Frayed Knot

The Marlins, as you all know, were stripped down by slimy owner Jeffrey Loria of everything that wasn�t nailed down over the last 9 months and are now reduced to Giancarlo Stanton, a few past their sell-date vets, plus a bunch of guys you never heard of who are being paid $10.75/hour plus dental. As such their goals this year are fairly modest: like learning each others� names ... personally shaking the hands of each of their few dozen remaining fans prior to home games ... scoring a run maybe. They actually did score a run this season - just one mind you - during their opening sweep-age in Washington. They pitched all right, giving up just 2, 3 & 6 runs to the Nats, but that still leads to an 0-3 start. Friday - 7:10 PM -- Hafner vs Alex Sanabia Saturday - 1:10 PM -- Niese vs Ricky Nolasco Sunday - 1:10 PM -- Aaron Laffey (although that's not official yet) vs Jose Fernandez Alex Sanabia ® - Made 12 ML starts in 2011 including 3 times against the Mets [2-1; 4.05] - but then just 2 ML starts last season while spending most of the year at AAA Ricky Nolasco ® - Held the Nationals to just 3 hits over 6 innings in their opener but lost the game due to his team getting shut out. 5-8 with a 5.13 ERA vs the Mets in 22 starts since 2006 Wright [.397 w/6 HRs in 63 ABs] & Muffy [8 hits w/3 2Bs in 25 ABs] have good numbers off him, while Ike [3-fer-20] and Tejada {2-fer-12} not so much Jose Fernandez ® - One of the top minor league prospects in all of baseball but one who has yet to pitch above A-ball. The call-up of the 20 y/o Cuban defector is expected to be more a temporary promotion to fill in for injuries as opposed to a permanent call-up Last season, split between the low-A Sally Lg and high-A Fl Sta Lg, he was a teenage domination sensation going 14-1 with a 1.75 ERA, 158 Ks, 35 BBs and 89 hits allowed in 134 IPs. Reports say to expect a lot of heat mixed in with a variety of El Duque-like (Duquensian?) changing of speeds and arm angles. C - Rob Brantly Part of the booty from Detroit in last July�s Anibal Sanchez & Omar Infante trade, the now-23 y/o lefty-swinger hit well in Miami last year [.290/.372/.460] over the first 100 ABs of his ML career 1B - Casey Kotchman Once the favorite son prospect of the Angels (literally in a sense as his dad was their scouting director) the now 30 y/o Kotchman has only occasionally fulfilled those projections and is now searching for �it� in his 6th organization since 2008 .220/.280/.333 during a full season in 2012 for Cleveland ** except that Kotchman now goes to the DL with a hamstring pull. One-time Phillie utility knife Greg Dobbs is the likely replacement 2B - Donovan Solano 25 y/o Columbian debuted out of the Marlins system last May and did quite well, albeit without much power, over nearly 300 ABs -- .295/.342/.375 SS - Adeiny Hechavarria A RHB Cuban who turns 24 next week, he made his debut with Toronto last year [.254/.280/.365 in 126 ABs] and then was shipped to a more familiar climate as part of the massive Reyes et al deal in the off-season. 3B - Placido Polanco How the mighty (and mightily annoying) have fallen. The career .299 hitter is now, at 37, with a bunch of guys half his age while trying to hang on in his 16th ML season. LF - Juan Pierre Now 35 y/o and in his 2nd tour of duty with Florida/Miami, he�s put together a nice little career for himself to date and is, in fact, only 67 career hits behind Joe DiMaggio. Bet most of you wouldn�t have guessed that coming in. CF - Chris Coghlan The 2009 NL RoY has seen injuries and poor play actually reduce his playing time each year since. His .321/.390/.460 line in 504 ABs in his RoY season has tumbled to a combined .236/.303/.349 in barely 700 ABs in the three years since. 30 y/o career utility man Justin Ruggiano will split the time there and it was his solo HR which provided Miami with this season's run RF - Giancarlo Stanton I proclaim that �Don�t Let Him Beat You� is to be Giancarlo�s unofficial nickname for this season since that�s what every pitching coach is going to tell every one of his pitchers. Names you will actually know: Jon Rauch - Made one appearance so far this year: 1.1 IP, 1 run/2 hits allowed John Maine !!!!!! - Isn't in the rotation nor has he appeared in a game yet but is listed as being on the active roster

Chris Young, after opting out of his contract with the Nationals when they chose to send him to the minors, has re-signed with the Nationals at which point they'll immediately assign him to the minors. No takers out there I guess. Josh Stinson (remember him? I had to look him up to make sure) hooks on with Baltimore.

2 many Ks This will be one of our bigger problems going forward. The only thing worse than a 3-1/2 hour 2-1 game is 3-1/2 hour 2-1 loss

The Second Spitter wrote: Halladay pulled after 3.1 ip. Halladay had a rough spring as well. Not that that alone plus a bad opening outing adds up to panic time in Philly yet, but he does turn 36 in a few weeks, is in his 16th ML season, and has a lot of mileage in that arm: six different 230+ IP seasons; led league in complete games seven times, in IP four times, in batters faced three times, etc.

Edgy MD wrote: Managers, stop pulling effective starters. Ninety-four pitches? Come on. 2nd game of the season, cold weather, large lead, a near-rookie who's never pitched more than 160 innings in a year, coming off an off-day with relievers who have yet to see action ... I had no problem with it.

Until that last hit the only things Hawkins was giving up were soft hits and Ruben's error. His biggest problem was that he couldn't put anyone away after getting ahead of them. I never got worried about the last inning, it just made the game 15 minutes longer than needed is all.

seawolf17 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Kurado left early, although I missed the context. I think he might have taken a hit off his pitching hand. Victorino, sez the internets. He def took one off his finger(s), but then he stayed in for a few more batters before being pulled so I wasn't sure whether it was the hit off the hand or the (base)-hits that followed.

Kurado left early, although I missed the context. I think he might have taken a hit off his pitching hand.

So at what point do we start using the phrase; 'too good for the rest of the league' ? Just asking.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: In a semi-related thought, how bad is this '42' movie gonna suck? I dunno, the rap soundtrack they're using during the commercials certainly lends an air of authenticity to it.

Top three most common opening day starters: C: Grote - 9; Piazza - 7; Hundley - 6 1B: Hernandez - 6; Kranepool - 6; Delgado - 4 2B: Millan - 5; Boswell - 4; Flynn - 3; Backman - 3; Alfonzo - 3; Kent - 3; Castillo - 3 SS: Harrelson - 11; Ordonez - 7; Reyes - 6 3B: Wright - 9; Johnson - 7; Brooks - 4 LF: McReynolds - 6; Jones - 6; Foster - 5 CF: Wilson - 6; Agee - 5; Beltran - 5 RF: Strawberry - 7; Staub - 3; Burnitz - 3; Bonilla - 3; Kingman - 3 P: Seaver - 11; Gooden - 8; Glavine - 4; Santana - 4

SteveJRogers wrote: Simple, Bonilla is viewed by the mainstream press, and mass audiences (Met fan or not) as a symbol of dumb Met moves (also see Mo Vaughn, Jim Fregosi, etc). That doesn't make it NOT stupid, or make complaining about him getting paid now as if part of a continuing contract that simply hasn't ended yet NOT an intentional distortion of the facts.

SteveJRogers wrote: Bonillia has been an albatross on the books since 2000, and hasn't played in the bigs in over 10 years, But it's not like Bonilla's been on the payroll this entire time; they simply opted to pay him money owed over time in the future instead of all up front at once. I have no earthly idea why this bothers people as much as it seems to.

Niese - 3.25 Tejada - 1.10 Cowgill - 2.10 Murphy - 0.90 Buck 1.10 Byrd - 1.30 Wright - 0.30

And the potential 27th out goes right 'tween the wickets and into center field on Darvish's 111th, and final, pitch of the game.

metirish wrote: Cano fires Boras and hires Jay-Z as his agent.....no I am not making that up. And the really odd part is that he's hired Boras to DJ the music for his wedding.

24 in a row for Darvish

Maybe the weirdest part in tuning briefly into the Yanx/Sawx game yesterday was the lack of familiar names, even if some of it is only temporary. No Jeter, no ARod, no Teixeira, no Papi, no Beckett, no Drew (Stephen or JD) and even some of the recent 'Big Names' were gone or missing such as Granderson, Swisher, Martin, Adrian Gonzalez & Carl Crawford. One of the few recognizable names was Youkilis and even he was in the wrong dugout! Other than that it was Cano & Joba vs Pedroia & Ellsbury plus two groups of no-names and veteran cast-offs (Vernon Wells, Ichiro, Hafner, Overbay, Victorino, Napoli, etc.) who were there as if assigned by some temp agency.

TheOldMole wrote: Give me an assignment. Easiest way is to just look at the chart up top to see which ones are still unclaimed and pick one or two or three depending on how ambitious you're feeling. Otherwise you might get assigned one during a time when you'll be on vacation or something and then we'll be forced to go into a series absent knowledge and who knows what disasters that could cause.

I caught a bit of the 9th inning and saw all those empty seats. Didn't hear any commentary on it but, considering the tight rein they keep on the paid flacks over there, I suspect the mass exodus barely got mentioned. And remember, this is the org that canned Red Barber for remarking on the lack of fans during a cold and meaningless late season game in 1966 I believe it was (paid attendance at YS was literally around 1,000 peeps that day). To be fair, by the time that photo was taken the day had turned colder, windier, was raining a bit, the game was a blow-out, and, being a Yanx/Sawx game, the contest was of course well into its 4th hour. But still, been a long time since we've seen that place that empty and it started out as supposedly the largest crowd in YSIII history. Edgy MD wrote: You can find the offseason thread here. When it's archived, it will be found among threads started in October 2012. Don't threads get archived based on the last month of activity on them?

metsguyinmichigan wrote: I can take the Marlins series in May. I'm planning a trip down there that month. If you want the series beginning on 5/31 why don't you also do the one at CF the very next week (follow-up KTEs are quick and easy). If you do those two I'll take the remaining four Marlins series starting with the one this weekend.

Swan Swan H wrote: I'll do the Braves. I have a bit of time to sort out which Upton is which. Just to help you out a bit: B.J. is the one they signed as a FA from Tampa; Justin is the one they got via trade from Arizona; and then there's their new import from the far east Kim-Jung Upton.

Leah Niese reacts to hubby's win and his two hits.

Danny Goodwin has the distinction of being the only player [u:3u9qds2b]Twice[/u:3u9qds2b] drafted 1/1 1971 by the ChiSox out of HS but he did not sign. He was then picked #1 overall in 1975 by the Angels out of college

Last I heard his surgery is scheduled for tomorrow - so his attendance today may depend on where that procedure be.