Mark Buehrle is most famous for one thing in his career: his perfect game. Yes, on July 23, 2009 he tossed a perfect game to the Tampa Bay Rays. You also might know him from this Foolish Baseball video. Yes, he was baseball's speed runner. However, I believe that Buehrle deserves more than just a viral Youtube video. He deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame. Buehrle was drafted in the 38th round of the 1998 draft out of Jefferson College. He spent one and a half years in the minors before getting called up in 2000. He started out as a reliever in 2000 and then transitioned into a starter in 2001. That's a common tactic used by the White Sox. I'll cover that in a later article. The first two re
On a year to year basis, there are always teams that over preform. That’s just how baseball is – the worst team in baseball will beat the best team in baseball 35% of the time. That’s why we have 162 games, but that’s not the point of this article. How do you measure an over preforming team? You can always look at the transactions in the offseason, the schedule, and all of that, but what about comparing this season to the past 3 seasons to determine if the team is on par with the last 3 years – or if they are underperforming or over performing. Enter the Over Performing Measure (OPM). The OPM tells you if a team is obviously over performing with a simple formula. Let’s take the 2019 Orioles,
Baseball News Now Plus was announced back in January of last year, and it took me forever to complete it. At first I was doing the entries by hand and then I found a few shortcuts, but nevertheless I can’t justify all of that work for little gain/reward. The BNN+ as you know it now will move to the “Archives” section starting January 1, 2021. The archives section will also feature my podcast (unless I do an episode between now and then), Baseball News Now Today, and some other products that I have done over the past year. Does this mean that it’s the end of BNN Spreadsheets? Probably not. I don’t want to commit to something that I can’t do so I will be honest: I might not do another spreadsh
It's that time of year again. The World Series is here! These are my predictions for what should be an exciting world series. Note: We are going to break this up into several parts. The first is going to be scouting reports for each team, then we'll go into the keys to the game for each team. To sum it up, I'm going to give my projections for the series. SCOUTING REPORTS Dodgers: They were the most dominant team in baseball, despite one of their best players (Cody Bellinger) having a bad season. Despite this, Mookie Betts had an amazing season. Will Smith had a great season behind the plate and hitting the ball, totalling a .980 OPS. Corey Seager hit really well from the SS spot. Clayton Ker
It may have came as a surprise to many when Rick Hahn announced that Rick Renteria and the White Sox had "mutually" agreed to part ways. It certainly came as a surprise to me, as a White Sox fan, who thought that the Sox wouldn’t have the balls to fire him. However, looking back it shouldn't have come as a surprise. Here are 3 moments (and one game) that led to Rick Renteria getting fired. #4 Gio Gonzalez Blunder Many times in a manager's career will they be faced with a difficult decision to make in a key moment: trust an inconsistent, overpaid starter in a key situation in the 9th inning against a powerful lineup, or go to the best closer in the American League to preserve the game. Unfort
The White Sox have fired their manager, Rick Renteria. The White Sox made the playoffs for the first time since 2008 this year in an expanded playoff field. They finished with a record of 35-25. This move comes after a few questionable calls by Renteria, which I will cover in a later article. Renteria has a serious bid at being the AL Manager of the year, which is ironic since he just got fired. This will likely open a coach carousel which could carry on all offseason. We will have to see who the White Sox hire in place of Renteria, and where Renteria will end up.
As of late, it seems as if baseball is getting longer and longer. In fact, this past season had the longest games ever in baseball history. In fact, I covered length of game in this article on January 6, 2020. If you were to read that article, you would discover that games in the 1950's were A LOT faster than they are today. If the 1950's were faster than today, what would the 1910's be like? The date was September 28, 1919. It was a game between two teams out of contention: the New York Giants (the baseball team) and the Philadelphia Phillies. The Giants were 86-53 up to that point (they finished 2nd in the National League) and the Phillies were 47-89. It was the first game of a doublehead
Since I didn't do overall predictions, I'll do it by rounds and do in depth scouting reports for the conference series. So without a further introduction, let's predict the Divisional Series! American League: (1) Rays vs (5) Yankees: Rays This one is going to be a close one. Both teams are very good, and players from both teams are on fire. Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge are back, and Brandon Lowe and Blake Snell are on fire. I'm going to give the nod to the Rays, solely because of their superb bullpen. However, it could very well flip and I think that this series is going to be decided in 5. (2) Athletics vs (6) Astros: Athletics The Twins are terrible in the postseason, so that win does