[Syd Thrift]

Major Transactions
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May 18: The Brewers trade LF Jonathan Harbison (.207, 0, 8) to the A's for CF Dylan Dockery (.500, 1, 4). I didn't even look at the transactions log until after I ran Milwaukee's review... this seems like a trade that could work out well for both teams (although the A's AI GM dislikes it). Harbison isn't hitting and was atrocious as a center fielder but can probably be adequate as a 4th outfielder, and Dockery is a couple years younger and... played a lot for Oakland in center last year. The truly important thing here is that crappy corner OF John Simmons still gets to start for the Brew Crew somehow.

May 19: The Cardinals purchase minor league LHP Pat Fix (2-3, 5.55 in AAA Buffalo) from the Expos. Fix pitched 73.2 innings for Montreal last year but was very bad. Age-wise, Fix (28) is closer to being part of the Expos' first good team than a lot of guys in their organization, but he couldn't even break into this team and as noted, he hasn't been very good in AAA this year either. St. Louis always needs more pitching and they'll take Fix on as a project.

May 19: The Giants trade RP Jordan Sandoval (1-0, 6.23) to the Cardinals for RP Sam Williams (1-1, 7.50). This is just your standard trade of one reliever who's not working in his current bullpen for the same. Williams was solid for the Padres last season but Sandoval has an 8:2 K/W ratio this year, so take your pick on who will work out better...

May 24: The Indians trade OF Danny Valdez (.200, 1, 1) and minor league SP Shane Rouser (3-3, 3.72 in AA Savannah) to the Tigers for RP Eric Godard (3-0, 3.57). The Indians seem to be recovering from the early-season issues they were having but they definitely need relief pitching help. Detroit on the other hand is a little lost. Rouser might not do much but Valdez had one of those Rudy Pemberton type years last year (.455, 4 HR, and 20 RBI in just 66 at-bats) and probably deserves a larger role than the one he was getting in Cleveland.

News
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May 18: In Minneapolis, Minnesota, Michael McConnell and Jack Baker began the steps to be legally married in the eyes of the state. Baker, a law student, believed that state law did not prohibit a marriage between two men; however, the marriage was still invalidated.

May 18: Tina Fey was born.

May 18: Royals 3B Jeff Nation (.286, 2, 15) was named the AL Player of the Week with 12 hits in 24 at-bats including his first 2 HRs of his career and 5 RBIs. Unsurprisingly, it is the first such award for the 24 year old.

May 18: Good old Hammerin' Henry Riggs (.246, 6, 19), the Braves RF, went from zero to hero this past week with 8 hits in 23 at-bats, 4 HRs, and 11 RBIs. This is his 19th PotW, which has to be some kind of record.

May 21: Cubs 3B John Maroney (.308, 2, 6) sent me the "come on, coach, give me a chance to start" email (which, it's 1970, John... HOW). Maroney has nowhere to play given that he's a corner IF and two of the Cubs' best players play 1st and 3rd. He's still a very useful pinch hitter and backup so instead of releasing him I stuck him on the trading block.

May 22: Pirates SP Ernie Alvarez (3-3, 3.72) is out for the season with the old biscuit meniscus. He may be back to pitch a game or two in late September. The Pirates (19-21) are doing... Piratesy.

May 22: Expos LF Jorge Andres (.182, 1, 4) has announced he'll retire at the end of the year. It's so cute that he thinks that he'll last the entire year...

May 22: Red Sox LF Josh Teague (.250, 4, 9) played his first game in more than a month and was pretty key in an 8-1 thrashing of the Baltimore Orioles. I mention this because he's the Sox cleanup hitter and the guy who filled in for him, 3B Mauro Magoni (.237, 1, 14) hit just .214 in that lineup spot. Hopefully he'll rediscover his hitting stroke in a lower-importance role.

May 23: The Dodgers lost CF Butch Magana (.206, 2, 4) to a broken collarbone for the next six weeks. They were already working on life without Danny Hohman, who tore his PCL in spring training and will miss all of the regular season, so they are seriously running on fumes in center now.

May 24: The Soviet Union starts work on the Kola Superdeep Borehole.

May 24: The Yankees had one of those doubleheaders your girlfriend told you not to worry about. They scored a total of 22 runs off the Indians. Needless to say it was a sweep but this is going to be really, really bad for Cleveland. Both of their starters got knocked out of the box, Andy Lagunas (4-1, 4.53) in the 1st inning of Game 1 and Vicente Hernandez (0-1, 6.23), who himself was spot starting for Dylan Hamilton (3-5, 4.71) because the latter couldn't go, in the 4th inning of Game 2. Also, in the second game new acquisition Eric Godard threw 7 pitches to one batter in relief of Hernandez before he left with a sore elbow and then his replacement, Doug Ellis (2-2, 3.91, 2 Sv) went down with an as-yet-unknown injury with 2 outs in the 5th. I have no choice but to pre-emptively put him on the DL just so that the staff has enough warm bodies for the three game series vs. Baltimore that begins tomorrow. Incidentally, Hamilton had to come in to pitch 2.2 innings in the 2nd game so the whole reason I took him out - to save him for tomorrow - comes to naught.

May 24: Mets 3B Nick Hawkinson (.198, 2, 11) broke his thumb sliding into third base. Hawkinson is 41 and this is probably his last season whether he realizes it or not.

May 24 (evening): ...and it's time for power rankings.

1st (6th) Houston 27-17
2nd (4th) Minnesota 23-16
3rd (1st) New York (N) 26-15
4th (7th) San Francisco 25-19
5th (8th) Oakland 21-17

What a time to be a fan of baseball in the Bay Area! For that matter, the NL West has really had some teams show up in the face of the Braves' fall from grace. The Astros are actually not the biggest movers up in MLB this week, as the White Sox (19-22) have jumped all the way up to 12th from 18th the week before. The most precipitous drop came from the Phillies (18-23), who fell from 12th to 19th. And the bottom five:

20th (13th) San Diego 20-26
21st (17th) Washington 16-24
22nd (24th) Atlanta 15-26
23rd (22nd) Milwaukee 16-26
24th (23rd) Montreal 13-27

I keep thinking the Braves are on the upswing but there they are, 3rd worst. They were 3-3 this week so there is that...

Teams In Review
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May 18: A couple teams in here today... first up, the expansion Milwaukee Brewers, who are 2-6 in their last 8 games to fall to 15-21 (I won't say I won't ever miss 20 losses but the Brew Crew dropped a double-header yesterday). It's just all-around badness with this team: they're dead last in runs allowed in the AL with 183 (both the starters and relievers are 11th with ERAs in the mid 4s) and runs scored is 3rd from the bottom with 128. RF Richard Berman (.336, 0, 20) has been en fuego all season so there is that at least. I think he might be ROY.

Rotation: The Brewers just got back RH Shunichi Zeniya (1-0, 1.50), who missed the second half of last season right after getting bought out from Chicago and then had brand new injuries this year. I say this because the rest of the rotation is kind of a mess. How is Jeremiah Vardaman (3-2, 2.47) the putative ace (he was 4-16 with the A's last year)? I've already demoted Chris Olivares (3-3, 4.81) to the 'pen. The one major change I made here today - and it's really not even that major, since an injury to Julio Garcia (0-0, 0.00) in his first start had pushed it down to a 4-man rotation - was to install LH Adam Clark (5-2, 3.61 at AAA Portland). I don't expect great things to be honest but hey, see what sticks...

Bullpen: Okay, LH Luis Hernandez (2-4, 6.98) is just plain baaaaad. And he's 30. Why is he here again? Well, he's not anymore. The aforementioned Julio Garcia has that annoying "Unknown" injury, which, the way I play, usually causes guys to get completely lost for a week or two until I a. remember they were hurt and then b. realize they're ready to play again. This isn't so bad for relievers but still... I've taken to DLing those guys and I'm gonna do that here too. LH Dave Zapata (1-1, 3.76 at Portland) takes his place.

Catcher: I was expecting to bench Jonathan Victoria (.225, 6, 15) but somehow he's hit .353 for the month after a .145 April so I guess he keeps his job.

Third base: Francisco Martinez (.353, 1, 14) is clearly out-hitting the old man Ryan Colvin (.226, 2, 11) so the 23 year old wins the job going forward. Colvin's already going to retire at season's end so it's not like they're losing much if he gets angry or something.

Shortstop: Eric Biron (.179, 2, 8) isn't hitting and, worse, is a 40/80 shortstop, so I'm dropping him into a half-time platoon with lefty-hitting Tony Escobedo (.100, 0, 1). Escobedo is 2-20 on the season, which, small sample size; I fully expect him to hit .200 with extended time.

Left field: John Simmons (.229, 2, 7) flitted through 3 teams last year, failing to hit for two of them, and now is approaching his career rates. Why is he starting again? Meanwhile, CF Jonathan Harbison (.207, 0, 8) has had all the range of a postage stamp in center field but, being 5 years younger than Simmons (who is 33), has a better case for starting.

Center field: Fernando Ceballos (.318, 0, 3) moves into the starting role as much for the glove (he's 70/80 out there! With 70 range!) as for whatever he's shown as a 4th outfielder and pinch-hitter. Since Harbison and Ceballos are the only two guys who could play there so far, I had to demote RH pinch-hitter Roger Greeno (.357, 0, 3) to AAA in favor of Jason Haskell (.225, 2, 12 in Portland), who doesn't look like he can hit in the majors but is reasonably adequate as an emergency backup and might outhit some of the pitchers in pinch-hitting situations.

May 18: I remember mentioning that the current Pittsburgh Pirates (16-20, 5th NL East) are just about the boringest team in Major League Baseball. Sorry to any Pittsburgh natives but it continues for... yins? They're ringing out Forbes Field with a league low 17 homeruns and the 3rd worst offense that offsets a kind of decent pitching (6th in runs allowed, a 3.90 starters' ERA that is 7th).

Rotation: DJ Cheeves (1-5, 4.78) has been the worst guy on the staff so far but he was 12-8 last season and went to the ASG in '66 and '67 so it's way too early to pull the plug. In fact, I'm leaning towards keeping the rotation intact even though 4 of the 5 members have ERAs north of 4. This part of the team, at least, isn't really underperforming per se...

Bullpen: Paz Lemus is the same awesome guy he's always been (1-1, 1.99, 3 Sv) and in fact I think I need to lean on him waaay harder moving forward. I did leave him in for 3 innings in an extra-innings affair against Montreal yesterday (he got tired and picked up his first loss) so there's that, I guess? Anyway... Carlos Torres (1-0, 9.00) has given up 6 runs in 6 IPs and there's a general issue here were they were using a 5 man 'pen with a 5 man rotation and that just leaves too many middle relievers not playing in this era, so he's been DFA'd.

Catcher: I don't know what's wrong with Doug Connally (.189, 0, 5) but the kid's still just 25 and had 11 dingers last year so he'll get plenty of time to work things out. Backup Mike Fenley (.208, 0, 0) on the other hand isn't doing a whole lot, bats left, and I don't really want to tell my starting catcher he can't rest against lefty pitching, so I called up veteran Carlos Hernandez (.261, 1, 10 at AAA Columbus) to take the newly vacated 25th roster spot. Hernandez I notice hit .156 for San Diego last year. Yikes.

First Base: Abilio Valdivia (.237, 2, 9) was criminally underused earlier in his career - he's a lifetime .326 hitter with just 1583 hits at age 38 - but that doesn't mean he gets to start full-time until he's like 45 to make up for it. I will continue to play him for now though, as he's played well enough recently to be given a chance to prove that a bad month and a half are just that.

Second Base: Replacing Henry Villar, who is out for the season with a concussion, has proven to be pretty rough. Arturo Martinez (.192, 0, 7) has Gold Glove quality talent but forgot how to hit after April and so I'm bringing up Tyler Cohen (.338, 3, 23 at Columbus) to push him. Cohen is 28 and not a prospect but I guess this is more of a stopgap situation anyway.

Third Base: Roberto Prieto (.220, 0, 10) is also old and also isn't hitting but like Valdivia he's been too good in recent years to just give up on. I even sent down his backup Gregg Powell (.194, 0, 2) to make room for Cohen.

May 20: This is actually the evening of the Philadelphia Phillies' 20th loss but, I mean, this is not an exact science, people! Also I wanted to make one move in particular while it's fresh in my mind. Anyway, Philadelphia (17-20, 4th, NL East) is mediocre so far - they aren't movers and shakers relying on a good young rotation as much as I'd hoped they would, but there are definitely worse teams in the league right now. They are, it should be said, 5th in runs allowed and 5th in starters' ERAs (which, as I think you'll see below, still says good things about the rotation) but are being tied up primarily by a really bad offense to date (11th in runs scored, 10th in HRs with 29 in 37 games).

Rotation: Normally I prefer to do the OOTP playing-out-all-the-games equivalent of going to the weight room... which is... okay, that's a terrible analogy. What I mean is, I try not to make decisions in fits of pique. All that said, Orlando Flores (0-2, 5.40) has been hurt a lot and really bad when he hasn't been hurt. He just got knocked out of the box in the 6th today and has pitched just 16.1 innings over 4 starts. A change has to be made. Other than him, the other 4 guys currently in the rotation all have ERAs under 3.50. I'm tempted to switch to a 4-man but the Phillies just plain aren't good enough to overwork the starters like that...

Bullpen: JR Kottke (0-0, 13.50) is like Exhibit A in my self control. He's pitched 2 games, 2 innings, and allowed 5 walks. Despite myself, I'm leaving him in; he's only 25 and his control can't possibly be this bad. On the other hand, I'm not about to promote him into the rotation. You know what? We're going to a 4-man anyway and carrying 6 relievers like it's 1991. I am a MAVERICK.

Catcher: Lee Citro's (.205, 1, 4) been bad, really bad, he's got a bad arm (26.7 RTO% so far this year), and the Phillies have no particular ties to him given that he was a throw-in in the trade that brought Joel Schaben over. Also, his clubhouse demeanor is the type that doesn't get him special dispensation. He's going to move to the bench in favor of Sam Rahn (.227, 1, 3), who is a 29 year old with 77 career bat-bats in the majors. He's definitely not a long-term solution; at the same time, he did hit over .300 in AAA last year and has an arm that approaches averageness.

Right Field: I kind of expected to make more moves in the field but everyone seems to be just, like, generally mediocre instead of outright terrible. One place I can make moves is that Andrew Powell (.355, 1, 19) is straight up outhitting Bobby Kelly (.121, 0, 0), who was mixing in for starts with him so far. In fact, Kelly's hit "cut this man" levels of not-hittingness, and to make matters worse he and Citro are sulking about the clubhouse. He gone.

(general lineup stuff) 2B Victor Serna (.242, 10, 21) is now officially the Phillies' cleanup hitter based on hitting a third of the team's dingers all by himself. 1B Josh Coffey (.272, 2, 12) is the old guy and seemed fine when he was hitting .316 like last year, but at this point he isn't even carrying a league average bat.

May 24: The New York Yankees' (21-20, 3rd, AL East) strategy of swapping out aging stars with more aging stars seems to be... not working so much, as they're only treading water. I guess that said, this year's supervet 1B Alex Cardenas (.344, 8, 25) is the best hitter on the team. Actually a closer look indicates that they're 3rd in the AL in runs scored per game and lead the league in fewest runs allowed per so it's mostly bad luck (they have the worst Pythag wins to actual wins differential in baseball with a -4 so far); if they played to their luck they'd have the best record in the AL.

Rotation: LH Dan Ballard (1-7, 6.67) seemed to take a step back last year and has been awful so far here, so if anyone's a candidate for getting demoted into long relief, it's him. Jake Powers (5-3, 3.44) has been striking out more than a hitter per inning in AAA so I think it's time for the 24 year old to get the call up. My one point of reticence here is that there's now only one lefty in the rotation, which doesn't adequately take advantage of Yankee Stadium.

Bullpen: The 5 man bullpen, even with the Yanks running a 4-man rotation, isn't really being used enough but I don't really want to dip beneath it. I'm reminded of the Earl Weaver quote that when it comes to bullpens either 3 men is too many or 6 men is not enough, so I'll keep the extra guys with the thought that the starters might not make it as far into games once they're forced to pitch at less than 100%.

Catcher: I replaced the 38 year old incumbent Jason Mooneyham (.207, 1, 5) with Khalil Tabb (.272, 2, 10) earlier this year, but while neither is that good at fielding right now Tabb has a noodle arm (he's actually 55/80 in catcher ability so he's not horrific at pitch calling). Since the Yankees have a roster spot free that means I'm calling up a 3rd catcher in Josh Paige (.286, 0, 1). Paige is not exactly a budding superstar himself but he will at least be a better option to fill in for Tabb vs. lefties than the left-handed hitting Mooneyham.

Shortstop: Ty Stover (.250, 7, 23) really doesn't look like he can handle shortstop anymore but it looks like he's "just" got no range instead of committing a million errors so he gets to stay there. Also I'm not sure what I'd do if I wanted to affect a change here. I could move Stover to second and replace the struggling Wing-fung Yi (.197, 2, 12) but Yi is one of the few younger players in the lineup and then who do I use at short? There is a guy down on the farm, 22 year old German Ybarra (.268, 2, 18), who was rated the 10th best prospect in baseball at the beginning of the year, but he seems more like a September call-up than a permanent replacement at this point.

Right field: Frank Meneses (.392, 8, 24) went into the season as a backup but the 2 time Silver Slugger has hit his way back into the lineup. I've pushed him up to 5th behind Alex Cardenas and Ty Stover; by rate stats he's been the best player on the team.

May 24: The Detroit Tigers (17-20, 5th, AL East) have been straight up scuffling this year. After they won 91 last year it really looked like they were going to be at least dark-horse contenders this year but even with the Red Sox and Indians struggling out of the gate they just plain couldn't get it going. It looks like the primary culprit is the offense, as the D has been 4th in the league in runs allowed so far.

Rotation: Ben Schmidt (0-0, 6.23) was bad in relief earlier, which got him demoted, but then he went down and struck out a batter per inning in AAA to earn a re-promotion (remotion?) as the Tigers switch into a 5 man rotation to save their young rotation's arm.s

Bullpen: I just traded away Eric Godard (see above) but as I've called Ben Schmidt back up I'm going to leave the bullpen with 4 men.

First Base: Jose "Joker" Ayala (.250, 4, 17) has not been hitting at the level he'd established last year but TBH the Tigers have bigger issues right now.

Third Base: David Salinas (.238, 0, 8) was roughly league average after he came over from the Yankees last year but this year he's lost what was left of his power (just 4 XBHs in 126 at-bats) and I think it's time for a change. John Daughtry (.125, 0, 0) has only gotten 8 at-bats this year, so pay no attention to that average. He's also scouted as potentially a better fielding 3B than Salinas, who was mostly in the lineup for his glove in the first place.

Left field: Adam Dittmar (.152, 5, 10) had a career year last year but he's been as unexpectedly awful in 1970 as he was good in '69. He is a career .235 hitter and so the .152 is probably closer to his actual ability than the .302 average from last season so I'm immediately slotting in newly acquired Danny Valdez to share half of the left-field at-bats vs. RHP. Dittmar is a righty so this is sort of a platoon.