This Week in Baseball 7/13 - 7/19

[alkeiper]

God bless late drop-outs. That's how backup catchers become all stars. The first guy to answer his phone goes to St. Louis.

 

[CanadianChris]

Drunk Jays Fans crystallized my thoughts on Halladay perfectly:

We all know, at least in the back of our minds, though we don’t like to admit, that moving Doc now when his value is at his highest really is the most prudent thing for the franchise. What kills us—kills us—is that the most prudent thing last year would have been to move AJ Burnett. Instead, they hung onto him to save face—to continue give the appearance that they believed they could make a playoff run, and that they could re-sign him in the off-season—and because they assumed they’d get the signing team’s first round pick, plus a sandwich pick, and not the cocksucking third-rounder they ended up with when the Yankees signed him, thanks to baseball’s fucked up compensation system. What kills us is that the most prudent thing to do between ‘06 and ‘07 was to take the goddamn hit on season ticket sales, and get whatever assets possible in exchange for the year that was then left on Vernon Wells’ contract. Instead, as usual, to save face—in this case, what they termed the “face of the franchise”—they somehow got mother Rogers to cough up the money for one of the most disgusting, hamstringing, albatross contracts in the history of the sport.

And now this guy—this guy—is the one where they actually seem prepared to do the right thing for the franchise? Not those pieces of shit—this guy? Roy fucking Halladay? A legit, home-grown, Hall of fucking Fame calibre talent? Now you have to be forward-thinking and not piss away assets that are destined to leave anyway? Now you have to do what’s right and damn the consequences from fans?

Ugh. Fuck you.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

It will be a joyous day for me when Ricciardi gets fired.

 

[geniusMoment]

To me trading Roy is like trading Pujols. It's pointless. Whoever you get back is only ever going to be as good as the guy you traded, as you just traded the bar against which everyone else is measured. And the chances of them being as good are basically none. Your only hope is getting 2 of those caliber players, and the chances of any team giving that up is zero.

 

[treble]

Ricciardi's a pretty decent GM, actually. He's made some mistakes, but every GM does. I mean, the Wells contract is awful, obviously, but that was apparently mostly ownership's doing.

He'll get fired, get a job somewhere else, and make the playoffs there with a weaker team than some of the Toronto teams, then every Blue Jay fan will whine and wonder why he couldn't do that for the Jays.

 

[alkeiper]

I dunno. I haven't seen Riccardi do anything amazing for the Blue Jays. The talk was that Riccardi would install a more Moneyball system in place. He's been in charge almost eight years, and the farm system is still weak.

 

[treble]

He's not a great GM, but he's better than most give him credit for, I think. His bad moves might overshadow a lot of the good ones he's made, but he's going to be directly compared to the other guys in his division and guys like Epstein and Cashman have more resources and Friedman inherited a team that was awful for 10 years and had stockpiled a lot of high draft picks and prospects.

Mostly, I'm just saying that I don't see Ricciardi's eventual dismissal as general manager as some reason to celebrate unless a new GM is going to have some magic wand that is going to stop injuries to pitchers.

 

[MFer]

Lot of warning track shots tonight. Nice to see the Tigers' players performing well after Inge turned in an epic fail in the HR derby yesterday.

 

[KingPK]

So Carl Crawford got MVP for a catch? This game did suck.

 

[jimmy no nose]

Possible quote of the year from Dayton Moore on trading for Yuniesky Bettancourt:

"The defensive statistics - I still really don't understand how some of those statistics are evaluated, I really don't. When you watch baseball games every single day, its very apparent who can play defensively and who can't."

If that's not a guy you want as your GM I don't know who is.

 

[alkeiper]

That's the problem right there. Dayton needs to stop watching all the Mariners games and start watching all the Royals games.

And yes, the All-Star game was incredibly dull this year.

 

[alkeiper]

MLB Network has been showing past All-Star games all week. I was stunned by the VQ of the 1971 game.

 

[alkeiper]

I love the Roy Halladay talk. "Can we get Halladay for X, Y and Z, while not giving up our two best prospects?" Umm, no.

 

[the pinjockey]

That's bull and you know it. Carrasco, Donald, Savery and a mediocre high A guy is plenty.

Tell you what, want to drive a hard bargain, I'll throw in Kyle Kendrick. He is major league ready.

 

[treble]

It's great, isn't it?

My favourite was some Rangers fan saying he'd give up guys like Davis, Jones, and Guardado, but nothing more.

 

[OG]

Trading Halladay is retarted. If we EVER want to be contenders, we need a #1 ace and no way we'll get back better than Halladay. Not to mention the amount of season ticket holders lost will mean even less spent on free agents and will bring us back to the same hole we're in now but without the best pitcher in baseball.

 

[the pinjockey]

My favorite part is this type of exchange:

two weeks ago: "Halladay is arguably the top pitcher in the game"

::Halladay becomes available::

"well, how much is he really going to be an improvement on what Happ is doing? Maybe one extra win the rest of the way? And he is 32, he is getting older and could become an injury concern."

 

[alkeiper]

Heh, yeah. If I hear one more Phillies fan say that Happ is untouchable, I'm going to scream.

 

[Taxman]

Can "Neither, I'd pry open the doors and jump into an empty shaft" be added to the poll?

With Pedro on board and the Halladay pursuit still active, will Myers be sent packing if the trade goes through?

 

[alkeiper]

Myers is going to be a 2010 decision. He's a free agent after this season and while normally he might walk, his injury status might make him attractive as a cheap re-sign.

 

[Bored]

MLB Network has been showing past All-Star games all week. I was stunned by the VQ of the 1971 game.

I watched the '87 game over the weekend and in the 9th inning there was a collision at the plate between Dave Winfield and Ozzie Virgil with Winfield being called out for the final out of the inning. If he had scored the A.L. would have won 1-0 but the N.L. went on to win the game in 13 innings. Only thing though was it was clear on the replay that Virgil never tagged Winfield and it really wasn't even close. He hit him with his right forearm but his glove didn't touch him. The announcers ignored it and just talked about what a great play it was by Virgil.

I know this is interesting to absolutely no one but me and from what I can find there was no real controversy regarding the play. So it goes to show you even over 20 years ago, no one cared that much about the outcome of the All-Star Game.

 

[alkeiper]

Portland's ballpark is quite an interesting sight. I've never seen a park quite like it.

 

[jimmy no nose]

Someone needs to alert NL managers not to use Padres pitchers in the All Star Game. 3 losses in the last 4 years. How do they do that?

 

[Cheech]

It's called not pitching in Petco.

 

[Cheech]

By the way, you have to love that quote by Dayton Moore. That's one apple that fell really far from the Schuerholz tree.

 

[jimmy no nose]

AAA All Star Game got exciting for a second at the end when Esteban German hit a 2 run HR to bring the PCL within a run with 2 outs in the 9th. Eric Young couldn't keep it going though. Whoever Erik Kratz is was the man in the game for the IL.

 

[Czech]

By the way, you have to love that quote by Dayton Moore. That's one apple that fell really far from the Schuerholz tree.

Schuerholz has never valued iffy fielding statistics either, to the best of my knowledge.

 

[Vitamin X]

Portland's ballpark is quite an interesting sight. I've never seen a park quite like it.

In what way?

I love the hell out of PGE Park. It's a few blocks from my house and it's awesome as an urban ballpark. It's a real shame they're trying to "reconstruct" it and make it a soccer-only stadium for MLS. Fucking b.s.

 

[Big Beard Booty Daddy]

I love the Phillies signing Pedro and then putting him in the 15 day DL.

 

[Bored]

Reminder, MLB Extra Innings is having it's annual post-ASB free preview. It runs through next Wednesday.