ANAHEIM ANGELS Placed C-B Matt Walbeck on the 15-day DL (knee – tendinitis); purchased the contract of C-R Shawn Wooten from Edmonton; transferred RHP Tim Belcher from the 15- to the 60-day DL. [8/18] Recalled RHP Brian Cooper from Edmonton; activated RHP Al Levine from the DL; optioned IF-R Keith Johnson and RHP Eric Weaver…
THE GOOD WITH THE BAD "I was no good, but I was happy to get the win. On the other hand, I was not very good." — Tomo Ohka, Red Sox pitcher, through an interpreter, on his first major-league win "Fortunately, we got the three games in. But unfortunately, the results weren’t good." — Dusty…
One of the many benefits of Rany Jazayerli beginning his residency is that I no longer get daily e-mails bemoaning the use of Rey Sanchez in the two-hole or contemplating a world in which he actually liked the Royals’ manager. On the other hand, he doesn’t have as much time anymore to pepper me with…
Back in April–you remember April, don’t you?–you couldn’t click your mouse without reading about how baseball had simply become slow-pitch softball with warmer, more expensive beer. Scoring was up, ERAs were up, home runs were up and interns were being run ragged chasing the latest, greatest freak stat to prove that the game had gone…
ANAHEIM ANGELS Signed LHP Bryan Ward and assigned him to Edmonton; claimed 2B-R David Eckstein off of waivers from the Red Sox. [8/16] Talk about bargain shopping, because the Angels just nabbed two guys who can play. Neither one will ever star, not unless you’re a Lance Blankenship groupie or a geriatric member of the…
A few weeks back in a column I wrote reviewing the first half, I made the claim that Kirk Rueter could be expected to decline from his good first half. I made this prediction based on his poor strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratios. Rueter, of course, has pitched even better in the second half. In…
The subjects of revenue sharing and fixing the alleged performance disparity between "large-market" and "small-market" teams won’t go away. This despite the stellar performance of the Chicago White Sox, Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s, teams once firmly entrenched in the "small-market" camp. Indeed, to listen to WEEI (the great sports-talk radio station in Boston), one…
Hmmm…now what other team can I say nice things about, sending them into an ugly tailspin? OK, so maybe there were some good reasons to ignore the Padres, who have scored two runs since Sunday in losing a pair of games to the Braves. The last two nights’ starters–Jay Witasick and Woody Williams–have shown both…
Catching The Damn Ball Where are Vizquel and Ordonez on your list of top shortstops? And 20-30 runs possible difference from one position is high, isn’t it? Can the range be that large? –ZR Well, you can figure out the possible range of effects within a reasonable bound pretty quickly. Range Factor (RF) is a…
ARIZONA DIAMONDBACKS Placed RHP Johnny Ruffin on the 15-day DL (groin); recalled OF-L David Dellucci from Tucson. [8/13] David Dellucci still doesn’t appear to have recovered from his wrist problems, so while it’s a good move for the Snakes to get back down to 11 pitchers, I’m not happy with either rationale that’s been offered….
RETURN TRIP "It’s value for value. Their tools are very similar. The guy we got in return is a little older. But he’s got less left on his contract. So it’s a good tradeoff." — Ed Wade, Phillies GM, on Rob Ducey, traded away before the end of one homestand and traded for in time…