The only thing that went right for the Giants in 2017 was that the Dodgers didn’t win the World Series. Even then, THEY CAME VERY, VERY CLOSE. Before the season, the Giants were unanimous favorites… Read more »
I haven’t been asked to produce a season preview for four years. My last effort, a team-by-team dissection of League One, English football’s third tier of professional soccer achieved a little notoriety owing to its… Read more »
For reasons having nothing to do with baseball and everything to do with local politics in a county adjacent to the one in which I reside, this annual feature is appearing far too late to… Read more »
Previously on “Nick Strangis previews the Arizona Diamondbacks”, I suggested that the 2016 Diamondbacks resembled a real life Shrodinger’s Cat – they were simultaneously a young-ish team with loads of untapped talent and incredible upside… Read more »
In a city with multiple professional teams and overlapping devotion, winning a championship elsewhere buys everyone a little more time. Congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles for winning their first championship in the NFL’s post-merger era…. Read more »
I hope Mike Trout is happy. His Philadelphia Eagles, who play in a different state than the one he’s from even though two teams play in New Jersey because Eagles fandom makes no sense and… Read more »
The 2017 Braves were supposed to have been a tanking team, like the Phillies and Reds. But they spent only 15 days in the cellar, none after May 10. This is not to say that… Read more »
On May 20, 2017, Carlos Martinez was scheduled to get the ball against the visiting, scoring-challenged San Francisco Giants. It was good timing. After blanking the Cubs for seven-plus innings on Opening Night, Martinez hit… Read more »
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” — The Who, 1971 The 2018 edition of the Cincinnati Reds look a lot like the 2017 vintage. The same holes, the same questions that… Read more »
If the Boston Red sox were a car, it would be a Subaru. Pretty popular, good gas mileage, roomy, durable. Solid, above-average ride. Not sexy though. Reliable. But not sexy.
My friend Rob Mains already touched on the Orioles and Royals’ ability to confound sabermetric prediction models. The team was back at beating their projections for a sixth straight year, albeit by a measly two… Read more »
Of course the Yankees got Giancarlo Stanton. Retrospectively, there’s simply no other place he logically could’ve gone. The entirety of baseball reality has unfolded in exactly this way for 100 years. They pilfered Babe Ruth… Read more »
The Washington Nationals of the 2010s are a great baseball team. They have been a great baseball team since the beginning of the Bryce Harper Era in 2012. In four of the six seasons Harper… Read more »
The 2017 Padres are your middle school biology teacher, suspiciously overeager to dissect a frog. Everything about this is going to be awful and scarring, but you might learn something. There is neither pretense nor… Read more »
I present to you an audience-participation season preview, featuring the reigning World Champion (the entire city of Chicago entered a World Series hangover on November 3, 2016 and has not admitted that 2017 even happened)… Read more »
Towards the end of the fourth Die Hard movie, an aging John McClane faces off against an F-35 Lightning fighter jet whilst driving a cumbersome truck. Naturally, McClane wins this battle. While the movie was an… Read more »
A year after coming within a rain delay and a Jason Heyward motivational speech (price tag: $21 million) of winning the World Series, the Indians had a good 2017. They: 1) set the record for… Read more »
Are you an MVP at MLB trivia? A Jedi Master of Star Wars minutiae? Test your knowledge! Challenge your friends! With the excitement surrounding the upcoming Han Solo movie as well as the 2018 MLB… Read more »
When previewing a team’s season, it’s important to envision the scenarios in which that team makes the postseason. The issue with doing that in this preview is that the Marlins have no realistic scenarios in… Read more »
Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to… Read more »
See the schedule of our published and upcoming team-by-team previews.
As the Orioles and Royals became famous for confounding sabermetric prediction models (Starting rotation and an ability to get on base? We don’t need no stinkin’ starting rotation and an ability get on base!), the… Read more »
So you just spent eight grueling months hitting, throwing, and catching a chunk of mud-rubbed hide across the country, all the while dealing with injuries, a devastating natural disaster in your home city, and one… Read more »
In 2016, baseball set a new record low for intentional walks per game. That broke the previous record, set in 2015, which had broken the previous record, set in 2014, which had…you get the idea…. Read more »
Next week, the Hall of Fame class of 2018 will be announced. As usual, the last several months have included tremendous hemming and hawing over the ballot and its abundance of, or lack thereof, worthy… Read more »
My father has his own blog. In it, he writes his thoughts, feelings, and opinions, and concludes with “that is my take – you decide.” I have always thought this a clever writing tool, as… Read more »
I have always been intrigued by the athlete’s wife. Before anyone paints me a misogynist, as of this morning, there are no women playing any of the four major sports, and also as of this… Read more »
In light of Major League Baseball teams not actually doing anything to warrant legitimate content creation in January 2018, it’s probably not a good idea to give them any more of our hard earned money… Read more »
Brandon Lee and Alex Crisafulli talk about Mike Dunn, Mike Dunne, Stephen Piscotty, Yu Darvish, Cubs vs Rays, “this season” vs “last season,” favorite 2017 moments, and SNES sports games, then cap things off.
The first (and only) copy of the Baseball America Prospect Handbook that I bought featured a young Jurickson Profar on its cover. Handsome, sporting a glitzy smile and a two-eared batting helmet, Profar made the… Read more »
