Hall of Fame: Maddux, Glavine, Thomas in; Piazza, Biggio out.

The Baseball Hall of Fame voting was revealed at 2 p.m. today, and Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas all earned the requisite 75% of votes to be enshrined.  All three were in their first year on the ballot.  Maddux earned 97.2% of votes, Glavine 91.9% and Thomas 83.7%. Glavine will go into the [...]

Will Curtis Granderson’s and Chris Young’s strikeouts matter?

Chris Young and Curtis Granderson strike out a lot. Some worry about the number of strikeouts that they bring to the lineup. This worry is natural – for years strikeouts have been had the reputation of being the worst way to make an out. Bill James observed some time ago that the currency of the [...]

On PEDs, the Hall of Fame, and Murray Chass

Murray Chass may have retired from the New York Times in 2008, but that hasn’t stopped him from sharing his baseball opinions with people through his blog. In a post on Thursday, he implored Baseball Hall of Fame voters to not reward managers of players who used performance enhancing drugs like Joe Torre and Tony [...]

The ballad of Lucas Duda

Usually I wait a while before I do this, but, what the heck: Player A career: .249/.340/.446, .197 ISO, 12.1 BB%, 18.4 K%, .344 wOBA, 117 wRC+ Player B career: .246/.342/.424, .178 ISO, 11.3 BB%, 23.5 K%, .336 wOBA, 115 wRC+ Player A is ex-Met Howard Johnson, Player B, as the title of this article [...]

Sabermetrics: Past, Present & Future

One early spring night in 1976, Bill James, a night security guard at the Stokley-Van Camp pork and beans cannery in Lawrence, Kan., sat reading the copy of Street and Smith’s Baseball Yearbook.  Beside him sat several other preseason baseball publications which he had bought – called annuals. “Reading through them I realized, ‘These are [...]

A case for Ruben Tejada

Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson held a news conference with beat reporters Sunday night where he prepped everyone on the idea that Ruben Tejada may very well be the opening day shortstop. A new shortstop is on just about every Mets fan’s wish list this holiday season, but there really isn’t a pressing need for [...]

Breaking News: Mets sign Curtis Granderson

Joel Sherman of the New York Post has reported via Twitter that the Mets have reached an agreement with free agent outfielder Curtis Granderson.  Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports reports the contract is for four years and $60 million. Hampered by injuries last year, Granderson hit .229/.317/.407 in only 245 plate appearances.  From 2011-2012, Granderson [...]

Mets non-tender Atchison, Quintanilla…Updated!

Ahead of tonight's deadline, the New York Mets have announced that they have non-tendered two players: Scott Atchison and Omar Quintanilla. Atchison appeared in 51 games for the Mets in 2013, pitching to the tune of a 4.37 ERA and a 5.39 RA/9 in 45.1 innings pitched, compiling a 3-3 record out of the bullpen.  [...]

Reexamining the 2007 MVP race

There’s a great account on twitter, @BRefPlayIndex, that if you don’t follow, you should if you consider yourself a baseball fan.  They often tweet out great nuggets of information about great seasons players have had that you may have forgotten about, along with other great nuggets (and the occasional giveaway. So when they tweeted this [...]