The White Sox fired up the Hot Stove signing SS Omar Vizquel & Andruw Jones. Vizquel has been the best defensive shortstop of his time and will tutor Sox shortstop Alexei Ramirez. Omar might be headed for Cooperstown when he finally hangs them up, his numbers stack up with Ozzie Smith, and nobody flashed a better glove at short. Speaking of excellent fielders, nobody did it better than Andruw Jones, but that was in his day. Andruw isn’t all that old, but he got old in a hurry, with very old knees. Jones will not embarrass himself in the outfield with the glove, although he won’t add to the team speed, but he was brought in here for his bat and to provide some outfield depth.
After a career year with the Blue Jays, Marco Scutaro cashed in with Boston, where he’ll be the Red Sox everyday shortstop. Outfielder Mike Cameron’s new home will be Fenway Park, playing leftfield for the Bosox, which would mean Jason Bay will not be retained. The Redbirds made a wise investment bringing Brad Penny on board. Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan has to be licking his chops, adding Penny to a staff that already has Adam Wainwright & Chris Carpenter. The Atlanta Braves bolstered their bullpen by adding lefty Billy Wagner and righthander Takashi Saito. By signing with the Nationals, Ivan Rodriguez will serve as a backup catcher & mentor to Jesus Flores.
I’m sure there’s alot more to come, I’m especially looking forward to the Rule V Draft, which takes place on the 10th.
The Sporting News has announced the American League All Stars as selected by a panel of 31 major league general managers and GMs. Joe Mauer received votes from all 17 AL executives who participated.
In last night’s baseball game between the Red Sox and the Blue Jays in Toronto, rookie lefty Brett Cecil did something so stupid, Little Leaguers were shaking their heads. The umpires were so stupifide that they had to meet before deciding what to do. Cecil had just walked Jason Bay when he noticed a scuff mark on the baseball, so he wanted a new ball, most pitchers would rather just use the scuffed baseball to their advantage, making the ball do pretty much what they wanted it to do, but that wasn’t even the dumb part. Rather than asking the umpire for a new baseball and exchanging spheres with him, Brett simply rolled the live ball into the Jays dugout, without getting timeout. The umpires originally sent Bay to secondbase, but after meeting, decided he should be awarded thirdbase. Jason would score on a one-out single by Mike Lowell through a drawn in infield. Everything seemed to fall apart from there as Toronto committed three errors, as Boston went on to win 8-1.