SC Featured: Toe Nash - ESPN Video - ESPN

The story of Toe Nash.

Edit: Removed dopey ESPN video which was intent on autoplaying. Jim

MLB.com:  Yanks open international signing period with spree

The New York Yankees made their presence felt with an international spending spree on Wednesday, the first day international free agents could sign with teams.

According to industry sources, New York agreed to terms with several highly regarded international prospects, including shortstop Dermis Garcia, ranked No. 1 on MLB.com’s Top 30 International Prospects list for a $3 million signing bonus, along with Dominican third baseman Nelson Gomez (ranked No. 2) for $2.25 million, Dominican ...

Report: A-Rod used banned PEDs with MLB’s permission in 2007 MVP season

Before the 2007 season, Rodriguez asked for permission to use testosterone, which has been banned by baseball since 2003. The (independent program administrator) in ’07 was Bryan W. Smith, a High Point, N.C., physician. (Baseball did not yet have the advisory medical panel.) On Feb. 16, 2007, two days before Rodriguez reported to spring training, Smith granted the exemption, allowing Rodriguez to use testosterone all season.

The exemption was revealed in a transcript of Rodriguez’s fall ...

Grantland: The Pitching Championship Belt, Part 1

• The goal is to identify the pitcher the majority of baseball fans would have picked as the best pitcher on the planet at the end of the season. You know, Family Feud style. Imagine a poll in the back of Baseball Digest or Sporting News where only people who really cared about baseball responded.

• That means we have to measure it in statistics that most fans use. Yes, I think pitcher wins are basically a useless statistic, just like you do. But we’re in the minority. So wins, ERA, ...

Signing Predictions For The Top 30 International Prospects

Today is International Signing Day, so consider this a thread for signings.

1. Adrian Rondon, ss, Dominican Republic

The combination of premium position, one of the most advanced game hitters on the market and projectable power from an athletic frame makes Rondon the No. 1 prospect for July 2. Or in Rondon’s case, July 7, which is his 16th birthday and the first date when he’s eligible to sign. With a price tag that figures to be in the neighborhood of $3 million, that means only a team ...

Lou Gehrig Bobblehead Day at Yankee Stadium today - yes, really

A bobblehead for a guy who had ALS - tribute, or tacky?

Rosenthal: Harper puts Nationals, Williams in tough position

Manager Matt Williams put on his happy face Tuesday, denying he had a rift with Bryce Harper, telling reporters, “I’ve got Bryce’s back in every way.” It was an interesting reaction, to say the least, considering that 24 hours before, Harper gave an interview in which he all but told Williams how to do his job.

Williams, in his first year managing, is in a difficult if not impossible position. He needs to win over Harper, who, when healthy, is the Nationals’ most dynamic player. But ...

Paul: Tigers’ Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker hope to enter Hall of Fame side by side

When the BBWAA all had their quarrels and parted…

Detroit — It continues to frustrate Tigers fans.

And, sure, it frustrates the Tigers of yesteryear, too, that no player on that 1984 World Series championship team is represented in Cooperstown.

That puts the 1984 Tigers alongside the 1981 Dodgers as the only two World Series champions, pre-1995, not to have a Hall of Fame player.

“It’s because we’re Detroit, and not New York or Boston. You understand that?” said Paul Carey, Ernie ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-2-2014

Pittsburgh Press, July 2, 1914:

Pitcher Elmer Daily, of the Allegheny Steel team of Tarentum and Brackenridge, killed a dog with a batted ball Tuesday evening at Peterson park when the Steel team was practicing. A dog was chasing the ball over the field when it seized a hot one from Daily’s willow too soon after it had left the bat. The drive turned him end over end and left him inert on the ground.

:(

No snark today. Just a “that really sucks”.

OMNICHATTER 7-2-2014

The “Hey, Batter Batter” OMNICHATTER

Angels acquire Rich Hill from Red Sox

Rich Hill has spent all season at Triple-A and now the Red Sox have traded him for cash considerations the Angels, who immediately called up the left-handed reliever.

This season at Triple-A for the Red Sox he posted a 3.23 ERA and 45/17 K/BB ratio in 39 innings, holding opponents to a .206 batting average and zero homers.

Rick Porcello gets another shutout, Tigers beat A’s

Porcello is now 3-0 with 24 scoreless innings over his last three outings. He became the first pitcher since Baltimore’s Jeff Ballard on Aug. 21, 1989, to throw a shutout without a walk or strikeout. No Tigers pitcher had done it since Dizzy Trout in 1944.

Zeroes everywhere with this guy.

New Hearing for Barry Bonds

I thought this was dead and buried but the full 9th Circuit has decided to hear the case again.

BBTF lawyers—report for duty.

Fox Sports: Ex-Dodgers pitcher Bobby Castillo dies at 59 after battle with cancer

Bobby Castillo, a former Dodgers and Minnesota Twins pitcher credited with teaching Fernando Valenzuela how to throw a screwball, died Monday in a Los Angeles hospital after a battle with cancer, the team announced. He was 59.

Grantland: The sad, financially successful legacy of baseball commissioner Bud Selig

This column never would have happened if baseball had a salary cap….

In many ways, Selig will be reckoned as one of the great commissioners of baseball. This is because, in the universe of baseball enthusiasts, the commissioner’s office always has been the repository of what Lewis Lapham once referred to as the American “wish for kings.” It was the commissioner’s office that threw out the Black Sox but winked at gamblers in other cities. It was the commissioner’s office that ...

Pearlman: Trading for George Foster…Frank Cashen’s Best Move

Was Lee Mazzilli overrated at the time of the deal?

One thing that, to me, stands out about Cashen: When folks try and figure out the biggest trade of his 12 years with New York, they focus upon Keith Hernandez being lifted from the Cardinals for two pitchers, or Gary Carter coming via Montreal in exchange for Hubie Brooks and a bunch of mediocre youngsters. They’ll mention David Cone’s acquisition from Kansas City for Ed Hearn; maybe even Ron Darling and Walt Terrell being taken from ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-1-2014

Milwaukee Journal, July 1, 1914:

Ball players never hand the ball to an umpire? [sic] It would be a violation of one of the strictest of the unwritten laws of the game. Even though a player is within a couple of paces, or one pace, of an umpire, he will flip the ball to him. Why this is true the majority of players cannot say. When asked one of them stated: “Guess it’s just because we don’t like to have any more to do with an umpire than is absolutely necessary…”

I’d never thought about it ...

OTP - July 2014: Republicans Lose To Democrats For Sixth Straight Year In Congressional Baseball Game

As Time magazine recently reported, Republicans, frustrated by their 22-0 loss in last year’s game, sought a new coach to shake things up on the field this year. Some members even appealed to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to fire the coach, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas). But Boehner said he wasn’t powerful enough to control the baseball diamond, and Barton refused to walk away after spending 28 years with the game. Instead, he brought on Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), a former ...

Techie’s website hits ‘cool’ factor out of the park - Houston Chronicle

Baseball cool or geek cool?

You don’t have to work for the Astros or any team to be baseball cool in this town, and Daren Willman is quintessential baseball cool.

What To Expect: Mariners RHP Taijuan Walker - BaseballAmerica.com

Who is Taijuan Walker?

Notes: The history behind why Tanaka, Abreu count as rookies | FOX Sports

Rosenthal’s latest notes.

The holdup bears a resemblance to the delays that occasionally occur in free agency when players fail physicals and teams try to rework deals.
If indeed Aiken failed his physical, the Astros would have the right to offer him 40 percent of his signing bonus value, according to the new draft rules that were negotiated into the collective bargaining agreement in 2011.
The signing bonus value for the No. 1 overall pick is $7,922,100. Forty percent of that would be ...

Relieved Hessman sets IL homer record | MiLB.com

Ollie Carnegie isn’t exactly a household name.

Along with the smell of champagne and some Gatorade stains on his jersey, what Mike Hessman seemed to take away most from Monday night was a sense of relief.

Exactly one month after tying the International League career home run record, Hessman homered in the third inning of Triple-A Toledo’s 9-1 win over Indianapolis on Monday night. The round-tripper was the 259th for Hessman in the IL, surpassing long-time Buffalo outfielder Ollie Carnegie for ...

Harper, Williams give thoughts on Nats’ lineup | Comcast SportsNet Washington

Managers love this kind of stuff.

Harper, in fact, reiterated that point on Monday. He said he found out Williams’ lineup on Twitter and respects his skipper’s decision to put him back in left. That said, he thinks the Nats’ best lineup is a little different than the one constructed on Monday.

“I’m in the lineup, that’s all that matters. If I had the lineup it would maybe not be the same. But he’s got the lineup card, he’s got the pen and he knows what he’s doing. There’s nothing I can do about ...

Manny Ramirez vows to mentor Cub prospects

Just Manny being ... mature?

“Everybody makes mistakes, you, me, and everybody that’s in this room,” Ramirez said Monday while speaking to the media for the first time since signing a minor league deal with the Chicago Cubs. “But that’s it, you just have to grow and move on.” ....

“Theo (Epstein) was really honest,” Ramirez said of the Cubs’ president. “He said, ‘Hey, we don’t got a chance for you in the big leagues, but we got some young guys that we want you to help,’ and then I took it.”

...Read More...

Walt Davis Posted: July 01, 2014 at 01:09 AM | 33 comment(s)
  Beats: cubs, manny ramirez

OMNICHATTER 7-1-2014

The Start-Of-July OMNICHATTER

Frank Cashen dies at age 88

All bow to Bow-tie Cashen.

Frank Cashen, the architect of the 1986 world champion New York Mets, died Monday, a team spokesman said. He was 88.

Cashen, who died at Memorial Hospital in Easton, Maryland, served as Mets general manager from 1980 through 1991, transforming the organization from a perennial loser into a juggernaut.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the Mets owned the best record in Major League Baseball during Cashen’s final eight seasons as they compiled a 743-550 mark from ...

OMNICHATTER 6-30-2014

The Daily OMNICHATTER

Bryce Harper Returns To Nats Lineup, But Where

Yankees, Jeter, Red Sox, Girardi, Tanaka, Sabermetrics, silly grand predictions, get off my lawn…
(hopefully that pushes all the right buttons to get this posted before the end of the regular season.)

For more than two months, Matt Williams has been waiting to fill out a lineup card that includes Bryce Harper in it. And for several weeks, the Nationals’ first-time manager has been contemplating just how much he wants to shake up the rest of his lineup as a result of Harper’s return.

The ...

Awful Announcing - RETHINKING BASEBALL ON NATIONAL TELEVISION

There’s a stigma attached to writing about baseball’s predicament on television. Mostly, the idea that if you write about it, you’re proclaiming the death of the sport. It’s fair that the people who love it (which includes me) defend it, because as we’ve seen with soccer, sometimes it’s worth defending the thing that you like more than almost anything.

Fact is, however, that Major League Baseball has a national television problem. Sunday Night Baseball is doing fine, but ESPN still ...

Leaked: 10 Months Of The Houston Astros’ Internal Trade Talks

Some of these asks were just foolish.

Two years ago, the Houston Astros constructed “Ground Control”—a built-from-scratch online database for the private use of the Astros front office. It is by all accounts a marvel, an easy-to-use interface giving executives instant access to player statistics, video, and communications with other front offices around baseball. All it needs, apparently, is a little better password protection.
....
7/26/2013
[Nationals GM Mike] Rizzo called [Luhnow] to ...