AGRI Biz

The last stop on our trade deadline needs tour is in the American League West. The West has two teams that will be buyers and those teams are the Texas Rangers and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. We have already seen how serious the Rangers are this trade season as they acquired Cliff Lee from division rival Seattle earlier in the week. Here are the deadline needs for the Rangers ...

Yesterday I took a look at the July 31 trade deadline needs of the buyers in the National League East, so today I will look at the needs of the buyers in the National League Central. Unlike the East, which had four teams as potential buyers, the Central only has two teams that should be buyers — the Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals. The Milwaukee Brewers are kind of hanging around, ...

A quick post here before I head out for the weekend. One of my favorite Gorilla Monsoon sayings from back in the 80’s was when he said someone was “cleaning house” in the ring. It usually happened during a tag-team match or a battle royal when the fan favorite made a comeback. My friend Justin and I have adopted the term and use it when someone completely cleans off their plate during ...

Sunday was one of those days that Tampa Bay Rays’ OF B.J. Upton would rather soon forget. Not only did he go 0-for-3, but when he did get on base with a walk, he got picked off. Then he flew out to end the game. But the worst thing that happened to Upton, was that he and Evan Longoria got into a heated argument in the dugout.   In the top of ...

The “Year of the Pitcher” continued Friday night as Arizona Diamondbacks’ pitcher Edwin Jackson threw the fourth no-hitter this year as he defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 1-0 in front of 18,918 at Tropicana Field. Jackson struck out six and walked eight in the 149-pitch effort. This wasn’t your traditional no-hitter as Jackson walked eight and reminded me of AJ Burnett’s no-hitter against the San Diego Padres back in 2001. Burnett ...

The Detroit Tigers sent down Rick Porcello to Triple-A on Sunday and are hoping to get the same results from this move that they got from sending down Max Scherzer earlier in the year. Earlier this year, the Tigers sent down Scherzer and his 7.29 ERA and 5.6 K’s/9 to Triple-A. Since Scherzer has returned, the 25-year-old righty has a 3.48 ERA and has struck out 11.9 batters per nine IP. ...

While we might be calling 2010 “The Year of the Pitcher,” I think we should really start calling 2010 “The Year of the Rookie.” So far in 2010, we have seen some great performances from rookies such as Jason Heyward, Ike Davis, Austin Jackson, Gaby Sanchez, Justin Smoak, Carlos Santana, Mike Leake, Jaime Garcia, and of course, Stephen Strasburg. The Houston Astros called up catcher Jason Castro in hopes he can be ...

It’s never a good sign when a manager says his ace pitcher “has some things going on” in his shoulder, but that's exactly what Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said about Jake Peavy the other day. Due to Peavy’s achy shoulder, the White Sox skipped his Thursday night start against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he'll attempt to start on Saturday. It’s kind of odd timing for Peavy’s injury because he's coming ...

Once again the Minnesota Twins are in first place, and once again the Twins are in the top five in one particular category. As a matter of fact, the Twins have been in the top five in this category for the past five years. No, it’s not home runs, runs scored, fielding percentage, or ERA. The category in which the Twins are perennial leaders is first pitch strike percentage. Here is where ...

Gregerson is having an All World year for the Padres. I was watching the New York Mets-San Diego Padres series last week, and in two games of that series, Padres’ manager Bud Black summoned Luke Gregerson out of the bullpen. In those two appearances, Gregerson faced six Met batters and struck them all out. He went through them like a hot knife through butter. I thought to myself, "Wow, ...