Blog Archives

The Yankees Should sign Vlad Guerrero

Wednesday June.13, 2012

Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Writer and @chuckbooth3024 on twitter)- The events that happened yesterday with the Blue Jays and Vlad Guerrero are strange and totally warranted for further review.  In my opinion, the Blue Jays dropped the ball on this one. Guerrero lit up the Minor Leagues for a couple of weeks and should have been called up when Edwin Encarnacion was hurt on June.4th.  It was the perfect opportunity to have Vladdy come up and replace EE in the lineup.  It should have prompted a return to first base for Encarnacion when he came back from his injury just 5 days later.

The top average on the team actually belongs to EE, who is hitting .281 currently.  Vlad Guerrero has never hit worst than .290 in the last 15 years.  He tore it up in the minor leagues, and was said to have showed up in decent shape.  The Blue Jays had to know that Vladdy would be upset when he was bypassed on in favor of David Cooper or Yan Gomes.  I give full credit to the agent for Guerrero in this case, he negotiated a verbal contract with Alex Anthopoulos that the slugger could opt at any time and request to be released from his player contract with the club.  In the only thing that makes the Jays look okay on this, they never had to go through with letting Vladdy out of this contract.  Really it is a shame that the two sides could not work out something to have Vlad stay with the club.  It may actually work out better for both sides in the long run.

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MLB Payroll Report: Rating the Value of Each club Per Win

Wednesday, May.16/2012

Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Writer and @chuckbooth3024 on twitter)- Once again the New York Yankees top the charts for payrolls in the Majors, although the other teams are definitely catching up a little.  Now while the below charts tell us a story on value, obviously you are better off being one of the teams that spends more money.  Tampa Bay, Toronto and Baltimore are amongst some of the best valued teams for payroll and wins so far.  This bodes well for the competitive balance in the American League East long-term.  What I am also seeing, is that teams that are on the bottom of the payroll scale are starting to invest money in their teams.  One can only hope that the Houston Astros will start investing in the club once they shift over to the AL West.  Oakland may be still playing ‘Moneyball’ as the top value for each win, however this concept will only carry them so far.  The team still needs to find a long-term home so they can catch up with the moneys spent by the rest of the Major Leagues. Read the rest of this entry

The 2012 Toronto Blue Jays: Need a Big Bat to Contend in the A.L. East

Tuesday May 2nd, 2012

Rob Bland:  Much has been said about the quiet offseason that Toronto Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos underwent.  After the uproar that was caused by the media in the Yu Darvis bidding process, and the Prince Fielder free agency, fans became upset that Anthopoulos was just sitting on his hands.  The fact that Anthopoulos stated numerous times that they would not be major players in free agency seemed to fall on deaf ears.  Anthopoulos has been adamant about building this team with young and athleticism, the latter of which is something that Prince Fielder doesn’t necessarily embody.  That’s no knock against Prince, because he is paid to mash, not steal bases. 

The question is asked, do the Jays need a big bat or another arm to take that final leap into contention in the American League East?  Now, I could answer this a few different ways.  Read the rest of this entry

An Interview with ‘Rogers Center Expert’ and “MLB reports Founder” Jonathan Hacohen

Monday April 16th, 2012

Follow Chuck Booth’s streak all the through to the bitter end.  Schedule is this link:

https://mlbreports.com/gwr-tracker/ or at his official website for all updates!

Chuck Booth (Lead Baseball Writer and- @chuckbooth3024 on twitter)– For once the shoe is on the other foot.  I asked the MLB Reports Founder and ‘Lead Columnist’ Jonathan Hacohen if I could interview him 5 months after he interviewed me.  Jonathan and I came into talking by both talking to the  MLB FanCave guys at the same time on twitter last June.  Jonathan was really interested in My baseball book “The Fastest Thirty Ballgames” and I sent him a copy of it if he agreed to do a review.  Jonathan finished the book and gave one of the most incredible reviews for my book that I have ever seen for any baseball book anywhere.  Somewhere I had given up all of my creative writing energy in the process while writing this said book.  Jonathan followed up with an interview later.  During the World Series, he offered up a chance to do a guest article since I knew a lot about the ballparks in Texas and St. Louis.  Now I am sure it was all part of his master plan: the one guest article turned into a once a week article, before I even realized it myself, I was writing 2 articles a week and craving more!  I messaged Jonathan about a potential run at the record to see all 30 MLB Parks before anyone on this planet.  The reason is the man loves baseball.  He was just as fired up as I was!  From there we have worked together as a team to provide a different kind of article series that has ever been seen by a baseball writer and website.  I am happy to finally meet Jonathan today live in person for the Jays game during this record chase.  Before we write about that, I had a chance to talk the man about baseball life, the MLB Reports and the Rogers Center.  Here is what we discussed… Read the rest of this entry