• Somebody mentioned yesterday that the Royals demoted Ken Harvey, marking the beginning of the "Calvin Pickering Era." While this should be less prosperous than the "Albert Pujols Era" in St. Louis, it's going to be fun watching Pickering swat some dingers. Here's hoping the Royals give him 500 at-bats and let him prosper or flopser. It's not like they're going to contend this year.
• It appears that the "Dan Meyer Era" in Oakland will have to wait for another time, as the A's sent to Sacramento the jewel of the Tim Hudson trade. He'll be back at some point, of course, but this leaves the A's with Seth Etherton or Kirk Saarloos as the fifth man in the rotation. Question: why not Justin Duchscherer? Recall that in 2003, at AAA, he had, arguably, a better year than Rich Harden, posting a 6:1 K/BB ratio and a 3.25 E.R.A., outstanding for the PCL. (Contextually, Harden was more impressive, because he was only 21-years-old.) With Keiichi Yabu around as the long/swing man, Duchscherer is free to join the rotation. He'd be better than Etherton and Saarloos.
• Fantasy baseball geeks may want to bump Carlos Delgado up on their draft lists. No, Delgado has not been traded to the Rockies, but rather his favourite pitcher, Jorge Sosa, has been traded to the Braves for infielder Nick Green. I suggest Bobby Cox acquaint Sosa with "four wide" if he faces Delgado, who has five home runs in 15 at-bats against the hard-but-flat-throwing righty.
• Sadly, the Brewers have released outfielder/pitcher Brooks Kieschnick, apparently ending one of the better roster experiments of the last few years. Kieschnick was never a world-beater out of the 'pen (more like a Cuba-beater), but he was at least as good as dozens of other right-handed relief goons making a lot more money. (I'm looking at you, Kerry Ligtenberg.) Surely another NL team -- the Rockies, for instance -- could use somebody like Kieschnick, who put up a 110 ERA+ in 44 innings last year.
• The Matt Riley/Ramon Nivar trade drew some discussion on Da Box, with most people thinking that Orel Hershisher will be able to turn Riley around, and in various other circles I've heard it described as a "theft" by the Rangers. That seems glib. It's a theft in the sense that the Rangers gave up an overrated non-prospect for a prospect. Chances are that Riley ends up joining the ignominious ranks of left-handed pitchers who bounce from team-to-team but who never pan out. And really, the Orioles already have Bruce Chen, so Riley was clearly expendable.
Anything else of note, Bauxites?
