ESPN's Baseball Articles

I just came across this series of baseball articles from ESPN. Called Hot Stove Heaters this series of twenty-five articles covers a variety of general subjects in a very specific way.

For instance, under the January 30th article named Innovation, Jayson Stark takes a look at the flourishing of the iPod in Major League clubhouses in just the past twelve months.

I disagree with Phil Rogers' conjecture that the Angels may have the best outfield in 2007. The triumvirate of Garrett Anderson, Gary Matthews Jr. and Vladimir Guerrero may well have a very solid offensive season but two-thirds of this outfield are huge question marks. Anderson is currently on the downward slope of his career as the 34 year-old has posted OPS-plusses of 137, 105, 99 and 98 the past four season. Don't expect him to jump back up to a 130 OPS+ ever again. Oddly, later in the article Rogers notes that Johnny Damon and Hideki Matsui are on the downsides of their careers -- and Anderson isn't?

Gary Jr. of course had his breakout year in '06 but it was at the age of 31 and his OPS+ was still just 119. Again, one can't expect that a player with his career profile is going to far exceed that OPS again.

John Shea's article on the top teams is refreshing in that he doesn't just pick teams that did well last year to do well in 2007. Shea puts the Dodgers on top with the Phillies, Cubs, Rangers, Indians and Marlins as the other five teams to watch for goods things to happen this summer.