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There is a fine line in sports betweeen age-old experience and just plain old age. www.cheapauthenticjerseys.us.com . Generalyl speaking in sports, getting older equates to more injuries and greater recovery time from said injuries. Yet the past two seasons, it was largely the younger pitchers of the Toronto Blue Jays, Kyle Drabek, Drew Hutchison and Brandon Morrow who were injured and, last year in particular, veterans R.A. Dickey and Mark Buehrle who pitched the most innings. I dont know if it should concern the Blue Jays or not at this point, but the two youngest and most economical rotations in their division belong to the Tampa Bay Rays and Baltimore Orioles. With the Rays rotation as is right now with Jeremy Hellickson recuperating from an injury, David Price, Matt Moore, Alex Cobb, Chris Archer and Jake Odorizzi, the likely fifth starter to start the season, have a cumulative age of 124. If Hellickson eventully supplants Odorizzi, the number will move up to 127 years. Without Hellickson, they will be spending a little over $16.4 million in total on their five-man rotation and $19.6 million when he returns. Not bad at all for a team that has been a post-season contender since 2008 and not one of those pitchers is above 28 years of age. The Orioles made the post-season two years ago and came fairly close again last season. Their projected rotation is slightly older and a bit more expensive than the Rays. The total age of their top-five starters will be 139 or 140, depending on whether Bud Norris or recently signed Korean right hander Suk-Min Yoon slots into the rotation. If Norris is in the rotation, the cash layout is about $20 million. If it is Lee it drops off a bit to $17 million and change. The oldest pitcher in the Os rotation is recent signing Ubaldo Jimenez at 30. The Jays and Boston Red Sox have the most 30-or-over starters at three apiece. Bostons highest paid starter is also their oldest in John Lackey, whos 35 and will be making $15.25 million this season. The BoSox will be paying just over $50 million to their top-five starters. If Ricky Romero somehow earns the fifth starters job, every one of the Jays starters will be 29 or over and their cumulative age will be 162. Thats an average age 32.2 and speaks to how the Blue Jays havent done as good a job at developing young pitchers, like the St. Louis Cardinals have, and how their prospects have either been set back by injuries or have been traded. If Esmil Rogers or Todd Redmond fills the five-slot, the age of the Jays pitchers will still total 161, good for the oldest in the division with Bostons starting five totaling 152 years of age or 30.4 on average. The Jays pay for their starting pitchers if Romero is in the rotation will be $50.7 million, virtually the same as the Red Sox. Mark Buehrle will be making the most at $18 million, more than any Boston starter. If Romero isnt in the rotation, the payout for starters will be about $44 million. The Yankees, as usual, are in a class all their own. They will be paying out $77.8 million to their five starters, including about $23 million each to C.C. Sabathia and rookie Masahiro Tanaka. If Michael Pineda doesnt rebound after missing two years with shoulder troubles, they might have to add another veteran starter who would push their cash outlay even higher. Even with 39-year-old Hiroki Kuroda in their rotation, the total age of the Yanks current top five is 149 years or an average of 29.8 years old. What all this means is hard to say. After all, talent is talent at any age. But Tampa Bays average age of 24.8 for its staff, just sounds a lot better than the Jays average age of 32.2 and the Rays record since 2008 speaks for itself. - Did I miss something here? Roy Halladay signs a one-day contract with the Blue Jays over the off season, so he could retire officially as a member of his original ball club. There was all kinds of talk about him joining the organization, at least initially as a spring training guest instructor, with the role growing as the years progressed. Then, over the weekend, Halladay shows up at the Philadelphia Phillies camp as a guest instructor. Did the Blue Jays fumble the ball or did Halladay simply feel he owed something to the Phils for his years with that club? It makes sense in one regard. Roy would certainly know more about the Phils up and coming young pitchers than he would about the Jays at this point and, perhaps, felt he could contribute more there. Still, it would be a shame, if, somehow, the Blue Jays have lost Roy Halladay to the Phillies again. - I dont know if this means the wall blocking PED users from making the Hall of Fame is beginning to crumble, but relations are at least beginning to thaw. First, the Red Sox announced Roger Clemens would be inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame this summer and now Barry Bonds is at the San Francisco Giants camp as a special guest hitting instructor. Two of the most villified PED users are now being welcomed back into the fold. Then over the weekend, ESPNs Buster Olney, one of the great clean-up hitters in the baseball media whose opinion carries a lot of weight, wrote an article on the "incongruity" of Barry Bonds not being in Cooperstown. It may take some time, but clearly, the movement has begun to include all of baseballs greatest stars in the Hall of Fame, no matter their sins against the fans and the game. Cheap Jerseys China . Virtue, from London, Ont., and Moir, from Ilderton, Ont., gave Canada nine points in the multi-stage event with a score of 72.98. Meryl Davis and Charlie White of the United States finished first with 75. cheapauthenticjerseys . The 36-year-old announced his retirement on Friday after having played in Montreal, Los Angeles, Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Columbus and Tampa Bay.INDIANAPOLIS -- Jacques Villeneuve is ready to make an IndyCar comeback. Schmidt Peterson Motorsports said Wednesday it has hired Villeneuve to race in this years Indianapolis 500, 19 years after the Canadian driver first drank the milk in Victory Lane. "IndyCar is growing again and thats why last year when I started watching races again, every time I watched I felt almost angry I wasnt there," the 1995 race winner said on a satellite hookup from France during a news conference held at the teams Indy headquarters. At age 42, Villeneuve seemed content being a television analyst, musician and RallyCross driver. But when Schmidt and co-owner Rick Peterson, also from Canada, made a serious offer, he couldnt refuse. The 500 is scheduled for May 25. Villeneuve certainly has a compelling resume. As an Indy rookie in 1994, he qualified fourth and finished second to Al Unser Jr., and was named the races rookie of the year. The next season, the reigning CART rookie of the year was even better. He qualified fifth at Indy, forced Scott Goodyear into a costly mistake on the final restart and eventually held off Christian Fittipaldi to become the first and only Canadian winner of the race. Villeneuve completed all 400 laps at Indy in those two starts and won the 1995 CART title, too. But after starting 33 races, winning six poles and five races in two IndyCar seasons, Villeneuve had a chance to become an international star. So he headed to Europe and joined Formula One -- the series that made his late father, Gilles, a household name. Like his dad, who died in a 1982 F1 qualifying crash, Villeneuve excelled on the world stage. In 163 career starts between 1996 and 2006, the younger Villeneuve reached the podium 23 times, won 11 races, 13 poles and claimed the 1997 world championship. At that point, American open-wheel racing wasnt even on the radar. His journey back to North America began in 2007 when Villeneuve made the move to American stock cars. Over the next seven seasons, he dabbled in Sprint Cup, Natiionwide and Le Mans series as well as sports cars. http://www.cheapauthenticjerseys.us.com/nike-nfl-jerseys-china_seattle-seahawks-jersey-china/. Villeneuve regained interest in IndyCars last season as he watched how close and competitive the races had become. To him, it reminded him of the series he left almost two decades earlier. Suddenly, he was interested in making a return -- if he could find the right car and the right team. "To get this opportunity is a gift," Villeneuve said. "A lot of people say when you have kids, you slow down. I want my kids to see me race." Schmidt is the winningest team owner in Indy Lights history and already employs two full-time drivers in the better-known IndyCar series -- Russias Mikhail Aleshin and Frances Simon Pageland. In previous years, Schmidt has always found a way to compete at Indy. Getting Villeneuve might be the biggest coup of all for his low-budget team. "Indy is a special place. We go there not to exist but to win the race," Schmidt said. "To see a guy that finished second and finished first there, I dont think hes going to have any problem going back." Villeneuve becomes the fifth 500 winner on this years entry list. The others are three-time winner Helio Castroneves of Brazil, two-time winner Scott Dixon of New Zealand, 2000 winner Juan Pablo Montoya of Colombia and Brazils Tony Kanaan, the defending champ. Another trip to Victory Lane would give Villeneuve two more milestones. He would break Al Unsers record for the longest gap between first and last victories. Unser went 17 years between his first Indy crown in 1970 and his record-tying fourth win in 1987. Villeneuve also would break Gordon Johncocks record for the longest gap between first and second wins at Indy, 1973 and 1982. Villeneuve isnt motivated by records. He wants to win. "Im a racer," he said, explaining he does not plan to retire anytime soon. "Ive got to find ways to get better and better and better, and Im going there with a team thats very experienced and has been very successful as well." wholesale jerseys cheap jerseys ' ' ' |
