MLB

In "Moneyball," Michael Lewis reported that former Oakland Athletics' assistant general manager Paul dePodesta believed that extra on base percentage (generated via walks) was worth three times as much as a similar amount of extra slugging percentage (a function of extra bases). The old wisdom was that the ratio was more like 1.50:1 or 3:2.

As this season warms up, the Blue Jays are slowly succumbing to the heat. That, temperature puns aside, was pretty much how this season was supposed to play out.

Low attendance numbers suggest that everyone and their pessimistic mothers knew that the Jays wouldn't compete (you bunch of know-it-alls).

Roy Halladay is weaving together his masterpieces in the City of Brotherly Love, and  Cito Gaston agreed to run the team only as an acknowledged placeholder. People are taking their cues from the attitude this team gives off.

The 1980s is the only decade in the history of Major League Baseball with three relief pitchers in the Hall of Fame.

The 1980s was the decade that we started seeing prevalence with career relief pitching.

In fact, every relief pitcher in this top 10, except one, started in 0-10 percent of their career games.

That’s almost like today.

There are certainly some important differences in today’s relief pitching and the relief pitching of the 80s. One difference, relief pitchers of the 80s chewed up more innings.

The White Sox are awful.

There are a few other adjectives and nouns to describe the White Sox so far in the 2010 season, but those would be bleeped out.

The Sox have had terrible starting pitching mixed with a streaky offense that can't get on base, but has provided a lot of home runs.

The question marks on the Sox have actually been pretty good, whereas, the thought to be solid guys have been terrible.

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John Maine was supposed to be a big part of the Mets rotation this season. General manager Omar Minaya said as much this offseason as he skipped out on signing any free agent starters and elected to stand pat with what he had. However, after Maine’s second start of the season it was abundantly clear that he might not be the pitcher they thought he was.

In one of the most anticipated roster moves of 2010, the Texas Rangers promoted highly-touted prospect Justin Smoak last Friday. In six games since being called up, the switch-hitting first baseman is 1-for-15 with two runs and one RBI. He does, however, have seven walks.

Despite Smoak’s rough start, fantasy owners should take notice of the 23-year-old’s promotion.

Continuing our 162-game journey, Fantasy Baseball Insiders Tonight got a close look at Nationals’ starter Luis Atilano on Wednesday.

" Who the heck is Luis Atilano," you ask? Let’s find out...

Game No. 19 —Washington Nationals vs. Chicago Cubs

Frank Wren is preaching patience…but is anyone listening?

The Atlanta Braves have missed the playoffs for four consecutive seasons. In his reign at the helm of the Braves, Wren is 0-3 for his efforts.

So, in effect, he’s batting .000 as general manager.

That number looks comparable to the number of wins the Braves have mustered in the past eight days…a bunch of zeroes.

When Chris Iannetta hit the tenth-inning homer off of Jenrry Mejia to seal a 6-5 win for the Rockies and a fourth straight loss for the Mets, Flushing fans were conceding the season all over the Internet.

On April 14.

They split the next four to sit at 4-8 on April 18. They lost the first four series of the year.

Fifteen days later, the Mets are in first place. They just finished their best homestand in 20 years. They swept the Dodgers for the first time since 1995.

Everything gloomy two weeks ago suddenly shines.

In case you missed it, Lou Piniella had a little back-and-forth jabber with a reporter after yesterday’s 3-2 loss to the Washington Nationals.

It’s good to see that Sweet Lou still has a little baseball life left in him. I was beginning to think he had lost all of his passion, kind of like the Cubs’ offense against the Nasty Nats pitching staff.