2009 MLB Season Thread - Page 2

I know the Braves run on a budget, and adding McClouth’s contract without dumping somebody probably wouldn’t have worked, but damn. I mean, I get the baseball reasons, Hanson over Glavine and all that, but... shit, taking a dump on one of your all-time greats for a couple million bucks?

Whatever, just remember this whenever you guys question a player’s “loyalty.”

So, with things going fairly well, Girardi and/or Cashman decides it's time to throw Wang back into the rotation. Since they aren't going six starters deep, one of them is gonna get bumped to the pen, maybe even be the bridge to Rivera.

Are they just being stubborn pricks with Joba at this point? And what happens if Wang goes 2.1 innings today with 8 hits and 6 runs? Then what? He goes again in 5 days, and Hughes get's all out of rythym in the pen?

Well, it probably depends on what role Hughes has in the pen, are they making him the 8th inning guy, or just a Ramiro Mendoza like long man? If it’s the latter, Joba Chamberlain is too good for that role, and Hughes very well may be the right fit, for now.

I mean, if Wang does go 2.1 innings today, you have Hughes right there, saving the rest of your pen.

I have to assume they want Hughes to handle 4 or 5 tough, 7th/8th inning outs. Tomko can do the long relief shit.

So, the draft is going on, and the Nats took this stud pitcher from SD state. Now, since he couldn't yet have an agent, Scott Boras was acting as his pre-draft "advisor". Once he does his become his agent (I guess at some point today, if he hasn't already), he's going to be looking for a contract in the 50-60 million dollar range.

That's fucking gross, considering the next great starting pitcher to get drafted number one overall will be the first.

That’s a bit unfair, as the last pitching prospect this big was Mark Prior, who wasn’t drafted first because of, well, Joe Mauer, and the fact that 1) He didn’t want to play for the Twins, and 2) they didn’t have the money to sign him. Prior actually signed a major league contract right out of the gate, for something like $10,000,000.

And that’s the thing, teams that suck tend to not have money, and big-time prospects tend to, you know, actually want money. Let alone latin american prospects that just go to the highest bidder (see: Felix Hernandez), sidestepping the draft altogether. With that much talent either dropping due to signability, or never even entering into the draft, it’s hard to use the lack of success of the overall #1 as a knock, regardless of the player involved.

But mostly, I get tired of people knocking agents, especially for players going into the amateur draft, as they have absolutely zero representation otherwise (the MLBPA couldn’t give two shits about them).

Quit baseball now, Luis Castillo.

You failed, A-Rod. Don't lose site of that. You popped up.

Rose reinstated soon? A lot of people are talking about it.

What about Shoeless Joe?

Cliff Lee to the Phillies. Good move but they shoulda went with Halladay. Lee is good but very beatable.

They gave up nothing to get him, got a solid righthanded bat as a throw in (no more pinch-hitting for the horrendous Eric Bruntlett) and held onto their top 3 prospects and JA Happ, which, with Pedro joining the team, lets them move someone to the bullpen and/or trade a starter for bullpen help.

Fantastic trade.

It’s a move the Phillies had to make, but weren’t Carrasco and Donald rather highly thought of prior to this season?

Marson and Donald are two guys that could be solid major league players. Donald will benefit from a change of scenery, since he has always had Rollins and Utley starting over him for the past couple years. Carrasco has no control. Knapp throws 98mph. He is the centerpiece. They got a lot for guys that haven't performed this year. Kudos to Amaro, but I would not be surprised if Marson and Donald are in the majors by seasons end.

Carrasco was very highly thought of -- he's having a mediocre year, and it hurt his stature. He's the real steal in this deal. I think the Phils got the better end of this, but not as much as people think. Carrasco can certainly rebound and become a reliable starter. I think he can be a solid middle-of-the-rotation guy for years to come.

Donald jumped up the board, so to speak, after a good year and a good showing with Team USA. But he still projected in-house to a sort of super-utility guy. He was a bit overrated a prospect -- he'll be in the majors for several years, but he's not going to be a no-doubt-about-it starter.

Knapp is a guy with a ton of potential. The best bet to be a breakout star. If he doesn't pan out as a starter, he's got the kind of stuff to be a closer. People have compared him to guys like Papelbon and Joba -- wouldn't surprise me if he breaks in as a closer and is so good that a debate ensues about whether to keep him in that role or stretch him out to start.

Marson is a solid catcher. Had a hot bat for a while, but has cooled off. Not a bad defender, but not stellar either. People thought he'd take Ruiz's job with his hitting, but once he started to struggle, he had no shot of making this team. With the lineup they have, they put a tremendous value on catching defense and can deal with a sub-.250 hitter in the 8-hole catching.

So, that's why everyone is saying the Phils got the best of this one: Knapp is a few years away, and everybody else is having down years. The Indians probably see those down years as abberations, and may have good reason to -- Donald was injured, and so was Marson for a bit. Carrasco's struggles are more in his head; that's a tough thing to project, but a change of scenery can't make it worse, I imagine.

There's enough potential in these four prospects -- particularly the pitching half -- that the Indians have a good shot of making this a win-win trade when you look back on it in a few years.

By the end of the season, my team will look completely different. Oh well. The Pirates continue their losing ways thanks to the worst owners in professional sports.

Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez on the same day? Jeez.

And that's a great deal for the Indians and Phillies.

Please let Sanchez be the spark the Giants need. I'm all for winning these tight one-run games but they can't play the Pirates every day.

Jesus, Pirates management must REALLY hate their fans.

Morgan, McClouth, LaRoche, Wilson, Snell, and now Sanchez.

When are they gonna trade Duke and Matt Capps?

So, uhm, would it be completely out of the realm of possibility for the Phillies to, well, still go out and trade for Halladay? I mean, that’s a team that becomes a lock for the postseason this year and next, assuming it stays reasonably healthy.

Sure as hell glad the Jays didn't bite on that shit sandwich Boston was offering. Clay Bucholz? He's the cornerstone of the Boston side of the deal?

Well, Alderson (the guy the Pirates got for Sanchez) is better than any prospect the Phillies parted with for Lee, so at least they made out well in the deal.

Dodgers get George Sherrill from the Orioles. Not a bad addition to our tired bullpen, but I have to admit I'm bummed the Phils got Cliff Lee for a song. That would have been a GREAT pickup for us.

Time to add John Grabow and Tom Gorzellany to that list.

As a hardcore Buccos fan, I will now appropriately quote Major League.

"Who the fuck is Mitchell Friedman?"

Good if you're a White Sox fan:

Even though Peavy might not pitch again this year, that is still a helluva deal the Sox pulled off.

I mean, I know it sucks to see your team do this, but what else were they supposed to do? The Pirates clearly have a budget, and holding onto mediocre–to–average players does nothing but restrict their flexibility for the sake of a, what? 70 win ballclub?

None of the players they gave up were going to be around for their next winning season.

It's a salary dump. I'd want him if not for the injury concern but I'd worry he's damaged goods.

Well, the trades aren't the problem. It's the management. We most definitely have the worst ownership in all of professional sports. To our owners, the Pirates are not a baseball team, but a product. They make a ton of money only to produce a godawful team. They don't realize that they need to invest in talent and spend big bucks to bring the fans in.

Pittsburgh may be a small market team, but if they even performed to the level of the Steelers or the Penguins market wouldn't matter at all. Pittsburgh is first and foremost, a sports town. The Pirates have prime real estate in the calendar for the city to focus on the team, but most Pittsburghers have fleeting interest in the Bucs until August when Steeler training camp starts. This year was especially worse for the team because people would rather watch Penguins playoff games than attend early Pirates games.

The only reason why people even go to Pirates games anymore is because we have the best ballpark in baseball.

Sure, but “invest” where? The Pirates were in no position to add payroll, Littlefield left the organization bereft of anything resembling a productive farm system, without a competitive team or interest. The path towards sustained success doesn’t begin with free agents, it begins from within. If anything, I’d focus more on whether or not they’re allowing talent to slip by in the draft due to “signability” issues (I’m looking at you, Washington), or how much they’re willing to invest in international talent, than how much they spend on their major league roster.

I know I’m looking at this from the outside, but it looks to me as if Huntington realized where the Pirates were in the success cycle, and decided to focus, instead, on building the sort of foundation necessary to compete.

I haven't seen this posted yet, but it's awesome:

Josh Hamilton Drunk

Considering the words "Christ", "Jesus" and "God" are in just about every sentence he speaks now, and that he's a recovering addict, these are awesome as hell.

What is just as awesome is him telling the team the very next day what he'd done, and him admitting his guilt and not trying to hide anything. Like he said, he's only human:

ESPN

It's not just the talent. The owners refuse to spend money to make the team as best as possible. They have refused to spend money on scouting talent in other countries until very recently. (and even that talent ain't that good.) They have also refused to spend money to get better talent scouts, coaches, and managers. They've hired god awful administrators the past decade who have drafted miserable players that were obviously not scouted extensively or properly.

The only area where the owners have excelled in has been fan relations and the stadium. The stadium is the best in baseball. But having a god awful team play in a fantastic ballpark is like building a gold plated mansion and filling it with garbage inside.

So a few days have past, and this has basically dissolved into vapors. Even here locally, it'll be brought up on the sports radio stations, but the majority of fans and commentators alike are defending Hamilton. In fact, one douchebag host said "Even good Christians sin every once in awhile". Yeah, okay, fuckface. These are the types of people I despise. But that's a different topic.

I want to get some opinions on this.

If Josh Hamilton were a black man, he would be destroyed by the media.

And then, regardless of race, if this were a Yankee or a Red Sock, you can forget about it. We'd still be hearing about it right now!

The Josh Hamilton story has always had such a strange tinge to it, I mean, a tattoo riddled drug addict who struggles to ditch the habit has, more often than not, been portrayed as a pariah more than anything else. That he fell off the wagon, again, to seemingly no backlash is hardly surprising.

Also, really Chicago?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwsQ3ADqO0A

My favorite part is they kicked the wrong fan out:
http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotr...ets-away-.html

I've gotta say, you trying to bring race into this story is completely off base. The American public loves to tear people down, and then they love to watch people redeem themselves. This can't really be argued. Josh Hamilton is an odd case because he tore himself down before he was truly in the public spotlight. His redemption was front and center, but his fall from grace? That happened far from the public eyes.

I mean, look at Michael Vick. He took a beating like few have in the media. He was portrayed as monstrous. He was on top of the world and people revelled in his being torn down to nothing. Now there's the possibility of him playing in the NFL again and the public waits impatiently to see if he can somehow claw his way back up. How often do you hear (outside of PETA) about Vick's crimes any more? The details are buried. His race didn't matter.

Even your "if he was a Yankee or a Red Sock" seems incorrect. I mean, FFS, A-Rod bailed on his wife to bang a skeleton vaguely resembling an 80's pop star and now he's banging a hot actress and it's really barely talked about.

The reason people aren't talking about it is that Josh seems like a genuinely nice guy, he never tried to hide it and was proactively repentent regarding his actions (see: the opposite of just about everybody found to be using steroids). Most of us realize that trying to kick this guy for tripping up would say a lot more about us than it would about him. It's not race. It's not what team he's on. It's that everybody makes mistakes, and he handled his like a man.

People trying to make more out of it sure as hell couldn't last 5 minutes with that kind of spotlight looking at the dark shadows of their lives.

The $200M payroll is finally paying off for the Yanks. (Yes, I'm a fan who is ashamed of it)

Grats to Jeter.

On banging Lyla Garrity, I mean. The Gehrig thing is pretty cool also.

Anybody hereabout have an issue with the Brewers' bowling pin celebration? (it's at the 0:51 mark if you want to avoid the motion-sickness inducing camera shake)

Congrats to Charlie for getting some balls and pulling Lidge from the Closer role for the Phillies.

When you're 17 games out you gotta occupy your time somehow, might as well take up choreography.

It's just kinda funny how the most ridiculous pre- and post-game stuff gets a pass in the NFL and NBA but stuff like this (or Ovie's post-goal celebrations in the NHL) are a BIG DEAL.

I honestly loved it, then again, I also love Jose Reyes’ antics and everyone seems to hates him too.

You're welcome Twins fans. Don't blow it.

If Detroit weren’t so down trodden, rooting for a play-in-game would be a lot more fun.

Wow Granderson may have just saved their season with that catch. I too have a problem rooting against Detroit, but at the same time I like that the Sox are pushing them so hard.

Well thank you Bailey, I sure hope they don't blow it.

Unbelievable.

Well, if the Yankees were having any thoughts of choosing to start their series on Thursday, that went out the window as soon as this hit the tenth inning.

I think they already made their choice. The game's scheduled for tomorrow regardless.

The Yankees should be able to whip up on whoever ends up winning this game no problem.