Bobby Jenks is suffering from a tight shoulder:

He faced only three batters in a 12-4 loss to Colorado before manager Ozzie Guillen took him out. Jenks doesn't expect to miss any game action.

"There is no pain at all, no sharp pain, just one pitch where it caught right away," Jenks said. "That is why I called Ozzie out there. There is nothing wrong with it. It is just tight. I couldn't get the extension, and I can't accelerate through the ball because I have no range right now."

Jenks is in his second full-year with the White Sox. He said the tightness had been there since he arrived at spring training.

He kept throwing after he left the game to stretch the shoulder.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up in a little while at 8 PM EST. You can leave questions during the show in the TPSRadio Chat Room at Stickam.

The Cub Reporter doesn't put much stock into the rumor that Mark Cuban is going to buy the Cubs.

Gary Matthews Jr. spoke to the press today, issuing an indirect denial:

Matthews, speaking to reporters at the Angels' spring training camp in Mesa, Ariz., said he wasn't "in a position to answer any specific questions."

"I do expect it to resolve itself here in the near future. ... Until we get more information, I just can't comment on it," he said.

Matthews said he didn't know why is name was reportedly on the client list, adding, "That's what we're working on, trying to find out. I will address it at appropriate time."

Bobby Kielty and Mark Kotsay each are suffering through injuries, although Kielty's will likely keep him out of action longer:

Oakland Athletics outfielder Bobby Kielty has a torn meniscus in his left knee that will require arthroscopic surgery in the coming days, sidelining him for three-to-six weeks.

Kielty, who came to camp in the best shape of his career, injured the knee Sunday during a rundown drill -- and just when he was ready to get through a healthy spring training, for a change.

This should give Shannon Stewart a good shot at an opening day start.

The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EST. Check out TPSRadio's other sports programming as well.

You can stop by the chat room at TPSRadio during the broadcast and leave a comment. We're now using Stickam for the chat, so there are no logins required. Also, feel free to leave a question in the comments to this post and I'll be happy to answer it on the air.

Tim Lincecum never ices his arm.

"I don't have any pain," said Lincecum, whose nine-pitch perfect inning was the highlight of Tuesday's intrasquad game. "Ice would just make me stiffer. I just stretch to keep loose, keep limber."

Lincecum is a rare breed. Giants trainer Dave Groeschner estimated that less than 10 percent of pitchers decline to ice. Giants left-hander Steve Kline is among the minority who don't wrap their arms after throwing. The same was true of former big-league right-hander Paul Quantrill.

It's no coincidence that Quantrill and Kline often battled each other for the major-league lead in appearances.

I'm curious as to what medical professionals think about this. Is icing a good thing, or is Lincecum right about it causing more stiffness?

John Lowe contrasts the start and end of the baseball season:

It begins in the sunshine of February mornings in Florida and Arizona. Today, the Tigers' bus for their first spring-training game was due to leave their base in Lakeland at 7:30 a.m.

The baseball season ends in the near-midnight chill of late October evenings. You remember staying up well past 11 o'clock for those frustrating World Series games from St. Louis last fall.

Eugene O'Neill wrote, "Long Day's Journey Into Night." His title fits for the eight-month trek that is every baseball season.

And both are concerned with drug use!

Two views of Kenji Johjima's defense are offered by Prospect Insider and Detect-o-Vision.

Range isn't a good measure of defense for catchers, but PMR is neutral on Johjima. That says to me he moves as well as most catchers. It's a pretty small sample size, however, as you can see from his charts.

Jacob Jackson looks at an underappreciated aspect of the Athletics' success, their management of the forty-man roster.

The Albany Times Union puts together a special section on Tuesday's drug bust, including photos and video. This article shows just how easy it is to buy drugs over the Internet:

The investigator logged onto Stephenson's former Web site, Docstat.com, and placed an order, describing himself as a 4-foot-tall, overweight airline pilot with a heroin addiction and drinking problem.

The reason for the prescription?

"I want to get high to fly," the undercover investigator wrote.

Two days later, the prescription drugs he ordered from Stephenson arrived via an express mail courier.

And this disturbing story discusses the doctors that are willing to write these prescriptions.

It was Feb. 5, and a judge methodically arraigned the disgraced physician from Queens on a 13-count felony indictment. He explained her predicament before ordering her return to jail without bail on charges ranging from forgery to criminal diversion of prescription medicines.

Santi, 68, a documented alcoholic, hasn't had a valid license to practice medicine in New York in eight years.

But authorities say that didn't stop her from writing thousands of prescriptions for Internet customers in multiple states. Every "script" was money in her pocket, and the Web sites peddling the drugs didn't care about her background -- she was in the game and had access to another doctor's legitimate Drug Enforcement Agency prescription number.

They did it for money:

Authorities in Albany said the Web sites compete for doctors, offering to pay them $25 to $50 per prescription or, in some cases, lump sums of between $5,000 and $8,000 a week.

And once again, it points out why this problem is so difficult to control. There is a huge demand out there for drugs. The amount of money drives research for ways to hide use, and ways to keep the supply pipeline open. Given the amount of drugs flowing out of this place, the lack of positive tests in MLB last year seems wrong.

I'm sorry to say this, but the leagues aren't going to fix this, no matter how long they suspend people. It's just too easy to produce new substances and too easy to find ways to hide them. The combination of risk of getting caught with the penalty for getting caught produces a cost too low to deter use. I fear the government needs to expand its focus to not only catching the suppliers, but also prosecuting the users. A supplier, unfortunately, is easy to replace. A star athlete is not. Jail time at the height of someone's career, plus the disruptions to a season due to trials and such might impose a cost that's not worth paying, either by the team or by the athlete. The state doesn't need a urine test. They just need to follow an order from inception to delivery. I wonder how different this whole mess would have progressed if the FBI took action in the early 1990s against Canseco and McGwire?

Peter Schmuck notes the history of drug scandals in professional sports don't really change over time. He also thinks MLB could be spending its drug money more efficiently:

Major League Baseball and the other major professional sports need to stay ahead of the curve, but baseball is sadly fixated on rehashing the history of the game's steroid problem through the multimillion-dollar investigation headed by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell.

The Mitchell probe has bogged down because his investigators lack subpoena power to compel testimony, but Selig is convinced the investigation is necessary to determine the extent of baseball's steroid problem. He bowed to pressure from Congress in ordering the independent investigation. Those millions might have been better spent funding research to produce an effective test to detect the next generation of designer drugs.

Clearly, the job of uncovering the tawdry steroid truth is better left to federal and local law enforcement, which has shut down BALCO and now appears to have many of the bad actors in the mainstream pharmaceutical industry on the run.

Of course, we'd love it if this turns out to be the drug scandal that ends all drug scandals, but this is no time to be naive. It's only been 23 years since the last time we thought that.

Amazingly, the Texas Rangers may end up with pitching to trade this spring.

The Rangers plan for Gagne to close games and for Akinori Otsuka to set him up. They expect C.J. Wilson and Ron Mahay to be their left-handed contingent. They would like Wes Littleton and Francisco to be their seventh-inning duo.

That would leave one spot for a long reliever and three or four guys to fight for it: Rick Bauer, Joaquin Benoit and Francisco Cruceta, all of whom are out of minor league options. In addition, Bruce Chen, who is in contention for the fifth spot in the rotation, has pitched in long relief. The overflow of relievers could include side-arming Scott Feldman, but the Rangers do hold a minor league option on him.

And although Daniels said he has no plans to trade Otsuka, he could perhaps bring the highest return if the Rangers feel they need to plug a significant hole on their roster before opening day.

Every weakness hides a strength.

Joe Posnanski started a blog to promote his book about Buck O'Neil, The Soul of Baseball. Check out this excellent post about Ambiorix Burgos:

It was astonishing to watch people light up Burgos just about every time the game mattered (and honestly ... how much did those games REALLY matter anyway? The Royals were out of the race in the third week of April). He blew 12 saves last year, but that doesn't even begin to describe the agony of watching him pitch. Tom Burgmeier, the old Royals bullpen coach, used to talk about one of his pitchers who had outrageous stuff -- every single time Burgie watched the guy flounder around on the mound he had the same thought: "You stupid son of a bitch, I would have KILLED to have your stuff."

That's the feeling Burgos inspires. You would have killed to have his arm. Instead you have to watch him shake off fastballs because he's in love with his splitter, you have to watch him throw fastballs high and outside and get into 3-1 counts, then you have to watch him groove thigh-high fastballs over the heart of the plate that hitters tattoo into the bleachers (the guy gave up 16 bombs in 73 innings last year ... and every single one of them, it seemed, cost the Royals a game). He wasn't a bad pitcher. He was an insult to pitching.

Hat tip, Red Reporter.

It seems Joe Girardi lent Jon Lieber a hand last summer:

Lieber said his season with the Philadelphia Phillies turned around shortly after he was roughed up by the Marlins last July 31, and he credits a phone call from Girardi, a former major league catcher. They played together with the Chicago Cubs from 2000-02.

"He just mentioned that the hitters said everything that was coming in was just very flat," Lieber told the Philadelphia Daily News. "I wasn't on top of the ball like I should have been."

Both teams contended for the NL wild-card berth, and Lieber beat the Marlins twice in September.

If the Marlins knew about this, I'd say that would be a good reason to fire Joe. That doesn't appear to be the case. I understand wanting to help a friend, but at least wait until the off-season.

There are a number of comments to this post about Ron Santo. I don't agree Ron belongs in the Hall of Fame, mostly because his good numbers appear to be a product of Wrigley Field. Now that the Day by Day Database covers Ron's career, we can look at his home and road numbers. What you'll notice is a huge difference in power, and a substantial difference in OBA. He's Mike Schmidt at home but Graig Nettles on the road. I don't think a big boost from your home ballpark should put you in the Hall of Fame.

Detect-o-Vision publishes some preliminary work on league quality. It looks promising.

Visa problems may keep Sidney Ponson from making the Twins opening day roster:

For a guy who admittedly is down to his last chance in baseball, Sidney Ponson hasn't shown his new team a sense of urgency.

And that is hurting the oft-troubled veteran pitcher's chances of winning a job with the Twins.

Ponson will not be permitted to pitch in an official spring training exhibition game for almost two weeks because the native of Aruba has not obtained the proper work visa. He is scheduled to obtain that visa March 9, Twins general manager Terry Ryan said Monday.

Ryan said Ponson and his agent, Barry Praver, should have taken care of the visa issue before camp started last week. But Praver said his client was approved for a visa in January but later was told it wasn't the proper one needed to pitch in the majors.

A player without the proper visa is prohibited from playing in a game in which admission is charged.

You would think that after a long major league career, Ponson would apply for the correct visa.

The Authors of Game of Shadows write an afterword for the paperback version of the book. Apart from congratulating themselves for doing such good work, there's this very interesting bit about Bonds' growth:

The government subpoenaed the Giants to get the club's medical records on Bonds. Three team employees were ordered to testify - athletic trainer Stan Conte, equipment manager Mike Murphy and "Conehead" Harvey Shields, Bonds' stretching coach.

Like Ting, Conte could describe the changes in Bonds' body, and the Giants' trainer had expressed his own concerns about steroids on the ball club. In 2000, after the Giants heard rumors that Greg Anderson was a steroid dealer, Conte had wanted him banned from the clubhouse; fearing Bonds' wrath, the team's executives backed down.

For his part, Murphy could document Bonds' physical changes via the changes in his uniform size. Since joining the Giants, Bonds had gone from a size 42 to a size 52 jersey; from size 10 ½ to size 13 cleats; and from a size 7 1/8 to size 7 ½ cap, even though he had taken to shaving his head. The changes in his foot and head size were of special interest: medical experts said overuse of Human Growth Hormone could cause an adult's extremities to begin growing, aping the symptoms of the glandular disorder acromegly. Shields, meanwhile, had spent years hanging around the Giants clubhouse with Anderson and Bonds; Novitzky believed Shields knew about Bonds' use of drugs.

The foot growth seems quite unnatural.

New York and Florida officials raided a Florida pharmacy today:

A downtown pharmacy was raided by a law enforcement task force on Tuesday, the climax of a large New York state grand jury investigation into Internet drug sales that could expose widespread illicit steroid use by professional athletes and thousands of people across the nation.

The unprecedented inquiry, led by Albany County's district attorney, has taken New York Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement agents and an Orlando-based federal task force deep inside a maze of shadowy pharmacies and Web sites that have reaped millions of dollars in profit by allegedly exploiting federal and state prescription laws, according to court records.

More than two dozen doctors, pharmacists and business owners have been, or will be, arrested in the coming days in Alabama, Texas, Florida and New York on sealed indictments charging them with various felonies for unlawfully distributing steroids and other controlled substances, records show.

And it looks like they have one name:

The customers include Los Angeles Angels center fielder Gary Matthews Jr., according to sources with knowledge of the investigation.

This was the place that Jason Grimsley and David Segui used to obtain HGH. The couple that ran the pharmacy was raking in the cash, too:

The Orlando pharmacy is owned and operated by a Florida couple, Stan and Naomi Loomis, who are both licensed pharmacists. In 2002, the company reported revenue of about $500,000. Then, driven by a booming Internet prescription market, and the referral business Signature received from various Web sites, revenue topped $35 million last year, authorities in the case said.

Stay tuned!

Update: The initial reaction from Angels fans is to blame law enforcement!

Carlos Gomez at The Hardball Times does a nice job of breaking down Matsuzaka's delivery. The comparison to Roy Oswalt is particularly compelling.

Athletics Nation is soliciting opinions on the owners of the Oakland franchise.

Once again, the Veterans Committee decided not to elect any new members to the Hall of Fame. This is how it should be. The old committee used to put friends in the hall. Now, there needs to be a real good reason to overrule the writers.

The Twins signed Jesse Crain to a three-year deal today.

In two-plus seasons with the Twins, Crain is 19-10 and has emerged as one of the team's most reliable arms in the bullpen. The Canadian has served as a setup man on occasion for closer Joe Nathan, and the Twins believe he has the stuff to be a closer someday himself.

I wonder if Minnesota is planning on replacing Joe Nathan at the end of the year. The team holds an option on Nathan for 2008, but no doubt Crain would be a less expensive replacement. I could even see Minnesota picking up Nathan's option, then trading him for prospects. Given Nathan's relatively low salary for 2008, I can see where Ryan could make a really good deal.

There seems to be conflicting information on the DirecTV exclusive:

One source familiar with negotiations said he now believes that the Extra Innings package will remain available to all three services.

"I'd be surprised if the DirecTV deal goes through," he said.

It seems the cable companies are becoming willing to carry the baseball network:

But after initially rebuffing the MLB demands for carriage of the Baseball Network, the cable operators are now coming around, according to the industry source.

"There will be a commitment to carry the Baseball Network (on cable)," said the industry official. "Where it will be placed, that still needs to be sorted out."

However:

Another source with the league said he was not aware of any shift away from plans to go with an exclusive deal for DirecTV. But talks have lingered for months without an official announcement even as baseball's opening day draws near.

The longer this goes on, the more I think this deal was designed with the same goal as contraction. Put something out on the table the MLB doesn't want to do, but be serious about the plan and use it as leverage to get what you really want. It's the used car salesman in Bud at work.

Thanks to Jan for the tip.

Fire Brand of the American League sat down to watch Joel Pineiro's relief appearances from 2006 and came away changing his mind about the pitcher.

What a surprise I found. Pineiro looked great! In 3.2 innings against the Tigers, Pineiro retired all 11 batters in a row while not allowing a single walk. In doing so he protected just a 1 run lead. He looked like he truly belonged on the mound with a scowl and presence to match that of Mike Timlin. He kept almost all his pitches at knees of the batters while hitting the corners and getting good movement on his breaking pitches. Long story short, I watched many of the other appearances he made out of the pen and found more of the same. Shocked, I decided to do a little research and what I found next is probably going to surprise you.

The Red Sox are counting on Joel being better in a short outing than a long one. We'll see if that holds up over a full season.

Ducksnorts posts some interesting quotes from Mike Cameron on how he prepares for the season during spring training, leading to a comparison of rehearsing vs. performing.

George Mitchell seems like a pretty useless guy right now.

"The (players') association told us this is just a witch hunt," Sheffield told USA Today. "They don't want us to talk to them. This is all about getting (Bonds).

"If this was legitimate and they did it the right way, it would be different. But this a witch hunt. They're just trying to collect a lot of stuff that doesn't make any sense and throw the (expletive) against the wall."

Donald Fehr, executive director of the players' association, said he has offered advice to players but it's the players' choice whether to cooperate.

After the leaks of secret testimony in the BALCO case, the players will never cooperate again.

The Honus Wagner baseball card sold again, nearly doubling in price since the last transaction, going for $2.35 million:

The seller Brian Seigel in 2000 paid a then-record $1,265,000 for the prize card, which is in better condition than the rest.

"This particular one was preserved in spectacular condition," said Joe Orlando, president of Professional Sports Authenticator of Newport Beach - the company that certified the authenticity of the card. "It's the Holy Grail of baseball cards."

Still, the Wagner cards are so rare that even those in much worse condition will sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, Seigel said.

I remember the market for baseball cards was hot in the early 1990s. I didn't trade, but I know at some point the market collapsed. Did that happen because collecting was a fad or did card companies produce too many cards trying to make a buck off the craze?

Mark Prior is going to start the first time through the rotation:

After the team worked out Monday, Cubs manager Lou Piniella said Prior will pitch in Chicago's fifth exhibition game. Only 24 hours earlier, Piniella said the right-hander would not make an appearance until the second time through the rotation late next week. Originally, Piniella had planned to start left-hander Ted Lilly against the Mariners on March 5.

Lilly still will pitch, but he'll follow Prior in the game.

"We're going to let Prior start the game because he needs a little more time to warm up," Piniella said. "I had a nice talk with him today. We brought him in here and had a nice conversation with him."

That tells me Prior must be feeling good. A healthy Prior would be a huge boost to Cubs hope for a pennant in 2007.

The Blue Jays players grew their hair over the winter:

At least five regulars, and a host of other minor leaguers and major league hopefuls, are sporting long hair, scruffy beards, mutton chop sideburns, goatees and general scruffiness.

The hairstyles of the rich and Blue Jay has never been, well, more hairy.

"It's something, more than anything else, to have fun with ... everyone takes things so seriously," said Tallet, who is a fan of TV's That '70s Show.

Indirectly, it was Johnson's fault.

Johnson, who had several versions of goatees last season, told Vernon Wells and others at the end of the 2006 season that he was going to put away his razor during the entire off-season. One thing led to another, and the challenge was on.

I sported mutton chops my freshman year of college. Anything lower than that just didn't grow in well.

It looks like the Angels are on the verge of a huge improvement in their outfield defense. Not only is Matthews going to take pressure of Vlad Guerrero, Garret Anderson's feet are healthy again:

But the Angels' veteran left fielder also was somewhat offended by media reports framing the Matthews signing as one that would ease the burden on Anderson and right fielder Vladimir Guerrero.

"I've heard that several times this winter, and I don't really know what it means," Anderson said. "I don't think I've been a liability out there, other than the fact I haven't been able to play. I know I took a lot of heat last year because I played hurt. I should have just not played. I wouldn't have taken any heat for that."

An inflamed arch in his left foot hindered Anderson for most of 2006 and contributed to knee and lower-back problems. He was relegated to a career-high 45 games at designated hitter, but in 94 games in the outfield, Anderson didn't commit an error.

Vlad was actually okay on fly balls last year. He basically performed up to expectations. It was Anderson who needed help in the gaps. If Garret's feet are indeed better, we should see good fielding across the board in the Angels' outfield.

Steve Yozwiak reports that Barry Bonds looks like he's ready to break Hank Aaron's home run record:

By all accounts, Bonds is healthy and in top shape. He looks great, and his manner is more relaxed than in recent years. He says he is unconcerned about the continuing federal investigation into the use of steroids in baseball. If he stays healthy and focused, he would need to average just over one home run per week during 162 games this summer.

The various projections I've seen are a bit conservative. BIS put his home runs at 32, the highest out there and I think closest to reality. Bonds appeared to regain his health and his stroke at the end of 2006. To me the big thing was that he was able to move in the outfield without a lot of pain. While his injury risk remains high, forty home runs from Bonds would not surprise me.

U.S.S. Mariner is a bit hard on Mike Hargrove in this post. The Mariners manager is expressing a good sabermetric take on stealing bases, which I translate as run aggressively when you judge there to be a high probability of making the base. I agree with comment #6, Hargrove isn't a great manager, but this isn't an example of that.

It looks like Melkey Cabrera is going to get some playing time.

John Hawks reviews some research on choking. This last bit reminded me of A-Rod:

Well, anyway, it seems clear that people really don't think as well under pressure, which is its own kind of distractor. And those little questions that give rise to self-doubt are some of the most powerful distractors, because they interfere with the process they reference.

Hayden Penn sprained his ankle yesterday after his workout.

Manager Sam Perlozzo believes Penn twisted his ankle yesterday while carrying boxes up some steps.

Shades of Clint Barmes?

MetsBlog.com links to two articles on what makes Rick Peterson a fine communicator.

Deadspin links to a post from C.J. Wilson, who is learning to throw the Gyroball. Wilson is pretty far down on the Rangers depth chart right now, but if he can master this pitch and it works, it would be pretty easy for him to break into the Texas rotation.

I like the way Deadspin finishes their post:

Wilson says that he's developing his gyro ball with the help of a Japanese scientist, which we think is great. Because we need all the Japanese scientists we can get to counteract the effects of the rampaging, radiation-mutated Barry Bonds.

Sadly, Raymond Burr is not around to help anymore.

Ken Rosenthal look at the debate about batter protection in the context of the Phillies lineup. I found this interesting:

Howard points out the importance of the three hitters in front of him -- Rollins, Shane Victorino and Chase Utley -- getting on base.

During late June/early July 1992, George Bell went on a huge power streak. ESPN asked me to see if George was getting better protection from the hitters behind him. What I discovered was that the protection was coming from the hitters in front of him, Raines, Ventura and Thomas. All were posting great OBAs during that period. Opponents had to pitch to Bell, because there was no place to put him. So Ryan's right, the more the batters get on in front of him, the better his chance to do some damage. At some point, you need to try to get an out.

FishStripes rounds up the information on Josh Johnson's injury and how the Marlins might replace him in the rotation.

Manny Ramirez arrived at the Red Sox camp today:

Rest easy, Red Sox fans, Manny Ramirez has arrived -- and three days earlier than expected. Sporting a new 'do, with interspersed Red Sox-colored red dreadlocks, the Sox slugger showed up at the team's spring training facility today. Ramirez emerged from the training area of the Sox clubhouse at 8:52 a.m., walked over to his locker, shooed away reporters, and sat down. By 9:15 a.m., Ramirez was in a comfortable place, taking soft tosses from staff member Ino Guerrero in the batting cage. New hitting coach Dave Magadan was observing.

Given that players are not required to report before Feb. 27, Manny, in a way, is a day early!

Via Bleed Cubbie Blue, Larry Rothschild adjusted Jason Marquis' delivery this winter:

"It was real minor stuff," he said. "I wasn't too far off, but sometimes when you're creating bad habits and you keep doing them over and over again repetitively, they start to become natural. So it's tough to really break them. We really simplified things. The main focus is to make sure I stay over the rubber, stay tall on my back leg before I throw the ball to home and allow my arm to get up.

"It's made a big difference. I'm able to get my hand out of the glove a lot quicker and get my hand up into the proper position. Now, I'm throwing the ball downhill, like I want."

Marquis had been known as a groundball pitcher in his days with Atlanta and in his first two years in St. Louis. But his groundout-to-flyout ratio of 1.12 last year ranked 28th in the National League. During live batting practice in spring training, Marquis has liked the number of grounders he's induced.

The Baseball Crank looks at three years of data to see the aging patterns in Established Win Share Levels (EWSL).

Around the Majors links to an excellent article on Nick Swisher's winter training regimen. He's also working on a charitable donation:

Although Kielty still has the most famous hairstyle on the team -- bushy and red -- Swisher is quickly catching up. He did not get a haircut during the off-season, in part because he wants to help create wigs for cancer patients.

Swisher said he would grow his hair until May and then shave it off, donating his brown locks to charity. He got this idea after his grandmother Betty Lorraine Swisher died of cancer last summer.

Doesn't cutting off your hair negate all the body building?

Jerry Brewer looks at the upside and downside of Jose Guillen. Turns out it's the same thing:

Yep, the Mariners' new right fielder is one of those types. Lazily, we call them misunderstood, but really we understand them quite well. These people are genuine, right down to their negatives.

People like Guillen won't change, so forget that daydream. Of all the intricate projections the Mariners are banking on to be a winner, this one is among the toughest. They are forecasting Guillen can stay healthy and happy enough to suppress his volatile nature.

You also sense management wouldn't mind if a small dose of Guillen's fire singed a tepid team. That's a dangerous hope. But that's how desperate the Mariners are for some form of passionate leadership.

"Trust me, if I see something wrong with what's going on with this team during the season, if somebody's not doing what he's supposed to be doing, I don't care who it is -- I'm going to step up and get in your face and tell you whatever I need to tell you," Guillen said. "Like it or don't like it. Get mad at me, whatever. But I'm going to tell you. And if we need to get into an argument, we'll get into an argument."

Guillen dropped that tidbit amid a pleasant conversation. He said it matter-of-factly. No venom, just the truth. That's who he is.

Exactly. If you want the talent, the team needs to accept the personality and hope Guillen stays away from the destructive aspects of his psyche.

The community projection at Minor League Ball for Zack Greinke is pretty optimistic. I really like this idea of using the wisdom of the crowd to predict players, so it will be interesting to see how well this particular projection matches.

Justin Morneau found his motivation for 2007:

"If anything, I'd say I probably worked a little harder this offseason," Morneau said. "I've got something to prove this year. Some (fans) didn't believe it was right. People are sitting there waiting to say last year was a fluke. I'm going to go out and prove them wrong again."

To many in the Twins' clubhouse, Morneau seems hungrier entering this season. His teammates and manager Ron Gardenhire are impressed that all the attention the 25-year-old first baseman has received since winning the award hasn't seemed to create even an inkling of an ego.

Good for him. It's a bad idea to rest on your laurels.

If you win, they will come.

Evan Grant documents the changes at the Texas Rangers camp under Ron Washington:

This year, the shrubs are gone, and fans have been invited some 30 feet closer to the pitchers. The assigned seating is gone. The flag poles are bare. Washington walks everywhere. And the pre-camp meeting lasted all of 20 minutes.

"The message he gave was short and sweet," Young said. "It was, 'I'm here for you guys, and we're all here for each other.' It was basically, 'Let's make sure we have each other's back.' It's a great feeling knowing the manager has your back."

Said reliever C.J. Wilson: "His talk was so personal. When he speaks, it's all completely original and from the heart. He put the responsibility in the middle of the [clubhouse], and now it's our responsibility to take him up on that."

Though Washington's speech lacked theatrics, its message was remarkably similar to the one Bob Brenly delivered the Arizona Diamondbacks as Showalter's replacement in 2001. Brenly dropped a large player development manual written by Showalter on the ground and pulled out a cocktail napkin to show the team. The team went on to win the World Series.

It almost as if Buck, in all his jobs, stored a lot of potential energy in his teams, but someone else was needed to convert that potential to wins. Showalter would the players into tight springs, and the next skipper was able to channel the unwinding into winning baseball.

This is scary. David Ortiz arrived at camp in better shape than he was last year:

Even though he established a team record by clobbering 54 home runs last season, the Red Sox designated hitter heeded the advice of manager Terry Francona, who suggested in late September that he try a different direction with his offseason workouts to relieve stress from his knees. Ortiz arrived in Fort Myers with less weight around the waist and more muscle in the chest and shoulder area. "I turned 31 this offseason and now it's a whole different process with your body," Ortiz said.

Sounds like he's shooting for Maris' AL record of 61 homers.

Chris Young of Arizona talks about cutting down on his strikeouts:

"Last year I kind of stayed aggressive, but aggressive and in control," he said. "I started understanding that when I have two strikes, (the pitcher) still has to get another one on me. I'm not going to just give it away to him like I have in the past. Just settle down at the plate and focus harder."

The result: He struck out 71 times in 402 at-bats in Triple-A, or once every 5.7 at-bats, a huge improvement over the previous two years, when he averaged one every 3.4 at-bats.

At the previous rate, he'd strikeout about 176 times in 600 AB. At the lower rate, that's cut to 105. Does a player cut his strikeout rate often when he's young, and does it help?

I looked at strikeout rates for players up to age 25, and then age 26 to 30. Players had to earn at least 500 at bats in each age group. I also only considered players who turned 25 by 1905, pretty much catching the modern era of baseball. There were 62 who had a K percentage ratio of 1.6, the ratio Young is exhibiting right now. Of those, 52 had a better OPS after age 25 than before.

Unfortunately, this is a tough study. Many of the players showing up turned 25 around the time of a major change in baseball. One group hits the age at the end of the spit ball era. A cleaner ball was easier to see and easier to hit. Another group centered around the lowering of the mound in 1969. On top of that, you would expect improvement after age 25 as players reach their peak around age 27.

So one player to note is Brian Downing. Through age 25, Brian posted a .678 OPS. From age 26-30 that number rose to .781. And his young strikeout rate was 1.7 times his older rate, similar to Young's.

One good thing came out of Joe Beimel cutting himself during the playoffs last year:

"I quit drinking because of it," he said. "It was enough of a problem that I missed the playoffs _ I don't get to play because of something like that.

"It was a bad thing when it happened, but it ended up being a really good thing. Just to quit drinking _ I didn't do that for anybody else but me and my family."

Andruw Jones wants market value from the Braves, and Home of the Braves would like to see the centerfielder's wish granted.

Matsuzaka threw batting practice today:

The four minor leaguers who stepped in against him attested to that even though Matsuzaka or catcher Jason Varitek told them what pitch was coming.

"The guy's got good stuff. It's not a myth. It's not a tall tale," said Bobby Scales, who was the first batter to hit against him and let the first pitch -- a bit high -- go by. "The changeup was really good. It seems like it never gets to you and it just kind of floats."

I've heard some second hand information that the changeup is the reason the Red Sox were willing to pay so much money for Matsuzaka. While watching film of the righty pitch, no one could detect his changeup. When Pedro was at the top of his game, he came at you with two undetectable changeups, and those absolutely devestated hitters. The Red Sox believe Daisuke's is of that quality, and that's why they ponied up the big bucks for the pitcher.

I also like this bit of subterfuge:

When he's in a full windup, he pauses at the top of his delivery for differing durations so batters can't time his release.

"There's the element of surprise," Farrell said.

It's all about throwing off a batter's timing.

This post is going to make Daniel Drezner very jealous.

Update: Here's a more recent mention by Drezner.

Johnny Damon received permission from the Yankees to attend to personal matters away from spring training:

Damon was given permission to leave camp after talking with Torre and general manager Brian Cashman following Friday's workout.

"He spoke to Joe and me about it, so obviously he's not in camp with permission," Cashman said. "When he returns, he'll be able to talk about it to whatever degree he wants to."

Maybe he's helping take care of Manny's mother. :-)

Update: Meanwhile, Carl Pavano takes a line drive off his foot. No word if this will keep him out for the entire season. :-) Cashman gets off the quote of the day:

General manager Brian Cashman was sitting with Torre when Pavano was hit.

"He seems to be a heat-seeking missile," Cashman said. "But thankfully at this point all appears well."

The Tigers are teaching Marcus Thames to play first base in hopes he can platoon with Sean Casey. For his career, Thames shows the same power vs. righties and lefties, and just gets on base a bit better vs. southpaws.

Jerry Narron would like to reduce the size of his pitching staff:

"But we have Jeff Conine, who can play first base and the corner outfield spots," Narron added. "We have Ryan Freel and his versatility. Josh Hamilton, Bubba Crosby and Chris Denorfia can play any of the outfield spots. Catcher Javier Valentin does a good job at first base, and Juan Castro plays all the infield positions.

"With all those players able to play all over, it may help us go with 11 pitchers instead of 12. I'd love to go back to the old days when you carried nine or 10, without pitch counts."

I'd like to see that, too.

A question from my old friend David Aceto led me to look more closely at the Braden Looper situation. I rewrote my query to look at seasons rather than years before a pitcher's first start. There's been five pitchers who made their first start after at least their first nine seasons in the bullpen. None of them were more than a spot starter. The only pitcher who successfully made the transition from pure reliever to pure starter after a long bullpen stint was Charlie Hough. The knuckleballer spent the first seven years of his career exclusively in the bullpen. It wasn't until year 13 that he entered the rotation permanently. For his career, he amassed 440 starts.

The Orioles are making it harder for radio stations other than their flagship to host club officials:

As Davis posted on the station's Web site today, the club has instituted a policy prohibiting members of team management -- such as vice president Jim Duquette or manager Sam Perlozzo -- from taking callers' questions when they appear on his nightly talk show.

The Orioles say the policy is designed to enhance the programming for its radio rights-holder, CBS Radio. On flagship station WHFS (105.7 FM) and CBS' all-sports ESPN Radio 1300 (WJFK, 1300 AM), no such prohibition would apply, the Orioles say.

This is a policy they never enforced before:

''The club has always had its policy,'' said Greg Bader, Orioles director of communications.

Not so, said Jeff Beauchamp, vice president and station manager of WBAL, which was the Orioles flagship for the previous 19 years.

''It's never been the case for the past 20 years,'' Beauchamp said.

Stan Charles, a regular sports talk host in Baltimore on five radio stations from 1981 to 2001 -- with only four of those years on the Orioles flagship -- said he never experienced such a restriction during his time on the air.

The more I read about the Orioles, the more I'm convinced they're one of the worst run businesses in baseball. It's only the fact that they are able to afford some good players that they're not at the level of Tampa Bay, Pittsburgh and Kansas City.

For those of you who contact me at pinto@mapinternet.com, that e-mail address is disappearing. In the future please use pinto@baseballmusings.com.

Conor Glassey at Stop the Wave discusses the need for an MLB combine:

The National Football Scouting Combine got underway Thursday at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis and I can't help but wonder why such an event doesn't exist for baseball. During the five-day period of the combine, potential NFL draft picks will be tested physically, mentally and psychologically. They will be measured, photographed and interviewed. They will have X-rays taken, a urinalysis performed and will be examined by doctors from every team. Last year, Major League teams spent an average of $3.2 million to sign their draft picks...from the first three rounds. The price tag for top draft picks continues to rise and the first few guys selected last year received bonuses exceeding $3 million each. However, some special players, such as the Upton brothers, Joe Mauer, Mark Teixeira, Mark Prior, Jered Weaver, Stephen Drew, Gavin Floyd and Alex Gordon have received bonuses of $4 million, or more. And then there are some not-so-special players, like Joe Borchard, Josh Hamilton, Dewon Brazelton, Bryan Bullington and Eric Munson, who also received huge bonuses and ended up being busts. With escalating price tags for top draft picks, Major League baseball needs to establish a scouting combine as soon as possible. You wouldn't buy a car without kicking its tires and taking it for a test drive, would you?

Conor answers the possible objections to a combine as well, such as when to schedule the event. He believes this will save the teams money. However, that can only happen if they use the event to improve their draft choices. They still need to send scouts around the country to watch actual games. This would add an extra layer of cost to the process. So they save if they don't throw away money on Brien Taylor.

However, Conor I'd like to point out a big difference between baseball and football, and that's talent distribution. You can fire every player in the NFL, replace them with the next best set up players, and have a game that's indistinguishable from the current one. That's why the NFL strike failed and the union fell apart. But if baseball does the same thing, everyone notices it's a AAA game. Drafting NFL players is easy. There's a few superstars you'd like to get your hands on, but it's just not that difficult to find someone competent at a position.

That's probably due to the specialization of the game. Every position requires a unique set of skills. In baseball, every position player must be able to hit and field. Both quarterbacks and pitchers need to throw accurately, but baseball has ten times the number working regularly at the major league level.

The baseball draft is simply more of a crap shoot. The fact is MLB teams do a good job right now of drafting players. The higher a player is drafted, the more likely that person plays a productive career. I'm sure a combine could help the teams gather more information, and more information is useful. I'm not sure it would make that much of a difference, however.

Baseball concussions keep happening:

Baltimore Orioles reliever Jamie Walker sustained a concussion Friday when he was hit in the back of the head by a Nick Markakis line drive during batting practice.

He walked off the field, so let's hope it's not too serious.

Would you like to force someone to root for and write about your team? Manny Stiles is auctioning off his fandom to raise money for AIDS research.

I will write 50 articles throughout the season covering the team of your choice from the end of this Auction until Nov 1st. 99% of the proceeds will benefit the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS foundation , the other 1% will go to a logo emblazoned item for my personal use to PROVE my dedication as a fan of my new team!

It's for a very good cause, and if your team isn't the most popular one on the block, it's a way of getting them some blogospheric exposure! Bid early and often!

Randy Johnson threw off a mound today:

Arizona left-hander Randy Johnson reported no problems after throwing off a mound Friday morning for the first time since October back surgery.

Johnson said he felt "pretty free and easy" throwing 25 fastballs.

"I'm feeling a lot better than I did the last time I picked up a ball, let's put it that way," the 43-year-old Johnson said.

The last time Johnson underwent back surgery he came back to post a 20-4 record with a 2.28 ERA (his best year by the ERA+ method). That was ten years ago, but if the surgery can even shave a run off his 2006 season, he'll be a successful pitcher for the Diamondbacks.

Neither Kevin Mench nor Geoff Jenkins wants to platoon. Brew Crew Ball likes Ned Yost's reaction:

Ned's cleaning up the streets, boys, and there's nowhere scum like you can hide! Or something like that.

Don't these players that by Yost putting them in situations where they can succeed, they become more valuable players? When Paul O'Neil came over to the Yankees in 1993, New York was using him mostly vs. right-handed pitchers. He played the fewest games of his Yankees career (strike adjusted) in 1993 because of that. But he excelled so much in that situation, he turned into a full time player.

Jenkins and Mench should look at this as an opportunity to put up good numbers. Otherwise, the Brewers can find other players who can just hit from one side of the plate, or even dip into their farm system for a cheap replacement for both.

J Lentner writes:

I wonder if you or any of you fellow bloggers have insight as to why Bonds has not been indicted. Assuming that the information from the Chronicle reporters is mostly true (a big assumption but I'm not talking about a conviction) it seems to me he should have been indicted by now.

I have no special insight, but here's what I replied:

Prosecutors like to bring indictments they can win. My guess is they don't have an air tight case. The ex-mistress is one witness who says Bonds knew about the steroid use and is willing to testify. But given she's a jilted lover, who knows how much the jury will trust her. What they'd really like is Greg Anderson to verify her testimony. "I gave Barry these drugs on this date and he knew what he was taking," or, "Barry asked me to find him drugs that would help build his body." Remember, Bonds said he didn't knowingly take steroids. So if Anderson gets up and says, "I just gave him things and told him to trust me," it's tough to convict Bonds of lying.

I remember listening to a Kerry stump speech on NPR during the 2004 campaign. One of the things he said was that if he were president, Lay and Skilling of Enron would be in jail by now. Apart from the fact that Kerry was convicting people without a trial, as a former prosecutor he knows it takes time to build a case, especially to make sure the evidence can't be challenged. Given that everyone in that case either reached a plea agreement or was convicted (or died), the prosecutor did a very good job, and not rushing was the right thing to do. I think that is going on here. They're not going to indict Bonds unless there is a very high probability that they'll get a conviction, and that's how it should be.

Don Larsen's perfect game plays once again:

On Friday night, Doak Ewing will show the recording in public for the first time, to an audience at the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center at Montclair State University that will include Larsen, Berra and Bob Wolff, who did the original radio broadcast.

It will be the first time Larsen and Berra see the game since they played in it.

"I'm anxious to see it," Berra said Thursday. "I want to hear the play-by-play, see the commercials. It got a lot of reaction from people, it was amazing. A lot of them said they saw it and want to see it again."

The owner of the film is working on a deal to broadcast it on television.

Matsuzaka threw 103 pitches in his bullpen session today:

General manager Theo Epstein said he's never seen a pitcher throw 103 pitches so early in camp.

"He's in there 80, 90 pitches deep (and) he's still going through the stretch, still checking runners, still taking it like a real game situation," Epstein said. "Every single pitch had a purpose."

Save something for the regular season, Dice-K!

Getting Paid to Watch gives us the low down on Orlando Hernandez's condition. My 80+ year-old dad suffers from the same thing.

Best Jeter-ARod photo captions ever. Here's an example.

Alex and Derek were once so close they autographed each other's balls.

You'll have to see the others for yourself.

Maury Brown brings us the latest on the DirecTV deal. There's a rumor the length of the exclusive is going to be shortened to three years.

River Ave. Blues is a new Yankees blog started by three former Most Valuable Network bloggers. Stop by and say hi.

Around the Majors postulates that the better Twins defense will help Ramon Ortiz:

But the Twins hope a change of scenery suits Ortiz well. I can see the logic. He was the only member of Washington's staff last year who didn't miss a start, so he's been durable, and he's moving from a team with a horrendous defense to a team that plays some of the best defense in the game.

He quotes a story that cites errors as the reason for Washington's poor defense, but the Probabilistic Model of Range agrees. Note, however, that Ortiz's FIP was 5.31, not all that much better than his overall ERA. His defense hurt, but he would be bad even with better gloves behind him.

After nine seasons appearing just in relief, Braden Looper is being moved to the Cardinals starting rotation:

Yet, when the Cardinals arrived for spring training, Looper was slated to be in the starting rotation.

"I don't think it's an experiment," pitching coach Dave Duncan said. "I wouldn't even consider trying him as a starter if I didn't think physically and mentally he couldn't do it."

Looper's career change is atypical for many reasons. At 32, he has never pitched more than three innings in a single outing in his major league career.

"I've always kind of wanted to do it," Looper said. "I've never told anybody that. There was talk about it when I was with the Marlins one year but we needed a closer. People are sitting back saying, `This is a gimmick.' For me that's fuel for the fire. I want to prove everybody wrong if they don't think I can do it."

This is Looper's tenth season in the majors. Only seven major leaguers received their first start in the tenth year or later after their first appearance. The person who made the most starts was Jack Ogden, who made a brief appearance in 1918, then didn't reach the majors again until 1928. Bob Logan was pressed into service due to World War II. The only person who comes close is Chuck McElroy, who made five spot starts at the end of his career. I can find no record of anyone who became a full-time starter so late in his career. This is going to be a very interesting experiment. I can't wait to see what his stats look like after the third inning.

I just saw on ESPN.com that Dennis Johnson died during practice today. I'm not much of a basketball fan anymore, but DJ was one of my favorites during the Bird era. I loved the way he was able to force opponents to dribble into a dead area of the old Boston Garden floor, then steal the ball. What a tragedy.

My thoughts go out to his family, friends and teammates.

Zack Greinke discusses his depression in an exclusive interview with the Kansas City Star:

So how bad did it get?

"I really don't know what it is or what it was," Greinke began. "Depression kind of runs in my family. Supposedly, it goes down through (genetically). But I don't know if that's what I was actually going through.

"The medicine I take is an antidepressant. So (depression) must have something to do with it. That and social anxiety. But I don't think it was a serious case. I mean, I never thought about killing myself.

"It was always, once I got away from baseball, I was fine. So I didn't think about it as (an emotional disorder). I just thought that, at the baseball field, I was unhappy."

That misery reached such depths that Greinke often contemplated quitting baseball while still in the minors. His inability to handle the down time between starts heightened his turmoil and made him yearn to be a hitter or at least a relief pitcher.

"I'd talk to my agent all the time and ask him: 'How can I tell the Royals that I don't want to pitch? That I want to try hitting?,' " said Greinke, who added he knew there was no chance of that happening, which increased his frustration. "I thought that was why I hated baseball. I thought it was because I wanted to hit.

"It would be at least once a month that I'd be crying to myself while I'm going to bed with a bat in my hand, just swinging it. It's stupid. That doesn't happen anymore."

It's better now:

"But as soon as that was over and they sent me down (officially), I was done talking about it. Now, I'm just playing baseball. Now, I'm just going to the field. It was better after that."

Greinke went 4-1 while allowing just 13 earned runs in 48 innings over his last seven starts. That helped Wichita reach the Texas League playoffs, and that success proved a tonic in itself.

He found it hard to believe that he enjoyed baseball so much. He kept wondering if the joy would dissipate. It didn't.

"Usually with me," he said, "a month or even two months before the season is over, I'd be counting days. More than counting days. I'd be begging for it to be over. As soon as the last game was over, I'd be showered and gone.

"Last year, it was like I'd like to stay a little longer."

That's good news. Now, the question is can he make the big league club? Zack reaching his potential would be a huge boost to the Royals.

Jeff Albert at The Baseball Analysts offers a video comparison of Todd Helton's swing from 2004 and 2006. It seems he's lost his hitch.

U.S.S. Mariner catches Mike Hargrove spewing conventional wisdom that's incorrect.

Nice research over at the Detroit Tigers Weblog on long battles between batters and pitchers after the count reaches two strikes. Long battles improve the chance of the batter reaching base. Of course, there could be selection bias here. Batters who can foul off or take pitches with two strikes are just better hitters.

Any column that mentions My Mother the Car is worth a link.

One of my useless skills is remembering the lyrics to long forgotten theme songs. My Mother the Car is one of those. I was five when the show aired, which is probably why I loved it:

Audience demographics was an emerging science in the mid-1960s. My Mother the Car was a huge hit with younger viewers, but no one at the time knew just how to exploit the youth market with anything other than cartoon series.

Given what we know about Manny and his mom, I don't think she's been reincarnated yet. :-)

The Red Sox decided not to extend Curt Schilling's contract:

"Theo and I talked yesterday and Theo was upfront and honest," the Boston right-hander said on WEEI-AM radio. "It was a very quick meeting. It was easy."

...

"The request of Curt came as a bit of a surprise," Lucchino said Thursday, "but out of respect for him, we met and discussed it, considered it and thought at this age and stage it was probably more appropriate to make that contract decision at the end of the season."

It's absolutely the right decision here. There's no way of knowing how much Schilling has in the tank at this point. If he pitches well, he'll do a lot better than he'd get in an extension.

Yankees hater Jim Caple finally realizes A-Rod is a pretty good player. Now if we just need to get NY talk radio hosts to realize it. Hat tip, Baseball Primer Newsblog.

Another reason not to have government fund and run ballparks. Corruption.

MetsBlog rounds up information on Orlando Hernandez's injury:

The Mets have told reporters that Orlando Hernandez has been sent to New York so doctors can examine a recent pain in his neck.

He must have a teenager at home (rim shot).

Of course, this is the big worry going into the Mets season. How healthy is this rotation when you're depending on two 40 year olds? How good can the starters be if you're depending on Park and Perez to relive the brief glory of their careers? It's a good thing the Mets offense should score a lot of runs, they'll need them.

Juan Uribe reached an agreement with a Dominican Republic judge that allows the White Sox shortstop to attend spring training:

Under the judge's ruling, Uribe will no longer have to appear in court twice a month for the remainder of the case. Instead, he must put down a $15,400 deposit guaranteeing he will make his next scheduled court appearance, slated for March 17.

"I am going to training tomorrow," Uribe told The Associated Press late Wednesday. "I feel satisfied with the court's decision and I am ready to present myself when it's necessary."

Given the international exposure of baseball, it will be pretty easy to determine where Uribe is at any point.

My daughter and I shared a delightful day touring a couple of colleges in the Boston area. (The Harvard tour guide, however, didn't deliver the punch line to the story of the John Harvard statue.) Readers sent me a number of articles and interviews, so here's the collection for your evening reading.

Joel Jacobsen notes that life imitates Major League as Jhonny Peralta corrects his vision with eye surgery.

Jan sends this article on congressional hearings about the DirecTV deal.

Home Run Derby is a new blog dedicated to the home run. Rich Braasch, who runs the site also points out that MLB players will be sporting new chapeaus this season. I hope this means the end of those ugly sweat stains.

Dan Hauptman recommends Alan Schwarz's site, especially this Marvin Miller interview.

DRays Bay interviews David Price, someone they'd like to see Tampa Bay pick up in the draft.

Full blogging will resume tomorrow.

The scripts to run the Day by Day Database and other programming elements of this site are now fixed. Enjoy!

Due to some poor software interactions, my host is moving me back to MySQL 4.x. This means until I can rewrite certain modules in the Day by Day database, some functions might not work. I'm guessing with my schedule today this won't be resolved until tomorrow.

The Cubs and Carlos Zambrano avoided arbitration yesterday with the sides agreeing to a one year deal with the idea of working on a longer term contract:

Both sides seemed satisfied with terms of the deal, which wound up about $1 million shy of the midpoint of the numbers they exchanged at arbitration, Zambrano's $15.5 million and the Cubs' $11.025 million. But Zambrano can earn another $2 million in award incentives, including World Series most valuable player and top five in Cy Young Award balloting.

It's an interesting compromise. In guaranteed money, the Cubs are below the midpoint, so it looks like a win for them, but if Zambrano pitches a fantastic season, he earns close to his asking price. The question now turns to the long term deal:

"Like 'Z' said, the goal is [that] this needs to get done before Opening Day because he doesn't want it to become a distraction," Praver said.

But the sides remain far apart. The Cubs are thinking about a deal comparable to the five-year, $73 million deal Roy Oswalt received from Houston last summer. Zambrano has said repeatedly he wants something close to the $18 million per year free-agent left-hander Barry Zito got from San Francisco, which would amount to $90 million for five years.

"It's up to [Hendry]," Zambrano said. "I'm ready to lead this team to a championship and win in this city. The fans deserve us to go to the playoffs and to win for the city of Chicago."

Hendry is convinced Zambrano wants to stay. But if they had gone to arbitration Tuesday, it probably would have been difficult to come to a long-term deal.

"Philosophically, Carlos has made it real clear he wants to be here, first preference and second preference," Hendry said. "Why would I, as a general manager, not want him on the ballclub? That will be our intent."

Maybe they'll split the difference of this contract as well. $82 Million for five years doesn't sound too shabby. Or Carlos can just test the free agent waters and watch the offers flow in.

As you may be aware, this site experience some problems yesterday. The ability for me to post appears to have been restored, but the Day by Day Database is still not working. I'll try to keep you informed of progress on that.

However, since it's school vacation week, I'll be traveling today. That also means no Baseball Musings Radio Show this week.

Jeter offers his side of the non-story about his friendship with A-Rod. And there's not much he's telling.

"Has our relationship changed? I've had a lot of relationships change over the years. But what we do away from the field, how much time we spend together really makes no difference when we're playing."

Jeter insisted there is no "rift" between them, saying, "Let's get that straight. We go out and work together. This is our fourth year we're playing together. It's annoying to hear about it all the time. Everybody assumes they know what our relationship is."

I think the best way to end this is for Derek and Alex to do something really funny, like make out in the dugout. While someone is interviewing Jeter, Rodriguez should just come up and start with, "Derek, we've been apart too long. I need you now." Sort of like Bonds in the dress last year. :-)

The Baseball Crank looks at how Established Win Share Levels did on a team basis last year.

There are two stories about slow healing finger injuries today. Coco Crisp still suffers pain from his fracture:

The Red Sox [team stats] manager said that his switch-hitting center fielder recently told him that he still can feel the injury when he swings a bat left-handed but said he wasn't concerned that it will continue to affect his performance during spring training. Crisp is due to report to camp with Sox position players today, undergo a physical examination tomorrow and take part in the first full-squad workout Thursday. "As of a couple of weeks ago, he still felt it there, but I don't think he was very concerned about it," said Francona, who exchanged frequent e-mails with Crisp during the winter.

Meanwhile, Padres shortstop Khalil Greene reports a similar discomfort:

Khalil Greene's left middle finger is still sore six months after he injured it. The San Diego Padres shortstop insists it's not an issue.

Greene checked into camp Monday, two days ahead of the reporting date for position players.

"It's still sore when I swing," Greene said. "It's in a loosening phase. It's hard to gauge because all the weather has been sub-50 degrees. When it was warm, it felt good ... There's still some sense of soreness, but it's not major. It's about normal."

Hitting a ball in the cold always hurts. The Red Sox play eleven home games in April, when the weather can be iffy. We'll see how Crisp does if the weather is cold. The Padres play five potentially cold games in April, visiting Chicago and Colorado.

I'll be attending Andy Andres Sabermetrics 101 class tonight for the lecture on defense. Required reading this week was the PMR archive.

In a daring display of guts, heart and determination, Kris Benson decided to rehabilitate his torn rotator cuff and try to pitch in 2007:

Dr. James Andrews examined Benson's shoulder yesterday in Birmingham, Ala. It was the third opinion sought by the Orioles' pitcher. A member of the New York Mets' medical staff recently recommended that Benson have surgery, but Andrews provided a small glimmer of hope.

If the rehab doesn't change the condition of Benson's shoulder, he will have the surgery and most likely miss the season. Waiting a few more weeks wouldn't delay his return.

This seems like a risky move to me, in that he might make the injury even worse.

John Gibbons received a one year extension and a raise from the Blue Jays. I guess finishing second in the division out weighed his run-ins with players.

John Hicky notices a change in Adrian Beltre's appearance:

To look at Adrian Beltre, you'd think he'd muscled up during the offseason.

His forearms are bigger. His biceps are bigger.

To listen to Beltre, however, you'd think maybe it's what Yogi Berra used to call "an optical conclusion."

"I did the same weight work I always do in the winter," Beltre said after his first workout of 2007 with the Mariners. "Maybe it's the shirt I'm wearing that makes me look that way."

I don't know if they've done the official weigh in for 2007, but Adrian's current weight is listed at 220 lb. We'll see if that changes.

Shawn Chacon suffers from arthritis in his right knee:

Chacon has had two surgeries on the meniscus inside the knee, and he strongly considered having another after last season. But a doctor advised him in October that doing so would only exacerbate the problem, and all concerned decided against it.

"I've got some pretty good arthritis," Chacon said. "The thought process was that, if I can keep my leg strong enough to where I can minimize the pain and the fluid that gets in there from day to day, I'll be better off than if I go in there again to have it scoped, shave out more meniscus and basically creating more arthritis."

Chacon has made his scheduled pitching sessions and run through all fielding drills this spring with no apparent problem.

The Pirates are pretty good at adding injured pitchers to their staff.

Corey Koskie will miss spring training due to the concussion he suffered last year:

After weeks of uncertainty, the Milwaukee Brewers now know that third baseman Corey Koskie will not be physically ready to take part in spring training when position players are scheduled to report Friday.

Because Koskie has not completely recovered from the post-concussion syndrome that sidelined him for the entire second half of last season, assistant general manager Gord Ash said the Brewers had no choice but to "aggressively plan" for other options at third base.

"The good news is that he continues to improve," Ash said. "The troubling news is he hasn't improved enough to get on the field yet."

Ash said the Brewers might decide to platoon left-handed-hitting Craig Counsell and right-handed-hitting Tony Graffanino at third base until Koskie is ready to return to duty. But club officials also are interested in seeing if minor-league prospect Ryan Braun looks ready to jump to the big leagues after only a half-season as high as the Class AA level.

Braun tore up the low minors, and his addition would give the Brewers a very young infield.

What makes Greg Maddux a great defensive pitcher?

"I get a lot of comebackers," he said.

For those of you interested in the relationship between Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, A-Rod spoke about it with reporters. It's pretty much a non-story.

According to Julian Tavarez, the Red Sox won't see Manny Ramirez until March 1.

Julian Tavarez told MLB.com and WBZ-TV in Boston on Sunday that his good friend Manny Ramirez would miss the start of the Red Sox's spring training because his mother recently had surgery for an undisclosed condition.

"He's been going through a tough time because of his mom; they told her that she had a tumor and it wasn't a tumor, but she had surgery between her ribs and she's home right now recovering and Manny's out there with his mom," Tavarez told MLB.com.

Tavarez told MLB.com that both Ramirez and his mother are both currently in Weston, Fla.

This was the first Terry Francona heard about it, so we'll see if the story is real. However, given that the Red Sox training facility is just two hours from where Manny's mother is recovering, it seems that Manny could make some practices. He has enough money to hire pretty good care for his mom, and a driver to take him back and forth. He might even be able to fly! I appreciate that he wants to be there for his mom, but he can do both.

Update: Looking a map of the area, there are airfields next to both locations.

Ron Washington drilled into the Texas pitching staff the importance of fielding their position, using the Detroit Tigers World Series performance as an example. The pitchers then went through their drills:

And so for about 45 minutes on Sunday, Rangers' pitchers shuttled through three different stations.

At one, they fielded slow-rolling grounders and practiced getting into throwing position without ever releasing a ball. At a second station, they fielded hard-hit ground balls. At the third, they raced to first to be prepared for tosses when the first baseman had to make the play.

None of it was new. It's a drill that goes on in every camp for at least 10 days.

Often that is the end of it. It may be for the Rangers, too, but during his interview, Washington brought up the idea of occasionally taking defensive practice during the season.

It's amazing to me that pitchers don't do defensive drills during the season. Once a week for 45 minutes, would likely be good for all of them.

Bobby Jenks did not repeat his mistake of last year, coming into camp in shape this time. His method was pretty simple:

Jenks said there was "no secret" to his routine. He just dieted and made sure he stayed "on top of working out."

"I think that's the biggest thing anybody needs to know: Don't take that break," he said. "Just grind through it and keep going."

Jenks made sure he did something physical on the days he didn't lift, be it hopping on a treadmill or elliptical machine or going outside.

"Everybody sits on their couch a half hour a day, at least," Jenks said. "Take that half hour and spend it on a treadmill. Spend it going back to the gym and go on the elliptical. Run. Go outside. Take your dog for a walk. People don't realize those are important things. You lose your motivation.

"You want to just sit on the couch, but don't do it."

Bleed Cubbie Blue finishes up their series on the Top 100 Cubs with Ernie Banks. Be sure to check out the story on why the author missed Ernie's 500th home run.

The Score Bard sums up Keith Foulke's career in five lines.

Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune is blogging about baseball from Florida this spring training. Check out his site.

Aaron Gleeman lists the Twins top forty prospects. They're very strong on pitching, but not too many bats are on the list.

The ATTB thinks Daisuke Matsuzaka broke the law by drinking beer in a commerical:

The regulation in question is foolish even as applied to the United States. Consumers should be able to decide for themselves whether or not seeing athletes chugging beer is a good recommendation for the product. While an ad that incorrectly claims that drinking beer "will enhance athletic prowess" may indeed be misleading advertising, an ad that merely portrays an athlete drinking a beer is just ordinary "image advertising" that consumers are more than capable of evaluating for themselves. I am not going to get into technical First Amendment analysis here. But it seems to me that censoring advertising not for false factual claims about the product, but merely for promoting a favorable image of a product that the government disapproves of, is a clear violation of constitutional free speech rights - even if the courts have wrongly concluded otherwise.

What makes the ATTB action against Matsuzaka particularly reprehensible, however, is that the ad in question isn't being aired in the United States. It is a Japanese-language ad that will only be shown in Japan, where ads showing athletes drinking beer are perfectly legal. Not only is the ATTB engaging in censorship of American advertising, it also claims the right to censor ads in a foreign country.

There must be a lot of Yankees fans at the ATTB.

Hat tip, Instapundit.

That's how Tim Lincecum explains his delivery:

Zito's new mechanics might have startled Giants officials Thursday, but he's got nothing on Lincecum -- a 5-foot-10, 160-pounder who makes up for his lack of size by using an unorthodox, highly leveraged delivery. It's the creation of his father, Chris, a former semipro player who drew inspiration from studying film of Sandy Koufax and Bob Feller.

"It works well with my body, it's kept me from getting hurt and it helps me get as much as possible from my slender frame," Lincecum said. "(Coaches) always shied away from trying to help me because of how unorthodox it is or they say it is. They really haven't tried to change me at all, anywhere."

The Giants won't start. By decree of Giants vice president Dick Tidrow, coaches are forbidden from tinkering with Lincecum's mechanics.

I wonder if he's successful if other pitchers will emulate his mechanics. Here's video, if you haven't seen him before:

Dan Johnson suffered from double vision during the 2006 season:

The A's potential everyday first baseman unknowingly played last season with double vision in his right eye, a problem that wasn't diagnosed until about two weeks ago.

That revelation may at least partially explain why Johnson got off to a horrendous start at the plate last season, eventually getting demoted to Triple-A Sacramento after starting the season as Oakland's first baseman.

Johnson thought he merely had blurred vision throughout 2006, and was taking eye drops to remedy the problem.

"It's hard to treat someone who doesn't know what bothers him," Johnson said. "I went to a few doctors last year, four or five, but it's like going to the doctor and telling him my arm hurts, and it's my leg or something."

It goes without saying how important eyesight is to a hitter trying to make contact with 90-plus mph fastballs. Eye doctors recently recommended Johnson see a specialist, and he has been undergoing "eye therapy" over the past two weeks and is now on a different medication to help correct the problem.

"They say that I'm progressing like I'm supposed to," he said. "What they're doing is taking a 10-month program and putting it into about two weeks."

Johnson regaining his batting eye would be a huge boost to the Athletics offense.

Did you know that baseball batters were never taller than they were in 2006? This chart show average height weighted by plate appearances. So the more a player bats during a season, the more his height counts in the average. Click on the chart for a larger view.

As you can see by the trendline, the growth in height of hitters leveled off starting around 1987. It's still growing, but very slowly. In 2006, hitters averaged 72.8 inches. I was curious if the growth of players had anything to do with the explosion in hit by pitch numbers, but they've skyrocketed while heights leveled. It's also interesting to note that during two eras of HBP falloff, height of batters increased along the trendline.

Congratulations to J.C. Bradbury on the birth of his daughter, Sarah!

A reader contacted Comcast about MLB Extra Innings:

I just called my cable provider (comcast) to see if they would tell me anything about extra innings. After first telling me that comcast still provides extra innings, I got the operator to check and see if I would be able to order it. Suddenly she found and started reading me a statement saying that extra innings was now exclusively available on direct tv and that comcast would no longer provide it. Unwilling to accept the truth, I asked her if the statement came from comcast and she assured me that it did. I was holding out hope that the deal wouldn't go down but if comcast is publicly saying it will, it almost certainly will.

This seems to jibe with Maury Brown's post from yesterday.

Ned Yost is exuding confidence:

Ned Yost is an energetic, ultra-optimistic type by nature who brings a passion to his job that is refreshing in the often jaded world of professional sports.

That focused approach, combined with Yost's unwavering confidence in his method of operation, makes even the most cynical of observers take note when the Milwaukee Brewers manager presents his vision of the not-so-distant future of the franchise.

"Are we going to get there and win a world championship? I'm 100% convinced of it," said Yost, who is beginning his fifth year at the helm of the club.

"I think it's set in stone, in my mind. When? I don't know. It could be this year, it could be next year. But, for me, it's written in stone. And I'm going to work every single day to try to accomplish that goal."

I have no idea if the Brewers will win soon, but I like Ned's attitude.

In Brushing Back Jim Crow: The Integration of Minor-League Baseball in the American South, Bruce Adelson provides us with a detailed historical record of the integration of the minor leagues in the southern US during the 1950s and early 1960s. Bruce writes as an impartial observer very well, letting the people who experienced the drama tell the story. His book is full of first person narratives as black and Hispanic ballplayers famous and fleeting tell their stories of breaking the color barrier in a hostile environment. He also quotes numerous newspaper article from the era to give us a feel for how society reacted to something many never saw before, blacks and white working together as equals.

The book is amazingly positive. Adelson, time after time notes how the economic benefits of team integration brought owners and league officials over to that side of the aisle. In 1955, in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education, Georgia tried to ban interracial sports. The president of the Georgia State League fought the legislation, Bill Estroff fought the legislation and won, something different for the south.

And that, in a nutshell, is the thesis of the book. Minority ballplayers quietly set the stage for the civil rights victories of the 1950s and 1960s. These players demonstrated that blacks and whites could work and play together, so that people in the south started to have doubts about their ingrained beliefs. At a time of declining attendance, black fans brought economic clout to change the way they were treated at ballparks. Adelson makes a strong case that the integration of baseball was central to the overall integration of the south. If you're interested in the history of baseball, or the history of the civil rights movement, this book is an invaluable resource.

Jay Jaffe is back blogging at Futility Infielder and comments on why the Yankees shouldn't keep Bernie Williams on the roster.

Here's a good story on why players and teams settle rather than arbitrate, centered around Erik Bedard. Erik didn't want to hear the arguments against him:

"It's always hard," said Bedard, who was warned that the arbitration process can be both contentious and humbling. "Obviously you are not going to take everything seriously. But some things I am sure they would have said, would have stuck forever. That's hard to forget, but we didn't go through that process and I'm happy for it.

And from the Orioles side, they didn't want to upset this particular player:

There was some concern in the front office about the effect a potential arbitration case could have on Bedard's psyche.

"I am of the belief that it is always better to come to an agreement than to arbitrate a case," Orioles vice president Jim Duquette said. "We obviously have a very successful track record when it comes to arbitration, and we're not afraid to go. We will go if we have to. But we certainly don't like to go with our top pitcher from last year. That sends a bad message."

Both Duquette and executive vice president Mike Flanagan believed that one possible factor in Rodrigo Lopez 's 18-loss season was that he might have never fully recovered from experiencing the process.

"As a former player ... I came close to going one time and was not looking forward to it," Flanagan said. "Just the nature of it, players are going to point out good points and we're going to have to acknowledge good points, but also decipher some numbers and whatever way we see it. You just hope that you can avoid it getting there."

Duquette was the Houston Astros' director of player development in 1997, when one of the club's best pitchers, the late Darryl Kile, lost his arbitration case.

"He came back and was ticked off," Duquette recalled. "At the end of the year, because of the fact that they went to arbitration, he [opted] for free agency [after going 19-7]. That's when he signed with Colorado for a million dollars more. [Arbitration] can have long-lasting effects to an organization and a player."

Jered Weaver's biceps are not healthy:

The right-hander, who went 11-2 as a rookie last season, has tendinitis in his biceps and will be limited early in spring training.

He is not expected to throw off a mound for a while - perhaps about two weeks.

They seem to be blaming it on his increased workload last season.

Harvard covered their football field with a climate controlled bubble to improve winter practice for the baseball team.

Ty Wigginton added catcher to his resume of positions last December:

According to a report in the St. Petersburg Times, Wigginton's wife, Angela, went into intense labor two weeks early. Against the clock, Ty was forced to deliver the baby in the bedroom closet of the their new North Carolina home.

Talk about clutch.

"He was out in less than a minute," Ty told the Times. "One or two pushes, and he was ready to see the world."

The birth wasn't quite as easy as Ty makes it seem. According to the Times, Ty listened to step-by-step instructions from the 911 operator as the couple's 3-year-old son Chase screamed, "Is Mommy o-tay?" With the healthy baby safely out, Ty handed Angela the phone so he could tie the umbilical cord with his shoelace.

"I think adrenaline took over. It's kind of all a blur," Ty told the newspaper. "It was unbelievable."

No error on that play. And they named the baby Cannon!

Detect-o-Vision wonders if the Mariners might bring in Cito Gaston if Hargrove and the team falters early. He also wonders why Gaston never got another job:

I don't buy for a second the idea that Cito is frozen out because he's black, and doubt that many D-O-V readers would either. There are any number of black managers who get as many go-rounds as the average white manager, including black managers with very strong personalities, such as Frank Robinson. In America 2007, white-bread people like Tiger and Bernie Mac and Wesley Snipes more than black people do. My wife has seen that Guess Who movie at least 30 times...

You can be sure there is something behind the scenes on Gaston. Not necessarily something sinister, but something that makes him extremely unappealing, competency-wise or personality-wise or private-life-wise or whatever.

Well, this was the man who wasted John Olerud's talents. Cito benched John in the World Series so Molitor could stay in the lineup, and then decided Olerud was a platoon player. With Toronto, in a hitter's park, during his peak years Olerud's averages were .296/.397/.471. You'd think a manager would want a player like that in the lineup every day. After John left, those number were .296/.400/.466. And that's playing home games in Shea and Safeco, neither the hitters havens that was Skydome.

No, Gaston won despite himself. I don't know if there's a deep, dark secret about him, but not recognizing Olerud's talent is enough to keep him out of my club house.

Ron Washington is going to try to keep the Texas pitching staff stable this year:

For Washington's part, he plans to show faith in the pitchers by giving them more opportunities to prove themselves. He expects to use spring to make decisions about a pitching staff, then try not to mess around with it on a weekly basis.

In the four years under Buck Showalter, the Rangers averaged more than a pitching move per week (either an option, a disabled list assignment or designation for assignment for the purpose of removing the pitcher from the roster) during the regular season. Last year, the Rangers made 28 such moves from April through August. Oakland, beset by injuries, made 23. The Los Angeles Angels made 15 such moves and Seattle 14.

"I want to develop stability in the starting rotation," Washington said. "I don't want those guys looking over their shoulders. It's my job - every manager's job - to build confidence. I'm going to let them know from the very beginning that they can do it and that we expect them to do it. But we also know there are going to be some bumps, and I want them to know I'll give them a chance to show me it's just a bump. I want them to keep us in games and I'm going to give them every opportunity to do that."

I remember Bill James writing about managing pitching staffs in a high run envirornment. He felt that too many pitching changes was bad for a staff. Every time you take a pitcher out of a game (at least back then), you're communicating failure. Sometimes, they just need to take their lumps and learn from the experience. Sounds like Washington is taking a similar approach.

Bill Livingston calls into question Eric Wedge's skills as a manager:

Eric Wedge gets to the ballpark be fore the alligators in Lake Lulu graze for breakfast. He reconfigures his lineup. He consults with his coaches. He listens to new consultant Buck Showalter's take on his team. He probably deconstructs the infield fly rule.

Then, all too often, he sends the Indians out to have a pie fight.

Seldom has anyone prepared so meticulously and gotten such chaos in return. Something must be getting lost in translation because Wedge's workload is real, not exaggerated. Yet the results often seem minimal when the Indians run amok on the bases, fail to get a bunt down, or let a rundown play peter out like a battery out of juice.

Overall, this is pretty fair criticism. Does Wedge not communicate his vision to his players? Is there a lack of clarity coming from the manager and coaches on how to execute during the game? Or is Wedge just putting the wrong personnel on the field? When Eric took down Milton Bradley, I thought he was showing strong leadership. Was that just a moment of clarity for Wedge? Livingston concludes that Wedge's job should be on the line:

The feeling here has been that Shapiro is reluctant to admit a mistake in hiring Wedge. All his supportive gestures during slumps might be better spent on instilling a sense of urgency in the manager. Five years is a long time in sports. The Indians need to play October baseball again.

Mark Prior appears to be going through a bit of a Carl Pavano stretch himself:

"Is it fair for me to tell you whether you're hurting or not?" Prior said. "Who's to say? I've never judged somebody based on whether I feel they're hurt or not. You can't tell. Everybody's different. And trust me: You don't get to this level unless you want to play. You get weeded out in a hurry if you really don't want to play the game."

There's the rub: Prior hasn't played much in recent seasons.

Prior says he's healthy:

He started throwing in November and began working off a mound a month ago. Three years of injuries threw off his mechanics, causing issues with his timing and location, so Prior tried to correct that in the offseason. He "stripped down" his delivery and "tried to rebuild it up."

"As far as the peripheral, people looking in and saying he's not the guy this year, that's fine," Prior said. "I know what I want to do, and I know what I bring to this ballclub. When I'm out there, I think I make this club pretty good."

Despite all the moves the Cubs made in the off-season, getting Prior and Derrek Lee back healthy promises to bring the biggest boost to the Cubs fortunes.

This sure makes it sound like Roger Clemens wants to hang up his spikes:

"I don't want to play," added Clemens, a seven-time Cy Young Award winner.

Seems pretty direct to me.

Nico at Athletics Nation praises David Stern for his rejection of Tim Hardaway after the former player's anti-gay comment.

If greasy hair, All-Star game ties, family conflicts of interest, and just all around ickiness don't top your "Commissioner Wish List," why not try David Stern, Commissioner of the NBA? Now there's a Commish I can get excited about. Stern is underrated because he's so good; just as with an umpire, if you are too aware of the Commissioner's existence, it's probably not a good thing. Stern has quietly brought salary caps, consequences for unacceptable behavior, and other necessities to the NBA, while being so unobtrusive that many NBA fans probably couldn't name him and most NBA fans certainly couldn't tell you what the heck he looks like. And in the last 48 hours, Stern, already an exemplary Commissioner, truly outdid himself. This week, Tim Hardaway made a series of comments that, paraphrased, began with, "I hate gay people because they're gay and that's awful," and ended with, "I wish I hadn't said that because it has turned out to be inconvenient for me that I said it." You know, Tim, perhaps you should try something other than speaking out loud, because that really isn't working for you. Or for anyone, really.

So here was Stern's response, after immediately informing Hardaway that he was no longer welcome as one of the retired players due to appear at today's NBA's All-Star Weekend Kickoff:

I'm not a huge Bud Selig fan, but this is a little unfair to Bud. After all, he pushed Marge Shott out of the club of owners after her favorable comments about Hitler, and slapped a suspension on John Rocker after pretty obnoxious comments along the same lines. Maybe Nico is too young to remember those incidents.

I've always thought fans should decide these things anyway. Reds fans could have boycotted the teams games. Fans could have booed Rocker out of Atlanta. Imagine the message sent if Tim Hardaway was introduced and booed off the court by the fans. (Although I suppose, Stern might be afraid the fans might cheer.)

Miguel Cabrera won his arbitration case with the Florida Marlins today, becoming the first player to win this season. He'll get $7.4 million this season. It's the third highest award of all time and the highest for a player in his first eligible season. Tough to argue with the decision. Cabrera is one of the top players in the majors, not just in his class. I can't imagine what he's going to make when he becomes a free agent.

Meanwhile, Erik Bedard settled with the Orioles, agreeing to a $3.4 million dollar contract. The two sides didn't split the difference perfectly. The final amount was closer to Bedard's asking price of $4 million, meaning the Orioles thought there was better than a 50% chance of Erik winning his case.

A number of changes to the rules go into effect this year. MLB will try to eliminate tie games. In the past, if a game was tied after the fifth inning and conditions made it impossible to finish, it was ruled a tie. The stats counted, but the game was made up so that a team had 162 decisions. This was actually pretty common before lights were installed in ballparks. Often, you see players in 155 games during a season in which 154 games were scheduled. Now:

Before this year, when an official game was called due to weather and the score was tied, the statistics counted and a new game was replayed from the start. Under the change, when a game is tied in the bottom of the fifth inning or later and is called because of weather, it will be suspended and resumed before the next scheduled game between the teams at the same ballpark.

If no more games remain between the teams at the same ballpark, it will be resumed when the teams meet at the visitor's ballpark. If it is the final scheduled meeting between the teams, it will be replayed from the start if it is needed to determine a postseason berth.

I liked the tie rule, as it was a quirky vestiage of yester-year. But this change does make a lot of sense. I know Jayson Stark would like to see all rain shortened games suspended and resumed. This is a step in that direction.

Another rule change involves fielders scuffing balls:

A major league position player who scuffs or defaces a baseball would be ejected and receive an automatic 10-game suspension under changes approved Friday by the sport's playing rules committee.

Previously, the penalty was to call the pitch a ball and warn the player. For pitchers, umpires have the discretion to issue only a warning if they determine the pitcher's actions weren't intended to alter the characteristics of a pitch.

And on dropped third strikes, a batter can't wander off, then head for first base. If his first move isn't toward the bag, he's out. Here's one to speed up the game:

With no runners on, a pitcher will be required to pitch within 12 seconds, the timing starting when the pitcher is in possession of the ball and the batter is in the batter's box, alert to the pitcher.

I believe it was 20 before this, although that rule was never strictly enforced. I'll be curious to see if this one is.

The official press release from MLB is here. The scoring change summary is here. Those who write software that allows fans to score games should pay attention to the change to the save rule and how catcher's interference effects earned runs.

It's been a bad week for Jose Acevedo. He didn't report to the Orioles camp as a non-roster player, then ended up in a motorcycle accident. Let's hope he makes a speedy recovery.

Mike Mussina and Carl Pavano end their cat fight.

Carl Pavano walked into the clubhouse attendants' room, across the hallway from manager Joe Torre 's office at Legends Field. Three minutes later, Mike Mussina entered and shut the door.

Twelve minutes after that, the pair emerged, smiling. Peace and understanding had been achieved.

Here's exclusive video of what went on inside:

Eric Gagne's recovery may not be coming along as well as reported.

It looks like the Twins have enough money coming off the books next year to pay to keep their star players around:

Entering the offseason, it appeared the Twins had a good chance of locking up all three players to multiyear deals. They had just completed a season in which they had a windfall in ticket and merchandise sales, $18.5 million was off the books with veterans Brad Radke and Shannon Stewart gone, and the team held true to its philosophy of not going after big-money free agents.

But then the market skyrocketed, and it became apparent in mid-January that a 3-for-3 offseason was a long shot when Mauer, Morneau and Cuddyer each filed for a salary of at least $1 million more than the Twins offered.

"I'm never going to have everything that I want," Ryan said. "But we took a pretty good run at" trying to sign Cuddyer and Morneau to multiyear deals.

After this season, the Twins could have more money to make a run at signing Cuddyer and Morneau to multiyear contracts. The contracts for veterans Torii Hunter, Luis Castillo, Carlos Silva and Ramon Ortiz are set to expire at the end of the season, potentially taking $25.2 million off the books.

With $8 million going to Mauer, that leaves $35 million to divvy up between Santana, Morneau and Cuddyer. Seems that's plenty to raise Santana to $25 million a year (from $10 million) and give the other two long term contracts, especially if revenue keeps rising. Twins fans, time to get out to the park and support your team!

Royals Authority explains why Mike Sweeney's career would make a perfect Warren Zevon song.

It looks like Ken Griffey, Jr. is going to start the season in centerfield for the Reds. Red Reporter disagrees.

Why is there so much dismissal of Chris Denorfia? The Reds don't seem to take him seriously, which is bizarre to me because you'd think he'd fit the profile of what Krivsky likes in a player. His effort level is off the charts, and he's a good defender.

Denorfia owns a very good minor league OBA and a good major league OBA for a good defensive centerfielder. He's 27 for the 2007 season, and should be at the top of his game. He'll likely get on base at a .360 clip and catch the ball. I agree with Red Reporter, it's an obvious move, especially given Griffey's poor range.

Keith Foulke retired from baseball today:

Foulke agreed to a $5 million, one-year free agent contract with the Indians in January. The right-hander had battled injury problems the past two seasons, and last year he was replaced as Boston's closer by rookie Jonathan Papelbon.

The 34-year-old informed the Indians of his decision on Thursday when the club's pitchers and catchers reported to Winter Haven, Fla.

"While we are disappointed that Keith will not be pitching for the Indians this year, I have a tremendous amount of respect for him and the way he went about this decision," general manager Mark Shapiro said. "Keith clearly demonstrated a great deal of integrity and character in this matter and we wish him success in his future endeavors."

It seems Keith's injuries finally caught up with him. That leaves the Indians with one less candidate for the closer role.

Brew Crew Ball is very happy with Ned Yosts' outfield arrangement.

The Baseball Crank gets off the line of the day on MTVs declining ratings:

If this keeps up, the network may have to fill time by showing music videos.

Bart Simpson saw this coming a decade ago.

Tony Finn at SI.com wants fantasy players to note the boost you can receive from selecting 27 year olds.

Via 6-4-2, a report with pictures of the Angels opening spring training. It was a good day for Casey Kotchman:

Second, one of the two position players that showed up, #35, Casey Kotchman (Reggie Willits was the other). Casey hit four balls out of the park - and i came home with all four of them. Cha! (Napoli hit one too that i picked up for 5 total). His swing looked as sweet as ever. Nobody else came close to hammering the ball like he did, not that there was much competition there today. I thought Nap would go yard a bunch, but he didn't - Mathis hit as good as he did.

It looks like Carlos Zambrano is close to signing a five-year deal.

In unrelated news, Zambrano backed off his comments from earlier this week and says they were misconstrued. He also said the Cubs made their first formal multi-year offer "a five-year proposal 'very close' to what the San Francisco Giants gave free agent pitcher Barry Zito this winter. That would mean an offer worth close to $90 million."

If Z is willing to take the shorter deal so he can cash-in again in five years, it seems like the finalizing of a deal is a mere formality.

I'd be very sure of Zambrano's back before I went five years, but given the level of pitching that was getting big money this winter, this deal is almost a steal for the Cubs.

The Good Phight suggests a new game for Phillies fans this season, Slamming Pat Burrell (TM)!

Update: Burrell answers his critics.

Mike Mussina isn't sticking up for a teammate:

Carl Pavano insisted today that his reputation and standing in the Yankees clubhouse is fine, and that any mention to the contrary is a creation by the media.

A few lockers away, Mike Mussina disputed that notion with shocking honesty, questioning Pavano's will to pitch for the Yankees.

"I'm just looking at it from the way each thing happened and the timing of each, and you form your own evaluation," Mussina said of Pavano's past injuries. "It didn't look good from a players and teammates standpoint. It didn't look good. Was everything just coincidence? Over and over again? I don't know."

Mussina said he did not think Pavano deserved the benefit of doubt, at least not from him.

"I want to see that he wants to do it," Mussina said.

He went on to detail all the Yankees, including himself, who pitched or played hurt over the last two years. I find this highly unusual. There's been plenty of teammates who hated each other over the years, but they tried to keep it private until it boiled over. Mussina going on the attack here makes me think Pavano's days with the Yankees are numbered.

Steve Swindal ran into a problem with the law:

George Steinbrenner's son-in-law and designated successor to run the New York Yankees was arrested early Thursday on a charge of driving under the influence.

Yankees general partner Steve Swindal was arrested by the St. Petersburg Police at 4:26 a.m., according to a copy of the charge report posted on the Pinellas County Sherriff's Office's Web site. He was booked for a misdemeanor and released from jail in Largo at 9:53 a.m. on $250 bond.

A member of the police department's DUI squad pulled Swindal over at 2:12 a.m. after he cut the officer's cruiser off in traffic, police spokesman Bill Proffitt said.

"She had to brake and take evasive action to avoid hitting him," Proffitt said.

Cutting off a police car is never a good idea, even if sober. Seems like Swindal is taking after the Yankees of old.

Kerry Wood and hot tubs don't mix.

Take it away, god father of soul!

Barry Bonds is officially a Giant again:

Barry Bonds finally signed his $15.8 million, one-year contract Thursday, and the slugger is scheduled to report to spring training Monday.

No reason was given for what caused Bonds to relent. I suspect, however, it was Barry Zito using Bonds' chair.

John Walsh delivers his outfield arm rankings for 2006 at The Hardball Times. I especially like the graph he includes, showing where the outfielders lie on a runners held vs. runners killed basis. The upper right quadrant is fascinating. It's the quadrant where fielders are good at both, but within that quadrant an increase in an ability to kill a runner leads to a decrase in the ability to hold a runner. So no one comes close to being great at both.

Mets Heads is a new blog devoted to the team from Queens. Stop by and say hi. Check out this article on Shawn Green's throwing arm as well.

WasWatching gets inside Mariano Rivera's head:

According to a trusted source that I have, Rivera is not happy at this moment. Mariano is displeased by the way the Yankees have elected to handle an offer to Bernie Williams (for 2007). That's part of it. But, more so, he is upset over the Yankees wait-and-see approach towards him.

According to my source, Rivera is not bluffing about entertaining other offers from all interested parties at the end of the season if the Yankees elect not to negotiate with him during the spring.

My source stressed that Mariano loves New York, the Yankees, and their fans. However, while his heart is here, he realizes that baseball is a business and everyone needs to do what they feel is best for them - because if you don't look out for yourself, no one else will do it.

He goes on to say it will be a public relations nightmare to see Mariano pitching in Boston.

Rubbish.

If Damon can come to New York, Rivera can certainly go to Boston. Frankly, I doubt it would happen because Boston tends not to overpay for players, which is what's going to happen to Mariano. I'm guessing Rivera just doesn't want to extend the $10 million a year he's currently receiving. I'm betting he's looking for around $15 million. That's a lot for any 38-year-old player, especially one that just gives you 75 innings a season. On top of that, Rivera just lowered his value by asking to pitch only in the 9th inning this season.

The PR will only be bad if the Yankees fail to make him a decent offer once he becomes a free agent. If they simply get outbid, then Mariano becomes a traitor, just like Damon. It's probably to the Yankees advantage to get one of their rivals to overpay for an old reliever. Cashman is making the right move here, no matter how much Rivera's feeling are hurt.

I'd go to Mini Gyroscope Night.

Bud Selig spoke on ESPN Radio this morning, and a reader sends this summary:

While being stuck in a truly nightmarish traffic jam this morning, David, I had the opportunity to hear Bud Selig tell Mike Greenberg on ESPN Radio that though the DirecTV deal is not yet done, still Mike would be surprised how very few people are effected by this loss of programming. Selig said that some committee incuding folks like Tom Werner had studied this potential deal and concluded it was the right thing to do. Should've known the Red Sox were involved in some way!:)And then of course, Bud went on to tell us again that there's lots of baseball available for viewing[just not the out-of-market team of your choice, cable subscribers]. He also said that when the deal is finally done, he or Bob DuPuy will come back on ESPN and discuss it fully with them. And of course, he was noncommittal on just about anything else mentioned. And he reiterated that we still have 3 more years of his "reign."

I would actually be surprised if Werner was in favor of this deal. I don't think John Kerry would come out against the contract if his supporters in the Red Sox organization were for it.

The Yankees will wear black arm bands to honor the memory of Cory Lidle this season.

Barry Zito wants the locker next to Barry Bonds:

Barry Zito wandered into his new spring training clubhouse carrying an Oakland Athletics duffel bag and plopped into Barry Bonds ' chair.

Oops!

"I probably don't know better yet," Zito said, chuckling.

It might have been a first in San Francisco franchise history. Zito requested that he dress next to the slugger back home this season, too.

"Barry and I have a good relationship," Zito said. "If I can somehow lighten the load off of him, so you guys can just take a hard right when you're going to his locker and start talking to me."

Maybe Zito wants to compare training regimens:

Zito reported to the Giants ' spring training complex at Scottsdale Stadium on Wednesday sporting his signature relaxed style - jeans and a T-shirt. He looked the same, save for the 10 extra pounds of muscle he says he added to his lower body this winter.

Maybe Zito will do to Bonds what I do to my daughter, constantly torture him with nonsense. Sitting in the chair is a good way to start.

Pittsburgh Lumber Co. hosts a round table discussion of the NL Central. Each guest picked the division 1-6. I went back to a previous post from the owner of the blog and took down his picks as well. I then added all the places together to come up with this combined prediction for the NL Central (lowest points the best):

Team	Sum of Rank
Milwaukee	12
Chicago	14
St. Louis	16
Houston	24
Cincinnati	25
Pittsburgh	35

So it looks like a tight, three-way race for first in the central, a close battle for fourth and fifth, and the Pirates bringing up the rear.

The defense attorney for Victor Conte will plead guilty to the BALCO leaks. That confirms the accusation made in December. As part of the agreement, the reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle won't go to jail. It's good to see the person who committed the crime going to jail for a change.

Update: One of the commenters wonders what will turn out to be the motivation for the leak. My guess is that Ellerman was looking for a way to get a guilty client freed on a technicality:

In March 2004, Ellerman signed an agreement that he would not disclose grand jury testimony given to him to prepare the defense. But in June of that year, he allowed Fainaru-Wada to come to his office and take verbatim notes of Montgomery, and the Chronicle published a story about the sprinter's testimony on June 24, according to court documents.

After telling Judge Susan Illston that he was angry about the leak, he filed a statement with the court swearing that he wasn't the source. And in October 2004, he filed a motion to dismiss the criminal case against Valente because of "repeated government leaks of confidential information to the media."

The following month, he again allowed Fainaru-Wada to take verbatim notes of the grand jury transcripts, this time of the testimony of Bonds, Giambi and Sheffield, the court papers show.

I find it quite distressing that the Chronicle reporters invoked Watergate in their pleas to be kept out of jail, yet were abetting a lawyer trying to commit fraud to free a client. That's a great reason to protect a source, so the source can commit a crime.

If you missed tonight's show, you can hear the recorded version here. It's also available on demand at TPSRadio.

The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up in a little while at 8 PM EST. You can leave questions during the show in the TPSRadio Chat Room at Stickam.

Now that Jon Lester beat his cancer, Even Brunell is worried about Jon's high WHIP.

Via MetsBlog.com, Pedro Martinez worked out this winter with a black-listed trainer:

Pedro Martinez continues to stand by controversial fitness guru and massage therapist Angel "Nao" Presinal. And Presinal, in turn, promises to deliver something sure to brighten the New York Mets' pennant hopes come late summer -- a return of the vintage Pedro.

Presinal was caught along with Juan Gonzalez trying to take steroids into Canada in 2001. Although neither was ever charged (authorities couldn't confirm who owned the bag), Presinal lost his status with major league baseball. The news took Mets officials by surprise:

Asked what role Presinal played in his star pitcher's rehab, Minaya responded: "There is no -- as far as I know, there is no connection between Nao and the Mets and Pedro. That is news to me."

As for Presinal working with Martinez, he said: "I don't know. I don't know that."

Interestingly, Nao's training has Pedro ahead of schedule, and Presinal says Martinez will be like new again. Looks like some eyebrows are going to be raised this season if Pedro looks that strong again.

Florida Spring Training, 3rd Edition: Your Guide to Touring the Grapefruit League (Florida Spring Training: Your Guide to Touring the Grapefruit League) by Alan Byrd provides all the information a traveler to Florida needs to navigate spring training baseball. Alan attended games at each stadium and gives you a real feel for what the ballpark is like. He lists the pros and cons, the beautiful and the ugly. For each park, a general introduction is followed by specifics on everything from, food to shade to how to exit the parking lot quickly. He tells you where it's easy to get autographs, where to stay in the area, and where to get food or drink before and after the game.

A perfect example of the value of the book is in the section on getting autographs at Chain of Lakes Park, the home of the Indians. After explaining the difficulties of meeting Indians players caused by the layout of the stands, he gives you detailed instructions for meeting Bob Feller and obtaining an autographed picture. The book makes his learned experiences yours. It's the perfect guide if you're headed to the Grapefruit League this year.

It seems Joel Zumaya doesn't wish to give up Guitar Hero.

He's young and full of confidence and it is certainly understandable. But after the recurrence in the playoffs, maybe the light bulb should have gone on. The risk-reward proposition here just doesn't seem worth it. I'm certainly not hating on Zumaya. I just want Joel to have a long and successful career, hopefully for the Tigers. And what may be missing from the story is mention of the various wrist strengthening exercises that Joel may be doing to guard against this - in case it is the fact he grips the ball too hard.

Felix Pie's defense is the reason the Cub Reporter thinks the rookie will get more time to develop than Corey Patterson:

Is Felix Pie ready, then? Probably not, if ready means doing much more than flashing his offensive potential. But great athletes learn to hit, largely because their defense buys them the time that Jason Dubois won't have. Meanwhile Pie can anchor center field, which is something, not nothing. Cub fans in particular might have a problem with this patient approach because it didn't work with Corey Patterson. We waited and waited and he never got better.

The problem with Corey Patterson, I would argue, was not so much his slow progress as a hitter but the fact that his defense couldn't carry him, get him over the rough spots, ease the pressure. Bottom line, he was not a great fielder, and it's a little mysterious why, since he could run and he could throw. But the catching part sometimes eluded him. Midway through his tenure with the Cubs, I started asking myself, if he's a great fielder, how come he never makes great plays? My teenage son used to put together homemade highlight reels, and once he asked me to sit down to watch a collection of Patterson web-gems. I said, okay, but look closely and you'll see that in every catch his left elbow is bent. And it was true, both when he dove and when he leaped. There was something tentative about it. The sort of thing that Juan Pierre did ten times last year, where you lay flat out in a dive, parallel to the ground, arm and glove fully extended-Patterson didn't do that. He lacked the physical commitment, or courage, that defines an athlete. Patterson was the image of an athlete. He may have been born to play a great athlete in a movie. But he wasn't one. Several scouts out there with egg on their faces should be implementing a new Patterson Rule: don't say a guy has five tools until you've seen him do something special in the field. Patterson is partly a victim of bad scouting (he said, with great hindsight).

It may be six, seven years before we know what kind of hitter Pie is going to become, especially in terms of power numbers. But it will only take about a month to tell if he's the real deal as an athlete. If he is, then the comparisons with Patterson should stop right there.

The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EST. Check out TPSRadio's other sports programming as well.

You can stop by the chat room at TPSRadio during the broadcast and leave a comment. We're now using Stickam for the chat, so there are no logins required. Also, feel free to leave a question in the comments to this post and I'll be happy to answer it on the air.

Royals Authority explores the enigma that is Ryan Shealy.

I've met three of the four people in this video at DeadSpin. Jim Thome and his wife were in the Baseball Tonight green room when we did a week from Florida in 1997. And Dr. Oz is also Harvard 1982 and we took the same freshman chemistry class. So I guess I know Oprah now!

On Valentine's Day, MLB.com posts the reasons fans and players love baseball. Interestingly, three mention that for the most part, size doesn't matter. Here's the two that most reflect my views of the subject. The first by a famous player:

Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter: "I think because everybody can relate. You don't have to be seven feet tall; you don't have to be a certain size to play. Baseball is up and down. I think life's like that sometimes, you know. Back and forth, up and down, you're going through this grind. I think people like watching it. Baseball's like a soap opera every day."

The second by a fan:

Joel Kweskin, 56, White Sox fan based in Charlotte, N.C.: "It's unique unto itself. Football, basketball and hockey are variations of the same concept -- back and forth in a linear progression to score a goal. Baseball, however, is mapped out on the field unlike any other sport. A running back or return specialist can run 100 yards, tops; a baserunner legging out an inside-the-park homer runs 20 yards farther. Baseball is the most democratic of sports -- any size can play, and because the ball is not controlled by the offense but rather the defense, every player at any given time is involved in a play. Along with the anecdotally accepted premise that hitting a pitched baseball is the single most difficult thing to do in sports, so might be fielding a 175-mph line drive or grounder down the line. I love baseball because it is the greatest game ever invented."

I'll add that any player can be the hero. You never see the 12th man in basketball take the game winning shot, but you see the 25th man on a baseball roster get the game winning hit, even in the post season.

Why do you love baseball?

Eric Gagne threw from a mound for the first time since last July.

Gagne threw off a mound at his Scottsdale, Ariz., home Tuesday and had no issues. Gagne had back surgery last July after just two appearances for the Los Angeles Dodgers. He is expected to report to camp with the rest of the Rangers' pitchers and catchers Saturday and should not have any limitations this spring.

If Gagne is healthy, the Rangers should be able to shorten the game to seven innings. Now they just need to figure how to get there.

The Baseball Crank takes a look at Sandy Koufax on the road.

I was going to ignore the Mariano Rivera contract fuss because it seemed like a non-story to me.

I definitely want to finish my career here, but if they don't give me the respect I deserve, I have to move on," Rivera said. Asked if he felt he wasn't being given that respect, Rivera responded, "The Yankees always give me the respect. When it comes to these times (contracts ending), I don't like to talk about it. It's a business.

That seems pretty benign to me. I translate the whole thing as, "if they don't want to pay me I'll move on, but they've always paid me in the past." Last night, however, I get a call from my good friend Jim Storer who tells me the callers into WFAN in NY are all in a lather over this. Luckily, Yankees management contains cooler heads:

"Every situation I enter, there's a proper time and a proper place," Cashman said. "There's a great deal of evidence that we try to do everything we possibly can to do the right thing at all times for ourselves and for the players that we care about.

"Mo knows how we feel about him," added the GM. "We care a great deal about him, he's been a great Yankee."

Jorge Posada, another Yankee lifer, is also entering the final year of his contract. Posada said he is motivated to play out the year and see what happens, but when asked about Rivera, he expressed little doubt that the pitcher would close out his career in the only big-league uniform he has ever worn.

"Does he deserve a deal? I don't think you have to ask that question," Posada said. "It'll happen. It's up to Mariano and Cashman. Mariano will be here forever."

On top of all that, Rivera is 37 years old coming off an arm problem. He gets a lot of money for 75 innings a year. The Yankees would be remiss if they didn't make sure Mariano could deliver.

The Long Beach Press Telegram offers a comprehensive preview of the LAnaheim Angels.

Here's the latest on Nick Johnson's recovery from a broken femur:

"It's coming along slowly _ baby steps right now," an upbeat Johnson said recently. "I'm just starting to walk. I won't be ready for spring training or the season opener, but I hope to be back before the All-Star break."

Johnson is undergoing a rigorous rehab program with physical therapist Greg Parry and doing his regular winter conditioning with Lee and others under ex-Kings strength coach Al Biancani.

"I have a lot of work to do to build up the strength in my leg, but I'm staying positive," Johnson said. "There's pain, but you learn to deal with it."

The Cubs pick up two young prospects for Jae Kuk Ryu, getting an outfielder and a pitcher from low in the Devil Rays system. Given how Reinhard and Lopez performed so far, this might be a deal that looks very big in a couple of season for the Cubs.

John Patterson lost his arbitration case with the Washington Nationals. I can't say I'm surprised here. Patterson was asking for $1.85 million and the Nationals offered $1 million less. Patterson is good, but he hardly pitched in 2005. He really overestimated his value. If he comes in at 1.1 million for example, the sides probably end up splitting the difference and he makes more money for the season.

Balls, Sticks and Stuff notes the retirement of Phillies trainer Jeff Cooper and his innovations. One of my college roommates is a radiologist in Philadelphia, and for the last few years he's gone down to Florida during spring training to conduct ultrasound imaging on the Phillies pitching staff. He can't talk much about it other than he's doing it, but I'm sure this is another example of the Phillies being innovative on the subject.

Nick and Nick make a supply and demand argument for signing Mauer long term and Morneau short term:

Another potential reason for locking up Mauer while hesitating to do the same for Morneau actually has nothing to do with the performance of those two players. The fact is that the Twins pretty much need Mauer to be around for the next several years, whereas that may not be the case with Morneau. Why do I say that? Well, the Twins have almost no catching prospects in their entire minor league system. The most promising backstop in their organization could very well be Chris Heintz, and he's 33. That's probably an overstatement, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a catcher at any level of the Twins' minor league system who has real major league potential at this point. Mike Redmond is a nice player, but he'll be turning 36 this season and will be gone soon enough. Once that happens, the Twins would be in very bad shape if they lost Mauer.

Meanwhile, the organization's lower-level minor league teams feature three promising first-base prospects.

Or, if you have a problem at first base, it's usually easy to solve.

Metsblog.com notes a change in the rule for setting rosters before the LCS begins. It's a rule that would have helped the Mets in 2006.

Carlos Zambrano issued an ultimatum to the Cubs:

The Tribune reported that Zambrano wants a long-term deal in the range of Zito's $18 million-a-year deal he signed with the Giants in the offseason.

"I'm ready to sign, and I would do my job anyway with the Cubs this year," Zambrano said, according to the Tribune. "Whatever happens, I don't want to know [anything] about a contract during the season. I want to sign with the Cubs before the season starts. If they don't sign me, sorry, but I must go. That's what Carlos Zambrano thinks."

You it's a serious threat because he's talking in the third person. :-) With all the money the Cubs spent this winter, and with all the money they're going to pay Carlos this year whether they win or lose in arbitration, I can see why they want to wait a year before signing Carlos to a long term contract. If Chicago signs him to a long-term deal and he gets hurt, they're out a lot of money. A three-year deal at Zito levels might be more appropriate right now.

Jonathan Papelbon speaks of his teammate, Jon Lester:

"When I first saw Jon today, I almost didn't recognize him because I didn't expect him to look that good," said teammate Jonathan Papelbon, one of those who said he didn't call or write while Lester was undergoing treatment back home in Washington state because he didn't want to encroach on Lester's privacy. "Looked like the same ol' Jonny to me.

"I've said prayer after prayer for him this offseason, me and my wife. It's just awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome to see him come back from that. The fight that he's gone through, you know, it's just amazing.

"For me, that's the kind of teammate I want, somebody that's never going to give up, somebody that's going to go out there and bust his butt to succeed and bust his butt to get where he wants and deserves. That was awesome, almost like a pick-me-up."

The Padres signed a purple heart winner to a minor league contract:

Right-hander Cooper Brannan will report to minor league spring training March 1. The 22-year-old injured his left hand during a second tour of duty Iraq. Team spokesman George Stieren said Brannan lost his left pinky.

The team planned to announce the signing at a news conference Tuesday at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego .

Obviously, throwing with his right hand, the missing pinky shouldn't be a factor. Nice move by the Padres, however. There's a big military presence in San Diego, and this is one more way the Padres are building that fan base.

The Orioles reached an agreement with Steve Trachsel to fill in for the injured Kris Benson.

The deal, which will pay the 36-year-old right-hander between $3 and $3.5 million, is pending a physical, which could happen as early as today, the source said. Trachsel has a 134-143 career record and a 4.28 ERA in 13 big league seasons.

Trachsel posted a 15-8 record despite a poor ERA in 2006, the third highest ERA of his career. He's moving to a higher scoring park in a league with a DH, so I don't expect his ERA to be going down. And the Orioles offense isn't exactly as good as the Mets. He could end up 8-15 this season.

There's a report the Braves are about to be sold. However, I'm not sure I understand the pricing:

The deal, which must still be approved by Major League Baseball, would involve Time Warner transferring the Braves, a group of craft magazines and $1 billion in cash to Liberty in exchange for about 60 million shares of Time Warner, the Journal reported, citing an unidentified person familiar with the deal.

Based on the closing price of Time Warner's stock Monday, the market value of those shares would be about $1.27 billion.

Does this mean the Braves are being valued at less than $270,000,000? That seems pretty cheap for a bad franchise these days. Either that, or Time Warner thinks its stock is going way up in future.

The Israel Baseball League is set to kick off on June 24, 2007, with a number of former big leaguers managing.

Kris Benson tore his rotator cuff and will miss the 2007 season:

Benson, 32, will require surgery to repair his injury, which surfaced after he began throwing in off-season workouts, according to a source with knowledge of his condition.

"We'd like to get (the surgery) done as soon as possible so we can start the recovery process," Benson's agent, Gregg Clifton, told The Associated Press. "No one can accurately predict the duration of recovery. I'm not a doctor. It's not what I think or what Kris thinks. It's what the doctors think."

The Orioles, coming off nine straight losing seasons, expected Benson to solidify a rotation that includes left-hander Erik Bedard, righty Jaret Wright and two promising youngsters, righty Daniel Cabrera and lefty Adam Loewen.

To replace Benson, the Orioles could sign a free agent from a dwindling list that includes right-hander Steve Trachsel, left-hander Ron Villone and left-hander Mark Redman.

This season would be Benson's walk year. I doubt the Orioles will pick up his option for 2008, and a big payday is going to be delayed another season. Given the decline in Benson's strikeouts and the increase in his home run rate over the last three seasons, it's possible the market for him would be thin anyway.

Walk Like a Sabermetrician compiled park factors for all parks since 1901 into an online spreadsheet. The factors only take into account scoring I believe. Needless to say, it's a great resource.

Larry Bowa takes Mike Schmidt to town over his comments on making contact at Yard Work. :-)

Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke is concerned that he still doesn't have a handle on Jim Tracy.

It's been over a year since Tracy's hire and I still don't know what I think about him, which has to be a bad sign.

It's a good read about a manager whose actions during last season make it difficult to evaluate him.

Dave Yeager and I corresponded over the weekend about the pending DirecTV deal that will give the satellite company an exclusive on MLB extra-innings. The contract would hurt Phillies fans particularly hard, since Comcast has an exclusive on the team's games, and doesn't make them available to DirecTV at all.

Dave sent me this article from Yahoo Finance today, which is the best I've seen at explaining the reasons for the deal:

If MLB has done nothing else right in the past 50 years - and let's be honest, the only other thing they've done right in the past 60 years was integrating the game - they've done the Web right.

Late in 2005, MLB scrapped the idea of taking Major League Baseball Advanced Media public. The reason, according to published reports, was that team owners did not want chests full of cash on their doorsteps as they were in the midst of negotiating a new labor contract. That excuse is no longer valid because MLB and the Major League Baseball Players Association reached a new five-year agreement last October.

With the labor contract out of the way, MLB can now focus on taking Major League Baseball Advanced Media public. One of the key assets of the company is, of course, its MLB.TV product. See where I'm going?

By shifting the Extra Innings package to DirecTV, MLB has now vastly expanded the market for its own offering. Fans like myself who have cable and no interest in switching to satellite television, are left with only one alternative to watch out-of-market games: MLB.TV.

Thus, by contracting the market for Extra Innings, MLB would be expanding the market for its MLB.TV. It's addition by subtraction.

So MLB is trying to increase the value of its online property ahead of an IPO, which doesn't make the deal any better for fans shut out of games, but at least makes a lot more sense than a few extra millions from DirecTV. The IPO is going to be big. I also found this nugget interesting, because it's the first time I saw how the subscriber base is distributed:

It should be noted that MLB only has about 300,000 Extra Innings subscribers who get the service through cable or Dish Network, compared to about 270,000 already on DirecTV. If MLB can win these customers back, they'll do so at a higher margin (one reason Extra Innings costs more than MLB.TV is that the cable companies had to pay rights, something MLB obviously doesn't have to worry about).

So, it seems DirecTV delivers a higher percentage of viewers than cable. Only 0.46% of homes with cable subscribe to Extra Innings, while 1.69% of DirecTV customers get the package. That probably has something to do with people switching in 2001, the last time the package was exclusive to the satellite provider. So it just wasn't a huge win to bring the package to cable.

So MLB is willing to take the risk of alienating some fans to make a lot more money in the future. And with time, online viewing will get as good as TV viewing. At that point, DirecTV will likely be shut out as well.

Lookout Landing offers a guide for Seattle fans young and old on how to trash talk the other AL teams. For example, when the Twins come to town:

For Novices: Kirby Puckett doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame, inability to win in the playoffs despite Santana

For Veterans: Torii Hunter's overratedness, Felix stayed healthy while Liriano didn't, Carl Pohlad is a giant douche, Puckett's personal life

Larry Galla of Houston wants the Astros to end the Roger Clemens era.

But there is an element that certain players are trying to force upon the game that is disturbing: the notion that "I am bigger than the game." I'm sure Barry Bonds immediately popped into a lot of baseball fans' minds. Bonds is definitely the epitome of this attitude.

Unfortunately, that arrogance has slithered closer to home. Yep, the new contender for the all-time narcissist crown: Roger Clemens. At least Bonds is somewhat open with his self-importance, but Clemens is more like an extortionist, making middle-of-the-night phone calls to his victim, then not saying anything. Just letting his quarry know that he's there and in control.

As long as Clemens returns value for the money spent, and as long as multiple teams show interest, Roger is going to be in control of his game.

FishStripes notes Miguel Cabrera's absence from the Marlins' Fan Fest last week:

Do the players really want to show up and sign autographs all day? I doubt it and most would opt out if given the chance. But in order to get them to attend the event all teams use either a contractual obligation or moral suasion.

Which makes Cabrera pulling a No Show Jones troubling to me. Miguel has displayed the tendencies towards a Prima Donna attitude in the past and I would hate to see that resurface again. It isn't good for him and it's a detriment to the team. Hopefully, that isn't the case and he or his agent just did a poor job of articulating the reason for his absence.

Maybe Miguel wanted to be involved in his arbitration case. The Marlins haven't exactly treated Cabrera contractually as well as some other young stars in the game. For someone who's one of the best hitters in baseball, he's been paid pretty close to the minimum the last three seasons. The Marlins just took him to arbitration. Did the Marlins try to settle? Did they try to offer him a long term contract? I understand this is how baseball operates, and the Marlins are within their rights to pay Miguel as little as possible. But it might be worth their while to attempt to make him a bit happy so these fan fest dust ups don't happen.

The Arizona Republic lists the fun stories to watch this spring training.

I was hoping someone would attend the SABR meeting in Denver yesterday, and Dan Fox did. He pens this excellent report on the meeting, including information about the humidor, or the environmental chamber as the Rockies like to call it:

Finally, Walter Sylvester, who works in the Baseball Operations department for the Rockies, was introduced and opened the floor to questions from the group. In answering one question he noted that a sample of balls are tested when they come out of the chamber to ensure they still meet specifications with the ones that fail the test being used for batting practice. He also opined that he thought that eventually bats may come under the same scrutiny as baseballs and that he thought that the baseballs used in the bullpens by pitchers also come from the chamber (which makes sense since a pitcher warming up should use baseballs that are as close to those used in the game as possible).

Regarding the chamber it is his view that at the end of the day it really comes down to personnel. In fact and most interestingly, he seemed to lean more towards the position that the chamber shouldn't be used since it can and should be made to work to the Rockies advantage both on the field and psychologically (for example an ad for the firm 5280 in the visitor's clubhouse reminding the opposing teams of where they are). Although he wasn't asked about roster construction in those conditions (I did ask the question afterwards and he said he thought expanding the number of pitchers, for example, would be situational in terms of how the season was progressing) nor about the so-called hangover effect for Rockies hitters, he made the point that excellent pitchers such as Roy Halladay and Luke Hochevar have come out of Colorado and so it is possible to succeed at altitude with good players (of course the counter argument that the same rules don't apply at the high school and college levels wasn't addressed). To this comment he received a nice round of applause. He also cited the improved pitching of the Rockies in 2006 on the strength of Jason Jennings and Aaron Cook and not the chamber as most responsible for run scoring being down a bit at Coors.

Thanks for the reporting, Dan!

Goat Riders of the Apocalypse things there are two many Perezes in the Cubs camp.

Dom DiMaggio turns 90 tomorrow. Happy Birthday!

The previous post praised the Twins management team. Another organization on the right track is the Arizona Diamondbacks:

"I think that's fair to say," Moorad said. "Coming off 111 losses in 2004 wasn't easy. But at this point, as we look at a retooled future and a healthy, competitive team in '07, we think we have a chance to win this season as well as into the future.

"The division has improved as a whole, but if we stay healthy, I think we have an excellent chance of winning the division."

Arizona's "retooled future" includes a rotation buoyed by the acquisitions of left-handers Randy Johnson and Doug Davis. They'll join reigning Cy Young Award winner Brandon Webb and workhorse Livan Hernandez to form a rotation that appears to be dependable and, if all goes well, could be among the National League's best.

For General Manager Josh Byrnes, it was a second consecutive winter in which he refused to part with the club's better prospects - and didn't sign any free agents to long-terms deals - yet managed to shore up weaknesses. And he kept the payroll in the mid-$60 million range, where it has been in the franchise's post-Colangelo years.

"We felt like we met most of our objectives in the off-season," Byrnes said. "We're anxious to see how it plays out on the field."

The team is developing a good, young core. Their filling in the holes with short term veterans. It's a great way to put together a winner without breaking the bank.

The Twins locked up Joe Mauer today (Sunday) through the opening season of their new stadium:

AL batting champion Joe Mauer and the Minnesota Twins agreed Sunday to a four-year contract worth at least $33 million, avoiding salary arbitration and ensuring one of the team's young stars will be in uniform for the long term.

The team buys out his first year of free agency. In my opinion it's exactly right to give the long term deal to Mauer now and just the one year deal to Morneau. Justin, after all, played extremely well for four months, but the previous eight were nothing to write home about. Mauer's been consistently good throughout his career at a tough defensive position, and that's more than worth the money he earned today. An excellent deal by the Twins. They continue to be one of the best run operations in baseball.

My thanks go out to the staff of the MIT Sloan Sports Business Conference, especially Patricia Favreau for the press credential. The group staged informative sessions with high powered executives and decision makers. The logistics were excellent, from the food to the classrooms and lecture halls used for the presentations. They're to be congratulated!

The conference left me hopeful for the future of the sports industry. Given the attendance, there are a very large number of young business people looking to make their mark in the world of sports. Unfortunately for them, there are only a limited number of jobs. With supply outstripping demand, the sports industry gets to hire the most extraordinary applicants and pay them ordinary wages (at least as entry level employees). I hope this means we're in for an era of business innovation among all sports.

It also means some of these students will create new businesses to complement the sports world. Creating markets for tickets, predictive modeling and data visualization are some of the niche companies already selling their products. So through further infiltration of the management ranks and entrepreneurship, smart young business men and women are going to change the landscape of sports over the generation.

One thing that was disappointing to the students, however, was that there's not a clear path to take to a job in sports. The people who led the career panel, and others the students spoke with all talked about how their careers were not planned, they came about by a series of lucky coincidences (that's certainly the case with me).

Ricciardi's keynote session was very good. He mostly talked of Toronto's successes in the last few years, mainly bringing a large financial loss down to near break even, even profit in some years. Interestingly, the biggest reason he gave for that was the purchase of the Rogers Center. By owning the stadium, the Jays control all the revenue generated by the park, with works greatly to their advantage. Maybe other teams want to think about that before they have the public build them a stadium.

He also spoke of some of the successes and failures they've had bringing players to Toronto. Kerry Ligtenberg was a pitcher that the stats loved. He failed in Toronto, however, because his makeup wasn't suited for the AL East. Scott Shoenweiss was a pitcher the Blue Jays analyzed and decided he should be a lefty specialist. That worked well for the 2005 season. Mike Bordick was at the end of his career. Ricciardi loved Mike from their time in Oakland, and brought Bordick over to finish his career. He was a huge help to the young players, especially Orlando Hudson, and Ricciardi said the other players on the team were begging him not to retire. And finally, there was Frank Catalanatto, who they saw as a solid hitter and were able to sign inexpensively. Ricciardi called him the gift that keeps on giving, as his signing by the Texas Rangers yielded the Blue Jays two draft choices.

Ricciardi also had the best line of the day when asked about clutch hitting. He talked about how there are players who don't panic in certain situations, who can "slow the game down." He mentioned how David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez were like that and added, "I've known Manny since he was 15, and I don't think he knows the game is on the line." The Boston crowd loved it.

The Personnel Decisions Panel featured Bill James, and for me the most important idea to come out of that panel didn't involve players. When asked where the research was going next, Bill felt that (at least in baseball), we're spending lots of time looking at the details. Mr. James feels that someone needs to go back to the big picture. Twenty years ago he would sit down and compose letter to teams about what they were doing wrong (although he never sent them). Now he finds himself composing letters to the commissioner. He was trying to answer big questions about what makes teams win and lose back then. Now he wants someone to ask the questions about what make leagues successful. This was driven home during the cocktail hour, when a consultant for an NBA team was explaining how the current salary cap and luxury tax created perverse incentives for teams. It's time to start developing stats on how teams and leagues operate.

The Sports Technology panel provided insight into where the entrepreneurs are heading in the world of sports. I was most excited by yOOnew, a new company that sells ticket futures. Right now, it's just selling hedge tickets. That is, the company offers tickets for major sporting events at a discount, with the risk that you may not go. So, for example, you buy a ticket for the final four that good if UConn makes it that far. The risk of the ticket is spread out among all the fans of teams that might make it that far. So you pay a low price, to go if your teams makes it, and only lose a little if your team doesn't go. What's cool to me is that this company is creating the infrastructure for moving this to a full blown futures market in all tickets.

PROTRADE is a stock market for players. Right now, it's all in virtual dollars with prizes for the people who do the best, but it could be turned into a real market someday. These kinds of markets are great for checking your view of a certain player against what others think. There's great wisdom in crowds (the average of many guesses is better than any one guess). So teams and fantasy players might watch the tends here to get a clue as to how the player's future looks. Looking at the ticker right now, for example, Chien-Ming Wang and Kei Igawa are selling at the same price of about $125, although their move to those prices are by very different paths. People can't make up their mind about Wang, but as it becomes clear Igawa gets the fifth slot, his value is steadily rising. Meanwhile Matsuzaka's price sky-rocketed recently.

I hope this conference continues. Given that it was sold out this year, there's room to grow. I'm looking forward to next year's panels to see where the latest innovations and research are taking us.

Links to other panels attended:

• Minor and Emerging Leagues
• Jamie McCourt Keynote

Josh Paul lost his arbitration case to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays today. I can't say I'm surprised. It's tough to believe that a backup catcher with little offensive value is worth over $900,000 a year. My guess is you could replace Paul with a AAA catcher and do just as well.

On this panel we have Jeff Ma from ProTrade, Matthew Marolda of StatBridge and Gerry Wilson of yOOnew. yOOnew is interesting because you can buy tickets below face value.

Update: yOOnew is a futures market, so people can trade futures of seats! This is a great idea, one that I've advocated here before.

Update: ProTrade is developing sports stock markets. They want to enhance the way people watch and think about sports.

Update: There's a real lovefest for STATS, Inc. here.

Update: Here's the yOOnew page.

Rob Neyer is moderating this Panel, and Bill James is one of the panelists. Sam Presti and Daryl Morey are also speaking.

Update: What tools do you use? James uses simulations, win shares, scouting reports, and online sources for the low minors. Bill says most of the trades they consider are for players in the low minors, and that area needs a lot of development.

Update: Here's a picture of the panel:

Bill is talking about the future of sabermetrics. He's saying we're moving more toward fringe ideas since the big ideas have been done. Sabermetricians now need to step back and look at an even bigger picture, how the sport is run, since now sabermetricians have access to clubs.

Update: Here's Rob Neyer looking very professorial.

Update: How do you balance long term and short term deals? Bill says humans don't think long term. Bill sees his job as making people look at the long term. If you go to a resturant and the food is bad, you don't say it's a small sample size. If your rookie shortstop doesn't play well for two weeks, you have to be aware of the small sample size.

Update: Bill is asked about rule changes. He says baseball is poor at getting rid of selfish rules, rules that benefit the team but hurt the game. One of these is unlimited pitching changes.

Update: I asked if the growth of size of the pitching staff should lead to a larger roster so that teams can carry more offensive and defensive specialists. Bill said that if we go past 25 men on a roster, we'll end up with lefty specialists entering in the fourth inning instead of the sixth.

Jamie McCourt is giving the keynote address during lunch. Her thesis here at MIT Sloan was on building stadiums.

Correction: Sorry, she wanted to do her thesis on building stadiums, but she couldn't find anyone to advise her.

Update: Here's Ms. McCourt at the podium.

And even the lunch looks nice.

Update: Ms. McCourt's speech starts with a "how baseball relates to the American dream" section, but she's getting into analytics now.

Update: She says winning is their equivalent of producing shareholder value.

Update: There's been a lot of talk today about getting to know players and their character. McCourt is expanding on that, how each level of the organization knows the player differently, and how that gets communicated through the organization.

Update: McCourt used to score games when she went to see the Orioles with her dad.

Update: "Players are part of our sales force." MLB as an organization needs to realize that.

Update: As part of remodel of Dodger Stadium, they want to shorten concession lines.

Update: Speech was short on analytics but long on platitudes. We'll see what the questions are like.

Update: How will the Angels name change effect the Dodgers? The Anaheim fans are more annoyed than the Dodgers. Dodger fans thought it was hilarious, because Anaheim is so far away in both distance and culture.

Update: Asked about what women get from baseball (40% of attendance at Dodger Stadium is women), McCourt says it's a romantic game.

Kevin Goldstein of Baseball Prospectus is leading this discussion. Judy Scarafile of the Cape Cod Baseball League is on the panel. Jason Chandler of lacrosse, Chris Alpert of the NBA development league, and Doug Homer of the US Soccer Foundation are also on the panel.

Update: Cape Cod Baseball League is going to start streaming video of their games. Their doing so to stay ahead of the New England Collegiate Baseball League, who first decided to start streaming their games.

Update: NBA Development League is not only feeding players and refs to the NBA, but executives to all leagues.

Update: MLB funds all the collegiate summer leagues.

J.P. Ricciardi is about to start his keynote address to the MIT Sloan Sports Business Conference.

Update: Here's a crowd shot.

Update: Here's J.P. talking Rockets assistant GM Daryl Morey.

Update: J.P. is giving Sandy Alderson a lot of credit for his development. He notes that in his 16 years in Oakland they won with both low and high payrolls.

Update: Ricciardi notes that the business is tough because everyone criticizes you all the time. He mentions blogs!

Update: Ricciardi stats vs. scouts is a silly line in the sand. He values OBA, Runs, OPS, BB per 9, etc. But he uses his scouts to gather information about the makeup of players. Sometimes the stats tells you things the scouts don't see. Sometimes the scouts can tell you a player won't succeed in the AL East.

Update: Bonds signing, good or bad? Because fans come out to see Barry, it's good for business, but he'll pass on the ethical question.

Update: J.P. says DirecTV deal is a good money deal, but bad for business. Doesn't help game.

Update: I was able to get a question in:

How easy or tough is it to get the field manager to buy into the analytics for strategy?

That got an "excellent question" from J.P. He says that the manager has to be on board with the analytics. The front office provides them with lots of information before the game, but once it starts, it's in the field manager's hands. Ricciardi says he and Gibbons used to be roommates, so they have a great relationship in this regard.

Bernie Williams won't accept a minor league deal from the Yankees:

Williams, speaking with reporters before a concert in Connecticut, said he would prefer to stay at home, stay in shape, and wait for a guaranteed offer from the team rather than attend spring training and attempt to play himself onto the roster.

"I think if they wanted me, they would have signed me already," Williams said, according to the Times. "The option to go to spring training and see what happened -- I don't think at this moment it is something I want to consider."

It looks like the end of his career with the Yankees. We'll see if it's the end of his career in general.

I'm at the Sports Business Conference at MIT. I'm in a career session right now with Len Perna and Steve Bergin. I'm looking forward to a session later today with Bill James and Rob Neyer on personnel decisions. And I'm sitting next to Sal Baxamusa of The Hardball Times.

Update: This is a session for business undergrads and grads. Len Perna suggests to start in tickets. He says it will be below your abilities, but it's a good way to generate revenue. Generating revenue gets you noticed.

Update: Steve Bergin says it's important to get a mentor at your job. Daryl Morey notes his mentors were Bill James and Billy Beane.

Update: A question about women in sports management leads Steve to remark that teams are looking for diversity and are creating opportunities for women. However, the demographic is going to skewed toward men.

Update: Lots of growth in digital content. Madison Square Garden just created a new executive position for digital content, according to Steve.

Nick and Nick point out this article, which makes it seem like the Twins new home is far from a done deal.

Despite the seeming congeniality of the hearing, there are several sticky issues in play. The landowners and Hennepin County are far apart on the actual value of the 8.8 acres of land, and there's no reason to believe the dispute will be resolved soon. County tax records from 2006 assess the two parcels at a combined $9.8 million, a number that has fluctuated over the last five years. The county has a cap on how much it can actually spend on land acquisition, and right now is reportedly willing to spend $13.35 million for the site--a number that the owners believe is low.

Early on, Judge Aldrich wondered how the two sides had arrived at the impasse. "Oh dear," he remarked at one point. "Am I to understand that none of the parties agreed to the price before getting legislative approval [for a ballpark on the site]? There was no price required?" The attorneys all confirmed that the judge was correct.

John Sickels is thinking about Tyler Clippard. John copies the excerpt from his book which rates Clippard a B. That's a little surprising to me given his strikeouts, walks and home runs are so good.

Others have similar views. My friend Deric McKamey in his 2007 Minor League Baseball Analyst rates Clippard as a potential number five starter, and points out that he gets his strikeouts with movement and deception, not pure velocity. Baseball America ranks Clippard as the number seven Yankees prospect, projects him as a fourth starter, and notes that he "pitches backward," using fastballs in breaking ball counts and vice versa.

Does the way you get strikeouts really matter? Here's Bill James from an interview I conducted with him a few years ago (the question was in regard to the Rockies pitching staff):

Baseball Musings: Given what we now know about the relationship to balls put into play and hits allowed, doesn't this strategy also require a very good infield defense? Would a better strategy be to have fireballers who can strikeout 9 a game?

Bill James: This assumes that fastballs get strikeouts. This is untrue. Breaking pitches get strikeouts. Breaking pitches are difficult to throw at high altitudes (a fact, incidentally, which has been known by baseball pitchers at least since the 1920s. In the 1920s there are published comments about how hard it is to throw a breaking pitch in Salt Lake City.) But there is a valid point in there--which is, that if the value of offense increases per ball in play, then the value of fielding skill also increases.

In other words, deception gets strikeouts. Pedro Martinez is an excellent strikeout pitcher because his change up is so good. It's the delta and the arm motion that matter. If you throw a 90 mile an hour fastball and an 80 mile an hour changeup with the same motion, you're going to get batters to swing and miss. Am I missing something, or isn't the fact that Clippard is striking out a lot of batter more important than how he's doing it? If he can throw off the timing of hitters that much, he's doing something right.

Major League Baseball ordered teams to keep their game balls at 70 degrees Farenheit this season:

The commissioner's office is telling teams for the first time that balls must be stored at a uniform temperature after they are delivered from the manufacturer.

"The specifications that Rawlings recommends are a 70 degree temperature and 50 percent humidity," baseball senior vice president Joe Garagiola Jr. said Friday.

It's the Coors effect:

The decision was made following debate generated by the Colorado Rockies' use of a humidor at Coors Field. The ballpark ranked first in the major leagues in scoring in its first eight seasons, starting in 1995, but dropped to second in three of the last four years behind Arlington's Ameriquest Field (2003), Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park (2005) and Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium (2006).

Colorado said in 2002 that it had installed the humidor. The Coors Field scoring average, which peaked at 15.0 runs per game in 1996, dropped to 10.7 last season, the lowest ever, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

There's going to be a meeting of SABR in Denver tomorrow discussing this issue. If any Baseball Musings readers go, feel free to write something up and send it in.

However, what happens when a team is playing in 40 degree weather in April? Is MLB concerned about shrinkage?

Hank Bauer passed away today:

Bauer died in the Kansas City area, where he made his home, Yankees spokesman Ja