We're only halfway through the free-agent signing period and already we've seen some significant moves.
Fargo lost two major pieces of their bullpen. Longtime closer Bert Price left for Cincinnati, signing a 2-year, $11.2 million deal, while dynamite setup man Kevin Li got 3 years at $16.7 million to bolt for Salem.
Cincinnati also re-signed Dave Stewart, last season's closer. The 38-year-old reliever will earn $9.2 million over the next 2 seasons. More interesting than the contract is the question of whether Price or Stewart starts the season as the closer in the Queen City.
St. Louis didn't stand idly by while a division rival improved. They signed veteran 1B/DH Burt Stevenson to a 2 year, $9.7 million contract.
New York felt it needed an upgrade to its woeful offense, so they plucked longtime Huntington catcher Cy Hughes off the market for 1 year at $3.6 million. Meanwhile, division rival Boston signed former New York outfielder Bernie Soriano (most recently of Pittsburgh) to a 2-year, $9.2 million deal.
Trenton is rebuilding their outfield. They snagged former Boston RF Ryan Snyder with a 2-year, $11 million deal and also signed veteran CF Dewey Greenwood to 2 years at $9.2 million. The Greenwood signing would seem to indicate that 3-time All-Star Watty Miller will likely be playing the infield this season.
Coming off a successful year for both himself and his team, 3B Wendell Durrington and Vancouver agreed on a 2-year contract for $8.4 million.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
The Cheyenne War Cry Gazette
This is Jamie Bell reporting live from the winter meetings in Hawaii. Just love the beaches and warm weather this time of year, don't you? As you know I have been learning the intricacies of the game from hubby, thinking about getting my own team. So the first question on my mind was why the change of cities? He said more or less that it had to do with the makeup of the team. Then he went into a long dissertation on hitters, pitching and ball park factors that left my head spinning trying to understand it all. What I gathered from it all, it was more or less a calculated guess and he wanted to try a new place he has never played. Why he just didn't say the last part and leave the rest alone I will never know. Think I will watch from behind his back a while longer. If nothing else we have a new "Scratching Post" to call home. The team name was my idea, we really thought about Shadow Cats but figured Mike might go ballistic in Boise.
We were at Walmart the other day picking up a bike for our grandsons B-Day when he said "That was a dumb trade offer." Then I had to listen to him talk to himself for 15 minutes whether or not to do the trade the next morning. For crying out loud this is only a game for fun isn't it?
He showed me how Free Agency worked and the coach hiring business. Damn this might be too complicated for me to understand. He was very happy this am though when his two Free Agents signed. He said he was almost done except for coaches which will start accepting positions late tonight. That is until I heard some words that I won't repeat, I had to come running to find out what was up. Thought maybe one of the cats might have upset his coffee cup again.
He said the roster was pretty much set and the only thing he was gonna do is find some players as minor league fillers, that part I do know. So I will do a West and team preview from his perspective as he showed me the rest of the teams in the division and what he thought about them.
Anaheim is going to very dangerous though their defense may keep them out of the playoffs. He is expecting them to finish no worse than second place.
Boise is good but lacks a couple pieces, though Free Agency is not over yet.
Seattle looks good as always but may have lost too much but again Free Agency is not over.
As for Cheyenne, he is hoping pitching, defense and timely hitting to win as usual.
In the West, he thinks all four teams could win it and is very noncommittal. He really likes Anaheim though. Overall he is expecting Louisville to win it all again in the AL and the East. St Louis in the North once more. Monterrey or Jackson in the South. Biggest Wild Card contender is Boston. That doesn't leave much working space as he thinks as many as 12 teams could be in it till the end. It is very early and many teams don't have their final rosters in place so it is only a guess.
Cheyenne's roster is set more or less he said as Spring Training will weed out a couple things. So here are the season 10 War Cats.
C - Preston Weathers and Patsy Hegan and a big maybe from Chuck Reed.
1B - Wally Harvey
2B - Zeke McDonald and/or Johnny Guerrero and/or Boomer Robinson
3B - Boomer Robinson and/or Johnny Guerrero and/or Edwin Corey
SS - Kevin Kim
RF - Richard Gabriel and/or Edwin Corey
CF - Will Weston
LF - William Bolling
DH - Willie Sierra
His exact words about the offense "Wish I had another big bat." Think that is why he didn't want to make the trade.
Pitching is not set in stone for the starting rotation
Starting Pitchers:
Louie Martin probably the #1 starter as usual.
Left-Handers:
Adrian Hendrickson
Glen Bush
Felipe Cela
Right-Handers:
Charlie White - Free Agent acquisition he hopes will be great in Cheyenne.
Rich Gibson - another Free Agent acquisition that hopes will work out.
Wilfredo Redondo
Bob Delaney
Octavio Calles
Randy Stull
Pen:
Anthony Hall
Geronimo Bennett
Closer - Coco Hines
He thinks the pitching staff is the cornerstone of the team and I have to agree.
We were at Walmart the other day picking up a bike for our grandsons B-Day when he said "That was a dumb trade offer." Then I had to listen to him talk to himself for 15 minutes whether or not to do the trade the next morning. For crying out loud this is only a game for fun isn't it?
He showed me how Free Agency worked and the coach hiring business. Damn this might be too complicated for me to understand. He was very happy this am though when his two Free Agents signed. He said he was almost done except for coaches which will start accepting positions late tonight. That is until I heard some words that I won't repeat, I had to come running to find out what was up. Thought maybe one of the cats might have upset his coffee cup again.
He said the roster was pretty much set and the only thing he was gonna do is find some players as minor league fillers, that part I do know. So I will do a West and team preview from his perspective as he showed me the rest of the teams in the division and what he thought about them.
Anaheim is going to very dangerous though their defense may keep them out of the playoffs. He is expecting them to finish no worse than second place.
Boise is good but lacks a couple pieces, though Free Agency is not over yet.
Seattle looks good as always but may have lost too much but again Free Agency is not over.
As for Cheyenne, he is hoping pitching, defense and timely hitting to win as usual.
In the West, he thinks all four teams could win it and is very noncommittal. He really likes Anaheim though. Overall he is expecting Louisville to win it all again in the AL and the East. St Louis in the North once more. Monterrey or Jackson in the South. Biggest Wild Card contender is Boston. That doesn't leave much working space as he thinks as many as 12 teams could be in it till the end. It is very early and many teams don't have their final rosters in place so it is only a guess.
Cheyenne's roster is set more or less he said as Spring Training will weed out a couple things. So here are the season 10 War Cats.
C - Preston Weathers and Patsy Hegan and a big maybe from Chuck Reed.
1B - Wally Harvey
2B - Zeke McDonald and/or Johnny Guerrero and/or Boomer Robinson
3B - Boomer Robinson and/or Johnny Guerrero and/or Edwin Corey
SS - Kevin Kim
RF - Richard Gabriel and/or Edwin Corey
CF - Will Weston
LF - William Bolling
DH - Willie Sierra
His exact words about the offense "Wish I had another big bat." Think that is why he didn't want to make the trade.
Pitching is not set in stone for the starting rotation
Starting Pitchers:
Louie Martin probably the #1 starter as usual.
Left-Handers:
Adrian Hendrickson
Glen Bush
Felipe Cela
Right-Handers:
Charlie White - Free Agent acquisition he hopes will be great in Cheyenne.
Rich Gibson - another Free Agent acquisition that hopes will work out.
Wilfredo Redondo
Bob Delaney
Octavio Calles
Randy Stull
Pen:
Anthony Hall
Geronimo Bennett
Closer - Coco Hines
He thinks the pitching staff is the cornerstone of the team and I have to agree.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
The Cheyenne War Cry
Everyone is probably wondering why the sudden move? The adoring Las Vegas fans are crying and even the Bipster got caught unaware of the move (for those of you that don't know Bip Yeager is the owner). There is a couple good reasons for the move. Actually there are no good reasons for this move whatsoever other than the fact I wanted to try someplace new. I came up with two choices, Cheyenne and Arizona. I figured Arizona might be too much for my team to handle so I picked Cheyenne. The Cheyenne fans are happy to have another team in their fair city to enjoy the favorite pastime, drinking beer and eating hot dogs. Oh yeah, baseball and apple pie!
What to expect from the War Cats (Sand Cats seemed so inappropriate) this season? Hopefully the same as last year in Las Vegas only with a different flair I hope.
The War Cats have executed their first trade of the season and probably the only one. Sending veteran Bob Koplove to New Orleans along with Alving Infante and Oscar Phillips. Bob was actually a salary dump more than anything else, we really didn't have a full time position for him to play and even with giving up $3M in the deal came out ahead with the cap. New Orleans gets a good powerful LF/1B in the deal and should make a great fit. We actually had some second thoughts about giving him up after the initial feeler (yes,I executed it before the final TC on the deal), but after looking the team over one last time decided it was the best course of action and the small window of opportunity. Alving, lets just say so long to him though New Orleans is probably overjoyed with the acquisition. Oscar should make a good defensive backup.
We got Chuck Reed, Stu McLaughlin and Dustan Cohen in the deal. All three came very cheap in arbitration. The prize for us was Reed, a very solid defensive PC catcher. We are not sure if he can unseat Preston Weathers as the starter or not though. He is much better defensively and hitting is definitely not an issue for sure. Depending, Weathers could be shopped around early for teams needing a PC starter/backup. Stu has a chance to make the pen though we are not holding out much hope for that in all reality. Dustan was sent to AAA and invited to ST as we have no spot for him on the ML roster.
Yes, we had to explain it all to the Bipster of course. He was overjoyed that we saved him $1.5M for this season from the deal and of course the $5.9M next year. So now he is bugging us about FA dealings, we told him to be patient.
What to expect from the War Cats (Sand Cats seemed so inappropriate) this season? Hopefully the same as last year in Las Vegas only with a different flair I hope.
The War Cats have executed their first trade of the season and probably the only one. Sending veteran Bob Koplove to New Orleans along with Alving Infante and Oscar Phillips. Bob was actually a salary dump more than anything else, we really didn't have a full time position for him to play and even with giving up $3M in the deal came out ahead with the cap. New Orleans gets a good powerful LF/1B in the deal and should make a great fit. We actually had some second thoughts about giving him up after the initial feeler (yes,I executed it before the final TC on the deal), but after looking the team over one last time decided it was the best course of action and the small window of opportunity. Alving, lets just say so long to him though New Orleans is probably overjoyed with the acquisition. Oscar should make a good defensive backup.
We got Chuck Reed, Stu McLaughlin and Dustan Cohen in the deal. All three came very cheap in arbitration. The prize for us was Reed, a very solid defensive PC catcher. We are not sure if he can unseat Preston Weathers as the starter or not though. He is much better defensively and hitting is definitely not an issue for sure. Depending, Weathers could be shopped around early for teams needing a PC starter/backup. Stu has a chance to make the pen though we are not holding out much hope for that in all reality. Dustan was sent to AAA and invited to ST as we have no spot for him on the ML roster.
Yes, we had to explain it all to the Bipster of course. He was overjoyed that we saved him $1.5M for this season from the deal and of course the $5.9M next year. So now he is bugging us about FA dealings, we told him to be patient.
Henriquez signs $49 million extension with Dirtbags
5-time Cy Young winner will remain in Fargo through s15It didn't take long for Javier Henriquez and the Fargo front office to squash any potential distraction related to Henriquez's impending free agency after this season. The 5-time National League Cy Young Award winner has signed a 5-year extension worth just under $49 million with the Fargo Dirtbags. The extension comes just a couple of weeks after teammate Sammy Pierce, a fellow multiple-time Cy Young winner, re-signed with the team through season 13.
The extension will pay Henriquez $9.75 million per season starting in season 11, which is actually less than the $13 million he is scheduled to make this season, the final of his current deal. The 30-year-old Henriquez won his fifth NL Cy Young Award in season 9 after posting a 16-8 record with a 1.84 ERA and 237 strikeouts in 229.2 IP.
While the Dirtbags have locked up their top starting pitchers for the foreseeable future, they are seemingly set to cut ties with their number three starter Orber Marin as well as long-time setup man Kevin Li and long-time closer Bert Price. Marin and Li have stated previously to the Fargo front office that they will both test the free agent market no matter what and while the team has had negotiations with Price, no agreement has been reached. Should Price not re-sign, setup man Chris Jennings seems most likely to fill the closers roll for the Dirtbags.
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Monday, May 3, 2010
Changes for Season 10
Season 10 in the Bigs is upon us and we'll have a few changes in teams.
In the National League, there are 2 new ownership groups. In the North, the former Pittsburgh franchise will move north to Minneapolis to play in the Metrodome as the Minnesota North Stars. New GM bgkrenz denied reports that his first move will be to try and sign free-agents Mike Modano and Neil Broten. Helena sees the return of baseball, as GM coldsteel92 has opted to take the former Arizona/Cheyenne/L.A. squad to Montana; they are known as the Helena Straw Hat Pirates. When asked how he felt about the unusual team name, DeWayne Castillo answered, "Well, this is a league that has seen the Sneaky Finger Puppet Mafia, the Obese Supermodels, and the Princesses. We could have done worse".
In the American League, there are no new owners/GMs. The only change to report is that firesign's club has once again turned its back on Las Vegas and will head for Cheyenne and play as the War Cats. When asked about his new team name, closer Coco Hines asked our reporter, "Wait, what? What feline team name are we now? Man, I can't keep track..."
In the National League, there are 2 new ownership groups. In the North, the former Pittsburgh franchise will move north to Minneapolis to play in the Metrodome as the Minnesota North Stars. New GM bgkrenz denied reports that his first move will be to try and sign free-agents Mike Modano and Neil Broten. Helena sees the return of baseball, as GM coldsteel92 has opted to take the former Arizona/Cheyenne/L.A. squad to Montana; they are known as the Helena Straw Hat Pirates. When asked how he felt about the unusual team name, DeWayne Castillo answered, "Well, this is a league that has seen the Sneaky Finger Puppet Mafia, the Obese Supermodels, and the Princesses. We could have done worse".
In the American League, there are no new owners/GMs. The only change to report is that firesign's club has once again turned its back on Las Vegas and will head for Cheyenne and play as the War Cats. When asked about his new team name, closer Coco Hines asked our reporter, "Wait, what? What feline team name are we now? Man, I can't keep track..."
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