Newsletter Excerpt, February 28, 2019 -- "Missed Opportunities and the White Sox"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

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"You can squint and see a path for this year’s White Sox team. Be optimistic about the combination of talent and reps in the infield and the starting rotation. Project 100 innings of good work at the back of the bullpen. Expect Eloy Jimenez to be a four-win bat from the jump. The AL Central is laughably weak. I’m putting my chips down on the Twins to benefit from that, but you can make a real case for the Sox as well.

"That case just would have been a lot easier to make with a five-win star added to the mix."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 27, 2019 -- "Yasmani Grandal and the Brewers"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with Joe and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"There’s a lot of potential regression in those top three lineup spots. Christian Yelich and Jesus Aguilar had career years at the plate, and Lorenzo Cain had his second-best season. The three combined to be worth 18 wins in 2018, and you don’t have to be pessimistic about the group to expect that number to be lower this year."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 25, 2019 -- "Mike Trout and the Angels"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with Joe and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"The 2019 Angels don’t appear to be a threat to the league’s top three teams, but they should be a factor in battling for the second wild-card spot. The floor, when you start with Mike Trout, is just so high that having an average team around him can keep you in the conversation. Andrelton Simmons is a star, Justin Upton is a good player, the Heaney/Skaggs combination could get a little better. Remember, too, that it’s a short list of teams even trying for that crown. Just eight AL teams are even trying to compete in 2019. Someone has to go play in Fenway Park on October 2, and it may as well be the Angels."

Newsletter Excerpt, Feburary 22, 2019 -- "Unhappy Locals and the Cardinals"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with Joe and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"I’m perfectly happy to call out ownership groups that won’t spend money or make every effort to improve the team. The Cardinals’ not signing Bryce Harper, in an offseason in which they traded for Paul Goldschmidt, doesn’t fit that mold."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 20, 2019 -- "Manny Machado and the Padres"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with Joe and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"Manny Machado, very soon, is going to be the best player on a playoff team in a city that is a far better baseball town than it’s ever given credit for. San Diego is Milwaukee with perfect weather, a place that has always shown up for good teams and of late, has shown up better than you might think for bad ones.

"With the departure of the Chargers, and all respect to the Gulls and Sockers, the Padres are the last bastion of major pro sports in the city. When the Padres are good, they will get to own San Diego in a way few baseball teams can own their city these days. The money and the weather provide plenty of reasons for Machado to sign, but there’s reason to think that this will end up a great marriage of player, team, and city."

Newsletter Excerpt, February 16, 2019 -- "$55 Million in Dead Money and the Giants"

This is an excerpt from the Joe Sheehan Baseball Newsletter, an e-mail newsletter about all things baseball, featuring analysis and opinion about the game on and off the field from the perspective of the informed outsider. Joe Sheehan is a founding member of Baseball Prospectus and a contributor to Sports Illustrated and Baseball America. He has been writing about baseball for more than 20 years.

Your subscription gets you the newsletter and various related features two to five days a week, more than 150 mailings (more than 200,000 words) a year full of smart, fun baseball writing that you can't find in the mainstream. Subscribers can also access the new Slack workspace, to talk baseball with Joe and hundreds of other Newsletter subscribers.

You can subscribe to the newsletter for one year for $39.95 using your PayPal account or major credit card.

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"The Giants have done almost nothing this winter, bringing in an assortment of fourth- and fifth-tier free agents (Pat Venditte, Drew Pomeranz, Stephen Vogt, Rene Rivera, Gerardo Parra, Yangervis Solarte) who will do little to close the 20-game gap between them and the Dodgers. They haven’t consummated the expected trade of Madison Bumgarner, a franchise hero in the final year of a contract on which the Giants have made tens of millions of dollars in profit. They haven’t, despite taking meetings, signed Bryce Harper, a move that would be consistent with this team’s willingness to put its profits into the roster, but not be nearly enough to make them a contender. The Giants have laid out more than $700 million in major-league salaries and benefits in the four seasons since their last championship. You can’t paint them as unwilling to spend."