Offseason Notes for February 17th

by
February 17, 2012


Scott Kazmir will throw for scouts on Friday.

Table of Contents
Here’s the table of contents for today’s edition of Offseason Notes.

1. Assorted Headlines
2. Video: Cuban MVP Jose Abreu, Hitting a Homer
3. Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Washington Television

Assorted Headlines
College Baseball Season Starts
If I’m not mistaken, today represents the first day of the college baseball season. In any case, it represents the first edition of Baseball American Aaron Fitt’s Weekend Preview series for 2012. It’s a pretty mammoth work, that, but the weekend’s featured series appear to include 10th-ranked Vanderbilt at No. 2 Stanford and Cal State Fullerton (25) at Florida (1). The former series features Stanford right-hander Mark Appel — making the Friday night start for the Cardinal — and can apparently be viewed on the internets via CBS Sports ULIVE.

Kazmir Workout Delayed to Friday (Today)
Scott Kazmir’s workout for scouts in Houston, originally scheduled for Wednesday, was pushed back to today, reports ESPN’s Buster Olney. It will be interesting to see (and fortunate for him) if Kazmir has regained any velocity since his last stint in the majors.

Webb Throwing, Pain Free
Right-hander Brandon Webb is “is throwing on flat ground — free and easy and pain free, says agent Jonathan Maurer — and will throw for scouts at some [point],” reports Olney. Webb hasn’t pitched in the majors since Opening Day of 2009. Between 2003 and ’08, he was the third-best pitcher by WAR, with a mark of 33.1 — behind only Johan Santana (36.0) and Roy Halladay (34.4). In his three best years, 2006-08, Webb posted a 19.9 WAR — second only to CC Sabathia (20.2). He pitched 12.0 innings of baseball for Texas Double-A affiliate Frisco last year before eventually having rotator cuff surgery.

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.

Video: Cuban MVP Jose Abreu, Hitting a Homer
Ben Badler, who covers Latin America for Baseball America, tweeted this last night:

When asked to produce some video of Abreu, Badler obliged, sharing this clip from the 2011 Pan Am Games:

Crowdsourcing Broadcasters: Washington Television
This offseason, FanGraphs is asking readers to rate the broadcast teams for all 30 major-league clubs. (Click here for more on this project.)

Rate other teams: Arizona / Atlanta / Baltimore / Boston / Chicago (AL) / Chicago (NL) / Cincinnati / Cleveland / Colorado / Detroit / Miami / Houston / Los Angeles (AL) / Los Angeles (NL, Home Games) / Los Angeles (NL, Away Games) / Milwaukee / Minnesota / New York (AL) / New York (NL) / Oakland / Philadelphia / Pittsburgh / St. Louis / San Diego / San Francisco / Seattle / Tampa Bay / Texas / Toronto.





 

Carson Cistulli has published a book of aphorisms called Spirited Ejaculations of a New Enthusiast.

5 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Mike Newman
13 years ago

Abreu has a little Moises Alou going on in his swing plane and follow through.

1
Kin
13 years ago
Reply to  Mike Newman

Your right. I was wondering where I saw that swing before. Good eye.

0