Daily Archives: July 30, 2012

In The Year of The Rookie: Who’s For Real? Comparing MLB Prospects and Suspects in Fantasy Baseball

Monday July 30th, 2012

Peter Stein:  2012 truly has been the year of the rookie.

With all of this new talent and many surprises, it most likely means that there is a lot of parity amongst fantasy leagues. This is great. But the question you must ask moving forward: which players can actually sustain this level of play? Remember that last year, the entire buzz was around Eric Hosmer, whose sophomore campaign (.232/9/42) indicates that he might actually need some time in AAA.  Don’t forget about Jason Heyward’s disappointing encore after his breakout rookie campaign too. And didn’t we all write of Anthony Rizzo after he was completely over matched by major league pitching in 2011?

Amazingly, Yoenis Cespedes has produced a stat line of .305/14/54 and 8 SB through 69 games played and has no shot of winning rookie of the year. That honor will belong to Mike Trout – .350/16/49 and 31 SB in 79 total games. A plethora of other rookies are mashing too, including Rizzo (.941 OPS), Todd Frazier (.857 OPS), Will Middlebrooks (.848 OPS), and Matt Carpenter (.836 OPS). Not included in this list is Bryce Harper, who is already a dynamic fantasy option at the age of nineteen. Read the rest of this entry

A Book Excerpt from ‘The Fastest 30 Ball Games’ The Great American Ball Park

Monday, July.30/2012

To Purchase this Book please click here

Original Print of the book was June 2011
Book Excerpt writeup By Douglas ‘Chuck’ Booth

“The Book Excerpt for The Great American Ball Park.  As it turned out I would have been disqualified for a dangerous driving ticket had I kept up with this streak attempt anyway.  During this game it was crazy because a rain delay in my favor saved the day.  It was also when I realized doing interviews might actually impede a streak.”

Game#4 Day#3
The Great American Ball Park
Cincinnati, OH
July.04/2008

It felt wrong from the time I made it to the Philadelphia Airport. It was a tough shuttle ride from the parking lot to arrive at a full security checkpoint-even at an early time of a 5:45 AM flight. I had flown out of PHL before-just never the dreaded ‘F’ gate. The fact you have to wait in yet another line for a shuttle to the gate is brutal. This caused me even more panic. I had to catch that flight to Indianapolis on time to make it to Cincinnati on time. One of the things I learned when booking all of these flights was that Cincy’s Int’l Airport (CVG) completely rips you off for fares to and from its fine city. I was at an all time frustration when I became the last person on the shuttle—and virtually sprinted to the jet-way to make it 2 seconds before they closed the security door for my US Airways Flight from Philly. Read the rest of this entry