Clippings from around the blogosphere
by Phil Gurnee on Jan 11, 2010 10:10 AM PST
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VIN SCULLY IS MY HOMEBOY: Bye - Take the time to check this out and wish fellow Dodger blogger Roberto Baly good luck as he enters the hospital.
Dodgers of the Decade: General Manager " Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness - MSTI has been doing the Dodger of the Decade piece for a while now and we should have linked to it sooner. They are now doing the General Manager so he breaks them down. Great work on the whole series. They beat us to the punch on that one.
Cuban star Chapman joins Reds | MLB.com: News - big news as the middle market Reds take a big gamble on what may have been the best free agent available. I hope this works out for them and glad to see he's coming to the NL and not the Yankees.
Vlad and Road Splits | FanGraphs Baseball -
Fangraphs says not so fast when using Vlady's road splits as a reason for loving this deal.
Giants sign Aubrey Huff - McCovey Chronicles
Grant chimes in on the +/- of the Huff deal.
New defensive stats starting to catch on | MLB.com: News
Defensive stats are gaining traction every day with Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein, Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik and a growing number of executives. Good stuff here, I recommend a quick read.
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More Chapman stuff
From Mark Sheldon (Reds / MLB.com):
Oakland was the second place team in bid for Chapman. The third place team wasn’t revealed but agent said it was a sub. 500 club in 2009
Interesting
that the teams in on him would be considered small market from a payroll perspective. Why would the money players not be in on him?
Patience is for those who die waiting for something to happen
by Phil Gurnee on Jan 11, 2010 10:14 AM PST up reply actions
and the money is spread out over time. From C.Trent:
Chapman’s deal with the #Reds will be $30.25 mil guaranteed, spread over 10 years. Lots of incentives, could be worth much more
by Eric Stephen on Jan 11, 2010 10:15 AM PST up reply actions
Clippers getting noticed?
http://sports.espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/columns/story?id=4814649
Patience is for those who die waiting for something to happen
Look, I don't want to overstate the case here...
Huff is not a signing that has me shaking in my boots.
But: The Giants really needed a power bat. It isn’t my money, but if I were them, I would have overpaid for Holliday or Bay, the two best options on the market. The contracts Holliday and Bay got were, as reg pointed out on DT, too long, but those guys will help their teams for several years. Still, it’s not my money…
…so who should they have signed? Huff is coming off his career-worst year but in ‘08 he had an MVP-ish year (came in 16th in the voting, and don’t get me wrong, he shouldn’t have won, but that was a fine season with the bat).
The answer, I suppose, as MSTI points out, is Garko. But I don’t know… I think I’d rather take a risk that Huff can put up something like his 2008, and be wrong, than Garko puts up his career numbers — not even looking at how poorly Garko batted in SF.
So sure, Huff is a flawed player and probably doesn’t do the job that SF needs him to do. But I gotta think this makes them better, doesn’t it? Am I wrong?
The Ultimate Ned's Kind of Guy
2008 Huff is good for them, 2009 Huff is bad for them. We won’t know until Sept but the main point is that they have not done enough to catch up with us with the free agent additions. They would need huge breakthroughs from Posey and Bumgarner to bridge the gap. That just might happen so while they basically treaded water by adding Huff and DeRosa, the real key is that they have added the best catching prospect in baseball and one of the best pitching prospects in baseball. How they do is probably more important then how DeRosa or Huff do unless they both have seasons harkening back to 2008.
A pitching staff with Lincecum, Cain, Sanchez, Zito, and Bumgarner is damn good.
Patience is for those who die waiting for something to happen
by Phil Gurnee on Jan 11, 2010 10:29 AM PST up reply actions
Giants may have treaded water...
but the Dodgers have taken on some water and the gap between the two teams has narrowed with the amount dependent upon what the Dodgers do about their starting rotation between now and spring training.
vr, Xei
Well that is based on the assumption
that Scott Elbert can’t be Randy Wolf. Our 5th starters sucked in 2009 so that should not be a problem of matching that performance. As many have said, if Kuroda can stay 2008 healthy in combination with Elbert we might not see a drop off at all. Besides your boy Garland will probably make that a moot point.
Patience is for those who die waiting for something to happen
giants
actually overachieved last year. their historically bad offense may or may not be better and their pitching will be difficult to repeat.
some of their typical 30-something run o’ the mill guys will probably get hurt.
as a dodger fan I thank the great dodger in the sky for brian sabean. its not huff per se, but more like they sign 2-3 supposedly just above-average guys every year – always on the downside. (sanchez, derosa, uribe, huff)
I am much more worried about the rockies.
and I know its been done to death and he better never see the home clubhouse at the ravine, but russ fucking ortiz? what, are we trying to win a derek jeter lookalike contest here or what?
by lchristmas on Jan 11, 2010 11:30 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
Jon Heyman also reported the Giants have an offer out to Johnny Damon, although who knows with the Huff signing if that is still the case.
One thing seems clear — the 2010 Giants will be awful defensively (at least as currently constructed).
by Eric Stephen on Jan 11, 2010 10:55 AM PST up reply actions
EA Sports is coming out with a new NBA Jam video game
and you can currently vote on players you would like to see in the game.
Voting for the Clippers, among some others, runs through January 18.
I misread the voting rules, and only voted for two players on the Clippers, Griffin and Gordon (you can vote for 3)
by Eric Stephen on Jan 11, 2010 11:03 AM PST up reply actions
Double duty!
He threw two scoreless innings for the Sox last year :)
by Eric Stephen on Jan 11, 2010 11:38 AM PST up reply actions
Great news
as the Dodgers signing of a plethora of bad hitting shortstops knows no bounds.
Berroa or Green or Hu
Patience is for those who die waiting for something to happen
by Phil Gurnee on Jan 11, 2010 11:39 AM PST up reply actions
I rather have Green over Berroa.
Hu is probably going to get screwed over with another year at Triple-A
With all the love of defensive metrics these days you’d think Hu might have some value.
Patience is for those who die waiting for something to happen
by Phil Gurnee on Jan 11, 2010 11:49 AM PST up reply actions
Hu is in no man’s land. He plays for a manager who doesn’t care for him in Torre, but a front office that won’t trade him to let him play.
It is too bad really, because Hu is exactly what you want from a bench IF. Great glove but can probably hit a little more than most of the retreads like Berroa or Green.
The jury is still out on Hu’s bat, which has OPS’d .708 and .725 in ridiculously good hitting environments the last two years at AAA.
by Eric Stephen on Jan 11, 2010 11:56 AM PST up reply actions
In theory one would think that, or at least if Hu couldn’t produce a .660 OPS, he could make up for it with superior defense, but it’s understandable that the club would rather have a veteran off the bench, especially given Hu’s putrid bat the last two years.
In my mind, the Castro spot was destined for Berroa anyway, and I think Green is an improvement over that, so I’m not down on the signing :)
by Eric Stephen on Jan 11, 2010 12:05 PM PST up reply actions
Yeah, the other reserve IF spot probably is destined to go to either Berroa or Green. I just hope that they can move Hu to another team for something since I think he has a major league career ahead of him as a capable backup.
Hu will get his chance…he only has one option year left. No need to bend over backwards for him
by Eric Stephen on Jan 11, 2010 12:18 PM PST up reply actions
I'm going to assume
Nick Green has not been called Nick the Stick since his Little League Days.
Patience is for those who die waiting for something to happen
Repko’s contract has $125k in incentives but I haven’t seen the breakdown. He had $87,500 in incentives last year (that he didn’t come close to reaching).
Whoa
not the news itself, but that McGwire said anything:
Via Associated Press: Mark McGwire admits to doing steroids when he broke baseball’s home run record in 1998
He used steroids?
Goodness, I had no idea! For you see, I have been on Mars for the last decade, in a cave, with my eyes shut and my fingers in my ears.
I intend to live forever, or die trying.
by Mr. LA Sports Fan on Jan 11, 2010 12:20 PM PST up reply actions
You only knew of McGwire because one of his home runs hit you while you were on Mars! :)
by Eric Stephen on Jan 11, 2010 12:21 PM PST up reply actions
To be honest
I always thought that line from the Simpsons perfectly surmised the entire steroid issue.
Do you want to know the terrifying truth, or do you want to see me sock a few dingers?
I swear I looked up the wikipedia page for that episode earlier today.
I intend to live forever, or die trying.
by Mr. LA Sports Fan on Jan 11, 2010 12:24 PM PST up reply actions
I tweeted that line earlier. Classic :)
by Eric Stephen on Jan 11, 2010 12:25 PM PST up reply actions
The Pirates are going to sign Ryan Church. Who would have thought that the Pirates would win the Milledge-Church trade.
The Chicago Cubs signed future Hall of Famer Greg Maddux as the special assistant to general manager Jim Hendry, according to a source familiar with the signing.
The move will be announced Monday afternoon.
Maddux will help with instruction for major-leaguers and minor-leaguers during spring training, and he will scout throughout the season.
- ESPN Chicago
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