2009-10 MLB Off-Season Thread

Let free agency and Marlins salary dumping begin!

Ahhh!! There's been a Sammy Sosa sighting!!

(Posted Image)

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Who's got some holy water?!?!

Sammy looks like he's got a little bit of South Park's "Mr. Jefferson" in him.

Good read from ESPN about Ralph Kiner's time in the military during WWII:
Veteran's Day: Ralph Kiner

Also, looks like most of the 2010 Spring Training schedules have been released:
Spring Training Online
Yes, even the Pirates. I guess Bucco night games in 2009 didn't too well, so they're back to exclusively 1:05 day games for 2010 (save for one night game against the Phillies in Clearwater during the last week).

Rookie of the Year came out for both leagues, yesterday. They are:

NL- Chris Coghlan, OF, Marlins

AL- Andrew Bailey, RP, A's

I have to say that the NL pick is horseshit. McGehee or McCutchen were the better choices, IMO.

For the AL, I thought Rick Porcello had it locked up, until I realized that Bailey was a rookie. So no real argument, there.

Zack Greinke- 2009 AL Cy Young Award Winner
Who managed to get through an entire year without pitching against the Yankees. (Which probably cost him a few extra wins-- #rimshot*).

Won't argue with the AL Cy Young. Greinke deserved it.

As for ROY, well... not to sound dick-ish, but neither league really had a jaw-dropping amazing rookie this season. The A's closer and a Marlins converted outfielder? Yeesh. They had good seasons, but neither was amazing, or even got decent coverage on ESPN or anything to make me care.

Not dick-ish at all and very true. It's not often that there's a ROY that has a year like Mike Pizza, Ryan Howard or Albert Pujols did in their freshman campaigns. Most of the time, we end up with guys like Scott Williamson or Pat Listach (although I remember everybody gushing over Listach during the first month of his rookie year).

Oh, apparently MLB took a day off from the Cy Young Awards and decided to announce Managers of the Year, instead. Jim Tracy and Mike Scioscia are the picks. Justifiable wins for both guys.

...

(searches baseball-reference for Scott Williamson)


Oh, I thought his name sounded familiar.

Anyway, I guess I was spoiled by last years winners, one coming from a big market team and getting lots of exposure, and the other having one of those superstar caliber rookie seasons and playing on a team that was frequently debated on every show.

Now that I think about it, the NL has had some top notch players win ROY in the last decade. Pujols, Bay, Howard, Hanley Ramirez, Jason Bay, Ryan Braun... uh.. well,Dontrelle Willis WAS good. Only Jason Jennings seems like an NL bust of that group.

AL Wise, it's a little more hit and miss. Ichiro, Verlander, Pedroia, and Longoria are the hit, as for miss, Eric Hinske's riding benches, Bobby Crosby is living in a doctor's office, and Angel Berroa? Who does he play for?

I like checking out the ROY awards voting on baseball-reference. Remember Mitch Meluskey?! Me neither. I would've said "Steve Cox", but I figure Scrooge remembers him. I always think of "Steve Cox" as Michael Hayes' tag team partner from 1988 (with the creative ring name of "Do it to it")

At least MVP awards usually go to a guy who's fairly prominent. Aside from that Versailles guy in the 60's or Kevin Mitchell.

Damn you and your Steve Cox references! I'll see you pay for that one!!!


Checking back, no disrespect to Ichiro, but foreign players of that magnitude shouldn't win ROY, IMO. I know the Japanese leagues are basically Triple-A+, but it's still professional baseball. Same goes for Nomo or that other guy who win it in 1999 or 2000. It's a bit unfair to judge a 9 year veteran to someone that played maybe 1 year in the minors before a major league call-up.


Edit: Who the fuck is Mitch Meluskey?

(looks him up)

...

Who?

Hmm...but if, say, Hideki Matsui had won ROY in 2003.. you'd have been all over it! :)

Oh, funny story story about Steve Cox. Completely random, but my buddy had an autographed card of him, last night. Apparently, Cox was also brought up at the same time Jim Morris was (in the movie "The Rookie"). However, instead of getting Cox to play himself in the movie in a cameo role, they wrote a new character in-- a black guy named "Brooks". But for all intents and purposes, "Brooks" was Steve Cox.

Damn those movie producers! I guess Steve Cox wasn't interesting enough to write into the script of a movie about some high school coach making an improbable run towards making it in the majors.

To top it all off, we have the 2009 MVP winners:

NL- Albert Pujols

AL- Joe Mauer

Well-deserved in both cases, IMO.

Agreed. Mauer piggy-backed the Twins at times and Pujols is Superman. Won't argue either of those.