Friday’s Fantasy Flight

No, I won’t be sampling wines for you on this day, I’ll just be taking a look around the league touching on Ryan Braun’s suspension, CC Sabathia’s lack of girth, Phil Hughes hype, Tim Wakefield’s retirement and more. I know, how exciting.

There is still no resolution in the Ryan Braun PED case. I don’t know about you, but I get the feeling that the longer this drags on the more likely it is that the 50 game suspension is going to be reduced.

Gary Carter passed away yesterday at age 57. Carter finished his career with 324 homers, 1,225 RBI, 2,092 hits, 11 All-Star game appearances and a spot in the Hall of Fame. The world is worse off with his passing.

I’m still sitting on that A.J. Burnett article I wrote a week ago. Yankees, trade the guy so that I can finally post this sucker (apparently the Yankees will pay $20 of the $33 million left on his deal, but because there is money involved the Commissioners Office has to get involved before the deal with the Pirates can become official).

Don’t buy the Phil Hughes hype that is already coming out of Yankees beat writers. For my thoughts on the hurler see his Player Profile.

Did you see this insane story that the Jim Leyland plans on getting Brandon Inge some work at second base this spring? Jimmy, you are kidding right? Inge, at one time a plus defender at third base, has never played second base as a professional. I understand that the Tigers might be non-plussed by guys like Danny Worth, Ramon Santiago and Ryan Raburn, but Brandon Inge? Over the last five seasons Inge has hit better than .240 just a single time and he batted .197 last year proving that he simply isn’t a major league caliber hitter any more. As for Raburn, he too has issues, but he finished on a tear last year hitting .341 with a .967 OPS over his last 45 games. Why the team wouldn’t give him a shot instead of Inge is beyond me. Don’t look for Inge to play second base — this story seems like sheer folly to me.

Last night went great by the way. There’s no telling what the weekend might hold. If I didn’t tell you all, 2012 is the Year of Ray…

Craig Kimbrel and Jonny Venters both focused more on training their bodies than throwing this offseason. Both felt that after they made 79 and 85 appearances that building up their stamina an bodies was as important as anything. Venters reportedly gained about seven pounds of muscle. In a related news story I curled a 10 lbs. weight yesterday in my garage.

It’s that time of year, and we’re getting the ‘he reported in great shape’ reports again. Here’s one. CC Sabathia has lost a lot of weight this offseason according to Buster Olney. That’s good news as he was threatening to play Godzilla in the remake with only green paint on since his girth wasn’t in need of a costume.

THE AARP CROWD

Jason Varitek hasn’t decided if he will retire. Let me make it easy for you Jason – hang em up. You’re still a highly respected signal caller, but your defensive acumen is on the wane, and the last time you hit .240 was 2007. Varitek has hit .256 in his career with 193 homers and 757 RBI in more than 1,500 games played.

Tim Wakefield has decided to retire. Wakefield won 200 games in his career and saved 22 in over 3,200 innings. He was never an elite fantasy option, but he won 16 games twice, on two other occasions he also won 17 games, and from 1995 through 2011 he tossed less than 140 innings just one time (129.2 in 2009). I wish someone would teach me the knuckleball. Let’s hope that scouts don’t push knucklers out of the game forever – they give us hope that we could pitch in the big leagues.

Brandon Webb is throwing off flat ground. I wish him the best, but he’s through. Webb threw four innings in 2009 then none in 2010 and 2011. It’s a sad end to what was shaping up to be an excellent career. From 2005-08 an average Webb season resulted in 18 wins, a 3.23 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 181 Ks and 232 innings pitched. To say that he was a fantasy beast is a vast understatement.

By Ray Flowers

Injuries and Failures

Today was a good day. I accomplished all the writing I had hoped to get to, answered a ton of emails, had a strong podcast this morning with Kyle Elfrink, and closed down the day with a nice two hour shift of Live Advice. Before I drift off into the mist of Friday night, and a potential date (keep your fingers crossed), I thought I would wrap up the day with some notes from what is going on around the diamond, so here goes nothing.

Giants fans, here is your catcher update for the week. Bengie Molina is second on the Giants with eight RBI and he is batting .317 through 12 games. Amazingly, he also has two walks already, a breakneck pace for a guy who walked 13 times last year in 132 games (how pathetic is that and the corresponding .285 OBP?). Down on the farm the heir apparent, Buster Posey, is batting .373 through 15 games. Buster also has eight walks against nine strikeouts helping him to post a .457 OBP and a .949 OPS. There is no doubt that Posey already has a better approach at the dish than Molina, but Molina has enough power at the plate, and works very well with the staff on defense, so don’t be at all surprised to see Posey continue to toil away in the minors for a while unless there is an injury with the Giants.

The A’s Kevin Kouzmanoff has hit .215 with .308 SLG and a .572 OPS in his first 17 games with his new club. Some other disturbing numbers with KK follow. (1) He is hitting .056 with RISP (1-for-18). (2) He is batting .156 with runners on base. (3) Fifty-eight of his 66 ABs this season have come out of the cleanup spot. The A’s finally dropped him to sixth in the order the other night.

Manny Ramirez has been placed on the DL with a calf injury. It’s being called a strain so let’s hope that 15 days on the sidelines will be enough to cure him. Xavier Paul has been recalled from the minors to take his roster spot, though it looks like Reed Johnson and Garret Anderson will likely take Manny’s place in the everyday lineup. None of those three have close to the presence of Manny, and none figure to be able to match his early season work at the dish either (.415 with a 1.159 OPS through 13 games). I really went out on a limb with that statement didn’t I?

The Red Sox have been about as successful throwing out attempted base thieves this season as I have been trying to convince beautiful ladies to go out with me. Let’s just say neither of us has had a high success rate, but I would have to think my mark is better than the what the Red Sox have been getting from Victor Martinez and Jason Varitek (the Sox have thrown out just one of 38 steal attempts). The rumor is that the Sox have an interest in bringing Chris Snyder out east to join their club. Of course, this won’t happen for a while as the D’backs can’t afford to move Snyder at least until Miguel Montero returns from his knee injury. Snyder has thrown out just 25.9 percent of base stealers in his career, and is only 2-for-12 this year (16.7 percent), but the Sox are fairly desperate at this point because of their inept duo.

Ryan Zimmerman is out of the lineup on Friday after injuring his other hamstring. He also figures to miss Saturday’s game, but the belief is still that he should be good enough to go come next week. Cristian Guzman will continue to fill in with Adam Kennedy at second and Ian Desmond playing short.

Ben Zobrist was given a 5-year deal that could be worth up to $32.5 million dollars after last year’s breakout season. Apparently he’ll get about $18 million guaranteed with a couple of option years that could take the deal up to that original total. The Rays aren’t usually wrong with their talent evaluation, and they certainly have to be proactive given their financial situation, but that seems like a fair bit of loot to lavish on a guy who has only one full big league season under his belt.

Finally, here are a couple of links to stories I wrote on Friday.

What are the Cubs thinking with their move of Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen? Impact Report: Gorzelanny/Silva/Zambrano.

For those of you who have a special place in your heart for hockey, here is a quick jaunt around the frozen pond where I discuss all the first round playoff matchups. Frozen Pucks.

By Ray Flowers