baseball

***Fair warning to anyone who might be tempted to tail these plays - I've yet to have a profitable MLB season. I used to do ok in hockey, foots and hoops. For context, I used to chase steam in all major sports, but for some reason steam-chasing baseball has never yielded me a profit. I've been...

On Wednesday, Alex Rodriguez hit career home run #600 against Toronto's Shaun Marcum, after a 46 at bat homerless streak, as New York sealed a 5-1 win at Yankees stadium. In doing so, Rodriquez became the sixth player to join the 600 Club alongside Barry Bonds (with 762 career dingers), Hank...

When living out their dream, some people spend time in the ocean swimming with dolphins. For others it might be driving a really fast car really really fast around a racing track; perhaps even getting interviewed by Tomato while they are doing it. But there are 22 players this season in baseball...

Measuring a pitcher's performance through wins and losses is generally not considered a true and accurate measure. Similarly the use of a simplistic measure like ERA is affected by ballpark factors, the quality of the defense as well as quite a bit of luck. The xFIP metric is an estimation of...

When the New York Yankees have a $200 million payroll, they are accused of buying the World Series even though the Florida Marlins have won it all twice on a fraction of that money. When the Chicago Cubs or the New York Mets have a $140 million payroll and can't even make the playoffs, people...

Although the MLB season is played over a total of 162 games per team, the volume of games compared to other team sports still fails to ensure that there is inherent fairness built into the final season standings. The lack of parity is highlighted with the likes of the Toronto Blue Jays having...

Carlos Zambrano of the Chicago Cubs was today suspended indefinitely by General Manager Jim Hendry after a meltdown in the Cubs dugout after his first inning where he allowed four runs, all of them earned, in the game against cross town rivals the Chicago White Sox. The incident which sparked...

Just under a year after being taken as the #1 pick in the 2009 MLB Draft, Stephen Strasburg will make his Washington Nationals debut Tuesday when they take on the Pittsburgh Pirates at Nationals Park. After being drafted on June 9 last year and subsequently signing a record $15.1 million...

After the Washington Nationals signed his right arm to the tune of $15.1 million after being the number one overall pick in the 2010 MLB Draft, it seems like Stephen Strasburg mania is not just limited to the province of Washington DC. One of the more limited cards in the 2010 Bowman Baseball...

Trevor Hoffman entered the season with 591 saves and it was more a question of when rather than if he managed to break the 600 barrier. After Tuesday's disastrous outing against the Cincinnatti Reds, his second blown save in two days, there is every chance the 42 year old might not get the...

The Tacoma News Tribune today reported that last week Seattle Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu was asked why he didn't make use of Ken Griffey Jr. in a pinch hitting situation late in a game and Wakamatsu was vague in his answer. Two unnamed Mariners players were slightly less vague. He was...

Before today Oakland's Dallas Braden, a ninth round pick of the 2004 draft out of Texas Tech, had only 52 career starts and was probably most famous for this season's spat with Alex Rodriguez. In an April 22 game pitching against the Yankees, Rodriguez ran over the pitcher's mound as he returned...

Currently with his eighth team in a MLB career spanning ten years, it is definitely safe to say that Milton Bradley is a journeyman. With his above average talent he certainly is not you archetypical journeyman, it is more to do with his people skills as to why he flits from club to club. And...

His NFL stock value was never going to reach the heights of two NCAA National Championships and a Heisman Trophy but Tim Tebow, picked #25 in the first round of the 2010 NFL Draft by the Denver Broncos, is at least leading one NFL category as he enters his debut professional season with the #1...

When you think about bad baseball contracts, any number of recent deals spring to mind and they generally fall into two categories. There are the times that a club overpays for a player either in annual salary, length of contract or both and the player's performance never lives up to the...

Heading into Tuesday's game with the Texas Rangers, Boston had a 4-9 record after a four game sweep by Tampa Bay which represented their worst start to a season since 1996. Although we are not yet 10% into the 2010 season maybe it's not time to panic and in most divisions this would be the case...

Edinson Volquez was today banned from baseball for 50 games following a violation of MLB's performance-enhancing drug policy. The Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher made a brief statement that he tested positive when he reported for spring training and cited that the cause of the positive test was...

With Barry Zito set to get the start on Sunday against the Los Angeles Dodgers, we might just be seeing the Zito of old. After winning his first two starts of the 2010 season, Zito stands at 2-0 for only the second time in his career. The two wins, alongside an ERA of 2.25 ERA look pretty but...

When you are in your mid 30s and in the last year of your contract, I'm sure that most baseball players would be a bit uncertain of the future come the end of the year. They might even start to get a bit edgy when they are struggling to keep their head above the Mendoza Line over a week in the...

As MLB was preparing itself for Jackie Robinson day on Thursday April 15, marking the 63rd anniversary of the day when Robinson became the first African-American player to openly play in baseball's modern era, Orlando Hudson remarked on Monday that there is still an element of racism in the...