Reply With QuoteApparently he was referring to bringing the Purple Rain.
--- Alan
Marlins 1b Logan Morrison--who's been disciplined before about some of the stuff he tweets, just tweeted: "Just heard from my boy that Prince to Seattle is a done deal."
Guess we'll see, but that's pretty huge for the Mariners if it comes to be.
EDIT: and now he's goofing or covering his ass: "Oh $hit, you guys thought I meant the 1B from Milwaukee. My bad."
Apparently he was referring to bringing the Purple Rain.
--- Alan
Cards sign Beltran, two years, $26M.
I'm tempering my excitement over this with bad dreams that the 3 through 5 hitters will all have to take a half season off to have bionic legs installed.Originally Posted by Mark Asher
Beltran seems like a risk for sure, but I guess the Cards figure they will take a shot at repeating next year. Supposedly the Yankees passed on him because of his knees, and at least in the AL they would have had the option of DHing him a bunch.
Also, Nightengale of USA Today says Selig is going to let the A's move to San Jose in return for the A's paying the Giants some amount for the territory rights. San Jose has most of the stadium details already in place for a baseball stadium. And the new 49ers (and possibly Raiders) NFL stadium is also going to be in the south end of the bay.
Last edited by Sarkus; 12-24-2011 at 10:05 PM.
If memory serves, Selig's committee on relocating the A's was convened in 2009. I'm not quite sure what took them so long to come to the obvious conclusion, except that maybe they wanted to look like they were thinking Very Seriously about things.
Correct. The most likely reason for the delay was that Selig wanted to get other things out of the way (like the new CBA) and there was also some "lets see if Oakland has a better site even though A's ownership says they don't so we can't be accused of not trying" butt covering going on.
From what I've read the south bay is now the population and money center of the region so moving some of the other teams in that direction makes sense from that standpoint. And soon it looks like the A's and 49ers will be there.
Probably a lot of due diligence. It's one thing to have a sound plan in principle (The Greek government says its debt situation is fine!), and to actually pour over all the relevant documents to make sure there are no 9-figure shortfalls in the works. Plus, California has a reputation for being a heavily regulated state, which is one of the reason's why so many professional sports teams in California are waiting for new stadiums (that, and the state's budget woes).
And not mentioned previously (don't think); Gio Gonzalez to the Nationals.
--- Alan
this.
and this.
Oh, sorry, dunno how I missed all that.
A's Bailey and Mike Sweeney traded to the Red Sox for Josh Reddick and some prospects. HA, think I'm first on this at least :)
--- Alan
I think you mean Ryan Sweeney. Mike Sweeney retired last spring. Easy mistake to make though, as he did play for them a few years ago, as have many former notable Royals the past several years.
If Bailey's arm is healthy, that's a steal for the Red Sox. Heyman reporting that there are a few anonymous folks with the Athletics who are concerned (mildly, I'd guess) about Bailey's elbow a bit.
Sawx did a nice job with their pen by adding Melancon to set up and Bailey to close.
I guess I sort of understand what the A's are up to, but man, that team is likely going to suck next year. Its quite a "screw you" to the Oakland area as they get ready to relocate and become the San Jose A's.
So today it was revealed that Albert Pujols--who called the Cardinals asking to defer some of the guaranteed salary on their 10-year contract off to him "disrespect--will only get $12m next year, and $16m in 2013. That's right--he's taking a pay cut the next two seasons to play in Anaheim. Backloaded contracts are so much different from deferred money.
And then his contract ramps up. Doing the math, it's hard to see how the Angels will not be paying him $30m annually for the last 6 or 7 years of the contract. Yikes. If the Angels don't win in the next few years and Albert enters a real decline phase in his mid-30's, how's that goodwill going to work out there in California for a guy who can't possibly live up to that deal?
And here's a fun number. In 2016--yes, 5 years anon--the LA Angels of Anaheim will owe $71m to three players. CJ Wilson and Jared Weaver will get $41m of that split between them, with Albert getting $30m. All three guys have No-Trade Clauses (Weaver is a 5/10 guy). Hey, maybe it works out golden for the Angels and they win some championships out there. I can't help but think that it's at least as likely that they'll turn into the Gene Autry Angels of overpriced aging talent that won nothing in the 1970's and 80's, though.
The A's have been saying screw you to the Oakland area for a decade now and probably will for another decade since nothing will ever get worked out. As much as I am a Giants fan, their management are total assholes. The A's actually had the South Bay territorial rights in the early 90's but gave them up to the Giants to help and allow them to stay in the Bay Area. I don't know what the Giants gave in return so it's probably not as cut and dry as the A's freely giving up their rights to the Giants but considering everything, they're wholly being unreasonable.
The Giants probably have MLB's backing in this too and that is why that commission has produced nothing so far. They don't want to just give up territorial rights wholesale to the A's since it could open the floodgates in other markets too.
Maybe it's because I never lived in San Francisco and now live in Alaska. But it always amazes me how fans never want their team to move down the street to a better address where they can be healthy and successful. Where they can still go and attend games. Instead they want them to stay put in the city, playing in a toilet bowl where they will never get a new stadium built.
The A's have been saying "screw you" to Oakland for years and are perfectly content on fielding low-cost cheapo teams to justify their attitude. If they move, fine, if not, they don't care, they'll sit around and suck for another ten years all under the guise of Moneyball.
If the move does happen, it's going to be giant litigous mess that will go on for years, if not a decade. There are so many agreements, contractors, and understandings surrounding this labyrinthine territorial system, the teams, MLB and the cities that lawyers will be getting very, very rich for a long time to come.
I'd rather the A's stay in Oakland frankly; it's better for the Bay Area and its dynamics. But obviously the money is not in Oakland and its lower class demographics. It's in the San Jose area, though at least not with the city itself (which is in such a financial mess that it's instructing police officers to not respond to certain calls on an immediate basis).
--- Alan
You guys sure are pessimistic about this. I'm going on the assumption that the recent USA Today piece is correct, which stated Bud has made up his mind to let the A's go to San Jose in return for some financial payment to the Giants. And when the commish says that, it pretty much means the teams have to go along with it, as McCourt found out with the Dodgers.
And from what I've read between the A's and San Jose, the stadium is going to happen because the money is in place. So we're probably looking at something pretty soon. Just like with the 49ers, who have the money lined up to build their new stadium in Santa Clara.
A weird Boswell piece here about whats up with Fielder. Outside of the fact that he seems rather uninformed when he claims the Mariners have denied publicly being interested in Fielder, he basically argues that nothing will happen until the Rangers either sign or don't sign Darvish, the premise being that Boras will wait in case he can draw Texas back into the bidding. That's Jan. 18th, so still weeks away.
One thing that I saw noted is that Boras still has a bunch of clients unsigned at what is becoming a relatively late date. Makes me wonder what his other clients think since presumably so much of his time is being spent on Fielder.
I keep wondering when Fielder will sign, and why it seems to be taking so long after Pujlos signed a deal relatively quickly.
PS) I still hold out some slim hope that the Indians have a rainy day fund (find a salary dump for Hafner?) which is somehow big enough to sing the guy for 2 years (because after two years the Indians lose a lot of players and will on longer being contending), since his bat alone at first will put them in an excellent position to win the Central. Yes, this is a pipe dream, especially considering how much extra payroll the Indians have taken on just through arbitration raises.
It seems what is going on is that nobody is offering the long-term big money that Boras wants. So they are waiting in the hope that somebody jumps in and pushes it up. Makes me wonder what the backup plan is. There have been rumors Fielder might just sign a short-term deal and revisit the market in a few years, but if thats the case he won't sign with Seattle since its likely his numbers will be depressed there.
I just can't see the Rangers being extremely serious about Fielder. They'd rather spend their money on pitching, not a moody slugger.
--- Alan
And cue Heyman talking about a "mystery team" in on Fielder in three...two...one...
"$12 million, $16 million, $23 million, $24 million, $25 million, $26 million, $27 million, $28 million, $29 million and $30 million"
That's Pujols contract breakdown by years according to Jon Heyman at CBS. $240m, not $254. Pujols gets $10m in "personal services contract" upon retirement.
In other words: all that bluster from Albert and his wife about the Cardinals disrespecting Pujols by deferring money in their contract offer was total hoohoaw. The Angels are basically deferring a huge amount of Albert's money here. This was all about money, and not very much money, either.
Upshot: Albert had a temper tantrum and made his choice. I don't think he'll fail, but I'm rooting very hard for that to happen now.
I was sorry to see him go, but we had him for 11 years and may have had his best seasons. That's baseball now. And really, the Angels are paying him $59M after he turns 40? Sheesh.
I don't think he'll fail, exactly, but I wouldn't be surprised if this past season (.299, 99 RBIs, 37 HRs) is closer to his future production than the bigger numbers he's put up in the past.
I've reached the exact same conclusion.
I also think that being able to say that the overall contract value was a couple million more than A-Rod was a critical consideration for him (even if that claim is dubious). This was about ego.
And thank goodness for his swollen ego. As a Cardinals fan, I would not want to see them saddled with anything approaching that sort of contract. I'd rather see them make the playoffs consistently than hope I might be at Busch to watch a milestone hit. We already did that, "Historical hitter, bad team" combination with McGwire.
Interesting trade news: the Padres acquire Carlos Quentin from the White Sox for some low value prospects (neither considered by BA to be in the Padres top 10). Quentin is in the last year of arbitration eligibility.
Law likes it for the Pads, Olney likes it for the Sox.
Depends on whether either of the two arms the Sox got end up making it to the bigs, and whether Quentin can play good enough defense in Petco and stay healthy for a year.
Both teams probably got what they wanted from this.
Looks like Zambrano is being traded to the Marlins for Chris Volstad. The Cubs do end up paying most of Z's contract, though.
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