In our prior Ep. 233 we covered 18 players we believe should no longer be passed by and should be inducted into Cooperstown. There are 263 players and 70 non-players in the HOF. Adding 36 players would make it 299 players - which is 1.27% of all players including those…
It's easy to make predictions and easier when you don't reveal how you actually performed. We come clean in this final regular season episode. Our prediction performance was pretty good or so we thought. Give a listen and find out if you agree! We will drop the first episode of…
October 10th is rife with impressive baseball lore and history. Thinking of great plays, performances, and great games takes us back to when they happened and all the other cool related things any one date in MLB history might offer. We talk about one particular day - October 10th which…
Data analytics are critical to MLB teams being successful. This can be seen in the seemingly constant use of the infield shift. But surely every decision cannot be made on the basis of numbers and probabilities. In game 7 of the 2020 World Series Tampa manager Kevin Cash removed Blake…
Reggie Jackson relishes being referred to as 'Mr. October'. His 1977 WS performance #Yankees vs. #Dodgers was epic. As a member of the #Athletics he also had the game winning single in the 1973 WS vs. the #Mets. But is he the greatest postseason player of all-time? We discuss the…
Back in 2000 Sean Forman was a graduate student with a love for baseball. He never imagined that he'd create a wide-ranging enterprise - Sports-reference.com that encompasses not only baseball but American football, basketball, hockey, soccer and college football and basketball. The sites are so user-friendly and have become a…
Beyond baseball fans of the other three major American professional sports also have a way of making their fans suffer and wait - sometimes a VERY long time for a championship. Gordon talks about how in his entire life, his four favorite NYC area teams have never won a championship…
At some points of some seasons, if they are clearly out of the playoff race, do MLB teams try to lose intentionally? The answer is yes and no. Acquiring high draft picks can often backfire as can a fire sale of a team's best and likely most expensive players. Is…
First-off we did Ted Simmons wrong since his career average was .285 which is much higher than Andruw Jones' career .254 BA. Simmons had 248 HR's which is among the best (13th) all time for a primary catcher. Simmons' speech was the best from any of the three players although…
Like a shooting star, sometimes players have one incredible season that they desperately try to replicate. For those that are unable to 'do it again', they are deemed 'one-season' wonders. From Rookie-of-the year to being out of MLB in 3 years actually has happened and it's not always due to…
We were actually kind of shocked to find out that there have only been 32 knuckleball pitchers in MLB history. Hoyt Wilhelm has the only no-hitter for a knuckleballer blanking the Yankees in 1958. The Yankees won the WS that season. There are some notable and memorable names of the…
There have been close to 40 complete games pitched in MLB this season so far. The modern era all-time single season record for a pitchers is 41 complete games in 1904. Since then the number has been reduced such that Shane Bieber led MLB with 3 complete games in the…
What Shohei Ohtani is doing this season is amazing. Just making it to the Major Leagues is incredibly difficult. How about changing positions from being a position every day player to a pitcher? Or a pitcher needing to become a position player in order to stay in the big leagues?…
This year there were a slew of big deals for excellent players at the July 30 trading deadline. it may have even been the most good players traded ever at the deadline. We talk about the most significant trading deadline deals over the past 60 years since there were not…
Interleague play has been a part of MLB since 1997. This season there will be 20 interleague games for each team. We think that's too many and that winning a playoff spot should not be so dependent on performance against the OTHER league. With expansion on the horizon there will…
The first MLB All-Star Game was in 1933. Yet it is little-known amongst even big baseball fans that because Black players were not allowed in MLB, the Negro Leagues had their own All-Star Games also beginning in 1933. And these games were both popular and well-attended. We take a look…
As of the 2021 season there have been 413 sets of brothers who've played in a MLB game. We found some of the careers of one of the brothers were very short. Most of the time one of the brothers significantly outperforms the other brother. But not all the time…
The role of baseball player-manager was fairly commonplace in the early years of #MLB, Some great players like HOFers Nap Lajoie, Lou Boudreau, Bill Dickey, Frankie Frisch, and Honus Wagner to name a few. We talk about why there are no longer player-managers in baseball and who of today's players…
The bullpen has not always been the most respected place for #MLB pitchers. The save did not even become an official statistic until 1969. Two HOF players far and away represent the best of the best when it comes to having success both starting and relieving. There are other but…
In MLB today scheduled doubleheaders are almost extinct. Rainouts and Covid-19 protocols have caused there to be a few more DH's than in a normal year. 7-inning DH's are, well just weird but might be here to stay. We're ok with that for the most part but not if there…
Official scoring in baseball is very different than it is for all the other professional sports. Part of it is due its own history. It was not all that long ago that baseball reporters doubled as official scorers. The box score 'invented' by Henry Chadwick in 1859 is still in…
Most fans would argue that their favorite team had a period of time in which they were a very good team, maybe won a WS, but fell short of winning more than once. Yet there are also teams that over-performed expectations to win it all more than once over a…
Aren't we already tired of hearing about the doctoring & defacing of baseballs? @MLB has decided to do something about it mid-season. It's always been illegal to use sticky stuff or anything on the baseball. Now the rule is going to be enforced. We just had to talk about it!…
What makes a player a good baserunner? Speed helps for sure but there have been many adept, even good baserunners who have lacked foot speed. Picking up the ball, knowing the field, taking longer leads and reading the move home of the pitcher are all important if not underused skills.…