Hosmer had a below-average HH% in 2017 and his average exit velo was not good (72nd out of 436 hitters with at least 70 batted balls in play). The reason he posted a career-high .351 BABIP was probably luck. His career-high in AVG is best explained by his spike in BABIP. Hosmer’s future investors beware.
Read more "A Look at Eric Hosmer’s Free Agency Case"The Christian Yelich trade is an absolute travesty and the Marlins don’t care about winning. Whether Yelich liked it or not, he was going to suit up for the Marlins in 2018 and beyond had they kept him. But they didn’t because the new Marlins ownership group seems to care more about pinching pennies than Jeffrey Loria did.
Read more "I Take Back What I Said About the Marlins"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"I am officially writing for RotoBaller.com and this is my first feature for them.
Read more "2017 Rule 5 Picks to Look Out For"Throughout the interview, Le Batard kept asking Manfred whether he knew the new ownership would be cutting salary. Manfred said the commissioner’s office does not get involved in player personnel decisions. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen but the fact of the matter is that the Marlins are doing what they are doing in an effort to win baseball games. Perhaps not in the immediate future but it looks like the long-term plan is to shed salary so they can rebuild from the ground up.
Read more "Dan Le Batard, I’m Actually With Commissioner Manfred On This One"This year’s Hall of Fame ballot has 18 candidates I would strongly consider voting for. This presents a number of issues, aside from the fact that I don’t have an actual vote in the election, because my hypothetical ballot can only include ten players.
Read more "My 2018 Hall of Fame Ballot"If Wagner returned to baseball and threw 186.1 more innings (to tie Hoffman’s career IP mark), he could pitch to a 5.54 ERA, 1.350 WHIP, and strike out zero batters (zero batters in 186.1 innings!), and he would still have a better ERA, WHIP, and strikeout rate than Hoffman. Hoffman is already in the Hall of Fame.
Read more "The Case for the Hall: Billy Wagner"During the season, the Astros got some high-quality production out of their regulars, and though young phenom SS Carlos Correa missed around two months with a torn ligament, Swiss Army knife Marwin Gonzalez was able to fill in admirably for Correa. Shockingly, Marwin’s .303 BA was only the fourth-best on the team out of any regulars, which is not actually all that shocking when you consider that the team’s batting line as a whole improved from .247/.319/.417 in 2016 to .282/.346/.478 in 2017, a 21% increase in productivity.
Read more "2017 Recap: AL West"This is a comprehensive list of all players who have compiled a better career triple-slash than that of Edgar Martinez:
Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Rogers Hornsby, Jimmie Foxx, Dan Brouthers, Shoeless Joe Jackson.
Those guys, save for Joe Jackson (who is banned from baseball), are all HOFers.
Read more "The Case for the Hall: Edgar Martinez"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"