The Braves announced that they’re retiring John Smoltz’s number 29 to honor the right-hander’s contributions over the course of 20 seasons with Atlanta. Here are today’s links…
- Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine publicly questioned Kevin Youkilis' commitment, but GM Ben Cherington says the entire organization knows Youkilis works and plays hard. "Bobby's acknowledged that he shouldn't have said what he said and spoke to Kevin about it,'' Cherington told Jon Heyman of CBSSports.com.
- The Red Sox aren’t likely to deal for an outfielder to fill in while Jacoby Ellsbury’s on the disabled list, Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe hears from a team source.
- MLB.com’s Brittany Ghiroli wonders if it’s time for the Orioles and Kevin Gregg to part ways (Twitter link). Gregg, who had a rough outing in Toronto yesterday, will earn $5.8MM this year. I expect the Orioles to decline their $6MM club option for Gregg this coming offseason.
- As far as MLB teams know, Jorge Soler isn’t officially a free agent yet, Ben Badler of Baseball America tweets. This means teams can’t yet negotiate with the promising young outfielder.
Wonder what’s the long hold up with Soler? Didn’t take Concepcion & Cespedes this long.
With the recent Fauxto and Nunez incidents it is probably harder to fake a name/age now. So that could be the reason.
I think they want the new cba to be in effect before someone can sign him
The holdup with Soler is that he has not yet established residency in the DR. You must first be a legal resident of another country (other than Cuba) before being allowed to come to the US and be a free agent.
If I’m not mistaken, Cespedes and Concepcion had a headstart on Soler in this process.
Yeah, I know they need residency. Just seems like it’s been taking forever is all. Didn’t know those other guys had a head start on the process & didn’t know if there was something holding up that process or not.
The Orioles are literally losing games now because they are unwilling to cut Gregg. Good job Duke.
Better chance at the top draft pick :/
Only because I probably won’t be able to say this in a week:
You are a lot closer to it than we are ;-)
I was reading what you said about the Duke and how you thanked him for his service so far and I am thinking this.
Since it’s the 20 year anniversary Camden Yards, maybe MASN or the Orioles themselves could arrange a contest or a raffle for a “Day with Duquette”. We could get an “Inside” look at the day to day operations of a “Big League” club such as the Orioles. The only problem is, if I won, it would wind up being “Five Minutes” with Duquette because I would question him and Showalter as to what exactly they are doing. They wouldn’t like the line of questioning. That’s one one major reason as to why I didn’t apply for the PA announcer job at OPACY.
As the announcer, I would ad lib too much and say such things like: Now entering the game # 63 Kevin Gregg…. “Boooooooo” or There’s Dan Duquette and Peter Angelos in the owner’s suite “Booooo”. My gig as PA announcer would have been short lived.
Lefty, it is my lifelong dream to find a way to lock you and Angelos in a room together.
Haha, touché
Meanwhile, Le Tigres still wish they hadn’t traded Smoltz for Doyle Alexander in 1987.
I live in metro detroit and it is hilarious to see tigers’ fans reason that trade out and say it worked out. Its like guys we didnt win the WS, yea he pitched well but overall the team would have been just the same had they kept smoltz. Now if Doyle had led us to a WS in 87 then yes I would say it was worth it(maybe) but still Smoltz was a top pitcher for his generation and a future hall of famer.
Totally forgot about Soler
I did to. I would love to put him in the Rangers farm, but with the new CBA it probably won’t happen.
Kevin Gregg should be forced to give the Orioles a refund!