Clem Fandango

The bat didn't meet a reserve price and as a result it didn't sell. Highest bid was $14,407, which apparently didn't meet Remlinger's reserve. Beggars can't be choosers, Mike. It's a broken bat that you turned down $14,407 for. Smooth http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=5755275

Jason Grey did a profile on Chris Carpenter here: http://insider.espn.go.com/sports/fantasy/blog?name=grey_jason&id=5741778 Here's a few snippets:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8xsYKrx5eE&feature=related

He's a pretty terrible con man

They get our 2nd round + sandwich. Every team losing an A gets a sandwich + signing team's draft pick in order of ranking of all free agents signed by that team. Like say we signed Derrek Lee too. Washington gets our 2nd round + sandwich, Atlanta our 3rd + sandwich Gotcha. Glad we sucked enough so that our 1st rounder isn't going anywhere

Our first round pick is protected right? So if we sign Dunn the Nats get a sandwich round pick?

Steve Barber, lame... sandwiched between Alan Trammel and Bobby Bonilla... and only 2-4 days off of Honus Wagner, Ron Santo, Eddie Murray, and Pete Alexander

They better move him back to the rotation, I traded some good players to pick him up in my keeper league when he was in the minors, damnit!

Mostly, yeah. During the game, it's an extra set of eyes in the dugout, another guy who has full knowledge of the scouting reports and your own players, who can watch the game and say to the manager "this guy's slow to the plate, we should send the runner" or "this guy's a dead pull hitter, we might want to shift the center fielder more towards left center" and stuff like that, a guy off whom the manager can bounce ideas like "what are your thoughts on a double steal here?" or "what do you think about pinch hitting this guy for that guy?", that sort of thing. Off the field, as you said, the bench coach will usually be responsible for some facet of instruction: on Lou's full staff, Sinatro was responsible for instructing the catchers, Trammell for working with the infielders and Quade for working with the outfielders. Those three - infield, outfield, catching - will usually be split somewhere among the bench and two base coaches. The bench coach is also responsible for coordinating daily practices, stretching and drills, both in the spring and during the regular season. So basically what you're saying is a manager's only real job is to set a lineup and field questions at press conferences. [/kidding]

Soria has a NTC for the Cubs Well I have a NTC for Soria so he can go to hell

The Yankees declined the option on Kerry Wood today, making him a free agent. 1) Does anyone think there will be interest in bringing him back and 2) would he come back at a cheap rate because of his lack of success the majority of the past two years, or will his time with the Yankees set him up for a reasonably large pay day again? Personally I would love to see him back on the team for nostalgic purposes, but I won't be losing sleep over it if he doesn't... especially if he'd cost too much

What we wound up paying out last season was right at 132.5 mill and after arb raises and minimum salary guys, our 2011 payroll looks to be around 119 as of now. I expect us to add a solid 1B(hopefully Dunn), a solid reliever, a project/injury scrap starting pitcher and maybe a 4th OFer type. To do that, I also suspect Fukudome will be dumped for as much salary relief as we can get. There's quite an impressive handful of those on the market, too. Well, if the ones with options aren't exercised, anyways. Erik Bedard Brandon Webb Rich Harden Ben Sheets Chris Young Justin Duchscherer I think of those, Duchscherer might be the one that could be had for the lowest risk and highest reward. Then again I'm not sure what his injury status is, he seems to be injured all the damn time and I know his season was ended because of hip surgery. I'm unaware how the recovery from hip injuries affects a pitcher. I would imagine it does greatly

Also Nady's $3.3 million is off the books assuming they let him walk. Between arbitration raises and increase in some players salaries vs. the salaries we let go due to FA or trades, how much of a gap is there between our cap this year vs. next year right now, anyone know? I know $33mil between Lilly, Lee, Lou, and Nady alone... and Aramis actually makes $2 million less next year, so that's $35 million. How much of that will be left after the arby and salary increases? Any speculation?

Now we can hire Ryno to do that! [/kickingthehornetsnest]

A shortened season might actually increase appreciation for the sport. There's a lot of people who dislike baseball because the seasons are so long. That being said, I could care less

I keep forgetting about Lou's salary. That's a good chunk of change off the books

Not the worst contract in the world, but with the Ricketts saying payroll will be decreasing, I wouldn't expect to see any further upgrades this off-season. I thought I had read that payroll would be staying about the same. Same here. I know he definitely said it wouldn't be increasing much if at all, but I don't think he said anything about them making significant cutbacks in salary. With Lee and Lilly off the books there's plenty of room for Dunn's possible contract

It would be a lot easier of a decison if theyd take someone like JJax, Carpenter, or Coleman instead of Archer, but thats pretty much the type of package that youd have to give up for a guy like Greinke unless its a salary dump or they were trying to rush him out of town, but neithers thst case. With such a package however, we should be able to get Alex Gordon as well if we were to throw in another smaller piece. How would it not be a salary dump? He's going from 7Mil to 13.5Mil. Nobody else on the team will make more than 4Mil. Oh and Alex Gordon has no value. He's a 3B turned OF, who hasn't shown he can hit well enough to be valuable at either position. His minor league numbers have not translated and next year will be his 5th year in the majors and he will now be at the age where he doesn't have a lot of time to figure it out (27). Absolutely agree on Alex Gordon, and I might also add in that he's a injury riddled guy who likes to talk out of his flaming a**. Every season, not to my surprise, there is always an Alex Gordon article about how he wants to improve and gonna dominate, only to translate a .210 batting average, 1 HR, 3 RBI's before landing on the DL with a phantom injury, and abiding his time in the minors throughout June to August, and be back in time in September call-ups, which coincidentally I might add, that scrubs/AAA/AA minor leaguers players get called up, and his numbers looks a little "better" somehow. Alex Gordon is trash, to sum it up. I'd still take a flier on him if he were to come cheaply, but I doubt the Royals are ready to give him up for peanuts

What does this have to do with Brian Wilson?

Is Fukudome overpaid? I think he's more or less broke even, give or take. But really in the history of Pacific rimmers playing in the major leagues at an all-star level consistently, really Ichiro and Hideki Matsui are the only ones worthy of mentioning that I can think of. Maybe you could toss Hideo Nomo and Takashi Saito in there, too. The ratio of successful vs. unsuccessful players who came from the pacific rim is staggeringly in favor of the unsuccessful

I know this is popular sentiment but there is really no reason this team can't contend for the division in 2011. That, and I don't understand why he says the Cubs won't contend but also that he wants them to go out and sign Dunn. I should've phrased that better. The point I was trying to convey was that if they go out and get a big name manager like Girardi or Torre they might overspend on a manager which might cause them to be out of the running for a free agent that might be able to turn the team into a contender, like Adam Dunn, since it seems they won't be huge spenders this offseason. If they were to get one of those managers, they might not be able to sign a difference making FA in the offseason, and thus, they would essentially be spending a lot of money on a manager to manage a team that probably didn't do much to improve in the offseason, partially because they spent a two or three extra million on a manager they should've spent elsewhere, and as a result they probably wouldn't contend so it would be money wasted. Now, I'm still not sold on them being strong contenders, even with Dunn on the team if the cards were to fall that way. I would want Dunn so we could lock him up for 2012. Personally, I wouldn't mind a rebuilding type year that would see guys like Cashner and Jay Jackson getting, at the very least, spot starts in the rotation to prepare them for what I would assume will be an exciting 2012 since a lot of contracts might be coming of the books then, freeing up some space to play in the FA market that offseason. I see Kosuke and Silva are FA after 2011, freeing up nearly $20m, and Aramis has a $2m buyout that would save us another $14 million. Grabow and his ridiculous contract will be gone, too. Also some arbitration eligible guys might be tradeable at that point and could bring in a nice haul if we don't want to overpay in arby (Marmol, Soto, Gorzelanny, etc) I don't know, I'm just not excited for next year's team at this point in time, I only see the Cubs able to go out and sign one big impact player. I just don't think they'll bust out the pocketbooks for a pitcher as well, and I think they need an impact 1B bat and an impact pitcher if they really want to set themselves up for the playoffs. Right now I don't see it. I don't think they'll be abysmal, but I don't think they'll be a team to look out for either.

No point in spending big money on a manager in order to manage a team that probably won't be able to contend next season. Good move to sign Quade and save money. Bring in Adam Dunn now, please.

Last time I checked, Bill Hall still sucks

One of my close friends was a banker in New Orleans that handled a lot of the Saints players accounts and he said the vast majority of them were players who had multimillion dollar contracts but were nearly living paycheck to paycheck. That blows my mind how careless these people can be with money. It's one thing if you make bad investments that bite you in the ass, but carelessly spending that much money is ridiculous

No surprise there... http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=5679565