MLB.com: Padres part ways with Edmonds

The Padres decided to sever ties with Jim Edmonds on Friday, releasing the 37-year-old, eight-time Gold Glove winner after he struggled offensively and defensively during the first month of the season.

“It’s just not happening for him statistically,” Padres manager Bud Black said Thursday before a 5-4 loss to the Braves ended a 2-7 road trip, leaving the reeling Padres with a 12-23 record and in last place in the National League West.

Edmonds, 37, was hitting just .178 with 24 strikeouts in 90 at-bats.
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The Padres have recalled outfielder Jody Gerut from Triple-A Portland to take Edmonds’ spot on the 25-man roster.
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In another move, the Padres claimed… pitcher Sean Henn off waivers from the Yankees.

SportTicker: Blue Jays acquire Mench, sign Wilkerson

The Toronto Blue Jays made an attempt to give their sluggish offense a boost, acquiring a pair of former accomplished hitters. The Blue Jays traded for outfielder Kevin Mench and signed outfielder Brad Wilkerson prior to the start of a four-game series at the Cleveland Indians on Friday.

Sitting second-to-last in the American League in RBI with 133 in 36 games, Toronto acquired Mench from the Texas Rangers for cash considerations. The 30-year-old has yet to appear in the majors this season, hitting .282 with three home runs and 18 RBI in 29 games with the Rangers’ Class AAA affiliate in Oklahoma.
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Wilkerson, 30, joins the Blue Jays after being released by the Seattle Mariners on April 30. He was hitting .232 with five RBI in 19 games with the AL West club.
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Toronto also had to clear room for Mench and Wilkerson on the 40-man roster, designating lefthander Gustavo Chacin and infielder Sergio Santos for assignment.

Jays acquire Wilkerson, Mench to boost offense

Wilkerson, recently cut by the Seattle Mariners, was signed as a free agent and Mench was acquired for cash from the Texas Rangers.

Wilkerson helps fill the shortstop void created by David Eckstein and John McDonald, both on the disabled list.

Once Eckstein and McDonald come off the disabled list, the Jays will have to choose which shortstops to keep.

Mench, an outfielder who was with the Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate in Oklahoma, hit .267 with eight homers and 37 RBIs last season for the Brewers.

Sexson fined, suspended 6 games after brawl

Seattle slugger Richie Sexson was suspended for six games and fined Friday by Major League Baseball after charging the mound and throwing his helmet at a Texas pitcher the previous night.

Bob Watson, baseball’s vice president in charge of discipline, cited Sexson for “violent and aggressive actions.”

Sexson asked the players’ association to appeal, and any suspension will be delayed until after a hearing.

Padres Release Edmonds

Edmonds, 37, was hitting just .178 with 24 strikeouts in 90 at-bats. He had just six hits in his last 55 at-bats. He wasn’t in the starting lineup on Thursday in Atlanta, but appeared in the game as part of a double-switch, grounding out in his only at-bat.

Also: Gerut called up, Sean Henn claimed off waivers from the Yankees.

SNY: Salfino: The future of the Mets

Desperately trying to make people forget the Lance Loud Mouths (the horrific Mumps-flavored SNY houseband)...the latest from Salfino.

As for the much heralded Fernando Martinez, Eddy says, “the best news is that he hasn’t gotten hurt again—yet.” But that was hours before he smacked two homers last night, bringing his season total to three.

“Double-A lefties are chewing him up,” says Eddy. “There’s been something like 20 guys since 1992 who have played a full season in Double-A at age 19. The glass isn’t half full with him, it’s very full. He needs to put that batting practice power into play during games. We stand by our projection of him as a lefty Carlos Lee—a guy with plus power and batting average but not a lot of defensive value.”

The Mets best pitching prospect is Binghamton’s Jonathan Niese, a lefty who “touches 94 and has a nice curve,” says Eddy. Niese was leading the league in ERA before tailing off his last two starts.

“The Mets have him on the fast track.”

Bronx Banter: Markusen: Roy White: The Forgotten Yankee

Or as Alex Belth (see you at 6, Al!) sez in the comments..."I will never take a program like Yankeeography seriously until they do shows on Yankees like Roy White.”

As overlooked as White was for most of his career, the view of his worth as a player has undergone a stark revision. Historians and analysts now recognize him as one of the finer multi-talented players of the 1970s. Durable and dependable, he featured speed (stealing an average of over 15 bases a season over a 15-year career), a modicum of power (160 home runs, including a high of 22 in 1970), and an excellent glove in left field, skilled enough to handle the challenging dimensions of Death Valley of Yankee Stadium. White also fared well in the postseason, particularly in League Championship Series play. No less an authority than Bill James (who is ironically now a Boston Red Sox employee) has become one of White’s biggest champions, going so far as to claim that White was a better ballplayer than his Red Sox’ left field counterpart, Jim Rice. That’s especially noteworthy given that Rice undergoes an annual dalliance with the BBWAA, which has come within a whisker of electing him to the Hall of Fame. Rice is expected to win election next January, while White fell off the writers’ ballot after one inglorious campaign in 1985. White received no votes (while far lesser players like Don Kessinger and Jesus Alou garnered two and one, respectively), thereby dropping off the ballot immediately.

The Good Phight: Cohen: Ryan Howard’s Slump

Citizen K...all day!

When talking about early season slumps, it’s a common refrain for analysts to note that the slump is magnified by it occurring early in the season.  After all, if a player goes through a tough month in July, he’ll have April through June numbers to “absorb” the July slump.  But, if a player slumps in April, all he’ll have is April numbers, and he’ll look awful.

With that nugget in mind, I investigated Ryan Howard’s awful start to 2008.  36 games into the season, Howard’s triple-slash numbers are a miserable .165/.285/.331.  His OPS is a Nunez-esque .616.  He’s striking out to the tune of .34 Ks per plate appearance and homering only .040 times per plate appearance.

But has he struggled like this before over the course of 36 games but we’ve just not been able to see it because it’s been in the middle of a season instead of the start?  The very clear answer to that question is no.  What we’re seeing from Howard is a unique slump in his major league career.  Details if you follow the jump....

...Strikeout Rate: Some theories are that Howard’s horrible stretch now is because he’s striking out more than he ever has before.  But that’s not true.  In the middle of last year, from June 8 to July 20, Howard struck out .365 times per plate appearance compared to .338 this year.  During that stretch of striking out last year, Howard hit .295/.377/.664.  His strikeout rate clearly wasn’t too much of an impediment then.

N.Y. Observer: Megdal: Where Have You Gone, Morgan Ensberg?

Hopefully not to enjoy Helen Morgan’s Bellevue view…

“As for the down year, I think I just played poorly,” Ensberg said. “It felt like balls weren’t dropping—I mean, clearly, balls weren’t dropping—but I hit a bad streak, and Mike Lamb played great.”

Ensberg is right, incidentally, about the balls not dropping. His 2005 was far from a fluke—his batting average on balls in play, which hitters have relatively little control over, stood at .301, roughly league average. But in 2006, his BABIP was a freakishly low .251, including marks of .211, .189 and .211 in May-June-July, when he lost his job to Lamb.

Odder still, even though his at-bats fell from 526 to 387, his walks actually increased from 2005, from 85 to 101. But Ensberg thinks that may have been the problem.

“I was thinking about this last night,” Ensberg said. “And I think that I am at my best when I am aggressive. I need to be prepared to hit anything at any pitch in the count.”

Micah Owings in Context

But it’s more fun to take him out of context.

Highest Career OPS (min 75 PA):

Babe Ruth 1.164
Ted Williams 1.116
Lou Gehrig 1.079
Micah Owings 1.056
Barry Bonds 1.051
Albert Pujols 1.041

While this isn’t necessarily a candidate for inclusion in the next edition of How to Lie With Statistics, setting the bar at 75 PA is just the tiniest bit misleading. Still, that’s pretty heady company, and there’s no denying that Owings is an excellent hitting pitcher. With the help of the amazing BaseballReference.com Play Index, I pulled up a couple of other charts that put Owings’ accomplishments in a bit more context:

N.Y. Sun: Marchman: Where Have All the Bad GMs Gone?

When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?...Although Marchman does pick out a king stoned trio.

To cast the problem another way, try to name a terrible GM in baseball other than Sabean. There are, to be sure, uninspired executives. Toronto’s J.P. Ricciardi, Houston’s Ed Wade, and Seattle’s Bill Bavasi, for instance, all frequently make laughable moves. They trade valuable prospects for expensive veterans even though they have little chance of winning, sign free agents for too much money, release strong hitters for no reason, and so on. But none among them are so bad that you almost feel sorry for them. They’re merely unimaginative, and predisposed to take the safe bet. None are truly easy prey for shrewd operators in the Veeck tradition. None are inclined to do something such as signing a backup shortstop to a four-year contract, or making a washed-up Mo Vaughn their starting first baseman.

This depressing paucity of genuine, flagrant ineptitude likely has something to do with the alarming outbreak of parity in the league. Epstein, Byrnes, Oakland’s Billy Beane, and their peers may be sharp as all get-out, as truly an improvement on their predecessors as Utley and Fukudome are on theirs. But without true nitwits upon whom they can practice their dark arts, there’s no way for them to display the full range of their talents. Forty years ago, a canny executive could run a team near the top of the league just by getting a rival near an open bottle of whiskey. Today, he has to work for it. There’s always the hope of tomorrow, at least: Sooner or later some GM will be fired, and one can presume that Steve Phillips would not turn down a job if one was offered to him.

Ryan Howard Can’t Hit Any Longer, Decides to Live in Bubble, Dress As Fat Man

Citizen K is more like it…

Yesterday the Reading Phillies gave away this lovely Ryan Howard snow globe to the first 1,000 boys and girls who showed up for the game against Binghamton. As Dmac says, “I’m not sure why Howard is batting with a french fry there.”

N.Y. Sun: Barra: In Rare Case, Jim Bouton Finds Life After Sports

From Bulldog Bouton to Bulldog Drummond…

On the subject of the building of the new Yankee Stadium and the fate of the old — don’t get him started. “The whole thing is just outrageous,” he told the audience at Film Forum. “It’s a total disgrace, and a perfect example of the failure of democracy. Why did we need a new Yankee Stadium if, with the old one, the Yankees were leading the league in attendance?

“Who wanted Yankee Stadium torn down? Not the fans who buy the tickets, and not the taxpayers, who are going to foot much of the bill just so they can pay higher ticket prices for the fewer seats that are available. I think it was said best by one of the main culprits in all of it, Rudolph Giuliani. When someone asked him ‘Why aren’t the fans allowed to vote for this new stadium?’ he said, ‘Because they’d vote against it.’”

Aren’t you afraid, an audience member wanted to know, that mouthing off about the new Yankee Stadium will get you banished all over again? “Oh, heck,” he said with a wave of his hand, “let the chips fall.”

Dellucci unhappy with Joba’s antics during Yankees’ victory over Indians

Nice poll on the side also…

How do you feel about Joba Chamberlain’s fist-pumping antics?

--I like them - he’s a fiery competitor

--I don’t like them - he needs to grow up

--I hate them - hot-dogging at its worst

--I love them - just added Doctor Tushy to my favorites!

Dellucci was not amused by Chamberlain’s antics.

“That’s what gets him going and that’s what everybody likes to see, but if a hitter was to do something like that they’d probably say it was ‘bush (league)’ and you shouldn’t do it,” Dellucci said. “It’s kind of funny how a pitcher can get away with it.”

..."It’s no disrespect to the hitter,” Chamberlain said. “It’s no disrespect to the game. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve done it. That’s just who I am and that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

Dellucci, a 13-year veteran who played with the Yankees in 2003, has a more old-school approach.

“If he wants to yell and scream after a strikeout and dance around, I guess that gets him going,” Dellucci said. “My home run was in a much bigger situation, more a key part of the game and I didn’t dance around and scream.”

Yost might be toast……

My name is NOT Michael Hunt yet I STRONGLY approve of this message.

If the Brewers don’t snap out of it soon, Mark Attanasio could make the move with justifiable cause. The owner has been remarkably loyal to his holdover employees, but Attanasio is a businessman first, and a pragmatic one at that. He is banking on a 3 million house at Miller Park based on what were realistic expectations for this team.

And somebody is stealing my lines!

Instead, Yost continues with the Kevin Bacon refrain from “Animal House” that “all is well,” when everyone knows that all is not well.

Gee, somebody finally noticed this endearing element of Milwaukee’s moronager.

Some of that may have been because Yost is perceived as defiantly stubborn when it comes to admitting his mistakes.

Excuse me will you?  I have some oil that needs to be boiled.  And where did I leave that pile of feathers??

Whoops, almost forgot, sign-up sheet to rent a torch is on the desk.  I already have one. 

And it’s lit...................

N.Y. Post: DAVID WELLS WOULD LOVE YANKEE RETURN (RR)

This is shocking, shocking I tell you! No, not that David Wells wants to come back to the Yankees...its that Hank Steinbrenner (or anybody) watches “Best Damn Sports Show Period”!

The free-agent left-hander told The Post yesterday he has been working out near his home in San Diego and believes he could bolster a Yankees’ rotation suddenly besieged by question marks.

Could Boomer III be in the cards? Consider that Wells has a huge fan monitoring the situation from Tampa. Hank Steinbrenner admitted yesterday that Wells, who recently made appearances on “Best Damn Sports Show Period,” has crossed his mind as a possibility for the Yankees’ rotation. “I’ve thought about it,” Steinbrenner told The Post. “I saw him on TV, and I did think about it when I was watching.”

...The Baby Boss then dropped a subtle hint he’s growing disillusioned with the Yankees’ youth movement and could open the door to Wells.

“What sticks out in my mind, that team in the late ‘90s, the starting pitching,” he said. “You had [David] Cone, El Duque [Orlando Hernandez], Wells . . . they were all big-game pitchers. They all came from elsewhere - not in the system.

“Everybody talks about the great players from the farm system that we had in the ‘90s, but it was the starting rotation. That was a huge part of the success. Huge.”

and Huge = David Wells.

Syracuse.com: ‘Hey man, are you the only black guy on the team?’

That would be the Syracuse Chiefs and their co-closer Tracy Thorpe.

“As far as I know, I was the only black guy in the minor leagues for this organization the past two years,” said Thorpe, who is in his ninth season in Toronto’s employ. “Everybody else was white, Hispanic or Asian. In the whole organization it was, like, me, Frank Thomas, Vernon Wells and Royce Clayton. And that was about it.

“But in this last draft, the Blue Jays got a few more African-Americans. When I sat down at camp this year, I saw more black guys and I was excited. I’m not saying that I communicate with them better, but it’s kind of nice to see your own race out there trying to make it.”

..."To me, people are going to play what they want to play,” Thorpe said. “With all of the other crap going on, sports is the least of African-Americans’ worries. I played baseball, football and basketball, and was decent in all of them, so I think guys should pursue what they want to pursue. I love baseball, but I would never tell a kid to play it rather than football or basketball.”

..."It really doesn’t bother me. I’m living my own dream of making it to the big leagues. If I worried about that number (8.2 percent), I don’t think I’d have as good a shot. Besides, it’s not my fault I’m the only one here. I can’t worry about what goes on in the front office and who they’re drafting. I’m sure there are African-Americans who do get drafted and decide to go off and play college football, instead.”

..."This is my dream and I want to finish it,” declared Thorpe, who showed up at Alliance Bank Stadium for Thursday night’s game against Buffalo with a 2-0 record, four saves and an ERA of 2.84. “I’m nobody to say, ‘This is wrong.’ I’m nobody to say, ‘We need more blacks.’ It would have to be someone with 10 or 15 years in the big leagues. I’m not the person to go to the commissioner’s office and set up a big meeting. Not me. I’m just here to play.”

Buffalo News: Accountant makes Elias the source

A look at the most important man in Bill Madden’s life (well, outside of James “Prexy” Petrillo, that is)...Seymour Siwoff and his Elias Sports Bureau.

“You can’t talk to the computer in the English language,” said Siwoff, the company president. “From the very first day I realized, ‘Oh my God. You’ve got to learn the nomenclature of how to talk to this machine.’ That’s the key. We talk to it. And in many [search] cases you have to stop and think, ‘What’s a better way to approach this?’ ”

Siwoff and a staff of more than 30 have historical perspective at their fingertips and it regularly ends up on the lips of SportsCenter’s anchors, or tucked into newspaper notes columns. Quite often the facts they unearth aren’t nearly as impressive as their ability to unearth them, and with virtual immediacy. Usually Elias is providing the answer before the question’s been asked.

...“The difference between us and Google and Yahoo is, we put the stuff in the machine,” Siwoff said. “They brought us files already there. We spent a lifetime doing this. . . . To this very day we’re researching mistakes of the past in the sports we do, incredible as it is. In fairness to our previous generation, they didn’t have any computers. There was a casual approach to keeping statistics.”

“We like the sports themselves,” Siwoff said. “We just don’t like numbers, for example. We like the games. That’s more important than anything. There’s a romance to sports.”

tHom Brenneman and Chris Welch May or May Not Be Child Pornographers

Oh, hello. What’s that? You want me to back up my claim that tHom Brenneman and Chris Welch may or may not be child pornographers? Why should I? tHom and Chris weren’t forced to back up their completely ludicrous implication Monday night on a live baseball broadcast that Cub stud catcher Geovany Soto has used performance-enhancing drugs.

THOM: You look at his career numbers, I’m talking about his minor league numbers, he just came to the majors for the first time this season. And you wonder, you know, where did all of this offense all of a sudden come from Geovany Soto?…You look at his minor league numbers, .260 one year, .269, .242, .271, .253…he had never hit more than nine home runs in a minor league season..NINE, until last year when he hit TWENTY-SIX in Triple-A Iowa and hit .353. Now all of a sudden, in his first full-year in the major leagues, granted it’s only a month and a week, but he’s hitting almost .340 and leads the Cubs in runs batted in with 24.

CHRIS: I don’t mean this in a bad way, but before steroid testing, you see a blip in the radar like that you say, well..

THOM: Right…

CHRIS: …one of the possibilities might be he’s juicing, but obviously that’s not the case anymore, everyone’s tested. And you know that doesn’t happen very much with baseball players because usually, whether it’s at the minor league level or the major league level, by the time you’re 28 or so…I’m not sure how old Soto is…he’s only 25, you reach a certain plateau of productivity. You pretty much stay within range. Maybe now that he’s getting closer to the prime of his career…around…he’s 25, so it’ll be a couple years until he’s in that…but maybe he’s reaching a new plateau.

THOM: Well another guy that was similar to that was Sammy Sosa…now people can accuse Sosa of “did he do this or did he do that”. To my knowledge he’s never been tested in a positive way for any kind of steroids, whether people believe or not he did is an entirely different question.

But the point being, that Sosa was one of those guys coming up through the White Sox organization who never hit many home runs, then all of a sudden got to the big leagues and started knocking the cover off the ball.

More demoronic Brenneman antics here...at The Cub Reporter.

Piecoro: D-Backs’ calculated approach to steals

It’s not just a fluff piece - there’s a lot of interesting tidbits about the process a major league team goes through to evaluate their running game.

Players recite the need to have at least a 75 percent success rate, and their extreme selectiveness of when to run seems to have an almost scientific feel.

“We want the reward to outweigh the risk,” Gibson said…

General rule of thumb: Even the fastest of Diamondbacks’ runners probably won’t be stealing much on pitchers whose time to the plate is 1.3 seconds or less or on a catcher who needs much less than two seconds to deliver a strike to second base.

That’s a combined time of 3.3 seconds for the club’s best base stealers. But even then, times aren’t everything.

Helium Watch: Dodgers Prospect Andrew Lambo

Scouting the power-hitting Dodgers prospect:

Lambo has a simple, quiet swing until he starts rotating those hips and moving those hands forward. You see a forward shift in weight to build up momentum, a small loading of the hands, and then at foot plant he turns his hips and hands together aggressively.

Rather than achieving “extension”, Lambo lets the ball travel to him instead of letting his hands meet the ball (which saps a player of much of their power). Letting the ball travel deep is an excellent indicator of bat speed.

MLB: Sexson sets off fracas in Seattle

SEATTLE—The location of the pitch, not the intention of it, sent Mariners first baseman Richie Sexson “into a rage” Thursday night, and ended up with him throwing his helmet and then pile-driving the pitcher into the ground.

“I understood the situation, but there is a right way and a wrong way to play the game,” Sexson said after the Mariners’ 5-0 loss to the Rangers at Safeco Field. “If you hit me below the shoulders, I am fine with that. But get up near the face, [and] I am not going to deal with that.”

Before order was restored, Rangers outfielder Milton Bradley picked up Laird, carried him away from the action and ended up shoving the catcher several times in the chest before walking away.

Mets’ (Ryan) Church has been a revelation

New York Mets fans never embraced Lastings Milledge, but many on the blogs and radio call-in shows made him out to be another Roberto Clemente after he was dealt for Church and catcher Brian Schneider over the winter.

They said that Milledge had five-tool potential and Church was just an above-average player.

Well, that above-average player has easily been the New York Mets’ most valuable player so far.

“He’s been great for us,’’ David Wright said. “I always thought he was a good player, but you don’t realize how good he really is until you see him play every day.’’

Could the Milledge deal be another one BTFers hated that Minaya actually got the better off?

Here are some relevant stats so far:

.328/.394/.541, .382 BABIP (30.9 LD%) .902 ZR as a RF for Church.

.256/.321/.352, .310 BABIP (24.2 LD%), .812 ZR as a CF for Lastings.

Too early to judge but this deal is hardly looking like Kazmir deal, part 2.

Sun-Sentinel: Hyde: Miguel Cabrera misses ex-team and ex-teammates

And my plunging fantasy team misses Miquel Cabrera.

Don’t take this wrong. Cabrera likes Detroit. Likes his Tigers teammates. Thinks they’re going to be a good team. And, let’s be honest, this is the normal feeling-out process between a player and his new city, especially when the team is losing.

But, since he’s asked, yes, he misses the Marlins. And, since he’s asked, he never wanted to leave. And, since he’s asked, he still doesn’t believe they had to part with him.

“They called when they traded me and said, ‘We don’t have the money to pay you,’” he said. “...That’s the excuse they give. They have money.

“At first, I didn’t like [that] they traded me. But after a while you get used to it. It’s a business.”

N.Y. Sun: Goldman: Joba Can’t Help Save Leads That Aren’t There

Early season games? They were expendable.

Imagine an old-style, politically incorrect Western flick: Banditos are about to attack the wagon train. A courier with arrows sticking out of his back gets word to John Wayne and the cavalry with moments to spare. Wayne and company run for their horses, spurring the frothing creatures to get them to the battle before it’s too late. They finally arrive, panting, dirt-covered, but instead of seeing circled wagons bristling with rifles, they find disorganized, naked hippies wandering disoriented about the cacti as the attackers pick them off one by one. Seeing nothing to protect, Duke and the cavalry ride to the nearest pub and proceed to get loaded.

In this example, the Yankees are the naked hippies and Joba Chamberlain the heroic rescuer with not enough to do. As recently as this week, Brian Cashman has reiterated that while the Yankees still plan for Chamberlain to make the transition to the starting rotation at some point this season, it won’t be in May. Simultaneously, the punditocracy frets that the consequences of such a move will leave the Yankees unprotected — naked, if you will — in the eighth inning. How will the Yankees protect those all-important eighth-inning leads without Chamberlain there to get the ball to Mariano Rivera?

This question is spectacularly wrong-headed and demands a very simple response: What leads?

Newsday: Davidoff: Derek Jeter has a terrible VORP

“This is why I think all these newfangled stats are nothing but a bunch of garbage, invented by people who have too much time on their hands and a desperate need to prop up certain players while tearing down others."* (*from the engaging Davidoff the cuffers in the comments)

M-Crash asked me this morning to check Derek Jeter’s VORP, so I did. Here is his ranking among shortstops (13th overall). Here is his overall ranking (tied for 124th with J.D. Drew).

Of course, of course, it’s still early, and Jeter historically hits better in the second half. He also missed a week with a quad injury. But still, are any of you alarmed by Jeter’s lack of power? Wally Matthews discussed that with Jeter in his column today.

Here is the best explanation I’ve seen for how VORP is calculated. It’s a particularly relevant stat given the Yankees’ injuries. We’re seeing how much their lineup is hurt by the absence of Alex Rodriguez (who led all of baseball last year with a 96.6 VORP) and Jorge Posada (who was eighth overall, and first among catchers, with a 73.4). VORP doesn’t factor in defense _ for that, you need WARP, or Wins Above Replacement Player _ but right now, offense is the Yankees’ problem.

Indians ship Jason Michaels to Pirates

Cleveland Indians outfielder Jason Michaels was traded Thursday to the Pittsburgh Pirates for a player to be named.

Cleveland further committed to paying a large chunk of the $1.68 million US remaining on his $2.15-million US deal.

“He brings a lot of experience to the table,” Pirates general manager Neal Huntington said.

Michaels, 32, is hitting just .201 with nine runs batted in and three runs scored in 21 games this season.

Stubby Clapp not going to Beijing

Canada’s Olympic baseball team will have to compete at the Beijing Games this summer without its most popular and scrappiest player, CBCSports.ca has learned.

Baseball Canada was informed that second baseman Stubby Clapp was denied permission to play for the Olympic team.