Links for Saturday…
- Geoff Jenkins told Tom Haudricourt of The Journal Sentinel that he received several offers in Spring Training this year, but they were all jobs in Triple-A, which "wasn't in [his] heart." Earlier tonight we learned that Jenkins is close to announcing his retirement.
- Despite his team's poor start, Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail believes his team is on the right track with their rebuilding effort, says Peter Schmuck of The Baltimore Sun.
- Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News provides a follow-up to today's Bengie Molina discussion in a series of tweets. Baggarly says service time will not factor into Buster Posey's potential promotion, and doesn't think the Giants will shop Molina after Posey arrives. Baggarly adds that Molina's hamstring injury is not serious and no roster move will be needed.
- Molina told Kevin Burkhardt of SNY that he wanted to sign with the Mets and was ready to move his family to New York, but was upset that they refused to increase their offer to two guaranteed years. (hat tip to Matt Cerrone of MetsBlog.com)
- In a CMSB radio interview, Newsday's Ken Davidoff suggests that Cliff Lee and Paul Konerko will be two of the most interesting players to monitor as the trade deadline approaches.
- John Shea of The San Francisco Chronicle has some quotes from Eric Chavez, who admitted feeling pressure to perform since this is the last year of his contract. He also understands that the A's need a productive DH, which he hasn't been. Through 91 plate appearances, Chavez is hitting .220/.275/.305.
- CC Sabathia doesn't believe that Victor Martinez's impending free agency is the reason behind his former battery mate's slow start, according to WEEI.com's Alex Speier. V-Mart is hitting just .267/.330/.381 on the year, though he's picked it up of late.
- Joel Sherman of The New York Post wonders why the Yankees would do business with the injury prone Nick Johnson instead of waiting out Johnny Damon. Johnson left last night's game with a sore right wrist and appears headed for the disabled list.
- Ever wonder what happened to the six players that went to Florida in the Miguel Cabrera–Dontrelle Willis blockbuster? The Detroit Free Press has the answer.
Who needs Bengie when we have Baja Fresh?
Wow only Maybin turned out any real value. Willis was a bust too though I guess.
Miller is still only 23 and Badenhop is probably going to end up a solid bullpen guy for a few years, though. As long as Maybin keeps developing, Florida easily won this deal, especially for all of the salary they dumped on Detroit.
No matter who says what I chalk this up as a win for the Tigers based on Cabrera alone. He has been exactly the player ON the field they were hoping for, and Willis only had one year left on the contract at the time of the deal. His extension was a whole separate debacle, yet it is often thought of as part of the deal. As far as I’m concerned this is a polar opposite of that horrendous Renteria trade.
So Molina is upset that the Mets wouldnt commit 2 years and roughly 10m to him?
Hey Bengie, did you get ANY offers of 2 years? Hm..maybe because the market for catchers who have OBP BELOW .300 isnt that strong.
We have recently learned Bengie is an extreme Drama Queen; making such statements from him both understandable, and worthless
Bengie was reading those rumors of Omar favoring latin players…even with that, he still didnt get an extra year
when you hit 20 home runs and still finish the year with an OPS lower than luis castillo you know you can’t hit.
Damon would have been a better DH than Johnson. He can hit for a little more power and even though he doesn’t have the great on base skills as Johnson, he’s a better hitter and will be more durable. Johnson can’t even stay healthy as a DH.
Wow the yanks are one of the TOP TWO teams in baseball right now and people are still complaining about their offseason.. Damon wanted 2 years and NO paycut from the Yanks. That wasnt going to happen, so they went a different way. Matsui wasnt gonna come back for a pay cut. I read an article i forgot where, that taking a pay cut is disrespectful in Japan under most circumstances and hence why no offer was made and Matsui went to the Angels for less because it wasnt a paycut from that team. Was a good article wish i could remember where i read it. So instead of waiting around and playin games with Damon they signed Nick and made trades for grandy and javy. Albeit they arent working out now THE YANKS ARE STILL one of the TOP TWO teams and are just dominating teams. Can we atleast wait till the end of the season to complain about deals?
The Carter and Taylor era needs to start pretty soon in Oakland, Chavez and their outfield minus Sweeney has been brutal. I cant think of a worse 3&4 hitters than the A’s Sweeney and kouzmanof.
Of course Andy MacPhail believes this. But why should anyone believe him? Since his success with the Twins all those years ago, all he has done is lose. His stint with the Cubs was laughable. Andy MacFAIL!
Hes in the TOUGHEST division in baseball trying to build a team pretty much from the minors and his young and upcoming stars with a limited payroll, it going to be hard to do that over night i would say so give him a break unless you think you have what it takes to run a team
Yes I do as a matter of fact (think I have what it takes). Unfortunately, I don’t believe I’ll ever get the chance.
So let me get this straight: don’t have an opinion unless you can be a GM. Hmmm, so then I assume you never opine on anything seeing as you are not a player or GM or anything? Look, I never had that job, McPhail did. And he sucked when he was with the Cubs. All he cared about was running the business side. He is a moron. And I don’t have the be a GM to know that.
Well that would be pretty cool if you got the chance to then we could see if your a Billy beane or a jim hendry.No im not saying you cant have a opinion im just saying your cracking down on him way way to hard he did good with the twins he has build the O’s minor league farm up with good prospects and hes trying to compete in the toughest divison its gonna be a little hard
Yes I do as a matter of fact (think I have what it takes). Unfortunately, I don’t believe I’ll ever get the chance.
So let me get this straight: don’t have an opinion unless you can be a GM. Hmmm, so then I assume you never opine on anything seeing as you are not a player or GM or anything? Look, I never had that job, McPhail did. And he sucked when he was with the Cubs. All he cared about was running the business side. He is a moron. And I don’t have the be a GM to know that.
Guys like Chavez, who made their career based on ‘roids, just need to admit they can’t do what they did without the stuff and retire.
Don’t make accusatory statements when you have zero proof to back them up. Believe what you choose, but with no evidence you just sound like a moron.
He’s just a troll, judging from his previous statements. Ignore him. 😛
Juding from my previous statements? Are you stupid? I’m sure I understand baseball better than you do, I’ve been a professional writer for a long time. What have you done?
Juding from my previous statements? Are you stupid? I’m sure I understand baseball better than you do, I’ve been a professional writer for a long time. What have you done?
Listen, MLB players do not deserve the benefit of the doubt after all the lies and cheaters. With no evidence? Let me ask you this: are you one who thinks Bonds was clean? Let me know.
Listen, MLB players do not deserve the benefit of the doubt after all the lies and cheaters. With no evidence? Let me ask you this: are you one who thinks Bonds was clean? Let me know.
oh man- good thing jenkins finally announced his retirement, i can finally stop wondering about when he was coming back.
I dont know when Posada can play again, but when he comes back i think it’s time for him to be the DH, Cervelli is playing too well to take him out. If he goes to the DL along with Johnson, and Granderson, even though Montero is struggling at AAA, i can see him being called up around June or so.
To play where? You don’t bring up a top prospect to be a backup catcher, this isn’t football. When Montero comes up, he’s going to be the top dog at whatever position he ends up being placed. Unless you’re implying Montero takes over as catcher, Cervelli is backup and Posada is full time DH before platooning with Johnson when he’s healthy…
Johnson is hitting .286/.412/.643/1.055 this month.
I would say maybe its best you wait till at least the break before complaining about new acquisitions. But didnt you already learn this last season with Tex anyway?
The Yankees did want to sign Damon He was always their first choice, but they didn’t want to play Boras’ game yet again, which was to ignore the Yankees offers to negotiate, then wait until all other viable options are signed on the market, and then force the Yankees to pay more. They also didn’t want to give Damon a two-year deal since they want to keep the DH open as a rotation spot for their aging players starting in 2011, and also as an option for a Montero/Posada platoon. Boras’ plan didn’t match the Yankees plan so they moved on. The worst that could happen is Johnson is lost for the entire year and they go and replace him with somebody else. Finding a DH is not that hard. Is there something about how the Yankees are playing that disappoints you?
Yes… But in Japan it is disrespectful to take a paycut from what i read and if matsui were to return to Japan after his career he would look foolish to some people back home for having to take a paycut. Matsui is a very honor driven person/player and instead of having to go through all of the drama like damon took the angels offer quickly not to cause a scene with the Yanks. The Yanks and Yanks fans loved/love Matsui still from seeing the interaction of when he came back to the stadium ive never seen another player get cheered so much and get a standing o on another team at home. Yanks and Matsui had a great time but he wasnt worth the what 16million he made the season before. So they went seperate ways, there was absolutely NO way matsui and the yanks would be back together this season hence why they went different ways so quickly.
This is what i remember understanding from the article
Actually, they offered Damon a two-year deal. He refused.
He wanted more money and more years. It was on the very day of the Johnson signing that Damon agreed to two years but he wanted MORE cash per year.
Frankly, I would also rather have Nick for 1 year than Damon at two.
Injuries have sidelined Nick Johnson for a significant length of time in nine of the last 10 seasons:
2000
Strained a muscle in his right hand on a checked swing in a Grapefruit League game. Missed the entire season.
2002Suffered a bone bruise in his left wrist while catching a line drive. Missed 24 games.
2003Went on the DL with a stress fracture of the third metacarpal bone in his right hand. Missed 61 games.
2004Missed the first 46 games of the season with a lumbar strain; fractured his right cheekbone in a game Aug. 20 and missed the rest of the season.
2005Suffered right heel contusion while trying to touch home plate to avoid a tag. Missed 24 games.
2006, ’07Fractured his right femur in a collision with Nationals teammate Austin Kearns on Sept. 23. Missed the rest of the season and the entire 2007 season.
2008Injured his right wrist tendon sheath on a swing May 13. Missed the rest of the season.
2009 Was on the DL from Aug. 16 (his second game of season) until Sept. 3 with a strained right hamstring.
It may be fair to say that seeing Nick Johnson is on the DL again, might lead people to make the ( logical ) conclusion that this is just par for the course and question the decision to bring someone so injury-prone on board. Hindsight is often 20/20 but anyone who thought NJ was going to remain healthy this year is smoking the good ganja.
If only he could have played OF, we could use his bat right about now.
Cardinals could anyway.
I was thinking the same thing. Yes, Damon can DH, just like any other old fart on the Yanks but I didn’t know Damon played first base. Someone remind me why people are mentioning Johnson and Damon in the same sentence?
NJ has actually done better than Matsui, -0.1 WAR to -0.2 WAR. .236/.309/.400 isn’t doing good, neither are hitting but at least Johnson is getting on base.
Well he hasnt in a while but before they Signed Tex and they wasnt sure who was going to be the firstbasemen Matsui and damon said they would try for it with damon having a leg up because he played some in the minors and spring at first i belivie and matsui came up through japan as a infielder but his knees wasnt that healthy so they signed tex instead having someone playing what coulda been out of positon
Because Joel Sherman is an ass.
Not that I’m disagreeing with you entirely, but I don’t know where you’re getting your data, because August 16 of 2009 was NOT Johnson’s second game of the season. If I’m somehow mistaken, it’s awfully impressive that he could accumulate over 570 plate appearances from September 3rd through the end of the season.
you’re right, sorry about that. I saw that on Newsday.com. I didn’t see that part about it being his 2nd game of the season. He missed around 25 games last season. ( A relatively healthy season for NJ )
all i know is that in over 10 years, NJ has averaged just over 90 games a year. he has only played over 129 games in a year 4x. now with the all-star lineup they have, 1-8 are filled with all-stars and very capable players so one injury-prone DH is not going to be the end of the world.
The real reason why Matsui went to the Angels was because he wanted to play the field, not because of a paycut.
I haven’t watched too many Angel games but I did see Matsui in LF during ST, what a bad idea.
It wasnt a paycut from the Angels considering he had never played for him. So instead of being “dishonored” or “dishonoring” the yanks by going through the ordeal of making an offer or recieving an offer from them they parted in a civil way. The Angels were the only team to offer him time playing in the field eventhough he has rarely done so except i think once or twice. Im not pretending i know the reason or anything just was stating i read a cool article about the whole ordeal on why Matsui wasnt an option back in NY so thats why it didnt happen
Oh exactly, Johnson is a terrific player…when healthy. Which is rare. I hope for his sake that he can manage to stay healthy for an extended period of time and prove that he’s still a good player, but his career is just pockmarked with injuries.