Fantasy Baseball Bible

My favorite baseball websites are as follows (no particular order):

www.BaseballAmerica.com

Not taking the major leagues into account, baseball is played all over the United States. You can find minor league teams in towns and cities all across the country. Baseball America is a great source for finding out about your favorite major league team’s farm system. They provide comprehensive lists of players, sortable stats and commentary for all minor league teams. They also do a fine job covering college baseball, which is growing rapidly in popularity.

www.RotoWorld.com

Primarily a fantasy sports site, RotoWorld is not just for fantasy geeks. RotoWorld reports sports news in a very timely manner. Because of their superior coverage, they usually get their news items up faster than bigger sites like Yahoo or MSN. Plus, they report or comment on a much greater amount of players on a daily basis. You can look up a great number of professional sports players in their vast database, which gives you vitals as well as career statistics. You can also find quality articles in abundance there.

www.RotoJournal.com

A fantasy sports blog that currently covers baseball almost exclusively, Roto Journal provides quality articles and commentary on topics such as Division Inequality in Baseball and The Wisdom of Bill James.

www.TheBaseballCube.com

The Baseball Cube is a historical almanac providing major league, minor league and college statistics. The major league records go back over 100 years. I have often visited this site when I am trying to find information on minor league players, as they tend to have more info on the minors than any other site I’ve visited. You can also ’sponsor’ your favorite player’s webpage on their site.

www.Sabr.org

The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) was established in 1971. Their desire is to promote the study of baseball, both current and historical. Of primary interest on the site are their studies on everything from The Deadball Era (1901-1919) to Women in Baseball. It’s a fine source for anyone wanting to examine the history of baseball, and how the game has changed through the years.

www.Baseball1.com

This site is a nice archive of various topics, ranging from Sabermetrics to the Negro leagues. It also has a fine database of downloadable stats from baseball’s early era.

www.Baseball-Reference.com

In my opinion, this is the premier website for baseball stat junkies. Here, you will find current standings and boxscores, and past stats going back to 1871.
You’ll also discover a comprehensive list of past players, managers, post-season results and awards.

www.BaseballThinkFactory.org

A general discussion site, with articles on all kinds of topics, including the minor league draft and current baseball events. At any given time, you might find up to 1000 people viewing the site.

By: Scott Campanella

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Caffeinated Content

The Phillies Baseball Club took home the prize of 2008 World Series Baseball Champions and the pitching of Joe Blanton and Jamie Moyer was for me the difference maker of the World Series. Going into the series I thought that the Tampa Bay Rays pitching would be too strong. On paper most felt that the Rays would win the match ups of Matt Garza vs. Jamie Moyer and Andy Sonnanstine vs. Joe Blanton, with Kazmir and Shields winning a game each, but it didn’t pan out that way.

Both Moyer and Blanton are not renowned for throwing strikeouts yet combined they managed to strike out twelve Tampa Bay rays batters over 12 innings of pitching. When you couple that with the fact they only walked three batters between the two of them it was no wonder the Phillies where able to win both games. Not just against Blanton and Moyer but through out the series the Rays top order seemed to be rushing too much and not waiting for the ideal pitch. The allowed Blanton and Moyer to get ahead, and you just can’t afford to do that against those two as their off speed pitches become more powerful.

Unfortunately for the Rays the bats got cold during the World Series. This was a surprise after they where able to overpower the White Sox and the Red Sox in the previous two match ups with their bats. During the World Series the Phillies hit nine home runs to the Rays four. Luckily for the Phillies this helped overcome their poor hitting with runners in scoring position.

I thought Cole Hamles was a worthy MVP recipient after his awesome pitching performances in Games 1 and 5 against Rays ace Scott Kazmir. The fact that Kazmir was unable to win either of those two match ups was another key reason for the Phillies winning it all. Moyer and Blanton clearly required recognition as they, for me, where the two players that stood up during the key middle stages of the series.

Questions will always be asked did the Rays choke on the big stage or where they simply just out played. When a team doesn’t lose a post season game at home they are going to be pretty tough to beat and when you look back at all three opponents for the Phillies their pitching was dominant.

So now the question gets asked can the Phillies Baseball Club repeat? Cole Hamels and Brad Lidge are staying put and with Ryan Howard , Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins also coming back you would have to raise a case that the Phillies have enough pieces in place to be more than a one season wonder. Statistically the Phillies will be up against it as only the Blue Jays and Yankees have repeated in the last thirty years.

Only Pat Burrell and Jamie Moyer will be free agents in the off season. Both will probably get bigger offers to play somewhere else but the lure of Moyer finishing hise career in the town he grew up in may give him a reason to stay for less.

The Phillies will have a tough job of keeping their payroll at $104.5 million with players such as Howard, Hamels, Shane Victorino, Jayson Werth, Ryan Madsen and Chad Durbin all eligible for arbitration.

At the beginning of 2008 the players made a statement by walking around the clubhouse during spring training wearing t shirts that stated “Winning Starts Now”. The mindset was clearly where it needed to be for the Phillies from start until finish in 2008. The question will now be asked.

Can they do it again in 09?

By: Josh Hammer

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