Kuzul

Who's the hottest pitcher in the majors? There's Yu Darvish, the Texas Rangers right-hander who nearly threw a perfect game his first time out. Or maybe it's Atlanta Braves lefty Paul Maholm, who is 3-0 and has thrown 20.1 scoreless innings.But we can't forget about Matt Harvey, the New York Mets righty who's the first pitcher since 1900 to win each of his first three starts while notching 25 strikeouts and allowing six or fewer hits, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.Indeed, no pitcher in baseball is off to a hotter start right now—or maybe ever—than Harvey.Each of those three hurlers has been Cy Young-worthy so far, but frankly, it seems way too early for any award discussion. Or is it?Which brings us to the question: Do Cy Young winners always get off to hot starts?When we explored whether Most Valuable Players always get off to hot starts, the answer ...

Quacky curmudgeon Scrooge McDuck had a giant silo of gold coins to swim in.  Eccentric pop icon Michael Jackson owned the Elephant Man’s dirty old bones.  "Big Pants" MC Hammer bought a $12 million mansion that housed nearly 20 racehorses. Just because you have loads of cash doesn’t mean you always spend it wisely.Theatrical New York Yankees radio announcer John Sterling has often chuckled and stated, "You can't predict baseball".  To be fair, Sterling churns out a lot of goofy jibber-jabber on a daily basis, but ol' John really hit the pinstriped nail on the head with that one.You can be certain any lifelong Yankees fan has heard many a naysayer spin yarns about the team winning numerous World Championships by buying All-Star caliber teams.  The team's General Manager is named "Cashman" after all. The hole in that theory is that play on the ...

I realize that Curt Schilling will not be eligible for the Hall of Fame until 2013, if I have done my math correctly. I don’t feel it is too early to discuss his probability of making it to Cooperstown without a ticket. I have heard some announcers call him (while he was still pitching) a future Hall of Famer. That irks me to no end. It did then and it does now. Some people are locks for enshrinement. Randy Johnson is one and Tom Glavine is another. Curt Schilling is not. Am I saying he won’t get in? No, but I don’t think he should. I don’t see him jumping over the bar in any particular category. I can see all of you young guns snarling and getting ready to rebut me with a volley of SABRmetrics. Save it, I am old school and I don’t subscribe to much of ...

From "Mr. Mariner" to "The Bone," there have been nicknames.From Arquimedez Pozo's one plate appearance to Edgar Martinez's franchise record 8,678, there have been different lengths of stays.Since 1977, the Mariners have employed hundreds of players. While not every team has a history rich with players like the Yankees, they all have a large pool of players where you'll find interesting characters who defined the franchise.The following rankings were determined by a combination of stats, longevity with team and character. Only factors we know were considered.Without further delay, here is a look at 50 players who wore the trident or compass rose that we'll never forget.Begin Slideshow

I spend way to much time at baseballreference.com. For real. There actually might be something wrong with me. I don't know what it is about baseball statistics and history that fascinates so much, all I know is that I've studied this stuff since I was eight years old and got my first pack of cards.In one of my days of "research," I compiled a list of the greatest pitchers for each franchise. There were teams like Atlanta that had guys like Warren Spahn, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine. Then there were teams like the Milwaukee Brewers that hadn't ever had a great pitcher in the history of their franchise. Guys like Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling didn't make this list, but others like Doug Drabek did. So anyway, here are greatest pitchers in each teams history.Writer's Note: Players had to be playing during or after Jackie Robinson's debut to be considered ...

Roy Halladay effectively killed whatever drama might have been attached to the announcement of the 2010 National League Cy Young Award winner.It's no secret that the Philadelphia Phillies' ace ran away with the thing once Josh Johnson got shelved while Ubaldo Jimenez and Adam Wainwright blinked in the second half of the season.The Florida Marlin didn't miss too many games and neither the Colorado Rockie, nor the better of the two St. Louis Cardinal untouchables struggled badly or for very long, but Halladay simply gave the other horses no margin for error: 33 GS, 250.2 IP, 21-10, 2.44 ERA, 1.04 WHIP, 7.9 K/9, 7.30 K/BB, .245/.271/.373 Further sweetening the pot were Doc's league-leading nine complete games, league-leading four shutouts, the perfect game and the no-hitter in his playoff debut (though that one didn't happen in time for the voting).How's that for your first year with a new club?The second "Year of the ...

Many a person have made "Best of World Series" lists in recent years.  With the conclusion of the 2010 World Series, it is time to rank the 2010 World Series with those of recent years. For convenience's sake, I have reserved this list to include just those since 1990, when the wild card, PEDs, Braves and Yankees dynasties and the end of a few curses arrived.I have ranked these series based on, not only on the drama of the series, but in the backstory and heart of the teams playing in them as well. With that in mind, let's begin.Begin Slideshow

In today's game of free agency and rebuilding sell-offs, it's extremely rare for a player to stick with a team for much more than about a decade. Stars come and go, and the team's is the only name that lasts through a fan's lifetime.But some players leave behind legacies that continue to capture the hearts of their fans long after they hang up their cleats.Last week, Bleacher Report's MLB Featured Columnists completed our hardest poll yet: picking the top players in the history of each NL franchise (for the AL results, click here).Each voter was asked to name the top three players for each team, scored on a 3-2-1 basis. The greats were then ranked by points, with the number of first-place votes (in parentheses next to the vote totals) as a tiebreaker.Some of the results were pretty predictable—I don't think saying Hank Aaron and Willie Mays won for the ...

The Vampire Baseball Players Union today released a scathing report about the rash of broken bats taking place at MLB games all across the country. It has reached near epidemic proportions in recent years, with multiple bats per game shattering into dangerous shards of wood. Vampire Union president Randy Johnson spoke out against the troublesome bats. "These are an extreme danger to any vampire who may be on the mound," said an irate Johnson. "In all my years of being a creepy, pale, unnatural looking vampire out there on the rubber, I have never seen so many stakes fly right at people. "It's just a matter of time before one goes right through someone's heart, and we have a pile of burning clothes where a decent, family-loving vampire's body used to be." He went on to call the stakes exploding from bats borderline racist, and asked how African Americans would feel ...

Seriously, Arizona? I knew the team was bad, but this is a new low.  Attempting to draw a crowd by constructing 10-foot tall monstrosities that would make Frankenstein look cuddly.  I get the trying-to-relate-to-kids theme, but how is giving children nightmares going to bring them back to the ballpark? The mascots look like Sloth from The Goonies , and personally, I don't want to have to bring a Baby Ruth candy bar every time I go see a D-Backs game.  A message to the rest of Major League Baseball: Don't try to emulate Milwaukee's magic, it's one of a kind.  Anyway, I digress. Here are my odds for the race if each player was actually running.    Randy Johnson: 7-1 After seeing The Big Unit hit a gapper on a few occasions to only end up with a single, it's hard to give Johnson much of a shot.  Anybody else remember when he fell down in between first and second ...