Ozzie Smith, Rollie Fingers, Kerry Robinson; Jack Wilson, & Todd Zeile To Participate To Participate In 2018 Hall Of Fame Classic

Spring Training may be in full swing, but the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is already gearing up for its unofficial start of the summer season.

Troy Record

Andy Sonnanstine Sees Knuckleball As A Way Back

It's been said that baseball's a simple game. You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball.

USA Today

Andy Sonnanstine Working On Knuckleball, Comeback

Andy Sonnanstine has been seduced by the lure of the dancing medicine ball, and finding the magic of how to throw a knuckleball could punch his ticket back to the Major Leagues.

Tampa Bay Official Site

Ryan Franklin To Represent Cardinals At 2015 MLB Draft

Three members of the 500 Home Run Club -- Ken Griffey Jr., Reggie Jackson and Mike Schmidt -- and 20 other former All-Stars will headline the list of team representatives on the floor at MLB Network's Studio 42 when the 2015 MLB Draft gets underway on June 8.

MLB Official Site

Joe Madden Calls Tony LaRussa About Batting Pitcher Eighth

Maddon said he called former Cardinals manager Tony La Russa late last week to discuss the move, because La Russa occasionally moved his pitchers higher in the order.

The Tampa Tribune

Expanded Horizons: Overrating Fifth Starters

This week, position players join pitchers and catchers at spring training. For those who travel to Florida or Arizona to cover the teams, reporting on the same story lines can grow tiresome. For others, enjoying watching the same story lines pop up again and again is half the fun.

Baseball Prospectus

Ten For 2010: Rookies Who Could Make In Impact

David Freese, 3B, Cardinals
Credentials: A ninth-round pick in 2006, Freese has impressed the Cardinals with his hitting in four minor league seasons (.308/.384/.532 in 1,658 plate appearances). He made the Cardinals out of spring training last year but was sent down partly because of a foot injury.
Opportunity: To the chagrin of manager Tony La Russa, who doesn't like to hand out jobs to anyone much less rookies, Freese faces little competition for the starting job. That could change if the Cardinals decide to sign a low-cost veteran such as Joe Crede.
Early expectation: Freese's offseason started poorly when he made headlines for alleged drunk driving. That might have served as a wakeup call. Freese, 26, says that he has stopped drinking, has been working out six days a week and is in the best shape of his life.

Sporting News

What To Do With Andy Sonnanstine?

Nothing seems to come easily for Andy Sonnanstine. His fastball barely tops 87 and he's forced to get by on mixing pitches and superb control, which is not a way to earn the benefit of the doubt from fans or scouts.

DRays Bay

Chris Carpenter's Walk Stinginess

A couple of days ago, I wrote here about Chris Carpenter’s historic strikeout-to-walk ratio. As Carp prepares to take the mound at Dodger Stadium on Monday night, I thought (with the help of Tom Orf) that I would delve a bit deeper into the bases on balls component of the St. Louis Cardinals star’s ongoing success.

The Cardinal Nation Blog

Midseason Review: Starting Pitchers

Projecting pitcher performance is a difficult venture, but PECOTA gives it a shot every year, and it does a very good job of it. For a variety of reasons, it doesn't hit right on target with every pitcher, but its track record is good, even at midseason. Today let's take a look at some pitchers who PECOTA has pegged correctly halfway through 2009, as well as the ones where it has missed the mark in either direction.

Baseball Prospectus

Using HIT F/X To Measure Skill

Ever watch a ballgame and see three fielders converge on a pop fly before it ends up dropping for a base hit? Did you think that batter didn’t deserve a hit? Or perhaps the second baseman dove to the shortstop side of second base to catch a screaming line drive and your first thought was "that hitter was robbed." Well HITf/x was designed for you. Because we now can have measures of a hitter’s or a pitcher’s ability based not on the vagaries of the plays that the fielders did or did not make, but on the quality of the batter’s hit ball.

The Hardball Times

Origins Of Four-Year College Pitchers

Four Year College Origins, 2008 Pitchers

For the sake of simplicity, I'm listing the conference in which the school currently plays. Some of them might have changed conference since the player in question was drafted. I admit I haven't checked for each school.

Minor League Ball

Baseball's Coming Attractions

Brian Barden and Joe Thurston have played as well as expected in Troy Glaus' absence, but St. Louis' third basemen rank 20th in the majors with a .685 on-base plus slugging percentage.

ESPN

Slicing The Pitch F/X Leader Boards

Back to some RV100 (average run value compared to average of 100 pitches) leaders, this time by lateral slice.

Beyond The Boxscore

Brett Tomko Dealing With Injuries, But Still In Yankees' Plans

With so many relievers struggling, it is curious to see the veteran Brett Tomko still toiling for Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre despite a 0.69 earned run average. Tomko has been dealing with a minor oblique strain but is very much in the Yankees’ plans. “I’m sure you’re going to see him soon enough,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. “He’s doing everything he can do, and he’s a big choice for us.”

NY Times

Games Of The Day 5-6-09

The Pirates try to make up some ground on the Cardinals as Zach Duke takes on Mitchell Boggs. For the first time since his rookie season of 2005, Duke is posting decent strikeout numbers, and his ERA is back down to his first-year level. Boggs is blasting away batters with 12 K in 11 2/3 innings as a starter.

Baseball Musings

Five Jake Peavy Trades That Make Sense

St. Louis Cardinals

For:

3B David Freese
LHP Jaime Garcia
RHP Mitchell Boggs
RHP Jess Todd

Dugout Central

Jason Isringhausen Nervous But Impressive In Spring Debut For Rays; Troy Percival Update

RHP Jason Isringhausen has thrown countless spring training innings in a career that has included 293 saves and a World Series title.

St. Petersburg Times

Troy Percival Impresses

Pitching coach Jim Hickey was pleasantly surprised with how well RHP Troy Percival threw in his first batting practice session since December back surgery. Hickey said Percival, who threw 30 pitches in a 10-minute session, used all his pitches well and was "more advanced really than he needs to be."

Hickey said Percival looked more like the veteran who had 19 saves and a 3.54 ERA before last year's All-Star break and "a lot better" than the injury-plagued Percival of the second half (1-1, nine saves, 6.11 ERA). Percival is due to have one more live BP session before making his spring debut March 12.

"I'll be shocked if you don't see him on the 12th," Hickey said.

St. Petersburg Times

Exploring Contact Quality

Voros McCracken shocked the baseball world when he introduced his concept of Defense Independent Pitching Statistics (DIPS), which suggested that pitchers had a lot less influence over the outcome of balls in play than anyone thought. This was a radical idea at the time, and many were quite adamant that it could not be true.

The Hardball Times