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Archive for the ‘Teams’ Category

Andy Pettitte made his much anticipated Spring Training debut on Monday and apologized for having used human growth hormones in the past. He said that the decision to use hormones was stupid and desperate and added that he had contemplated retirement recently. 

The left hander addressed a huge gathering of reporters outside Legends Field saying that the time in the wake of the Mitchell Report had been a very difficult time both for him as well as his family. This is the first time Pettitte has commented publicly since his testimony played a huge part in the showdown between Roger Clemens- Brian McNamara last week.

Pettitte was lauded for his honesty by the Congress and said that he would attempt to be as forthcoming in the future as well. 

“I want to apologize to the New York Yankees and to the Houston Astros organizations and to their fans and to all of my teammates and to all of baseball’s fans for the embarrassment I have caused them,” Pettitte said. “I also want to tell anyone that is an Andy Pettitte fan that I’m sorry, especially any kids who might look up to me.

“Since graduating high school, I have spent my life working with young kids at my church and in my community. I never want a young person to do what I did.”  

HE admitted that he had used HGH twice in 2002 and also once in 2004 when he was recovering from an injury. He admitted the first two occasions soon after the Mitchell Report on 13^th December but he didn’t reveal the third until he signed an affidavit on the 8^th of February provided for the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in lieu of an in-person appearance to testify

Pettitte said that he hoped this would not change the way he was perceived. He has a career 201 game winner and has been a member of the Yankees’ last four World Series Championship rosters.

Free-agent outfielder Brad Wilkerson was signed to a one year, $3 million contract in a move that shows that Seattle is close to sealing the much-awaited trade for left handed pitcher Erik Bedard. The Mariners would trade George Sherrill, and three Minor League pitchers to the Orioles for Bedard, which would give Seattle a powerful combination with Bedard and right-handed pitcher Felix Hernandez at the top of its rotation.

Though the Bedard deal has been going on for some time now and has seen various twists and turns, it is expected to be finalized in the coming few days.  Adam Jones was initially tagged to replace Jose Guillen this season but instead it seems that Wilkerson will get to play during the Spring Training.

Wilkerson said that it was a great spot for him and that he would get a chance at the everyday job. He said he could go to Spring Training if he had to but since the Seattle opportunity came to him he would seize it.

Wilkerson was also pursued by the Red Sox and one other team offered him a longer term than one year.  This deal however allows him to make $ 2 million extra in bonuses, based on plate appearances. He brings with him more versatility to the team after Ben Broussard was traded to the Rangers earlier on.  He has spent the last two seasons with the Rangers and recorded his third career 20-homer season in 2007.

He has been certified fit after a physical exam conducted by the Mariners’ staff after battling shoulder and hamstring injuries. He said he was very excited about the opportunity and hoped that he would be able to give it his best shot. With the team line up looking strong eyes will be on the Mariners to see what they pull out.

Carlos Pena of the Tampa Rays passed a physical test and finalized a three year deal worth $ 24,125,000 with the team. He is the third player who has been signed on after Scott Kazmir and John Shields. This is a very important step towards a better future for the team from Tampa Bay which is the weakest baseball franchisee in the country.

Pena who was the American League comeback player of the year agreed to a $ 6 million, one year contract that allowed the Rays to meet a self-imposed deadline to sign him on before the matter of salary went into arbitration.

Pena, 29 underwent the test on Thursday as the final step towards completing the deal through which he will earn $ 8 million in 2009 and $ 10,125,000 in 2010. He scored career highs of 48 homers and 121 RBIs in the past year and set a season franchise record for homers and finished with the fourth highest in the major league after Alex Rodriguez, Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard.

The year also yielded a career best average of .282 for the slugger and a team high of 99 runs and he became the first person to hit 40-plus homers in the season after being released by another team. He had signed on with the Rays after leaving Boston and the New York Yankees whom the played for in the minors in 2006.

These signings have come along with the signings of free agents Troy Percival and Cliff Floyd and show the willingness of the ownership to increase the payroll from $ 24 million to $ 40 million. This is seen as a move to improve the image of the team which has taken quite a beating in baseball circles.

Hopefully the effort from the team management will pay off in the near future.

Miguel Cabrera entered into a one year contract worth $ 11.3 million with the Detroit Tigers thereby avoiding salary arbitration before the All-star third baseman began his season with the team.  Out of the 110 players who had filed for arbitration 42 reached agreements regarding salaries while 15 had settled on terms earlier on. Earlier the Tigers wanted to sign Cabrera on for a new, long-term contract but when that didn’t work they elected to avoid arbitration thereby coming to this one year deal.

Cabrera along with pitcher Dontrelle Willis joined the Tigers as a part of the trade with the Florida Marlins in December.  The Florida team received six players including two much talked about prospects left hander Andrew Miller and outfielder Cameron Maybin.

In the 157 games that the played for the Marlins in 2007 Cabrera hit .320 with 91 runs scored, 38 doubles, two triples, 34 home runs and 119 RBI. He has a batting average of .313 after five seasons with the Marlins.

The Detroit Tigers have also acquired five- time All Star Edgar Renteria  after a trade off with Atlanta and entered into a one year contract with pitcher Bobby Seay worth $ 780,000. 24 year old Cabrera can become a free agent after the 2009 season but the Tigers hope that he will stay on.

Cabrera is one of the world’s top sluggers and joins an already strong lineup that boasts the likes of Magglio Ordonez, Gary Sheffield, Carlos Guillen, Ivan Rodriguez, Curtis Granderson and Placido Polanco.

The debate is also on about how much Cabrera is worth and how much the Tigers could have paid to have entered into a long term contract with him.

After the recent controversy surrounding drugs in baseball Major League Baseball has announced the creation of a Department of Investigations to keep a check on the league’s policy on performance enhancing substances.  The creation of such a department was one of the most important recommendations in the report on performance enhancing substances by former Senator George Mitchell. The report was published on the 13^th of December amidst great controversy involving the federal government and the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Commissioner Bud Selig said that the Department would be extremely important to the protection of integrity of the sport. He said that Major League Baseball would continue to function as per the recommendations in the report as part of the effort to prevent the use of drugs in the system. The new department will be independent of the teams and at the top will be Dan Mullin a former New York Police officer who is the vice president of security operations and along with him will be George Hanna baseball’s director of security investigation who happens to be an ex- FBI officer.

It is believed that under the leadership of these two men any allegations of illegal use or possession of drugs would be dealt with strictly. The department will join forces will law enforcement authorities to further its investigations as required and will also operate a telephone hotline so that any violations aware to club employees are made known.

Hopefully the coming into being of this new department will root out the problems of drug and substance use in the system which has been made public after the entire Clemens controversy. While new things are coming to light, hopefully the department will act as a deterrent and any violators are dealt with in the strictest manner possible by the concerned authority.

Before 2004, the Boston Red Sox had not won a World Series in 86 years. Many attributed this to a curse. My thoughts on that is that it probably had more to do with playing with the best team historically in baseball in their division and choke jobs. It wasn’t a curse that forced them to lose game seven in 2003 against New York, it was Grady Little’s decision not to remove an ailing Pedro Martinez from the game.

But all that is moot now. The team has won two championships in four years and has the talent to contend for years to come. They have the right mix of young, exciting players and veteran players who use their smarts to help the team win.

Now I’m not going to regal readers with recaps of the last two games and the ensuing celebration. The Red Sox swept the series and are the best team for the 2007 season. The real story here is how the team that used to be a lovable loser has now become the enemy. What are the things fans hate about the Yankees? That they spend more money than most teams can afford? That they make the playoffs every year while other squads fight to make it once every few seasons?

Well the Red Sox are now in the same overspending, perennial contending boat that New York is. The fact is that Boston, while never completely adapting the Yankee’s philosophy, won their titles in much the same way Steinbrenner went about winning. They bought big names and free agents and put together a team that would be a failure without a title by the end of the year.

So I hope now that the team is prepared to take the hate that comes with being elite and wealthy. I highly doubt fans outside of Boston are going to sympathize with the organization anymore. And I fully expect some other lovable loser, like the Cubs, to get nationwide attention now.

But at the end of the day, I doubt Boston really cares. After all, they do have two more rings than they did when everyone liked them.

Congrats to the Bo Sox.

Before I start this blog, I want to clear any thoughts that I might be focusing only on the Yankees and Red Sox. The truth is that I hate it when ESPN and other media outlets spend eighty percent of their time focusing on two of all the teams in the major leagues. With that said, the sports stories are slow this time of the year with so few teams in play. And with the Yankees in the midst of many big stories, such as A-Rod’s impending free agency and the current Torre dismissal, it seems relevant to talk about them.

OK, so back to the Torre story. After reports that Steinbrenner and the Yankees would just straight-up fire Torre, the team ended up making him an offer to return. Five million dollars over one season. There were two main complaints Torre had with this offer. One, the team decreased his salary from the previous season despite his overwhelming success over his twelve-year tenure. Two, it was a one year deal that basically made Joe into a lame duck.

So was this offer really that insulting? To most of us, five million dollars to manage a team is not a bad thing. But would any of us be happy with a pay cut? After your boss publicly stated his dissatisfaction with your work? Probably not. Joe Torre had good reason to feel under-appreciated and not wanted, and it made perfect sense for him to turn down his insulting offer.

What the Yankees don’t seem to understand is the next manager is not going to have it easier. How is a new manager going to take over the team, with the same pitching and age problems, and turn them back into a World Series winner? How are they going to deal with the pressure of managing in New York? I wouldn’t be surprised to see the team take a drastic downturn and miss the playoffs next year.

Joe Torre deserves all the praise and all the credit for the Yankees success. Any other team in the major leagues would have given him a lifetime contract for his results. Too bad the one team that won’t was the one he managed.

A few days ago, before the championship series begun, I wrote that the Arizona Diamondbacks would ride their aces to a series victory. Two games later, the Rockies are up 2-0 and have won both of their games in Arizona. The statistic being run around is that no team has ever come back to win a seven-game baseball series after losing two games at home. If that holds true, it appears as if the Rockies are on their way to the World Series.

Maybe they are a team of destiny. Maybe their momentum, which I so callously disregarded before, is too great for any team to overcome. Or maybe, just maybe, they really are the best that the National League has to offer. But no matter what the reason is, the Rockies deserve all the credit for playing a wonderful last two months of the season, thus far at least.

As a Tigers fan, I can say from personal experience that Colorado fans should enjoy this. Deep runs in the playoffs don’t happen every year for teams outside of Boston and New York and the Rockies may lose their “team of destiny” status to some other hungry team next year. So enjoy this run right now.

As for the Diamondbacks, it is still possible to come back from this deficit. The truth is that stats like the one above are meant to be broken. But to win, they have to play near perfect baseball now. They have to show that they can get timely hits and continue their hot pitching. And they have to remember that each game starts at 0-0, and not worry about the Rockie’s momentum or 2-0 series lead.

And to all baseball fans, watch this series. It is entertaining and worth watching.

In professional sports, one of the hardest jobs to coach/manage has been the Yankee’s position. The enormous pressure put on the unlucky soul who gets this job is almost too much for one person to handle. Joe Torre, the man who has held the job for the past twelve years, may become the latest victim to succumb to this pressure. After his team fell down 0-2 to the Cleveland Indians, owner George Steinbrenner declared that Torre would not be back if the Yankees did not win the series.

Now, a few days later, the Yankees are once again out of the playoffs and Torre’s job is seemingly gone. But does the long-time skipper deserve to be canned after leading his team to the playoffs every year? I would say no.

How many people really thought New York could win the World Series this year? A faulty and old pitching staff with an injury-prone line-up hardly seemed very threatening. Still, the team shook off a horrible start and made the playoffs as the wild card. Why not give Torre some actual young talent for once instead of overpaying old sluggers? If anyone deserves to go, it is Brian Cashman, the man making all of these personnel decisions.

How many other managers could win three titles and take the team to the World Series four times? How many others could take on different personalities, injury problems, and big-time pressure and produce twelve playoff seasons in a league where only four American League teams get to go every year?

The answer is not too many. If the Yankees fire Torre without giving him a chance with a competent general manager, they will find themselves regretting it next year and longer.