Odds And Ends

Random stuff for a Thursday afternoon...

• Grant Brisbee of McCovey Chronicles reacts to the idea of extending the contract of Giants GM Brian Sabean.
• RotoAuthority takes a look back at the career of Lastings Milledge as well as discusses his fantasy prospects for this year.
• The Marlins' president had some interesting comments on the Ichiro contract.  Also, Tim Brown makes a good point on Mike Piazza - the A's could easily trade him during August.
• Mark Teixeira opens up for Jennifer Floyd Engel.  He mentions that the Rangers have never offered him a contract extension.
• If you write something compelling on your blog regarding a trade, signing, or rumor, feel free to email me with a link.  I will link to a few here on the site but beyond that I'm always looking for good blogs to add to my feed reader.
• A-Rod: definitely a $30MM+ player, and not negotiating before season's end.  This should be a wild winter.
• Mark Buehrle: overpaid.  Sorry for ruining the ending of this Hardball Times post for you.
• JoeSportsFan takes a hilarious look at some 80s baseball cards.  (Found via The Big Lead).

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Comments

[johnflaherty]

I know Cashman says Hughes, Chamberlain, and Kennedy are untouchable, but I think minus Hughes, if he could get Teixeira for one of the other two, he should do it. Teixeira's a good guy to go forward with a franchise with.

[rype123]

That's an interesting article on Buehrle. I disagree though on his being overpaid, even if he does get hurt. But he's shown that he has been relatively healthy, and as of now, it looks like he'll remain that way. Maybe his arm will break down, maybe it won't, there's no way anyone could know, even stat geeks.

One thing's for sure, the past couple of years, he's been pretty close to Zito in terms of production. Given what Zito got this past offseason, Buehrle definitely is a bargain, especially when you consider it's only 4 years and not 7. If this year is an indication on how Zito will digress, he's going to be a high priced 5th man.

[buehrlebro]

Let me be the first to say, as a baseball fan, I have to say that that article was BS. As many times as these all knowing stat heads are right, they are wrong more often. He just wanted the chance to be right, so in case Buehrle does regress signifigantly, he can say "I told you so" and gain credit, knowing he won't be discredited for the higher chance of being dead wrong. Look at it this way...I'm sure many of the 37-whatever piychers he brought up were alcoholic fatasses who throw as hard as they could on every fastball. Buehrle is not that type of pitcher. He stays in great shape and is also a finesse pitcher, and isn't going to regress like that over the next few years. Look at guys like Michael Cuddyer, Alex Rios, Carlos Pena. Everyone had them as locks to be stars, but it took growing pains and frustrating results(Rios was thought to have little power at one point, maybe not the best example) but it took longer than they expected. Buehrle might eventually regress as all players do but it will be 10, 12, 14 years from now. He is like the type of pitcher Glavine is, who can adjust to losing velocity.

Take the Hafner comparisons, like McCovey and Vaughn. They were all huge guys who were limited by their weight and size, especially in Vaughn's case. Hafner is big and strong, yes, but not nearly that girthy or heavy. The same people would have to say that Sabathia, Zambrano, and even Matsuzaka would be grossly overpaid and not valuable because of their workloads early in their careers. Not directed at you, Tim, not at all, but it pisses me off when guys like this think they're right because a computer says they are.

[TheWrightStuff]

1st off 90% of baseball players are overpaid. There is no reason people should be making 20+ million dollars kid and people have to pay to play it's crazy.

But I don't understand why relievers are so underpaid. I mean just about the best reliever on the Mets(Pedro Feliciano) is making I think less than 700,000. Yet a decent starter could easily make 12 million. I never understood that.

How about that hustle today by Milledge his speed won us the game with that sick slide at home. I never thought I would say this but boy am I glad the Mets didn't trade Milledge and he is playing now.

[Tim Dierkes]

Again, they are not overpaid. If you were able to be one of the 700 guys working at their company, a company that made billions, you'd want millions.

[ballyb11]

WHO ARE THESE GUYS?

Can we find out who these 37 pitchers in the history of baseball are?

[JerseyMetFan]

It's a great day to be a Met fan.

Rickey is back, Marlon Anderson is back, Milledge is back, and Julio Franco is OUT.

I love it.

(yes, I know this all happened yesterday... I'm still giddy)

[beauhoopman]

Seriously, stop saying that baseball players are overpaid. If you don't like the market, then complain about the market. But relative to the market, they are NOT overpaid.

[JerseyMetFan]

It's one perspective that since MLB makes so much money that the players should get a big piece of the pie. That's one perspective.

I think what a lot of people also beleive is that these guys are getting millions of dollars to play a game. In that perspective, they are VASTLY overpaid.

[wihargo]

The players are only overpaid if you think that the fans overvalue the game.
People always say stuff like "they should give that money to some one who really makes a difference like police/teachers/etc" but really its us the fans who want to pay those people the least we can so we can have disposible income to buy tickets and merch.

Although, I guess they could just nationalize the prosports leagues and use them to create government revenue.

[beauhoopman]

But at the same time, the salaries are part of what makes baseball a Utopian dream. I'm sure that many of us would like to see a less commercialized, purer, version, but the dream of baseball, as it exists today, is connected to countless wealth and prosperity. We dream of making the major leagues, hitting it rich, and all that good stuff. I don't have any problem with that at all.