The San Francisco Giants have preemptively taken one of the best free agent bats off of this winter's market, reportedly signing right fielder Hunter Pence to a five year, $90 million extension. Pence is having one of the best years of his career in 2013, hitting .282/.339/.484 with a career-high 27 homers. The 30-year old […]

Here we are, folks: the final day of the 2013 regular season. We've seen a lot of wild and crazy things this year, but MLB might have one trick left up their sleeve in the AL Wild Card race, where the Indians are assured of at least a one game playoff and the Rays and […]

Two games left, and the AL Wild Card race is still a mess. The Rays and Indians are currently on top with identical 90-70 records, while the Rangers are a game back at 89-71. So we could conceivably have this all wrapped up tomorrow…or we could go into Sunday with a three-way tie and chaos […]

Some of the drama in the National League is over – the St Louis Cardinals are NL Central champions for the first time since 2009. The division title is actually only the second for the Cardinals since they won three in a row from 2004-06, but the club was the NL's lone Wild Card in […]

The Jeffrey Loria path of rage marches on in Miami, as the Marlins owner has fired long-time president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest. The club has also let go of special assistant Jim Fleming. The Marlins are 59-100 in 2013, but you can't fault Beinfest for that given the dysfunctional atmosphere perpetrated by Loria in […]

This week, TOC will be looking at five players who recently announced their retirements from the game and their potential Hall of Fame cases. Today, we'll close with a player who hasn't officially retired but looks done – Manny Ramirez. None of the other players we've profiled this week carries the stigma of steroids quite […]

Last Sunday the Yankees honored Mariano Rivera — by any measure the greatest closer in baseball history — with a majestic ceremony befitting a player who showed class both on and off the field. Chants echoed throughout the Stadium. Fans said goodbye and gave Mo several standing ovations. Perhaps Thursday night’s final home appearance for […]

Bud Selig says this time he's really going to do it. He's going to retire as baseball's commissioner in January 2015. Selig has mentioned retirement before, most recently in 2012, only to then sign a contract extension. Of course, he could change his mind again or baseball's owners could persuade him to stick around. But […]

Brian Wilson is in the news…again. The current Dodgers reliever, who made his bacon in San Francisco as part of their two World Series winning teams, confronted Giants CEO Larry Baer after the Dodgers' 3-2 loss on Thursday night about his World Series ring from last year. According to a report from CSN Bay Area, […]

We moved from four games remaining to three for the remaining three teams fighting for the AL Wild Card spots, and the status quo was maintained. All three teams won, so nothing changed aside from the Rays and Indians chopping one off of their magic number. Tampa Bay's magic number is down to two, while […]

This week, TOC will be looking at five players who recently announced their retirements from the game and their potential Hall of Fame cases. Today, things get a lot more complicated, as we look at Vladimir Guerrero. In his prime, Vladimir Guerrero was one of the most electric players to watch in baseball. He could […]