This Hurts, But I'm Ready to Cheer for That Scrappy Little Gamer

I've already exhausted everything I had to say about the David Eckstein signing in a spirited email exchange with my fellow MOEers and a couple of other dudes, but in summary, there's a majority here who support the signing. At first, it might be tough to stomach having one of the most annoying players in the game starting at short, but even a cursory look at the #s shows that this is a huge offensive upgrade for the team. So, for a one-year deal, well done J.P.

Last season the scrapper hit .309/.356./382, a slight upgrade on his career line of
.286/.351/.362. McDonald hit .251/.279/.333 on the season and .240/.279/.316 on his career. McDonald ranked 973 out of 1078 players in MLB last year with a -7.8 VORP. Eckstein was 127th with a 20.7 VORP (slightly higher than Glaus). Put differently, Eckstein was much closer to Rios (38.9 VORP) in offensive performance last season than he was to McDonald. It's as if we traded last year's Frank Thomas for last season's Vlad.

J-Mac was much better in the field last season, but for their careers the two are apparently almost identical. It's likely that McDonald will regress next season (at 33), while I'm hoping (without much reason) that Eckstein will recover somewhat with the glove.

So why do we have Scutaro? Good question. He's actually a worse hitter than Eckstein, and has never played short for a full season. I'd take him or McDonald on the bench, but not both. And J.P. giving McDonald a guaranteed two-year deal looks even worse from this distance.

But that's J.P., isn't it? He drives you crazy, then does something defensible.

I'll give Razzer the final word: this makes us better, but it isn't enough. Give me something else, J.P.

Loonie or looney?

CNBC had an interview with the great Paul Godfrey today, discussing the Canadian dollar and the effect on the team. Godfrey says that a $0.01 move upwards in the Canadian dollar equates to $730,000 improvement on the bottom line. Godfrey also states how much the payroll budget has gone up since the dollar has moved from the lows of $0.65 a few years back.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=597201328

The question is: will they increase payroll next year? I hope they are hedging it at these levels, my spidey sense says the Canadian dollar is going below par again soon.

Bonds took steroids, who knew?

For me this is a non story. I never doubted that he took steroids. I never questioned that he deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. And I still believe he is the best player I have ever seen. I am glad it took the Mitchell report 4 years to finish the investigation and Bonds was able to break a record he deserved. Everyone seems to ignore Bonds' numbers before steroid consumption, everyone also seems to ignore that steroids were not illegal in baseball during the time frame Bonds used. The big victim in all of this is Bonds, who hurt his body and long term health because he wanted to be recognized for what he was, the best player in the game. I am not saying steroid use is good, but I am saying Bonds has been treated unfairly. Everyone in the media chose to turn a blind eye at Sosa and McGwire's steroid use during the chase to 61. And it was this chase that apparently drove the vastly superior skilled Bonds to juice up. However, it wasn't until Bonds broke McGwire's record that people started to question steroid use in baseball. Why did the media let McGwire and Sosa get away with it and not Bonds? Because Bonds is a jerk. Because the media doesn't like Bonds. "Tit for tat, clarice, tit for tat." It became a personal Vendetta, much like the similar petty bullshit we see coming from the Toronto media towards JP.

At the end of the day, Bonds career is probably done. He probably doesn't make the Hall of Fame, and at worst his achievements are are belittled. That is the real shame in all this.

Tigers Deal for Renteria - Why Didn't We?

I'd been avoiding espn.com today, because I didn't want to read about the Red Sox, or the Yankees' fascinating search for a new manager. But at 5 p.m., after I've already gone for my third coffee of the afternoon, what the fuck else am I going to do? So I log on, see this headline, and slam my head against the desk.

Renteria hit .332/.390/.470 last season for the Braves. Those are ludicrous numbers and he's unlikely to repeat them next year at age 33, but he's not going to put up a J-Mac .251/.279/.333 either. Renteria's expensive at $10MM (with the Braves apparently paying some of that), but all it took was a 21 year-old pitching prospect with the improbable name of Jair Jurrjens and a single-A OF to make the deal.

If J.P. had made that trade (with an equivalent pitching prospect and low-minors hitter), Canate probably would have called him an idiot, but I'd have been all set for Spring Training '08. Renteria was one of the few available solutions to our gaping lineup hole. Now that he's gone, the odds that McDonald's going to go out there another 125 times just got a little shorter. Crap.

Leo Mazzone fired, sweet!

The O's fired Leo Mazzone. I guess his work with Eric Bedard and Jeremy Guthrie just wasn't up to whoever the fuck their actually GM is standards. He probably goes back to Atlanta but who knows, he could end up with the Yanks or Sox. They do have a lot of young stud pitchers that could benefit from being turned into Cy Young candidates. As for the Jays, don't expect him to come here, you can't really mess with a good thing (or you can; see Mike (mr. video) Barnett and Mickey Brantley). Regardless, you wouldn't want to mess with Arnsberg and his results.

JP Ricciardi, you are on the clock

If the Jays do not make the playoffs next year, the should do everything in their power to sign John Schuerholz, who stepped down today as GM of the Braves. Fuck the head hunting firm, fuck Terry Ryan, fuck everyone else. This guys record is amazing. Spend whatever money it takes to hire this guy. By next off season he should be in full Pat-Gillick-ready-for-a-new-challenge mode. Entice him with competing in the east, pay him in Canadian funds (been saving that one for a while), Leo Rautins his marriage with the hottest stripper in town, whatever it takes, do it Paul Godfrey.

Of course, knowing the luck of the Jays, we'll probably make the playoffs next year and Schuerholz will sign with the Orioles.

Jays Hire Gary Dumbo (sorry I mean Denbo) as New Hitting Coach

The Blue Jays hired Gary Denbo as their new batting coach.

Denbo hit .208 in his minor league career of 206 games over 4 seasons. His only major league experience was as the Yankees hitting coach in 2001. The Yankees BA in 2001 was 0.267 with an OBP of 0.334. The Yankees scored 804 runs in 2001, vs. 871 in 2000 and 897 in 2002 (you can argue that adding Jason Giambi and Soriano in 2002 definitely helped). His numbers and his team's numbers (in 2001) are hardly things to write home about.

Maybe Jordan Bastian can enlighten us about this signing, in another puff piece. Is Gary Denbo just another dumbo?