One of my favorite pieces of writing about writing is Marxist cultural critic Raymond Williams’ article on science fiction (I searched “Raymond Williams baseball” on Google to see if Banished to the Pen could rightly… Read more »
Welcome to the first half of the first round of the 3rd Annual Effectively Wild Tournament Bracket Classic. Banished to the Pen has compiled 32 of the Effectively Wild podcast’s classic topics, favorite players, and most enduring/endearing running jokes.
Lucas Frost Giolito (born July 14, 1994) is an American professional baseball pitcher for the Chicago White Sox of Major League Baseball (MLB). And if you’ve been to his Wikipedia entry, you may have noticed… Read more »
Banished to the Pen’s full NL Central Podcast team got together to preview the 2017 National League Central. Alex Crisafulli, Eric Roseberry, Rob Mains, Ross Bukouricz, and Brandon Lee went around the horn to give their takes and answer questions about the Cardinals, Reds, Pirates, Brewers, and Cubs.
Taking a look around the AL West, it would be easy to suggest the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros have playoff potential. The Seattle Mariners are a Jerry Dipoto tradefest, which at least creates… Read more »
It’s no secret that Rob Manfred, and everyone involved with Major League Baseball, want baseball to be a global sport. Well, I take that back, they want MLB to be a global sport, not so… Read more »
The 2016 Angels were a team riddled with injuries. Some of their best pitchers went down for nearly the entire season while some of the best position players suffered more minor injuries that caused them… Read more »
Going into the 2016 season, the Arizona Diamondbacks were one of the hot picks to take that next step and make the playoffs. They were 79-83 in 2015, and then they added starting pitcher Zack… Read more »
Since the turn of the millennium, the Cardinals have won 71 more games than the second best National League team (Dodgers). They have the most postseason wins (65) across the league. And they’ve won 197… Read more »
Get the full list of our 2017 team previews.
Although baseball is always changing, one thing remains constant: PECOTA hates the Royals. If history is any indication, we should take these projections with a grain of salt, at least when it comes to Kansas… Read more »
Last week, Chad Stewart and Jim Turvey began their journey to discuss the over/unders on all of the USA Today 2017 MLB projected win totals. This week they continue with the American League Central. Cleveland… Read more »
The ending to the 2016 Giants season was perfect, at least from a narrative perspective. All season, the Giants were plagued by an equally incompetent and unlucky bullpen. According to Grant Brisbee’s Pain Index,… Read more »
For some teams, spring is a time of excited, hopeful anticipation, heralding the beginning of a new baseball season, in which they might place into motion the culmination of their work in order to contend… Read more »
Gone are the years where the Nationals were the laughingstock of the Major Leagues. Where the rats crossed home plate in RFK Stadium more than the Washington players on the basepaths. Where their Segway-riding GM… Read more »
Seth Moland-Kovash and Jim Turvey collaborated on this preview. The Minnesota Twins are projected, by PECOTA, for the largest increase in wins of any team in Major League Baseball. The 2016 Minnesota Twins put their… Read more »
Taijuan Walker was once a heralded prospect. His athleticism, projectable frame, and raw stuff stood out from the time he was drafted 43rd overall in 2010, at the age of 17. He eventually worked his… Read more »
Here is an understatement: Last year was a disappointment for the Astros. After an 86-76 season in 2015 with a wild card game victory and a heartbreaking ALDS loss to the Kansas City Royals, 2016… Read more »
USA Today came out with its projected final standings for 2017 last week, which naturally demanded a team-by-team assessment of these lines. Chad Stewart and Jim Turvey decided to do just this, deciding whether they would… Read more »
Corey Smith and John Tutty collaborated on this preview. The 2017 season is one that Phillies fans should have been looking forward for some time now – Ryan Howard, the last piece from the… Read more »
Dan Vermilya and Simon Gutierrez collaborated on this preview. A Ben Zobrist double in the top of the 10th inning of Game 7 of the World Series paved the way for the passing down… Read more »
This year’s White Sox preview is a joint effort between Brandon Lee and Eric Oliver. For the last 26 years, the Chicago White Sox have been operating with a single mantra: “be pretty okay, and… Read more »
Let’s get it out of the way right up top: I am using Livan Hernandez’s officially registered birthdate of February 20, 1975. Like many players from Cuba or other places in Latin America, there has… Read more »
We all know what a rebuilding baseball team is supposed to look like. An underperforming team trades away its best players – the ones with expensive contracts who could be more valuable to competing teams;… Read more »
Simon Gutierrez and Scott Ross collaborated on this preview. The 2016 Red Sox were a testament to both the articulately blunt machinations of legendary wheeler-dealer Dave Dombrowski and the delicate, thoughtful construction of the… Read more »
This year is the 25th anniversary of the Simpsons episode “Homer at the Bat,” which first aired Feb 20, 1992 – it was the 17th episode of season three. As any fan of the show… Read more »
Inspired by FiveThirtyEight’s regular Slack chats, Brandon Lee, Nick Strangis, Ross Bukouricz and Darius Austin got together to do a different kind of 2017 Cubs preview through the medium of Facebook.
This is the first in a series of articles that, in honour of the upcoming World Baseball Classic next month in cities all over the world, will attempt to create an all-time team of major… Read more »
In 2016 the Cincinnati Reds scored 716 runs. That isn’t so bad. In fact, that’s more runs than some of the playoff teams in 2016, namely the Giants and Mets. That’s the good news. The bad… Read more »
This offseason, if you looked at a notification of a trade or a free agent signing, it seemed like there was about a 50/50 chance that it was the Braves doing something. So, true to… Read more »
