This is my midseason baseball checkpoint. In this article, I speculate about trades and who will make the playoffs.
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Tag: MLB
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"Rule 5": The Golden Rule
by Matt Wells
Thanks to the All-Star game this past Tuesday, the name of Florida Marlin second baseman Dan Uggla was thrown around a lot. Uggla joined a list of numerous players over the years to be chosen via the Rule 5 draft. He became the first Rule 5 draft selection to become an All-Star in his first big-league season.
The success of Uggla, the Rule 5 castoff taken from the Diamondbacks, has had people scratching their heads. They’re not scratching their heads at Uggla’s success; they’re scratching their heads about the draft rule.
What is the Rule 5 draft? Read on…
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MLB Predictions: Part II
The second half of the Major League Baseball Season is underway, and it’s safe to say the first half had its share of surprises. What are the Detroit Tigers doing on top of the A.L. Central? What are the Cleveland Indians doing in fourth place? What are the Atlanta Braves, winners of 14 straight N.L. East titles doing…well…not in first?!
Down the stretch, don’t expect any less excitement. In fact, with every team in both of the West divisions still in the hunt, the Yankees and Red Sox fighting it out again, and trade deadline deals still to be made, you can expect even more excitement than the first half held.
This is how the divisions will play out:
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RPI Index All Stars – AL and NL
By Ryan McGowan
I devised a system of ranking players in each league based on their relative standing within their league in ten offensive categories: batting average, home runs, runs batted in, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, bases on balls, doubles, stolen bases, runs, and hits. I then looked to the inspiration of the college football and basketball polls for the scoring system; a first-place ranking in any one of the categories gets a player 10 points, a second-place ranking is worth 9, all the way down to 1 point for a tenth place ranking in their league.
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The Young-Stars Team
There is a new generation of baseball players coming up and they have taken the baseball world by storm. Move over Barry Bonds, Randy Johnson and Mike Piazza. Here comes Cabrera, Kazmir and Mauer.
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I’m A Bud Man and an A’s Fan
By Trevor Freeman
There are certain truths that are engrained in the minds of the Bay Area sports fan. They range from knowing that the Golden State Warriors will suck year in and year out to knowing that Ray Ratto is unstoppable at Sizzler’s $9.99 “All You Can Eat” buffet. When it comes to Oakland A’s baseball there is an undeniable truth and it will hold up again this year. After the All-Star break, Oakland will get hot and runaway with the American League West.
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A Whole New Ballgame
I have been thinking about the ‘problem’ of performance-enhancing drugs for a while now. With people like Barry Bonds and Jason Grimsley consistently re-opening the topic after something they do or something they say, I am getting tired of hearing about all of the players who use these substances and have little patience for the media’s treatment of them – what usually consists of two or three days of coverage of them and then, well, nothing. We need to accept the fact that we have come to a time where steroids and human growth hormone are a fact of life. These performing enhancing drugs are probably never going away.
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World Cup Fan of the Week
It’s summertime. I’m American. Baseball is my nation’s pastime, gearing up for the 77th installment of its midsummer classic and my hometown heroes, the Chicago White Sox, appear fit to defend their title.
But soccer is the world’s game. And I’m finally beginning to understand why.
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Home-Field Disadvantage
Place your votes and punch your ballots. Right into sheer lunacy.
I’m guilty. I just max-voted for A.J. Pierzynski on MLB.com.
25 times, I clicked on the circle next to his name and hit the “Vote Now!” button at the bottom of the page. You can also count 13 votes for Nomar Garciaparra and 12 for Billy Wagner on the National League side of my online ballots.
After all, I’m a baseball fan, and the All-Star game is my chance to point and click my way to the definition of fanatical support for my hometown team and favorite players across both leagues.
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Dance to the Music – Teams Edition
by Matt Wells
Recently, I wrote an article giving songs to some of the starting pitchers of today’s game. Josh Towers, the now-demoted Oliver Perez, and the now-promoted Jered Weaver were just some of the names who were in sync with the songs I chose from my playlist.
So, we got relievers who enter the game to their choice of music. We got some starters who had some songs hand-picked for them by me. What about the teams? (This time, I’ll go outside my playlist for a few of the songs.)
The Yankees have a song (“Here Come the Yan-kees”). The Mets have a song (“Meet the Mets”). What about some of the other teams? What songs can I give them? Read on….