MLB News and Rumors

Toronto Blue Jays second baseman Aaron Hill played in only 138 games last year, partially due to hamstring issues. Now those issues are acting up again.

He hurt his hamstring this time around while stealing second in Tuesday’s game against the New York Yankees. The Globe and Mail reports that the injury "felt a lot better" Wednesday than it did Tuesday night, but it still kept Hill out of the game Wednesday against the Yanks – "and it remains unclear when the second baseman will be able to return to the club."

The team has an off day Thursday so Hill can see how much rest helps him. He also had an MRI Wednesday. "We’re throwing as much stuff [treatment] at it as we can," Hill said, according to the paper. "Obviously they’re not going to let it go a long time without doing something. Hopefully it continues to get better, like today."

So far this season, Hill is batting .242 with nine RBIs.

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It was the moment that Giants fans have all been waiting for. Brandon Belt’s first big league homerun. IT came in his second big league game and he hit it where the big boys hit em!

The excitement lasted for about an inning and a half.

That was how long it took for the Giants to literally give the lead to the Dodgers for the second straight night.

Their two errors in the sixth brought their total to five for the last two games and the unearned run total to 3. But there were positives in the two games.

Brandon Belt.

Belt has looked like every bit the big league player we thought he might be. He doesn’t look overmatched at the plate and, the two unearned runs aside, he almost was the hero of the game. I saw a tweet, from John Shea I think, that said Will Clark hit a homer in his first game and Belt hit one in his second game. If this guy turns out to be as good as Will “The Thrill” we will be happy for a long time.

Jonathan Sanchez.

Ol&…
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The Boston Red Sox are aiming to keep Adrian Gonzalez around for a long time. Folks from the team met with the player’s reps yesterday and it all went "really well," according to a source to the Boston Herald.

One of the agents for Gonzalez, John Boggs, said that things were on track to have an agreement in place in the next few weeks, according to the paper.

The Herald reports that the deal is estimated to be for seven years and "approximately" million annually; the word is that it will be ready for signing shortly after the season starts and Gonzalez can "demonstrate he is capable of playing a number of games in a row."

Boggs said that the surgically repaired right shoulder of Gonzalez was causing no problem, according to the paper. "Our main goal obviously is to ensure that Adrian’s healthy and playing everyday as a major league ballplayer," Boggs said, the Herald notes. "Once that actually happens, the beginning of the season takes place, hopefully we’ll get something done sometime in April."

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Ian Kennedy is a respected pitcher in that he’s a total effort, competitive guy who had a good season last year. But if Ian Kennedy is your Opening Day starter, a position usually given to your team’s best pitcher, then that speaks volumes of what you have for a starting rotation. Pretend Ian Kennedy is a Lego piece and you could pick him up and place him on any other team. Is he the Opening Day starter anywhere? Pittsburgh maybe? Is that what you want to be compared to?

Again, don’t get the Fan wrong. The Fan has been a fan of Ian Kennedy for a long time…ever since his embarrassing start to his major league career with the Yankees. He was one of the pitchers Brian Cashman wouldn’t trade (along with Phil Hughes) for Johan Santana (a smart move in retrospect). But the Yankees gave up on him and he became a part of the monster trade before the 2010 season that sent Kennedy to the Diamondbacks, Granderson to the Yankees, Phil Coke and Austin Jackson to the Tigers. As…
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We continue our Betcha Didn’t Know look at the 2011 Boston Red Sox team members. Today, we bring you ten facts on long time Red Sox Captain Jason Varitek;Varitek played primarily as a third baseman at Lake Brantley High School in Longwood, FLJason was a member of the 1992 US Olympic team which played in BarcelonaTek has played more postseason games in a Red Sox uniform than any other player with 63. He also is tied for second place in career postseason HR’s with 11.He holds the MLB record for most major league no hitters caught with 4.Varitek is one of just five catchers in MLB history with at least 1,400 total games behind the plate while spending his entire career with one teamInducted into the Cape Cod League Hall of FameTek has not hit over .255 since 2005Was originally select by the Minnesota Twins in the first round of the 1993 draft but did not sign.Jason is the only Red Sox catcher to receive the Silver Slugger Award and just the third to win a Gold Glove (Fisk and P…
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Detroit Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski said last week that his team would be interested in having Jeremy Bonderman rejoin the team on a minor-league contract, the Detroit News reports, but now Dombrowski is saying that such a thing isn’t going to happen.

The News reports that Bonderman may be "about to sign a major-league contract elsewhere." That team, according to MLB.com, is the Cleveland Indians.

The 28-year-old Bonderman has spent the last eight seasons with the Tigers and twice had 14-win seasons.

Dombrowski also made it clear that the Tigers aren’t signing Vladimir Guerrero, the News reports. "He’s been an outstanding player for a long time, but it’s not a fit for us," Dombrowski said. "We’re not involved in that, and haven’t been."

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Editor’s Note: This post was made by my long time competitor Sean Herman. Sean has played fantasy baseball for a decade and has competed in my most intense league for seven years. He will be contributing to FBHS on a part-time basis. Key Stats: Bruce is just twenty-three and one-fifth years old at the time of this article. This is probably the most important of Bruce's stats. His appeal is nothing other than potential. His .217 ISO in the first three years of his career would rank him thirteenth among outfielders (if he qualified) from 2008-2010, just behind J.D. Drew, Alfonso Soriano and Nick Swisher and just in front of Ryan Ludwick, Andre Ethier and Matt Holliday. This is very good. At just 21 years old, he shellacked 21 homers in two-thirds a season. This great power potential exhibited in his first year was again unveiled in the last three months of 2010, when he hit 15 homers in his last 133 at bats. That's an amazing 8.87 HR/AB. Bruce is just starting smell th…
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Editor’s Note: This post was made by my long time competitor Sean Herman. Sean has played fantasy baseball for a decade and has competed in my most intense league for seven years. He will be contributing to FBHS on a part-time basis.Key Stats: Brett Gardner has the best eye in baseball, and two stats demonstrate this. The first is zone contact percentage. Only one player (Juan Pierre) exceeds Brett Gardner's 97.5% contact rate of pitches in the strike zone. This is remarkable in and of itself. What makes this even more remarkable is the second stat: out of zone swinging percentage. Only Daric Barton and Bobby Abreu had a better eye than Gardner's 18.2% swinging rate of pitches out of the zone. Only four players are in the top 10 in both categories, the other three being Jeff Keppinger (96.7%, 20.8%), Denard Span (95.5%, 19.0%), and Marco Scutaro (97.4%, 19.4%). So now the epic question: so what? “My fantasy league doesn't give two hoots about swinging percentages….
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