Spring Training 2011

Gossip/news/updates here! In particular focusing on who's in the best form of their life pls.

What's your team up to? I keep reading incredibly positive puff pieces on Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, or "Ol' Sticky" as I have unilaterally decided to call it, and the Rockies and D'backs players seem pretty stoked. Anyone else moved this year?

"I think our front office has done a tremendous job piecing together four frontline guys, and Joe Blanton is not chopped liver by any means, so we feel very good about what we've got."

http://www.csnphilly.com/02/13/11/Theres-work-to-do-cautions-Phils-pitchin/landing_phillies.html?blockID=409750&feedID=704

via SBNation:

Sabathia on how he lost 25 lbs: “I stopped eating Cap’n Crunch every day. … I used to eat that stuff by the box.”

greatest shape of his life!

GUYS BASEBALL IS ALMOST HERE

Reporter: "Cole, you're the only one at this table with a ring. Looking to the guys to your right..."

Cole Hamels: "Joe's got one."

Blanton: "I know you forget about me, but it's okay."

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/D12-The-season-of-forgetting-Joe-Blanton-offici?urn=mlb-321590

Wish at&t cable had the mlb network so I could exponentially increase the # of spring training games I can watch..

I see ESPN has been airing BBTN at 3:30 ET lately, which I think should be its perm slot so only retirees have to hear Kruk.

cst_Cowley cst_Cowley
Best thing about spring training is every player can justify why his team may have a chance to play deep into October. Reality hits in April

What are they supposed to say -- "Yeah, we'll be lucky to finish .500"?

"i mean, jesus...did you see our PECOTA projections for this year?"

heheh

http://www.gaslampball.com/2011/2/15/1995401/cameron-maybin-warns-against-eating-panda-express-padres-and-panda

"I'm a force out there. Guys don't want to face me," Burnett says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6-ks_UP988

omg I love this kid. he is dedicated.

days it took for Rich Harden to get hurt: 0

Rich Harden has been shut down for a few weeks with stiffness in his lat area.

rockies have signed john maine to a minor league deal

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/02/16/cameron-maybin-company-man/

jim edmonds has retired

jedmonds.

that's what i like to call him.

omg that kid

Is Edmonds going to get hof love because hes a scrappy white hustler? His numbers are similar-ish on first blush to those of Bernie Williams, who I assume will get hof love because hes a yankee.

Edmonds was a much better defensive CF than Bernie (who probably should have been in a corner for his whole career based on totalzone numbers). I think he's deserving, based on his monster 6-year peak after joining the Cards. JoePos had a good aside in his latest post about how there's almost no true CFs in the hall of fame since Mays, and suggested that people have the bar set too high on them.

Bernie will get the same sort of hof love that Mattingly got i think, eternal hanging around on the ballot from yankee homer voters. maybe a bit more support than Mattingly because he was better and is entering the ballot in a weak year, but he's still down in the Rice/Dawson area of 'player whose flaws are masked by traditional stats/evaluation'

holy smokes...68.3 WAR?! that's impressive and better than tim raines and adnruw jones, who i've also seen people try and make cases for.

@ChrisCrawfordPI: Good to see Texas concerned about early pitch counts -- Jungmann throws a CG in first start, in February. Sigh.

Edmonds made maybe the best catch I've ever seen in person, at Cincinnati in 2004 I believe... I'll see if there's video.

WHAT ABOUT ENDY

I only saw that on TV!

oh all right then

I DEMAND MOVING IMAGES

Michael Young meets with upset fan, 3

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2011/0222/dal_youngm_fan_200.jpg

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Rangers-Holland-pitches-for-laughs-by-wearing-w?urn=mlb-324832

This f'in guy

groan

"I try to get on Yahoo! and just search 'funny t-shirts' or something like that," Holland said.

Yahoo! Not Google?

tells you all you need to know about Yahoo sports writers

"St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright may be headed for Ulnar Collateral Ligament surgery, aka Tommy John surgery, after damaging his elbow during spring training Feb. 22. "

19. Posted by kurt l Tue Feb 22, 2011 8:20 pm EST
He should wear a shirt of Bob Euker saying "Ball 4, ball 8, ball 12" in memory of his brilliant pitching performance in Game 2 of the World Series. Don't know if I will ever again see a major league pitcher throw 12 straight balls.

games on tv this weekend. I am going to have a heart attack.

on regular tv, or cable tv?

mlb network has some and the fox sports west channel in la is showing 2 dodger games on sat and sunday at noon. its probably a stripped down production crew with the minimum of cameras but I dont give a shit.

Ranger's Beltre has spine surgery

i think some freelance authors are just SEO trolling with these true but misleading article headlines

jeez, Mets are on Ch 11 at 1pm.

baseball is on :O

<3

I saw Colon throw his first pitch for the Yanks and thought C.C. had changed his uni number.

colon is disgusting

guys not only was baseball on YESTERDAY it's on TODAY

I saw Colon throw his first pitch for the Yanks and thought C.C. had changed his uni number.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Saturday, February 26, 2011 1:32 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

morbs bringing the heat

Is it just me or does charlie steiner consciously pattern is patter on vin scully?

taylor tankersly had a bizarre line for the mets today

1 IP 3 H 3 R 3 ER 3 K

Haha.

The Rangers are sort of a mess right now.

Should also post that Andrew Bailey's elbow most likely exploded yesterday.. Sorry A's fans/fantasy baseball enthusiasts..

It's as if the Rangers were hoping to get more than four RBI out of Davis' 130 plate appearances last year.

Davis could be worth a flier - but for a "proven" closer?! lol

They'd be lucky to get a serviceable reliever for him.

ian snell has retired

Not even Dave Duncan could fix him!

Wasn't he happiest in AAA?

She slowly walked down in front of a child happily playing catch against the stairs as his Mom enjoyed the sun. She walked very slowly down the stadium steps twirling her dirty hair which was covered by a camoflauge hat with each flip-flopped step she took. At least ten people were shaking their heads by now. Did I mention she was moving very slowly?

She leaned over the railing, (I swear it took her ten seconds) and said something I will remember forever….,

“Heh…you…. yeh you,” as she pointed her index finger, “you’re Ian Snell right? I want you to know that I played church softball with your wife!”

Ian Snell is a nice guy. After a pause that seemed like thirty seconds, He responded with something like,

“that’s cool, thanks.”

We were howling immediately.

She then asked,

“is she here?”

After a loud ”NO” she walked head down defeated back up the steps taking just as long to exit as it did for her to make her grand entrance.

http://rumbunter.com/2011/03/15/ian-snell-retires-slow-pitch-softball-managers-everywhere-hit-the-phones/

he appeared in one game this spring: 2IP, 2R, 4H

he had some good peripheral stats a couple years ago and I thought he coulda been a sleeper comeback candidate, but I guess not..

head case

A favorite:

ITT Ed learns about America's Pastime by following the LOL Pirates this season

And Porcello, who never had swung a bat in the majors before last night, hooked a two-out RBI single into left in the second, another two-out RBI single into right in the sixth. The latter came after a 2-0 count.

Anything to the pitcher thing?

"Nope," Snell replied to that question. "Just one of those things."

Snell took issue with the Pirates intentionally walking .287-hitting shortstop Ramon Santiago to get to Porcello in the second instance. Immediately upon returning to the dugout after that inning, he slammed his fist into a wall.

"I was a little upset that we walked the guy to get to the pitcher," Snell said. "I didn't see any reason to do that, but ... oh, well, then, he got a hit. Karma."

The bad news: Braves' Luis Salazar lost his left eye from the McCann line drive. The good news: it ain't gonna stop him from managing in Lynchburg as scheduled.

that's a bummer, relatively speaking

I hope he embraces it and rocks an eyepatch.

I was thinking the same thing! Unless he's a total asshole, his players are going to think he's king of the world -- "dude gets an eyeball knocked out and comes right back to work -- I want to play for him."

Is it too soon to make a joke about him one day managing the pirates

he should go balls to the wall and get a parrot and a peg leg.

xpost - er no

Kazmir RIP

no Salazar needs to go with a glass eye. then when he's in a heated argument over a blown umpire call he can pull it out, trace the action, and mimic viewing the situation from a higher angle to really rub it in.

but imagine if there's a brawl. It'll be like the ending of The Natural (the book), where Hobbs punches the owner's glass eye out.

Kazmir RIP

― Andy K, Sunday, March 20, 2011 8:45 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

what happened?

It's more like what's continuing to happen.

"Scott Kazmir has walked 11 batters in 11-plus spring innings, but in a 95-pitch, 41/3-inning outing Saturday against the Cleveland Indians, he improved his pitch speed over earlier spring starts, consistently reaching the high 80s."

oh ok he just continues to suck--was looking for news of an injury or something

Andy's on the ESPN payroll to drive up pageviews.

Neshek to Padres

So the Cardinals retaliated for Nyjer's home-plate collision last year by having ex-Nat Miguel Batista throw at Ian Desmond?

in a ST game?!

the nats should just get rid of nyjer for the safety of the rest of their players

In a ST game today, yes -- that was a poorly worded post.

More details here, too:

JUPITER, Fla. - The benches and bullpens have cleared at Roger Dean Stadium in the top of the seventh, after ex-Nationals pitcher Miguel Batista, now with the Cardinals, hit Ian Desmond in the back with a pitch.

It was the third time today that a player has been plunked. Washington's Laynce Nix was hit in the shoulder by St. Louis starter Chris Carpenter in the top of the fifth, and in the bottom of the inning, Nats starter Livan Hernandez returned the favor, hitting Colby Rasmus.

After Desmond was hit, he looked quizzically at Batista, palms extended to question why the action occurred. Home plate umpire Fran Burke, who was in the midst of warning both dugouts as the benches emptied, followed an upset Desmond down to first base.

Nationals manager Jim Riggleman had two extended and animated conversations - with St. Louis skipper Tony LaRussa and, after order was sort of restored, with Cardinals coach Joe Pettini. Riggleman had to be restrained by other members of the Nationals both times.

Batista was ejected from the game and seemed unsure why he was being banished. Batista, you'll recall, was ejected from a game in June by umpire Joe West for hitting Cincinnati's Brandon Phillips, who had run toward Desmond the previous inning trying to move between second and third in hopes of drawing an interference call.

The Nationals and Cardinals have bad blood dating to last year, too. Nyjer Morgan took a beeline for Cards catcher Bryan Anderson in an Aug. 29 game - even though Anderson was standing a step or two in front of home plate.

Morgan wasn't really a part of this fracas, though he was one of the first players out of the dugout. In fact, while War's "Why Can't We Be Friends" was blaring over the stadium loudspeakers, Morgan was standing with his arm draped over spring training instructor Trent Jewett, who had his arm over Morgan's shoulder.

Earlier, in the fifth inning, Morgan collided with Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols' arm as he crossed first when he was thrown out after bouncing a ball in front of the plate. Pujols had to be checked by a trainer but remained in the game.

http://www.masnsports.com/the_goessling_game/2011/03/benches-bullpens-clear-after-desmond-hit-by-batista.html

The possible connection to last year's incident was drawn by one of the beat writers.

While he didn't like being hit by the pitch, Desmond took a shot at Batista.

"It was intentional, but Miggy throws like Miss Iowa. It's no big deal," Desmond said, referencing the headlines Batista made last July when he tried to justify fans' disappointment in his spot start over the injured Stephen Strasburg by by saying, "Imagine if you go to see Miss Universe, then you end up having Miss Iowa, you might get those kind of boos."

Rumor has it Neftali Feliz is going to be closing again this year because Ron Washington demands a proven commodity to not use properly when the entire post-season is on the line.

At this point I think they have to let him close because they really haven't prepared him to start this season. Either that or send him to the minors, but it's too late to switch him this year imo

Nolan Ryan says stop being a fucking pussy and go out there and throw 455 pitches. At least that what every broadcaster tries to trick me into thinking.

apparently they didn't see the postseason last year

rhp sergio mitre to the brewers, of chris dickerson to the yankees

the sort of trade that makes one marvel that anyone bothered to make it

wasn't mitre the Yanks 5th starter?

or is that gunna be millwood now?

i believe mitre was beaten out by bartolo :

ha hahhahahah aaba hhah aha

Yankees probably need Dickerson more than the Brewers need Mitre (Granderson injury).

I thought Freddy Garcia was supposed to be the fifth starter.

yeah, he is now. : to the bullpen

also, mike hampton is retiring

The Padres traded for A. Gonzalez just to confuse the fans, I bet.

Chris Perez threw up on the mound today...

ChrisPerez54 Chris Perez
All right, enough of all this Perez threw up bs, I had low blood sugar and was dizzy, and only water came up

ChrisPerez54 Chris Perez
If it were regular season I would have finished the inning

Humble Twitter bio:

"Chris Perez. Relief pitcher for the Cleveland Indians..Former UM Hurricane..Just a normal guy with an arm like a fu***** cannon."

do we hafta start a Phillies-trolling thread to exult in Lidge's injury?