Almost Cooperstown

Send us Fan Mail They are 4 time World Series Champions - the Braves. First in Boston, then to Milwaukee and since 1966 in Atlanta. The Braves have dominated the NL East for more than 30 years.  It wasn't always like that and when they were in Boston from 1912-1952 they won 1 WS and were only in 1 other. We talk about their triumphs as well as their years of lousy baseball. Tommy Holmes fell...

Send us Fan Mail In addition to pitching in MLB having only one arm, Jim Abbott was one of the players to go straight to the Major Leagues without ever playing in the minors. There are many interesting players who skipped the minors entirely. We also discuss a list of 10 year or more players who went straight to the bigs before the MLB draft was instituted in 1965.  It does not happen much anymore...

Send us Fan Mail Last week we did the 3x champion Cubs and this week the 3x champion White Sox.  The Pale Hose have the 2005 improbably championship to live off of since the other two were before 1918!  Lots of great ChiSox to talk about given the long 50 year drought between WS appearances - 1919 to 1959! Mark was wrong - Luis Aparicio is a HOFer but did not ever win the MVP although he was Rooki...

Send us Fan Mail Correction - The Dodgers will open the 2024 season in South Korea vs. the Padres.    Have you noticed that MLB dugouts are getting crowded? With all the coaches old and new beyond the manager?  Bench coaches have not been a regular thing in baseball history but they are now and have been since the late 1980s.  We discuss coaches, The HOF Contemporary Committee and Ford Frick Award...

Send us Fan Mail 2016 slayed a lot of demons for the Cubs. Considering that their prior WS championships were back-to-back in 1907 and 1908.  They have a winning record all-time and 11 pennants since 1901.  Born as the Chicago White Stockings (but not the White Sox) the Cubs have fewer all-time great players than you might think for a 148 year old franchise! Again thanks to all of our listeners an...

Send us Fan Mail The 2020 Pandemic season changed (finally) baseball forever with the ending of rained out games.  No longer were legitimate accomplishments expunged when games were less than 4 1/2 innings.  Forfeited games are more rare today but surprisingly there have been a few since 1970. Babe Ruth would have had 716 home runs. Al Kaline would have surpassed 400 homers. But rained out games t...

Send us Fan Mail The Orioles were born the Milwaukee Brewers as an original AL franchise in 1901. They left for St. Louis after one year and became the St. Louis Browns for the next 52 years before finally decamping for Baltimore in 1954.  They never won a World Series in in St. Louis although they did reach the Fall Classic in 1944 losing the 'Streetcar' or 'Trolley' Series to...

Send us Fan Mail We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! The 2024 HOF ballot came out this week and there are some very compelling names that are appearing on ballots.  Adrian Beltre and Joe Mauer are strong 1st year candidates and holdovers like Todd Helton and Billy Wagner are hoping this is their year. We also discuss how numbers like 400 career home runs don't mean certain enshrinement...

Send us Fan Mail Who is the greatest National of all-time?  Some might say Walter Johnson since when he was with the Senators they were also called the Nationals.  But Ryan Zimmerman has a claim as does Max Scherzer.  And then there's Gary Carter, and Andre Dawson, and Tim Raines, and Vlad Guerrero Sr..  They were all Expos but they are a big part of the franchise history. We pick out best Na...

Send us Fan Mail We've already had a bunch of manager hirings and firings.  With that are several 1st time MLB managers like Joe Espada of the Astros and Carlos Mendoza of the Mets.  Can it really be expected that a 1st year manager can lead a team all the way to a World Series championship? It's happened before. Just ask Bruce Bochy! We talk about that and other weird manager things as...

Send us Fan Mail The Twins were once the Washington Senators AND at the same the the Washington Nationals. The team actually won the 1924 World Series while being called the Nationals!  Even though they were actually the Senators.  Because the Twins - who moved to Minneapolis in 1961, won 2 WS in 5 years in 1987 and 1991, we sometimes forget that it's been more than 30 years!   We talk about...

Send us Fan Mail Fans and players have said good-bye to future HOFer Miguel Cabrera and a host of other very well-known players who ended their careers in this just completed 2023 season. We love talking about them!  Correction: Ryan Goins was an infielder not a pitcher. Listen or watch as  we've added a YouTube Channel -  https://youtu.be/xLbJIPGfNRI  Here is the link to the Almost Coopersto...

Send us Fan Mail While they are not an original National League team the Philadelphia Phillies have been in the league since 1883 only 7 years after the birth of the NL. They've won 2 WS in 141 years but 2 WS in the past 43 years so it doesn't seem as bad as it was before 1980.  We deep dive into the history of the team, its best players at every position, best managers and also some of...

Send us Fan Mail The Texas Rangers born as the 2nd Washington Senators have finally won a World Series!  A dispatching of the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks in 5 games was for any fans anti-climactic after two very exciting LCS clashes.  Unsung heroes abounded for Texas but not for Arizona even though the D'Backs outhit the Rangers.  We talk about the games, the managers and the brilliance of C...

Send us Fan Mail Dusty Baker retired. He's now a pretty sure bet to be elected to the HOF as a manager or a Rule B candidate.  It also happened last week that Craig Breslow became President of Baseball Operations of the Red Sox.  We talked about that as well as Bob Melvin going from the Padres to the Giants - after they signed Farhan Zaidi to a long term deal as GM. Oh and also we talked abou...

Send us Fan Mail Before the season did you pick the Rangers to play the D'Backs in the World Series this year?  We didn't. But then NOBODY else did either!  Both teams vanquished their LCS foes in 7 games and finally we had some exciting playoff baseball!  We recap the LCS and all the weird stuff that happened and preview what should be an awesome World Series!  Listen or watch as  we&ap...

Send us Fan Mail Game 6 of the ALCS will be played after this episode was recorded and Game 6 of the NLCS will happen tonight - Monday night. Finally the LCS had some real live excitement and drama!  We talk about that and we talk about the Marlins power play that caused excellent GM Kim Ng to get off the boat.  The Contemporary Era Committee has met and nominated 8 candidates to be voted upon in...

Send us Fan Mail The 5 teams having the best regular season records in MLB this season - Braves, Dodgers, Orioles, Brewers, and Twins are all out of the playoffs and went 1-13 in the games that they played.  Is the playoff system instituted in 2022 a failure?  Some think so and we talk about that and how we feel about the current playoff structure and what might be done in the future before and af...

Send us Fan Mail We thought the amazing double play turned in by Atlanta's Michael Harris to Austin Riley to Matt Olson would propel the Braves into the NLCS.  Nick Castellanos had other ideas.  That combined with great pitching from Wheeler, Nola and the Phillies bullpen put them back into the NLCS vs. the equally surprising D'Backs. The Astros keep marching on and the Rangers can flat...

Send us Fan Mail MLB won't do its 2023 MVP, Cy Young, ROY and other awards until after the World Series. So we decided that since the awards are for the regular season only we'd release our picks now.  After all we should not be swayed by great playoff performances as we think voters are when they finally are asked to vote! Listen or watch as  we've added a YouTube Channel.  Here is...

Send us Fan Mail The Wild Card Series were mostly a snore-fest unless your team was the winner. All the series were wrapped up in 2 games. Tampa Bay Rays didn't need to travel after they lost 2 straight at home in front of meager playoff crowds. The Jays could not pitch well enough to overcome a good hitting team in the Texas Rangers who've continued mashing winning the 1st two games of...

Send us Fan Mail It was great to receive so many responses to our podcast Episode 434 from last week on Total Bases Per Plate Appearance.  We wanted to go further with it and apparently listeners want that too. So we've created another new stat -  Bases created per plate appearance. This stat includes BB, IBB, HBP and net Stolen Bases for each player and each team.  This season's Atlanta...

Send us Fan Mail And suddenly the 2023 season is all over.  Pitch clocks, larger bases, limits to shifting the infield all proved to be welcome and significant changes in MLB.  The 2023 Braves have reason to claim they are the greatest hitting team of all time.  The Marlins & D'Backs are back in the playoffs and somehow the Astros managed to win the AL West after all.  The Wild Card Serie...

Send us Fan Mail We love that Hank Aaron has the most Total Bases in baseball history. In fact the list of players for all-time Total Bases is filled with Hall of Famers and would-be HOFers.  Mark recently wrote an article on Total Bases per Plate Appearance - sort of a new way to look at a player's offensive contribution. It can be accessed here:  https://open.substack.com/pub/almostcooperst...

Send us Fan Mail This week was very full. The Rays and St. Pete have come to a deal for a brand-new domed but artificial turf stadium in a private/public partnership for reportedly $1.3B . Great news for the city and the team. Blue Jays Yusei Kikuchi said he became injured due to not getting the11 hours of sleep as he normally does every night. Sandy Alancantra is out for the season - a big blow t...