Out of the Past

Claudia Cardinale...

In the Sun-Sentinel blog they said Beinfest is now the President, Baseball Operations. I'm guessing Samson is now the President, Business Operations or something along those lines and that nothing really changed other than titles. http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/sports_baseb...s-extended.html Before Saturday's game the Marlins announced they extended the contracts of their key executives for the remainder of their natural lives. OK, not that long, but it's an eternity in baseball terms. General Manager Admin Beinfest, Assistant GM Michael Hill, VP of Player Personnel Dan Jennings and VP of Scouting and Player Development Jim Fleming all had their deals extended through 2015. Remember it was only two seasons ago that owner Jeffrey Loria gave those guys contracts through 2010. The heirarchy of the organization remains the same, but the Marlins did change a few titles. Beinfest is now President, Baseball Operations. Hill is the VP, General Manager. Jennings had assistant general manager added to his title. Loria feels comfortable with these guys. He trusts them. They work well together. They built a World Series winner for him. He's basically entrusting them with the task of doing it all over again. Have to think this is a premtive strike as well. The three guys under Beinfest would have been perennial GM candidates. Even Beinfest himself might have drawn interest from a big market clubs. At one point he was linked to the Dodgers when they were looking for a GM. In exchange for the long-term security, those guys basically are giving up the right to pursue jobs heading up other organizations. Loria obviosuly is happy with the job Beinfest and his lieutenants are doing. Any contrary opinions out there?

A few years ago it was believed the best crop ever of Shortstops was Jeter, ARod and Nomar. I feel we are starting to see in 2007 the best SS crop ever to come to the Majors You left out Tejada. Only Alex ended up as one of the all-time greats out of that bunch. If defense is ignored then Jeter would be one as well but I don't think the defense of a SS can be ignored. From the current bunch I think Hanley will be one of the all-time greats. It's too early to tell on Tulowitzki and Reyes. What exactly is your problem with Jeter's defense. Do you have the long term memory of a goldfish or something? The last four years (04-07) he's right down towards the bottom of the list in Revised Zone Rating. I don't know where to find RZR data prior to '04 but just on regular Zone Rating he was right down towards the bottom of the list from 01 - 03. I don't think this should be ignored.

A few years ago it was believed the best crop ever of Shortstops was Jeter, ARod and Nomar. I feel we are starting to see in 2007 the best SS crop ever to come to the Majors You left out Tejada. Only Alex ended up as one of the all-time greats out of that bunch. If defense is ignored then Jeter would be one as well but I don't think the defense of a SS can be ignored. From the current bunch I think Hanley will be one of the all-time greats. It's too early to tell on Tulowitzki and Reyes.

Willis will not make $10 million next year or anything close to it and in a trade he wouldn't bring in a Hanley type prospect or anything close to it. It looks like Hyde needed to fill space and had nothing to write about so he filled his column with garbage.

Howard sets single-season whiff mark Phillies slugger strikes out for 196th time this season PHILADELPHIA -- One at-bat after launching his 44th homer of the season on Thursday night against the Braves, Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard struck out. It was notable because the lefty slugger whiffed for the 196th time this season, setting a Major League record. Cincinnati's Adam Dunn set the previous mark of 195 in 2004. Howard went down swinging in the second inning on a nasty 87-mph splitter by 40-year-old veteran righty John Smoltz. Howard, the reigning National League Most Valuable Player, has struck out 36 times in September. "I don't even think about [strikeouts]," Howard said on Wednesday. "We're winning ballgames, and that's all that matters." http://florida.marlins.mlb.com/news/articl...sp&c_id=mlb Will he reach the 200 mark? He may reach 200 but I think it's great he doesn't care. If I remember correctly with the Marlins Preston Wilson was benched a few games so he wouldn't set the K mark and there was another guy, I forget who, who was also benched so he wouldn't break it.

In the Herald they have a headshot of her and she looked cute so when I got to work I looked her up and was dissapointed.

With Olsen I think the HRs allowed are a big problem... the 29 allowed are tied for 6th in the NL in a pitchers park... that's not good. During ST there were a couple of articles mentioning how last year hitters were fooled by his slider. Fredi was quoted in one of the articles. That supposedly they couldn't differentiate it from his fastball and because of it the OPS allowed off his slider was around .300 (no typo here). Well obviously I don't think hitters are having problems differentiating his pitches and unless he can start to fool them again I don't expect him to be any good unless he can start throwing his slider for a strike.

And if it wasn't for Tampa's fielding (which, as hard as it is to believe, might even be worse then ours), he'd have an even more outstanding ERA/WHIP/ect too. He has the fourth worst DER is in the majors. Not surpisingly, Olsen has the worst...but unlike Olsen, Kazmir has great peripherals. Put Kazmir on a better team and his numbers are likely scary good. Would the DER for a pitcher be the exact same thing as his BABIP allowed, correct?

Dumb question but how do you insert a picture?

Regarding Anibal, I agree it was obvious to everyone except all Marlisn personnel that Anibal was injured early this season but wasn't the cause for the injury his innings jump from '05 to '06? I guess he can be blamed for not IDing the injury sooner but everyone on the Marlins deserves blame for that but I wouldn't blame him for the innings jump which is the root of the problem. He desrves some blame for Anibal but there's plenty of blame to go around and I wouldn't say he's the main culprit.

Asked if he was surprised, all right-hander Sergio Mitre said was: "Marlins. At least somebody's man enough to say it around there... to say what? Kranitz sucked this year if he sucked why are the pitchers going to bat for him.... the ones who are still standing? probably because they liked him he still sucked though... 6+ arms on the shelf and worst rotation in baseball Can you name the six injured pitchers that you blame him for and explain your reasoning? I don't think he's the reason for DTrain, Olsen, Kim and RVH sucking this year. It's under his watch, no? Garcia, Owens, Kensing, KMart, Johnson, Sanchez, Nolasco, West one major arm surgery happens... even 2 happens.... but thats alot, no? DTrain and Olsen took huge steps backwards.... Willis especially If you say he's the cause for the injuries please give your reasoning.. that's all I ask. I personally don't blame him for JJ or Anibal or Nolasco. Not sure about the others but if you have a case I would love to read it.

I'll believe Loria will begin to spend the revenue sharing money only after he begins to spend it and not before.

Asked if he was surprised, all right-hander Sergio Mitre said was: "Marlins. At least somebody's man enough to say it around there... to say what? Kranitz sucked this year if he sucked why are the pitchers going to bat for him.... the ones who are still standing? probably because they liked him he still sucked though... 6+ arms on the shelf and worst rotation in baseball Can you name the six injured pitchers that you blame him for and explain your reasoning? I don't think he's the reason for DTrain, Olsen, Kim and RVH sucking this year.

Hey Joe, I would bet money right now that you end up managing in Milwaukee next season.

I should probably also add Brigitte Bardot: I've wanted to watch "And God Created Women" for the longest time but never have gotten around to it. I think the onluy movie I've watched her in is "Contempt" and she looked amazing. My favorite french beauty is Catherine Deneuve.

I just don't see how this could happen. If we can't afford to have Bonds, Cabrera, Willis on the same team, trading Willis to accommodate Bonds when pitching is our problem makes no sense. Also why would we waste our money on one year of Bonds when that money could be placed aside for a ballpark/cabrera. Now unless Loria can tell us he has enough money to sign Cabrera longtem, keep Willis for 08, and pay for a new ballpark, signing Bonds would make no sense. Not that this seems at all likely to me anyway. Because Bonds = ticket sales, Willis doesn't, not anymore and certainly not in that amount. I think it's pretty clear that in Loria's current business model stuffing his puckets with money is more important than ticket sales. Just look at the last firesale. I doubt the added revenues from a Bonds signing would make up for his ~$15 million salary and for the loss in revenue sharing. Also remember that the increased revenues from ticket sales would decrease Loria's revenue sharing check.

I think the babes from the past with their hourglass figures and natural, womanly curves blow away the current batch of mostly fake-looking pencil thins. Some of my favorites are Marilyn, Cheryl Ladd, Claudia Cardinale and Dian Parkinson (Price is Right). This is a video of Cheryl in bikinis. If videos are not allowed I guess it can be deleted.

Oh I agree, when I say range I don't mean range factor. But I don't like ZR much, either. It's outdated by other metrics and really not that good at all, many holes in it. If you're going to use ZR, atleast use RZR. And while Uggla is dead last in qualified majors in RZR this year, he's third in OOZ. This shows he has good range, since he's made several players outside of his zone. He just sucks as a fielder this year, as can be seen by his 2006 RZR, when he was 9th in the league (and third in OOZ, again showing his good range). Hanley also shows that he has good range but is just a bad fielder (bad RZR, good OOZ), and that he's also slacked of majorly this year (was second in OOZ last year, middle of the pack this year). My personal favorite metric is Dewan's plus/minus system, and Hammer is third-worst by that. The other numbers haven't been released for this year, but I know Hanley was the worst SS at the all-star break and Amezaga was the 5th best CFer. Yes, the revised Zone Rating is better than Zone Rating but is there a website that list those stats for all the players for free? If the plus / minus system you're talikng about is from the Fielding Bible guy I agree taht's a good one.

Hermida's a good defender. He's made mental mistakes but he's got good range and a good arm. Really RF is the only place I'm fine deffensively with the entire team. Our biggest deffensive problem in the OF (outside of Cody in CF) is Hammer in LF. Not many players have worse range than he does. Uggla...ZR is just one metric. He has a high FRAA, sub-par (but not horrible) RF...I wouldn't mind seeing what fielding gurus have to say about him. From my naked eye alone, he doesn't seem that bad, but I'm no scout and not going to trust my eyes. I don't think Cabrera and deffinatly not Hanley are as bad deffensively, talent wise, as they were this year. But if they continue being like this....deffinatly not good. A guy's Range Factor will fluctuate A LOT by the number of balls hit his way and fluctuates very little by the number of plays he makes that the average fielder wouldn't make. I hate the Range Factor stat. I think it's useless and missunderstood. Zone Rating is 7366 times better. Hammer's Zone Rating is not that bad. He's 10th out of 17 qualifying LFs.

While I agree that 1B, C and RF are bad but I think the others are worse. I agree coaching and hard work could go a long way to improve things.

Finally, we have the roster/staff stuff. The absolutely first thing that the Marlins need to do is obviously get a defensive minded catcher. We have enough hitting to live with a light-hitting catcher that demands respect on the defensive end. At this time, we need a veteran and we will need to get a younger option for the future. This is one of the few times in the team's history that the Marlins have been without a quality catcher. We need to get back to that. Also, to help out with the team defense with the rest of our young players, I would seriously look to trying another option at 2B & look at bringing in a veteran for CF until De Aza or someone else can take over. Finally, we need to get 1 veteran SP (bring back Kim?) and look at a veteran lefty RP. I truly feel that with another pitching coach and new catcher, we will be ok with our pitching. As far as transaction possibilities; we definitely have trade bait in Cody Ross and either Mike Jacobs or Dan Uggla for very good additions. You can look at a balanced trade that involves Cody Ross and maybe bringing in a veteran catcher like Benji Molina or, if the Nats and Marlins are willing to deal within the division, Brian Schneider. Also, Ramon Castro is a free agent that would be looking to be a starting catcher. There are other catching options. I would look to get a 2B that is more defensively-sound than Uggla with more batting avg and SB ability. I would consider 2 options; 1) trading Uggla for someone of equal value with those skills, which obviously means someone with less power, but more in tune to be a top of the order hitter or 2) move Uggla to 3B and Miggy 1B, then trade Jacobs for that type of 2B. I prefer option 1 because Jacobs seems more competent as protection for Cabrera and Willingham than Uggla. You can then bring in a veteran CF like maybe a Kenny Lofton type. Also, make Miggy lose that weight. After you make your needed roster moves, make sure that you keep a short leash on Fredi Gonzalez losing games. Start looking now at possible early season replacements, such as bringing Joe Girardi back (permanently). This is what you can have for next year which would look good for many years: I like Uggla but I think I may agree with you about the need for improved defensive play out of 2B. We're a terrible defensive team and 2B, SS, 3B and CF are the main reasons. Obviously Hanley and Miguel hit far more than enough to make up for their poor defensive play but I'm beginning to wonder if that's the case with Uggla. This year his Zone Rating (.754) is the 2nd worst for a 2B in MLB this entire decade. That sucks. Last year he was bad (.803) but he has regressed. I think with hard work he could improve a bit but with the nice guy manager I wouldn't anticipate the guys to work harder. I also agree nice guy will have a short leash. I think he'll get canned by June.

I thought Gardner should get the rookie award but for some reason he's not considered a rookie although he only had about 20 innings coming into the season. I would also put him ahead of Gregg in the comeback award because he went from the scrap pile in '06 to putting up excellent numbers. Hermida should also get the comeback award over Gregg.

If money were no object I would move 1 NL team to the AL and would make all the divisions with 5 teams. I hate how the NL Central has 6 teams but the AL West has only 4. I hate it because it's much easier to win a 4 team division than a 6 team division. I would eliminate interleague play and would have a balanced schedule. I would keep the WC. The first round would be best of 7 but the WC would only get 2 home games. In the other series going through the WS the team with the best record gets 4 home games. You can't have an odd number of teams in both leagues and eliminate interleague play. That's true. I guess keep the divisions / leagues as they are and dump interleague.

Gregg for most improved is an odd choice. There's a few others that deserved that award more than he did.