With all due kudos to Barry Bonds for passing Willie Mays on the all-time home run leaderboard, I’m hoping his efforts to fell Hank Aaron’s mark of 755 come to grief. I’m not wishing injury upon Bonds, and this sentiment of mine is not borne of any animus toward Bonds himself. I’m gleefully untroubled by the steroids issue, and I’m also not one of these who levels his selective misanthropy at the modern ballplayer. I’m just someone who has a deep and abiding admiration for Hank Aaron, such that I want to see him cling to this record until we do a collective header back into the primordial soup whence we came.
The Expos were expected to be an offensive force. It remains to be seen if the first two weeks are a fluke, whether the Marlins pitching is really that good, or if things will balance out. What is known is that the Expos will have to improve without Carl Everett. Everett was expected to take up some of the slack left by the loss of Vladimir Guerrero. Instead, he’ll spend the next month rehabbing a torn labrum. He hurt his shoulder on a violent slide into second. Reports say that the MRI shows only a small tear of the posterior aspect of Everett’s labrum. Things are looking very good for Trot Nixon. His extended stay in Miami hasn’t set back his timetable. After a pair of successful batting practice sessions, Nixon is moving to the Red Sox’s Ft. Myers rehab facility. He’ll continue his extensive rehab program with Sox trainers, not just for the next weeks, but if he hopes to stay healthy, he’ll have to make this part of his daily routine. Nixon could be back in Boston’s lineup as early as May 1, but it’s more likely that it will be a week to 10 days after that.
John Maine has the right STUFF for the Orioles. The Rockies experiment with Wilson and Walker on the shelf. The Mets shuffle through the bottom of their rotation. These and other news and notes out of Baltimore, Colorado, and New York in today’s Prospectus Triple Play.
While I don’t think the Anderson contract was a good one, I can at least see the rationale behind it, the organizational thought process. The Expos’ commitment to Hernandez, an innings sponge coming off of his best season, makes much less sense to me. To justify it, you have to think that 2003 represented an Andersonesque leap in performance, and be comfortable with the idea that Hernandez’s huge workload in his 20s isn’t going to affect either his pitching or his availability over the next few years. I don’t know that I can agree with either premise. Despite being the Pitcher Abuse Points poster boy throughout this career, Hernandez has remained healthy enough to make virtually all his starts since reaching the majors for good in 1997. He’s established himself as a workhorse who, 2003 aside, provides league-average performance over 210 or more innings. That has value, but when you look at what pitchers of Hernandez’s ilk got over the winter, it’s hard to understand $7 million a season. Jeff Suppan, a pretty good comp for Hernandez, signed for two years and $6 million over the winter. Jason Johnson is a bit inferior to Hernandez, and got $7 million over two years. Steve Trachsel got his 2005 option picked up at $5 million and an option year–not guaranteed–tacked on at $7 million. In light of these signings, Hernandez was retained at a significant premium above his market value–assuming other teams don’t think Livan’s 2003 represented a new performance plateau.