The AL Rest, Part 1

Over at The Crawfish Boxes, I have the first of two pieces going up this week comparing the Astros to a divisional rival who will be challenging them for the AL West title. First up is the Oakland Athletics, led by their strong infield of Matt Chapman and Matt Olson. It also got me remembering back when I interviewed Chad Pinder and Sean Manaea for the Cape Cod League, although that's more of a side tangent.

A Few New Pieces

Over at The Crawfish Boxes, I have a post looking at the Astros' 2019 PECOTA projections.

At Out of Left Field, I wrote about another one of my favorite games of 2018.

What Have the Marlins Gotten Back from All of Their Trades?

ESPN noted that, following the J.T. Realmuto trade, 23 of the Marlins’ top 25 players by WAR have been traded, rather than leaving as a free agent or eventually retiring with the team. It’s a pretty sorry affair after 27 seasons, but I wondered if maybe they had at least gotten back prospects to rebuild the team over the years. This isn’t necessarily to see how the trades looked at the time, just to see the eventual outcomes. So let’s take a quick look at the returns for the 23 players sent away.

The Best Players Without a Retired Number, by Number

Jonah Keri posted something the other day over at CBS Sports about the best players to wear each uniform number. It made me think of an idea I had been kicking around for a while (read: had a filled-out spreadsheet sitting open on my desktop for months), the “Best Players Without a Retired Number, by Number” list, where I basically try and guess the best retired number candidates for each uniform number. This seemed like as good of an excuse as any to see how that experiment would go, so let’s dive right in.