Quick thoughts on a Tuesday night that featured a lot of home runs across this great land ... Look, Pablo Sandoval is fat. I'm about 99.7 percent sure if that if he lost 10 or 50 pounds that he'd be a better player.
As a reminder: Odds to win AL East, March 25 (Bovada.lv) Blue Jays +160 Rays +250 Yankees +350 Red Sox +550 Orioles +750 AL East projected standings, March 26 (Dan Szymborski's ZiPS system) Blue Jays -- 94-68 Rays -- 88-74 Red Sox -- 84-78 Yankees -- 83-79 Orioles -- 82-80 Picks to win AL East, March 30 (ESPN baseball contributors) Blue Jays -- 20 Rays -- 20 Orioles -- 2 Yankees -- 1 Red Sox -- 0 Before the season began, everyone talked about how the AL East would be the crazy island of division races, but the consensus was the Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays were the two best teams and the other three would be left fighting for wild-card scraps.
With strikeout rates at record levels, that inevitably means we're going to get some crazy strikeout totals for hitters. Let's take a stroll through some of my favorite numbers heading into Monday's games.
The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. -- Mark Twain If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.
Before any games commence this weekend the focus will be in Boston as the Red Sox return home to Fenway Park for the first time since the horrific events earlier in the week during the Boston Marathon.
One of the first major impacts Bill James made as a sabermetrician was pointing out the huge effect that ballparks had on statistics. I mean, people always knew that Fenway Park and Wrigley Field were good hitting parks, or that the Astrodome was a lousy place to hit home runs, but that doesn't mean people in the game properly accounted for these factors.
In the latest SweetSpot TV, Eric and I rank our top five teams. (I like the Red Sox, especially with David Ortiz coming back, but Eric isn't so sure.) Early rankings of this type are always difficult; how much do you factor in your preseason projection and how much the first two weeks of play?
The Atlanta Braves sent a message this weekend: Don't forget about us. We all know the Washington Nationals were prohibitive favorites to win the NL East -- 38 of 43 ESPN.com experts picked them -- and only five picked the Braves.
A year ago, the Cleveland Indians allowed the most runs in the American League, a pretty remarkable achievement considering the Minnesota Twins had a historically awful rotation. The Indians, however, combined bad pitchers and bad defense -- their -51 Defensive Runs Saved ranked 28th in the majors.
There's a neat book out called "Facing Ted Williams" that's worth checking out if you're a Red Sox fan, Williams fan or just a fan of players talking about baseball from the old days. Writer Dave Heller interviewed dozens of players who played against Williams -- from pitchers who faced him many times to players who appeared in only a few games in the big leagues -- and gets some great insight and anecdotes.
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