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You're forgetting about Rocco Baldelli, although the D-Rays might want him to start in AAA.
-- MWE
I think the good people of Durham will get half a season to get to know Rocco before he leaves. (He won't be going back.)
Tampa really only have three realistic major-league outfielders (Grieve, Conti, and Crawford) and Adrian Brown has about as much claim on a big-league job as Conti does. Even Crawford, who hasn't done much yet, doesn't have much of a hold on a job. What Crawford has going for him is that he's really young and pretty decent... I don't know if Lou is likely to prefer that over the slightly better, much much older veteran.
And Aven a fourth outfielder? With an .800 OPS? Those were his 2002 numbers at Scranton. 31 year olds usually play worse when they get back to the majors.
Seems a bit optimistic to me.
http://www.naplesnews.com/today/sports/a46a.htm (Scroll down.)
Even on the A's, Lidle would have to be considered the #4 starter the last 2 years. He'd be at least a #2 or #3 on any other team.
He's averaged a 3.74 ERA and 190 IP, with 115 K, 43 BB, and 20 HR. You'd like to see more Ks but otherwise, those are fine numbers.
Do the Jays expect to compete next year? Just wondering.
My one guess is that Schott demanded Beane be under a certain payroll before he could negotiate with Durham et al., and when talks with the White Sox fell through, he had to scramble. But it's still confusing.
I agree with that sentiment, but I think Carlos Lee would have cost nearly as much as Lidle, so it wouldn't have solved Beane's money problems.
But you're right about Lidle's value. It's puzzling why no one was willing to give up more for him. It's too bad his name isn't Darren Dreifort or James Baldwin. Then people would have wanted him, I guess.
As I see it, the Myers signing means that the Jays think that Kevin Cash won't be ready to start the season with the Jays in 2003. They've already decided that Phelps is a 1B/DH and that Werth is an outfielder, so they needed somebody to fill the gap for one year.
I don't know whether Huckaby or Wilson is a better choice, but I do know that the Jays' brass loves Huckaby's defense, and that Wilson isn't a very good catcher.
Schedule bias may be a factor, as it so often is with the Jays - they didn't play Baltimore until late in the season, and then played them a lot.
Besides, as the saying goes, you can never have too much pitching.
Apparently that gives him a "good work ethic".
Unlike those Vermont players.
Martinez would have looked better here, of course.
The problem with this deal is the budget, there is only so much money to go around. Hence Riccardi released Jose Cruz, couldn't afford to pay him $5M. He can't afford $5M for a switch-hitting middle of the lineup OFer, but he can find $1M for a #9 hitting backup shortstop?
On another line...if Bordick was willing to sign a 1 yr/$1M contract, why didn't the Orioles keep him? Now, for the same price, fans will have to watch Deivi Cruz flail at balls out there.
Sure, I'd rather have Wilson or Halama but I'm also guessing they would cost a little more than $1 million. Same with Thomson. But I do have a feeling some Sturtze-like major leaguers pitchers will slip through the cracks and end up settling for NRIs in January or February. But even so, those major league contracts when purchsed will probably be for around $1 million so he may as well act now. The only difference is the NRIs wouldn't have guaranteed contracts, which I suppose can be significant.
If that's the case, AL East third base coaches are gonna need off-season rotator cuff surgery with all the waving around they'll be doing.
I think playing him at second base makes more sense, but maybe not for the Jays given their roster. Still a good value signing.
He's a valuable player. I don't really see how you can complain about paying him 2.25.
A bit of hyperbole is one thing, but this is too much. There were only 12 RF in the majors with 300+ AB and an 800 or better OPS. OK, 13 if we include JD Drew at 795. And all of them (except Austin Kearns) made a lot more than $2 M.
I don't think Catalonotto can defensively play RF daily. A platoon with Werth would help the defense half the time, but I'm not sure it would help Werth's development (or that it would be offensively necessary - Cat. doesn't seem that bad vs lefties.) And if the platoon is only for defense, and it ends up with Werth outhitting Catalanotto (kinda possible), then Jays have another millionaire backup.
Playing Catalanotto over Hudson doesn't make sense to me either. Hudson has given no signs that he can't hit or field in the majors, so why would you bench him or send him to AAA again? Cat's a one year signing, Hudson is your longterm.
Unless Riccardi immedietly trades Shannon Stewart, I don't like this deal very much. It has the potential to block/take ABs away from Werth and/or Hudson, weaken the Jays defense, and generally muddy the waters (ie is it leadoff by c'tee now?).
1. Generalists are underrated, specialists are overrated. Check.
2. Secondary avarage is underrated, AVG is overrated. Push, I suppose, since Cat puts up a good AVG as well.
3. Runs are underrated, RBI overrated. Check.
4. Guys on bad teams are underrated and vice-versa. Check.
5. Small-market guys are sometimes underrated, NY/LA guys are sometimes overrated. Check, though James discounts this factor.
6. Quiet guys are sometimes underrated, glib and popular guys are sometimes overrated. Check, though James discounts this factor. (Aside: Dougie Glanville and John Hart are trying their darndest to prove it, no?)
7. Guys who play in parks that don't favor their skills are underrated, lefties in Yankee Stadium, etc., are overrated. Nope. Tiger Stadium and The Ballpark in Arlington pretty well favor hitters generally.
8. Hitters from pitching eras are underrated, and from hitting eras are overrated. Um, no.
9. Undocumented skills are forgotten over time. N/A.
10. Switching teams or positions a lot tend to make a guy underrated. Check.
So Cat is the type of guy who is pretty heavily underrated, though not quite Darrell Evans underrated. I hadn't read (or remembered reading) that comment before. Interesting. He's not in the HOF because... Why?
And Cat's a nice pickup for Toronto; I'd think they'd be best served by giving him an "everyday" place in the batting order and moving him around the field as needed. Worked pretty well a couple of years ago for the Rangers, anyway.
Umm, were the hell is Ackbar on this one?
"At the end of this season Catalanotto will have five-plus years of major-league service and will be one day shy of free agency."
"Major League free agents come with an automatic no-trade clause until after the next June 15."
New collective bargaining agreement, but I would be surprised if this was no longer accurate.
I don't know if I would agree with that. He is 6-5 and only 190 pounds. Plus there were scouts stating that he had more power potential than Phelps. I don't agree with that, but even if he puts up a .500 slg at his peak, he would still be a pretty good offensive player.
I don't see the Jays winning anything in 2003, as their pitching just isn't deep enough. But they're going to surprise people with how many runs they can score: Stewart, Catalanotto and Hinske can all get on base, and Delgado, Phelps and Wells can all bring 'em home.
To think that people mock me in my own weblog!
I was disappointed that the Yanks gave up them and Ted Lilly, essentially, for Weaver, since Lilly is about as good as Weaver, and some folks project Arnold to be as good as or better than Weaver.
Met Fan 19 -- http://www.baseballprimer.com/to/archives/archive-06302002-07062002.shtml
He would have to pass Cat, Werth, Wise and Dubois on the depth chart as all 4 are on the 40-man roster. Groos had a disappointing start to his year at AA, but turned it around toward the end, then started off the AFL poorly then played very well toward the end of the season. Since he didn't dominate this year at any level, it wouldn't hurt him to spend the whole year in the minors, maybe a September call-up.
I'd agree to a certain extent, but Trevor has not aged gracefully, whereas O' Neill did.
He certainly ranks ahead of Wise on the Jays' outfield depth chart - Wise can't hit, and no one thinks of him as a legitimate RF candidate. Werth appears to be first in line for 2004, with Gross and Griffin as options if Werth doesn't pan out.
I've never heard of Dubois - he hasn't been mentioned much up here in Toronto.
I would think of O'Neill more as the Geoff Courtnall of baseball, mainly because I didn't really like either of them (although I harbor a much more intense hatred of Courtnall).
He'll be 24 on Opening Day, so there's some concern over the fact that he's still in A-Ball at that age. But he was a college grad who lost a full year to injury, so this was just his second season of pro ball; there's still some potential upside there. There's an old thread about the Jays' Rule 5 picks in the archives over at Batter's Box.
1. O'Neill did not begin his run as a "young fellow." He came to the Yanks at age 30.
2. Many of us here love Paul even though everyone recognizes that he never behaved like a "nice" guy at all. He was bad-tempered, whiney and apt to blame umpires for everything. But it was his sheer ferocity and perfectionism (yes, and the team winning) that overcame his lack of "niceness."
3. I don't think Paul was really considered much of a leader but more of a loner. Some suggest that his competitive nature set a good example.
4. I don't agree. O'Neill was a genuinely outstanding player from 1993 through 1999.
5. Again, I think he was way above average, but certainly he was never overly credited with the team's success as, oh, I don't know, say Joe Girardi was.
6. You may be right but this doesn't detract from what O'Neill (and the hockey guys for all I know) did on the field.
7. Clearly true.
He really never played that well with the Reds. As you may recall he had a terrible relationship with Lou (who was still having him knocked down 10 years later!) and he never blossomed.
I had no issue with the hockey angle. I just wanted to note that I was ignorant about the comparisons.
OK, Will, I have three candidates for "guys who had promising starts and then held on forever as perfectly average at everything."
1. Wally Joyner. I think he's our man. In a 16-year career he compiled a Runs Created Above Position of 12 (per Lee Sinins) and in most years was within 10 RCAP's +/- of average. A good but not great first baseman, ordinary baserunner. Got a lot of early hype with a good rookie season on a division winner. Described by Bill James as an "innocuous player who did everything well."
2. Going back a couple of decades we have Johnny Callison. A 16-yr career with an almost perfectly average RCAP of -2. Even better his season numbers have almost a nice smooth and gentle slope with RCAP/season in the mid-teens in his 20's and gradually descending into the negative mid-teens as he aged. Good but not great fielder and ordinary baserunner. He did not have a "playoff run" early but then again they didn't have playoffs back then. He was a major figure in the 1964 pennant race and the MVP of the all-star game that year and was considered a young star at that point.
3. Back to the present, BJ Surhoff. You may think he's the best choice especially since he generally was average for whatever position he might have been playing. A career RCAP of -3 with several seasons within 5 RCAP's +/-. Solid but unspectacular in the field (wherever) and on the bases. Unfortunately he had no early playoff exposure though he was ballyhoo'd as the number 1 draft pick.
Gross - he is already ahead of D.Wise and A-baller Dubois. And he's certainly in the future plans more than F.Cat is. Only Werth's production, or his own failure, would keep him off the team. (That, or if Riccardi decides to trade him for Tyler Yates, or Jon Adkins, or some other minor league pitcher that he identified a year ago as a good one.)
I don't think so. Weaver has nasty, electric stuff, and has been durable (in fact the Tigers pitched him too many innings). Lilly's effectivess flows mainly from his unorthodox delivery, which has made him susceptible to repeated arm problems.
Up until the trade, Weaver pitched for a horrible team (albeit in a home park that has dimensions that are very friendly to pitchers), while Lilly pitched for a great team, and was the beneficiary of a lot of run sport and luck with the Yankees.
The only question is whether Torre keeps his promise to put him in the rotation, and if he doesn't, his decision should be overruled by management.
All things being equal, Weaver well have a much better career. At the time the trade was made, the real comparisons were between Weaver and Arnold.
Also, Lilly's K rate is much better than Weaver's. I agree that durability is an issue, but if Lilly stays healthy I don't expect the trade of him and two good prospects for Weaver to turn out looking billiant. Given the team's offseason moves, they may not think so either.
Lots of players compare to Giambi at that age... he had a distinctly unimpressive resume. Only one of the pool turned into Jason Giambi, though, and it's not likely that another will do so.
Eric Hinske at 24 was a distinctly better hitter than Giambi was at 25... and he has as much chance of turning into a hitter like Giambi as I do of turning into a millionaire. It's not beyond the realm of possibility, but nobody should risk anything on it happening.
Griffin could turn into Giambi. He won't, but he might.
The facts are straight, the problem is you are looking at a very small sample. In 2001, for example, Lilly pitched 120 innings with the Yankees, as opposed to 76 in 2002, he gave up 81 runs (72 earned), for an ERA of 5.37, while his run support was 4.62. Looking at the rest of his 2002 season with Oakland, he had an ERA of 4.63, and his run support was 6.56.
Of course Lilly's run support doesn't mean anything as we all know. He is obviously capable of getting major league hitters out as evidenced by his K/IP and H/IP ratios. His starts for the Yanks last year included an 11K, 3 hit shutout of San Diego, an 8K one-hitter vs. Seattle (which he lost!),a 6.2IP, 3-hit 9K effort against Toronto and a 7IP 5-hit 9K game against the Twins.
He certainly has issues. He has had health problems, he never saw a 3-2 count he didn't like and he gets extremely flustered by runners on base. He may never be a star but this is a 27-year old lefty with talent. And the World's Most Highly Praised General Manager must think so also. Oakland did trade well regarded players for him.
One more note about Lilly, he often got hit hard the second time teams faced him (e.g., the Mariners, to the best of my recollection), and that already weak San Diego line-up was missing Klesko and (I believe) Nevin for that game.
btw, There was a note on another board that Torre was on ESPN Radio in the last day or so, and reiterated his intention to put Weaver in the rotation (who he lauded for stuff and "toughness").
While Pat Tabler was an average hitter in general, I think he was a little too far below average for a corner IF/OF to make the grade as the epitome of average. I'm sticking with Joyner and Surhoff.
Is it a common last name or something fairly unique to your family?
I've seen Wasdin pitch several games this year for the Nashville Sounds (though I missed the home opener perfect game, darn it), and he's looked like a new guy - not only is his breaking stuff devastating now (at least to AAA hitters), but he looks like he knows exactly what he's doing out there, in command the whole time. I'm hoping the Jays stick with him for a while, because he's looking to me like one of those pitchers who finally figured everything out at 30, that horrible start against the Yankees notwithstanding. Think mini-Kevin Brown.
Has anyone looked closely at this?
My guess is that a guy with good range in CF, or even RF for that matter, can easily make up for a poor arm. But teams are extremely reluctant to put a bad arm in CF or RF.
Who is that danged PTBNL!
A. Who leads off for TOR now? F-Cat?
B. Does Jacque Jones have the arm for RF? Because it's evidant Stewart sure as heck doesn't.
C. This is sort of an offshoot to the earlier question about OF arm, is range more important in LF than RF? If you have two guys with equal arms should you maybe put the one with more range in right? Because (I'm guessing here, might be stats out there to prove me wrong) more balls are hit to left, because most batters hit righty and hitters in general pull the ball more often than go the other way, thus more ball go to LF than RF. Just a thought, I'd appreciate any feedback.
The Twins did not get hosed. The revolution will not be televised.
This is only if you offer Stewart arbitration. I'm not sure either team will. It depends on where you think the market is. But I don't think a free agent Stewart would bring in $6.2 million on the FA market but in arbitration he is guarenteed at least $4.96 million and realistically should make 6-7 million as guys who have ok seasons don't go backwards in salary. I picture him being not unlike Cruz Jr. was last year. A good OF who should be able to get a deal for 2-4 million on the FA market which is worse than the 6-7 he can get in arbitration. Therefore it isn't as clear that draft pick is there.
I like Benitez as a set-up guy...he probably becomes the best in the AL save for the otherworldly Shields/Donnelly combo in Disney City...but is this a lot to give up?
No, that's not too much to give up at all.
Stewart has barely adequate range in leftfield. He'd be a complete disaster in centerfield. He gets poor jumps on the ball and endless hamstring injuries have made him an average runner. The Hankie Dome is notoriously difficult for judging flyballs, isn't it? Prepare yourself for a comedy of errors.
Your best bet is to hope that he does try to steal bases and gets hurt in the process.
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