Thomas Wayne shares his AL predictions – what are yours?

No – to the shock of many – I do not have Albert Pujols winning AL MVP. Who do I have??? Read on…

Opening Day is just a few days away – well, technically, it already happened, but if the two worst teams in the league play a game, and no one sees it, did it really happen? Anyway, here are my predictions for award winners in the American League in 2012.
MVP – Miguel Cabrera, Detroit Tigers
He’s finished [...]

Who are the best teams? Who are the worst teams? And just how good or bad are they? Dugout Central writers and readers are again challenged to predict the number of wins in the regular season for each of the thirty MLB teams.

Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro suggested, to writer Bob Brookover, that scouts shouldn’t rely too much on statistics when scouting the minors:
Amaro said statistical analysis should not be a big part of minor-league scouting.
“It’s just too difficult to really project what the numbers will say,” Amaro said. “I lived it myself. I [...]

There is nothing wrong with a fan expressing admiration for Chipper for staying away from PED’s, for playing baseball on a Hall-of-Fame level or for staying with one team his entire career instead of chasing more money from another team. But none of this makes him any more or less admirable as a human being, overall.

The Cubs are giving Bryan LaHair, 29 and a career minor leaguer, his shot as a major league regular in 2012. The first base job is LaHair’s to lose going in to the season. What are reasonable expectations for this minor league journeyman with only 65 major league games under his belt?

Don’t be stupid.

By Cameron Nelson

Tim Wakefield wasn’t the best pitcher of his era nor is he very likely to make the Hall of Fame. But Wakefield is one of the most interesting players of the last 20 years.

Last year, Author Alan Hirsch was kind enough to answer and respond to questions and criticisms of his book, The Beauty of Short Hops: How Chance and Circumstance Confound the Moneyball Approach to Baseball. Alan co-wrote The Beauty of Short Hops with his brother, Sheldon Hirsch.

This is not a replacement for watching and scouting, in addition to looking at the statistics. This is merely a way for fans—who often don’t get to see their team’s minor-league players and the minor-league players everyone is raving about—to eyeball some numbers and get an idea about what their team has in the organization.

I didn’t see anyone “calling” this one, so here it is.
Sorry if that’s not the case.
Arizona Diamondbacks-Stephen Drew.
Not a stranger to trade rumors (remember the much-discussed Clay Buchholz rumors in 2009?), Drew’s name is once again on the radar despite the fact he’ll start the season on the DL. Drew, whose season ended last year [...]

By Bob Owens