Charging the Mound: How Do We Know When a Breakout Portends Long-Term Stardom?

Many thanks to Grantland.com's Jonah Keri who has agreed to step in and co-write "Charging the Mound" this week with Jeff Erickson on vacation.

From: Christopher Liss
Subject: Re: Charging
Date: July 24, 2012 11:29 AM PDT
To: Jonah Keri

Jonah, it's still only July, meaning there's more than a third of the season still to play out, but your Rays are just two games over .500, with a modest plus-two run differential and nine games back of the Yankees. I say "your Rays" because you wrote the book on them. Of course, they're only 2.5 games out of one of the coin-flip Wild Card spots and have played most of the year without their best position player in Evan Longoria (his contract is so team friendly, the only way he can make it fair is to injure himself for ext

You've reached the end of our free article preview.
See below to find out how you can read the full version of this article.