Slightly Better than Replacement Level
The Undefeated – Rhiannon Walker: There are not enough minority managers in affiliated baseball. It’s far too easy to lose sight of this problem with the ongoing labor strife that dominates Major League Baseball discussions and the accompanying problem of fair pay for players in Minor League Baseball. Those issues aren’t going away, but neither […]
The chances of me not liking someone with the nickname of Sushi Boy are slim. When that someone plays for my favorite Nippon Professional Baseball team, the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters, of course, I’m going to love the guy. Those two factors came together when Brandon Laird played for the Fighters from 2015-18. Sadly, this past […]
Foreign pitchers are the lifeblood of the Chinese Professional Baseball League. Every team is allowed to carry three foreign players on their main roster, and most of the time all three spots are occupied by foreign pitchers. Mike Loree has been the standard of excellence in this regard, but others like Darin Downs, Bruce Kern […]
The Ringer – Michael Baumann: Failure is nothing new to athletes, but there’s nothing familiar about the ways Trevor Rosenthal and Chris Davis have been failing. Not that long ago they were both among the best players in the game. Now, Davis has broken the all-time record for at-bats without a hit and Rosenthal finally […]
2016 was a great year for baseball, all around. In Japan Shohei Ohtani was doing his thing, Mike Trout was being Mike Trout, Francisco Lindor emerged as a household superstar, and the Chicago Cubs won the World Series. All of these things, and more combined to make 2016 a heck of a year for being […]