EVIL~! alkeiper

Other players have made more, but they reached contracts with their teams before coming to arbitration. I wouldn't be surprised to see the Marlins and Willis reach a three year deal.

Otsuka's away numbers may be a one year fluke. He had excellent 2004 numbers, his hit rate was abnormally high this year, and he still allowed only one home run in 26 road innings.

I doubt Damon will get it, but that's fine. Boras' tactic is to start high, and work his way down. It's certainly better than starting low. It's all part of the negotiations, and it's not a problem unless some team buys it.

Bonds is a very, very bad example of this. The year before Bonds arrived, the franchise was inches away from moving to Tampa Bay. The Giants stayed, signed Bonds, and won 31 more games than they did the previous year. They lost 16 more games when he missed most of this year. As for Rodriguez, the Mariners only won one division title after he left, and none before he arrived. They won 116 games in 2001 because of luck, Bret Boone, and Ichiro Suzuki. The Rangers had an abysmal pitching staff, hardly his fault as they also allowed a high amount of runs in 2000, so I doubt his defense was the issue. The Rangers again failed to finish above .500 this year. Great players always contribute to their teams' successes. If the team fails, it is because of the failure of other players. You can tell a bad organization by its tendencies to place its blame on its best players.

I think there's such a thing called cycling, but I'm nowhere near knowledgeable enough about steroids to explain or understand it.

In fairness to MLB, the Pete Rose case shows they're not passing out reinstatements like candy.

Yes, but if you announce the tests beforehand, you can probably guess the potential problems with the program.

Yes, there are merchandising receipts to take into consideration.

I find it more absurd that every single voter gave Jones either a first or second place vote.

I was listening to it on MLB's internet radio. Easily the most one-sided ass kicking I've ever listened to, but fuck it, it's baseball.

Team USA leads Guatemala 23-0 in the seventh inning. Unless the Guatemalans score 13 in the bottom of the inning, this game will be called via the mercy rule.

It's an awfully large contract for a player who did not top a .500 slugging percentage last season. Still, it is probably a good signing since the only alternative is Brian Giles, who may command a higher salary.

Towers has always had good control. Besides, this is a very low risk contract.

It's a good system because it prevents the same kind of screwy results the gold glove award voting provides. It prevents a third candidate from slipping in just because the top two might have come from the same market.

The worst vote getter award goes to Trevor Hoffman, who finished 183rd in win shares this season.

If you're asking about the technicalities, not quite. Advancing from this tournament will simply place them in the next qualifying tournament, late next summer. There will be twelve teams in that tournament, of which two will advance automatically, and the next two vieing for a third spot the next year. The next tournament is the tricky one, as there are single elimination games and teams that while not quite as good as ours, are good enough to pull an upset, as we saw in 2003. It will be very surprising if the U.S. loses out here. There are six teams, of which four advance. We have the US, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Nicaragua and Guatemala. I don't have the other rosters handy, but some of the other countries likely have a few prospects of their own. EDIT: The Canadians do indeed have Orioles' prospect Adam Loewen, Phillies' prospect Scott Mathieson, and Dodgers' prospect Russell Martin.

Attention prospect hounds. The first step in 2008 Olympic qualifying begins today. Team USA battles Guatemala at 3pm ET, and mlb.com is carrying the audio feed. The team carries players such as Jeff Mathis (LAA), Lastings Milledge (NYM), Shane Victorino (PHI), Jarrod Saltamacchia (ATL), Billy Butler (KC) and Brandon Wood (LAA). Jared Weaver of the Angels is on the roster, but Cardinals' prospect Chris Lambert will start today's game. Davey Johnson is the club's manager.

I hope by "contacted" they mean told him never to even think about playing in Chicago. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> He can't possibly be the worst Alex Gonzalez to play for the Cubs.

I don't have precise totals available just at the moment. A fine choice and little surprise.

I doubt it would be both, certainly not for a one year rental.

Please explain to me how a player can be the best player without being most valuable to his team.

And of course, by that logic the MVP would clearly be Brian Roberts and his $390,000 salary.

Agreed. I feel if I attempt to rate a different album at the top, I'm just stretching. Here's my top 10 in alphabetical order. -Radiohead's Ok Computer -The Dead Milkmens' Not Richard, But Dick -Belle & Sebastian's Tigermilk -Belle & Sebastian's If You're Feeling Sinister -Pulp's This Is Hardcore -Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral -Tori Amos' Little Earthquakes -Stone Temple Pilots' Core -Jeff Buckley's Grace -Bjork's Post

Is there a difference? Like I said, when people come up with a definition of valuable, they tend to stretch it to match the qualities of their favored candidate. Would I? By what measure? If you take David Ortiz out of the Red Sox' lineup, you can replace him with the best hitter in the organization. That could be either Kevin Youkilis (.278/.400/.405) or Roberto Petagine (.281/.361/.438). Hell of a problem when your replacement has a higher OBP. If you were to take A-Rod out of the Yankees' lineup, you have to replace him with a quality hitter who can also play third base. The Yankees had two players compile more than ten innings at third besides A-Rod, being Mark Bellhorn and Russ Johnson. Johnson hit .222 and Bellhorn hit .118 for the Yankees. All that is opinion and you have yet to produce a fact in support of it. The Yankees and Red Sox had extremely similar clubs this season, with great offenses but poor pitching. One had an elite closer, one had a black hole. Both won 95 games. An elite closer is worth at most a handful of wins. Rivera blew four saves this year. The most blown saves in the league was eight. So that's a difference of four blown saves between Rivera and the worst closer in the league. And of course, that does not take into account that if the game is merely tied, your team can still win. It's all perception. The Red Sox could've utilized an adept hitter in Ortiz's absense. The Yankees could win plenty of games with an average closer. There are no FACTS to support any of these assumptions you have stated. And again, none of them are truly relevant to the MVP award. What difference should it make what a player's TEAMMATES do? We have awards for team performance. They're called championships. Let's break out of the middle ages and pretend we have relatively sophisticated methods for measuring value that don't involve making stuff up as we go along.

Back on subject, the win shares system sees Bob Wickman as the least deserving vote getter, followed by Scott Podsednik.