Links for Saturday…
- The time Scott Schoeneweis spent with the Brewers in Spring Training likely gave him a leg up on Alan Embree this season, writes Ian Browne of MLB.com. Embree was DFA'd yesterday by the BoSox in order to make room for Daisuke Matsuzaka.
- Dodgers prospect Andrew Lambo was suspended 50 games for his second violation of baseball's drug policy, tweets Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times. Prior to the 2009 season, the outfielder ranked 49th on Baseball America's top 100 prospects list.
- Jim Bowden of XM Radio (via Twitter) spoke to Adrian Gonzalez, who says that he's not looking at Ryan Howard's new contract.
- With a good outing for Double-A Harrisburg tomorrow, the Nats will promote Stephen Strasburg to Triple-A Syracuse, writes MLB.com's Bill Ladson.
- The Mets' Triple-A affiliate cut lefty Travis Blackley loose, tweets Adam Rubin of ESPNNewYork.com. The move will make room for the returning Elmer Dessens.
- ESPN's Buster Olney notes that Barry Zito has reinvented himself this season, and is starting to deliver a little of what the Giants were expecting when they signed him for $126MM.
- Mark Bradley of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution doesn't believe the Braves can compete with the lineup as constructed.
- Within this piece, Richard Justice of The Houston Chronicle mentions that prior to trading Brad Lidge to the Phillies, the Indians were willing to part with Cliff Lee to obtain the All-Star closer. That was the offseason prior to Lee's breakout Cy Young season.
- In an article for ESPN Boston, Mike Andrews of SoxProspects.com looks at the Red Sox depth and what the backup plans are should any of the regulars get injured.
maybe im just being nit-picky, but wasn’t 05 cliff lee’s breakout year? then he had some injury filled years followed by the cy young year.
Sure, he had some pretty good years from 2004-2006, but 2008 was the season he really cranked it up a notch.
Braves can compete all alright; as soon as McCann, Glaus, Diaz, McLouth and Chipper start hitting. It’s easy to get down on them this early… they’re not hitting… overall, their offence isn’t terrific, but I’d say it’s in the top 6 in the NL.(Realistic Projections)McCann .287/.364/.476Glaus .264/.362/.463Chipper .271/.384/.448Melky and Escobar need to pick it up too!
really, the whole offence, sauve Prado are under achieving
I am enjoying Zitos new found success, but I wouldn’t remind people of his contract anymore than you have to, at least not yet. Winning 4 games isn’t going to make me forget the 3 losing seasons hes also had.
I’m with you on that. Zito’s contract was his ‘fault’, it’s not like he sat across from sabean and said I want $126,000,000 or no dice. It is encouraging to see him throwing so well, especially in April and now May.
I’m with you on that. Zito’s contract was his ‘fault’, it’s not like he sat across from sabean and said I want $126,000,000 or no dice. It is encouraging to see him throwing so well, especially in April and now May.
Mark Bradley is a hack when it comes to baseball, all he’s looking for is a headline.
I thought he got fired months ago, but I guess I was wrong.
Is Mark Bradley serious? Ever Heard of bad starts Mark?? If I do recall, Frank Wren doesn’t have a Ted Turner of an owner like John S. did. Don’t get me wrong, Frank Wren is no where near as good of a GM as Sherhueltz was, but he doesn’t have a billionare giving him funds either.
Also, these braves players will get out of their slumps. If i recall, the braves posted around 13 runs or so against the Cubs in the first game of the season with CaRLOS Zambrano and company, so they are capable of scoring, you just have to give them some time. However though, the only things that are keeping the Braves breathing right now are Martin Prado and Jason Heyward.
Never take anything Mark Bradley writes seriously. In fact, don’t ever actually read anything Mark Bradley writes.
It seems like the Indians were kind of lucky to hold on to Lee long enough to get that Cy Young season out of him. He was being shopped all over the place. He came very close to being dealt in a package for Jason Bay as well. Of course you can say that about a lot of guys who went on to do good things. The Phillies reportedly almost traded Ryan Howard 3 or 4 times before he even reached the majors.
They did shop him around, but they never seemed ready to pull the trigger. Lee is one of those guys that had pretty good command of his pitches, but never seemed to be consistently good until 2008. Eh, it’s pitching. It goes that way for a lot of them. They wake up one day, walk out to the mound, and seem like they figured it out overnight.
I don’t live in or around Atlanta or even in Georgia for that matter so I don’t really know much about this Bradley guy so I’m not gonna complain. What I am doing however is taking this as a journalist who is just trying to add another angle to a running story. Although he could be a complete moron, I’m just guessing that he’s doing his job as a reporter. If I’m wrong please tell me.
Hahaha, I appreciate your openness to new ideas. However, first off Bradley is a columnist, not a reporter, so while he may have a source or two somewhere, really most of what he writes is just opinion without much more information than you or I may have.
He also tends to want to make big pronouncements. “I hereby declare the Braves roster non-competitive” (paraphrasing).
Bradley really has nothing to support his argument except that they have sucked so far. But really, the day he posted that article several of those same players looked a lot better at the plate. So honestly, I wouldn’t say his opinion is worth any more deference than any doomsayer on any message board.
That’s not to say he’s definitely wrong. But honestly, I think our pitching is so good, that if our offense gets to above average, we can compete. That’s not to say it’s a sure thing the offense will rebound enough, but I think everyone realizes that the offense will be better. Still less than a month into the season, I think it’s not really smart to say they this offense is done.
I don’t see what’s wrong with saying the Braves offense isn’t good enough, he’s just calling a spade a spade. Sure, they aren’t playing to their career bests, but why should Chipper be expected to have a huge rebound at his age, and Glaus shouldn’t be that surprising either. Then they have a fossilized back of the bullpen, not really the best recipe for success.
I don’t know why McLouth has been so bad in Atlanta. He looked very good in Pittsburgh, I guess NH did the right thing by selling high on him, but they still didn’t get much in return.
Why is everyone making such a big deal about the Zito deal? Its smaller than Sabathia’s and Zito is completly and utterly dominating while Sabathia has been pitching like a number 2 starter this season.
Yeah well he wasn’t last season – or the season before. Anyway there’s no point talking about big deals after Sabathia was signed. That is the nature of business – each big deal is bigger than the last. However, at the time Zito was signed by Sabean it was the biggest deal of its kind, and until now Zito did very little to “justify” it. Besides, with a contract like that the idea is not to have just one good year. It is to dominate decently in ALL the years of that contract – or at least perform on a high level. Zito hasn’t really done that either. So that’s why the fuss.
Yes we will all forget his first seasons in SF.
if the bravos want to be more consistent, they should (in the short term) bat prado leadoff and platoon hinske and glaus. they probably need to add another bat if they want to be playing ball in october, though.
but all in all mark bradley just wants attention. there’s still lots of time (138-ish games, i think) to turn things around. most of the players he mentions are very unlikely to slump for much longer. it’s not like they’ve got a murderer’s row, but they should start to hit much better soon.
Well looks like the red sox will have to give their farm for Adrian Gonzalez…with their pitching woes I doubt they can even think of trading Buchholz. If they play this bad until the deadline, they should just wait for the offseason and possibly sign someone like Dunn or Pena. Or maybe even sign Cantu and werth, move jd to dh.
First off where do the Red Sox play A-Gon (assuming you meant trade for him this year), as DHing him, Youk, or Beltre would be a poor choice. Also, I thought a lot of J.D.’s value was tied to his defense so if the Sox wanted to sign Werth they’d probably be better served trying to move Cameron or make him a 4th OF.
First off where do the Red Sox play A-Gon (assuming you meant trade for him this year), as DHing him, Youk, or Beltre would be a poor choice. Also, I thought a lot of J.D.’s value was tied to his defense so if the Sox wanted to sign Werth they’d probably be better served trying to move Cameron or make him a 4th OF.
Well looks like the red sox will have to give their farm for Adrian Gonzalez…with their pitching woes I doubt they can even think of trading Buchholz. If they play this bad until the deadline, they should just wait for the offseason and possibly sign someone like Dunn or Pena. Or maybe even sign Cantu and werth, move jd to dh.
Adrian Gonzalez can say that, but his agent John Boggs took a long hard look at it. Many baseball people feel that AG is a better player than Howard when you look at AG’s road numbers, his glove and the fact that he has put up those numbers with no one around him in comparison to numbers guys like Fielder and Howard put up. The Phillies over paid for Howard and that shouldn’t mean that Pujols should get 30M, Fielder 25M or AG 25M
Adrian Gonzalez can say that, but his agent John Boggs took a long hard look at it. Many baseball people feel that AG is a better player than Howard when you look at AG’s road numbers, his glove and the fact that he has put up those numbers with no one around him in comparison to numbers guys like Fielder and Howard put up. The Phillies over paid for Howard and that shouldn’t mean that Pujols should get 30M, Fielder 25M or AG 25M