Baseball

During his 13-year tenure as a Major League executive, former Minnesota Twins general manager Terry Ryan acquired the reputation of being a prudent horse trader and a proponent of developing players from within the organization's ranks.

Of course, this  was a philosophy borne of necessity.

The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers by a score of 4-3.

Do you get the title though? Grading "Jobination." It's like, grading "domination" except I put Joba and domination together.

Joba has been dominant with strikeouts in spring training.

It's 79 degrees in Tampa. I'm jealous because I like the heat. It's 50 here in Morris Plains so it's not that bad.

There is a Red Sox blog called Boston Dirt Dogs that is complaining that the World Baseball Classic is doing quite the number on their players, and thinks that Derek Jeter may have had something to do with Kevin Youkilis’s ankle injury.

They don’t say a whole lot, but they did have this nugget.

According to Brian Hoch of MLB.com, Phil Hughes was among six Yankees who were assigned to the minor league camp today. The others were Anthony Claggett, Steven Jackson, Humberto Sanchez, Sergio Mitre, and Jason Johnson.

These 30 shots were taken on March 19th and posted on Flickr today by member treman262. Hat-tip to Baseball-Fever member donut726.

As you can see they've put up a few more ads, they planted the plant in front of the bleachers, the bunting has started to go up, and the ad board behind home plate has been installed. The place is virtually finished, they're just down to the final details now.

Make sure you click on "Full Post" to view all the pictures in this update.

This list was made after extensive research into the stats I believed to be the most important when it came to pitchers. I took a list of close to 200 candidates and looked at their career totals in Wins, ERA, WHIP, Saves, and Strikeouts. I then ranked each player in each of those categories. After that I looked at what they averaged in those stats per year. This ensures that we are looking at quality along with quantity. Next I weighted each stat accordingly, because lets face it, a save isn't as important as a win.

Before being faced with a serious elbow injury, Chris Ray was locked in as the O's closer, and deservedly so. At age 24, Chris went on to post a 2.73 ERA and record 33 saves. 

It wasn't until the following season in 2007 that something peculiar began happening. 

Chris lost his dominance, but being the warrior that he is, kept on insisting nothing was wrong. Despite having discomfort in his elbow, even taking drugs to ease the swelling and null the pain, Chris still insisted he felt fine.

Who's going to be an all-star this year?

Just making some early All-Star predictions. 

Remember, the rules call for each team to consist of 32 players, and at least one from each of the teams in the league.

AL:

C:  Joe Mauer, Twins;  Best catcher in the AL, he'll make it. 

1B: Miguel Cabrera, Tigers; Barely better than Papi, but either might be used.

2B: Dustin Pedroia, Red Sucks;  Did I type Red Sucks?  Oops!  Best 2nd Baseman in the league.

It's the middle of March, and spring training games are getting more competitive. Pitchers are pitching more innings, and players are starting to get back into the swing of playing Major League Baseball everyday.

The San Diego Padres enter their 4oth season, in almost exactly the same shape from which they began as an expansion franchise in 1969, looking up from the bottom of the division. This is an attempt to take an overall look at trades the Friars have engaged in during these 40 seasons, and examine the outcome of these transactions, for all teams and players involved.

Some of baseballs biggest names have come and gone for the Pads, who seem to have a knack for both profiting from trades, and basically shooting themselves in the foot on others.