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Bradley shows signs of becoming like Rickey Henderson; not, unfortunately, in terms of playing ability, but personal relations. I hope he gets it straightened out in Cleveland... a serious malcontent has a way of interfering with a team's success; unless you can play like Rickey Henderson, your career won't last too long.
-- MWE
So he's basically Brian Hunter, with power, and the ability to draw a walk, for 1M less a year, without a guaranteed two year commitment. I just laugh that when you work things out (And I know the sport doesn't actually work this way) the Orioles and Indians traded outfielders, with the Orioles picking up the salaries of both players.
Pretty sweet deal for the Indians, seeing as how they didn't seem to want Cordero back, anyways.
It appears in order to make room for Brady, the Indians designated Steve Woodard for assignment. I would think the texas Rangers would be insane not to take a shot here, although a team in a non-hitters park like OP@CY might be more suitable.
It's hard enough to find guys who can get the ball over the plate. Whatever Woodard's problems may or may not be, that isn't one of them.
That said, I'm shocked that Lofton hasn't drawn more interest. During last season, I was discussing with my friends whether Lofton would be worth a $5 million, 1 year contract for 2002. We mostly agreed that he would be, but that he would command a higher price, and possibly more years.
Lofton would make a ton of sense for the Mets. He could take Payton's spot provide a nice one-two punch with Cede?o. I'd love to see the Red Sox get him.
The soft market continues. I wonder if there's some sort of collusion going on.
I don't know about collusion, but I can really understand why Lofton isn't exactly in high demand. At this point, he's a 34 year old speed guy who seems to be losing that speed. Plus he's been a bit injury prone the last couple of years and his throwing arm doesn't seem to be up to par anymore.
Basically, he's become not quite good enough to play CF, but not enough of a hitter to play the corner outfield slots. Even so, I'm surprised someone hasn't come up with a couple million to sign him as 3/4th OF, part-time DH, and possible platoon guy.
You are both assuming that last year was indicative of Lofton's skill level. That may be, but it seems likely to me that Lofton's injuries caused him to have one bad season.
In CF, Lofton had a .919 zone rating, placing him 4th in the majors, ahead of Torii Hunter, Chris Singleton, and Mike Cameron. (I don't think zone rating is a perfect stat, but it's the best we've got. Range Factor places him in the middle of the pack.)
Look at Roger Cedeno. He got about $4 to $5 mil. He had an OBP in the .330s last year and it's a certainty that he cannot play center field. Though being much younger, he's more likely to bounce back.
STATS projection for Lofton: .370 OBP, .421 SLG
Lastly, even if we agree that Lofton isn't worth $5 to $7 mil., he's exactly the kind of player who would have gotten that much in the past: a proven veteran who's been on winning teams.
BTW, are you Polak999?
Cheers. I don't post often to the indians newsgroup, but I read it. It's been pretty slow lately. I believe you were the one to get the Prospectus guys to call Cabrera "Dilbert". Well done.
I saw that Sorenson and Edwards got promoted from Akron to Buffalo over the offseason. That infield is looking pretty crowded, especially if Dave Hollins and Bill Selby stick around. Is Shapiro collecting bad infielders the way Hart is collecting bad starting pitching?
I think I ordered a Kieschnick Sandwich at the Carnegie Deli once.
I suppose all of this is based on suspicion that Vizquel will be traded, due to salary, and with Gutierrez on the team now. (hard to believe they signed him as a FA, then made him change positions?) Of course, trading Vizquel-Alomar and ending up with Gutierrez-Lansing sounds like hell to an Indians fan...and maybe it is. But if Shapiro is under constrictions to reduce the salaries, he could have done a lot worse. That middle infield would be as good as many, and cheaper than most. Besides, in the end, if I'm wrong about more trades, or if critics are right that Lansing can't play anymore...what has been risked? It's a minor league deal. Smart move, I say.
Jose Mercedes actually Jody Reeded his way into this situation. Based on his excitement over his mediocre 2000, he turned down a $8M/3 year deal from the Orioles before the 2001 season. (So who looks stupider? The Orioles, for offering it, or Mercedes, for rejecting it?)
A few points:
Weaver, on the other hand, is a guy who has been ridden really hard, and has a motion that makes you expect to see his arm just go pinwheeling off into the stands one of these days. Of course, with that being said, I like the Weaver signing a lot more than this one, as the Tigers bought out both the arbitration years and the first yearf of free agency. The Indians (although Sabathia has a higher upside) didn't even buy out the arbitration years, which really confuses me. On the other hand, I don't understand why Sabathia didn't get the 5th year guaranteed, rather than a team option.
In the case of players with less than 6 years of minor league service, there's no requirement for them to have a long-term contract. The Indians could have simply cut Sabathia pre-arbitration with no financial penalty or non-tender Sabathia if they don't like what he's going to make in his next years. But they freely gave up their rights to cut Sabathia in order to get a chance at having a superior bargain.
I doubt the MLBPA would even consider a move to make freely negotiated contracts non-guaranteed. Contracts aren't guaranteed now because of the CBA; they're guaranteed because the players and their agents have negotiated those clauses into individual contracts on a case-by-case basis. If the owners tried to make such a move, you'd see Fehr very quickly remind the owners that having 6 years of exclusive rights to a player is a concession, not a right and that one-and-one can very easily become the law of the land.
"We built C.C. up slowly last year. Ninety-six pitches? That's nothing. Some people throw 96 pitches in two or three innings. I'll never overwork a pitcher. I'd like to build C.C. up to about 120 pitches this season."
http://www.cleveland.com/tribe/plaindealer/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/sports/10142010788040208.xml
So apparently this IS a bad contract......
http://www.baseball-reference.com/c/correed01.shtml
Big, strong pitcher, worked hard at age 20. Sabathia's W/L is much better, but the ERAs are about the same in context.
the reason for the differences between NFL and MLB is that the NFL has always had a fairly weak union and the players lost the last strike rather badly. NFL contracts are the way they are because management has more power there and they've structued it to management's benefit.
As Carlos points out, the NFL's current structure really isn't that different. A big signing bonus pretty much guarantees that the team is going to keep the player around for a certain number of years until they feel like they've got their money's worth.
It's largely a labelling problem. In football, you'll hear a qb signed a 6-year $42 million contract, with $12 million in signing bonus. In baseball, you'd call that a 4 year guaranteed contract for $28 million plus two option years at $7 million each. From management's perspective, the NFL still has it a bit better -- if the player goes belly up, they might be able to get out for as little as $22 million or so.
On the risk issue, aren't most baseball contracts insured such that the club doesn't assume all the risk? Or is that just for bigshots like Albert Belle?
But the multi-year contract in baseball works in a somewhat similar fashion. Remember, in MLB, a team has exclusive rights to a player for 6 years, 3 of them quite cheap. Just as the signing bonus is for skills already attained, the guaranteed contract they get when they become FA rewards them as much for what they've developed as it does for what they're going to do. What does surprise me a bit is we're starting to see big signing bonuses and lots of guaranteed years.
Of course sometimes teams will sign players to long-term guaranteed contracts before they're FA's, but this is usually done (1) as a reward for a really good player developing skills ahead of schedule and (2) as cost certainty and protection against an outrageous arbitration award. I'm not sure if it's really a good idea or not from the team's perspective.
Still, there's a huge amount of risk-sharing in MLB, it's just arranged differently than in the NFL. In MLB, players take the risk in the early part of their careers and hopefully reap rewards at the end. Football players, the good ones anyway, get nice juicy rewards out of the gate in exchange for less certainty down the road. In both leagues, marginal players generally get treated like marginal players (unless they're with the O's).
Anyway, imagine the signing bonus and contract that Josh Beckett could command right now. Surely the Marlins are glad that he's the one bearing most of the risk for the next couple years at least.
Is it too late to stage some kind of intervention for Dan?
At this point, it's still best to teach your kid to be a fast Dominican that can't hit. Having a fictional birth certificate also allows you to declare him as a dependent longer and collect more child tax credits.
Formulated April 2000.
http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=8eco7v$c4t$3@news.enteract.com
Practically anyone would be an improvement of Scott Spiezio. I still don't understand why the Angels feel the need to use a fairly generic offensive 2B at first. It's even worse than when Offerman was at first as none of the Offerman experiments were permanent and Offerman used to be a far better offensive player than Spiezio is.
And that makes sense, since ol' double-no-hit wasn't any great shakes.
I'm torn, but I usually think it's a good deal for the Sox.
But Schilling didn't really come into his own till 1992, four years after the trade, by which time he'd been traded by the Orioles and Astros. Yep, I'd say it was worth it. But I could see an O's fan saying it was worth it, too (while bemoaning the Glenn Davis trade that sent Schilling to Houston).
You're missing the fact that Branyan is a 1B/3B by nature, not an OF. He's been shoehorned into the OF in Cleveland because Jim Thome and Travis Fryman (when heathy) were ahead of him in the corner infield pecking order while the OF this year is very thin.
Geoffrey N. Young report from January 2000
Jim Callis: I think he's falling into the category of a guy with great tools who never figured out how to hit enough. (February 2002)
This trade was made because MIL ran out of catchers. Paul Bako and Raul Casanova are on the shelf with injuries - Marcus Jensen was the only healthy guy. Getting Machado will surely allow the Brew Crew to compete on the field and win back their fan base.
(cough cough)
You're right; I was overlooking Branyan's original history as a corner infielder. Just the same, the Reds are saying they'll use him as a backup at these postions -- isn't this still a waste of resources (unless another deal is in the works)? Is the upgrade at 3B really worth losing Broussard when the team has other far more pressing needs?
I know where they could get a slightly-used Pokey Reese on the cheap, if they're interested...
I'm betting that the minute he enters a game, a mob of torch-wielding Jacobites drives him into the river and sets it on fire, to prevent the evil from rising again.
I don't mean to beat up on Todd Dunwoody, though. The last time I wrote about him, one of his relatives sent me an e-mail explaining exactly why it was far too early to give up on him -- this was a year ago, when the Cubs gave him a shot -- and it's no fun telling the truth about a lousy player when you know that somebody who cares about him is actually reading this stuff.
Ouch. Todd's got his fam pulling the old Selig-scold-the-reporter scam
Didn't I see a movie based on this premise?
2) Grady Sizemore would have been a 1st round pick in 2000 if it weren't for signability concerns. He's young, fast, and should be good enough defensively to play CF. He has good strike zone judgement and is reportedly a hard worker. He currently mostly hits ground balls, but if he learns to loft the ball he has "projectable" power. Brandon Phillips is clearly the key prospect, but Sizemore is not chopped liver. (Though if he doesn't progress at the plate he could be Peter Bergeron II).
3) The Expos and Braves were already both lacking a decent first basemen.
Tim Drew makes the minimum, and Colon $4.9 million, so the cash the Expos received was probably nearly a million dollars (Stevens makes $4 million, the three prospects probably not much more than $300,000 together). Adding in the cash makes the deal look a lot better for Montreal.
Apparently, according to statements I've seen from the team (and on rototimes) the Expos are currently going to job-share at first with Galarraga and Cordero.
Walt -- I believe he's occupied in Japan becoming the second-coming of Tuffy Rhodes....
Aren't there about 1,000 Marlins trades happening that you should be posting?
Just trying to be a jerk,
Darren
The Fox guys pointed that 4 veteran members of the opening day pitching staff have been flipped by Shapiro for prospects: Colon, Finley, Shuey, Rincon. With Wickman on the DL, this makes Mark Wohlers of all people the senior man in the pen.
Yup, ESPN/AP/whomever did a lot of fact-checking on this one :)
Oops.
C-Josh Bard
Quentin, in keeping with the Seinfeld theme, you should have been maknig the vaccuum cleaner motion and "vvmmm" after asking that question.
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/sports/baseball/mlb/cleveland_indians/3914214.htm
I don't know what you'd call Mo's actions. Doesn't your department handle gluttony? Or is that God's department?
(Actually, looking back on the 3 months since that TO post, has Truby lived up to anyone's expectations in Detroit, however limited?)
Given his historically generous nature towards the Brewers, he probably would have traded Martinez for the real Fabregas.
Oh well, he did give the Brewers Luis Vizcaino this year...
And the Reds. And the Pirates. I'm glad the "John Hart Small-Market Rejuvenation Program" is no longer running here in Cleveland.
you can bet your butt Shapiro will want to showcase the Colon trade talent ASAP
I really hope Shapiro doesn't screw things up because of pressure from nincompoop sportswriterds and fair-weather fans.
signing Einar Diaz was a stupid move
I don't think signing Diaz was such a terrible move.
Connecticut Avenue: cheap but sometimes useful -- John F. Mabry
[whispers] ... hey Guapo, can ya score me some?
A shame the Pads didn't sign Burba to go with Nagy and Wright.
I think the plan is to platoon Bill Selby and Casey Blake.
Personally, I think they should try to acquire Morgan Ensberg to play 3B, as Jimy has all but buried him in Houston.
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