Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

They couldn’t resist


A month ago I was sad to see the MLB Network cave in to the perceived need for perceived gravitas and give Bob Costas a feature spot on its debut broadcast. At the time, however, I was comforted by the fact that it seemed to be a one-off. Apparently it's now a forever-off:

Bob Costas, a 19-time Emmy Award winner and NBC broadcaster, has signed a multi-year contract to join the upstart* MLB Network, CNBC has learned, though he will remain at NBC Sports.

The MLB network, which debuted on Jan. 1 as the largest launch in cable history at 50 million homes, will announce the news later today.

Costas will host original programming on the channel and will serve as play-by-play commentator for a select group of regular season games broadcast by the network, which is owned by the league.

I think Costas was -- and probably still is -- a great play-by-play man, but his Keeper of the Game shtick wears thin in a hurry. If they send him to class-up a Thursday night tilt between the Pirates and the Rockies, wonderful. We'll all be better for it. If they stick him in a plush armchair and allow him to wax sepia, however, it will represent a major step back for the MLB Network.


*I suppose MLB Network is an "upstart" in the most literal sense (i.e. it just started up) but describing a channel backed by a $6 billion business and owned in part by the nation's largest cable companies as "upstart" kind of stretches the normal meaning of that word, don't you think?
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:32pm (12) Comments

Get it in writing


Just before a critical vote on their taxpayer-funded playground, the Marlins are making promises:

With final voting on the Florida Marlins' long-sought ballpark less than two weeks away, club president David Samson says he expects near-capacity crowds nightly the first year in the team's new home, with annual attendance above 2 million for at least seven seasons.

Such an increase for the attendance-challenged Marlins would allow them to climb into the middle of the major league pack in player payroll, Samson said Monday.

"As soon as our revenues goes up, our payroll will go up," Samson said at a luncheon to promote the upcoming season. "In the new ballpark, our payroll will always match our revenues, but our revenues will be higher."

The Marlins have been last or next-to-last in the majors in payroll each of the past three years. In 2008 payroll was $22 million, while the median in the big leagues was $80 million.

"This is not a small-market team," Samson said. "It has been a low-revenue team. Miami and its surrounding counties to me are at least a mid- to above-average market. If we can get the revenue that should go along with that size market, then we certainly should be at least in the mid-range."

I'll believe it when I see it. I have zero faith that a team owned by Jeff Loria will pay one penny more in payroll than it takes to field a team that doesn't actually forfeit games. If they build that stadium, I expect them to skate on the novelty of the joint for a year or so, then complain that pre-construction revenue projections were unduly optimistic, while continuing to ship off the decent players the baseball operations side always manages to unearth prior to arbitration.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:10pm (8) Comments

Capitol Punishment


Needham despairs at the state of the Nats' farm system:

Last season, just about anything that could go wrong, did. Ross Detwiler, the top pitching prospect, threw batting practice at single-A. Chris Marrero, the top hitting prospect, didn't excel, and his season ended halfway through thanks to a bone-shredding slide into home plate.

Many other Nats prospects struggled, with only Jordan Zimmermann developing to a point where he's MLB ready.

And those farm system rankings from last year? Well, let's just say that the Nats won't be trumpeting them quite as loudly this year.

Baseball America dropped them back down to 21. Baseball Prospectus sees only three impact players in the minors. John Sickels sees only a few guys with much potential. ESPN's Keith Law -- who clearly had Jim Bowden do something nasty to a family member -- dropped them all the way to 29th.

Ouch.

The next time you catch me complaining about the Braves' mediocre and uninspiring play, just punch me in the mouth, because at least my team has had a really good farm system for the past, oh, 20 years, and a good farm system = hope.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:35pm (6) Comments

Poe wanted to blog


This is so good it has to be phony, but via Sullivan, here is Edgar Allen Poe explaining why I decided to scratch the sports writing itch I've long had via blogging instead of going to journalism school and busting my hump on the beat for the past 20 years:

" . . . authors will perceive the immense advantage of giving their own manuscripts directly to the public without the expensive interference of the type-setter, and the often ruinous intervention of the publisher. All that a man of letters need do will be to pay some attention to legibility of manuscript, arrange his pages to suit himself, and stereotype them instantaneously, as arranged. He may intersperse them with his own drawings, or with anything to please his own fancy, … In the new régime the humblest will speak as often and as freely as the most exalted, and will be sure of receiving just that amount of attention which the intrinsic merit of their speeches may deserve."

Not sure if I can get away with calling myself a man of letters, but the rest of it sounds pretty ducky.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:15am (7) Comments

New Shea Stadium


It could be closer than you think:

Citigroup Inc., eager to quell the controversy over how lenders are using government bailout money, is exploring the possibility of backing out of a nearly $400 million marketing deal with the New York Mets, say people familiar with the matter.

Officials at Citigroup have made no final decision about whether to try to void the 20-year agreement, which includes naming the Mets' new baseball stadium after the bank, say these people.

In a statement Monday, Citigroup said that "no TARP capital will be used" for the stadium -- referring to government funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. But as it revisits the pact, Citigroup is essentially acknowledging that the volatile political climate could make it untenable for the bank to proceed with the deal.

I'd be curious to see what kind of rights the Mets have under the marketing agreement. I presume that there is some sort of opt-out/buyout provision that would head off any lawsuits. But then again, if reasonable people were involved in all of this, the whole deal never would have happened in the first place.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:05am (7) Comments

I hope they have something better than this


Further evidence that last week's flurry of press releases from the Bonds prosecutors was more flash than substance:

Jason Giambi told a federal grand jury in 2003 that he didn’t know whether Barry Bonds was taking banned substances and that he never gained any information about the home run king’s alleged drug regimen from his contacts at BALCO.

Giambi admitted he had been taking the powerful steroid Deca-Durabolin before he met Bonds’ personal trainer, Greg Anderson, after the 2002 season and also told the grand jury that Anderson gave him testosterone and human-growth hormone in addition to the two non-detectable substances produced by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the Clear and the Cream. But he never testified to anything that would connect his steroid use to Bonds.

Giambi's name was leaked as a witness because the feds knew it would get headlines. His testimony, however, is largely irrelevant, and if it is not struck as such it will, at the very least, provide little help in moving the prosecution's ball forward. Any wonder why the government is putting the full court press on Anderson and his family in order to get him to testify?

But don't take my word for it. Click through to Jonathan Littman's article to read about many of the problems the prosecution has with its case.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 9:41am (5) Comments

Hitting A.L.S.


Baseball is doing right by Lou Gehrig and everyone else with the disease that bears his name:

On July 4, the 70th anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s immortal “luckiest man on the face of the earth” speech, Major League Baseball will help fight the disease that bears the name of its doomed hero.

In 15 home ballparks that day, baseball will seek to raise money and awareness of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or A.L.S., known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which currently has no cure. Major League Baseball will announce the details of this program Tuesday.

One would think that A.L.S. would have been, for lack of a better term, baseball's "official disease" long before now, but this event is a first, and it was spurred by, of all things, a Newsweek article written by a law professor with A.L.S. last November. Better late than never, of course.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:57am (4) Comments

Negotiation: Manny Ramirez is doing it wrong


First he has a two-year, $40 million option, but he doesn't want it picked up. Then he gets a two-year $45 million offer, and doesn't answer the phone. Then he gets a one-year, $25 million offer, and rejects it:

Manny Ramirez wasted no time rejecting the Dodgers' latest offer, a one-year, $25-million proposal that was presented Sunday to his agent, Scott Boras.

In a conversation with Times columnist T.J. Simers late Monday night, Boras said he informed Ramirez about what he classified a suggestion by the Dodgers and that the All-Star outfielder turned it down. Boras said that he informed the Dodgers of Ramirez's decision.

I know Scott Boras is an evil genius and everything, but has someone explained to him that the point of holding out is to make the offers go, you know, higher?

Whatever the case, we'll know what Manny's doing when Jon Heyman tells us what he's doing.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:17am (10) Comments

The Toaster explodes


Baseball Toaster -- home to many a fine blog such as Cardboard Gods, Dodger Thoughts, and the Griddle -- has ceased to be:

If you've been paying attention lately, you've noticed that Baseball Toaster has had a bunch of its knobs and switches and dials and wires fall off in recent months. Today, with the largest part of our engine leaving to join the Los Angeles Times, we are officially sending the Toaster to the scrap heap.

We'll leave the casing intact--the archives for the blogs that are not being redirected elsewhere will remain online here indefinitely. But after tomorrow, we will cease publishing new blog entries. A few days after that, we will close up comments. The Toaster will then be left here, frozen in time, a snapshot of an era that has passed, until it one day finally rusts away.

There is some good news in all of this. For one thing, in the course of all of this weirdness, Jon Weisman's Dodger Thoughts has adopted the Good Doctor's advice and has turned pro. I think Jon himself puts it best when he says "Blogs have come a long way in the past seven years, from being something that nearly no one had heard of, to being a dirty word, to slowly being considered part of the solution rather than part of the problem." There are problems with the L.A. Times' baseball coverage, and Weisman is a great first step towards fixing them.

There is also sadness, in that Bob Timmerman has decided to end his always entertaining and often weird Griddle blog. Bob is tall and hates Ohio, but he's good people, so it will be sad to see him go. The Toaster's Master of Ceremonies Ken Arneson is also hanging it up, as is Cubs Town's Derek Smart. No more Score Bard, either, though I'm guessing he'll still show up over at Think Factory from time to time.

Many of the other Toaster blogs will continue, just at different locations (details here). ShysterBall readers will be most interested in the fate of Cardboard Gods. Thankfully, Josh has picked up right where he left off, with a particularly poignant post about beginnings and endings and blogs and all of the stuff we love him for. It's funny: you read a handful of Josh's posts and you're ready to call the suicide hotline for him, but when you sit back and think about his entire body of work, you realize that he's far more of a survivor than any of the rest of us are. He's going to probably be the last one left to turn out the lights when baseball blogging goes the way of stereoscopes and nickelodeons.

Anyway, when beer-thirty rolls around your neck of the woods this afternoon (or morning), be sure to pour some on the ground for the Toaster. Good stuff happened there, and it always, always looked great.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:30am (7) Comments

Nix to neutral sites


Bud Selig: "Very well, if that is the way the winds are blowing, let no one say I don't also blow:"

Last year's World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays was interrupted by torrential rain and cold weather in Philadelphia.

Would Selig consider shifting the World Series to a neutral warm-weather city or domed stadium as the NFL does with the Super Bowl?

"Not as long as I'm commissioner," he said. "Look, can you imagine the Cubs or the White Sox getting in a World Series and telling the people of Chicago that they have to go to San Diego? It's not possible.

"Part of the charm of fighting to get into the World Series is having the lasting memories from playing in front of your fans in your own ballpark."

OK, cheap shot at Selig inasmuch as I don't think he is anywhere on record responding favorably to those idiotic neutral site ideas from last fall. But you have to admit, if the groundswell were greater than just Buster Olney and some other neutral site deadenders, he'd be all over it.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 6:45am (4) Comments

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