Frayed Knot

RealityChuck wrote: D'Arnaud is the big catch, but he won't catch for the Mets until at least midseason. What is your source for this?

If at least some people on both sides aren't a bit pissed off about it then it probably isn't a fair trade.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Hey, we're Twitter pals now. Get him to the Pool !!

Manny Acosta signs a one-year deal with the Giants ... the Yomiuri Giants

If Olt's going to be an elite hitter - certainly not a given one way or the other at this point but he did put up just shy of 300/400/600 in AA this year - and is even competent as a corner OF, and would be under club control for at least his age 24 thru 30 seasons, he'll be a good fit just about anywhere. The question which remains (assuming Texas is even thinking about this sort of trade) is how highly Sandy et al think of his chances to be that guy.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: What's the deal on Mike Olt? He sounds like he's a good player (He's 24 and .288/.398/.579 with 28 homers in 95 games in the Texas League in 2012), but the Mets seem unenthusiastic and I also read that the Braves didn't want him. Is it because of questions about his ability to play the outfield? His lack of AAA experience? Or is it something else? I'm not sure who's down on Olt. He has limited OF play under his belt but should be young enough and athletic enough to handle a corner spot anyway and he's as close to being ML ready as you're going to get.

Trumbo, as far as I can tell, would be limited to strictly LF, and I'm not real sure how good he'd be there. He also plays 1B & 3B but not here he isn't. Real good power, walks are low-ish and he's never going to be a high-BA guy so the OBA stays low too. Funny thing is, when I went looking up Angels stats at BB-Ref a link directs you to a Mets blog the writer of which was slobbering over Trumbo while wondering who, in addition to Dickey!! we'd have to give up in order to get him. Bourjos, if he plays like he did in 2011, would be worthwhile but that season is, as of now, a sample size of one. He got <200 ABs this season. A legit GG-caliber CF and a speedster, the question is the bat. The article on MLB.com mentions Kendry Morales also (Angels have a ton of redundant players now - aka DH types) but he's more positionally limited than Trumbo. I'd be more tempted to go after prospects at this point even though unproven if you had a reasonable guess that they can be an impact hitter (Olt, Myers). Not sure that any of those guys are.

Four more seasons, maybe three good ones.

Twelve new players players made their Rankings Project debut this year - bringing the total to 628 players - with nine of the new ones making it to the top 500. Debuts: # 602 -- Omar Quintanilla 533 -- Josh Edgin 510 -- Frank Francisco ---------------------------------- 485 -- Jeremy Hefner 468 -- Ramon Ramirez 390 -- Ronnie Cedeno 377 -- Jordany Valdespin 358 -- Andres Torres 345 -- Mike Baxter 325 -- Kirk Nieuwenhuis 311 -- Jon Rauch 263 -- Matt Harvey Returnees: Well technically Batista is a returnee having both played last season, when he finished 29th on the 2011 list, but he scored no points this year and therefore loses 11 spots (#589 to #600) to this year’s new guys who passed him (everyone above except Quintanilla). Tim Byrdak jumps 60 slots from 404th place to 344th Chris Young is up 278 spots from 571 to 293 Manny Acosta - Up 6 spots from 390 to 284 Justin Turner - Up 31 from 287 to 256 Scott Hairston - Up 304 from 497 to 193 Josh Thole - Up 21 from 207 to 186 Bobby Parnell - Up 102 from 251 to 149 Dillon Gee - Up 70 from 216 to 146 Jason Bay - His 30th place finish nets him just a few points but not enough to pass anyone and he in fact loses 3 spots to 138th place Lucas Duda - Up 58 from 187 to 129th place where he currently sits just ahead of Dick Selma and right behind Mike Hampton Ike Davis - Up 61 from 156 to 95th; ahead of Eddie Murray and in back of Ed Lynch Jonathon Niese - Up 52 from 134 to 82nd; ahead of Pedro Martinez, behind Rick Aguilera Mike Pelfrey - His 29th place finish isn’t enough to keep from losing ground, down two places from 67th to 69th where he sits in front of Ron Hunt and in back of John Maine Daniel Murphy - Up 20 from 81st to 61st; ahead of Ray Sadecki and in back of Wally Backman R.A. Dickey - Up 31 from 90th to 59th; in front of Backman and in back of Robin Ventura Johan Santana - Up 12 from 50th to 38th; passing Youngblood, Delgado, Kent McDowell, Swan, Dykstra, Brooks, Bonilla, Olerud, Garrett, Ojeda, and Swoboda, but not yet Carter. And David Wright’s 2nd place finish moves him .... Nowhere. He starts and ends the year 5th place, increasing his gap over Piazza while decreasing the gap to Strawberry but not enough to pass him. He needed either a 2nd place finish with an 86 win season or a 1st place finish and at least 80 wins out of this bunch. Next year for sure now that the contract is in the bag. So there was no movement among the top 37 places. New to the top 100: Ike & Niese Out of the top 100: Butch Huskey & Bob Apodaca Dropped from the Top 500: Ron Herbal Raul Valdes Mauro Gozzo Pat Misch Cliff Cook Blas Minor Tony Castillo Brian Bannister Jaime Cerda Dwight Bernard New Mileposts: # 50 - Joel Youngblood # 100 - Jeromy Burnitz # 200 - Charlie Neal # 250 - Duke Snider # 300 - Bob Friend # 400 - Duke Carmel # 470 - (Midway point for all 940 players who have appeared in a NYM uniform) Lee Guetterman # 500 - John Sullivan (the ballplayer, not the boxer) # 600 - Miguel Batista # 628 - Gus Bell

I pretty much checked out from Bond films a while ago so my few votes are mostly at the beginning of the list: Goldfinger, From Russia, Dr. No, plus Live and Let Die. Much of the middle/late period I never saw, or, maybe even worse, did and simply don't remember doing so. I've heard enough good things about the new one to where I might give it a shot, although I was mostly bored by the Craig/Casino Royale so maybe not.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: ... though I don't know from Didi Gregorious. Mariekson Julius Gregorius -- BL/TR -- b. 2/18/90 Amsterdam, Netherlands Had a brief ML look-see with Cincy at the end of the year Is the 10th player in ML history from the Netherlands. Three in the 19th century. Four in the 20th. Third one already in the 21st (Greg Halman, Rick Van den Hurk) Supposedly a superior glove man but the hitting stats don't look all that impressive. Great thread title by the way. Just for that we should eschew multipurpose threads. Inventive thread titles are def one of the things that gets lost in too many AP thread. I still remember the death of rocker Robert Palmer being announced under the heading; 'Simply Unrevivable'

seawolf17 wrote: Another top-notch pitching prospect given away for nothing. I don't get it. I don't get it either. Yeah, pitching prospects are difficult to project and even harder to count on. But, jeez, the guy was the #3 overall just a year and a half ago, those are the types you should be betting on. The guy didn't turn 21 until the end of this past season and was throwing sub-3.00 ERAs in AAA Reno fer crissakes and even got 4 starts in the bigs. Lars Anderson was a good prospect a couple years back in the BoSox system, but that star has faded and he's already 25 y/o. Cleveland, meanwhile, has shifted into serious rebuilding mode and seem like they're going about it the right way.

Simple Question requiring only a simple answer -- Of Dickey & Niese, which one(s) will see opening day roster 2013 on the NYM roster? This should be answered as to what you think will be the case, not what you prefer to see happen.

Baseball Prospectus, citing a Philly Inquirer report, sez the Phils are likely to chase one of the remaining OF FAs even despite their recent acquisition of Ben Revere. Cody Ross, Josh Hamilton & Nick Swisher remain available and advanced statistical metrics suggests any or all of those candidates could be expected to hit at least 87 HRs if he played an entire season at the home ballpark of the Phightin' Phils.

The American League, at the urging of Oakland owner Charles Finley, approved the use of the Designated Hitter starting in the 1973 season. If ours were a truly civilized country flags would be flying at half-mast on this date.

I can't imagine that a full-year closer ever finished so low. What's even worse for him is that such a low vote total in a sub-.500 season doesn't even get him enough juice to crack our overall top-500 these days. He'll have to pitch much better next season just to get his name in lights for future CPFers to see.

I actually thought it might be but couldn't tell.

Edgy MD wrote: So which guy in the front row there now recoils the most upon seeing himself in those get-ups? I gotta think it's white shirt there, unless of course he actually is gay (and let's face it folks ...) in which case he probably still has that outfit.

A quick trip through the prospect blogosphere sees the Royals getting kil't for this deal. And I kind of agree --not just in the quality of prospect aspect because that stuff is all arguable and to some extent not knowable at this point-- but to the extent that it's rarely a good idea for teams coming off 72-90 seasons (particularly a whole string of them) to jump right into go-for-it mode. It's one of the reasons I resisted much of the media in jumping on the Marlins bandwagon a year ago; those all-in type of moves are what you make when you're already nearly there, not because you want to get to that point. I suppose you can argue that that's less risky in the AL Central, but still ...

Mark Reynolds winds up in Cleveland.

smg58 wrote: ... At some point the new Dodgers owners are going to realize that they don't have as much money as think they do, and it will be awfully hard for them to get themselves out of the mess they're creating for themselves. Hell, a lot of folks were saying that just about the initial purchase price of the team even before the payroll got all blow'd up. Of course there are the ridonculous bucks being talked about from the TV deal they are about to sign (or maybe already have) to keep the whole thing afloat.

vtmet wrote: so is Selig gonna review this one like the Marlins trade? No reason to from my view; it's not like both sides aren't giving up talent in this one. RHP Wade Davis is neither as young (27) or as highly touted (was BA top-20 a few years back) as he was coming up but presumably will go right into the KC rotation and is under team control for the next three years, while "Big Game" James Shields is probably now the Royals' #1 Rays, meanwhile, keep producing pitchers and aren't afraid to deal from their strength. Gutsy move for both sides IMO.

Partial numbers for Dodger payroll in 2013: 1B - Adrian Gonzalez = $21 million 2B - Mark Ellis = $5.25 mil SS - Hanley Ramirez = $15.5 mil 3B - Juan Uribe = $8 mil LF - Carl Crawford = $20 mil CF - Matt Kemp = $20 mil RF - Andre Ethier = $15.5 Starters: Josh Beckett = $15.75 mil Chad Billingsley = $11 mil Ted Lilly = $12 mil Clayton Kershaw = $11 mil Aaron Harang = $7 mil Chris Capuano = $6 mil Zack Greinke = $17 mil and now add in 7-time All-Star in the Korean League LHP Hyun-Jin Ryu -- they finalized a contract with him today for six years at $36 mil, a figure that does not include the posting fee of nearly $26 million. Most of the above are signed for 2014 as well (and beyond) at salaries similar to or higher than what's listed for this coming year Oh, and they apparently owe nearly $12 million combined in payments to Manny Ramirez & Andruw Jones in 2013 too..

FINAL 2012 RANKINGS Dickey & Wright were all named either 1st or 2nd on every ballot but in the end, despite a tense back and forth battle (plus the distraction of his writing career) Dickey prevailed. Niese was solidly in 3rd from the beginning with a substantial cushion on either side. For 4th Ike just edged out Muffy. The battle for 7th, 8th & 9th was a tight one, as was the grouping for 10th through 14th so, as in Florida, every vote was important. After that, things proceeded in a mostly orderly fashion with the biggest gaps showing up between Rauch & Nieuwenhuis (14th & 15th place) and later between Francisco & Edgin for 25th & 26th Just missing out of the money were, in order, Shoppach, Batista, Hampson, Carson, Nickeas, McHugh & Johnson RANKPLAYER30R.A. DICKEY29DAVID WRIGHT28JONATHON NIESE27IKE DAVIS26DANIEL MURPHY25SCOTT HAIRSTON24RUBEN TEJADA23JOHAN SANTANA22BOBBY PARNELL21LUCAS DUDA20MATT HARVEY19DILLON GEE18CHRIS YOUNG17JON RAUCH16KIRK NIEUWENHUIS15MIKE BAXTER14ANDRES TORRES13JORDANY VALDESPIN12RONNY CEDENO11JOSH THOLE10TIM BYRDAK9JUSTIN TURNER8RAMON RAMIREZ7JEREMY HEFNER6FRANK FRANCISCO5JOSH EDGIN4MANNY ACOSTA3MIKE PELFREY2OMAR QUINTANILLA1JASON BAY

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Jon Heyman wrote: at least #bluejays along w/ #rangers involved in RA Dickey talks. toronto thought unlikely to trade D'Arnaud. gose maybe That would be Anthony Gose - a speedy OFer originally drafted by the Phillies (2nd round, 2008) but already in his 3rd organization even though not 23 until next August. He was sent to Houston in the Roy Oswalt trade and then on to Toronto for Brett Wallace. He got some ML time with the Jays in late 2012. I'd want more than him for Dickey.