Frayed Knot

The finalizing of the Theo to the Cubs move is still short of official due to the issue of compensation. The Cubs are offering dollars to the Sox in order to get Theo out of the final year of his contract. Boston, not surprisingly, prefers compensation in the form of warm bodies, either ML players or prospects.

I was (sort of) thinking about this when the Mets drafted Brandon Nimmo back in June. Not that he was younger than the average HS-er (18 + 3 months seems about average for a HS player) but, that with his home state of Wyoming not having a HS baseball program, Nimmo played his youth baseball in an American Legion league which hadn't yet started when the draft took place. IOW, he was the age of a HS senior but wouldn't, in effect, have played his senior league ball yet (the league ran from June thru Aug) and therefore he would have had more development time between his draft and his signing. Or at least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Gwreck wrote: I think Leyland could've used Al Alburquerque if necessary. Providing it can be proven that he really exists first.

Edgy DC wrote: That Molina at-bat seemed to last about 75 minutes. So do most Braun ABs as he's one of those 'go for a stroll and re-adjust the batting gloves after every pitch' guys.

The AL - like the Good Rats - are takin' it to Detroit.

[u:2sevaqyw]GAME 5[/u:2sevaqyw]: Tigers pinning their hopes for survival and a return to Detroit on Verlander - although the Rangers have already hit him up for 2 doubles and a run in top 1

Edgy DC wrote: Ted Berg at Tedquarters grabbed this screencap, thrown up to demonstrate how awesome Albert Pujols is, but inadvertently telling the story of just how lazy, soft, and unreliable Carlos Beltran has been ... That's eight guys --- five hall-of-famers, one steroid abusing numbskull, Pujols, and Beltran on thop of them all by almost a hundred points. But he did most of that with Houston so it's not really clutch hitting.

As I mentioned in a thread right around the end of the season, 2011 was the first year in which the Astros/Colts lost 100 or more games - a fact which surprised me even though I knew they didn't have as many bad years as their NL birth-mates. By contrast they've also only won 100+ games once (1998) and have gone 21-35 in their nine playoff appearances including a ridiculous 2-14 stretch* and later their last four in a row, the only four WS games they ever played. What's bad about this potential move isn't how it'll affect the strength of the AL-West or any other division for that matter - those things vary over time to the point where it's barely even worth discussing - but that MLB is, once again, shifting things around almost certainly against the will of one of their fan bases for the purpose of "fixing" something that was only "broken" because it got screwed up by the last round of supposed fixes. * A stretch that started right after their win that Edgy just posted in the 1986 thread

Parker wrote as a columnist for Newsday for a short time. What I remember most about him was him wearing what looked like a flannel shirt in his little photo, and also him playing the angry black man card. He didn't do it all the time, but occasionally, and at some odd times, like in a column absolutely trashing the Olympics because they were, among other faults, racist.

It was the best altered reality movie I saw this year. Translated, that means it was better than 'Source Code' which I found only OK, and 'Inception' which I bailed on part-way through.

[Yanquifan]Long time, first time .... Hey this Cruz guy for Texas is clutch, do ya think the Rangers will take ARod for him? ... How 'bout if we throw in a coupla prospects and pay some of his salary? ... and we could throw in Andruw Jones too![/Yanquifan]

MLB.com -- Ryan Howard had surgery Wednesday morning in Baltimore to repair a completely torn Achilles tendon in his left leg. Foot and ankle specialist Mark Myerson performed the surgery and also administered a PRP injection. The Phillies said the surgery was successful, and general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. said in a statement, "It's going to be five to six months from the surgery until he can play at his accustomed level."

(Lack of) speed kills.

Well, we don't KNOW yet that he'll stick him in there, but I'm assuming since he's already gone to Benoit that he won't hesitate to lean on Valverde also. Meanwhile, Texas intentionally walking Cabrera [u:28f8kzy9]with none on and one out in bottom 8th[/u:28f8kzy9] looks like it's going to backfire on Ron Washington as Martinez singles to make it 1st & 3rd. IOW, it'll probably be Valverde time soon!!!

Leyland looks like he's going to lean on the Benoit/Velverde combo for the 3rd straight night. That duo has gone 2.0 & 3.0 innings over the last two games.

The Cards handed out 'Rally Squirrel' towels to arriving fans. And despite that idiocy they scored four times in the 1st off Gallardo to take a 4-0 lead. Brews got two back in top 2 off the previously untouchable Carpenter so the match-up of aces not quite going to way they wrote it up.

Except that there's no such thing as an "official game" in the post season as they'll simply play them all to conclusion even if they have to go to the next day. Oh, and Inge just tied it.

"It'd be good for baseball in Texas to have two teams in the same state vying for the division lead," Ryan told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Would that be the same for teams in the state of Pennsylvania Nolan or does that only apply to your state?

Remembering the first time Theo left -- http://archives.cranepoolforum.net/1600/f1_t1641.shtml

[u:b5u163n4]GAME 4[/u:b5u163n4] And we'll start off the game with a rain delay.

I know that Crane was meeting with Selig in the last few days. Sounds like changing leagues was on the agenda or that MLB wants to leak that it was on the agenda, maybe as a way of gauging public reaction to such a move.

My long-time view of Met-fan & Yanx-fan trade proposals - whether via WFAN or even going back to 1980s NYPost when they carried a Friday column which let fans loose on that subject - is this: - the typical NYM fan-proposed trades usually involved getting rid of half the team for half of someone else's team: I'd deal McReynolds, Darling, Dykstra, Backman & Knight for ... . They were also big on three and even four way deals which involved at least a dozen players total. For the most part it didn't seem to matter who the Mets had but their fans always wanted someone else, even to the point where if the roles were reversed I swear they'd be trying to deal the guys they had FOR McReynolds, Dykstra, Backman, etc. - the typical Yanqui fan proposed trades were/are just totally one-sided, deals that were along the lines of: Mike Pagliarulo and the then mid-30s Ron Guidry for the in-their-primes Boggs & Clemens. The modern day equivalent involves guys like Felix Hernandez and usually contains phrases like: 'well how 'bout if we pay some of Burnett's salary?', or, '... plus t'row in a coupla prospects' ... (but not the good ones of course)'

TransMonk wrote: Official, 5 years, $15M: http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/this-just-in/21147021/dc-theo-has-5-year-deal-cubs Not that a talk radio host saying it's a done deal makes it a done deal, but, yeah, this sounds pretty much like a done deal. All this comes amid reports floating around Boston of an out of control clubhouse which included pitchers eating, drinking & video gaming during games, as well as a manager possibly distracted by marital problems (Francona and long-time wife have apparently separated) and/or prescription pain pills (prescribed for various knee surgeries.

Shirley a guy with the name of Mike Puma could come up with a more enticing headline for this story. Something maybe on the order of: Davey got Back(man)

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: So, between the bases-loaded DP last game and the last diving stop... Cabrera's, like, pretty decent with the glove when he tries and crap. He has. Of course that dive registered on the Richter scale throughout the upper mid-west but it was an important play. And we have a series now.