7:05 PM, FSNP, WPGB
Livan Hernandez (11-10, 4.85) vs. Matt Morris (9-11, 5.02). Here's a pitching matchup I wouldn't pay to see. Here's the box.
-P- Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro expects that Neal Huntington will take some folks from the Indians organization with him to Pittsburgh.
-P- I'm sure you saw the tape of Milton Bradley getting injured while Bud Black appeared to be preventing him from going all Randy Couture on an umpire. Well, Bradley has said that he was just going to talk to the guy, and it turns out the umpire must've really said something to provoke him:
Winters was suspended because the commissioner's office concluded he had used a profanity aimed at Bradley, a baseball official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the reasoning for the suspension was not announced.
-P- Poor Dodgers - they're really setting themselves up to be a mess next year. First, they hired a GM who loves his veterans the way Andy Samberg loves cupcakes, even though they had one of the best cores of young talent in baseball. Then, Jeff Kent took to the press to bash the young players for not being professional enough, even though the performance of youngsters like James Loney, Matt Kemp, Russell Martin, Jonathan Broxton and Chad Billingsley indicates that they're very much part of the solution, not the problem. Then, LA Times columnist and moron emeritus Bill Plaschke chimed in to basically agree with Kent and report that the Dodgers could trade Kemp, a budding superstar. (And by the way, I agree with Vlad - Kemp is exactly the sort of player the Pirates should pursue.)
Anyway, the point of all this is that it's a tough time to be a Dodgers fan, as Andrew points out:
When the Dodgers were in first, this seemed like a totally reasonable plan. Now that the team has imploded and Jeff Kent has turned into Jefferson Davis, I don't know what to think. There's no way the media will let the Dodgers do nothing after finishing in fourth place this year, and there's nothing that's shown me that McCourt won't do exactly what they tell him to do. Once the World Series ends, I'll spend the next three months hoping the Dodgers stay out of the headlines. I want the biggest news off the off season to be that Mike Sweeney signed for $750,000. No, I can't have that now, I have to spend the winter scared that we're bringing in Torii Hunter and Mike Lowell while Kemp and LaRoche are traded for Jarrod Washburn to bring in both veteran savvy and post season experience.
That's exactly what I'd be worried about if I were a Dodgers fan. Plaschke's a complete idiot, and he matters, as owner Frank McCourt showed when he basically let Plaschke run former GM Paul DePodesta out of town after less than two years on the job. Andrew's right - the Dodgers probably shouldn't do a whole lot this offseason, but there's no way they won't be active. Don't be surprised if Kemp or Andy LaRoche or even Loney aren't in the lineup next year.
UPDATE: This (via Primer) is one honkingly huge rumor - one news outlet reports that Kemp and top pitching prospect Clayton Kershaw could be headed to the Twins for Johan Santana. That doesn't sound very likely to me, but it's entertaining.