jerichoholicninja

This is Orlando's 4th MLB season. I really don't think his age matters much more at this point. Ya, I'll say there's a chance he makes some changes and maybe becomes a serviceable hitter to go with great defense but I personally doubt it. If he hasn't yet, what will it take for him to finally make some changes? As for a 0 WAR player consistently playing because of his defense, Alcides Escobar is close. Outside of a year here and there he's consistently been about .5 WAR and still played almost every single day for years. [sarcasm]He does have an OPS over .900 in AAA right now, so maybe he's figured it out at age 32.[/sarcasm]

If you're just looking to get rid of all of them for a couple bucks, rummage sale is the way to go. I don't know anything about the two places listed above but I'd look into them if you want to sell some individually. I have some baseball cards in my eBay store. I went through my collection and pulled out Hall of Famers and rookie cards and looked them up to see if any were worth my time. Really, there's only been 1 or 2 that are worth any effort but I still have a bunch listed for about $5 each. After shipping and fees I make about $1 each. So I guess it really depends, do you want to put in time and effort to maybe make some money or just get rid of them.

His whole offensive approach and hitting mechanics are atrocious and haven't changed a lick since he came up 4 years ago. That's what bugs me about him. Either coaches see nothing wrong with what he's doing (which I really hope isn't the case) or he's ignoring the coaches (which also is concerning if the organization is letting him get away with it). Unfortunately, we're just going to have to deal with his offensive ineptitude because that glove isn't coming out of the lineup. The rest of the infield defense is average at best and there's no one in the organization they could put at SS who would come anywhere close to matching his defense and they probably wouldn't be much if an upgrade offensively anyway.

I believe Barry Bonds wasn't a member or not a full member or something like that. Something to do with licensing his likeness I believe.

Collude isn't really a proper term. Teams have changed how they value players because data has suggested they should. Just because they all use the same data does not mean they colluded. Players have to change expectations at this point in certain situations. If they fail to it is completely on the players, not the owners. I totally agree. I was going to put the first collude in quotes but I didn't.

Knebel was injured part of last year and sucked for a chunk of it. It's certainly not good to lose him but I don't think it's as big of a deal as most are making it out to be.

Teams collude to keep salaries low and the players/agents have openly stated they collude to keep them going up. I really don't care anymore about either side. Just figure something so baseball doesn't go away.

Ya, the last few episodes have been pretty good. I still hate the "after school special" moment they seem to have in every episode now. It's totally pointless and adds nothing.

Wow. That sucks big time and is totally stupid. Was thinking of going to ST next year and would have brought my similar lens along.

I gave a personal reference for someone for a job for the first time. I didn't say anything negative about them but I keep having this irrational fear that if they don't get it it will be because of something I said.

Or they just wanted to see Corey get some more AB's against MLB-ish pitching. I don't think there's much of anything that can be read into it.

"Under the MLB-MLBPA Joint Drug Policy players are only tested for drug use if there’s probable cause. Players who test positive for marijuana (over the 50ng/mL threshold) may be subject to a treatment plan and up to $35,000 in fines. They will only face suspension if they violate the terms of the treatment program." There are no "strikes" when it comes to weed in MLB. What happened when he was in the minors is different and means nothing for JJ from a suspension standpoint.

As someone who hates country music, I found the Country Music Hall of Fame somewhat interesting. Tour the Ryman Auditorium and Hatch Show Print. Centennial Park is a nice park to walk for an hour or so. I think they have a free World's Fair museum there too. I might be confusing that with St. Louis though.

I honestly wonder if all these deals lately are just the owners trying to show that they will give out big money to players, just not free agents.

Kimbrel seems like the kind of guy who would blow a gasket if anyone ever even dared ask him to pitch any inning other than the 9th. Even like just once every other week.

When I saw he was DFA'd I thought he had Stearns written all over him. Then I was surprised when he cleared waivers and sat there. If all it took was a minor league deal I can't believe no one scooped him up sooner.

That's just assuming that the players the Angels would get in return for Trout would turn out to be really good. Prospects are only prospects for a reason. Plenty of highly ranked prospects don't pan out for either mediocre performance reasons or health issues. This is why often when teams trade a star for young players, the team trading the star doesn't end up being happy with the trade beyond the day it was made. Agreed. But they've done nothing with Trout putting up HOF numbers. What are they going to do when he's not?

Isn't this more of an indictment of the front office rather than signing an all-time great to a long term contract? Look at what this franchise has done over the past decade. Signing Josh Hamilton. Signing a 31 year old Pujols to a 10 year deal was an enormous mistake. Signing Matt Harvey and Cody Allen this year. Being unable to develop a farm system. All these reek of just bad management. Now imagine Stearns in Orange County, working within the framework of a $150-$200 million payroll. Sort of what I'm saying. Couldn't care less about how much Trout personally makes but even for as great as he is this doesn't really do much for the Angels franchise. They'll essentially be in the same place for at least the next few years with little talent to trade and a lot less money to sign players. I guess it makes the fans happy but trading Trout could have set them up much better for well past his prime years and cost a whole lot less money.

I knew a couple people who have worked at Shopko corporate over the years. Apparently it was a horrible place to work at with very high and quick turnover. Right after college there was a job there I applied for a bunch of times because it was posted every 3 months or so. If true, I'm sure none of that helped them stay in business.

The Angels could have completely transformed the next 10-15 years of their franchise by trading him for multiple players who would hopefully turn into above average to great players and in turn traded those guys for the same. Instead they will have one guy being paid a boatload of money into his early 40's. Trout's great, sure, but they've won nothing with him because having even one HOF player means nothing in baseball if the rest of your team sucks. Extending him is the safe and PR friendly move but probably does very little to improve the competitiveness of the franchise.

I believe your first outright doesn't require waivers, you just lose your roster spot.

I took his comment to mean that he chooses to make 4 bad calls depending on how he feels about the player/manager. Either way he's a trash person.

I think those are viable examples. I don't think a guy with the resume that MadBum has and the mentality he approaches the game with makes his private text about them using an opener for him in that same category. I think if Jimmy Nelson said the same thing we'd be applauding his confidence and "bulldog" type persona. But because it's a guy we got into it with last year, we're putting WAAY too much into it. And we're also assuming he was serious. My guess is that he was half joking in that he'd walk out of the stadium or wouldn't do it, but 100 pct serious in that he hated the idea. There are plenty of examples of Bummy being a prick other than last year. He yells at batters for being upset after they strikeout and he stares down guys for whatever reason he sees fit. A perfect fit for the Cardinals if there ever was one.

Didn't we do the same thing with Wang? WCW was in the organization for 3 years after his rule 5 season.

That's an interesting idea. However, while I agree that theoretically pitchers should be able to warm up safely beforehand, it feels like there'd be a lot of pushback on that idea for safety reasons. That said, I do agree that there should be a way to get out of the 3 hitter minimum and whatever "punishment" that incurs should apply whether an injury occurs or not to avoid teams faking injuries. So at that point it's a matter of making sure 1.) the "punishment" is harsh enough to avoid teams just routinely taking the hit, and 2.) the punishment isn't unfairly harsh to pitchers that actually have an injury. With them rolling this out in the minors for a year first, it'll be interesting to see if they decide a tweak like this is needed before bringing it to the majors. Here are a couple ideas I've had or heard on the board in regards to a pitcher not reaching the 3 hitter minimum: 1.) Zurch's Goalie Rule - No mound warmup allowed for incoming pitcher. The more I think about this the more I like it. The obvious caveat is that people will be worried that managers won't have a reliever ready to go and they'll risk further injury by bringing a guy in cold. However, if the real goal of the 3 hitter minimum is to reduce down time, this accomplishes that in several ways: 1.) encourages teams to reduce pitching changes, 2.) encourages managers to make sure relievers are ready to go right away when needed, 3.) reduces commercial breaks caused by pitching changes. This was exactly what I was thinking about. I've beaten the "pitchers don't need 10 warmup pitches on the game mound" drum since forever. Simply put, if the managers goes to the ump first to make his pitching chance and the pitcher coming in doesn't want any warm up pitches on the game mound then he doesn't have to face 3 batters. Should take about 1 minute for all this to happen. No break for commercial, no real interruption of game flow, everyone wins.