Carlos Lee is Jennifer Aniston....in a sense. He's in the top group of "least trade-able" players in the majors, which is something we knew since the day he signed his mammoth contract with the Astros before the 2007 season. Our best bet for ever trading this guy: the KC Royals. They just traded for Yuniesky Betancourt and his ridiculous contract. Who's to say that they wouldn't be hankering for an overweight Panamanian DH in the next few seasons??
Steve Campbell penned a nice article about Jeff Bagwell, and his life after retirement from baseball. When asked about possibly being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame:
It would be great, but it’s not going to change me, Bagwell said. It’s not going to change what I did or how I’m viewed by people. Do I think my numbers are good enough? I think there are a lot of great players out there who have crazy numbers that are better than mine, so I don’t know how that’s going to play out.
First they tell us that throwing curveballs is harmful for youth pitchers, now they tell us it's not.
Doug Brocail is on the comeback trail. He made his second consecutive scoreless appearance Sunday for the CC Hooks. With LaTroy Hawkins set to receive results about his recent MRI, we may end up needing him at some point this season. It's painfully obvious that there are few options in AAA that could help out of the pen....except for that one Norris guy.
Perhaps the Cards gave away more than they bargained for to get Matt Holliday. Clayton Mortensen and Shane Peterson both have value, says Fangraphs. I wouldn't be too sad to see those three prospects they traded away never return to the NL Central.
Regression towards the mean is a concept that we at TCB use quite a bit when talking about a player who is performing either above or below their heads. Are we using the term correctly? One blogger seems to think most people do not.