It's as goofy as giving Rios away for nothing.

At first they asked for Prado. Then settled for Infante. That's like asking for steak and being served meat loaf.

Is Larry (Chipper) Jones retiring?

I don't think he is. It seems to be a very unmarlins like move. Maybe the Marlins know something? I don't know I'm grasping at straws here


Roy Halladay is incredible and absolutly deserved the Cy Young.

<font color=goldenrod>Forgot to respond to this. Don't think Varitek fits at all.

I think they should give Thole a full year of starting, possibly batting 2nd. He's a really good contact hitter and would benefit from seeing extra fastballs with Reyes on base.

As for the backup, I'd fully support bringing Henry Blanco back for another year. He's about to turn 39 but he could start a game a week and provide really good defense on top of being a good mentor for Thole.

SS Reyes
C Thole
3B Wright
CF Beltran
LF Bay
1B Davis
RF Pagan
2B Tejada/Murphy/Veteran stopgap

Could be a pretty formidable lineup if Bay gets his shit together.</font>

We won't find out until Spring Training, but I'm pretty sure everyone expects him to be back. That actually forces the Braves to move Prado to left field, which means the Braves defense will be pretty poor overall.

But yeah, I'm pretty floored at how this deal went down so easily. Braves lineup looks pretty good for the most part. Will probably be:

Prado
Heyward
Chipper
McCann
Uggla
Freeman
AGon
McLouth

That bottom of the lineup certainly doesn't look amazing right now. Gonna need an improved year from McLousy for sure.

I was only referring to Varitek being a backup. He could mentor Thole and the young pitchers better than any pitching coach they can get.

<font color=goldenrod>Without looking at stats, does he suck shit at throwing out runners? Because Blanco's got somewhat of a cannon.</font>

<font color=goldenrod>Fucking hate the New York media. Sandy Alderson said that the final four candidates for the Mets' job (Terry Collins, Bob Melvin, Chip Hale, Wally Backman) are all on level ground.

So of course Joel Sherman outright comes out and says it's rigged and that Collins and Melvin are really the only two being considered.

It probably WILL be Collins, which to me is by far the most uninspiring choice, but he seems to fit most of the criteria Sandy is looking for. But still...

Feel like the majority of the reporters who cover the Mets (namely Adam Rubin and Joel Sherman) just try their best to put a negative spin on everything Mets-related.</font>

Tigers sign Jaquain Benoit for 3 years 15.5 million.

Tigers also front runner to get Adam Dunn now, as he has entered serious talks with the Tigers

Twins' Ron Gardenhire and Padres' Bud Black are your Managers of the Year.

Worth noting: Bud Black beat out Dusty Baker by 1 vote. This is Ron Gardenhire's first award.

Hard to believe Gardenhire has never won before today. Seems like he is always in the top 3 voting.

Crawford and Werth are going to get way more money than they deserve. Pretty shit crop of free agents this year.
The problem I would have with the Red Sox signing Werth is that they passed on Jason Bay, to hold out for a better option. They'd be turning around and giving similar (or more) money to a player who is equally, or even less talented.

I wouldn't even blame the Red Sox if they just decided not to pay any of these guys this year and waited another season to make any big changes.
Still, they need to make big changes to improve, so it's hard to say.

Adrian Gonzalez would be nice but it keeps getting less likely.

Bay didn't want to stay in Boston.

Originally he wanted to be closer to home in Seattle and even hinted at offering the Mariners a "home town" discount when they were really building up (ex. Cliff Lee deal) but at the last minute decided to take the Mets money and years.

His family mostly lives in Seattle during the year while he also owned houses depending on where he played.

A lot of players do the same thing with short deals until they get the extension or get persuaded by the family to stay in the current place.

It boggles my mind how they'd allow this, but they won't put light up signs or scoreboards in the park.

The appeal of playing a football game in a baseball stadium boggles my mind period. I dont get it.

King Felix takes the Cy.

I'm happy he won

love Felix

Yeah really happy he won. Shows the voters were paying attention to the right things. Also sets a great precedent for future Cy Young votes.

<font color=goldenrod>Nice, well-deserved. Hard to imagine how many wins he would have had on a team with a halfway competent offense.</font>

Yeah especially since he had 30 quality starts. 30!!!

So what do you gays think about the playoffs being expanded to include more teams?

Not for it. Playoffs are long enough as is.

Its a good idea on paper but Selig already said the owners are completely against shortening the season down to the old 154-156 game schedule and the first round would only be a 1-game playoff in his view. Another idea was to make it 7 games all rounds or at least a 5,5,7,7 for series.

Players don't want to go into very late October to early November again for games either.

It's all about generating more revenue, so I understand why the owners wouldn't want to shorten the season and also why they'd want to make all the rounds best of 7.

IMO, 8 teams is already too many, but acceptable. This format seems to work.

All they really have to do is shorten Spring Training by like, a week, and cut down on the days off during the playoffs. That's it.

That means having more games in March. It's colder in March than it is in November.

Expanding the post-season would be stupid. There are plenty of teams as it is. Having more than 8 teams make it is too much.
There usually aren't even many more than 8 good teams. Only a few competitive teams are left out, if that, and that's an exciting part of the sport since it creates September pennant and wild-card chases.

Leave it alone.

The other thing would be just cutting down on the off days during the season, even if that means having the All Star Game after the season ends, in the South (Florida, Texas) or out West (California, Arizona), like the NFL does with the Pro Bowl. I think that'd be great for baseball, to have a "All Star Weekend" after the World Series, as a way to end the season with a festivity.

<font color=goldenrod>Yeah it's fine the way it is. The proposed idea I believe is to add a 2nd wild card for each league and have them meet in a one-game playoff with the winner advancing and being the "official" Wild Card.

Although 2 one-game playoffs would be intense, you could have a good but not playoff-caliber team force their way into the playoffs. The point of series is to diminish those odds. Hell as it is some think the DS should expand to 7 games because 5 games can still allow "fluky" teams to advance.</font>

I would never watch the All-Star Game if it was after the season. I never watch the Pro Bowl because it's after the season [it is different now, but not very].

Once a champion is crowned, it closes the book on the season and opens up Hot Stove.

Also, Jeritron put my thoughts quite nicely.

Nobody watches the Pro Bowl after the season ends.

And cutting down the off days during the season is terrible. They get like one day off every two weeks.

Why is there a four day gap between the Cy Young and MVP announcements? They've had the votes for months. Let's go.

Also can't believe the D'Backs are shopping Justin Upton. I know they're rebuilding and nowhere close to competing, but it still seems way too early to be getting rid of a 23 year old budding superstar. Heard talks about the Reds giving up Yonder Alonso, Mike Leake, and Devin Mesoraco (top C prospect) for him. I'd be fine with that.

Shin Soo Choo leads South Korea to the gold medal in the Asian games. He can now be exempt from conscription in the military. Love watching him play.

Not where I live!

Well they might get 2-3 22 year old prospects!
Unless there is something else we don't know, that would be a very stupid move.

Dbacks could get a lot of good young guys in return. Bard and Ellsbury from the Red Sox, Morrison and Nolasco from Florida were thrown around.

This is going to be a really depressing offseason for an Orioles fan.
I dont think they're going to get anyone of any major significance.