HOT STOVE LEAGUE 2K4/2K5

Neither have I, I guess.. I'm just a little sad that he'd feel like he couldn't continue to stand behind those positions playing for a US team. Which is really our culture's problem more than it is his.

MIR, if it wasn't for the fact that:

- Delgado's a first baseman
- Delgado's 3 years older than Drew (but only 3! that's surprised me!)

I'd agree w/ you.

Would someone PLEASE slap the Rangers upside the head and make the GM eat Mark Texeira's stat sheet from last year? If they're bitching about $$$$ issues, then they should not even think of signing Delgado when they have TWO (yes, TWO) 1B that can play full-time! Like, duh! And I'm going to keep on saying it because this just makes me so OFIOAU!

Brad Fullmer (65)
Eric Young (23)
Herbert Perry (21)
Brian Jordan (17)
Kevin Mench (14)
David Dellucci (9)
Chad Allen (5)
Alfonso Soriano (3)
Michael Young (2)
Mark Teixeira (2)
Andy Fox (1)
Adrian Gonzalez (1)

(See what I did there?)

- Delgado's a first baseman
- Delgado's 3 years older than Drew (but only 3! that's surprised me!)

Drew has had one good season (if you call 31 HR, 93 RBI good for a guy making 10M/yr). Delgado has had seven straight 900+ OPS seasons, including at least two MVP-quality years. Drew is injury-prone. Delgado is not -- last year was the only one in which he missed significant time due to injury, and he put up monster numbers once he came back healthy (so he's not showing any signs of slowing down at 32).

AFAIC, Drew is a monsterously larger risk at that salary, with a four year contract, compared to Delgado.

I guess for progressive athletes, I'll have to settle for my NBA boyfriend, Steve Nash, sweetly profiled in yesterday's NYT (he's reading Che's book and the Communist Manifesto)... who's Canadian, natch.

the orioles have now added blockbuster signing bionic tony saunders. way to go. actually, i think osuna is a solid signing for the nats pen, though...kind of cancelled out by the signing of esteban loaiza. ack.

Seattle addresses their pitching holes with ... Aaron Sele.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=1970632

And supposedly Mulder and Hudson were the worst defensive pitchers so there you go.

But seriously, Mike Cameron can hit and is an excellent centerfielder (Ichiro STILL misses MC). Discounting the upside, I think Byrnes' and Cameron's career OPS are both around .800.

And Bradford's supposedly not part of the trade.

From my understanding, Cam has only 1 year left, is a decent enough hitter (what's his line the last few years - .260 / .350 / .450?) whose value is boosted overall because of his defensive prowess (hey, look, received knowledge!) (though he looked VERY BAD @ times last year - dunno if it was injuries or what). Also, there's the very real possibility that Byrnes' year (or last two years) = fluke.

2005 ALROY Nick Swisher

I don't trust that Beane...

Still gax, this is not a done deal!

Byrnes is a good 3-1/2th-4th outfielder.

I don't recall Beane rooking the Mets aside from Billy Taylor for... *loses consciousness*

Also, I just Googl'd re: Billy Taylor - ouch.

Overall the Indians have improved a bit on paper. Enough to contend, I don't know about that one. It seems the Twins and Sox are not getting any better, so they might have a shot.

wapo and bawlamer sun report delgado has eliminated tx, mets have dropped out, o's & marlins remain.

spinsanity!

"Want some pitchers to worry about? One key negative "tell" from the classic book 'The Diamond Appraised' is a declining strikeout rate year after year.Here's the list of pitchers who had more than 20 starts in each year from 2002-2004 and had declining K/9 in that period: Matt Morris, Kerry Wood, Brian Anderson, Miguel Batista, Curt Schilling, Kaz Ishii, Odalis Perez, Javier Vazquez, Livan Hernandez, Russ Ortiz, Josh Beckett, Carl Pavano, Brad Penny, Al Leiter, Brett Tomko, Randy Wolf, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Pedro Martinez, Sidney Ponson, Jon Garland and Mike Mussina."