The Beginning
There are two themes to this year's website:
- The front page has an iphone-y feel, and
- Every other page features an exciting young player in MLB
I wanted to flex my (tiny) CSS muscles and make a front page that looked sort of like an iPhone. I got lots of help from TY on the final spit and polish on this. He's a big Apple guy, and he showed me a pretty nice feel for graphic design. Excellent.
I spent most of my energy on my primary theme: young players. Each page on the site features a young ballplayer born after 1990.
Here's a table of the featured young players. It's in order. Starlin Castro is first player born after 1990 to play in MLB. So, he's first. The rest are sorted from left-to-right and top-to-bottom by their MLB debut date.
| Starlin Castro May 7, 2010 |
Mike Trout Jul 8, 2011 |
Jose Altuve Jul 20, 2011 |
Bryce Harper Apr 28, 2012 |
| Trevor Rosenthal Jul 18, 2012 |
Jean Segura Jul 24, 2012 |
Manny Machado Aug 9, 2012 |
Avi Garcia Aug 31, 2012 |
| Jurickson Profar Sep 2, 2012 |
Jose Fernandez Apr 7, 2013 |
Michael Wacha May 30, 2013 |
Yasiel Puig Jun 3, 2013 |
| Gerrit Cole Jun 11, 2013 |
Xander Boegarts Aug 20, 2013 |
Taijuan Walker Aug 30, 2013 |
Billy Hamilton Sep 3, 2013 |
Check that table. Only 3 players born after 1990 played in MLB before the 2012 season: Starlin, Trout, and Altuve. Everyone else has debuted in the last two years.
Here's some guys born after 1990 that just missed the cut: Julio Teheran, Sal Perez, Nolan Arenado, Nick Franklin, Nick Castellanos, and Brett Lawrie.
Without any stats to back it up, I think the impact of younger players in baseball is greater than ever. Look at that list of 16 players above. In 2014, I think you could see the both MVPs and the NL CY Young come out of that list.
My emphasis on young position players was my most important decision last year. (Naperville win!) I only had one position player over 30, Jason Werth. I picked up Werth midseason and was dying to drop him from the moment I added him. (ha) But Werth never let up last year and played great.
Anywho, enjoy. Email me if you have any ideas/comments.
thanks... yow, bill
