Author: The Baseball Zealot

Volquez tries to sneak in the NL ROY voting

The Rookie of the Year voting this year was pretty much a shoo-in for both the National League with the Cubs’ Geovany Soto winning it all and the American League with Tampa’s Evan Longoria taking it. I don’t know of anyone who predicted otherwise. 

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That didn’t stop Cincinnati pitcher Edison Volquez, who wasn’t even officially a rookie, from getting some votes from the the baseball writers.  By doing so, Cincinnati performed a hat trick by getting Volquez, Joey Votto, and Jay Bruce in the top five.

Under baseball rules, if a player spends more than 45 days on a team’s active roster in a previous year, he is not considered a rookie. 

Sox invite Obama to the Cell for ’09

Sox GM Kenny Williams seemed quite moved by the election of Barack Obama.  And guess what?  He talked to the press about it. 

“It was a surreal moment,” said Williams, one of baseball’s two African-American general managers and a friend of Obama’s. “It was overwhelming and just a tremendous feeling of pride.

“The fact that Barack is biracial can bring us together in a much greater way than we can imagine.”

Williams’ Obama-fever moved him to extended an invite to Obama, who is a Sox fan, to throw out the first pitch in the opening game of the 2009 season. 

It won’t be the first time.  The president-elect was handed the ball for Game 2 of the 2005 ALCS against the Angels. 

“They were 0-1 at the time, but they won eight straight,” Obama told the Chicago Tribune in 2005. “I’m not saying there is a correlation, but I e-mailed [White Sox chairman Jerry] Reinsdorf and said if they start getting in a jam, my arm was rested. I was ready to go.”

Don’t expect to see any Barack action in Wrigley, though.  He’s made it clear he’s no Cub fan. 

Lloyd Mac heading for Seattle??

Could Lloyd McClendon be on his way to managing the Mariners?  It’s a possibility. 

Most remember Lloyd as the manager of the Bucs earlier this decade (2001-2005) but as for me, I remember him for his couple of years with the Cubs as a OF/1B.  He even managed a few games at 3B.

He played eight seasons in the majors and of the 35 career homers he hit, 12 were in 1989 with the Cubs. 

Mac didn’t exactly wow them in his five-year stint with Pittsburgh (336-446 record).  But considering the team he was given, I thought he was an ok manager.

AL Gold Glove Awards announced

The Gold Glove Award recipients were announced yesterday.

The outfielders, Sizemore, Suzuki, and Hunter (who played for a different club) were identical from 2007.  On the other hand, the entire infield did a turnover from the year before with sole exception of 3B Adrian Beltre.

As a result, there were four first time winners in Joe Mauer, Carlos Pena, Dustin Pedroia, and Mike Young. 

A changing of the guard?

NL Gold Gloves announced

The NL Gold Glove awards were announced yesterday.

Not a lot of surprises.  Maddux won his 18th award in the year he plans to retire.  Rollins, Beltran, and somehow David Wright seemed to sneak in there again.  Nate McLouth won his first Gold Glove and first Pirate to do so since 1993 when Jay Bell did so.

I admit I’m not familiar with Adrian Gonzalez’ fielding exploits at first base.  Is he REALLY all that better than NL competition at his position?  Considering who’s out there, I wonder.  Except for first base, every NL player who won the Fielding Bible Award, also won a Gold Glove.  Albert Pujols won a FBA at first this year.

Where to find Free Agent info

Below are some good links to track the off-season free agency. 

For my money, the best sortable list is ESPN’s Free Agent Tracker but Sport City’s and MLB Trade Rumors’ both list them qualitatively and sometimes with a little commentary.

ESPN’s Free Agent Tracker

Sports City’s Top 25 Free Agents

MLB Trade Rumors Top 50 Free Agents

Cot’s Baseball Contracts Free Agent position players/ pitchers

The Cot’s link is new to me but I had fun looking through their site earlier today.  The site is not organized in a sorted list format rather it has very detailed information for each player.  Alternatively, you can find a page for each team which has detailed salary and transaction information for each player. 

Selig the Great

Wow, I think I found one of the few Bud Selig-lovers out there.

You can read the article yourself but it ends with this (emphasis mine):

The problems are many, and answers are hard in coming.      Some are obvious.     Others are obscure.      Bud Selig has been right more than he’s been wrong during his stewardship, and I think history will rank him among the great Commissioners.

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.