Frayed Knot

Other awful precedents: Andrew Johnson Warren Harding Jimmy Carter George W. Bush

]RES IPSA LOQUITOR I think this was one of our recently registered users. Came complete with a link to a Latin porn site.

This is why it'll be interesting to see if the Yanx go after him - especially as many are assuming that the Johnson trade paves the way for just that. Torre is already on the record as saying he'd never agree to the part-time, fly-in/fly-out, skip the road trips if he's not on the sked kind of deal he had w/Houston. But would they agree to it and steamroll Torre's wants if it means that or let him go to Boston? Stay tuned (although, personally, I agree with Dickshot's wishes and will throw in venereal disease also)

Yeah, the new one is going to be turned some 30-degrees to the north IOW, more North-NE than the present East-NE

More like three when you figure that they can't even start deconstructing Shea - I think I heard somewhere that city laws will prevent them from blowing it up (down?) - until after the last game of '08, giving them only a few months to "re-open" that section of the lot. I somehow doubt all that will be completed in time for the start of the '09 season. Part of what's supposed to accompany all this is a multi-level parking garage which will expand the number of slots available and would be ready well before the new stadium is finished.

I'm not really endorsing the deal from the Snakes side or trying to dismiss his 5.00 ERA this past season - but I also saw enough of his games to know that he usually wasn't as bad as all that and his peripherals seem to bear that out. He had a habit of giving up his baserunners in bunches and would get burned that way. Was he overpaid, unpleasant, and not as good as the team bargained for or as the fans think they're automatically entitled to? ... Sure. But in two seasons he started virtually every turn out (67 times), threw over 430 innings, won 34 games, still gave up under a hit/inning even in his "bad" year, and kept a K/BB ration at around 3-to-1. Expensive? ... hell yeah -- but an "unneccesary" or easily replaceable part ... not so much.

Assuming that he's healthy (admitttedly not a given coming off back surgery) Johnson can still be useful even if no longer THE BIG UNIT of old. For all the Yanqui fan bitching over the last two years it's not like he's been terrible, just somewhat unpleasant, not as good as they wanted him to be, and not an automatic in THE BIG GAME - somthing Skank fans seem to think should somehow be guaranteed if you give up a big enough contract and put on the pinstripes. Interestingly enough, I caught a few minutes of Michael Kay on the radio just as the news of this deal was coming down and he thinks the Yanx blundered here: giving up a 17-game winner while netting themselves just a set-up man and a couple of middling prospects while paying for the privelege. Now Kay was wrong about a lot he said during his discussion of it but he was right in that the fact that just because many wanted his less-than-sunny ass out of town doesn't make this an automatic addition-by-subtraction move. And, don't look now, but the Yanx 4th & 5th starters at the moment are Carl Pavano & Kei Igawa. Plus, part of what Arizona wants is he name/drawing power as he approaches win #300 which is why they're so interested in an extension. They also owe him a boatload of deferred money from his previous contract and those extension conversations might involve some restructuring of that debt that'l help AZ get out from under the slew of "manana-economics" deals they made in trying for that '01 championship.

His glove denies batters their right to first base

The Snakes get a 72-hour window to negotiate an extension -- apparently they want him for '08 as well at around $10mil or so. It's unclear at this point whether or not the MFYs are picking up any of the '07 money. Yanx get 4-for-1: - ML reliever Luis Vizcaino -- RH innings eater, decent ERA & WHiPs. There was talk about the Mets looking at this guy a few years back. - minor league RHP [u:35014c1560]Russ Ohlendorf[/u:35014c1560] (a "C+" prospect says John Sickels - "a sleeper who throws strikes") - minor league RHP [u:35014c1560]Steven Jackson[/u:35014c1560] (also C+ ... "Excellent season in AA after mechanical rebuild") - minor league SS [u:35014c1560]Alberto Gonzalez[/u:35014c1560] (C+ ... "Good glove") So either this clears the way for them to go after Clemens (be interesting to see if they agree to his creative schedule) or Vizcaino allows them to move Proctor into the rotation ... or some combo of both.

Kinda like Joe McQ from '01 to '02

Newhan has been a Joe McEwing-ish type of utility player who's kicked around a couple of teams for several years now. He's been a big favorite of many in the press, in part on account of his physical averageness and partly because he's the son of one of their own. His father is a long-time sports writer out on the west coast. I don't particularly see a whole lot of role for him here, although an invite couldn't hurt.

Who's being snarky?The list which went in as the "official" order doesn't look anything like the original submission and there's nothing in the discussion that followed (at least in the surviving discussion) which shows how it got that way. If it didn't vary so wildly we wouldn't have re-opened this.

So how do we go about "fixing" this list?It started with the original JA/Iubital list which had some questions about it but either never any resolution to them or else it was lost over time.Among objections were the lack of pitchers up top as well as Frank Lary being left off entirely.30 J. Lewis 29 R. Swoboda 28 J. Hickman 27 E. Kranepool 26 C. Smith 25 R. McMillan 24 J. Christopher 23 J. Fisher 22 A. Jackson 21 C. Hiller 20 T. McGraw 19 B. Klaus 18 R. Hunt 17 G. Cisco 16 W. Spahn 15 C. Cannizzaro 14 G. Kroll 13 G. Richardson 12 L. Bearnarth 11 D. Sutherland 10 J. Gonder 9 J. Stephenson 8 B. Cowan 7 H. Taylor 6 T. Parsons 5 D. Napolean 4 G. Kolb 3 J. Bethke 2 L. Miller 1 D. Ribant 'Sal' countered with an alternate list but it's not clear whether any discussion resulted from it;30 Johnny Lewis 29 Charlie Smith 28 Jack Fisher 27 Ron Swoboda 26 Ed Kranepool 25 Roy McMillan 24 Al Jackson 23 Joe Christopher 22 Jim Hickman 21 Tug McGraw 20 Chuck Hiller 19 Darrell Sutherland 18 Warren Spahn 17 Ron Hunt 16 Bobby Klaus 15 Galen Cisco 14 Gordon Richardson 13 John Stephenson 12 Chris Cannizzaro 11 Billy Cowan 10 Gary Kroll 09 Jesse Gonder 08 Frank Lary 07 Larry Bearnarth 06 Hawk Taylor 05 Tom Parsons 04 Jim Bethke 03 Gary Kolb 02 Danny Napoleon 01 Cleon Jones 00 Dennis Ribant and then Edgy's supposed "final" list bears only some resemblence to either one and shows no record of how it got that way.

Only you would decide to put up a thread detailing the new order of the overall list before even getting around to contributing to the 2006 list itself which will, once your list is added, change the order of not only that list but also the final result that you're already quizzing people about. In fact, marathon's contribution has already altered the order slightly from the temporary consensus you're using here. How 'bout let's finish the 2006 list first, then fix 1965 plus whatever else needs fixing, before summarizing what the new overall order looks like?

Nate Silver over at Baseball Prospectus says; DON'T DO IT OMAR!!!!

From Ray Ratto in the SF Chronicle the Athletics, having already lost Frank Thomas, Jay Payton and Ken Macha, are likely to also dispatch their winningest pitcher, Joe Blanton, to New York as part of a deal that would fetch one of Billy Beane's longest-held desirables, outfielder Lastings Milledge. What seperates this from the usual columnist speculation are the words "are likely to" - although he doesn't back it up with anything other than that and it may just be columnist speculation that he, for whatever reason, expects to eventually come true. On a somewhat related topic, I heard NYDN writer (and friend of CPF) Adam Rubin on the radio the other day (Patchy Fogg's program) speculating about various A's pitchers. His view (IIRC) was that Danny Haren was the A's hurler who the Mets were most after rather than the also speculated-about Rich Harden who is scaring them on account of various injuries. Problem is that Beane is apparently asking for several bodies - presumably from among the Milledge/Pelfrey/Humber/Heilman crew. It's not clear from the above if Milledge would be the entire price involved for Blanton. Rubin also did little to disguise the fact that he thinks Milledge can be a real ass at times. Often crude, and with an ability to rub folks the wrong way both in the minors & during his time with the big club, he's a tough guy to like. Not sure how team mgmt feels about it all or whether that affects the odds of him being dealt. Blanton (26 y/o) was a 1st round pick (24th overall) in 2002 - part of the famed "Moneyball" draft. He has 2 full seasons under his belt so would be under team control for the next 4 seasons. Haren (also 26) was the StL product (2nd round - 2001 draft) who was one of two main prospects dealt to Oakland a few years back for Mark Mulder. Also has 2 full ML seasons to his credit plus a few partials. Could be arb-eligible now. Both would be next year.

Glenn (son of Paul) Gibson; coming off his Yazstremski Award season, given annually to the best HS baseball player in Suffolk County (L.I.)

Gotcha

And we're "waking up" these old threads because ? ...

The composite we've got to date includes the 8 lists submitted so far: (TransMonk, VicSage, SeaWolf, Valadius, FK, Nymr, Dickshot & Yancy) plus one more from our PotY stats (Yancy's daily polls). I'm not including marathon's yet until we hear back from him on a few things. Below is the consensus from those lists along with the cases where individual votes differed most from the group -- which isn't to imply that those are "wrong" neccesarily but to provide a jumping off point for folks to defend or object to various votes. This first group looks to be fairly well set where they are. Any new lists submitted are unlikely to change things much and none of the individual votes differred by more than a slot or two (except where noted) 30 - Beltran 29 - Reyes 28 - Wright 27 - Delgado 26 - Glavine 25 - LoDuca 24 - Wagner {the PotY list had him at #19, 5 spots lower than our consensus} 23 - Valentin {TransMonk has him 4 spots lower} The above are also a sizeable gap ahead of the remainder. 22 - Chavez {TM -6; SW -6; FK -7} 21 - Heilman {Val -4; PotY -5} 20 - Pedro {TM -6; SW -6; JD -6} 19 - Maine {TM -4; SW -4; PotY -4} 18 - OHernandez {TM +4; Vic -4; Nymr -7; YSG +4; PotY +4} 17 - Sanchez {TM +6; Val -6; JD +6; PotY -4} 16 - Feliciano {TM +8; Val -4; JD +6; YSG -4; PotY -5} 15 - Bradford {JD +6} {mid-sized gap here} 14 - Nady {Val +5} 13 - Oliver {TM +5; SW +8; Nymr +5; 12 - Trachsel {YSG +4; PotY +9} 11 - Floyd {Nymr +6; YSG +4; PotY +7} {big gap} 10 - Green {PotY -6} 9 - Franco 8 - Mota {VS +4; SW -4; Nymr -8 (not on list); PotY -7} 7 - Perez {TM -4; SW -4; YSG +4; PotY -7 (off list)} * * * * 6 - Bannister 5 - Milledge {PotY +5} 4 - Woodward {PotY +4} 3 - Soler {PotY +6} then tied for last place: 1.5 - Castro 1.5 - R Hernandez Outside looking in: Tucker - got votes from VS (4), SW (4), FK (1), Nymr (1), JD (4) Bell - YSG (3), PotY (5) Williams - FK (3); YSG (2); PotY (3) Julio - VS (3); JD (2); Pelfrey - Nymr (3) ... the rest of the crew was shut out

Yo marathon, are you willing to defend; - Oliver above Wagner (4 slots), Heilman (6), Sanchez (7), Feliciano (10) & Bradford(11)???? - Trachsel over all of the above plus LoDuca, Valentin & Maine??? - Votes for Bell, Williams & Ring, but none for Green, Mota & Franco??? - Soler above Bradford & Feliciano???

Bannister's walk-on status in college, followed by his 7th round draft pick potential and his 6 ML starts complete with a negative K/BB ratio coupled w/a 1.47 WHiP certainly has earned him a share of admirers among a certain segment of Met fans. Or maybe it was the limp home. By all accounts he's a smart guy and a great kid who'll likely get the most out of his talent. But I've never heard him described as having anything other than just average stuff and, while hardly ancient, will already be 26 before the season starts.

]Imagine what an ACTUAL ace would have gotten in this market? The way these things work .. probably not a whole lot different than what Ztio snagged. He may not be an ACTUAL ace but he is the Ace du Jour on account of being the best available on the open market right now. Kind of like the old 'One Eyed Man in the Kingdom of the Blind' thing. Had there been a Santana type as a FA also then HE would have been the prom queen and likely walked away with Zito money while Barry would have had to settle for Miss Congeniality and a lesser portion of the pie. The other $100+mil pitcher contracts didn't involve the best pitchers in history either; Kevin Brown was at least close to the best when he signed (although was older), but Hampton was arguably not as accomplished then as Zito is now. Yet no one else busted above the contracts those two signed until just now.

]Anyone know what pitchers are on the block? Well there's that Randy Johnson guy ... Zito turned down Texas's offer - which was for a reported 6yrs @ $80 or so - before accepting SF's. Kinda makes you wonder who SF GM Brian Sabean thought he was bidding against.

"Free-agent left-hander Barry Zito and the San Francisco Giants have agreed to a seven-year, $126 million contract, according to baseball officials. " Whoa!!! "The contract surpasses Mike Hampton's eight-year, $121 million deal signed with the Colorado Rockies after the 2000 season" And didn't THAT turn out to be a good idea