Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

There’s no crying in baseball until after you retire


Lee Smith feels disrespected:

Smith held the major league record for career saves with 478 from 1993 until 2006, when Trevor Hoffman surpassed it.

Yet the former imposing Cubs closer has seen fellow relievers Dennis Eckersley, Bruce Sutter and Goose Gossage elected to the Hall while he figuratively fidgets in the bullpen.

"They're holding out on me," Smith said from his home in Castor, La. "I have, like, 200 more saves than two or three guys who are in there. Dennis Eckersley (390 saves, 197 wins) is the only Hall of Famer who has a better save opportunity [percentage] than I do (84 to Smith's 82). I don't understand, man.

"And Eck had unbelievable numbers as a starter," Smith added, referring to Eckersley becoming the first pitcher with 20-win and 50-save seasons. "The man has 100 complete games. I have no problem with him. But Goose and Sutter … they were on the ballot for a long time" . . .

. . . "When I retired, nobody seemed to know I was the all-time saves leader for almost 15 years," Smith said. "Until Trevor Hoffman broke my record, half the people thought Eckersley was the all-time leader."

You know, until Gossage got in last year following a multi-year whine fest, I would have thought that such antics from Smith would be counterproductive. But like they say, what's good for the Goose . . .
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 11:30am

Was he even wearing a veil to begin with?


For three days straight I've been seeing the headlines about how the Yankees are planning to "unveil" Teixeira in some sort of news conference and have been wondering why, exactly, this is big news. We know who he is. We basically know about his contract. What is there really to unveil? It's an empty exercise borne of New York media competition more than anything else.

I'm not the only one who thinks this, as Jason at IIATMS has a near certain to be correct prediction of what we'll hear when Teixeira is, um, unveiled.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:35pm

Cuban’s side of the story


Mark Cuban isn't going to be the next Cubs' owner, and today on his blog he tells us why he thinks that is. He blames a lot of things -- Jerry Reinsdorf and the capital and credit markets to name a few -- but never once mentions that he's being sued by the SEC for insider trading.

At the end of the piece he notes that he has asked MLB for an extension on his bid, and that no one is returning his calls. It seems to me that the lawsuit is a pretty good reason for them not to.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:15pm

Pavano to the Indians


Between this and the Kerry Wood signing, I can't decide if the Indians are going to have a really good staff this season or set the record for use of the disabled list.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:00pm

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Today at THT


I'm in a Diamondmind sim league with Dayn Perry, Joe Dimino, Shredder, and a bunch of guys whose names you might know if you hang around Baseball Think Factory a lot. Last night I turned in my keeper list in the runup to this year's draft. We're allowed to keep ten players. I listed mine, and even though they are merely virtual, textual and statistical representations of real people, the guys I kept started a whisper campaign to the local media about how I simply don't care about winning. Then the press saw that I didn't keep the fake Jeter, and they really let me have it. Rough league.

  • The Big Bad Don Malcom begins an omnibus what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-the-Hall-of-Fame and-how-do-we-fix-it series. Grab a soda for this one, because it's gonna take you a while to get through it. It's Malcom, though, so it's worth getting through


  • Brian Borawski has the latest business of baseball roundup. How lame does Mark Cuban feel about the fact that a former agent cum executive can decide to buy the Padres seemingly overnight and make it happen while a billionaire who already owns a team in another sport can't make it happen at all?


  • Tuck! illustrates the passion of Red Sox fans


  • Finally, over at Fantasy Focus, Derek Carty talks late first round strategy. I don't know about you, but by seventh or eighth pick of the first round I have already screwed up my entire draft, and that's even the case when I'm drafting ninth.
    • Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:48am

    Mrs. Teixeira made the call


    Apparently Mark Teixeira's wife made the call on signing with the Yankees:

    Thirteen days before Christmas, Mark Teixeira, the Yankees’ $180 million man, was having dinner with his wife, Leigh, when he pleaded with her for insight about the future. If everything was equal among Teixeira’s suitors, he said, where would she rather see him play? Leigh admitted to preferring the Yankees . . .

    . . . Leigh’s feelings regarding the Yankees had not been publicized until Tuesday, and the Red Sox may wonder if they had a serious chance to sign Teixeira. Boras dismissed the notion that the Red Sox were misled and said part of the free-agent process included teams sometimes charging that they were “strung along.” . . . Boras acknowledged that Leigh’s opinion about the Yankees “was the deciding factor” for Teixeira, but he said her most definitive remarks were offered at the end of the process.

    I said yesterday that I don't think that these "introduce the new player" press conferences have any value, and this is one of the reasons. I suppose it's entirely possible that Leigh Teixeira was the driving force behind the Yankees landing their new slugger. I suppose that to some it might even matter. I also suppose, however, that if I wanted to change the subject from a contentious negotiation with the Red Sox and a media firestorm about the size of my contract in these tough economic times that I might float the story that my wife made the call so I don't look so damn mercenary about it. A new angle on Mike Hampton's "I'm signing with the Rockies because the schools in Denver are good" if you will.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 6:09am

    What are the Reds doing?


    I'm not a Reds fan, but because they're close to me and because I have friends that are Reds fans I tend to obsess on their minor personnel moves more than I would that of other teams. This is one worth obsessing on a bit:

    The Reds, securing protection at shortstop, have reached a preliminary agreement with free agent Jerry Hairston Jr. on a one-year, $2 million contract, according to major-league sources. The deal, expected to be announced on Wednesday, includes $2 million in incentive bonuses.

    Hairston, 32, chose to remain with the Reds rather than sign with the Cardinals in part because he expects to play regularly at short, sources said.

    Shortstop? He's played 40 games at shortstop in his career, 34 of which came last season when he was 32 years old. Someone who knows anything about defense, tell me: is it even remotely possible that Hairston could handle shortstop for 150 games? And even if he can, while this may help his own bat look a bit better, doesn't it mean that Norris Hopper and Chris Dickerson are your left fielders?

    Given the stadium in which they play, it strikes me that the Reds cannot afford to give anyone any extra outs, as Hairston at short is likely to do. It also strikes me that they can't devote two of their three outfield slots to guys who can't hit, as the Dickerson/Hopper platoon + Willy Taveras in center situation is likely to do.

    If this makes sense beyond what I'm seeing, someone, please tell me how.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:00am

    More on Romero and Mitre


    There is a lot of he-said-she-said about the Romero and Mitre suspensions. To help clear up things -- or muddy things, depending on your point of view -- Jason at IIATMS spoke with agent Matt Sosnick about L'affaire (L'affaires?) Mite and Romero. Check it out.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:19am

    The gum must be AWFUL by now


    It's this sort of thing that causes my brother to drag me through antique shops and thrift stores for hours on end whenever we're together:

    Bernice Gallego sat down one day this summer, as she does pretty much every day, and began listing items on eBay.

    She dug into a box and pulled out a baseball card. She stopped for a moment and admired the picture. "Red Stocking B.B. Club of Cincinnati," the card said, under a sepia tone photo of 10 men with their socks pulled up to their knees. The card itself was dirty and wrinkled in a few places.

    It was definitely old, Gallego thought. As a collector and seller, it's her job to spot old items that might have value today, to find the gems among the junk.

    It's what Bernice, 72, and her husband Al Gallego, 80, have been doing since 1974 at Collectique, their antiques store in the Fresno, Calif., Tower District full of old jukeboxes, slot machines and records.

    This card, she figured, was worth selling on eBay.

    She did what she does with most items: Took a picture, wrote a description and put it up for auction. She put a $10 price tag on it, deciding against $15 because it would have cost her an extra 20 cents . . .

    . . . as Bernice Gallego came to find out in the following weeks, it could be worth a lot more.

    The card is actually 139 years old. It, and a handful of others like it, are considered the first baseball cards. Sports card collectors call the find "extremely rare" and estimate the card could fetch five, or perhaps, six figures at auction.

    It's an 1869 Cincinnati Red Stocking team card. My guess: she has the checklist too, but some young punk marked off all the boxes on it with a ballpoint in 1874, rendering it worthless.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:45am

    Get creative, Adam!


    Rosenthal has a piece up about Adam Dunn. The first post about it in the BTF thread is from the always insightful Harveys Wallbangers, and it's pretty brilliant, actually:

    If I were Adam I would take a one year deal, play my *ss off and look to re-enter a much better market to start 2010. While the general economy will still be lagging somewhat things will be ticking upward.

    Right now there is just too much uncertainty. That and it's a great excuse for ballclubs to try and "rightsize" their payrolls if only for a year.

    This would be a fantastic idea for Dunn. Risky? Sure. He could pull an Andruw Jones and fall off a cliff, I suppose. But given Dunn's outrageously consistent stat lines for the past few years, if there's anyone I'd count on to not crater, it's him.

    As Neyer and others have noted, there is damn little available in next season's free agent market. Another 40 homer season in 2009, and Dunn could set himself up as one of the most sought after guys on the market next season instead of everybody's fifth choice this year.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 9:20am

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