Category Archives: Baseball

2013 WBC Projections: Venezuela

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Venezuela. After the USA and Dominican, it provides the most players to the big leagues. But, much like the USA and DR, it hasn’t really played up to the number of big leaguers they have. Their best finish has been third in the 2009 Classic (and that was only because they were ahead of Team USA because of more wins during the primaries). However, they cannot be counted out. Venezuela is a country that often has divided and fluid politics that makes Washington look like a elementary school, but one thing binds them all together: baseball.

As always, these are the rules of how I pick this roster, a combination of the official WBC rules on rosters and some unwritten rules that emerged during the first two tournaments:

  • Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers.
  • Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
  • Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
  • The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

So, after much research and thought, here are my projections for the 2013 Venezuelan National Team (after the jump):

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Jeff Kent on Survivor… and other retired ballplayers who should do “reality” TV

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Jeff Kent is one of the greatest hitting second-basemen of all time (he leads the position in career homers), and a likely future Hall of Famer. He also infamously fought Barry Bonds in the dugout once.  He is also, according to some sources, going to be on the next season of Survivor. It is not without precedent: he previously took part in Superstars, and Survivor had Jimmy Johnson in 2010.

This leads to the humorous question of what other retired ballplayers should partake in reality TV. Hey, not every post can be about injuries, prospects, the World Baseball Classic or stupid comic books from the 1940s.

(JUMP)

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Random Video of the Undetermined Amount of Time: Ichiro Pitches

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In 1996, Ichiro Suzuki pitched during a NPB All-Star Game.

This is video of that event. Sadly, Hideki Matsui was pinch-hit for.

An Eyewitness account of Evan Longoria’s setback

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So, I was at the ballpark last night. Evan Longoria was in town with Durham on a rehab assignment- having injured his hamstring earlier in the year. I’ve seen him before in the big leagues, but the chance to see a ballplayer on a rehab assignment in the minors is something you should never pass up: you can see them far closer for far cheaper. Why, you can get close enough to realize they have begun growing more facial hair.

Good thing I went last night, otherwise I wouldn’t have seen him at all.

(jump)

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What’s the worst seat in Fenway?

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Okay, so I’ll be heading to Fenway Park later this year, thus allowing me to scratch another thing off my baseball bucket list. But one does not simply go to Fenway, one must plan. Fenway Park, after all, is from a time before modern design and engineering had made the obstructed view seat an endangered species. You could easily be stuck behind a pole or something.

Thankfully, there is a site called Precise Seating that allows you to see what your view would be like from most seats in Fenway. And, clearly, this was not only made to aid potential visitors to the Fens, but also to amuse those of us who want to find what the worst seat in the house is.

Sadly, Precise Seating doesn’t allow direct linking to the sites for individual seats, so follow along manually at home.

Anyway, now take a look at my non-scientific study after the jump:

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Great Predictions in History: Expansion will water down the Majors… in the late 60s.

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Occasionally, you hear about how watered down the Majors are compared to what they’d be if there were fewer teams. There is some truth to that, but it ignores the fact that A) the fact that so many cities can now see Major League Baseball is good not only for baseball, but America and B) the so-called “Golden Age” that those writers so often harken back to was the 40s and 50s- when there were far fewer sources of foreign talent and where several teams still hadn’t desegregated.

Of course, this is in no way new, as you’ll see in a April 1968 Baseball Digest excerpt after the jump:

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In honor of Father’s Day: the game of catch from Field of Dreams

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Today is Father’s Day. It is required, of course, to dwell upon the great history of father-and-son baseball players. However, it’s a busy day today, so I’ll just cut to the chase and embed a video of Ray Kinsella’s game of catch with his father:

WBC 2013 Projections: Dominican Republic

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As I stated at the end of my 2013 Team USA projections, I’ll also do some projections on possible players for the other teams as well. Here, for example, is the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican, in some ways, has been even more disappointing in the WBC than the USA has. They only managed fourth in the inaugural tournament, and they weren’t even able to make it out of the first round in 2009, losing twice to the Cinderella team from the Netherlands. Given how much pride the Dominicans have in their ballplayers, these could only be seen as large disappointments.

In 2013, like in the previous tournaments, the Dominican Republic will almost certainly bring a team made up of MLBers, with perhaps a few top prospects and overseas players if needed.

The same rules apply for this as I used with the Team USA projections, although in some cases they might not be as stringent, due to the fact the Dominicans generally are more into the WBC than American MLBers are.

  • Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers.
  • Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
  • Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
  • The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

And so, after much research and thought, I have my projections, which can be found under the jump:

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Cool Baseball Websites: FanGraphs

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Another site I often visit is FanGraphs, especially it’s scoreboards, which show the probability of a team winning the game at any given point. For example, you can see just how much that three-run homer in the fifth helped, or just how much that strikeout with the bases loaded hurt the team.
For example, check out the win probability chart for Game 6 of last year’s World Series, which looks like a roller coaster it has so many ups and downs.

Great predictions in history: The NL is lost to New York City forever

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From the December 1957 edition of Baseball Digest comes this story:

Although, to be fair to Daley, he mentioned in the article that that statement was only true if there wasn’t expansion:

“Only in such an eventuality- at least, that’s the firm conviction here- can the National League re-establish itself in New York.”

 

However, he makes some other rather hilarious-in-hindsight ideas: the minor leagues would be doomed because every city with a halfway decent stadium would want a team, that Commissioner Ford Frick should become a “dictator, undemocratic and un-American though it be” to put a stop to all the team-moving madness, and that the move of the “over-the-hill” Dodgers to Los Angeles wouldn’t get them back their “lost youthfulness.” Considering that the Dodgers would win three World Series titles and four NL pennants in the ten years after they went to Los Angeles, I’d say Daley didn’t expect such things as “Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale becoming one of the best 1-2 pitching combo in baseball history” and the arrival of guys like Maury Wills and Willie Davis.

By the way, if you don’t already know, National League baseball returned to the five boroughs in 1962, although I’m sure some would argue that the Mets played more like they were in the International League until 1969.