'Eye Spy' details first-hand Spring Training notes and observations from a fantasy baseball perspective.
After a long trip from Atlanta to Jupiter, Florida Wednesday night / Thursday morning, who could think of sleep when the Red Sox were playing the Cardinals? The game was sold out (all Red Sox and Yankees games are in Florida, I hear) but the nice scalper told me he'd do me a favor (he hates breaking up tickets for singles) and sell me a ticket for twice face value. Hmmmm. Josh Beckett was pitching, but the only other regulars were Jason Varitek and Jed Lowrie in the lineup on Friday. I opted to decline the nice man's offer and waited to head up to Tradition Field and see the Mets.
It's not a move on the scale of CC Sabathia or even Ray Durham, and who knows if it's going to bear any fruit. But the Brewers obviously think Jay Gibbons can provide a key at-bat or two in September because they've signed the exiled former outfielder away from the Atlantic League's Long Island Ducks to a minor league deal.
"He's a little rusty, self-admittedly rusty," Brewers assistant general manager Gord Ash said. "The idea is to get him some Minor League at-bats and then evaluate as we go along." (...)
"He was very straightforward about his situation off the field," said Ash, who was the Blue Jays' GM when that team drafted Gibbons in the 14th round in 1998. The Orioles snatched him away in the 2000 Rule 5 Draft.
"They sat down and basically interviewed him," Brewers GM Doug Melvin said. "Gord is familiar with him from Toronto, and [Gibbons] wants to get back and playing. I don't know exactly what his [off-the-field] issues were, but they were not enough to not give a guy a second chance. He's always been a good guy with a good work ethic."
Doug obviously never read that pesky Mitchell Report if he didn't know exactly what his off-the-field issues were. I mean, it was all there for you in print. But it's nice to see that Eric Gagne hasn't scared the Brewers away from players from that pesky report. Heck if I was the GM of the Brewers, Gagne might scare me away from signing pitchers altogether, Mitchell Report or no Mitchell Report.
Jay Gibbons is suddenly a sad story. I don't know why, exactly; he's always seemed like kind of a jerk, and he cheated, and those things typically result in one being vilified forever. (*Cough* Roger Clemens *cough*.) But here Gibbons is today, the subject of a semi-empathetic story in the Baltimore Sun about how much he wants to get back to the majors. It starts out just moderately sad. Then we learn the horrifying truth:
"It's a league of misfortune," said Everett, who had a 14-season career in the majors that includes a World Series ring and dustups with umpires, managers and the media. "A lot of times mistakes are made by whomever, whether it is the club on judgment or the player. If you are one of those players that they made a mistake on you, you are going to hope someone else sees you."
Ah! Carl Everett! Where did you come from, man? Have you been here the whole time? No kidding.
Poor Jay Gibbons: He just wanted to keep playing baseball. Now he's stuck in the Land of Misfit Dinosaur Theorists.
Jay Gibbons, everybody's favorite admitted HGH user and alleged victim of collusion, is finally going to play some baseball again. But don't go looking for him on television. You'll have to drive out to beautiful Islip, NY to find Gibbons with his new team: the Atlantic League's Long Island Ducks.
"I'm looking forward to getting back and playing ball again," said Gibbons, who will likely start working out with the Ducks in the next couple of days. "It's been 10 weeks, so hopefully I can get out on the field some time this week."
Boy, what a drop off for a 30-year-old outfielder who could probably still play some ball. Yeah, he's had some injuries lately ... and he may not be that good. But even so, there's not a major league team willing to give him a job in AAA? The fact that he has to go all the way to an unaffiliated Independent team while so many others mentioned in the Mitchell report have jobs in the majors means that it's not collusion. But it's just weird.
There's been a lot of discussion about possible collusion by major league teams to keep Barry Bonds from continuing his career. For all his foibles, the man can still rake and it's surprising that no team is willing to hold their nose long enough to benefit from his 1000 or so OPS. Buster Olney writes at ESPN.com that other players tainted by the Mitchell Report can't seem to find work either. He mentions Nook Logan and Jay Gibbons, late of the Orioles, as two players who aren't getting sniffs. He also includes a copy of a letter that Gibbons has written to all 30 major league teams.
All I need is a chance -- any chance -- anywhere. I am more than willing to begin the process of proving that I can and will be a productive major league player by playing in the minor leagues.
As you know, I have played seven seasons in the big leagues and have hit 20-plus homeruns in three seasons and have hit .277 in three seasons (2003, 2005 and 2006). At 31 years old, I have NO DOUBT that my best baseball is ahead of me.
I have some doubts about that. I'd never tell a man to give up his dream of playing in the big leagues but Gibbons doesn't have a ton of great baseball ahead of him. The only interesting thing about Gibbons's career is that he hit .277 in three separate seasons.
Jose Guillen was originally supposed to have been suspended the first 15 games of the season, but Major League Baseball postponed the punishment for the first 10 days of the season while negotiating potentially harsher drug penalties with the players' association that may or may not include a retroactive pardon (or less likely, a longer punishment) for Guillen's sins. His 10 days are up and the two sides are still talking, so MLB decided to put things off another week. From MLB.com:
General manager Dayton Moore was told the extension was through April 15 while negotiations continued on a joint drug agreement.
"I'm not real concerned about it, I don't have any control over it and the fact that they're lengthening it obviously is a positive sign," Moore said. "I don't think they'd lengthen it if they didn't feel like ultimately there was going to be some resolve."
Ordinarily you'd say that it won't make a huge difference what happens -- I mean, we're talking about the Royals -- but in the "up is down" world that is the AL Central, the Royals are actually tied for first place. Jay Gibbons is in the same boat as Guillen, although the timeline for figuring out his punishment is less important considering, you know, he doesn't actually have a job.
The O's have gotten sick of waiting for Jay Gibbons to get back into fighting form and have kicked him to the curb. It's been three years now since his 2005 power season, during which he hit 26 homers and racked up a nice .516 slugging percentage, and in 2006 and 2007 he was only able to play about half of each season due to injuries.
Despite what the O's say -- their stated reason for letting him go was because they believe youngster Scott Moore would prove to be a better utility man -- the straw(s) that likely broke the camels back was his involvement in the steroids scandal. In September of last year Sports Illustrated published a report alleging that Gibbons had received shipments of HGH from an Orlando pharmacy from 2005-2007, and on December sixth it was announced that he would be suspended from the first 15 games of the 2008 season. Just a week later the Mitchell report was made available to the public and -- surprise, surprise! -- his name was on there, too.
Gibbons will still be rollin' in the dough, though. The O's owe him $11.9 million for the next two seasons, a big price to pay to rid themselves of a roster-spot-waster.
It's like awaiting the governor's call on death row, except not as stressful. But Jose Guillen and Jay Gibbons just might get that "call" as those suspensions they got for using performance enhancing drugs just might be wiped out.
Major League Baseball put the suspensions of Baltimore's Jay Gibbons and Kansas City's Jose Guillen on hold for 10 days, giving lawyers for players and owners more time to reach an agreement toughening their drug rules. The outfielders were suspended for 15 days each by commissioner Bud Selig on Dec. 6, following media reports linking them to performance-enhancing drugs. The penalties were to start Sunday, when the U.S. portion of the major league season begins.
Negotiators are close to an agreement that would call for more frequent drug testing and would strengthen the authority of the independent program administrator. If there is an agreement, the suspensions of Gibbons and Guillen most likely would be eliminated as part of an overall amnesty for players implicated in the Mitchell Report. The suspensions would start April 9 if an agreement isn't reach and no other actions are taken.
It might seem weird to put tougher legislation in place for PED's, and then eliminate suspensions as act one. But it is, after all, George Mitchell's recommendation that baseball show amnesty towards past users. Besides, what good does it do to punish guys now for "crimes" they committed when nobody was sure if this was a crime or not? Along with the fact that it might be a bit incongruous that Guillen and Gibbons serve suspensions while a host of other players in the Mitchell Report are retired anyway and go off scot free? Forgiveness is a wonderful thing. Let's forgive Guillen and Gibbons and sing Kumbaya by the fire.
Because of the inclusion of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte, no team had more reason to be chagrined by the allegations of the Mitchell Report than the New York Yankees. A close second, though, would have to be their AL East rivals from Baltimore. David Segui and Jay Gibbons we already knew about but, all told, 19 other current or former Orioles, including Miguel Tejada and Brian Roberts, two of their best players in recent years, were named as well. As a result, they are breaking with MLB's party line and challenging the report.
"As to the information and allegations contained in the Mitchell report, the Orioles caution observers to resist the temptation to accept collective judgments based upon unsubstantiated allegations. The Orioles further believe that each major league player must be treated on an individual basis, must not be judged responsible by mere association, and is innocent of any improper conduct until proven otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt."
I think it's okay for the O's to stand up for Roberts. Unlike the other players in the report, there's no documented evidence of Roberts using steroids. He's included simply because Larry Bigbie, under the watchful eye of federal investigators, named him as part of testimony designed to avoid his own punishment.
David Segui's name appears in the Mitchell Report quite a few times. It's not something Segui minds though because he fully admits he's used steroids in the past. There is one part of the report though that Segui is very unhappy with, and that's the fact that it implicates Brian Roberts as a cheater as well.
"By far that's the thing that's bothered me the most about the whole entire thing," Segui said today. "[Bigbie] threw Brian Roberts' name out on complete hearsay. Calling it hearsay would be giving it more credibility than it deserves. I'm at a loss as to why Brian Roberts' name would come out of his mouth.
"Brian Roberts has never met Kirk Radomski, at least not in my presence," said Segui, who has admitted to taking steroids and to providing Radomski's contact information to several players who wanted to know more about performance-enhancers. "And I don't know wherever else he would have met him.
"I'm not worried about damage control on my part, I don't care about that," Segui said. "What I care about is Brian Roberts. He is the kind of guy you want your daughter to marry. He is the kind of guy you want your son to grow up to be. Leave him out of this [stuff]. He has nothing to do with this."
'Eye Spy' details first-hand Spring Training notes and observations from a fantasy baseball perspective.
It's not a move on the scale of 
There's been a lot of discussion about possible collusion by major league teams to keep 
The O's have gotten sick of waiting for 
It's like awaiting the governor's call on death row, except not as stressful. But 
Because of the inclusion of 
David Segui
