Frayed Knot

I think it (Latin=free swinging) was initially true as a generalization. Figure that the majority of "early" Latin ballplayers learned the game under much less structured circumstances than did American kids. It's not a league/school sport in the Caribbean it's a street/pickup game which likely had the same sort of ump/ref-less free-lancing as street hoops does here; 'no blood, no foul' simply gets replaced by 'swing the effin bat'. Tony Olvia once talked about learning from his father that 'if you can reach it you can hit it'. I think that sort of mentality prevailed, maybe even enhanced by throwing in a bit of 'walking is for sissies' Latin machismo on the side. Now, I suspect that team-run Latin academies and extensive scouting have probably changed that until it more closely resembles American ball today.

I'm not really worried about his ability to handle the higher levels as much as I am about handling the "jump" in IPs he'd be experiencing over the long season. For a guy who's never pitched a long pro season then sat out almost an entire year, the sudden jump to 200+ (with the last of those coming in "high-stress" ML IPs if he gets called up) would be considerably more than he's handled to date. As the sarge used to say on 'Hill Street Blues' ... "let's be careful out there"

The staff at [u:5275e715ba]Baseball America[/u:5275e715ba] got together and held themselves a mock draft. Not one with fantasy/rotisserie purposes in mind but in an attempt to put together your personal "dream team" from today's current players. 10 writers picked players for 10 rounds each with no particular restrictions on who was available: vets, rookies, prospects, or even foreign players presumably (although I don't think anyone went that route). Essentially they were looking to build the guts of a strong roster that would be optimal during the 2006-2011 window so the age of players is something to be considerd though salary is not and there's not the over-riding need to fill each position. The set-up is here, then each round (with explanations) is linked on a new page starting with Round 1. - Albert Pujols - A Rod - David Wright - Miguel Cabrera - Johan Santana - Felix Hernandez - Mark Teixeira - Joe Mauer - Delmon Young - Mark Prior The remaining rounds are linked from there.

Jesus Flores is an A-Ball level catcher. Supposedly has the defense to play in the bigs right now, but backslid last year offensively after showing some promise in Brooklyn the year before.

My money's on Matt Lindstrom Besides the very Swedish name, I believe that's where he did his Mormon mission.

Except that I think in large part this tourney was concocted specifically with those lesser teams/countries in mind. THOSE are the places you're trying to pump-up baseball both as a source of talent and a consumer's market. Yeah, China & China aren't going to be challenging their Asian neighbors for supremacy anytime soon, but it gives them something to shoot for. When the US made the Soccer World Cup draw (in the early '90s sometime) and then hosted it 4 years later (thus gaining an automatic bid) no one expected them to place highly either time, but it provided a valuable experience boost AND an attendance/interest boost that paid dividends later on. And now, a ranking that came out just this week in advance of this year's WC has the US squad ranked 5th in the world. There are things they need to fix before trying this again, but I don't think becoming more exclusive is one of them.

So Keppinger showed poor range, muffed an easy grounder, and then made a fundamental base-running error, huh? Somehow I think his under-dogness will protect him for these sins.

Really, this may have been Clemens last game ever???? I hadn't heard that.

Part of the problem with the goofy tiebreakers was that this whole thing was partly run through the International Baseball body (whatever it's called - essentially it's baseball's equivelant to FIFA) ... and this body - like most whose function it is to organize sports for Olympic-like tourneys - is very European titlted which accounts for it's soccer-like tiebreaking procedures. I suspect Selig felt the need to go through this body in order to get all the various teams on board even though it probably would have been better off if MLB ran the whole deal and just thumbed their nose at the Euro-bureaucrats. But I suppose that being the 800-lb gorilla is one thing but it's best not to act like it in order to keep everyone happy. Hopefully they'll learn some stuff from this inagural outing and fix what needs doing before 2009 when they hope to do it again.

"He also flat out said that he's not a fan of the WBC and he feels it messes up the spring training evaluation process." This coming from a guy who once said (wrote actually) that spring training is nothing more than 9-5 tedium (for established vets anyway). I personally like it when tedium is interrupted.

I'm not so sure Soler ever was the favorite for #5. Then throw in the fact that he hasn't had a particularly good Spring and, like the man said, he could use the steady work in Norfolk. I think Heilman always had a better claim to that spot coming in anyway, plus Bannister's good March outings may have slipped him passed the big Cuban on the pecking order (ie; first one to be called in event of injury) at least for now.

Some ESPN programming guy was on FAN today explaining that this other stuff: NBA game, NCAA softball, NIT, Tennis - was booked well ahead of time and so the WBC got shunted off to either ESPN Deportes and/or tape delay. I also suspect that they didn't know what to expect ratings-wise from this new event and so weren't all that interested in giving priority to March baseball, particularly for games not involving the Red, White & Blue. Thursday's game will be on (although it might not matter by then) as will both games on Saturday (1 day - 1 night) plus the Monday final. Meanwhile: Japan & Korea scoreless in the 7th

]Mount Steinbrenner must be mid-eruption even as I type this. ... Imagine his reaction if Johnnie Sellout were to need surgery As if the existance of the WBC somehow caused his shoulder woes. 'Gee, if it weren't for this horrid tourney then Johnny would be sitting on a beach sunning himself and certainly that bum shoulder he had throughout the 2nd half of last season doesn't factor into this at all'

DR eliminates Venezuela and becomes the first team to "officially" advance to the "Final Four" in Sandy Eggo. Weird game: only runs came on a swinging bunt (DR), a groundout (Vz), and a passed ball (DR). Duaner Sanchez comes in for the save. Should have been a bit easier than it was; he got 2 outs then coughed up a walk, then got a game-ending grounder ... only Tejada muffed it, he then issued another walk before getting 'ol Fonzie to fly to RF w/the sacks drunk for the game-ender. Jorge Julio came on in the 8th for Venz with the DR having pinch-runner Jose Reyes at 1st w/none out. He got out of the inning scoreless despite 2 Reyes SBs and a loud out to LF off the bat of Beltre.

Not after someone's already made a joke about it, no. P.S. You also mis-spelled Pelfrey.

If you were Chris Carpenter pitching to Xavier Nady, would you throw him a curve in the dirt or would you groove one baby?

Nady (rhymes with Lady) says it's pronounced X-avier. Howie (I think it was) mentioned that a few weeks back.

That S Korean exemption from the military is not new for this tourney, it's existed for a while; in the Olympics, during Asian Games, etc. From the highlights I saw of last night's game, the USA squad left a ton of runners on base. Varitek K'd w/the base-loaded/2 outs in the 1st, and Vernon Wells did the same several innings later. Sounds like a couple of timely hits could have turned things around. They also left a bunch on in the 9th although it was TLTL at that point anywyay.

What's a sore shoulder gonna do ... ruin Damon's throwing arm? He didn't have one to start with! Damon is the only guy who could replace Bernie Williams and still represent a decrease in throwing stregth (I'm exaggerating, but not by much).

Sitting Johnny Damon is hardly "inexplicable".

Juan Padilla, Tommy John. Tommy John, Juan Padilla That's why you can never go into a season thinking you have enough relievers. Particularly ones who have all of a half-season or so of success under their belts. They just never seem to repeat for one reason or another.

Victor Martinez goes Grand Salami on PR's ass to make it 6-0 for Venezuela in the 8th. And steady Jorge Julio's in for Venz so this one's locked up. Looks like that bracket will be all 1-1 records after today so the winners of the 2 remaining games: PR v Cuba & Venz v DR will advance.

This is what, Cuba's 5th game of the tourney? ... and I'll bet their pitchers have plunked at least a dozen batters so far. I know they hit 5 or 6 in one game in the 1st round. I betting that it's not all due to a lack of control.

Willets Point wrote: Goal differential seems to work well in World Cup soccer, I don't see why run differential wouldn't work for the WBC. I suspect it's because differential can be affected by running up the score against weak teams. 'RA' isn't.

That 'going-to-your-mouth-while-on-the-mound' call doesn't require an appeal. It's virtually automatic and I've seen umps call that often (well, relatively speaking). Now maybe it's called differently in the far East hence the confusion but I don't know. I also don't think the brackets were as lopsided as what's being implied here. Partly things were done with a regional theme in mind: an Asian bracket, a N. Amer, plus two from the Carribean. But also the talent was spread out like a NCAA Hoops bracket where each "good" team coming in had at least one team capable of knocking them off in the 1st round plus a couple of patsies. Japan & Korea got to beat up on China & Taiwan; and the two "Latin" brackets had Italy, Austrailia, Netherlands, and Panama (not nearly as deep as the other Carib squads) to kick around. You could even argue that the U.S. round was the only one sure to have at least one decent team knocked out early (US, Mex, Can). Yeah, S-Africa was probably the worst of the whole bunch but they get plugged in to the tough slot for the same reason that Albany State is playing Conneticut later this week. Of the remaining teams are Korea and Mexico somewhat weaker than the anyone from the other side? ... yeah probably, but I doubt it's a huge chasm. And again, dividing things up along regional lines: Asians teams visiting the Pacific coast and all the Latin teams against each other in front of the fans in San Juan, makes too much sense from an interest/attendance standpoint to do it any other way IMO.