The Blue Workhorse

Major League Baseball’s All-Star Break is great for many reasons.

Getting to see the collection of baseball legends along with the current stars on the field at Yankee stadium was a truly special moment.

In addition to the festivities, I have always enjoyed the game itself. Watching stud pitchers give maximum effort for an inning, both leagues assembling a numbers-packed studly lineup, and the overall atmosphere of the game is a great treat midway through the baseball season.

Another great reason for the game: we all get a break from fantasy baseball. A mental break is nice from the leagues we have been keeping up with since late April.

Since we have one-more day of the All-Star Break, I want to give some props to players who brought the wood, and others who fell off the baseball map:

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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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0.15 - In the past seven games, the Cleveland Indians’ starting pitchers have amassed a near unimaginable 0.15 ERA. That’s one single lone earned run in 58 1/3 innings. The earned run came way back on May 9 when staff ace C.C. Sabathia allowed a single earned run in the 5th inning against Toronto.
After Blue [...]

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:

For the past two seasons, there have been concerns about a couple of the most known and dominant closers in the game. Last season, it was New York Yankees’ stopper Mariano Rivera after he got off to a rough start. This season the troubles are in the other league, on the other coast as Trevor Hoffman, the man who enters to “Hell’s Bells,” has left without the lead, or a save, already twice in the early stages this season.

After week one of the MLB season, there have been several teams, including the Padres, that have already run into bullpen issues, particularly on Opening Day, so we decided to examine each of the 30 major league teams bullpen performances thus far and see which teams should really be concerned with their bullpen.

Opening Day is one of the most glorious days in sports, despite the fact that MLB tried to ruin it by having an opening series in Japan and then by having a one game series (yea, that’s not even possible Major League Baseball - a series means multiple) in Washington.

Now that all the teams and players have each put on the uniform for the first official games of the season, and to honor the first true day of the MLB schedule, we make initial observations on every team about what we saw on Opening Day after watching some games and examining boxscores:

The Red Sox, with two World Series titles in the last four years, are one of the favorites again this year. While the Red Sox are looking for championship titles, other division rivals have other goals: the Toronto Blue Jays are looking to move pass either the Red Sox or Yankees and get back into the top two in the division. However, they may have to hold off the upstart Tampa Bay (no longer Devil) Rays just to keep the #3 slot. The Rays first goal will be to finish above .500 for the first time in team history, but greater goals are just beyond the horizon.