Free agency is finally here, less than a week before Thanksgiving. And the signings may not come so quick, either.
CHICAGO -- The Mariners are expected to receive many calls of inquiry regarding superstar pitcher Felix Hernandez, but Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik made more clear than ever their intention not to trade King Felix.
CHICAGO -- No team is going to spend or presumably improve via free agency like the Yankees did last winter, when they doled out $423.5 million to three star players alone. Post-parade, and as the GM meetings get underway here on Monday, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Yankees spent wisely. But with the Yankees far less needy this winter and this year's free-agent list less star-studded -- Matt Holliday, Jason Bay and John Lackey are the only in-their-prime players who can reasonably aim for $100 million deals and the only ones even sure to crack $50 million -- no team is expected to try to duplicate such a spending spree. Nor would one even be possible this time around.
Two of the best moves of the year involved Matt Holliday. One was a deal to acquire Holliday, the other was a deal to be rid of Holliday.
SEATTLE (AP) -- After days of debate, the Seattle Mariners traded left-handed pitcher Jarrod Washburn to the Detroit Tigers for two young pitchers, giving the Tigers another veteran for their rotation as they try to hold on to the AL Central lead.
When teams start down the tricky path of shopping a superstar, they rarely turn back, and the superstar usually goes somewhere else eventually. However, executives who have spoken to the Blue Jays' management team of acting president Paul Beeston and general manager J.P. Ricciardi remain convinced Toronto could still wind up keeping ace pitcher Roy Halladay.
David Aardsma has already moved ahead of Hank Aaron, which until this season was going to probably be his biggest claim to fame as a major leaguer.
Ichiro Suzuki was lying on his back in the corner of the visitor's clubhouse at Yankee Stadium last week doing his usual pregame stretching when a large, muscular man suddenly jumped on top of him and began ... tickling him? Yes, Ken Griffey Jr. was tickling his fellow outfielder, both players acting like schoolchildren and wearing smiles as broad as the room they were playing in.
1) The Seattle Mariners broke loose with six runs on 12 hits on Thursday against the Orioles, which only means the odds of them putting up such an output on Friday night are not very good. (Editor's note: The Mariners lost to the Rockies 6-4 on Friday.) Only once this year have the Mariners scored six runs in back-to-back games. Indeed, the Mariners are a fascinatingly bad offensive team, especially for a team that is playing .500 ball. It's hard to construct a team in this era, in a league with the DH, that has this much trouble scoring runs. They are last in the majors in runs; yes, worse than the Giants and Padres. How bad is it?
The Mariners made some early noise with their nice start to the season, but the club could create a much bigger national story as a trader this summer. Unlike a vast majority of teams expected to straddle the buy/sell fence, the now 22-26 Mariners seem to understand their position as a rebuilding team. What's more, they have decent, veteran talent to trade, including front-line, left-handed pitcher Erik Bedard, who should become an increasingly popular trade target.
Free agency is finally here, less than a week before Thanksgiving. And the signings may not come so quick, either.
CHICAGO -- The Mariners are expected to receive many calls of inquiry regarding superstar pitcher Felix Hernandez, but Seattle GM Jack Zduriencik made more clear than ever their intention not to trade King Felix.
CHICAGO -- No team is going to spend or presumably improve via free agency like the Yankees did last winter, when they doled out $423.5 million to three star players alone. Post-parade, and as the GM meetings get underway here on Monday, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Yankees spent wisely. But with the Yankees far less needy this winter and this year's free-agent list less star-studded -- Matt Holliday, Jason Bay and John Lackey are the only in-their-prime players who can reasonably aim for $100 million deals and the only ones even sure to crack $50 million -- no team is expected to try to duplicate such a spending spree. Nor would one even be possible this time around.
Two of the best moves of the year involved Matt Holliday. One was a deal to acquire Holliday, the other was a deal to be rid of Holliday.
SEATTLE (AP) -- After days of debate, the Seattle Mariners traded left-handed pitcher Jarrod Washburn to the Detroit Tigers for two young pitchers, giving the Tigers another veteran for their rotation as they try to hold on to the AL Central lead.
When teams start down the tricky path of shopping a superstar, they rarely turn back, and the superstar usually goes somewhere else eventually. However, executives who have spoken to the Blue Jays' management team of acting president Paul Beeston and general manager J.P. Ricciardi remain convinced Toronto could still wind up keeping ace pitcher Roy Halladay.
David Aardsma has already moved ahead of Hank Aaron, which until this season was going to probably be his biggest claim to fame as a major leaguer.
Ichiro Suzuki was lying on his back in the corner of the visitor's clubhouse at Yankee Stadium last week doing his usual pregame stretching when a large, muscular man suddenly jumped on top of him and began ... tickling him? Yes, Ken Griffey Jr. was tickling his fellow outfielder, both players acting like schoolchildren and wearing smiles as broad as the room they were playing in.
1) The Seattle Mariners broke loose with six runs on 12 hits on Thursday against the Orioles, which only means the odds of them putting up such an output on Friday night are not very good. (Editor's note: The Mariners lost to the Rockies 6-4 on Friday.) Only once this year have the Mariners scored six runs in back-to-back games. Indeed, the Mariners are a fascinatingly bad offensive team, especially for a team that is playing .500 ball. It's hard to construct a team in this era, in a league with the DH, that has this much trouble scoring runs. They are last in the majors in runs; yes, worse than the Giants and Padres. How bad is it?
The Mariners made some early noise with their nice start to the season, but the club could create a much bigger national story as a trader this summer. Unlike a vast majority of teams expected to straddle the buy/sell fence, the now 22-26 Mariners seem to understand their position as a rebuilding team. What's more, they have decent, veteran talent to trade, including front-line, left-handed pitcher Erik Bedard, who should become an increasingly popular trade target.
Most baseball trades are ridiculous, the equivalent on one end of paying someone to take your money. The wonder is that so many teams make them.
A near iron law of baseball holds that if you can't quite tell why a team is good, it's probably good at defense. On Tuesday, I had a chance to test this theory against 17 innings of observation when the first-place Seattle Mariners played a straight doubleheader over a cold afternoon and evening in Chicago. It was an education.
1) The Mariners could have one of the best rotations in the American League. (Pause to let laughter die down.) Yes, Seattle starters were abysmal last year (26th in the majors with a 5.07 ERA), but Felix Hernandez, a healthy Erik Bedard and Brandon Morrow give the Mariners a potentially formidable top of the rotation -- one that will be backed up by a vastly improved Mariner defense. Mariners officials are thrilled with what they've seen from Bedard this spring. ("He looks tremendous," says an exec, "you would never know he had surgery two months ago.") And to the delight of Seattle coaches, King Felix -- who, amazingly, doesn't turn 23 until April -- reported to camp in excellent shape, trimmed down 15 pounds to 212 pounds. Not to mention, Hernandez has looked very sharp at the World Baseball Classic. Morrow has been behind schedule this spring (he was sidelined with the flu), but the Mariners have good reason to believe in their 2006 No. 1 pick, who impressed while filling in at
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Drive 22 miles beyond Orlando, well past Walt Disney World and through a snarl of unlit dirt roads, and you begin to understand why the Atlanta Braves thought they had the inside track on a Hall of Famer.
In December 2007, I was in rural Navan, Ontario, to eat breakfast with Erik Bedard at his favorite hometown joint. It was tiny place (maybe 25 by 40 feet) conveniently named the Navan Restaurant, and menu prices ranged from 98 cents for coffee to $7.79 for a dish called "The Hungry Man." Bedard nodded when the waitress asked him whether he'd like his usual, and she returned a short while later with a plate of two eggs sunny side up, split sausages, beans and tomatoes, hold the home fries. "I try to avoid fried foods," Bedard explained. "Bad stuff."
The hoopla of a massive three-way trade that had enlivened the winter meetings just hours before their conclusion was just dying down when the Mariners' new general manager, Jack Zduriencik, looked at an old acquaintance and grinned. "How about that for a first trade?" he said. "This one might be hard to top."
As a run-up to the winter meetings, which begin on Monday in Las Vegas, I'm resurrecting a feature I've done sporadically in the past, "GM For a Day." It is exactly what it sounds like: I take over a team and outline what I think needs to be done. (Note that no one has ever hired me based on these pieces.) With 30 teams and probably a total of five columns before next Monday, I won't get to everyone, but expect two or three more of these in the days ahead.
Injuries in spring training are bad, injuries in June are worse, and injuries at this time of the year -- especially to teams that fancy themselves playoff contenders -- can be absolute season killers.
Reds right-hander Bronson Arroyo, who apparently doesn't mind giving away Adam Dunn's innermost financial goals and is himself way overpaid, recently told the Cincinnati media that Dunn will seek $100-120 million as a free agent. So we now have an idea what one top free agent will seek, anyway.
Time expired on Thursday afternoon on waiver claims made on two Mariners, left fielder Raul Ibanez and left-hander Jarrod Washburn. Both players will be remaining with Seattle.
As the clock ticks toward Thursday's 4 p.m. ET non-waiver trade deadline, SI.com's Jon Heyman weighs in with the latest trade talk from around the majors.
With two days to go before the trade deadline, a lot of folks are still wondering whether they's staying or going. Such as these ....
SEATTLE (AP) -- The Mariners activated closer J.J. Putz from the 15-day disabled list on Sunday.
CC Sabathia, Rich Harden and Joe Blanton have already been dealt in a flurry of early activity, leaving many contenders playing from behind in the race to improve their team by the trade deadline. With three top arms off the market, the list of trade targets, aside from Seattle's Erik Bedard, is hitter-heavy. Then again, the A's have dealt away two of their starting pitchers in the last 10 days, so maybe they'll move a third.
NEW YORK -- Before he was let go as Mariners general manager, Bill Bavasi was telling his bosses that the team's problem was the players, not manager John McLaren.
At this point in a season already hopelessly lost, it's just plain poor form to knock the Mariners. They fired their hitting coach last week, they canned their general manager early this week, they followed that by booting their suffering manager on Thursday and, if you listen to all the murmuring and the talk shows, they might not be done yet. Everybody knows the Mariners stink. Even the motley Mariners have finally realized that.
Voting for this year's All-Star teams already is inspiring a lot of spirited dialogue. For instance, who should start the game for the National League -- Cincinnati's Edinson Volquez, San Francisco's Tim Lincecum or Arizona's Brandon Webb? Hard to make a case against any of those three pitchers.
1. White Sox GM Kenny Williams: When it comes to risk-taking, Williams is the Evel Knievel of general managers. His aggressive approach backfires at times, but for the most part, Williams steers the White Sox in the right direction.
SEATTLE (AP) -- The Mariners traded former part-time starting pitcher Cha Seung Baek to the San Diego Padres on Wednesday for Jared Wells in a swap of right-handers.
This week's Diamond Digits focuses on Jayson Werth going off, Alfonso Soriano going yard, and Jeremy Reed going back to Seattle.
Last week I wrote about Washington reliever Saul Rivera and his long homerless streak. Well, Rivera got taken deep on Sunday by Hanley Ramirez, four days shy of the one year anniversary of his last home run allowed. Let's hope I don't jinx any of this week's subjects.
Everybody in baseball gives lip service to pitching and defense. It's one of the oldest clichés in the big ol', dog-eared, clichéd book of baseball clichés. You know how it goes:
Mel Stottlemyre, a fixture on the New York Yankees' coaching staff for a decade, came out of retirement on Monday to join the Seattle Mariners as their pitching coach.
The Mariners and Diamondbacks, both of whom have a playoff spot that is theirs to lose with five weeks to play, are not just surprise teams because of how they played last year. (Seattle lost 84 games, Arizona 86.) It is also because of the way they have played this year.
The first bars of AC/DC's Thunderstruck came at precisely 9:54 p.m. PDT, Putz Domination Time, which on the East Coast, where J.J. Putz is little more than a name at the bottom of a box score, was almost one in the morning. Like the old-fashioned milkman or the vacuous Hollywood party girl, the Seattle Mariners' closer starts his day when much of the country is asleep. He emerges from the Safeco Field bullpen in leftfield at a steady, almost stately, jog until he reaches the mound to pitch the ninth. Heavy-metal accompaniment aside, there is no faux air of menace about him. The hulking Putz is genuinely scary. He stands 6' 5", weighs 250 pounds and throws both an industrial-strength fastball and a burrowing splitter. When Seattle's resident sandman tosses his magic dust in a hitter's eyes, it's usually at 96 mph. Mariners manager John McLaren calls him a "lights-out closer" -- Thunderstruck apparently being Brahms's Lullaby for a different century -- a baseball clich� perhaps, but
Also in this column: • Mariners lead in failed drug tests • Rangers not happy with new skipper • Ozzie Guillen's latest controversy • More news and notes
We have, this weekend, an interleague sighting. It's going to be a brief one -- we're back to your regularly scheduled intraleague games on Monday -- mostly harmless and, in some rare cases, maybe even a tad entertaining. Definitely worth tuning into a game or two.
When injuries and ineffectiveness disintegrated their starting rotation, the Yankees implemented the mother of all Plan B's by allowing Roger Clemens to resume his summer job as major-league ace.
Also in this column: • Weaver returning to Cardinals? • Mets call up hotshot prospect • More news and notes
Also in this column: • Mussina errs on Clemens • Schilling's latest gaffe • Toronto manager on hot seat • More news and notes
I. Geezer ballplayers: Pouring over the statistical league leaders Thursday, I found myself continually asking one question: Man, how old is that dude? After a series of birth date checks, I confirmed a budding suspicion: America's pastime is being shaped by a number of players who are far past their time. Currently many of the games top players boast birth dates in the decade of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll -- the 1960s.
Well, it's early May, and we've already had our first casualty. No surprise, it's a Yankee. No surprise again, it's the strength and conditioning man who has overseen a disastrous run of injuries to front-line Yankees pitcher, many of those injuries involving the hamstring.
The subject in Seattle baseball circles is Ichiro, as it so often is these days, and whether the Mariners can keep their terrifically enigmatic star happy and in the green beyond this season. Or even beyond July.
Boy, you take one day off to celebrate around here and the whole world seems to end. Instead of lounging at the beach, I fielded call after call on Felix Hernandez Thursday, channeling Douglas Adams. The problem was that, like everyone else, I was left speculating.
The way the Phillies are playing, is it only a matter of time before Charlie Manuel gets fired? The sum of their parts surely is better than a 3-9 record. -- Jimmy Gouldens, Long Island, N.Y.
TOKYO -- The last time two heroes from Japan clashed in a much-anticipated head-to-head match-up in the major leagues, Hideo Nomo plunked Ichiro Suzuki in the back. The Seattle Mariners right-fielder fell to his knees in pain, and Tokyo gasped.
1. A Massachusetts hospital has started the "Red Sox Babies" program. Each child born at the hospital receives free gear, including a Red Sox cap and a certificate good for a tour of Fenway Park when they reach 5 years old. It's assumed that the infants will develop the Red Sox fan's peculiar blend of insecurity and arrogance on their own.
Several dozen Japanese TV reporters -- minicams shouldered and boom mikes at the ready -- waited for Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka to emerge for his 4 p.m. stretch at Fenway Park on Wednesday afternoon. Dice-K climbed the dugout steps. He saw the assembled scrum. He paused ... and bowed and doffed his cap.
In the end, none of it amounted to good business.
During the first four days of the season, 21 players made their major league debuts, including well-known names like Alex Gordon, Akinori Iwamura and Josh Hamilton. However, also included in the count are some less well known but equally interesting players who surprised many onlookers simply by making their respective teams. Here are this week's five new names to know:
As Major League Baseball eases in to the new season at ballparks across the country this week, a separate drama is playing out in a courthouse in this tropical paradise - one that spotlights a darker side of the national pastime.
For someone who's usually so level-headed, you've really become smitten with Daisuke Matsuzaka. Frankly, it's embarrassing. Do you think, maybe, the guy should win a couple games first before you induct him into Cooperstown? -- Bill Opalka, Glastonbury, Conn.
The prediction business never has been more difficult in baseball. So-called surprise teams happen so often these years that you should expect at least one playoff team to come out of nowhere -- or even Milwaukee, if you care to be specific.
SURPRISE, Ariz. -- You can't have a good comeback story in baseball without a little controversy. So it is that Sammy Sosa, in his return from major league purgatory, is being accused of cheating.
The two shortstops, the two hombres who share a position and a homeland, were scooping up ground balls on a back field at the Seattle Mariners' training camp in Peoria, Ariz., one morning last month, taking turns gliding to the ball and firing to first base. The efficient spectacle that is a Major League Baseball batting practice session buzzed around them, balls zipping point to point: pitcher to batter, batter to outfield, fielder to first baseman.
1. Which program did CBS air immediately before its Masters coverage on Sunday?
Also in this column: • Russ Ortiz gets in shape • Cliff Floyd could be a bargain • More news and notes
Seattle Mariners ace-in-waiting Felix Hernandez went from overhyped to flat-out forgotten faster than your typical reality TV star, the ubiquitous Boston Rob and Amber notwithstanding.
Eight years ago the Cubs established in spring training that a 21-year-old named Kerry Wood was not going to make their big league team. "Congratulations," Angels manager Terry Collins told Chicago manager Jim Riggelman one day that spring.
The arrival of three veteran starting pitchers plus a couple of former Nationals regulars will have things in the Pacific Northwest looking a bit brighter than the previous three years and the Mariners' corresponding last-place finishes.
Also in this column: • Bonds' main sticking point • Beane's latest heist • Big Fish left unsigned • More news and notes
For a franchise as maligned as the Mariners have been lately, Seattle has made at least two smart moves this winter:
World Series hero Jeff Weaver will join his sixth team in as many seasons.
This is part four of a five-part series on the top 75 prospects in professional baseball.
It was a dazzling sign of how well things are going in Detroit these days when Henrik Zetterberg of the Red Wings scored one of those goal-of-the-year candidates against Nashville on January 17. Early in the second period, Detroit's left wing exchanged passes with his linemates -- center Pavel Datsyuk and right wing Tomas Holmstrom -- skated to the high right slot, pulled a 360-degree spin-o-rama that would have made Denis Savard envious, and slid a harmless looking backhand under the left pad of Predators goalie Tomas Vokoun, who reacted late after being befuddled by Zetterberg's acrobatics.
The Red Sox are up, the White Sox are down. The O's got a C, the A's a D.
Few players are as highly valued within an organization as its prospects. For the fourth consecutive year, I will rank the top 75 prospects in baseball (and honorable mentions), beginning with Nos. 75-61 and counting down the next five weekdays.
• Derek Jeter has been romantically linked to Jessica Biel since they were spotted getting cozy in Las Vegas the weekend after Thanksgiving. The two seem to officially be a couple now after the Yankees shortstop and the 7th Heaven actress were photographed getting off a boat at their hotel in Puerto Rico last week. The couple reportedly spent New Years with one another in Puerto Rico, playing blackjack at the El Conquistador Resort and Golden Door Spa in a roped off area and playing volleyball on the beach.
Will baseball fans be going, going gone, if steroid-aided home runs disappear from the game?
In the spirit of "if you can't join them, beat them," RealNetworks founder and CEO Rob Glaser has picked fights recently with, among others, his ex-employer Microsoft (filing a $1 billion antitrust...
Robert Whiting jokes that there should be a statue of Japanese pitcher Hideo Nomo at Tokyo's Narita Airport.
They lurk outside every sporting event and concert in America: "Psst. Anyone need two tickets?" Scalping might just be the second-oldest profession. No one enjoys playing on this forgery-fraught bl...
Sponsoring a stadium, at first glance, looks like a good way for a company to boost its stock. On average, the 12 companies that have their names slapped on stadiums used by a Major League Baseball...
How we pick the 100 best
You can tell things have changed at Microsoft just by paying a visit to Bill Gates. Middle age has set in--his face has lines; his hair, unkempt as ever, now shows a little bit of gray; you can see...
It's hard to recall the exact moment the epiphany hit me during my recent mind-boggling tour of the Dallas sports-business scene. Was it while dot-com billionaire Mark Cuban was simultaneously lead...
Bob Anzel is visibly worried. Here it is, 7 p.m. already, and the comedy club where he works, Stand-Up NY, is virtually empty on this crisp autumn evening. Maybe it's the presidential debates airin...
It's a half-hour before the start of a pivotal playoff game, but Juan Gonzalez and Roberto Alomar are loose. Their team's batboy, as usual, is holding forth about his own baseball career, which is ...
Hey! Guess what those wild and crazy Microsoft geeks in Redmond,Wash., are working on now? Statistical physics! Pretty cool, huh?
CREEPSPEAK REVISITED
Oh, Lord. Zukofsky's going to tell us what he really thinks again. Problem is, he's not lying. "Honestly," he says, and I know we're in for it. We need a lot less truth around here. And a lot more ...
Your son, newly a teenager, is playing in a basketball game in an overheated gym in suburban Connecticut. As he grapples for a rebound, a nasty red-haired kid on the other team nails him in the nec...
A FRIENDLY SUGGESTION
A CLUSTER of 10-year-old boys loiter beside a ghetto street, waiting. The one in the middle holds a blue gun. When an old white gas-guzzler, most likely a Cadillac, meanders down the street, the bo...
The baseball season is in full flower, so it is obviously time to report on your servant's latest computerized study of major-league salaries. As in the past, our main effort is to identify the mea...
January 6 -- FDA stops sales and use of silicone-gel breast implants, citing cancer risk. Pioneer Dow Corning to write off $69 million.
SIXTY FEET, six inches is the distance from a baseball pitching rubber to home plate, a span that Roger Clemens of the Boston Red Sox, applying formal physics, reduces to 0.44 second per pitch. The...
''I had already done a lot of things for profit,'' recalls George Argyros, 48, the majority owner of the Seattle Mariners, ''so I was looking for something that had more than just economic rewards....
SINCE PETER UEBERROTH took over as the new Commissioner of Baseball, a post once considered as carefree as a batboy's, he hasn't been able to enjoy a game. In his first days on the job last October...
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