On the heels of the commissioner's office disclosing the final 2007 payrolls for the 30 major league clubs, I thought it might be instructive to analyze payroll efficiency by comparing team salaries to wins.

The payrolls shown below are for 40-man rosters and include salaries and prorated shares of signing bonuses, earned incentive bonuses, non-cash compensation, buyouts of unexercised options and cash transactions. In some cases, parts of salaries that are deferred are discounted to reflect present-day values.

The following table, ranked by club payroll (in millions of dollars), also includes team wins.  read more »

Nationals Park had quite an opening. Ryan Zimmerman hit a tiebreaking homer off Peter Moylan with two outs in the ninth inning, and the Washington Nationals beat the Atlanta Braves 3-2 Sunday night in the first regular-season game at the $611 million stadium. With the dome of the U.S. Capitol lit up against the black [...]

Nationals Park had quite an opening. Ryan Zimmerman hit a tiebreaking homer off Peter Moylan with two outs in the ninth inning, and the Washington Nationals beat the Atlanta Braves 3-2 Sunday night in the first regular-season game at the $611 million stadium. With the dome of the U.S. Capitol lit up against the black [...]

One of the hottest topics making its way through the 2008 fantasy baseball draft preparation circles is the idea that the OF is a shallow position. I am doubtful, but I could ignore it no longer once ESPN's latest mounted head, Jason Grey, specifically espoused it from the biggest soapbox in fantasy sports.

In order to examine the proposition that OF is now "shallow" as a position, I did a back-of-the-envelope listing of all the starting OFs in major league baseball (a sort of scatter graph that precedes regression analysis) and assigned ranks to the five I considered to be the worst. Without previous seasons' data, I can't conclude this year is worse than previous ones, but the five I choose are fairly bad. Only one contains what I'd considered a Top 100 pick/$20+ player and all contain at least one who may spend all of 2008 in the free agent pool of typical mixed leagues.  read more »

The first fan arrived at 6 a.m. so he could get a $5 ticket. The Atlanta Braves arrived at 2 p.m. so they could learn all the nooks and crannies. The president arrived a few hours later so he could throw out the first pitch. It was a historic Sunday of learning and exploring at the grand opening of Nationals Park, the new $611 million home of the Washington Nationals.  read more »

It's not often that Atlanta's Tim Hudson gives up a home run. When he does, he usually loses. Hudson surrendered homers to Vernon Wells and Rod Barajas and the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Braves 9-5 on Saturday, dropping Hudson to 1-5 this season when he gives up a home run. Wells, who had three RBIs, led off Toronto's four-run sixth with his eighth homer of the year.  read more »

No sooner do fantasy players notice the great start of Rays SP Edwin Jackson then he goes and gets smacked around by the New York Yankees.  Five earned runs and eight runners allowed later, fantasy players are kicking themselves for believing the fool's gold that is Edwin Jackson.  In 19 innings covering three starts, EJax has walked ten.

The Mariners placed ace left-hander Erik Bedard on the 15-day DL with hip inflamation.  There is no real way to spin this positively except to say the Mariners should feel glad they didn't pursue and sign Bedard to a long-term contract.

The Atlanta Braves placed closer Peter Moylan on the DL with right elbow inflamation.  This turns second-year right-hander Manny Acosta into the team's closer, and the bullpen into a cause for concern.  With most expected contenders struggling with their own bullpens, the market for decent relievers should be frenzied.  The question is who is going to make the 21st century version of the Larry Anderson for Jeff Bagwell trade?  read more »

The Colorado Rockies have been waiting for their offense to break out. It took one inning to make it happen. Yorvit Torrealba hit a three-run home run to cap off a six-run third inning and the Colorado Rockies won their third straight, beating the Atlanta Braves 12-6 on Wednesday night. "We're hitting.  read more »

The Atlanta Braves traded relief pitcher Tyler Yates to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday for minor league pitcher Todd Redmond. The 22-year-old Redmond is 22-21 in three minor league seasons. Yates, a 30-year-old right-hander, appeared in 131 games in relief during the last two seasons. He is 6-12 in his career with a 5.15 ERA.

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The Atlanta Braves traded relief pitcher Tyler Yates to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday for minor league pitcher Todd Redmond. The 22-year-old Redmond is 22-21 in three minor league seasons. Yates, a 30-year-old right-hander, appeared in 131 games in relief during the last two seasons. He is 6-12 in his career with a 5.15 ERA.