The Adam Wainwright Conundrum
by SC

Minor tremors rumbled through Cardinals� fans World Series comfort zone late last week as the team announced that late season closer Adam Wainwright will remain in that role heading into spring training. He is staying as the club�s closer due to the hip injury (and subsequent surgery) to Jason Isringhausen suffered in the dog days of August.

Wainwright more than adequately filled the position of closer down the stretch, posting a September ERA of 2.79 in 9.2 innings. During that period, he owned a six-to-one K/BB ratio (12 strikeouts to two walks) in his ten appearances.
A snapshot of his regular season numbers (and the rest of the piece) are located after the jump.

More after the jump »

Interesting read from Gammons…second excerpt appears after the jump

NAPLES, Fla. — Of course, this means the Yankees don’t get Daisuke Matsuzaka, and there is no Mike Mussina, Jose Contreras and Alex Rodriguez redux.

But when the Red Sox posted a bid of $51.1M — according to the claims of the Seibu Lions officials — for the right to negotiate with Scott Boras for arguably the best pitcher outside of the U.S., it was far more complicated a decision than blocking the Yankees.

More after the jump »

The Giants, in the market for a center fielder, are moving along in discussions with Juan Pierre, the National League leader with 204 hits last season. The word in Naples is that Pierre could get a deal for three years and about $30 million — if not from San Francisco, then somebody else.

Other notes from the GM meetings in Naples�

NAPLES, Fla. — The Boston Red Sox emerged Tuesday night as winners of the bidding for Daisuke Matsuzaka with a $51.1 million offer and have 30 days to sign the Japanese pitcher to a contract.

Nicely done…�

According to Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and 1380 ESPN Radio, the Red Sox will sign FA outfielder J.D. Drew to a four year, $60MM deal…

Thinking out loud here — would the Sawx swing a deal for Dontrelle Willis with Coco Crisp as bait (if this rumor is true)?

Covelli Crisp of
1 year/$2.75M (2006)
3 years/$15.5M (2007-09), plus $8M 2010 club option

• signed extension 4/06
• $1M signing bonus
• 07:$3.5M, 08:$4.75M, 09:$5.75M, 10:$8M club option ($0.5M buyout)

I’ll update it soon should something be announced
– SC

SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Oakland Athletics unveiled grand plans Tuesday to move south and build a long-awaited, state-of-the-art stadium they hope will soon transform the small-market club into a big spender.

FOXBOROUGH, Mass (AP) - Vinny Testaverde, who came out of retirement last season to help out the New York Jets, was signed on Tuesday by New England.

He continues to comeback….over and over and over again

McNamee is a no-nonsense, no-frills fellow who works in baseball as a trainer and who has whipped a few pitching stars into shape, including Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte. He is well-known in the industry as the one who helped coax the last four Cy Young awards out of Clemens and kept Pettitte throwing when a sizable gap in his pitching elbow should have felled him by now. He is a work from sunrise-to-sunset kind of guy who spent two years as an undercover police officer, says he has a BS in Athletic Administration from St. John’s and a masters in Sports Medicine from Long Island University. But these days the workaholic is getting a little less work, though not by choice. His name recently appeared in a blockbuster steroids story and things just haven’t been the same since.

Heyman from CNNSI reports…

http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/story/6169006

The deal is reported to be worth $12M over that span…no word on the breakdown yet.

DeRosa would’ve been a nice fit for the Cardinals with his flexibility in playing multiple positions. Looks like Hendry is trying to keep to his word of keeping up with STL…

It’ll be interesting to see how he does w/out Jaramillo as his hitting coach…guy completely re-built his swing last season and helped DeRosa hit inside fastballs…

If DeRosa can sustain it, it’s a decent signing…dunno aboot the value of the deal changing the market that much, though…

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2661869

Brandon Webb of the Arizona DiamondBacks.

The breakdown of the voting is as follows:

One really can’t complain with the outcome of the award because not one of the top three distinguished themselves from the other.

Webb busted out of the gates with a 9-3 record with an impressive 2.65 ERA in the season’s first half, keeping the DiamondBacks in the NL West race till August.

After the All-Star break, however, Webb had a rather uneven second half, notching a 7-5 mark and a still impressive (but certainly not as dominating) 3.76 ERA and slipped back to the rest of the pack.

Overall, Webb threw an astounding 235 innings and ended the season with a 16-8 record, lowest win total for a Cy Young winner.

The second place winner, San Diego Padre closer Trevor Hoffman, had an historic season, setting the Major League Baseball all-time saves record of 482. During the season, Hoffman appeared in 63 innings and registered an 0-2 record and a sparkling 2.14 ERA.

Entrenched in third place was Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter, despite netting 16 second place votes. Carpenter, who led the majors with five complete games, was aiming to become the first back-to-back Cy Young Award winner since former Arizona DiamondBack (and current New York Yankee) Randy Johnson, who won the award in four consecutive years (1999-2002).

Carpenter finished the regular season with a 15-8 record and a 3.09 after a rough September.

For the record — award voting is completed at the end of the baseball season.

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In my opinion, I had it @ Hoffman, Webb and Carpenter. I thought Hoffman had a great season and was the key to the Friars getting into the playoffs. Like I mentioned above, there really wasn’t a clear-cut favorite this season — all three pitchers made a solid case for it, but there were quite a bit of blown opportunities by all three hurlers during the year to seperate themselves from the pack.

No qualms with the final outcome, though.