Fan News

During a contest that saw the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim lose to the Chicago White Sox in extra innings, manager Mike Scioscia argued an umpire's call so vehemently that he took the rather extreme step of filing an official protest.

The Oakland Athletics recalled their surprise phenom Daniel Straily in time to start last night's game. I wrote in a previous article that the element of surprise might benefit Oakland.

The 2012 MLB trade deadline was highlighted by a deep pool of potentially available starting pitchers, and while not all of them were traded, the likes of Zack Greinke, Ryan Dempster, Francisco Liriano, Paul Maholm and Anibal Sanchez among others should have a significant impact on this year's pennant race.

On the other side of things, the pool of available bats was as thin as it has ever been, and when the Padres opted to re-sign Carlos Quentin and hold on to Chase Headley, the market become even thinner.

The Chicago White Sox let a lot of salary walk away in the offseason. Despite losing some key pieces of their 2011 club, the White Sox are much better off.

A quick look at the standings is all it should take. At this point in 2011, Chicago was sitting at 52-53, three games behind the Tigers in the AL Central. After 105 games in 2012, the White Sox are 58-47 and 2.5 games ahead of Detroit.

I really wanted the New York Yankees to get Cliff Lee if he fell to them on waivers.

In fact, if anyone has known me long enough to follow my work, you'll remember that I have wanted the Yankees to get Lee dating all the way back to my very first story on this website in June of 2009.

Love him or hate him, Alex Rodriguez will find himself among the greats at Cooperstown some day. Although it is a dark time for Major League Baseball, we need to learn to accept that the Steroid Era happened, and the only thing we can do about it is to prevent it from happening again.

If the Giants absolutely, live or die, had to win just one game (say in a wild-card situation) wouldn't manager Bruce Bochy have to put Ryan Vogelsong on the mound?

He's the obvious choice to me.  

I keep waiting for Indians owner Rachel Phelps to come out and admit that she is purposely trying to run the team into the ground so that she can move the club. I also wonder when Ricky Vaughn is going to come out from the bullpen with this thick black glasses, or when Willie Mays Hayes is going to swipe a bag against the Tigers.

After months of MLB trade rumors and speculation, the trade deadline is now over. Players who were expected to move stayed on their own teams, and players who completely slipped by all the trade rumors were shipped out.

As a result, as is the case every year, the landscape of baseball looks different. Which teams made great moves to push themselves to the playoffs and which teams stocked up on solid prospects?