“I might’ve been given a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for. Thank you.”Those were the final words Lou Gehrig ever spoke to the hearts of America. His succinct and supple speech on Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day at Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939 remains one of the most beautiful bits of poetry our ears have ever heard.

Saturday, July 4, 2009 marks the 70th anniversary of Gehrig’s farewell speech, and it will be celebrated around Major League Baseball. MLB is launching the “4ALS Awareness” campaign to raise money for ALS research to help fight the illness that has become commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Throughout MLB, players will wear “4ALS” patches, first bases will be auctioned in memory of Gehrig (he played 1B), and every major league ballpark will read Gehrig’s speech during the seventh inning stretch.

Gehrig stepped up to the microphone in front of more than 60,000 people, baggy uniform cascading down a feeble and slumping body, and barely spoke for 30 seconds. Politicians need hours, weeks, and months to get a message across to a nation. Gehrig needed 30 seconds.

In a time of economic recession, heartache, worry, and bleakness, the world could use a little bit of Lou Gehrig. The world could use a little reminder that we still have an awful lot to live for. Gehrig’s life was blessed with the underlying power that it also represents a message that can resonate with any family in any suburb.

One day not too long ago, I stood just outside the third base dugout on the diamond of a neighborhood park. The dugout sat adjacent to a McDonald’s that was perfect for an after practice cheeseburger.

The all-dirt diamond kicked up some of the nastiest hops a nine-year-old boy would ever want to see. You better have had a good dentist if you were going to roam shortstop there.

It was the first practice of the summer, and my Pony League coach asked me what number I would like to wear for the upcoming All Star season.

“I would like No. 4, please,” I told Coach.

“Okay, any specific reason?”

“Yeah, because that’s the number Lou Gehrig wore for the Yankees,” I told him, confidently.

My coach had this wry smile that he held for three long seconds, pondering how a nine-year-old boy could idolize a baseball legend that played some 60 years prior. “Okay, well No. 4 is yours then.”

And that was where it all began for me, the moment Gehrig’s life and legacy seeped into my soul. All the way up through high school ball I proudly donned ‘4’ on my back.

It wasn’t until my freshman season in college that I had to change. Number 4 went to a 5’9″ middle infielder. So naturally, I have worn ‘44’ for the last two seasons. If you can’t have one Gehrig, you might as well have two then, right?

Gehrig was a great, great baseball player, but he wasn’t the best to ever live. That could easily be said about his teammate, Babe Ruth.

What makes Gehrig truly spectacular is that he accomplished some astonishing things in his career, and yet he is still remembered for how he played the game and the way he carried himself as a man.

Gehrig was born in New York City to German immigrants, and was the only child of four to survive. He grew up like most people with immigrant parents; both parents worked long, hard hours and he was raised on the principles of hard work and perseverance.

His road to becoming a legendary icon began at Columbia University in 1921 at the request of his mother, Christina. She was adamant that Lou received an education. After all, she and her husband didn’t struggle to get to the United States for nothing.

But after two seasons at Columbia, Gehrig decided to sign a professional contract with the New York Yankees when scout Paul Krichell approached him and offered a $1,500 signing bonus. Christina wasn’t happy, but she supported her son’s decision to chase his childhood dream.

It wasn’t long before Mrs. Gehrig could watch her baby boy play in The Bronx. Gehrig was called up to the big leagues that September, and hit so well that Yankees manager Miller Huggins petitioned for Gehrig to be added to the World Series roster in place of injured Wally Pipp.

But New York Giants manager John McGraw exercised his right to refuse Huggins’ petition, and therefore Gehrig was left off the roster. The Yankees won the World Series, anyway.

Gehrig spent 1924 playing in the minor leagues at Hartford, and then joined the Yankees for good in the spring of ’25. When Gehrig took over for Pipp at first base, he would never leave. Fourteen seasons later, and a legend had been cemented.

If you want history, Gehrig made it. If you want stats, Gehrig has it. With a .340 career batting average, 2,721 hits, 493 home runs, and 1,995 RBI, Gehrig was one of the most pure hitters of his time.

Over a modern 162 game season, Gehrig’s career numbers would project out to .340, .447 OBP, 37 homers, 149 RBI, 141 runs, and almost twice as many walks as strikeouts.

Among Gehrig’s many accomplishments, he holds the career record for grand slams with 23; he won the Triple Crown in 1934; his 184 RBIs in ’31 are the most ever in a single season in the American League, and are second most in baseball history behind Hack Wilson’s 191 RBIs in 1930 with the Chicago Cubs; he is the only player ever to drive in 500 or more runs over a three year span (1930-’32).

And remember, Gehrig spent those years hitting behind Babe Ruth, arguably the most prolific power hitter in baseball history.

Of course, the Iron Horse is most known for his 2,130 consecutive games played streak, which was a record until Cal Ripken Jr. eclipsed the mark in 1995. During the streak, Gehrig played through broken toes, fingers, and back spasms.

Once late in his career, Gehrig’s hands were X-rayed and doctors were able to spot 17 different fractures that had fused back together during his streak.

But the end came abruptly in the summer of ’39, with Gehrig retiring at 36 years old after being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. The disease destroys the nerve cells controlling muscles and causes complete paralysis. Most patients die within 3-5 years of being diagnosed.

The Hall Of Fame waived its customary two-year waiting period and opened up its doors to Gehrig in 1939, the same year as his retirement. They wanted Gehrig to be able to accept the honor before his illness captured him.

Gehrig passed away on June 2, 1941, 17 days shy of his 38th birthday, but the sadness placidly surrendered to the joy and grace of his name.

Gehrig was ahead of his time in social activism, saying, “There is no room in baseball for discrimination. It is our national pastime and a game for all.” Jackie Robinson wouldn’t come along to officially break the color barrier in baseball until 1947.

Mostly, though, Gehrig is remembered for his humility and honesty while living in a city that craves showmanship, and working for a franchise that defined the American sports celebrity.

Gehrig spent most of his years living in the shadow of Ruth, an iconic figure equally know for his womanizing and party habits in addition to his tantalizing baseball talent.

And Gehrig spent his last years playing in the shadow of Joe DiMaggio, The Yankee Clipper who, when not on the field, stayed in the public spotlight by marrying Marilyn Monroe and later becoming a famous line of Simon & Garfunkel’s 1968 number one single, “Mrs. Robinson.”

But all the while, Gehrig remained a symbol for the working class of New York, and the middle class of America. He was a loving family man, and that image waltzes with everyday reality.

You don’t need to be Ruth to have it made. You don’t need the glamour of DiMaggio to have happiness. Even in the face of struggle, you don’t need to be rich or famous to make it through. You simply need to stay true to your core, and follow Gehrig’s path of dignity.

“Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.”That Gehrig line will forever rest in baseball lore.

But it’s kind of funny, because that’s how I feel when I get to dive into and celebrate the illustrious life and legacy of Lou “The Iron Horse” Gehrig.

Teddy Mitrosilis is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is majoring in journalism and is walking onto the baseball team. He is a staff writer for the Most Valuable Network’s baseball blog, Around The Majors at www.mvn.com/aroundthemajors. Read more of Teddy’s work at http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/tm4000.   

Sean McAdam of FoxSports.com says the “classic model of the DH is fading away:”

As the 2009 season reaches the halfway point on the calendar, only seven DHs — or one for every two AL franchises — are on pace to collect more than 350 plate appearances. And from among that group, only four are already in double figures in homers.

All of which suggests a sea change that’s taking place with the position: Rather than pencil in a player to fill the DH role on an everyday basis, teams are rotating players in and out of the spot, often using the role to provide rest to position players, or to alleviate overcrowding at a particular position.

McAdam goes on to argue that because teams are tightening their budgets, they don’t want to spend the historical going rate for players who only add value at the plate.  He says that DHs have historically been among the highest paid players and these days teams want players who can rotate between a DH role and a role in the field.  

Actually, I’m not so sure this is true.  Looking at the highest single-season salaries in baseball history, there aren’t too many full-time DHs.  The only two players that jump out are Jason Giambi (2007 and 2008) and Jim Thome (2007).  But Giambi played more games at first base than DH in 2008.

I do agree that teams understand better than ever the value of defense.  With the advent of advanced defensive metrics, teams know better than ever which players add value defensively and by how much.  This may mean that teams will refuse to pay DHs like other players.  But then again a team could still probably justify a huge contract to a historically great hitter who can’t field.  And isn’t this the way it’s always been: Only the best of the best DHs getting huge contracts? 

As one scout told McAdam, there will always be room in the game for guys who should be in a Major League lineup every day but absolutely should not be allowed to take the field.  I would add, there always has been and there always will be.

As much as we think of the DH as a position for slow and aging players, the position has always been filled by a few guys who couldn’t field and lots of guys who got their fair share of playing time in the field because they could field adequately.  In other words the new model McAdam envisions has basically always been the model. 

This is not about a billy goat, a Bartman, or some new Century Club Curse hanging over the Chicago Cubs. Yes, the Cubs haven’t won a World Series in over 100 years now, but it’s no longer about a lack of talent or a propensity to choke.

Everybody wants to bury the Mets this week for their underachieving ways, but at least their struggles can be largely related to their lineup that has been decimated by injuries, a bullpen that lost its power set up man, and one misguided contract given to Oliver Perez.

In Chicago, it’s less about injuries and more about attitude. The Cubs need a culture shock, one that comes with a swift broom and a dustpan, sweeping out all of the destructible personas in this woebegone franchise.

It’s amazing that the Cubs currently sit 3.5 games out of first place in the National League Central. If you only looked at the standings, you would think life is pretty good on the North side. But if there is ever a franchise in need of detoxification, this is it.

The selling of the Cubs from the Tribune Co. to the Ricketts family has been held up over financial issues regarding the $900 million price tag, but as soon as that transaction is complete, Tom Ricketts needs to walk through the clubhouse with a Dustbuster.

If Ricketts wants to see a winning franchise with his name on it, an identity change is the first thing he needs to do.

The face of the Cubs, certainly for the worst, is ace Carlos Zambrano. If Zambrano didn’t live life as a ticking detonator, his enormous talent would be universally lauded. Zambrano would normally be one of the Top 15 pitchers in all of baseball on my list, but enough is enough.

His tantrums do more harm for the Cubs than his pitching does good. When are we ever going to see the Zambrano who doesn’t let his emotions get the best of him and simply sticks to dominating the competition, you ask? Well, never, because there isn’t such a thing. I’m convinced.

Vintage Zambrano was on display Sunday as the Cubs wrapped up a weekend series with the White Sox.

In the bottom of the sixth inning with the White Sox up 3-0, Christ Getz was on third base with DeWayne wise at the plate. The White Sox put on a suicide squeeze but it was recorded as a stolen base for Getz when Zambrano threw wide of catcher Geovany Soto and the ball went to the backstop, making it 4-0 White Sox.

On the next pitch, Zambrano hit Wise, and the two immediately started exchanging words. Zambrano said it was a “cutter that cut too much,” but then waved Wise to meet him out at the mound.

Regardless of Zambrano’s alibi, he lost his focus, put fake machismo above competing, and didn’t make it out of the inning. That’s not exactly the leadership the Cubs need from their ace when they are looking up at three other teams in their division.

Oh, but Big Z isn’t alone when it comes to the powder kegs. Milton Bradley routinely joins the party, and his latest water cooler-smashing incident came on Friday, resulting in a shouting match in the dugout tunnel with manager Lou Pinella and Pinella allegedly calling him a “piece of [bleep].”

But Bradley being in the middle of some sort of emotional drama is no surprise, though. When a guy has played for seven teams in the last nine seasons, why in the world would he ever be able to survive in one of the rowdiest sports venues in America playing in front of some of the hostile and blood-boiling fans?

There’s Ted Lilly who is always good for a few outbursts a season. My favorite Lilly moment came in the 2007 NLDS against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Lilly gave up a home run to Arizona’s Chris Young – one bad pitch in a horrible outing – and spiked his glove on the mound in a big Little League huff. That was the lasting image of those Cubs.

To top it all off, Geovany Soto tested positive for marijuana while playing for Puerto Rico in this spring’s World Baseball Classic. Soto, the 2008 NL Rookie of the Year, was banned from international competition for two years (big deal), and promptly made all of the cliché apologies that he didn’t write.

To be fair, the Cubs have been hurt by the absence of Aramis Ramirez and the invisibility of Alfonso Soriano. Ramirez is expected back soon after dislocating his left shoulder on May 9, but Soriano is still lost at the plate.

In a perfect world, Ramirez would be healthy and he would share the leadership role with Derek Lee. Both are stand up guys and both are productive players. Of course, there is nothing such as a perfect world in Cubdom.

Who knows when Ricketts will end up taking over the ownership of the Cubs, and even if it did happen soon, it is extremely tough to make big changes in the middle of a season. Fine. The Cubs current roster has the rest of this season to make the best of it.

But as soon as the World Series is over, jerseys must be burned and this club needs to start over. With Soriano’s massive contract, you aren’t moving him.

Soriano is part of the problem on the field, but he isn’t part of the problem in the clubhouse and the tabloids. I would just drop him to sixth in the order where his power will play up and his .300 OBP will play down. He certainly doesn’t belong in the leadoff spot.

Zambrano should be on the market and the Cubs should be open to all offers. Trust me, there would be plenty. They could get a haul of young players for him.

The Cubs would have to eat most of Bradley’s salary, but it would be worth it to get him into another uniform and out of Chicago’s nightmares.

Lilly? See ya.

Soto stays, but only because the marijuana incident is the only blotch on his resume with the Cubs. So the kid gets a second chance. But any more hiccups and he is out.

And while I’m at it, I would give Pinella a long, hard look. It’s not his fault that he was given a roster with this many buffoons, but then again, he hasn’t done anything to suggest that at 65-years-old he can manage any batch of egos. Pinella is a great manager, but the end comes at some point for everyone.

Give me Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, Ryan Dempster, and Rich Harden. That’s where I start. Those are my leaders. Complementary pieces like shortstop Ryan Theriot and Reed Johnson are great if the leadership is in place.

The Cubs will always have an inside track to talent, because Wrigley Field is one of the most desirable places to play and Chicago is a great place to live.

But every winner has a foundation of productive players with high character. That’s a fact, and the Cubs will never win anything as long as they are known more for blow-ups than true ballplayers.

I want to enjoy the Cubs and the Wrigley Field atmosphere, which is second to none during October. But until the vision is changed from the top down, we are only going to get more dented water coolers.

Teddy Mitrosilis is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is majoring in journalism and is walking onto the baseball team. He is a staff writer for the Most Valuable Network’s baseball blog, Around The Majors at www.mvn.com/aroundthemajors. Read more of Teddy’s work at http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/tm4000.   

At the beginning of the season, members of the Dugout Central staff were challenged to predict the number of wins during the regular season for each major league team. It’s time again for a monthly update as we approach the halfway point of the season.

In addition to the staff predictions, other “predictions” are also being tracked. One such set is last year’s win totals. Sky Kalkman suggested two other possibilities: last year’s Pythagorean wins, i.e., the number of wins expected using the Pythagorean won/loss

formula on last year’s run totals, and the completely egalitarian “prediction” that each team wins 81 games. And finally, the preseason Vegas line (from thegreek.com) will also be compared to our predictions.

The standings as of June 30:

	Proj. Avg. Diff.	Proj. St. Dev.
Kerry Whisnant	5.19	6.94
The Greek	5.32	7.14
Sky Kalkman	5.41	7.03
Thomas Wayne	5.66	7.18
81 Wins	5.67	7.62
Average	5.69	7.32
Tyler Hissey	5.86	7.44
2008 Pythagorean	5.87	7.47
Randy Newsom	5.91	7.59
Adam White	5.94	7.84
2008	6.31	7.54
Scott Jensen	6.38	7.83
Chuck Johnson	6.50	8.31
Shaun Payne	6.70	8.37
John Quemere	7.09	8.86

The first column is the projected average win difference per team at the end of the season, using the current won-loss percentage for each team. The second column shows the projected standard deviation in the win difference. The win difference is the official total that will determine the winner, while the standard deviation method penalizes predictions that are wildly off target more heavily.

The standings have changed quite a bit from a month ago. Everyone’s projected average difference has increased, although by differing amounts, which has led to a shuffling in the standings.

The Greek and I have gone to the front of the pack. Sky dropped to third, but is still within striking distance. Randy and Tyler fallen back, to be replaced by Thomas. Both the average of our picks and the simple prediction that all teams win 81 games also are doing fairly well. The 2008 records and 2008 Pythagorean records have improved their position, while John has dropped to last place.

After last month’s article was posted, Jayhawk Bill was inquiring about how the standings were calculated. The process combines two methods, but can be approximated as follows: (1) project the current team W/L percentages to 162 games, (2) find the average difference of those projections from the predictions, and (3) multiply the result by the square root of (Gavg/162), where Gavg is the average number of games played by all MLB teams. This last step corrects for the fact that random fluctuations are relatively bigger for a smaller sample size. Using this method, you can compare your own predictions (or those from other sources) to ours.

While this challenge is strictly for bragging rights, what would happen if we actually put money on these predictions? The following table, arranged in alphabetical order, shows how our predictions are currently doing versus the preseason Vegas line from thegreek.com. The data in each column assumes over/under bets are placed when our predictions differ by at least as many games as shown in the column heading. The outcome of each bet is predicted by projecting the current team win percentages to full-season win totals.

	0.5+	3.5+	6.5+	9.5+
Tyler Hissey	12-18	4- 8	0- 0	0- 0
Scott Jensen	12-18	5-11	3- 1	0- 0
Chuck Johnson	13-17	9-12	4- 7	2- 3
Sky Kalkman	19-11	4- 3	0- 1	0- 0
Randy Newsom	12-18	6- 5	2- 3	1- 1
Shaun Payne	10-20	4-14	3- 2	1- 0
John Quemere	12-18	4-16	3- 3	1- 0
Thomas Wayne	15-15	11- 8	6- 5	3- 2
Kerry Whisnant	19-11	13- 5	4- 1	0- 1
Adam White	15-15	6- 8	3- 5	0- 0
Average	14-15	3- 4	1- 0	0- 0
2008	19-11	16- 9	11- 5	6- 1
2008 Pythagorean	18-12	15- 8	6- 2	5- 1
81 Wins	21- 9	14- 5	10- 4	4- 2

The best records belong to Sky and me. However, most people wouldn’t place a bet if their prediction was only half a game different from the line. The other columns show our projected record versus the line for teams where our predictions differed from the line by at least 3.5, 6.5 or 9.5 games. Perhaps surprisingly, the 2008, 2008 Pythagorean and 81 Wins “predictions” are all doing very well against the line across the board. They are not leading the contest because some of their misses are pretty bad; when betting on the over/under, all misses count the same.

The next update will be given at the end of July.

From the Associated Press. 

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pittsburgh Pirates, swapping outfielders at a rapid rate for the second successive season, sent starting left fielder Njyer Morgan to the Washington Nationals in a four-player deal involving outfielder Lastings Milledge and also shipped backup Eric Hinske to the Yankees on Tuesday.

The Pirates, who have pushed to restock a thin farm system by making numerous trades over the last year, get Milledge and reliever Joel Hanrahan from the Nationals for the fleet Morgan and left-hander Sean Burnett, a former first-round draft pick.

Earlier, they sent 2002 AL Rookie of the Year Hinske to the Yankees for minor-league right-hander Casey Erickson and outfielder Eric Fryer. The Yankees also get some cash to help pay Hinske’s $1.5 million salary.

Who would have thought that at the beginning of July, the baseball world would be applauding three teams from the National League West while remaining vexed with four teams from the National League East?

But here we are, and the Los Angeles Dodgers look strong and deep; the Colorado Rockies have been the hottest team in baseball for the last month; and the San Francisco Giants have pitched their way to the top of the N.L. Wild Card race.

On a different coast, the Philadelphia Phillies lead the East merely by default; the Mets are spending more time in the doctor’s office than the clubhouse; the Marlins aren’t doing anything more than treading water by playing .500 ball in a sinking division; and the Braves are underachieving with one starter hitting over .300.

It’s a baseball paradox of Philly cheese steak proportions, and with so many questions involved, who knows how it will shake out?

We don’t really, but there is one guy in the division who could change all of that, and that is Jimmy Rollins.

Who?

Yeah, Philly fans haven’t seen him this year, either.

But that’s exactly why Rollins holds the key to such an unstable division. The Phillies haven’t had ‘Jimmy Rollins’ in their lineup once this season; they have had some Fathead portrait of the guy who once captivated the entire city at shortstop.

After hitting .211 with six home runs and a .254 OBP through 68 games of the season, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel decided it was best to sit his relentless shortstop last week and allow Rollins some time to clear his head and get back to the player that he ought to be.

Rollins is set to return to the Phillies’ lineup when they open a three-game series in Atlanta on Tuesday after taking four games off to do nothing. Manuel didn’t even want Rollins taking batting practice. In fact, the less thinking about baseball the better.

“I want him to sit down. I want him to kind of get away,” Manuel told the Philadelphia Daily News last week. “I told him if he didn’t want to, he doesn’t have to take BP. I want him to just get away for a couple of days and sit and watch and hopefully just relax and try to get his thinking back and the way he feels and everything.”

Which is smart, because Manuel knows that the division is there for the taking and another deep October run could be theirs when they aren’t playing their best ball and are surviving with smoke and mirrors on the mound.

Remember, it was only two seasons ago that Rollins became one of four men since 1871 to join the 20-20-20-20 Club by accumulating 20 or more doubles, triples, home runs, and stolen bases in a single season.

Who are the other men?

Curtis Granderson did it the same year as Rollins with the Detroit Tigers. Then we have to go back to Willie Mays in 1957 with the New York Giants, and Frank Schulte in 1911 with the Chicago Cubs. That’s it.

So we know what type of dynamic player Rollins is and can be, and the Phillies are just waiting for that same guy to come back. This is already a club who ranks first in the N.L. in home runs and second in the league in runs scored.

With a normal Rollins batting leadoff in Philadelphia and a healthy Raul Ibanez in the middle of the order, the Phillies lineup is one of the meanest gauntlets in baseball when you add Shane Victorino, Ryan Howard, and Chase Utley to the aforementioned two. Even Jayson Werth is better than most other outfielders the Phillies will see come August and September.

If Rollins doesn’t bounce back to his career levels at least, then it becomes a wide-open division again if only because Philadelphia’s pitching staff has a larger crack than the Liberty Bell.

The Phils rank 15th in the N.L. in earned runs, so we can fairly assume that it can’t get much worse. But where is the improvement going to come from?

Cole Hamels must pitch better than his 4.44 ERA, Jamie Moyer isn’t fooling anybody with his ERA hovering above 6.00, and Joe Blanton hasn’t had the type of success in the N.L. that the Phillies thought he would have when they got him from Oakland last summer.

Sure, Citizens Bank Park is a hitter’s park, but a sinkerball pitcher shouldn’t be getting knocked around like Blanton is.

Brad Lidge spent some time on the DL with a sprained knee in early June and hasn’t been close to the same guy he was in ’08 when he converted every save opportunity for the entire season.

What’s been Lidge’s problem? You could make a number of cases, but I would look at the 5.6 walks per nine innings he is averaging. With stuff that good, Lidge just needs to let it fly in the zone and see what happens.

Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. will be one of the most active men on the trading front for starting pitching as the deadline approaches, but with so many teams looking for arms and so few quality arms available, there just aren’t many upgrades to be had.

“We have interest in a lot of guys and we have talked to several teams about pitching across the board,” Amaro Jr. told MLB.com. “But a lot of it just depends on which pitching becomes available. And if they do become available, if we have the right fits for them.”

“When you have this many teams in the race it’s very thin,” Amaro said. “It’s always thin. Again, there were three teams who got pitching last year. Three teams out of 30. That’s 10 percent.”

And, in reality, that may be the tipping point for the Phillies. The lack of pitching available via trade combined with the thin pitching staffs within the division could make the N.L. East a summer slugfest. If that’s the case, Philadelphia already is the team to beat and will be even more so when Rollins joins the party.

None of these teams look real pretty in comparison with the Dodgers, Cardinals, or Brewers. But in the end it doesn’t matter because none of those teams are in the division.

What matters is that the Philadelphia Phillies are the only team in the N.L. East with a positive run differential (i.e. have scored more runs than allowed) and that certainly isn’t because they are carving teams up on the mound.

Thus far, Rollins has merely been a caricature of himself sans the flesh, blood, and heart.

We won’t know for a few games what Rollins has emerged from his mini vacation.

But if the old chatty and swaggering J-Roll rides into the batters box to leadoff the ballgame down South, we will know one thing.

The golden key to the East will be dangling from his neck.

Teddy Mitrosilis is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is majoring in journalism and is walking onto the baseball team. He is a staff writer for the Most Valuable Network’s baseball blog, Around The Majors at www.mvn.com/aroundthemajors. Read more of Teddy’s work at http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/tm4000. 

Once again the American League has dominated inter-league play with 137 wins and 114 losses, although they were not quite as strong compared to last year when they compiled a 149-103 record against the National League. The Pythagorean records, computed using the runs scored and runs allowed in inter-league games, gives the AL a 140-111 advantage.

So how do the best teams in the NL compare to the top teams in the AL? Are the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the best record in baseball, really the best team? And where does the worst team in the AL stack up against the dregs of the NL? To answer these questions I use a relatively simple ranking system that uses the results of all games played and takes into account schedule strength and park factors.

Each team has an offense (O) and defensive (D) rating that corresponds to the average number of runs scored and runs allowed, respectively, they would expect to have against an average team at a neutral site. A home field advantage factor is also included. If Team A plays Team B, the number of predicted runs scored for Team A is the offensive rating of Team A plus the defensive rating of Team B minus the average number of runs per game for a team in the major leagues, plus or minus the home field advantage factor (plus if Team A is at home, minus if away).

The rationale for this formula is that a team will tend to score more runs than average in a particular game if they score more runs than average and/or the other team allows more runs than average. A fit is performed to the scores of all major league games to find the values that give the smallest overall quadratic deviation (least-squares error) from the actual game results. Once the offensive and defensive ratings are determined, the overall rating is the team’s hypothetical won-loss percentage using Bill James’ Pythagorean formula (actually, the more refined Pythagenpat variant – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_expectation for a description). The ratings through games of June 28:

Rank	Team	Rating	O	D	W	L	Sch.Str.	(Rank)	W/L Rank
1	BOS	0.627	5.16	3.93	46	29	0.30	( 1)	1
2	TBR	0.623	5.50	4.22	42	35	0.15	(	6
3	NYY	0.593	5.23	4.28	43	32	0.20	( 7)	4
4	LAD	0.590	5.01	4.14	48	28	-0.23	(26)	2
5	MIN	0.563	4.48	3.92	39	38	0.21	( 6)	12
6	TOR	0.555	5.01	4.46	41	36	0.02	(13)	10
7	DET	0.549	4.72	4.26	42	33	0.10	(12)	5
8	LAA	0.547	5.26	4.77	41	32	0.24	( 4)	3
9	COL	0.535	4.77	4.43	40	35	-0.08	(18)	9
10	TEX	0.527	4.66	4.40	40	34	0.02	(14)	7
11	PHI	0.518	5.18	4.99	39	34	-0.13	(21)	14
12	STL	0.502	4.59	4.57	41	36	-0.23	(27)	15
13	CLE	0.494	5.56	5.63	31	46	0.28	( 2)	28
14	CHW	0.494	4.56	4.62	37	38	0.13	(10)	16
15	SEA	0.493	3.92	3.98	39	36	0.14	( 9)	8
16	SFG	0.493	3.81	3.87	40	34	-0.24	(28)	11
17	MIL	0.492	5.19	5.28	40	35	-0.13	( 22)	13
18	PIT	0.485	4.61	4.76	35	40	-0.24	(29)	25
19	NYM	0.484	4.91	5.08	37	37	-0.10	(19)	19
20	CHC	0.480	4.22	4.40	35	37	-0.18	(24)	18
21	OAK	0.472	4.55	4.83	31	43	0.27	( 3)	24
22	FLA	0.462	4.20	4.54	38	39	0.02	(15)	17
23	ATL	0.458	4.29	4.70	35	40	-0.12	(20)	26
24	BAL	0.458	4.70	5.14	34	41	0.22	( 5)	22
25	CIN	0.452	3.94	4.36	37	37	-0.28	(30)	21
26	HOU	0.444	4.38	4.93	36	38	-0.14	(23)	20
27	KCR	0.416	3.45	4.12	32	42	0.10	(11)	27
28	ARI	0.414	3.97	4.77	30	46	-0.19	(25)	29
29	SDP	0.397	4.41	5.50	33	41	0.02	(16)	23
30	WSN	0.383	4.59	5.90	22	52	0.02	(17)	30

The home-field advantage factor is about 0.11 runs per game, and the average number of runs per game for both teams is 9.25, which gives a Pythagenpat exponent of 1.89. Also shown are the actual W/L records, the schedule strength, and schedule strength rank.

Boston claims top honors, with Tampa Bay close behind. Despite having the best record, the Dodgers, in fourth, are not the top-rated team due to a much weaker schedule, since they play in the NL West and most of their inter-league games were against AL West opponents. The AL East also has the Yankees (third) and the Blue Jays (sixth) in the top six.

In the AL Central, Minnesota is ranked slightly behind Detroit even though they are four games back. In the NL Central, St. Louis is ranked ahead of Milwaukee even though they differ only by percentage points in the standings. The other division leaders (Anaheim, Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles) are all ranked the highest in their divisions.

The final column gives a ranking using only wins and losses, not runs scored and allowed, although strength of schedule and a universal home field advantage are still included. Boston is number one using this system, but some teams are ranked significantly better using RS and RA as opposed to W and L, in particular Cleveland, Minnesota and Pittsburgh (who, despite their sub-.500 record, have scored more runs than they have allowed). Seattle and Houston fare much better using W/L than with RS/RA. Not surprisingly the Nats are dead last by both measures.

The average ratings of the divisions are (the W/L record is for inter-league games):

Rank	Division	Rating	Sch.Str.	W	L
1	AL East	0.571	0.18	52	38
2	AL West	0.510	0.17	39	33
3	AL Central	0.503	0.16	46	43
4	NL West	0.486	-0.15	39	39
5	NL Central	0.476	-0.20	40	49
6	NL East	0.461	-0.06	35	49

Even the worst AL division is ranked above the best NL division. Not surprisingly the AL East is ranked highest, the NL East lowest. These division rankings have the same ordering as the division inter-league records, although that is not always the case. (You may have noticed that these rankings don’t average exactly to 0.500, as you might expect them to; the usual Pythagorean W/L percentages don’t in general average to 0.500, either.)

You can also rank teams according to how many runs they should have scored and allowed. I use Runs Created as a measure of a team’s overall offensive and defensive performance. For each factor that goes into RC (AB, H, 2B, 3B, HR, BB, IBB, SB, CS, SF, SH, GDP, HBP and SO) an offensive and defensive RC rating is calculated, as well as a universal home field advantage and individual park factor (i.e., in some parks home runs are easier to hit, but triples are not). A win percentage rating is then calculated using the offensive and defensive RC values in the Pythagenpat formula. The RC rankings through games of June 28:

Rank	Team	Rating	W	L	ORC	DRC
1	NYY	.628	43	32	4.63	3.50
2	Tam	.625	42	35	5.29	4.03
3	Bos	.595	46	29	4.49	3.66
4	LAD	.594	48	28	4.24	3.46
5	Tor	.561	41	36	5.42	4.76
6	Min	.554	39	38	4.38	3.90
7	Ana	.537	41	32	4.43	4.09
8	Sea	.519	39	36	3.55	3.41
9	Det	.517	42	33	3.77	3.63
10	StL	.516	41	36	4.56	4.41
11	NYM	.512	37	37	4.75	4.63
12	Col	.509	40	35	3.72	3.64
13	Tex	.505	40	34	4.36	4.31
14	Atl	.502	35	40	4.26	4.24
15	ChW	.499	37	38	4.71	4.72
16	Cle	.492	31	46	4.90	4.98
17	Fla	.489	38	39	4.00	4.10
18	Pit	.484	35	40	4.14	4.29
19	KCR	.481	32	42	3.63	3.78
20	ChC	.480	35	37	3.84	4.01
21	Bal	.480	34	41	4.62	4.82
22	SFG	.474	40	34	3.62	3.83
23	Phi	.471	39	34	4.54	4.83
24	Mil	.467	40	35	4.55	4.88
25	Ari	.450	30	46	4.43	4.93
26	Cin	.445	37	37	3.29	3.70
27	Was	.442	22	51	5.05	5.72
28	Oak	.438	31	43	3.73	4.26
29	Hou	.428	35	38	4.29	5.01
30	SDP	.417	33	41	3.93	4.70

The AL East still has the top three teams, but this time the Yankees and Rays are the strongest teams. Kansas City (+.065), Washington (+.059), Atlanta (+.044), Arizona (+.036), the Yankees (+.035), the Mets (+.028), and Florida (+.027) are all rated at least .025 higher by the RC method, while Philadelphia (-.047), Oakland (-.034), Detroit (-.032), Boston (-.032), Colorado (-.026) and Milwaukee (-.025) are rated much lower. If these trends continue, Boston in the AL East, Detroit in the AL Central and Philadelphia in the NL East could face stiff competition in the future.

In one of the first high-profile trades of the summer, the Cleveland Indians on Saturday dealt the versatile Mark DeRosa to the St. Louis Cardinals in exchange for reliever Chris Perez and a player to be named later.

The verdict on the outcomes of this deal won’t be out for a long time, of course, but the thought processes guiding the thinking on both sides appear to have been sound.

DeRosa, with the ability to play multiple positions on the diamond, is a nice fit for the Cardinals. Due mostly to injuries, third base has been a revolving door for St. Louis in 2009; Troy Glaus has yet to appear in a game, David Freese and Joe Thurston are recovering from surgeries and Khalil Greene has struggled on the field and with anxiety disorder. As such, the 33-year-old veteran adds a nice option at the position on an interim basis while Glaus works his way back for a second-half push. When the aforementioned third basemen return to the picture, though, he can also help out in other areas, affording manager Tony LaRussa the luxury of putting him at second base or on a corner outfield spot; he started in left field and batted clean up in his Cardinals debut on Sunday.

DeRosa, traded to the Indians over the offseason, had a career year at 32 with the Chicago Cubs in 2008, hitting .285/.376/.481 with 21 home runs and 87 RBIs in his second stint in the Windy City. He put up personal bests in OPS+ (118) and Weighted On-Base Average (woBA, .376), amassing an impressive 3.8 Wins Above Replacement (WAR); according to FanGraphs, that level of production translates to $17.2-M on the open market. Although his line was boosted by the friendly confines of Wrigley Field (he hit 316/.404/.514. at home and .254/.347/.448 on the road), it was an incredible performance for the former two-sport star at the University of Pennsylvania.

Despite the breakout, Chicago surprised the baseball world and angered many in its fan base by sending DeRosa to Cleveland in exchange for a package of pitching prospects before spring training. Like several of his new teammates, he struggled out of the gate after finally finding a spot to call home, third base. He rebounded a bit in recent weeks as his trade value increased, though, posting an overall line of .270./.342/.457 with 13 home runs and 50 RBIs with the Indians, who have essentially raised the red flag. Although his rates worsened (9.4 BB%, 22.7 K%) from his Chicago days, he put up a decent 105 OPS+ and .349 wOBA in 314 plate appearances in his return to the Junior Circuit.

Another selling point, DeRosa should help the Cardinals’ issues against left-handed pitching. Even with Albert Pujols lighting up southpaws at an otherworldly level, the club has combined to hit just .228/.309/.358 with a .668 OPS in 703 at-bats against lefties

DeRosa, on the other hand, has been extremely productive against his opposite kind during his career, batting .305/.375/.488 against them in 826 at-bats. His .863 OPS against left-handers is more than 100 points higher than his mark against right-handers (.737), and, while the sample size is small, he has raked to the tune of a .339/.409/.661 line and 1.070 OPS against them in 59 at-bats in ‘09.

DeRosa does have certain flaws, however. While he can play several places, he isn’t a great defender, especially in the infield. He produced a -5.5 UZR and -16.3 UZR/150 in 44 games at the hot corner with the Tribe, and, over 208 games there total during his career, has been worth -12.4 runs below average. The reports at his natural position, second base (-12.0 career UZR), aren’t much better, though he has been well above average on the outfield corners (18.2 outfield UZR).

As a sum of his defensive parts, DeRosa is still quite valuable. When accounting for batting, fielding, positional and replacement factors, he has been worth 1.1 WAR. ZiPS projects him to hit at a .280/.358/.432 clip with a .348 wOBA the rest of the way, so he’s likely to add just under two wins for the Cards. Referred to by some as the glue holding the ‘08 Cubs together, he’s also considered to be an excellent clubhouse presence and leader by all accounts; while these intangible traits tend to get overrated, they certainly don’t hurt matters.

Despite hitting fourth on Sunday, DeRosa will likely provide an on-base boost in front of Pujols and can be used in numerous spots in the lineup. One of his biggest strengths is that he provides LaRussa with options on both sides of the ball. The 12-year veteran, in the last year of a three-year, $13-M contract he was given by the Cubs in the winter of 2006, will become a free agent at season’s end but still has value even if he ends up as only a rental. St. Louis finds itself 41-36 and tied with the Milwaukee Brewers for first place in the National League Central, despite offensive woes that should only improve in the second half. Thus, DeRosa could end up making an important difference in the Central race. Plus, his arrival may end any talks between the Cardinals and the Oakland Athletics about a potential Matt Holliday deal– the A’s are reportedly asking for a bundle of elite prospects in return–but still sends a positive message to a fan base that has been critical of the current front office regime.

The cost of acquiring DeRosa was expensive, however, as St. Louis was forced to part ways with a pitcher whom many considered to be its future closer in order to upgrade its offensive attack. Cleveland general manager Mark Shapiro told reporters that the timing was right to sell the infielder/outfielder as far as his club was concerned, and he appears to have successfully received maximum value in exchange for an expendable asset. After getting off to a miserable start, the Indians are 31-46 and in the cellar of the American League Central. Favorites in the division headed into the spring, the Tribe have been expected to punt, becoming active sellers in the trade market, for some time now. While big names Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez are unlikely to be moved considering their affordable options for 2010, DeRosa seemed like the most logical regular to get shipped; there was a demand for his services and he was expendable given his impending free agent status.

Shapiro, after testing the market, has to be happy with his return. Perez, one of many hard-throwing relief products of the St. Louis farm system, has the chance to be a special late-inning arm under club control at an affordable rate well into the next decade. The soon-to-be 25-year-old (July 1 birthday) has excellent stuff and has displayed the ability to miss bats since being drafted out of the University of Miami with the 42nd pick in the 2006 draft. He relies on an effective two-pitch arsenal that features a mid-90s heater (avg. fastball velocity 94.0 MPH) and mid-90s slider (84.9 MPH).

After beginning the season at Triple-A, Perez has had mixed results in ‘09, registering a 4.18 ERA, 101 ERA+ and 4.45 Fielding Independent Pitching (FIP) mark in 23.2 innings pitched over 29 relief appearances. He has struck out 30, posting an excellent 11.41 K/9%. His 5.70 BB/9 rate is alarming, however, as command and consistency have continued to be an issue for the young righty; he also struggled on this front in his debut in ‘08, posting a 4.75 BB/9 rate while frustrating LaRussa by blowing a few saves in September.

With Jason Motte and co. under team control for some time, the Cards have other young relief options. Perez had perhaps the highest upside of the group, though, because of his excellent second pitch, his nasty slider. If he can harness his control and locate his pitches where he wants to in the strike zone, he could emerge as an elite reliever called upon to record outs in high-leverage situations, perhaps in a closer role, in Cleveland.

With that said, relievers are the most fungible role on a major league roster and have limited upside for that reason. While Perez could be a stud, relief pitching is the most economical position to upgrade via the draft, trades and the open market, and, with the small sample sizes, even the best bullpen arms have a hard time passing the 1.0-WAR mark.

Trying to label an instant winner for this deal is a futile exercise, as doing so will be impossible until seeing what Perez accomplishes down the road. For now, though, both sides appear to have received good value when considering the circumstances. It’s doubtful that Cleveland would’ve been able to land a better package for DeRosa, who looks to be a great match for St. Louis.

Tyler Hissey is the editor of Around the Majors and hosts FirstInning.com’s weekly online radio show, Minor League Notebook Weekly, which airs every Monday night at 8:00 Eastern Time.

Boston in the 1970’s was fire cracker of a community, waiting to pop and explode on multiple social fronts. At the center of this societal blast was the 1974 court ruling regarding public school busing in the interest of racial integration that was met with copious protest and public outcry from many races, activists and politicos.

By 1978 both sides of the school busing issue were in need of a break from the day in and out struggle for and against the cause at hand. That break would come in the form of the Boston Red Sox, whose year long run at the top of the division came down to one single playoff game against their hated and dreaded rival, the New York Yankees, for the AL East title.

Award winning author and all around great guy Bill Reynolds has not only written a top notch page turner on the era in question, he’s was also gracious enough to answer a few questions for the good readers at Dugout Central about all things ’78: The Boston Red Sox, a Historic Game, and a Divided City.

THOMAS WAYNE: Let’s start with the court ordered busing of public school students in Boston beginning in 1974. You follow it and the Red Sox to a culmination in 1978. Which of the two do you consider the foundation of “78″, the baseball side or the political/social side?

BILL REYNOLDS: The game is the foundation, the thread that runs through it. But the plan always was to place it in a greater social context, so what was happening in Boston then, and the country for that matter, is an integral part, and ultimately what readers seem to have responded to the most, both for the fact that it happened so long ago and in this day and age anything that happened 30 years ago is either mostly forgotten, or never known in the first place.

TW: For the most part the Red Sox player’s of the time period remained tight lipped about the controversial busing issue and the events that escalated from it. What did you take away from that overall silence, apathy or smart neutrality?

BR: Interesting question. From my experience players tend to live in their own worlds anyway, and since they were not from Boston, and didn’t have children in the schools, it was easy to ignore it, at least in the beginning.  I believe, though, that busing and the racial problems in Boston became the elephant in the clubhouse, something that no one really wanted to talk about because the issue was simply too divisive and too explosive at the time. The only person who ever publicly mentioned it in 1978 was Bill Lee and it wasn’t taken well. In retrospect, though, the players were in a no-win situation.

TW: The conservative side of the busing issue unintentionally added to an already harsh stigma that Boston was a racist town and that the Red Sox were less than friendly to non-white players. Thirty years later do you think that stigma has changed or is it still lurking about, hiding in the shadows waiting to rear its ugly head?

BR: I think it’s changed very much. You can make a case that in the past decade or so the three most popular players on the Red Sox – Pedro, Ortiz, and Manny – are all non-white players. The city is a different place than it was 30 years ago, not just the Red Sox, and many of the white, working class neighborhoods of the 1970s have been gentrified and very different than they once were.

TW: Like THE BRONX IS BURNING, “78″ portrays baseball as an escape, a place of solace from tricky social, political and economic turmoil. What is your heart felt thoughts on this? Can baseball really bring people together when they share a problem or does it just seem that way?

BR: I don’t think baseball, or any sport, can solve social issues. Sports are, though, one of the few things in society that have the potential to bring people together in a common cause, however fleeting that can be. Sports can make people feel better about where they live and certainly perk up how a community thinks out itself. But solve social issues? We can only hope.

TW: How do the people of Boston currently feel about the events of “78″, both politically and baseball related?

BR: I think people remember the game, for it was such a classic, the kind of game people remember where they were when they watched it. But it was 31 years ago, and you have to be middle-aged to remember it. As for the city, I think it long ago passed into history, and like any history, as the years go by fewer and fewer people remember it.

TW: One of the “characters”, if you will, of “78″ is an up and coming young outfielder named Jim Rice. After a great career and a very long wait Rice was voted into the Hall of Fame by the BBWAA this past winter. What are your thoughts on Rice and did the BBWAA get it right by finally voting the man in on his last ballot?

BR: I do feel the baseball writers finally got it right with Jim Rice, who certainly was one of the most productive and feared hitters of his era. His contentious relationship with the media certainly didn’t help him, he didn’t have the longevity others had, and as the book points out he always had to deal with being a black superstar in a city where there was not always easy, especially in his early years. So I’m happy for him.

’78: The Boston Red Sox, a Historic Game, and a Divided City is available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and thousands of other fine booksellers and retailers nationwide.

On June 17th 23-year-old 1B/OF/UT Mike Carp was called up from Triple-A Tacoma to the Seattle Mariners, taking the roster spot of LHP Erik Bedard. In 12 plate appearances, Carp has posted a line of .429/.583/.429.

I mention Carp because of the problems the New York Mets are having this season at first base. From when Carlos Delgado went down with a de rigueur hip injury until Carp was called up by the Mariners, Mets first basemen produced a line of .240/.331/.342 with only six doubles, three home runs and 19 RBI’s in 38 games. In only 26 games Delgado had 7 doubles, 4 HR’s and 23 RBI’s.

What if the Mets only had a young slugging first baseman in the minors who could have been given an opportunity to replace Delgado?

They did, actually. That guy was Mike Carp. In 2008 at the Mets Double-A affiliate, Binghamton, Carp hit .299/.403/.471, good for an OPS of .874 OPS. Yes, that is an over .400 OBP! The Mets thought so much of Carp they worked him into LF for quite a few games last season and had him playing that position in Winter Ball.

But instead of Carp being the first option in the wake of Delgado’s injury, the Mets included him in the JJ Putz trade last off season. They are paying dearly for the trade now. First base is now manned by Daniel Murphy and Fernando Tatis, two players who haven’t produced and who aren’t likely the future of the position.

Before his call up to Seattle, Carp was hitting .299/.412/.517/.928 OPS at Triple-A Tacoma, with 16 doubles, 10 HR’s and 32 RBI’s in 2 AB’s. According to Seattle manager Don Wakamatsu, Mariners hitting coaches are excited about Carp because, “he has a good swing. It’s short and compact.”

While the Mariners organization is loaded with first basemen with Russell Branyan, Mike Sweeney, Chris Shelton and Bryan Lahiar, none of those players have Carp’s potential.

After the Francisco Rodriguez free agent signing, the JJ Putz trade was widely admired because the Mets finally had their “lock down” bullpen in the eighth and ninth innings. But Putz is on the disabled list with elbow problems, and if you look at his career, he’s really only had two good seasons. 

Relief pitchers are very interchangeable, and except for the elite (Mariano, Papelbon etc), a team never knows what they are getting from year to year. But good, young hitters with short swings who have a good, patient approach at the plate don’t grow on trees. With the turmoil at first base and the struggles of Putz, I’m sure the Mets would love to have Mike Carp back.

ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian was correct when he said recently, “After the past two Septembers, the Mets CANNOT miss the playoffs. They just can’t.”

Unfortunately that’s exactly what they are going to do if they don’t do something to improve their feeble power hitting. Right now.

The Mets—as a team, mind you—have a total of 46 HRs, second worst in the Majors (Albert Pujols has 26 through Friday, by himself.), with Gary Sheffield leading the way with nine. Carlos Beltran is next with eight, followed by Daniel Murphy with five and Carlos Delgado with four. Unluckily for the Mets, however, two of those guys are injured. Oh and with more homers at home than on the road (26-20), it’s not CitiField causing the problems. The Mets just don’t have power bats.

Put another way, their archrivals, the Phillies, have Raul Ibanez with 22 HRs, Ryan Howard with 20, Chase Utley with 16. Their “Joe Average” right fielder, Jayson Werth, has 13 himself— four more than any Met.

The Mets slugging percentage is decidedly lower/middle-of-the-pack and dropping at .403, behind the Nationals, Indians and Orioles. Oh, and take out Carlos Delgado’s bat for the next few months, and Beltran’s for the time being and what you have is a line-up that doesn’t have opposing pitchers waking up in the middle of the night screaming in fear.

The Mets should try to trade for Michael Cuddyer by offering the Twins SS prospect Wilmer Flores.

Michael Cuddyer, when healthy, is a solid RF, with a good arm and, more importantly from the Mets prospective, power. While he can play a number of positions, RF is where he is best suited—he has had season of 18 and 19 assists from RF, and can handle the new CitiField well. As of this writing, Cuddyer is slugging .514, or what would be 2nd on the Mets squad behind the injured Beltran. Also, he has an OPS of .878, which would place him 4rd behind Wright and Beltran and the soon to be injured Sheffield.

The Twins have a glut of outfielders—and trading Cuddyer could clear space for other able players. Right now, the Twins are breaking in young outfielders Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez (of the Mets farm system), both young and talented and who need time to grow. The Twins also have Jason Kubel and Denard Span—productive players both as Kubel is slugging .558 and Span is batting .287 with 12 stolen bases.

What the Twins don’t have is a blue-chip shortstop, either at the Majors or in the minor leagues. Nick Punto and Brendan Harris are fine shortstops, but franchise rocks they are not.

Franchise rocks like Jose Reyes. Reyes is the engine that makes the Mets go. And at 26, he will be said engine for a long time. Which means SS Wilmer Flores, the Mets biggest prospect according to Baseball America, will be blocked by the time he is ready to hit the Majors. While only 17, Flores is on the fast track to the majors. Last year, he made Baseball America’s Prospect Hot Sheet while he was 16—he had been playing professional ball a month.

As the New York Times wrote this spring:

The organization is still buzzing about how Flores, one of the youngest players in the minors last season, pummeled rookie-level Appalachian League pitching and slammed seven of his eight home runs before his 17th birthday on Aug. 6. In all, over three minor league stages, Flores hit .307 with 42 runs batted in.

“Think about it,” said Tony Bernazard, the vice president for development. “Realistically now, he would be a junior in high school. Instead, he’s playing in major league exhibition games. It’s unbelievable.”

At 6′3″ 195, Flores would be around the same size as Alex Rodriguez was when he played shortstop. And he projects to have the same kind of power A-Rod or Ripken had at the shortstop position.

Make no bones about it; trading a prospect like Flores now would be a move of desperation for the Mets. Not that Flores is guaranteed to be the next Cal Ripken, but he is a valuable prospect, the kind you don’t normally trade unless there are dire circumstances. But as Kurkjian said, the Mets CANNOT miss the playoffs again this year. After the past two September meltdowns, another washout would be devastating to their team psyche.

Bill Chuck’s weekly list of random and sometimes odd baseball facts, including: 5. There are 66 players who struck out 102 times in a season, but none in as few games (67) as Chris Davis. It took 161 games for Tony Batista and Cesar Cedeno and 159 games for Jim Rice, Mookie Wilson and Hawk Harrelson. Davis’ 13 homers puts him 48th on the list, led by Johnny Bench’s 45 in 1970.

Happy birthday this weekend to Derek Jeter, Rico Petrocelli, and Al Downing, my gift to them and to you…the Bill Chuck Files.

1. The All-Star Game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on July 14 should be baseball’s opportunity to salute Stan Musial the way Ted Williams was honored in the 1999 game at Fenway. Musial holds the record with six All-Star homers and of all the players with at least the 475 career homers that the Denora Greyhound hit, only Gehrig, Ruth and Williams had higher lifetime averages than Stan the Man’s .331.

2. Joe Mauer and Hall of Famer Edd Roush share a .323 career lifetime batting average. Roush struck out 260 times and Mauer is within a handful of that. But Mauer has played in just over 600 games, while Roush finished his career with 1,967 games.

3. This past Tuesday, Ryan Rayburn hit a pinch-hit walkoff homer to give Detroit the win, marking the first pinch-hit walkoff for the Tigers since Lou Whitaker pinch-hit walkoff on August 23, 1995. Whitaker had a flair for the dramatic; his first and his last homers (#244) were two of his eight walkoffs. Hack Wilson of 191 RBI fame also had 244 homers and only three were walkoffs. In fact of the 12 players with 244-249 homers, none, other than Sweet Lou, had more than six walkoffs.

4. Albert Pujols is in rarified company being one of only five players with at least 300 homers and less than 600 strikeouts. The list is led by Joe DiMaggio who hit 361 homers and struck out only 369 times.

5. There are 66 players who struck out 102 times in a season, but none in as few games (67) as Chris Davis. It took 161 games for Tony Batista and Cesar Cedeno and 159 games for Jim Rice, Mookie Wilson and Hawk Harrelson. Davis’ 13 homers puts him 48th on the list, led by Johnny Bench’s 45 in 1970.

6. Troy Tulowitzki has regained his power stroke (seven homers this month alone; he had eight total last season), but he still can’t steal bases. In 2007, he stole 7 and was thrown out six times; last year he stole 1 and was thrown out six times; and this year he has stolen 9 but, once again, he has been thrown out six times

7. You look at Joakim Soria’s numbers and see only eight saves, but then you realize that Royals have given him only nine save opportunities. Compare that to the 20 out of 23 saves for the Angels Brian Fuentes.

8. Nolan Ryan four times gave up 18 homers in a season, including 1973 and 1974 when he threw a combined…wait for it…658.2 innings. David Bush and Bronson Arroyo have each given up 18 homers this season in a combined…wait for it…173.2 innings

9. Joba Chamberlain is 4-0 with a 2.74 ERA away from the New Stadium.

10. I’d like to see the Alum Game – 31-year-old Mitch Jones became the 91st former Arizona State Sun Devil to play MLB when he made his debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

11. The biggest clue to Magglio Ordonez’ travails is in his ground ball to flyball ratio which was 0.82 coming into this season for his career and this year it is a whopping 1.51.

12. It’s not easy to catch and hit - Bengie Molina (10) and Chris Ianetta (10) are the only NL catchers with double figure homers. Last year, there were seven, in 1999 there nine, 1989 there were three, and in 1979 there were seven.

13. Let’s hear it for the Rays’ Andy Sonnanstine who in 17 interleague plate appearances got three hits (including a double), a walk, an RBI and a .273 average. Rick Porcello of the Tigers went 2 for 5 with two RBI. Mark Buehrle and Josh Beckett each went deep.

14. Chad Kreuter, Mike Kinkade, Olmedo Saenz and Luis Gonzalez are the only Dodgers players to hit home runs in regular-season, interleague play as DHs.

15. Joe Mauer’s Sunday/Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday 1 for 13 has brought his average down to .394. He has a career high 14 homers.

16. David Aardsma went through his first four years in the majors with the Giants, both Chicago teams and both Sox colors, without a start or a save, and was best known for supplanting Henry Aaron on the top of the alphabetic list of major league players. But this year, he has found a home as closer for the Mariners succeeding on 15 of his first 16 save opportunities.

17. After 19 major league games, Pirates rookie sensation Andrew McCutcheon is tied for the league lead in triples, with four other players who have been up all season.

18. In Chipper Jones’ 1995 rookie season he struck out a career high 99 times which is why today he is one of only eight players with at least 400 homers and less than 1,200 strikeouts.

19. The Oklahoma City Red Hawks have activated Orlando “El Duque” Hernandez. Hernandez is at minimum a 43-year-old righty signed to a minor league contract by the Texas Rangers on June 12. He last pitched in the major leagues in 2007 with the Mets. When will team president Nolan Ryan activate himself?

20. These guys do cool things with bats. Really, no guano! Check out the video - http://tinyurl.com/mg5lus

Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales, is a great July 4th present and a terrific birthday present and is available on Amazon.com. Read an excerpt on SI.com. More of my Red Sox notes can often be found on http://sawxheads.trufan.com/. Bill Chuck is the creator of Billy-Ball.com (www.Billy-Ball.com) and, with Jim Kaplan, is the author of the book, “Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales,” with a Foreword by Jon Miller, published by ACTA Sports, and available worldwide.

I am a little late to the party on this one, but felt compelled to give my two cents.
Everyone probably already knows about it and has seen the ESPN roundtable with Ken Rosenthal. If you haven’t, a blogger by the name of Jared Morris wrote a piece giving his opinion about whether Raul Ibanez career year was indicative of him being on steroids. The story blew up, Ibanez got annoyed, and you had the predictable cry of accountability.

I have been involved in new media for over two years. I sometimes believe that I fall into a unique category of “in the middle” because I have made an attempt to do mainstream reporting with my independent site. What I have come to find is that both the blogger and mainstream reporter are debating an issue versus trying to understand why it exists in the first place.

I detest the term “blogger” and the usual trailer that goes something like a “40 year old guys in his mom’s basement”. I have heard that and believe no one should judge another by what they do or how they look. I own a home, car, have a 401k, and actually am married. I love sports, writing, and radio. What I do makes me very little money, but I believe I am on the ground floor of a new way of reporting. Obviously, it’s not my full time job, but rather, a dynamic field that provides you so many outlets to express yourself that corporate America, my day job, stifles.

There are many in “new media” who don’t have the perspective that I do. Either they are too young, don’t have the corporate experience, or quite simply aren’t mature enough to understand what Ken Rosenthal called “the power of words”. Having a website is no longer just a hobby that is protected by the privacy of your office walls. What you say will get picked up, reported, misunderstood, and possibly hurt others.

This was the case with Raul Ibanez. I experienced this when people accused my site of making up a Beltran for Cano rumor that was positioned as pure debate. Point being, I have never said or wrote something that I wouldn’t address to someone’s face. I use my real name and people have easy access to contact me. I never hide. If you’re going to put yourself in the public eye you have to accept the consequences. Maybe it’s my experience working in the corporate environment that gives me this perspective, but I honestly don’t see a lot of my “new media” colleagues taking the same attitude. I would love to see those who write some of the stuff address it to people in person or on the phone. What I have come to find is that many like to hide in obscurity. I recently wrote an email to an individual calling them to task for something they wrote about me in their site’s comments section. Predictably I got no response.

On the flip side the mainstream media doesn’t understand why they are in the predicament. How can little “blogs” throw their industry into chaos? Two words: Greed and Laziness. The corporate honchos have created an environment where they are more interested in hiring the cheapest talent, not the best. What transpires is journalism school reporting that would pass a final exam, but fails to interest the reader.

Many in mainstream media continue to yearn for the “good old days” that are never coming back. Why? Because they had the advantage and the job was easier. Remember, this is the same traditional media that at one point in their history protected ballplayers rather than report the truth. It was a good old boys network that reported the news they wanted you to hear. Now you have to work hard, write smarter and channel creativity. Those are characteristics that don’t automatically come with a journalism degree.

Rather than fighting each other, how about learning how to co-exist? How about the “bloggers” start to understand the power of their words and behave accordingly. Don’t write something that you won’t tell to someone’s face. Act like this is your job versus something that will score you points at happy hour. As for the mainstream, do what a lot of the young, up and coming, hard working journalists are doing. Working harder, smarter, and driving creativity. It might just save your industry.

Mike Silva is a freelance writer and radio host. His is the host of a New York baseball show called NY Baseball Digest that you can find at www.nybaseballdigest.com

Jerry Crasnick recently penned a column discussing how Toronto Blue Jays center fielder Vernon Wells has failed to live up to his massive contract so far. Crasnick did a fine job of describing the issue and touching on Wells’ offensive struggles, even going to the player to see how he felt about the matter.

It was an enjoyable read overall and pointed out the albatross deal and performance drop-off that hasn’t attracted a whole lot of scrutiny on a national level. Plus, it was good to see that Wells is legitimately down about how it has all played out so far, though he isn’t the type of player to display his frustrations to his teammates. When diving deeper into the topic, though, I quickly realized that the article only touches the surface of the predicament that the Toronto organization finds itself.

The Blue Jays, afraid of losing what they believed to be a franchise cornerstone to free agency the following offseason, locked up Wells to a seven-year, $126M extension on December 18, 2006; the dollars represented the sixth highest total in the history of the sport at the time. (It’s worth pointing out the context in which he was given so much money: that winter, teams were spending money like it was going out of style, with three other players–Carlos Lee, Alfonso Soriano and Barry Zito–all topping the $100M mark.)

Many within the local and national media (in the article linked, Buster Olney argued that Wells would command near $200M in free agency) applauded the Toronto front office for spending the money to keep the slugger in uniform. While many felt that it was a good-faith deal, however, there were definite concerns about the move at the time that it was made. The then 27-year-old outfielder was coming off an excellent campaign–he was worth 5.8 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) after hitting .303/.357/.542 with a 129 OPS+ and 7.5 UZR in center field–but tying up so much back loaded money into a single player appeared to be a major risk for a team with such limited financial resources.

The thought process behind the decision were questionable, and, while it’s still too early to draw any major conclusions and injuries have played a factor in Wells’ struggles, the corresponding outcome has been even worse.

Year one of the contract didn’t go according to plan for Wells, who was bothered by a shoulder injury and hit just .245/.304/.402 with a career-low 85 OPS+ and .306 Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) in 642 plate appearances. His home run total was cut in half, from 32 in ‘06 to 16, while his Isolated Power fell to a career-worst .158. While his .265 batting average on balls in play was nearly 30 points below his career average, he hit fewer line drives (16.8 LD%) and more weak fly balls than any other point in his career; since it’s easier for a defense to convert fly balls into outs and his FB% came to a career-high 41.5%, a run of bad luck clearly wasn’t the only factor suppressing the total. A lot of the offensive struggles were attributed to the shoulder, which was indeed a valid concern that prevented him from driving the ball with as much authority as he had in the past.

Perhaps most concerning, Wells also failed to live up his reputation as being an elite defender. He produced a UZR figure in the red (-1.1) for the first time since 2003 while ranking last among American League outfielders in range factor. When accounting for batting, fielding and positional factors, he was worth only 0.8 WAR; his on-field production translated to $3.2M worth of performance, according to FanGraphs. Since the deal was so heavily back loaded, his salary wasn’t a major strain on the Blue Jays’ payroll–he was set to due $5.6M in the final year of his previous contract.

Headed into 2008, Wells was anxious to get back on the field and prove that he was worth the commitment that Toronto made to him. Injuries continued to limit him, however, as he missed 26 games early in the spring after breaking his left wrist. His hamstring then acted up later in the summer, forcing him to make another long stint on the disabled list. While he produced at the plate when healthy (.300/.343/.496, 121 OPS+, .357 wOBA) he played in only 108 games overall and graded out as one of majors’ least effective defenders at his position with a -14.3 UZR and -24.0 UZR/150. Advanced fielding data has its flaws, of course, but most new metrics reached the same conclusion about his defense. Primarily because of the fielding runs that he allowed, he only produced 1.2 WAR ($5.5M). The defensive regression was quite a surprise (with some calling it a statistical fluke), but many scouts also made note of his suddenly declining range.

Through 72 games so far in 2009, matters have only gotten worse for the team and player on both accounts. Wells has really struggled at the plate, hitting .248/.303/.384 with a below-average 81 OPS+ and .310 wOBA. His BABIP is again way down at .267, but, as anyone who has watched a lot of Blue Jays games on MLB.tv or in person can attest, the baseball gods coming down on Wells aren’t the only problem. He has only left the yard six times, with his IsoP sitting at .136; for those scoring at home, shortstop Marco Scutaro’s mark is three points higher. While he will surely improve, ZiPS has his updated projected line at .257/.312/.405 with 15 home runs and a .319 wOBA.

Those hoping for a rebound with the glove have been disappointed so far, too. Wells ranks dead last among major league center fielders with a -16.1 UZR and -33.4 UZR/150. The sample size is still relatively small, but the likelihood that noise in the data is selling his defense short continues to shrink, a concerning development for Toronto.

In order to have any chance of earning his paycheck over the long haul, Wells will need to serve as an asset in center. Like any other player, his bat won’t play as well on a corner–especially if he can’t turn it around–but that seems where he’s headed in the near future. If the defensive reports are an accurate indicator of his talent level, it’s unlikely that he’ll be able to stay at a premium position over the duration. He’s still banged up a bit, but there’s just no sugarcoating his sub-replacement-level output (-1.0 WAR) output.

Thus, while the deal looks regrettable now, it could end up getting much worse when the team starts having to shell out the real money down the road.

Here’s how the deal how the dollars will play out until 2014, courtesy of Cot’s Baseball Contracts:

7 years/$126M (2008-14)
–signed extension with Toronto 12/06
–$25.5M signing bonus (paid in 3 $8.5M installments, March 1 2008-10)
–08:$0.5M, 09:$1.5M, 10:$12.5M, 11:$23M, 12:$21M, 13:$21M, 14:$21M
–full no-trade clause
–Wells may opt out of contract after 2011
–award bonuses: $0.25M for MVP, $0.2M for World Series MVP, $0.15M for LCS MVP, $0.1M for receiving most All-Star votes in league
–Wells to donate $143,000 annually to Blue Jays charity

I’m going to take the under on 50-50 chances that Wells will be worth 23M in 2011, let alone $52M over the three years after that.

The Blue Jays took a gamble, but, even if he starts hitting, it doubtful that it’ll end up working out. Wells is a good player and still has value, of course. For a team with a limited budget to work with, though, he could really bring them down–the opportunity cost could be the inability to sign Roy Halladay or attract other players. Plus, he has a full no-trade clause and will be difficult to unload. In an American League East environment that’s only going to improve with the Baltimore Orioles making progress down on the farm, these factors could prove to be crippling.

Note: Needless to say, it’s unlikely we’ll ever again see an offseason like ‘06, as not one of the $100M men appears to have been a wise investment. It only takes one foolish GM to drive up the market value for a player, but with teams building cost-efficient assets from within, these kinds of deals should continue to become more and more obsolete.

Tyler Hissey is editor of Around the Majors.

Let’s just talk for a moment, sports aside. Lets say that you were caught running a deep-rooted drug cartel out of your lovely little two bedroom apartment and were promptly evicted from your place.

What once was a comforting roof amid a family-friendly neighborhood is now nothing more than a lost memory, a remnant of your old ways.

With no house and a tattered record, an aunt, cousin, or good buddy goes out of their way to welcome you into their home and try to help you get back on your feet. They don’t owe you anything, especially given what you did to get put on the streets, but they offer you a hand out of love.

They give you a room, a warm bed to sleep in, food to eat, and don’t make you pay rent. You get to save some money while you find a new place that will extend a lease to a wayward soul with a criminal record.

How grateful would you be for that friend or relative? Pretty thankful, right?

During your free stay at their home, you would probably run some errands, make the trips to the grocery store, take care of the dishes after dinner, maybe even throw in a load of laundry or two while you are playing with the dog.

You would do many things to pull your weight and give thanks for probably the biggest favor you will ever receive. We agree on that, don’t we?

Which brings me to my point about all the hoopla surrounding Manny Ramirez’s Minor League Comedy Tour, one that began Tuesday evening in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The biggest story – or disturbance, depending on your opinion – regarding Ramirez’s “rehab” assignment is the fact that he is even being allowed to play ten games in the minor leagues prior to the culmination of his 50-game suspension.

Is it right? Is it fair? Why does he get to play in a Los Angeles Dodger sponsored affiliate before he can play for the Dodgers? If he is suspended by Major League Baseball, why is he allowed to play for a team that sends a cut of its revenues to MLB before his suspension is over? Why should he be given the luxury of getting into game shape before he sits out his 50 games? On, and on, and on …

Personally, I really don’t care. The only guys that really matter to me are the men who are currently wearing the uniform of a Major League club. And, of course, the clean prospects who are working their way up to the big leagues.

But the other guys? The users? I’m not really that interested in what they do while they are suspended. Go rock climb in Rome. Doesn’t matter to me.

Is there something fundamentally askew with the MLB rule that allows Manny to play in these minor league games? Yes, there absolutely is. It’s like putting a six-year-old on a thirty-minute time out, but letting him play after twenty minutes of solitude because he didn’t kick and scream in the corner.

It’s a ridiculous rule. It’s so asinine that I’m not going to work myself up thinking about it.

But what I do have a problem with, is how Ramirez spent his Tuesday evening with the Albuquerque Isotopes. Ramirez didn’t play a game with the Isotopes or spend an evening with the fans.

No, Manny played four innings, got his two at-bats in, and then was gone quicker than he came. After playing his four innings, Ramirez was out the back door, signing a couple autographs before hopping in a car and bolting from the media before the end of the game.

I don’t care if Manny Ramirez says one word to the media while in Albuquerque. Hell, I wouldn’t.

But what Manny certainly ought to be doing, is sticking around for the duration of the ball game, and then some.

He should have played his four innings, and then hung out with the other minor leaguers for the last five. He should have spent those five innings talking with the hitters, giving them two hours of total access to ask any question a kid would want to ask about hitting to one of the greatest hitters to ever play the game.

He should have spent the other five innings coaching. He should have paid attention to the other minor leaguers’ at-bats, and then talked to them about pitch sequence and approach when they came back in the dug out.

He should have had steaks and beers delivered to the clubhouse after the game – on his dime – and sat around with the rest of the guys telling them what life is like in the big leagues.

For all of Ramirez’s faults, he has a reputation of being a tireless worker. He should have sat around with the boys, enjoying a rib eye, explaining to them exactly what it takes to not only get to the big leagues, but also stick there.

He should have talked to them about all the fun you have in The Show, but also the professionalism and dedication it takes to taking care of your body and being ready to perform.

You don’t think those minor league players would have been hanging on every story and every line? That would have been like Bring Your Dad To School Day in the second grade. Those words would have actually made a difference.

You could argue that Manny should have gotten to the ballpark early, and stayed late to sign autographs for all of the fans that want them. That would have been a nice gesture, but I’m not going to say that he has to do that. Hey, if he wants to say thanks to the people who pay his salary and support him, that’s up to him.

But it’s not up to him to give his time to his current teammates. He owes that to them. He’s walking into their yard, taking the at-bats and outfield reps from a young kid who could use them to develop and chase a dream, all while he is suspended for testing positive.

In my opinion, the biggest travesty with steroid users is not that they cheated the game.

What doesn’t sit well with me is that there are hundreds of minor league players who are working like hell to get to the major leagues and would give anything to have a job in the big leagues, but don’t get it because there are cheaters who are keeping their job through artificial enhancements. That’s the biggest disgrace of it all.

Steroid users don’t cheat baseball; they cheat minor leaguers out of an opportunity.

Manny owes time and humility to these kids who are blindfolded and are trying to find their way to the top. Manny could have a profound impact on the future of some of these players, and it is now his duty to contribute to their success by offering his knowledge and experience.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda …

What are some of those old sayings about being thankful, making an impact, and giving back?

Yeah, well let’s see it. There’s still time.

Teddy Mitrosilis is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is majoring in journalism and is walking onto the baseball team. He is a staff writer for the Most Valuable Network’s baseball blog, Around The Majors at www.mvn.com/aroundthemajors. Read more of Teddy’s work at http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/tm4000.  

44 games.  That’s all Mike Coolbaugh got to play in the Major Leagues during a 17-year career, the bulk of which, obviously, was spent in the minors.  In a marriage, there’s the famous 7 year mark, made famous by the Marilyn Monroe film The Seven Year Itch, where one, or both, parties in a marriage fight off the temptation to give up.  For former minor leaguer Mike Coolbaugh, quitting on his playing days took about 10 years longer, but the itch finally won out.

Then there was the tragedy.

Mike was coaching first base for the Tulsa Drillers of the Pacific Coast League one Sunday evening in July, 2007 when a foul ball traveling at over 100 mph struck him in the neck.  He died instantly.

Two years later, Mike’s influence is still being felt:

1.  A book by S.L. Price was released in May called Heart of the Game, which profiles the life and death of Coolbaugh.

2.  Take a look at the base coaches for your favorite Major League team.  What are they wearing on their heads?  Helmets.  This helmet rule, which began for the 2008 season, is a direct result of Mike’s death.

3.  The third annual Mike Coolbaugh Memorial Golf Tournament will take place on November 9th at the Tapatio Springs Golf Resort in Boerne, TX.

4.  When Mike died, his wife Amanda was pregnant with their third child.  That November, she gave birth to Anne Michael (they had had two boys already, Joseph and Jacob).

That’s a lot of influence for this career minor leaguer; a guy who only played 44 games in the big leagues.  But think about this: It is the quality of the man whose influence is felt beyond what he left in the box score.  How many thousands of guys are toiling away in the minor leagues today?  You will never hear of 99.5% of their names.  Hardcore fans know their favorite team’s prospects.  Really hardcore fans know the names of most guys who’ve had a cup of coffee in the big leagues at any one time.  Mike Coolbaugh was one of those Java guys who was bound to be a trivia question before the tragedy raised his profile.  When you hear his name now, there’s no light trivia around it.  The man was destined to have more impact on those around him than that.

That brings us to today.  Mike did not die a millionaire.  44 games over two Major League seasons do not build much of a nest egg.  Take away what Mike did for a living, and he was just a regular guy with two kids and another on the way, earning a regular wage.  Six-figure salaries weren’t a part of the Coolbaugh family budgeting process.  As a first base coach for a AA team, he was even farther away from any big payday.  Like most families when the breadwinner passes away, a financial void is left, a void that can make the other void, the loss of a husband and father, even bigger.

The Mike Coolbaugh Memorial Golf Tournament was originally created to help fill the economic void in Amada Coolbaugh’s family life and to pay tribute to a man who died in action, on the field; a man who’d hit over 200 home runs and driven in over 1,000 in the minors and was starting fresh as a coach; a man who was only 35 years old when he died.  This year, a portion of the proceeds are going to help Mike’s family pay the bills.  But another portion is going to another cause, a new San Antonio baseball clinic for kids who’ve lost a family member.

See what’s going on?  Mike’s influence grows a little bit more.

If you’re going to be in Texas on November 7th and you like golf, then register for this golf tournament.  If you are interested in sponsoring portions of the tournament or donating some of your recession-era income, then by all means do so.  If you’re in the baseball profession and can donate an autographed ball or hat or jersey, click HERE or send it to Mike’s cousin, Cheryl, at this address:

Cheryl Coolbaugh
11844 Bandera Rd. #447
Helotes, TX 78023-4132

Please do not stalk Cheryl.  She lives in Texas.  Everything’s bigger in Texas, like the guns they use for self-defense.  Just send her some stuff she can auction and be proud of your participation.  Don’t get carried away.  You’ll be sorry.

More will be coming about the Mike Coolbaugh Memorial Tournament in the future.  For now, think about your spouse or your kids and make sure you’ve got your bases covered if, God forbid, something happened to you.  If even one of you does this now, then you’ll personally experience just how much influence the life and death of Mike Coolbaugh has had over the last two years.  Then maybe you can tell us about it and spread the word.
Ain’t it funny, how one man’s 17-year career in the minor leagues can matter so much when he’s gone?  It’s the quality of the man whose influence is felt beyond what he left in the box score.  What can you do today to make your influence felt?

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Nelson & Alisa Figueroa, Desi Relaford, Wayne Gomes and MLB Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt.  You can follow Jimmy on Twitter or Facebook.

Great sports journalism (like all forms of traditional journalism) is dying right before our eyes. The blogging, twittering, round-the-clock-cable-access and the news-that’s-not-news-trash-for-money storytelling generation have taken over a once respected field and made it far less respectable. Responsible and credible writing from what was once called a man (or woman, for that matter) of letters is slowly taking its place next to the fossilized bones of the tyrannosaur and triceratops, while this new breed of (tongue placed firmly in cheek) ‘writer’ tap out more WTF’s and LOL’s then they do RBI or KO’s.

One of those legendary men of letters is Bert Randolph Sugar, award winning author of over 50 books on baseball and boxing. Mr. Sugar is a man who has seen and lived it all when comes to sports in the United States of America. While the new breed tells us to LOL, men like Sugar tell it like it is, old school all day - straight forward with no fluff. So when I heard Bert Sugar had penned a historical look at Cooperstown and all its glory to be released prior to the Hall’s 70th anniversary later this year, I asked for the honor of a discussion on the book and topic and was appreciatively granted my request.

THOMAS WAYNE: Bert Sugar’s Baseball Hall of Fame is a sharply written, beautifully photographed look at Cooperstown. Was this a book you had in mind for many years or did it just hit you one day?

BERT SUGAR: It was a combination of the two:  I had always wanted to write a book on the history of the game, but when the idea of combining that with the Baseball Hall of Fame (HOF) came to me in a “Eureka” moment, I approached the HOF with the concept and they were receptive to the combination of a walk-through the Hall with the history of the game as told through their exhibits.

TW: I think it goes without saying that the National Baseball Hall of Fame carries certain significance in the hearts and minds of sports fans around the country, and baseball writers tend to “protect” it like a newborn. Why do you think we think so highly of Cooperstown but not the same way about Canton and Springfield?

BS: Baseball has always been a part of the American culture, going all the way back to the 19th Century, so much so that in the late 1800s it gained the title “The National Pastime.” Writers of that period, like Walt Whitman and Mark Twain, sang its praises in words and Jack Norworth gave it its anthem in song, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” And, as the country grew, so too did the game, becoming entwined with it as part of America. So it was that with the founding of the HOF, it also became part and parcel of the history of the game. And the very name of the town where it is located, Cooperstown, became not only interchangeable with the institution of the HOF itself, but meant “baseball” – something other towns, like Canton and Springfield, can only aspire to. Moreover, as the first sports hall of fame – and the second hall of fame established – the HOF could lay claim to being known as “the granddaddy” of all sports halls of fame, the most famous shrine of any sport.

TW: Most people, including myself, tend to associate you more with the Sweet Science than we do with the National Pastime. Do you prefer one over the other?

BS: Truth to tell, I was a baseball fan before I became a boxing fan. Unfortunately, that was in the city where I grew up, the city of Washington, DC. And I was reduced  — if that’s the right word – to rooting for the Washington Senators (you know, “First in War, First in Peace, and Last in the American League”) whose double-play combination was short-to-first-to the-right-field-stands and whose clean-up hitter’s imitation of Babe Ruth was pointing to the pitcher’s mound, if he could get it that far! Nevertheless, I grew up a baseball fan and boxing came later. However, that said, both sports are what may be called my “favorites,” both with rich histories, wonderful stories, and interesting participants. All of which tend to captivate me as a writer and historian. So, if I’m associated more with boxing than baseball, I cannot disabuse those doing so from so labeling me as such. But I have always been a baseball fan-cum-historian and I guess I always will be labels or no. (In fact, way back when, I even had a baseball magazine, Baseball Monthly, before I had boxing magazines!)

TW: Are there any significant changes you would make in the actual Hall of Fame (the museum and its displays within); more of this, less of that, etc?

BS: Off the top of my hat, my answer would be “No.” The HOF has done a helluva job in presenting and preserving the history and story of the game. In fact, as you walk through the HOF, your eyes begin to cloud over at the many memories they evoke. And here, let it be known that the curators at the HOF are always adding to and rotating the exhibits to bring the visitors more and more of what they have come to expect: the greatest visual display of any hall of fame, sports or no, in existence. So, after thinking this through, the answer is still a resounding “No!”

TW: The biggest debates we have here at Dugout Central are always over those players that fall into the borderline Hall of Fame crowd, the Bert Blylevens, the Andre Dawsons, and so on. How do you feel about the job being done by the Baseball Writers Association of America? Are they getting it right or are they clearly missing the obvious with certain players?

BS: Your question is only half a question; the other part being not only those who are not in, but also those who are in. On the whole, the Baseball Writers have done an excellent job – albeit I never have figured out why it took Joe DiMaggio three ballots to get in. However, more than occasionally the old-timers committee’s choices have puzzled me. Why the entire New York Giants infield of the early ‘20s? Why Rick Ferrell and not his brother, Wes, who, as a pitcher, had an almost equal batting average to his brother’s and had more home runs – and, not incidentally, is the only pitcher in baseball history to win 20 or more games in his first four seasons in the majors and six times won 20 games. Nevertheless, on balance, the selectors have gotten it right.

TW: A sports writer of your stripe has seen just about everything you can see in the field of sports journalism over the last 40 years. Was there one moment in baseball history that had you just shaking your head and thinking “I’ll never see anything like that again”?

BS: I don’t know who said it first, but someone, somewhere, at some time once said, “You go to a game hoping you’ll see something you never saw before.” And so, copying that line, I have been privy to several “I’ll never see anything like that again” moments – from Don Larsen’s Perfect Game to Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World” to Willie Mays’ “Catch.” (As a kid I even saw Pete Gray, the one-armed outfielder for the St. Louis Browns and know I’ll never see that again!) Anywho, I still go to games hoping against hope that I’ll have another one of those “I’ll never see anything like that again” moments. (And here, a quick, short story. Back in the ‘40s one writer was carried into the press box a little the worse for wear from imbibing one too many. He finally woke up in about the sixth inning and borrowed the scorecard of the writer next to him in an effort to fill in his own blanks. As he wrote down every hit, out and error, the writer looked down at the “9″ the now-sobered scribe was copying onto his scorecard and said, “… Furillo made a great catch on that one…” To which the writer stopped his scribbling and, pulling himself up to his full self-importance, said, “I’ll be the judge of that!” So even if we didn’t see it, we think we’ve seen it, the first time or in the re-telling.)

TW: That’s a great story. Truly great. I guess I’ll finish us up here with a fun hypothetical. A “fantastical” situation choice if you will. If you could cover one of the following fictitious events over the other, which would you choose and why; a Heavyweight title bout between Ali in his prime and Tyson in his prime or a Dodgers vs. Yankees World Series that featured Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle versus a Sandy Koufax who has brought his “A” game?

BS: As hypothetical’s go, that goes pretty far. But I already know the answer: Mike Tyson unable to get to Muhammad Ali with a taxi cab; the only way he could have beaten Ali was to mug him on the way out of the dressing room. No, my “choice” would be the baseball match-up, even though it sounds like the fantasy game of all fantasy games. And here I’m reminded of Jim Spencer’s comment after a game in which Koufax set down the San Francisco Giants on one hit, Spencer’s single, and being asked: “Was that a fastball you hit?” and Spencer replied: “Shit, yes, you can’t touch his curve.” If Sandy’s on his “A” game, as you say, then even Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio and Mantle would also have a tough time hitting him. And I’d want to be there to watch that.

Bert Sugar’s Baseball Hall of Fame is a beautifully written and tremendously photographed book that would look amazing on your book shelf or coffee table, or would make a terrific gift for your father this Father’s Day weekend. It is available for purchase at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and thousands of other fine booksellers and retailers around the country.

1.    When do pitchers become terrible hitters? Between the ages of 5 and 18, the pitchers are usually the BEST hitters on their T-ball, travel, or high school teams. At what point do they go from the best to the worst?

2.    Why do you get a run batted in for getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded?

3.    Why do Baseball Tonight and other similar shows use so many former players as regular expert analysts? They are rarely critical when they need to be, their “analysis” usually only consists of generic cliché’s, and they are not often 100% comfortable on camera.

4.    Forget about .400; can Joe Mauer hit .429? He started the season 33 for 77 (.4286); then went 34 for his next 79 (.4304).

5.    If MLB batters in 2008 hit .425 on balls that were pulled, .289 when going up the middle, and .308 on balls hit to the opposite field, then why is it such a “great piece of hitting” when a player “goes the other way”? Seems to me that they’d be much better off pulling everything.

6.    Why is the season 162 games? Why was it 154 before and not an even 150? Why did they add 8 games in 1961?

7.    If a starter goes 4 2/3 and has to leave the game with discomfort in his pitching shoulder with his team up 10-0, he cannot get the win. Why is he less deserving of the W than the reliever who comes in after him and pitches 1 1/3 innings?

8.    If a balk is something that deceives a base runner, why is the smallest accidental flinch a balk; and Andy Pettitte is allowed to step towards home and throw to first?

9.    Why do the A’s have an elephant for a mascot? Elephants aren’t very Athletic.

10.    At what point will a blurb on ESPN’s bottom line scroll across with something like “Breaking News: Andres Galarraga NOT on list of 104 players who tested positive for PED’s in 2003”? I just don’t understand why the Sosa story was news.

11.    Why isn’t every game on the MLBTV package in Hi-Def? C’mon, it’s 2009.

12.    Why do so many pitchers refuse to let their defense help them? So far this year, 50 pitchers (who have thrown 20+ IP) have a BAA of less than .250 and also average over 4.0 BB/9. I’m looking at YOU, Carlos Marmol.

13.    Who decided that it was not ok to celebrate after a big home run or strikeout?

14.    Is David Wright the luckiest hitter of all time so far this year? No man has ever hit over .330 while striking out more than 150 times. Through June 22nd, Wright is hitting .349 and is on pace to strike out 165 times. How is he missing so many gloves the times he actually makes contact?

15.    How is Wright hitting for so little power if he’s swinging for the fences? No player has ever hit fewer than 10 HR’s while striking out more than 150 times. He’s on pace for 10 HR’s and 165 K’s.

16.    Why does Joba Chamberlain shake off his catcher so much?

17.    Why is there no error given on routine pop up that lands at the feet of three different players?

18.    David Ortiz hit a sky high popup on June 16th against the Marlins. Forget about running it out, Ortiz didn’t even walk it out. He barely moved and the ball was dropped. Ok I understand the frustration of a popup one time, but how could Ortiz let the same exact thing happen just three days later? He doesn’t have to hustle (play) in the field for goodness sake. And for the amount of times he walks or strikes out, he really only needs to run three times a night. Apparently that’s too much to ask.

19.    When will Jeff Francouer learn how to play baseball; and why do the Braves keep playing him in the meantime? He’s had five years in the Bigs and still no adjustment.

20.    What is Ben Zobrist eating for breakfast this season and where can I get some?

Pitching aside, Baseball America’s 2009 Top 100 prospect list was dominated by catchers and centerfielders. It is not unusual for there to be a large group of prospects at any one position at one time; it is when talking a large group at two dominant positions. What makes the list unprecedented is the appearance of five centerfielders within the top 15, all of whom have had a taste of the Major Leagues in 2009. Colby Rasmus (4), Cameron Maybin (6), Dexter Fowler (8), Andrew McCutchen (12), and Jordan Schafer (15) have all played regularly at some point, with varying degrees of success.

Other names on the list include Desmond Jennings (Rays), Gorkys Hernandez (Pirates), Drew Stubbs (Reds), and Gerardo Parra (Diamondbacks), who is seeing regular OF duty for the DBacks. All these players rank behind BA’s sixth ranked centerfielder, the Yankees’ Austin Jackson. The Yanks’ top prospect, the twenty-two year old Jackson was drafted out of Ryan High School in Denton, TX in the eighth round in 2005. At 6’1″, 185, Jackson is a top flight athlete who turned down a full ride scholarship to play basketball at Georgia Tech to sign with the Yankees.

Jackson has premium skills, often being described in the football term as a “playmaker.” He is a natural CF, a glider with plus range and a right fielder’s arm. Offensively, he has a tendency to be streaky at times, although as he gains experience he should become more consistent in his approach. While not yet displaying power, he has the strength and bat speed to maybe reach 15 homers a year in the major leagues.

The negative with Jackson is his strikeout rate, alarmingly high for a leadoff hitter, as he had whiffed 399 times in 433 career minor league games heading into 2009. Understanding their positional weakness on the major league roster and feeling the need to challenge his development, the Yanks sent Jackson to the competitive Arizona Fall League following the 2008 season. Rotating between left and center (with Jennings), Jackson more than held his own against more experienced pitchers.

Already considered a better defensive centerfielder than perennial Yankee fan favorite Bernie Williams, Jackson headed to spring training with a legitimate shot of winning a spot in the opening day lineup. Instead he found himself in Scranton’s opening day lineup. It would have been easy for Jackson to sulk and pout; on the contrary he started hitting and hasn’t stopped. To date, Jackson leads the International League in hits (81), is second hitting and on base percentage, and is in the top ten in runs, doubles, triples and total bases while playing errorless defense. The only negative is his fourth place ranking in strikeouts, although his K/AB has shown improvement. Jackson currently ranks third in IL All-Star voting for outfielders, trailing only Scranton teammate Shelley Duncan and Cleveland’s Matt LaPorta.

Since injuries started to impact the play of Yankees CF and leadoff hitter Johnny Damon towards the end of the 2007 season, both positions have been without an incumbent. Over their last 250 games, the Yanks have employed no fewer than six leadoff hitters and five centerfielders. Subtracting the .310/.385/.457 from Derek Jeter, Yankee leadoff hitters have clipped at a .247/.326/.388 rate, hardly what you would expect from a pennant contending team. And lest we forget, Damon’s days as a leadoff man are coming to a close, and Jeter is best served in the two hole.

The two main contributors to the lack of leadoff production are Melky Cabrera and Brett Gardner. Both have tried, and failed in, admittedly, a limited role in winning the job outright. Both have their weaknesses, and while they are not shared, each player is lacking in the overall skill set to be a regular major league player. Both are fortunate enough to play for a championship caliber team, one that can hide a less skilled player in their lineup without them being hurt. The Red Sox, (Jed Lowrie, Jacoby Ellsbury) and Angels (Howie Kendrick) are two recent examples of teams who have reached the postseason while having marginal players in their everyday lineup.

Cabrera is also arbitration eligible this coming off-season. The Yankees avoided arbitration with Cabrera this past off-season, signing the outfielder to a one year, $1.4M deal. Melky is currently on a hot streak, posting several game winning hits over the past few weeks while posting split career highs, (.287/.346/.477). Those numbers don’t warrant his current level of compensation, if he somehow wins his arbitration case this year, the Yankees could be stuck paying a fourth OF somewhere in the $3M range. Money which could be better spent on a catcher.

What to do?

The easy part of the equation is to promote Jackson, stick him in the leadoff spot, and let him play. Send Gardner out, and try and move Cabrera, while he hopefully continues to outperform his talent. The Yanks won’t get much for Melky, but they don’t need much either, at this point anyway. The Rangers have an abundance of catching prospects, with Jarrod Saltalamacchia playing well, maybe they can pry Taylor Teagarden away in a one for one? The Yankees have been advance scouting Colorado closer Huston Street; with setup man Manny Corpas injured the Rox probably won’t move Street unless they get a pitcher in return, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, right? Speaking of the Rockies, they were recently rejected by the Pirates on a proposal of Ian Snell for Carlos Gonzalez swap; considering the Yankees’ trade history with the Pirates, maybe they’d take Cabrera?

Neither Cabrera nor Gardner can carry the Yankees for more than a game or two. The Yanks are playing well of late because different players have carried them. First it was Nick Swisher, then Robinson Cano, then of late, Mark Teixeira. Alex Rodriguez has yet to step up and have his turn, but past history shows he is more than capable. At some point during the season the big guns will be empty, and it will be up to the lesser players to stand up and carry the load. It happens to every team every season; sometimes it takes the performance of someone unexpected to keep the team’s engine’s running. The 2001 Diamondbacks World Championship Diamondbacks don’t even make the postseason without the performance of super utility man Craig Counsell, who stepped up and filled in admirably for the injured Matt Williams and Jay Bell.

Put Jackson in the everyday lineup and let him play. If he goes 0-4, yet wins the game with a great defensive play, he’s still performing at a level Cabrera and Gardner can’t. If he goes 3-4, pilfers a couple of sacks and scores a run or two on his own, he’s performing at a level Cabrera and Gardner can’t.

Where’s the harm, right?

Back in early-May, I took a look at Scott Boras’ position player clients who are eligible for free agency in 2010. I promised the encore, focusing on the pitchers, later that week, but a hectic month forced me to put the piece on the backburner. I am back at it now, though, with part two of the Boras series.

The majority of readers weren’t all that impressed with the list of free-agent hitters represented by the Boras Corporation, especially with Matt Holliday’s well-documented struggles grabbing headlines at the time; Holliday, to his credit, has since picked it up and still appears headed for a big pay day. His clientele of arms, however, is even less noteworthy.

Boras is going to make a killing off of the commissions from his amateur client’s signing bonuses–it’s good to rep Stephen Strasburg!–so any sympathy for the man is misguided. But, as the list below shows, the upcoming offseason is unlikely to rank among his most profitable free agent signing periods.

Eric Gagne, Quebec Capitales: 192. 335. 187. 152.

No, those numbers don’t represent this site’s daily traffic from the past four days. They are Gagne’s ERA+ figures from his brilliant run as closer of the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2002-2005, when he was one of the most effective relief pitchers in baseball history. The story is well-documented: the former stud starting prospect finally put it all together in a relief role–where like any pitcher, pretty much, his stuff played a lot better and he was able to improve his command–on the way to setting a major league record by saving 84 consecutive games and winning the 2003 National League Cy Young Award.

Four years later, Gagne is starting again. Unfortunately, for him and his agent, the starts aren’t being made for a major league team or affiliate. Yes, the 33-year-old right-hander is pitching for the Quebec Capitales in the Can-Am League.

It was a swift fall from grace for Gagne, who was effective at the highest level with the Rangers before being shipped to the Boston Red Sox just two years ago. He posted a 220 ERA+ and 3.45 FIP in 34 appearances for Texas, who sent him to Boston late that summer. After the trade, his struggles quickly made him a favorite source of criticism on the talk radio circuit in Red Sox nation, as command issues (4.34 BB/9) and a few homers allowed at inopportune times magnified his problems; surprisingly when considering the perception, he actually produced a lower FIP, 3.30, while with Boston.

Looking at Gagne’s season in its entirety–120 ERA+, 3.30 FIP, 1.1 WAR–the Milwaukee Brewers thought they could resurrect his career the following offseason. The Brewers gave him $10-M in a one-year deal to replace departed closer Francisco Cordero, who followed the money in free agency.

The deal backfired on Doug Melvin and co big time, though, as Gagne proceeded to put up a 79 ERA+ and 6.13 FIP. He produced -1.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR), making the price tag from the salary even greater when factoring in the opportunity cost of giving those innings to a replacement-level reliever.

Melvin felt that Gagne flashed glimpses of his old self in the second half of ‘08–3.52 ERA in 26 appearances–and decided to give him another look on a no-risk, non-guaranteed minor league contract and invite to spring training. Club doctors discovered a tear in his rotator cuff, however, forcing the organization to release him.

After rehabilitating the shoulder for the rest of the spring, Gagne joined Quebec at the end of May. The early returns haven’t been good so far, as he’s been lit up to the tune of an 8.38 ERA (15 earned runs in 9.2 innings pitched) in his first two starts.

You have to give credit to Gagne for working so hard to make a comeback. After making more than $33-M during his career, it’s clear that his desire for another chance in the majors isn’t motivated by financial reasons. Yet, while stranger things have happened, it’s doubtful he will ever be much of a factor again. To Boras, he no longer represents a potential meal ticket.

Rodrigo Lopez, Philadelphia Phillies: Lopez, 34, hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2007, when he posted a 108 ERA+ and 4.78 FIP in 14 starts for the Colorado Rockies. In August of ‘07, the ‘02 American League Rookie of the Year runner-up underwent Tommy John surgery that shelved him for a full calendar year. Upon returning, he signed a minor league deal with the Atlanta Braves in late-summer, but he struggled in five appearances at the lowest levels of the Braves’ farm system and was released by the organization in November.

Lopez latched on with the Philadelphia Phillies this past March, agreeing to a minor league contract. He’s currently 3-4 with a 4.71 ERA, 3.37 FIP and rates of 6.59 K/9 and 2.38 BB/9 over 57.1 innings pitched in 11 starts at Triple-A Lehigh Valley. While the FIP is solid, he has struggled to work deep into games; he hasn’t gotten past the fifth inning since he threw seven frames on May 19. Stuff-wise, the veteran right-hander relies on a five-pitch arsenal that features an upper-80s fastball, low-80s slider, cut fastball and a low-80s change-up. His average fastball velocity has declined every year so far in his career, though, falling from 91.2 MPH in 2002 down to 88.2 in ‘07; the velocity is down again so far as he continues to get his arm back into shape.

While he had his moments during his peak with the Baltimore Orioles, Lopez is nothing all that special anymore (and really never was). He has produced career rates of 5.97 K/9, 2.79 BB/9, 1.27 HR/9 and a 4.59 FIP and below league-average 93 ERA+ in 1,016.2 innings pitched over seven major league seasons. At this stage, he’s strictly an organizational depth guy who is unlikely to ever be worth more than a minor league deal going forward. He’s proven that his arm is healthy and in shape, but the odds are now stacked against him.

Kevin Millwood, Texas Rangers: Outside of Phil Rodgers, there weren’t too many fans of the five-year, $60-M contract given to Millwood by the Texas Rangers following the ‘05 season. Sure, Millwood had just posted the lowest ERA (2.86) in the A.L. in his walk-year with the Cleveland Indians, but it was a major risk to make such a financial commitment to a 31-year-old. Plus, despite the sexy ERA, some of his peripherals weren’t so glamorous; in part thanks to a below career-average batting average on balls in play and personal-best 79.1% strand rate, he greatly outperformed his 3.73 FIP while his K/9 rate continued to slide. He benefited from pitching in front of an excellent team defense–the Indians ranked third in the majors with a .710 defensive efficiency rating–that made him look better than he actually was.

Going to a band box to pitch for a team known for its defensive ineptitude (it’s been a long time since Texas ranked higher than 20 in DER until this spring), Millwood appeared to be in for a rude awakening.

As Junior at Fire Joe Morgan wrote at the time:

Look, there are no certainties when it comes to long-term contract values. It’s possible that Kevin Millwood will be worth $12 million a year when he’s 36. I just don’t think it’s likely.

Millwood has certainly had his fair share of ups and downs with the Rangers, posting a league-average ERA+ of better only once during his tenure with the club; he put up a 87 ERA+ in ‘06, with the mark dropping to 87 exactly the next two seasons. That kind of ERA+ wasn’t exactly what the hometown fans in Arlington were hoping for, but it’s worth pointing out how terrible the Rangers’ defense has been and that he has actually lived up to the dollars attached to his contract so far. According to FanGraphs’ Dollars feature, he has been worth more than his salary (in terms of WAR) every year since he signed with Texas back in ‘06; from ‘06-’08, he averaged 3.73 WAR, which roughly translates to $13.8-M in terms of what he could reasonably expect to earn on the open market for his performance.

Bill James once wrote that what “a lot of what is perceived as pitching is in fact defense.” Millwood, who ranks eighth in the majors with a 2.62 ERA headed into Sunday, exemplifies the legendary quote beautifully. Texas made a concerted effort to improve its defense in the offseason, moving veteran Michael Young to third base in order to make room for smooth-fielding rookie shortstop Elvis Andrus. And the new-found approach has paid dividends for the team’s run preventions efforts, shaving off runs while making the pitching staff look much better than it actually is.

And Millwood, sitting pretty with a 7-4 record and nifty 170 ERA+, can attribute a lot of his excellent first half to the improved defense; Texas has produced a .708 DER, ranking fourth in baseball. Even with Andrus behind him scooping up balls that Young could only get to in his dreams, he’s in for a rude awakening. For starters, his .252 BABIP (only six pitchers have a lower number) is the lowest mark of his career and, even with the best group of fielders he’s had since Cleveland supporting him, is only going to regress closer to his .306 career average. Plus, only Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants has stranded a higher percentage of runners than Millwood, whose 86.8 LOB% is 15.4 points higher than his career rate of 71.4 and surely to come down soon. He isn’t missing a lot of bats, either, with his K/9 rate hovering just under 5.00 at 4.97.

Not surprisingly considering the peripherals, Millwood is significantly out-pitching his ERA. In fact, the 2.06 gap between his ERA and FIP (4.67) is the widest margin of any pitcher in the league. Essentially, if you’re relying on Millwood in a Fantasy League, sell high if a league mate is foolish enough not to see past the wins and losses.

The 35-year-old Millwood has a $12-M vesting option for ‘10 if he reaches the 180-inning pitch mark. At his age, he’ll never get paid anywhere near his current figures again, so making sure he reaches that plateau seems to be his safest bet for a big splash for ‘10. Having already thrown 99.2 frames not even at the All-Star break, though, Boras and his client should be able to breathe easy. If the right-handed hurler can stay healthy, he and his agent will get paid for now.

Scott Schoeneweiss, Arizona Diamondbacks: Schoenweiss pondered retirement after his wife’s sudden and unexpected death on May 20. He has since returned to the Arizona Diamondbacks after being placed on the bereavement list in the aftermath of the terrible tragedy, a commendable achievement on its own. The 35-year-old left-hander, who battled testicular cancer during his collegiate career at Duke University, has produced a 4.74 career FIP and has been worth 2.8 WAR since ‘02.

Ron Villone, Washington Nationals: The Nats’ terrible bullpen has been the one non-Strasburg-related baseball story that has grabbed the most attention in our nation’s capital. And Villone’s presence in the pen should be an indicator of the lack of bullpen depth; you better believe first-round pick Drew Storen will rise quickly. The journeyman left-hander latched on with Washington in April after failing to break camp with the New York Mets out of spring training. He then reported to Triple-A Syracuse, but, after Manny Acta’s infamous bullpen shake-up, got the call on May 7.

Villone’s 1.77 ERA and .668 LH opponents’ OPS are nice. His rates of 4.87 K/9 and 5.31 BB/9, however, are not. And his 4.39 FIP is a better indicator of what to expect from him the rest of the way, assuming he sticks in the pen for good; there’s no way his .257 BABIP and 87.0 percent strand rate are sustainable.

Villone, who uses a three-pitch arsenal that includes an 88-MPH fastball, low-80s slider and change-up, has voiced his frustrations about the Nats’ struggles. But he should enjoy each day he has in the bigs, because the end of the road is near for him.

Jarrod Washburn, Seattle Mariners: Speaking of pitchers benefiting from pitching in front of a good defense…

Seattle Mariners general manager Jack Zduriencik made several roster moves to upgrade his outfield defense this past offseason. Zduriencik landed Endy Chavez and Franklin Gutierrez in the J.J. Putz trade, adding two plus defenders to solidify the Mariners’ outfield defense along with Ichiro Suzuki and provide the club with a three center field model. For a team that plays in such a spacious home ball park and features a fly ball pitching staff, the thought processes used behind the decision were excellent.

And they have since led to solid outcomes. Replacing below-average left field defender Raul Ibanez with Chavez and other capable options has gone along ways. As well, Gutierrez’s excellent right field defense–he was the Fielding Bible Award winner at the position in ‘08 for the Indians–has translated in center field, allowing Ichiro to stay put in right field.

The improved defensive alignment in the outfield has done wonders for Washburn, who is now one of the most attractive starters in a thin trade market. The 34-year-old southpaw has posted a 3.24 ERA and 132 ERA+ in 83.1 innings pitched over his first 13 starts. For all of the criticism directed at the Seattle front office for not sending him and his contract to the New York Yankees last summer, it appears that the club will get more value in return in a potential trade this time around.

As Matthew Carruth notes, the improved defense only tells part of the story. Washburn’s 3.79 FIP is the best total of his career outside of ‘02, when he went 18-6 with a 3.15 ERA and 141 ERA+ for the World Champion Los Angeles Angels and turned his performance into a four-year, $37-5-M pay day thanks to his friend Bill Bavasi. Relying on an improved two-seam fastball, he has been devastating against lefties, who have hit just .147/.186/.253 off of him in 95 at-bats.

Chavez will miss the remainder of the year after tearing his ACL, which is a big blow to the M’s and perhaps Washburn. After underperforming his salary according to FanGraphs’ Dollars feature since coming to Seattle, though, he has a chance to fall on the right side of the Dollars Earned/Made game; he has been worth 1.7 WAR, valued at $7.5-M. And, if he can keep doing his best Cliff Lee impersonation while increasing his trade value, the original deal may not look as bad in hindsight as once originally thought.

Bavasi overpaid, using the wrong process–falling for ERA and wins–to guide his thinking. When discussing his terrible reign as GM, though, this deal is no longer at the top of the list of most notable blunders.

As far as free agency goes, Washburn will never get the big dollars he’s grown accustomed to. But he could get a nice short-term deal if he sustains his success and continues to attack lefties. If the dollars are right, Boras should send a gift basket to Zduriencik for surrounding his client with good-fielding outfielders.

Tyler Hissey is editor of Around the Majors and is the co-host of FirstInning.com’s radio show, Minor League Notebook Weekly.

Hey, Manny is Almost Back … Who Knew?

I thought time only flies when you are having fun, but apparently that beauty of an adage isn’t entirely true.

As it turns out, time also flies when you don’t care. Seriously.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Manny Ramirez is tentatively scheduled to join the Dodgers’ Triple A affiliate in Albuquerque, New Mexico, next Tuesday for the beginning of a four-game series. According to the report, Ramirez will then play a three-game series with Los Angeles’ Single A Inland Empire club before being set to rejoin the Dodgers July 3 in San Diego.

Over the last two years, I have developed a conveniently dark, comfy place for baseball’s steroid users in my heart, one that is more suited for REM than RBI.

True, I have to confront sleep apnea in my personal defense cocoon, but at least I don’t have to pay any attention to reports (Mitchell), lists (the infamous 102 remaining names), and prescriptions (pick one).

So, naturally, I dealt with this week’s New York Times report claiming Sammy Sosa tested positive in 2003 for performance-enhancers – wow, a shocker – the same way I have handled Manny’s absence from Los Angeles.

“Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz … ”

And let me tell you something. If you haven’t tried this tactic, you are missing out. It’s great!

Sure, it is going to be fun to see Ramirez back in the lineup and his dreds frolicking through the leftfield air as he skips and turns and twists and hopscotch’s his way to a fly ball, but only because he is an entertaining baseball player, not because he is coming back from a suspension.

Heck, I may even make my way down to San Diego to watch it all happen. You never know.

Manny has been relegated to this type of minimal importance in my baseball life, and I’m better for it. Why? Because I actually got to open my eyes to the rest of the Dodgers roster in his absence, and follow some guys that are truly entertaining to watch, without being pricked with a dirty needle.

Since Manny got bounced by Commissioner Selig’s drug testing policy in early May, the Dodgers have the best record in the National League (23-15) and have increased their lead in the National League West from 6.5 games to 9 games over the second-place San Francisco Giants.

How has it happen?

Lets just call it a collective effort.

And for the record, all stats from here on out are from May 7 to the present, or what I like to refer as Great Lent for the Dodgers – i.e. their official fast from Lord Manny. Okay, here we go …

Orlando Hudson still looks like the best signing the Dodgers made last off-season, gobbling up any ground ball hit to second base and strolling the dugout like he’s continuously connected to a special Red Bull IV drip. He’s hitting .284, and continues to find himself on base and in the middle of seemingly every late-inning rally.

He has grown on me thicker than Jonathan Broxton’s sideburns, and has become my favorite Dodgers player to watch.

I thought Dodgers GM Ned Colletti over-valued Casey Blake at last year’s trade deadline, giving up a potential star in catcher Carlos Santana as part of the package sent to the Cleveland Indians, but I have it to give it to Colletti for pulling the trigger at the deadline and for Blake pulling the trigger at the plate.

Blake is hitting .364 with 5 homers and 1.020 OPS, and the Dodgers aren’t nearly the same club without him.

If you haven’t noticed him, don’t feel bad. The only thing that really stands out about him is his beard. But that’s a good thing. For once, Hollywood is putting substance above style.

James Loney? He’s hitting .285 and playing a solid first base, although his .384 SLG is disappointing. The Dodgers have expected more power than that from him, but hitting coach Don Mattingly still believes it is going to come for Loney, so that’s good enough for me.

Matt Kemp is teasing all of L.A. with his .338 batting average and .391 OBP while roaming centerfield. Kemp is the Dodgers’ version of Adam Jones, but he just hasn’t broken out yet with such flair.

See all the fun we are having sans Manny? And that’s just the hitters.

(I didn’t forget Andre Ethier or Rafael Furcal; it’s just that their bats have been tanning in Malibu during Manny’s absence.)

Chad Billingsley and Randy Wolf have been the stucco of the Dodgers pitching staff that leads the National League in ERA (3.57). Hiroki Kuroda is working himself back into the mix after missing more than a month with a left oblique strain.

Clayton Kershaw continues to take steps forward in his development, while Ramon Troncoso and Ronald Belisario do the heavy lifting in the bullpen leading up to Broxton in the ninth inning.

Earlier in the season, I openly wondered whether the pitching staff could hold up, or would the mirrors eventually shatter into a million pieces. Still early it is, but the pitching staff has exceeded my expectations.

And that’s the beautiful thing about finding the necessity to move on from fallen stars and fake heroes. Your world is opened up to good players who can entertain in their own right, and the emotional burden is nil.

That doesn’t mean not caring as a fan whether your team wins or loses. It means being able to eat dinner and sleep comfortably after your team is cold-cocked by the PED. You wake up fresh the next morning, ready for another ballgame.

My dad mentioned to me the other night that Manny may come back and just go on a tear because the Dodgers have taken the pressure off him by winning in his absence. Manny is not coming back to a house full of smoke and looking to be the extinguisher.

I hope he comes back and goes on a tear, simply because he has cheated the fans out of 50 games of fun and his teammates out of 50 games of production.

“But, really,” I said to my dad, “Manny could come back and hit 40 homers, and I wouldn’t really care, or he could come back and stink, and I wouldn’t really care. It’s the same to me.”

And that’s only because the fan in me has moved on to bigger and better things.

I want Manny to come back, shut up, and hit. I’m not interested in fake press conferences and vague answers. Answer with the bat.

That way he will fit in with the rest of his teammates, who have been winners in the wake of his destruction.

But, either way, I won’t be coherent during the circus that accompanies his arrival. The Dodgers, and the game, can do without it.

Just wake me up when Manny starts putting balls in the gaps.

Teddy Mitrosilis is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is majoring in journalism and is walking onto the baseball team. He is a staff writer for the Most Valuable Network’s baseball blog, Around The Majors at www.mvn.com/aroundthemajors. Read more of Teddy’s work at http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/tm4000.

Don’t look now National League, but the laughing stock Giants are in the Wild Card race with a 34-31 record, currently a game behind the St. Louis Cardinals. The offensively challenged Giants are doing it with their starting pitching.

And the Giants continue to push their young starters, a trend which started with Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum, and continues with two of their 2007 first round picks, young pitchers who have the talent to bring the Giants to the forefront of the National League. Due to other teams signing their free agents, the Giants had six first round selections in 2007 for losing Jason Schmidt, Moises Alou and Mike Stanton.

With their top two selections, the Giants selected LHP Madison Bumgarner, a high school strikeout artist from North Carolina and RHP Tim Alderson, another top high school prospect from Arizona.

Since being drafted, these two have progressed at the same pace and are currently winning games in Double A Connecticut. Both started last season in Low-A Augusta and began this season in High-A San Jose before being promoted to the Eastern League in mid-May.

After posting a 15-3, 1.46 ERA, 164 K’s/21 walks in 141 innings season at Low A Augusta in 2008, Bumgarner started 2009 with 3-1, 1.48, 23 K’s/4 walks in five stars. After his promotion to AA, he continued with 4-1, 2.38 ERA, 32 K’s/10 walks in 34 innings (6 games).

What is amazing about Bumgarner, selected 10th overall in 2007, is that he recorded those 2008 numbers with basically one pitch – a big time, mid-90’s fastball that has considerable late life. This season, however, Bumgarner has mixed in a nicely developing curve and slider, while occasionally tossing in an improving change up.

In addition to the physical tools, Bumgarner also possesses a tremendous work ethic.

This quote comes from his Augusta manager, Andy Skeels: “I’m running out of superlatives. I’ve never seen a player do the things he’s done. I’ve never seen a player grow that fast and quickly. What he did was staggering. … That’s an unstoppable force, when you have that kind of talent and that kind of desire to get better. I think he’s going to be a very special player for a very long time at the Major League level.”

Bumgarner gets the most out of his delivery, swinging his throwing arm way behind his back. While most scouts and online pitching enthusiasts like this type of delivery, I believe this long arm action has a tendency to produce shoulder issues, especially with hard throwers. The old pitching axiom on arm action was short in the back and long in the front. That is no longer the case in baseball as pitchers look to add more velocity.

Since he can thoroughly dominate every level with the fastball, Madison needs to not worry about results, but start using his secondary pitches more often and in hitter’s counts.

His fastball will get him to the major leagues quickly, but his other pitches will keep him there…possibly for a long time.

Except for his 6’7″ frame, Alderson is not as dominating, but he does pretty well, too. The son of former MLB exec Sandy Alderson was 13-4, 2.79 ERA, 124 K’s/34 walks in 145 innings. He followed that up with impressive performances in High A San Jose but the real fireworks began in his first AA start. Alderson threw 6 2/3 innings of no hit ball, allowing only a single walk.

I was at the game Tuesday night, June 16th in which Alderson pitched seven very impressive innings against the Trenton Thunder, the Yankees Double A affiliate. While the Yankee lineup was very timid (only Jesus Montero is a serious ML prospect), Alderson showed why he is deserving of the high praise. His fastball was popping, but it was his curve which was freezing hitters, resulting in 10 ground balls and five strikeouts.

There are other pitchers besides the top two studs. The pitcher who threw the final two innings Tuesday, Ben Snyder, was a 2006 draft choice who went 16-5, 2.09 at Low A in 2007, and 8-3, 2.00 ERA, 73 K’s/18 walks at High A in 2008. However, when promoted mid season to AA last year, he struggled mightily with a 1-6, 5.98 ERA and .308 BAA.

A positive with any player, especially a top prospect, is to see how they adjust to adversity and improve upon their game. At the same level this season, Snyder has improved to 3-1, 2.06 ERA, .168 BAA. His K/9 rate of 9.79 is right up there with the top guys.

A loaded AA Connecticut pitching staff also includes Henry Sosa, a 24-year-old who is 5-0, 2.21 ERA in 11 starts. He is likely part of a trade package for a ML caliber hitter.

Daniel Otero is a closer extraordinaire, currently 0-2, 1.13 ERA with 13 saves at Connecticut. He was drafted in the 21st round in 2007 and is now a top closer prospect after pitching to a 0.33 ERA with 18 saves in Low A last season. He will be factor in some form within the Giants bullpen.

Also worth mentioning is Kevin Purcetas, a big, stocky RHP who burst on the scene last season. He jumped from High A last season to AAA this year and is holding his own with 6-2 record, 3.40 ERA in 13 starts. He is a career 38-9, 2.54 ERA, 1.9 BB/9 rate in less than four full minor league seasons. Look for Purcetas to get the call when the Giants finally stop showcasing Jonathan Sanchez as trade bait. A team needs to win games in the Majors and showcase talent at the lower levels, and Purcetas will give the Giants a better chance to win right now.

While the Giants are deep in high end pitching talent, they also have a few bats heading in the right direction. They are not deep in plus hitters at every level, but have a few possibilities at every level. The Giants system also has produced Pablo Sandoval, Travis Ishikawa, Nate Schierholtz and Emmanuel Burris but only Sandoval has offered any immediate offense.

When talking position prospects with the Giants, however, it starts with catcher Buster Posey, last season’s #1 pick (5th overall). Posey is hitting .324/.425/.542/.967 OPS with 19 doubles, 10 HRs, 45 RBIs AND 45 runs scored. He is a hitting machine who has plenty of legs left since he only started catching while in college.

He caught both Bumgarner and Alderson and appears to have worked well with them. Look for Posey to be promoted to AA in the summer.

While the Giants are not deep at every level with ML prospect hitters, they do have a few guys scattered throughout their system, most recently drafted in the last few seasons.

Also taken last season was 2B/3B/UT Conor Gillaspie, who actually has ML service time, having been promoted to The Show last season, only two months after being drafted. When awoken from the dream, Gillaspie has spent this season in High A, not hitting for a high average, but getting on base over 36% of the time, and does not strike out much.

Another similar type player is Nick Noonan, a 19 year old former first round pick from the 2007 draft. His tools are same as Gillaspie, except less plate awareness and more power. Interesting how the Giants took similar players back to back years as compensation picks, but the Giants have both in the same infield in San Jose with Noonan playing second base and Gillaspie at third.

While the current shortstop is 33 year old Edgar Renteria, who is signed for another season (plus club option), he might be holding the job long enough for current AA prospect Brandon Crawford to develop some more. He was a 2008 fourth round pick out of UCLA, showcasing five tools talent. In his first full season (he only had 16 at bats last year), the Giants began him in San Jose, before quickly promoting him to Connecticut after he showed “better than Posey” numbers (.371/.445/.600/1.045 OPS) in High A.

He has good size (6’2″, 210 lbs), shown good power, but is a free swinger, causing high strikeout rates. He is a rare, power potential shortstop who hits from the left hand side, although he took and 0 for 4 Tuesday night with two K’s against tough pitching.

Also in that Tuesday night game was Bret Pill, a good looking righty hitter who has gradually made his way up the ladder, one level at a time. Not dominating in numbers, but someone to keep an eye on. With the current 1B in the Giant system Travis Ishikawa not impressing in his first big shot, Pill could make an advance.

Someone who was decent in his first Major League call up was John Bowker, who was one of top NL rookies in 2008, batting .255 (83-for-326) with 31 runs, 14 doubles, three triples, 10 HRs and 43 RBIs in 111 games. Why didn’t he get the chance this season in San Francisco? Maybe they think Fred Lewis will get magical, but I don’t see it happening. Bowker is hitting the cover off the ball in AAA (.340/.451/.569/1.020 OPS) and should be able to help the power hungry Giants now.

Other hitters seeking to make an impact in the future include Roger Kieschnick, a five tool player with potential…and currently a low contact rate at the plate. This is usually the reason a good position prospect will never make it big. This is also the case for 19 year old Angel Villalona, a power prospect at High A San Jose.

It is interesting how San Francisco has produced a few top starters in Lincecum and Cain, have top pitching prospects in Bumgarner and Alderson and are considered to have a wealth of young pitching talent. This pitching talent is top heavy but the Giants actually have more top prospects on the positional side of the ledger, although they are a little further away from impacting the parent club.

Guys who can help this season include OF Bowker and RHP Pucetas and Giant fans should expect to see them up by mid-July …if not sooner.

The organization and its fans are salivating over the prospect of having a rotation of Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner and Alderson. Giant fans, however, might have to wait until 2010 for Baumgarner and Alderson, but the wait will be well worth the time.

Bob Bogle died Sunday in Vancouver, Washington at the age of 75 from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. You won’t find Bogle’s name in the Baseball Hall of Fame, but you will find it in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Bogle was the lead guitarist of the Ventures, perhaps the greatest instrumental rock and roll group of all time.

They had many hits, including “Perfidia,” “Diamond Head” and the theme of the TV show “Hawaii Five-O.” But nothing was bigger, nor showed off Bogle’s talent better than “Walk, Don’t Run.” In honor of Bogle and the Ventures, here are the players with at least 1,000 walks and less than 25 stolen bases and the years they played.

Name	Walks	SB	Years
Ted Williams	2021	24	1939 1960
Jim Thome	1591	19	1991 2009
Harmon Killebrew	1559	19	1954 1975
Wade Boggs	1412	24	1982 1999
Mark McGwire	1317	12	1986 2001
John Olerud	1275	11	1989 2005
Ken Singleton	1263	21	1970 1984
Jason Giambi	1242	18	1995 2009
Carlos Delgado	1109	14	1993 2009
Robin Ventura	1075	24	1989 2004
Ron Cey	1012	24	1971 1987
Ralph Kiner	1011	22	1946 1955
Boog Powell	1001	20	1961 1977

And here, from 1960, are the Ventures with “Walk Don’t Run.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJ11y7pYl-8

Bill Chuck is the creator of Billy-Ball.com (www.Billy-Ball.com) and, with Jim Kaplan, is the author of the book, “Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales,” with a Foreword by Jon Miller, published by ACTA Sports, and available worldwide.

The Los Angeles Angels have spent the first two and half months of the season living life in a washing machine, carelessly tossed and turned, flipped and churned, before wading through the suds to find what’s left.

How the Angels avoided what seemed to be an inevitable drowning is beyond me, but they’ve done it and here they are as we welcome the afternoon of June.

If there has been a team in the big leagues that has dealt with more than the Angels in such a short period of time, please, show me.

More than 60 games into the season, and the shocking tragedy of Nick Adenhart’s passing is still fresh in many minds, his jersey hanging in the dugout during each game, his patch still front and center on the uniform, and his photo still gracing the outfield wall at Angel Stadium.

That nightmare will never take a redeye to oblivion, but at least there seems to be some closure within the Angels clubhouse.

There is no nuclear bomb that could have hit the ball club with greater force than that grave news, but it seems as if time has naturally downsized the baggage from a crowded U-Haul to a simple carry-on. That’s the view from the outside, anyway.

And now it’s back to baseball, where the bob and weave of any given season has produced a plethora of difficulties for manager Mike Scioscia, from the starting rotation to the bullpen to the lineup.

Jim Leyland is doing quite a job in Detroit considering his circumstances, but nobody has done the job that Scioscia has. Scioscia should be a lock for A.L. Manager of the Year.

The Angels were a favorite to run away with the American League West prior to the opening of the season, assuming they were at full health.

But extended absences from John Lackey and Ervin Santana, the nonexistence of Kelvim Escobar, and a bullpen that has quickly fallen from among the best to living with the worst in baseball, has opened up the division to the free-swinging Texas Rangers and surprising Seattle Mariners.

If we have learned anything from the Angels’ recent string of playoff runs, it is that they can always rely on their depth of starting pitching and dynamic bullpen.

But that was the old Angels; this year’s team is reinventing itself every week.

The bullpen was still supposed to be a major strength with Scot Shields, Jose Arredondo, and newly signed closer Brian Fuentes.

As we talk today, Scot Shields is done for the season, taking his 6.62 ERA to the disabled list and undergoing knee surgery to correct an injury that was initially reported as patella tendinitis.

Jose Arredondo, the heir apparent to Fuentes for the closer’s job, appeared in 25 games, posted a 5.55 ERA, and is back in the minor leagues learning the importance of fastball command.

And, of course, Fuentes was supposed to be solid. And he has been. But solid isn’t good enough when you are taking over for cult hero Frankie Rodriguez, who set the single-season saves record and then took his high-wire act to Citi Field after signing a three-year deal with the New York Mets last winter.

Fuentes has 17 saves – and a 4.64 ERA – but he lacks the presence that great closers always have. K-Rod was billed as an uncertainty during his time with the Angels, but at least a heavy dose of confidence came with the unknown.

Fuentes isn’t any more of a sure thing than Rodriguez was, and he stands on the mound like he is in the middle of an arboretum. “Sweet … a bunch of plants. So, what’s for lunch?”

I don’t think the Angels accounted for the swagger and attitude that Frankie not only brought to the ninth inning, but also brought to the entire bullpen.

As a middle reliever, I imagine you feel a little more sense of urgency to do your job when you know you have a closer, the leader of the bullpen, who carries extremely high standards and brings a certain level of respect and intimidation to the mound.

The attacking attitude is infectious, and it begins to rub off on even your lefty specialist. You can picture K-Rod lighting up the clubhouse if the bullpen wasn’t getting it done. He wouldn’t stand for that.

Fuentes? He’s a good pitcher, an All-Star caliber reliever, but I don’t know. The Angels bullpen used to be a dominant one, an intimidating foe in the later innings. Currently, it’s just an apathetic bunch.

Pair that with a lineup that ranks 8th in the American League in runs scored, and has seen Howie Kendrick – a guy that some scouts were predicting would contend for the batting title in the spring – hit .231 before being demoted to the minor leagues to work it out, and I still haven’t figure out how or why the Angels are here.

But, I guess we don’t need to know, we just need to recognize their presence in the race, and the fact that there indeed are some glimmers of hope beaming through what has been a profuse thunderstorm thus far.

Lackey has a 6.10 ERA, but he pitched seven strong innings Monday night in San Francisco, striking out 10, and will only continue to pitch better as he settles into the season after missing the first month with arm issues. Don’t forget, Lackey is in a walk year – he will be a free agent this winter – and that usually bodes well for performance.

Jered Weaver (7-2, 2.08 ERA) and Joe Saunders (7-4, 3.66 ERA) have been outstanding at the front of the rotation, one that has been overhauled with unknown names and faces, until now.

Ervin Santana is back from an elbow strain, although he missed his last start on Tuesday evening, and should be a contributor in the coming months as long as he is healthy, which we presume he is or else the Angels wouldn’t be taking any chances with him.

Escobar made one start, realized that his arm couldn’t take the workload of 100+ pitches, and now is headed to the bullpen. He hasn’t made an appearance, but he has big stuff and moxie that will be gladly welcomed at the back end of the pen.

And we must not forget Torii Hunter, who has held the entire lineup together in the absence of Kendrick and Guerrero, hitting .319 with 16 home runs and is begging for another run-producer to join him. Juan Rivera is heating up, so maybe he will be that guy.

But that’s the thing about this club; they are totally different than any model we could have expected.

I mean Sean O’Sullivan, Matt Palmer, and Shane Loux are three coveted arms in the mix. Who are they? My point exactly.

Regardless, this collective group has done a job to be proud of and they are lurking right at the top of the division, ready to claim once again what has been habitually theirs for the better part of this decade.

If nothing else, it just proves that good things do happen to good people who persevere.

Mike Scioscia and his club, bearing the splintered cross of tragedy, are a testament to that.

Teddy Mitrosilis is a junior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is majoring in journalism and is walking onto the baseball team. He is a staff writer for the Most Valuable Network’s baseball blog, Around The Majors at www.mvn.com/aroundthemajors. Read more of Teddy’s work at http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/tm4000.

So Sammy Sosa tested positive for steroids. Really, is anyone out there shocked by this?

The guy who said he used his corked batting practice bat “by mistake.” The guy who was described as “lanky” and “skinny” when he first came up and who gained weight and mass, and then strangely broke down towards the end of his career? Is anyone shocked at all?

And we know how this is going to go from here. “I thought it was flaxseed oil.” Or, “It was my wife’s steroids.” Or “I didn’t know when I bought it over the counter that it was illegal.” Or some such.

Or Sammy could take the Alex approach, and try to man up: “I was young, I was stupid.” But really, Sosa wasn’t young in 2003, and while he was probably stupid, he denied ever taking steroids, like 6 1/2 seconds ago. In that interview he said:

“I assure you that I will not answer nor listen to rumors. If anything ugly comes up in the future, we will confront it immediately, but with all our strength because I will not allow anybody to tarnish what I did in the field.”

Add to that, the fact that Sosa lied to Congress about taking performance-enhancing drugs, and you have a man who is screwed. The Federal Government doesn’t like to be lied to under oath. It gets kinda persnickety about things like that. Ask Barry Bonds.

And you know what else is going to happen. Sosa will have his defenders. Yes, he will, much like he did when his bat sprayed cork all over the baseball field. Reporters and talk show guys and bloggers who will say: “Everyone was doing it.” Or “You can’t really prove anything.” Or whatever. Hell, one week ago, Rob Guerrera of ESPN defended Sammy with this bit of impenetrable logic: “If Sammy was doing steroids at that time, would he really need the corked bat?” And this: “If you’re one of those high and mighty voters who is paralyzed by steroid suspicion, I’ll never be able to convince you to take the stick out, let alone cast your vote for Sammy Sosa.” What a difference a week makes.

But back then….aw, heck. You remember the lovefest the world had for Sosa back then. America fell in love with his chest-pounding, his kisses to the camera, his home run hop. So did the press. They ignored his ever-swelling biceps and chest and took his ego for “charm.” They overlooked his contract complaints. His walking out of the Stadium before a game because he was dropped in the batting order. His childish fights with his manager. His overall moodiness. They just took it as “Just Sammy being Sammy.” If another played had said, “I will calmly wait for my induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Don’t I have the numbers to be inducted?” the press would have taken it as arrogance. Not Sammy.

Well, no one can ignore this now. Sosa and his defenders will have to speak to this. But whatever will be said—and you know it will be truckloads—one thing remains: Sammy Sosa cheated. Sammy Sosa got caught.

And aren’t you shocked?

I am the father of two wonderful daughters.  I am the son of my mother.  Aside from sleepovers at the homes of friends whose parents have gone through rigorous background checks - fingerprinting, retinal scans, blood tests, Facebook page comb-throughs - my daughters have slept under my roof every night of their lives.  It’s “my” roof because I paid for it.  I literally own the roof and the walls and the floors and the air in between.  Maybe not the air.  I don’t think any one person can own air, unless you run the balloon concession at Party City and even then it’s helium so I go back to my initial statement that air is free, just hard to get if you’re under water.  I know where my kids are every night, more now than ever because I’m home every night.  It makes it easier to sleep that way.

When a baseball player is on the road, he “knows” his kids are home every night because that’s where they’re supposed to be.  On the road, “knowing” something is really just an assumption.  But you’re not consciously assuming anything because you’re on the road, distanced from family and roof you paid for and all the stuff at home you don’t need to concern yourself with because you’re living in a hotel suite not owned by you but by some major corporate concern you don’t give a poop about unless they sponsor the All-Star ballot, which you definitely want to A) Be on and B) Have the little circle next to your name popped out an awful lot more than the other 10 guys next to you.  See? 

You’re on the road thinking of personal glory vs. personal embarrassment and where you’re going to eat your next meal and what video you should watch when you get back from the game and, oh yeah, the game.  You’re not thinking about home or your wife or your kids because you can’t.  You can’t and you won’t because you have to focus on one thing only.  No, not winning.  Take “superstar” or even “star” away from your nametag and you’re only thinking one thing: How can I play really well today so I get the chance to do this again tomorrow?  That, my friends, is the focus of a baseball player on the road not named Derek Jeter (why do I always pick on him?) or Albert Pujols or Jake Peavy.  It’s like you’re a bed-ridden hospital patient, focusing not on your accomplishments or any future beyond your next breath.  Your focus is definitely not on the home, where you are not currently breathing.  It’s on you.

Until your world turns upside down.

Two incredibly scary events have occurred over the past handful of years.  The first took place in 2005 when former MLB pitcher Ugueth Urbina’s mother was kidnapped from his home in Venezuela.  The second occurred last week, when Rockies catcher Yorvit Torrealba’s son was kidnapped from his home in Venezuela.  In both cases, there was a baseball player on the other side of the abduction, a baseball player whose focus took an abrupt shift from baseball to being a parent, to being a son.

Beyond the commonalities of both kidnappings taking place in Venezuela, a place where I have never visited but hear can be equal parts beautiful and terribly depressing, there is little to compare the two events.  When Maura Villarreal, Urbina’s mother, was rescued from her kidnappers, her (and her son’s) ordeal had lasted nearly five months.  Five months.  That’s nearly a full baseball season.  That’s opening day, the All-Star break, the trading deadline and roster expansion on September first.  That’s a long time made worse when it’s your mother who is the one being held against her will. 

Now imagine your mother was kidnapped not because of who she is but because of who you are.  You.  The responsibility, bottom line, for your mother’s kidnapping was you.  No, you weren’t there when it happened and there’s nothing you could have done to stop it.  But the situation existed in the first place because you were a Major League Baseball player whose salary each year was made public.  The whole world had the easy ability to know you were making $3 million or $5 million or $15 million per season.  And the whole world is not made of necessarily sane people who want to work hard like you did to earn a living.  Some were born to take shortcuts; one extreme shortcut being the kidnapping of your mother in exchange for money.  Lots of it.

That’s your mom being “cared for” by total strangers (strangers not just to you, but to her) for almost half a year.  What if it were your child?  Your son? 

The guilt has to be incredible in either case.  Why?  Look back at the rambling first paragraph.  You’re playing baseball and thinking about baseball and your own little world of self-pleasure which does not include family worries (or only the minimal recommended doses without a prescription).  You may say they’re always on your mind and you may tell your wife and kids that you’re always thinking about them, but the phrase “out of sight, out of mind” was created for professional athletes on the road so they can stay on the road and not get all wussy inside their bellies and have to call every three minutes whining to their families how much they are missed and loved and blah, blah, blah. 

That’s the thinking of the ballplayer, especially on the road.  You’re not thinking of your kids.  You’re just not.  That’s why the guilt has got to be incredibly strong.  Because suddenly someone you had no hand in choosing is “caring for” your child.  Your kid has been kidnapped and it’s your fault.

The fault, again, lies in the public salary.  But, let’s be honest, even if salaries of ballplayers (and we shouldn’t forget managers & GMs) weren’t made public, the assumption would still be there that these MLB dudes were raking in the dough; these dudes filling up your TV screens each night with their glorified muscles and single-eyebrow-hiding caps. 

There is blame.  There is fault.  But it’s indirect blame and fault.  Ugie Urbina’s & Yorvit Torrealba’s sole role in the taking of their loved ones was their jobs.  That was it. 

That can’t stop the guilt.  Any parent, or son, whose family member was kidnapped automatically looks inward first.  What did I do wrong?  How could I have stopped this?  How could I have not seen this coming?  For every second your child or parent is held, you throw back and forth ideas in your head of what you did wrong to create this situation.  Yes, you can’t stop thinking about getting them back safely and fighting any doubts about their safety.  But you also can’t help but fell terrible for not having been there; for not having been there physically or mentally when the abduction took place. 

If your son was living in another country while you played baseball here, you question, question, question why you lived under that arrangement.  Why didn’t I just have my little boy live in the U.S.?  Sure I wouldn’t be around much, but… 

There is one more commonality to these two events.  Besides taking place in Venezuela, both kidnappings ended as well as possible.  Urbina’s mother was rescued.  He never had to pay the $6 million in ransom.  Torrealba’s son was abandoned by kidnappers who seemed to be more fearful of what they’d done than hopeful of what they’d planned to accomplish.  Mother and son were safely returned.  The guilt, the focus, could, over time - inevitably - go back to equilibrium. 

The Urbina story didn’t end happily for Ugueth, however.  He spends his days today in a jail cell after being convicted of attempted murder for an event that took place on his family’s Venezuelan ranch just months after the safe return of his mother.

For the Yorvit Torrealba family?  Yorvit’s wife and son will now spend their days in Miami, not Venezuela.  Maybe they’ll go back there to live in the off season, when Yorvit can be with them.  But during the season, when he’s in the States on the road, the focus of his life will have to turn back to baseball, back to the little things of life on the road; of not worrying about your wife or your son or your parents; of only thinking about yourself and baseball.  Because really, that’s all a ballplayer can afford to care about during the season.  Not on being a parent or being a son.  That’s just how it works.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Nelson & Alisa Figueroa, Desi Relaford, Wayne Gomes and MLB Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt. You can follow Jimmy on Twitter or Facebook.

“I think it’s just a matter of that we used everything today,” Burnett said. “I don’t know if it’s the catcher, but we used curveballs and fastballs in good counts. They had no idea what was coming, and that’s huge. If I’d miss with a hook, he’d call another one. We didn’t stay in a pattern.”

The speaker is A.J. Burnett and he is speaking about Francisco Cervelli, the 23-year old rookie catcher for the Yankees. And here it is: I think Francisco Cervelli should begin taking over the catching duties for the Yankees.

OK, I’m putting Jorge Posada out to pasture….yet. But the time is coming. He is 37 years old, which is positively Jurassic by catching standards. And to put it mildly, his best days as a catcher and game caller might be behind him. If the above sentence from Burnett is any indication of how the pitching staff feels, then maybe Posada should spend more time at the DH position than at the catching position.

OK, here are some stats. Opposing hitters are hitting .255 off of Yankee pitchers when Cervelli catches: They are hitting .285 off of the pitchers when Posada catches. When Cervelli catches, pitchers have a 2.26 SO/BB ratio; for Posada it’s 1.42. Opposing batters have an OPS of .755 when Cervelli catches; .841 when Posada catches.

And let’s see if Burnett’s enthusiasm for Cervelli is warranted. Burnett has pitched 13 games in a Yankee uniform so far; In the4 games Burnett pitched to Jose Molina, opposing hitters hit .211; the 1 game Kevin Cash caught, it was .245; in the one game Cervelli caught, it was .174; and in the 4 games Jorge Posada caught, hitters hit a whopping .330 off of Burnett.

And the truth is, Posada was never the best game-caller; he was always a “hitting catcher.” That’s not a knock—he wasn’t a bad catcher…he just wasn’t the best game caller. He was never a Varitek or Charles Johnson type.

And right now—who knows about September?—right now, you’re not missing much when Cervelli is in there. Posada definitely has the power advantage over Cervelli, but Cervelli is batting .298 to Posada’s .288, which is not bad. And frankly, the Yankees don’t need the home runs right now—they lead the league with 102 home runs….by 10.

And defensively, you gain by having Cervelli back there. His fielding percentage is higher (.993 to .986) and has a better caught stealing percentage than Posada (38% to 32%).

Of course, this is overstating it a bit. But not as much as you would think. The Yankees went out and spent the national debt on the front end of a pitching rotation. Why would you then put them in a position not to succeed? To not put them in the best position to pitch well?

And Posada could still do what he does best—hit. He’s still a potent pitch-hitter and a home run threat every time at the plate. At 37, however….it might be time to start thinking of slowing him down a little.

It’s just that this year—when the Yankee rotation is completely overhauled; when we have two new pitchers in Burnett and Sabathia (by the way, the stats holds true for Sabathia; opposing hitters hit .256 in the 5 games Posada called; a freakish .190 in the 6 games Cervelli was catching.), 2 young pitchers in Chamberlain and Hughes, and a pitcher struggling to return to form in Wang—what the Yankees need more than ever, is a catcher who is going to call the best possible game so that our staff feels comfortable and produces.

And if Burnett is any indication, the staff feels more comfortable with Cervelli.

One of the big recent MLB stories has been the how and why concerning Tom Glavine’s release from the Atlanta Braves.  There was another letting go this weekend that did not cause the headlines and stir from player and agent but was significant nonetheless.  Colorado Rockies pitcher Jason Grilli was designated for assignment on Saturday.

From Tommy’s point of view, there is something positive about this personal development.  His ties have been severed and he’s free to do whatever he wants with whatever team he chooses (assuming there are teams that want him back).  Or Tommy Glavine can hang it up and retire and still be considered a classy guy who won 305 games and who was part of one of the best television commercials of the 1990s:

The designation for assignment is not nearly as clean.  When a player is released, he’s gone for the team.  Pack up and go.  Your future with us is over.  But when designated for assignment, you’re no longer a part of the team’s 40-man roster but you are still property of the team.  You are in limbo with no moves to make for the next 10 days.  The team might wish to send you to the minors.  If they do this, they have to waive you.  Another team might put in a claim, at which point your original team can work out a trade and get something back for you.  If the team wants to send you to the minors and you’ve been an MLB player for 5 years or more, they need your permission to be sent down.  If 10 days pass, the team doesn’t trade you and nobody claimed you when you were on waivers, you’re a free agent.

In other words, the big difference between the Tom Glavine release and Jason Grilli designation is 10 days.

What’s going through Tom Glavine’s head?  That’s been diagnosed here and here.  Jason Grilli?  Different story. 

Grilli has not earned the millions Tommy Glavine has earned over the last 20 years.  He is earning a guaranteed $800,000 this season and is a free agent once the World Series ends.  He’s 32, a full ten years younger than Glavine, but by 32 Glavine never would have been released or designated for assignment because he’d never been injured and had already been the Most Valuable Player in a World Series (1995).  At 32 years old, Tommy Glavine was earning $7 million a year.

Jason Grilli has pitched in a World Series.  He’s been a top 10 MLB draft pick.  He’s also gone through a devastating arm injury and lost years battling back, something Glavine hasn’t experienced until now.  In a way, Jason might be able to provide counsel to Tom Glavine when it comes to personal baseball adversity. 

Comparing the two men, Glavine is the fortunate one here.  His ties to Atlanta are cut forever.  Grilli is probably still in Denver, spending time with his wife and young son; time he hadn’t expected to have this season.  It’s bittersweet, because Grilli knows that by June 16th, he’ll probably be on the move, maybe with his family, maybe not.  His plan is to pitch until he can’t pitch anymore.  He knows he can still pitch.  The Rockies probably think so too.  They just don’t want him to pitch for them.  (Meanwhile, the Braves told Glavine and the world they don’t think their former ace can pitch at all for anybody.)

What is going through Jason Grilli’s head?  First, he has to get over the shock and embarrassment of this initial transaction.  When he signed his one-year, $800,000 deal in the off season, the last thing in the world he expected was this.  Imagine having to go home to your wife after work and telling her that you don’t have to go to work for the next 10 days because they told you they don’t want you anymore.  The saving grace is you’re still getting paid.  The embarrassment is having to tell the person you love that your employers think you have failed. 

You might sleep, or try to sleep, and talk to your agent again (you’ve no doubt spoken more than once since the team told you to pack up and go).  Your stomach isn’t as steady as it was in April, when you were basically unbeatable on the mound.  You definitely try to justify why this happened.  Your manager was let go five days before you were.  Maybe the new guy has some different plans.  Maybe the organization is moving in a wildly different direction and you just don’t fit in.  You can live with these reasons. 

Harder to live with is the fact that you stunk up the joint over the last month.  In April - yeah, you were the man.  In May, you weren’t.  You’ll try to blame the manager who was fired.  You’ll look at yourself and attribute the slump to lack of work.  You had a couple of bad outings and suddenly you were held in disfavor.  Pitching 4 to 5 days a week dropped to 1 day a week.  You got rusty, lost the feel for the ball.  Subsequently, the balls gained a certain feel for the bats of the guys you were throwing at.  They saw your pitches better and enjoyed their time with you.  When can we see you again? they said.

And you end up embarrassed again.  You won’t admit that your confidence is shattered.  You’ll admit that it’s shaken a bit.  But you’re a competitor.  You fight.  You fought through the arm injuries.  You fought through a bad start in Detroit last season and ended up pitching very well in Colorado after the trade.  You look back on your fights and take a few deep cleansing breaths.  You begin to fight feeling sorry for yourself.  Don’t get negative.  Don’t let those feelings take over.  You’re no help to you family, to your agent, to any new team if you let the doubts creep in.  Fight them.  Fight them hard. 

You know how you focus during a game?  That’s how you come to realize you need to focus like that off the field, at least for the time being; at least until these 10 days pass.  Focus on staying in shape.  Focus on getting rid of the rust.  Focus on staying positive and showing your little son, who doesn’t understand any of this, how to overcome adversity.  Focus on making your wife proud so she can honestly tell her family and your family and your friends and anyone else she ever comes in contact with over the next 50 years that you were better than the system. 

You were better because of this move “your” team made.  You’re all the man she married and more right now, because of this.  Think like that.  Don’t think like a loser.  Don’t think this designation was a bad thing.  Let it be good.  Let it be the best professional experience you’ll ever go through.  Let it fan the fire inside your belly to perform, to compete, to win.  Focus on that.  Never give the doubt even a moment of your time.  Because you don’t have that luxury.  Your family needs you more than the doubt does, not the other way around.  It could be easy to let yourself become swallowed whole by the negative.  Be better.  That’s the choice you have to make.  Really, it’s the only choice you can make.

I’ve had the privilege of speaking with Jason quite a few times.  You can hear Jason’s take on growing up in baseball (his father used to pitch for Detroit), on faith in himself and in the clubhouse, on pitching and winning and on his future HERE.  And you can see the good things Jason has recently done HERE and more about him HERE.  Once you read and listen, you’ll have a better sense of what goes on in the mind of the recently designated.  Then you’ll be able to come to your own conclusions as to which is better, the outright release or the 10 days of waiting for your life to begin again.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Nelson & Alisa Figueroa, Desi Relaford, Wayne Gomes and MLB Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt. You can follow Jimmy on Twitter or Facebook.

For years now, Major League Baseball has pushed its All Star Game – the Midsummer Classic – as the ultimate showcase of the game’s best players. While that is not exactly a preposterous statement, it is at best a fallacious one.

If that weren’t true, we wouldn’t have the bevy of “Most Snubbed” debates every time balloting rolls around that we do. We quickly realize that the most popular players are getting their names punched while some of the best (at least in that given year) players are being left at home.

I’m not criticizing the All Star Game, necessarily, but it is time to be honest about what it is and what it represents. It’s a showcase of the biggest names, the most marketable faces, and is a cash cow of marvelous proportions. The event is more about publicizing and growing the game than awarding the most deserving players of the year.

Fine. I’m cool with that, because the stars need to be ambassadors of the game and all of that. I get it. If baseball is going to truly put on an event for the fans, the main attractions need to be there.

There’s nothing worse than going to Disneyland and learning that Space Mountain and Splash Mountain are under construction. The All Star Game works on the same principle.

But with Manny Ramirez sitting fifth among National League outfielders in All Star votes, the reactions in the living rooms of America shouldn’t be so negligent.

With Ramirez missing 50 games in the first half due to his steroid suspension, is there any excuse out there that can be made for voting him into the All Star Game?

I say no, but as my inbox continues to flood daily with “Vote For Manny!!!!” threads, it is apparent that there is a group of fans out there with an agenda.

Except what’s the agenda? It just seems like nothing but a stupid idea to me.

Voting Ramirez into the All Star Game won’t be some slap in the face for Commissioner Bud Selig. It will only push the Commish closer and closer to withdrawing the majority vote from the fans.

Voting Ramirez into the All Star Game won’t prove that baseball has lost all control. It will only proclaim that there is a large assortment of fans who care nothing about the integrity of the sport, which is as disgusting as any steroid abusing player.

A major shortcoming is that we use the All Star Game as a tool of evaluation when it comes time to flash the high-beams on a player’s career. If the All Star Game is as trivial as it has proven to be, how can that be part of any Hall Of Fame case made for any player pre-induction? It can’t be, but it still is.

We act like making 5 All Star Games is an incredible achievement – and in many ways, it certainly is – but who really cares when we know that the largest fan bases (directly related to cities with larger populations) will vote 20 times per day for their hometown boy?

We as fans have made it clear that we are incapable of selecting ballplayers to the All Star Game based on merit, so therefore it is time that MLB makes some changes with its summer festival.

First off, do away with the rule that requires every team to send a representative. I’m sorry, but if you are a team that doesn’t have one player who is worthy of earning an All Star selection at his position, maybe you should … get better players?

In all likelihood, every club has at least one player who is worthy of playing in the game, so this shouldn’t be a common predicament.

But if you are getting boat-raced in your division, can’t put enough exciting talent on the field to sell tickets, and can’t produce a product entertaining enough to create any sort of buzz throughout your community, I don’t want to hear it. The Virgin Islands awaits all twenty-five members of your team for a few days. The sunscreen is on us.

For the actual festivities, the All Star Game needs to be a two-day event, and I’m not counting the celebrity softball game as part of this.

The celebrity softball game is like a stale, oversized hotdog bun that splits in half at first bite, leaving you with too much bread, too little hotdog, and mustard on your lap. It’s utterly useless, if not painfully annoying.

Moving on.

The Home Run Derby needs to be shortened and be part of an entire Skills Contest. The NFL and NBA both have skills contests in their All Star festivities, and they work wonderfully. The Derby would be like the Dunk Contest, the encore lurking at the end of a great show.

The Skills Contest is where fans are encouraged to play favorites and vote for whomever they wish to see compete. The events of the Skills Contest could even be left up for the fans to vote on, if they wish.

Want to see the best outfield arms in one big throw-off? We can make that happen. Want to see the best hands in the middle of the infield make Web Gem after Web Gem? We can make that happen.

How about a contest where the players, representing specific sections of the crowd, attempt to land bunts on designated areas of the infield grass, all worth a certain prize for their sections? We can make that happen.

If you have an idea, and it is remotely fathomable, pass it along and Major League Baseball can consider it for fan voting for the Skills Contest.

That’s that. The actual game itself needs to be reserved for the players who deserve to be in it, whether that is superstar Derek Jeter or rookie Adam Jones. If we want the All Star Game to mean anything, it just has to be that way.

We can still allow the fans to vote for the All Star Game – thus giving them the opportunity to actually get it right – but have a MLB administered panel in place to make any necessary corrections.

For instance, if voting ended this week and Boston’s Dustin Pedroia was voted the starting second baseman for the American League over Toronto’s Aaron Hill, the panel would step in and correct that popularity-induced misfire.

If not, trash the game – since it’s irrelevant – save the exhibition inning on the pitchers’ arms (you know, the one where his organization could care less if he performs well as long as he makes it out of the game healthy and intact for the second half), and come up with something else that involves the players and is fun for the fans.

Like a wiffle ball game, where everybody plays but position players have to pitch (since no team is letting their ace sling a wiffle ball around).

I know, that’s a crazy, if not absurd, idea, but so is cheating a guy who has had a great first half out of playing in the real game because he spent 7 years in the minors, isn’t endorsed by Nike, and plays on the Pirates, and therefore not many people have heard of him.

Whatever it is, we need to do something or else the All Star Game is soon going to take on the life of the Pro Bowl.

Yeah, there are cemeteries livelier than that.

Teddy Mitrosilis plays baseball and studies journalism at Long Beach City College. He is a staff writer for the Most Valuable Network’s baseball blog, Around The Majors at www.mvn.com/aroundthemajors. Read more of Teddy’s work at http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/tm4000.

According to Wikipedia, Bill James defines sabermetrics as “the search for objective knowledge about baseball.” Wikipedia goes on to report that the RBI is a poor indicator of individual offensive value because it is a team context statistic. That was the point where I started to wonder how objective the sabermetric community was being. After all, Runs Batted In have accounted for approximately 95% of the total runs scored in major league history. Is it possible to explain baseball through the usage of statistics without including the RBI? I decided that it wasn’t and I set out on a quest to prove the true value of an RBI.

The simple tool I use to crack the mystery of rating the RBI is Weighted Base Runners (WBR). WBR is the sum of the bases the runners were on during a player’s plate appearances (PA), thus indicating the batter’s opportunity (1B=1, 2B=2, 3B=3). Once I have calculated the player’s WBR, I divide the player’s RBI by the WBR and the result is the Run Production Rating (RPR):

RBI divided by WBR = RPR (Major League average in 2008: .105).

It is a simple, easy-to-calculate rate statistic that will tell you what a player’s RBI per opportunity (WBR) percentage is.

Additionally, over the recorded history of major league base running statistics, there has been almost exactly as many PA as there has been WBR so the RBI per WBR is also, essentially, the RBI per PA at the all-time major league average of opportunities. This relationship between PA and WBR is called Opportunity Rating (OPR)

WBR divided by PA = OPR (Major League average in 2008: 1.053).

The last statistic that appears on the charts below is RBR, which is Runs Batted In per PA. This can also be converted to the batter’s RPR by dividing it by the OPR:

RBR divided by OPR = RPR.

Last year, Ryan Howard led the majors (.176) for the second time in the last 3 years in RPR and was followed closely by AL leader Carlos Quentin (.174). People tend to assume that Howard gets his almost 150 RBI a year because of the lineup he hits in, but that’s not the reason. He gets them because he is one of the premier power hitters in baseball. Actually, last year was Howard’s second most productive of his 4-year career despite what many thought was a down year for him due to a low batting average and low on base percentage. In his 4 seasons his RPR has been .148 in his ‘05 rookie year, a major league leading .178 in ‘06, a top 10 .156 in ‘07 and last year’s league leading .176. My research has shown that this is a repeatable stat and that the homerun is what primes the pump.

My OPR research has yielded much information about lineup construction and some managers’ inability to put the right guy in the right spot. Middle of the lineup guys (4-7) tend to have an OPR between 1.100 and 1.300, with a few exceptions both ways. Leadoff batters varied from Juan Pierre, at a league low 0.724, to Alfonso Soriano at 1.010, which was off the charts for a leadoff batter. Second batters were usually between 0.900 to just over 1.000 and 3, 8 and 9 batters were mostly between 1.000 and 1.200. Anyone who has managed Soriano has gotten it wrong so far. He is a premier middle of the order guy with minimal on base skills yet he continually bats leadoff. In fact, last year, he led all Cubs regulars in SLG and was last in OBP!

Other miscast leadoff guys are Nate McClouth (.157 and 5th in the NL), Johnny Damon (.145 and Yankee leader), Curtis Granderson (.140), Ian Kinsler (.138) and Grady Sizemore (.137). David DeJesus put up a .148 out of the leadoff spot last year but that was because he hit .419 w/RISP and probably won’t be able to repeat that.

The bottom of the Red Sox lineup was loaded with RBI opportunities that were wasted on Jason Varitek (1.201 OPR and .074 RPR) and Julio Lugo (1.261 OPR and .057 RPR), who had the second worst RPR in the majors, ahead of only Chone Figgins (.053). Even Tony Pena Jr. (.065) was well ahead of Figgins and Lugo.

The Dodgers’ James Loney was in the best RBI spot in the NL (1.318 OPR) and he responded with only a league average (.105) RPR despite an otherwise impressive 90 RBI. The top two regulars in OPR were both Yankees. Jason Giambi (1.335 OPR, .127 RPR)) and Alex Rodriguez (1.322 OPR, .131 RPR) had more RBI opportunities per PA than any other major leaguer and they both responded with an RPR well below their career averages of .145 and .159 respectively.

The career list only goes back to 1956 due to available base running data and has more than its fair share of players from the steroid era, but Henry Aaron shines as a beacon of integrity, coming in second at .168, just behind all-time leader Mark McGwire. Other notable players from the all-time list are again, Soriano, whose .146 is good for 39th place and Jim Rice, whose Hall of Fame credentials were largely built on his ability to drive in runs but because of his large amounts of opportunities (1.191 OPR) his RPR was only .135 and only 83rd place all-time.

Hall of Fame hopeful Andre Dawson (.131) is another minor disappointment by this metric, tied for 103rd place with Jeff Kent (all-time leader at 2B), Tino Martinez and Garrett Anderson - not bad, but with the exception of Kent because of his position, not HOF material. Mike Piazza (.152 and 20th all-time) is easily the all-time leader for catchers, followed by Johnny Bench (.131).

Alex Rodriguez (.159), Ernie Banks (.151) and Miguel Tejada (.136) are the only shortstops in the top 100 and Matt Williams (.147), Aramis Ramirez (.146), Eddie Mathews (.145), Chipper Jones (.144), Bob Horner (.143) and Mike Schmidt (.140) all trail ARod at 3B. Another player who is conspicuous by his absence on the all-time list is Carl Yastrzemski, whose 1844 career RBI is good for 12th place all-time but his .126 RPR didn’t crack the top 125 of all-time.

My intention was to make a traditional baseball stat, meaning a simple formula that is easily calculated, to determine the actual value of an RBI and I believe I have done that. In closing, I love the sabermetric movement but have never understood how the RBI could be relegated to a virtual non-factor. I hope I have made strides towards bringing the RBI back to the mainstream.

RPR leaders in 2008 (minimum 340 PA):

Player	PA	WBR	OPR	RBI	RBR	RPR
Ryan Howard	700	831	1.187	146	0.2086	0.1757
Carlos Quentin	569	574	1.009	100	0.1757	0.1742
Marcus Thames	342	335	0.980	56	0.1637	0.1671
Carlos Lee	481	609	1.266	100	0.2079	0.1642
Albert Pujols	641	707	1.103	116	0.1810	0.1641
Kevin Youkilis	621	736	1.185	115	0.1851	0.1608
Ryan Ludwick	617	710	1.151	113	0.1831	0.1591
Josh Hamilton	704	818	1.162	130	0.1847	0.1589
Miguel Cabrera	684	800	1.170	127	0.1857	0.1587
Manny Ramirez	654	767	1.173	121	0.1850	0.1577
Nate McClouth	685	598	0.873	94	0.1372	0.1572
Mike Jacobs	519	592	1.141	93	0.1792	0.1571
Shin-Soo Choo	370	422	1.141	66	0.1784	0.1563
Ryan Braun	663	685	1.033	106	0.1599	0.1548
David Ortiz	491	581	1.183	89	0.1813	0.1532
Adrian Gonzalez	700	780	1.114	119	0.1700	0.1526
Melvin Mora	569	690	1.213	104	0.1828	0.1507
Lance Berkman	665	711	1.069	106	0.1594	0.1491
Mike Cameron	508	470	0.925	70	0.1378	0.1489
Aramis Ramirez	645	747	1.158	111	0.1721	0.1486
David DeJesus	577	493	0.854	73	0.1265	0.1481
Joey Votto	589	568	0.964	84	0.1426	0.1479
Alfonso Soriano	503	508	1.010	75	0.1491	0.1476
Mark Teixeira	685	823	1.201	121	0.1766	0.1471
Aubrey Huff	661	735	1.112	108	0.1634	0.1469
Ryan Doumit	465	471	1.013	69	0.1484	0.1465
Dan Uggla	619	629	1.016	92	0.1486	0.1462
Alexei Ramirez	509	530	1.041	77	0.1513	0.1453
Johnny Damon	623	491	0.788	71	0.1140	0.1446
Xavier Nady	607	681	1.122	97	0.1598	0.1424
Carlos Delgado	686	808	1.178	115	0.1676	0.1423
Ty Wigginton	429	408	0.951	58	0.1352	0.1422
Adam Dunn	651	705	1.083	100	0.1536	0.1418
Vernon Wells	466	551	1.182	78	0.1674	0.1416
Jim Thome	602	637	1.058	90	0.1495	0.1413
Jermaine Dye	645	680	1.054	96	0.1488	0.1412
Jason Bay	670	721	1.076	101	0.1507	0.1401
Curtis Granderson	629	472	0.750	66	0.1049	0.1398
David Wright	736	890	1.209	124	0.1685	0.1394
Matt Holliday	623	632	1.014	88	0.1413	0.1393
Justin Morneau	712	928	1.303	129	0.1812	0.1390
Cody Ross	506	528	1.043	73	0.1443	0.1383
Prince Fielder	694	738	1.063	102	0.1470	0.1383
Ian Kinsler	583	514	0.882	71	0.1218	0.1381
Vlad Guerrero	600	661	1.102	91	0.1517	0.1376
Raul Ibanez	707	800	1.132	110	0.1556	0.1374
Grady Sizemore	745	657	0.882	90	0.1208	0.1370
Ben Molina	569	698	1.227	95	0.1670	0.1361
Garrett Anderson	593	618	1.042	84	0.1417	0.1359
Andre Ethier	596	571	0.958	77	0.1292	0.1349

Career RPR leaders (1956-2008, minimum of 2400 PA):

Player	PA	WBR	OPR	RBI	RBR	RPR
Mark McGwire	7660	8276	1.080	1414	0.1846	0.1709
Henry Aaron	12767	12670	0.992	2122	0.1662	0.1675
Albert Pujols	5382	5876	1.092	977	0.1815	0.1662
Albert Belle	6676	7466	1.118	1239	0.1856	0.1660
Ryan Howard	2442	3017	1.235	499	0.2043	0.1655
Juan Gonzalez	7155	8822	1.233	1404	0.1962	0.1591
Alex Rodriguez	9076	10112	1.114	1606	0.1770	0.1588
Lance Berkman	5792	6074	1.049	961	0.1659	0.1582
Willie Mays	10518	10004	0.951	1575	0.1497	0.1574
Larry Walker	8030	8353	1.040	1311	0.1633	0.1570
Vlad Guerrero	7419	8097	1.091	1268	0.1709	0.1566
Willie Stargell	9027	9848	1.091	1540	0.1706	0.1564
Manny Ramirez	9006	11105	1.233	1725	0.1915	0.1553
Mark Teixeira	3931	4376	1.113	676	0.1720	0.1545
Reggie Jackson	11418	11034	0.966	1702	0.1491	0.1542
Todd Helton	7119	7241	1.017	1116	0.1568	0.1541
Sammy Sosa	9896	10832	1.095	1667	0.1685	0.1538
Mickey Mantle	7068	6942	0.982	1064	0.1505	0.1533
Ken Griffey Jr.	10742	11615	1.081	1772	0.1650	0.1526
Mike Piazza	7745	8758	1.131	1335	0.1724	0.1524
Barry Bonds	12606	13097	1.039	1996	0.1580	0.1521
Jose Canseco	8129	9250	1.138	1407	0.1731	0.1521
David Ortiz	5428	6381	1.176	969	0.1785	0.1518
Carlos Delgado	8545	9849	1.153	1489	0.1743	0.1511
Ernie Banks	9059	9492	1.048	1434	0.1583	0.1510
Miguel Cabrera	3756	4305	1.146	650	0.1731	0.1510
Dick Stuart	4363	4925	1.129	744	0.1705	0.1510
Frank Thomas	10075	11343	1.126	1704	0.1691	0.1502
Harmon Killebrew	9833	10583	1.076	1583	0.1610	0.1496
Mo Vaughn	6410	7193	1.122	1064	0.1660	0.1479
Travis Hafner	3007	3418	1.137	504	0.1676	0.1474
Dante Bichette	6856	7746	1.130	1141	0.1664	0.1473
Gary Sheffield	10635	11087	1.043	1633	0.1535	0.1472
Richie Sexson	5604	6411	1.144	943	0.1683	0.1471
Carlos Lee	6208	6821	1.099	1001	0.1612	0.1467
Dave Kingman	7429	8251	1.111	1210	0.1629	0.1466
Harold Baines	11092	11105	1.001	1628	0.1468	0.1466
Matt Williams	7595	8309	1.094	1218	0.1604	0.1466
Alfonso Soriano	5338	4822	0.903	705	0.1321	0.1462
Jim Thome	9029	10216	1.131	1488	0.1648	0.1457
Aramis Ramirez	5483	6055	1.104	881	0.1607	0.1456
Frank Howard	7352	7693	1.046	1119	0.1522	0.1455
Willie McCovey	9692	10711	1.105	1453	0.1605	0.1453
Jason Giambi	7776	8813	1.133	1279	0.1645	0.1451
Magglio Ordonez	6505	7571	1.164	1096	0.1685	0.1447
Eddie Mathews	7610	6926	0.961	1057	0.1389	0.1446
Dick Allen	7315	7760	1.061	1119	0.1530	0.1442
Chipper Jones	8677	9535	1.099	1374	0.1583	0.1441
Carlos Beltran	6520	6893	1.057	987	0.1514	0.1432
Bob Horner	4213	4784	1.136	684	0.1624	0.1429
Jeff Bagwell	9431	10731	1.138	1529	0.1621	0.1425
David Wright	3048	3436	1.127	489	0.1604	0.1424
Tony Clark	5042	5750	1.140	813	0.1612	0.1414
Roger Maris	5847	6017	1.029	850	0.1454	0.1413
Cecil Fielder	5939	7172	1.208	1008	0.1697	0.1405
Boog Powell	7809	8454	1.083	1187	0.1520	0.1404
Mike Schmidt	10062	11398	1.133	1595	0.1585	0.1399
Andres Galarraga	8916	10191	1.143	1425	0.1598	0.1398
Orlando Cepada	8698	9765	1.123	1365	0.1569	0.1397
Mike Sweeney	5414	6081	1.123	849	0.1568	0.1396
Frank Robinson	11742	13027	1.109	1812	0.1543	0.1392
Darryl Strawberry	6326	7186	1.136	1000	0.1581	0.1392
Billy Williams	10519	10600	1.008	1474	0.1401	0.1390
Raphael Palmeiro	12046	13223	1.098	1835	0.1523	0.1387
Rocky Colavito	7550	8356	1.107	1159	0.1535	0.1387
Paul Konerko	6272	6902	1.100	957	0.1526	0.1387
Adam Dunn	4749	4845	1.021	672	0.1415	0.1387
Jim Edmonds	7708	8538	1.108	1176	0.1526	0.1377
Fred McGriff	10174	11266	1.107	1550	0.1523	0.1376
Moises Alou	7913	9380	1.185	1287	0.1626	0.1373
Justin Morneau	3011	3813	1.266	523	0.1730	0.1367
Troy Glaus	5840	6421	1.099	877	0.1502	0.1366
Carl Everett	5395	5812	1.078	792	0.1469	0.1362
Dean Palmer	5513	6230	1.130	849	0.1540	0.1362
Kent Hrbek	7137	7989	1.119	1086	0.1522	0.1360
Miguel Tejada	7340	8081	1.101	1099	0.1497	0.1360
Jay Buhner	5927	7113	1.201	965	0.1454	0.1357
Kevin Mitchell	4696	5602	1.193	760	0.1618	0.1357
Dave Parker	10184	11006	1.081	1493	0.1466	0.1356
Rico Carty	6318	6575	1.041	890	0.1409	0.1353
Eddie Murray	12817	14220	1.109	1917	0.1496	0.1349
Roberto Clemente	9711	9315	0.959	1257	0.1294	0.1349
Jim Rice	9058	10786	1.191	1451	0.1602	0.1345
Lee May	8219	9266	1.127	1244	0.1514	0.1343
Joe Carter	9154	10765	1.176	1445	0.1579	0.1342
Eric Davis	5869	6147	1.134	934	0.1519	0.1339
Bobby Bonds	8090	7662	0.947	1024	0.1266	0.1336
Vernon Wells	4633	4936	1.065	659	0.1422	0.1336
Raul Ibanez	5301	5942	1.121	794	0.1498	0.1336
Dave Winfield	12358	13733	1.111	1833	0.1483	0.1335
Kirby Puckett	7831	8128	1.038	1085	0.1386	0.1335
Vinny Castilla	7384	8265	1.119	1105	0.1496	0.1335
Will Clark	8283	9050	1.093	1205	0.1455	0.1331
Brian Giles	7582	7939	1.047	1055	0.1391	0.1329
Al Kaline	10350	10803	1.044	1435	0.1386	0.1328
Dale Murphy	9071	9540	1.055	1266	0.1401	0.1327
Norm Cash	7914	8326	1.052	1104	0.1395	0.1326
Jeremy Burnitz	6580	7402	1.125	981	0.1491	0.1325
Greg Vaughn	7070	8111	1.147	1072	0.1516	0.1322
George Foster	7812	9386	1.201	1239	0.1586	0.1321
Bobby Abreu	7750	8217	1.060	1084	0.1399	0.1320
Glenn Davis	4189	4587	1.095	603	0.1439	0.1315
Andre Dawson	10769	12135	1.125	1591	0.1477	0.1313
Jeff Kent	9537	11555	1.212	1518	0.1592	0.1313
Tino Martinez	8044	9673	1.203	1271	0.1580	0.1313
Garrett Anderson	8480	9838	1.160	1292	0.1524	0.1313
Ellis Burks	8177	9195	1.124	1206	0.1475	0.1312
Fred Lynn	7923	8476	1.070	1111	0.1402	0.1311
Tony Oliva	6880	7247	1.053	947	0.1376	0.1307
Johnny Bench	8674	10545	1.216	1305	0.1586	0.1305
Reggie Smith	8051	8368	1.039	1092	0.1356	0.1305
Greg Luzinski	7518	8648	1.150	1128	0.1501	0.1305
Pedro Guerrero	6115	6894	1.127	898	0.1469	0.1303
George Brett	11625	12261	1.055	1596	0.1373	0.1301

To Our Readers,

We’ve been asked to help with some info for a new business venture, and we’ve been unable to answer some of the questions.  If you can help, we would appreciate it.  Let us know the source of your info:

1. How many baseball fans are there in the U.S.?
2. How many diehard fans are there?
3. How many people play fantasy baseball?
4. How many Little League, American Legion, Babe Ruth and Cal Ripken teams are there in the U.S.?

Thanks.

The Washington Nationals will select San Diego State pitcher Stephen Strasburg first overall in the 2009 draft.

But maybe it shouldn’t be as automatic as we believe.

Strasburg is well deserving of most of the headlines and accolades thrown his way, most of it legitimate, some almost comical.

• “The best pitching prospect in the 45 year history of the draft.”
• “We won’t see anyone like him again in our lifetimes.”
• “A once in a lifetime talent.”

Or this beauty, “The kid has great stuff; he could be one of the best of all-time. I’m sure glad I don’t have to face him”.

Gwynn on Strasburg? Nope, it was Washington Senators manager Ted Williams in 1971, talking about the Senator’s top pick that year, Dartmouth College right-hander Pete Broberg.

Broberg would go on to post a career 41-71 record and would pitch his last ML game at age 28.

In Baseball America’s recent draft preview issue, Strasburg was listed as having the best fastball and curveball of any draft eligible pitcher. He became the first prospect to post this daily double since…Tim Lincecum in 2006. His Major League Scouting Bureau pre-draft ranking is the highest for a pitcher since all the way back to…Mark Prior, in 2001. I have a 22 month old nephew; Strasburg is the best pitching prospect of HIS lifetime, but he’s clearly not the best of either yours or mine.

At least not yet.

Hitting 100 miles per hour on the radar gun gains a pitcher lifetime membership in a select fraternity, a fraternity built less on legitimate accomplishment than on bragging rights. You’re not looked upon as having the status of a Rhodes Scholar or Medal of Honor winner, but more in line with those who have survived going over Niagra Falls in a barrel, or who are members of the Mile High Club. In reality, Strasburg consistently throws no harder than David Price or Lincecum or even Prior. What does set him apart from everyone else is the combination of secondary pitches, especially his curveball, and his combination of command and control.

A pitcher has been selected with the number one pick in the draft 13 times in the 45 year history of the draft. In their own way, these 13 had received close to the same attention as Strasburg, and, in the case of Texas high schooler David Clyde, arguably more. While some of these guys had some good individual seasons and had pitched in All Star games and World Series, their cumulative bodies of work can only be described as disappointing.

To wit:

• Four pitchers, (Mike Moore, Andy Benes, Tim Belcher and Floyd Bannister) won 100 or more games in the major league. 
• Six pitchers, (seven counting David Price) won a COMBINED 70 games…total.
• Two pitchers, Moore and Benes, won as many as 18 games in a season.
• Two pitchers, Bryan Bullington and Brien Taylor, never won a single ML game.

A final word on hype, in the form of a trivia question:

Does anyone know the first (and I believe only) pitcher in draft history to score a perfect 80 on the 20-80 scout scale? A hint, he pitched for 16 seasons in the major leagues, posting a career record of 142-157.

Another factor the Nationals need to consider, very strongly, is that of money.

Stephen Strasburg is a junior, meaning he has one year of college eligibility remaining. The person holding all the aces at the negotiating table is not Washington’s acting General Manager Mike Rizzo, but Scott Boras, Strasburg’s current “advisor”. Unless the Nationals are willing to meet every single one of Boras’ anticipated and ridiculous demands, Strasburg could tell the Nats to shove it, leaving them unable to sign their number one pick for the second year in a row.

Something tells me that possibility won’t fly over very well with the season ticket holders.

Boras has floated around a contract value upwards of 50 million dollars, the expectation is once he hits the negotiating table those numbers will come in somewhere in the 12-15 million dollar range. The current draft record contract is the 10.5 million given by the Chicago Cubs to Mark Prior in 2001. With consideration to the current economic impact, baseball has ordered an across the board reduction in slot money, which would make Strasburg’s eventual contract seemingly higher in value. And when you consider Strasburg has yet to throw a professional pitch, the contract seems almost obscene. A fifteen million, four year guaranteed contract would make Strasburg the fifth highest paid player in the Nationals organization. Over the past five seasons, the Nationals have spent an average of 5.16 million in bonuses on their draft picks. Giving Strasburg 15 million wouldn’t leave much for anyone else, including the tenth pick, and likely would create a situation that would go over well in the clubhouse.

For the first time since leaving Montreal, Washington’s farm system has shown signs of consistent improvement, moving into the top third in baseball. Their minor league franchises posted a cumulative record of 289-243, with their Potomac squad in the High Class A Carolina League winning the League Championship.

Their status as a lame duck franchise during the final seasons in Montreal lead to some horrible trades and even worse draft picks. None of their top picks from 1998-2002 are active anywhere in professional baseball, and only one, right-hander Josh Karp, appeared in the major leagues. Of their six most recent top picks, five are still in the organization, with only one, Ryan Zimmerman (2005) having an impact at the major league level. The franchise took a step backwards last year with their failure to sign top pick Aaron Crow, an embarrassment considering the reported difference on the value of the contract was a measly $250,000. The off-season dismissals of General Manager Jim Bowden and his assistant, former big league pitcher Jose Rijo, hopefully will go along way into turning the franchise into a contender from a pretender.

Washington’s top two organizational prospects have already seen time at the major league level in pitchers Jordan Zimmermann and Ross Detwiler. They’ve locked up their top position player, the “other Zimmerman”, to a long term deal. Every position on the diamond is represented within their top 30 prospects, a sign of good balance and draft philosophy. The undoubted strength of the organization is pitching, however. Fifteen of the top 30 and 46 of the top 85 are pitchers, 31 of which are starters.

With their failure to sign Crow, at the time a senior at the University of Missouri and now pitching in an Independent League, the Nationals have become the first team in draft history with two picks in the top ten. Strasburg notwithstanding, this year’s draft is considered to have the deepest pitching draft in recent memory, maybe ever. Baseball America’s most recent mock draft has 23 pitchers going in the first round, an unprecedented number. With the strength of the draft matching that of the Nationals organization, it may behoove them to consider a different approach heading to Tuesday.

With the tenth pick, Washington will most certainly have at their disposal a long list of potentially impact pitchers. (BA’s recent mock has them selecting a former teammate of Crow at Missouri, right-hander Kyle Gibson). The overall depth of position players is remarkably thin, with just 21 ranked in the top 50. That number thins out even more when considering 12 of the 21 are high schoolers with at least three years of college eligibility remaining, and with no incentive to sign a pro deal.

The Nats’ organizational weakness is corner infield, especially first base. Ranked second on the draft board is University of North Carolina first baseman Dustin Ackley, who some have called the “best pure hitter in the past decade.” Ackley, a high school pitcher, moved to first in college and is less than a year removed from Tommy John surgery. While his arm strength is below average now, he has worked out in the outfield and even played center during the Tar Heels’ final regular season series. Ackley is expected to move to centerfield as a pro, however. With speed his best tool (70 on the scale), Ackley projects as a top of the order hitter and potential batting champion. Having Ackley at the top of the lineup would certainly reconfirm Ryan Zimmerman’s decision to resign, and may influence Adam Dunn to follow suit. Ackley, too, is represented by Scott Boras, but his contract value as the number one pick would not approach that of Strasburg.

The Nationals could go with Ackley at number one. If his elbow proves healthy he could join the likes of Matt Wieters and Gordon Beckham, 2008 first round picks who find themselves in the major leagues less than a year after being selected. With the money saved by passing on Strasburg, they would be in a better position to draft a higher ranked player at number ten and not be concerned with signability because they’ve tossed their budget all at Strasburg.

Ignoring the hype, the Nationals could end up with the top position player and best pure hitter in the draft, and their centerfielder for the next 15 years, and a top flight pitcher who could fill Strasburg’s anticipated top spot in the rotation. They could accomplish both objectives and save themselves upwards of 10 million dollars overall in the process.

Scott Boras is rumored to having members of his staff digging through the rules of free agency surrounding Japanese players with the hopes of landing star pitcher Yu Darvish. The Seattle Mariners, primarily owned by the Japan based Nintendo group, have the second overall pick in the draft, negotiating a contract with them for Strasburg would give Boras a leg up on his Japanese language skills.

As the 1985 draft approached, talks surrounded several players as who should go number one. Eventually, the Milwaukee Brewers decided on University of North Carolina catcher B.J. Surhoff. Selecting second, the San Francisco Giants decided to forego pitching for a big bat first baseman, Mississippi State’s Will Clark. At number three, the Texas Rangers chose the first pitcher in draft history to score a perfect 80 on the pre draft report card, from the University of Oklahoma, Bobby Witt.

Yes, that Bobby Witt. The next selection was Barry Larkin, two picks later was Barry Bonds.

Perfect scores are nice. So are 100 mph fastballs, 400 foot homers and a great glove. What differentiates bad teams from good, and what makes good teams great, is considering and understanding all options available to them, and not conforming to popular belief if that belief doesn’t fit the needs of the organization.

At shortly after 6PM EST on June 9th, the Washington Nationals will, in all likelihood select Strasburg with the number one overall pick in the Amateur Baseball Draft. The urge to “want” Strasbug may be too strong to pass up, but the Nats don’t ”need” him. 

An Interview with “George” author Peter Golenbock

Few names in the history of the National Pastime can simultaneously bring forth equal amounts of disgust, unease and respect as “The Boss”, George Michael Steinbrenner III.

Fewer still can capture Steinbrenner’s mythic presence and storied history in written form the way New York Times bestselling author Peter Golenbock has in his latest tome, GEORGE: THE POOR LITTLE RICH BOY WHO BUILT THE YANKEE EMPIRE.

Golenbock, whose previous works include BALLS with Graig Nettles and IDIOT with Johnny Damon, took a few moments out of his normal day to day movements to discuss GEORGE with us.

THOMAS WAYNE: From the get go it becomes very clear that GEORGE is an extremely thought provoking look at not only George Steinbrenner the owner but also Steinbrenner the man. What did you discover about him that surprised you the most while researching this effort?

PETER GOLENBOCK:   What surprised me most about Steinbrenner was his inability to see that his actions were so detrimental to the team, despite his assertions that winning was the only thing that mattered to him.  Throughout his entire time as owner of the Yankees, his meddling and interference with his general managers and managers contributed greatly and often to the team not winning.   He was lambasted for it often in the press, but none of the criticism had any effect.  He was convinced that everything he did was right and that he was smarter than anyone else on the planet, including some very talented employees.

TW: Was there anything that you were hesitant to include in GEORGE, anything that had you saying “this is far too personal and private to reveal, even for a very public man like Steinbrenner”?

PG: I knew of a couple of instances of female employees who were having sex with George, but I decided to protect them and not use their names. 

TW: Would you say that George’s “need” to be right and in complete control all the time is his greatness weakness or is it possibly his greatest strength?

PG: His greatest weakness was his need to be right.  As a result, no one else was allowed to make decisions. With George in charge, the Yankees were run by a man who didn’t really know the game of baseball but was convinced he did.  It was all part of his narcissistic personality.  In his mind no one was as smart as he was.  In his mind no one else was qualified to make any decisions. 

TW: One of the reoccurring themes in GEORGE is Steinbrenner’s abusive and belittling behavior when it comes to those in his employ. Expand on this.

PG: He treated talented employees like peons.  It was something taught to him by his father Henry Steinbrenner who taught him that employees were interchangeable, that he should never become friends with them, and that they were there to serve him.  His father, like George, believed he was the smartest man on the planet.  His father, who was number one in his class at MIT, may have been right, but the trait, passed on to George, served George poorly.  I would say the Yankees could have won a half dozen more pennants if George had listened to his general managers more and second-guessed his managers less.

TW: Steinbrenner’s health has been deteriorating for a couple of years now and some feel that it may be sooner than later that “King George” and all the rights and wrongs of his legend will be gone forever. How do you think the fans and the media will remember Steinbrenner on the day he passes, fondly or otherwise?

PG: Steinbrenner will be remembered long after he is gone.  He was the number one personality in baseball during the 35 years he was running the Yankees.  What other owner was suspended from baseball not once, but twice?  What other owner fired one of his managers five times?  What other owner tried to get one of his players thrown in jail? (Winfield)   What other owner was lampooned on a sitcom?  What other owner won ten pennants and six world championships?  What other owner found himself on the back page of the newspapers day after day?  He’s still alive, and Yankee fans deeply miss his craziness. 

TW: As the Yankee’s move forward from George’s watchful eye to that of sons Hal and Hank, what do you think the baseball world can come to expect from its marquee organization over the next decade?

PG: Hank and Hal Steinbrenner did not inherit George’s narcissism.  They do not believe they are the smartest people on earth.  They respect their employees and are allowing their general manager and manager to do their job.  As a result, the Yankees are more likely to win than under George.  Hank and Hal spent $438 million to buy CC Sabathia, AJ Burnett, and Mark Teixeira, three of the very best players in baseball.  They have the money to spend, as George did, but they are not buying Steve Trout, Carl Pavano, John Mayberry, and Raul Mondesi, expensive busts all, as George did.  I look for the Yankees to be the powerhouse team in the future.

TW: Finally, and most importantly to Yankee fans, what are your thoughts on the Bronx Bombers chances of winning ring number 27 this year?

PG: I would say right now that the Yankees should be favored to win the American League pennant and go to the World Series this year.  With Sabathia, Burnett, Andy Pettitte, a healthy Chien-Ming Wang, and a young Phil Hughes, I would say that their chances of winning it are excellent.

GEORGE: THE POOR LITTLE RICH BOY WHO BUILT THE YANKEE EMPIRE, as well as other fine written works on the game of baseball by Peter Golenbock are available at Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and hundreds of other fine booksellers nationwide.

Five reasons why the Pirates’ future is bright: 

1. Andrew McCutchen will not be traded until 2013 and will net six minor league pitchers who project as #5 starters.

2. The upcoming Freddy Sanchez trade will net a low power, fleet-footed CF in the mold of Nyjer Morgan and Gorkys Hernandez. This will allow the Pirates to trade from a position of strength (low power, fleet-footed CF) for additional minor league pitchers who project as #5 starters.

3. The upcoming Adam LaRoche trade will net the Dodgers’ #7, #15, and #26 ranked prospects. GM Neal Huntington will note that the Dodgers were just not willing to part with prospects #1 through #6 …

4. Andy LaRoche will not be traded until 2012 in a three-team trade with the Red Sox and Dodgers. In return the Pirates will receive a middle reliever who can’t throw strikes, a 5th outfielder with no power, a low A-ball pitcher with “tremendous upside” but a history of injury, and Andrew McCutchen’s younger brother.

5. With McLouth and Sanchez gone, Zach Duke will be the Pirates’ All-Star representative in 2009, ensuring he is the first Pirate traded in 2010.f

Happy birthday this weekend to Russ Ortiz, Bud Harrelson, and Don Money. I give to them and to you items drawn from the Bill Chuck Files…

1. Mark Reynolds is the only player in the NL with double-digit homers and double-digit stolen bases. Ian Kinsler and Torii Hunter make up the AL list. 
2. Ryan Zimmerman hit .382 over the course of his 30-game hitting streak. The Nationals were 10-19-1 during the streak (5-4-1 over the last 10 games), their best ball of the season. 

3. The Red Sox, Nationals, and the Marlins are the only teams who haven’t thrown shutouts this season. The Reds have thrown six shutouts this season, the same number as last season.

4. Not as much a difference as you would think – Through Thursday the Mariners were the only AL team with an ERA under 4.00 (3.88) to go with their 26-28 record. The Indians had the worst team ERA at 5.40 with a record of 23-33. 

5. We can’t help but talk about the fact that through Thursday, Chris Davis had struck out 80 times in 177 at bats, which means he strikes out once every 2.2 at bats. As a frame of reference, Mickey Mantle struck out once every 4.7 at bats in his career. 

6. Raul Ibanez has been doing everything well for the Phils; his 4 steals this season equal his total for the last three seasons combined. 

7. Diamondbacks setup man Tony Pena has pitched in 26 games and pitches primarily the 8th inning, yet Pena leads the team in wins with five (one more than any starter). 

8. Since 2000, 16 times a member of the Padres has hit 22+ homers, and including this season, Adrian Gonzalez has done it four times. Phil Nevin hit 41 in 2001 to lead this decade. 

9. Five players this season have received at least seven intentional walks: Albert Pujols (17 homers - 17 IBB), Justin Morneau (15 homers – 7 IBB), Manny B Manny (6 homers – 8 IBB), Chipper Jones (5 homers – 7 IBB), and Ichiro (5 homers – 7 IBB). 

10. Newly acquired Met reliever Lance Broadway should fit in nicely in NYC, but if Huston Street ever comes to the City he would have to alter the pronunciation of his first name to How-ston. 

11. Gary Sheffield hit .286 (6 for 21) against his uncle Dwight Gooden.

12. Through Thursday’s games brothers Erick and Willy Aybar each had 13 RBI. 

13. Speaking of brothers, Bengie and Yadier Molina are hoping to be All-Stars this year, joining the other brother sets who were on the same All-Star team starting in the very first Game in 1933 when Rick and Wes Ferrell were on the same team. Rick, the Red Sox catcher played, but Indians pitcher Wes didn’t get in the game. BTW: Rick would have been an ideal catcher for Tim Wakefield; catching for the 1945 Senators he dealt with knuckleballs from four starters: Dutch Leonard, Johnny Niggeling, Roger Wolff, and Mickey Haefner.

14. It’s early in the season for outfielders Alfonso Soriano, Adam Jones, and Shin-Soo Choo to have four errors, but it’s shocking for pitcher Ted Lilly to have four E’s. 

15. Randy Johnson has his fewest wins against the Diamondbacks, for whom he pitched for 8 years, he’s 1-0 lifetime against them; he has 19 wins against the Rockies and a remarkable 13-0 against the Cubs. 

16. In his first 100 bats, Kelly Shoppach had 12 singles and been hit by pitches 11 times. 

17. Miguel Tejada has reached 100 HBP this season and is a handful short of 400 doubles; when he hits #400 he’ll be the 22nd player to join that club sorted by doubles. Tris Speaker leads with 792 (103 HBP), sorted by HBP, Craig Biggio leads with 285 (668 doubles). 

18. In the NL, five of the top 11 leaders in runs scored are Phillies: Raul Ibanez leads the league and he’s joined by Chase Utley, Shane Victorino, Ryan Howard and Jayson Werth.

19. Over 15 seasons and 2,151.2 innings, Ken Raffensberger threw a total of 10 wild pitches. Before he was asked to leave this season by the Nationals, Daniel Cabrera threw 40 innings and 10 wild pitches. 

20. In 1936, Pirates catcher Hal Finney went 0 for 35, the most hitless at bats for any non-pitcher. Houston’s shortstop Jason Smith currently is 0 for 25 which would place him second on the futility list if his season ended today. 

You can find more From the Files every week in Nick Cafardo’s Baseball Notes in the Sunday Boston Globe. As always check out Scott Miller, Jayson Stark, Paul Hoynes, Jerry Crasnick, and Mike Celizic as you never know when I might appear. Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales, is a great Father’s Day and a terrific graduation present and is available on Amazon.com. Read an excerpt on SI.com. 
More of my Red Sox notes can often be found on http://sawxheads.trufan.com/. 

Here are nine things you need to know in order to talk baseball today.

1. Randy Johnson. Randy Johnson picked up his 300th victory last evening in the steady drizzle of Washington with his Giants winning, 5-1. Johnson became the 24th pitcher and sixth lefty to reach that magic number. “I think it kind of hit me when I walked on the field,” the Big Unit said. “It’s a long-range achievement. It’s not a one-game or a one-year achievement; it’s a career achievement. Who knows how many teammates I’ve had over my 21 years, but they had a great deal to do with my success. I’m going to think about this for a long time.” The Giants swept the doubleheader from the Generals in the rain. Talk about: Johnson joined Steve Carlton as the only pitchers to win No. 300 against the organization with whom they made their major league debut (RaJo won three games with Expos). Johnson is the second oldest pitcher to reach the 300-wins (Phil Niekro at 46 years, 188 days, is the oldest); Johnson turns 46 on Sept. 10.

2. Pirates sweep. The Mets looked awful, Mike Pelfrey looked awful, and Pirates hot prospect Andrew McCutchen looked great. That combination led to an 11-6 thrashing of the Mets by the Bucs and a sweep of their three game set. McCutchen had two hits, three runs scored and an RBI in his big league debut. Pelfrey allowed nine runs, eight earned, and nine hits in 3.2 innings. Talk about: Pittsburgh is 11-5 against NL East teams this season. The Mets have lost four of five and were swept on the road for the third time this season. 

3. BoSox sweep. When the Tigers scored three in the 2nd off of Tim Wakefield they thought they were off to a big day. But they were done and done in by their own pitcher Dontrelle Willis who regressed big time. The Sox won 6-3 and swept the three game set from Detroit. The Sox scored six times in the 3rd and while the key hit was a Jason Bay double off of reliever Zach Miner the problem was caused by Dontrelle’s control (or lack thereof). In 2.1 innings, the derailed D-Train allowed five runs on no hits, five walks and one hit batsman. Talk about: Wake is 7-3 and is 3-0 against the Tigers over the last two seasons. In his career, Wakefield is 16-10 against the Tigers, the most wins of any active pitcher against Detroit. Wakefield is 20-5 against Tampa and 17-12 against Toronto.

4. Rays sweep. B.J. Upton hit a two run 8th inning dinger and James Shields pitched eight strong as the Rays topped the Royals, 3-2 to give Tampa a three-game sweep. Carl Crawford homered in the 7th for the Rays’ first run. KC has lost seven straight. Talk about: The Rays returned to the .500 mark at 28-28 making them the fourth AL East team at .500 and better. Only the Orioles (24-30) are below C-level. The NL Central has four teams of their six teams over .500. 

5. A beauty in LA. Cole Hamels threw his third career shutout, permitting the Dodgers just five hits while striking out five as the Phillies topped LA, 3-0. Hamels won his fourth straight and the Phils have won seven straight. Talk about: The complete game was Hamels’ fifth in 94 career starts, and the first this season by any Phillies starter. 

6. A beauty in Chicago. Oakland rookie Brett Anderson had no trouble with the White Sox in his seven innings, and two A’s relievers didn’t either as they topped the ChiSox, 7-0. Jason Giambi (remember him?) hit a three-run homer. The White Shut lead the majors having been shut out eight times, five times at home. Gordon Beckham, just 364 days after he was drafted, made his major league debut at third for the Sox, and had an oh-fer on the day. Talk about: Oakland has started four rookies in a row for the third time in team history; the last time was in June 1996. Starters facing Chicago for the first time are 7-1 with a 1.52 ERA in 10 games this year. 

7. Yanks rally. Watching Chien-Ming Wang’s ERA decrease is a lot like watching David Ortiz’ batting average increase; they both happen in baby steps. The Texas Rangers hit Wang for five runs and seven hits in 4.2 innings which actually lowered the pitcher’s ERA from 16.07 to 14.46, but the Yankees rallied to win 8-6 on another big hit from Melky Cabrera. Melky’s two-run 8th inning dinger, his fifth go-ahead hit in the 8th inning or later this season, gave the Yankees their sixth win in their last eight games. Talk about: David Robertson threw one pitch in relief but wound up with the win. 

8. Completely Carpenter. Chris Carpenter pitched a three hitter as the Cardinals defeated the Reds, 3-1. Carpenter threw 95 pitches, striking out three and walking none, for his 26th complete game and first since September 11, 2006. His ERA rose to 0.71. Talk about: I love this! Aaron Harang went the distance but took the loss. The last time the Reds played a game in which both starters went the distance was August 26, 2004; the tables were reversed as Harang beat Carpenter 1-0. 

9. UNABASHED SELF PROMOTION: After all if I don’t do it, who will? 
Walk-Offs, Last Licks, and Final Outs – Baseball’s Grand (and not so Grand) Finales, is a great Father’s Day and a terrific graduation present and is available on Amazon.com. Read an excerpt on SI.com. More of my Red Sox notes can often be found on http://sawxheads.trufan.com/. 

My eyes were jolted wide open weeks before that laser barrage on Yankee Stadium last summer that culminated Josh Hamilton’s rise back to baseball glory.

I leaned back in my chair about 10 rows above the visitor’s on-deck circle at Angel Stadium last spring, approximately 90 minutes before first pitch, and I was mesmerized.

I was mesmerize by the sound, the speed, the power, the rhythm, the flight, and, ultimately, the landing.

Let me tell you, even in this day of suppressed savings accounts and preposterously-priced sports tickets, watching Hamilton take batting practice is easily worth the price of your ticket. If you get to enjoy a great ballgame too, well, that’s just dessert.

It was that day I realized how special Josh Hamilton really is, and what he means to the Texas Rangers. There was nobody else like him in that batting cage. Balls were coming off his bat like sticks of dynamite drunk on kerosene, Hamilton’s toothpick bat (at least that’s what it looked like resting in his hands) providing the ignite.

The force with which Hamilton hit the ball was tantalizing as it was adorned with such grace and fluidity. Regular men aren’t made to hit baseballs like that, but is clear that there is nothing regular about Hamilton.

He was making the rest of his big league teammates look like the scrawny sophomore on your high school team, feebly slapping balls around the diamond. The only one to come close to Hamilton’s power was Chris Davis. And when I say close, I mean like the difference between black and white and Blu-ray. So, really, not that close.

But as the Texas Rangers enjoy a 3.5 game lead over the Los Angeles Angels in the American League West, the club was gut-punched by Tuesday’s news that Hamilton has been put on the disabled list with an injury that has been referred to as both an abdominal strain and a sports hernia, largely the same thing.

Given Texas’ typical array of pitching woes, we could say that they are always dating Ms. Bleak but now, with Hamilton’s absence, appear to be engaged to Ms. Doom.

Hamilton had an MRI and was examined by Dr. John Preskitt, according to reports, but the prognosis of Hamilton’s injury still remains unclear. The best case scenario is that Hamilton misses two weeks, and is back in the Rangers’ lineup by the end of June.

The worst case scenario, which would include hernia surgery, is that Hamilton misses two months and then takes a couple weeks to regain his normal form, time that Texas doesn’t necessarily have considering their indelible history of wilting under the Arlington summer heat. Will Texas still be floating above the surface in late August or early September? Too early to know.

Hamilton has already been marred by injury this season after enjoying a monstrous 2008 season that fully welcomed him back to baseball, and sanity, after his thoroughly-documented fight with drug and alcohol addiction.

Hamilton missed about two weeks of play, beginning in late April, after straining his rib cage crashing into a wall in Toronto. Coincidentally, Hamilton first hurt his groin, which morphed into his current abdominal pains, making a highlight catch against the outfield wall against the Angels on May 17.

It’s not that the Rangers can’t win without Hamilton, because they still are one of baseball’s best offenses without him. The Rangers rank first in the A.L. in home runs, despite the fact that Hamilton has hit only six, and rank fifth in runs.

But there isn’t enough reason to believe that Texas can remain such a potent offense when they are away from their home digs. Chris Davis, who has contributed 12 home runs, is hitting .198 and has struck out in nearly half of his at-bats.

Hank Blalock has 12 bombs on the year, but his .296 OBP reeks of his perpetual disagreement with Ball Four.

It is clear that the Rangers will always live and die with the long ball, but what happens when these aforementioned names hit power droughts sometime over the summer, which will inevitably happen? They don’t offer anything else to the offense.

That leaves Ian Kinsler and Michael Young with the bulk of the responsibility, and that’s not enough. Both tremendous players, but no lineup can survive on two guys.

Nelson Cruz has had a wonderful first half thus far, he of the .967 OPS, but we need to see more of him before we can say with any certainty that he is a trustworthy cog in Texas’ attack.

The Rangers have gotten here without Hamilton, partly due to the rest of the A.L. West’s ineptitude, but they cannot finish the season on top without Hamilton raking in the middle of the order like the elite hitter that he is.

It won’t happen.

The pitching staff, led by team president Nolan Ryan and pitching coach Mike Maddux, has shown a more aggressive mentality on the mound than in prior seasons. The Rangers hurlers don’t appear to be afraid of contact like they have in the past, but they still only rank in the middle of the pack in the A.L. in earned runs.

Texas’ pitching staff has always been the kid with asthma trudging along at the back of the race. For the first time in a long time, it appears that they may have enough guidance and enough talent (if you don’t know who Neftali Feliz is yet, you will soon) to keep pace with rest of the runners.

And that’s the thing about these Rangers. They have a chance to do something, a chance to put that first building block in place for the future of the franchise.

I can still see all of those rainbows that Hamilton hit on that sunny day in Anaheim, well before the camera lights went on.

Hamilton’s blasts were touching down in far-reaching crannies of the bleachers that most ball seekers didn’t even imagine of searching.

Hopefully for the Rangers, while Hamilton is nursing his hernia back to health, they don’t land in the quite familiar cold crannies of the pennant race.

Teddy Mitrosilis plays baseball and studies journalism at Long Beach City College. He is a staff writer for the Most Valuable Network’s baseball blog, Around The Majors at www.mvn.com/aroundthemajors. Read more of Teddy’s work at http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/tm4000.

The last remaining piece of 2008’s most productive outfield (Jason Bay, Nate McClouth, Xavier Nady) has been sent elsewhere. Like last year’s trades of Bay and Nady, the Pirates have sent away a productive outfielder in his prime for a few prospects. Nate McClouth, the Pirates Gold-Glove All-Star centerfielder, was traded to the Atlanta Braves for AAA RHP Charlie Morton, AA outfielder Gorkys Hernandez, and A-ball LHP Jeff Locke.

Morton failed miserably in 16 appearances with the Braves in 2008, though he is dominating AAA this season. Hernandez has no power and has some pundits describing him as another Nyjer Morgan. Locke has not been pitching well in Class A Carolina League.

So where does this leave the Pirates and their beleaguered fan base? Staring directly into the oncoming train that is a major league sports record 17th straight losing season. Sadly, the long-term outlook is not much better.

For now, McClouth will be replaced by the Pirates’ top prospect Andrew McCutchen, who is definitely ready for the big leagues and for whom the fans have been clamoring all year. An outfield with Morgan, McClouth and McCutchen is exciting and a reason for hope. An outfield with low power Morgan, low power McCutchen, and low everything Brandon Moss is a serious problem.

In order of value, here is what the Pirates received for Bay, Nady, and McClouth:

1. 3B Andy LaRoche - High OBP/AVG, no home run power
2. RHP Ross Ohlendorf - Consistent #3 or #4 pitcher this year
3. OF Jose Tabata - Injured AA outfielder has only played 43 minor league games since 2008 trade
4. RHP Bryan Morris - Injured A-ball pitcher, has barely pitched since 2008 trade
5. RHP Charlie Morton - wildcard, who knows if poor 2008 MLB performance is an indicator of future performance or just an adjustment period?
6. OF Gorkys Hernandez - career .350 OBP in minors, no power, lots of speed
7. RHP Jeff Karstens - replacement level #5 starter, there are 25 guys just like him available right now
8. RHP Craig Hansen - injured reliever who cannot stay healthy or throw strikes when he is healthy
9. LHP Jeff Locke - not much hope based on his minor league performance so far; he’s a long way from Pittsburgh…
10. RHP Daniel McCutchen - AAA now, replacement level #5 starter
11. OF Brandon Moss - career OPS+ 91, good OF range and arm; always-available retreads like Craig Monroe and Eric Hinske can provide more production than Moss

While the trades have brought more belly-buttons to the Pirates’ barren farm system and MLB roster, they have not brought impact talent. There are no #1 or #2 starters in this group. There are no 30 HR bats. Beyond LaRoche and perhaps Ohlendorf, most of these guys are at or near replacement level. How does this make the Pirates better?

Consistency in a pitcher is a good – right? Well, that might depend on how you define consistent. Certainly a pitcher who is consistently bad is little help to a team, and a consistently good pitcher is golden. But given two pitchers with the same overall ERA, will the more consistent pitcher win more games for his team?

In a previous article I pointed out that a team that hits only home runs will beat a team with the same RPG that hits only singles or doubles. The key distinction in that case was the fact that the home run hitting team had a narrower (i.e., more consistent) run distribution. If consistency in scoring is good for the offense, then it makes sense that it must be bad for the defense (including pitching). David Gassko argued that consistent pitching is bad in a 2006 Hardball Times article.

But how can that be? Well, consider Pitcher A, who always allows 5 runs per game (RPG), and Pitcher B, who gives up 4 RPG two-thirds of the time and 7 RPG the rest of the time. Both pitchers allow an average of 5 RPG, but obviously Pitcher A, who is more consistent, loses two-thirds of the time (in this article we assume all offenses are the same, so it is the pitchers’ abilities that determine the outcome of the game). In this case the run distributions were the critical factor that differentiated the two.

In fact, the situation is not as simplistic as just consistent versus inconsistent. Consider Pitcher C, who allows 6 RPG two-thirds of the time and 3 RPG the rest of the time. He also allows an average of 5 RPG, but loses two-thirds of the time to the more consistent Pitcher A. On the other hand, Pitcher C beats Pitcher B five out of nine times, so we have a classic rock-scissors-paper situation (C beats B beats A beats C), where team abilities are not transitive.

So why is consistency bad for pitchers, if in principle it can cut either way? The reason is that the run distribution for Pitcher C above has more probability above the average RPG than below it, which in practice does not occur. Pitchers tend to be more like Pitcher B, with more games where they give up a lower number of runs and fewer games giving up a larger number of runs. The fewer games above the average tend to be farther from the average, which balances out the distribution. With this kind of run distribution, the pitcher who is less consistent will win more games for their team, given the same ERA, since more of their games have below-average runs allowed.

To quantify this effect using actual run distributions, for each of the years from 2003 to 2008 I took all pairs of teams who had RPG allowed within 1% of each other (to compare teams with roughly the same RPG in the same year). There were 132 pairs of teams that met this criterion in those six years.

For each such pairing I calculated how many wins each team would have against the other by taking all possible combinations of their runs-allowed distributions (e.g., match all of one team’s shutouts against the entire runs-allowed distribution of the other team, then match all of one team’s one-run-allowed games against the entire runs-allowed distribution of the other team, etc.). Ties are ignored, which is the same as assuming that teams win in extra innings at the same rate as in regulation.

If each team played 162 games, then there would be 162 times 162, i.e. 26,244, possible combinations. From these comparisons a win ratio for each pair of teams with about the same RPG can be calculated. (This kind of approach was used by Travis at diamond-theory.com when he advocated his Random Wins statistic as a better approximation to a team’s win percentage than the Pythagorean formula — see the Numbers link at www.diamond-theory.com.)

Next I calculated the standard deviation of each team’s runs-allowed distribution, which is a measure of how inconsistent their pitching/defense is. For each pair of teams, the win ratio can then be compared to the ratio of their standard deviations, as shown in the graph below.

The result is quite remarkable. There is a very strong correlation (with correlation coefficient 0.94) between the ability of one team to beat another and how big its standard deviation is relative to the other team’s, assuming nearly identical RPG allowed. The team with the larger standard deviation (i.e., the team with the more inconsistent defense) tended to win more games.

For each 8% a team’s standard deviation is larger than the other team’s standard deviation the win ratio increases by about 4%. For the teams at the extremes of the graph above, this would correspond to an extra 5 wins or losses per season, if they played all their games against the same team, even though the two teams have the same RPG.

It is a separate question whether consistency is a characteristic of the team, or just a random fluctuation that is not repeatable. The data from 2003 to 2008 has some teams who have a consistently high or low standard deviation, but many have a range of standard deviations, and a larger sample is needed to make any definitive conclusions.

In any event, the next time you wish a pitcher was more consistent, what you really mean is that he should just reduce the number of bad games, since being more consistent without improving your ERA is in fact detrimental to your team.

In the spring of 1964, 21-year-old University of Wisconsin dual sport athlete Rick Reichardt was on top of the world. A football player first, Reichardt made a national name for himself in the Badgers’ legendary 42-37 Rose Bowl loss to USC in January, 1963, following up the next season by leading the Big Ten Conference in pass receptions and touchdowns. Despite leading the Big Ten in hitting in 1963, Reichardt thought of baseball only as a “way out of spring football practice.” His preference for football notwithstanding, Reichardt found playing baseball easy; he would go on and complete his college career in 1964 as the Big Ten’s all time leading hitter with a .443 lifetime average, a record which still stands today.

And unbeknownst to him, he was about to set off on a two month journey which would change baseball forever.

Reichardt was a big, strong kid, (6’3″, 210 pounds), with Hollywood good looks. “The first time I saw him”, said Hall of Fame broadcaster Joe Garagiola, “I thought he fell of a Wheaties box.”

As was the custom at the time, every amateur player was considered a free agent, available to anyone at anytime. The best players got the most attention, with bidding wars among several teams escalating with the intent of driving the poorer, smaller market teams out of the running. (Sounds somewhat familiar, doesn’t it). Rick Reichardt’s case was no exception, with each of baseball’s then 18 major league teams banging down his door in an effort to sign him. As the offers of Reichardt’s impending bonus reached the then unheard of sum of $200,000, only two teams remained, the Los Angeles Angels and Kansas City Athletics. The teams’ respective owners, Gene Autry and Charlie Finley, went back and forth with promises of cash, cars, houses, and in the case of Finley, beginning his professional career in the Athletics outfield.

On June 24th, 1964, at the Autry owned Continental Hotel in Hollywood, and after a whirlwind month long interview schedule with the various ML teams, Reichardt agreed with the Angels for a record $205,000 bonus, ($175,000 salary and $30,000 to finish college). Upon hearing of Reichardt’s decision, Finley hopped aboard his private plane and flew to the Reichardt family home in Wisconsin and doubled the Angel’s offer, which Reichardt turned down. “I had already agreed to sign,” Reichardt later recalled, “back then it was honorable to keep your word.” Now it’s all about the dollar, and I have no doubt I would have taken Kansas City’s offer today.”

Despite their own participation in the Reichardt bidding process, the other 16 ML teams were up in arms at not only the escalating bonus structures, (Reichardt’s deal exceeded that of Red Sox first baseman Tony Horton, who received the top bonus in 1963, by $95,000), but by the increasing instances of unethical practices. Pleading their case to Commissioner Ford Frick, who was not about to let an opportunity to self promote himself pass by, formed a committee with the intent of changing the handling of amateur talent. Out of this committee came the amateur draft, upon which the team with the worst record from the previous season would select first, the second worst second, and so on, with the freedom to choose whomever they felt like, with no worries or concerns they could be outbid by another team. In June, 1965, with the first pick in the first ever draft, the Kansas City Athletics selected Arizona State University outfielder Rick Monday, with the rest, as they say, history.

Reichardt himself would go on to make his major league debut just nine weeks after signing, on September first. He didn’t show much, hitting .162 in 37 at-bats, but he nonetheless impressed Angels manager Bill Rigney, drawing comparisons to the likes of Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Orlando Cepeda. Reichardt would spend much of the next two seasons in the Pacific Coast League, making the Angels roster for good in 1966. For the first three and a half months of the season, Reichardt showed the Angels and the rest of baseball he was worth his deal, hitting .288 with 16 homers in just 88 games before his season came to a sudden halt.

During his club required physical prior to the season, it was discovered Reichardt had congenital kidney blockage. Suffering first from high blood pressure, then by excruciating headaches, he woke up one July morning with a headache so severe he thought he was having a stroke. “My roommate, Clyde Wright, literally carried me to his car and drove me to a doctor,” Reichardt recalled. “Three days later I was in Minnesota at the Mayo Clinic having my kidney removed.”

Reichardt recovered well enough to return to the major leagues, even leading the Angels with 21 homers and 73 RBIs in 1968, but the stress of taking constant medication and of always feeling fatigued finally took its toll. The Angels traded Reichardt to the Washington Senators in April, 1970, and less than a year later he was traded again, this time to the Chicago White Sox. Released by the White Sox in June, 1973, Reichardt signed almost immediately with the Kansas City Royals.

“The new designated hitter rule was a perfect fit for me at that time,” he said. Reichardt had a solid spring training in 1974, and made the Royals opening day roster. Surprisingly, the Royals released him after their opening game, despite contributing a pinch single. “I never understood why they released me,” Reichardt recalled. Some have speculated it was his relationship to controversial hitting coach Charlie Lau. “Because of Charlie, I finally understood how to hit, and just like that it was all gone.” he said.

In a fan poll taken in 2007 as part of the Angels 45th anniversary celebration, Reichardt was selected as the 51st best player in franchise history, a ranking which would have undoubtedly been much higher if he had been healthy. As it stands, Reichardt is the answer to two trivia questions:

Which player hit the first home run in Anaheim Stadium history?

Which player is responsible for the amateur draft?

The financial impact with the draft was immediate, as Monday’s 1965 bonus with the Athletics was just $104,000. When considering and adjusting for inflation, Reichardt’s bonus record would stand until 1991, when the New York Yankees gave high school pitcher Brien Taylor $1.5 million.

On June 9th of this year, the Washington Nationals will have the first pick in the draft, likely selecting San Diego State University right-hander Stephen Strasburg. Indications are Strasburg’s bonus will exceed the $10.2 million record given to pitcher Matt White by the Tampa Bay Rays in 1998 – by how much remains in question. The draft has changed in more ways than just financial, moving from a smoke filled ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York to the New Jersey studios of MLB Network, where the first two rounds will be televised live.

The draft is not perfect, far from it in fact. It has, however, continued to serve its purpose, which is to eliminate the monopolies which are the big dollar and big market teams. Mr. Strasburg may very well receive a record contract, but with the bidding open to everyone, two things are certain: he would get MUCH more on the open market, and he wouldn’t sign with Washington. There are some who are advocates for the allowance to trade picks, as is done in the other major sports, and the idea has merit. What if Washington can’t afford Strasburg? Any potential trade package they could receive in return could arguably contribute more to the franchise than Strasburg himself, but, alas, we’ll never know.

Regardless of what happens in two weeks, each participant in the draft, Strasburg, the Nationals and MLB, owe their part in the proceedings to someone who had no idea at the time he would impact a change in the game forever.

That someone is Rick Reichardt.

At the beginning of the season, members of the Dugout Central staff were challenged to predict the number of wins during the regular season for each Major League team. We’ve reached the end of May, almost a third of the way through the season, so it’s time again to see where we stand.

In addition to the staff predictions, other “predictions” are also being tracked. One such set is last year’s win totals. Sky Kalkman suggested two other possibilities: last year’s Pythagorean wins, i.e., the number of wins expected using the Pythagorean won-loss

formula on last year’s run totals, and the completely egalitarian “prediction” that each team wins 81 games. And finally, the preseason Vegas line (from thegreek.com) will also be compared to our predictions.

The standings as of May 31:

	Projected Avg. Diff.	Projected St. Dev.
Sky Kalkman	4.85	6.51
Average	4.95	6.47
Randy Newsom	4.95	6.43
Tyler Hissey	5.00	6.68
The Greek	5.08	6.72
Kerry Whisnant	5.11	6.54
Thomas Wayne	5.20	6.23
Shaun Payne	5.31	7.12
Scott Jensen	5.33	6.85
Adam White	5.54	7.08
John Quemere	5.54	7.38
2008 Pythagorean	5.55	6.58
81 wins	5.64	7.32
Chuck Johnson	5.66	7.13
2008	6.12	7.16

The first column is the projected average win difference per team at the end of the season, using the current won-loss percentage for each team. The second column shows the projected standard deviation in the win difference. The win difference is the official total that will determine the winner, while the standard deviation method penalizes predictions that are wildly off target more heavily.

The standings have changed quite a bit from a month ago. Thomas and I have fallen back into the pack, while Sky, Randy and Tyler have moved up to claim the top three spots. The average of our picks is also doing very well. The simple prediction that all teams win 81 games was near the top last month, but is now near the bottom. The 2008 records and 2008 Pythagorean records trail the field.

While this challenge is strictly for bragging rights, what would happen if we actually put money on these predictions? The following table, arranged in alphabetical order, shows how our predictions are currently doing versus the preseason Vegas line from thegreek.com. The data in each column assumes over/under bets are placed when our predictions differ by at least as many games as shown in the column heading. The outcome of each bet is predicted by projecting the current team win percentages to full-season win totals.

	0.5+	3.5+	6.5+	9.5+
Tyler Hissey	17-13	8- 4	0- 0	0- 0
Scott Jensen	17-13	8- 8	2- 2	0- 0
Chuck Johnson	16-14	11-10	6- 5	4- 1
Sky Kalkman	18-12	6- 1	0- 1	0- 0
Randy Newsom	19-11	6- 5	1- 4	1- 1
Shaun Payne	11-19	9- 9	4- 1	1- 0
John Quemere	13-17	9-11	5- 1	1- 0
Thomas Wayne	18-12	10- 9	6- 5	2- 3
Kerry Whisnant	16-14	12- 6	3- 2	0- 1
Adam White	14-16	8- 6	4- 4	0- 0
Average	17-12	4- 3	1- 0	0- 0
2008	16-14	13-12	5-11	3- 4
2008 Pythagorean	17-13	12-11	4- 4	3- 3
81 wins	18-12	11- 8	9- 5	5- 1

The best record belongs to Randy Newsom. However, most people wouldn’t place a bet if their prediction was only half a game different from the line. The other columns show our projected record versus the line for teams where our predictions differed from the line by at least 3.5, 6.5 or 9.5 games. Sky, Tyler and I do very well for a 3.5+ difference form the line, but Shaun and John do well for differences of 6.5 or more. For the “lock” bets 9.5+ wins different from the line, Chuck is 4 for 5 at this point in the season.

The next update will be given at the end of June.

All right, I’m ticked off.  Really ticked off.  I thought we’d gone over this enough times, but we obviously haven’t.  So take out your notebooks and pencils and try to understand my point.  Ready for my point?  It’s a really good one.  It goes a little something like this:Every Major League Baseball player is not completely wealthy and there is no reason why they should subsidize your life with the money they make because they play baseball.Why am I raging right now?  Nope, it ain’t because Canseco’s at it again, shooting me in the butt with my latest cycle of ‘roids.  It’s because I get upset when fans, regular people who earn regular wages in a terrible economy, cannot fathom that baseball players aren’t all billionaires.  MLB players earn a great minimum salary, a little over $400,000 a season.  Yes, yes, yes, that’s a great sum of money that these players can earn in six months and would take the regular American wage earner 6-8 years to earn.  I get it.  I understand how Alex Rodriguez will earn more money per plate appearance this year than most Americans will earn in 12 months (with 2 weeks vacation; try staying local this year to save money). 

Here’s my question:

Why are you so mad at ballplayers?  Why are you so bitter at them for getting the opportunity to earn the salaries they get?  It’s got to be bitterness.  What else is it?  I just don’t get why you can’t get it. 

Let me break it down like this:

For a player to get on the active 25-man roster, he not only has to beat out the other 15 men on the 40-man roster, he has to beat out the other 150 baseball players in his team’s Major & minor league systems.  Then, he has to be better than the alternatives to him on other teams.  That brings up 4500 guys he has to be better than, or equal to, in order for the chance to earn $405,000 a year. 

Pretend it’s you.  Because then you have to stay healthy.  You can’t get hurt.  You get hurt, then you have to rehab.  Come back too early and you hurt yourself again.  Come back right on time and you have to prove yourself again.  Losing 6 weeks to injury could lead to 3 months of re-proving yourself back in the minors.  Or getting released because you’re not as hot as you were before the injury.  Or maybe just not as good.  Let’s face it, some injuries never go away.  Ever see the guy behind the counter at NAPA limping?  “Old high school football injury,” he says as he reaches for your cherry-flavored air freshener.  “That’ll be $3.50, plus tax.”

Now, lots of people in America get paid by the hour.  Do baseball players in high school get paid?  No.  Do they get paid in college?  Let’s say no and ignore the problems with the NCAA system (especially in football & basketball).  For those 7-8 years, your future MLB player is working his tail off to become a big league ballplayer and doing it for free.  He gets drafted, say in the 43rd round, and get a $5000 bonus.  Ohh, there are so many places to invest that money.  I think I’ll just pay off my car loan and leave it at that.  Now our boy is in the minors for the next 3 to 5 years earning, by AAA, about $60,000 per season.

He’s not rich.  He’s definitely not a millionaire.

He makes it to the big club in August and stays on the roster for the end of the season, then goes and plays in the winter leagues. 

Let’s see, August through September 30.  Pretend that’s 7 weeks, prorated at the $405,000 minimum salary.  In 7 weeks, our prospect earned around $109,000.  Add that to the $50,000 he earned in the minor league level.  Our boy, before taxes, earned $159,000 for 6 months work (plus 10 years).

He’s still not rich.  And there’s no guarantee he’ll ever be a millionaire.

Because he has to do this crap all over again the next year.  And the next year.  Until he proves himself enough to make arbitration and, if lucky, become a free agent - The good kind of free agent, the 6-year veteran kind of free agent, not the one who’s been released and has an agent basically begging teams to pick you up and sign you to a minor league deal.

See?  Every ballplayer is not A-Rod.

Back to my rant.  I wrote THIS about Jason Grilli last week.  He’s doing a good thing and raising money for a charity in Denver.  It’s a school for deaf children.  Jason asked me to mention a fundraising event the school is having.  So I did.  I want to help in my fun way.  To help more, I threw it on Twitter and Facebook so my pals there could see what my pal Jason is doing.  I also sent it to Dugout Central, I site I contribute to because I like the readers there.   They ceremonially kill me when I write about ballplayers because they think every baseball player is:1.  Rich2.  Has the perfect life3.  And never has a problem in the world because they make so much damn money they dress in ten dollar bills and wipe their butts with hundreds.

Can you see I’m still ranting?  I can and I’m not even wearing my 3-D glasses.  So it went up on Dugout Central today and I read this comment:

Illya on May 31st, 2009

Grilli is making $800,000 this season. I don’t know what your definition of “isn’t ‘all loaded’” is but I would think that with the help of a few of his teammates he could accomplish this goal without the help of non-Major leaguers.

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Then I read this:

Chuck on May 31st, 2009

Agreed.

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I was taken aback.  It just seemed so thoughtless to me.  I understood why the thoughtlessness went into it, but I had hoped, by now, that they’d spend a second to think before typing in they’re poor assumption.  I answered, because I couldn’t let this pass, and here’s what I wrote:

Jimmy Scott on May 31st, 2009

Illya & Chuck - Think about this: Let’s say Grilli earns $800,000 this year. Take out 50% for taxes. He’s down to $400,000. Still really good. It’s ain’t Trump or A-Rod money, but compared to most Americans, it’s really good. Take out his agent’s commission. We’re down to around $360,000. He’s got a wife and a baby. He’s got a house. One. He’s got an arm that’s been injured before and he almost never had the career he has now because of the injury. How much do you think he should spend on this out of his own pocket? How much would satisfy you? Put yourself in his shoes. How much would you spend knowing, in one poor throw of a baseball, you may never EVER have the chance to earn even $100,000 in a year for the rest of your life. Does his time mean anything? And how do you know he’s not putting a bunch o’ cash toward this school? Can’t he use his (regional) name to help the school too?

As for his teammates, look at it like this: How easy is it for you to get people from work to give you money? It’s all relative, so let’s say you asked 5 people at work to each give you $350 for a charity that means something to you. Think they’d do it? By chance, are they giving money to other charities? Or maybe they don’t like your charity. I’m saying that, in theory, it would be nice for every rich person in the world to satisfy the needs of every charitable cause in the world. It’s just not as easy as you think.

You had the right to make the comment and I get why you did it considering where the world is economically. I would like to disagree with it, however, and ask that you rethink your argument.

Now is when you come back and show all the points that I missed.

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Am I right?  I think I am.  Are there holes in my argument?  You bet, because I’m not a debater.  I run more on emotion, just like my readers at Dugout Central.  See.  We do have something in common.  But I think in this case my emotion wins out.  They’ll come back with some anti-baseball player comments and bring up all the rich guys and their rich wives and their perfect lives and I’ll come right back and remind them that we aren’t all loaded, we aren’t all happy, and we aren’t all secure. 

Look at your favorite team’s 25-man roster.  How many jobs on that team are secure?  How many of those guys will be on a Major League team next year?  How many will suffer injuries in June, July, August and/or September?  How many will make it back at full strength?  And how many will never see that 4-star hotel room suite on the road again?

It’s a dream that we all share, to play Major League baseball.  Don’t ruin the dreams of those who made it because you weren’t good enough.  It’s okay.  There are more of you than them.  Just cheer and root and love the game.  The money stuff?  Yell at Tom Cruise next time he gets $15 million for a movie.  Or Bill Clinton when he gets $150,000 for a speech.  There are rich.  There are poor.  There are talented.  And there are boring people who just like to watch a baseball game with the TV sound off and the radio blasting.  Whoever you are, enjoy your life and enjoy where you are today.  If you don’t like it, do something about it (legal and non-violent please).  Just don’t take it out on the ballplayers.  They’re just like you, only with better looking uniforms.

My rant ends now.  See you next time.

Jimmy Scott is probably the greatest pitcher you’ve never heard of.  Visit Jimmy Scott’s High & Tight to read more from Jimmy and guests Desi Relaford, Eric Valent & Cassidy Dover.  You’ll also hear a new interview every Monday morning with former MLB players, agents, wives and others; giving new outlooks on this great game we call Baseball.  Go there now to hear Jimmy’s latest interviews with Nelson & Alisa Figueroa, Desi Relaford