AaronGleeman.com

As with any contest, I am in it to win it, so let's stuff those ballot boxes, shall we?

Anyone with a computer can vote and, since you're reading this, I am fairly certain you own one.

Here is the official Primey voting form:

The 2002 Baseball Primer Primeys

I am up against some really stiff competition.

The other nominees in my category are:

Jay Jaffe and his always awesome "Futility Infielder" blog, which is located under "Starting Lineup" on my links section on the left hand side of this page.

Don Malcolm's always entertaining and occasionally controversial "Big Bad Baseball" blog, which is located under "Pinch Hitters" in the links section.

Ben Matasar, Ryan Wilkins and Tim Kraus' Baseball Junkie website, which is one of my favorites and can also be found under the "Pinch Hitters" part of the links.

And finally, the "big boys" of the baseball website world, Baseball Prospectus' "Daily Prospectus," the link to which can be found under the "Hall of Fame" section of my links.

So there you have it.

I am up against Jay Jaffe, Don Malcolm, the boys at BaseballJunkie.net and the world famous Baseball Prospectus guys.

I am thinking my chances aren't particularly good, so I am going to say this right now, "It is an honor just to be nominated."

That statement is actually true, but I sure would like to win this whole thing!

So vote early and vote often (and for me!).

Once again, the place to vote:

The 2002 Baseball Primer Primeys

In other (non-self promotion) news...

The Milwaukee Brewers signed Todd Ritchie, who went 5-15 with a 6.06 ERA last season with Chicago.

Yeah, that seems about right.

This quote from the AP story on the Ritchie signing caught my eye:

"Todd Ritchie has proven that he can win in the major leagues,'' Brewers general manager Doug Melvin said.

I suppose that, technically, Todd Ritchie has "proven he can win the major leagues," in that he has actually won quite a few Major League Baseball games.

Todd Ritchie has been the winning pitcher in 42 games during his ML career.

He has been the loser in 50 of them.

Ritchie was actually pretty good in 1999, when he went 15-9 with a 3.51 ERA with Pittsburgh.

Other than that year, he is 27-41 with a 4.97 ERA in his career.

To be honest, there are certainly a lot of pitchers that the Brewers could have signed that would be worse than Todd Ritchie - for example, me or you.

And, as long as the investment is minimal, it is probably worth signing him in the hopes that he can provide Milwaukee with some league average innings or something vaguely similar in 2003.

Actually, I am not sure why I am picking on the Brewers so much for this signing, except that, for whatever reason, I sometimes see a quote that just strikes me as really funny and stupid and that is exactly how that gem from Doug Melvin struck me yesterday afternoon.

There are definitely worst situations involving general managers and Todd Ritchie.

Doug Melvin's career dealings in the Todd Ritchie department are a lot better than, say, Kenny Williams'.

Before the start of last season, Williams traded Josh Fogg, Kip Wells and Sean Lowe to the Pirates for the services of Mr. Ritchie.

I am sure that, at the time, Williams was quoted as saying something about Todd Ritchie being a "proven winner" or some other such nonesense.

Sean Lowe had a bad year for Pittsburgh and they ended up cutting him in the middle of the year, but Fogg and Wells were nice additions to the Pirates' pitching staff and should be around for a long time to come.

Here are the relevant performances in 2002:

Player           Age      IP      ERA

Kip Wells         25     198     3.58

Josh Fogg         26     194     4.35

Todd Ritchie      31     133     6.06

That is just an awful trade, no ifs ands or buts.

As a Twins fan, I am glad Kenny Williams decided not to keep Fogg and Wells and leave Ritchie to Pittsburgh.

If he hadn't done the trade and the Sox were able to have Wells and Fogg last year AND they were able to not acquire the putridness that was Todd Ritchie, last season's AL Central race would have been a whole lot tighter and I would be a lot more scared of Chicago this season.

As it stands now, the Sox got one godawful season out of Ritchie and they are out 2 young pitchers that are now solid, established members of a big league rotation.

That deal was awful at the time, it is awful now and it is only getting worse as time goes on.

Sometimes I am not completely happy with my team's GM, Terry Ryan.

Whenever I feel that way, I think how lucky I am that my team is run by someone like Ryan and not someone like Kenny Williams.

As long as there are teams in my division being run by Kenny Williams and Allard "Mr. Beane on line two" Baird, I feel a little safer with my team's division title hopes when I go to bed at night.