My latest article is up at Hardball Times: “Ten pitching seasons to forget.” Two of these guys actually won the Cy Young Award at some point in their careers, which just goes to show that anyone can have a bad year.
Enjoy!

John Beamer at Hardball Times (full disclosure: I contribute to THT) describes 11 unusual baseball rules. There’s all kinds of good stuff in here, but my favorite is this:
There are runners on first and second with no outs. The batter hits a fair ball that can be fielded by one of the infielders. He is out by the infield fly rule even if no one touches the ball. Then the crazy stuff really starts. The runner on first passes the runner on second, so the runner on first is out due to rule 7.08, which forbids a runner overtaking another …read more

   Photo by ▌ÇP▐   some rights reserved
So I take the wife out shopping today. She shops, I sit in the car and read Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2008, everyone’s happy.
On page 145 of the Annual, I come across an amusing anecdote about a gentleman named Clay Dalrymple:
One July day in Baltimore in 1969, the umpires were faced with a problem. Clay Dalrymple was to catch for Baltimore that evening, but he emerged from the dugout with both a catcher’s mitt (on his hand) and a fielder’s glove (in his back pocket).
“I asked him about it,” reported home plate umpire John Rice. “And …read more

My latest article at Hardball Times looks at some unusual games from the past 50 years. Enjoy!

Dan McLaughlin has a nice article up at Hardball Times (full disclosure: I contribute to THT) on the Hall of Fame worthiness of Tim Raines. In it, Dan compares Raines to other great “tablesetters” — guys whose skills were best suited to the top of the order — throughout baseball history.
The most important finding is that Raines hangs pretty well with his contemporaries — Tony Gwynn, Rickey Henderson, and Paul Molitor. I didn’t get to see Henderson and Molitor play much until later in their careers, but I watched a lot of Gwynn and Raines. As a huge Gwynn …read more

I’ve got a new article up at Hardball Times about a 22-inning game between the Dodgers and Astros back in ‘89. Two current big-league managers and a Hall of Famer played in this one…

I’m a little late getting this out there, but the folks at Hardball Times (myself included) have weighed in on some more recent moves, including the Andruw Jones and Eric Gagne signings. And yeah, I know that Miguel Tejada has been traded; I’m still thinking about it, should have something later this afternoon…

The Rule V draft took place on Thursday. For those not in the know, this is sort of a swap meet where teams can gather cheap talent from other teams, with a catch — you buy it, you have to keep it on your 25-man roster all year or offer it back to the other team. Sometimes this works (Roberto Clemente, George Bell, Johan Santana), but most times not so much.
USA Today has the full list of ‘07 draftees in the major-league phase (there’s also a minor-league phase, but seriously, it’s barely worth mentioning). Chris Constancio at Hardball Times [full …read more

The Kansas City Royals have signed outfielder Jose Guillen to a 3-year, $36 million deal. Among other things, this probably forces the Royals to move one of David DeJesus of Joey Gathright, which doesn’t strike me as the best course of action for a team that should be rebuilding.
Guillen also may be facing a PED-related suspension. As I note in today’s hot stove round table over at Hardball Times, I have no clue why Kansas City would make this move. I’m trying to understand it, and I really can’t.

I’ve criticized the signings of J.C. Romero and Scott Linebrink this winter. Today at Hardball Times I attempt to answer the question of why teams keep overpaying these guys. Be sure also to check out Dave Studeman’s companion piece on the wisdom of long-term contracts.