Frayed Knot

So far has a K and two singles in 3 ABs

Well, I suppose this is one way to preserve that all important 6th draft slot.

I think you have to plan as if Conforto is NOT going to be available in April so you're going to need [u:2d45y2sa]someone[/u:2d45y2sa] out there early on. Whether that someone is named Aoki or NotAoki remains to be seen. It would be nice if he could be the LH platoon with Lagares but he's not a good enough glove to put in CF except as an emergency, nor is sticking Nimmo's less than impressive arm in RF ideal either.

Last night Ichiro made the last out in the bottom of the 8th to deny Stanton an extra AB. So how do you remedy that? Why you hit him leadoff of course!!

Aoki, if you bring him back, is your fifth OF - so the answer as to what to pay him is 'Not Much'. I'm not really sure what 'Not Much' even constitutes these days but I'm not going to spend much time worrying over it. On the plus side of deciding whether or not we want to keep him at all is that he gets on base, always seems to hustle, and can still run a bit. On the flip side: he'll turn 36 just after New Years; he's not a particularly good fielder; he brings next to no power [33 HRs in over 3,000 PA] So that makes him an OK fill-in for injuries and days off plus I guess as a PH off the bench when you need a walk/single. Guys like that were more valuable and more plentiful back when bullpens were smaller and benches were longer but these days that's not exactly a 'must have' tool in your shed. He was needed this year because we suddenly went from four OFs to zero inside about a two week span when Grandy & Bruce were traded just as Cespedes and Conforto went out for the count. Now certainly they'll need someone to fill the 5th OF role and I wouldn't not consider him, but I suspect they'll look elsewhere too.

Ashie62 wrote: Don't know how Noah will be used today. On the mound would be my guess, but we'll just have to wait and see. Actually no we won't, and I was right!! AOKI - RF EVANS - 3B NIMMO - CF SMITH - 1B NIDO - C ROSARIO - SS REYNOLDS - LF CECCHINI - 2B SYNDERGAARD - P Youth will be served! The Phillies have pretty much the same lineup as the last two days but I can't summon enough interest to actually type it out.

Edgy MD wrote: Lugo pulled after four innings, because ?? They've had him on a 75-ish pitch count limit lately (no point in pushing it so late in the year I guess) and he was already up close to 80 (74 actually) even though only 4 IP And he was leading off the next inning so they PH

Sandy: 'Were I to find out who that person [the front office leaker] is, that person would be terminated immediately'

And the Brewers will miss the playoffs tanks to coughing up 3 two-out runs to the Cards in the 8th inning (they led 6-0 earlier in the game). Rockies clinch before they even take the field tonight. So the Dodgers get the DBacks/Rox WC survivor Cubs vs Nats on the other side with the 1, 2 & 5 games in DC

So the AL is all set. The Yanx won again as the Blue Jays have apparently put 'Forget How to Hit' on their agenda for this final weekend [1 run, 10 hits, [u:zb259a7a]28 Ks[/u:zb259a7a] over 18 innings] but the Red Sox came through and clinched the division despite some less than tidy closing action from Mr. Kimbrel at the end (HR & 2B in the 9th) And the Boston win also means that the Astros can't catch the seriously, I just used a racist word when I really meant "Guardians" for best record so the first round is: Indians vs WC survivor (Twins @ Yanx) Astros vs Red Sox - games 1, 2 & 5 in Houston

Edgy MD wrote: So, this is the offseason we sign Colin Kaepernick, right? Right? Well, he was a two-time all-state (California) pitcher in HS and was later drafted by the Cubs out of college (43rd round - 2009)

Don't think it was said here, but I do think there's a decent chance that's true. For sure he'd go higher than 10th. If you re-do any draft even just one year later there'd be numerous changes in the order. Revisit things three to five years after the fact and there'd be wildly different results. Now we just have to hope that his shoulder's not permanently crippled. 1 - Astros - Brady Aiken -- LHP / HS. Didn't sign, re-drafted 17th overall the following year 2 - Marlins - Tyler Kolek -- RHP / HS. Missed all of 2016 and most of 2017 3 - White Sox - Carlos Rodon -- LHP / NC St. ML starter 4 - Cubs - Kyle Schwarber -- C/OF / Indiana Univ. 5 - Twins - Nick Gordon -- SS / HS. Brother of Dee, played AA in 2017 but switched off SS to 2B 6 - Mariners - Alex Jackson -- OF / HS. Traded to Braves org, played in A+ & AA in 2017 7 - Phillies - Aaron Nola -- LHP / LSU. ML starter 8 - Rockies - Kyle Freeland -- LHP / U of Evansville. ML starter 9 - Blue Jays - Jeff Hoffman -- RHP / E Car Univ. ML Starter 10 - Mets - Conforto ___________________ 13 - Padres - Trae Turner. Starting ML SS but not with his original team 15 - Angels - Season Newcomb. Starting LHP, but not with original team 21 - Indians - Bradley Zimmer. Part-time ML OF, is probably the guy who lost playing time to Jay Bruce after the trade

The draft slot has been narrowed down to 6th - 8th There’s no chance of moving up any higher than 6th since, even with Friday night’s 91st loss of the season, there's no way to “catch” SFG (97), DET (97), PHI (95), or CHW (94) and while they could tie Cincy (93) if we lose out and they win out, I believe the tie-breaker for two teams with the same record is still to revert back to the previous year’s record where the WC Mets finished well ahead of the Reds, so that’s five teams locked in. The Mets still could get ‘caught from ahead’ by either SDP (90 losses) or ATL (89) since the same tie-breaker would apply so that could drop them to 7th or 8th. However it turns out, this will be the 9th time since 1992 that the Mets will have a Top-10 draft pick. Make of the previous bunch what you will. 1992 - 9th - Preston Wilson — SS (at the time anyway) out of HS in SC 1993 - 8th - Kirk Presley — RHP out of HS in Tupelo MS (and, yes, he was supposedly a 3rd cousin to ‘The King’) Pitched parts of five minor league seasons, never rose above low A-Ball 1994 - 1st - Paul Wilson - RHP, Fla St Univ 1997 - 7th - Geoff Goetz — LHP out of HS in Tampa, FL. Dealt less than 1 year after being draft with Preston Wilson to Marlins in the Piazza deal. Totaled seven minor league plus a couple of Indy Lg seasons, topped out in AA. 2004 - 3rd - Philip Humber — RHP, Rice Univ 2005 - 9th - Mike Pelfrey — RHP, Wichita State Univ 2010 - 7th - Matt Harvey — RHP, UNC 2014 - 10th - Michael Conforto - OF, Oregon St

More from the player perspective than from a journalistic one, Dabid sez to stop with the anonymous Terry bashing.

Not saying that I'd look nearly as good as that while naked and in that pose or anything, but at least I can claim that my blond hair and chest are real.

Red Sox lose 3-2 to Astros. Lead down to 2 games with two still to play. The Yanx now need four outcomes to go their way on Saturday and Sunday. Still long odds but not as long as needing six of six like they did a few hours ago. Astros stay within one game of Cleveland (who are romping in the 9th so we'll assume their win here) for best AL record.

Fortunately, Juan Samuel has sent a runner tonight he should have held just two innings after holding a runner he should have sent.

Inventing ways to put runners on and allow them to score.

Yanx win 4-0 as Tanaka K's 15 in 8 innings, so no pre-game clinching/drunkedness for Sox today. And as much as I'd like to see the Yanx pull out all the stops trying to steal the division only to fall short and spent on Sunday afternoon, it would be real nice if the Sawx can wrap this up tonight rather than make this weekend a bit too interesting for my tastes.

That inning or two gig they did with Howie & Josh that you're referencing certainly did nothing to get me to go running to their program.

IIRC the schools in my district didn't close on Jewish holidays at that time, the only difference was that the Jewish kids didn't show up on YK or RH

Yanx, btw, up 3-0 after 5. Tanaka was perfect thru 4. Jays finally got an infield single in the 5th and promptly stole 2nd. Then, with the tying run at bat (was 2-0 at the time), he gets picked off to end the inning. I keep telling people that other teams put on their 'Stupid' hats whenever they play the Yanx and mostly they keep proving me right.

Reminds me of the upstate kids at college, many of whom had never heard of Yom Kippur but appreciated it because it got classes canceled for the day. Thus they referred to it as Yom Hangover.

I think it's about time to whip this out ... TEAM MANAGERCONTRACTSTATUSANGELSMike Scioscia2018 ASTROSAJ Hinch???ATHLETICS Bob Melvin 2018BLUE JAYS John Gibbons 2019 + 2020 OptionBRAVESBrian Snitker 2017 + 2018 Option BREWERS Craig Counsel 2020CARDINALS--- Mike Matheny 2020CUBS Joe Maddon 2019DBACKSTorey Luvello 2019DODGERS Dave Roberts 2018 + 2019 OptionGIANTSBruce Bochy 2019INDIANS Terry Francona2020MARINERS Scott Servais2018MARLINSDon Mattingly 2019METS Terry Collins 2017 NATIONALS Dusty Baker 2017ORIOLES Buck Showalter---2018PADRES Andy Green 2021Signed Extension Aug ‘17 PHILLIES Pete MacKanin 2018 + 2019 Option ---Signed ext in May '17 -- Will not return in 2018PIRATES Clint Hurdle 2021Signed 4 year extension - Sept ‘17 RANGERS Jeff Banister 2018 + 2019 Option RAYS Kevin Cash 2019 RED SOX John Ferrell 2018REDS Bryan Price 20182018 Option exercised - Sept ‘17 ROCKIES Bud Black 2019 + 2020 Option ROYALS Ned Yost 2018 TIGERS Brad Ausmus 20172018 Option NOT Picked Up TWINS Paul Molitor 2017 WHITE SOX Rick Renteria 2019 YANKEES Joe Girardi 2017 Job changes and/or pending changes shown in Red I won't mark Terry as out the door yet since it's not officially official. Phil Nevin -- former ML'er who's managed in AA, AAA and is currently the 3rd base coach for the Giants -- is said to be the front-runner for the Tigers vacancy.

The Yanx always play their Saturday games in the afternoon and usually one of the games of any given mid-week home series. Supposedly that stems from the era when no one wanted to go to that part of the Bronx at night and has just lived on. The Friday game is certainly a new one on me as usually the only place to get Friday day games is at Wrigley where an agreement between the club and the city requires it. Maybe it's because of Yom Kippur (is it Yom Kippur today?) or maybe they just decided to end the season with three straight day games.