Links for Wednesday, after a roller coaster win by Joey Votto and the Reds…
- GM Doug Melvin told MLB.com's Adam McCalvy that the Brewers won't discuss an extension with Rickie Weeks until the season's over. Weeks, who will hit free agency after 2011, recently switched agents.
- Scott Downs, Jason Frasor, Shawn Camp, Kevin Gregg and John Buck all hit waivers, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (on Twitter). There's no indication that the Blue Jays intend on moving any of their players this month.
- Over at RotoAuthority, Tim Dierkes analyzes the seasons some top second basemen are having.
- Number 18 is an 'ace number' in Japan, so Daisuke Matsuzaka has a clause in his contract ensuring that he gets to wear it. Matsuzaka explained to Alex Speier of WEEI.com that a childhood idol of his, Masumi Kuwata, wore the number for the Yomiuri Giants.
- Ben Kabak of River Ave. Blues calls the Javier Vazquez trade a "true disappointment," but hesitates to label it a "true bust."
- Joel Sherman of the New York Post argues that the Mets should make decisions with the future of the organization in mind, instead of "letting a lame-duck manager make choices" to win as much as possible.
- Manny Ramirez isn't the only Dodger on waivers. As Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times notes (on Twitter), Casey Blake, Jay Gibbons and Scott Podsednik also hit the waiver wire today.
If Jerry Manuel is making “choices to win as much as possible,” looks like he forgot the “winning” part.
Trade dice-k.
Good luck. He’s not worth the 20 mil left on his contract for ’11 and ’12.
How about full no trade clause. Money isn’t a problem with him. He is worth 10mil a year
No reason to. Guy is putting up a solid ERA and has an ERA of 3.36 outside of his first 4 starts of the season plus going over an average 6.1 innings in those starts. Plus he is pretty cheap. Fans hate him but he isn’t a bad pitcher.
Does Daisuke also have a clause in his contract that requires him to throw 100 pitches before the fifth inning? Maybe another clause that requires a full minute before he throws the next pitch?
In fairness he has been going 6 innings per start.
Okay, Seriously lets be honest Dice K isn’t the phenomenon we thought he was going to be when he first came over from Japan in 2007. He was Decent in 2007, Great in 2008, Sucked in 09, and Decent again in 2010. But realistically what did you think we were getting when we signed him? I was expecting what we have gotten out of him except for last year. I wasn’t excepting a Ace out of this guy. I really didn’t want to sign him, but once we did, I said okay, he’ll be pretty good I guess, and that is what he has been. Is he worth 10 Million a year? Ehh you could argue a pretty solid point either way, but guess what, we have him and he isn’t going anywhere. So lets make the best of him? Shall we? I Mean come on We have Beckett, Lester, Lackey and Bucholz.. so technically Daisuke is a extremely good number 4 or 5 guy. On a lot of teams he probably would be the number 2 Guy. Maybe Number 1 on teams like Pittsburgh and stuff.
Fourth or Fifth starters should not be making 10 million a year. Ever.
He should in the Red Sox’s deep rotation. If he finishes the season being pretty good he will be worth 10mil according to WAR.
Ill take a pitcher with similar WAR who makes 5-6 million less. That extra money would be nice to put into our lineup…..
18 is _the_ ace number in Japan. Hideaki Wakui wears 18 now for Daisuke’s old team, Seibu, but didn’t take the number right away and even then did so with Daisuke’s blessing.
That’d be fine and dandy, Sherman, but Jerry refuses to use the same lineup more than once.
How about Dice’k for Manny?
I would go out on a limb and say that is a bad trade for the Sox.
Casey Blake to the ChiSox… let’s get some more defense at 3B.
lol Vizquel is doing just fine
I wouldn’t call the Vasquez trade a bust, even if he contributes nothing for the rest of the season. A disappointment yes, but I would look at the trade as getting a better Cano because I think getting rid of Melky was a huge part of Cano having such a breakout year.
And I was worried Cano wouldn’t have a good season because of melky leaving. Looks like Melky was a distraction
So Melky leaving helped Cano double his BB% and increase his power? Yeah, stop making assumptions
no i think Melky leaving changed his attitude as a whole. About a year or two ago Cano got benched because he didn’t run for a ball, now he’s becoming the heart and sole of the team. This is the first season where Cano has stepped out of that young player, immense potential and into the prime player mvp candidate. Whatever Melky’s influence was, Cano has changed himself around entirely since he left.
His attitude was bad when Melky was on the team. Must’ve been Melky’s fault!
or johnny damon, or hideki matsui? maybe it was ian kennedy’s fault.
Joeseph Daniel Votto 2010 National League Most Valueable Player
Go Canada!
Will happen only if Pujols doesn’t win the Triple Crown.
Are you aware that Joey Votto is also In that Triple Crown race? And judging by his game yesterday his foot is sleeping on the gas
Perhaps a better tagline would be, “As the Reds find themselves leading after giving up 27 runs in the first 2 games of the series”.
Poor Scotty Pods might be on 3 teams in 1 year
it would be kind of funny if the whitesox got manny and also got scotty pods back as a 4th outfielder for the play offs
Even funnier if Williams is actually stupid enough to both pay what is left on Ramirez’s 2010 contract AND give the Dodgers and thing back to boot. Like Rios all over again, only at least not a 40M ball and chain tied to this piece of dead weight.
rios all over again? you realize he is one of if not the best player on the whitesox roster right there with paul konerko this season..
If anybody should wearing an ace number its Matsuzaka. When I think of ace, I think of Matsuzaka. Yup. Oh, wait, you said ACE..
I don’t get this joke.
swing and a miss
the Braves need one of those relievers and could definitely use Pods in the outfield.
they do have a 1b that played for the dodgers…paul konerko started his career as a catcher for the dodgers
we got Boone Logan. So far he seems to be the good pickup out of the two
It’s like…a step below true bust…semi-true bust?
Only ’cause Logan has been decent for us this year.
using WAR for relievers? what next, using W-L records for starters to gauge success?
come on bro….
There’s nothing really special about Logan. I mean there are tons of high walk lefties like him.
He didn’t use it just for the logan, its Vasquez and Logan combined, so everything that came yankees way..okay bro
Wins Above Replacement. It takes in metrics that quantify either hitting or pitching plus a players fielding. The formula then turns it into a single number to show how many wins that player is worth over a replacement level player. So if say JD is worth 4.5 WAR then in that season JD was worth 4.5 wins more than a player who has a 0 WAR (or a replacement level player). It is a good way to quantify how much value a player has in a particular season and is used to assign salaries (like x amount of money multiplied by WAR = how much money a player is worth).
Leave Hinske out of this. He’s going to the World Series in 4 straight years. I blame Austin Jackson and Phil Coke.
i never liked the look of that phil coke.