Frayed Knot

I don't think I want to know what THAT was all about.

Nymr83 wrote: reading those reports really makes it sound like FLA got hosed. "Hosed" isn't exactly accurate, at least not yet. It's just that with ALL prospects you run the risk of not knowing whether or not they'll pay off in the end - even with ones as highly thought of as these two. Miller was the top college pitcher and #1 draft pick in his year while Cameron was the 2nd best HS player in his (#10 pick overall) behind only Justin Upton and both were BA top-10 prospects at this time last year. If prospects were guaranteed to work out then nobody would ever get rid of them.

The NYDN's gossip page follows up today with: The Mets say pitcher John Maine is the victim of an impostor who has been asking women for their outfits. Thursday, a woman named Abby Cohen called the club Touch to get "John Maine" a table at their opening night. When the man arrived, he identified himself as the Mets pitcher and asked several young ladies if he could try on their dresses (even offering a reporter $200 for hers). Despite being "recognized" as Maine by doormen and publicists for Touch, the Mets insist that he has not been in New York since October and was in Virginia on the night of incident. I prefer thinking that there is at least a small element of truth in the original story.

SI.com's Jon Heyman (who, btw, has recently struck a deal with WFAN to be their regular all-purpose baseball contact) reports that the Mets are back talking to the Twins about Santana. Not that he thinks this suddenly means that a deal is likely only that, with the Yanx & Angels supposedly out of the running and the BoSox deal in some sort of holding pattern, Omar is still keeping in touch on the subject in case an opening develops. Reyes is still being ruled out as a chip in any talks.

Another thing this deal does is continue the seemingly constant shift (in the short term anyway) of star-type players from the NL to the AL. On the subject of the Marlins being dangerous, we should remember to resist the temptation to simply assume that the package of prospects - even Maybin & Miller - are destined for stardom. Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus takes a look at this six-pack of of Miami-bound youngsters. On the big two: Maybin is massively talented but, as much as scouts love him, they have the some concerns that PECOTA* has, notably his high strikeout rate. He'll play every day for Florida in 2008, ready or not, and he'll likely be one of those players who dazzles one day and frustrates the next -– with one scout setting the over/under on his strikeouts at 150. I'm not knocking Maybin as a prospect, because he's still an easy five-star player and one of the top outfield prospects in the game, but based on multiple conversations here in Nashville, both before and after the deal, scouts have more concerns about him than I realized. * Their projection system Miller is also a player who hasn't been quite as good as the tools should indicate. Six-foot-six lefties whose velocity sit in the mid-90s don't exactly grow on trees, yet Miller has rarely dominated on a statistical level, even at High-A in 2007. One issue has been his inconsistent command, as his long and lanky build still leads to inconsistent release points. The other primary knock is his lack of aggressiveness. Scouts don't see a streak in him as nasty as his stuff, and he often avoids challenging hitters or pitching inside. He has the skills to be a frontline starter, but in the end, he's yet to pitch to one.

Hank Steiny tells the NYTimes that they are O-U-T of the Santana sweepstakes. Of course they had cut ties with ARod too ... Angels also are apparently telling folks that they've broken off talks with Mini-soda concerning Johan (Sebastian) Santana

]... the Marlins actually turned the biggest profit of any team last year Where is that info from and is something we should take at face value given the wonders of creative accounting and all that?

(acc to several ESPN sources) Florida is set to send Miguel Cabrera AND Dontrelle Willis to Detroit for a package of 6 players, including: - LHP Andrew Miller (#1 Overall pick in 2006) 22 y/o - OF Cameron Maybin (#10 overall pick in 2005) 20 y/o - plus a utility player and 3 minor league pitchers Think the Tigers have enough hitting?

Yanx officials at Nashville believe Santana headed to Boston (as per WFAN reporter Sweeny Murti) ... though nothing official yet.

Common sequence of thought among fans at this time of year: 1) Our GM needs to make a big move 2) When is he going to make a move? 3) Make a move already!!!! 4) NO, NOT THAT ONE!!!!

Centerfield wrote: Speculation in the rags today is that the Mets might not make any move, for a starting pitcher or otherwise. I hope this is just posturing on Omar's part. Schneider/Church better not be the major acquisitions of this off-season. Except that (as we've discovered from time to time) no move is better than a bad move and it's the over-anxiousness to make A move that often leads to bad moves.

The only thing unusual about the ML deal given to WM Pena was that the Yanx were dumb enough to give it to a kid who was the age of a HS sophmore. Plus, it's not like they were locked into him via a draft pick or anything and were thus even freer to walk away at any time. It's very unusual for HS draft picks to get an ML deal - usually only the very top picks do (Beckett, both Upton brothers, Delmon Young) - and those guys are 18 y/o seniors, not a 16 y/o man/child

Even if one thinks that Milledge has an attitude problem he's not in the same league as Dukes who is basically a criminal. I guess Tampa figures sending Dukes & Delmon Young away fits with their winter make-over theme of taking the Devil out of the Devil Rays.

The thing is that, while Haren isn't nearly as good, the fact that he comes pre-signed at fairly reasonable rates means that the package needed to get the two might well be very similar.

Pettitte to return to Skanks ... just in case y'all were holding your breath over this one.

sharpie wrote: It appears that Mr. Met may not be going to heaven either in the eyes of Ryan Church. Well of course not. The entrance to heaven is like a man-hole cover sized opening in the clouds and Mr. Met's head would never fit through. DUH! * I'm Mookie !!!

aka; the home of the winter meetings The crew at Baseball Prospectus get things started with the latest pre-meeting scuttlebutt: * The Yankees are going to have to offer more than what they have on the table. The team thought putting Phil Hughes on the table was enough, but the Twins aren’t selling Johan Santana for anything less than three major-league ready prospects. The Red Sox offer is also short, leaving some wiggle room for other teams - the Mariners? - to make a run. The M’s could offer an attractive package, but Jeff Clement, a catcher, isn’t that interesting with Joe Mauer locked in. * Dan Haren is everyone’s Plan B, but he’s going to cost nearly as much. With new Twins GM Bill Smith holding the line on Santana, Billy Beane and the A’s could end up making the deal by simply being willing to make the deal. * Aaron Rowand has been “really close” for about a week, says one source. So why hasn’t he signed? “Fluid market,” says one AL exec. “Rowand and Andruw Jones are kind of on hold until we all figure out Kosuke Fukudome and whether Coco Crisp will be dealt.” None of them get Torii Hunter money, but maybe Gary Matthews Jr money. * Kyle Lohse is this year’s Ted Lilly. Everyone will fight for him, then complain that they’re fighting over him. That said, no one thinks he’ll be signed during the Meetings. “Too many offers and the market for pitching has been all focused on trades.” * Miguel Cabrera? “You’ve got to be kidding me,” says the AL exec. “The Marlins must be advised by Chuck Lamar on the art of the deal. You can’t ever say you won’t deal with someone, but no one likes picking up the phone from them right now.” * Who’s the surprise player? According to five different independent sources, it’s the Orioles. “They’re buyers and sellers, plus this is probably the one time when Andy MacPhail will have a free hand to make these kinds of decisions.” Others mentioned are the Royals, Astros, and Giants. *Don’t expect any early deals. There’s nothing THAT close right now and the teams will stay away from announcing anything close to the Hall of Fame Veterans Committee results, assuming they have some.

]Then my question is why? I've seen a lot of Schneider and I don't He keeps preaching the whole 'defense and will make the staff better' angle. And I keep thinking that he better be one helluvagood defensive catcher.

Catchers are in short supply right and I think part of the thinking was to latch onto one before the music stopped and there were none left. - Posada was a longshot just-in-case meeting and I'm not sure we didn't dodge a bullet on that one. I could do w/o a 4-yr contract to a catcher as he approaches then passes 40 - Don't know what to make of Torrealba, either the sudden interest and reasonably big contract offer OR the last minute pull out - Estrada was a way to get rid of Mota who even Minaya sounds like he lost patience with. Estrada either gets dropped or flipped for some minor piece as I can't see them keeping 3 catchers (as none play anything except backstop) and I don't see him accepting a minor league assignment so he can wait around until one of Schneid-astro gets hurt. - And I think Schneider is a guy he likes and saw a chance to land him for Milledge and get Milledge's "replacement" (and probable equal for this year at least) in the same deal. Not that I agree with his assessment, but I believe that's what he's thinking here.

Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is the teenage son of a well-to-do Kansas City area family and the popular local hockey star until his reckless driving leaves two of his friends dead, another maimed, and himself with reduced mental and physical capabilities as the result of head injuries. Now four years into his recovery and therapy, some locals, aware of his past, aim to take advantage of his condition and convince him to act as an accomplice in the robbing of the bank where he works as the night janitor. Not much hilarity ensues as he struggles both with everyday life and with the direction in which his new "friends" are taking him. Ultimately, of course, what he needs to do is deal with his past sins and make the best of his life as it is now.

="Iubitul"]I loved the high five incident. At the time, I took at youthful enthusiasm, and nothing more. He made more than a few fans happy that day. I wasn't thrilled with it at the time mainly because I'm not big on in-game celebrations. Doing the same thing coming off the field following a win wouldn't have bothered me at all. On the other hand I just looked at it as a youthful over-the-top moment not as some kind of sign that he was a bad guy. ]I look at some of the coverage he got in the press as borderline racism, that a few of these fat, white sportswriters didn't like his "blackness". F*ck them. That's certainly possible - although several writers seem to have gone out of their way since the trade to say that he was generally a nice guy to deal with while implying that it was teammates who often had a problem with him. On the other hand I know that NYDN's Adam Rubin pretty much despised him, saying that he was often crude, tasteless and not pleasant to talk to going back to his minor league days.

Seeing as how all trades are being evaluated as to their outcome "so far" let's either evaluate as to how they've worked out [u:409cca15d3]so[/u:409cca15d3] [u:409cca15d3]far[/u:409cca15d3] or just admit that they all belong in the 'inconclusive' file until each and every one of the players involved are at least 8 years into retirement and are therefore incapable of coming back and possibly tilting the balance one way or the other. If Green/MacLane can't be sorted despite a playing record of 160+ games to zero at this point then shirley the Bannister/Burgos deal is still up for grabs at least until younger/harder-throwing/larger-upside Burgos either recovers and resumes his career or needs the arm amputated as a result of surgical complications.

Goossen also trained/managed boxers for a time along with a whole slew of brothers/cousins he had, calling their outfit 'Eight Goose Stables' or something along those lines for all the "Gooses" that ran it.

Re: Green/MacLane From Shawn Green the Mets got: * 164 games played/559 ABs (iow, just about a full season's worth over ~ a 200 game span) * of .284 hitting, .346 OBA, and right about lg avg slugging (.150 IsoP - 39 2Bs, 14 HRs) * in exchange for a guy who has yet to see MLB and pitched in 2007 to a near 8.00 ERA and almost 2.00 WHiP at AAA. Even Green's modest contributions (.284/.346/.433 which was somewhat ABOVE NL avgs of .264/.332/.418) to division-winning and near division-winning teams trump that of a (bad) minor leaguer every time meaning that there's no way to call that exchange anything other than a plus for the Mets.

The potential Santana deal-&-sign (wherever he winds up) and the rumored years/dollars involved got me thinking about how these long-term turn out with pitchers. L-T deals for pitchers shirley didn't get off to a good start when Wayne Garland signed for 10 years w/the Indians (and was released halfway through) during the first wave of free-agency at the then unheard of sum of $2 million (total) IIRC. Trying to stay a little more recent than that one, the ones below are the 5-year or longer deals that happened to jump to my head first. Feel free to add more if you find them. Each of these also paid the FA at (or close to) the top $$ level at the time. There doesn't seem to be any pattern as to predicting which ones would bomb and which would succeed. Randy Johnson: 1999 with Arizona (5 years I believe) 35 y/o in year 1 of the deal - How it worked out for the team ... Great! 4 consectutive CY awards leading to the deal being extended before it ran out. (That he then foreced a trade to NY which he parlayed into another extension that didn't work out so well and then forced a trade back which he parlayed into another extension which isn't working out so well shouldn't sully the original signing) Darren Dreifort: 2001-2005 w/Dodgers .. 29 y/o in 1st year - One of the worst signings EVER! Approx $57mil for a total of 26 starts and 9 wins Mike Hampton: 2001 w/Colorado for 7 years .. 28 y/o - Only Dreifort keeps this from being worst EVAH! More or less .500 pitcher over 6/7ths of the deal with two different teams and numerous trips to the DL including at least one entire lost season. Mike Mussina: 2001-2006 w/NYY .. 31 y/o - Winning pitcher in each season, 30+ starts in 5 (27 in the other), and a better than lg avg ERA in 4 of them MFY fans like to disparage this one, fingering Mussina's failure to go undefeated in October as one of the reasons they never won a WS over his time -- but a sober look at this deal shows it worked out reasonably well for both sides. Pedro Martinez: I believe this one was for 5 years, signed when he was 28 (two years after being traded to Boston) - 4 terrific years plus one injury-shortened one Kevin Brown: 7 years at age 34 - The three complete seasons (30+ starts) he managed of the seven were all good to very good ... but the other four (two in LA, two in NY) were injury-shortened mediocrities or worse Barry Zito: 7 years at age 29 - Not off to a very good start is it?