players Page 31 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Reds are blowing up something that never stood
Yeah, so I did write this last year. The Reds only ended up moving Raisel Iglesias, and you can always fashion a bullpen out of the leftovers, scraps, and spare duct tape you have laying around if you’re determined enough. The Reds didn’t move anything else, and were competitive until the season’s f...

Who is Seiya Suzuki, and where will he land?
The Atlanta Braves won the World Series, and, after going through a comically horrible championship parade, they now have the daunting task of attempting to become the first repeat World Series winner since 2000. The 29 other Major League clubs are all looking to knock the Braves off their throne, a...

Baseball’s labor battle: Here are the battleground issues
Whenever the players break. ...

When’s the <i>30 for 30</i> on the 2014 Detroit Tigers?
Congrats to the Atlanta Braves on winning the World Series! Congrats to Freddie Freeman! That man deserves everything. Congrats to Ozzie Albies, Mike Fiers, Jeff Mathis, Austin Riley, Will Smith, and especially congratulations to Drew Smyly! ...

Buster Posey goes out like he came in... on top
The “going out on top” card rarely gets played. Mostly, it’s just because there’s too much money to be had for any player that was once great. There’s too much money for really any player to play a game for a living, no matter how physically taxing. Which you can’t blame them for. Unlike most every ...

Freddie Freeman is why Atlanta won’t repeat, whether he stays or not
Atlanta has its first World Series title since 1995, which happens to be the year right before the Yankees began their dynasty with four championships in five years. Those New York teams of 1998-2000 also are the last repeat champions baseball has had....

At least it’s over
The urge after any postseason is over is to draw some overarching narrative out of it. To learn what it means to be a champion in that particular sport in that particular era, or what it means for that sport in general. I’m sure if MLB had any inkling to discover what Team Cheaters vs. Team White Fl...

Zack Greinke saves the Astros
Well, not really, Of course not. We all know that’s a ridiculous notion. But what my book presupposes is...maybe he did?...

This Atlanta World Series team signals the end of starting pitching
With Huascar Ynoa on the IL with a shoulder injury and ace Charlie Morton out with a broken leg, the Braves are now looking at two back-to-back bullpen games as their starting pitchers rest up. The pen’s performance closing out for Morton in Game 1 and for Ian Anderson yesterday should give Atlanta ...

'Analytics understander' A-Rod logs on and fails in October once again
Does Alex Rodriguez know what “analytics” means? You would think he should, being a television commentator for baseball in 2021, but life is full of surprises — such as A-Rod praising the Houston Astros in Game 2 of the World Series for an “anti-analytics inning.”...

MLB Rebuilding in 2021: Totally luck out, and just find a great international player
Where would the Braves be without Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuña Jr.? Where would the Padres be without Fernando Tatís Jr.? What about the Astros with Carlos Correa, José Altuve, Yuli Gurriel, and Yordan Álvarez?...

QTNA: Would you have given Tom Brady his 600th touchdown ball back?
As human beings trying to do good on Earth, life should not always be about money. We should be more concerned with how we treat others, and once we leave this place, when others are asked about us, they should be able to genuinely say that we were good instead of simply offering platitudes. However...

Why am I happy for Dusty Baker? Am I? Should I be?
I have some sympathy for anyone who has to sell this World Series. While it would be honest, if it is one’s job to write about MLB’s climax, you can’t really attract eyes and hearts by constantly beating the drum of “Boy, everyone sure hates these assholes!” You do have to find some angle that can g...

Dusty Baker is heading back to the World Series, as Astros beat Red Sox
The one good thing about the Astros returning to the World Series, which they’ll do after wrapping up the American League pennant with a 5-0 win over the Red Sox in Game 6 on Friday night, is that Dusty Baker will get his chance to finally manage his way to a World Series ring....

Max Scherzer out for Game 6, which the Dodgers will definitely win anyway because Atlanta
The Dodgers aren’t going to have Max Scherzer start Game 6 of the NLCS due to arm fatigue, after the ace lasted only 4.1 innings in Game 2 and clearly wasn’t his regular self in the wake of his dramatic save in Game 5 of the division series in San Francisco....

Of course it’s going back to Atlanta
I’m going to get out ahead of this and just condemn the Braves. I know what happens now, because my motherfuck skills have risen to a level I can no longer control or understand. I just speculated on what the baseball world would think of Dave Roberts. I tried to make it clear that I didn’t think th...

Joey Gallo is this generation’s Adam Dunn
Nothing against him, but New York Yankees outfielder Joey Gallo is irrelevant in Major League Baseball right this second. His team isn’t in the playoffs. He’s never played for any of the teams involved in either Championship Series. He’s at home watching the games from his couch, the same as you and...

Carlton Fisk kept it fair, but Keith Olbermann’s attempt to sell historic ball is foul
This is not about ripping Keith Olbermann. If you want to do that, you can start with “Why I Think Trump Is Finished (And My Work Is Done),” from November 28, 2017, a time at which Trump was far from finished. You can go forward or backward from there, it doesn’t really matter, and he’d admit himsel...

What will Dave Roberts’ legacy be?
I know better than to write the Dodgers’ eulogy now. We’re just where we’ve been before. The series should be over, and if it wasn’t for Cody Bellinger guessing right on a high fastball on Tuesday, it would be. The Braves’ 9-2 win in Game 4 only makes it 3-1, which is exactly where they were against...

You always want a Laz Diaz show in a League Championship Series, amirite?
I’ll put it right here at the top when discussing the Astros 9-2 win in Game 4 over the Red Sox, because I’ve spent the latter half of my life having Red Sox fans yell at me in some sort of fashion anyway. The non-strike call Laz Diaz came up with on Jason Castro from Nathan Eovaldi’s curve in the n...