Frayed Knot

John Sickels sez: 'Brewers did OK but not great' - Alcides Escobar: Good glove, can't hit right now, might hit a bit in the future, more long-term value than Betancourt. - Lorenzo Cain: Good glove, fast, athletic, offensive track record is mixed. I've always kind of liked him, C+/B- type prospect. - Jake Odorizzi: I love him. Haven't gotten to the Brewers yet on my prospect lists but he was going to get a B+. - Jeremy Jeffress: Love the arm strength, command is questionable, I think he can be a great closer...If he throws enough strikes. I'm not worried about the drug angle. Grade B prospect. The Jeffress "drug angle" he references was, I believe, some dope smoking from a few years back, not 'roids or any hard stuff.

Reports now adding pitching prospect & former 1st round pick Jeremy Jeffress to the list of Brewers headed to KC - along with Cain, Escobar & Odorizzi Not that it's a bad trade for Milwaukee who now have a very formidable pitching staff and are in clear go-for-it mode in an always up-for-grabs division --- but if I'm a KC fan I've got to be happy with that deal.

I knew all the AAA cities but didn't get full credit because I couldn't figure out how to spell Albuquerque (I swear I did it right at least once but it didn't accept it). The quiz also didn't accept 'Gwinnet County' for the Braves although if you typed in their former home of Richmond it instantly converted to their new name. Like most peeps I'm sure, got all the short names in the HR race but missed the three long ones. Again spelling nabbed robbed me of one answer.

metirish wrote: I am urging people here to rent it so we can havIe a good chat about it. You want me to rent not only a chick flick but one that got almost universally lousy reviews? Not even the cute Amy Adams could make me rent this even if it was Leap Day.

From MLB.com (which says it's not official but that the two sides are "closing in") -- The Brewers will part with shortstop Alcides Escobar, center fielder Lorenzo Cain, top pitching prospect Jake Odorizzi and a player to be named later for Greinke, a right-hander, plus shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt and cash. I've heard the names of Cain & Odorizzi around but I'm not sure how high up on the prospect scale they currently reside. Royals probably tightly duct-taped Betancourt to Greinke in order to make the deal more palatable ... for Kansas City! - although, to be fair, YB did hit with a bit more punch this past season to go along with his usual .280-ish OBA KC has a killer farm system at the moment according to all reports with many of them on the verge of contributing. Sounds like the perfect time to add three more (including Escobar) players with age and potential on their resumes.. Who knows, there could actually soon be major league baseball in KC again for the first time in decades. And if everything goes right ...

Part of the reason we set things up the way we did was so that the 'answer' wound up being the sum of all the pieces and therefore things like popularity, recency, and/or personal feelings for or against particular players wouldn't play a role. So, yeah, part of the reason Carter is seen to be too low is that he was a likable player who was acquired in a great trade which was the final piece for the last great Met era - even if those memories tend to emphasize the good while ignoring the rest.

and throw in Sickels: 1) Wilmer Flores, SS, 2) Jenrry Mejia, RHP, 3) Matt Harvey, RHP, 4) Aderlin Rodriguez, 3B, 5) Fernando Martinez, OF, 6) Cory Vaughn, OF, 7) Juan Urbina, LHP, 8) Reese Havens, 2B, 9) Lucas Duda, OF-1B, 10) Zach Lutz, 3B, ... with BP probably getting around to the Mets in the next week or two The BA list in particular seems a bit odd. They go high on the teenage Puello and the no pro IPs Harvey, yet ignores young'uns like Corey Vaughn, Jeurys Familia, and Juan Urbina. There's a 'Subscriber Only' Q&A going on so maybe they're splainin' themselves in that. Haven't been reading HBT recently so I don't quite know where they're at these days, but their list doesn't look like it's all Fantasy geeked out even if that's their eventual target audience.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: Of course though, when G-Fafif notes that Kingman ranks higher than Carter, he gets a polite and reasonable acknowledgement that, perhaps, Win Shares is better. No one ever suggested it wasn't. You seem to be confusing this little gimmick we've got going here as some kind of system that's being trumpeted as the final word on NYM history. It isn't and it never was anymore than our Schaefer PotG/Y is the final word in determining in-season greatness. It, like Schaefer, is a fun in-house thing which is totally voluntary and was actually born of several different projects that got going here separately which we at some point cobbled together as a way to determine the order of the players next to each poster's name. But when I point out the overall absurdity of assigning a nebulous number 30 to someone for having the best season in a given year --- the same 30 whether it's for Gooden85 or Swan79, I get the runaround for nine or ten posts, heels dug in all the way deep to oppose whatever I might write. Most of those "nine or ten posts" were yours, sometimes three or four in a row seemingly in answer to yourself and/or in contradiction. When three separate people chime in either with explanations or to say they're not sure where you're headed there's a chance that maybe it's you who weren't making yourself clear. So chime in all you want with suggestions, improvements, condemnations, but you might want to lose the martyr complex.

Carter's spot has probably been the subject of as many questions/objections as anyone - except maybe for how Steve Trachsel (although no longer) got into the top 50. Kid's problem remains that, of his five seasons in orange & blue, only three were any good and the last was almost non-existent (28 hits, 2 HRs). Had his career taken a gentler slope downhill - instead of the off-the-cliff plummet it did take - so that he was able to merely crack the top 20 Mets in that final 1989 season he would have accumulated enough points to slip in ahead of Kong. But, alas, he got saddled as the 26th place finisher* that year and fell short. * Unfortunately, most of the discussions that went into deciding the ranks from past years were lost in a server crash a few years ago.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Here's hoping he joins Damaso Marte on the disabled list for two years. Oh, and thanks for the draft pick, Cashman, you twerp. AND ... they're still paying Marte for this coming season ($4mil as well). Nothing like $8 million dollars of situational lefties in your pen with another $4mil of Kei Igawa ready for the call up in case either or both falter.

Would that line be funnier if I knew who 'Richie Eastside' was?

John Sickels - who posted this video at his 'Minor League Baseball' site and also wrote a biography on Feller a couple of years back - points out that this test measured the speed of the pitch as it reached the plate as opposed to most of today's reading which read the ball right out of the pitcher's hand. So that 98.6 mph is the modern day equivalent to over 100

They still make Fresca? I haven't heard of that stuff in years or seen it in even longer.

Valadius wrote: Is Lutz's head really that weird-looking or is that just some kind of bad stretch-job? It was that stupid prank with the vise in Jr High shop class. Understandably he prefers not to talk about it.

... for right-handed pitcher Henry Rodriguez and outfielder Corey Brown. Neither one high on Oakland's prospect list acc to BA

Clemente was always a bit of a hack-tastic kind of swinger, very much befitting the Latin stereotype of his time. Just tends to look bad when your hacks don't also make contract. And, yeah, there were several balls he tried to short hop which wound up getting kicked around. Maris had at least one too and he was also considered a top-notch RF. The grass was in lousy shape (one of the players - Groat I think - even commented on it) but finely manicured lawns certainly weren't the rule back then the way they are now. What caught my eye was the dirt which seemed to get huge divots from every footprint like it was wet clay or something. It would have been easy for one of those footprints to have been the cause Kubek's bounce. Didn't notice the runners thing. The running game certainly became fashionable in the NL later on in the '60s but the '50s game and especially the AL game was much less aggressive in that way.

Def worth checking out especially because - much to my surprise - they did NOT load it up with tons of commercials which would slow down the game to 21st century pace. They actually only took breaks about once every other inning as one half-inning just flowed into the next. - Forbes had the rep as a great pitchers park although it was pretty reachable in RF. Hal Smith's and Mazeroski's HRs were both to LCF though and both were hit a ton. Not common at that time from a platoon catcher and a glove-first middle infielder. - I was expecting a faster-paced game on account of the usual suspects: fewer pitches per hitter, more pitches per minute, fewer pitching conferences and changes (although Stengel did his best to wear wore out a path), etc. But the best thing may have been that the batter was at or at least near the batter's box by the time the ball from the previous AB got back to the pitcher. Amazingly, batters seemed to be able to start their walks toward the plate without their own personal intro music in those days. Scientists ought to look into how that was accomplished and maybe the idea could be brought back. The only real slow guy was Yogi who always walked up with two bats and only after swinging both bats for about a half-dozen practice swings did he hand his extra to the bat boy who was practically standing in the RH batter's box waiting for Yog to finish. - The crowd who likes to claim that every pitcher always finished every game back in them good ol' days sure took a beating on this one. Obviously being the 7th game of the WS was a factor but both managers had guys up in the first inning. - God what I wouldn't give to be able to attend a game without being assaulted by blaring music every 20 seconds. I wish someone had the guts to try it but, at this point, I think fans have become so used to it that teams are probably afraid the crowd would think "this place seems dead" if they ever cut it off.

No doubt Yanqui fans will flood the airwaves for trades with one or several of the Giants hurlers (at highly discounted prices of course) ... 'how 'bout Kei Igawa, Brett Gardner and a coupla prospects for Cain & Lincecum?' Speaking of irrational yanqui fans, the one call I heard to FAN last night was from the stereotypical obnoxious YLDB 'Joe D from Brooklyn' who wanted an MLB investigation into why Lee wound up with the Phils when the Yanx offered the most money. Other speculation will turn towards the Pacific northwest and Felix Hernandez but I don't see any reason why they'd want or need to deal him now. Matt Garza is rumored to be available but I don't know if Tampa trades him in-division.

I'm sure the plan is to have Martin and some young'un/defensive guy do the catching while Posada DHs full (or mostly full) time. They've got a bunch of decent-to-good catching candidates in their system so it'll be interesting to see what they do with Montero. He's going to have a monster bat by all accounts but no one really thinks he'll be a catcher at the ML level when all is said and done. Plus 1B in Yankee-town is blocked until like forever and he's slow enough to be an honorary Molina brother meaning there's no chance he plays the OF. So either he becomes a 22 y/o DH starting in 2012 (or whenever Whore-Hay gets hurt) or he's trade bait. Remember they already dealt him once for Lee ... or at least they thought they did. btw, they also inked Mark Prior to a minor league deal.

I think they're looking to trade Blanton. They'll probably have to eat some money to do so but they have to cut somewhere and he's pretty expensive for a 5th starter.

I guess the 'sad but hopeful' choice applies best. Look, there's no question that this is good for the Phils at least in the short term. They got the best FA pitcher on the market who's very good with a short and recent track record of being great and not only didn't have to go to a guaranteed 7th year to get him but stopped a wee bit short of a 6th. Their 4-man rotation - assuming everyone stays healthy - is a killer which will help them overcome whatever offensive outages they'll have (the way they did last year) as those bats and defense grow older and less reliable. Maybe it starts to bite them by year 3 or later as both he ages and they need to start replacing all those aging and expensive parts elsewhere (although I still think Howard at 1B is the bigger anchor they need to worry about) but they're a 'now' team riding a big revenue stream so certainly looks like the right move at the right time. Besides, just think about how much fun it will be when you wind up beating the overwhelming pre-season fave - As far as the Yanx, the best part isn't merely the fact that they didn't get him - at those prices and length the winner of these things isn't always the one who gets him - as it is the fact that their fans and their press took the signing for granted as part of the natural order of the universe. That's twice now that they thought he was theirs (remember the trading deadline last July) only to be left grasping at air wondering why cats and dogs are now living together. Of course they'll now do something else - particularly with all that money burning a hole in their pockets. But, in the meantime, it's Sabathia, Hughes, Burnett and ... ??

Edgy DC wrote: Andy Martino tweeting from the Winter Meetings last week wrote: Here�s some of what we�ve been able to gather during the first day here in Florida. Lots of information swirling around the Twitter, some of it questionable. For example, if the Phillies sign Cliff Lee, I�ll cover spring training in a Speedo. Like Bondy's remarks in the other thread, this one is just begging to be thrown back in the author's face.

Does this get Amaro off the hook for the horrible mistake in dealing Lee in the first place? After everything else he's since done, how can he possibly argue that $9M was too much to pay for the guy last year? Yeah, that's the weird part - well, that and the fact that Lee passed up two (rumored to be) clearly superior offers to take this one. Wonder how the union is going to react to this one? Maybe they're giving his agent a good working over in the sound-proof basement at union HQ as we speak. Either way, be interesting to hear how Lee's line of reasoning goes. Listened to ten seconds of FAN this morning which featured Carton screaming about how Lee is "too afraid to come to New York". Nothing like dopes using personal decisions to try and make themselves feel tough. Yeah Craig, maybe if you try hard enough you can convince yourself that he skipped the Big Apple on account of he didn't think he was man enough to handle an interview with you. Philly is clearly in a 'go for it NOW!!!!' mode despite the loss of Werth. Their 'Big Three' imported hurlers turn 33 (Oswalt), 34 (Halladay), and 33 (Lee) next season - and their position players are all over 30 as well with the exception of Werth's likely replacement Domonic Brown. Oswalt can walk after 2011 (mutual option) as can Lidge (option). Hamels is free the year after that. On the field: Rollins & Ibanez are FA after this year; Polanco & Victorino after 2012. Of their biggest guns, only Utley (32 - and signed thru 2013) and Howard (31 - thru 2017) are around for a while.

metirish wrote: From Heyman, Mets will hire Debus(bullpen) , Mookie(first) to join Hudgens, Oberkfell, Wharton and Hale. So are there any Spanish speakers in that group?

Because what's a conference without CFPs? Central Florida Police? Carbon-Flouro Pollutants? Caucasian Fine Painters?