0 comments by Joe Lucia on 1/15/2013
The Washington Nationals have signed free agent reliever Rafael Soriano to a two-year, $28 million deal with a vesting option for a third season, reports
0 comments by Joe Lucia
We're a long way from the days of the Rodriguez/Nomar/Jeter/Tejada days at shorstop, where offense was the primary focus of the position and defense took a bit of a back seat. In 2013, defense is becoming the main factor teams look for when choosing a shortstop, and as a result, the overall state of the […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia
Buried in this post by Nick Piecoro is a paragraph about the Arizona Diamondbacks having preliminary discussions with second baseman Aaron Hill about a contract extension. Hill, who we ranked as the sixth best second baseman in baseball earlier this morning, will turn 31 in March and is making $5.5 million this year, the second […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia
The second base position is…interesting. You have the elite tier of players, but all aside from one had a down year in 2012. So really, it's just a matter of sorting out the mess of players in the second tier of guys, and trying to decipher the best rankings for the top tier of players…aside […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia
After stepping into the collective consciousness of America during the 2011 season with the Brewers, outfielder Nyjer Morgan struggled and lost playing time with Milwaukee in 2012 before getting assigned to AAA after the season, an assignment he'd decline in order to test the free agent waters. Well, life just got a little worse for […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia on 1/14/2013
2012 was *not* a good year for first basemen across the league. Only three players topped four wins, and one was a part-time DH (Edwin Encarnacion). In 2011, seven players topped four wins, including three that were over 6.5. Bad years from Adrian Gonzalez and Albert Pujols essentially deep sixed the position as a whole, […]
0 comments by Randy Holt
He's only 25, but Buster Posey has accomplished a great deal in his MLB career. His list of achievements includes being named the NL Rookie of the Year in 2010, winning an MVP award in 2012, and a couple of World Series titles with the San Francisco Giants. Not bad. The fact that Posey has […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia
For years, the state of catching in the major leagues hasn't been too great. But now, we're in a new era. The old guard has retired for the mostpart. Say goodbye to the guys formerly in the top tier like Ivan Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, Jason Varitek, Javy Lopez and Jason Kendall. After a couple of […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia
We're reaching the end of the winter, and getting warmed up for the season. This week at TOC, we're going to count down the top ten players at each position across the league. Here's the schedule for this week. Monday: Catcher, First Base Tuesday: Second Base, Shortstop, Third Base Wednesday: Left Field, Center Field, Right […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia on 1/13/2013
As we approach Spring Training and the World Baseball Classic, rosters for the participating countries are starting to trickle out. A lot of big name players have confirmed that they'll be playing in the Classic, and by the same token, there are several substantial players that won't be participating this year. With the provisional rosters […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia on 1/12/2013
As we begin the final march towards Spring Training, there are still some teams that have plenty of holes to fill. And honestly, there are still some top free agents on the market, with Scott Boras' trio of Michael Bourn, Kyle Lohse, and Rafael Soriano as the prime players left on the market. However, when […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia on 1/11/2013
By now, the news is old: last night, Justin Upton declined a trade that would have send the Diamondbacks superstar outfielder to the Mariners in exchange for a package of four players (Taijuan Walker, Nick Franklin, Charlie Furbush, Stephen Pryor). Seattle is one of four teams on Upton's
0 comments by Joe Lucia
Let's put a nice little bow on the Hall of Fame mess that transpired on Wednesday. No one was voted in by the writers, and Roger Clemens reacted like a teenage girl. There's been so much said by other writers (and much more eloquently than I could say it, too) about this fiasco, and it's […]
0 comments by Joe Lucia on 1/10/2013
One day after no one was elected to the Hall of Fame under numerous suspicions about steroid users, the MLB and MLBPA took another major step towards eradicating performance enhancing drugs in the game.
0 comments by Joe Lucia
Sammy Sosa has joined Pinterest (and Twitter, as well). Looking at some of the pictures that he has pinned gives you a bizarre idea into what the former Cubs legend has been up to since retiring. Here's Sammy Sosa in a Mr Rogers-esque sweater. Here's Sammy Sosa, businessman, in a suit that looks like it […]
