Orioles’ prospect John Maine has struggled since being promoted to Triple-A, worrying some of his stathead supporters. Reliving his days as a member of the Blake Street Bombers, Vinny Castilla is once again taking full advantage of the Coors Field Effect. And the Mets could look to current Pirate Kris Benson as a back-of-the-rotation option if they try to make a run in the NL East. All this and much more news from Baltimore, Colorado, and New York in your Monday edition of Prospectus Triple Play.
Tuesday night, 32 men from each league (selected by 64 separate and distinct methods), will battle it out for supremacy and the right to host the weekend World Series games and, in the process, get more traffic in bars with big screen televisions in the host city because people don’t have go get up early the next morning to work the night after Games 1 and 6. What I think would be much more interesting would be a tournament featuring All-Star teams from the six different divisions.
Knowing that this is a crazy idea (and having to belay the idea of them wearing uniforms identifying their divisional allegiance a la the Little League World Series), I have instead taken the liberty of selecting these six best-of teams. I’ve done it primarily using VORP, but with a touch of subjectivity thrown in here and there (but not too much, since analytical types such as we are, we’re conditioned to breaking out in rashes whenever we get too subjective).
I wrote a whole column last Thursday about how players don’t owe it to their teams to waive their no-trade clauses. One weekend later, Randy Johnson comes out and says that if, maybe, he were to think about leaving Arizona, well… “The only way I’d probably want to leave is if a trade would benefit the Diamondbacks by my leaving. And maybe the way to do that is if they wouldn’t have to pay my salary and it could go to some other players that would help them–and if I got to a situation that was going to work for me.”
Randy’s now saying he’d require that:
The Diamondbacks wouldn’t have to pick up his salary
They would have to get players back who’d help them
His new team would have to be contending
Sure, there are players who have emotional ties to an organization and a city such that they’d like to see their soon-to-be-old team do well. Some players have tried to make sure that their new team doesn’t give up too much. The most obvious example of this was Ken Griffey, Jr, who when demanding a trade from the Mariners to the Reds seemed to be actively involved in who’d be traded for, which is kind of weird since he instigated the whole thing. It’d be cool if us average people could do that for our jobs. (“I’ve decided you’re going to offer me $125 grand to watch baseball and drink beer in the comfort of my house, and you’re going to pay for the recliner.” “Remember not to put your breakable mugs on the bottom of the box when you clean out your desk, because you’re fired.”)
The Red Sox wade through the darkness of bullpen troubles before the eventual dawn (i.e., the return of Scott Williamson and perhaps BH Kim). The White Sox lose Frank Thomas on the heels of watching Magglio Ordonez go down. Kerry Wood comes off the DL for the Cubs. Ken Griffey Jr. makes his annual trip to the DL with a bum hamstring. Eric Chavez returns to Oakland, and not a moment too soon. And the dismantling in Seattle continues with the release of Rich Aurilia. All this and much more news from around the league in your Tuesday edition of Transaction Analysis.
One of my favorite columns is my All-Star
Diary, where I watch the game and take notes as it happens, letting events
lead me where they may. Let’s see what unfolds this year…