I finally had a chance to sit down last night and watch the MLB Network's "Hot Stove" show, a one-hour nightly program that will serve as sort of a practice run for the network's full-evening programming during the season which will run highlights and cut-ins of all the games going on each day.

I was pleasantly surprised by how good it looked, less than a week after its debut. Hosted by Victor Rojas, former Texas Rangers broadcaster and son of ex-player and Cub coach Cookie Rojas, who is amiable, well-spoken and keeps the show moving, it examines the top stories of the day (yesterday's was the press conference introducing Mark Teixeira to the NYC media) and also has various features. Yesterday, they had each of their ex-player analysts (Harold Reynolds, Al Leiter and Joe Magrane) play the role of the GM of a downtrodden team (Reds, Padres and Pirates) and choose ONE pitcher they would sign as a free agent.

Reynolds, the longtime ESPN veteran, is very comfortable on the air and made good use of the huge studio, which also serves as a backdrop that the ex-players can use to demonstrate various plays. I assume they'll do quite a bit of this during the season. Leiter, who has worked for both Fox and the YES Network doing color commentary, and Magrane, a longtime color commentator on Tampa Bay games, are both well-spoken. MLB has chosen well in getting men who both played the game and who know how to talk about it in an articulate fashion.

I also liked Tom Verducci's contributions as the non-player analyst. He's got useful opinions without being smarmy as ESPN's Tim Kurkjian is or know-it-all like Buster Olney.

MLB has also hired two female reporter/anchors, Hazel Mae (from NESN) and Trenni Kusneirek, a Milwaukee native who worked for FSN Wisconsin on Brewers games last year. Kusneirek's very good -- she's a former TV sports anchor from both Milwaukee and Pittsburgh and knows the game. Hazel Mae... well, let's just say she's nice as eye candy. She did two taped interviews, one with Teixeira, one with Yankees manager Joe Girardi. The questions seemed pretty ordinary and she seemed somewhat uncomfortable.

Those interviews were among the couple of quibbles I had with the production, less from a baseball standpoint than from a TV production standpoint -- this is my TV directing background speaking now. In the interviews, both Hazel Mae and the interviewee were holding microphones; that not only looked odd, but must have been strange for the person being interviewed.

Also, the network needs to ditch the fake crowd noise and fake ball-hitting-bat sound effect during highlight video. They were distracting and made it difficult to hear the voiceover narration. And, some of the shots of Rojas squeezed him onto a small sliver of the right-hand side of the screen, dwarfed by a plasma screen with a mostly meaningless graphic in it. In general, though, the graphic style is good -- readable without being overbearing, and their "crawl" is occasionally used as a "flip", where you see one story at a time, which is much more readable than a continuous crawl.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how good the show looked, and I'm sure they are tweaking it as they go, considering they still have about seven weeks before the first spring training games. The network also has some other off-season programming that looks interesting, including detailed looks at various seasons in baseball history, "Baseball's 9", which is a look at the "Top 9" in different categories, and other baseball history, including running all of Ken Burns' "Baseball", and some old World Series films. Last night, they ran the 1946 World Series -- fascinating to see the way those were filmed, using extreme closeups of players obviously shot before the game, intercut with game action, to make it look semi-live; remember, in those pre-TV days, this was the only way anyone who wasn't at the game got to see any baseball action.

That's something that from a 2009 perspective, where if we pay for it we can watch almost every game we want to (and maybe the MLB Network will eventually allow everyone to do so regardless of location), and see highlights and keep up with scores nearly instantaneously. I give the MLB Network high grades so far, and if they keep up the good work, there should be no need to watch "Baseball Tonight" any more -- since ESPN often pre-empts it for other sports, and the MLB Network will be constantly updating scores and highlights for six or seven hours every night.

Good work, MLB. Didn't think you had it in you.

This is no surprise, because it's been rumored for a week or so, but today, the trade of Jason Marquis to the Rockies for Luis Vizcaino is official. From the Cubs' press release:

The Chicago Cubs today acquired right-handed pitcher Luis Vizcaino from the Colorado Rockies for right-handed pitcher Jason Marquis and a cash consideration.

Vizcaino is 34-27 with seven saves and a 4.34 ERA (256 ER/531.1 IP) in 528 major league relief appearances with Oakland (1999-2001), Milwaukee (2002-04), the White Sox (2005), Arizona (2006), the Yankees (2007) and Colorado (2008). He has limited foes to a .242 batting average in his career, including a .238 mark (276-for-1158) by right-handed hitters and a .248 mark (209-for-844) by lefties. He has been especially effective in situations with runners in scoring position and two outs, limiting foes to a .183 mark (54-for-295) in those spots in his career.

The "cash consideration", apparently, makes the contract-swap savings for this deal approximately $5 million for the 2009 payroll and helped (along with the Mark DeRosa deal) pay for Milton Bradley's 2009 contract.

There have been a lot of bytes spilled anguishing over Marquis at this site over the two years he's been a Cub. However, I think Marquis did exactly what he was asked to do: take the ball every fifth day and pile up innings. He did so posting basically league-average numbers (101 ERA+ in 2007, 99 ERA+ in 2008), and was a useful hitter and pinch-runner. He is a lifetime .296 hitter with 3 doubles in 27 career AB at Coors Field, so the Rockies might get some value out of him as a hitter, too.

Apart from his one little outburst ("I want to be a starter!") last spring, he's been a good teammate. I wish him well, and there's at least a chance he might wind up as the Rockies' starter for the Cubs' home opener on April 13.

This also means that those two years of league-average performance cost the Cubs (approximately) $11 million -- which isn't so bad in today's market.

As for Vizcaino, it's possible he'll be flipped in a deal somewhere else before the season begins, since the Cubs don't seem to have much bullpen space. His contract is affordable for a lot of teams looking for bullpen help (the Brewers could use some, but they had him once already).

For the first time, Cuban discusses his involvement with the Cubs sale in this post on his blog, BlogMaverick.

Interesting take, and it appears the credit crunch has taken its toll on Cuban, as it has on everyone else, and may be the one factor most to blame for delaying the sale.

The deal, expected to be in the three-year, $30 million range, will be finalized after the two sides work through language issues and Bradley passes a physical, sources said.

We also don't yet know how that $30m is going to be split up, whether it might be another of Jim Hendry's patented backloaded contracts. For that, we'll have to wait and see.

Since I've been anti-Bradley since the rumors of his possible signing began, I thought it'd be worth a front-page post to discuss what he can -- and shouldn't -- bring to the Cubs. It's clear that the Cubs have never had a player quite like this before. When healthy, his combination of power and speed and plate discipline has been matched by few major league hitters. He led the AL last year in OBA and had a .999 OPS, higher than any 2008 Cub.

Unfortunately, about 2/3 of his 2008 games were played at DH, the results of a healing knee injury that was suffered during an altercation with umpire Mike Winters on September 23, 2007. Bradley went crazy and had to be tackled by his own manager, resulting in the knee injury. To be fair to Bradley, he was apparently baited by umpire Mike Winters, and according to this, that wasn't the first time Winters had pulled a stunt like that.

You can call that passion, or you can call it stupidity. In reality, it's a little of both. It winds up being stupid when it costs your team games while you can't play. Bradley hit .313/.414/.590 in his 42 games with the Padres -- don't you think they could have used him that final week of 2007? It can be reasonably argued that Bradley's tirade may have cost the Padres a playoff spot, which they lost by one game in a tiebreaker. Maybe Bradley would have helped them win one more game that last week, had he been available, and they wouldn't have had to go to the tiebreaker. You can say all you want that "half a season of Bradley is 'better' than a full season of Abreu or Dunn", and statistically speaking, you'd be right. But Bradley can't win games for his team when he's hurt, and he has played 140 or more games in a season once in his career -- in 2004 with the Dodgers. Perhaps NOT coincidentally, that was LA's only postseason appearance between 1995 and 2008.

Teammates and managers of Bradley's have said that he wants to win so badly that he sometimes goes off the deep end, which is true -- we have seen evidence of it in several different uniforms, and the story is that he had such a bad relationship with Eric Wedge, his manager in Cleveland, that they almost had to trade him.

Passion and desire to win are great. That's something that every professional athlete should have. That said, they have to channel it in ways that go into winning on the field, not running after umpires -- even when you're right -- and not chasing after the opposing team's broadcaster when you think you've heard something you don't like (haven't we had enough of our players calling up our OWN broadcasters when they didn't like what they heard?).

You know that this is the first thing the Chicago media is going to ask him about at the press conference announcing his signing. The way he reacts to the questions will tell us a lot about how he will approach his time in Chicago. He has played in "big markets" before -- but LA's pretty laid-back, Oakland isn't really a big baseball town, and Texas doesn't have the passion for its team the way Cubs fans do.

I'd rather have had Adam Dunn or Bobby Abreu. But I'll say this: Jim Hendry has done a fine job since the end of 2006, putting together good teams that are cohesive and win, and Lou Piniella, in spite of pitcher and lineup handling that sometimes makes our heads spin, is a good leader of men. I hope he will be someone who can help channel Milton Bradley's considerable passions into winning baseball. If Lou can do that for Milton -- and if Milton can stay healthy for a full season -- then I'll be happy to say I was wrong, and I think I'll also be celebrating another Cubs division title.

Welcome to Chicago, Gameboard. You're in for a hell of a ride.

The community skate on the ice rink at Wrigley Field was perhaps the coolest thing I've ever done, and that's not overhyping it, either.

The Cubs gave a tremendous opportunity to several hundred of us who live within a couple of miles of the ballpark, to be able to skate on the Winter Classic ice rink this morning and afternoon. About 100-125 people at a time, ranging from middle-aged adults like me to kids as young as three or four, took to the ice. It was a happy, festive atmosphere as people reveled in the chance to be on the floor of Wrigley Field, even with the whole thing covered with man-made snow, boards, ice and other coverings. Note: the ground crew will have work to do once spring comes. Thank heavens the grass is dormant this time of year. I think the field will be just fine, considering it was new only a year ago, and with the new drainage system, the crew should be able to get it in shape by Opening Day. Before we got on the ice we had to sign a release form that was printed in such small type it would have taken the entire session time just to read it. As far as I could tell, no one got hurt at all. There were a few people wearing red "Winter Classic" jackets skating around (at times, pretty fast), keeping an eye on everyone to make sure things went smoothly.

Several TV crews showed up to document the event; the group I was in (that started at noon) got some bonus time; the other sessions lasted 45 minutes, with a few minutes to clear the ice and to Zamboni it for the next group, but ours got a full hour, since the next session wasn't scheduled till 1:40.

I actually had been on skates a year or so ago when my company's holiday party took everyone to Millennium Park for family skating. My teenage kids enjoyed the chance to get out there and -- no lie -- I didn't fall even once. And if you think I'm actually going to post a photo of me on the ice so you can make fun of me... sorry, not happening. I do have a new appreciation for the athleticism of pro hockey players, who not only can skate fast and accurately, but have to focus on their task with their sticks, all the while getting pounded -- hard -- by opposing players. The boards of the rink, having hosted only one game, showed the black marks from skates and sticks and had a few gouges in them.

As I said, no photos of me, but below the fold (click on "Continue reading this post") there are several pictures of this once-in-a-lifetime event. Many thanks to the NHL and the Cubs for providing the chance.

Continue reading this post »

A week from tomorrow, Monday, January 12, the Hall of Fame will announce the results of this year's BBWAA balloting. There are 23 names on this year's ballot; Rickey Henderson is the only first-time name who seems assured of induction.

There are several other potential inductees this year, including Jim Rice, Bert Blyleven and Andre Dawson, who is a favorite of many here.

I've attached a poll for us to make our Hall choices. Unfortunately, the polling structure here doesn't allow you to make multiple choices (on the writers' ballot, you can vote for up to 10). You can vote for only ONE player on the poll. So, I'm posting it with the assumption that you would all vote for Henderson -- I left him off the poll. Vote for the ONE player OTHER than Henderson that you would most like to see enshrined. Then, in the comments, you can post your entire ballot, including Henderson.

My ballot: Henderson, Andre Dawson, Bert Blyleven, Tommy John, Lee Smith.

Make sense? Have at it.