grilledcheese

My wife is nine months pregnant with our second, and we are pretty geeked about starting over with the new baby. Riley is 6, and he is super into being a big brother soon. Amanda is due 1/21, but she is of the idea that Wesley is going to be with us sooner than that. Her doc told her that she could start labor any time between Christmas day and the first week of February. That will be the last addition to our family, unless we meet an orphan with a heart of gold or something.

What a bunch of horseshit. I fucking hate national games because I get blacked out on MLB.TV. I have my internet set to show that I am in Austin, Texas so I can get around the local blackouts on LAD-SFG games (and avoid the homers that SFG employs as a broadcast crew) on LAD-SFG games, and then they end up on Sunday Night Baseball, totally ruining my plan.

Fuckin' A right he is. He was so goddamn nice to me on more than one occasion when I was hawking for signatures down by the player's entrance to the Coliseum. He said hello to me once, and Dave Parker was walking in behind him, and I told Hendu what a fan of Parker's that my dad was, and he turned right around and hollered at Parker and brought him over and introduced him to my Dad. Super fucking cool thing to do, and it gave me even more reason to root for him. Edit: Sorry about the double.

Now it looks like that could be the endgame unless they can rework the deal. I think a restructure for less $ makes more sense, but we shall see. Apparently, they are considering Leake as a potential backup plan to Iwakuma.

I like the move LAD made today, minus losing Peraza. I was curious to see what he would kind of a ballplayer he would become, now I will have to watch it happen somewhere else. Interesting that the word from LA says they see Montas as a starter, but I guess that shouldn't be too unbelievable, although there are holes to fill on both ends of the pitching staff. I also like the vote of confidence in Justin Turner at 3B by not going after Frazier. 600 less PA for Turner in the last two years, but Turner smokes his triple slash, and Frazier has the WAR advantage and the HR numbers. And it sounds ridiculous, but I dig that Turner always has a big dumb smile on his face. I like guys that enjoy their jobs. It always makes me think of Dave Henderson.

What do you want to be doing? If you have a dream, pursue that motherfucker!! I am also a pinball guy to cure my blues. I'm a pinball guy all the time, but play obsessively when I am down.

Pretty simple thing, I suppose. How did your fandom percolate? Baseball is a huge deal in my family. My Papa is born and raised in Brooklyn, and loved the Dodgers his entire young life. He raised the family as staunch supporters of the Bums. When they left, he was so heartbroken and lost that he didn't watch or listen to a ballgame until the Mets showed up in 62. What else was he going to do, root for the Yankees? Anyway, after my Dad got back from Vietnam, he moved out to LA and eventually met my Mother, who being from Los Angeles was also a huge Dodgers fan. They settled in San Jose, which is where I was raised and have dealt with a lifetime of being surrounded by fans of my greatest rival. I now live in West Sacramento, and am raising my son in a very similar fashion, both as a fan of the club, and one growing up in enemy territory. How about you folks? Was it because you were local, or did you love one particular player on a team thousands of miles away? The Braves on TBS? Dave Niehaus? Lyman Bostock? Please tell, I desperately want to know!

SFG did a good job of putting some arms behind Bumgarner. Weird about a 2 year opt out in Cueto's deal, but good move for Johnny if his elbow doesn't explode. Bumgarner, Cueto, Shark, Peavy, and if Cain is healthy him, otherwise Chris Heston? If I were into rooting for evil jerks in black and orange, I wouldn't be complaining. And still I wait for my beloved Boys in Blue to get more for the staff than Hisashi Iwakuma. April is still a long ways away. I can't fucking wait. Stupid winter.

David Hernandez to PHI on a one year deal, says Rosenthal. He was pretty good filling in for Putz in 2011 and 2012, faltered in 2013 and missed all of last year with the TJ surgery. Didn't look great when he came back this year, but the year off and having to readjust could be to blame.

My dad thinks the world of Dansby Swanson, he watched him in Hillsboro a handful of times this year, said he's a stud. Braves get a tremendous haul. AZ is supposed to be close on getting Mike Leake as well. They aren't fucking around.

Nor would I. And $20MM per would certainly qualify as "way overpaid". He's meeting with WAS today, so I would figure that he signs somewhere pretty quickly.

Rosenthal says that according to one of his sources, that is horseshit.

I just saw something on Twitter saying that LAD is the favorite for Fernandez should they be willing to part with Urias, Seager "and more". I don't think I could justify obliterating the top end of the farm for Fernandez. He would be a good get, but not at the cost of blowing up what is looking to be the beginnings of a return to the glory years for the Dodgers system.

How does this not come out until now? It happened in October!!

Everybody knows that Bryant was called up late for exactly that reason (not familiar with the other guy, can't comment on him). And obviously it was not done in good faith. Does that violate the CBA? I don't know. Given that it pretty clearly wasn't in good faith, I would think it does violate the contract. Wasn't Bryant called up like the day after the deadline or something? Bryant clocked 171 days of service time this year, falling one day short of a full year. Super fucking shady on the Cubs part, but they may be able to get around it by making the case that because Mike Olt was healthy, delaying Bryant was in the best interests of the club for reasons unrelated to service time and club control. Their rap at the time was that his glove needed work, and was the reason behind the demotion. I am not super familiar with PHI, but I think Franco is looked at as a big part of their youth movement going forward, and there was some weirdness where they optioned Cody Asche to AAA, but didn't recall Franco until a few days later. Someone with some more insight into that club would have to lay out the situation any further than that. Also, Bryant filed his grievance in April, so the kid knew he was being fucked right from the jump. Franco's came later on, but I didn't see it mentioned as to when it was done.

Kris Bryant and Maikel Franco file grievances in re: to the way their call-ups were handled to minimize service time so as to extend team control years. Rosenthal said on MLB Network that he doesn't see any reason to retract the statement he made about the Chapman deal being done, obviously CIN thinks otherwise. I wonder if AZ is one of the other teams in the mix, they were real high on trying to get him at the deadline.

Wow. Pretty weird that CIN wouldn't deal him at any price 4 months ago, now let him slide for less than anything other than absolute top end prospects. I'm seeing now that Peraza could be involved, so that's not a bad pick, especially if they are also looking to offload BP. Although, Phillips had a pretty good goddamn year in 2015 on both sides of the ball. With Chapman now finally spoken for, PHI should be able to get a pretty good haul for Giles, should they decide to pull the trigger on dealing him.

Straight ridiculous. no word on who the prospects are, only that it isn't Seager and Urias. My guess is Jose De Leon and maybe Cody Bellinger? Pretty easy to think that they will use them in matchup situations from night to night and alternate closing / setup roles. Who knows how well it will work out, but that leaky bullpen just improved more than a little bit. Also, Gabe Kapler was announced as their new 1B coach.

Has there been an announcement on $ for Iwakuma? Everywhere I have seen so far has only made mention of the years, not dollars. With Utley back in the fold, I suppose that means that they will let Kendrick walk away, and Peraza is the 2B of the future for now. The interest in Madson really surprises me, I get the feeling like there can't be much mileage left on that elbow. And to go from 850K to $7MM per is just insane.

Appear is an understatement, lots of good D on that club. Outfield is great, Goldy and Nick Ahmed are both damn good defenders, Aaron Hill can be close to brilliant at times. They need to solve their catching problem, but outside of that, they are a very solid defensive team. The pen needs help and if the young arms in the rotation live up to expectations, then they will do some damage in the West. And now Samardzija to SFG. I wonder now if Cueto falls to the Dodgers almost by default? Do they take a shot at Mike Leake?

I don't get it either. One arm, Paul Goldschmidt and AJ Pollock does not win you a division. Maybe Archie Bradley is the real deal, but we don't know yet. I am interested to see what Friedman and Zaidi get up to starting on Monday. Ryu probably won't be ready for Opening Day, and McCarthy won't be back until right near the break so the rotation is currently Kershaw, Alex Wood, Anderson and Mike Bolsinger. I have high hopes that Wood is the treasure that folks consider him to be. They just saved $200MM over 6 years, how do those dollars get spread around? Kenta Maeda might be an option, I suppose. As far as the farm, Jharel Cotton is probably MLB ready, but might have more value as a trade piece, Julio Urias isn't ready for the Bigs yet, is now the beginning of the era of Zach Lee? Decent handful of pitching on it's way to the Show soon, their schedules might have gotten accelerated a little bit.

It's being reported that Los Angeles is considering offering Greinke 6 @ $210MM. Holy fucking fuck that's a lot of cheddar.

Can they find takers for Hanley and Pablo? $190MM in contracts for absolute dogshit play. I don't know if Ramirez is saleable at this point, and do you really want to be saddled with Sandoval for another year of zero offense and rapidly declining defense in the hopes he can fill the hole left by Ortiz' retirement? All the talent in the world, and he just can't stay away from the buffet long enough to maximize it.

Career 16-2 with a 2.41 in 145 IP against the Jays, so you may not get that wish.

Rosenthal just tweeted that Price's record $$ by AAV might not last for long, he thinks Greinke deal is imminent. Figures it to be LAD or SFG. Not really informative, but interesting nonetheless.