Some links from baseball's Central Divisions for your Sunday reading…
- New Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow has the right outlook, but very few pieces to work with, writes Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. One scout told Heyman that aside from Carlos Lee, only two players in the Astros' projected lineup have a chance to be even league-average hitters: Jason Castro and Chris Johnson.
- Corey Hart has torn cartilage in his knee that will require arthroscopic surgery and sideline him for three-to-four weeks, writes Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said they won't rush Hart back like they did from an oblique injury that cost him his 2011 Spring Training, and that Hart will likely open the season on the disabled list.
- MLBPA executive director Michael Weiner told Haudricourt that the leak in Ryan Braun's positive drug test was an isolated, case-specific incident and that the process doesn't have a confidentiality problem.
- Joel Zumaya has opted for Tommy John surgery, writes MLB.com's Rhett Bollinger. Dr James Andrews will perform the operation at the end of March, and the Twins have yet to decide if they'll place Zumaya on the 60-day DL or release him, assistant GM Rob Antony told Bollinger.
Chris Snyder isant a major league hitter? Low average but potential power
I sure Zumaya’s agent eagerly awaits the opportunity to sucker some GM out of his money next year.
The Brewers are pretty lucky, or you could say Braun’s lawyer is pretty good, that Braun isn’t out for 50 games with Hart’s injury. A 15 day DL stint for Hart, along with no Braun, would have made that offense look pretty weak for the first 2 weeks of the season.
And Aoki is smiling again.
“Joel Zumaya has opted for Tommy John surgery…”
And with that, Joel’s baseball career comes to an unfortunate, early end…
He wouldn’t have the surgery if he was thinking of retiring
He’s not coming back (picture that final scene from Point Break)…
Picture Mark Prior…
His body is going to force Joel to retire. I admire Zumaya’s determination to try it all again but right now, it doesn’t look good. I will never fault a player for trying though. If the money is there and a team is willing to give him a shot, more power to him.
GD Guitar Hero, right?
Heyman doesn’t care to mention that almost all of the Astros starting lineup will be under 25 and most of them are actually 23 and under. I am not sure how you can predict who and who wont be major league “Average” with that factor. Jd Martinez had 28 rbi in the month of August in his first taste of the big leagues. Altuve and Paredes also played well.
Are they all going to be awesome, probably not, but at least Major league average.
Surprised that they didn’t add Martinez to their list. I really liked what I saw from him last year.
I was surprised not to see Martinez and Lowrie, and to a lesser extent, Altuve and Bogusevic. And I was shocked to see Johnson. Really unnamed scout? Johnson didn’t forget how to hit last year. He forgot how to have a .390 BABIP.
What about Brett Wallace? He was once a top prospect.
That story was a bunch of bunk I thought.. Lowrie (if he stays healthy for a change) will hit in the top 1/3 of SS in the game, he is just a rotten fielding SS playing out of his natural 2B position.
This. Plus the fact that he never really hit at any level.
Yeah i would think J.D. Martinez should be league average and Lowrie should be able to manage average as a SS until he gets hurt.
I think it’s just easy to pile on the Astros and what Heyman is doing is no exception. The Astros should be better, I mean they traded away Hunter Pence and Mark Melancon plus being a below .500 team for awhile should of helped net them good prospects.
I don’t know much about the Astros farm system but I don’t think they are as hopeless as some see them as.
Most rankings have them somewhere between 18~25. Not as terrible as they’ve been in the last couple of years, but still pretty mediocre for a team who’s stunk for as long as they have.
Meanwhile, in Andrew McCutchen news…the extension is done. Wait for the fireworks Monday!
source? Or are you just bored?
Wow. Nice job breaking the story. You had it here way before I saw it anywhere else.
6 years/$51MM with a club option for $14.75MM. I like it.
What scout told him J.D. Martinez doesn’t have a chance to be league average, and what was he smoking/inhaling/injecting at the time?
I think these scouts are just made up. I can’t imagine any scout saying that Martinez, Altuve, Paredes, and Bogusevic won’t be at least average major league players. All of them were above average minor leaguers, and when they came up last year and each of them batted over 150 ABs, each of them hit above average. I believe Martinez at .274 was the lowest average and he had around 35 RBIs in a couple of months.
Chris Johnson!? Where do people come up with this stuff?
Ryan Braun can use if he likes, I’ll just tell the execs that his are not the roids they’re looking for.