Top Posts
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Chipper Jones — who I would have bet a good deal had his career ended with that torn ACL last summer — appears to be healing just fine: he’s been cleared to swing a bat and will likely be ready to go full speed once spring training begins. We’re certainly in the twilight of the…
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Once upon a time Brandon McCarthy was considered a top pitching prospect and in December of 2006 the White Sox traded him to the Rangers for John Danks and Nick Masset. That trade didn’t exactly work out well for Texas, in part because of Danks’ emergence as one of the league’s best southpaws and in…
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UPDATE: Justin Upton’s no-trade list includes the Mariners; not the Indians
Nov 22, 2010, 3:30 PM EDT
An update to Friday’s post about the teams on Justin Upton’s no-trade list. Turns out that the Indians are not one of the no-nos. But the Mariners are. That means that Cleveland fans, instead of Seattle fans, can sit uneasily and wonder why the Diamondbacks are trading Upton while fearing that their own GM may…
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Ryan Howard got a second place MVP vote. That actually happened.
Nov 22, 2010, 2:40 PM EDT
It has become ritual for we blogger-types to scan the awards ballots to find the oddities, outliers and outrages of the BBWAA vote, so I dutifully do so now. No real outrages here. Any reasonable person figured that Votto, Pujols and maybe — maybe — Carlos Gonzalez were your huckleberries, and they finished 1-2-3. So…
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Leading the league in OPS and leading the Reds to the playoffs for the first time since 1995 has earned Joey Votto the National League MVP award, as the 26-year-old first baseman easily topped Albert Pujols and Carlos Gonzalez by receiving 31 of the 32 first-place votes cast by Baseball Writers Association of America members.…
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As I wait for the NL MVP to be announced — likely the only real news that will be had today — I find myself struggling with something: when do we start calling 2010 “last season?” When do we start calling 2011 “this season.” More importantly, what do we call them now? Let’s start easy:…
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Third base coach Chip Hale is staying with the Mets following the team’s house-cleaning and apparently pitching coach Dan Warthen will be sticking around too. Andy McCullough of the Newark Star Ledger reports that “Warthen says he’s been asked by Sandy Alderson to return next year as the Mets’ pitching coach.” Warthen replaced Rick Peterson…
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Eric Hinske proved himself to be a useful bench player last year — and he had a shot at being a playoff hero if Brooks Conrad hadn’t intervened — and as a result, the Braves quickly offered him a contract last week, reported to be in the neighborhood of $1.5 million. Atlanta has some competition,…
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In honor of Stan Musial’s 90th birthday Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch wrote an interesting article laying out his picks for the “10 greatest living baseball players” (retired only, with no active guys). Here are his 10 picks: Hank Aaron, Yogi Berra, Barry Bonds, Rickey Henderson, Sandy Koufax, Willie Mays, Stan Musial,…
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I’ve read a bunch of Terry Collins reactions this morning. Most of them aren’t all that insightful, frankly, because the guy just doesn’t have a recent track record anyone can grab onto. He’s intense. Some players who are now in their mid-40s didn’t much care for him. Hard to really find any traction with that.…
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As was reported yesterday, talks between the Athletics and Japanese pitcher Hisahi Iwakuma broke down. A bit surprising things fell apart so quickly given that the A’s put up a sizable (and refundable) posting fee for the right to talk to him, but it happens. The talking point that came out of this yesterday was…
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My assumption is that Joey Votto will be named National League MVP when the award is announced this afternoon, as his monster season combined with the Reds making the playoffs for the first time since 1995 will likely have him atop most of the 32 ballots cast by Baseball Writers Association of America members. However,…
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Murray Chass spoke with Phil Rogers of the Chicago Tribune about the American League Cy Young Award results. Rogers, who voted for David Price, wondered about the outcome: “I wonder how much of it was bullying on the Internet. There were a lot of columns written in September saying no one should be stupid enough…
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The Tribune reports that “multiple National League sources” are saying that the Diamondbacks are interested in White Sox’ setup man J.J. Putz. This is silly. No, not the Dbacks’ interest in Putz — he’s good and could help their crappy bullpen — but the notion of “National League sources.” The league offices were abolished years…
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I’m not sure what to make of the Terry Collins choice just yet. Obviously I didn’t think Wally Backman was the right choice, but I didn’t have a preference for any specific candidate per se. While Mets fans don’t want to hear it, my thinking is that the team is likely to be in the…
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The stuff you missed as you spent the weekend trying to track down the perfect turducken recipe in anticipation of the big day.
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When Red Sox prospect Ryan Westmoreland was diagnosed in March with a cavernous malformation in his brain, some medical specialists thought it might put an end to his baseball career. Not so. Westmoreland had surgery to repair the problem and is now taking batting practice two or three times a week, according to Brian MacPherson…
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The search is over. The pick is in. According to Adam Rubin of ESPN New York, the Mets are set to introduce Terry Collins as the franchise’s 20th manager. Collins, 61, played professional baseball for 10 years and compiled a .255 career batting average over 671 major league games before turning to the coaching and…
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A bit of a shocker here. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle reports that talks have “broken off” between the A’s and Japanese right-hander Hisashi Iwakuma. The A’s bid $15 million in early November for the right to negotiate exclusively with Iwakuma, but Slusser says that he was looking for “Barry Zito type” money…
