The Athletics announced that right-hander Joey Devine will miss the season due to Tommy John surgery. It's his second time having the procedure, and he will have some other repairs made to his elbow as well. Here's the latest from around the league as Tuesday turns into Wednesday…
- "I thought I was gone … I really didn't think this was going to happen," said Brandon Phillips to MLB.com's Mark Sheldon after signing his new extension. He was concerned that Joey Votto's deal meant his days with the Reds were numbered.
- MLB and FOX expressed relatively minor concerns about the sale of the Dodgers, "virtually assuring" that the deal will receive court approval on Friday according to Bill Shaikin of The Los Angeles Times.
- Bill Plunkett of The Orange County Register spoke to Angels GM Jerry Dipoto about his use of statistics. "I like to believe myself to be balanced and I think in making any balanced decision you want to be as objective as you can in making that decision," said Dipoto. "What statistical analysis does is allow you to be as objective as you can be."
Well Brandon, I for one am certainly glad the numbers have been multiplied by 6.
When it comes to what Brandon Phillips said, I would say very, very few baseball players think they are going to spend their entire or the majority of their career with one team. It’s rare these days.
The Reds are Phillips 3rd team (see Indians and Expos).
Hence why I said…majority of their career.
English, it’s a novel language.
BP’s high school (Redan) very quietly produced some pretty good ballplayers. Not exactly the kind of place you WANTED to drive to play games, but the games were always tough. Never got the chance to play against him, since he’s a few years older than me, but good to see him stay in Cinci.
It’s a testament to the power of having a popular twitter account (as well as a well oiled hype machine) that not only was BP able to GET this deal, but that the majority of Cinci fans are very happy about this deal.
Guys, you aren’t the Yankees or the Angels. You’re the Reds. You cannot afford to lock up a 30 year 2nd basemen, with acareer .322 OBP hitter for 6 years @ $12 million. You just can’t.
I don’t care how good his defense is, he’s a below average hitting 2nd basemen (career 96 career OPS+). If you’re rocking a $150+ million payroll, sure, you could get away with it. When that below average hitting 30 y/o is taking up 15-20% of you payroll? It’s lunacy.
Unfortunately, the Reds are going to become 90s Texas Rangers (one fantastic player, with the inability to pay for a strong team around him) and the fans don’t even realize it yet.
Below average hitting 2nd basemen? He’s league average across all positions, but for a 2nd basemen he’s a quite good hitter. The reds have a ton of good players around that one fantastic player. Jay Bruce, Johnny Cueto, Aroldis Chapman, Mat Latos, Mike Leake, Phillips of course, and Cozart and Mesoraco are young, affordable and we’ll see how good they are soon.
Except that the Reds already have have a strong core that is locked up for several years (Bruce, Cueto, Latos, Marshall, Chapman, and now Phillips and Votto). If Cozart and Mesoraco live up to their promise, Stubbs figures it out and the farm continues to produce useful players, the Reds won’t be turning into the Rangers and their star-and-scrubs approach. They’ll have a young, talented core locked up for the better part of a decade. Seems like a good plan to me.
Another AA target is off the board.
Where did the Red have an extra 250M lying around? Crazy stuff.
The same place the Pirates do…
Pretty sure he was referring to Votto.