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The main point I was trying to make is that Buchanan really is not a good defensive outfielder. With the disclaimer that I'm not a scout, my personal impressions of Nady are that he generally gets a decent break on fly balls, catches what he gets to, and has an accurate arm that is probably not as strong as that of most right fielders.
More importantly, I don't cringe when balls are hit to him. The same cannot be said of Buchanan.
BTW, Bay broke his wrist today on a HBP and is expected to miss 4-6 weeks. Hello, Gary Matthews.
I know that in my team preview this year I criticized the Orioles for using over-the-hill veterans, but since I wrote that piece they've released Reboulet and Valentin in order to make room for a Rule V guy, Jose Morban, and they've also traded for Jack Cust.
By the way, Dan, 14 months ago when the Orioles picked up Matthews, you described him as a "generic 5th outfielder" who, "if it weren't for his last name, would have long since gone the way of Scott Bullett."
As I said, this organization has eroded my faith over the last 10 years. I need to see a real step forward (Surhoff, Cruz being released, serious effort to trade Conine) before I'm going to take them seriously.
If I eat at a restaurant that's closed down for gross violations of the health code, it's going to take more than a flyer in my door saying "Giorgio's! Now with 35% less rat feces!" before they get my business again.
Yes, they released Reboulet and Valentin for a Rule V guy -- and are apparently giving him a full year of "Watch Deivi Cruz and don't do anything he does" instruction.
"Stone Faced" Nieporent actually cracked a funny! Will wonders ever cease...? ;-) ...
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Step 1, we take a decent reliever, put him in our spacious park, and pitch him mostly at home.
Step 2, wait.
Step 3, trade him for a good prospect.
1-2-3 ninth.
Are you sure about the players involved? I think it's being reported that the PTBNL is likely to be AA pitcher Corey Stewart, rather than Nady.
I also found this puzzling: Bay's interesting, too, and would be an excellent 4th outfielder right now, but he doesn't have a lot of star potential.
I'd say Bay's numbers, speed, defense, and scouting reports indicate that he does have a decent amount of star potential. I'd say he has a pretty decent chance to be Tim Salmon-ish.
Brian Sanches and Chris Tierney
Well, Brian Giles wasn't. :)
Giles, age 24, at AAA: .310 .395 .501
The Padres appear to have gotten Chris Tierney and Brian Sanches for White. Sanches has been terrific in relief for Wichita while Tierney has been weak as a starter, but young enough to check back in 2 or 3 years. I doubt either would be making Royals top prospect lists this winter.
Look at the records for the Padres and Pirates. They're both at or near the bottom of the NL, so they get the earliest claims.
What exactly is the mechanism for that? Does Littlefield call the Reds and Brewers and say, "We're trading for x, y, and z. Please don't claim them."??
Probably something like that, yeah. Not that he'd really need to, since their names have been all over the papers for the last couple of years.
"Speaking of the Royals, ESPN says that Runnelvys needs Tommy John surgery. Not that he was going to contribute the rest of this season anyway (probably), but that's too bad. Muser's fault? Pena's? Or just the breaks of the game? "
I'm voting for Runelvys. It's tough for teams to be extra-careful with a pitcher when he isn't honest about how his arm's feeling, and so persists in secretly pitching hurt. If he'd come out and said that he wasn't feeling well last month, he might have been OK with just a partial tear, or even a strain.
Well of course, since they lost Giles in the same instant. But he's not really a CF any more than Giles is, and he put up those numbers in a hitters' league (but a pitchers' park), and he did so rather unexpectedly. He might be more poised for a decline than the 32 year old Giles.
Oh, and apparently Stewart is the the PTBNL, pending the Pirates reassuring themselves about his health, not Nady.
1) Backdoor a plan for a new, publicly-funded stadium after the public votes down an intial funding referrendum, with the end result of a massive budget shortfall for the city, leading to bulk layoffs of police and firemen.
Just a pet peeve here. McClatchy hasn't suffered a $30M loss, nor have his partners. This figure, if true (which I doubt), is just the team's operating loss. It does not mean the owners have lost money. Bud and his evil minions always talk about operating losses as if they were the whole financial picture, and unquestioning sportswriters and fans equate that with the owners losing money. This is very misleading, which, of course, is why the forces of darkness always put it this way.
I don't totally disagree, but if the point here is that the problem is Pgh. and not the team's management, Chicago is an interesting comparison. Yes, Cubs fans support the team through thick and thin. White Sox fans, however, don't--their attendance has fluctuated dramatically depending on the team's fortunes, and possibly other factors as well. I have no idea why there are such differences in loyalty between Cubs and White Sox fans, but clearly there are factors that affect attendance other than just people in a particular city being good or bad baseball fans. There must be some of those factors that the team's management can affect in one way or another. As Vlad points out, management's impact on the fans in Pgh. has been decidedly negative.
this is a baseball site. you cannot bait me. what I want to know is, since Todd Sears has been old for every level and never hit so great in the majors, why do people think he's worth much of anything -- and why did the Twins release Ortiz, who hit well when he was young?
Twins fans, please chime in here. I've just taken a cursory look at the stats.
but that's all i'm saying on the topic.
scott
I'm probably voting for Dean when the primary comes, because I think we need a defecit hawk and I like what he's done for health care as governor, but I think we'd be better off with just about anyone else running the show.
On Sears, I think he's a decent pickup for the Padres. He didn't really cost anything, and Bozied didn't look ready at AAA this year, so they could probably use a bench 1B for next season. The Twins probably would've been better trading one of their better 1B/OF/DH candidates for an upgrade at 2B or SS.
as for politics, I shall continue to restrain myself. however, I can comment that several posters here are weak on the facts. try gathering information before you form your opinions, kids. watching a debate gathers facts on campaigns; learning about actual policies from campaign rhetoric is a fool's errand.
and fwiw, I'd suggest the last administration this inept and loathesome is probably as recent as Harding, and before that certainly McKinley. the latter is Rove's favorite president, after all, and the former his explicit, 'return-to-normalcy' political descendent.
Related question: has there ever been a better-titled snafu than the Teapot Dome Scandal?
Ladies and Gentlemen, your next President of the United States: Gen. Wesley Clark.
Well, it could be worse. I could be a troll or a little whiny a$$ b*tch like Brian.
Oh well.
The Reed trade wouldn't have been that bad if the second part (any second part) had been completed. But they didn't replace the offense it cost to get Reed and so it was a bad move.
I really don't think money is a concern for Montgomery Pohlad when he smells a winner. He's pumped the cash in over the past few years, and back in the early 90s he paid real money for his World Series winner. Remember that Puckett was the highest paid player in the game one spring, and in 92 they had something like the sixth highest payroll. I like to carve on that creepy old cadaver as much as anyone, but he does deserve some credit at times.
The A's will save 4-5 million in 2005 and be able to trade Kotsay the year after, leaving money to sign Chavez and possibly Hudson.
That may be true...but a lot can happen in two years. I wouldn't be so sure that they can trade what will then be a 30-year old CF, who will be making $5.5M, and free up a lot of salary. Plus said CF currently has a career line of .281/.338/.418.
He improves the As outfield, but I think the Padres won this trade. Not by a lot, mind you, but they won.
Hello Greg Maddux?
OTOH, I could be misinterpreting things. We Towers strongly hinted that a catcher would be acquired by trade rather than free agency, I figured it would be Kendall.
I guess this just shows how awful Terrence Long and his contract truly are. The A's had to give up Hernandez and take a player with an iffy contract just to get rid of the bum. A buddy of mine who's an A's fan the other day was hoping his team might fleece the Cubs with Hernandez for Hee Soop Choi. So much for that.
Still, something is holding this thing up. Maybe Kotsay is upset about being left standing in San Diego's musical outfielders. He can't be thrilled to be leaving his hometown team right before the new stadium opens.
Kotsay's spent his entire career in very poor hitters' parks, FWIW.
The A's trade for Craig Wilson of the Pirates to be their new catcher/misfit toy.
It makes sense. The A's trade Ramon Hernandez to the one spot where the Pirates could have dumped Kendall, rendering Mr. Wilson's catching ability almost irrelevant for the Pirates. They don't like his defense at 1B or RF -- even though it seems acceptable -- and don't see him as an everyday player. He's arb eligible for the first time this winter so he'll still be pretty cheap.
Maybe it won't happen, but I'd guess that the A's were thinking about it when they made this deal. A cheap catcher going into his age-27 year with a career line of 272/364/496 despite irregular playing time? A native Californian who plays chess with Matt Stairs before games? As a Pirates fan, I'll miss him, but he deserves a shot as an everyday player.
My magic hot stove 8-ball says: "All signs point to Oakland."
If the A's can get Kendall for 6 million a year he might be very tradeable next year when Jeremy Brown might be ready and when Chavez needs the extension.
"According to The Chronicle, Kotsay will get an automatic $1 million extra per year because he was traded; the A's are scheduled to pay him $6.5 million a season for the next three seasons. An additional clause in his contract stipulates that because Kotsay was traded, each remaining year becomes a player option -- so Kotsay could declare free agency after any of them."
Or is this just Towers' standard operating procedure of bringing in a lot of low risk-low reward guys in the hope that the best of the bunch will have a good enough season that he can be flipped to a contender at the trade deadline?
Brian Ronald Hunter has been out of organized baseball since 2000.
The Majors should pass a mandate for things like this. The first guy with the name (in this case, Brian Ronald Hunter) can choose to keep his name, or use a nickname if another guy with the name comes in.
Sorta like what they do in Japan with players with the same last name. The player with seniority keeps his last name and the others use their first name.
If I played on a team with Rickey Henderson, I'd take a nickname over an inital and 'Henderson' on my jersey
Quick and dirty comp of Hitchcock and Valdes over the past four years prorated to 200 IP:
IP H HR BB SO ERA H/9 HR/9 BB/9 SO/9 SO/BB
It won't surprise me if we end up with some narrow "wind tunnel" areas aligned with the gaps between buildings, while 20 feet away the air is dead, or swirling. In any case, park factors for the first several years at Petco should be taken with a larger than usual grain of salt.
Oh, and STL, I couldn't agree more that upgrading the training staff would be the best move the Padres could make.
Look! A clean slate for more fat jokes.
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Or maybe ZiPS isn't that sophisticated.
If you're going to criticize every move made by the people whose lives you wish you had, Dan, at least learn the damn rules.
His double to left against the Cubs (or possibly Reds) this year was good fun to watch.
Could it be that the Yankees decided that it was better to lose Boomer (since they already lost Pettitte and he was a 1-year rental at best) and bolster their draft and weak farm system?
Even if they did not plant it that way, that is how it might play out.
Could it be that the Yankees decided that it was better to lose Boomer (since they already lost Pettitte and he was a 1-year rental at best) and bolster their draft and weak farm system?
Even if the Yankees did not plan things this way, it just might play out this way.
DIPS is really, really uncharitable toward NY's defense. The projections for Andy Pettitte and Jeff Weaver also showed significant, suprising improvement when they went to new teams.
Since he's gone well past the IRS's 5 year limit on claiming "depreciation" on ballplayers' contracts, I'll give him credit for long term already. But if your point is that perhaps he's planning to cash out now that he's added a downtown ballpark to the value of the franchise, well, I can only hope not.
I like the logic of your final paragraph, but wouldn't signing Maddux or Mike Cameron have been an even greater net positive? (If Towers had changed horses from pursuing Maddux to inking Wells before Cameron signed elsewhere, could the Padres have gotten him? Ahh, to dream....)
This certainly isn't what I had in mind.
I was surprised Faison took such a large step back last year. He was almost starting to look fringe prospecty in '02, and then he drops 200 points of OPS repeating a level? Oy.
I'm pretty certain Jarvis is long since out of options. So how does that work? I think the M's have to offer him to every team in the majors before demoting him -- which is pretty safe if his current contract is attached, but no good if the other teams can grab him for the minimum. There's a contract primer that would tell me how it works, but I can't find it.
Anybody?
No, not really. He'd have to turn it around quite a bit. His OPS+ the last two years have been 74 and 50 -- that's Tony Womack territory. Hansen's OPS+ (in limited time, mostly against righties) have been 107 and 90 -- nothing to get worked up about, but a long way up from Cirillo.
Also Cirillo has 1 career game at 2B since 95, it's unlikely he'd be anything close to adequate there now at age 34. And while he'd probably be a fine defensive replacement at 1B, you'd never want him to start a game there.
Which isn't to say this is bad for the Padres. I guess trading 3 lousy players for one lousy player is always a good move as long as the money works out.
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