biggentleben

I honestly think I have the next two real long-term possibilities for the Mets with Torres and Familia. I wasn't getting anything else legit as far as a player in offer for Street.

Two guys who really don't have a breaking pitch, but they can make it work. With all the arm injuries as we assume everyone needs to learn a curve or slider at 10 years old, seeing two guys who can do it with location and change of speed is a positive thing, I think.

It's impossible to do and completely unfair to fans of those northern teams. One of the MLB's heads of scheduling was on Buster Olney's podcast last summer, and it was impressive to listen to her describe the incredible amount of factors in how they put together a schedule. On average, more games are affected by rain in any average month of the season than cold in any combination of three seasons.

I couldn't disagree with this more. I don't feel it's natural to play baseball when it's 110 degrees and the ball carries 15-20 feet further as much as it's not natural to play at 50 degrees. However, that's the absolute beauty of baseball. The game should be able to be played at a high level in a multitude of conditions. The best part of the game is that it can be played very well despite conditions, once one has some experience in handling those conditions. A pitcher learns in a rain game that the curve doesn't hold well, but the slider has a bit more bite. The hitter learns in Wrigley in May, you hit the ball in the air toward left field for a chance to get the ball out. Baseball is not played in a bubble, and frankly, that's what makes it tremendous!

Not every Latin player is flamboyant like Yasiel Puig. The OP makes it seem like having Latin players is assumed to create a more boisterous and outspoken clubhouse.

Boston school teachers cringe that she may have been one of theirs...

Good guys won

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--cpKJInpq--/c_fit,fl_progressive,w_636/vusf4i2pazgozvfczwdr.jpg We in Atlanta would like to welcome you to bring your significant other to the ballpark for a game and a proposal for the low-low price of $50! (Plus, it helps our attendance numbers!)

I've got one story for my love of the game itself, and one for loving of playing. First, why I love the game (and why I am first and foremost a Braves fan - to the chagrin of many around here). It all goes back to my great-grandma. She was bound and determined to get another baseball maniac in the family, and for some reason, I was her choice. We would sit and talk baseball whenever she was visiting from Arizona, and she would tell me about past players and how when Andre Dawson played, it made her think of a young Ernie Banks (she was a Cubs fan, and lo and behold, Dawson ended up joining her beloved Cubbies after her observations of his play). She was unabashed about how much she loved the game, even choosing her home in Arizona to be close to the Cubs' spring training facility. She loved Hank Aaron, and one of my first baseball memories is her getting me a biography of Hank Aaron for me to read when I was just four and had just started reading "real" books. The biography was short, but it took me a year to process through, but by then I was hooked on baseball, and especially on the Braves and their current MVP player, Dale Murphy. My great grandma passed away after nearly a decade's battle with Alzheimer's, but we could always watch baseball and she never forgot who I was when we would watch a game, though we often would watch a live game and I'd need to be sure I knew my 1960s Cubs to keep up with who she was referring to on the current Cubs' roster as she often intertwined them. My playing story is one that I haven't told often, but growing up, I had a very good arm, but I was a pudgy kid, so I wasn't the first one to be given a chance on the mound over the other "more athletic" types. I had a coach entrust me with play at 3B at 12 years old, and I loved the spot because I could use my arm as I made plays, even if I wasn't the most athletic guy out there. That year, my coach had me pitch to him on the side after one practice, and he encouraged me to watch pitchers and learn their stuff because he'd use me the next year. Early that spring, a baseball player from our local college team was working a summer job spraying weeds along the road, and their truck broke down in front of our house. To my luck, he happened to not just be a random player, but the Friday night starter for the team. He went through nearly two hours of pitching workouts with me to show me how to perfect my follow through, my control, and make my delivery precise and consistent. I was only allowed to play one more year of baseball, but I spent it dominating on the mound any time I was there because someone was willing to take the time to share his love of the game with me.

I'm a fan of local guys making good, so Perkins is definitely one, but moreso Thielbar as a SDSU kid.

No pun intended once, shame on me No pun intended twice....

Exactly. I saw plenty of Kirby when he was at that state coming to what was a Northwest Athletic Club in Edina, and he always had a former Twin with him it seemed, often Gladden, but you saw a number of players attempting to support him (along with his entourage of security and "friends"). This was during and after everything blew up in the press, so it's not as if he was Mr. Popular in the public eye, but his teammates were attempting to support him in a pursuit of better health before he succumbed to the damage he'd done to his body.

I moved Minor based on some reports I was hearing out of Braves camp regarding his shoulder injury. I don't think the urethral injury will be long-term (I'd sure hope not anyway!), but I worry about what he will be in 2014 and whether he might have issues more and more with that shoulder based on the diagnosis from the spring and the continually moving return date from Braves brass

This seems to be the newest Albert Pujols deal. Simply crazy!

That's why I've started to move off some long-term guys. Obviously Bruce, Wright, and Minor got quick attention, but I'm still getting offers on other as well.

So...any opinions on how my rebuild has been going? I have had some actual decent offers to ponder.

I'm in particular not a fan of this, and a stronger players union may address this next CBA. This is the sort of series I would enjoy greatly in lieu of an All Star game (I know - I'm crazy on that point). The Japanese league is what it is in popularity and establishment because of the foreign tours Babe Ruth and others of the era went on to promote the game. Mays, Aaron, and the like also took similar tours in the 50s as a way to show our new partnership with the Japanese after WWII (though multiple players refused to travel to Japan because of the war). I'd rather see such things done in the offseason as a tour for players to expand the game rather than using regular season games, each of which is incredibly important. Greinke was only saying what so many players have said off of the record and has been reported by nearly every major sports network since the overseas games to start the season began. No allowances are given to a team to start early so their players have the same preparation time before the first game as the other 28 teams get, which is a disadvantage certainly. The players then return to play a week of spring training games again before starting their regular season up again. I'm not sure how it's done, but something else should be done, whether it's an all-star tour each winter rather than these regular season games so far ahead of the regular season or playing the overseas games in midseason with some creative scheduling. I've always thought the World Baseball Classic should be played in July rather than February/March for the safety of the players and better participation of the best players. What team wants to allow their $30M per season player to participate in an event that truly brings them less money than gate receipts from an average game (per the Yankee comparison of the last WBC income per team compared to an average game receipt)? I'm probably coming off as some elitist that doesn't want the game spread or a world influence into the game, and that's the farthest from the truth. I just think it can be done better.

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121030200251/lossimpson/es/images/2/27/Dr.nick_pags_amarillas.png

Until he was horridly abused in Oakland, leading to injuries aplenty, Suzuki was very solid with the bat. He never had an OPS+ over 100, mind you, but he wasn't a void, either, hitting .272/.329/.398 over that time with solid gap power and solid contact rate (only striking out 11.5% of the time while walking 6.6%). Oakland used him well as a hit-and-run sort of guy with good bat control. He's not a 30-homer guy or a .300 hitter, but he's not a "black hole" on offense.

I've not completed a draft on Yahoo's software since Bush was in office. Not even kidding. And I play in at least one drafted Yahoo league every single season.

Their technology is drastically behind other sites, and there's just no two ways to that. It's even worse in auction format. The one area they're strong in is keeper/dynasty leagues for newbies to a keeper/dynasty league. At a basic scoring/roster level, they've changed the standard league, and I much prefer the standard scoring and roster that I was introduced to fantasy with, utilizing 5 outfielders, 1 utility player, and no defined pitcher roles with a small bench. A Yahoo standard roster has remained the same since the late 1990s, but it's their own creation instead of going by the roster put forth by the original Rotisserie League. I've preferred ESPN for a long time because of their better technology, especially in the draft room, and their investment in keeping a standard league to the standard format of fantasy baseball instead of trying to tell fantasy baseball to adhere to them. I've played on lots of formats online (CBS, Fantrax, MLB.com, Fox) for "custom" leagues as well, and I'd put Yahoo's scoring/game play near the bottom.

I know Suzuki had a big time defensive reputation in Oakland, and strongly because of his reputation with young pitchers and with incredible athleticism behind the plate. Injuries have taken some of that away, but he still can move laterally at the position like very few can, so I'd believe the blocking pitches metrics, even if he is seeing more fastballs. A Tony Cingrani fastball is very different than a Stephen Strasburg fastball, even though both are similarly high in average registry. Jordan Zimmermann is known for the sink on his fastball, so his catcher would likely face more fastballs moving and in the dirt than an average fastball thrown. So there's still context to be referenced even in these metrics.

I'm shocked, completely shocked.

I'd be interested except it's on Yahoo. Sorry!

Battle Your Tail Off. It's a discussion forum that Brock headed up for years with a group who moved together from ESPN's old message boards to the site. It was merged into Twins Daily when Brock came on board here, and a lot of the members of this forum come from that old website.