SB Nation User Blog: westbrook

John Farrell, the pitching coach for the Boston Red Sox, has removed himself from consideration for Cleveland's managerial opening, according to sources.

The Indians are in the early stages of their search, which they are expected to resolve by the end of October. Torey Lovullo is among the internal candidates that might be considered, and the Indians also are expected to interview ESPN analyst Bobby Valentine.

Brick, resist the urge to make a pun regarding the types of women Farrell is interested in.

9/25: Vintage Carmona?

westbrook — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 05:32:39 -0000

9/25: Vintage Carmona?

looks pretty good.

"How often do you see a guy sacrifice himself to save a run?" "How many people do you meet that...

westbrook — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:48:45 -0000

"How often do you see a guy sacrifice himself to save a run?"

"How many people do you meet that are like Victor Martinez?"

"When they needed someone to catch Tim Wakefield, Martinez gladly volunteered. "

"Eddie was my hitting coach when I came up with the Indians," says Martinez. "He taught me so much about what pitchers might try to do, what to look for, how to prepare. He told me to take BP at 70 percent. Don't try to hit everything hard. He taught me that when there are runners on base, take what the pitcher gives you and get the runners in. It doesn't matter what it looks like, what's important is knocking in your teammates and winning."

Don't click the link if you don't want to be saddened.

Gammons Gushes about Victor

Grady's Getting All His Weaknesses Fixed

westbrook — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:25:48 -0000

Grady's Getting All His Weaknesses Fixed

Hopefully he shows up in 2010 ready to become someone even better than Duke Snider or Barry Bonds.

THE WHAT?

westbrook — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 21:29:45 -0000

THE WHAT?

there is this the perception that somehow the National League West is some remote wilderness somewhere between the Pacific Coast League and the Alaskan League. Oh, sure, Vicente Padilla and Brad Penny can jump off the Morgan Memorial trucks and throw gems, but it is a division predominated by the three California pitchers' parks that make it such a pitchers' division.
...
In games played outside their own division (versus teams from the NL East, Central and interleague play) the NL West this weekend was 24 games over .500, the NL Central five under, the NL East 24 under; in the American League, the West was 33 over .500, the East 28 over, the Central 37 under.
...
"What this division has is four teams with good major league players and very good minor league systems," Diamondbacks GM Josh Byrnes says, "and we all know that not only are the Padres playing everyone tough, but they will get the organization back in place because they have such competent people running things. The Dodgers obviously are very good. The Giants' pitching is intimidating. The Rockies are really good, both in terms of their everyday players and how well they pitch from top to bottom (yes, they lead the league in quality starts). How many people have noticed what Ubaldo Jimenez has done, or Max Scherzer, or realize how great Clayton Kershaw is about to become?"
...
The joke is that Dodgers GM Ned Colletti could be arrested for shoplifting, as in the last two seasons he has acquired Manny Ramirez, Casey Blake, George Sherrill, Jon Garland, Jim Thome, Doug Mientkiewicz, Ronnie Belliard and Vicente Padilla and paid them a combined total approximately the equal of the $2.7 million that the team saved during Manny Ramirez's suspension. San Francisco's Brian Sabean added Freddy Sanchez and Ryan Garko at little talent cost

Whaaa? I'm not sure I get Gammons' point here... and I don't agree that Sabean and Coletti have fleeced anybody.

Andy Marte: "He looks better, physically. But it's still the same approach. He's still got that...

westbrook — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:27:24 -0000

Andy Marte: "He looks better, physically. But it's still the same approach. He's still got that fastball approach, and he just doesn't make adjustments. But I'll say this: Somebody got to him about conditioning and commitment. He's in much better shape. So I wouldn't sell him short yet."

This is so short it might not even be fanshot worthy. But, hey... it's Andy.