Travis Fryman - Third Baseman
Detroit Tigers 1990-1997
Cleveland Indians 1998-2002
Awards
1992 A.L. Silver Slugger - SS
2000 A.L. Gold Glove - 3B
All-Star Selections: 5 (1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 2000)
League Leader
None of note
Career Ranks
None of note
Best Performance
July 28, 1993 - New York at Detroit
Hit for the cycle (5 for 5, 4 RBI) although in a losing effort against the Yankees.
Hall of Fame Stats
Black Ink: Batting - 2 (582) (Average HO
Shawon Dunston - Shortstop
Chicago Cubs 1985-1995, 1997
San Francisco Giants 1996, 1998, 2001-2002
Pittsburgh Pirates 1997
Cleveland Indians 1998
St. Louis Cardinals 1999, 2000
New York Mets 1999
Awards
None
All-Star Selections: 2 (1988, 1990)
League Leader
None
Career Ranks
None of note
Best Performance
June 4, 1989 - Chicago at St. Louis
Hit two homeruns and a triple in a rout of the Cardinals.
Hall of Fame Stats
Gray Ink: Batting - 6 (1
Jose Rijo - Starting Pitcher
New York Yankees 1984
Oakland Athletics 1985-1987
Cincinnati Reds 1988-1995, 2001-2002
Awards
1990 World Series MVP
All-Star Selections: 1 (1994)
League Leader
1991: W/L Pct., WHIP
1993: Strikeouts, K/9
Career Ranks
K/9: 34th
K/BB: 90th
Best Performance
September 25, 1993 - Cincinnati at Colorado
Pitched a complete game, one hitter in Mile High Stadium with a Charlie Hayes single in the 2nd being the only hit.
Hall
Before I get to the redux my of idea for creating a playoff system and at the same time improve the bowl selection process, I'm going to make a little comment on Hawaii. Whenever I see someone say "Hawaii should be in the BCS Championship!", I just want to pat them on the head and say "Aww, aren't you cute? Yes you are, yes you are!" In the current structure of college football, which I agree is a joke, Hawaii has no business playing for the championship.
The purpose of the BCS is purely t
Robb Nen - Closer
Texas Rangers 1993
Florida Marlins 1993-1997
San Francisco Giants 1998-2002
Awards
None
All-Star Selections: 3 (1998, 1999, 2002)
League Leader
2001: Saves
Career Ranks
Saves: 15th
Best Performance
October 26, 1997 - Cleveland at Florida
In Game 7 of the 1997 World Series, with the Marlins down a run he comes into the top of the 9th with runners at the corners and one out and gets the Marlins out of the jam who then tie the game in th
Todd Stottlemyre- Starting Pitcher
Toronto Blue Jays 1988-1994
Oakland Athletics 1995
St. Louis Cardinals 1996-1998
Texas Rangers 1998
Arizona Diamondbacks 1999-2002
Awards
None
All-Star Selections: None
League Leader
None
Career Ranks
None of note
Best Performance
August 26, 1992 - Toronto at Chicago
Carried a no hitter into the 8th inning before a Dan Pasqua double with one out breaks it up. Finished with a complete game, one-hitter.
Hall of
Only eleven first ballot candidates this year and I already made it known in the Hall of Fame Ballot thread that Tim Raines is the only one deserving to get in, not that that is any great insight. But I'll still run through all eleven newbies but a little different from last year when I was going through the whole ballot and ended each entry with my opinion of whether they'd get my imaginary vote or not. Instead I'll just give "My Stupid Opinion" on each player. Also this year I'll throw in a li
I'm not into making projections a month into the season, basically so I won't look stupid, and I like to wait until the final week of the season to make projections. Now these are purely based on every higher ranked team winning their game next week and obviously that won't happen but it makes it easier to make projections that way. Note Navy, Southern Miss, and Memphis have already accepted invites to bowls.
BCS: Missouri vs. West Virginia
Orange: Virginia Tech vs. Georgia
Fiesta: Kans
Next week (I think) the 2008 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot will be released. Last year I did individual entries on each player on the ballot and I plan on doing the same thing this year for the first ballot players. Of course there is no point in redoing the holdovers from last year's ballot, and I'm much too lazy to update them, so here's links to each entry listed in order of the percentage of the vote they received last year. None of my opinions have changed as I would still vote Mark McGwire,
ACC
Bowls: BCS/Orange, Chick-Fil-A, Gator, Champs Sports, Music City, Meineke Car Care, Emerald, Humanitarian
Locks: Boston College, Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Near Locks: None
On the Bubble: Maryland, Miami, N.C. State
Maryland/N.C. State is a loser goes home game this Saturday and the winner likely goes to a bowl. I only say likely because if Miami some how gets it's shit together and upsets Boston College that will give
Here's a quick revision to the Bowl Bubble entry after yesterday's results.
ACC
Bowls: BCS/Orange, Chick-Fil-A, Gator, Champs Sports, Music City, Meineke Car Care, Emerald, Humanitarian
Locks: Boston College, Clemson, Virginia, Virginia Tech
Near Locks: Florida State, Georgia Tech, Wake Forest
On the Bubble: Maryland, Miami, N.C. State
Maryland's upset of Boston College has increased the chances of possibly ten bowl eligible teams in the conference which means getti
I decided to give up on doing a Top 25 since my Top 10 wouldn't be a whole lot different from the BCS Top 10 at this point. So instead I'm going to go conference by conference to see what teams are on the bubble to make it to a bowl game. Any BCS conference team with seven wins at this time is a lock and some with six wins are as well although it all depends on if their conference is going to have too many or too few bowl eligible teams. There are no preset open bids this year although a couple
And finally wrapping up the 2007 Player Rankings with my favorite and longest list, starting pitchers. Only difference from closers is I do take into account ERA+. The list includes the top 120 pitchers in games started.
2004
1. Randy Johnson
15. Odalis Perez
30. Josh Beckett
45. Joe Kennedy
60. Randy Wolf
75. Jon Garland
90. Aaron Harang
105. Jose Acevedo
120. Brian Anderson
2005
1. Roger Clemens
15. Brandon Webb
30. Kenny Rogers
45. Derek Lowe
60. Livan He
This was actually relatively uneventful Saturday and after all the chaos in the previous weeks I get the feeling we may have a boring November. We're down to only 10 BCS conference teams with one loss or less compared to 18 at this time last year so I think law of averages this past week might be a sign of things to come. Even now in the era of a 12 game regular season and conference championships I still don't see us having the first two loss, post-bowls national champion. Believe me though I w
For closers the list includes the top 30 in Saves. Only difference from middle relievers is I do take into account Win Shares.
2004
1. Brad Lidge
15. Octavio Dotel
30. Shawn Chacon
2005
1. Mariano Rivera
15. Jason Isringhausen
30. Keith Foulke
2006
1. Jonathan Papelbon
15. Francisco Cordero
30. Derrick Turnbow
2007
1. J.J. Putz, Mariners
2. Takashi Saito, Dodgers
3. Jonathan Papelbon, Red Sox
4. Joe Nathan, Twins
5. Bobby Jenks, White Sox
6. Joak
For middle relievers, the first two years I took the top 60 in games pitched and then last year I did the top 60 in Holds. This time around I tried to get a combination of both and put an arbitrary number of at least 70 games pitched or at least 15 Holds to work with at first and purely by accident I ended up with exactly 60 relievers. This of course excludes those who will appear on the Closers list.
I take into account six statistical categories: Component ERA, K/BB Ratio, WHIP, VORP, Fie
Much kudos to UCLA this week for ending Cal's Rose Bowl hopes and thus extending their drought to 49 years. I wish I had been bold enough to make the proclamation a few weeks ago but there was almost no doubt in my mind the Bruins would lose to Notre Dame but beat Cal. If they played a high school Powder Puff team next week they'd lose but put up against a strong opponent and they usually win.
Top 25, you know the drill. I can hold off on ranking any three loss teams for at least another we
I'd figured I'd take a break from the usual lists to tell a quick story about the only World Series game I ever had the chance to attend. It's a pretty well known game because it didn't end being played as scheduled and it was 18 years ago today. It was Tuesday, October 17th, 1989 as the Oakland A's were to play the San Francisco Giants in Game 3 of their Bay Bridge World Series at Candlestick Park.
My Dad had bought tickets from Game 3 and 4 at Candlestick and he was going to take me to G
Thank you to Oregon State Vanessa Hudgens I do not have to worry about a Cal national championship, although still need to some help to avoid them getting to the Rose Bowl.
With the BCS Rankings out I probably shouldn't even bother with this anymore but maybe one more week. Pretty simple there are five undefeated BCS teams so they make up my Top 5. This week though I now have to include two loss teams in the rankings and even rank some of them above one loss teams but I will rank all one l
Third Basemen
2004
1. Adrian Beltre
15. Corey Koskie
30. Mark DeRosa
2005
1. Alex Rodriguez
15. Joe Crede
30. Sean Burroughs
2006
1. Miguel Cabrera
15. Morgan Ensberg
30. Vinny Castilla
2007
1. Alex Rodriguez, Yankees
2. David Wright, Mets
3. Miguel Cabrera, Marlins
4. Chipper Jones, Braves
5. Mike Lowell, Red Sox
6. Ryan Braun, Brewers
7. Aramis Ramirez, Cubs
8. Chone Figgins, Angels
9. Garrett Atkins, Rockies
10. Ryan Zimmerman, Nationa
