Rocco Baldelii is arbitration eligible, and the Devil Rays are talking about signing him to a long-term deal. Does this make a lot of sense?

No. This isn't a trick question, is it?

The Astros' trade last season of (essentially) Octavio Dotel for Carlos Beltran looks pretty good, even if Beltran departed as a FA after the season. Beltran gave the 'Stros a magical playoff run, and Dotel broke down for the A's earlier this year. I imagine Houston also received draft picks when the Mets signed Beltran. And Houston still has one of the game's best bullpens, even after dealing away their closer two years running (Wagner, Dotel). Pretty nice deal, though it didn't pay off for the (now-former) GM who made it.

Who would you rather have running Generic MLB Team ... Cashman or Epstein? Both are free agents.

Moneyballists aside, I think it's a lot closer than most people would first say.

The problem evaluating Cashman is that it's hard to tell what are his moves and what aren't (and what he would have done instead of moves that were actually made by Steinbrenner or Tampa).

Depends on the environment. In Baltimore signing Cashman would've been a good idea as he knows how to manage a pain-in-the-butt owner. Both have question marks as both have worked with big budgets. Plus, with the Boston/New York rivalry both were pushed into situations where 'win now or else' was a way of life. What would be fun is if they traded teams imo. Although what I'd really like is for both of them to dig into the D-Rays old front office and take whoever they want from it :)

Cashman is a fine GM. One of his specialties is the late season cheap acquisition. Chacon this year, Olerud last. It hasn't been only Steinbrenner's money behind the Yankees success, although it undoubtedly plays the largest role.

I would prefer Cashman. I think he would do very well outside of New York. I think Philly is the best fit for him.

Over in the AFL, the Peoria Saguaros have started off 1-7. Here is the boxscore from yesterday's game. Steve Andrade threw 3 perfect innings, striking out 7. Audio streaming of today's game is available through milb.com at 4.

This is an interesting turn of events: the A's have rehired Ken Macha

1. Announce that the manager will not return.
2. Rehire the manager.
3. ??????????
4. PROFIT!

Somewhat odd happenings in Oakland. From this we can probably conclude that Macha was Beane's first choice all along, and he doesn't care too much about irritating the coaches who thought they were next in line. And, also probably, that Pittsburgh was Macha's dream job, but Jim Tracy got there ahead of him.

Too much time at BTF Craig.

I'm surprised at the Macha move, obviously. Not that people ever have a lot to say negatively about a coach, but I've only heard glowing reviews of Geren and Washington, particularly Washington.

It's obvious he wants to manage as he's interviewing for the Tampa job, but I wonder what makes Oakland prefer Macha to him. While in-game management isn't the only responsibility of a manager, I wasn't particularly impressed with Macha's performance in this past. Washington's supposed to be an excellent teacher and he can't be too happy to hear that he's back in line behind Macha, and probably Geren, too.

There's a disturbing cliche creeping into the post-season lexicon of broadcasters: MUST WIN (when used in the context of a GAME TWO).

The term MUST WIN should only be used when the other team has already 3 wins in a 7-game series, or 2 wins in a 5-game series. Those are the only MUST WIN games.

Beyond those obvious semantics:

-Game 2 was not a MUST WIN for the White Sox. They have the best road record in the majors and they are fully capable of winning 4 of 5 games.

-It's a 7-game series. Not a 2-game series. You might as well start the series by saying "Well Tim, these first 2 games are a MUST SPLIT for both teams."

-Anyway, I'm going to go enjoy game 3, that is not a MUST WIN for the Angels, but tomorrow's game will be if they lose.

FINAL NOTE: People saying Eddings or the umpires blew the call are out of their minds. That was as close as close can be and part of magic of baseball are umpires who are immediately decisive and 99% correct: that's talent.

I think what was exposed in game 2 was the need for umpires to have universal visual signals. But that shouldn't have mattered in the case of Josh Paul because his back was to the umpire anyway.

What happened at the end of game 2 was a veteran, all-star catcher taking advantage of his experience (both career, and of that game being in front of Eddings) vs. a 3rd string catcher who a) had probably never been burned on a play like that and b) was unfamiliar with the cadence of Eddings that evening. What better cause is there for winning a game than that?

Is this a good nickname for Scott Podsednik?

"ChiPod"

who a) had probably never been burned on a play like that and b) was unfamiliar with the cadence of Eddings that evening.

Except that replays of the full game showed that if you were familiar with Eddings and how he was working, he called AJP out. When Eddings said "that's just my strike three mechanic" he was doing one of two things:

1) lying
2) not calling strike three on batters all night on balls in the dirt until they were tagged by the catcher -- on all other dirt-balls that night he did the karate chop for strike three and then didn't do the fist pump until the runner was tagged by the catcher. Any fielder who could see him (and obviously, Paul could not) would believe that AJP had just been called out -- that's why they were all leaving the field.

Like I said in the last thread, I have no issue with anything on the play itself, because umpires are human beings. What I have a problem with is Eddings lying about it afterwards. Either don't talk to the media or come clean. Or hell, issue a vague statement that doesn't address the issues and don't take questions. But don't lie.

Yeah, that's what I said. Sportsnet read my email on tv! Yay 15 seconds of fame.

What did you say?

Also, I haven't listened to the radio in ages. Is Mike Wilner doing the Blue-Jay-a-day thing again?

I just said that I agreed with Spoljaric, Eddings changed his call. He did the fist pump "out" thing when he had previously not done it until the tag was applied. Not a huge deal but it was cool they actually read those comments.

Joe Morgan agreed, too, for what that's worth. He said as a second baseman whenever he caught a ball anywhere near the ground he looked the umpire dead in the eyes for either an out or a nothin', so he knew whether or not to throw to first. If he had seen the fist pump, he would have held onto the ball.

Did anyone watch the replay to see if Paul turned his head and saw the pump?

Paul had already tossed the Paul back onto the field when the pump happened. They were pretty much simultaneous actions.

Re-thinking the evidence it seems there was some indecision on the part of Eddings. That's sad.

Still, AJP deserves a lot of credit.

This play still upsets me, the problem for me , much like NFH, is the inconsitency between the obvious "ring em up" out gesture by Eddings, and his incongruent non-verbal no call, followed by his attempts to lie about it afterwards.

I'll also point out that the fielders, Escobar and Erstad, who because of crowd noise rely on the out gesture, had left their posistions for the dug-out because of the umps actions. Escobar in particular, if no gesture was given could have better reacted to the play.

Paul had already tossed the Paul back onto the field when the pump happened.

Maybe it's too early on Saturday to be finding this funny, but am I the only one that did? Especially since it was posted by a Paul.

I'm apauled that you would laugh at that.

So far, 50% of Bauxites surveyed found the post funny.

Maybe that should be our next paul question.

It seems to have cast a paul over the whole discussion...

These jokes are a-paul-ling

Can we paul-ese talk about something else?

It's not my pault.

I find these plays on words a truly paultry use of language.

of course, I'm just "Josh"ing!

Thats a paul-ite way to put it.