RHP Scott Linebrink

Padres receives:

RHP Will Inman
LHP Steve Garrison
LHP Joe Thatcher

Thoughts: Linebrink was a nobody until the Padres got him off waivers from the Astros and made him a full time reliever.  He was probably one of the top setup men in baseball for a few years until I drafted him last year in my Scoresheet league.  He was pulling an ERA around 2 and a WHIP around 1 while striking out a guy an inning, but last year started giving up more hits (raising his ERA in the process) and this season has seen his strikeouts go down and his ERA push 4.

Inman was impressive as hell last season in A-ball (leading the league in Ks) and was tearing up A-ball again this year but then struggled in AA.  He’s still only 20.  Thatcher’s 25 and was pitching in the Frontier League two seasons ago but has been scary this season in AA (0.55 ERA in 16.1 innings with 20 Ks against 2 BB) and AAA (2.08 ERA in 21.2 innings with 33 Ks against 7 BB), and will take Linebrink’s spot on the Padres 25-man roster.  Garrison’s 20 years old as well, but hasn’t been that impressive in A-ball (8-4, 3.44 ERA, 6.36 K/9, 2.41 BB/9 in 20 starts), but he’s lefthanded dammit.

Overall, I like Doug Melvin and all, but I think San Diego made out like bandits here.  Not necessarily a Krivsky-level blindside, but I think Linebrink has something going on with either his mechanics or an injury that’s going to keep him from being the player he was in 2004 and 2005 that the Brewers need him to be for this deal to pay off for them, especially if Inman ends up shaking off his issues in AA.

Don’t hop on bandwagon yet

Because as you know, New York fans are quite fickle with their bandwagons. Sorry, I know it’s just the title.

Believe it or not,

I’m assuming not.

even after as decisive a win as you could get,

21-4 is very decisive. 22-4 is probably more decisive. 912-0 would probably be much more decisive.

there still are questions. For instance: How good, really, are the Yankees?

51-46, 7.5 games back of first place Boston; therefore the 2nd best team in the American League. They also have the 10th best record in baseball, so I’ll say “one of the top ten teams in baseball.”

And is Shelley Duncan truly a major-league power hitter?

He is after four games. I’d be willing to bet he doesn’t keep up this pace, and by his minor league statistics I’d say that he’d have trouble hitting .250 in the majors, meaning he might be a major league regular for some team - if that team were in Mexico.

We will get a better answer to the latter when he faces a major-league team.

OOOOOOOH DISSIN’ THE D-RAYS.

But maybe the most difficult and pertinent question at the moment is this: Who got hit harder this weekend, Tampa Bay pitching or the Yankees teammates Duncan kept high-fiving?

Main Entry: dif·fi·cult
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, back-formation from difficulty
1 : hard to do, make, or carry out : ARDUOUS <a difficult climb>
2 a : hard to deal with, manage, or overcome <a difficult child> b : hard to understand : PUZZLING <difficult reading>

Main Entry: per·ti·nent
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin pertinent-, pertinens, present participle of pertinEre
: having a clear decisive relevance to the matter in hand

Just checking. Oh, and I know it’s a difficult question and all, but since Shelley’s high-fives didn’t knock eight of his teammates out of Yankee Stadium, I’ll lean towards the Tampa pitching answer.

Can he ever do this again?

Hit three home runs in four games? I don’t think it’s out of the qu…

Who knows?

Oh. That was one of those rhetorical questions.

But one thing nobody can question is why people at Yankee Stadium sang “Shel-lee Dun-can” and gave him a standing ovation when he grounded to first in the seventh.

Really? I think if you were going to your first baseball game and saw this Shelley Duncan, playing for the home team, ground out to first and the crowd stood and cheered him, you might be a bit confused. Especially if you knew New York fans.

It isn’t because of what he did this weekend but because of how hard he climbed to get here.

I can pretty much guarantee that 90% of that Yankee crowd didn’t know who the hell Shelley Duncan was before Friday. Of that remaining 10%, I’m pretty sure you can take a fraction of that who know Shelley Duncan’s level of determination when it comes to his play.

David Shelley Duncan is no kid.

There are very few children playing major league baseball.

He is about two months shy of his 28th birthday.

Which makes him the 6th youngest player on the Yankees current 25-man roster. In context, I guess you could say he is a “kid”.

Despite having grown up in a big-league family - dad Dave, a former catcher, is the pitching coach for the world champion Cardinals and brother Chris plays leftfield for the Cardinals - Shelley played through college and 6½ years in the minors without a sniff of the majors until Friday. He had come up empty an awful lot before he came up so big.

Yet no one weeps for Ozzie Canseco.

“You learn how to play the game right. You also deal with a lot of failures,” said Duncan, who never hit higher than .267 before this season. “I believe there is no failure unless you don’t learn from it. So I try to learn any time I screw up or go through a hard time.”

Good message. Kids, write that down.

In other words, he spent the time and took the tough lessons that nobody has taught most of the Devil Rays, who ought to be in the minor leagues.

Oh lord. Kids, if you still have that pencil in hand, also write down “suck badly in the minors for several years, so that you can learn tough lessons.”

Not to take anything away from the Yankees’ laugher or Duncan’s day, but it’s hard to tell how seriously to take those events because Tampa Bay is one of the great embarrassments in baseball.

Who as recently as two months ago had the same record as the New York Yankees, just with a payroll of $165 million less. While the Devil Rays are by no means a good team, they were three games behind the Yanks on June 24th, with a record of 33-40. They’ve gone 5-20 since. coolstandings.com has them on pace for a 61-101 record this season, which isn’t good, but isn’t the 1899 Cleveland Spiders or anything.

Not only can’t the Devil Rays pitch a lick,

Admittedly their worst feature as a team. Outside of their top two starting pitchers and their closer, they’ve got one player on their roster with an ERA under 5.

they don’t play smart and they don’t play pretty.

“Style points” are the new OPS. I may have stolen Bill James’ thunder on that one, so if I disappear suddenly, you know the Saberassassins have gotten me.

Their signature isn’t just James Shields giving up 10 runs in 3 1/3 innings

Shields, prior to that game, was 8-5 with a 3.91 ERA in 20 starts, striking out 120 in 142.2 innings and walking only 21. In the context of the D-Rays’ pitching staff, it’d be like pointing out how bad the ‘88 Orioles sucked by noting Cal Ripken’s 0-5 game. It’d also lead the Yankees in strikeouts and be the third lowest ERA in the Yankees starting rotation, better than Andy Pettitte or Mike Mussina.

or Casey Fossum getting torched for hit after hit or Tampa Bay throwing 216 pitches in eight innings. It’s Jonny Gomes looking at a called third strike with two runners on and one out, and having a fly ball clank off his glove.

Gomes is batting .277/.337/.497 since being called back up from the minors and playing himself back into a starting role. He’s apparently doing something right. His fielding does leave a bit to be desired, though.

It’s throwing errors and fielding errors. It’s Akinori Iwamura hitting a weak groundout on the first pitch when Pettitte was struggling.

Struggling with what - control? If he’s struggling in getting people out, then the first pitch is a fine opportunity to jump all over a pitcher before he’s able to correct himself. Oh, upon further examination, Pettitte had walked one and struck out six at this point. Pettitte was giving up hits, not walking runners, and Iwamura was the 7th batter in the inning, meaning that “taking the first few pitches”, which might work in Little League, isn’t the approach a player should have necessarily taken in this case. Pettitte didn’t lose his control, he just didn’t have his best stuff, and when a veteran pitcher doesn’t have his best stuff it’s best to jump on him before he straightens himself out.

And Iwamura’s eight seasons as a Yakult Swallow have apparently been eliminated by his five months as a Devil Ray, infecting him with the disease that makes Devil Ray players poor.

The Devil Rays, and all big- league clubs, need Shelley Duncans who take their lumps and learn how to play.

Iwamura gets ripped for grounding out on the first pitch of his at-bat. He can take a lesson from Duncan, who struck out 140 times in his last full season and already has four strikeouts in 12 at-bats - that’s one every three times up to the plate.

Maybe he isn’t the next Shane Spencer, who made a niche and name for himself with a torrid 1998 homer streak.

By “streak” he means “twice that season he hit home runs in back-to-back games.” Torrid streak would have been good enough there, as Spencer turned in a handful of monster games combined with a small sample size (thanks, Torrebot) to put together a .373/.411/.910 line in 73 plate appearences, hitting 10 home runs over that span. It gave Spencer a seven year major league career, mostly with the Yankees who could afford to platoon him and use him as a 4th outfielder.

The only reason Duncan was called up from Scranton was so slumping DH/outfielder Johnny Damon could get a couple of days off.

No, he was called up because Kevin Thompson, who the Yankees were using as their 5th outfielder, wasn’t playing that well and the team wanted to see what Duncan would do with a few at-bats, since Duncan was Scranton’s best hitter. Those are the types of moves that non-Yankee teams try in order to discover talent or spark the offense and see if that AAAA player is actually capable of playing in the majors. Oakland did it with Jack Cust this season.

The shocking thing was that Torrebot managed to actually play Duncan when he was called up, instead of letting him rot on the bench and putting Miguel Cairo in the slot to give Damon the time off.

Oh, side note. If he’s hurt and needs time off on a semi-regular basis, and he’s hitting .244/.345/.342, PUT THE GUY ON THE DL. Having him play every other day hurt isn’t helping the team.

Sorry, rant over. Back to the article.

“It’s still Johnny’s job,” Joe Torre said yesterday.

It would still be Johnny’s job if Duncan hit home runs in 15 straight games and Johnny Damon was hit by a semi. Torrebot does not compute not having Johnny Damon in the lineup.

I’m not saying that Damon should lose his job - the thought would be silly, especially since Damon’s a center fielder and Duncan is lucky to manage first base. I’m just saying that you could have two copies of Johnny Damon, with one being the current injured one and one being the healthy one we’ve seen the last few seasons. If the healthy one has the name Dohnny Jamon and came from AAA with no major league experience, Jamon wouldn’t have a chance that Damon’s job.

Then again, the manager has been known to ride a hot hand.

14 times. That’s how many times someone other than Cano/Rodriguez/Jeter/Matsui/Cabrera/Damon/Abreu has started at 2B/SS/3B/LF/CF/RF. Add to that Torrebot’s strict platoon of Doug Mientkiewicz and Josh Phelps (despite Phelps hitting much better than Mientkiewicz through most of the season) at first and that Torrebot continued to use Wil Nieves as his primary backup catcher, despite batting .125 in 56 at-bats, and you have the complete opposite of someone who plays the “hot hand”.

And no one was hotter yesterday than the batter who received two curtain calls to Alex Rodriguez’s none.

Whew, that was a close one. I thought we might be able to end an article in a New York based newspaper without an Alex Rodriguez slam. Crisis averted!

“I said to Alex, ‘Sorry, you’re not The Guy anymore,’ ” Torre said, mindful that Duncan trails A-Rod by 495 career homers.

And that Torre won’t remember Duncan’s name in a week.

What Torre, Rodriguez and everybody at the Stadium yesterday knew for sure

Everyone. No doubt in 54,751 peoples’ minds (not including employees, guests, teammates, or opposing team members). Undenyable FACT. Right up there with “sky is blue” and “I am attending a baseball game”.

is that Duncan always is going to try as hard as he can

Because that’s something you can tell from four games.. From the stands. UNDENYABLE FACT.

and that the Yankees are better than the Devil Rays. No question about that.

Which explains why the Devil Rays beat the Yanks 14-4 in the first game of the series. And why the Yankees are currently 7-5 against those same Devil Rays this season.

Undenyable fact, my friends.

Anyway, then they start mentioning a possible deal brewing between the Dodgers and Yanks with Scott Proctor getting shipped over to the Dodgers for Wilson Betemit. Buck mentions that he doesn’t know why the Yankees would do this deal.

For those of you new here, that’s Scott Proctor - Scott Proctor of the 1.430 WHIP. Scott Proctor who has pitched 130 games in the last season and a half. Scott Proctor who burned his uniform because teams hit .313 against him in June.

It’s not that Proctor is a bad pitcher; he’d probably be much better on a team not run by the Torrebot. But if there’s one thing the Yanks have to offer right now, it’s relief pitching. The Yanks are carrying 13 pitchers right now at the major league level, and have Chris Britton in AAA ready at a moment’s notice. Plus, there are other options deeper on the Scranton roster, like Jim Brower (1.77 ERA in 29 games) and Charlie Manning (47 K in 41.3 innings), not to mention Sean Henn, or using a guy like Matt DeSalvo or Chase Wright in a long relief role. The dropoff wouldn’t be that huge.

In contrast, you have Wilson Betemit (who I mentioned in yesterday’s article), who has an OPS more than 200 points higher than the man he’d be replacing, Miguel Cairo. Add to that Betemit’s ability to actually play three infield positions, in contrast to Cairo’s “I can play 2nd, kinda, and maybe left field and first base?”

However the biggest thing that acquiring Betemit would bring to the Yankees is giving the team an Alex Rodriguez safety net if Rodriguez decides to play hardball and terminates his contract. As it stands right now, the Yankees would have absolutely no one to take Rodriguez’s place if he left, putting the Yanks at in poor negotiation stance. While Betemit isn’t an ideal third baseman, he isn’t a horrific option at third (not like a not-ready Eric Duncan or scrambling to get an Aaron Boone or Russell Branyan) and allows it to work both ways - if Rodriguez does leave, the Yanks have a third baseman. If he doesn’t, the Yanks have someone on the bench who can play all the infield positions, have a little pop in his bat, and is only 25 years old.

Make the deal, Brian - don’t listen to Buck.

IN OTHER YANKEE NEWS: Rob Neyer in his blog (ESPN Insider subscription required) tells a good story about how the Yankees found Edwar Ramirez using the uncomplicated process of seeing really good statistics and confirming that he wasn’t a mental case before picking him up - sight unseen - to fill out their single-A roster. Now he’s in the majors, great story, etc.

It is a great story, and Ramirez’s numbers have been mind-boggling, with 33 strikeouts in 16 innings at AA Trenton and 47 strikeouts in 27 innings at AAA Scranton, which got him a callup to the majors. The downer for the story is that Ramirez is still in the Yankee organization, so he’s been used twice in the 13 games he’s been with the major league club. Over the course of a full season, that’d mean that Ramirez would get in all of 25 games. In comparison, the beforementioned Proctor is on a pace for 83 (on top of his 83 last season), Luis Vizcaino is set for 83 games, 74 for Mike Myers, and 72 for Brian Bruney and Kyle Farnsworth.

Why? Torrebot does not compute Edwar Ramirez. He was allowed to be used in a blowout victory to clean up the ninth inning (eight run lead), and struck out the side. Three games later, Torrebot allowed Ramirez to be used in a game that wasn’t completely in hand, with only a three run lead and a runner on base. Ramirez didn’t strike out every batter he faced that time, allowing the runner to score and walking another, giving up a hit (a DOUBLE, of all things), and hitting a batter. SYNTAX ERROR for Torrebot, and Ramirez hasn’t been used since.

I mentioned on one of my message boards that Ramirez wasn’t going to get called up despite his numbers because of Torre. I momentarily forgot that Torre wasn’t the team’s GM and didn’t control who got called up and who didn’t. Torre can’t stop people from being called up, but he sure as hell doesn’t have to use them if he doesn’t want to.

Rodriguez turns 32 later this month, and at the end of his current contract he’ll be 35. I’m no master of economics, but in all likelyhood the contract that Rodriguez would receive to play into his late 30s/early 40s would be larger if he were to sign an extension now than if he were to play to the end of this contract and entering the free agent market at the age of 35, when most players are seeing a decline in statistics (under investigation San Francisco outfielders excluded).

Agent Scott Boras’ threats (we’ll just say they’re his instead of Rodriguez just to make him look better and make an agent the villian, which is easy enough to do) to terminate Rodriguez’ contract at the end of this season and test the free agent market are geared solely at one team - the New York Yankees. Well, that’s obvious, since the team with the most to lose if Rodriguez does this is the Yankees, who lose one of the best offensive players in baseball, and receive no compensation for it.

The Yanks are in an unusual position though in that they have the most money to spend for Rodriguez, and not in the usual “Yankees are rich” way. With the way Rodriguez’ contract is structured right now and the agreement that the Yankees and Texas Randers made when the Yanks acquired Rodriguez for Alfonso Soriano a few years back, the Yankees are only paying $16 million of the $27 million that Rodriguez is contractually obligated this season, and for the next three seasons barring a terminiation of the contract. If the contract is terminated, then Texas loses its obligation to Rodriguez and the Yankees, and everyone starts from scratch. This threat to terminate his contract is thought to add added leverage to whatever negociations that Rodriguez and Scott Boras wish to make, since the Yankees essentually have a “$33 million off” coupon that the player and agent can make expire.

Boras says that $32 million is a starting point, since after next season ROdriguez could force the Yankees (if he didn’t leave this season) to raise his salary $5 million a season from his current contract of $27 million per year. That’s not much of a threat, and even factoring in 2008 (which isn’t covered by that provision), it would cost the Yankees an additional $15 million, which is still made up for by the $33 million the Rangers are paying.

The question is an extension. All parties involved seem to be interested in an extension past 2010. How long that extension is involves two factors - the concern for potential dropoff of Rodriguez’s statistics after the 2010 season, and how long of a contract Rodriguez would stand to get if he became a free agent at the end of this season.

To try to grasp that, let’s look at the man Rodriguez was traded for - Alfonso Soriano. Soriano, the big ticket free agent last season, signed an 8 year contract, and he’s six months younger than Rodriguez. A similar 8 year deal for Rodriguez would mean a five year extension from the Yankees, or 8 years on the open market from another team, ending his contract at the age of 40. While the average free agent couldn’t command that kind of commitment, especially at the age of 32, Rodriguez isn’t your average free agent. Rodriguez stands right now as a Hall of Fame player; not “if he keeps up this pace”, but if he announced tomorrow that he wasn’t going to play another game, he would be elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame on the first ballot. His skill level is there, so that when he does hit his decline, barring a complete disaster, he should still be a better than replacement level ballplayer for a long time to come.

Add onto that the home run record. While it’s a given that Barry Bonds is eventually going to break Hank Aaron’s 755 home run record, Bonds turns 43 years old in a week. He’ll break the record, but probably not break it by much, and I don’t expect him to play next season. If Bonds hits 30 home runs this season (he’s on a better pace and hit 26 last season), that’ll put the home run record at 764. Assuming Rodriguez stays healthy and hits home runs at the pace he has been (about 44 a season), it will take Rodriguez 5.66 seasons to pass Bonds, somewhere in 2013. The team that has him under contract has him for every home game during that chase, drawing in fans as he gets closer and closer. Even factoring in a decline or major injury would still put the mark within reach during that 8 year period.

That said, the Yankees have a built in 33 million discount on any contract that they can offer. The question is whether or not Boras and Rodriguez will actually go through with terminating the contract. My guess is that they won’t, mainly because if they do, I think it takes the Yankees out of the equation, and that’s the last thing - tabloids be damned - that Rodriguez and Boras would want to do.

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that Rodriguez wants to make $35 million a year for the next eight seasons. That’s his number, and he won’t back down from that. Even with his talent, that might be a hard sell to Boston or Chicago, who probably don’t want to commit $280 million dollars.

So Boras says “hey, for you guys, make it $30 million a year. Everyone else, it’s $35 million.” That would be something Boston or Chicago might listen to a lot more closely. It wouldn’t be something that Boras (or any player or agent, more than likely) would do, but if they did, that team would probably be a lot more willing to make that deal. That’s the position the Yankees are in, and that’s what Boras and Rodriguez are staring at. For the Yankees to offer Rodriguez a $35 million a year contract for the next eight seasons, the Yanks only need to spend $30.875 million a year (yeah, I said “only”), and advantage that other teams don’t have. If Rodriguez is truly looking for money, then the Yankees are the best place for him to get it.

So do the Yankees have the advantage in negociations? Not a chance. If Rodriguez isn’t looking for that much more money, he can terminate the contract and get at least what he’s making now (if not more) from another team. Is Rodriguez going to make as much money as he could with the Yankees and extending his contract? No, but it’s very unlikely that he’ll lose money compared to his current deal. Rodriguez has very little to lose. If you went to a casino and someone offered you a game to play where the worst you could do is get your money back, you’d play that game every time, all day long.

The Yankees, while getting back some payroll room ($16 million a year for the next three years), have to replace Rodriguez’s bat in the lineup. Here’s a list of OPS+ leaders as of right now for players who’ve played at least half their games at third base:

1. Rodriguez
2. Ryan Braun (MIL)
3. Chipper Jones (ATL)
4. Miguel Cabrera (FLA)
5. Troy Glaus (TOR)
6. David Wright (NYM)
7. Aramis Ramirez (CHN)
8. Mike Lowell (BOS)
9. Mike Lamb (HOU)
10. Mark Reynolds (ARI)
11. Casey Blake (CLE)
12. Adrian Beltre (SEA)
13. Wilson Betemit (LAD)
14. Hank Blalock (TEX)
15. Melvin Mora (BAL)

Braun, Chipper, and Wright just aren’t available. The same could probably be said for Mark Reynolds. Cabrera may or may not be shopped by Florida, but at this point, there really isn’t a package that the Yanks could put together to get him that they’d do. Glaus has a no-trade clause. Ramirez just signed a huge contract to re-up with the Cubs. Mike Lamb is a bit funny on that list since the Yanks picked him up after Aaron Boone’s injury left them with a hole at third base going into Spring Training, then dumped him off to Houston when they swung the Rodriguez trade. Betemit’s OPS+ is spiked because he plays for the Dodgers and recently had a power surge, but he failed miserably as a starter for the Dodgers at the beginning of the season and is now a bench player. Casey Blake still looks to be arbitration eligible, and depending on his price, the Indians would probably hang onto him.

Of those, that leaves one clearly available player (Mike Lowell), and a handful of guys (Beltre, Blalock, Mora) who teams might be willing to deal. Lowell will be 34 next season, Mora 36. Blalock still has holes in his swing and has seen his slugging percentage go down every year since his rookie season, and has an OPS 200 points higher at Texas’ hitter-friendly home park than on the road. Beltre? Inconsistant and still scheduled to make $12 million a year, and a career OPS of .786.

Given those options (keep in mind that most would have to be traded for, so money + prospects), then $30 million to Rodriguez doesn’t sound like a bad option, does it? Bear in mind that Rodriguez, offensively, has nearly twice the OPS+ of the average player - add that to the (eventual) chase for the record and the production that the player gives to the team on a consistant basis, and you have a solid investment, allowing the Yankees to focus in on larger areas of need.

Player A has eleven home runs, an OPS of .863, and is already in the game.

Player B has sixteen home runs, an OPS of .927, and is on the bench.

Eh - not much difference.  If looking solely at that, you’d take the player that’s in the game and leave the other player on the bench just in case.  Let’s look deeper.

Player B is a former MVP.  Player A has never received a MVP vote.

Well, awards are rewards for past performance.  What’s to say Player A won’t get MVP votes this year?  And it’s not like Player B is even a reigning MVP.

Player B has finished in the top 4 of the MVP race every year of his career, likely due to his career .330 batting average, 266 career home runs, and 1.037 career OPS.  Player A has a career batting average of .283 and has never finished a season with a batting average higher than .310.  He has 77 career home runs and a .791 career OPS, albeit in 242 less games.

Wow - a career .330 hitter?  Top four every season?  That’s pretty impressive.

Player B’s most similar batters through his age (thanks B-R) are Jimmie Foxx, Frank Robinson, and Joe DiMaggio.  Player A’s most similar batters through his age are Carl Everett, Shea Hillenbrand, and Milton Bradley.

Ew.  Keep in mind this is purely statistical though - if you think of things in common with Everett, Hillenbrand, and Bradley, it’s not their stat lines.

You know, maybe we’re looking at this too much in the past.  Baseball is about now - the hot hand, the live bat.  How about their last 40 games?

Player A: 4 HR, .289 BA, .807 OPS
Player B: 8 HR, .338 BA, 1.012 OPS

Um… their last 25 games?

Player A: 3 HR, .268 BA, .804 OPS
Player B: 1 HR, .337 BA, .893 OPS

Um… their last 10 games?

Player A: 1 HR, .241 BA, .729 OPS
Player B: 0 HR, .400 BA, .917 OPS

Yeah.  So back to “You’re The Manager”.  Bottom of the 9th, two out, bases loaded.  Down by one run.  Derrek Lee is on second, who has decent speed, so a base hit will probably get the winning run home.

If you’re the manager, who do you send up to the plate?  If you’re Tony LaRussa, you send up Player A, and you watch as Player A hits a fly ball to right field that is easily caught to end the game.  You lose, as Player B remains on the bench.

Perhaps Tony LaRussa was acting under misguided loyality, since this was an All-Star game and one of those players was from his team, the St. Louis Cardinals.  All-Star managers often stick to what is familiar to them.

Except that it was Player B who was on the Cardinals, not Player A.

For those who haven’t figured out by now, Player B is Albert Pujols, while Player A is Aaron Rowand.  Rowand, playing center field and 0-1 with a strikeout since coming in for Ken Griffey a few innings earlier, was scheduled to be the 8th batter in the NL lineup when the 9th inning started, and probably didn’t think he’d be batting when the first two NL batters were retired, leaving two outs with none on.  Then Dmitri Young, hitting for pitcher Trevor Hoffman, got an infield base hit, followed up by a two run home run from Alfonso Soriano.  Now it’s 5-4, with two outs and no one on.

J.J. Hardy walks.  Jim Leyland has enough, and pulls Seattle closer J.J. Putz for Anaheim closer Francisco Rodriguez.  Rodriguez walks Derrek Lee.  Rodriguez walks Orlando Hudson.  Rodriguez wets himself.

So now you have the bases loaded.  It’s the bottom of the ninth.  Since Lee has some speed, anything outside of an infield single will probably get him in from second to win the game.  A walk ties the game, and brings up Freddy Sanchez, who isn’t a horrible hitter.

So the question is who you’d rather have up to bat - the person more likely to get the base hit, or the person more likely to take advantage of the frazzled Rodriguez and take the walk to tie the game.

We’ve already stated that Pujols (Player B, for those not following) was the better career hitter, the better hitter the last few months, the better hitter the last month, and the better hitter over the last ten games.

Aaron Rowand has 29 walks this season.  Albert Pujols has 53.

So if you’re Tony LaRussa and you want the base hit, you go to Pujols.  If you want the walk, you go to Pujols.  If you want the guy you’re familiar with for the last six+ seasons, you go to Pujols.

But apparently, if you’re Tony LaRussa last night, you go with Aaron Rowand.

LaRussa justified keeping Pujols on the bench by saying that he needed him in case the game went into extra innings.  That’s a good strategy if you’re tied at the moment that decision needs to be made.  You know, if it’s currently possible to go into extra innings.  But when you’re down by a run and it’s the bottom of the 9th inning, extra innings isn’t the most likely of situations.

But not using your best hitter in a do-or-die situation is the equivalent of bringing a knife to a gunfight because you’ve only got one bullet, and you might have a gunfight tomorrow.

Tomorrow doesn’t matter if you’re dead today.

MLB.com’s game wrapup quoted Pujols:

“Maybe he was saving me for next year’s All-Star Game,” Pujols jokingly said.

Yeah, that “joking” didn’t last long:

“It’s the All-Star game. He can do what he wants,” Pujols said Tuesday night. “He does whatever he wants. If I wasn’t expecting to play, I wouldn’t have come up here.”

What’s that, Albert?  Did you just question managerial mastermind Tony LaRussa?

“If he wants to get upset, he can get upset,” La Russa said. “Whatever he wants to do, he can do. It’s America. That wasn’t the most important thing tonight.”

So keeping every player happy wasn’t the most important thing tonight, playing everyone wasn’t the most important thing tonight, and winning wasn’t the most important thing tonight.  Was there cancer research going on in the on-deck circle that hasn’t been announced to the media?  Was it a dying child’s wish to see Aaron Rowand bat twice in the All-Star game?

“Once we lost (Miguel) Cabrera and (Freddy) Sanchez, he [Pujols] was the guy we were going to use to protect ourselves in case we kept playing because of Albert’s versatility,” La Russa said. “I think we had the right guy at bat.”

I missed when Freddy Sanchez got hurt, apparently, because he was still in the lineup, and would have batted after Rowand.

Now defensive issues aside, had Rowand been taken out for Pujols and Pujols walked or taken an infield hit, leaving the game tied, then Freddy Sanchez (still alive) could have gotten out the following at-bat, putting the game into extra innings.  Pujols would have then had to move to left field, with Alfonso Soriano shifting over to center, leaving the National League with a less than desirable outfield defense.

However, under the scenario that LaRussa pictures, Pujols ends up at third base, a position he hadn’t played regularly since his rookie season, and at all since 2002.

So why is Freddy Sanchez gone?  Is LaRussa thinking too far ahead of himself, planning on pinch hitting for Sanchez with Pujols in the following at-bat?  Considering that Sanchez is arguably a better hitter than Rowand too, it seems like a severe case of either over-management, or just plain dropping the ball.

Watch carefully as a deal that seemed to work for both parties dies a horrible death, and think about what could have happened if the other party had followed the guidelines I talked about earlier.

One of my leagues uses a Yahoogroups mailing list for leaguewide announcements, specifically for keeping records of announced trades and the like. It’s meant to be a discussion list, so it defaults to replying back to the rest of the league. This works great when there’s a discussion about league rules, but when someone starts looking for or shopping players, there’s bound to be a reply meant for just that one person but sent to the entire league. Such a thing happened three weeks ago, when an owner (let’s call him “Apple”) responded to a request for pitching, making it known that Randy Johnson and Jason Jennings - two pitchers who had been on the DL this season but were back - were available.

Now, Apple has been in the league for a few years and been classified as a “future” owner; Apple loves the prospects and the great cheap contracts for young players. As a result, his teams are usually this horrible mixed bag of a few high priced name players and guys in AA. This usually gets him in trouble, and two losing seasons (70-92 and 74-88 respectively) have proven that, mainly because his teams have no depth. An injury here or there results in no backup to turn to, and in some cases he leaves the draft without a starter at multiple positions. This year’s draft was a little different in that he didn’t get in on the huge contracts (which can be difficult to trade mid-season with our cap structure) and scooped up some good value contracts when the rest of the league spent big early, but at the same time he went huge on players with zero track record in the league who weren’t guaranteed to be playing in the majors this season. Often, a rookie player or a top prospect will get bid up to $500,000 - this is the highest a contract can be that can be extended at the $100k level. The threat is that if the other person wants the player so bad, they have to bid $600,000, and that player’s second year of their contract becomes a $1.1 million deal - a bit much for an unknown quantity. Apple didn’t just hit that $600k barrier for one player - he did it for several, including a $2 million contract for catcher Miguel Montero, who had six games of major league experience, and only 36 games of AAA. Despite the high final bid, he still gave Montero a three year contract, meaning he was obligated to $2 million this season, $3 million next season, and $4 million the season after that. For perspective, I drafted Jorge Posada in this league this past draft for $3.9 million. Four time all-star .866 OPS last season Jorge Posada.

[Side note: Montero's batting .218 with a .643 OPS, losing a platoon with Chris Snyder, who is batting .221 with a .671 OPS. Snyder was drafted for $500k.]

So in Apple, you have an owner who is addicted, seemingly, to the thrill of having the breakout guy, who likes Christmas shopping better than Christmas Day. So it didn’t surprise me that he was shopping two veterans and looking for draft picks and prospects. What did surprise me is that upon closer look, Apple had a winning record, only a few games behind the first place team in his division, and if the season had ended that day, a wild card entry into the playoffs.

And he was selling for next year.

So between the announcement to the whole league that major players (who were affordable) were available and the time ticking down before Apple realized that he could be buying instead of selling, I had to jump on the opportunity. I sent him an email:

Saw you were shopping Randy Johnson and I’d be interested in working out some kind of deal. I have my future FA picks, and I’m not sure if you have any interest in my minor league guys - I know there isn’t that much to pick from there.

Let me know - I’d be willing to talk about Jennings as well if Johnson is already gone, but I’d prefer Randy.

Granted, it kind of goes against my rule of approaching with an offer in hand, but Apple is an extremely tough read (and you’ll see why later), and I did approach with specific names and what I was offering, not just a “what would you want for him?” Note too that I was stating the difference in interest between Johnson and Jennings. While I could use Jennings, it was Johnson who was my top choice, and I wanted to make that clear. Often owners like to mix together numerous players and treat them similar despite their not having similar interest in the players in an effort to camouflage the player they truly want in case the other owner wants to run up the price. This results in a lot of unwanted substitution - when you go to turn the talk towards the player you really wanted, the other owner will end up replacing that player if they (like you) feel that the player that you really wanted is better than the other player. This results in a lot of wasted time and frustration.

Apple got back to me later that day:

I am always interested in draft picks and I can move either Johnson or Jennings. I also like Encaracion and Hamilton but I don’t think we could work out a deal for either one of them. Let me know your thoughts.

I will be in and out all day but I will keep checking my e-mail.

Edwin Encarnacion and Josh Hamilton are my two biggest bargaining chips as we go towards the trade deadline. Both have favorable contracts (Encarnacion with one more cheap year @ $600k, Hamilton with 3 more years @ $200-400k), but the catch is that both are currently starting for me, and playing pretty well. Trading either of them means having to replace them in the lineup, which would be tricky because it would mean taking on more contracts. Johnson, despite being affordable, has a salary just around my remaining cap room ($4.7 million), while Jennings sits at another three and a half. If I were to trade for either of these players, I couldn’t take on any more contracts. But, Apple himself seemed to understand this as he stated that he didn’t think we could do anything with them, so I came back with an offer that ignored Encarnacion and Hamilton but still worked for my cap number. It was probably shooting a little high, but it got us past vague offers into something solid to work from:

I’d be interested in either of them, and I’d be curious if you’d be open to dealing both. I’d be willing to offer two FA picks of your choice, and for salary reasons I’d have to offer you Brett Myers as well.

Would that be something you’d be interested in? Two FA picks of your choice and Myers for Randy Johnson and Jason Jennings?

Myers, whose demotion to the bullpen really hit my team hard, was on the DL at this point but scheduled to come back in a month. It wasn’t that I necessarily wanted to lose him, but his $5.7 million contract was definitely movable. It allowed me to take on both Johnson and Jennings, and still have a couple of million in cap room to make a few more deals later on if necessary. While I hoped that the deal would get accepted, I wasn’t optimistic. Note too that I left it open to him which FA picks he wanted; allowing the other GM to “craft his own deal” makes him feel more comfortable about it.

I wasn’t too surprised at the email I got back:

Just out of curiosity would you possibly move either of the players I mentioned?

So like five seconds after saying that he didn’t think we could do anything for those players, he asks about them. What he was really saying when he mentioned them the first time is a ploy I’ve done in the past just to throw out a player who you’d think is untouchable; you talk to someone about a backup first baseman, and in the talk you mention something like “well, I’d like to have Pujols manning first, but that’s not going to happen”, because your trading partner has Albert Pujols. You do it in the hopes of a reply like “yeah, the only way I’d trade Pujols is if you sent me [player]“, and then the mega-trade talks start.

However I didn’t do that, and it backfired on him. But that didn’t stop him from bringing it up anyway. Should he have been more straightforward? Probably, but even if he said “geez, I sure do like those guys”, it wouldn’t have mattered to me unless he gave me a reason to deal those guys off. I tried to be nice though and explain my position:

Maybe a little bit later, but not right now - both are starting for me right now and if I were to deal them I’d need an upgrade at those positions. It’d be one thing if they were on my bench, but my depth sucks.

Come the deadline, I’ll definitely keep you in mind, especially with Hamels on your roster.

In the email I also mentioned that I was going to see a Carolina Mudcats game (I have a mini-plan of tickets for a handful of games this season) and by sheer coincidence one of his players was making a rehab start and that I’d give him the “inside information” about that start to sweeten any deal we ended up doing.  In reality there wasn’t any real “inside information” I could give him outside of my opinion of the guy’s start, but since I was going with my wife and my 3-year-old son, it’s not like I was going to be doing pitch counts or anything.

Not seemingly understanding the “not dealing them right now” part of my email, he sent me a counteroffer (which I can’t remember right now and don’t have in front of me, but it did include at least one if not both players), along with about three other emails to which I didn’t respond to after the game (exhausted) or for that weekend (annoyed).  Part of me thought that by not responding to the emails, he’d get the hint that this wasn’t the direction I wanted to go in.  He responded by noting in his last email to me that he wasn’t trying to be “hard to deal with”, but that he was trying to get the best possible deal that he could.  Understandable, but it’s a fine line to tread, especially when you’re seemingly miles apart.

I conceded to his request for the players, remembering that I did want to win this year, and that I couldn’t overvalue guys with good contracts when I’m trying to win.  The other problem was that in my league, we have a hard salary cap, so trading a big contract for a prospect or two leaves the one team trying to somehow fit this huge contract under their cap.  In this case, I was looking for two players who had multi-million dollar contracts, and since I had to replace one (or both) of the good contract guys who were starting for me, I likely had to take on two more.  Feeling a little bad about not getting back to him (and guilty since he thought I was mad at him for being “hard to deal with”, I sent him back a feeler, with one of the players I was protecting who had the good contract.

The best I can do right now is:

I receive:

Randy Johnson ($4.2)
Jason Jennings ($3.4)
Adrian Beltre ($3.6)

You receive:

Edwin Encarnacion ($0.5)
Brett Myers ($5.7)
Jeff Weaver ($0.7)
June FA pick
August FA pick

This was basically the same deal he sent me, taking out Hamilton and Gary Matthews.  Matthews was his replacement for Hamilton, and while it wasn’t a bad compromise, the move above just barely fit in my cap space - the nearly $2 million difference between Matthews and Hamilton (added into the fact that I really didn’t want to deal Hamilton) made it undoable on several levels.  I didn’t mean to put that much pressure on him (I sent him the offer on Monday, when our deadline is for weekly lineup cards), but it just happened to be when I came up with the deal.

He countered a few days later with this:

Just tossing this out there..

Tavarez .3 or Mathews 1.8
Beltre 3.4
R.Johnson 4.2
Jennings 3.4

FOR

Encarnacion .5
Hamilton .1
B.Myers 5.7
June FA Pick

“Tavarez” is Willy Taveras, who has a few things going for him - speed, average, and center field range.  He also had an extra year on his contract, meaning he’d be .4 next season and signed.  Unfortunately from an offensive standpoint, he doesn’t bring much else to the table other than singles, and there were concerns from my side that Colorado wasn’t interested in playing Taveras full time for whatever reason.  [Gary] Matthews was more appealing, as he brought more offense to the table while still giving a good center field range and speed, but for the reasons mentioned before, fitting him under the cap was going to be difficult.  Either way, this trade couldn’t be done anyway, due to the cap.

So I took a different approach.  I could see that anything being done with him would have to involve both of my key bargaining players (Encarnacion and Hamilton), so I shot big.  Plus, I had to figure out some way to get everything under the cap.  So I sent him an inquiry more than an offer, just to see what could possibly bite:

I only have 4.5 million in cap room, so I’m still trying to figure out what would work for me - unfortunately I don’t have any other “big” contracts that I’m not using

A few questions - do you plan on DITRing Peralta, and would you consider dealing Putz in a deal, even a possible deal where I’d trade him back to you after the season is over?

Admittedly, there was some creativity or deception going on here, depending on how you look at it.  Two more names get thrown into the mix here - JJ Putz and Jhonny Peralta.  Putz has been lights out for Seattle this season, and was a player I could have really used; however his usefulness wasn’t my #1 thought for him in asking about him.  Peralta I was actually outbid for in this season’s draft by Apple because we both felt he was going to have a good rebound year (which he has been).  I managed to shrug off my disappointment by picking up Edgar Renteria, who is having a better season (HA!).  My thought with Peralta (and Putz) was that I could deal for them, swapping them for starters that I currently had who were making more, and making up some of the cap room that way.  Peralta would have been swapped for Ray Durham (with Renteria probably sliding over to 2B), saving a whopping $300k, while Putz would have been swapped for Bobby Howry, a major improvement while also saving $1.7 million in cap room.

The issue with both of these guys was the Diamond In The Rough rule (DITR, as referenced above).  The rule states that you can take one player at the end of each season and extend his contract by a year, just as long as you originally drafted him at our auction draft.  Peralta was making $3 million this season, and while I didn’t think he was necessarily “worth” it at $4 million, Apple could have extended that contract knowing he’d have a productive shortstop with good range for next year.  Putz, while not at the end of his contract, was originally drafted by Apple, so he could DITR him either this year or next adding on one more year of one of the top closers in the game at a bargain $500k (considering top closers have been going for over $3 million in previous drafts).  Even if I traded back Putz to Apple, he’d lose his DITR eligibility since he was traded from his original team.

The Putz “offer” was also complicated because of its ethical nature.  Conditional trades are going to happen, and they’re not illegal in terms of the constitution (in fact, there’s something in there stating their legality).  However conditions need to be stated at the time of the deal, as a matter of letting the league know the actual full trade (in order to protest if it’s not on the up-and-up) and to have something in writing if a conflict should arise once it comes time to act on the condition.  That said, a “trade back” wouldn’t fly if announced to the league.  It’s basically renting a player and would open up a huge can of worms in the future if it were allowed and accepted.  This isn’t to say that it hasn’t been done before, but generally it has been kept quiet in such a way that the rest of the league would not suspect that such a deal has been done.  The thing was that I wasn’t trying to screw over the league - my ethical issue was that I never intended to offer the trade back.  I’ll get into this later.

While I was making this offer, Apple was sending out an email to the rest of the league letting them know that Johnson and Jennings were still available.  The following day, Johnson went on the DL, and Apple sent out another email to the league stating that some people had contacted him about Johnson and Jennings, that Johnson was still on the DL, but if anyone was still interested in talking about them to contact him.

I (as nicely as I could) forwarded him the email I had sent to him earlier asking about Putz and Peralta.  It was obvious to me that he was looking to build up the demand for the two players, which wouldn’t have been as bad if he wasn’t ignoring my email.  Finally, I get a reply:

I am debating on who I will make my DITR. It will either be Peralta or Hamels. Peralta is cheaper but a 2008 rotation of Hamels, Hill, Martinez, Liriano and J.Johnson with Owings in the wings is tempting. I have two other offers on Peralta so I am weighing my options.  As for Putz, I have not thought about that at all. It may be something I may look into later. Let me know what you have in mind.

I understood the dilemma.  Cole Hamels made more money than Peralta, and a DITR on him would mean an $8.7 million price tag on him for next season, but $8.7 million for a top 10 pitcher (which Hamels was showing signs of at the time, and still only 23) seemed like a good risk.  I had mentioned Hamels as possible trade bait in the past with him, but with his contract being that much more than Johnson or Jennings’, it never panned out.  I sent him an email telling him that I would probably lean towards putting the DITR on Hamels, not because I wanted to get Peralta so much, but being honest.

He responded by putting out another email to the league saying that Peralta might be available.  For those of you keeping score at home:

• I asked about the player
• He said he wasn’t sure if he was keeping him for next year
• I said that if it were me, I wouldn’t extend him for next year
• He went to the league and told them he was available

Common courtesy would have been to at least keep discussing him with me until talks broke down, then to announce to the rest of the league that he was available.  Whatever - I could see that Peralta would be too much trouble than it was worth (especially to get all of $300k in cap room), so I shrugged it off and made another offer:

I was thinking:

Gary Matthews (1.8)
Adrian Beltre (3.4)
Randy Johnson (4.2)
Jason Jennings (3.4)
J.J. Putz (.3)

FOR

Edwin Encarnacion (.5)
Josh Hamilton (.1)
Brett Myers (5.7)
Bob Howry (2.0)
Eric Duncan (.3)
June FA pick

Difference of 4.5, which I have 4.5 of cap room.  Thoughts?

This would be the first time (and next to last time) I would offer both Encarnacion and Hamilton in a deal.  In it, I would get the pitchers I was requesting, the replacements for the starters with good contracts I was asking for in Matthews and Beltre, and in including Putz and Howry into the deal, making up the cap space it would have taken me to take those four contracts on, while also greatly upgrading my bullpen.  Note that there’s no mention in that offer of trading back Putz.  That was intentional, since in that offer I had no intention of trading back Putz.  Call it whatever you will, but that was my offer.

I would end up receiving this:

How about this:

Mathews 1.8
Jennings 3.4

for

Hamilton .1
Howry 2.0
Your June & August FA Picks

Let me know or send a counter

Note a few things here.  First, we’ve essentially ignored the previous offer.  The only thing that triggered, apparently, was me sending Howry in that deal (in order to get Putz and open up cap room), so suddenly Howry became “player on the block”.  Also, we’ve added another FA pick, we’ve made Hamilton the focus of the deal for him (my top bargaining chip), and we’ve dropped the offer to the second-tier pitcher in Jennings.  That’s one of the problems in larger deals - names that get brought up in order to “even” a deal end up getting confused for actual demand, and level of demand gets centered across the board.  The thought here was to strip my earlier deal down to just a few players on both sides, but for whatever reason to think that I would forget who I most wanted, or who I wanted to keep most.  That wasn’t happening, and I could see that the deal was starting to slip away.  My frustration showed with my next offer, which was basically doing what he did to my earlier mega-deal except for my advantage:

It’s not worth it to me to deal off one of those guys (Encarnacion or Hamilton) just for Jennings.  How about:

Beltre
Johnson

for

Encarnacion
Myers
June FA pick

Keep in mind too that Johnson is on the DL at the time I’m making this offer.  My goal in this deal is to minimize my risk if something should happen to Johnson.  I had made a deal several years ago where I picked up Wade Miller right before he was lost for the season (and his career pretty much ended), and when I did the deal, I was digging a hole for myself with the players I was trading away.  The trade ended up making me worse that season with Miller going on the DL, something that I swore I wasn’t going to do again.  In making a deal like this, I was just hoping that Johnson would be healthy enough to give me good starts, but even if he didn’t, I was getting an equal value player (or better) at the third base position, so all I was trading away was a draft pick and an extra year of a cheap 3B.  Could Encarnacion put together a better season than Beltre for the rest of the year?  Sure, it’s possible, but it’s a minimal risk.

I also had to state in that email my feelings towards Jennings, who I viewed clearly as a lower option than Johnson.  I couldn’t rule out the potential confusion of Apple confusing my want for Jennings and Johnson since it had been mentioned more than a few emails ago, so I had to restate.

At the same time, I pulled a trick out of Apple’s book and announced to the league that I was offering up Encarnacion and potentially Hamilton for starting pitching and bullpen help.  It might get me some other offers, and at the same time, it put my negotiations with Apple on the same level, since he was telling the league all of our offerings.

Further unraveling:

Let me know what you think. I am fielding offers from three teams trying to get the best deal possible

“Hi.  My price for my players is going up despite the one you want being 43 years old with a history of injuries and currently on the DL.  I know that you said that you didn’t want to deal both of those players and that I had actually offered you a better deal earlier but I’m openly telling you that I’m working your deal with other people so feel lucky you’re even still in the mix.”

Yeah - he didn’t actually say that, but he did with that deal.  As mentioned and linked, he had offered me a similar, better deal a week earlier whose only real issue was that it didn’t fit under my cap.  This time though, he took out Jennings, Matthews, and Beltre and replaced them with Taveras and 28-year-old bench guy Greg Dobbs, who had started a whopping 25 games up to that point.  I’d learn why later.

I flipped out - not enough to be actually mad, but enough to be legit annoyed and to have a look on my face that my wife recognises as something being wrong.  I try not to tell her why (the mocking, the mocking) but I responded back with an offer, but not before my frustration:

The last offer I made was pretty much the initial offer you made me when we started discussions, just with one of the FA picks taken out to compensate for Johnson’s injury and Myers added to even out contracts.  The deal that you’re offering me now asks for both of my good contracts (including the very good Hamilton contract), reduces the amount of pitching being offered (previously Johnson and Jennings, now just Johnson) and brings in the lower quality replacements of Taveras (instead of Matthews) and Dobbs (instead of Beltre).  It’d be me taking a hit at two positions and losing two FA picks for the potential improvement of one player - a 43-year-old player currently on the DL.

I’ve given you pretty much all the possibilities I can think of.  I can’t give up both Encarnacion and Hamilton without getting Johnson and another good quality starting pitcher back in return, plus players to cover those positions without taking an offensive hit.  Since Hamels isn’t on the table (understandably), it then comes to Jennings.  Due to financial issues, I still need to move other salaries which is why I needed to bring in Putz in the deal (sending back Howry), with the understanding that if needed, I would send back Putz after the season was over in another deal so you had the remaining year on his contract for the 2008 season.

Those offers are pretty much the best I can do - I mentioned Peralta in a thought that I could potentially swap Durham for Peralta and play him at second base if you weren’t going to DITR him next season (which would free up another $0.3 in cap in a deal), but that would be a minimal cap fix and you could probably find better value for Peralta if you were to deal him elsewhere.

This is pretty much the best I can do, with the biggest deal being:

Gary Matthews (1.8)
Adrian Beltre (3.4)
Randy Johnson (4.2)
Jason Jennings (3.4)
J.J. Putz (.3)

FOR

Edwin Encarnacion (.5)
Josh Hamilton (.1)
Brett Myers (5.7)
Bob Howry (2.0)
Eric Duncan (.3)
June FA pick
August FA pick <– last time I offered this the August pick wasn’t included

or something smaller, such as:

Beltre
Johnson

for

Encarnacion
Myers
June FA pick

That’s something I can do.  I’m sorry if you feel the deals from those other teams are stronger than mine, but I’ve been basically working with the counters that you’ve given me and just tried to work out the salaries.

Anyway, let me know.

I laid it all on the line.  Without giving away all my strategy, I told him where I was coming from and what I needed to do in a deal.  I stressed my needs, why I was asking about players, and what I thought was crap.  I was really annoyed at the “fielding other offers” crap, since trade discussions are like dating - you know that in all likelihood you’re not exclusive, but you don’t need to have it flaunted in your face.  I refused to back down from my earlier offers - the large one involving both Jennings and Johnson (and Putz - note that while I still mentioned trading him back, the offer didn’t mention that at all) and the smaller one that was the last offer I had sent him prior to this email.  There just weren’t any more possibilities, and with every effort I made to bring in new players resulting in the core of the deal being ignored by Apple, then I was going to be thick-headed and just restate what I thought was good, take it or leave it.  Or at the very least, worse as close as you can to it.  I even tried to give a little bit by offering the extra FA pick in the larger deal.

I really hate the “this is the reason your players suck, now trade them to me” strategy, but since it seemed that Apple was viewing Johnson with rose-colored glasses, I had to be realistic.  My reply was more apologetic than a counter, with Apple trying to imply that the other deals he was working on were in other leagues, and stressing again that he was trying to get the best deal for Johnson, and tried to lighten it up by asking how my 3-year-old liked the baseball game.  I replied back by telling him that I understood his position, knew that Johnson was his best bargaining chip, but restated my stance, explained my attachment to Hamilton (you have to state if you’ve got a non-statistical attachment to a player when it comes to trade negotiations, since people are going to be going on stats and potential and your value is going to be unnaturally higher), explained a scenario in where I might have done one of his offers, but held my offer(s) firm.  After I hit “send”, I felt that was it - no more negotiation, and that if he wanted to act he would, but that I doubted he would.

About a week and a half passed with no discussion.  Maybe those trade talks Apple was having were in other leagues, because despite having multiple offers going at once, he made zero deals.  The June FA draft was approaching, however, so I felt that it might be a good time to start up talks as draft positions were established, so if Apple really did want my pick, he’d see where it was and be able to determine whether the player he wanted would be available there.  In addition, unlike previous drafts we started it early with people announcing their picks to the league via the mailing list.  A perfect opportunity to open up trade talks, since one could definately see whether or not their player would be available by seeing who other teams drafted.

When it came to my pick, I sent a message to Apple to see if he wanted to start talking trade again.  I figured that the June FA pick would be that much more appealing since it was the current pick.  I didn’t really have any desire to keep the pick, since the only player I saw as an immediate help had gone in the pick previous.  He responded by saying he’d like to talk trade.  Yeah - no kidding.  A little help here?  I shot back an email noting my previous offers and stating that they were still open for discussion.  Johnson, at this point, was scheduled to come back off the DL that night.  I also asked about maybe doing a deal just for the pick - any immediate pitching help for the pick, quick and dirty.

I should have known better:

I would want to see if anyone else in the league would be interested in him but how about this:

M.Owings and W.Tavarez

FOR
J.Hamilton and June FA PICK

I know Hamilton is better than Tavarez but I thought Owings for the June FA pick might balance it.

Let me know what you think.

I think it sucks, Apple.  We’re back on Hamilton again, whom I’ve now stated at least 3 times that I don’t want to deal unless I get something really strong.  We’re swapping him out for Willy Taveras, who we’ve already stated is a lot less appealing than Hamilton and makes my team worse as a result.  And despite us taking about Hamilton, we’ve not only taken out Johnson but Jennings as well, and bringing in 24-year-old Micah Owings, who coincidentally happens to be the guy losing his spot in the rotation as a result of Johnson coming off the DL in the first place.

This isn’t to say that Owings wouldn’t be a nice player to have.  Picked up in last year’s FA draft by Apple, he’s signed for another year after this for $500k.  While Owings’ numbers on the surface looked like he’d be an immediate help for me (5-2, 3.84 ERA), in actuality he was treading water in most of his starts, rarely getting past the 6th inning with a WHIP of almost 1.4.  Two of twelve starts saw him record a game score higher than the 50s, but four below the 50s (with his last five starts reading 50, 52, 47, 42, and 51).  He’s the type of player that you trade away for a player for this season, not one that you’d be trading for.  He’d also fit the profile of the type of player I’d be looking for in the FA draft, so I didn’t view him that much stronger than a FA pick.  Once again, we’re backpedaling, and I’d find out why later.

I feel the need to explain my position again.  I’m not sure why at this point, but I guess it’s more for clarity so that when I stop negotiating with the guy, he (maybe) understands why:

While I’d do Owings for the June FA pick without an issue, it doesn’t make up for the difference between Hamilton on Tavarez, two year contract on Tavarez or not.  We’re talking 150 OPS points difference, and that’s not taking into effect the extra two years (potentially three for me with a DITR) for Hamilton.  The only thing Tavarez has going for him is the extra range, which isn’t that big of a deal for me.  Owings at one year would be worth a little bit more than the pick - the fact that Owings has two years is his selling point, but not something that I need.  You’d probably be better off shopping him to another team looking towards next year.

I done with work, so I won’t be online for an hour or so - if you can think of anything based on our past discussions with Jennings and Johnson, let me know.  Otherwise I’ll make the pick.

I honestly thought having the pick live and waiting would get him interested, but no such luck.  I gave him a little time to get back to me, but I got nothing back.  He did, however, announce to the league that Owings was now available with Johnson and Jennings.

That’s the Johnson and Jennings who Apple apparently refuses to speak to me about.

I went in a different direction with the pick, however, hoping to still keep something going between us, drafting a prospect (and signing him for four years) instead of drafting some temporary help for the bullpen.  Part of it was “best available player”, part of it was “another bargaining chip”, and part of it was “I hope this was the player you wanted to draft with your pick, Apple”.  Another bit of schadenfreude was watching as Johnson had his worst start of the season that day, pitching only three innings and giving up six hits and four runs (three earned), walking two, and striking out two.

Two days later, a trade is announced between Apple and another owner.  Apple sent away Matthews and Peralta in the deal, which explains why Matthews has been off the table for several days.  Still not hearing anything back from Apple, I sent him an email a few days later attempting to open up discussions again:

Wanted to touch base with you to see if you were interested in rekindling the Randy Johnson/Jason Jennings talk.  I selected [Phillies prospect Carlos] Carrasco keeping you in mind because he was (I believe) the best available pitching prospect out there that I could have gotten 4 years for, especially one that might start at the major league level this season (maybe for a start or two) and have a legit shot at being in the ‘08 major league rotation.

If you’re that protective/uncertain about Johnson, I’m willing to talk smaller about Jennings.  Let me know if the asking price has changed.  I’m really not that much more willing to deal Hamilton at this point without upgrading his position with his replacement (example - in early talks I had with [other owner], I mentioned the possibility of working Carlos Lee into a deal).

Anyway, let me know if you’ve thought of anything different.

Apple followed up by shipping off Jennings and Beltre in another deal for the four year contract of 27-year-old right-handed relief “prospect” Phil Stockman, the two year contract of Ryan Theriot (OPS at time of deal: .669), and two FA picks (and additional roster filler to make the cap work).  Seriously - I get hammered with demands for an outfielder with a four year contract pushing for Rookie of the Year thanks to a .914 OPS and the moment I take him out of the trade consideration I get cut off, yet offer a 27-year-old injury prone relief pitcher in AAA who has only pitched in 7 games this season thanks to injury along with one more year of a light-hitting utility infielder, and suddenly it’s “where do I sign?”

The frustration with the deal isn’t the value that Apple got for the players, but the hoops I had to jump through in order to get something that might work for both sides, only to have Apple seemingly take completely different approaches with my negotiations and those with other owners.  It seemed more obvious over time that Apple was getting confused attempting to “play the field”, and he would eventually start taking players off the table once negotiations started with another owner whose main focus was to get that players.  In my negotiations, Johnson was the main player, and Apple attempted to work that to his advantage by shopping him to others in an attempt to better the offer I was giving him.  Unable to get anything better and losing value on Johnson by the second, he fielded other offers from people who were looking at other components of our larger deal, namely Matthews, Jennings, and Beltre.  He pulled Putz off the table (understandably) because he had value after this season, but when offers came from other teams for Matthews, Jennings, and Beltre, they too were taken off the table, leaving our original negotiations to break down from four major starters to just one, but the demand never went down despite the value across the board declining.  With a better team owner, those three never get pulled off the table until they’re actually dealt in an attempt to get the best possible deal.  But with Apple, the focus gets lost because he tried to do too many things at once, and got in way over his head.

Yet for some reason, we seem to have full details of what happened to who and during what timeframe within hours of the discovery of the crime scene. Before midnight EST, less than an hour after RAW’s tribute show had ended, details were already being released that Chris was the murderer of Nancy and Daniel, and that the bodies were found in separate rooms. Immediately a flag gets raised - with all three victims dead, no witnesses, and the believed causes of death, there could be speculation of who killed who, but nothing obvious. While it’s unlikely that a seven year old would have killed his mother, it is possible that an adult woman could be physically capable of killing her child. But since there was a strong male and his death appeared to be a suicide (meaning he was the last to die), then he becomes the lead suspect. Or, as many of the media outlets wrote, the murderer.

As Monday rolls into Tuesday, the reported stories and snippets coming from various sources become some real-life macabre version of Clue: Chris killed Nancy first on Friday then his son on Saturday, and himself on Sunday. Chris killed his son first on Friday, his wife on Saturday, and himself later Saturday. Chris killed his wife on Saturday, watched the wrestling event he was supposed to be performing at on television with his son on Sunday, then killed him later that night, killing himself early Monday morning. Garbage bags, alarm clock cords, weight belts - and none of it is “wrong” because the media outlets that report it state that the police are “investigating the possibility” of it. Of course they’re investigating the possibility of it. They’re investigating the possibility that Kevin Sullivan, still bitter over losing Nancy and having to put over Chris in WCW, came in through an unlocked door, killed Nancy and Daniel, waited for Chris to come home, killed him, then hung him from his weight room to make it look like a suicide. They threw it out in a few minutes, but they investigated it. I think. But you get the point.

The point was that we had Chris Benoit convicted of the crime before the police made any kind of official announcement except that the three of them were dead, in separate rooms, and weren’t shot or stabbed. In an effort not to get scooped, especially on a high profile case like this, news outlets will throw out every scenerio they can possibly report legally so that if by chance somewhere down the line one of their reports turns out to be accurate, they can say that they were the first to report the breaking news.

And then there’s Scott Ballard. The Fayette County District Attorney seems to enjoy the spotlight, granting seemingly any interview possible that gets his name in the paper or a little TV face time. Starting the drama immediately by being quoted that the murder of a child “tore my guts out”, he then - almost in pro wrestling-like fashion - built the suspense by saying “the details, when they come out, are going to prove a little bizarre.”

OH BOY OH BOY I CANT WAIT

Building to a Tuesday 3PM press conference, AP got info from “a law enforcement source speaking on condition of anonymity” that gave causes of death to all three (strangle - Nancy, smothered - Daniel, hanging - Chris), and reported that Chris did it. Still without any timeframe though. AP would later speak with “people close to the investigation” and give a vague timeframe and weapons used to commit the crimes: Nancy, electrical cord, Saturday; Daniel, bag, Sunday; Chris, hanging (no more detail than that), Monday. At the same time, a gossip website somehow managed to scoop thesmokinggun.com by releasing the documentation of Nancy’s petition for divorce and request for an order of protection back in 2003. The petition and the order were both rescinded by Nancy a few months later, but BANG - we have motive now. Mind you, there were no reported events of domestic violence on the record and that the divorce petition and order of protection mentioned threats that Chris made and that he destroyed property in the house, but made no mention of there ever being any physical contact.

Now, I’m not saying that Nancy wasn’t justified in filing what she did or that her concerns weren’t legit at the time. But the problem with that is that there are people who would use something like this unethically for whatever reason - more of a financial allowance, a new car, a rewrite of the will, etc. Again, not saying that Nancy would do that, but unfortunately the actions of others in the past has to leave the shadow of doubt over the validity of any kind of claim like this. There’s no proof needed to file that claim (physical abuse could be backed up by medical records or police records), just a sworn affidavit. And when filed against a professional wrestler who is (obviously) much stronger than she is and works in a profession where violence and rage are common? No judge in the country would question that. The problem there is that the document essentially means nothing, but the fact that it exists automatically makes it true, and paints a violent history, whether deserved or not.

Ballard, not surprisingly, was the key man when the 3PM press conference took place. He stated that law officials believed the asphyxiation theory (never stating with what, however) with a timeframe of Nancy on Friday night, Daniel on Saturday morning, and Chris’ hanging on Saturday night (instead of Sunday, which had been reported an hour earlier). He mentioned signs of a struggle with Nancy, with Nancy’s hand and feet bound with tape and blood under her head. He mentioned Nancy was found in an upstairs living area, while Daniel was found in his bedroom, both with bibles placed next to their bodies. Ballard mentioned that Benoit hung himself with a cord.

He brought up that steroids were found in the house, along with “lots” of what is believed to be legal prescription medication was found in the house. What kind of medication? Don’t know - that may be released to the media at a later date. Important to mention during the press conference, but potentially not important enough to give details about. Maaaaaaaybe something bad. Maaaaaaaybe something good.

OH BOY OH BOY I CANT WAIT

Text messages were sent by Benoit to one of Benoit’s co-workers. What did they say? We can’t get into that right now.

OH BOY OH BOY I CANT WAIT

[The WWE knew the details of the text messages and were going to release them on their website, but were asked not to by local law officials. Ballard would later state in an EXCLUSIVE~! interview with ESPN.com that one of the two "alarming" text messages stated that his wife and son were sick. "Of course, they were dead," Ballard was quoted as saying. Yet when WWE.com would later post the five (not two) text messages that were sent from Chris and Nancy's phones, none of them had anything to do with any illness excuse; four were similar messages stating the Benoit family's physical address, while the fifth mentioned that their dogs were in an enclosed area and that the garage side door was open, presumably to give whomever received the messages instructions on where to find the crime scene, and how to enter the house without force. More on Ballard and ESPN.com in a minute.]

It was mentioned that Benoit had been previously arrested (for DUI) but had no prior history of domestic violence. It was also mentioned that there was no suicide note.

The final note from the press conference goes back to Ballard, who weighed in on the bizarreness (is that a word?) and to remind us, once again, his feelings about Daniel.

“In a community like this, it’s bizarre to have a murder/suicide, especially involving the death of a seven-year-old child. That’s what struck me the most in all this: There’s a seven- year-old little boy who’s dead. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to wrap my mind around that completely.”

“It struck me as somewhat bizarre that he would even be in the home with their deceased bodies all that time … I’m baffled why anyone would kill a seven year old. I don’t have any idea at all about a motive.”

SEVEN YEARS OLD. IF YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN, DANIEL WAS SEVEN YEARS OLD. SEVEN IS A NUMBER BETWEEN SIX AND EIGHT. IT IS AN ODD NUMBER. SEVEN YEARS OLD. DEAD SEVEN. SEVEN SEVEN SEVEN.

I mean come on, people. There’s a lady upstairs that was bound at the head and feet and was strangled with… well, something. An electrical cord, I guess. But meh - shit happens, you know? SEVEN YEARS OLD.

I’m sure that Ballard, at that very moment, wished he had seven fingers on his hand just so he could hold them all up as he was making that point. Holding up both hands just looks kind of dumb, and after all could potentially block someone’s camera shot.

Ballard would later speak to ESPN.com, as I mentioned above, about the supposed text message (to clarify, Benoit did contact WWE to tell them that his wife and son were sick, but that had nothing to do with the text messages that were sent that raised suspicion to the company that led them to contact authorities) and about some new information about SEVEN YEAR OLD Daniel, whom is SEVEN YEARS OLD. Ballard mentioned that Daniel had needle marks on his arm, and stated that he believed that he was being given human growth hormone by his parents because of concerns that he was undersized for his age. He knew this because he found a note that said “Nancy, can you give Daniel the growth hormone tonight? I won’t be in until later, and I’m a bit concerned that if he misses this dosage that he’ll remain this size.”

Just kidding - Ballard guessed. A person later came out in a news story to say that she had been in contact with Benoit years prior and learned that Daniel had Fragile X Syndrome, but that didn’t stop Ballard to make a generalized assumption - and state it to a national media outlet - without a toxicology report or any other information. Again, not saying that it’s not possible that what Ballard is assuming is true, but for a DA to state that he believes this to be true in an interview so early into the investigation is irresponsible and makes him look like he’s taking the Nifong route.

After the press conference, the rumors seemed to die down somewhat. The focus turned more towards reaction - what Vince McMahon and WWE would do on Tuesday night with their show tapings, and the eventual outpouring of generalized steroids=this hyperbole from columnists and talking heads looking to be topical or to (in the case of some sports writers) take the focus off of their sports (which have been facing heavy scrutiny from the federal government) and towards wrestling. And, of course, no mention of any death in wrestling can go by without some chart or statistic mentioning the mortality rate of professional wrestlers compared to other sectors of society.

But the following day, Ballard was at it again, using his expert forensics experience to appear on Good Morning America and state that he believed Daniel was killed by a choke hold.  Of course, this plays perfectly into Benoit’s profile, being a wrestler.  It allows for a stereotype to be fit - violent wrestler uses violent wrestling move to kill.  Whether true or not, it doesn’t matter at this point; the Benoits are dead, so unlike say… oh, I don’t know, maybe a couple of lacrosse players, Ballard can use his junior detective kit and get on TV as much as possible.  That way, when election time rolls around again, everyone will know his name.  Hey - do you know who your county’s district attorney is?

Had I written this post at 10PM yesterday, it would have been different from that one.

Had I written this post at 1AM this morning, it would have been different from either of those.

At 8AM, at 10AM, even as I write this now, I’m not sure how to write this.

There are constants. Chris Benoit is one of the wrestlers that got me back into watching the product back in the mid 90s. The story is similar to a lot of the “hardcore” group that were drawn in by ECW - disappointed in the cartoonish crap that Vince McMahon was presenting and finally angered by the direction WCW had taken (going more towards the “family friendly” product that the WWF was producing and away from the traditional product that made Jim Crockett’s sector of the NWA the show to watch), the hardcore fans were willing to take pretty much anything that they could see on TV and had the things they wanted - blood feuds and workrate. Along came ECW, which had been working just the same as a hundred other indy feds in front of a handful of people in South Philadelphia who were a bit smarter than your average mark, but bigger marks at the same time.

It was lightning in a bottle - the fanbase was unusual in that it was overly strong in both their support and fickleness. Given the right product, there was money to be made for all involved as long as it was done right. Do it wrong, and you could lose that fanbase in just a few shows, a luxury that the major promotions didn’t have to worry about. Eddie Gilbert saw it, and when Paul Heyman got control, he ran with it. Since Paul could easily view things from the fan’s perspective (most managers are just that - fans of the product who happen to get an in with one of the workers) he could identify with what the fans wanted. Additionally, he got to live through the WCW product as a manager to see firsthand the things that the company was doing right and what the company was doing wrong. From that, Paul built, taking the smart route of building his roster with familiar workers that the casual fan knew (Jimmy Snuka, Doink) and his own original workers. But the company grew - and thrived - when Paul signed the workers who fit inbetween those two classifications. With contacts and past experience working with many people in WCW, Paul signed people who might have been somewhat familiar to fans of the major promotions, but who got misused or buried in the undercard where they were silently putting over less qualified talent. It’s similar to the small market baseball team using extra scouting to find what castoffs really were worth the time, while at the same time scouting the farm systems and foreign leagues to find talent.

Ask any “smart” fan to tell you three traditional breeding grounds of pro wrestlers outside of the United States and they’ll give you three areas: Japan, Mexico, and Canada. Heyman hit all three with success.

It was Canada - Calgary, specifically - that brought Chris Benoit to ECW. Benoit was an incredible worker who was a student of the industry, skilled enough technically to thrive in Japan, a country whose professional wrestling tastes leaned more towards the 45 minute match than to the 12 minute fireworks show. In America, interviews built the character. In Japan, your ringwork developed the character. Benoit thrived in the environment, and Japan loved him. So why was he unheard of in the United States by all but a handful of people?

Benoit was 5′7″, at best, and American major promotions booked size before talent for the mostpart. Add onto that Benoit lacked charisma; he wasn’t traditionally attractive and didn’t talk that well in interviews. The package made him unattractive to the major promotions who wanted to put their characters on lunch boxes and cartoons. Plus, Benoit’s size made him difficult to book against larger opponents. Benoit might work in a tag team (where smaller workers tended to gravitate) or low on the card, but for someone who was working on top of the card in Calgary and making very good money in Japan where he was respected not only by other workers but the fanbase too, there really wasn’t a reason for Benoit to work in America, and at the same time, America didn’t really want him.

Until Paul Heyman. Heyman approached Benoit with something unique - a major push in a promotion with a strong (and growing) underground fanbase and a weekly television show. With ECW seemingly being “the” place to work, Benoit accepted. The fit worked since there were no Lex Lugers or Hulk Hogans in the ECW promotion. Most workers were smaller, and those who were bigger were kept in their own feuds with similar workers. Benoit didn’t need to wear a cape or rename himself or try to be charismatic - he just had to be Chris Benoit.

Benoit thrived in ECW, and I caught him there at his peak. I knew Benoit through Apter mags but knew little about him except that he was a small guy. Benoit was presented to me in possibly the best way he could have been booked - this scary-looking bully who people, regardless of size, were a little concerned about because he could snap, and that he seemingly liked to hurt people without conscience. [Note: At the time I write this now (12:56PM 7/26) I can see the eerie coincidence of this] Two clips were shown over and over in regards to Benoit - his powerbomb of Flyboy Rocko Rock off the top rope through a table (unseen at the time - one of those jaw dropping moments) and him dropping Sabu on his head, breaking his neck (a blown spot, Sabu’s neck was legit broken when Benoit backdropped Sabu but instead of landing on his back as the spot would normally go, Sabu fell directly on his head. Obviously unplanned, it was milked for as much as it could possibly be used.) He was grouped with Shane Douglas and Dean Malenko - Douglas the least skilled worker of the three but an awesome mouthpiece, and Malenko the quiet and calculated ring technician who could outwrestle anyone. There was tension though, as Benoit was thought to want Douglas’ championship, and having no conscience there was the constant feeling that Douglas had to watch his back.

Benoit would later go on to WCW (as did most of ECW’s mid-90s roster in an attempt to eliminate the competition) where he remained somewhat under the radar for several years (thanks to poor booking), then over to WWF(E) where he got booked properly, enjoyed several title reigns (including a hell of a main event at Wrestlemania 20 where he won one of the WWE World Titles - I don’t know which one), and remained a major star for the length of his tenure, excluding a year he lost due to injury.

But all of that goes away. It’s hard to explain, even as bits and pieces slip out from supposed close sources of what actually happened, how something like this could happen. This isn’t Phil Hartman’s wife having a drug issue and killing the two of them. This isn’t some kind of Lifetime movie where the abusive husband eventually takes that final step, or even so many pro wrestling suicides where a career is ending (or over) and injuries and drugs cloud the brain so that something that seems so logical to them is in reality completely insane. This is a person without (to my knowledge) an arrest record, at least any time recently. No signs of alcohol abuse, no signs of recent marital issues (Benoit had been married previously when he got into his relationship with Nancy), no real sign that there was anything wrong. Maybe something will come out of this later (things always seem to), but if there was a history of violence it would have already come up - police records aren’t that hard for the media to search and access.

What triggers something like that? What causes you to one moment be a friend to coworkers, the first call people make when they’re in trouble or need help, and then the next moment be someone capable of taking the life of not just an adult, but a seven-year-old boy?

EDIT: And my answer is pretty much given for me - Benoit apparently did have a history of domestic violence, which led to Nancy filing for divorce and an order of protection in 2003, with an evaluation for drug/alcohol abuse and a batterer’s intervention program. Nancy also sought sole custody of Daniel. While the petition never says that Chris ever hit either of the two of them (the complaint only states that Chris threatened to strike Nancy and caused damage to their possessions), the past history sets the tone. And while this could have very easily be viewed as essentially nothing concrete being used in order to have a reason to file for divorce (it would be difficult to prove or deny threats made, especially if made during an argument at home and not recorded), the profile (considering Benoit’s usage of steroids) fits all too well.

Press conference in 4 minutes - I’m betting that I don’t want to hear this.

There are players I’m in a continuing league with who I can’t remember ever making a trade outside of a draft pick for draft pick trade (”I’ll give you my April pick for a pick in June”).  This can be chalked up to a few things, and while I won’t mention any of them specificly with these guys (some apply for some, some apply to others), surely the players in my leave that have tried to deal with them (and pretty much anyone in any league) have seen these guys too.

All too often, you hear complaints that there isn’t enough “action” in the league - no one is making trades, no one is pushing out offers, no one is returning my offers, etc.  Just because you’re active doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily stirring up the pot for good trade activity.  Just the same as someone who won’t call anyone back, there are team owners who from afar seem to be the biggest dealers in the league, but upon closer look are as tough to deal with as the owner who disappears.

Some hints:

• Be specific.  Sending out a generalized email to the league saying “I need starting pitching - email me” will get you zero.  No kidding - everyone needs starting pitching.  If you’re a seller and looking to trade off a good starting pitcher chances are that you’ve already scouted out teams that are going to need the starter you’re offering and contacted them.  Very rarely will a guy who has a top line starting pitcher that they’re shopping say “oh crap - team 3 needs a starting pitcher?  Thank the heavens for his email!”  The only thing you’re going to get out of an email like that is people shopping starting pitchers who you don’t want, or worse yet the “I’ve got starting pitching, let me know” reply, which turns into a painful process if anything.  If you’re going to send out a league-wide email, talk about the bait first (who you’re shopping), then what you want for it.  Someone who might have ignored that email because they have six starting pitchers and don’t want to lose their depth may see that name you’re dangling and send you an offer they wouldn’t have before.  You’re not hurting a player’s feelings by dangling him as bait - this isn’t real.
• Be realistic.  Nothing will kill a deal (and a trading relationship) quicker than asking for the farm for your mediocre utility infielder.  Shooting high is encouraged and understandable - see what that owner is willing to offer - but set the bar too high and you’ll scare off someone and possibly get labeled in a way that will keep anyone from dealing with you.  No one likes to waste time, so set your sights realisticly, and while you’re at it, try…
• View the deal from the other team’s perspective.  If your trading partner isn’t returning your emails, take a look at the trade from his perspective.  Is there any reason he should do it?  What does he get out of it?  The best and easiest made trades are the ones where someone who has a position of depth and a position of need finds a trading partner with an opposite position of depth and need.  It goes back to Sesame Street - one guy has a whole bunch of bread but no meat, while the other guy has a whole bunch of meat but no bread.  They get together, and suddenly everyone’s eating sandwiches.  Dump/future trades aren’t as easy - you, as the GM who’s looking to score a big name player by trading off prospects or cheap contracts, aren’t going to be giving equal value statisticly.  From your view, you’re dealing off a handful of players who might not be starting for you or contributing in the slightest for a top player at his position.  Sure, you think, why shouldn’t this guy do the deal?  It’s not like he’s going to win this season anyway.  But there are several other GMs in the same mindframe who want that same player, so your deal has to be the better offer.  Could this deal come back to bite you in the ass?  Offering up the discounted Wes Helms and the potential “breakout” of Eric Duncan might seem fair to you, but if that player you’re shooting for is worth anything, expect that other GM to ignore your offer and wait until something else better comes along.
• Do your research.  If your best bargaining chip is your depth at shortstop, your first stop shouldn’t be the team that has both Derek Jeter and Hanley Ramirez under contract.  Sure, he may have depth at another position you’re looking for, but you’ve got nothing to offer him.    He may be willing to deal too, but you’re going to get to that point where you realize that there’s nothing you guys can do, and that’s just wasted time.
• Start off with an offer.  I’ve had trade talks with owners that have numbered in double digit emails without one trade offer being put on the table.  All of that is posturing and wasted time chalked up to ownership that is afraid to be taken in a deal.  One of the biggest fears of a fanalytic owner is to make an offer and have it taken immedately, with snickering in the background.  It doesn’t matter if it helped you, if the league thinks you got taken, then you’re going to catch hell for it for the entire season.  Hell, even if that move helps you win that season, if you traded away good prospects that end up blossoming, then you’ll have that trade thrown back in your face for years to come.  They won’t remember that the trade helped you win the championship - it was that you traded away that franchise player.  That being said, you’ll get plenty of owners who are afraid to make an offer because they’re not secure in knowing how valuable their players are.  Get two of these teams together, and it’s the longest trade discussion that doesn’t go anywhere.  Do the research, and start off the discussion with an offer - it doesn’t have to be a perfect offer, but it at least is getting the players on the table and will give you a hint as to who is available and who isn’t.  It also lets the other person know that you mean business and are willing to make a deal right now, and that the pressure is on him to either accept or tell you why he won’t.  Again though, don’t make it too crazy of an offer, because you’ll scare off anything that might come out of it, but if you are willing to open up (by making that initial offer), then your target GM will be much more willing to open up as well.
• Reply back, no matter how bad.  I’ll admit I don’t listen to my own advice as often as I should, and here is one of my main weak spots.  It’s real easy to get a bad offer (or even a vague inquiry) and ignore it or shrug it off.  But keep in mind that the GM specificly emailed you (or contacted you - I use email as a general term because that’s all the contact I seem to make, but there are some owners who enjoy the phone) so he sees something and therefore did at least a little research.  Take a little time to either check out his roster and let him know why you wouldn’t do that deal (or what you’re interested in on his side if he’s just giving you the “I like X, what would you want for him?” email).  It’s courteous, and it also prevents the sender from sending 300 “did you get my email?!?!?!” followups because he may still think that his deal is good, and that you’ve got a crappy email client or something, and that’s the only thing standing between his Bruce Chen for Cole Hamels deal getting accepted by you.

I’ll follow this up in the near future with a look at some of the deals I did this season, how I did them, and some of the deals that didn’t quite work out.

You’d think wrong.

The lunch hour can get pretty busy with traffic, so I left a little before 12 to tackle my mission - one roll of five flavor Life Savers.  The “roll” aspect was important - my wife needed the roll in order to measure and set up one of the favors that she was designing for her business.  Still not being an expert on the area, I went straight across the street to one of the local shopping centers.  My first thought was BJ’s - a warehouse store would surely have them, but I wasn’t 100% sure if we needed a metric ton of them.  But I figured it was worth a shot, until I realized that I didn’t have my membership card with me.  I could stand in line and have them take a picture and make a new card, but I figured there were plenty of other options, so I left as soon as I parked and searched for a new destination.

STORE #1: WORLD IMPORTS

Perhaps a little bit of a stretch, it was the next closest store and one I enjoy browsing in.  I know they had lots of food and candies from around the world, but I wasn’t guaranteed of picking up any American ones.  Sure enough, after a little searching, I determined that the Life Savers were a lost cause; however all was not lost, as I picked up some wasabi-dusted shrimp-flavored “chips” (more like curls), a bag of summer picnic BBQ kettle corn, and two bags of Japanese gummis that I used to get from J-List (one muscat, one peach) which intrigued the woman behind me in line so much that she chatted me up for a little while.

So World Imports was a miss, but at least I got some snacks.  These would come in handy later on.  I scanned for a grocery store but there wasn’t one in the complex, so I looked around for other options.  I saw an OfficeMax in another shopping complex, and knowing that there is always a snack section by the registers there, I started off that way.  Before I hit the OfficeMax, I was the glowing bullseye and figured that they’d have to have what I was looking for - they had everything else.

STORE #2: TARGET

I walked into Target slightly guilty - it’s my oldest son’s favorite store, so I went straight to the registers and looked, finding almost every kind of handheld candy imaginable - except Life Savers.  Breath mints, energy candy, gums, chocolate, but no Life Savers.  I went to the candy section, thinking I could buy one of those 5 packs of rolls there, and I got the closest I had gotten yet - Life Savers, 5 flavor variety, in a bag.  I had seen the peppermint ones before; individually wrapped Life Savers that you can put in a candy dish or something to share with others.  Rolls aren’t like that.  They’re yours, usually stuck together, with a little lint on them from being in your pocket.  It’s like the Wrigley company (who currently makes Life Savers) wants you to share your purchase with everyone.  Screw you Wrigley, I paid for them, I’ll determine if I want to share them or not.  No wonder his team threw the World Series.

So a little shaken from what I thought would be a no-brainer, I ventured across the parking lot to my original reason for coming over to this area.

STORE #3: OFFICEMAX

Office supply stores, at least the chains, always seem kind of empty and heartless.  Huge, warehouse-style buildings with big, huge aisles spread out to look like the biggest supply closet in the world.  This one was no different, but I didn’t wander in too far, just going to the registers and a small area near it where there was a larger candy selection.  No luck there either, so I got out of there before I was tempted to buy a dry-erase board or something.

By now, something I thought would take 5 minutes had eaten most of my lunch break.  I had opened the kettle corn already and almost finished the entire bag (small bag, chill out), and had a taste of the peach gummies and the shrimp crackers (that’s a burp I’m not looking forward to).  I was running out of ideas, I wasn’t going to be able to get lunch, and for an added challenge, I had no cash.  Needing one last good shot, I considered a dollar store, but seeing too much risk, ventured to its neighbor, which I thought would HAVE to have what I was looking for.

STORE #4: SHELL GAS STATION

Since there’s no such thing as a 7-11 in North Carolina, I crossed my fingers had hoped the only gas station in sight would have a halfway decent convienence store and an ATM.  After all, buying one roll of Life Savers with a debit card is a little… I don’t know.

Sure enough, I found them - a box of five flavor Life Savers, next to boxes of other kinds of Life Savers, mostly mint flavored.  I grabbed one, and looked for the ATM.  None.  Guh.  I didn’t have time to look anywhere else, and I had them in hand, so I looked around for other stuff to buy to at least get my total over $1.  Little Debbie helped me out with a package of Nutty Bars and a Star Crunch, something I tried to remember why I liked because as a chocolate-based cake, it’s not something I would have seeked out originally.  Totaling a little over $2, I pulled out the debit card and they dealt with it.  I figure that it’s a gas station, pretty much everyone there uses a credit card for their purchases.

So that’s it - 4 stores (6 if you count the two aborted stops), 45 minutes, and a lunch of popcorn and snack cakes, but I succeeded.  It sits on my keyboard right now, a trophy of accomplishment.