MLB Thread

[Green Demon]

I just read on ESPN.com that the Indians have agree to terms with Aaron Boone as long as he passes his physical this weekend. I hope it works out for the indians since he might get them some power even though he isnt a huge power hitter. This also surprise me since most people were expecting the indians to get rid of money rather then spend more. Maybe it means they are serious about making a run this year even if it means an alomst for sure defeat in the first round

[sahyder1]

I just read on ESPN.com that the Indians have agree to terms with Aaron Boone as long as he passes his physical this weekend.  I hope  it works out  for the indians  since he might get them some power even though he isnt a huge power hitter.  This also  surprise me since most  people were expecting the indians to get rid  of money rather then spend more. Maybe  it means they are serious about making a  run this year even if it means an alomst for sure defeat in the first round

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If the term "one hit wonder" ever was applicable....this is that spot.

[thuganomic]

Aaron Boone brings absolutely nothing to the table. He can only hurt the development of Indians players

[reyrey619]

CHICAGO -- The Chicago White Sox acquired All-Star pitcher Freddy Garcia from the Seattle Mariners on Sunday, bolstering their rotation for the AL Central race.

The White Sox gave up young catcher Miguel Olivo, top prospect Jeremy Reed and minor league infielder Michael Morse in the trade. Chicago also gets catcher Ben Davis and cash from the Mariners.

"It's hard for me to leave," Garcia said. "I do love playing here."

The White Sox were not the only ones interested in Garcia. The New York Yankees had been scouting him for several weeks. The Mariners called New York general manager Brian Cashman on Sunday and said they were prepared to trade Garcia, then called him back and said they had an offer they didn't think could be topped.

"We couldn't match that deal," Cashman told the Associated Press, adding that New York's prospects were not as close to being ready for the major leagues as Chicago's are.

Garcia, who can become a free agent after this season, will pitch for White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, one of his best friends.

"You've got to be a professional. Everybody knows he's my friend, but I want to do business," Garcia said. "I'll go there and pitch the way I can pitch."

Garcia was 4-7 with a 3.20 ERA in 15 starts for last-place Seattle this season. The two-time All-Star is 76-50 in his six-year career with a 3.89 ERA.

"We have an opportunity to challenge for the division in a better way," White Sox general manager Ken Williams said.

The 25-year-old Olivo, who is batting .270, hit his seventh homer of the season off Cubs right-hander Greg Maddux on Sunday. He has good speed and a strong arm.

Olivo was too upset after the game to comment, a team spokesman said.

"It was one of the hardest conversations I've ever had with a player," Williams said.

"We had to make a tough call today, but ultimately we had to decide whether or not it was in our best interests to get a top end of the rotation guy or hang on to a little bit of our future. As you all know, it's been a long time here in Chicago since we've done anything special in the postseason," Williams told ESPN Radio on Sunday night.

"We're just not looking at Freddie for this year. Hopefully we can sign him to an extension and he can be part of our future as well."

Garcia, 27, was one of the top pitchers available on the trade market. The right-hander should help solidify a rotation that already includes Esteban Loaiza, who won 21 games last season, and Mark Buehrle.

"I'm really glad to have him, but we are going to lose one of my favorite players in Olivo," Guillen said. "Hopefully, when Freddy comes to town, he can help us to do what we want to do. We picked up some good players.

"Right now we have a good pitcher who can hopefully help us a lot. There is a lot of pressure on Coop [pitching coach Don Cooper] and myself. We have to win."

The White Sox have struggled with their No. 5 starters all season. Jon Rauch's win over Cleveland last week was their first from that spot after eight losses.

No. 3 starter Scott Schoeneweis is on the disabled list with a sore elbow, and Buehrle has been hit hard in his last two starts.

"It caught me by surprise. I know we've been trying to get another pitcher in here, but I never thought Miguel was going to be the one who's going to go away," White Sox shortstop Jose Valentin said.

"When you try to get something good, you have to pay the price and give something good away, too. It's a good trade for us, and we'll see what happens."

After beating the Cubs 9-4 on Sunday, the White Sox were just a game behind the first-place Twins in the AL Central.

Garcia is scheduled to make his first start for Chicago on Wednesday at Minnesota.

"They'll get a good pitcher," Mariners general manager Bill Bavasi said. "Freddy came into spring training very, very focused. He has maintained his focus under a very, very tough situation. There were a lot of rumors. He's dealt with those well."

Without Olivo, the White Sox will use Sandy Alomar Jr., Jamie Burke and Davis behind the plate.

"Ultimately, the decision I had to make was were we better positioned with Freddy Garcia on our roster or Miguel Olivo on our roster, and not just this year but hopefully for future years, as we have every intention of trying to sign Freddy to a long-term deal," Williams said.

"There's no doubt that he was the guy that was the most coveted on the market."

Davis has split time this season between Seattle and Triple-A Tacoma. He appeared in 14 games with the Mariners and batted .091.

Left-handed starter Jamie Moyer could be the next to go for the punchless Mariners, who are 12½ games behind first-place Texas in the AL West.

Seattle didn't want to lose Garcia without getting anything back for him, and was looking for some young talent with offensive potential.

The 23-year-old Reed has eight homers and 37 RBI as an outfielder for Triple-A Charlotte. He was drafted by the White Sox in 2002 and is a career .334 hitter in the minors. Morse was batting .287 at Double-A Birmingham.

"Today we made what we think is a good deal for us," Bavasi said. "The White Sox made a good deal. It puts them ahead in their division, as far as personnel and trying to win that division."

good deal for the Sox. I'm glad because now the Yankees won't get him. Yanks are probably going to go for Moyer or Glavine next. As for Seattle, there not done trading. It sbeen rumored that they've got Boone, Guardado, Martinez, and Moyer on the trading block.

Edited June 28, 2004 by reyrey619

[gunnar hendershow]

Guardado might end up in Houston... Moyer is going to either New York and Boston... Boone could go to New York also...

Good trade for the ChiSox since they didn't give up that much to get a good pitcher.

[reyrey619]

actually, they did give up a lot. Olivio has a rocket for an arm and he is still relatively young. Reed was their top prospect and was most likely going to take over in RF next year when Mags leaves. Speaking of Mags, the Sox are talking to Atlanta about trading Mags, Rauch, and a minor leauger for Andruw Jones and Russ Ortiz.

[sahyder1]

#

Useless Devil Rays Information

How unlikely was that 12-game winning streak by the Devil Rays? Here's one way to look at it:

# Six teams have never had a 12-game winning streak -- the Angels (44 seasons), Mets (43 seasons), Expos (36 seasons), Blue Jays (28 seasons), Rockies (12 seasons) and Marlins (12 seasons).

# The Yankees haven't had a 12-game winning streak in 43 years (since the '61 Yankees won 13 in a row).

# The Tigers haven't had a 12-game winning streak in 70 years (since the '34 Tigers won 13 straight).

# The Indians haven't had a 12-game winning streak in 53 years (since the '51 Indians won 13 in a row).

# Four other teams have had no 12-game winning streaks during the division-play era (1969-2004) -- the Reds (none since '59), White Sox (none since '61), Pirates (none since '65) and Giants (none since '66).

# And seven other teams have gone more than a decade since their last 12-game winning streak -- the Dodgers (since '76), Cardinals ('82), Brewers ('87), Twins ('91), Phillies ('91), Rangers ('91) and Royals ('94).

But that's not all ...

# Research by Devil Rays PR genius Rick Vaughn determined that no team had ever played as lousy (21-34, .382) for as long into a season as the Rays before starting a winning streak that long.

# The only other American League team in history to have a winning percentage that low at any point in a season and then have a streak that long was the 1942 Indians (who were only 1-3).

# Just three teams have ever had a streak that long after finishing last the year before -- the 1916 Giants (26 in a row), 1991 Twins (15) and 2001 Cubs (12).

# Until they embarked on their first two-game winning streak of the season, the Devil Rays were 18 games under .500. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, no team has ever finished with a winning record after being 18 under at any point of any season. And the only team that even made it back to .500 was the 1899 Louisville Colonels (who finished four under).

# Since 1900, the only team to submerge even 17 games under .500 and finish with a winning record was the 1999 Brewers.

# And the only other team (besides the Brewers) since 1900 that was 17 under and reached .500 (before falling under again) was the 1991 Giants.

Love those Devil Rays.

#

Useless Interleague Information

# Thanks to the miracle of interleague play, Cleveland's Jason Davis just became the sixth American League pitcher to hit a home run in the DH era. The others: Bobby Witt (Rangers) in 1997, Dave Burba (Indians) in 1998, Dwight Gooden (Indians) in 1999, Esteban Yan (Devil Rays) in 2000 and Mark Hendrickson (Blue Jays) last year.

# Davis' other claim to fame: He's the first American League pitcher ever to homer against the Braves -- either in the regular season or in any of their nine World Series appearances.

# In case you missed it, Jamie Moyer singled in two runs last weekend in Pittsbugh, which would have been cool even if they hadn't been his first RBI since 1988. But those 16 years without an entry in the RBI column break the all-time record for most seasons between RBI. According to Elias, he joins this list of four players with a dozen or more years between RBI:

16 (1988-2004) Jamie Moyer

13 (1936-1949) Ralph Winegarner

13 (1980-1993) Charlie Hough

12 (1945-1957) Bud Byerly

# We're now in the eighth season of interleague play, and only one team (the Red Sox) has never gotten an RBI from a pitcher. So the last Red Sox pitcher to drive in a run, according to retrosheet.org, was Lynn McGlothen -- with a ground ball off the Royals' Ken Brett -- on Sept. 27, 1972.

# The White Sox lost a 17-14 game to the Expos and a 13-10 game to the Phillies during interleague play. But they haven't lost a game to an American League team when they've scored in double figures since Aug. 20, 2000 -- when they lost to Tampa Bay, 12-11. Since then, they're 57-0 when they've scored at least 10 runs in games against their own league. Hard to believe.

# The Red Sox haven't been shut out all year by an American League team. But Jason Schmidt threw a one-hitter against them last Sunday in San Francisco.

# The Devil Rays went 11-1 in their first round of games against the National League. Which was a slightly better clip (.917 winning percentage) than their record against their own league (22-34, .393). Now they just have to split their six games against the Marlins and they'll compile the greatest single-season differential in the interleague-play era between record against one league and record against the other. The '97 Expos hold the current record. Here's the leader board heading into the weekend, courtesy of the Elias Sports Bureau:

.524 -- 2004 Devil Rays (11-1, .917 vs NL, 22-34, .393 vs. AL)

.351 -- 1997 Expos (12-3, .800 vs. AL, 66-81,.449 vs. NL)

.340 -- 2002 Reds (2-10, .167 vs AL, 76-74, .507 vs. NL)

.333 -- 2002 Red Sox (5-13, .278 vs. NL, 88-56, .611 vs. AL)

.326 -- 2004 Padres (3-9, .250 vs. AL, 34-25, .576 vs. NL)

# Loyal reader Bob Breyer got to wondering, now that we're eight seasons deep into interleague play, how many teams are left that have never played each other. Well, if you don't include clubs that have met in the World Series at some point, we found only six remaining matchups that have never taken place (anywhere other than spring training, at least):

Marlins-Mariners

Phillies-Rangers

Braves-Angels

Astros-Blue Jays

Cardinals-Devil Rays

Rockies-White Sox

# But we also found eight other matchups that, while they still haven't made the regular-season schedule, would sure rekindle some of the great World Series duels ever witnessed. Here they are:

Yankees-Pirates

Red Sox-Reds

Mets-A's

Red Sox-Cubs

Reds-Orioles

Dodgers-Twins

Giants-Indians

Pirates-Orioles

One question: How the heck could we not have had a Cubs-Red Sox interleague series? Think some network might want to televise those three games?

# Finally, according to Elias only two teams have now hosted everybody in their home park at some point, if you include the postseason. They are -- guess who? -- the Yankees and Red Sox.

Jayson Stark is a senior writer for ESPN.com. Click here to send Jayson a question for possible use on ESPNEWS.

[thuganomic]

Good deal for both teams

Olivo is amazing, and so is that prospect the Mariners got. However, Freddy should help the White Sox win the AL Central.

I'm a little dissappointed the Yankees didn't get him, but I didn't want to lose Navarro anyway.

[reyrey619]

the Yanks will end up with either Moyer or Glavine anyway. If its Glavine, Navarro will probably be gone...

[thuganomic]

the Yanks will end up with either Moyer or Glavine anyway. If its Glavine, Navarro will probably be gone...

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The Yankees need a dependable starter, and while you can argue that Glavine is having a good year, he doesn't do well with a new team (we saw that last year), and he's pitched very little in the AL.

Now that Freddy and Beltran are both gone, I would look to the Yankees to settle down. They're fine, IMHO.

[Lowerdeck]

The Yanks and the Sox need a starter. They'll probably go crazy at the deadline looking for one.

[gunnar hendershow]

Well rumor has it the O's might be shopping B.J. Ryan to a team that needs a dependable reliever in return for a pitching prospect or two.

[sahyder1]

the Yanks will end up with either Moyer or Glavine anyway. If its Glavine, Navarro will probably be gone...

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Moyer makes sense.....Glavine does not. There is no chance in hell that the Mets would trade Glavine to the Yankees and give them the starter they desperately need.

Edited June 28, 2004 by sahyder1

[reyrey619]

well Cashman said he'd be interested in trading for Glavine if the Mets fall way out of contention and maybe they would settle for Al Leiter. As for Moyer, it does make sense. The only consistent starter for them has been Vazquez. Brown also, but he has injury problems. Mussina started off cold, but he seems to be back to regular form. Contreras has been shaky all year. Lieber has been rocked as of late. Yanks have said they were interested in Moyer for a while now. The Yankees are gonna go all out and there gonna get a starter by the deadline.

[grind your soul]

You know who really, really fucking sucks?

Pat Hentgen.

What a fucking waste it was to bring his sorry washed up ass here.

Ugh.

That is all.

[sahyder1]

You know who really, really fucking sucks?

Pat Hentgen.

What a fucking waste it was to bring his sorry washed up ass here.

Ugh.

That is all.

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well they brought him in based on his second half from last year. It's not like the Jays had many options and there's no point in rushing up the guys from the farm.

[Ol' Spanktooth]

I just read on ESPN.com that the Indians have agree to terms with Aaron Boone as long as he passes his physical this weekend.  I hope  it works out  for the indians  since he might get them some power even though he isnt a huge power hitter.  This also  surprise me since most  people were expecting the indians to get rid  of money rather then spend more. Maybe  it means they are serious about making a  run this year even if it means an alomst for sure defeat in the first round

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If Aaron Boone takes the place of Casey Blake on the roster, then I will be one pissed off Indians fan.

Casey Blake > Aaron Boone

[sahyder1]

If Aaron Boone takes the place of Casey Blake on the roster, then I will be one pissed off Indians fan.

Casey Blake > Aaron Boone

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What exactly is it with Indian fans and Casey Blake? Since when did he become something special? 241 career hits.....204 K's

[Lowerdeck]

Aaron Boone will probably hold down the other guy.

And sadly for Yankees fans, your hero and Boston killer is now abandoned. That's really messed up. If it wasn't for Boone, would Boston be world champs right now? New Yorkers don't care about that. All they care about is just winning, doesn't matter how.

[sahyder1]

Aaron Boone will probably hold down the other guy.

And sadly for Yankees fans, your hero and Boston killer is now abandoned.  That's really messed up.  If it wasn't for Boone, would Boston be world champs right now?  New Yorkers don't care about that.  All they care about is just winning, doesn't matter how.

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well he violated his contract and therefore was cut. If he had held out a bit longer right now before signing with the Indians the Yanks probably would've signed him to play 2B