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Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Pickoff Moves

Quote, Unquote

Did Lackey's new contract have anything to do with last night's craptitude?
"No excuses, I just threw a couple of bad pitches," Lackey said. "The contract has nothing to do with anything anymore. It's time to pitch. The stuff is fine, and it's going to get better. I just made some bad pitches."
Adam Kennedy: weren't you a Gold Glove caliber defender once upon a time?
"It was not a very well-played game by us, and it's tough to expect to win when you don't play very well," Kennedy said. "You try not to have many nights like these, but they happen."
Keep that up, and the decision to bring in that Kendrick guy will get easier and easier to make. Speaking of decisionmaking, walking Ibañez to get to Sexson?
"That was 180 degrees from the way Yan has been pitching," Scioscia said. "He just didn't make good pitches to Richie, and it cost him. We were confident when we gave him the ball that he would hold the game where it was. Unfortunately, it went the other way."
Somebody wasn't watching last year, it seems. Now we know what Joe Maddon was used for...

I see James Loney was vaccinated with a phonograph needle:

"Thanks to Ned and Grady, to scouting director Logan White and Chris Smith — he's the area scout who signed me," Loney gushed. "Oh, and the owner. Thanks to the owner. Make sure you mention him."
First time I've heard that from a player, but okay. So, how long is Nomar gonna be out?
"I feel better, but the trainers and people who have been around this kind of injury before don't want me to take a swing and take 1,000 steps backward," Garciaparra said. "I'll take two weeks and count on being healthy."
We'll take that as meaning Will Carroll's estimate of a month is on target.

Average Player Salary Nears $3M

The average baseball player salary is $2.87 million, and the three-highest players are Yankees: A-Rod, Derek Jeter, and Jason Giambi.

Minor League Umpires Go On Strike

Baseball America says that the Association of Minor League Umpires has gone on strike following a negotiation impasse over salaries and benefits.
Now that they are on strike, the umpires could be permanently replaced. In the past, Yund has also said that the strike could lead to the elimination of the system where all major league umpire hirings come from the minor leagues.

"Strikers can be permanently replaced. We're not saying that definitely will happen, but we aren't saying that it won't," [Professional Baseball Umpires Corporation attorney George] Yund said. "The system where minor league umpires are the only ones hired as major league umpires may not survive a strike."

Well, good luck with that.

Roster Notes

UTK Quick Hits

From today's UTK:

Draft Day Cometh

The June draft is a-comin', and Kevin Goldstein doesn't like it one bit, quoting one anonymous team executive who calls it "appalling", and another scouting director who said, "You spend a lot of time wondering if you want to give first-round money to these guys." The one guy he did like is Cal State Long Beach's Evan Longoria, but that's because everyone else is so weak ("it's more because he's treading water as the rest of the hitters are seemingly drowning").

An Apology In Advance: Delayed Minor League Scorebook Posts

I started working with my crawler software for MILB.com, and to my horror discovered that it no longer works with the site; I may have to play catch-up as I retrofit it. Bottom line is I may be late getting the first few game summaries out the door. Stay tuned.

Comments:
Somehow, I don't think that one error is going to cause AK to lose his job, nor does it suggest that he's no longer a GG-caliber defender.

I see only a few scenarios in which Kendrick takes over before 2007: (1) injury to AK; (2) the team is out of it by the trading deadline and Kennedy is shipped off to a contender or the team simply decides to go with youth; (3) Kennedy is hitting below .270 in August.
 
Oh, I know. AK, over the course of a season, is an excellent defender, but it looked last night like the Angels had been replaced with their Royals doppelgangers.
 

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