What makes picking the top shortstop of the past decade so difficult is that there isn’t even a WAR consensus between the two websites; Baseball Reference has Andrelton Simmons as the top shortstop of the 2010s but Fangraphs hands Troy Tulowitzki that honor. I actually think that neither of the above was the top shortstop of the decade—it was Francisco Lindor.
Read more "Best of the Decade: Shortstop"If you think there was a catcher better than Posey over the last decade, feel free to disagree with me. My handle on Twitter is @metsfanmax and I’d love to get a tweet or DM from you. You’re wrong, but I’d love to tell you personally why that’s the case.
Read more "Best of the Decade: Catcher"Cody Bellinger headlines the list of Top 25 Players Under 25 entering the 2020 season.
Read more "Top 25 MLB Players Under 25 For 2020"Alex Bregman headlines the list of Top 25 Players Under 25 entering the 2019 season.
Read more "Top 25 MLB Players Under 25 For 2019"Kershaw has had back issues in his career (though he says they are no longer a problem), and he has missed significant time in each of the past three seasons due to various other injuries. From 2010-2015, Kershaw averaged just over 222 innings pitched per season. In the three seasons since, he has averaged fewer than 162 innings, meaning he has not thrown enough innings, on average, to qualify for the ERA title. Of the past three years, he has qualified for the ERA crown in just 2017. He led the majors in ERA that year, of course, but that’s beside the point. Kershaw is looking like a mortal.
Read more "Breaking Down Clayton Kershaw’s Contract Option"Fangraphs is currently giving the Dodgers a 72.3% chance to make the playoffs and a 58.5% chance of winning the NL West. FiveThirtyEight doesn’t like the Dodgers nearly as much, giving them just a 56% chance to make the playoffs a 45% chance to win the division.
The discrepancy between the two models is why we play the games; these are contests between two groups of nine humans, and anything can happen in baseball.
Read more "A Look at the National League Playoff Picture"There are not many players in baseball who will be able to replace Seager’s production. Manny Machado is one of the few.
Read more "The Dodgers Should Trade for Manny Machado"This offseason has been one of the slowest in history. The top five free agents? Unsigned. We are now less than two weeks away from pitchers and catchers reporting.
Read more "A Deeper Look at the Slow Offseason"Gonzalez seems like someone who would be a clubhouse cancer, not a positive presence. This past postseason, when the Dodgers informed Gonzalez that he would not be a part of the postseason roster, he left the team to go help his wife move her things and get settled in Italy as opposed to staying with the team.
Read more "Trying to Rationalize the Adrian Gonzalez Signing"After four straight seasons of being eliminated in the playoffs prior to the World Series, it seems fair to say that anything short of a World Series appearance would be considered a failure by this Dodger fanbase, and perhaps even the front office, after spending so much. Fortunately for those fans, when the season got underway, the Dodgers did not disappoint.
Read more "2017 Recap: NL West"
Musings of a Baseball Addict 