I think it would be cool to see some prospect history for the players.  A year-to-year grade history of the prospects.  I know that it would really only apply to a smaller subset of players that have been graded for several years running, but it would be interesting to see how some prospects rise and fall from year to year.  I also know that this might be a bit too time consuming, but I thought that I would through it out there.

It looks like Brett Gardner was called up to the Yankees today.  Hopefully he'll get a chance to replace Melky in CF.  With Damon and Matsui hurting (and Melky sucking), he should get a start or two.  Good luck to him - he's really improved a lot this season.  His power has definitely gotten a nice bump.

http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2008/06/29/sports/doc486838a519540498394678.txt

Gardner was batting .287 with three home runs, 29 RBIs, 34 stolen bases and had a .412 on-base percentage.

Is anyone else getting tired of the young stars of baseball complaining about the money that they're making?  Fielder, Howard, Hamels and the rest of the complainers?  I was just curious to hear what other people thought.  Yes, the system is stacked against the players in their first couple years, but it's not like this isn't a known situation.  And it's not like these guys aren't going to make $100M over their lifetimes as ballplayers.  And it's not like a $500k/yr (or $10M) isn't a lot of money.

Thoughts?

I'm proud to say that I was one of the people who helped introduce the +1 reply to messages here at this site.  I initially thought I was the first because I had never seen it before, but it looks like wily mo beat me to it by several months.  

That being said, I got the idea for +1/0/-1/ from listserv voting.  Someone proposes, let's say, to add a new feature to some open source software.  They post it to the mailing list, and people reply with +1/0/-1 in the email.  It's a very crude voting system, but it's been around for a long time and is very effective.

I've been seeing some posters replying with +2 or +100 or +100000000.  Let's try to not over do it.  Each one of us is one person, we would get one vote.  If you're REALLY REALLY REALLY in agreement with someone, posting +10000000 just makes people ignore you - try replying with a clear explanation WHY you agree.  Back up your stance with substance instead of just showing everyone how totally excited you are that someone has the same viewpoint as yourself.  Vote someone +1/0/-1 if you want to use those semantics, otherwise you're defeating the purpose of the whole thing.

I LOVE hummus!  I can eat it any day.  But should I pick hummus AND pita AND cucumber over Joba AND ARod AND Posada?  I really need a catcher, but the pita is homemade AND freshly baked!1!!!!1!  Plus, I didn't really have dinner.  While I think Joba is going to better than Cy Young, Steve Carlton and Mark Fidrych, I think I might be leaning towards the hummus.  What do you think?

...well, we don't know.  What seems like a certainty at this point is that he will be traded.  What does everything think is fair market value for him?  The teams that seem interested are the Diamondbacks, the Angels and the Padres (at least).  I've heard that a deal centering on Linebrink or one centering on Byrnes is a possibility.  If it's Byrnes, then Melky will be traded to the Pirates for Gonzo.

What do you guys think is fair trade for Randy, assuming that there is at least a small bidding war for him?

I was curious about Minor League Ball, so I checked back to see when it started and it looks like John posted his first test post on 02/09/2005 and has had a total of 1679 posts since then (not including diaries).  Way to go John!  

Further curiosity made me check to see when I first joined.  My first comment was posted on 02/18/2005, so it looks like I actually joined within the first week of the site! Way to go, me! ;)  

I was wondering how many other 'old' timers there are who joined up within the first few weeks.  Anyone?

Hector Noesi hit with 50 day drug ban.

http://tinyurl.com/y87yzl

I don't see him on any prospect list, and it looks like he was playing in GLC.  11 Ks in 7 IP.  

"The Dominican right-hander, who turns 20 on Jan. 26, pitched in five games last season for the Gulf Coast League Yankees from July 31 to Aug. 18. He was 0-0 with a 1.29 ERA and one save, striking out 11 in seven innings."                        

I'm in this spy league and I need to know what to do!  There is this one spy, he dresses in all white, but there is this OTHER spy and he dresses all in black!!!  

HELP!  Which spy should I choose?!?!  It's a 24 spy keeper holdover round-robin head-to-head minor spy league with spies!                

And his last name isn't Peña!

From espn.com:  "The New York Yankees paid a $2 million signing bonus to Venezuelan catcher Jesus Montero on Sunday, a busy day for the best Latin American prospects."

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2508432

Additional signings from the article:  "Boston paid $600,000 to outfielder Angel Beltre and $550,000 to slugger Moises Tejeda."

Does anyone know where I can find a list of 2006 up-to-date rookie stats?  I've been looking around all the standard stats sites and I haven't been able to find anything.  What I'm looking for is a list of the offensive/pitching stats for all the players that currently qualify as rookies in the majors.  Does anyone know where I can find something like that?  Thanks.

I'll be honest, when I first saw the headline, considering it was a NY paper and I'm a Yankee fan, the first thing I thought of was the Yankees' Wright and I got excited.  Then reality set in and then I realized it was the Mets' Wright.  Personally, I think that Mets would be crazy to even consider such a deal.  Wright is only in his 2nd year, yet he's an MVP candidate, and will be for many years to come.  

The party line from the Yankees is that they arne't interested in Piazza because they have Andy Phillips.  Phillips is a 28 year old who has been in AAA since 2002.  He had an awesome Spring Training last year, only to suck (.496 OPS) in the majors.  The Yankees front office thinks that Phillips (along with Bernie I guess) can fill the DH role for them this season.  Does anyone here really think that these two guys, one who is a AAAA player and one who is at the end of his career, is going to be better than Piazza?  I know that Piazza is on the downside of his career, too, but looking at the numbers it looks like he has more left in the tank then Bernie does.  What does everything think about this?  Does Phillips have any chance of being a decent DH (and a substitute 1B for when Giambi can't play the field)?

Oh yeah, here are Phillips' career numbers.

We're coming up to the 16th round in my fantasy league draft and I'm not sure who to pick.  Pujols is still available, but so is Paul Zuvella.  I already have JT Snow at 1B, so I'm thinking of picking up Paul Zuvella.  What do you guys think?  I like to think that I know a lot about baseball, but I just wanted to get some other opinions.

Am I the only one who is sick and tired of all the fantasy team advice that a number of people are requesting?  Sheesh!  If you need to ask so many questions, maybe you should be in a fantasy league.  Stop littering the Diaries with your pleas for help.  Do your own research for a change.  Be a man (or woman) and make the pick yourself.  

Looks like Seo was traded for Sanchez.  The trade as reported by the AP:

The Los Angeles Dodgers, in search of starting pitching, acquired right-hander Jae Seo and left-handed reliever Tim Hamulack from the New York Mets on Wednesday for right-handed relievers Duaner Sanchez and Steve Schmoll.

Hamulack will be 29 next year, so he's not much of a prospect.  Schmoll will be 26 and just got his first taste of the majors last season and posted a 5.01 ERA.  He doesn't look like anything but a back-of-the-bullpen reliever at this point.

Looks like Tampa Bay traded Brazelton to San Diego for Sean Burroughs.  Looks like the classic bust for bust trade.

On another note, the Braves traded Estrada to the D'Backs for Cormier and Villareal (i.e. two crappy relievers).  Seems like they could have gotten more for Estrada than those two scrubs.

What do you guys think?

I've been following baseball blogs for a while now (I used to have one of my own, but it was too time consuming and not as rewarding traffic-wise as I would have liked) and I found something interesting.  I started visiting this blog very near its inception.  I think I found the link on Baseball Musings (by David Pinto), which I tend to think of as one of the early baseball blogs.  Now, I'm sure that there were plenty of blogs before David's, but it was pretty much the first one I found of its quality and depth that was created by a pure baseball fan who actually had baseball stats experience.  (In case you're wondering, my earliest baseball stats book was a Bill James back in 1987 or so).  

Like I said, I found this blog near its inception, and have been following it ever since, but I always thought of it as a more 'niche' baseball blog; it is, after all, a minor league blog (check the title), though all baseball topics are discussed here.  The thing that I found interesting today is that this blog gets 20 more page views then Baseball Musings does.  I guess this is because of the Diary section, which forces people to click on links and visit other pages, whereas Baseball Musings is a 'classic' blog where everything is on the one page (except for comments, which is a popup window).

I'm not sure where I'm going with this long, useless diary, but I just found it interesting about the page views and traffic differences.  I guess sometimes assumptions, and perceptions,  are wrong.

Newsday reports that Delgado is going to the Mets for Petit and Jacobs:

"The Mets have agreed to send righthanded pitching prospect Yusmeiro Petit and young first baseman Mike Jacobs to the Marlins for Delgado, according to someone familiar with the deal. As part of the deal, the Marlins will send $7 million back to the Mets to cover part of the $48 million remaining on Delgado's contract."