Ned Colletti has reportedly given Adam Kennedy a major league contract. $800,000 is not a big deal to a major league team — it’s not even going to be 1% of the final player budget for the Dodgers. But why not save almost a half-million dollars?
As Jack Moore covered earlier, the Royals today acquired the services of Jon “The Ox” Broxton. Purportedly, the idea was that adding a reliever was less expensive than finding a starter — which is true — and that they already had a pitcher in the pen that could move to the starting rotation next year — which is more debatable.
The thing is, they might actually have a pitcher in the pen that could start. But it’s probably not Aaron Crow.
It’s official: Kirk Gibson has won the National League Manager of the Year award. He beat out third-place three-time winner Tony LaRussa, who earned a more exciting piece of hardware anyway, and second-place Ron Roenicke, a fellow freshman skipper who piloted the former Pilots to the post season. What narrative should we choose to enter into the annals of history alongside Gibson’s first full season of managing?
The obvious storyline comes from the Diamondbacks worst-to-first move under his stewardship. But upper management had a lot to do with the resurgence as well. Zach Duke, Juan Miranda, Henry Blanco, Melvin Mora, Joe Paterson, Russell Branyan, David Hernandez were brought on board, and really only Mark Reynolds and Adam LaRoche left town. Well, looking at that list, maybe the manager did have a lot to do with the turnaround?
The Dodgers, in the midst of a difficult transition period and sale, may have trouble getting approval to sign a big-ticket free agent. That doesn’t mean they can’t affect change in the free agent market place. As the team engages their 27-year-old once-maligned center fielder in extension discussions, they might be preparing do just that. Will the rumored numbers that will keep Matt Kemp off the market — eight years, $160 million — count as an asset for the team in the future?
“The game speeds up on Madson sometimes. He doesn’t get to the same comfort level. There’s a little anxiety in there. The ninth inning is a little different than the eighth. There’s been a lot of solid eighth-inning guys who just haven’t been able to pitch the ninth, then one day they learn how to do it. Ryan Madson is Ryan Madson. What did he do, take a crash course in how to close or something?” – Phillies Pitching Coach Rich Dubee
Lost in the yearly hubub about whether relievers are overpaid, there’s the story of this reliever and his remarkable turnaround in the past year. Ryan Madson, specifically, has seen his stature in Philadelphia change radically, quickly. Perhaps there’s no easier way of pointing this out then providing a date for the above quote: March 29, 2011.
Over the course of this year he changed some minds, but it’s not as simple as a few successful saves in a row. There’s also been some actual underlying change in his game. Exploring the last few years might help us understand Madson better. How did he finally catch his penguin — the coveted ‘Proven Closer’ mantel?
October is the month. October is the month you have to survive if you are a general manager of a losing team. Survive that month and your chances of making it through another season skyrocket. In fact, looking through the prism of past firings, the distance between October (Andy MacPhail) and November (Bill Smith) is greater than a mere sum of the days.
Comb through the Baseball America executive database and add in the missing information, and you’ve got something like 59 general manager firings since 1950. That might not seem like a large sample, but a firing is a rare occurrence. Many general managers come to the end of a contract on a flagging team and are allowed to leave. Most others resign if the writing is on the wall. A firing suggests a difference in opinion about the team. It’s a jarring, rare moment, born of conflict.
Mike Stanton is a man-child. His 22nd birthday is next week. He’s already hit 56 home runs in fewer than 1,000 plate appearances. He’s got a jaw built to make ladies faint, quads as wide as his shoulders, gorgeous chest hair and enough power to push a poor team to relevance.
But like Superman before him, Stanton has his kryptonite. Since he debuted in 2010, he has the third-worst strikeout rate in the league (minimum 700 plate appearances).
Will these strikeouts be a speed bump on the way the superstardom — or will they be a fatal flaw that will dog him his entire career? Let’s take a look at some comparable, expansion-era players.
Thanks to Patrick Newman for his help in writing and researching this article.
Judging from the first responders to the coming storm over the Pacific, this title bears repeating: Yu Darvish is not Daisuke Matsuzaka. The natural search for comps, paired with the disappointment that was Matsuzaka’s career, will lead to suspicion when it comes to the newest ace slated to come over from Japan. Why should it work out this time if it didn’t work out the last couple times? But there are real differences between the two pitchers that could use a little emphasis.
Consider this list your consolation if you are dumbfounded by the posting fee that your team will spend simply for the right to speak with Darvish.
Paul Swydan and Jeff Zimmerman will join me (and you!) for a chat during tonight’s game six.
In the dog-bites-man story of the week, the Dodgers announced that lefty Hong-Chih Kuo will have surgery on Friday. This time, the surgery is not major: arthroscopic surgery designed to remove some loose bodies. Nevertheless, the unique reliever has mentioned retirement as a possibility. That would be a shame — no pitcher has ever overcome so much before his 30th birthday.
His story is one saturated with injury. It even starts with an injury — after his very first minor league baseball game in America, the Taiwanese lefty was shut down with elbow pain. He would eventually need Tommy John surgery that year. Kuo was an 18-year-old, though, and these things happen. He even managed 19-plus innings in 2001, with 21 strikeouts against four walks in rookie ball. Maybe he’d be fine.