MLB Big Names Moving

The past couple weeks in the major leagues has been crazy.  Between big name free agents making surprise choices, small market teams going big, and bids on impending international free agents, the hot stove has definitely been burning.  

Striking first in the big free agent market were the newly named Miami Marlins.  The Marlins stated early in he offseason that Jose Reyes would be their top target once free agency began.  They didn’t hesitate.  At 12:01 AM, on the opening of free agency, the Marlins met with Reyes and offered him a 6-year deal.  Details on the offer weren’t known until the deal was signed and Reyes was happy to get his 6-year, $106 million deal.  

The Marlins didn’t stop with Reyes.  Soon after visiting Reyes, they also courted Albert Pujols, Mark Buehrle and C.J. Wilson.  Although the Fish didn’t stay in the running for Pujols very long, they did make an offer.  Just hours after signing and announcing the deal with Jose Reyes, the Marlins came to an agreement with Mark Buehrle.  Buerhle’s deal is 4 years and worth $58 million.

Along with Reyes and Beuhrle, the Marlins also locked up closer Heath Bell to a three year deal to replace the closer formerly known as Leo Nunez.

After making two huge free agent signing and undoubtedly shaking off the “small market” label, the Marlins are showing that along with a new stadium, they’re ready to do what it takes to compete and win in the tightly contested NL East.

Another team who always seemed to fly under the radar until this offseason, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, joined the Marlins in going big.  Easily the biggest offseason in my opinion, the Angels picked up both Pujols and Wilson.  L.A. is the best fit for Pujols.  As good as he is in the field, he is already 32 and was demanding a 10-year contract.  Very few players can stay in the field into their 40s, even if you’re a first basemen.  By going to an AL team, Pujols will probably continue his high production later on in the contract by having the availability to DH when needed.  

C.J. Wilson joins an already great pitching staff in L.A.  While the Angels are paying him ace-like money, he’s still only the 3rd best pitcher on the staff, and probably has second to worst stuff.  Both Dan Haren and Jered Weaver have proven to be better pitchers.  Ervin Santana has some of the best stuff in he league, and if he could get his control figured out, and be more consistent, he would be a force to be reckoned with.  

With these additions, the Angels and Rangers are definitely going to have to battle it out down the stretch to take home the AL West title.

With the Rangers losing C.J. Wilson, rather than looking to replace him with another top starter, it appears they’re attempting to catch lightning in a bottle twice.  With the first hand experience of converting a late inning reliever into a starter with Wilson, the Rangers appear to be set up to move Neftali Feliz to a starter role with their signing of Joe Nathan.  Although with pitching coach Mike Maddux leaving Texas for Chicago, this task might be tougher than with Wilson.

The Marlins weren’t the only NL team to make some big moves this offseason.  The Brewers have also made some big signings in Alex Gonzalez and Aramis Ramirez.  Ramirez was the biggest available 3B free agent.

The last big name free agent still available is Prince Fielder.  Though the Cardinals lost their slugger in Pujols, they have stated they will not bid on Fielder.  While there only seems to be a few teams who can afford the 1B, my prediction is that the Cubs will be the team paying Fielder for the next few years.  

While the Tigers have been relatively quiet so far this offseason, expect things to start to heat up.  While the bidding for the Japanese star, Yu Darvish has come to and end, and the Tigs haven’t been named as one of the teams to make a serious bid, it seems as though the Blue Jays and Rangers have made the highest bids and winner should be known soon. 

The final big international posting to come is Yoenis Cespedes.  The Tigers have been mentioned as possible suitors for the Cuban star and we’ll find out soon how serious they are when he is posted as a free agent.  

Some moves the Tigers did make were to bring back Ramon Santiago and former Tigers Gerald Laird.  Detroit also added Octavio Dotel to the back end of the bullpen, all but eliminating the likelihood of Zumaya returning to the motor city.

Be sure to comment with any opinions or suggestions!

Red Hot Wings

What else can you say? The Wings are on an absolute roll.  They’re 8-2-0 in their last ten games, and after last night, trail the division leading Blackhawks by only one point with one game in hand.  

Franzen and Filpulla have stayed hot since the Wings came off their early season slide, but over the last 14 games, Datsyuk has been on fire.  After his goal last night, the Russian magician now has 21 points in his last 14 games.  Jimmy Howard also had a great night with 25 saves and only allowing one goal, on a superb shot by Evgeni Malkin.  

Over the last month, the Wings have taken down some of the top teams in the league, including Pittsburgh, Dallas, and Boston.  Nay-sayers will note that the Penguins didn’t have Letang or Crosby in the lineup due to concussions.  They’ll also point out that Boston played Tuukka Rask, not Tim Thomas.  If you look at the stats, they’re just about even, although Rask has played fewer games, when he’s been called on, he’s only lost 4 times in regulation with a 1.83 GAA.

Letang was definitely missed, especially with how hot the Wings’ offense has been of late.  However, you can’t say simply because this person or that person was out of the lineup that the outcome of the game would have been significantly different.  After 15+ years of playing hockey, I understand that one player can make a huge difference just by being in the lineup, but at elite levels, it’s always going to come down to the team rather than one individual.

The most telling stat in my opinion for the Wings is their goal differential, which currently stands at +30.  The Wings are only second in this statistic to the Northeast leading Boston Bruins.  This stat clearly shows how much the Wings have turned around their defensive woes from last year.  It also shows how much the offense has picked up over the last month.  Over the past 30 days, the Wings have only failed to score four or more goals four times.  

The rest of the month holds some pretty big challenges for Detroit.  A four game, western Canada road trip over christmas starts the 19th in Edmonton and ends on the 26th in Nashville, with Vancouver and Calgary in between.  Finally, on the 30th the Wings head to Chicago to take on the hated Blackhawks for the first time this season.

Please comment and share whatever feelings you have a about he Red Wings or anything else going on in the sports world!

Real-alingment?

With the Board of Governors meeting come and gone, and their decision to ratify the realignment plan for the 2012-2013 season, I wonder if this plan will create more problems than solutions.

Although I agree that a realignment was definitely necessary, I just don’t think essentially separating the league into 4 conferences by position on a map is the best way to go about it.  Obviously geography plays a big role when it comes to conferences, and it’s the reason realignment is necessary to begin with.  However, just because Nashville and Winnipeg fall between the allotted longitudinal lines doesn’t mean they should be in the same conference and be forced to make that flight three or four times a year.  

One of the Eastern conferences is just confusing.  Although Florida and Tampa Bay may not be in the top 10 for average attendance, how does it make sense to group them with five teams from the northeast?  Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto all make sense to put in a conference, but the addition of the Florida teams is just rediculous. In the other eastern conference, it’s the exact opposite.  All the teams in the conference have connected states with the exception of the Hurricanes.  

Beyond the conferences themselves, this addition of divisional playoffs just doesn’t make sense to me.  I understand the idea of creating rivalries and really drawing fans to that hatred when it’s all on the line.  But every conference is going to suffer from this, because the new conference system basically pits the same two teams against each other every year.  

In the “west/northwest” division, San Jose and Vancouver, with the possibility of the Kings, will more than likely play each other every year for the next 4-5 years.  Great for that “rivalry” but what about the other 6 teams in the league? In the “midwest” conference, same story, Detroit and Chicago are obvious choices, although Minnesota has really shown the entire league something this year with their recent hot streak.  In the East division with Boston, they are the obvious pick to win that division for the next five years.  In the final Eastern conference, Pittsburgh and Washington will likely battle throughout the regular season and again in the new playoff system.  

Again, I understand the idea of “divisional playoffs”, that by doing so you create and fuel rivalries by teams geographically close together.  However, I think by doing this you take away from that playoff atmosphere you can get from teams across the country.  Anaheim and Detroit played almost every year in the first round in the early 2000s. It seem like every year they played 10 games worth of periods every series in which they met.  Not saying I like the idea of the Wings going to the west coast every three days during a series, but those games will always stand out in my mind, and they stand out because Anaheim was a team you didn’t see very often during the regular season.

I’m not saying my proposal for realignment was perfect.  It was far from it.  I similarly screwed the teams from Florida as far as travel went, but with my idea there was only so much you could do with them.  I think geographic clusters of teams seems like a better idea than seemingly drawing arbitrary vertical lines on a map and saying “you fit here, you fit there”.  

My biggest complaint comes with the new playoff system.  In my proposal I would’ve liked to have seen the top two teams from each conference automatically be the top eight seeds broken up into two brackets.  The remaining eight teams would be made up from the next best eight records.  No restrictions to conferences.  Simply put, the best 16 teams get in, unlike the current system which involves four teams from the eastern conference which wouldn’t even be in the top 10 in the west.

Feel free to let me know what you think about the NHL’s realignment, mine, or what you would do different.

Where To Begin?

It has been brought to my attention that it has been almost a month since my last post.  For those who were hoping for one before now, I apologize.  Due to the long absence, there will be a new blog every day this week.

For today, we’ll do a short overview of what’s been going on over the last month, and later in the week we’ll go more in depth on some of the topics from today, and further in depth on more original topics.  

First: Detroit sports

The Red Wings have been on an absolute tear over the last month.  Winning 9 of 13 including a season long seven game win streak.  It looks as though Babcock’s line shake up is exactly what the team needed.  The offense, defense, and Jimmy Howard are clicking on all cylinders. 

Currently the Wings sit three points back of the Blackhawks in the Central Division with two games in hand, and six points back of the conference leading Wild.  With the way the Winged Wheel is rolling in Detroit, it looks like we can put those early season woes behind us and begin looking forward to the all-star break.  This means the up and ups can really take a look at what, if any, areas need to be improved upon prior to the trade deadline.  

The Tigers seem to be involved in more rumors than anything else this time of year, although they did make a few moves during the winter meetings last week.  

The Tigers signed veteran righty Octavio Dotel to a one years deal, with a team option for 2013.  Dotel will make $3 million next year and joins Benoit, Albuquerque, and Valverde at the back end of the bullpen.  The Tigers also traded their 21st overall pick from 2008, Ryan Perry, for Colin Balester from the Washington Nationals.  Though Perry had promising years and stuff in 2009 and 2010, 2011 was a struggle from start to finish which was marred by constant call ups and send downs.  

The Tigers also non-tendered Will Rhymes today.  Since Rhymes is not arbitration eligible and still under team control, unless a contract is figured out by spring training, Rhymes will earn the same contract he had this year.  

Detroit’s ball club has also been mentioned as possible landing spots for recently posted free agents, Yu Darvish, and soon to be posted, Yoenis Cespedes.  More on this particular topic to come later.

The Lions are 2-2 over the last month and now stand at 8-5 for the season.  Thanks to Chicago’s blunders, the Lions are clinging to the last spot in the current playoff picture.   

League news:

MLB

Lots of big moves took place last week during the winter meetings.  The Miami Marlins made the first splash by reeling in the top shortstop free agent in the past few years, Jose Reyes.

The biggest day any team had was last Thursday when the Angels signed both Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson.  With the Angels’ newest move, it will be interesting to see how the Rangers react in their attempt to win another AL West title.  

NHL

During the Board of Governors meeting last week, the NHL approved a new 4 conference realignment for the 2012-2013 season.  Although I did create my own proposal for realignment, the NHL did not take my advice and came up with their own.  There will be a post dedicated solely to this issue later this week.

Last little things:

Sidney Crosby returned from his concussion during my blog hiatus and came back with guns blazing.  However, after being hit hard in open ice last week, he has missed the Penguins’ last 2 games and has not practiced due to concussion like symptoms.  

The Suh stomping incident was handled correctly in my opinion and I fully support the league’s decision for the two game suspension.

Tiger Woods ended his two year winless drought with a victory at his tournament, The Chevron World Challenge.  Tiger seems to have once again been able to rework his swing and now seems comfortable with it and able to control it for an entire weekend.  

Both Manchester United and Manchester City were knocked out of the Champions League in the round of 32.

And yes, Tim Tebow has continued to shock and baffle sports fans everywhere by going 7-1 in his eight starts.  

Be sure to log on tomorrow and feel free to comment and share this with your friends, family and fellow sports lovers.