What if Howie Kendrick's hit landed just foul? What if the Nationals still trailed in the eighth and ninth innings of Game 7 of the World Series and sat and watched the Astros mob each other in the center of the diamond as the sellout crowd in Houston roared? How would everyone around here have felt about Monday's announcement by Commissioner Rob Manfred that general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch had been suspended for the 2020 season (and then later fired by owner Jim Crane) and...

Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager A.J. Hinch were suspended by Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred Monday for allowing the team's uniformed personnel to steal signs electronically during the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Luhnow and Hinch were suspended through the 2020 World Series. The Astros also were fined $5 million - the maximum allowed under MLB rules - and they'll have to forfeit first- and second-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021. About an hour the initial report...

The information and data age in baseball is here. It's been here for years now and we are not going back to a day when most fans only focused on batting average, home runs and RBIs for batters. Or wins and ERA for pitchers. The game has advanced way beyond those numbers. And, of course, those that work in a baseball front office are way ahead of most of us, and have been for a while now. As new Orioles general manager Mike Elias and his staff upgrade and enhance the club's use of analytics,...

The opening of The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, the new spring training facility shared by the Nationals and Astros, will be extremely beneficial to the preparation for the 2017 season and beyond for both clubs. The 6,500-seat baseball stadium will be state-of-the-art for spring training. The 12 practice fields outside the main diamond - six for each team - will be easy to navigate for players and fans. With a hat tip to the Salt River Fields at Talking Stick in Arizona, shared by the...