The Departed

Ecbucs · Post by **Ecbucs** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 3:24 pm

Steve Pearce signs 2 year 12.5 million deal with blue jays.

BenM · Post by **BenM** » Mon Dec 05, 2016 6:59 pm

Melancon is reportedly headed to the Giants.

ETA Four years $62 million.

SpeedyG · Post by **SpeedyG** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 5:33 am

4F626F7E79687F3F3C0D0 wrote: Raji Davis should hold his head high. He played well and left his heart on the field last night. And to think we traded him to SF for Matt Morris...GM Littlefield's move no less. Matt Morris was a gamer as a Redbird and burnt the Bucs big time...When he came to Pittsburgh he was on his last legs. Littlefield was

one of the worst GM's ever for our beloved Buccos!
I don't think it's even close he's the worst one I remember the last 55 years.
Littlefield was so bad he was practically cartoonish. Sort of the Wile E. Coyote of GMs. Every move he made resulted in an Acme anvil dropping on his head.

This post prompted me to read Littlefield's Wikipedia page.

Guy was a complete conundrum. Every good move he made (Walker, McCutchen, Bay) was cancelled out by a completely ridiculous move (Bullington, Moskos, Rule 5).

fjk090852-7 · Post by **fjk090852-7** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 4:02 pm

Locke is signing with the Marlins. Now he along with Volquez will be joined with Jim Benedict. I will be anxious to see if especially Locke improves after being reunited with Benedict.

fjk090852-7 · Post by **fjk090852-7** » Mon Dec 12, 2016 11:27 pm

Erik Fryer has signed a minor league contract with the Cardinals.

Ecbucs · Post by **Ecbucs** » Tue Dec 20, 2016 4:47 pm

Pirates released David Whitehead (acquired for Charlie Morton).

ArnoldRothstein · Post by **ArnoldRothstein** » Mon Dec 26, 2016 5:46 pm

For anyone who doesn't follow the Hall of fame vote, Barry Bonds (and his conjoined twin Roger Clemens) might be starting to make some progress toward Cooperstown. Since they debuted on the ballot in 2013, Bonds and Clemens have been stalled at around 200 votes. Their percentage of the vote jumped from the mid-30s to mid-40s last year, but that was because the Hall purged a lot of voters from the rolls.

This website tracks votes as baseball writers reveal their ballots in their columns:

https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?res ... 5P1f92OW8o

(Note that you have to copy and paste that link. The whole thing isn't pasting in live above.)

Balloting ends at the end of this week, results are due in mid-January. Bonds and Clemens have been named on 77 of the 110 ballots revealed so far. That 70% is way above where they've ever been before. They'd only need about 40% of the remaining ballots to match previous years. One caveat: the final vote for most players ends up lower than the votes that were made public. That only amounted to about 6% for Bonds and Clemens last year, though, so they could very easily end up with 60% of the vote this year, which would mean they closed 1/2 of their gap to the Hall in a single election.

The best guess out there seems to be that Bud Selig's selection earlier this month may have led some voters to conclude that if the commissioner of the PED era is inducted, then the players shouldn't be boycotted.

Early results indicate that Bagwell and Raines are very strong candidates this year, that Ivan Rodriguez has a good shot, and that Vlad Guerrero and Trevor Hoffman are still interesting possibilities.

dogknot17@yahoo.co · Post by **dogknot17@yahoo.co** » Tue Dec 27, 2016 12:50 am

All those guys you listed deserve it in my opinion. Bonds, especially.

DemDog · Post by **DemDog** » Tue Dec 27, 2016 10:02 pm

Ross Ohlendorf signs with Swallows

Good for Ross!

BenM · Post by **BenM** » Wed Dec 28, 2016 2:43 pm

I'm kind of surprised he chose Japan instead of starting his seemingly inevitable front office career.