No strike: Players, MLB agree on deal. (ESPN.com)

Aaron Gleeman reports from Thursday's Twins-Mariners game at the Metrodome. (Aaron's Baseball Blog)

Team win totals contest. Baseball Primer ran this before the start of the season, and it's interesting to see how everyone is doing. My picks: Yankees under 99; White Sox over 89; Mets under 90.5; Astros over 88.5; Giants under 89; Dodgers under 84; Rockies over 77. Mathematically, there's still a chance that I could go 7 for 7. Here's what would need to happen: Yankees 15-15 or worse; White Sox 27-2 or better; Mets 29-2 or worse; Astros 18-11 or better; Giants 13-16 or worse; Dodgers 6-23 or worse; Rockies 17-11 or better. The best I can reasonably hope for is 5 for 7, and 1 for 7 is an embarrassing possibility. Thanks, Mets, for giving me at least one shoo-in.
I haven't looked over all the entries, but I did notice a great one: Brian B. (#19) has Yankees over 99; Mariners over 94; A's over 90.5; Rockies under 77; Royals under 70; Braves over 90.5; Mets under 90.5. Brian's tiebreaker (exact wins total for one team) is Phillies 82, which also looks great.

Zito baffles Royals, A's win 15th straight. The story includes a list of all the teams that have ever won 15 in a row. (ESPN.com)

Aaron Gleeman: "About a week and a half ago I decided that I would root for the Seattle Mariners to win the AL West. As a Twins fan my reason for this, at the time, was very simple...I wanted no part of the Oakland A's. Turns out I didn't know how right I was." (Aaron's Baseball Blog)

Hunter's two-run blast helps Twins edge Mariners. The Mariners have gone 6-9 during the A's' winning streak. (ESPN.com)

Seattle 2, Minnesota 0. Make that 7-9. Jamie Moyer to the rescue. (ESPN.com)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 22-25. "I stand corrected: the Mets are in last place. So how did that win-now philosophy work out, anyway?...There's no dignity to any of this, just a reprise of the squalorous, ugly end of the Torborg Mets. The final misfortune will be if Bobby Valentine is held accountable for the pot of pyrite at the end of Steve Phillips' rainbow." (Baseball Prospectus)

Doug Pappas: "The issues dividing the parties are much narrower now than in 1985. There will be greater revenue sharing, a luxury tax and some form of drug testing -- the owners and players are just fighting over the details. Even if the players strike on Friday, the strike could well end before we return from our Labor Day weekends." (ESPN.com)

Derek Zumsteg: "I hope that no one who has made any comment about not coming back after a strike comes back. I don't want to hear 'oh, I meant an extended strike.' Nope, you should have written that on the sign you held up for the cameras...A seven-day strike that gets us four years of labor peace (and, likely, increasing competitive imbalance, but I digress) and clears out the angry, 'players are overpaid' crowd? Sign me up." (Baseball Prospectus)

...Me and the Geek. John Perricone argues with John Bonnes of TwinsGeek.com argue about the labor situation. (Only Baseball Matters)

The Week in Quotes from Baseball Prospectus. Padres owner John Moores: "I'll be prepared to sit out a season."

Mike: "He offered to make that year this one and to make it retroactive to April 1st so that he can forget his team's wretched season. He claims that other teams feel the same way, 'I'd say 8 or 10, off the top of my head.' Of course, you have to remember that this employs Ken Caminiti-steroid math so there is a plus/minus of 200 teams." (Mike's Baseball Rants)

John Perricone: "John Moores, you greedy rat bastard; how dare you tell me you'll gladly shut down your team after you just sucked $400 million dollars out of the San Diego taxpayers for your new stadium. Tom Hicks, the same to you, the Ballpark at Arlington is what, eight years old? Did you pay for it, you greedy pig? How about you, Selig? $300 million for your stadium and you trade away one player after another, putting a Triple AAA team out there to lose 100 games again, after raising your ticket prices 100% and pocketing $18 million dollars last year." (Only Baseball Matters)

Allen Barra: "The reason Moores is a dummy is because he is willing (or at least he says he's willing) to lose a season to support a plan that, if it succeeds, will almost certainly give him less money than the one in place but will greatly benefit the teams who are economically advantaged, such as his giant neighbor slightly to the north, Rupert Murdoch in Los Angeles. When is it going to occur to owners like Moores that their enemies are not the players but the commissioner and the handful of powerful owners who keep leading them down the path of disaster?" (Salon.com)

King Kaufman: "The owners say the problem they're trying to address is competitive imbalance, the fact that small-market teams like the Kansas City Royals and the Pittsburgh Pirates have no chance to win, and please ignore small-market teams that do win, like the Oakland A's and Minnesota Twins, and also if you don't mind let's call large-market teams that lose, like the Philadelphia Phillies and the Detroit Tigers, small-market teams, because that helps our argument, and by the way as long as we're talking here, the money that's going to change hands will go not from large- to small-market teams, but from high- to low-revenue teams, which is a different matter, and if you're following all this and believing it makes sense, I've got a beer I can sell you for $7." (Salon.com)

Jim Bouton: "The owners are counting on your resentment of the players to frighten them into giving in at the bargaining table. Their campaign to turn you against the players, by calling them greedy and overpaid, began soon after the players won a measure of free agency in 1976. Yet all the owners have succeeded in doing is turning a nation of fans against players they once loved and admired. Which is pretty foolish when you consider that players are not just employees — they're the product." (New York Times) (registration required)

Dayn Perry: "I think the current proposals are bad for the game. They’ll encourage slime like Carl Pohlad to sandbag his team so he can rake in more rev-share dollars. After all, why work to improve your own market penetration when you can just live off someone else’s? But I’m past the point of beating the drum for sensible policy; just get a flippin’ deal so I can see this whole AL West thing play out. I still say there’ll be no strike." (FOXSports.com)

Gary Huckabay: "Look for a HACKING MASS update in this space soon. Fair warning: Someone emailed me bragging about their team containing Tony Clark, Greg Vaughn, and Cesar Izturis, so it could well be a runaway for whoever that guy is. Also, there's one hmcrae@tampaonline.com with a really bizarre entry, laced with profanity that could make some of Cher's dates blush. The team looks pretty solid, though." (Baseball Prospectus)

Rob Neyer: "[I]t's hard to avoid the sneaking suspicion that if Soriano doesn't figure out a way to control the strike zone, he'll wind up with a career more like Cory Snyder's or Juan Samuel's than Jim Rice's or Andre Dawson's or ... Sammy Sosa's." (ESPN.com)

New weblog: Oakland Athletics Blog.

Baker's Dozen: The Week in Preview. "As often happens, when you see a player do well at a minor league game, you have a tendency to want him to go on to big things so you can impress schoolchildren by making grand pronouncements like, 'Why I saw him play in the Eastern Rhode Island League when he couldn't have been more than four feet tall and still used a chipmunk poker for a bat,' or something like that. For me, the main guy who fits that description is Aubrey Huff of the Devil Rays." (ESPN.com)

The Ten Eleven “Greatest" Pennant Races of All Time. "One Crank’s Semi-Empirical Formulation" by Don Malcolm. (Baseball Primer)


Derek Zumsteg: "Baseball stopped play after the [9/11] attacks, citing safety and respect. At the time all I wanted was to go back to the ballpark and see forty thousand Mariners fans with me in one place, singing the national anthem, cheering our team, as part of a return to normal life. The same people who then said the loss of life had made them realize that baseball and sports in general were ultimately meaningless are many of the same people who now argue that sports are meaningful enough that baseball must accommodate their grief since doing so now suits their purposes. This is a crass betrayal of all they briefly pretended they understood." (Baseball Prospectus)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 19-21. "Lieberthal is 30, he's not having the sort of season that tells you he's going to be the next Carlton Fisk and be a great catcher in his thirties, and he's missed significant time to injuries in three of the previous four seasons...Admittedly, position scarcity and Johnny 'I will make you forget Bo Diaz' Estrada are pretty good reasons to want to re-up Lieberthal, but at this price, it won't be any easier to afford a quality replacement for Scott Rolen." (Baseball Prospectus)

Keith Scherer: "Going into this season the Dodgers had little in their minor league system; they now have just about nothing. No Dodger made the Baseball Prospectus Top 40 Prospects this spring. None will make it next year either. The system placed 25th in Baseball America's organizational rankings. If they're higher than 30th next year it will be a mistake." (Baseball Prospectus)

Gary Huckabay: "All [a salary cap] would do is change the proportion of cash spent on the underperforming contracts, and protect the least competent management teams from their own mistakes." (Baseball Prospectus)

Ted Frank: "When the MLBPA is proposing a luxury tax that not only phases in so high as to not actually affect any salaries, but also is so easy to evade, it is easy to understand why the owners are so furious at the players' proposal." (Baseball Prospectus)

Aaron Gleeman revisits the Rick Reed - Matt Lawton trade. (Aaron's Baseball Blog)

Return of "Success and Payroll." John Bonnes addresses the feedback to his original article. (TwinsGeek.com)

Mike offers commentary on Joe Morgan's latest ESPN.com chat. "Joe Morgan is to baseball analysts what Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness is to literature. He’ll say things like, 'I am the self which I will be, in the mode of not being it.' Some people will sit there agape, some will coo approval, and some will scratch their heads and, 'That makes no sense whatsoever, but it’s kind of cool.'" (Mike's Baseball Rants)

John Perricone on the 1993 National League West pennant race. "I guess it was exciting watching the Braves beat the best teams in the East while the Giants collapsed against a couple of tomato cans, (sounds familiar, doesn't it); but I still fail to see why it was so much better than any of the other races for the postseason I've detailed. Anyone want to chime in?" (Only Baseball Matters)

Major League Baseball Player Contracts. A great resource, uncovered by John Perricone.

Schilling fans nine as D-Backs dump Reds. "Schilling (21-4) allowed two runs on five hits and walked one [in seven innings], giving him 259 strikeouts and 20 walks this season. He threw just 75 pitches, 58 for strikes." (ESPN.com)

Lidle's scoreless streak reaches 31 innings. He pitched his second one-hitter in a little more than a month. The Aberrations have won 8 in a row. (ESPN.com)

Rob Neyer: "[I]f you include all possible outcomes of the bunt -- that is, the errors and the hits, along with the various outs -- there are many situations in which the sacrifice attempt is a good move." (ESPN.com)

Atlanta's Contradictory Rookie Southpaw. Don Malcolm on the surprisingly successful Damian Moss. (Big Bad Baseball)

Robert Christgau names his five favorite albums by knuckleballers:

Michael Hurley/Unholy Modal Rounders/Jeffery Frederick & the Clamtones: Have Moicy! (Rounder)
The Insect Trust: Hoboken Saturday Night (Atco)
Ian Dury: Juke Box Dury (Stiff)
DeBarge: In a Special Way (Gordy)
Arto Lindsay: Mundo Civilizado (Bar/None)

Arto Lindsay is the ultimate knuckleballer. Who else? How about Latin Playboys...Iris Dement...Belle and Sebastian...The Chills...Big Star...Jonathan Richman (a flamethrower in his rookie season but a knuckleballer thereafter). (rockcritics.com)

Eugene Freedman: "The real reason that there won’t be a strike has to do with the owners. The owners have already won." (Baseball Primer)

Allen Barra: "So, if the Yankees could have traded DiMaggio for Williams early in their careers, they should have done so, right? Well, you make the deal if you want. I wouldn't." (Village Voice)

Baseball's best young players. David Schoenfield and Matt Szefc make a list. (ESPN.com)

Rob Neyer: "I can analyze the American League West until the cows come home, but the unvarnished truth is that I just don't know who's going to win." (ESPN.com)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 15-18. "I know I join Padres fans everywhere when I state my shock and disappointment to see the world headquarters of Bobby Jonesery suddenly transformed into a Bobby Jones-free workplace." (Baseball Prospectus)

Gary Huckabay: "Barry Bonds has a 290 point advantage in OPS over the #2 guy in MLB, Jim Thome. Dropping down another 290 points from Thome gets you to Tony Tarasco. Yeesh." (Baseball Prospectus)

The Five-Man Rotation, Part 2. Rany Jazayerli picks up where he left off. (Baseball Prospectus)

Greatest Living Pitcher. Keith Woolner and Jonah Keri run the numbers. (Baseball Prospectus)

Baseball-Reference.com is now accepting sponsorships. "Baseball-Reference.com relies on direct user support to pay the bills and support the work going on here. Now your support can go directly to specific pages of content. It is our way to both recognize you for your support and also allow businesses to receive something in return for support they provide to the site." You can sponsor a player page, a team page, etc. Way cool.

Trot Nixon Statistics (proudly sponsored by Baseball News Blog).

More sponsored pages:

Dick Allen (bigbadbaseball.com)
Lance Berkman (AstrosDaily.com)
Wade Boggs (Eugene Freedman)
Francisco Cabrera (James Fraser)
Brian Downing (James J. Seitz, from his son, Bill)
Glenn Hubbard (Braves Journal)
1924 Senators (Roger Moore)
1955 Dodgers (John Jackson)
1981 Expos (Jonah Keri)
1993 Blue Jays (Gideon Clarke)

You get the idea.

Thanks for your patience. This page has been extremely slow-loading in recent weeks, apparently because BlogSpot has been expanding so rapidly. They say they're working to upgrade their servers.

Baker's Dozen: The Week in Preview. (ESPN.com)

The Week in Quotes. (Baseball Prospectus)

Anna Sivadasan reports from Wrigley Field. (ESPN.com)

Anna Sivadasan sums it all up. (ESPN.com)

John Perricone, in response to a reader's e-mail, takes on George Will. (Only Baseball Matters)

John Perricone takes on Newsweek's Mark Starr. (Only Baseball Matters)

Dumbest of the dumb. Dayn Perry ranks the five worst recent articles on baseball economics. (FOXSports.com)

Best articles on MLB economics. Dayn Perry ranks the five best. Congrats to Dan Lewis for making the list. (FOXSports.com)

Dan Lewis: "Is Sports Illustrated trying to push for a salary cap in Major League Baseball? You won't find it listen in their fifteen ways to save baseball, so they must not be interested in it." Yet SI for Kids is pitching the salary cap to youngsters. (dlewis.net)

Derek Zumsteg proposes a revenue-sharing plan based on market size.

[R]evenue sharing based on payroll or revenue is wrong. If teams want to invest in their product, to put a good team on the field, to try and bring a pennant home, why should they be punished? If a team builds its fan base in limited circumstances, why should it ever have to give money to a lazy and stupid team playing a much larger market? The Indians gave money to the Phillies last year, and that's not just pathetic, it's wrong: There are 2,910,000 people in Cleveland and 5,999,000 in Philly. What kind of a stupid system rewards the Phillies for their ability to alienate their fans?

(Baseball Prospectus)

Doug Pappas: "A fundamental flaw in the owners' revenue sharing formula almost guarantees that if adopted, it would increase the number of teams that 'can't compete.' That flaw is requiring all teams to share 50% of all their local revenue, from Dollar One. By creating a 50% marginal tax rate that applies equally to the Yankees and the Kansas City Royals, the owners' revenue sharing plan discourages both clubs from spending money to improve their teams." (Baseball Prospectus)

Dan Lewis: "Players don't just follow the money. Other factors — all of which become more prominent when the money spigot dries up — influence ballplayers' decisions." (FOXSports.com)

John Bonnes looks at the correlation between payroll and success. (TwinsGeek.com)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 8-11. "Perhaps even more than catcher, second base is as much a career graveyard as you'll find on the diamond. When Carlos Febles came up as the other half of Los Dos Carlitos, while he wasn't expected to be the next Joe Morgan, there was a reasonable hope that he'd be the next Tony Phillips. Instead, the Royals got the next Brent Gates." (Baseball Prospectus)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 12-14. "Whew, that was close, I mean, if Orlando Merced hadn't had the good fortune to get this totally unexpected $1.7 million offer from this team that's supposedly losing money hand over fist, he might have had to be a Devil Ray or something...Bless the Astros for their compassion and charity." (Baseball Prospectus)

Don Malcolm: "Now of all the items we’ve looked at with respect to Coors Field, the one that no one seems to have spent any time on is temperature." (Big Bad Baseball)

Ryan Wilkins argues that Curt Schlling has been even better than Randy Johnson this season. (baseballjunkie.net)

Dan Werr: "For all the praise and renaming of limited-access highways, McGwire was probably underrated. And while I don't begrudge anyone their decision to retire, whenever a player seems to do so out of a sense of duty, I have to wonder if their team wouldn't have been better off if they'd stuck around." (Baseball Primer)

Reds acquire left-hander Estes from Mets. The Reds are acting like the 2000 Red Sox, giving up prospects for mediocre veterans to fuel a playoff run that's probably doomed. The Mets, sensibly, are cutting their losses and looking to the future. (ESPN.com)

Rob Neyer interviews Red Sox owner John Henry, who's played APBA and read Bill James. (ESPN.com)

Nippon Meat told to halt sales. Corporate fraud strikes Japanese baseball. (Nippon Meat owns the Nippon Ham Fighters.) (Daily Yomiuri)

Lowe first in AL to win 17 games. But his ERA jumped all the way to 2.29. (ESPN.com)

Williams delivers in 14th to lift Yanks over Royals. Jason Giambi hit his 29th home run. Back in April, Yankee fans were wishing they still had Tino Martinez. Now, everybody else wishes the Yankees still had Tino Martinez. (ESPN.com)

Gary Huckabay: "A new CBA isn't going to magically create a trusting, blood-brother relationship between players and owners, but at least it's a step in the right direction...It'd be nice to move forward with a new agreement with an atmosphere of hope rather than fear. (Hope, for you Royals fans, is when you have kind of a good, warm feeling, and you believe something positive is likely to happen.)" (Baseball Prospectus)

George Will: "THE GREEDY OVERPAID PLAYER'S ARE RUINING BASEBALL AND IF THERES A STRIKE THE FANS WONT BE BACK." (Washington Post)

From Just a Gwai Lo: "Interesting: George F. Will advises both the Baltimore Orioles and the San Diego Padres, which, in the opinion of one [Doug Pappas], due to his (Will's) serving on the committee he mentions in the article, constitutes a 'remarkable conflict of interest'."

Craig Calcaterra on the HBO documentary City on Fire. (Bull)

John Shea on the Wild Card. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Dan Lewis uses the Favorite Toy to estimate how many homers Ted Williams would have hit if he hadn't served in WWII and Korea. (dlewis.net)

New baseball weblog: BallParkWatch.

Portland, Bosox a perfect fit. The Red Sox are getting ready move their AA operation from Trenton to Portland, ME. (The Times, Trenton) (via BallParkWatch)

Anna Sivadasan goes to Camden Yards, Comerica Park and Busch Stadium. (ESPN.com)

Baker's Dozen: The week in preview. Better late than never. Sorry. (ESPN.com)

Allen Barra on "the foolishness of the baseball writers," plus more baseball memories. (Salon)

19) Interviewing Lou Brock years ago for a sports magazine, I asked him who were the toughest pitchers to steal against. "For me," he said, "it was Sandy Koufax."
"Koufax?" I replied. "I always heard that his move to first wasn't all that good."
"I wouldn't know," said Brock.

Allen Barra on Don Fehr's drug-testing gamble, plus more baseball memories. (Salon)

Rob Neyer: "Whether or not Jennings should be Rookie of the Year is one question. Here's another ... Is he enjoying the best season ever by a Rockies starter?" (ESPN.com)

Joe Sheehan says farewell to Baseball Prospectus.

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 4-7. "So Jaret Wright finally goes away, and the Indians... bring back Dave Burba? Who's next, Ken Schrom? Rich Yett? Do they all get curtain calls? Blech." (Baseball Prospectus)

Rany Jazayerli: "The five-man rotation is a failure." (Baseball Prospectus)

Derek Zumsteg: "The unbalanced schedule rules." (Baseball Prospectus)

Phil Rogers on the NL MVP candidates. His pick: John Smoltz. (ESPN.com)

Joe Sheehan: "Barry Bonds is the National League MVP. He's so far ahead of everyone else that even considering other players is denying reality." (ESPN.com)

Joe Sheehan: "For the third straight year, the two best players in the American League--and the two best candidates for AL MVP--are the same guys: Alex Rodriguez and Jason Giambi...Off the top of my head, I can't remember a three-year period in which the MVP argument--the real one, not the media-looking-for-the-best-story one--came down to the same two players each time." (Baseball Prospectus)

The Greatest Shortstops: A Historical Perspective by John Bennett. "Who was the best of all time? There were, in the history of baseball, only four shortstops who could be considered to be the best player of their era: George Wright, Honus Wagner, Ernie Banks, Alex Rodriguez." (Baseball Primer)

Don't believe that Jeter's defense has improved. Do believe that Rob Neyer will get a lot of angry e-mails from Yankee fans. (ESPN.com)

Report: Cubs interested in Hampton. "We'll take Hampton if you give us Helton and Cust. And cash." (ESPN.com)

New weblog: Cincinnati Reds Weblog.

Seventh straight loss shrinks Cards' lead. The Astros are within a game; the Reds are within two. (ESPN.com)

Keith Scherer looks at the Cardinals' minor league system. "This year's pennant race will mask the ugly truth that for the foreseeable future, this is as good as it's going to be for the Cardinals. Under Branch Rickey, the Cardinals created the minor-league system. This past spring, Baseball America rated the Cardinals' farm system the worst in all of baseball." (Baseball Prospectus)

Joe Sheehan is cautiously optimistic that there won't be a strike. (Baseball Prospectus)

Cubs quietly lose a leader. Jon Lieber has probably pitched his last game in a Cubs uniform. (Chicago Sun-Times)

A's beat up on Boston, creep up in wild card race. Another aberration. (ESPN.com)

Dan Lewis on sunk costs. Baseball GMs are finally starting to understand the concept. Jim Caple still doesn't. (dlewis.net)

New weblog: Mike's Baseball Rants.

Another one: Digressions on Baseball.

This date in history: The Satchel and Virgil Show. Baseball history from Rob Neyer. (ESPN.com)

Worst baseball deadline trades. How did the Doyle Alexander and Randy Johnson trades end up here? "Alexander was the perfect hired gun for the Tigers -- the 36-year-old righty went 9-0 with a 1.53 ERA in 11 starts for Detroit, and the Tigers won the AL East pennant." "There's no doubt about it -- the Astros got what they wanted in Johnson, a hired gun to shoot them into the 1998 playoffs. Johnson did the job, going 10-1 with a 1.28 ERA." These were good deadline trades, for both teams. The contenders got great performances from veteran pitchers. The non-contenders got prospects who eventually became stars. (ESPN.com)

Clutch Hits thread on the deadline-trades article. Creg: "How about the Braves trading Brett Butler and Brook Jacoby for Lenny Barker in 1983?...That trade was one of four or five factors that quickly turned the Braves from a solid contender into a laughingstock in the course of about two years." (Baseball Primer)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for August 1-3. "Travis Fryman is supposedly so filled with disgust over this season that he's contemplating retirement. However, it can't really happen soon enough if having him around is going to cost Ben Broussard playing time...Fryman gave the team two good years and three awful ones. His claim on Indians history hardly matches up to that of Brook Jacoby, for chrissakes." It's Brook Jacoby Day. (Baseball Prospectus)

Joe Sheehan: "I would love to see Barry Bonds get a chance to go crazy in October. Unfortunately, the [Giants'] rotation outside of Jason Schmidt is a bit scary, with no one sporting a respectable strikeout rate, and the chances of a late-summer collapse are unacceptably high. That 14-2 record in blowouts is nice, but Kirk Rueter and company have some poundings coming, and that will be what allows two NL Central teams into the playoffs again this year." (Baseball Prospectus)

Sixteen-game winner Johnson fans 11. The Diamondbacks completed a four-game sweep of the Mets, who are now two games ahead of the last-place Phillies. (ESPN.com)

Anna Sivadasan reports from last week's Mets-Astros series at Shea. "First, what's the deal with Yankee jerseys at Shea? Isn't that against the law in New York? If not, it should be! What surprised me most was that there was no real uproar over this shocking development. The nerve!" (ESPN.com)

Anna Sivadasan reports from Sunday's Expos-Astros game at Olympic Stadium. "We thought New York was going to be the city where the fans were going to give us a hard time for rooting for the Astros, but in an ironic twist, it was in Montreal where things got a little ugly." (ESPN.com)

Bruce Markusen on the "Impossible Dream" 1967 Red Sox. (Baseball Primer)

What's in the Cards for Rolen? Gerrard Thock: "The best thing that ever happened to the Phillies may turn out to be Rolen's refusal of their ten year offer." (Baseball Primer)

John Perricone on J.T. Snow, Part I, Part II, Part III. "He has never produced. NEVER!!! At his very best, his peak, he was a middle of the pack first baseman. I'm talking 1997-99, when he averaged about 50 extra base hits, 85 runs scored, and around 95 RBI, while posting about an .820 OPS. That's nothing. That's Don Mattingly after his back fell off. Forget Mattingly, that's not even Eric Karros, for crying out loud." (Only Baseball Matters)

Expos want apology from Steinbrenner for remarks. (ESPN.com)

''A cursory examination of the facts surrounding the trading of Cliff Floyd would reveal that the New York Yankees were given ample and repeated opportunity to consummate a trade with our organization for this player. For reasons known only to the New York Yankees, they chose not to pursue a trade for Cliff Floyd with full knowledge that we intended to trade him to the Boston Red Sox, in absence of a superior offer.

''We certainly hope that, upon reflection, Mr. Steinbrenner will deliver a public apology to the Montreal Expos with the same ease that he found in impugning the integrity of our organization.''

Peter Gammons: "The Yankees, you see, could have had Floyd, but Steinbenner so overreacted to Enrique Wilson's mishaps in right field in a game against the Mets on June 29 that he overruled the sensibilities of 'his baseball people,' called Toronto owner Paul Godfrey and then bought Raul Mondesi on July 2. If Steinbrenner had waited an hour, he'd have found out that as the Mondesi deal was being completed, Marlins team president David Samson had Floyd's agent Seth Levinson in his office informing him that that they could not re-sign Floyd and he would be put on the market that afternoon." (ESPN.com)

Clemens' agents want extension for pitcher. He's guaranteed $10.3 million next year, whether or not he pitches for the Yankees. His agents are looking for a one-year, $12-$13 million deal in addition to that. The Yankees might just let him walk, and try to sign Tom Glavine or Greg Maddux. (ESPN.com)

Cards' trip ends with a thud. They've lost 5 in a row. Things are getting interesting in the NL Central. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Cards Insider: Scott Rolen trade was close, off, then completed in wild 48 hours. (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Joe Sheehan: "What makes Maddux effective is the movement he gets on just about every pitch, and his control of that movement. He throws mostly strikes, and when he throws balls, they're purposeful balls." (Baseball Prospectus)

Shane Demmitt: "There is a significant positive correlation between drawing walks and hitting home runs, and scoring runs. Anaheim's run-scoring prowess comes in spite of how they do these things, not because of it." (Baseball Prospectus)

The Week in Quotes. (Baseball Prospectus)

Baker's Dozen: The Week in Preview. "How many times in the history of baseball has a .400-range team beaten two .600-range teams on back-to-back days scoring a minimum of 17 runs in both games? Chances are it has happened because, baseball, with its voluminous amount of games, is now getting to be like that room full of typewriting monkeys. While one of those chimps is bound to type 'Hamlet' at random (or, failing that, a script for an Adam Sandler project), just about any scenario you can come up with has probably been played out in baseball at some point." (ESPN.com)

Erstad, Angels agree to extension. 4 years, $32 million. (ESPN.com)

Joe Sheehan: "[M]y guess is that Erstad will be worth the money in one year of this deal. In the others, he'll be a millstone on the Angels' payroll, their convenient excuse for not signing a top-tier starting pitcher or a real catcher in the free-agent market." (Baseball Prospectus)

Rob Neyer: "If Joe Shlabotnik came on the market next winter with Erstad's numbers, ol' Joe would be lucky to get a minor-league contract with a half-hearted invite to spring training. But Darin Erstad once had a great year. Ergo, he must be great. Even though Erstad is, in the real world, in the world where pigs don't fly and dogs don't talk, not great. Not even particularly good." (ESPN.com)

Dan Lewis argues that free-marketeers should take the player's side in the labor dispute. (National Review)

Clutch Hits thread on Lewis's column. Jim Furtado asks: "How do the liberals who favor the players' position make peace with this divergency?" By saying: Great! We're glad you agree with us! (Baseball Primer)

Barons of Baseball Strike Out In Off-the-Diamond Ventures. More baseball-owner-bashing from the liberal media. (Wall Street Journal)

Texas 19, Boston 7. It's only one game in the standings, but it'll really mess up their Pythagorean Projection. Oh well. Damon-Nixon-Garciaparra-Ramirez-Floyd-Varitek-Hillenbrand-Daubach-Sanchez must be the best starting lineup the Red Sox have fielded in years. It's not the 1975 Reds or the 1999 Indians (or the 2002 Yankees), but it's damn good. (ESPN.com)

Joe Sheehan: "That [Pedro] Martinez is pitching as well as he has been despite his arm troubles is a tribute to his greatness. Based solely on peak value, he may be the best pitcher ever. Sandy Koufax can't hold a candle to him." (Baseball Prospectus)

Rob Neyer: "You'd rather not have a single outfielder with a sub-700 OPS ... and this year the Mets have an entire outfield that's below 700!" (ESPN.com)

Promising new weblog: Aaron's Baseball Blog.

John Bonnes: "That's right. I support the owners. The owners, who lie about their financial books. The owners, who are blackmailing my community for a new stadium The owners, who want to eradicate my baseball team to increase their profits." (Twins Takes)

Ryan Wilkins looks at the National League Rookie of the Year candidates. (baseballjunkie.net)

Chris Kahrl's Transaction Analysis for July 30-31. "Cliff Floyd and Bobby Howry for a dubious collection of minor-league arms? Sure, I'll take that if I'm a bean-eatin' Bostoner. You can skip ahead to the Expos commentary if you're into indignation and potential conflicts of interest; over in this corner of the column, it's worth noting that this is an outstanding pair of pickups." (Baseball Prospectus)

Trade Central. Analysis of the deadline deals. (ESPN.com)

Rob Neyer analyzes the deadline deals. "There's this misbegotten notion that Scott Rolen really isn't so great, after all...Get over it. Rolen may not wind up in the Hall of Fame, but he's still one of two or three best third basemen in the National League." (ESPN.com)

Much talk, but no deals for M's. "The Mariners were 'fairly close' on several deals yesterday but came up empty-handed at the non-waiver trading deadline. The near-misses included deals that would have brought Toronto outfielder Jose Cruz Jr., Kansas City pitcher Paul Byrd and Tampa Bay outfielder Randy Winn to Seattle, according to a team source who spoke on condition of anonymity." (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

David Cameron: "Stand Pat spent his third consecutive July in hibernation. It will probably mean we'll spend our third consecutive October in mourning rather than celebration. He can make all the excuses you want, but he hasn't performed. The Mariners aren't a World Series-caliber team. He failed to make a difference." (Baseball116.com)

John Perricone on the Floyd trade. (Only Baseball Matters)

Jay Jaffe on the Floyd trade. (Futility Infielder)

Chat wrap with Rob Neyer. "I think Ricciardi has done a fine job in Toronto. Financially, they're in a bad spot, but he's done a good job applying the Billy Beane method. Remember, the A's didn't win immediately, either." (ESPN.com)

Halladay wins eighth straight on road. He's been a real bright spot for the Blue Jays this year: 13-4, 2.75. (ESPN.com)

Baseball Prospectus rates Halladay as the 9th-best starting pitcher in MLB. (The top 8: Lowe, Colon, Schilling, Martinez, Johnson, Zito, Glavine, Moyer.)

Why are the Angels Winning? By Rich Rifkin. (Baseball Primer)

Derek Zumsteg: "Selig doesn't tell his wife she looks good in that dress before they head out to parties; he'll tell her they can't afford that dress, and that even if it was the most flattering dress in the world, there's no way she'd be able to compete with the other women who will be at the party, who are way more luminous than she is." (Baseball Prospectus)