[cknox0723]

Originally Posted by Vris

CRAIG!!!!

Hello, sir. And hello to all y'all.

Speaking of Cantu, does he replace Randy Johnson as the ugliest player in the majors right now?

I still think right-hander Kyle Lohse of the hated Twins has him beat, but this picture made me laugh.

PS - One of BadluckinOOTP's favorites, journeyman OF Steve Smitherman, must also be a contender.

On Miggy..well...there are two ways of looking at it. How much cash do you have, and do you have anyone else you want to resign that are more prominant players than Miggy?

On the first question: Some cash, yes, and almost fifteen million will be coming off the books with the expiration of the contracts owed to Frank Thomas and Esteban Loaiza. However, a bit of that will be going to an increase for Jon Garland, who was re-signed this offseason to a three-year deal totaling $4.5 million. I don't feel that is a realistic contract (and I like the manual workaround, backloading contracts), so he will be getting more than $1.5 million next year. How much more, I'll have to think on it.

As for the second question, yes. I'll go into a little more detail in a bit.

If you let Miggy go, you will get him cheaper on the FA market.

A good point. Unless of course he does not want to re-sign with us due to playing time concerns or the like.

Unless the AI goes absolutely bonkers and wants him for like $8million over 5 years or some dumb crap. But honestly, I think you can get away with not signing him. Backup catchers are, honestly, a dime a dozen.

You are in fact correct, with the key being that Miggy is a backup catcher; if all goes well, he is not getting more than 3-5% of the team's at-bats, and only 25-35% of the backstopping time. The only troubling thought in my mind is that there seems to be a preponderance of extraordinarily bad performances from backup catchers; take Yorvit Torrealba's .084 average in roughly 100 A.B.'s in San Francisco last year. Miggy may only be a backup catcher, but we know he will do some things well -- hit southpaws OK, knock a home run or three, limit opposing base stealing. Maybe that is worth a little bit of a premium. A million bucks ain't so much compared to a payroll of $50 million, after all.

Do you have anyone in your system who could replace Olivo as backup?

This is also a consideration. The answer is no, and that is literal; you know you are playing OOTP when there are only two catchers in your entire system above single-A ball. I certainly plan on picking up a warm body around the trade deadline, or maybe on a waiver deal in August.

I enjoyed that little write-up (and do not have class tonight), so here is a little more. I am aiming to really get going again by about the middle of next week. In the meantime, here is a good Yorviting.