MLB Offseason 2012

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Brian Wilson to...Mets? Linky

God knows, the bullpen could use somebody like him.

[SmoothieX]

I read the Mets want nothing to do with him. Dude's a head case coming off tommy John surgery.

[Use of Time]

Michael Morse to the Mariners. Strange.

[Tom Hendricks]

Looks like MLB will institute the new balk rule voted on in 2012 and the Players Association vetoed. The Third to First step-off will now be a balk. While I agree with it being a balk, I wish they would add the Step Towards First as well. Usually left handers who raise their leg and then step towards First, catching runners breaking on motion. I think that all "pick-offs" should require Stepping Off the rubber.

Another little tidbit is teams will be able to add additional coach, an interpreter and this coach can visit the mound with the Manager. Now when the Manager yells at the Pitcher to just thrown the fucking ball, the non-english speaking Pitcher will understand.

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Earl Weaver has died. Linky

[Tom Hendricks]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Earl Weaver has died. Linky

Just saw this myself. I always liked him as a manager, will be missed.

[Timby]

Earl Weaver was ahead of his time. He understood that outs were precious, and stealing / bunting were giving up outs. In a way, he pioneered Moneyball.

For any baseball fans in general, I highly recommend picking up Palmer and Weaver: Together We Were Eleven Foot Nine by Jim Palmer and Jim Dale, which discusses Palmer's career with the Orioles and hundreds of his interactions with Earl.

His language goes from colorful to off-color to only words that rhyme with duck.

And you don't have to be at Earl's table to hear him. In fact, you don't have to be in Minneapolis to hear him. Blue hair is turning bluer. Salesmen are blushing. Women gasp. Men gasp. Then nobody gasps because everyone is silent.

Earl rocks back in his chair, just about to come forward and pound the table for emphasis and a refill. Nature phones in. Earl's gotta relieve himself. Right now. A little too loud, about the volume of a good p.a. system, he bellows, "Where's the toilet?"

A guy at the table next to him says, "The toilet's in your mouth."

Earl rocks forward. Hmm. He's pretty sure that's not the location he was looking for. He makes his way from the table, across the room, and over to the door with the large "M" and little plastic man on it.

While he's in there, he must be thinking, Maybe, just maybe, I was a touch louder than I should have been. Possibly, my language wasn't quite as delicate as it could have been. Perhaps, I was a vile pig.

Now, Earl really never meant to hurt anyone. Okay, maybe the players and the coaches and the umpires and most of major league baseball, but no real people. So, he feels bad. He better make amends.

He comes back into the dining room. On his way, he stops at the offended table. Not all of them. That would have taken all night. But at the one where the guy suggested that Earl's mouth only needed a handle in order to flush.

Earl looks at the people at the table with every ounce of sincerity he can muster. His voice is low and discreet. His manner is dignified. He leans over intimately and says, "I'm sorry. You lose a tough one and you can't get a table in the dining room and you have a few drinks and pretty soon the 'cock suckers' and 'mother fuckers' just come out."

[Ar-Pharazon]

And now Stan "The Man" Musial has passed.

Story

[Timby]

Phillies sign Delmon Young.

Oh, Ruben Amaro, I love you and you are the gift that never stops giving, please continue your fine tradition of "Rube gonna rube."

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Oh God, not this shit again... Linky

[Alidar Jarok]

Timby wrote:

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Phillies sign Delmon Young.

Oh, Ruben Amaro, I love you and you are the gift that never stops giving, please continue your fine tradition of "Rube gonna rube."

Well, it shows our outfield is shit. In spite of the off the field issues, he's still a low risk player (one year, 750,000). And his competition isn't heads and shoulders better. I think it makes sense.

[Ar-Pharazon]

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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Oh God, not this shit again... Linky

C'mon, those aren't as bad as the old Astros uniforms....at least that's something.

Plus the throwup version has a belt, so it won't be as easy to pull a Steve Lyons.

[Timby]

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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Well, it shows our outfield is shit. In spite of the off the field issues, he's still a low risk player (one year, 750,000). And his competition isn't heads and shoulders better. I think it makes sense.

The problem is that the Phillies already have their quota of "longshot right-handed no-defense corner outfielders who probably shouldn't start" filled, and that there's an actual chance that both of those players will in fact start a significant number of games. There's also Rube's inexplicable hatred of Dom Brown, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

In any event, the Phillies might actually have the worst defense in baseball, now. I mean, their infield:

1B: Ryan Howard
2B: The deceased remains of Chase Utley
3B: Michael Young
SS: Jimmy Rollins

Their outfield is Delmon Young, Ben Revere, and who the fuck cares -- even if you had Mike Trout out there, that defense is going to give up so many unearned runs.

The infield alone might be the worst infield in recent memory, even worse than Cabrera, Fielder, Peralta, and Raburn. The Phillies have basically 3 DHs and they're starting them all in the field. This is going to be amazing.

There's also that whole "FUCKING JEWS!" thing with Young. I mean, I'd understand interest in Young if he were "just" a horrible human but still had redeeming qualities as a player. But he's almost as bad a player as he is a person, so what the fuck could Rube possibly see in him? The Mariners kicked the tires on him and decided to pass, for heaven's sake.

[Alidar Jarok]

My only point is that, in the past, the scary thing is that Amaro bets the farm on players with huge contracts or by trading key prospects. This isn't that. They can cut him if they wanted to without many adverse consequences the second someone else is clearly better or he starts becoming a distraction.

[Timby]

Alidar Jarok wrote:

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My only point is that, in the past, the scary thing is that Amaro bets the farm on players with huge contracts or by trading key prospects. This isn't that. They can cut him if they wanted to without many adverse consequences the second someone else is clearly better or he starts becoming a distraction.

Rube went full retard, outside of the AAV. It's just that "Delmon Young is an awful person" and "Delmon Young is an awful baseball player," and that decision will have to be made in a 2013 in which Young is projected to be the everyday RF, so it's hard to understand what on Earth the Phillies were thinking with this move. I cannot see any good way in which this ends well for the Phillies.