Tag Archives: Houston Astros

Rounding the Bases: National League review

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MlbHlSqShout it from the rooftops: ‘Spring Training is here! Spring Training is here!’.   

We’ve been living on scraps for months, devouring transactions, both rumoured and consumated.  Hopes have been realized and dashed.  Some teams have acquired a Roy Halladay or a Matt Holliday.  Others have somehow ended up with a Carlos Silva. 

It’s time to review what each organization has done over the offseason to improve their team for 2010 by picking out the key addition and the key departure for every team.  I’ll look at the American League teams next Sunday, but I’ll start today with the Senior circuit.  Continue reading →

Rounding the Bases: Reds, Marlins and McGwire

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MlbHlSqIt’s 41 days until pitchers and catchers report for Spring Training and 78 days until Opening day.  I’m sure you are counting them down just like I am, but it’s not as though we are suffering from a lack of baseball news in the meantime.  Quite the opposite.

A week after Jason Bay and Matt Holliday came off the free agent market, Aroldis Chapman joined them by signing for a team that were seen as a real outsider for his services.  The Astros, Diamondbacks, Giants, Pirates, Rangers and Tigers all spent some money on free agents, while the Marlins had their spending publicly questioned by MLB and the Players Union.  The A’s and Padres agreed to a trade and former Oakland star slugger Mark McGwire found himself firmly back in the news.  Continue reading →

MLB 2009 season review – NL Central

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MlbHlSqThe National League Central has encouraged most of its members to think that they could compete for a postseason spot in recent years.  In practice, the competitive nature of the division hasn’t quite been replicated in the final standings, with several teams often falling a long way short.  Still, it’s a division that has an unpredictable quality to it and that was showed in 2009 when the overwhelming pre-season favourite was comfortably beaten to the division crown by their fiercest rival.

BGB predictions

Joe, Mark, Matt and Russ all picked the Cubs.

As we’ll see, it wasn’t so much a case of us four (and many others) getting it badly wrong, but rather the Cubbies ultimately falling short of expectations on a number of counts.  Continue reading →