2) Miguel Cabrera (DET) –

Gaby Sanchez (FLA) –

For more great articles, check out Dear Mr. Fantasy.

So how much wiggle room is there with the Phillies payroll?

Well, let’s begin by removing the salaries of the Phillies big free agents (Madson, Rollins, Oswalt, Ibanez, and Lidge). That drops the Phillies team payroll by $46.75 million. Then we add $14.5 million for salary increases to existing player contracts. That gives the Phillies $32.25 million just to maintain the same payroll as 2011.

What can they do with that $32.25 million? There is obviously some tinkering to be done with the bullpen and bench, but the focus of this discussion will simply be free agents.

Phillies free agents

Ryan Madson:

Even though Madson is a Scott Boras client, the Phillies are going to try hard to keep him with the Phillies. As a legitimate big league closer, Madson stands to make something in the neighborhood of $15 million.

Jimmy Rollins:

For a few reasons we can get into later articles, I will say that Rollins will not be wearing Phillies pinstripes in 2011.

Roy Oswalt:

The Phillies will decline the $16 million option for Oswalt next year and will buy him out for $2 million (which I already included in the payroll total). The Phillies may try to bring Oswalt back, but it won’t be for $16 million.

Raul Ibanez and Brad Lidge:

These two are as good as gone.

What’s left?

If the Phillies pay $15 million to Madson, it leaves them with $17.25 million to replace shortstop, fourth starter, left field, and middle relief. Let’s see what it might cost to fill each position.

Replacing Phillies free agents

Left field:

John Mayberry earned himself a starting spot in left field in 2012. Before Howard returns, we will probably see Francisco and a combination of bench players in left while Mayberry plays first base. The Phillies may grab a free agent bench guy to cover Howard’s absence, but they probably won’t shop for full time left-fielder.
Additional cost: $0

Shortstop:

If the Phillies part ways with Jimmy Rollins, Freddy Galvis is the shortstop of the future. But he is probably still one year away, so the Phillies may look to sign someone like a Rafael Furcal or Edgar Renteria.
Additional cost: Around $5 million. On the flip side, keeping Rollins would cost upwards of $10 million a year.

Middle Reliever:

The Phillies don’t have to go shopping to replace Lidge for now, especially if Jose Contreras is healthy next season. Whoever the Phillies do sign probably won’t be a big name, anyway.
Additional cost: $0

#4 starter:

Remember a guy named Joe Blanton? He is still under contract and definitely a viable 4 or 5 starter. And Vance Worley pitched well enough to take the other spot, so the Phillies really don’t need another starter. Kyle Kendrick is also available to start if anyone gets injured. If the Phillies choose to keep Oswalt, it will cost them about $10 million dollars in addition to the $2 million buyout. Obviously this has a huge impact on other moves the Phillies can make.
Additional cost: $0 or $10 million dollars.

The bottom line

Money left if Oswalt returns: $2.5 million

Money left if Oswalt does NOT return: $12.5 million

As you can see, $2.5 million doesn’t give the Phillies much to play with, but letting Oswalt walk gives the Phillies quite a bit of flexibility. The Phillies have 5 starters, three three aces, and a decent (albeit young) bullpen, so I think the Phillies should focus their attention elsewhere. Let’s just see how it plays out…

Be sure to check out more great articles at Phils Baseball.

Kazmir, 27, was given his release Wednesday as the Angels closed out a three-game series in Seattle. Once among baseball’s most exciting young pitchers, and a two-time All-Star with Tampa Bay, Kazmir has declined rapidly since being acquired by the Angels in August 2009.

“Right now it’s the best thing for (Kazmir),” manager Mike Scioscia said. “Hopefully he can get off that treadmill and restore his career, because he was really struggling trying to get the ability to compete again, and I mean get his tools where can compete again up here. He wasn’t going in the right direction.”

The breaking point for the Angels came Tuesday night when Kazmir made his fifth rehabilitation start with Triple-A Salt Lake and gave up six earned run and five hits in 12/3 innings. In his five starts with Salt Lake, Kazmir had a 17.02 ERA in 151/3 innings.

Kazmir made one start for the Angels this season, giving up five earned runs in 12/3 innings on April 3 against Kansas City. He was placed on the disabled list April 8 with lower-back soreness.

Kazmir was one of baseball’s best prospects when the Rays acquired him from the Mets in July 2004 for RHP Victor Zambrano. A year later he was Tampa Bay’s best pitcher, and he made his first All-Star Game appearance in 2006.

In 2007, Kazmir had his best season, going 13-9 with a 3.48 ERA and an AL-high 239 strikeouts, still a Rays record. He was an All-Star again in 2008 but struggled in the second half and labored during the postseason.

Kazmir pitched poorly with a drop in his velocity during 2009. He was traded to the Angels for INF Sean Rodriguez and two minor-leaguers, LHP Alex Torres and 1B Matt Sweeney.

Kazmir’s first full season with the Angels ended with a 9-15 record and a 5.94 ERA. He went to the disabled list twice, with a hamstring injury, then with fatigue in his pitching shoulder.

ESPN’s Buster Olney is reporting that Major League Baseball Officials are discussing a divisional and league realignment that would leave both the American League and National League with 15 teams. As a person that has been pushing this idea on friends and colleagues for years, I’m all for it.

As Olney reports, the switch is being considered mainly for the purpose to add an extra playoff team in both leagues, but would need three, 5 team divisions in each league to make it work. The logic is solid. Which is a little out of the ordinary because this is MLB that we’re talking about.

Very few details were released in the initial story, which means that I (an uninformed outsider) have just as much information as the guy in cut off jean shorts at US Cellular field, but I’ve got a few ideas of where this could be headed.

The only team mentioned by Olney as possibly switching from the NL to the AL was the Houston Astros, which would create an instant rivalry with the Texas Rangers. That’s a good thought and it’s a solution that kills two birds with one stone. By moving the Astros from the NL Central to the AL West it means that the overall realignment will be very slight and will keep the majority of the rivalries that have been developed since the last realignment in 1998.

Any other options would also surely include an NL Central team moving to the AL and if they didn’t move directly into the AL West (for example if the Brewers moved back to the AL) the Kansas City Royals would likely be moved to the AL West.

Of course, MLB could go the opposite route and completely overhaul the current divisions to really reset the league. This path would mostly be to appease the teams that have to be in the same division with the Yankees and Red Sox every year while having a fraction of the payroll (read: Tampa Bay Rays, Baltimore Orioles). This route could allow the league to really change the landscape of the league in a myriad of ways, they could go by proximity (AL East would be more Northern Seaboard, NL East would be Southern) or they could go by payroll averages. I don’t really like the latter idea but the former has legs.

A major proximity realignment could put the Phillies and Mets into the AL East with the Yankees, Red Sox and Blue Jays while the NL East could be made up of the Orioles, Nationals, Braves, Rays and Marlins. The AL Central would be made up of the Pirates, Indians, Reds, Tigers and Cardinals and the NL Central consist of the Cubs, White Sox, Twins, Brewers and Royals. The AL West would contain the Rangers, Astros, Diamondbacks, Rockies and Padres and the NL West would have the Dodgers, Angels, A’s, Giants and Mariners.

You’d be throwing out a lot of history and doing a lot of league switching (which would likely be deemed unnecessary) but you’d have divisions that are packed much closer than they are now. And for anyone complaining about the loss of rivalries due to the changes of leagues or divisions, there’s still one giant point that hasn’t been discussed: Interleague Play.

MLB, unlike any of it’s pro sports league counterparts has been able to stave off the complete integration of interleague play throughout the season. Currently, the league plays interleague games for one weekend series in May and then two weeks of series at the end of June. Four of the six divisions play 18 interleague games while the teams in the NL Central and NL West only play 15 (because of the extra two teams in the NL). With any change that is made to balance the AL and NL it would mean that ALL teams play an equal amount of interleague games AND that interleague series would be spread throughout the season.

Some might argue the special matchups might lose their luster if they aren’t all clumped together, but many would drown that out by saying, “TOO LATE.”

What it will do is allow the teams to maintain their focus on the baseball season and avoid the annual questions about being worried about the different rules for two weeks or how much fun it is to play a team from the other league. The players don’t care anymore, the fans don’t either. The media will soon leave it alone if MLB quits treating it like a dessert rather than simply part of the season. Also, going back to the point of maintaining rivalries, a continuous interleague play means there can still be weekend series between the teams that hate each other, there just won’t be as many of them

As a whole, I love this idea, I love that the league came up with this idea without a suggestion of a US Senate committee meeting and I also love that this could be one more step to pushing the league to right the biggest wrong in it’s 142 year history: Eliminating the Designated Hitter.

But, like Dr. Leo Marvin would remind us, baby steps, Bob, baby steps…

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Posey’s agent, Jeff Berry of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), was quick to attack MLB rules that allow for such contact.  Following Posey’s injury, Berry stated,

“You leave players way too vulnerable.  I can tell you Major League Baseball is less than it was before [Posey's injury]. It’s stupid.  I don’t know if this ends up leading to a rule change, but it should. The guy [at the plate] is too exposed.

If you go helmet to helmet in the NFL, it’s a $100,000 fine, but in baseball, you have a situation in which runners are [slamming into] fielders.  It’s brutal.  It’s borderline shocking.  It just stinks for baseball.  I’m going to call Major League Baseball and put this on the radar.  Because it’s just wrong.”

We should expect nothing less from someone who advocates on behalf of his clients.  Furthermore, Berry is a former catcher himself, and knows well about the risk that catchers take by placing their body in front of a player coming full speed toward home plate.  Berry caught at the University of North Carolina Charlotte before playing a year in the Boston Red Sox minor league system.  He later earned a law degree at Oklahoma City University, which additionally helps with his ability to negotiate effectively.  With Casey Close’s departure from CAA, Berry became one of the co-head’s of CAA’s large baseball division.

Jeff Berry Wants An MLB Rule Change After Buster Posey Hit from Sports Agent Blog – Sports Agent News, Sports Business, Sports Law, Sports Contract Negotiations, NCAA Rules and Regulations.

According to the NY Times,   The Blue Jays among other teams have been monitoring the situation of the New York Mets and Jose Reyes.

With Fred Wilpon’s recent published comments and the Mets’ financial distress paint a dreary picture for the team’s prospects of re-signing Jose Reyes. But there are other teams that have the resources and interest to land him, one of which presents a surprising possibility.

Quoting unnamed sources, Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopolous made “exploratory contract” with the New York club regarding the pending free agent during spring training and that “no trade proposals were made.”

The Giants have been mentioned as another interesting option, if the situation arises. The Giants have abundance of  young pitching and they are to believed to be shopping for a short stop.

Injuries (hamstring and calf injuries and a thyroid problem) slowed the native of Villa Gonzalez in the Dominican Republic the last two seasons but he has shown a return to his previous form thus far this season. Reyes is batting .316 and is among the National League leaders in doubles (14, tied for third), triples (6, first) and stolen bases (17, second).

According to the Times, the St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox and Washington Nationals are other teams could be interested in signing Reyes as a free agent.

For his career, Giambi has hit 421 homeruns over 17 season with the Athletics, Yankees, and Rockies. He’s a former MVP and 5 time All-Star with a .929 OPS. If not for his involvement with PEDs back in the day, we might be looking at possible future Hall-of-Famer.

Article via: http://morehardball.blogspot.com/

In Boston, it is Ted Williams’ familiar Number 9.

Number 44 in Atlanta is synonymous with Hank Aaron.

And in New York, well…in New York, the Yankees have too many to mention.

On May 3, the Chicago Cubs will be adding a new number to their team’s historic legacy. Joining Numbers 10 (Ron Santo), 14 (Ernie Banks), 23 (Ryne Sandberg), 26 (Billy Williams) and 42 (Jackie Robinson) will be Number 31.

However, the Cubs aren’t just retiring Number 31 for one player…they’re doing it one better and retiring it for two.

Fergie Jenkins and Greg Maddux.

And the case for both is pretty easy to make.

Jenkins made his way to the Cubs on April 21, 1966 (a week after Maddux was born coincidentally), along with John Herrnstein and Adolfo Phillips. In return, the Phillies received Bob Buhl and Larry Jackson.

Now, I’m not entirely sure how Buhl and Jackson faired for the Phillies, but considering they were out of baseball shortly after Richard Nixon was elected suggests that the Cubs MIGHT have made out like bandits.

But what exactly did Jenkins accomplish while wearing Number 31 on his back for the Loveable Losers?

Well…

Jenkins was 167-132 with a 3.20 ERA in two stints (ten seasons) with the Cubs. In 1971, he brought home the National League Cy Young Award, while three other times, he was either the runner up (1967) or finished third (1970 and 1972).

All in all, Jenkins threw six straight 20 win seasons between 1967 and 1972 (the longest streak in the Majors since Warren Spahn did the same between 1986 and 1961), during his first stint with the Cubs.

In 1982, after eight seasons away from Chicago and stops in Texas and Boston, Jenkins returned to the North Side to push his career wins total to 284, which, at the time, ranked him 19th all-time. Twenty-five full seasons after his retirement, he is sitting at 29th all-time.

Prior to the 1984 season, Jenkins was released and left the Cubs as their all-time leader in games started and strikeouts. His 167 victories as a member of the Cubs is the most for the team since 1941.

What’s interesting about Jenkins is that he didn’t want Number 31 when he first joined the Cubs. Originally, he requested Number 30, but Cubs clubhouse man Yosh Kawano informed Jenkins that young lefty Kenny Holtzman already wore that number.“My birthday is December 13, so I reversed the numbers to make it 31,” Jenkins once told a reporter.

Given the crazy reasons that other people have had (Omar Olivares wore Number 00 to display his initials, Bill Lee wanted 337 so people could read his name while he stood on his head), reversing your birthdate makes perfect sense to me.

Maddux, on the other hand, had no such reasons.

When he made the big leagues late in the 1986 season, he stepped into the Cubs clubhouse and without asking…was given Number 31.

“I remember walking down the stairs into the clubhouse. (The Number 31 jersey) was there in my locker. Being 20-years-old at the time, the last thing I was going to do was complain about my number. I was just happy to be there,” Maddux told the Chicago Tribune last month. “I thought that was pretty cool that they gave me (Jenkins’) number.”

And like Jenkins, Maddux made the most out of his career with the pinstriped Number 31 on his back.

In his ten seasons with the Cubs, he was 133-112 with a 3.61 ERA. He also cemented himself as one of the top fielding pitchers of all-time by winning six of his eighteen Gold Gloves on the North Side.

In 1992, Maddux’s best season as a Cub, he won his first Cy Young Awards. Of course, it was following that season when Chicago ceremoniously allowed him to flee to Atlanta and capture three more Cy Youngs.

All in a row.

In between his two stints with Chicago (the second coming from 2004 to 2006), Maddux finished just shy of 200 wins with the Braves and for his career, he ended with a staggering 355-227 record. He is the only pitcher in Major League history to win at least 15 games in 17 consecutive seasons and only Spahn and his 363 wins has more career wins in the post-1920 live-ball era.

Jenkins was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1991, his third try, with 75.4% of the vote. Maddux looks to be virtually unanimous when Cooperstown comes a calling in 2014.

Separately they are sure-bet Hall of Famers. But let me ask you this…did anyone else of worth ever don Number 31 for the Cubs?

The short answer is “no”, but most perplexing is how and why did ANYONE get to wear the number once Jenkins left the first time? Why wasn’t Jenkins’ number, at the least, the second number retired by the Cubs (Banks’ being the first in 1982) instead of the sixth?

I mean, here was a guy who, from 1967 to 1972 led the Majors with 127 victories, averaged 248 Ks (compared to 63 walks) and a 3.00 ERA. How did the Cubs dare relinquish his jersey to the likes of Tom Dettore (1975-76), Joe Coleman (1976), Jim Todd (1977) and Davey Johnson(1978).

The first three were, like Jenkins, pitchers, but their time with Chicago didn’t quite add up to Fergie’s. Mostly used in relief, the three pitchers were a combined 15-21 with a 4.92 ERA over three seasons.

Between the time Jenkins came back to the Cubs to finish up his Hall of Fame career and Maddux started his, another reliever, Ray Fontenot donned Number 31.

Fontenot continued the legacy of the afore mentioned three-headed monster by going 9-15 in 80 games.

Ugh.

So, Maddux inherits the number and holds on to it while he secures his spot as one of the greatest righties of the live-ball era. Surely, the Cubs learned their lesson and packed up Number 31 for good, right?

Nope.

Half a dozen players came and went through the clubhouse on the corner of Clark and Addison. And again, much like Dettore, Coleman, Todd, Johnson and Fontenot…Kevin Foster (1994, 1997-98), Bobby Ayala (1999), Brad Woodall (1999), Mike Fyhrie (2001), Donovan Osborne (2002) and Mark Guthrie (2003) failed to re-capture the glory of Jenkins and Maddux.

And since I know you’re curious (and I did the math)…Foster, Ayala, Woodall, Fyhrie, Osborne and Guthrie were a less than stellar 36-41 with a 4.51 ERA.

With the Braves, Maddux was 194 and 88 with a 2.63 ERA. Add to that those three Cy Young awards and four other seasons where he finished in the top five and, well, there is no need to continue with the comparisons.

Suffice it to say, it is nice to see the Cubs FINALLY wise up and put Number 31 to bed. I know I’ll be watching on May 3 as they retire the number for good.

Will they send two flags up the foul pole or just one?

I guess we’ll find out.

This was, of course, a direct result of the “Better Baseball through Chemicals,” strategy that the players had adopted and MLB Executives pretended not to see.  So, then, it should come as no surprise that this trend seems to be reversing now that MLB decided, at Congressional gunpoint, to clean up the game.

Leading the way is one of the former AL East Muscle Beach competitors, the Boston Red Sox.  Jason Bay, arguably the most powerful Boston bat last season, was allowed to board the Acela Express to New York to join the Mets.  The Sox countered by signing 37 year old centerfielder, Mike Cameron who, despite his advanced baseball age, is still considered to be among the better defensive MLB outfielders.  What he is not, is an offensive player on Bay’s level.

The Red Sox did not bank the money they saved on what would have been an expensive contract for Bay, rather, they bolstered an already impressive pitching staff by signing the Angels’ number one starter, John Lackey.  In the discussion of the best starting staffs in MLB, its difficult to argue against a team that trots out Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and Lackey at the top of the rotation.

In the infield, injuries and age have reduced Mike Lowell, once a productive player on both sides of the ball, to a stationary defender with an average bat.  Off season rumors had the Sox in hot pursuit of the San Diego Padres’ slugging superstar first baseman, Adrian Gonzalez.   Whether the rumors were accurate or not, the deal did not materialize.

So what did GM Theo Epstein do?  Find another slugging corner infielder?  That would have been so 2009.  Epstein signed Adrian Beltre, perhaps the best defensive third baseman in MLB today, to a one year contract.  Yet another indication of the philosophical change taking hold over on Yawkey Way.

“We needed to improve our run prevention,” Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein said in December when Cameron was introduced to the Boston media.

There is a fear among Boston fans and  media outlets that Theo’s sudden emphasis on gloves over bats is more a result of his failure to add bats to a lineup that silently perished at the hands of the Angels in last year’s ALDS while batting, as a team, far south of the Mendoza Line.

It should be noted that Epstein is not the only MLB executive who has fallen in love with defense and pitching.  According to self appointed baseball genius and Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane, his club and division rival Seattle Mariners are charting a similar course to the Red Sox.

“At the end of the day, if you score 500 runs in a season and your opponents score 400 runs in a season, it’s the same as scoring 1000 and giving up 900,” Beane told Sports Illustrated.  ”It’s still ultimately a zero-sum game. You try to use some equation, and some combination, that allows you to succeed. For us and the Mariners, it’s defense.”

After delivering two World Series trophies, Epstein was viewed as something as a baseball savant by the once jaded Red Sox fandom.  “In Theo, we trust,” replaced, “Wait til Next Year,” as New England’s official baseball motto.

Should the Red Sox stumble out of the gate, it won’t take long for the Nation to turn on the Boy Wonder as quickly as it anointed him as the chosen one.  Time will tell whether Run Prevention was an effective strategy or just a desperate attempt to explain away Epstein’s inability to improve an offense that often times 2009, seemed powerless against good pitching.

Those of us old enough to remember when pitching and defense truly did win championships would welcome a return to an MLB in which it takes more than chemically ehnaced offense to be the last team standing