Fan News

Although many refer to baseball's current generation as the "steroid era," far from the only changes in the game can be traced to medically enhanced physiques. Pitcher wins, losses, and saves, batting average, RBI, errors and bunting all seem to be on the way out in favor of adjusted ERA, BABIP, VORP, range factors, and pitch counts, all leading to a newer era in baseball influenced by the work of sabermetrics—trying to measure objectively what leads to wins and losses, challenging the conventional wisdom, and often upending it.

Jerry Manuel has made it abundantly clear that Fernando Martinez was punished enough for the big mistake that he made during Wednesday’s game against the Nationals.

Martinez hit a high pop fly and didn’t run, and surely enough, the ball wasn’t caught, and Martinez was thrown out. The crowd booed as they didn’t appreciate the lack of hustle by the young rookie.

This article originally appeared on Fantasyfootballmaniaxs.com.

Finally, after weeks of waiting, the top prospect in baseball arrives to the majors. 

Matthew Wieters, a switch-hitting elite catching prospect, will be making his major league debut on Friday against Dontrelle Willis and the Detroit Tigers. 

It will be a grand day for baseball, as a new era of young stars is born. He is the first to make some noise.

It is hard to believe, but Jose Canseco didn't tell us the entire story.

On Friday, May 29, 2009, breaking news came that 99.9 percent of Major League umpires have failed tests for numerous types of steroids and HGH.  It is also reported that other chemicals have been found that inflame the medulla oblongata resulting in massive anger issues.

It was just a couple short weeks ago that Milton Bradley was badly bashed for his comment about umps. 

There are some great pitchers in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Of course there are some who arguably don’t even belong there.

I recently finished doing a series on the Top 10 (at each position) Players Not in the Hall of Fame, so I thought it would be appropriate to list the Top 10 at each position who are already in the HOF.

There are different schools of thought on compiling such a list, basically because several of the “Mayflower Boys” have well over 40 wins in a season, sometimes more than once.

The young Cincinnati Reds are a hanging tough at 26-20.

They are currently 1 1/2 games behind the division-leading St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Central.  They also trail the Milwaukee Brewers by a half game.  The Reds are leading the preseason favorites, the Chicago Cubs, by three games.

It’s all but obvious that the Mariners will draft Dustin Ackley in the upcoming amateur draft with the second overall pick. However, the team also holds picks 27 and 33.

Jack Zduriencik has been diligent in acquiring left-handed power hitters, speedy outfielders, and middling starting pitching prospects, so the bottom of the first round could be a field day for the GM.

Ackley has high value because he may be able to play center field, and recently some have begun to project him at second base. Supposedly Zduriencik likes the idea of Ackley at second.

Filed:May 28th, 2009

Click here for the photo gallery of Thursday's game

They're deep. They have a real good pitching staff. They're athletic; even balanced. And they're the best team in the National League.

They're the Dodgers, and they're everything the Cubs were supposed to be this year once, you know, they got more left-handed.

The bats were finally heating up, they had won two games in a row. And, as Bob Brenly said, "they watched the Dodgers do their thing."

The Dodgers "thing" is great ground ball pitching, and small-ball baseball.

The Cubs watched helplessly as former Cub, Juan Pierre, laced a ball up the middle for a single. Then Pierre displayed his incredible speed by taking second (and probably could've taken third) as Soto had trouble transferring the ball from his glove to his hand. Whether Soto gets that ball in his hand or not, Pierre's safe. 

After stealing away game one and the rest of the four game set from the Tampa Bay Rays, the Indians are heading into another four game set. This time, it's against the red-hot New York Yankees.

The Indians are riding a four game winning streak into Progressive Field on Friday night, and look to continue winning against the Yankees.

The Yankees are winners of ten of their last thirteen games. They are looking to continue their good fortune, as they look to move into first place in the AL East.