On this date in 2006, the Diamondbacks came to terms with Justin Upton after making him the first overall pick in the 2005 draft. The signing deadline back then was the next year's draft, not mid-August. Upton received a $6.1MM bonus, the largest ever given out as part of a minor league contract for a drafted player at the time. He mashed his way to the big leagues less than two years later and already has two All-Star Game nods to his credit. Upton also finished fourth in the NL MVP voting this year after hitting .289/.369/.529 with 31 homers. Here are the first links of 2012…
- MLB Reports interviewed Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com.
- Rum Bunter interviewed Pirates second baseman Neil Walker.
- Baseball Time In Arlington looked at what went wrong with Daisuke Matsuzaka and what it means for Yu Darvish.
- The Cub Reporter will miss the always entertaining Carlos Zambrano.
- FishStripes says the Zambrano trade is about as even as possible.
- Bleacher Nation broke down the newest Cub, Chris Volstad.
- Chicken Friars likes the Carlos Quentin trade for the Padres.
- South Side Sox says GM Kenny Williams has painted the White Sox into a corner.
- River Ave. Blues explains why Edwin Jackson reminds them of Rafael Soriano.
- Royals Review thinks Jackson is a great fit for the Royals.
- The Todd Van Poppel Rookie Card Retirement Plan doesn't like the Athletics bringing back Coco Crisp.
- Nolan Writin' says Mike Napoli deserves Victor Martinez money.
- Wahoo's On First thinks Manny Ramirez is a fit for the Indians.
- Bless You Boys doesn't think the Tigers should acquire Matt Garza.
- Through The Fence Baseball looks at the significance of the Garza rumors.
- Crashburn Alley wonders if Jonathan Papelbon is the next Mariano Rivera.
- Rays Insider explores the possibility of Kurt Suzuki for the Rays.
- House of the Bluebird looks at what it would take for the Blue Jays to extend Brandon Morrow.
- Twins Fan From Afar thinks the Twins should sign Francisco Liriano long-term.
- Camden Crazies analyzed the Orioles' recent moves involving Jai Miller and Brandon Snyder.
- Warehouse Worthy wrote about how the new CBA will impact the Orioles.
- Red Sox Post lists some starting pitcher options for the Red Sox.
- The McAuliffe Report is glad the Red Sox brought back Rich Hill.
- More Mariners previewed the Mariners bullpen.
- SaBEERmetrics makes a Hall of Fame case for Larry Walker.
- Giants Nirvana reopens Will Clark's Hall of Fame case.
- Baseball Reality Tour lists MLB's 24 best players under 24 years of age.
- Bleacher Report ranks the 50 biggest trades in baseball history.
- M.C. Antil looks back at some baseball deaths we may have missed in 2011.
- MLB Draft Insider introduces us to the 12 best college position players available in next year's draft.
If you have a suggestion for this feature, Mike can be reached here. Only one email per week, please.
Manny Ramirez to Cleveland actually isnt that bad of an idea….
I will admit that I didn’t bother to read the article but WHY in God’s name would the Twins want to extend Liriano? He has been the poster child for inconsistent and fragile yet extremely talented pitchers. The Twins should pray that he have a lights out 1st half just so they can trade him at the deadline and get a good prospect back in return.
Liriano would have to be willing to extend at a team friendly rate to make the risk digestable for the Twins and I doubt he would. Team friendly meaning 2/$12 with incentives and team options. Some sucker would be willing to offer at least that and more if he were a free agent.
jk
Liriano is a perfect candidate for vesting options. maybe a 2/12 with 3 vesting options worth 10 mill each if he pitches 180 innings.
Fortunately, that Crashburn Alley piece answers its own question: no, Papelbon is NOT the next Mariano Rivera. One of them relies on a low-90’s cutter that hitters never figured out, the other relies on a mid-nineties FB.
Papelbon will be an elite closer for a while and there’s even an outside shot that he’ll hold out for the entire contract he just got, but he has no shot at Mo’s longevity. Historically, he wears down at the tail end of the year when using his good arm slot and when he alters said arm slot, his slider becomes a useless recipe for free passes and hitters sit on his fastball.
“Crashburn Alley wonders if Jonathan Papelbon is the next Mariano Rivera.”
I’ll give this poster a helping hand with his decision.
No.
An affirmative. No.
A no chance in hell. No.
I was ready to blast it, but if you read the article, that’s basically what the article says. To sum it up in one paragraph:
Papelbon has the potential to be every bit the elite closer as Rivera talentwise (Which is true, Mo has never and probably will never top Papelbon’s 2006 and his ’07 and ’08) can hang with just about any season Rivera’s ever had), but he has almost no chance of showing the longevity and consistency Rivera has shown. Billy Wagner seems like a more reasonable comp.
“The Todd Van Poppel Rookie Card Retirement Plan”
Great blog name, or the greatest blog name?
I’ve always been fond of “I have 136 Kevin Mass Rookie Cards” as a name for a Yankee blog.
Or Matt Nokes for a Tigers fan.
oooh..I remember that guy too.
Thought you might
To the buyers of Matt Nokes, Kevin Maas and “TVP”.. if you ever purchased those highly recommended rookie cards anywhere in the NYC area in the late 80’s-early 90’s then please forgive me. I was a purveyor of the must have, sure fire, can’t miss rookie investment lots of that time. I made a lot of money off of you. I am sorry. I hope you put some of your money into stocks not named Enron, Worldcom or Tyco.
Please extend this to anyone who bought into the Ben McDonald, Mike Harkey, Hensley Meulens and my personal favorite…..Sam Horn (you suckers).
If Will Clark ever gets in HOF so should Don Mattingly.
That story about Shannon Stone still makes me sad
I bet Liriano has a big year in 2012. A chance to get a C.J. Wilson type contract is enough incentive for him and if you look over his career he has followed a bad year with a good one.
There is “No Chance In Hell” that Jonathan Papelbon will ever be in the same level or league as Rivera. There is only one Mariano Rivera & There is never going to be another, the Greatest Closer Of All-Time in MLB History Period !!
Another issue people fail to realize in this comparison is winning and what I mean by that is Mo was a franchise player who always played for the Yankees, a team that’s won more than 87 (avg of 92/93) games in a season for the last 16-17 years. While both Boston another recent perennial winner and the Phillies a more recent consistent winner, what’s to be said when Papelbons contract is up? What if the Phillies NL reign or terror ends in the next 3 years (when frankly, they’ll lose most of their star players) and Papelbon leaves to only wind up closing for the Pirates 5/6 years from now? Papelbon has good stuff, no doubt, but I just don’t see the same type of dominate consistency that Mo has produced.
A player can be consistently dominant (Dominant, the word is dominant and this goes for just about everyone on this website, a place with rampant misuse of the word and oh god it drives me nuts) and play chunks of their career for awful teams. Ted Williams played for some really bad Red Sox teams and sticking with the closer thing, Wagner was one of the best closers of all time and he pitched for some mediocre Astros clubs and his time with the Phillies was forgettable, but he still mopped up. Then there’s Trevor Hoffman who held the saves record (Albeit briefly) despite spending the vast majority of his career with the eternal also-ran Padres.
The team does not dictate the player.
I’ll agree with your comparison, but I still believe that a winning team provides more opportunity.
Oh yeah, I’m guessing the misuse and misspelling of the word dominant probably isn’t the only thing that makes you nuts. Offering Ortiz arbitration, now that I could see making someone nuts. I’m joking so let’s not get into it.
I don’t get it, it’s not just here. Every single sports blog I go to is rotten with it and it’s not just among people who write like thirteen year olds (I saw SWP do it the other day). I’m not a typical grammar nut who will go in and correct every single little mistake, but it seriously got to a point once where I actually had to double check a dictionary to make sure dominate couldn’t be properly used in that context because I was wondering if maybe I was missing something new in the world of English.
As to the topic, a winning team kind of offers more of an opportunity in some situations, but not necessarily as a closer. Look at Fuentes, he racked up saves by playing on a good but not great team because the Angels rarely had legit blowouts back in the day. Honestly, Rivera would probably have a lot more saves if he didn’t play for a team that consistently wins by more than three runs (Or conversely, he may have blown out his arm years ago due to overuse).
See Trevor Hoffman who racked up save after save despite having great but not necessarily dominant career numbers. He’s an example of a guy who benefited by being a closer for a mediocre team because he got tons of opportunities for saves. He’ll quite possibly make the HoF due to his saves numbers and brief holding of the record despite never having been the best closer in the league at any given point in his career.
I see your point there and well made.. A good/simple way of putting it into words. Possibly writers should take note of that as well.
I go back to lee Smith (again).. a better closer who still is waiting over Hoffman and was dominant for 15 seasons.
I thought it was “dominate”…
Just kidding.