Moves and Notes

Texas
Willie Eyre to 60 day DL (4/23) and he should see a rehab assignment soon and is likley to be ready by the time he is eligible to be activated 6/23; Mathis's option purchased; Mags optioned to AAA
Harrison pitched from flat ground (200ft) Sun - Tuesday without any residual problems. He pitched a 5o pitch bullpen on Wednesday with not problems and will likely pitch one or two more before he makes a rehab start at Frisco on Saturday. He will be activated on Tuesday and likely start that day as well.

DMag's Evan Grant indicated that Holland will make his start this Saturday despite his use in the pen the last week.

Grant and FWST's Jeff Wilson also intimated that the move to place Padilla on waivers was meant to send a message about the displeasure the club felt with his performance vs the NYY. The beat writers seem to feel that his lack of competitiveness in the start -only evidenced in part by his apparent plucking of Tex - showed disrepect to the team and staff. When Padilla got wind of this he spoke to the assistant GM and Mike Maddux which resulted in a "clear the air" meeting, whatever that means. He is apparently still expected to be with the club and make his start on Sunday as no one expect any ML club to pick up the remaining 10-11 million on his contrat, including next's years buyout.

I really don't get this move at all considering the deleterious impact it could have on a team that is leading its division by 4.5 games. The risk of suddently losing your #1/2 starter, no matter how much of an enigma his is, just seems like an irresponsible over-reaction. Even if a team does not claim him by 12 noon Friday, the risk of a blowup by Padilla and any of the players who might support him places this move in further disrepute.

This bunch of players and staff seem like a bunch of up-front poeple so why not act like men and confront the player with the case vs him and demand that he place the team's interest above his own rather than risk losing a starter or creating a rift within the team. Why not ask the team captains to put Vinny in his place and make him acountable? Isn't that the best way to force him to change on his on accord?STUPID move IMO, just stupid.

Finally, you just might have completely undermined any trade value that Vinny might have had, so the idea that TX is making is known that he is available is just an inane position to hold. INstead of keeping the matter internal with the hopes that Vinny comes around and pitches as brilliantly as he did in May, the club publicly castigates and humiliates him, diminishing any motivation that he might have to put the team's best interest first. Puzzling to say the least.

I wonder who would be accountable if Vinny got claimed and his replacement bombed and we lost the division because we didn't have a legit replacement? I guess the staff thinks we _do_ have that internal replacement if the worst came to pass. That's great - if their right. Hopefully they are more right about Hunter or Povda or Feliz or Moscoso or Mathis than they were about Galaragga.

And as a related aside, why isn't the staff more proactive in dressing-down the position players on this ball club. Surely their woeful if not downright embarrassing lack of plate discipline and epic season-long fails with RISP merit a public rebuke from management/coach much more so than a single bad outing, which was preceded no less by the best month of any of the SP on the staff. Calling the team out on this matter, its most deep-seated weakness, its achilles hill for the season and the thing that will leave them embarrassed with zero runs scored in any playoff series that they might stumble into as a result of being in a shitty division, surely demands more attention from players and staff than the enigmatic Pads the Plunker. OK I'm done.

DSL1
Assigned 2 more rookies to the roster: Jorge de Jesus, RHP, 17.2; Frank Garces, LHP, 19.2

DSL2
Assigned another rookie to the roster: Domingo Aguasvivas, RHP, 19.5

DSL1/2 now have 70 players between them which I think is the max they can have. DSL1 has 39 players, while DSL 2 has 31. You probably won't see much roster movement until select prospects (5-10 or so) are sent over to one of the short-season clubs when those season begin 6/20-6/21.

The only 08-09 FA signe missing from either roster is VZ LHP Wilmer Batista, one of the better signs in the ~50-100K range.

ONe final note. Last week suspended RF Miguel Velasquez was removed from the inactive/suspended list per the weekly Baseball America transactions list. This move could have been made so that he could be released or it could have indicated that TX is on the verge of assigning him to a DSL or short-season roster (or even Hickory given his age and talent). This week's transaction list did not show that he has been released, so let's hope we see him show up on a roster in the next few weeks.



################