Ace Cole Hamels is the latest to sign long-term with the team he loves (BernMarsh/Flickr).
Today’s “News and Notes” is going to be a delightful hodgepodge of baseball stuff all thrown together. Sort of like a long reliever in some mop-up duty, I have a large array of items to get through and clean house with. Ok, that’s a bit of a stretch, but whatever. Hopefully it sticks to the wall and we can call it a big win. Now on to the news and/or notes…
Boston has inked the heart of their team for years (keithallisonphoto.com)
MLB NEWS
• Two of baseball’s biggest contenders were able to avoid arbitration with one their best players and signed each of them to deals this past week. First Boston signed their first baseman Kevin Youkilis to a four-year, $41 million deal, then Philadelphia followed suit and inked up their ace Cole Hamels to a three-year, $20.5 million contract. Both of these were fantastic signings by these clubs as not only did they prevent having to deal with arbitration, but now they each have one of their stars locked up for the next few seasons. Not only that, but both teams received “hometown discounts” with their players as each made it clear they wanted to stay with their organizations. While this helps out the Red Sox (who also received a great deal locking 2008 MVP Dustin Pedroia up long term earlier this winter) and Phillies tremendously, it hurts free agents still looking for teams as well as other players who are coming up on arbitration situations. Clubs now have an opportunity to say to their players, “if a reigning MVP (Pedroia), a man many believe should have won the MVP (Youkilis) and a playoff hero and rising star (Hamels) all took discounts, why can’t you?” I believe this will play a large part in many team’s negotiating tactics very, very soon.
• It appears as if Frank Wren has finally woken up in Atlanta after landing Derek Lowe this week to head up his staff in 2009. I discussed this about a week ago in a “GM for a Day” article stating how the Braves could not afford to let Lowe get away from them like AJ Burnett and John Smoltz did. In fact, it now looks as if the Braves are taking a little more of my advice and looking to bring both Tom Glavine and Andruw Jones back to Atlanta. I’m not sure if Wren returned from an extended vacation or started reading this site, but either way, it’s nice to have you back.
BASEBALL BLOGGER NEWS
• Patrick Sullivan wrote a fantastic article for Baseball Analysts depicting how unjust (and uneducated) some baseball writers are in their selection process for the Hall of Fame. He breaks it down and shows how individual awards (MVP, Cy Young) are weighed too heavily by many writers and the player’s statistics in his era should mean more. Check it out.
• My old Minnesota Twins discussion buddy Nick Nelson has posted his Minnesota Twins top 10 prospect list over at his site Nick & Nick Twins Blog. My Twins Top 5 prospects list should be up very soon and I look forward to getting Nick’s thoughts on this as well.
• I finally picked up my edition of “The Hardball Times Baseball Annual 2009” the other day at Barnes and Noble. I had been looking for it for a while now in bookstores as I was too lazy to order it online (even though I’m on a computer a lot). I’ve been trying to find some uninterrupted time to dig into it and I think I finally have some today. So far it has been a great read and I highly recommend it. I’ve spoken before about how much I enjoy The Hardball Times site and thus far the book hasn’t disappointed. I’ll give you more updates as I go.
DIAMOND CUTTER NEWS & NOTES
I just wanted to take a look ahead at what is coming up here on “The Diamond Cutter” over the next week or two as I have been receiving some emails as of late wondering.
Click above for Top 25 Prospects!
• The Top 25 Prospects list will continue to take shape as I gradually unveil them one at a time. We will also see the return of the Top 5 Prospects by organization return in the next day or so after a brief hiatus. I wanted to try to space these out a bit so they don’t get too mundane and repetitive. I want to keep these fresh!
• I am currently in the process of working on a couple of larger articles that are taking quite a bit of time. One is a detailed biography of a future Hall of Famer (I assume they will be in the Hall based on their historic statistics, but of course I could be wrong based on if the Baseball Writers Association has a predetermined bias against him already) who I will name at a later date and the other article is a continuation of the “Deconstructing Series” (click here for the first one about Andruw Jones’ collapse) where I will be discussing the rise and fall of Dwight Gooden. Stay tuned for both of those…
• The next couple of weeks will also be another interview (click here for my last one with Red Sox prospect Jeff Natale) that I am in the process of setting up with Toronto Blue Jay catching prospect, JP Arencibia. He has already graciously agreed to speak with me and now it’s just a matter of finding a time for us to meet.
• As spring training draws closer and closer, I will continue the “GM for a Day” series as well as start reviewing each division which will ultimately lead to one of my favorite parts, the predictions for the 2009 season. This is always a fun time as I compile everything that has happened over the winter and smash it into each team to see if we can make some sense out of the upcoming season. I also ask for a large amount of participation from you the reader during this time as I feel it makes it a whole lot more interesting.
Stay tuned for all this and don’t hesitate letting me know if there are more things you want to see more (or less) of.
By Matthew Whipps
“The Diamond Cutter“
Major & Minor League Baseball Columnist
mlbdiamondcutter@gmail.com | Facebook
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The Diamond Cutter 
I’m not sure about Youk, but Hamels’ deal doesn’t infringe on any of his free agent years, so all the Phillies did was give him more money while he still would have been under team control. I’m not going to say that it was a bad idea for them to give him money when they didn’t need to as an act of good faith to try and keep him when he becomes a free agent, but it’s also hard to say that he gave them a home town discount when he really had no bargaining chip at all. Hamels should be thrilled with just getting any new deal at all.
Good point about Hamels but I see it the other way. On one hand you are right that Hamels is lucky to have a deal with guaranteed money on the table, however the Phillies were able to lock up one of the top three left handed pitchers in the game for multiple years far below what he would have made on the open market. Sure Hamels didn’t have any bargaining chips since he wasn’t going to be a free agent, but the Phillies avoided another Ryan Howard situation.
Ryan Howard was definitely the arbitration exception, not the rule, but I see your point.
Anyway, found your blog a few weeks back, and I’ve been back-reading and enjoying since.
I included my site for you to check out, too. We’re just getting things rolling (launched on January 7th after deciding we wanted to start a site on January 6th), but check it out. I’m trying to get a bunch of baseball stuff up there, but we’re trying to cover just about every sport, too. Any feedback would be appreciated.
So, how about a ‘Live Diamond Cutter from Spring Training’ edition or two??
Funny you should say that. I’m actually in the works to get some live/taped video editions of “The Diamond Cutter” where I will bring some sort of a show to the site.
This will include on locations at whatever stadiums I happen to visit (hopefully spring training), events I attend, interviews and even a weekly show.
I’m still working out the kinks regarding everything but I think seeing a rough-cut version of the show is a definite possibility for 2009. Hopefully it can improve the quality as we go!
And Aaron, thanks for sharing your site! I always encourage people to advertise their sites here as I love learning about new places to get baseball entertainment.
The site is looking good!
Live shots would be cool, especially if you can nail down some more interviews. I’ve always assumed you are in the Minneapolis area- what games/stadiums do you go to?
I am in the Minneapolis area so I am primarily at the Metrodome. I’d like to get out and visit surrounding stadiums this summer more but its difficult with a real full time job!