Much to the chagrin of many in the TZ, the Astros remained silent on the trade front during the month of July. Meanwhile, most of the teams standing between them and a post-season berth were active. Only the Wild Card race leading Dodgers, who are on the brink of getting the Plumber back, were Hun-like and unmoved at the deadline.

Therefore, in an exercise of very premature mental masturbation, I’ve decided to see how everyone is doing with their new look rosters:

The Stinkin’ steM

In the midst of their home series vs. the Astros, the Mets engaged in a wholesale exchange of spare parts with Colorado and San Diego. Rather than detail the players involved I’ll simply say that, since the trades were made, the Mets have gone on a five game losing streak. Already dead and buried in the East, they’ve dropped to 5th in the Wild Card race, 2 games behind the Astros and 6.5 games behind the Dodgers.Read More

The Co-Ards have had trouble with pitching all year. From the extraordinary, untimely death of Darryl Kile to run of the mill injuries to Woody Williams and all points in between. So what do they go and do? Trade away two pitchers, that’s what they do. Whaaaaa?

OK. So Rolen is an upgrade over Polanco at 3B. His defense is special, and it does the Co-Ards the huge favour of keeping Pujols off the hot corner. Of course, this puts AlbErt into LF where he’s rapidly garnering a reputation every bit as good as Dimitry Young. ESPN says that this is a good thing because Pujols hits better when he plays LF. Huh?

With the stick, Rolen has better plate discipline and more pop than Placido. But then Polanco hit #2 most of the time, so they’re not really comparable in the line up. I await with baited breath what arrangement Co Russa will make out of this. What I do know is, Rolen will have to generate a shit load of runs.Read More

So. Drayton’s losing money and is threatening to sell the club if there’s a strike. Well he better get his e-bay posting ready, because here it comes folks.

Did anyone hear Richard Justice on 610AM today (7/17)? Apparently, the owners vs. players meetings have been so bad that at one point a players’ rep. (not Fehr) and an owner (Angelos I think he said) got into it pretty hard and started f-bombing each other. The players’ rep. stormed out of the room and had to be calmed down.

The owners say that they’ve put a comprehensive offer to the players, but have heard nothing. The players’ reps say that they’ve made concessions to the owners, but aren’t getting any feedback. The players are making Selig the issue; the owners are making steroids the issue. Bud wants to tour the locker rooms because he doesn’t trust Fehr’s boys to be disseminating the correct information (no one has yet suggested that he wants to tour because he misses getting to see the players naked).

It’s Armageddon time, people. Grab yer ankles and kiss MLB goodbye.Read More