Base Hits :: The Advocate's MLB Blog
Leading off: Checking in with the MLB's local products
-- Roman Madrid is off and running in his pro baseball career, making six appearances for the Eugene Emeralds of the Class A short-season Northwest League. The Victoria native and Generals alum has three saves and a 2.45 ERA and eight strikeouts. -- El Campo alum Lee Orr is on ...
Assessing the Astros 2012 draft
This year's draft isn't going to make the Astros good next year, or the year after that. Rather, Jeff Luhnow is going back to what made the Astros a powerhouse in the late 1990s and early 2000s and him one of the smartest men in baseball while with the Cardinals. ...
Where to next for Roman Madrid?
MLB.com trumpeted the Padres second-day drafting for its focus on speed and power, noting at the end the pitchers taken: Five righthanders, one lefthander, all but one is 6-foot-2 or taller. The one shorter? Victoria native Roman Madrid. But he had to be doing something right to be taken that ...
Is Josh Hamilton worth a giant, long-term deal from the Rangers?
I'll start out by admitting my bias: Josh Hamilton is a once in a lifetime talent. He hits the ball like a skinny Babe Ruth, and works really hard to set the same kind of example too ... Except, you know, minus the alcohol and tobacco. ... Most of the ...
The Royals-Rockies World Series of prep baseball
There's a big high school baseball game later this week, and really, compared to what could have been on the bill, couldn't care less about it. [View the story "Those two teams are playing a huge game? Eh, so what." on Storify]
The heist of the offseason
One of the most fascinating websites involving baseball - when it's up and going - is MLB Trade Trees, which tracks the lineage of certain players and certain teams, and how some player in the late 1990s that you've never even heard of led, through a series of trades and ...
Astros revival run by its talented stable of arms
The Astros aren't as bad as the doomsayers said they would be, and they've done it with pitching. Houston is under new management and building from the ground up. They entered the season with a bunch of kids, washed-up prospects, also rans, has beens and Carlos Lee on the roster. ...
The pro ballparks I've been to
I like to think of myself as a baseball fan. I try to get out when I can, with friends or on my own, to watch the sport first hand. Below shows where I've been, acknowledging that, no, I'm not exceptionally well traveled when it comes to baseball pilgrimages. But ...
Tal Smith will "help" the Sugar Land Skeeters?
The Sugar Land-based expansion team in the Atlantic League named Tal Smith as a special adviser on Tuesday. I have only one question: Does this mean there will be a hill built in center field at the new Constellation Field?
Ivan Rodriguez may not make the MLB hall of fame on first ballot
The former Rangers catcher may deserve it, but he has a Jose Canseco problem and has to contend with a surly BBWAA electorate that is unfair to catchers.
