Ananas

The Jays broke Daniel Bard.

Brilliant chase of 191 by Kolkata to win the IPL and prevent the back-to-back-to-back title wins for Chennai. Kind of nice to see Chennai not get rewarded for the millions they spent on Jadeja.

Yan Gomes became the first Brazilian born player in Major League history tonight. Given the amount of money that has been spent recently in setting up baseball camps in that country, this could be an interesting footnote.

Who the fuck are you to say that? I didn't know we had an ex pro ballplayer here. You don't know shit about "paying dues" in the MLB, so shut the hell up, because even at 19, Harper has paid more big league dues than you ever will. And in Triple A, the guy would blow kisses to pitchers after he hit home runs...or would stand at home plate and admire it...he drew lines in the dirt if he thought a pitch was outside the strikezone. The guy was going to get thrown at at one point. Hamels was just man enough to say "Yea, I did it on purpose" "Would blow kisses to pitches" implies it happened more than once. It didn't. And it came out of the pitcher (Zach Neal) taunting the Hagerstown dugout every time he recorded a strikeout so fair is fair. Guys pimp their home runs all the time, Harper is no exception. And you're going to tell me Hamels threw at him because once in college he showed up an umpire? Absurd. The kid's done nothing in the majors to warrant being thrown at besides his existence and relative lack of age while Cole Hamels was on the mound.

Cole Hamels suspended 5 games. I think the lesson to be learned here is - lie. Always lie.

Soriano had a rough first season in the Bronx and this season has had some control problems, just skating by on luck so far really. Robertson has been outstanding as the 8th inning guy and has just been out of this world so far in 2012. Honestly, Mariano's the best reliever of all time but the contributions of a closer are so overrated that I really think the effect here is being overstated. David Robertson is very, very good. The only effect will be a bit of a cascading one as everyone moves up a rung in the bullpen ladder and a lesser arm makes the team to pitch low leverage situations.

Small sample sizes are fun. In his first month away from the Angels, Jeff Mathis posted an OPS more than twice as high as Albert Pujols in his first month with them.

If the Yanks eat 80-90% of AJ's salary and ask for nothing more than Garrett Jones, I don't see why the Pirates wouldn't be takers. It's a great pitchers park, and AJ notoriously shit the bed in a high pressure market. Pittsburgh might be a good place for him to go and the Pirates can add a guy who might get back to being a great 3 starter, decent 2 in a better environment.

Given Baltimore's timeline how would Prince have made sense with that investment? Even if those young pitchers magically figure things out they're still a couple years away, probably more than that. What's the point of paying Prince for productive years where you're not a contender and then likely dramatic decline years while you're hoping to be one? The Tigers can justify this move on the basis that they're probably going to run away with the Central now. The O's definitely could not have said the same. I thought the Rangers made the most sense and figured he'd go there, and I definitely think this is going to be a contract that the Tigers regret signing by 2016, but for now I get it.

I swear Sachin's gonna have to watch 100 opponents get centuries before he gets his.

Beltran to the Cardinals on a 2 year, 26 million dollar deal with a full no-trade. Good signing, allows them to move Berkman back to 1B where he belongs and if he and Beltran come close to duplicating their 2011 campaigns they may not actually be significantly worse offensively despite the loss of Albert Pujols. He could get hurt, but despite the injuries he's really had little problem putting up 3 WAR seasons which is all he needs to do for this contract to be good value.

Gio Gonzalez to the Nationals for AJ Cole, Brad Peacock, Tommy Milone and Derrek Norris. Because we'd almost gone 2 months in this offseason without the Nationals flipping out and paying through the nose for an unspectacular player.

The perception among many is that Darvish was better than Buerhle or Wilson, and the Rangers scouted everyone of his starts this year so they would most likely know. His stuff is filthy. Wish it were the Jays media debating this investment, since after Yu is off the market it gets pretty bleak. Edwin Jackson, anyone?

He didn't cost taxpayers a cent. This witch hunt was the design of the politicians, not the accused.

It's funny because those two combined for 9 of the Jays 25 blown saves last year. Because Hanley is a bad shortstop. And has always been a bad shortstop.

Regardless, suffice to say, state income tax or no state income tax the Marlins didn't start spending like Steinbrenners until the city of Miami built them a nice new heavily subsidized stadium.

Jays got their 2012 closer. Sergio Santos for Nestor Molina. Both sides should probably be fine with this.

The funding for that stadium had to come from somewhere, because it definitely wasn't from Loria.

So the Marlins have upped their offer to Pujols to 10 years. Citizens of Miami, your tax dollars at work.

I don't believe anything that gets reported about "player X leaning towards team Y" or "team Y is heavily in on player X" because it's almost always a ploy planted by an agent. The Jays are particularly susceptible to this because they have a policy of never commenting on transaction rumours. As a result an agent can tell a reporter that a player is about to get a massive offer from the Blue Jays to drive up his bargaining price with everyone else. And in this case we're talking about Scott Boras, so it's even more sketchy. Not to say I completely count the Jays out on Prince; realistically I think only the Rangers make more sense (and even that's debatable given that they really need to do something about the fact that they're about to lose their second consecutive #1 starter in as many years). But the Jays came 5th in the AL in runs scored, and were 4th worst when it came to runs allowed. Run prevention would seem to be their biggest area of need.

The Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan will not be selling MLSE. This is just depressing.

The new CBA is probably great news for you if you're a fan if the Phillies, Yankees or Red Sox. Apparently in order to restore that good old competitive balance, the league pushed for in talks and got harder slotting in the draft with luxury taxes for anyone who exceeds the slot and potential penalties of lost picks for anyone who exceeds it by too much. They've also done the same with international free agency with a soft cap with 75-100% luxury tax for anything spent beyond that, with international spending allocation based on winning percentages. Basically the only area of spending which didn't get further restrictions placed on it was free agency, where the Elias rankings have been eliminated, as has most draft pick compensation for lost free agents. And the luxury tax in that area remains between 22.5%-40%. So pretty much if you're a small to mid-market team, your only hope for contention is to get lucky. It is so completely laughable that the league was worried about the contracts given out to amateur free agents. When you look at their bonuses, then compare that to the potential value they put up in their first 3 cost controlled seasons then 3 arbitration controlled seasons at a fraction of their market value, draft picks and international signings are a bargain. But here is an example where the free spending teams that like their little free agent fiefdom can align with the piss poor run franchises like Oakland, the White Sox, Florida, both Los Angeles teams and others of their ilk who would rather spend their money on declining veterans then put it where it could acually produce value. And together they take away the incentive of those middle market teams actually doing things the right way. And hey, if you're not in either of the Eastern divisions it's fine too because it's not like you have to play the Sox, Yankees or Phillies 20 times a season. What a fucking embarrassment. It's like cutting back on seeds so you can spend more on soon-to-rot vegetables.

Verlander, Bautista and Ellsbury would have been 3 equally valid choices from 3 different perspectives. Verlander's result stats were dominant, although if you looked more at peripheral numbers you could argue that he got kind of lucky on balls put in play and that outside of that he was pretty even with CC. Ellsbury was legitimately a 5 tool player in the purest sense of the term, although you could argue just how much value difference there is from an elite defender to an average one from a pure wins standpoint. Bautista was head and shoulders the best offensive performer in the American League, although again his OBP numbers are bumped up somewhat because of his league leading 24 IBBs and obviously he was a fairly mediocre defender. What is really just embarrassing is how exactly it was that Michael Young was one of the 6 players who received a first place vote?

According to Ken Rosenthal, the new CBA is expected to eliminate forfeited draft picks for type-A free agent relievers. This will apply to the current crop as well, although the Phillies will still have to forfeit their first round pick for signing Papelbon. If the Red Sox sign Madson the Phillies end up looking like the schmucks of the year.

The new Jays logo and jerseys. So much awesome.