Postseason is still going on but this stuff doesn't really fit into that thread: - Cleveland today hired Manny Acta to manage; Acta had also been offered the opening in Houston. - Cuban prospect Aroldis Chapman is reportedly looking for a "Dice-K sized" deal to sign, $40-60M range. That's much higher than what he'll end up with, but there are still enough GMs who love the fastball enough to ignore the flaws, so who knows. - StLou has hired Mark McGwire as hitting coach.
Am I missing something with Manny Acta? Why would other teams possibly want him after his experience leading the fucking Nationals? None of those teams were ever remotely decent.
I think teams realize the awful circumstances that the Nationals were operating under and aren't allowing that to reflect on their opinion of Acta. He took over a team that had little talent, in fact they were so awful that he received Manager of the Year votes despite their finishing 16 games below .500. The front office hardly provided any improvements for Acta to manage over 2008 & the front-end of 2009, it's not surprising that they lost 100 games in 2008 considering they surrendered almost 200 more runs than they scored. As far as the 'pro' column, despite being only 40 years old, Acta's a guy with almost 18 years of coaching & managing experience spanning almost every organized level, including both the VWL & DWL as well as international competitions (WBC). He's Dominican-born and bilingual (surprisingly, this isn't commonplace), open to analytics and seemingly well-versed in advanced baseball metrics (at least in comparison to the majority of the baseball world), and is so well received for his pregame preparation & in-game decisions (despite a tendency to over-manage the bullpen a bit) that "old-school" guys like Bobby Cox were making unsolicited phone calls to the Tribe to campaign on his behalf. I think considering the criticism that the Indians took for not being able to transition talented minor league players better into major leaguers, that someone with Acta's wealth of multi-level experience could be beneficial. While Wedge certainly managed at several levels (in fact he was manager of the year on several levels), his assent from A-ball to MLB was extremely rapid, and if one wanted to be cynical it could be said that his rise coincided with a multitude of talent, much of which did not develop into the significant caliber of player that was expected.* I don't think that Acta is the most inspired hiring of all-time, a lot is going to depend on how the remainder of his staff fills out, but I think that it was a better hire for this team than Bobby V or Mattingly would have been (not that there's any possible way to prove this). *1998 Columbus (Tim Drew) 1999 Kinston (Tim Drew, CC Sabathia (first pro season), Ryan Drese) 2000 Akron (Sabathia, Danys Baez, Tim Drew) 2001 Buffalo (Drew, Baez, Westbrook, Drese, David Riske, Charles Nagy, Jamie Walker, Chris Hammond, Jaret Wright, John McDonald, Dave Roberts, Mark Lewis, Milton Bradley, Travis Fryman, Josh Bard, Dave Hollins, Karim Garcia - this is an absurd amount of ML talent on a minor league roster, regardless of if they were veterans, rookies, scrubs, etc.) 2002 Buffalo (Brandon Phillips, Bard, Jody Gerut, Ben Broussard, Bradley, Coco Crisp, Garcia, Drew, Wright, Riske, Brian Tallet, Chad Paronto, Cliff Lee, Travis Miller, Nagy, Drese)
I am suprised McGwire came back to work in baseball and have to answer questions about steriods because you know reporters are going to ask him.
McGwire's run an off-season hitting camp for a few years. Add in the fact that: he's still a major fan-favorite in StLou; bringing him in makes it more likely that TLR resigns a multi-year deal; and that he worked w. Holliday this previous off-season; and the hiring makes a bit of sense, despite the numerous questions that'll pop up about his history. Of course, that's ignoring how successful he's actually been with the players he's worked with. As far as I can tell the list includes Holliday, Chris Duncan, Daric Barton, Skip Schumaker, Bobby Crosby, I can't remember who else. The problem with that list of course is that with the exception of Schumaker, everyone regressed as a hitter. Holliday eventually had to reincorporate his leg kick to get his hitting stroke back on track, but the others haven't been successful in getting their swings going. This isn't to say that McGwire was the cause of any of their struggles, or that I am in any way qualified to critique what they're doing. McGwire's a big proponent of hitting through the target, that's always going to be a successful approach, but I think that people could misconstrue his OBP & SLG into hoping that he's able to 'teach' the ability to draw a walk, when it was largely a side-effect of his prodigious power. I like McGwire, I don't care so much that he dodged questions, especially considering the reactions from other players (Palmeiro, Sosa) under similar circumstances. I am curious to see if someone with his hitting approach can succeed in his situation.
Steve Phillips fired from ESPN Just like that, baseball will be much easier to watch on that network.
Has anybody seen a picture of the woman he was fucking? She's an Ogress. Phillips told police that he feared she would harm his family. I'd fear her too, she'd fucking hit them over the head, drag them to her Ogress cave and eat them. Just look at that picture. Phillips decision to fuck the Ogress makes Bill Clinton look like he had great taste in retrospect. This is the piece of ass he lost his family and career over.
I wouldn't say she's an ogress, exactly. But she certainly isn't losing your wife and kids for. Or losing your dog. Or the mailman. Or that guy up the block that throws his underwear up on the roof.
http://www.sportsbybrooks.com/tag/steve_phillips SbB has a bunch of photos of the girl. She's... yeah no. But he's 46 and she's 22 and I guess he's big on inner beauty. Also, AP is reporting that she's no longer an ESPN employee as well, though won't say if she quit or was fired.
Tim Hudson's expected to sign a 3 year/$27M extension with Atlanta which will supercede the $12M mutual option he had remaining on his previous contract. I'm a Huddy fan, nice the Bravos could keep him around, especially at that hometown discount.
Yo Kinsey, when are they going to announce NL, AL MVP's rookie of the year and all the other awards? Isn't free agent signing the 20th? My predictions- AL MVP- Joe Mauer NL- MVP-Albert NL-CY Young- Tim Lincecum AL-CY Young- Greinke NL-rookie of the year- Tommy Hanson (although my man Happ could get it or Andrew McCutchen, playing for the pirates never helps) AL rookie of the year- Jeff Niemann?? I would like to see Andrew Bailey get it but I'm guessing a closer won't get it.
Time-line for the major awards is as follows: Nov 16 - AL & NL ROY Nov 17 - AL CY Nov 18 - AL & NL MOY Nov 19 - NL CY Nov 23 - AL MVP Nov 24 - NL MVP Yep. Other important dates: Today: Final Super-Two status awarded (goes to Mike Fontenot w. 2yrs, 139 days of service time [he was tied w. Adam Jones & Micah Owings, tie-breaker due to more accumulated service time last season) Nov 20: Teams can sign free-agents (not on their team the previous season); Reserve lists for Major & Minor leagues filed. Dec 1: last date for team to offer salary arbitration to free agent in order to receive compensation Dec 7 - 10: Winter Meetings Dec 10: Rule 5 Draft Dec 12: Tender deadline (deadline to offer contracts to non-free-agent major league players) Jan 5-15: Salary Arb filing Jan 19: exchanging arb figures Feb 1-21: Arb hearings Feb 20: P&C report
Time-line for the major awards is as follows: Nov 16 - AL & NL ROY Nov 17 - AL CY Nov 18 - AL & NL MOY Nov 19 - NL CY Nov 23 - AL MVP Nov 24 - NL MVP
I think the CY should go to Lincy & Greinke handily, although I won't be surprised at the votes Carp gets, especially coming back from injury. I'm honestly expecting Cliff Lee to pick up 1 or 2 first place votes as well, despite his limited time in the NL. Halladay will likely grab a few votes from Greinke, and I'm sure there'll be at least 1 asshole who votes for Sabathia just b/c the Yanks won it all, but it really shouldn't be close. Mauer & Pujols should be the MVPs, but I won't be surprised if one of them doesn't come away with it. I'm not even real sure who I'd think would sneak in, most likely Howard I suppose, but it won't surprise me. AL ROY is a crap shoot. I'm fairly certain that everyone here could post a different order and easily defend it. For the AL, I'd vote: Andrus, Anderson, Bailey, Porcello, Neimann. I think Porcello will likely come away with it just b/c of how hyped a prospect he is. Anderson has absolutely no chance of finishing that highly, same could be said for Bailey. And for as much as talking heads are going to talk about Porcello being successful at age 20, I'd bet that 80% of them will ignore the fact that Andrus played 50% of the season at age 20 as well. NL ROY is no better. There's a decent argument to be made for Hanson, McCutchen, Happ, or even Coghlan, but I think Hanson comes away with it just b/c of how well-known of a prospect he was.
Hot Stove season is in full swing here and fans are going nuts because the "Evil Empire" won a world series. Let the panic begin. This FA class just plain sucks and I wish I was Jason Bay or Matt Holliday because they're both going to get severely overpaid. The Red Sox need to fill the potential hole in left field but I really hope they don't pay more than $15M a year for Bay. I've never been a big Holliday fan and it makes my stomach turn to think he'll get a 6-7yr deal worth $19M or so a year. Yuck. Other big rumors here are that the Red Sox are trying to package together some players to get Hanley Ramirez back. Buchholz and Ellsbury are the current names floating out there. Meh. Not a huge Elsbury guy but the Sox likely won't ever let him go since he accounts for 75% of the apparel sold to women around here.
Amazing. Lincecum gets the Cy Young (and back-to-back, a very impressive feat). I thought he deserved, but he is the pitcher I have probably seen live most this season, so maybe not the best judge. I am just surprised that the baseball writers agreed and he could overcome the most useless pitching stat: the win. Add Greinke's Cy Young and the writers are actually getting it correct. Now let's see them prove me wrong and give Jeter the MVP over Mauer.
Since there's not a thread for fantasy baseball yet, I'll stick this one here. Just starting up the Major League portion of the inaugural draft of a Dynasty League. Basic premise--you keep everyone, year to year. I have the 8th overall pick, and am 2nd on the clock. So far Hanley, Pujols, Lincecum, Fielder, Braun, and Justin Upton have been taken. Any thoughts on which route I should go? I'm leaning towards Utley, Wright, A-Rod or Greinke at this point. The keep-every-year format makes it a lot hairier than otherwise. EDIT: I'm on the clock, and Evan Longoria just went 7th.
He's another thought. Though to be honest, though I've always been a Howard fan (since many people have told me that I look like a dead ringer for the white version of him), I've always valued Utley more in fantasy drafts. Howard usually posts slightly better numbers, but the comparative advantage Utley has at 2B more than makes up for it.