Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting and thought I'd share.

- Cleveland's answer to the LeBron "what should I do" commercial. Awesome!

- This made me chuckle

- Andy Marte - major bust

- 1895, West Africa: Badass female explorer saved from certain death by her voluminous skirt

- Obama is a trainwreck while Biden is a car wreck - literally

- George Takei goes medieval on this douchebag

- The Perfect Soccer Tackle

- Charles Bronson was the most Mandom man who ever was! Your Mandom is a shriveled husk of a Mandom compared to Charles Bronson

Andy Marte's Not Dead Yet

Andy Marte was considered a bust after failing to live up to his prospect reputation for the Indians but don't bury him yet. According to the Indians:

Yesterday, INF ANDY MARTE was named the International League’s Batter of the Week for the period of June 29-July 5 as he batted .458 w/ 2HR & 6RBI becoming the IL’s 1st back-to-back Player of the Week since May 2006 (Cole Hamels, WB)

Back to back International League batter of the week - not bad. Maybe he'll help out the Indians yet.

When You're Right - You're Right

Just wanted to point out a couple of things this morning.

First - #1 Pittsburgh loses to Providence. Remember what I said about a ranked opponent playing on the road against a conference foe on the bubble? BC against Florida State was another of a series of games which proved me right.

Secord - going back to the way-back machine. Do you remember what was said in this space once the trade to Cleveland for Coco Crisp was finalized?

The key player from the Indians side is Andy Marte who is rated by Baseball America as the 9th best prospect in baseball. I have no problem saying that I hope Donald B. our expert on all things related to Georgia sports (especially Braves baseball) is right when he says that Marte is nothing but the second coming of Melvin Nieves.

Credit for that one goes mostly to Donald - especially in view of the fact that Marte gone from super-prospect to a guy nobody has taken a chance on yet.

Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

If Jason Schmidt is healthy enough to retake his position in the starting rotation then the Dodgers will actually have one starter too many. I would assume that Esteban Loaiza would be the odd man out and I wouldn't be surprised if he was trade bait. More likely the Dodgers will keep Loaiza as insurance against injury (which would be the prudent move)... Omar Vizquel is going on 41-years old and his contract with the Giants runs through this year and next. I'll be interested to see what happens after 2009 and I wouldn't be surprised if Vizquel was brought back for one more season in 2010. Vizquel is just 402 hits away from 3,000 for his career which means he'll probably be about 100 away going into the 2010 season. You would think that with 11 Gold Gloves (and counting) that also having 3,000 hits should get Vizquel a first ballot entrance into the Hall of Fame... It will be interesting to see what happens with Andy Marte with the Indians. He was supposed to be the starting 3rd baseman by now but the Indians went out and signed Casey Blake to be the 2008 starter. The Indians also used their top draft pick this year on a 3rd baseman - Beau Mills. I'd guess that at this point in time that Coco Crisp would bring a bigger return in a trade than Andy Marte... The real logjam for the Dodgers is in the outfield. Andruw Jones will definitely start in center and Matt Kemp has to play. The third slot should place Juan Pierre in left. That leaves Andre Ethier out in the cold. Let me just say that I'm not a big fan of Juan Pierre and if I were a Dodger fan I'd rather see Ethier get the playing time. Of course for many Dodger fans the veteran player they would like see traded is Nomar Garciappara whose power numbers fell off a cliff last season (just 7 HR and a measly .371 slugging percentage). Dodger fans feel that Nomar is blocking the path for Andy LaRoche. Although with Joe Torre as manager I'd look for him to stick with Nomar and I'd also expect a little uptick in Nomar's numbers this season - say maybe 15 HR... If I were an Indians fan I would be concerned about the starting rotation. On paper they look fine but both CC Sabathia and Paul Byrd will be pitching for new contracts this year and sometimes that pressure gets to a pitcher (see Derek Lowe in 2004). Also Fausto Carmona may have been overused last season and often young players have a difficult time the year after they have been overused. Not saying there will be a problem with any of these three starters but I am saying there are reasons for concern... If I were to predict anything about the 2008 Indians it would be that I would not be surprised if the Indians made a trade deadline deal for a corner outfielder this year.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Not for nothing but I'd look for the Red Sox to get much better offensive production across the board from their outfielders in 2008. Manny had an off year last season but supposedly is working out like a madman. I don't think it is out of line to expect a 30 HR 110 RBI season from the ManRam. In center - Coco Crisp hit just .268 with a .712 OPS last year. I'd expect those numbers to improve with either Jacoby Ellsbury taking over or Coco winning back his job. I also think that this year will see JD Drew hit 20 HR and drive in 100 runs for the Sox. Drew had to adjust to Boston last year and the health problems his son had must have effected his performance. Drew was Boston's hottest hitter in September last year (.342 BA and 1.072 OPS) and I'm hoping that carries over to the start of this season... The LaDainian Tomlinson action figure. I'm sorry but I can't help but think of Tomlinson as a spoiled diva. Remind me again - what's any of his teams ever won?... Interesting look back at the Andy Marte / Edgar Renteria / Coco Crisp deals. I must point out that the analysis of the trade made here at the time is pretty spot on:

The key player from the Indians side is Andy Marte who is rated by Baseball America as the 9th best prospect in baseball. I have no problem saying that I hope Donald B. our expert on all things related to Georgia sports (especially Braves baseball) is right when he says that Marte is nothing but the second coming of Melvin Nieves.

Nice call by Donald. Melvin Nieves indeed!

Cleveland Indians

Steve Henson of Yahoo! Sports has a "hot stove" look at the Cleveland Indians. I got a good chuckle out of this part:

The versatile Casey Blake also is a year from free agency, and nobody recognizes his value more than Shapiro. So expect a serious attempt to keep Blake in the fold as well. Maybe that's why the Indians announced Monday they have raised prime season ticket prices by 11 percent.

Yeah - sure. Good luck to the Indians trying to justify a big ticket increase so that they can re-sign Casey Blake. To be fair - Henson had just got done saying that CC Sabathia will be a free agent after 2008 and I think he meant to justify the ticket price increase on the re-signing of both players. The way its written is ambiguous and I chose to chuckle at the idea of re-signing Casey Blake to a mega-contract causing the ducat inflation.

It's also amusing to see the love for Casey Blake when everyone was ready to give 3rd base to prospect Andy Marte before the season started.

The Indians two big needs are a starting corner outfielder and a closer. I would go after Japanese free agent outfielder Kosuke Fukodome but I'm not sure about what they can do about a closer. Francisco Cordero coming over to the AL would be just as big a risk as sticking with Joe Borowski. And Cordero would be looking for Casey Blake type money.

If the Red Sox were to lose out on Mike Lowell it would be pretty ironic that the Indians would need an outfielder (Coco Crisp) while the Red Sox big need would be a 3rd baseman (Andy Marte). I chuckle at that almost as much as Casey Blake's contract necessitating an 11% hike in ticket prices.