Rosenthal: Agent: Dodgers, Twins leading in Blake pursuit

Blake, 35, is seeking a three-year contract. He has until midnight Sunday to accept the Dodgers’ offer of salary arbitration, but could sign a new deal with the Dodgers or Twins before then.

“We’ve made progress with both the Dodgers and Twins,” McDowell told FOXSports.com. “They’ve been more persistent and more involved.

“I’ve had pretty regular conversations with the Indians, but I wouldn’t say they’ve been as persistent as the Twins and Dodgers.”

He is Robothal. DADADADADADADA Robothal!

Taiwan’s pro baseball heading for dugout

In 2007, then Democratic Progressive Party premier Su Tseng-chang stated that if the Taiwan Sports Lottery tickets did not feature domestic baseball, he would not permit their issuance.

However, after the TPL tickets officially were distributed and the lottery commenced, bettors found that foreign baseball contests still overwhelmingly dominated the choices of available contests and that Taiwan’s Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) was almost invisible.

However, CPBL President Chao Shao-po recently slammed the new Kuomintang government for failing to fulfill its campaign promise to include CPBL into the Taiwan Sports Lottery after it came to office and for neglecting the proposed legislation of a law to regulate professional sports.

During a reception for New York Yankee star pitcher Wang Chien-ming Nov. 19, KMT Premier Liu Chao-shiaun vowed to “concentrate cross-ministerial power to improve professional baseball and create an excellent environment for baseball,” but so far Liu’s commitment remains an empty promise.

But Taiwan baseball cannot wait any longer.

In October, Taiwan professional baseball suffered what may have been the most severe blow in its history with the scandal over alleged collaboration between the D-Media T-Rex team and organized criminal gangs in a new game-fixing gambling scandal which resulted in the expulsion of the team from the league and the distribution of its players among other CPBL teams in a special draft.

While far from the first example of game fixing scandals in the CPBL’s history, the T-Rex case marks the first time that game-fixing was apparently led by top management executives and merits special censure because it has also disheartened many persons who staked their own reputations on the effort to advocate professional sports.

Taiwan continues to party like it is 1919!

ESPN: Braves trade for Javier Vazquez

It was just reported on ESPN a few minutes ago. The article says it’s Vazquez and Boone Logan for Jo Jo Reyes, Brent Lillibridge, and “another top prospect.” Hopefully more details will emerge on the last player soon.

LoHud: Abraham: Looking at the Hall of Fame ballot

But here’s the problem, the Hall of full of players who were elected based on those standards. So should Jim Rice suffer or Bert Blyleven be elevated because smart people came up with better, more revealing statistics?

Nobody cared about on-base percentage in the 70s and 80s. Rice’s job was to swing for the fences. But now we know OBP matters. But Jim Rice can’t get in the DeLorean and take more pitches because it would make the Baseball Prospectus guys respect him more.

1984 - Earl Weaver on Strategy: Ken Singleton usually has one of the best on-base percentages in the game, and that’s why I had him hit third.

Baseball America’s Top 10 Prospects: Los Angeles Angels

Nary a Gundelfinger in the bunch.

1. Nick Adenhart, rhp
2. Jordan Walden, rhp
3. Peter Bourjos, of
4. Trevor Reckling, lhp
5. Sean O’Sullivan, rhp
6. Kevin Jepsen, rhp
7. Hank Conger, c
8. Mark Trumbo, 1b
9. Anthony Ortega, rhp
10. Mason Tobin, rhp

More new faces could be on the way. The Angels will try to re-sign Teixeira, but if they can’t, that could mean the first extended opportunity for slugger Kendry Morales since he signed a $4.5 million major league contract after defecting from Cuba. The system’s top prospect, righthander Nick Adenhart, could replace Garland in the rotation. Infielders Sean Rodriguez and Brandon Wood are ready for expanded roles after decimating Triple-A pitching, and reliever Kevin Jepsen could help offset the expected loss of Rodriguez.

MLB: Baines’ resume deserves Hall’s notice

I believe The Straight Satans will come out with a better percenter this year.

Those in the know with the White Sox believe Baines deserves a better Hall of Fame fate. Along with Baines’ tremendous RBI total, placing him 28th all-time, the left-handed slugger finished with a .289 average, 384 home runs, 488 doubles, 1,299 runs scored, 1,062 walks against just 1,441 strikeouts and a most impressive 2,830 games played. Baines also checks in at 2,866 career hits, ranking Baines 40th, but also leaving him 134 short of what has been considered the magic number for enshrinement.

This particular number bothers Reinsdorf more so than Baines. The White Sox chairman, who counts Baines as one of his favorite people, feels somewhat personally responsible for Baines coming up short of 3,000.

“What really has bothered me for a long time is that if we hadn’t traded him, he would have his 3,000 hits and he would be a lock for the Hall of Fame,” said Reinsdorf, who oversaw Baines’ trade to Texas on July 29, 1989 and to Baltimore on July 29, 1997. “We traded him twice and into bad situations where he was a platoon player.

“If he stayed with us, he would have gone over 3,000 hits. If he doesn’t get in, it would really bug me. I talk to him about it, and he just shrugs it off.”

Five to watch:  Pirates’ top 5 international prospects

I really like Cayones and Barrios, but they’re so amazingly young.

Plus… none of these players are Indian!

Pete Rose’s Vegas Haircut

It is a slow news day. Pete Rose gets his hair cut at a salon at the Palms in Vegas. The LA Times has a full report. Did I say hair cut? I meant styled. There… that is news, right?

Rob Neyer chats on the fireside….

Everybody knows the big prize among free-agent pitchers this winter is CC Sabathia. But two of the available consolation prizes look pretty good, too. And fortunately for our purposes today, while A.J. Burnett and Derek Lowe are both highly desirable this winter, they could otherwise hardly be more different.

According to Baseball Info Solutions, Burnett was one of only three pitchers in the majors to throw more than 900 pitches that clocked at 95 miles per hour or more. Only seven American League starters threw a higher percentage of fastballs than Burnett?s 64 percent, and only one major league pitcher threw a higher percentage of curveballs than his 29 percent. Then there’s Derek Lowe, who doesn’t throw nearly as hard as Burnett, but features one of the best hard sinkers we’ve ever seen. Year after year after year, Lowe ranks among the game’s great ground-ball pitchers, right behind Brandon Webb and well ahead of just about everyone else.

Both of them are going to make a great deal of money via their next contracts—more than they’ve ever made before. But which of them deserves to make more? Which pitcher is more likely to please his new employer over the next four or five or six years?

S.I.: Wahl: My Sportsman of the Year: John Elway

Wanna strip McGwire and Sosa? (just picture the oozing sebaceous glands...the gynecomastic breast meat...the raisenutte yarbles)

Why should John Elway be my 2008 Sportsman of the Year?

The answer is simple: On the 10th anniversary of awarding our most prestigious honor to Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, SI would make an important statement by withdrawing that recognition and instead presenting it to Elway, who’s clearly a more deserving winner.

Understand, I don’t take the idea of stripping McGwire and Sosa lightly. But over the years SI has been proud to serve as the conscience of sport, and taking a stand against McGwire and Sosa—whose drug-tainted home-run exploits are now beyond any reasonable doubt—would be taking a stand against the steroid era in baseball, to say nothing of the performance-enhancing drug era in all of sports. If Major League Baseball won’t remove McGwire and Sosa from the record books, then we can at least remove them from our halls of honor.

Sherman: IF PETTITTE SIGNS ELSEWHERE, IN BRONX HE’LL BE A PHONY FOREVER (RR)

Why just the Bronx?

I tell you this as a way of saying no matter what CC Sabathia or Mark Teixeira get this offseason, I will again have no qualms. But I will if Andy Pettitte takes money from any team not named the New York Yankees.

If Pettitte signs elsewhere, regardless of the dollar figure, he should be viewed as a world-class phony forever around here. There should be no more pardons. He should receive no invites to future Old-Timers Games, hear no cheers when the dynastic teams reassemble.

In his moment of need, when it was revealed Pettitte was both a liar and cheater, the Yankees stood by him last season. At that time, Pettitte was only too happy to say the Yankees were the only team he ever wanted to play for any more. He did not say he only wanted to play for the Yankees unless they offer him a paycut.The Yanks have indeed offered that cut. Pettitte made $16 million last year and, according to sources, he was offered $10 million to return in 2009. So far, Pettitte has rejected that bid while his camp has done nothing to dispel reports linking him to Joe Torre and the Dodgers.

Derek Bell arrested on drug charges

The operation was a success, but the patient got arrested.

A former Major League baseball player who lives in the Bay Area is in jail facing drug charges.

Tampa police arrested Derek Bell, 39, Monday night on four counts of possession of drug paraphernalia.

Arrest records show he lives in Valrico and is unemployed.  Bell was also arrested in Tampa in 2006 on a cocaine possession charge.

Bell was born in Tampa and graduated from King High School.  The Toronto Blue Jays drafted in 1987.

Bell is being held at the Orient Road Jail on $2,500 bond.

YESNetwork: Goldman: For better or worse, Jeter remains at short

Did Goldman pardon a Turkey?

It’s not at all surprising that Jeter’s defense has gotten lost in the shuffle this winter. So many things went awry this year — starting pitching, catching, second base, center field — with so much new to talk about, there is seemingly little room for a rehash of Jeter’s lack of flash with the leather. I would also guess that for most writers this is a nervous topic, either because they don’t agree with the statistical evaluation of Jeter’s D (I would argue that the evidence is right there on the field, even before we go to the numbers, but to paraphrase a favorite line from Paul Simon, a man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest) or because they don’t have a solution to offer.

If Jeter’s 2008 stats represent a trend, his bat and his glove and rapidly converging on the point where there is no position he can play — his bat will only be suitable for the middle infield and his glove will only play at a corner. The guy turns 35 next year — this is to be expected, yet I imagine it’s difficult for some to write so honestly about an icon. There is no prospect pushing Jeter from within the Yankees organization, and no free agent shortstop so good that one could make a reasonable argument for signing him, with all the controversy that would entail.

In the absence of alternatives, many of the same writers who should be out in front of the Jeter story will be making the sentimental case for granting him a contract extension a year from now.

Bronx Banter: Lasting Yankee Stadium Memory #59: Charlie Sheen

“Hey, we blow one more, it’s over! I’ve dumped 4 games and I’ve been only paid for one!” And it was the wrong one…

The other memory that is a little bizarre. Went to a game in ‘96, mid-season before they started making their move. Took a buddy of mine, David O’Neill. He’s a director and a writer and an old friend of mine. We were in a box but he had never been there so he said, “I’m going to go see what this place is like, I’m going to go walk around.”

Comes back with a foul ball that he has caught off the bat of Paul O’Neill. What are the odds? And, another example of him being about the fifth person I took to their first game that got a foul ball. I’ve been to what, a thousand games in my life. Never even touched one.

I bought out the left field bleachers in Anaheim in the mid-‘90s in a game against Detroit. I bought 2,600 seats in the left field pavilion and I sat out there with three friends. I was going to force the hand of the baseball Gods and that didn’t even work. Nothing. Four balls hit the wall that night. And the next night, I watched on television as like maybe four or five landed not just in the section but pretty much in my seat of the day before. It was one of those reminders that you can’t force the organic flow of the American Pastime.

Lasorda: Proud of honor from Japanese emperor

Because you didn’t ask for it!

Japanese baseball has come a long way since I began working with Japanese baseball players in the 1960s. On Tuesday I will be proud to receive a prestigious award that Japanese officials say honors my contributions to Japanese baseball. On behalf of the Emperor of Japan, Consul General Junichi Ihara will present me with the Order of the Rising Sun. I will be humbled and thrilled to accept this award.

My involvement with Japanese baseball goes back a long time. Walter O’Malley sent me to Japan in 1965 to work with the Tokyo Giants and instruct them in all aspects of baseball. For three weeks I did my best to impart the Dodger way of playing baseball to the players, coaches and manager of the Tokyo team.

I tried to teach them all the fundamentals that a ballplayer has to know between the lines. I also tried to teach them about scouting, as well as setting up a farm system to develop young talent, something at that point no Japanese team did.

Believe it or not, the Tokyo Giants went on to win nine consecutive championships starting that year.

In 1965, there were only three Japanese players who could have played major league baseball: Shigeo Nagashima, a power-hitting third baseman; Masaichi Kaneda, a 400-game winning left-hander; and Sadaharu Oh, the Japanese Babe Ruth.

The majority of their players were good with the glove, but didn’t hit for power. They played for one run, but did not have great speed.

Now, there are many Japanese ballplayers playing the major leagues, and in fact, some of them are the best in the game.

I attribute much of their progress, and success, to the many instructors and managers who spent time teaching the game. Japanese players are prepared to play up to their capabilities. They have tremendous focus.

Wait… did he say the DODGERS helped the GIANTS win nine straight championships!?!

Daily News: The Yankees will play, but for now, kids won’t

While the Yankees will soon have two baseball stadiums at their disposal, the community whose parks were absorbed for the new stadium could be left without any regulation ballfield in the neighborhood for a year or more.

Scheduled tours of the historic stadium ended last month, but the ballclub isn’t expected to vacate the old stadium until spring.

That’s even as the team prepares to open the 2009 season across the street at its new stadium, built atop Macombs Dam Park, which held all four of the neighborhood’s grass baseball diamonds.

“There is great irony that the world’s wealthiest baseball club is taking away fields from the poorest community in America,” said Geoff Croft, of NYC Park Advocates

Irony. Heh.

24 Free Agents Offered Arbitration

Mmmmm.....sandwich pick.

Surprisingly not offered arbitration:
Bobby Abreu
Joe Beimel
Pat Burrell
Adam Dunn
Braden Looper
Jamie Moyer
Randy Wolf (not confirmed yet; implied from AP article)
Kerry Wood

Sickels: Boston Red Sox Top 20 Prospects for 2009

Stares at worthless Jimmy Schankle autograph…

1) Lars Anderson, 1B, Grade A-: Will hit for power and average, I’m confident home runs will increase.
2) Michael Bowden, RHP, Grade B+: Another personal favorite, strong command of solid stuff.
3) Daniel Bard, RHP, Grade B: Can hit 100 MPH, turned things around, command still a question but huge upside.
4) Josh Reddick, OF, Grade B: At this point I’m not that worried about Double-A struggles. Not a walk machine but it seems to work for him.
5) Ryan Westmoreland, OF, Grade B: No numbers yet, this is based on scouting reports indicating power, speed, and good plate discipline.
6) Michael Almanzar, 3B, Grade B-: Needs work with strike zone judgment, but huge upside. Miguel Cabrera type? If he gets the zone under control. . .
7) Ryan Kalish, OF, Grade B-: Strong leadoff skills, and young enough for the power to come.
8) Nick Hagadone, LHP, Grade B-: Can’t rank higher than B- until we see how he comes back from Tommy John. Excellent stuff when healthy.
9) Yamaico Navarro, SS, Grade B-: Tools and youth, with good offensive upside for a middle infielder.
10) Oscar Tejeda, SS, Grade B-: Tools and youth. I will cut him some slack due to health problems this year.

SYSTEM IN BRIEF: The Red Sox have thinned out a bit at the top, but the system is recharging very quickly and is still quite deep overall. Anderson and Bowden are personal favorites. They have a mixture of tools guys and guys with polish, which I like to see, and they have a nice balance of pitchers and position players. They draft guys from high school, they draft guys from college, they spend money in Latin America and Asia. This is how a big-money team SHOULD run a farm system, and it will ensure the team is competitive for years to come.

ShysterBall: Calcaterra: Great Moments in Mass Transportation

(pant) I’m late on (huff) this. I just got (groan) back (splat)…

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a story about how few people ride the light rail line from downtown to the airport each day:

It’s cheap, reliable and fast. But the RTA rapid that whisks riders from Cleveland Hopkins International Airport to downtown in 20 minutes—for $2—has an identity problem. Airport employees and those who arrive for conventions love it. Vacation and business travelers generally spurn it in favor of cars or taxis . . . Currently, Cleveland’s airport line attracts only about 300 riders a day.

However:

The rapid helped lure the Society of American Baseball Research convention to Cleveland last July. Many of the hundreds who arrived by air took the rapid to their downtown hotel, said Susan Petrone, director of communications for SABR.

I was at SABR, and I remember that Repoz from BTF and I left the hotel at about the same time, me in my car for the 135 mile trip back to Columbus, him to the RTA station to hop the train to the airport. I think I sat down at my desk at work the next morning as the train finally came by to pick him up.

Thanks to Bob Transit.

Beyond the Box Score: Anderson: Ted Williams vs. Barry Bonds

And the winner of The Splendid Sphincter Award is…

I was toying around in SQL, looking at single season high in certain statistics and threw in the formula for OPS. I set the at-bats criteria a little lower than I usually do because I wanted to include the seasons where Bonds walked 170+ times. It wasn’t until after the fact that I realized I could’ve just ordered by plate appearances, but it makes little difference for this post. The number of ABs ended up being 350 or more, and I must say, even I didn’t realize how good Ted Williams 1957 stacked up.

...Bonds beats him in quantity, but goodness sakes , the average AL OPS in 1957 was .708! Williams had a .525 wOBA and that was as a 38-year-old. I did some quick data crunching and the ML average was .319. That means that over 600 plate appearances, Williams was 107 runs better than average.When old age and epic performances are brought to mind most of us will think about Bonds, and rightfully so. If anyone could top Williams 38-year-old season versus the league, it would have to be Bonds. Right? Well, of course. As a 39-year-old in 2004 Bonds had a wOBA of .538. League average was .330, meaning Bonds was 109 runs better. That’s, um, amazing.

Primer Dugout 12-2-2008

Happy Birthday to Mark Kotsay and Pedro Borbon.  Yes, these are probably the best players born on December 2nd.

MLB: Mark Grace takes 2,445 career knocks to Hall of Fame ballot

Wow!  And here I thought people liked him…

Those doubles added up. Grace delivered one after another and plenty of singles and eventually became the Major League hits leader of the 1990s with 1,754 knocks. And the glib first baseman, who played 16 seasons, will now see if all those hits were enough to get him into the Hall of Fame.

He’s on the ballot for the first time, and if Grace could garner votes for being able to answer any question, he’d be a shoo-in for Cooperstown.

...All of the 20th century decade hits leaders have been elected to the Hall, with the exception of Pete Rose. Grace has 2,445 career hits and never finished a season with more strikeouts than walks. But even a fan Web site, MarkGrace.com, acknowledges it will be tough for the “amazing” left-handed hitter to get into Cooperstown.

Globe and Mail: Media mogul Ted Rogers dies

Ted Rogers spent his life defying expectations. He feared he would die by the time he was 38, the age when his father was felled by a brain aneurysm, leaving a six-year-old son with the pristine image of a heroic dad.

Driven by this memory, young Ted managed to live almost twice as long as his father, surviving a lengthy catalogue of physical ailments. He died on Tuesday at the age of 75 at his home in Toronto. He suffered from congestive heart failure.

A sickly kid, he was always picked last for sports teams at upper-crust Upper Canada College, but he made himself into a decent boxer. As an adult, he bought a major league baseball team, the Toronto Blue Jays, while conceding he was “the village idiot” on baseball matters.

Rosenthal: Bad economy hurting even the Yankees

And “mostly in the OF” according to Witless Bissel.

Granted, the Yankees will not exactly suffer without Abreu. If the season opened tomorrow, they could go with Johnny Damon in left, Melky Cabrera/Brett Gardner in center and Xavier Nady in right, with Nick Swisher at first base and Hideki Matsui at DH. Not great, but not terrible. And the Yankees still could trade for a center fielder such as the Brewers’ Mike Cameron — or even pursue Ramirez if they failed to get the pitchers they wanted.

The loss of the two high draft picks the Yankees would have received for Abreu is not insignificant, particularly with the team set to forfeit picks for Sabathia and either A.J. Burnett or Derek Lowe. But club officials, setting limits that did not exist when the economy was sound, determined that they could not pay Abreu $16 million and still get the pitching they wanted.

Yes, even the filthy-rich Yankees are cutting back.

By their definition, anyway.

Morning Call: Groller: Kruk the same genuine guy off camera

AARGH!  Cremasteric gag reflex forthcoming!

I asked Kruk if he felt confined by the short sound-bites he has to deliver during ‘’Baseball Tonight.’’

‘’No, it’s not hard for me to get in and out fast because I don’t have a lot of thoughts going through my head anyway,’’ he said. ‘’The hardest part for me is to remember the players’ names. Now with the influx of all of these Japanese and Korean players, wow, I really struggle with those.

‘’The hardest part is remembering the names and remembering what teams they’re on. I couldn’t tell you who plays for the Royals right now if my life depended on it. Thank God it’s not dependent on it.’’

Kruk seems to have a good rapport with ‘’Baseball Tonight’’ host Karl Ravech, but says like with any family, there are some less-than-harmonious moments. ‘’You better have a good rapport because we’re on four days a week from March through October,’’ Kruk said. ‘’If we didn’t get along, it would be hard.

‘’I mean there have been times when I wanted to punch him in the face. And, I’m sure there are times when he’d like to do the same to me. We argue. One time we went three days without speaking to each other, except on the air.

Griffin: Blue Jays wise to stay out of Japanese deals

Operation Falldown: Gen. Richard Griffin and the “invasion from Japan.”

Clearly, in this day and age, an average of $1 million per season for a major-league relief pitcher – Tazawa is projected as a seventh- or eighth-inning guy – is not outrageous, but even as a North American pro novice his contract does not seem right. Reports in the Boston Globe are that without any time in the minor leagues, Tazawa will be eligible in three calendar years for arbitration under terms of his contract and for free agency after six, even if those seasons haven’t all been in the majors.

Jays fans should not be jealous of this signing. When Pat Gillick was GM of the Mariners, at a time when they already had three Japanese players on board, including all-star Ichiro Suzuki, he predicted that there were only eight or nine potential major-leaguers in Japan. Gillick’s a smart man.

Japan to MLB is not like former Soviet Union hockey was to the NHL when it came to untapped resources. They don’t throw as hard or hit baseballs as hard as on this side of the Pacific. The only thing Japanese players do better is come prepared and stay prepared.

Phils Decline Arbitration for Moyer, Burrell

The Phillies did not offer Jamie Moyer or Pat Burrell salary arbitration, a league source said last night.

[...]

Burrell made $14 million last season, when he hit .250 with 33 home runs and 86 RBIs. Based on those numbers, he would have received a raise in 2009. I speculated earlier this week that the Phillies probably wouldn’t offer Burrell arbitration because they wouldn’t want to pay him more than $14 million, even for one year. And I’m guessing that because Burrell seemed unlikely to command more than $14 million from another team next season, the Phillies felt Burrell would have accepted arbitration had they offered. I think the Phillies simply don’t want to allocate that much money to Burrell, especially when they have 10 players already eligible for salary arbitration and they have other things they would like to do (perhaps sign a leftfielder like Raul Ibanez or Rocco Baldelli, a relief pitcher like Juan Cruz and sign players like Ryan Madson and Jayson Werth to contract extensions).

Pirates pursue free-agent veteran Loretta

From Pavement to the basement…

The Pirates are trying to acquire a longtime nemesis.

General manager Neal Huntington has had two conversations aimed at acquiring free-agent infielder Mark Loretta, agent Bob Garber confirmed yesterday, and the parties plan to communicate further.

Loretta, 37, batted .280 with four home runs and 38 RBIs in 261 at-bats last season for Houston. He is a career .297 hitter in 14 seasons, including a starting berth in the 2006 All-Star Game at PNC Park, and is capable of playing any infield position, including shortstop. One highlight among those numbers is a .328 career average against the Pirates, one of the highest of any individual opponent since 1960, as well as a career-high 47 RBIs.

ESPN reported that the Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers also are interested.

Reds’ Dusty Baker wants to manage Kerry Wood again

As 3B turned fashion designer, Coco Laboy Chanel, once warned..."Jump out the nearest window if you are the object of managerial passion! Flee it if you feel it!”

The Cubs decided to pass on offering Wood a multiyear deal to retain his services, so Baker says he plans to give Wood a call to check on his possible interest in signing with Cincinnati.

“We have a closer already in [ Francisco] Cordero, who we have under contract for a few more years,” Baker said Monday. “But somebody can use Kerry Wood. I am going to call him. I like Kerry Wood as a person, not just as a ballplayer, but as a person. I will give him a call and see what’s up.”

Baker managed the Cubs when the oft-injured Wood provided glimpses of his potential as a hard-throwing starter before trying to reduce the strain on his arm and shoulder by pitching out of the bullpen as a setup man before becoming a closer.

Baker plans to consult with Reds general manager Walt Jocketty as the annual winter meetings commence next week in Las Vegas.

“We will probably address that while we are down there. It depends on a lot of stuff,” Baker said. “I have to talk to Kerry first. He did a pretty good job for the Cubs.”

Projecting C.C. Sabathia: The $140 Million Question

Sabathia is none of these things. Unlike Brown, he’s not almost 35. Unlike Hampton, his success does not come from the parks he’s called home. Unlike Zito, he doesn’t have rising walk rates and dropping strikeout rates and his best season was last year, not five seasons ago.

He doesn’t have control problems. He doesn’t have obviously problematic mechanics. He doesn’t just “get by” with a decent fastball and a whole lot of junk. By all accounts, he’s not a self-absorbed jerk, or a hot-head, or a primadonna, or a clubhouse cancer, or anything of that ilk. He doesn’t appear to wilt in the heat of a pennant race or the playoffs. In short, there’s really nothing wrong with him, except…

His size. Unlike Neyer’s assessment, though, this is not the elephant in the room nobody talks about. For one thing, everybody’s talking about it, and for another, can’t we come up with a less loaded analogy than that for a fat guy? “Sabathia’s weight is the gauche, pink drapes in the room everyone’s ignoring!” Nah, now we’re upsetting a different demographic. Sorry, fat guys.