Archive for Report

Last weekend, a bunch of FanGraphs/RotoGraphs/NotGraphs writers descended on Arizona for our annual Spring Training Thing. The traditional Big Pizza Bash at Cibo happened on Saturday night, and Rob Neyer (maybe you’ve heard of him) was among the special guests. At one point during the evening, a stack of baseball cards was making the rounds. When it got to my table, the word was “Neyer brought these, he says take some.” Sweet. The cards were very new, and I had heard of many of the players. I took three, and later that night at the hotel I read the “Scouting Reports” that Bowman had on the back.

Needless to say, they were amazing. They used the right words and everything. I am not sure why anyone reads Baseball America when insight like this is on the back of cards. So I thought I should share some of the stuff I learned. I think it is an appropriate thing to do, given that Rob himself is no stranger to the “here’s what I learned from some baseball cards” technique. Not sure he has ever taken it to the level of scouting, though. Look out Hulet, Sussman, and Newman!

At first, I was just going to take three random cards. Then I noticed there were multiple players named “Austin.” That is a great contemporary baseball first name, isn’t it? It’s the “Dakota” of prospect names. So I had to take two Austins.

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Joe Strauss reports today at the St. Louis-Post Dispatch that Los Angeles Angels first baseman Albert Pujols underwent knee surgery last week in St. Louis.

However, while Strauss’s source has described the procedure as a “minor” one intended to “clean-up” the joint, some crack analysis by our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team reveals that Pujols’s knee injury — and the corresponding procedure to correct it — were likely much more serious than anyone knows.

By way of example, here’s an image of Pujols from near the end of the season:

“Nothing amiss,” you say, right? “Here is a baseball player, playing baseball,” you continue. And, yes: to the naked eye, Pujols appears to be as fit as any number of fiddles you’d care to invoke.

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BIRMINGHAM — The Toronto Blue Jays have got their man, and, once again, nobody saw it coming. Renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews — Mr. Tommy John Surgery himself — signed a multi-year contract with the club late Sunday night, and will report to the Blue Jays minor league complex in Dunedin, Florida on Tuesday. As per club policy, financial details of the deal weren’t disclosed, but sources indicate it’s a five-year agreement in the neighborhood of $14 million, with full no-trade protection through 2014.

“We’re very excited to add Dr. Andrews to our core moving forward,” said Blue Jays general manager Alex Anthopoulos. “More importantly, much like Jose Bautista, we believe in Dr. Andrews as a person more than anything else. We wouldn’t make this type of commitment to him if we didn’t believe in the type of person he is, and in what he brings to our organization. We’ve done our due diligence, and we felt it was the right time to take our relationship with Dr. Andrews to the next level.”

Dr. Andrews’ first order of business: A meeting with left-handed reliever Luis Perez, the latest Blue Jays pitcher to be lost to elbow issues. Perez, a stalwart of Toronto’s disappointing bullpen, has been placed on the 15-day disabled list with left elbow tightness.

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NEW YORK — With the news today that the New York Mets‬ have claimed right-hander Chris Schwinden off waivers — this, after Schwinden was originally waived by the Mets themselves on June 2nd and then subsequently claimed and dropped by the Blue Jays, Indians, and (most recently) the Yankees, all over the course of a month — America’s leading poets, novelists, and writers of non-fiction are pretty sure that Schwinden’s month-long journey is a metaphor for something, although for what, precisely, is unclear.

“There’s something distinctly rich about Schwinden’s experience in June and so far in July,” said Elinora Straus, head of the Creative Writing department at Vassar College. “In particular, to have settled with the team that originally released him: that’s stirring. ‘Why, though?’ is the question. ‘I don’t know, actually,’ is my answer, presently.”

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So this is how it ends. Will McDonald (now ExRoyalsReview on Twitter), longtime mainstay of Royals Review, has decided to call it a day after eight years of blogging about the Royals. During that time, Royals Review grew from just some guy’s blog to a team site on the fledgling SB Nation network to perhaps the most popular Royals blog around.

With the management formerly of Royals Authority taking the helm, things should be in good hands. Still, it is hard for many of us to imagine following the Royals without the incentive of knowing the referents for Will’s next brilliantly-written combination of anger and comedy. How will we get through the season without more Royals Bibliomancy or Mitch Maier’s Letters Home From Baseball Camp, or expressions of irritation over Royals prospect Wil Myers spelling his first name incorrectly.

Will has been a huge inspiration. Don’t hold it against him, but, while I never “worked” at Royals Review, I probably would not be blogging today if it were not for reading Will’s stuff. Will’s posts garnered attention far beyond Royals fandom — I think the first “big break” his blog received was when Keith Law linked to it in one of his ESPN chats. I cannot summarize Will’s work, but that is the nature of all good art. So as a tribute to Will (or “Freneau,” a moniker he adopted in recent times in tribute to a poet from the era of the Revolutionary War) and as a public service, I will briefly go through just a few of McDonald’s best moments of the last few years.

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CINCINNATI — Doctors at the Centers for Disease Control announced Tuesday that left-handed Tigers starter Drew Smyly has “just a little” Ebola.

“After extensive testing by a team of leading experts in the field of infectious disease,” Dr. Prajit Kapoor said in a prepared statement, “we’ve determined that Mr. Smyly definitely has Ebola — or, at the very least, an Ebola-like virus — but that, strangely, it is confined to the tip of his left middle-finger [pictured right] and is unlikely to spread further.”

Smyly began to notice the Ebola while pitching against the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday, eventually leaving the game. “It started hurting and affecting my pitches,” Smyly said on Tuesday. “Honestly, I just thought it was a blister. I mean, I knew it looked bad, but you never think it’s a left-threatening disease responsible for thousands of horrifying deaths.”

When asked if the delay in reaching a conclusive diagnosis on Smyly’s condition was due to the rarity of it, Dr. Kapoor answered in the negative. “Actually, it was less that and more how gross it is. I, personally, vomited four times.”

NEW YORK — Several riders of a Queens-bound 7 train confirmed Thursday the presence of a passenger not only wearing a John Franco jersey, but also matching the precise physical description of the longtime Mets closer.

“Was it him? Tough to say,” said Gordon Stavridis, 34, who rode the train all the way to Flushing-Main St. “Sure: mustache, vaguely Mediterranean features. But, honestly, that describes basically every white person in the New York area.”

Added Brooklyn native Maria Tasso, 37: “It could’ve been him, although I personally went to high school with 17 different John Francos. And that was just in my graduating class.”

Witnesses confirmed that the Franco look-alike got off at the Mets-Willets Point stop along with a slightly overweight black man of medium height in a Lenny Harris jersey.