Baseball Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous baseball thoughts and observations.

The Cubs are very excited about the arrival of Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome. I think getting Fukudome acclimated to American baseball will be helped greatly by the fact that Lou Piniella was also the manager for Ichiro's first year in the states... What were the Cardinals thinking giving Juan Gonzalez a Spring Training invitation? Do they just want to thumb their noses at the anti-steroid folks? Organizationally -what is the upside? Even if Juan Gone has a great spring where do the Cards play him? Wouldn't that roster spot (assuming Juan Gone makes the team - which is a big assumption and one I'd be willing to bet a ton of dough against) be better off going to top outfield prospect prospect Colby Rasmus?... Maybe the biggest question facing the Cubs going into Spring Training will be "who is the closer?" Kerry Wood looks like the favorite. It could well be that the NL Central is won by the team with the most consistent closer between the Brewers with Eric Gagne and the the Cubs with either Wood or Bobby Howry. Think about it - 2 or 3 blown saves either way could really be the difference. Thank God the Red Sox have Papelbon... I'm predicting the Arizona will win the NL West. They have some real good young players who should have the energy for a long season and with Brandon Webb, Randy Johnson and Dan Haren as their top 3 starters - how can they lose?... If your fantasy baseball league doesn't penalize for strikeouts - the the Diamondbacks Mark Reynolds may be a good later round sleeper pick to fill your 3rd base needs. He projects to be both the Opening Day starter at 3rd base and the cleanup hitter. That means he should get plenty of RBI opportunities and should hit 25-35 HR. I will go so far as to say that if Mark Reynold proves to be a bona fide clean-up hitter (30 HR and 100 RBI) that not only will the Diamondbacks win the NL West - the will win the NL Pennant (as long as 2 of their top 3 starters are healthy going into the playoffs)...

Fernando Vina, Tom Hicks and the Mitchell Report

With each passing day the Mitchell Report is looking more and more suspect in my eyes. It is getting praised for what was included but it should also get severe criticism for what it left out. Let's connect some easy dots here:

- Fernando Vina was named as both a steroids guy and HGH guy in the Mitchell Report. Vina currently works at ESPN and denies the steroids part of the allegation.

- Not six months ago on ESPN Vina blasted Texas Rangers owner Tom Hicks for saying Juan Gonzalez was probably a steroids guy.

- Hicks had very good reason to speculate that Gonzalez was a steroids guy since Gonzalez's trainer Angel Presinal has basically been banned from baseball clubhouses since 2001 after getting caught smuggling steroids (Presinal may have been a fall guy for Gonzalez).

Do the names Tom Hicks, Juan Gonzalez or Angel Presinal appear in the Mitchell Report? Did Mitchell attempt to interview either Tom Hicks or Angel Presinal? The more scrutiny the report gets the more it looks like white wash job with just enough sacrificial lambs to keep the public happy.

If you think that Presinal wasn't interviewed or included because he's "old news" - consider that he still works with numerous current players such as Ervin Santana, Robinson Cano, Luis Castillo, Francisco Cordero, and occasionally Pedro Martinez. Oh and he also works with Jose Guillen who was also named in the Mitchell Report. Makes you wonder what that $20 million spent on the report actually went for. An intern with a PC and Google probably could have done just as well.

Tom Hicks, Juan Gonzalez, Steroids and What People Already Knew

I have to laugh at reports about Ranger owner Tom Hicks comments about Juan Gonzalez "possibly" using steroids. The stories always mention Jose Canseco's allegations but none seem to bring up trainer Angel (Nao) Presinal who is more of a concrete connection to Juan-gone's steroid use. I guess "ESPN News Services" was too busy to even check their own files on Juan Gonzalez when they filed that first story I linked to because even minimal checking comes up with this nugget:

Presinal has been a persona non grata around the majors since an October 2001 incident in which he and former two-time American League MVP Juan Gonzalez, then Presinal's top client, were connected to an unmarked bag discovered by Canadian Border Service agents at the Toronto airport. The bag had come off a Cleveland Indians charter flight and, according to a New York Daily News story last summer, contained anabolic steroids and hypodermic needles.

Gonzalez, an outfielder with the Indians at the time, told Canadian Border Service agents that the bag belonged to Presinal. Presinal disputes that it contained steroids, but contends the gym bag and everything in it belonged to Gonzalez. Canadian authorities never filed charges against either the player or the trainer, but rumors about the incident have festered throughout baseball ever since.

Here's the rub - everyone in baseball knew about the run-in with the law in Toronto including, I assume, Tom Hicks and the Texas Rangers front office. Yet that very offseason is when they gave Gonzalez the 2-year $24 million contract. Reading Hicks comments in proper context it is more than possible that Hicks isn't mad that Gonzalez took steroids but instead mad that he stopped taking them after he got the big contract from the Rangers.