This Will Be Bryce Harper's Career Season

This is the season. Yes, maybe we have said that before. Maybe we thought it would be last season, or two seasons ago. But that's OK. This is the season.

Washington Official Site

Brian Jordan & His Duel With Trevor Hoffman

Brian Jordan produced his most important hit for the Cardinals against one of the all-time best relief pitchers.

RetroSimba

An Interview With Rob Murphy

Seeking a durable, dependable left-handed reliever, the Cardinals signed Rob Murphy in January 1993. Murphy delivered, establishing a Cardinals single-season record for left-handers by appearing in 73 games in 1993. He held the record until Steve Kline topped it with 89 appearances for the 2001 Cardinals.

RetroSimba

Rollie Fingers Ranked #3 On Padres Closer List

We end my offseason project of naming the top five Padres at each position with identifying the top closers in the history of the franchise.

San Diego Official Site

Lance Berkman Making Impact On, Off Field With New Club

Second baseman Ian Kinsler has made one observation about new Rangers teammate Lance Berkman.

Texas Official Site

Cardinals Rookie Pitchers Tested Joe Torre in 1994

Joe Torre can relate to Tony La Russa’s recent use of two Cardinals pitchers making their big-league debuts in the same game.

Retro Simba

Bernie Bytes 5-17-11: Props To Albert Pujols

Props to Albert Pujols for volunteering to play third base in Monday night's 3-1 win over Philadelphia. Since David Freese went out indefinitely with a broken bone in his hand, the idea had been floated by manager Tony La Russa and the coaches.

Bernie's Five Minutes

The Lineup Of A Lifetime Project

If I remember correctly, we were talking about baseball cards.

STL Today

Hall Of Fame: The Eight Defiites

In my mind, there are eight players on this year’s ballot who are clearly above my Hall of Fame standard. That does not mean that they are without their flaws. A couple of them have significant flaws … I refused to vote for one of them for a while until my thoughts about him and what he did crystallized somewhat.

Sports Illustrated

Ahead Of The Count: So How Good Are MVPs Really?

With the Most Valuable Player and Cy Young awards announced in the last two weeks, we saw a first-time MVP in each league, a first-time American League Cy Young winner and a National League Cy Young winner who had won the American League Cy Young Award seven years prior. Winning consecutive MVP or Cy Young awards is a rarity, though we have seen recent repeats by Albert Pujols and Tim Lincecum. In the last 18 years (1993-2010, which encompasses the last two rounds of expansion), we have seen just six of 36 MVP awards go to the previous year’s winner, and just nine Cy Young Awards to the previous recipient. But the best hitter or best pitcher in the league is usually not a different person every year.

Baseball Prospects

Great Hitters - But Not So Good At Anything Else

Kind of building on my earlier post about guys who were good at everything, I decided to search for guys who could hit the ball—but kinda stunk at every other aspect of the game. The search criteria was:

Beyind The Boxscore

Mark Mulder Eyeing May As Possible Comeback

Mark Mulder, LHP, free agent — He is taking some time away after making a complete recovery from shoulder issues the past two years, but may give it another shot in May. Mulder worked with Milwaukee pitching coach Rick Peterson this winter and had an invitation to Brewers camp but declined when he couldn’t iron out his mechanics.

Boston Globe

Wins Above MVP Level

Wins Above Replacement (WAR) isn't just a raw counting stat. The whole "replacement level" part of it also ensures that any junk numbers recorded that were below replacement level are ignored. Sean Smith recently introduced Wins Above Excellence—a way to add an additional baseline to WAR that removes any seasons with less than 3.0 WAR. The goal is to quantify only those seasons that separated a player from the pack.

Beyond The Boxscore

Mark McGwire Needs To Face The Music

Nine years after he last wore a major league uniform and four years after the embarrassment of a congressional hearing sent him to his own fairway-lined Elba, Mark McGwire believes it is safe to return to baseball. His return is an encouraging sign that the emotion and vituperation of The Steroid Era has waned, though the disappointment shall always remain.

Sports Illustrated

jrocke217 says: the writers need to find something else to kick around!

Unanimous MVP For Albert Pujols?

Albert Pujols wouldn't be the first player to be a unanimous selection for the National League's Most Valuable Player Award— which he should be. But he would be just the second since the league expanded to 16 teams (and 32 voters, two from each city) in 1998.

STL Today

Prospectus Hit & Run: Building An MVP Predictor

As the recent scrum between supporters of the candidacies of Joe Mauer and Mark Teixeira reminds us, nearly every Most Valuable Player Award is capable of producing controversy. Not only do the voters from the Baseball Writers Association of America rarely elect the player who, via some objective formula, is worth the most wins to his team, they appear to shift their standards from year to year, instead constructing narratives to fit whatever loosely-gathered facts are at hand. Particularly in recent years, defensive value is often minimized or entirely ignored in favor of heavy hitters with big Triple Crown stats, almost invariably from successful teams.

Baseball Prospectus

Is Big Papi A Big Fraud?

Tipsheet was shocked – SHOCKED – to read that both Manny Ramirez and David “Big Papi” Ortiz were among the players testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003.

Tipsheet

(Somewhat) Sabermetric Similarity Scores

Several months ago I wrote an article for this website titled "The George Grantham all-stars" which had a somewhat ambitious, albeit largely frivolous goal: find out what the most well-rounded seasons of all time were.

The Hardball Times

Padres Break In New DP Combo

For the fourth time in as many years, the San Diego Padres will have a different middle-infield combo to start the regular season.

MLB

Giving Albert Pujols ALL Of His MVPs

MIDDAY NEWS AND THOUGHTS: THE STEROID EDITION

STL Today