Guillen is filing a grievance, while Gibbons is accepting his fate as-is.

Guillen, you may recall, just signed with the Royals for beaucoup bucks. It will be interesting to see how his signing and subsequent suspension affect Mike Cameron, who will miss the first 25 games of ‘08 due to testing positive for a banned stimulant.

It’ll also be “fun” to watch as other names are revealed when the Mitchell Report is released. Lord knows I love my sport of baseball, but sometimes it drives me batty (pun only somewhat intended)…

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Post from: Knuckle Curve

The story so far:

• AL West
• AL Central
• AL East
• NL West

Ladies and gentlemen, the least interesting division in Major League Baseball:

1. Cubs – Somebody had to win the division; it might as well be the team that spent $300 million on free agents.
2. Astros – Why did I like this team so much? Perhaps their recent track record fooled me? I’d expected more out of Morgan Ensberg and Jason Jennings. Instead, everyone got fired.
3. Cardinals – Hey, I got one right. Everything about their 2006 season seemed like a fluke to me. The Cards deserve credit for winning the World Series, but this was a team headed for a fall. Kip Wells avoided 20 losses, and Rick Ankiel is a nice story… maybe…
4. Brewers – I didn’t think they had the pitching, and in the end, I suppose they didn’t. If Ben Sheets could ever stay healthy… There’s a lot of good young talent on this team; suffice to say, I won’t be picking the Brewers to finish fourth again next year.
5. Reds – They and the Astros are battling for fourth place as I write this. What a horrendous bullpen.
6. Pirates – This is their fourth last-place finish in the last 10 years. Their best season during that stretch came in 1999, when they finished in third place with 78 wins. This franchise owes the city of Pittsburgh big time. Here’s hoping the new front office has a clue.

Not bad. I somehow mixed up Houston and Milwaukee, but otherwise did okay.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

What do we believe? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure we’ll hear a bunch of stuff about Barry Bonds and double standards. Who knows, maybe the race card will be played. For now, here are two statements I’m comfortable making about the situation:

1. Nobody who has played Major League Baseball within the past 15-20 years is above suspicion of taking any kind of performance-enhancing drugs.
2. It would be good for us, as a society, to re-evaluate the need to create heroes out of mere mortals, who are just as susceptible to human “weaknesses” as those who are not so chosen.

Ankiel? His comeback makes for a great story, but I don’t consider him a hero any more than I did Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa back in ‘98. I totally get that kids are impressionable and will idolize big-league ballplayers, but what about the rest of us? What’s our excuse?

Find me a good reason why I should worship some professional athlete (or any other celebrity for that matter). We’re veering into uncomfortable territory here, but I truly don’t believe that any human is worthy of being so honored (or burdened).

These are ballplayers. Like the rest of us, they make mistakes. Some of those mistakes are worse than others. Of course, they should be held accountable if their actions have caused harm (hello, Michael Vick), but in the end, life goes on, as it always does…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

• Chicago White Sox – These guys won the World Series in 2005 and 90 games last year; now they’ve fallen behind perennial cellar dweller Kansas City in the AL Central and are fighting the Devil Rays for worst record in all of baseball. White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen has taken to critiquing Miguel Cabrera’s physique (Cabrera, it should be noted, doesn’t play for Guillen’s team) and accusing his players of mass murder. Really, who could have seen this coming?
• Houston Astros – This is the team that lost to the White Sox in the ‘05 World Series. At least Guillen and his boss, Kenny Williams, have survived the season. Phil Garner and Tim Purpura weren’t so lucky. The Astros won just 82 games last year, so their fall hasn’t been quite as precipitous as that of the White Sox, but still, this is a franchise that has grown accustomed to winning. I’m not sure that anyone expected Houston to be a serious playoff contender, but I’m also not sure they expected to see the Astros struggling to stay ahead of Pittsburgh in the NL Central.
• Washington Nationals – Yeah, they’re on pace to lose 89 games, but several experts thought the Nats would threaten the ‘62 New York Mets all-time record of 120 losses in a season. The team is unbelievably anonymous outside of Ryan Zimmerman and maybe Chad Cordero. But Manny Acta has gotten a terrific performance from a resurgent Dmitri Young, and his young pitching staff has shown improvement in the second half of the season. I don’t think most pundits had this team coming anywhere near 70 wins; that a team with such a lack of identifiable talent should remain reasonably competitive into September (or at least as competitive as a certain team from San Francisco that shelled out $126 million for a mid-rotation starter) is enough to get Acta consideration for Manager of the Year in my book.
• Magglio Ordonez – He’s having a career year at age 33. After a brilliant run from 2000 to 2003, Ordonez saw his game deteriorate due to injuries. He signed a big contract with Detroit that smelled “like summer armpits” and got into just 82 games in his first season with the Tigers. Last year Ordonez remained healthy but didn’t perform at his previous levels. No surprise, really; the guy was 32 years old and coming off two injury-marred seasons. So the natural next step is, what, MVP candidate? Go figure.
• Carlos Pena – We’ve already talked about him. Pena is up to 37 homers with 22 games remaining. He has an outside shot to finish the season with more home runs than he hit in the big leagues from 2004 to 2006 combined (46). I would say that Pena just needed the opportunity, but he’d had plenty of ‘em and done nothing to suggest that this was possible.
• Jack Cust – Fun story. The former first-round pick had sipped cups of coffee in Arizona, Colorado, Baltimore, and San Diego before finding himself in Oakland. Again. Cust actually spent the 2005 season playing for Oakland’s Triple-A affiliate but at age 26, never reached the big leagues that year. This season, when Mike Piazza landed on the DL, the A’s needed a guy with Cust’s skills — the ability to mash a baseball — and acquired him from the Padres for next to nothing. Cust, whose defensive shortcomings make him a liability in the National League, responded to the opportunity and became Oakland’s most productive player.
• Fausto Carmona – Nothing says “Cy Young candidate” like a 1-10 record and 5.42 ERA. That’s what Carmona did in 2006 at age 22, and now he is one of the best starting pitchers in the American League. His strikeout totals are a tad low, but with the number of ground balls he serves up, it may not matter.
• Josh Hamilton – Taken as a Rule V pick this winter despite having played just 15 games over the previous three seasons, Hamilton stuck with the big club in Cincinnati and is hitting .288/.367/.547 for the Reds in just over 300 plate appearances. The kid still has work to do, but given where he’s been and how far the former #1 pick overall has come to get back to this point in his career, I have a feeling that won’t be a problem.
• Rick Ankiel – Brian Gunn has written a nice article about Ankiel’s success over at Hardball Times (disclosure: I contribute to THT). The Ankiel story truly is amazing. As Brian wrote when Ankiel converted to the outfield, “It’s best to consider Rick Ankiel retired from baseball.” It was very difficult, at the time, to imagine any other outcome. Unless, of course, you were Ankiel, in which case you went out and did the impossible.

That’s the great thing about baseball. No matter what you might have seen, you can be sure you haven’t seen it all…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

American League

• Mariners at Yankees, 4:05 p.m. PT — I’m contractually obligated to pimp the Yankees game, because no-one else will. Philip Hughes gets the start for New York. He’s coughed up five runs in each of his past three starts, but whatever. Outfielder Wladimir Balentien is up for Seattle. In addition to the great name, Balentien has some of the sickest power I’ve seen in the minors. Dude hit some serious shots when he was in the California League. Big kid.
• Orioles at Devil Rays, 4:10 p.m. PT — Dude, don’t actually watch this one. I just couldn’t resist including Radhames Liz and Andy Sonnanstine in this post. And now that I think of it, B.J. Upton is worth watching, as is the inexplicably resurgent Carlos Pena.

National League

• Dodgers at Cubs, 5:05 p.m. PT — Eric Stults takes the mound for LA. I loved him in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (some jokes never get old, they’re just lame to begin with). On the other side, Ted Lilly gets the call against his former employer. Lilly never made it to the big club, but he was drafted by the Dodgers back in ‘96. Lilly also was part of a July 2002 trade that included the aforementioned Pena. The Tigers ended up with Pena and Jeremy Bonderman, the A’s got Lilly, and the Yankees drew the short straw, er, I mean Jeff Weaver.
• Pirates at Cardinals, 5:10 p.m. PT — Mark Mulder makes his 2007 debut for St. Louis, bringing new meaning to the term “fashionably late.” As was the case in ‘06, the Cardinals find themselves in the thick of a pennant race despite being a .500 ballclub. Yippee for them. Rick Ankiel continues to defy logic by being a productive everyday outfielder. He’s even destroying lefties. It’s a small sample, but how could would that be if Ankiel ends up having a decent big-league career after all? Russell Branyan also somehow has found his way to St. Louis. Elvis is everywhere? No, Russell is everywhere.
• Padres at Diamondbacks, 6:40 p.m. PT — Jake Peavy, Livan Hernandez, battle for supremacy in the NL West, etc.

One game? As usual, I’m partial to San Diego/Arizona. Happy watching!

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Pena, in case you missed it, ranks second in the American League with 33 homers through September 1. This is a guy who hit 23 home runs all last year at Triple-A (plus one with the Red Sox). Hot prospect? Well, yeah, like in 2000 and 2001. Pena had his shot with the Tigers, did okay before fading away, and now has come back with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Somewhere along the line, Pena turned into an unstoppable power source. That’s not supposed to happen at age 29. Not without at least some indication that it’s coming, anyway…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

• Yankees at Tigers, 4:05 p.m. PT — It seems like these two teams are always playing each other. Anyway, Roger Clemens and Andrew Miller makes for an interesting matchup. Aside from the fact that Clemens is twice as old as Miller, it’s also worth noting that lefties are hitting just .140/.241/.180 against the young southpaw. Granted, it’s in all of 60 plate appearances, but yikes.
• Blue Jays at Angels, 7:05 p.m. PT — Roy Halladay and Jered Weaver hook up at Anaheim. If I didn’t have a softball game, I’d make the drive up for this one. Ah, who am I kidding; I’d pass out on the couch while watching Painkiller Jane or some nonsense.
• Padres at Phillies, 4:05 p.m. PT — Greg Maddux? Jamie Moyer? Stop it, please; my hip hurts…
• Dodgers at Mets, 4:10 p.m. PT — Two playoff contenders and a good pitching matchup (Brad Penny vs Oliver Perez). I’ve been watching Perez since he pitched in the California League. If he ever figures out how to get below 3.5 walks per 9, he could be scary good. Nice to see him at least moving in the right direction.
• Pirates at Astros, 5:05 p.m. PT — Just kidding; there’s no reason to watch this.
• Cubs at Diamondbacks, 6:40 p.m. PT — Two pennant contenders send 24-year-olds out to the mound. Arizona right-hander Micah Owings gave up three runs in his last start on August 18 in Atlanta. He also knocked two homers and drove in six. It’s not even 50 plate appearances, but the kid is batting .273/.298/.568. Half of his 12 big-league hits are for extra bases. Maybe if the pitching thing doesn’t work out, he can go the Rick Ankiel route.

There it is. Happy Friday, happy watching!

Post from: Knuckle Curve