Archive for November, 2008
While the well isn’t yet dry or the oil line completely tapped, the supply of Japanese baseball players into the MLB will not be a steady as it was ni years past. Other than Junichi Tazawa, who is now expected to be signing with the Boston Red Sox, there will not be many players coming from overseas to play in the 2009 season. It’s also expected that the year after (and possibly the year after that) there will be little prospect coming from Japan. Read the full story on MLB.com.
November 28th, 2008
Junichi Tazawa, a free agent ace pitcher in the Japanese amateur league, has been offered 4 separate deals from MLB teams. Of the four teams, the Texas Rangers have put the biggest offer on the table. If Junichi Tazawa agrees to one of these four offers, he will be the first Japanese pitcher to avoid his country’s draft.
November 24th, 2008
CC Sabbathia is reportedly in negotiations with several clubs who want to get the pitcher for next season. One of the clubs involved is the New York Yankees, who have apparently offered him 140Million US$. This prompted someone from the Milwaukee Brewers organization (another team involved in it) to say that he believes that the Yankees have overbid for him. The reports are that Milwaukee has offered $100million and so it probably would be overbidding to offer him $40million more. But perhaps they actually want him that much. Sabbathia is a really good pitcher and has impressed a lot of people over the last year or so. He almost pulled the team a lot of the way into the playoffs, but couldn’t quite get the job done. Perhaps next year.
November 18th, 2008
When the Gm for the San Diego Padres announced that the club would not be renewing any contracts with ace pitcher Jake Peavy, general managers ears’ around the league perked up. First to attempt any negotiations with the Braves was the Atlanta Braves organization, but they have since given up. It will not rule out Peavy and the Braves for certain, just the near future. Now, Peavy is still a Padre…but for how long?
November 14th, 2008
We were right. Yesterday,the Rookies of the Year were announced and they were: Evan Longoria of Tampa Bay for the AL, and in the NL it was the Cubs’ catcher Geovany Soto.
Today, the Cy Young Awards will be given out, in a matter of hours, actually. There are quite a few names being bounced about. Tim Lincecum is a second year pitcher, who is trying to take the award from some more veteran players. CC Sabbathia is another big name in there. Johan Santana could also be a winner. These are the main names, though pretty much everyone is a possibility. We’ll have to see, but it will be a cool choice.
November 11th, 2008
This Monday will be the beginning of the MLB awards showcase for outstanding players and teams this past year. The first award to be given out will be the Rookie of the Year award. Leading the charge for rookie of the year in the American league are Alexei Ramirez of the Chicago White Sox and Evan Longoria of the Tampa Bay Rays. As for the National League, many experts believe that the title will go to breakout Cubs catcher Geovany Soto, who both qualified and started for the NL All Star team this year. Learn more at MLB.com.
November 7th, 2008
The Milwaukee Brewers have been making a lot of changes lately. Of course, that’s what you’d expect when your team almost doesn’t make it into the playoffs, despite having a really great record up to that point. After Ned Yost was fired with just a dozen games left in the season, they put Dale Sveum in as their interim manager. Now that they have a new manager, Sveum is going to be the team’s new hitting coach. Does the demotion bother him? No. He understood that it was a temporary gig as manager anyway. And he wanted to be a hitting coach all his life anyway. Sounds like a win-win and perhaps he can get the Brewers to get some real clutch hitting in.
November 3rd, 2008
