Sosa and Nationals talk about 1 year contract

It would be pretty cool to see Sosa at Wrigley field wearing another team uniform. The odds of him being able to play is another story.
If this dude reaches 700 or even 660 homers, I will ummmmmmmm. Not going to happen who cares.

The Chico

I doubt he'll be doing much of his hopping in RFK Stadium. :P

It's nice that Sammy could find someone that wanted him and would be willing to do it without another team footing the bill. Speaking of foot...did his leprosy or gout or syphillis toe or whatever it was ever clear up? :rolleyes:

:lol:

It must have. He's playing in the WBC although the WWE would be more fitting.

"At this stage of my career, money is not the priority. There are other things I am taking into account," said Sosa, who has earned over $120 millon in his Major League career. He has said many times that his most pressing goal on the field is to surpass 660 home runs, and he does not exclude the possibility of reaching 700 homers before retiring.

To all, SamME is certainly still the same, yesterday, today and tomorrow. His career goals remain always etched in stone. Hit the home run. Move up the ladder of adoration. Who should care about their team winning a World Series anyways? Me, Me, Me, Me, ME. What a frickin looser. Personally, I hope he never gets the call to the Hall. He'll be lucky to get 72 more hits much less than 72 dingers. I hope the League does a Dave Kingman on him. Best regards, Cle

The Hardball Times
by David Appelman

Daily Graphing: Sammy Sosa

ESPN Deportes is reporting that Sammy Sosa may be headed to Washington, D.C. and even goes further by saying that some media sources in the Dominican Republic are saying the deal is "all but done." Troubled by various injuries (foot, toe, infection), Sosa was truly awful last season, batting a meager .221 with 14 home runs. He experienced a particularly horrible slump when he batted .106/.213/.112 from mid-June to mid-July. Let's see if there's any chance he'll rebound in 2006.



The question on everyone's mind has to be if a lack of performance-enhancing drugs was the cause of his dismal 2005. We may never know for sure, but a chart of his isolated power (ISO) will surely make you wonder. While it looked like he was certainly starting to decline well before last season, he went from having an ISO well within the top 20% of all batters in 2004 to just being merely average in 2005. That's quite a nosedive.



If he can't hit home runs anymore, a .221 batting average isn't going to fly (even with the home runs). Since hitting .328 in 2001, his batting average has been on a four-year decline. He's never had the best plate discipline either, especially if you discount the intentional walks, so it seems unlikely his batting average will ever approach .300 again.



Unless Sosa finds a way to transform himself, there's no way he'd be a good fit with the Nationals. I can't figure out why he'd want to come to D.C. anyway if he wants top 660 home runs. I've said it before and I'll say it again: R.F.K. Stadium is just about the hardest place in the league to hit home runs, with a home-runs-per-fly-ball rate (HR/FB) of 7% for right-handed batters. I think his batting average will probably rebound a bit, but I'd be surprised if he hit 10 home runs at home if he signs. With everyone in D.C. talking about the new stadium deal pretty much non stop, this would give Washingtonians a good chance to take a step back and rip into Jim Bowden if a deal actually happens. Can the Nationals get an owner already, please?

Interesting read. It would be sad if Sosa hadn't become so damn unlikable. He pretty much is getting back the harvest of what he has sewed.

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No stage for selfish Sosa? Sad but true
January 27, 2006


Sammy Sosa is said to have two offers to play baseball in Japan next season, but word is he's not interested. Too bad. Now we'll never get to hear him say, "I no longer am a gladiator. I'm a samurai."

Sosa is putting all of his considerable strength into reclaiming his good name, but the only major-league team showing much interest is Washington, and that interest comes with strings attached. The Nationals want Sosa to come to spring training next month without a guaranteed contract.


In other words, the former Cubs superstar has to earn a spot on the team.

Allow me to pause a second while a spasm of sympathy passes. Thank you. That was a close call.

As some of you know, I'm not given to bouts of compassion when it comes to Sosa. There's no "I" in team, but there is a "me" in Sammee. Even so, there's something almost sad about watching him try to convince teams they should give him a guaranteed roster spot.

I never thought it would come to this so quickly for His Samminess. I figured there always would be buyers for whatever Sosa was selling. Frank Thomas and his ailing foot just signed with Oakland. Sosa and his ailing bat can't find a home?

Think about it. This is the only player in baseball history to hit 60 home runs or more in three seasons. This is the 1998 National League Most Valuable Player. This is a man with 588 career home runs.

Then again, this also is someone who is going to have a hard time getting a toe into the door of the Hall of Fame. I never thought I would say that either. But voters will wonder whether he indulged too liberally in those Flintstones vitamins he said he took over the years. They also will be skeptical of Mark McGwire, who will be eligible for the Hall in 2007.

One of the indelible images of the congressional hearings into baseball's steroid problem was Sosa's need for an interpreter. Here was a guy who spent 15 years in Chicago and, in that time, rarely needed someone to translate for him. But put him in front of the cameras to talk about performance-enhancing drugs and the guy starts paging Mr. Berlitz.

McGwire, a fellow testifier, would say only that he didn't want to discuss the past. Another, Rafael Palmeiro, insisted he never took steroids, then tested positive for them soon after. Cooperstown for any of them? Tinker to Evers to Fat Chance.

All of this, together with Sosa's incredible shrinking body and incredible shrinking statistics, has turned him into something I never thought I'd see: irrelevant. Say what you will about him, but Sosa always was able to draw a crowd. Now he can't draw a guaranteed contract.

We had Sosa around here long enough to know he requires a big stage, so we can surmise this is killing him.

Japan has a stage, but the problem is it's in Japan. It's hard to picture Sosa living a relatively obscure life in, say, Yokohama. And it's difficult picturing him playing the kind of team game the Japanese prize.

(It is easy to picture him saying, "Bunt the man over from first to second? Sammy doesn't do that, buddy.")

If the Nationals do sign him, it will be a very intriguing story, what with Sosa playing for his baseball life. And what if he doesn't make it? Would he be willing to prove himself in the minors? A better question: Is a player allowed to have an entourage in the minors?

Sosa was hurt last year in Baltimore and has been hurt more frequently the last few years than he ever had been before. That could be age (he's 37) talking or it could be the Barney Rubbles aren't working the way they used to.

Whatever it is, it has been a stunning transformation. Sosa was the bright-eyed, joyous face of the game when he and McGwire put on their home run show in the late '90s. If some of us suspected there was another Sammy under that perpetual smile, we realized it didn't matter much as long as he was hitting home runs and saving the game. You're right, that doesn't reflect well on us at all.

It surely will be pointed out that someone with Sosa's stats and service to the game deserves better than what he is going through now.

But it also should be pointed that most of his struggles are self-inflicted.

He used to be loveable. Now he's not believable.

It's hard to be both.