November 23, 2009
Order Now The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 is now in development and will ship in mid November! This year's book will feature articles by THT's staff as well as Bill James, Tom Tango and Craig Wright. If you use this link to purchase the Annual, you will be in the first group to receive it and you'll be supporting THT. Most Recent Comments
Introducing Visual Baseball (1)
HR/FB Park Factors (8) Why Baseball Needs a Visual Facelift (5) Building a Retrosheet database, the short form (4) Is peak at age 29? (7) 
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Monday, February 28, 2005Thirteen and countingI was leafing through my copy of the 2005 Bill James Handbook tonight, and I noticed that Marquis Grissom had, to my surprise, hit at least 10 home runs every season since 1992. Even in the homer-happy era in which he's played, that's a rare accomplishment. The only other guys to match that feat: Barry Bonds (10 homers every year since 1986) Rafael Palmeiro (1990) Jeff Bagwell (1991) Gary Sheffield (1992) Tino Martinez (1992) Jeff Kent (1992) Reggie Sanders (1992) So Grissom's streak of 13 seasons is tied for the 4th-longest in the major leagues. That's better than Ken Griffey Jr., Frank Thomas, Juan Gonzalez, and Larry Walker (among others) -- all guys who also reached double figures in homers in 1992. Friday, February 25, 2005Baseball Analysts and Bird KillersEarlier this week, Rich Lederer and Bryan Smith opened a new website called Baseball Analysts. Rich and Bryan are two good friends of The Hardball Times, and their writing is always excellent. Be forewarned, however -- Rich is slightly obsessed with Bert Blyleven and Jered Weaver. You also might be interested in the attached PDF file about baseball's bird killers, from Alex Reisner's baseball site. Just in case you were wondering which baseball players have killed a bird with a baseball. I was once watching batting practice at Fenway in late 1976 when Jim Rice picked up a ball and threw it against the scoreboard as hard as he could, leaving a decent dent in it. Luckily, there were no birds in the way. That was the day he was moved from left field to DH for the rest of the season. Monday, February 21, 2005Black AcesThere's an article on MLB.com today called "12 Black Aces," discussing the dozen African-American pitchers who had 20-win seasons in the majors. Here's the list: Don Newcombe Toothpick Sam Jones Bob Gibson Mudcat Grant Earl Wilson Ferguson Jenkins Al Downing Vida Blue J.R. Richard Mike Norris Dwight Gooden Dave Stewart Notice some missing names? When I hear the phrase "Black Ace," two of my first thoughts are Pedro Martinez and Juan Marichal. And aren't we missing some other black 20-game winners, like Pedro's brother Ramon, and Jose Lima, and Bartolo Colon? Oh, there are more... of course, those guys were born in Latin America, which excludes them from this list. But Pedro and Ramon are as black as any of those dozen aces, and I have always found it odd when that sort of thing is ignored. I'm not disputing that black players have been given the short end of the stick in terms of pitching opportunities, and that's obviously unjust and needs to change, but I can't help wincing when I see a list like that that doesn't include some of the greatest black pitchers in baseball history. It reminds me of the spring of 1997. That was the 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's debut, and I read an article somewhere that said something along the lines of, "Sadly, fifty years later, the Dodgers have just one African-American on the roster -- bench player Wayne Kirby." Which I guess was technically true, but horribly misleading. Other black players on the '97 Dodgers included Raul Mondesi, Wilton Guerrero, Roger Cedeno, Ramon Martinez, and Pedro Astacio. My point of all this being, while we're paying well-deserved respect to outstanding black baseball players, it'd be nice if we could avoid always drawing lines between "United States citizens of African descent" and "Latin Americans of African descent." Top Ten Most Lopsided TradesMike Carminati has updated his list of the most lopsided trades in history, with a new leader as the most lopsided trade of all time. Check it out. Thursday, February 17, 2005More about TradesMike Carminati has posted a quck look at some of our Win Shares/Transaction data. I particularly like the table of biggest contributors to their team after a midseason trade. Few transactions have inspired more emails to me than the Doyle Alexander/John Smoltz deal, which I hope to review in-depth at a later time. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||