Steve Phillips in interview: 'I'm fully responsible for what I did'  —  Steve Phillips, the former ESPN baseball analyst and New York Mets general manager, said Monday that he knew he had a sex addiction problem in August — two months before he was fired from his role with the network.

Milwaukee Brewers building statue of Bud Selig outside Miller Park  —  MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Brewers are erecting a statue of baseball commissioner Bud Selig outside Miller Park and will unveil it on Aug. 24.  —  Selig  —  Selig headed a group that bought the Seattle Pilots …

Caribbean Series won by Dominican Republic  —  Mets' Martinez named tournament's Most Valuable Player  —  MARGARITA ISLAND, Venezuela — The pulsing sounds of merengue overpowered the concourse, and fireworks lit up the sky above center field on a clear night at Estado Nueva Esparta.

Why you sign Josh Beckett, today.  —  The ‘comps’ are flying, everyone is writing about Josh and his worth to the team, his potential value this winter, his health, all the things you hear when someone enters a walk year on a contract.  —  Here's why, barring some freakish medical issue …

FanGraphs Splits  —  For a couple years now I've wanted to get better splits up and running on FanGraphs, but other things have taken priority.  We've had Lefty/Right and Home/Away splits in the graphs sections for almost four years, but never have there been any tabular splits.

Ranking MLB stadiums (that I've been to)  —  Apparently people like stupid lists.  That's hardly news to me, but last week really drove the point home.  My column was the ultimate in stupid lists: my personal rankings of MLB team nicknames.  Not only was it about as lightweight an article …

Send Mark to spring training  —  When I launched this site one week ago, I honestly had no idea what to expect.  I knew I wanted to provide another outlet for news and analysis of the Washington Nationals.  But with no method of advertising other than word-of-mouth, I didn't know how many people that content would reach.

Getting in position  —  By this time next week, I'll be tossing clothes in a suitcase and wondering how much AirTran will charge me for the privilege of checking in for my flight to Sarasota.  —  Southwest doesn't fly into that city, which is one strike against the Orioles' spring training relocation.

A call for neater autographs  —  Youngsters in particular treasure a signed baseball by their favorite player.  Of course, sports cards are always valued, but not like a ball signed by an Albert Pujols or a Yadier Molina.  —  It always angers me that some athletes will go to great lengths to sign legibly …

Evaluating Baseball's Managers  —  [Editor's Note: Chris Jaffe, writer for The Hardball Times, has written a new book, “Evaluating Baseball's Managers.”  The commentary below is the introductory essay to EBM's Chapter 5, which is titled “Rise of the Fundamentalists, 1893-1919."]

The Unsigned All-Star Team  —  Here on February 8th, over 90 free agents remain unsigned.  It's time to determine the best available at each position.  —  Starting lineup:  — Catcher: Rod Barajas  — First base: Russell Branyan  — Second base: Felipe Lopez  — Shortstop: Nomar Garciaparra

Introducing SIERA  —  Part 1  —  Baseball fans who have no use for advanced metrics can realize the flaws in evaluating pitchers by their won-lost records, but may struggle to understand the inherent flaws in the more commonly used earned run average.  Henry Chadwick invented ERA …