Month: December 2006

Joakim Soria

NickyV & I made our annual baseball trip to KC this past Labor Day and beyond. While Runelvys Hernandez didn’t set the world on fire for the Royals, he did look good. Now it’s reported KC has released Hernandez to make room on its 40 man roster for Joakim Soria. The Royals picked the 6’2″ 22 year old righthander from the San Diego Padres in the Rule Five Draft. While the Rule Five Draft list wasn’t as deep in year’s past, Soria is a gem. So far in the Mexican Winter League Joakim has started 10 games, is 8-0, with 64 strikeouts in 62′ innings, and a sparkling 2.02 ERA.

We also had a close encounter with Runelvys’ wife and newborn in the elevator at Kauffman Stadium. We commented on how well behaved the baby was, Hernandez’ wife said proudly, “Her Daddy was the starting pitcher for the Royals tonite”.

Brian Bannister
In an old fashioned trade, the Royals sent hard throwing, wild, righthanded reliever Ambiorix Burgos to the NY Mets in exchange for righthanded rookie starter Brian Bannister. Bannister had a 4.26 ERA for New York before a hamstring shut him down. Brian is the son of former major league starter Floyd Bannister, and should earn a spot in KC’s rotation in 2007.

Gil Meche
The Royals shelled out BIG money to get a BIG pitcher, but then they just signed Gil Meche to a five year $55 million dollar deal. Like I said, just because you pay BIG money doesn’t make a pitcher BIG. But the only BIG pitcher was Runelvys, who was only BIG because of his girth, and was released. Still it’s sad that Meche will be the #1 starter on anybody’s staff. Glad it ain’t my money.

I know the BIG news surrounding the Cubs is the BIG money they’ve spent on free agents Alfonso Soriano, Mark DeRosa, & Ted Lilly, and the re-signing of Aramis Ramirez. But the really BIG news story might be the one reported here by InsideTheIvy.com. If history is any indication of whether the Cubs know what they’re doing when it comes to evaluating young talent, then they might be in trouble again as they lost five minor leaguers in the Rule Five Draft. It wasn’t that long ago they traded Jon Garland to the White Sox in exchange for Matt Karchner. Then they traded Dontrelle Willis to the Marlins, in what was Florida GM Larry Beinfest’s first trade ever, in the Matt Clement deal. Maybe they shouldn’t trade for guys named Matt. Then one year ago today they traded Ricky Nolasco (a member of the Marlins rotation), Renyel Pinto (a lefty out of the pen), & Sergio Mitre to the Fish in exchange for rent-a-player CF Juan Pierre. I might be having heart problems too if I were Cub GM Jim Hendry, and I needed my job.

Below is a little rundown on each of the latest five guys to be freed from Cubdom (or Cub-dumb, as the case may be).

Ed Campusano
Campusano is a 6’4″ lefthander out of Venezuela who will fit in nicely into the Detroit Tigers bullpen replacing Jamie Walker. Ed had a nifty 1.46 ERA, 25 saves, to go along with 81 K’s in 55′ innings of work in the minors in 2006.

Lincoln Holdzkom
The 6’4″ righthander Holdzkom should find a home in the Houston Astro bullpen after posting a 1.76 ERA, 43 strikeouts in 46 innings, in the minors in 06.

Jason Smith
Smith is a 29 year old lefthanded hitting infielder who hit five homers last season with the Rockies. In 2006 Jason hit .291 in the minors, was selected by the Blue Jays, and really isn’t much of a prospect.

Richard Lewis
Lewis is one of the most intriguing prospect Chicago let get away. Richard won the 2003 AFL Batting Crown with a .404 average, then he followed that up by being named Southern League MVP in 2004, was the 23rd rated prospect in the Fab50 of 2004, but then a late season leg injury saw him post a .217 average in only 87 games in Triple A in 2005. Last year the secondbaseman out of Georgia Tech hit .252 in Double A. He is 6’1″ righthanded hitting 26 years old. In 2003 Lewis was stuck behind Mark Grudzielanek, now Mark G is KC’s keystone man, and Richard’s new team.

Andrew Shipman
The A’s picked up 25 year old 6’3″ righthander out of the University of Missouri. This past season Andrew split his time between Double A & Triple A, where he struckout 56 men in 72 innings, with a 3.38 ERA.

Josh Hamilton

The year was 1999 the Tampa Bay Devil Rays had the first pick in the draft and they used it to draft the raw talented outfielder Josh Hamilton, and game him a $3.96 million signing bonus. They envisioned an outfield of Carl Crawford, Rocco Baldelli, & Josh Hamilton. But as we all know the best laid plans of mice & men, not to mention that it’s never a slam dunk to make it to the majors no matter how much talent you’ve got, then there was the 2001 spring training truck accident and the drugs & alcohol.

Now we fast forward to 2006, the Rule 5 Draft, the Chicago Cubs selected the lefthand hitting Josh Hamilton with the 4th pick from Tampa Bay, and then traded him to the Cincinnati Reds. Hamilton, now 25, appeared in 15 games for Hudson Valley of the Class A Short-Season New York-Penn League. It was the first on field action in four years for the former #1 pick.

He met Reds manager Jerry Narron and played youth ball for Jerry’s brother Johnny. So Cincinnati will give him a fresh start, his last start.

Gio Gonzalez

When I said I’d like to see the White Sox reacquire a guy they traded to Philly in the Aaron Rowand Deal, I was talking about Aaron Rowand, not Giovanny Gonzalez. I have got to be clearer the next time I talk with Kenny Williams. The Sox took their first step to revamp their starting rotation by trading Freddy Garcia for TWO pitchers, Gio Gonzalez AND Gavin Floyd. Both are young, and can only be expected to get older. Both are former first round draft choices, Floyd is a 23 year old righty, and Gonzalez a 21 year old lefty. While Gavin has struggled, Gio had a solid AFL and appears ready. But it is another young talended righthander who will attempt to fill the shoes of Freddy Garcia, and that is Brandon McCarthy. Garcia leaves some awfully big shoes to fill.

We’ll have to see what happens next, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mark Buehrle wasn’t shipped off soon. The guy I’d like to see go is Javier Vazquez. While I did say there were three reasons why the Chisox didn’t repeat in 2006, the rotation, the bullpen, & CF, two years ago the rotation was the strong point of the Champions. That said, it is smart to allocate your funds wisely in today’s game and the Sox didn’t want to find themselves strapped with alot of overpriced, underperforming starting pitchers.

Next up, the Southsiders have to address their bullpen & CF needs.

Ted Lilly

All the HOOPLA is about the Cubs spending BIG MONEY on Ted Lilly, a four year forty million dollar deal. HELLO, WAKEUP, Ted Lilly is a pitcher who, because he was two games above last year with the Blue Jays, is now one game above .500 for his career. Dunno if this is money well spent, not in my book, but I’m not a win starved Cub fan who hasn’t won in championship in nearly a century.

Tom Glavine

The NY Mets decided to keep Glavine in their rotation and more importantly Tom decided to stay. It was rumored the Atlanta Braves were going to try to lure the veteran lefty back where he started, but they never stepped to the plate to make an offer. Glavine said, he’s grown comfortable in NY and has fallen in love with the fans of Shea. He is only ten wins shy of 300 wins and is still going strong at 40 years of age.

I drafted Tom Glavine for my Chicago Champions of the Illowa APBA League way back when, he was selected, after posting a 2-4 record with a 5.54 ERA over nine starts. But then I was silly enough to trade Glavine along with Melido Perez for an aging Kirk Gibson & Pete Smith. The Baseball Zealot & his Twin City Thunderchickens benefitted greatly because of this bad trade.

JD Drew

The Los Angeles Dodgers have practiced addition by subtraction, with the exits of JD Drew, Greg Maddux, & Julio Lugo. I don’t know if there’s any truth to the rumor that LA’s GM actually kissed Scott Boras (Drew’s agent) when JD opted out of his contract. While Drew did drive in 100 runs for the Dodgers last year, he’s a career .286 hitter who always seems to be down with some type of ailment. Now he’s signed a HUGE deal with the Bosox. The funny thing is that the Bosox will be replacing rightfielder Trot Nixon with Drew. When you lookup Drew, the player who he most resembles is Nixon. I guess the grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence.

It looks like the Dodgers will replace Greg Maddux, who has signed with the Padres, by signing Jason Schmidt. Although it’s not a done deal, it’s reported that Schmidt has told his Giant mates he’ll sign with LA. Maddux was a nice stretch drive pickup last year, but letting him go seems to be best for LA, especially if Schmidt’s brought on board.

The loss of Lugo, also going to Boston, doesn’t seem to warrant a comment. I mean, Julio’s pretty much a dime a dozen. Hey, what do you think of Lugo?