MLB: Mark Reynolds vents after Arizona commits three errors

Jackie Earle Haley rulz!

“It seems like we get down one or two runs and no one [cares] anymore ...,” Reynolds said in front of his locker in an otherwise quiet room. “This is the Major Leagues. You can’t go out there and make three errors a night and expect to win a game. We look like the Bad News Bears out there and it’s frustrating. It’s to the point where stuff’s got to change.”

No one could argue with that statement. The D-backs lead the Majors in errors and the only team with a worse record is the Nationals.

How to get things changed, well, that’s less clear. D-backs manager A.J. Hinch has tried meetings—three in a 10-day span—but they have not provided a boost.

“You can give all the rah-rah speeches you want and have all the team meetings you want and yell at guys, but guys have got to [care],” Reynolds said. “I don’t really see it. I know I care. I’m out there busting my tail every night trying to win. Physical errors are fine, but guys loafing, guys not being where they’re supposed to be or guys giving up on ABs, it’s not acceptable at any level.”

...The team is 19-32 since Hinch took over for Bob Melvin on May 8.

“I don’t want to say guys are packing it in, but it sure seems like it and it [upsets] me,” Reynolds said.

Rafael Palmeiro again denies knowingly taking steroids

“I made a mistake,” Palmeiro told ESPN’s Pedro Gomez on Friday. “I didn’t really understand what I was taking and I paid for it. I paid for it very dearly. Life goes on.”

Palmeiro continues to deny knowingly taking performance enhancing drugs.

“I’ve heard a lot of things out there that are wrong,” he said. “People saying I took drugs all my life, I’ve never touched anything. I worked my butt off my whole career, as a kid, in college, the big leagues, I didn’t need anything, I didn’t have to cheat at the end of my career, for what? What was I going to gain from it? Whatever I took was tainted, had to have been. There’s no other reason unless I got set up.

“What I took was a B-12 [vitamin] that was given to me by a teammate. That’s it. That was it.”

Before the failed test, while testifying before a House committee with other ballplayers in March 2005, Palmeiro had stated: “I have never used steroids. Period. I don’t know how to say it any more clearly than that.”

Palmeiro said he has no regrets about his testimony before Congress because he had never taken anything. He hopes the list of 104 players who tested positive in 2003 is released because, “I’m not on the list.”

685 to go!

K.C. Star: Posnanski: Royals take all the fun out of a nice Friday

Depressing. Absolutely. If assigned to come up with just one sentence to explain just why the Royals are playing as badly as they ever have before, I would probably come up with this one: “Tony Peña Jr. and Luis Hernandez are on this team.”

That should explain just how bad this team is. Peña and Hernandez are shortstops. Neither of them can hit. Neither of them can run. Neither of them has any power.

There’s an increasingly popular statistic called OPS+ which measures a players OPS (on-base-plus-slugging percentage) against the league average. All you really need to know is 100 is exactly average — a 100 OPS+ is an average major-league baseball player.

Luis Hernandez came into Friday’s game with an OPS+ of 4.

Tony Peña Jr. came into Friday’s game with an OPS+ of minus-27.

To be perfectly honest with you, I’m not entirely sure how you can even score a negative OPS+.

Easy. Just check with the Leeper Colony of Aints, Joe.

NYT: Lawyer Says 2003 Clemens Drug Test Was Negative (RR)

Cool!  Now we’re working backwards to see who’s on the list. 686 to go!

In recent months, Alex Rodriguez and Sammy Sosa have been linked to the list of 100 or so players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, the first season such tests were conducted by Major League Baseball. But Roger Clemens is not on that list, says his lead lawyer, Rusty Hardin.

In telephone interviews this week, Hardin described how he obtained Clemens’s test results, then handed them over to Congress. Hardin said that before Clemens testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in February 2008, the panel requested the results of his 2003 test; under baseball’s agreement with the players union, those initial tests were supposed to remain anonymous.

Hardin said that after the panel’s request, one of the lawyers on Clemens’s defense team contacted Comprehensive Drug Testing, the company that oversaw the 2003 testing program, and said that Clemens would waive his right to have the results kept private. Hardin said the drug-testing company provided him with the results for Clemens and he then forwarded them to the House committee.

“The results show Roger was negative in every respect, performance-enhancing drugs and masking agents,” Hardin said.

University of Missouri – St. Louis: Symposium on Statistics and Operations Research in Baseball

What would Babe Ruth do if he faced Pedro Martinez?
How would Tony LaRussa have done managing Whitey Herzog’s roster?

Paul Bessire of Fox Sports’ What-if-Sports Unit will demonstrate how he simulates these scenarios.  Paul is among the featured speakers at the Third Symposium on Statistics in Sports. 

The third Symposium on Statistics and Operations Research in Baseball will be another meeting of the baseball, industrial, and academic worlds. The focus is on how Statistics and Operations Research methodology is used within baseball and associated businesses and on how baseball inspires the expansion of the frontiers of Statistics and Operations Research as scientific fields. The theme of this year’s Symposium is “Answering Sports Questions with Rigor.”

Not THE Dr. Rigor!

Wright Hears an Apology From Franco for Criticism (RR)

Yes...but is Franco ever going to apologize for ruining many parties by wearing that stenchy orange-pealed Sanitation Department T-shirt?

David Wright landed in Philadelphia on Thursday night and saw that while he was in the air on the Mets’ charter flight, he had received a message. Upon checking his voice mail, he heard an apology from John Franco.

Franco, the former Mets closer and onetime teammate of Wright’s, had called to apologize for his critical comments about Wright’s leadership, or supposed lack thereof. While still not happy with the comments, Wright said before Friday night’s game against the Phillies that he appreciated the message from Franco and planned to call Franco back.

“Johnny and I have a great relationship,” Wright said. “I’m glad he called and apologized. I’ve always respected his opinion. But he’s not in here on a day-to-day basis, so he can’t really know what’s going on. If it was one of the guys in here that said something like that, it would be one thing. But when it’s someone from the outside, I really don’t feel the need to defend myself. It doesn’t bother me at all.”

Diamond Notes: Bill Plaschke on his feelings on Manny Ramirez today

“I’m even madder now. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Yeah Dodger fans, He’s being as if he’s returning from Iraq or something.

“The club has done nothing during the suspension but coddle him and treat him as if he had suffered some life-threatening disease or something and he was trying to make a valiant comeback.

“Basically the Dodgers and their fans - a lot of their fans, not all of them, but a lot of them - have pretty much accepted steroids in saying, ‘It’s no big deal. Glad to have you back, Manny. Sorry you were gone.’ It’s all that sort of thing. So it’s really kind of disconcerting.

“He’s lost $7 million. I undestand that. Otherwise, it’s been the best summer of Manny Ramirez’s life.

“First time in baseball history that a team will devote a section of its stands for people who want to cheer a drug cheat.”

Biz of Baseball: Most Baseball Fans Prepare to Give Manny Ramirez a Nice Big Kiss Upon Return

“Thick wavy hair, a little too long”.. From Shadow Morton to shadow Manny!

In a further sign of interest in the game, Fox’s Prime Ticket will add an extra right-field camera for the event. The RSN will also have a special road edition of the “Dodgers Live” pregame and postgame show to cover Manny’s return. No word on whether Manny will do to the Western Metal Building what he did to the inside of Green Monster scoreboard, but if so, cameras will be at the ready from every angle.

It all is the circus that is Manny being Manny, and you can bet your dreadlock wig that the Dodgers will be the beneficiary of the return at the cash registers, regardless of whether he comes back in mid-season form.

For MLB, it means moving past a potentially embarrassing moment, or rather, a moment that was embarrassing, but had a player with incredible barstool likeability at its center. Baseball surely must be signing in relief knowing that Ramirez won’t be in the All-Star Game, unless Charlie Manuel selects him, a long shot to say the least.

MLB.com: Jones gives Bucs lift with big bat: Finishes single shy of cycle

I can honestly say I have never heard of this Garrett Jones before.  He’s almost a year younger than Nyjer Morgan and apparently got 77 at-bats with the Twins two years ago.

“This is what he’s been doing the whole year—driving the ball,” said Andrew McCutchen, who was Jones’ teammates at Triple-A for two months earlier this season. “When they make a mistake, he makes them pay. It’s real good to have someone like that there.”

Jones would then cap his day with a solo homer off Mets reliever Pedro Feliciano in the seventh.

“That’s what we knew Garrett could do,” Russell said. “He can provide some punch in the offense. Offensively, we got him in there and some guys started swinging better. That’s what we’re looking for, what we did today.”

Jones, who said he has never hit for the cycle at any level, had two other at-bats in the game with which to get a single. He nearly got it in the fifth, when he lined out to reliever Brian Stokes. In the ninth, Jones grounded out to second.

Russell has said that he intends to give Jones every opportunity to prove himself as an everyday starter, and Thursday’s performance—one in which he had three extra-base hits for a team that had just four total in the previous three-game series—should go a long way to help.

Pirates home run leaderboard:

12 LaRoche
9 McLouth (traded)
6 Sanchez (sitting out tonight’s game with back pain)
3 Monroe (released)
3 LaRoche
3 Wilson
3 Jaramillo
2 Morgan (traded)
2 Doumit (on DL since April)
2 Young
1 (six players tied, including one who has been traded)

34 MLB home runs this season by the entire active roster.

Heyman: If Cleveland’s willing to trade Martinez, Boston’s a likely suitor

Bah...rumors, rumors. Remember when it was rumored that Don Mincher had invented drooping tear-drop eyeglasses? Wasn’t true.

Indians higher-ups say they aren’t likely to trade hitting star Victor Martinez. Not only is Martinez one of the better hitters in baseball, with 14 home runs, 57 RBIs and .313 batting average, but the Indians hold a bargain 2010 club option on Martinez for $7 million.

A trade for Martinez still has to be considered something of a long shot. Yet, within the past day or two the Indians dispatched a scout to check out the progress of Boston’s best prospects, according to a league source. The Indians, a realistic early seller, may only be covering their bases. But of course, it could develop into something more, as Boston’s interest in Martinez is well known.

Red Sox third baseman Mike Lowell’s recurrence of hip trouble has at least temporarily opened first base for Boston (since Kevin Youkilis has switched over to third base). The Red Sox have been seeking offensive aid for months with their protracted winter pursuit of Mark Teixeira and a much shorter try for Hanley Ramirez. Boston is also one of a couple teams that could match up nicely with Cleveland in a Martinez trade, what with three very hot young pitchers—Clay Buchholz, Justin Masterson and Michael Bowden—who just happen to be exactly the sort Cleveland craves.

Morris: Kevin Millwood, Rob Neyer, Evan Grant, luck, pitching, and defense

This is a blog post about a post by Evan Grant responding to a blog post by Rob Neyer commenting on a blog post by R.J. Anderson.

That I came across on Facebook...whew!

So this may be a bit meta.

In a nutshell, Grant takes issue with Neyer’s endorsement of Anderson’s point, which is that Kevin Millwood hasn’t really been any better this year than in the past few years.

Evan makes clear his thoughts on Millwood right off the bat:

By almost any evaluation, Millwood has been one of the top five or six pitchers in the AL this season.

I guess the problem is how one defines “top pitcher.” In terms of runs allowed or ERA, absolutely, he’s been one of the top pitchers in the league.

But when we talk about runs allowed or ERA, we mustn’t forget the Tenth Noble Truth of Bill James:

10. A great deal of what is perceived as being pitching is in fact defense.

Arizona Republic/Bob Young: Which D-Backs stay; which will go?

• Eric Byrnes - There is no trade market for him, and he’s back on the disabled list. It might be time to consider just eating what’s left on his deal so everybody can move on.

...

• Felipe Lopez - Has been everything the Diamondbacks expected when they signed him to a one-year deal to replace Orlando Hudson. Has some value despite his mental lapses. Atlanta needs help at second base.

...

• Brandon Webb - The ace of the staff hasn’t played since Opening Day. Team has a difficult decision to make about whether to pick up his contract option next season.

...

• Doug Davis - Just the kind of player the buyers will want. Milwaukee and Philadelphia might be interested.

L.A. Times: When it comes to Manny, what would Nietzsche do?

What, you didn’t know Socrates was a baseball junkie?

You thought Plato and Nietzsche were so above it all they didn’t have a favorite National League team?

Yeah, stupid me, I had no idea either.

But this week I paid a visit to my local house of all things psychic: Tattered Glove Palm Reading of Chavez Ravine.

With Manny Ramirez back Friday, L.A. is now confronted with a bulked-up existential question: How should we view those who have cheated the system by using banned substances? What should we think of those who appear willing to do anything to win? How do we forgive?

Searching for answers, I convened an emergency meeting with the spirits of some of the prime shapers of Western thought.

It actually wasn’t hard to get this group together; it’s a little-known fact they have been meeting regularly to philosophize on baseball since the White Sox World Series scandal of 1919.

First up? Socrates (Manny-applicable quote: “An honest man is always a child.").

What, I asked, do we make of this Ramirez mess?

“Well, let me say it is good, my friend, that you’re asking questions. That’s what I’m all about: pondering. The most important question is this: What, exactly, is cheating?”

Just my luck. I go looking for absolutes, all I get is doubt.

Jason Stark: It’s so wrong to celebrate Manny’s return

So instead, the reaction to Manny, from Albuquerque to Ensenada, has been—what else?—downright hero worship. You’d think the guy had spent the past 57 days curing cancer, dousing tensions in Iran and smoothing out plot glitches for the final season of “Lost.”

But why? That’s the question we’ve been struggling with since Manny-mania busted out in Albuquerque last week.

Why is America so ready to forgive this guy, of all guys? Because he has fun hair? Because he has a lovable smile? Because he has a long, not necessarily proud, history as baseball’s foremost goofball?

Why would that be enough to outweigh his disgraceful exit from Boston, his indisputable guilt in this case and the dubious alibi his spin doctors typed up to explain his way out of this mess?

Why? We posed that question to four men who have thought about it a lot themselves: esteemed Columbia School of Journalism professor Sandy Padwe, cerebral journalist/author Robert Lipsyte and two of the most thoughtful players we have ever covered, Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt and a man who has turned into an official New York Times op-ed columnist, Doug Glanville.

L.A. Times: Baseball’s pharmacy hall of fame

Paul Lo Duca

Position: Catcher

How it went down: On Dec. 13, 2007, Lo Duca was cited in the Mitchell Report as a user of steroids and human growth hormone. He was also accused of referring former Dodgers teammates Eric Gagne and Kevin Brown to his drug supplier. Upon his arrival with the Washington Nationals on Feb. 17, 2008, Lo Duca issued a statement in which he apologized for “mistakes in judgment,” but he did not say what those mistakes entailed.

How he fared on the field: Lo Duca started the 2008 season in Washington as the team’s least productive batter, hitting .200 in 50 at-bats. He then fractured his right hand and went on the disabled list from early May to mid-June. The Nationals released him July 31, 2008, after he batted .230 with no home runs and 12 runs batted in in 139 at-bats. The Florida Marlins picked Lo Duca up in a minor league deal on Aug. 8 and he was called up eight days later, hitting .294 with three RBIs in 34 at-bats. He became a free agent after the season and remains unsigned.

Andy Pettitte

Position: P

How it went down: On Dec. 13, 2007, Pettitte was cited in the Mitchell Report, which attributed a claim from trainer Brian McNamee that he injected Pettitte with human growth hormone while with the New York Yankees in 2002 to treat an elbow injury. Two days later, Pettitte acknowledged using HGH only to heal his elbow.

How he fared on the field: Pettitte had a 14-14 record and a 4.54 earned-run average with the Yankees in 2008, including going 2-7 with a 6.23 ERA in the last two months while suffering a sore left shoulder. This season, he is 8-3 with a 4.25 ERA in 97 1/3 innings.

Deep Left Field: Desparetely seeking David (Norman)

FOUND! Rare footage of Sam actually finding David.

We need David Norman back for eyes-own assessments of minor leaguers. Very few of my business trips take me to Danville or Myrtle Beach. Nonetheless, some notes of interest from the farm.

The Myrtle Beach Sun News confirms that three Pelicans have been promoted to AA-Mississippi. Top of the class is the Braves offensive version of Tommy Hanson. Jason Heyward is only 19 but was tearing up Carolina League pitching to the tune of 296/369/519. That .519 SLG% stands out considering his home park is notoriously pitcher friendly. Heyward projects to relieve Atlanta of our long Frenchified nightmare in RF come 2011. If he fares well in MS this year he could skip AAA-Gwinnett altogether. He’s that good.

Heyward is to Tommy Hanson as Freddie Freeman is to Kris Medlen. Overshadowed and rightly so, Freeman still projects to take over 1B in Atlanta about the same time Casey Kotchman goes free agent (2011.) Freeman posted a better than respectable 302/394/447, again in MB’s power-killing Coastal Field.

Pelican closer Thomas Palica gets the call to MS as well. The 21 year old was striking out a man an inning with decent K/BB rates, continuing his solid relief work from last year (in A-Rome.) With that said, he’s a minor league closer. Nothing projects until he’s striking out a man an inning in AAA, at the least.

Craig Calcaterra: Francoeur for the All-Star Game

Right field: Jeff Francoeur, Atlanta: Apologies to Justin Upton, but when baseball no longer has a place for the likes of Francoeur, a player so extravagantly talented that he can hold down a major league job despite seemingly having little more idea of what to do with that talent than a tomcat, baseball will no longer be worth watching.

May as well agitate for a contract extension while you’re at it, Tim. Sheesh.

Twinkie Town: Peterson: Runs Batted In: Opportunity vs Execution

Screw Hanley Ramirez...Morneau’s already a top run producer!

Justin Morneau: Elite Run Producer, or lucky to be batting behind Joe Mauer?

Over the past three years, no one on the Minnesota Twins has driven in more runs than the 2006 MVP, Justin Morneau:

2006: 130 RBI

2007: 111 RBI

2008: 129 RBI

That’s a lot of RBIs. Buthow much of this is Morneau the elite run producer, and how much does he take advantage of hitting behind one of the truly elite OBP guys in Joe Mauer? Let’s take a look at the number of RBI opportunities Morneau has had relative to the rest of MLB.

“Expected" Runs Batted In

How do we normalize each batter’s RBI opportunities? First we must create a baseline. I collected data from the entire 2008 and partial 2009 (through 7/1) seasons, counting the total number of RBI for each inning situation (e.g., one out, runner on second base). I used this data to calculate the average number of RBI that one would “expect” a batter to drive in for a given situation. I call this “Expected RBI”, or “eRBI”. Not surprisingly, bases empty, zero or one out (0.028 eRBI) is the least RBI-friendly situation, and one out, bases loaded (0.766 eRBI) is the best situation for driving in runs. I then added up the eRBI for each player across all of his plate appearances during the season. Who were the leaders in expected RBI?

Redleg Nation: Thinking about Dusty Baker

Diane, LaVern, Josephine...hell, even Ginger. But Dusty?

For example, I posted the numbers in last night’s game thread that Taveras had led off 16 games where he has failed to get on base even a single time.

The Reds are not only 3-13 in those games, but 5 of those 13 losses are by 2 runs or less. Sure, 3 of those 13 losses were blowouts, so it probably doesn’t matter if we had Bonds leading off, but the Reds could VERY reasonably be in 5-10 more games this year with one SIMPLE SIMPLE change. That’s a potentially HUGE impact.

Think about it, it’s a pretty crazy stat. All you need is 2-3 more runs over those games, which should be SUPER easy because we are talking about replacing 0 (or even NEGATIVE) production.

The Reds have been among the worst teams in baseball for a handful of years now. But a lot of the time, it has been because of a bad GM signing bad players — in particular pitchers — and the Reds manager not having much choice. In this case, Dusty has options…the fault falls squarely on him (not on Willy).

Is this the single worst thing a recent manager has done to hurt the Reds chances of winning?

WaPo--Eig, “The Jerk Who Saved Baseball”

The Jerk Who Saved Baseball

By Jonathan Eig, Washington Post
Sunday, July 5, 2009

Manny Ramirez returned to the majors this weekend, to the delight of Dodgers fans, following a 50-game suspension. Yet, when the news broke in early May that Los Angeles’s star outfielder would be punished for violating Major League Baseball’s drug policy, it was another slugger who called a news conference—Jose Canseco, best-selling author and baseball’s steroidal sage. . . .

Russ Adams designated for assignment

The Toronto Blue Jays called up outfielder/designated hitter David Delluci from Triple-A Las Vegas on Friday morning in New York. He is the left-handed bat manager Cito Gaston hopes might add balance to his lineup.

The move had been anticipated since Wednesday when Russ Adams was seen getting handshakes from teammates after Toronto closed out its nine-game home stand at the Rogers Centre. Adams, who hit .238 in eight games with the Blue Jays, was designated for assignment and must be traded, released or re-assigned within 10 days.

Thanks to Geo.

KansasCity.com/Posnanski: Royals are a terrible base-running team

One thing you can say about these Royals: They are reliable. I went out Thursday night with the tentative idea of writing about the remarkably bad base running they have exhibited this year. And it has been legendarily bad.

But here’s the thing about choosing a column topic before the game — the game has a knack of killing early ideas. I mean: If you go out to write about how well a team is pitching, the starter probably will give up nine runs. If you go out to write about how well a team is fielding, they’ll make three errors. It’s just how things work.

So, I had backup plans if the Royals ran the bases well on this night. I was open to writing something else if the Royals had given me something else. I should not have worried about it. First inning, Willie Bloomquist was on first and he took off on what looked like a hit-and-run play. Billy Butler hit a lazy fly ball to center field … Bloomquist did not see it. “Willie checked and couldn’t pick it up,” Royals manager Trey Hillman said.

White Sox center fielder Brian Anderson caught the pop-up, had plenty of time to set and throw out Bloomquist for the double play. First inning!

Second inning, Mark Teahen on first base, and he took off on what he said was a straight steal. Miguel Olivo hit a lazy fly ball to right field.

“Mark didn’t check,” Hillman said.

White Sox right fielder Jermaine Dye caught the pop-up, had plenty of time to set and throw out Teahen for the double play.

Like I say: These Royals are reliable.

Boston Herald/Borges: HBO take on Ted Williams simply Splendid

But to be great at such a solitary task a lot of other things had to suffer. As the film points out, those included three wives and as many children. For years, it also included the fans who bellowed his name but also booed it because as great as he was he never beat the Yankees and didn’t deliver in the only World Series he played.

Williams wept after his Series failures against the St. Louis Cardinals in 1946, when he had only five singles and one RBI in 25 at bats, but the fans didn’t. They booed out of frustration and because he often was, like many geniuses, a temperamental cuss so obsessed with one act that there was little room for niceties.

After stroking the ultimate “walkoff” home run in his final at-bat at the age of 41, Williams was sent back to left field. Trotting behind him was his replacement, Carroll Hardy. It was a last chance for his fans to cheer and him to acknowledge them. He didn’t.

According to Pumpsie Green, the shortstop that day and the first black player in Red Sox history, Williams mumbled as he went by, “Isn’t this a crock?”

What wasn’t was that the lion in winter was still no one to be trifled with, as he’d just proven to an upstart named Jack Fisher, who had thrown a fastball Williams missed one pitch before the 521st - and last - home run of his career.

“I was watching Fisher,” Williams recalled, disgust still evident in his voice. “He couldn’t wait to get the ball from the catcher. He thinks he threw it by me! He threw it to the same spot, same speed. . . . I won’t forget that one for sure. Closest I came to tipping my cap after playing for 22 years.”

Plain Dealer: Will the Cleveland Indians lose 100 games for the sixth time in franchise history?

It’s come to this: The Cleveland Indians are off today, but if they lose tomorrow night’s game against the Oakland Athletics at Progressive Field, they’ll reach the season’s halfway point with a 31-50 record. Double that, and it’s 62-100, which would be the sixth 100-loss campaign in the 109-year history of the franchise.

...

1971, 60-102
Besides the eight fielders who started the most games at each position, the other 13 position players combined to hit .204 (302 of 1,484), which is really bad. None of those guys batted above .225. Once-promising pitcher Steve Hargan was 1-13, allowing 200 baserunners in 113 1/3 innings.

Nobody wanted to see this team. The Indians drew 22,036 fans to their last eight games at old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, an average of 2,755. In their final three road games, at Washington against the Senators, a total of 4,512 crazies showed up - an average of 1,504. The Senators moved after the season to Texas, where they remain as the Rangers.

plus, Eric Wedge, Cliff Lee, Victor Martinez: Should they stay or should they go? and Cleveland Indians add yet another bullpen pitcher, acquiring Winston Abreu from Tampa Bay

Washington Times: For Nats’ Rizzo, it’s about ‘character’

Manny Acta spoke earlier this season about “changing the culture” around the Washington Nationals’ clubhouse, a veiled reference to what he believed was an aspect of the organization’s rebuilding effort just as important as drafting top prospects and making smart trades.

The Nationals’ clubhouse the last two seasons boasted too many players who, while possessing talent, didn’t stack up in the character department. Plenty of people in the organization said that has been a significant factor in Washington’s losing record and poor reputation around the sport.

Slowly but surely, though, the Nationals are attempting to fix that problem. And two major transactions this week underscored that.

On Tuesday, the Nationals traded Class AAA Syracuse outfielder Lastings Milledge and reliever Joel Hanrahan to the Pittsburgh Pirates for outfielder Nyjer Morgan and left-hander Sean Burnett. The deal made sense because Washington needed a good defensive center fielder and a reliable reliever, but both Acta and acting general manager Mike Rizzo went out of their way to laud Morgan and Burnett as “good character” guys who would have a positive influence in the clubhouse.

plus, the Washington Post says Dukes Won’t Be Around To Run

Walkoff Walk: Tony Conigliaro Sings on the Merv Griffin Show - 1967

At least Merv didn’t call him a young rascal or something…

Part of the reason batters wear helmets with earflaps nowadays is the unfortunate incident that happened to Red Sox star Tony Conigliaro back in 1967. Just two seasons removed from leading the league in homers as a 22-year-old, the outfielder was smashed in the face by a Jack Hamilton pitch, crumpling to the ground with a broken cheekbone and a damaged retina. His career lasted a few more productive years before he was forced to retire due to worsening eyesight.

At the same time his baseball career was taking off, he was signed by RCA Victor to a recording contract and made a few appearances on the Merv Griffin show, as evidenced below:

Washington Post: Boras May Explore Japan for Strasburg (RR)

The Major League Rules is a sprawling, dense, little-known, 254-page document, periodically updated, that governs the business side of baseball. Among other things, it lays out, in painstaking legalese, the process and guidelines for the sport’s annual draft, and in recent years, these sections have provided a road map for a certain notorious agent bent on circumventing the draft itself.

In 1996, agent Scott Boras exploited a loophole to help gain free agency for four draftees who did not receive contract offers from the teams that selected them within 15 days of the draft, as required. A year later, he unsuccessfully attempted to make Philadelphia Phillies draftee J.D. Drew a free agent by taking him to the independent Northern League and thus changing his official status from “amateur” to “professional.”

This summer, Boras has another high-profile client, San Diego State pitcher Stephen Strasburg, for whom he would love nothing more than to blow apart baseball’s draft system, allowing Strasburg to be compensated in line with his talent—his asking price is believed to be around $50 million—as opposed to within the parameters of the current system, in which no player has ever received more than $10.5 million.

Even before talks began with the Washington Nationals, who made Strasburg the first overall pick June 9, Boras was dropping hints privately that he is preparing to explore a new frontier in his ongoing draft-busting crusade: Japan.

nbcwashington.com: MLB Deals With Outbreak of Mental Health Issues

We’ve got a habit of forgetting that professional athletes are subject to a lot of the same difficulties in life as everyone else. Whether because of their salaries or their fame, it’s often assumed that life is easier for them.

This baseball season is telling a different story, however. We’ve seen several players head to the disabled list with diagnoses of anxiety or stress disorders. Last week Ian Snell of the Pirates raised some eyebrows when he admitted that he asked to be sent down to AAA, a move that seemed odd until he admitted on Wednesday that he’d been dealing with suicidal thoughts during his time in the big leagues.

Coming on the heels of the struggles of Khalil Greene, Joey Votto and Dontrelle Willis, Snell’s issues cast further light on an issue that has probably always been part of the lives of baseball players but was rarely spoken about. Major League Baseball’s official party line is that mental illness is treated no differently than physical injury, but that’s only half the story.

Perry vs Perry Dugout

Not sure who’s working today, but if you are, this might be a pleasant distraction from your toils.

WSJ: MLODINOW: From banking to baseball, winning streaks owe much to the laws of chance

And do Drunkard’s Walk more than DiMaggio did? All this and more!

DiMaggio’s hitting streak was an inspiration in troubled times. The pursuit of any record comes with pressure—Roger Maris lost some of his hair during his attempt to break Babe Ruth’s home-run record in 1961—but most records forgive you an off day as long as you compensate at other times. Not so with a streak, which demands unwavering performance. And so DiMaggio’s streak has been interpreted as a feat of mythic proportion, seen as a heroic, even miraculous, spurt of unrivaled effort and concentration.

But was it? Or was this epic moment simply a fluke?

Recent academic studies have questioned whether DiMaggio’s streak is unambiguous evidence of a spurt of ability that exceeded his everyday talent, rather than an anomaly to be expected from some highly talented player, in some year, by chance, something like the occasional 150-yard drive in golf that culminates in a hole in one. No one is saying that talent doesn’t matter. They are just asking whether a similar streak would have happened sometime in the history of baseball even if each player hit with the unheroic and unmiraculous—but steady—ability of an emotionless robot.

That randomness naturally leads to streaks contradicts people’s intuition. If we were to picture randomness, we might think of a graph that looks jerky, not smooth like a straight line. But random processes do display periods of order. In a toss of 100 coins, for example, the chances are more than 75% that you will see a streak of six or more heads or tails, and almost 10% that you’ll produce a streak of 10 or more. As a result a streak can look quite impressive even if it is due to nothing more than chance.