Frayed Knot

[fimg=500:1ealrwxy]http://mlb.mlb.com/assets/images/4/5/2/165209452/cuts/yoeniscar1_yan67pcs_mmgxlotx.jpg[/fimg:1ealrwxy] It's actually a three-wheel dealio.

Jimmy Rollins, 37, signs a minor league deal with the ChiSox. Reportedly he rejected two other offers which came with a roster spot guaranteed but this one apparently nets him more money if he makes the roster. In the old days players in his situation would often retire. It would give them the chance to use connections to get a good 'regular' job before their name faded from people's memories which was better than toiling on the bench at minimum wage levels. But now, not only don't ballplayers with a lengthy resume need a post-career job but, even if they wanted to work elsewhere, what else is going to net them a million-plus per?

He looks like someone put a uniform on a coke machine - or so says "a team official" about hard-throwing, muscular LH relief option Josh Smoker Former 1st round craft pick (#31 overall by Washington in 2007) out of a Georgia High School. Shoulder injuries derailed his progress; has just turned 27 and only in 2015 did he get as high as AA. But he did well while there: 6.9 H/9, 11/1 K/9 even while walking too many (welcome to hard-throwing lefties).

d'Kong76 wrote: Yankee caps are available in every color of the rainbow. The [crossout]tourists[/crossout] perp-walkers love 'em!!

So where does this year's results place the 2015 Mets? WRIGHT — Still hanging out in 2nd place overall; inching ever closer to Seaver but probably still needs two decent-to-good seasons in order to catch/pass him. MURPHY Up seven slots — jumping Orosco, Harrelson, McReynolds, Cone, Staub, Matlack, and Darling — to (presumably) finish his NYM career at #20 NIESE Jumps up 14 slots to #30, just ahead of John Milner and behind Lee Mazzilli Turns out that there’s a real log-jam right around that part of our list to the point where one fewer point for Niese this past year would have resulted in him winding up in 35th place instead. But the extra points earned by that one higher slot leaped him ahead of Hundley, Agee, Glavine, and Milner. Every vote counts!! DUDA Up 24 slots to 39th overall where he sits between a couple of catchers, just ahead of Carter and in back of Stearns HARVEY Cracks the Top-100 by jumping up 57 slots to #64 overall deGROM Jumps 152 slots to #69 and becomes the best 2-year Met ever!!, displacing longtime 2-year champ Eddie Murray (of course he’ll no longer be eligible for that title after 2016). Not bad for maybe the most UN-heralded prospect brought up in recent years. GEE - No points for this season means he slides backwards two spots to (presumably) end his NYM career in 78th place GRANDERSON Hits the Top-100 by climbing 120 slots to 88th TEJADA Another newcomer to the Top-100, up 30 places to 90th overall LAGARES Sneaks into the Top-100 by moving up 19 spots to 98th place FAMILIA Rose 144 slots to 113th place PARNELL Nothing for Bobby P. this year, slips 5 spots to 123rd COLON Up 108 places to 133rd d’ARNAUD Up 92 to 138th place FLORES Up 189 slots to 160th SYNDERGAARD Best newcomer of 2015, debuts in 169th place CESPEDES 2nd best newbie clocks in at #189 C. TORRES Bottom of the list points means you lose more ground than you gain; 253rd to 254th NIEUWENHUIS Ditto: 258 > 260th CONFORTO Debut at 262 MEJIA Slides backwards 4 slots to 273rd MATZ Debuts at #336 CUDDYER - 351st ROBLES - 374th GILMARTIN - 397th RECKER - Slides 7 slots to 404th URIBE - 418th PLAWECKI - 449th CAMPBELL - Just makes this year’s list but loses 6 slots to 454th CLIPPARD - 475th JOHNSON - 493rd CARLYLE - Loses 11 slots but is just hanging onto the Top-500 (496) VERRETT - 521st (and thus doesn’t make the Top-500 cutoff) GOEDDEL - 549th REED - 583rd Out of the Top-500 Gil Hodges Mike Bascik Leo Foster Ramon Ramirez Scott Atchison Lee Guetterman Benny Ayala Paul Wilson Randy Niemann Sammy Taylor Hawk Taylor Dropped out of the Top-100 (as deGrom, Harvey, Granderson, Tejada, and Lagares move in) Oliver Perez Danny Frisella Eddie Murray Pete Falcone Bob Apodaca #100 - Aaron Heilman #200 - Brian Bohanan #300 - Brian Stokes #400 - Darrell Sutherland #500 - Willie Harris Total List = 674

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: G-Fafif wrote: His last Met AB produced a key PH in the only Met World Series win. Nice way to go out. Yup. Also had the game-winning 'walk-off' hit in just his 2nd NYM game (4th AB) - so he both came in and left on high notes.

RANK PLAYER30JACOB deGROM29CURTIS GRANDERSON28MATT HARVEY27DANIEL MURPHY26JEURYS FAMILIA25LUCAS DUDA24NOAH SYNDERGAARD23YOENIS CESPEDES22BARTOLO COLON21WILMER FLORES20TRAVIS d'ARNAUD19JONATHON NIESE18MICHAEL CONFORTO17RUBEN TEJADA16DAVID WRIGHT15JUAN LAGARES14STEVEN MATZ13MICHAEL CUDDYER12HANSEL ROBLES11SEAN GILMARTIN10JUAN URIBE9KEVIN PLAWECKI8TYLER CLIPPARD7KELLY JOHNSON6LOGAN VERRETT5ERIC GOEDDEL4ADDISON REED3CARLOS TORRES2KIRK NIEUWENHUIS1ERIC CAMPBELL

Yovani Gallardo to the Orioles for 3 years. Certainly a good pitcher, but hasn't looked like the stud he was a couple of years ago, plus was one of the guys with the 'Qualifying Offer' tag on him which means this will cost the O's the 14th overall pick in June. Is Ian Desmond the last of the 'QO' guys [u:3cnwqo3m]STILL[/u:3cnwqo3m] unsigned?

G-Fafif wrote: Brandon's out of the boot ... Good thing we're not in England otherwise this would sound like he's just been released after spending most of the winter locked in someone's car trunk.

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: That's such an incredible story I can barely believe it. Me too. They're asking us to believe there was a time when ballplayers actually drove Camaros or rode Schwinns. Funny too that the writer makes Bones the villain. He also misspells Camaro [Camarro] and calls Bones an "affluent Spanish speaker". I mean it's nice that he's rich and all but we're left to wonder if he's also a fluent affluent Spanish speaker.

You make those decisions as they come up absent of any specific pre-set rules or guidelines. No one, not even Dabid himself, knows in advance how he'll hold up to the rigors of a full(-ish) season - something he hasn't had since 2012 at this point.

MLB.com: Even after his career in the Majors ended [w/Oakland in 1999], Phillips continued to play on multiple occasions. He suited up in the Mexican League in 2002, in the independent North American League in '11 and '12, and even in the independent Pacific Association last year. At age 56, Phillips spent eight games with the Pittsburg (Calif.) Mettle, picking up three hits in 23 at-bats. He showed he still had his sharp batting eye, drawing 10 walks.

Memories? Essentially nothing.

His overall numbers -- .213 BA, .301 OBA -- don't look like much in retrospect, but the quality of those hits (15 of 28 went for XBs) and seemingly the timing of them (tough to prove but reasonable in small samples) made him a rather valuable addition for a team fighting to break a losing season streak. He wound up starting 28 games and getting nearly 150 PA over those final two months; a decent amount for a guy on his 3rd team of the season, who didn't arrive until the end of July, and was essentially without a position. And that's even before you add the oft-reported clubhouse quotient into the mix. All that said, the same things that made him useful in the short run either are unlikely to repeat or work against him when planning a team for the entire season so it's not a bit surprising that they didn't pursue him for a full term.

Mets – Willets Point wrote: Ah, the Pride of William & Mary. And more recently as the baseball coach at, not surprisingly, Gallaudet U.

Guys younger than me shouldn't be dropping dead of heart attacks. At least when it was James Gandolfini I could explain it away by his size. But that gets tougher when it happens to a professional athlete.

[fimg=300:312k3y5a]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6EVNKGdrBsQ/Vo7_qOCV2pI/AAAAAAAACow/GQbGi3ZQ80U/s1600/pride.tiff[/fimg:312k3y5a] Wow, I know the Mets were the team that drafted me, but considering that I never even reached the big leagues with them it's surprising that they're holding a whole day for me!

[fimg=400:ouf3ba63]http://bullseye-prod.aggrego.org//wp-ag/wp-content/uploads/sites/86/2016/02/tmpNwYsec.jpg?o=eyJ3aWR0aCI6NjM1LCJoZWlnaHQiOjQ3NiwieCI6MC41LCJ5IjowLjV9&s=5oELjHDqKhuBsz7UGS24I0k5HI4%3D[/fimg:ouf3ba63] Apparently this sign, which greets MFY players this year at the spring training complex, applies only to players and not to management.

batmagadanleadoff wrote: This is mainly about getting rid of competitors so that the team can sell their available stock at a higher price, right? Sure. Nothing pisses off a sports team more than jacked-up prices on the secondary market ... that they don't get a piece of!!

bmfc1 wrote: Why doesn't he ask Trump to build a wall around the high priced seats to keep the rest of us out? Take a look next time you see a game there (on TV of course) there's already a virtual moat at YSIII (minus only the water and alligators) which serves as a separation between the super-expensive sections from the rest of the unwashed masses, so they don't even need Trump or his Mexican-built wall.

That actually sounds like something the NFL would do. Coaches in football are forever ranting about wanting to rid their camps of "distractions", distractions in their minds being roughly defined as anything that prevents the players from playing football, practicing football, or working out and studying in preparation for practicing and playing football 24/7. And since each individual game is so much more critical to the season, the least the players can do is either not get their wives (or baby mommas) pregnant during a time that might cause an in-season birth or agree in advance in writing to have labor induced on a non-Sunday so as to not mess with the game schedule.

I just don't understand why they don't prohibit players from having sex in the off-season so as to keep from producing babies during the season. Is there no discipline anymore? Workers' rights have gone too far!

So with another baby due around opening day we can look forward to another round of discussion about whether or not it's disloyal for the player to leave the team for the birth.

d'Kong76 wrote: Jan 4 -- I worked on my sheet over the holidays, will post it the next day or so. Jan 27 -- I did mine, then realized I excluded post-season. Will re-visit. Feb 9 -- I'll post mine sometime tomorrow, I keep putting finishing off... Feb 11 -- Don't let me hold up production, I don't have anything controversial on my list, but haven't finished my sheet. [fimg=450]http://kizaz.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Czervik2.0.jpg[/fimg]

From the linked piece, quoting Ken Rosenthal: "The Mets could eventually try to trade outfielder Alejandro de Aza, whom they signed in the offseason, but want to wait until they are certain their current set of outfielders is healthy heading into the regular season ..." Some of this is obviously stems from the idea that De Aza may not have been signed at all if the Mets had any idea that they'd be able to find common ground with Cespedes - but you could take that opening statement and tweak it to say: 'the Mets could eventually try to trade [every single role playing part-timer on the team] depending on the status of other players around them' ... and the statement would remain essentially accurate.