Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker writes that the Baltimore Orioles’ acquisition of 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes might be the most important move of the off-season.
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Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker believes veteran slugger Justin Turner will make the Toronto Blue Jays a better team on the field and in the clubhouse.
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Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker writes that Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer’s first-ballot election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame raises some questions. Whicker ponders “whether a player with such holes in his career shouldn’t have been subject to a multi-year evaluation.”
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Sadly, we lost a lot of big league legends in 2023. Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker pays tribute to nine of them.
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Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker writes that Shohei Ohtani’s unprecedented 10-year, $700-million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers, in which he will defer $68 million a season, will give the Dodgers much-needed payroll flexibility.
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Ahead of the 2023 major league awards being handed out this week, Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker offers his own honours for the best and worst of 2023.
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Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker remembers legendary slugger Frank Howard who passed away on Monday at the age of 87.
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An investigative report called “The Astros’ Edge” recently ran on PBS’s Frontline that delved into the Houston Astros’ electronic sign-stealing scandal of 2017. But that was six years ago, writes Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker, and the Astros are still winning.
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Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker takes a deep look at the major league career of Miguel Cabrera as the future Hall of Famer heads into retirement.
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After signing an 11-year, $300-milllion contract with the Philadelphia Phillies, Trea Turner slumped miserably to begin his tenure with the team, but, as Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker notes, the club’s often ruthless fans surprisingly continued to support him. This has helped him turn his fortunes around and become baseball’s hottest hitter.
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“There are 159 sunny days a year, on average, in the town of Corvallis, Oregon. That, of course, is a minority.
The average high/low temperatures in March are 58 and 40 (14.4 and 4.4, Celsius). In April it zooms up to 64 and 42 (18 and 5.5). Corvallis gets 51 inches of rain per year, mostly during the time Oregon State University is in session.
Baseball would not seem to be a naturally-occurring commodity at Oregon State, in other words. Until 2005, the Beavers had been to one College World Series, in 1952, and the players were stunned at how hot it was in Omaha, although they were spared further discomfort by losing twice and going home.
So what Oregon State has done since then is one of the great improbabilities in American collegiate sport.
Now the Beavers’ dam (cq) good run has been endangered not by its richer, sunnier Pac-12 rivals, but by the utter incompetence and greed of those who have just now been barred from treating players in all sports like unpaid servants.”
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Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker believes young catcher Adley Rutschman warrants some American League MVP consideration for helping to lead the Baltimore Orioles to the top of the American League East standings.
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Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker contends that you have to go back in time to find the only proper comparison to Shoehei Ohtani — that would be football legend 'Slingin' Sammy' Baugh.
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The best two-way player in college baseball is honoured with the John Olerud award each year. Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker suggests there might soon be a similar Shohei Ohtani award in Major League Baseball.
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“It took five days for Clayton Kershaw to get from 200 wins to 201. And some people worry about his velocity.
Kershaw is 36, written off more often than a political contribution, abused in the postseason, forgotten at times, forced to put his talents on short-term lease. He is again one of the best pitchers in the National League, and he is 4-1 with a 2.32 ERA in the (absurdly) early going. While the rest of the baseball world fantasizes over a Pittsburgh-Tampa Bay World Series, and while Fox sports executives check job-posting websites in fear of the same thing, Kershaw has kept the sputtering Dodgers tied for the lead in the National League West.”
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Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker shares his thoughts on the Tampa Bay Rays’ 11-0 start to the 2023 season.
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“It’s hard to imagine that anything we saw over the last couple of weeks [at the World Baseball Classic] will do anything but energize the long, upcoming season. We were reminded just how intoxicating the game can be when it is played at a cosmic level, with pre-season enthusiasm and with precision,” writes Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker.
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Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker writes that with the new rules in MLB, you will see more stolen bases this season. But should those stolen bases come with an asterisk?
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“The World Baseball Classic hasn’t really caught on with fans in the United States, and we should greet that revelation with a heaping helping of so-what. The World Baseball Classic isn’t designed for American fans, most of whom are worried that their favorite Fantasy Leaguers will get hurt. It is there for everyone else,” writes Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker.
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Canadian Baseball Network columnist Mark Whicker weighs in on former Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Scott Rolen’s election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
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