baseball
Sabermetric analysis of all things baseball - on-and-off the field. Barry Bonds fan club.
The One Texas Rangers Game You Probably Forgot About
Before the Boston Red Sox won their second World Series title in four years, the Texas Rangers gave baseball fans and the entire sports world something to talk about in 2007. The evening of August 22 of that year was a date that Rangers fans remember very well. I graduated from high school nearly two months before the following game that I'm about to discuss. On that aforementioned date, the Rangers played the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards, which was part of a four-game series. Just to note that it was a game that was rescheduled from Monday, due to inclement weather and part of a doubleheader. The starting pitchers for that rescheduled game were Kason Gabbard (Texas) vs Daniel Cabrera (Baltimore). I'll give you some grace if you don't recall watching this game, but it was one of the best Rangers games I've ever watched on TV. Sure, the Rangers weren't having a good season, but this game in particular will forever be etched in the minds of die-hard Rangers fans. To avoid boring everyone and detailing every play-by-play in this story, I'll just detail bits and pieces of this historic game.
By Mark Wesley Pritchard 5 months ago in Unbalanced
A Token of Appreciation: Cal Raleigh
The other day, the MLB End of the Year award winners were announced. Everyone was certain that Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh was going to win American League MVP. However, for the third consecutive year, Aaron Judge took the honors. Yours truly recently gave his takes on how Major League Baseball was biased towards certain players. Fellow Vocal writer Adrian Holman shared his thoughts about this topic, and we both shared the same sentiments. So, let's compare the stats of both Raleigh and Judge:
By Mark Wesley Pritchard 5 months ago in Unbalanced
Tampa Bay Rays Retrospective
"I thought it was an all-encompassing type of suck" That quote from Rays closer Pete Fairbanks is from last season, but I think it fits well with how this season turned out. I had high hopes for this team. This team was considerably stronger on paper than last year which topped out at 82 wins. They were projected to win the same amount this year, and I thought that was straight up laughable. With multiple starting pitchers coming back from injury, new off-season additions, and young players poised to break out, I thought they'd cruise past those projections. Well, it didn't quite turn out that way. The Rays closed out their season with a 13-4 drubbing at the hands of the Toronto Blue Jays to finish with a 77-85 record. If you told me the Rays would have a worse record in 2025 compared to 2024, I would've said you were crazy, but here we are.
By Daniel Kilkelly5 months ago in Unbalanced
The Biggest Joke in MLB History
Free agency is now underway, and the Winter Meetings are fast approaching. However, those aren't what the following story is about. Question: What do Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Tarik Skubal, and Paul Skenes all have in common? These men have won the NL MVP, AL MVP, AL Cy Young Award, and NL Cy Young Awards respectively consecutively, with Judge winning for the third year in a row. I thought at first that this was all satire, except for Kurtz, but alas, I was wrong. Nick Kurtz of the Athletics won AL Rookie of the Year, which the writers were correct on that one.
By Mark Wesley Pritchard 5 months ago in Unbalanced
Cal Raleigh should have been AL MVP (Opinion)
Yesterday evening, New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge won his second consecutive and his 3rd American League (AL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award overall. The voting was close this season with Judge receiving 17 of the 30 first-place votes and Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh (Big Dumper is the nickname) receiving the other 13 first-place votes.
By Adrian Holman5 months ago in Unbalanced
John Jay Charges up the Hill at Bowdoin
Photos from both Bowdoin runs in Wappinger Falls are at the bottom of the article. On Saturday October 18, the annual Bowdoin Park Invitation rolled around in Wappinger Falls, and John Jay was there to run the hilly trek. But the cross country race wasn’t the only thing annual about the storied event.
By Rich Monetti5 months ago in Unbalanced
Somers Makes a Good Run at Bowdoin Park
See Big Red and Bowdoin Runs Below On Saturday October 18, Somers traveled north to traverse Bowdoin State Park, and the scenic beauty was hard to miss. Aidan See, on the other hand, took a different view. "I didn't really notice it," the Tusker admitted. The hills were another matter, though.
By Rich Monetti5 months ago in Unbalanced
Best MLB Managers of the Last 25 Years
A Major League Baseball team is never complete without a manager. I've gone over the best World Series games, best quarter century team, and players over the last 25 years in previous stories. I'll have links below to those stories down below in case you missed reading them. In this story, I'll highlight some of my favorite managers since the year 2000. I'll only highlight managers between the years 2000-2024.
By Mark Wesley Pritchard 5 months ago in Unbalanced
Final Thoughts About the 2025 MLB Postseason
The 2025 MLB Postseason should've been called the Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani Lovefest, because those were the center of attention, selfishly overshadowing other teams who deserved to be highlighted more. There were some teams who truly deserved to be in the playoffs and others who I felt weren't October Ready. The Postseason isn't supposed to be about one specific player or team. Everyone deserves to be acknowledged and recognized for their performances. I blamed and accused MLB and these major networks for being heavily biased towards a single team and player.
By Mark Wesley Pritchard 5 months ago in Unbalanced
Wesley's Favorite Forgotten Texas Rangers Players
2026 will mark 25 years as a Texas Rangers fan for me. Since 2001, I've enjoyed watching many Rangers players by attending my first game in person and on watching them on TV. For the following list, I'll be highlighting a few of my favorite players who you might know by name, either in passing or vaguely, but never heard of them in years. The following are not in any particular order. So, players like Hank Blalock and Yu Darvish will not be on this list, since we're already familiar with them. If you don't see a forgotten Rangers player that you loved on this list or if you have more than one player, please comment down below. Now, on to the list.
By Mark Wesley Pritchard 5 months ago in Unbalanced
Thoughts About the Release of the 2026 Baseball Hall of Fame Ballot
Last year, I shared my thoughts about the 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. There was a plethora of players that I recognized, and Ichiro was one of them. He eventually got inducted into Cooperstown, making him the first Asian-born player to do so. Major League Baseball recently revealed the candidates for the 2026 Baseball Hall of Fame. Shown above are eight players on the ballot, but two of those players aren't deserving of being on it: Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. It makes me give MLB and the Baseball Hall of Fame committee the huge side-eye. Why these two cheaters, because that's what they were, are on the ballot baffles me. I don't care how good they were as players. We shouldn't praise those who used performance enhancing drugs to gain an advantage and the "Everyone else was doing it, too" excuse doesn't hold up and it's a weak argument. Just because someone took PEDs, doesn't mean that it was right and it's acceptable now. That's why rules regarding the use of performance enhancing drugs exist today. I've said the same thing last year when Alex Rodríguez appeared on the 2025 Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, but unfortunately, he wasn't selected to be inducted this past July. Baseball fans like me still care about the integrity of the game. There are plenty of players and even managers who were well-respected but still aren't in the Hall. One example being Atlanta Braves great Andruw Jones. I've seen his name pop up a lot in the comment sections of many baseball videos and videos about the Braves. I believe that he should've appeared on this ballot over Bonds and Clemens. Six months ago, Commissioner Rob Manfred lifted the lifetime bans of Pete Rose and 'Shoeless' Joe Jackson, among other players. Both men will be eligible for the Classic Baseball Era Committee as early as December 2027. However, it's not a guarantee that they'll be inducted into Cooperstown. The reaction to this news was mixed.
By Mark Wesley Pritchard 5 months ago in Unbalanced
The Year the Toronto Blue Jays (Almost) Won the World Series
We are family!! A full 48 hours has passed since the third out in the bottom of the eleventh inning of game seven in the 2025 World Series of baseball between the heavily favored Los Angeles Dodgers and our favourite Toronto Blue Jays. The game spelled the end of the Blue Jays magical 2025 Major League Baseball season. As an aside, that third out also put an end to the Los Angeles Dodger’s season, and an end to the Major League baseball season in general. That "end" however, did mark the beginning of some bright things to come in future editions of the Toronto Blue Jays.
By John Oliver Smith5 months ago in Unbalanced
