Loge Level

OK, I apologize for the winter of inactivity. Of course, plenty of transactions, trades, and prospect happenings that I live for occurred over the five months since Moxie’s previous post, but I found myself more capitivated by a certain basketball team than a relatively quiet offseason for my favorite baseball team.

But I promise nearly as frequent Moxie posts the next six months, from the resurrections of Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez to the decline of Miguel Tejada and Jason Giambi. Super prospects Jay Bruce, Johnny Cueto, Jacoby Ellsbury, Phil Hughes, Evan Longoria and Colby Rasmus will be discussed. Hopefully, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens will not.

A new baseball season begins Tuesday in Tokyo at 6 p.m. local time – at the break of dawn in the eastern United States and closing time on the west coast — with the defending champion Boston Red Sox taking on the Oakland A’s. So, I’ll have a bowl of Cap’n Crunch instead of a bottle of Bud to accompany the first pitch.

Opening Day is a Holy Day for Moxie Legion. Most years it’s a day-long event. Grill some burgers, drink some beer. Watch the Cincinnati Reds on one TV, the Red Sox on another, maybe a third game afterward. Then, the NCAA national championship follows in the evening.

But the NCAA Tournament is running a week behind this season and the Sox are starting the season overseas. So, I’ll watch with interest alone on Tuesday and Wednesday. But before Dustin Pedroia takes the first pitch of the season from Joe Blanton, check out some predictions after the jump. (more…)

Mark Buehrle, Adam Dunn, Jermaine Dye, Ken Griffey Jr., Andruw Jones and Mark Teixeira. That’s the list of most attractive and available players on the market this trading season, which runs from now until July 31.

Odds are most of those guys stay put for a number of reasons. Specifically Griffey, who can veto any trade would have a very short list of teams he’d consider a trade to (which probably includes Atlanta, Seattle and the Chicago Cubs), will be impossible to move and to get fair value in return because of his contract. He’s due $20 million the following two years.

And Dunn won’t land the Cincinnati Reds much in return, either. If traded, he can become a free agent this offseason, so a team isn’t going to be willing to give up a top prospect for a three-month rental. And even if he were signed to an extension or his option next year was picked up, teams value prospects — especially young, cheap pitchers — too much to trade one for a guy who strikes out 180 times a year. His trade value will be much better this offseason if the Reds pick up his option.

Jones probably will stay in Atlanta because the Braves are going to contend the rest of the way and his season-long slump limits his value.

Buehrle and Dye are different stories. They have an aggressive GM, the Chicago White Sox’s Kenny Williams, who won’t lose them to free agency for nothing. And as soon as Teixeira gets healthy and has one good week the Rangers are going to dump him for whatever they can get.

So, what trades should we anticipate?

The MFY are going to make a hard push for Teixeira, but the best guess is they aren’t willing to give up a major prospect to land him. And a team like the Angels of Anaheim can probably afford to because of their deep farm system and will pull the trigger. If that happens, it might actually work out swimmingly for the Reds. No, they still probably can’t move Dunn for fair value, but it might mean they can unload Scott Hatteberg on the MFY for something/anything/nothing in order to make room for Triple-A stud Joey Votto.

Dye carries a major inury flag, but the Mets, Cubs, Braves and Twins could all use his right-handed bat. My bet would be on the Mets or Cubs with the Cubs most aggressive. They’d like to unload Jacque Jones, but he would net practically nothing. Williams will demand a prospect for Dye.

And Williams will demand two — if not three - prospects for Buehrle. Yes, Buehrle is just a rental, but pitchers actually maintain their value at midseason while hitters don’t net as much return as in the offseason. Teams desparate for an arm can be held hostage by a team squandering away its season like the White Sox.

Plus, there will be many suitors. The Red Sox, MFY, Mets, Braves and Marlins have already been rumored to show interest. The team that needs Buehrle the most is Philadelphia with John Leiber out for the season and Bret Myers and Tom Gordon still on the shelf.

It’d be shocking if the Red Sox traded for him, although injuries to Curt Schilling and Julian Tavarez have taken a hit on starting pitching depth. But Jon Lester and Clay Bucholtz are competent stopgaps until those two return rather than trading one of their futures for three months of up-and-down Buehrle.

Of course the MFY will make a run, but Buehrle isn’t much better than what they already have. If they get him it will mearly be to give the appearance of improving to The Boss. Beurhle won’t make the MFY MF-better.

So, Buehrle seems destined for the NL East. The Mets seem the most likely destination given their need and their aggressiveness. But the Braves never go quietly, and the Phillies may finally feel the fan pressure to make a move. They’ve always started slow and come on after the break when it was too late. This year, they started slow but flipped the switch early enough to be in the race at the All-Star Break.

There have already been plenty of early-season Major League call-ups through just three months, most notably Houston’s Hunter Pence, San Fran’s Tim Lincecum, Cincinnati’s Homer Bailey and Milwaukee’s Ryan Braun. All four are future All-Stars.

There’s also been several rookies who have so far flamed — San Diego’s Kevin Kouzmanoff, MFY pitcher Philip Hughes, Tampa Bay’s Delmon Young and Chicago White Sox OF Ryan Sweeney — after slow starts or injuries.

But this season has really enjoyed a great crop of rookies already — Baltimore’s Jeremy Guthrie, Boston’s Dustin Pedroia, Atlanta’s Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Arizona’s Chris Young, the MFY’s Tyler Clippard and Atlanta’s Yunel Escobar, to name a few more — but more often than not the top young call-ups come after the midway point of the season. The ones that make the biggest immediate impact often have a few more months of seasoning in the minors to ease them into an everyday role at the major league level.

A few recent examples are David Wright, who was an instant success with the Mets in 2004 with 14 home runs in just 69 games, Ryan Howard and Justin Morneau. Morneau and Howard both had a couple cups of coffee with mixed results before finally breaking in big the last two seasons.

There’s always the freak of nature who excels from Day 1 — Albert Pujols, most notably — but it always benefits a team to give its prospects as much development time down on the farm as possible. That’s why the timing of the Reds’ promotion of Bailey is perfect. They need him, but they needed him last summer, too. Kudos to GM Wayne Krivsky for not rushing him.

But there are several more minor leaguers who are going to blossom in the second half with call-ups. Another Reds farmhand, Joey Votto, is one. The first baseman can rake, and he’s ready to make the move northward on I-71. All that’s standing in the way is a trade of Scott Hatteberg, which will probably happen in the next month, most likely to the the MFY.

Votto is hitting .314 at Triple-A Louisville, and along with Bailey and OF Jay Bruce will infuse some life into the lowly Reds.

Most midseason call-ups are going to come from teams at the bottom of the standings with little to risk until Septemeber when rosters expand. Pennant-contending teams are less likely to rest their playoff hopes on a first-timer.

The Royals should also call up OF Billy Butler to join a developing nucleus of young players that includes 3B Alex Gordon (who would have benefited from a couple extra months in Triple-A as opposed to being the Opening Day starter), CF David DeJesus, 1B Ryan Shealy and C John Buck. Butler is a defensively liability. He is best-suited to DH, but the Royals really don’t have much to lose with him in the field either. But Butler can really help with the bat.

Others to watch out for are Cleveland RHP Adam Miller, Seattle’s Adam Jones and Tampa’s Jeff Niemann. Jones got called up last year and played admirably at age 20, but the acquisition of Jose Guillen in the offseason forced him back to Triple-A Tacoma. Think Mike Cameron but with more power potential.

If the Mets’ pitching staff continues to struggle, they may even give Philip Humber a shot. And when the White Sox trade Mark Buerhle, Gio Gonzalez — who was once traded to the Phillies for Jim Thome only to return to Chicago for Freddy Garcia — will likely take his spot in Ozzie Guillen’s pitching rotation. Also: Justin Maxwell, Brian Horwitz, Nolan Reimold and Daric Barton.

There are also several prospects who previously were on a timetable to play in the majors this season but have stumbled: Tampa’s Evan Longoria, St. Louis’ Colby Rasmus, Anaheim’s Brandon Wood and Dodger 3B Andy LaRoche.

After much urging by this site’s moderators combined with my future change of employment, I’ve finally joined the Loge Level. The hope is there will be periodic Major League Baseball perspective and mostly fantasy baseball input and minor league/draft prospect updates. Not that I’m an expert, but I’ve been told the site is lacking in hardball tidbits.

So, I’ll dedicate this blog to the Splendid Splinter, the greatest hitter ever even if fantasy baseball was still decades away from its creation while Teddy Ballgame was in his heyday. More importantly, there may have never been a greater endorsement sales pitch than The Kid’s order: “Drink Moxie,” because Ted Williams said so. Nevermind what Moxie is or, more appropriately, was.

Hopefully we can provide analysis on the importance of OPS, the relative declines or immergences of particular players. In the coming days, I’ll discuss the possibility of the New York Yankees (or MFY as they’ll be referred to from here on out) catching the Boston Red Sox in the American League East. The MFY have trimmed seven games off the divisional lead in less than three weeks, and the crux of the evaluation will be Bill James’ Pythagorean Winning Percentage, which is essentially the expected Win/Loss record for a team based on its runs scored vs. runs allowed.

But I’ll try to keep the Red Sox-MFY hysteria to a minimum. This won’t be a lovefest for Moxie Legion’s favorite team or a grinding axe of its most hated rival. Instead, it will be a broad scope of both the Senior and Junior Circuits. When it’s appropriate, there’ll be no hesitation to delve into some other interests: Kentucky basketball, recruiting, The Office, horse racing and Cincinnati-style chili. 

I’ll try and leave the footballer analysis to A4H and Status Quo.

I noticed today that Yahoo added a couple of features which should make it easier to manage fantasy basketball teams.  On the players screen, players who are injured now have an INJ appear beside there name and on the team view, injured players have a small red and white cross by there names.  This should make it easer for casual fans to keep up with the league.

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