drbeeper

Plain Dealer ¦ Pluto: As Cleveland Indians become stagnant, Wedge becomes more vulnerable. Lost in all the discussion of the Indians trades and the Dolans’ millions of losses is the fact the front office is finally admitting something the fans have sensed for a while—they aren’t just a woe-is-me, small-market team, they have been underachievers in the last two seasons. […]Yes, it’s nice that the Indians are 13 of their last 19 after Tuesday night’s 5-0 victory over Texas. But what should that mean when it comes to judging the future of manager Eric Wedge?Absolutely nothing.The fact is the Indians were supposed to contend, and collapsed when it counted. The fact is the Indians had their fifth losing April in seven years under Wedge. Or that this is the third time in five years they were under .500 at the All-Star break.

PD ¦ Cleveland Indians GM Mark Shapiro has no plans to step down: ‘I have unfinished business’. Indian GM Mark Shapiro: Part 1 Indian GM Mark Shapiro: Part 2

Houston Chronicle ¦ Ortiz: Bullpen’s shot, and Cooper deserves blame. Reading through the comments Chris Sampson made to Richard Justice Tuesday in Florida, it’s pretty clear that the righthander has not survived the abuse Cecil Cooper put him through before the All-Star break. It’s pretty amazing when a guy who was on the disabled list and has asked for an extra day off here or there since the break still leads the relievers in innings or games.Poor Doug Brocail’s right shoulder never recovered from the abuse Cecil Cooper put him through before the 2008 All-Star break.Now, Alberto Arias is showing signs of wearing down after Cooper rode him into the ground.Guys like Sampson and Arias must be honest with Cooper and tell him there are days they cannot take the ball. Cooper had his career and made his money as a player, and now he’s likely to try to sacrifice all the arms to avoid being fired after the season. Sampson and Arias are still trying to establish themselves in the majors.Yorman Bazardo on Saturday was a perfect case of Cooper’s selfish use of arms. He told the kid he likely wouldn’t use him. Bazardo had just started on the previous Wednesday at Round Rock, yet Cooper…Read More …

FanGraphs: Carruth: Marking the 500 HR Creation. Meh…give Mark Reynolds another week or two.The 1960s saw, in addition to Williams, the entrance of Willie Mays (1965), Mickey Mantle (1967), Eddie Matthews (1967) and Hank Aaron (1968) in perhaps the greatest decade of hitting talent that is still revered today. Williams is commonly regarded as the best pure hitter of all time, Aaron the best non-tainted slugger (yet), Mays perhaps the most valuable hitter (combining his offense with his center field play) and obviously Matthews and Mantle are well regarded as well, though Matthews sometimes seems lost in the shuffle more than he should.Three more players joined in the first two years of the 1970s: Ernie Banks (1970), Harmon Killebrew (1971) and Frank Robinson a month after Harmon. All told, between September 13th, 1965 (Mays) and September 13th, 1971 (Robinson), seven players hit their 500th career home run. Seven, in six years. Remember that.Things really slowed down after that with Willie McCovey coming next in 1978, Reggie Jackson in 1984, Mike Schmidt in 1987 and Eddie Murray in 1996. And then came the steroid-era sluggers. Over the just-under-ten-year period from August 5th, 1999 (when Mark McGwire hit number 500) and April 17th, 2009 (when the latest…Read More …

Seattle Times: Baker: Not all losses are created equal. Give me an A…#### it, give another one.Mariners’ manager Don Wakamatsu put it best: “No loss is easy, but obviously when you give it up in the ninth, it stings a little more. It hurts quite a bit.’’No sugar-coating this one—it belongs in the pantheon of excruciating losses by the Mariners this season. Off the top of my head, I can think of the back-to-back walkoffs by Texas off Brandon Morrow, and the one against Anaheim in which they blow a large lead, with David Aardsma coughing it up in the ninth for one of his three blown saves.Aardsma has been excellent for the most part this year, and Wakamatsu alluded to over-use as a possible cause of this outing, while declaring his continued belief in the closer.“This guy has been the heart and soul of our ballclub,’’ Wakamatsu said. “He’s been consistent. That’s why he’s been at the top of our league in ERA for relievers. If we tack on a couple of runs, it’s a little different situation; the pressure is maybe not there. We talked about the amount of appearances and innings the bullpen has sustained, and sometimes you’re going to have some bad…Read More …

Amazin’ Avenue: Twitter / Kevin Burkhardt on Francoeur. Weeeeee…more fun than Beer Money bloopers!A bright spot: the Francoeur for Church swap has been an early steal for the Mets. He has been terrificIf we put aside our general contention that Church is overall a better player than Francoeur (the statistical numbers bear this out), here are the two players’ slash lines with their new teams:Francoeur: .298/.327/.442Church: .278/.400/.444If we blatantly disregard everything else, Francoeur does lead in homeruns 5-2, which I guess = early steal.

Washington Times ¦ That much closer. Drew Storen just turned 22 years old, and two months before that, he signed a deal with the Washington Nationals that gave him a $1.6 million signing bonus.He pulls up to the ballpark in a yellow pickup truck – not an immodest ride but one that certainly lets onlookers know he has done well for himself at a young age.So you might be a little surprised to learn that Storen, the 10th pick in June’s MLB draft, thinks this whole minor league experience – living with a host family, busing around the Mid-Atlantic and dressing in clubhouses the size of a locker room at your local community center – is actually kind of cool.“A lot of times you hear the extreme horror stories. With the book ‘Odd Man Out’ out, you’re hearing all that,” Storen said. “It’s really not as bad as everybody makes it. We get taken care of here.”

Washington Post ¦ Boswell: Recent Run Is Hard to Figure. You can’t construct a big league team properly unless you can evaluate it correctly: See it clearly, don’t kid yourself and face the truth. Few tasks are harder for executives.If you conclude that your team is abysmal, then that drives every key decision. If you believe you are a losing team, but far from a bad one, then you act very differently.Either way, you better not delude yourself. If you needlessly blow up a team that’s actually close to being decent or, conversely, if you fool yourself into thinking you just need a few good men to be a winner, it can waste several seasons and scores of millions of dollars.Welcome to Nats Town, where every day this season has been Crazy City. If you can evaluate the Nats accurately, go straight to Cooperstown. Nobody else can.

The Day The Baseball Died Dugout. Happy Birthday to Christy Mathewson and Ray Schalk.

Conlin: MLB should raise the mounds and lower the ERAs. And…hey, ladies! Don’t raise the bridge, lower the river!So here we are in 2009, and most games it takes at least four pitchers working off those itty-bitty mounds to seal the deal – or blow it. Know how many extra beers and hot dogs all those pitching changes sell?The hitters are in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade Era – blown up and going for the downs. And the new wave of retro parks would have been perfect for Willie – Keeler, not Mays. Imagine Mike Schmidt hitting in the Bank – and he’ll turn 60 next month. Picture DiMaggio’s elegant swing in Yankee Stadium Lite. Al Gionfriddo would have to play him on the subway platform.The game has gone full-tilt. Now that the orthopedic surgeons have done enough Tommy Johns and labrum debridements to retire on Hobe Sound, it’s time to restore the 4 inches of dirt the Lords bulldozed away for no good reason after the 1968 season. Reverse the moundectomy.Tim Lincecum might be a scary sight, long-striding off a 15-inch mound, but I think Bob Gibson’s 1.12 ERA is safe. Expansion to the current 30 teams – come on, AL, you’re two light – has added…Read More …

Hirshfield: Unfair to Fault Youkilis for Standing Up for His Teammates. Or as Pitch Williams said on the MLB Network…”Why didn’t Youkilis charge Edwin Jackson the day before…Huh? (insert blank stare here) Huh?…BECAUSE HE FELT HE COULD INTIMIDATE A 20-YEAR OLD, THAT”S WHY!”“There are two real culprits in this Tigers-Red Sox mess, when a brawl broke out in the bottom of the second,” wrote ESPN.com’s Keith Law on Tuesday.“First is Kevin Youkilis, who showed once again that he can’t keep his emotions in check by charging the mound without a moment of hesitation after he was hit by a pitch. Tigers starter Rick Porcello backed off and raised his hands as if to ask why Youkilis was rushing the mound. Those of us in the scouts’ seats had the same reaction.”“Huh?” you’re asking. Wait, it gets better….let’s get to Law’s assessment of the event in question.Youkilis “can’t keep his emotions in check”? Now, I won’t disagree with the fact that Youk—an All-Star for the second time in his career this season—gets a little hot under the collar every time he strikes out. That’s his M.O. It’s not completely out of character for people who are great at what they do to be hard on themselves. But, quick,…Read More …

Boivin: ‘Moneyball’ philosophy put to test. Damn! Paola Boivin even sounds like she fell out of a lost Gustavo Serena flick.It was an out-of-body moment.Phone rings.“We would like you to be in a movie.”Ohhhh-kay.“We’ll pay you.”I’m listening.“It’s starring Brad Pitt.”Are you bleeping kidding me?Earlier this summer, I was one of several media members invited to play the role of a sportswriter in “Moneyball,” a film based on the popular book by Michael Lewis that examined Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane’s analytical approach to baseball player development.

L.A. Times: Manny Ramirez, and the Dodgers, are getting their groove back. Ramirez’s reaction to this crowd of trial lawyers and Googleheads and Marin moms-of-three? He smiled, he bowed, he laughed, he trudged to the outfield with that slow, heavy-legged mope—and then politely tossed spare baseballs to his trying-really-hard-to-be-angry tormentors.To all of this, of course, Joe Torre smiles. He gets a question about how nervous Ramirez had seemed when he returned last month from his suspension. The Dodgers’ manager says it feels like, since then, and without doubt in recent days, a transformation is underway.“You know, he puts that uniform on he has a place to hide,” Torre says. “It really is a comfortable place for him. [More comfortable than] if he had to sit in front of a microphone, or during his suspension if he had to talk to somebody, or even when I talked to him during the suspension. The baseball side of it is where he finds his security.”It appears Ramirez is secure again. The old vibe is coming back: at the plate, in the clubhouse. “I never leave San Francisco without a home run!” he says, and then delivers Tuesday, just in time. Just as the Giants have been inching forward. Just as Colorado keeps edging…Read More …

L.A. Times: Billingsley’s treatment. The experimental treatment that was credited for healing the elbows of Takashi Saito and Claudio Vargas is being used to treat Billingsley’s hamstring.Billingsley received an injection of platelet-rich plasma in his leg Saturday, which was why trainer Stan Conte thought he was able to make enough progress to throw a bullpen session Monday.Like Saito and Vargas, Billingsley had blood drawn and spun to isolate the platelets, which clot and promote healing.The platelets, 10 times more concentrated than in normal blood, were injected into the site of the injury.Torre said he remained hopeful that Billingsley can make his next scheduled start, against St. Louis on Monday at Dodger Stadium.Ticket truck launchedThe Dodgers started selling tickets out of a truck that will visit various events, parks, grocery stores and retail locations in the greater Los Angeles area.Tickets purchased from the truck will not have a service charge added to their price.The Dodgers’ Twitter feed at twitter.com/dodgertownusa will update fans on the truck’s location.Taking the vehicle for its inaugural drive at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday was Snoop Dogg.