Off Day Open Thread

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Howard Cole has written a fun column about the changes in baseball for those Rip Van Winkles who have been asleep for the past fifty years.

Here’s a taste:

The Yankees were good again until they weren’t, but were again later. The team was purchased by a shipbuilder from Ohio who at one time was suspended from the game for illegally contributing to the campaign of one Dick Nixon (a presidential campaign; which he won!) and pardoned years later by President Ronald Reagan. Like I said, you’ve missed a lot.

Eric Stephen has a look at the Dodgers’ signees during Day One of the International Draft: the big bucks went to a 19-year-old RHP from Cuba, followed by a 16-year-old Dominican outfielder and a Dominican shortstop (from San Pedro de Macoris! Remember when it seemed like half the shortstops in the big leagues came from that little town?) who’s also 16.

Talk among yourselves.

40 thoughts on “Off Day Open Thread”

  2. I always look at The Weather Underground to today’s prediction and yesterday’s report. They really got my attention with reports that yesterday’s high temperature was 133 degrees and there was a reported wind gust of 141 MPH. Amazing. More amazing that it occurred shortly after 1 AM. We had thundershowers night before last and I theorize that a bolt of lightening must have struck uncomfortably close to a weather sensor, producing the abnormal heat and wind readings. This is a strange place…

        • Here is Oakland it’s 64°, with WNW winds at 9 MPH. In about an hour, I’ll ride my bike over the hills to Orinda for lunch.

          • Don’t tell me about California, I lived in Orange County for almost 40 years, except for too many people, the best place on Earth to live. I wish I could remember why I moved up here….

          • I’ve always thought Orange Country was an awful place, but Pahrump sounds worse.

          • “Tis. It is said the Devil uses Pahrump to soften up the hard cases before he takes them to Hell.

    • Sure it is. One of Ned’s first acts was to get rid of Werth, in similar circumstances and one of his last was with Tolleson. If there is a difference, it’s that League is unlikely to come back to bite us like these guys did.

  6. From Eric Stephen’s review of Molly Knight’s book:

    Colletti reportedly was near a deal for Padres reliever Joaquin Benoit at last year’s July 31 trade deadline, but it was nixed in part because the Dodgers analytic department thought there was too much risk for Benoit, due about $11.5 million through 2015 and with a balky shoulder:

    The Dodgers analytics department was proven right immediately; Benoit reported shoulder
    soreness two weeks after Colletti had tried to trade for him. He pitched just five innings in the last seven weeks of the season.

    That didn’t stop Colletti from laying into one of the employees who he believed blocked the trade, on the flight back to Los Angeles from St. Louis. “Thanks for having my f***ing back on Benoit,” he was overheard saying to the man. The nerds had been right about Benoit and had saved the Dodgers millions of dollars and prospects. But in that moment it didn’t matter much to Colletti. Had he traded for Benoit and watched the righty’s arm fall off as a Dodger, at least he could say he had done something to try to help the bullpen and could blame the failure on the club’s bad injury luck.

    • I am not a big Brandon League fan. However, we have been told for some time how he has been progressing — 10 solid appearances at Rancho Cucamonga and Oklahoma City — and seemed on his way back to the major league roster. I think DFA’ing him is disingenuous by the FO at this time.

      • League is a known quantity with no significant upside – one of Ned’s worst signings. It’s a numbers game, and everybody else in the pen is better than he is.

        • Then they shouldn’t have strung him along. But maybe I am naive when it comes to this FO….League is better than Hatcher, in my opinion.

          • Not sure that he was strung along. I would guess that he was aware of the situation and possible outcomes. What else was he going to do but rehab within the system? Not sure that it was necessarily an issue of comparing him to Hatcher, but the fact that he was in a position to refuse assignment to the minors. No one is taking his money away and he has options to work his way back up or go for free agency and find a better deal.

          • Perhaps there is something in the collective bargaining agreement that the Dodgers could not DFA him while on the DL, but once ready and able to be reinstated, at that point they could?

          • That’s probably the situation. In any event, since he was on the DL he was not on the 40-man roster so little reason to limit the options at that point.

  7. José Fernández’s comeback went better than Gnatt Cain’s. Billingsley is more closely approximating the latter.

  8. The Bums signed Trevor Cahill and traded a bunch of slot money for a couple of Blue Jay (I think) minor leaguers. I don’t understand the latter transaction. Every $ in slot money they trade away they have to make up in cash, along with the 100% penalty. I hope these kids were worth it. I wonder how many of these low-level deals are just favors to a GM who you hope will return it some day?

    • Here’s the reasoning, per Josh Byrnes in the front office:

      “If you exceed the cap, let’s make it count, get as many guys we like as
      possible. There has to be some fiscal responsibility, but whether it’s
      this arena, the draft or trades, since I’ve walked in, from ownership on
      down we’re doing everything we can to build our own talent flow through
      our system,” Byrnes explained. “Any place we can be aggressive and
      scout and find players, we’ll take that approach.”

  10. The Marlins beat the Giants again today, 5-4, to sweep their three-game series.

    • The giants are 27-30 against <.500 clubs (but I guess they won't be playing any of those if they make the playoffs). The again, discounting their series with us, they are a <.500 club at 31-35. Hmmm… Now I am really mad!