Vente du Feu

[cubfan33]

So there I am, typing away with a wrist that has me listed as "day to day" waiting on a call to finish off a great feature piece. I've got great quotes, a great angle ... and then the company ends up quiet as a mouse. I'm not giving up hope on it yet, so I won't sulk or call anyone names, but it is disappointing. So instead of telling you about the cool new feature article, I'll give you a good news - bad news scenario. The good news is that I'm officially going to do a guide to baseball injuries. I'll be working with some leading sports medicine people and will have some involvement from former and active baseball medical staffs, so this is something really exciting. Think of it as "The Fan's Guide to Baseball Injuries" and you won't be far off. Where it ends up is something I'm negotiating now ... it could be in book form or it could be on a website, but UTK subscribers will always be able to access it, so consider that another benefit of a free subscription. The bad news is that I'm still hearing ugly rumors out of Montreal. I won't pretend to have all the sources that someone like Peter Gammons has and I certainly don't have his front office connections, but the rumblings are getting loud enough for most to hear - with the Expos essentially out of contention, Omar Minaya's next deal may be a salary dump. The question is, if Bartolo Colon and Cliff Floyd are flipped, as Mike Piazza was from Florida a few years back in their fire sale, what does a team facing extinction want in return? Worse, could it go deeper and gut the franchise of cornerstones like Vlad Guerrero and Javier Vazquez? Back to the unconfirmed rumors (though Jayson Stark did have something very similar in his column today) - could Montreal essentially sell off players for cash? Here's where the July 31st deadline could mean something and roster shenanigans could get googly: Imagine a team like Boston - bereft of prospects but flush with cash - coming to Montreal wanting to buy Colon for a couple million bucks that John Henry made shorting AOL. (In the interest of full disclosure, I covered a short of AOL today.) Colon won't clear waivers so the deal has to be done by July 31, but there could be a prospect for cash deal with PTBNL attached. MLB, as owner, is conflicted, but I'm sure would approve the deal. Who's the PTNBL? Well, one name on the list could well be Colon! One source I have says a deal could be structured like this, but another says no. My question is - why don't we know the rules or better yet have a copy and what's to stop Selig from approving this shenanigan filled transaction?

Let's do good news-bad news again, for star pitchers. Good news is the near-miraculous recovery of Kevin Brown, who threw 61 pitches in a simulated game yesterday and had no ill-effects. Brown's elbow has done well with the enforced rest that back surgery called, while Brown's back is nearing 100 percent. Bad news for the Dodgers is a slight setback for Darren Dreifort. He's dealing with bursitis in his knee which comes from a slightly altered delivery (and some gained weight) putting more pressure on the knee than it has been used to. The injury isn't serious and really shouldn't set Dreifort back much at all, perhaps a week. If the Dodgers can stay close, Dreifort may not be a difference maker, but could take a bit of the load off the fading Eric Gagne. Speaking of Gagne, a pitching guru told me last week that Gagne's fade isn't overwork, it's underconditioning.

Worse news for the Astros. There's some internal concern over the health of Roy Oswalt. Quietly, Jimy Williams is juggling his rotation to allow Oswalt to get some extra rest. Oswalt is adjusting his delivery some to compensate for what some are calling fatigue and what others are calling a dead arm. While the Astros have gotten a lot of mileage by not discriminating against short slight pitchers, it may catch up to them in some cases like this. "Little guys like Oswalt who pitch bigger than they are are going to get tired and if they aren't careful, their mechanics fall apart," said our favorite pitching coach. "A guy like Jamie Moyer is little and pitches little. Same thing we saw this year and last with Pedro Martinez."

Yesterday's report on Jeff Zimmerman was accurate, but slow. The Rangers apparently have an express lane to Lewis Yocum and Zimmerman was examined yesterday. Yocum found a torn tendon and other assorted elbow problems, making surgery likely. It is not yet clear if the assorted damage will require Tommy John surgery or a lesser procedure. Either way, Zimmerman's season is done and '03 is in question, if not his career.

Two big names in Florida on rehab - Roger Clemens and Brad Radke - looked good yesterday. Clemens threw again in Tampa with a UTK observer using binoculars for good and not evil. Clemens threw with "an easy motion, probably about sixty to eighty percent effort, with excellent mechanics and a leg drive that showed no ill effects from any previous injury." I love sources with precise info! Clemens will likely pitch for the FSL (A) Yankees, which makes me wonder if the A-ball Yanks could outdraw the Devil Rays, who'll be playing .... the MLB Yankees across town! Radke is already in Single A and pitched a solid four innings yesterday before the rains came. Radke should be back with the Twins by August 1.

The Yanks will also likely drop Mariano Rivera on to the DL by tomorrow. Rivera was very disappointed with how much pain he had after playing catch and Joe Torre hinted that since a retro move would get Rivera eligible in about a week, the move might be made. Rivera had a cortisone injection today - something I'll be doing a feature on soon - and Steve Karsay and Mike Stanton will continue to control the late innings for the Yanks. The Yanks have also made some inquiries about Jeff Fassero. If they make that deal, I won't be able to say Cashman has never made a bad deal anymore. The rumor of Drew Henson for Fassero seems quite farfetched as well.

Jim Thome is frustrated with the lack of progress he is making towards returning to the field. Thome is sidelines with back spasms and while it is progressing, Thome is losing patience. Actually, he's seeing the team losing which isn't doing much for him and I imagine his wife's impending delivery can't help him sleep at night. (Does any of our Cleveland friends know Mrs. Thome's due date?) Thome could be back tomorrow, according to Thome, or as late as next week, according to Indians sources.

The A's went out and got Ray Durham for an iffy minor leaguer with a Tommy John elbow, circa '99. One of my favorite quotes has to be Cory Lidle saying "Billy [Beane] has a pretty good idea what he's doing ..." I'm sure he appreciates Lidle's endorsement. Beane was able to make this deal because he isnot worried about recent acquistition Ted Lilly. Lilly had an MRI today, but the results aren't known yet and I still have jack squat for A's sources, but Beane did have a press conference where he stated that the injury was to be treated with "an aggressive strength and stretching program." Aaron Harang will hold the slot while Lilly stretches and strengthens.

Giants trainer Stan Conte is a busy guy, seeing as how the Giants have all their starting outfielders on the shelf. Tsuyoshi Shinjo went to the DL with a strained hamstring, while Reggie Sanders may be able to return this weekend. Barry Bonds is likely going to be back early next week, but since the first series the Giants have is on turf, the Giants may elect to hold Bonds out there as well. Until this weekend at least, Dusty Baker is left with Ramon Martinez, Tom Goodwin, and Shawon Dunston in the outfield. Wow.

Tigers shortstop Ramon Santiago will have surgery to remove the broken hamate bone in his wrist. This isn't as serious as it sounds. In fact, Ken Griffey Jr had this same surgery in season a few years back after a collision with the Kingdome wall and showed no ill effects upon his return. The Tigers went out and picked up Hiram Bocachica, just so they could hear Ernie Harwell say "Bocachica."

Javy Lopez is fighting to stay off the DL, but Bobby Cox didn't sound like he was listening. A decision will be made tomorrow on his status. If Lopez is only gone a couple weeks, Henry Blanco can handle the role, but if the shoulder doesn't respond to treatment and rest, the Braves may be hurting behind the plate and could try to find a cheap solution like Kelly Stinnett or Ben Petrick.

Rumblings from the Phillies directions aren't all about Scott Rolen. Our sources there say that Larry Bowa is speaking very loudly, if privately, with his displeasure about Robert Person and his injury. Bowa is said to have gone as far as suggesting that Person is faking the injury to avoid the responsibility of pitching poorly against a poor hitting team like the Cubs. I wasn't a Bowa fan as a player and his poor man's Billy Martin act wore thin on me about the second week of last season. Hey Larry - Billy was a better player, better manager, and better man.

Jose Ortiz had knee surgery, complicating his return to the Rockies. Ortiz hadn't been hitting, even on Planet Coors, and fell out of favor with manager Clint Hurdle. His job lost to Brent Butler, his season is now lost to injuries. Meanwhile, Jermaine Dye is helping the A's fight for a division and Neifi Perez is Neifi Perez. Billy Beane is a GENIUS, I tell you.

Next report tomorrow ... possible feature or a full on tantrum sometime tomorrow.

[johnny]

Hmmm...Montreal gets rid of their top prospects, then gets rid of their best ML players, and takes in a bundle of cash.
I can see Bud doing his George Peppard impersonation now...


Any idea when K. Brown is gonna try and come back?

[soxfan121]

I go on record right now that if Vlad Guerrero is SOLD that I will not watch baseball until Bud Selig is drawn and quartered. :redhot:

The Giants are going to have to deal for an outfielder now, what with all the blown hammys and the infielders in the outfield.

[Gosfgiants]

Originally posted by soxfan121
The Giants are going to have to deal for an outfielder now, what with all the blown hammys and the infielders in the outfield.

There was a bit in the Chronicle about how the giants were sending feelers about a deal involving Livian Hernandez. I think they've had it with his up down cycles. They have Kurt Ainsworth sitting in AAA ready to go.

[KCBOOMER]

Originally posted by cubfan33
Omar Minaya's next deal may be a salary dump. The question is, if Bartolo Colon and Cliff Floyd are flipped, as Mike Piazza was from Florida a few years back in their fire sale, what does a team facing extinction want in return? Worse, could it go deeper and gut the franchise of cornerstones like Vlad Guerrero and Javier Vazquez? Back to the unconfirmed rumors (though Jayson Stark did have something very similar in his column today) - could Montreal essentially sell off players for cash? Here's where the July 31st deadline could mean something and roster shenanigans could get googly: Imagine a team like Boston - bereft of prospects but flush with cash - coming to Montreal wanting to buy Colon for a couple million bucks that John Henry made shorting AOL. MLB, as owner, is conflicted, but I'm sure would approve the deal. Who's the PTNBL? Well, one name on the list could well be Colon!


Supposedly Colon could not be a PTBNL because MLB has a rule against "loaning" players which is what that would be.

Not even Bud & the Boys could be dumb enough to approve the sale of Expos players. This would be tantamount to the league attempting to fix its own pennant races. Shades of the WWF!

Far better for MLB to keep the players in Montreal for a bargaining chip with the players over contraction and the dispersal draft.

Congratulations over your continued success on UTK. BTW, for people like me who are not subscribers because we read your column at Netshrine do you recommend we subscribe also?

[moose]

Originally posted by KCBOOMER
BTW, for people like me who are not subscribers because we read your column at Netshrine do you recommend we subscribe also?
one thing i like about the emails is that the names are bolded and the websites are hyperlinked...

[Allard]

Could Montreal's previous minority owners use this potential player sale against MLB as part of the RICO lawsuit? If MLB sold the players, it would seem to strengthen the case of racketeering against Bud.

While I'm on the subject of RICO, why doesn't Miles Prentice use this against MLB? He is the guy that submitted the highest bid for the Red Sox, as well as the Royals 3 years ago. Bud slammed the door in his face with no real explanation aside from 'concerns about the size of his ownership group.' Prentice made no secret that he wanted no part of crying small market, and planned to spend some money. Certainly seems like Prentice would have a case that he was defrauded of the profits from both teams, especially since the Royals are one of the only teams Bud admitted to making a profit last year.

[Shinjo!]

Originally posted by Gosfgiants


There was a bit in the Chronicle about how the giants were sending feelers about a deal involving Livian Hernandez. I think they've had it with his up down cycles. They have Kurt Ainsworth sitting in AAA ready to go.

I remember at the beginning of last season, when Livan was getting lit up constantly, he said he wasn't throwing his fastball very fast (he was down in the low-80s) because if he threw it harder, the batters hit it harder. Combine that attitude with his McDonald's conditioning program, Ainsworth's readiness, and yesterday's starting OF of Goodwin, Dunston and Shinjo, and I've got to believe that Sabean can't wait to kick Livan to the curb.

[soxfan121]

Originally posted by Allard

While I'm on the subject of RICO, why doesn't Miles Prentice use this against MLB? He is the guy that submitted the highest bid for the Red Sox, as well as the Royals 3 years ago. Bud slammed the door in his face with no real explanation aside from 'concerns about the size of his ownership group.' Prentice made no secret that he wanted no part of crying small market, and planned to spend some money. Certainly seems like Prentice would have a case that he was defrauded of the profits from both teams, especially since the Royals are one of the only teams Bud admitted to making a profit last year.

Depending on the source, the Prentice offer was laden with loaned money and would have sold off NESN to make the deal solvent. His sources of finance were reported to be heavily leveraged. His offer was the "largest" on the table, but stripping the team of a cash cow like the broadcast network did not seem to be the best course of action, given the potential revenue the owned broadcast network offered. He is not a super-wealthy guy on his own; he just happened to have Comcast and Quadrangle and their desire to own the broadcast rights.

Now Chuck Dolan has a case...

[cubfan33]

Prentice! I KNEW I remembered a third offer for the Red Sox. The loaned money argument is a joke - find a team out there where someone paid cash for a team and that doesnt have some debt on the books. If we're expected to buy the argument "this is a business and we have to make a profit," then don't use normal business acquisition techniques as a negative. Anyone for a hostile LBO?

Comcast has a partial interest in the Phillies and Orioles. Very small actually. No, its not uncommon to have interests in more than one team. See: Henry, John; Goldklang, Marvin. Bush, George W.

The sale of players, in light of the lawsuit, seems amazingly ignorant. I'll detail this more tonight, but the argument from inside OCB is that only the Yankees will be angry if the Red Sox buy players. WHAT? (Is it coincidence that Office of the Commissioner of Baseball and Organized Crime Bureau have the same initials?)

Boomer: I do recommend you subscribe, but its not required. I'll always publish here at Netshrine. It's easier for me to do the email because I can monitor subscriber growth which helps with admin stuff. For the reader, it comes to you (but you're already here so ...) and like Moose said, the links work and players are bolded. I used to CAPS players when it was text rather than HTML and I simply don't have time to change it for Netshrine.

Brown could go on a rehab assignment sometime in mid-August, but that's just a guess.

I'm really unclear about how making Colon (or anyone else) a PTBNL would violate the "loan rule." My sources say it doesn't but one source says there's a rule about trade completion. The rules are so hosed that even if I had a copy *wink* I probably couldn't figure it out. Remember that Colon and Floyd will both be free agents and not bargaining chips after the season - their value to MLB at this point may be cash value.

BTW, I LOVE seeing discussions get going here in UTK! I hope this continues.

[soxfan121]

Originally posted by cubfan33
Prentice! I KNEW I remembered a third offer for the Red Sox. The loaned money argument is a joke - find a team out there where someone paid cash for a team and that doesnt have some debt on the books. If we're expected to buy the argument "this is a business and we have to make a profit," then don't use normal business acquisition techniques as a negative. Anyone for a hostile LBO?

Comcast has a partial interest in the Phillies and Orioles. Very small actually. No, its not uncommon to have interests in more than one team. See: Henry, John; Goldklang, Marvin. Bush, George W.


I watched the Red Sox sale pretty closely and thought Prentice would have been the worst choice. Maybe the loaned money argument is a joke, but the selling of the broadcast rights was really the stumbling block for me. Under the system (as it stands now) a team with an in-house broadcasting network that *could* go national is a big source of potential revenue. Prentice's lack of cash (he had barely any and was getting most of it from the media companies) was also troubling. John Henry is an indenpendently wealthy guy, so is Dolan. Prentice is rich, but not rich-as-god like the other guys. His offer was *more* contigent on financing, and as the economy has folded, his ownership would have been threatened sooner or later by his lack of funds. Dolan would not have - and he did sumbit the largest *cash* deal. That is, and should be, the largest point of contention. Dolan was hosed in the process and would have the stronger legal contention, if he ever chose to puruse it.

As for multiple interests, while it happens, in the Red Sox deal, both Henry, Werner and Lucchino were forced to divest their interests in the Yanquis and Padres before the deal was ratified. In the case of the Prentice deal, Comcast would have gobbled up a large percentage (I think it was in the nieghborhood of 30%, but I could be mistaken) and would have had to divest their holdings in the other teams.

[Allard]

There were concerns about Prentice's wealth (lack of) when he tried to buy the Royals, so I can understand concerns about him not having the resources to buy the Sox, since they sold for 7 times what the Royals sold for (95 million). Still, he did have a legitimate group put together in KC, consisting of several local business leaders. This was done in order to ensure that ownership had an interest in keeping the team in KC.

Problem was, there were no other prospective buyers, and MLB rejected the offer and Bud said that the team would have to be moved if a different buyer were not found. A year later David Glass decided he was interested and bought the team with no resistance, even though he isn't significantly wealthier than Prentice. Prentice got screwed as badly in the KC sale as Dolan did in the Sox sale.

My guess is that Prentice hasn't gone to court yet because he still wants to be an owner. Seems like he would have a very good case in the Royals sale. This doesn't get the attention the Sox sale got, but smelled just as foul.

[Domeboys]

"Billy Beane is a GENIUS, I tell you."

Jeremy Giambi for John Mabry. OOPS, even genuises have bad days...then again, is he a genius or is
Allard Baird an idiot (or both)?

[cubfan33]

Hey, even THAT deal worked ... look at Mabry's numbers in Oakland. I was stunned at that deal ... still am ... but if Beane can figure out which seemingly worthless journeyman will get hot and fit perfectly in on a team, he can do anything.

[Domeboys]

So far, so good, you're right. BTW, keep up the great articles. W/o them, we'd have a lot less to complain, ...er...comment about...