Some interesting stuff out there today, although I'm not sure how much of it I really care to read:
Cubs acquire lefties Grabow, Gorzelanny | MLB.com: News
Dave Littlefield, who's now a scout for the Cubs, watched Tom Gorzelanny and feels that Gorzo is "back on the path" to being a successful starting pitcher. Which, naturally, means that Gorzelanny will never pitch in the big leagues again. It's simply stunning that the Cubs are using Littlefield to defend this move. Of course the move is defensible for them on a couple of different grounds, but Dave Littlefield's opinion of Gorzelanny isn't one of them.
Tabata will be promoted to Indianapolis, Alvarez will finish year with Altoona - PBC Blog - post-gazette.com
After a strong July at Altoona, Jose Tabata has been promoted to Indianapolis, where he'll get a taste of Class AAA baseball before the season ends.
Burnett: Pirates the 'laughingstock of baseball'
Washington Nationals reliever Sean Burnett, who, incidentally, plays for the Washington Nationals, called the Pirates the "laughingstock of baseball." Incidentally, he then went back to pitching for the Washington Nationals.
Waiting game: For loyal Pirates fans, the present never comes
The Post-Gazette's editorial board writes that although a lot of the players the Bucs have traded actually stunk, and a lot of the talent they got back is quite good, these moves were still about payroll. The P-G's editorial board has written this piece before, and I've responded to it before, and it can't be good for either of us to be repeating ourselves like this, but the amount of love people suddenly have for these 67-win teams is kind of amazing.
The P-G actually suggests here that, in June 2008, the Pirates should have complemented their "proven stars," most of whom were not actually stars and would have become free agents after 2009, with "impact players." The distance from reality here is simply incredible. Although I'm not opposed to the Pirates signing big-name free agents if they can somehow lure good players to Pittsburgh without committing to long-term contracts or blocking promising youngsters or losing their nerve about the rebuilding process, it's ridiculously hard for bad teams to sign "impact players," and the Pirates in 2008 didn't have the prospects to trade for them, either--not that they should have been trading prospects in any case. It's also highly unlikely that the Pirates could have gotten most of their existing players to stick around beyond 2009. Not even the Boston Red Sox have been successful so far in signing Jason Bay to an extension. The P-G's plan is, frankly, an absurd fantasy that would have devastating effects for the franchise, ruin the Bucs for 2011 and beyond, while probably not making them much better in any year except 2009. Whatever Bob Nutting's motivations right be, he's taking his best chance to produce a winner here.
Anybody have an opinion about whether I should continue linking these? It blows my mind that the baseball coverage in the Post-Gazette can be so good and the baseball opinion pieces can be so stupid. Right now I feel like the P-G is too big to just ignore, but every time they publish one of these ham-handed pieces they seem a bit more like a tabloid to me.
There's lots of ugliness out there today, clearly, not only from the Nationals' clubhouse and from the Post-Gazette, but here in the comments and FanPosts as well. People are entitled to their opinions, of course, but it's tricky when we suddenly have a lot of new readers who have never commented at all, and then put up FanPosts that are just "I'M DONE WITH THIS TEAM" rants. I'm not going to take these down unless people are obviously trolling or spamming or doing something inappropriate (and we've had a couple of those in the past 24 hours). And it's tough to even get rid of those when I check BD in the morning and they have 30 comments that people have taken time to think about.
So here's my advice. If you see a FanPost you like, click the "recommend" button. If several people do that, it'll go into a special section above the regular FanPosts called Recommended Fanposts. That way, people will know it's quality. Of course, sometimes I also promote FanPosts to the front page, but it's not always possible to do that with all the ones I like, usually because they're not formatted properly or I already have a post on a similar topic. So in the meantime, you'll be doing fellow BD readers a favor by using the "recommend" feature.