Free Lance

In case you missed it, I filled in for the wonderful Robin Valettuto on 1160 AM KVCE for her show “Inside the Game” and had a great time. You can listen to that show here and be sure to check her show our every Saturday from 2-3 PM CST for some great sports talk. We talked some basketball, baseball, and had Lee Lowenfish talk to us about the movie 42 and…

I attended my first baseball game of the season last night and I was pleasantly surprised by the major league debut of Nick Tepesch of the Texas Rangers. When the Rangers trot out a rookie pitcher, especially one making his major league debut in the Ballpark in Arlington, it generally doesn’t go so well. The combination of nerves, opposing major league hitters, and a ballpark that seemed determined to send…

Every team in baseball has played their first series of the season and it’s pointless to look too far into the wins, losses, and just general statistics this early into the season but there is one player that has gotten my attention. If Paul Bunyan were to have a love child with a woman then that offspring would have to be Chris Davis. This man is so strong that he…

It’s not often that you have the chance in life to not only become part of something greater than yourself but also become involved with a cause that you believe could change lives and motivate others to be more than they are. When that opportunity presents itself you must ask, “Am I ready for this?” and “Is this something that I can not only stay committed to for the rest…

Many of us are already well aware that one of the worst things a hitter can do is ground into a double play, or triple play for that matter but as cool as they are they are also incredibly rare. There are some players that are incredibly inept at avoiding the double play while others are actually pretty damn good at it. Generally, when evaluating whether a player is double-play…

Home runs can be a thing of beauty, no wait – home runs ARE a thing of beauty. When it comes to how we recognize those with a genuine power stroke that magical line we draw where you’re considered to have one or not is typically 30 home runs. If you hit more than that then you’re considered a slugger but if you hit less than that then you’re not…

Making predictions about teams and players before each new baseball season begins can be an incredibly fun way to get to know each team, the players, and many other little things that may otherwise go unnoticed to those who aren’t exploring every possible caveat of an organization that they can to try to make that bold, yet as close to perfect as possible, prediction. Of course everyone who makes predictions…

When you think of BABIP, or batting average on balls in play, for players the first thing that typically comes to mind is luck. An incredibly high BABIP would indicate that the hitter in question was quite lucky that more balls than average found a hole somewhere, just as an incredibly low BABIP would indicate that those balls were likely being hit right at guys in the field very consistently….

The Minnesota Twins have had a very underwhelming winter, at least according to their fans, but the moves they have made can’t possibly be all that bad, right? The number one priority for the team this winter was to completely remake a starting rotation that was last in the American League with a 5.40 ERA and also last in total innings pitched with just 880. Another category that they were…