Baseball

Sandy Koufax won the Cy Young Award for the third time in 1966.

He won 27 games for a Los Angeles team that was offensively challenged, and compiled a 1.90 ERA+, which was the best of his career. Koufax was at his peak.

Los Angeles, led by Koufax and Don Drysdale, won the pennant, but the underdog Baltimore Orioles swept the Dodgers in the 1966 World Series.

It was a tremendous upset that only Frank Robinson and Orioles' manager Hank Bauer thought could happen.

One of my first articles that was featured on MLBTradeRumors.com was my “Astros Fooled By Pudge” post. Here is what is I wrote back last March in regards to the Houston Astros signing Ivan “Pudge” Rodriguez.

Injuries are definitely one of the more frustrating things that you have to deal with in fantasy baseball, as they are pretty much unavoidable and completely out of your control. 

Rookie Scott Sizemore clearly has the inside track on the starting 2B job vacated by Placido Poloanco’s return to Philadelphia.  Sizmore has never had an at-bat in the big leagues but has been a very good hitter in the minor leagues.  We have a fair amount of statistics on him from his days in the minors, but rookies are just so hard to predict.

Since 1980, there have been 53 pitchers who mastered a no-hitter.

Many of these pitchers were top of the rotation throwers like Nolan Ryan, Jack Morris, Mike Witt, Dave Stewart, Mike Scott, Randy Johnson, and Dwight Gooden. 

Some were solid pitchers like Terry Mulholland, Wilson Alvarez, Mark Buehrle, Derek Lowe, and Kevin Millwood.

There were nine pitchers who surprised the world and accomplished this feat. Listed below we will rank these lucky fortunate throwers who made it to the record books.

In an article about the Yankees outfield depth beyond their starters , I made the assumption that Marcus Thames was going to make the team and made it seem like the only way Jamie Hoffmann would stick with the team is if the Yankees worked out a trade with the Dodgers to keep the Rule 5 pick.

You would think that a guy who hit .310 with nine home runs and an .810 OPS in 2009, wouldn’t have a hard time finding a job in 2010, but that was the case with second baseman Felipe Lopez.

And before we go any further, I am talking about Felipe Lopez the baseball player here, not Felipe Lopez the basketball player, who was a massive bust at St. Johns University. I don’t know why, but I was compelled to mention that.

Now we can move on.

The Toronto Blue Jays have existed in the American League East since their inaugural season in 1977. In 1977, the American League had only two divisions, the Central Division hadn't existed yet. It wasn't until the 1994 realignment that the three division format was adopted.

Why am I mentioning this?

It’s easy to overlook Guzman. After all, he could play shortstop for the Nationals this year, or if they feel Ian Desmond is ready, he could play second base.

Besides, he’s never scored 90 runs in a season, has little to no power, and is a far cry from the player who stole 53 bases in 2000 and 2001 for the Twins.

What happened to Russell Martin in 2009?  Was it an aberration or have his skills actually declined? Before we can answer that question, let’s take a look at his 2009 production:

505 At Bats
.250 Batting Average (126 Hits)
7 Home Runs
53 RBI
63 Runs
11 Stolen Bases
.352 On Base Percentage
.329 Slugging Percentage
.285 Batting Average on Balls in Play