cactusleague Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
How much difference can it make to have a manager who is awake?
How much tangible difference a manager makes on a baseball team over 162 games has never been quite nailed down. It’s generally thought the best ones might only add a couple wins, and a truly bad one might only take away a couple wins. Most are just there, which is kind of why front offices stopped ...
When it comes to MLB rumors, why isn’t it ever anyone new?
Right before I sat down (or stood up as it were, as I’m one of those brain geniuses who works standing up. I’m ever so svelte!), news broke that the San Diego Padres had signed Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year, $280 million deal. Bogaerts kicks Fernando Tatis Jr. to the outfield or DH spot for a season...
The warm glow of MLB Hot Stove’s warming glow: NL Central
It’s officially the offseason now, as we’ve gotten Scott Boras’s Fozzy Bear-in-the-college-dorm act at the GM Meetings. So let’s keep this record spinning right round and move to the NL Central, which I don’t feel personally about at all....
The warm glow of MLB Hot Stove’s warming glow: AL Central
We continue our whip around the baseball offseason by looking at the American League’s worst division, which was won by a team that wasn’t even trying to win, the AL Central....
The <i>L.A. Times</i> still can’t quite seem to get a handle on the Dodgers’ playoff exit
It’s now generally accepted that playoff baseball is confusing. Given that every series is a week long at most, and it’s distilling down teams that have played for six months, everything is in bounds. Small moments like a pitching change here or a cutoff man missed there that would just be barely a ...
Don’t be in such a rush to show your genius
When you come at the Houston Astros, you’d best not miss. ...
For its next trick, the Mariners will juggle orcas while unicycling over a volcano
It takes a lot for the sporting public to notice a Saturday highlight other than a football one in early October. It has to be especially good on a weekend when Alabama staves off an upset, but my god what the Seattle Mariners are doing is beyond good. ...
These 10 modern-day players’ primes were squandered by inept teams
Mike Trout is the tree that falls in the forest every September. He might as well exist in the cold, vacuum of space. If there’s any evidence that sports are raw and unscripted, it’s Trout’s annual storyline. His slow fade from public consciousness as the playoffs creep closer is in stark contrast t...
There’s at least one MLB fan base who would open-mouth kiss Rob Manfred
The last time the Seattle Mariners made the playoffs, Blu Cantrell’s “Hit ‘Em Up Style (Oops!)” was atop the Billboard charts, a non-superhero movie (“Don’t Say A Word”) was No. 1 at the box office, and M’s All-Star rookie Julio Rodriguez was not yet a year old. ...
The White Sox’s year finally dying the death it deserves
It’s not that you have to go back all that far for a season by an MLB team that was as disappointing, confounding, and overall just as big of a waste of time as the 2022 Chicago White Sox. It was just last year that the San Diego Padres acquired every player that wasn’t nailed down, and then finishe...
Dodger fans go above and beyond trolling the Padres, Fernando Tatís Jr.
Fans trolling their opponents is a time-honored tradition, and one of the many reasons why going to the game is more fun than staying at home and watching it on television. Whether it be the creative chants being yelled in unison at a Premier League match or Sharks fans yelling “You suck!” at their ...
Baseball is for lovers
The joke used to be that you were supposed to think of baseball to un-horny yourself. When you needed to prolong proceedings to a length of time that wouldn’t be embarrassing or possibly even to one acceptable to both (or more?) parties. Think of every third baseman in the National League in 1991 an...
The Los Angeles Dodgers, the greatest team of all time
The Dodgers won on Sunday. Which really isn’t news, they do that a lot. Beating the Miami Marlins isn’t really cause for celebration either, as it’s far more of a function than an accomplishment. And yet, zoom out and it is pretty startling what the Dodgers have accomplished....
What the new MLB schedule could mean for MLB’s future
Yesterday, Major League Baseball released its 2023 schedule. The biggest news to come from the release is that for the first time ever, all 30 teams will play one another in a single season....
The DH could solidify the Dodgers’ transformation into the First Order
The perception of the National League to fans of AL teams is that of inferior baseball, due largely to the (until recently) absence of the designated hitter. This kind of bias happens in other sports, but it’s mostly unproven generalizations like the Western Conference is finesse basketball compared...
Sad Diego: Padres underperforming and underwhelming post-deadline
On paper, the San Diego Padres got better at the trade deadline. In reality, they’ve gotten worse — and are very quickly becoming the laughingstock of the MLB....
Let’s not crown the Dodgers just yet — but let’s sure as hell enjoy the excellence
The 2022 Dodgers may be the most dominant regular-season team we’ve ever seen. And they have a chance to solidify it....
Dodgers remind the loaded Padres that they’re still the team to beat
The Dodgers couldn’t care less about the Padres and the trade deadline....
Vin Scully was the connection to everyone
“It’s a business.” We’ve heard that a ton lately, because it was trade deadline time in MLB. Any fan of any sport has heard that a million times or more. At the end of the day, we’re told, it’s just a business, which is generally meant to excuse all sorts of shitassed behavior by owners and front of...
Dodgers fans should be browning their shorts right now
Los Angeles Dodger fans should be afraid — very afraid — of the San Diego Padres....