On Saturday, outfielder Elijah Dukes got into a little brouhaha during a Dominican Republic game; on Monday the Tampa Bay Devil Rays traded Dukes to the Washington Nationals for minor-league left-hander Glenn Gibson.

The Nats are in a good position to take on high-risk, high-reward players. If Dukes doesn’t get his act together, it only cost them a pitcher who is a long way from the big leagues. If Dukes does figure it out, Washington could have quite the player on its hands.

Other Voices

• Capitol Punishment
• Mr. Irrelevant
• Rays Anatomy

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Milledge has batted .257/.326/.414 in a shade under 400 plate appearances spread across two seasons. That’s not great for a guy who slots more as a corner outfielder, but when you consider that he turns 23 in April, it’s just fine.

There have been questions about Milledge’s character ever since he was drafted, but there’s no denying his talent. I remember being impressed when I saw him at the Arizona Fall League in ‘05. I’d heard good things but the numbers didn’t overwhelm me. Every time I saw him bat (extremely small sample), he hit the ball with authority.

On the other side, Church gets on base and has some power. He’s sort of like Brad Wilkerson. That’s a pretty solid player, but it shouldn’t be enough to land a talent like Milledge, who could be among the best of his generation (not will be, could be; big difference).

Is Schneider enough to make up the difference? In a word, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Oops, I said that out loud, didn’t I…

Other Voices

• Capitol Punishment
• ShysterBall

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Two aspects of this story fascinate me:

1. The announced attendance was 10,121, but a photo from the game tells a very different story. Er, forget steroids for a moment; someone is cheating here, and it ain’t the players.
2. The Marlins are a great case study in the difficulties of promoting a team that has no identity. This is a franchise that came into existence in 1993 and has won two World Series. If you’re keeping score at home, they’ve won rings in 13.3% of their seasons. The Boston Americans/Red Sox have done so in 5.6% of their seasons, the Dodgers (and their various predecessors) in 4.8%, the Cubs in 1.6%. Heck, the Cubs haven’t won the World Series since 85 years before the Marlins came into existence. (Even Miami’s original team, the Class D Florida State League Hustlers, didn’t appear until two decades after the Cubs’ last World Series victory.) Anyway, the point is that apparently winning isn’t enough to sustain a franchise. There needs to be at least some kind of tradition, and it’s hard to build one when you’re busy slashing payroll all the time and alienating your potential fan base.

[Tip o' the Knuckle Curve cap to Baseball Musings, whose suggestion of a move to Havana, Cuba, intrigues me...]

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

The other amusing part of the story linked above is that apparently shortstop Felipe Lopez is no longer speaking with the media. I guess Lopez is happy to let his .246/.309/.360 line speak for itself.

Post from: Knuckle Curve

Miles, apparently chosen because of his height (5′8″; Tony LaRussa wanted a “short” reliever, ba dum bum), retired the Nationals in order on seven pitches. Mike Maroth, the Cards’ second pitcher of the game, retired just two of the eight batters he faced. Maybe Miles can give Maroth some pointers before his next outing…

Post from: Knuckle Curve

They aren’t historically bad. In a way not even embarrassingly bad. It was a blessing in disguise when everyone (who didn’t follow the team closely) predicted 110+ losses this season.

They might not even lose 100 games.

Here’s what I don’t understand. Remember how we all thought Washington completely fleeced the Reds last summer when they acquired Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez for a couple of generic middle relievers and a fringe infield prospect? Well, Kearns is hitting like Austin Powers, and Lopez is doing a fine Neifi Perez impersonation. Meanwhile, the one guy who turned out to be good in the deal, Brendan Harris, was released by the Reds and is now the starting shortstop in Tampa Bay.

My point? Trust me, if I had one, it would go here.

Post from: Knuckle Curve