Is it the height of conceit to display a photograph of oneself reading one’s own book in an attempt to lure people into buying said book? Quite possibly it is. Regardless, I’m pleased to announce that the Ducksnorts 2008 Baseball Annual is now available. You can buy it as a hard copy or a PDF download, depending on your taste.
The book is subtitled “More than any sane person should ever need to know about the San Diego Padres,” and I think that pretty well covers it. You’ll find 200+ pages of analysis and commentary on the 2007 Padres season, the …read more

While I’m waiting for Puppy Bowl IV to arrive, I thought I’d flip through the STATS 1997 Baseball Scoreboard for inspiration. I’ve already used this source to re-examine Barry Bonds and now I see that there are a few more projections in here.
This time we’re looking at projected career hits. Specifically we’re looking at the players who were judged at that time most likely to reach 3000 hits. Let’s compare projected with actual, shall we?

Career Hits, Projected pre-’97 vs Actual post-’07

Player
Proj
Act
Diff

Cal Ripken Jr.
3166
3184
+18

Tony Gwynn
3139
3141
+2

Wade Boggs
3025
3010
-15

Roberto Alomar
2803
2724
-79

Rafael Palmeiro
2672
3020
+348

Chuck Knoblauch
2509
1839
-670

Frank Thomas
2355
2409
+54

Marquis Grissom
2328
2251
-77

Alex Rodriguez
2151
2250
+99

Points worth noting:

Those projections for Ripken, Gwynn, and Boggs are …read more