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The former Texas Ranger and NY Met manager is supposedly itching for another chance to lead a major league baseball team. From ESPN-
At a time when Bobby Valentine has begun the process of talking with teams about a possible return as a manager in Major League Baseball, sources said he is in communication with the Florida Marlins about a possible position with that team — less than eight months after Marlins manager Fredi Gonzalez received a two-year extension.
Gonzalez, 45, has managed the Marlins the last two seasons after replacing Joe Girardi, and Florida has contended in both years. Gonzalez was named The Sporting News Manager of the Year in 2008. Gonzalez agreed to a two-year extension with the Marlins in spring training, and he is signed through the 2011 season.
However, there has been concern on the coaching staff this week after they were told that no decision has been made about whether to bring them back for 2010. Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins’ owner, is meeting with club executives after the end of the regular season.
Valentine, 59, has managed the Texas Rangers for eight seasons and the Mets from 1996-2002, and over the last six seasons he has managed the Chiba Lotte Marines.
Valentine is supposed to be a candidate for jobs in Cleveland and Washington. Have the Marlins really talking to Valentine? I make a bet they did. Will they hire him as the team’s next manager? Loria is an unpredictable idiot owner as can be seen by his firing of Joe Girardi three years ago. He has also made it clear he won’t spend any more amount of money on the Marlins than he absolutely has to. Valentine is not going to be a cheap hire for a MLB team. I therefore don’t see him as a future Marlins manager.
He will undergo elbow surgery. From AP-
Johan Santana needs surgery for bone chips in his left elbow and the star pitcher is out for the season, the latest blow to a New York Mets team battered by injuries.
The team said their 30-year-old ace is expected to be OK for spring training next year. He was examined Tuesday by Mets medical director Dr. David Altchek in New York.
“It’s not the worst,” Santana said on a conference call. “Believe me, I’m going to be ready.”
Santana said he had the same operation after the 2003 season and came back with a career-high 20 wins and the first of his two Cy Young Awards for the Minnesota Twins.
“I know myself,” he said. “I’ve been through this before. I know exactly what it is.”
I won’t speculate on Santana’s long term prognosis. As for the Mets, 2009 is a very disppappointing year for the franchise. Even with a healthy return of Santana in 2010, I don’t expect the Mets to be challenging for the playoffs.
The rare play has only taken place fifteen times in MLB history. From The Philadelphia Inquirer-
From shallow center field, Shane Victorino was frantically yelling to teammate Eric Bruntlett: “Touch everybody. Touch everything.”
Afterward, Bruntlett said he wasn’t certain if he heard anything. He was somewhat occupied at the time. The Phillies utility infielder was indeed touching everybody and everything, making history in the process.
In a blink, the second baseman pulled off one of the rarest occurrences in the wacky game of baseball – a game-ending unassisted triple play in a 9-7 win over the New York Mets yesterday at Citi Field.
It was the second time in the cockeyed history of the major leagues that a game ended on an unassisted triple play. The first was May 31, 1927, when Detroit Tigers first baseman Johnny Neun ended a game against Cleveland, but it’s not likely Neun got the same sense of satisfaction as Bruntlett.
*****
His unassisted triple play was only the 14th in the regular season in big-league history – a 15th occurred in a World Series game – and the first by a Phillie since Mickey Morandini pulled one off on Sept. 20, 1992.
Morandini was accused of trying to sell ‘the ball’ when videos clearly showed him disposing of it after the play was over.
Another setback for the veteran lefty has he tries to re-establish himself in the major leagues.
Houston Astros left-hander Mike Hampton has a partially torn rotator cuff and hopes to pitch again this season.
Hampton (7-10, 5.30 ERA) went on the 15-day disabled list on Tuesday. He left his last start on Aug. 13 with shoulder soreness. An MRI taken Wednesday revealed the extent of the injury, the team announced.
The Astros said Hampton will not have surgery to repair the injury.
The 36-year-old has started 21 games this season, his most since 2004. He missed the 2006 and 2007 seasons after separate elbow surgeries.
I always thought this type of injury required surgery. If Hampton is operated on at some future date, I think his playing career will be at an end. He was a good pitcher but his career has been downhill ever since his signing with Colorado before the 2001 season.
He is one of the last original Florida Marlins to still be playing in the Major Leagues. From AP-
The Milwaukee Brewers have acquired Cincinnati right-hander David Weathers for a player to be named later.
Weathers is 3-3 with a 3.32 ERA in 43 games. He pitched one inning and got the win in Friday’s 10-5 comeback win over the San Francisco Giants.
The 39-year-old reliever starts his second stint with Milwaukee. He previously pitched for the Brewers from 1998-2001.
Weathers, who first came up with Toronto in 1991, is still putting up decent numbers. Anyone want to take a guess how much longer he can keep on pitching in the majors?
I didn’t know Lee worked at Shea Stadium but do remember his voice calling the races at Roosevelt Raceway. Roosevelt was the closest harness track to the part of Long Island I grew up in till 1976. I only went to Roosevelt a few times, but heard Lee’s voice many times when weekend races were broadcast on local and cable television after I moved away from the NY area. RIP.
Jack E. Lee, a longtime race announcer most closely associated with his work at Roosevelt Raceway, died Thursday, July 30. He was 73.
Mr. Lee was a popular fixture at the now-shuttered Roosevelt, from 1968 until 1985, and also called races at Freehold Raceway in 1966 and from 1990 through 1998.
His mellow voice and descriptive calls were known to millions via his race calls on the “Racing from Roosevelt” TV shows syndicated across the nation by WOR-TV. He also served as the public address announcer for the New York Mets at Shea Stadium, and was for a time the ring announcer for World Wrestling Federation shows at Madison Square Garden.
Mr. Lee was retired and living in Florida at the time of his death.
Is El Duque’s MLB over with? From AP-
El Duque’s comeback attempt with the Texas Rangers has ended.
Texas released Orlando Hernandez from his minor league contract Friday, making the right-hander a free agent just more than a month after he signed.
Hernandez was 2-0 with a 2.45 ERA in eight relief appearances for Triple-A Oklahoma City since being activated three weeks ago. He had 12 strikeouts and four walks in 11 innings.
General Manager Jon Daniels said the Rangers had no plans to add Hernandez to their major league roster by Monday, when the pitcher would have been able to opt out of the contract.
“The reports that we got were about what you would expect, stuff-wise. … The velocity was not an issue or anything like that, just rust,” Daniels said. “With more time and innings, he may very well be ready, but he had the out in his contract and he was going to take it.”
Hernandez last pitched in the majors for the New York Mets in 2007 before toe surgery. Hernandez’s numbers with the Mets in 2007, suggest he should still be able to pitch in the majors. The toe injury could have adversely affected his ability to pitch. Hernandez’s age may also factor into how strong his arm is.
The Cuban pitcher’s age has been questioned at times, and is listed as high as 43 by some accounts. The Rangers said he was 39 when they signed him last month, though Daniels sounded less certain about that Friday.
“Ask the Census bureau,” he said.
No need to. The smoking Gun has a copy of El Duque’s Cuban divorce decree. It clearly says he was born in 1965.
The lefthander has won 305 games lifetime, 224 of them for Atlanta. From ESPN-
Tom Glavine wanted to end his career with the Braves.
If this is the end, it wasn’t on his terms.
Atlanta released the winningest active pitcher in the big leagues on Wednesday, a stunning move just when it seemed he was ready to return to the Braves.
The move was first reported by ESPN The Magazine’s Buster Olney.
The 43-year-old Glavine, who was coming back from shoulder and elbow surgery, threw six scoreless innings in a rehab start for Class-A Rome on Tuesday night and proclaimed himself ready to pitch in the majors again.
Instead, the Braves cut him, another move that figures to draw the ire of Atlanta fans after the team failed to re-sign John Smoltz during the offseason.
Glavine described himself as “very surprised” in a text message to The Associated Press. Atlanta manager Bobby Cox called it “the hardest thing I’ve ever been through.”
The players were most shocked by the timing of the decision: Why was the 305-game winner allowed to make three rehab starts, then told he wouldn’t be pitching anymore for the Braves?
Financial considerations may well have played a part. Does a team want to pay a large sum of money for a player of limited usefulness both long and short term? Major league teams are a business first and foremost. Their management looks at the bottom line just like those working for non-sports companies.
Casey Stengel in his years at the helm of the New York Yankees was quick to dump players once they were no longer useful to him. A pitcher would win 16 games one year, struggle the next and soon find himself traded to Kansas City. Casey felt no obligation to keep around a player because they were once good. He had to concern himself with today and tomorrow not yesterday. Perhaps Atlanta was thinking the same way.
This takes place the day after the Florida Marlins shell the veteran righty. From AP-
The Milwaukee Brewers made big changes to their thin bullpen on Tuesday.
One day after reliever Jorge Julio allowed five runs while facing six batters in the sixth inning of Milwaukee’s 7-4 loss to the Florida Marlins, the Brewers released the right-hander.
Julio entered Monday night’s game in Miami with Milwaukee leading 4-2. He gave up two hits, hit two batters, walked one and another reached on an error. Signed to a one-year, $950,000 deal in the offseason, Julio was let go Tuesday after going 1-1 with a 7.79 ERA in 15 appearances.
The Brewers called up right-hander Mike Burns from Triple-A Nashville. Burns was 6-2 with a 2.98 ERA for the Sounds.
Milwaukee’s manager says the bullpen is thin. Which it is, particularly after David Riske was lost for the season after elbow surgery.
Julio, who has played for eight ML teams since 2001, throws very hard. Something baseball managers like. I expect a ninth team to take a chance on him before the 2009 season is over. Perhaps even by the 4th of July.
He became the 25th player in baseball history to reach that milestone. From AP-
Gary Sheffield crossed home plate and thrust his arms in the air after unleashing his 500th homer with another vicious swing, and then the surly slugger was humbled by the site of his new Mets teammates pouring out of the dugout.
Sheffield was greeted with hugs and high fives after becoming the 25th player to reach the milestone with a tying homer in the seventh inning Friday. The party switched focus in the bottom of the ninth when Luis Castillo hit a two-out, run-scoring single to give the Mets a 5-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.
“I was so excited that, you know, when I looked over to the dugout, those were the guys,” said Sheffield, who signed with New York on April 4 after being released by Detroit four days earlier. “I appreciate every one of those guys. They’ve been very special to me.”
Last night’s homer came against the franchise Sheffield started his career with. He was drafted by Milwaukee in 1986.
Should Sheffield be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame one day? Besides his home runs, he has a career .292 batting average but more impressively a .394 career on base percentage. There is no question, Sheffield has been an offensive machine for two decades. The case against his induction is fairly strong. Sheffield has been a defensive liability his entire career, has had behavioral and discipline problems on and off the field, and as a result traveled extensively. Not too many HOFers have played for eight teams in their career.
Tim Kurkjian of ESPN writes-
Sheffield was not named in the Mitchell report, but in his testimony before a grand jury in the BALCO case in 2003, he acknowledged using “the cream” and “the clear,” but said he didn’t know they were steroids at the time. Still, that admission raises questions about steroid use even though he has never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. From 1988-98, he had two 30-homer, 100-RBI seasons. From 1999-on, which appears to be the height of the steroid era, he had seven straight years of 25 homers, and six of his eight 100-RBI seasons.
Sheffield’s case is a tricky one. He has always played hard, he has often helped his team win, and he has been a middle-of-the-order hitter in the postseason with three different organizations, including a world championship team (the 1997 Marlins). He is not DiMaggio, obviously. He is not Schmidt, Griffey or Yastrzemski. Despite having similar numbers, he is not even close to being Frank Robinson, all things considered.
The marks against him are noticeable and troublesome, but his numbers — especially 500 home runs — are very impressive. His case is debatable, but I believe he’s a Hall of Famer.
His drug use is another factor to weigh for Sheffield. Should all players caught up in that scandal be excluded from the HOF? I don’t have a vote on who goes to Cooperstown, if I did, I don’t know if I would vote for Sheffield.
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