Catfish Stew: Photo Outtakes 2007: Reflection

post from Catfish Stew on 05 November 2007 03:16:00 PM. © Catfish Stew

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Dustin Pedroia Wins SB Nation Rookie of the Year
Award

post from Royals Review on 05 November 2007 03:02:55 PM. © Royals Review

Every year the baseball bloggers here at SB Nation pay homage to the BBWAA Awards by doing the same. Following their format, I had a ballot for the AL awards, but not those for the NL. This week we'll be announcing our grand and glorious results.

Sadly, AL Rookie of the Year is the only award with a Royal likely to appear on any ballots, so its sad we have to get the best out of the way early. Without further ado, here are the results:

American League 1st 2nd 3rd Points Dustin Pedroia 15 4 - 87 Jeremy Guthrie 1 6 2 25 Brian Bannister 2 2 4 20 Daisuke Matsuzaka - 3 5 14 Reggie Willits 1 1 1 9 Delmon Young - 1 3 6 Hideki Okajima - 1 1 4 Rafael Perez - 1 1 4 Travis Buck - - 1 1

Here's how I voted:

1. Brian Bannister
2. Dustin Pedroia
3. Daisuke Matsizaka

I'm fascinated by the fact that Guthrie finished second, but after looking at his stats (3.70 ERA in 175 IP), it's not that crazy. While I haven't looked this up yet, I'll also hazard a guess that Guthrie faced stiffer competition than Banny by virtue of pitching in the AL East. That being said, I will be stunned if he finishes second in the "real"voting. Then again, is Dice-K or Banny going to pass him? While Dice-K may have not performed up to the crazy hype he recieved, I think the analysis has now swung too far in the other direction. During the playoffs people were talking about him like he was Scott Elarton. A 108 ERA+ over 32 starts is pretty damn valuable.

And yes, my vote was a something of a homer vote, although not quite as far-fetched as whoever voted for Reggie Willits, who hit .293/.391/.344 as a mostly corner outfielder.

Here are the NL results:

ROY. Voting 5-3-1

National League 1st 2nd 3rd Points Ryan Braun 13 6 2 85 Troy Tulowitzki 7 9 3 65 Hunter Pence - 4 9 21 Kevin Kouzmanoff 1 - - 5 James Loney - 1 1 4 Micah Owings - 1 1 4 Chris Young - - 2 2 Yovani Gallardo - - 2 2 Tim Lincecum - - 1 1

NHZ, I sent you a ballot, did you vote too?

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Dodger Thoughts: Torre Tidbits

post from Dodger Thoughts on 05 November 2007 02:02:00 PM. © Dodger Thoughts

Tidbits from the Joe Torre press conference:

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Torre officially introduced as Dodgers new
manager (PA SportsTicker)

post from MLB News Blog on 05 November 2007 01:47:01 PM. © MLB News Blog

Joe Torre did not have to think for too long when offered the chance to return to baseball by the Los Angeles Dodgers.Read the full story.

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-new-manager-pa-sportsticker/

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Transferring Coaches

post from Baseball Musings on 05 November 2007 01:39:00 PM. © Baseball Musings

The Dodgers formally announced Joe Torre's signing today. Torre confirmed an open secret, that Mattingly and Bowa will follow him to Los Angeles....

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Monday Morning Rockpile:

post from Purple Row on 05 November 2007 01:23:39 PM. © Purple Row

I'm going to keep this short in the hope that I'll be able to write more in a little bit, but obviously we want some sort of open thread for the first day of the GM meetings. Which, by the way, are typically kind of lackluster when it comes to actual news. Sure, you get pics of the guys -all guys still- bowling in Hawaiian shirts and you wonder what kind of drinking games they play, but this is sort of the get to know each other mixer before all the real stuff goes down. The really stupid drinking games happen at the Winter meetings.

At any rate, this is usually where GM's start to get a sense of what they can accomplish via the trade market as well as a rudiment understanding of what the opposition is up to. Thus far for the NL West, the rudiments seem to be as follows:

Arizona- Looking for some bargains for their rotation. Apparently, given the club's reaction to Curt Schilling's free agency, $13 million is out of the team's price range, which means they are probably also out of the running for John Garland's services at $12 million in 2008. There's some positive news in this for us, as the Rockies appear to be in slightly better shape financially. Given Arizona's young talent, we might need for this trend to continue in order to keep up.

Los Angeles- The Dodgers seem like a prime contender to sign Alex Rodriguez, which is a scary thought to consider, as it would give them a very potent lineup and allow them to trade Andy LaRoche to any number of places for more rotation help. I'm hoping Ned Colletti messes this up somehow, but at the moment, it looks like this could be trouble.

San Diego- Kevin Towers seems keen on prying Coco Crisp from the Red Sox to replace Mike Cameron in center field, and I'm thinking they are probably an early favorite to land Schilling as PETCO's a really attractive draw for free agent pitchers. Fixing the holes that have opened up in their offense will require more work than repairing the rotation.

San Francisco- Mostly irrelevant, as they have too many areas requiring help to be able to contend in the next couple of seasons. However, Tracy Ringolsby has mentioned in a couple of places that they are open to possibly trading Tim Lincecum. This is an interesting play by Sabean, as Lincecum is an extremely high reward, fairly high risk type of player. He'll put up Cy Young worthy numbers but a serious arm injury would be devastating to his career. Brian's trying to get more certainty by moving him to fill multiple holes.

----------

That last link also went into detail of Dan O'Dowd's priorities, but this paragraph disturbs me more than any others:
* Infield. 1B Todd Helton, 3B Garrett Atkins and SS Troy Tulowitzki are set. 2B Kazuo Matsui will be offered a contract, but the Rockies also have internal options with Jamey Carroll, Clint Barmes, Omar Quintanilla and Jayson Nix. They figure into a utility role, too.
First of all, note the absence of Ian Stewart. Apparently that little experiment met its expected result.

Second, let's say you were going over the books from your multinational megacorp and you saw one of your businesses doing really well, adding about $10 billion to your bottom line each year, easily beating all the competition in the sector, which typically came in around $6 billion of profit for those schmucks. Fantastic, you're ahead. But let's say another business of yours lost $4 billion a year, while your peers were putting up just as much in profits. Suddenly you don't look so hot, as you're total of $6 billion in profit over the two companies is dwarfed by your competitors' $10 billion.

Adding an offensive sinkhole to the everyday lineup (as Carroll, Barmes and Quintanilla almost certainly would be) not only kills you in one slot, but it negates what advantages you might have in other places. This would ruin us in 2008, and I can't stress enough how worried this possibility makes me.

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Random Notes During The Downtime

post from U.S.S. Mariner on 05 November 2007 01:21:00 PM. © U.S.S. Mariner

As I’m sure you’ve noticed by the lack of posts recently, Derek and I are both pretty busy, and with very little going on in the baseball world, it’s given us both a chance to do non-blogging things. Don’t worry - this isn’t the pace we’ll hold the whole offseason. Expect more posts as the winter heats up.

From scanning the papers around the web today, however, I did notice one trend - the annual hot stove rumor mongering is kicking into high gear. In separate articles today, we were told that Miguel Cabrera will be shopped by the Marlins, the Orioles will listen to offers for Erik Bedard, and that the Devil Rays might market Scott Kazmir as a Johan Santana alternative if the bidding gets ridiculous.

This is what happens when there is no news, but there’s still a significant demand for insider ideas into what might happen. The Orioles might listen if… The D’Rays might consider doing this if… I might move to Darfur if…

If Bob Finnigan was still around, he’d be writing his annual “Mariners might bring Griffey back” column right about now, so remember, just take these rumors with truckloads of salt.

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Dodger Thoughts: Horrible News: The Wiener
Factory Is Closing

I'm actually enough of a commoner to like Pinkberry, but I may have to rethink that with the news that the one and only Wiener Factory, a beloved dive from my childhood (and adulthood, for that matter), is being replaced on Ventura Boulevard by yet another Pinkberry franchise, according to Steve Hymon of the Times. (Link via L.A. Observed)

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Torre front and center at introduction as manager
of Los Angeles Dodgers (AP)

Paying tribute to one of baseball’s most successful franchises, Joe Torre was front and center for his introduction as the new manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. His news conference Monday was held in center field at Dodger Stadium to accommodate the overload of media, a first according to team spokesman Josh Rawitch.Read the full [...]

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Death Rays

MetsBlog notes a rumor that the Devil Rays are willing to move Scott Kazmir. Maybe the same team that picks up Miguel Cabrera and land Kazmir, too. That would be a franchise to watch for a number of years, not...

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