Article:Baseball Notebook April 19th Edition

Baseball Notebook April 19th Ben Sheets Being Injured Is Like Money in the Bank

A baseball fan could get rich if they got paid for every time Ben Sheets is injured. It is like money in the bank that he is going to have an injury of some kind every year. No wonder he has never won more than 12 games in a season. He isn't on the mound enough to win any more games than that. He has only 63 starts in the last three seasons when if healthy he would have had about 105 starts. Now he is injured only 4 starts into the 2008 season. Now we will have to await to see if he misses any starts. There is a website that is devoted to injuries of players that has this to say about the latest Sheets injury.

http://www.disabledlistinformer.com/

Back of Yankee Rotation In Disorder In Early Going

The Yankees were hoping Phillip Hughes and Ian Kennedy were ready to step into the starting rotation this season but so far neither has pitched well. Hughes who is 0-3 this season with a 8.82 ERA has pitched 16 innings and allowed 16 runs and 25 hits while striking out 10 and walkng 10. That is 35 baserunners on base against Hughes and that is not counting any other ways a hitter may have gotten on base like by errors or hit by a pitch plus about three other ways.

Kennedy has an 0-1 record with a 8.74 ERA. He has allowed almost a run an inning and has given up 14 hits and walked 8 in 11 1/3 innings. They have pitched 27 2/3 innings combined this season and have given up 27 runs and 28 hits and walked 18 batters. Mike Mussina is 1-3 and has a 5.75 ERA so that leaves only Chien-Ming Wang and Andy Pettitte with a combined 5-1 record to give any kind of stability to the starting rotation.

It is a bad sign when the Yankees are the only team in AL East to have given up more runs than they have scored. Then the team which has scored the fewest runs scores 8 times yesterday against them. If Wang or Pettitte are injured or go into a slump the team will really be hurting but right now they are only two games out of first place so they are not nearly in as bad shape as they were last season when they were about 14 games under .500 in the early going.

David Ortiz Hits Grandslam Homer

If David Ortiz starts hitting again April 18th will be the day things turned around in his favor as he hit a grandslam homer and drove in 5 runs. Jed Lowrie the rookie shortstop has only 7 major league at bats but has 4 RBI's while Ortiz had batted 62 times to get his 4 RBI's he had before he added the 5 last night.

Santana Wins Dream Matchup

Johan Santana 2-2 barely outpitched Cole Hamels 2-2 but he gave up only one run less than Hamels in the 7 innings both pitchers pitched. Santana did strike out 10 to the 4 by Hamels. The Mets gained a game on both the Marlins and Phillies with the win.

Cliff Lee: Early Comeback Player of the Year Favorite

Cliff Lee has an amazing ERA of 0.40 while posting 3-0 record this year. He has struck out 20 in 22 innings while walking only 2. He has allowed one run and 8 hits so far this season. He didn't win his third game last season until June 13th. Last year he was 5-8 with a 6.29 ERA. He didn't even start a game after July 26th of last season since he had given up 7 runs in his last 3 starts of the season.

Chipper Jones Hits 4 Homers in Two Games

Chipper Jones after a pregame meeting called by Bobby Cox on Thursday is showing he is the offensive leader of this team. In the last two games he has homered four times and driven in seven runs while picking up 7 hits in his 9 at bats.

He is leading the NL in hits with 30, in a 6 way tie for home run lead with 6, leads in RBI's with 18, total bases with 51, slugging with .773 mark, batting average with .455 average and OPS with 1.259 mark.

Longoria Signed to Nine Year Contract For $44 Million

The Tampa Bay Rays have signed Evan Longoria to a groundbreaking contract of $44 million. When you consider that a major league rookie this season is making $390,000 a year this contract should shatter all records in amount of a contract for a rookie.

Only $17 million of the contract is guaranteed but with the way Longoria has played at every level it is highly unlikely he will only make $17 million. It is a risky move by the Rays to sign Longoria but it is the only way they can keep the nucleus of their young stars in place. Longoria is already after only 23 at bats third on the team in slugging with a .522 percentage among players with at least 20 at bats and is leading the team in OBP at .429.

Players like Longoria come down the pike only so often so the Rays were wise to lock him up while they can. I think Longoria can handle the pressure of the big contract and this contract may even turn out to be a bargain if he plays the way the Rays expect of him.

We may start to see a proliferation of these kinds of contracts as teams start to look for an edge and don't want to lose a hot prospect to free agency a few years later. If I were a general manager I wouldn't make this kind of a deal with a pitcher regardless of how great their future may look. Pitchers can suddenly go bad like in the case of Francisco Liriano who looked like he was going to be a great one and now he has a 0-2 record with the second worst ERA on the Twins with 6.52 mark and has walked 10 in 9 innings.

In the coming months we will see if there are more contracts like this one or if this was a one time deal that won't be repeated often in the future.