November 18
Denver Post
columnist Patrick Saunders
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When people find out I write about the Rockies, they invariably ask me, "What is 'so and so' really like?" For most of the Rockies, I can offer only a sketch. Professional athletes lift the veil only so far, even for baseball beat writers who are around them from spring training to October. That being said, I believe I can provide a pretty good personality profile of Jim Tracy, who today, I have no doubt, will be named National League manager of the year. Tracy is, first and foremost, a gentleman. He takes time for everyone around the team and treats all with respect. He's a genuinely kind person. He's laid-back and softspoken. But he'll also talk your ear off. I once listened to Tracy ..."
November 15
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
columnist Chris Carpenter
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Look at his body of work. Just start with that. What Adam Wainwright did this year, he did all year long. He was consistent through the whole season. Look at whatever number you want. Wins, ERA, strikeouts — he's at the top of them all, and he took the ball every five days. That's most important. I've been able to do that a few times in my career. But I've also been a guy who hasn't done it. That's why I know how hard it is to do. It is hard to be that guy who goes out there and takes the ball every day, strikes out 200 guys and always gives your team a chance to win. Maybe, for one year you can do it. Possibly. But it's a hard thing to do again and again. And it gets even harder when ..."
November 15
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
columnist Adam Wainwright
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What Chris Carpenter did to deserve the Cy Young Award sort of speaks for itself. He went 17-4, had that 2.24 ERA, missed six weeks of the season and still had as many wins as everybody else. The discussion really should be over there. Chris Carpenter, besides maybe Tim Lincecum, has the best stuff of anyone in the major leagues that I have seen. He is, really, an amazing specimen of a pitcher. He has missed years of his career with shoulder and elbow issues, then he had the nerve trouble, and he pitched most of this season with an oblique strain that probably no one knows about. But there he was wearing these patches for every game and just going out there and battling through it, ..."
November 12
St. Paul Pioneer Press
columnist Charley Walters
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As the Twins' top executive under the Pohlad family ownership, Jerry Bell has helped negotiate and approve the biggest player contracts in team history. The Twins and representatives for catcher Joe Mauer, who can become a free agent after next season, have begun talking about a new deal. "Everything in time ... it'll work out — I hope, and I'm pretty sure," Bell said Wednesday. "I feel good about it because I think he wants to stay here and we sure want him to be here, and all of his teammates want him to be here." Can the Twins afford Mauer, 26, who on Nov. 23 is expected to be named the American League's most valuable player? "We'll see," Bell said. Bell said he's not nervous about ..."
November 12
L.A. Daily News
columnist Ramona Shelburne
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Dodgers second baseman Orlando Hudson collected the fourth Gold Glove of his career Wednesday. You remember Orlando Hudson, don't you? Don't you? All-Star second baseman, arguably the Dodgers' best player through the first half of the season. Then, poof, he disappeared, the victim of an ill-timed September slump and Joe Torre's decision to ride the hot hand of Ronnie Belliard late in the season. By the playoffs, Hudson was little more than a late-game defensive replacement and pinch hitter, hardly the role anyone could have imagined for the energetic veteran in April, May and June. Hudson never publicly complained about getting benched, and his silence was taken for acceptance. That all ..."
November 11
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
columnist Jeff Schultz
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The last time the Braves made one of those, "The future is now," trades, John Schuerholz sent a bundle of prospects to the Texas Rangers for Mark Teixeira. Didn't work out. Teixeira wasn't the missing piece for a World Series team. He wasn't even the missing piece for a second-place team. Here's another chance to get it right. I don't know if the Braves are one player away from playing for a championship. But Adrian Gonzalez gets them closer than any other player they could acquire. Economics may force the San Diego Padres to trade the All-Star first baseman. There is no downside to getting Gonzalez, other than whatever/whoever it is the Braves would have to send San Diego in a trade. But ..."
November 9
Denver Post
columnist Patrick Saunders
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A year ago, baseball's general managers gathered at the cushy St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point, Calif. This year's GM meetings, running today through Wednesday, are at a hotel near Chicago O'Hare International Airport. The message is obvious: The World Series champion Yankees' $201.5 million payroll notwithstanding, tough economic times have hit major-league clubs hard. A conservative, watch-your-dollars mentality permeates baseball. That's just fine with Rockies GM Dan O'Dowd, who will approach free agency with the same skeptical eye he has for the past decade. The last time the Rockies made a big free-agent splash was the winter before the 2001 season, when they spent $175.3 ..."
November 9
Buffalo News
columnist Mike Harrington
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You can run down the list and see the difference. Start with Joe Nathan and Jonathan Papelbon. Move to Ryan Franklin and Huston Street. Then came Brian Fuentes and Jonathon Broxton. Throw in a smidge of Brad Lidge. What's the connection? Every main closer in the playoffs had a major blowup that cost their team at least a late lead, if not the game itself. Every one, that is, except Mariano Rivera. No coincidence it was the Yankees hoisting the World Series trophy Wednesday night. Rivera is the greatest relief pitcher in history. Period. No one has saved more games in the postseason or the World Series. He has thrown the final pitch of four Series clinchers — and it probably would have been ..."
November 8
Detroit Free Press
columnist Michael Rosenberg
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Well, the Yankees just won the World Series the old-fashioned way: by spending $50-some million more than anybody else, including $30 million for one player, Alex Rodriguez, who has admitted using steroids for at least three years. It is enough to make you long for the good old days. And that's why I'm writing this. For the most part, the "good old days" were fiction, and two new pieces of nonfiction should emphasize the point. One is "The Machine," Joe Posnanski's New York Times bestseller about the 1975 Cincinnati Reds, and "The First Fall Classic," about the 1912 World Series, by Mike Vaccaro. (I should say here that both authors are friends of mine. Because I'm a writer, I have a lot ..."