Headlines

Bernie's Last Time Around
It's kind of sad to see, but Bernie Williams is done as an everyday player.
The Yankees offered him arbitration in the understanding that he won't accept. Bernie is looking to come back for 1 more year as a Pinch Hitter/DH reserve outfielder.

"We've defined the role," Cashman said at the winter meetings. "Now we have to define the economics of it. It doesn't mean we're going to go anywhere with it. It just gives us more time. I think this is a signal that we are both agreeing at some point we want to get something done to bring him back for one more year."

Which would be good as it wwould mean Ruben Sierra should be 'done' as any kind of MLB player full-stop.

NJAS...


There was a guy who used to sign off at Baseball Primer as 'NJASDJDH'. A petty cool handle: It stood for the initials of Nick Johnson, Alfonso Soriano, Derek Jeter and Drew Henson. The names were supposed to be the future Yankee 'infield of dreams, circa 2005'. This was way before it turned out that Drew Henson was a total unmitgated bust and moved to playing gridiron; Nick Johnson got traded to Montreal/Washington for Javier Vazquez and most famously, Alfonso Soriano got traded for A-Rod.
Now today we find Washington Nationals have at least assembled half of the 'infield of dreams 2005' by trading for Alfonso Soriano.

All-Star second baseman Alfonso Soriano was traded by the Texas Rangers to the Washington Nationals on Wednesday night for Brad Wilkerson, Terrmel Sledge and a minor league pitcher.

The deal was pending physicals, according to a baseball official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the swap had not been finalized.

With a rare combination of power and speed, Soriano has been one of the most productive infielders in the majors the past four years. He hit .268 with 36 homers, 104 RBIs and 30 stolen bases last season, when he earned $7.5 million.

Brad Wilkerson is a handy player; a player that the current Yankees could really do with, but I guess the lesson here is that you can't have everything. On the other hand, all Washington need to resurrect NJASDJDH is to bring back Henson to baseball and trade for Jeter... :)

Tony Woe-mack Is Flung At The Reds
This is addition by subtraction. In exchange for Womack the Yankees scored 2 minor-leaguers, one of whom was listed as the top Rule 5 draft candidate this year.

Not only have the Reds agreed to take Womack and his $2 million salary off the Yankees hands for 2006, but they've sent, not one, but two able-bodied young men back to the Bronx for the privilege. Were these kids ticket takers or pretzel vendors (seriously, the Stadium is in dire need of more pretzel vendors, I can never get a pretzel without having to retreat into the concourses) it would have been a steal, but they can actually play baseball.

The lesser player, outfielder Ben Himes, is too old for his league, having failed to advance beyond A-ball at the age of 24. But he did hit .320/.372/.533 for Sarasota in the Florida State League last year. Himes is a fourth outfielder at best, but given that strong showing and the fact that he got a late start (he was drafted out of college in 2003), there's no reason to write him off just yet.

Kevin Howard, meanwhile, was ranked by both Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America as the top player available in today's Rule 5 draft. A 24-year-old, lefty-hitting second baseman who spent all of 2005 in double-A, Howard doesn't have a whole lot of power, but gets his hits and knows how to draw a walk (his .296/.346/.428 line in Chattanooga last year is fairly representative of his abilities at the plate). Howard played 3B in college and returned there in October in the Arizona Fall League where he crushed to the tune of .409/.475/.557, winning the AFL batting crown. A left-handed hitter, Howard's never had a great defensive reputation, but his offensive skills and ability to play multiple positions (it's thought he could also be used in the outfield) could make him a useful utility player as soon as the latter half of this year, which means he's probably already more valuable than Womack. Best of all, the Yankees got him without having to keep him on the 25-man roster all year.

That's a hell of a take for a player who is almost guaranteed to cost the Reds both wins and a couple mil. Indeed, between this trade and the list of players not offered arbitration last night, the Yankees have drastically improved their ballclub in the last 15 hours simply by deleting deleterious players. Check out the dearly departed and their 2005 VORPs:

John Flaherty -9.6
Kevin Brown -9.5
Tony Womack -8.9
Darrell May -8.5
Tim Redding -5.4
Alan Embree -4.8
Matt Lawton -3.5
Ruben Sierra -2.3
Mark Bellhorn -1.0
Rey Sanchez -0.5
Mike Vento -0.5
Russ Johnson -0.3

No, those aren't dashes, those are negative numbers. If the Yankees can replace those twelve men with replacement level players--the sort that can be acquired via the waiver wire or promoted from the minors--they stand to improve by nearly 55 runs in 2006, that's five and a half wins. For example, John Flaherty's replacement, Kelly Stinnett, had a VORP of 5.3 in 2005, that's a net improvement of 14.9 runs, or a win and a half in the back-up catcher slot alone. Oh, Glorious Day!

And there was much cheering.

What It Means To Get A Public School Education In Australia


This is sort of interesting. It's about rural sex workers in NSW.

MANDY* is 36, a wife, a mother and a woman who doesn't want to reveal too much about herself because she is a sex worker who lives in a country town somewhere in northern NSW.

She services clients aged from 18 to 80, finds herself talking about the weather a lot because many of them are farmers, and her husband sees her job as "a valid occupation and useful addition to the household income".

Oka-a-a-ay... Then it goes on to say a lot of things, but I found this interesting:

Scott says women with husbands and children are prepared to risk conservative community scorn and work in the rural sex industry because they are ambitious.

"They want to send their kids to private schools and have a good future," Scott says. "If you can earn $500 in 15 minutes, that's very tempting."

Taunts of "Yo' mamma worked on her back to send you to Private School" sprang to mind.
Is this how much public schools are reviled? Like, "I'd rather work as a sex worker than send my kids to a public school!"
Aah, the bush.