Right-hander Joe Blanton retires

Never quite Cy Blanton…

Veteran right-hander Joe Blanton has retired, according to Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register. Because he was released before retiring, the Angels still owe him the $7.5 million left on his contract.

Blanton, 33, signed a minor league deal with the Athletics after being released by the Halos. He made two starts for their Triple-A affiliate, allowing seven runs in 10 2/3 innings.

In 20 starts and eight relief appearances for the Angels last year, Blanton went ...

Fine for Yankees being considered in tampering case with Mike Trout

Commissioner Bud Selig is considering whether to fine the New York Yankees for tampering, the result of an investigation triggered by Yankees President Randy Levine’s comment last winter that he would offer Angels outfielder Mike Trout a 10-year contract.

The potential fine was disclosed by two people with knowledge of the matter but not authorized to comment about it. The amount of the possible fine was not disclosed.

The Angels were furious Levine dropped Trout’s name into a December ...

Derek Jeter sitting out a second straight game

Tight quad my ass! They’re just trying to protect Jeter’s .3123 career BA and keep him ahead of Manny Ramirez’s .3122!

Jeter is 39 years old and played in only 17 games last season. Girardi’s thinking is pretty understandable.

Also there’s this, from MLB.com Yankees beat writer Bryan Hoch …

Girardi: Jeter’s quad got tight on Friday. Had yesterday off. He’s getting today off because of it too. No tests scheduled.

Boras (via Heyman): Drew, Kendrys ‘damaged;’ MLB disagrees but will investigate

Scott Boras, the agent for top remaining free agents Kendrys Morales and Stephen Drew, came out swinging against the half dozen or so anonymous team executives and officials who negatively speculated in a recent article on the value of those two players. Boras says those unnamed executives and officials are breaking league rules in a recent article by suggesting low player values, issuing critical comments and ultimately hurting their markets.

Boras… said he intends to pursue a grievance, ...

Murray Chass on Baseball: IT’S BACK — MAYBE

Murray sez: Glory! “Wrong Hole, Buster”

[The use of anonymous quotes is a] highly questionable journalistic practice and is frowned on by reputable news organizations.

This type of article is what has angered Clark and the union. One such example ran on the [ESPN] web site last week with the heading “Execs put a price on Drew, Morales.”

Written by Buster Olney, the site’s lead baseball writer, the piece offers no names of people he quotes but quotes an assortment of people identified ...

Deadspin: Hayhurst: A Major League Pitcher’s Guide To Doctoring A Baseball

When someone like Pineda cheats so obviously that it has to be acknowledged, it’s discussed in terms of a ludicrously weak explanation that all players seem to accept: Loading the ball is not about cheating; it’s about getting a grip.

Since it seems like everyone could stand to get a grip on this form of cheating in the majors, let’s talk some of the ways pitchers go about getting one. This is a strange thing, existing in a sort of no-man’s land. It’s not really illegal, since no one gets ...

Le Batard: It’s difficult for us to understand Puig’s lack of understanding.

I found the anecdotes about the other players particularly interesting.

NY Times: Kepner: A Rapidly Shifting Philosophy of Infield Play

Teams shifted about 2,400 times in 2010 and 2011, said Ben Jedlovec, a vice president for the company, and about 4,500 times in 2012. Last season, the total jumped to about 8,100, and teams are on pace for 13,000 shifts in 2014.

“Clint Hurdle said nine of 10 balls up the middle used to be hits — and now, two of 10 are,” said Detroit Tigers General Manager Dave Dombrowski, referring to the manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. “It just shows how different it is.”

Dombrowski’s Tigers ...

Neyer: Kissing the Rolaids Relief Award goodbye

In 2006…. the Rolaids brand was acquired… Johnson & Johnson drastically reduced its distribution of Rolaids-brand products, and the attendant promotion of those products… [Heath] Bell and Rafael Soriano, the winners in 2010, didn’t get their trophies. José Valverde and John Axford, the winners in 2011, didn’t get theirs, either…

The way the Players Association saw it, the Rolaids Relief Man Award was still being promoted on a corporate website in 2010 and ’11, so somebody owed four ...

Zuckerman - Character test for battered, beaten Nationals

Span, Zimmerman, Fister, Ramos, Hairston out. Werth day-to-day. Who knew that Adam LaRoche would be the poster boy for the Nationals Institutes of Health???

Robothal: Red Sox’s lowball offer might cost them Lester

This is is looking more and more like left-hander Jon Lester’s last season with the Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox’s most recent offer to Lester was far below market value—four years for between $70 million and $80 million, according to sources within the team’€™s clubhouse.

Lester, who is eligible for free agency at the end of the season, rejected the offer and will not resume negotiations with the club until the offseason, the sources said.

The Red Sox will have an exclusive negotiating ...

We’re Moved! (And Burst.net can bite me!)

Update Thursday, April 17th at 11:00 AM: I’ve been bogged down looking for a fix to a domain redirect issue caused by a new php handler that I’m using on the server. For now using some of the old domain names will produce an error if you try to go to a sub-directory (like www.baseballprimer.com/newsstand/). I’ve decided to put off fixing this until later so I can get to some other things on my to-do list. At the moment I’m working on removing ads for people who’ve donated. With the way I have ...

On Jeff [Francoeur] Ears

Frenchy’s minor league teammates convinced him that one of the pitchers on his team was deaf. For a month.

Bill Madden: Ooh, my arm! Yankees and Mets caught up in thick of injury epidemic in baseball

Woo-eee! Bill Madden hasn’t been this worked up since Richard Crooks’ Hollywood Walk of Fame Star went missing!

Aaaarrrghhhh!

Such is the resounding cry again being heard throughout baseball as pitcher after pitcher comes walking off the mound grabbing his elbow and position player after position player suddenly comes up lame with a hamstring, groin, calf, wrist, oblique, lat or quad injury. It’s an epidemic, like all the strikeouts, that’s getting worse and worse in baseball.

After the ...

Scott DeSmit: Just give me a kid who can play the game

The Daily News: Serving Genesee…and by the looks of it, even harder shiit!

Mike Trout deserved the MVP because of Pythagorean expectations, speed scores, ultimate zone ratings, VORP, wOBA and PECOTA, or Player Empiracal Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm.

Think baseball was boring before?

Grrrrr.

Yes, baseball has always been stat-driven. That’s why I love reading box scores.

But it’s also driven by gut instinct.

Taking David Ortiz out of the World Series lineup based on ...

OMNICHATTER for April 13, 2014

Hey, guys, guess what this week’s ESPN game is?

Beyond the Box Score: Is the infield shift ruining baseball?

If the shift is really transforming baseball [...] by rendering pull-heavy hitters less valuable, we would want to know just who these hitters are. To identify them, I create a simple “balance factor” to judge how frequently these hitters pull the ball as opposed to going up the middle and to the opposite field. I used FanGraphs’ batted ball data for the location of balls put in play and calculated the “balance factor” with the following equation:

(((Center Rate + Opposite Field Rate) ÷ 2) - ...

The Beyond the Box Score guide to looking beyond the box score

TOOTBLAN

Perhaps baserunning errors are your thing. There is a wonderful site dedicated to tracking all extra base outs, which are outs on would-be sacrifice flies, pickoffs, double offs, fielder’s choice outs with an open base, batter’s interference, runner interference, or any other method for which a baserunner makes an out on the base paths (excluding stolen bases).

Closer Koji Uehara of Boston Red Sox held out with stiff shoulder - ESPN Boston

He isn’t an ironman.

Uehara said after the game he could have pitched, but didn’t want to risk aggravating the condition. He said he felt the stiffness in the same area he did while playing catch on June 10, 2012, when he was with the Texas Rangers. That injury was described as a strained latissimus dorsi, a muscle in his upper back, and he missed 66 games. After his return on Aug. 26, he made 17 appearances for the Rangers and posted a 1.23 ERA, striking out 21 and walking 1 in 14 2/3 innings.

...Read More...

Jim Furtado Posted: April 12, 2014 at 08:36 AM | 8 comment(s)
  Beats: koji uehara, red sox

Fixing MLB’s qualifying offer system - ESPN

The best way to cut down on the number of players getting qualifying offers is, players need to not overestimate their market and accept the offer.

Trust in Dave Dombrowski «

Bum Phillips famously said of Don Shula, “He can take his’n and beat your’n and take your’n and beat his’n.” Well, Dombrowski can trade his’n for your’n and win the trade, then take his’n back and win some more.

OMNICHATTER for 4-12

Omnichatter this, Omnichatter that.

Tigers Great Denny McLain: Joe Nathan’s Dead Arm Is ‘Ridiculous,’ ‘Excuse’

The Wicker Sham.

Denny McLain threw for well over 300 innings twice in his MLB career, so it should come as no surprise that the Tigers’ legendary right-hander has no remorse for current closer Joe Nathan and his dead arm.

McLain joined Fred Heumann on Mad Dog in the Morning Thursday and ripped into Nathan.

“What the hell is a dead arm? Can you tell me please?” asked McLain, baseball’s last 30-game winner.

“Get a shot of cortisone, put a little dirt on it, Joe, kick yourself in ...

Steve Goldman: To the Mats with Eduardo Nunez hate mail

Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trashy Yankee Fans…till now.

I’m withholding names, because the intention is education, not mockery. At least, that’s my intention. I’m not perfect, and neither , as we will see, is Yogi Berra, master of time, space, dimension, and seven secret spices. Finally, all typos are from the originals.

1. “Nunuez: 270-game conspiracy pretending that he was a major league player”
Nunez hit .267 over that time. Only a completely ignorant person would say that is ...

Seduction of ‘donut contracts’ has MLB players leaving millions on table

Baseball players are underpaid.

In a vacuum, the issue gets a big, fat #richpeopleproblems hashtag. If the MLBPA’s biggest problems revolve around a guy not getting enough millions, whooptie damn do. At the same time, that ignores an important principle, and one the union is stressing as long-term deals swing more and more in favor of teams: Baseball is a $9 billion industry, and every dollar that doesn’t go to the players who make the game what it is funnels straight into the suit pockets of ...

Primer Dugout (and link of the day) 4-11-2014

Milwaukee Sentinel, April 11, 1914:

The old reserve clause in the contracts of organized baseball players was held to be invalid and unenforceable in a decision handed down on Friday by Federal Judge Clarence W. Sessions denying the application of the Chicago Federal league club for an injunction to restrain Catcher William Killifer [sic] from playing with the Philadelphia National league club.

Contracts of such nature were held by Judge Sessions to be “lacking in the necessary qualities of ...

Frank Deford: Bud Selig and Derek Jeter: Time To Root, Root, Root For Final Innings

Don’t experiment…just buy Deford!

It should be Derek Selig and Bud Jeter. After all, the Yankee captain - listed as the 11th greatest leader in the world by Fortune magazine, in what is surely the most asinine poll ever concocted - is the ultimate buddy. Everybody loves him, even Yankee haters. He can doeth no wrong.

But really, like the commissioner, Captain Jeter is not so much a traditional leader as he is a cohesive force. He succeeded Cal Ripken as the perfect counterpoint to all the ...

OMNICHATTER for 4-11-2014

What’s the 411 in baseball on 4-11? Well, discuss it in the OMNICHATTER.

Scouting Children: Why MLB Has Teams Competing For 14-Year-Olds

BOCA CHICA, Dominican Republic—It’s an early January morning at the Yankees academy in the Dominican Republic. In a couple of hours, hundreds of scouts will be here to watch some of the top Dominican prospects in the 2014 signing class.

For now, on one field, the Yankees are holding a private workout with a pack of team personnel there to evaluate the players. On an adjacent field, with only a few people watching, a pair of infielders are out early taking grounders.

They both look ...

PHOTOS: Is Michael Pineda using pine tar to shut down Red Sox?

So, as you read this, Yankees right-hander Michael Pineda is dominating the visiting Red Sox in a big way. However, is he doing so with pine tar illegally smeared all over his pitching hand? Check out the visual evidence from Thursday night’s game ...

Thanks to Wormeye.