Dave Cokin’s Hardcore Baseball: NCAA Tourney Preview

The NCAA Baseball Tournament gets underway today, so here’s a preview of each of the 16 regionals. I’m keeping this brief, as I don’t feel like writing a novel on this. But rest assured, these are not wild guesses. I’ve done pretty well in this tourney the last couple of years, and I’m confident of [...]

Dave Cokin’s Hardcore Baseball: From lightning to rain

What a difference a year makes. The Tampa Bay Rays were one of the truly great stories in 2008. All those years of inept decision making upstairs and uninspired play on the field melted away as the Rays shocked the sports world with their first titles of any kind and a trip to the World [...]

Free MLB Play

The Toronto Blue Jays will be looking to snap their eight-game losing streak when they take on the Baltimore Orioles in the third game of their series. The Blue Jays will turn to ace Roy Halliday to end their losing ways against a team. Doc has owned Baltimore through his career – he has a [...]

Dave Cokin’s Hardcore Baseball: The genuine article?

It’s official. The one and only Matt Wieters will be making his big league debut on Friday night when the Orioles play host to the Tigers. Wieters has been garnering all kinds of attention ever since being drafted fifth overall in 2007. If he lives up to the hype, which he has an excellent chance [...]

Best stats for evaluating pitchers

Two weeks ago I wrote about the importance of studying on-base percentage when evaluating baseball offenses. I’m constantly surprised at how many people bet on bad offenses to score runs, or bet against teams with good offenses hoping they won’t score much that day. If you missed that article, I hope you’ll check the archives [...]

Dave Cokin’s Hardcore Baseball: All-Flop Pitchers

Let’s wrap up the first quarter All-Flop team with the pitchers. These aren’t necessarily the guys having the worst seasons, but they’re the ones that I feel failed to live up to expectations by the widest margin. Also, while it may not be very benevolent on my part, I don’t cut any slack for injuries. [...]

Dave Cokin’s Hardcore Baseball: Anti-All-Star Team

We’re at the quarter pole of the 2009 baseball season, so I thought I’d take a look at the first edition of this year’s Anything But All-Star Team. These are the guys who are, for whatever reason, dramatically underachieving. I’ll do the position players today and examine the pitchers tomorrow. Catcher: Geovanny Soto, Cubs. Health [...]

Dave Cokin’s Hardcore Baseball: Line-up tinkering

The Los Angeles Dodgers have the best record in all of baseball. They’re 28-13 following the Tuesday night win over the Mets, and it certainly looks as though they’ve recovered nicely from the initial shock that they appeared to suffer when the stunning suspension of Manny Ramirez was announced. Juan Pierre obviously has a far [...]

Free MLB winner for Tuesday!

New York at Los Angeles at 7:10 p.m. PT Play Los Angeles for one unit The Dodgers (27-13) are the best team in baseball and have continued their winning ways after the suspension of Manny Ramirez. After losing four of five games following the suspension, the Dodgers have bounced back to win five of their [...]

Free MLB winner for Monday

The Toronto Blue Jays (26-14) are proven that they are not a flash in the pan when they look to finish their four-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox. (15-21). The Sox will send Clayton Richard (0-0, 5.40) to the mound to take on Scott Richmond (4-2, 4.28 ERA). The Blue Jays will be looking [...]