2012 News, Views and Comments

The season is now underway and everything seems to be going as planned out East with the Orioles running away with the AL East and Mets undefeated in the NL East.

Yu Darvish didn’t have the best start to his MLB career giving up 4 runs in the first and 5 in total against the Mariners although he did manage to get the win. It will be interesting to see how he does in his next couple of starts.

Matt Cain allowed one hit in a complete game shutout of the Pirates. The only player to get a hit was the Pirates starter James McDonald. That must be very disappointing but at least he managed to throw a one-hitter.

Congratulations to Jamie Moyer who at the age of 49 years and 150 days became the oldest player ever to win a game in the Major Leagues breaking the record of Jack Quinn who set the record in 1932.

A bit of a mixed game for Chris Davis of the Orioles. As a hitter he went 0-8 with 5K's and he also hit into a double play. He then pitched two scoreless innings to get the win.

A couple of debating points from the latest Baseball Prospectus news letter:

The Rockies switch to a four man rotation
A move of desperation or the start of a sea move back to the future?

If it fails, as seems likely, then it'll be seen as the former, but if it works, how many teams will follow the lead?

The biggest 'mistake' that Jim Tracy has made in announcing this could be the stated determination to limit his four starters to 75 pitches. Knowing this opposing teams will likely take an even more patient approach than normal in order to drive up their pitch count to get the starter out of the game well before the 5th inning. Have the intention to do it Jim, but telling the world was a major blunder.

Time will tell and I, like many others will be following this with interest.

Joel Peralta caught cheating

He'll probably, as the article stated, miss at least a week's game time, but now one waits to see how many other teams start demanding the umps check Tampa's pitcher's gloves, not just Peraltas but every Rays pitcher!

There may be more to come on this story as it seems the team knew about his ploy and did nothing to stop it, if the league decide to pursue this further Maddon and his coaches could come under increasing scrutiny. If this happens again with the Rays, they could find themselves facing the suspension of more than just one pitcher.

I guess he felt he needed to justify his desicion, but I completely agree, I would have kept it to myself. I can't see how this is going to work if a pitcher is limited to so few pitches. If the pitcher is doing well, and Tracy takes him out he'll get criticized, even more so if he's only pitched four or five innings. I'm interested to see what effect this has on the bullpen too.

He should be applauded, at least, for having the guts to make the move to a four man rotation.

I think it is an interesting idea that could have a lot of benefits. If you have a Weaver, Verlander, Kershaw etc then you obviously want to get as many innings out of them as possible but the Rockies don’t really have any good starters. I always wondered if a team that didn’t have a good rotation would manage to get a group of pitchers that were all able to go 3 innings and then to use 3 of them each day.

Unless it works really well then I don’t see teams adopting it quickly. You want to get the most you can out of your best starters while keeping them in good condition for the full season which probably wouldn’t be the case with a 4 man rotation.

I do think it is weird saying you will limit them to 75 pitches per start as everyone now knows the plan although most people would have probably worked it out after a few starts. We had several off days to start the season that allowed us to go with a 4 man rotation to start the season and there has been plenty of opportunities since to skip the 5th starter so there could be a way of only using a 5th starter when needed.

The Rockies will also be relying on each reliever to go multiple innings and it does put a lot of pressure on the bullpen knowing that they won’t have any nights off.

I will be watching this with a lot of interest.

Peralta will get some sort of suspension. I do wonder how often this happens and it does seem a bit odd that it has only been discovered now considering how long he has been in the big leagues.

Lee gets his wish:

It looks like we're going to depend on being able to re-sign Stephen Drew and have Weeks and Sizemore fighting for the 2nd base job.

Not sure what this means for Seth Smith or Coco Crisp as the only value Young has is in a platoon with, presumably, Gomes or Coco.

I doubt that this is a trade in isolation though, I expect Beane is already working on another deal; he has to be for this trade to make sense.

I wonder where the D'Backs intend to play Pennington, I thought they had 2nd and SS covered.

Happy Days at last Heath has gone, the split had to happen once he was demoted from the closers role he was always likely gonna be gone and the row with Ozzie late in the seasons seemed to be him knowing the inevitable and letting of some steam.

Good for both parties I think.

I'd be lying if I said I knew anything about Cabrera but We'll take anything we can get for Bell I guess just to get shot.

I don't know much about him either Lee, other than that he's a Florida native and he's struggled big time at low A and high A. The Marlins scouts must have seen something they liked about him though, we spent a 2nd round pick on him sp our scouts must have seen it too.

Latest reports are that the Redsox have traded Mike Aviles to Toronto for John Farrell.

I guess the Redsox must have been impressed with him when he was their pitching coach, I doubt many Blue Jays fans will be crying in their beers.

Not sure why the Jays went for Aviles though, presumably either he or Escobar will be switching to 2nd base.

I don't know why anyone would want to trade for Heath Bell. Especially when you have a hitter friendly ballpark. Mistake by the D'backs I think.

It looks like we're going to depend on being able to re-sign Stephen Drew and have Weeks and Sizemore fighting for the 2nd base job.

Not sure what this means for Seth Smith or Coco Crisp as the only value Young has is in a platoon with, presumably, Gomes or Coco.

I doubt that this is a trade in isolation though, I expect Beane is already working on another deal; he has to be for this trade to make sense.

I wonder where the D'Backs intend to play Pennington, I thought they had 2nd and SS covered.

Are the A's getting any money in this deal?

I always thought of Young as good defensively and he is still only 29. He hasn't done that well against right handers the last few season which is a worry but he has been really good against lefties. I think it is a decent trade for the A's and I can see Beane making a few more this offseason.

I think we're getting $500K, so not that much. There's a debate going on on A's forums, most of the other A's fans disagree with what I posted in Bay Area Babble, seem to think Reddick is guaranteed to start in RF, which I think is daft. Sure Young could platoon with Reddick, Crisp or Smith, but one way or another, if Young, Cespedes and Crisp are fit, they play most of the time.

Beane has to either cut a deal with Boras for Drew or find a short stop from somewhere, don't be too surprised if Excobar or Aviles end up in Oakland!

You can find more than enough AB's throughout the season for those 4 in the outfield and DH spots. You showed last season that you aren't afraid to mix and match and I don't see it becoming that much of an issue.

There isn't much available in free agency at shortstop. There will be a players possibly available via trade like Escobar and Andrus. I think Beane will make a few more moves this offseason so it will be a while before we know exactly what the A's will look like next season.