By The Common Man For a moment, I think it’s important to talk like a normal person.  Every so often, I get an objection in the comments or on Twitter about my use of a pseudonym, especially when I use this forum to criticize others who are not similarly pseudonymous. This happened to me the […]

By Bill I can’t believe I have to do this.As you probably saw, about two weeks ago, TCM ran a post called “Plagiarists Who (might) Write Among Us.” It was one of the more widely-read and best-received posts we’ve had on this little blog. The gist was this: – Writers in the BBWAA who have […]

By The Common Man Previously, as you know, The Common Man satirically pointed out, “if it was fair for writers were going to penalize [Jeff] Bagwell because of their own suspicions that they were apparently too busy to investigate during Bagwell’s playing career, it was equally fair to suspect them of being plagiarists.”  Then he […]

By The Common Man If you’re a Hall of Fame voter, you’re running out of time but it’s not too late to get your ballot in. As we’ve pointed out…repeatedly… we at The Platoon Advantage ask relatively little from voters. We ask that they be intellectually consistent, that they do research, that they carefully consider […]

Dear readers, As you know, we’re knee deep in the holiday season. Chestnuts are roasting. Bells are ringing. Choirs are singing.  The Common Man is in Scottsdale. We at The Platoon Advantage wish you only the best this time of year. Regardless of whether you celebrate Christmas or not, regardless of your personal beliefs, we […]

by Jason Wojciechowski Jumping off from The Common Man’spostabout how to repair the Hall of Fame voting process, I would like to offer someadvice to those voters who are paying attention and will be publishing theirballots. Image by Brian and Kathy Mickle First, explain your methodology. A Hall of Fame vote doesn’t have to be […]

  After a miserable loss to the NewEngland Patriots, Tim Tebow had another long conversation with God. Let’slisten in. Tim Tebow: But I just don’tunderstand …God: Timmy, you are notsupposed to understand. Besides, I can’t always help you. You have to learn todo things yourself if you want to truly value your human existence.Tim: But […]

By BillI started a bit of a fracas on Twitter a couple weeks ago, primarily with a couple guys I really like and think are brilliant guys and good analysts,

By The Common Man The Common Man believes there is little doubt that the Hall of Fame voting process is flawed. Deserving candidates, such as Jeff Bagwell, Tim Raines, and (until recently) Bert Blyleven and Ron Santo have been held back while clearly less deserving players, such as Jim Rice and Bruce Sutter have been […]

By Mark Smith A look back at the year that was, with a little holiday spirit. On the first day of Baseballmas, Bud Selig gave to me: a Michael Young vote for MVP.On the second day of Baseballmas, Bud Selig gave to me: two late collapses and a Michael Young vote for MVP.On the third […]

By The Common Man Last December, The Common Man came across Dan Graziano, then a writer for AOL Fanhouse with a Hall of Fame vote, who refused to vote for Jeff Bagwell based on his suspicion that the Astros legend had used Performance Enhancing Drugs in his career. Graziano wrote, “I don’t know for sure […]

by Jason Wojciechowski The blog over which I have sole dominion, Beaneball, is, as you might be aware, an A’s-focused place. I wrote about the more analytic aspects of the Trevor Cahill-Jarrod Parker trade over there, and I certainly won’t rehash it here, but the difficulty of figuring out just what the hell a Trevor […]

By BillAs you’ve probably noticed by now, I’m not any kind of mathematician or economist. I may really like baseball’s numbers, and even have a solid understanding of most of them, but that doesn’t mean I’m good with numbers in any kind of larger, more useful sense. I do know this, though: money is worth […]

  Guest Post By Albert Lang(Bill note: Ah, the holidays. I’m sure you’ll hear a lot more from the TPA staff between now and the end of the year, but for now, we’ve got a second consecutive guest post from Albert Lang, who you can typically find over at H2H Corner. Albert sent this to us […]

Guest Post By Albert Lang (TCM Note: While every else is worried about how Albert Pujols will perform over the next ten years, our friend