Earlier this week, Sarah pointed out that Babes Love Baseball is previewing each MLB team — in haiku form. Not to be outdone, Jos Posnanski is writing limericks about each team’s chances.

Remember that ESPN Page 2 story about how ballplayers don’t care about politics? Well, Jimmy Rollins is into politics. Maybe he and C.J. Wilson could be buds?

While Rollins is reading up on the candidates, Brett Myers must be spending a lot of time at the lanes. The 700 Level reports that Myers bowled a near-perfect game the other night at a team bowling event — a 279.

Flotsam media uses a golfer’s attack on a bird as an excuse to post video of a Randy Johnson fastball exploding a dove. I will never get tired of that video.

Jim Baker at BP Unfiltered speaks for all of us when he expresses his hatred for making mistakes in his column. We’ve all been there, and we hear ya, Jim.

Here’s a fascinating story, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal, via USS Mariner. The St. Louis Cardinals are inviting fans to submit scouting reports on promising college ballplayers.

When the submissions are in, the team plans to send its own scouts to evaluate a handful of the most interesting prospects and, in June, to possibly select one or more of them in baseball’s amateur draft. The winning fan — the one whose entry is judged most compelling, whether a player is drafted or not — gets a trip to St. Louis to see a pair of ball games.

Pretty cool, right?

1. The Phils couldn’t have done any better. Considering what was available on the free agent market (very little) and what Gillick was willing to part with (not much) this is a pretty good deal. Brad Lidge was once one of the game’s premier closers and has shown that he still can be.

The most important thing about this trade is that the Phillies dealt three guys with little potential for one guy with HUGE potential.

Who knows? Michael Bourn may one day be a star, but the best case scenario has him morphing into Juan Pierre, while the more realistic scenario has him becoming the next Endy Chavez.

I don’t know much about 3B prospect Mike Costanzo, but here’s what Baseball America has to say about him, via http://phuturephillies.com/category/players/mike-costanzo/:

He earned comparisons to Russell Branyan for his prodigious lefthanded power and erratic play at third base, where he committed 34 errors.

Costanzo evokes Branyan also for his strikeouts (157 in 508 at-bats), and his grooved swing will continue to produce holes that pitchers at advanced levels can exploit. He has the athletic ability to adjust and the raw power to hit homers even without squaring up the ball, but he must show the ability to make more adjustments and lay off pitches he can’t hit.

Defensively, Costanzo has the tools to play third, most notably a plus arm. But he has yet to make the adjustments that would make him an average defender. He lacks consistent footwork, and scouts question his agility and infield actions.

Not an inspiring description.

Finally, there’s Geoff Geary, who was shuttled between the bigs and the minors last season. He’s a back of the bullpen guy. A throw in. Whatevs.

2. Philadelphia is a tough place to pitch. If you’re not nervous about Brad Lidge’s mental makeup, than you must know something I don’t. If Lidge thought pitching in Houston was tough, wait until he gets to Philadelphia. Lidge is going to need to get off to a good start, or he might not last long.

3. More work to be done? More good news today, as the Philly Inquirer reports that the team is close to resigning setup man J.C. Romero. Romero was a force for the Phils down the stretch last season.

Romero went 1-2 with a 1.24 ERA in 51 appearances last season for the Phillies, who signed him to a minor-league contract after the Boston Red Sox released him.

So that’s welcome news. Read the rest of this entry »

- Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that all celebrities should release solo music albums. And if your vocal chords can’t soar like Crockett or even Tubbs, do what Dice-K has done and rely on the guitarist from Extreme and the harmonica player from the J. Geils Band named Magic Dick. (NOTE: I have already gone to the webpage to eagerly purchase the item. What I found there was utter disappointment. The milk and honey were sour indeed.)

- The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Bob Ford and his alter-ego, Hans McNaysayer, stage an epic debate as to whether or not Brett Myers should be a starter. In the end, Hans was slain.

- And I believe we have found the winner of the 2007 “Most Offensive Headline” Award.

- Now we know why the Pirates have been so bad for so long. Why do those “fan” people have to keep coming to the games? I mean, come on.

- I’m sorry, Nationals fans. But your pennant hopes were tied to Christian Guzman’s wrist. And the wrist simply couldn’t bear the burden any longer. In a related story, the Texas man who wanted to be executed while laughing has found exactly the material to get this done – he will simply read the words “Christian Guzman” and “having an All Star season”.

- WARNING: This story may contain a lethal dose of Don Cheadle’s head.

The Detroit Tigers took a good look around. They saw what other pitchers were getting paid on the free-agent market. And they decided they didn’t want to find out how much Jeremy Bonderman would make when became a free agent after the 2007 season. So they signed their hard-throwing SP to a contract extension.

MLB.com writer Mike Bauman thinks the Tigers got a bargain.

Now Phillies GM Pat Gillick says his team is getting ready to do the same for SP Brett Myers, 2B Chase Utley and 1B Ryan “MVP” Howard.

All of which begs the question: is it EVER a bad idea to sign players to extensions before they hit free agency? I say: short answer no, with a but; long answer yes, with a however.

NO, it’s never a bad idea to sign a good player to a contract extention, BUT you need to make sure the player is actually a good player.  

YES, it can be a bad idea if you sign a dud to a huge deal; HOWEVER, if you are careful to wrap up your key players before they hit the market, you will save big money in the long run.

When the Cardinals signed Albert Pujols to a seven-year $100 million contract before the 2004 season, that seemed like a lot of money. But after Vernon Wells got paid $126 million over seven years and Alfonso Soriano got $136 million over eight years, Pujols all of a sudden looks like a bargain. Can you imagine how much money he would get if he were on the market right now? Think $200 million plus.

I apologize for switching sports here (something we almost never do at Umpbump), but there is simply no better example of a contract extension-happy GM than Philadelphia 76ers GM Billy King, who has signed a bethy of average young players to big deals over the years(Willie Green, Kyle Korver, Sam Dalembert), only to leave his team with a bunch of expensive, mediocre players. King’s crowning achievement was signing SF Kenny Thomas to a big, long contract, only to discover that Thomas wasn’t worthy of being a starter, let alone an all-star. Now Thomas gets paid to sit on Sacremento’s bench. The Sixers traded him for Chris Webber, who is making $22 million per this year and next to hobble back and forth between the baskets.

Bad contracts are even more deadly in basketball, of course, because rosters are smaller and the NBA has an unforgiving salary cap. But the lesson also applies to baseball, especially to small market teams who can’t afford to eat bad contracts the way the Yankees and Red Sox do.

So is it good to lock up players with contract extensions? I guess the answer is, “it depends.”

Young players you do want to build around: Bonderman, Utley, Howard, Papelbon, Hanley Ramirez.

Young players you might not want to throw money at just yet: Prince Fielder (genetics are not on his side), Willie Taveras (he doesn’t even steal bases), Jered Weaver (he’s a Weaver), Freddy Sanchez (no power, avg. speed). 

Phillies’ pitcher Brett Myers is charged with hitting his wife on a crowded Boston street. But his wife now says she wants the charges dropped.

From the AP:

BOSTON - The wife of Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Brett Myers does not want her husband prosecuted for allegedly hitting her face on a street near Fenway Park, but authorities are not prepared to drop the case.

Myers appeared in Boston Municipal Court on Thursday for a pretrial hearing. Authorities say he was arguing with his wife, Kim, shortly after midnight June 23 when he struck her. One witness also told investigators he pulled her hair.

Police responded to a 911 call and found her crying and with a swollen face, prosecutors said. Officers found Myers nearby and arrested him. The 6-foot-4, 240-pound pitcher was booked by police, and his wife posted his $200 bail.

Assistant District Attorney Susan Terrey said authorities want Myers to plead guilty to assault, serve two years of probation, enter a program for spousal abusers and undergo alcohol abuse evaluation.

I’m not sure what Kim Myers is thinking. Maybe she just wants to spare her husband any more bad press. But probation, AA and counceling isn’t exactly the toughest penalty in the world and I’ve gotta think Brett could benefit from a little professional help.

Myers should take his medicine and be greatful his punishment doesn’t include jail time. He’s lucky that she didn’t leave him and go on Oprah! Or, god forbid, he could have gotten the same punishment doled out to ESPN columnist Gene Wojciechowski when he forgot his wedding anniversary. Poor guy.

UPDATE: The judge dismissed the charges.

In following the Brett Myers story, I have noticed that in the photos accompanying each article, Brett’s facial hair is slightly different. And yet each arrangement is equally unfortunate. Fellow UmpBumper Coley Ward, who as a lifelong Phillies fan has had Myers on his radar screen for quite some time, confirmed that Myers has a long track record of Unfortunate Facial Hair, with a rap sheet including aggravated mustaches, intent-to-distribute soul patches, and 1st-degree goatees.

In this official photo, Myers has taken special care to sculpt the hair around his chin into a donut shape (note the slight bald patch in the middle of the goatee). A hint of mustache grazes his upper lip, though it’s so sparse one wonders whether it could possibly be intentional. It has that oops-just-missed-a-spot look to it, and yet…and yet…with the smooth cheeks to either side, one can only conclude that Myers made a conscious decision to leave the lip fuzz intact. It’s a pity. Aside from the half-mast ’stache, the goatee is not too bad, as far as goatees are concerned. Well. Except for that donut-hole thing of course. Take a last look, UmpBumpers. This is as good as it gets.

While still suspiciously fuzzy, the careful observer will note that, in this side view, the upper lip has been more closely shorn. Intead of a goatee, Myers has cultivated a double-decker soul-patch-plus-chin-cap: two terrible hair ideas composed together on one facial canvas! The soul patch is becoming increasingly popular on the baseball diamonds of today. Why do so many ballplayers want to look like second-rate saxaphonists? Is playing major league ball not enough? The “chin cap,” too, seems ever more popular. Unattached to anything, floating there at the bottom of the face, it reminds me of nothing so much as a hairy antarctic ice cap. However, the worst is yet to come.

In these two shots, the shadow-stache and sole-patch have been removed entirely. And yet, I’m sure the candid viewer would agree, the result is hardly an inprovement:

Whether the Van Dyck-style billy goat beard is shaped into a Satanic point (above right) or given the slightly more rounded tip of a tongue depressor, either way the aesthetic results are not ocularly pleasing.

And yet, neither is the apparent inverse of the above composition (right). Full ’stache, and a thin outline of goatee. It makes his chin look like a tiny block of advertising space. I expect to see “Your ad here” in wee little letters stamped below his lip. Perhaps, given the extreme close-ups favored by today’s baseball cameramen, this was indeed his hope. I wonder how much you’d have to pay to get the Ford logo on a pitcher’s chin for a few innings?

There you have it, sportsfans. Brett Myers: The UFH Retrospective.

Sorry about your retinas. I should have warned you.

 Yesterday, Brett Myers pitched his first game in Philadelphia since he beat his wife, got arrested, and, after starting against the Red Sox less than 36 hours later, took a leave of absence from the team. The Boston fans, of course, booed Myers lustily. I mean, really gave it to him. Inhaled deeply and really let it all out, projecting from the diaphragm. What would Philly’s famously hardass fans do when Myers took the mound? As it turns out, not that much. A few catcalls here and there quickly gave way to cheers as Myers pitched well (but ultimately lost) against the Braves. And those waiting to hear harsh words from the city of Brotherly Love would be well advised not to hold their breath. Says  philliesfanpage.com:

Manuel decided to let Myers go out for the 9th inning.  His pitch count was at 100 and he handled a Braves lineup that was without Chipper and Andruw Jones.  But Myers gave up a lead-off walk and Renteria ripped a double to left field that rolled all the way to the wall…

At least Myers went very deep into the ballgame.  When he left, the fans clapped and cheered, acknowledging his effort.  Myers returned the favor by giving his hat a little wave.  In time, Myers’s one mistake will start to fade.

At first I couldn’t tell whether “one mistake” was a reference to Myers’ punching his wife or giving up that run-scoring double to Edgar Renteria. (Not to mention, I doubt that a man who brazenly beats his wife on a public street while she screams, “I’m not going to let you do this to me anymore” is a one-time offender.) But this is just a blog, I told myself. Blogs are, you know, shameless (HBW category, anyone?). Surely the folks over at that fine, Pulitzer-bedecked institution, the Philadelphia Inquirer, would shine the cold, hard light of day on this debacle. After predicting in Sunday’s paper that Myers would face his deserved boos, Inquirer columnist Jim Salisbury pulled an about face. On Monday, he wrote:

A kid in a T.O. jersey in the right-field seats was booed louder than Myers. Third-base coach Bill Dancy drew more derision from the crowd when he held Pat Burrell on a hit by David Bell in the second inning. Mostly, Myers was cheered…The crowd’s reaction was not lost on Myers. He doffed his cap as he walked off the mound in the ninth inning.

[…]

Now, some folks might be troubled by the fact Myers was not ridden harder by the fans. Some might even make the ridiculous suggestion that those who supported him were somehow soft on domestic violence.

Really? Is that such a ridiculous suggestion? I mean, I was hoping for boos, I admit it. In the absence of booing, stony silence would have sufficed. But to actively cheer? At his very first start at home since his arrest? And to elicit an actual tip of the cap? Come on, people. The mind reels.

Salisbury continues:

The early read on all this is that Myers probably gets to stay. It wasn’t a good night on the scoreboard and in the standings, but the Phils may have acquired a 25-year-old pitcher with a heck of an arm.

Uh, yeah…a heck of an arm. Heck of a right hook, too.

Philadelphia Daily News columnist Bill Conlin says cut Brett Myers some slack.

Conlin compares Myers to former Phils pitcher Dickie Noles, who was a drug addict, and former Phils outfielder Jason Michaels, who now plays for the Indians and last season was charged with assault.

Noles hit bottom on April 9, 1983. He did not bounce. During a Saturday night of binge drinking in Cincinnati with a Cubs teammate who had just been released from the team, the former Phillies righthander assaulted a police officer in front of a bar.

The Cubs posted bail, but Noles faced the same serious charges that ex-Phils outfielder Jason Michaels skated away from with a pink wrist last season. And like Michaels, Dickie’s short-term career didn’t skip a beat. On Monday, April 11, he made his scheduled start for manager Lee Elia. The Cubs president was a guy named Dallas Green. So, you see, it is true that the more things seem to change the more they really remain the same.

Dallas Green, of course, was the GM of the 1980 World Series champion Phillies team and is now a Phillies executive. And Noles directs the Phillies Employee Assistance Program and - that’s right - he’s the guy who’s been counseling Myers and his wife Kim since the incident in Boston.

Conlin points to Noles as an example of how athletes can turn their lives around and says that we should give Myers a chance to redeem himself. Phillies fans, believe it or not, seem to agree with Conlin. The San Francisco fans were unbelievably civil when Myers made his return to the Phis rotation against the Giants yesterday.

What do you think? Does Myers deserve another chance?