Frayed Knot

Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus reviews his pre-season Top-100 Prospect List and talks about whether the stock in those players are rising or falling based on the first half of 2007. * [pre-season ranking]18. Fernando Martinez, OF, Mets, 18 Eligible [as a prospect] Next Year? Yes Stock Movement Since Ranking: Down Comment: Yes, a .271 batting average at Double-A is very impressive for a 18-year-old, but he’s showing no secondary skills, and more scouts are speaking up about his inability to play center field. * 26. Philip Humber, RHP, Mets, 24 Eligible Next Year? Should be Stock Movement Since Ranking: Down Very similar to [Rice U. teammate Jeff] Niemann, but a little worse in performance (4.48 ERA). I know, Rice pitchers not living up to expectations--shocking, huh? * 30. Mike Pelfrey, RHP, Mets, 23 Eligible Next Year? No Stock Movement Since Ranking: Down Man, he has one heckuva fastball. Yup, sure is a good fastball. Unfortunately, that’s really all you can say, because the lack of a breaking ball is just killing him in the big leagues. * 34. Carlos Gomez, OF, Mets, 21 Eligible Next Year? Probably, as a broken hand could cost him the remainder of the season Stock Movement Since Ranking: Unchanged A never-ending stream of injuries forced the Mets to rush Gomez to the big leagues, where we got to see tons of promise, and tons of work that still needs to be done. There’s still star potential here, and there were plenty of nights where he was the most exciting player on the field.

Edgy DC wrote: Where's the number coming from? Initially the number is probably from Boras - floating it out there as his minimum target. The Yanx aren't going to publicly discuss a number and neither is any other team. But then it (or more) is being run with by just about everyone who talks about the subject - and it's being talked about a lot up here these days - as if they're powerless to even contemplate that it might not happen. It's going to be interesting however it winds up.

That's the figure being tossed around by the media as the magic number that Mr. A. Rod is going to get (at a minimum!!) by opting out of his current deal at the end of the year. Shirley I can't be the only one to think this is nuts? Now keep in mind that I'm not one of those who objects to what these guys make based on just sheer awe-power. Generally I don't care and think they should make all they can. I'm just stunned that this is being treated as if it's practically a done deal if not a low estimate. I mean, let's look at this for a second. - The 25 year old FA Alex Rodriguez gets $25mil/yr over 10 years at a time when other top FAs (Manny, Sosa, Giambi, Thome) were topping out in the $17-$20 range. - Then, in the years after that, the market actually came down a bit to the point where Bonds, Vlad and others were making more in the mid-teens - and then, even after things started to rise again, no one has yet made it back to the $20mil mark unless you want to include the rate at which Clemens is getting paid even though his total money also falls short. In other words, in the 7 years since that contract was signed, not one player has come within 80% of it on a per/year basis. Meanwhile, the team who signed him to it wanted out before it was 1/3 of the way through and was willing to pay to get rid of it because it was such a burden on the rest of the payroll. - plus the team that picked him up only did so because they were getting him at about 60 cents on the dollar ... and they only got him because the first team that tried to pick him up (Boston) needed a bigger discount than that and couldn't get the MLBPA to agree to it - and now, of course, the team that has him wants to break with their "no in-season negotiations" pledge because it's their only way to keep the discount that they're getting. So in the midst of all this we're supposed to think that there are suitors everywhere lining up to willingly pay more than the amount three teams ran from (and the other 27 wouldn't touch) even though top salaries really haven't moved in that time and the FA in question is now 32 rather than 25? I mean I know he's the best player in the game now (or at least in the class photo if you don't want to go to "Best") but the floor on negotiations is going to start at a level 50% above what the next best group is getting? Man I just can't see it.

Oliver Perez activated (duh!) and Dave Williams DFA'd. - They had to make a decision on Williams anyway since his contract called for him to be on the ML roster as of a certain day in July or be eligible for FAgency -- so this just gives him that option a week or so earlier. He could find the market dry and accept a minor league stint for the time being. For Monday's game - Jorge Sosa activated and Pelfrey sent down. - I thought his relief appearance the other day might be a sign that they were going to keep him around instead of Sele but the innings are so erratic in that spot that I guess it's better that he get in a regular rotation in New Orleans.

Perez - 3.5 Milledge - 1.0 Castro - 1.2 Reyes - 1.6 Wagner - 1.0 Heilman - 0.8 Feliciano - 0.6 Delgado - 0.3

Glavine - 5.0 Milledge - 1.0 Green - 1.3 Wagner - 1.0 Gotay - 0.6 LoDuca - 0.4 Wright - 0.7

Elster88 wrote: If you don't like the apple you're a communist Nyet! Actually, I'm in the indifferent category. Doesn't bother me that it's there, wouldn't miss it if it disappeared. I bet if it makes the move across the way it does so with a sponsor.

Milledge - 1.6 Mota - 0.7 Schoeneweis - 0.7 Heilman - 0.7 Gotay - 0.7 Wright - 0.5 Green - 0.5 Delgado - 0.6

Mebbe. But still, nice BA but little power and few walks. The only other non power hitter getting those kind of bucks is Jeter and he's another that means more to his franchise - for image purposes alone - than he's really worth.

What sucked about that 1st inning was that the GS was the only hard-hit ball. Bouncers, bunts & walks all count, but it's not like they were bashing him all over the park. Down 4-zip these days is a tall order. LoDuca ... Grrrrrr

Supposedly the deal goes up to $100 mil - depending, I suppose, on various incentives. This is one of those deals that probably IS worth it to the team signing him where the same numbers for some other team is over-spending. Ichiro is tied to that club and their Japanese ownership in a way which wouldn't be the same for another franchise. What Fla mgmt is sore about is that one guy being over-paid tends to set a floor for other guys to shoot for. Not that they can do anything about it, but Ichiro probably wouldn't have gotten that on the open market. He's good, he ain't that good.

OHernandez - 3.5 Reyes - 2.0 Gotay - 2.0 Milledge - 0.9 Smith - 0.4 Feliciano - 0.4 Wagner - 0.8

One version has him getting hurt while breaking up a fight.

Good move obviously - even as the amount of complaining about Franco compared his roster spot being the cause of Met problems was vastly overblown by many fans. Guess the backup 1st baseman is now Green (even tho both LH) as first Milledge, then hopefully Alou & Chavez, might make his OF innings most scarce in the coming months. This also keeps Malomar Jr around for a while, making the sitting half of the Duke/Shrek tandem more available for pnich-hitting. And, for me personally, this removes the last remaining major leaguer who was ... oh never mind.

WFAN reports that Newsday is reporting that Rick Down is out as hitting coach, to be replaced by Rickey Henderson effective immediately.

Yancy Street Gang wrote: Have you ever seen Drew Barrymore's chin in profile? David Letterman saw several of Drew's body parts in profile ... I'm just not sure that the chin was among them.

Q: Is this the worst day of the baseball year? A: Yes

Some unknown enemies on tap for the beginning of the second half. We need all the knowledge we can get. DatesTeamSageJuly 12-15RedsJohnny DickshotJuly 16-18PadresCFJuly 19-22DodgersBoy Named SeoJuly 24-26PiratesLundyJuly 27-29NationalsEdgyDCJuly 31 - Aug 2BrewersTransMonkAug 3-5CubsKCAug 7-9BravesRockin' DocAug 10-12MarlinsSeawolfAug 14-16PiratesLundyAug 17-19Natl'sEdgy DCAug 21-23PadresCF Aug 24-26DodgersA Boy Named SeoAug 27-30PhilsGWreckAug 31-Sep 2BravesRockin' DocSep 3-5RedsJohnny DickshotSep 7-9AstrosMetIrishSep 10-12BravesRockin' DocSep 14-16PhilsGWreckSep 17-19Natl'sEdgy DCSep 21-23MarlinsSeawolfSep 24-26Natl'sEdgy DCSep 28-30MarlinsSeawolf

I hate losing to these communist bastards.

I thought I was kidding.

Typical Wagner, can't thrive in a big game.

No, but Victor Martinez did. I guess it's an American League starting catcher thing.

]When Steinbrenner approached Martin in the managers office after losing the 76 WS and vowed to never again be humiliated like that because" this is my team now" is sounded so fucking childish.. Back to this for a second; I just glanced through the early chapters of the book again and this scene is absolutely as it was reported: Martin crying in the clubhouse after the '76 WS sweep and Steinbrenner coming in to berate him for making him look bad with the loss. Now that doesn't mean that every word of the dialogue is exactly as portrayed but the idea certainly was NOT concocted for dramatic purposes. Nor, btw, was that the last time Steinbreener whined like a spoiled child. Buster Olney's book on the 2001 WS has George yelling at the clubhouse guys as they're trying to do the network set-up for the post-series celebration in the Yankee (visitors) clubhouse because he thought they were "jinxing it" before the series was complete. Then when the Yanx did indeed blow the lead, George is screaming at those just doing their job that the loss was their fault.

I'm not sure what day and time the 8-week series is supposed to air on a regular basis. The first one was Monday and ESPN usually has a Monday night game at 7 so maybe it's going to be after that - which means it won't always start on time depending on the length of said game. I'm sure they'll also find a time to re-air each one at least once during the week and they will re-air episode 1 tomorrow (Wed) at 10PM

]Now i didn't see the 1st episode, so its highly unlikely i'll watch any of the rest. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that they're going to re-run it two or three (or eight or nine) times before getting around to episode two. None of which makes it not incredibly stupid that, not only was their highly publicized self-produced series bumped off of its starting time, but that it was done for a contrived event which ran long thru ESPN's own fault to begin with. Fran Healy is one of the consultants for the flick, mainly as a result of his being Reggie's best friend on that team.