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If anyone was to tell me before the season started that Cole Hamels was going to be traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, I would've had to do a double-take. Not necessarily because seeing the ace of one of the worst teams in baseball leave to play for a contender would shock me to any degree, but more so the elite level of caliber the contender's rotation would be. Kershaw, Greinke, and Hamels. All are number one starters for any team in the majors, and this trio is somewhat similar on paper to a 2011 Phillies team that boasted a Roy Halladay/Cliff Lee/Cole Hamels rotation.
The Phillies-Dodgers exchange seems logical on all angles, especially when the focal point of the deal is Cole Hamels. The lefty has a proven track record with playoff experience. In thirteen postseason games he has seven wins (BaseballReference.com), and the Dodgers, who are in "Win Now" mode, desperately need somebody reliable to call on come October. Also Hamels brings to the table a contract which a team can work with. He signed a seven-year deal in 2012 which carries him to 2018 with a team option for 2019 worth 159 million dollars. Having been a few years already into his current deal, the Dodgers would owe him around 79 million over the course of two and a half years. Now, most teams would cringe at the extensive amounts of dollars and the reported "high asking price" from Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr., but Los Angeles, as most of us would imagine, is how do I put it... financially secure and they have some prospects that could suit the Phillies' needs.
One minor leaguer that comes to mind is catcher Julian Leon, of the Dodgers' single-A affiliate, the Great Lakes Loons. Leon, currently in his first full season with the Loons, is batting .204 with a .255 on base percentage. While the numbers so far don't look like a potential major league starting catcher, take into the account that he is nineteen years old, so ceiling is high for this prospect. Noted by MiLB.com has having "natural power to all fields" and "plus raw arm strength", Leon is expected to arrive in the Big Leagues by 2018. The Phillies, in comparison, have a starting catcher in Carlos Ruiz that they are perfectly fine with for now. He is aging though, being thirty-six, and with declining numbers, a long-term replacement is necessary. Leon, as mentioned earlier, has the capability of being a starting catcher, and being ranked eleventh in the Dodgers' farm system shows that the team holds high regard for him. You can see an example of Leon's power being shown off from a game from last year with the Ogden Raptors, a Dodgers' short season affiliate.
Another player rumored to be involved with a Cole Hamels deal is Yasiel Puig. A player who has shown the abilities a team would look for in a star, his locker room presence is what most people have cited as being the reason he is brought up in discussion. Local Philadelphia sports radio hosts tossed the idea of Puig coming to the Phillies and the general perception was positive from the fans, but almost every one of them came to the general consensus that a team that is rebuilding around young players should be cautious about bringing in a guy with "baggage", per say. Keep in mind, the Dodgers did trade starting center fielder Matt Kemp to the in-division rival San Diego Padres, so moving big names is not of concern to the team. The Phillies can only benefit from adding Puig to the roster, for they would get a major boost to the outfield offensively and defensively. Just watch his highlight tape and you will understand why the glove of Yasiel Puig can marvel the fans.
All in all, Cole Hamels to the Dodgers can bring both teams success in the future. LA would snag an ace for this year and years following and with Hamels' recent no-hitter, The Phillies could get three top prospects and a player like Yasiel Puig in return for the left hander. Even though there are some teams possibly in the mix for the three-time All Star, Cole Hamels would be best suited in Dodger blue.
Three shows in six nights? Might as well call them the Chicago Blackhawks of sports podcasting! Simon, Brock, and Ari keep the latter hours of the night fun with yet another upbeat episode of Round Table Talk live via Google+ Hangouts on Simon's YouTube channel. The guys continue to talk NBA free agency (with a special guest appearance) and wrap up the show with MLB All Star Game predictions and analysis. Remember to subscribe to the channel and check back here for more from the squad. Follow them on twitter to talk about the show or just talk sports! Oh, and if you like Star Wars shoes, this is the episode for you.
An excellent article was brought to y attention the other day by my grandpa, and I couldn't think of a better place to share it, then the SBCHive. All credit goes to Bob Neightengale of USAToday.com for an extremely well-written aricle.
They had the most hazardous job in all of baseball.
They were pitchers, smack in the heart of the steroid era.
It's only fitting that in this new era of pitching dominance, baseball welcomed in three of its pioneers Tuesday, who thrived during the most difficult pitching conditions in baseball history.
They stand from Johnson, 6-foot-10, the tallest man ever inducted into the Hall of Fame, to Martinez, 5-foot-11, the shortest right-hander to be inducted, and Smoltz, 6-4, the greatest hybrid pitcher who started and relieved.
"Can you imagine if those guys pitched in today's era,'' former Braves pitching coach Leo Mazzone told USA TODAY Sports, "and not when hitters were doing what they were doing. They wouldn't give up a run.
"It was a different game back then. The game isn't close to being what it was when they pitched.''
A juiced game, when bulked-up hitters were bashing 60 or 70 home runs, and driving in 100 runs by the All-Star break, and crooked numbers dominated the scoreboard.
This past year, with drug testing fully implemented, and amphetamines now banned, just one player - Nelson Cruz - hit 40 home runs.
There was a reason why Bert Blyleven was the only starting pitcher to be inducted from 2000 to 2013, with his career ending before the steroid era.
We've now had five starting pitchers earn Hall of Fame berths in a two-year window.
It should be six, of course, but Roger Clemens and his seven Cy Young awards remain on the outside looking in, his career shrouded by the steroid controversy. The same, of course, goes for Barry Bonds, baseball's all-time home run king who's considered one of the greatest players since Babe Ruth.
"It's actually sad to be honest,'' Martinez said. "I feel sad for them they're not going to be with me. I know they were special players, people I admired.
"I had probably more than one reason to do it. I could have gone the short way. But I did it clean. I did the right way. You have to respect the game. You have to respect yourself. You have to respect your family.''
It would have been easy for any of the pitching triumvirate to complain about the injustice of competing during the steroid era. Mistakes weren't landing in the outfield for singles. They were clearing the fences, even stadiums, for homers.
Yet, none of them ever publicly complained about pitching during this time.
Smoltz says he actually began letting his feelings known about baseball's steroid problem in 2000, but only in private conversations, never making it a public vendetta. He always hoped there would be changes, and the implementation of a drug-testing policy. He just never imagined that it would now be the most comprehensive in American team sports, thanks to the union and baseball management.
"I tried to find different ways to make my point,'' Smoltz says, "because I cared and loved the game for so long. I just didn't think we could get to this point.
"he game has found a way to show the legitimacy to show the fans whether what they were watching is legitimate or not."
The only trouble now, of course, is weeding through future Hall of Fame ballots and determining who was clean, and who was dirty. There will be plenty of attention focused this next year on catcher Mike Piazza, who has admitted to androstenedione, which was not banned by baseball at the time. He drew 69% of the votes, and is a strong candidate to be elected next year with center fielder Ken Griffey Jr. and closer Trevor Hoffman.
"I realize the fans and media have hard time determining,'' Smoltz says. "Hopefully in time, it becomes clearer for all parties involved.''
If nothing else, the Hall of Fame logjam is now clearing.
Just two years after no one was elected, drawing heavy scrutiny that the Hall of Fame voting process was broken, we've elected seven players in the last two years, with another three likely next year. We had 51% of the writers voting for the maximum 10 spots compared to just 22% in 2013.
The biggest remaining question now will be whether anyone with links to steroids will ever be inducted. Mark McGwire (10%) and Sammy Sosa (6%), baseball's heroes back in 1998, are clinging to dear life on the ballot. The candidacy for Bonds (36.8%) and Clemens (37.5%) remains at a stalemate, with the needle barely moving.
"I don't know what guys were doing, all I know is that it wasn't part of my life,'' says Biggio, the first Astros' player elected, who wept after being informed of the news. "Other choices players made, that was their choice.''
Just as it's the choice of voters to decide on the fate of Bonds and Clemens.
In honor of the 75th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's "Luckiest Man Alive" speech, USA Today Sports wrote an amazing article on the importance of baseball to Lou and how he impacted the game.
Murray Becker AP
As Cal Ripken Jr. circled the field at Camden Yards to accept congratulations for topping Lou Gehrig's consecutive games streak in 1995, he couldn't help thinking about the ill-fated star.
"His record was thought to be unbreakable," says Ripken, whose streak eventually reached 2,632 games. "Lou was in my thoughts, my speech and my talk with the media afterwards."
Gehrig played 2,130 games in a row until he was physically unable to play anymore. A dying man at age 36, Gehrig stepped to a Yankee Stadium microphone July 4, 1939, and told fans he was "the luckiest man on the face of the earth."
Seventy five years later, he is not only a Hall of Famer and New York Yankees legend, but his image and reputation also have grown almost larger than life.
"He was a player for the ages," says former Yankees publicist Marty Appel, author of Pinstripe Empire: The New York Yankees from Before the Babe to After the Boss. "He didn't need the support of Babe Ruth to be a great player. His performance on the field spoke for itself. His speech was a baseball moment that had nothing to do with playing. It was baseball's Gettysburg Address."
It can be argued, though, that Gehrig's legendary status began with his famous words.
"When Gehrig gave his speech, it was the first time many of the people in the ballpark heard him speak," Appel says. "Radio interviews were not that frequent, so people in the ballpark did not realize he had such a strong New York accent."
Gehrig, the son of poor German immigrants, had many qualities that belie his now-worldwide celebrity. He was quiet, dignified, soft-spoken and modest to a fault. He compiled gargantuan statistics without a gargantuan personality.
Ruth cast a giant shadow on and off the field. Other than both men batting left-handed and wearing Yankees pinstripes, Ruth and Gehrig were polar opposites, with Ruth craving the spotlight and Gehrig preferring privacy. Overshadowed by bombastic Ruth early in his career and polished Joe DiMaggio at the end, Gehrig was always the tortoise against somebody else's hare.
"If I stood on my head at the plate, nobody would pay any attention," Gehrig once said. "I'm just the guy who's in there every day, the fellow who follows Babe in the batting order.
"Whether he strikes out or hits a home run, the fans are still talking about him when I come up."
Even when he hit a home run, Gehrig was almost methodical in his gait, keeping his head down as he ran the bases. Doing this cost him a home run crown in 1931, when he passed Lyn Lary on the bases after hitting an apparent game-winning homer. Lary, seeing the ball clear the fence, went from third base to the Yankees dugout but Gehrig, deep into his trot, was ruled out when he passed the spot Lary left. Given a triple instead of a home run, Gehrig finished the year with 46, sharing league leadership with Ruth.
A year later on June 3, when he became the first American League player to hit four home runs in a game, the news was overshadowed by the sudden retirement of longtime New York Giants manager John McGraw.
That fall, Gehrig hit .529 with three home runs and eight RBI in a four-game World Series sweep of the Chicago Cubs. But fans and writers seemed obsessed with Ruth's "called shot" in Game3. Never mind that Gehrig followed it with a home run that provided what proved to be the game-winning run.
"If Gehrig had stayed healthy, we'd be debating whether he or Ted Williams was the greatest hitter of all time," says Jonathan Eig, author of Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig. "I think Gehrig is underrated. If he had played another four or five years — which was entirely possible considering the shape he kept himself in — he would have finished with the best numbers of anyone in the game."
Gehrig, a first baseman, did some things Ruth couldn't match: a four-homer game, a Triple Crown and stand-alone records of 500 RBI over a three-year span and 23 career grand slams.
An RBI machine, Gehrig knocked in 185 runs, an AL record, in 1931 and topped 150 in six other seasons.
"He was so proud of that," Eig says. "He always said he didn't care about home runs but that RBI were his baby."
Gehrig always maintained he wasn't a headline guy. His feats suggested otherwise. The New York native was handsome and muscular. He hit a ball out of Wrigley Field as a visiting high school All-Star, struck out 17 hitters as a pitcher at Columbia University and was 20 when he joined the Yankees in 1923, the same year old Yankee Stadium opened.
Yet he used his $1,500 bonus money to move his parents from the city to the suburbs and never earned more than $39,000 in a season even at the height of his career.
Today, he might own the team. He not only played every day but produced, hitting .340 during the regular season and .361 in seven World Series. A model of consistency, he had five 40-homer seasons without ever topping 49 and collected at least 109 RBI in every year from 1926 through 1938.
"I much preferred Gehrig to Babe Ruth," says Ray Robinson, author of Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Time. "I liked my heroes shy and not full of themselves. I liked Lou's courteous, dignified and soft-spoken manner. So when they had Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day, I decided to go."
Being the avid sports fan that I am, I watch Sports Center: a LOT of it. In June when Tony Bosch's drug clinic was ripped open with the suspension of Ryan Braun, every day for the next 2 weeks were about Braun, and NASCAR. While ESPN continue to show the same 4 clips of highlights, and T.J. Quinn's starting-to-gray-beard, I did read outside the lines (yes pun intended) and noticed the graphic they showed from a February interview with Tony Bosch outside of his Miami-based clinic. The picture below shows just a portion of the names connected to the biogenesis clinic suck as Alex Rodriguez, Melky Cabrera, Ryan Braun, Francisco Cervelli, and Danny Valencia. Braun got suspended for the rest of the season and if the stars and moon align, the postseason. Than comes August 5th, 2013. Buddy S drops some big suspensions on all players found guilty. Many of these players are apart of teams in playoff races so this could impede their team's postseason runs. A-Rod/Roid/Fraud is the most notable name, but he joins a list of players to be shamed. Nelson Cruz of the Texas Rangers, Ryan Bruan of the Milwaukee Brewers, Evereth Cabrera of the Padres of San Diego, Cesar Puello and Jordany Valdespin both New York Mets, Sergio Escalona of the Astros, Jesus Montero of the Mariners, Jhonny Peralta of the streaking Detroit Tigers, and Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Antonio Bastardo round it out. In addition to those major-minor leaguers, there are two less important free-agent pitchers: Fautino De Los Santos and Jordan Norberto. Rodriguez is the only one of the named players to be fighting the suspension. Since he is challenging the ruling, Rodriguez is aloud to play until the arbitrator hears his case and gives him the final say. In case you readers of this fine blog are thinking, "If he is suspended, why is he playing?" Well to answer you fine readers of the fine blog there is a deal between the MLBPA and the league itself saying that if he's (A-Rod in this case but any player who is suspended) fighting the suspension, he's technically not suspended yet, so therefore he's eligible to play... he might as well play. Now that you look at the rules that were agreed upon by the two parties, it makes sense. That being, there is a legal reason why he's still aloud to play. It might not be right because he is a proven second-offender to the joint-drug prevention program. The clause is in there for players who are innocent, yet were accused of being guilty. "You're innocent until proven otherwise." Alex Rodriguez will be a boost to the Bronx Bombers no matter what kind of fan you are. All other 3rd base options have only had 6 home runs through 700 plate appearances through August 5th. He is the biggest name in this scandal and was rightfully suspended throughout next year due to this being his second offense. Nelson Cruz will be a bull missed by the Rangers because of his power hitting. Entering Monday, Texas was 2.5 games out of first in the AL West.The Rangers do have some young players in the minors though who stride with big bat. And there's a guy named Manny down their somewhere too... but he was on 'roids, as well. Detroit was smart. While it seemed like nobody moved during the trade deadline except for Jake Peavy, the Tigers grabbed a youthful infielder from the Bo-Sox in Jose Inglesias. While Jhonny Peralta is one of the best defensive shortstops in the majors right now, a young player like Inglesias can help them while Peralta is suspended. I suspect an AL Central crown for the reigning American League Champions no matter how hard the Cleveland Indians think otherwise. Evereth Cabrera is on a team who is just playing for fun at this point. But he was a bright spot on this Padres club who is lacking in every position. While they did retrieve Ian Kennedy from the divisional opponent Arizona Diamondbacks, Evereth was a defensive and offensive piece that could be the best on the team. He is arbitration eligible so his next contract wouldn't be impacted as much as a younger player. Cesar Puello was a player whom the Mets thought fondly of. He is a 22 year old Double-A outfielder. While he is likely to begin the 2014 season in Triple-A for the Las Vegas 51's, if he produces on an average rate and does't strike out around as much as he did this year (82 k's in 329 at bats) he could more than possibly make a spot on the 25-man roster next Spring Training. Fellow Mets outfielder Jordany Valdespin has not been on a power surge as of late, but if he goes on a hot streak, he could possibly be in Citi Field for the Mets soon. Jordany has a very high chance to be the replacement for current big-leaguer Marlon Byrd if he gets traded, claimed off of waivers, or isn't resigned at the end of his contract. The Mets have Jordany locked up for the next few years under the rookie deal he signed when drafted.
Fernando Martinez is pictured above playing for the Astros this season
Fernando Martinez is a 24 year old Yankee Triple-A outfielder and signed a one year contract going into this season. The deal was worth $493,000. He is arbitration eligible through 2017 so if he has a smart agent, he will try to resign with the Yankees and go through arbitration to get the max amount of years with max mula. One issue was his health. He was injured this year and hasn't played since June 29th. With the injuries coming from the big league club, there is a strong chance he could become a mulit-purpose outfielder next season for the Yankees.
Bastardo was on the Phillies during the 2009 World Series run
My hometown of Philadelphia was hit with three suspensions the past two seasons. Freddy Galvis two seasons ago was smacked with a 25-game suspension for a PED that wasn't major, but it kept him out of the pinstripes for the first few weeks of the season. In the beginning of the current season catcher Carlos Ruiz was suspended for using Aderol when it wasn't medically necessitated. Aderol is a substance that isn't banned, but it is a medication only allowed to be used by players who have ADHD. Chooch took Adderall during his career season in 2012 and was suspended in the offseason for doping. Finally, Antonio Bastardo was found guilty of taking the drugs disposed by Tony Bosch and his affiliates and he's wound up suspended. Bastardo was a relatively decent pitcher this season for the Phighten Phils as he tossed just over 42 innings with 42.2 and compiled a 3-2 record with a 2.32 ERA. The suspension could mean something for the Phillies being that they didn't ship away Papelbon during the trade deadline so Bastardo and Chad Durbin were the veteran relief pitchers in the pen. Durbin and Bastardo are the only two pitchers in the Phillies' bullpen to have an extended period of time in the majors on the team as well. From an overall team standpoint, this could affect the positioning of the Phillies in the standings. Yes, you and I both know the Phillies have about a 5% chance of making a pennant run and a shaky team in general won't help. The Houston Astros have built up a great minor league because of all of the losing they have done in the past 5 seasons. This player wanted to be big, and well... he did. Lefty Sergio Escalona was apart of the group who was suspended for 50 games. He is 29 years old and is supposed to be in the prime of his career. He hasn't really made it into anything being that he suffered Tommy John surgery in early 2012 and just got off of the injury. But he got onto something else. Only throwing 15 innings this year with Double-A Corpus Christi, he has given up 25 hits and was awarded with a 6.60 ERA. DON'T WORRY ASTROS FANS!!! His chances of returning to the bigs aren't out of the question. Catcher Jesus Montero was coming into the season as one of the best minor-leaguers in the MiLB. BleacherReport calls him "a sure-fire middle-of-the-order bat." He has a chance to come up for the Mariners next season if he goes through arbitration and can work out a deal to get some more years on his contract. He is in a situation much like Jordanny Valdespin or Cesar Puello being that he could return to the 25 man roster just in the starting nine... not so much.
***AN EXTRA NOTE***
Bartolo Colone, Gio Gonzalez, and Melky Cabrera were all linked to Tony Bosch, just all three of them were found not giulty being that all substances that they got from Bosch were legal. The substances also were not in anyway a violation of MLB's rules.
(from left) Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Bruan, Nelson Cruz, and Melky Cabrera
