Cards' La Russa expects Ankiel to 'be here in September'

Rick Ankiel's long wait to return to the major leagues could be over soon.

The pitcher-turned-outfielder's power numbers at Triple-A Memphis have earned him a callup to the St. Louis Cardinals -- possibly this month, manager Tony La Russa said Friday.

"There's no doubt he'll be here in September," La Russa said before his club's game against the Washington Nationals. "Whether he gets here before September, that remains to be discussed."

Ankiel's line is 271/317/571, with 31 HR in 380 AB.  85 K vs. 24 BB, however.  I wonder if the majors will exacerbate that and he will be a Jose Hernandez type hitter with power, but crazy strikeouts and no walks.  I also wonder how his defensive range is.  He was playing CF in the minors, so maybe it's good.  Presumably his throwing arm is ok ;-)  

In any event, no matter how he does in the bigs, this is an unbelievable accomplishment, as he overcomes both a very late start and a deep-seated psychological problem.  

Both Firefox and IE7 have "search bars" that allow you to look up things easily on Google, Wikipedia, etc.  Searchplugins.net makes it simple to create search plugins for other sites as well.  So I used it to make a bunch of baseball-related search plugins.

All you need to do is switch the search engine in your search bar (in the upper right hand corner of your browser), and you can look up a player just by typing his name into that bar.  If you have Firefox and an extension like Context Search, you can also look things up by highlighting them on web pages, right-clicking, and choosing the appropriate search engine.

My plugins can be found here.  They include:

Baseball Cube

ESPN Baseball Player Stats

FirstInning.com

Minor League Ball - Comments

Minor League Ball - Diaries

Minor League Ball - Stories

Minor League Splits

Rototimes Baseball

Rotowire

Rotoworld

Hit the "I" next to them to install them. All of the plugins work in Firefox.  Most of them should work in IE, except for the ones marked with the Firefox symbol.  The ones marked "last name" only accept players' last names; the other ones can handle full names.

There are also plugins on searchplugins.net for Baseball-Reference.com, Fangraphs.com and MinorLeagueBaseball.com.  Mycroft.mozdev.org has still others, such as Baseball Prospectus and Hardball Times.

I hope you enjoy these plugins!  I know that they save me a lot of time.

I just picked this guy up late in a draft based solely on the stat page: 24 years old; 6'4", 195 lb. lefty, which sounds like a pitcher; and a pretty good line in hitter-friendly Albuquerque (8-2, 3.40, with 96 K and only 8 HR in 95 IP.)  In 30 major league innings, he had a 3.03 ERA and struck out 36.  However, control seems to be a big issue (4.4 BB/9 at AAA, 8.2 in the majors.)

I have not seen him pitch, nor have I really heard much about him.

Anyone have any insight on Pinto?  What's his timetable, and how good does he figure to be in the long run?

Which one of these guys would you rather have?  Evaluating the two of them, I am getting:

Betemit:

Much better plate discipline

More power

Better major league performance

J. Lopez:

Plays more difficult position

Two years younger

Better minor league performance:

Tougher hitting environments

Better age relative to league

High doubles rate in minors & majors may indicate future power

I'm finding it to be a very tough call.  What do you all think?

Poll

Would you rather have Wilson Betemit or Jose Lopez?

44%

Wilson Betemit

44 votes

55%

Jose Lopez

55 votes

99 votes | Poll has closed

To Firefox users: I created a search engine for FirstInning.com, the fantastic site that has extensive sabermetric information (including balls-in-play info) on minor leaguers.

To add it to your list of search engines, go here and click "FirstInning.com," next to the icon of a bat.  That will add it to your search engine list along with Google, eBay, etc.  Then all you need to do to look up a player is switch to the FirstInning engine and type his last name in the search box.  (If you have the Context Search extension, you can also highlight his last name on a web page and right-click to look it up right away.)

I also have made these search engine plugins:

Basketball-Reference.com

ESPN Baseball Player Search

Rotoworld and Rototimes Baseball

MinorLeagueBaseball.com, MinorLeagueSplits.com, and, yes, MinorLeagueBall.com

These plugins make my life a little easier; hopefully they will yours as well!

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-mets-rangerstrade&prov=ap&type=lgns

The Texas Rangers acquired outfielder Victor Diaz from the New York Mets on Wednesday for minor league catcher Mike Nickeas.

Diaz was on the Mets' opening day roster and hit .182 (2-for-11) in six games before being sent to Triple-A Norfolk, where he hit .224 with eight home runs and 38 RBS [sic] in 103 games. Diaz spent parts of the last three seasons with the Mets.

Texas assigned Diaz to Triple-A Oklahoma. The Rangers made room on their 40-man roster when outfielder Adam Hyzdu was outrighted to Oklahoma.

Nickeas split the season between Double-A Frisco and Class-A Bakersfield.

For a man whom I predicted on this very site would be "comparable to Danny Tartabull," this is... not so good.  Very rarely will you see someone's game collapse so completely and so quickly.  For a guy who seemed major league ready to go down to AAA and put up a 606 OPS almost makes no sense.

Nickeas has some good walk totals, but not a whole lot else.

Strange story, this Victor Diaz fellow.  I guess we'll see how it plays out in Texas.

http://www.denverpost.com/rockies/ci_4259048

Sounds like he'll be starting...

At 10:42 p.m., manager Clint Hurdle reached his flash point. Furious with his team's offensive maladies, his patience expired, he announced that Double-A super-prospect Troy Tulowitzki would be arriving today and that Luis Gonzalez was heading back to the minors. Left unsaid was that Clint Barmes, the Rockies' shortstop since August 2004, would be benched.

The Rockies had planned to keep Tulowitzki with the Tulsa Drillers during the Double-A playoffs. But two weeks ago the pendulum began to swing as Barmes slumped and Tulowitzki remained hot. Only 21, Tulowitzki hit .291 with 13 home runs and 61 RBIs in 104 games.

I've created Firefox search plugins to search MinorLeagueBaseball.com and MinorLeagueSplits.com.  If you use the Firefox web browser, this will save you some time, because whenever you want to look up a guy's stats, you don't need to load up any webpages.  All you have to do is mouse over to your search bar (to the right of the address bar), change the search engine to MinorLeagueBaseball or MinorLeagueSplits, and type the player's last name in the search box.  

Continue reading this post »

Third-hand here, as supposedly Sons of Sam Horn is reporting that ESPN Radio is reporting this deal.

Continue reading this post »

Just reported on WFAN, can't find a link yet.

Continue reading this post »

This guy was a Giants farmhand who put up some great numbers at the lower levels, but stalled out at AAA (despite not pitching all that badly there), then got injured if I'm not mistaken, and ended up never making the majors.  His numbers got him notice from statheads, and I remember that everyone who talked about him always mentioned that he had a very unusual (and "painful-looking") pitching style.  But I can't remember at this point how exactly they described it.  Does anyone remember the details of how Crabtree pitched, and what was so unusual about it?  I am always curious about pitchers with unique windups and pitches.

I was recently discussing Jim Abbott with my friend.  My hazy memory tells me that Abbott was a good hitter in college at the University of Michigan, hitting for something around a .300 average, and even having a year where he hit .400.  My friend is skeptical of this, and honestly, without evidence, I can't really blame him.  Does anyone have the exact stats?

Listening to the TBS announcers call this game is driving me nuts.

Is Matt Diaz's last name really pronounced "DYE-ehz"?

Or is it pronounced "DEE-ahz", like every other Diaz I've ever heard of?

I mean, I would normally think it was the latter and they were screwing up... but the guy's on the Braves, and both Braves announcers have said his name 100 times in this game... and, I mean, can they both seriously not be aware of how to pronounce Diaz??

I made a search engine to search MinorLeagueBall.com for Firefox users.  It searches John's diaries; it's pretty easy to then change the pulldown if you want to search other diaries or comments.

If you don't have any experience with these, once you add the search engine, it will be an option in your search bar (in the upper right hand corner of your screen, just right of the address bar.) If you click on whatever icon that bar is currently set to (likely the Google symbol), you should get a pulldown menu of searches you can do, that will now include the MinorLeagueBall option. The MinorLeagueBall icon is supposed to be a barn.  Like a farm?  Yeah, I don't know.

I also made search engines for Rototimes, Rotoworld and ESPN Baseball player pages.  These are making it much easier to do research for my you-know-what leagues ;-)  First person to figure out what the ESPN icon is wins a No-Prize.

You can see the plugins here, or once that link goes bad in a few days, by searching around mycroft.mozdev.org.  Hope you find them useful!

This writer claims that Daisuke Matsuzaka doesn't regularly throw a "gyroball."  He quotes Matsuzaka as saying he has only thrown it very occasionally in a game, and would like to learn it.  One of his teammates says people throw it "in comic books."

What in the name of Lefty O'Doul is going on here???

For some reason, New York Newsday today decided to very prominently highlight an article by Jon Heyman that has an offseason plan for the Yankees.  His plan, summarized:

Trade Sheffield to Boston for M. Ramirez

Trade Cano to Minnesota for T. Hunter (fallback: sign Damon, $40M/4 yr)

Trade Wang to Oakland for Zito

Trade Pavano to Detroit for unspecified

Sign Furcal to play 2B

Sign Olerud to play 1B

Sign B.J. Ryan (fallback: Eyre)

Re-sign H. Matsui ($40M/4 yr)

Re-sign B. Williams ($3M/1 yr)

Bring back Torre and Cashman; replace Stottlemyre with Mazzone, Don Cooper, Colborn or Righetti

This seems really ambitious, even for the Yankees.  Furcal AND Ryan AND Matsui AND, potentially, Damon?  That'd be close to another $40M per year on the payroll.  I don't think the A's would trade Zito for Wang either, although Cano for Torii sounds realistic.  Don't see the point of Sheffield for Manny, for either team.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/baseball/mlb/oakland_athletics/12825667.htm

Despite feelings within the organization that Ken Macha would return for his fourth season as A's manager, the team was unable to reach an agreement on a new contract, cutting ties with their manager...

Beane said the matter came down to failing to come up with the proper "compensation" for Macha. The A's had offered a three-year deal worth about $850,000 a year, plus an option for a fourth season. Macha wanted a three-year deal at over $1 million per season. He made $620,000 last season...

Beane and Macha have had a strained relationship at times, but that matter was not an issue during the negotiations, Beane said.

"It came down to compensation," Beane said. "I don't know how clear I can make that."...

Bullpen coach Bob Geren and third base coach Ron Washington will be the top candidates from within the organization.

Didn't necessarily see this one coming.  

Press conference comments aside, I have to figure that if Beane really loved Macha as a manager, he wouldn't have let him go over $150,000 a year.  Things can't be that tight, can they?

http://www.sportingnews.com/baseball/articles/20051003/656439.html

Alan Trammell is out and Jim Leyland might be in as manager of the Detroit Tigers.

Trammell was fired Monday after three seasons in which he failed to turn around a franchise without a winning record since 1993...

Leyland, a former Florida, Pittsburgh and Colorado manager, said the Tigers called him Monday morning to set up an interview with him on Monday evening.

"It's well known that I interviewed with Philadelphia last winter, and I'd like to manage again," the 60-year-old Leyland said last month.

Moving deck chairs, I think...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/baseball/mlb/09/29/redsox.stanton.ap/

The Red Sox acquired left-hander Mike Stanton from the Washington Nationals on Thursday for right-handers Rhys Taylor and Yader Peralta.

Boston's trade means Stanton could wind up pitching this weekend against his former team, the New York Yankees. If the Red Sox advance to the playoffs, Stanton would not be eligible for the postseason roster.

Stanton, who is 38, started the season with the Yankees and was cut June 30 after going 1-2 with a 7.08 ERA in 14 innings over 28 relief appearances. He signed with Washington on July 13 and went 2-1 with a 3.58 ERA in 27 2-3 innings over 30 games.

"We'd like to thank Mike for the fine job he did not only in our bullpen, but with the knowledge and leadership he shared with our young pitchers," Nationals general manager Jim Bowden said. "We are pleased to acquire two young pitchers with good arms."

Taylor, 20, was 2-2 with a 1.49 ERA in five starts and six relief appearances for the Gulf Coast League Red Sox. Peralta, 19, combined to go 2-3 with four saves and a 4.57 ERA in 27 relief appearances for Greenville, Lowell and the Gulf Coast League Red Sox.

--

Is this the LATEST trade in major league history?

And I dunno anything about these guys but, does it make sense to give up ANY 20-year-old with a 1.49 ERA in exchange for a four-game rental?

Couldn't resist :)

The big man will make his 2005 debut tonight.  He'll be hitting cleanup, and as far as I know, he'll be playing regularly the rest of the way.

Let's project BA, OBP, SLG, HR, RBI, BB, IBB.

I'll go:

300 BA/475 OBP/650 SLG
8 HR
15 RBI
20 BB
10 IBB

.................................................

"Remember me?"

This is a pretty amazing story, IMO.  Two months ago, it seemed like the majority of people thought Giambi's career was finished.  It was just a question of whether the Yankees would buy out his contract outright or bench him for Tino Martinez, according to what people were saying.  Now he is the best hitter per at-bat in the American League??  It's unbelievable to me.