Posted 9:16 AM by Sean
I'll go out on a limb and say the new Canadian Baseball League will work, at least for a while. Everything about it seems designed to be a blend of minor-league atmosphere and Canada's famous struggle for cultural identity: salary caps (and floors), games played Thursday-Sunday only, a minimum of Canadian players for each team. It's interesting that they're directly competing with minor league baseball in at least a couple of cities, and I have to imagine they'll draw pretty well just out of national pride for the first season.

Posted 9:09 AM by Sean
Jesse Orosco will pitch for the Padres next year, at age 46. Good for him, I guess. But not so good for the Padres - Orosco pitched a total of 27 innings last year, because the Dodgers used him as their left-handed specialist (much like the Angels used Schoeneweis in the playoffs). Is it really wise to use a roster spot like this if you're not going to contend? I can definitely see a team needing someone like Orosco if they're going to compete this year (and if Orosco can keep pitching effectively to lefties), but this is more like putting a racing stripe on a Yugo.

Posted 8:53 AM by Sean
If you're ever stuck for a party game, try spot the biggest lie in this story about the fight David Wells was involved in last September. Here's my favorite:

"When Wells got up to go to the rest room, Yeckinevich said, the pitcher stopped at the adjacent booth where the men were seated and said, 'Enough is enough. Kindly leave my mother out of this. Say what you want to about me.'"

David Wells, Christ figure.

Posted 9:27 AM by Sean
It's looking more likely that the Expos will play up to 20 home games in Puerto Rico next year. If the article is right, though, there's not much of an impetus to put them there permanently, and beginning in 2004 they'll be somewhere like Charlotte, Portland, or D.C. So what's the point of playing 20 games in Puerto Rico instead of, say, Charlotte, Portland, or D.C. (or all three?). You'd think that after the disaster that is the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, MLB would be careful about where they moved teams...

Posted 3:18 PM by Sean
It looks like the biggest challenge facing Mike Scioscia in 2003 is going to be keeping everyone happy with their roles on the team. Case in point: Fullmer wants to play every day. I can't blame him - up until this year, he's been a solid, if not spectacular, DH as an everyday player. The problem is, Shawn Wooten has hit lefties very, very well, and it seems obvious that a Fullmer/Wooten platoon is the way to go, statistcially speaking. Kennedy and Gil have both also expressed a desire to play full-time, making the second-base platoon unstable as well (actually, Kennedy showed a lot of improvement against lefties throughout 2002 and could probably start full-time, but then Gil would definitely demand a trade and the Angels would lose a great bench player). Toss in the already-discussed Schoeneweis situation, and it starts to look like it's pretty important for Scioscia to defuse all this before it gets out of control.