Where Houston and Austin meet
Posted in Breaking News, Good Reads on Nov 17th, 2011
Not up on your Astros news today? Here’s a little help — a lot of good links all in one place! The Orlando Sentinel reports owners have unanimously approved the sale of the Astros to Jim Crane and approved the addition of two more wild card teams, one in each league. One-third of MLB teams [...]
Posted in Good Reads, Gripes and Groans on Nov 3rd, 2011
There is controversy around some Gold Glove selections every year, as was written by the Sweet Spot’s Christina Kahrl. It has become an annual exercise in grousing, especially among sabermetricians. I hardly consider myself that, especially on defensive metrics that are still very much in the works. You need look no farther than Baseball Reference [...]
Posted in Good Reads on Sep 29th, 2011
Two factoids that you may not know that illustrate just how improbable the Tampa Bay Rays’ comeback was last night: – Fangraphs reports that entering the bottom of the eighth inning at Tropicana Field, with the Rays down 7-0, they had approximately a 0.3 percent chance of winning the game. At the same time, they [...]
Posted in Good Reads on Sep 23rd, 2011
I’m staving off massive amounts of excellent analysis here by delaying my forthcoming post debating whether Chris Johnson or Jimmy Paredes should be starting at third base next year. In the meantime, here’s some interesting tidbits around the world of baseball that I had no part in writing: Fangraphs writer Eric Seidman provides an excellent commentary on the repercussions [...]
Posted in Good Reads on Sep 9th, 2011
We haven’t done this in a long time, so for your entertainment, here’s a bunch of great stories around the world of baseball that were not written by me: Here’s something new that apparently everyone knew about except me: SABR’s Baseball Biography Project. SABR is attempting to compile bios on every player from every era [...]
Posted in Good Reads on Aug 24th, 2011
Whilst watching the see-saw battle between the Astros and Rockies last night, I found myself in a (semi) heated exchange with one of my Twitter followers about the fate of Bud Norris in 2011. I publicly wondered if Norris hadn’t taken a step back this season from his solid 2010 campaign. My ardent fan vehemently [...]
Posted in Good Reads, Gripes and Groans on Aug 23rd, 2011
I love lists, and the only thing that supplants my love for lists is my love for the SweetSpot blog. So, I decided to copy its chief, David Schoenfield, and construct a list of reasons to keep watching the Houston Astros. In brutal honesty, even I couldn’t think of 10 reasons to continue following this [...]
Posted in Good Reads on Aug 17th, 2011
As the afternoon finale of this series with the Cubs prepares to begin, you might enjoy reading a great piece by SI’s Steve Rushin on events in 1908 that may have transpired to help the Cubs. In the most entertaining sports piece I’ve read in a long time — maybe ever — he asserts that [...]
Posted in Good Reads, Gripes and Groans on Aug 17th, 2011
He was supposed to be the ace of the staff. Yet today’s birthday boy, Brett Myers, turns 31 and is still far from an ace. A fantastic 2010 season aside, the Astros saddled themselves with a pitcher who they inexplicably thought could lead a staff, despite the fact that he relies purely on breaking balls [...]
Posted in Breaking News, Good Reads on Aug 15th, 2011
Hardball Talk is reporting that approval of the sale of the Astros to proposed owner Jim Crane, which was supposed to be voted on by the owners this week, has been put momentarily on hold. Eric Fisher of Sports Business Journal tweeted that Crane’s business record may “be at question.” Just after Hardball Talk initially [...]
ESPN SweetSpot Network Astros-holic Synonymous