- Russell Martin also won the Tip O'Neill Award. (http://www.baseball.ca/eng_news_story.cfm?NewsID=1177)

- I believe the surname of the longtime trainer who was fired is actually Johnston.

Also, I note with great trepidation that Vin Scully is entering his "contract year," as he's signed only through 2008. Here's hoping he doesn't become a free agent.

http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2007/02/madam_im_ankled.html

Don't see that everyday.

Like, say, here:

http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout=slanguage

"A classic (and enduring) Variety term meaning to quit or be dismissed from a job, without necessarily specifying which"

The fact is, it's a pretty useful word.

In other words, there's a pretty good chance.

Someone must've messed up because I was watching his game highlights just the other day.

Only a matter of time until it re-directs to

http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=451532

It's so ridiculous to complain about what Alex Rodriguez is making when baseball is swimming in so much cash that Tomko can disappoint organization after organization and still receive $3 million. The soon-to-be 35-year-old had a 5.55 ERA while pitching in two of the National League's bigger ballparks last season. Once in 10 years -- with the Giants in 2004 -- has he actually met the expectations a team had for him. There's simply way too much money being made by baseball if he's worth $3 million.

I should have a much more manageable 44 to deal with tomorrow.

Sadly a pitcher that you know will probably be below average instead of horrible is worth about three million these days. Looking at the avialable options, Tomko might have been the best pitcher still on the market.

LT last week said it was the first time he has ever hurt either one of his knees, so a certain amount of caution is understandable. It's his career and he gets to decide such matters. But he also can't guarantee that he'll ever have another chance to play for a trip to the Super Bowl, so as I see it, the time to try to play the hero was now. No guts, no glory, and all that stuff.

Seems to me that Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers (knee) and tight end Antonio Gates (dislocated toe) were playing hurt and gutting it out, but not Tomlinson, who has never lacked for toughness in his football career. He was probable for most of the week, and didn't even end the week on the injury list. More than anything, I'm just surprised. Maybe he's close to tearing something, knows it, and didn't want to take any chances. [...]

I'll say this: Willis Reed, he's not.

But football does have the "warrior mentality." I don't know if it's a good one. It's possible that Tomlinson was just one bad cut away from turning in to Ki-Jana Carter.

A lot of the newer measures of football performance have come to the conclusion that running back is actually a somewhat overrated position. Look at how Denver would just anoint someone as the starting running back and they would get 1000 yards a season no matter who they were.

There are great running backs and some have a lot more talent than others, but I'd rather have a team with great receivers. I say this as a fan of UCLA who watched a team that had no guys who were deep threats and the most TD catches any player had was 4.

Like I said: invest your money in the offensive line (and conversely, the defensive line).

First of all, I'm pretty sure it was clear to everyone that LT was not 100%. As if such an accurate percentage rating was possible, Phil Simms reported before the game that LT said himself he was 90% and could make his cuts. That's not 100%.

Second of all, Norv said LT hurt himself during his first two drives, which would make all the talk of being 100% during the week irrelevant.

I have to disagree with some of you on this one. It's one thing when you're going through the regular season like Rafael Furcal did and play through injury when a simple month off would have benefitted the team much more.

It is another thing entirely when, in the most important game of your career, you sit out after being more than 70% healthy. LT let down a lot of people yesterday and quite frankly, he could have been the difference between the Chargers winning and losing. The Patriots did not play very well yesterday and the SD defensive line was playing up to par. Rivers and Gates were potentially more banged up than LT and they wound up being quite servicable during the game. I have to take the side of SI for this one.

Jerry Crusnick- ESPN

But, where do you get the 70% figure for LT? Why can't you accept that he re-aggravated the injury during the first moments of the game, as was reported? The doctors and trainers said LT couldn't play, so he didn't.

Side point: I have no idea what the doctors and trainers said regarding Rivers, but I'm assuming he played despite the warnings not too. However, for all the accolades being thrust upon Rivers, couldn't Volek have done better than, or reasonably similar to 51.4% passing with 0 TD and 2 INT? That's something to think about when factoring in whether an injured player should play.

Hopefully, they can whether the storm after this season's 26-11 start.

http://weblogs.variety.com/season_pass/2008/01/friday-night-li.html#more

I did the math. It doesn't make sense.

So, with Mauer, McCann, and Molina, all the young, talented 'M' catchers in baseball have been locked up long-term except for one.

I get over 300 emails a day. And none of them are spam

Mayne...?

For me it conjured up an image of someone being thrown overboard with sandbags attached to their ankles.

The worse thing will be the voicemails. I hate going through my voicemails as they almost always are from people who talk too long about something unimportant or they should have just sent me an email.

I'm like Paul DePodesta, I don't want to talk on the phone unless it's important.

Victor Martinez (signed in 2005 with 1 yr, 114 days service time):
$1m signing bonus
2nd yr - $500k
3rd yr - $800k
arb yr 1 - $3m
arb yr 2 - $4.25m
arb yr 3 - $5.7m
FA yr 1 - $7m option ($250k buyout)
Total contract - 5 yrs, $15.5m

Brian McCann (signed in 2007 with 1 yr, 117 days service time):
$1m signing bonus
2nd yr - $500k
3rd yr - $800k
arb yr 1 - $3.5m
arb yr 2 - $5.5m
arb yr 3 - $6.5m
FA yr 1 - $8.5m
FA yr 2 - $12m option ($500k buyout)
Total contract - 6 yrs, $26.8m

Joe Mauer (signed in 2007 with 3 yrs service time - not an exact comp):
arb yr 1 - $3.75m
arb yr 2 - $6.25m
arb yr 3 - $10.5m
FA yr 1 - $12.5m
Total contract - 4 yrs, $33m

NEW - Yadier Molina (signed in 2008 with 3 yrs, 123 days service time):
$250k signing bonus
arb yr 1 - $1.75m
arb yr 2 - $3.25m
arb yr 3 - $4.25m
FA yr 1 - $5.25m
FA yr 2 - $7m option ($750k buyout; option increases to $7.5m if traded)
Total contract - 4 yrs, $15.25m

Martin currently has 1 year, 150 days service time, and will be arbitration eligible as a "Super Two" next offseason, and will have 4 years of arbitration eligibility.

I'm certain Martin will be locked up before the 2009 arbitration hearings, but it might behoove the Dodgers to save some money by making the deal now.

__x__ Sign Jones
__x__ Sign Kuroda
_____ Figure out what we're doing about Pierre
_____ Lock up Martin

They just haven't gotten to that part of the list yet.

>> "I have managed players with (consecutive games) streaks before," Torre said. "In New York, I had Hideki Matsui (518). In Atlanta, I had Dale Murphy (740). I remember going to (then-Braves owner) Ted Turner's office one day and telling him I thought Dale Murphy would be better off not playing every game. Ted said he was playing every game, and that was that. But when it comes to streaks, it's something I would address with the individual player and try to gauge how important it is to the player." <<

http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_8003811

I think the Dodgers are going about it the right way with Martin & like you said he's gonna be locked up most likely in '09.

>> Last winter, the Dodgers were able to make their case to a panel of arbitrators largely on Beimel being unavailable during the first-round playoff loss to the New York Mets because he cut his hand on a broken glass while drinking in a bar two nights before the series opener. It is believed that incident played a major role in the club winning its case against Beimel last February <<

http://www.dailybreeze.com/ci_8015624

The one guy who handled arbitration cases who spoke at a SABR meeting said that the only player he thought ever won a case on the basis of his personality was David Eckstein. Guys like John Rocker and Kevin Brown, who aren't exactly warm and cuddly types, weren't affected.

The legend grows.

Also, from the NY Times...
"February 23, 1996
HIDEO NOMO became the first Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher ever to sign a multiyear deal after his rookie season when he agreed to terms of a three-year contract yesterday. Terms of the deal were not released, but the package is believed to be worth about $4.3 million."

http://tinyurl.com/38yxjk

The contract ran through his first 2 arb years. I love that the article linked above, from 1994, begins with "The Los Angeles Dodgers continued their commitment to youth."

I find myself wondering where all of this optimism about locking up Martin next year is coming from. It would not surprise me at all to see Martin end up in arbitration at least once.

(a) avoiding the corrosive arbitration process
(b) creating goodwill among fellow young players, fans, etc by locking up a young star
(c) saving money over the life of the deal (albeit with the risk of losing money if Martin gets hurt), especially if they can include 1 or 2 FA years like the Rockies are doing with Tulo.

Someone Martin's age would have to be way over confident to turn down something like 6/44 right now.

The way things look right now, Martin, Loney, Kemp, Billingsley, Broxton, Abreu, LaRoche, Ethier, and (assuming he's still good) Saito will all become free agents within about two years of each other. That is going to be very, very expensive for McCourt.

Now, trying to jump from 70 wins to 95 might not be the brightest idea to begin with.

http://tinyurl.com/2p4rk5

Long-Term Contracts (10)
Chase Utley - signed 7/$85 before 1st arb year (2007)
David Wright - signed 6/$55 before 3rd season (2007)
Joe Mauer - signed 4/$33 before 1st arb year (2007)
Brian McCann - signed 6/$26.8 before 2nd season (2007)
Jake Peavy - signed 5/$25.5 (after option and escalators) before 1st arb year (2005)
Jose Reyes - signed 4/$23.5 before 1st arb year (2007)
Grady Sizemore - signed 6/$23.45m before 2nd season (2006)
Matt Holliday - signed 2/$23 before 2nd arb year (2008)
Chris Young - signed 4/$14.5m before 3rd season (2007)
Brian Fuentes - signed 2/$5.5 before 1st arb year (2006)

Seven of the 10 bought out at least one year of free agency.

Signed One-Year Contracts (2)
Miguel Cabrera - signed 1/$11.3 (2nd arb year) - working on long term deal with Tigers; 4 years service time
Scott Kazmir - signed 1/$3.785 (1st arb year)

Still Indentured (14)
Freddy Sanchez - 4yrs service time (in 2nd arb 2008)
J.J. Hardy - 3yrs service time (in arb 2008)
Alex Rios - 3yrs service time (in arb 2008)
Robinson Cano - 2.153 service time (in arb 2008)
Ryan Howard - 2.145 service time (in arb 2008)
Francisco Liriano - 2yrs service time
Dan Uggla - 2yrs service time
Prince Fielder - 2yrs service time
Takashi Saito - 2yrs service time
Bobby Jenks - 2yrs service time
Jonathan Papelbon - 2yrs service time
Justin Verlander - 2yrs service time (still under major league contract signed when drafted)
Russell Martin - 1.150 service time
Cole Hamels - 1.143 service time

For the 16 still yet unsigned to a long-term deal, I would bet at least Howard, Fielder, and Martin will have deals done before the 2009 season starts.

They are signing him to a 6/30mils contract. His 5th/6th years he would have been a free agent I believe, so they are basically paying him 2/10 for those years. Thats a great deal, when he'll probably we worth 2/30 at that point.

The 2nd half of your statement is the only reason IMO that MLB teams would ever buy out arbitration years. The clubs only save money if they get to buy out 1 or 2 FA years.

To me, its very risky for clubs to buy out arbitration years bc generally arbitration rewards have been a slow progression upward even for the best players. Plus, as with a long term deal, the risk of injury is there also.

One of DePo's bad moves was signing Gagne and avoiding arbitration. That cost the club some unnecessary cash that they ended up paying for a hurt Gagne. With the club seemingly knowing about the steroid accusations on the club surrounding LoDuca, I'm very suprised they ended up giving Gagne his deal.

1st yr (2008) - $3m
2nd yr (2009) - $4.6m
3rd yr (2010) - $5.6m

Through 2007, Sizemore has hit .283/.369/.488, 124 OPS+, as a CF

Matt Holliday, through his 3rd season (2006), hit .310/.368/.533, 121 OPS+, as a RF.

Holliday earned $4.4m in his first arb year (2007), and of course cashed in a monster 2007 with a 2/$23 contract to finish out his arb years.

Being conservative, let's give Sizemore the following if he went through the arbitration process:

2008 - $4.4m (same as Holliday)
2009 - $6.4m ($3.1m less than Holliday)
2010 - $8.4m ($3.1m less than Holliday)

This new projection would cost the Indians $19.2m, a cool $6m more than they are paying Sizemore in total over the next 3 years.

So, it's not just the FA years that the club can benefit from.

Man oh man, if only Minaya had never traded Brandon Phillips, Cliff Lee, and Sizemore for three months of Bartolo Colon...I guess though that would have prevented the hilarious insanity that will be the 2008 Nationals OF...

Tomko eager to 'grind' for Royals

The Dodgers had changed his delivery and his velocity dropped alarmingly.

"We just stripped down my mechanics, went back to my first 10 years in the big leagues and just tried to throw what was natural for me. It was night-and-day," Tomko said.

Meantime, the San Diego Padres called, seeking his help for their stretch run.

"I came back to San Diego, my velocity was back up to the low- to mid-90s and when I got back to starting, it was like a whole new pitcher," he said.

http://tinyurl.com/2xo9gw

I just read Ken Gurnik's mailbag & that up top is so true but it's true of most all pitchers, it's like they go on tunnel vision of some kind...

Here is the boxscore:
http://tinyurl.com/24thyu

Dreifort gave it up.

http://tinyurl.com/2b5rpd

"I trained hard over the winter and came in ready," he said. "They [management] know I want a starting spot and they're giving me every opportunity to get it. I'm not worried about it or thinking about it too much, but over the winter I really got after it and tried to put myself in a position to be a prepared as I could be and whatever happens, happens. It's not like this is my second or third camp. It's my 11th Spring Training. I kind of know the ropes and what it takes."

"I'm not saying I have to prove myself, but I want to be consistent so people know I can do the job," he said. "When I'm on, I feel I'm as good as anybody. I just need to be more consistent."

As you can imagine, he got all of that ball.

Alan Foster and Andy Messersmith gave up the homers to Stargell. Frank Castillo gave up the home run to Piazza.

Also, I didn't hear anything about Camille Johnston. What happened to her?

"Looking at the list, I think the younger players - Kazmir, Hamels, Carmona, Davies, and Garza - are at the highest risk, making Chad Billingsley the top candidate for problems. I think we may have started to see this at the end of the season when his control began fading. That's often a precursor of elbow problems."

Billingsley's MLB IP progression: 90, 147

Common sense would indicate that one minor league innings can't be the equivalent of zero, but could be less than one, major league inning. My initial guess would be that a pitcher good enough to be a serious prospect and/or in the majors is good enough to put away a significant number of minor league hitters on less pitches and/or less strenuous pitches than when he is facing all major league hitters.

Stan from Tacoma

Start IP BB Pitches
12 5 1 84
13 7 2 93
14 7 1 99
15 7 1 95
16 6 0 94
17 6 4 109
18 5.3 3 102
19 5.7 4 95
20 1.3 3 54

I do worry that if Billingsley is considered the #3 starter, that that comes with a 210+ IP workload; a 40%+ increase that might be significant to his development. I wouldn't be averse to a skipped start or 15-day DL at the slightest provocation, out of concern for the long term.

Billingsley started 20 games in 2007.
First 10 starts: 28 walks in 56.7 innings (4.45 BB/9)
Last 10 starts: 23 walks in 55.3 innings (3.75 BB/9)

And that last group is including the meaningless disaster that was his last game.

As Canuck recently (and others) have pointed out, Billingsley's mechanics are good and he does use those strong legs of his well; hopefully that is keeping some strain off his arm.

It has rained multiple times over the past few weeks, including a couple inches of snow the other day. But I think we're still 7-9 inches below normal.

However, 18 1/3 IP is not much from which to draw a trend of "fading control".

For a half-second, I was thinking it was a piece about our old friend. Then I realized there's very little Don Sutton could do these days to merit a front-page article on ESPN.com.

There is no way you can argue with that...

http://www.baseball-reference.com/pi/event_hr.cgi?n1=billich01&type=p

Also, doesn't Matt Holliday's shot from 2006 count as leaving Dodger Stadium? It was the longest homer I've ever witnessed in person. It hit a palm tree in the back of the Dodger bullpen, the only reason it didn't come close to my car.

I wasn't a big fan of him or Ishii, but watching what happened to each of them humbled my fanaticism when railing on players that frustrate me.

I'm happy to pay him 1 mil to pitch for KC. Beats paying Fatdalis 8 mil to pitch for them.

Turiaf is +16 tonight in 12 minutes. Vujacic is +11 in 8 minutes.

He's done it off and on for college basketball games for close to 20 years.

http://tinyurl.com/yw9zg7

What reminded me of Worrell was the constant liner notes of "Worrell threw off the mound today and reported no stiffness" or "Worrell threw fifty times from flat ground at decreased velocity while working on building arm strength".

WSU +2 (4-1 actual record)
UCLA +1 (4-1)
ASU +1 (4-1)
Oregon +1 (3-3)
Stanford 0 (4-2)
USC 0 (2-3)
Arizona 0 (2-3)
Wash. -1 (2-3)
Cal -2 (2-4)
OSU -2 (0-6)

But I doubt there is any danger of this.