Youth Baseball Parks Blog

Anyone who's listened to baseball for any length of time has surely heard the term, "five tool player." The general consensus these days is that the title is bestowed all too frequently—diluting its meaning—and that so-called five tool players are overvalued.
What exactly is a five tool player?
A player who excels at the following is considered [...]

Source:Who are 2008's five tool players?

Peter Abraham lists Ian Kennedy’s stats in the Puerto Rican Winter League. They’re mostly good, but the nine walks in 19 2/3 innings bothers me. He’s wild and tough to hit, something that doesn’t work for most major league pitchers.

Correction: Fixed the title.

Source:PR for Kennedy

Bleed Cubbie Blue does not believe Jake Peavy will land with the Cubs, because Lou Piniella is happy with his starting pitching.

Source:No Jake

A fight between the Yankees and the mayors office led to a free suite but also a loss of revenue.

Source:Yankees vs. the City

Anyone who's listened to baseball for any length of time has surely heard the term, "five tool player." The general consensus these days is that the title is bestowed all too frequently—diluting its meaning—and that so-called five tool players are overvalued.
What exactly is a five tool player?
A player who excels at the following is considered [...]

Source:Who are 2008's five tool players?

Bruce Markusen explores John Ellis’s 1972 In Action card. Ellis shares the card with Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew. The card looked familar, and 1972 was one of the few years I bought cards. I looked through the pile, and sure enough there’s not only the In Action card, but John Ellis’s regular card as well. Thanks for the memory!

Source:Rembering Ellis

I don’t usually blog about football players, but having read this story, I think this picture pretty much explains
Plaxico Burress’s season.

Source:Crisis Clinic

Freddy Garcia suffered an injury in the Venezuelan Winter League.

Source:Combeback Speedbump

Neal Huntington speaks on the way the Pirates are approaching the off-season:

“We are not throwing 2009 to the wind and saying, ‘Well, we’ll win again sometime in the future.’ We know we need to win, and sooner rather than later, and we’re going to show up, work hard, prepare, teach and go out to win every game” Huntington said. “But, if we can trade a veteran player and it brings us 12-18 years of control instead of one or two, and we don’t take that large of a step backward, that’s just good business.”

And that is why, according to multiple sources, no fewer than of the Pirates’ five veterans — shortstop Jack Wilson, second baseman Freddy Sanchez, first baseman Adam LaRoche, reliever John Grabow and catcher Ronny Paulino — already have been part of trade talks, to some degree or other.

To me, this is an approach to keep payroll low. I’d rather see the Pirates pick their weak link position and improve it as much as possible. Looking at the team stats by position, they can pick third base, shortstop or second base as their area of improvement for this season. Even just bringing one of those position above league average will help them score more runs. Given that the Pirates have such a log way to go, addressing two of those is probably needed. Just trading veterans to get more years of control, however, is not the way to build a winner unless the players acquired are good, too. Jack Wilson isn’t going to bring much.

Source:Pirates Philosophy

River Ave. Blues notes that Andy Pettitte talking to the Dodgers complicated the Yankees decision to offer the left-hander arbitration:

Monday, you see, is MLB’s arbitration deadline. By the end of the day, the Yanks must decide whether or not to offer arbitration to Andy Pettitte. This is a rather complicated decision, and it could play itself out in a variety of scenarios.

The easiest option — and perhaps the most beneficial to the Yanks — would be to offer arbitration to Andy Pettitte and hope that he heads to Los Angeles. As Mike noted earlier this week, the Yanks would land the 17th slot in the draft and a supplemental pick as well. But because the Dodgers would be giving up a fairly coveted spot, they may not be so keen to sign Pettitte if the Yanks offer arbitration.

Of course, if the Yankees do offer Andy arbitration, he may accept the offer, and New York ends up spending more than they wanted on Andy.

In general, it was a very good move for Pettitte to at least speak with the Dodgers. He held no leverage against New York until he did so.

Source:Pettitte and the Dodgers