The Phils unveiled their new alternate uniform today, which will be worn during home day games.

The unis were modeled by Jimmy Rollins, Cole Hamels and HOF member Robin Roberts.

A couple of thoughts on these photos:

1. Jimmy Rollins knows how to work a runway. This should come as no surprise. Say what you will about Rollins’ work on the field, but he’s certainly among the most likeable players Philly has ever had.
2. Cole Hamels looks silly wearing sneakers with his baseball jersey.
3. The new uniforms are cool. I like them a lot. And since they are old school, I’m guessing Bill Conlin approves.

You can see more pics of the Phils’ new uniforms here and here.

I did not see this one coming. Not by a long shot.

It’s currently being reported that the New York Mets have dealt OF prospect and legendary rapper Lastings Milledge to the Washington Nationals in exchange for catcher Brian Schneider and outfielder Ryan Church.

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that Milledge has been dealt. His name had been bandied about in many trade rumors, often involving the Oakland A’s (either for Joe Blanton or as part of a package for Danny Haren). Now I have no inside knowledge of the Mets brass’ collective thought process, but to me this signals that Billy Beane had either soured on Milledge or was never as interested as reporters thought. If the Mets had a shot to upgrade their starting pitching via Oakland by trading Milledge, one would have to assume that Omar Minaya would have saved this bullet for the right time. Instead, Milledge is going to Washington where he should see a lot of playing time. Most scouts seem to still view him as an above-average outfielder in the future, if not future All-Star.

So why did the Mets do it?

First off, there’s something else here. In the last week or so, the Mets acquired three catchers - they resigned Ramon Castro to a two-year deal, traded for Johnny Estrada, and have now also acquired Schneider. Unless they’re planning on employing the first ever catching (righty-switch-lefty) trio, they most likely will be looking to deal one of the three.

But the bigger piece here is Ryan Church. I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I actually like Church. Despite playing in a massive pitcher’s park, he still managed to attain a .813 OPS in 2007. In fact, he slugged over .500 away from RFK. I don’t expect his numbers to get that much better since Shea is just as much a pitcher’s park. But what he does offer the Mets lineup is the lefty hitter they’ve been lacking since letting Shawn Green hit the market. Church should slot in as the #2, 7 or 8 hitter in the Mets lineup (I’m not much of a fan of the idea of Luis Castillo in the second spot). While he had a .349 OBP in 2007, he performed better in that department in ‘05 and ‘06, so I expect him to bounce back into the .360 OBP level, which should be good enough to hit near the top of the order. Plus, he has much more pop than Castillo (who doesn’t?). Church should improve the Mets offense in the short term. Defensively, he’s nothing special, but he isn’t bad either. While he played mostly in left in Washington, he’ll most likely be a RFer for the Mets.

Overall, I think it’s pretty ballsy of Omar Minaya to trade Milledge to a team within his own division. Mets fans will get to see L-Millz 18 times in the 2008 regular season wearing that Nationals uniform and they’ll judge for themselves if he ever was going to be a star. I’m pretty confident that this (assuming that trading Milledge for good pitching was simply not an available option) improves the Mets chances in 2008. But we’ll all have to wait and see to know if this trade is a big mistake.

P.S: I expect the fans of Flushing to immediately want to burn Minaya for this deal. The press and blogs have talked SO MANY times about dealing Milledge for pitching that I think lots of people will look at this trade and think that Minaya took Church/Schneider over someone like Haren or Johan Santana. Me? I’m pretty sure that had such a possibility existed, Omar would have never looked in Washington’s direction.

UPDATE: Well, not really an “update”, but a clarification - I was just re-reading this and I think it comes off sounding a bit too positive from the Mets’ perspective. So instead of writing this over again, I’m just going to add that I’m not exactly thrilled with this trade. It’s not as bad as it seems on the surface, but it’s definitely not good. Just wanted to point this out.

This offseason, the one area of the free-agent market that intrigued me aside from where the best player on the planet would land was the backstop. I’ve already written about how slim the pickings are at the catching position, so I won’t go into too much detail, but basically, it looked rife for some terrible contracts. Prior to the month of October, there was a decent number of guys who had a solid resume. Then the Tigers exercised their $13 million option on Pudge Rodriguez. Then you know what happened?

Actual sanity.

I’ll give you all a moment to soak that in.

We good? Let’s go on.

It’s not exactly “edgy” to criticize GMs and owners on their excessive spending habits. It’s simply something to which we’ve grown accustomed. But so far this offseason, I have to give them credit overall. At least when it comes to dealing with the catching market, they’ve collectively drawn a line.

Jason LaRue signed for one-year at $850K with the Cardinals. The Mets retained Ramon Castro for 2 years at $4.6 million, then for one reason or other the reported deal they had with Yorvit Torrealba never happened. Instead of dipping into the market, the Mets dealt the unwelcome Guillermo Mota to Milwaukee for Johnny Estrada, who has one more year before he becomes a free agent. In response, the Brew Crew (and this is one that really surprised me) signed Jason Kendall for a $4.25 million one-year contract. While we can argue as to whether or not any of these transactions will help their respective teams, I think we can collectively agree that these are actually rational.

The only deal that gives me pause (and it’s a pretty big pause, but still) was naturally the Yankees giving Jorge Posada a 4-year $52.4 million deal. But given the season he just had, and the fact that it’s the Yankees we’re talking about, it can at least be explained.

With one-year commitments for Pudge, Estrada, Kendall and LaRue, teams have given themselves some serious future flexibility. We all know how difficult it is to find a catcher who can actually stay healthy and productive for more than five years. It simply doesn’t happen all that often given the nature of the position. So when such an option isn’t available, I find it reassuring that that even in today’s market people aren’t pushing the panic button. GMs who lack a franchise backstop have seemingly resigned themselves to the fact that they’re not going to get much from their catchers. This is a good thing, I think. So I feel compelled to tip my cap. This way, I won’t feel as bad the next time I rip them.

It’s amazing how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Looking at today’s headlines I noticed…

1. The Red Sox and Yankees are about to enter a bidding war.
2. Alex Rodriguez’s new contract (which hasn’t even been finalized yet) is creating some controversy.
3. The Cubs are hopeful Wood and Prior will contribute next season.
4. The Mariners are hoarding all the Japanese players.
5. Mike Hampton is hurt.

In case you haven’t been paying attention, Philadelphia Daily News columnist Bill Conlin is at war with the blogs. And the blogs are winning.

But here’s something the blogosphere has yet to unearth.

In July, the Daily News asked Conlin — “a writer who has covered the game both then and now” — to reflect on what he misses and what he is glad has changed.

We bring you his responses, as well as our snarky comments, Fire Joe Morgan-style.

THREE THINGS I MISS

1. Sitting around with the scouts in media lounges around baseball listening to these rococo poets break down games to their most minuscule points, each wrapped in a rich velour of anecdotal remembrance and apocryphal yarns.

I learned a lot from those scouts. They tought me about the evils of “wishful fan numbers”. Oh, and speaking of wrapping oneself in rich velour, I picked up a few fashion tips, too. Did you know that Hawaiian shirts can be worn pretty much year-round?

2. Day baseball and our old 5 a.m. deadlines, which caused the executive decision of the day: Do I dare risk writing after having dinner with Paul Owens? Or do I write now and miss him ripping, “My little [bleep] shortstop?”

Answer: I didn’t dare risk missing dinner.

3. Being able to buy a player a drink or pick up a dinner check at a time when the major league minimum salary and baseball beat man salary were in the same low-rent ballpark. My first full year on the beat, 1966, I was making a little more than the ML minimum of $10,500. I loved big-timing rookies.

I still love big-timing rookies. And I can do it, too. After all, I’m making ballplayer money for two columns a week! And not 1966 ballplayer money, either. The DN “gave me a generous signing bonus, a quarterly performance bonus and matched the lump sum that would have accompanied the buyout package. They also continued the subsidy of my Florida condo that has been paying the taxes and monthly maintenance since 1987. By law, they had to begin paying me my full pension in 2004, so at age 73 I’m making the top salary at the paper plus collecting the biggest monthly pension check ever paid out.”

THREE THINGS I’M GLAD HAVE CHANGED

1. Not having to take part in the group “one quote serves all” interviews that have become the sorry lot of the baseball beat writer.

In fact, I’ve stopped doing any reporting whatsoever!

2. Not having to write my stories and columns on an Olivetti portable with an “i” key that sticks … Then sending the story via a 30-pound fax machine that was called a “Telecopier” at 6 minutes a page. They were fragile and you weren’t supposed to check them with luggage, but everybody did, so they didn’t have to risk a hernia carrying them a half-mile to the gate. It was fun to see them come careening down the baggage-claim carousel chute, hit the railing and fly open in a shower of cheap plastic fittings. After that came the Radio Shack 100s holding one 25-inch story that would be lost forever if you accidentally got unplugged, as there was no memory in the early ones.

Now I write my stories on an Apple MacBook Pro, but the “i” key still sticks. What, they can come up with portable music players that work under water but they can’t invent a barbecue sauce-proof keyboard?

3. Google, instead of having some harassed clerk look up an obscure fact in a library where any clips worth reading had vanished years before. They were the days when the morgue really was …

… was … umm, I’m sorry. My heart stopped for a couple of seconds there. It does that on occassion. Where was I?

• Today the AJC does a “Where are they now?” feature on former Braves CF Otis Nixon. It seems Otis is sober again and he’s writing a book. Did you know that Nixon has twin sons named Travian and Travion?
• The AJC also has a feature that talks about how Tom Glavine’s pay has paralelled the gains made by the players union. If you missed the press conference, Glavine has decided to earn $11 million this year, rather than $13 million, because $13 million was just too much pressure.
• Crashburn Alley, which recently brought you Bill Conlin uncensored, today takes a look at why Andruw Jones is the most valuable free-agent CF on the market, despite what Jayson Stark might think.  This is pretty much a debunking of Stark’s argument that Andruw is in steep decline. Crashburn relies on fancy modern stats, like Revised Zone Rating, rather than just regular Zone Rating. Classy.

Antlanta Journal-Constitution baseball writer Dave O’Brien says he doesn’t know where Andruw Jones will end up, but it won’t be Atlanta:

I can tell you, everything I’ve heard is that the Braves will not be, that he’s not coming back, regardless of speculation by many who wonder if Jones might go around the lightning-rod agent Scott Boras’ back again and come back for a reduced one-year contract.

No, I’m told. Not gonna happen. Period.

If you’ll remember back, the Braves told Jones at the end of the season that they couldn’t or wouldn’t bring him back, because his agent, Scott Boras, was asking for too much money.

And that made sense at the time, because we were still used to thinking about the Braves as a team with limited resources. But since then the Braves’ new owner, Liberty Media, has announced that the organization is flush with cash and will spend “many millions more” this offseason.

And so we have to conclude that the Braves are choosing not to sign Andruw not because they can’t afford him, but simply because they think there are better ways to spend their many millions.

It’s hard to disagree.

As Jayson Stark will tell you, Andruw is overrated, both at the plate and in the field. He’s had the lowest (or near lowest) Zone Rating in the league for a couple of years now. And last year, well, we don’t have to remind you how he struggled at the plate.

Before this season there was talk that Andruw might land a deal for $20 million per. After a pretty lackluster 2007 season, one would have to think he’ll land something closer to $18 million per.

Who will sign Andruw? The White Sox still need a CF. So do the Rangers. Both teams missed out on Torii Hunter.

But my guess is still the Nationals. Washington President Stan Kasten used to run the Braves. And he is serious about making the team competitive this season, so fans have something to enjoy besides the new ballpark.

If the Nationals signed Andruw, that would leave them with an outfield of Jones, Austin Kearns and Ryan Church. That’s not awful. Plus, rumor is the team is chasing Tampa nutcase Elijah Dukes, which would probably make Church expendable.

Add that outfield to a solid bullpen and an infield that includes Ryan Zimmerman and Dmitri Young, and you’ve got something. You’re still a few starting pitchers and a middle infield short of a playoff team, but you’re on your way.

The Chicago White Sox wanted Torii Hunter. And now that Hunter has signed with the Angels, the White Sox have moved on to what their GM has deemed “plan 1B”.

Chicago Tribune baseball writer Dave van Dyck says the White Sox are going through a “messy period”:

The one free agent they wanted most has spurned them, leaving them with no clear starting center fielder or left fielder. They have two highly paid starting shortstops, two starting third basemen and an untested second baseman. Oh, and a battered and bruised bullpen.

Of course, the White Sox have plenty of time to straighten things out. And probably the first thing they’ll try and do is find a center fielder. But who? Van Dyck says it will be a free agent, for sure:

Presumably that would be ex-Sox fan favorite Aaron Rowand, who won’t cost as much as Hunter but for good reason. He isn’t nearly as dominating as Hunter could be.

Now wait a second, Dave. I’m not about to argue that Aaron Rowand is the next Willie Mays, but I’m not totally convinced that he’s not more or less equal to Torii Hunter.

Here’s what the U.S.S. Mariner had to say about Hunter, a player the site deemed one of its three “land mine” free agents of 2008:

Torii Hunter just had a terrific year at the right time, and he’s going to be paid for what he was in 2007, not for what he’s likely to be in 2008 and beyond. From 2004 to 2006, Hunter’s offense was worth about 15 runs above an average hitter - combined. He had settled in as a pretty consistent +5 offensive player, which as a center fielder with some defensive value, made him a borderline star, but not anything like a franchise player.

Vegas Watch, which calls Hunter “an overrated fielder coming off a career year”, says:

Hunter’s career OBP is .324, and his career OPS+ is 104. He’ll be 33 in July. He looks good out there, but by any metric Hunter was an average fielder this year; THT has him at 0, BP at -1. Only the leaders and trailers have been published from Dewan’s system, but he’s in neither, which means he was between +3 and -9.

Then there’s Rowand. Nobody seems to have written much about him, but his career OBP is .343, and his career OPS+ is 106. He’ll be 31 in August. In 2007 alone, he was worth 47 runs more than the average hitter, his best offensive season ever and the first time he’d cracked 30 Runs Above Replacement Player since 2004. Rowand’s Runs Above Average is 5 (compared to Hunter’s -1).

In other words, Hunter is a better defensive player than Rowand (six runs better last year), but Rowand is younger and a better offensive player pretty much across the board. He’s got better OBP and OPS.

Both of these guys are players you’d want on your team. Both come with some risk of injury. And both will surely be overpaid (Hunter already has been). Frankly, I can see making an intelligent argument in favor of either of these two guys, depending on what you value more, offense or defense. But I can’t see making a statement like, “(Rowand) isn’t nearly as dominating as Hunter could be.” That’s just silly.

Neither of these guys is going to be “dominating”.

We thought we had a pretty good story when, earlier this week, Philadelphia Daily News baseball writer and former BWAA president Paul Hagen agreed to do an interview with our site.

But it turns out we went after the wrong Daily News writer. Because when it comes to providing good copy, columnist Bill Conlin has no peer.

Yesterday, Conlin wrote a column about why Jimmy Rollins deserved the NL MVP Award. It was what we in the industry call a “blow job piece”. And it was, by any measure, pretty stupid.

Not long after its publication, Fire Joe Morgan took the bait and picked Conlin’s column apart, sentence by moronic sentence.

But today, the real fun has begun. Crashburn Alley emailed Conlin and very politely asked why he thinks Rollins deserved the MVP more than Mets 3B David Wright. And this is what Conlin had to say:

Know what, pal? Bash this. . .Tell your bloggers, my career against theirs. . .

And that was just the beginning. Conlin has (so far) emailed Crashburn three times. And each email is better than the last. You can read them all here.

You could interpret Conlin’s emails as just one guy venting his mounting frustration with the blogosphere. But I think it’s more than that.

I think Conlin’s angry (and often confused) words reveal a guy who is fighting a losing battle to remain relevant. Baseball and the way we evaluate players is changing. Conlin and many other baseball writers no longer speak the language.

But don’t shed any tears for Conlin, or any other baseball writer for that matter. It’s not like they’re the only journalists who have to deal with change. The entire field of journalism is in flux. Reporters are now being asked to carry video cameras. They have to learn to write for the web. They have to learn how to record and edit podcasts.

When Conlin says calls sabermetrics “wishful fan numbers that bear no semblance to reality”, I see a guy who has taken a look at his changing profession and at the changing game of baseball and said, “Screw this. I’m too old to change.”

And if the Daily News wants to continue to employ a guy who long ago stopped doing any meaningful reporting, a guy who doesn’t want to grow as a journalist, a guy who turns a blind eye to the changes going on all around him, it’s their funeral.

This has been a big week for Joe Posnanski on the blogs.

Who’s Joe Posnanski, you ask? He’s a sports columnist for the Kansas City Star, a paper with a history of developing big time writing talents.

I’d never heard of Posnanski before this week. I probably should have heard of him, since he was recently voted the best sports columnist in America. But I hadn’t.

Now it seems like his name is everywhere (online).
First, I read where Yahoo’s Jeff Passan called him “among the best writers in the business” in an interview published on The Big Lead.

Then, I saw the U.S.S. Mariner and Vegas Watch both linked to his blog, which argues that Curt Schilling’s new contract could be the end of the Cy Young Award.

(If you get a chance, check out that blog entry. It’s long and it’s smart and you’ll be a better person for having read it.)