MLB 2011-2012 Offseason Thread
 

So, free agent predictions?

David Ortiz signs with Toronto

6 HOURS UNTIL FREE AGENCY!

Yankees pick up the 2012 options for Swisher and Cano. Cano also has 2013 as an option year while Swisher was kept more for potential trade next season.

Brewers declined option for K-Rod.

Tony La Russa has retired. I wonder how this will affect Albert's decision.

I know it's coming, but it'll be a sad day in the bleachers when Swisher leaves.

It's being said that the Mets aren't going to be willing to commit more than 4 years with an option for Reyes.

Good as gone, then. :(

Braves trade Derek Lowe to the Indians for a minor leaguer. Braves will eat most of his salary.

Braves save 5 million in the deal. Couldn't have gone much better than that.

And hey, they aren't paying Kawakami like 8 million in Double A anymore. Look at all this money the Braves have now!

A few teams/players are still kicking round options at this time. CC Sabathia, Octavio Dotel, Rafael Furcal, Rafael Soriano, and Zach Duke are the big names of the bunch.

Sabathia stays with the Yankees. Same deal with an extra year tacked on for 2016 worth $25 mil. with a vesting option for 2017.

Red Sox starting the bullpen cleaning by rejecting the options for Dan Wheeler and Scott Atchison.

Marc Scutaro option was picked up for 2012 while Ortiz and Papelbon are Type A options and would bring in draft picks should either go to a new team next season.

<font color=goldenrod>Loving the changes to the Mets' outfield, including making the wall blue. According to Alderson, with these dimensions the Mets would have hit 81 more HRs at Citi over their first three seasons at the park.</font>

http://www.metsblog.com/wordpress/wp...PM-580x514.png

http://www.metsblog.com/wordpress/wp...M1-580x312.png

http://www.metsblog.com/wordpress/wp...PM-580x348.png

How many would the opposing teams hit?

372

ohhhh

lot of home runs

yep.

thanks eh

<font color=goldenrod>70, according to Alderson.

This should be a great move for Wright and Bay. Both guys have been robbed of so many homers thanks to that ridiculous LF wall.</font>

Yankees decline Andrew Brackman's option.

Killer B's 2.0 just lost a member.

Gold Gloves go out in 45 minutes. Im 100% confident Wieters wins at Catcher and I think Hardy should win at SS as he was much better defensively then Aybar and Cabrera, but he missed almost a month and that might hurt him. Markakis wont win, I think Hunter gets it in RF, but its nice to see him nominated.

Jeter will win again for being average.

Jeter isn't nominated. AL SS is Asdrubal Cabrera, JJ Hardy and Erick Aybar.

ESPN 2 at 10pm is the award show

There's an actual award show this year?

and its being pre-empted by a Northern Illinios/Toledo tuesday night football game that still has 12 minutes to go

rofl

silver slugger awards are tomorrow night on MLB network

MLB All Stars vs Taiwan All Stars is on now..how Jeremy Guthrie is an MLB all star is beyond me

lol theres a fat guy in the crowd with a dinosaur t-shirt and a doo-rag on his head yelling on mic to the crowd over the PA system

Matt Wieters wins! WHOO
Nick Markakis wins! Yay

JJ hardy will probably win the SS Silver Slugger Award then..and maybe comeback player..?

Potentially the entire list of winners...

AL: Buehrle, Wieters, Gonzalez, Pedroia, Aybar, Beltre, Gordon, Ellsbury, Markakis
NL: Kershaw, Molina, Votto, Phillips, Tulowitzki, Polanco, Parra, Kemp, Ethier

leaked from the press release which had players listed with a small font that seem to be the winners.

I don't like that they changed it to position specific OF winners.

nice they already put the list on espn.com

whoops

<font color=goldenrod>I do. The 3 OF positions are totally different. Under the old format it more often than not became CF-specific.</font>

feel like the position specific OF fucked CarGo out of a Gold Glove

oh well

Frank McCourt throws in the towel. He's gonna sell off the L.A. Dodgers and Dodgers Stadium.

Current estimates put the sale price at $800 mil. - $1.2 billion.

LaCava turned down the O's GM job. Good to see him stick with AA in Toronto, but I'm pretty surprised he didn't leave

I can't remember the last time that an assistant gm turned down an offer to become a general manager.

Lol it's the O's job in the AL East. Chance of success= zero point zero

<font color=goldenrod>Theo Epstein has informed Ryne Sandberg that he is not under consideration to be Cubs manager. The Cardinals have received permission from the Phillies to interview him.</font>

Why do the Cubs management seem to dislike Sandberg a lot when it comes to taking a chance with him as manager?

This would be around the 3rd or 4th time they refuse to even consider him as an actual choice.

Theo wants a manager with MLB experience but when he helped the Red Sox hire Francona in 2004, he was around an average or "meh" in terms of record and time with Philly.

the reason the Cubs have had so much success the past 100 years is because of solid front office decisions

D-Backs sign Connecticut's own John McDonald to a 2-year, $3 mil. deal.

Nats are close to bringing back Chien-Ming Wang on a new deal.

Your Silver Sluggers:

AL:

1B: Adrian Gonzalez
2B: Robinson Cano
SS: Asdrubral Cabrera
3B: Adrian Beltre
OF: Curtis Granderson
OF: Jose Bautista
OF: Jacoby Ellsbury
C: Alex Avila
DH: David Ortiz

NL:

1B: Prince Fielder
2B: Brandon Phillips
SS: Troy Tulowitski
3B: Aramis Ramirez
OF: Ryan Braun
OF: Matt Kemp
OF: Justin Upton
C: Brian McCann
P: Daniel Hudson

<font color=goldenrod>Sounds about right.</font>

Trying not to get my hopes up, but beat writers from every team linked to Reyes were interviewed and NONE of them expected their respective teams to get him, either due to budget cuts or not having room.

I still think some team will hit the panic button and blow him out of the water with an offer...but I will be ecstatic if Reyes had to settle for the Mets' offer and they found common ground at like 5 years, $90 or so million with incentives or an option.

I want Mike and his mustache as the Red Sox new manager. Bring in his brother as pitching coach.

Orioles claimed Darren O'Day off the waivers from the Rangers.

ive missed the Os having a submariner out in the bullpen

Chad Bradford..Todd Frohwirth..

ugh

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_kl-4VYh7R3...ohwirthtsc.jpg

thats looks like it hurts

Not sure why ESPN keeps thinking Francona could join the Cubs as a potential manager when he had a lot of problems dealing with Theo last season alone. Supposedly those two were bickering and arguing enough to have management get involved to end the small "feud."


MLB released the list of the 10 candidates on the Veterans Committee ballot for this year's Hall of Fame voting:
The 2013 Hall of Fame ballot is going to be strong on the managers side because Bobby Cox, Tony La Russa, and Joe Torre will all be available as choices.

Tony LaRussa will already be on the HOF ballot in 2013?

Well, he said the next manager has to have MLB coaching or managerial experience...he never said it had to be POSITIVE experience.

If I was Theo, I'd hire Mike Maddux.

I'm surprised Cito Gaston hasn't gotten some Hall of Fame love.

Jim Thome's coming back to Philly.

http://mark.stubbornlights.org/phils/050204/thome1.jpg

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/L--AiPGAqSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Hmmm? Bit of an odd move going to the NL. Can the old man still field?

Can play 1B for a couple of months while Howard recovers. Then moves into the PH spot. Plus, he's very close with Charlie Manuel.

<font color=goldenrod>Thome should rake as per usual. That being said, he hasn't picked up a first baseman's mitt since 2007 and he'll be getting the starts til May or longer. It's hard not to like Thome...but hopefully this move will backfire.</font>

Is Jim Thome the "600 Home Run Club Member" who has played for the most teams? You wouldn't think a guy like that would move around so much.

Great guy, though. Future HOF'er.

Love Jim Thome. Excited about this.

<font color=goldenrod>Jose Reyes has far too much fashion sense to wear these for the next 5+ years. Horrible.</font>

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...rlinsUnis1.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...rlinsUnis2.png

what is with Miami and those stupid fucking colours?

Call me crazy, but I like 'em. That's what Miami is all about...bright colors, sunny weather, lively atmosphere, having fun...

...they're nice.

The black one's not too terrible.

They look like College Baseball uniforms...which is not bad, BTW.

O's gonna name Dan Duquette their new GM.

orange and yellow hat

are you kidding

<font color=goldenrod>The orange and yellow hats are specifically designed to burn out the retinas of the opposing players.</font>

The Mets are looking for money again.

The deal is, you invest say $20 mil. and you get a stake in the team and 3% interest per year gets added over time, but you're locked in for 6 years. After the 6 years are up, you get your $20 mil. back with the interest tacked on. Or you can keep your money with the team altogether and keep your share.

The catch is, you don't have a way to get a majority ownership of the team.

Could someone buy out the shares from others after 6 years as a way to increase their own share of the team?

Only real way would be to cover the $25 million loan owned to MLB because that could become a collateral piece which is something the Wilpons haven't been able to repay to MLB in time.

who's watching the AFL Rising Stars game?

I bet he backs out at the last minute like the last 2.

Actually considering he hasn't done anything in the Majors for almost 10 years, Im surprised only if he doesn't take the job. Only the Os would give the GM position to a guy that hasn't done anything on the Major League level for 10 years.

Duquette is more of a yes man than the others, which is why this job is so appealing to him. As much shit as he got in Boston for letting Clemens go, he did get Varitek, Lowe, Pedro, and developed Nomar and Vlad Guerrero (when he was Montreal's GM).

11/07/2011


Ron Washington's Game 7 pre-game speech is a bleeping, blanking winner



Rangers manager Ron Washington is not the first man to bend the truth, or lie, to the media. Seems Ron told the media before the start of Game 7 of the World Series that he didn't say anything out of the ordinary to his team. Baseball is not football in that rah-rah speeches are seldom delivered because there are just so many games.

But Ron, in fact, did go a little Knute Rockne on his team.

An audio file of Washington's speech to the team in the visitor's clubhouse in St. Louis has been found, and click here to listen to the raw audio.

Say this for the Rangers, from the sounds of this audio they were loose.

WARNING: This language isn't exactly straight out of a Disney movie. As to be expected with Wash', and baseball, this is over-loaded with language that would make a trucker blush.

Here are a pair of excerpts from this speech:

"When the series started I told you guys last night that it was seven games. Well, it's seven (bleeping) games. We've believed in each other throughout the whole (bleep bleep) year and there is no reason not to do it now. We knew how close we were last night but now we've found out how tough it is to win a World Series. It was one of the most tremendous baseball games that I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of and I hope you felt the same way. We were champions out there last night, and those (bleeping) guys were champions, too."

"We can play this (bleeping bleeping) game, ain't no doubt about it. We can beat those (bleeping bleepings) over there. No doubt about it. But I can tell you this - they are over there saying the same (bleeping bleeping) thing. Why? Because they are champions, too. And good (bleeping bleeping) champions. But we know we can beat those (blanking blankers). They aren't so sure about us."

Michael Young can be heard speaking up:"Fellas, we got this man. Last night was a (blank). It was an incredible game let's not think about last night. We can tell stories 20 years from now how we survived Game 6 and came back and sprayed champagne in Game 7."

And then Wash threw in this as well:
"Remember - all for one, one for all. ... It ain't nothin' but a (blanking blanking) game that we can play."


Read more: http://sportsblogs.star-telegram.com...#ixzz1cxioesS0

Royals trade Melky Cabrera to the Giants for Jonathan Sanchez.

Royals are gonna bring up their top guy Lorenzo Cain to play center field.

Great trade by the Royals.

Melkman :'(

Dan Duquette signs 3 year deal to become the GM for the Orioles.

Originally Baltimore wanted Allard Baird, Red Sox VP of player personal and scouting, but he declined after hearing all the restrictions the job has and the Orioles looking more for a "yes" man to Angelo.


Yankees and CJ Wilson's agent officially start early talks but it appears to be more of a price driver to make Wilson more expensive than the Yankees actually wanting him now that CC is staying.

Hope the Yankees don't think their rotation is fixed just because they brought CC back.

I am all for overpaying for CJ Wilson.

Apparently the Marlins are interested in everybody. Reyes, Fielder, Pujols, Wilson, etc...

Marlins already said they're gonna spend. Gotta put asses in those seats to pay off that new stadium.

The ax finally fell in Minnesota after their disaster of a season.

GM Bill Smith has been fired. Terry Ryan has been named interim GM.

and this guy

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kREZHmOR1bg?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I don't think the Yankees are gonna do that. They have been talking to CJ Wilson and basically all the pitchers. I really don't think they are done. At worst they are gonna sign Colon back on a 1 or 2 year deal as well. It is only November.

<font color=goldenrod>Welp, the Phillies are about to completely fuck up the market for free agent relievers. Getting close to a 4 year deal with Ryan Madson with a 5th year option - worth around $11 million a season. Holy fuck.

There goes the Mets' chances of signing a new closer. Better just dump that money into the Reyes Fund then.</font>

Phillies' CEO hasn't ok'd the deal yet. I don't think the yearly salary is too bad but relievers never get 4 years anymore after the BJ Ryan disaster.

If I was Theo I'd talk to the Mets about getting David Wright for Carlos Marmol and some prospects.

That would solve the Cubs' void at 3B left by Aramis Ramirez, and the Mets would have a Closer who can be good at times.

I can't imagine a "closer that can be good at times" is what the Mets would look for as a centerpiece if they deal Wright.

He's got promise. He can be good.

It won't happen, but...

If a guy only "can be good," you should not trade one your best players to get him.

It wouldn't be the first time.

So you take a shot at the Mets (or whomever) for making a move like this, yet you're suggesting it be made?

You're an idiot.

Our first Latin American Winter Baseball disaster story of the season: Nationals Catcher Wilson Ramos has been kidnapped.

LOL where'd you read that?

people on twitter are reporting it all over

@Oficialtigres Tigres de Aragua
Lamentablemente la noticia del secuestro de Wilson Ramos fué confirmada, presuntamente el mismo ocurrió en su casa en Valencia...

33 minutes ago via TweetDeck Favorite Retweet Reply

Cubs currently interviewing Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux while Cardinals were rumored to have started early talks with Terry Francona. Most likely if Cubs get Maddux, then the Red Sox would go after Tampa Bay's assistant manager.

Jorge Posda hints his career with the Yankees is officially over and has no interest in playing for them next year.

It appears either MLB or a judge has officially prevented the Dodgers from making any free agency moves until the sale of the team is completed so any plans for a Pujohls or Prince Fielder bid are on hold for the moment.

Jays apparently in the running for Bailey, Papelbon or Nathan.

Mike Maddux would be the best choice for the Cubs, but you've gotta wonder if his heart is 100% into managing right now. He's said that all his family is in Texas, that he feels comfortable there, and that if offered the job, he'd have to talk with his family and that it'd be a tough decision. So I don't know, I don't think he's 100% committed.

I wonder if they are planning on trading Loney. Either that or I guess they are gonna teach him how to play a different position.