Tag: baseball

  • Baseball’s Injury Problem

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week, Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic wrote an article examining the recent spate of injuries in Major League Baseball. For those interested in the sport, the article is well worth the read. For the unfamiliar, baseball played only about 1/3 of the number of games as usual last year due to Covid-19. This year,…

  • Expansion Teams in Baseball

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    Brendan Barry
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    I was not planning on posting this today, because I was—am?—still working on it. But there was some baseball news last night that prompted me to export what I had to try and get this live. For a little while now I’ve been wondering why a number of baseball stars, albeit in their later years,…

  • Trading Andrew Benintendi

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday, one year to the day the Boston Red Sox traded Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Red Sox made another big trade, sending Andrew Benintendi, their starting left fielder, to the Kansas City Royals as part of another three-team trade—last year’s three-team part fell apart, but initially involved Boston receiving a quality…

  • Shipping Out of Boston

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    Brendan Barry
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    Monday was the trade deadline for this year’s attempt at a baseball season. The Red Sox actively sold off parts of their roster. You may remember that just two years ago, the Red Sox won the World Series, the sport’s national championship. One would imagine that two years later, most of that championship calibre roster…

  • When Is an Opener Game in Baseball Really Just a Bullpen Game?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Whenever someone not named Eovaldi or Perez starts a Red Sox game in 2020, that’s when. We all know the Red Sox are the worst team in the American League. They have only two starters, maybe sometimes a third. And then the last two days of the regular five-day rotation cycle, manager Ron Roenicke throws…

  • Red Sox Starting Rotation: A Dumpster Fire in a Dumpster Fire Year

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    Brendan Barry
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    Baseball for the Red Sox starts on Friday. Am I glad baseball is back? Yes? I love the sport and will be glad that it’s back on the air to give me something to watch. But the But the way it’s being done boggles the mind. Here today I don’t want to get into the…

  • The Mookie Betts Trade

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    Brendan Barry
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    Apologies for the lack of posting the last few months. There are several things going on in my life right now that have prevented me from focusing on Coffee Spoons as much as I would like. I will endeavour to resume posting, but it might not be the daily schedule it had been for at…

  • How Worldly Is the World Series?

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    Brendan Barry
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    The World Series began Tuesday night. But, as many people reading this blog will know, baseball is not exactly a global sport. But is it really? CityLab looked at the origin of Major League Baseball players and it turns out that almost 30% of the players today are from outside the United States. They have…

  • Angry Birds? Bad Birds

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    Brendan Barry
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    Baseball is almost upon us. And oh boy do the Baltimore Orioles look bad. How bad? Historically bad. FiveThirtyEight went so far as to chart the expected WAR, wins above replacement, of each position of all teams since 1973. And the expected Orioles lineup looks remarkably bad. What is nice about this graphic is the…

  • Is Bryce Harper Another Ryan Howard?

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    Brendan Barry
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    No. Definitely not. But, the position of this article by FiveThirtyEight is that the Phillies, the Philadelphia baseball team that just made the largest guaranteed contract in North American sports, may have purchased the rights to somebody who is a few years past his prime. The author tracked the performance of similar baseball players over…