Shohei Otani, a 18-year-old with an upper-90s fastball, made his Nippon Pro Baseball debut this morning for the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters. And yeah, I was up at 5AM to watch it. Otani has already made plenty of news in Japan. After his impressive high school career Shohei announced that he would skip the Nippon League altogether, therefore bypassing the posting system and sign with a Major League organization. The Red Sox, Rangers, Yankees, Dodgers, and [...]

It’s that time of the year again. Seven weeks into the season and we are being asked to vote for the 2013 All-Stars. This week Cincinnati came to town. Now, imagine for a moment, if as you walked into Citi Field you were handed a ballot where you could choose which Reds you would want playing that day. Safe to say, we Mets fans would probably decide that Brandon Phillips, Joey Votto and Jay Bruce [...]

1B/3B COLIN MORAN, NORTH CAROLINA  Player Profile: Position:  3B/1B Height:  6-3 Weight:  215 Bats/Throws:  L-R Birthdate:  Jan. 28, 1992 College:  North Carolina Projected Draft Round:  1 Scouting Grades: Hitting: Present 55 – Future 55 Power: Present 55 – Future 60 Speed: Present 40 – Future 50 Fielding: Present 50 – Future 50 Arm Strength: Present 60 – Future 60 2013 Season Colin Moran had a collegiate slash line of .347/.439/.522 heading into the 2013 season. [...]

It must have been fate that I happened to be in my car at 1:00 pm yesterday. After listening to WFAN’s Mike Francesa, I see the other side to this Valdespin issue – in fact it goes beyond Valdespin. I only was in the car long enough to hear his opening monologue, but you know what? He was dead on. Look, Valdespin is a jerk – he’s an immature bench player who constantly finds himself [...]

I’m going to jump on my own bandwagon here.  Last season while contributing for HardballChat.com, I wrote an article about the second wild card spot which was created for each league. I felt it would benefit the teams who maybe in any other season would be considered out of the hunt but could now focus on playing hard and getting in the playoffs. A year ago today the Mets were 18-13 and tied for the lead in the [...]

Matt Harvey and Zack Wheeler headline a handful of budding young pitchers who hope to one day bring the New York Mets organization back to relevance again. Harvey,  in his first full season, is doing his best to do just that–as exemplified by his near-perfect, nine shutout frames in Tuesday night’s walk-off victory by the Whitestone kid, Mike Baxter–and Wheeler is knocking on the door to crack the big-league rotation soon enough. As both develop, [...]

A member of the SABR once said, “There are 499 ballplayers. And then there’s Willie Mays.” It was way back in the summer of 1973. Camera Day. I was a few months shy of turning 8 years old. My dad nudged me closer to the railing along the third base line so no grown-ups would block my view. Mets players walked around the warning track, stopping every few feet to smile for the cameras. My [...]

MLB.com reports that the Phillies placed Roy Halladay on the 15-day disabled list Monday because of inflammation in his right shoulder. Philadelphia recalled left-hander Joe Savery to temporarily take Halladay’s place on the 25-man roster. A replacement for Halladay’s spot in the starting rotation will be named before Friday’s game in Arizona against the Diamondbacks. Candidates to make the start include Triple-A left-hander Adam Morgan and right-hander Tyler Cloyd. After allowing nine runs in 2 [...]

The concept of fault lines in the media is something we all witness on a daily basis, but rarely recognize. Fault lines are a tool that help shape the perception of ourselves, others and events around us. The ones most are familiar with are culture and gender, but they can also contain factors of age, socioeconomic status and geographical location of the subject. Some of these categories can help us in understanding the enigma that is Jordany [...]

For those of you that missed it, there was a strange play that took place during the Detroit Tigers’ 7-5 win over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday night. Quite frankly, I’ve never seen anything like it before. Here’s what happened along with the accompanying video from MLB.com. During the third inning with the Tigers trailing 4-2 and base runners Prince Fielder on third and Victor Martinez at second, Jhonny Peralta lined a single to [...]