Tag Archives: mlb

The Padres Making Huge Moves for 2021 Season

This MLB offseason has been far from a ‘Hot Stove’ as teams took a financial beating from the COVID-19 shortened season. Teams have been looking to cut payroll, but many haven’t found any takers.

The Padres made two huge moves this week when they traded for Rays starting pitcher Blake Snell and then pulled the trigger on a trade for Cubs starting pitcher Yu Darvish. They managed to complete both trades without giving up their best pitching prospect, starter MacKenzie Gore.

The Rays will receive a nice load of prospects in return for Snell. The package is headlined by pitcher Luis Patino, with catcher Blake Hunt, pitcher Cole Wilcox and the former highly-touted prospect (and now possible reclamation project) catcher Francisco Mejia rounding out the deal. Patino is a steep price, but the Padres still have some great pitching prospects in their farm system.

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20 Baseball Hall of Famers Who Ended Their Careers On Weird Teams

Sports teams are nothing without their players. You tend to associate sports teams with an iconic player or two for long periods of time, especially back when players would spend all or most of their careers with one team.

That time is long gone, but there will always be guys like Derek Jeter, who spent his entire playing career with the New York Yankees and would just look weird in another team’s uniform.

After a baseball player’s skills start to decline, it’s easy to lose track of them in the day-to-day business of baseball. There are hundreds of players who unceremoniously retire every year because they didn’t receive an offer from a team…but if a player has a long track record of being very good, those players will probably get a few extra contracts at the tail end of their careers. Hall of Fame-level players will almost always get that treatment if they are still healthy enough to suit up.

Here are twenty Baseball Hall of Famers that ended their careers on weird teams.

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6 Most Tragic Career-Ending Injuries in Sports

Every time an athlete laces their shoes, they know that the risk of injury is always right around the corner. There have been many young talents that were never the same after just one ill-timed twist of the knee or pop in their shoulder.

Jay Williams – Williams was a standout point guard at Duke and was the second player taken in the 2002 NBA Draft. He was all set to be the centerpiece in what many assumed could be the start of a new dynasty for the Chicago Bulls. He had an average rookie season, but did show promising signs that he could turn into a star. After his rookie season, Williams wrecked his Yamaha R6 motorcycle into a streetlight. He suffered major injuries including never damage in his leg, fractured pelvis and a completely dislocated knee. It was a single vehicle crash and didn’t need to consult a personal injury lawyer, but the Bulls were able to collect on an insurance policy to cover Williams’ contract. Williams did attempt a basketball comeback in 2006, but he was just a shell of himself. He has stayed in the limelight as a college basketball analyst for ESPN.

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Harold Baines Just Ruined the Baseball Hall of Fame

The Baseball Hall of Fame Today’s Era Committee announced they voted Relief Pitcher Lee Smith and Outfielder/DH Harold Baines into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Smith was slowly gaining votes, but only received 34% of the votes in his fifteenth and final year on the ballot.

Baines was only on the regular Hall of Fame ballot just a few seasons as he fell under the 5% threshold on his fourth year and only had a max 6.1% of voters in 2010.

I can understand Lee Smith’s legitimacy as a Hall of Fame candidate. He was a reliever that often pitched multiples innings to get saves. The Hall of Fame was late to the game when it came to voting in relievers. He was a member of some good teams and he was a large part in maintaining those wins. He held the title of Most Career Saves for thirteen years, until Trevor Hoffman surpassed him in 2006. Continue reading →

Sweetbob’s Fantasy Baseball F/M/K – July 29th

This is the 17th week of the fantasy baseball season.

The trade deadline is just days from now. The trade deadline in your league is a week or two away. If you’re out of the race in a dynasty league, it’s time to start playing for next year. Shoot for some can’t miss prospects if you have to move a stud.

Which hot hitters are we suggesting to pick up this week?

We look at some players who started out hot, some who are struggling and maybe a couple young guys who should be targeted in your free agent pool on July 29th, 2018.

I’ll be posting a weekly fantasy baseball F/M/K every Sunday this baseball season…so keep coming back!

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The 10 Worst Contracts in Sports Right Now

When a team has ample salary cap space, general managers tend to make poor decisions.

Most of the worst contracts are in the NBA and Major League Baseball. It’s really hard to have a bad contract in the NFL since nearly every deal is basically a series of one-year deals with team options. Bad contracts still happen in the league when guaranteed money gets out of control.

Many of the worst NBA contracts right now happened when the salary cap ballooned before the 2016-17 season. Many of those deals have teams already looking for relief by trading draft picks to teams just to take on a bad contract.

Here are the the ten worst contracts in sports.

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Sweetbob’s Fantasy Baseball F/M/K – July 22nd

We are now officially in the second-half of 2018 fantasy baseball season.

I hope you’re still in playoff contention in your league(s) this season. The trade deadline is fast approaching real-life MLB and in your fantasy leagues. If you’re out of the race in a dynasty league, it could be time to dump a couple starters for some young studs.

Which hot pitchers are we suggesting to pick up this week?

We look at some players who started out hot, some who are struggling and maybe a couple young guys who should be targeted in your free agent pool on July 22nd, 2018.

I’ll be posting a weekly fantasy baseball F/M/K every Sunday this baseball season…so keep coming back!

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Sweetbob’s Fantasy Baseball F/M/K – July 8th

We are now fourteen weeks into the 2018 fantasy baseball season.

We are almost at the All-Star Break and the trade deadline is right around the corner. Teams will be going through some changes and you may need to make a few tough decisions. Roles will change and a reliable fantasy player could find less at-bats.

Which hot pitchers are we suggesting to pick up this week?

We look at some players who started out hot, some who are struggling and maybe a couple young guys who should be targeted in your free agent pool on July 8th, 2018.

I’ll be posting a weekly fantasy baseball F/M/K every Sunday this baseball season…so keep coming back!

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America’s White Boy’s 2018 MLB Un-All-Star Team

The 2018 MLB All-Star Game is about a week away and it has become a yearly tradition that we look at all the former MLB All-Stars that are having bad years.

The season is a little more than half over and it’s not too late for some of these players to bounce back and turn their seasons around. You can look at our Un-All-Star team article last year, a few bounced back and finished strong.

I’m a very active fantasy baseball owner, it didn’t take me long to make this list. I always keep an eye on fantasy busts and many on this list were selected in fantasy baseball drafts in March.

The old benchmark for an All-Star was thrown out with the bathwater when Bud Selig decided each team must have at least one representative in the All-Star Game.

Here is the America’s White Boy‘s 2018 MLB Un-All-Star team.

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Sweetbob’s Fantasy Baseball F/M/K – July 1st

We are now thirteen weeks into the 2018 fantasy baseball season.

There are some elite bats on the disabled list. Kris Bryant, Carlos Correa, Josh Donaldson and A.J. Pollock still occupy many fantasy owners’ DL spot. It could be time to make a few tough decisions on long-term DL guys.

Which hot hitters are we suggesting to pick up this week?

We look at some players who started out hot, some who are struggling and maybe a couple young guys who should be targeted in your free agent pool on July 1st, 2018.

I’ll be posting a weekly fantasy baseball F/M/K every Sunday this baseball season…so keep coming back!

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Review: ‘The Presidents and the Pastime’

The political landscape is as divisive as ever. There are still a few things that we can nearly all agree on, baseball is the quintessential American sport, and every U.S. President since the Civil War has had a close association with the sport.

There have been some presidents with a tight bond to the game like both Bush presidents and some are more known for their love of another sport (Gerald Ford with football), but still have interesting baseball stories about them.

‘The Presidents and the Pastime: The History of Baseball & the White House’ by Curt Smith chronologically goes through each presidency from the infancy of the game thru Teddy Roosevelt and then longer stories about each president all the way to the current president, Donald J. Trump.

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Sweetbob’s Fantasy Baseball F/M/K – June 24th

We are now twelve weeks into the 2018 fantasy baseball season.

It was a rough week for the disabled list. Some elite fantasy players are due to spend a few weeks nursing injuries. On the flip side, there are some guys like Kevin Kiermaier who are getting back after healing injuries.

Which hot hitters are we suggesting to pick up this week?

We look at some players who started out hot, some who are struggling and maybe a couple young guys who should be targeted in your free agent pool on June 24th, 2018.

I’ll be posting a weekly fantasy baseball F/M/K every Sunday this baseball season…so keep coming back!

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