{"id":18025,"date":"2011-10-26T20:31:17","date_gmt":"2011-10-27T03:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seamheads.com\/?p=18025"},"modified":"2011-10-26T20:31:17","modified_gmt":"2011-10-27T03:31:17","slug":"clearing-the-bases-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2011\/10\/26\/clearing-the-bases-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Clearing The Bases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2011 World Series has certainly been memorable.&#160; Whether it&#8217;s Albert Pujols hitting three HRs<br \/>\nin a single game or phone gate when Tony LaRussa couldn&#8217;t get Jason Motte<br \/>\nwarmed up in the bullpen during Game 5, not like we&#8217;re going to forget this<br \/>\nseries anytime soon.&#160; Let&#8217;s see what else<br \/>\nis going on throughout baseball.<\/p>\n<p>The Boston Red Sox have certainly made a lot of<br \/>\nnews since the end of the regular season, replacing both their manager and<br \/>\nGM.&#160; They are still negotiating with the<br \/>\nChicago Cubs over what the exact compensation should be for Theo Epstein, but<br \/>\nthey aren&#8217;t in the greatest of bargaining positions as the smear campaign they<br \/>\nhave orchestrated against Epstein means there is no way he is ever coming<br \/>\nback.&#160; The Sox also seem to want a yes<br \/>\nman as their next manager, preferring someone who will toe the company line rather<br \/>\nthan have someone who might have their own ideas.&#160; They did receive some good news however as SP<br \/>\nJohn Lackey will miss the entire 2012 season due to Tommy John surgery.&#160; Yes, I did say good news as Lackey may have<br \/>\nbeen behind a good deal of the clubhouse problems that the Sox had this season<br \/>\nand there is no way they could&#160; have him<br \/>\nback on the club next season.&#160; At least<br \/>\nnow they don&#8217;t have to worry about him until 2013, and won&#8217;t have to eat a<br \/>\nmajor portion of his contract to deal him.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The National League Central could look awfully<br \/>\ndifferent next season if Brewers 1B Prince Fielder and Cardinals 1B Albert<br \/>\nPujols both leave their respective teams via free agency.&#160; Hard to imagine Pujols leaving especially<br \/>\nafter the World Series, but Fielder&#8217;s departure is a foregone conclusion.&#160; Seems unlikely that the Yanks or Sox will<br \/>\nmake a move for either player, which makes you wonder who the biggest<br \/>\ncontenders will be.&#160; Toronto has made<br \/>\nplenty of moves this year but it seems unlikely they will sign a huge ticket<br \/>\nfree agent, think they may have had enough with Vernon Wells and Alex<br \/>\nRios.&#160; Baltimore would seem to be a fit,<br \/>\nbut would either player want to go in that direction, change leagues to play on<br \/>\nan also ran team.&#160; Texas might have the<br \/>\ncash but has a hard enough time finding ABs for the players on the current<br \/>\nroster.&#160; The Angels will have Kendry<br \/>\nMorales returning and may have found a future star in Mark Trumbo.&#160; No one is going to Seattle.&#160; Washington seems to have the money and the<br \/>\nability to make a big free agent signing this off-season, and may actually be<br \/>\nan up and coming team, but I just can&#8217;t see either player in a Nationals<br \/>\nuniform.&#160; Mets don&#8217;t have the money to<br \/>\nsign Jose Reyes.&#160; Apparently the Cubs<br \/>\nhave decided they won&#8217;t bid on either player.<br \/>\nThe Dodgers certainly have the need, but that ownership is a mess.&#160; Perhaps the Yanks will get involved, but what<br \/>\ndoes that mean for Jesus Montero or maybe the Red Sox don&#8217;t re-sign David Ortiz<br \/>\nopening up the DH slot, should be an interesting free agent market for both<br \/>\nplayers.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Have to wonder if CJ Wilson played himself out of<br \/>\na huge big money contract with his subpar performance in the playoffs.&#160; Have to wonder if the Yankees will back out<br \/>\nof giving another big money deal to a pitcher.<br \/>\nThey still have to give CC Sabathia some kind of extension after he opts<br \/>\nout, and there has to be some concern that he will break down before that<br \/>\ncontract ends, do they really want to give big money to Wilson when his<br \/>\nperformance in big games is in question and either way he is not a true number<br \/>\none, someone will give him a nice pay day, have a feeling it&#8217;s back in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Phillies decided not to pick up the option for<br \/>\neither Roy Oswalt or Brad Lidge.&#160; Not<br \/>\nreally a shock as Philly might want to cut some payroll.&#160; Lidge is not the same pitcher he was, doesn&#8217;t<br \/>\nseem to have fully recovered from the arm injury he suffered last season and<br \/>\nOswalt just wasn&#8217;t all that effective.<br \/>\nOswalt has stated a few times that he has no interest in pitching in the<br \/>\nAL which will limit his suitors as well, especially if he wants a multi-year<br \/>\ndeal.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After the World Series is over, it will be another<br \/>\nlong cold winter.&#160; Spring training can&#8217;t<br \/>\ncome soon enough.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2011 World Series has certainly been memorable.&#160; Whether it&#8217;s Albert Pujols hitting three HRs in a single game or phone gate when Tony LaRussa couldn&#8217;t get Jason Motte warmed up in the bullpen during Game 5, not like we&#8217;re going to forget this series anytime soon.&#160; Let&#8217;s see what else is going on throughout [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":785,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13522,9],"tags":[796,3252,17026,589,222,506,13419,17023,9973,3167,11499,1985,17025,5159,3064,1445,207,100,6531,17024],"class_list":["post-18025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clearing-the-bases-fantasy","category-general","tag-albert-pujols","tag-alex-rios","tag-balti","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-bullpen","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-clearing-the-bases","tag-exact-compensation","tag-foregone-conclusion","tag-john-lackey","tag-national-league-central","tag-prince-fielder","tag-smear-campaign","tag-theo-epstein","tag-tommy-john","tag-tommy-john-surgery","tag-tony-larussa","tag-vernon-wells","tag-yanks","tag-yes-man"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/785"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}