You've heard it over and over, especially come playoff time: "It's not about the money."

Detroit Tigers slugger and two-time MVP Miguel Cabrera might actually be backing up those words.

Cabrera was sitting at his locker before the Tigers' workout Wednesday in Baltimore when Max Scherzer came by with a clipboard containing the sheets players must sign to receive their shares of the post-season playoff pool. That's money, real cash money.

"I'm not signing anything," Cabrera told Scherzer. Teammate Victor Martinez, who had just signed, looked quizzically. Scherzer tried to explain.

Cabrera was adamant with his refusal, at least for now. He could go back later and sign across the dotted line.

OK, when you're Miguel Cabrera and you've already made more than $138 million playing baseball and have at least $262 million remaining on your contract, maybe this is small change.

A full share for winning the World Series for Boston Red Sox players last year was worth $307,000.

Martinez and Cabrera continued the discussion in Spanish, with Cabrera finally saying, "I just want the ring."

Meanwhile, Scherzer shrugged and walked away.

"OK, more for us," he said.

And not just the players. The players on the 25-man roster for the season vote on how to divide playoff shares, and smaller portions are typically given to support staff such as clubhouse personnel, traveling secretaries and the like - employees who could certainly benefit from Cabrera's apparent generosity.

File this under "I knew there was something about that guy I didn't like" -

MLB
Derek Jeter hosted a Twitter Q&A and revealed he's scared of cats

With all of the "small ball" talk that came ou of last nights game, I thought this was a pretty clever find. It just proves that Ned Yost has been a big bunting fan, from way back...

Some interesting stats/facts from the 2014 season.

— Victor Martinez finished second in the majors in all three slash-line categories. He hit .335, six points behind American League batting champion Jose Altuve. Martinez’s .409 on-base percentage led the American League, and was one point below Andrew McCutchen’s figure. In slugging percentage, Martinez’s .565 mark was 16 points worse than Jose Abreu. Martinez did, however, lead the majors in OPS at .974.

— This was the second time in three years that nobody had an OPS of 1.000 or better (Chris Davis and Miguel Cabrera did it last year). The last time this happened was 1986 and 1988, sandwiching the 1987 season in which Wade Boggs, Jack Clark and Paul Molitor all OPS’d over 1.000. The National League has gone without a 1.000 OPSer since Albert Pujols and Joey Votto in 2010. The last four-year run without a 1.000 OPS in the Senior Circuit was a five-year drought from 1982-86.

— Five pitchers (Clayton Kershaw, Corey Kluber, Chris Sale, Max Scherzer, and Stephen Strasburg) struck out 10 or more batters per nine innings, matching the record set by David Cone, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Hideo Nomo and Curt Schilling in 1997, and matched in 2004 by Johnson, Oliver Perez, Johan Santana, Jason Schmidt and Ben Sheets.

— Pirates outfielder Starling Marte was thrown out at home plate six times, Brewers outfielder Carlos Gomez was thrown out at third base six times, and Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig was thrown out at second base six times. All of those totals led the majors, with Puig tied with Kyle Seager. Why isn’t there any narrative about how Kyle Seager doesn’t play the game the right way?

— Major league strikeout leader Ryan Howard and Phillies outfielder Marlon Byrd became the first pair of teammates to each strike out 185 times in a single season. Howard fanned an extra five times to take the crown.

— The Rockies’ Michael Cuddyer had the major leagues’ only cycle of the season, on August 17 against the Reds. There were nine players, though, who did better than a cycle, with four extra-base hits in a game: J.P. Arencibia, Charlie Blackmon, Lonnie Chisenhall, Corey Dickerson, Paul Goldschmidt, Brock Holt, Yasiel Puig, Brian Roberts, and Kyle Seager. There were 204 games in which a player was a triple short of the cycle.

— Reds rookie Billy Hamilton stole 56 bases, but was caught 23 times, the most in the majors since Scott Podsednik stole 59 and was caught 23 times for the 2005 White Sox.

— Phil Hughes had an 11.63 strikeout-to-walk ratio for the Twins, a new major league record. The previous mark belonged to Bret Saberhagen, at 11.00 in 1994, when he pitched 32 fewer innings than Hughes did. For a non-strike season, the record belonged to Cliff Lee in 2010, at 10.28. The Twins’ team record had belonged to Carlos Silva, at 7.89 in 2005. It should not come as a surprise that Hughes’ 73.1 percent strike rate was the highest in the major leagues. David Price and Jordan Zimmermann were each at 69.8%. Hughes also gave up 22 hits on 0-2 counts, the most in the majors.

— Four players – Alcides Escobar, Freddie Freeman, Evan Longoria, and Hunter Pence – played all 162 games. No player has appeared in 163 games since Justin Morneau did it for the 2008 Twins.

— A.J. Burnett finished the season with a major league-high 96 walks, the fourth time in five years that nobody has walked 100 batters. The last time that happened was 1871-81, when far fewer games were played per season. Burnett went to 67 3-0 counts this season, 17 more than Sonny Gray, who had the next most. Burnett is now the active leader with 1,051 career walks. At the end of last year, it was Ryan Dempster. The year before that, Jamie Moyer. The year before that, Tim Wakefield. Will there be another new active leader at the end of next year? That’s up to Burnett.

— Dee Gordon led the majors with 62 infield hits. Nobody else had more than 40, the total for Gordon’s teammate, Yasiel Puig.

— David Price became the first player to lead the American League in strikeouts in a season in which he was traded since Bert Blyleven went from the Indians to the Twins in 1985. He’s the first player ever to lead the majors in strikeouts during a season in which he changed teams unless you count Hugh Daily striking out 483 batters for the Chicago/Pittsburgh outfit of the Union Association and the UA’s Washington Nationals in 1884. Old Hoss Radbourn led the National League with 441 strikeouts for the Providence Grays, who played their postseason proto-World Series against the champions of the American Association, the New York Metropolitans.

— Yankees outfielder and Hank Aaron Award nominee Brett Gardner, Cardinals pitcher Shelby Miller, and Indians infielder Jose Ramirez shared the major league lead with 13 sacrifice bunts. That is the lowest total to lead the majors ever, including strike-shortened seasons. It also was the first season since 1898 in which no active player had 100 career sacrifice bunts. Derek Jeter retired with 97, meaning the new active leader is Elvis Andrus with 87.

— Rockies catchers threw out 16 would-be base stealers this season. Rockies pitchers scored 15 runs this season.

— Giants ace Madison Bumgarner hit two grand slams in six plate appearances with the bases loaded. Derek Jeter retired with one grand slam in 308 career plate appearances with the bases loaded.

— Brewers right-hander Marco Estrada led the majors with 29 home runs allowed, making this the first time since 1981 that no major league pitcher served up 30 gopherballs, and the first time in a non-strike season since 1976, when Gary Nolan and Catfish Hunter each gave up 28.

— The San Diego Padres finished last in the majors in all three slash-line categories, at .226/.292/.342. For perspective, Adam Rosales has a career line of .226/.294/.342. The Padres, as a team in 2014, were just a couple of on-base percentage points short of matching the performance of a player who was claimed on waivers three times in two weeks in 2013.

— The Padres did do better than the average hitter facing Clayton Kershaw: .196/.231/.289, but worse than the average hitter facing Cole Hamles: .235/.296/.345.

— Curtis Granderson swung at a 3-0 pitch 13 times. He got two singles, two doubles, and two home runs on those 3-0 pitches.

— This year’s Three True Outcomes leaderboard (percentage of plate appearances that were walks, strikeouts, or home runs) …

Chris Davis, Orioles: 49.33

Adam Dunn, White Sox/A’s: 49.32

Chris Carter, Astros: 48.08

Giancarlo Stanton, Marlins: 47.18

Ryan Howard, Phillies: 43.21

Mike Trout, Angels: 42.98

Brandon Moss, A’s: 42.24

B.J. Upton, Braves: 41.58

Justin Upton, Braves: 40.56

Carlos Santana, Indians: 40.00

— And here are the lowest Three True Outcomes rates, from those pesky put-the-ball-in-play types…

Ben Revere, Phillies: 10.22

Jose Altuve, Astros: 13.58

Erick Aybar, Angels: 16.36

Kurt Suzuki, Twins: 16.50

Nori Aoki, Royals: 16.94

Andrelton Simmons, Braves: 17.19

Ian Kinsler, Tigers: 17.22

Alcides Escobar, Royals: 17.58

Denard Span, Nationals: 17.96

Alexei Ramirez, White Sox: 18.26

— Mike Trout saw the most pitches of any hitter in baseball this year, standing in the box for 3,136 offerings from opposing pitchers. This means that if you saw only one pitch this year, there is a 0.44 percent chance that you saw a pitch to Trout. There is a 0.00014 percent chance that you saw a pitch to Brian Schlitter. Make that the pitch to Brian Schlitter. On June 1 in Milwaukee, the Cubs reliever got his only plate appearance of the season, and singled to center field on the first and only pitch he saw from Kyle Lohse. Yankees reliever Preston Claiborne also saw one pitch this year, and got down a sacrifice bunt — in the 13th inning of a game at Wrigley Field. Schlitter had pitched the eighth.

— The oldest player in the majors this year was Jason Giambi. The youngest was Dilson Herrera, also the lightest player in the majors, in a tie with Alexi Amarista, Miguel Rojas and Luis Sardinas, each listed at 150 pounds, less than half of Jumbo Diaz’s 315. The shortest were Amarista and Jose Altuve. The tallest was Chris Young, the pitcher. The longest-serving player was LaTroy Hawkins, who debuted on April 29, 1995, one of three players who debuted that season to be active in 2014, along with Giambi and Derek Jeter.

— Mets relievers allowed only 19.5% of inherited runners to score, the lowest rate in the major leagues. Daisuke Matsuzaka stranded all nine runners he inherited, and Jose Valverde was 7-for-7. The most runners stranded without letting an inherited runner score? Mike Adams of the Phillies and Grant Balfour of the Rays each went 12-for-12. The worst? Tom Gorzelanny let all five of his inherited runners score for the Brewers.

— Henderson Alvarez pitched a no-hitter on the last day of the 2013 season, and was the losing pitcher for Jordan Zimmermann’s no-hitter on the last day of the 2014 season. Alavarez’s no-hitter ended on a walkoff wild pitch. Zimmermann’s ended on a diving catch by Stephen Souza. Tickets are not yet on sale for the Marlins at Phillies game next October 4, but think about buying some

Talk of Billy Beane’s legacy surfaces a lot these days. It’s picked apart, debated and examined at all ends of the baseball world, and it’s usually a very simple equation. It goes something like this:

Win a Division Series, it’s intact. Win a World Series, it’s cemented. Lose a wild-card game, it’s mud.

It might be a premature way of deciding what a 52-year-old will be remembered for, someone who not only has a contract through 2019 as A’s general manager but owns part of the team.

But that’s the price of messing with a good thing.

Which, in retrospect, wasn’t that good, Beane says now.

“Simply put,” he said Wednesday in manager Bob Melvin’s Coliseum office, “if we don’t have Jon Lester, I don’t think we make the playoffs.”

As bold a statement as the Yoenis Céspedes-for-Lester trade itself.

The 2014 A’s season went down in flames Tuesday night in Kansas City, and Beane was left to explain a day later what went wrong. A team that went from dominant to docile at about the time Beane traded Céspedes to Boston lost 9-8 in a painful season-ending wild-card game.

“One thing I’m going to say right now,” Beane said amid a round of questions on the Céspedes-for-Lester trade, “the Angels were going to catch us. They played nearly .700 ball from a certain point on.”

Indeed, Beane had warned about the Angels in conference calls following his Fourth of July trade for starters Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel from the Cubs and July 31 deal for Lester. He had denied the deals were about finally escaping the first round and getting deep into the playoffs, saying they were about winning the division.

But no way could he have imagined the A’s finishing the season 16-30 — or all the injuries and slumps — and he’d challenge anyone bringing up the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it argument, saying, “What I didn’t reveal (on the conference calls) is, I was also concerned about us. It’s not where you are, it’s where you’re headed.”

Beane saw the A’s were on the verge of breaking, and one of the examples he cited was Jesse Chavez, who was thrust into the rotation because of Jarrod Parker’s and A.J. Griffin’s Tommy John surgeries but wasn’t expected to last over the long haul after pitching extremely well early.

For the record, Melvin never imagined the Angels running away from the A’s, until it happened. Then again, that’s part of a manager’s DNA.

“I look at it differently. (Beane) is a big-picture guy. I’m grinding on the day,” said Melvin, who spoke with reporters after Beane’s session. “As poorly as we were playing and as well as they were playing, even when they passed us, I thought we’d be able to catch them again based on the games we had. I probably look at it differently than a wider perspective.”

In any event, Céspedes’ absence was felt throughout the clubhouse, players admitted Wednesday.

“You’re going to miss somebody like that no matter what,” Josh Reddick said while packing bags at his locker, “especially when you’re used to having him in there for so long protecting so many guys. He’s in a pretty good set-up over there in Boston right now. He should be happy. He’s hitting in front of or behind Big Papi (David Ortiz) and Mike Napoli.

“We definitely struggled with it for it a little while. It’s how you handle it. We just didn’t handle it the best we could. We couldn’t find the right person at the right time to fill in.”

Like Reddick, Jed Lowrie wouldn’t blame the A’s collapse on the Céspedes trade. But Lowrie did suggest the roster shuffling affected team chemistry.

“It’s the reality,” he said. “When you take a few guys out of the clubhouse and add a handful of new guys, as much as people don’t think it’s a big deal and we’re all professionals out here playing a game, there’s something to chemistry and having an identity as a team and an offense.”

That doesn’t register with Beane, who said, “I think production ultimately creates chemistry.”

Beane mortgaged 2015 to win big in 2014, not only dealing Céspedes but also promising shortstop Addison Russell. Now, the A’s will be in the market for a right-handed hitter (which they had in Céspedes) and, if they don’t re-sign Lowrie, a shortstop (which they would have had in Russell).

Beane’s shuffling was a huge gamble that can be seen as a detriment or a benefit. No one knows if the A’s would have performed better with Céspedes instead of Lester, who was by far the best starter the final two months. While he pitched his worst A’s game Tuesday, he also pitched into the eighth inning with a four-run lead.

This story won’t end. Nor will the talk of Beane’s legacy. He’s OK with that. He can feel proud about designing teams that reached the postseason three straight years with a relatively small payroll and a lot of turnover.

Beane said goodbye to Lester and other players, “half of them I won’t see again. It’s not like across the bay, where it’s, 'Hey, we’ll see you all the next five years.’ ”

With that, the interview ended. But not before the question of his legacy came up.

“My legacy,” he said, “is my kids. Truly.”

So here are the only game pieces that are actually very valuable. Don't trade these away:
•BROWN: Mediterranean Ave, odds 1 in 30 million wins $1,000.
•LIGHT BLUE: Vermont Ave, odds 1 in 40 million, wins $5,000.
•PINK: Virginia Ave, odds 1 in 200 million, wins $10,000
•ORANGE: Tennessee Ave, odds 1 in 602 million, wins Super Bowl tickets.
•RED: Kentucky Ave, odds 1 in 15 million, wins one of 40 plane tickets for two.
•YELLOW: Ventnor Ave, odds 1 in 300 million, wins $20,000
•GREEN: Pennsylvania Ave, odds 1 in 40 million, wins one of 15 Fiat cars.
•BLUE: Boardwalk, 1 in 602 million, wins $1,000,000 in $50,000 annual payments.
•RAILROADS: Short Line railroad, 1 in 150 million, wins a year's supply of gas.

So, if you find one of those pieces, you're actually special. If you find any other piece, it's basically worthless, unless you can find a guy with an actually valuable piece to sell it to.

guess not

royals dominate and the baseball thread dies

typical

GO ROYALS!!

That is all.







oh yeah...maybe its time for the former dodgers catcher to leave Anaheim and go help out the former yankees player

BigD, welcome back.

I'm not sure, but I think the word Belt is uttering here is "FINALLY!"

How you know you have co-workers that REALLY care......

Steven Souza Jr. saved Jordan Zimmermann's no-hitter on Sunday in the Washington Nationals' regular-season finale with a spectacular catch with two outs in the ninth inning against the Miami Marlins.

After the game. Zimmermann said, "Whatever he wants he can have. I'll buy him anything."

"I'll be looking for a Beemer in my garage," Souza said upon hearing the offer. "No, I'm not looking for anything at all. Just to make that catch is enough for me.


The question — and mystery — remains: Did Zimmermann, like any good pitcher, deliver?

On Friday before the NLDS opener against the San Francisco Giants, Zimmermann said he did give Souza a gift and told reporters to ask the outfielder what it was.

"A BMW," Souza answered dryly. "Yeah. No, really. It's getting shipped this winter."

Souza didn't say what model BMW it was and wasn't letting on any more before heading into the clubhouse.

Zach Britton just had a kid. Should be back for the start of the ALCS