The Tribune's Phil Rogers reports that the White Sox could swing a three-way trade with the Yankees and Angels. The rumored deal would have Jose Valentin and Paul Konerko going to the Angels, Troy Glaus going to the Yankees and Jarrod Washburn and Darin Erstad going to the White Sox.

Oh for crying out loud, why would either the Angels or White Sox do this? All these players suck outside of Glaus, they're either old or overrated or injured. Morons.

Going way back to the Shingo Takatsu post, I think he's gonna flop. I finally found a website that has Japanes stats, and his aren't very good.
And from Yahoo: throws 84 to 86 mph and averaged only 5.8 strikeouts per nine innings against Japanese hitters the past two seasons.
Plus, he only was willing to sign with a team that promised him the closer job, which is going to lead to problems once he fails at it.

And here are some stats from last year (Avg/OBP/Slg):
petagine .323 .457 .683
alex cabrera .324 .418 .705
tuffy rhodes .276 .391 .608
nakamura .236 .357 .459

Guess we got lucky on Nakamura. I'm still convinced Alex Cabrera should be our RF. Admittedly, I have no idea about his defensive ability in RF, but he did play 11 games there for the DBacks.

Amazingly Brad, that question was just answered for me a couple of hours ago.
Apparently, when the clause was drafted many moons ago, some owners thought pickup basketball was a good way for players to keep in shape during the offseason (this was before most players trained during the offseason) so they specifically wanted it kept in the contract.

I don't get it though, why pro league bball and not pro league anything else?

unless......unLESS......UNLESS THAT WAS AARON BOONE IN DISGUISE AS MICHEAL DOLEAC COMING OUT OF NOWHERE TO DROP 18 POINTS AGAINST THE HEAT LAST SATURDAY AT THE GARDEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

seriously, with no stats to back me up, i make the claim that modern professional athletic training has left modern athletes far more succeptible to their beer-drinking, cigarette smoking ancestors.

as biz pointed out, john vadner waaal tore his acl recently....shoveling snow from his yard.

also, aaron boone looks like johnny knoxville who looks like josh duhamel from 'win a date with tad hamilton'

just sayin' tho.

I don't know where the media gets its info, but after reading the standard contract, I don't see how the Yanks can void Boone's deal.
Players are prohibited from engaging in skiing, auto racing, motorcycle racing, sky diving, or in any game or exhibition of football, soccer, professional league basketball, ice hockey or other sport involving a substantial risk of personal injury.

I'm not thrilled with Spencer, but I think the platoon should do okay. I estimate that they should be able to platoon to around an .840 OPS (unadjusted for Shea), which would rank them around league average for RF (10th out of 21 RFs last year). And for that league average production, they're only paying about $1.3 million, which is very little, and allows them the financial flexibility to upgrade if they're in a playoff race.
I think platooning in general is under-utilized. There are a lot of situations where 2 cheap, below average players can perform better than a more expensive regular.

By the way, the math I used to get to .840 was approximating their OPS based on the last 2 years, and multiplying by the typical platoon advantage (which is 1.17 for LHBs and 1.08 for RHBs). That came out to .854, but I arbitrarily downgraded it a bit, figuring that there would be times when the platoon didn't work out because of multiple relievers.

If you looked at their actual platoon splits the last 2 years, they'd wind up around .810, which is still around average.

So, I think in conclusion, I'll estimate somewhere in the .800-.850 range.

"The Mets are expected to sign outfielder Shane Spencer to a minor league
contract. A Karim Garcia-Spencer platoon in right field would be adequate
for the Mets."

Not adequate for me. Luckily, I have TWO trash bins here in which to throw up.

Boone in '05 for the minimum, or else we reveal his past in animal porn.

did you guys here about the japanese pitcher named tadano in the indians' minor league system who admitted to starring in a gay porn?

no, no seriously.

Boone has a one year deal, then will be a free agent.

Zeile for Boone, with the Yanks picking up Boone's salary. Then we have Boone cheap in 2005.

as an alternative to this project to get fielding stats, they could just simply require every major league team to replace the grass infield with a hollywood 'blue wall' surface for the ground, and have every player wear those little balls all over their body that they use to record motion for video games and shit.

what the hell am i talking about?

all i know is, who the hell tears their acl playing pickup hoops? maybe it's becuase all these modern athletes are too diesel and toned and take too many supplements which makes their bodies too tightly wound and succeptible to ligament injuries.

although, look at furds, he's NEVER been the same athletically since that fateful day senior year at stuy when john migdahl stepped on his ankle at the battery park courts. poor kid, he used to be the b'nai bird, now look at him.

The Mets traded Jamie Cerda to clear roster space.
Stupid.
Cerda's been very good his entire minor league career, pitched well in one stint in the majors, poorly in the other. He throws hard and he's a lefty and has a much better chance of being an effective reliever this year than Franco, and probably Stanton.
Good look at Cerda here if you scroll down a little.

Interesting article about MLB's plans to track fielding data:
Here

Aaron Boone may be out for the season. He injured himself playing basketball (another good reason not to play basketball) in violation of his contract, so the Yanks could try to void the deal.
I'm sure the Yankees will figure out a deal to replace him, but there's really nobody out there and Drew Henson clearly isn't ready. Maybe we can trade them Todd Zeile.

Yay!

First baseman Mo Vaughn admitted during a banquet on Friday night that his career is over, the Boston Globe reported. "My career is over," the slugger said. "I have an injury no doctor can fix, but I have no regrets." Vaughn announced earlier this month that he would not play in 2004 due to a degenerative left knee condition. He remarked that he has 31 bone spurs in the knee as the result of bone grinding on bone in the absence of any cartilage. Vaughn would knee to have the knee replaced in order to play again.

i remember selig's proposal from the papers in the months before the 'three-division' alignment was proposed (which i absolutely detest btw). selig's plan was indeed radical. it would have been a total disolving of the traditional leagues in favor of geography and rivalries. if i recall correctly, the mets would have been in the same division as the yankees, red sox, phillies, and expos.
i gotta say, now that the walls have been broken down aka interleague play and everything, i would be in favor of such a radical restructuring. especially since i hate the division the mets are in. i grew up hating the pirates, cubs and cardinals. the braves were some mysterious team in the nl west. while i certainly hate the braves now, the marlins and especially the expos provide no juice because those teams have absolutely no fan base, so watching a road game in their stadiums is like watching a spring training game.
perhaps to strike up an old argument on the schedule, i demand more games against the cards, cubs, pirates, dodgers, astros and giants.

Japan's career leader in saves, Shingo Takatsu, has signed a one-year, $1 million deal to close for the White Sox, according to the Associated Press. Takatsu, whose contract is contingent on a physical and includes a club option for 2005, has 260 career saves and passed former Seattle closer Kazuhiro Sasaki last year for the top spot in league history. Nicknamed "Mr. Zero", Takatsu has not allowed an earned run in the Japan Series and has closed out four championships for his Yakult Swallows. According to baseball sources, the White Sox were the only team offering the closer's role to Takatsu, who was not going to leave Japan to fill a setup role in the States.

-So we couldn't offer him $1 mil per year, instead giving Looper $3 mil-plus?

a little birdie told me that david cone is available for the fifth starter job.

oh wait, it's 2004.