EVIL~! alkeiper

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays earned the right to negotiate with Japanese reliever Shinji Mori. If Mori signs, this could be a very good acquisition. Mori has been a strikeout machine in Japan.

If Murton stole two in 51 games, there's no way he's taking 30 bases in a season. 20/20 is more realistic, but even then may be a stretch. Give him time, man. I watched him in the Cape League and he's an incredible player. I was shocked to shit that he was there for the Red Sox to draft and I felt pretty bummed when he was dealt along with Nomar. Not that I cared to see Nomar go, but you think at the time he would have been enough to get that whole deal done. Pardon my ignorance on this, but is the Cape League the Cape Cod League, or something else?

the right price being what, league minimum? Brown was an extreme groundball pitcher, but I would have serious doubts about him getting back to that form. With his back as screwed up as it is, he couldn't bend enough to keep his pitches down, everything hung, he gave up a lot of smashed ground ball and line drive hits. The best hope with him is finding a miracle cure for his back. Whatever team signs him should force him to try Yoga, among other things.... Brown's groundball ratios over the last four years are high, but not as high as during his prime. As for a price, I couldn't answer without knowing how a physical turned out.

If Murton stole two in 51 games, there's no way he's taking 30 bases in a season. 20/20 is more realistic, but even then may be a stretch.

As an aside, I honestly think the Phils should take a phlier on Kevin Brown. His peripherals were not bad, but his hit rate was astronomical. That's bound to come down. His opponents' isolated power did not rise, so it is not like he was getting crushed. Just lots of hits. Brown's an extreme groundball pitcher, ideal for a good home run park. For the right price, he could be a steal.

We already have that player, and are trying to rid ourselves of him (I hope), so why Wilson? Maybe Walker could move to right, Hairston to second. Walker's played the outfield before. Why do it that way and not Hairston in the outfield, Walker at second? Walker's entire outfield experience consists of two innings in a single game last season.

Does anyone know if there was any real reaction from the NFL or its teams? This certainly wouldn't go over like hotcakes in today's environment.

Ah, gotcha. Same reason I want the Mets to go nuts and start giving multi-year contracts to 47 year old players.

As for Vicente Padilla, I think he's a fairly overrated pitcher. His peripherals were never great, even when he was an All-Star, and he's been battling injuries. The question now is what Gillick does regarding the pitching staff. Right now it's Lieber, Myers, Lidle, Madson, and someone else. I applaud giving Madson a shot. Non-tendering Padilla saves about $3-5 Million, we saved a couple million on the Thome deal, and we saved a bit more by letting Wagner go. Perhaps the club is in the market for a free agent starter.

Sure about that? Especially since the only options the Yankees have at CF this year are Bernie and Bubba? Trading for Pierre and signing Mark Grudzielanek for a year or two isn't the worst thing the Yankees could do. Hey, Cano was born the day after I was. Interesting. Quite frankly, I think it's a pretty bad idea. First off, you're giving up a player of real value in Cano. Second, Pierre's not that good. Third, after a year you still need to sign a center fielder, and on top of that you need to sign a second baseman as well.

I created a new post on my blog attempting to rate Roger Clemens among the game's great pitchers. Feedback is appreciated. http://cultofabreu.blogspot.com

I think there's at least a reasonable probability that Ugueth Urbina is innocent. Some team should sign him with the clause that the contract is void if he's imprisoned.

Once again, we start a new thread. Here's a list of the top 20 free agents remaining. Players are ranked in order of their three year average win shares. 1. Johnny Damon, OF 2. Roger Clemens, SP 3. Bill Mueller, 3B 4. Juan Encarnacion, OF 5. Jeromy Burnitz, OF 6. Alex Gonzalez, SS 7. Mark Grudzielanek, 2B 8. Reggie Sanders, OF 9. Jeff Conine, OF 10. J.T. Snow, 1B 11. Bret Boone, 2B 12. Kenny Lofton, OF 13. Jacque Jones, OF 14. Bengie Molina, C 15. Joe Randa, 3B 16. Rafael Palmeiro, 1B 17. Kevin Millar, 1B 18. Nomar Garciaparra, 3B 19. D'Angelo Jimenez, 2B 20. Scott Hatteberg, 1B That list is position player heavy, so let's do a pitching top ten. Starters 1. Clemens 2. Jarrod Washburn 3. Kevin Millwood 4. Kevin Brown 5. Jeff Weaver 6. Jason Johnson 7. Brett Tomko 8. Matt Morris 9. Byung-Hyun Kim 10. Al Leiter Relievers 1. Urgeth Urbina 2. Braden Looper 3. Octavio Dotel 4. Julian Tavarez 5. Chris Hammond 6. Shigetosi Hasegawa 7. Paul Quantrill 8. Dan Miceli 9. Felix Rodriguez 10. Matt Mantei

Ah well. I'll do some further research and look into it later tonight.

You can click "view source" or "page source" from your browser menu, and cut and paste it that way.

I believe there are actually NFL regulations that do not allow ESPN and other stations to replay classic NFL games in their entirety. I too could not recall seeing the station ever airing an entire game, and that's allowing for their liberal cuts of chunks of games. NFL films does a good job of glamourizing games and making them seem more important and exciting than they really were. (And quite honestly, anything narrated by Harry Kalas is off to a good start). But I would get frustrated with the productions. I've seen MLB games given the same treatment, and it completely robs the game of any drama and emotion.

I very much doubt that trade rumor has much validity.

Same here. But this is not the only place I've heard it.

Jose Vidro's a better second baseman at this point anyway. The big problem with the Puerto Rican team is pitching. Vazquez and Joel Pineiro are the only Puerto Rican pitchers to make starts this season. The site lists Jorge Sosa, but he was born in the Dominican Republic, so that may be a misprint.

Having watched it, my god was that a self-indulgent piece of crap. No, Howard Cossel didn't elevate the moment. He made it worse.

I don't think Jocketty is likely to ignore the lineup altogether. Just remember this is a team that has won 90+ games five of the last six years. I don't think that's likely to end until they start losing their big pieces.

Japan unveils its squad. http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/wbc/arti...ontent=120905_a From MLB: Akinora Otsuka, Tadahito Iguchi, Ichiro Suzuki From Japan: Nobuhiko Matsunaga, Takahiro Arai, Shunsuke Watanabe, Toshiya Sugiuchi. I wish they would've provided a full roster.

One thing bothers me about Starks' column. In one paragraph, he chides the Toronto Blue Jays for offering too much money to AJ Burnett. In another, he criticizes the Cardinals for not offering enough money to sign AJ Burnett. The Cardinals are going to be fine. They retained their four best players from last season, including the reigning Cy Young and MVP award winners. They're bringing back four of their five starters and their closer. If they get a minimum of production out of the corners and second base, they can win 90 games easily. Especially if they get Scott Rolen healthy.

Projecting players at all levels is a risk. The same way it would be difficult to say what Johnny Damon will produce in 3-4 years, you also have trouble projecting career paths of players in A ball and Rookie system. All projection systems have their inaccuracies, and players will often not turn out the way you expect. That said, statistical analysis has grown to the point where we can adjust the level of competition and gain a more accurate read on the talent level of minor league players. Using minor league stats, we can predict performance with roughly the same accuracy of an MLB player. One projection system pegs Andy Marte for a .255/.350/.469 line at Fenway. Given Marte's excellent performance the last two years that is entirely reasonable, and a team can compare that against Kevin Youkilis and Mike Lowell and make a decision. AAA players do come up and fail occasionally in the Majors. It also happens to established players. Look at Mike Lowell. If he had played in AAA in 2004, it would be an example of a prospect not panning out. But since he's established, it's a bad year. Many AAA players could turn around poor performances in brief trials, but since they are not established, they are on a short leash. Now if you have several AAA players coming into the lineup at once, it's a different scenario. The problem is not that you can't expect AAA players to come to the majors, but that those players were generally in AAA for a reason. You can't expect a group of players to improve all at once obviously. That's the problem with the Marlins. Individually they have some players that could take a step forward. But to collect a whole team of them is suicide. Any projection has its problems. I can say Andy Marte will excel. He might not. But you could also be wrong on any number of MLB players.

Please try to avoid quoting long posts if it isn't necessary. Now that the flury of moves has subsided, what team has had the best offseason so far? The worst?