Frayed Knot

Edgy DC wrote: Cleanup hitter on the All-Time Switchie Team 1. Raines, lf 2. Frisch, 2b 3. Mantle, cf 4. Jones, 3b 5. Murray, 1b 6. Davis, ss 7. Rose, lf 8. Simmons, c 9. Blue, sp Which Davis is that at SS?

Not yet, but Chipper sez this year is his last. I can't imagine too many people will be surprised by this.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Ceetar wrote: and it means more baseball talk and less finances talk. yay! Speak for yourself. I was looking forward to the Picard trial more than I was looking forward to the 2012 regular season. In which case your season is over.

Mel Parnell - 89 Pitched for the Red Sox from 1947 - 1956 His 123 wins include a no-hitter and a league-leading 25 win season in 1949

Ooooh, this one's gonna hurt: Arodys Vizcaino to miss entire 2012 season with TJ surgery. One of the top prospects on the Braves and in all of baseball, the 21 year old RHP was acquired by the Braves in a December 2009 trade with the NYY in exchange for Javier Vazquez's 2nd go 'round in the Bronx.

I recently read someplace where Clear Channel is losing money hand over fist. Maybe that means he'll blend in nicely. Pittman's former wife is Sandy Hill Pittman, one of the 'celebrity climbers' that were part of the ill-fated trek up Mt Everest that became part of Jon Krakauer's 'Into Thin Air'

Ashie62 wrote: Frayed Knot wrote: Prior to his dive does he yell out; "I am a golden God!" ? And then becomes Absolutely Famous. Not absolutely famous .... but almost.

Prior to his dive does he yell out; "I am a golden God!" ?

I'm suspicious of the odds for success when a team dips heavily into Free-Agency in an attempt to make themselves insta-contenders as opposed to teams who are looking for a few pieces to put themselves over the top. Look, the Marlins lost 90 games last year and, while one can claim they did so without Josh Johnson or a normal year from Hanley, just about any club can point to bad breaks from the previous year and therefore claim that they weren't really that bad and treat their imagined record as the base to improve from instead of the actual one. Usually that doesn't work. Instead, with a new stadium to fill and a quotable, Latin manager to lead them, they went for Reyes, Buehrle, and Bell as FAs and Zambrano via the trade [read: accept a bad contract] route in an attempt to make up ground all at once. Good luck.

Of course if the club is really losing on the order of $70mil/yr (as has been reported) then one has to wonder how long the 'Pons can hang on even with this bullet (partially) dodged.

Vic Sage wrote: Phils Runs Scored: 2009 - 820 2010 - 772 2011 - 713 I'm not sure i get your point, FK. Yes, they're scoring less and preventing more. that's called "winning". In the early part of the last decade, they were scoring more and giving up more. that was called "not winning". Wasn't really responding to the ongoing pitching discussion specifically, just throwing in some info to the thread in general which points out that their offense has been slipping for several years now and with it injured and aging they're going to need to rely on that pitching all the more.

Phils Runs Scored: 2009 - 820 2010 - 772 2011 - 713

Well, if nothing else, this removes the uncertainty from the near future. Doesn't mean there won't still be tough times ahead, but at least those in charge presumably know where everything stands.

Bryce Harper assigned to AAA to begin season -- and the plan is for him to play CF while he's there.

bmfc1 wrote: Sandomir tweets "SETTLEMENT!" As in: it's a fact, rather than just a prediction?

Actually the Pelfrey box score reads: 2.2 IP, [u:kgeii6qo]8 ER[/u:kgeii6qo] on 8 hits [4 1B, 3 2B, 1 HR], 4 BBs, 4 Ks Not a promising Spring, eh?

Yeah, age, age, and more age is the watchword for 2012 Phils Of the starting eight, only Hunter Pence (29 opening week) and the presumed LF combo of D Brown & J-Mayberry-J are under 30 and they're locked into several of those guys for the next few years as well. Even the fall-back pieces they added aren't young (Laynce Nix) or are past their primes (Juan Pierre, Wigginton, Posednek) or are older than old (Thome); And then there's Halladay (35 in May) and Lee (33 in Aug) heading the rotation. They did jettison Lidge & Madson and will go mostly young in the pen behind Papelbon. Without Oswalt they'll rely more on Worley as their #4 and hope his surprise 2011 season is a sign of things to come rather than a one-year wonder

Definitely a team on the rise. Even if only some things to break right they're going to improve, and if everything breaks right look out! -- although I tend to think next season is more likely to be their time than this one. - Strasberg + Zimmermann are healthy and ready to head the rotation - although they're supposedly going to stick to a strict 160 IP limit for Strasberg regardless of where he/they are when it's reached. - They'll be a bit shy in the OF at least until Harper gets there. I'd be shocked if he starts the season but even moreso if he's not up by June and, once here, nobody believes he's going to be one of the ones who'll miss. - Their middle IF (Desmond & Espinosa) will still be light on OBP and erratic in the field (esp Desmond) but are decent in other areas and are both are young and improving - Should be strong at catcher, 3rd & pen - Questions: Bernadina in the OF (similar to Desmond/Espinosa), LaRoche at 1st, Morse repeating, Werth NOT repeating, who's in CF? - Trades have robbed their system of most immediate internal help beyond Harper

3-2 Braves is your final thanks to 3 in the 8th off of Chuck James [0.2 IP, 2 runs, 2 hits] and Ramon Ramirez [0.1 IP, 1 run, 2 hits] Mets totaled 6 hits, all singles: Murphy (x2), Satin, Cedeno, Valdespin, Baxter Sandwiching that eighth inning debacle were scoreless relief innings thrown by Frankie Frankie (6th - no hits), and Little Danny (9th - 1 hit)

Maybe I'm the only one, but I'm not sold on him as an everyday SS defensively. He was not without flaws last year and now he's switching positions where his weaker arm strength can be exposed.

- Phillies release Dontrelle Willis who was trying out for a pen job - Nats say CM Wang will be out "several weeks at minimum" as the result of a pulled hamstring

metsguyinmichigan wrote: According to tweets, Andy Pettitte is becoming unretired to be an MFY once again. Apparently he's decided he wants to spend less time with his family.

Selected Verducci quotes: - Traditionalists prefer the game without the DH because that's the way the game originated. -- No Tom, those who prefer the game without the DH do so because they think it's a better game that way! Hell, you even admit yourself that by the end of the article but labeling it early on as one preferred only by "traditionalists" implies that there's no thought process in the matter, only a knee-jerk reflex. - A.J. Burnett showed what can happen when an AL pitcher moves to the NL and has to hit. Burnett, traded from the Yankees to the Pirates last month, fouled a ball off his eye while batting last week and suffered an orbital fracture. The highest paid player on the Pirates is now out for two months. In 2008, then Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang broke his foot while running the bases in an interleague game and hasn't been the same since. -- Yeah, because citing two examples which happened four years apart is clear proof of a trend here. If I can find two 2nd-basemen who got hurt sliding over that same span are we also going to ban that too? Also, the same Wang got hurt fielding yesterday so that must be on the list as well. And while we're at it, if Wang was never the same after hurting his foot by running -- BY RUNNING for God's sake! -- I guess it was that injury which caused his shoulder problems then because it was THAT which made him never the same, Tom, not his foot. I'm just doing this to help you Tom, because friends don't let friends quote Hank Steinbrenner. btw - The addition of a DH doesn't create an extra job, it merely changes the description of one of the already existing 750 jobs. I think a lot of this comes down to whoever replaces Bud as Commish. That's assuming he ever does actually leave of course seeing as how he just signed a two-year extension after announcing for about the 3rd or 4th time that the previous one was his last. I'm beginning to think the future owners are just going to continue to prop him up like some kind of Weekend at Bernie's situation. But the thing about Bud is that he's a consensus guy, he doesn't take on any issue (at least not publicly) until he knows he has the votes to run it through. But if it's controversial, if it's 50/50, if some faction is going to strongly object then he's not going to take a stand on it. He's like Clinton on the campaign trail for his second term, running on a platform of school uniforms and V-chips in your TV. Father Knows Best in Chief.

Edgy DC wrote: Chin-ming Wang just took a bad spill at first. In a related note, Hank Steinbrenner, present at the game between the Yanx & Nats where this happened, reflexively proposed that pitchers no longer be required to field since it so obviously leads to injuries.

What Vic said. I understand why these guys do things like this, but their accuracy is iffy at best for the same reason that most political forecasts are a waste of breath, because they all assume that the current trend is going to continue to be the trend for the foreseeable future. Just three-plus years ago during the euphoria following Obama's victory, James Carville proclaimed the result showed liberalism to be "the dominant political philosophy for the next 40 years". Then, just thirty-eight years short of that boast being fulfilled, conventional wisdom held that it wasn't a matter of if, merely of which Republican would send Barack into the loser's lounge of one-term failures and carry of full Republican Congress with him. Sixteen months after that Republigasm of 2010 ... ummm, not so much.