Baseball Historians

The Brewers hopefully shored up their bullpen with the acquisition of Guillermo Mota from the Mets.  In exchange, the Brewers gave up journeyman catcher Johnny Estrada.  It’s unclear how much the dugout incident back in August had to do with the deal but Estrada had a good but not great year.  His defense was lacking […]

Apparantly, being your agent isn’t all that easy and Kenny Rogers is now asking Tiger fans to be patient because he’s getting used to his new job duties as a self represented agent.  Rogers did say he’ll be back in contact with Dave Dombrowski soon though and it’s looking more and more likely that the […]

The Angels solidied their rotation by dealing their gold glove shortstop.  Cabrera is now gone and while he’ll be missed, the Angels have several options at shortstop.  It looks like Mike Scioscia mentioned Erick Aybar and Macier Izturis to fill in the spot in 2008 but the heir apparant has to be Brandon Wood.   I’d […]

The White Sox traded another of the starters that helped them win a World Series back in 2005 as they sent Jon Garland to the Angels for shortstop Orlando Cabrera.  This comes on the heels of the White Sox re-signing Juan Uribe to a one year deal.  Cabrera is coming off of a career year […]

Baseball America recently unveiled their list of top Cubs prospects and at the head of the class is the 2007 first round draft pick Josh Vitters.  Vitters struggled in his short season debut but it’ll be fun to see how Vitters develops in Peoria next year.
Geovany Soto comes in at number two although it’s hard […]

Yadier Molina now has his backup.  The Cardinals signed former Reds’ and Royals’ catcher Jason LaRue to a one year deal that really shores the Cardinals up at catcher.  In LaRue, you get a starter quality catcher who can fill in whenever Molina needs a spell or if there’s an injury.  LaRue consistently hit double […]

It seems just about anything can upset a Yankees’ fan.  Magglio Ordonez finished a distant second place in the American League MVP race and he even picked up a couple of first place votes.  Of course those votes came from a pair of Detroit writers  and that’s what has everyone all up in arms.  Regardless, […]

The Red Sox brought back their third baseman as Mike Lowell has apparantly agreed to a three year deal worth somewhere in the high $30 million range.  Lowell had a huge season in 2007 and that carried over into the playoffs when he won the World Series MVP award.
It’s a solid move although you have […]

No big surprise here.  Alex Rodriguez was by far the most potent offensive weapon in either league and he walked away with his third MVP.  Two idiots from Detroit voted Ordonez first place and they cost A-Rod all of the first place votes but let those losers feel good about themselves because it really doesn’t […]

I don’t know whether to believe any of this stuff anymore but just days after reading about how the Mets were going after David Eckstein to play second base, they sign Luis Castillo to a big four year, $25 million deal.  Castillo provides the Mets with a nice table setter and while you won’t get […]

The Braves shored up their rotation yesterday by signing Tom Glavine to a one year, $8 million deal that will probably mean the former Brave will retire a Brave.  Glavine turned down his $13 million option with the Mets and he’ll now be much closer to home and more importantly, in a Braves uniform.
Glavine’s role […]

The Athletics had pretty much decided that Donnie Murphy would be their primary utility guy heading into 2008. That left Marco Scutaro without a job and while they looked to be set to non-tender him, they were actually able to find a trading partner.  They dealt Scutaro to the Blue Jays for minor league pitchers […]

J.P. Ricciardi got his man.  The Jays pulled the trigger on their first move of the Hot Stove season and they traded Graham Godfrey and Kristian Bell to the Athletics for Marco Scutaro.  The nice thing is that Scutaro can play just about anywhere and he’ll draw a walk without striking out much.  He did […]

Earlier this week, we had John Sickels’ prospect list.  Now Kevin Goldstein pipes in with his top eleven list and unlike Sickels’, we get some cool commentary.  They both agree on the top two spots and their top four contains the same names with just three and four flip flopped.  Goldstein has Danny Duffy at […]

In a very cool series at MiLB.com, Kevin Czerwinski takes a look at how the Padres prospects fared in 2007.  Chase Headley turned out to be the best position player in the system as opposed to the preseason pick of Cedric Hunter and Josh Geer walked away with pitcher of the year.  Geer finished the […]

Mariano Rivera is the lone holdout but he appears to be close to signing the three year, $45 million deal the Yankees offered him last week.  When Rivera signs, that’ll leave just Andy Pettitte as the lone hold out from last year’s team.  The Yankees still need to figure out who will play first base […]

Well, this is one of those times where all you can do is a 180 degree turn.  It seemed almost certain that Yorvit Torrealba was coming to the Mets but now the team is saying the deal is off.  The deal was contingent on a physical and the Mets aren’t saying what if anything that […]

I found myself profoundly sad when I saw the news that Joe Nuxhall had died yesterday.  I was in the middle of singing for some Ohio State vs. Michigan pre-game festivities and I saw on a television above the bar that Joe had died.  I forgot the words to the song and had to stop […]

The Braves acquired a guy who could possibly compete for the vacancy out in centerfield yesterday when they traded relief pitcher Oscar Villarreal to the Astros for Josh Anderson.  While Anderson might have lost his prospect tag because of his age, he’s a speedy outfielder who, if given the time in the majors, could steal […]

The Astros shored up their bullpen by sending the speedy outfielder Josh Anderson to the Braves for relief pitcher Oscar Villarreal.  I like this move because the right hander can be a workhorse.  He’s spot started and in two different seasons in his career he’s topped 90 innings.  His walk rate was up last year […]

I think this is a positive sign for the Tigers.  Kenny Rogers ended his relationship with Scott Boras and he’s said he’ll represent himself in contract negotiations.  He also reiterated how he’d like to come back to Detroit and that also mirrors the Alex Rodriguez situation, who has all but re-signed with the Yankees.
It’s interesting […]

Well, it’s put up or shut up time for Barry Bonds.  He now faces both perjury and obstruction of justice charges and now he gets a chance to defend himself in a court of law.  I’m a huge Bonds fan and while I’m probably viewed as an apologist for him, I just don’t think it […]

The Mets locked up their catchers for the 2008 season and you have to be happy with the Yorvit Torrealba signing.  Three years, $14.4 million could turn out to be a huge bargain if we get what the Rockies got out of Torrelba in 2007.  Anytime you sign a Rockie there’s some concern because of […]

Baseball America released their list of top ten Marlins prospects and at the top of the list for the second year is pitching prospect Chris Volstad.  The righthander continued his ascent with a solid season at both High A and Double A and while he’ll probably start back at Carolina, it looks like we could […]

Everyone who’s watched Jake Peavy over the past few years expected a Cy Young at some point.  And while I wasn’t surprised that he won, I guess I’m a little surprised that he walked away with all 32 first place votes.  Brandon Webb took 31 of the 32 second place votes and Aaron Harang was […]

Only time will tell if this is the Steinbrenner’s greatest victory.  Still you have to be impressed that the Yankees got Alex Rodriguez to come down $75 million from $350 to $275 million so the super star could get back into pin stripes.  While the amount hasn’t been specified, there’s some bonuses in there if A-Rod […]

In a very cool series at MiLB.com, Lisa Winston took an after the fact look at the Dodgers minor league system.  They named Delwyn Young as the best position player but they didn’t anticipate the emergence of Clayton Kershaw as a bonafide stuff.  Kershaw got it done both with the Loons and with Double-A Jacksonville […]

While the Diamondbacks success by itself wasn’t that surprising, the fact that they did it without Randy Johnson turned it into a surprise.  And because the Diamondbacks won a National League leading 90 wins with a very young team, Bob Melvin walked away with the National League Manager of the Year.  He was first place […]

After a serious playoff drought, the Indians made it back to the promised land in 2007 and the man behind the players was manager Eric Wedge.  He was rewarded today by being awarded the manager of the year award.  Wedge picked up 19 of the 28 first place votes and he had almost twice as […]

Talk about a development.  Forget about the fact that the A-Rod wants to come back and play for the Yankees.  This is the Steinbrenners versus Scott Boras and it’s looking like the Steinbrenners might pull this off.  A-Rod has said he’d like to come back to the Yankees and it looks like A-Rod will have to put […]