Search Results

Monday Morning Memo: Remember the Rangers

Posted by Drew Fairservice under Monday Morning Memo on Apr 29, 2013

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim v Texas Rangers

Coming into the 2012 season, the Texas Rangers were anointed the World Series favorites. After an incredible start to the season, the “best team in recent memory” talk started up. The Rangers were a juggernaut, sporting an incredibly balanced & powerful lineup, strong defense, and an underrated pitching staff. The Rangers finished April with a 17-6 record, jumping out to large division lead they held until the final day of the season (lol).

This year’s edition of the Rangers is different. Gone is Josh Hamilton, the preternaturally talented center fielder. Also gone is franchise heart and soul, the driving force behind the Rangers for years, Michael Young. Valuable swingman Scott Feldman bolted as a free agent, relief ace Koji Uehara and first baseman/DH Mike Napoli both signed with the Red Sox.

The Rangers came into 2013 with a much different look. They lost their martyr and their captain, opting for a defensively-minded center field platoon and a veteran DH in the oft-injured Lance Berkman. They signed 36-year old catcher A.J. Pierzynski fresh off a career year. They started Matt Harrison on Opening Day, though he’s only made one more start this season since the lid-lifter.

A rebuilding year for the Rangers? Hardly. If Yu Darvish and the Rangers can beat the White Sox tomorrow night, they’ll finish April 2013 with a 17-9 record. Much worse than last year. Wait, what?

Read the rest of this entry »

3 Comments

Monday Morning Memo: That Which You Cannot Predict

Posted by Drew Fairservice under Monday Morning Memo on Apr 15, 2013

Texas Rangers v Seattle Mariners
The Seattle Mariners overhauled their roster this off-season, desperately groping around for offense in any form. They traded a serviceable back-end starter for a first baseman/DH one year from free agency. They traded for another hulking behemoth of a home run hitter. They kept a former blue chip prospect first baseman who, it would appear, cannot hit even a little. They traded away a servicable offensive catcher to make room for another blue chip prospect of iffy viability.

They did all this and yet they remain the Mariners. Their lineup remains awful, their run-scoring remains middling, even after moving in the fences at their beautiful ballpark.

The Mariners had two things in bulk at the start of the season: league-average outfielders and DH types. After injuries and illness knocked out some of their outfield options, the Mariners came out of a series loss to the Houston Astros (in which the M’s were outscored by nine runs, equaling the Astros offensive output for the previous week) ready to host the Texas Rangers.

After the powerful Rangers took the series opener on Thursday night, the Mariners faced Yu Darvish on Friday. A tall proposition at the best of times, the Mariners seemed to add a degree of difficulty by starting a bewildering outfield alignment, one I don’t think anyone expected to see in the year 2013.

Read the rest of this entry »

5 Comments

2013 MLB Season Preview: These Things I Believe

Posted by Drew Fairservice under Getting Blanked Special, Preview on Apr 01, 2013

Washington Nationals Photo Day

The 2013 Major League Baseball Season gets officially under way today (the season doesn’t start until the first pitch in Cincinnati because that’s just how things work) and Getting Blanked is, to say the least, excited.

Predictions are a fool’s errand. Baseball and life have their ways of getting in the way of just about everybody’s best laid plans. The echoes of previously misguided predictions haunt the predictor forever. Nobody predicted the Orioles would make the playoffs last year, which means any prediction which doesn’t tap the Orioles as a playoff-bound club in 2013 receives a whole lot of “didn’t you pick them to finish last in 2012, idiot?”

In the twitter age of instant punditry, there is no worse feeling than making a somewhat bold or declarative statement and seeing a few eager trolls banging away on the “favorite” button, stashing that proclamation away for safe-keeping and posterity.

To mark the occasion and heavily hedge our bets, let me roll out a season preview full of sub-predictions. Not predictions as much as statements: nine baseballish things that we believe in enough to put in writing. Feel free to file under “what was he thinking?” for reference in six months.

Read the rest of this entry »

12 Comments

MLB Futures: Player Prop Bets

Posted by Darren Kritzer under Future Odds on Mar 31, 2013

St Louis Cardinals v Washington Nationals - Game Five

With the MLB season set to get underway tonight, we take a look at some of the more interesting prop bets for the 2013 season from bodog.net. 

Yesterday, we covered the World Series Odds.

Read the rest of this entry »

1 Comment

2013 Miami Marlins: WE’RE HAVING A FIRE…sale

Posted by Travis Reitsma under Giancarlo Stanton, Miami Marlins, Preview on Mar 26, 2013

Cincinnati Reds v Miami Marlins

2012 Record: 69-93, 5th NL East
2012 Pythagorean Record: 68-94
Impact Player: RF Giancarlo Stanton
Impact Pitcher: RHP Ricky Nolasco
Top Prospect: RHP Jose Fernandez 

Significant Acquisitions: RHP Henderson Alvarez, 3B Placido Polanco, LF Juan Pierre, SS Adeiny Hechavarria, RHP Jon Rauch, RHP Kevin Slowey, 1B Casey Kotchman, C Jeff Mathis, RHP Chad Qualls, RHP John Maine, IF Wilson Valdez, LHP Scott Maine, UT Matt Downs  

Significant Departures: SS Jose Reyes, RHP Josh Johnson, LHP Mark Buehrle, UT Emilio Bonifacio, 1B Carlos Lee, RHP Heath Bell, C John Buck, OF Scott Cousins, RHP Carlos Zambrano, RHP Chad Gaudin

With a brand new, publicly-funded stadium and a decent core of players like Giancarlo Stanton, Logan Morrison, Josh Johnson, Hanley Ramirez, and Anibal Sanchez, the Miami Marlins ownership—led by the detestable Jeffrey Loria—finally decided to spend some money on the Major League roster and committed $191-million to three free agents last winter. Those free agents—Jose Reyes, Mark Buehrle and Heath Bell—were supposed to turn an already decent up-and-coming team into a true contender.

Then everything went wrong. New manager Ozzie Guillen—whom the Marlins spend $10-million on and also sent to prospects to the White Sox to acquire—made some questionable decisions on and off the field and the stars of the team either got hurt or underperformed. Things went south quickly. In June, Miami sent Matt Dominguez and another prospect to Houston for first baseman Carlos Lee, thinking maybe it would turn around, but within a few weeks, they waved the white flag and began dismantling.

Read the rest of this entry »

8 Comments

Ten Stray Thoughts On A Friday

Posted by Dustin Parkes under TSTOAF on Mar 22, 2013

romerodownFor many, Friday represents the end of a long work week that’s filled with heavy doses of drudging, sludging and other words that don’t actually exist but rhyme with “udging” and connote menial and tedious tasks that are ultimately distasteful. It’s my hope that at the end of such misery, at that moment in time that only occurs on a Friday afternoon when it’s too far away from closing time to leave work early, but too late in the day to start anything new, you’ll join us here to read some random observations about baseball and contribute your own thoughts on the subjects that are broached.

So, without further ado, I present this week’s Ten Stray Thoughts On A Friday:

Read the rest of this entry »

23 Comments

You Need Not Apologize for Your Prospect-Fawning Ways

Posted by Drew Fairservice under Cliff Lee, Giancarlo Stanton, Roy Halladay on Mar 18, 2013

2012 SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game

There is very little hardcore baseball fans love more than prospects. That the majority of prospect information comes in handy list form has a lot to do with this, I believe. But the promise of prospect gold is a very real and very appealing thing, especially for fans of moribund franchises who otherwise face the impending season with the sort of dread associated with the first colonoscopy of a middle-aged man’s life.

As one might expect, fans tend to overvalue prospects, especially those in the farm system of their chosen franchise. Their prospects will, against all odds and available information, sweep through the minor leagues without a hiccup, storming the big league roster by force.

This is not reality, however. Even the most highly touted prospects fizzle. Pitchers break down or just TINSTAAP their way out of baseball. The biggest level-to-level jump in baseball is going from Triple-A to the bigs. Many just can’t make it.

Don’t let the boring shackles of reality constrain your throbbing prospect member – let your biased prospect flag fly and, gasp, enjoy yourself.

Read the rest of this entry »

2 Comments
« Older Entries