Stephen Wiseman, sports turf manager for the Binghamton Mets, is thinking of spring. "Pitchers and catchers have reported, so you know the season is going to be here soon," said Wiseman, who joined the B-Mets in 1999. "But I'm looking out at the field and can't even see a blade of grass -- it's all covered in snow."
As "Dirt" Douglas made clear, this might not be a problem. But within the upstate New York environs of Binghamton, wintry weather can continue all the way up to, and often past, Opening Day. And that is a problem. The region was hit with a particularly severe April snowstorm in 2007, one that happened to coincide with a B-Mets homestand.
"We got right to work shoveling snow off the tarp, loading it into [John Deere] Gators and dumping it outside the stadium," Wiseman recalled. "I had one of my guys take a hose and spray warm water all over the outfield and we got the snow removed that way."
The Chicago White Sox still believe in Freddy Garcia, even though he's won just five games the past three seasons. Garcia, who has made only 23 major league starts since the 2007 season began, is slated to be Chicago's fifth starter two years after surgery on his right throwing shoulder. The 33-year-old showed the White Sox he still has some life in that arm, going 3-2 with a 3.66 earned run average over his last six outings of 2009. The veteran is back in 2010 hoping to reward the club with which he won a World Series ring in 2005. - link
The numbers below won't exactly align with the source of top 30 talent box in each chapter of the Prospect Handbook, for a couple of reasons. If a player appears in the Prospect Handbook, we're giving the team that originally signed him the credit regardless of that player's current organization; the Phillies get credit for Carlos Carrasco, the Dodgers get credit for Carlos Santana, etc. We're also including Cuban lefthanders Aroldis Chapman (Reds) and Noel Arguelles (Royals), whose scouting reports appear in the appendix of the Prospect Handbook but signed too late to rank in their respective organizations top 30s.
TEAM TOP 30 NOTABLE PROSPECTS
Yankees 12 Jesus Montero, Arodys Vizcaino, Jose Tabata
Rockies 11 Jhoulys Chacin, Wilin Rosario, Hector Gomez
Mets 10 Jenrry Mejia, Fernando Martinez, Wilmer Flores
Phillies 10 Carlos Carrasco, Sebastian Valle, Antonio - link
For one, not surprisingly, team winning percentage is very important. The average .500, non-playoff team that does not have a new park or any other advantages draws about 24,500 fans. Every extra game won adds about 300 fans per game. Of course, the relationship is not linear, but that's an approximate estimate. All else being equal, a .400 team will draw about 20,100 fans, while a .600 team will draw 29,900 - difference of about 10,000 fans per game. Obviously, winning teams draw more fans and the effect is quite large.
But, that's not even the half of it. As you might expect, the team WPCT from the year before also has a very large effect. This effect is not as large, but a .500 team who was a .400 team the year before draws 22,700, while a .500 team who was a .600 team the year before draws 26,400. This "year before" effect makes sense. At the beginning of the season, fans don't really have an idea if their team will be good, so it makes sense that they use last year's performance as a guide. The previous season's success draws fans back to the park, even if that success isn't repeated the following year. - link
Though the Mets erred on the side of caution, Manuel said it wasn’t necessarily a reaction to last year’s slew of injuries.
“Actually, when I came in I put up two lineups,” Manuel said. “But I wanted them to prepare to play. When it rains like that and wind and forecast is this and that, I just feel it wasn’t necessary to do.”
Fans also may have been put off by the heavy downpour, but it was still a good turnout of 3,614 in the stadium that seats 7,800 fans. - link
Yet again we have two of baseball’s big names being dragged through the muck of innuendo. This week Jose Reyes and Alex Rodriguez are both to be “questioned” in a HGH investigation being run by the FBI. Personally, I do not care in the slightest, nor do I care about the issue of steroids in baseball, and neither should you. Let us quickly dispense with the main arguments driving the so-called Performance... link
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