Just when you thought the Seattle Pilots might settle down and make a sensible selection, they remind everyone that "sensible" appears nowhere in their organizational mission statement. This is already the franchise responsible for one of the biggest moves of the offseason, shipping away the first overall pick and walking away with Vladimir Guerrero. At the time, I described Seattle's strategy as a simple one: Best player available. Every pick....
The Cleveland Spiders are once again proving that consistency is overrated. They finished 80-82, which sounds disappointing until you realize the season unfolded exactly how everyone expected it to. The offense mashed. Runs were scored in bunches. Home runs flew out of ballparks. And every fifth day the pitching staff gathered together to see what new and creative ways they could stress the bullpen. In other words: a very Cleveland season. This...
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Now we officially arrive at the part of the draft where things stop feeling inevitable and start feeling… negotiable. The San Diego Padres have been one of the more aggressive teams in recent memory, making splashy additions like Vinny Castilla and Mike Lieberthal to complement an already interesting core featuring Ismael Valdez and Manny Ramirez. It’s a roster that looks like it was built by someone alternating between long-term planning...
The Oakland Athletics enter this draft in a fascinating spot organizationally: cautiously optimistic, quietly improving, and emotionally recovering from the retirement of Rickey Henderson, which for many fans still feels less like a baseball transaction and more like a national tragedy. You don’t replace Rickey Henderson. You just sort of wander aimlessly for a while and hope something else exciting eventually happens. To Oakland’s credit,...