Wednesday news-a-go-go
Actual headline “Matsuzaka dines with Red Sox, leaves deal to Boras“. It’d be better if Borat did his negotiating.
Jeff Francis signed a 4y, $13.5m deal with the Rockies. Nice.
Added By Dave: Angels spend $50 million on Gary Matthews! Woohoo!
Derek says: As Mariner fans, we should all be extremely happy about this latest signing
On ESPN, Barry Melrose, who I find to be one of the most vapid and obviously uninformed analysts ever to grace ESPN’s sets, raved about Morneau and said that at 25, Morneau would win “5 or 6 more”.
Multiple MVP winners:
2 (about twenty players)
3, only 7 players: Berra, Campanella, DiMaggio, Foxx, Mantle, Musial, Schmidt
7, only one player: Bonds
So Justin Morneau is going to go down in history as the second best hitter in the history of baseball. I know Melrose is Canadian and over-excited about this, but it also makes it clear that he has no idea what he’s talking about or what it takes to win more than one MVP.
Also, my nearly-new Logitech laser mouse is totally flipping out on me, making it really hard to do work. Grrrrrrrrrr.
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You need to remove one “http://” from the link to the Matsuzaka story.
See, this is what I’m talking about. Stupid mouse.
Melrose’s value to ESPN doesn’t come from his knowledge of hockey, if they wanted that they’d steal Don Cherry from the CBC. No his real value comes from the sweet hockey mullet he sports. I figure it’s worth at least +8 VORM (value over replacement mullet).
Derek, I don’t know how much you follow hockey, but he doesn’t know shit about that sport either. And he coached for several years!!
What the hell was he doing commenting on baseball anyway?
#3
Don Cherry knows less about hockey than Melrose. He’s just a white version of Don King
I during the strike, he was still under contract, so ESPN’s tried converting him to a general analyst instead of having him focus on hockey. Baaaaaaaaaad move.
Wow, thank god I don’t get ESPN up here. That’s painful.
Even worse than one of our nightly sports desk guys saying “he shoots, he scores” when describing Chris Bosh.
Tell me, how is John Buccigross at doing other sports highlights? I loved him when ESPN still recognized hockey as a sport.
5. True, but at least he’s entertaining.
#5– one of my all-time favorite Canadian ads featured the late Mrs. Cherry, advertising a pain reliever for those nagging headaches that just won’t go away…
and here’s another bit of silly-money rumoring to go with yesterday’s Lee for 5/$70m — Gary Matthews, Angels, 5/$55m
#9
Entertaining in the “look, there’s a car crash!” kind of way maybe?
Barry Melrose is fine when talking about hockey. His uninformed Morneau comments just give away his obvious and overwhelming love for all things French-Canadian.
Also, he uses maple syrup to style his mullet. I’m just sayin.
#12
Just so you know, Justin Morneau is from BC. He’s not French-Canadian, although his name is.
And no, he’s not fine when talking about hockey. One needs only to listen to some actually informed analysts. If you get a chance, listen to Ray Ferraro, he’s a very astute guy…it’s too bad he’s on NBC down there.
#12 Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I thought Morneau was from BC rather any of the French bits of Canada?
He is, New Westminster to be exact.
I actually didn’t know where Morneau is from, I was making a joke based on his name – as I assume Melrose was doing (without the “joke” part).
I’m gonna go drink some Molson.
Whatever you think of him as an analyst, he did a brilliant job as a coach in the minors (incl. Seattle), and not too bad in the NHL.
I’m gonna go drink some Molson.
Uh, we was wonderin’, eh. Just what exactly is wrong with the beer?
#17
I agree, It’s REALLY difficult to take a team to the Stanley Cup finals with Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Luc Robitaille and Rob Blake on your team.
If I remember correctly, Melrose was a huge fan of Tony Robbins as well. I believe that was his inspiration for getting the team to the Finals.
That and Gretzky’s 40 points in 24 games during that playoff run.
It was definitely all Melrose.
#18
Molson sucks. It’s the equivalent of Budweiser. If you want a good Canadian beer drink Sleeman’s or Granville Island Brewery (only on the West Coast).
Almost all Canadian baseball players are from BC.
Larry Walker (Maple Ridge), Justin Morneau (New Westminster), Rich Harden (Victoria), Jason Bay (Trail), Ryan Dempster (Gibsons). It probably has something to do with the weather.
#17
Why did you have to bring up this horrible horrible memory for me? I cried after they lost to Montreal in the finals.
Crapsh*tf**kc**ks**ker
I’m still bitter.
#20
I think the lesson there is that mass-market beer sucks everywhere.
#21…It probably has everything to do with the weather. Although Trail’s weather is horrible and due to the Smelting Plant they have there, Trail has the highest rate of down syndrome babies in Canada (maybe North America).
I’m surprised Jason Bay can say his own name.
Coincidentally, I’ve met Jason Bay’s dad who works at said Smelting plant. Very nice man. And everyone in Trail voted for Bay like a million times for the All-Star Game.
from the Vaancouver Sun:
“It’s remarkable. The best basketball player on the planet is from Victoria, baseball’s American League MVP is from New Westminster and the best hockey players in Vancouver are Swedes. What a world. “
Derek, about that mouse – what seems to be the problem? Is it unresponsive, does it slowly drift out of position, or does it jump randomly?
I have a machine at home where all three happen, but it’s the box, not the mouse (I’ve tried swapping stuff around).
#24– useless Canadian factoid … 30 years ago, Larry Walker Sr. played fast-pitch against George Morneau. “”Larry Walker Sr. didn’t hit the ball, he dented the ball,” George Morneau said. “You’d get the ball back and it would be lopsided”
Anybody ever heard of drunkmouse? it’s a little program that gets installed and makes your mouse behave that way. Perhaps some joker has installed it on your system.
I’ve also found that those shiny mousepads that have the wrist-rest tend to throw off optical mice.
That Melrose statement is kind of vapid but it got me thinking….Morneau wouldn’t really have to become the 2nd best hitter of all time to win 5 or 6 more MVPs, would he? DMZ, I think you and Dave and the readers of this site pretty well established that Morneau wasn’t the best hitter in the AL this year (as Dave said, not in the top 5), probably wasn’t the best player on his town team and he still won the award. If he gets big homer and RBI numbers and the Twins have a multi-year run of success, Morneau winning a bunch of hardware doesn’t seem that far fetched.
Melrose may be right but for the wrong reasons.
Here’s the short mouse version:
Yesterday it started acting erratically after a month of perfect service. It seemed incapable of making small moves in the right direction, so adjusting the size of a graph drove me insane. Moving in any direction introduced a 10% random movement to either side of the intended move.
So went through the standard tech troubleshooting steps (drivers/connections/etc), am now using a sheet of white paper instead of the desk surface, and it’s calmed down.
But ugh.
what colour is your desk surface?
Rotoworld has Gary Mathews Jr. and The Angles at a 5 yr $50 Million Deal
$45 million for Juan Pierre or $50 million for Gary Matthews Jr… one of these two is the worst contract since Mo Vaughn, but I can’t figure out which one.
RE: Barry Melrose
The man has broken new ground. This may very well be the first time that nationalist pride has gotten in the way of rational thought. I never thought I’d live to see the day when this happened, but there it is.
#34
I hope to god that you’re joking.
Laser mice always have issues on desktop surfaces, because their texture isn’t always consistent, or the surface is too dark for the mouse to pick up properly. I always had to use a sheet of paper.
When my last one died, I just got a cheap old-school rollerball USB mouse. It has the usual ball-mouse issues but it beats having these work-hampering laser mouse issues.
I’ve never had issues with my laser mouse. As far as I know, the laser was supposed to reduce the limitations that the optical mouse had. I’ve used my laser mouse on shiny black surfaces and others that optical mice just wouldn’t work on.
So if GMJ got a 5 year 50 mill contract to play center how much is Ichiro worth as a centerfielder?
I suspect he’d get like 6/120 or more.
I use a mousepad, even with a laser mouse. I’ve never had issues, except when a mouse died.
Wasn’t Matthews DFA’d a couple years ago?
Pierre at least has been a ’superstar’ for most of his career.
Plus Pierre has a ring and a winning attitude! Also, a much cooler name.
Huh, he was??? Juan Pierre had one good year, he was never a superstar.
Ichiro will be re-signed for 4 years 63 million
38: Awesome question.
Somewhere in the FO is a spreadsheet showing the dollar contribution of Ichiro-related marketing, not to mention “goodwill” value overseas. Maybe they get creative and offer a cut of team marketing revenue.
Otherwise, I wonder how much the money really means to Ichiro. If being the highest paid CF (or highest paid Japanese player?) is an important show of respect, the figure will be pretty easy to figure out. If the guy wants to go to a winning team, he’ll look for the right mix of money and likely success.
4/64 sound good, and would be a relative bargain at this point, in this offseason, but if he were a FA, I could see 5/100 or 6/120 or more in this FA market.
btw, w/r/t the mouse, since i know everyone’s really interested in that, it’s now working most of the time, but isn’t working just enough to make me want to grind my teeth in annoyance, which isn’t healthy.
Agreed that someone would offer in the neighborhood of $20M/year for Ichiro with a length of 5+ years. I think that the M’s might get him extended for around 15 for 4 (4yr/$60M.) Even $64-72M doesn’t sound too bad compared to 3 FA OFers who’ve signed in the past week.
43.
You obviously missed the 2003 World Series. Pierre was treated like a god by the broadcasters, and that’s how superstars are made.
Casual fans get to define ’superstars’, not the knowledgable minority who hang ot here.
#47– speaking as someone due for a 2nd tooth implant, no, grinding is not healthy.
44. And Schmidt will be signed for 5 years $70 million. All because of all those “superstars.”
hey, Derek? still looking for a job?
52. Oooh, Stats Stringer at Safeco. Instead of watching the game on Gameday, could be the friggin’ Gameday Master.
I for one would love for DMZ to become a reporter with the Ms. Although on second thought, what would that do to this site?
I dunno, I kinda liked “Pitch f/x Operator — Track every pitch for television, Internet and stadium video production.”
No update on a Reed deal?
I believe Dave said he wasn’t going to talk about possible player moves as he did in the past … this may be one of those.
I believe Dave said he wasn’t going to talk about possible player moves as he did in the past … this may be one of those.
Actually, I believe Dave is purposely ignoring questions about the deal for a variety of good reasons.
1) Churchill already did the speculative players involved.
2) He’s waiting until the deal is done or not done before saying anything.
3) He’s a cockteasing whore.
As Slade would say: “Patience, Robin. Patience.”