The Blue Workhorse will be on the road this weekend as we (we being two friends and myself) travel down to the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg area for the first two games of the American League Championship Series.
After working for one of the Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays minor league teams last summer, I knew that [...]
Lots of great stuff this week from fantasy baseball awards to college football freshman to a sports blogger trying out for a professional team to a ridiculous hockey play:
* Need a Halloween costume? - Epic Carnival gives you the top ten sports related Halloween costumes of 2008. I still think the idea I came up with last year is the best (just check in the comments of the story).
* GameDay Classic Signage - Busted Coverage has the 20 all-time best ESPN College Gameday signs. The ones mentioned in the comments are classic as well.
* Best GameDay Sign. Ever. - From the Auburn/LSU game last month.
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Every season there are a handful of players that come out of no where to surprise us and become instant stars. We touched on some players who jumped out to incredible starts after the first couple of weeks of the baseball season.
However, there are also a handful of players that play no where near what was expected of them. At the midway point of the season and in lieu of the recent trend of teams demoting established players (Phillies’ starter Brett Myers, Indians’ closer Joe Borowski, and young Braves’ slugger Jeff Francouer — even though Francouer has scored 40 runs, hit 8 HR, and driven in 41 RBI), we examine those players who have failed to meet expectations and would be well deserving of a demotion:
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Earlier today, Major League Baseball announced the rosters for the 79th All-Star Game being held at Yankee Stadium, which is only appropriate since this is the final season for the historic ballpark.
The starters were determined solely by the fan vote once again, unfortunately.
Nevertheless, we wanted to do what we hadn’t seen anywhere else and break down the selections team-by-team, so that you could easily see who was selected from your favorite team (starters are in bold):
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In honor of Independence Day, our selection for this week is a product Major League Baseball showcased the entire holiday weekend.
You may have noticed or even thrown back when flipping to Sportcenter to see teams such as the Oakland A’s or Houston Astros sporting blue baseball caps even though they have no blue in their team colors. What you were seeing was Major League Baseball’s attempt to honor our country.
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Let’s play a quick game of name those numbers. Who has produced these incredible statistics?
151.1 IP / 9 W / 2.28 ERA / 195 K / 1.13 WHIP
Jake Peavy? Johan Santana? Many of you might see the line and figure it must have been a line from Peavy, Santana, or one of the other top-flight starting pitchers 151 innings through the season.
However, these stats were the combined 2007 season statistics of Carlos Marmol and Jonathan Broxton, two of the most dominant middle relievers in the game.
In terms of fantasy baseball, middle relievers are often forgotten when they can be a huge weapon as an added bonus to your pitching staff. They can be the secret key to lower WHIP and ERA, and many of these guys also pile up the strikeouts:
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After Thursday night’s melee in Boston between the Boston Red Sox and the Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays, Red Sox centerfielder Coco Crisp called out his Rays’ outfield counterpart in a post game interview.
The basis of Crisp’s assessment of the bench-clearing brawl was that Carl Crawford employed some less than masculine tactics when the teams went down to the ground duke it out on the pitchers mound.
The Boston/Tampa brawl can be seen here: RedLasso.
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While #2 overall fantasy player Hanley Ramirez’s statistics are impressive, no one is that surprised after he was a top 5 pick in nearly every fantasy draft, but when Nate McLouth puts up similar numbers and is ranked as the #7 fantasy player overall…eyebrows are raised.
The McLouths and Cliff Lees of baseball is exactly what this list celebrates - the players who produce tremendous statistics considering the value they cost their fantasy owners, whether that be a late round pick or a timely pick up off the waiver wire:
