SportsCrack Blog

Thursday, November 29, 2007


MLB HOT STOVE ACTION
With the winter meetings heating up I figured I should add my two cents to some of the rumors and signings already made.

First off I hate the Tom Glavine signing by the Braves. The Braves had two reliable starters last season in John Smoltz and Tim Hudson but after that the rotation consisted of 5 day old Mexican food. Instead of going after a couple of great lefties still in their prime like Johan Santana and Erik Bedard, they instead wasted $8 million on a washed up semen rag of a pitcher.
Don't get me wrong, Glavine is a Hall of Fame pitcher and would be worth having 10 years ago. But now he blows. Plus he is an enormous douchebag who is all about the money. He left Atlanta for the Mets in 2002 because the Mets offered up a deal worth a few million dollars more than the Braves offered. Glavine is the epitome of what is wrong with today's player$. In short I hope he fucking blows his elbow out and his name appears on the Mitchell Report. He deserves it and don't get fooled by the lovey dovey bullshit about him taking a hometown discount of $8 million to come back to the Braves. With the Braves losing Andruw Jones and Edgar Renteria and only adding shithead Glavine I think they have taken a step back.

Moving along, how in the hell did Torii Hunter get $90 million? I know the guy is a gold glove centerfielder but didn't the Angels just overpay in order to sign Gary Matthew Jr. last season to play centerfield? I'm confused. Hunter is a good player and sometimes deserves to be an All-Star but he is no superstar. It scares me to think of what Andruw Jones will get in the open market because he is a much better player than Torii. Hunter will never be worth the amount of money the Angels paid him because he isn't a star player like Vlad. But fuck it, it's not my money and the Angels still can't decide if they are playing their games in Anaheim or Los Angeles.

Who will trade for Johan Santana? That is the potentially $200 million dollar question. If the Red Sox include stud centerfielder of the present/future in Jacoby Ellsbury along with Jon Lester, Justin Masterson, and Jed Lowrie then the deal will be made. If I was the Red Sox I wouldn't trade Ellsbury because I think he will be a great player for a long time plus Lester has the potential to be a really good middle of the rotation starter. But of course dominating lefty starters don't grow on trees and Santana would be filthy in a Sox uni. So if your Theo Epstein you have to make the decision of keeping future stars which could help build a dynasty in the next 5-10 years or you can get Santana and be THE dynasty right now. Also the fucking Yankees come into play and you know they would jump at the chance to get Santana after overpaying to resign Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posado. Reportedly the Yankees don't want to give up Joba Chamberlain in a deal and if this is true they are idiots. Chamberlain will flame out in 2-3 years.

The Baltimore Orioles are looking to rebuild...haha, I'm sorry, haven't they been rebuilding for a decade now? Excuse me while I wipe the blood spewing from my ears. Fucking Angelos. Any who, the O's are taking offers for stud lefty starter Bedard,
shortstop/going to switch to thirdbaseman Miguel Tejada, and thirdbaseman Melvin Mora. Supposedly the Angels and Dodgers are the two most heavily involved with talks for Bedard. Bedard still has two years left on his current contract and is just reaching the prime of his career. The O's should be able to get at least 2 high end prospects along with a relief pitcher for Bedard. He posted better numbers than Santana last year while playing on a horrible team. If the Dodgers are willing to trade Clayton Kershaw and Matt Kemp then I think the O's should make the trade. Kershaw is a future stud lefty and Kemp could step in and play centerfield immediately for the Orioles. Plus the Dodgers get a great lefty in Bedard who would be huge for them in overtaking the Diamondbacks and the Rockies in their division.

As for Miguel Tejada, the O's should ask for Brandon Wood from the Angels and nothing more. The Angels need a shortstop and Tejada would be a great bat for their lineup protecting Vlad. Wood would be the O's future 3B and help the rebuilding process by coming up in a lineup with present superstar in the making in Nick Markakis and a future one in draft pick Matt Wieters. I repeat the O's have to make these trades if they are serious about being a competitive team in the AL East. If you ask any O's fan if they would be happy with a future middle of the lineup consisting of Markakis, Kemp, Wood, and Wieters they would probably rip your pants down and fellate away. In regards to Melvin Mora they should trade him to the Phillies for a couple of pitching prospects.

The St. Louis Cardinals need a shortstop after declining their option on David Eckstein. Jack Wilson would be a good fit in St. Louis while packaging him with Matt Morris for one of the Cardinals young pitchers.

Kudos goes out to the Twins and Rays for making a blockbuster trade yesterday. The Twins get Delmon Young who should develop into a great hitter after finishing second in the ROY voting this season. The Rays get young righty starter Matt Garza which gives them an extremely talented young rotation with Scott Kazmir and Jamie Shields. I know the Rays suck ass but a lot of teams would kill just to have one of those three young guns in their rotation. With that being said I'm sure the Rays will find some way to screw it up.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

c'mon dude, i dig your commentary, but the braves would have to give a fucking arm and a leg to get bedard, let alone santana

personally, me and you would probably be cool with a jurrjens/schafer (or gorkys)/x prospect swap for bedard, but i doubt either the braves or o's are balls enough to pull off that deal (could you imagine a smoltz/huddy/bedard big three though?... i have wood)

and after shipping A LOT of the farm off for fucking one and a half years of tex, can you imagine what we'd have to throw out to get johann... the braves just don't have the same kind of "highly regarded" prospects like the sox and yanks....

glavine for 8 mil is reasonable, simply because he's gonna give you 200 ip, and even if he posts a 4.5 era the whole year (likely), it's better than what we were getting out of the back end of the roatation last year

also, what people don't realize is andruw was fucking MISERABLE last year, and we only had tex for part of the year and our offense still finished third in the nl... this team has promise, we're just gonna need some breaks to go our way

give up on the o's, btw... sorry, bro, but those fuckers aren't going anywhere with angelos in that brutal division

and i'm the same guy that replied to the tech post... i guess i need to make an identity

Matt Fairchild (matt@sportscrack.com) said...

I think I'm just confused by the Braves moves lately. To me they were only one decent starting pitcher away last season from making the playoffs but yet didn't pick up anybody. They gave away the farm to get Tex and what that told me was they wanted to win right now, go for the World Series and all that shit.

But instead they sat on their asses and didn't pick up anybody to fill another starter's role last season. Now they are trying to tell me they are going to be a better team with shithead Glavine and limpdick injury prone Hampton coming back this season while losing Renteria and Andruw Jones.

So I guess I'm asking what direction is this team going? You give up the farm to pick up Tex to make a run yet now you trade Renteria for prospects and pick up Glavine to do what? Sure he might win 10-15 games but he isn't going to help them reach the playoffs if that is what you are counting on.

They need to make a serious run for another big arm. How many years does Smoltz have left in the tank? 1, maybe 2 at best. So if they know this why not try to go balls to the wall and pick up studs for prospects in order to make the run now?

Plus now I doubt Tex is going to resign. If I were the Braves I would have kept Renteria, traded Escobar, Chuck James, and one of the minor league centerfielders for Bedard or Santana.

And yes, I too would have wood if the Braves had a rotation of Smoltzie, Huddy, and Bedard and knew that they wanted to win the World Series now.

I will never give up on the O's by the way. I'm loyal to a fault, I grew up on them and know with the right ownership and direction they should be a powerhouse in that beautiful ballpark in Baltimore. If I was a psycho Angelos would be on my #1 hit list. I hate that guy worse than genital warts.

Woopsie, too much information, I will go now.