The Detroit Tigers must feel like the Mariners pulled some sort of elaborate switcheroo, sending them Jared Fogle, not Jarrod Washburn, in that deadline deal back in July.

The veteran left-hander, who used an improved Mariners outfield defense, a spacious park, and the heavy Seattle air to put together an amazing first half, has simply been a different player since heading to Detroit. Check out the difference:

In Seattle: 8-6, 2.64 ERA, 1.068 WHIP, 79 strikeouts and 33 walks in 133 innnings.
In Detroit: 1-2, 6.81 ERA, 1.405 WHIP, 18 strikeouts and 11 walks in 31.1 innings.

On Monday against Tampa Bay, Washburn allowed the first six batters to reach base in what became an 11-7 defeat. He left the mound to boos from Tigers fans after allowing eight runs in 5 2/3 innings.

"He certainly didn't have very good success today," Detroit manager Jim Leyland said.

"Some of it by his own doing and some of it was that's just the way it is sometimes.
"Sometimes it just isn't your day."

So what happened to Washburn?

Seattle's defense is exceptional, leading baseball in UZR (ultimate zone rating). At times, one got the sense Washburn was just throwing the ball in there and letting Ichiro and Franklin Gutierrez chase down everything. And his 21.4 percent line drive rate and 42.5 percent fly ball rate while with Seattle give that theory some credence.

But Detroit's defense is not bad by any means. In fact, it's quite good, rated No. 6 in all of baseball in UZR.

And when you consider that Washburn's BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is actually lower in Detroit (.241 vs. .248), it seems unlikely that the Tigers' defense is the main culprit.

So if it's not the defense, is Washburn simply regressing to the mean? After all, his career numbers don't (107-107, 4.05 ERA), hint at a rather average pitcher who has had a couple of exceptional seasons. Or is it, as Leyland says, "just the way it is sometimes."

Perhaps a little bit of both. But either way, Tigers fans must feel like they got hoodwinked.

******

If you Twitter, feel free to follow me at @Bharks.

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)
No. 19 - Houston
No. 18 - Oakland
No. 17 - St. Louis
No. 16 - Florida
No. 15 - San Francisco
No. 14 - Texas
No. 13 - Cleveland
No. 12 - Minnesota
No. 11 - Arizona
No. 10 - Los Angeles (AL)

Coming in ninth is one of the game's model franchises from the 1990's. Fortunately, there's still plenty of talent left over from the era.

Rotation
Roy Halladay
Chris Carpenter
Ricky Romero
Shawn Marcum
Dustin McGowan

Bullpen
Brandon Lyon
David Weathers
Brett Cecil
Kelvim Escobar
Brandon League
Casey Janssen
Alfredo Aceves

As one might expect given recent history, it'd be a deep pitching staff with everyone healthy. Of course, Carpenter, Marcum, McGowan, Escobar and Janssen have all missed huge chunks of time the last couple of years with arm problems. Alternate fifth starter Jesse Litsch is in the same boat, and while Dave Bush hasn't undergone shoulder surgery yet, he's been a wreck lately. If you want to replace McGowan with someone who isn't such an iffy bet going forward, you could plug Cecil or Mark Rzepczynski into the fifth spot. Rzepczynski and Mark Hendrickson were next in line for bullpen spots.

Even with so many others hurt, Halladay and Carpenter counted for an awful lot here. The bullpen, on the other hand, couldn't be rated very highly with so many question marks.

Lineup
LF Gabe Gross
SS Aaron Hill
DH Adam Lind
3B Michael Young
1B Carlos Delgado
CF Alex Rios
RF Vernon Wells
2B Orlando Hudson
C Robinzon Diaz

Bench
1B-3B Casey Blake
INF Cesar Izturis
OF Reed Johnson
C Kevin Cash

The Jays have had plenty of failed catching prospects over the years, and the inability to develop even a quality backup has dropped them a couple of spots in these rankings. 2007 first-round pick J.P. Arencibia was the one alternative to the Diaz-Cash duo, but he's hit .227/.275/.416 this year in a terrific environment for hitters at Triple-A Las Vegas. Also, he's an unexceptional defender.

The rest of the lineup is pretty impressive, even if there's no real leadoff man in the bunch. Gabe Gross, who is getting on base 36 percent of the time for the Rays, seemed like the best choice, if only because I wanted Young hitting in the middle of the order. Rios would be another option when he has his act together.

Failing to make the team, even though there were good cases for both, were Felipe Lopez and Travis Snider. I think Hill would be a solid shortstop, but if we're using him there, then it made sense to carry the more defensive-minded Izturis as the backup. Snider is well on his way to becoming a better player than Gross, but Gross has the advantage right now and Johnson can serve as his platoonmate.

Summary

This Blue Jays squad looks very good now, but it's well worth noting just how much of the talent was brought in before J.P. Ricciardi took over after the 2001 season. Hill and Lind are the only two legitimate position players Ricciardi has developed so far, though Snider is well on his way to being the third. Ricciardi has done a better job at bringing in talented pitchers, but he and his field staff can't seem to keep them healthy. Unless that changes and a few of the quality arms turn into strong rotation regulars, then the Jays won't find themselves still in the top 10 the next time these rankings are updated.

It's worked out well for the Cardinals, so now the Giants will try to give their rotation a boost by picking up one of Boston's castoffs. In this case, it's Brad Penny, who went 7-8 with a 5.61 ERA in his first and possibly last stint in the American League.

Penny's lack of success wasn't velocity related. According to Baseball Info Solutions data, he's averaging 94.0 mph with his fastball, tying him with Felix Hernandez for the eighth-best mark in baseball. The problem is that he couldn't come up with a second pitch to keep hitters even a little off balance. His usually reliable curveball let him down in a huge way against American League hitters, forcing him to try a slider occasionally of late. That seemed to be working better for him, though he still gave up eight runs to the Yankees in his final start with the team.

Odds are that things will go a whole lot better for Penny back in the NL. He's more familiar with the hitters, and he should get more defensive support from the Giants than he was from the Red Sox. He's not going to dominate unless he rediscovers his curve, but he should be a big upgrade from Joe Martinez in the fifth spot in San Francisco's rotation. He'll also have a month to see if he can unseat Jonathan Sanchez from the postseason rotation should the Giants claim the wild card or the NL West.

- Tim Hudson versus Josh Johnson would have been tonight's premier matchup, but the Braves have pushed Hudson back and opted to go with Kenshin Kawakami instead. Kawakami has lost both of his starts against the Marlins this season, amassing an 8.44 ERA in 10 2/3 innings. The last loss was in a matchup against Johnson on July 29. Including that win, Johnson is 6-1 in his last eight starts. His ERA, though, did creep over 3.00 for the first time all year when he gave up three runs in six innings against the Mets last week.

- Rich Harden reportedly will stick with the Cubs and face Roy Oswalt and the Astros tonight. With his 1.80 ERA and even more impressive 0.82 WHIP since the break, Harden has been one of the NL's best pitchers lately. Oswalt is 1-1 with a 5.25 ERA in four starts since returning from a back injury. The last two starts, though, were much better than the first two. The Cubs are the one NL Central team that Oswalt isn't over .500 against in his career. He's 12-12 with a 3.86 ERA against them.

Game of the Night

Chicago vs. Minnesota - One of the AL Central rivals will make up some ground on Detroit tonight after the Tigers lost their afternoon game against the Rays. Gavin Floyd will start for the skidding White Sox, who have lost seven of their last eight games. He's 7-3 with a 2.77 ERA in 16 starts since the beginning of June. Twins starter Nick Blackburn, on the other hand, has gotten a whole lot worse as the season has progressed. He entered the All-Star break at 8-4 with a 3.06 ERA, yet is 0-5 with an 8.22 ERA since. He's gone 2-1 with a 3.15 ERA in his three starts against the White Sox this year, but all of those came in the first half.

* Yesterday the Pirates lost in Milwaukee for the 21st straight time, which as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes is the the fifth-longest streak in baseball history for one team losing in a road city.

As manager John Russell put it: "I don't have an answer for that. It's a lot of games." The amazing thing is that the Brewers are 21-0 against the Pirates at Miller Park, but just 216-217 in all other games since 2007.

* Written off by the Cubs after struggling in limited playing time through the age of 23, Felix Pie is now showing that his strong minor-league track record is no fluke by hitting .272/.335/.457 with very good defense for the Orioles. Yet another reason why the future is looking pretty bright in Baltimore finally.

* Baseball-Reference.com passes along an interesting stat: Of the 20 active players who have the most career plate appearances without a homer, 19 of them are pitchers and one is ... Angels outfielder Reggie Willits. In fact, Willits sits atop the list with 785 homerless trips to the plate, although he has managed to post a strong .365 on-base percentage while swiping 37 bases. You need some serious plate discipline to draw 103 walks without homering even once.

* Like me, Phil Mushnick of the New York Post can't help but watch the Dodgers whenever the legendary Vin Scully is announcing the game. How often is an 81-year-old still at the very top of his profession?

* Not only are the Royals extending general manager Dayton Moore's contract, they're extending it through 2014. Good luck with that. And as a fan of one of the other AL Central teams, thanks.

Phillies prospect Kyle Drabek, who was reportedly deemed "off limits" in trade talks with the Blue Jays for Roy Halladay, has been shut down for the rest of this season and won't pitch in the Arizona Fall League or Florida Instructional League after logging 158 innings between high Single-A and Double-A.

He's not injured, so the Phillies are simply keeping their 21-year-old top prospect's workload in check after he went 12-3 with a 3.19 ERA and 149/50 K/BB ratio in his first full season back from Tommy John elbow surgery.

The son of former Cy Young winner Doug Drabek and a 2006 first-round pick, Drabek could work his way into the Phillies' plans as soon as the second half of next season and has top-of-the-rotation upside.

Last year Geovany Soto turned in one of the greatest rookie seasons ever from a catcher, hitting .285/.364/.504 with 23 homers, 35 doubles, and 62 walks in 141 games while gunning down 27 percent of steal attempts and helping Cubs pitchers post a 3.80 ERA when he was behind the plate.

He started the All-Star game, received 31 of 32 first-place votes in the Rookie of the Year balloting, and became just the 17th catcher in baseball history with an adjusted OPS+ of at least 120 as a 25-year-old. And now he's been benched. "I think we'll catch Koyie Hill a lot more," manager Lou Piniella said yesterday after the Cubs fell 10 games back in the NL Central. "It's been a struggle for Soto."

Piniella is right, because Soto's sophomore campaign that has definitely been a mess from the start. He suffered a shoulder injury just days into the season, got some bad press in June as a result of testing positive for marijuana during the World Baseball Classic, landed on the disabled list with an oblique injury in July, and has gone 6-for-47 (.128) since coming off the shelf. He's hitting just .212/.318/.371 in 84 games overall.

On the other hand, while that represents a massive dropoff from his rookie numbers .212/.318/.371 is still significantly better than Hill's career .215/.290/.311 line and basically equal to Hill's .245/.329/.347 mark this season. Soto has also done a solid job behind the plate, throwing out 30 percent of steal attempts and pitch-calling his way to a decent 4.16 ERA. In other words, "a struggle for Soto" is more or less Hill at his best.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Bruce Levine of ESPNChicago.com reports that Rich Harden will remain with the Cubs because the Twins failed to work out a trade after claiming him off waivers.

Harden is an impending free agent, so assuming the Cubs offer him arbitration and he declines they'll receive draft-pick compensation if he leaves. In other words, they had little reason to trade him unless the Twins were willing to part with multiple solid prospects.

Levine notes that Aaron Heilman will also remain with the Cubs after the Giants were unable to work something out following their waiver claim. Unlike Harden, Heilman remains under the Cubs' control as an arbitration-eligible player next season and is eligible for free agency in 2011.

* Tim Lincecum's next start has been pushed back one day after he threw a season-high 127 pitches while shutting out the Rockies for eight innings Friday. Lincecum has thrown 115 or more pitches in six of his last seven outings, so the Giants are definitely riding their 25-year-old ace extremely hard.

* As expected when he signed a minor-league contract last week, Jason Giambi will likely be among the Rockies' call-ups when rosters expand tomorrow. Giambi is 7-for-16 (.438) with two homers and five walks in five games at Triple-A after hitting just .193 in 83 games with the A's.

* Derek Jeter shot down last week's New York Post story claiming that he's engaged to actress Minka Kelly, because obviously you wouldn't want a nasty, vicious rumor like that spreading. Undeterred, the Post is now reporting that Alex Rodriguez and girlfriend Kate Hudson recently bought "matching straw hats for $45 each" Seriously, that's the lead item in a gossip column.

* Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune downplays a possible Twins trade for Rich Harden by noting that Minnesota hadn't even requested his medical records as of last night. Normally that may not be such a big deal, but I imagine that Harden's medical records come with their own team of handlers, like the Stanley Cup or an elephant.

There are reports that Minnesota is not willing to pay the price on their waiver claim of Rich Harden, but Phil Rogers of the Tribune says that "Twins general manager Bill Smith is going to wake up Monday, consider how catchable the Detroit Tigers remain and pay the price."

I dunno. The Twins are 4.5 games out.  Harden will get, what, 4-5 more starts in the last month? Maybe 6?  I know he can impact more than just the games in which he pitches by helping the bullpen and all of that, but there's not a ton I've seen from this Twins team that suggests to me that they have a strong, final-month run in them, with Harden or without him.  And it's not as if they'll be players for the soon-to-be free agent either.

Paul Byrd's gem couldn't have come at a better time:

Boston Red Sox right-hand pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka allowed five runs in the first inning of a rehab start for Boston's minor league affiliate Portland on Sunday.

According to the article, he suffered from no physical problems. Which, on some level, is actually more disturbing than if he had been injured because it suggests that this is good as it gets in Dice-K land anymore.

Tim Hudson was supposed to return for the Braves tonight, but because Nate McLouth won't be returning from the DL as scheduled they would have had to lose a position player to make room for Hudson.  By waiting until tomorrow -- when the rosters expand -- there's no worries.

Given the Braves' recent swoon, this probably only affects fantasy owners.

Not a major trade by any stretch of the imagination, though there is some lightning-in-a-bottle precedent with this sort of thing for the Dodgers.

For the Nats, any time you can unload a guy like Belliard for anything you've done yourself proud, and in this Luis Garcia guy they're getting from the Dodgers, they got at least a little something. To be sure, he's no major prospect, but he's young, reportedly has nice velocity and some upside, and there will apparently be another arm coming back as well.

Nice work, Mike Rizzo.

Nothing official yet, but the phrases "pulled from game due to elbow tightness" and "will know more after a series of tests" tend not to be followed by "will make his next start as scheduled" very often.

Actually, they're very often followed by the phrase "is scheduled to fly to Alabama to meet with Dr. James Andrews."

I probably would have guessed five guys before I got to the real answer of that question, and given who he is and where he plays, I probably would have gotten him before most of you would have.

It's almost as if someone is trying to tell Scott Boras something:

A swarm of bees invaded his dugout-level suite at Angel Stadium  on Sunday, though Boras didn't appear to be at the game between Los Angeles and the Oakland Athletics.

The bees occupied his front-row seats directly behind home plate for the first two innings. They were removed with the help of a vacuum during the third inning.

After the game, Boras circulated a three-inch binder to every team explaining how the bees are every bit as valuable as Albert Pujols and Johan Santana combined.  Jon Heyman then reported that the bees would swarm in either Japan or the independent leagues next year if necessary. Finally, just before midnight, Boras convinced Dave Dombrowski to sign the the bees to a major league contract worth $10.2 million.

Say what you want, but the guy is amazing.

Giants 9, Rockies 5: What a difference a week makes. Heck, not even a week. Six days after the Rockies beat the Giants on a grand slam, the Giants do it to the Rockies, courtesy of Edgar Renteria. Given the Dodgers' relatively uninteresting play lately, I think I'm going to squint my eyes until the end of the season and pretend that this is a bonafide pennant race as opposed to a wild card race.

Red Sox 7, Blue Jays 0: Papa-oom-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow-mow, papa-oom-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow (6 IP, 3 H, 0 ER). Not that we should be surprised. Byrd has always done well on 340 days rest.

Royals 3, Mariners 0: More dominance from Zack Greinke (CG, SHO 1 H). We can only hope that the writers are smart enough to realize come awards voting time that Greinke's win total is a function of his team. Given the extremes involved here, I think they will. If he had won 15-16 wins for a middling team like the Twins or the Brewers, someone would be tempted to say that Greinke wasn't a "winner." That many wins with a profoundly terrible Royals team will be viewed as a positive rather than a negative. In other words, he'll get the Steve Carlton-in-72 vote.

Angels 9, Athletics 1: After the game, John Lackey talked about how this Angels team compares to the 2002 team which won the World Series and on which he made his debut: "Several guys on that '02 team will tell you we might not have been the best team, but we were hot . . . That '02 team was more of an offense-based team, for sure. We didn't pitch that well." That's so right. Except for the fact that the 2002 Angels were tied for the best ERA and allowed the fewest runs per game in the American League.

Brewers 4, Pirates 1: Jeff Suppan won on his bobblehead day. In other news, there's a Jeff Suppan bobblehead day.

Cardinals 2, Nationals 1: Adam Wainwright won on his bobblehead day. This is somewhat more defensible. Though to be honest, I'd rather have the Suppan, just for the sake of randomness.

Tigers 4, Rays 3: This is the kind of game the Rays were winning a year ago. There's not some magical explanation to it. The pendulum just swings, ya know?

Mets 4, Cubs 1: Nelson Figueroa (7 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 10K, RBI) was a one man team. Really, it was just him, playing all nine positions like Bugs Bunny vs. the Gashouse Gorillas because the rest of the Mets are on the DL.

Twins 5, Rangers 3: The Twins scored three runs in the eighth via a variety of unconventional means, after which Ron Gardenhire said "We kind of knick-knacked them a little bit." I think that means that instead of being pummeled, the Rangers were Hummeld.

Yankees 8, White Sox 3: The Yankees keep winning, and because they're doing so well, they continue to mess with Joba Chamberlain, yanking him after 35 pitches despite there being nothing wrong with him. At the risk of sounding like one of those cranky old pitchers from the 60s and 70s, I can't help but think that Chamberlain is going to turn out like that kid you knew whose parents would never let leave the house growing up and then got alcohol poisoning the same week he went away to college because he had no perspective or life experience. Sure, you don't want to let him kill himself now, but there are worse things in the world than letting the boy pitch and get knocked around a bit.

Orioles 5, Indians 2: Brian Matusz has the best start of his very, very young career, and spends a lot of time in the game story talking about how he overcame his initial struggles with adjustments and video and all of that. The fact that he was facing the Indians didn't hurt either.

Marlins 6, Padres 4: "It was a tough weekend for us and today was nice to salvage the series," Cody Ross said after the game. The Padres took two of three. If they had lost the first one and won the second two, no one on the Marlins would be talking about how the win on Friday "salvaged the series." Likewise, if they had won Saturday's game but lost on the bookends, no one would feel too good about things. I use that phrase all the time, but games are games are games.

Dodgers 3, Reds 2: Dodgers pitchers combined to strike out 20 Reds. Nine of those Ks came in the 8th-12th innings, dooming Cincinnati's chances to get anything going. Clayton Kershaw still hasn't won a game since mid-July, despite the fact that he has a sub-3.00 ERA since then.

Diamondbacks 4, Astros 3: Arizona won the game, but closer Chad Qualls dislocated his kneecap on the last play of the game and will probably be done for the year. I'm one of the more squeamish people I know. Seriously, my daughter lost her first tooth a couple of weeks ago and was out of commission for hours. But nothing makes me cringe more than thinking about kneecap injuries. Really, it's taken me ten minutes to just write this individual recap out because I've been alternating between mild nausea and frantic rubbing of my own kneecaps in an effort to somehow make the horror of that kind of injury erase itself from my thoughts.

Phillies 3, Braves 2: Games like this don't make me feel too hot either. First Chipper throws away the bunt in the seventh, and then Garret Anderson just butchers the Carlos Ruiz "double" that put the Phillies ahead for good. Continued failure to support Jurrjens. Just -- further failure. At times like these I have to remember that, for most of the year anyway, I've been on the "2010 is the Braves' year" train, believing that the team brass was really thinking that too, even if they could never admit it. I still think that's right, but that little hot streak earlier this month is the kind of thing that makes you forget.

As the Boston Red Sox continue to slog their way toward a potential playoff berth, there are three constant worries: Pitching, pitching and pitching.

The rotation has been an adventure all season, from the failed experiments of John Smoltz and Brad Penny, the erratic behavior and performances of Daisuke Matsuzaka, and the quiet strength of Josh Beckett.

Sunday was a mixed bag, including good, bad and ugly. It all makes you wonder what Boston's rotation will look like come playoff time, provided they manage to hold off the Texas Rangers in the AL wild card race.

First the good:

Paul Byrd (pictured), a late-season pickup for Boston for the second straight season, dazzled in his first major league start since last September, not only baffling the Toronto Blue Jays, but outdueling Roy Halladay in the process, leading the Red Sox to a 7-0 victory.

Even better, Byrd claims to be a man of many talents:

"I'm just so excited to be back. I want a World Series ring," he said. "Hopefully I can help this team get there. I'll clean toilets if I have to, and I told them that."

The bad:

Tim Wakefield, who had just returned last week after 5 ½ weeks on the disabled list, will have to have a cortisone shot on Monday after his 43-year-old back acted up once again.

Wakefield was an All-Star after anchoring the Red Sox's rotation in the first half. But now it appears that age is finally catching up to the veteran knuckleballer.

"We'll go from there and see if (the shot) takes and, if so, I'll be pitching in a week or so," Wakefield said Sunday morning before a game against Toronto.

The ugly:

Dice-K, out since June with a right shoulder strain, was horrendous in a minor league start on Sunday, allowing five runs in the first inning of a 5-3 loss. He pitched a perfect second inning, but his insane pitch count (49 in the first inning), meant his outing was cut short.

But hey, at least Clay Buchholz seems to be coming around. Or at least gaining confidence.

******

If you Twitter, and understand the difference between A-holes and B-holes, feel free to follow me at @Bharks.

Perhaps sick of watching the lowly Royals cost him victories with poor support from the bullpen and lineup, Zack Greinke took matters into his own hands Sunday with a complete-game, one-hit shutout against the Mariners. Kenji Johjima's second-inning single was the lone hit allowed by Greinke, who struck out five and walked one while lowering his league-leading ERA to 2.32.

Greinke ranks just fifth in the AL with 13 wins and has lost eight times despite giving up more than three earned runs only four times in 27 starts, but there's no doubt that he's been the league's best pitcher. He leads the AL with a 2.32 ERA, six complete games, three shutouts, and a 1.08 WHIP while ranking behind only Justin Verlander with 202 strikeouts and second to only CC Sabathia with 190.1 innings.

If ever there was a time to ignore a pitcher's win-loss record, this is it. Kansas City's lineup ranks second-worst in the AL and Greinke has received less run support than any starter in the league. Beyond that the Royals' bullpen ranks dead last in the AL with a 5.15 ERA and the team has gone just 37-66 when Greinke isn't on the mound, which is a 104-loss pace. Don't let his team's awfulness mask his greatness.

While the Cy Young voters hopefully take notice of Greinke's amazing year, here are some other notes from around baseball ...

You thought that was the deadline? Nope, THIS is the deadline.

The July 31 no-waiver trade deadline came and went, and yet trades could still be made as long as the key parts involved could make it through waivers, witness the Angels' acquisition of Scott Kazmir.

But after Monday, even that door closes, at least as far as playoff rosters are concerned. For postseason contenders, it's now or never as far as improving your team for the home stretch.

So who might go where before the final (and we really mean it) deadline? Here are a couple possible items to watch.

Rich Harden: The scoop is that the Twins made a claim when the Cubs' flamethrower was put on waivers. The Twins haven't confirmed that, nor have they denied it. But the addition of Harden to Minnesota, which is just 4 1/2 games behind the Tigers, would add some interest to the AL Central race.

While the teams don't appear to be close to a deal, at least one source says the sides are talking.

Trevor Hoffman: The Giants reportedly put a claim in on the all-time saves leader, but is he really going anywhere? Aaron says San Francisco is just playing defense.

Brad Penny: The big righty was tossed aside by the Red Sox because he simply never panned out. So could he really end up in Oakland?

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)
No. 19 - Houston
No. 18 - Oakland
No. 17 - St. Louis
No. 16 - Florida
No. 15 - San Francisco
No. 14 - Texas
No. 13 - Cleveland
No. 12 - Minnesota
No. 11 - Arizona

Held back only by an inability to develop outfielders, the Angels kick off the final third of the rankings.

Rotation
John Lackey
Jarrod Washburn
Jered Weaver
Ervin Santana
Joe Saunders

Bullpen
Francisco Rodriguez
Bobby Jenks
Scot Shields
Jose Arredondo
Darren O'Day
Scott Schoeneweis
Matt Wise

Santana and Saunders have been hurt and ineffective for much of this season, but the rotation still looks like a very nice group going forward, and the bullpen has one of the best one-two punches in the league. Depth is an issue, particularly with the futures of Shields and Wise in doubt. Troy Percival appears to be near-retirement, so he wasn't included. Next in line for spots are Kevin Jepsen and Sean O'Sullivan.

Lineup
2B Howie Kendrick
SS Erick Aybar
RF Kendry Morales
DH Troy Glaus
CF Jim Edmonds
C Mike Napoli
LF Garret Anderson
3B Brandon Wood
1B Casey Kotchman

Bench
C Bengie Molina
2B Alberto Callaspo
INF-OF Alfredo Amezaga
OF Chris Pettit

Plenty of decisions to be made here. As mentioned previously, the Angels have pretty much stopped developing outfielders since coming up with Anderson, Edmonds, Tim Salmon and Darin Erstad. As a result, I'm sticking Morales in right field, leaving first base for Kotchman. Also, Edmonds gets the nod in center. He did hit .256/.369/.568 in 298 at-bats for the Cubs last season, and he never officially announced his retirement. He'd definitely make more sense in left than center these days, but the alternatives were Erstad, Amezaga or Reggie Willits.

If Glaus can still play the infield regularly, there'd be a lot more flexibility for the bench. Molina could catch three days a week, with Napoli seeing time at DH and Wood or Kotchman going to the bench.

Other options for the bench included Jeff Mathis, Robb Quinlan, Sean Rodriguez, Alexi Casilla, Dallas McPherson, Erstad and Willits. The way I see it, Amezaga's versatility made him an obvious pick, and I really think Pettit would prove useful as a lefty killer. As outstanding as Morales has been this year, he's still hit just .270/.283/.440 against southpaws.

I think it's a fine lineup, if a bit odd. It's certainly one that's well equipped to deal with injuries.

Summary

Typically slow to make trades or give opportunities to youngsters, the Angels have occasionally been guilty of failing to capitalize on the wealth of talent produced by the system. Still, they're set to go to the postseason for the sixth time in eight years and they won a World Series in 2002. If the system has hit a bit of a lull lately, it's partly because free agent signings left the team without a true first-round pick in 2005, 2007 and 2008. The Angels, though, pursue tough signs later in the draft and continue to compete internationally. With their resources, it's doubtful that they'll fade from contention any year soon.

There's no discussion there, but Phil Rogers throws out Dusty Baker, Eric Wedge, Jim Riggleman, Cecil Cooper and Dave Trembley as managers who may be looking for a job soon. Setting aside the glaring omission of Trey Hillman, here are my insta-takes:

I'm not a huge Baker fan, but there's a lot more wrong with the Reds than him, so the Reds may as well keep him around since they'll have to pay him anyway;

Eric Wedge should go. He's had a long time to do something in Cleveland and they could use a fresh start;

Riggleman has done good work, but the Nats need to enter the Strasburg-era with someone a little more dynamic at the helm;

Cooper was thrown under the bus by his team's ace starter and team leader, so he's a dead man walking already; and

Trembley has been a good company man, but he has lost so much for so long with the Orioles, that one wonders if he can be the guy to take a team with a bright future to the next level.  It just strikes me that, when a team is about to turn the corner, you don't want a guy who is a constant reminder of all of those years in the wilderness, ya know?

As happens every year, I'm sure one of these obvious suspects will somehow hang on, and some guys we never thought would get fired.  And as is the case with their decisions as managers, we will be right here to second guess and armchair GM their firings as well.

This morning's New York Times article starts out as if this was something everyone knew about, but it's the first I've heard of it:

What first raised suspicion among the 2001 A's was an early May series in Toronto. Tejada and Blue Jays third baseman Tony Batista, friends from the Dominican Republic, each put up terrific numbers. In the three-game series, Batista went 6 for 13 with a home run and 5 runs batted in, and Tejada was 4 for 10 with 9 R.B.I., including a home run in each game.

More significant in the eyes of some of the players was an incident in the second game of the series. Tejada did not get to an easy ground ball Batista hit off reliever Mark Guthrie with the Athletics leading, 8-2. When the inning was over, A's players fumed on the bench.

Tejada, now 35, said his teammates were skeptical because Batista dropped a foul pop-up he hit in the previous game.

"I would never do that," Tejada said. "I want to win. If my brother was on the other team, I would never help him."

These incidents, and others, led to a supremely contentious closed-door meeting in the A's clubhouse, and some of the guys from that team tell the tale.  Contrast this to the anonymous accusations against A-Rod this past spring, and you have some great reading.

Despite what Roy Oswalt has to say about motivation and all of that, the Astros' problems run a heck of a lot deeper than Cecil Cooper.  But that's not stopping Richard Justice from speculating about how installing a new manager will make everything all better:

The first thing Drayton McLane ought to do this morning is telephone Jeff Bagwell and ask him to manage the Astros for these final 33 games.

If Bagwell is reluctant, McLane can turn on that Temple charm. The Astros need a makeover, and this is a good place to begin.  If McLane is thinking clearly, there will be a buzz back at Minute Maid Park when the Astros return home next weekend. His bad, boring team will become interesting overnight.

To be fair, Justice has some other suggestions too, such as moving Tejada to short, benching Kaz Matsui and giving a bunch of other kids a shot.  Not that that will help too much given the sorry state of the Astros' system.  Bagwell  is certainly the centerpiece of Justice's plan.

And I agree with him insofar as the kind of interest and excitement such a thing would create in Houston.  But I am dubious about whether it's a good idea in a competitive sense.  There's a sense out there that Hall of Fame types don't make the best managers because they aren't able to teach players to what came to them as easy as breathing. Maybe that's baloney, but ask yourself: who was the last superstar, Hall-of-Fame talent that made a mark as a manager?  Frank Robinson, I guess, and that's only if you allow for a rather loose definition of "made a mark."  And unlike Bagwell, he had a lot of years under his belt before he was considered a somewhat solid manager. 

Ultimately, however, the problem in Houston is the roster, not the manager, and until that is addressed they can install anyone they want at the helm and it won't make too much of a difference.

I don't have the get-up-and-go on a Sunday morning to do a full-blown "And That Happened," but here's a quick tour of last night's action:

He's worried! You cut him! You hurt him! You see? You see? He's not a machine, he's a man!

We've secretly replaced Boston's regular, inefficient fourth starter with one who wastes fewer pitches.  Let's see if they notice!

We've also replaced the late-00s version of Barry Zito with the early 00s version.  I think the Rockies certainly noticed.

I can't wait for Plaschke to explain this one.

The Cubs take a 2-0 lead in the World Series of Pathetic, Expensive Underachieving teams.

Finally, if the Yankees actually start getting contributions from guys like Sergio Mitre, well, forget about it.

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)
No. 19 - Houston
No. 18 - Oakland
No. 17 - St. Louis
No. 16 - Florida
No. 15 - San Francisco
No. 14 - Texas
No. 13 - Cleveland
No. 12 - Minnesota

The Diamondbacks took an odd road initially, making the playoffs in their second year of existence and winning a World Series just two years later, but even though they spent big at the start, they've developed talent consistently throughout. Despite having had less time to accumulate players besides any team other than the Rays, they rank 11th here.

Rotation
Brandon Webb
Max Scherzer
Jorge De La Rosa
Brad Penny
Brett Anderson

Bullpen
Jose Valverde
Vicente Padilla
Brian Bruney
Ross Ohlendorf
Jason Bulger
Tony Pena
Clay Zavada

That's seven legitimate starting pitchers between the five in the rotation, Padilla and Ohlendorf. I think Padilla and Ohlendorf would be the most useful out of the pen, though there's always been talk about trying Penny and Scherzer as closers. The Diamondbacks, though, don't need a closer with Valverde in the role, and they have other nice power arms in Bruney and Bulger.

De La Rosa's presence here will surprise some. The Diamondbacks signed him out of Mexico in 1998, only to sell him back to a Mexican team in 2000. He later signed with the Red Sox. That wasn't his only stint with Arizona, though. On Nov. 28, 2003, he was sent to the Diamondbacks in the Curt Schilling deal. Three days later, Arizona moved him to Milwaukee in the Richie Sexson trade.

Micah Owings would have made some teams as a pitcher and others as a bench player. The Diamondbacks, though, seemed to have better options all around, at least if everyone were healthy. He'd still be one of the first additions to the team.

Lineup
SS Stephen Drew
RF Justin Upton
3B Mark Reynolds
LF Carlos Quentin
1B Lyle Overbay
2B Dan Uggla
C Miguel Montero
CF Carlos Gonzalez

Bench
OF Scott Hairston
OF Jack Cust
1B/OF Conor Jackson
C Chris Snyder
INF Emilio Bonifacio

How's that for depth? Not cracking the roster were Rod Barajas, Chad Tracy and Gerardo Parra. As little need as there will be for pinch-hitters, there's a good argument for carrying Brian Barden as a second utilityman. Still, I just couldn't bring myself to drop Cust or Jackson.

Overbay, Montero and Gonzalez would all sit against lefties, with Jackson, Snyder and Hairston entering the lineup. The Diamondbacks should be plenty strong against both lefties and righties, and given that all of the key players are still fairly young, that's not going to change for years.

Summary

The Diamondbacks have one of the game's top pitching prospects in Jarrod Parker, but trades, particularly the one for Dan Haren, and budget concerns have taken a toll on the farm system recently. Fortunately, most of the team's key players still have youth working for them, and with all of the old deferred money payouts finally starting to come off the books, the Diamondbacks should be able to keep much of what they have now. The future doesn't look as promising as it did a couple of years ago, but if they catch some breaks, there's no reason they can't contend annually in the NL West.

A team designating a marginal reliever for assignment at the end of August normally isn't all that blog-worthy, but R.A. Dickey -- who was just DFA'd by the Twins -- isn't just any marginal reliever. He's a knuckleballer, and I have a thing for knuckleballers, so this news makes me sad.

The only saving grace in all of this is that the reason he was DFA'd was to make room for Ron Mahay.  While no knuckleballer, Mahay is a former position-player/strikebreaker/LOOGY, so at least Dickey's weirdness is being somewhat accounted for.  Beats adding some nondescript fifth outfielder.

The L.A. Times' Bill Plaschke has been carving Manny Ramirez up since his PED suspension back in May, so you know he was just waiting for the right time to bring this kind of noise:

Something is wrong with Manny Ramirez. Something different than a hitch. Something more than a slump.  Something is wrong here, something that might be lodged as deeply in the head as in the hips, something that perhaps batting practice can't fix . . .

. . . Although the official explanations for his slump involve those habits, and are technical and convoluted, those familiar with steroids quietly submit one simple reason:

Ramirez trying to kill the ball to overcompensate for the fact that he's no longer juiced, attempting to show everyone that his previous success was him and not steroids.

There are those who also wonder whether he is struggling with the loss of that invincible feeling that steroids give hitters, a syndrome commonly associated with those who are struggling to find themselves after coming clean.

"Those familiar" with steroids submit one question?  "There are those" who wonder?  How on Earth do Plaschke's editors allow him to hide behind that stuff?  He's the only one in this article asking that question and wondering those things. He quotes no one, anonymous or otherwise.  This is quite obviously Bill Plaschke and Bill Plaschke alone making such an accusation, yet he he's not willing to simply say it without couching it as the accusations of others.

Why? Probably because he's a writer who knows absolutely nothing about what causes or ends slumps, be they by ex-PED users or otherwise.  He wants to make Ramirez the goat of this Dodgers' team, and he wants to continue to slam him for his PED use despite the fact that everyone else has moved on.  But hey, if he can marry a slump to the 'roids, it's a current story that accomplishes both of his goals.

Put differently, it's hack work.  But then again, it's Bill Plaschke, so what else did you expect?

The Brewers may be a disappointment this year, but they're doing great at the gate, and will likely draw over 3 million fans this season.  Don Walker at the Journal-Sentinel has some explanations why.  The third reason is the best:

Third, the Brewers are promotion-heavy. On Sunday, the Brewers are giving away Jeff Suppan bobbleheads.

Wait, that's tomorrow! Milwaukee is only 450 miles from here!  I can make it!  Jeff Suppan bobblehead, you will be mine!

Yes, I totally get why so many people go to those games.

Bob Gutkowski, who used to be the president of the MSG Network is suing George Steibrenner, claiming that Big Stein stole his idea for the YES Network and reneged on promises that Gutkowski would be given a job and all of the kind of stuff that goes along with those kinds of claims.  YES is now supposed to be worth $3 billion, so it's a pretty significant claim.

So too was a lawsuit I once defended when I was in private practice.  The claim -- and I am not making this up -- was filed by an inmate in a prison in southern Ohio who claimed that he invented the idea of the Happy Meal and the Value Meal when he worked at McDonalds when he was a teenager.  The complaint, which was written in pencil, sought $100 billion.  My client, McDonalds, paid my firm to defend the claim, but it's not like they were too worried about it.  And yes, I won.

I suppose Mr. Gutkowski's claims have a bit more factual basis than the inmate's, but I question whether he'll have any more success.

For one thing, he seems like he'd have a statute of limitations problem. The YES Network debuted in 2002.  I'm guessing Mr. Gutkowski knew well before then that he wasn't getting a piece of it or a job with it.  But even if he didn't, the statute of limitations for contract and fraud claims in New York is six years. Most other torts are three years.  All of those dates have run, even if we started the running from the network's March 19, 2002 debut.  I'm assuming he has some novel theory as to why he didn't have to file his lawsuit before now, but those kinds of theories tend not to work too well when they're asserted by wealthy, grown-up businessmen who should know better.

There's also a tactical problem.  I haven't seen the complaint, but the allegations seem to hinge on conversations Gutkowski had with George Steinbrenner.  The same George Steinbrenner who is basically a recluse these days, most likely because he is suffering from dementia of some sort.  Maybe Gutkowski was banking on winning because Steinbrenner couldn't really defend himself. Maybe he's thinking the Yankees might buy him off so they don't have to file papers in a lawsuit explaining Steinbrenner's incompetence to testify.

The problem, though, is that (a) courts tend to protect the incompetent, not punish them; and (b) the Yankees are a business, not some 18th century monarchy, so they're not going to pay off this guy simply to avoid revealing to the masses that the king isn't well.  If this turns into a P.R. war over George's health, the Yankees are going to win it.

So I guess I'll give this guy an E for effort and a T for nice try, but this lawsuit smells like a loser.

Despite a ton of blown saves and a bloated ERA, Brad Lidge remains optimistic. What's more,  he thinks he know what his problem is:

He said one of the problems had been working with runners on base.

"I haven't been as effective coming out of the stretch, and that is what I am working the hardest on.  The biggest thing is working on the stretch, and when that happens, I will be back to where I need to be, and I don't think that it's that far off."

But Brad: You're a closer who comes in at the start of the ninth, pitching out of the windup.  if the stretch is the problem, how are all those guys getting on base in the first place?

Fred Wilpon is denying the reports that circled yesterday that he's being forced to sell the Mets on account of all of his losses to Bernie Madoff:

Erin Arvedlund, who penned "Too Good to Be True," pegged the Wilpons' losses to Madoff at $700million - the same figure Fred Wilpon's friend Larry King used in a magazine article earlier this year. That loss is too steep for the Wilpons to be able to retain ownership of the Mets, Arvedlund concluded . . . The speculation was met by a forceful denial from the Mets Friday.

"The author of the book has no knowledge or facts related to the Mets business operations or finances," Danielle Sessa Parillo, the team's director of communications, said in a statement on behalf of the Wilpons. "Her speculation that the Mets - or any part of the team - is for sale is completely false and is irresponsible."

To further counter that, Wilpon and MLB President Bob DuPuy are saying that the Mets are just fine and dandy, financially speaking. In support, they cite "the Mets' financial reports, which are filed quarterly," and say that they "have shown no financial distress."

It's probably worth noting at this point that (a) Major League Baseball never allows anyone to see such reports; and (b) such reports are routinely used by MLB and the teams to cry poor, forming the basis of calls for salary caps and player concessions and new publicly-funded stadiums and all of that.  So forgive me if I'm not 100% convinced by this line of reasoning.

Cardinals 3, Nationals 2: Pujols gets a walkoff homer, but the bigger story is that John Smoltz was strong again, giving up one run and striking out six over six innings. Yes, it was once again against a weak team, but unlike San Diego, Washington can actually hit and are sixth in the NL in runs per game.

Giants 2, Rockies 0: Eight shutout innings for Lincecum, and the Rockies wild card lead is down to two games.

Angels 11, Athletics 7: The A's led this one 6-1 at one point, but then Anaheim turned on the afterburners, mostly due to Kendry Morales, who was 5-5 with a homer and six RBI. All seven of the Angels' runs in the seventh were unearned.

Reds 4, Dodgers 2: It's tempting to say that Homer Bailey has finally turned the corner after a couple of strong starts (and this one was strong: 8 IP, 0 ER, 7K), but he's done this kind of thing before only to revert back to, well, being Homer Bailey. The difference now is that the Reds have no business messing with him anymore, and should start next season with him in the rotation to either sink or swim for good.

Yankees 5, White Sox 2: Three-run walkoff job for Robinson Cano in the 10th. The Golden Sombrero for Jim Thome (0-4, 4 Ks). Not trying to slam Thome here. I like him. I just like to say "Golden Sombrero."

Phillies 4, Braves 2: Stupid rain. Due to a 45 minute rain delay early in the game the Braves lost Tommy Hanson which, all due respect to Pedro Martinez, is a bigger loss to them than losing Pedro was to Philly. Moyer and Chen mop up for the Phillies, and Ryan Howard went 3 for 3 with two homers. I won't say the Braves are quite done yet, but if you took them off the fire and let them rest covered on the counter for a little while they'll probably be nice and medium rare in a few minutes.

Red Sox 6, Blue Jays 5: Josh Beckett continues to struggle and give up long balls, but the Sox rallied.

Diamondbacks 14, Astros 7: Just like a 68 degree day in August gives you a refreshing but premature taste of fall, a 14-7 game before labor day between two non-contenders gives you a depressing but premature taste of just-playing-out-the-string season.

Tigers 6, Rays 2: From the "You have GOT to be kidding me" department, Brandon Inge: "There's a kid named Noah that I've visited a couple times in the hospital, and he's at home right now, and I spent a couple hours with him today. He asked me the dreaded question -- could I hit a home run for him in the game, and I told him I'd do the best I could." And he did.

Cubs 5, Mets 2: A three-run homer by Alfonso Soriano breaks a tie in the eighth and wins the game. It was his first homer in a month. Milton Bradley had three hits, but don't think for a second he enjoyed any of them.

Orioles 13, Indians 4: Matt Wieters was 3-4 with 4 RBI. Fausto Carmona, who looked so damn good his last time out, got shelled.

Brewers 8, Pirates 6: Braun, Fielder and Jason Bourgeois hit homers. John Russell benched Ryan Doumit in the middle of the game and the two of them had a closed-door meeting after the game. Neither of them are talking to the media, so until we hear anything further, I'm going to assume that they were arguing over whether Pitt the Elder or Lord Palmerston was England's greatest Prime Minister.

Padres 9, Marlins 5: Chris Volstad was lit up like a Christmas tree. The Braves fan in me likes to see that San Diego is effectively ending Florida's shot at the wild card on the same road trip that they killed the Braves' chances.

Twins 3, Rangers 2: Brian Duensing is no fireballer, but he struck out eight in seven innings. The Rangers' Tommy Hunter looked good too. He's also tough: Justin Morneau lined one off his chest, but Hunter stayed in the game.

Mariners 6, Royals 3: Mike Sweeney is 112 years old and really hasn't been able to run since he was in grade school, but he scored from third on a comebacker to the mound in the second, belly-flopping past Olivo as he tried to apply the tag. Calling hours for Sweeney will be held for Sweeney at the Ranier Funeral Home this Tuesday. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Harold Baines Home for the Aged and Decrepit.

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)
No. 19 - Houston
No. 18 - Oakland
No. 17 - St. Louis
No. 16 - Florida
No. 15 - San Francisco
No. 14 - Texas
No. 13 - Cleveland

12th place certainly isn't bad, but the Twins would be far higher if, instead of coming up with teams based on players drafted and originally signed, these rankings went strictly by major league debuts. Johan Santana, David Ortiz, Francisco Liriano, Jason Bartlett and Cristian Guzman came up with the Twins, but all began their minor league careers elsewhere.

Rotation
Matt Garza
Scott Baker
Kevin Slowey
Nick Blackburn
Glen Perkins

Bullpen
Pat Neshek
LaTroy Hawkins
J.C. Romero
Grant Balfour
Jose Mijares
Peter Moylan
Jesse Crain

Moylan is the only one of the 25 players on the roster the Twins would lose if going to the "major league debut" standard. He was signed by the Twins in 1996, spent two years pitching in Rookie ball and then disappeared for eight years before impressing the Braves with his performance for Australia in the 2006 WBC and debuting later that season.

The rotation options are essentially the Twins' current group, with Garza subbing in for Liriano/Carl Pavano. That looks like a net win for this group. Anthony Swarzak is the primary alternative to Perkins in the fifth spot. Kevin Mulvey wouldn't be, since he was part of the Santana trade with the Mets.

The bullpen would be pretty strong with a healthy Neshek (he's currently working his way back from Tommy John surgery). I'm throwing him into the closer's role, given Hawkins' lack of success in his most recent American League stints. Failing to make the cut was Eddie Guardado.

Lineup
LF Denard Span
C Joe Mauer
CF Torii Hunter
1B Justin Morneau
RF Michael Cuddyer
DH Jason Kubel
3B Danny Valencia
2B Matt Tolbert
SS Luis Rodriguez

Bench
C A.J. Pierzynski
INF Doug Mientkiewicz
INF Terry Tiffee
OF Jacque Jones

There's hope for Valencia as the future at third base, but realistically, the lineup is only six players deep. Without credit for Bartlett, Guzman or even Alexi Casilla, the Twins just don't have any adequate middle-infield options. Rodriguez and the disappointing Trevor Plouffe were the shortstop candidates, and second base came down to Tolbert and prospect Steven Tolleson. Mientkiewicz might actually be the superior choice there.

At least the top six is really nice. Mauer is about as valuable as anyone in the game, and Hunter and Morneau have also been among the AL's best this year.

Summary

Of course, the Twins do deserve credit for finding and developing Santana and Ortiz, even if they may have actually held Ortiz back. The Twins under former general manager Terry Ryan were probably in the top five in baseball at scouting out and developing talent. Whether that's going to hold true under Bill Smith remains to be seen, but the early returns aren't especially encouraging. Whereas Ryan was a scout before becoming a GM, Smith is much more of an administrator. He'll maintain the bottom line, but he may not pull off the coups that helped get the Twins to the playoffs four times in five years from 2002-06. He certainly hasn't so far.

- The Braves got a much-needed win Thursday to avoid a home sweep at the hands of the Padres. Now they could really use two out of three games this weekend in Philadelphia. They'll try to start the series right with Tommy Hanson on the mound against Pedro Martinez. Hanson, who will be facing the Phillies for the first time, has won four straight starts to improve to 9-2 with a 3.12 ERA. Martinez is 2-0 with a 5.14 ERA in his three starts. He's struggled early in outings, but the Phillies have managed to support him with 21 runs in his two victories.

- CC Sabathia is on a roll anyway, but tonight he'll get to face a White Sox team he's gone 15-4 against in his career. If he can win a sixth straight start tonight, he'll be the first pitcher this year to reach 16 victories. Trying to halt his streak will be old rival Mark Buehrle. The trends aren't encouraging, though. Buehrle is 0-4 with a 6.21 ERA in six starts since his perfect game against the Rays, and he's 1-6 with a 6.84 ERA lifetime against the Yankees. When Sabathia and Buehrle locked horns on Aug. 2, Buehrle gave up seven runs and 12 hits over 4 1/3 innings in a loss.

Game of the Night

Colorado vs. San Francisco - The Rockies won three out of four against the Giants in Colorado last weekend, but they'll be playing in San Francisco this time and the Giants are an NL-best 41-21 at home. Game 1 would seem to be the premier matchup of the series, with Ubaldo Jimenez and Tim Lincecum facing off for the second time in six days. Jimenez prevailed last time after allowing two runs in eight innings. He's won five straight starts, and he hasn't lost in nine. Lincecum, on the other hand, has gone four straight starts without a victory, damaging his Cy Young case. The loss last weekend was his first in eight career starts against Colorado. He has a 1.79 ERA and a 75/9 K/BB ratio in 60 1/3 innings against Colorado lifetime.

A deal rumored in July was surprisingly near completion Friday, as the Angels reportedly acquired Scott Kazmir from the Rays for prospects Alex Torres and Matt Sweeney.

As a 25-year-old lefty with a 55-44 record, a 3.92 ERA and 874 strikeouts in 834 innings, Kazmir hardly seemed to be a likely candidate to be part of a waiver deal. However, since it was the Angels picking him up, he only needed to get through 11 American League teams. That meant no interference from the Yankees. The Red Sox, Tigers and Rangers all could have thrown a monkey wrench into the Angels' plans, but the price tag scared them all off.

That is the problem here. Kazmir isn't currently the same pitcher he was two years ago, and he's owed $8 million next year, $12 million in 2001 and either $13.5 million or a $2.5 million in 2012. This could turn out as badly as the Dontrelle Willis acquisition and signing (more so the signing) did for Detroit.

When Kazmir was at his best in 2006, he averaged 92 mph with his fastball, 84 mph with his slider and 82 mph with his changeup. These days he's at 90.7 with his fastball, 81 mph with his slider and 79 with his changeup. The slider just doesn't have the same snap it used to, and he's never developed better command to help make up for the diminished stuff.

It's very possible that Kazmir will be an injury-prone No. 3 or No. 4 starter going forward. The Rays couldn't take that risk when he's due so much cash, so shedding his contract was the right move. It's the timing that's questionable, as the club is still just 3 1/2 games back in the wild card chase. However, Andy Sonnanstine is ready to move back into the rotation and Wade Davis is deserving of an opportunity. The Rays may well be better off without him.

At the same time, it's hard to blame the Angels for making the move. They've needed another starter since way back in spring training, and while the lousy bottom of the rotation hasn't prevented them from compiling the AL's second-best record, it could kill them come playoff time. Now they have choices. They won't necessarily have to stick Joe Saunders and Ervin Santana in their postseason rotation if they struggle next month. And if either Saunders or Santana goes down again, they won't have to face the scary possibility of making Trevor Bell or Sean O'Sullivan their fourth starter in the postseason.

In order to acquire Kazmir, the Angels parted with a couple of prospects who ranked between fifth and 10th in their system. Torres, a 21-year-old southpaw, has helped his stock a bunch by going 13-4 with a 2.74 ERA, 116 H and 149/80 K/BB in 147 1/3 IP between Single- and Double-A this year. He projected as a reliever going into this year, but he's now a very intriguing rotation possibility. Sweeney has power potential, but he's been held back by injuries and he's not going to last at third base. The 21-year-old has hit .299/.379/.517 in 211 at-bats for Single-A Rancho Cucamonga this season. There's a chance that he'll make it as a starting first baseman someday.

Neither prospect is on the 40-man roster, so waiver rules won't apply in this case.

The Rays may well be blasted for making this trade while still in contention, but in the end, they'll probably be better off for it. Losing Kazmir doesn't necessarily hurt their playoff chances at all, and by dumping his salary, they're giving themselves greater flexibility for next year. Perhaps that means Carl Crawford will stick around after all.

* Bob Dutton of the Kansas City Star is the latest in a long line of mainstream media members to inexplicably fawn over Willie Bloomquist. Here's my favorite excerpt:

Bloomquist, 31, has already set career highs this season in virtually every offensive category. His 342 at-bats through Wednesday put him on pace to finish with 440 after never getting more than 251 in Seattle. And he finds satisfaction in proving, finally, that he only needed a chance to prove he can be a regular player.

Bloomquist is hitting .257 with four homers and 25 RBIs, so this stuff about "setting career-highs in virtually every offensive category" and "proving finally that he only needed a chance to prove he can be a regular player" is laughable.

He came into this season with a lifetime .263 average and .645 OPS. This season he has a .257 average and .654 OPS. The only thing he's really "proving" is that newspaper writers take care of friendly players who provide them with good quotes. Dutton, incidentally, is president of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

* San Francisco is reportedly the team that claimed Trevor Hoffman off waivers, but the odds of a trade taking place seem slim. Instead the Giants likely just wanted to make sure that he doesn't win up with the Dodgers or Rockies.

* His dad finally seems to be out of the spotlight, but 22-year-old catcher/outfielder Koby Clemens is making a name for himself by hitting .346 with 20 homers and 65 total extra-base hits in 106 games at high Single-A.

* According to Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com the Twins are close to acquiring veteran left-handed reliever Ron Mahay from the Royals. Mahay was designated for assignment earlier this week after posting a 4.79 ERA and 34/19 K/BB ratio in 41.1 innings, but prior to struggling this season he had ERAs of 3.95, 2.55, and 3.48 with solid K/BB ratios in the previous three years.

Last night Nick Green became the second Red Sox position player to take the mound this season, tossing two scoreless innings against the White Sox after starter Junichi Tazawa was clobbered for nine runs.

Green hadn't pitched in over a decade and it showed, as he found the strike zone on just 13 of 35 pitches and walked three of the nine batters he faced. However, his fastball regularly clocked in around 90 miles per hour and he also flashed a slider, somehow managing to record six outs without allowing a hit.

"I had success only because my ball had some movement, but I wasn't trying for that," Green said. "I was trying to throw it straight."

For whatever reason teams have been a lot more willing than usual to use position players as mop-up men this season, with Green joining Josh Wilson, Paul Janish, Jon Van Every, Nick Swisher, Cody Ross, Ross Gload, and Mark Loretta on the mound. Here are their respective pitching numbers:

                   IP    ER     H    BB    SO    HR
Nick Green        2.0     0     0     3     0     0
Josh Wilson       2.0     3     3     1     0     1
Paul Janish       2.0    11     9     2     3     2
Nick Swisher      1.0     0     1     1     1     0
Cody Ross         1.0     0     1     0     0     0
Ross Gload        1.0     0     0     2     0     0
Mark Loretta      0.1     0     0     0     0     0
Jon Van Every     0.2     0     1     1     0     0
 
TOTAL            10.0    14    15    10     4     3

As you might expect they haven't done so well, allowing 14 earned runs on 15 hits and 10 walks in 10 innings. On the other hand, if you remove Janish's two ugly outings the other seven position players have posted a 3.38 ERA while serving up just one homer in eight innings. With eight walks in those eight innings the non-Janish guys could still use some work on their control, but allowing just six hits is pretty impressive.

Even with Janish included the position players have a 12.60 ERA, which is a better mark than the ERAs posted by the following actual pitchers (in theory, at least) who have logged at least five innings: Chris Bootcheck (19.80), R.J. Swindle (16.20), Chris Lambert (14.85), Brian Burress (14.21), Brad Mills (14.09), Bobby Korecky (13.50), Cesar Carrillo (13.06), and Clayton Mortensen (12.86).

Hell, Chien-Ming Wang has a 9.64 ERA in 42 innings and he probably can't even play shortstop.

Team USA released its roster for next month's baseball World Cup and there are some interesting names among the 23 players who will try to repeat as champions, with a mix of minor-league veterans and top prospects with limited pro experience.

"We have what we think is a solid mix of young players and veterans on this team," general manager Bob Watson said. "For the first time in over 30 years we head into a World Cup as the defending champion, and we think this team is more than capable of returning to the medal stand."

Two years ago the team included Evan Longoria, Colby Rasmus, and Andy LaRoche, and this year's roster also has some star power. Four of the top 20 picks in the 2008 draft are on the team, including No. 2 overall pick Pedro Alvarez of the Pirates and No. 11 overall pick Justin Smoak of the Rangers.

Alvarez and Smoak are both among the top dozen or so hitting prospects in baseball and could be in the majors to stay at some point next season, with Jason Castro of the Astros and Ike Davis of the Mets joining them from the 2008 top 20.

* Victor Martinez said yesterday that he'd "definitely" want to sign a long-term contract extension with the Red Sox, adding: "Who wouldn't want to play here in Boston? It's up to them, but from my side, I would want to stay here. Hopefully they want to do something. I would be more than happy to sit down and talk."

Boston has a $7.5 million team option on Martinez for next season that will definitely be exercised, so there's no rush to work something out. Martinez has hit .313/.385/.521 with five homers and 18 RBIs in 24 games for the Red Sox, starting 13 times at catcher and 10 times at first base.

* Now that they're out of contention the Brewers placed a handful of veteran players on waivers this week. Trevor Hoffman has reportedly been claimed, meaning that Milwaukee is only able to negotiate with one team, but Mike Cameron, Craig Counsell, Braden Looper, and Jason Kendall can be shopped freely after clearing waivers. All but Counsell are eligible to fetch the Brewers draft-pick compensation if they leave as free agents this offseason, so general manager Doug Melvin indicated yesterday that deals are unlikely.

* Sidelined since mid-May with valley fever, Conor Jackson admitted yesterday that he's unlikely to play again this season and Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic speculates that the Diamondbacks may cut him loose this winter rather than go to arbitration.

* Good news for the rest of the AL Central: Jerry Crasnick of ESPN.com reports that "the Royals ownership group is discussing a contract extension for general manager Dayton Moore."

Trading a couple of good prospects for Jake Peavy was one of those deals where you knew the White Sox were giving up something good, but that it was worth it to have an ace for the stretch run.  Too bad the ace doesn't look like he's going to make the stretch run any time soon:

After Jake Peavy unsuccessfully tried to play catch before a scheduled bullpen session Wednesday, pitching coach Don Cooper suggested Peavy might need another minor-league rehabilitation start instead of trying to make his White Sox debut Saturday.

"My opinion, right now the best way to take care of Jake Peavy and do the best for Jake Peavy is to continue to play it by ear, see what he can do [Thursday], make one more start in the minor leagues," Cooper said shortly after Peavy cut short his attempt to get his sore right elbow loose.

That "might" has turned into a definitely as the White Sox have confirmed that Peavy will make another rehab start tomorrow.  Normally that would make him eligible to pitch again on Thursday, but Thursday's game is against the Cubs, and Kenny Williams has already said that Peavy won't play in an NL game lest he have to run the bases and risk hurting his rehabbed leg.

The Sox play the Sox next Friday, so it's going to be another week until he's helping Chicago.

Trevor Hoffman has reportedly been claimed off of waivers, but as Tom Haudricourt notes, it's not like the Brewers have a huge incentive to trade him, because (a) he's still good and he wants to stay in Milwaukee; and (b) even if the Brewers wanted to get rid of him, they could just offer him arbitration this offseason and get two compensation picks.

Jose Reyes has been rehabbing since approximately the Bronze Age.  Now it seems that rehab is not enough  According to Adam Rubin, Reyes' hamstring tendon is completely torn and he needs surgery.  Oddly enough, that prognosis may be good news in that the tendon in question is the one that doctors often remove and replace in a guy's elbow for Tommy John surgery, so Reyes could probably live without it. Of course, the guys who get Tommy John surgery tend not to be leadoff hitters who play critical defensive positions, so who knows?  

At this rate, however, I think the Mets will take anything short of guys' legs falling completely off as good medical news.

Jonathan Littman at Yahoo! has been all over the steroids cases for years. Yesterday he reported that I'm not some lone nut out there wondering when people are going to start taking the leaks of the 2003 list seriously:

 

"This makes the leaks so much more troubling," said Charles La Bella, a former U. S. attorney and chief of the criminal division for the Southern District of California who now practices criminal defense in San Diego. "The information shouldn't have been seized. People have been unfairly tainted by something the courts have ruled should never have been made public.

"My guess is that somebody somewhere has to be looking at this as a leak investigation."

But who's doing the leaking?  No one is willing to openly speculate, but there are two passages in Littman's piece which make me wonder if someone is trying to send a message about it all:

Peters said that a list of players who tested positive was created only after the government's illegal search.

"Everyone talks of this list, like there was a list [of players who tested positive]," he said. "There was a spreadsheet [at the testing lab that contained every test result]. The government created a list, which it tried to disseminate."

and

As for the consequences of the illegal search, Peters said he doesn't know who committed the leaks. But he does have an idea of who created and printed the two- to three-page list of players who tested positive, the list that was circulated among at least a handful of attorneys and that resulted in the leaks.

"I have a strong suspicion the list was created by Novitzky," he said.

Given that the illegal search could very well have been motivated to snag as many players up in this as possible, it would certainly make sense that a government lawyer or agent is doing the leaking.  That said, it's probably worth remembering that there are a lot more people than merely the government folks who had access.

The league, the union, individual players and possibly other interested parties had representation in this long, drawn out case, and any number of those lawyers could have access to the list.  What's more, we have to remember that it's not a given that the leaks are motivated by a desire to out players as such.  Money could be a motivator. So too could spite or some personal reasons that have very little to do with baseball or steroids in the first place.  Remember Deep Throat? The most famous leaker in history was motivated primarily by his anger at being stepped over for a job.

Whoever it is, however, should be sleeping a little less soundly now that folks are openly speculating about his or her identity and making noises about flushing them out.  And that's a very good thing.

The Chicago Tribune's Phil Rogers thinks that there's only one thing to do with Milton Bradley:

My recommendation: Release him . . . As of Wednesday, when Bradley declared he roots for nine-inning games because he can't wait to get home, Hendry no longer can cross his fingers and hope Bradley becomes the player he pictured he would be in right field at Wrigley Field. He has to do something to get him off the roster, the sooner the better.

I agree with the idea of getting rid of Bradley. He's turned into an unmitigated disaster in Chicago. I disagree, however, that the Cubs should simply release him.  Rogers' view of this is informed by the idea that the only way to trade Bradley would be to take on one of the games' truly bad contracts in return like Aaron Rowand or somebody's.  Wouldn't it be possible, however, for the Cubs to simply offer to eat a large portion of the $21 million owed to Bradley and try to get at least something in return?  Even a low level prospect is better than nothing, right?

Maybe I'm just dreaming, though.  While it looked for a few brief shining moments in 2008 that Bradley had turned the corner on his old rep and had matured, it's possible that he has burnt so many bridges at this point that no one would want him at even the lowest of prices.

Conventional wisdom seems to be coalescing around the idea that no one will claim Brad Penny off of waivers, but that once he clears them on Monday the Giants and Marlins are the best bet.  There was some talk about the Rockies, where his presence would make a lot of sense in light of Aaron Cook being out, but people who know the Rockies are saying it's not happening, mostly because Jim Tracy used to manage Penny in L.A. and doesn't much care for him.

Rosenthal's reasoning on Penny in San Francisco is sound: "He would make sense as a starter for the Giants, who are using left- hander Joe Martinez as the replacement for the injured Randy Johnson"  Indeed, in light of the fact that Martinez got lit up like a Christmas tree by the Diamondbacks last night, they may be even more urgent than we thought.

White Sox 9, Red Sox 5: Who needs Billy Wagner when you have Nick Green? The shortstop pitches two shutout innings. That's a huge increase in the number of innings he's thrown over last year, but don't worry: Since he's over 25, the Verducci Effect probably doesn't come into play.  By the way, I just love that picture. In it he's actually throwing over to first, but it kind of looks like those old photos of deadball-era pitchers just hurling it up there without really putting their whole body into it.

Dodgers 3, Rockies 2: Vicente Padilla. Who knew? Nothing special of course -- two runs on six hits over five -- but that's a few fewer hits and runs than you might have expected him to give up. This series -- and what came before and after it -- represents everything fantastic about baseball. The Rockies took three of four from the Giants and won one in dramatic fashion against L.A. 48 hours ago. Then bam, bam, they're four games out and have to go to San Francisco and face Tim Lincecum, a resurgent Barry Zito and Matt Cain. They could end the week way worse off than they started it, and no one could have expected it as late as Wednesday afternoon. It's a relentless season that gives no quarter. You can't pump yourself up once a week or ride a hot hand. Twenty-five guys have to go out there every single day and do it. It actually makes exercises like these daily recaps rather silly, as the true story of the season can only truly be seen from a distance. The true mettle of a team revealed in its skills at long term survival.

Diamondbacks 11, Giants 0: Then again, maybe the Rockies don't have much to worry about this weekend.

Pirates 3, Phillies 2: So your first closer blows one, and your second closer blows one again the next night. Now what do you do? Well, you can leave your starter out there the whole game, which is what Charlie Manuel did with J.A. Happ last night. That didn't work either as Happ gives up two in the eighth, so now it looks like the Phils are on to Plan D. Say, I wonder what would it take to pry Nick Green away from Boston . . .

Braves 9, Padres 1: Atlanta salvages one behind seven shutout innings by Javier Vazquez, who had an RBI to boot. Nine runs and seventeen hits for the Braves, but the only extra-base hit was Adam LaRoche's homer in the sixth. Otherwise, it was single-fest.

Nationals 5, Cubs 4: Milton Bradley was 0 for 5, and is in a big slump. I have no idea if Cubs fans actually hate him like he thinks they do, but if they don't already, he's giving them ample reason. The Cubs are now nine behind St. Louis. "Look, let's just win some baseball games. Forget the Cardinals and every other team," said Lou Piniella after the game. As long as that includes the Cubs, I think everyone is on board.

Astros 4, Cardinals 3: Jeff Keppinger hit what would prove to be the winning homer with two out in the ninth, averting a sweep by the Cards. Nice rally, however small, the day after Oswalt said the team was "dead." Then again, maybe Oswalt didn't really mean the team was dead. I always have taken comments like that to be the way players communicate their general unhappiness with the manager to the press and team brass.

Indians 5, Royals 4: Andy Marte homered, tripled and drove in a couple. He's still no great shakes on the year, but he's on a warmish streak of late. If he keeps it up, he may actually be given one final chance to be an all-season everyday starter in 2010. Because he's a former Braves prospect -- and because I fear that the concept of being a AAAA player extends to other walks of life beyond baseball and I thus want to see it debunked out of fear and anxiety -- I'm kind of rooting for him to make it.

The Yankees have sort of been like mailmen this season: nothing has slowed them down. Not rain, nor sleet nor snow ... and certainly not the Red Sox. They just keep delivering victory after victory.

But for Yankees fans, the injury to Jorge Posada might be cause for concern. For those of you who don't (gasp!) pay attention to what goes on in the Bronx, Posada had to leave Wednesday's game after taking a foul ball off his left ring finger. (Watch the video here)

The X-rays came back negative, but Posada, who termed the injury a "bruised joint", did not play in Thursday's loss to Texas.

According to the New York Times, manager Joe Girardi might give his catcher a week off once the rosters expand to 40 on Sept. 1, provided the Yankees feel comfortable about their AL East lead at the time. Jose Molina and Francisco Cervelli would share playing time.

But according to Posada, simply sitting for a week won't be enough to do the trick.

When he said he needed rest for the finger to heal, he meant that he needed extended rest for the swelling to subside and for the finger to be pain free.

"I don't think it's going to heal until the season is over," Posada said. "The joint is bruised. There's not much I can do."

Posada has received his fair share of criticism this season, primarily for his game-calling abilities. CC Sabathia has Molina as his personal catcher, and A.J. Burnett has clashed with Posada over his pitch calling.

But without him in the lineup, the Yankees suffer a severe drop in production. Witness the numbers:

Posada: .277/.353/.510
Molina: .250/.319/.321
Cervelli: .269/.284/.346

Andy Pettitte told the Times that the Yankees were too good "not to get this done," meaning, win a championship. But the road just got a little bit tougher.

******

If you Twitter, and you think Brian Cashman is a little bit gangsta, follow me at @Bharks.

Out since last July following Tommy John elbow surgery, Tim Hudson is scheduled to make his season debut Monday against the Marlins while Kenshin Kawakami has his usual start skipped. Hudson has fared pretty well while rehabbing in the minors, posting a 3.86 ERA and 14/4 K/BB ratio in 23.1 innings between high Single-A and Triple-A, and the 34-year-old was regularly clocked in the low-90s for his last start.

Hudson is definitely worth a flier in NL-only leagues, but don't expect him to produce mixed-league value again until next season. Atlanta's decision to bump Kawakami from the rotation is an odd one, because he has a 3.52 ERA in 20 starts since a poor April. Bobby Cox expressed concern that Kawakami could wear down because he'd never made even 30 starts in Japan, but he has a 3.75 ERA since the All-Star break.

While the Braves welcome back a pitcher who went 54-38 with a 3.78 ERA through his first four years in Atlanta, here are some other notes from around baseball ...

For no other reason than to tweak their two biggest rivals, the Yankees stepped in Thursday and claimed Boston's Chris Carter off waivers, preventing him from immediately becoming a Met as a player to be named in the Billy Wagner deal.

In so doing, they kept the Mets from adding a legitimate bat to their depleted lineup for the final five weeks. They're also forcing the Red Sox to keep Carter on the 40-man roster for now, which will be a minor annoyance as they try to set up their September roster.

So, it's mission accomplished for Brian Cashman and company. And caught in the crossfire is Carter, a soon-to-be 27-year-old first baseman-outfielder who probably won't ever have another chance to establish himself like he would have received as a Met next month. The Stanford prospect is a career .304/.378/.507 hitter in 2,745 minor league at-bats, but he's not a true slugger and he's quite limited defensively. The Mets will have him next year, but there will likely be plenty of alternatives at first base and in left field by then. This was Carter's chance, and it's not going to happen for him simply because the Yankees saw some miniscule advantage for themselves.

Matt Holliday has been energized since escaping the tomb that is Oakland's McAFee Coliseum and joining the St. Louis Cardinals.

It was great timing for him, as he will be a free agent at the end of the season, and he'll get plenty of extra exposure (as if he needs it) if the Cardinals make the playoffs, which looks likely. He'll be among the most sought-after free agents on the market this coming winter.
But here's the good news for Cardinals fans: Matt Holliday might not become a free agent at all.

In a radio interview with the Team 1380, Holliday was asked if it was possible he would sign an extension with the Cardinals before entering free agency.

His answer? "I think there's a chance of that."

So you're telling me there's a chance. Yeah!

He also expressed positive feelings about the Cardinals roster, playing in the same lineup as Albert Pujols, and the energy he gets playing in front of a packed house every night. You can listen to the interview here.

Hat tip to MLB trade rumors.

By the way, why is it that the Cardinals always seem to strike gold with their trade deadline acquisitions?

 

 

******

If you Twitter, and wonder what the worst lineup in MLB history looks like, feel free to follow me at @Bharks.

Well, that's one of the risks that comes with stealing bases. Nyjer Morgan broke his left hand on a head-first slide on Thursday and will likely miss at least a month, if not the rest of the season.

Morgan, who had excelled as the Nationals' center fielder since coming over from the Pirates, was hurt on his 59th attempt and 42nd successful steal of the year. He was hitting .351/.393/.435 as a Nat and .307/.369/.388 overall for the year. The hot streak may not have held up, but he was making a big difference with his defense. The stats said he was the game's best left fielder during his time with the Pirates, and those numbers mostly held up after moving back to center in D.C.

With Morgan out of the mix, the Nationals will probably use a lot of Willie Harris in center the rest of the way, making him a nice asset in NL-only leagues. They'd prefer to keep Elijah Dukes in a corner. They may be willing to give Justin Maxwell an opportunity, though he's been far from dominant while hitting .247/.346/.404 for Triple-A Syracuse. The toolsy 25-year-old has pretty good power and plenty of speed -- he's 34-for-42 stealing bases in the minors -- but injuries have robbed him of much-needed development time and he's fanned 133 times in 108 games this season.

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)
No. 19 - Houston
No. 18 - Oakland
No. 17 - St. Louis
No. 16 - Florida
No. 15 - San Francisco
No. 14 - Texas

The Indians had a history of producing stars as frequently as any team during the 90s and the early part of this decade. The problem is that a few of those guys were actually ex-Expos and some of the rest are starting to get old now. As a result, the Tribe doesn't rate as highly as one might think.

Rotation
CC Sabathia
Fausto Carmona
Jeremy Guthrie
Aaron Laffey
Bartolo Colon

Bullpen
Rafael Perez
Brian Tallet
Danys Baez
Edward Mujica
Jensen Lewis
David Riske
David Huff

The rotation would have looked a whole lot better two years ago, with Carmona and Guthrie emerging as quality young starters and a solid Paul Byrd replacing Laffey. Byrd was still considered for the last spot over Colon, as were Tallet, Huff, Scott Lewis and Jeremy Sowers. As is, it's CC and a bunch of guys who haven't contributed this year. Tallet has pitched better than most of them, but I still think he'd be more valuable in the pen.

Lineup
SS Marco Scutaro
1B Russell Branyan
C Victor Martinez
LF Manny Ramirez
DH Jim Thome
3B Jhonny Peralta
RF Luke Scott
CF Ben Francisco
2B Maicer Izturis

Bench
OF Ryan Church
INF Kevin Kouzmanoff
INF John McDonald
C Wyatt Toregas

While the pitching staff is a mess, the lineup remains awfully nice. Brian Giles is out, but there were still more legitimate alternatives for the team in Willy Taveras and Ryan Garko. Center field is the weakest position, and Church might deserve a chance to start over Francisco against right-handers. He lacks range in center, but Francisco isn't exactly a Gold Glove contender either. Against lefties, Francisco should hit second, with Branyan exiting the lineup in favor of Kouzmanoff.

Of course, Victor, Manny, Thome is one of the best 3-4-5 combinations in the game. It's the middle infielders enjoying career seasons that really boosts Cleveland's lineup, though. Scutaro's defense allows Peralta to be played at third, where he's likely a more valuable player. Izturis has always been pretty solid, but he's topped his career OPS by 70 points this season.

Summary

Indians prospects have been relative disappointments lately, as should be evident from the team above. The only players on the roster to come along these last couple of seasons are fringe guys. The system has plenty of talent now, but much of that is a result of deals that cost the team Sabathia, Martinez, Cliff Lee, Casey Blake and Mark DeRosa. The Indians are a mid-market club these days, so it's imperative that they start having better drafts. As is, they haven't hit big with first-round pick since Sabathia in 1998.

This is very exciting news, though the results are far from official.

As I've mentioned in this spot previously, I'm participating in Tom Tango's Forecasters Challenge, which has 22 forecasters and projection systems playing out 1,000 runs of the season using teams of preranked players. I gave a rundown of what my teams looked like back in June.

I had just about given up on seeing an in-season update of how things were progressing, but Tom had the following to say Wednesday:

If the season were to end today, it would be a 2-man race between Rotoworld and John Eric Hanson. Together, they have 542 wins out of 1000 drafts! The other 20 combine to win less than these two. What a thrashing!

Many of the big names are taking part, so it'd be quite a thrill to come in first or even second. Looking at his draft run, I think Mr. Hanson may well have the edge, as the key players he's relying on seem to be healthy and producing. It's remarkable just how similar his rankings were to mine in some cases. We battled on many of the same players over the course of the 1,000 drafts.

Player - My team - Hanson - Total
Carlos Silva - 667 - 333 - 1,000
Brad Penny - 435 - 565 - 1,000
Brandon McCarthy - 311 - 689 - 1,000
Glen Perkins - 341 - 659 - 1,000
Pedro Martinez - 108 - 892 - 1,000
Tom Glavine - 16 - 984 - 1,000
Hank Blalock - 9 - 991 - 1,000
Brian Bannister - 1 - 999 - 1,000

Justin Upton - 630 - 368 - 998
Ian Snell - 513 - 465 - 978
Rick Ankiel - 387 - 582 - 969
Anibal Sanchez - 372 - 594 - 966
J.A. Happ - 263 - 700 - 963
Billy Butler - 210 - 711 - 921
Coco Crisp - 648 - 219 - 867
Tom Gorzelanny - 131 - 730 - 861
Robinson Cano - 50 - 766 - 816
Adam Jones - 522 - 234 - 756
Jorge De La Rosa - 76 - 658 - 734
Todd Helton - 430 - 225 - 655
Nick Markakis - 498 - 110 - 608
Alexei Ramirez - 84 - 462 - 546
B.J. Upton - 301 - 229 - 530
Carl Crawford - 346 - 96 - 442

With 22 teams drafting 25 players apiece, there's no way we could have gone head to head like that so often strictly as a coincidence. All of those similarities are likely arising because Mr. Hanson borrowed from my playing time projections to complement his performance projections. Computers are a lot better at projecting OPS than at-bats, so those systems tend to use a mix of non-computer projections to account for playing time. That's perfectly fine with me, if that's all it is. Finishing first and having a hand in No. 2's success would be pretty sweet.

- After one minor league start, Vicente Padilla makes his Dodger debut tonight in Colorado. The 31-year-old right-hander went 8-6 with a 4.92 ERA for the Rangers before being released early this month. He'll be facing off against the surging Jorge De La Rosa, who has gone 10-1 in his last 12 starts. De La Rosa, though, is 0-4 with a 7.89 ERA lifetime versus the Dodgers. He's allowed seven runs in 8 2/3 innings in his two starts against the club this year. The Dodgers bounced back from a tough loss Tuesday to win 6-1 last night and push their NL West lead back to three games.

- The Braves will turn to Javier Vazquez as they attempt to bounce back from a pair of disastrous home losses to the Padres. Vazquez has been an exceptional fantasy starter all year with his 3.14 ERA and 186 strikeouts, but as is his reputation, he often pitches just well enough to lose. He's dropped his last two starts to fall to 10-9. The Padres will start Clayton Richard, who is 3-0 with a 3.67 ERA in five starts since coming over in the Jake Peavy deal.

Game of the Night

Chicago vs. Boston - The Red Sox go for a four-game sweep of the White Sox behind Junichi Tazawa, who shut out the Yankees for six innings last time out. Tazawa has a nice 3.57 ERA despite giving up 26 hits and seven walks in 17 2/3 innings since his callup this month. The White Sox will use John Danks, who has been the team's most reliable pitcher lately. He's 7-3 with a 2.99 ERA in his last 13 starts. However, he has lost all three of his career starts against the Red Sox, racking up a 6.06 ERA in the process. With four losses in a row, the White Sox have fallen into a tie with the Twins for second place in the AL Central, 4 1/2 games back for the Tigers.

Even with eight shutout innings last night Cole Hamels merely lowered his ERA to a still-mediocre 4.52 to go along with a 7-8 record. That represents quite a decline from last season, when he won 14 games with a 3.09 ERA before taking home the MVP awards for both the NLCS and World Series.

However, a closer look at Hamels' performance tells a much different story than his win-loss record or ERA:

YEAR     SO%    BB%    HR%     GB%     FB%     LD%    LOB%     MPH
2008    21.4    5.0    3.1    39.5    38.7    21.8    76.0    90.4
2009    20.2    4.8    3.5    42.1    37.4    20.5    73.4    90.2

From left to right, the numbers shown above are strikeout percentage, walk percentage, home run percentage, ground-ball percentage, fly-ball percentage, line-drive percentage, left-on-base percentage, and average fastball velocity. And as you see, every single one of those numbers is essentially the same as last season. There isn't a meaningful change in the bunch, so how has his ERA ballooned from 3.09 to 4.52? There are a few possible explanations, but the easiest one is batting average on balls in play.

Last season just 27.0 percent of the balls put in play against Hamels went for hits. This season, despite a very similar breakdown of ground balls, fly balls, and line drives, 32.9 percent of the balls put in play against Hamels have gone for hits. Over the course of 25 starts that equals about 30 extra hits falling in, which is worth somewhere around 12-18 runs. And if you remove, say, 15 runs from Hamels' total this season his ERA drops from 4.52 to 3.59. His career ERA coming into the season? 3.43. Funny how that works.

Yesterday the Rockies became the third team in two years to give up on outfielder Matt Murton, designating him for assignment in order to clear a roster spot for washed-up reliever Juan Rincon and his 5.45 ERA over the past three seasons.

Murton turns 28 years old in a couple months, but has gotten more than 275 plate appearances in a season exactly once, back in 2006 with the Cubs. He hit .297 with a .365 on-base percentage and .444 slugging percentage that year, yet in the three seasons since then he's received a grand total of 383 plate appearances for three different teams.

Given all the bouncing around that he's done recently you might assume that Murton is pretty useless, but that's hardly the case. He's a career .287/.353/.438 hitter in 339 games as a major leaguer, has hit .312/.388/.469 in 220 games at Triple-A, and grades out as an asset defensively in either outfield corner according to Ultimate Zone Rating.

He's certainly never going to be a star or perhaps even a strong everyday player, but Murton is better and more useful than dozens of guys who've had permanent homes on MLB rosters for the past few seasons and would make an excellent platoon starter against left-handed pitching if given an extended opportunity.

Against southpaws he's batted .306/.374/.483 in 390 plate appearances in the majors and .335/.410/.536 in 400 plate appearances between Double-A and Triple-A, which alone makes him worthy of a roster spot. Toss in the fact that he's still relatively young, very cheap, and available for absolutely nothing, and ... well, it'll be a shame if Murton clears waivers and heads back to Triple-A again.

Remember when David Ortiz was hitting just .185 with one homer through two months and people were quick to write him off as washed up? Turns out, not so much.

Ortiz went deep twice last night, including a walk-off blast that curled around Pesky Pole in the bottom of the ninth inning, and has now batted .257/.344/.566 with 21 homers, 35 total extra-base hits, and 59 RBIs in 70 games since June 1.

Here's how those numbers stack up with the rest of the league during that time:

                  HR                        SLG                       RBI
DAVID ORTIZ       21      Kendry Morales   .612      Bobby Abreu       63
Russell Branyan   20      Miguel Cabrera   .578      DAVID ORTIZ       59
Carlos Pena       20      Adam Lind        .575      Kendry Morales    55
Kendry Morales    19      DAVID ORTIZ      .566      Russell Branyan   53
Aaron Hill        18      Hideki Matsui    .563      Juan Rivera       53

Since the calendar flipped to June, Ortiz has the league's most homers, second-most RBIs, and fourth-highest slugging percentage. And we're not just talking about a hot streak, as those totals are from nearly half a season's worth of games. His overall stats remain mediocre and Ortiz obviously isn't the MVP-caliber offensive force that he was from 2003-2007, but if the Red Sox get into the playoffs you can be certain that no one will be eager to pitch to him.

Incidentally, last night's blast was the 10th walk-off homer of Ortiz's career, which puts him two behind the all-time record of 12 shared by Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Frank Robinson, Stan Musial, and Jimmie Foxx. What, you were expecting Kurt Bevacqua?

* Milton Bradley added a little more fuel to the fire regarding his treatment by Cubs fans, hinting that he's been the victim of racial taunts and revealing that he's had "to listen to the waiters bad-mouthing me at another table" when he goes out to restaurants in Chicago. Asked if he regrets signing a three-year, $30 million contract with the Cubs this offseason, Bradley replied: "I don't regret anything. I regret there are idiots in the world. That's what I regret."

* How bad have things gotten for the Mets? To replace injured left-hander Oliver Perez and his 6.82 ERA they added right-hander Lance Broadway and his 6.27 ERA ... at Triple-A. Perhaps no one with an ERA under 6.00 in the minors was willing to risk bodily harm by joining the team?

* Jason Jennings has been one of the Rangers' primary setup men all season, posting a 4.13 ERA and 44/28 K/BB ratio in 61 innings, but was designated for assignment this afternoon. He can blame the emergence of Neftali Feliz and Darren O'Day for being out of a gig.

* Much like my preemptive strike against the BBWAA for possibly voting for someone other than Joe Mauer as MVP next month, Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star prepares for the Royals' terrible lineup and bullpen costing Zack Greinke the Cy Young award. And yet collectively baseball fans can't seem to get past relying on 28 newspaper writers to determine awards.

* According to the New York Post's gossip column Derek Jeter and Minka Kelly are "secretly engaged." First, that's the best decision he's made since roaming into the middle of the infield on the Jeremy Giambi flip play. Second, imagine getting to a point in life where you're not even eager to tell everyone about your engagement to the insanely attractive woman on Friday Night Lights. I'm tempted to tell everyone when I watch Friday Night Lights.

That's what the 9th District Court of Appeals said yesterday anyway:

The federal government illegally seized confidential drug test results of dozens of Major League Baseball players and must now return the records, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

"This was an obvious case of deliberate overreaching by the government in an effort to seize data" it was not entitled to have, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote for an 11-judge panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

And of course, if there was no illegal seizure, there would be no "list" and if there was no list there would be no leaks like we've recently had.

As I've said before, It was already ridiculous for people to call for "all the names to be released" given that doing so would be to violate a federal court order. It's even more ridiculous now that the list's very existence has been confirmed to be premised on the government's violation of the Constitution in obtaining it. Of course, that doesn't stop some folks, in this case the Associated Press' Tim Dahlberg, from continuing to get it all wrong:

Yes, in a perfect world certain names wouldn't be made public while other names remain secret. But in a perfect world baseball players wouldn't have used concoctions whipped up in a lab to make a mockery of the records that the game used to hold so sacred. So don't feel too sorry for A-Rod and company just yet.

How it is that people continue to think of baseball's PED rules -- which, at their heart, are no different from the work rules in your employee manual -- are more important than the Constitutional rights of Americans is beyond me, but there you have it. Don't feel sorry for A-Rod that he was betrayed by his union and fell victim to illegal acts by government agents! He was 'roiding, and we all have a right to know about that!

Of course oftentimes justice delayed is justice denied, and that's certainly what we have here. Because years passed between the seizure and the court's final ruling of its illegality, the list was able to be created and the leaks able to be leaked. In light of that, yesterday's ruling is of little practical help to the ballplayers' whose names appear there. Someone still knows the names, and given that they've already leaked some of them in violation of a court order, there is no reason to believe that this ruling will stop them from continuing to do so.

Hopefully, however, we will all have a new appreciation for just how outrageous such leaks are, and treat the inevitable release of additional names with an appropriate level of skepticism and disdain.

He was asking for it.  No really, he asked for it:

Veteran right-hander Brad Penny requested and received his release tonight in a move that clears a roster spot for reliever Billy Wagner and gives Penny time to join a new team before postseason rosters are set.

"I asked for my release and I got it," Penny said

Penny won just once in his last eleven starts, and there was no way he was going to be a critical part of this team for the remainder of the season, so this makes all kinds of sense.

Of course now he'll probably get signed by the Cardinals and finish the year 4-0 with a 1.25 ERA.

Dodgers 6, Rockies 1: Randy Wolf (7.1 IP, 5 H, 1 ER) and Andre Either (3-4, 2 HR, 3 RBI) put this one away pretty early, thereby preventing me from being able to use the second in a series of choke jokes I had prepared. There's still a lot of time left in the season, however, and I'm sure the occasion will present itself again.

Phillies 4, Pirates 1: All day yesterday people were saying "Forget Lidge, bring in Ryan Madson! Madson can get the job done!" Guess not, as Madson's blown save cost Cole Hamels his first win in a month despite pitching eight shutout innings. Best part: Madson gets the W! Which means that he's a winner. QED. At least that's what Joe Morgan taught me. Anyway, Ryan Howard saves everyone's bacon with a three-run homer in the 10th. Mmmm . . . bacon.

Marlins 5, Mets 3: This Mets team is so depleted that the very concept of depletion is insulted by being associated with them. The latest DL resident is Oliver Perez, who was sidelined with a season-ending knee injury. While is absence would seem like just what the doctor ordered, the Mets were still somehow lost this one.

Red Sox 3, White Sox 2: A walkoff homer for Big Papi, who homered earlier in the game as well. In fact four of the game's five runs came on solo home runs. Tim Wakefield made his first start since the All-Star break, and pitched well despite not getting the win (7 IP, 6 H, 1 ER). Victor Martinez did his best to catch the knuckler, though the first pitch of the game did get away from him. The late Senator Edward Kennedy was honored before the game with a solemn ceremony and "Taps" and all of that. With all due respect to the recently departed, however, don't you think he would much rather have been honored by the allowance of beer sales past the seventh inning?

Padres 12, Braves 5: This is basically the Braves we've been living with for the past four years: Awful play out of the gate, a nice little run to give you hope, and then an inexplicable swoon in games a contending team has no business losing. Mac calls the 6th-9th innings "the worst four innings that the Braves have played this year . . . probably the worst anyone has played." Another tragic thing about this game, courtesy of reader Melissa D: Jerry Springer sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Melissa does point out one ray of light: the Turner Field organist continues to dazzle, playing "Papa Don't Preach" each time Tony Gwynn, Jr. came to bat. I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before this organist is punched out cold by an angry player. Which I hope is something he would view as a very, very worthy goal.

Cardinals 3, Astros 2: The scary thing about all of this is that the guy who is 13-9 with a 3.11 ERA is only this Cardinal team's third best starter. Pineiro gave up two runs over eight innings pitched, and without looking, I'm going to guess that the Cardinals have won more close, low-scoring games than any team in baseball this year. Seriously, I've recapped around 100 Cardinals games this year, and I'm pretty sure that 92% of them finished 3-2.

Orioles 5, Twins 1: His team lost, but Alexi Casilla made a humdinger of a play, ranging right, diving to snag the ball, and then flipping it out of his glove to Orlando Cabrera covering second for the out as Casilla face planted. Also, I was not aware that the Twins have a pitcher named Jeff Manship, which is perhaps the coolest last name in the world. I'd lose the "Jeff" though, and go with something like "Jack" or "Brock" or "Pud." Seriously, tell me that "Pud Manship" wouldn't be your favorite player. See, now I know you're lying.

Blue Jays 3, Rays 2: Rod Barajas ties it up with a ninth inning homer off of J.P. Howell. Howell was apparently the only relief pitcher the Rays brought with them on this road trip, as he was allowed to stay in to issue three straight walks and then a wild pitch which allowed Marco Scutaro to score the winning run. Bad day for the home plate umpires, as first Jerry Crawford was knocked out of the game in the third after he was hit by a foul ball to the face, and then his replacement, Tom Hallion, left in the sixth inning after taking one off the chest. Hallion manshipped up, however, and stayed in the game over at third base following a delay in play, with Brian O'Nora moving behind the plate. Sadly, O'Nora was stampeded by wild buffalo in the eighth, but by then I think everyone knew it was coming.

Cubs 9, Nationals 4: Livan Hernadez made his first start on his second tour of duty with the Nats, but the final score wasn't his doing. He actually pitched pretty well (6 IP, 5 H, 2 ER). It was the bullpen -- mostly Jorge "how in the hell do I still have a job in baseball" Sosa -- that did Washington in. Milton Bradley had three RBI, but make no mistake: he still feels your hatred.

Sam Mellinger of the Kansas City Star published an entertaining (if clearly painful) story about the Royals in which he breaks down how much each player owes star pitcher Zack Greinke for costing him the $100,000 bonus he would've received for winning the AL Cy Young award.
Jose Guillen, for instance, owes the most ($25,000), because he is ...

among the worst offenders on both offense and defense, plus he makes the most money so he can afford the biggest chunk of the check. His share may be even bigger, but Ball Star respects anybody who says, "When I suck I say I suck, and right now I suck."

This all got me to thinking, how much will Milton Bradley owe his Cubs teammates, club management, and fans by the time his three-year, $30 million contract finally runs its course following the 2011 season. (Sorry Cubs fans, you still have $21 million of it to pay after this season).

For their troubles, the Cubs have received a .259 batting average, a .391 on base, and .400 slugging percentage. He's played in 104 games, hit 10 home runs, scored 49 runs and driven in another 32. On defense, he's been slightly below average in the outfield, showing decent range but a sub-par arm.

Not terrible, not earth shattering.

But then comes the fun stuff: The constant running of the mouth. The needless courting of criticism. The clashes with management.

The 10 different kinds of crazy.

On Tuesday, Bradley held court on the "hatred" he receives from Cubs fans. Because you know, sometimes they boo.

"All I'm saying is I pray the game is nine innings, so I can go out there the least amount of time possible and go home," Bradley said.

Petulant comments, for sure, but not that big a deal by his standards. But then he compared a loss to the Nationals to an infamous and horrific incident involving a young black man and the Los Angeles police department.

Q: Obviously not the type of beginning you felt you were gonna have here on the homestand:

MB: "No, we got a Rodney King beatdown tonight."

After a few seconds of awkwardness, Bradley responded, "What's up, what do ya'll got next, something else?"

Who but Bradley would make such a classy comparison?

On second thought, Bradley doesn't owe the Cubs anything. They're getting exactly what they paid for.

******

If you Twitter, and aren't too terribly crazy, you can follow me at @Bharks.

Brad Lidge blew his MLB-worst ninth save Tuesday night while pitching for the fourth straight day, so after Cole Hamels tossed eight shutout innings Wednesday manager Charlie Manuel turned to Ryan Madson to close out a 1-0 lead. Madson did his best Lidge impression by serving up a game-tying homer to Brandon Moss, but stayed in to pitch a scoreless 10th inning before Ryan Howard's three-run homer won it.

Manuel has made it very clear that Lidge remains the Phillies' closer despite a 7.33 ERA that would be the worst of all time for any pitcher with 25-plus saves, so don't draw any major conclusions from Madson getting the nod Wednesday. He'd be the obvious choice to assume ninth-inning duties if the plug is ever pulled on Lidge, but with a comfortable division lead there's no pressure on Manuel to make a change.

While the Phillies appear committed to riding Lidge until the wheels fall off, here are some other notes from around baseball ...

According to a report by Ken Rosenthal, the Milwaukee Brewers have placed closer Trevor Hoffman on waivers.

Mike Cameron, Craig Counsell, Jason Kendall, Braden Looper and Felipe Lopez were reportedly also made available, as the Brewers are in full fishing mode.

The most interesting player up for grabs is, of course, Hoffman. The all-time saves leader has had a resurgent season in Milwaukee after his aging body and slowing fastball convinced the Padres to let him go. This year, at age 41, Hoffman has saved 27 games in 29 tries, walking 10 and striking out 31 in 38 innings. He has his best ERA (1.89) since 1998, when he saved 53 games, blowing only one. So much for being finished.

The financial commitment to Hoffman is minimal, with him being about three-quarters of the way through his one-year, $6 million contract.

A number of playoff contenders could use Hoffman's services if not as a closer at least to bolster the bullpen. But it seems like one team in particular should come calling. Hellloooo Phillies!

As Aaron detailed earlier today, Brad Lidge somehow hasn't killed the Phillies yet. They're cruising along with a 7-game lead in the NL East. But the defending champs don't want to trust him come playoff time do they? Then again, would they trust Hoffman?

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)
No. 19 - Houston
No. 18 - Oakland
No. 17 - St. Louis
No. 16 - Florida
No. 15 - San Francisco

The Rangers fare surprisingly well here, given their apparent struggles to produce pitching. They actually developed a strong rotation, only to allow other team to reap the benefits.

Rotation
Ryan Dempster
John Danks
Edinson Volquez
Aaron Harang
Doug Davis

Bullpen
C.J. Wilson
Ramon Ramirez
Scott Feldman
Nick Masset
Darren Oliver
Scott Eyre
Derek Holland

Volquez went 3-11 with a 7.20 ERA as a Ranger, while Davis was 21-21 with a 5.09 ERA. None of the other three starters ever pitched for the team, and only Volquez brought a fair return when moved.

The bullpen is nice, too, in part because of Ramirez's presence. He signed with the Rangers in 1996, pitched for the team in the Dominican Summer League in 1997 and then didn't resurface until 2002, when he played in Japan.

Based on his performance this year, Feldman should be in the rotation. However, I'm not completely sold on him as a starter going forward. He'd still be the obvious choice to move into the rotation if anyone gets hurt. However, Holland and Tommy Hunter remain in reserve as well.

Lineup
CF Julio Borbon
2B Ian Kinsler
1B Mark Teixeira
DH Carlos Pena
RF Edwin Encarnacion
3B Hank Blalock
C Taylor Teagarden
LF Scott Podsednik
SS Rich Aurilia

Bench
DH Travis Hafner
C Ivan Rodriguez
INF Tug Hulett
OF Fernando Tatis

Most wouldn't guess it, but the Rangers scored more points for pitching than for hitting in these rankings. Kinsler, Teixeira and Pena qualify as stars, but they may be the only above average regulars. Decisions loom everywhere else.

Catcher: Teagarden's future versus Pudge's past. I'll take the youngster, which is what the Rangers seem to be doing right now.

Third base: Blalock, Chris Davis and Encarnacion are all defensively challenged and inconsistent offensively. Blalock seems like the best option at the moment if he's fit to handle the position, but Davis should be superior going forward.

Shortstop: The biggest problem area. Aurilia and Hulett were the choices, and while Aurilia's shortstop days should be over, Hulett is really more of a second baseman.

Right field: This is where I struck Encarnacion. I think it makes a lot of sense to try him in the outfield anyway, and he does have the arm for right.

Center field: Borbon's defense makes him the better option than Podsednik, even if he's not ready to hit like Podsednik has this year. Then again, Podsednik didn't seem to have much chance of hitting like he did this year.

Left field: Podsednik, Tatis, John Mayberry Jr., Kevin Mench, Laynce Nix and Brandon Boggs were the options. Podsednik probably won't ever be this good again, but he still might be the class of that group.

Bench: Hafner and Davis were the options as the team's top pinch-hitter. Ideally, there'd be room for both, but neither has any outfield experience at all.

Summary

I didn't expect the Rangers to place this well when I started putting together these rankings, but a rotation full of No. 2 and No. 3 starters is able to make up for some significant lack of depth on offense. The actual Rangers, though, are working on just their second over-.500 season of the decade. There's plenty of blame to spread around. Former GMs Doug Melvin and John Hart both made plenty of mistakes, as did Jon Daniels when he first took over. Owner Tom Hicks opened his wallet in a huge way for Alex Rodriguez and Chan Ho Park and then set the Rangers back years by deciding to turn the team into a mid-market club. Also, let's save a little blame for those who approved the design of The Ballpark. Developing pitching has been a nightmare for the Rangers, and they've typically overpaid for what they've brought in through free agency and trades. A kinder environment could have resulted in some wildly different Rangers teams over the last 15 years.

The Mets announced Wednesday that Oliver Perez will undergo surgery for the sore right knee that has bothered him for most of the year, sidelining him for the duration of the season. He'll become the 13th Met currently on the disabled list. Here's a rundown of what those players are making:

Johan Santana - $20 million
Carlos Beltran - $18.5 million
Carlos Delgado - $16 million
Oliver Perez - $12 million
David Wright - $7.5 million
Jose Reyes - $5.75 million
J.J. Putz - $5 million
John Maine - $2.6 million
Alex Cora - $2 million
Ramon Martinez - $750,000
Fernando Martinez - $400,000
Fernando Nieve - $400,000
Jon NIese - $400,000

That's $91.3 million in actual 2009 salaries or just about two-thirds of the $139 million the Mets are spending this year. It's more than what 17 teams are paying their entire rosters. The only healthy Mets earning in excess of $5 million are Francisco Rodriguez and Luis Castillo (Gary Sheffield as well, but all except for $400,000 of his salary is being covered by the Tigers).

- Joe Saunders returns after missing just three turns with shoulder tightness that he said had been a factor since spring training. The Angels have been pretty aggressive in handling him even though they still have the game's second-best record and his health could play a huge role in determining their fortunes in October. Before being shut down following his Aug. 7 start, Saunders had given up at least four runs in eight straight outings, taking his ERA from 3.66 to 5.33. He'll be facing the Tigers and Edwin Jackson.

- Also returning is knuckleballer Tim Wakefield, who takes an 11-3 record into his start against the White Sox. It will be his first start since July 8. The Red Sox placed him on the DL after the break with a back strain, and he also struggled with a sore calf that developed during his rehab. He's 7-0 with a 3.92 ERA at Fenway Park this season. Gavin Floyd will take the ball for the Pale Hose.

Game of the Night

Colorado vs. Los Angeles - We'll go with this matchup again, since it worked out pretty well last night. The Rockies won that one 5-4 in 10 innings, moving them to within two games of the NL West lead. It'll be Randy Wolf versus Josh Fogg in the middle contest of a three-game series. Wolf, whose early-season hard luck has all transferred over to Clayton Kershaw lately, has won three straight starts, with the Dodgers scoring nine runs in two of those games. He's 8-6 with a 3.34 ERA overall. Fogg will be making his first start of the year after replacing the injured Aaron Cook in the rotation. He has a 2.25 ERA in 20 relief appearances.

Between the regular season and playoffs last year Brad Lidge converted 48-of-48 save chances with a 1.83 ERA, .199 opponents' batting average, and 105 strikeouts in 76.2 innings.

This year Lidge blew his first save on April 18, coughed up more runs than he did all of last season by mid-May, and after his latest ugly outing last night is now 0-6 with nine blown saves and a 7.33 ERA in 46.2 innings.

He's gone from one of the greatest closer seasons in baseball history to one of the worst closer seasons in baseball history, yet amazingly the Phillies are on pace to win more games than they won last year and have a comfortable seven-game lead in the NL East. All of which is why manager Charlie Manuel isn't feeling a ton of pressure to strip ninth-inning duties from Lidge:

He's got to stay with it. He's got to keep going. I mean, what the hell? That's all we can do. That's where we're at. That's our closer. I've said that all along. That's the guy we give the ball to in the ninth inning.

Interestingly, while getting another in the long line of votes of confidence from his manager Lidge was hinting that he probably shouldn't have been out there to begin with after working on each of the previous three days:

It's frustrating. Obviously, I'll take the ball 10 days in a row. I want to get out there and compete and get those guys out. Unfortunately today it just didn't happen. I didn't have enough in the tank, I guess. I didn't have anything on the ball tonight. The fourth day in a row for me historically has been pretty bad. I wasn't able to make an adjustment today and I just didn't have anything on the ball. I need to be able to make an adjustment if I throw four days in a row.

Lidge has been bad enough that it's tough to make excuses for specific poor outings, but he does have a point. Not only did he pitch on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday before blowing Tuesday's game, he also warmed up Friday. Whether or not that's too heavy of a workload for a closer is perhaps up for debate, but it's definitely a much heavier workload than Lidge is used to. In fact, as Todd Zolecki of MLB.com notes it was just the seventh time in eight seasons that Lidge has pitched on four straight days.

Zolecki speculates that Manuel will stick with Lidge unless his blown saves start putting the Phillies' division lead in jeopardy or Brett Myers looks absolutely dominant once he returns from the disabled list, neither of which seem particularly likely at this point. Philadelphia winning 90-something games with a closer who has the highest ERA of all time among pitchers with 25-plus saves is a testament to the roster's all-around strength, but it'll be a whole lot tougher making noise again in October like this.

Remember all that stuff about Jonathan Papelbon not wanting the Red Sox to acquire Billy Wagner? Well, either he changed his stance or the Red Sox forced him to change his public stance, because general manager Theo Epstein revealed yesterday that Papelbon "went out of his way to make sure Billy knew that he was more than welcome here."

Here's what Papelbon had to say after the trade went down yesterday afternoon:

I think the biggest thing is he's going to bring some competitiveness to the ballclub, not just to the ballclub, but to the bullpen. Hopefully, he will help us in that stretch run towards a championship. I know the only reason he's coming over here is to win a championship, and that's something everybody's on board with.

I've watched him throughout the years. The biggest thing is he pitches with heart. I love guys like that. I like guys who go out there and they wear their heart on their sleeve, and with that "I'm going to get you or you're going to get me" type of attitude. I'm actually looking really forward to him coming here and kind of picking his brain, seeing how he works, and maybe picking up a couple things from him.

Quite a change from just a few days ago, but then again as Epstein aptly pointed out: "I think Pap feels like he was misunderstood. He's not a Rhodes Scholar to begin with, obviously."

Joe Crede is once again out of the Twins' lineup, this time with complications from last year's back surgery. He dropped into Minnesota's price range this offseason following multiple back surgeries and various other health problems, and had to settle for an incentive-laden one-year deal after eight seasons in Chicago.

Despite having to accumulate plate appearances to make money Crede has played in just 88 of 126 games, and the amazing thing is that he's been out of the lineup 30 percent of the time without spending a second on the disabled list. Instead he's missed 3-5 games every couple weeks, leaving the Twins to play with a 24-man roster for long stretches while essentially being "day-to-day" for five months.

When healthy enough to play Crede provided some nice power in April and May, hitting .239/.304/.493 with nine homers in 37 games to go along with outstanding defense at third base. Unfortunately he's hit just .222/.285/.371 with six homers in 51 games since then, and his various maladies have left the Twins sharing the other 42 starts among the fearsome foursome of Brendan Harris, Brian Buscher, Matt Tolbert, and Nick Punto.

Not coincidentally the Twins rank 11th in the 14-team league with a measly .695 OPS from third base, which is nothing new for them. Corey Koskie was Minnesota's third baseman from 1999 to 2004, hitting .280/.373/.463 with 52 extra-base hits per 500 at-bats, but since losing him to free agency five years ago Twins third basemen have ranked 10th, 13th, 14th, 11th, and 11th in OPS among AL teams.

* Now that they have Stephen Strasburg signed, the Nationals plan to have the No. 1 overall pick make a few instructional league starts before pitching in the Arizona Fall League. According to general manager Mike Rizzo, the goal is to have him throw "35-50 innings total" after not pitching since San Diego State's season ended in late May. Strasburg will wear No. 37, just like he did in college.

* Alfonso Soriano has been dealing with knee pain since running into the outfield wall at Wrigley Field on April 22, hitting just .231/.288/.395 in 99 games since then while going 11-for-70 (.157) with 18 strikeouts this month. He's been out of the lineup for the past three games and is set to undergo an MRI exam this afternoon. "I hope it's nothing serious," Soriano said. "I want to see the doctor and see. I don't like surgery."

* Also in the Cubs' outfield, Milton Bradley talked yesterday about the "hatred you face on a daily basis" and how "it's hard to be comfortable when you don't get a hit and get booed every time." Luckily for everyone involved, there are still two years and $21 million remaining on his contract.

* Random trivia: A.J. Pierzynski is batting .316 with 13 homers and 38 RBIs, putting him on pace to become just the third player in baseball history to hit above .300 with at least 15 homers and fewer than 50 RBIs in a season. The others? Bill Madlock (.309-15-44) in 1978 and Richie Zisk (.311-16-43) in 1981.

* Thanks to Joe Maddon and the Rays, hair-dye sales in the greater St. Petersburg area have gone through the roof.

Since it was so much fun the other day, let's run out one more ground ball on the whole Pete Rose/reinstatement/Hall of Fame discussion.

A clear majority of the 134 and counting comments to that article were in favor of Pete Rose being reinstated and voted into the Hall of Fame.  A majority of those comments -- echoing Mike Schmidt's own defense of Rose -- trotted out some variation of "how can you not let Pete in when all of the evil, evil steroids users are allowed to live and play baseball and eat pie and kick puppies and do all of the awful things they do?!!" [note: people didn't actually say that; most comments were far more impassioned].

Lost in all of this -- and brought to my attention by reader Jason Fisher -- is the fact that Pete Rose is not some being separate and apart from the business of steroids.  Or do you not remember Tommy Gioiosa?

Gioiosa says Rose listened with glee whenever his bodybuilder buddy talked about the fights he started in 'roid rages. Rose also would watch him shoot up and ask questions about what he was using. Good stuff, Gioiosa would reply. Parabolin. Human growth hormone. A German extract from the pituitary gland of monkeys. Pete had been tempted to take a shot himself, especially in 1985 and 1986 when he was losing bat speed. But he told Gioiosa it was too late to try something new. (Rose, through a spokesman, declined comment.)    

How about Paul Janzen, the steroids dealer who, according to the Dowd Report, became Rose's primary bet-placer?

In the middle of February 1987, Rose invited Janszen and Marcum to come to his home in Florida while he was at Spring training. Janszen and Marcum accepted the invitation . . . They stayed for six weeks at Rose's rented house in Tampa, Florida.  Janszen had quit his job at the Queen City Barrel Company and was essentially living off the proceeds of his steroid business.

I have no idea if Rose ever used steroids as a player.  In fact, I actually kinda doubt that he did for the same reason Gioiosa says Rose declined to shoot up: he was too old and even Rose knew it would be too little too late.

We do know, however, based on ESPN's reporting and the Dowd Report, that he worked out at a gym that he knew to be a hub of steroids users and dealers, many of whom he was very close friends with. One of the dealers was such a close friend of Rose's that he actually lived in Rose's house and was entrusted with running Rose's illegal gambling and tax evasion activities (Janszen placed bets for Rose and brought him his unreported cash in brown paper bags from card and autograph shows).  We also know, again, based on the same sources, that Rose turned a blind eye to steroid use on the Reds teams he managed, going so far as to openly joke with unnamed steroid user on his team, telling him in front of reporters that he should talk about "what steroids can do for you."

Maybe this doesn't change anyone's ultimate opinion regarding whether or not Pete Rose should be reinstated or allowed entry into the Hall of Fame.  It should, however, make you think twice about casting Rose as some greater moral and ethical actor than ballplayers who have been associated with steroids.  He was around it. He tolerated it. He joked about it. His close friend said he was even tempted to use.

To Pete Rose, steroids appeared to be just another one of those illegal things with which he had a certain comfort level.  How, then, they can be employed as the definitive moral differentiator between Rose and, say, Barry Bonds is beyond me.

UPDATE:  Some further discussion of all of this from Mr. Fisher can be found on this blog post, under the Barry Bonds heading.

Kurt Helin, at our NBC corporate cousin in Los Angeles, thinks that the Dodgers recent swoon is a good thing in that it will cause them to be challeneged and make their stomach muscles ripple and all of that:

Coasting can lead to a flat team not ready to rise to a challenge -- and a couple months back that looked like the Dodgers. But their mediocre play has closed their lead and forced them to focus.

Now they have to be sharp. That will carry over into the playoffs (which the Dodgers almost certainly will still make).

Hey, I love optimism as much as the next guy, and to be fair to Kurt, that was written before last night's extra-innings loss to the Rockies.  But I have a hard time buying this argument. 

Coasting into the playoffs may not have worked for last year's Angels team (Helin's primary example), but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone in baseball who wouldn't rather have a rested bullpen, experienced bench players and the ability to set up their rotation just the way they want to heading into October.

And of course, there's the small matter of a team not being able to simply step on the gas when they want too.  Personally, I'd rather have to figure out a way to motivate a team that coasts into the playoffs than to have a sharply-honed and battle tested team that finishes a game out.  Wouldn't you?

(link via BTF)

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the first ever televised Major League baseball game.  It was shown on the experimental W2XBS, which would later become WNBC, so good for us.  It was a doubleheader, actually, with the Reds visiting the Dodgers in Brooklyn.

Red Barber announced, calling the games with no monitors and only two cameras (one of which was trained on him), meaning that he had to guess what the folks at home -- all 3,000 of them -- were seeing as he described the action.  In light of these limitations, one must assume that this broadcast was only 400% better than your usual McCarver-Buck affair as opposed to the usual ten gablillion per cent.

In light of Omar Minaya's comments at yesterday's press conference, one wonders how closely Johan Santana's health has been monitored since coming to New York:

In his latest public slip-up, Minaya seemed to forget that Santana, his $137.5 million ace, had elbow problems in February and early March that jeopardized his availability for the start of the season. That happened "such a long time ago," said Minaya, who added that he "did not remember that part" when asked whether he regretted not giving Santana a magnetic resonance imaging test in spring training.

I'll leave it to the doctors to wonder whether or not Santana's bone chips might have been discovered if he had been given an MRI back in the spring.  I can't help but wonder, however, whether Minaya's apparent failure to grasp the health status of his team's most important player isn't evidence of a larger lack of interest in player health on the part of the team's management.  Which, you may recall, is not a new question.

It's one thing to bemoan the injuries when they happen, but are we certain that the Mets are doing everything they can to prevent them?

For as bad as he is, even Livan Hernandez has his uses.  Specifically, to go out and pitch a bunch of innings, no matter how ineffective, in order to ease the burden on the young arms of a team already out of the race:

The Nationals signed Livan Hernandez late Tuesday night and wasted no time inserting the veteran right-hander into their rotation. He'll start Wednesday against the Chicago Cubs, bumping four of Washington's other starters back a day and Collin Balester to Class AAA Syracuse.

And we can now officially call off the Bryce Harper derby.

Lost in the two straight dramatic wins that have the Rockies within spittin' distance of first place is a bizarre series of exchanges from Monday's game that, according to the Denver Post, is likely going to get some umpires disciplined:

Several Rockies alleged after Monday's dramatic, 14th-inning 6-4 victory that second-base umpire Bill Miller called catcher Yorvit Torrealba a derogatory name while the catcher was a baserunner late in the game . . . Tensions began to escalate because, Torrealba said, Miller insulted him, saying that he was out of line by showing up Campos during the game with his body language on questionable calls against Rockies pitchers. A witness to the incident said that Miller referred to his own experience as an umpire in explaining why he had the right to criticize Torrealba's actions, though he wasn't working the plate.

As that was going on, Rockies' reliever Huston Street started jawing at first base umpire Jim Joyce, telling him that he needed to get Miller to lay off of Torrealba. Instead, Joyce came to the dugout and got into it with Street. After the game, during the celebration after Spilborghs' homer, Torrelaba apparently had some nasty words with Campos and/or Miller.

Bob Watson is looking into it all, and if the Post's story is accurate, there had better be some discipline against the umps.  This has been a pretty bad year for umpire behavior, and at some point baseball needs to send a message to them that they need to rise above whatever petty baloney they feel the players and managers are doing during a game and do their job.

If I was in charge of umpires I'd order them not to even argue back during heated exchanges because nothing looks sillier than a manager ranting and raving to a stone faced ump. Going way beyond that and actually calling out players during a game for what they perceive to be disrespect is utterly unacceptable.

In order to legitimize their authority, umps need to take the high road.  It seems that the only way they'll be inspired to do that is for Bob Watson to knock them down a few pegs.  Watson and baseball has been loathe to do that when necessary, but they desperately need to do it now.

Rockies 5, Dodgers 4: If you encounter a team in the Dodgers' position, lean them forward slightly and stand behind him or her. Make a fist with one hand. Put your arms around the person and grasp your fist with your other hand in the midline just below the ribs. Make a quick, hard movement inward and upward in an attempt to assist the person in dislodging the object that is obstructing the airway. This maneuver should be repeated until the person is able to breathe or loses consciousness.

Marlins 2, Mets 1: Yesterday, in the wake of the Johan Santana news, I wrote "Rest now, Mets fans. There really is nothing else that can hurt you this year." Almost immediately thereafter readers wrote in with ways this nightmare of a season could get worse. Things like a Phillies-Yankees World Series or Jeff Francoeur getting a five year deal. With each passing day the latter seems like a possibility. As one of the only real major leaguers left on the roster (I use that term to describe tenure more than merit), Frenchy will stick out. Especially if he does things like hit a couple of doubles a night like he did here. And no, it doesn't matter that one of the doubles was a total misplay on the part of the defense. It still counts!

Pirates 6, Phillies 4: At this rate does Brad Lidge even make the postseason roster? Brought in to protect a one-run lead in the ninth, Lidge blows his ninth save of the year and sees his ERA go up to 7.33. He had some help from Jayson Werth, who came in late in the game, supposedly to provide defense, but who let a run score on an error.

Royals 6, Indians 2: Zack Greinke mows down the Indians with 15 strikeouts. With this outing, with Halladay's recent swoon, and with the guys with the high win totals posting considerably higher ERAs, Greinke probably just catapulted himself back into "favorite" status for the Cy Young award, didn't he?

Reds 8, Brewers 6: The Reds blow a five run lead in the ninth, but Joey Votto and Laynce Nix homer in the 13th to make it all better. The dingers came off of former Red Todd Coffey. The Reds hitters had the psychological advantage in that situation: they knew that Coffey sucks, whereas Coffey probably still labors under delusions that he does not. It's called clarity of thought, people. Therein lies the advantage.

Rangers 10, Yankees 9: Let's hear it for all of that extra rest Joba Chamberlain got (4 IP, 9 H, 7 ER). Let's also hear it for a valiant, yet utterly unsuccessful ninth inning rally by the Yankees.

Red Sox 6, White Sox 3: Chicago loses its third straight and falls to .500. Jacoby Ellsbury steals his 55th base, breaking the tie with Tommy Harper for the most steals in a single season in Red Sox history.

Tigers 5, Angels 3: Detroit takes advantage of the Chicago loss, extending their lead to four and a half games. John Lackey was beat up for the second straight outing. Miguel Cabrera (3-5, 2B, HR, 2 RBI) is on pace for having one of the quietest .340 35 HR 100 RBI seasons in recent memory.

Cardinals 1, Astros 0: Wandy Rodriguez and Adam Wainwright throw bullets all night -- each only gave up three hits -- but a quick single from Brendan Ryan followed by a Pujols double in the first inning put Rodriguez in a "hole" he could never get out of. This game took 2:10, which is roughly the length of your average AL East inning.

Five months after undergoing open-heart surgery, Aaron Boone - or Aaron "Bleepin'" Boone, as Red Sox fans know him - is about to return to the major leagues.

He'll join the Houston Astros on Friday, then be activated when rosters expand on Tuesday, Sept. 1.

Boone has been playing in the minors since Aug. 10, and to be honest, he hasn't done a whole lot, going 3-for-15 at Double-A Corpus Christi before moving up to Triple-A Round Rock, where he was 0-for-4 in two games.

But that's really besides the point isn't it?

Five months ago, doctors opened him up to perform an eight-hour procedure, cracking his sternum and replacing a leaky aortic valve. Now he's back in the bigs.

Boone comes from a great baseball family. His brother, Bret, was a three-time All-Star with the Mariners, Reds, Braves and Padres. His father, Bob, was a four-time All-Star who caught more games than any catcher not named Carlton Fisk and Ivan Rodriguez. His grandfather Ray, was twice an All-Star.

Yet despite all that baseball royalty in his blood, Aaron Boone isn't playing to earn accolades. Nor is he playing for money. He's playing simply because he enjoys playing, and he enjoys life. (From the Statesman):

He may not play beyond 2009, a fate Boone said he's comfortable with.
As he put it, "I'm looking forward to life after baseball."
Not to mention life itself.

There's a guy I can root for.

******

If you Twitter feel free to follow me at @Bharks.

Tuesday's headlines were dominated by the Mets, who dealt Billy Wagner to the Red Sox, put Johan Santana on the disabled list in preparation for season-ending elbow surgery, and revealed that J.J. Putz has also been shut down for the year following a setback in his recovery from elbow problems. None of that qualifies as good news, exactly, but some of it is "not horrible" and at this point Mets fans will take even that.

Wagner changed his mind minutes before the Tuesday afternoon deadline to accept a trade to Boston, so New York dumped his remaining salary and $8 million option or $1 million buyout for next season while picking up two players to be named later. To get Wagner's approval the Red Sox agreed to decline his 2010 option, but will retain the right to offer him arbitration and receive draft-pick compensation if he leaves.

Few teams can afford to drop $3 million on a 38-year-old reliever who returned from Tommy John surgery a week ago and at most the Red Sox could get a dozen or so innings out of Wagner, but he's certainly a nice luxury item to take a flier on and has looked very capable of making a big impact through two post-surgery appearances. Plus, the draft picks may prove more valuable than the two PTBNLs surrendered.

Meanwhile, fears about Santana needing to go under the knife proved accurate, but rather than anything career-threatening he merely needed bone spurs removed from his elbow. Santana clearly hasn't been himself of late, managing just 60 strikeouts in his last 101 innings, but underwent the same procedure years ago in Minnesota and bounced back just fine. He should be at full strength in time for spring training.

While the Mets place their 20th player of the season on the DL, here are some other notes from around baseball ...

Along with the big Johan Santana and Billy Wagner news today, there were three lesser items that figure to negatively impact a few of this winter's potential free agents.

- Wanting to make room for Chris Davis, the Rangers placed Andruw Jones on the disabled list with a strained left hamstring.

Jones' OPS stood at 903 on July 29, but he's gone 8-for-53 with no homers since, leaving him with a .217/.329/.482 line for the season. Just as much of a concern for his value going forward is that leg injuries have limited his outfield time, making him primarily a DH even after injuries to Josh Hamilton and Nelson Cruz opened up spots. Jones does have his 17 homers in 253 at-bats this season, so if he were still an adequate center fielder, he'd be well worth considering as a regular next year. However, as is, that's an awfully difficult thing to judge. It would help if he got himself into better shape and then logged some innings in winter ball.

In this case, Jones' loss is another free agent's gain. Hank Blalock could have lost a lot more playing time to Davis, but he'll likely stay in the lineup against right-handers now.

- The Mets revealed that J.J. Putz suffered a setback with his forearm and probably wouldn't pitch again this season.

If that's the case, Putz could well end his Mets career with a 5.22 ERA and a 19/19 K/BB ratio in 29 1/3 innings, all accumulated during the first two months of this season. GM Omar Minaya expected him to function as an elite setup man in front of Francisco Rodriguez, but it seems clear now that the one-time dominant closer will never be so effective again.

The Mets have the option of keeping Putz at $8.5 million or buying him out for $1 million next year. It'd be a lot to pay for a setup man anyway, and there's just no way that Putz is worth it now. Exercising the option and trading him might have worked if Putz came back and impressed in September, but that's also out. Odds are that he'll become a free agent, and he might latch on with a low payroll club willing to give him an opportunity to close (Florida? Baltimore?).

- Nick Johnson has been slower than expected to recover from a strained hamstring and could be placed on the DL prior to tonight's game.

Incredibly, Johnson went 4 1/2 months without suffering an injury of any significance. However, the slow healing first baseman is down now after appearing in just 13 games following a trade from the Nationals to the Marlins. Johnson, who is batting .296/.419/.408, had a ton to gain as a free agent by playing in 150 games this season. It likely would have put him in line for another three-year deal. Something like $15 million for two years might be more likely now.

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)
No. 19 - Houston
No. 18 - Oakland
No. 17 - St. Louis
No. 16 - Florida

The Giants' legendary inability to develop hitters under GM Brian Sabean doesn't keep the team from cracking the top half of the rankings, if only barely.

Rotation
Tim Lincecum
Matt Cain
Francisco Liriano
Jonathan Sanchez
Noah Lowry

Bullpen
Joe Nathan
Brian Wilson
David Aardsma
Scott Linebrink
Carlos Villanueva
Bobby Howry
Jeremy Accardo

It's hard to beat that one-two punch, and I still have high hopes for Liriano going forward. I'm not sure Lowry is the right choice to round out the rotation, as he may never make it back after two lost seasons. He can be replaced by Shairon Martis, but it's nearly moot, as Madison Bumgarner, arguably the top pitching prospect in the minors, will claim the spot soon enough.

The bullpen possesses perhaps baseball's best closer, two more ninth-inning guys and plenty of other setup options. Jason Grilli was next in line for a spot, but the rotation is good enough that the team should be able to go without a long reliever. Sergio Romo was also considered. It's a couple of years too late for Keith Foulke.

Lineup
CF Fred Lewis
C Buster Posey
RF Nate Schierholtz
1B Pablo Sandoval
LF John Bowker
3B Pedro Feliz
2B Kevin Frandsen
SS Emmanuel Burriss

Bench
OF Todd Linden
C Yorvit Torrealba
INF Brian Buscher
INF Cody Ransom
1B Travis Ishikawa

The scary thing is that this qualifies as huge progress. Three years ago, this would have been an absolutely horrible list populated by Feliz, Torrealba and a bunch of fringe bench players, like Jason Ellison, Lance Niekro and Dan Ortmeier. Feliz and Rich Aurilia were the only legitimate regulars produced during the late 90s and the first half of the aughts, and Aurilia actually spent three years in the Texas farm system before joining the Giants. Even worse, it sure appears as though what did develop did so more as a result of steroid use than from any actual instruction in the San Francisco system.

The lineup above isn't embarrassing any longer. Sandoval has played like an All-Star this year, and I think Schierholtz and Bowker are both capable of some 800 OPS seasons in the majors. Producing offense at the bottom of the order will be a major problem, but at least the infield defense should be strong.

As for Posey, well, that might be something of a reach at this point. I considered sticking Sandoval back behind the plate and going with Ishikawa at first base, but the Giants are going to need Sandoval's bat in the lineup at all times. If Posey isn't quite ready to cut it yet, then Torrealba could start, with Steve Holm as the backup.

Summary

The Giants have improved by leaps and bounds over the last few years, and they might be even higher in the rankings if they didn't blow their 2004 and '05 first-rounders to sign free agents. With injuries taking a toll on some quality arms, the Giants went the entire 1990s without getting a quality return on a first-rounder. However, they've been scoring big since with Lincecum, Cain and now Bumgarner and Posey. They should move up further when these lists are revisited in a couple of years.

- Adam Wainwright can become the first National League to reach 15 wins, but to get there, he'll have to outpitch Astros left-hander Wandy Rodriguez, who is 12-7 with a 2.89 ERA that ranks seventh in the NL.  Wainwright is fifth at 2.61.  Oddly enough, Rodriguez is 3-7 against the Cardinals in his career, even though he's limited Albert Pujols to a .120 average and no extra-base hits or RBI in 25 at-bats.

 

- After No. 7 takes on No. 5 in St. Louis, No. 6 and No. 3 will duel in San Francisco.  Arizona's Dan Haren was the NL's most effective pitcher in the first half, but he's 3-3 with a 4.91 ERA since the break, dropping him behind five pitchers.  Cain currently has a 2.4305 ERA, while teammate Lincecum is at 2.4281.  Both are trailing Chris Carpenter at 2.16.

 

- 25-year-old right-hander Armando Gabino will make his major league debut for the Twins tonight after going 5-3 with a 2.83 ERA, 65 H and 55/22 K/BB in 86 IP for Triple-A Rochester.  A reliever for most of the year, he had made just five starts -- and one of those was an abbreviated three-inning outing Friday to put him in line to pitch tonight.  Gabino throws in the low-90s consistently as a reliever and has displayed an improved changeup this year.  He's a long shot to last as a starting pitcher, but he's proven to be a nice find for a guy originally picked up in the minor league Rule 5 draft.

 

Game of the Night

 

Los Angeles vs. Colorado - With the NL West gap down to three games after the Rockies' walkoff grand slam against the Giants last night, the Dodgers travel to Colorado to begin a three-game series tonight.  The Dodgers would seem to have the right pitcher on the mound in Clayton Kershaw, but they've actually lost each of the left-hander's last six starts, even though he has allowed just 11 runs during the span.  Plus, Kershaw is 2-3 with a 6.07 ERA against Colorado in his career.  The Rockies will throw Jason Hammel, who like Kershaw, is 8-7 on the season.  It will be a rematch of a July 1 game which the Dodgers won 1-0, leaving Hammel with a complete-game loss.  The difference is that tonight's contest will be in Coors Field, where Hammel is 2-3 with a 7.02 ERA this season.

Johan Santana will miss the remainder of the season following elbow surgery, but believe it or not that news actually qualifies as relatively positive for the Mets. Santana will be going under the knife, but the procedure is merely to clean out bone chips in his elbow rather than replace any ligaments.

He's expected to be fully healthy in time for spring training and bounced back well after previously having bone chips removed during his time in Minnesota. Santana clearly hasn't been himself of late, managing just 60 strikeouts over his last 101 innings, yet still managed to post a 3.22 ERA since the All-Star break while pitching through pain. He has four years and $95.5 million remaining on his contract.

About a week before the July 31 trading deadline I wrote an article comparing Roy Halladay to Cliff Lee, concluding that "the gap between them hasn't been as big as most people seem to think and given the likely costs involved in acquiring each player Lee could prove to be a better target."

Plenty of comments and e-mails disagreed with me, because at the time Halladay was being touted as the ace getting shopped for packages of elite prospects and Lee was viewed as more of an afterthought or fallback plan. Fast forward a month and things have changed quite a bit.

Halladay stayed in Toronto and has gone 2-3 with a 4.50 ERA and .320 opponents' batting average in five starts since the trading deadline, including getting knocked around for eight runs on a dozen hits last night. Lee was dealt to the Phillies, where he's gone 5-0 with a 0.68 ERA and .175 opponents' batting average in five starts, including allowing just two unearned runs over seven innings last night.

All things being equal I'd still probably take Halladay over Lee long term, but the comparison is an example of why focusing strictly on performance rather than getting caught up in name recognition or perceived value can be illuminating. To the average fan Halladay was the big name and the stud pitcher, but in reality his performance was just slightly better than Lee's during their previous 50 starts.

No one could have known that Halladay would struggle and Lee would be unhittable, but it wasn't tough to see that the Phillies got a comparable top-of-the-rotation starter for a fraction of what it would have cost to add the bigger name. Toss in the fact that Lee is 15 months younger and will make $8 million next season while Halladay earns $15.75 million and general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. is looking awfully smart right now.

Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post reports that Billy Wagner changed his mind "after heavy lobbying by the Mets" and has agreed to accept a trade to the Red Sox.

As part of the deal the Mets will receive two players to be named later and the Red Sox have agreed to decline the $8 million option on Wagner for 2010 while retaining their right to offer him arbitration. By offering him arbitration Boston would be in line for draft pick compensation should Wagner leave as a free agent.

Wagner has made just two appearances since returning from Tommy John elbow surgery and likely won't be available to work back-to-back games, but has definitely looked capable of making an impact down the stretch and perhaps into October. Assuming that the PTBNLs aren't significant prospects the Red Sox basically spent a few million bucks to add a potential shutdown left-hander for what will probably be at most a dozen innings. Few teams can afford that luxury, but Boston is obviously one of them.

For the Mets, parting with Wagner is a no-brainer and getting a pair of even marginal prospects in return is just a bonus. Neither side had much interest in Wagner remaining in New York next season and there was no sense in paying millions to watch him pitch for a sub-.500 team down the stretch. There was a strong argument to be made for general manager Omar Minaya simply letting the Red Sox have Wagner when they claimed him off waivers, so he absolutely deserves credit for coaxing some added value out of the situation.

One of these things is not like the others
One of these things just doesn't belong
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
By the time I finish my song?

- Sesame Street, "One of These Things"

A recent Sports Illustrated poll asked 380 major leaguers to name the player who "gets the least out of the most talent" and the results are pretty interesting:

1. Wily Mo Pena
2. Daniel Cabrera
3. Elijah Dukes
4. J.D. Drew
5. Mike MacDougal

Perhaps not surprisingly four of those five guys last played for the Nationals, with Dukes and MacDougal still on the team, and the only non-Nationals player on the list looks like the answer to one of those "which of these things is least like the other four?" test questions.

Pena is a career .257/.303/.443 hitter and at 26 years old is a free agent after being let go by three teams in two seasons. Cabrera owns a 46-64 record and 5.09 ERA in 881 innings and is currently pitching at Triple-A after being cut by the Nationals. Dukes is a former top prospect with off-field issues who's hit .234/.337/.423 through 208 games in the majors. MacDougal is currently the Nationals' closer and is in one of his "effectively wild" stages after being a mess in four seasons with the White Sox.

And then there's Drew, who somehow gets lumped in with that foursome despite being an All-Star last year, finishing sixth in the MVP balloting in 2004, posting the 25th-best OPS among active hitters, and playing 1,316 games over 12 seasons in the majors. Drew has missed lots of time with injuries, rubs some people the wrong way with his laid-back demeanor and patient approach to hitting, and hasn't become the superstar that many people expected when he was a top-five pick in back-to-back drafts.

However, at the end of the day he's a .282 career hitter with a .391 on-base percentage and .500 slugging percentage who figures to end up with around 1,800 hits, 275 homers, and $100 million in earnings. To call Drew a disappointment is one thing, but equating him to complete busts like Pena and Cabrera while suggesting that a 12-year veteran with a .900 OPS "gets the least out of the most talent" is all kinds of silly. Drew has more career value than Pena, Cabrera, Dukes, and MacDougal combined, and it isn't particularly close.

Jason Giambi, on signing a minor-league contract with the Rockies in the hopes of nabbing a September bench role:

It's cool. My ego is not in the way at all. I enjoy playing baseball. I'm a baseball player. I enjoy coming out here and playing with the guys, playing a kid's game. They asked me if I minded going down to get some at bats and I said no, absolutely not. I want to help you guys win. There is no small role when a team's in the pennant race. I've been in a lot of them over my career and it's exciting to watch those guys play. They've got a great ball club and a great clubhouse. I know a lot of the guys. It'll be fun to be a part of the ball club.

Aside from a couple of brief rehab assignments Giambi hasn't been in the minors since 1995, when he batted .342 in 55 games at Triple-A as a 24-year-old. Fourteen years and 1,933 big-league games later he's obviously near the end of the line, but for all his horrible defense, high strikeout totals, and low batting averages Giambi still has plenty of patience and power, and those are two skills that can be extremely useful off the bench.

Chico Harlan notes that the Nats have sorted out most of their big issues for 2009: the Dominican Republic signing bonus scandal, Jim Bowden getting fired, Manny Acta getting fired, the draft, signing Strasburg, and making Mike Rizzo permanent.  Now all they have left to do is to figure out if Jim Riggleman gets the "interim" tag taken off his title:

Under Riggleman, the Nats are 18-20. They've been streaky. They just wrapped up a disappointing 1-5 homestand. But just to put Washington's improvement in perspective, the team didn't win its 18th game under Acta until June 17 -- a night when the record improved to 18-46.

It's a bit premature, I know. But I'll ask anyway.

Chico "asks" whether Riggleman should be brought back in poll form.  I'll opine: nah.  Nothing personal against Riggleman, but the improvement since he was hired is likely more evidence that this is not as terrible a Nats team as it appeared under Manny Acta than it is evidence that Jim Riggleman is a miracle worker. Yes, near-.500 ball is impressive from this group, but can anyone (paging NBC Washington's Chris Needham!) point out what Riggleman has done that is so special?  Special enough to overlook his historically ho-hum presence on the multiple teams he has managed?  More special than the roster cleaning and restructuring that Rizzo has done to fix what was a horribly-constructed team at the start of the season?

Above all of that is the sense that the Nats really and truly (a) need to make sure they have a manager in place that has a track record of working well with and developing young talent, especially pitching talent; and (b) need to inject some sort of excitement into this team that will motivate people to actually, you know, buy tickets to watch these guys as they get better.

That's a tough combo.  Usually the big colorful Billy Martin-type managers are guys who don't do too well with kids because, hey, they don't have to.  But it's worth seeking out, and for that reason I think the Nats should offer Riggleman a hearty thank you, a nice coaching job, and look onward into the future with another man at the helm.

We had quite a lively debate yesterday about whether Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame.  I'd have to guess, however, that even the most ardent Rose haters -- of which I am not one, no matter what a lot of you think -- would agree that Rose has a better claim to Cooperstown immortality than Eric Bruntlett's sweaty jersey:

There actually have been more perfect games -- 18, including the postseason -- than unassisted triple plays . . . That is why the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum asked Bruntlett for a piece of memorabilia from the play.

Bruntlett is sending his jersey.

This isn't a slam on Bruntlett or his feat -- I took care of that yesterday.  I just don't get the obsessiveness on the part of the Hall for this kind of totem.  I get truly historic jerseys, and I even get more directly symbolic things like a guy's spikes for a stolen base record or something.  But the shirt a backup second baseman was wearing when something cool yet kind of flukey happened? How isn't preserved video or a photo sufficient?  What does the jersey actually add to the historic remembrance of it all?  Maybe the glove would be better.  Bruntlett probably doesn't want to part with that in the middle of a season, of course, so maybe the Hall should just wait for that.

Don't get me wrong -- this is not a complaint as such. Just kind of a head scratcher regarding why it is we actually preserve artifacts like this. Is it to remember an event? Does the Hall do this out of a sense of mere inertia?

Probably worth a visit to Cooperstown to ask someone. 

The Tribune's Paul Sullivan notes the dilemma the Cubs face this offseason in connection with Rich Harden:

Harden has been the Cubs' most consistent starter in the second half with a 3-1 record and 1.64 earned-run average, with a 4-1 strikeouts-to-walks ratio. But he could become a sought-after free agent after the season, so the Cubs have to make a decision on how much they're willing to offer him . . . Signing Harden to a four-year deal for $50 million-$60 million is risky, but that's probably what they will have to pay to keep him.

The "risky" part is the rub, of course.  When Harden is healthy, he is very very good, but he's only started 30 games and/or thrown 150+ innings once, and that was in 2004.  In terms of health and effectiveness when healthy there's an argument to be made that he's the pitching equivalent of Milton Bradley, and look how well that risk worked out for the Cubs.

Of course, good pitching is a bit harder to find than DH/corner outfielder types, so there's a chance that Jim Hendry and the Cubs' new ownership group may be willing to take another Bradleyesque risk.  I'm not sure I would.

While it's possible that the fates have already conspired against the Marlins (and the Braves or the Giants) from catching the Rockies and the NL wild card, they're not admitting defeat yet, of course.  Like the other contenders, they just have to keep plugging away and hope that Colorado eventually cools off.  In the meantime, everything needs to break just right for them. This is not an example of something breaking right, however:

The Marlins have been patiently waiting for Nick Johnson's tight right hamstring to loosen up so they could avoid having to put him on the disabled list.

The wait, however, isn't paying off. The first baseman said he is not feeling any better, and he does not think he will be back Tuesday when the Marlins open a vital 10-game homestand beginning with the Mets.

On Sunday morning, Johnson hit off a tee and played catch. But when he tested his hamstring with light running exercises at Turner Field, he still felt discomfort.

They more or less have to DL the guy now, as they've been playing a man short for ten days.

I thought that the Johnson trade was a nifty little move for the Marlins, and given that he had been getting on base at a .500 clip since the trade, it was paying off.  But the guy came with a serious injury history, so this isn't the most unexpected thing in the world.

This isn't attached to any news item, but after watching the dramatic ending to last night's Giants-Rockies game, I was happy to see that the Dodgers are coming to town for a three-game set starting tonight.

The Rockies were 15 and a half games behind L.A. at one point this season. They can catch the Dodgers if they sweep the three-game set opening tonight in Denver.

What a wild year in the west.

I hope Papelbon is happy. Rosenthal:

Billy Wagner is staying with the Mets. He will invoke his no-trade clause rather than accept a deal to the Red Sox, according to a major-league source.

The Sox said that they wouldn't exercise his option, but would make no guarantees regarding offering him arbitration, which would make him a somewhat less desirable free agent. This part is understandable on some level, it kind of sits with me wrong:

Wagner, coming off Tommy John surgery, also was concerned about his health, a second source said.  "It's not about the option or arbitration. It's about his desire to end the year healthy for the future," the source said.  "He feels he has a better chance lasting a month in a less competitive environment than perhaps two months in a pennant race and playoffs."

Given how recent his surgery was this is understandable on some level. But there aren't any guarantees in life, especially for a 38 year-old pitcher. You think he'd want another shot at the postseason.

And really, is staying with the Mets the best thing for someone who cares about his health?  The way they're going, I got even odds on them losing someone to the DL for dengue fever before the year is out.

Rockies 6, Giants 4: Walkoff grand slam in the 14th for Ryan Spilborghs after the Rockies started their half of the inning down 4-1. Colorado is starting to smell like a team of destiny. At any rate, they've won seven of eight and are now four games ahead of the Giants for the NL wild card.

Phillies 6, Mets 2: If I can't give John Smoltz full credit for pitching against the Padres on Sunday, I sure as heck can't give Cliff Lee full credit for pitching against, well, whatever it was the team in the orange, blue and white was forced to throw out there yesterday. I never thought I'd say this, but not having Jeff Francoeur in the lineup really hurt. Of course, Cliff Lee continues to be basically ridiculous (7 IP, 6 H, 0 ER, 5K), so the Mets probably could have thrown out the 1986 lineup and they wouldn't have done much. Ryan Howard drove in five, which led to this game story note: "The home run also pushed Howard past 100 RBIs, giving him four straight seasons with at least 30 homers and 100 RBIs. The only other Phillies player to accomplish that was Hall of Famer Chuck Klein from 1929-32." I would have bet my children that Schmidt had done it, but between his relatively pedestrian 1978 season, the strike in 1981, and some low OBP guys hitting in front of him, and the opportunities just never presented themselves.

Red Sox 12, White Sox 8: We may have a winner for the most misleading line score of the year in the form of Jose Contreras' one earned run in 2.2 innings pitched. Here's Contreras' third inning: Single, out, out (ok so far), walk, HBP, error by Contreras himself, walk, wild pitch, home run. None of the six runs that scored that inning were "earned" because of the error. Except it was Jose Contreras' error, and it was surrounded with about the worst possible pitching imaginable. He more than earned those runs. He went out, tracked them down with dogs, hunted them to the ends of the Earth, killed them, and drove home with them strapped to the fender of his car with little tags on their ears. As for the Red Sox, a win is a win, but Clay Buchholz is as inefficient as a Caloric dishwasher. He averages something like 97 pitches but only a shade more than five innings a start. This one was a Buchholz special (4.2 IP, 6 H, 7 ER, 3 BB, 3K, 92 pitches). All in all it was a 3:42 game, and thanks to Contreras and Buchholz, it may very well have been the ugliest game of the season.

Brewers 7, Nationals 1: A weird 4:30 start time. What's the story, here? It's a getaway day so I see why you don't go with the night game, but why not then make it an old-timey businessman's special and start the thing a 1PM? I guess they figure they can get people leaving work a bit early, but I've always found it easier to just never come back after lunch than it is to slip out the door at 4PM. Then again, I've worked at many, many places in my life so perhaps my example isn't the best one to emulate.

Rays 12, Blue Jays 7: Roy Halladay's worst start of the year (6 IP, 12 H, 8 R) shoots his ERA over 3.00 for the first time since early May. As for the Rays, they keep a close watch on this heart of mine. They keep their eyes wide open all the time. They keep the ends out for the tie that bind. Because they're mine, they've won seven of nine.

OK, I'm really sorry about that one. That was bad even for me.

Twins 2, Orioles 1: Scott Baker allows one run on four hits in seven and beats Chris Tillman. The two Minnesota runs came off of a wild pitch (following a triple) and a sacrifice fly. Kind of a passive aggressive game.

Indians 10, Royals 6: Luis Valbuena hit a three-run shot off of Joakim Soria -- who was apparently called in to get the nearly unheard of two-inning save -- in the eighth. Big game for Travis Hafner (3-4, 2B, HR, 4 RBI).

Tigers 10, Angels 7: Miguel Cabrera homered and drove in five. Justin Verlander had a 10-run lead in the sixth inning when he started to get hit. Leyland: "He lost his tunnel vision. You got a 10-run lead, you got to go out there and pitch like it's a 1-0 lead . . . You can't worry about what the score was." So much for "pitching to the score." Umpire Tim Welke left the game in the bottom of the fourth after getting hit in the chest by a foul tip from Vladimir Guerrero. I didn't see it, but given that it's Vlad we're talking about, the ball was probably on Welke's chest protector already when he swung.

Mariners 3, Athletics 1: Griffey hit a homer with his mom in the stands. "She doesn't get to see too many games live. She's going to take credit for that one." Actually, she could technically take credit for all 625 of your home runs, young man. Not that she'll ever get any thanks. And to think she carried you around in her body for nine months . . . but don't mind me, I'm just your mother . . . a call would be nice sometime too, and let me tell you what I think about those boys you've been gallivanting around town with . . .

By the time his career came to a close, Jeff Kent was widely known as a cranky old cuss who played the game 1,000-mph and would chew the rear of anyone who didn't do the same.

No one was off limits, not even Barry Bonds. Which makes it hardly surprising that the two didn't get along, what with their enormous egos constantly bumping into each other in the clubhouse.

The two even got caught on camera fighting in the dugout once in 2002. Kent said at the time it wasn't a big deal, that they had scuffled before, and that that sort of thing happened sometimes on good teams with competitive players.

Fast forward to Monday, when Kent spoke at length about Bonds, steroids and other topics in the lead-up to his being installed on the Giants' "Wall of Fame." Pretty interesting stuff, from Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury-News:

"Tell me, does Barry have any close friends that are baseball players? I don't mean that as a crack against Barry. Do I have any friends that are baseball players? We were in our own world when we played. We were similar in the sense we understood each other. We just didn't hit it off for some reason. We talked motorcycles. Heck. We talked religion a couple times. But after work, we didn't get a sandwich."

Would love to have heard those talks on religion between the two non-friends, but there was more, including the revelation that they - in Kent's view anyway - pushed each other to be great.

"We got after it a few times. You saw it on TV one time. That was just one of many times we got after it. Barry was so good, he had no competitor. He needed somebody to push him in order to play better and care more. I played the role of the guy who stuck a nail in his shoe every once in awhile, get him to jump. Barry motivated himself but sometimes he just didn't care. And I had to help him."

Interesting comments for sure, and I can't help but wonder what one of Kent's "motivational" sessions would've gone like. Something like this, perhaps?

Kent: Hey Barry, you need to hustle out there.

Bonds: (bleep) you.

Kent: I'm not kidding. Stop slacking. You need to run out those fly balls. And I think you coulda run down that liner in the gap if you had tried harder.

Bonds: (bleep) you.

Kent: Alright buddy, it's go time!

******

If you Twitter, and can lift more than Izzy Mandelbaum, feel free to follow me at @Bharks.

Johan Santana has been scratched from his scheduled Tuesday start with soreness in his left elbow. For now at least the Mets have indicated that they hope the injury is a short-term problem, but several teammates suggested Monday night that Santana may be headed for surgery. He'll be examined further by doctors Tuesday, at which point the Mets should know whether Santana has a chance to pitch again this year.

Santana has hardly been horrible of late with a 3.94 ERA this month and a 3.22 ERA since the All-Star break, but a closer look at his numbers reveals that something has clearly been off for quite a while. After averaging a career-low 7.9 strikeouts per nine innings last season he produced 11.7 strikeouts per nine innings through the end of May this year, but that dipped to 4.5 in June, 6.5 in July, and now 5.5 in August.

To his credit Santana has been able to maintain an ERA in the low 3.00s the whole time, but a three-month stretch where one of the decade's greatest strikeout pitchers manages just 60 in 100.2 innings is a definite red flag. As rotation-mate Mike Pelfrey put it: "I don't think anyone expects good news." If he does land on the disabled list, Santana would become the 20th Mets player to spend time on the shelf this year.

While the Mets hope for one piece of decent news this season, here are some other notes from around baseball ...

Whether he was tipping pitches or not, the John Smoltz experiment didn't work out in Boston. The same could be said for Brad Penny.

But help might be on the way, and not a moment too soon.

Daisuke Matsuzaka dazzled in his rehab appearance in a Gulf Coast League game on Monday, tossing three scoreless innings, striking out four and allowing only one hit.

And amazingly -- for a guy who nibbles more than John Kruk -- he needed only 37 pitches to get through the three innings. From the Globe:

"Everything was pretty good," Francona said. "Good breaking ball. He commanded his fastball and stayed down. He had good changeups. Generally, really positive."

Dice-K will make a Double-A start on Thursday, and could return to the Red Sox as early as Sept. 8.

In other Red Sox pitching news, Paul Byrd is toiling away at Triple-A Pawtucket. Not sure how much help Boston can expect on the Byrd front, however. His minor league line, in Pawtucket and the Gulf Coast League? 0-2, 5.73 ERA, 1.54 WHIP in three starts.

******

If you Twitter, and are the forgiving type, feel free to follow me at @Bharks.

Adrian Beltre, apparently, is a gambling man.

The Mariners third baseman is trying to work his way back from the disabled list after being sidelined by a bad-hop grounder to his man region, resulting in a "severely contused testicle." OUCH.

Beltre took infield and batting practice today, and is eligible to return on Friday.

We've already discussed Beltre's aversion to wearing a cup, the main reason for the severity of his injury.

But interestingly, Beltre, an excellent defender, is still choosing comfort over safety, telling The News Tribune that he would wear a cup "against my will, maybe."

"I've tried before. It's uncomfortable. I hated it. If it's going to happen every 11 years of my career, I'll take my chances."

In the same story, Beltre says when he was injured, he thought "it exploded."

Nothing against Beltre. He's a tough customer, and a great defensive third basemen. But once things start "exploding," that would be enough for me.

******
If you Twitter, and you don't mind Roger Dorn's defense, feel free to follow me at @Bharks.

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)
No. 19 - Houston
No. 18 - Oakland
No. 17 - St. Louis

The Marlins are known for developing young talent and then spinning the players once they begin to get expensive. But the talent that comes in via trades doesn't help them here. As far as procuring talent through the draft and internationally, they're a middle-of-the-road team, as they've managed to surround the superstars with surprisingly little depth.

Rotation
Josh Beckett
Josh Johnson
Chris Volstad
Scott Olsen
Rick VandenHurk

Bullpen
Ronald Belisario
Logan Kensing
Jason Vargas
Randy Messenger
Ryan Tucker
Tim Wood
Yorman Bazardo

Two studs, an impressive youngster and that's really it. The bullpen is about as poor as any in these rankings, even in light of Belisario's breakthrough season with the Dodgers. After Volstad, the choices for the rotation were Olsen, VandenHurk, Sean West and a broken down Nate Robertson. West will probably be a legitimate fourth starter by this time next year, and he has considerable upside going forward. There isn't a whole lot of promise after that, though.

Lineup
2B Luis Castillo
CF Randy Winn
1B Adrian Gonzalez
LF Miguel Cabrera
RF Josh Willingham
3B Chris Coghlan
SS Alex Gonzalez
C Brett Hayes

Bench
SS Edgar Renteria
OF Jeremy Hermida
1B-OF Mark Kotsay
C-INF Gaby Sanchez
C-1B Jeff Bailey

There are several directions in which one could go here. I've opted for offense in the corners and the best defense up the middle. Obviously, one has to make room for both Adrian Gonzalez and Cabrera, and I chose to go with Cabrera in left field and Coghlan at third base, though one could argue that they should swap positions. Or for Cabrera at third, Willingham in left and Hermida in right.

I think Alex Gonzalez is a better player than Renteria right now, though I may be in the minority there.

Catcher is a big problem, but it's too late for a Charles Johnson comeback now. Willingham, Sanchez and Bailey are all former Marlins prospects who have moved off the position, for good reasons in every case. Still, it'd probably be worth seeing whether either Sanchez or Bailey could handle a pitching staff. Hayes is a decent enough defender, but he's a 25-year-old hitting .246/.284/.337 in Triple-A.

If Bailey can't catch because of his old physical issues, he'd be bumped off the roster in favor of Ross Gload or Kevin Millar.

Summary

The Marlins have three more very talented corner players on the way in Mike Stanton, Logan Morrison and Matt Dominguez, but they've really struggled to develop pitching and it probably hasn't helped that they've been guilty of rushing arms through the system. They can't complain about bad luck when they've come up with both Johnson and Volstad during the decade, but they've run through so many other arms and haven't come up with any durable fourth starters or quality relievers. Having a couple of additional legitimate major league arms would have gone a long way towards boosting their playoff chances this year.

It simply had to happen. The Mets had already lost Carlos Beltran, David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado and plenty of others. Now perhaps the most valuable player of all has gone down: Johan Santana has been scratched from his start Tuesday because of a sore elbow.

According to manager Jerry Manuel after today's loss, Santana has been having issues with the elbow since at least the All-Star break. He was no longer throwing on the side in between starts, which probably helped lead to his inconsistency on the mound. He was still 3-2 with a 3.22 ERA in seven second-half starts, so he certainly wasn't bad. However, he had allowed at least nine hits in four of those outings.

Santana will be examined on Tuesday. Even a somewhat favorable diagnosis that would result in him being shut down for 10-14 days might as well end his season.

The Mets are without any quality alternatives for the rotation because of all of their injuries. Pat Misch, who bailed out Oliver Perez by pitching four innings Sunday, figures to be in the mix, though he won't be able to start in Santana's place tomorrow. Journeymen Nelson Figueroa and Elmer Dessens are other options to fill in. The one semi-intriguing youngster in Triple-A is 24-year-old Tobi Stoner, who has gone 5-7 with a 4.46 ERA, 76 H and 50/29 K/BB in 76 2/3 IP since moving up to Buffalo. He projects as more of a middle reliever, but he'd now seem to have a realistic chance of picking up some starts this year.

- Jeff Niemann could further his Rookie of the Year case by outdueling Roy Halladay as the Rays and Jays play tonight.  Niemann has already done it once this season by limiting Toronto to one run over 7 1/3 innings in a 4-1 victory on June 29.  Halladay is coming off his shortest start of the year, that coming against the Red Sox, but he beat the Rays by pitching eight strong innings 10 days ago.  He's 13-6 with a 2.78 ERA, while Niemann is 11-5 with a 3.71 ERA.

 

- After losing the first game, the Rockies have bounced back to win the middle contests of a four-game series against the Giants and build a three-game lead in the wild card chase.  Now they'll go for three out of four with 14-game winner Jason Marquis on the mound.  Marquis is 1-1 with a 3.60 ERA in his two starts versus San Francisco this year.  The Giants are starting Barry Zito, who has a 2.36 ERA in seven starts since the break.  He pitched seven scoreless innings in his lone start against the Rockies.

 

Game of the Night

 

Detroit vs. Los Angeles - A pair of 13-game winners will face off in Anaheim, with Justin Verlander and Jered Weaver going at it.  Verlander has bounced back from two mediocre efforts to allowed three runs in 16 innings over his last two starts.  He's the AL leader with 204 strikeouts.  Weaver was actually on a far worse run than Verlander before righting the ship with a complete-game shutout against the Indians five days ago.  He had a 7.07 ERA in his previous 11 starts.  The winner tonight, assuming that it's a starter, will move into a tie with Josh Beckett (and perhaps Halladay) for second place in the AL in victories, one behind CC Sabathia.

Boston dumping Brad Penny from the rotation certainly shouldn't be shocking to anyone, but that the move is taking place in mid-August and involves Penny being bounced in favor of Junichi Tazawa rather than John Smoltz is pretty surprising.

Prior to Smoltz joining the Red Sox there was all kinds of talk about whether they should part with Penny to make room in the rotation, but they kept both and then Smoltz's struggles made it a moot point. However, Penny definitely pitched his way out of the rotation by going 7-8 with a 5.61 ERA and 89/42 K/BB ratio in 131.2 innings spread over 24 starts, including 0-4 with a 9.11 ERA in his last five outings.

He'll move to the bullpen for now while Tazawa makes one more start, and then Tim Wakefield's return from the disabled list could shake things up further. Penny is one of just seven AL starters with an average fastball velocity of at least 94.0 miles per hour and he threw the pitch more often than any other starter in the league except for Jeff Niemann of the Rays, relying on his heater 72.4 percent of the time. All of which tells you that getting major-league hitters out involves a lot more than just throwing really hard.

Meanwhile, after watching Smoltz toss five shutout innings with nine strikeouts in his return to the NL yesterday the Cardinals are apparently convinced that he was tipping his pitches while getting knocked around in the AL. Tony La Russa told reporters yesterday that "it's pretty clear he was tipping his pitches" while Smoltz said merely that he "very well could have been."

We may never know the truth on that, but whatever the case moving to the NL and being on schedule to face the Padres, Nationals, and Pirates in his first three starts gives Smoltz every opportunity to succeed. I'll have to double-check the Cardinals' schedule to be certain, but I'm pretty sure that his fourth start would be against the Little League World Series runner-ups.

Ichiro Suzuki, on piling up infield hits in an era when "chicks dig the long ball":

Chicks who dig home runs aren't the ones who appeal to me. I think there's sexiness in infield hits because they require technique. I'd rather impress the chicks with my technique than with my brute strength. Then, every now and then, just to show I can do that, too, I might flirt a little by hitting one out.

The latest in a long line of amusing quotes from the coolest player in baseball comes from Brad Lefton's well-done article in the New York Times, which also notes that Ichiro has an MLB-leading 449 infield hits since joining the Mariners in 2001, including 43 this year when no one else has even 25.

Vastly improved defense has played a huge role in the Mariners going from 101 losses last season to above .500 this year, and Gary Armida of FullCountPitch.com wrote an interesting article about how first-year general manager Jack Zduriencik and his sabermetrically inclined front office went about making those changes with the help of advanced defensive metrics.

Here's a quote from special assistant to the GM (and SABR member) Tony Blengino:

The statistics add another level. It shouldn't be scouting against numbers. Successful organizations have to find a way to blend the two. It's our responsibility to blend the two. ... Our own [statistics] are easily adjustable measures as they build in nature of our pitching staff and our defensive positioning. There's a margin for error with positioning with many of the public metrics. If you over-shift quite a bit, the shortstop may have skewed out of zone ratings. ... To properly evaluate teams have to know the context of how those numbers are generated. So, we use our own metrics to account for that.

There's plenty of other interesting stuff in the article, so definitely read the whole thing, but the gist is that the Mariners are among quite a few teams that are actively trying to quantify things that until recently have been based on eyes and scouting reports. Perhaps the most popular of the publicly available defensive metrics is Ultimate Zone Rating, and the Mariners have gone from 20th in UZR last season at -20.9 runs to second-best in UZR this year at +52.1 runs.

Of course, not everyone is aware of or interested in new approaches to evaluating defense. For instance, San Diego Union Tribune columnist Tim Sullivan wrote a lengthy piece today arguing for Kevin Kouzmanoff of the Padres as a Gold Glover based on his low error count at third base, writing that "statistically Kouzmanoff's glovework has been of 24-karat quality this season" because "he owns the highest fielding percentage at his position in either league and has committed only three errors in 121 games."

Sullivan goes on to make comparisons between Kouzmanoff and two-time Gold Glover David Wright based on errors, fielding percentages, and total chances, but merely gives passing mention to "the new-age calculation called zone rating" and "many arcane statistics being floated now." There's plenty of similar "analysis" being done in newspapers across the country, but the funny thing is that you'd be hard-pressed to find many MLB teams focusing on the same old stuff that so many writers are still hooked on.

Kouzmanoff's own team employs former stat-head posterboy (and current blogger) Paul DePodesta as a special assistant and you can be absolutely certain that the Padres' front office isn't doing any meaningful evaluations based on fielding percentages. Low error totals could mean that a third baseman is sure-handed with excellent range, but they could also mean that a third baseman is sure-handed with mediocre range or even sure-handed with terrible range.

Guys like Ozzie Smith, Willie Mays, and Brooks Robinson aren't considered all-time great defenders because they committed a low number of errors, they're considered all-time great defenders because they made plays that other fielders simply couldn't. As for Kouzmanoff ... well, he's a solid defensive third baseman according to UZR, rating 3.2 runs above average this season and 2.7 runs above average last season, but a Gold Glover he's not.

Ryan Zimmerman of the Nationals likely deserves that honor in the National League this season, rating 16.5 runs above average according to UZR and also drawing plenty of positive reviews on his glove from people relying on their eyes. Of course, he's made 13 errors compared to only three for Kouzmanoff, and despite the fact that more data and information is available for meaningful defensive analysis now than ever before there are still an awful lot of people who misguidedly equate errors with defense.

* Spencer Fordin of MLB.com wrote a well-done article about Matt Wieters struggling to live up to the ridiculous hype as a rookie. Some people were referring to him as "Joe Mauer with power" when the Orioles called him up in late May, but a) Wieters is hitting just .264 with four homers through 60 games, and b) Joe Mauer is now "Joe Mauer with power."

Wieters has hardly been a disaster, remains one of the best young catchers to come around in a long time, and has a whole bunch of All-Star games in his future, but Mauer is a totally different animal. Wieters is hitting .264 with a .310 on-base percentage and .370 slugging percentage as a 23-year-old. Mauer hit .347 to win his first batting title as a 23-year-old.

* Freddy Sanchez has a measly .697 OPS while playing in just 13 of 23 games since the Giants gave up one of their top pitching prospects to get him from the Pirates, and now the second baseman may be headed to the disabled list with lingering shoulder problems.

* As you might expect from someone who was placed on the disabled list with a testicle injury, Adrian Beltre won't be coming off the shelf when eligible next week. "I think the swelling has going down a little slower than we thought," manager Don Wakamatsu said. Lovely.

* So far, so good with Carlos Marmol in the closer role.

* A little league field in Nick Adenhart's hometown of Halfway, Maryland has been named after the Angels pitcher who was killed by a drunk driver in April.

* Pat Burrell's wife went 3-for-3 with three RBIs yesterday as the Rays' spouses beat the Tampa Bay Bucs' spouses in a charity softball game. However, as they say on the interwebs, this story is useless without pictures.

The best third baseman of all time is given an Associated Press column to make his case for Charlie Hustle.  The upshot (apart from merely making Rose's case on its own merits): Bart Giamatti was a wise and compassionate man who would have eventually given Rose the benefit of the doubt: 

An interesting question was posed to me in a recent interview: Do you think things would have been different if Mr. Giamatti was still alive? . . . No one, however, anticipated the untimely passing of commissioner Giamatti, especially Pete. Before Pete could ever meet with him, appeal to him, come clean and apply for reinstatement, Mr. Giamatti passed away from a heart attack. Baseball lost a great ambassador for sure, and as unimportant as it was at the time, Pete's fate now was in the hands of his successor, Fay Vincent.

The problem with this, however, is that it wasn't as if Rose was going to come clean but, dadgummit, Giamatti died and he never got the chance.  It was 15 years -- 15 years during which Rose, for P.R. purposes, constantly misrepresented the deal he struck with Giamatti and constantly complained about how wronged he was -- until he finally admitted that he had been lying all along.  And even then it was only so he could sell some books. Schmidt glosses over that, probably because he was given a word limit by the AP and was more interested in conserving space to make an irrelevant comparison to steroids:

Pete bet on his team to win and has been banished from baseball for life. Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez et al, bet that they would get bigger, stronger and have a distinct advantage over everyone and that they wouldn't get caught. Which is worse? Does the penalty fit the crime?

Pete's banned for life, he sells his autograph to pay bills. Ramirez and his cronies apologize, are forgiven and get $20 million a year. They giggle all the way to the bank and could end up in the Hall of Fame. Is this the way Bart Giamatti would have wanted it 20 years later?

Actually, it's not at all clear that Rose only bet on his team to win. We only have Rose's word for that, so we'll have to wait at least 15 more years, I'd wager, until we know if his story is going to change on that too.

But that's not the point. The point is that Rose agreed to a lifetime ban, and now he and his defenders are complaining about the "lifetime" part of it.  We can debate all day about whether gambling or steroids are worse for baseball, but one thing certainly is clear: the rules Rose broke and punishment Rose received for it had been in place for nearly 70 years at the time he was banned.  Ramirez and A-Rod and the other steroids guys are likewise subject to the rules and punishments of their day too.  We don't let burglars out of jail early simply because we think the sentence for drug possession is too light.

Look, no one denies Rose's talent as a ballplayer. Indeed, if I had my way I'd decouple Hall-of-Fame eligibility from eligibility to work in the game and allow Rose to get the plaque he deserves for his on-the-field accomplishments. Likewise, Mike Schmidt was Rose's teammate and friend so I don't begrudge him for making Rose's case. I'd probably do the same for my friend.

But let's be clear: it's no crime or injustice that Pete Rose is still banned from baseball. A ban he agreed to, by the way, voluntarily and with full knowledge that it was intended to be for life. A ban at which he constantly thumbed his nose while lying to both those who had his potential reinstatement in their hands and the fans who were played for idiots after Rose finally, and calculatedly, decided to come clean in 2004.

The headline to Schmidt's piece asks if 20 years is enough.  My answer: no, not really.

lar from Wezen-Ball thinks it might be, with the "feats" being defined as a no-hitter, a perfect game, an unassisted triple play, and someone hitting for the cycle: 

The last time it happened was in 1994, when Kenny Rogers pitched a perfect game, Kent Mercker and Scott Erickson threw no-hitters, John Valentin turned the triple play and Scott Cooper hit for the cycle. The only other season to see all four feats was 1968, when four pitchers threw no-hitters to go along with Catfish Hunter's perfect game.

As is always the case with Wezen-Ball, there are some other historical goodies to be read, so I highly recommend a click through on what is shaping up to be a rather slow baseball news day.

When you screw up with a seven game lead in the division, you're colorful.  When you do it during an extended swoon that has people wondering whether you can hold on to the lead, you get the raspberries:

There was no translation needed to comprehend the most unusual of sounds showered upon Manny Ramirez in the sixth inning Sunday afternoon:

Boos.

Dodgers fans loudly voiced their displeasure after the wildly popular left fielder allowed Aramis Ramirez's hit to roll past him to the wall for a triple that sparked a tiebreaking two-run outburst and gave the Chicago Cubs a 3-1 victory at Dodger Stadium.

The Dodgers' poor play has been a team effort lately, but with Ramirez sitting at .254/.345/.431 since the break, you can bet that he's going to get the lion's share of the blame if L.A. somehow woofs the division away to the Rockies or Giants.

The Daily News' John Harper and Joe Girardi play the Jack Morris card in regards to CC Sabathia:

Sabathia gave the Yankees something of a Jack Morris game Sunday night, at least by the pitch-count limits of today's game, going 6-2/3 innings, allowing four runs, three earned. Along the way he had to overcome a couple of Robinson Cano errors, but most importantly, he held a lead from the third inning on, didn't walk anyone, and threw 118 pitches to get the game to Phil Hughes and Mariano Rivera.

"I think the great pitchers know how to do that," Joe Girardi said afterward. "The great ones don't relinquish the lead. They know how to pitch to the score and win the game, and CC is one of those guys."

Look, I love CC Sabathia, and even though he beat my Braves in Game 7 of 1991 and was kind of a jerk the one time I met him in person, I have a soft spot in my heart for Jack Morris because he was the ace of the team I loved when I was a little kid. But please, can't we finally do away with the whole "knows how to win" and "pitches to the score" argument?  The notion that Jack Morris intentionally "pitched to the score" and had some preternatural ability to win that was separate and apart from his run support has been discredited multiple times (here's one of the better examples).

Jack Morris was a good, not great pitcher who benefited from some very good offenses in Detroit in the 1980s.  Sabathia has been great, but for the most part this season has been merely good, and last night was a great example of it.  Solid. Professional. As always, tough.  But his win had way more to do with the five dingers the Yankees hit off of Josh Beckett than any sort of hoodoo or gumption he has that no one else has.

What kills me about the "he just knows how to win" line is that, as is the case here, it's almost always uttered by writers and managers and people who are very big on talking about how teams, not individuals, win games.  Why then, can't they acknowledge that when a pitcher wins a game with eight runs behind him, it has more to do with the team than with whatever winner's magic he is supposed to possess?

Any time a rebuilding team with no money can lock up a thirty-five year-old middle infielder who hits like a pitcher, they HAVE TO MAKE THAT MOVE:

The Padres took another step toward the future yesterday by extending the contract of the second-oldest player on their active roster. David Eckstein will return as the Padres' second baseman in 2010 . . . He will make $1 million in 2010 after making a base of $850,000 this season with another $50,000 possible in performance bonuses.

I realize a million bucks isn't much money these days, but it is to the Padres.  What, exactly, does Eckstein bring to the table for San Diego that some 22 year-old making the league minimum doesn't?  And don't tell me grit and hustle. All of that moxy just makes for dirty uniforms, and the Padres are so broke that they need to watch their laundry budget too.

At least he's not thrilled with setting up for him for any longer than he has to. That's based on this report that the Wagner-to-the-Sox deal is being held up by Wagner, who won't waive his no-trade clause unless the Sox agree not to pick up his 2010 option because he doesn't want to forego potential closing jobs this winter:

According to the report, the agent said the two sticking points involved Wagner's requests that the Red Sox not pick up his 2010 option or offer him arbitration so that he can find another team where he wouldn't be a setup man for Jonathan Papelbon.

The option is for $8 million, which is pretty rich for a guy in Wagner's position, so I'm having trouble seeing the Sox actually picking that up. I wonder if he's simply not trying to renegotiate the terms of the 2010 buyout, which is now $1 million.

Phillies 9, Mets 7: Unassisted triple plays are cool and all, but they're really more about luck than anything else, aren't they? You hit the ball to just the wrong place at just the wrong time and bam-bam-bam it's over. Oftentimes the middle infielder who turns the thing isn't even 100% sure he's done it until he looks around a bit, tags a guy he forced out just to be sure, etc., because it's really more a matter of reflex than anything else. It's sort of like most inside the park home runs (like the one Angel Pagan hit earlier in this game): happenstance or maybe a bad play on the part of the opposition makes it possible. So, even though I'd love to rag on Jeff Francoeur for hitting into one of these things or praise Eric Bruntlett for turning it, blame and credit has to go to chance more than anyone.

Cardinals 5, Padres 2: Before people start talking about how wrong the Sox were to release Smoltz, or how much worse the NL is than the AL, or how the release motivates Smoltz or any of that, let us just remember that yesterday's strong performance (5 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 9K) came against the worst offense in baseball, playing in the friendliest pitchers' park in baseball.

Cubs 3, Dodgers 1: The Cubs salvage one, as Jake Fox goes 4 for 4 with a homer and two RBI. Game story: "[Ryan Dempster] credited his breakfast of 'pancakes and a little bowl of whip-your-butt cereal' for his solid outing." I can only assume he got the cereal from this chick.UPDATE:  Sadly, the nice lady in Los Angeles who advertised her butt-whipping services has taken her ad down. Still, it's L.A., so if you're interested in getting "the Ryan Demptser treatment," I'm sure there are still many places you can find such a service.

Yankees 8, Red Sox 4: Three game series between the Sox and Yanks: 58 runs scored, game times of 3:57, 3:17, 3:13, and not one single extra inning. Watching the Yankees play the Red Sox is like watching WAC football from the 1980s. If the AL East is the best baseball has to offer, baseball can friggin' keep it.

Athletics 9, Tigers 4: Jack Cust hit two homers, Landon Powell hit one, and Brett Tomko of all people continues to pitch like an ace. The win brings him to 98-101 for his career. For purely subjective reasons -- including the fact that Tomko is my age and the fact that I have a soft spot for journeyman swingmen, I'd like to see him even up that record before the end of the season.

Orioles 5, White Sox 4: Mark Buehrle has had one decent start since his perfect game (which the Sox lost, but that's neither here nor there). Beat up again yesterday for five runs on eleven hits in five and a third, one wonders what the heck has happened to the guy. He's not walking a ton of guys. He's just getting pounded. As for the Sox, they just played six against the Royals and Orioles at home, and they split those. You'd think that a playoff team wins four or five against those teams. If they finish one or two behind the Tigers, that little stretch may look pretty big in hindsight.

Rangers 4, Rays 0: Scott Feldman was on (7 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 11K). Chip Caray and Buck Martinez weren't, however, so instead of this game, I watched . . .

Indians 6, Mariners 1: The Tribe beat up on Felix Hernandez, chasing him in the four-run sixth inning and Fausto Carmona (7 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 8K) looked better than than I've seen him since 2007. Jhonny Peralta iht an RBI single, ohmered, and reahced on error and came ohme to score.

Rockies 4, Giants 2: Jiminez beats Lincecum, and the Rockies have extended their wild card lead over the Giants by taking two of three thus far in the series. This is a wraparound, though, so the Giants have a shot to get back where they were on Friday morning with a win tonight.

Twins 10, Royals 3: Mike Cuddyer homered twice. Kyle Farnsworth, the man whose presence in the pen required that Alex Gordon be sent down to Omaha -- gave up five runs on five hits in one inning of work.

Remember that cute little Colorado Rockies team back in 2007?

A modern day Cinderella, they won their final 40 games (it only seemed that way), received some help from the ghost of Tony Gwynn (actually it was his son), then beat the Padres in a one-game playoff when Matt Holliday tried to tag home plate with his face (maybe he was out, but that would ruin a great story).

From there, it was a magical run to the World Series, where the dream ended rather abruptly when Jonathan Papelbon and the Boston Red Sox took the glass slipper and "Riverdanced" the thing into tiny pieces.

Well don't look now, but the Rockies are at it again. In the middle of June, they won 17 of 18. Currently, they've taken six of seven, and 16 of 23, building a three-game lead over the San Francisco Giants in the wild-card race.

And remember that huge lead the Dodgers held in the NL West? Yeah that's pretty much gone now, reduced to a mere 3 1/2 games (the second closest division race, behind the AL Central).

The plucky Rockies have even been making moves just to show how serious they are, taking a flyer on veteran pitcher Russ Ortiz as insurance for the injured Aaron Cook, and hoping that Jason Giambi will find his legs after being deemed finished in Oakland.

It makes for a huge week ahead for the boys in black. Following the fourth and final game of their series vs. the Giants on Monday, the Rockies host the Dodgers in a huge three-game set, then head to San Francisco for a rematch with the Giants.

Will Cinderella dance again? This week could gives us a strong indication.

St. Louis Cardinals star Albert Pujols was cranky on Sunday, helping cause a benches-clearing incident when he got into a verbal sparring session with San Diego's Will Venable.

In the play in question, Venable hit a bouncer up the first base line. Pujols fielded the ball and tagged Venable, then all of holy heck broke loose.

"Last night he tried to run me over like he's playing freakin' football. A play like that you don't try to run people over," Pujols said. "Next time, if I would have known, I probably hit him in the face with the glove and tag him out there. He threw an elbow. He was out by a lot. It wasn't necessary, even to avoid a tag. Last night he jammed my wrist a little bit, and then tonight he tried to throw an elbow. That's pretty stupid."

Sounds like Venables was auditioning for a role with the Charlestown Chiefs doesn't it? Yeah, not so much.

Go ahead and watch the video of the play here.

Underwhelmed? So was Venable. It "was a whole lot of nothing," he said.

He then went on to say: "Skip told me to start a fight with Albert. He was hoping we'd both get tossed, since it would take 10 of me to put together one of Albert's seasons."

OK I made that up. But I could see it happening, especially when you consider Pujol's worth to the Cardinals. (check out the handy chart, courtesy of Umpbump)

So be cool Albert. Don't worry about the Will Venables of the world. But if you just can't take it anymore, talk to the Hanson brothers. They'll take care of it for you.

******

If you Twitter, and you enjoy hockey brawls, feel free to follow me at @Bharks.

John Smoltz and Albert Pujols made for a nice combo Sunday, as Smoltz threw five scoreless innings in his Cardinals debut and Albert Pujols went deep to become just the eighth player in baseball history with 40 or more homers in at least five seasons before the age of 30. Who are the other seven? I'll give you the answer after talking about Smoltz's impressive return to the National League.

Smoltz flopped in Boston, going 2-5 with an ugly 8.32 ERA in eight starts, but a 33/9 K/BB ratio in 40 innings, average fastball velocity of 91 miles per hour, and plenty of break left on his hard slider suggested that he could still get major-league hitters out. Or at least that's what I've been opining in this space for the past couple weeks. Not only did Smoltz get hitters out Sunday, he struck out nine of the 18 batters he faced.

He didn't look as dominant as those strikeout totals suggest and left plenty of pitches out over the plate, but as Cardinals fan and Rotoworld news guru Drew Silva pointed out on Twitter during the game: "Smoltz has hung a few, but this is the NL and these are the Padres." The good news for Smoltz is that he's in the NL to stay and, while he doesn't get to face the Padres every time, he does get to face the Nationals next.

While the answers to the trivia question are Alex Rodriguez, Harmon Killebrew, Ernie Banks, Ralph Kiner, Ken Griffey Jr., Adam Dunn, and Juan Gonzalez here are some other notes from around baseball ...

Jonathan Papelbon has set new standards in athlete insecurity with his comments on Billy Wagner, which D.J. touched on this morning.

Papelbon, sounding as if some neighborhood bully was threatening to steal his candy, wondered aloud why the Red Sox would even think of acquiring the 38-year-old lefty.
Never mind Wagner's 385 career saves, or his 11.7 strikeouts per nine innings, or the fact he was dealing mid-90s heat in his return to the bigs last week. Never mind that he might actually help the team.

Even when attempting to soften his stance, the Red Sox's closer couldn't help himself, essentially repeating his stance that Wagner might ruin the delicately crafted chemistry of the Boston bullpen. (via WEEI.com)

"It's not that it shakes the balance it's just that you have that little bit of time of getting used to how we're going to use this guy? What situations will he be best in? Who's going to leave our bullpen? It's a multitude of things," Papelbon said. "It's not just one specific thing. There's a lot of things that go into this equation.

He's right. There are a lot of things going into the equation. Questions for much smarter people -- like Terry Francona and Theo Epstein -- to consider. Questions that those two also undoubtedly considered before adding Victor Martinez to a DH/C/1B mix that already included Jason Varitek, Kevin Youkilis, David Ortiz and Mike Lowell.

Oddly enough, Papelbon wasn't worried about team chemistry then.

But let's just say that Boston's closer, as talented as he is, might not be the ummm, sharpest spike in the cleat. In fact, he has made it a habit of stuffing his foot deep down his throat, sometimes up to the tibia. Granted, the things he says sometime smack of truth, but that doesn't mean they should be said.

Some examples ...

Papelbon said he, not future Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera, should be the closer for the All-Star game, a contest played at Yankee Stadium.

He once said that if the money was right, he'd be happy to pitch for the Yankees. (That one sat well with the Nation).

And he once called Manny Ramirez a cancer, saying "It just takes one guy to bring an entire team down, and that's exactly what was happening."

Exactly. Just another case of Papelbon being Papelbon.

******

If you Twitter, and you enjoy Irish dancing in your underwear, feel free to follow me at @Bharks.

You're not gonna believe this, but ESPN is in Boston tonight for the finale of the three-game series between the Yankees and Red Sox. We're live blogging throughout the game, so follow along and participate with your comments.

Here's a few quick hits to get you started for Sunday's action:

- According to Ed Price of AOL Fanhouse, Aaron Harang will miss the rest of the season after undergoing an emergency appendectomy. He finishes yet another disappointing campaign at 6-14 with a 4.21 ERA. His 14 losses led the majors, while only four other pitches gave up more homers (24 in 162 1/3 innings). However, his 2.86 ERA over his last four starts give at least some hope that he'll be worth the $12.5 million owed to him next season. Scott Rolen was activated from the disabled list to take his spot on the roster.

- On the heels of Aaron Cook going down with a strained right shoulder, the Rockies are on the verge of adding some reinforcements in veterans Russ Ortiz and Jason Giambi. Ortiz was 3-6 with a 5.57 ERA in 23 games (13 starts) with the Astros before being released on July 30. He was granted his release by the Yankees last week after going 2-1 with Triple-A Columbus. As for Giambi, he'll function as a left-handed bat off the bench. The 38-year-old slugger batted just .193/.332/.364 with 11 homers and 40 RBI before being released by the Athletics on August 7. Both are expected to join the team when rosters expand in September and would be eligible for post-season play.

- Oh, the ego. Jonathan Papelbon and Manny Delcarmen have expressed some concern at the prospect of the Red Sox acquiring Billy Wagner. Papelbon went as far to ask, "What has he done? Has he pitched this year?" while comparing the potential move to Eric Gagne in 2007. The Red Sox have until 1pm ET on Tuesday to complete a deal for the 38-year-old southpaw.

After tossing seven innings of one-run ball in a 4-1 win over the Mets on Saturday night, J.A. Happ improved to 10-2 with a 2.59 ERA (4th in the NL) and 1.17 WHIP (10th). He has the lowest earned run average by rookie pitcher since Hideo Nomo's 2.59 ERA mark in 1995. Even more impressive, Todd Zolecki of MLB.com found that only 10 rookie pitchers in the past 50 years have finished the season with an ERA lower than the 26-year-old southpaw. From a franchise perspective, the last Phillies rookie have an ERA lower than Happ's was Eppa Rixley (2.50) in 1912.

Now, it must be pointed out that has gotten a bit lucky behind a .225 batting average against aided by a .251 BABIP. He has held the opposition to a .125 clip with runners in scoring position, resulting in a stingy 85.7% strand rate (nearly 16 points above the league average). Naturally, it's no surprise to see his FIP sitting at 4.15. But while the one-time ROY favorite Colby Rasmus has faded over the last two months (.230 with six homers and 13 RBI), Happ has pitched his best ball of the year (5-2 with a 2.20 ERA over his last 10 starts).

Here's a quick look at the top National League rookies (batters & pitchers) according to VORP:

1. J.A. Happ (PHI) - 44.9
2. Randy Wells (CHC) - 32.4
3. Dexter Fowler (COL) - 22.6
4. Tommy Hanson (ATL) - 22.6
5. Garrett Jones (PIT) - 22.5
6. Andrew McCutchen (PIT) - 20.2
7. Seth Smith (COL) - 20.1
8. Brian Sanches (FLA) - 18.5
9. Everth Cabrera (SD) - 17.9
10. Casey McGehee (MIL) - 17.7

Wells (9-6, 2.84 ERA) is easily Happ's biggest competition at this point, and certainly deserves consideration regardless of whether the Cubs make the playoffs, but if the Phillies lock down another NL East crown, I just can't see the Rookie of the Year award going to anybody else.

By the way, if you don't mind geeky asides like this, feel free to follow me on Twitter.

In attendance for Saturday's tribute to the 1969 "Miracle Mets," owner Fred Wilpon told the New York Post that Omar Minaya would indeed be returning next season:

"Am I going to bring Omar back next year?" Wilpon said. "Absolutely. That's a fact."

Already approaching lame-duck status before his contract extension even kicks in, the Mets are on the hook with Minaya through 2012. Joel Sherman of the New York Post cites the Wilpon's financial situation as a significant factor in keeping Minaya around :

A Mets official told me recently that the problem with dismissing Minaya was not just eating a three-year extension that does not even kick in until next season, but also eating all of the money for an entire front-office staff. I assume that probably amounts to $12 million over three years to account for both the outgoing and incoming staff. That the Mets are unwilling to do that says something about how they will approach augmenting an incomplete roster for 2010.

And what about Jerry Manuel? Well, Minaya said his job is safe too:

"Jerry is my guy," Minaya said. "We work well together."

You know, just to kill any optimism that Mets fans had left.

"Anybody who reads that story knows I wasn't talking about Jeter or Rodriguez. Look at them. Do you see any baggy pants? Do you see any dreadlocks?"

- Hall-of-Famer Jim Rice says that just because you mention someone's name doesn't necessarily mean you are talking about them.

"That could be part of it. I should have won the MVP that year, by the way. There was a trial. I took responsibility for my participation in it. That happened 24 years ago. And along with that, you've got the steroid issue now. Baseball and the United States are supposed to be two forgiving entities -- why haven't they forgiven me? Deal with me for what I've done and for my numbers and just forgive. In '75, my first year as a regular (starter), people started identifying me as one of the best players in the game, and then later on as the best player. If the media can do that, they should be able to look at me and look at my numbers and say, 'This guy is a Hall-of-Famer.'"

- Speaking of the Hall of Fame, Dave Parker thinks his drug use is keeping him out.

"There were a couple of heaters (when) I felt that I should have thrown a hook. I step off and re-gather and that's when the non-executed pitch came. (Posada) calls fine back there. It's just a matter of me throwing what I want to throw. There's no pattern there. I've had a great run now with Jorge. So there's no fingers to point but at me."

- A.J. Burnett, who was visibly irritated in Saturday's 14-1 loss to the Red Sox, denies any rift with his catcher Jorge Posada.

"Koozie's the only guy who ever saw it. Maybe that's Koozie's urban myth."

- Ron Swoboda comments on Jerry Koosman's admission that he was the one who rubbed the baseball on his shoe in Game 5 of the 1969 World Series, granting Cleon Jones first base on a hit by pitch. The Mets eventually defeated the Orioles 5-3, shocking the baseball universe with their improbable World Series victory.

- It looks like the Red Sox are losing patience with Brad Penny, as Tim Wakefield will return from the disabled list to take his turn in the rotation against the White Sox next week. After getting hammered for eight runs over four innings against the Yankees on Friday night, Penny has a 5.61 ERA over 24 starts with Boston. Penny hasn't completed seven innings in a start all season.

- The Diamondbacks have called up prospect first baseman Brandon Allen from Triple-A Reno. Acquired from the White Sox in the Tony Pena trade last month, the former 2004 fifth-round draft pick batted .298/.373/.503 with 20 homers and 75 RBI between Double-A and Triple-A this season. He profiles as Arizona's first baseman of the future.

- The 1969 "Miracle Mets" will be honored before Saturday's game against the Phillies, while the Pirates plan a similar celebration for the 30th anniversary of the "We Are Family" Pittsburgh club of 1979.

- Joel Sherman of the New York Post asked seven major league executives which second baseman they would rather have for the next five years: Dustin Pedroia or Robinson Cano. The general consensus may surprise you.

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)
No. 19 - Houston
No. 18 - Oakland

Producing the game's best player and one of the top five pitchers only goes so far. The Cardnals' lack of pitching depth leaves them right in the middle of these rankings.

Rotation
Dan Haren
Braden Looper
Anthony Reyes
Mitchell Boggs
Brad Thompson

Bullpen
Kyle McClellan
Luke Gregerson
Chris Perez
Jason Motte
Josh Kinney
Jess Todd
Blake Hawksworth

The Cardinals haven't had a high first-round pick since taking J.D. Drew in 1998, but they've missed on an awful lot of pitchers with selections in the 20s and 30s. 12 of the 19 first- and supplemental first-round picks they've had since then have been pitchers, but only three have reached the majors: Perez, likely bust Chris Lambert and the recently traded Clayton Mortensen.

So what we're left with here is Haren and not much else. Looper, the third overall pick in the 1996 draft, is a mediocre closer turned No. 4 starter. Reyes has No. 3-starter talent, but he may never be able to stay healthy. He's out until late next year following Tommy John surgery. Boggs is a fringe fifth starter, and Thompson is most useful in middle relief. The bullpen is more promising. Both McClellan and Gregerson are shaping up as excellent setup men, and Perez and Motte still have a fair amount of promise. Todd might end up being better than all of them.

Lineup
3B Adam Kennedy
2B Placido Polanco
RF J.D. Drew
1B Albert Pujols
LF Rick Ankiel
C Yadier Molina
CF Colby Rasmus
SS Jack Wilson

Bench
2B/OF Skip Schumaker
CF Coco Crisp
INF Brendan Ryan
OF Terry Evans
C Mike DiFelice

Another star would be nice, but Tony La Russa would be happy with the flexibility provided by this lineup. Also, the excellent defense will help all of those starters who won't be recording many strikeouts. Molina, Pujols, Wilson all rank among the game's best at their positions, and Polanco is still a surehanded asset at second. The outfield defense is a little above average with this arrangement and significantly better when Crisp starts and Rasmus goes to a corner. Against lefties, Ryan should start over Kennedy, Crisp over Ankiel and perhaps Evans over one of the other two outfielders.

Summary

The Cardinals have struggled to keep pitching prospects healthy and are paying for it in these rankings. It's worth wondering just how much better off they'd be if they concentrated more on producing hitters over these last 10 years. After all, in Dave Duncan, they have a pitching coach who excels at turning around veteran starters. They could have played to that strength a little better.

Of course, it's not as though the Cardinals are struggling. It looked like they're set to reach the playoffs for the seventh time in 10 years, and they won it all in 2006. While I generally give a lot more credit to general managers than field managers, in this case, La Russa and Duncan deserve the praise, probably more so than former GM Walt Jocketty.

Taken from ESPN.com

I'm pretty sure you'll find a couple surprises in here, namely an overpriced second baseman in Queens:

Matt Holliday - .398
Joe Mauer - .386
Hanley Ramirez - .386
Luis Castillo - .385
Nyjer Morgan - .378
Michael Young - .370
Miguel Cabrera - .369
Ichiro Suzuki - .367
Derek Jeter - .362
Andre Ethier - .360

A day after the surgically-repaired Billy Wagner showcased some legitimate mid-90s heat, he was claimed off waivers by the Red Sox, according to Ken Rosenthal of FOXSports.com. Boston now has until Tuesday at 1pm ET to work out a deal for the 38-year-old southpaw.

Jayson Stark of ESPN.com reports that if the Mets want a prospect in return for Wagner, they will likely have to pick up at least some of the $3.5 million on his contract. This number includes a $1 million buyout for next season. But Rosenthal cites a source with knowledge of the club's thinking that the Mets would be reluctant to include money in a possible deal. Either way, both sides should be pretty motivated to get a deal done by the Monday deadline.

But this is where it gets at least somewhat juicy. According to a "tweet" by Joel Sherman of the New York Post, an AL executive speculated that the Red Sox may have claimed Wagner over worries that Jonathan Papelbon's mechanics and control are off. Sherman made sure to note this was pure speculation on the executive's part, but concerns about Papelbon have some real merit, as the Boston stopper has a career-worst 1.31 WHIP (remember, it was 0.77 in 2007) and 3.98 BB/9 (previous high was 2.31 in 2007). He's also relying on his fastball less than ever before, and getting mixed results. Whether this is an organizational concern or not, Wagner is an insurance policy the Red Sox can easily absorb.

"I think that it was plain and simple that we got our asses kicked pretty good."

- Mike Lowell just about sums up the 20-11 trouncing the Red Sox experienced at the hand of the Yankees on Friday night. The Bombers have now won five straight over their division rivals and sit 7 1/2 games ahead in the American League East.

"He called me in the office, I was in the lineup and he just went over the whole waiver thing with me because I guess a lot of people in the media were speculating a lot of different things and he wanted to clear that up. So I asked him after that, well, if you pull me back and you're keeping me from going to a contending team, what's my future? And basically I got a maybe, maybe not. And that's basically not much of a future."

- Gary Sheffield explains a conversation he had with general manager Omar Minaya on Thursday. The 40-year-old outfielder denies asking for a contract extension, as reported in various media outlets.

"To me, an ace is not something that floats. It's career numbers stuff, to have that dominating pitcher year in and year out. It's an overused term."

- Despite a 2.94 ERA since July, Randy Wolf deflects any talk about him as the staff ace. He may never be an ace, but he'd be a decent cleanup hitter for the Dodgers right now. After knocking in three runs with a homer, double and single against the Diamondbacks on Sunday, Wolf drove in the only two runs of Friday's victory over the Cubs.

"I didn't know I was like that. That would be a first for me."

- Derek Jeter responds to comments made by Hall of Famer Jim Rice earlier this week.

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)
No. 19 - Houston

The Moneyball draft didn't spark a revolution, and the A's just haven't been all that successful at bringing in new talent this decade. That said, they don't fare badly for a team that went eight straight years without a top-15 draft pick.

Rotation
Tim Hudson
Joe Blanton
Rich Harden
Dallas Braden
Barry Zito

Bullpen
Huston Street
Andrew Bailey
Kevin Gregg
Jared Burton
Santiago Casilla
Trevor Cahill
Vin Mazzaro

Four years ago, a rotation of Hudson, Zito, Mark Mulder, Harden and Jeremy Bonderman probably would have topped anything else these rankings have to offer. I've written off Mulder, though, and I don't expect a whole lot from Bonderman going forward. At least Braden and Zito look like reliable enough fourth starters behind a quality trio, and Cahill remains one of the AL's most promising young starters.

The bullpen has a nice one-two punch, and Gregg isn't so bad as a third reliever. It's just too bad the A's didn't come up with the money to sign their 40th-round pick from the Moneyball draft in 2002, one Jonathan Papelbon.

Lineup
1B Nick Swisher
LF Andre Ethier
SS Miguel Tejada
RF Ryan Ludwick
3B Mark Teahen
C Kurt Suzuki
DH Jason Giambi
2B Esteban German
CF Travis Buck

Bench
OF Eric Byrnes
INF Bobby Crosby
INF Cliff Pennington
C John Baker

Unfortunately, Oakland's impressive catching factory does only so much good here. Besides Suzuki and Baker, the team has also produced Ramon Hernandez, Gerald Laird and Miguel Olivo.

Also considered for the team was Dan Johnson, who has a case for starting over Giambi. Sadly, Eric Chavez seems like a weaker bet than Teahen going forward, though he's another who could have been picked over Giambi.

If you don't like Swisher in the leadoff spot, you can slot German and his .357 career OBP there and move everyone else down a spot.

As one might expect, defense is something of an issue here, since the A's haven't been loading up on toolsy up-the-middle players. Pennington is a nice upgrade over German defensively and should start when Hudson is on the mound, but I still think German is the better player. Buck offers below average range in center, and Byrnes might be the better option during those rare occasions when he's 100 percent. Byrnes would definitely play over Buck against lefties.

Summary

There won't be much Billy Beane bashing here. From 2000-07, the highest pick the A's had in the draft was 16th, which was compensation from the Red Sox in 2002 and was used to select Swisher. The next highest was 21st. They weren't passing over potential superstars to take safer college players; they simply never had a shot at the best the draft had to offer. Should they forgone spending $20 million on Esteban Loaiza and used some of that cash to try to find the next Tejada in the Dominican Republic? Of course. But they did fairly well with what they had, and if they hadn't been particularly hard hit with injuries, they'd rank higher here.

* Earlier this week I made a joke about Joe Maddon dying his hair black to go with his trademark hipster glasses, noting that "earrings, Ed Hardy t-shirts, and a tribal tattoo could be next for the 55-year-old Rays manager." Turns out, he already went through the Ed Hardy t-shirt phase last year!

* Shockingly, a retired former major leaguer thinks that things were better when he played. In related news, elderly people don't like children playing on their lawns and most people who're older than you had to walk five miles in the snow to school every morning when they were kids.

* After being designated for assignment by the Mets yesterday Livan Hernandez has now played for five teams in four seasons while posting ERAs of 4.83, 4.93, 6.05, and 5.47. He also turns 35 years old soon. Odds that he'll sign with another team and end up in their rotation? Probably not as bad as you'd think, at least judging from the last half-dozen years of Sidney Ponson's career.

* It's been quite a fall for Chris Duncan, who was released yesterday by the Red Sox just a month after they acquired him in the Julio Lugo trade. Duncan had a .952 OPS as a 25-year-old rookie in 2006, but since then his yearly OPS totals are .834, .711, and .687. And that doesn't even count his horrible .549 mark at Triple-A following the trade.

* Stephen Strasburg met his public this afternoon. They liked him.

Billy Wagner made his triumphant return from Tommy John elbow surgery last night, coming on in relief of Johan Santana in the eighth inning and retiring all three batters he faced. Wagner got swinging strikeouts on Brian McCann and Reid Gorecki, induced a fly out from Chipper Jones, and showed that his surgically repaired left arm can still bring the heat.

Here are the MLB.com velocity readings for his 14 pitches:

94-mph fastball
95-mph fastball
86-mph changeup
84-mph slider
83-mph slider
95-mph fastball
84-mph slider
87-mph changeup
94-mph fastball
94-mph fastball
95-mph fastball
95-mph fastball
95-mph fastball
84-mph slider

At his peak Wagner averaged 97-98 miles per hour with his fastball, but he was at 94-95 mph during the two seasons preceding the surgery and had a 2.50 ERA with 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings. Last night he threw eight fastballs and they were all either 94 or 95 mph. He averaged 84 mph on four sliders, which is also right in line with his 2007-2008 velocity.

Obviously only time will tell if Wagner can maintain his velocity and bounce back quickly from appearances, but for one night at least the 38-year-old looked every bit like the dominant force he was before going under the knife. Perhaps it shouldn't be shocking that the greatest left-handed reliever of all time can come back months ahead of schedule from career-threatening elbow surgery and resume pumping 95-mph heat, but it was still pretty damn impressive to watch.

Earlier this week the Nationals removed the "acting" tag and made Mike Rizzo general manager, choosing him over Diamondbacks vice president of player personnel Jerry DiPoto and Red Sox assistant general manager Jed Hoyer. Between making trades and signing No. 1 picks for $15 million Rizzo has been in the spotlight recently, but Bill Ladson of MLB.com wrote about how he got started down the GM path:

In 1989, Mike Rizzo was a Midwest and Southeast territorial scout for the White Sox. That year, Rizzo, then 28, scouted a player named Frank Thomas from Auburn University. Rizzo insisted that the White Sox draft the right-handed hitting slugger in the first round, but Thomas was not a consensus pick among members of the organization

"I learned how to go after a player passionately, fight for your player and fight to draft the right guy at the right spot," Rizzo said 20 years later. The White Sox ended up drafting Thomas in the first round of the 1989 First-Year Player Draft. Not too long after that, Rizzo helped Chicago negotiate Thomas' first professional contract.

It was the first time Rizzo ever dealt with a player agent for such a large sum of money. Thomas signed and ended up having a great career in the big leagues, hitting .301 with 521 home runs, 1,704 RBIs and two American League MVP awards. "It was the shining point of my career." Rizzo said.

Convincing the team you scout for to draft one of the 20 greatest hitters of all time is apparently a good way to establish yourself in the baseball world, although to be fair my guess is that there were at least a few other people within the organization who didn't mind taking Thomas with the No. 7 overall pick.

Check back at 7:00 pm EDT tonight as Matthew Pouliot hosts a live blog/chat during the Yankees-Red Sox game.

The dead body of a 22-year-old illegal immigrant who had crossed the border from Mexico was found yesterday morning on Chipper Jones' ranch in Texas. Here's more, from the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

"He was in a part of the ranch we don't go to on a daily basis," Jones' father, Larry Jones Sr. said Thursday evening from Double Dime Ranch in Carrizo Springs, Texas. Jones Sr. said the man, a Mexican national, had entered the country illegally. The extreme heat and the drought would have made it difficult for anyone to survive without food or water, he said. Thursday was the 83rd straight day of temperatures topping at least 100 degrees, Jones said.

The man's body was discovered around 6:30 a.m. by a ranch foreman. Jones Sr. called police, then left a message for the Braves' third baseman on his answering machine. ... The Jones family has owned the 10,000-acre ranch, located 130 miles southwest of San Antonio, since 2000. "As the crow flies, we're eight miles from the Rio Grande," Jones Sr. said. The game ranch is home to 750 heads of steer, as well as various wildlife.

Obviously a sad, unfortunate story. Jones' ranch is called "The Double Dime" because both Chipper and Larry Sr. wore uniform No. 10. Also, one of my goals in life is to use the phrase "as the crow flies" in context during a conversation. So far, no luck.

Kudos to the Angels and Yankees, who have put together a couple of the most well-rounded lineups of all-time. Or at least it's headed that way.

The Washington Nationals will formally introduce top pick Stephen Strasburg today at 2 pm et, and the Nats sold over 6,000 $1 tickets to the presser.

Are we ready to blame the Home Run Derby for squashing Albert Pujols' chance at the Triple Crown, or is that just an easy excuse? We remember players from the past flaming out after taking part in the Derby - David Wright hit only 6 HR after the break in 2006, and of course Bobby Abreu hit a mere 6 dingers in the second half after dominating the slugfest the year before - but such a thing couldn't happen to Big Al, right?

Much has been made about the impact that Nolan Ryan has had on the Texas Rangers pitching staff - how extending pitch counts produces positive results, how pitchers these days are babied too much, etc. However, it sounds like that mantra doesn't apply to all Texas pitchers.

Tigers 7, Mariners 6: A game-winning RBI single for Clete Thomas in the ninth got Jarrod Washburn off the hook after yet another dismal post-trade performance. Thomas had hit a walk-off homer earlier this season, and after game said this: "It's not as good as the homer, but any walk-off is awesome." Yeah, just ask Ray Chapman. Sorry. Too soon?

Braves 3, Mets 2: Johan Santana falls to 0-7 against Atlanta. He gave up nine hits and only struck out two in seven innings. Kenshin Kawakami pitched well, but man, that's not much of a Mets lineup he faced.

Dodgers 7, Cubs 2: Russell Martin has been a millstone for the Dodgers this year, but his sixth inning grand slam broke the tie and effectively won the game for big blue. Lots of fun game story stuff: "The Dodgers improved to 1,015-1,014 all-time against the Cubs." I think it would be hilarious if either Piniella or Torre used that as a motivator in a pre-game speech, totally deadpanning how serious they were about wanting to leave this series with the all-time lead. Also: "Penny Marshall was a pregame dugout visitor with Dodgers manager Joe Torre." What is this, 1983? We're reporting Penny Marshall sightings? Has anyone seen Anson Williams lately? Finally: "Chicago native Jim Belushi got booed when he was spotted wearing a Cubs cap." You sure it was the Cubs hat that set off the booing? It's Jim Belushi. He'd probably be booed even if he was riding piggy back on Sandy Koufax while singing "Hail to the Dodgers." (note to self: write a song called "Hail to the Dodgers").

Red Sox 8, Blue Jays 1: J.D. Drew was 4 for 4 with two homers and three RBI. Best error of the year so far: Jason Bay is on first base. Catcher Rod Barajas throws the ball back to Brett Cecil after a pitch, who drops it. Because no pitcher would ever, ever want to throw a dirty and possibly scuffed ball, he asks for a new ball from home plate umpire Greg Gibson. He gets it, and throws the old ball into the third base dugout. Except he didn't call time out, which allowed Bay to move to third on the play. Bay later scored on a single. Heh.

Phillies 12, Diamondbacks 3: Homers from Ryan Howard and Jayson Werth and eight good innings from Joe Blanton turn this one into a laugher (Ho-ho-ho, hee-hee-hee, ha-ha-ha . . . see how they smile like pigs in a sty . . .).

Reds 2, Giants 1: Just-called-up Drew Stubbs hit a walkoff homer in the tenth to win it. Man, one wonders what would have happened this year if he had been called up sooner.

Indians 11, Angels 3: Just-called-up Matt LaPorta hit a two-run double in the sixth that chased John Lackey and busted the game wide open. Man, one wonders what would have happened this year if he had been called up sooner.

Astros 4, Marlins 1: Wandy Rodriguez only gave up the one run -- unearned -- in eight innings, and added an RBI double in the fifth. The loss combined with the Braves' win pulls the Marlins down into a tie for second in the East with Atlanta, though being 6.5 back makes it all rather academic. They're both still four back in the wild card.

Don't look now, but the St. Louis Cardinals have the largest division lead in all of baseball.

Thursday's victory over the Padres, combined with the Dodgers' whomping of the Cubs (thanks in part of Russell Martin's grand slam) have upped the Cards' lead to 7 games.

(Check out the standings here)

The Cards are hot, no doubt about it, having just come off a winning series against the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Now you might knock their schedule of late, as they've faced the Pirates, Reds, and Padres before the Dodgers. And now, the Padres again. In those games, St. Louis is 11-2.

Rip the schedule all you want, but good teams do tend to beat up on bad ones. And bad teams, well, they do whatever the Cubs are doing.

With the Cubs trying to figure out how to blame it all on a goat, the Brewers having essentially thrown in the towel at the trade deadline, and the Astros breaking new ground in sleepy-eyed mediocrity, a division that looked pretty tight only a couple weeks ago is suddenly taking on the characteristics of a runaway.

Is it over? Of course not. But even Bluto Blutarsky is beginning to have his doubts.

******

If you Twitter, and think photos of a grousing Jamie Moyer are amusing, you can follow me at @Bharks.

Billy Wagner came off the 60-day disabled list Thursday, rejoining the Mets' bullpen less than 12 months after undergoing Tommy John elbow surgery. He looked great while rehabbing in the minors, tossing seven scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts and zero walks, but now enters an odd situation because the Mets have little use for him now and aren't planning to pick up his $8 million option for next season.

Wagner's remaining contract means that he should clear waivers without a problem, which would allow the Mets to trade him to a contender willing to take a shot on the greatest left-handed reliever in baseball history still having some gas left in the tank. He's owed another $2.5 million or so this year with a $1 million buyout for 2010, so the Mets need to eat salary to get anything in return. He's worth a pickup, for sure.

While the Mets welcome someone back from the shelf ahead of schedule for once, here are some other notes from around baseball ...

In the wake of Stephen Strasburg snagging a record $15 million contract from the Washington Nationals, there has been a lot of talk lately of what is wrong with the draft, and how it should be fixed.

From Bud Selig's threats of seeking a hard slotting system, to the Rays being accused of not even trying to sign their first-round pick, the post-Strasburg drama has been a bit of a mess.

One particularly interesting idea, however, comes from Dave Cameron over at Fangraphs.

His plan? Abolish the draft completely.

Instead of including international players in the draft, as Selig would like to do, Cameron would make everyone a free agent. On the surface, that sounds like insanity (how would the Royals ever beat out the Yankees for a star player?), but in Cameron's proposal, money from revenue sharing (roughly $200 million this season) would be allocated for amateur signings. The money would be divvied up on a graduated scale based on where the teams placed in the standings.

For example, the top five teams would only be allowed to spend $2 million each on amateurs, while the bottom five would be given $12 million apiece.

The top tier teams who have been winning recently would receive small sums of money that would essentially take them out of the running for the premium talents. Given that the teams that finished in the bottom half would likely be willing to bid ~60-70% of their budgets on the top guys available, the Strasburgs of the world would probably command bonuses in the $7 or $8 million range, which the winning teams would not be able to match.

Pretty interesting idea. Give each team a budget, with the bad teams having more money to spend than the good teams. In turn, you hold down the bonus money given to unproven amateurs, and you create and even playing field for high school, college and foreign kids.

Just might be crazy enough to work.

******
If you Twitter, and feel like burning your draft card, you can follow me at @Bharks.

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay
No. 20 - New York (NL)

Over the last decade, the Astros have done as poor of a job as any team in baseball in bringing in talent both in the draft and internationally. That they rank above 11 teams here is largely due to the treasure trove of prospects they signed out of Venezuela in the 1990s.

Rotation
Johan Santana
Roy Oswalt
Wandy Rodriguez
Bud Norris
Tim Redding

Bullpen
Brad Lidge
Chad Qualls
Billy Wagner
Juan Gutierrez
Fernando Nieve
Chris Sampson
Jamie Walker

Santana, of course, was plucked by the Twins in the Rule 5 draft in Dec. 1999.

The Astros lack depth because so few youngsters have come through the minor league system of late, but they do have a great front three in the rotation and a solid enough bullpen, even if Lidge and Wagner aren't the properties they were.

Noris was an easy choice as the fourth starter, though I still think there's a good chance he'll prove to be a long-term reliever. Considered along with Redding for the fifth spot in the rotation were Freddy Garcia, Felipe Paulino and Matt Albers.

Lineup
2B Ben Zobrist
RF Bobby Abreu
1B Lance Berkman
CF Hunter Pence
LF Carlos Guillen
C Ramon Castro
3B Melvin Mora
SS Julio Lugo

Bench
OF Josh Anderson
OF Jason Lane
INF-OF Eric Bruntlett
INF Aaron Miles
C John Buck

J.R. Towles was also considered for a bench spot, more as a third catcher/pinch-hitter than as a true backup for Castro. Lane was in the greatest danger of being bumped.

It's an old lineup, but still a pretty good one, particularly if you want to believe that Zobrist is for real and Lugo has something left. There's an awful lot of OBP at the top and no real liabilities besides maybe Mora at third base. Defense is a problem, and it does take a toll on the team's ranking, as does the lack of depth. Pence is stretched in center, so Anderson will push him to left with a late lead. It might be that the team would be better off with Zobrist at shortstop and Lugo at second, but I've left the two where they're playing now.

Summary

Santana, Abreu, Guillen, Mora, Garcia and Richard Hidalgo were all signed by the Astros out of Venezuela in the 1990s. Rodriguez was signed out of the Dominican Republic in 1999. The only key players here brought in this decade were Pence and Zobrist, both of whom were drafted in 2004. The Astros come in 19th for now, but with even guys like Oswalt and Berkman having seen their best years, they could rank in the bottom five in two years time. In five years, they might be dead last. At least the Astros seem to be valuing their draft picks higher now than they used to. They didn't have any in 2003, 2004 or 2007. The team's only first-round pick over the last 10 years to reach the majors was Chris Burke.

- Josh Johnson versus Wandy Rodriguez looks like the pitching matchup of the night. The two rank seventh and 11th in the NL in ERA, respectively. Johnson has gone 5-0 in his last six starts to move to 12-2 for the season, but his ERA has actually risen slightly during the span. Rodriguez was on an excellent role himself before giving up 10 runs last time out to take his ERA from 2.51 to 3.05. It was more runs than he had given up in his previous nine starts combined. Working in Rodriguez's favor tonight is that the Marlins have struggled some against left-handed pitching. The Astros, though, have lost four of six games to the Marlins over the last two weeks.

- The Red Sox go for a big sweep in Toronto with Jon Lester on the mound. Lester has received no-decisions in four straight, though he struggled in only one of those outings. He's 2-1 with a 2.33 ERA against Toronto this year, with the lone loss coming in a pitchers duel versus Roy Halladay. Fellow lefty Brett Cecil will go for the Jays. He owns a 5-1 record, but that one loss came to the Red Sox, as he gave up eight runs in 4 2/3 innings in Boston on May 20.

Game of the Night

Atlanta vs. New York - After a couple of routs to start the series, the Braves and Mets will play the deciding game tonight. The Mets won Tuesday after an eight-run inning against Derek Lowe, and the Braves destroyed Bobby Parnell as part of a 15-2 game last night. It will be Kenshin Kawakami versus Johan Santana in the finale. Kawakami has lost twice to the Mets despite posting a 3.09 ERA in his two starts. He's been a victim of poor run support while going 0-3 with a 3.79 ERA in six starts since the All-Star break. Santana also has a history of poor run support against his opponent tonight. Before pitching seven scoreless innings to beat the Braves on July 18 -- in a matchup against Kawakami -- he had been 0-6 with a 2.31 ERA versus Atlanta.

* Washington Post blogger Dan Steinberg put together a nice roundup of stories about just how out of shape Stephen Strasburg was when he first arrived at San Diego State. He weighed 250 pounds, was throwing up 10 minutes into the team's first workout, had teammates wondering if there was something medically wrong with him, and earned the nickname "Slothburg." And now just two years later he's the best pitching prospect in baseball with a deal worth over $15 million. Amazing.

* Speaking of draft picks, the Rays are accused of not attempting to sign first rounder LeVon Washington. Washington's father explained that the Rays didn't live up to a pre-draft agreement and never increased their offer from the recommended slot bonus, adding: "I'm convinced that they didn't want to sign him." Offering the slot bonus is hardly out of line, but the Rays may have decided that they weren't all that high on anyone available with at No. 30 and would rather take their chances with a compensation pick one place lower next year.

* Paul Hoynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer writes that Indians manager Eric Wedge avoided giving Matt LaPorta consistent playing time earlier this season because he was "still trying to orchestrate a miracle by getting the Indians back in contention" and "was also trying to save his job." While that's no doubt true, the notion that playing one of the better hitting prospects in baseball wouldn't have helped on both of those fronts is odd to say the least.

* Brandon Phillips exited this afternoon's game with a sore left wrist, which is where he was plunked by a J.D. Martin fastball over the weekend.

If you've never heard of the independent Northern League before you're missing out, because Monday night's matchup between Fargo-Moorhead and Winnipeg was really something special. After pitcher Ace Walker threw behind batter Nic Jackson, both benches slowly started to empty as the home-plate umpire issued warnings. And then all of a sudden the two managers started brawling at third base. Seriously.

The game was in Canada, so naturally the play-by-play announcer screamed out, "Oh, it's the old hockey fight!" And my favorite part of the whole thing is that no one was suspended for the incident that involved two middle-aged men in charge of running their respective professional baseball teams punching each other in the face.

Barry Zito and three relievers blanked the Reds last night, as the Giants pitched a shutout for the 16th time in 120 games. San Francisco has allowed the fewest runs in baseball with 441 in 120 games, which is 31 fewer runs than any other staff, and you wouldn't know it from his 8-11 record but Zito has quietly bounced back nicely from a disastrous 2008 season that saw him go 10-17 with a career-worst 5.15 ERA.

This season his ERA is down to 4.26 in 25 starts, and 114 strikeouts versus 56 walks in 148 innings is Zito's best K/BB ratio since way back in 2002. He's certainly not the top-of-the-rotation stud he was in the early Oakland days, but Zito is far better than he was during his first two seasons in San Francisco and has a 2.36 ERA in seven starts since the All-Star break. Zito reemerging as a solid starter has the Giants looking like a very dangerous opponent should they get into the playoffs.

The entire pitching staff has been fantastic with a 3.47 ERA, but even that includes some poor performances from guys who wouldn't touch the ball in October. Tim Lincecum is the best pitcher on the planet and Matt Cain is 12-4 with a 2.49 ERA. Toss in Zito and those are the three guys who could start nearly every playoff game. Beyond that the primary relievers have all been excellent, including closer Brian Wilson saving 30 games with a 2.75 ERA, 61/21 K/BB ratio, and .203 opponents' batting average in 55.2 innings.

Setup men Jeremy Affeldt and Justin Miller both have ERAs under 2.00, Bob Howry and Brandon Medders are obviously no slouches with ERAs in the mid-3.00s, and rookies Sergio Romo and Merkin Valdez have also stepped up with a combined 2.21 ERA during the past month. Because of all the off days during the playoffs teams typically need three main starters, with the occasional fourth starter in the mix, plus three or four key relievers. Here's what the Giants could trot out there under those circumstances:

SP1   Tim Lincecum       2.37 ERA, 207/46 K/BB in 178 innings
SP2   Matt Cain          2.49 ERA, 126/56 K/BB in 162 innings
SP3   Barry Zito         4.26 ERA, 114/56 K/BB in 148 innings
 
CL    Brian Wilson       2.75 ERA, 61/21 K/BB in 56 innings
SET   Jeremy Affeldt     1.80 ERA, 38/25 K/BB in 45 innings
SET   Justin Miller      1.83 ERA, 34/18 K/BB in 54 innings
SET   Bobby Howry        3.50 ERA, 33/12 K/BB in 46 innings

Not bad, huh? Those seven guys have combined for a 2.83 ERA and 613 strikeouts in 690 innings, and Medders, Romo, and Valdez are certainly capable of soaking up any loose work. Oh, and if the Giants need a fourth starter at some point Jonathan Sanchez has a 3.22 ERA and 52/18 K/BB ratio in seven starts since rejoining the rotation with a no-hitter in mid-July. Come playoff time the Lincecum-led pitching staff has a chance to shut down anyone.

Of course, scoring runs have been a problem for the Giants all season, which is why they're 4.5 games back in the division and a game behind the Rockies for the Wild Card despite the league's best pitching staff. San Francisco's lineup ranks 14th in the league with 4.0 runs per game, but has improved since adding Freddy Sanchez and Ryan Garko last month and does have one big-time threat in 22-year-old hitting savant Pablo Sandoval. If they can get there, the Giants would be my playoff sleeper pick.

* After meeting with manager Joe Girardi and pitching coach Dave Eiland to discuss his workload, Joba Chamberlain is scheduled to make six more starts this season. Chamberlain has averaged 5.5 innings per start so far, and if that continues he'll end up throwing 160 innings spread over 29 starts after logging 100 innings between the rotation and bullpen last season.

* Ichiro Suzuki needs just 19 hits during the Mariners' final 42 games to become the first player in baseball history with nine consecutive 200-hit seasons. He's currently tied with Wee Willie Keeler, who also had eight straight 200-hit campaigns from 1894 to 1901. Pete Rose is the all-time leader with ten 200-hit seasons, although he never had more than three in a row.

* Jon Garland has cleared waivers, so contenders looking for some back-of-the-rotation help are free to deal for him. However, he's still owed about $2 million this season and comes along with a $10 million team option or $2.5 million buyout for 2010, which is a hefty price tag for someone with a 6-11 record, 4.42 ERA, and 74/50 K/BB ratio in 154.2 innings.

* Joey Votto is back in the Reds' lineup today after leaving yesterday's game in the first inning with blurred vision.

* Beloved broadcaster Jerry Remy will return to the Red Sox's television booth Friday after being treated for both cancer and depression.

Matthew tore Dayton Moore and the Royals a new one the other day following their optioning of Alex Gordon to Omaha.  Yesterday, Moore defended himself, claiming that he had no choice but to demote Gordon, because the Royals wanted to keep a thirteen-man pitching staff, and even if they didn't, the only pitcher that has options left is Joakim Soria. As such, they'd have to designate one of their relievers for assignment in order to make room for Kyle Farnsworth.

Hey, if that's his story, good for him, but (a) any team keeping a thirteen-man pitching staff is insane, even if that's what everyone does these days; and (b) given that Soria is the only guy down there worth a diddly durn, I can't see why they'd be so hesitant to DFA one of them.  John Bale is 35 years old and has an ERA north of 6.  Is keeping him around really more important than letting Alex Gordon get right against major league pitching? 

Setting the whole steroids thing aside, the owners haven't attempted to impose anything really major on the players in labor negotiations since 2002.  Bud Selig indicated yesterday, however, that big changes are gonna come in 2011, and that the owners are going to be "very aggressive" in seeking (a) a hard slotting system for the amateur draft; and (b) an international draft.

Usually it's the owners who fight amongst themselves, with the small revenue clubs warring with the big revenue clubs over how revenue is handled and shared and all of that. I'd have to assume, however, that they'll be united here, at least with respect to the hard slotting system.

In contrast, we may see the union fighting, at least a little bit, with its members when it comes to the slot. The union has historically been opposed to any sort of capping of money going to the players, amateur or otherwise, on a philosophical basis.  The players, however, seem to not much care for the big bonuses going to the Stephen Strasburgs of the world and may very well throw them under the bus if the owners seek a hard slotting system.  The only ones who would lose out under such a scenario -- the amateurs themselves -- aren't at the bargaining table. I think the players are fooling themselves if they think that money not spent on draftees will go to them -- it's not a huge amount of money anyway -- but it will probably make them feel better all the same.

I'm opposed to the international draft for the simple reason that, right now, there is a huge incentive on the part of teams to seek out and develop raw talent in places like the Dominican Republic because they can expect to recoup their investment in these guys by being able to sign them on the open market.  If there was a draft, why would any team operate an academy in the D.R.? Why would the Angels, for example, provide facilities to train a kid for several years if cheap, free-riding teams would be able to draft these guys ahead of them?

The net result of an international draft would be a big reduction in the number of players from other countries because, unlike U.S. players who can play in any number of organized leagues, there simply isn't a sophisticated infrastructure to develop a significant amount of young talent.  We saw this in Puerto Rico, where the imposition of a draft a few years ago greatly reduced the number of players coming into the majors. I'd even argue that the imposition of the domestic draft in the 60s is one of the things that led to the reduced number of U.S.-born blacks in the game.  Why send scouts to an impoverished inner city neighborhood to find the lesser-known talent if all your presence there does is to alert the teams drafting ahead of you of your find?  And even if that's not a huge concern, it's certainly something which prevents the formation of domestic urban baseball academies (which would be very, very cool).

Obviously there will be a ton of time to debate all of this between now and the next round of CBA negotiations, and there are certainly pros and cons to both of these proposals. But if this is the most the owners are shooting for, I'd say there is little chance of a work-stoppage.

Rehab is the best:

Gwinnett fans might see Tim Hudson face Jake Peavy on Sunday in a marquee matchup of rehabbing pitchers.

Hudson is set to make his next-to-last rehab start Sunday for the Class AAA Gwinnett. Peavy, the former San Diego ace traded to the Chicago White Sox last month, is rehabbing from an ankle injury and might face Hudson on Sunday.

Very similar situations for these guys in that each is going to be counted on to bring something to a team a few games out of the playoff hunt. At the same time, each have been pretty uneven in rehab starts. 

Fresh on the heels of the post-trade Victor Martinez bobblehead giveaway in Cleveland, we have the post-release Jason Giambi bobblehead giveaway in Oakland!

Call me crazy, but it seems like you'd want to schedule your bobblehead nights earlier in the season.

When he's been in, he's been productive this year. When he's been out, it's been rather terrifying:

Reds first baseman Joey Votto left in the first inning of Wednesday's game against the Giants after he experienced blurry vision.

Votto was replaced by Kevin Barker after the top of the first inning. Reds manager Dusty Baker said Votto is expected to be re-evaluated Thursday morning.

"He came up on that foul ball in the first inning and said he couldn't see," Baker said. "When a player tells you that, an alarm goes off."

Depression, dizziness due to an inner-ear infection, and now blurred vision. The dude just doesn't get a sore hamstring or flu-like symptoms, does he?

We saw this one coming, but Billy Wagner has been placed on waivers by the Mets. He'll almost certainly go unclaimed, what with any claiming club being on the hook for $3.6 million or so.

I can't see entrusting late inning leads to a guy so soon after coming off of Tommy John surgery, but the Cubs are pretty desperate for a closer right now and I could see them biting.  Anyone else would probably be using him simply for bullpen depth.

Remember that post I wrote yesterday about Mike Rizzo being out as the Nats' GM?  Yeah, forget it. Gordon Edes:

Despite speculation that spread throughout baseball circles that the Washington Nationals were planning to make a front-office change, interim general manager Mike Rizzo has been given the job on a permanent basis.

Published reports out of Washington on Wednesday night say that the club will announce Rizzo's appointment at a news conference Thursday, putting to rest the assertion by multiple baseball executives that Arizona Diamondbacks vice president Jerry DiPoto was on the verge of getting the job.

No mention of the fact that the speculation and public reports came from . . . Gordon Edes!

Whatever the case, I think this is a good move for the Nats, because Rizzo has really earned the job. Jim Bowden left a gigantic mess behind, and Rizzo has done much to clean that up, all while doing much to fix the fabulously ill-conceived roster Bowden had put together. No, this isn't a good team yet, but at least now there's a path forward, and the Nats have Rizzo to thank for it.

And a note to Yahoo!: please don't put Edes on the elections beat.

Braves 15, Mets 2: Brian McCann hit a three-run homer in the second inning after five runs had already scored. And guess what: THE BRAVES DIDN'T SCORE ANOTHER RUN IN THAT INNING AFTER THE HOMER. They're rally-killers, dude. Avoid the home run at all costs. Bright side for Mets fans: Bobby Parnell didn't get near that 85 pitch count they're saying he's on: he was in the showers after 71 thrown in three innings.

White Sox 4, Royals 2: Jose Contreras allowed one run and three hits in seven innings, struck out eight and walked only one. Zack Greinke only allowed six hits himself -- and three of them were rally-killing home runs -- but Greinke lost anyway.

Phillies 8, Diamondbacks 1: Cliff Lee (CG 2 H, 0 ER, 11K) is like a one-man army, like Charlton Heston in "Omega Man." You ever see it? Beauty.

Pirates 3, Brewers 1: Paul Maholm is basically indestructible. In the fourth inning. Mike Cameron hit a liner off Maholm's pitching arm and it bounced off right to the second baseman, who threw Cameron out. In the eighth inning, Alcides Escobar hit one off of Maholm's shin, and he too was thrown out on the play. Maholm stayed in the game for another batter after that and was lifted, but it was for cause (he was tired; he gave up a single late) not injury. Final line: 7.2 IP, 8 H, 1 ER, a couple of giant bruises when he wakes up this morning.

Rays 3, Orioles 1: Three solo homers and a solid start by Jeff Niemann. You know, I don't want to give any false hope here, but the Orioles are not out of the Bryce Harper race yet, sitting back of Washington a scant 4 games in the loss column as the bulldog goes to press.

Mariners 3, Tigers 1: Justin Verlander struck out ten and deserved a better fate, but Ian Snell + the Seattle bullpen pitched a little better. I've mentioned this before, but absolutely hate this kind of comment in a game story: "Verlander now has 204 strikeouts, making him the first Tigers pitcher to reach 200 since Jeremy Bonderman in 2006." Really? All the way back to 2006? Here's a suggestion: let's make all such callbacks be required to stretch back at least five years. Like "Verlander is the first Tigers pitcher whose last name starts with a V since Andy Van Hekken's September callup back in 2002.

Angels 3, Indians 0: Jered Wever shuts down the Indians (CG SHO, 7 H). The Angels are 24-8 since the All-Star break and have won five in a row. Game story: "A light rain sent fans scurrying for cover in the seventh inning as the teams kept playing. It stopped about 15 minutes later." If I didn't know better, pardner, I'd say that you was callin' Clevelanders yella!

Red Sox 6, Blue Jays 1: If, a month ago, I would have told you that would Buchholz beat Halladay in this game, you would have assumed that the Jays won, wouldn't you have?

John Smoltz landed on his feet Wednesday, signing with the Cardinals immediately after he cleared waivers. That he had multiple suitors isn't a big shock, as apparently a handful of teams agreed with me that he can still get major-league hitters out, but finding a contender willing to hand him a rotation spot is surprising. Smoltz will make his Cardinals debut Sunday against the Padres, which is a very favorable matchup.

However, there's already speculation that Smoltz may eventually head to the bullpen as a setup man for closer Ryan Franklin, which is interesting given that the Red Sox were told that he didn't want to work in relief for them. Whatever the case, Smoltz is definitely worth grabbing in NL-only leagues. Expectations should obviously be held in check, but don't be surprised if he looks like a totally different pitcher in the NL.

While the Cardinals get Smoltz for $100,000 after the Red Sox dropped $5 million on him, here are some other notes from around baseball ...

In a move that is destined to turn Chavez Ravine into a giant yawn contest, the Dodgers have signed former Rangers pitcher Vicente Padilla to a minor league contract. Talk about a low-risk, low-reward move.

Padilla will pitch at Triple-A Albuquerque on Saturday before joining the big league team, and is expected to start against the Colorado Rockies on Aug. 27.

The good news on this signing is the Dodgers won't have to pay Padilla much more than their ball boys, as the Rangers will eat the $8 million he's owed after dumping him a couple days ago. The bad news is that he isn't much better than the ball boys, even when you take into account his recent bout with swine flu.

(Speaking of swine flu, apparently the virus has hit a Japanese baseball team pretty hard. The team's name? The Nippon Ham Fighters. Not kidding.)

Padilla turns 32 in late September, and at this point in his career, what you see is what you get. He's going to walk some guys. He's going to hit some guys (eighth all-time among active pitchers). And he's going to give up some home runs (although, only 12 so far this season).His line this season (8-6, 4.92), is about on target with his career line (94-85, 4.36).

Is Padilla really any better than Charlie Haeger, Eric Stults or James McDonald? Seems doubtful, but with Hiroki Kuroda heading to the disabled list, I guess it doesn't hurt to stock up on warm bodies.

Throw enough junk at the wall, something might stick.

******

If you Twitter, and have been diagnosed as swine-flu free, you can follow me at @Bharks.

One move was overdue.  The other was more about the thrill of finally getting Willy Taveras out of the Cincinnati lineup.  On Wednesday, the Indians added 2007 first-round pick Matt LaPorta to their roster, while the Reds called up 2006 first-rounder Drew Stubbs.

 

Bypassed when Ryan Garko, Ben Francisco, Victor Martinez all were shipped off, Matt LaPorta finally received his promotion when fellow youngster Trevor Crowe landed on the disabled list.  The 24-year-old was up briefly earlier this year, batting .190/.286/.286 in 42 at-bats.  He was hitting .299/.388/.530 in his first season in Triple-A, but the Indians held off on promoting him because of some indecisiveness over where to play him.  A first baseman in college, LaPorta was moved to the outfield when drafted by Milwaukee.  The Indians didn't have Prince Fielder blocking him when they picked him up for CC Sabathia, but they left him in the outfield originally, only starting to give him more time at first base as this year went along.  He projects best at first base, but he could continue to shift between positions in the majors.

 

While it's LaPorta's bat that will carry him, Stubbs was chosen to replace the injured Taveras because of his defense in center.  It was still a surprise to see him picked over Chris Heisey, who played center in Double-A before joining Stubbs at Louisville.  Heisey has shown the better bat all year long, even though he's faded recently.  Stubbs has struggled mightily of late, posting a .194 average in 62 at-bats this month.  He's hitting .268/.353/.360 with 46 steals in 54 attempts for the season.

 

Stubbs stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 205 pounds, so the strength should be there.  He also strikes out like a power hitter, with 104 Ks in 107 games this season.  Unfortunately, he's totaled just three homers in 411 at-bats.  Last year, he had seven in 470 at-bats.  That his defense in center is truly exceptional should make him a long-term regular, but there wouldn't seem to be any star potential here, unless we're talking fantasy baseball.  He's not quite the burner that Taveras is, but he is an excellent basestealer, something that could land him a spot at the top of the order for the Reds next year.  The audition comes now, and if he's impressive enough, then the team could eat the second year of Taveras' deal.

 

As an aside, this isn't the first time LaPorta and Stubbs have been connected.  LaPorta starred for the Gators and Stubbs for the Longhorns when Florida and Texas met in the finals of the 2005 College World Series, won by Texas.

- Roy Halladay will face a patient Boston lineup having pitched 50 innings over his past six starts. Included in that run is a complete-game victory over the Red Sox in which he gave up just one run. Halladay is just 13-12 with a 4.33 ERA lifetime against the Red Sox, but he has handled them well over the last two years, going 4-2 with a 2.27 ERA and three complete games in six starts. The Red Sox will throw Clay Buchholz as they aim for a second straight win in Toronto.

- Dan Haren, the NL's ERA leader for the first half of the season, will match up against the red-hot Cliff Lee as the Diamondbacks and Phillies continue a three-game series. Haren bounced back from a subpar four-start run to limit the Dodgers to one run over eight innings in a win last week. Lee, on the other hand, has won six straight starts, allowing just seven runs in the process. He's 3-0 with a 1.13 ERA since joining the Phillies.

Game of the Night

St. Louis vs. Los Angeles - Two of the game's hottest pitchers will square off in Los Angeles, as Adam Wainwright and Clayton Kershaw are set to duel. Wainwright leads the NL with 14 wins and hasn't given up more than two earned runs in a start in two months. Since the beginning of July, he has a 1.21 ERA in nine outings. Without working as deep into games, Kershaw has been just about as outstanding, amassing a 1.50 ERA in his last 12 starts. However, the Dodgers have lost each of his last five starts and Kershaw hasn't been sharp in two of his three starts this month. Even if he's at his best tonight, it's no guarantee of a win. He pitched eight scoreless innings against the Cardinals on July 29 and ended up with a no-decision when St. Louis came back to win 3-2.

This is part of a series of articles examining what every team's roster would look like if given only the players it originally signed. I'm compiling the rosters, ranking them and presenting them in a countdown from Nos. 30 to 1.

No. 30 - Cincinnati
No. 29 - Kansas City
No. 28 - San Diego
No. 27 - Milwaukee
No. 26 - Baltimore
No. 25 - Chicago (AL)
No. 24 - Chicago (NL)
No. 23 - Pittsburgh
No. 22 - Detroit
No. 21 - Tampa Bay

The second third of the rankings kicks off with the Mets, a team with two superstars and a cast of mediocrity. At least they do still have the superstars on their current squad. Most of the other quality players signed by the team were shipped off long before without ever having a chance to make a mark.

Rotation
A.J. Burnett
Scott Kazmir
Brian Bannister
Mike Pelfrey
Jon Niese

Bullpen
Heath Bell
Octavio Dotel
Matt Lindstrom
Bobby Parnell
Aaron Heilman
Guillermo Mota
Joe Smith

Of the 12 pitchers above, Pelfrey has the most wins as a Met, with 26. Heilman is next with 22. No one else is in double figures. Mota, who was originally signed as a position player in 1990, won five games for the team between 2006 and '07.

The top three starters were traded for Al Leiter, Victor Zambrano and Ambiorix Burgos.

It is a pretty solid pitching staff, though. Obviously, it'd be better if Kazmir still had the same stuff he did a couple of years ago, but Bannister is more than holding his own in the AL and Niese appeared to be on the verge of becoming a possible No. 3 starter before getting hurt earlier this month. The bullpen has some big-time arms, but it is missing a lefty. The best options there are Billy Traber and Lenny DiNardo. Fortunately, Heilman and Mota have usually been pretty good at retiring southpaws.

Lineup
SS Jose Reyes
3B David Wright
RF Nelson Cruz
1B Mike Jacobs
C Jesus Flores
2B Kaz Matsui
CF Carlos Gomez
LF Daniel Murphy

Bench
INF Ty Wigginton
OF Angel Pagan
OF Jay Payton
OF Lastings Milledge
C Raul Casanova

If you want, you can stick one of those lesser hitters in between Reyes and Wright in the order. I wouldn't. Also, if the team absolutely has to include a true utilityman, it's going to have to be Double-A shortstop Ruben Tejada. Reyes isn't going to get any days off either way.

The lineup is definitely OBP challenged apart from Reyes and Wright, but there's still some nice power in the middle and speed at the end. Wigginton and Payton should start over Jacobs and Murphy against left-handers. If Milledge ever comes around, then Jacobs and Murphy can battle for playing time at first base.

Summary

The Mets' lack of patience with prospects has been a problem, but as one can plainly see, the team hasn't produced a whole lot of talent through the years. Part of the problem is that the team has given away first-round picks recently, but even after accounting for that, GM Omar Minaya's drafts have been disappointing. A recent influx of Latin American talent should help -- players like Fernando Martinez, Wilmer Flores, Jenrry Mejia and Tejada could all play key roles in a couple of years -- but it remains to be seen whether Minaya will be around to see it happen.

There's been lots of talk lately about Joe Mauer's chances of winning the AL MVP, but let's ignore how 28 newspaper writers might cast their ballots in six weeks and focus instead on the historically awesome season that the Twins' catcher is having.

Mauer went 3-for-5 with two homers last night, making him 33-for-63 (.524) with seven homers, six doubles, and 19 RBIs in 15 games since his batting average dropped to a season-low .355 on August 1. He leads baseball with a .383 batting average overall and leads the AL in on-base percentage (.448), slugging percentage (.653), OPS (1.104), and Runs Above Replacement (65.0).

Despite spending all of April on the disabled list he's up to 25 homers, 77 RBIs, and 237 total bases, each of which rank among the AL's top 10. Oh, and he's also the league's reigning Gold Glove catcher and has thrown out 30 percent of steal attempts this year. He's been the best, most valuable player in the AL this season whether the 28 people with an actual vote on such matters recognize it or not, but beyond that he's having a truly historic season.

What makes Mauer's performance so amazing is that throughout baseball history catcher has been the position with the worst offensive production. This year is no different, as MLB backstops have managed a measly .256/.321/.398 line and .719 OPS that rank as the worst from any position. In fact, shortstop is the only other spot with an OPS below .750. Not only is Mauer the best hitter in the league, he's the best hitter in the league and a very good defender at the least-offensive position on the diamond.

Catchers just don't hit like this, which is why Mauer is on track for his third batting title in five seasons after no catcher in the history of the American League ever managed even one before he came around. He's also at or near the top of almost every all-time catcher leaderboard, including batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, and OPS. Here are the top five for each of those four categories:

                  YEAR      AVG                            YEAR      OBP
JOE MAUER         2009     .383          Mickey Cochrane   1933     .459
Babe Phelps       1936     .367          Mickey Cochrane   1935     .452
Mike Piazza       1997     .362          JOE MAUER         2009     .448
Bill Dickey       1936     .362          Johnny Bassler    1924     .441
Mickey Cochrane   1930     .357          Chief Meyers      1912     .441
 
                  YEAR      SLG                            YEAR      OPS
JOE MAUER         2009     .653          JOE MAUER         2009    1.101
Mike Piazza       1997     .638          Mike Piazza       1997    1.069
Gabby Hartnett    1930     .630          Bill Dickey       1936    1.045
Bill Dickey       1936     .617          Gabby Hartnett    1930    1.034
Mike Piazza       2000     .614          Mike Piazza       2000    1.012

Not only does Mauer have the highest batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS in baseball history for a catcher, Mike Piazza is the only guy from the past 70 years to even appear on those lists. Mauer is on track for one of the single greatest catcher seasons in baseball history and has clearly been the best player in the AL this year. If in six weeks the 28 newspaper writers with a ballot for the MVP don't recognize just how amazing he's been, then perhaps we should just stop caring so much about what they think.

My entry this morning about the Cubs' closer switch included a comment about how, despite 52 walks and 11 hit batters in 56.1 innings, Carlos Marmol "remains extremely difficult to hit" and is "the Cubs' best bet for a shutdown guy." That drew a few e-mails from Cubs fans, most of which basically noted that someone with such horrible control can't be counted on in save situations.

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that notion and did write in the same entry that Marmol "will obviously need to stop walking a batter per inning to have success" in the role. However, it seems as though people are focusing on Marmol's control issues while overlooking just how unhittable he's been. He's the complete list of relievers from the past 50 years who've allowed fewer than 5.0 hits per nine innings while facing at least 250 batters:

                    YEAR      H/9
Eric Gagne          2003     4.04
CARLOS MARMOL       2008     4.12
Jeff Nelson         2001     4.13
Billy Wagner        1999     4.22
Troy Percival       1995     4.50
Armando Benitez     2000     4.62
Armando Benitez     1999     4.62
Troy Percival       1996     4.62
J.J. Putz           2007     4.65
Armando Benitez     2004     4.65
Vicente Romo        1968     4.70
Jim Brewer          1972     4.71
Ugueth Urbina       1998     4.80
Andy Messersmith    1968     4.87
CARLOS MARMOL       2009     4.95

Marmol, Troy Percival, and Armando Benitez are the only relievers to allow fewer than 5.0 hits per nine innings in multiple seasons. Last season Marmol held batters to 4.12 hits per nine innings on a .135 batting average and this season he's held batters to 4.95 hits per nine innings on a .163 batting average. Oh, and Marmol narrowly missed cracking the above list for a third time with 5.32 hits per nine innings in 2007.

Yes, throwing the ball over the plate will be very important for his chances of emerging as an elite closer, but you can often get away with poor control when you're giving up one hit every two innings. Since becoming a full-time reliever three years ago, he has a 2.49 ERA and 277 strikeouts in 213 frames while allowing 4.7 hits per nine innings. He's allowed more walks (128) than hits (112) during that time.

* If you've ever wanted to see a 6-foot-6, 300-pound man hit a baseball 400 feet and then sprint 360 feet in 15 seconds, make sure to check out footage of Kyle Blanks from last night. One night after blasting a walk-off homer against the Cubs, Blanks hit the first inside-the-park homer in Petco Park history, complete with a head-first dive into home plate.

He's now batting .252/.357/.496 with eight homers and nine doubles in 47 games despite calling the majors' most pitcher-friendly ballpark home and has also drawn good reviews for his outfield defense after playing first base in the minors prior to his call-up, all of which is pretty awesome for a 22-year-old.

* Jake Peavy is now scheduled to make at least two more minor-league rehab starts before joining the White Sox's rotation.

* Ivan Rodriguez's second stint with the Rangers will begin today when he catches Kevin Millwood.

* Joe Maddon has added to his trademark hipster glasses by dying his hair black, which means that earrings, Ed Hardy t-shirts, and a tribal tattoo could be next for the 55-year-old Rays manager.

* Matt Keough made an All-Star team, pitched in the playoffs, and won 58 games in the majors, yet when TMZ.com reports on his recent DUI arrest he's merely "Matt Keough of The Real Housewives of Orange County."

I guess it took a couple of years for the reporters to get to him for a quote:

Jack Cust still wonders why his name appeared in the Mitchell Report.

I think it's because he did a whole bunch of steroids.  Oh, there's more?

"With all the other stuff going on, with a lot of the guys coming out recently -- big-name guys -- to me it's kind of funny they spent all that money on the Mitchell Report and a bunch of hearsay and the guy who made all the money off it happened to work for the Red Sox. Were there any Red Sox on the report? To me, that's kind of a joke. How does that happen? It's coming out now with guys on that team. The guy worked for the Red Sox -- they spent all kinds of millions of dollars -- and then no one there had their name brought up."

Many have offered a similar criticism of George Mitchell -- who sits on the Red Sox board -- for allegedly overlooking Red Sox players.  Taking such an oversight seriously, however, is to give way too much credit to George Mitchell and Major League Baseball for cunning.

Simply by reading the Mitchell Report, it becomes obvious that it only sought to report on the low-hanging fruit. Specifically, to parrot the names that were turned up in the course of ongoing criminal investigations such as BALCO, the McNamee business and the Radomski business.  George Mitchell didn't whitewash Red Sox names -- he simply never bothered to look.

The Mitchell Report was a very thin slice of pie.  The fact that the big names that were missed -- including Red Sox like Big Papi and Manny -- was a function of Mitchell's failure to look into or even really comment upon international sources of drugs.  To give the Mitchell Report any weight is to believe that a couple of lowlife personal trainers and a mad scientist in the Bay Area were the alpha and omega of baseball's PED problem. Such an assumption is foolish.

There was a big story at the end of June that almost everyone ignored, and that was about the feds probing Miami physician Pedro Publio Bosch, who allegedly has tons of ties to Latin American ballplayers and allegedly has been a source of hCG, which is the drug for which Manny Ramirez was suspended. Word on the street is that Bosch is talking. You can bet that, if he is talking, he's going to give up a ton of names, none of which appeared in the Mitchell Report.

So hold tight, Jack Cust.  Others will join you eventually.

I don't mean to make light of anyone getting a potentially deadly disease, but I do find it rather interesting that a baseball team named after a pork packing and processing company has come down with swine flu:

All players and staff of the Nippon Ham Fighters baseball team will be tested for swine flu after two players and a coach contracted the virus, the Japanese Pacific League team said Wednesday.

Former major league outfielder Terrmel Sledge, pitcher Naoki Miyanishi and head coach Junichi Fukura were confirmed to have contracted the virus when 27 people were tested Tuesday. 

That's what Gordon Edes is reporting, anyway:

Multiple sources insisted Tuesday that the Nationals are on the verge of announcing that Arizona Diamondbacks vice president Jerry DiPoto is about to be named Nationals GM, replacing [Mike] Rizzo, who has been interim GM since replacing Jim Bowden earlier this season.

We all knew the Nats were looking, but it seemed like Rizzo was doing an OK job.  He reportedly has a good relationship with Boras, which helped with the Strasburg signing, and which could help with Bryce Harper next year, whom the Nats currently stand poised to pick.  He also made some decent moves during the season in picking up Nyjer Morgan, who has proved useful and popular, and unloading Nick Johnson. Sure, the Nats remain terrible, but there's hope there, and a lot of that hope is based on moves Rizzo has made, either as GM or as scouting director. Frankly, I'm rather surprised that they're not going to stick with him. 

But maybe the most surprising thing in all of this is one of the guys who was reportedly on the Nats' short list: ESPN's Steve Phillips. According to Edes, " he told associates he had no interest because of his job at ESPN." If the Nats were seriously considering Phillips -- as opposed to this being something Phillips was simply floating through is "associates" to make himself sound like a viable candidate -- then it shows the Lerners' terrible judgment and thus passing over Rizzo is understandable.

If true, it also means that we were this close to being able to watch Sunday night baseball again with the sound on.  Bummer.

Jayson Stark at ESPN wrote a rather idiotic article yesterday complaining about the draft.  It wasn't idiotic because the draft is perfect or anything -- it's not -- but because all it complained about was the sheer amount of money teams spend on the draft, quoting no one but anonymous people connected with baseball ownership (other reasons why his article was stupid can be read here).

Of course those guys hate spending money in the draft.  If they could, they'd pay draftees in lumps of coal and bowls of gruel. What Stark never mentions, however, is that overall, the draft is like a bargain basement for teams looking to acquire talent.

While Stephen Strasburg's $15 million gets all the headlines, overall, teams will spend around $180 million in signing bonuses for draftees this year. That amounts to $6 million per team.  That $6 million gets each team dozens and dozens of players the team controls for a minimum of six years a piece.  Even if only one or two of those players become major leaguers, the teams have more than gotten their money's worth.

In light of this, the problem with the draft isn't the amount of money teams are spending. It's the particular players at the very top on whom that money is spent. Ideally you want the worst teams to take the best players, rendering signability a non-issue. This wasn't a huge problem this year (as Stark's colleague Peter Gammons notes), but it has been in the past.

Perhaps some sort of slotting system makes sense to accomplish that (and today the New York Times talks about the forms that could take). Simply complaining about what the top draftees are making, however, accomplishes very little.

(thanks to reader DonCoburleone for the data on overall draft expenditures)

"That was a lot of fun. You just keep pounding balls into the gap. The one thing you don't want to do is hit a home run. That's a rally-killer."

-- Jeff Francoeur, following the Mets big win over the Braves, continuing to fail to understand even the basic rudiments of baseball.

John Smoltz is set to clear waivers today at noon. When he does, the Cardinals are going to sign him.  They're going to use him as a fifth starter initially, with thoughts of moving him to the bullpen late in the year or for the playoffs.

The Cardinals are one of the few contenders who really have nothing to lose by giving Smoltz a shot in the rotation.  Between Todd Wellemeyer, Mitchell Boggs, Brad Thompson, and P.J. Walters, their fifth starters have been utter abominations. Those guys are a combined 10-15 with a 5.45 ERA, and given that they've allowed 320 baserunners in 188 1/3 innings, that ERA probably represents good luck.

Only downside: NL guys like me will bang our heads against a wall if Smoltz waltzes in to St. Louis and starts to pitch effectively, because it will just be the latest painful data point reminding us of the disparity between the leagues.

Marlins 6, Astros 2: Two teams that, one day, we'll all sit around and say "yeah, I totally forgot that Pudge played for those guys." Stellar game for Ricky Nolasco (CG, 3 H, 2 ER, 10K). Three more hits for Hanley.

Mets 9, Braves 4: Derek Lowe's worst outing of the season (3.2 IP, 11 H, 8 ER) negates the Braves' early four-run lead. Martin Prado removed for a severe headache and will now go back to Georgia for tests. When the Braves break bad, they really break bad.

Rays 5, Orioles 4: Every time I see Gabe Gross' name I immediately think of Greg Gross, but before the conscious part of my brain concludes "different people," the part of my brain that forms impressions and snap-judgments thinks "man, that guy has to be 100 years old." I'm guessing this will only get worse as I get older. Hell, I picked Ivan DeJesus, Jr. in my Scoresheet League's supplemental draft yesterday and I'd by lying if I didn't think of the late-70s Cubs as I did it. Anyway, Gross hit a two-run homer, which ain't too shabby for a 57 year-old guy who has hit only seven dingers over the course of his 17-year career.

Red Sox 10, Blue Jays 9: A couple of ugly starting pitching performances from Ricky Romero and Josh Beckett, but the Red Sox weathered the ugly storm a bit better. Kevin Youkilis returned from suspension. Dustin Pedroia left the team to be with his wife who gave birth. The little fellow was 5'9" and 180 pounds. No word on the size of the baby.

Giants 8, Reds 5: A day after Jonah pimps Lincecum's MVP case, Timmy drops a relative stinker (6 IP, 6 H, 5 R). The Giants pull it out, however, because they're facing the Reds, who hath been baptized with a curse, and for whom a spirit of the air hath begirt them with a snare and for whom in the wind there is a voice which shall forbid them to rejoice. Or they just suck, I can't decide which.

Tigers 5, Mariners 3: Porcello vs. Hernandez, the combined age of whom is 0.93 Moyers. Hernandez pitches better (7 IP. 5 H. 1 ER, 9K), but the Tigers beat up reliever Mark Lowe for the come from behind win. Bad day to be a Lowe in baseball.

Pirates 5, Brewers 2: Ross Ohlendorf is putting together a nice second half, and gave up one run over seven innings at PNC last night.

Angels 5, Indians 4: I ripped this observation off of someone on Facebook, but it's worth repeating to those of you who, unlike me, have real live friends: The batting averages of the Angels nine starters after last night's game: .308, .310, .310, .313, .303, .307, .300, .300, 313. For those of you who care, two teams -- The 1927 Philadelphia Athletics and 1930 St. Louis Cardinals -- each had ten players who hit over .300 during the same season.

Rockies 4, Nationals 3: Carlos Gonzalez homers for the third straight game. From the game story "Washington's first game since signing No. 1 draft pick Stephen Strasburg to a record $15.1 million contract drew a crowd of only 18,192 -- about 5,000 lower than the team's average attendance this season." Well, it's not like he was gonna pitch or anything. What, people are supposed to show up at the ballpark due to their euphoria that Boras got a couple million dollar commission? It's still the 2009 Nats we're talking about here and it was still a horrible hot and humid Swampland night.

First it was the war on drugs. Then the war on terror. Now? Jaywalking, of course.

Lou Piniella was the latest to get nabbed, getting off with only a warning after being caught committing the unthinkable in downtown San Diego on Tuesday.

Sweet Lou was talking on his cell phone (presumably calling Closers-R-Us), and looking for a place to get his hair cut when he crossed against a red light, attracting the attention of an eagle-eyed motorcycle cop.

Piniella says he didn't get any special treatment in avoiding a ticket, claiming that the officer didn't recognize him. This seems unlikely, given his burgeoning rap career, but I digress.

Piniella is only the latest to run afoul of the law. Just last week, White Sox GM Kenny Williams was busted in Seattle, receiving a $56 ticket for his transgressions.

Last summer in the same city, then-Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez was chewed out by a cop for jaywalking, to the point where he was threatened with arrest.

(The best part of that incident is that the officer, not recognizing Ramirez, asked him if he had attended the game. Attended? Well, I guess that all depends on your definition of the word.)

It's about time baseball people stopped acting as if they are above the law. This isn't Italy, where the police will applaud and offer you a glass of wine if you manage to cross the street without being run over by a Vespa. Nor is it India, where ... well, just watch this video and be amazed.

No, this is America, and we're just not going to take it anymore. Anyone have George Mitchell's number? Wonder what he's up to.

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If you Twitter, and are a law-abiding citizen, you can follow me at @Bharks.

Carlos Marmol was the most dominant reliever in baseball last year, yet Lou Piniella went with Kevin Gregg at closer to begin the season. Five months later Marmol has issued 52 walks and plunked 11 batters in 56.1 innings, yet Piniella handed him the closer job Tuesday after Gregg predictably struggled while posting a 4.47 ERA and blowing six saves in 29 chances.

Marmol has been nowhere near as good as he was last season because he's rarely been able to throw the ball over the plate consistently, but remains extremely difficult to hit with 10.7 strikeouts per nine innings and a .163 opponents' batting average. He'll obviously need to stop walking a batter per inning to have success, but he's just as clearly the Cubs' best bet for a shutdown guy and Gregg was miscast in the role.

While the Cubs make the correct decision about 120 games too late, here are some other notes from around baseball ...

Think the Cubs miss Kerry Wood?

Lou Piniella, having finally grown tired of the 9th-inning adventure that is Kevin Gregg, demoted his baffled reliever from the closer's role, putting wild-and-crazy Carlos Marmol in that spot instead.

The move comes one day after Gregg blew his sixth save of the season (in 29 tries), this time against the Padres. Says Piniella, via AP:

"We needed to try a different approach. We have been patient, if you want to use that word. But we've lost some tough, tough ball games."

The new approach, apparently, will be to let Marmol put a lot of runners on base, then hope that he wriggles out of jams.

Marmol, who has saved a whopping 50 percent of his eight save opportunities, has walked 52 batters in 56 1/3 innings this season. He has also hit 11 batters (that leads the league), and allowed 31 hits, for a WHIP of 1.473.

Piniella also considered using Angel Guzman or John Grabow in that role. Grabow has allowed only two hits as a Cub, but in the tiny sample size of 5 2/3 innings. Guzman has a 2.42 ERA, but has given up six home runs.

There is no perfect answer for Piniella and the Cubs, and in truth, the way the Cardinals are playing, it might not matter anyway.

If you Twitter, and you can save a game once in awhile, feel free to follow me at @Bharks.