The first moment the general baseball-watching public knew Miguel Cabrera would be special might have come nearly 20 years ago, in Game 4 of the 2003 National League Division Series. Then a 20-year-old phenom for the Florida Marlins, Cabrera strode to the plate in a clutch situation: tie ballgame, bottom of the eighth inning, two […]
For much of the first decade of the 21st century, the Detroit sports faithful were living the mid-market dream. The Pistons and general manager Joe Dumars assembled a defensive juggernaut with newly minted Hall of Famer Ben Wallace at the center, their grit and tenacity endearing them to the city whose personality they reflected. The […]
Rewind just a few years, and one of the big themes in baseball — in addition to the ever-present concerns about a juiced ball, greedy owners and games taking forever — was a serious lack of parity between the best and worst teams in the game. In 2019, MLB’s most recent full season, a record […]
Think of the Rule 5 draft as a bet Major League Baseball teams make on behalf of their future selves. It’s not a huge bet. Teams select players from other teams who are not on the 40-man rosters but have played at least five years in a minor league system if signed 18 or younger, […]
Second base is one of the most important positions on the baseball diamond, always (quite literally) in the middle of the action. But it doesn’t necessarily get the same attention as other, flashier roles in the sport. In the three decades since Joe Morgan and Rod Carew were inducted in back-to-back years in 1990 and […]