Late Innings

Cardinals’ shortstop Felipe Lopez, acquired in media res last season from the Nationals, was quite the star. Looking at the slashes he got from his new team: .385/.426/.538. Wow. So teams on the West Coast are courting Edgar Renteria, Rafeal Furcal and Orlando Cabrera, yet no one is interested in Lopez? The reason why, as ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick puts it:

…his .418 batting average on balls in play after the All-Star break makes some teams wonder if there wasn’t an inordinate amount of luck involved…

Unless Scott Boras can sell him as “The Ted Williams of BABIP", then he won’t be getting paid on the same level as Furcal will. Don’t get me wrong, he’s not a bad option. He runs well and has occasional power (though he won’t hit 23 HR again like he did in 2005), however I feel as though he got lazy the last couple of years. It’s amazing what free agency can do to a player. I won’t complain if some team gives him two years of 12MM baseball.

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I had some other links today to comment on, however in the spirit of Thanksgiving I donated them to Mr. Dierkes at Trade Rumors. So that’s why I’m rather quiet tonight. That, and I’ve been drinking heavily. And yes it’s only 6PM EST… so this will be a long night.

To paraphrase loosely what Joe Biden said during the Presidential Campaign, something big will happen tomorrow, in either the MLB free agent or trade market. I really hope so too; the market has been relatively stagnant of late. Any ways Happy Thanksgiving to all readers of Late Innings! I promise many months of useless posts ahead for your reading displeasure.