Jeff Fletcher

Mussina and Glavine are pretty much identical but Glavine decided to pitch 2 more years, which increased his wins and his ERA. Still the 2 Cy youngs and the fact he did get those 300 wins is why I picked Glavine over mussina for my ballot.

Mussina was No 11 on my list. I would have voted for him if I could have. I think he and Kent were most likely the most common No 11s I hope they change it because right now I'm looking at 11 next year too. I only lost 3 this year and next year would add Pedro, Johnson and Smoltz.

FYI, mine.... Bagwell Bonds Clemens Glavine Kent Maddux Piazza Raines Schilling Thomas If anyone happens to subscribe to the OCR... http://t.co/ovfTtxojra And you guys are going to have to stop with any sentence that makes any kind of generalization about what "the writers" think, because apparently you guys think the same way.

News flash: Jack Morris was a douche too. And having covered Barry Bonds for 8 years, he was not as bad as the stories, to the media or his teammates. As for saying Morris did not pitch in the steroid era, I think it's using semantics to claim he did. Did players use steroids while he was pitching? Of course. But the vast majority of his career was before use became rampant, as the offensive numbers show.

The "system is broken" because Greg Maddux gets 99 percent of the votes instead of 100 percent? I disagree that getting 100 percent would be anything historic in terms of being memorable. Ask 100 fans at a game who holds the record for highest vote total. Does having the highest vote total make you the best player? All that matters is whether you get in. What about this? 30 percent of fans wouldn't vote for Maddux.... http://m.espn.go.com/general/blogs/blogpost?blogname=sweetspot&id=42689&src=desktop There is nothing black and white about this. It's an opinion. You can disagree with an opinion, and I disagree with a lot of them (including Ken's), but they aren't wrong. If Ken wants to eliminate everyone from the steroid era, that's his right. It's more logical in some ways than attempting to draw some crazy gerrymandered line through the era. Finally, I'm interested to see this group has about the same view of the steroid era as the writers.

Some of you guys need to relax. I disagree with Ken's ballot but I know and respect him and know he put a lot of thought into it. It doesn't mean he shouldn't vote and it certainly doesn't mean the system is broken if Greg Maddux gets 99 percent of the votes instead of 100 percent.

Ummm ok

There are no shortage of innings to be pitched in spring training. Hes not taking anything from anyone.

Here are the scenarios in order of likelihood..... 1. Blanton gets released at the end of spring training (50 percent) 2. Blanton gets traded sometime in spring training, with the Angels eating all but about $1M of his salary (45 percent) 3. Someone gets hurt and Blanton ends up on the team (5 percent) Personally I wouldn't be shocked if he has a good spring because he said at the end of the year he figured out what the problem was and he planned to throw a lot over the winter to maintain it. as lousy as he was, he's got a track record of a lot of years in the big leagues of being an average starter. Last year was a fluke. Some team will realize they can get a major league no 5 starter for $1 million and will take him.

Vernon Wells. Had a great spring. Curtis Granderson got hurt. Bingo. Angels saved $13 million bucks.

The Japanese team sets a price up to $20M. Everyone who negotiates with the player agrees to pay that price if they sign him. It's a no brainer to set it at the max $20m for tanaka. For other lesser players the Japanese teams will have to be more strategic about setting a lesser price so enough teams will be interested enough to sign the player.

As I understand it, there is no official "posting" for teams in which we'd know who posted. Any team can negotiate with him at any time up until he picks a team and signs. At the time he signs, the team would then pay the $20M. Teams obviously don't want to broadcast that they are in or not because it muddies negotiations. If you have a discreet agent, you end up without much in the way of rumors. I can tell you the Angels are almost certainly going to be in, but unlikely to get him. But you probably already guessed that.

It's really not that interesting. Teams sign 5-6 guys every year to deals just like this. This one is getting more pub because of Mulder's history and the fact that his agent likes to read his name in the paper.

Doesn't get anything unless he makes the opening day roster.

I talked to Mulder tonight and he said the injuries weren't really why he retired, not directly anyway. He said his mechanics got so out of whack from pitching around the injuries that he couldn't be effective. Now he believes he's solved that problem. Whether he can be effective remains to be seen, but I think it will be a performance issue, not a Madson-like endless rehab issue, which is what you could have with Santana. This is more comparable to the Chad Cordero story. He never made it because the stuff didn't come back, but cost the Angels nothing more than a minor league salary to let him find out.

There's a big difference between contracts that free agents get and extensions. Only one team negotiates an extension.

You're confusing two things. The opening day reference was to Trout. If he signs a 2015 contract after 2014 had begun, it doesn't count. But all money earned on 2014 contracts counts. For example, Raul Ibanez has a $2.75M base in 2014 but incentives can get it up to $5M. They won't know that figure till the year is over, and it will all count. Award bonuses count too. That's why it's not calculated until December.

You guys realize that it's not really a choice for the Angels. These are free agents. They play where they want to play. The only way you can really "force" a guy to play for you is if you blow away the market. In that case you're usually overpaying. I'm sure the Angels would prefer Tanaka, but there is no way they make Tanaka pick them over the Dodgers and Yankees with money, so it's up to Tanaka. As for Garza, the Angels don't like him enough to overpay for him, so I think they'll be in the same general neighborhood as a few other teams and it will be up to him. I say Tanaka gets 6/110 and Garza 4/65, with an option.

I believe that's exactly what he's doing. I'd take Burnett out of that last group and add Capuano. They wanna see what they can get for $3-4M in late January if they miss on Garza-Tanaka.

Extensions don't happen during Nov-Dec because teams are too busy with trades and free agents.

You guys should do a contest predicting the years, value and time of Trout's extension. I'm saying 9 years, $192 million, May 27, 2014

This is going to be my last post on this since it seems to be lost on some people.... The discount the Angels get on Trout is is for guaranteeing him money 7 or 8 or 9 years down the road, not for giving him $5m on Mar 1, 2014 instead of $600K. That's just money that you're essentially spending to avoid one day of bad publicity which you could probably avoid anyway if Trout tells his agent to shut up this time. If Dipoto says "Look mike were going to give you $600K this year because that's the way the system works. Sometime during the season were going to make you a deal that will pay you enough money for you and the next five generations of your family to be set for life, so be patient." I'm pretty sure he'll be OK with that

Where it hurts is when you have $4M less to spend on someone else. And that $4M could be the difference between having Tanaka/Garza or Capuano/Maholm

I'm all for the Angels bringing him to camp because it's a good story! I covered him with the A's. Quality guy.

It depends what he does in 2014. But my guess is 8-10M if they do a one year deal. If they negotiate it during the '14 season they can probably pay him at the lower end if it's part of a long term deal.