BaseballHappenings.com » Rookies

XM Baseball Sport Radio

davidbloom — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 12:14:18 +0000

After being on Sirius a few years ago, I finally made it back to Satellite radio. This time on the XM wing of the company.

XM 175:

http://www.facebook.com/MLBNetworkRadio

http://www.Twitter.com/MLBNetworkRadio

First Pitch
Weekdays 7 am – 10 am ET
Jim Memolo and Rob Dibble

Power Alley Jim Duquette and Kevin Kennedy
Weekdays 10 am – 2 pm ET

Inside Pitch Casey Stern and Jim Bowden
Weekdays 2 pm – 6 pm ET, Saturdays 10 am – 1 pm ET

MLB Tonight (MLB Network Staff)
Weekdays 6 pm – 8 pm ET

MLB Roundtrip
Weekdays 8 pm – 12 am ET

Minors and Majors Grant Paulsen
Sundays 8 am – 10 am ET

Remember When Ed Randall and Rico Petrocelli
Saturdays 8 am – 10 am ET

MLB Roundtrip Saturday Grant Paulsen
Saturdays 1 pm – 4 pm ET

Baseball Today Holden Kushner & Jim Duquette
Sundays 10 am – 1 pm ET

MLB Roundtrip Sunday
Sundays 1 pm – 4 pm ET
Talk about the news of the day and get insight on your team’s roster moves from former GM Jim Bowden.

Home Plate Jeff Joyce & Jeff Nelson
Weekends 4 pm – 7 pm ET

XM 147:

http://Twitter.com/siriusxmfantasy

http://www.facebook.com/siriusxmfantasysportsradio

7 am ET - RotoExperts w/ Scott Engel & Adam Ronis
10 am ET - SiriusXM Fantasy Basketball w/ Dennis Scott
11 am ET - RotoWire Fantasy Sports Today w/ Jeff Erickson & Derek Van Riper
2 pm ET - SiriusXM Fantasy Baseball w/ Steve Phillips & Jeff Rickard
5 pm ET - SiriusXM Fantasy Drive w/ Kyle Elfrink, Kay Adams & Ray Flowers
8 pm ET - Fantasy Baseball Tonight w/ Craig Mish

Ray Flowers on his web site is offering free fantasy information

Prospect Grand Prix 2011

davidbloom — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 21:06:25 +0000

Unless your name is John Orelud, each baseball player has to go down to the minor leagues, and work his way up the food chain. It is not an easy journey for a player trying to force his way onto a major league roster. Every step along the way, the minor league players performance is analyzed and scrutinized. The players results are compared to the their peers in the current season, and historically to any player who has come through a similar path.

The game of projecting a player’s career based on minor league numbers is not an easy one. For every success case such as an Evan Longoria, there is another player on the other side of the spectrum that fools the critics. Anyone remember when third baseman Andy Marte was rated as a better prospect than David Wright? There are tons of examples out their of players who lived up to the hype, and those who were utter failures:

Jesse Foppert, Joel Guzman, Andy Marte, Sean Burroughs, Greg Miller

Todd Van Poppel, Brien Taylor, Darren Driefort

However, each year we pay attention to these players known as a prospects, phenom, young talent, the future, what ever name you want to give these guys. Some of these players make it, some do not. Another factor in all of this is opportunity. There are some players who did not shows up on the big time prospect lists and go on to have wonderful careers as late bloomers. Matt Holiday is one guy in this mold. Jason Bay is another. How can we forget Big Papi started his career out as with Twins? Johan Santana certainly didn’t start with the Twins organization either.

Now, one last thing that you can’t put a number to (at least yet) is a player make up. The player who has a good head on his shoulders and can get over the failures from previous day, and move on and get past the bad day is better equipped to be successful. The game of baseball is one of always making adjustments and dealing with failure.

With this mind, when you think prospects, think about the combination of talent, opportunity, and makeup. These three together give you an indication of what kind a player you have.

CBS Sports Top 100

BP Future Shock 2011

Baseball Digest Prospect Sandwich

Call To Pen

Braves Top

MLB Prospects

Prospect Watch Starters

Top Prospect Alert (by team)

Keith Law’s rankings

Scoutingbook.com Prospect Matrix

Prospect Portal

Top NL Only Prospects

Roto Ball is Back 2011

davidbloom — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 00:51:07 +0000

" alt="" width="310" align="right" />

With the NFL labor battle taking shape, the talk of any football is clearly on mute until that matter reaches a resolution. But, this just in: It’s baseball time again! As we speak, the Boys of Summer are on their way to spring training camps across Florida and Arizona. The pitchers and catchers arrive early, in order to get their arms warmed for the first game which starts on February 26th.

Over the next few weeks, the focus here at Baseball Happenings will be getting you thinking baseball again. Just like the players, managers, and the general managers, you have to prepare for the upcoming season. Fantasy baseball or Roto for that matter is all about making good business decisions.

There are certain strategies for the typical rotation drafts, and other ways for participating in a full blown auction draft.

I dabble in fantasy play. Or, you could say I live and breathe fantasy baseball. Each year I play in two NL only auction leagues. In addition, I am a commissioner for one mixed league rotation draft, and have a few other pending leagues that are getting started up.

Here we use both the traditional statistics such that are used in typical 5×5 leagues. As well, we make use of sabermetrics to help with some of the decision making.

Moreover, this year I plan on discussing some of the new strategies I have learned over this off season. These are ideas I have never used before, but have become educated on the new ideas.

Prediction Season 2009 Begins

davidbloom — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 12:47:44 +0000

The Baseball Insights site has unveiled their 2009 player projection functionality. For example , I did I lookup on John Bowker, and Daniel Murphy.

Over at Fantasy Phenoms, they have their prospect outlook by position .

The MLB Jerk has a look at NL East prospects.

The Grand Finale link of the day is Keith Law’s Top 100.

Brignac and Bartlett Squeeze Play

davidbloom — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:56:03 +0000

The Rays are off to their breakout season and a lot of their success can be credited to the defense, especially up the middle. In Jason Bartlett, who the Rays obtained along with Matt Garza for Delmon Young , the Rays have the defender they have lacked for a long while. He is helping the Rays pitchers numbers making the key plays, while at the same time not really hurting them that much with his bat. Though his VORP is low, I believe Joe Maddon is correct that baseball needs a plus/minus on how many runs a player saved, to go laong with how many he has given up. In my mind, this SS Bartlett should be kept around for a long while. But, In the same time, in AAA Durham Reid Brignac continues to develop at SS. Its a tough decsion on what to do in years to come. In Brignac, you are talking about 20 HR potential, while at the same time he plays solid defense. After years of underachieving and bad decision making, the Rays are the toast of baseball. Do you mess with success or do you start making use of your future chips in years to come

April Fools Edition: Sidd Finch Revisited

davidbloom — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 02:28:42 +0000

The classic story of Sidd Finch:

Peter Ueberroth, baseball’s new commissioner, was contacted by SI in his New York office. He was asked if he had heard anything about the Mets’ new phenomenon.No, he had not. He had heard some rumors about the Mets’ camp this spring, but nothing specific.

Did the name Hayden (Sidd) Finch mean anything to him?

Nope.

The commissioner was told that the Mets had a kid who could throw the ball over 150 mph. Unhittable.

Ueberroth took a minute before he asked, “Roll that by me again?”

Opening Day Highlight Reel

davidbloom — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:12:17 +0000

Let’s just forget that the Red Sox and A’s game in Japan, and the Braves and the Nats game in Natiion’s Capital never happened. Monday is what we will consider the true opening day as we had the full slate of games throughout major league baseball.

The day started off with the Yankees season opener in the Bronx rained out. The Yankees begin play in their new cathedral next season. It must of been a real downer for the fans who held the final opening day tickets in Yankee Stadium. Instead, we were treated to the Tigers take on the Royals on ESPN. The game started out with the Tigers taking the early lead, but the Royals came back and the game went into extra innings with the Tigers bullpen giving way to the Royals first win.

If the name Jamie Shields is not a household name yet, may be some day it will be. As Shields, in his first opening day start, pitched the Rays to an opening day win in Baltimore.

The opening day for the Reds and the Brewers were delayed by rain. The Reds honored long time announcer Joe Nuxhall by wearing #41 on the back of all their jerseys.

It did not take that long for Eric Gagne to have his role as closer with the Brewers to be on the line. David Riske had to nail down the save in extra innings over the Cubs, as Gagne gave up 3 runs in ninth. The Cubs offense was anemic, except for Japan import Fukodome who had three RBIs on the day. Cubs got a nice outing by Zambrano who ended up having to leave with an arm cramp.

Brandon Webb of the D-Backs notched an opening day win over the Reds. Jeff Salazar launched the pinch hit home run to add some extra insurance, and Lyons surprisingly had an easy ninth collecting the save on 11 picthes.

Baseball’s 100 names you need to know!

davidbloom — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 12:10:30 +0000

In 2007, USA Today Sports Weekly said the top 10 of the 100 names You need to know were:

Daisuke Matsuzaka, RHP, Red Sox [ Gyro Ball]
Matt Garza, RHP, Twins [ Traded to Rays]
Jeremy Sowers, LHP, Indians [ 6.00 ERA]
Stephen Drew, SS, Diamondbacks [ Nice Player]
Chris Young, OF, Diamondbacks [ Nice Rookie Year]
Kevin Kouzmanoff, 3B, Padres [ Dissapointing 1st Half]
Delmon Young, OF, Devil Rays [ Traded to Twins]
Jonathan Sanchez, LHP, Giants [ Non-factor]
Kory Casto, OF, Nationals [ Sent To Minors]
Troy Tulowitzki, SS, Rockies [ Rookie of Year]

The 2008 100 names You need to know

The Brien Taylor Award Winner 2008?

davidbloom — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:07:46 +0000

The fellows In Queens got me thinking, even though we seem to focus on those prized prospects. What about the real busts over time in prospecting. The Brien Taylors‘ of the baseball world:

The Yankees were without the official services of George Steinbrenner who was serving a suspension at the time but through the media, Steinbrenner said that if the Yankees let Taylor get away, they should be “shot.” Taylor was signed for $1.55 million the day before his classes were set to begin. Further delay would have meant the deal could not be signed until after the school year ended, which coincided with the following year’s draft.

While quickly ascending up the minor league ranks in 1993, Taylor suffered a torn labrum while defending his brother in a fistfight. Unfortunately, Taylor was never the same pitcher again. He was at Double-A before the incident but spent the bulk of the remainder of his professional baseball career struggling at Single-A.

Looking over the Baseball America All-Time Top 100 prospects :

1992 #3: Roger Salkeld, rhp, Mariners [about]
1993 #9: Allen Watson, lhp, Cardinals [about]
1994 #19 : Jeff Granger, lhp, Royals [about]
1995 #2: Ruben Rivera, of, Yankees [about]
1996 #5 : Alan Benes, rhp, Cardinals
1997 #4 : Matt White, rhp, Devil Rays
1998 #13: Chad Hermansen, 2b, Pirates
1999 #7: Ryan Anderson, lhp, Mariners
2000 #6: Ruben Mateo, of, Rangers
2001 #6: Sean Burroughs, 3b, Padres
2002 #9: Drew Henson, 3b, Yankees
2003 #5: Jesse Foppert, rhp, Giants
2004 #8 : Greg Miller lhp, Dodgers
2005 #21 : Brian Dopirak, 1b, Cubs

Who is your pick to be the bust prospect of 2008?

Lou Piniella and managing Crawford and Pie

davidbloom — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 03:58:40 +0000

The year was 2003. Lou Piniella was starting his job as the skipper of the Tampa Bay “Devil” Rays. He took two youngsters in Carl Crawford and Rocco Baldelli and made them starters on his club. The thing about Rocco and Carl is that they never really had the On Base Skills, but never the less, he made them the 1-2 punch in his lineup that year. As the story goes, Rocco got off to a magnificent start and was being compared unfairly to a Joe DiMaggio. Whereas, Carl started decently but saw his batting average go down sharply and the talk was do we send the young kid back to Durham. Instead, Lou made the wise move of dropping him in the order to take the pressure off of him. I guess the rest is history, as Carl worked his bat back into a groove and over the past few years has become one of the most dynamic players in the game. This move worked out for Lou, but it doesn’t always with young players as their psyche usually is quite delicate.

This season Piniella is tasked again with another young outfielder in Felix Pie. This season Lou will make use of Pie the way he did with Crawford and take the pressure off him and dropping him in the batting order. As, last year he started him at lead off and it was a bust.

Now, like i implied, Carl Crawford was rushed through the minor leagues. They were quite fortunate how it worked out. I always thought Pie reminded me of Crawford, as I had saw Crawford play in the minors for the Durham Bulls. I decided to compare their minor league careers, and see if this might give an indication of what we might expect with Pie.

Rookie Ball
Pie 17: .321/.385/.569 2002
Crawford 17 .319/.350/.404 1999

A Ball
Pie 18 .285/.346/.388 2003
Crawford 18 .301/.342/.410 2000

AAA
Pie 2006 21 .283/.341/.451 2006
Crawford 20 .297/.335/.456 2002

Minors Summary
Crawford .295 /.334 /.400
Pie .300/.355/.469

Despite the bad year last season for Pie with Cubs last year, the prediction systems seem to have a favorable outlook for him.

Chone 08
PA,Run,H,Dbl,Tpl,HR,RBI,SB, BB,SO,BA,OBP

536,65,135,27,7,13,65,22, 38,107, 0.272,0.326 Pie

603,97,171,31,9,14,70,45, 34,87,0.303,0.347 Crawford

Pecota

429,62R,113H, 25,4,14,53,13,31,84K,0.291,0.344 Pie

I am not sure what to think. I Know Pie was a joke last year, but I think with the experience under his belt he might surprise. His glove is what they need out of him, and anything after that is gravy!