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January 04, 2012

Melvin Mora career highlights

As 2011 came to a close, former Baltimore Oriole Melvin Mora announced his retirement. This isn’t too surprising since Arizona (his last team) cut him midseason and no one picked him up. Still, Mora’s recent decision to out-and-out retire makes it official.

Mora had an impressive career for someone who was such a late bloomer. Only seven men who debuted in their age-27 season or later have ever played in over 1,500 games: Jimmy Austin, Bob Johnson, Ichiro Suzuki, Davey Lopes, Bill Bruton, Earl Averill and Mora.

Many of those guys had circumstances delay their start. It was the race line for Bruton, the Pacific Ocean for Ichiro, and Averill was a Pacific Coast League star before the minor leagues were fully tamed. Mora was just a late bloomer.

Now that he’s gone, let’s look back on his career with the Mets, Orioles, Rockies, and Diamondbacks. Listed below are his career highlights—his best and worst performances, the greatest and most important games he played in, as well as incredible and unusual occasions he was on hand for. Here’s the list:
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Posted by: Chris Jaffe

October 31, 2011

Postseason predictions wrap-up

Twenty Hardball Times staffers made their predictions of how the 2011 postseason would play itself out. Some proved prescient, a few less so. Let's take a look at the rankings to see whose guesses came closest to, and shortest of, perfection.

Scoring was based on a 5-3-1 system similar to regular-season awards: If someone picked a Division Series correctly, that person received one point, choosing an LCS winner garnered three points, while being a fortune teller and predicting the World Series winner earned five points. (Nobody got those five points.)

Here are everyone's picks and the results, ranked by total points.
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Posted by: Greg Simons

October 18, 2011

LCS prediction results

With the World Series competitors set—and good luck to the Rangers and Cardinals—it's time to review how the Hardball Times' staff did in the League Championship Series and compare their picks to those of our readers' contest entries.

The champion picker among our readers—and the winner of a copy of The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2012—is Eugene Douglas. He eliminated any need for a World Series-winner tiebreaker by being the only entrant to have a team actually in the World Series.

Eugene tied for the lead going into the League Championship Series by picking three Division Series winners—Detroit, Texas and Milwaukee. (Note Detroit: He's a Yankees fan.) So the Rangers won it for him, which is only proper because he works as a software programmer in Washington, D.C., where the Rangers once played....

The Annual, currently in production, will be available later this fall. We'll be sure to let you know on this site exactly when you can order yours.

There were a couple of mistakes in our previous article about Hardball Times staff picks, with "Prescient" Ben Pritchett already given credit for his pick of the Tigers winning the LDS, which put him in a three-way tie at that time. Additionally, Mat Kovach had correctly chosen the Cardinals over Philly, so he vaulted into a tie with Ben and Greg Simons with three LDS picked accurately.

In the LCS round, only Ben, Greg and Sam Hendrickson chose one of the World Series entrants correctly; Ben and Sam picked Texas, while Greg selected St. Louis.

Using a 1-3-5 scoring system, right now, Ben and Greg are tied with six points each. The only THT staffer who has a shot at getting another pick right is Sam, who chose Texas to win the Fall Classic. Check back after the World Series for the full results rundown.
Posted by: THT Staff

October 08, 2011

Our predictions (and yours)

Now that the Division Series are over—with each of the two NL series ending in dramatic fashion Friday—let's review how the Hardball Times' staff did and compare their picks to those of our readers contest entries.

Among our staff, Ben Pritchett—who was our winner for best predictions of which teams would make the playoffs—picked three of the Divsion Series winners correctly, as did Greg Simons. Nine people were right on two outcomes, eight picked only one correctly...and then there's Steve Treder. Poor Steve whiffed on all four series, but he can take comfort in the fact that his favorite team won the World Series last year.

Three of us have both our World Series entrants alive, 12 have one of them, and five are shut out from here on out. And exactly half of the 20 voters have their predicted World Series champion still in contention.

How does this stack up against our readers' picks? Well, three of you picked three Division Series out of four: Matthew Warden (Texas, Milwaukee and St. Louis), Trip Von Minden (Detroit, Texas, Milwaukee) and Eugene Douglas (Detroit, Texas, Milwaukee). One of them will win a 2012 Hardball Times Annual. Next tiebreaker: The League Championship Series.


Posted by: THT Staff

October 07, 2011

The Division Series, last night and tonight

Many Detroit players were key contributors in the team's ALDS upset of the Yankees, but two players acquired during the season by GM Dave Dombrowski, Doug Fister and Delmon Young, played key roles throughout the series, especially in the decisive game five.

Delmon Young	 PA	  Slash Line	HR	RBI	 R	XBH	   
With Twins	325	.266/.305/.357	 4	 32	26	 20	   
With Tigers	178	.274/.298/.458	 8	 32	28	 14	   
Tigers LDS	 21	.316/.381/.789	 3	  3	 4	  3	 

Young's power numbers increased dramatically with Detroit, and his three solo homers against New York all came at crucial times. His home run in the first inning Thursday night gave the Tigers an early lead and set the tone for the rest of the contest for manager Jim Leyland.

On the other side of the ledger, Yankees skipper Joe Girardi surprisingly used the same lineup in all five games. Young top prospect Jesus Montero and veteran outfielder Andruw Jones were left on the bench. While right fielder Nick Swisher struggled, going 4-for-19 in the series, Jones notched an RBI in his lone plate appearance. Swisher surely had a solid regular season, but he has historically performed poorly in his career against Detroit. Jones has fared better.

Career	         PA	  Slash Line    HR      RBI      R       XBH	   
Jones vs DET	 75	.258/.387/.468	 3	  4	10	   7	   
Swisher vs DET	236	.223/.369/.399	 8	 27	33	  17	 

Granted, Swisher had a .273 average and a .414 OBP against the Tigers this year, but Girardi probably should have realized that Swisher was struggling in the series. While the Yankees manager was very quick to pull pitchers, he seemed strangely reluctant to change up his offense, which ultimately faltered in the disappointing defeat.

Milwaukee and Arizona both dominated their two games at home offensively, but the scene now shifts back to Miller Park for the deciding contest. Brewers starter Yovani Gallardo seems like a different pitcher at home; he had a 10-2 regular-season record at home with an even 3.00 ERA, more than a full point better than his road ERA. Though Diamondbacks starter Ian Kennedy is better at Chase Field than he is at home, his regular-season road numbers (10-2, 3.19) are quite comparable to Gallardo's.

In the NL's second Game Five, Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter has been a revelation since the All-Star break, going 7-2 with a 2.98 ERA and 3-0, 2.15 since the beginning of September. But only tonight's Game Five in Philadelphia matters now, with Carpenter playing second fiddle in the pregame billing to Phillies ace extraordinaire Roy Halladay. The splits clearly favor the home team:

Game Five SP	 IP	Record    ERA	WHIP	K/9			   
Halladay Home	112.2	  8-3    2.48	0.99	8.6			   
Carpenter Road	119.1	  7-6    3.85	1.27	7.4

Posted by: Shlomo Sprung


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