So, whose decision was it to start Evan Longoria in Durham this year?
Possibly the biggest Opening Day roster joke in some time, Longoria somehow couldn't crack the 25-man roster to start the season, only to be called up 10 days into the season when Willy Aybar went on the DL.
Willy who?
Yeah, exactly.
From starting the season with the Durham Bulls to the All-Star game, Longoria on the strength of 16 HR, 53 RBI and a rocket of an arm at 3B, won the MLB Internet voting, with 9 million votes. Jermaine Dye finished second, followed by Jason Giambi third, despite a moderately funny moustache campaign in New York .
On the NL side, Corey Hart with some 8 million votes will be spending his All-Star break at Yankee Stadium as the Milwaukee fan base boosted him past David Wright, Pat Burrell, Aaron Rowand and Carlos Lee, who was giving away a free hat for any fan who can prove the vote 25 times (actually a beer company he works with will buy the hat). Lee finished last. Might wanna get a new campaign manager.
Hart has 14 HR, 56 RBI, 13 SB and a .293 average.
Both Longoria, 22, and Hart, 26, represent the future of baseball and both are outstanding candidates to build a keeper team around. If you find yourself out of contention, try to find a way to trade some of your older stars for either future fantasy superstar. Both have power and speed (Longoria has 6 steals) and are players fans have quickly connected with.
And it doesn't hurt that the both the Rays and Brewers are right in the thick of their division races.
Still, the Internet voting thing seems a little odd to decide a player's All-Star fate. With all the hackers and programmers in this virtual world, it's hard to know how legit this honor is. Then again, it's hard to imagine Jason Varitek as an All-Star if the system was completely fair. "Tek," as the cool Boston folks like to call him, will earn a cool $50,000 for this honor. Check out who will get the biggest All-Star bonuses.
Richie Sexson waived: Mired in a season-long slump with bat speed that is almost as slow as Sexson trying for a triple, the Mariners first baseman was released in a surprise move Thursday.
Surprising, because Seattle had to eat $6,120,219 of his $14 million contract this year. Not that surprising because Sexson was hitting .218. The HR numbers weren't awful (11) but the RBI production was beyond hideous for a hitter of Sexson's price tag (30).
Some very desperate team might give Sexson another shot, but even still, he's probably not worth keeping around. Even in AL-only leagues. Just wash your hands, if you're still clinging to that 45-HR glory days of 2003.
Interesting option for AL-only leagues is Sexson's minor league replacement, Tug Hulett, who had 11 HR and 20 SB in Sacramento last year and was hitting .302 with 9 HR and 5 SB this year. Can't see Miguel Cairo getting that many at-bats on a team that is in rebuild mode, so Hulett, who came over from Texas in the Ben Broussard trade, might get five or more starts a week, so keep an eye on the M's box scores.
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