Monthly Archives: November 2010

2010 Season Review: NL Central Part Two

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MlbHlSqWe continue our look back at the 2010 MLB season with part two of our NL Central review.  Part One can be found here.

Houston Astros (76-86)

The penny finally dropped in Houston.   The Astros had been treading water for several years in the hope that their veterans and a few hardy souls could somehow spring a surprise and stumble into the postseason.

It didn’t happen and, Astros owner Drayton McLane aside, no one thought it would.  Rebuilding is not a pleasant process but if you haven’t got the financial resources to restock with a few top free agents every year, at some point you have to cut your losses and accept that you have to start again. 

The Astros finally reached that point in 2010 and parted ways with Roy Oswalt and Lance Berkman midway through the season.  The first half of the season had been terrible with them as Houston went 8-14 in April and 9-20 in May, leaving them 12.5 games out as the calendar turned to June.

From 1 August onwards, the Astros went 32-27 to at least provide some enjoyment for the fans at Minute Maid Park.  However, many a team has fallen into the trap of mistaking a nice end to an already-lost season as being a sign of genuine progress.   It’s the sort of thing the Astros have done in the past, but the recent announcement that the team is up for sale suggests that they really will be heading into a new era now and making a break from the past.

Just to end on a positive note, credit should go to Ed Wade for his decision to take a flyer on Brett Myers over the 09/10 offseason.   Wade is no stranger to signing ex-Phillies, but in this case it worked out brilliantly.  Myers pitched very well for the Astros in 2010 and deserved his contract extension, giving the team a decent veteran to lead the pitching staff over the next few years.  Continue reading →

2010 Season Review: NL Central Part One

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MlbHlSq2010 proved to be the year that the Cincinnati Reds finally got back to the postseason for the first time since 1995. 

BaseballGB Predictions

Joe Cardinals
Mark Cardinals
Matt Cardinals
Russ Cubs
Steve Brewers

 

Cincinnati Reds (91-71)

The Reds had been a trendy pick to emerge as a playoff contender in 2008 and 2009 due to their crop of young talent arriving in the Majors.  It didn’t quite happen in those years, but the team came of age in 2010 and deservedly took the NL Central crown.

It was the Reds’ misfortune that their first postseason game since 1995 was against Roy Halladay and the Philadelphia Phillies.  It was as if Game One was Cincinnati’s birthday party, long in the planning and eagerly anticipated, to which Halladay turned up and promptly walked off with all the presents. The Phillies’ ace pitched a no-hitter and thoroughly deflated the Reds, leading to a 3-0 sweep and a brutally blunt end to Cincinnati’s season. 

The obvious disappointment will be tempered by the knowledge that the Reds’ 2010 success was built on a mix of youth and experience that should hold them in good stead for the next few years.

Joey Votto stood out in the batting lineup, and in the National League MVP award stakes, but the Reds’ offence was potent because he was far from the only threat.  Scott Rolen, Brandon Phillips, Ramon Hernandez, Jay Bruce and Drew Stubbs all made significant contributions alongside a bit of thump from Jonny Gomes. 

In the pitching department, Bronson Arroyo held everything together in typically understated fashion, while Mike Leake and Travis Wood had impressive rookie seasons and Arthur Rhodes rolled back the years in the bullpen.  And then came Aroldis Chapman.  The Cuban exile jumped up to the Big Leagues down the stretch and caused a sensation with his 105 MPH fastball and filthy slider.

Dusty Baker’s men might have been dismissed quickly from the playoffs in 2010, but there’s a good chance they’ll be back again in 2011 and maybe it will be them getting the brooms out next time.  Continue reading →

Countdown to SABR Day 2011: 1980s Cobbette – Gooch vs Ernie Banks and Botham (vs Hank Aaron)

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Cobbette-(128x128)This is post two in a ten-post countdown to SABR Day 2011. The series is going through the decades of the 20th Century, backwards from the 1990s. On SABR Day itself, there will be a special feature on the 1890s, which will celebrate the significant link between keeping score and baseball history. This article will be published at 05:00 British time in order to coincide with the start of the day in the time-zone of the Cleveland-based SABR office. To view all the Cobbettes published to date, click here.

Continue reading →

The Complete Game by Ron Darling

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The Complete Game: Reflections on Baseball and the Art of Pitching by Ron Darling (Vintage Books 2010), 272 pages

CompleteGameTV companies are always quick to offer jobs to retired sportsmen and out-of-work managers, sometimes seemingly regardless of their ability to communicate with the viewers in an insightful and entertaining way.  It’s a one question interview: “Were you a Big Leaguer? You’ve got the job”.

Amid the dross there are some players who make a seamless transition to the broadcasting booth.  Virtually all broadcasters have their fans and their detractors, but for my money Ron Darling is one of the better analysts around today.  His work with the Mets’ SNY channel convinced me that he could put together an interesting book about pitching and he certainly has with The Complete Game.

Darling is quick to assuage any fears that this is yet another long-winded, self-glorifying autobiography.  As he puts it:

“This book is not a traditional baseball memoir. It’s not a wistful reflection on a workmanlike career.  I haven’t set out to tell the story of my life or my time in the game. Rather, it’s an attempt to bring readers inside the mind of a major league pitcher – to break the game of baseball down to its component parts and to offer my take on each piece so that we might better understand the whole”.

Darling does this over ten main chapters, eight focusing on important games from his career and two from the Mets’ 2008 season.  He uses an inning in each as a starting point to explore the craft of pitching and life as a Big Leaguer.  The format works well as it adds a logical structure to the overall book, while giving Darling scope to cover plenty of ground without it seeming disjointed.  Continue reading →

Mister Baseball’s European Top 50

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Mister Baseball’s European Top 50 rankings have been updated following the completion of the 2010 domestic seasons throughout Europe.

The rankings are produced by BBC Five Live Sports Extra presenter Josh Chetwynd.  Josh, of course, is a former Great Britain player and British baseball league veteran and his detailed ranking system is now in its fourth year. 

The 2010 National Baseball League champions, the Richmond Flames, are British baseball’s highest entrant at number 30, with Bracknell Blazers following in at 32.  The British pair are separated by MGPU S.Y.O.S. Moscow, which goes to show just how wide-ranging the rankings are.

Comparing teams over different leagues of varying standards is not an exact science and that’s fully acknowledged each time the revised rankings are published:

“The combination of country strength and individual team performance is intended to give a snapshot of European club play for a single year. These rankings do not attempt to offer a historic comparison of clubs and do not assert that a team ranked higher than another is a “better” team. Rather, a combination of performance and league strength reflects the ordering. We recognize that these rankings stir debate. In part, that’s their very purpose. We do not claim this list to be definitive”.

These rankings are always a fascinating read and are a great way to introduce MLB fans to the top teams in European baseball.  Well worth taking a look at.

2010 Season Review: AL West

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In the second of our six-part series, we’re staying on the west coast to look at the home of the American League champions.

BaseballGB predictions MlbHlSq

Joe Rangers
Mark Mariners
Matt Angels
Russ Mariners (WC: Angels)
Steve Rangers

 

Texas Rangers (90-72)

You cannot lose in a World Series and feel anything but deep disappointment, especially if you’ve never won a World Series before.  As a player, manager, Front Office member or a fan, winning the World Series is the holy grail because, as the old baseball saying goes, “flags fly forever”.  And while that goes for American League championship flags too, they don’t have the same prestige as a World Series flag.  By their definition, a championship flag is a public display not just of triumph, but also of defeat.

I’m sure the disappointment will not have gone away yet, but hopefully over the offseason the Rangers will put their incredible year into perspective and see it for the great success that it was.

Yes, the AL West was a fairly weak competition in 2010, but the Rangers still had to win it and they showed that the division was far from the height of their ambition by going out mid-season and acquiring Cliff Lee from the Mariners.  It was a Texas Hold ‘Em ‘all in’ approach and it very nearly paid off in the ultimate way.

Many assume that Cliff Lee will sign with the New York Yankees over the offseason. However, the Rangers signed a monumental TV deal a few months ago with Fox Sports Southwest and, combined with the interest and money created by a World Series appearance, Texas might just shock everyone and convince Lee to stay.  If Lee does depart for the Bronx, the Rangers will need to fill that considerable gap because it might be asking too much to expect C.J. Wilson and Colby Lewis to perform quite as brilliantly as they did in 2010. 

They’ve got the wherewithal to do that and with MVP candidate Josh Hamilton, Michael Young, Ian Kinsler, Nelson Cruz and Neftali Feliz all in place, the Rangers have a strong core that should mean their postseason foray in 2010 will not be one-off.  Continue reading →

Countdown to SABR Day 2011: 1990s Cobbette – What connected the Enfield Spartans to Ball Four?

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Cobbette-(128x128)This is post one in a ten-post countdown to SABR Day 2011. The series is going through the decades of the 20th Century, backwards from the 1990s. On SABR Day itself, there will be a special feature on the 1890s, which will celebrate the significant link between keeping score and baseball history. This article will be published at 05:00 British time in order to coincide with the start of the day in the time-zone of the Cleveland-based SABR office. To view all the Cobbettes published to date, click here.

Continue reading →

Launching a new archive: National champions of British baseball

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Cobb (128x128)It’s been a busy week on the Project Cobb website. First, two old British baseball publications were newly added to the historical materials section, those being volume 1 issue 2 of Baseball, from June 1939, and volume 2 no 1-3 of News Sheet, from 1948.

Second, the collection of programmes and other artefacts was expanded with many new additions - so much so, in fact, that what was previously one list is now three. To make the site more user-friendly, there is now a trio of tables listing the miscellaneous digitized holdings (i.e. those not in the Anthony Taylor collection or another archive held on the site). One table is for 1900-1949, another is for 1950-1969, and the third is for 1970-1999.

Third, and perhaps most excitingly of all (hence its mention in the title of this article), is the launch of a new Project Cobb archive, to collect and preserve details on the championship-winning teams through the history of British baseball, going all the way back to 1890.

Link to the new archive of national champions Continue reading →

More on the London Twilight Baseball League of 1976

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Last May, I wrote an article on the London Twilight Baseball League of 1976.

The project was led by Jeff Archer, who was over here in England on an extended break from his home in the United States (as described in his book Strike Four). He’s recently been looking through some old photos and came across one that was taken on opening night of the Twilight League, at Rosslyn Park. Jeff is standing next to the Mayor of Wandsworth, who is on the right of the picture and who threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Twilight League opening night