Yeah, it's made for a "fun" day around Royals blogs. As I said a day or two ago: "Well, what with all the other teams beating a path to the Royals door for him and his superior performances both in the field and with his prospects in the minors, this is only natural."

The vitriol is out in full force again, just like after the Betancourt trade. Only this is much more cause for concern because it means more of the former.

The thing that I keep thinking after reading that, other than just a woeful shaking of my head is this:



"Good news, everyone!"

SI

Oh, and good job, you three, for messing up the perfect game :D

SI

Maybe the extension is so they can transition him to the bullpen. He can't possibly do worse there than he has in the front office.

Poor James Loney.

Thome to the Dodgers, Contreras to the Rockies...

Garland also to the Dodgers

Getting anything for Contreras in his current form is a win in my book.

But Thome getting traded is just depressing.

So long guys and thanks for the awesome memories.

Why would you resign Dayton Moore when Ed Wade and Dave Littlefield are both readily available? Oh wait, Wade has a job?

May as well inquire if Kevin McHale or Isiah Thomas wanted the job.

Matt Millen also.

dola-
It is very rare when you get that opportunity to rebuild a squad that you've previously rebuilt. At this point, instead of saying "rebuilding", they may as well say "existing."

I think Bill Bavasi is still out there looking for a job, too :(

SI

Probably won't affect him a whole lot

Dodgers general manager Ned Colleti envisions Thome playing a role similar to the one Matt Stairs filled for the World Series champion Phillies last year -- he hit a key home run against the Dodgers in the NLCS.

"We're not bringing him over here to play first base," Colleti said. "We're bring him here to come off the bench and be a great influence in the clubhouse. He's one of the true great guys in the game.

"In fact, the night before the deadline he called me. ... He just said: 'I just want to be honest with you. I'd love to come. I want to help you guys any way I can. But playing first base is not something I'm going to be able to do -- maybe in an emergency situation, perhaps.'

Thome has only played one game at first since 2007 and hasn't played there regularly since 2004.

The Expos line at the end was the one that got me

Rare Centuple Play Ends Mets' Season | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

MIAMI—In a sudden end to a trying year, the Mets' Jeff Francoeur lined into a rare centuple play against the Florida Marlins Wednesday, which by rule cut New York's season short. "I hit it on the screws, but it just happened to be in a spot where they could turn a hundred," said Francoeur, who watched helplessly as Marlins second baseman Dan Uggla tagged everyone in the Mets dugout before heading into the clubhouse and tagging both equipment manager Charlie Samuels and physical therapist John Zajac. "You take a risk by starting the runners but I didn't think he'd have enough time to run up to the executive suite and get [Mets GM] Omar [Minaya] and [team owner] Fred [Wilpon]. I guess by the 80th out we'd all just given up." This was the most outs recorded on a single play since the 2004 Montreal Expos were eradicated from the league after hitting into an ∞-play.

SI

LOL!! Eradicated from the league! Classic :D.

You guys wanna know what this year is like to be a Mets fan? It's the kind of year where you read the link and actually audibly say "wow" after reading the words "centuple play ends Mets' season" before you realized it says The Onion in the next words.

Well, with Moore's extension, we'll get a long term look at which man truly is the worst GM in the majors between GMDM and Omar Minaya

SI

Hmmm, might be difficult to compare. The Mets have so much more to work with, while the Royals do so little with what they do have to work with.

Without knowing the Royals system all that well, do they have ANYTHING worthwhile coming up? Or are they a player development disaster also?

It's a mixed bag, kindof like the major league club- he's done a good job getting Glass to open up the pocketbook but the returns aren't always there because he doesn't use all off the tools available to him (i.e. advanced metrics).

Excepting what the Nats had to do with Strausburg this year, the Royals will be in line to spend the most in each of the last two drafts once they sign Aaron Crow. They've gone above slot for their top guys, but more importantly, handing out huge bonuses to a lot of their top 10 picks so they're going more for talent than the signability they used to do in the past.

The problem is that the top levels of the minors are absolutely barren. There's Kila Ka'aihue at AAA, a 1B who just developed power last year but has been injured most of this year. And that's it. That's not entirely true as there are some unconventional prospects (DiNardo's a finesse pitcher, Shealy is still there, etc) but there is really very little in AA and AAA.

Down in A and high A, the Royals have a decent amount of talent- a bit lopsided on the pitching side, tho, as there is still a lack of real positional player depth. However, their last two 1st round picks, Moustakas and Hosmer, seemed to have taken a step back this year while a lot of players from those drafts that they could have had are in the majors or zooming through minor league systems.

Some of those things that people don't really see have been what Moore has drastically improved. The Royals are now the only team in the majors with 7 minor league teams (everyone else has 6) so they can look at more talent. They're added something like 20 front office and scout personnel during his tenure. And they have poured a ton of money into Latin America, which they weren't doing before.

The crux of the problem is this: he did a great job of being a process engineer. He saw what was horribly broken and got the team mostly back up to the level where they need to be just to be a major league team. The problem is that he's a good scout and process guy but not a good GM (coincidentally, just like Allard Baird before him- tho he had different issues). He completely ignores modern baseball statistics and is completely a scout-first guy when that battle hasn't being fought in almost 5 years now in most places. The end result of the scouts vs stats battle was that most other teams have realized you have to have *both*.

And the problem the Royals have is that if they have even just an average GM, they can barely compete. With their resources and the complete gap between them and the middle tiered teams, much less the big boys- they might back their way into the playoffs once or twice in a decade and will still have a losing record. And I don't think Moore is even that.

SI

Great night for Cole. CG 2 hitter with 9 K's!

Tim Hudson finally back from his injury and on the mound for the Braves tonight. Should be interesting to see how he does.

It's amazing how good Matt Diaz has been playing lately.

I wonder if there are even 1,000 people at this Braves - Marlins game after the rain delay.

haha, Hudson scores from third on a balk, you don't see that very often.

edit: he would have scored anyway after McCann's double off the wall

What's even funnier is how Hudson got on base. First at bat in a year and the guy throws four Rick Vaughn pitches to him.

Only had 12,000 last night without the rain ... but that's better than the 2,000 that saw the afternoon half of the Pirates-Reds doubleheader yesterday.
After the fourth inning, the video board showed one fan surrounded by empty seats and played Eric Carmen's "All By Myself," drawing a smattering of applause and laughs from the other fans who knew the feeling.

If Cole is really back dealing, then the Phils have to be the NL favorites.

I thought of previous discussion in this thread after reading this one:

Mets Retaliate For David Wright Beaning By Murdering Pablo Sandoval | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Mets Retaliate For David Wright Beaning By Murdering Pablo Sandoval



NEW YORK—After a 94-mph beaning last weekend landed Mets star David Wright on the 15-day disabled list, his teammates retaliated Monday by ruthlessly stabbing San Francisco Giants third baseman Pablo Sandoval to death. "Hey, it's just part of the game," blood-soaked pitcher Mike Pelfrey said at an evening press conference. "If your pitcher is going to hit one of our guys, we're going to react. And we'll do that by cornering one of your guys in a dark parking lot at night, slamming his head into a car door, thrusting knives repeatedly into his chest and stomach, and leaving him there to bleed in silence until he's found dead the next morning. That's baseball." As of press time, both teams had been warned by home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi.

If Cole gets to face that Giants lineup every night, then yes, he will be back to dealing.

Goddamn, that Mets Onion article was hilarious. My girlfriend thought I was having a seizure.

I didn't know it was bobble head day...

C'mon Soriano, don't Kolb us now.

OK, at first I thought MLB players were being idiots when they were making fun of that new helmet and saying they wouldn't wear it, but now that I see it on Wright, I understand their reluctance - that thing makes him look like a Dark Helmet wannabe...

I'm not saying he should beat Greinke or Felix, but Jon Lester vis-a-vis Josh Beckett is in the same situation. Only up to 11 wins after his W in Tampa tonight, but had a FIP of 3.10 coming in (presumably going down) and is 3rd in K/9, 4th in K's overall now. When you consider he started 3-5 with a 6.07 ERA through May 30th, he's been as good as any AL pitcher the past 3 months yet only Beckett is mentioned as the Red Sox ace/Cy Young contender.I don't think we're that far off at all. My (poorly worded) point here wasn't about any specific player (I picked the 3 on Pawtucket and you'll have to trust me that Reddick will be a good defender - above average range, elite arm) but that the replacement level for fielding is probably higher than the stats say - due to GM bias. BRAA works because we can assume that almost all hitters above league average are playing in MLB and a replacement hitter will not be very good. On the contrary there are multiple "proven" above average defenders bouncing around AAA because the perception they can't hit keeps them off a major league roster. Quite often the replacement when a starter goes down is actually an improvement defensively. It's not absolute, but starters are in MLB because they hit the ball better than the average player. Backups are there because they field better.Yeah, that was kind of throwing a strawman out.Hit F/X will help - and looking at the methodology for FRAA they take some of my earlier complaints like park effects and pitchers GB/FB into account - but it will only go so far because of the subjectivity involved. A hitter hits a ball and ends up with a concrete result - there are small grey areas between LD/FB for example if we're going for advanced metrics like BABIP, but pretty inconsequential ones - but it's not black and white for the defender, particularly in the OF. Even knowing the exact spot a hit falls, the speed it was hit at, time is was in the air, wind, possible wetness of grass, you still need to know the defender's positioning.I don't think it really works quite that way. 1st the CF (should), like the SS, always have the right of way if they can get to a ball - it's rare I see a CF'er standing around or jogging near a FB being caught by another fielder, rather it's the other way around. And any slight added bonus of playing next to one bad fielder is probably negated by being forced to play out of position to compensate for them - or the opposite for a corner OF guarding the lines because of a great CF'er. (Supposedly UZR is broken down into either 6 or 12 OF zones alone - do they get broken out anywhere on the internets?) In the sense that positional alignments shift, outfield trio's are better judged together like as basketball units than as individual outcomes like batting is. Either way, arguments about specific players are getting off track from what's important. (EDIT - Haha - of course somehow Gutierrez had to go jump 3.4 RAR defensively in the interceding night while Ellsbury went even lower to 5th worst OF in MLB after Dunn, Hawpe, Bay and Wells.)I don't have a problem with the concept, and now that I look closer I think it was the WAR ratio to value that was throwing me off some. Using 2008 "qualified only" stats, they have 8 of 147 qualified players worth 30m+, 34 worth 20m+, 97 worth 10m+ and all of 6 worth a negative amount. Assuming mean distributions around 1/3 above each level, that's a minimum of 1.87b or 62+m per team - for less than 5 field players each. Adding in non-qualified players, there's another 28 worth 10m+ and we're out to 217 total worth 5m+. Pitchers add another 24 20m+, 75 10m+.

I looked and Dave Cameron explains this by saying that cost-controlled players are all underpaid and hence the marginal value per win should be 4.5m instead of 2.3m, but I'd argue that basic market economics implies that if they weren't cost-controlled they would drive down the overall market to equilibrium and teams all wouldn't suddenly double their spending. Really, this is semantics once you know what he's basing it on and now that I've looked (and mentally halved) every value it becomes more reasonable. I just wasn't seeing Morgan/Gutierrez - i.e. an elite defender with .750-.800 OPS - as worth 20m+, but 10m starts getting reasonable.

Angels managed to completely blow a very winnable game tonight, great pitching by both starters aside. A blown play to get the go ahead guy on for the M's in the bottom of the seventh, and then a poorly approached ball into right field by Abreu allowed the M's to get that run in. Then the Angels start off both the eighth and ninth with hits, and fail to get them home. Eighth was particularly frustrating. Izturis leads off with a double. Aybar's up next. Come on, even non-Angels fans know what's supposed to happen here--Aybar drops an easy bunt toward first base, and moves Izturis to third, for two outs to get the run home. Of course, instead he swings away and hits a flyball up the left field line for an easy out that Izturis has no chance of advancing on. Napoli up next hits a warning track out. Gee, wonder what woulda happened had Izturis been on third? Aybar, do you know? I'll bet Scioscia knows.

FTR, not the first time Aybar has had problems doing a bunt (see, ALDS, 2008). I don't mind losing games where we're just plain beat. I hate losing games because guys' heads aren't in it right. M's deserved a win anyway, but the Angels as a team didn't do much less to deserve one themselves. Another wasted outing for Santana, who has been pretty good since coming back from injury.

Wednesday's game looks to be a good one. King Felix versus Kazmir in his Angels' debut (afternoon game, 3:40 p.m. locally, WTH's that about, dawgfan?).

I can has big head too.

Wouldn't it be Scioscia/the base coach calling for the bunt there? Did Aybar miss/ignore a sign, or mess up his first couple attempts?

No, I'll admit he didn't even move to bunt. He swung first pitch.

The problem is, it won't be altogether clear what Scioscia wanted, because he'll let his players make the call a lot of times, and then whatever they decide, he'll back them up publically (because that's what he does), but then take them aside privately and recommend better ways to do it in the future.

That's actually a fantastic way to manage, but it makes it hard for us judgmental, bitter fans on the outside to know who to blame. ;)

My guess is it was Aybar's decision, with help from Scioscia for letting Aybar make that decision. I know without a doubt if Scioscia made the call on his own, that's a bunt to the right side of the infield.

"So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb"

SI

Well that quote would explain the Yankees's success :D

Some more fun Greinke stats from Rany:
Rany on the Royals




So, yeah, some of those snarky comments about "what- were a lot of hits falling in today" on the games where Greinke was getting "roughed up" for 3 or 4 runs. It turns out his defense really was that bad.



SI

One guy lost in all the rookie of the year hype lately is Rick Porcello. Obviously this is more of a fluff piece then anything but I thought this was really interesting to read coming from an opposition's 18 year vet:

Wright has a ridiculous life in NYC. I'd wear the Mr. Met head during games if it meant keeping me safe enough to keep on slamming models every night.

Business man's special? Probably has to do with the fact it's a getaway day for the M's - they travel to Oakland for a series staring Thursday.

The whole "value per win above replacement level" thing I find very interesting. I guess I have my doubts that front offices have been specifically using this kind of metric when making contract offers, and that this figure is really more of an averaged out value when you consider all free agent contracts. That's one of the multiple reasons why I don't put a lot of weight into the salary value data at FanGraphs.

Apparently the player to be named later in the Kazmir deal is Sean Rodriguez, who was a Top 10 prospect in the Angels system:

Sean Rodriguez, Victor Zambrano, and Mark Langston Attend a Wake | FanGraphs Baseball

Not bad by Tampa. Though the Rays do have a good deal of middle infielder types. This may mean the end of Akinori Iwamura on the Rays though.

http://twitter.com/ed_price/status/3714700882

Shit.

There was a rumor it was him, but I thought it was pure unwarranted speculation.

Well, I am glad he gets to move to a team which will give him a chance (I presume). It never really felt like he was going to get that shot with the Angels, not with the team seeming to commit to Kendrick at 2B, and Aybar blossoming at SS. Plus, his AAA teammate and fellow "blocked prospect" Brandon Wood also in the mix at a couple spots Rodriguez plays.

Good luck, Sean. It's only fair--we shouldn't get Kazmir for just a couple low minors prospects, I know.

I think Gordon Beckham might be in the discussion for ROY, not saying he should win, but in the discussion , yes.

King Felix seems determined to keep his Cy Young candidacy alive - 8 shutout innings of 4-hit ball with 6 K's today against the LAnaheim Angles of LA, lowering his ERA to 2.65 and raising his record to 14-5.

Greg Norton = rally killer. Why the fuck is this guy up in such an important situation?

Or any situation. What would it take for him to get cut?