Bobby Jenks is suffering from a tight shoulder:
He faced only three batters in a 12-4 loss to Colorado before manager Ozzie Guillen took him out. Jenks doesn’t expect to miss any game action.
“There is no pain at all, no sharp pain, just one pitch where it caught right away,” Jenks said. “That is why I [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:21 pm | Injuries | Permalink | No Comments
February 28, 2007
Baseball Musings Radio Show
If you missed tonight’s show, you can hear the recorded version here. It’s also available on demand at TPSRadio.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:08 pm | Podcasts | Permalink | No Comments
February 28, 2007
Baseball Musings Radio Show
The Baseball Musings Radio Show is coming up in a little while at 8 PM EST. You can leave questions during the show in the TPSRadio Chat Room at Stickam.
Posted by David Pinto at 7:50 pm | Broadcasts | Permalink | No Comments
February 28, 2007
Cuban Heads North?
The Cub Reporter doesn’t put much stock into the rumor that Mark Cuban is going to buy the Cubs.
Posted by David Pinto at 6:25 pm | Owners | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 28, 2007
Matthews Speaks
Gary Matthews Jr. spoke to the press today, issuing an indirect denial:
Matthews, speaking to reporters at the Angels’ spring training camp in Mesa, Ariz., said he wasn’t “in a position to answer any specific questions.”
“I do expect it to resolve itself here in the near future. … Until we get more information, I just can’t [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 3:39 pm | Uncategorized | Permalink | 2 Comments
February 28, 2007
Down Two Outfielders
Bobby Kielty and Mark Kotsay each are suffering through injuries, although Kielty’s will likely keep him out of action longer:
Oakland Athletics outfielder Bobby Kielty has a torn meniscus in his left knee that will require arthroscopic surgery in the coming days, sidelining him for three-to-six weeks.
Kielty, who came to camp in the best shape of [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 3:06 pm | Injuries | Permalink | No Comments
February 28, 2007
Baseball Musings Radio Show
The Baseball Musings radio show will be on TPSRadio tonight at 8 PM EST. Check out TPSRadio’s other sports programming as well.
You can stop by the chat room at TPSRadio during the broadcast and leave a comment. We’re now using Stickam for the chat, so there are no logins required. Also, feel free [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 12:09 pm | Broadcasts | Permalink | No Comments
February 28, 2007
To Ice or Not to Ice?
Tim Lincecum never ices his arm.
“I don’t have any pain,” said Lincecum, whose nine-pitch perfect inning was the highlight of Tuesday’s intrasquad game. “Ice would just make me stiffer. I just stretch to keep loose, keep limber.”
Lincecum is a rare breed. Giants trainer Dave Groeschner estimated that less than 10 percent of pitchers decline to [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:50 am | Pitchers | Permalink | 14 Comments
February 28, 2007
Apt Comparison
John Lowe contrasts the start and end of the baseball season:
It begins in the sunshine of February mornings in Florida and Arizona. Today, the Tigers’ bus for their first spring-training game was due to leave their base in Lakeland at 7:30 a.m.
The baseball season ends in the near-midnight chill of late October evenings. You remember [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:11 am | Baseball | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 28, 2007
Differing Views
Two views of Kenji Johjima’s defense are offered by Prospect Insider and Detect-o-Vision.
Range isn’t a good measure of defense for catchers, but PMR is neutral on Johjima. That says to me he moves as well as most catchers. It’s a pretty small sample size, however, as you can see from his charts.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:00 am | Defense | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 28, 2007
Managing the Forty
Jacob Jackson looks at an underappreciated aspect of the Athletics’ success, their management of the forty-man roster.
Posted by David Pinto at 8:41 am | Management | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 28, 2007
More on the Prescription Scandal
The Albany Times Union puts together a special section on Tuesday’s drug bust, including photos and video. This article shows just how easy it is to buy drugs over the Internet:
The investigator logged onto Stephenson’s former Web site, Docstat.com, and placed an order, describing himself as a 4-foot-tall, overweight airline pilot with a heroin [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:02 am | Cheating | Permalink | 2 Comments
February 28, 2007
The More Things Change
Peter Schmuck notes the history of drug scandals in professional sports don’t really change over time. He also thinks MLB could be spending its drug money more efficiently:
Major League Baseball and the other major professional sports need to stay ahead of the curve, but baseball is sadly fixated on rehashing the history of the [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 7:53 am | Cheating | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 27, 2007
Surprising Depth
Amazingly, the Texas Rangers may end up with pitching to trade this spring.
The Rangers plan for Gagne to close games and for Akinori Otsuka to set him up. They expect C.J. Wilson and Ron Mahay to be their left-handed contingent. They would like Wes Littleton and Francisco to be their seventh-inning duo.
That would leave one [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:55 pm | Pitchers | Permalink | 2 Comments
February 27, 2007
Posnanski Blogs!
Joe Posnanski started a blog to promote his book about Buck O’Neil, The Soul of Baseball. Check out this excellent post about Ambiorix Burgos:
It was astonishing to watch people light up Burgos just about every time the game mattered (and honestly … how much did those games REALLY matter anyway? The Royals were out [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:16 pm | Blogs | Permalink | 4 Comments
February 27, 2007
Friend and Foe
It seems Joe Girardi lent Jon Lieber a hand last summer:
Lieber said his season with the Philadelphia Phillies turned around shortly after he was roughed up by the Marlins last July 31, and he credits a phone call from Girardi, a former major league catcher. They played together with the Chicago Cubs from 2000-02.
“He just [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 7:15 pm | Management | Permalink | 3 Comments
February 27, 2007
Santo and the Hall
There are a number of comments to this post about Ron Santo. I don’t agree Ron belongs in the Hall of Fame, mostly because his good numbers appear to be a product of Wrigley Field. Now that the Day by Day Database covers Ron’s career, we can look at his home and road [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 6:43 pm | All-Time Greats | Permalink | 29 Comments
February 27, 2007
League Quality
Detect-o-Vision publishes some preliminary work on league quality. It looks promising.
Posted by David Pinto at 6:34 pm | History | Permalink | 3 Comments
February 27, 2007
Not Everywhere You Want To Be
Visa problems may keep Sidney Ponson from making the Twins opening day roster:
For a guy who admittedly is down to his last chance in baseball, Sidney Ponson hasn’t shown his new team a sense of urgency.
And that is hurting the oft-troubled veteran pitcher’s chances of winning a job with the Twins.
Ponson will not be permitted [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 5:38 pm | Pitchers | Permalink | 4 Comments
February 27, 2007
More on Bonds
The Authors of Game of Shadows write an afterword for the paperback version of the book. Apart from congratulating themselves for doing such good work, there’s this very interesting bit about Bonds’ growth:
The government subpoenaed the Giants to get the club’s medical records on Bonds. Three team employees were ordered to testify – athletic [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 5:25 pm | Cheating | Permalink | 11 Comments
February 27, 2007
The Athlete’s Pharmacy
New York and Florida officials raided a Florida pharmacy today:
A downtown pharmacy was raided by a law enforcement task force on Tuesday, the climax of a large New York state grand jury investigation into Internet drug sales that could expose widespread illicit steroid use by professional athletes and thousands of people across the nation.
The unprecedented [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 4:21 pm | Cheating | Permalink | No Comments
February 27, 2007
Breaking Down Dice-K
Carlos Gomez at The Hardball Times does a nice job of breaking down Matsuzaka’s delivery. The comparison to Roy Oswalt is particularly compelling.
Posted by David Pinto at 4:04 pm | Pitchers | Permalink | 1 Comment
February 27, 2007
Cry Wolff
Athletics Nation is soliciting opinions on the owners of the Oakland franchise.
Posted by David Pinto at 3:20 pm | Management | Permalink | No Comments
February 27, 2007
No Veterans
Once again, the Veterans Committee decided not to elect any new members to the Hall of Fame. This is how it should be. The old committee used to put friends in the hall. Now, there needs to be a real good reason to overrule the writers.
Posted by David Pinto at 3:10 pm | All-Time Greats | Permalink | 7 Comments
February 27, 2007
The Next Closer?
The Twins signed Jesse Crain to a three-year deal today.
In two-plus seasons with the Twins, Crain is 19-10 and has emerged as one of the team’s most reliable arms in the bullpen. The Canadian has served as a setup man on occasion for closer Joe Nathan, and the Twins believe he has the stuff to [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 1:17 pm | Transactions | Permalink | No Comments
February 27, 2007
Mixed Media Message
There seems to be conflicting information on the DirecTV exclusive:
One source familiar with negotiations said he now believes that the Extra Innings package will remain available to all three services.
“I’d be surprised if the DirecTV deal goes through,” he said.
It seems the cable companies are becoming willing to carry the baseball network:
But after initially [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 10:29 am | Broadcasts | Permalink | 4 Comments
February 27, 2007
Watching Pineiro
Fire Brand of the American League sat down to watch Joel Pineiro’s relief appearances from 2006 and came away changing his mind about the pitcher.
What a surprise I found. Pineiro looked great! In 3.2 innings against the Tigers, Pineiro retired all 11 batters in a row while not allowing a single walk. In doing so [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 9:12 am | Pitchers | Permalink | 8 Comments
February 27, 2007
Seeing the Ball
Ducksnorts posts some interesting quotes from Mike Cameron on how he prepares for the season during spring training, leading to a comparison of rehearsing vs. performing.
Posted by David Pinto at 9:01 am | Spring Training | Permalink | No Comments
February 27, 2007
What if They Held a Probe and No One Came?
George Mitchell seems like a pretty useless guy right now.
“The (players’) association told us this is just a witch hunt,” Sheffield told USA Today. “They don’t want us to talk to them. This is all about getting (Bonds).
“If this was legitimate and they did it the right way, it would be different. But this a [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:52 am | Cheating | Permalink | 7 Comments
February 27, 2007
Nice Return
The Honus Wagner baseball card sold again, nearly doubling in price since the last transaction, going for $2.35 million:
The seller Brian Seigel in 2000 paid a then-record $1,265,000 for the prize card, which is in better condition than the rest.
“This particular one was preserved in spectacular condition,” said Joe Orlando, president of Professional Sports Authenticator [...]
Posted by David Pinto at 8:16 am | Collectibles | Permalink | 11 Comments
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