La Russa: Asterisk for tainted stars

La sterisk, if you will.

La Russa, who managed the White Sox, Athletics and Cardinals between 1979 and 2011, said that because he’s one of the Hall’s six new inductees, he now feels free to state his opinion on the candidacies of the tainted greats of the modern era.

“Treat them all the same,” La Russa said. “If you were a Hall of Famer during that period as far as your pitching and playing, I would create some kind of asterisk, where everybody understands that, ‘Look, we have some questions, ...

7-25-14 OMNICHATTER

TGIF. It’s OMNICHATTER

Noble: Tom Seaver expects Derek Jeter to become first unanimous Hall of Fame inductee

Lyme disease. Just horrible.

But while his Hall of Fame standing has brought him unique acclaim and been so fulfilling, he is quite willing to be displaced atop the list—so long as his replacement is the right player.

Derek Jeter is the right player.

Seaver says so. Moreover, he believes the Yankees captain ought to be the first unanimously elected Hall of Famer.

“I can’t see how he won’t be,” Seaver said on Wednesday from his home/vineyard in Calistoga, Calif., “unless somebody beats him ...

The Inventor of the High Five

Glenn Burke was credited with inventing the high five in 1977, early in his MLB career. Unfortunately, he was outed as a gay man that offseason, and his career and his life were both shortened.

Surprising Sports Stars – Guided by Voices’ Robert Pollard

Perhaps Now the Phil Regan.

Another claim to fame for Guided by Voices is that Pollard is sometimes mentioned as the most prolific songwriter of his generation. In fact, he’s joked that he could write five songs while on the toilet, and three of them would be good. As of the writing of this article, he has 1669 songs registered with BMI, and more than 80 albums released.

But what makes Pollard’s story even more unbelievable comes down to his less heralded athletic past. It may not be such ...

Ex-MLB star Chuck Knoblauch accused of assaulting ex-wife

And yet, still no justice for him hitting Keith Olberman’s mom.

Former Major League Baseball star Chuck Knoblauch was arrested Wednesday night and accused of assaulting his ex-wife.

Knoblauch, 46, is charged with assault of a family member after allegedly hitting Cheri Knoblauch.
They divorced in 2012.

Memorial Village police officers arrested Knoblauch and he was released after posting a $10,000 bond.

This isn’t the Knoblauch’s first brush with the law. He was convicted of hitting ...

Twitter / Ken_Rosenthal: Mariners announce acquisition of Kendrys Morales for RHP Stephen Pryor.

This tickles me for some reason.

A’s designate Johnson for assignment

Oakland acquiring Jim Johnson from Baltimore and agreeing to pay him $10 million this season left a lot of people shaking their heads and now the move is officially a spectacular failure. And over, too.

Intentional Walk Issued to Bonds Yields Unintentional Disbelief (Happy Birthday, Barry)

The Diamondbacks led San Francisco, 8-6, with two out when Bonds walked to the plate with the bases loaded. When he walked to first base, the run forced in by the rare intentional walk made it 8-7. Gregg Olson, who had walked five other batters in the eighth and ninth, went to a 3-2 count on Brent Mayne before getting him on a line drive to right field, ending the game.

“There are only three or four players in this game you’d do it with, and Bonds is one of them,” [Buck] Showalter said. As the ...

OMNICHATTER: 7-24-14

The OMNICHATTER!

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-24-2014

Washington Times, July 24, 1914:

Eppa Jephtha Absolom Rixey, jr., [sic] former Virginia varsity twirler, was sadly bumped again yesterday by the Cubs. Rixey insisted on remaining at college until June this season and has been of no use to the Phillies at all. He has yet to win a ball game and may be released.

This is the second day in a row that a newspaper suggested that a guy who’d go on to become the winningest pitcher in franchise history would be released. Yesterday it was the Phils’ ...

Buck Showalter, Tommy Hunter bemoan shrinking strike zone in Orioles loss

Hour by hour it gets smaller - and - smaller! Grant Williams, yes. Grant Angelos, no.

The glare that Buck Showalter shot home plate umpire Hal Gibson III as the Orioles manager exited the visiting dugout during the eighth inning to pull Brian Matusz spoke volumes.

A late-inning shrinking strike zone had made an already tough task—beating the Angels—tougher.

Angels starter Jered Weaver seemed to get the low strike call throughout the night in the Orioles’ 3-2 loss. But as a one-run Orioles ...

Yadier Molina serves his brother crackers on a plate — home plate

Orange slices and Shasta for everyone after the game!

Jose was in St. Louis to play catcher for his Rays, while Yadier was sidelined with a thumb injury, so maybe Jose should have been the one sending the pick-me-up. As it happened, TV cameras caught Cardinals third base coach Jose Oquendo putting a couple of packs of peanut butter-filled cheese crackers on home plate, then showed Yadier laughing and motioning for his brother to take them.

Sure enough, Jose gratefully accepted the offering ...

Fivethirtyeight: Billion-Dollar Billy Beane

Billy Beane should have never written this article.

Now that we have a sense of Beane’s performance and how much it would cost to replicate it, let’s turn back to the Boston Red Sox and their failure to sign him (or even to offer him anywhere near his worth)....

But some of that money was spent and some of those wins came before the Red Sox attempted to hire Beane. To be conservative, let’s just look at the period since Henry made Beane his offer: In the last 12 years, the Red Sox spent ...

MLB: Tarp problems at Yankee Stadium

It’s a…

Goldman: Eliminating the shift a bandage for a phantom wound

Oh Bandage Up Yours!

Fans like offense. That’s what professional writers such as Buster Olney and Tom Verducci are saying as well: We dwell in a low-offense valley, and they miss the offense.

Olney suggested “perhaps lowering the mound again, or changing the composition of the ball.” Verducci wants to outlaw the shift. The terrible, painful irony here is that they fail to recognize that such remedies for the current lack of offense are no different from the use of drugs to get the same ...

Nats Fan in Colorado Shows Support with Curly W BEARD

You can’t make up stuff like this. Google “curly w beard”, be entertained.

I just saw him on TV, it’s for realz.

2015 Competitive Balance Lottery Results

The Competitive Balance Lottery for the 2015 MLB Draft took place this afternoon. Twelve competitive balance picks are awarded, with the first six taking place after the first round’s conclusion and the next six taking place following conclusion of the second round. Here are the results, per MLB.com (Twitter links)...

Competitive Balance Round A

  Marlins
  Rockies
  Cardinals
  Brewers
  Padres
  Indians

Competitive Balance Round B

  Reds
  Athletics
  Mariners
  ...

Cameron Maybin Suspended 25 Games

This may actually improve the Padres terrible offense.

It was announced today that OF Cameron Maybin has been suspended 25 games for violating Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program.

In a statement released by the team, Padres manager Bud Black said that “Our club fully supports Major League Baseball’s Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. Cameron has accepted full responsibility for his violation and apologized to his teammates and coaches. We are ...

CSN: Enough is enough — time to move on from Ryan Howard

The budget Ryan plan…

At what point does this experiment end? Howard is hitting .224 with a .305 on-base percentage. He has one home run in his last 121 plate appearances. He has three doubles in his last 55 games dating back to May 22.

The Phillies are throwing away games and costing themselves wins by batting Howard fourth nearly every night. It hurts to write that about a player as gregarious, as friendly, as easy to root for as Howard, but it’s the truth. There is no longer a logical ...

Jeff Francoeur’s Teammates Prank Him, Again

Isn’t the prank that he has to play for the San Diego Padres now?

Earlier this year, Francoeur’s teammates convinced him that pitcher Jorge Reyes was deaf, which turned into a lovely short film by first baseman Cody Decker. This time around, the gag was less complex. Decker again filmed the payback delivered when Francoeur unwisely used the coaches’ bathroom. With some help from Travis Buck and Carlos Quentin, who was rehabbing in Triple-A at the time, the group turned the cushy bathroom into ...

Korea’s Hanwha Eagles have robots for fans who can’t attend

Across lots of land and water in South Korea, the Hanwha Eagles (former team of Hyun-Jin Ryu) have gone “next level” by providing robots to stomp and yell unifying chants for those who cannot attend the game in person….

In any event, this sentence—“At important moments, the Fanbot encourages group cheering”—is the most creepily utopian baseball-related sequencing of words ever uttered. May it one adorn the flag of every formerly sovereign nation on earth.

Let us now look forward to being ...

OMNICHATTER 7-23-2014

Holy OMNICHATTER, Batman!

SportsNet: Kawasaki: ‘A monkey never cramps’

Time flies like a Fernando Rodney and fruit flies like a banana.

In the latest must-see interview with Munenori Kawasaki, the Toronto Blue Jays infielder reveals his remedy for cramps to Barry Davis.

Rubin: deGrom for NL rookie of the year?

Curtain risin’ on a new age
See deGrom’s still waitin’...

Jacob deGrom for rookie of the year?

Why not? It’s not like there is a runaway candidate this year.

So far, the monthly NL rookie of the month winners have been Arizona’s Chris Owings, St. Louis’ Kolten Wong and Cincinnati’s Billy Hamilton.

DeGrom limited the Seattle Mariners to one run on five hits in seven innings in a 3-1 win Tuesday. He improved to 4-5 with a 3.01 ERA.

Showing no ill effects from a nine-day layoff ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 7-23-2014

The [Missoula, MT] Daily Missoulian, July 23, 1914:

Grover Cleveland Alexander, a bear with the Phillies only two seasons back, has taken a hurry-up drop. In view of his poor work last season and this year his release by the Phillies had been anticipated, but it was thought he would go to a class AA organization. Instead he has been consigned to Syracuse in the New York State league

Yeah, Ol’ Pete had a really rough 1914. He only led the league in wins, innings pitched, complete games, and ...

Bucs Dugout: Manel: Pirates getting creative with defensive shifts

Both Rollins and Barmes were surprised to hear that BABIP on grounders was up, but they also said that ground ball data wasn’t the whole story when it comes to the utility of shifting.

Rollins shook his head, “Hmm, yeah, you’d expect the [ground ball] numbers to be down.” After taking a moment to consider how to explain what was going on, he asked, “What about line drives?” I didn’t have an answer because I hadn’t thought about what suddenly appeared obvious. “I’ve seen so many line drives ...

As shifts suppress offense, time has come to consider a rule change

Lefthanded hitters have lost 22 points on their batting average on balls in play to rightfield this year alone – and 85 points in nine years.

Good material with some good numbers in here.  But it’s questionable that this is the solution:

Support of an “illegal defense” rule – or at least the consideration of it – is gaining some traction in baseball. Such a rule might stipulate, for instance, that you cannot have three infielders on one side of second base. A shortstop would be ...

Cowboy Monkey Rodeo taking the Minors by storm

The act billed as “Tim ‘Wild Thang’ Lepard and Team Ghostriders” has become one of minor league baseball’s best-sellers, with fans filling ballparks to watch Lepard’s cowboy-clad capuchin ring-tailed monkeys riding on the backs of border collies, chasing after big-horned sheep.

Chase Headley traded to New York Yankees from San Diego Padres - ESPN New York

The New York Yankees have acquired third baseman Chase Headley in a trade Tuesday with the San Diego Padres.

The Yankees dealt infielder Yangervis Solarte and minor league pitcher Rafael De Paula to San Diego in exchange for Headley, who could boost New York’s struggling lineup.