The Baltimore Orioles have traded shortstop Miguel Tejada to the Houston Astros for outfielder Luke Scott, pitchers Matt Albers, Troy Patton and Dennis Sarfate, and third baseman Michael Costanzo.
Headed to Houston
Tejada is coming off a .296/.357/.442 campaign, which is low by his standards but still pretty darned good. The downside is that he turns 32 in May and, thanks to that whole consecutive-games streak thing, has a lot of wear-and-tear on his 5′10″, 170-lb frame. Also, the Astros have an otherworldly defender at short in Adam Everett, so if Tejada moves to third base, how will that affect his value? …read more

Hard to find stuff that isn’t about A-Rod or Barry Bonds these days (I just realized that “indicted” and “inducted” share all but one letter — yeah, I’m real quick that way), but here’s something kind of fun: Baseball America has released its list of Top 20 prospects from the Arizona Fall League in ‘07.
Cameron Maybin and Evan Longoria at the top should come as no surprise. Several others make sense as well. One name I didn’t expect to see near the top was Matt LaPorta.
I understand that LaPorta has jaw-dropping power, but weren’t there questions about his defense? And …read more

Meet the NCAA. They’re a very large and powerful organization evidently in search of some bad PR.
Hey, they’ve found some. Woo-hoo!
Brian Bennett, a reporter for the Louisville Courier-Journal, was ejected from the press box in the fifth inning of the University of Louisville’s game on Sunday for liveblogging the event (hat tips to reader Didi and Baseball America.) Apparently this is within the NCAA’s right, or at least they think it is, which has some frightening implications.
It concerns me that the NCAA feels the need to control the reporting of facts (to say nothing of the thought that they might …read more

Maybe I bit off more than I could chew in my attempt to liveblog the first round of the draft — I’m willing to concede that possibility. But you know what? I gave an honest effort and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
First off, props to ESPN2 for some fine draft coverage. After the obligatory montage intro, I feared the worst — “If we add more bling, then baseball will be even more fun” — but I came away impressed. The commentators kept up with the fast pace of the draft, and limited the amount of fluff.
For anyone …read more

Ah, the draft is almost here. We’ll get the liveblogging started right around 11 a.m. PT. Meanwhile, here are some places I’ll be checking throughout the day:
Television

ESPN2

Radio

XM 189

Web

Baseball America
Baseball America Draft Blog
Minor League Ball
MLB.com

Wow, Rich Lederer at Baseball Analysts has brought together three of Baseball America’s finest to discuss the upcoming draft in a roundtable forum. If you need to get up to speed in a hurry, this is a great place to start. Rich talks with Jim Callis, John Manuel, and Alan Matthews — together they look at the strength of the current draft crop and attempt to project the first round. Fascinating stuff…

No, they don’t pack the same punch as the hoops brackets, but baseball brackets have arrived! Here’s USD’s bracket:

University of San Diego
Cal State Fullerton
Minnesota
Fresno State

California schools are well represented:

Long Beach State
UCLA
Pepperdine
Illinois-Chicago

Arizona State
UC Riverside
Nebraska
Monmouth

Texas
UC Irvine
Wake Forest
Brown

Aaron Fitt at Baseball America is blogging about the selections, and I’m sure he’ll be on top of the games as well once they start. Meanwhile, go Toreros!

We’re liveblogging the draft!
Start here

Ready for the draft? Of course you are. You and your buddies will be hunkering down with some chips, beverages, and a big-screen TV. You’ll be livin’ large on draft day.
Wait, that’s football.
Still, as we’ve noted before, the ‘07 draft will be televised. With that in mind, it’s good to know who some of these kids are so when your team makes its pick, you won’t be staring blankly into space like some staring-blankly-into-space thing.
Or worse, making up stuff to impress your buddies:
Oh yeah, this guy is freakin’ awesome. His fastball touches 127 mph and he’s …read more

Who is Jeff Luhnow? He is the St. Louis Cardinals’ vice president of amateur scouting and player development, and Baseball America’s Chris Kline has done a fantastic interview with him:
I’ve had scouts come in and participate in our player-development discussions about who’s going to make a certain team and who’s not. I’ve had player development people go out and look at some of the top (amateur) prospects in Florida and other places. Part of communication is empathizing a little bit with the other side’s job. It’s so easy for a scout to criticize player development for making a bad decision, …read more