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Obligatory and Somewhat Awkward Year-End Summary

I’m supposed to write something about baseball here. That’s my recollection, anyway. First, a quick programming note: The long, once-a-week pieces from last year are done. Turns out they required a lot of work, and I’m lazy, so no mas. I’ll be publishing more frequently this year and the articles will be shorter. If 2009 [...]

Is This Thing On?

I’m still kicking the tires, but Ducksnorts appears to be back in business. With luck, I’ll have something interesting to say next year. Happy, happy…

Site Non-update

Last month my web hosting company apparently went out of business without telling anyone. Repeated attempts to contact them have been unsuccessful, but if you’re interested in the sordid details, a fellow refugee has documented the situation. Apart from the drama, this is where we stand: I managed to back up my database a few [...]

Broken

Hi there, Ducksnorts is broken. I’m working to fix it, but there is no timetable. With luck, we’ll be back up and running by the end of the year. In the meantime, you can read my stuff at The Hardball Times and Baseball Prospectus. Thanks, Geoff

Death of a Gunslinger

As you doubtless know by now, the Padres have fired GM Kevin Towers. It’s taken me so long to write about this because it is difficult for me to articulate my feelings. His departure hits me harder than those of Bruce Bochy, Trevor Hoffman, Sandy Alderson, or Jake Peavy. Towers was the primary architect of [...]

Chase Headley and the Art of the Comp

Reader TexPadre recently posed the following question: When will Chase Headley show a decent amount of power? Or will he ever? Headley, you may recall, was the subject of much hype in spring training 2008. He had just come off a monster season (.330/.437/.580) at Double-A San Antonio and people got a little silly, mistaking [...]

Hey, I Can See the Off-Season from Here

I’ve been busy. Part of the reason is that I’ll be contributing to two forthcoming books: The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2010 (due out in November) and John Burnson’s Graphical Player 2010 (due out in December). I can’t go into a lot of detail just yet because — well, I’m not done writing — but [...]

Olive Pudding

It’s great to see the Padres sign all their top draft picks this year. First-round pick Donavan Tate (whom I was fortunate enough to meet last week, but we’ll get to that in a moment) took batting practice with the big club Tuesday night and impressed the veterans with his “respect and humility.” Tom Krasovic [...]

Youngsters and Salary Dumps

We’ve been tracking a few key young players since the All-Star break using Modified Box Scores (explanation). Let’s see how these kids are doing as measured by more conventional metrics. Bear in mind that we’re talking about 31 games, a tiny sample. First, the Padres as a team: Padres Offense, First and Second Half   [...]

If Your Heart Never Breaks, You Aren’t Doing It Right

It’s not the memory of her that lingers, it’s the memory of wanting and not having. The years have transformed her into a song character, a reminder of a former life. These are gifts beyond anything I could have imagined. I was less interested in baseball then. It always hovered at the edge of consciousness, [...]