Eric at Rays Anatomy has a fun post up debating the relative merits of B.J. Upton and Robinson Cano. I’m pretty squarely in the Upton camp on this one. Cano is a terrific young player, but much of his value is tied into batting average, and second basemen don’t always age well.
Upton, meanwhile, just posted a 136 OPS+ as a 22-year-old, which is ridiculous. In the history of baseball, 48 players have been that productive at that age. Only 11 of those seasons have come in the last 30 years:

Jack Clark, 1978, 152 OPS+
Eddie Murray, 1978, 140
Rickey Henderson, 1981, 150
Cal …read more

“Witch Hunt Backlash” sounds like some crazy dance from the ’60s, but the Cardinals’ Albert Pujols might have other ideas. Seems he “was incorrectly linked to the Mitchell report” and now the media outlet that did the linking has lost the privilege of listening to Pujols speak:
Pujols asked Cardinals media relations director Brian Bartow to make a reporter and cameraman from St. Louis Fox affiliate KTVI leave the room where Pujols’ news conference was taking place on the final day of the Cardinals’ winter warmup.
Not that you can blame Pujols. Assuming he’s clean, someone has tarnished his reputation, which is …read more

Rich at Baseball Analysts takes a look at Milwaukee Brewers phenom and leading (what, there are others?) National League Rookie of the Year candidate, Ryan Braun. In case you’ve missed it, Braun is hitting a robust .343/.388/.663 so far. Big deal, right? Um, yeah…
To put Braun’s numbers in historical perspective, he is on pace to produce the highest AVG, SLG, OPS, and OPS+ of any first-year player in the modern era. The 6-foot-2, 200-pound native of Southern California is in elite company with such greats as Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Mize, Albert Pujols, Frank Robinson, and Ted Williams.
Sure, but is he …read more

The 2007 staff predictions are up at Hardball Times. I mostly went with the flow, but chose a different path in a few cases. I’m the only writer who picked the Detroit Tigers to win the AL Central and the Angels to win the World Series. I’d expected a little support for Joe Mauer as AL MVP (Grady Sizemore got more), but at least that one was fairly diverse. Where I went kind of crazy is in my choice for NL MVP
Before I go any further, you should know my bias: I can’t stand Albert Pujols. He’s a brilliant player, …read more