Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The Unit has options


Randy Johnson's agent is talking about San Francisco, but if he's being honest, there is a lot of interest in the Big Unit right now:

Randy Johnson is being wooed by both Bay Area teams. He seems to prefer the Giants.

"Randy's really interested," one of his agents, Barry Meister, said Thursday, the final day of the winter meetings. "We made a check list of everything that's important, and San Francisco checks off on every box. They're in the National League. They'll be competitive. They train in Arizona.

"San Francisco has a lot of appeal" . . .

. . . Johnson's camp reports of interest from the Dodgers, Angels, Cubs, Rangers, Brewers and Astros (the only team on the list that trains in Florida).

And I am inclined to believe that he's being honest. Given (a) how productive Johnson was last year; and (b) his willingness to do a one-year deal, any team that isn't 100% satisfied with its rotation -- and that's basically every team, isn't it? -- should be wanting to get in on this.



Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:09pm (3) Comments

Cole Hamels Meets Talk Radio


I'm not usually a fan of trash talk, accusations of overratedness, or discussions that center around the word "choke." But with just about every important baseball figure on an airplane heading home from Las Vegas this afternoon, it's a slow news day, and I thus have no choice but to wade into those waters a bit:

In an interview on WFAN today with Joe Beningo and Evan Roberts, [Cole] Hamels was promoting the Phillies' World Series DVD when he was asked outright, "Do you think the Mets are choke artists?"

"Last year and this year I think we did believe that [they were choke artists]," he said. "Three years ago we didn't because they smoked everybody, and I think we all thought they were going to win it all. Unfortunately that didn't happen. But, yeah, that's kind of what we believed and I think we're always going to believe that until they prove us wrong.

"For the past two years they've been choke artists."

We all know what's going to happen next: the New York tabloids will go crazy tomorrow, the Mets fans and then the Mets will follow suit, Hamels will then be forced to walk back his comments a bit, and all will be forgotten until Johan Santana sends a batting practice fastball in the general direction of Hamels' butt sometime next spring. It's all rather silly, really.

Sure, truth is an absolute defense to a slander, but it's still rather silly.

(link via reader Charles O.)
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:59pm (23) Comments

Just another ten-percenter (his mind is like an ocean)


Boras. Tellem. Greenberg. Hendricks. Levinson.

Saberhagen?

Bret Saberhagen, the two-time Cy Young Award winner from Cleveland High in Reseda, has just joined the agent business.

West Coast Sports Management, the Pasadena-based firm headed by former Dodgers general manager Dan Evans, hired Saberhagen this week, and his primary responsibilities will be to evaluate and recruit pitchers.

I expect great things from him next year. And in 2011, 2013, 2015 . . . .



Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:12pm (5) Comments

Peavy Deal Dead


So sayeth Robo:

The Cubs' pursuit of Jake Peavy is over.

Padres general manager Kevin Towers said he was told by Cubs general manager Jim Hendry on Thursday that the Cubs were no longer interested in pursuing a deal for the former Cy Young winner.

The teams had spoken for weeks about a potential trade but talks broke down this week.

The Cubs were frustrated by the Padres' attempts to seek five or six players for Peavy with one team executive saying, "They're looking for a Herschel Walker-type deal."

It was fairly obvious weeks ago that (a) Towers was going to ask for a lot; and (b) that Peavy wasn't going to help by being coy with respect to where he would or would not play. That pretty much killed every possible deal, with Atlanta and Chicago each realizing that Towers was driving a harder bargain than he really had a right to be driving.

The Padres need to stop, take a deep breath, plan on entering 2009 with Jake Peavy as their opening day starter, hope that Peavy gives some random interview somewhere in which he says he "just wants to play for a winner" and then says absolutely nothing else, and then try to trade him next June.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:25pm (1) Comments

Who Asked Him?


Someone thought it was worth asking Brian McNamee's opinion about something:

Roger Clemens will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in 2013. Brian McNamee, the trainer whom Clemens is suing for defamation as a result of allegations he made in the Mitchell report, says there's no chance the right-hander will be enshrined.

"He's done. He's not going to the Hall of Fame," McNamee said in a video interview with Web site sportsimproper.com. "There's no chance. Too much damage. Too much trust was broken. Between the people that gave him his career, the people that wrote about his career, and the people that supported his career" . . .

. . . "You know, it takes a lifetime to build trust. All it takes is one monumental moment to break that trust and you're done. And that's what happened," McNamee said in the interview. "It not only happened, but it happened at monumental lengths. So he's not deserving of the Hall of Fame."

I couldn't give a crap about Clemens' Hall chances right now, but I always love to be lectured about personal ethics and integrity by a serial liar.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:06pm (3) Comments

Can you pay the way to San Jose?


As was mentioned the other day, the A's still might move to San Jose, but if they do, they'd better not be expecting any handouts:

Amid all the talk this week that new challenges in Fremont could be thawing San Jose's long-frozen hopes for landing a showpiece A's stadium, city officials Wednesday were cool to tepidly optimistic when it came to relaunching any all-out push to woo the team's owner, Lew Wolff.

One one hand, there's Mayor Chuck Reed: "I won't be calling," he stated. "Lew's got my phone number." Not that he won't listen if Wolff or his partners decide to give him a ring — with at least one, um, minor caveat.

"He'll have to bring his checkbook," the mayor said. "We don't have any money."

Good for Mayor Reed!

Not that there's total opposition to the idea, as others in San Jose government are at least thinking about it. And unlike in Fremont, an environmental impact study has already been made for at least one potential stadium site. Click through to the article for some cool graphics showing how an A's stadium might fit into San Jose.

As I've said in the past, I think the idea of the A's in San Jose makes a lot of sense. I'll admit, however, that this is merely a gut feeling. Any of you Bay Area dwellers have any local insight on this? Either in terms of practicality (i.e. Would people go? Are there any non-obvious problems with baseball in San Jose?) or in terms of likelihood (i.e. will San Jose never allow it).

Like I often say, this is an interactive forum, so if you have any thoughts on the matter, please, enlighten us in the comments below.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:06am (7) Comments

Tickets please


Step 1: Buy World Series tickets;

Step 2: Sell them on the secondary market for a huge markup;

Step 3: Quickly call the stadium ticket office and report the now-sold tickets stolen;

Step 4: Get the tickets you sold voided, and receive fresh new tickets.

Step 5: Catch all kinds of hell from the guy you ripped off.

This is why I choose to watch through a knothole in the centerfield fence.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:51am (1) Comments

Appropos of nothing


Even if Blagojevich hadn't gotten all extorty with Sam Zell, the state-helping-the-Cubs-with-Wrigley thing would have been sunk by the Tribune's bankruptcy:

Before Gov. Blagojevich's arrest, his administration and Tribune Co. were discussing a $250 million bond deal for the purchase of Wrigley Field, the chairman of the Illinois Finance Authority said Wednesday.

William Brandt Jr., a business turnaround specialist who became the agency's chief last February, said he doubts whether a plan for the ballpark will move forward.

"It's that the Tribune has gone into bankruptcy," Brandt said. He said he had been seeking a Tribune guarantee of bonds that the IFA would issue.

"That guarantee would be worthless," Brandt said.

I offer this less for its substance than I do as an excuse to mention that I once had a case in which this William Brandt, Jr. guy was prominently involved. He did a pretty good job turning around that which needed turning around, but I found him to be something of a pompous horse's hiney. One of those guys that comes to your town from Chicago and then proceeds to tell you how much your town sucks compared to Chicago. Our case involved political corruption, and he made a bunch of pointed comments about how Ohio was a cesspool of avarice, greed, and graft. Now he's a member of the Illinois government. Heh.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:08am (4) Comments

Melky for Mikey


The Daily News has the Yankees trading Melky Cabrera to Milwaukee for Mike Cameron:

The Yankees have found their center fielder for 2009, as they are set to send Melky Cabrera to Milwaukee for veteran outfielder Mike Cameron on Thursday, according to two major league sources . . . Many believed Cabrera would be the center fielder of the future entering the 2008 campaign, but a disappointing season, in which he hit .249 with eight homeruns and 37 RBIs in 129 games, led many to believe he was destined for a future as a utility outfielder. Yankees blue-chip prospect Austin Jackson is not expected to be ready for big league action until at least 2010, making Cameron the ideal one-year stopgap in center field.

Cameron, a former Met, hit .243 with 25 HRs and 70 RBIs in 120 games last season. He will earn $10 million in 2009.

If those are all of the players involved, it's a pretty good deal for the Yankees. Maybe he'll prove us wrong, but Melky doesn't look like anyone's solution in centerfield, let alone New York's. At the same time, Milwaukee could stand to get out of paying a 36 year-old $10MM. And hey, maybe Melky will take to the NL better.

I'll leave the hardcore analysis of this deal to others, but for now I'll offer a cosmic observation: it doesn't seem all that long ago that Mike Cameron was traded for a guy who, at the time anyway, was considered one of the best baseball players in baseball history. Now he's worth Melky Cabrera, and I don't think that the guy who was once one of the best baseball players in baseball history could say the same thing. Time marches on.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 9:49am (6) Comments

Today at THT


I was part of a 12-blogger trade late last night involving MVN, FanHouse, and Baseball Prospectus, but someone screwed up the paperwork and I somehow ended up back here. The lesson: people should just try to keep things simple.

  • Colin Wyers wonders whether more actual butts in the seats gives the home team an advantage. No matter what Colin thinks, however, Mom is still going to credit her home cooking.


  • Dave Studeman tries to figure out if late season games really are more critical than early season games. Read his conclusion for yourself, but know this: I sometimes lose interest in the season in the first few days of September, but after a long cold winter, there is nothing more important to this fan than games in April. Not that that's what Dave is calculating.


  • Brandon Isleib continues his series in which he tries to figure out what would have happened had there been division play and an unbalanced schedule back in your grandfathers' day. This time it's 1953-1968. Oops, that actually corresponds more closely with my father's day. Man I feel old.


  • Over at Fantasy Focus, Michael Lerra investigates which fantasy stat categories truly reward the owner who drafts the best players as opposed to the one who drafts some freaky, random stat-exploiting roster. As a guy who had the first pick in his recent redistribution draft yet accidentally passed over Hanley Ramirez because he didn't read the spreadsheet of available players properly, I'm hoping freaky rosters can still compete.


    • Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 6:08am (0) Comments

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