All Entries in the "Team Reflections" Category
Nats Fans Beware: The Strasburg Effect
Nats Fans Beware: Too much of a good thing can be bad for your health. Here's what can happen when watching future Nats Ace Stephen Strasburg battle back from a 3-0 count to strike a batter out!
The first time around shows Strasburg's last three pitches (all strikes) & you have to look hard in order [...]
The Oendan: The Japanese Baseball Fan Club
“What I was amazed, bewildered, and never, never surprised at was the love that the Japanese people have for the game of baseball. It’s mindboggling. It’s not to be understood . . . in a normal way. It’s abnormal.”
When Bobby Valentine made the above remark about Japanese baseball fans at an event at New [...]
Reflections on the 2010 White Sox: A Preview
The 2010 season is less than a month away, and here on the South side of Chicago (read: the western Chicago suburbs), White Sox fans are mostly talking about five topics in regards to the team’s upcoming campaign.
The arms race: Say it with me, “Buehrle, Peavy, Danks, Floyd… Garcia”
If there’s a [...]
Sox Prospect Lars Anderson Making Best of Spring Training
Highly touted Red Sox prospect Lars Anderson is making the best of Spring Training this year in Ft Myers. MLB.com listed him as one of baseball’s top 25 prospects last year, so he has a lot to live up to.
Lars has appeared in five of the Sox first seven pre-season games [...]
Marlins Starting Pitching Is A Sleeping Giant In The N.L. East
JUPITER, FL- As I watched the New York Mets defeat the Florida Marlins in a sloppy 11-2 affair on Monday, I couldn’t help but ponder how different the two N.L. East rivals are.
Much has been written about the New York Mets recent under-achieving, particularly 2009 where they finished 70-92 [...]
Aaron Bates Having A Productive Spring Training with the Red Sox
One week into spring training and Red Sox first base prospect Aaron Bates is among the team leaders in games played and hitting. The right handed 26 year old has a .300 batting average after appearing in six of the teams first seven games.
He is pleased with his strong start, and is [...]
Nomar Garciaparra Signs with Red Sox, Quickly Announces Retirement
Nomar Garciaparra signed a minor league deal this morning with the Boston Red Sox, then promptly announced his retirement at a 10:30 AM press conference. Joining Nomar at the press conference were President/CEO Larry Lucchino and Executive Vice President/General Manager Theo Epstein. Several friends and family members of Garciaparra were [...]
Michael Bowden to Start for Red Sox on Saturday
Image by firebrandal via Flickr
One of the Red Sox top right handed pitching prospects will be making his 2010 Spring Training debut as a starter for the big league club this Saturday. Michael Bowden will get the call to face the Pirates at City of Palms Park in Ft. Myers. Bowden has [...]
Minnesota Twins Season Preview
Image via Wikipedia
1) How was the off-season? What kind of grade would you give it?
For the Twins, the 2009 offseason was one of the best in recent history. After the (unfortunate) early exit from the postseason to end the 2009 season, the Twins had several clear and pressing needs. The most [...]
Eri Yoshida Pitches for Tim Wakefield
Image via Wikipedia
Here are some of the quotes from the knuckleballers from an article on NESN.com where these videos came from by Michael Hurley entitled, “Tim Wakefield Offers Pitching Advice to 18-Year-Old Female Knuckleballer Eri Yoshiba“.
“I was very impressed,” Wakefield said. “It’s an honor to have somebody to carry on a knuckleball tradition, and someone [...]
Yankees Say Goodbye – and Hello – to Old Faces
The New York Yankees may be coming off their 27th World Championship, but Brian Cashman didn’t spend much time this offseason basking in the afterglow of the title. Instead, he made significant changes to reshape the team. But not everybody in Yankeeland is happy with those changes.
Most fans figured that either World [...]
My Guest Appearance on Pro Rumors TV
Here is the video from my guest appearance on Pro Rumors TV this past Saturday night, 2/20/10. The two hosts are live and they called me up as their guest that night.
By the way, I had topics of interest to go by, but that last question wasn’t on the list they gave [...]
The Pitchers and Catchers Have Seen Their Shadow: Seven More Weeks Of Spring!
This past week the light of spring peeked through the tunnel of winter. Pitchers and Catchers reported to Major League Baseball teams around the country. The soreness of unused muscles began to set in, not of those players reporting, but of those fans anxiously awaiting a new baseball season.
There are many [...]
Baltimore Orioles: Keys for a Successful 2010
With Spring Training starting and the 2010 baseball season only weeks away, it is the time of the year when fans of the Baltimore Orioles can start dreaming that maybe this is the year that our decade long nightmare ends.
The Orioles were not among the most aggressive or highest spending teams [...]
Pro Rumors Podcast Tomorrow Night
Hey everyone, tune in to www.prorumors.com or blog.prorumors.com tomorrow night (Saturday, February 20th) at 7pm PST (10pm EST). I’ll be talking with them about the Boston Red Sox, the AL East and of course the New York Yankees.
Help support Baseball Reflections and buy me a coffee with PayPal!
Pro Rumors Podcast Saturday Night
Hey everyone, tune in to www.prorumors.com or blog.prorumors.com Saturday night (February 20th) at 7pm PST (10pm EST). I’ll be talking with them about the Boston Red Sox, the AL East and of course the New York Yankees.
Help support Baseball Reflections and buy me a coffee with PayPal!
Mets Hot Stove Roundup: The Pilot Light Is Out
The Mets went into the offseason with many big needs: No. 2 starter, power-hitting leftfielder, catcher, setup man, and upgrades at second base and on the bench. As spring training begins, they have successfully addressed only one of those needs.
In January, the Mets signed Jason Bay for $66 million over four years, with an option [...]
What is Japanese Baseball?
Ever since 1872, when professor Horace Wilson explained the game of baseball to his students at Kaisei Gakko (now Tokyo University), the Japanese have been obsessed with the American pastime.
Americans have been familiar with some aspects of baseball in Japan, but generally that knowledge was limited to home run leader [...]
A Cautionary Tale on NCAA Rules for Student-Athletes
Image via Wikipedia
Over the past few weeks, you have been reading about Matt Cox’s unfortunate situation as he attempts to play his final year of college eligibility. We are all very sorry that anyone has to jump through these kinds of hoops in order to play a game they love. Matt, [...]
A Monday in the Offseason: Dustin Pedrioa (video)
Here’s the second video of a workout day in the life of…by NESN on a member of the Boston Red Sox. If you haven’t guessed by the title, this video follows Boston’s Diminutive Bad Boy, 2B Dustin Pedroia at his home in Arizona.
Check it out and tell us what you think. What you liked or [...]
The 2010 Brewers & The Groundhog Day Principle:
Image via Wikipedia
Last week was Groundhog Day (the holiday, not the Bill Murray Movie). Per Groundhog Day tradition, the weather outside when the groundhog emerges hibernation is supposed to correlate with how much longer winter is supposed to last. For this article I decided to apply this principle with a [...]
Breaking Down Liriano’s DWL Dominance
This article was originally written by Andrew Kneeland back on January 29, 2010 on his site Twins Target.
If you haven’t already heard, Francisco Liriano appears to be back to his old self. After putting up a 0.80 ERA in just under 50 innings of work in the Domincan Winter League, Liriano has [...]
Jason Varitek’s Pre-Season Workout Video (2009-2010)
If you are anything like me, you wonder what catchers have to go through in the offseason to prepare for a season of 162 games. Well here’s a video showing us a typical day in Red Sox captain and part time catcher (I am having problems calling him a back up after all of these [...]
Cardinals Are Not Dormant During Winter
While for a lot of teams, the offseason is a quiet time, a time for renewal and reflection. For the Cardinals, this offseason has been anything but.
It would have been hard to believe after the final out of the NLDS that anything would overshadow the pursuit of Matt Holliday during the [...]
February’s Look at the Cleveland Indians
Image by Getty Images via Daylife
The Indians started the off season by firing their manager and his coaches, but keeping most of the other front office personnel in place. They staged some what of an extensive manager search and ended on former Washington Nationals’ skipper Manny Acta.
There was a big deal [...]
The Mark Redman Award Effect: Edwin Jackson
Image by Keith Allison via Flickr
Each year, BaseballEvolution.com doles out Mark Redman Awards for both leagues, recognizing pitchers who began the season surprisingly well but crashed back to earth in the second half of the season. New Arizona Diamondback Edwin Jackson won the 2009 AL Award. Does that have any predicative value for Jackson’s 2010 [...]
The Priesthood Wins Out Over Baseball?!
This week a top OF prospect in the A’s farm system by the name of Grant Desme (23) has decided to leave baseball to pursue a higher calling. The 8th ranked player in the Oakland A’s system was looking like he could get the call to join the major league team [...]
DRSEA INFORMER: Home Court Advantage
Volume III, Issue 2
By Charles Farrell
La Ventaja De Campo (Home Court Advantage)
In what looks like a continuing trend, a court in the Dominican Republic has ordered the New York Yankees to pay more than $750,000USD to Carlos Rios, their former director of Latin American scouting, after ruling that his firing was unlawful. Judge Alexis Gomez [...]
Blue Jays Reflections on the New GM
Greetings from the frozen north, and man is it frozen this winter. Anyway, what has been going on with the Jays? Well, we are about 100 days into the career of our new GM Alex Anthopoulos and so far most reviews are positive. His first few steps have been to beef up our scouting department [...]
Baseball Reflections Now on Japanese Baseball
I’m excited to contribute to Baseball Reflections because it combines two of my loves: Japan and baseball.
I grew up with an Okinawan mother and an American father. Even though I thought my mom’s heritage was cool, I barely noticed because I spent all of my time sitting next to my dad watching sports. Growing [...]
