Rob

I found out today that a guy in my fantasy league apparently works like 4 rows over from Bartman.

I can't decide whether to make a new top prospects list or wait until we've seen some from the AFL and Instructs.

Absolutely. But I can't see Epstein making a panic move like that purely for PR purposes.

Two years ago, I was sure he could mash big league pitching. To start this season, I thought he might be able to hit big league pitching. Now, I wouldn't mind keeping him in the system, but wouldn't waste a 40 man spot on him. The A's though, given their budgetary concerns and how absurdly punchless that offense is as currently constructed... this gamble makes a lot of sense for them.

Chiefs really need to get the lights on the scoreboard for the radar gun reading fixed.

Yeah, I'm getting the same error now Banedon is reporting.

Victorino sounds good as a ceiling comp. As a more middle of the road projection, I kinda look at Coco Crisp.

If I can't dance around that then you can't dance around the idea that it's very unlikely he gets asked to move in the first place. The guy won a GG in '09 as a CF at 24, and at 26 in '11 he probably had the best season of any CF in the game. Even if both of us agree that he's not great shakes as a CF and would be an excellent RF, that could be said about ANY competent CF. He's not an Andruw Jones, Van Slyke, or Mike Cameron out there in CF, but that's not going to be a good enough reason for a team to move him from CF. Rafael Palmeiro won a Gold Glove in 1999 while only playing 28 games at 1B. Let's not pretend Gold Gloves have any meaning whatsoever.

Okay, the argument has shifted from just an established player moving, but an established in-their-prime star. Here's an admittedly incomplete list of Hall of Fame players whose careers started after 1900 who were already established at a position and changed positions sometime betwen the ages of 24 and 33 (catchers excluded). I just went down the list on baseball reference and clicked on guys whom I seemed to recall a position change for. Ernie Banks moved off SS at age 30. George Brett moved from 3B to 1B at age 33. Rod Carew moved from 2B to 1B at age 29. Andre Dawson moved from CF to RF at age 28. Hank Greenberg moved from 1B to LF at age 28. Rickey Henderson moved from LF to CF at age 24, then back from CF to LF at age 28. Al Kaline went from RF to CF at age 29, then back to RF at age 31. Until very late in his career, Harmon Killebrew never really settled down at a position... spending a year or two at 1B, 3B and LF and shuffling through all of them again later in his career. Fred Lindstrom went from 3B to OF at age 24. Willie McCovey spent his first 3 years at 1B, then moved to the OF, then back to 1B at age 27. I'm not even going to try to list all of Paul Molitor's position changes. Rest assured, they started early and never stopped. Stan Musial moved from OF to 1B at age 33. Tony Perez moved from 3B to 1B at age 29. Kirby Puckett moved from CF to RF at age 33. Sam Rice moved from CF to RF at age 32. Frank Robinson moved plenty between 1B, LF, and RF beginning early in his career. Jackie Robinson moved from 2B to OF at age 33. Babe Ruth switched from P to OF, obviously... but he also spent almost his entire career splitting games between LF and RF every season. Joe Sewell moved from SS to 3B at age 29. Al Simmons moved from CF to LF at age 25. Duke Snider began moving from CF to RF at age 31. Carl Yastrzemski played in the OF til moving off for 1B at age 29. He spent one year there, moved back to the OF for one more year, then back to 1B for most of the rest of his career. And of course there's Robin Yount switching from SS to CF at at 28. Players change position. Even good ones. Stop pretending it's such a big deal.

That doesn't answer the question though. There aren't too many established guys who get asked to move that I can think of. There's always talk of a move a'comin, but I can't remember too many guys actually making the move. While I agree that moving Kemp from CF to RF isn't asking anything crazy and it's one I've been pushing as much as anyone, I just don't think it's something that's likely. There's a team who'll pay the price for him to man CF for them. Current players who moved from CF to a corner OF after being 'established': Josh Hamilton Carlos Beltran Torii Hunter Vernon Wells Juan Pierre Andruw Jones Cody Ross David DeJesus Mike Cameron Corey Patterson You'll probably see Grady Sizemore and maybe Marlon Byrd join this list next year. I left off a few iffy names like Carlos Gonzalez who maybe played a higher percentage of their games in one spot, but never really settled in there. Also most players who don't get any real starting time. Obviously some of those are more important than others... but it just serves to prove guys do get moved for a variety of reasons. Hell, if we expand what we're looking at a bit more, we can point out that Michael Young went into this season without a position at all.

I wonder what it would take to get Ethier. Say we did get Fielder and Wilson, Ethier would be a great complimentry piece, and then we could resign him the next offseason. He wouldn't be cheap in terms of prospects or players however. Ethier's salary will be north of $10 mil next season. We could get the Dodgers to pitch in some, but that will hurt our farm system more. I'd rather we avoid him.

People were saying that about Casey Coleman this time last year. If you want to give LaHair a minor reserve role and see if he can't play his way into more, fine. But counting on him in any real capacity would be a mistake.

Too late. They're sold out.

That's actually a pretty stacked roster.

Erm... Yeah... Hard to be that valuable with an OBP under .300, let alone most valuable. But hey, Scioscia loves Jeff Mathis too. And he obviously gets his way with the Angels FO.

Yeah, thanks so much everybody for such a great season. I appreciate all the work everybody puts in around here.

Just throwing his name back out there as a good trade target. He's got nowhere to play with the Angels. Scioscia has been touting Trumbo as an MVP candidate. Now you might think one of them could DH or play an outfield corner, but Bobby Abreu has already had to move from outfield to DH because of Bourjos forcing Hunter and Wells to the corners... and that's without factoring in Mike Trout forcing his way into things. Rumor has the Angels sending Trumbo to try to learn 3B this offseason but I just don't see it happening, not with the premium Scioscia places on defense. Morales would probably cost some decent prospects (as I'm sure the Angels would rather trade Wells/Abreu), but given the uncertainty surrounding his health and his position, I'd have to think he could be had. He's not Pujols and he's not Fielder... but if the bidding on them gets too crazy, we may be better served by bringing back Aramis, signing Wilson, and trading for Morales. It's probably better than a 3 year contract for Carlos Pena, anyways. (though don't get me wrong, I have nothing bad to say about Pena but point out his age).

Aramis Ramirez at his absolute healthiest managed 670 PA back in 2003. CJ Wilson has faced 881 batters this year. Starting pitchers have just as much of a chance to make an impact as position players do.

Smokies win 4-2, forcing game 4 tomorrow.

Morris will likely be around. If memory serves, Hendry knew his arm was injured when we traded for him. I know Hendry is gone, but I don't doubt Wilken and Fleita will fight to keep the kid around and see what he's made of.

would it? all it means is that you need one interleague series at all times. if you spread out the interleague play so that you don't have those two blocks where all the games but one are interleague, it could easily be done without adding any additional interleague games. The number of games isn't necessarily the issue. To this point, each year there are two short news cycles where writers who cover AL teams bitch about the NL not having the DH (for any of a variety of poor reasons). People forget about it being an issue until it crops back up again the next time. I just worry that having an interleague series going on at all times is likely to result in the media cycle lasting a lot longer... which is more likely to influence public perception.

I am just now noticing Harman's strikeout to walk ratio.

Batista closed it out. Daytona advances. \:D/

I never cease to be amazed at how much people care about what professional athletes think and/or say.

The Daytona Cubs twitter feed described it as a "MOONSHOT" for what that's worth.