Friday, January 13, 2006
Friday Notes
Good Morning everyone! Happy Friday the 13th! Gotta admit, I'm flat-out copying Aaron Gleeman, or at least his format, today! Most Fridays, he just posts a number of notes on several different topics. I am going to try to do the same, we'll just see where it ends up. But, be sure to check out Aaron's site the last couple of days. He has decided to make some changes in his diet and exercise routine in an attempt to get more healthy. We certainly wish him well in this endeavor and fully know how difficult it is to do. "Will Power" is not a phrase I am very good with! So Aaron, Good Luck! And... sorry for taking your idea! Let's get to some notes.
A couple of weeks ago, I posted a Question & Answer segment with Chris Coste, my former college teammate who has played in AAA for the last four or five years. Recently, he was one of 18 non-roster invitees to Phillies spring training. The AAA affiliate of the Phillies is the Scranton/Wilkes Barre Red Barons. Yesterday, the team introduced their newly designed website. which is now part of MinorLeagueBaseball.com. They decided to include my Q&A with Chris Coste on it. You can see what they did with it here.
Good friend of SethSpeaks and former Minnesota Twins closer Grant Balfour is about to sign with the Cincinnati Reds (according to the Reds homepage). I know that the Twins wanted him to come back on a minor league deal. I believe that Grant wanted to stay with the Twins organization. However, when the Reds offered him a major league contract, he absolutely had to take it. I say, Good for him! From the sounds of it, his arm/shoulder is doing very well and he hopes to be pitching by May, if not sooner. I hope he doesn't rush back too quickly. However, if you look at the Reds roster, I believe that Balfour has a very good chance of fitting in nicely. In reality, they do not have a closer, so maybe Grant will be able to compete for that. But again, for now, the key is to get himself healthy and I know he is really working hard to do that. So, from me, and I'm sure all who read this site, Good Luck Grant! We certainly wish you the best in your rehab and with the Reds!! Best wishes!
From John Sickels' site, there is an interesting discussion on JD Durbin, comparing him to the Giants Merkin Valdez. Who will have a better career? I admit, I don't know a whole lot about Valdez other than that he used to be a top prospect of the Giants, much like Durbin was with the Twins. Durbin was one of the top two Twins pitching prospects just a year ago and really struggled with his control all year. This year, I have ranked him as the Twins #22 prospect, but the 15th best pitcher. Francisco Liriano and Scott Baker flew past him while all four high school pitchers drafted in the top three rounds in 2004 passed him as well as others. Durbin's best shot with the Twins may now be as a reliever, something scouts have said in the past because of his (lack of) height. I hesitated to believe them because there are guys like Roy Oswalt and even Pedro Martinez who are not any taller. They may be right. Valdez, I know, has been passed on the Giants pitching depth charts by no fewer than Matt Cain, Noah Lowry and Brad Hennessey.
The Baseball Analysts are down to just their Top 10 Prospects (should be posted today!). Yesterday, they analyzed their Prospects #11-25 (and previously #26-50, #51-75 and Honorable Mention). Matt Moses appeared in the Honorable Mention category. Jason Kubel came in at #52. Those are the only Twins prospects to appear so far, but I have to believe that the Twins will be represented in the Top 10, maybe even the Top 5. I think you know who I am referring to!
Speaking of Top Prospect lists, FoxSports.com's Dayn Perry started announcing his Top 100 baseball prospects. So far, he has posted Prospects 91-100 and 81-90. One Twins prospect appeared at #89, and I am happy to read it. Boof Bonser is rarely discussed in conversations about the Twins top pitching prospects. Even I ranked him only 17th on my postseason Top Prospects list. The burly righty led the International League in strikeouts telling me that he is about ready for the big leagues. I personally see him as a #4 like starter, but it is exciting to see a lesser known Twins prospect on a national list.
Initially, Cincinnati Bengals QB Carson Palmer's knee injury was being reported as just a single ligament tear. Last night, it came out that his injury was actually "devastating and potentially career ending." If that is the case, it is unfortunate. Palmer came through with a huge breakout season this year, ranking as the top fantasy football quarterback and leading the Bengals into the playoffs. The doctor now reports that he had several ligament tears, a shredded ligament, damaged cartilege and a dislocated knee cap. Sad!
Since I brought up football, here are my predictions for this weekend's NFL Playoff games:
Seattle Seahawks 41, Washington Redskins 3
Denver Broncos 20, New England Patriots 30
Indianapolis Colts 44, Pittsburgh Steelers 31
Chicago Bears 15, Carolina Panthers 9
Please take a few minutes to read the speech that BrentNet's Brent Hanson gave at his local middle school the other day for The American Heart Association. You'll find it worth it! Oh, and remember what I wrote the other day in my The Book of Daniel article about church politics? Check out what's going on in Brent's church.
Are there any things that just annoy you more than anything? Honestly, if I hear anyone use the term "Git 'Er Done!", I don't know what I will do!
Marc Normandin of Beyond the Box Score initiated the Ray Lankford Wing of the Hall of Fame. To summarize, it is for the best players who are not going to be elected into the Hall of Fame. A couple of days ago, he took a look at former Twins 3B Gary Gaetti to see where he would fit into this group (Although I really appreciate his thoughts on Will Clark!). The next day, he added Dwight Gooden as the lone pitcher into his Hall which is led, of course, by Bert Blyleven!
Apparently the Astros would like for 1B Jeff Bagwell to retire so that they can get insurance for about $15.6 million of the $17 million he is owed for this year. Bagwell of course wants to continue to play. He says he still can not throw a baseball 120 feet, but he can still hit. Bagwell deserves the right to finish off his contract. Like Craig Biggio, Bagwell is synonymous with the Astros and should remain with them and get his money. He should be able to retire on his own terms, not be pushed out. However, in really interesting news, did you know that Bagwell's ex-wife Shaune Bagwell is a model. She made news about a year ago for selling her cleavage on ebay. Golden Palace Casino was the high bidder and paid Mrs. Bags $15,099 to put a tattoo on her cleavage that just said GoldenPalace.com. See the pictures here. How would you like to be the guy who now has GoldenPalace.com tattooed on his forehead!?
Be sure to check out Dewey's Daily Cup site where Dewey posted my The Book of Daniel article earlier this week, and he received a lot of comments. He posts some of those comments he received as well as his comments.
Stick & Ball Guy asks who the best athlete in Minnesota history is. KG? Puckett? Someone else?
Finally, I was asked by someone if there was a site out there that could tell us how Hall of Famers such as Cal Ripken did against Bert Blyleven in his career. Does anyone out there know if there is a place where these numbers can be found easily. Just for fun, I went to www.retrosheet.org, a site which has all of the box scores, at least those back to before Blyleven's career began. So, I went back into all of Blyleven's box scores (which include the play-by-play) and saw how Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray each did against Blyleven since they were on the same team most of the time. So how did they do? Well...
-Eddie Murray played in 19 games against Bert and hit .414/.452/.759 with two doubles, six homers and 11 RBI. Blyleven walked him four times and struck him out ten times. Murray made his major league debut on April 7, 1977 against Bert and recorded his first big league hit in his third at bat that day. Let's just say that he greatly improved his success against Blyleven as their careers went along. In the last six games they faced each other, Murray went .563/.588/1.688 with six homers and eight RBI. On July 14, 1988, Murray hit solo homers in both of his at bats against Bert. Nine days later, they played again and Murray hit a two run homer in his first at bat. Before Murray came up a second time, Tom Kelly replaced him with Juan Berenguer... who gave up a homer to Murray!
-Cal Ripken hit against Bert Blyleven in 25 games. He hit .279/.372/.412 with three homers and nine RBI. In 78 plate appearances, he walked ten times and struck out eight times.
I am looking forward to seeing how Mr. Blyleven did against other HOFers throughout his career. But again, if anyone knows of a website where I can just find that, please let me know. Thanks!
And on that note, I will call it a day and a week!. I certainly hope that you have found something today that you enjoyed! Feel free to participate with some comments. If you have any questions or comments or ideas for future articles, please e-mail me.
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