The Braves hope that Derek Low can bounce back from a mediocre season.  Although he used an amazing finish, where he went 5-0 with a 1.17 ERA in September, to finish 16-12 with a 4.00 ERA, there is some concern for him heading into this season because he turns 38 in June, and has posted back-to-back seasons with an ERA of 4.00 or worse.  He still figures to be a quality starter, but hard to imagine him repeating his successful September for all of 2011.  With the rotation and lineup the Phillies enter 2011 having, it is going to be hard for the Braves to win the division crown for the first time since 2005.  Still Atlanta figures to be a solid contender to take home the NL wild card spot again this season.

Derek Lowe joined WQXI in Atlanta to talk about how he was able to go 5-0 last September, when will he know that his breaking ball is back this Spring, and why this team is going to better than last season.

How he was able to go 5-0 last September:

“Sitting back looking at it something just clicked and it took a long time, way too long, and something just clicked with my breaking ball more than anything.  That was always how I kind of threw it and I lost it for almost a year and a half and I was able to get it back and then obviously then confidence comes a long way.  Up until that last month it was hit or miss during games but it was nothing where I was used to doing so you are definitely going to get frustrated.  You are a competitor, you know what you are capable of doing and not being able to do it on a consistent basis you can lose sleep at night.”

When will he know that his breaking ball is back this Spring:

“We already know it is there because we have thrown enough in the offseason.  Going into this offseason for the first time in a couple of years you did not have to worry about revamping your delivery to try to get back to where you were, so you know we watched a little video.  Videotape yourself in the offseason, make sure you are doing the same things and then so far in spring it has been just fine.  It really gives you a piece of mind going into the season.  Hey, you know, everything I left the season with I am going to have again.”

Which of the young pitching prospects has impressed him so far:

“I think our camp is so spread out, you don’t see certain guys for a day or two.  I pretty much work with the same six guys on Field 4 and there is other guys, so I have only seen one guy throw.  Tim Hudson, we are in the same throwing group, so I see him every day and that is it.  So the games start this weekend but the word is there are tremendous arms here.  The battle for this fifth spot will be interesting to see how that plays out.  The thing about this organization they always have had good pitching and this group of guys is no different.”

Why this team is going to better than last season:

“Who knows?  You look at the addition of Dan Uggla that is power bat.  Hopefully Jair Jurrjens can make it 30-34 starts like he normally does, but who knows?  Everybody at this time of year is optimistic and feels good about their team and we are no different.  That is why you play.  I am not going to sit here and say we are going to win the World Series and I am not going to say we are going to come in last.  We have the talent to go very far in the playoffs, we know that so do a lot of other teams, and we have arguably the best team in baseball in our division.  It is going to be fun.  It is going to be exciting and we have the talent to do it.”

Derek Lowe on 790 the Zone in Atlanta with Mayhem in the AM

But when Hall of Fame pitcher Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg raised their bid higher than Cuban and Jim Crane could match, the oft-animated Cuban was left to bow out of the race somewhat quickly and unceremoniously.

And now, in the aftermath, he has had to address accusations that he was merely trying to run up the bid, a fact that he steadfastly continues to deny.

Mark Cuban joined Ben and Skin on ESPN Radio Dallas to discuss the bidding process for the Rangers, his reasoning for being a part of it and why he and his investors walked away.

On how Chuck Greenberg and Nolan Ryan were able to achieve the winning bid:

“First of all, Chuck and Nolan are the brains behind the organization, they’re not the money. It wasn’t about those guys writing the check. They know it and we know it and that’s not a knock, it’s just reality. It happens with a lot of professional sports teams. You get a couple guys with exceptional value and there’s other guys with money who are willing to write checks to be a part of it.”

On whether he was truly passionate about baseball and the Rangers:

“I don’t have as much time to go to games as I used to and if you saw me at games at the old Arlington Stadium or going to games even at the ballpark, you probably weren’t paying attention to me if you saw me. Do I go to a ton of Rangers games? No. Do I watch them on TV?  Yeah. Am a fan? Yeah. Am I as passionate about the Rangers and baseball as I am about basketball? No. Basketball is my favorite, No. 1 sport. But that doesn’t mean I’m not a Rangers fan or a baseball fan. There’s a reason I wanted to go after the Cubs.”

On why they bowed out of the bidding when they did:

“It had more to do with having all the pieces in line. You can’t just say, ‘Ah, you know what? I’ll add another $100 million on the price tag and I’ll figure it out later,’ because we were going to be under a whole lot of scrutiny. … Their lawyers were going to sit us down and say, ‘OK, we need to know specifically where every nickel’s coming from. And on top of that they were going to go through this whole pitch of, ‘Well, we don’t think Major League Baseball is going to approve you, so we’re going to discount all the money you put in anyways.’ … But the bigger part was, we’d only been at this for three weeks, basically, and we didn’t have the ability to go to all the banks. We basically had the cash we were able to put together between us and from other folks that we had gotten involved and some debt that existing lenders were willing to provide us and even that was being challenged by the other side’s lawyer.”

On whether the Rangers could be successful with a top-five payroll:

“I don’t know if you can go top five just because the Rangers are always at a disadvantage just because of the heat factor out in Arlington. You’re never going to be able to quite charge the same as Boston is just because of the comfort factor going out there. A big part of what we wanted to be able to do is try to find leverage points with the city of Arlington to try to come up with some solutions for sitting out in the bleachers. It can be brutal out there. Part of the plan was, literally, and this was a big part of what my plan was in terms of marketing … was we were giving up any owners’ seats, any owners’ boxes and just selling those to fans and then any time I was at a game I was sitting out in left field just because we had to send the message that going to a Rangers game is survivable if you’re sitting out in the bleachers.”

On rift with Randy Galloway, another host on ESPN Dallas in the past week:

“My take is always the same, Randy is full of crap. … But his job isn’t to tell the truth, his job is to do good radio. So every now and then you have to slap him down. To his credit, to Randy’s everlasting credit, he’ll allow you to challenge him and allow you to check his hole cards. But when you’re looking up and it’s raining you know what, you can only take so much. You’ve got to fight back every now and then.”

Listen to the entire interview with Mark Cuban on ESPN Radio Dallas here

Yost is now the franchise’s thirteenth manager since Dick Howser took them to their lone World Series title back in ‘85.  How do they expect to get any better when they have a new manager every two years or so?  Being one of the American League’s smallest market teams doesn’t help them at all when it comes to free agents.  Most free agents would rather take less money so that they don’t have to play in what has become the laughingstock of MLB.  Having this loser image doesn’t seem to bother the Royals at all, but they might have made their best move yet in hiring Yost.  Yost has been part of rebuilding a franchise while he was with the Braves and during his recent stint in Milwaukee.  He takes over a team that is last in the American League Central at 14-24 and he feels that he can turn things around because he has done it before, but not in Kansas City.

Trey Hillman joined WHB in Kansas City to talk about what it was like to manage his last game and then have the press conference that he was being let go, whether he did anything specific by himself before the game knowing that it was his last game managing, and whether he thinks that the organization is committed to winning.

What it was like to manage his last game and then have the press conference that he was being let go:

“Well it was a new experience.  It is challenging, you are wondering if you are ever going to get through it especially with keeping a poker face on so to speak.  Certainly didn’t want it to get out for the obvious reasons.  The thing that kept clicking in my mind was the appreciation that I had for the opportunity in the first place, looking around the stadium, the appreciation for the big league atmosphere.  It was a perfect day for it to be kid’s day out there quite frankly.  I mean there is a little irony there because having grown up in Arlington, Texas, and having an opportunity to grow up in a major league ballpark and still at forty-seven years old a major league manager and remembering the excitement of being at a ballpark and how oblivious I was as a kid on most days I was competitive and most days it was the enjoyment of being at the ballpark.  I didn’t really care whether our team won or not.  I was there to support them whether they won or they lost.  It was an appreciation that I have gotten to do what I have done for the last twenty years in little, bitty A-ball towns, and AA venues and AAA across the ocean in Japan and certainly here in Kansas City.  There was a flood of emotions, but thankfully nobody found out before the appropriate times.  Like I said yesterday, I met with the staff and the players right after the game and informed them and I came and met with the media.”

Whether he did anything specific by himself before the game knowing that it was his last game managing:

“I didn’t get a lot of time by myself yesterday just because the sequence of events.  I didn’t get much time by myself until about three o’clock this morning.  You have to, at least in the way that my mind works, you have to be appreciative of that because there is people that really desire to spend time with you, people that want to express their appreciations and people that have emailed and texted back, that is going to take a few days.  A lot of people have extended their sympathies and their support and their appreciation and those are all nice things.  They are nice things in light of obviously a bad thing that happened because you want to stay and you want to see it through, you want to do it.  It is just the way that you are wired when you have jobs like this.  You just got to kind of keep it in perspective and look forward to what is next.  What is next for me is, as I sifted through it last night and decided exactly what I was going to do and what I when I was going to do it.  The biggest thing right now is my family.  I need to see my wife and my kids and we miss out.  We miss out on a lot of things and I am looking forward to going home and doing some pressing right now and I will tie some loose ends up at a later time ,but back in a few items and I am sure that I will be back for a few times, kind of close off this chapter and see what is next.”

Whether he thinks that the organization is committed to winning and doing whatever it takes:

“I hope so guys.  I can’t give anyone a definitive answer on that.  I can only say that in my experience in working with the Glass family that they have treated me outstanding, they really have.  They treated me with class.  I got a lot of face time with both the Chairman, David Glass, and obviously, the President, Dan, but they have got a specific way that they want to do it as far as shelling out the dollars.  Dayton and I have talked about that many, many times.  Both of our minds, from the standpoint of how we do our individual jobs, well I did my individual job.  Sometimes there are limitations.  In this market we aren’t going to spend like the Yankees or Boston or even what Minnesota is doing this year.  At the end of the day I have always had respect for owners.  I have worked with Mr. Steinbrenner.  At the Major League level I have worked for him for thirteen years.  I have seen variances in that but at the end of the day It is not my money.  It is not my money.  It is their money and it is their business.  There have been markets comparable to our size that have built from within and have been able to click as we wanted to click with some of the deals that we have made…  If people are supportive, and I am not so naïve, some people are happy I am gone.  I get that.  I would have made different moves from their chair or their seat for us to be successful.  Some people are looking at ownership…  I am not a finger pointer, I try not to be.  I point my finger a lot when I get into an argument with an umpire.  I am not into pointing fingers and placing blame…”

Trey Hillman on WHB in KC with the Border Patrol

Atwood, Braden’s mother, passed away from skin cancer while he was just in high school. Admittedly headed in the “wrong direction” before her illness, he was forced to mature and has come along way. Her spirit and memory carried him through his career and maturation. And as Braden tells it, she was there, on Mother’s Day, to help him reach the pinnacle of pitching accomplishments.

Dallas Braden joined the Scott Van Pelt Show on ESPN Radio to talk about his perfect game on Mother’s Day, his grandmother in attendance, his catcher, attendance in Oakland, and Alex Rodriguez.

On throwing a perfect game on Mother’s Day:

“I don’t think you or I could have sat down and written this thing any better. It was nothing short of amazing. My mother definitely had a hand in this thing. I really can’t put it into words what it means to me to have my grandmother there – it’s something that I will hold in my heart forever.”

On having his regular minor league catcher, Landon Powell, behind the plate:

“It’s huge. That inlines the seamless transition from a backup to the guy who is working every day in Kurt (Suzuki). Landon and I have come up together through Rookie ball all the way through. He knows my game inside and out. I become a non-factor out there. With guys like him and Kurt doing the receiving back there, they take you out of the equation.You can set it on cruise control because you know the gameplan is going to be there.”

On the lack of fan support in Oakland:

“One thing we have to keep in mind as players is that it is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Over time we have got to sustain this kind of performance. If we want butts in the seats, we have got to earn it as well. It’s definitely a two-way street. We are trying and we are still around here. Hopefully, our fans understand that we are not trying to be a doormat and we are not a doormat anymore. So come out and take in some good quality baseball because that is what we are putting out there.”

And on if he thinks that Tampa didn’t want to get on base for fear of walking to close to the mound:

“(Laughs) No, no. I’m not a very imposing figure out there. I don’t think that played a factor at all.”

Listen to Dallas Braden on the Scott Van Pelt Show on ESPN Radio.

Bud Selig joined Mike and Mike on ESPN Radio to talk about the upcoming season in Major League Baseball, whether or not he will let his players play in the Olympics, and whether or not he thinks there is a competitive balance in Major League Baseball.

On what advice he would give to Roger Goodell in terms of the labor agreements:

“I like Roger a lot and have a profound respect for him and I know they will do well.  We were in this situation in the early and mid 90’s.  I don’t think any of us ever understood how the seventh and then the eighth work stoppage really hurt the sport.  I think it’s only in the retrospect of history that you understand we’ve had this meteoric growth the last seven or eight or nine years because we haven’t had any labor problems.  On the other hand, leagues have to go through that.  There’s internal discussions and external discussions and all I can really say is that I wish them well.  They’re difficult, but they have to be addressed too.”

On the recent ties that a couple of his players have with Anthony Galea:

“It has been really peaceful and it’s been great.  We have a department of investigations as you know created years ago at the recommendation of Senator Mitchell and it’s worked out great.  We’re very well plugged into this situation and talking to a lot of people.  We’ll continue to monitor it and monitor it closely.  I don’t have, at this point in time, and I say this with some trepidation because we don’t have all the facts yet but I don’t think there’s a great deal to be worried about here.  But we will monitor the situation very closely.”

On whether or not he will ever think about letting his MLB players play in the Summer Olympics:

“The answer for practical reasons is no.  We can’t stop our season in the middle of the season.  As it is now we condense 162 games into 183 days.  I worry a lot about November as both of you know.  We have playoffs that stretch out, we’re trying to compact them a little bit as much as we can.  So now in the midst of our season, the best part of the drawing season I may add, to tell our fans that we are going away for 10 days or two weeks is not possible.  It’s not pragmatically possible.  Did I love the Olympics?  Yes.  That game on Sunday was absolutely magnificent and it really brought out the best in sports.  It’s something that I wish in some ways we could do.  We do have the World Baseball Classic which incidentally has worked out great.  We’re internationalizing our sport.  We’re taking baseball over the world and you’re gonna be pleasantly surprised at the things that happen here in the coming years.  But just as a practical matter, it’s just that isn’t possible.”

On teams with the most money being at an advantage:

“We’ve had this discussion before in terms of competitive balance and in terms of a lot of other things.  We have a chart that I’ve been studying the last couple of days that shows that we have more – Pete Rozell used to call it parity I like to call it competitive balance – than any of the other sports and certainly more than we’ve had in a long time.  You’re never gonna have a perfect situation, but in terms of clubs, I look at clubs that people thought were not competitive years ago and all of the sudden, they’re extremely competitive.  There are times when if you think you can’t sign a player and this goes on in other sports, it’s just the nature of economics today, that if you can trade for three or four good young players that will help you, I guess it’s something that you may think is in the best interest in your franchise.  Competitive balance is always, with economics, one of the most important topics that we have because I do believe in my theory of hope and faith.  We need to have hope and faith in as many places as possible on April 1^st and you know what, we’re getting there.  Last year we had 19 or 20 teams in contention for something on Labor Day which is remarkable.  Ten years ago you couldn’t have thought about that.  I’m satisfied we’re making progress.”

Listen to Bud Selig on Mike and Mike in the Morning here (Audio begins 6:00 into the podcast)

Jose Canseco joined ESPN 101 in St. Louisto talk about his reaction to Mark McGwire getting hired as Cardinals hitting coach, MLB needing to own up to the mess that steroid use caused, and whether he has any intention of getting back into baseball and coaching.

On his reaction to Mark McGwire getting hired as Cardinals hitting coach:

“Well I think it is about time.  I thought it was about time that Major League Baseball stopped blaming players.  It was something that we were allowed to do.  We were kind of forced to do it in some shape or form to become bigger, faster, stronger, bring fans in and it was part of our culture.  I think finally Major League Baseball and the baseball community are starting to realize these things; that the victims were the players and it was something that was emphasized.  If you were going to become a great athlete or a great player for your city that it was something that you had to do.  So I am very glad that Mark McGwire got a coaching job.  It is almost the next step to an evolution where you are a great player so the next step would be a great coach.  I see him becoming a manager sooner or later.”

On MLB needing to own up to the mess that steroid use caused:

“Absolutely you have to move forward and if you really look at the numbers baseball hasn’t suffered one bit finding out these players using steroids when the book ‘Juiced’ came out.  As a matter of fact, I think fans became more and more curious.  I think the percentage of fans coming to the ballpark are greater nowadays and the game is back to where it should be.  It should be a clean game where everybody starts from the same foundation and you work on an even playing field.  Now fans realize there is no doubt about it that players are clean and we are seeing baseball the way it is played.” 

Whether it was kind of strange for the players for steroids to be acceptable and all of a sudden people were against it:

“Well I think the right statement would be that everyone knew, not that they cared it was acceptable.  I think people cared but you talk about such a dominating, devastating force when everyone accepts it.  I think nowadays perception is the reality.  And the reality is what ever people perceive to be the truth, whatever the majority of the people believe is the truth is fact.  That is what we really need to look at.  That is what happened to Major League Baseball.”

Whether he has any intention of getting back into baseball and coaching:

“Well let’s look at it this way.  I would love to be a coach, I would love to be a manager but I committed the cardinal sin and I will pay for it the rest of my life,  but I don’t believe all of the other players will pay for it.  It was a huge, huge mistake for writing the book ‘Juiced’ and I just don’t want all of the other players to pay for what I have been paying for the last ten years.  What I am going to pay for the rest of my life detached from Major League Baseball in any way, shape or form because of course you have Mark McGwire; to me, was the best right-hand hitter the game has ever seen…he has got a lot to teach these kids.  He has got a lot to show them in the mentality of the game and techniques and the attitude.  You can’t keep these guys out of the game because they can show the past and what not to do.  And of course they can teach the future in which they are an endless supply of information.”

Whether writing “Juiced” was a mistake for him because of what happened to him:

“Well in one sense I think MLB and myself could have gone around it and could have done this differently.  It didn’t work out that way.  I think behind closed doors we could have come to the same result we are coming to now and maybe a meeting with Major League Baseball.  I did try to speak with them.  I did try to tell them: Don’t do what you are doing.  Don’t blackball us from the game.  They wouldn’t listen.  In hindsight, I destroyed my life.  I destroyed people’s lives around me.  I embarrassed a lot of players and if I could turn back the hands in time, I would do it a different way, I would definitely do it.”

Advice for Mark McGwire and how he should talk to the media so that McGwire and the Cardinals can get off to a great start:

“Listen there is nothing else to tell.  I think we all know exactly what happened.  We don’t need to probably go into depth or detail any longer.  I think we need to move forward.  I think we all learned a lesson.  I think the players have to stop playing for those honest mistakes.  They were just players who were trying to become the best entity for their city, to help their city win, to help their teammates.  I think that era has to end.  I think the era of moving forward will have to begin.  The era of healing right now has to begin and you just can’t stop bringing up the past for asking Mark McGwire about: Why did you do this?  Why didn’t you admit to this?  That era is done.  Let’s move forward.  Let’s educate the future athletes or the present use and show them of what not to do.  I mean we made so many mistakes that you could write a book on, especially me.  I made so many mistakes in baseball that it is incredible.”

Jose Canseco on ESPN 101 in St. Louis with the Fast Lane

While Manny is just coming off a 50 game suspension for a positive steroid test from earlier this season, Big Papi Ortiz has always taken a hard stance against players caught with banned substances in their bodies. Ortiz was in his first season with the Red Sox in 2003, and was previously a platoon first baseman with average pop, but a low batting average. Ortiz from 2003-2005 hit 173 of his 303 career home runs. He was a major reason the Red Sox won the Pennant in 2004. You can draw your own conclusions as to if Big Papi cleaned up after making the list.

Baseball’s best bet is just to release the entire list at once, instead of people digging and outing players on what seems to be a bi-monthly basis. The steroid era will continue on forever at this rate.

Michael Schmidt of the New York Times, who also linked Sammy Sosa to the list a few months back, joined Fox Sports Radio to dish on the Ramirez and Ortiz failed drug tests.

On how confident he is in his source who divulged the positive Ramirez and Ortiz tests:

“I can’t say anything about the sources, but what I can say is that we publish things that we believe are true and that have authenticated and that we feel comfortable with, and we’ll continue to do that.”

Schmidt was asked if he targets certain players to find out if they’re on the list, or how else he goes about finding which players have failed previous steroid tests:

“What we did was we tried to talk to as many people that have seen the list as possible and to see what they knew about it. If I showed you a list of a hundred players and it had star and middling players and guys you’ve never heard of you would probably remember the stars. So people that have seen the list tend to remember the most high profile people on the list.”

On if there is an effort to publicize the entire 104 player list:

“Well, if I could put every name out there I would but it’s very, very difficult to get it (the list), and the Federal Government isn’t going to release them and the Players Association isn’t going to release them. The Commissioner’s Office doesn’t want them out there so it’s pretty tough.”

Schmidt was asked if he was worried about forever tainting players’ careers by releasing this information:

“I think that whenever you publish information like this there are a lot of things you have to consider. I think that we thoroughly considered all of it.”

On why he feels it’s important now to have these players named publicly:

“I think there’s a lot of curiosity. What happened was after A Rod (Alex Rodriguez) was caught people who knew everything that I knew kept on asking me ‘what’s going to happen with this list? When does it come out?’ I started to realize that there was an interest out there, that people really wanted to know what was on this list. There was a certain amount of intrigue about it. And that’s when I decided to go after the world.”

Listen to Michael Schmidt on Fox Sports Radio

On the solid ratings the All-Star Game received and his thoughts on the Game itself:

“You know well that I am a traditionalist and even though there’s been more change in the last 17 years than maybe the previous 50 or 100 years in baseball, I still am very cautious despite the Wild Card and interleague play and all the other things. And I’ll tell you why – and I think a lot of people have misunderstood this, they think it was the tie in Milwaukee that really precipitated this but that’s not correct. We had noticed for seven or eight years, I think since the ’93 All Star Game when Cito Gaston got booed for not putting Mike Mussina in – the managers were using everybody. And guys were done by the end of 3. A lot of guys didn’t want to come.  There were lots of arguments. And I had several veteran players, and I don’t think either one would mind me saying – both Ron Santo and Hank Aaron said to me over and over: this is not the way this game should be played; there’s no intensity. And they were right. The difference since ’02 has been amazing. Everybody’s there. You notice no players opting out. We had a 15 inning game last year which you know, made me a little nervous, but we were alright. And of course, this year there were many players who didn’t get in the game because the managers really did that very well. I guess they got tired of me talking to them about it. But my point is, right to the last out of all these games, there is enormous intensity. And there are people who will say, that shouldn’t determine the World Series. And look, we didn’t have a great idea before. One year you got it Chris, the next year Steve got it. It wasn’t exactly Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. So, do I like this? You bet I do, and I know FOX does too. But I really – the fact that more people are watching, are more in to the game, the players react well and frankly, the fans like it – that’s something that baseball didn’t do for years. They didn’t do interleague play, they didn’t put a Wild Card in, they didn’t do this and that. And for the last two decades, we’ve really listened to the fans. And so, yeah, I like it a lot and so long as I’m commissioner, we’re going to do it.”

After refusing to answer if he would vote for players to not be allowed in to the Hall of Fame if they tested positive for steroids, Selig did comment on whether those caught should be allowed to play in the All-Star Game:

“Well, that’s something we’re going to talk about in the future. It became academic this year so it really didn’t matter. But I have really strong feelings – like I said last week and I’ll say it again, in the next labor negotiation, the 50 game suspension and it was. Manny didn’t play in 50 Dodger games, but I don’t think he should be able to play in minor league baseball until the suspension is over. Those are the kinds of things we’ll work out in the future.”

On if there will be day games during the League Championship Series or World Series this year:

“We will be starting championship games earlier than any other sport this year during the World Series. And that’s the result of a lot of work and cooperation with FOX. And the Saturday game, I’m happy to say, will start even earlier. So we’ve made remarkable progress. The daytime – look Nielsen is right. Nielsen says that no matter what it is, you’re going to have 30% less viewers if you play the afternoon games. Isn’t the object to have as many as you’re fans as possible see those games…By the way, you know what part of the All Star Game was? The last 20 minutes of the game. So you know, all this idea that you’re losing fans and by the way, the idea that we’ve lost demographics, hey guys, we wouldn’t be drawing 70-80 million people a year. We haven’t lost any demographic group. You just watch the next time you go to any park. I could take you to any park and I’m very happy to note that the young fans are in attendance.”

Listen here to Selig on KLAC in Los Angeles

The Phils currently stand atop the NL East with a 48-38 record. They also take a 5 game winning streak with them to second place Florida beginning Thursday evening. The Phils general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. joined WIP in Philadelphia to talk about the Pedro acquisition and how the move affects the team’s strategy as the trading deadline approaches.

On why he believes Pedro ending up in Philly after not being able to find a right fit with a club for quite some time previously:

“When he threw for those clubs – I had spoken with Pedro’s agent not long after that. He was really looking for the right fit – both dollars wise, you know this isn’t making or breaking him this deal. But he’s looking for the right fit. Some of his goals, frankly, were to win in the National League. He wanted to play for a contending team and he wanted to play for a team he felt he could thrive in.  I think this was kind of the perfect storm for him to come to Philadelphia.”

On the difference between what they saw in Pedro when he threw during the World Baseball Classic and how he threw prior to being signed:

“He threw ok. His velocity was probably somewhere between 85 I guess and 88. And he was effective and pitched pretty well, but he still wasn’t to the point where his arm was in shape and ready to go as we probably would have liked. He actually confessed to us – he said I wish our team would have stayed in it a lot longer because it would have been better for me to showcase it because I didn’t get a chance to really throw live against hitters to show how I was progressing. So you know, when he didn’t really get any bites or get anything he liked at that time, he continued to do long toss and throw to try to stay in shape just in case there was an opportunity for him to hook on with somebody he felt was more suitable for him.”

On if he thinks Blue Jays pitcher Roy Halladay will be traded and if the Phils are still potentially in play for him after the acquisition of Pedro:

“I don’t know. You’d have to talk to J.P. [Riccardi] about wheter Halladay will be traded. That’s not a discussion for me…We have had discussions with Toronto but not with just Toronto. We’ve had discussions with about 15 or 18 other clubs. So our discussions are not exclusive and there’s also other players on Toronoto’s club if they in fact end up being a seller, that we have interest in.”

Listen here to Amaro Jr. on WIP in Philadelphia

How he uncovered the story:

“I can’t really get into the details around it.  We have been looking at the 2003 tests for some time.  I think that Sosa’s story made my job here a little bit easier, that’s what I will say.”

His comfort level with the research:

“We put an enormous amount of time and effort into this.  Whenever you’re writing something like this, it’s very serious and you go to extreme lengths and we felt comfortable with it and that’s how we got ourselves to where we are today.”

How he ended up on the story:

“I normally cover performance enhancing drugs in sports and mainly focus on baseball.  Everywhere I go, especially since the A-Rod story, the one thing people always ask me is, ‘When’s that list going to come out?  Why haven’t we heard about that list?’… I eventually came to the conclusion that this is what the readers really wanted and I wasn’t really going after it.  I was kind of sitting back and not doing anything.  I sort of devised a strategy to sort of go after it.  I said I’m not being true to the readers or really giving an effort if I don’t go after it myself.  So, I came up with a strategy and tried to do it.  I’ll never get the list I don’t think but I figured if I talked to enough people that the bigger people would stand out.  Sosa being a bigger name stuck out and I was able to get that.  But it’s the one thing that I always get asked about, the list.”

If any player using steroids would surprise him:

“In what I’ve seen in my few years of covering, a lot of unexpected things happen.  Manny Ramirez being suspended this year in a time of a lot of drug testing is pretty surprising.  You see things that are very unexpected sometimes, that’s just sort of what happens.  There’s a few guys who I wouldn’t say that I would be shocked by, but nothing really shocks you anymore.”

Listen to Mike Schmidt on 670 The Score in Chicago with Mully and Hanley