injury update 2/20/11

The trading deadline has passed, fatigue is setting in, the season is winding down and the injuries should be up - but they are not. Mexico City lost Darren Brooks for the season right after the last posting but other than that the injuries have been more short duration. The Rats dipped into the remaining free agents to pick up a bat to replace the 2 players on the 15 day DL (and to prevent further fatigue). Still the last 10 days have been eerily quiet. ?The quiet before the storm?

INJURY UPDATE - 2/11/11

Well, it has been 3 weeks since the last update and the players have not slackened the pace of injury - just the reporters have. Since it is now past the trade deadline finding replacements just gets harder. Going down: reliever Albert Perez who is a minor lose for Oakland but potentially terminal to Mr Perez career. New Orleans lost Jorge Feliz, a less than .5oo pitcher, until the September stretch. The Associates lost another pitcher on 2/1 for the rest of the season . Then on 2/2 Baltimore, Colorodo Springs, and Colorodo all had a pitcher bite the pines for most of the rest of the year. While none of these loses were of Cy Young quality they do hurt - particularly in the part of the schedule with little rest.

What the heck were they thinking?

Who wants a guy who hit 90 dingers and drove in 300 runs in the last 2 seasons? Thats what GM elgman was asking at the start of this season. The phone rings, elgman picks it up and who else but Syracuse GM yoijames is on the other end proclaiming he wants Clint Stern and what is it going to take? Simple says elgman, I want 2 young stud prospects. After a little back and forth the 2 teams decide on Darby Gant and Rob Gross. The deal is done and 3 possible superstars put their homes on the market and move their family's into rental homes and new school districts for their children. How will this turn out for the 2 franchises. Well the Grasshoppers have 2 players that will probably play in this seasons all star game and one of them is Stern. On the other hand Gant and Gross are throwing up huge numbers in AAA and should be making an impact in the bigs shortly. Another case of one club trying to win now and the other planning on winning later. With both clubs struggling below .500 ball with the all star game just around the corner it apears Syracuse's win now moves are not working. It will be a while before Charlotte's moves can be evaluated.

Wins = ALL-STARs (except in Pittsburg)

All-Stars: With only a few games left to the final selection of all-stars I thought I would look in and see how my favorite River Rats were doing. The answer was they weren't. Which made me wonder who was. Well, here is the run down for the the top teams in each League. The races are pretty tight in the NL with only 3 wins seperating team 2 from team 8.

Seattle with 54 wins - 6 all stars
Cleveland with 49 wins and 2 all-stars
Pittsburg 49 wins and 0 all-stars
New Britain - 48 wins - 5 all stars
Mexico City - 48 wins - 2 all stars
Chicago - 48 wins - 4 all stars
Austin - 46 wins - 3 all stars
St Louis - 46 wins - 5 all stars

So out of 30 all star slots 27 are from teams in the top 8 and 2 of the other 3 come from the NL east 2nd place grasshoppers (behind the River Rats who have no allstars?). Now I'm more confused than before.

In the AL the teams are more diverse with only 6 teams with winning records

Colorodo with 58 - 6 all stars
San Jaun with 54 - 7 all stars
Baltimore with 54 - 5 all stars
Los Vegas with 53 - 4 all stars
Nashville with 49 - 1 all star
Omaha with 45 - 1 all star

So in the AL these 6 teams have 24 of the 30 allstars - So it seems that if you want to win games you need to have all-stars - home grown or purchased - OR you need to have a team in Pittsburg