In 2019, Major League Baseball has three distinct classes of teams. In the upper class reside the teams with certain playoff futures--the Los Angeles Dodgers, New York Yankees, and Houston Astros all have projected odds of making the League Division Series of over 96% with over two months left in the season, and there was…
A quick gander at Bob Gibson's Baseball Reference page will tell you that the most similar pitchers to him were Jim Palmer, Jack Morris, and Amos Rusie. Comparing Gibson to these three is no insult--the trio are each Hall of Famers, with the most similar to Gibson, Palmer, also being a first-ballot Hall of Famer…
When it comes to evaluating a trade years in retrospect, there are two essential components to evalute--process and results. Sometimes, a trade can be good in terms of process--the underlying logic behind it is sensible--even if the trade works out poorly. Take, for a famous example, the 1987 trade in which the Detroit Tigers traded…
This afternoon, the baseball world was stunned by the announcement that Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs, 27, had died suddenly while the team was in Texas to play against the Rangers. Tonight’s game was cancelled, and while articulating the pain of the death of a 27 year-old man seemingly in peak physical condition was…
Watching the 2019, and probably 2020, St. Louis Cardinals just became a lot less fun. The announcement on Monday afternoon that Cardinals relief pitcher Jordan Hicks had suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament. While no timetable was announced for his recovery, this is almost always a sign that a pitcher will miss the remainder of…
It is hard to overstate how lucky the St. Louis Cardinals were to draft Albert Pujols. Famously, Albert Pujols was not a coveted amateur prospect, and in 1999, the Cardinals drafted the pudgy amateur third baseman out of Kansas City's Maple Woods Community College with the 402nd overall pick. Every team in baseball passed on…
https://twitter.com/justin_klugh/status/659236511565639680 Hello all, and welcome to the second edition of what I'm hoping can be a lengthy series for this little old blog (if the monstrous person known as John Fleming will allow it), Something Moments in Cardinals History. Again, the purpose of this series is to look back at those Cardinals moments that aren't…
For years, "St. Louis is a baseball town" was used in a largely complimentary way. It was a thing that those involved in baseball said to speak highly of the passion for and knowledge of the sport in the St. Louis area. It didn't really have any tangible benefits--mostly, it meant ESPN announcers would compliment…
There is nothing like a Game 7. The finality of a winner-take-all game with a championship on the line is indescribable. My biases in favor of Game 6 of the 2011 World Series as the greatest baseball game I've ever seen aside, I think the objective answer for greatest game ever has to be a Game 7.…
The bittersweet symphony of Brad Penny's greatest triumph.
St. Louis Bullpen 