At the beginning of this season, we asked if putting Joe Torre and Ned Colletti together in the same organization was going to mutually exacerbate both of their well-known predilictions for big-name “experienced veterans.”

Clearly, the answer is a resounding “YES.”

Dangling well-known veteran players in front of Colletti and Torre must be like dangling porn videos in front of Hideki Matsui, because over the past two weeks the Dodgers have gone on a wild spree of acquiring big-name veterans, trading at least 4 prospects and putting down at least $7.5 million dollars combined to acquire Vicente Padilla, Ronnie Belliard, Jon Garland, and Jim Thome.

None of this makes any sense, no matter which way you slice it.

First of all, the Dodgers still have the best record in the entire National League. Yes, that’s right, best record in the whole league. They are a mortal lock for the playoffs, because even if the some how lose the division, they will end up with the wild card. So acquiring these guys for the “stretch run” makes no sense.

But at the same time, it’s not like you really need these guys for the playoffs either, when you cut about five guys from your pitching staff. At least, the Dodgers better not be stashing these guys for the playoffs. Because if you are a Dodgers fan you gotta be pretty frightened if Colletti and Torre are planning to make Vicente Padilla and Jon Garland a big part of their playoff plans.

Because the more important point here is, none of these guys are all that good. Ron Belliard has a career OPS of .753, and he’s already on the downside of that. He’s basically Tony Abreu, only 10 years older at 3 times the price. Oh wait, I forgot, he’s an “experienced veteran.”

As for Padilla and Garland, I’m not sure what to say, other than that these guys are scraping the bottom of the replacement level barrel. Padilla struggles to even achieve replacement level, and Garland has hovered just a smidgen above it for most of his career. Are these guys really going to give the Dodgers anything that they couldn’t get from guys they already have, like Charlie Haeger, Eric Stults, and Scott Elbert?

And as useless as the first three guys are, I consider Jim Thome the most useless acquisition of them all. Oh sure, Thome is a probable hall of famer and all, but he hasn’t played an inning in the field in more than two years, and now here he is on a National League team as a glorified pinch hitter. Thome even spoke with Ned Colletti on the phone and explicitly told him that he could only be asked to play first base in an absolute emergency. What use is that on an NL team? You can’t even double switch with him. Is 40 days of that that really worth a whopping 2.5 million dollars PLUS a minor leaguer?

Maybe Matsui has it right. I’m pretty sure you’d get a better return on your investment investing in porno tapes.

In this week’s Metro column, I boldly made the following claim:

[Manny] Ramirez is arguably the best active player to have never received an MVP award. He’s certainly the best active player to be so consistently snubbed; of similar players, he has the fewest top-five finishes without ever finishing in the top two.

But of course, Manny is far from the only great active player to never take home the trophy, and while I was cogitating about this column, I got to talking about these players with my co-conspirators here at UmpBump. We bandied about some other names of active players who have, amazingly enough, never won an MVP: Gary Sheffield and Jim Thome lead the pack, in my mind, and you could make a case for perennially beloved also-rans Derek Jeter and David Ortiz as well.

Sure, there are fantastic younger guys who haven’t won the trophy yet. But when it comes to the David Wrights, Chase Utleys, and Hanley Ramirezes of baseball, one can say, “Hey, he’s still young.” And there are deserving players who are always a long shot to take home the hardware simply by virtue of their position; most pitchers and designated hitters suffer this fate. (I’ve included Ortiz here on my list of snubs because a) yes, I’m a Red Sox fan and this is my list, you jerks and b) he’s finished in the top 5 of the MVP balloting for the past four years running—a neat trick for any player, even more so considering the entrenched bias among many members of the BBWAA against voting for a full-time DH.)

But with the Sheffs and the Mannys and the Thomes, it’s a different story. You can’t necessarily point to a certain year and say, “This is the year he deserved to win,” but you’re still surprised to learn he’s never gotten the trophy.

Of active players, who do you think is the biggest MVP snub? Anyone going to take a stand for Todd Helton? Or Mike Piazza, still technically active? Any secret Carlos Delgado fans out there?

Who gets your vote?

more at twiigs.com…

Some men are forced to end their seasons with ACL tears. Others may throw out their arms. But Mark Buehrle? He has to kill a bear. Literally.

Buehrle volunteered to skip his final start of the season, so that a younger pitcher could start in his place.

“I got my 200 innings, finally got that 10th win [Friday], so there’s nothing else really out there to shoot for personally,” Buehrle said before going on a bear-hunting trip with Thome, Pierzynski and Jermaine Dye.

Nothing left to shoot for? Well, not quite.

Saturday night, the White Sox lefty went hunting in northern Minnesota with three teammates – Jermaine Dye, A.J. Pierzynski, and Jim Thome – and came back having killed a 200lb black bear with a bow.

As if this story couldn’t get any stranger, Buehrle pretty much owns up to his undying love for Jim Thome. Money quote:

”Once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially going with Jimmy,” Buehrle said Sunday. ”When we got out there, the guy said we could hunt separate. But my main thing is I wanted to be in the stand with Jim Thome. I turned down hunting by myself to be with him.”

Yeah… Take it easy, Mark. Why don’t you stop talking for a while? Yeah, maybe sit the next couple plays out.

Watch as some doctor discusses the virtues of the female anatomy on Oprah…and White Sox DH Jim Thome somehow gets put on the spot.

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[Via southsidesox.com]

Ever since the 76ers traded Charles Barkley to the Suns for Jeff Hornacek, Andrew Lang and a handful of magic beans, Philly fans have been terrified of trading superstars from their teams, no matter the circumstances.

So last winter, when the Phillies announced that they were trading Jim Thome to the White Sox for center fielder Aaron Rowand, the city groaned. Not AGAIN. It was understood that the moment Thome got out of town he would regain his health and swagger and do everything possible to remind the world that he is one of the all-time-great sluggers, the same way Barkley led the Suns to the NBA finals.

So what is Thome doing so far this season? Only a .296 avg, 29 HRs, and 75 RBIs. He’s a clear candidate for the AL MVP and his White Sox look like they will make a run at a second consecutive World Series trophy. The fears of Phillies fans were justified.

So do those Philly fans have a bitter taste in their mouths over the Thome trade? No. The city has fallen in love with Aaron Rowand, who forever earned a spot in the city’s heart when he broke his nose crashing into the centerfield fence — and still made the catch.

But it’s been more than just Rowand. Thome’s replacement, Ryan Howard, has been pretty good, too. Last year’s rookie of the year has a .282 avg, 28 HRs and 71 RBIs. Howard has given Phils fans hope for the future. And if he weren’t playing for what is quickly becoming the worst team in the NL, Howard would be an obvious MVP candidate.

Which begs the question: wasn’t there some way the Phillies could have kept both Howard and Thome?

The answer is, of course, no. Both Thome and Howard play the same position. During 2005 spring training, the Phils asked Howard to play a little outfield, but it didn’t work out too well. Howard, for all his hitting ability, is not an adept fielder. He can barely play first, for crying out loud. Thome came into the league as a third baseman, but Thome is nowhere near as spry as he was in as a 22 year-old Indian. And this spring he was coming off a season where he spent time on the DL with back problems. So that was never a possibility.

No, Thome and Howard couldn’t play together. Not in the NL, anyway. And Phillies fans are left to contemplate: what if? What if the Phillies had been able to field the two most dominant sluggers in the game not named David Ortiz? What kind of a team would that produce? Would the Phillies be looking down at the Mets, instead of the other way around?

Sadly, we’ll never know.