americanleague Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Nelson Cruz can absolutely still rake
Last night, we had our first big name dealt ahead of the MLB trade deadline on July 30. Twins’ slugger c was sent to the Tampa Bay Rays along with pitcher Calvin Faucher in exchange for two of the Rays’ top-20 prospects. Nelson Cruz is one of the biggest bats in baseball. Since 2010, no hitter has m...
Hear me out: Tony La Russa… Manager of the Year?
Tony La Russa could shockingly be A.L. Manager of the Year for playoff-bound White Sox...
Deadspin predicts: Teams that will improve, or regress, in the second half
The All-Star Game has come and gone. The American League continues to wreck the Senior Circuit year-in, year-out, and it’s abundantly clear that Vladdy Jr., Shohei Ohtani, and Liam Hendriks are the coolest dudes in the sport. Now, the attention turns to the second half of the season. Will the teams ...
All-Star Takeaway: MLB is alive, internationally supreme, and going to get better
DENVER — It would be nearly impossible for any fan to have left the MLB All-Star Game here at Coors Field on Tuesday night without feeling good about the game. ...
Uniform uniforms was a baaaaaaaaaad choice
Every sport’s All-Star Game features the best players. What’s made baseball’s Midsummer Classic unique, and many would say the best showcase around, is that you get to see things you wouldn’t see in an ordinary game, while the game still remains true to itself. Last night we saw the American League ...
If only this could be Stephen A. Smith’s last take
When Stephen A. Smith opens his mouth, it’s typically bullshit. Generally speaking, when it comes to an opinion of his having anything to do with sports or adjacent to sports, I completely ignore him and accept him for what he is — someone who delivers hot takes and yells loudly because it gets view...
We've got some midseason baseball awards
Let’s hand out some fake awards, because why not. The baseball season is nearing the halfway point, with the sport shutting down for the All-Star Break after this coming Sunday. Some familiar names have dominated headlines, but a few surprises have worked their way into the conversation as well....
Mookie Betts is great, but he shouldn’t be an All-Star
Personally, I was shocked when Tampa Bay Rays’ outfielder Austin Meadows earned a spot as an All-Star reserve on the American League squad. While I do believe Meadows is a fantastic player, he’s hitting just .242 with 16 homers and an .821 OPS. Those are good numbers, but All-Star worthy? Now that’...
The Baltimore Orioles are a beautiful mess that makes absolutely zero sense
The Orioles are not a good team. They haven’t been a consistently great team since the late ’90s. Sure they had that one season in 2014 where they got swept in the ALCS after winning their first division title in 17 years, but were only good for that one season. The Orioles have finished either 4th ...
No, you don’t fix the Yankees by trading Aaron Judge
Trade season is underway in baseball, with the Blue Jays acquiring Adam Cimber and Corey Dickerson from the Marlins, while the White Sox pursue Diamondbacks infielder Eduardo Escobar. The deadline is back to its usual date of July 31 this year, and over the next month, plenty of teams will try to pa...
‘Sticky stuff’ enforcement theater captivates baseball world as press buries real issues
Major League Baseball’s crackdown on sticky stuff began on Monday, and the program already is a sweeping success....
MLB’s past is still evolving, and not just by rightly adding Negro League stats
Baseball-Reference is the gold standard for record keeping in a game whose numbers are its lifeblood. The site that Sean Forman built has supplanted decades of encyclopedias, carving out a niche on the Internet as the most authoritative source for statistics to connect baseball’s past to its present...
The biggest snubs so far in first round of MLB All-Star voting
Yesterday, MLB released its first All-Star voting update after the polls first opened on June 3. However, phase one of All-Star voting does not finish until June 27. When that day comes, only the top-three vote-getters (nine for outfield) at each position will advance to phase two of voting which wi...
Billy Hamilton (yes, him) is finally a fan favorite, as he was always meant to be
Major League Baseball is chock full of fun, meme-able characters that everybody loves to mock — but loves to root for even more. Take Bartolo Colon. He’d always been a solid player (even earned a couple of All-Star appearances in his final years), but was never one of the dominant arms in the game. ...
MLB’s first entry into NFT craze – Lou Gehrig's speech – doesn’t pass the smell test
Add “non-fungible” to the list of words that define 2021....
Connor McDavid and Mike Trout: one and the same
Two guys walk into a bar. They’re both dressed to the nines with glamorous accolades and praise, yet they hang their heads low. They sit a few seats apart and order the same drink. The two get to talking....
What does Major League Baseball have against the Rays?
I swear, the Tampa Bay Rays are the Rodney Dangerfield of Major League Baseball — they get no respect. And I don’t get it. I just don’t. What do the Rays have to do in order to earn some praise for what they’ve done? Win an AL pennant? Nope, not good enough. MLB gave the Rays just an 18.6 percent ch...
La Russa is still managing like it’s 1989
The Yankees and White Sox combined for 26 strikeouts in a nine-inning game. In 2012, that’s not so surprising. What is a bit of a stunner is that Aroldis Chapman didn’t get any of those K’s. Carlos Rodón fanned 13, Jordan Montgomery punched out 11, and Michael Kopech added two whiffs out of the Chic...
When I'd rather watch 'Schitt's Creek' than ANOTHER no-hitter, you know baseball has a problem
Last night, I was scrolling Twitter as the dulcet tones of Schitt’s Creek provided a backdrop to my evening. In short, I was doing nothing. As the late night baseball game out west between the Seattle Mariners and and the Detroit Tigers wore on, I started seeing familiar tweets in my timeline — we w...
Why are the Twins such a bad team in non-9-inning games? Like, 0-11 bad
The Minnesota Twins probably weren’t expecting to be where they currently sit heading into this season. Minnesota reached the playoffs in three of the last four seasons, and were looking to return once again in 2021 in the hopes of actually winning a playoff series for the first time since 2003. So ...