One of baseball’s most tenured General Managers is calling it quits. Terry Ryan will resign as the Minnesota Twins general manager and even though this may reign “So what?” remarks from several fans out in Baseball land, this move should actually resonate all around the league.

Ryan has made something out of nothing more times than not with the Twins. I can’t quite say that he’s been playing Moneyball like Billy Beane in Oakland but the economic situation is comparable. Minnesota loves baseball but Carl Pohlad loves money… Which has kept the Twins with tight purse strings for years… And what has been the result? A competitive (though non-championship) team more times than not. Who will take Ryan’s place? Where do the Twins go from here and is Terry Ryan going to find himself to be a sought-after commodity any time soon? Let us know your thoughts on this…

The question has been raised, who is the fifth man in the Rockies rotation? Started by poster BigRapidsJackass the Rockies fans are stuck trying to figure out whether to go stopgap (someone else’s suck), deep into their minors or just go heavy with the relievers.

John Cocktoston would like the club to go with Franklin Morales, but also stresses that the chances for the Rockies rest on Francis, Cook and a resurgent bullpen.

BigRapidsJackass woud prefer that Buchholz return to the rotation, or get some other teams’ castoff rather than go with Morales.

Plenty of back and forth in this one, and I don’t have a clue which would best for this club, but I do know a great debate and of the need for a fifth starter.

What do you think the best man is for the job in Colorado?

Originally putforward here by poster LouGehrig, the theory seems impressive. Fifty-six game hitting streak. No one has been close really for years, and yet is this really all that significant?

Grandstander says no, but not quite that simply;

In baseball, what counts is how many per opportunity over the course of a year. How these happen to get arranged within any particular number of games is utterly unimportant. If you divide the season into three 54 game segments and Player A gets 220 hits while player B gets 200 hits, but player B happened to have gotten at least one hit in each game of one of those 54 game segments, that in no manner boosts his value past player A.

For 1941, Dimaggio hit .357 in 541 at bats. During the streak he was 91 for 223, .408. That means that in the other games, he was 102 for 315, .321.

What it all actually means is that he hit .357 in 1941. That is exactly as valuable as any other player who has hit .357 with the same secondary stats. That a large portion of his total contribution was concentrated in a 56 game segment….means zip.

DiMaggio hit .408 during a 56 game stretch. That same year, Ted Williams hit .406 for the whole season. Unable to grasp that the streak meant nothing in terms of boosting the Yankees fortunes, the writers voted DiMaggio the MVP. A ridiculous award for a fluke accomplishment.

This leads me to what I think the actual remaining record is that would impress both the saber and scouting communities, Nap Lajoie’s .4265 single season modern era batting average mark. Since World War Two, new Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn was closest back in the strike damaged season of 1994 when he hit .3938. That record being broken wouldn’t be a fluke, but a full season of success, not 56 games of hits, but 162.

Take your opinion on the greatest remaining record to the thread

Searching through forums the past day or two I discovered this gem on the St.Louis Cardinals board, finely moderated by BleacherBum593. I think it is a post that could only occur on a Cardinals forum, because what other team would have fans of a team 7 games out and 7 games under .500 believe that they are still in the hunt?

These aren’t fools, but well thought out fans that watched an 83 win team take home the only trophy that matters.

GoCrazyFolks leads it off with this, a summation of the issues facing the Cards come the deadline of just over a week ago.

1) What do we do if at the deadline and for the rest of the year if TLR is to stay?

2) If TLR is gone who should replace him? And what should we do at the deadline and for the rest of this year?

Following the banter and speculation though is when things get a bit interesting, the faith in the club gets to be fairly apparent. Coop (he of Gamethread and Minor League Thread fame) sounds off with the idea that a youth movement makes the club more competitive.

I’m with you, BrotherBri, about Jose Oquendo. I would like to see the youth movement begin now. I do not consider that giving up at all. I think we have young players that can add enthusiasm and win as much, or more. With high salaries and no-trade clauses, I wouldn’t think there would be a large movement of players. I don’t think they will be less likely to have a winning streak. With 2 good teams ahead of us, it is a steep hill anyway. With Tony, we had some good, but he won’t try young players, except when he doesn’t have anybody else. He seems agitated about everything. I wish he would choose to leave, now, but I don’t think there is any way he will.

But the real kicker, for me as a Mariner fan is this one from Ewttexas

I’m starting to view this season with a weird perspective. Ask youself a couple of questions. Does our record really make a difference? Does it matter whether we win 100 games or 80 if the team comes out on top? What I am seeing is that the teams in front of us are not setting the woods on fire and those behind are not breathing down our necks. We should have won the last 2 games. They’re over-let’s move on.
Ever the optimist, I saw some good signs in those games. Pitching is the priority and both Wells and Reyes showed vast improvement. The offense is what has let us down. I think that it was Coop that said that Shannon thought that Eck was playing hurt. If that’s the case, put him back on the DL and bring Brendan back.
I think that our season rests on the arm of Pineiro. If he turns out to be a steal ala Woody and Finley, we have a shot. Wainwright, Wells, Pineiro and Reyes. There is little choice for #5. I believe that Thompson and Looper have had it for the year. Too many innings. Looper was good at the beginning but he’s a career reliever. Thompson has flip-flopped between starting and the pen and it has taken its toll. There is no real help at Memphis unless you want to give Keisler another chance. We’re down to Maroth. He’s somewhere between starting and being DFAd. I wish that he could go to Memphis to straighten out telegraphing his pitches but I don’t know if we have that luxury. Looper is scheduled to go on Monday. It could be a disaster waiting to happen. The only solution I can imagine is to DFA Maroth and bring back Keisler. Assuming that Maroth clears waivers, keep it that way until he gets it figured out. Treat the 5th day as a BP day. Leave Keisler in as long as possible and go to the pen for the rest of the game.
In short, it’s not over yet. We still have plenty of games with Milw and Chicago but we need to be in a position to take advantage of them. Albert has been in an Albert slump lately and Dunc has slowed a bit. The dog days of August are upon us. Rolen and Edmonds seem to be coming around so the offense should get back on track.
The fat lady hasn’t sung but she’s warming up. It’s time for the Cards to do the same.

An optimist who sees Joel Piniero as the answer … with the smoke and mirrors (and a good bit of Carpenter and Pujols) the Cardinals won a World Series last year. Now with fewer peices there is still hope, though faint in St. Louis.

Poster nanwynnfan offers his opinion on Bonds and Selig at the time when Bonds has tied the record and looks now for the truly historical home run that beats the hallowed numbers of Aaron. Initial post (read here) and to follow:

Will he? Or won’t he? The questions have nothing to do with Barry Bonds hitting #755 or #756 during a particular game or at bat; but asked whether the Commissioner of Baseball, Bud Selig, will condescend to being in attendance.

Or, we are treated to former Commissioner Fay Vincent going on and on about his close friendship with Henry Aaron, ever the class act, and how Vincent is wrestling with his internal demons in differentiating between love of the Game and its hallowed records and his human biases, based of course, on his personal observation of clues, hints, innuendo and player hat size.

Then we have a commentator, hearing far more boos from a crowd than is audible on the television broadcast, completely overlooking the historic Dodger-Giant rivalry in one park and the customary visitor-home rivalry in another. Not only does he amplify the boo volume; but he is also compelled to explain it in terms of fans conflicted by their suspicions of the moral integrity of the player they all paid to see.

The Commissioner is invited to join the broadcast team in the booth; but he declines, for reasons unexplained, although the turn-down is definitive enough to provoke one to ask, why.

The finale is the terrible burden on broadcaster wardrobes, and the drain on the Commisioner, forced to schlep around after a player whose accomplishments he questions, also sartorially challenged - as if he were bivouaced in a Baghdad windstorm, poor fella.

Please, Barry, hit four in one game and put an exclamation point on the accomplishment. This old man is weary with asterisks, and the asses who seem to need them to justify their injured righteousness.

End of rant.

To read the rest of the responses, or to add your own click here

In light of a trading deadline that primarily had relievers as the talent moving from the sellers to buyers I started to wonder which teams in the AL and NL have the best bullpens for the stretch run? The RedSox added Eric Gagne to their quality releivers, the Braves added Octavio Dotel, the Seattle Mariners just got Mark Lowe back from injury, while the LA Angels of Anaheim stood pat and the San Diego Padres shipped Scott Linebrink onwards to Milwaukee. Now by best I’m going to say best Closer through 6th man, but with diminishing returns for great guys that are hardly used in high leverage situations. I’m not saying that these are all of the moves, I have of course missed something, but these are the difference makers and in my mind the teams that are using their Bullpen to the biggest advantage.

By BullPen ERA
Boston 2.74
San Diego 3.09

Using www.FanGraphs.com to look at team WPA by Relievers I’m only going to list the teams from the opener
Boston - 7.85
Atlanta - 2.78
LAAngels - 4.27
San Diego - 5.91
Milwaukee - 2.16
Seattle - 6.47

Also from Fangraphs, this time using their leaderboard for Reliever Win Probability Added

Putz is tops, and by far, but the Red Sox have three in the top 25 now, and the Padres, Angels, Twins and Diamondbacks all have two.

Milwaukee and Atlanta each helped themselves in areas of need, where as Boston is looking now to have probably the best top three relievers in the game with Papplebon, Okajima and Gagne. Seattle without a doubt has the best Ace Reliever in baseball right now.

Your thoughts and opinions here

In the past couple weeks several issues have sprung up that are dragging the names of Americas top sports through the proverbial mud. From Michael Vick’s indictment showering new commissioner Roger Goodell with criticism to David Stern facing his toughest challenge ever with a referee connected to gambling and point shaving the issues are rather large and not limited to these two sports. Goodell really hopes that you only think of Michael Vick when you think of the NFL and criminals. Let us not forget PacMan Jones, Tank Johnson and the rest of the Cincinatti Bengals. This is a league that is soiling its reputation through its players and too many of them with criminal misconduct. The NFL has an image problem that might just hurt its ratings and ticket sales in the upcoming season. Goodell has talked about taking the SuperBowl international, and yet their foreign farm league folded this year.

Stern, and the whole NBA, are getting rocked by the gambling story, but it is overshadowing other issues as well. USA Basketball isn’t very good and hasn’t competed on the international stage for too long. Once the US was the gold standard for basketball around the world, lately though they just hope to medal, even in continental tournaments. Inside the USA the NBA has issues as three teams have stadium/attendance issues facing them. The Kings likely lost their Vegas trump card in negotiating with the city, but they still won’t talk Sacremento in funding a new stadium for billionaire casino owners. Oklahoma City will no longer host the Hornets, but seem quite likely to wind up with the Sonics as no city in the Puget Sound will build a stadium to host the 40 year old former champion SuperSonics. No one can know how successful the Hornets will be in their return to New Orleans after their two year absence, but the team ownership can’t be happy with the large challenge of marketing a corrupted league.

Who would have thought at the start of the baseball season that there wouldn’t be one, but two stories diminishing the controversy of Barry Bonds, steroids and Bud Selig? Selig took several months, but it seems he finally decided to follow Barry on the chase, yet we still are left to wonder how will he address the questions that shadow Bonds? Steroids isn’t the only issue facing baseball though. Mega contracts are on their way back, as Marlins’ President Samson says “It’ll take the sport down, that contract.” He also called it “the end of the world as we know it.” That was only about Ichiro signing a five year, 90 million dollar extension. Its not like that’s Scott Boras asserting that Alex Rodriguez will be signing a 35 Million dollar per year deal this offseason. What would Samson say about a single player making as much his entire team? It seems that the megacontracts are on their way back and as soon as Selig figures out the steroids issue he’ll have to face the MLBPA again about contracts.

The Big Three aren’t alone in their struggles, though they are the biggest targets. The second tier leagues all wish they had the kind of coverage that the NFL, MLB and NBA get and the NHL once did. But hockey has signed a poor television deal without rights fees, and actually had playoff ratings in the USA that were lower than regular season WNBA games. After the long lockout attendance was initially back, but this year the struggle extended beyond just the SunBelt into some more traditional markets (Chicago and Boston) as well. Almost two-thirds of hockey fans on Fanhome think that Bettman is doing a poor job, and it is quite obvious that most of America agrees.

I tried to delve deeper and find good news for even less followed sports to see how they are doing. In Major League Soccer Garber has attained a ton of press, but almost all of it is about David Beckham as an entertainment star, not the performance on the field. It isn’t that the performance is poor, it is just inconsistent. Recently lower table Real Salt Lake beat Everton and the All Stars beat Celtic, those are good wins versus quality teams, but what does it mean when in the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup only three MLS clubs advance to the quarterfinals of the tourney? DC United lost to a second division team even. Soccer is stronger than ever in the MLS era expanding into San Jose and maybe even Philly within the next year, and yet it faces the same issues it has since the NASL.

So which commissioner has it easiest right now?

I’m voting none of the above, there hasn’t been a worse time for pro team sports in my 3+ decades.

As I’m reminded by sometime FanHomer and current Admin at The ScoreBoards, TestSubjekt, I left out a sport that is usually hot this time of the year, the Tour de France. Likely the most drug plagued sport in the world, the Tour collapsed in the past two years. No Lance Armstrong, its last winner accused and its current winner was just kicked off of the his team due to drug issues as well. The Tour might be dead in North America.

Barry hit two more out today and has only two to go to tie the most well known record in sports. He has the opportunity to do it in a weekend series against the Brewers where Hank Aaron played as both a Brave and a Brewer. Bud Selig may be forced into a decision, as he once owned the Milwaukee Brewers.

How will the shadow of BALCO weigh on this event? Will Bonds deign the media worthy of an interview? What will he sell at www.barrybonds.com to make a buck off his perceived drug assisted record? Thoughts?

Though the Mariners have yet to officially announce it seems certain that the All-Star Center Fielder and the Seattle ballclub have reached an agreement on a five year deal for some amount between 75 and 100 million dollars. The disagreement in value from various sources is likely due to how one counts easily reached and more difficult incentive based bonuses. See Mariner fan reaction here, as always you can post your own reaction as well. Read the history of Mariner fan opinions about this situation in the old thread on the subject.

The Mariners are also looking at making news by calling up hot prospect Adam Jones to play Right Field and move Raul Ibanez to the DH. This move should likely improve the offense, but will certainly improve the defense in the outfield. Jones is hitting 309/361/585 with 21 Homers producing 7.8 Runs/27 Outs. He has struggled this year getting caught 6 of his 11 attempts while playing a stellar Center Field for the Tacoma Rainiers in the PCL.

Tonight Ichiro will leadoff and roam Center Field for the American League in the 2007 All Star Game in San Fransisco. Join our gamethread with fans from around the country.

George Kenneth Griffey Jr
The Kid
The Natural
Junior Griffey

After 8 years the man who gave us SafeCo field returns. For many of us here we would not be fans of the Mariners if it were not for this boy who became a man while playing on the disgusting AstroTurf of the KingDome.

We in the Puget Sound have been inundated by so many news stories about his past, about the legend. Lists of highlights, memories of the writers, photo spreads. He has a 4:30PM PST press conference before the game. The team has a special ceremony for the player before the game with video montage of comments from his former teammates and opponents.

Here’s a small list of what’s been written recently about this momentous occasion

Griffey shrugs at Mariners’ plan to celebrate his return
Sports | 10 Griffey moments in Seattle | Seattle Times Newspaper
Sports | Griffey returns to Seattle | Seattle Times Newspaper
Buhner relishes old pal Griffey’s return
Go 2 Guy: Come on, give Griffey a break — and a worthy reception
Junior’s back! | TheNewsTribune.com | Tacoma, WA

Some here may remember, heck maybe even know where the old thread went, my post from three or so years ago “The Answer is K” In it I asserted that answer to the Mariners issues regarding lefthanded offense, and offense in general was Mr Griffey. I don’t necessarily think that the dream is the answer at this time, but wish to share part of why I’m a baseball fan.

This too is about Ken Griffey Jr.

I first became a baseball fan back in the Spring of 1994. I was a freshman at community college and going nowhere with my life. I had decided to join the Army and became an Arabic linguist. Though I deferred my entry I stopped going to class. I was directionless.

Two of my friends’ father was the Equipment Manager for the Mariners (he’s still with the org) and as a thank you to me for joining the service he had me come down and shag balls for a few series before I left for Basic Training. Several of those memories helped me through difficult times. Two particularly related to Ken. In the first he noticed one of the other players giving me a hard time. Ken stood up for me, now I paraphrase, don’t be a punk and give the kid a break.

The second occasion was when Griffey was kind enough to let me sit in his special lounge chair. It shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it was. He never let anyone sit in that chair.

Several years later I worked at KJR-AM Seattle as a producer with much of my work focused on our baseball coverage, I was at the stadium quite a bit. Griffey didn’t like KJR, he held a grudge. In fact in my three years there Griffey only gave live interviews with one show, the one I produced. I don’t know if I was the reason but I do know that he remembered me from years before as he said several things to me about the time previous at one point even asking why I made the mistake of joining KJR.

One of his interviews wasn’t scheduled, it just happened. The Mariners were in Anaheim and the show host was dogging Ken. Word got back and he called up from the visitors clubhouse down there. He was initially confrontational, but over the interview he came to like the host and eventually agreed to come on again in the future. That happened several months later when we had the only booked interview between Ken and the station.

I guess what I’m getting at that is over the past 13 years I have gone through a lot of things from the US Army, two career changes, a marriage and a home, but through it all somehow I remained a Ken Griffey Jr fan - Sometimes quite bitter.

My wife thinks that her parents are coming over Friday night, and I’m sure that they are, but I don’t know if I will notice. I’ll be watching the Game. The Return of the greatest player the Seattle Mariners have ever seen play. A player who if not for poor health would be challenging Barry Bonds.
A player who if not for a very poor decision to leave would be the most loved man in the Pacific Northwest - and yet he still might be.

Some more mainstream notes about his return
Griffey signed 1,000 commerative baseballs for the occassion. They will cost 100$ each. Proceeds will be evenly divided between Children’s Hospitals of Seattle, Cincinati and Orlando.

There are very limited seats available, and on Friday there are view obstructed and standing room seats only.

Griffey currently is a top three vote getter for the NL All Star outfield and is having his best season yet in Cincinatti.

Again, thank you Ken for keeping baseball in Seattle, wish you could have been here this near decade. I hope you finaly Hit it Here.

To comment on this post and share your Griffey memories post in this thread