Gwreck

I dislike giving credit to Murray Chass, but Marty Noble had many similar complaints about Valentine when discussing him at the Faith and Fear Tuesday event a year or two ago.

Frayed Knot wrote: it seems to me it may turn certain multi-sport athletes away from baseball Yes. As will the new procedure to hold down the signing bonuses paid to draft picks. Say you're an elite high school athlete. Chances are that you play something in the fall or winter besides baseball. If you were getting a $5M bonus guaranteed, you might be persuaded to forego a scholarship at a Big 10 or SEC University. But if they're only offering $500,000, well, playing basketball or football while also getting a degree might be more attractive.

A comprehensive summary can be found here (PDF): Link

I found this nugget very interesting: "Active Roster limits will be expanded to 26 for certain regular or split doubleheaders."

I would've gone with Verlander. He and Bautista tied for the AL lead in Wins above Replacement and perhaps at that point, breaking the tie with the team in contention gives the edge to Verlander. Cabrera was .7 wins behind.

Looks like 1 voter left Verlander completely off the ballot. Ellsbury, Bautista, Granderson and Cabrera all got 28 votes.

ESPN's Keith Law was the voter who left Kennedy totally off the ballot.

Frayed Knot wrote: I get what's your opinion, and can do the math too -- ie. going from 18 to 30 interleague games per team means that only an additional 7.5% of a teams' games per year will now be interleague. (See what I did there?). Yeah, bad math. The number of IL games under the 72-60-15-15 proposal will increase from 250 to 450. That is not a 7.5% increase (at least it wasn't when I went to school although admittedly that was a while ago). I didn't say it was a 7.5% increase.

TransMonk wrote: Great idea! I never thought of that. Now it's going to drive me nuts that they DON'T do this. Scheduling a 1-game "series" is prohibited in the basic agreement with the players which would be the holdup here.

Frayed Knot wrote: Framing the issue to note that upping the number of IL games to 30 per/team is close to double what exists now, is about 18 or so more than what will be required by this new set-up, and is no closer to "balanced" than would others with fewer IL games could be is simply stating fact. The part of this that's my opinion is that this seems to me to be coupled with Bud's ongoing campaign to blur the lines between the leagues and that the percentage of fans who prefer more IL play to less is countable on one hand and quite possibly one finger. My problem is your attribution of motive and your analysis of Selig's thoughts. Like that he is operating under a "misconception" about interleague play or is waging an ongoing campaign to blur the boundaries of the leagues. I get what's your opinion, and can do the math too -- ie. going from 18 to 30 interleague games per team means that only an additional 7.5% of a teams' games per year will now be interleague. (See what I did there?).

Frayed Knot wrote: Bud seems to be laboring under the misconception that a game that involves teams from two different leagues is somehow automatically more interesting than an intra-league one. I disagree both with your opinion and your framing of the issue.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: I'd love it. Two divisions of six in each league would be even better. I can't even remember how the hell the Brewers got back into the NL to begin with. Was it one of those supedupertopsecret polls that only Bud Selig got to audit? The poll that only Bud Selig knew about? I can reasonably see a situation in the future where Tampa and Oakland get contracted, but going down to 24 teams is a total fantasy. Milwaukee was moved to the NL at the start of the 1998 season which is when Tampa and Arizona started play. At the time, interleague play was still an "experiment" and the basic agreement with the players union wouldn't have permitted putting 15 teams in each league and interleague play on a daily basis, which meant that one of the two leagues was going to get 16 teams. The West divisions of both the AL and NL had only 4 teams while the East and Central divisions had 5 each. Obviously, Arizona was going in one of those West divisions but Tampa was the trickier fit. I don't remember specifically if there was a provision that the two expansion teams had to go in different leagues, nor how it was decided that the NL would be getting 16 teams rather than the AL. Tampa's spot was created by moving Detroit from the AL East to the AL Central, and then moving one of the AL Central teams to the NL Central. The White Sox, Indians and Tigers obviously weren't going to change leagues. Kansas City was offered the league switch first, and the Brewers accepted after KC declined to move. I don't recall if Minnesota was a candidate to move or not.

I care far more about balancing the schedule than I do about keeping another 15-20 in the NL only. A balanced interleague schedule is FAR superior to the arbitrary mess that currently exists. Note that I realize the interleague schedule as proposed above is not truly balanced but it's better than what exists now.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: And I don't like that the leagues consist of an odd-number of teams. But given that we're stuck with those parameters, that schedule works for me. I should have clarified -- this is the proposed schedule based on the Astros moving to the AL. I can't do anything about your dislike for interleague play. How would you feel about contracting Oakland and Tampa, moving the Brewers back to the AL (along with the Astros), and going back to 2 divisions of 7 teams each?

Actually, Jayson Stark of ESPN recently wrote that the new schedule may well eliminate those extra "rivalry" games. Apparently, the schedule under consideration is: 18 games against each of the other 4 teams in your division (72) 6 games against each of the other 10 teams in your league (60) 3 games against each of the other 5 teams in the corresponding division in the other league (15) 3 games against each of the other 5 teams in another division from the other league (15) Total: 162

McCourt apologizes to Dodgers fans. I'm still waiting for my apology from Fred, Jeff and Saul.

Prince Fielder - Rangers Albert Pujols - Cardinals Jose Reyes - Mets Yu Darvish - Doesn't get posted Jimmy Rollins - Phillies C.J. Wilson - Yankees Aramis Ramirez - Brewers Carlos Beltran - Tigers Edwin Jackson - Rangers Mark Buehrle - White Sox Ryan Madson - Phillies Jonathan Papelbon - Blue Jays David Ortiz - Red Sox Kelly Johnson - Diamondbacks Roy Oswalt - Marlins Heath Bell - Padres Francisco Rodriguez - Cardinals Josh Willingham - Tampa Michael Cuddyer - Cubs Javier Vazquez - Brewers

Howie is definitely #1. He gets PBP for innings 1-2, 5-6 and 9. Wayne gets PBP for innings 3-4 and 7-8.

Yeah, but it was Bono who stole it back, not the Beatles.

Buried in this story about Dickey's Kilimanjaro Climb is that he is writing a memoir: He will be releasing his memoir, "Wherever I Wind Up," in March.

The problem there is that they have the access tunnel in left-center field which means they can't lower the "floor" on which those new seats sit.

G-Fafif wrote: Commemorative patch: managers' and GMs' bodies piling up under a bus hemorrhaging money...while Daniel Murphy stands on third with nobody out...all set against a Domino's logo. Fair and accurate but still...ouch.

I remember the old Metsonline.net site well although I didn't participate or read the message boards there. I recall reading CPF for a long time before ever posting. I think I finally registered when the switch was made from EZBoard to this place.

We all know that. The objectionable part is how it was presented. Alderson would do far better to give a noncomittal quote and point out that it's a long offseason with many things to be decided than to start entertaining (publicly, at least) what happens if Reyes isn't resigned.

"We're not going to punt 2012 if Jose doesn't re-sign," Alderson said. Please don't fucking lie to us. Are you going to replace him with Jimmy Rollins? Sign a different premium free agent (Pujols, Fielder, Wilson)? No, I didn't think so. Reyes was 5.8 WAR and Beltran was 3.4 and the Mets still won only 77 games. I [crossout]am more than happy to give[/crossout] will tolerate giving Alderson another 2-4 years to rebuild the farm system, clear bad contracts and find a way to make the Mets a consistent winner but let's at least be honest about it, no?