Day 19 of July, 2006 and to suggest that the Atlanta Braves are swinging the lumber would be a bit of an understatement. They have played 14 games in the seventh month of the year and are 13-1 on the over total in that span. Do you have your sportsbook on speed dial yet? That, folks, is an astonishing 93% and I can live with those numbers any time of the year. Andruw Jones was 5-for-5 with two homers and matched his career high with six RBIs helping the Braves to become the first team since the ‘30 Yankees to [ Read More ]
Wasn’t it me that predicted that Twins manager Ron Gardenhire would be the first baseball manager to be shown the door in 2006? Yes I also think that Barry Bonds is being unfairly accused of using performance enhancing drugs? No Gardenhire is doing just fine these days as he and his troops prepare for a crucial three game set in the Twin Cities tonight. Minnesota (59-41) has won 34 of 42 since June 8 to cut what was an 11-game deficit in the wild card to a half-game. “We’re just playing really good baseball,” said manager Ron Gardenhire, whose team [ Read More ]
Now that we have put the Barry Bonds/ Babe Ruth blah, blah, blah to sleep, I think it’s time that we sat back and wagered a few bucks on our favorite MLB team. Parity is here and every one of the six divisions is up for grabs this year and handicapping these teams, takes patience and talent. Let’s start with the glamour division and of course I am referring to the American League East where the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox have been trading punches since the opening week of April and George’s boys are now sitting in [ Read More ]
A few years back we wrote an article on the importance of evaluating how teams hit left-handed and right-handed pitchers. In summary, we surmised it was important, yet keeping in perspective, we demonstrated how the numbers can be greatly affected by random chance. Hence we warned about becoming too dependant on deceptive statistics that are so often fools gold. We have very similar thoughts about comparing ballpark statistics. There are some stadiums that could be classified as “pitchers’ ballparks” while others could reasonably be labeled more friendly to hitters. Yet again, we have to give props to the four-letter evil [ Read More ]
