To my knowledge, no one has ever received any exclusive insider news, provocative insight or commentary that was bolstered by anything other than anecdotal observation. It seems that they exist as an exercise to keep this site on its toes. Enter Steve Phillips
SP: What a Red Sox-Yankees weekend! It seems like most of the good teams keep playing good baseball after the break. What's on your mind today?
>>There is no reason to believe that good teams would play bad baseball after the break, is there? And FYI, with the exception of the final game, the Sox-Yanks series featured about thirty abysmal individual pitching performances, mostly by generally good starters. The Yanks weren't good and could easily have lost as won three of four.
Darren (Baltimore, Maryland): Whats the latest with Burnett? There is talk that the deal with Baltimore is all but done.
SP: I like AJ as a kid. We had him with the Mets and traded him for Leiter. He has No. 1 stuff but pitches like a No. 4 starter. He's 42-44 in his career.
>>But you still like him as a friend, right? What about that deal to Baltimore...?
If the Red Sox think they are getting a front-end starter, they really are not.
>>Wait, we weren't talking about the Red Sox.
Mike Lowell has struggled significantly this year. I'm not sure he would be a great upgrade over what they have.
>>So? Yeah, he might be packaged in a proposed deal to BALTIMORE, but we were supposed to focus on your good bud AJ, right?
The Red Sox should just play Olerud a little more.
>>...???...
Burroughs has struggled to hit for power of any sort and the Padres are so frustrated they are willing to give him up.
>>...???...!!!
Arroyo is not a far cy from Burnett. At least in their records.
>>A Freudian slip from Arroyophile Steve Phillips perhaps? No, just careless.
The Marlins are freeing up a lot of payroll in the deal that they could possibly improve themselves this year with some high priced players. The Sox might be looking at this as a solution but the Marlins would still need some bullpen help to make a run in the NL East.
>>So Phillips believes that Marlins GM Larry Beinfest might be looking to trade a decent starter (ok, in his walk year) to free up money for high-priced bullpen help. Glad it all makes sense now. By the way, the above was not excerpted or abridged. That sequence of thoughts passed through his head and onto his computer after a person asked him to discuss rumors of Burnett to the O's.
