Fare thee Well, Danny Valencia

In a move that surprised only people who are still surprised by a Jack-in-the-Box, the Twins grabbed the first opportunity that presented itself to get rid of Danny Valencia, forcing him to take the walk of shame across the diamond at Fenway like that chick you picked up at Applebee's, sending him to the Red Sox and receiving rookie league OFer Jeremias Pineda in return.  And thus ends the tenure of one of the most disappointing Twins' ever.

The Twins struggled to find a 3B for years following Gary Gaetti with guys like Scott Leius and Ron Coomer probably the best they've had (with Tony Bautista being the worst) so when reports starting coming out about this Danny Valencia character and how he could be the future at third for many years to come, it was a tiny bit extra thrilling - like a tramp stamp.  Valencia was consistently ranked as the Twins' 5th-10th best prospect from 2008-2010 by most raters, and made a great impression in his rookie season (2010), finishing third in the AL Rookie-of-the-Year voting despite only being up long enough to accumulate 322 PAs after hitting .311/.351/.448 with 7 homers while playing above average defense.  All was good. Confidence was high.  Spirits were good.  Of course, there were plenty of warning signs.  Valencia's BABIP was .345, one of the highest marks in the league and most likely a huge outlier, and Gardy was constantly dropping hints that he wasn't happy with Valencia for various reasons.  That, with a deep thinker like Gardy whose analysis is generally based on either hustle, grit, or how often he has the team over for a BBQ, was probably the kiss of death.

Following his breakout first year his stats fell off, with Valencia striking out more each year, walking less, chasing more balls and making less contact, and his defense consistently got worse as well.  This, along with Valencia not saying hi to Gardy in the halls one time even though he totally saw him and said hi to Jerry White right after and when Gardy wrote him a note in study hall about how hurt he was Gardy saw Valencia and Repko laughing and he just knows it was about him, led to more and more public criticisms which in turn led to more pressing by Valencia which always leads to more failure and so here we are.  Poor MLB numbers, poor minor league numbers this year that were well below what he did coming up, and Gardy's tender feelings meant the Twins would jump on the first offer to get him out, and they did.

In return for Valencia the Twins received Jeremias Pineda, and there's good news and bad news here.  BAD:  He's not Michael Pineda.  GOOD:  According to everyone he is already an elite level center fielder.  BAD:  He's still in rookie ball, for a second season, at age 21.  GOOD:  He's supposed to be crazy fast.  BAD:  He doesn't appear on any Red Sox prospect lists, even one I found that goes all the way up to 60.  GOOD:  Hitting .421 this year.  BAD:  Hit .188 in the same league last year and has a BABIP of .500 of this year.  GOOD:  Always invites the whole team over when he has a Karaoke party.  BAD:  Shows absolutely no power nor plate discipline. 

Really they didn't get much here, but they probably got more than you'd expect for Valencia, based on how they clearly feel about him ever since Gardy saw him holding hands with a girl Gardy fancied.  Pineda may never develop into a real live good hitter, but he already has one elite skill (defense) and one above average skill (running) so if he ever does learn how to hit he could be another Ben Revere, although it's likely he's more just organizational fodder.  Valencia, on the other hand, was under team control until 2017 and wouldn't even have hit arbitration until next year, and could have fulfilled the role of "back-up 3b" capably for at least another year.  Despite some rough numbers this year his line drive % is identical to his good rookie year and his BABIP this year is under .200, all of which means he's not as good as he was in 2010 but isn't as bad as his numbers suggest in 2012.  So yes, a good, cheap, back-up 3B with a little bit of upside.  But, as we all know, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, so when Valencia didn't include Gardy on the emails where everyone was planning what to wear to the end of the year banquet he probably sealed his own fate. 

Bottom Line:  Pineda is probably the best the team could have hoped for in exchange for Valencia, but the team would have been better off keeping him, but couldn't because Gardy is Regina George.

Ohmigod you guys

Twins Season Wrap - Corner Infielders

I'm going to lump 1st and 3rd together because I'm starting to realize if I really do this one position at a time I'm probably going to kill myself.  I'm going to start with 3b because that's a little more clear cut - and it really comes down to if you believe Danny Valencia is the long-term solution or not.

After last season when Valencia finished 3rd in R.O.Y. voting and OPS+ed 117 optimism was high.  Sure, his BABIP was unsustainably high but he had a little pop, looked like he could hit, and was a plus fielder both quantitative and qualitatively so it looked good.  Then this year his fielding suddenly turned poor, he was a constant victim of mental lapses on a near Lew Fordian level, and all his numbers dipped slightly, hurt by a low BABIP.  Basically we've seen 2 seasons of Valencia and they were complete opposites.

Because I'm not a psycho with an agenda it seems obvious to me that the truth is somewhere in the middle.  I suspect Valencia is a slightly above average third baseman in every way - hitting and fielding, even if his baserunning sometimes makes me laugh like I'm at a Dane Cook show but I'm really just laughing out of pity.  I would be completely ok with, and would actually recommend, the Twins roll out Valencia for at least another year.  He's never been a great hitter, at least not since A ball, but he's been good enough the whole way through the minors and in his first 2 years with the big club, and really what's the other option?  Luke Hughes?  I like Hughes, but he's basically a younger Matt Tolbert with slightly more power and smaller nostrils.  No, this needs to be Valencia's job until Miguel Sano's ready, and that's at least 3 years from now.  Maybe less since Latin American birth records are always so accurate.

Now that that's settled we move on to first base, maybe the most confusing position on this team.  You've got a part-time catcher in Mauer, a full-time outfielder who might not even be there next year in Cuddyer, and a prospect who has fallen out of favor but now looks good.

Cuddy is obviously not your answer so we'll wait to address him when I talk outfielders, so in my mind it comes down to either making Mauer your full-time 1B or giving the job to Parmalee.  I talked enough about Mauer's batting skills in my catcher rundown, so we'll just jump to Parmelee.

Frankly, I like him.  And I have no idea why I qualified that with frankly.   He's an interesting case because he was a high pick who looked like he'd be a high power, low average guy throughout his early minor league career.  Then a few years ago he started trending in the opposite direction with his average raising and his power dipping, and I read somewhere that I'm too lazy to go find that the Twins basically told him to cut down on his swing and hit for higher average, something they love to do to anybody who shows any power (ask David Ortiz or J.J. Hardy).  Now that he's hit the majors yes his average is way up there (very high BABIP at .385) which is nice, but even better is he's taking a good amount of walks and showing a power bat once again.

There's a stat called "isolated power" which is calculated as slugging-average, and is meant to show a batter's power while taking out those whose slugging percentage is inflated due to a high average coming from a lot of singles.  Parmelee is at .194 so far this year, which is his highest number since A ball in 2008 and is second amongst all Twins behind just Jim Thome (and, if you ignore PA requirements, Scott Baker which is LOL).  It's not exactly elite to be a leader in power on the Twins, but with enough at-bats he'd rank 26th in the AL in that stat, ahead of guys like Nick Swisher and B.J. Upton - not elite, but guys with some pop.  No doubt, he's hit the ball well.

In the most simple terms, Parmelee has looked good in his call-up and deserves the chance to be the everyday first baseman next season.  Hopefully Mauer can catch more often than not and DH as well rather than taking the full-time first base spot from him.  I don't know that I'm buying in that Parmelee can be anything more than an average first base bat but he has potential, and looking at the other options, both in the majors and minors, he's really all they have.  The free agent crop looks either to be well out of the Twins price range (Fielder, Pujols if he hasn't signed yet) or Tony Batista, let's throw money at someone and hope they pan out types (Xavier Nady, Ross Gload, Brad Hawpe, Lyle Overbay).  The only remotely interesting guy on the list is Nick Johnson and he spent all this year in Cleveland's minor leagues and managed to hit just .200.  Still, I say they go with Parmelee as the starter and offer Johnson a minor league deal and hope for the best.  Not that different than the Nady/Hawpe group, but Johnson should be ultra cheap and is a worthwhile gamble unless there's something going on with him I'm not aware of.

Much like the catcher position for next year, things look confusing with a side of depressing.

Who sucks, why, and what can we expect? (hitters edition)

There's a lot of things wrong with the Twins' offense so far, clearly, and since I'm prone to overreaction I'm basically in full on panic mode.  Ok, not really.  But the Twins have definitely sucked.  Perhaps we should look into this.

Let me warn you right here:  if you think discussions about swing rates and ground ball ratios are boring you should just check out now because we're going to dig into this on a player-by-player basis.  If K-rate, chase percentage, and BABIP are things you either don't understand, are scared of, or just plain hate you should leave at just go look at boobies.  Now for the rest of you poindexters who stuck around, let's get out our abaci and our protractors and hunker down in mom's basement and see what we see.  All stats as of April 12, pre-game time.  All nerd stats from fangraphs.



Joe Mauer (.233/.303/.267) - No real secret here, but his numbers are low because his Batting Average on Balls in Play (BABIP) is low, but that's because he's hitting almost exclusively ground balls so far this year.  His 80% ground ball rate is the highest in all of baseball, while his 4.0% line drive rate puts him at 209th out of 213 players who qualify for the batting title.

His swing rates, contact rates, and walk rates are generally around his career averages so it doesn't appear anything has changed as far as his approach, which is good, but there is one interesting anomaly.  Of the pitches thrown to him so far this year, 14.8% of them have been curveballs which is almost double what he's seen in his career, and that's the pitch he has the most trouble with according to the numbers (other than a cutter which you don't see as often).  Could just be a weird blip due to early season pitching match-ups, but could be the league has identified something.  It's probably meaningless, but it's worth watching.

Justin Morneau (.258/.303/.355) - Interesting to note that he's not hitting with power (his current ISO - which measures power without regard to batting average - would be bar far the lowest of his career) and he's also not striking out at all - just  once this year with one of the lowest K% in the entire league.  He's also not walking at anywhere near his usual pace.  This can be traced to the fact that he's making contact nearly every time he swings the bat - currently at 87.5% contact rate, a career high and 10% higher than his career average.

The real issue, though, is how often he's making contact when he chases - 85.0%, up from 68.1% last year.  He's seeing fewer pitches in the zone, and although he is chasing less than last year when he does chase he's making contact far more often, and unless you're Kirby Puckett, Yogi Berra, or Vlad Guerrero it's much harder to make solid contact when you're going after a bad pitch.  I haven't noticed if he's taking weaker swings at bad pitches simply to make contact, but it's something I'll be watching.  I suspect he just needs to get back to unleashing on every swing - his misses will go up, but so will his power and his walks.  That's what the Twins need.  Assuming his brain is working ok and will allow that to happen.

Delmon Young (.188/.212/.219) - Similar to Mauer he's not getting any hits because he's not hitting any line drives, just 8.0% so far.  Dissimilar to Mauer his balls in play aren't limited to grounders because he's hitting both fly balls and ground balls, but none of the GBs are getting through and none of the FBs are going anywhere, thus the lack of both hits and power.  Despite his swing and contact rates remaining relatively similar to last year he's actually striking out more and walking less, which I didn't think was possible.  Of note is that out of every five pitches Young sees only two of them are in the strike zone.  Pitchers know he'll chase so they aren't giving him anything to hit.  If his approach doesn't change it's going to be a tough year.

Denard Span (.286/.342/.400) - maybe the only player on the entire roster who hasn't been an offensive disappointment.  Worth noting is that is walk rate is just 7.9%, down from last year which was down from the year prior and down from the year prior.  Bizarrely, as the years have gone by he seems to be seeing more pitches in the strike zone, but swinging at fewer strikes and more balls with his swing % at balls outside the zone at a career high.  His numbers have the potential to get even better if he can recapture some of his plate patience he showed earlier in his career because the balls he does hit he's hitting much better and much harder.  Perhaps that's what he needs to break through the "slightly above average lead-off hitter" he's been for his career.  Also needed:  less getting picked off.

Danny Valencia (.194/.265/.290) -  Nothing in Valencia's numbers suggests any kind of regression from last year.  His swing and contact rates are similar and if anything he's showing improved plate patience.  His line drive, ground ball, and fly ball rates are also all right where you'd expect.  The only big difference is a huge drop in BABIP from .345 last year to .200 this year.  While .345 means he was a little bit lucky last year, the .200 (with the rest of the numbers basically the same) means he's been tremendously unlucky this year.  No worries about Valencia, he's going to be fine. 

Jason Kubel (.300/.323/.367) -  The .300 average looks nice but there are some pretty big red flags here.  First, his BABIP is .391 even though his line drive rate is currently at a career low mark of 17.4% - that's a whole lot of luck coming into play.  Second, the complete lack of power is disturbing, as are the zero walks.

Two things Kubel has always been able to bring to the table, even when struggling, are his power and his plate patience and now they're both gone?  His double tonight is just his third this year and he's still looking for that first home run.  Based on his career averages he should have triple the XBH by now.  And the walks?  He's been solidly right at a 10% or so walk rate his whole career, and now nothing?  He's being extra aggressive for some reason this year with rises in his swing rates at both balls in the zone and out of it and it's translating into no walks.  I don't know why he's suddenly trying to become Delmon Young, but this shit better stop or I'm burning my Kubel shirt.  Don't change who you are when it's (at least sort of) working.

Mike Cuddyer (.107/.194/.107) -  He's 3-3 tonight with three singles so that will help the average number at least.  That's not all that concerning because with a BABIP of just .136 you know his average is going to come up significantly, but I'm not so sure what's going on with the slap hitting nancy routine.  His contact rates are mostly similar, so it's not that he's changed his approach, but for some reason he's swinging about 7% less on balls in the strike zone, and making contact about 2% less that usual.  It's almost as if while Kubel is getting more aggressive and getting away from his strength, Cuddyer is trying to be more patient which goes away from his.

Similar to Mauer, he's seen a huge increase in curve balls so far this year (from 8.2% career average to 16.2% this year) which leads me to believe this whole curve ball thing is nothing more than statistical noise due to seeing a higher percentage than average of curve ball pitchers so far, but it's worth noting that, again similar to Mauer, Cuddy always struggles against curves, so maybe things turn around when pitch mixes return to more standard levels.

The one impressive thing about his season is no matter how shitty it is, Cuddy has managed to keep his streak of being quoted in every single Twins article ever since he arrived in the big leagues intact.  Seriously, every article.  Guy's a bigger media whore than Chuck Sheen.

Jim Thome (.167/.250/.444) -  It doesn't really matter to me what the numbers would say about Thome, I'm not going to worry about him unless I start seeing signs of aging, like not being able to catch up to a fastball or not being able to sustain an erection.  At this point his 9.1% line drive rate and 63.5% fly ball rate are both really awful numbers and are leading to his piss poor BABIP of .200.  He's not punishing fast balls the way he usually does, but really right now he's not punishing anything (except that pitch from poor Jerry Blevins) so we really don't have enough data.  Kept a sharp eye on which pitches Thome is hitting hard to know what to expect the rest of the year, like the 80 mph change he just hit off Tim Collins for a single, that's the kind of pitch an old man who can't catch up to a fastball will crush.  Not saying that's him, but it's something to watch.

Alexi Casilla (.167/.211/.278) -  His BABIP is just .200, which would make you think his performance is bound to get better just due to luck, but he doesn't walk (ever), he has no power (ever), and, get ready for this one.....he hasn't hit a single line drive all year.  Basically all he does is bound the ball into the ground and hope to god he finds a hole (not dissimilar to Chuck Sheen) or hits the ball so shittily he can use his alleged speed to get on base.  I guess.  I don't know.  I don't even get this guy.  I think I'd rather have Punto back.  Or Denny Hocking.  Or Jeff Reboulet.  At least he had a mustache.  I'm tired and drunk.


And that's the end. I think what we can really take out of this is that this team sucks.  Or, this team has seen a lot of curveballs and they can't hit them.  Of the starters they've faced Ivan Nova, A.J. Burnett, Gio Gonzalez, Brett Anderson, and Brandon McCarthy are all big curve guys, with Burnett, Gonzalez, and McCarthy among the league leaders in % of pitches thrown that are curves.  I'm not sure what that means.  Probably something.

Talkin' Twins

With baseball camps starting to open up and baseball preview magazines hitting the store shelves I can't help but to have my thoughts turn to baseball (and the fact that the Gophers are driving me crazy isn't helping).  Here are my quick thoughts (ok, probably not quick) on the team this season, position-by-position:

CATCHER:  Joe Mauer is going to be who Joe Mauer be, which means he'll probably hit around .330 and OBP over .400 - both outstanding numbers for a catcher.  The real question is if he has power more like in 2009, or is the 2010 version the real one.  Personally, I think 2009 was a bit of a fluke, but I think he has more power than we saw in 2010, although it's harder to see thanks to the power reducing abilities in Target Field.  I would put his HR total OVER/UNDER at 10.5, but as long as he keeps banging out those doubles his other numbers make him one of the most valuable players in the game.  And are we really going with Drew Butera at back-up catcher again?  Seeing as how he's the only other catcher on the 40-man roster and both of the other intriguing options (Morales, Ramos) were shipped off I guess so.  I mean, I like the guy, he's excellent defensively and his name is really fun to say, but you could DH for him and let the pitcher bat instead and at worst that's a lateral move.

CORNER INFIELD:  Was it really just two seasons ago Justin Morneau played in 163 games and finished second in the MVP balloting? It seems amazing given how fragile he's been and missing half a season after getting bumped in the head is a huge red flag.  It's hard to believe it's even possible he won't be ready to opening day, but then again I said the same thing about last August, September, and October.  Plus, we already know from Corey Koskie that the only reason somebody born in Canada plays baseball instead of hockey is because they can't take a hit, so temper your expectations, I've got a bad feeling about this.

As far as third base goes I liked what I saw out of Danny Valencia last year, but I didn't quite see enough to be ready to hand the job over to him for the next five years.  I'm also not sure what other options they have because Matt Tolbert should never, ever start a game and the only other 3B on the 40-man roster is Luke Hughes, but it's starting to look less and less likely that he's the guy.  I do like Valencia, and his second half numbers were still good and probably more what we're likely to see this year.  If the power he showed in September carries over, the Twins will likely have a very good defensive third baseman who hits .280/.320/.460.  Solid, but not spectacular.  Like Reese Witherspoon or Chipotle.

MIDDLE INFIELD:   I can't wait to hear Dick and Bert butcher Tsuyoshi Nishioka's name over and over again.  I guarantee that they come up with a nickname within a week of the season opener, probably something as simple as Yoshi, which is fine as long as it's not the next Kaz Matsui, which is what he's known as around my house.  Maybe I've just been beaten down by scrappy, light-hitting middle infielders with little to no plate discipline for so long that I have the same confidence in him that Jerry's mechanic has in that gasket.

And speaking of light hitting middle infielders, Alexi Casilla will get another chance to start, because as Lindsay Lohan and Dean Koontz have proven if you just keep giving second and third chances things will eventually work out.  Seriously, how is Dean Koontz on the best-sellers list all the time?  I read about 10 of his books just thinking I must have grabbed his bad ones and kept waiting to read a good one and I never found one.  Servants of Twilight was decent, but everything else is just total crap you'd have to have a brain injury or the intelligence of a lamp to enjoy.  Family Guy is mostly stupid and written for cretins, but I laughed my ass off during and episode right after Stephen King got hit by a car when Peter hit somebody with his car and goes "was that Stephen King?" and Lois says "No, it was Dean Koontz" and Peter puts the car in reverse and runs him over again.  Suck it, Koontzy.   

OUTFIELD:  Here we go again.  A bunch of mediocre to kind of good bats packaged along with terrible terrible terrible defense.  Honestly, with Young, Span, and Kubel out there if there was a contest between those three and Carlos Gomez all by himself who do you think would catch more fly balls?

Defense aside, Span is the biggest concern and he really needs to be more like his 2009 self than last year's version.  His walk rate dipped last year from 12.2% and 10.5% in 2008 and 2009 down to 8.5% last year and after walking 17 times in April he walked just 16 times in May & June combined and 17 times in September & October combined.  Basically he stopped walking and starting flying out too much.  He is absolutely a key to this team and needs to be their table-setter.

He also needs to find a way to get better defensively, because he needs to cover for the three corner guys:  Jason Kubel, Delmon Young, and Michael Cuddyer.  Young finally put up an offensive year his potential said was there, and although it feels like the kind of thing you can't quite trust, in fact he put up the best year of his career in the same year where his BABIP was at his career low.  Yes, low.  Meaning with a little more luck he could have had even better numbers.  I actually anticipate his power going down a bit, because I think that surge we saw was a little more fluky than anything else, but I can easily see him hitting .320 or so over the course of the year with 40 or so doubles and 15 homers.  That's a very, very good year.  If he ever figures out some plate discipline he would have a chance at being truly dangerous.

Kubel I don't know about anymore.  He's one of the best on the team when it comes to plate discipline, but regressed quite a bit from his career year in 2009.  A lot of that can be attributed to a BABIP of just .280, 20 points lower than his career mark, and he should be able to bounce back to something closer to that 2009 version than last year's, but the real problem is that Kubes continues to be absolutely dreadful against lefties and at this point I don't think you can wait for him to snap out of it.  If he's in the lineup even once against a left-handed pitcher it's one time too many.

Finally, Cuddy will be returning to the outfield, assuming Canada-boy gets himself back into play, and that's not exactly a good thing.  I know he's a great teammate and his ability and willingness to play any position where he's needed is an excellent quality to have, and he's got a great arm.  He is also nearly as slow as Young or Kubel and still refuses to lay off the outside slider in the dirt with two strikes despite the fact that every single pitcher throws it at him every single time he has two strikes on him.  Honest to god, how do people watch Mark Reynolds day-in and day-out?  Cuddyer doesn't strike out nearly as often as Reynolds, but he just makes me so angry.  I'm not even especially anti-strikeout, even if they are fascist, but he just looks so weak and over-matched when he does it.  At least Adam Dunn has the decency to swing hard when he misses a ball by 2 feet.

DH/BENCH:  Jim Thome should basically have the DH locked down.  I'd say the Twins would be better off sitting him against lefties, but what's your other option?  I already mentioned Butera and Tolbert, neither of whom could get a hit even if they were married to Whitney Houston.  And, assuming they carry 11 pitchers, they only other player on the bench will be Jason Repko.  I secretly love Repko and have even used his name as a password on an account for something or other, but sometimes reality sets in and I remember he OPSed just .671 last year, a number basically identical to Tolbert, even if Repko seems like 10x the hitter Tolby is.  So basically this is a pretty damn shallow bench. 

STARTERS:  Pretty underwhelming here, yeah?  I hate that they're just rolling with the same group, although I can't really come up with any kind of master plan to make it any better, but lame, right?  Baker is a #3/#4 on most teams, Slowey is a #4, Pavano - although I'm glad to have him back - is a #3, and Blackburn should be in AAA.  We still don't know how good Duensing can be, but I think his absolute upside is a #3, which leaves Liriano for the excitement factor, and the Twins seem to be doing everything they can to try to make sure he isn't in their long term plans, which is ludicrous considering his 3.62 ERA last year was basically a worst case scenario based looking at his other stats - Aaron Gleeman breaks it all down better than I ever could here.  Is it a good enough rotation to win the Central even though it's not as good as Chicago's group?  Yes.  Good enough to win the World Series?  Well, I'll just wait for Kyle Gibson while I ponder that one.  But no.

CLOSER:  I'd imagine that Matt Capps will start the year as the closer with Joe Nathan getting eased in, but if Nathan looks close to form he'll slide back into his old job.  That's as it should be since Nathan can be unhittable at times and has stuff Cappsy can only dream about.  And a full season of Nathan, regular season only I mean, makes me feel pretty good.  A full season of Capps makes me feel sweaty and nervous, like a fat girl before her first aerobics class.  Don't you fear he's got a little bit of Bobby Jenks in him?  Like, he's just a half mph or half inch or a little bit worse luck away from a 6.00 ERA?  To put it another way, if Nathan is even 90% back from injury his downside is basically Cappsy's upside.

BULLPEN:  As much as I don't love Capps as a closer, I think he's a good option as a set-up guy and that's good because if the starters are underwhelming the bullpen is just a picture of guy with a thought balloon and in that balloon is a question mark.  Basically other than Capps and Jose Mijares we have one gigantic guessing game, with the biggest question being, "Why the holy hell did they essentially get rid of Rob Delaney in order to grab Dusty Mother Effing Hughes, somebody so bad at pitching a baseball that the KC Royals didn't even want him?"  And who is Scott Diamond and why, by taking him in the Rule 5 draft, is he good enough to warrant a guaranteed spot on the major league active roster?  Jim Hoey is getting a lot of play as a guy who could be a big-time setup guy, but he hasn't pitched in the majors since 2007 and owns a career ERA over 8.  What about Neshek in year 2 since his elbow fell off?  Is Glen Perkins head on straight and is his stuff good enough to become a reliable bullpen option?  Can Anthony Slama's mustache get anybody out, or is he your classic AAAA type player?  Is Alex Burnett a mop-up/long relief type who won't embarrass you or something more?  Are Jeff Manship and Anthony Swarzak future starters, relievers, or ushers?  Why did Eric Hacker get a major league contract?

I mean, look at this.  That's what, 9 possible guys for 3-4 spots and doesn't even take into account that they have 6 non-Gibson starters for five spots.  I guess the one big positive is that they do have a lot of options, so maybe that increases the odds that enough of them work out to make this a viable, quality bullpen.  Sort of like increasing your chances of winning the Powerball by buying two tickets instead of one.

OVERALL OUTLOOK:  I don't know, man, it seems like everywhere I look the Twins are getting picked to win the central again, but I don't know.  It feels to me like the White Sox and Tigers did more this offseason and it wouldn't take much to push either of those teams out ahead of the Twins.  I haven't really broken down the rosters to really get a clear view, but right now it feels like the downside is a rough year and third place division finish, while the upside is a narrow division win and a quick exit from the playoffs.  It's hard to get excited about that.  Again.

But you know what?  I'll be watching.  Damn near every game.  And I'll be living and dying on damn near every pitch.  And when I'm fishing up at the cabin the radio will be tuned to the game every damn night.  Because it's the Twins, it's baseball, and I couldn't shake it if I tried.

Six Very Important Things this morning 9.02.2010

Can I tell you guys something?  I'm really tired.  See, when you have one kid, a baby, say, you can just sleep whenever that kid is asleep.  Babies need to be fed every 3 hours or so, which means they are up at all times of night, but you can just feed the kid, put it back to sleep, and then sleep yourself if need be.  Easy peasy.  But when you have a 2.5 year old on top of that, even one as awesome as Wonderbaby, that doesn't work because when the baby is alseep during the day, the toddler isn't.  And toddler's need attention.  Lots of it.   And they aren't afraid to demand it.   And you can try to ignore them, but when they realize they aren't getting the attention they want by asking for it they start doing things like writing on the wall in crayon or hitting the baby with a toy hammer until you look at them.  Because much like Paris Hilton a toddler believes that any attention is good attention, even when it's bad attention.  So yeah. 

I'm back at work, so this doesn't affect me as much as Mrs. W since I do most of my dealing with Baby Benny in the evenings or at night, but his curious habit of refusing to go to sleep after I get up to feed him at 5:30am is not exactly helpful to my brain waves.  Although I have ended up watching more Saved by the Bell lately.  That Zack, what a character!

Also let's hope that's the last time I compared Wonderbaby to Paris Hilton.  On to the important stuff, assuming I don't pass out.

1.  The Twins won another squeaker.  This time it was in the 10th and off the bat of Danny Valencia, in a game that ended up spoiling incredible pitching efforts from both Francisco Liriano and Max Scherzer.  Liriano pitched seven innings of shutout ball only to watch Crain and Guerrier blow his lead, while Scherzer was even more brilliant, throwing nine innings of four-hit ball, allowing just one run while striking out nine.  Not much more to follow up on with this one.  Just an all around amazingly pitched game, where the smallest error was going to make the difference.  The difference last night was that the Tigers' closer of the future is not the reliever of the present, and the Twins' third baseman of the future is suddenly the third baseman of right now.  Danny Valencia has been everything you could have hoped for and more.  Ideally he'll develop more power down the line, but I have no complaints right now.  Except for the fact that the Twins can't seem to pull away from Chicago.

2.  The god damn Indian bullpen is not helping things.  You know what would be super helpful to the Twins winning the division?  If the White Sox would freaking lose, but they can't lose because the Cleveland bullpen is even worse than Chicago's own bullpen (and that's saying a lot).  Carlos Carrasco, in his first start of the year and sixth all-time, put together a very solid outing and left in the 8th with a 4-2 lead.  Then Justin Germano conspires against me, giving up a monstrosity of a 3-run home run to Paul Konerko and the Sox win the stupid game.  This comes after the Cleveland pen gave up a 3-run game winner to Pierzynski the night before, and two nights after they let the Sox score four runs in the 11th inning to lose.  I would have guaranteed you Chicago had the worst bullpen in the division, but looks like it's not even close.  This is like being sure Jaws IV:  The Revenge is the worst movie of all-time, and then seeing Rudy.   

4.   Some people really like Rodney Williams.  According to the article from DraftExpress, Rodney is the #1 NBA prospect in the Big Ten.  Wow.  That is a huge statement, but in a lot of ways it makes sense.  There's is no doubt in my mind that he is the best athlete in the conference, and, as Shawn Respert or Ed O'Bannon will tell you, skill only get you so far.  To succeed in the NBA you need that kind of athleticism (yes, there are plenty of exceptions, but it's a good guideline).   As you'd guess, this lofty ranking of Williams is based on potential, much as expectations of the Gopher faithful are, because aside from the noted athleticism he didn't show all that much last year. 

Now, Tubby's system probably isn't the best for a player like Rodney (can you imagine him in an open offense like Washington or something), but I do believe he will be given every opportunity to improve where he needs to (ball-handling, mid-range game) and at the same time be able to use the skills he already has (jumping, dunking) and could very well end up as an unstoppable force, but I'd say it's up to him.  The potential is there, but will he end up as the next Scottie Pippen?  Scottie Hopson?  Travarus Bennett?  Jermaine Stanford?  Let's hope we at least get the next Vincent Grier, at a minimum, or someone failed.

4.  This leaked all day, but it's now official.  The Big Ten announced the division splits as they'll breakdown when Nebraska joins in 2011:  the Gophers, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, Michigan, and Michigan State in one with Ohio State, Penn State, Purdue, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin in the other.  Each school will also have a dedicated rival in the other division they will play each year, with Minnesota matching up against Wisconsin and, of course, Michigan/Ohio State hooking up every year.  It was also announced that the division names would be announced at a later date, and with the way the teams are broken up I don't really see how they could do geographic names, so maybe it will be legends of the Big Ten.  Like the Bo and Woody divisions, or the Foggie and Fleetwood.  Thompson and Darkins?

And although this is mostly about football so that's what's being focused on, but if they keep the division system (no guarantee) there is some interesting things at work here.  In the Gophers' division, they'd be the second or third best program from a historical perspective, and the clear #2 from a "recent history" perspective.  The division would also have the current three worst programs, and two of three perennial doormats (with apologies to Northwestern who admittedly are much better lately).  Basically it stacks up heavily in the Gophers' favor and should make NCAA bids easier to come by in the future if they go with this (and lord knows the Gophers need the help).  Since the division are so skewed when it comes to hoops, with one loaded and one crappy, I doubt they'll adopt the system, but we can always hope.  Hey, a bid is a bid, no matter what kind of breaks the schedule gives you.  And I'm only referring to basketball there, not football, Mr. Music City Bowl.

5.  Hopefully this will surpass the Gopher scandal.  You know how whenever there is ever any kind of academic fraud at an institution of higher learning, whether rumored or proven, the article always has to bring up the Clem Haskins frame job as the "worst ever example of academic fraud"?  Well North Carolina and Butch Davis are doing their best to get the Gophers knocked out of that top spot, with the latest allegations that Davis's nanny or former tutor (depending on the report, and either way it sounds like porn) was writing papers for the football team.  And there's definitely something here, because apparently the entire starting defense was playing with the scout team at practice today, and the Russ Archambeau of this situation, D-lineman Marvin Austin, has been suspended indefinitely along with a couple other starters, and a starting cornerback has been kicked off the team.

I say he's the Russ Archambeau because he's the one who tipped off the NCAA, but unlike Swift Bird, who was just a whiny bitch with a grudge, Austin is just an idiot with a Twitter account who posted pictures of a brand new fancy watch, fancy pants douche sunglasses, and talked about bottle service at clubs.  Not a big deal for a college kid, but for a future NFL player still in college whose other tweets talk about how broke he is, it drew the eye of the NCAA Fascists and has turned into possibly the biggest academic fraud ever.

And thank god.  I'm sick of seeing the Gophers mentioned over and over whenever anything like this happens.  I hope that nanny tutor school girl nurse lifeguard wrote every paper for every sport at UNC for the last five years. 

6.  College Football starts tonight.  You are probably aware, seeing as how your beloved Gophers are traveling to Murfreesboro, TN to take on the hated Blue Raiders of Middle Tennessee State.  If you recall, your favorite football team was a 4.5 point underdog to this Sun Belt Juggernaut, but then stud QB and sweet name haver Dwight Dasher was ruled ineligible, and now the Gophers are a 2.5 point favorite.  Does this seem fishy to anybody else?  I was lead to believe in the very little reading I did on the game that Dasher was a super stud of Major Harris proportions and the main/only reason MTSU was a dangerous team.  Yet the line only moved to 2.5 in Minnesota's favor, which probably means the game is actually a pick 'em.  Which means the Gophers are dead.  D-E-A-D.  You heard it here first.

If you're looking for a preview of the game, you're in the wrong place, but let me recommend the always outstanding Daily Gopher, who you probably read anyway and who recently absorbed the Gopher Football blog.  There is more info there about the Gophers and MTSU and Gophers vs. MTSU than any sane person could possibly want or need.

More importantly, the Gopher basketball team begins their Canadian trip tonight, and you can watch the game on the web at SportsCanada.tv.  I'm going to try, but no promises.  Stupid wiener kids.


Well that certainly was a lot of words.  Apparently not writing often enough just causes some sort of word backup, so when I do write it all just comes pouring out.  Like that pipe full of crap that Andy Dufresne burst open with that rock.

And yes, I'm serious, Rudy is the worst movie of all-time.  If you disagree, you are a sentimental idiot who probably loved The Notebook as well.

Six Very Important Things this Morning 7.28.10

1.  The Twins blitzed the Royals again.  Once again your beloved hometown 9 started the game strong, scoring two in the first (which could have been more but Denard Span has a serious aversion to staying on base), then coasted there way to an 11-2 win behind another offensive explosion from Danny Valencia.  Another four hit game for the not-a-slap-hitter gives him back-to-back four hit outings and makes four straight games with at least 3 hits.  Mauer, Hardy, Young, Cuddy, Span, and Butera each had at least two hits as well.  This team is absolutely rocking the ball.  Butera is nearly hitting .200 for christ's sake, what the hell is going on?  Maybe most impressively, Pavano was clearly not on last night the way he has been lately, but he was able to pitch around trouble for his five innnings, allowing only one run, and the bullpen took it from there.  They're really clicking right now, and if the non Pavariano starters can keep it together they could end up taking this thing.   hahahahahahahahahahahamakeatrade.

2.  Sticking with the Twins, apprently they're exploring Matt Capps.  According to Tim K. at ESPN they aren't happy with Rauch and have looked into acquiring Capps, and learned that the Nats would want Wilson Ramos back.  This is lunacy on so many levels.  Capps is nearly identical to Rauch.  Although he might be slighly better he's in no way Wilson Ramos better.  Maybe a Matt Tolbert better.  If this happens I quit being a fan.  Let's hope the Twins leave the exploring of Matt Capps to either Mrs. Capps or various ladies of ill repute, ok?  Speaking of which, ask me about Brendan Donnelly some time.

3.  Just when you thought the Wolves offseason couldn't get any more bizarre.  Newest news is that Jonny Flynn will be out 3-4 months due to hip surgery, which means the Wolves have now gone from three viable point guards to 1 + Bassy Telfair.  If you're scoring at home, Kahn has now essentially cleared house, getting rid of nearly everybody from the previous regime and now getting started on moving out his own guys, as Sessions and Hollins were both Kahn signings last offseason.  It's a bold move, and is it just me or does Kahn have a little Steinbrenner in him?  Who else would sign someone to a four year, $16 million dollar contract just to trade him the next year for a player who was immediately cut?  He basically kicked him out of bed in the middle of the night and didn't even supply cab money.  Ain't right.

4.  The baseball world holds its collective breath.   Super phenom (and fantasy team savior) Stephen Strasburg was scratched from his start against the Braves last night after he was "unable to get loose" in the bullpen.  That was the official explanation.  They said there was no pain or anything, he was just unable to get loose.  I usually find a couple of kamikazes does the trick.  Seriously though, this could potentially kill baseball. 

5.  NFL Writers in Cincinnati are going to be busy.  The Bengals, in keeping with their tradition of being a complete mess, have signed Terrell Owens.  If you were in the same room as me right now you would see me showing how much I care about this by making fart noises with my mouth.

6.  Best Second-Baseman Ever?  Rickie Weeks went deep again last night, which makes three consecutive nights and gives him six home runs in his last ten games.  For the year he's now up to 22 home runs, and is basically having the same season as Joe Mauer - if Mauer had 22 home runs, 7 steals, and played a god awful second-base.  But who cares about fielding when you're destroying the ball?  He might not have the average you'd always want and he strikes out quite a bit, but he also can take a walk and when he makes contact he hits the ball a ton.  So exactly like the exact opposite of every Twins' middle infielder ever, and Gardy's worst nightmare.


I'm hoping tomorrow's post is going to be a gopher hoops recruiting rundown, something I've been really neglecting since I am spending basically all my energy on the Twins for some reason.  Well, that and preparing the house for the new kid, who is really just going to be a time sink and money drain.  Joy!

Six Very Important Things this Morning 7.27.10

Hi folks.  I just finished up an absolutely terrific meal I prepared myself (Grilled Marlin Steaks in a garlic lemon butter sauce) and as such I'm feeling pretty good so it's time to roll out an idea I've been kicking around for a while:  Daily morning posts.

Usually during the week when something interesting happens but I don't feel it warrants an entire post, I just file it away to use for the Week in Review post on Monday, but that's irritating at times and a lot slips through the cracks, so from now if I'm not writing something about something more important like Twins' talk, Gopher hoops, or crappy SyFy movies, I'll try to put together a linksy/newsy like a respectable blogger for posting in the morning so you'll have something to do while you try to wake up at work.

Now, they will be shorter than the Week in Review posts (thank god is what you're saying), and I'm not guaranteeing this every morning, but I'm going to try to keep this going until I get bored.  Also keep in mind that I go to bed around 11, so it's not going to be often that any West Coast games are going to be highlighted here.

Let's see how this goes.  Without further ado, your first ever "Six Things":

1.  Danny Valencia is sick of my calling him a nancy-boy slap hitter.  Well, he didn't actually say that, but he said it with his bat, going 4-4 with his first career home run.  He wasn't the only star for the Twins, with Delmon also chipping in with yet another 4-hit game and Joe Mauer going 5-5 with a home run and 7 RBI, all on their way to 19 runs on 20 hits, giving them 29 runs and 39 hits over he last two games.  Lost in all this is the fact that Liriano tossed an easy breezy seven innings of 3 hit, no run ball for the win, and would have had a shot at a shut out (just 83 pitches) if the game wasn't such a massacre.  The Twinkies have an easy schedule the rest of the way, and Detroit is falling apart at the seems, so this thing is right there for them if they want it.  And then we can once again enjoy the yearly ritual known as "getting swept out of the playoffs."  It's a magical time.

2.  Al Jefferson hates Toyotas, T-Wolves.   Ok, he had some nice things to say about Minnesota, but it's pretty clear he's not sad to be gone.  I'm curious how he's going to fit in since Deron Williams is a pick-and-roll PG and he's not a pick-and-roll PF, but whatever.  And Actually calling the T-Wolves a Toyota might be a compliment.  I'd have been more specific, like calling them a '84 Toyota Tercel that for some reason has three semi-expensive steering wheels.

3.  Matt Garza is feeling the heat from Delmon Young.  Just when it was seeming like the balance of the Delmon/Garza trade might be swinging in the Twins favor, Matt Garza goes out and tosses a no-hitter, and damn near a perfect game with just a single blemish in the form of a walk to Brennan Boesch.  Nice little outing.  He's still no Delmon, but I'd say he's significantly better than Jason Pridie.

4.  Matt Wieters is back.  This week Snake and I were forced to bring Matt Wieters back aboard our fantasy team due to Miguel Olivo suddenly finding himself in a platoon with the hottest prospect of 2005, Chris Iannetta.  We figured we'd give him one more week before cutting him for good, but that's probably not going to happen after he went deep twice last night against Toronto, increasing his season HR total by a whopping 33%.  Bad news:  They still lost because they're Baltimore.  Good news:  My autographed Matt Wieters ball just increased in value by 18%.

5.  The Wolves continue to get weirder.  This time the Kahner traded one of his three steering wheels (Ramon Sessions), last year's occasionally starting center (Ryan Hollins) and a second round pick for noted Lebron-mom banger Delonte West and second-time's the charm Sebastien Telfair, whose NBA career is clearly working out exactly according to plan.  Except of course that neither of these guys will play a game, because West can be waived before August 5th, which would cost just $500k (compared to his $4.6 million salary) and Telfair will be re-traded or bought out as well.  Let me tell you, there's nothing more satisfying for a fan than a trade which saves the team money but brings in no talent.  This must mean cheaper beer next season, right?

6.  Dez Bryant is probably going to steal Halle Berry too.  The big news out of Cowboy Camp is that Dez Bryant refused to carry Roy Williams' pads after practice, as is customary at Dallas Training Camp, and everybody is all in a huff.  I get that, there is something to be said for tradition, even if it's stupid and retarded, but this just smacks a little too much of a Darnell Jefferson/Ray Griffen situation if you ask me.  The brash young rookie (Jefferson/Bryant) comes to the team (Dallas/ESU) with designs on stealing the underperforming incumbent starter's (Williams/Griffen) job.  I think we know how this ends:  Williams throws a crushing block to spring Dez for a key touchdown, helping a fresh-from-rehab led Tony Romo and the Cowboys to a Super Bowl victory while Demarcus Ware listens from a hospital room, tears running down his cheeks because he knows his career is over.


So there we are.  The first ever 6 things.  Hopefully it won't be the last, but I make no promises.  I can be legendarily lazy, and get bored and distracted quic

Week in Review - 7/26/2010 (Dan Haren edition)

God damn it.


WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Delmon Young.  No joke guys, I think we've reached the point where Delmoney is absolutely carrying this team.   In terms of the batters, that is, since really Pavariano is the combo that's really getting it done.  But batting-wise ever since that Canadian fella whacked his head like Billy-Bob, Delmon has become the man.  He's basically the third best hitter on the team this year, and that is only if you count Thome.  He's locked in the way Mauer was last year and Morenau was most of this year.

And he even made a play on Saturday night where he sprinted into the corner to catch a fly ball and then tossed out Miguel Tejada tagging (inexplicably) from first to second.  I'm starting to think something special is happenign.   Perhaps the best sign is what's coming out of the clubhouse from Gardy, Thome, and other teammates.  I know it's basically their job to blow smoke up the media and fan's collective ass, but last year you never heard anything positive about Delmon off the field (or on, for that matter) so even the faintest praise is a pretty positive sign.  And in this case the praise is flowing like the salmon to Capistrano, so we may very well have a monster breaking out here. 

2.  Miguel Cabrera.  Speaking of people who are overshadowing the advillian-challenged Morneau, Cabrera pretty much has the AL MVP wrapped up and we aren't even to August yet, and he killed pitchers again this week. 13-27 this week with 9 RBI, and he's now hitting .348/.421/.650 on the year, and is now first in slugging and second in OBP and AVG in all of baseball, and on top of that is third in home runs and first in RBI.  So he's basically doing what Joe Mauer did last year, but add in a possible triple crown.  Just a tremendous season so far.  I hope he hits Dan Haren in the face with a line drive.

3.  Kelly Johnson.  He hit for the cycle, which would be way more exciting but I know pretty much nothing about him.  I know he's a Diamondback and used to be a Brave, and I know he's a second baseman.  Does he play any other positions?  I don't know.  Does he hit .220 or .320?  Is he a 5 HR hitter or a 25 HR hitter?  Does he steal 3 bases or 60?  These are all answered with a shrug and a self-deprecating yet charming smirk.  So congrats on your cycle Kelly.  You've got a hell of a legacy going on here.  I hope you enjoy playing with the crap the Angels gave away to steal sexy Dan Haren away from you.

4.  Danny Valencia.  I still think he's probably a slap-hitting nancy girl, but I've been noticing that a lot of his hits lately are more of the line drive variety than the bloop/seeing eye grounder variety.  He put together back-to-back 3-for-5 games over the weekend, and he's now hitting .346/.398/.395 for the year, and if that was over an entire season thus far he would rank as the fifth best third baseman (OPS-wise) in the American League behind Adrian Beltre (wait, what?), Evan Longoria, A-Rod, and Michael Young.  Is he that good?  No, certainly not, and with a a slugging percentage lower than his OBP he is definitely a slap-hitting Judy, but still I feel slightly impressed.  He'd be a much better prospect to give the Diamondbacks than what the craptastic Halos gave for Haren, and not nearly good enough that they'd actually miss him.  Nice work, jackasses.

5.  Dan Haren.  He gets to pitch for a contender and gets to stay on the West Coast, the two things he said he wanted.  Well played, Haren.  Well played indeed.  Of course, he also said that going to a contender was the most important thing, and that he simply preferred to stay on the West Coast.  The Twins are a contender, allegedly, and would have been a good landing place.  This sucks.  



WHO SUCKED

1.  Twins.  I know they could have come up with a better offer than what the Angels gave for Haren.  I know they could have, because the offer the Angels put together was Joe Saunders, two middling prospects and a player to be named later.  I plan to look at this further, but for right now my first reaction is that this is a bunch of crap, and they were too pussy to put a real offer out there.  Seriously, this was the year to make a move like this.  The lineup is going to be worse next year.  Right now they have Hudson (when he's not hurt), Hardy (when he's not hurt), and Thome and next year they are going to end up going back to Tolbert, Casilla, and Harris.  Bank on it.  This was the time to make the move.  And if it didn't work out, Haren would still have trade value and they could flip him next year or two year's from now if needed.  Just a bullshit chicken-shit move.  Enough already with the small market bullshit.  Maybe I'm ungrateful, but I'm sick of scratching by to win the division and getting run right out of the playoffs.  Make a move already.  God I'm emotional right now.  This must be what women feel like all the time.

2.  Diamondbacks.  I'm too sleepy to look it all up, but over and over and over again the Arizona brain trust, and I mean that the same way people refer to David Kahn as the T-Wolves brain trust, said they would have to be blown away by an offer and that this wouldn't be a "salary dump."  Well guess what, assholes?  This was a straight salary dump.  They got a mediocre left-handed starter, a B prospect, a C prospect, and a nothing prospect.  Basically equivalent to a Twins offer of Slowey, Jesse Crain, Adrian Salcedo, and Matt Bashore.  Who?  Exactly.  The Twins could have bettered that offer with minimal effort and minimal affect on the overall minor league system.  Awesome.  Just awesome.   

3.  Paul Casey.  Here is the list of golfers who ranked higher than Paul Casey on the World Golf Rankings who played with him at the FBR Open in Canada this weekend:


Yep, nobody.  And yet, Mr. #8 in the world couldn't be bothered to make the cut.  Of course, neither did Sean O'Hair, Scott Verplank, Fred Couples, or Mike Weir, leading to a thrilling Sunday showdown between Carl "The Swedish Boss Hog" Petterson and Dean "Can't tell if he's Asian or not" Wilson.  This is where I would tell you who won, but you don't care and it doesn't matter.  And also I don't actually know because I didn't watch.  I was too busy crying.

4.  David Ortiz.  I somehow found myself watching the Boston/Seattle game Friday night, even though I didn't have money on it and had zero fantasy players involved.  No, I have no idea what I was doing there.  Not really the point, Tito.  The point is that with one out and the bases loaded in the top of the sixth in a 1-1 game, David Ortiz was picked off of third base.  And not by the pitcher on something weird, by the catcher.  And not by the catcher on a blocked ball in the dirt.  It was on a set play by the Mariners where the pitch was outside and the third basemen broke to cover and the catcher winged it down there as soon as he caught it.  Which tells me that it wasn't an isolated incident, but Ortiz was getting way too far off the base regularly.  Seriously where exactly was he going?  Where did David Ortiz think he was going?  Was he going to steal home?  Score on a ball in the dirt?  What could he have possibly had running through his head?  I can't decide if this is more Lew Ford or more Denard Span.   Maybe it's more Bill Smith.  You know, screwing something easy and simple and obvious up beyond all repair.

5.  Life.  You win again.  I feel like Wonderbaby^TM when she met Santa. 

Apologies to Rickie Weeks who probably deserved a spot in the Awesome column, but I had to give props to Danny Haren instead.  It's been a long time since I've had my heart broken like this.  I need to go drown my sorrows in alcohol and tears.  Maybe a nice bundt cake.

Random Thoughts while watching the Twins

I once again have the opportunity to watch an entire Twins game with sound, and once again am going to take advantage while blogging whilst watching.  I won't be doing a live blog, since those seem to always end up boring lately and it's hard to get excited about the Mariners, but I'm sure some game or announcer related things will sneak in here.  I don't know.  I don't know if there's time.  I gotta go to Home Depot later.

-  First, it seems pitching a perfect game has become easier than your sister after a couple glasses of Boone's Farm.  On the heels of Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay's perfectos, Armando Galarraga pitched 8 and 2/3 perfect innings before having it broken up by an infield it, and according the radio the guy was only safe thanks to a bad call by the umpire (I haven't seen the replay, but I'll assume the umpire was probably racist).  And the list of guys with perfect games is so weird.  Out of the 20 perfect games, you have some that don't surprise you.  The Hall of Famers:  Sandy Koufax, Cy Young, Addie Joss, Jim Bunning, and Catfish Hunter and soon to be Hall of Famers:  Randy Johnson and Roy Halladay (if he can keep it up).  Then there are guys with electric stuff you don't really surprise you:  David Cone, Dennis Martinez, and even Mike Witt - the fact that they were unhittable for one day isn't a huge shock.

But then the rest of these guys.  Throw out Charlie Robertson because I've never heard of him and the two guys who did it in 1880 because the rules were all kinds of fucked up then, but Len Barker?  He only won double-digit games twice and never posted an ERA under 4.80.  Don Larsen?  You would never had heard of him if he didn't toss that perfect game in the World Series.  He never won more than 11 games in a season, and spent most of his career as a reliever.

The weirdest part is the sheer amount of soft-tossing lefties who achieved perfection:  David Wells, Tom Browning, Dallas Braden, Kenny Rogers, and Mark Buehrle.  That's as many nancy-boy southpaws who have done it as Hall of Famers.  It's just so weird.  I'm not taking anything away from the achievement, any way you look at it, it's still only been accomplished 20 times, but the list is mind-boggling.  Apparently Brian Duensing is more likely to toss a perfecto than Felix Hernandez.  So weird.

-  I just saw the replay.  That was a bad call.  I was also just reminded that Griffey Junior announced his retirement today.  Man was that guy good.  And since I am pretty sure he was never using anything performance enhancing (other than Mr. Burns' Nerve Tonic, which is not on the banned list) I can't help but wonder what would have happened if he had gone on the Barry Bonds diet. 

Griffey played until about 30 years old before he started getting injured all the frickin' time.  At that point, he had hit 438 home runs with a batting line of .296/.380/.568, giving him an OPS+ of 147 in 7,319 plate appearances.  At age 30, Bonds had hit 292 homers with a line of .286/.398/.541 for an OPS+ of 158 in 6,038 plate appearances.  Pretty close to equal.  So let's say Griffey stays mostly healthy and got as many at-bats as Bonds after age 30, and hit home runs at his same pace.  He would have ended up with 831 career HRs.  And if he hit the Balco diet and hit them at the rate Bonds did after age 30, he would have ended up with 908. 

I know it's a pretty useless exercise and uses a ridiculous amount of assumptions and conjecture, but still kind of fun to look at.  One thing is clear:  Griffey should have used the roids.  Burnsie's Tonic just couldn't quite cut it. 

-  Matt Tolbert somehow got a hit.  Dick:  "The Twins have some speed on the bases."  No, he's white and "gritty" and "scrappy."  That doesn't make him fast.  And he promptly tries to steal and gets thrown out by 8 feet.  Beautiful.  Gardy's fascination with that guy might be the worst part of him as a manager, and that's saying alot.

-  Now Punto walks, and Dick wants him to steal too.  What's this guy's fascination with stealing?  He would have thrived down in New Orleans after Katrina. 

-  Milton Bradley just stole third without a throw thanks to Kevin Slowey paying zero attention to him.  That's your go ahead run with only one out in a 0-0 game here in the bottom of the fifth.  I know Milton Bradley's crazy.  Like Carl Everett crazy, but I love his game.  I bet you didn't even know that in 2008 he led the league in OBP and OPS, and that he's broken a .400 on base percentage three times.  But he doesn't steal a ton of bases (career high of 17, hasn't hit double digits since 2007, and the two he stole in this inning just tripled his season total) so nobody cares that he gets on base all the time.  He's like the anti-Vince Coleman, but you probably like Coleman better because you're a moron.  Thanks for ruining baseball.

-   Oh, and he scored on a sac fly, so his heads up steal of third probably just won the game for the Mariners - who, I'll remind you, I claimed were a sleeper World Series contender.  I'm so dumb.

-  Since the M's are basically out of it already, I wonder when they'll deal Cliff Lee.  He's on the hook for $9 million this year, but he's a free agent after this season.  If the Twins tried to acquire him (LOL) I'd assume they wouldn't be looking to add payroll in the amount and length he'd be asking for, so it would have to be a half-year rental sort of deal.  Which I would be fine with, depending on what they are asking for.  I'm not sure what exactly I'd be willing to give up - haven't really thought about it - and I'm sure somebody else would be willing to offer him more + a contract (I'd bet he ends up a Met), so it's really just a pipe dream, but since they won't end up making a big trade deadline deal, pipe dreams is all I got.

-  They just showed the Galarraga replay again, and man, I don't like the guy or anything but that really sucks for him.  Maybe even worse, apparently the umpire admitted after the game that he blew it.  I'm sure that makes Galarraga feel a lot better.  Ugh.  Just a terrible situation.  And if Miguel Cabrera isn't a terrible terrible terrible fielder and let's the second basemen get that, we aren't even discussing it and are instead trying to figure out why there are so many perfect games this year.  He was probably drunk.

-  By the way, I just want you all to know that Matt Wieters fucking sucks.  It's like he's purposefully going out of his way to intentionally hurt me.  I'm shifting all my love to Stephen Strasburg, who, by the way, will be making his first big league start June 8th, which is only six days away.  I will be flying out to Washington for the occasion.*

-  It's still 1-0 Mariners and we're now in the 7th.  The good news is if they can get Lee out of the game (doubtful) Seattle's closer is David Aardsma, who in no way should be a closer and is the kind of closer you can rally against in the ninth.  Just like Jon Rauch.  :sadface:

-  Cuddyer dinger.  Tie game.  Suck it, Cliff Lee.  And Snacks.  I know you hate the guy with everything you have, but I can't enable this anymore.  There's no reason to hate him, guy can mash.  Sure, he chases the slider down and away all the time, but it's small price to pay for the power he brings.

-  Oh hell yes.  Cuddy is leaving the team for bereavement because his father-in-law died (that's not the hell yes part) and Danny Valencia will be called up.  Thank god we finally get to see this guy play.  I'm sick of hearing about him without seeing him.  And what happened to Luke Hughes?  And Trevor Plouffe?  Why do they keep recycling Tolbert and Casilla instead of giving one of these guys an extended look?  And just cut Harris.  Oh wait, you geniuses signed him for two years even though you only had to sign him for one.  For such a successful and well run organization sometimes these guys are dumb as shit.

-  Valencia's stats at AAA this year:  .298/.350/.380 with no homers and 34-13 BB/K ratio.  I could not be less excited.  Sounds like another slapper.  It's almost like they draft these kind of guys on purpose.  Seriously, the draft is in like a week and I expect them to go off the board and get a guy whose bio reads:

PROS:  Scrappy.  Tough.  Gritty.  Hustles.  Dives a lot.  Slides into first to show his hustle despite all the evidence that it's a dumb play.  Can play multiple positions.  Regularly invites teammates over for a barbecue.

CONS:  Can't hit.  No idea of the strike zone.  Gets an extra-base hit once a month.  Makes terrible base-running decisions.  Is either short and white or short and ethnic.  Definitely short.  Is a "Gardy" kind of guy.

-  Slowey lets the first two batters get hits in the seventh, but gets out of it with a double play (started by Tolbert!) and a pop-up.  We got a ballgame here folks.

-  Apparently they've given up.  Leading off the 8th, Punto attempted to bunt and ended up striking out and then Span did bunt and was thrown out by Lee on a pretty nice play.  I guess they've decided they can't hit him.  If only it was Aardsma out there.

-  I've come around on the Celtics/Lakers final.  I'm pretty fired up for it.  Definitely rooting Celtics here.  Even though I hate all Red Sox fans and most Patriot fans (but definitely all Red Sox fans), I have no problem with the Celtics.  I grew up a Laker fan because I hearted Magic Johnson and hated the Celtics and Bird because I had to, as I've gotten older I appreciate the Celtics more and more, and I'm rooting for them because I hate Kobe and still love KG and definitely love Ray Allen.  I've also learned to appreciate Michael Jordan.  I hated that guy and considered him nothing more than a high-scoring ball hog who managed to win.  But after watching a new generation of ball hogs who suck (I'm looking at you Tracy McGrady) I have to give Jordan some props.  He's still just the fifth best player ever, but that's higher than I used to have him.

-  I think Jesse Crain has a new curveball.  That thing is pretty nasty.  No way he had that pitch before, I would have noticed.  And he put Seattle down 1-2-3 in the 8th.  Pretty sure that's never happened before.

-  Sweet!  Aardsma is in to face Mauer/Morneau/Cuddy in the ninth.  This probably will end up not even being a save situation for Rauch.

-  Four pitch walk to Mauer.  Looking like a Morneau 2-run dinger here.

-  Or a wild pitch and a Morneau ground out to move him to third (look at that Twins baseball!  Giving up his at-bat to move a runner up!)  So now we have go-ahead run on third with one out for Cuddy.

-  And he hits the ball as hard as you can, but right at the shortstop who is playing in.  So it's up to Kubel.  All he does is win games.  Or strikeout.  Also a big fan of the pop-up.

-  Fly out.  Shit.  And apparently this has turned into a live blog of the game.

-  Guerrier goes 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth.  And I am getting way tired.  Stupid west coast.  And I hate traveling out there, every single sporting event is done by 8pm.  When you're out there alone and have nothing better to do than sit in a hotel bar and watch sports, that really puts a bit of a damper on things.

-  Twins lose.  Excellent base-running by the Mariner guy.  I'd write more on that play but I'm really tired.  Suffice it to say, that call to ruin the Big Cat's perfect game wasn't the only bad call tonight.





* = No, I'm not.