Of all the disappointments on this year’s Los Angeles Angels, Hideki Matsui’s rough start had to be up there. It’s not quite the same as losing your first baseman for the season to a postgame celebratory Hokey Pokey, but it’s still a bummer when your biggest offensive free-agent signing is hitting .249/.329/.393 [...]

My column focuses on the exploits of Asian-born major leaguers, but I’m often reminded of the success of Asian-American players, who are just as rare as their foreign-born teammates—but often just as talented. And with the awful year that many Asian players are having, it seems a good time to take a look at MLB’s [...]

In a move that some had predicted, and few think is truly fair, today the Seattle Mariners fired manager Don Wakamatsu, who had gone from team savior to team goat. Wak had taken a miserable, disjointed Seattle team that had gone 61-101 in 2008, setting a record as the first $100M team to [...]

While a writer can make a career responding to Ozzie Guillen’s various rants, I generally refrain from responding to his inflammatory remarks. I know they’re largely made either from legitimate passion or cunning manipulativeness, but I couldn’t ignore his latest cracks about Latino players playing second fiddle to Asian players.
After all, now he’s picking on [...]

One of the frequent themes of my column is the success of Asian relief pitchers instead of starting pitchers—unlike the long-running debate on the absence of left-handed catchers in MLB, there are some rather plausible and well-accepted theories for why this isn’t true.
The best theory is that Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) is a breaking-ball league; [...]

Position Players:
ss Yunel Escobar – Doubleheader
1b Lyle Overbay – Doubleheader
3b Edwin Encarnacion – Doubleheader
of Coco Crisp – Excellent SB potential against Daniel Hudson/A.J. Pierzynski battery.
of Andres Torres
of Drew Stubbs
2b/3b Alberto Callaspo
ss/2b Asdrubal Cabrera – Wade Davis hasn’t been pitching well this year, though the [...]

That was a nice day yesterday, other than picking two Blue Jays and then seeing their game postponed. Both Cubs did some damage, both first basemen (Ike and Gaby) homered, and even Keppy got a couple hits. I think that ss/2b Asdrubal Cabrera should be owned in all leagues, and he’s [...]

News fallout: Despite Ozzie Guillen’s hedging, pick up J.J. Putz if he’s still available for some reason. Wilson Betemit is hot, and once upon a time was considered a mega-prospect. A more recent “mega-prospect”, Alex Gordon, should get to play too, though the KC outfield is very left-handed even without [...]

No matter how you slice it, Boston has to view their $100M signing of Daisuke Matsuzaka as a huge overpayment—whether it’s a huge mistake depends largely on how he performs in the final half of his six-year contract. Dice-K’s time with the Sox has been marked by injury and inconsistency, problems that have also plagued [...]

Position Players:
c Geovany Soto – Still available in 37% of leagues, facing a lefty today.
ss Jason Bartlett – facing Chris Tillman today.
of Andres Torres – the batting average has slumped a bit, but his “past 30″ line is still a very good .247-17-5-13-6, even missing some games with a groin injury. [...]