July represents an important part of the baseball season because 31 July is the trading deadline for teams where players need not clear waivers. Therefore, GMs need to assess the real prospects of their teams for this season during this final month of the “free-trading time” to decide how and if they will participate in the many swaps that will happen in about four weeks. I happen to think that the AL Central is the division to watch most closely because the AL Central has interesting storylines and it might be the source of a big trade at the end of the month.
The division shapes up as an enigma at the moment. There are tons of questions including:
Will the White Sox continue to win? They have had strong pitching so far…
Will the Twins continue to manage their inventory of smoke and mirrors? That has to be part of what got them where they are now…
Will the Tigers stop being disappointing? This was the team that was going to score more than 1000 runs this year, remember?
Will the Indians make a run for the division title or will they pack it in for 2008? Therein lies the potential for a huge trade…
Will the Royals continue to play games? Will anyone care?
C.C. Sabathia’s contract is up this year and even though he is making something in the neighborhood of $10M per year now, he will probably command a much larger salary in free agency this winter. If the Indians think they will not be able to sign him then and if the Indians do not like their chances for a playoff run this year, Sabathia may be available at the end of the season to a contending team. True, he may be a “three month rental” in terms of that new team because of free agency, but he is a starting left-handed pitcher with a career ERA below 3.90. That will make him interesting to other contending teams.
Nevertheless, I really wonder how many top-shelf prospects a team ought to give up on to get Sabathia in 2008. This has clearly not been the best year of his career; his record is a meager 6-8; he has already walked almost as many batters in 2008 as he did in all of 2007. In the last two seasons, his ERAs were 3.21 and 3.22; this year his ERA is 3.80. Obviously, a team seeking to get Sabathia will have to fork over a hot prospect or two; is that worth it in the long term?
San Diego Padres’ manager, Bud Black, was upset with the fans in San Diego. From my experience, those fans are hardly raucous, rowdy or rude; nonetheless, Black was not happy. When Padres’ closer, Trevor Hoffman, gave up home runs to consecutive batters in the ninth inning of a recent game, the crowd showered him in boos. Said manager Black:
“I didn’t like it. This city should be very proud of a player like that for everything he’s done on the field and in the community. I don’t think it’s fair.”
Trevor Hoffman is the all-time leader in saves and Black thinks that should get Hoffman a pass in situations like this one. Maybe he’s right. But don’t ask the fans in Philly or NY about it. In those towns, Hoffman might have to hire a food taster if he did this more than twice in a season…
Speaking of closers, the Brewers activated Eric Gagne yesterday. I wonder if the fans in Milwaukee regard this as a positive step or not…
The AD at Indiana University, Rick Greenspan, will leave that job in December. This comes on the heels of NCAA sanctions resulting from Kelvin Sampson’s less than fully successful and downright underhanded tenure as the basketball coach there. The problem boils down to something pretty simple. Sampson came to IU under a cloud; the program at Oklahoma was sanctioned for recruiting violations/irregularities. At IU, there seems to have been no adult supervision of this guy that they brought in with a history of cheating and skirting NCAA regulations. Surprise!!! He cheated again and got caught again. Say whatever you will about Robert Montgomery Knight as a social animal; nothing even close to this ever happened in his multiple decades at Indiana.
In the wake of the NBA Draft, the summer rookie league is beginning to come together and I find it interesting that the NBA holds these games in Las Vegas. It would be too much of a risk to put a franchise there and to expose players, coaches and referees to the evils of gambling and gamblers in Vegas – - yet it is OK to let rookies go there and stay a while and play there. I guess the rookies are more immune to the temptations that might present themselves…
Prior to the NBA Draft, Georgetown center, Roy Hibbert, worked out for several teams. After time with the Utah Jazz, Brad Rock of the Deseret Morning-News had this item:
“You have to appreciate Georgetown center Roy Hibbert’s assessment of the Jazz coaching staff at his workout last week.
“’Those guys are stone cold over there,’ Hibbert told reporters. ‘I can’t even get a read on those guys. No smiles over there at all. They’re all about business.’
“Good point. Why don’t they lighten up?
“Answer: You’d be serious, too, if Greg Ostertag had been your center for 10 years.”
The Bulgarian weightlifting team will not travel to China to compete in the Olympics next month. Eleven of the lifters tested positive for the same drug last month and would be disqualified. What a show of teamwork by these guys. However, it must have gotten crowded in that locker room stall when all eleven of them went in so José Canseco could stab each of them in the butt. How did they manage that?
Finally, here is an item from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:
“Several broadcasters are threatening to sue after a fierce electrical storm in Vienna, Austria, and resulting power outages wiped out their satellite feed during last week’s thrilling Euro 2008 soccer match between Germany and Turkey.
“God’s lawyer could not be reached for comment.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…