Friday, May 17, 2013
Powerball odds? Juan Pierre’s homers are long shots, too
(www.al.com)
Odds of being attacked by a shark marlin: 1 in 11.5 million.
Read More...Pierre’s clout came leading off the bottom of the first for the Miami Marlins against the Cincinnati Reds.
Pierre’s homer was his first since June 23. He whooped when the ball went over the fence down the right-field line.
“I don’t know how to react to those things, so it’s just a spur-of-the-moment deal,” Pierre told reporters of his homer reaction. “That’s about the only time you’ll see me smiling on the baseball field.”
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1. RJ in TO posted on November 19, 2012 at 04:40 PM # hit 0 | hit 0I bet Bud could distract them if he had the Pizza Pizza guy come out and do his routine as he made the announcement. Plus, how hard can it be to outrun a couple dozen Canadians?
Yes. Yes, he did.
The Red Sox traded 4 players to the Dodgers, and those 4 players produced a total of 5.0 WAR in 2012 (including games with both the Dodgers and Red Sox). So, just in WAR--ignoring everything else--the Dodgers came out ahead by 5.0 (the Dodgers did not trade any Major Leaguers who provided any value in 2012).
The Marlins traded 5 players to the Blue Jays, and those 5 players produced a total of 9.1 WAR in 2012. Of course, in return, the Marlins received a couple players who provided value in 2012 (Yunel Escobar had 2.5 WAR and Jeff Mathis 0.8). So, balancing it out, the Blue Jays have come out ahead by 5.8 WAR (trade 3.3 to receive 9.1).
In other words....solely in terms of Major League talent: These two trades were very similar. So, yeah, it'd be tough to approve one and deny the other.
Be nice. There's at least two dozen of us.
On the other hand, he elected to work with Beeston for quite some time so if there ever was animosity it had probably cleared.
Filtering this through the Truth Converter:
"A baseball organization has no obligation to its fans, you idiots. We extracted $500 million in public funding for our stadium because you morons through your local politicians were stupid enough to give it to us, and we'd do it again. I don't care which players ownership used as pawns in this, or which players they now sell off. Nobody should be shocked by this."
To be clear, I am 100% in support of Selig here. Yes, I suppose what ownership did was underhanded, but people who are surprised that the Marlins did this are fools, and maybe the next time the fools won't give away $500 million in a bad economy. But probably they will.
Agreed.
In case of civil insurrection in any Canadian city, all broadcast stations (and a series of hidden, high-powered loudspeakers) are required to play this. Soon, everyone will get a goofy grin on their faces and forget why they were angry in the first place...
Grady Little leaving in Pedro?
Trading for Vernon Wells' contract?
The "turn forward the clock" uniforms?
Lot of handle and meme potential here.
Hawk Harrelson, General Manager.
It's been 35 years since a trade was voided, hasn't it? So it would take a lot. Although I remembered Finley selling his players being voided, I'd forgotten that the Blue to Cincy trade got voided as well. Kuhn supposedly was willing to let it go through but wanted them to reduce case and add players. It's hard to say that Kuhn was really justified there. Certainly Blue had been a great pitcher at times but he was not a dominant guy by this point. He'd let the Seaver trade go through a few months earlier. And ...
the trade Kuhn voided was Blue for Dave Revering and $400,000. The A's eventually traded Blue to the Giants for 5 players and $300,000 but none of those players amounted to anything ... and the cash was just reduced by $100,000. The A's managed to land Revering and "cash" anyway for Doug Bair. Revering was nothing special but did have one average and one good season for the A's which is more than they got out of the 5 nobodies they got from the Giants. There seems to be no record of how much cash was involved -- surely less than $100,000 but still Finley got Revering, $300+ K and 5 useless players while having to give up two players rather than Revering and $400 K while retaining Bair. Finley got his money, the A's were a worse team, good job Bowie Kuhn.
Vida Blue went on to become the answer to a famous trivia question: who was the throw-in to the Royals' blockbuster 4-player deal for Bob Tufts? :-)
Bair I see was earlier part of a horrible trade:
Bair, Armas, Mitchell Page, Rick Langford, Doc Medich and Dave Giusti from the Pirates for Chris Batton, Phil Garner and Tommy Helms. I'm not even sure the Pirates got the best mustache in that deal.
Playing back on Ty Cobb when he's in a fight for the batting title on the last day of the season?
Darren Driefort 5/$55M?
Todd Helton 9/$143M?
Greg Vaughn 4/$34M?
Jim Joyce's call on the 27th [well, I guess not] out on June 2, 2010?
Betting on baseball? Then lying about it? When you are a first-ballot HOFer?
Intentionally walking a batter with the bases loaded? [Wait...that was probably the right move with Bonds then]
Shorts as a uniform?
Trying to steal 2B with 2 outs in the 7th game of the WS? (When you are fat, and you get thrown out. Looking at you, Babe)
Letting Roseanne Barr sing the national anthem?
Charging the mound when it is occupied by Nolan Ryan?
*****
Those are individual judgements. Plus you have collective "implausible baseball judgments" like:
We won't sign any Negro players.
We won't vote for a guy who has already won an MVP. (Looking at you again, Babe)
I voted for Palmeiro as the Gold Glove at 1B, oh so did you?
I'm not voting for anyone who has been associated possibly with steroids, oh same for you?
*****
The list could go on and on. The internets are only so big, Guapo!
I'd take any of those deals over the one Kei Igawa received.
It was Nap Lajoie, actually. He was competing with Cobb for the batting title, so the Browns (if memory serves) let him beat out about half a dozen bunt hits in a doubleheader.
My bad, my very bad. Thanks for the correction.
Sorry 1910 Nap.
That ####### trade is mind-numbing.
At first I thought that MAYBE $50 million was coming with Vernon. I couldn't believe it was only $5 million. That was a horrific day for Angel fans.
Meh. It was a bad call, but at least it has a semblance of being close.
It wasn't as bad as this one.
Yeah, but that was for violating the CBA due to the $$ A-Rod was giving up, and the Union was the moving party, IIRC.
I think I'm going to like this season. I was really worried that the Jays were going to hire Jim Tracy or Manny Acta or Mike Hargrove.
Talk about left field though. On my list of top 30 likely candidates, re-hiring John Gibbons was not a thought I had had.
the seemed the beginning of a whole series of depressing trades by the Pirates. We saw a lot of bats leave the outfield; guys like Zisk, Easler, Oliver was a lot of OF bats that went to other teams. At the time of the huge As deal Page and Armas were minor leaguers if I recall; so I didnt realize how much talent they were actually were dumping. It wasnt so apparent at the time. Phil Garner would have garned more resentment if any of the newspapers had actually pointed out we gave up like half a team for a crumulent, "Scrappy" second baseman.
The other thing I recall is that the As also later got Miguel Dilone who did pretty good for a couple years. And I remember seeing his name wondering how the hell they got him too. So there was tons of Pirates talent floating around by the late 70s; I think at that pt. someone ranked them and the Bosox as the two best in terms of farm system, obviously pennants are better things to be ranked at.
In their defense, the Pirates did have some sort of logjam at second base. So they wound up sending Willie Randolph to the Yankees if memory serves. That was huge for the Yanks. The Pirates did get Bill (super sub) Robinson in some fashion (cant recall how) from the Yanks and he produced a number of big hits for the late 70s teams. They also lost second baseman Dave Cash to Montreal who arguably had better range than Joe MOrgan. But the Pirate farm produced Rennie Stennet to fill 2B and he might have been better than both but he absolutely shattered his ankle on a steal; at the time ('77?) him and Parker were taking turns being 1/2 in NL batting race at the time.
And they had tons of bats in the OF, so it was only natural that they send out guys who couldnt really field. I dont think they thought much of Richie Zisk's defense so off he went to Tex. I know Mike Easler was a butcher, and so he found refuge in LF in Fenway park. Easler did have some pop. Al Oliver went to Montreal, and won a batting title or 2, and I think its pretty established he did not cover a lot of ground for a CF. Even if they had limitations they had a lot of pop with the bat and we didnt get much in return.
1979 was a good year and they actually pulled off trades for Madlock, Foli, etc to put together a real team. but that was the last hurrah. After that they only got worse. The Jason Thomson deal was strange and I know I dont have the whole story. I think Kuhn intervened and made them take a young unknown guy: Thomson instead of getting Jim Spencer who they wanted and was totally washed up. THe Fregosi deal was another washed up guy, I never saw what the pt was. They had earlier traded Sanguillen for manager Chuck Tanner in a very stange deal, then they somehow got Sanguillen back again, who actually helped them in 79.
The newspapers would constantly play up these guys. It really infuriated me by that pt. Jim Morrison, what the heck was he supposed to be?
On the other hand, the Yankees did take Dale Berra off their hands, but in reality he was one of the worst pro ball player I ever saw. Did you ever see the DP on throw from the outfielder to the Catcher who tagged out two Yankees at the plate in one play? The first guy slides into Home on a bang bang play at the plate and 5 sec. later here comes Berra down the line, the catcher is standing up and hardly set and Berra goes in without sliding and pretty much runs right into the tag.
He made so many bad plays in the field that never got recorded as errors and really demonstrates the limits of fielding stats. Just not getting to balls or not backing up. So OK, we got rid of a guy that had absolutely NO business in MLB.
That was Medich for Randolph, Ken Brett, and Dock Ellis - another disastrous trade. Particularly in light of Stennett's injury.
That was an explicit rule of the League Award - previous winners were ineligible.
Yup.
(1) It's a 180-degree turnaround from everything they promised the people of Miami-Dade County in exchange for stadium votes, which will have long-term effects on attendance and media deals in Miami.
(2) It's likely to make it damn near impossible for the Marlins to sign meaningful free agents or contract extensions (I'm looking at you, Giancarlo) in the foreseeable future, unless Loria sells or suddenly becomes willing to hand out no-trade clauses.
It's one thing to be viewed as a businessman. It's another to be viewed as a habitual liar and con artist. If he hadn't already done so, Loria's cemented his status in the latter category with this deal. It's likely to kill baseball in Miami if Loria doesn't sell.
And yet those unearned welfare dollars are going to keep rolling in, are they not? And oh, how Mr. Loria would love to spend more but the players aren't taking their money and the amateur and international talent is heavily capped.
Sounds like a feature, not a bug.
I seem to remember/prefer to think that Vida was the player to be named later. :<)
Actually, Brad Wellman was the last piece to the deal - four players went to SF and 2 to KC.
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