Braves get Uggla from the Marlins I'm starting to wonder why Jeffrey Loria even bothers owning a MLB team anymore. He just traded a power hitting 2nd baseman for a guy who just had a career year,Omar Infante, and a lefty reliever with potential, Mike Dunn. Uggla not only gets traded for a comparable pittance, but he traded him not only in the same league, but the same division. Speaking as a Braves fan this trade makes me very happy, but as a baseball fan it has me scratching my head. I understand that they couldn't give Uggla the money he was looking for, but if you are going to trade him then trade him somewhere he can't come back to haunt you on a fairly regular basis. Loria has got his championship, so he should sell the team to someone who cares about the game and isn't just looking for corporate welfare(The subsidies from the big market teams that allowed the Marlins to turn a profit by holding on to the money) Anyways welcome to the Braves Uggla!
2 days ago I absolutely hated the idea of acquiring Uggla, a lot changes when you find out you're only giving up 1 year of a utility-player and your 3rd best bullpen lefty. Plus with Uggla already saying he wants more than a 4-year deal, it's nice looking at 2 comp picks for him next offseason as well (although, another decent full-season will keep Infante in type B status). Wren's said that was the big piece for this off-season, I'm curious to see if he'll stick to that or not. They definitely need a RH defensive-minded OF, would be nice to plug in Prado at 1B against tough lefties so Freeman doesn't get too overmatched, could say the same about McLousy though. No matter the next move, this is a nice start to the offseason for our squad. EDIT: Side-note: The Detroit/Benoit deal today is in the early lead for worst deal of the off-season.
Not much life to this thread. Big move for a saturday morning. Red Sox are picking up AGonz today, looks like it includes Kelly, Rizz, Fuentes + possibly other pieces.
Jayson Werth is worth (no pun intended) $125 million? Baseball is out of control. That being said, why as a player you would go anywhere but Scott Boras for representation is beyond me.
I think the years is what gets me. 7 years! He's signed until he's nearly 39 years old. Not sure how big the Nationals salary is per year, but this is gonna take up a large chunk of it for a while, I assume.
Adam Dunn signs with the White Sox. I'm a White Sox fan, and I do like this signing. It gives them insurance if Konerko decides not to return, but they're hoping he does come back (which would give Chicago a nice 3-4 punch, even though it is incredibly slow around the bases). I truly don't know what to make of the White Sox. They're in a hitter-friendly park, and Dunn should have a good time at that particular park. Their pitching is where I'm not sure. Jenks is gone, and there is no guarantee they'll get Putz back, along with trading Linebrink. At this point, the most reliable arm in their bullpen is Thornton, but he really didn't seem to enjoy the closer role. They're going to hit the hell out of the ball, only to see their games blown in the 9th, even more than they were this year.
I loved Werth and I'm sad to see him go but how stupid is Washington? Without an Utley and Howard in front of him I doubt you will see the numbers he put up in Philly. Ryan Zimmerman is a great player but he's a right handed bat, Werth shined as the only power hitting righty on the Phils. Why would you sign a guy until he's 39? Can't blame Werth though, he's got his ring now he's just going to grab that money. On sportscenter today the three teams that have been making moves for Cliff Lee are: The Yankees, Rangers and Nationals? I guess they really want to be taken seriously.
The owner of the Nationals is a billionaire, probably the richest owner in baseball besides the owner of the Twins (The guy that owns Walmart still owns them right?).
Carl Pohlad owned the Twins from '84-'09, when he died. His son Jim owns them now. Carl didn't have anything to do with Walmart, he was a financier who got started foreclosing farms in the great depression. He was the richest owner in baseball when he was alive though. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.startribune.com/business/16332206.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.startribune.com/business/16332206.html</a> Now granted, that article is from '08.
Like I said, that Forbes listing the article references is from '08, but at the time Pohlad was worth $3.2B.
Crawford signs with the Sox. 7 years $142M http://sports.espn.go.com/boston/mlb/news/story?id=5901372
I'm happy the Red Sox are making some moves after letting a very important piece in Victor Martinez walk. However I want to murder every single "fan" that thinks the Red Sox are anything different than the Yankees the way they're spending money. I'd much prefer parity and a salary cap in baseball but that's another issue all together. Carl Crawford banged a chick I'm friends with, maybe she can get me some tickets.
There have been 9 different World Series Champions in the last 10 years. How much parity do you need? By contrast, the NFL, with a cap system and supposedly the paradigm of professional sports parity, has had 7 Superbowl champions in the same time period, and 3 teams represented the AFC in 8 of those 10 years.
I'll take as much parity as I can get. My take on MLB is purely selfish. I travel quite a bit and enjoy watching games in other parks. It sucks when the end of July rolls around and half of major league teams are already out of it. You can't argue parity from sport to sport either. Coaching and coaching decisions are waaaaaay more important in the NFL & NBA than they are in MLB.
Okay, just saw this on Yahoo: Phillies land Lee over Yankees and Rangers For the past two weeks or so, it has been whether Lee would chose the Yankees or Rangers, and out of nowhere, the Phillies landed him. To say their rotation is sick at this point would be an understatement. Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, and Cole Hamels. Any of those guys would be the number 1 pitcher on most teams. To back this up, the Phillies still have a potent offense led by Utley and Howard. Just... damn.
Apparently Lee approached the Phils w.in the past 2 days to try to work out a deal because he loved playing there so much. That rotation is nasty. Watching them come to town isn't going to be fun at all. What will be fun is watching Amaro try to figure out their budget in the next few years. 2012 already has $120M allocated to only 10 players, and that doesn't include Hamels. Not like this org has a lot of upper level talent to cheaply slot in either, should get interesting.
Cliff Fucking Lee, what a great day. Rollins and Ibanez are both done at the end of this year and most likely will not be resigned. We really need a right handed bat, then we will be complete. Who needs a bullpen with those four?
EDIT: looks like this has been discussed, but isn't in place yet. - Fat joe blanton reportedly shipped to the red sox, although that doesn't seem to make much sense unless they're moving another arm. Fairly certain their pitching coach used to work w. Blanton though, so could be a bit of a reclaimation project. I'm already dreading the stupid nicknames the media comes up with to describe this rotation: four loko ("they'll drive your oense crazy!"), the four horsemen of the postseason, etc. I'm sure phils fans will just call the "the best rotation of all-time", not so sure that they'll be wrong.