cubfan33
08-22-2002, 01:18 AM
There's some movement on the labor front and we're heading into an important weekend. Reports are that the owners have backed off the luxury tax some to get increased revenue sharing. We're down to two issues: transferring money from the top of the revenue food chain to the bottom and slowing the salary growth on the top. Some of the numbers Don Fehr used in his letter to agents were frightening. Factoring in the 40 man roster, the DL, and benefits, seven teams are above the $102 million threshhold of the last owners' offer and several are pretty darn close. The Associated Press reported: "Fehr said seven teams currently have 2002 payrolls above the owners' threshold, with the Yankees at $171.2 million, followed by Texas ($131.4 million), Los Angeles ($118.8 million), Boston ($114.8 million), the Mets ($112.9 million), Arizona ($112.1 million) and Atlanta ($110.4 million). These figures include the average annual values of players on 40-man rosters plus about $7.7 million in benefits." That is a lot of money, no matter how you slice it. However, I'll refer you back to a Doug Pappas article that may make you wonder about how close some of these teams really are to bankruptcy. I think if we see a strike, the owners really want to see at least one team go bankrupt in order to allow contraction/dispersal of the Expos. Remember that the implementation of new work rules by the owners would likely include the right to contract teams.
More scary crap: Quoting this article on Foxsports.com, "Coonelly's Aug. 19 memo, read to The Associated Press on Wednesday by a team official, details how teams should look to cut costs.Each team, he wrote, should "examine all of its contractual obligations, including agreements with other unions, employment contracts. leases, etc., to determine what cost-saving measures may be taken during the strike." Since the 1994-95 strike, which lasted 232 days and wiped out the World Series for the first time in 90 years, the commissioner's office instituted standard employee contracts for non-players such as managers, GMs, scouts and trainers. "The commissioner has the authority to suspend uniform employee contracts when there is a player strike," Coonelly wrote in his memo. "No decision has been made regarding the exercise of this authority in the event of a strike."" Yes, you just read that the OCB has the right to fire pretty much the whole front office of teams if there is a strike and call it a cost-savings measure. Anyone want to guess how those GM's and managers will react when Seligula sends the Turk around?
What has happened to Shyam Das? Like many others, I was convinced that Das' decision on contraction would be one of the pivotal events in the labor negotiations. Instead, he vanished like the marketing for The Adventures of Pluto Nash. More than a month and a half after the original decision date and THREE WEEKS after his second delay, there's not a peep from Das and no indication that a decision is forthcoming. I'm working on trying to figure out this whole situation and hope for a more substantive report for you tomorrow.
I know I dogged the Rally Monkey last night, but is anyone aware that in just over a week, the Famous Chicken may hang up the costume after thirty years? Even weirder, it may be here in Indianapolis on the night of the strike. I'm hoping to get an interview with the man inside the Chicken suit, so keep your fingers crossed.
I'm still stumped about A.J. Burnett and the Marlins aren't talking. I spoke with at least ten doctors, trainers, and radiologists today, trying to figure out how all the pieces of this puzzle fit together and no one did it. Some things I heard make it sound like this could be a serious problem, like chondral lesions - don't ask me to explain this, please - or that it could be something as simple as his bad biomechanics created a friction somewhere in the elbow, much like having bone chips without the chips. Either way, I'm staying on this one and hope to keep digging up better answers than what we have now.
Another injury that doesn't add up is Braves reliever John Foster. While it wouldn't be surprising to see Foster sent down or even dropped on the DL with an "injury" his listing with dizziness doesn't make sense. The Braves regularly bring players in from the minors to Atlanta for tests, but I can't remember the last time they sent a major leaguer anywhere other than Birmingham for any care. Foster was sent to Richmond. The Braves aren't talking and my favorite Braves source got shifty when I asked him what was going on with Foster. Michael McHenry of the unbelievably cool Braves Report (www.bravesreport.com) was kind enough to provide UTK with this assessmenty on Foster, since I knew little or nothing about him: "Foster was drafted in the 25th round of the 1999 draft and just turned 24. He had excellent seasons in Danville (rookie, 1999) and Myrtle Beach (hi-A, 2000), posting sub-2.00 ERAs both years. Hit a small bump in AA Greenville last year. His hits allowed were about the same but the K/BB ratio went down by 50% due to a ton of walks. With that, his ERA jumped to 3.01. Foster had a GREAT spring: 13 IP, 5 H, 0 R and was thought to be a lock for the Atlanta bullpen. Feature articles all over the Atlanta paper about him, but he ended up being a victim of numbers and started in Richmond He came up for 1 inning at the end of April, but has been at Richmond until the injury to Remlinger."
A conundrum after two puzzles: if high pitch counts are bad and low pitch counts are good, does getting blown out every once in a while - like Mark Prior did tonight - help? Sure, Prior went 104 pitches in 4 2/3 innings, which shows pretty clearly he didn't bring his "A" game, but its an interesting question and one I don't have an answer for. Before you ask, Prior's velocity was fine, but his pitches lacked the normal crispness and movement.
Not a mystery, but very concerning, is the loss of Aaron Sele. Sele has been a workhorse over a number of years, but something snapped. Not something, but his rotator cuff. Sele has a partial thickness tear of his supraspinatus muscle and will likely miss the rest of the season. Surgery doesn't appear to be the way that Sele is headed, but he has begun a cortisone injection series and will begin rehabbing it as soon as possible. Treated well - and it will be with Lewis Yocum keeping an eye on it - Sele should be back next year without too much problem. Scott Schoenweiss will take over in the rotation, but it will be interesting to see Mike Scioscia juggle his pitchers to try and maximize the team's chances of making it into the playoffs. He has a tough task - do you run someone like Schoenweiss out there and risk using a fifth man who's been ineffective or do you bring an effective reliever like Brendan Donnelly or Al Levine into a new situation and ask him to start? Better, might Scioscia get innovative and use a series of pitchers in short stints to become in essence a patchwork starter. (You know, I seem to recall Jim Leyland doing something like this back in the early 90's in the playoffs, but I'm curious if it's ever been done on any sort of regular basis.)
Johnny Damon's struggles with an injured knee may be coming to a head. As the Red Sox slide out of the race but cling to life and hope, at what point do they decide that Damon is hurting their chances by playing at well below full capacity? Damon will need to have "routine" knee surgery but had hoped to wait until the offseason. With a deep outfield/DH cast, the Red Sox could survive losing Damon and may need to make a tough call in the next couple days.
There's an epidemic of neck injuries in Dallas ... first Rocket Ismail will make for a dramatic moment on Hard Knocks next week, now Rusty Greer will undergo almost an identical procedure, a fusion of his fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae. Greer will do a surgery doubleheader, following up the next surgery with hip surgery in about two weeks. Chan Ho Park's neck is healthy and I'll avoid the too easy "pain in Narron's/Hicks'/Hart's neck" jokes. Park will be activated on Friday and start against the Yankees.
Also coming back soon are Elmer Dessens of the Reds, who will be activated next week for a pivotal start against the Cardinals and Dustin Hermanson who will return from his dishwashing injury (it's his story and he's sticking to it) tomorrow and will return to the Red Sox pen.
The D-Backs will get Luis Gonzalez back perhaps as early as tomorrow, but lose lefty Greg Swindell with ... oh look ... a neck problem! Swindell will be back in time for the playoffs, if needed. The D-Backs and Yankees are looking very similar - reasonably comfortable division leads, using the DL to get players healthy when others are asking them to muddle through, and figuring out how to set their playoff rosters. As bad as the roster construction of the D-Backs looks, they've won pretty consistently with a Spahn and Sain type rotation, an odd bunch of hitters, Brenly's always interesting managerial style, and a great sidewinding bullpen. I can't fault winning, but I can't explain how it works either. I know Joe Garagiola Jr. gets no credit for the team and he probably should.
More scary crap: Quoting this article on Foxsports.com, "Coonelly's Aug. 19 memo, read to The Associated Press on Wednesday by a team official, details how teams should look to cut costs.Each team, he wrote, should "examine all of its contractual obligations, including agreements with other unions, employment contracts. leases, etc., to determine what cost-saving measures may be taken during the strike." Since the 1994-95 strike, which lasted 232 days and wiped out the World Series for the first time in 90 years, the commissioner's office instituted standard employee contracts for non-players such as managers, GMs, scouts and trainers. "The commissioner has the authority to suspend uniform employee contracts when there is a player strike," Coonelly wrote in his memo. "No decision has been made regarding the exercise of this authority in the event of a strike."" Yes, you just read that the OCB has the right to fire pretty much the whole front office of teams if there is a strike and call it a cost-savings measure. Anyone want to guess how those GM's and managers will react when Seligula sends the Turk around?
What has happened to Shyam Das? Like many others, I was convinced that Das' decision on contraction would be one of the pivotal events in the labor negotiations. Instead, he vanished like the marketing for The Adventures of Pluto Nash. More than a month and a half after the original decision date and THREE WEEKS after his second delay, there's not a peep from Das and no indication that a decision is forthcoming. I'm working on trying to figure out this whole situation and hope for a more substantive report for you tomorrow.
I know I dogged the Rally Monkey last night, but is anyone aware that in just over a week, the Famous Chicken may hang up the costume after thirty years? Even weirder, it may be here in Indianapolis on the night of the strike. I'm hoping to get an interview with the man inside the Chicken suit, so keep your fingers crossed.
I'm still stumped about A.J. Burnett and the Marlins aren't talking. I spoke with at least ten doctors, trainers, and radiologists today, trying to figure out how all the pieces of this puzzle fit together and no one did it. Some things I heard make it sound like this could be a serious problem, like chondral lesions - don't ask me to explain this, please - or that it could be something as simple as his bad biomechanics created a friction somewhere in the elbow, much like having bone chips without the chips. Either way, I'm staying on this one and hope to keep digging up better answers than what we have now.
Another injury that doesn't add up is Braves reliever John Foster. While it wouldn't be surprising to see Foster sent down or even dropped on the DL with an "injury" his listing with dizziness doesn't make sense. The Braves regularly bring players in from the minors to Atlanta for tests, but I can't remember the last time they sent a major leaguer anywhere other than Birmingham for any care. Foster was sent to Richmond. The Braves aren't talking and my favorite Braves source got shifty when I asked him what was going on with Foster. Michael McHenry of the unbelievably cool Braves Report (www.bravesreport.com) was kind enough to provide UTK with this assessmenty on Foster, since I knew little or nothing about him: "Foster was drafted in the 25th round of the 1999 draft and just turned 24. He had excellent seasons in Danville (rookie, 1999) and Myrtle Beach (hi-A, 2000), posting sub-2.00 ERAs both years. Hit a small bump in AA Greenville last year. His hits allowed were about the same but the K/BB ratio went down by 50% due to a ton of walks. With that, his ERA jumped to 3.01. Foster had a GREAT spring: 13 IP, 5 H, 0 R and was thought to be a lock for the Atlanta bullpen. Feature articles all over the Atlanta paper about him, but he ended up being a victim of numbers and started in Richmond He came up for 1 inning at the end of April, but has been at Richmond until the injury to Remlinger."
A conundrum after two puzzles: if high pitch counts are bad and low pitch counts are good, does getting blown out every once in a while - like Mark Prior did tonight - help? Sure, Prior went 104 pitches in 4 2/3 innings, which shows pretty clearly he didn't bring his "A" game, but its an interesting question and one I don't have an answer for. Before you ask, Prior's velocity was fine, but his pitches lacked the normal crispness and movement.
Not a mystery, but very concerning, is the loss of Aaron Sele. Sele has been a workhorse over a number of years, but something snapped. Not something, but his rotator cuff. Sele has a partial thickness tear of his supraspinatus muscle and will likely miss the rest of the season. Surgery doesn't appear to be the way that Sele is headed, but he has begun a cortisone injection series and will begin rehabbing it as soon as possible. Treated well - and it will be with Lewis Yocum keeping an eye on it - Sele should be back next year without too much problem. Scott Schoenweiss will take over in the rotation, but it will be interesting to see Mike Scioscia juggle his pitchers to try and maximize the team's chances of making it into the playoffs. He has a tough task - do you run someone like Schoenweiss out there and risk using a fifth man who's been ineffective or do you bring an effective reliever like Brendan Donnelly or Al Levine into a new situation and ask him to start? Better, might Scioscia get innovative and use a series of pitchers in short stints to become in essence a patchwork starter. (You know, I seem to recall Jim Leyland doing something like this back in the early 90's in the playoffs, but I'm curious if it's ever been done on any sort of regular basis.)
Johnny Damon's struggles with an injured knee may be coming to a head. As the Red Sox slide out of the race but cling to life and hope, at what point do they decide that Damon is hurting their chances by playing at well below full capacity? Damon will need to have "routine" knee surgery but had hoped to wait until the offseason. With a deep outfield/DH cast, the Red Sox could survive losing Damon and may need to make a tough call in the next couple days.
There's an epidemic of neck injuries in Dallas ... first Rocket Ismail will make for a dramatic moment on Hard Knocks next week, now Rusty Greer will undergo almost an identical procedure, a fusion of his fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae. Greer will do a surgery doubleheader, following up the next surgery with hip surgery in about two weeks. Chan Ho Park's neck is healthy and I'll avoid the too easy "pain in Narron's/Hicks'/Hart's neck" jokes. Park will be activated on Friday and start against the Yankees.
Also coming back soon are Elmer Dessens of the Reds, who will be activated next week for a pivotal start against the Cardinals and Dustin Hermanson who will return from his dishwashing injury (it's his story and he's sticking to it) tomorrow and will return to the Red Sox pen.
The D-Backs will get Luis Gonzalez back perhaps as early as tomorrow, but lose lefty Greg Swindell with ... oh look ... a neck problem! Swindell will be back in time for the playoffs, if needed. The D-Backs and Yankees are looking very similar - reasonably comfortable division leads, using the DL to get players healthy when others are asking them to muddle through, and figuring out how to set their playoff rosters. As bad as the roster construction of the D-Backs looks, they've won pretty consistently with a Spahn and Sain type rotation, an odd bunch of hitters, Brenly's always interesting managerial style, and a great sidewinding bullpen. I can't fault winning, but I can't explain how it works either. I know Joe Garagiola Jr. gets no credit for the team and he probably should.