I take no joy in this, but can’t say we didn’t see this one coming*:

Chip Caray’s tenure as TBS’s lead major league baseball announcer ended Monday when he and the cable network agreed to part ways.

Caray’s high-volume style was mixed with a penchant for bad play calls, embellishments and factual errors. His best known incident occurred during the American League Central Division tie breaker between the Twins and the Tigers in October. He called an obvious lineout this way: “Line drive. Base hit. Caught out there. The runner tags. Throw to the plate. On target. And in time! A double play!

*via Deadspin

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Another award for Jeter:

In what has already been a banner year for Derek Jeter, the New York Yankees shortstop can add another honor: Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year award. Jeter was chosen as the magazine’s 56th honoree and becomes the first Yankee to be named SI’s Sportsman.

Jeter’s selection caps another outstanding season for the 35-year-old team captain and future Hall of Famer. In 2009 he batted .334 while leading the Yankees to their fifth World Series title in his 14 full seasons, their first since 2000 and their record 27th in franchise history. On Sept. 11 he passed Lou Gehrig’s franchise mark for base hits, which now stands at 2,747. In 2009 Jeter led the American League by reaching base 289 times, finished second in the league in hits (212), third in batting average and on-base percentage (.406), fourth in runs (107) and eighth in stolen bases (30). He was named an All-Star for the 10th time, including the sixth time as a starter, while winning his fourth AL Silver Slugger as the best hitting shortstop in the league and his fourth Gold Glove as the league’s top defensive shortstop.

Hate him all you wish. Call him overrated. You might need to gain some of our perspective on Jeter. That trophy looks damn good to my eyes.

Remember when Marco Scutaro was just another utility player? Waived and claimed twice by other teams? Traded by the stats-loving A’s (see the bottom of his B-R page)?

Suddenly, at ages 32 and 33, he has “breakthrough” seasons and he is now worth a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract? Call me skeptical but someone’s gonna overpay for this guy. Maybe a 3 year/$18-21 million (my estimate) deal won’t break anyone’s bank, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best investment.

Let’s peek at Scutaro’s good 2008-09 and his career stats prior (all stats from B-R unless noted):

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Some of the things I noted over the weekend but didn’t get to comment on:

• Bob Sheppard has officially “retired“. He’s 99 years old, reportedly. That’s as good a time as any to call it quits on a magnificent career. Buster Olney has a nice, fun story about Mr. Sheppard. I’ve written plenty about Mr. Sheppard over the last two years of this blog’s existence. Have a look. And my quick Bob Sheppard story, as I have told it before:

A few years back, [Sheppard] missed a few weeks due to illness. I happened to be going to the game with my father on the date of his return. We got to the Stadium a bit early and were walking around, killing time. We stopped in front of the player’s entrance for a few moments when this elderly man came walking towards us. “Dad, it’s Bob Sheppard, the Voice of God“, I whispered. As he approached, all I could think of saying was “Welcome back, Mr. Sheppard. We missed you”. He stopped, turned and said “Thank you, young man“. (I was well north of 30, but he still called me ‘young man’.) I swear, his voice echoed as if he were behind the mic inside the Stadium. All my father could say was “Cooool!”. Still is a top moment in my fandom.

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I traded a few emails with Josh Johnson’s agent, Matt Sosnick, over the weekend about the continued rumors and speculation about his client. Long story short:

“I would be shocked if [Josh Johnson] was traded before the season started,” said Sosnick via email

Yep, that’s about what I expected and in line with what Buster had to say on Sunday:

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In a posting yesterday, I discussed Justin Duchscherer and mentioned his battle with depression. Jerry Crasnick of ESPN has a very good article on Duke today and how he’s coping. I wish Duke well and hope he’s able to get back on the hill soon.

“I was in the airport and it was time to go and I froze,” Duchscherer says. “I couldn’t even get on the plane to do something I’ve loved my whole life. You go from excited and looking forward to being back with the guys and playing ball to sitting at your house saying, ‘What happened?’

While it’s certainly tough to create original content relating to the Hot Stove league, reading this from (former Yanks blogfather and current) RedSox blogger Pete Abraham, it just reads eerily similar to what I wrote yesterday. Nooooo, not an accusation of anything unmentionable, but maybe proof that we’re onto something:

Ben Sheets could be the prize pickup in that group. The 31-year-old righthander has not pitched in 14 months because of a torn flexor tendon. Sheets had surgery in February and skipped the entire 2009 season to rehab, working at TMI Sports Medicine in Arlington, Texas.

[...]

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With the constant yard sale signs and rumors (and zingers) coming out of Detroit, how come we haven’t heard any rumors on Justin Verlander becoming available (if a team was also willing to absorb some of DET’s dead money contracts):

The level to which Detroit is foisting right-hander Edwin Jackson on anybody who will listen – “It’s like they want to give him away,” one executive said, “and I don’t really understand why” – is an indictment on the mismanagement that began showing cracks with Gary Sheffield last spring and has graduated to a full-fledged fault line. The Tigers have six players making eight figures this year: Magglio Ordonez (who turns 36 in January) at $18 million, Miguel Cabrera (hopefully sober for opening day) at $15 million, Carlos Guillen at $13 million and – get ready to gag on a slice of Little Caesars – $34.5 million for Jeremy Bonderman, Dontrelle Willis and Nate Robertson (combined 2008: 3-8 in 43 games, with a 6.53 ERA and a 57-to-64 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 93 2/3 innings). All but Cabrera are dead money, leaving Detroit GM Dave Dombrowski to pawn off some of his valuable parts, like Jackson and center fielder Curtis Granderson.

Could a big market team –RedSox, Yanks– swoop in and pick up Verlander and some dead money (Willis, Bonderman) for a young MLB ready pitcher (Buchholz, Hughes/Joba) and two or three lower-/mid-level prospects?

If King Felix is the apple of everyone’s eye, shouldn’t Verlander at least be a close second?

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In what is becoming my own tradition, here is the greatest WKRP episode ever: Turkey Drop!

Best wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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Hot rumor of the morning is that the Red Sox are “putting on a full-court press” to acquire Roy Halladay. Evidently, the Sox want it done before the Winter Meetings kick of December 7th.

OK. I get it. Makes sense. Adding Doc (and a $100 million extension) to Beckett and Lester would make an incredible Top 3, one that could easily vault them back on top of the AL East. The question for me is less about the extension (just about the money, folks) and more about the other costs (the quality and quantity of prospects heading to TOR).

To land Halladay, Boston would likely have to give up Clay Buchholz, the organization’s top young pitcher, as well as Casey Kelly, the pitcher/shortstop who signed with the Red Sox in 2008 after being recruited by Tennessee to play quarterback. Red Sox GM Theo Epstein is said to be smitten with Kelly, which could be a sticking point in talks with Toronto if Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos insists on the 20-year-old being included in a deal.

The Yankees would love to acquire Halladay, although Cashman has been reluctant to deal away top prospects such as Austin Jackson and Jesus Montero for a player he would then have to sign for more than $100 million, such as Halladay. Toronto would also likely require either Phil Hughes or Joba Chamberlain in a deal.

Let’s take a quick trip in the Way Back Machine to what Cashman had to say back in August 2008 about the Johan Santana trade-that-wasn’t:

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Here’s a wild thing to consider:

One baseball official said this week the folks at Beverly Hills Sports Council and players’ union had discussed the strategic bounds of submitting a bid for $23,000,001. The highest-salaried pitcher, CC Sabathia, plus a dollar. And all that symbolizes. Why shouldn’t the best pitcher get the most money, period? The agency and union declined to comment on the highly secretive process, other than to grant that, yes, Lincecum is a special case. Extremely special.

There’s dreaming big and then there’s BHSC’s dreaming BIG.

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No, not some 1980′s Bobby Brown song, part of the explanation from SF Giants’ beat writer Andrew Baggardly (Mercury News) on why he opted to give middle reliever Jeremy Affeldt his 10th place NL MVP vote:

Wait, what? OK, OK, this is my ‘sore thumb vote. And no, I can’t really make an airtight case for Affeldt, a middle reliever, as the 10th most valuable player in the league. Especially when I don’t have Tim Lincecum, or any other pitcher for that matter, on my ballot. (Without glancing at Win Shares, I’d have to believe there are many pitchers who rank way above Affeldt.) In choosing Affeldt, I also bypassed several other worthy candidates. For instance, have you noticed there isn’t a single Dodger on my ballot? But hey, this is my prerogative vote. If it were a three- or even five-slot ballot, I wouldn’t dream of making a ‘statement with my final selection. But this is a ballot that goes 10-deep, we all knew Pujols would win in a landslide, and there’s really no impact anyone can make with their final selection. So I think it’s completely harmless to give a tip of the cap to the relief pitcher who had the lowest ERA in the league while appearing almost exclusively in highly leveraged situations. Affeldt was an MVP in the bullpen, all right. He didn’t allow a run from May 8 to July 24 posting 27 scoreless innings over 28 games. He did his job a job of ever-increasing dependency better than anyone else in the NL, and given all the close games the Giants played, he made a huge impact in their final 88-win record.

Seriously? Not Kemp, Ethier, Lincecum, Carpenter, Wainwright… No, but we have Affeldt.

Please, enough of the “statement” votes and just play is straight-up from now on, please.

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