And Julio Franco is still 49

SI

KC media reporting that Luke Hochaver (the 2006 #1 draft pick out of Tennessee) will probably start on Sunday, taking over the rotation spot from the injured John Bale. Hochaver was 1-1 with a 2.60 ERA in his three starts in AAA Omaha.

I bet he'll reveal that he was really 50 years old last year.

Maybe that means Otis Nixon was 55 when he last played?

Sigh. Long, long season.

Did anyone see the E60 interview that prompted Tejada to come forward? This crap about "I had a heavy weight on my shoulders" was just that, crap. The interview is airing in the next week, so he took the air out of the balloon by coming forward now. But the interview is the classic setup - I'm not sure what it was specifically for (I can't believe he'd get too much into the steroids/Congressional investigation thing), but the dude asks him his age, what year he was born, and then pulls out a copy of his birth certificate and starts in on him. Tejada practically starts undressing to find the mic so he can get the hell out of there.

I don't know... in the context of litigation, when crap like that happens, it's pretty interesting (assuming there's some relation to the issue at hand). When a reporter does it under the guise of discussing something else, it comes across as pretty crappy. But that's probably because of my perspective. :)

As a Dodger fan, I hope he busts

Tampa Bay gives Longoria a 6 year deal that could stretch to a 9 year deal. Interesting. So much for that whole "keeping him in the minors for 13 days to buy the extra year of service time."

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3353025

Santana is dialed in

He's a lot of fun to watch. Somehow he's pulling me away from Rangers/Devils.

Shit I'm turning it off...he just gave up a solo bomb to Utley. I'm bad luck.

Chipper Jones is happy to see that Chan Ho Park is working out of the Dodger bullpen.

And my goodness what a rocket he just hit.

I haven't been all that impressed by him, personally. And he's not all that young at 24. Zack's in his wacky 5th season and he's younger than Hochevar. I do half hope he fails, but, of course, I would like him to do well for the good of the team.

I would say it's a mistake to bring him up and start his arby clock. But, oops, too late- as part of our deal with the pointy horned Boras, Hochevar got a major league deal when signing so his clock started a long time ago while he was mediocre'ing his was through the minors.

SI

That's a really interesting deal. Hell, if I were a team, I'd sign any of my "can't miss" prospects to that deal because you're only out $19M and if they do pan out, you buy out 3 years of free agency for 11, 11.5, and 14.

For the Royals, take, for instance, David DeJesus. He was a "can't miss" guy and he's settled into dependable. $19M for his arby years is a bargain and maybe in another couple of years, $11M won't seem so bad for a dependable but not spectacular CF. But if not, you're not on the hook for it as those are all team options.

Even with Angel Berroa, who we are on the hook for, it's not that much of a money sink. Not that much more than he's already being paid. Royals thought they were smart, locking him up after he got ROY. Didn't pan out and he's getting like $4M per year to sit in Omaha this year.

But, then what about, say, Carlos Beltran a few years ago. It would have been an absolute steal to have him under that contract.

You wouldn't do this with every prospect that comes along but with the guys who are the "upper tier" guys. For instance, in the past 2 years with the Royals it would have been Gordon and Butler.

SI

I actually didn't realize that DeJesus got that deal...good for him. I've known him for awhile, from Manalapan, NJ to Rutgers. We have the same barber who he still goes to when he's home...I wonder if his tipping has gone up.

No, he didn't get that deal. That was a hypothetical. That said, he's locked up for another couple of years:

06:$0.5M, 07:$2M, 08:$2.5M, 09:$3.6M, 10:$4.7M, 11:$6M club option ($0.5M buyout)

The club option in 2011 is to buy out his first year of free agency (exact stats from this nice little blog I ran across: Cot's Baseball Contracts: Kansas City Royals )

SI

No, I believe Tampa Bay got the extra year of service time, at least according to what I read earlier on ESPN.

One more year, and that's all I have to deal with. One more year until Franky "Cardiac-Rod" Rodriguez gets some $15M from some other stupid team, and I don't have to live through seven non-1-2-3 9th innings in eight save opps.

The memories have been great. 2002 was great. But I have never been more ready for a "beloved" player to hit the road. I hope the Yanks give him $20M. Or pay so much that there is no way we bring him back.

Just sick of it the tension. Yeah, he finishes the job, I admit that, more often than not. But there's got to be a better way (and for much cheaper than he is looking for).

But he got the save!

Went to the Cardinals - Giants game last night. Wow, Pujols hit one just over our heads where we were sitting (in Big Mac land), what a bomb that was!

Free Big Mac's today!!!!!

He's off to a slow start, but you wouldn't be able to replace him with anything CLOSE to as good. There aren't any closers out there that get 1-2-3 every time.

As a fan of the DBacks (live in PHX) and Cardinals (orig from St. Louis), I'm pretty much giddy at the start of the baseball season. I don't know how long it will continue for, but it's a fun ride right now.

IMO, closers are a pretty terrible investment. With the exception of a few (Hoffy, Rivera, maybe Nathan), closers don't give you consistent performance over a 3-4 year period. So, paying one $8-15 million seems like a waste. The best bet is to groom some young guys and let the best one be the closer. Then, when he gets to his arbitration years, trade him for a steady reliever and a prospect. They're almost like running backs in the NFL.

Arlie, I'd almost go so far as to say that relievers in general are a pretty iffy lot. It seems that there are very few guys who are consistently great in relief. Maybe it's just because of the relatively small sample size that relief pitchers get, or the fact that I've been a Giants fan all my life...but I have a very jaded view of relievers.

A team would do very well to ignore the entire "closer" role and just have try to put together a well-balanced bullpen of "middle relievers". Put the one that's pitching the best at the time in the most important situations. (and leading by 2-3 runs in the 9th is NOT the most important situation).

Designate one as an "Ace" if you want, but don't restrict him to pitching when you have the lead, that's a total waste. Bring him in tie games in the 8th, or when you're down a run late and have big bats coming up in the next inning.

I've been glad to see Terry Francona move Papelbon somewhat away from the lame old closer's role.

So, let's turn this around into the question of the day? What would you do for your bullpen? You can't just neglect it when building a team. I know we've all see where teams go into awful funks in all facets of the game due to a porous bullpen. All of a sudden hitters stop hitting and starting pitchers pitch much worse almost as if there's a collective "Oh f@#$ it. No matter how good we do, the pen's going to blow it".

But being the Yankees and paying Steve Karsay $5M and $6M a year to be a 7th inning guy didn't exactly work wonders. And it's not as if every team has 4 or 5 fireballing prospect starting pitchers every year they can stick back there then move them to the rotation the next season and start the cycle over again (ala Santana and Liriano with the Twins).

Hell, the Royals cobbled together a great bullpen for about 2 months last year (between when Dotel was hurt for the first 2 months and traded at the deadline). Their bullpen ERA was in the 2's for that stretch of time and the club was over .500 and it was widely accepted as the key to their success. Here was the layout:
mediocre, cheap closer for 9th (Dotel $5M)
rule V draft pick soon to be closer for 8th or 9th (Soria)
"proven" setup guy for 7th or 8th (Riske $2M)
uber-prospect, minus some shine, bridge guy anywhere from 5th thru 9th (Greinke)
failed starter prospect turned LOOGY (Gobble)
rubber armed long reliever (Peralta)

Now you just can't do that. Soria doesn't come along every day and you can't rely on Greinke going crazy (hopefully) so he has to go back to the pen. And even odder is that the bullpen was pretty darn bad for the first month when it looked like this:

Riske- closer
Soria- setup
Peralta- secondary setup
Gobble- LOOGY
Duckworth, others schlubs- middle relief

It's not all that different. Greinke was a big factor. But so was Dotel bumping everyone else back. Which is really odd since he was just merely mediocre (3.91 ERA with the Royals). I can't explain it- but it's an odd case study.

Hell, this year the Royals bullpen have been lights out, save for some middle relief work, mostly chalked up by Hideo Nomo to the tune of an 18.69 ERA. I hate to say it- I really wanted to see him succeed but I think he's done.

This year, the successful part of their bullpen looks like this. If I don't put an ERA, it's 0 and there are 4 of them (Soria, Gobble, Nunez, Ramirez):

closer: Soria, 7IP, 2H, 10K- lights out, has put down something like 17 straight hitters
setup: Ron Mahay (2.00 ERA, 9 IP, 11K)- signed as a replacement for Riske at $2M when Riske bolted for big money
2nd setup: Ramon Ramirez (4IP, 6K)- young fireballer acquired for a PTBNL (rumored to be Jorge De La Rosa) in spring training, coming off of an injury last year
LOOGY: Gobble (he'll leave eventually)
Miscellaneous Guy: Nunez (6IP, 7K)- Not sure his role, looked like the only guy besides Soria that Hillman trusted in the Detroit series with 3 IP in that series but has been used less since

I don't know if this can keep up. Obviously the 0 ERAs will fall by the wayside but how many of those can stay on the sunny side of 3.50? If the majority can, then it will likely be a good bullpen season. Hochevar may start, may go to the pen, and that's becoming one of those questions that's more of a "when" not an "if" because he has to do something this year.

SI

That's probably due to Bill James' influence. People get on him for his "non-closer theory" a few years back, but, that wasn't exactly the theory, and they didn't have a relief ace at that time. They do now.

Speaking of closers, it is funny and perplexing to see the Pads weakness so far has been the bullpen, an area of strength over the past few seasons. They have Cla, Bell and an inconsistent Hoffy but between them, they should should be much better. Yeah I know their offense stinks but they have counted on superb pitching (starters and bullpen) to win.

Ya, I don't know if the Boston media ever figured out that Bill James wasn't advocating "closer by committee". They just didn't get it.

Damn MLB blackout restrictions! I can't watch the Indians or Zack Greinke's start for KC because they must be on Fox Saturday somewhere...so instead I get the damn Mets game, who I can watch any time on SNY. Ridiculous.

Royals game isn't on here so I can't watch Wacky Zacky- I was just checking that myself. I think someone at Fox made a clerical error because we are getting a divisional game with the Twins/Indians rather than some east coast matchup I could care less about.

SI

FOX has exclusive rights for the entire Saturday afternoon block so no afternoon games will be on Extra Innings even if they are not part of the FOX package.

Slow start my ass. You're talking to a guy who has watched probably 80% of K-Rod's career saves. Trust me, this guy is a constant heart attack in the ninth inning and has been since around 2004, when hitters figured out they could usually let the sliders go by and sit on his fastball.

This isn't a slow start. This is a career trend that has been going on for a while now.

And while I agree we wouldn't necessarily be able to replace him with someone as good, we also wouldn't have to spend at least $13 M per year on that someone, and could spend it elsewhere (contrary to popular belief, the Angels are much closer to their salary breaking point than uber-teams like the Red Sox and Yankees).

Heck, we already have that someone on staff. His name is Scott Shields and he is signed for the next three years after this, and regularly gets 1-2-3 innings (and has closed before during K-Rod's injury problems).

Hey, Halos fans, it could always be worse...you could have Joe Blowsaveski closing games for you.

lol...touché.

Really, I know it's silly to complain about a closer as good as K-Rod, but really, he doesn't make his fans, fellow players or managers any younger with how he performs, if you know what I mean. It's like he doesn't even get interested until he puts two men on. Then he bears down. Sorry, I think if you're going to ask for Yankees-inflated Mariano Rivera money, you need to do better than that.

The Astros' pitching is starting to get into their expected mid-season form, meaning they looking extra crappy on their way to beyond crappy.

Maybe Wandy Rodriques can break the bad run of late today. He is pitching at home so there is hope.

So he's like Armando Benitez resurrected?

Didn't Wandy leave his start early tonight with a groin injury? Looks like things just got even crappier.

Manny is just absolutely tearing the cover off the ball right now. He is so locked in that it's not even fair.

Yup, looks that way. I didn't get to see the game down here though, since our FSN splits between Rangers games and Astros games. And of course the Astros lose a low scoring game, 3-2. I love how it seems when the pitching actually does it's job and keeps the runs down the offense falls short. Could be a long season if this ends up being the norm all year.

dola- I just noticed I spelled Rodriguez completely wrong earlier. I have had to spell Rodriguez about 4 times in work stuff the last week and every time I keep using a Q instead of G. I dunno..........

Grabbed this note from the end of John Shea's column in the SF Chronicle...


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...SPKH108GMQ.DTL

ESPN reported yesterday that the Kansas City T-Bones have already canceled it.

Blue Jays release Frank Thomas.

Color me a little surprised. Not a lot, but a little..

/tk

They talked about this on some show I watched this morning. Apparently if he gets 1000 plate appearances during his contract, he gets a third year for $10M. Considering that all he seems to be able to do now is hit the odd HR, and is slow on the bases, the Jays decided to release him. They talked about the Jays wanting more hit and runs, and Thomas "clogs up the bases."

I'm glad, even if we had to pay him. I was opposed to the signing in the first place last year, figuring it'd have been far smarter to pay Barry Bonds $17 million for one year, versus paying Frank Thomas as much as we did for two years.

So, anyone think the Jays will be contacting Bonds? The guy can still hit, they need a DH, and it's not as if the Yanks and Sox are runaway favorites this yr. I never got into the whole Bonds thing,don't care if he does/doesnt play, but from a competition standpoint, trying to win a division and all, I think it would be a good move.

I think the Jays' announcers talked to someone up in the Jays' office, and they said that the fiscally-responsible thing to do would be to replace Thomas from within. Stairs will likely DH, and they'll call up Adam Lind or someone else.

But a left-handed bat was mentioned, and Bonds' name specifically, but the Jays' guy said they're not talking about him.

Frank Thomas is on SportsCenter now and what a classy guy! He is saying there is no bitterness and he understand the problems with the option and how the Blue Jays want to bring some youth up and how he may be interferring with that. He said he understood the business of baseball and refused to say the Jays made a mistake.

I gots all sorts of more respect for the guy.

Yeah, it was the classy way to answer questions about it.

Oh, and the Astros break the 3 game losing streak today with Kaz Matsui playing in his first game and making some very nice contributions against his old team. And the closer didn't blow the save thankfully.