Valadius

Do any of these pitching coaches have experience in getting repeatedly-injured players back to some semblance of respectability?

I still want Joe McEwing on this staff. Bring him on as bench coach. It's what he's doing for the White Sox now anyway.

Ok, so as I catch up on literally everything since October 10... I've been thinking about expansion/realignment for, I don't know, about 20 years. I used to write up proposed divisions in my notebooks in school when I was bored. Promotion/relegation wouldn't work in an established North American sport, for a variety of reasons: money, merchandising, broadcasting, but most importantly talent development. Aside from what goes on in places like the Dominican Republic, for the most part clubs are dependent on drafting players out of college or high school. In leagues that utilize promotion/relegation, player development is generally handled by the clubs themselves from a younger age, and clubs typically are able to develop their own local talent. Blowing up the current pipeline is something that is probably structurally impossible, and would undermine the great equalizer of sports - the draft. The Ringolsby proposal seems ridiculous to me in how callously it treats a very sacred aspect of baseball - tradition. More than any other North American sport, baseball treats its past with incredible reverence. Blowing up the leagues, or discarding many of baseball's greatest rivalries, doesn't seem likely. Now, as to expansion teams, I do believe that Portland will wind up with a team. My understanding is that there is about $150 million in public funds sitting there from when the Expos were on the move. Another western team is needed, geographically speaking, and the Mariners would finally get a natural rival. Oddly enough, only MLS currently has teams in both Portland and Seattle at the moment, and it's a huge rivalry. As to the second team, you've got a variety of cities to choose from. Among my favorite options are Austin, Sacramento (where I personally think the A's should move), Charlotte, Montreal, Vancouver, Orlando, San Antonio, Nashville, Las Vegas, and Indianapolis. So let's see how we can organize these teams into divisions. Given that I don't think that blowing up the leagues would be received well at all, let's start there. I've always thought that if you went to a 32-team league, four-team divisions would naturally follow. The following proposal attempts to take into account historical rivalries, geography, and the limitations of each league. NL East New York Philadelphia Pittsburgh Washington NL North Chicago Cincinnati Milwaukee St. Louis NL South Atlanta Austin/Charlotte/Nashville Houston Miami NL West Arizona Los Angeles San Diego San Francisco AL East Baltimore Boston New York Tampa Bay AL North Chicago Cleveland Detroit Toronto AL Central Colorado Kansas City Minnesota Texas AL West Los Angeles Oakland Portland Seattle The hardest part of this was figuring out what to do with Colorado, which was the odd man out of the NL West and is so geographically removed from basically everywhere else. Finally, I decided to abandon my preconception of having both leagues' divisions align with each other, moved Houston back to the NL where it belongs, and moved Colorado to the AL, where it would likely flourish with the DH. The AL West finally makes sense, and with the Royals and Rangers as division rivals, the Rockies have two of their three closest teams in their division. A word on the second expansion team: my strong preference is that Austin gets a team. Outside of the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area, which is really just suburban sprawl out of Los Angeles, Austin is the largest metropolitan area without a single franchise in any North American major league. It also is growing rapidly and has a very solid corporate base. I've been frankly astounded at how little noise there's been surrounding Austin as a possible location for an expansion team or relocated team in any of the major sports. The first league that shows up there will likely do very well.

I think I just may be able to let Beltran off the hook now. Seems pretty clear to me we were cursed that day.

I... don't know who this is. All I know is it's not Joe McEwing.

About damn time the AAA affiliate made any kind of sense again. I could go for either the Syracuse Sicilians or the Syracuse Spartans.

Rosario can't get here fast enough.

Wow. I had completely and totally forgotten about Brad Emaus.

David Schoenfield of ESPN.com takes a crack at predicting every induction class until 2045. He has Thor getting inducted in 2044.

Here are all of the Post's ballots. Larry Brooks (9): Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Tim Raines, Ivan Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Larry Walker Don Burke (8): Jeff Bagwell, Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Jeff Kent, Edgar Martinez, Tim Raines, Ivan Rodriguez, Billy Wagner Brian Costello (10): Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Manny Ramirez, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa Ken Davidoff (10): Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Tim Raines, Manny Ramirez, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, Larry Walker Mark Hale (10): Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Vladimir Guerrero, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Manny Ramirez, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, Larry Walker Kevin Kernan (10): Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Trevor Hoffman, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Tim Raines, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, Gary Sheffield George A. King III (9): Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Vladimir Guerrero, Trevor Hoffman, Mike Mussina, Manny Ramirez, Ivan Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield, Sammy Sosa Mike Puma (10): Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Vladimir Guerrero, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Tim Raines, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling, Billy Wagner Joel Sherman (9): Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Vladimir Guerrero, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Tim Raines, Ivan Rodriguez, Curt Schilling Mike Vaccaro (10): Jeff Bagwell, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Vladimir Guerrero, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Tim Raines, Manny Ramirez, Ivan Rodriguez, Billy Wagner George Willis (10): Jeff Bagwell, Vladimir Guerrero, Jeff Kent, Edgar Martinez, Fred McGriff, Mike Mussina, Jorge Posada, Tim Raines, Gary Sheffield, Lee Smith Totals (out of 11): Jeff Bagwell — 10; Ivan Rodriguez — 10; Barry Bonds — 9; Roger Clemens — 9; Edgar Martinez — 9; Vladimir Guerrero — 8; Mike Mussina — 8; Tim Raines — 8; Curt Schilling — 6; Manny Ramirez — 5; Gary Sheffield — 5; Trevor Hoffman — 4; Billy Wagner — 3; Larry Walker — 3; Jeff Kent — 2; Fred McGriff — 2; Sammy Sosa — 2; Jorge Posada — 1; Lee Smith — 1

Mets Guy in Michigan wrote: Wouldn't want Murray Chass to have to sit through too many induction speeches. (And yes, that was one of his reasons for not voting for too many players.) To be clear, he submitted a blank ballot with the full intention and knowledge that it counted.

The announcement is at 6 PM tomorrow. Over half of the ballots have been made public. Many of the ballots released in the past few days have been inexplicable, including one from AP's Canadian Bureau chief Rob Gillies that only contains Guerrero and Walker, and one from ESPN's Pedro Gomez, which consists of Hoffman, McGriff, Mussina, and Smith. The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Bill Livingston signed and sent back a blank ballot, but now says he thought that was how you abstain from voting. (It isn't.) It does appear that many of the "first-ballot" purist votes have been revealed in the past couple of days, as Pudge and Vlad's chances have been trending down. Raines - 89.8% Bagwell - 88.4% Pudge - 78.2% Hoffman - 72.4% Vlad - 72.0% Edgar - 66.2% Bonds - 62.7% Clemens - 61.8% Mussina - 59.1% Schilling - 51.1% Smith - 30.2% Manny - 23.6% Walker - 23.1% McGriff - 17.3% Kent - 15.6% Wagner - 11.6% Sheffield - 11.1% Sosa - 9.3% Posada - 4.4%

We're up to 191 ballots, or about 44% of the expected vote. Raines and Bagwell seem to have cleared the threshold for induction. Raines needed 20 new votes and has picked up 25, while Bagwell needed 12 and has picked up 16. It's going to be very close for Pudge, Vlad, and Hoffman. Closers, for whatever reason, seem to do better on non-public votes, while Pudge and Vlad are facing the (frankly, idiotic) "first-ballot" question. Pudge, of course, also has Jose Canseco's book to deal with. Raines - 91.6% Bagwell - 91.1% Pudge - 80.1% Vlad - 74.3% Hoffman - 73.3% Edgar - 67.5% Bonds - 64.4% Clemens - 63.9% Mussina - 61.3% Schilling - 52.4% Smith - 29.3% Manny - 25.1% Walker - 23.6% McGriff - 16.2% Kent - 13.1% Sheffield - 12.6% Wagner - 11.5% Sosa - 9.9% Posada - 4.2%

Murray Chass submitted a blank ballot, because he's a gigantic douche.

Mike Puma released his ballot this morning. Bagwell Bonds Clemens Guerrero Martinez Mussina Raines Rodriguez Schilling Wagner Those are new votes for Bagwell, Martinez, Mussina, Raines, Schilling, and Wagner from last year. Guerrero and Rodriguez are newcomers to the ballot, of course, which puts Puma in the strange position of having Bonds and Clemens be his only holdovers from last year's ballot.

Matt den Dekker.

Tyler Clippard.

Over a quarter of the vote is in. Bagwell - 93.0% Raines - 91.2% Pudge - 83.3% Vlad - 76.3% Hoffman - 74.6% Bonds - 70.2% Clemens - 70.2% Edgar - 66.7% Mussina - 60.5% Schilling - 50.9% Manny - 32.5% Smith - 30.7% Walker - 23.7% McGriff - 13.2% Sosa - 12.3% Kent - 11.4% Sheffield - 11.4% Wagner - 11.4% Posada - 5.3%

Kenny Lofton may be the poster child for how ridiculous the 10-man limit is. There have been over 10 people that I would consider to be Hall of Famers on the ballot going back half a decade, largely because of the steroid-era glut. You shouldn't be forced to pick only 10. If you believe that they belong, you should be able to vote for them. That a player of his caliber only got one year of consideration is almost criminal.

For those who haven't been following this, Ryan Thibodaux's annual ballot tracker is here: http://bit.ly/bbhof2017 Big storylines this year: -Bagwell and Raines appear set for induction -Pudge has a decent shot at first-ballot induction -Vlad and Hoffman are on the bubble -Bonds and Clemens picking up significant support in light of Bud Selig's induction; seems only a matter of time before they get in -Edgar Martinez making a big move, possibly as voters assess his candidacy vs. David Ortiz -Mussina and Larry Walker are picking up votes -Manny will debut far short of induction; Posada may not survive the first ballot -Time has run out on Lee Smith -Schilling is hemorrhaging support

Should this come to pass, he would have to be confirmed by the Senate. There would be a hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I'm wondering how he's going to be able to answer complex foreign policy questions about things like the South China Sea and the threat of North Korea. He'd also likely come to my office to meet with my boss at some point.

Reports indicate that Bobby Valentine is on the short list to be named United States Ambassador to Japan.

Dan Warthen is a possibility if he sticks around a bit longer. Coming up on year 10 for him.

Jose Reyes, SS, 2006.

Edgardo Alfonzo, 2B, 1999.