Baseball and Stuff – Cole Hamels, Joey Votto, Red Sox Update

Baseball and Stuff – Cole Hamels, Joey Votto, Red Sox Update

·        Tyler Pastornicky won the starting SS job for the Atlanta Braves.

·        Buster Olney - ‏@Buster_ESPN - Johnny Damon looking for opportunity with 450 PAs, according to agent Scott Boras. "Damon will be signed by May 1st; just don't know where."

·        Roy Oswalt is still available

·        Andrew Bailey told he needs thumb surgery

·        Florida RHP Carlos Zambrano – 12.1-IP, 15-BB

·        San Diego reassigns Matt Clark, Jeff Suppan, Casey Kelly and Joe Wieland.

·        The Giants will pay $62mil  to Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito in 2013

·        Happiest guy in baseball today? Pending free agent Cole Hamels, whose price just went way up. Happiest guy in the Giants clubhouse? Aside from Cain, I’d have to go with Madison Bumgarner, who looks poised for superstardom and could be up for an extension right as the Giants are shedding Zito’s contract and looking to lock up a partner for Cain. link

·        It’s probably pretty close to it, honestly. Joey Votto’s been a +7 win player each of the last two years, but a decent chunk of his offensive value is tied up in his career .352 BABIP, which is pretty much the absolute upper limit for a sustainable performance over the long term. Over the last 20 years, the top three on the BABIP leaderboard (min 3000 PA) are Derek Jeter (.355), Matt Kemp (.352, just barely over 3000 PA), and Ichiro Suzuki (.351). You’ll probably note that all three of them are pretty fast, and can leg out infield hits when they need to. The best comparison for Votto is Miguel Cabrera, who comes in at .347 – in other words, it’s not impossible for Votto to keep getting balls to fall in at this rate, but there’s really nowhere for him to go but down in that area. More likely, we should probably project Votto as a +6 win player going forward, which accounts for some overall regression and variability of health. - link

·        And so it begins for the 2012 version of the Boston Red Sox. The 2012 season for the Red Sox is starting off like the 2011 ended — like a hot mess. Carl Crawford is going to miss the first month with a wrist injury. Josh Beckett has a thumb injury. The Red Sox are so thin in the starting rotation they have been forced to move Daniel Bard to the starting rotation. And now, their closer is on the shelf. According to Peter Abraham of the Boston Globe, closer Andrew Bailey was told yesterday that he will need thumb surgery. No timetable has been set for the surgery and how long Bailey will be out for has not yet been determined. link