leaffie

Well we could have had Bobby Valentine as our manager and he left us for the Astros. .....:-)

Of course, there is no discrimination with me. I hate them all.

They could be one in the same.

Keith Law Blog 10 disappointing AFL players October, 16, 2013 Oct 16 11:05 AM ET By Keith Law | ESPN.com Recommend15 Tweet10 Comments5 Email Print On Monday, I wrote about players I saw last week in the Arizona Fall League who made positive impressions on me, some of whom caused me to improve my own evaluations of those players over where they were before my trip. Today I'll look at the other side, 10 players who didn't meet my expectations, and in some cases who'll slide down my prospect rankings as a result. I've also appended notes on other players of interest who didn't fit squarely in either category. Aaron Sanchez | RHP | Toronto Blue Jays The Blue Jays' top prospect had an up-and-down year around minor injuries and a failed experiment with a sinker, but Toronto could at least look at his premium stuff and feel confident that he was advancing toward a spot near the top of their major league rotation. Unfortunately, Sanchez's delivery has gone backward in the past year, with a shorter-than-ever stride and a very upright release that causes his fastball to stay up and hurts his command of all pitches. An upright torso at release is also correlated with higher risk of arm injuries, so it's something the Jays and Sanchez need to try to correct. Sanchez's stuff remains ace quality -- 92-96 mph on the four-seamer, a plus curveball at 76-79, a hard changeup from 85-89 -- but he has to let his athleticism and looseness on the mound show up in the delivery. Taylor Lindsey | 2B | Los Angeles Angels Lindsey has outstanding feel for hitting, with consistently high contact rates thanks to quick hands and a direct path to the ball, but other aspects of his game were lacking in Arizona last week. At the plate, he's gone from a very short stride to no stride at all, so his swing is all hands and arms and he's cutting off any chance to hit for power. At second base he showed below-average hands and range in either direction, and he's a fringy runner even at full speed. He's just 21 years old and his stats to date are solid for a player his age, but I see a lot of untapped potential here, especially on offense. Alen Hanson | IF | Pittsburgh Pirates Hanson looked great in BP, with plus bat speed and average to slightly above-average power from both sides of the plate. But once the games started, the plan to get him out was simple and easy for pitchers to execute: fastballs up, sliders down. He punched out five times in the 10 plate appearances I saw, and it wasn't fluky given how lost he looked. He was actually fine at shortstop, which has long been the concern with him, but he couldn't have looked worse at the plate. Stephen Piscotty | OF | St. Louis Cardinals Like Hanson, Piscotty sported a 50 percent strikeout rate in the first week of play, all with me in the stands, wishing a pox on the Stanford coaching staff for what they did to his swing. (I left and he went 4-for-4 on Monday, so maybe he just found me intimidating.) Piscotty shows pull and opposite-field power in BP, but once the games started, he looked discombobulated at the plate -- trying to go the other way with fastballs in, trying to pull everything on the outer half, swinging and missing when he wasn't rolling over. As I said above, these are brief impressions based on the first week of play, so I'm not suggesting everyone in the Piscotty Appreciation Society should run for the exits. It's just not what I wanted to see. Tommy La Stella | 2B | Atlanta Braves It's not so much that anything was wrong with La Stella but that you're banking on one tool here, the hit tool. He's a fringy defender at best and a below-average runner, and I don't foresee much power with a no-load swing and a flat finish. He can hit, though -- his hand-eye coordination is very good, and the swing is simple and hard, like a quick hack at the ball that could produce line drives and hard ground balls, but few hits likely to leave the park. That might be enough for Atlanta fans sick of the Dan Uggla Show -- just two more years, folks! -- but it's more average regular than star. Mitch Haniger | OF | Milwaukee Brewers Another one in the "fine, but not great" category, Haniger disappointed with his lack of visible speed or athleticism. I consistently got run times that put him at grade 40 or worse (that is comfortably below average), and twice caught him losing his focus, including one potential infield single that he lost because he was watching the fielder rather than running to the bag. Haniger, a supplemental first-round pick in 2012 who lost most of last summer to a knee injury, already lost some luster with an underwhelming half-season in high Class A this year, and this doesn't help. Andrew Chafin | LHP| Arizona Diamondbacks Chafin regularly hit 95 as a starter (every seventh day) at Kent State, but the stuff has backed up, and he was 88-91 with a maybe-average changeup last week in Arizona. A supplemental first-round pick in 2011, Chafin seems certain to end up in the pen between his current velocity and low strikeout rates in the regular season. Keyvius Sampson | RHP | San Diego Padres Another guy who left his fastball at home before heading to Arizona, Sampson was 89-91, from a higher slot than in the past but without an average secondary pitch. With no life on the fastball due to the raised arm slot, he's fly ball-prone, and I don't see how he'll miss bats in the majors unless he gets back into the mid-90s or finds a better breaking ball. Kyle Crick | RHP | San Francisco Giants It's still power stuff, 92-95 mph with at least an average slider, but when you walk the first three guys you face in your first AFL outing of the year, no one is going to walk away thinking "We gotta trade for that guy." He settled down a little in the second inning, throwing more strikes but not locating effectively. I know a lot of scouts who believe Crick has to be a reliever because there's enough effort in his delivery to preclude him having average command. If this was all I'd ever seen from Crick I'd be hard-pressed to disagree. John Barbato | RHP | San Diego Padres When I saw Barbato he walked four in two-thirds of an inning of work, so the Javelinas had to go to their bullpen in the first inning instead of the third or fourth. His performance in relief this year was adequate, but he struggled when the Pads shifted him to high Class A Lake Elsinore's rotation in late July. They might want to just return him to the pen, where his 92-94 fastball and mid-80s slider could make him an interesting middle or setup man, rather than trying to start a guy who can't throw enough strikes for it.

Maybe he read Keith Law's latest assessment of him. Kind of disappointing.

FWIW, Kevin Kennedy has him ending up with Jays

Who should get him? So, if McCann gets his $100 million, who's the most likely to give it to him? For a team that wants to overpay, New York (the Bronx, not Queens) is the most logical destination for McCann. Even with the Yankees' self-imposed salary cap, they need a catcher for 2014. Top prospect Gary Sanchez has only 23 Double-A games under his belt and isn't ready yet, and Chris Stewart is as obvious a non-tender candidate as anyone on the roster. If McCann holds up well at catcher, Sanchez's raw power potential, if it fully develops, gives the Yankees a surplus of quality catchers, a very nice problem for anyone. Even if McCann doesn't hold up well, he still has some short-term value behind the plate and a left-handed pull hitter who can crush a mistake is a good fit for Yankee Stadium. Buster Olney has mentioned that the Rangers could be in on McCann, and they also would make sense in that their starting catchers from 2013, A.J. Pierzynski and Geovany Soto, are headed to free agency, they can carry a high payroll and don't currently have a catcher in the pipeline. The issue for the Rangers is that Nelson Cruz, David Murphy and Matt Garza also are eligible for free agency and they might decide it's wiser to spend their free-agent dollars on the outfield and rotation. Another team with playoff aspirations that got very little from its backstops this season is the Toronto Blue Jays. In 2013, Jays catchers combined for minus-1.1 WAR per FanGraphs, which is less than every team but the Marlins. Toronto's issue is that it already has $110 million committed for 2014 even before factoring in arbitration raises for the likes of Colby Rasmus. Considering the Jays carried a $119 payroll in 2013, it's hard to see McCann as a fit unless they clear a lot of money elsewhere. When you break it down, the Yankees are the obvious fit for McCann in terms of finances and need. They would be happy with him in the short term, but if he really gets more than $100 million, there are going to be a lot of disappointed Yankees fans come 2017.

McCannDaniel Shirey/USA TODAY SportsIf the rumors are true, Brian McCann's free-agent contract will be sky high. For the Atlanta Braves, the 2013 season ended prematurely, with the franchise getting dispatched in four games by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series. There's little time for the Braves to ponder that unpleasant coda, as the team's starting catcher going back to summer of 2005, Brian McCann, will hit the free-agent market. That McCann will come at a hefty price is not in doubt, and it's unlikely the Braves will be willing to bring him back. Earlier this week, one MLB general manager told Andrew Marchand of ESPN New York that McCann's next contract could top the $100 million mark. But does McCann's value going forward really match that price or would that be a case of paying for past rather than future performance? Don't pay for the tools of ignorance Eclipsing the $100 million mark is no longer a groundbreaking contract, with baseball history now having 46 deals of $100 million or more. However, you don't see a lot of catchers topping that mark. Joe Mauer's eight-year, $184 million contract and Buster Posey's nine-year, $167 million deal lap the field, by far the richest among those that have worn the tools of ignorance. One reason to wonder about McCann's future value is the very nature of playing catcher, a grueling physical position. McCann is no longer a young player and the contract extension that expires this month bought out a few years of his free-agent eligibility. He enters the market coming off his age 29 season (Mauer was 27 when he signed his contract, Posey 26) with a lot of tread worn from his tires. He already has 1,046 games behind the plate under his belt -- or in the case of a catcher, on his knees -- and the position tends to wear down players in their 30s. Only 26 other players in baseball history accumulated 900 games or more behind the plate before their age 30 season. Not counting Yadier Molina for obvious reasons, only nine of the 25 catchers on that list played 600 games at catcher over the rest of their career. Posey got $167 million, but he was younger and better than Brian McCann. Even among those survivors, most of those catchers did not age gracefully. Gary Carter's last year as a force was at age 32 and his knees were shot after nine surgeries. Jason Kendall bounced back well from a gruesome ankle injury, but was done as an underrated star by age 30. Time caught up with Bill Dickey at 32 and Benito Santiago, a four-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove winner, spent his 30s as a journeyman stopgap. Even more concerning in McCann's case is that he already has specific injury concerns, rather than simply the more generalized concern we have about catchers. He already has had one season, 2012, ruined by a torn labrum that required surgery and after coming back this past May, didn't start at catcher in 41 of the team's remaining 132 games. The idea that a team could move him to first base or designated hitter later on isn't even a consolation. Mauer and Posey both have enough offensive value to play other positions, with a career OPS+ of 136 and 144 respectively. McCann is at 117 for his career (115 in 2013), so even if he holds up physically behind the plate for three or four years, he's likely to be a below-average 1B/DH by that point (all first basemen, including backups, had a collective OPS+ of 116 this year). Because no projection piece would be complete without consulting the evil supercomputer under my desk, I ran McCann's numbers through ZiPS to get a baseline of what to expect from him in the coming years. Because ZiPS compares players on a positional basis, the risks of playing catcher are built in to the projections. ZiPS sees McCann continuing to perform well in 2014, hitting .263/.339/.462, good for a 115 OPS+ and 3.0 WAR. (FanGraphs and Baseball Reference had him at 2.7 and 2.2 WAR, respectively, in 2013.) Problem is, it's all downhill from there, with McCann profiling as a below-average player by the fourth year of his new contract. Marchand's GM source figured McCann would get a six-year deal. Using $5.1 million per win as a guideline and 5 percent salary growth, that comes out to 13.1 WAR and a six-year, $73 million market value. Playing first base or DH, he would only be projected to be worth 2.0 WAR in 2014, demonstrating the idea that his bat isn't enough to consider an easier defensive position to be a good fallback position. A shorter contract that covers just his projected years as an average-or-better player comes out at four years, $58 million, but given the lack of impact bats in the free-agent lineup and the likelihood that this is his last big contract, a team might have to get into the $20 million a year range to land him.

I voted for a 20 million dollar boost. Isn't every team getting an additional $25 million in revenue sharing this year.

No kidding.

If the Blue Jays shop Jose Reyes... October, 14, 2013 Oct 14 11:19 AM ET By Doug Mittler | ESPN.com Recommend48 Tweet10 Comments16 Email Print The Toronto Blue Jays pushed all their chips to the center of the table last offseason and came away empty-handed. The Blue Jays were never a serious contender and finished last in the AL East for the first time since 2004. So do the Blue Jays need only minor tinkering or another roster overhaul? One rival executive told Bill Madden of the New York Daily News that the Blue Jays “as presently constituted, can't possibly contend next year” and that this winter represents their last opportunity to get a reasonable return for shortstop Jose Reyes. Reyes has four years and $82 remaining left on a $106 million deal he signed with the Marlins. The 2011 National League batting champion is just 30 years old, but there are concerns about his ability to stay healthy. Limited to 93 games last season, Reyes put up a good slash line - .296/.353/.427 – but attempted just 21 steals, raising the question of whether he also could be losing a step. Recent history says GM Alex Anthopoulos tends to do most of his work through trades rather than the free agent market, so trading Reyes should not be out of the question. Here are some teams that might be interested: •New York Mets: Reyes made his mark in Queens and still has plenty of ties to the New York area. Ruben Tejada has failed as the successor to Reyes, and Omar Quintanilla is not viewed as a long-term solution at shortstop. Even with the fences moved in, Citi Field's big dimensions are a perfect fit for Reyes' game. •New York Yankees: This may be a reach, but the Yankees do need to find a successor for the aging Derek Jeter at some point. •Boston Red Sox: Stephen Drew is a free agent after the season, and the Red Sox might be unwilling to overpay for the Scott Boras client. But they might be willing to offer a premium for Reyes. Drew’s market value, however, could be reduced if the Red Sox make him a qualifying offer. •Seattle Mariners: Brad Miller may be the shortstop of the future in the Pacific Northwest, but this could be a position where the Mariners look to make a big splash.

I think it was just a year, but I do remember that he came there as the salvation for the mariners hitting woes, and they didn't get any better. And as usual, all the experts on the talk shows were calling for his head. So I wasn't surprised that he was let it. It might have been two years that he was there. Too lazy to look it up.

Wasn't it Bob Melvin?

Wasn't Molitor fired when he was hitting coach for the M's?

ESPN insider seems to think so.

While I agree those are the priorities, sometimes you have to improve the team where you can.

thank you. Didn't quite know how that would work.

Beltran will be a free agent this off season, and is looking to come to the AL as a DH to lengthen his career. No doubt he will be offered a QO, so here is the question. The Jays have a protected pick, so if they signed him, where does the compensation pick come from for the Cardinals? He would certainly look good as the DH.

Wow, thx for that. I had forgotten about Hisle. I don't think anyone ever heard why either.

And that is exactly why I have always detested the red sox.

Maybe the same guy that was dumb enough to take on the Wells contract.

I was surprised that Buerhle wasn't gone at the break this year. I wouldn't be surprised if he is gone this off season.

The Rays owe every bit of success they have had to one man, Friedman.

The Friedman regime has had 2 #1 pick. David Price, Beckham not 10. And while you are busy insulting, you should take the time to read exactly what I said. No where did I say that they had ten #1 picks.

The Rays had ten years of top picks, and Friedman used them, played them, and traded them. But they are not drafting anywhere near the top now, and they don't have the payroll to pick someone else up. I don't care whether you take me seriously or not, so get over yourself. And since you are such an expert on everything, I am sure that you can go in and tell the Jays FO, exactly how many less butts will be in the seats. I am sure they need to make arrangements to cover the shortfall.