hitters to Keep their Eye on the Ball
Every time a player swings and misses a pitched ball, observers, automatically, assume the hitter took their eye off the ball. In reality, that is rarely the case because most missed balls are due to poor timing or bad fundamental swings. However, there is some basis for the statement. It is very [...]
Jack Z and the 2011 Seattle Mariners Offense
The 2011 season will be Jack Zduriencik’s 3rd season as GM of the Seattle Mariners. It seems like just yesterday that the Mariners were fresh off a horrible season, had no good players (excluding Ichiro and Felix), a bloated payroll, and no hope of a prospect contributing anything to the big league [...]
What is Baseball’s Place in the Crisis in Japan?
It’s common knowledge that on March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake rocked Japan, and a subsequent tsunami with waves reaching more than 30 feet devoured the island nation’s northeastern coast. Faced with the daunting tasks of finding the thousands still missing, providing shelter for the hundreds of thousands left homeless, and staving off an [...]
Yours Truly to Host the next BBA Baseball Talk Podcast
The Show Details When: Tuesday Night, March 29th, 9pm EST Where: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ivieleagueproductions Call-in Number: 917-889-3190 Content: We will have 5 of the Baseball Reflections authors talking about all 6 MLB divisions in 10 minute (we hope) segments This is your chance to hear what some of your favorite writers sound like! The Line Up AL [...]
2011 Fantasy Baseball Rankings: The Top 15 Catchers
This year, there are four catchers widely accepted as top-50 players: Joe Mauer (ADP 20.59), Brian McCann (29.93), Victor Martinez (29.95) and Buster Posey (45.46). Yet despite this general belief, it’s highly unlikely that any catcher will finish the season as a top-50 player. Andy Behrens recently dug up some mind-boggling numbers that explain this theory. To paraphrase, [...]
DRSEA INFORMER: A Blast From My Past
Taken from: Volume IV, Issue 2: A Publication For Your Reading Enjoyment For the second year in a row, I was recently honored to attend the induction ceremonies at the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame in La Romana. It was also an opportunity to reunite with one of the inductees, Luis Tiant, who I worked with 20 [...]
DRSEA INFORMER: Forum Has Much At Stake
Taken From: Volume IV, Issue 2: A Publication For Your Reading Enjoyment Major League Baseball and FUNGLODE (Fundación Global de Democracia y Desarrollo) are holding a symposium in the near future entitled “Goals and Challenges of MLB in the Dominican Republic,” to include people they believe have a vested interest in baseball in the Dominican Republic. And I [...]
DRSEA INFORMER: Former Baseball Exec Admits Taking Kickbacks
Taken from: Volume IV, Issue 2: A Publication For Your Reading Enjoyment One-time high-ranking Chicago White Sox executive David Wilder recently pleaded guilty to federalfraud charges that he solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks from poor Dominican prospects hoping to make it in the big leagues. “I understand what I have done,” Wilder said [...]
Luck Factor and the NL bullpen
We finally get to the last of our luck factor series. For those of you that have been following this all along I give a wholehearted thanks. If you are just joining us you might want to back track and read the first one. It should be archived in the sabermetrics section of [...]
Rod Carew: 10 Important Keys to Good Hitting
In the 43 years since I debuted in Major League Baseball, I’ve watched thousands of great and not-so-great hitters. I’ve seen what works and what doesn’t, and I’ve sought to understand the fundamentals of success and failure. I’ve spent thousands of hours experimenting, watching video tape and refining my own hitting techniques. In the end, [...]
Luck Factor in the Senior Circuit (NL): Starting Pitchers
Hopefully, you are following along with the luck factor series. This will be number five in that series. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I will try to give you a quick hook before we dive into the numbers. Fantasy baseball players have many of the same concerns as general managers. When you look [...]
A Winning Hiatus in Pittsburgh
People know Pittsburgh as one of the “City of Champions”. While the Steelers and Penguins have had recent success, the Pirates have been cellar dwellers and have has loosing seasons for 18 consecutive years. This is definitely not the team they were in the 1970s. Like the Kansas City Royals and Colorado Rockies, [...]
2011 Fantasy Projections, No. 96: What’s Standing Between St. Louis Cardinals’ Colby Rasmus and the Elite Ranks?
Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one-by-one until the top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings. Colby Rasmus soared through the St. Louis Cardinals’ system after being selected in the first round of the 2005 draft, touted as a toolsy [...]
DRSEA INFORMER: MLB Shows Class
Taken from: Volume IV, Issue 2: A Publication For Your Reading Enjoyment Major League Baseball has taken important steps towards providing education for prospects in baseball academies in the Dominican Republic. The initiative was actually formulated and approved last fall and parts of the plan are expected to be put into effect soon, according to Sandy [...]
Luck Factor Continued: AL Starting Pitchers
As John Lennon once said, “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” I love baseball, but baseball doesn’t pay the bills. This happens to be the busy season at work, so I had to sit on all of the luck factor data I had generated. I know all of you [...]
B is for Baseball: Alphabet Cards; A Product Review
Artist Doug Keith has tried to make a solution for a problem many baseball fans across the country face in regards to raising their young ones. Often parents of America’s Pastime are left asking themselves, “How can I bring the game I love to my children at a young age in a [...]
Should Your Child Should Play Travel Baseball?
As youth baseball season is about to begin, many families will begin to wonder whether their child is ready to play travel baseball next season. The good news is that because of the great amount of travel baseball teams around today, most players can usually find a travel team to play on. The bad news [...]
Remembering Fenway Park, A Book Review
When Harvey Frommer set out to write the history of Fenway Park, he no doubt knew he had his work cut out for him. This is not a book where if the author just muddled through their research, they could get away with it as its focus is one of the most famous meccas of [...]
The “New” Power Hitter
If you think of the great power hitters of all time—Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron—the names that come to mind were more than power hitters, since they were all around fantastic batters. The traditional definition of a slugger did not necessarily include hitting home runs, but rather, hitting the ball solidly and [...]
30 Teams in 30 Days: 2011 Boston Red Sox Fantasy Baseball Preview
The Boston Red Sox were as busy as any team in baseball this offseason. Although they lost Victor Martinez and Adrian Beltre to free agency, the Red Sox made two shift-of-power acquisitions in Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez. Perhaps the most fantasy-rich team in baseball with six players in our top 100 (see below), the Red Sox [...]
The San Francisco Giants in Winter
So, what did I do in the winter aftermath of the 2010 Giants winning the World Series? I enjoyed the victory parade down Market Street. I got to see the World Series Trophy at City Hall in San Francisco. I went to the Giants Fanfest, which was packed with an enormous turnout. And [...]
Darnell McDonald is Ready for Action with the Red Sox
In Monday’s Red Sox / Orioles game, Darnell McDonald kicked off the Red Sox ninth inning rally with a double. It brought the crowd to their feet as they appreciated what Darnell does for this team. He came into the game as a substitute and delivered when his name was called. The [...]
Rod Carew on “Making Contact”
Long before he was the manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Don Mattingly was a phenomenal first baseman for the New York Yankees who was one of the best hitters of his time. So a compliment from him certainly goes a long way. “Rod Carew influenced me a lot,” Mattingly said during in his playing [...]
My Review on Mattingly Baseball Bats with their V-Grip™ Technology
After being away from the game of baseball as a player (in an organized league) for over 20 years, I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to catch up to fastballs in excess of 80 mph anymore. I took the plunge and signed up to play in my first over thirty baseball (NOT softball) [...]
Me, Grandad, and Baseball
Two weeks ago we lost one of the all-time greats. It wasn’t George Washington, it wasn’t Einstein, it wasn’t Elvis, and it wasn’t Babe Ruth. It was my grandfather, Ben Robinson. Grandad was a special, special man who truly cared more about the welfare of others than that of his own. He had a huge [...]
2011 Fantasy Baseball Big Board Top 50: Is St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols Still the Top Pick?
Image by Getty Images via @daylife Our 2011 fantasy baseball projections will be released one-by-one until the top 100 players have been revealed. These rankings consider past achievements, current performance and expected future results based on standard 5×5 H2H settings. Over the past few weeks, we’ve announced the top 50 players on our 2011 big board. Click [...]
Hosting BBA Baseball Talk on Tuesday, March 29th Again!
Once again, I will be hosting the fifth week of this month’s BBA Baseball Talk’s podcast on Tuesday, March 29th. Guests & the time will be released ASAP and the show can be listened to live and downloaded afterwards (available through iTunes). But for the best experience, I highly recommend that you listen in live and [...]
The 2011 Dante Benedetti Baseball Classic
Save the Date: March 15th, 2011 6th Annual Dante Benedetti Baseball Classic Order Tickets Online The Dante Benedetti Baseball Classic will be held at AT&T Park on March 15th, 2011 and will feature the U.S.F. Dons vs. San Jose State. Game time is 12:20 PM preceding the Bruce-Mahoney game between Sacred Heart [...]
10 Tips to Develop a Complete Baseball Player
Of course, not all youth players can become star baseball players. However, becoming a well-rounded baseball player is the result when parents and youth coaches do many of the following things to help: 1. Bigger, stronger, and faster athletes advance the most, so having young athletes perform age-appropriate speed and strengthening programs is [...]
Book Review: Derek Jeter from the Pages of the New York Times
Derek Jeter may not be one of the ten best players in baseball any longer and many fans will argue how much he has been responsible for his own greatness, but one thing is for sure, when Jeter’s name comes up, people listen. That’s what essayist Tyler Kepner and the other writers of this book [...]
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