Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
I figure many of you, being sane and intelligent people, probably missed the official start of baseball season--live from Japan, at 6 a.m., Red Sox-A's--but I had to write about something, and damned if I have anything left to say about spring training. My viewing didn’t go quite the way I planned, as I fell asleep on the futon sometime during the second inning and woke up hours later to the grating laughter of Mike and Mike. Fortunately my TiVo knows me better than I know myself.
It wasn’t the game’s fault--this one was highly entertaining, even if the end result, 5-4 Sox, wasn’t ideal. Cliff gave the play-by-play yesterday. Depending on your tolerance for Schadenfreude, watching Daisuke Matsuzaka completely and utterly lose the strike zone in the early going was either fun or somewhat wince-inducing--this was supposed to be his big homecoming, after all--but either way, he made an impressive recovery, and the Sox won a tough one, albeit with a little help from the A's.
Yes, it turns out Oakland isn’t messing around with this whole “rebuilding” thing. I thought I’d been paying pretty close attention to baseball transactions this winter, but I’ve never even heard of a bunch of these guys. I've certainly heard of Emil Brown, though, and in the 10th inning, he proceded to demonstrate how they do things in Kansas City and Pittsburgh. I have a lot of faith in Billy Beane's diabolical schemes, but this particular season . . . well, it could be a rough summer for the Bay Area.
These days, my joy at Opening Day is usually tempered a bit by the knowledge that with it comes Joe Morgan’s ESPN announcing; but we’ve been spared this year, as Steve Phillips and Gary Thorne made the trip instead. I haven’t heard much of Thorne before, I don’t think, and I actually enjoyed him. His use of “Sayonara!” as a home run call was pretty unforgivable, but his perkiness seems to be entirely genuine, and I just couldn’t dislike him, especially since he seemed as punchy as his pre-dawn audience as he rambled on about coffee and cherry blossoms. At one point, he was openly wavering on whether to address himself to East Coast fans just waking up and eating breakfast, or those “west of the Mississippi” who might be arriving home “after the bars close.” I'm still not sure what he ended up deciding, but either way, it was entertaining.
Even Steve Phillips, who regularly rubs me the wrong way on Baseball Tonight, seemed so happy to have baseball back that I couldn’t hold a grudge. Though I did scoff--out loud, just on general principle, even though no one was there to hear it--when he said of Matsuzaka, during his early struggles, “the look in his eyes for his last pitch was the best he’s had yet. He’s competing now, it looks like.” Really? Is that the same "look" you saw in the eyes of Mo Vaugh, Roberto Alomar, and Armando Benitez (twice)? Unfortunately for Mets fans, Scott Kazmir’s eyeballs apparently don't convey that much competitiveness.
Also joining the telecast, considerably earlier in the day than I prefer to see him, was the Commisioner himself. Having just finished up an exciting and historic trip that brought Major League Baseball to China for the first time ever, Bud Selig was his usual charismatic self, brimming with enthralling stories from his travels in Beijing:
“I remember standing on the field with Joe Torre, who I’ve known for about 50-plus years, and he looked at me and I looked at him. And he said, ‘Did you ever think we’d be standing on a field in Beijing, about to play Major League Baseball?’ And I said, ‘No.’”
(Long pause).
A born raconteur, that man.
There’s been much debate recently over how much the additional travel and jetlag will affect the Red Sox. (No one appears to care very much whether or not it will affect the A's). Over at YFSF, Paul makes a convincing case that the trip to Japan has historically had little if any impact on a team’s performance. He’s probably right, though when I flew home from Taiwan last summer I was a zombie for well over a week. Regardless, and despite what you might have heard earlier this spring from Theo Epstein, the complaining has already commenced. I'd say karma's a bitch, but alas, the Sox did win the game.
Dice walked alot of batters.
But sleeping until 10 O'Clock in the morning?
Emma, I love the Selig story. If Garrison Keillor ever needs a vacation, Selig could do the News from Lake Woebegone.
Varitek has struck out 6 times in the first two games. Hm, since he's a catcher he'll get a lot of games off and probably won't reach 400 Ks for the season.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/preview08/columns/story?columnist=neyer_rob&id=3310373
Now I don't follow other teams much, but it seems there is something very wrong with that list. Melky is on the list but not Phil, Joba or IPK. Maybe I'm just totally ignorant.
Of course, I may be completely making this up. Did you know that there are two days between Tuesday and Friday, but three days between Friday and Tuesday? ;-)
As for Melky, well, I think there is good reason to think he will be better than most of us here seem to think. Knowing Neyer, he probably ran a report showing players as young as Melky who have produced in the majors at his level, and concluded that Cabrera has been pretty unique. Unlike most Banterites (it seems), I am pretty high on Melky and look forward to seeing how he develops this season.
http://tinyurl.com/2khr3q
Best quote is when Kennedy points out that his dad is 45 and Moose is 39. That's hilarious.
If it's so difficult to predict the best 50 players for the 5 year, why bother?
"I think it's just that those three haven't done much in the majors yet."
And he does say he won't include prospects, except Evan Longoria. But it doesn't take a rocket scientists to think that Clayton Kershaw has a chance to be an incredible pitcher - moreso than perhaps a Josh Beckett - over the next five years.
Do you think that Dan Uggla will be a better ML baseball player in 5 years than Kershaw or Hughes?
Another player is Carl Crawford who keeps being bandied about as the next big thing just around the corner, but in reality he's just not improving as much as people give him credit for. Sure that .800 OPS and 50 SB is nice, but for LF? His OBP is pretty atrocious.
I just think it's a poorly thought out list with shoddy execution.
In other news, it was nice to see Lester get beat up a little today. I think that his hype is a bit unwarranted.
Not as bad as that clown Michael Kay, who said after Hideki Matsui hit his first HR as a Yankee, "Seeya-nara".
I think you missed the point of the list. Neyer wasn't trying to go that far out on a limb...he was trying to determine who would be the best players over the next 5 years. As a result, 24-29 year old established stars are likely to trump pitchers with little or no major league experience.
Now you may be comfortable predicting who is going to be the next great pitcher or position player, but Neyer apparently isn't. To answer your question, yes, I think at least one of Kershaw/Hughes/Buccholz/McGee/Price/Bailey/etc. will be better than Uggla, but I am not sure how many more will, not to mention which one. The same goes for position players...the list of highly touted prospects who fizzled is pretty long.
As for Crawford, the key that you are missing is he is still only 25 years old! And yes, he has improved, albeit gradually, each season (OPS+ of 111, 113 and 117). There is nothing shoddy about thinking Crawford will be among the best 50 players as he reaches his 25-30 prime.
This list was compiled in 2003 regarding the top 50 position and pitcher prospects. It's just one man's opinion, but look how many more success stories came from the hitters:
http://www.minorleagueball.com/story/2008/2/14/135339/204
On a related note, Yankees fans- especially those likely to fall for hype- should repeat the following phrase over and over until they mutter it in their sleep:
TINSTAAPP
I'm not sure that's a good thing in the long run if the article in question is poorly done.
"As a result, 24-29 year old established stars are likely to trump pitchers with little or no major league experience."
Not the point, he skipped over a lot of pitchers with MLB experience in favor of position players with little or no actual success. Not listed: Felix Hernandez, Fausto Carmona, Francisco Liriano*, Scott Kazmir, Bedard, Cole Hamels, Papelbon, hell even an argument can be made for Daisuke and more easily, IMO, for CMW. And those are the more obvious ones.
"but Neyer apparently isn't"
Then why make a list with some obvious holes in it? Other than to prove that he can look on the BR leader board and do query based on age and OPS, with a few can't miss hitters (e.g., Longoria) and a couple of guesses (e.g., Melky) on there? I just don't think a whole lot of thought went into his list, which renders it rather pointless - and that, IMO, is what's generating the comments (in addition to the standard, "you left off my favorite player!" and I read at least 1 that complained about A-Rod not being on there, despite him being #10, I think).
Dont' get me wrong, I don't think Crawford is a bad baseball player or hitter, I don't see him blossoming into an MVP, which is what the hype about him suggests ("He'll soon have a breakout year!"). He's already an all-star and a top 50 player. He doesn't walk enough and doesn't have a lot of power to make that next step into an elite MVP-type player.
* granted, he had surgery, but I think an argument can be made for him.
I could agree with that. Or even a separate list of pitchers.
Why not option Duncan and call up Lane for 10 days (or maybe Gardner if he's cheaper -- then again, if they are planning on keeping Gardner in Scranton all year, they won't want to blow one of his options). They can make room on the 40-man by putting Cervelli on the 60-day DL. Then DFA Lane (or option Gardner), call up Duncan and let him server his suspension.
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