Chris Carpenter Recalls Off-Field Time Spent With Roy Halladay

Two-time Cy Young Award winner Roy Halladay was remembered Tuesday as an amazing husband, father, friend and teammate who was one of the best pitchers of his generation but an even better man.

KMOX

Roy Halladay, Chris Carpenter, One Anaconda, & An Amazon Adventure

Turns out the “fishing wasn’t great,” as one member of the party later wrote, and Chris Carpenter’s biggest catch came when he went hunting one night and shot a caiman, a reptile and alligator cousin that swishes through the Amazon Basin. That could have been the most memorable event of their trip until Roy Halladay saw a naked man sitting on a tree.

Bird Land

Teams Paying For Players No Longer On The Team

Recently Rob Neyer (here and here) and Joe Posnanski (here) brought up how some teams are still paying the salaries of players released or traded to other teams. I went to Cot's Contracts to find which teams were being burdened by these contracts. The site also listed which teams had players on them that had some of the salaries paid by other teams for a total over 168 million dollars in 2010. Here are the 5 biggest salaries being paid by another team:

Beyond The Boxscore

Jaime Garcia On His Recovery & Beyond

St. Louis Cardinals rookie left-hander Jaime Garcia talks about coming back from his Tommy John surgery and what might be ahead.

The Cardinal Nation

Avoid Closers At Your Own Risk

Two full MLB seasons have now been played since Derek Carty laid out his strategy for drafting closers. At the conclusion of that article he states that "taking closers early in a mixed league or shallow AL- or NL-only league is simply a mistake" and instead suggests drafting closers later and having some reliance on the waiver wire for saves.

The Hardball Times

Prospectus Hit & Run: The Underachieving Class Of 2009

Last week, I checked in on the Angels' quest to make sabermetric history. Examining their third-order Pythagenpat projection—their Pythagorean record based upon their hits, walks, total bases, stolen bases, and outs of all kinds, as well as those of their opponents, all adjusted for park, league, and quality of competition—I discovered that they were on their way to becoming the first team to finish at least 10 games above their third-order projection for a second year in a row.

Baseball Prospectus

John Smoltz Wants To Pitch Next Season

John Smoltz, RHP, Cardinals

After 40 forgettable innings in Boston, Smoltz struck out nine batters in five shutout innings in his first start as a Cardinal. The performance generated hope that he'll join Jeff Weaver, Kyle Lohse, Joel Pineiro and numerous other pitchers on the list of David Duncan revival stories.

"It looks like he drank the magic potion, huh?" said a National League executive.

Now that Smoltz has officially outlasted Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, and there's no chance of a "Three Amigos" induction ceremony in Cooperstown in 2014, why not prolong the fun?

Agent Keith Grunewald said Smoltz "is definitely interested" in pitching in 2010. With a few more solid outings and a strong postseason, Smoltz can only enhance his chances of returning to St. Louis or finding another comfortable place to land. In the aftermath of his Boston experience, rest assured that it will be with a National League club.

ESPN

On The Beat: Mid-Season Snapshot

The theoretical, if not exact, first half of the season ends today. While it’s a long way to the finish line, certain hitters and pitchers have already established themselves as strong contenders for the major post-season awards. Here is one observer sees the awards at the halfway point, leaning on some of BP’s more popular measures in the decision-making process and blatantly stealing an idea patented by old friend Jayson Stark of ESPN.com by picking the worst hitter and pitcher in each league.

Baseball Prospectus

Blue Jays Release Struggling B.J. Ryan

The Blue Jays understood the risk when they signed B.J. Ryan to a five-year contract four winters ago to be their closer. It was an expensive gamble, one that paid off briefly but ultimately forced Toronto to make a tough decision.

Blue Jays Official Site