Pete Rose will join the FOX Sports1 team, reports Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports. As you’re well aware, Rose is banned from baseball for gambling on the sport over 26 years ago. FOX is a broadcast partner with MLB, but the commissioner’s office has no say over who FOX does and does not hire. The media outlet did clear the move with MLB and says Rose was hired to provide a compelling, on-air personality. As I see it, this is a smart play for Rose as he continues to seek reinstatement.
- In 2013, the Phillies made a mistake by returning Rule 5 pick Ender Inciarte to the Diamondbacks, writes Jim Salisbury of CSN Philly. However, the club is at no risk of repeating the poor decision with Odubel Herrera. The 23-year-old is hitting .308/.372/.513 in 43 plate appearances. He’s temporarily supplanted Ben Revere atop the lineup. Herrera was selected last December from the Rangers – a team that could also use him right around now.
- Yankees GM Brian Cashman made a couple trades over the offseason to address shortstop and starting pitcher. Those moves have not shown positive early returns, writes Bill Madden of the New York Daily News. Cashman sent pitcher Shane Greene to Detroit in a three-team swap for Didi Gregorius. Greene has pitched excellently in two outings – 16 innings, zero runs, eight strikeouts, and one walk. Meanwhile, Gregorius has hit just .152/.194/.152 and with a couple iffy plays on defense. In a related move, Cashman dealt Martin Prado for hard-throwing Marlins pitcher Nathan Eovaldi. He’s allowed five runs over 10 and one-third innings.
- The Dodgers local TV blackout does not hurt the team’s brand, argues Bill Shaiken of the LA Times. Owner Magic Johnson said the same recently. As you might expect, there was some backlash to the comments. As Shaiken pointed out, the fans returned to the Dodgers after the Frank McCourt era. NFL teams are clamoring to return to the Los Angeles market despite losing a generation of fans. While L.A. residents may be forgiving, the club’s TV plans remain in limbo while federal regulators work through a proposed merger of Time Warner Cable and Comcast.
Eovaldi’s numbers are somewhat skewed, he had a lot of bad luck babip going on
Agreed. His last outing in particular he looked rather sharp. NY needs to learn the meaning of the word “patience”.
“NY” does have patience, it’s the media who is quick to judge their season a disaster after a few games.
I sort of intended that statement for the media, but fairly noted(I’m from NY so I can concur).
I hope Rose does get reinstated.
Also, Jon Daniels doesn’t seem like the sharp cookie everyone made him to be at one time.
Lastly, Didi G doesn’t seem like an effective shortstop to me. Plus, his glove is too big.
That is a ridiculous sized glove for shortstop. At least that is the way I feel about it.
Why can’t the Phillies just AVOID mistakes rather than making them and vowing not to repeat them….too many times…before trying something else.
Cause the media makes them out to be very bad because they have been ok in 2012, bad in 2013, very bad in 2014, about to be an absolute wreck in 2015, even though a small upswing will start next year. Everyone scrutinizes a GM who inherited money and a winning core directly after a world series trip who then messed up and made some errors the moment his team started losing. No one remembers the signings that made them winners 3 and half years ago but everybody remembers the players they didn’t sign or they did sign that didnt work out, or the moves they didnt make at the time or did make that hurt the ball club. The media makes this situation out so much worse then it is. They’re about to have high picks this year and probably the next 3 to add talent, and trades over the next 3 years will make this ball club .500 by 2018, possibly 2017. So everyone needs to chill, the Astros and Cub had 5 year rebuilds (Astros still ongoing) even with the poor teams over the last 2 seaons this team is gonna turn it around real fast. Just looks bad cause philly fans and media are harsh. Crawford, Biddle, Franco, Quinn, Eflin, Lively, Windle, Nola, the #10 pick, plus additional pieces in trades and upcoming drafts and J2 siginings. This team will be fine, everyone needs to calm down about their mistakes and look at the positives.
Thanks for your passion and optimism. It was mostly a rhetorical question. While I agree with your thinking, just stretching out the retooling is painful.
Just trying to find optimism and faith in the team when the media has none.
People are hard on the Phillies because the guy who made most of the bad decisions is still in charge of trying to fix them. That’s very unusual; teams entering rebuilds don’t generally keep the GM who guided them into one. The fact that you’re only just starting to enter your rebuild when, in your own words, they have been bad or very bad since at least 2013 is another problem.
RAJ’s trades have been bad, his extensions have been bad, the prospects he’s hung onto have been bad, drafts have been so-so, and he’s still at the helm. Replace him and the outlook becomes instantly more positive.
Outside the Hunter Pence deals, I really can’t recall a trade that RAJ made that was terrible.
Hes only really had 1 bad contract.
Theres a difference between a bad contract, and an unfortunate one. AJ Burnett, Brad Lidge and Joe Blanton, for example, wasn’t bad contracts. They were just ones that didn’t work out. Ryan Howard was a bad deal from the day the ink dried.
Why did they have to extend him FIVE years with two still remaining. Three additional would have been PLENTY. Thanks for letting me vent, I need this therapy once a month in-season.
The Howard deal never made sense. He was declining and never was really THAT good. In the world of advanced stats, he shouldn’t be making 25M a year, regardless of how many HR, RBI and MVPs he had.
As a reward for hitting 200 HR 600 RBI on his rookie contract. And Thanks for helping pack CBP with 4 M people.
If it was a reward, then they should have had no problem eating the contract over the winter and let him go play in the AL as DH.
Agree 100%.
The Phillies needed a 1B to replace Howard after the 2011 season and they never addressed the issue, just like they never addressed the outfield jettisoning of Victorino and Pence.
The Phillies hit the skids when Roy Halladay became mortal. When Roy lost his mojo so did the Phillies.
Ryan Howards contract made more sense than Blantons. Howard had just come off 4 years were he averaged 50 HR 150 RBI. One of Rubes greatest blunders was trading Cliff Lee for nothing.I believe the next day he re-signed Blanton for $10 M a year which is what Lee was slated to earn
Howard’s extension made no sense when you consider that he still had 2 years left on his current deal. Rubes greatest blunder…besides the Howard extension…is giving up a ton for Pence and then getting nothing in return when trading him
Part of the early extension was rewarding Howard for hitting 50 Hrs 150 RBI for 4 straight years when he was making $475 K.
The other part was they rolled the dice knowing salaries/contracts were gooing to escalate rapidly. For example Prince Fielder, Votto ,Pujols signing $200 M + contracts. Howards $125 M seems pretty affordable in comparison.
If they had waited and Ryan Howard kept putting up Buggs Bunny stats than they would have been on the hook for Pujols sized contract.
Howard was never as good as Fielder, Votto or Pujols.
Agree with your fielding point but When you hit 50 HR 150 RBI every year you are going to get paid top dollar.
They say the last thing to go is hitting. Some of the old time sluggers played into their 40s. I can see the running and fielding declining more rapidly.
Actually Bill James wrote about this extensively in the 1980s – he talked about young players with “old player skills” – that is, the bat was the only positive trait they had. He found that, historically, those players don’t age well. Once they lose a bit of bad speed, they have no baserunning/defense/etc. to fall back on. Howard is exactly the kind of player James was talking about, but because Amaro doesn’t believe in “sabermetrics” he probably never read any of James’ stuff.
Adam Dunn could’ve put up those numbers with Utley, Rollins and Victorino hitting infront of him. You had 3 guys who’d post .350+OBP’s with a crazy amount of speed every single year.
But they’re rostering Sizemore and Francouer; the last thing a bad team should be doing is putting zero-upside veterans on the roster. Play the kids; the Phillies are going to lose 100 games anyway.
yea. I don’t mind a few vets, but I’m with you. Paying Sizemore $2M with $3M more in incentives for plate appearances is EXACTLY the wrong thing to be doing right now. I don’t mind paying Francoeur $950K nearly as much.
Yeah, there’s gotta be a six-year minor-league free agent that can provide exactly what Sizemore is for the league minimum.
What kids? They don’t have any. Putting Aaron Altherr’s bat in the big leagues is gonna hurt his development.
Ruf isn’t gonna be an everyday outfielder.
Atleast if Francouer hits something they can trade him later.
Ruf is a first baseman. They make him play in the outfield.
There’s just simply no one at the top of the minors (AAA) who are challenging for those spots this early in the season. In august and september look for Alther and Perkins, Not sizemore. Look for Franco and Ruf at 1st not Howard. Look for Morgan, Biddle, Nola, Gonzalez, Rodriguez and Ogando in the Rotation and Pen. These vets are here to keep seats warm until july, august and september. You might see a OF call up of Jordan Danks because Ruf is gonna be at first. I have a feeling Howard is going to be released in may and that will be the start of it all. Agree though that young players should be given a chance but that was the effects of 5 straight years of winning, having to rebuild the farm on the fly.
I agree that Howard should just be released at this point; he’s a sunk cost and his bat looks like he’s swinging underwater. He hasn’t caught up to a single fastball over 95 this season, regardless of location. The upper minors are littered with six-year free agents, guys who the Phillies could easily acquire for almost nothing and pay the minimum to – Texas did that last season with a Padres minor-league vet named Dan Robertson. The Rangers just bought his contract from San Diego – he was a non-prospect. He hit 271/333/333 for Texas, which is nothing special but is better than Sizemore. There’s guys like that all over AAA that would work for the major-league minimum. Retreading over-30 vets with nothing left for more than the major-league minimum is foolish for a 100-loss team.
I agree with you, but the point of the vets was to hope they get value then deal them for minor’s depth. In May you probably won’t see Sizemore or Howard anymore. I get what you’re saying and your idea is definitely one that would have a higher reward but could come at a risk too and that they could just be AAAA players that produce just as much as Sizemore is. Just the money is less for them but it doesn’t really matter with this team due to the fact they have a lot of money and a lot of incoming money next season. But I agree.
Yeah, Sizemore for 2-5 Million is a huge mistake, but Francouer probably isn’t making very much. I’d rather have seen them starting Nola over guys like Jerome Williams, but I understand service-time issues. I don’t imagine Sizemore or Francouer are going to have any value at the trade deadline, and if Hamels keeps giving up three homers a game he won’t either. Phils best trade assets at this point are probably Utley, Ruiz and Papelbon, and there’s plenty of reasons to avoid all three.
Papelbon and Hamels are their best values right now. Hamels has an extreme FB/HR ratio right now that no hitter will be able to sustain against him, plus he’s a slow starter. Utley and Ruiz have no value at the moment due to slow starts, Utley has the 3rd most value on the team but currently it’s low. Nola still hasn’t pitched past AA and was just drafted last year. No need to rush him and make him the next Porcello where he’s rushed and doesn’t have quality years until he’s 26. There isn’t a service time issue and if philly wanted too they can easily extend him if he’s worth it, he’s not a Kris Bryant situation, far from it. The money sizemore is making would only be revelevant if he were playing for a small market team and he’s not. He is getting overpayed you’re not wrong but there’s no need to fret over his money. Francouer is making about a million on a minor league turned major league deal. I mean we’re only 3 weeks in, values of some of their players will increase and prospects will rise and vets will fall, but it’s too early in the season to throw a team prospects and minor leaguers into the early season fire.
Yeah, I mean there’s no reason to call up legit prospects on a bad team but Nola was picked with the expectation that he was a major-league ready starter. (Some scouts thought he could move almost directly to the majors). But no reason to start his clock, although the experience couldn’t hurt. Utley has value except, man, that contract is bad. 60 million left (including 2015) if all the vesting options are met, which I would assume Utley would require to waive his NTC. I don’t see any team giving up anything for Papelbon, maybe a B-level prospect; again, that’s a bad contract but it will be over after 2016. I agree that Hamels will be fine – the FB/HR rate isn’t sustainable. I still disagree with rostering old useless veterans rather than trying to find some possibly useful quad-A guys and seeing if they stick. The A’s are doing that this year with a guy named Mark Canha and he looks like he might be a useful platoon piece, while I see zero value in Francouer or Sizemore.
I wouldn’t really call returning Inciarte a mistake, rather then an unfortunate decision. When they returned him, he was basically what Ben Revere is now without the MLB experience. He had never hit more than 2 HR in the minor league season and only had 20 2B once. He didn’t look like anything more than a 4th outfielder with a great glove, which at the time, the Phillies had John Mayberry seemingly gonna be the 4th outfielder for years to come.
Phillies have been better at selecting outfielders from Rule 5 draft than developing them on the farm. Go figure.
Michael Martinez. Yikes.
He’s really a super utility guy. And a light-hitting one at that.
He never put up a positive WAR, oWAR or dWAR.
In 4 seasons. lol
You made me look up his stats. He never once broke the Mendoza line for a season in his career;
.196 .174 .175 .128 in 2014 (ouch)
He doesn’t even have speed to make up for his lack of hitting.
Prior to this past game Herrera had a .257/.316/.457 slash across 38 PA’s. A slash line means next to nothing this early in the season. Adrian Gonzalez is currently at .550/.609/1.125
perhaps, but Gonzalez’ line has more intrinsic beauty than Chase Utley’s right now.
Let’s not forget Carlos Santana having a horrid first 3 months last year and evening out before the end of the year. Some guys take time in today’s ever declining offensive game.
I like that Odubel Herrera plays with a little swagger. Something you havent seen out of any Phillie player for a few years.
Odubel Herrera might be the best position player the Phillies have had since 2012
Outside that one crazy month where Dom Brown had where he hit like 15 HR’s.
How ridiculous it is that Phillies best player is one they snagged from Texas Rangers AA team because Texas did not protect him?
He went from interesting player to could stick on the team to could platoon to starting CF to best player in about 2 months.
Hes not the best player. Hes off to one of the better starts.
Hamels, Asche, Galvis, Giles, Diekman, Utley, Revere and Ruiz are all better than him.
Yea, some hyperbole in there for sure. But if he produces the best over the season, we can talk again, then.
Rose shouldn’t be allowed within 3000 miles of an MLB game, nor in any job that has any part of MLB coverage. I know MLB can’t technically tell Fox who to hire but in this case they basically can.
MLB can’t do anything to Fox. They can have Pete Rose doing commentary for the World Series if they wanted to.
Well, yes and no. MLB could threaten to not re-up Fox when the current TV contract with them expires.
I sincerely hope he’s not allowed in the locker room – I’m assuming he’s not. Baseball basically has one sacred rule and Rose violated it. He was a terrific player but is kind of an awful human being and, in my opinion, placing bets on your own team vciolates the integrity of the game way more than PEDs ever could.
Gambling, like drugs, is a disease. Where’s your compassion now?
Rose, of course, never expressed contrition and it took him 15 years to even admit he had done it. And there’s no evidence he has ever expressed he has a problem and was dealing with it. And gambling is, of course, far more detrimental to the game than drug use is. I would argue that gambling on your own team is probably the most harmful act any player or manager could ever undertake when it comes to the field of play.
Yeah, but there is no evidence that he bet on his own team, just like Hamilton never “tested positive.” Yet Rose is suspended for life, and Hamilton, according to you, should get paid. Regardless of who you think did the worst, they are not far apart in their guilt.
Drugs don’t fundamentally change the outcome of the game (alcohol and coke, at least) while Gambling certainly does. Once the gambling interest takes root it fundamentally changes the game in a way that recreational drugs never can. I’m assuming you know about the 1919 World Series?
I would think that a player, high as a kite, would fundamentally change the outcome of a game. Hack Wilson, supposedly, was drunk for much of the season that he drove in 190 runs. Does that count?
Well, a lot of the players were back then. Mickey Mantle maybe never played a game in his life in which he was not drunk or hungover. Grover Cleveland Alexander was, quite famously, drunk in the world series relief appearance in 1926. Dock Ellis supposedly threw a no-hitter while under the influence of LSD. None of these changed the outcome of a game as much as the Black Sox did; the players in 1919 literally threw the world series. I don’t believe a hungover or drunk Hack Wilson ever intentionally threw a game.
Changing the outcome doesn’t mean it has to change it for the worse. Change is change.
In the case of the Black Sox, it was definitely a change for the worse. They were the far superior team in that series. Which is, of course, why it was so lucrative for them and the gamblers to throw the series.
okay, for Hack Wilson, it was definitely for the better.
Mantle was one of the 10 best players in history; would he have been better or worse if he hadn’t been drunk or hungover all the time? Conversely, Dick Allen could have been one of the best players in baseball history but his alcoholism kept him from his potential, especially off-the-field.
This is where I have to disagree with Magic. The Dodgers shouldn’t have to force the fans to get Time Warner Cable as a network provider in order for them to watch the games, the games should already be on TV on any network provider. I shouldn’t have to sign up for a year subscription of MLB TV every year on my apple TV, even though it is cheaper then paying $70 bucks or more a month but still have to deal with the blackout situation and wait until the game is done to watch it. In the end, I would prefer it on TV, especially on my DVR where I am able to control the game with my own hands. I am especially a one that hates commercial interruptions!
Live games without commercial interruptions? Now that seems like a tall order. Anyway Magic didn’t seem to be saying anything about whether fans should get TWC. The question was about whether a lengthy blackout would hurt the Dodgers’ fan base longterm. He thinks not, but nobody really knows the answer to that question.
The situation is almost never reported this way, but in reality the Dodgers are in a tough spot. They sold their product to TWC, which we find now is prepared to take a loss over the short term in order resell those broadcast rights at a profit. We can be sure the Dodgers want to have their games delivered to their entire market, but in reality they don’t have any control over TWC, and not especially, now with the Comcast merger on hold.
So is Madden saying he wouldn’t have done the trades? or is he just complaining to write something?
Inciarte is another example of how inadequate the Phillies front office has been in recent years. They have to see REMARKABLE numbers to even think about bringing a guy up and/or being patient with him. If not for Herrera’s fantastic spring, there’s a good chance Rube would have just said “No thanks.” On the other hand, they refuse to bring up talent when they’re doing well in the minors. They waffled on Dom Brown/Darin Ruf forever and ended up hurting their development, they’re doing the same thing with Maikel Franco now, and God knows what will eventually happen with JP Crawford based on the past track record. How RAJ has a job is beyond me.