Frayed Knot

Ah yes, thanks for reviving this. Ceetar has said he wants to enter his choices, JCL has some corrections to make on his list, and several others who generally contribute have yet to do so. Which 30 players will make the final list is looking pretty much set. But there are various ways the order within that list can still go. Not closing any time soon, but this serves as a good reminder.

Scot Hair Stun -- Scott Hairston

Maybe, but your taste in witches is excellent!

Apparently the re-attached digit fell off while he was playing cards - giving a literal interpretation to one player flipping another the bird.

The results are in from the AFL games (as I continue my obsession with this topic) which either used the 'speed-up' rules [keep foot in box, etc.] or, in one of the stadiums, the 20-second pitch clock: All AFL games 2013 (w/o speed-up rules): 2:53 All AFL games 2014 (combined) -- 2:45 2014 AFL games w/pitch clock -- 2:42 2014 AFL games just w/batters box rule -- 2:46 Extrapolated average MLB games based on time per/AB -- 2:39 (there were more ABs/game in the avg MLB game than in a typical AFL contest, ergo: more time saved) I believe the average MLB game time in 2014 was just under 3:00 even so we're talking about 20 minutes per/game saved That's the good news as released by Joe Torre at the recent GM meetings. Now for the bad news. Again, from Joe Torre: "As far as being able to implement it {at the MLB level], you have to understand that this has to be in conjunction with the Players Association, as it was with our collision play," Torre said. "Trying to implement that so close to the season last year was really tough. Maybe as much as we suggest it, but understand that players have a certain habit of doing things. But this has been, just from all the evidence we've had from the Fall League, a real positive as far as gathering information. That's what we have to do first before we figure out what will work at the Major League level." But the collision play was a change in the rules. These rules (at least the ones not involving a 'play clock' which was more an experiment than anything else) are ones that already exist and I have no idea why they think they need the players' blessing in order to start to enforce them. I realize that they just can't do it without letting them in on how things are going to go down from now on but that hardly requires a lengthy break-in period.

Is probably best remembered throughout baseball for the guy who was traded, in May of '66, from StL to SF straight-up for Orlando Cepeda. The Giants were close and felt like they needed pitching for an offense that already had Mays & McCovey so they deemed Cepeda expendable. And while both went on to have lengthy post-trade careers with several clubs (Sadecki played thru '77, Cepeda thru '74) Sadecki pitched sub-.500 ball with SF w/a 4.50-ish ERA in the midst of a pitching dominant era. With him the Giants were never able to break what would turn out to be a five year run of 2nd place finishes and, once he moved on to the Mets, his seasons in New York in his early '30s turned out better than his SFG run in what should have been his prime years. Cepeda, meanwhile, won the MVP the very next year as the Cards went to two straight World Series including the win in '67. I had forgotten that Sadecki was a two-time Met (w/stops in Milw, KC, Atl and a 2nd one in StL in between) finishing up his career with 4 relief appearances in 1977 - although, to be fair, there were a lot of things (Mets and otherwise) that were worth forgetting about 1977.

Not specifically a NYM promotional day because it's a stand-alone concert rather than an after-game deal, but Foo Fighters will be at CitiField July 16 That's the final day of the AS break and the Mets are on the road for the first week back anyway.

Ceetar wrote: ClickHole is a satirical website from The Onion that parodies websites such as Upworthy and BuzzFeed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClickHole Oh good, more stuff for me to be ignorant about.

Braves to meet with Jon Lester

Jerry DiPoto (Depot - Toe)

Esix (E-6) Snead

One thing about the Braves over the years is that they've been quite willing to let their players walk rather than enter into long-term and expensive contracts that run into the players' 30s: Andruw, Furcal, McCann, etc. were all still producing reasonably well when they were allowed to walk with little or no resistance from the club. Even Chipper and all those pitchers worked with contracts that weren't all that long considering their status (Freddie Freeman has the longest deal in club history). Sometimes the team's had to take a short-term hit while they looked elsewhere to fill those spots, but rarely do they get stuck with an older player wearing an albatross of a contract around his neck. Of course that doesn't stop them from getting burned on contracts to players in their 20s -- BJ Upton & Uggla -- but it at least cuts down on the odds. Hard to know whether Heyward only getting 'only' a two year deal last winter was the result of him planning all along to take himself to FA-gency, or whether that was more a stopgap when they just couldn't agree on a price, or whether the Braves simply didn't believe in him as much as they did in Freeman, Simmons, Kimbrel, et al Heyward's kind of an odd player right now; he's got leadoff skills in a power hitter's body and a CF's range playing in a corner spot (although maybe the Cards move him to CF).

Ashie62 wrote: Miller regressed last season. He also just turned 24 so don't write him off quite yet. FWIW, a quick peak through a Cardinals forum has them almost universally loving this deal despite being guaranteed of only one year of Heyward. Part of that is based on their confidence (arrogance?) that one season in StL in front of the BFiB will have the Georgia native sprinting to re-up for many more at below market rates. I don't know any Braves sites to check on their view on today's developments.

Except that in this case Stanton has himself a complete N-T clause and the opt-out after Year #6 of the deal is apparently for the player only -- so while there's always the chance that he won't finish this entire contract with the Fishies in Miami, it can't end just on a change of heart by Loria and/or Marlin mgmt.

Lefty Specialist wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Josh Thole could be out of work. Isn't he R.A.'s designated catcher, though? Yup. Thole caught every one of Dickey's 34 starts this season and was in the starting lineup for only 8 games where RAD was NOT on the mound. Now Martin's got a good rep for D so maybe that changes, or maybe they stick with it and just decide that Dickey starts will be Martin's day-off/DH/1B days. Dickey has one year remaining on his deal plus an option.

Cards also get that mound-hopping reliever freak Jordan Walden in the deal (under control for 2 more seasons) Braves get a lower-level minor lg RHP -- Tyrell Jenkins; 2010 1st round (50th overall) draft pick

sharpie wrote: AJ Burnett back to the Pirates for $8 mil, $4.5 less than what the Phils had offered to keep him. Perhaps the soon to be 38 y/o Burnett didn't want to be the young kid on the Philly roster. In the meantime: Russell Martin --->>> Toronto Blue Jays --->>> Five Years!!! ... although he's only 31 (32 by OD) I would have guessed a bit older than that.

Ooooh, nice headline grabber!! Miller's also only 24 and is under club control for another four seasons. Hayward's just barely a year older but can be a FA at the end of 2015. Word was out that the Braves were looking to restock their pitching and were willing to deal an OFer to do so but I figured it would be an Upton before Heyward. His defense alone was worth a lot (he's the only guy in the same neighborhood as Lagares acc to the numbers guys) particularly if his replacement is effectively Gattis who it sounds like they want to move out from behind the plate more often. The pitching is looking nice but one of their strengths over the last few years is that they've been able to run the same lineup out there almost every day and now they suddenly find themselves with two holes to fill: 2B plus some combo of OF/C and that's before you throw in the 150-point drop in OPS that Chris Johnson gave them at 3B this past year.

Hey man ... Heyman, and others, are reporting that the Marlins/Stanton deal is all set to happen at 13/$325 Be hard to find a deal for 10 years or longer that worked out for the club in the long run. - Jeter's, signed around age 27, did. - ARod played well enough for most of his original deal, but it was too high in money at the time (essentially the same per/year terms as this one but signed 14 years ago when finances aren't what they are today). - Tulowitski was similarly young like ARod & Stanton but has been too injured so far - and many of the other decade-long deals were signed to guys too old: Pujols, Cano, ARod V 2.0, Votto, Cabrera where it certainly looks like the club will regret them before too long. Stanton just turned 25 last week.

The Braves seemingly had the 2B spot filled after they promoted Tommy LaStella and played him virtually every day after pulling the plus on the disaster that was Dan Uggla. But the Braves today traded LaStella to the Cubs (who seemingly have middle IF prospects coming out of their ears) in exchange for pitcher Arodys Vizcaino. Vizciano had previously been a Braves' prospect until they dealt him to Chicago for Paul Maholm in mid-2012. After the trade Vizciano missed all of 2013 to injuries and this year relieved in just five games for the Cubs after spending most of the year in the minors. There was also some money that changed hands - not cash money but 'international trade slot money' that was swapped (in the Braves favor). IOW, Atlanta gained some ceiling for future international signings while Chicago gave up some.

Joe Christopher D'OH!!

Tangentially NYM-related [fimg=300:1ft392dm]http://www.nku.edu/~whitsonma/Bio120LSite/Bio120LReviews/Bio120WebPics/Plant%20Adaptations/Seeds%20&%20fruits/Burr.jpg[/fimg:1ft392dm] [fimg=300:1ft392dm]http://meded.ucsd.edu/clinicalmed/knee_surface_anatomy.jpg[/fimg:1ft392dm] [fimg=300:1ft392dm]http://maidsmalibu.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/maid-service.jpg[/fimg:1ft392dm] [fimg=300:1ft392dm]http://img2.timeinc.net/health/images/slides/switch-off-400x400.jpg[/fimg:1ft392dm]

Benny Egg Bayh Yanni --- aka: Benny Agbayani Very nice.

2nd time in four seasons for a pitcher as MVP (Verlander - 2011) The big gap had been for an NL pitcher to pull of the double, you need to go back to Bob Gibson '68 for that one. The one argument I found specifically stupid was the one where relief pitchers should be considered for MVPs but not starters. Kind of funny that Trout, after two runner-up years, wins unanimously in what was arguably the worst of his three full seasons.

MFS62 wrote: Every time I read that name, it made me do a double take. The first and last names just didn't go together. "What's wrong with that?" -- Keith Hernandez