Hernandez went 8-13 with a 4.47 era for the Nationals in 2011. In 2001 with the Giants, Hernandez hit .296 in 81 at-bats, totalling 24 hits (4 doubles, 1 home run).

Image by ensign_beedrill under the Creative Commons License.

Last season with the Arizona Diamondbacks, Duke went 3-4 with a 4.93 era while averaging 3.8 k/9, his worst since 2007 with the Pirates(3.4 k/9).

The Diamondbacks acquired Duke from the Pirates in November of 2010.

Image taken by randomduck and used under the Creative Common License Agreement.

Cust who was released by the Mariners in August last season, hit .213 with only 3 home runs while making $2.5mm.

Cust made a quick stop in Philadelphia at the end last season as he provided Phillies organizational depth and was a possible September call up but was eventually released. Cust lasted only eight days while hitting .250 at Triple-A in 23 plate appearances.

Cust who averaged 28 home runs from 2007-09 will look to re-establish his offense prior to the Astros moving to the AL in 2013 where he could then take over the full-time DH duties.

Image taken by Keith Allison and used under the Creative Common License Agreement.

We are proud to announce that our PRO Rumors Android app version 1.0 is available on the Android Market.  We spent a lot of time on the app’s design and functionality, and we are sure that you’ll love it.  To download the app for an introductory price of $2.99 you can click here.

Here are a few features:

– Push Notifications to get the latest news and rumors for your favorite MLB team

– Pulse-like view of articles – it’s beautiful

– Real-time scoreboard

– Real-time box scores of in-game action

We’re working hard to add more features, so if you have any questions or feature requests, please send an email to support@prorumors.com.  We promise to write you back.

Allan

Weiland went 0-3 with a 7.66 ERA in 24.2 innings and Lowrie hit .252/.303/.382 with 6 HR’s and 36 RBI’s with the Red Sox in 2011. Melancon went 2-0 with a 3.12 ERA in 17.1 innings with the Astros in 2011.

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All of those pitchers are available for trades. Floyd, Danks and Gonzalez would probably cost the Red Sox top prospects, but to land Rodriguez, the team would probably have to eat most of his salary.

Danks went 8-12 with a 4.33 ERA in 170.1 innings and Floyd went 12-13 with a 4.37 ERA in 193.2 innings with the White Sox in 2011. Gonzalez went 16-12 with a 3.12 ERA in 202.0 innings with the A’s in 2011. Rodriguez went 11-11 with a 3.49 ERA in 191.0 innings with the Astros in 2011.

Image by Keith Allison under the Creative Commons License.

– The Minnesota Twins are interested in Jeff Francis according to Jon Paul Morosi of FOXSports. A source close to him says the team already had initial talks with Francis’ agent, and the sides will probably have further discussions at the winter meetings in Dallas next week. The team is also interested in right handed pitcher Edwin Jackson according to Morosi.

– The Nationals, Rangers, Indians and Pirates have all spoke to free agent infielder Mark DeRosa. (Ken Rosenthal, FOX Sports)

– According to Tom Haudricourt of the Journal-sentinel, the Milwaukee Brewers and third baseman Aramis Ramirez have mutual interest. “He has expressed interest in us, too,” GM, Doug Melvin said. “That’s something I always like to hear.”

– Short stop Alex Gonzalez has been drawing interest from the San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers according to Jon Heyman of Sprots Illustrated (via Francisco Zambrano of LiderEnDeportes)

– Jorge Posada, who owns a house in Miami, says he still wants to play if he finds the right job reports Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated. He adds that Posada would like to join the Marlins if they consider him.

– The Houston Astros are apparently shopping not only Wandy Rodriguez, but Brett Myers and Carlos Lee too says Heyman.

– The Rockies, who are willing to trade Ian Stewart, say that they are interested in Cubs’ infielder Blake DeWitt according to Troy Renck of the Denver Post.

– The Minnesota Twins are interested in left handed pitcher Chris Capuano according to La Velle E. Neal III of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

– Infielder Eric Chavez wants to play in 2012 and according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle, there are several teams interested in signing him. She adds that the Yankees might be one of them.

Image by Keith Allison under the Creative Commons License.

In the book’s preface, the author quotes work done by a Manhattan lawyer named Doug Pappas. Pappas, says that a team with only minimum wage players, both on the Major League roster and the rest of the 40-man, would still probably win 49 out of the 162 games played.

In 2011, the minimum wage for a player on the 25-man roster was $414,500. The minimum wage for a player on the 40-man roster, with at least one day of MLB service time or had been on the 40-man roster for a year was $67,300.

The minimum that a team could spend on their 40-man roster in 2011 was: $11,397,000. That’s $10,387,500 for their 25-man roster and $1,009,500 for the rest of their 40-man roster. If a team could get approximately 49 wins with a $11,397,000 payroll, that means that if you divide the total wins a team got above their 49th win by the total dollars they paid over the minimum, you get the “price” each team paid for each win they got.

After this brief introduction of the “marginal win” formula, I’m going to say what this report is all about. I’m going to analyze the “price” for each win a team got in 2011 so we can determine which teams were the most cost effective. Besides that, I’m going to list the top 5 paid players on each team and give you their performance line, to see how much they actually contributed to their team.

I’ll also list each team’s OBP, runs and SLG totals so we can see for ourselves how related these stats are at the moment of scoring runs and winning games. So get ready to experience a thoughtful analysis of every 2011 Major league team.

The team’s payroll was taken from USA Today and the individuals salaries from About.com.

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The press release continues:

“The search for a new General Manager begins immediately. We are searching for a candidate who has the knowledge, skills and experience to build a winner and a strong commitment to player development in order to sustain success. Our goal is to consistently compete for a championship, and we know the first step towards that goal is to develop one of the top farm systems in baseball. We will hire the best candidate available to achieve our goal.

“Our Assistant General Manager Dave Gottfried will serve as Interim General Manager until the new General Manager is hired. Dave is not a candidate for the permanent position.”

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“In talking with my agent and talking with the club, they were wanting to make a decision and they wanted to know by pretty much yesterday who their shortstop was going to be so they could continue to move on,” Barmes said. “It was one of those things they had a few others guys lined up behind me, and the way it was explained to me I was the first in line as far as who they wanted. They threw a great offer.”

A couple of days ago, we learned that Barmes and the Pirates were close to a two-year deal. Barmes hit .244/.312/.386 with 12 HR’s and 39 RBI’s in 446 AB’s for the Astros in 2011.

Image by jkonrath under the Creative Commons License.

Image by dherrera_96 Under the Creative Commons License

Image by markhodgins under the Creative Commons License.

– The Houston Astros agreed to a deal with outfielder Travis Buck.

– The Cincinnati Reds signed outfielder Daryl Jones.

– The Florida Marlins signed left handed pitcher Beau Jones.

“He wants to pitch, that’s 100% sure,” said a team member. “I saw his desire to compete again. He was in the practice and said he wanted to play with his son.”

The team member made it clear that Clemens looked to be in terrific physical condition and you couldn’t tell he was retired from baseball. He was asked if he could get ready to play and said it would only take him a handful of days.” He works hard. He works with the desire to help.”

Clemens retired after 24 Major League seasons in 2007. He was 354-184 with a 3.12 ERA in 4916.2 innings with the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees and Astros. He’s also the pitcher with most Cy Young Awards in the Majors with seven.

Image by Keith Allison under the Creative Commons License.

One of the new features we are proud to debut is our “Mail Time with PRO Rumors.” Twice a month (or maybe more), we will answer emails from our readers about any baseball related topic. We will also take questions in both English and Spanish. If you have a question about Winter Ball in Venezuela make sure you drop us a line, as PRO Rumors’ writer Juan has been scouting most of the games.

Send us your questions to Mailbag@prorumors.com

I decided to talk about this specific tournament, well because I played in it last year and I’m 22 days away from going to Florida to play in it again.

Now, this specific tournament is played only once a year in Florida. Last year the tournament was held in the Cardinals’ Spring Training Complex, the Mets’ Spring Training Complex, the Marlins’ Spring Training Complex and the old DODGERTOWN.

The tournament is organized in age groups. +18, +25, +35, +45, +52 and some groups have the option to play with wood or aluminum bats. Besides that, the +25 group age has two divisions, one accepts ex-pros and the other one doesn’t.

The fun part of this tournament, besides the obvious part of playing baseball, is the fact that you get to play against teams from different countries. In 2010 we played against our arch-rivals in Venezuela, three teams from the U.S.A and one from the Dominican Republic.

Last year, was not only my first time there, but the first time my team, as a team, played in the tournament. Some of our players played before with other teams. Unfortunately we didn’t do as we expected. We won the first game against our arch-rivals, but the next day we took two huge blows.

First we lost in 12 innings against the Dominican Republic team 3-2, one of the greatest games I’ve had the pleasure of playing in. Then we suffered an 8-5 defeat against a team from Cleveland (I lost that one pitching 5 innings and allowing 4 runs, 3 earned). The next day we had to play against the undefeated team of our group and lost 6-4 eliminating us from contention.

For this edition, we decided to recruit some new weapons to add to our pitching staff. First Victor Prieto, who played with the Marlins and Red Sox from 2002 to 2005 between Rookie and Single-A. His best season was in 2002 when he was 4-2 with a 3.16 ERA in 31.1 innings for the Gulf Coast Marlins.

We also recruited Luis Torres who played with the Nationals from 1999 to 2003 and had a career record of 28-32 with a 4.35 ERA in 457.1 innings throughout 110 games, 68 starts between Rookie, Single-A and Double-A levels. Juan Carlos Ugas who recorded a 5.30 ERA in 100.2 innings for the Dodgers Single-A team between 1999 and 2000.

And last, but not least, Juan Carlos Ovalles who played for the Diamondbacks, Mariners, White Sox and Nationals from 1999 to 2006. He played in an  independent league from 2006 to 2009 there too. His career record, including his years in independent league was 44-44 with a 4.27 ERA in 609.1 innings throughout 340 games, 35 starts between Rookie, Single-A and Double-A levels.

Hopefully these new acquisitions, with the rest of our pitching staff will help us contend in the tournament this year, and hopefully win it all.

Here’s a video of the last out in the 2008 Fall Classic’s Final. The UNDEFEATED champions that year were our Venezuelans arch-rivals “San Luis Venezuela.”

For more information about the tournament go to the MSBL website, and don’t forget to root for my (Juan Dominguez, @JuanchoXIII) team, “Cachicamos de Venezuela.” BTW. “Cachicamos” mean Armadillos.

The picture is our last year’s team. In case you are wondering I’m the fifth from right to left in the standing row.

The 18-year old Kellogg died after his pick-up truck crashed with a freight truck in suburban Houston. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“He was a great kid with high energy and a lot of confidence, and performed well for us after signing,” said Astros’ scouting director Bobby Heck. “This is a huge loss for everyone that knew him.”

Kellogg was 1-1 with a 4.26 ERA in six games for the Astros Gulf Coast League team. “We are deeply saddened by the news of Dustin’s passing,” GM Ed Wade said. “Although he had only been an Astros player for a short time, we share the pain of his family. Our prayers go out to Dustin’s loved ones.”

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Schafer was arrested at 12:38 a.m. today at 2223 Westshore Boulevard says Auman and was later released from county jail at 1:59 a.m. on $2,000 cash bond.

Image by markhodgins under the Creative Commons License.

Yesterday, the Braves were two outs away when Chase Utley hit a sac fly to left field and took the Braves’ agony to a 13-inning game that I’m sure left thousands of broken hearts in Atlanta. The Cardinals, who were tied with them for the NL Wild Card beat the Astros 8-0 and clinched a postseason appearance.

In the AL, things were a little bit more exciting, at least in my opinion. The Red Sox were winning 3-2 in the bottom of the 7th when the rain showed up and stalled the game for like a decade if you ask me. The Rays, who were tied with the Red Sox for the AL Wild Card were losing 7-0 in the bottom of the 8th when they started to show some signs of fight.

After scoring six runs in the 8th, the Rays were down to one strike in the bottom of the ninth when Dan Johnson, who was hitting .108 with 1 HR (April 27) and three RBI’s decided to hit the home run of his life. When the game resumed in Baltimore, the Red Sox took their 3-2 lead to the bottom of the 9th and suddenly Jonathan Papelbon “CHOKED.” And the Orioles, with a single to left field by Robert Andino provided a walk off win and putting the Red Sox on the ropes. They could only hope for the Rays to lose so they could play a one game playoff.

That didn’t happen of course. Rays third baseman Evan Longoria had other plans. In the bottom of the 11th he hit his second homer of the night and punched the Rays ticket to the postseason. By the way, I call dibs on the upcoming Disney motion picture about the 2011 Rays making it to the postseason.

Which leads me to the title of this article. Sorry I wandered for that long, but I’m still amazed about what happened yesterday. Now, I’m going to give you a list of movies that will always remind us about yesterday’s game.

– Major Leagues: Yes, the 1989 motion picture about the Cleveland Indians. It reminds us that an underdog team can clinch the postseason by winning it all in the last second.

– Fever Pitch: Well, actually this time its backwards. This movie is set in the 2004 Boston Red Sox’s season. Yes, the year they beat the Yankees in the ALCS after being down 0-3. It reminds me how the Red Sox always have to suffer to clinch a postseason, or not, and how they make their collapses EPIC.

– Benchwamers: That’s how the Braves and Red Sox played in the month of September, no questions asked.

– The Sandlot: This might sound weird, but as I saw the Rays celebrate yesterday, it took me to my young days when I use to play with my friends. We used to play for fun, and that movie resembles pretty much every single kid’s baseball experience with his friends. The Rays looked like little kids playing for fun yesterday, and the outcome was that. They won the AL Wild Card in an incredible way.

– Bad Luck Bears: I think this tittle speaks for itself.

Apparently, Vene was asked if there was a pitcher in professional baseball history to strike out 27 batters in one game. After doing some research, he found out that in May 13, 1952, a 19-year old pitcher named Ron Necciai struck out 27 batters in one game.

Necciai was playing in the Appalachian League for the Pirates at the time, and is the only professional pitcher ever to achieve such a great feature. The hurler not only won the game 7-0, and struck out 27 batters, he also threw a no hitter.

During the game only four batters reached base. One reached on an error from the short stop, one after from a walk, one by a hit by pitch and another one after a passed ball from the catcher after a third strike. Only two players put the ball in play, one player grounded out to first and the one who reached on an error.

Necciai struck out 24 players more in his next start, but after he was called up by the Pirates in August that same year he went 1-6 with a 7.08 ERA. That was the only time he ever played in the Majors, he played a couple more Minor League seasons, but he couldn’t overcome a series of injuries.

It is hard to imagine that anybody could achieve that feature ever again at a professional level. And even though he couldn’t make it as a Major League pitcher he should always be remembered as the only professional hurler to strike out 27 batters in one game.

Fragments of Juan Vene’s column of today’s Ultimas Noticias’ edition were used in this article.

Image by rightbraining under the Creative Commons License.

– Phillies outfielder Hunter Pence has been diagnosed with patellar tendinitis. According to Jim Salisbury of CSNPhilly.com, he’ll undergo a precautionary MRI.

– Right handed pitcher Bud Norris left yesterday’s game with shoulder discomfort reports Brian McTaggart of mlb.com.

– Reds starter Johnny Cueto is done for the season with a strained right lat muscle under his arm reports Mark Sheldon of MLB.com. “I’m not throwing. I think I’m done,” Cueto said. “I talked to the doctor and said I wanted to throw. He said, ‘No.’ OK, I won’t. I feel good. No pain, no nothing. I’m great.”

– Matt Holliday was cleared to take light swings off a batting tee according to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The team is optimistic that he could return at some point in the last week of the regular season.

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The Yankees designated Pendleton for assignment on September 6.

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Rosenthal was the first to report earlier on Tuesday that Rodriguez had been claimed off of waivers by an unknown team.

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