Fan News

Yes, woeful.

The Chicago Cubs spent $146,859,000 on their 2010 payroll, which works out to an average of $5,439,222 per player and is good for third in all of Major League Baseball. Only the Evil Empires—the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox—shelled out more scratch for their squads.

Only the Bronx Bombers are paying more per victory.

Seriously, Arizona?

I knew the team was bad, but this is a new low. 

Attempting to draw a crowd by constructing 10-foot tall monstrosities that would make Frankenstein look cuddly. 

I get the trying-to-relate-to-kids theme, but how is giving children nightmares going to bring them back to the ballpark?

The mascots look like Sloth from The Goonies , and personally, I don't want to have to bring a Baby Ruth candy bar every time I go see a D-Backs game. 

Brandon Belt has been on the radar of die-hard San Francisco Giants fans since the start of the season when he established himself, at least statistically, as the best hitter in the entire organization.

What's hard to believe is that the guy can sustain his amazing performance because it just is never done much past high school and to a lesser extent college.

The MLB trade deadline is just two weeks away and talks are beginning to heat up around the league.

This year's deadline is sure to be filled with sellers as a lot of teams are looking to free up cap room in an ever-struggling economy. Despite a meager bank account and not many prospects for improvement, the Dodgers view themselves as buyers.

The lack of a solid starting rotation has prompted the Dodgers to reach out to several teams regarding pitching, but the Dodgers seem unwilling to part with core talent.

With five All-Stars and 50-plus wins before the break, the Atlanta Braves look very strong going into the second half of the 2010 season.

They’ve combined their stellar pitching staff with timely hitting (16 wins in their last at-bat before the All-Star Break) and have steered clear of the Phillies and Mets to jump out to a 4-game lead in the NL East.

The season-ending injury to Jake Peavy left the White Sox with a solid-but-not-spectacular starting rotation from top to bottom. Questions linger.

Freddy Garcia has been solid thus far this year, but can he be relied on as the team’s fourth starter? I’m not ready to write off Daniel Hudson this year just yet, but he failed to make it through five innings against the Royals in his only start of the year.

One Great Season

Here's a conversation that I suppose will happen between 60-year-old men about 20 years from now, joined en medias res , of course:

Old Man 1: "No way, Mike is still the best ever."

Old Man 2: "Kobe had just as many titles, but never had a Pippen alongside him."

Following these 18 scoreless innings to open the second half of the 2010 season, the New York Mets might be concerned about the balance of the starting lineup. Things on offense should return back to form soon, but at catcher, the Mets could benefit from a more permanent makeover.

With three catchers on the active roster, Rod Barajas, Henry Blanco, and Josh Thole have all been splitting time. Barajas as played most of the time, and may actually be a liability at this point.

A .250 batting average, 291 home runs, and 964 runs batted in. Not exactly numbers you would associate with a Hall of Fame outfielder.

The reality is, analysis that only covers the superficial level, such as this, is lazy and has cost many players their rightful spot in baseball history.

The first half of the 2010 MLB regular season was like stepping into a 1990's time warp - with usual bottom-feeding teams such as the Cincinatti Reds, Texas Rangers and San Diego Padres leading their respective divisions - but the second half promises to bring a dose of reality back to the normal MLB landscape.  However, it is possible that one of those teams can make a run deep into the playoffs and, if everything goes as planned, should be playing in late October.  Just one of the many reasons why the conclusion of the 2010 MLB regular season guarantees to be one