Ballpark Travel

So the Red Sox response to the New York spending binge has finally come out in the way of two great investments. Brad Penny and Josh Bard are two players that have showed themselves as being far better than their 2008 performances and the Red Sox did a nice job in picking up this duo for cheap. While Penny has only pitched in the National League, he will benefit from working with "stuff" pitchers in Josh Beckett and Daisuke Matsuzaka. Pitching coach John Farrell has done an excellent job transforming Josh Beckett into an American League starter and I imagine that Penny will receive similar instruction. This is also going to be a rotation of 95+ MPH hurlers with Beckett, Matsuzaka, Lester and now Penny all being able to light up the gun. Interestingly enough, Josh Bard is back in Boston after being passed over for Doug Mirabelli because of his inability to catch Tim Wakefield's knuckleball. A season in which Bard hit .338, 9, 40 after the trade to San Diego. This signals t...

I have been rather quiet lately about the offseason, but with the Mark Teixeira signing today in New York, I think it is time for me to pipe up. During the month of December, the New York Yankees and Brian Cashman have agressively been pushing their free agent dollars towards signing the top talent to fill the voids from their 2008 team. I have to admit that I am now very impressed that they have Teixeira. Starting over the summer, I saw the Yankees and also the Mets being big players for the slugger and when the Mets decided to stick with Carlos Delgado after a hot second half, the Yankees were the logical destination for Teixeira. When I heard that the Yankees were not all that interested in him up until today, I have been very critical of their signings of Sabathia and Burnett as it was their offense that really needed that extra bat to push it into a playoff picture again. They get that with Teixeira. The possibility for Manny Ramirez is probably closed now as well, which also make...

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 The final day finally arrived. With little sleep, lots of junk food and beer in my system from the social networking portion of the Winter Meetings, it was time to wrap this experience up. On this day, I had a couple more interviews with the Connecticut Defenders as well as my rescheduled second interview with the Portland Beavers. Each of which went very well. Neither position has much appeal to me, but the practice of interviewing is always important to job seekers. With the remainder of the day at the meetings, I spent my time with the friends that I had made during my time in Las Vegas. By putting so many people under the same roof with similar career desires and motivations, it was easy to make connections and friendships. I really enjoyed my time at the Winter Meetings in 2008 and the people I met and lessons I learned. Patience is going to pay off with this field and being able to make your own luck will go a long way for success. It was very appro...

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 Just as with Monday, the fourth day of the Winter Meetings provided me with some further insight about how to get into the business of baseball. Tuesday was the big day for job candidates as the interviews were running seemingly from 9:00 AM through the cocktail hour. On this day, I had five meetings scheduled in two different hotels and during four different times meaning that I had a double booking between the Pittsburgh Pirates Video Scouting internship as well as a second interview with the Portland Beavers for their Inside Sales Representative position. In addition to those two positions, I also met with the Chicago Cubs baseball operations department, interviewed with the New Britain Rock Cats and Savannah Sand Gnats. It was an incredibly hectic day that required me to go from the Las Vegas Hilton, where the job fair and many interviews were occurring, to the Bellagio, where the major league teams were operating their sessions for the Winter Meetings a...

Monday, December 8th, 2008 Monday was a wonderful change in what seems to be a rollercoaster of a job fair. Monday marked the beginning of the interviews for positions to which I had four interviews with the following positions: Intern, Las Vegas 51’s Marketing Trainee, Atlanta Braves Inside Sales Representative, San Francisco Giants Inside Sales Representative, Portland Beavers The confusion that surrounded the day did allow for these four jobs to be possible to interview for. Based on my experience in marketing/sales, I was very pleased to see these types of results with the first day. It was really a wonderful feeling to interview with four of the jobs that I applied for the day before, with several more to come in the future days while in Las Vegas. The second day is supposed to be the big day for interviews and I will look forward to seeing how round two turns out as day one provided a ton of excitement as well as confusion. One of the most confusing parts to the first day of inte...

Sunday, December 7th, 2008 So the honeymoon is over for me today after a day of reality checks and disappointment. For nine hours today, myself and somewhere in the area of five-hundred other job seekers spent time listening to some of the greatest minds in Minor League Baseball talk about the barriers of entry to the business of baseball. What was so disappointing to me was that many of the people talking this afternoon were explaining the barriers to entry to the sport, which I suppose might have helped some people, but I am in Las Vegas because I am trying my hardest to break into a sport that is incredibly difficult to enter – I assumed the risk before I came here and there is not a whole lot that can deter me from my mission. I imagine that most of the other people here this week are also in the same position. At one point, I decided to ask one of the high ranking officials in Minor League Baseball to give the audience a sales pitch as to why we should want to work in Minor League...

Saturday, December 6th, 2008 As the sun rose to show itself through the frigid central New York air, I was perched up in the sky looking out onto a new day. It could not have been more appropriate as I finish my career at Ithaca College and am embarking on my journey to find a job at the Baseball Winter Meetings in Las Vegas, Nevada. The trip itself was quite the journey – waking up at 5:00 AM to catch my flight from Ithaca to Newark, and then picking up three hours from Newark to Las Vegas. Baseball never ceases to amaze me with its ability to bring complete strangers together. On the flight from Newark to Las Vegas, I pulled out the Baseball America 2008 handbook to take a quick look and the guy sitting next to me immediately started to talk me up about the Baseball Winter Meetings and I found a person that was in the exact situation that I am in, looking for a job. If that wasn’t enough of a coincidence, when we stood up to get off the plane, my new acquaintance recognized that the ...

The following is something that was posted on Padres front-office staffer, Paul DePodesta's blog: http://itmightbedangerous.blogspot.com/ Paul, Thank you for this bit of information, this may be the most insight into a baseball operations plan that I have ever read. I'm actually kind of shocked that there are only 23 comments. My comment is going to bring us to current issues in collective bargaining. With the San Diego Padres operating income reaching $167 million at the conclusion to the 2007 season (Forbes), it puts the Padres 18th overall in total team revenue, 16 million below the league average (c. 183M). I have seen signs of concern for mid-market teams in the form that you point out in this discussion. The Padres have enough resources to field competitive teams and also develop top prospects; however it requires specific micro-management of talent, not to mention some surprises in player development. The team endured a tough 2008 season at the major league level because...

Again, this is another example of Dayton Moore and the Kansas City Royals making aggressive moves to improve some of the weaknesses from the 2008 version of the club. Already this offseason , the Royals have moved two successful relievers from their bullpen to acquire useful parts. With this move, the Royals have picked up a ton of defensive range in the outfield because now the Royals can move David DeJesus back into left-field, where he is best suited and enjoy watching Crisp run down and make some incredible plays in a spacious Kauffman Stadium. Crisp's time in Boston was forgettable, as he saw his offensive numbers decline from his days in Cleveland and eventually lost the starting job to Jacoby Ellsbury . Now in Kansas City, he will be granted one more chance at becoming a leadoff -type hitter and the Royals should be well rewarded with having a player who has something to prove. While I reference Crisp as being a leadoff -type it is because he does not have a lot of power...

Growing up a Red Sox fan, it would be easy to say good riddance when Mike Mussina retired earlier today because of the amount of respect he earned beating up on the Red Sox as a pitcher for the Orioles and Yankees for the better part of the last two decades. I have nothing but respect for a guy like Mussina, who likely solidified his place in Cooperstown this season, ending his career on the highest of high's, a 20-win season and a Gold Glove. While watching other aging great pitchers such as Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine, Curt Schilling, John Smoltz and Pedro Martinez may have careers that have provided baseball with more scintillating moments in one season than Mussina did in his entire career, yet they did not know when to walk away. Mussina's retirement from baseball after having arguably the best season of his career is so impressive and something that other greats will not be able to claim as their decision to keep pitching when their instincts kept them going a...

While the rumors swirl about how much the Yankees offered to CC Sabathia, the Giants came away with a very good deal yesterday. They locked up a left-handed reliever for two years at 8M. Better yet, he has had an ERA in the mid to low 3's the last two seasons pitching in Colorado and Cincinnati -- two of the most hitter friendly ballparks in the MLB. In past offseasons, Affeldt may have been looking at 3 years and 15M, but this does set a small standard that because of the economy, teams are hopefully not going to overpay on mid range talent. This contract will affect the totals given to other relievers like Joe Beimel, Kyle Farnsworth or Bob Howry.

As a baseball fan, you have to admire what the Oakland A's have been able to do in the last decade. They have loaded up on talent, and then reloaded, and now appear to be reloading once again to be a contender. In acquiring Matt Holliday, the A's pick up one of the games best pure hitters, in the final season of his arbitration years. This may be a risky move, but as many will point out, the A's will be well compensated with Holliday's offensive production for at least one season and if they were to lose him, he would give the A's two compensation draft picks. With plenty of money to spend this offseason, I doubt that the A's stop here as they look to build that team back to strike fear into the American League once again. With no real outstanding player in their lineup last season, the A's have been talking about bringing back Jason Giambi, though adding another contact heavy hitter would be the most beneficial to a team that hit just .242 in 2008. I argue ...

With the season ending just over one week ago, Major League Baseball has already made some big announcement regarding its future with incoming President, Barack Obama's taxation plans. The taxation plan will tax higher incomes at an additional 4.5%, which makes a big difference on the millions of dollars that will be negotiated during the offseason on premiere players such as Manny Ramirez, CC Sabathia and Mark Texiera to name a few of the best available. Agents are already discussing the value of receiving signing bonuses at the beginning of the contract to beat out the 2009 tax plan. A move that could save a player anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to a couple hundred thousand. In addition to the projected tax increases effect, MLB commissioner Bud Selig warned General Managers this past week at the GM Meeting to be mindful of the state of the economy. It seems as though there are going to be some competing ideas about what is going to be spent this offseason. Available Pl...

I noticed earlier today that the Kansas City Royals acquired slugging first-baseman Mike Jacobs of the Florida Marlins for lefty specialist Leo Nunez. I know that Nunez was a very effective reliever this past season, posting a sub-3.00 ERA, but Jacobs has proven himself to be a very effective power hitter, he is a bat that is begging for a good lefty-hitting park. Unfortunately, he won't get that in Kansas City, but I am still very high on a guy like Jacobs and see this move as being a steal for Kansas City. This past year, in 477 at-bats (primarily against right-handed pitching), Jacobs hit 32 homers for the Marlins, also in a very spacious park. This is the perfect move for the Royals who sorely need power in a lineup that hit 120 home-runs in the entire season and the Marlins lose him as he enters his arbitration years, which is a big help to them as they try to bring that payroll down to less than half of ARod's salary in 2009. Leo Nunez will be an effective reliever with ...

I have got to hand it to the Phillies . They certainly came to play right out of the gate and won this series, to bring serious sport euphoria to the city of Philadelphia. I do however feel that the story of the Series was more that the Rays lost the series rather than the Phillies winning it. Through poor defensive play, lack of clutch hitting and lack of aggression on the base paths , the Rays did not play their game. Despite pitching performances that kept them in the games, the Rays just could not break through against Philadelphia pitching, which is a credit to the excellent preparation and scouting work that their franchise had done to prepare for the series. I really feel that the lesser team won this series and really, with four of five games being decided by two or fewer runs (Three one-run games), the Rays mistakes that led to a run or not scoring did come back to cost them the series. The best example in my view was the defense of Akinori Iwamura . This is a player that i...

Dear Family and Friends, As promised, I am deviating from baseball for just one article to include the results from my 5K. I have to admit that this was one of the harder things that I have physically done in a long time, certainly since my knee surgery. For those who do not know the landscape of the city of Ithaca, it is at the tip of Appalachia, which means hills and lots of them. In the picture above, I was off to a burning quick start, in third place of over 200 runners after the first quarter-mile. It was a great feeling. I was thinking in my head that all of the treadmill work I had done in the past two months really had worked. Then, of course, reality set in as I reached the base of a 30 degree hill that quickly felt like from the top, I would be able to see several states away. The effect of this hill was the same as attaching a fifty pound anvil to my waist for the rest of my run. Despite miserable cramps, tired and sore legs and the cold rain falling on me, I managed to fini...

Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays Alright Las Vegas, you're going to have to pay up big to anyone who picked this match up on opening day. While I have been a constant voice of Rays support, not even I thought that they would go this far with a mediocre offense, a starting rotation all under the age of 26 and a bullpen comprised of scrap-heap pickups. The Phillies have been up and down all season and have gone as their hitters have, yet they are now hot and have led their team to a convincing World Series berth. I look at the Phillies and I see a lot of offensive talent, that when hot, can dominate teams. Against mediocre pitching in Los Angeles and Milwaukee, that is exactly what happened. The Phillies offense has been firing on all cylinders and really has impressed the baseball world with their maximum capacity. They also have a dynamic starter in Cole Hamels and a better closer in Brad Lidge , yet to blow a save in nearly 50 opportunities (including the playoffs)...

While staying up until 1:30 A.M. on the east coast, Rays fans were well rewarded for watching the game well past their bedtimes of 8:00 and witnessed what great postseason moments are made of. In an epic 5 and a half hour game, the Rays and Red Sox matched great bullpen performances after their starters let them down. After the offenses cooled, Joe Maddon's bullpen pitched great, led by Dan Wheeler. Wheeler, the Rays closer, threw 3.1 innings and 48 pitches in his effort and kept the Red Sox lineup quiet in extra innings. I will give credit to Maddon for being so agressive with his best relief option to put him out for a fourth inning of work. Of course, there is reason to question using his closer for 48 pitches in Game 2, but it really was a must win situation. Time will tell if Wheeler remains effective with the coming games at Fenway, but I have to say that I like the move for now. The other Maddon move that I wish to discuss was in the bottom of the 11th when he sent Fernando ...

National League Championship Series: Los Angeles Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies This promises to be a very good series. Each team offers very similar style and are playing the best baseball of their season right now. They have two managers in Joe Torre and Charlie Manuel that have been in the postseason a great deal in their day, and they each have offenses that can mash the ball, with a slight advantage to Philadelphia if Pat Burrell is indeed getting his stroke back (2 HR's in Game 4 of the NLDS vs. Milwaukee). The Phillies and Dodgers both have the offensive talent but the Phillies offer something that Joe Torre cannot counter with, a bonafide ace in Cole Hamels while the Dodgers counter with one of the best postseason hitters in baseball history in Manny Ramirez. In the playoffs however, good pitching beats good hitting most of the time and the Phillies absolutely have an edge with Hamels in potentially three games if necessary. In the battle of late inning relief, ...

To start, these were four of the best consecutive games in a playoff series perhaps ever played. These four games were hard fought for each of the 39 innings and there was doubt as to who would win the game until the final out was made. This series can best be described as being intense. In the end, it came down to the Angels not being able to come up with the clutch hit while the Red Sox taking advantage of the uncharacteristic sloppy defense that the Angels played, particularly in the outfield. While the Red Sox did not play great, they did play well enough to win this series. I will give this credit to the nature of their regular season play. The Red Sox (and Rays) play in arguably the most competitive division in baseball and most competitive division in the past decade with four playoff capable teams. The nature of play in the American League East prepared the Red Sox for the playoffs better than that of the West, where two of the worst teams matched up with the Angels. Sinc...

The Cubs will be back next year, their nucleus is just too good not to in such a weak National League. Though, I'll bet that Lou Pinella does not bench his all-star starters for the entire final week to the season. I'd say that it threw off their timing just a bit. I will give credit to the Dodgers, they put on pressure and kept it on, but the Cubs have now been swept out of the playoffs in the Division Series three times in the last six years. It may be time to get a high OBP , lead off type to take over in center field for Jim Edmonds and Reed Johnson and push Alfonso Soriano down to a lower spot in the lineup. Either way, you kind of have to feel bad for the Cubs. On the cover of Sports Illustrated and ESPN's choice for World Series champions, they fell hard and their fans have got to be feeling the pain.

Sports analysts across the country have been screaming since Boston's 7-5 defeat of the Angels last evening about the post-season dominance that the Red Sox have over the Angels. Last nights win marked the 11th consecutive win for the Red Sox over the Angels in post-season play, a streak that spans back to the 1986 LCS. While those games seem unimportant, the Red Sox domanince of the Angels in October baseball is unusual and at least the 8 consecuitive victories (sweep in the LDS in '04, '07; and a 2-0 lead in '08) are relevant. This is unlike any other matchup that I have seen in my time as a follower of the game, while the 2008 series has provided some incredibly hard fought games, the Red Sox have still been winners. I find it hard to believe in professional athletes allowing for a postseason losing streak that spans two decades to get into their minds, but it does seem unreal that the best team in the playoffs may go down tomorrow night to the same team. I think in ...

It is the 3rd inning in Los Angeles this evening and already this game is shaping up to be a battle of two of the greatest and most successful managers in Major League Baseball today. Whatever happens, this is going to be an incredible series. Also, tonight is the first time I recognized Howie Kendrick's improved defensive prowess. Thanks to Buck Martinez, the stat of one error in 70+ games is a huge improvement in just one year (9 in 86 games last year).

Boston Red Sox vs. Los Angeles Angels I don't know where to begin with this series because defending champion, Boston, has history of defeating the Angels in the Divisional series in 2004 and 2007 though these teams appear to be in different situations. The Angels finished the season as the best team in the American League and did it with a solid lineup from top to bottom and great starting pitching. The Red Sox have won two championships with teams built on that premises , which is why I say that the winner of this series will be World Series champion in 2008. I said Boston back in July and I am going to have to stick with that choice here. Either way, this is going to be a great set of games and probably the best match-up in the first-round of the playoffs. Pick: Boston in 5 Chicago White Sox vs. Tampa Bay Rays Oh the satisfaction that it gives me to write Tampa Bay Rays in a divisional series preview. The 11 year wait for postseason play is over for the Rays, winners of the ...

Milwaukee Brewers vs. Philadelphia Phillies In this series I favor the Phillies, though not nearly as much as the rest of the country. The Brewers will still get two starts out of CC Sabathia in a five game series and the way that he has been pitching, that could mean that they just need one win in one of the other three games. Despite all of that, the Brewers have really pushed Sabathia about as far as any pitcher can go in the day of the pitch count and five-man rotation. I see this series going to 5 games with the Phillies getting it done against Sabathia. Pick: Phillies in 5 Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Chicago Cubs While I see Lou Pinella's strategy of benching his stars during the last week of the season, he runs the risk of having their bats cool down and not be ready to go. The Dodgers have been playing very good September baseball and have gotten healthy at the right time. Even with that said, the Cubs are just so deep and have been baseball's most consistent team all seaso...

While the Chicago White Sox tied the small-market Minnesota Twins this evening for the AL Central lead at the end of regulation play in 2008, there was one bright ray of sunshine for me as an Ozzie Guillen team took another breath for this season. The 2008 Kansas City Royals finished with a 75-87 record, beating the Detroit Tigers by one game for fourth place in the division. While playing their best baseball in September the Royals finished ahead of pre -season World Series favorite Detroit. This is a small victory that will most likely go unnoticed outside of the Kansas City clubhouse and this blog, but I think that is quite an amazing feat. Let's compare the lineups towards the end of the season: Kansas City: C - J. Buck; 1B - R. Shealy ; 2B - A. Callaspo ; 3B - A. Gordon; SS - M. Aviles ; LF - M. Teahen ; CF - D. DeJesus ; RF - J. Guillen ; DH - B. Butler Detroit: C - D. Ryan; 1B - M. Cabrera; 2B - P. Polanco ; 3B - C. Guillen ; SS - E. Renteria ; LF - M. Thames; CF - C. Gr...

Now that the trade deadline has come and gone, the big trades are done with and the media found the Red Sox waiver claim of Padres outfielder Brian Giles to be newsworthy this week. The Padres and Red Sox were working on a deal to send the former All-Star, Giles, to the Red Sox before the deal was quashed by the veteran slugger. Giles has a limited no-trade clause in his contract with Boston being one of the teams that he could not go to. I was more than just a little bit surprised to hear that Giles did not accept the trade because he did not want to play a limited role with the club. In his thirteen-year career, he has been in the postseason only once and with his power numbers on severe decline, it does not seem likely that he is fit for a starting role on many teams. Due another 3 or so million dollars for the rest of the 2008 season and a 3 million dollar buyout for the 2009 season, this trade would have cost the Red Sox quite a bit for an insurance policy and depth addition. ...

As usual, while watching the ESPN show 1st and 10 this afternoon, my mind started working off of the arguments between Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith. When the two weren't arguing their views based on their ethnic composition or when Smith didn't call out ESPN for being too gracious to Brett Favre (it's about time someone said it), they discussed the question as to whether or not the Brewers were the best team in the National League. I also want to talk about this question now too. To me there are three teams in the National League that should be in this conversation and they are all in the NL Central: the Brewers, Cubs and Cardinals. I also wish that the NL West would be disallowed of having a team in the postseason since these three are all so capable. 1.) The Chicago Cubs Cubs; 59-42 (Division Lead) The Cubs started off the 2008 season showing that they are a very strong team. With their strong start and unexpected contributions from Ryan Dempster , they had a v...

Uh-Oh! Here it is -- the end of July, and the Yankees are now just 3.5 games out of the AL East lead. It is scary to imagine that a team with Sidney Ponson in its rotation can be doing so well, but the Yankees are simply rolling their way up towards the top of the division. What has been a very inconsistent team throughout the season has started to show signs of consistency. Their offense should be set, even without Hideki Matsui. It is their pitching that worries me. Andy Pettite and Mike Mussina have been great so far this season, but they are both old and could be in for a hard end of the season given their age and recent history. Chien-Ming Wang is out until September and Joba Chamberlain has not recieved run support. It will be interesting to fololow this team. With their resources, it would be silly for them not to acquire a starting pitcher for the stretch run. There has been talk of Jarrod Washburn. If that is the best available starter, perhaps Sidney Ponson may work out just ...

Yesterday, July 22nd -- The Houston Astros traded Chad Reinke for Randy Wolf. This is a guy that has an ERA of 6.63 away from Petco Park and will now be pitching inside one of the most hitter-friendly parks in Major League Baseball. If that isn't bad enough, the Astros are playing in the same division as the three best teams in the National League (Brewers, Cubs, Cardinals) and are in last place in that division, twelve games out. What do the Astros think they are accomplishing by making this trade? Ed Wade must be desparate at this point to save the Astros from the bottom of the division. At best, Wolf is a .500 pitcher and has an ERA close to what it is presently at 4.74. Realistically, if Wolf doesn't get hurt first, he will struggle mightily pitching in the NL's strongest division and will be a wasted 2.5 million dollar investment. I can't see any positives from this trade for the Astros.

With the New York Mets defeat of the Colorado Rockies this evening, the non-mathematical first half of the 2008 Major League Baseball season is now over. With all of the hype that the All Star Game will bring the city of New York over the next couple of days, yet while this one does count, I am very excited to think about Thursday and the start to the 2 nd half of the season. To honor what promises to be an exciting end to the season, I would like to make some off the wall and bold predictions. BOLD The Red Sox will win the World Series The reason why I think that the Red Sox will become the first repeat World Series winner since the New York Yankees went for three in a row 1998-2000. The Red Sox just are dominant at home and have been able to roll with every injury that they have endured throughout the season. They play 16 of their final 25 games in September at home and because of their trip to Japan back in March, the Red Sox receive extra off days in September to re-work the ...