Dee Gordon, Billy Hamilton and Angel Pagan →

The Oxymoron, as Pagan is known by some Giants fans, or maybe just by me and my sons, is a big reason why the Giants have done so well in 2014. The Giants have a top heavy lineup with productive, but erratic sluggers filling the 2-6 slots. Pagan's ability to get on base, steal a few bases, and take the extra base when needed has helped the team surprise many with its strong offense, good for third in the league in runs per game, this season. Pagan's success, and his impact on the Giants this year, is a reminder that behind all the language about being a spark plug, making things happen, or adding a different dimension to the game, batting leadoff is, to a great extent, a one dimensional role. That one dimension is getting on base. Players who cannot fill that one role cannot be great leadoff hitters.

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Time for Tedious All Star Game Debates Again →

At best these debates are fun, challenging and seemingly important. Hall of Fame and Award related discussions feel important because they have direct bearing on how the game and its history are remembered. One of the annual baseball debates that meets none of these criteria surrounds the All Star Game. These debates begin around this time of year and usually take the form of whether some genuinely underrated very good player, a famous and clearly great player having an off-year or a not well known player having a good first half should start the All Star Game, or make the team. This year Josh Donaldson, Derek Jeter and Seth Smith are good examples of each category.

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The Late Pedro Borbon and the Reds Closer by Committee

During the years he pitched for the Reds, Borbon was part of one of modern baseball’s longest and most successful experiments with the closer by committee approach to bullpen management. Sparky Anderson, who managed the Reds during those years, demonstrated that closer by committee never works, except of course when it does. In each of the seven years during which Borbon was a major part of the Red bullpen, the Reds had at least three players who finished at least ten games. In five of those years they had four players finish at least ten games. In 1973, they also had two players with more than ten saves and nobody with more than 14. Two years later they had a similar situation, but their save leader had 22. This was during a period when good firemen, as they were known then, regularly saved 30 or more games.

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Darrell Evans, Tony Perez and Why the Hall of Fame Matters

Therefore, what is at stake in Hall of Fame voting is how the game’s history gets passed down from one generation to another. This is further complicated by the vague and differing definitions of what makes a Hall of Famer, specifically the relationship between narrative and numbers in evaluating players. Jim Rice, for example, got an increase in support because of his great 1978 season and the false, but broadly accepted narrative that he was the most feared hitter of his generation.

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Tony LaRussa, Ron Washington and the World Series

The Cardinals victory in the World Series has sealed Tony LaRussa’s reputation as one of the most important managers in history and made his chances of being elected to the Hall of Fame even stronger. LaRussa has now won more regular season games than any manager other than Connie Mack and John McGraw, and is likely to pass McGraw next year. He is second only to Mack in total games managed. LaRussa is now tied for sixth most pennants won, and is one of only five managers to win six or more pennants for teams other than the Yankees. This Cardinal team was an extremely unlikely World Champion, but it is not clear that winning the 2011 World Series was LaRussa’s most impressive post-season accomplishment. In 2006, he won a World Series with another Cardinal team that had only won 83 regular season games.

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What is a "True Yankee" and Why Should We Care if Jorge Posada is One

Should Posada move on to another team next year, one of the great Yankee careers will have come to an end. Inevitably, the baseball media and blogosphere in New York, will begin questioning Posada’s credentials as a “true Yankee.” Putting aside the legitimacy of questioning the credentials of a player who played a key role in four Yankee World Series winning teams, delivering numerous big seasons and clutch hits along the way, this also draws attention to the absurdity of this term.

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Maybe the Red Sox Should Be Sellers

The Red Sox have had a rough 2010 due to injuries, slumps and age. The team got off to a rough start, but played very well from mid-May through the All-Star break. Currently, with about 60 games remaining the Red Sox are seven games out of first place and five games behind the Rays for the wild card. It will not be easy, but they could catch the Rays and maybe even the Yankees. This would suggest that the Red Sox should be buyers at the deadline. However, another approach might be to recognize that while the Red Sox might be able to sneak into the playoffs as the wild card, this is not the type of team that, even if it snuck into the wild card, can play far into the playoffs and to be a seller.

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Five Things to Look for in 2010

The long off-season is finally winding down. It seems like ages ago that questions of where Matt Holliday and Jason Bay would sign and whether, where and for whom Roy Halladay would be traded first arose. Now spring training is coming to an end and Opening Day is a few days away. The upcoming baseball season will answer many questions. Most will be regarding on the field events. Will the Mariners have improved sufficiently to seriously contend? Can the Red Sox new emphasis on pitching and defense carry them past the Yankees? Will the Phillies become the first National League team to win three pennants in a row since Stan Musial was a young star on the Cardinals.

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The Sweet Background Music of Lou Piniella

Piniella is a baseball lifer who was a good, but not great player and a great, if controversial, manager, who has been associated with an impressive range of baseball moments and people. He played alongside Harvey Haddix a few years after his 12 inning perfect game loss, and Don Mattingly as he was becoming one of baseball’s top hitters. Piniella, who later earned a reputation for being a fiery and excitable manager himself, played for Billy Martin during his first three stints as Yankee manager. Sweet Lou made a cameo in one of the best baseball books ever written, Jim Bouton’s Ball Four, and made a game saving, of often overlooked, play in the outfield preserving a Yankee victory in one of the most famous baseball games ever played, the one game playoff between the Yankees and Red Sox in 1978. He played for two expansion teams in the same year, including one that does not exist anymore, and two World Series winners.

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Not All Payroll Differences Are the Same

When the Yankees won the World Series last year there were predictable complaints that the Yankees had bought their World Series victory. Others argued that in baseball championships can’t be bought offering the fact that the Yankees had the highest payroll, by far, in baseball for several years running andhadn’t won in 2004-2008. It seems clear that, at least on some level, the Yankees bought the championship in 2009, just as the Phillies bought the championship in 2008 and the Red Sox did in 2007. All these teams invested money and ended up winning the World Series. The more accurate way to phrase it is that the Yankees paid more for their championship, have had the highest payroll for the last several years, by a significant margin, and that while high payrolls don’t guarantee championships, they certainly help a great deal.

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