Wednesday, November 02, 2005

What I'm reading today

Well, in terms of links. In terms of books, I'm reading a really amazingly good potpourri-type baseball book which I'll review after I finish it in a day or two.

Yippee! The Free Agent Tracker is up! I hate the offseason, but for some reason I bookmark this thing every year and check it in the morning like email.

The GM Musical Chairs game

More and more articles about Theo:
- Jason Varitek's take - sort of a "I'm the captain of this ship, but who's my navigator?" article.
- Jon Papelbon's take - sort of a "damn, my big brother who finally got me a shot playing ball with the big kids down the street ran away!" article.
- Bill Simmons says "I saw this coming, and trust me... he'll be back."
- Theo says "Yeah, this kind of sucks. I'm sorry."

Pat Gillick takes over the reigns of GM in Philly. Crap. It's been discussed elsewhere, but... there are pros and cons to this.

- Con: Philly's farm system already sucks. Gillick is a man who doesn't seem to care for draft picks or building a farm system, and likes to sign or trade for proven veterans. Gillick may manage to push this team over to win a championship in the next year or two, but then there'll be nothing left when he steps down.
- Pro: Most of the core of the team already is full of "proven" guys if not exactly "veterans". Of course, most of that core (Lieby, Howard, Utley, J-Roll, J-Mike, Pattycakes, Myers, Wolf, Madson) are all home-grown.
- Con: Philly is a city that notoriously criticizes management for not making moves. "Stand Pat" Gillick is a man who notoriously doesn't make moves.
- Pro: A lot of contracts and money are already tied up into the 2006 season. Gillick can't do too much damage there. His biggest problem will probably be what to do about Jim Thome, and the likely outcome is finding which AL team will bid the highest for how much they're willing to cover of his salary.
- Con: Gillick was GM for the Toronto Blue Jays which beat the Phillies in our last trip to the World Series, in 1993. We have a long memory for a city of losers, and while you can't exactly blame Gillick for Joe Carter hitting that 3-run homer off Wild Thing... well, actually, I think Mitch Williams is finally allowed to walk the streets of Philly again (I even saw him at a game at Citizens Bank Park in September), so maybe all bets are off.

Back in Bavasi-Land

Unsurprisingly, Pokey and Shiggy are cut from the Mariners. I'm sad; I wish Shiggy had done better this year. I wonder what he'll do now? Even if he decided to retire, he has some pretty good peripheral values to a team on either side of the Pacific -- being an all-around nice guy that players like to work with, and being bilingual, and having knowledge of what it takes for players to succeed in either MLB or NPB. I think he'd make a great coach for an American manager in Japan, or a good overseas scout.

And the Winner Is...

So far in the awards department, we have the
Silver Sluggers
AL Golden Gloves
NL Golden Gloves

I'm really happy to see two of my All-Cute guys pick up double accolades, although I think Jason Varitek doesn't really deserve the golden glove. (He may have last year, though.) I commented in a thread on LL a while ago that I felt Mark Teixeira was a good candidate for MVP - just in terms of a guy who goes out there and really plays his butt off every day and contributes so much to his team, both in hitting and fielding.

The other funny thing is that I figured Jason Marquis was a shoe-in for the Silver Slugger this year all along. Back in May or June, he had a higher OPS than anyone on the Mariners staff. No joke. He didn't have his best stuff pitching this year, but being a pitcher that even went 3-for-9 as a pinch-hitter is a very useful thing to be in the National League. I wonder what the chances are they'd try to convert him to a fielder of some sort if his hitting keeps up and his pitching record falls further next year? It'd be interesting to see.

And after hearing the announcers talk about Morgan Ensberg's home runs *every single time he came up to bat in the postseason*, it's not surprising he got the Silver Slugger either!

Hmm, the NL Golden Gloves just came out too. Bobby Abreu? What? I love the guy, but I wouldn't call him a golden glove defender. I'm sort of amused that Omar Vizquel took it home again. Derrek Lee isn't too surprising -- I'm sure the voting on this and the Silver Slugger had to be pretty close between him and Pujols, but Lee is a pretty damn good all-around player. Jim Edmonds is the least surprising here -- he is a pretty stellar outfielder. And Andruw Jones -- a very likely NL MVP candidate, also not really surprising.

I mean, "funny ha-ha"

Jeff Sullivan cleverly compares Jeremy Reed to Ted "Theodore" Logan.

Lenny Dykstra, Stock Consultant? What?

Alright, I'm out. More links later, most likely.

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