Frayed Knot

Except that the value of a ballplayer will eventually, unlike a house, ALWAYS reach zero and the idea is NOT to be holding that player when his value is rapidly descending towards that point. Also the under-valued player keeps you from being able to afford other players which, unlike extra houses, are necessary to the buyer.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: I don't follow opposing players that closely, so I don't know much about what Fielder's negatives might be. The biggest negatives being that he'll soon require his own ZIP code and his cholesterol level probably contains a comma somewhere in the number.

Signing Angel to a 2-year pact doesn't buy you (or him) anything at this point (not FA until after 2012) but I would be inclined to do the Dickey deal and I think he would as well. That said I suspect Sandy & co. are going to take a more cautious approach ... at least for now.

Albert is said to be looking for ARod money - like in the neighborhood of 10/$300 NOW make the argument for him.

Not to mention what a great SCRABBLE name she's got.

- Jon Rauch - the 6' 11" "Wookie" (according to Keith) - bucks the multi-year reliever trend and accepts a 1-year deal with Toronto - Alex Cora hooks up with the Nationals on a minor league contract. He gets 900K + another possible 600K if he makes the squad. The deal doesn't appear to have any vesting options. - Jason Giambi re-ups with the Rockies although on a minor league contract

I had forgotten - until reading Greg's piece - that the reason Rojas came into the game at that point was that Leiter had tweaked his knee on the previous bunt play, a play which touched off a huge argument [in a different long-ago forum] about whether inter-league play was responsible for Al's injury, One party (who shall remain nameless) insisted the injury and subsequent DL stint was the direct result of IL (which should therefore be immediately abolished) somehow rationalizing that Al would have been safely cocoon-ed in bubble-wrap had IL not been instituted the previous season and not pitching instead against some random NL opponent where the same thing could have occurred. Man that place started some incredibly dumb discussions.

Valadius wrote: I like Ike, but who says Pujols has to play first? The fact that his mobility is getting to the point where there'll soon be no other options for him. Players in their mid-30s don't move from 1st base they move toward it.

You know what the Mel Rojas game refers to of course, the one where Bobby V brings him in in the 7th with a 4-3 lead and Mel immediately serves up a 3R HR to Paul O'Neal on the first pitch he throws. The press killed BV afterward for allowing the great Paulie O'Neal to face a RHP and a few games later when LHP Bill Pulsipher got smacked around in a similar situation the incident became even more famous because that's when Bobby supposedly came out of the dugout to glare at the press box with a 'you dopes ain't as smart as ya think ya are' look. One could say that Rojas never recovered from that outing although it's not like he was pitching well up to that point so the cause and effect is a bit hazy. Anyway, my brother brings me a jigsaw puzzle the other day knowing that I used to do them back in the day. It's a 600+ piece 3-ft x 1-ft puzzle of a panoramic shot of Shea during a game taken from behind the Field Level straight up from 1st base: packed house, scoreboards lit, lights on, hint of pink in the clouds from the setting sun. It wasn't until after I finished the thing that I bothered to look up the specifics of the game via the game's date which was listed on the box and not only recognized it as the infamous Mel Rojas game but realized that I'm actually in the puzzle I just finished. Can't pick out myself of course although someone who's in a certain section of the 1st base field boxes might be able to. I have a vague recollection of sitting in the LF Mezz that night meaning that I'm some tiny dot but I'm there (unless I'm in the can at that point). So if YOU were at the Mel Frickin Rojas game and were sitting anywhere except behind 1B in the Loge, Mezz or Upper deck, then you too are somewhere in this jigsaw puzzle. Specifically it's the top of the 4th, Mets still leading 1-0. O'Neal has just singled off Leiter and Tim Raines stands at the plate (you can see his face on Diamondvision). The tiny men in the field are Olerud at 1st, Baerga at 2nd, Ordonez at SS, and Edgardo st 3B, with an OF of Bernard Gilkey, Brian McRae, and Butch Huskey. Piazza crouches behind Raines.

The New York Mets are closing in on a deal with free-agent right-hander Chris Young, a source within the organization told ESPNNewYork.com. Young, 31, made three September starts for the San Diego Padres last season, after missing most of the season with a strained right shoulder. The deal will not be completed until the Mets are satisfied with Young's physical.

Keep in mind about Albert: - He is now 31 y/o (as of yesterday in fact) ... which means (doing some quick math here) he'll be 32 at the beginning of whatever FA contract he signs a year from now and I'm guessing that deal is unlikely to be a short one - the above is all assuming that his stated age is the correct one. There's been questions about that although nothing even resembling proof. - more than one injury has been nagging him recently: an elbow for one which was at one time though to need TJ surgery; and he looked barely mobile at various points last season. Maybe those are both behind him and maybe they're not. - he's a good fielder at 1B although that's only of so much value and it's not like you could move him to a safer position if/when he starts to falter there. In short, for those who now either regret and/or wish the contracts of Santana and Beltran were already over even remembering that those were signed when those players were still in their 20s, how do you rationalize that we're not going to do the same with Albert a few years from now? Would we be paying for his great years while getting his declining ones (and maybe rapidly declining)?

Ceetar wrote: I expect him to get offered back to Toronto, but them decline and he ends up in Buffalo. Him being exposed to the 'Rule 5' draft in the first place caused as much WTF? head-scratching among those who follow this kind of stuff as any player this year so I can't see him being refused by Toronto or by any other for that matter if the Mets try to send him down. So, seeing as how I have little faith that Castillo will survive the spring as a Met and about as much in Muffy being able to hack the position defensively, I expect him to stick around all season with an OK BA (.260-ish), decent on-base skills (.335), and good-for-2B punch (.430-ish SLG) over say 365 ABs

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Soriano by the way was known to be a douchebag who didn't get along with Maddon. According to Bill Madden -- The 31-year-old [soriano's] makeup is - and should be - of great concern. Despite his league-leading 45 saves and 1.73 ERA, Soriano was hated by almost everyone in Tampa Bay last year. His periodic hissy-fits over being brought into games in non-save situations, or being asked to pitch more than one inning wore thin on Rays manager Joe Maddon. The final straw was the last game of the season - Game 5 of the ALDS versus Texas - when Maddon asked Soriano to pitch the ninth inning with the Rays trailing, 3-1. After throwing a tantrum in the bullpen in front of all his fellow relievers, Soriano trudged into the game and promptly gave up a single to Nelson Cruz and a game-breaking homer to Ian Kinsler.

MFS62 wrote: I look at WAR like I look at a Calculus equation. It holds up in theory. But in Calculus, you can't get an answer until you replace the symbols with real numbers. In the case of WAR, it isn't always a good way to calculate how much losing a player will mean to your team. Or how valuable the player who you lost was, compared to the real player who replaced him. For example, Wally Pipp got hurt. And the guy who replaced him was Lou Gehrig. I'm all for new baseball measures. But I just can't get my head around this one. WAR is nothing more than an estimate so it's always going to be theoretical. That's also the reason you compare it not to who actually is replacing the player you're losing but against an agreed-upon norm (the concept of the replacement player), so that different players are compared evenly. You can't say, for instance, that Pujols would rate as less valuable than Ryan Howard simply because when the Cards lose Pujols next year they manage to replace him with Teixeira while the Phils used an untested rookie to fill their hole which made their drop-off much larger.

Santana cleared for throwing It beats being thrown into a clearing.

I really just answered in order to get the joke in. How to calculate? -- probably only about 5 people on the planet really know and I'm sure there are several variations, but it's supposed to take in the total contribution from a player both offensively and defensively and convert that into the number of extra wins your team would see above what you'd get if you filled his position with the level of player usually available for little cost. As far as what's a good number to have? -- A [u:1569z8ty]GREAT[/u:1569z8ty] player might net you an extra 10 wins in a season above what your team would get if you replaced said superstar with whatever scrub was available off the waiver wire. Most will be a whole lot less than that; really bad ones could end up in the negative. A lot of detailed stat sites now list some version of that stat for viewing pleasure. Wright's best season (just to choose an example) was 7.8 in 2007. He dropped to 2.4 in 2009 then bounced back to 3.9 this year.

Benjamin Grimm wrote: That might have inspired me to actually learn what exactly a WAR is! A new-fangled stat designed to estimate Wins Above Replacement Joe Morgan, of course, doesn't like it and he and other curmudgeons have, in protest, adopted the slogan; "War, what is it good for? ... Absolutely nothin'!!"

I think his eventual major league future is at 1B and/or DH

Established closers [registered trademark] who are potentially on the market next winter: - Heath Bell, Jonathan Papelbon, Francisco Rodriguez, Jonathan Broxton, Matt Capps, and Ryan Franklin. - Plus, if team options are declined, Joe Nathan and Francisco Cordero.

To start 2011 in Buffalo in order to get regular ABs and work on being a less lethal defensive player.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: They must have hired Omar as an advisor. Particularly since the Snooze reports that Soriano can opt out of the deal after each of the first two seasons. That's almost as good as a vesting option. Meanwhile, the Rays are losing half their team but are already inito the restocking plan. While their 1st place finish this past year means their own pick in June's draft isn't until #32, they will pick up selections #24 & 38 for losing Carl Crawford, #31 plus another supplemental (not sure which one yet) for Soriano, plus sandwich picks #50, #54 & #57 for the likes of Joaquin Benoit, Randy Choate and Brad Hawpe (Randy Choate?!?). There are also remaining TB FAs like Grant Balfour (Type A) and Chad Qualls ( which will net them 3 more picks if/when they sign with another club. In all, they could net 11 picks in a 35 or so player span starting with selection #24. They also have what John Sickels describes as the best RH pitching prospect in baseball (Jeremy Hellickson) and the best LH pitching prospect (Matt Moore) not named Aroldis (Hellickson will pitch this season, Moore is still a ways away); an OF prospect ready to replace Crawford in Desmond Jennings; a young likely closing option (Jake McGee), and just landed five prospects of varying quality from the Cubs in exchange for Matt Garza. THAT is how you reload and stick to a budget.

Yeah, it was recently re-released in theaters in the wake of Golden Globes nominations and whatnot. Was at a theater near me on discount night for less than what it would eventually cost to rent it ... so I figured whatthehell.

Ceetar wrote: ... Rafael Soriano 3 years 35 million. HOLY GET THE HOOK BATMAN!! That's a lotta scratch for a set-up man. They didn't pay Mariano that kind of cash until about four years ago. Or, put another way, $27 mil/year invested just to get through the 8th & 9th innings. Oh well, at least Yanx fans can feel confident in Cashman's excellent track record for signing multi-million dollar set-up guys: - Steve Karsay -- 4 yrs/$21mil at age 30 ... pitched one full season and then a total of 12 innings over the next three - Kyle Farnsworth -- 3 yrs/$17mil at age 30 ... ~ 170 IPs; 4.50 ERA; 1.45 WHiP - dealt away before the deal ended - Damaso Marte -- 3 yrs/$12 + option at age 34, 1 year (plus option) still remains ... so far: 31 IPs; 6.39; 1.36 WHiP - LaTroy Hawkins -- 1 yr/$3.75mil at age 35 ... 41 IP; 5.71 ERA; 1.44 WHiP - paid Houston to take him by the end of July - Luis Vizcaino -- 1 yr/$3mil at age 32 ... 75 IPs; 4.30 ERA; 1.45 WHiP - Tom Gordon -- 2 yrs/$7.25 at age 36 ... ~ 170 IPs; 2.40 ERA; 1.00 WHiP - Paul Quantrill -- 2 yrs/$6mil at age 35 ... ~ 125 IPs, 6.00 ERA, 1.60 WHiP Gordon worked out well while he was there. The others, not so much.

Mets play a total of Four 1:00 Saturday home games this year. Three others are FOX 4 PM games All others are at night.

Any Favre siblings in it?