Jeter would probably retire before he went elsewhere.

Plus, the outcry in New York would be beyond unreal. It'd be Favre drama times a million.

Jeter will get another couple years at SS then move to DH to end his career.

The Indians have called a 1:30 PM press conference this afternoon and are expected to announce that Mark Shapiro is being promoted to Indians President and Chris Antonetti will take over as GM.

Antonetti has always been the GM-in-waiting but I wonder why they'd make this move now.

edit- Paul Hoynes speculates that Antonetti will become GM next season. The announcement will be similar to the one John Hart made when he appointed Shapiro as the next GM after the current season.

Headline says it all...

Pirates convinced they're on cusp of becoming an elite franchise | Penn State News | Sports - Centre Daily Times

His picture doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Elite franchise is a definite stretch but anybody that doesn't see that the Pirates are finally heading in the right direction isn't paying attention.

Kept moving my eyes to the right looking for "The Onion".

Chan Ho Park signs with the Yankees

I am hoping Strausburg starts in the minrs for Washington as that means I'll get to see a start or two by him as Syracuse is the Nationals AAA farm team.

We all know what Jayson Werth was up to this offseason....growing this kick ass beard!

I'm getting friggin' ready for baseball already. It will be my first year with the DirectTV baseball package. It could get ugly.

We've seen BP projections, here's win total over/unders from Bookmaker. I saw them posted on another board, checked the site and a few of them have already changed a game or half a game but I don't feel like correcting such small changes so:


Look at all of these average teams, there's too much parity imo, the salary cap and revenue sharing are killing baseball.

Braves to get a wild card spot by 3-4 games, I'll take that. But I don't think management did enough to improve the offense, the bullpen could still be suspect, and we practically gave away one of the NL's best starters. Maybe Heyward will be on the big league team early and hit like Roy Hobbs.

AL West, AL Central, and NL West all look interesting.

Quite frankly, making the game more interesting doesn't equal "killing baseball", but YMMV.

Oh c'mon it was a dig at the people who complain about too much parity in the NFL. There's no salary cap in baseball yet afaik.

I always look forward to baseball season during that post-NFL playoffs, pre-NBA playoffs lull (well, lull in US sports at least, thankfully European soccer is practically year round). At least this year there was the Winter Olympics to fill some of the void but that's almost over.

Twins over 82 is easy money.

Thats actually a bet that would scare the crap out of me. One injury to Mauer or Morneau and the under there would look pretty good.

Eh, you could say that about many of the teams I think. And this is the strongest Twins lineup in years, so while their impact is huge, it's not quite a huge as in previous years. Plus, the Twins have had to deal with injuries (plus slumps in Morneau's case) to both of them in previous seasons.

Well, preseason predictions almost always have tighter win distributions than the actual results - it comes from assuming that every team will have average luck in terms of injuries, players having peak years, and whatnot. The best team in the majors is usually a team which had a very good roster *and* good luck on those fronts, which is a standard that's pretty much impossible to meet when the season's being projected beforehand.

Must-See VIDEO: Tim Lincecum Snuggie Photo Shoot | 7th Inning Stache, an MLB blog

Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt!

Like I needed any more evidence that Tim Lincecum is awesome.

I am officially watching baseball! It may be a spring training game between the Yankees and Pirates, but it is guys who get paid to play baseball.

lol

The only problem is the Yankee announcers are broadcasting.

I love it when they make comments like " this infield has the potential to be the greatest in the history of baseball"

Really, can't imagine how spending 95 million on your infield could cause that to happen.

The Red Sox used a clubhouse attendant at DH after Ortiz left the game today. He went 0-2, and left 4 men on. The Sox are really going need more production from their administrative and operational staff if they're going to contend this year.

Gotta love spring training.

Anyone else miss the World Baseball Classic? It's more fun watching that than browsing box scores from Spring Training games imo. At the least I'd like it switched from every three years to every two. I doubt baseball makes it back into the Summer Olympics any time soon either since Bud Selig doesn't want MLB stars participating.

No

I miss what it could be, if baseball teams and especially American ballplayers took it more seriously. Even with that, though, I don't think it should be more than every four years. If you do it too often, it loses its meaning.

If they wanted to do it seriously you'd need to take a week off in mid-season, maybe replacing the ASG (or while still having a rump ASG). 2 groups of 5 round-robin, top 2 in each advance to a semi-final/final. 6 games in 7 days, and it's only what, 2 days longer than the current ASB?

I think a midseason AG would be best with respect to the wear and tear, since at the start of the season, players are trying to work their way into shape, and at the end of the season, well, it's the end of the season (and bad weather). But midseason is a hard sell on teams and players, because of the injury risk at a critical time (for teams) and because of all the games and time it adds to the season (for players).

But I suppose if hockey can do it, it's workable for baseball, too.

For position players it is no problem, but when you start factoring pitchers into the mix and someone outside the organization managing those pitchers considering the investment made it is to big a risk.

Yeah, it'll never happen, but if you're going to bother doing it having the pitchers pitch midseason is a much lower injury risk than jumping in at 100% before ST even starts. But maybe that's just a Boston perspective after we've lost Timlin and Matsuzaka in past years. You could even expand the pitching staffs and make a rule a starter can only go 1 time or use some Little League style pitch counts, which would obviously go against the spirit of baseball, but might be necessary if pitchers keep getting injured.Don't do preliminary rounds or do those in ST so you get down to 10 teams and I don't see why you can't bang it out in a week. It's an extra 3 days off from currently - that could easily be made up by starting a couple days earlier or (gasp) adding a couple scheduled day/night doubleheaders on weekends when the weather should be nice (summer in Bos etc, earlier in the spring in Texas etc). Heck, you could even do it in the current 5 if you went with 2 4-team groups and had no off days.

Maybe if we had a JIMGA of baseball attendance he could explain why they make more revenue doing it in March when it's essentially a sideshow/afterthought in the US, but I personally fail to see why it wouldn't generate more interest during the traditional ASB when there would be no competing shows and all sports media was focused on it. Plus US players would be in better game shape, and the US playing 4 times in 4 nights, with a good chance at 2 more in a 7-day period, would be the closest thing to appointment TV baseball can hope for.

Any kind of WBC a week long or shorter is really just an exhibition. That's too short a time considering the nature of baseball to be any kind of actual competition. The outcomes are completely random when you're talking that small an amount of games.

A month-long WBC would be quite awesome - but of course that will never happen.

Royals have their first game today. I think we actually have less power on this year's team than last year if that's possible. Hopefully that means less strikeouts.

Listened to an interview yesterday with Luke Hochevar. Guy asked him how he felt about his rough outing in the intersquad game the day before (gave up several runs). Luke went on to tell the guy that he was actually very happy with his outing and that he accomplished what he wanted to do. The coaching staff only allowed him to throw a fastball or a changeup the entire outing. The hitters figured it out and started sitting on pitches knowing that he wasn't going to throw a breaking ball.

As a fellow fan of a disappointing small-market team, I love the optimism.

Did you see Poz had his annual "Royals Will Win" column on his blog this year since he no longer writes for the Star:

Joe Posnanski » Blog Archive » Optimism From A Royals Season Ticket Holder

It's not quite as optimistic as in the past, tho (at least the part that speaks to the Royals). It seems a little more halfhearted, as a lot of his stuff on his blog is which is why I really miss his columns. :(

SI

I just saw his beard on the MLB Network. That is a fucking glorious beard.

Roy Halladay looking good in preseason

Ouch. Twins closer Joe Nathan needs Tommy John surgery..

wow, that sucks

I guess in the process of taking care of my new baby that I didn't know that he had moved on to Sports Illustrated. Sad to see him go. But I guess that's what happens when you're good at what you do.

Has anyone subscribed to the MLB package on the iPhone that allows you to watch games if you have MLB TV? Was thinking it would be nice to watch Royals games when I'm on the go. Looks like it would be $114 for MLB Premium plus the iPhone app.

I had both last year and yes, by the end of the year, you could watch all out of market games live right on your iPhone. It was as awesome as it sounds but yes, pretty expensive. IMHO MLB should give MLB.tv subscribers the MLB At Bat iPhone app for free as part of a bundle package.

I should clarify that the iPhone app allows all users to watch two randomly selected games per night (sometimes one but usually two) regardless of if you have a MLB.tv subscription or not. If you have MLB.tv you can watch all out of market games but you still get two games a night even if you don't have MLB.tv. The iPhone app also lets you listen to all games for free.

Was MLB At Bat around last year? Worth $14.99?

Yes, it debuted last year. It's a pretty good app but I'd wait til right before Opening Day to pick it up because it's still pretty buggy now from what I hear. It sold for $9.99 last year so the price increase is frustrating. They did add background streaming but I'm not sure that should cost an extra $5 since the NBA app had that from the beginning. If you like listening to games or watching one or two a night, on the go, it's a good deal.

It was $9.99 last year and I thought it was a steal. I bought this year's version as soon as it came out.

Just a couple of questions.....

1. So the iPhone app has streaming audio, but to get the video, you have to buy the MLB TV Premium, correct?

2. You mentioned only watching two out of market games. So that means that I'll get every Royals game available on the iPhone in addition to two other games, correct?

Usually, with the MLB packages (except MLB Audio), you can't see *any* in market games since they're subject to blackout. But someone familiar with this particular instance should speak up.

SI

1) No. You get video of up to 2 games per night with the iPhone app. An MLB.tv subscription enables access to all out-of-market games. Think of it as unlocking the other games.

2) If you live in Kansas City or the Royals are considered your home market you will only be able to watch Royals games on your iPhone or MLB.tv when you're traveling and out of your home area.

Ah, bummer. I just wanted the portability option. That's too bad that they still have the market blackouts on the MLB TV package. Perhaps I'll just try out the iPhone app then to see how I like it this season. Thanks very much for the information. Saved me some money.

Last night the Braves broadcast team spend quite a few minutes talking about the beard. Then right after it hit a home run.

I just got back yesterday from Cardinals 2010 Spring Training in Jupiter, Florida - I went with my brother and father and we had a GREAT time!

A few things:

The jerks - Pujols, Molina, Penny, Oquendo and Gibson to name a few

The most friendly - Brendan Ryan #1, then Carpenter, Wainwright, Rasmus, Schumaker and rookie pitcher Lance Lynn

Everyone there were really nice, of course most were from St. Louis. :)

A few pics!

Pujols was a jerk? Really?

zoinks

Roid rage.

Talk about some misdirected anger:

Torii Hunter says black Latino players are 'impostors' - ESPN Los Angeles


Really Torii? Some jackass out there thinks a guy named Guerrero is black. How the hell does that make Vlad an "imposter"?

Torii seems to be talking a little out of his ass here, but he's not without a point. There's a big difference between being "black" (American black) and black in general (but more specifically Latino). Just like actual Africans. Sure, they're black. But when you're talking about, for instance, the issue of African-Americans in baseball, you're not talking about Africans, even though they're black (BTW, probably there isn't a single African baseball player, but trying to use a non-Latino example that might spell it out more clearly).

I know Torii has been outspoken on the issue of the fall in African-American representation in baseball, and this probably comes from that, people thinking there might not be a problem because of all the "blacks" from Latino nations. He has been heavily involved in inner city academies and speaking out for more African-Americans in baseball.

I didn't think the term "black" was exclusive to African-Americans. There's people of African decent, with dark skin, all over the Caribbean (and everywhere else) Many of them are decendents of African slaves.

Not sure why it's so important for Hunter to claim "black" for the USA blacks, but I'm not in a place to understand.

BTW, Vlad and Torii are two of the more happy-go-lucky sorts of guys out there; this isn't Torii saying anything about Vlad specifically. They got along great here, by all reports. This is probably a situation where Torii coulda picked a better term or phrased it better.

I think he's being misunderstood. He's not saying those others aren't black-skinned. He's saying they're not black-- that there's a difference between the American black and blacks from other countries. And again, I think he's right. There's a specific cultural difference. I don't think he should necessarily be claiming "black" for African-Americans alone, but I think his intention is to note the cultural difference.

Sure, but there's also a difference between Latino Dominicans and Black Dominicans. And the terms "black" and "African-American" can't properly be used interchangeably.

I guess though, I can translate what he's saying and see the point. People would be surprised how few African-Americans there are in MLB today (especially pitchers). So they're kind of struggling for their identity. But the misuse of the terms just clouds things further.

Edit: "Black" is such a stupid term, at least the way its used today. I hope it goes away at some point in my lifetime. I think it will.

All that being said...how does anyone misinterpreting Guerrero's race make Guerrero himself an imposter? Is he walking around with an "I'm black" sign on his chest?

You have never heard Torii speak have you? It's obviously an off the cuff quote. He's just talking. I can see the grin on his face while he's saying it (in my mind), because that's the way he is. He picked a "funny" word, more or less, which pretty much fits his personality (i.e. it's the kind of thing he would say, it's why he is one of the more sought after interviews, he'll take a boring, everyday question and give back an interesting response).

He's not saying Vlad is really an impostor. He's saying, from the perspective of those presuming Vlad being black means there are no issues with blacks in baseball, that that misleading perspective puts Vlad in abit of an "impostor" light. He's not saying Vlad hismelf is trying to be an impostor, but that Vlad "looks" like an impostor.

That makes a lot more sense in my head than when you write it out. I hope the message I intended got across.

Not happy. I should be heading to my hotel in Tempe right now and getting ready to hit up a Brewer game tomorrow. Instead I'm sitting at home because mother nature is being a whore.

My wife got his autograph the first year he game up. :D

I know he's big time and all, but at least acknowledge the kids!!! :mad:

Just purchased my Twins tickets!

If Matt Stairs makes the Padres, he'll set an MLB positional player record for playing with his 12th team

Stairs is a swing away from record book - MLB - Yahoo! Sports

And speaking of tickets - I somehow got through the Red Sox ticket lottery and got tickets for Sox/Yanks in May. I'll just sell them though, because the money will be enough for tickets, airfare, and hotel to see three sox games over a weekend in some other city.

Nationals abruptly release Elijah Dukes

Outfielder Elijah Dukes abruptly released by Washington Nationals - ESPN

wow - that's pretty awesome!

how many tickets did you get? how much do you want to sell them for?

shoot me a PM...

Game On had 12 Sox-Yanks tickets up on the monster as the prize for 1st place in trivia last week.... we finished 3rd out of ~90 teams. And let's be honest... as awesome as those seats would be, I would definitely be selling them.

In terrible or fantastic news for the RS, top prospect Ryan Westmoreland underwent surgery to remove a cavernous malformation in his brain. Sounds they caught it early enough, the surgery was performed by the top surgeon in the world and now hopefully no infections set in. Alberto Contador had the same surgery 3 years before winning the Tour de France, and allegedly Flo-Jo died after a seizure in her sleep caused by one, so it sounds both necessary to do and possible to come back completely from if all goes well in the recovery. I know injuries are a part of the game, but I'd feel more comfortable if our players could tear a rotator cuff or an ACL once in a while instead of getting cancer, or brain tumors, or mono, or whatever Rocco Baldelli's deal was. ;)

Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington tested positive for cocaine during the '09 season.

Yeah, that is a strange story. Evidently he called the commissioner's office after the test, but before the results, to tell them he probably would fail the test.

They wouldn't even have to pay him in salary. I'm pretty sure the Phillies paid him in beer kegs towards the end.

I will miss Matt Stairs.

And while he promises to never ever ever do it again, groundskeepers will be stationed along the base paths guarding the white lines between innings just to be on the safe side.

Where do the Rangers play opening day? :cool:

Moonshot. I'm not sure if that home run ball has landed yet.

That sound you hear is Jonathan Broxton crying softly in the corner.

Twins sign Mauer to eight-year, $184 million deal
 

.

Wow. Nicely done, Twins

SI

Very happy for the MIN fans.

Mariners have decided they will stick with the experiment to switch Jose Lopez to 3B and Chone Figgins to 2B. The hope is that what they lose in defense at 3B they more than make up for at 2B.

I'll say this - after watching Beltre at 3B the last 5 years, it's going to be painful to see Lopez manning the hot corner...

Joe Nathan out for the season. ouch thats not a nice loss to a seemingly thin pen. Rauch might be closing, and being a White Sox fan I say bring him on!

Figgy should be good pretty much wherever you put him, so 2B will be fine. I would think a bad 3B would hurt more than a bad 2B, simply because a bad 3B leads to more doubles, seeing eye grounders into LF and the bad throws happen more often (putting men further along on the basepaths). Also you need quicker reactions at 3B.

At 2B, sure, you'll probably see more plays, but you won't give up doubles, hits to right don't hurt as bad as hits to left from what I have found and the distance to first is much shorter. The double play impact would be higher, of course, as would stolen bases, but those all involve other positions as well that would mitigate the harm.

I wonder what happened over the past 7 weeks in the Mauer negotiations. At the beginning of February, it was a ten year deal, total amount unknown. Still an 8 year deal is a long contract, and gives the Twins a solid base going to the new stadium.

It's an interesting move for sure. And in a lot of ways, it makes sense on paper - Lopez doesn't have the greatest range, but is reasonably sure-handed and has a relatively strong arm, while Figgins is known for his very good range, but not a particularly strong arm.

And given the M's emphasis on defense, I have to give them the benefit of the doubt that they think this will improve the overall defense of the team.

But yeah, I worry about taking known quantities and switching them up, and you're right that bad defense at 3B is potentially more costly in terms of extra bases. I haven't done enough poking around to see how many more chances a 2B typically gets vs. a 3B and whether that counters the extra base issue. My understanding is the current thinking on defensive spectrum gives about equal weight to 2B and 3B in terms of difficulty.

We'll see if the M's stick with it throughout the season, or whether Lopez bombs enough at 3B to start the season that they end up switching back. It's clear though that the M's don't have Lopez in their long-term 2B plans...

Does the Mauer deal make other smaller market owners/GMs nervous? I fully understand that not getting Mauer signed could potentially destroy the Minny fanbase, especially considering they just got public money for their new stadium. But it seems like it's going to be very hard for some other teams to make the claim they can't afford their homegrown stars anymore.

Well, I'm sure other small market teams can afford like one 20M guy... but what happens if Mauer gets horribly injured next year? They'll be so crippled financially, I took it as other small market teams can't take that risk?

Well, you also have to wonder, when the team steps up and makes that commitment, does the fanbase follow with their wallets and support the team?

It's always seemed to me to be a little bit chicken or the egg. Huizenga tore the Marlins apart immediately after their first championship, and the fanbase responded by not showing up.

If he had kept that team together, would they have shown up to support a championship team? We'll never know. And that impacts what happens after the second championship, too. Because how, as a fan, do you trust that won't happen again after it's happened once?

Beyond Mauer, the Twins payroll has shot up. I heard someone on ESPN say that they were approaching $100 million, not sure if that was this year or next.

He also described how the new stadium has transformed them from a small-market team to a mid-market team. And really, if you're going to tax people to build a stadium, you need to use some of the increased revenue for the product.

The Twins' payroll is approaching 100 million this season. Minus Mauer, the Twins will still be spending more than usual.

Mike Vic: Don't forget about insurance. Obviously it wouldn't cover the entire sum, but a career-ending injury wouldn't cost them everything.

The Brewers are coming into a similar situation with Prince Fielder with some key differences:

1) Prince is not a catcher
2) Prince does not have the body type that ages well
3) Prince is a Scott Boras client

I don't doubt the Brewers' sincerity in trying to work something out with Fielder. They offered CC Sabathia 20 million/year only to be outdone by the Yankees of course.

It's going to come down to what Prince is asking for. If he wants 7-8 years, the Brewers will probably have to say forget it. He could easily turn into Mo Vaughn very quickly. But I'd be willing to do 5-6 years at 20+ million for Prince, and I think they could do it too. Ryan Braun is signed to a very very team friendly contract through 2015 so it's not an either/or proposition.

I think teams are getting better at this sort of thing and I think the players have helped the process out too. I could be way off in terms of the general baseball population, but it seems like more of these young guys are willing to stay with their teams once their deals are up. Maybe it's due to teams taking care of them early on by giving them bigger money to avoid arbitration in exchange for a year or two of free agency. It helps build loyalty and causes players not to seek that biggest payday. Maybe revenue sharing is working well enough where teams can afford to make the commitment in the first place.

Hopefully, teams are also realizing that if you choose to let your franchise player walk instead of paying them $15MM, and you replace him with a retread for $5MM, and you destroy your fanbase in the process...you're not getting the same benefit to your bottom line that you expected.

I'd deal Fielder now - he's not worth a 5-6 year contract a $20M per; he's a 1B, and the gap between him and Matt Gamel is probably 2 wins, or ~!$8M of value; there is no way on earth I would give Fielder a 5 year, $100M deal, and I bet he wouldn't get it in free agency. Really, outside of Pujols, its very very hard to justify paying a 1B that big amount of dollars. One important lesson for small market teams is not to pay good players (but not superstars) at superstar-level composition; or what I call the Jason Kendall conundrum.

Prince is probably one of the few athletes that could say, with a straight face, that 20M/year is. OT enough to feed his family.

I can see what you are saying. But I also believe Gamel will be a bust. He's always getting hurt and the management absolutely hates his work ethic. I don't think his numbers would look all that impressive for a first baseman anyway.

But yeah, you could probably plug some other first baseman in there for a lot less money. But like I said, with Braun signed on the cheap I'd take my chances with getting Fielder signed. Prospects have become valued so much these days that I'm not sure fair value could be had for Prince.

Milton Bradley says he is MLB's version of Kanye West:

Mariners' Milton Bradley: I'm baseball's Kanye West - ESPN

So, I guess the questions to ask is, "Do you like fish sticks?"

I am fully convinced that there is something genuinely wrong with Milton Bradley.

He's lucky he now plays in the city that probably cares least about sports.

I'm FOFC's Milton Bradley.

Now now, you need to be here long enough to see a good team in these parts before you render that judgment...

A fan base shouldn't be judged by how they act when their team is good.

That may be, but I find it a little hard to believe that a city that has supported the M's as well as they have since the '95 run despite a lot of adversity in recent years, that has arguably the best home stadium advantage in the NFL with the Seahawks and the 12th man fans, and has spent over a billion dollars in the last decade building state of the art sports stadiums could really be judged to "care the least" about sports...

and lost a basketball team...(runs away and hides... :) )