Author Archive
Walter Johnson Evaluates Stephen Strasburg’s Debut with Washington
Posted: 9th June 2010 by Travis Nelson in MLB
Today's blog post has been —ahem —"ghost" —written by one Walter Perry Johnson. Don't mind him. He's been dead for over 60 years and has only the vaguest ideas of what's going on in the world. Mr. Nelson has been kind enough to wake me from my eternal slumber to weigh in on a subject of obviously eternal importance: The major league ...
An Open Letter to Pitcher Dallas Braden of the Oakland A’s
Posted: 23rd April 2010 by Travis Nelson in MLB
Dear Mr. Braden, Congratulations on beating the Yankees Thursday afternoon and ending their winning streak at six games. Now shut up. You sound like a fool. When you yelled at Alex Rodriguez for taking a shortcut (not a "detour") across the diamond back to first base after a long foul ball by Robinson Cano in the top of the sixth inning yesterday, well, you intimidated exactly ...
Commentary on Baseball America’s Top 20 Prospects: No. 16-20
Posted: 11th March 2010 by Travis Nelson in MLB
No. 16: Starlin Castro , SS, Cubs Opening Day Age: 20 ETA: 2011 It's tempting to compare Castro to Alcides Escobar, given that they're both Latin American, NL Central shortstop prospects, tall with wiry frames (6'1", 160 lbs.), and known for their defense.
Escobar is already 23, though, and has a starting job on a major league contender, whereas Castro won't be 20 years old for two more ...
Commentary on Baseball America’s Top 20 Prospects: No. 1 To No. 5
Posted: 4th March 2010 by Travis Nelson in MLB
A year ago I looked at the Top 20 prospects from Baseball America's annual Top-100 list.á So I figured that now would be a good time, with Spring Training beginning, to do a similar thing. I'll break it up into four posts this time. here are prospects No. 1 through No. 5.No. 1 Jason Heyward, OF, BravesOpening Day Age: 20 ETA: 2010 Nobody doesn't like Jason Heyward. ...
Book Review: Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend, by Larry Tye
Posted: 28th February 2010 by Travis Nelson in MLB
"History binds Josh [Gibson] and Satchel at the hip as the two towering figures of the Negro Leagues, but nature left them as mismatched as yin and yang. Josh was a hitter who mashed pitches, Satchel a pitcher who undid batters. Josh's power emanated from his huge arms and torso, Satchel's from his string-bean legs. The differences, however, went deeper. Josh steered clear of the limelight. Satchel lived in and ...
Jon Heyman’s Wacky World of Baseball Hall of Fame “Logic”
Posted: 5th January 2010 by Travis Nelson in MLB
Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman tweeted a couple of weeks ago that he voted for Andre Dawson, Jack Morris, Barry Larkin, Dave Parker, Don Mattingly, and Roberto Alomar.
At the time it struck me as the kind of list you'd see from someone who had not really looked at the numbers very closely, or if he did, hadn't really understood them. I didn't write about it because that sort of thing happens ...
Hey, remember Mike Stanton?No, not that one. He's retired now.I mean Mike Stanton 2.0, or, wait, 3.0.Mike Stanton extreme.I mentioned him in my blog post about Baseball America's top 20 prospects:
Unlike his long-lived but largely un-exciting namesake pitcher, the hitter Mike Stanton is extreme in almost every respect. He's extremely young, having just turned 19 in November. He's extremely tall, 6'5" to be precise, with 210 lbs of muscle ...