Puig sent down for the Dodgers. The explanation kind of makes sense, though. He plays every day there, and if he plays at least 20 days in the minors, his free agency eligibility is pushed out another year. So, let him get some work in, and give Crawford a month to wash out, or Kemp a month to get hurt… 
IOW, the Longoria/Trout treatment. Jackie Bradley get his three weeks in AAA to “play every day and get more seasoning” when Ortiz comes off the DL.
That was the Indians last year! Their splits against lefties was atrocious. I believe Shelley Duncan was the only true RHB in the lineup.
Houston, incidentally, was pretty bad against lefties last year too, but then they were pretty bad all around.
I don’t know, I think they can win the 2003 World Series.
Are they going to paint a cornfield on the outfield wall in the Bronx, so the team can enter the field through it?
Two reasons, or maybe one reason with two causes: shitty planning, and desperation to get under the luxury tax threshold in 2014.
Well, except for the playoffs, of course.
Speaking of starters, the Cardinals signed Adam Wainwright to a five-year extension. With Chris Carpenter’s pitching career over, Wainwright’s the face of the Cardinals rotation, and it’s nice to see him as a career Cardinal.
And there was much rejoicing! I only saw a couple clips of it, but it sounded like he gave a fine press conference as well. It might just be a sop for the fans, but I still kind of want the players to talk about how much they love St. Louis and the team tradition.
But can someone explain the Cardinals’ Wainwright billboard to me? The Cards have this series of billboards, each with a picture of a player and some pithy line. Like, there’s one with Molina and the line, “A Gold Glove for every finger of his hand.” OK, that’s pretty clear. But the one with Wainwright has the line “12-6 all day.” It’s laid out like so:
12-6 [image of AW throwing] All day.
Granted, I don’t claim to be the best informed baseball fan in town. Is this something obvious to everyone but me?
It’s a term for a curveball that drops straight down as it approaches the plate. Picture a clock: the ball starts off at 12 and drops to 6. Other curveballs move more diagonally.
Thanks! I had never heard that before.
I take exception to Kuroda being called no better than decent. He finished 9th in ERA in 2011 in the NL and 8th in ERA in 2012 in the AL, tossing more than 200 innings both years. He’s pretty damn good and maybe under-appreciated.
But lord, what a line-up for the Yankees. Ouch.
A-Rod will make more this year than all the Astros combined.
And he’ll do it by riding the bench all season. For that alone the Yankees deserve to finish in the basement for the next 20 years.
Looks like Johan Santana is done, at least for the year - he has another capsule tear. I’ve never been a Mets for (or a Twins fan, for that matter), but Santana was always a pitcher that was fun to watch, and was exciting when he was lighting it up. Sad to see him in a decline like this.
I’m absolutely stealing this.
(clicks Like button)
Yeah, I’m used to rooting against him since he was a Twin, but I hate to see news like this. He’s such a good pitcher, a great pitcher, when he’s healthy.
He was one of those pitchers who, when asked by a non-fan why you like pitching matchups (rather than high scoring games), you could show, and it’d be instantly clear how a great pitching performance can be dazzling and worth watching (and paying attention to).
And what do the Astros deserve? Forbes says the team is worth more than $600 million, they were profitable last year, they’re getting revenue sharing money, and they’re spending jack shit on players. Overpaying guys is bad, but mailing it in is OK?
Fun fact: Since 2009 there have been more perfect games in MLB than Joey Votto popups (as counted by fangraphs).
Also, Joey Votto has only pulled one ball foul into the stands in his MLB career.
Meh. They were in a horrible position a couple years ago, with not enough talent to win in the majors and a farm system that was ranked dead last in the majors. They got that way largely by refusing to acknowledge that the Killer B era was over and they needed to rebuild, instead signing second-tier free agents to first-tier contracts and wasting at least two years.
They did what they had to do: traded everyone over the age of 27 or so who had any trade value whatsoever for prospects. If you assume they’re not going to be good again until 2015 at the earliest, the only guy they traded away who might still be productive is Jed Lowrie, and he’s never been healthy for even 100 games in a season.
If they start trading away their young guys as soon as they hit arbitration eligibility, or are still at the bottom of the salary list in two years or so, then you have a case that they’re being cheapskates; as it stands they’re doing what they have to do to be competitive in the long term.
Or do you have specific suggestions of a couple free agents they could have signed for $30 million or so who could have made the team competitive for the playoffs this year?
In 2013, baseball officially resides in Southern California.
Dodgers and Angels will both be in the World Series. Kershaw wins the Cy Young, Pujols wins the Triple Crown.