2008 Baseball Season/Off-Season Discussion

[tim_m]

Yeah thats one thing i hate about early season games they get rained out so much like the yankees today. On the plus side of that though it got rescheduled for a time i'll be able to watch it on mlb extra innings free preview.

[Bill 213]

Goddamnit Pedro Martinez is out with a pulled hammy already.  The Mets are up against it with injuries.  Johan was impressive in the opener though.

[faldor]

Goddamnit Pedro Martinez is out with a pulled hammy already.  The Mets are up against it with injuries.  Johan was impressive in the opener though.

Boy did the Sox make the right move in letting him go.  How's that contract looking now?

[Bill 213]

Does anyone else get the MLB.tv thing through MLB.com?  You get all the regular season games of every team, except your home area team (the Pirates...big loss) which are on the local sports channel anyways, but those games are up in the archives 3 hours later.  I signed up for the premium subscription which delivers a really nice stream and you can watch up to six games at once.  It's also great for the dudes like me that have to work 2-10 shift because they archive all the games immediately so as soon as I get home and I can pop the game up.  I guess it does have it's bugs though from what I've read....anyone had any experience with it?

[pilferk]

Does anyone else get the MLB.tv thing through MLB.com?  You get all the regular season games of every team, except your home area team (the Pirates...big loss) which are on the local sports channel anyways, but those games are up in the archives 3 hours later.  I signed up for the premium subscription which delivers a really nice stream and you can watch up to six games at once.  It's also great for the dudes like me that have to work 2-10 shift because they archive all the games immediately so as soon as I get home and I can pop the game up.  I guess it does have it's bugs though from what I've read....anyone had any experience with it?

I do the gameday audio, instead.

Cheaper, and I can listen to the Yanks home feed for afternoon games while I'm at work.

[sandman]

Does anyone else get the MLB.tv thing through MLB.com?  You get all the regular season games of every team, except your home area team (the Pirates...big loss) which are on the local sports channel anyways, but those games are up in the archives 3 hours later.  I signed up for the premium subscription which delivers a really nice stream and you can watch up to six games at once.  It's also great for the dudes like me that have to work 2-10 shift because they archive all the games immediately so as soon as I get home and I can pop the game up.  I guess it does have it's bugs though from what I've read....anyone had any experience with it?

i had it in 2004-2006. never had a problem. picture was awesome for being on my laptop. we used to watch the day games at work all the time. it was great.

I saw alot of Santana's first game. it looked too easy for him.

[GeorgeSteele]

Goddamnit Pedro Martinez is out with a pulled hammy already.  The Mets are up against it with injuries.  Johan was impressive in the opener though.

Boy did the Sox make the right move in letting him go.  How's that contract looking now?

Not looking good at all, I wish the Mets would have invested that money in Edgar Renteria and Matt Clement. 

Lets face it - Mets, Sox, Yankees are beneficiaries of an unbalanced system.  They can afford most contract mistakes.

[Dr. Blutarsky]

The picture says it all......




A-Rod could pay Marlins' salaries, still have $6 million left

By 'Duk

Alex Rodriguez might be laughing in this photo, but I swear this isn't an April Fool's joke. The Associated Press just did a study of baseball's contracts and found that the Yankees third baseman makes more than the entire roster of the Florida Marlins combined.

Not by a little, either.

At $28 million a year, A-Rod makes much more than the 33-member Marlins opening day squad (a total that includes its disabled list), which will take home a relatively shallow pool of $21.8 million in 2008.

While that's still a lot for any group of any people to split, it illustrates just how unbalanced baseball salaries can be in today's game. No wonder the Marlins don't have very many fans. Why waste your time with an owner who isn't even pretending to field a competitive team?

Here are a few other staggering facts about Florida's sad excuse for a payroll, which has been compressed as far as possible by owner Jeffrey Loria, who *claims* to be waiting for the Marlins' new stadium to open in 2011 to start spending money.

? Florida's highest earner, reliever Kevin Gregg, doesn't even make the league average of $3.15 million per season. (He'll make $2.5 million in '08.)

? Mets pitcher Johan Santana makes $12 million a year more than Florida's entire starting rotation.

? The Marlins' payroll is less than half of the next-lowest team, the Tampa Bay Rays ($43.8 million).

Of course, the ironic part is that while the Yankees will again be the top spending team with a $209.1 million payroll, the Marlins have won a World Series more recently (2003) than the ol' Bronx Bombers (2000). And, yes, Loria was technically Florida's owner back then.

Still, that's no excuse for him to field one of the barest bones teams that baseball has ever seen. If it weren't so pathetic, it'd be a lot funnier than it already seems.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/A-Rod-could-pay-Marlins-salaries-still-have-6?urn=mlb,74571

[tim_m]

Florida's owner is a joke and a thief. How they let him own another team after what he did to Montreal i have no idea.

[faldor]

Goddamnit Pedro Martinez is out with a pulled hammy already.  The Mets are up against it with injuries.  Johan was impressive in the opener though.

Boy did the Sox make the right move in letting him go.  How's that contract looking now?

Not looking good at all, I wish the Mets would have invested that money in Edgar Renteria and Matt Clement. 

Lets face it - Mets, Sox, Yankees are beneficiaries of an unbalanced system.  They can afford most contract mistakes.

Oh, no doubt.  Clement was a horrible signing.  Renteria wasn't quite as bad.  He had a decent season with the Sox but didn't quite live up to his contract.  I think he could've done fine if given an extra year but they decided to cut ties.  He did fine with Atlanta though.

[faldor]

Goddamnit Pedro Martinez is out with a pulled hammy already.  The Mets are up against it with injuries.  Johan was impressive in the opener though.

Boy did the Sox make the right move in letting him go.  How's that contract looking now?

Not looking good at all, I wish the Mets would have invested that money in Edgar Renteria and Matt Clement. 

Lets face it - Mets, Sox, Yankees are beneficiaries of an unbalanced system.  They can afford most contract mistakes.

Apparently, you're gonna have to add the Detroit Tigers to that list as the Sox now rank 4th in total payroll.

http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/redsox/articles/2008/04/02/in_dollars_there_is_change/

The Red Sox player payroll has fallen to fourth in the majors, with both the Mets and Tigers leapfrogging them. The Yankees, of course, remain No. 1 with an Opening Day payroll of $209.1 million, according to figures obtained by the Associated Press, but the Sox, who were second at $143.026 million a year ago, are now at $133.4 million, a figure eclipsed by the Tigers ($138.7 million) and Mets ($138.3 million).

[tim_m]

thats interesting. I didn't expect boston to fall down so far in payroll.

[faldor]

Yeah they explain in the article the reasons for the slight dropoff, notably getting Clement's contract off the books this year.  Also Piniero, and they have four key young players making next to nothing as far as major league salaries go (Ellsbury, Pedroia, Papelbon, and Lester).

[western_chaos]

lol. the red sox are 3-1. The yankees have split their first two games. Their offense has been somewhat cold so far this season. a-rod is the lone exception.

[faldor]

Sox are off to a pretty good start, but they've played the A's who appear to have an awful offense.  They'll get a shot at a much better team next with the Blue Jays.

[faldor]

Wow!  What a weird story.  You can't make stuff like this up.  I opened up the Hartford Courant today and saw on the front page that a girl from CT was hit by a hawk at Fenway Park.  Odd yes, but I didn't think much of it.  But get this, the girl's name - Alexa Rodriguez.  Even the hawks in Boston hate anything remotely related to A-Rod or the Yankees.  On a serious note though, I hope the girl's okay.  I'm sure she is, but that's gotta be a frightening experience.

http://www.courant.com/sports/baseball/redsox/hc-soxhawk0404.artapr04,0,1615704.story

[pilferk]

lol. the red sox are 3-1. The yankees have split their first two games. Their offense has been somewhat cold so far this season. a-rod is the lone exception.

Granted, I'm addressing this in hindsight, but...

There is a BIG difference between opening vs the A's (Japan and back or not) and opening vs the Blue Jays...something the Sox have now just found out.

Not that the Yanks can say much, given how they're doing vs the Rays...hopefully they can salvage a split of the 4 game series.

[pilferk]

Wow!  What a weird story.  You can't make stuff like this up.  I opened up the Hartford Courant today and saw on the front page that a girl from CT was hit by a hawk at Fenway Park.  Odd yes, but I didn't think much of it.  But get this, the girl's name - Alexa Rodriguez.  Even the hawks in Boston hate anything remotely related to A-Rod or the Yankees.  On a serious note though, I hope the girl's okay.  I'm sure she is, but that's gotta be a frightening experience.

http://www.courant.com/sports/baseball/redsox/hc-soxhawk0404.artapr04,0,1615704.story

She was fine.  Small little scratch on her head.

Wussy hawk....couldn't wait around til the REAL A-Rod shows up...has to go attacking a little girl!

[pilferk]

OK, I believe, today, we've all woken up in "opposite" world.

AL East Standings:

1) Baltimore
2) Toronto
3) Tampa Bay
4) New York
5) Boston

Baltimore, arguably the WORST team in baseball (and arguably only if you're thinking the SF Giants are worse), are leading the AL East.

Ahhhhhh, the curiosities of early season baseball.....

[faldor]

Yeah I agree, Tampa Bay is definitely improved and Toronto is for real if they can stay healthy.  But Baltimore?  That one will change quicklike.  Also, the supposedly vastly improved Tigers are winless and off to Boston for the Sox home opener.  Sox just got swept, so something's gotta give.