fat EMO kid baseball blog

Pedro Martinez is back in the big leagues, starting tonight against the Cubs.  He was given a gift, matched up against rookie Jeff Samazijdoifdzia who should be catching passes in the NFL.  Pedro still looks like a shell of his former self, but has been able to hit 92 on the radar gun a few teams, and still has the ability to get a call on anything within a foot of the plate.  I don’t think he will be a difference-maker for the Phillies, but he can’t be any worse than Jamie Moyer, who is taking his demotion like an 8 year old girl, has been.  It’s low risk, high reward for the Phils, but isn’t that what Boston said about John Smoltz?

EDIT:  despite what Rick Sutcliffe (the biggest drama-queen in the history of annoucing)  would have you believe, Pedro’s stuff was good for about two innings.  He’s completely done now and it’s only the fifth, if it wasn’t 12-3, he’d be gone by now.

A Cubs fan just threw a cup of beer on Shane Victorino, what is this, fenway?

The Milwaukee Brewers made some big news earlier today by demoting long-time shortstop JJ Hardy to AAA, and DFA Bill Hall, a one-time 30 Homerun guy whom the Yankees were close to acquring last off-season to be their center fielder.  The new Shortstop in Milwaukee is top prospect Alcides Escobar, and this could be the permanent end of the JJ Hardy era for the Brewers.   

Hardy was coming off of two solid seasons for the Brew Crew, but never recovered from his typical slow start this season and was hitting under .230 at the time of his demotion.  His replacement, Escobar, was hitting .298 at AAA with 42 steals, and should at the very least, bring some energy to the Milwaukee lineup.

Hall has regressed from a “Future MVP” tag, to a useful utility guy, to a guy hitting below his body weight.  I suspect that he will find another job somewhere relatively soon, with the combination of his ability to play multiple positions and the fact that there is a decent ball-player buried under there somewhere.  Had the Yankees not recently acquired Jerry Hairston to play a utility role, I suspect they’d be all over this.  In fact, as mentioned above, there was talk of acquring either he or Mike Cameron to play CF for the Yanks this year, at the expense of Melky Cabrera…think we dodged a bullet there .

The Brewers still weren’t done, as they also fired pitching coach Bill Castro and replaced him with former major-leaguer Chris Bosio, on an interim basis.  Remember him?  Amazing how mediocre players always become coaches, what exactly are they teaching?   This is all well and good, now all the Brewers need are some pitchers for him to coach. 

It’s been a while since the Brewers have been in the news for anything other than Prince Fielder trying to break into the Dodgers locker room, so you have to at least applaud them for making an effort to turn this thing around, having failed to build on the momentum the franchise gained last season.

First of all, anyone else remember when he was Alexis Rios?  You know, back when he was good? 

Anyway, what kind message does this send to the Blue Jays players and fans.  First, the team drools over the thought of unloading their best pitcher, then dump a suprisingly productive Scott Rolen, now give away Rios for nothing.  Absolutly nothing.   This is a team that was the surprise of the league for the first two months of the season.  Maybe we are spoiled as Yankee fans, but the thought of giving away a good player (14 hrs, 62 Rbi) does not seem like good business.  Sure he was overpaid, but don’t you owe it to the league to at least get something in return?  Now the White Sox get a free player to stick in the middle of their lineup, without having to give up anything.  You can’t fault the White Sox, fault the rules.  

What a sad time to be a Blue Jays, Pirates, or Indians fan.

The Brewers landed David Weathers from the Reds. Nice trade for the Reds, unloading a 39 year old reliever for their choice of minor leaguers from Milwauke. Fully expect the Reds to make the worst choice possible. I still can’t figure out if the Brewers think they can win or not, seems like no matter what they do, they aren’t getting any better.