Outshined_One

I think the strongest argument against retaining Miller is his health and stuff. He's clearly not the same guy he was with Houston. I really worry that his drop in velocity and recent shoulder surgery are not good omens for his near future. I have more faith in some one like Marshall than Miller. It's my personal preference, but I'd rather not see Wade Miller, Kerry Wood, and Mark Prior getting cumulatively paid more than $10m to build pillow forts in the clubhouse for the entire season. At least guys like Marshall, Guzman, and Ryu are getting paid the major league minimum.

The Cubs already have a bunch of guys in their organization who can pitch as well as Miller over the course of a season, imo. He's been injured way too much over his career for my liking. I'd rather see that $3m-$4m go to a better player.

That was a Rod Beck Special right there.

In other words, the Cubs might be just as well off just throwing a pile of money into a fire as they would by paying these guys.

Steve Avery can come back and pitch an inning or two! ;)

Ooo, this should be fun. Tony LaRussa accusing pitchers of cheating always results in hilarity.

Maybe there wasn't any toilet paper in the john...

This sucker is going to go down in history, one way or another. Kenny Rogers just helped his publicity with tonight's debacle.

Looks like Kenny Rogers has been put on notice.

What in the heck is that thing Polanco's wearing on his head?

Nice catch, Jim.

Wait, what happened? I just turned the game on... Fox had a super-closeup of Kenny Rogers where you could clearly see pine tar or some brown substance on his left hand. McCarver pointed it out and circled it.

So...Kenny Rogers has been caught on tape with pine tar on his pitching hand. Am I not the only one bothered by this?

Maz only got in because of his WS-winning HR. That's pretty much about it.

Problem is, minor league players don't get to join the MLBPA until they come up to the majors. The MLBPA was probably fine with it because it'd mean teams would allocate more resources to signing free agents.

The NFL has a rookie cap that is allotted to all teams based on their draft slot and their respective total number of picks. I'm unsure if they're going to do the same thing as the NFL, but it'd probably be a good start.

Word is the Nationals are looking at him as a managerial possibility.

Otsuka has a move that MLB had to make a ruling on, where he slams the ball in his glove prior to delivery. They decided he could do it without men on base, but with men on, it was a balk. He could also have been pitching out of the stretch with men on. That delivery would kill him on steal attempts, imo.

He's going to have to clean up that delivery. There are enough pauses in it to get him nailed with balk calls. Still, he could be a nice pickup.

Verlander's throwing better than 89-92, imo.

Pepsi brought back the Jimmy Fallon commercial. Yay.

Sean Connery at his finest!

I wonder if MLB will allow teams to trade draft picks in the near future? This seems to be a step in that direction.

I'm up and down on it. On the up side, it's been a really arbitrary process. The designation of FAs tends to have no rhyme or reason. How certain guys get designated A,B, or C has never been adequately explained. Remember Matt Clement? I never understood why he wasn't a Type A FA given his success compared to some of the other bums who were given the Type A designation that year. Also, to the Cubs' benefit, because they have a high draft pick, they will have a much better selection of players because of the elimination of the sandwich picks. Granted, they won't have any extra picks, which stinks, but their current picks will be a good step up. Finally, in terms of good things, the Cubs won't be in a situation like in past seasons when they went out and acquired a number of players, losing draft picks in the process. If they want to go out and make a splash in free agency, they won't have to worry about losing multiple draft picks in the process. And now for the bad things... Naturally, the Cubs won't get any compensation for losing guys like Juan Pierre and (hopefully not) Aramis Ramirez. That's problematic. On a bit of a strange note, this could end up hurting the quality of the draft for the foreseeable future if there is a slotting system. High school guys will no longer be able to slip into late rounds and end up getting a ton of money thrown at them way down in the draft (Huseby, Adenhart, etc). These guys will be more reluctant to sign since they will no longer be able to get that nice payday despite being an 8th rounder or whatever. I think this may very well end up increasing the overall quality of college baseball. I'm sure there are a few things I missed, but this is definitely food for thought.

I'm helpful like that. 8)