Why isn't there more baseball today? Links for Tuesday…
- BoSox manager Terry Francona is glad that the organization hammered out Josh Beckett's extension before it became a media circus, writes Brian MacPherson of The Providence Journal.
- I'll be joining Jeff & Jeff on KFNS St. Louis today at 1:25pm CST. Click here to listen live.
- SI's Jon Heyman wonders if the Diamondbacks and Rockies will get in on free agent lefty Jarrod Washburn.
- Josh Beckett initially wanted to top Carlos Zambrano's five-year, $91.5MM deal, reports WEEI's Rob Bradford. The market has changed since that deal was signed in August of '07, and the Red Sox secured Beckett for four years and $68MM.
- Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports says rival agents are exasperated by Adam Lind's four-year, $18MM extension, given the three club options. Frustrated agents – always a good sign for the team.
- Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch analyzes changes in the Cardinals' Opening Day payroll compared to '09.
- Steve Sommer of FanGraphs finds the best one-year deals at $2MM guaranteed or less for 2009, with Carl Pavano's Indians contract leading the way.
- The Twins look at seven factors when considering signing a young player to a long-term extension, learned Kelsie Smith of the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
- Baseball America's Will Lingo puts together a list of lesser-known future GM candidates in the latest Ask BA.
I don’t understand this years opening day schedule at all. Whats with teams having an off day in between games one and two?
Most of them always do. Typically April always has less games mostly to help ease players back into the season.
It’s in place to make allowance for an opening-day rainout, which is also why many opening games are scheduled in the day rather than at night.
Thursday day games follow the same thought: teams that play on Thursday are, more often than not, ending a series. If a Thursday night game is rained out it has to be scheduled later in the season, and the team(s) involved lose a bit of travel time in readying for the weekend set. Better to schedule a day game and play at night if it rains.
“It’s in place to make allowance for an opening-day rainout, which is also why many opening games are scheduled in the day rather than at night.”
Bingo.
It’s in place to make allowance for an opening-day rainout, which is also why many opening games are scheduled in the day rather than at night.
Thursday day games follow the same thought: teams that play on Thursday are, more often than not, ending a series. If a Thursday night game is rained out it has to be scheduled later in the season, and the team(s) involved lose a bit of travel time in readying for the weekend set. Better to schedule a day game and play at night if it rains.
Don’t understand all the hype for pavano , sure $2 million was decent but he was not anything special (accept a few games against a under acheiving Tigers lineup.) I think the Twins have better options then a Pitcher with an ERA in the mid 5’s.
If you toss out Pavano’s four worst starts his era would have been below 4.0. Also veteran players who start 33 games usually make significantly more than $2 million dollars per year.
Pavano had way better peripherals than his era would indicate. Also, a guy who throws 190+ innings AND goes something like 6-1 against the White Sox/Tigers pitching for a team in a tight division race, seems like $2m well spent
Actually, he is so bad that if you take away his best four starts then his ERA is 5.95. Don’t change stats to fit what you want them to say. If you are going to take away the best four, then take away the worst four giving an ERA of 4.65.
Carl Pavano is an innings eater at this point in his career. Nothing more, there is deff a price to be paid for that type of pitcher and I think 2M is about right, for a mid market team to get 175++ innings of 4.5 to 5.5 ERA for 2M is 2M well spent.
But i would think they would have a young guy sitting in triple A that could come up to the big leagues, throw slightly below average ball, and make less than that. I’m not talking take a stud prospect out of the minors too early, thus starting his arbitration clock too soon; but some guy that isn’t going to amount to more than a 4th or 5th starter. (B/C that is all Pavano is anyways) I would rather have a young guy get some experience for cheaper than 2M and who knows.. you may just stumble upon a diamond in the rough here and there…
So is it money well spent, overall i would have to say yes…..but is it “one of the best” 2M or less one year deals?? probably not. What about Lopez w/ the Cardinals, Edmonds, Troy Glaus, Randy Winn, off the top of my head there are four others that have a great chance of being better signings than Pavano.
Agreed. If you can get 175+ IP of near league average pitching for $2m then you have yourself a fine deal. Almost every team is paying someone more than that and getting something less than that and would be happy to take that deal.
But last year the Twins ran a parade of AAA and AA kids through that #5 slot and they all got killdozered. Pavano was way better than they expected, but they’d have been thrilled with a solid 4.75 ERA as long as no games were completely given away in blowouts. What you want from the back of the rotation is a chance to win, and the hope is that a veteran can provide more innings with less variance even if the ceiling is lower than some man-child from New Britain.
If you toss out Pavano’s four worst starts his era would have been below 4.0. Also veteran players who start 33 games usually make significantly more than $2 million dollars per year.