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While it would be out of character for Loria to cough up huge dollars for one guy, he certainly now has the ability to cover a Stanton deal of 6/120/130/150/whatever -- this year was the first year of the new national TV deal which will pay 24-25 mill/year and essentially none of it was spent this year. The money is there year after year without having to sell any tickets. Will he spend virtually all of it on Stanton? Who knows.

I just watched BOS lose to TPA 6-5 in 15 innings for their 9th straight loss. And PIT just went up 3-2 against the Natinals. All is right with the world tonight.

he should smile more. Or once.

Fake injuries are a big, big no-no, but one can certainly understand how it could happen -- FO: Brad, you're not doing so well, and we think that ankle thing is very serious. We don't want to DFA you and then you get waived by 29 teams like Marmol, that would be embarrassing. Mostly for you, but we wouldn't look too smart, either. We sure don't want to release you, we know that you're better than that, but you're out of options. And so are we. BH: Uh, yeah, OK. FO: So, we'll put you on the 15 DL and then you can have a rehab set-back, you know, like Rafael with the groin thing. Those ankle sprains are just as tricky. BH: Uh, yeah, OK. FO: Then, we'll put you on the 60 DL, just like Rafi. BH: Uh, yeah, OK. FO: So, you'll have 2 months to get your head screwed on straight and throw some rehab innings and work on your control. BH: Uh, yeah, OK. FO: Of course, you'll be paid at MLB rates the whole time. BH: Uh, yeah, OK. FO: Are we good with this? BH: Uh, yeah, OK.

Yeah, the guy is a master of decorum and restraint. A true expert in all of the myriad intricacies of exemplary and upstanding behavior between the lines and elsewhere. The foremost example of how to carry on professionally without causing even a hint of any embarrassment to anyone, least of all himself. Surely, he'll win many good-sportsmanship awards.

Weather day? Those days ended 3 years ago with the retractable roof -- "weather" at Marlins Park is obsolete. The whole concept is really, really dumb, probably nothing but a pure inertia holdover from the old days in the football stadium. If they want to tie it into a curriculum, better to make it "engineering day" or "architecture day" and talk about the roof. About how it weighs 15 million pounds and opens and closes in minutes at the will of mere humans. How no ball has yet hit a roof component (AFAIK) due to good design. How the 15 million pounds of roof segments are all computer controlled and run with a simple joy-stick. Bring the guys in who designed the roof in to tell them how they got inspired to be engineers or architects. Better yet to figure out how to let the kids actually see an entire game. An hour of baseball? Ridiculous. I'm not a teacher, but I would have passed on that deal, too.

The guy is incoherent. "I hold with pretty high regard, and then when things don't go well, that's kind of my downfall. Huh? Hold what or who in pretty high regard? He doesn't seem to English very well. Maybe that was his attempt to come up with a cliche. Or, more likely, he just holds himself in pretty high regard. He seems to be mad that he's having a crappy season. Maybe there's some ear-chomping in his future.

Old time pitchers didn't have [th]e surgery because it didn't exist- sometimes it was rehabbed, others they remade themselves into a different pitcher. Mostly, they just disappeared. The saying was "he blew out his arm." Or elbow, later on. On to the next guy. The odds of a ligament totally detached from the bone being non-surgically rehabbed are very small. Sure, a partial tear or even a serious tear somewhere along the ligament can heal perfectly. Or not. Odds of the problem recurring are high. Totally detached from the bone at one end or the other? You're pretty well done, absent TJ. Strains or sprains? No problem. But this was a complete detachment from the bone. Looking beyond his Cuban coach's nuttiness, Jose had seen the x-rays and MRIs. He knew what he was facing. Maybe his Tampa coach thought the surgery was going to be done in Cuba, where you have to bribe the doctor and bring your own medications. Barring that, the guy may be a great pitching coach, but he's a medical idiot.

Well, at least he didn't bite off a piece of a teammate's ear in a fit of pique while he was banished to the minors. So, there's that. And probably not much else.

Can you pass along the link please? I think that there has been more than one article that mentioned it, here's one from a few hours ago - But Fernandez on Tuesday shot that theory down. He said he had no idea his attorney, no relation, had released the statement until a day later. He also said he didn’t feel a change in his delivery until he tried to hide it after the third inning against the Padres. http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/05/21/4127682/miami-marlins-jose-fernandez-upbeat.html And, of course, "after the third inning" would be the 4th inning -- when his velocity dropped like a rock. How the devil does any lawyer run around releasing his own speculation on behalf of his supposed client/friend when he hasn't even talked to him about it? Earlier, I called this guy an attention-whore who didn't know when to shut up. Looks to be about right. He better be a real good friend, anyone with any sense would fire the guy for 1) running his mouth and/or 2) doing it without so much as a phone call and/or 3) being completely wrong. And, yeah, the guy's writing sucks. Also, it's come out that his Cuban coach from Tampa was recommending that Jose NOT have TJ surgery. His quoted comment (from memory) was "It would be like putting him [Jose] in the electric chair." The guy's a lunatic. I was wondering why it was taking so long for the surgery to be announced. Jose has also said the ligament was completely separated from the bone -- this wasn't some minor tear. Fortunately, Jose was smart enough to listen to people with some sense, to probably include both doctors (here and in LA,) Boras and Loria. He'd probably never pitch again at the MLB level without the surgery.

Redmond as the new Earl Weaver. Dirt-kicking and profanely calling out incompetent umpires was Weaver's specialty. The guy even got tossed out of both games of a double-header 3 times. Thrown out of 2 games before they started. Now, that's feisty. Weaver was thrown out of almost 4% of the MLB games (2,500+) he managed, so Red needs to step up and increase his 2% ejection pace. He also needs to turn his hat around so he can get closer to the ump's face without touching him. Other than that bit of justified theater -- Will Little should probably be sent back to the minors to learn what the hell a strike is -- I thought I was watching last year's team choke repeatedly. Except that last year's team wouldn't have had that many opportunities to choke. So, that's a slight positive. Some funny Weaver quotes -- a la Yogi Berra or Leo Durocher -- http://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quoweav.shtml More funny stuff, written shortley after Weaver died in 2013 -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nationals/earl-weaver-quotes-to-thomas-boswell/2013/01/19/c29c12be-6289-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_story.html

Ignoring road games played or about to be played, what's shocking is that after 44 games the Marlins have 23 wins and only 5 teams in MLB have more than 23. None of them are in the NL East. Just a little meaningless feel-good spin.

Geffner has the right idea, but only the last 10 have been on the road. The 12-7 is accurate.

Yeah, it's all subjective to some extent because they all have their own set of rules, but who cares if BR says 1.2 and Fangraphs says .7? Or 4 versus 3? Or 10 versus 8? Plus is plus. Zero is still about zero, no matter who says it. The 2013 crowd was a bunch of net zeroes, plus/minus a few tenths, with 3 notable exceptions.

I'm not making any bizarre or ridiculous assumptions or jumping to any conclusions. Prior to the statement by the lawyer, Jose had absolutely nothing but sympathy and good wishes from fans and everyone else. Jose issued his own statement. Then the lawyer opens his yap. Forcing Redmond to respond -- Jose never mentioned any problem to anyone and we saw nothing different in his delivery. If he had elbow discomfort, he should have told me or Hernandez or the trainers. Anonymous pitchers then chime in -- we also didn't see anything different in his delivery. Now there is a bit of totally unneeded controversy. The lawyer may be a good friend and have only Jose's best interests in mind, but he should have kept his mouth shut. Maybe it's all a grand plot by Boras to justify not signing a long-term deal down the road -- the Marlins don't know how to handle pitchers. I think not. The lawyer just doesn't understand when to shut up, no matter his good intentions. He didn't need to say a thing and would be better off if he hadn't.

Well, the "replacement player" doesn't technically exist, but the 2013 Marlins sure had a lot of good examples of near-zero WAR guys: Player-PAs-WAR (all from baseball-reference.com) ----------------------- Cogs 214 -.5 Dietrich 233 -.2 Dobbs 267 -.1 Marisnik 118 0.0 Mathis 256 -.1 Morrison 333 -.3 Olivo 80 0.0 Pierre 300 -.4 Polanco 416 +.1 Ruggiano 417 +.1 Solano 395 +.5 The total of those 11 guys in 3029 PAs was +.1 WAR. Considering that total PAs for the year were 6021, that's really disgusting. As a group, they amounted to a bunch of minor league replacement players who would be brought up during a season, except that they were usually about 2/3rds of our starting line-up last year. The only people who distinguished themselves were Stanton (+2.3), Yelich (+1.3) and Lucas (+1.2). +4.8 combined. Dishonorable mention to Hech. -1.6 and Brantley -1.1. Team grand total: -.4. Ugh. Some may think Loria had it in for Valaika with the Tino pick-up-your-damned-balls-in-the-batting-cage thing, but he was -.7 in only 70 PAs -- good riddance, whether Loria liked him or not. The good news, from a WAR standpoint is that 7 of those 11 listed above are gone and one was sent down. Dietrich is much improved, Mathis is Mathis is the back-up catcher and isn't going anywhere and Solano wasn't horrible, but fortunately isn't getting much playing time or ABs. The WAR "replacement player" may be imaginary but we sure watched a lot of them all last year.

No details have been released about the surgery -- we don't know what was used. There is no "leg ligament" there are knee and ankle and elbow (the other one) and other ligaments, there are also various tendons (tendons -- muscle to bone connectors turn into ligaments -- bone to bone connectors,) so there are any number of sources of the replacement, possibly including cadavers. We have no idea where the replacement came from. Mostly tendons seem to be used. Meanwhile, his attention-whoring attorney ought to just shut-up with his speculation about causes. Boras agrees with the Marlins -- do it. OK, fine, everyone already knew that. Nobody, least of all Jose needs a bunch of conjecture about if or why his pitching motion changed that then causes Redmond to have to point out to the press that Jose didn't tell anyone about any elbow discomfort for 5 days. Not to mention that Redmond, his coaches and two anonymous pitchers all say that they saw nothing different in his delivery prior to the injury. Jose needs a new lawyer who knows when to keep his mouth shut.

Henderson Alverez should run a hitting clinic for pitchers. Call it the "never take a pitch you can swing at a la Vlad Guerrero" school of hitting. In his second AB, he was thrown 5 pitches -- he hacked away at every single one of them, the first two swings he almost came out of his shoes. Fouled a couple off. Grounded out. Next AB, he swung at the first pitch and singled. He's hitting .214. If he's ever forced to convert to SS, he could give Hech a run for his money at the plate. The Rich and Tommy pitter-patter about him being a good athlete, maybe the best on the pitching staff may well be true. Never mind the hitting, witness that come-backer where he fielded, spun around and made an absolutely accurate 80 mph throw from his knee. He only gets to hit every 5 days, and he's damned if he's going to do it with the bat sitting on his shoulder. Unless he's called on to sacrifice bunt, if which case he leads not just all pitchers, but all of MLB with 7. Unlike 90% of pitchers, he's an asset at the plate.

And you beat Google with the news by at least 25 minutes. Still nothing.

Took a while to get to the inevitable.

Well, OK. I should have said I'd rather watch Nicolino, Flynn, Conley, Urena or whoever instead of just Nicolino. ANYONE other than Slowey. Wolf is the new Slowey, and if Wolf bombs out, at least Red won't have a soft spot for him because he's a former teammate from 6-7 years ago.

Well, at least they're being consistent. They didn't move any pitching to beef up the hitting before the season started, nor did they move any pitching to get a new arm in light of the Jose injury. There's no particular reason to think they're giving up on anything or are ready to move anyone, and why should there be? It's only May. Two months from now it could be an entirely different story.

When I was a teenager and a Twins fan, I was shocked by Tony Olivo being 29. Wow! 29! He's old! Then again, George Blanda played football until he was 48. Over a dozen guys have pitched in MLB to age 45 and beyond. Wolf can obviously still pitch. He's a spring chicken at 37. And it's kinda funny that we replace a guy out for TJ with another guy who had TJ surgery 18 months ago. For the second time. What's being obviously overlooked is all of the good karma from Wolf buying Slash's house in Hollywood Hills back in 2007.

Hand is on the roster and hasn't been sent down for one and only one reason -- he's out of options. So is Turner. But, considering how willing they are (yay!) to throw junk overboard -- Dobbs and Marmol and Rodriguez -- maybe they'll follow that principle and dispense with Hand. DFA him. Nobody will probably care because he sucks. If someone does, oh, well, so it goes. DeSclafani has got some real potential. Mid-to-high 90s fastball, good slider and curve, keeps the ball down. Could be good as a starter or out of the BP, and he's done both previously. His first start was almost as good as it gets. Probably good enough to deserve another half-dozen starts, Wolf notwithstanding. No, make that Wolf especially notwithstanding. Disco should stay in the rotation, at least until he proves he doesn't belong there. Then, try him in the BP if it comes to that. Leave Wolf as the long-guy in the BP. If it doesn't work, switch 'em. As for Slowey, he's basically replaced by Wolf as the "veteran" on the pitching staff, so they may as well dump Slowey, too. I'd rather see what Nicolino can do than watch Slowey eat mediocre innings, the guy has no future here.

Hand is out of options. So are Dunn and Turner, but they aren't going anywhere. Hand is probably on a very short leash at this point, considering that they seem to be willing to cut bait on those who can't fish, so to speak. Maybe they'll trade him for a prospect, rather than DFA him if he continues to screw up. Who knows? At least they don't seem willing to wait around forever before getting rid of deadwood.