Baseball News

MLB Hot lines: Wednesday`s best bets

2006-05-31T11:57:00.000-07:00

San Francisco at Florida – under (7 1/2)
It’s quiet in the Giants clubhouse these days. Maybe a little too quiet.
“There`s not a whole lot of noise,” Manager Felipe Alou complained to the San Francisco Chronicle. “The bats are not making noise. People are not making noise.”
The Giants have barely made a peep in the first two games in Miami, and Josh Johnson is a good candidate to keep their bats silent again today whether Barry Bonds suits up or not.
Johnson makes only his sixth career start tonight, but he’s given bettors no reason to fade the Marlins so far. He has a sparkling 1.52 ERA in his first five starts, and has won both his outings at Dolphins Stadium.
The Giants should stay in the game only because Jason Schmidt is pitching even better than Johnson. Schmidt boasts a ridiculous 1.16 ERA and 0.70 WHIP over his last seven starts.
The Giants have scored only eight runs in their last six games against Florida, all of which dipped under the total.
Chicago White Sox at Cleveland – White Sox (-106)
Forget the preseason talk about Cleveland challenging for the AL pennant.
The Indians have to prove they can stay above .500 before bettors consider them a postseason threat. Their last four wins have been immediately followed by losses.
Meanwhile, the White Sox are wrestling with the Tigers and the Cardinals for MLB’s best record.
The Sox have won 19 of their last 26 at Jacobs Field, effectively showing the Indians fans what a playoff team is all about.
Freddy Garcia starts for the Sox against Cleveland’s Jake Westbrook. The pair met in April with Cleveland coming out on top as a +136 underdog.
However, since then Garcia is 7-1, while Westbrook has struggled at 3-3 with an ERA of 5.89.
New York Yankees at Detroit – Tigers (+122)
No disrespect to the Yankees, who have won six of their last seven, but the Tigers are too tempting at home to ignore.
No disrespect to Mike Mussina, either. He`s been New York`s most consistent starter this year - the Yanks have lost just one of his last eight starts.
But the Bronx Bombers` public status results in generous lines like this.
Lefty Nate Robertson goes for the Tigers tonight. He’s 4-0 in his last seven starts, with a 1.60 ERA.
The Yankees have hit left-handed pitching well this year, but their lineup has lacked punch lately. They rank in the bottom third of the show in home runs and slugging for the month of May.
They’ll also be without Gary Sheffield, bothered again by pain in his left wrist. Sheffield told MLB.com that there’s “no chance” he’ll be available, even as a pinch-hitter.
Despite Todd Jones’ dud yesterday against the Yanks, Detroit’s bullpen remains the best in the majors in both keeping runners off base and preventing the runners that get on base from scoring.
Los Angeles Dodgers at Atlanta – Dodgers (+141)
Atlanta’s Tim Hudson hasn’t missed a start this season, and has flashed his form from the earlier part of this decade on a couple of occasions.
It’s the Dodgers` throwback players, however, that make them the attractive bet tonight in Atlanta.
Nomar Garciaparra and Kenny Lofton, two players widely thought to be on the downside of their careers, must have been rejuvenated by the SoCal spring. Lofton is hitting .457 over his last 10 games, and Garciaparra is hitting .395 over that same span. Nomar hasn’t whiffed since May 9.
Los Angeles is 18-5 in their last 23 overall, winning backers 12.00 units over that span.
Los Angeles gets an offensive boost tonight from the return of Jeff Kent, 8-for-22 against Hudson in his career.
The Dodgers will want to tire Hudson so they can take another crack at the Braves’ troubled bullpen. Atlanta’s most consistent reliever this year has been Ken Ray, last spotted in the big leagues with the 1999 Kansas City Royals.

Bonds passes Babe with 715 homers

2006-05-29T11:22:00.000-07:00

And now only the Hammer remains.
Barry Bonds' long journey toward Major League Baseball's all-time home run mark became a race against one man Sunday as he sailed past Babe Ruth into second on the all-time list with the 715th of his 21-year career.
Bonds, 41 years old, is now 40 behind the righty-swinging Hank Aaron, the Hall of Famer, who is the all-time leader with 755.
"It's a great honor, but Hank Aaron, to me, is the home run king and I won't disrespect that ever," Bonds said on a day when the Giants' 6-3 loss to the Rockies at AT&T Park provided only a minor subtext. "Babe Ruth has 714 home runs, but Hank has 755. Hank Aaron is the home run leader. I have a lot of respect for Babe Ruth. I have a lot of respect for what he did for the game of baseball. But I have to give the heads up to Hank Aaron because he is the home run king."
Sunday's homer was Bonds' seventh of the season, making him the top left-handed home run hitter in MLB history. Aaron's 733 with the Milwaukee-Atlanta Braves is next up for Bonds, who will become the all-time National League leader when and if he passes that mark. Aaron hit his final 22 homers as the designated hitter for the Milwaukee Brewers when they still resided in the American League.
Asked if he wanted to reach Aaron, Bonds said: "I'd like to win a World Series and be the all-time home run king. I'll take both, but I'll take the World Series first."
Bonds passed the Babe with a two-run shot to center field in the fourth inning off Colorado right-hander Byung-Hyun Kim, coming after a leadoff walk to Steve Finley. The milestone homer, on a full-count pitch, landed halfway up the bleachers, 445 feet away, and was fumbled by a fan into the batting eye.
The historic ball was retrieved by Andrew Morbitzer, a 38-year-old fan from San Francisco, who was waiting on line below the bleachers to purchase a beer. Morbitzer said he didn't even know Bonds was batting that inning.
"As I was walking down, I heard the roar [of the crowd]," he said. "I looked up and saw everybody reaching into the air and I snagged it. And the brilliant men of the San Francisco Police Department got around me and took me away."
It was Bonds' first homer off Kim, who became the 421st pitcher to allow at least one of Bonds' homers. Including a first-inning walk, Bonds was 0-for-9 against Kim with six walks going into the historic at-bat.
Kim said afterward that his teammate, Sun-Woo Kim, had suggested giving up the milestone homer to take the pressure off the rest of the Colorado pitching staff. The Rockies were already leading, 6-0, at the time.
"He said, 'Hey, B.K., it's just one home run, and we win,'" Byung-Hyun Kim said. "'All the [relief] pitchers have no pressure.' He owes me dinner, 10 times. He said, 'Oh, I didn't mean it.' Well, then 20 times."
Kim, of course, is best known for allowing homers that lost Games 4 and 5 of the 2001 World Series to the Yankees' Tino Martinez, Derek Jeter and Scott Brosius when the sidearmer was with the Diamondbacks. Now add Bonds.
"My children, my grandchildren, will be like, 'Daddy, you're on the TV,'" Kim said about allowing the Bonds homer. "And I'll be like, 'OK.'"The home run caused a euphoric reaction among the sellout crowd of 42,935 in the six-year-old park where Bonds has hit most of his milestone homers. The cheering began almost the minute the ball left his black bat and rose to a crescendo as it landed in the stands. Bonds reached home plate, where he was met by a wall of teammates, getting a bear hug from reserve catcher Todd Greene, who trotted in from the bullpen.
His mother, wife, both daughters, Giants managing general partner Peter Magowan and Bonds' godfather, Willie Mays, were not at the ballpark. KNBR, the Giants' flagship radio station, lost the call at the moment Bonds hit the homer when the microphone of Dave Flemming, the play-by-play man, cut out. But Bonds' 16-year-old son, Nikolai, batboy again for the game, was standing at home plate just as he was for 714 when his father crossed it after the big hit.
Bonds then took two curtain calls, doffing his helmet both times before the game resumed. As he strode into left field to another ovation, a sign commemorating the feat was unveiled on the outfield fence.
In another ironic twist, the homer came 55 years to the date that Mays, a rookie in 1951 for the New York Giants, collected his first homer on his first Major League hit.
"Might as well just keep it in the family," said Bonds, who was already wearing a No. 715 commemorative T-shirt that had been lying in dry storage for days.
In the clubhouse after the game, his teammates broke out a bottle of champagne that also had been sitting on ice since Bonds hit No. 714 on May 20 against Oakland left-hander Brad Halsey, a towering drive into the right-field bleachers at McAfee Coliseum.
The boys drank a toast to the new No. 2 all-time home run hitter and Bonds said he was touched.
"I want to thank all my teammates," Bonds said. "This is the best group of guys I've ever played with in my entire life."
Bonds hadn't hit a homer in San Francisco since May 2 when he smacked No. 712 against Padres reliever Scott Linebrink. Still, four of his seven homers have been hit this season in the ballpark on McCovey Cove, where he hit homers numbers 500, 600, 660 and 661 (to pass Mays into third on the all-time list), 71-73 in 2001 to break Mark McGwire's three-year-old single-season record, and now his Ruth-passing 715.
It was his second of the year against Colorado, No. 709 coming at Coors Field in the first inning on April 22.
"It was kind of nice to be here when it happened," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "It's a pretty huge moment within the game of baseball. I don't think you'll see another guy hit 715 -- maybe [Albert] Pujols, but that's so far down the road. It's just an incredible number."
Ruth hit No. 714, the last homer of his illustrious career, on May 25, 1935, as a member of the Boston Braves. The homer, coming at Pittsburgh's old Forbes Field, was his last of a three-homer, six-RBI outburst that day. Ruth's career ended after he twisted his knee during a game against the Phillies at Philadelphia's Shibe Park five days later.
Aaron passed Ruth nearly 39 years later -- on April 8, 1974, at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium during the home opener, a 7-4 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. No. 715 was whacked four days after Aaron knotted Ruth on Opening Day of that baseball season at Cincinnati's old Riverfront Stadium.
Bonds hit homer No. 700 against San Diego Padres right-hander Jake Peavy on Sept. 17, 2004, at AT&T Park. It has been an odyssey, but it has taken Bonds nearly 19 months to pass the Great Bambino.
Three surgeries on his right knee kept him out of all except 14 games last season and limited him to five home runs, the low figures in both categories of his career.
Still, Larry Baer, the club's executive vice president, said Aaron's record isn't completely out of reach. If Bonds hits a mere 25 homers this year, he'll be 22 behind the Hammer heading into the 2007 season.
"Barry has surprised a lot of people over the years," Baer said. "He's been able to realize achievements that a lot of people didn't think he could reach. Aaron is another one of them."
Whether Bonds returns next year and plays again for the Giants is still very much up to question. He said he'll make that decision later in the season and the Giants will then have to determine whether they'll re-sign him as a free agent.
"Anything's possible," Bonds said about passing Aaron. "If you play long enough, anything can happen."

Free agent pitchers are certainly a happy group

2005-12-15T12:04:00.000-08:00

Baseball players who met last week to discuss union matters at a pricey resort outside of Las Vegas had good reason to be happy. The weather was good, there was a golf course just outside the front door, and there wasn't an autograph seeker in sight.
Even better, the news coming out of baseball's front offices kept reminding them that this is a very good time to be a major leaguer.
Make that an incredibly good time — if you happen to be a pitcher.
The free agent season isn't yet over but, in the spirit of the holidays, general managers are playing Santa Claus to anyone who can raise one arm over their head and throw a baseball 60 feet, six inches.
It's almost enough to put a smile on the face of union chief Donald Fehr, whose job it is to help loosen the pursetrings of owners.
"The kind of activity we've seen so far in certain respects is encouraging," Fehr said.
Discouraging, though, if you're a fan who will eventually have to pay in the form of pricier tickets and ballpark beers.
It's one thing to overpay for everyday players (think Dodgers and Rafael Furcal). Mortgaging a team's future with pitchers is quite another.
The Toronto Blue Jays may find that out after setting the tone for the free agent season by giving a combined $102 million to a starting pitcher with a career record of 49-50 and a closer who has saved only 42 games in his career.
Before they were so richly rewarded, all A.J. Burnett and B.J. Ryan had in common were initials in front of their surnames. Now they've both got multimillion dollar contracts guaranteed through 2010.
"One thing about the free-agent game is if you're going to get in it, you can't get in it halfway," Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi said. "Either you're going to be a player or you're not."
When you become a player, though, you risk getting burned.
Burnett may have a 98 mph fastball and a no-hitter on his resume, but he's also had elbow surgery and has never won more than 12 games in a season. Ryan, meanwhile, was a mediocre middle reliever before finally getting his chance to save games with Baltimore.
But the Blue Jays were badly in need of pitching if they wanted to compete with the Yankees in the AL East. And, after cutting payroll and grooming future stars, they had money to spend in a thin free agent pitching market.
Unfortunately for Toronto, there's a reason five-year deals for pitchers have been out of vogue in recent times. Teams have ended up with bad cases of buyer's remorse after making big investments on the mound.
Chan Ho Park cost Texas $65 million over five years, but won just 22 games before the Rangers shipped him along with a wad of cash to San Diego. Kevin Brown got a seven-year deal that included private jet service from the Dodgers, yet averaged only 10 wins a year between Los Angeles and the Yankees.
Darren Dreifort, meanwhile, earned $13.4 million last year and didn't even touch a ball. He was injured so much he won only nine games over the length of his five-year, $55 million contract with the Dodgers.
And in Colorado they surely remember the eight-year, $121 million contract Mike Hampton signed with the Rockies.
It's only money, though, which is what the Mets must have been thinking when they signed Billy Wagner for $43 million to be their closer for four years. Wagner will be 38 when the contract is up, so for good measure New York threw in a club option for a fifth year.
And who really can blame the Tigers for giving $16 million to camera-basher Kenny Rogers or the Cubs for making instant millionaires of setup men Scott Eyre and Bobby Howry?
Baseball owners have a long history of not being able to control themselves when it comes to landing pitching talent. That goes back to Ted Turner winning a bidding war for one of baseball's first free agents in 1976, signing Andy Messersmith to a three-year, $1.75 million contract.
Messersmith won only 16 games in two years for Atlanta, was sold to the Yankees and won only two more games the rest of his career.
Messersmith's contract wouldn't barely cover expense money for today's players, but the underlying dynamics haven't changed. There are only so many decent pitchers to go around, and only a few left for next season.
Fans may not like the price, but they demand the players.
"It's a byproduct of our industry," Ricciardi said after signing Ryan. "We're damned if we do and damned if we don't."
Houston showed rare restraint by allowing Roger Clemens to go, but imagine what the 43-year-old will be worth if he decides to return next season. The Boston Red Sox are already salivating at the thought of the Rocket's return to Fenway Park.
Jeff Weaver also figures to land a big multiyear deal when agent Scott Boras is done marketing the free agent righty who most recently toiled for the Dodgers. And Boras is shopping Kevin Millwood for the kind of money and length of deal that Burnett received.
After that, who knows?
The way the market is going someone may want to offer Dreifort another five years. He is, after all, a free agent once again.

A-Rod probably will play for Dominican Republic

2005-12-15T11:59:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK - Alex Rodriguez probably will play for the Dominican Republic in next year's inaugural World Baseball Classic.
When the commissioner's office and the players' association announced commitments from players last week, Rodriguez's country was left blank. The New York Yankees third baseman, who last month won his second AL MVP award, was born in New York but his parents are Dominican.
"That seems to be pretty much where I'm leaning," Rodriguez said of the Dominican team during an interview Tuesday on WFAN radio. "I think it's going to be the team I'm going to represent, kind of like what (Mike) Piazza's doing with Italy."
Rodriguez said staying healthy was key during the tournament, which is being played by 16 teams from March 3-20.
"It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm excited about it and a little nervous, too, about obviously getting guys injured that time of year," he said. "You pull a hamstring, you're out for three or four weeks, that really may impact your whole season. I mean, you may have some type of ill effect going into even June or July."
Rodriguez predicted the U.S. team might be less motivated than other countries.
"I think the Latino teams are going to have a major advantage," he said. "I think that American team might take it more like an exhibition and these guys are kind of playing for their religion down there, the pride of their country."
Rodriguez also addressed the possibility that the Yankees would sign free agent Nomar Garciaparra. Manager Joe Torre told New York reporters at a function Tuesday that he had called Garciaparra to express the team's interest in having him come join the Yankees.
"That would be kind of weird," A-Rod said. "I remember almost 10 years ago we made the cover of GQ, us three as the premier shortstops in the game coming up. And now all of us may be in the same infield. I think that's kind of funny."
Rodriguez's spokesman, Steve Fortunato, said the decision will be made by Major League Baseball and the players' association.
"Alex's comments are based on discussions with the tournament organizers," Fortunato said. "The organizers are ultimately going to recommend what team Alex should be placed on, and he would follow that. We're waiting to see what that is. He wants to do whatever is best for tournament."

Time Warner considers selling Braves

2005-12-15T11:57:00.000-08:00

ATLANTA - The Atlanta Braves may be on the market.

A statement released by the team Tuesday said Time Warner is exploring the possibility of selling the Braves and the Turner South cable network, which carries many of the Braves' games.
"We have engaged an investment banking firm to help us assess strategic options for Turner South and a significant programming contributor to that network, the Atlanta Braves franchise, which may lead to the sale of one or both," Greg Hughes, the team's vice president of public relations and communications, said in the statement.
It is the first recent indication that Time Warner, formerly known as AOL Time Warner, is considering selling the Braves.
All of the company's sports properties were on the market until the sale of the Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Thrashers and Philips Arena was announced on Sept. 16, 2003.
At that time, TBS vice chairman Terry McGuirk said there no longer was "an ongoing marketing plan to sell" the Braves. McGuirk now is chairman and president of the Braves.
Forbes magazine estimated the Braves' value at $374 million in 2004.

Winter meetings winners and losers

2005-12-15T11:52:00.000-08:00

After a blinding flurry of trades and a handful of notable free-agent signings, the 2005 baseball winter meetings are in the books.
Last week, almost 20 trades went down and hundreds of millions of guaranteed dollars tossed were about. So with this most important of off-season stepping stones behind us, let's take a look at the winter meetings winners and losers.

Winners

1. Boston Red Sox
The Sox nabbed a starting second baseman— a quality one, Mark Loretta — at a cost of their backup catcher. They also off-loaded most of the overrated Edgar Renteria's contract to the Braves in exchange for Andy Marte, one of the five best prospects in all of baseball. Oh, and they also talked about bringing back erstwhile general manager Theo Epstein back into the fold. Quite a fruitful week for Red Sox partisans.

2. Toronto Blue Jays
You can quibble with the dollars the Blue Jays doled out to B.J. Ryan and A.J. Burnett, but they hauled in a boss-load of pitching talent. In Ryan they get a genuine shutdown closer who figures to maintain his peak level of performance for the next few seasons, and in Burnett they get a promising hurler whose groundball proclivities and strikeout chops bode exceptionally well for the future.
The Jays overpaid for Lyle Overbay (unless they get the 2004 Overbay model), but he does give Toronto perhaps the best defensive infield in all of baseball (something that will be of great benefit to Burnett and Roy Halladay), and it also allows the Jays to trade Eric Hinske or Shea Hillenbrand before opening day. The Brewers got the better end of that particular trade, but Overbay will be useful.
While one might question whether B.J Ryan is worth his contract, there's no denying the Blue Jays are making a real attempt to become a contender.
On an entirely different level, team ownership and GM J.P.Ricciardi have sent a message to Jays fans that the organization once again has a vision that extends beyond "cut payroll." If the Red Sox and Yankees regress much in 2006, Toronto will be right there.

3 .Cincinnati Reds
Laying aside for the moment the inexplicable decision to acquire Tony Womack, the Reds, more importantly, were able to make Sean Casey go away. As a result, the Reds can move Adam Dunn to first base and thereby relieve the outfield bottleneck. Trading Casey, who is subpar with the glove, prone to shoulder problems and no longer an adequate hitter, to Pittsburgh also means (one hopes) that GM Dan O'Brien will resist any temptation to trade Dunn, Austin Kearns or Wily Mo Pena. After all, those three players are infinitely more valuable to the Reds' future than was Casey. That Cincy got back a potentially league-average starting pitcher in Dave Williams (and some cash) makes this deal all the better for them.

4. Milwaukee Brewers
The Dan Kolb-for-Wes Obermueller deal barely merits mention, but the Brewers did get a strong return package for the aforementioned Overbay. In David Bush, they get one of the 15 or 20 best pitching prospects in all of baseball, and Zach Jackson, because of his control and ground-balling ways, may be in for a breakout season in 2006. Add Gabe Gross, who'll be a useful platoon outfielder at the highest level, to the mix, and it's a nifty deal for the Brewers. Shipping off Overbay also allows Prince Fielder to take over at first on a full-time basis.

Losers

1. Florida Marlins
The Marlins have greatly bolstered their minor league pitching corps, but that's really incidental to the larger issue. This isn't a criticism of the on-field consequences of the decisions to trade away Josh Beckett, Carlos Delgado, Paul Lo Duca and Juan Pierre; it's an indictment of Jeffrey Loria's way of doing business. Florida's (most recent) sell-off is motivated by the local citizens' refusal to indulge the team in corporate welfare. It's an attempt at extortion.
Teams should pay for their own stadiums, and local governments need to show some fortitude in resisting the selfish entreaties of owners. Ideally, the Marlins won't sell a single ticket in 2006. Good riddance.

2. St. Louis Cardinals
The Cardinals have glaring needs at both outfield corners, at second base and in the rotation, and to fill these voids they've turned to ... Larry Bigbie?
Is Larry Bigbie supposed to be the player that puts the Cardinals over the top?
St. Louis GM Walt Jocketty is unassailably one of the best in the business, but he's been church-mouse quiet thus far this winter. Perhaps the market is inflated this time around, but the Cardinals have playoff revenues fattening their coffers, and they're moving into a new state-of-the-art ballpark next season. So it's not as though they can credibly feign impoverishment. The Cardinals are very much a "win now" team — they have an imposing core of veteran performers and a weak farm system. The front office needs to behave as such. By low-balling their prime free-agent targets, St. Louis has allowed the rest of NL Central to close the gap.

3. Atlanta Braves
Renteria has been rather average with the bat over the last two seasons, and in 2005 he had an absolutely brutal year with the glove — both in terms of demonstrating range and in terms of avoiding errors. He'll also be moving from a park that is a veritable Valhalla for right-handed batters to one that plays relatively neutral. It may be that Renteria won't be able to outdo what the Braves could have gotten from in-house solution Wilson Betemit. And for that they gave up Andy Marte, one of the best prospects in the game.
As for their other deal, it certainly seems as though the Braves could've gotten more for Johnny Estrada than two middling relievers.

4. Chicago Cubs
The Cubs had grand designs this off-season: Rafael Furcal, A.J. Burnett, Brian Giles, Juan Pierre ... they all might find themselves toiling on the North Side. In reality, the Cubs wound up with the least of these. Pierre is an overrated defender with no power and inconsistent on-base skills. This is a bad team whose off-season to date consists of adding a mediocre center fielder. Only a one-sided deal for Miguel Tejada can salvage the winter.

GM giving White Sox another shot at title

2005-12-15T11:36:00.000-08:00

World Series titles aren't won on paper, aren't won in December, aren't always won by the best team. But White Sox general manager Ken Williams, always aggressive, never afraid, is extending his team's October roll into the off-season. His killer trade for right-hander Javier Vazquez gives the Sox — on paper, in December — a legitimate chance to repeat.
The addition of Vazquez makes the game's deepest rotation even deeper, putting further distance between the White Sox and the rest of the AL Central. Jim Thome, if healthy, will be an upgrade at designated hitter over Carl Everett. Rob Mackowiak, a versatile utility man, gives the Sox a viable backup for third baseman Joe Crede, who is recovering from two herniated disks in his lower back.
Lest anyone forget, the White Sox also accomplished their biggest off-season priority — re-signing first baseman Paul Konerko. The Vazquez deal, though, is the topper. The players the White Sox traded — "El Duque" Hernandez, reliever Luis Vizcaino and minor-league outfielder Chris Young — all should be replaceable.
Vazquez will take Hernandez's rotation spot, allowing right-hander Brandon McCarthy to pitch in the bullpen, possibly in Vizcaino's role. Young is a top center-field prospect who had a monster season at Class AA despite being only 21. But the White Sox plan to play an even more highly regarded prospect, Brian Anderson, in center next season.
Here's the best part: By acquiring Vazquez, Williams suddenly is in a position of strength with his rotation. Just as the signing of free-agent right-hander Esteban Loaiza gave A's GM Billy Beane the flexibility to trade left-hander Barry Zito, Williams now can entertain offers for right-handers Jose Contreras and Jon Garland, both of whom can be free agents after next season.