Maybe I didn’t convey it properly, but that was my point. It’s refreshing to see Rice shown with some humanity, rather than the way he’s typically portrayed.
It has to be worth more than one and a half seasons of the greatest pitcher in baseball AND two first-round draft picks, which is what the Blue Jays have if they don’t trade him.
But more specifically, it should be a package that helps Toronto. Happ, Drabek and Brown might be a suitable deal for a team hopelessly short on young pitching going into next year, but the Jays are not such a team - if anything, they’re struggling to figure out how to rank their huge bounty of young pitchers. Happ looks great, don’t get me wrong. In the long run it’s perfectly possible Happ will do more than Halladay after July 31, 2009. But they can get more.
What they desperately need are high-level young hitting prospects. Except for Travis Snider - who they need in the major leagues right away, but he had a back injury this year - the Blue Jays have essentially no ready hitting prospects at all. Everyone in the system who’s hitting well for their levels is three years away. The lineup in AAA is totally devoid of anyone with an upside; everyone hitting well there is old. The lineup at AA is far worse; there are a few prospects there but they’re all years away. In the next two seasons they need a first baseman, shortstop, third baseman and catcher, and there is nobody ready to play there.
I was so stoked that Cards-Phillies was on Fox here today. I was really getting into it when the Cards fought back to take the lead. And Ankiel’s two amazing catches in center? Awesome. And then… uh… my power went out, yeah, and I didn’t see anything after Ankiel’s go-ahead HR. I guess I’ll never know how that game ended. 14-6 Phillies, you say? Nonsense. Couldn’t be.
Oh well. At least it looks like Lugo, Holliday, and DeRosa are good additions. They were a combined 8-for-13 today.
(As an aside: I mentioned upthread that my sister-in-law used to teach at Mark Buerhle’s school district. I just talked to her a little bit ago. She actually had Buerhle in her 4th grade class. Said he was a good kid.)
10th walk-off win of the year for the Dodgers in a thriller with the Marlins. And after tomorrow, we head to St. Louis. That should be a hell of a series.
And in additional Halladay news, the Jays rejected the Phillies’ counteroffer.
The counter was apparently Happ, plus minor leaguers Carlos Carrasco, Michael Taylor, and Jason Donald. I know I sound like a broken record criticizing J.P. Ricciardi, but I like that deal more than I do the one he offered, mainly because they get hitters to the big leagues. Taylor is fucking enormous - 6’6", 250, but runs reasonably well, and he has hit the ball for average and power at every level. He has always been a very highly regarded prospect, grade A. Why not take him? I’d assume the Jays see themselves as having a logjam at LF/DH if they have Lind, Snider and Taylor, but since they need a first baseman once Overbay’s gone it might be time to get someone like Taylor and see if Adam Lind can play a little first base. Carrasco looks pretty good, and Donald isn’t a bad thrown-in; he’s hit very poorly this year but always hit well before, and at 24 it’s still early enough for him to become a big leaguer. He’s a better middle infield prospect than anyone Toronto has now.
It’s apparent that the teams can’t agree on moving Drabek. I’m not nearly as crazy about Drabek as everyone else is, so I can’t really understand why the Jays insist on him, but perhaps there’s some inside information to which I am not privy. Drabek has always been highly regarded for possessing velocity Carrasco has not, but Carrasco shows equal control and by all accounts has a changeup that can pinwheel a batter into the ground. Carrasco’s peripherals look good. Why not take him instead?
I was at a sports bar in Phoenix late yesterday afternoon and more people were watching practice for NASCAR than watching the D-backs. Pathetic.
Of course, I was going to make fun of the Pirates until I realized they have a better record than the D-backs this year.
snort
And the Buccos are going to have a better record than the stinky Reds if the Reds don’t stop bleeding wins. They’ve now lost 9 of their last 11. Pathetic.
They do this to me every year! They are supposed to remain in the hunt until the NFL season gets close to underway before I can dismiss them! Dammit, the filler for my NFL lust is already done!
Fuck!
The Reds might have had a chance today if Encarnacion hadn’t been given out on an absolutely awful call by the home plate umpire. Hill wasn’t just late with the tag, he never got anywhere near Encarnacion with his glove hand.
The Reds still would have been down, but they would have been down only 1 run with 2 out and a runner in scoring position, instead of down 2 and out of the inning.
White Sox needed that game yesterday. They would have been 4 back and facing Minnesota ,followed by the Yankees.
It’s starting to be said, including by me: John Smoltz looks done. Another beating by a weak lineup. He just doesn’t have a reliable out pitch right now.
Both he and Francona are saying all the right things, sure, but he might only have until Wakefield is ready to come off the DL before he pulls the plug on himself. I don’t think he’ll have to be told.
Thanks for a great career, Smoltzie, see you in Cooperstown.
The Mets have turned into a pathetic sideshow. It’s bad enough that their VP of player development was such a lunatic that they had to fire his ass. At the press conference announcing the firing, the GM Minaya accuses the reporter who broke the “lunatic VP” story of having ulterior motives, since he talked to Mets front office people about how a baseball writer might break into a front office job with a team.
Clearly, now that this position is open, the Mets are going to want to give that job to the writer who broke the story.
What an embarassment this team has become. Fire Omar Minaya.
Interesting fact of the day:
I was looking at Warren Spahn’s career numbers just now. He had more complete games (382) than he did wins (363). His career spanned from '42 to '65, well beyond the dead ball era where guys like Walter Johnson and Cy Young were completing nearly every game they entered. I wonder who the last guy was to accomplish this feat?
Bob Gibson barely did it (255/251) from '59 to '75.
Juan Marichal squeaked by (244/243) from '60 to '75.
Rick Langford (?) accomplished it (85/73) from '76 to '86, but he had a losing record as well.
Mark “The Bird” Fidrych did it in his short career (34/29) from '76 to '80.
I’m just going manually through the yearly complete game leaderboard. Can anyone come up with something a bit more elegant?
Indians have won 5 in a row as of this morning. Spanked the Mariners in their own park then rallied against LAA to win last night. I haven’t had a chance to follow too closely lately (of course, when we’re doing well!) … what exactly is happening here? lol
I thought one of you guys was a Mariners guy. Who is it? Speak up!
IOW, the Braves had a crappy bullpen and no offense, right?
Heh.
It’s surprising - you’d think someone who threw 382 complete games over his career would have racked up tons of innings every year. But he broke 300 IP only twice. And that Braves’ '51 bullpen looks like your average bullpen - minus the saves. Four guys with ~60 IP and pretty decent other numbers (all labelled “RP”).
On the other hand, you look at the '13 Senators (when Johnson won 36 games), and there’s an actual “CL” on the roster.
:smack: I guess that’s me.
I want to know what the !@#$ is going on with the Mariners. Best overall pitching staff in the league all season long … and then every pitcher on the staff suddenly collapses at the same time? Good grief, they gave up 11 HRs in three games vs. the Indians (worst record in baseball), and two more last night to Toronto. These last two games mark the first time all season that I’ve gotten disgusted enough to turn the radio off before the game was over. How does this happen? Is it the weather? We’ve had a rather sudden heat wave here in Washington (it’s actually been about as hot West of the mountains as it is here on the East side, which is unusual), so maybe that’s contributing to the ball sailing or something, I don’t know. I can vouch for Safeco Field being miserable on a hot day; I was last there in August '07 (just in time for that season’s collapse), sitting in an outfield bleacher seat on an 80-degree day. I live in Eastern Washington where the normal August temp is in the high-90s and higher, so I’m used to it, but 80 degrees + Seattle humidity made it almost unbearable (my sister had to leave her seat in the 4th inning and go sit in a shaded concourse area and watch the rest of the game on one of the TVs). Maybe that’s it, I don’t know. It’s frustrating, that’s for sure.
What’s also frustrating is listening to these more casual local fans who keep saying the same thing over and over: “Why doesn’t the manager pull these pitchers out as soon as they start giving up runs?” I want to smack 'em. You can’t just run out and yank the starting pitcher in the 3rd inning every game unless you want to destroy your bullpen. Not to mention that it’s not unusual for a starting pitcher to have one bad inning and then settle down and pitch well the rest of the game. You just don’t know what’s going to happen.
I will say this, though: I think it’s long past time for the M’s to release Erik Bedard and just eat what’s left of his contract. Aside from the fact that he’s been essentially useless ever since we acquired him, aside from the fact that he seems to have spent more time on the DL than on the mound, it’s also been pretty clear that he doesn’t really want to be in Seattle in the first place. Like one of the post-game show hosts said the other day, “I can predict Erik Bedard’s next start: 3 innings, 85 pitches, and 6 strikeouts”. Yeah, great strikeout numbers, but worthless otherwise. And now he’s on the DL again, right before the trade deadline, meaning he has no trade value at all.
The offense has been consistent with what we’ve seen all season. That is, not enough offense to compensate for the pitching staff’s “off days”.
All that said, after the last few seasons I, and most M’s fans, will still be very happy with a .500 or better season. None of us honestly expect them to make the postseason this year.
I think that the Dodgers, Braves and Giants would strongly disagree with you.
Bedard has had a tough month, but he’s an excellent pitcher. Here’s his gamelog from this year. Other than his rough July (where he was probably playing hurt from his June injury), these are EXCELLENT outings, pitching 90+ pitches 12 out of 15 times. The fact that your team has a horrendous bullpen is not his fault, nor should it be a huge responsibility to go the distance (especially with injury history).
Okay, I’ve stayed out of the baseball threads so far this year, but the time has come.
[COLOR=“Blue”]C U B S !!![/COLOR] 