MLB News and Notes: Observations from Around the League

With the baseball season now two months into the season, one is able to get a feel for how a player will or will not perform, how managers manage, and how teams in general are faring.

Two months is also enough time to see if a team is getting good value out of a free agent, or if the signing will set their franchise back a couple of years.

So I went and perused the box scores, looked at players stats, and took stock of the situation from the 2008 MLB season so far, and found a few interesting things of note.

Mike Hampton: Yes, Mike Hampton is still in MLB. This may surprise many of you, as he hasn't pitched in the majors since 2005, but he has quietly been raking in millions of dollars from multiple teams. Imagine being Brian McCann, who broke into the majors in 2005, and has not caught a game pitched by Hampton in the last three years, even though Hampton makes $15 million a year, and McCann, an All-Star, is making less than $1 million. For all of you Giants fans complaining about Barry Zito and his enormous contract, at least he pitches five or six innings, giving up three to five runs every five days. Speaking of bad contracts involving Braves players....

Andruw Jones: I really don't understand the Dodgers. How do you make someone who just came off of a full year in which they hit .222 the fifth-highest player in the league in average salary. A hitter whose home run production has fallen from 51 to 26 over the last two years, a hitter whose only production that has increased over the past three years has been his strikeouts.

Why did this prompt the Dodgers to pay him $36 million for the next two years?  Is there another team who offered him more than $20 million? $10 million? 

Jones has made the Braves pay for not re-signing their 10-time gold-glover as he has hit .165 with two HRs and seven RBI before going on the DL recently.  Speaking of bad hitters with big contracts....

Richie Sexson: Richie Sexson is the product of a player having one or two really good years, then signing a large contract, only for the team to discover that you really have no place in the majors. Sexson was great in his last year with the Brewers in 2003, hitting 45 HR and 124 RBI to follow up his 2001 campaign of 45 HR and 125 RBI.

Fast-forward to 2008 where he is hitting .206, which is an improvement as he hit only .205 last year. Compare this to Ichiro, who makes only slightly more money than Sexson, but his average of .351 almost doubles Sexson's plate production.

Diamondbacks: Typically, in a leadoff hitter, you look for someone that hits for a high average, will get on base frequently, and if possible, wreak havoc on the basepaths. The Diamondbacks have managed to find a hitter that does none of this things in Chris Burke. Burke came into Monday's game against the Pirates hitting .180, and he has a grand total of three stolen bases in 42 games played. 

Apparently, the Diamondbacks, and their anemic offense, fail to realize that the leadoff man is the player who will get the most hits in a given game or series, and as such one would hope to find a player with competence at the plate. Really, Burke should be hitting in the eight-spot as Brandon Webb and Dan Haren both have similar averages, .143.

Dan Giese: With all of the hype surrounding Joba Chamberlain's move to the starting rotation, no one seems to have noticed how well Giese has pitched when Chamberlain has had to come out early.

In six-and-one0third innings of work, Geise has allowed only one run. In other news, if you have a pitcher of the caliber of Carl Pavano, the Yankees have a young arm that they will package with other top-caliber prospects.