It's the second TA that has some of the worst players you'll see all year: relievers that are battling it out for closer's positions, guys that you've never heard of having career months, pitchers with 2 good starts suddenly looking like aces, abominable catchers being unearthed to fill in for injured regulars, utility players used to patch holes, and worst of all, guys who get hurt every year and will never, ever, ever survive past Memorial Day. We're at that point. Let's celebrate the crapiness. (El Angelo)
I like to think of every TA as a celebration of crapiness but you're right, this time of year is generally the ebb tide. On the positive side, I am about to order the public execution of a randomly selected member of my pitching staff in the hopes that their morale will improve. I know mine would. (Teddy)
It's Enrico Palazzo
- Signed Russell Branyan, 3B , Seattle [5/4]
Branyan has been going through a good patch as the pretty much everyday 1B for Seattle. Branyan's contact skill are generally . . . limited, but he has enough power to be useful over the very short term. (Teddy)
Unenviable Position
- Signed Latroy Hawkins, RP, Houston; Released Andy Laroche, 3B, Pittsburgh [4/17]
- Released Hawkins; Signed Mike Lowell, Testicular Wonder, Boston [7 hours later]
- Signed Jason Barlett, SS, Tampa [4/18]
- Signed Yadir Molina, C, St. Louis; Released Jeff Mathis, C, Anaheim [4/22]
- Released Bartlett; Signed Ramon Ramirez, RP, Cleveland [4/24]
- Released Molina; Signed Touchdown Tim Wakefield, SP, Boston [4/25]
- Signed Nick Johnson, 1B, Washington; Released Joe Blanton, SP, Philly, Dan Wheeler, RP, Tampa and Cristian Guzman, SS, Washington [5/6]
Ah, but I've already taken on several young arms--like Ubaldo Jimenez and Anibal Sanchez--who have proven only marginally better flyers than Corey Lidle. What I need right now is for somebody to not suck horribly until the rest of the staff rights the ship. Wakefield is on a roll right now; if I can squeeze 15-20 more good innings out of him before the crash, I'll take it. (Teddy)
The Spam Avengers
- Signed Jeremy Hermida, OF, Florida; Released Aaron Rowand, OF, San Fran [4/20]
- Released Joey Devine, Broken RP, Oakland [4/22]
- Signed Joe Beimel, RP, Washington; Released Delmon Young, OF, Minnesota [4/28]
In 2013 Delmon will be working as his brother Dmitri's butler. Dmitri's triple cheeseburgers don't just fetch themselves. (Teddy)
The Loose Bowels
- Signed Mike Jacobs, 1B, Kansas City; Released James Loney, 1B, Los Angeles [4/23]
- Signed Shawn Marcum, SP, Toronto; Released Grant Balfour, RP, Tampa [4/25]
- Released Jacobs; Called up Travis Snider, OF, Toronto from the prospect list [4/26]
- Signed Dave Bush, SP, Milwaukee; Released David Purcey, SP, Toronto [4/28]
- Signed Yadir Molina, C, St. Louis; Released Ryan Theriot, SS, Chicago (NL) [4/30]
- Signed Theriot, AGAIN, and Homer Bailey, SP, Louisville Bats; Released Marcum and Jason Motte, RP, St. Louis [5/5]
What's more interesting is that Jason Motte was a 4th round pick in this year's draft and has been cut, which I believe makes him the highest-picked player to reach the waiver wire. If you want to know why this team's struggling, one key reason has to be that their early picks have been disasters. Of the top 6 players picked, 3 are on the DL (Lackey, Zambrano, Duchsherer) and one is Jason Motte. For that matter, this team's next 5 picks aren't on their current roster either; it's only when you get to 12th-rounder Colby Rasmus that you see signs of productivity. The Diarrheatics are going to have to work the waiver wire to make up some ground. (El Angelo)
[Slow claps] That is legit analysis there. Plus, as a bonus, uou've actually made me feel better about having missed on only 3 of my top 5 picks. Bless you. (Teddy)
wormcheese mousebird
- Signed Marlon Byrd, OF, Texas; Released Dennys Reyes, RP, Baltimore [4/16]
- Signed Endy Chavez, OF, Seattle [4/17]
- Signed Hank Blalock, 3B, Texas [5/1]
- Released Chavez & Byrd; Signed Michael Bourn, OF, Houston and Mike Fontenot, 2B, Chicago (NL) [5/5]
I am stunned to learn that Byrd and Chavez, both of whom contribute steals while failing massively at everything else, were briefly on the same roster. That is the fantasy equivalent of simultaneously wearing a belt and suspenders to hold up pants made of plastic wrap; your success at keeping the steals up pales massively in comparson to the shame of walking around with your useless junk visibly cryo-vacced for the world to see. (Teddy)
Wu Tang Financial
- Signed Kevin Millwood, SP, Texas; Released Andrew Miller, SP, Florida [4/20]
- Signed Dallas Braden, SP, Oakland; Released John Maine, New York (NL) [4/26]
- Signed Casey Blake, 3B, Los Angles; Released Edwin Encarnacion, 3B, Cincy [4/28]
- Signed Ian Stewart, 3B, Colorado and Michael Wuertz, RP, Oakland; Released Brandon Lyon, RP, Detroit and Kaz Matsui, Nutripper, Houston [5/3]
I can't endorse the pickup of anyone named "Dallas". Or at least not the pickup of a pitcher named Dallas; if you want to pick up a stripper named "Dallas" that might be OK. So maybe it's better to say that I can't endorse the fantasy pickup of anyone named Dallas. Unless, I guess, it's your fantasy to pick up a stripper named Dallas, in which case a fantasy pickup would be OK too.
I'm starting to confuse myself, so I'll just close by noting that Kevin Millwood sucks. (Teddy)
Evil League of Evil
- Signed Phil Hughes, SP, New York (AL); Released Chris Ray, RP, Baltimore [4/22]
- Signed Scott Richmond, SP, Toronto; Released Ollie! Perez, SP, New York (AL) [4/26]
- Signed Latroy Hawkins, RP, Houston; Released Brett Gardner, OF, New York (AL) [4/29]
- Signed Julian Tavarez, RP, Washington; Released Kenshin Kawakami, SP, Atlanta [4/30]
- Signed Doug Davis, SP, Arizona [5/1]
- Released Davis; Signed Danys Baez, RP, Baltimore [5/4]
- Released Baez; Re-signed Ray [5/5]
- Released Tavarez; Signed Jason Kubel, OF, Minnesota [5/5]
I like the Hughes pickup a lot, especially if the ELoE limit his usage to starts occurring outside the confines of the the Salvatore P. Esposito Memorial Little League Field that the taxpayers of NYC got suckered into building in the Bronx. (Teddy)
Mission Accomplished
- Signed Todd Coffey, RP, Milwaukee; Released Fausto Carmona, SP, Cleveland [4/19]
- Signed Jason Frasor, RP, Toronto; Released Carlos Villanueva, RP, Milwaukee [4/21]
- Signed Manny Parra, SP, Milwaukee [4/25]
- Signed Jason Bartlett, SS, Tampa [4/27]
- Released Coffey; Signed Howie Kendrick, 2B, Anaheim [4/28]
- Signed Kiko Calero, RP, Florida; Released Billy Wagner, Broken RP, New York (NL) [5/3]
- Released Calero; Signed Jim Johnson, RP, Baltimore [5/4]
Has any player broken more hearts in this league than Howie Kendrick? Every year some TV announcer will claim that Kendrick is going to win a batting title some day, and every year he gets hurt, and his owner has to wait 'til next year. That said, at some point we're going to have to ask whether Kendrick's repeated injuries have distracted us from his innate suck: his career-high OBP is .347, and he's never projected to hit more than 10 HRs even if he was able to play a full season. He's reaching that backup-QB territory where the less he plays, the better he looks. (Teddy)
Aroids Anonymous
- Signed David Aardsma, RP, Seattle; Released Manny Parra, SP, Milwaukee [4/17]
- Signed Andrew Bailey, RP, Oakland and Ricky Romero, SP, Toronto; Released Billy Butler, 1B, Kansas City and Howie Kendrick, 2B, Anaheim [4/19]
- Signed John Buck, C, Kansas City; Released Taylor Buchholz, SP, Coloado [4/21]
- Released Buck; Signed Rod Barajas, C, Toronto [5/3]
See above. (Teddy)
Elbow Your Funicular?
- Signed Jarrod Washburn, SP, Seattle; Released Orlando Cabrera, SS, Oakland [4/22]
- Signed John Grabow, RP, Pittsburgh and Nyjer Morgan, OF, Pittsburgh; Released Fred Lewis, OF, San Fran and Scot Shields, RP, Anaheim [4/23]
- Released Grabow; Signed Ryan Madson, RP, Philly [4/28]
- Claimed John Maine, SP, New York (NL) off waivers; Released Emilio Bonafacio, 2B, Florida [4/29]
As for the rest of the players here, Nyjer Morgan is another guy I've never heard of, and as Teddy has noted in the past, there's an excellent chance that he's either a computer generated character (it's not like anyone watches Pirates games anyway), or is a villainous southpaw from Catcher With a Glass Arm. Personally, my favorite Matt Christopher book is The Kid Who Only Hit Homers, but to each their own. (El Angelo)
There was one Matt Christopher book about a peewee QB who excelled by working out optimum game strategy on a computer sim program. Even at age 9 that struck me as so wildly improbable that it immediately became my favorite book of his.
Thinking back, I believe a subplot of that same book revolved around a word game in which kids came up with synonyms for a rhyming couplet, and then tried to stump their friends by asking them what the original couplet was;. The biggest stumper was "Odorous Hobo", the solution to which turned out to be "Fragrant Vagrant". Now that I see all this in black and white, I realize that my Mom might just have left me in the car too long with the engine running that summer.
Oh, and Nyjer Morgan is a speed guy who came up in the Pirates system and will have been dumped for new starting OF Juan Pierre by the next TA. (Teddy)
Recalcitrant Cobbler
- Signed Asdrubal Cabrera, SS, Cleveland; Released Troy Glaus, 3B, St. Louis [4/20]
- Signed Brandon Wood, SS, Anaheim; Released Hank Blalock, 3B, Texas [4/21]
- Released Wood; Signed Sean Marshall, SP, Chicago (NL) [5/1]
Don't worry, Ang--next year we'll just note how you've correctly picked something like 4 of the past 8 Triple Crown races, and coveniently bury this year's Derby result. How do you think Jim Cramer does it? (Teddy)
Le Dupont Torkies
- Signed Jason Varitek, C, Boston and Dontrelle Willis, SP, Detroit [4/19]
- Signed Jed Lowrie, 3B, Boston; Released Dionner Navarro, C, Tampa [4/26]
- Signed Ben Zobrist, SS, Tampa; Released Khalil Greene, SS, St. Louis [4/30]
You know, you say that, but Melky has been kicking the shit out of the ball. The way that good things tend to happen to this franchise, don't be surprised if Melky C. hits like Miggy C. for the next six weeks, especially with the Thurman Munson Memorial Landing Strip out there in RF at the new stadium. You read it here first. (Teddy)
1 comment:
Thurman Munson Memorial Landing Strip in right field? Does that mean that the Cory Lidle Memorial Foul Pole is in left field?
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