Filed under: Phillies, MLB Video
It may seem like just weeks ago that the baseball season ended, but, believe it or not, Spring Training is here.
If you’re like the rest of us at FanHouse, you can’t wait for the season to begin — but we’ve got you covered until opening day arrives.
It’s the FanHouse 15, a countdown of the 15 most talked about, blogged about, tweeted about, sensational stars of America’s pastime.
Who will be number one?
The list continues with No. 3, the Phillies Cliff Lee.
Filed under: Rangers, Spring Training
SURPRISE, Ariz. — No one can accuse the Texas Rangers of not being risk-takers.
The Rangers are taking one of their 2010 breakout stars, closer Neftali Feliz, and giving him a chance to make the starting rotation.
It’s not the kind of move that most defending American League champions make. Feliz saved 40 games last year and didn’t give up any runs (and just one hit) in six innings of combined work in the American League Championship Series against the Yankees and in the World Series against the Giants.
None of Feliz’s 90 games in the big leagues the last two seasons have been starts. But he was a starter after signing with Atlanta and later after being traded to the Rangers in what is becoming ever more clearly one of the great swindles in the game. Back in 2007, the Atlanta Braves, desperate for the power that switch-hitting first baseman Mark Teixeira could bring, traded Feliz, shortstop Elvis Andrus, right-hander Matt Harrison, outfielder Beau Jones and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia for Teixeira and lefty middle reliever Ron Mahay.
Feliz is the defending AL Rookie of the Year, Andrus is maybe the best defensive shortstop in the league and Harrison is a sometimes starter with promise. In exchange, the Braves got 54 games from Teixeira in which he hit .321 with 17 homers and 56 RBI. Atlanta finished third for all of that and Teixeira lit off for Anaheim and later Gotham where, curiously, he was eliminated from the 2010 World Series by Feliz, Andrus and the Rangers.
TAMPA, Fla. — Welcome to the Land of Opportunity, formerly known as George M. Steinbrenner Field.
“I felt like it was a good chance for me,” Mark Prior said Friday.
“I think I picked the right spot, man,” Freddy Garcia said a few minutes later.
“They gave me the opportunity to pitch again,” Bartolo Colon said.
It didn’t used to be this way. When a veteran player had to go to camp as a non-roster invitee, Tampa was usually the last place he would want to be. The big-money Yankees would have superstars penciled in at every position and almost no roster spots up for grabs — at least, not significant ones.
Filed under: Rangers, Spring Training
Ron Washington has experienced just about every situation imaginable in baseball during his career as a player, coach and manager dating back to his signing with the Kansas City Royals back in 1970.
Come Thursday’s first day of workouts for the Texas Rangers in Surprise, Ariz., however, a new experience awaits.
Washington, manager of the American League champions, is at the head of a team that is the favorite to repeat in the AL West and one of the league’s prime contenders for the World Series.
“It’s nice to be the hunted for once and not always having to be the hunter,” Washington told FanHouse Monday morning from the airport in New Orleans before boarding his flight to Phoenix.
Filed under: Mariners
SEATTLE — Every pitching staff needs one — a veteran pitcher who has been through the fires who can act as leader and spokesman.
You know, one of the older guys.
The Seattle Mariners have one of those — except for the “older guy” part.
Felix Hernandez, fresh off his Cy Young Award-winning 2010 season, says now he’s ready to step up as a team leader and pitching mentor.
Cliff Lee hasn’t even thrown a single pitch for the Phillies since signing his contract in December, yet the discussion surrounding him has been rampant — at least if you’re the Rangers and the Yankees, two teams he decided against playing for this offseason.
Rangers owner Chuck Greenberg believes that his team deserves some credit for Lee landing in Philadelphia.
Yankees president Randy Levine thinks otherwise and became the latest Yankees front office member — first came Brian Cashman, then Hal Steinbrenner — to grab some headlines in a very quiet offseason for a team normally the subject of many.
“I think Chuck is delusional,” Levine told ESPNewYork.com. “He has been running the Rangers for a few minutes and seems to believe he’s mastered what everyone else is thinking. I think he should let Cliff Lee speak for himself.”
“I’ll be impressed when he demonstrates he can keep the Rangers off welfare,” Levine said. “What I mean is make them not be a revenue-sharing recipient for three years in a row, without taking financing from baseball or advance money from television networks. Then I’ll be impressed.”
All that matters at this point is that the Phillies saw an opportunity to nab the All-Star lefty — and they seized it. All to the chagrin of two seemingly bitter franchises.
The Rangers finished with a payroll at just over $55 million last season, while the Yankees topped in at just over $206 million. Regardless of Levine’s comments, Greenberg probably thinks his Rangers had the last laugh over the Yankees in the ALCS. However, neither was able to one-up the other this offseason by reeling in the prize of free agent market.
Filed under: Yankees, MLB Hot Stove, MLB Free Agency
Note: Brian Cashman took exception to the use of the word “backtracks” in this column, and I told him it was probably a poor choice of words in order to get off a one-liner. Cashman insisted he has not “backtracked” this winter but has often had to explain himself (usually as a function of the way modern media, in an era of immediacy, often lends itself to misinterpretation, misquoting or incompletness).
Cashman said he was misinterpreted on the Pettitte story — the article was eventually taken down from the website — that he was honest about being overruled on Soriano and that some outlets misquoted his Jeter/outfield remarks, forcing him to clarify his stance. I stand by my main point: Cashman’s repeated appearance in somewhat controversial stories — even if not his fault — have partially covered up a Yankees offseason that hasn’t gone as hoped, but that doesn’t mean he is looking to leave New York. — Ed Price
When the Yankees move Derek Jeter to center field, they have to hope he backtracks as well as Brian Cashman has this winter.
Three times in the past few weeks, Cashman has had to come up with ways to explain away some quotes.
The Yankees general manager said the New York Daily News misquoted him when it reported he said Andy Pettitte would not be able to pitch when the 2011 season opens but could come back midseason.
He declared he wouldn’t sign reliever Rafael Soriano as a setup man because it would cost the Yankees their first-round draft pick. Once the Yankees did indeed sign Soriano, Cashman made it known that he was overruled by ownership.
He was then quoted, at a fan function, as saying that he didn’t expect Jeter to last at shortstop for the entirety of his four-year contract extension, with a move to the outfield as the next step. Cashman played the “out of context” card on that one.
Filed under: Phillies, Rangers, Yankees, MLB Hot Stove, MLB Free Agency
Cliff Lee‘s stunning decision to spurn the Rangers and Yankees and sign with the Phillies remains the hallmark moment of the 2010-11 offseason, so it’s no surprise to hear the parties involved in the negotiations still talking about it.
Among those parties is Rangers owner Chuck Greenberg, who, speaking at the Rangers’ Fan Fest event over the weekend, said he felt his team deserves partial credit for Lee landing in Philadelphia.
“We had three different meetings with Cliff and his wife and his agent in Little Rock, (Ark.),” Greenberg said. “Even though Philadelphia was probably not in, they were always in the back of our mind.”
“I think if we wouldn’t have gone to Arkansas that last time, I think he was going to sign with the Yankees. We pried the door open a little bit to give ourselves another opportunity. And ultimately the Phillies were able to take advantage of that opportunity that we created.”
Filed under: Angels, Brewers, Mariners, Nationals, Phillies, Red Sox, Yankees, MLB Free Agency
All this week, the FanHouse staff will look back at the most significant baseball storylines of 2010.
Jayson Werth to the Nationals.
Zack Greinke to the Brewers.
Carl Crawford to the Red Sox.
What do these offseason moves by the baseball establishment have in common?
Just that the baseball establishment thought each of those players would wind up somewhere else.
Filed under: Phillies, MLB Video, MLB Hot Stove, MLB Free Agency, Executive Take
Every team has a few precious months in the offseason to make tweaks to their roster and ensure that they improve. Steve Phillips has taken a team to the World Series before, and over the course of November and December he will present his plan for every major league team to get there as well. It’s the 28th episode of Fix My Team, and his latest project is the Philadelphia Phillies.
