Other Baseball

Teams seem to be making a lot of moves early this year. A few possible Twins pickups (Feldman, Arencebia, and McLouth) all signed with other teams today. The woebegone Astros and Marlins have been especially busy. Does this have to do with "new" TV money? Of course, the biggest news today is that Robbie is going to the west coast. The big contracts for pitchers seem to be waiting for Tanaka. Ubaldo, E Santana, and Garza remain unsigned with little news about any of them. When the smoke clears, there should be some bargains to be picked up. I definitely think the Twins need to pick up another starter, a veteran catcher (Suzuki and Buck remain), and perhaps one…

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/jacoby-ellsbury-agrees-to-7-year----153-million-deal-with-yankees-020323816.html

No word yet on return, but reported as official on MLBTR. Understandably soon to evaluate, but this certainly doesn't help the Tigers. Not sure what they could receive to make it better for the 2014 Tigers.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/acquire-closer-jim-johnson-os-051106837--mlb.html Apparently Beane has decided to go against his own rule of not trading for proven closers.

Thought this was too horrible and too funny. My roommate was talking with a guy who claimed to be a pro baseball player online for months. He gave her the sob story that his dad recently died and how bad he felt. They meet up at a casino and get it on in the hotel. He leaves. She wakes up naked with $200 on the nightstand. A little research online shows he is not a pro ball player but is a independent league bum who only made AAA in his career. His dad didn't die in the timeframe he described, and rather in the time he said his dad died, he actually proposed to his girlfriend and was engaged. He played for the Cleveland Indians organization and may have cracked th…

Per Jon Heyman, AJ Pierzysnki is will sign a deal with the Red Sox, though he doesn't know the length of the deal. The Twins were reportedly courting Pierzynski, and the Red Sox had been trying to get catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia to return to them. Heyman notes that the Twins are still a possibility for Saltalamacchia:

Surprised a bit by the AAV, but a relative low risk for the As. Wonder if this makes Anderson more cheaply available.

I really don't understand this signing. The Cardinals are usually smarter about these signings. He hasn't been a full time SS for years & when he has he's been below average at best. Now they are going to give him 12 mill a year to play SS into his late 30's a year removed from being suspended for PEDs? All I can say is wow, I'd take Pedro Florimon & great D at 800k & invest $ for a bat into non essential defensive positions. WTH are they thinking?

So should the Twins sign 1 or both of these pitchers? With the Giants just agreeing to terms with Tim Hudson they should be out of the running for either pitchers and if the Twins claim to want to spend on pitching they should move fast. They should put offers on the table and see is willing to sign now. Arroyo should not need more than a 2 yr deal to sign. Nolasco is trying to convince teams he deserves a 5 yr deal, I would only go 3 with an option for a 4th yr. Garza will definitely get a 5 yr deal from someone. The Twins have been sitting on piles of cash for too long and would be best suited to get 2 of these pitchers signed ASAP.

There could be more players involved, but wow, that came out of nowhere.

Just agreed with the Rockies for an one year $2.5 M contract to be their closer.

It appears as if our old friend, Clete Thomas, has agreed to a minor league deal with the Phillies. http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/11/phillies-sign-clete-thomas-cesar-jimenez.html Not a big loss in my opinion.

Found the following interesting: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/sports/baseball/dispute-jeopardizes-new-posting-system-for-japanese-players.html?ref=sports&_r=1& I'm sure it will eventually be put back together without the fee impacting the luxury tax but its always fun to read about tensions between the "haves" and "have nots". Also, if they get the offer put back together, maybe it puts a little more pressure on the Japanese to act quickly.

http://www.minorleagueball.com/2013/11/12/5095654/an-odyssey-john-sickels-concussion-baseball You guys, This is really quite a read. We so often read about players experiencing post-concussion symptoms. To read Sickels discussing his experience just puts it in another light. Obviously wishing Mr. Sickels well. He's and immensely talented writer who is not exactly capable of writing much now (he has, according to his twitter account, had a set back again).

Punto will be signing with the A's. There went the Twins hope of a utility infielder...

Only 4 times in the history of baseball has a batter had 20 or more doubles, 20 or more triples, 20 or more homeruns and 20 or more stolen bases in the same season. Surprisingly, this rare feat occurred twice in the same season when both Jimmy Rollins of the Phillies and Curtis Granderson of the Tigers surpassed those numbers in 2007. Prior to that the 20-20-20-20 had only been accomplished by the great Willie Mayes in 1957 and Frank Shulte of the Cubs in 1911. (George Brett in 1979 and Cleveland's Jeff Heath in 1941 both came within a few stolen bases of doing this.) The closest a Twins player came to these combined figues in a season was probably Rod Carew in his MV…

Excellent piece by Ben Lindbergh from Grantland on the continued evolution of technology and umpiring. I'm keen to the idea mentioned of enabling umpires with real-time feedback from PitchF/X. The home plate umpire would retain final say on balls and strikes along with the full suite of other responsibilities they handle. Any other views? Also included, a link to the scientific study demonstrating the accuracy of PitchF/X (which some here have questioned). Ben Lindbergh on the possibility of machines replacing umpires - Grantland

I was taking a trip down memory lane and came across Randy Ruiz. What happened there? He had great numbers in the minors and yet didn't debut with the Twins until 2008 (at 30). We released him that off-season and he signed with Toronto. In 2009 he played in 33 games for the Blue Jays and had a line of: 313/385/635/1.019 while hitting 10 home runs. In 2010, Ruiz had a strong spring training and was kept on the 25 man roster but he didn't do so well in limited action. In 13 games he had 6 hits in 40 at bats (1 homer). After not see much playing time, Ruiz asked for his release in May to sign a bigger contract with the Tohoku Rakuten Eagles in Japan. In 2012, he came b…

Torii Hunter, David Ortiz, JJ Hardy and Michael Cuddyer all won Silver sluggers for their 2013 seasons. Congratulations to them. Joe Mauer won his fifth for the Twins.

I've become embarrassingly addicted to Pennantwars.com. You essentially build your own team via free agency/draft/trades. Your team then sims 6 games per day. The sim engine is smarter than I would have expected and there's room to test your roster building strategies against some pretty smart people. Another popular game seems to be ootpdevelopments.com/ but I only played one season. Anyone else willing to admit to playing? As spammy as this post sounds I have no connection to either of these games.

It seems like Dee Gordon is running out of time and positions with the Dodgers. He would be an upgrade at SS and would bring some much needed speed back into the lineup.

Am I missing something here? Why are there only three finalists for all of the awards? I assume voting has already been done and these three "finalists" are just the top three vote getters but why not just announce the voting like they used to?

This is just plain awesome. Article - Introducing the Interactive Spray Chart Tool | FanGraphs Baseball Direct link to tool - Workbook: Spray Chart Comparison

Though it has been known since this time last year, today the Star-Tribune's La Velle E. Neal III was officially named the President of the Baseball Writers Association. He was Vice President (to Susan Slusser) the last year.

SI linked to this story earlier today. Is Chief Wahoo Finally on the Way Out? | Chris Creamer's SportsLogos.Net News and Blog : New Logos and New Uniforms news, photos, and rumours Posnanski also had a small column out about how offensive Chief Wahoo was but I don't have that link.

Six years $68 million

Veteran MLB reliever subdues unruly passenger on airplane | For The Win

SI posted a link to this earlier: Y! SPORTS But the Reds ballboy got a baseball card made.

This morning a friend passed me this link. Look it over and then click the second picture and a short video will play. I will bet this will get a lot of coverage today. Y! SPORTS

Alright, the World Series is about to start... so get your predictions in... Who will win the World Series? How many Games? Who will be the MVP? Go... My votes: St. Louis 5 Games Adam Wainwright