Archives › Craig Calcaterra

Rob Neyer wrote a whole book once fact-checking and, in many cases, debunking long-told tales of Major League Baseball. You really should own it, even if you don’t care much about the particular baseball legends he debunks.  The process of doing it — of taking on baseball’s exceptionally weighty folklore — is worth it in…

I assume that football people would view this Ron Darling rant against the NFL draft — inspired by the fact that draft coverage was squeezing out baseball coverage on SNY yesterday — as something as ignorant as I view most baseball commentary by football people. But he used the word “jabroni” and that more than…

As advertised, Hawk Harrelson showed up on MLB Network yesterday to take on Brian Kenny in a tete-a-derriere about sabermetrics and advanced analysis. I won’t ruin it for you, but know that Harrelson is not all anti-stats. He has his own metric — tWtW — The Will to Win, which he claims is more important than…

That’s what Will Carroll is reporting: Greinke is scheduled to throw early next week. Yes, you read that right. — Will Carroll (@injuryexpert) April 25, 2013   On the one hand, it was his non-pitching shoulder which was broken. On the other hand, damn. No official word from the Dodgers on this, but it sure…

Oops. Jeff Passan reports why the Yankees — whose decision to not sign any significant long-term deals this past offseason despite multiple on-field needs was chalked up to a desire to get under next-year’s $189 million luxury tax threshold — are likely to exceed said threshold nonetheless: In recent months, the Yankees have become far…

It’s my parents’ 46th wedding anniversary today. To my knowledge, neither of them have every thrown things at each other while in their underwear. The same can’t be said for someone else celebrating an anniversary today: Hal McRae. As Chris Jaffe of The Hardball Times notes, it’s the 20th anniversary of then-Royals manager McRae going…

Things are off to a cruddy start in Washington, but there’s stability at the top for at least another year: The #Nats have picked up Mike Rizzo’s option for 2014. The two parties are still working on an extension beyond 2014. #MLB — William Ladson (@washingnats) April 25, 2013 Not at all surprising, nor will…

Rick Camp, who provided swingman duties for the Braves from 1976-1985 died today. He was 59. Camp had a career record of 56-49 with an above average ERA of 3.37. Not bad considering his strikeout rates were always low. Camp is remembered for two things, primarily. The first one being his 2005 criminal conviction for attempting…

Corey Brock has a nice story up over at MLB.com today about the changes in dimensions at Petco Park.  The facts on the ground so far are interesting — Brock notes that three home runs — all by the opposition — would have been long outs before the fences were moved in.  The overall thrust of…

It’s Joe Posnanski’s post, and it’s a good one. Yes, he goes over a lot of the old Jack Morris territory, but he also has some stuff in there which explains why we go over this territory so damn often. After observing, as many have, that Jack Morris got a lot of run support and…

This meeting was planned prior to the Boston Marathon bombing, but the bombing will no doubt loom over today’s meeting of baseball operations officials, who will be discussing stadium security enhancements: Among the security topics that could be discussed are backpacks that fans bring into ballparks. Each team has different policies for fans, although the…

The only instance I’ve ever heard of a sabermetric-oriented front office actually believing that scouting was for suckers came about 11 years ago when — rumor had it anyway — J.P. Ricciardi of the Blue Jays was actually peddling that stuff. And even then it was likely just big talk from a guy who was…

I wish Rockies first base coach Rene Lachemann would come to my house and give Mookie the facts of life like this. The key bit: “dont go out with baseball players.” Now, if I can just find Stuart Copeland or someone like him to come and tell Mookie not to date drummers and I’ll be…

Everyone loves a good train wreck. Or, possibly, and epic beatdown. Or if things go sideways, everyone will probably take some sick fascination in watching Brian Kenny go insane.  Any or all of which may happen tomorrow as Hawk Harrelson will appear on “MLB Now” with Kenny and Harold Reynolds at 4PM on MLB Network. The back…