Cy Youngs Announced

The National League Cy Young Award was handed out a couple of days ago, so hopefully, you don't come here for breaking news.  Meanwhile, breaking news, the American League Cy Young Award was handed out about an hour ago... well, as of writing this, it was an hour ago.  How am I supposed to know when you are reading it?

Roy Halladay, traded from the Blue Jays to the Phillies in the offseason, won the NL Award.  Everybody assumed that he would totally dominate the National League simply because he was a good pitcher in the American League.  Let's face it, everybody pretty much gave him the award once he was traded to Philadelphia, all he had to do was show that he earned it... and he did.... unanimously.

Continuing their trend of bestowing the hardware to pitchers with poor records, the AL Cy Young winner was Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners.  He posted a 13-12 record on the year, but more impressive was the fact that his bullpen/offense didn't manage to blow every game that he pitched for them.  The only other player to win a Cy Young with 13 wins was Fernando Valenzuela, who did it in the strike-shortened 1981 campaign.

News from the Mill

As the trade deadline rapidly approaches, there are all sorts of rumors going on out there.  If you kept up with baseball rumors, you still would have been somewhat surprised that Dan Haren was traded to the Angels, a team that I hadn't seen mentioned in any rumors before it happened.  But, alongside all the rumors floating about, there's quite a bit of other news going on.  So, in rapid-fire succession:

• Jim Edmonds essentially announced his retirement, which is a surprise to precisely nobody.  Edmonds has had a borderline Hall of Fame career, but he had a hard time finding somebody that would take him this season.  It definitely wasn't going to be easy next year for the 40-year old outfielder.
• In similar news, Brad Ausmus, the 41-year old catcher mostly known (to me) for his years with Astros, will take his 80 career home runs, lifetime .252 batting average, 3 Gold Gloves and 1 All Star appearance and call it a career.  Wait, Brad Ausmus is still playing?
• Ben Sheets is returning to a very familiar place... the disabled list.  He will join David DeJesus of the Kansas City Royals on the DL and on the list of players that should have been traded two weeks ago.
• Livan Hernandez apparently doesn't want to retire just yet.  He has said that he can imagine himself playing four more years and would like to retire as a National.  When asked, Nationals GM Mike Rizzo said, "Wait, Livan is still playing?"

Players Want to be Scouted Still

Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times tweeted that the Tokyo Giants had a scout at the Dodgers-Cardinals game at Busch Stadium on Friday.  When asked what he was doing there, the scout said a lot of things in Japanese that couldn't be translated, but probably was something like, "We like to look for new talent to improve our league.  We hear there are fantastic players in this series, so we wanted to come out and see what they can do.  We hear that Garrett Anderson may be looking for a new location because his talents haven't kept up with the professional baseball of the United States.  That is exactly the type of big name we are looking for."

When he heard that the Tokyo Giants had a scout in the stands, Dodger OF Manny Ramirez seemed quite interested.  "I never thought about playing in Japan.  That could be pretty cool.  I'm sure they'd give me another $20 million contract because I'm certainly not getting another one over here!"