http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/ Not trying to win, but at least ticket prices won't rise (again) en-us Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:37:00 PST Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:00:00 PST support2007@baseballtoaster.com 60 http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1203093.html The Rockies signed Ubaldo Jimenez to a four-year, $10 million deal, one of those arbitration-avoidance specials that have become all the rage the past few years. It's little wonder when guys are getting $10 million for a single season in arbitration -- when they lose. Keenly Dan O'Dowd has managed to attach team options to the deal that could potentially keep Jimenez in Colorado past his first winter on the free agent market. If he can stay healthy. In the past, whenever the Rockies sign a young pitcher to a multiyear deal he has almost immediately gotten injured. Jimenez, who has inefficient mechanics and tends to react to adversity by throwing harder (which any veteran sinkerballer will tell you is pure foolishness), seems a good bet to hold true to form. If I had to quote odds, I would say the chances of his missing a half-season or more sometime during the length of this deal are rather more than 1 in 1. He'll definitely get hurt once, and he'll probably get hurt a second time. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1203093.html Wed, 28 Jan 2009 04:37:00 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1193922.html Willy Taveras signed with Cincinnati, who have a knack for wasting money on players who can't play, and Brian Fuentes is headed for Anaheim. Good deal for the Angels, who get Fuentes for almost $20 million less guaranteed than the Mets gave their former closer, Francisco Rodriguez. Fuentes wasn't all that far away from saves leader Rodriguez in VORP last year -- 18.0 versus 22.8, which amounts to about one win and change. If the Angels are feeling extra peppy and want to work out some sort of rotation system involving matchups between Fuentes, Jose Arredondo, and Scot Shields, they could be even more effective in the ninth inning than they were last year. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1193922.html Sat, 3 Jan 2009 13:19:14 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1185967.html The Rockies have signed 39-year-old Alan Embree to a one-year deal. Embree's a below-average situational reliever who has managed to bounce around for 16 seasons because he's left-handed. Financial terms were not disclosed, as they say, but it's probably somewhere between $1.5 and $3 million. He made $3 million and change last season for the A's, for whom he posted a 4.96 ERA. I checked to see how his platoon splits worked out, because those are usually the details where the devils hide with regards to matchup relievers. Embree did face a lot of righthanders last season -- about twice as many as he did lefties -- and he continued to do well when facing lefty swingers, holding them to a .304 OBP. But he gave up a worrying eight home runs, including four to lefties. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1185967.html Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:00:00 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1184177.html It's hard to really knock the slow start to the hot stove season from the perspective of a Rockies fan, since they really would have been better off keeping Matt Holliday for another year and that's the only really high-wattage deal that's gone down thus far. I've been dutifully checking the rumor sites, but Colorado is now back in its familiar position from years past, waiting for the teams that count to sort out where the valuable players go. In January, Dan O'Dowd will inevitably sign some name veteran pitchers who were incongruously in Triple-A, in Mexico, or retired last season. And the wild ride to 70 wins will begin. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1184177.html Sun, 7 Dec 2008 17:02:00 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1179324.html It's as I feared: the Rockies are once again complete nonentities in the trade-rumor reports and free-agent signing buzz columns on the national websites. It's not that Colorado plans to stand pat after trading their franchise player for a platoon outfielder, a fifth starter whose ERA at Coors may well top 7.00 (the Chacon Line), and a damaged-goods closer that they have no intention of keeping. It's just that the various baseball reporting sources out there assume, correctly, that nobody cares what the Rockies are planning. Their roster is essentially a toolbox for the teams that count to pick and choose parts from at whim. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1179324.html Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:14:00 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1175083.html So we have a better idea now of the players the Rockies will receive from Oakland in the Matt Holliday trade, although not a complete one. There are physicals still to come and there is also a chance that Dan O'Dowd may flip the only guy with abig-league profile, reliever Huston Street, for further prospects. Street's presence in the trade saves it from being a complete disaster for Colorado, particularly if they're able to move him before his pitching elbow falls off. Some early rumors suggested that the Rockies were going to get Greg Smith, Brett Anderson, and Carlos Gonzalez, all three of whom were acquired by Oakland in the same deal with Arizona last offseason. That sends up a red flag since any time a young player spends only a year in Oakland's system and then gets flipped there's usually something wrong with them. The A's don't waste cheap talent. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1175083.html Tue, 11 Nov 2008 16:32:32 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1174653.html I'm still waiting to hear what prospects they're getting back. I highly doubt they'll be major-league ready, since Oakland studiously divested themselves of most of their remaining assets of that sort last season. Still, I'd rather have A's prospects than most other teams', since they draft and develop pitchers like clockwork and they have a farm system that to its roots respects pitch counts and year-to-year innings increases. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1174653.html Mon, 10 Nov 2008 15:37:00 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1173813.html Well, so much for baseball in 2008. Anybody else feel ripped off? The fact that the champs clinched in a three-inning pretend game must have left a lot of people besides me seeking closure. I guess I must seek it in my Ken Burns DVD's and those dreams I sometimes have where the Rockies' ownership isn't a bunch of greedy short-sighted morons. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1173813.html Thu, 6 Nov 2008 17:14:29 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1169885.html I waited a day to write anything because I felt I might be overreacting, but if Peter Gammons himself has come out to call this the worst World Series ever -- before it's officially over, even -- then I don't know what else to wait for. Boy, is baseball going out on a brutal note this season. Spooked by terrible TV ratings and aghast at the prospect of rain delay Simpsons reruns beating out a potential elimination game, Bud Selig and Bob DuPuy and company ramrodded about four innings of completely unwatchable mudball down our throats the other night before the Rays mercifully managed a game-tying run. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1169885.html Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:46:44 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1168997.html Things could still turn around in the game tonight, but a World Series I was really looking forward to watching has kind of turned around us. Everywhere you look, it's bad news. The television ratings are beyond abysmal, aided by bad weather and dumbly scheduled start times. The umpiring has been hideously bad, from the random Greg Maddux strike zone granted Jamie Moyer (what, for every year past your fortieth birthday you get half an inch off the plate?) to the missed tag calls on the bases seemingly every other inning. Add in the young Rays tightening up in exactly the same manner the young Rockies did last Series, and you've got a Fall Classic that I'd be happy to see end today. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1168997.html Mon, 27 Oct 2008 15:55:00 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1167658.html I didn't watch as much of the preview coverage for the World Series as I could have because the five minutes an hour they spend talking about baseball on ESPN is inevitably sandwiched between twenty minutes of commercials and forty minutes of football talk. I don't know which is more tedious. Of what I saw, picks tended to divide into groups -- people who hadn't actually been watching any of the playoffs, who liked the Phillies, and genuine baseball fans, who favored the Rays. Because they have Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard is a bad reason to pick Philadelphia, since neither star has hit a lick in the whole postseason. Because Joe Blanton, Jamie Moyer, and Brett Myers are better than James Shields, Matt Garza, and Andy Sonnanstine is just asinine. As for the Phillies' wizened bullpen being better than the Rays' group of retreads and no-names... well, that remains to be seen. It will probably be what decides the series. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1167658.html Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:40:20 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1166362.html I have a long-held bias against Philadelphia sports and the Phillies in particular. Philly fans have a reputation that precedes them everywhere, and in general the town has been light on stars with national appeal. I'm not a big Donovan McNabb guy, I can't stand Iverson (or what he's doing to basketball in Denver now), and John Kruk and Mike Schmidt just don't do it for me. Not to mention Pete Rose and Larry Bowa. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1166362.html Tue, 21 Oct 2008 19:24:00 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1164455.html I feel really bad, but I was between a rock and a hard place. On one hand you had the chance to watch the Tampa Bay Rays clinch passage to their franchise-first World Series. On the other, my pub quiz team needed their all-star history/pop music/Simpsons quotes anchor at nine sharp. What's a right-thinking fellow to do? I elected to make it to the bar on time, and I ended up missing the season's second-most epic comeback (after that Phillies-Mets brainmelter) and the quiz team ended up going down in flames in the rock-paper-scissors tiebreaker round. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1164455.html Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:52:04 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1161729.html I was watching a documentary about the James Bond movies last night, and they had a bit on the making of the tank chase through St. Petersburg, Russia in GoldenEye. Remember that? The tank smashing through all those walls, crushing police cars, upsetting applecarts, generally wreaking PG-13 havoc? That was Evan Longoria and the St. Petersburg, Florida offense last night in Boston, only if you were lip-reading the guys in the Red Sox dugout closely it would have merited an R rating. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1161729.html Wed, 15 Oct 2008 03:34:00 PST http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1158824.html After the Rays pulled Scott Kazmir early and the Red Sox were able to stagger through another inning and change with the plainly ineffective Josh Beckett, I thought that Boston ought to have the advantage going into extra innings last night. But Terry Francona seemed to overdo it with matchups, and you knew as soon as 25th man Mike Timlin came in that it was all over for Boston. http://badaltitude.baseballtoaster.com/archives/1158824.html Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:40:55 PST