2009
77 posts
It's Over
I've never said this before. I've always been a supporter, but this is too much. It is time to fire Jim Hendry. It's over. For Christmas, Jim Hendry gave Cub fans the disaster that is Carlos Silva. Why? To save money in…
Hall of Fame Voting
Now is a great time to read baseball articles from around the country, as Hall of Fame voters often write columns announcing and defending their ballots for next spring's induction. Voters get to vote for a maximum of…
Good Friends, Keepers, & Sleepers
As most of our loyal readers know, I've been living in New York for about 20 months... To let you know where I'm coming from, literally, I'm a Chicago guy, who "colleged" in New Orleans, and since them has lived in…
The Beauty of Hee Seop
The life around the Cubs hot stove is desperate and lonely. We, fans, are starving for feelings of pride and splendid anticipation for the upcoming season. Rumorville brings us no hope, as the foreseeable future brings…
Oh Noooooooo!!!
Hope does not spring eternal. There is no hope for the Cubs next season. From the AP, via ABC News ... A baseball official with knowledge of the trade says the Mariners have acquired mercurial outfielder Milton Bradley…
Get Well Soon, Jose Arredondo
Jorge Arangure ( on Twitter ) recently broke the news that Jose Arredondo will miss the 2010 season, due to Tommy John surgery. That's terrible news for one of our two favorite setup relievers from the 2008 season.…
Best Team Money Can Buy: Full Throttle
We referenced in our recent post on The Best Team Money can Buy that we weren't going to purchase an entire 25-man roster. Sorry, I couldn't resist. Here is our money-is-no-object best team money can buy... Keep in…
Millwood Trade Reaction
Congrats to the Rangers who just traded Kevin Millwood and $3 million to the Orioles for Chris Ray. Most importantly, they saved $9 million in the deal... Meaning, they can go get a pitcher who will likely be better…
The Best Team Money can Buy
We hear the expression all the time. Usually teams with stars that win titles and have high payrolls, like the Yankees, Red Sox, and in other sports the Lakers or Real Madrid. But, building powerhouse teams is of course…
Contracts: The A-Teams
I was thinking about how columnists and reporters often write about which "bad" contracts teams are trying to move. It makes sense, since trade rumors are fueled by what can happen. Teams usually don't want to move…
2010 Hall of Fame Ballot
The 2010 Hall of Fame Ballot has been released. A look at the hopeful candidates... Roberto Alomar Kevin Appier Harold Baines Ellis Burks Bert Blyleven Andre Dawson Andres Galarraga Pat Hentgen Mike Jackson Eric Karros…
Free Agent Predictions
Happy Black Friday, everyone. I hope none of you are being trampled by a bunch of idiots at Wal-Mart. Sometimes this country really makes me question mankind. Anyway, I can't believe we I forgot this in our Top 50 Free…
Top 50 Free Agents
Our scouting trip to the deep south concluded with thoughts on the "Top 50 Free Agents" in baseball. There are several writers supplying their lists, so I thought I'd throw in our two cents. This hot stove league looks…
Rookie of the Year Ballot
The Seamheads Postseason Award Ballots that we shared last month didn't ask for Rookie of the Year votes. Here is our unsolicited Rookie of the Year ballot for the ol' blog. American League Rookie of the Year 1.) Elvis…
Varitek Valued?
In the expected news of the day department, the Red Sox will not pick up Jason Varitek's option . Jason Varitiek has five days to exercise his $3 million option (plus $2mm incentives) to return to the Red Sox as…
Prospect Spotlight: Tommy Manzella
This is the first in our long anticipated Prospect Spotlight series. If you enjoy this post, please email mosquito @ keeping me up half the night [dot] com. "How about a shout out for Tommy Manzella of Tulane fame.…
Canyon of Heroes
Loyal readers, it has been an honour touring the wonderful game of baseball since this season's Opening Day. Our highly anticipated hot stove league coverage should begin soon. (teaser: tommy m.) Here is an extensive…
BAseball Reality Tour - Animal Style
First, let's get this awkwardness out of the way... The ol' blog has been silent for, gasp, more than a month. I am sorry to the gaggles of brilliant readers who've been waiting and waiting and waiting. Still, my…
Rockies Imploding?
It's a long night over here, working with computer programmers on the other side of the globe. I just tuned in to the Giants v Rockies game to watch Franklin Morales turn into Andy Pratt. The Rockies are having a…
Where Have We Been?
So, here we sit on Saturday, September 5th, and we didn't do a Sept 1st update to our season predictions. How embarrassing. If it weren't for the cries of a few loyal readers, we'd just be moving right along with posts…
Position Players of the Future
Well, that was fun... looking at the Top 25 pitchers who made their debut this season. Let's waste some time now, looking at the hitters. Please note, this is an exercise that should be fraught with flaws because we are…
Power Arms of the Future
This post began as a prospect report on Giants' farmhand, Madison Bumgarner . We started out thinking about him but couldn't find anything to really write about. Well, other than he's a tall, hard-throwing lefty. It…
Fare Thee Well, Mr. Latos
Warning: I expect no-one to care about this quick post. Still, our imaginary sponsors thank you for your support. I'm trying to keep the creative juices flowing... trying to get back in the swing of posting the thoughts…
Value Over/Under
Today's exercise looks at some of baseball's most overpaid and underpaid players, based on their '09 performance. Hopefully, this will be informative, fun, or at the very least: tolerable. Special thanks to Fangraphs…
Monthly Pulse, August
Yesterday's trading deadline has solidified the rosters of most contenders. We can expect more movement than usual in August trades this season because more teams will be wary of claiming a player on waivers, due to…
Canseco's Claim
So, Jose Canseco has made another "outrageous" statement that will unfortunately probably wind up being true. From ESPN... "And I'll tell you this, Major League Baseball is going to have a big, big problem on their…
Future Stars & Busts
This will be brief. Late last night, I was watching the Blue Jays/Mariners game and rooting for Marc Rzepczynski, who was starting for our fantasy team last night. A few thoughts came to mind that I needed to share with…
Mark? This is Theo...
My written response to this rumor is a bit late, as I first heard it on Sunday... from the very end of Nick Cafardo's lengthy Sunday column ... At this time of year, one takes trade information with a grain of salt, but…
Friday's Notepad
Below are a few random thoughts from having free MLB Extra Innings on this Friday afternoon... Starting Pitchers for today's two matinees... Jose Contreras, White Sox @ Justin Verlander, Detroit... and... Aaron Harang,…
Halladay to Mets?
Peter Abraham is a writer whom I've come to respect a bit recently, since he criticized the Yankees' handling of Alex Rodriguez about a month ago. On June 20th, he wrote about how the Yankees hadn't rested Alex as often…
Clearing the Notebook
I'm using this Sunday evening explore the evolving trade market & examine the untapped potential of young players like Mat Latos, Brett Wallace, and even Andy Marte... who's fighting to avoid being the Gary Scott of…
Live from New York
This post was spawned from notes taken on my incredibly nerdy legal pad, while I sat in the 500 level of CitiField, directly behind (and above) home plate. In my opinion, it does not appear that CitiField has very much…
All-Star Eve
In advance, please know that this in no way encapsulates all of my thoughts over the past week around baseball. I'll have another post soon clearing the notebook, which will include highlights from my first trip to…
Delayed Reaction
Sorry again for the delay between posts. We just moved to a new apartment in Manhattan and do not have Internet, TV, phone, or any of those domestic communication devises. In the week, since our last post, we've…
Inaugural Power Rankings
In lieu of the traditional format of our 1st of the month look at MLB predictions, we will take an at-a-glance look at each team with our first annual July 1 power rankings. We will count them down... There are 30…
Posnanski's Latest
We'll have our highly anticipated July 1 post up later today. Here is something to hold you over, if you're sitting in your office with not a lot to do. As we've said here many times, Joe Posnanski is the best. If you…
Evaluating Everth
Last night, we dropped Kaz Matsui and picked up Everth Cabrera, to play in out Middle Infield position. We gave Matsui about two weeks, where he provided a below average OBP, three runs, two RBI, and no HR's or SB's.…
All Star Ballots
A few weeks ago, I started a draft for a column entitled "Appreciating Lincecum" . After writing out some thoughts on that subject, I tried to build an All Appreciation Team from players around major league baseball.…
Cocktail Party Ammo
In case anyone has plans to attend a cocktail party in the next couple of days, here are a few conversation starters that are sure to keep your fellow party goers entertained and enlightened. - It looks like the Yankees…
Case of the Mondays
It's a slow day around Major League Baseball, as there are only four games on the docket. Cubs @ Atlanta Ryan Dempster vs Javier Vazquez This is a makeup game, due to a rain out. So, the Cubs had to fly from Chicago to…
Browsing the Interweb
So, the Cubs are sitting in a rain delay at Wrigley Field, hosting Cliff Lee and the Cleveland Indians. I thought it'd be nice to share a look at what's been out their on the ol' www... The Cubs currently sport a 31-31…
Backe's Back!
Just a quick shout out to Brandon Backe , making his first start of the season for the Astros in a few minutes. To me, Backe was always the 4th or 5th starter on the Astros team with Roy Oswalt, Roger Clemens, and Andy…
It's Over for Sammy
The New York Times just ruined Sammy Sosa's evening . From the Michael S. Schmidt article... Sammy Sosa, who joined with Mark McGwire in 1998 in a celebrated pursuit of baseball’s single-season home run record, is among…
Fun with PECOTA
In a recent blog post , Rob Neyer included a link to the PECOTA Post-season Odds . PECOTA forecasts future baseball player and team performance by utilizing comparable player data, peripheral statistics, probability…
Mid June Leaders
Spending some time this afternoon on the Baseball Reference 2009 MLB Advanced Batting stats page , gave us an enlightened look into the first ten weeks of the season. We were looking at individual stats, and the two…
Interleague Madness
The Yankees and Mets are meeting up at the new Yankee Stadium tonight, and both teams have seen better times. The M.A.S.H.'ing Mets are limping into this weekend's subway series four games behind the Phillies and even…
Yankee Opportunity
With all the talk about the Yankees not being able to beat the Red Sox , there are just a couple of things that people fail to mention. This is a quick post; we aren't trying to mention everything that is germane to…
Who Are These Guys?
Thoughts from watching the first round of the MLB draft on the MLB Network... Bud Selig is such a bad public speaker. He's such an old curmudgeon, and he comes off as an absolute dinosaur who's never cared for anything…
Anticipating Tonight
Pittsburgh @ Atlanta Ross Ohlendorf vs Derek Lowe I had forgotten Ohlendorf was a former Yankee prospect. The only thing that really interests me about this series is if Nate McLouth is taking any former teammates or…
It's Draft Day!
Tonight's the night. Steven Strasburg, Dustin Ackley, and their peers will be getting drafted tonight and tomorrow based on their physical tools, statistics, projections, and signability . This past weekend, Peter…
What Happened Last Night?
The question in the title used to refer to what exactly happened after someone blacked out, passed out, or simply needed help compiling the bits and pieces of memories that remained from a night of partying. Going to…
Act Two Begins
If the baseball season can be looked at as a three act play, we would take each two months as an act. In your basic three act structure, Act One is used to introduce the audience to the characters of the play. The…
Back from Jamaica
Sorry for the long delay since posts. We went on a "scouting" trip to Jamaica and just got back last night. We will try to be more proactive to announce the potential for a longer-than-usual break. There is a lot to…
David y los Muchachos
Before my time, the 1969 Mets had the storybook postseason that eluded the careers of Cub greats Ron Santo , Billy Williams , Fergie Jenkins , and "Mr. Cub" Ernie Banks . On a fun note, all-time great afro grower, Oscar…
Getting Drafty
This could be the first time we've checked with ESPN's MLB Draft Blog , but we found something remarkable in Sunday's post by Jason A. Churchill . One assistant scouting director's expectation for the top half of the…
Greetings from Mahopac
We are spending the weekend with friends in Mahopac, NY. Quickly, I wanted to make note of a few things that we've noticed the last few days. Rich Hill is Back! Congratulations to the Orioles. Rich Hill came back…
The Return of Good Friends
Early this morning, while reviewing today's starting lineup for our team, I felt the need to create a stir. So, as we periodically do, we went back to "Good Friends", and our photo went from being a smiling Chris Young,…
Last Chance Hochevar
As any regular readers to this space can guess, we are very excited for tonight's season debut by Kansas City Royals starting pitcher, Luke Hochevar. Back in 2005, Hochevar capped off his collegiate career at the…
Painstaking Roto Moves
Yes, this is embarrassing. I am publicly announcing that I care enough about our roto team to think about whether or not it was wrong to cut Juan Pierre and George Sherrill last night. As we've mentioned before, our…
Bowden & Bard
We previously wrote in this space about how impressed we were with Red Sox pitching prospect, Michael Bowden. (I heard it pronounced "Bo-den" instead of "Bow-den", like Bobby Bowden.) Over the weekend, Bowden's…
Patience
In rotisserie baseball, there comes a time when you have to cut someone that you thought would be a key to your squad. It is critical to be correct when recognizing the difference between a player who will bounce back…
In the Box Scores
I'll admit that I didn't watch any baseball last night, but still here is a quick recap of last night's action, straight from one of our Nation's free gifts to the world, daily box scores... First, what we were looking…
A Walk in the Park
Was our anticipation to Tuesday's matinees rewarded with results matching up to our prognostications? I doubt it. However, our expectations were exceeded by a few memorable surprises. Let's recap. What Happened to Roy…
Tuesday Matinees
Here are a few things that I will be looking for in today's action. 12:35pm EST Houston Astros @ Washington Nationals Roy Oswalt vs Scott Olsen I'm looking for Roy-O to have a very good game. He was winless in April,…
Monthly Predictions, May 1
We thought it could be fun to do a monthly revisit of our season predictions. (Not to mention that gimmicks like these are some of the easier ways to get columns started.) For the record, we will stick with our Opening…
Getaway Day Afternoon Notes
As a quick summary of the rest of last night's game... the Cubs cruised to an 11-3 win... Zambrano hit the 17th home run of his career... Tom Gordon pitched a perfect Top of the 9th, retiring the Cubs on 9 pitches. I…
Cubs Live Bloggin
Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 I’ve always enjoyed a running diary of live games from writers like Bill Simmons and the Deadspin.com guys. So, as I get ready to watch my first…
Sunday Morning Musings
Let's turn back the clock about nine days. I just got back from Chicago two Friday's ago. That evening, I was about to leave the house to pick up some take out we'd ordered. While getting my stuff together (shoes,…
No Outline, No Rough Draft
We usually try to be somewhat buttoned up on these posts. Usually, there is an outline or rough draft that we reread and spell check. Since it is 12:45 AM on Sunday morning, I'm just going to jot down a few quick…
The Risk of C.C. the Hut
Please accept my apologies for the long posting break. Perhaps, the sad news that the King Kaufman column at salon was ending threw me off. Anyway, I've returned from Chicago and am back to the land of the Metropolit…
Is Piazza the next McGwire?
When considering the historical impact of the times we are living, I believe it’s important to take a step back and try to put things in perspective. We are either in the post-steroid era, or more cynically speaking we…
Quick Thoughts from Week One
It’s been a busy morning with a lot of complications, so here are some quick random thoughts after one week of the season. I still have no idea who will win the AL Central, but I wish I hadn’t picked the Indians. Every…
April 11
Twenty-one years ago today, April 11, 1988, I was eleven years old and stayed home from school even though I don’t think I was actually sick. My Mom called the school and told them I was sick & couldn’t go. In my…
Homestate Turf Wars
This post starts with a guess that the three best states to recruit high-school baseball players are California, Texas, and Florida. (Not to mention Georgia, Arizona, and Oregon.) We suspect it’s the same in football,…
Good Friends
“So, who’d you get?” In the context of fantasy sports, very few questions are more polarizing than the one above. The recipient to such question is usually pleased to have a chance to talk about something fun, that is…
Opening Day "Eyes"
Yesterday was a wonderful Opening Day: Cubs win, Cardinals lose. As most people know, there is a bit of a struggle among some baseball minds to choose a side, or find the right balance, between "scouting" and…
2009 MLB Predictions
In all of these projections, we are looking at potential regression or improvement off the last couple of seasons, for each team. We can get into more of the math in future posts, but this is really just supposed to be…
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