What the Cincinnati Reds and the Oakland Athletics are doing is awful for baseball. These are both teams which had winning records in 2021 and were winning and playoff teams in 2020. They are teams that were not going to enter 2022 as division or postseason favorites, by any means, but neither team was in…
Major League Baseball trades are rarely swindles. Even for the ones that, in hindsight, seem lopsided beyond comprehension, the people that make the trades are generally, if not prophets, reasonable people with the best interests of their teams in mind. The trade that sent Fernando Tatis Jr. (and marginal pitcher Erik Johnson) to the San…
I really, truly do not believe St. Louis Cardinals fans properly appreciate Paul DeJong. I understand why that is. His offensive profile can be pretty unpleasing at times--the home runs are certainly cool, but a guy who strikes out somewhere in the 20-30% range is suboptimal statistically and dreadful aesthetically. His base running numbers are…
Even for the highest spending teams in baseball, contributions from players making the league minimum salary are inevitably vital for a World Series championship--this should very much remain the case through the minimum salary bump that has come with the new collective bargaining agreement. The likes of Mookie Betts or Clayton Kershaw were obviously indispensible…
In 2021, following a dreaful month and a half start to the season, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim released Albert Pujols. Pujols, whom the Angels signed coming off one of the finest first eleven season stretches in baseball history, had been a major disappointment since departing the St. Louis Cardinals for the Los Angeles…
In sharp contrast to previous Major League Baseball work stoppages, there is a decidedly anti-ownership fervor that had been largely absent. While those who have sided with the Major League Baseball Players Association will occasionally fixate on those who side with ownership (or, as is more often the case, those who posit false equivalencies between…
In 1889, future Hall of Famer John Montgomery Ward, one of the premier players of early professional baseball, helped form the Players' National League of Professional Base Ball Clubs in retaliation to discontent with how players in the National League and American Association were being paid. The league's eight teams were populated largely by defectors…
When John Spano purchased the National Hockey League's New York Islanders in 1996, the franchise's future was hanging in the balance--the once-dynastic team was a decade and a half removed from its glory years, and with teams occupying the same metropolitan area, the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers, having won a Stanley Cup…
Even among those who ostensibly support the Major League Baseball Players Association in the current owner-instituted Major League Baseball lockout, it can be difficult to facilitate real, honest-to-God empathy. I get it--while the union is not incorrect in stating that the majority of its membership are not extraordinarily wealthy multi-millionaires, the league's current minimum salary…
You don't have to have a good reason to hate your favorite athletes. It's way more fun when you don't.
St. Louis Bullpen 