It's time to get him up here
-Eric Wedge, manager of the Mariners speaking of prospect and potential phenom Dustin Ackley.
Ackley is hitting .303, with 9 home runs and 35 RBI in Tacoma.
Dustin Ackley, Eric Wedge, Mariners Alex Remington relays the sad news of Scott Kazmir's release from the Angels. Kazmir has given up 35 runs in 17 innings in Triple A and the Angels are eating $9 million of his contract. Scott Kazmir is 27 years old. Worse Remington brings up the calamity that was Scott Avery's short pitching career which fell apart almost immediately after an injury in his armpit which caused him to change his mechanics.
Surely, some team will sign Kazmir to a minor-league deal.
Angels. Braves, Rays, Scott Avery, Scott Kazmir 
Albert Pujols, Jose Reyes, MVP, Mets, Rick Sutcliffe, Tim Lincecum 
Cleveland began the season 30-15. Yes, it was a cupcake schedule. They were never destined to keep up that pace. But all they had to do was go five hundred and win a playoff spot with their head-start. Instead they've gone 5-15 since then. And the Verlander took first place from them last night. In that stretch they've played the Red Sox, Rays, Rangers, Yankees and Tigers in quick succession. So they aren't this bad either.
But Choo looks absolutely awful. 61 games in and he has only 23 RBI and is batting a measly .234 with 5 round-trippers. He has not been a baseball player since his May DUI arrest. And Matt La Porta isn't doing much either beyond his .248 hitting. Getting Travis Hafner won't help much either since the defensively useless DH is arriving just in time for inter-league play.
Indians, Matt LaPorta, Shin-Soo Choo, Travis Hafner If you ever plan on giving up a hit, I think you're already beat. That's the wrong mentality.
-Justin Verlander, whose near no-hitter (it would have been his second this year) has his stock higher than it has ever been.
Justin Verlander, No-Hitter, No-No, Tigers He’s modestly and quietly trying to make a difference in the world, with the simple thread of trying to help people get along, whether it’s in Jerusalem or downtown New York,
-Mary Gordon, the president of Roots of Empathy, on David Einhorn the new minority-stake owner of the Mets.
What comes first? Peace in Jerusalem or between the Wilpons and Mets fans?
David Einhorn, Fred Wilpon, Mets, Wilpons There is probably no issue in baseball, aside from the designated hitter, that I am more old-school on, than the four-man rotation. Of course, pitchers are an expensive investment, and no investor wants to see his investment abused. But the sheer volume of pitches thrown by guys who barely qualify to be on a major league roster is appalling.
Not only that, but I believe that by babying pitchers, we make them less effective. How a 100-pitch count came to be not only standard, but gospel is bizarre. While some pitches really ought to be pulled around 100, the century mark is when Nolan Ryan was warming up. If the 100-pitch count had been around in his day, he probably wouldn't have lasted very long in the bigs.
Recognizing that, Ryan has taken it upon himself to try to bring back the four-man rotation, and has been prepping the Rangers minor league system to do just that. However, I read a piece recently that made me wonder if perhaps there's a better way to rotate pitchers.
David Laurila of Baseball Prospectus writes about an idea that Greg Rubin, a student at NYU's Stern Business School proposed at the MIT Sloan Sport Analytics Conference. Rubin's idea is to rotate four pairs of pitchers; eight pitchers, each throwing four innings, then resting for three days. Rubin outlines several advantages, such as pitchers not saving their best stuff for when they get into jams.
I like Rubin's idea, but perhaps it should go a step further. I see absolutely no reason why a pitcher couldn't throw four innings every other day. Instead of putting guys on a 100-pitch count every five days (or usually more like six days, as it's a five man rotation these days, not five day), they would be on a 50-60 pitch count every other day. This would have all the advantages of Rubin's scheme, but without having to use four pitchers who are probably not that great.
A pitcher would be expected to throw around 320 innings a season in this plan. Cy Young used to do that in his sleep; for Old Hoss Radbourn, that was a slow week.
But like all of my good ideas, this will be ignored as well. So we'll continue to do everything completely ass-backwards- working underdeveloped arms to death, while allowing developed ones to wilt.
Cy Young, Nolan Ryan, Rangers, Rotations, Tommy John Surgery Some of you may be wondering how it is that the Tampa Bay Rays got 12 picks out of the first 90 in the Major League Baseball Draft. The short answer is that the MLB Draft is complicated.
Free agents are divided into three types- Type A, Type B, and all others. When a team loses a Type A free agent, who they had attempted to sign, to another club, they get the signees first round pick, plus a pick in the compensation round. The compensation round immediately follows the first round; in the this manner, the Rays received the first round picks of the Yankees, Red Sox, and A's, for losing Raphael Soriano, Carl Crawford, and Grant Balfour.
In addition they received compensation picks for losing Brad Hawpe, Joaquin Benoit, Randy Choate, and Chad Qualls.
There's a lot of excitement over Tampa's domination of this draft, and how deep it is. The Rays may have set themselves up for the future in a big way. Three things though- one, they have to sign these guys- that's not guaranteed. Two, some of these picks have to turn out to be good. There's a lot of unpredictability in the Major League draft. For every Ken Griffey, Jr. (first overall pick 1987) there's a few Andy Benes' (first pick 1988) and a Brien Taylor (first pick 1991.)
And finally, they have to hold on to them. Remember, the Rays are set up in this draft, because they couldn't afford to hold onto seven free agents. If some of their picks in this draft turn out to be stars, the Rays will have to be in a better financial situation to re-sign them, than they're in now. Or we may be talking about how the 2018 MLB Draft has set up the Rays for the future.
I'm all for snark; it's like a second language for me. But the thing about snark is that you have to properly place it, or else you look like a moron. And when you look like a moron, you open yourself up to da-da-dahhh- snark.
Following my twitter feed last week, I came across this tweet, from of all places, @MLB:
Mets skipper uses pitcher Chris Capuano as pinch-hitter; changes mind mid at-bat because ya know, he's a pitcher
Isn't that so clever. So clever that Jayson Werth's beard felt the need to retweet it and add:
You know times are tough when even @MLB is clowning you. #LOLMETS
Ha, ha wasn't that so funny? You know, because Collins made a stupid move, sending up a starting pitcher to pinch hit (we all know it's only genius if Tony LaRussa does it), and then realized it was stupid, and changed his mind mid-at bat. So he's a flip-flopper too! He could run for President on the GOP ticket!
The facts, of course, get in the way on this one.
Here's what happened: In a 7-7 game in the bottom of the 8th, a runner on first, and no outs, Collins sent Willie Harris in to pinch run. With the pitcher's spot up, he sent Chris Capuano to pinch hit? Why? Because he's a moron, didn't you read to the MLB tweet. End of story, nothing to see here.
Of course, it could have had something to do with the fact that he was planning on bunting Harris to second, and Capuano's the best bunter among his pitchers. So why waste a position player?
Then, with the count 1-1, Jose Veras balked Harris to second. With a runner in scoring position, Collins decided to bring up Josh Thole, who was going to have to come into the game anyway.
And then the move worked. And the Mets won the game. It was out of the box thinking, and it was a great play. The funny thing is that the video MLB links to with their snarky tweet makes that all clear. So either they intentionally gave a false impression of what was in the video, or they didn't even watch it. I know J Werth's Beard didn't.
Point is, people who live in glasses houses, shouldn't snark about how ugly their neighbors are when they get out of the shower.
Chris Capuano, Jose Veras, MLB, Mets, Terry Collins, Tweets, Willie Harris 
They didn't begin picking until late in the first round, but once they got started, things started to move very quickly. The Rays had compiled 10 picks between slots 24 and 60.
Andrew Friedman had a very busy night. And while it may seem like developing through the draft is a more economical way of creating a winning baseball team, that doesn't mean it is cheap. Tampa could end up spending close to $10 million on their 2011 draft class.
So let's name these kids:
Pick 24: Taylor Guerrieri, a RHP prospect who started lighting up the radar gun this year with his fastball, and compliments it with a curveball.
Pick 31: Mikie Mahtook, a more seasoned LSU center-fielder fit the Rays profile for drafting durable-looking athletes (think Evan Longoria).
You may want to remember these names: Jake Hager and Brandon Martin, both high-school short stops. Tyler Goedel, another California high-schooler who plays the hot corner. Jeff Ames, a stout RHP out of Lower Columbia College, Snell Blake and Grayson Garvin both left-handed pitchers. And Kes Carter, a left-handed outfielder. There could be several 2015 World Series Champions, and 2018 Yankees and Red Sox in this here field.
And if you want to feel old, James Harris, the sixtieth pick of the draft was born in October of 1993. He is still seventeen.
Andrew Freidman, Mikie Mahtook, Rays, Taylor Guerrieri Kiss!
Bryce Harper, the power-hitting Nats prospect that is meant one day to give Stephen Strasburg his wins, is now the subject of sports media's morality officers. You see, Bryce made the mistake of admiring his home-run against the Greensboro Grasshoppers, and as you can see from the video, he stared down the pitcher as he trotted toward home, eventually blowing him a kiss.
Harper's just a kid. No, Harper must grow up! No, it is actually "the single most arrogant home-run trot ever." He has to learn the "intangibles", he has to forget he was ever on the cover of Sports Illustrated. It is the sign of a decaying sports-media when it cannot describe an event with any perceptiveness or clarity, but reders a moral judgement on it. According to this line of thinking, baseball isn't about muscles in coordinated motion, dirt, leather and spit - it is about "heart" or "grit" and "playing the right way."
What was left out of these dispatches was the rest of the story - the actual things that happened on the field. The Grasshoppers had been jawing at Harper throughout their recent series and on Sunday their pitcher hit him in the knee in the first inning, which removed him from the game. Harper's kiss-off homerun was a response. If it happened in the context of a major league playoff series, it would be hailed as a deserved celebration and part Harper's intimidating gamesmanship.
Here is a pre-smooch profile of Harper from the AP.
Bryce Harper, Grasshoppers, Minors, Nationals, Sports Psychiatry Athletics, Cubs, Indians, Marlins, Travis Hafner We are opinionated at The Slurve Sometimes we're right, sometimes we're wrong, and most of the time it could go either way. But rarely do I say something that I had not seen anyone else say, and then watch someone else prove me right, within a week.
Last Tuesday I wrote this about the Buster Posey situation. The thing I wanted readers to take away from it was this type of thing happens all the time, but since it happened to a star catcher, it was a big deal. If it were the backup catcher for the Mariners, or the starter for the Mets, no one would care.
Brian Sabean, Buster Posey, Catchers, Giants, Injuries, Marlins, Scott Cousins I can't say I haven't heard people in baseball talk about that, but there is a lot of deferral to Bud on this one.
–Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports business consultant, on whether MLB is allowing too many teams to over-leverage themselves.
