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Rich Hill needed a change of scenery. Hopefully he will be successful in Baltimore.

how much do you think jon heyman gets paid to be scott boras's official messenger in the media?

According to MLB.com's Adam McCalvy and T.R. Sullivan, Ben Sheets has a torn flexor tendon in his elbow that might require surgery. There is some debate as to whether the Brewers would have to pay for the procedure. The Rangers and Sheets agreed to a two-year deal last week, but the physical threw a wrench into it. GM Jon Daniels says he's not optimistic at this point.

The injury first surfaced late in the '08 season, but until Sheets' physical with the Rangers it was thought that rehab would be sufficient. As many readers have pointed out, if Sheets has surgery and signs after the June draft he'll no longer cost a draft pick to sign.

so if we were to sign sheets that wouldve been the 3rd pitcher to have been out for at least half the season and we are a week and a half from pitchers and catchers

Too bad for Sheets.

Bad for the Brewers too. We might have to pay for his surgery and we won't get a draft pick for him since his recovery time is 9-10 months and I doubt a team signs him before June.

If Kenny Williams ends up signing Abreu for $8M and deals Dye for a pitching prospect and/or bullpen help I will shoot off a stunning cornucopia of Wintertime fireworks.

It's just the kind of move that'll vault the White Sox from a paltry 77 to a magnificent 83 wins.

Actually it won't because swapping Dye for Abreu (or Dye for Abreu and bullpen help) won't net you six wins. In fact with Abreu's quickly diminishing walk totals i'd probably rather have Dye at this point.

They are pretty much equal players honestly. Their offense and defense are pretty much the exact same, runs wise. Both are 1.5 WAR/150 players, which means neither are worth more than 7M really and Dye makes over 4M more than that.

Dodgers Sign Randy Wolf

Rich Hill was on a local sports show tonight. Apparently he had a back injury all last year and he tried to pitch through it which resulted in the bad year he had.

HCYanks wrote:Actually it won't because swapping Dye for Abreu (or Dye for Abreu and bullpen help) won't net you six wins. In fact with Abreu's quickly diminishing walk totals i'd probably rather have Dye at this point.

I think Abreu is a better fit than Dye. The White Sox need more OBP and speed guys -- Abreu's downgrade in power is more than made up for by the rest of the team, and his plusses are Dye's minuses.

I don't think it'll end up happening though.

The key to our season will be whether the band-aids we put over second base and centerfield hold, and whether our fat Cuban can be an impact guy right away like Ramirez was. I think our pitching will be fine -- save for one season, Don Cooper has always squeezed more out of the Sox staff than they conceivably had. I wouldn't be surprised to see someone like Clayton Richard grab the 5 spot and find himself 12 or 13 wins.

Andruw Jones to the Rangers.

BP has their projected standings up.

http://baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/

PECOTA loves Weiters and thinks Adam Jones will improve, which means it thinks the O's will have the 2nd best offense in the AL. You can infer that it would have the Orioles in competition in the other two AL divisions.

I'm not sure the Orioles will really be that good, but damn, the AL East is scary.

HCYanks wrote:BP has their projected standings up.

http://baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/

PECOTA loves Weiters and thinks Adam Jones will improve, which means it thinks the O's will have the 2nd best offense in the AL. You can infer that it would have the Orioles in competition in the other two AL divisions.

I'm not sure the Orioles will really be that good, but damn, the AL East is scary.

The top 60%, at least. There's no way that Toronto has a top-3 pitching staff in the league this year, as the rotation as currently constituted consists of:

-Halladay;
-A guy with a K/9 of 5.1, a talented but wildly inconsistent youngster;
-A guy returning from major surgery who struggled in his previous time as a starter, owing to the fact that his mechanics go to hell after 60 pitches;
-Three Grade F retreads; and
-One very solid prospect.

The bullpen should be good again, but even 4.3/game (which is a full 81 runs worse than last year) seems extremely optimistic. BP basically pegs them to be good enough to win the Central or West, taking skeds into consideration, and I can't quite wrap my head around that.

Blue Jays could probably wreck most of the NL and the Orioles could probably win either of the other AL two divisions as well as the NL West I bet. AL East probably has the three best teams in baseball and the top four could be among the top-6 or so. Kinda sucks for the third place team. Looking at it, how many NL teams are legit better than the Blue Jays? Cubs and Mets? Maybe the Braves or Phillies?

Bleeding Green wrote:and the Orioles could probably win either of the other AL two divisions as well as the NL West I bet.

You smoke rocks?

The O's have the worst pitching staff in baseball outside of Texas. I mean, PECOTA is depending on Rich Hill to be their second best starter this season. You think they're better than the Diamondbacks?

On a quick glance, I'd say PECOTA is overrating the Jays. It's giving Dustin McGowan 150 IP, which simply isn't going to happen.

I think the Tigers are going to easily outperform their expectations. I'm a big Edwin Jackson fan. PECOTA's VORP for him (4.0?) is way too low.

Bleeding Green wrote:Blue Jays could probably wreck most of the NL and the Orioles could probably win either of the other AL two divisions as well as the NL West I bet. AL East probably has the three best teams in baseball and the top four could be among the top-6 or so. Kinda sucks for the third place team. Looking at it, how many NL teams are legit better than the Blue Jays? Cubs and Mets? Maybe the Braves or Phillies?

Last year, absolutely...the Jays were only one game back of the Rays in Pyth W/L, and would have cruised to a division title in the AL Central, NL East or NL West. Unfortunately, they are down nearly 500 IP pitched at an ERA+ of 110, and the likelihood that the bullpen achieves anything similar to last year's absurd success is pretty remote. I worry about Halladay's arm coming off 246 innings at 107 pitches/start, and doubt very much that the offense improves unless Lind and Snider blow up. Unfortunately, 2008 was probably the high-water mark of the team as currently constituted.

OK, maybe I went overboard, but the Orioles would be extremely competitive in the NL West. They have a horrible pitching staff partly because they have to pitch to the Red Sox, Rays and Yankees in over 1/3 of their games. Put them in the NL West where they get to pitch to cupcakes like the Padres, Giants and Dodgers and it's a big difference. I don't see why the Orioles wouldn't save 75 runs over the course of the season if they pitched in the NL West.

There is "some" truth in that.