Marinerds, etc.

I actually don't have that much to say, but I want to play with this new blogger beta thing. It says that it can now do post labels, which is really awesome. Post labels, and the ability to cut posts, were really about all I wanted, and now, look, they exist! Whee! Now I'll have to go back and label everything. Don't count on another post from me until sometime in 2009.

Anyway, let's see if I can make up some content.

Once upon a time, Jim Bunning was embarrassed to say he was the manager of the Toledo Mud Hens. Now, imagine what someone's going to have to go through with the reins of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs? Eeeek. I mean, Ooooiiiink.

I'm not much for roster speculation or the whole free agent circus, but I have to admit that I do bookmark the Free Agent Tracker this time of the year and check it most days. Today, at least, it was interesting to see that Kazuo Matsui re-signed with the Rockies. It occurs to me that it would have been funnier if he'd gone back to Japan to take Akinori Iwamura's place, though.

This is also the Awards Season, and today the Rookies of the Year were announced. Justin Verlander won it for the AL, and.. Hanley Ramirez for the NL? I thought Ryan Zimmerman would edge him out, and the Marlins rookie jar would fight among itself for other votes, but I guess not.

This year's Gold Gloves and Silver Sluggers were announced a couple of days ago as well. There's a lot of arguments to be made for or against the picks, but I thought the most interesting thing was looking at which players won both: Carlos Beltran and Derek Jeter.

Hmm, so Trey Hillman mysteriously is no longer in the Oakland manager candidate mix. Japanese press predicts that he will re-sign with the Fighters. That's good -- I think he's built a great relationship with the team and with the fans. Now if only certain Ogasawaras would make up their minds, we'd be in good shape!

Seibu is stringing out the Matsuzaka hype another day or three. On an almost completely unrelated note, I was at Target tonight and randomly saw the Upper Deck World Baseball Classic Boxed Set for sale for $9.99, and impulsively bought it. The selection of Japanese players in the set is a bit odd, though, the strangest being that there aren't cards for Uehara and Matsuzaka. I sort of figured both of them were a lot more hyped up than, say, Shunsuke Watanabe, who is included. I'd personally rather have a Watanabe card, of course, but I'm weird.

Anyway, I'm going to go publish this article and then go play with the new Blogger gadgets for a bit. Exciting!