Other Baseball

What Angels outfielder hit the first grand slam in All Star Game history? Seth and I were doing lunch yesterday, and we both knew the answer to this question. Once this happened, I think we were both kind of weirded out and our game of baseball trivia came to an end. No looking it up on the internet and then posting the answer...

In what was a shock to me, Yahoo's Tim Brown reported that the A's had signed Cuban OF Yoenis Cespedes. Minutes later, A's beat reporter Susan Slusser announced that the deal would pay him $36 million over 4 years. I thought he would go to the Nationals or the Marlins, or maybe a high-profile team. I never would have guessed the A's.

Including his lost 2013 season, he will have thrown 928 1/3 innings over his 10 year career. That's less than 100 innings per season on average. His career high innings total is 189 2/3, which he pulled off in his second season way back in 2004. That means over 20% of his career innings came in 1 season 9 years ago (at the end of 2013). In the other 9 seasons of his career, he will have averaged just 82 innings per season. And somehow he's made more than $23.5 million in his career, averaging over $25,000 and inning. Stats from baseball-reference.com.

http://talkintwinsbb.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/vote-lindsay-guentzel-to-the-mlb-fan-cave/

I saw several tweets yesterday bemoaning the fact that the Twins didn't get Jeff Francis considering he signed a minor league deal with the Reds. I've certainly cast a skeptical eye towards the Twins aggressive stance early in this offseason, especially in the bullpen. But the Francis signing, IMHO, points out the risk/reward of waiting out the musical chairs game that is the free agent market: Reward - when the music stops, there can be an awful lot of players anxious to take a seat in your remaining chair Risk - all of those players might kinda suck. When I look at Francis, I wonder why anyone would bemoan missing out on him. MLB GMs seem to agree - he just signe…

This move coming shortly after Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski told fans on their Winter Caravan that Fielder "is not a good fit for us."

Late last night, the Yankees traded catching prospect Jesus Montero and RHP Hector Noesi to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for young pitchers Michael Pineda and Jose Campos. There are very few trades of young talent and prospects in baseball. The Yankees get a young pitcher in Pineda who had a terrific rookie season in Seattle. He teamed with King Felix to form an intimidating 1-2 punch. Jose Campos is another young pitcher who throws really, really hard. The Mariners received one of baseball's top prospects in catcher Jesus Montero who finally got an opportunity late in the season. The Yankees have a lot of young catchers and needed pitching, but Montero is a lo…

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/13/yoenis-cespedes-names-six-teams-with-a-lot-of-interest/ Cespedes has named the six teams with the most interest in him and it ain't good news for the Twins.... "According to Cespedes those half-dozen teams are the Marlins, Cubs, White Sox, Orioles, Tigers, and Indians." I gotta think that the Marlins would be leading the charge on this one, and the Cubs (with Theo) could spend more money than god. But a couple of AL Central teams could be dangerous, too. I had worried about Kenny Williams because the White Sox have been pretty aggressive with some Cuban signings lately, but I hope that would not be the case due to payr…