Jackson Roberts Articles - Page 3

With the Los Angeles Dodgers dropping their last five games, it’s blatantly clear we need a new No. 1 team in the MLB power rankings. And based on recent play, the two candidates are clear. The Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees. They’re not only the teams with the best record in each league, but […]

Pinch yourselves, New York Yankees fans. This team really is everything you hoped they’d be in your wildest offseason dreams, and perhaps even better. After dominating the San Diego Padres for the first two days of Memorial Day Weekend, the Yankees are 37-17, three games clear of the rest of the AL East and dominating […]

Maybe it’s time to stop being so negative about the St. Louis Cardinals. They became the first team to sweep the Baltimore Orioles in over two years this past Wednesday, pushing their record up to 23-26, which is somehow only 1.5 games out of Wild Card contention in the National League. But then again, the […]

To most Americans, Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer and this year, it seems as though the weather is largely set to cooperate. That means folks everywhere are going to rejoice outdoors and for the sports fans among us, Major League Baseball ballparks beckon with hot dogs and cold refreshments to be enjoyed […]

After a flashy offseason, the 2024 San Francisco Giants have yet to really hit their stride. Though they are far from buried in the National League standings, their 25-26 record has to be considered a disappointment. Any hopes of competing with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the division are basically kaput and now, they’re in […]

The phrase “World Series hangover” is both overused and underused in Major League Baseball. It seems like we are quick to acknowledge it when the defending champs are going through struggles, but we ignore its existence when that team continues to be excellent the following season. This year, though, it definitely applies. The Texas Rangers, […]

There’s been a pretty simple motto for the Kansas City Royals in 2024, one perfectly befitting of a team no one expected to be playing this well after a 56-win season a year ago. The refrain goes “The boys are playing some ball,” and to the Royals’ credit, that they most certainly are. At 32-19 […]

The Tampa Bay Rays are one of the rare professional sports franchises where the name on the front of the jersey always seems to matter more than the name on the back. The Rays have routinely taken the scraps from the rest of Major League Baseball and turned them into All-Star caliber players. They’re a […]

The Boston Red Sox are a mediocre baseball team in 2024, but what they do on a nightly basis is hardly ever mediocre. One night, they’ll win 10-1 and look like a World Series contender, then the next they’ll make four errors and lose to a last-place team. It adds up to create a viewing […]

Breakout seasons in Major League Baseball are beautiful to watch. The sport is so difficult, with so many talented players failing to establish a firm foothold in MLB, that it feels rare and exciting to see a lightbulb moment for a young player in real-time. The real issue, though, is that baseball is also a […]

The St. Louis Cardinals are a franchise approaching a crossroads. After a disastrous 2023 season, the Cards decided to operate as if nothing was broken and run back the same core roster, albeit with a slight facelift to the pitching staff. And so far, that philosophy isn’t exactly paying off. Yes, it’s still May, but […]

No matter how talented the superstars on the diamond might be, the starting pitcher is the most impactful player in any MLB game. If he pitches well, the team usually wins. If he gets shelled, it’s almost always a loss. And over the course of the season, the strength of the starters that take turns […]

Sometimes, you just have to take a step back and appreciate a truly great week in Major League Baseball. Whether it was Juan Soto, Gunnar Henderson, Kyle Tucker, or Jonny DeLuca, baseballs were flying out of stadiums all week long and superstars and role players alike were producing riveting moments from coast to coast. But […]

If you ever think you know what A.J. Preller and the San Diego Padres are going to do next, seek immediate psychiatric help. This organization has zigged when all expected them to zag for two years running, with the trade for Luis Arraez at the start of May only furthering that pattern. Yet what is […]

The Pittsburgh Pirates may not be at the top of the standings, but there is a new energy about the ballclub this May. The arrival of top pitching prospect Paul Skenes, punctuated by his six-inning, no-hit, 11-strikeout performance Friday in Chicago, has injected hope into a fan base that hasn’t seen postseason baseball in nearly […]

For better or worse, the wins above replacement statistic (more commonly referred to as WAR) has changed the way we view MLB players forever. WAR attempts to boil down a player’s contributions to a single number, determining how many more wins that player is worth to their team than a replacement-level player. Or in other […]

Ah, Seattle Mariners baseball. For yet another season, the M’s are rolling out one of the most dominant pitching staffs in all of baseball, yet struggling to do the bare minimum with the bats. Through it all, they’ve managed to claw their way to a narrow lead in the AL West, but there’s clearly so […]

It feels as though the MLB season has still only just begun and in many ways, that’s the truth. Every team still has over 110 games left to play, enough time for a player who hasn’t appeared in a game yet to qualify for statistical leaderboards by the end of the season. But for some […]

The 2024 New York Mets have been a powder keg from the first pitch on Opening Day. After selling at the Trade Deadline in 2023, it has been a hot topic in Queens ever since as to whether the Mets would be playoff contenders or sellers in 2024, since selling, even when fully acknowledged as […]

Awards are so special in Major League Baseball because the season is so long. To be the best pitcher, hitter or overall rookie in one of the two leagues, you have to be on top of your game for a full six months, fighting off surging challengers along the way. But sometimes the mind craves […]

Every baseball fan, at some point during the Major League Baseball season, wishes they could be the general manager of one of the 30 clubs. But if given the choice of which franchise they could take over, there may not be a solitary person who wishes they could grab the reins to the Colorado Rockies. […]

It’s been well-documented by now that the Houston Astros have had a miserable start to their 2024 season. Since the rest of Major League Baseball has been praying on Houston’s downfall for nearly a decade, it’s tempting for many to use this slip out of the gates as cause to write the Astros off completely […]

The 2024 season hasn’t yet been very kind to the Arizona Diamondbacks, who had high hopes of defending their shocking National League pennant from a year ago. But the season is still young, which means there’s plenty of time for these D-Backs to improve and make the necessary roster adjustments to get back into the […]

There likely is not a single Miami Marlins fan on the face of this planet that’s excited about the prospect of another rebuild. It seems like this team has pretty much been in constant rebuild mode since 2003, save for the one offseason where Jeffrey Loria decided to change the team name and colors and […]

We talk a lot as baseball fans about the best pitchers in the game. The MLB  is full of aces in 2024 and debates surrounding the Cy Young and Reliever of the Year awards are always prominent. But sometimes, it’s fun to separate the art from the artist. That’s why today, we’re taking a look […]

We’ve officially arrived at the quarter-turn of the 2024 Major League Baseball season and the MLB power rankings are starting to get much more murky. Head-to-heads, recent results, and overall records all tell different stories, and that could lead even the most seasoned of ranking specialists to rank the top teams a variety of different […]

It’s still a bit hard to get used to the Baltimore Orioles in their current state. For nearly a decade, the O’s were the doormat of the American League and could not be trusted to spend a dime to keep their team intact. But in 2024, they’re one of the premier World Series contenders out […]

If you’d conducted a poll of 10,000 MLB fans before the season and asked each what their worst-case scenario for the 2024 Houston Astros would be, it’s unlikely that a single one of them would have brought up the possibility of the team being in last place by mid-May. But it’s May 10 and the […]

Any weekend in Major League Baseball is special, but this one is set to enter another stratosphere. When the Pittsburgh Pirates host the Chicago Cubs on Saturday afternoon, they will hand the ball to MLB’s preseason No. 3 overall prospect, Paul Skenes, for the first time on a big-league mound. Skenes has been laughing his […]

There can be no more lonely feeling in professional sports than that of an MLB starting pitcher who is going through a slump. You head out to the mound and you feel like everything you throw is destined to get hammered. The fans wait with bated breath, almost expecting something bad to happen with every […]

The Tampa Bay Rays are one of the most unpredictable franchises in all of professional sports when it comes to making trades. As a low-budget franchise, they’re always willing to be a year early in trading away their biggest names rather than risking losing them for nothing. But we’ve also seen, particularly in the 2020s, […]

Rebuilds are a necessary evil in Major League Baseball. Every competitor wants to win every game they play in the MLB, but sometimes, a front office has to acknowledge that their roster is a few years away from realistic contention. And for fans, those long years of rooting for a below-.500 team can be excruciating, […]

There’s no escaping it at the moment—the Chicago White Sox are a dumpster fire. Less than three years removed from a 93-win season and an AL Central division title, the Pale Hose are the first team in baseball to reach 20 games under .500, with little promising talent at the big league level and MLBPipeline’s […]

There is exactly one thing that is harder to do in Major League Baseball than win a World Series and it’s to win another one. The dreaded championship hangover is a real phenomenon in this sport, known for its grueling regular seasons, and the Texas Rangers are the latest team trying to fight off that […]

Aces. Studs. Horses. We’re over a month into the Major League Baseball season and it’s time to check in on the power dynamic at the game’s most pivotal position–the starting pitcher. The game is filled with talented hurlers who are taking the ball every fifth day and shutting down the opposition and they’re all chasing […]

The start of the 2024 Major League Baseball season has been a roller coaster ride thus far for the Cincinnati Reds and as of late, there have been a lot of unexpected dips. After being swept and failing to score a run against a starting pitcher over the weekend, the Reds are on a five-game […]

It stinks to be negative, but on occasion in MLB, you just have to throw some shade. We’re six weeks into a new season and already, a big group of teams is flunking their preseason expectations and causing their fan bases heartache in the process. This is not a ranking of the worst teams in […]

Six weeks into the Major League Baseball season, the kings have finally been dethroned. The Atlanta Braves stood strong in the top spot of the MLB power rankings for the entire month of April, but thanks to their weekend sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers, it’s Shohei Ohtani and L.A. who claim […]

As has been the case for most of this decade, 2024 is off to a tumultuous start for the Boston Red Sox. They’re leading the league in errors, have had 60% of their roster on the injured list at some point already and yet… they’re doing pretty well? The pitching staff is the best in […]