Abomination

Interesting to see the lack of success for the Rays since 2007.

AA seemed to be pretty clear about wanting to upgrade the defense. When he makes these little hints, it always seems to be his focus. I don't think we'll see him pick someone up who isn't plus defense at 2nd.

Well, I didn't mean JPA back there for the next 6 or 7 years. McCann at the end of that contract is going to look every bit as bad as some of the other monster deals signed recently. JPA can be cut and replaced at will.

I'd be happy with 4/60 plus an option, but that's about it. I'd rather have JPA back there at 2M than McCann at 20M for 6 or 7 years, and that's saying something.

One thing that could be worth noting is that the Canadian dollar is expected to fall into the .90 range vs the USD next year. Since we pay salary in USD and take in CAD, that difference might also affect the payroll number a little.

It's actually interesting seeing the difference in runs scored / allowed between then and now. Back in '07, only 4 teams gave up less than 700 runs and only 2 scored less than that. Last year, 20 teams gave up less than 700 runs (5 with less than 600), and 19 scored less than 700 (2 less than 600).

Does anyone know of any studies available relating injury rates in Japan where they pitch once a week with higher pitch counts to here where they pitch more frequently with (usually) lower pitch counts?

Verlander is being out-bearded

Yeah, I saw that article yesterday. That is one writer that needs to be looking for a new line of work.

I really dislike the overall idea of making everyone in the bullpen a specialist, especially in the playoffs. You never know what pitcher is going to be on or not any given day, so if you have one who is I think it's idiotic to pull him after one batter and play Russian Roulette with the next pitcher. If 2 lefties are coming up next inning, bring in a lefty, etc. Don't match up batter to batter in general. Just my opinion.

I think he realized that most of the talent in the farm wasn't going to pan out, at least not along the specified timeline. With the pressure from Rogers to produce he didn't really have the option of a second rebuild. It didn't appear that we were a preferred destination for FA's, so he traded. In a few years (assuming he can get us in the playoffs and isn't fired), he'll probably take over as president and someone else will rebuild. Really, in spite of a fairly high ranked farm, it hasn't produced a whole lot. With 2 or 3 exceptions, most of what we traded away looks like we made the right decision on.

Canucks managed to give up about the worst own goal you'll ever see...

If a star player was qualified and accepted, they could almost certainly trade him for roughly what they'd receive with the pick, if not more. (maybe the rules would have to be changed to remove 10-5 rights if the player accepts). It really only affects players who are generally not elite who the team thinks isn't worth the QO but will decline it to sign a multi-year deal somewhere, which isn't really the intent of the rule, is it?

Machado having reconstructive surgery on his knee. Wonder if that will affect his range and prevent him from moving to short?

I think this is an excellent point. Guys who have had success their whole careers probably haven't had to make a ton of adjustments. A marginal guy has probably had hitting coaches from 20 teams try to monkey with his approach and mechanics, and has practical experience with many different philosophies.

Worked for Mottola

It was a minor point as part of a post I made quite a while back (think it was something about hitting fundamentals). I was defending my opinion on it when challenged, not making it a major point of contention.

I can't recall all of the things in the interview (was half doing other stuff), but he said that: -Mottola was offered the opportunity to stay in the organization and will be given lots of time to make a decision on whether to accept or not. -Gibbons has a few hitting coaches in mind who he's worked with before to replace Mottola. -Something about not being happy about the high strikeout numbers on the team, as well as 2 strike approach if I remember right. -Said some players who finished strong may have changed the organization's thoughts on their futures (took this to mean Lind and Santos but can't recall if he mentioned names or not), as well as some who finished very poorly (didn't mention JPA by name, but certainly seemed to indicate him in combo with the previous statements). -Seemed (indirectly of course) to be some indication that the team wants to transition away from home run or bust approach. -Internal talk about Cecil and McGowan for rotation. Decided to keep Cecil in his current role, but will re-evaluate McGowan in the spring. #1 thing is keeping him healthy, but may look to stretch him out and see how it goes. -No decision yet on JJ. They hope to have him get on the mound for light sessions before they have to make a decision. -Morrow injury thought to be caused from throwing cutters in the spring. No mention if he will abandon the pitch or not. They're hoping to have him throw in November and see how things are going. -Doesn't expect anything to really happen until winter meetings. I think there was more, this is just off the top of my head during the hockey intermission.

Sportsnet has a video of it up. Actually well worth listening to imo. There were some very interesting tidbits I don't recall hearing from AA before. http://www.sportsnet.ca/baseball/mlb/pts-anthopoulos-talks-coaching-changes/

I think Scherzer might be fired up. Hard to tell, but gonna go out on a limb here.

At least the CS degree has some application to astrophysics. I think you're always better off if you have knowledge in multiple areas, as many people don't work in a single job or field their entire lives.

Interesting. I guess I'll reserve full judgement until we see who they bring in, but I'm still leaning towards not liking the move. My suspicion is one of the new coaches might be Alomar.

I think it's more of the difference of how much you'd make without them. If someone told me I could play ball and make 100 million clean or 200 million taking banned substances, I'd probably value my health more and take the 100 million. If the choice was between being in a minimum wage job or making 100 million, I think 99.9% of us would take the steroids.

True, but I'd still expect to see some improvement (at least in technique) considering how bad they were at it. Also, CM had been working with some of the guys in the minors for a few years, so I think some of it is fair to pin on him. That's about the only bad thing I can say about him though, and I was surprised and disappointed when I saw the headlines yesterday. I still think there's more to this.

Some of the fundamentals (like bunting) were horrid as well, but I would have kept CM unless there's something we don't know about. As I said before, maybe he didn't get along with Gibbons. If Cito takes over as hitting coach, we had better sell high on all our left handed bats immediately.