On Hanley Ramirez, before his monster rookie campaign (.292/.353/.480 at age 22) with the Florida Marlins:

There’s no indication that he is ready for the major leagues, but the Marlins are apparently going to let him try.

On Jimmy Rollins, in 2004 (three years before he won the NL MVP):

In any event, his power and speed both appear to be dissipating, and without those he won’t hold a starting job for long.

On Chase Utley, before the 2005 season (in which he hit .291/.376/.540):

Utley is not going to be a star, but second base is a thin position and his extra-base power should provide the Phillies with a competitive advantage.

On the Chicago White Sox, before 2005:

Their opportunity has passed; the constant exodus of talent will relegate this team to second-tier status.

The folks at Prospectus almost nailed this one. They were a year early, and they forgot the part about winning a World Championship. Ah, the devil is in the details…

Fun stuff here. Be sure to read the entire article over at Seamheads.com.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

• Phillies at Reds, 9:35 a.m. PT — Fire up a pot of coffee and sidle on up to the Internet (really, I’d like to see that). Cole Hamels and Bronson Arroyo square off in Monday’s first game. Plus you get a chance to watch Jeff “Offensive Beast” Keppinger in action. Honestly, I always thought that guy could be useful if given the chance, but .435/.480/.826 through the first week? Man, I love small samples. They’ll show you just about anything you want to see.
• Mariners at Orioles, 12:05 p.m. PT — I don’t know that this will be a good game to watch, but it could be interesting. First off, you’ve got Carlos Silva hooking up against Daniel Cabrera on the mound. Are there two more different pitchers in the game today? Bob Tewksbury and Steve Dalkowski have retired, right? The other story line, of course, is Adam Jones facing his former team. I still can’t believe Baltimore had the smarts to make that deal.
• Braves at Rockies, 5:35 p.m. PT — Colorado has stumbled to a 1-5 start in ‘08. Maybe facing 42-year-old Tom Glavine in their home park will help. You know what else would help? Not hitting .209/.281/.333 as a team. You think?

Happy Monday, folks, and happy watching!

Post from: Knuckle Curve

• The Mets beat the Marlins, 7-2. The planet’s best pitcher against a Triple-A squad — who could’ve have anticipated such a result? Uh, everyone.
• The Pittsburgh/Atlanta game was insane. The Pirates took a 9-4 lead into the bottom of the ninth, but the Braves tied. Then the Bucs jumped ahead in the 12th, 12-9, before allowing two runs in the bottom half and hanging on for a 12-11 victory. Xavier Nady, whom I’ve been following since he took home Cal League MVP honors in 2001 while playing for a great Lake Elsinore Storm club (Peavy and Mets left-hander Oliver Perez also played on that team, which went 91-49), knocked two homers, including the game winner.
• The Giants really stink. Good thing they’re paying Barry Zito all that money.
• The Brewers and Cubs ran a clinic on how not to close a game. Locked in a scoreless tie headed to the ninth, Milwaukee plated three runs in the top half off “closer” Kerry Wood, then watched “closer” Eric Gagne cough up three of his own in the bottom half. The Brewers scored in the top of the 10th and hung on to win, 4-3. Who got credit for the victory? The least deserving guy in the ballpark, of course: Gagne. The next time someone tries to tell you that a pitcher is good because of his won-loss record, remind them that the rules dictating how a win is “earned” don’t necessarily correlate with actually contributing to victory.
• Break up the Nationals. With Monday’s 11-6 drubbing of Philadelphia, they’re assured of finishing no worse than 2-160 this year.
• Livan Hernandez pitched well in his Twins debut. Actually, for all the grief Minnesota took in signing him, he matched Johan Santana’s line — two runs in seven innings — and got the win. Not that he’ll keep pace with Santana beyond, oh, right about now, but still…
• The White Sox seem to be a sexy dark horse candidate this season, but I just don’t see it. By my count, they’ve got about three or four good pitchers, depending on whether you believe Octavio Dotel can stay of the disabled list. One of them (Mark Buehrle) got absolutely pounded at Cleveland. Granted, the Indians will do that to a pitcher, but if the White Sox can’t win behind Buehrle, then what are they going to do when, say, Gavin Floyd toes the slab?

Good times, my friends. Good times…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

The St. Louis Cardinals have traded third baseman Scott Rolen to the Toronto Blue Jays for third baseman Troy Glaus. Fun trade. Rolen is 33 and has battled shoulder problems, while Glaus is 31 and has battled foot problems.

Career lines:

Rolen: 6380 PA, .283/.372/.507, 126 OPS+
Glaus: 5203 PA, .254/.358/.500, 121 OPS+

2007 lines:

Rolen: 441 PA, .265/.331/.398, 89 OPS+
Glaus: 456 PA, .262/.366/.473, 120 OPS+

Yikes, Rolen’s power has disappeared.

Peak lines:

Rolen: 593 PA, .314/.409/.598, 157 OPS+ (2004, age 29)
Glaus: 678 PA, .284/.404/604, 150 OPS+ (2000, age 23)

Both of these guys at one point in their careers appeared to be headed along a Hall of Fame career path. Well, maybe not Glaus, but still, a guy who puts up those numbers at age 23 has to be considered dangerous. Unfortunately, he’s missed huge chunks of three different seasons since then and settled into the “useful when healthy” category of player.

Rolen? I have a soft spot because I drafted him in a Scoresheet league when he was at Double-A Reading (come to think of it, I drafted Glaus in another league before the Angels even signed him). Anyway, he hit .290/.391/.532 at age 23, which also maybe gave a little false hope of things to come.

Here’s what I don’t get. When the Phillies moved Rolen in 2002, I thought part of the problem that he couldn’t play on artificial turf. Either technology has improved since then, or that was really code for “Get me the heck away from Larry Bowa.”

Post from: Knuckle Curve

He was a tremendous mentor to the young guys on our staff. When he said something, you listened. He was the ultimate professional on and off the field. Just a tremendous, tremendous guy — and a big part of everything we accomplished that year.

Cardwell also threw a no-hitter on May 15, 1960, in his debut for the Cubs just two days after being acquired from Philadelphia. It came at Wrigley against the rival St. Louis Cardinals.

My thoughts go out to the family and friends of Mr. Cardwell.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Rowand isn’t a bad ballplayer, but it seems to me that San Francisco is buying high. Rowand hit .309/.374/.515 in ‘07 while playing half his games in a bandbox. (His line was a brilliant .319/.380/.557 at home, and a merely respectable .299/.368/.475 on the road.)

The main problem I have with this deal is its length. Rowand is a guy coming off a great year, but before that, he’d had two underwhelming seasons. And he’s always getting hurt.

Like I said, Rowand isn’t bad. I just think that maybe if you’re going to lock someone up for five years, you’d like a little more consistency. His offensive numbers are likely to take a hit on moving out of Philly, he’ll have to cover more ground in the spacious NL West outfields, and he’ll be 34 at the end of the contract. Not a brutal signing, but not one I’d like to see my team make.

Other Voices

• Hardball Times
• BBTF’s Transaction Oracle
• McCovey Chronicles

Post from: Knuckle Curve

What This Means for the Astros

Lidge lost his job as closer at one point during the 2007 season, and although he finished with respectable numbers, the Astros didn’t seem to have a lot of confidence in him. Among other things, this means that Houston’s closer situation is unsettled, but for a team coming off a 73-win season, anointing a closer probably shouldn’t be top priority.

Bourn is a youngish (turns 25 in December) center fielder who owns a career .377 OBP and 85% stolen-base rate in just under 1800 minor-league plate appearances. Baseball America ranked Bourn as the Phillies’ #7 prospect coming into 2007, likening him to Juan Pierre “with better plate discipline and a stronger arm.” Well, when you put it like that, the Dodgers’ signing of Pierre seems downright ridiculous.

Sorry, where was I?

Geary is a generic middle reliever who spells his first name the right way. Costanzo is a former pitcher who was the Phillies’ #12 prospect headed into the season. He is basically the new Russell Branyan.

What This Means for the Phillies

His 2005 playoff implosion notwithstanding, Lidge has been a top-flight reliever over most of the past five seasons. He is not as dominant as he was in ‘04 and ‘05, but his K/9 of 11.82 last season is a number most pitchers in any league would be happy to own. Lidge should give the Phillies the “proven closer” they’ve been seeking for a long time and, perhaps more importantly, allow them to return Brett Myers to the rotation, where he should be much more valuable to the team.

Bruntlett can play just about anywhere. Although he’s been used mostly at shortstop and second base in his big-league career, he has seen action at every position but pitcher and catcher. Bruntlett has decent on-base skills and very little power. On a team with Adam Everett and Chris Burke, he didn’t make a lot of sense; Philly, though, doesn’t need much offensive help from its backup middle infielders.

With Bourn out of the picture, and Aaron Rowand a free agent, perhaps Shane Victorino shifts to center field. Or the Phillies could decide to throw oodles of cash at Rowand, who is coming off a career year. They did it with J.C. Romero, why not Rowand as well?

Other Voices

• Philliesflow
• Shallow Center
• Transaction Oracle

Like what you just read? Subscribe to Knuckle Curve and you’ll never miss another article…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

In April [Astros manager Art] Howe handed the ball to Curt Schilling, who responded by converting five of his first six save opportunities. Hitters, though, eventually caught up to Schilling. His fastball has movement, but he overthrows everything. He has yet to develop a consistent off-speed pitch, and the longer he goes without fulfilling his potential, the more questions are asked about his makeup. As one scout observed, “Something is missing.”

Schilling was traded to the Phillies less than a week before Opening Day 1992 for Jason Grimsley. The rest, as they say, is history. Almost overnight, Schilling went from being a 25-year-old flamethrowing reliever whose star was falling to a top-flight starting pitcher.

Funny, this game of baseball…

Like what you just read? Subscribe to Knuckle Curve and you’ll never miss another article…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Red Sox: $143.0
Angels: $109.3

Indians: $61.7
Yankees: $189.6

Diamondbacks: $52.1
Cubs: $99.7

Rockies: $54.4
Phillies: $89.4

If you’d seeded the playoff teams by money spent on salary, here’s what it would have looked like:

1. Yankees
2. Red Sox
3. Angels
4. Cubs
5. Phillies
6. Indians
7. Rockies
8. Diamondbacks

Three of the four teams from the bottom half have advanced the LCS. One of the two smallest salaried teams in the dance is guaranteed to reach the World Series. I don’t really care which of them makes it, although I have a slight preference for the Rockies because they’ve never been there before and I think they’re the better team.

On the other side, I continue to pull for the Indians. Hey, if they can knock off $190 million, $143 million should be piece of cake, right?

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Post from: Knuckle Curve