Archives › 2009 › July

Another month is in the books, so it’s time to take a look at the most valuable players in baseball according to Fan Graphs‘ tremendous Runs Above Replacement (RAR) stat that combines offensive and defensive contributions while comparing everyone to “replacement-level” players at the same position. For example, how many runs would the Cardinals lose…

One day after shaking up their outfield by sending Lastings Milledge to the Pirates while bringing in Nyjer Morgan, the Nationals demoted Elijah Dukes to Triple-A this morning. Dukes hasn’t been a disaster at the plate, batting .244/.308/.415 with six homers and 20 total extra-base hits in 57 games, but he struggled in June and…

Grady Sizemore plans to play through elbow pain for as long as possible, but once the season ends he’s likely headed for surgery. As trainer Lonnie Soloff put it: “He’ll have symptoms for the balance of the season. Our hope is that we can keep him away from symptoms that affect his performance or put…

Catherine Rampell of the New York Times’ “Economix” blog has a post up attempting to quantify the cost-benefit analysis that goes into a baseball player’s choice to use PEDs or not and speculates about how the system can be re-jiggered so as to further disincentivize drug use. Anyone who has thought about this stuff for…

The Wall Street Journal takes note of all of the anxiety cases this year: Three professional baseball players have landed on the disabled list this season for a problem they can’t ice, bandage or have surgically repaired: anxiety . . . Baseball’s anxious include Detroit pitcher Dontrelle Willis, St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Khalil Greene and…

The conventional wisdom went that anyone who had any plans of catching up with the Dodgers in the NL West should have made their move while Manny Ramirez was on suspension. Troy Renck of the Denver Post thinks that wisdom gets it exactly backwards: Manny Ramirez returns Friday. That’s when the Rockies need to make…

Roger Clemens’ record as a litigant continues to be just as bad as his record as a pitcher was good: A federal judge in Texas reaffirmed his original dismissal of most of the claims in Roger Clemens’ defamation suit against former trainer Brian McNamee, the New York Daily News reported Wednesday. The decision clears the…

After watching Mariano Rivera make people look foolish for fifteen years it’s impossible to picture him in another uniform, but that almost came to pass once upon a time: In 1995 [Gene Michael] considered trading Rivera to the Tigers for David Wells. At the time Rivera was still trying to make it as a starter,…

Ozzie Guillen was voted as the manager for whom players would least like to play: In an upcoming issue of Sports Illustrated, 26 percent of major leaguers polled voted for the combustible Piniella, followed by Guillen at 21 percent. St. Louis’ Tony LaRussa was next at 10 percent, followed by the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Joe…

Orioles 11, Red Sox 10: John Smoltz pitched better (4 IP, 3 H, 1 ER) but had to leave when the rains came. I wouldn’t worry about the short outing, however, because Francona may want him in the bullpen. Why? Because Boston blew a 10-1 lead after their half of the seventh. Among the big…

Pittsburgh made a pair of trades to shake up the outfield Tuesday, sending Eric Hinske to the Yankees for a pair of mid-level prospects and then swapping Nyjer Morgan to the Nationals along with Sean Burnett for Lastings Milledge and Joel Hanrahan. Morgan has emerged as a very solid all-around player, offering elite defense and…