The Japan Times published an article yesterday about how the new posting system agreement puts Rakuten (Masahiro Tanaka's team) in an unfavorable position. The Eagles were widely expected to post Tanaka this offseason, but the newly agreed upon system, complete with a $20 million cap on posting fees, seems to have the team rethinking things. “First of all, discuss it …
CJ Edwards Profile
Yesterday the Cubs traded Matt Garza to the Rangers for a package of prospects that included Mike Olt, CJ Edwards, Justin Grimm and at least one, but maybe two players to be named later. We already wrote about Mike Olt here and now it's CJ Edwards turn. Before we talk too much about Edwards, the Cubs should speak to the Detroit Tigers …
A look at Anthony Rizzo’s new contract
The Cubs signed Anthony Rizzo to a contract last night. GW wrote about it in the wee hours of the morning today. Let's recap the specifics, along with GW's take on it. Anthony Rizzo has signed a long term extension with the Cubs. Ken Rosenthal has the details. The deal is for at least seven years (including 2013) and $41 million, …
Season review: Starlin Castro
Starlin Castro was one of four players to play in all 162 games in 2012. Adam Jones doing it is not all that surprising. He's relatively young. Ichiroi is a bit surprising considering his age and poor performance while in Seattle. Even more surprising is Prince Fielder. Despite playing in 4 more games this season, Castro had 24 fewer plate …
World Series Preview: San Francisco Giants (94-68) vs Detroit Tigers (88-74)
The Giants have home field advantage in this series thanks to All-Star Game MVP Melky Cabrera, who was suspended for PED violations and was left off the Giants playoff roster (his 50 game suspension just ended). The Tigers have the advantage of having swept the Yankees in the previous round, which already feels like was a month ago. The Giants …
ALDS Series Preview: A’s vs. Tigers
The A's came from about a billion games back to win the AL West thanks to the Rangers cubbing the final month or so of the season. That's not to say the A's backed into the playoffs. They won 94 games, which was just one back of the AL leading Yankees. The Tigers fell back in the AL Central early …
Series Preview: Detroit Tigers (28-32) at Chicago Cubs (20-40)
The Tigers were the easy favorite to dominate the mediocre AL Central. They added Prince Fielder to a team that won the division by fifteen games in 2011, forming a core of starts that also includes Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, and Justin Verlander. Fielder has mashed since coming to the team, but not surprisingly the overall lineup has regressed (most …
Daily Facepalm | 1.25.12
Site news: at some point today we'll be moving from Joomla to WordPress. The site should not be down too long, but it will be down at some point. Once the site transfer is complete, registered users will have to click the lost password link in order to retrieve their password. You'll notice the change. International news Yoenis Cespides is …
Tigers sign Prince Fielder to silly contract
The Tigers signed Prince Fielder to a 9 year, $214 million contract yesterday. Scott Boras did his client well in getting him nearly $24 million per year. My first thought when I heard of this contract was that it had to be the worst contract in baseball history. The only other contract that blew my mind like this one at …
DFP: Brett’s Number 5
Cinco City Brett Jackson is the number 5 OF prospect in all of baseball, according to MLB.com's rankings. MLB.com also ranked two guys in the Cubs system, newly acquired Anthony Rizzo and Dan Vogelbach, as the number 1 and number 10 1B prospects. In related news: MLB is ranking prospects. Of what value is this to anyone beyond good PR? …