Here are some notes from around the majors…
- The Angels renewed the contract of closer Jordan Walden, the team announced. The Halos also agreed to terms with 21 other players on one-year deals for 2012.
- The Indians are "looking around for a left fielder" in the wake of Grady Sizemore's injury, tweets Danny Knobler of CBS Sports. With so many outfielders already in camp, the Tribe are likely looking for no more than another part-timer on a minor league contract.
- Bill Madden of the New York Daily News believes Major League Baseball won't allow the Athletics to move to San Jose. Madden doesn't think three-quarters of the teams would approve of violating the Giants' territorial rights to San Jose, quoting a baseball lawyer who says teams would be wary of voting for a measure that could cost them in the future. As an example, the Phillies, Mets and Yankees wouldn't be likely to vote against territorial rights since such votes be used as precedent for a team to someday move to New Jersey.
- Right-hander Mark Appel hasn't quite pitched up to expectations for Stanford this season, writes Baseball America's Conor Glassey. In particular, Appel's K/9 rate is lower than several recent high-drafted pitchers during their sophomore years. Appel is a contender to be the first overall pick in the June amateur draft.
- Yadier Molina's five-year, $75MM extension with the Cardinals was driven by the catcher's defense and leadership, reports MLB.com's Matthew Leach. "[The St. Louis pitchers] understand his value more than sabermetricians could ever start to pick it apart, and what other people inside the game even understand," said Cards manager Mike Matheny. "There's so many intangibles. You can't put numbers to the things that this guy does in helping this team win. And I think that's [exemplified by] two world championships since he's taken over behind the plate."
Keep the A’s in Oakland.
Giants fans second that motion.
Giants fans shouldn’t care. Giants ownership on the other hand.
Why shouldn’t Giants fans care ? Obviously, you are an A’s fan so I can only assume that you understand what is at stake economically for both clubs. Whatever financial restitution that the A’s would end up having to give the Giants for access to San Jose would pale in comparison to what the Giants would lose economically in the long term. Less money in the front office means a poorer product for fans on the field.
Money aside, a lot of Giants fan frankly like having the A’s in Oakland. The cross-bridge rivalry is fun and the A’s legacy in Oakland is an important one. The A’s of the 1970s and late 1980s are important teams to baseball as an organization.
The Cardinals really like bidding against themselves
The Cardinals really like keeping players that aren’t replaceable. They accept that the numbers crunchers will never get it.
I don’t think the market would’ve set such a high price for him, but I could be wrong. It seems like an overpay.
Some people accept that the intangibles increase value and some people don’t. I tend to trust those who have first hand experience with those intangibles over those who are too removed to evaluate them.
“You can’t put numbers to the things that this guy does in helping this team win.” – Mike Matheny
================================And yet that is precisely what the Cardinals did… they put a dollar amount and a term-limit on Molina’s value to the team. Somebody had to crunch some numbers to decide that it wasn’t prudent to just hand Molina’s agent a blank check, no?
Yes, they evaluated everything and put a number on it. Your point is?
pujols was replaceable? interesting
254 Million $$$$…. C’Mon Man! It was never going to happen.
Pujols the man, no. Pujols the player, yes. Any production at first base is replaceable no matter the player and consistency.
Yeah cause bolstering their lineup by signing Holliday didn’t really work out right?
That contract won’t look so hot in 5 years. But, yes, it looks pretty dandy right now, I suppose.
Why won’t it look good? The man is in amazing physical condition, and as Berkman, Jeter, Beltran, Micheal Young, and others have shown, players can maintain high performance through their mid-30’s. Holiday was likely an underpay. If the market was as big as it is now in 2009 he would of gotten a 130-140 million deal.
Why won’t it look good? The man is in amazing physical condition, and as Berkman, Jeter, Beltran, Micheal Young, and others have shown, players can maintain high performance through their mid-30’s. Holiday was likely an underpay. If the market was as big as it is now in 2009 he would of gotten a 130-140 million deal.
‘Why won’t it look good?’
Whoa, that is a slippery slope you are climbing on there. That same argument can be made for Pujols.
A .900 OPS outfielder for $17MM per through age 36 vs. a 1.000 OPS first baseman for $24MM per through age 41.
Just saying…
Won a world championship… I think it worked out great. And your team had done what?????
Ummmm don’t know what your talking about. We locked up a top player at market price. A team most definitely would have bid higher. Has Pujols, Werth, Crawford, and Prince taught you anything?
but the cardinals arent supposed to have to pay market value…players want to play there SOOOOO badly…greatest fans in baseball and all
Ask Chris Carpenter…. Nowhere close to market value.
They Cardinals like winning World Championships…. C’Mon Man!!!
Nevermind that Pujols guy who was around for two championships, and Carpenter, it’s all about Yadi.
He’s a great catcher but still…
You have NO clue how important Yadi is to the Cardinals, they would have missed him more than Pujols but why would you since your a Pirates fan. He is way underrated besides during both WS championships Pujols had done very little to help the team, this past yr he only had one outstanding game and the 06 championship Carpenter was hurt and wasn’t a factor so yeah its all about Yadi LOL
I can’t tell if this is sarcastic or just stupid.
“they would have missed him more than Pujols”
whatamireading??
Grammar matters. Learn the different uses of the words your, and you’re.
That being said Yadi isn’t that important to the Cards. He was an above average catcher. It’s a huge overpay. He probably should have gotten something like 3 years 10mil a year. I don’t think this makes the Cards any better than they were at this time last year. Sure they probably needed to sign him to prove to the fans that they won’t let all big names walk but if I were a Cards fan I would have wanted that money to go somewhere else. There is always going to be a good catcher looking for money somewhere they could have gotten his production for ~45 million less.
” He probably should have gotten something like 3 years 10mil a year.”
While 5/75m may have been an overpay, I imagine half a dozen teams (or more) would have been lined up after the season to willingly offer him 5/50m and can just about 100% guarantee the NYY and Anaheim Angels would have thrown more than that at him.
No chance 3/30m satisfies him when cashman and martin tabled talks close to that figure and martin isn’t in the same league as molina.
…. 🙁
How long are we going to let the A’s drown for? This is sad.
What happend to cool? Walden is closet
Really, who would move to New Jersey? Even if some team does, anyone really believes that said team could actually out-compete the Yankees (and to some degree the Mets) to steal their fanbase? Moving anywhere near Yankees “territory” would be plain suicide.
Ya it wouldn’t work. North Jersey is full of Mets and Yankees fans, while South Jersey is full of Phillies fans.
They’re not “fans”. They just wear the hats because those are the teams that are winning at that time. If the Yankees were sucking like the Mets, they wouldn’t even dare wearing those hats.
Coming from a Mariners fan in Northern Jersey, I see this all the time. It’s really stupid. Of course, there are the real die-hard Yankee fans who really love the Yankees and follow them because they were raised on the Yankees.
same here, i live in Eastern PA & all around me are Phillie & Yankee fans (I’m a Sox fan)
Build a winning baseball team and they will come… Ticket prices are over priced here in Oakland…. Everyone is broke out here… I manage to go to many games a season… Love my A’s, Raiders, and Warriors
Tickets are $2 on Wednesday nights. 200 pennies to go to a baseball game. The rest of the week features tickets that are among the league’s lowest priced. They need San Jose.
HAHA That is cheaper than some Rays games even and they draw like..Well you get the point also.. can get in there for less than 10.00 easy also and that includes most Boston-NYY games. I usually only go to Boston games and THEN when my wifie gets tickets for free.. See.. they hand em out to sponsors also, but slyly count those freebies as attendance.. Everyone knows that right? it’s why teams like the Rays, Fish announce figures so blatantly false every night with empty stadiums.
Have the Red sox EVER struggled with attendance in there 90+ years of existence? I’m sure they have, 86 years of losing and I bet old Fenway had problems filling the stadium at some point. YOUR team has 100 years to build a fanbase, the Rays roughly 15. 10 of those 15 years they stunk it up. Give the Rays some time, you know about 100 years! By then they can talk about past Ray greats such as Longo, Crawford and Price compared to how the RS talk about Williams, Fisk etc.
I understand why you want to move them out of your division though! Cant accept losing to them so RS fans answer- move them out of our Division lol. Rays AL east supremacy is going to start this year. 🙂
You bet they did.. fenway drew awful during some of the 50’s and 60’s, but it was owned by one of the richest men in the world.. Tom yawkey who would sometimes forget which buildings he owned, stop by them and attempt to buy them again…
As for the last 40 years?? They are ALWAYS near the leaders, despite having the lowest seating capacity in the game and have always had some kind of rabid fan base, it is why the city had 2 teams up until 1952, though the fan support was almost entirely Red Sox.
As for fan support? you must know nothing about the locale of the stadium and I understand it fully, as LIVE in the Tampa bay area.. the stadium is located in the WORST possible area (St petersburg) is almost impossible to get to for central florida for the majority of the fan base, without an hour plus of drive time, has a horrible stadium.. The list goes on and on.
Several rays fans have been here before on this issue..
The Rays decide to put the new stadium (should they pay for it themselves) on the EASTERN side of Tampa and THEN they can get Orlando, Tampa AND central florida where all of central florida’s fans come from and NOBODY drives more than an hour, nor has to go over the “bridge that must not be named” that crosses the bay and ALWAYS is backed up for miles just to see a game.
It is currently an hour and a half to see a game from central florida with -0- traffice to st. pete.. move to eastern tampa?? it’s 45 minutes max.. Orlando?? it would be an hour.. They draw more as well..
St Pete and that rotten lease the Sternberg’s signed when they got the team s the problem,
I’m not trying to rip you but it gets old seeing northeast RS/Yankee fans constantly trashing the Rays.
I agree they should move to the eastern side of St Pete!
Yeah, I’m not sure how A’s tickets are overpriced. Two dollar Wednesday games and half off tickets on Thursdays. Free parking days and the third deck is 10 dollars, but you get 6 dollars for free food. What?
The third deck has been tarped off for years.
Not the ‘all you can eat’ section in 317.
Yes, there is a section right behind home plate that is open. Only 10 dollars and you get a voucher for free food. People complain about the third deck being tarped off, but that section is rarely full. It’s a great game experience too. Can’t wait to take my son to his first game…maybe not up there though.
Wow 2 dollars to see a mlb game?!?!?!?!?!?! I dont care if you view the A’s as a AAA team(which I dont) but still they play great teams and being able to see them for 2 bucks?!?! Thats amazing.
What are you gonna do when the a’s are contracted or
Move somewhere like portland, charlotte, or Vegas? And when the warriors move to San Francisco, plans are in place to
Move them there soon they are already getting funding for a down town San Francisco arena and they have agreed to love there? And what are you going to do whenthe raiders move back to la? I’m sorry but Oakland has no business having an professional sports team. The city and market will always be in the shadow of San Francisco.
Isn’t there some kind of precedent with this with the Nationals moving to DC and taking a chunk out of Baltimore’s market?
Does this mean the A’s are going to suffer in Oakland or try somewhere out of the state? Something has to give…
apparently lew wolff never heard of that choice, and had spoken to selig, at least according to joe stiglich (via twitter)
edit: bad wording, apparently it never came up in his conversation with selig, basically
Yeah, my question is what’s wrong with San Antonio, New Orleans or SLC? There are northerners who can’t stand the Rockies and aren’t really given another option as far as teams go, Salt Lake would be a great baseball town. No, apparently there HAS to be four Californian baseball teams while the entire south(Florida is it’s own thing) gets the Braves and the nine northwest states get two teams.
His argument makes no sense.
Moving a NEW team to New Jersey, as in, expanding the league, is COMPLETELY different from moving an existing team to a neighboring city. We’re not going to soon see a team being contracted and moving to NJ.
Also: didn’t MLB allow for the Expos to become the Nationals and move to DC, infringing on the Orioles’ territorial rights (and, the Orioles had been in BMore for about the same time as the Giants have been in SF). The precedent exists already.
I don’t remember how much it was, but the Expos/MLB paid the Orioles major money to infringe on their territory. The Giants are probably looking for the same thing.