Ok, let's get the obvious out the way right up front - he's had two starts, one he he lasted 8 and 1/3 innings and gave up no runs, and another was a complete game shutout. That's pretty crazy. He's just the 63rd pitcher to give up zero runs in his first two career starts, and the combined 17.1 innings is the 17th longest scoreless streak ever by a starter to begin his career, and the longest since the immortal John Hiller in 1967. Crazy, crazy stuff, especially coming from an unlikely source. Of course the downside is that the list isn't exactly full of big names (Phil Niekro and Mike Norris are probably the biggest) and some of the more recent pitchers to pull the two game thing off haven't exactly gone on to bigger things (Josh Collmenter, Vin Mazzarro, and Alex Sanabia, to name a few). So the big question - is Andrew Albers, like, good?
He was never really considered any kind of prospect, signing with the Twins as a minor league free agent after a year with the Padres' rookie ball squad and spending a season playing for Quebec in an Independent League in Canada. His minor league numbers are fantastic, however, putting up a career ERA of 2.64 and WHIP of 1.15 in 5 seasons, and while limiting walks and homers and striking out 7.7 batters per nine innings including 7.9 per at Rochester prior to being called up. Setting up like a nice diamond in the rough story, eh? And his pro results obviously have been a fantastic, but let's look at this with some nerd stats.
A fastball topping out at 87mph and a K/9 mark of 2.09 right now both scream fluke, as does being a starter who pitches from the stretch at all times (what's up with that?). Add in a BABIP of .113 and a LOB % of 100% and everything says regression to the mean is going to hit this kid and hit him really, really hard. Then again, that's what I thought after start #1, and start #2 was even better.
Now, if you aren't striking batters out, the other way to have some success is to get a ton of groundballs and not to walk anybody. His 49% ground ball rate would put him at 21st in the majors if he had enough innings. Very good. His walk rate of 1.7% would be the best in the majors, halving the 3.4% of major league leaders David Price and Adam Wainwright. Perhaps even more importantly to his success this far is when he's not getting ground balls he's not getting hit hard, with a line drive rate of just 11%, 5% better than league leader Stephen Strasburg. And, of course, he has yet to allow a fly ball to leave the yard, despite even the best pitchers usually seeing about 5% of their fly balls going out (he's only allowed 21 fly balls period, so this is one to watch). Could he sustain this? (Obviously not, but I mean something close enough to it to be a permanent fixture in the rotation)
Albers so far has thrown 58% of his pitches in the strike zone, which would be by far the highest percentage of all starting pitchers in the majors. Of those strikes, 63% have been swung at which is a pretty low rate, and he's getting nobody to chase the balls out of the zone (just 27% have been swung at). Batters are also making contact with the balls they swing at in the zone at a 94.5% rate, worse even than noted soft-tosser Bronson Arroyo. Everything about his advanced stat profile screams to me that he's getting extremely lucky so far.
That being said, I'm not going to write him off either. If he can continue to not walk anybody (likely), continue to get a lot of ground balls (pretty likely), and keep the ball in the park (less likely) he could still find some success. If he can figure out how to strike batters out, we could really have something here. I would say he's got no chance at bringing up the Ks with that fastball at this level, but his AAA numbers were good so maybe there's something back there somewhere.
I guess the answer to the question, "Is Andrew Albers like, good?" is "probably not." But note the "probably". His two starts are historically amazing, but it's likely once teams get more tape and figure him out and his luck evens out he's going to get pounded. There does, however, exist the possibility that he's one of those rare pitchers who defy the advanced metrics, as he has so far. Hope for a back-of-the-rotation mainstay who can give you a season worth of 4.00 ERA year after year. But expect worse.
OTHER TWINS NOTE WORTH NOTING: In the blockbuster Drew Butera trade the Gophers received the infamous "Player to be Named Later." That player has now been named and it's Miguel Sulbaran. Sulbaran is a lefty starter at the Dodgers' Single-A affiliate, and at just 19 years old put up some pretty solid numbers - 3.01 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and an 85/27 K/BB ratio. He started young at 17 in rookie ball and through these years has an ERA of 3.21, WHIP of 1.19, and K/BB ratio of 206/59. Awfully good numbers for his age and level. He was actually named the #14 prospect in the Dodger system earlier this season. All this for Drew Butera? Considering getting anything other than "cash consideration" would have felt like a win, this feels like an outright steal.
GOPHER NOTE WORTH NOTING: According to a source close enough to know, since the Richard Pitino hire Reid Travis is now "seriously considering" the Gophers. I know this is sort of something everyone has kind of pieced together and some recruiting experts have said the same thing, but it was kind of cool to hear it confirmed. Plus I wanted to act all cool because I have a source. A one time only source, but a source. I'm so big time.
Showing posts with label Drew Butera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Drew Butera. Show all posts
Thursday, August 15, 2013
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Minnesota Twins Season Wrap - Catcher
I've come full circle. I am now embracing the new Twins. I raged. I cried. I bitched. I complained about Gardy until I was blue in the face. I questioned why they went Nishioka over Hardy at the beginning of the year and I continued on that all season long. I questioned Mauer's heart, Span's head, and Morneau's everything. I wondering what was going on with management and the training staff, and I couldn't understand why they weren't more aggressive trading off pieces for prospects at the trade deadline. But I'm done now.
Now it's time to accept the Twins are broken. Blame at on injuries if you must, for it is convenient and soothing, but the fact of the matter is those who weren't hurt, and the times where the team was intact, were mediocre at best. It times to move on. Yes, I'm betting we'll have more Augusts and Septembers of meaningless ball, but if everything goes according to (my) plan, we'll at least be watching players who could be part of the future, rather than the lingering remnants of a disappointing and unfulfilled past. With that spirit, I am going to do a review/preview of this team by position, starting with catcher.
It is becoming apparent that Joe Mauer's future is no longer behind the plate, at least not full-time and I'm betting we'll see a full-time move in the next year or two, whether it is to the outfield or first base I don't know, but it's coming. Mainly due to his inability to stay on the field, but also, in my opinion, because they need something to explain why the guy they just gave the biggest contract ever to put up a batting line more reminiscent of Danny Valencia than what we're used to seeing from him. Next year is an absolute monster for Mauer, a huge crossroads year, and his chance to prove that he's worth that contract.
A huge chunk of Mauer's value always came from the fact that he was one of the best hitters in the league at a position where defense is considered the priority, and most team's don't have an issue with letting offense slide. Catcher's average OPS+ (where 100 is an average batter, higher is better) has historically been around 90, all the way from the 1950s-2000s. That's the worst of any position player, on par with shortstop. So when Mauer has a run like he did from 2006-2010 when his aggregate OPS+ was 142, you are in a huge advantage versus most teams. Even if he hits like that and plays outfield or 1b, you're still holding an advantage against most squads, even if it is diminished somewhat.
So the real question, more important than establishing what position he's going to play, is whether or not Mauer can get back to the hitter we all saw those five years, or if he's now become this slappy Luis Rodriguez type of hitter. This year was so far removed from what we usually see out of Joe I'm ready to call it a fluke with one caveat that I'll get to later. His power fell off a cliff, and I don't mean home run power because in that case the 28 HR season was the fluke, but he stopped hitting doubles. His walk rate went down and his strikeout rate went up. He hit an absolutely ridiculous amount of groundballs, even for him, and made contact and far fewer of his swings, despite not changing the pitches he was swinging at. It was a truly bizarre year.
Which is why I'm mostly inclined to dismiss it as an anomaly and expect to see Mauer back hitting in the mid-.300s with his 10 homers, 30 doubles, and a nice OBP. However, that one caveat I mentioned earlier is his health, and this year has truly been dizzying with the ailments. From bilateral leg weakness at the start to pneumonia at the end, I don't know if he was ever truly healthy this year. It's easy enough to question his toughness and his heart when he has to sit out four games with a sore neck, especially when Ezal was back out there within minutes hustling Smokey for money after he fell on that wet floor, but perhaps he wasn't ever healthy. Perhaps there were some serious health issues more time off at the start of the year was what was needed. I really don't know, and I don't think anybody else really does either. Which is why I'm officially giving the $200 million dollar man a pass on this one. Everybody deserves a second chance. Let's just hope he's back to normal because the Twins are stuck with him - nobody's trading for that contract - at whatever position he may be.
And what if they do move him? Who becomes the new catcher? The only two prospects at the position who were major league ready were shipped off in short-sighted moves by the front office for a reliever who defines average stuff was looked attractive because he had a bunch of shiny saves and a low-A reliever whose strikeout rates dropped each of the last three seasons. So it's going to be Drew Butera or Rene Rivera? Gross.
Rivera is a career minor leaguer and Butera is a defensive specialist, and neither can hit. Both OPS+ at a 13 this year. 13! Thir-fucking-teen. That means they don't get hits, they don't get walks, and on the rare occasion they do get a hit it's a single basically every time.
Butera had the worst OPS+ in the league out of any player with at least 230 plate appearances, twice as bad as the Rays' Reid Brignac who was second with a 27. Rene Rivera had the worst OPS out of any player with at least 100 plate appearances. Which means that the two worst hitters in all of major league baseball who were given 100 PAs or more were both Twins' catchers. Of 82 pitchers in the NL with at least 30 plate appearances, 26 of them OPS+ed better than the 13 the two-headed little girl with a bat put-up, and the most astonishing thing of all is that I was astonished it was that few.
Wait, there's more. Since 1920, Drew Butera put up the 3rd worst OPS+ by any batter with 230 PAs or more. His .153 average is the fourth worst, and with a little luck he might even be able to get to second (worst is .135 by Ray Oyler in '68). He also had the 3rd worst OBP. The good news? It was only the 20th worst slugging percentage. He's a hell of a defender, has a great arm, and I think will probably be an excellent coach some day, but he. can. not. hit. His numbers were only slightly better last year. This is who he is. He can't be a starter.
Rivera has hit, a little, in the minors with a career line of .252/.306/.390, which basically projects him as a serviceable triple-AAA catcher, and not, as we saw this year, a major league caliber player. This means the Twins are stuck. They need to move Mauer, or at least believe they do, but have hamstrung themselves with no available major league type players who can be an every day catcher. Jose Morales was no titan for the Rockies this year, but he'd at least be a viable alternative, and I really don't even want to talk about Wilson Ramos. It was a terribly short-sighted trade at the time and it's just continued to get worst as Ramos continues to hit, hit with power, show a good batting eye, and throw runners out. Oh yeah, both Morales and Ramos have thrown out a higher percentage of would-be base stealers than Butera.
I don't want to dwell on Ramos, but Aaron Gleeman dug up a little factoid on Ramos's season. He's currently at an OPS+ of 112 at the age of 23. The list of catchers with at least 400 PAs in a season to OPS+ over 100 is Mauer, Buster Posey, Jason Kendall, Craig Biggio, Russell Martin, and Ramos. That's it. I don't think it's completely overstating it to say that the trade of Ramos, factoring in their return and what's happened with Mauer, may have set the franchise back a few years. Yes, years.
Since they can't count on Mauer and Butera and Rivera are brutal then what? Free agent? The list of potential free agent catchers is underwhelming and mainly full of career back-up types. The only names on that list I'm remotely interested in are Kelly Shoppach and Ryan Doumit, and they probably won't pay Shoppach, if Tampa even buys him out, and Doumit is oft-injured so who knows. I don't.
The most realistic scenario has the team heading into next year expecting Mauer to catch half the time and Butera do catch half the time, something that is just incredibly depressing to me. Remember what I said about being optimistic and heading into next year looking towards the future? I give up. Hopefully when I do this rundown on the other positions I'll feel better, but right now I don't even want to think about writing any more about the Twins.
Now it's time to accept the Twins are broken. Blame at on injuries if you must, for it is convenient and soothing, but the fact of the matter is those who weren't hurt, and the times where the team was intact, were mediocre at best. It times to move on. Yes, I'm betting we'll have more Augusts and Septembers of meaningless ball, but if everything goes according to (my) plan, we'll at least be watching players who could be part of the future, rather than the lingering remnants of a disappointing and unfulfilled past. With that spirit, I am going to do a review/preview of this team by position, starting with catcher.
It is becoming apparent that Joe Mauer's future is no longer behind the plate, at least not full-time and I'm betting we'll see a full-time move in the next year or two, whether it is to the outfield or first base I don't know, but it's coming. Mainly due to his inability to stay on the field, but also, in my opinion, because they need something to explain why the guy they just gave the biggest contract ever to put up a batting line more reminiscent of Danny Valencia than what we're used to seeing from him. Next year is an absolute monster for Mauer, a huge crossroads year, and his chance to prove that he's worth that contract.
A huge chunk of Mauer's value always came from the fact that he was one of the best hitters in the league at a position where defense is considered the priority, and most team's don't have an issue with letting offense slide. Catcher's average OPS+ (where 100 is an average batter, higher is better) has historically been around 90, all the way from the 1950s-2000s. That's the worst of any position player, on par with shortstop. So when Mauer has a run like he did from 2006-2010 when his aggregate OPS+ was 142, you are in a huge advantage versus most teams. Even if he hits like that and plays outfield or 1b, you're still holding an advantage against most squads, even if it is diminished somewhat.
So the real question, more important than establishing what position he's going to play, is whether or not Mauer can get back to the hitter we all saw those five years, or if he's now become this slappy Luis Rodriguez type of hitter. This year was so far removed from what we usually see out of Joe I'm ready to call it a fluke with one caveat that I'll get to later. His power fell off a cliff, and I don't mean home run power because in that case the 28 HR season was the fluke, but he stopped hitting doubles. His walk rate went down and his strikeout rate went up. He hit an absolutely ridiculous amount of groundballs, even for him, and made contact and far fewer of his swings, despite not changing the pitches he was swinging at. It was a truly bizarre year.
Which is why I'm mostly inclined to dismiss it as an anomaly and expect to see Mauer back hitting in the mid-.300s with his 10 homers, 30 doubles, and a nice OBP. However, that one caveat I mentioned earlier is his health, and this year has truly been dizzying with the ailments. From bilateral leg weakness at the start to pneumonia at the end, I don't know if he was ever truly healthy this year. It's easy enough to question his toughness and his heart when he has to sit out four games with a sore neck, especially when Ezal was back out there within minutes hustling Smokey for money after he fell on that wet floor, but perhaps he wasn't ever healthy. Perhaps there were some serious health issues more time off at the start of the year was what was needed. I really don't know, and I don't think anybody else really does either. Which is why I'm officially giving the $200 million dollar man a pass on this one. Everybody deserves a second chance. Let's just hope he's back to normal because the Twins are stuck with him - nobody's trading for that contract - at whatever position he may be.
And what if they do move him? Who becomes the new catcher? The only two prospects at the position who were major league ready were shipped off in short-sighted moves by the front office for a reliever who defines average stuff was looked attractive because he had a bunch of shiny saves and a low-A reliever whose strikeout rates dropped each of the last three seasons. So it's going to be Drew Butera or Rene Rivera? Gross.
Rivera is a career minor leaguer and Butera is a defensive specialist, and neither can hit. Both OPS+ at a 13 this year. 13! Thir-fucking-teen. That means they don't get hits, they don't get walks, and on the rare occasion they do get a hit it's a single basically every time.
Butera had the worst OPS+ in the league out of any player with at least 230 plate appearances, twice as bad as the Rays' Reid Brignac who was second with a 27. Rene Rivera had the worst OPS out of any player with at least 100 plate appearances. Which means that the two worst hitters in all of major league baseball who were given 100 PAs or more were both Twins' catchers. Of 82 pitchers in the NL with at least 30 plate appearances, 26 of them OPS+ed better than the 13 the two-headed little girl with a bat put-up, and the most astonishing thing of all is that I was astonished it was that few.
Wait, there's more. Since 1920, Drew Butera put up the 3rd worst OPS+ by any batter with 230 PAs or more. His .153 average is the fourth worst, and with a little luck he might even be able to get to second (worst is .135 by Ray Oyler in '68). He also had the 3rd worst OBP. The good news? It was only the 20th worst slugging percentage. He's a hell of a defender, has a great arm, and I think will probably be an excellent coach some day, but he. can. not. hit. His numbers were only slightly better last year. This is who he is. He can't be a starter.
Rivera has hit, a little, in the minors with a career line of .252/.306/.390, which basically projects him as a serviceable triple-AAA catcher, and not, as we saw this year, a major league caliber player. This means the Twins are stuck. They need to move Mauer, or at least believe they do, but have hamstrung themselves with no available major league type players who can be an every day catcher. Jose Morales was no titan for the Rockies this year, but he'd at least be a viable alternative, and I really don't even want to talk about Wilson Ramos. It was a terribly short-sighted trade at the time and it's just continued to get worst as Ramos continues to hit, hit with power, show a good batting eye, and throw runners out. Oh yeah, both Morales and Ramos have thrown out a higher percentage of would-be base stealers than Butera.
I don't want to dwell on Ramos, but Aaron Gleeman dug up a little factoid on Ramos's season. He's currently at an OPS+ of 112 at the age of 23. The list of catchers with at least 400 PAs in a season to OPS+ over 100 is Mauer, Buster Posey, Jason Kendall, Craig Biggio, Russell Martin, and Ramos. That's it. I don't think it's completely overstating it to say that the trade of Ramos, factoring in their return and what's happened with Mauer, may have set the franchise back a few years. Yes, years.
Since they can't count on Mauer and Butera and Rivera are brutal then what? Free agent? The list of potential free agent catchers is underwhelming and mainly full of career back-up types. The only names on that list I'm remotely interested in are Kelly Shoppach and Ryan Doumit, and they probably won't pay Shoppach, if Tampa even buys him out, and Doumit is oft-injured so who knows. I don't.
The most realistic scenario has the team heading into next year expecting Mauer to catch half the time and Butera do catch half the time, something that is just incredibly depressing to me. Remember what I said about being optimistic and heading into next year looking towards the future? I give up. Hopefully when I do this rundown on the other positions I'll feel better, but right now I don't even want to think about writing any more about the Twins.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Twins/A's Live Blog - 7/29/11
Well let's see: kids are asleep, wife is sick and passed out in bed fro the Nyquil I slipped into a glass of wine, the Twins have a late game and I have brand new bottle of Captain Morgan, a mostly full 2-liter of ginger ale, and a few sticks of Lawry's hickory beef jerky sitting around. Yeah. I might as well blog the game. What else am I gonna do, watch it with nothing to distract me?
10:00 - We are just beginning the top of the fourth, Twins lead 3-2. And I've looked at that three times and thought maybe the 3 was a typo or a backwards E and the misspelled Twins, but apparently the Twins are actually leading. Weird.
10:02 - Two quick outs and then a single by Tolbert, who is back on the big league club because he has a pulse and Alexi Casilla is on the DL which is weird because I never even knew he was hurt. How did this happen? Is this one of those injuries where you sneeze and throw out your back or burn your hand on the grill trying to save a piece of ostrich burger from slipping through the grate onto the dirty coals below? Also, I guarantee I miss Casilla more than I ever would have thought possible right now. WAY TO BE ADEQUATE, guy.
10:04 - While I was looking up the spelling of adequate to make sure I had it right (I did) whoever was up popped out. I'm going guess it was Butera. But man can that son a bitch sling that pill. He should be a pitcher.
10:05 - Actually he'd be a terrible pitcher because, although he could probably touch 98 on the gun, his ball is completely straight, as it should be for a catcher, so he'd just get ripped. Although Matt Capps seems to find a modicum of success by throwing a straight ball and it's about 8 mph slower, so who knows? They should try it. Couldn't be worse than Dumatrait.
10:07 - Clearly Liriano brought his A-game tonight since he just gave up a double to Hideki freaking Matsui. Of course, even though he's having by far the worst season of his major league career he'd still be the fourth best hitter on the Twins. Seriously he'd be third in extra-base hits and fourth in OPS+. OPS+, you'll remember, takes your OPS and compares it to the league average and spits out a number where 100 = completely average hitter. Matsui's is 96 this year. And he'd be fifth on the Twins. And that's if you count Thome and Kubel. I'm moving out of state.
10:12 - Damn. Just read that Asomugha signed with the Eagles. He was almost a Jet and I wanted to see what that would be like with Asomugha and Revis on the same team. Would teams throw at all? And you could always have an extra safety to either play up to stop the run or load up against a TE or a 3rd wideout. How could anybody ever score ever? I really wanted to see that. Freaking jerks. Also the Twins turned a DP and are out of the inning.
10:15 - Ben Revere just picked up a bunt hit by making and absolutely terrible bunt that he popped up over the pitchers head but beat it out because he's so god damn fast. That was a terrible terrible play but holy god on a cracker is he fun to watch.
10:16 - Speaking of Revere I just don't know about this possible Span trade. I don't think Revere is ready to be a leadoff hitter and they don't have another one. On the other hand it's not like Span is the greatest player in the world, and he's basically an average leadoff hitter and that's it. I guess if Drew Storen is included I won't hate it hate it, but I just can't imagine loving a Span trade. He still has value for the next several years.
10:18 - Steal by Revere, base hit by Plouffe to score him, and then a single by Mauer. Shit, if I knew it was gonna be that kinda party I'd a sticked my dick in the mashed potatoes.
10:22 - Well this will shock you, but Cuddy just struck out on a ball outside of the strikezone. Honest to god it doesn't even matter how well he may be running or hot hot he is at least once a week he's going to have an at-bat where he honest to god looks like he's never played baseball before. It's a law, like water or dinosaurs.
10:25 - Dick just called Cliff Pennington "Chris" Pennington. Ha ha you're old. Serious question though, do you really think Dick knows a lot about baseball? Or John Gordon for that matter? Do you think they ever watch a game they aren't calling? Do you think either of them ever read up on what's going on around the league other than to prep for the team the Twins are about to play? How many National League players do you think they could name combined? Albert Pujols, Roy Halladay, and about 8-10 former Twins? Probably a couple of Brewers? Seriously, do you think they could tell you anything about Brian McCann? It's not like he's a household name but he's a damn good player, maybe the best catcher in baseball, and a guy any MLB fan would know, but I think if you put the two of them in a room together and asked them to tell you who McCann is they'd probably piece it together but there answers would have a lot of question marks attached. "Uh, Atlanta?" "Umm, I think he's a catcher?" Am I off here.
10:36 - By the way, we won our co-ed softball championship. It was awesome because the team we beat was a bunch of douchers, especially their pitcher, and he got doubled off first on a line drive for the last out of the game and then probably went home and killed himself. Also great was in the semifinal when we beat another douche team whose biggest douche guy was their shortstop, and in one of the last innings with two outs we had Snacks on first and another fast guy up (whose nickname is Douche, interestingly enough) and after Douche singled Snacks was on third and their doucher shortstop had the ball and we know he's dumb so Douche dances off the base just far enough to entice douchestop to throw it to first at which point Snacks takes off for home and their first base girl stands there like she's lost and the radio is playing some Sixpence None the Richer and Snacks scores. And it's great because we won by one run. Such it douche shortstop.
10:40 - Bases loaded and one out for Revere after a four-pitch walk to Butera. Think about that one. I'm thinking maybe Gio Gonzalez doesn't have it tonight. Honestly just throw the ball down the middle to Butera, even if he makes great contact it's probably still just a fly out. Sure can fire that ball though.
10:43 - And Gonzalez walks Revere to force in a run. Again, it's Ben Revere. Just throw the damn thing down the middle. The farthest he can hit it would be just short of the center fielder. It's like a real hitter try to hit a kitten ball - it's just not going to go that far. Good lord it would suck to be an A's fan. Way to go, Bear. way to go.
10:50 - Jesus Blyleven has his Joe Mauer love pants on tonight. He's complimented Mauer as a "great hitter" three times already tonight and compared him to Wade Boggs (a guy whose career average Mauer has only beaten in a season twice). The latest - Mauer is so good, he's just not afraid to get to 0-2 in the count, he knows he can hit. Ok. I'm going to go ahead and look this up. Hold on. Mauer this year: 1-29 after reaching 0-2 in an at-bat. Once again Bertram, your insight is compelling and sounds good but is completely inaccurate. Just like your face.
10:58 - Whoa, look at that. Suddenly it's the bottom of the sixth and the A's have two runners on with nobody out. This is kind of shit that happens if I don't pay attention. At least Conor Jackson is up, although thinks would be better for the Twins if it was Daric Barton. What do you think Dick could tell you about either of those guys? Seriously, am I wrong here?
11:00 - Bob Welch and Barry Zito both won Cy Young awards? Maybe we just blow that award right up.
11:01 - Wait, you're going to tell me Matsui wasn't out of the baseline there? He was on the infield grass. Clearly I don't understand the rule.
11:03 - Speaking of things I don't understand, why would anybody give WR1 money to James Jones? Apparently he's a huge target of some teams this offseason and the Vikings might be one of them. Honest to little baby mary jesus whoever gives him a truckload of cash is going to end up with nothing but blue balls from all the excitement he doesn't deliver on. The guy is absolutely freaking terrible. And for those of you in my fantasy leagues no this is not a bit or a feint to throw you off - he's awful and I'd never draft him. He catches as well as the Venus de Milo.
11:11 - Delmon Young walked. So that's weird.
11:13 - Hughesy strikes out to end the threat. Probably because Dawger loves him.
11:14 - Gotta say, I think this new Planet of the Apes movie looks kind of good. And I have no interest in any of the Planet of the Apes movies outside of Estella Warren's sweet can in the Marky Mark version. Whatever happened to that broad? She should probably do a shark movie on SyFy.
11:20 - 1-2-3 seventh for Liriano. Twins winning 5-2 still. Beef jerky gone. Still plenty of booze. Interest level = waning. Luckily Liriano is done and they're going to the pen so things are going to get interesting in a hurry. I just hope we either get some Dumatrait or some Burnett. Smells like runs!
11:24 - Bert think the reason Oakland has never had a batting champion is because of all the foul territory that's in play at their stadium. and this is the part where I feel stupid because I only wrote that prior sentence because I was sure Carney Lansford won a batting title when he was with Oakland and was going to point that out but it turns out Lansford won it when he was with Boston. Oops. He did, at least, finish second in 1989.
11:29 - Butera with a double! Don't worry, he just placed it down the line perfectly he didn't hit it to the wall or anything so you don't have to change your worldview.
11:31 - RBI Babe Plouffe. All he does is produce.
11:31 - That swing right there Cuddyer. That's pathetic. That's not an all-star swing and hell that's not even a professional swing. More of a "Joes vs. Pros" thing where this particular Joe never played baseball in his god damn life. I like Cuddy, I really do, but holy black taco does he ever frustrate.
11:33 - Well now he just hit a 3-run dong. All I do is motivate. Suck it, Bear.
11:36 - Funny thing is that this Michael Wuertz guy is supposedly one of the guys the A's should look to move because there's a lot of interest. This probably isn't going to help, especially since after that home run he's now walked Mauer and Young back-to-back. Yes that's two walks for Delmon. I'm assuming that's a career high. Also I would have bet you money that Wuertz was a lefty. I guess I don't know players as well as I thought. OH NO!! I'M DICK BREMER!!!
11:43 - 9-2 as we go to the bottom of the 8th. Boredness and tiredness levels off the charts. So instead here is a picture of Gardy at the greatest bar in the world, Roddy's in North St. Paul.
He may not have a freaking clue how to manage a game, but his taste in drinking establishments is impeccable.
11:50 - So this is interesting. No, not the game, even though Jose Mijares is just lollypopping the ball and the A's have a couple runners going. Apparently the Pirates are hard after Jason Kubel. I love Kubel and would hate to see him go (home run Josh Willingham, it's now 9-5 - trade Mijares now before he eats himself out of interest), but depending on what you get back, you never know. The Pirates are loaded with pitching prospects (always a plus) and also one of their top prospect guys is a catcher, which would give the Twins the flexibility to make Mauer play somewhere else. I don't know, but it's pretty interesting.
12:07 - Alex Burnett is so bad.
12:14 - Twins win. I'm tired. You suck.
10:00 - We are just beginning the top of the fourth, Twins lead 3-2. And I've looked at that three times and thought maybe the 3 was a typo or a backwards E and the misspelled Twins, but apparently the Twins are actually leading. Weird.
10:02 - Two quick outs and then a single by Tolbert, who is back on the big league club because he has a pulse and Alexi Casilla is on the DL which is weird because I never even knew he was hurt. How did this happen? Is this one of those injuries where you sneeze and throw out your back or burn your hand on the grill trying to save a piece of ostrich burger from slipping through the grate onto the dirty coals below? Also, I guarantee I miss Casilla more than I ever would have thought possible right now. WAY TO BE ADEQUATE, guy.
10:04 - While I was looking up the spelling of adequate to make sure I had it right (I did) whoever was up popped out. I'm going guess it was Butera. But man can that son a bitch sling that pill. He should be a pitcher.
10:05 - Actually he'd be a terrible pitcher because, although he could probably touch 98 on the gun, his ball is completely straight, as it should be for a catcher, so he'd just get ripped. Although Matt Capps seems to find a modicum of success by throwing a straight ball and it's about 8 mph slower, so who knows? They should try it. Couldn't be worse than Dumatrait.
10:07 - Clearly Liriano brought his A-game tonight since he just gave up a double to Hideki freaking Matsui. Of course, even though he's having by far the worst season of his major league career he'd still be the fourth best hitter on the Twins. Seriously he'd be third in extra-base hits and fourth in OPS+. OPS+, you'll remember, takes your OPS and compares it to the league average and spits out a number where 100 = completely average hitter. Matsui's is 96 this year. And he'd be fifth on the Twins. And that's if you count Thome and Kubel. I'm moving out of state.
10:12 - Damn. Just read that Asomugha signed with the Eagles. He was almost a Jet and I wanted to see what that would be like with Asomugha and Revis on the same team. Would teams throw at all? And you could always have an extra safety to either play up to stop the run or load up against a TE or a 3rd wideout. How could anybody ever score ever? I really wanted to see that. Freaking jerks. Also the Twins turned a DP and are out of the inning.
10:15 - Ben Revere just picked up a bunt hit by making and absolutely terrible bunt that he popped up over the pitchers head but beat it out because he's so god damn fast. That was a terrible terrible play but holy god on a cracker is he fun to watch.
10:16 - Speaking of Revere I just don't know about this possible Span trade. I don't think Revere is ready to be a leadoff hitter and they don't have another one. On the other hand it's not like Span is the greatest player in the world, and he's basically an average leadoff hitter and that's it. I guess if Drew Storen is included I won't hate it hate it, but I just can't imagine loving a Span trade. He still has value for the next several years.
10:18 - Steal by Revere, base hit by Plouffe to score him, and then a single by Mauer. Shit, if I knew it was gonna be that kinda party I'd a sticked my dick in the mashed potatoes.
10:22 - Well this will shock you, but Cuddy just struck out on a ball outside of the strikezone. Honest to god it doesn't even matter how well he may be running or hot hot he is at least once a week he's going to have an at-bat where he honest to god looks like he's never played baseball before. It's a law, like water or dinosaurs.
10:25 - Dick just called Cliff Pennington "Chris" Pennington. Ha ha you're old. Serious question though, do you really think Dick knows a lot about baseball? Or John Gordon for that matter? Do you think they ever watch a game they aren't calling? Do you think either of them ever read up on what's going on around the league other than to prep for the team the Twins are about to play? How many National League players do you think they could name combined? Albert Pujols, Roy Halladay, and about 8-10 former Twins? Probably a couple of Brewers? Seriously, do you think they could tell you anything about Brian McCann? It's not like he's a household name but he's a damn good player, maybe the best catcher in baseball, and a guy any MLB fan would know, but I think if you put the two of them in a room together and asked them to tell you who McCann is they'd probably piece it together but there answers would have a lot of question marks attached. "Uh, Atlanta?" "Umm, I think he's a catcher?" Am I off here.
10:36 - By the way, we won our co-ed softball championship. It was awesome because the team we beat was a bunch of douchers, especially their pitcher, and he got doubled off first on a line drive for the last out of the game and then probably went home and killed himself. Also great was in the semifinal when we beat another douche team whose biggest douche guy was their shortstop, and in one of the last innings with two outs we had Snacks on first and another fast guy up (whose nickname is Douche, interestingly enough) and after Douche singled Snacks was on third and their doucher shortstop had the ball and we know he's dumb so Douche dances off the base just far enough to entice douchestop to throw it to first at which point Snacks takes off for home and their first base girl stands there like she's lost and the radio is playing some Sixpence None the Richer and Snacks scores. And it's great because we won by one run. Such it douche shortstop.
10:40 - Bases loaded and one out for Revere after a four-pitch walk to Butera. Think about that one. I'm thinking maybe Gio Gonzalez doesn't have it tonight. Honestly just throw the ball down the middle to Butera, even if he makes great contact it's probably still just a fly out. Sure can fire that ball though.
10:43 - And Gonzalez walks Revere to force in a run. Again, it's Ben Revere. Just throw the damn thing down the middle. The farthest he can hit it would be just short of the center fielder. It's like a real hitter try to hit a kitten ball - it's just not going to go that far. Good lord it would suck to be an A's fan. Way to go, Bear. way to go.
10:50 - Jesus Blyleven has his Joe Mauer love pants on tonight. He's complimented Mauer as a "great hitter" three times already tonight and compared him to Wade Boggs (a guy whose career average Mauer has only beaten in a season twice). The latest - Mauer is so good, he's just not afraid to get to 0-2 in the count, he knows he can hit. Ok. I'm going to go ahead and look this up. Hold on. Mauer this year: 1-29 after reaching 0-2 in an at-bat. Once again Bertram, your insight is compelling and sounds good but is completely inaccurate. Just like your face.
10:58 - Whoa, look at that. Suddenly it's the bottom of the sixth and the A's have two runners on with nobody out. This is kind of shit that happens if I don't pay attention. At least Conor Jackson is up, although thinks would be better for the Twins if it was Daric Barton. What do you think Dick could tell you about either of those guys? Seriously, am I wrong here?
11:00 - Bob Welch and Barry Zito both won Cy Young awards? Maybe we just blow that award right up.
11:01 - Wait, you're going to tell me Matsui wasn't out of the baseline there? He was on the infield grass. Clearly I don't understand the rule.
11:03 - Speaking of things I don't understand, why would anybody give WR1 money to James Jones? Apparently he's a huge target of some teams this offseason and the Vikings might be one of them. Honest to little baby mary jesus whoever gives him a truckload of cash is going to end up with nothing but blue balls from all the excitement he doesn't deliver on. The guy is absolutely freaking terrible. And for those of you in my fantasy leagues no this is not a bit or a feint to throw you off - he's awful and I'd never draft him. He catches as well as the Venus de Milo.
11:11 - Delmon Young walked. So that's weird.
11:13 - Hughesy strikes out to end the threat. Probably because Dawger loves him.
11:14 - Gotta say, I think this new Planet of the Apes movie looks kind of good. And I have no interest in any of the Planet of the Apes movies outside of Estella Warren's sweet can in the Marky Mark version. Whatever happened to that broad? She should probably do a shark movie on SyFy.
11:20 - 1-2-3 seventh for Liriano. Twins winning 5-2 still. Beef jerky gone. Still plenty of booze. Interest level = waning. Luckily Liriano is done and they're going to the pen so things are going to get interesting in a hurry. I just hope we either get some Dumatrait or some Burnett. Smells like runs!
11:24 - Bert think the reason Oakland has never had a batting champion is because of all the foul territory that's in play at their stadium. and this is the part where I feel stupid because I only wrote that prior sentence because I was sure Carney Lansford won a batting title when he was with Oakland and was going to point that out but it turns out Lansford won it when he was with Boston. Oops. He did, at least, finish second in 1989.
11:29 - Butera with a double! Don't worry, he just placed it down the line perfectly he didn't hit it to the wall or anything so you don't have to change your worldview.
11:31 - RBI Babe Plouffe. All he does is produce.
11:31 - That swing right there Cuddyer. That's pathetic. That's not an all-star swing and hell that's not even a professional swing. More of a "Joes vs. Pros" thing where this particular Joe never played baseball in his god damn life. I like Cuddy, I really do, but holy black taco does he ever frustrate.
11:33 - Well now he just hit a 3-run dong. All I do is motivate. Suck it, Bear.
11:36 - Funny thing is that this Michael Wuertz guy is supposedly one of the guys the A's should look to move because there's a lot of interest. This probably isn't going to help, especially since after that home run he's now walked Mauer and Young back-to-back. Yes that's two walks for Delmon. I'm assuming that's a career high. Also I would have bet you money that Wuertz was a lefty. I guess I don't know players as well as I thought. OH NO!! I'M DICK BREMER!!!
11:43 - 9-2 as we go to the bottom of the 8th. Boredness and tiredness levels off the charts. So instead here is a picture of Gardy at the greatest bar in the world, Roddy's in North St. Paul.
He may not have a freaking clue how to manage a game, but his taste in drinking establishments is impeccable.
11:50 - So this is interesting. No, not the game, even though Jose Mijares is just lollypopping the ball and the A's have a couple runners going. Apparently the Pirates are hard after Jason Kubel. I love Kubel and would hate to see him go (home run Josh Willingham, it's now 9-5 - trade Mijares now before he eats himself out of interest), but depending on what you get back, you never know. The Pirates are loaded with pitching prospects (always a plus) and also one of their top prospect guys is a catcher, which would give the Twins the flexibility to make Mauer play somewhere else. I don't know, but it's pretty interesting.
12:07 - Alex Burnett is so bad.
12:14 - Twins win. I'm tired. You suck.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Gophers picked up a new Point Guard
The Gophers picked up another point guard in St. Louis's Kendall Shell, who is, well, interesting. On the plus side he got a perfect score on his SAT. On the negative side he got a perfect score on his SAT, so how good can he really be? Also on the negative side, he's a walk-on who doesn't even show up in either Rivals.com or ESPN.com's databases. But on the plus side he did at least receive "preferred" walk-on status at Pepperdine which it should be noted is a Division I school.
Honestly there's almost no information on him since he's not on the recruiting radar. Really the only thing I've been able to find is this interview at the gopherhole, and since it's an interview with the player himself there isn't much information you can really glean other than he likes playing defense (good) and fancies himself a good spot up shooter (good if true) and a true point guard (good).
All in all it's probably a move that won't matter in the long run, but when your point guard options are a sophomore whose upside is a back-up (Maverick Ahanmisi), a freshman whose a combo guard (Andre Hollins), and a juco transfer whose only D-I experience was a year at UC-Davis, adding more point guard options is always a plus, particularly since he doesn't tie up a scholarship. Who knows, anything could happen. I can't actually come up with any walk-ons who amounted to anything other than Rychart, but there's probably a few out there somewhere. As long as he's not another Hokenson. I've had enough.
- I also want to mention that I'm in love with Drew Butera and I don't care who knows it. Sure, he hits similar to how I'd imagine a small girl would fare against major league pitching, but hot damn can he throw the ball to second. I'm actually stunned his caught stealing rate is as low as it is at 34%, especially when it was over 50% last year (and most of that catching for slow-ass Pavano). I don't think I've seen anybody steal on him this year. It must have been guys like Brett Gardner and Elvis Andrus and Jose Reyes and Vince Coleman. No mere "base runner" could ever steal on Drewsy, only those lightning quick dudes.
- Lastly, I went to the Twins game last night with Snacks, Old Man W, and Optimator and we went to The Loop pre-game. We grabbed four appetizers: jerk chicken won-tons, sirloin kebabs, pork quesadillas, and calamari. Completely by accident we ended up with pork, chicken, beef, and seafood. That's how awesome we are. Even when we aren't trying to be. Holla.
Honestly there's almost no information on him since he's not on the recruiting radar. Really the only thing I've been able to find is this interview at the gopherhole, and since it's an interview with the player himself there isn't much information you can really glean other than he likes playing defense (good) and fancies himself a good spot up shooter (good if true) and a true point guard (good).
All in all it's probably a move that won't matter in the long run, but when your point guard options are a sophomore whose upside is a back-up (Maverick Ahanmisi), a freshman whose a combo guard (Andre Hollins), and a juco transfer whose only D-I experience was a year at UC-Davis, adding more point guard options is always a plus, particularly since he doesn't tie up a scholarship. Who knows, anything could happen. I can't actually come up with any walk-ons who amounted to anything other than Rychart, but there's probably a few out there somewhere. As long as he's not another Hokenson. I've had enough.
- I also want to mention that I'm in love with Drew Butera and I don't care who knows it. Sure, he hits similar to how I'd imagine a small girl would fare against major league pitching, but hot damn can he throw the ball to second. I'm actually stunned his caught stealing rate is as low as it is at 34%, especially when it was over 50% last year (and most of that catching for slow-ass Pavano). I don't think I've seen anybody steal on him this year. It must have been guys like Brett Gardner and Elvis Andrus and Jose Reyes and Vince Coleman. No mere "base runner" could ever steal on Drewsy, only those lightning quick dudes.
- Lastly, I went to the Twins game last night with Snacks, Old Man W, and Optimator and we went to The Loop pre-game. We grabbed four appetizers: jerk chicken won-tons, sirloin kebabs, pork quesadillas, and calamari. Completely by accident we ended up with pork, chicken, beef, and seafood. That's how awesome we are. Even when we aren't trying to be. Holla.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
6 Very Important Things from Last Night
Remember last year there was that very exciting 2-week or so period where I was writing daily posts so you worker drones would have something to do while you drink your coffee at your desk every morning? And then my stupid second baby was born and that all went right out the window? Well, I'm bringing it back. Daily posts, either regular type posts or, if I don't have anything I'm thinking about writing about, I'll do it in this "6 things" list format. Starting today and going until I get bored or lazy.
1. Drew Butera is my hero. Mauer schmauer, who needs 'em? The Twinks won their second straight, beating the Orioles 5-3 last night and giving Francisco Liriano his first win of the season. Matt Capps tried to blow the game in the ninth by giving up a crushed home run to Luke Scott, but it turns out when you're up by three no matter how long of a home run you give up it's still only worth one point.
The real story of the game, however, was "no hit" Butera who went 2-4 with a career high three RBI, two coming on a big double in the second to give the Twins the lead, and the last one coming in the ninth, helping to give the Twins in a little insurance, something they will always need since they have the world's worst bullpen. So a multi-hit game with three RBI, clutch hits, zero stolen bases by Baltimore probably because they were too afraid to run on his cannon arm, and such an outstanding ability to all a game that he made Francisco Liriano, Jose Mijares, and Jim Hoey all good, and Matt Capps only allowed one run which I assume is a season best? I think this might be the Joe Mauer we always wanted, and without all the little baby injuries and "viruses." With the DH spot already locked up I think it's time we start exploring trading him before it's too late. I'll have to have a post later this week looking at what the Twins might be able to get for Mauer. Stay tuned.
2. Harrison Barnes is coming back. Yep, Barnes, a consensus top-3 pick in the NBA draft, will be returning to North Carolina for his sophomore hoops season. The effect of this is two-fold. First, with John Henson and Tyler Zeller also staying in school plus the additions of James McAdoo (Rivals #8 overall player nationally and a guy who is just going to be ridiculous), P.J. Hairston (#14 nationally), and Desmond Hubert(#15 Center), the Tar Heels are going to be the prohibitive favorite to win the National Title (although if Kendall Marshall gets hurt it's over for them - he's the single most important player in college basketball next year). The second, and more Minnesota-centric, effect is that this year's NBA draft is going to completely suck. With Barnes, Baylor's Perry Jones, and Ohio State's Jared Sullinger all staying in school the only real blue-chippers are Arizona's Derrick Williams and Duke's Kyrie Irving. We've all been here before. Pencil the Wolves in for the third pick. And of course with next year shaping up to be one of the deepest and best classes in recent memory the Wolves have already traded their pick. Oof.
3. This guy who was almost a Twin can really hit the ball. And he's a shortstop. You may remember the name Jed Lowrie, because he was part of the package the Red Sox offered the Twins for Johan Santana way back when. The full offer was Lowrie, Jon freaking Lester, Justin Masterson, and Coco Crisp. Lowrie is currently hitting .516 with 2 home runs after going 4-5 with a dinger today in the Red Sox 9-0 thumping of Toronto, and would be leading the league in average with just a few more plate appearances (not to mention he'd be tied for the team lead in homers if he was a Twin) and is starting to look like a potential franchise type shortstop.
Which means that with a different decision, Johan could have netted the Twins a possible franchise shortstop, a #1/#2 type starter, a potential #3/#4 type starter (depending on your opinion of Masterson), and another outfielder who could have been a trade chip, made someone else a trade chip, or at a minimum might have stopped the Twins from picking up Cuddy Bear's option which pays him $11 fucking million this year to hit singles. Instead, they ended up netting out with two crappy relievers the Orioles didn't want (yes Hoey looked ok last night) and a pitching prospect who lost velocity and can't get out of double-A. I know hindsight is 20/20, and I know that according to prospect rankings the trade with the Mets looked about on par with the Sox trade, but god damn it does it rankle me every time I see Lowrie or Lester do well. Imagine how much better this team would be if that was the trade they made. I'm going to go light something on fire.
4. Use up that $2.27 million signing bonus already? In what can only be described as "totally fucking bizarre", Cincinnati Reds second year pitcher Mike Leake was arrested for stealing $60 worth of shirts from Macy's. I totally don't get it because first of all Leake's signing bonus a year and a half ago was $2.27 million. Second, he is making $425 million this year. Third, he stole six shirts whose total cost was $59.98, or under 10 bucks a piece. Fourth, the guy is a total stud and is soon, within the next couple few years, going to end up signing a nice big contract. Fifth, what the fuck? And finally, these are apparently the brand of shirts he was stealing. What the hell? You're telling me you can't just go down to ragstock or the salvation army and get the same thing for like a buck a piece?
Only two possible explanations here. First, Leake must be a huge pothead and was just confused. like Smokey after he ate too much corn. If I may be allowed to generalize and stereotype, Leake has surfer hair and went to Arizona State, so I'll assume he's not unfamiliar with the herb. Plus he went straight to the pros from the minors so he hasn't really had any time to "grow-up" or "be poor", if you will. The second possibility is that Macy's is somehow infested with a demon that causes athletes to steal even when it's the dumbest thing they could possibly do. Is it possible that Royce White was really innocent and it was just some evil force that made him try to steal those pants and push that old man? Maybe Fred Hoiberg is a secret Choctaw shaman who was able to recognize that Royce was good at heart and was just possessed, cast out the demon, and is now ready to reap the rewards of an All-American season. Stupid Baptist Tubby. I bet if they had hired Archambeau he'd be all over this.
5. Look out, world. Here comes Pricey. Tampa's David Price burst onto the scene in the 2008 playoffs, had a decent rookie year, then last year finished second in the Cy Young balloting, so his slow start this year was a bit puzzling. Well you can stop worrying so much, because he completely shut down the Sox last night, going 8 shut-out innings, allowing just four hits and striking out nine. That's the Price I'm talkin' about. Plus he did it to the White Sox, the most evil team in the history of evil, even worse than the Nazis or Packers. Does this make David Price some kind of Angel or maybe God? But in November of 2007 the owner dude changed the team name from Devil Rays to Rays, just three short months after they drafted and signed Price. Coincidence? You tell me, Robert Stack. You tell me.
6. The Pacers almost did it again. For the second straight game the Pacers looked like they might be in position to steal a win in Chicago, and for the second straight game Derrick Rose said "No soup for you." Seriously, this guy is ridiculous and completely unguardable. When it gets down to it in the fourth Chicago justs shifts into the "give Rose the ball and everybody get out of the way" offense and he gets to the rim and either finishes, gets fouled, or finds an open teammate - and nobody on the Pacers can keep him out of the lane. Last night he scored 14 of his 36 in the fourth quarter, similar to Game 1 when he scored 9 of his 37 in the quarter and came up with the game's biggest play on an assist to Kyle Korver for a three to give the Bulls the lead. Completely ridiculous. This is just like watching me play at the Y - completely unstoppable.
1. Drew Butera is my hero. Mauer schmauer, who needs 'em? The Twinks won their second straight, beating the Orioles 5-3 last night and giving Francisco Liriano his first win of the season. Matt Capps tried to blow the game in the ninth by giving up a crushed home run to Luke Scott, but it turns out when you're up by three no matter how long of a home run you give up it's still only worth one point.
The real story of the game, however, was "no hit" Butera who went 2-4 with a career high three RBI, two coming on a big double in the second to give the Twins the lead, and the last one coming in the ninth, helping to give the Twins in a little insurance, something they will always need since they have the world's worst bullpen. So a multi-hit game with three RBI, clutch hits, zero stolen bases by Baltimore probably because they were too afraid to run on his cannon arm, and such an outstanding ability to all a game that he made Francisco Liriano, Jose Mijares, and Jim Hoey all good, and Matt Capps only allowed one run which I assume is a season best? I think this might be the Joe Mauer we always wanted, and without all the little baby injuries and "viruses." With the DH spot already locked up I think it's time we start exploring trading him before it's too late. I'll have to have a post later this week looking at what the Twins might be able to get for Mauer. Stay tuned.
2. Harrison Barnes is coming back. Yep, Barnes, a consensus top-3 pick in the NBA draft, will be returning to North Carolina for his sophomore hoops season. The effect of this is two-fold. First, with John Henson and Tyler Zeller also staying in school plus the additions of James McAdoo (Rivals #8 overall player nationally and a guy who is just going to be ridiculous), P.J. Hairston (#14 nationally), and Desmond Hubert(#15 Center), the Tar Heels are going to be the prohibitive favorite to win the National Title (although if Kendall Marshall gets hurt it's over for them - he's the single most important player in college basketball next year). The second, and more Minnesota-centric, effect is that this year's NBA draft is going to completely suck. With Barnes, Baylor's Perry Jones, and Ohio State's Jared Sullinger all staying in school the only real blue-chippers are Arizona's Derrick Williams and Duke's Kyrie Irving. We've all been here before. Pencil the Wolves in for the third pick. And of course with next year shaping up to be one of the deepest and best classes in recent memory the Wolves have already traded their pick. Oof.
3. This guy who was almost a Twin can really hit the ball. And he's a shortstop. You may remember the name Jed Lowrie, because he was part of the package the Red Sox offered the Twins for Johan Santana way back when. The full offer was Lowrie, Jon freaking Lester, Justin Masterson, and Coco Crisp. Lowrie is currently hitting .516 with 2 home runs after going 4-5 with a dinger today in the Red Sox 9-0 thumping of Toronto, and would be leading the league in average with just a few more plate appearances (not to mention he'd be tied for the team lead in homers if he was a Twin) and is starting to look like a potential franchise type shortstop.
Which means that with a different decision, Johan could have netted the Twins a possible franchise shortstop, a #1/#2 type starter, a potential #3/#4 type starter (depending on your opinion of Masterson), and another outfielder who could have been a trade chip, made someone else a trade chip, or at a minimum might have stopped the Twins from picking up Cuddy Bear's option which pays him $11 fucking million this year to hit singles. Instead, they ended up netting out with two crappy relievers the Orioles didn't want (yes Hoey looked ok last night) and a pitching prospect who lost velocity and can't get out of double-A. I know hindsight is 20/20, and I know that according to prospect rankings the trade with the Mets looked about on par with the Sox trade, but god damn it does it rankle me every time I see Lowrie or Lester do well. Imagine how much better this team would be if that was the trade they made. I'm going to go light something on fire.
4. Use up that $2.27 million signing bonus already? In what can only be described as "totally fucking bizarre", Cincinnati Reds second year pitcher Mike Leake was arrested for stealing $60 worth of shirts from Macy's. I totally don't get it because first of all Leake's signing bonus a year and a half ago was $2.27 million. Second, he is making $425 million this year. Third, he stole six shirts whose total cost was $59.98, or under 10 bucks a piece. Fourth, the guy is a total stud and is soon, within the next couple few years, going to end up signing a nice big contract. Fifth, what the fuck? And finally, these are apparently the brand of shirts he was stealing. What the hell? You're telling me you can't just go down to ragstock or the salvation army and get the same thing for like a buck a piece?
Only two possible explanations here. First, Leake must be a huge pothead and was just confused. like Smokey after he ate too much corn. If I may be allowed to generalize and stereotype, Leake has surfer hair and went to Arizona State, so I'll assume he's not unfamiliar with the herb. Plus he went straight to the pros from the minors so he hasn't really had any time to "grow-up" or "be poor", if you will. The second possibility is that Macy's is somehow infested with a demon that causes athletes to steal even when it's the dumbest thing they could possibly do. Is it possible that Royce White was really innocent and it was just some evil force that made him try to steal those pants and push that old man? Maybe Fred Hoiberg is a secret Choctaw shaman who was able to recognize that Royce was good at heart and was just possessed, cast out the demon, and is now ready to reap the rewards of an All-American season. Stupid Baptist Tubby. I bet if they had hired Archambeau he'd be all over this.
5. Look out, world. Here comes Pricey. Tampa's David Price burst onto the scene in the 2008 playoffs, had a decent rookie year, then last year finished second in the Cy Young balloting, so his slow start this year was a bit puzzling. Well you can stop worrying so much, because he completely shut down the Sox last night, going 8 shut-out innings, allowing just four hits and striking out nine. That's the Price I'm talkin' about. Plus he did it to the White Sox, the most evil team in the history of evil, even worse than the Nazis or Packers. Does this make David Price some kind of Angel or maybe God? But in November of 2007 the owner dude changed the team name from Devil Rays to Rays, just three short months after they drafted and signed Price. Coincidence? You tell me, Robert Stack. You tell me.
6. The Pacers almost did it again. For the second straight game the Pacers looked like they might be in position to steal a win in Chicago, and for the second straight game Derrick Rose said "No soup for you." Seriously, this guy is ridiculous and completely unguardable. When it gets down to it in the fourth Chicago justs shifts into the "give Rose the ball and everybody get out of the way" offense and he gets to the rim and either finishes, gets fouled, or finds an open teammate - and nobody on the Pacers can keep him out of the lane. Last night he scored 14 of his 36 in the fourth quarter, similar to Game 1 when he scored 9 of his 37 in the quarter and came up with the game's biggest play on an assist to Kyle Korver for a three to give the Bulls the lead. Completely ridiculous. This is just like watching me play at the Y - completely unstoppable.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Butera vs. Morales
I was asked recently by a follower on Twitter (seriously guys, I'm on Twitter. Follow me and all your greatest dreams will come true) to do a breakdown of Morales vs. Butera. I'm assuming the question is "who should make the postseason roster as the backup catcher", because it's pretty clear Morales is a far better hitter while Butera is a defensive whiz who, HR against the Phillies not withstanding, might as well go up to the plate with a whiffleball bat. Frankly, this one is easy as well: there is zero reason to have Butera on the postseason roster. Zero.
First, just to explain how bad Butera is at the plate, remember that I mentioned in a post last week how his OPS is one of the ten worst in the entire league. His .185/.220/.294 isn't just anemic, it is laughably bad, and registers as an OPS+ of 34. For some perspective, in Nick Punto's worst season he posted a 53 - 56% higher than Butera. That is the same jump you see going from Denard Span to Danny Valencia or J.J. Hardy to Joe Mauer - it's a big difference. Any time you are that far from Nick Punto's worst season, you have issues. Morales isn't exactly hitting the crap out of the ball so far this year, but we saw last year in the time he was up that he is a good (at worst average) hitter, and somebody you could easily use as a PH.
Ok, fine. That much was already clear, we know Morales is a better hitter. So why would we consider Butera? Three reasons:
1. He's an awesome defender. Yes, yes he is. I mentioned this last week, but he's one of the best in the league at throwing out would-be base stealers, and has done the majority of his work with one of the slowest pitchers to the plate in all of baseball. He's phenomenal, really. But it doesn't matter.
Mauer doesn't need a defensive replacement in the late innings. For one, he's a pretty good defensive catcher on his own (which I will likely repeat over and over in this post) and two, there's generally no such thing as a late inning defensive replacement at catcher. This isn't like putting in Jason Repko for Jason Kubel. Plus you would never, ever take Mauer's bat out of the lineup in any game close enough to warrant needing an upgrade on defense - just in case you go into extras.
So we can pretty much rule out Butera getting any PT in this situation.
2. Morales isn't good enough to fill in for Mauer behind the plate when he needs rest. Well, he's 0-2 throwing out base stealers this and although he was a respectable 8/18 last year he also allowed 5 passed balls in just 29 games, or one fewer than Mauer and Butera have allowed combined so far this year and is nowhere near Butera (or Mauer) in terms of overall defense. But, again, it doesn't matter.
This isn't the grind of the regular season, this is the slow-it-down dog-and-pony show playoffs, where you frequently have a day off between games and sometimes "travel day" really means two. There's a reason why teams with a strong front of the rotation have such an advantage in the playoffs, and that's because the games are spread out you never have to go more than four hurlers deep and often only need three. That same extra rest and logic would dictate that Mauer won't need a break for his aching knees or back or shoulder or heel or locusts or whatever current ailment is plaguing him. There will never be a need for Butera (or Morales) to start a playoff game, and if there is, it's already over.
So we can pretty much rule out Butera getting any PT in this situation.
3. He's Pavano's personal catcher. I have seen situations where there is a true need for a personal catcher, whether it's personal or strategical, but that isn't the case here. Once again, although Butera may be better at throwing runners out than Mauer, it's not like Joe is Brian Harper back there - he's still one of the best catchers in the league and will be just fine. Not to mention Pavano came out and said that the whole Pavano's personal catcher thing was just as much to give Mauer a regular day off as it was for any strategic reasons. This one doesn't matter either, and we can once again rule out Butera getting any PT in this situation.
So there you go. There is absolutely zero reason for Butera to be on the playoff roster because there is absolutely zero situations where it would make sense for him to actually play. Morales would likely not see much of the field either, but he can at least give you an at-bat here and there where needed and you know it's not wasted - you can't say the same for Butera.
Really, the only arguments for letting Drew play would include words like gamer, gritty, warrior, chemistry, good teammate, and "he's been here all year", the types of arguments that writers like the Fire Joe Morgan guys have shown to be essentially meaningless cliches, clung to by aging sportswriters as the game and logic pass them by.
In other words, this sounds exactly like something Gardy is going to be all over.
First, just to explain how bad Butera is at the plate, remember that I mentioned in a post last week how his OPS is one of the ten worst in the entire league. His .185/.220/.294 isn't just anemic, it is laughably bad, and registers as an OPS+ of 34. For some perspective, in Nick Punto's worst season he posted a 53 - 56% higher than Butera. That is the same jump you see going from Denard Span to Danny Valencia or J.J. Hardy to Joe Mauer - it's a big difference. Any time you are that far from Nick Punto's worst season, you have issues. Morales isn't exactly hitting the crap out of the ball so far this year, but we saw last year in the time he was up that he is a good (at worst average) hitter, and somebody you could easily use as a PH.
Ok, fine. That much was already clear, we know Morales is a better hitter. So why would we consider Butera? Three reasons:
1. He's an awesome defender. Yes, yes he is. I mentioned this last week, but he's one of the best in the league at throwing out would-be base stealers, and has done the majority of his work with one of the slowest pitchers to the plate in all of baseball. He's phenomenal, really. But it doesn't matter.
Mauer doesn't need a defensive replacement in the late innings. For one, he's a pretty good defensive catcher on his own (which I will likely repeat over and over in this post) and two, there's generally no such thing as a late inning defensive replacement at catcher. This isn't like putting in Jason Repko for Jason Kubel. Plus you would never, ever take Mauer's bat out of the lineup in any game close enough to warrant needing an upgrade on defense - just in case you go into extras.
So we can pretty much rule out Butera getting any PT in this situation.
2. Morales isn't good enough to fill in for Mauer behind the plate when he needs rest. Well, he's 0-2 throwing out base stealers this and although he was a respectable 8/18 last year he also allowed 5 passed balls in just 29 games, or one fewer than Mauer and Butera have allowed combined so far this year and is nowhere near Butera (or Mauer) in terms of overall defense. But, again, it doesn't matter.
This isn't the grind of the regular season, this is the slow-it-down dog-and-pony show playoffs, where you frequently have a day off between games and sometimes "travel day" really means two. There's a reason why teams with a strong front of the rotation have such an advantage in the playoffs, and that's because the games are spread out you never have to go more than four hurlers deep and often only need three. That same extra rest and logic would dictate that Mauer won't need a break for his aching knees or back or shoulder or heel or locusts or whatever current ailment is plaguing him. There will never be a need for Butera (or Morales) to start a playoff game, and if there is, it's already over.
So we can pretty much rule out Butera getting any PT in this situation.
3. He's Pavano's personal catcher. I have seen situations where there is a true need for a personal catcher, whether it's personal or strategical, but that isn't the case here. Once again, although Butera may be better at throwing runners out than Mauer, it's not like Joe is Brian Harper back there - he's still one of the best catchers in the league and will be just fine. Not to mention Pavano came out and said that the whole Pavano's personal catcher thing was just as much to give Mauer a regular day off as it was for any strategic reasons. This one doesn't matter either, and we can once again rule out Butera getting any PT in this situation.
So there you go. There is absolutely zero reason for Butera to be on the playoff roster because there is absolutely zero situations where it would make sense for him to actually play. Morales would likely not see much of the field either, but he can at least give you an at-bat here and there where needed and you know it's not wasted - you can't say the same for Butera.
Really, the only arguments for letting Drew play would include words like gamer, gritty, warrior, chemistry, good teammate, and "he's been here all year", the types of arguments that writers like the Fire Joe Morgan guys have shown to be essentially meaningless cliches, clung to by aging sportswriters as the game and logic pass them by.
In other words, this sounds exactly like something Gardy is going to be all over.
Friday, September 17, 2010
FACT
FACT: Joe Mauer, by all accounts and excellent all-around defensive catcher, has thrown out 27% of base stealers this year, third in the American League and sixth in the majors. Pretty good.
Drew Butera has thrown out 41% of base stealers, a number that would rank him first in the AL and third in the majors if he enough playing time. Even more impressive, he's done it while catching mainly for Carl Pavano, by all accounts one of the slowest in the majors to the plate.
And that is how you stay in the majors when you're hitting .184, don't walk, and have almost no power (he has one of the 10 worst OPS numbers amongst players this year with 100 plate appearances - as did Brendan Harris). He's going to make the playoff roster, and might even end up starting a game. Personally, I'd rather just put Mauer back there when Pavano pitches so you don't have to take Thome or Kubel out of the linup, but we'll see what Gardy goes with. I like to think he's smart enough to make the right call here, but I also like to think he's smart enough to not overuse the sacrifice bunt and we all see where that's gotten us.
Getting ahead of myself here, but how badly is it going to suck playing in the NL park in the World Series and losing Thome's bat?
Drew Butera has thrown out 41% of base stealers, a number that would rank him first in the AL and third in the majors if he enough playing time. Even more impressive, he's done it while catching mainly for Carl Pavano, by all accounts one of the slowest in the majors to the plate.
And that is how you stay in the majors when you're hitting .184, don't walk, and have almost no power (he has one of the 10 worst OPS numbers amongst players this year with 100 plate appearances - as did Brendan Harris). He's going to make the playoff roster, and might even end up starting a game. Personally, I'd rather just put Mauer back there when Pavano pitches so you don't have to take Thome or Kubel out of the linup, but we'll see what Gardy goes with. I like to think he's smart enough to make the right call here, but I also like to think he's smart enough to not overuse the sacrifice bunt and we all see where that's gotten us.
Getting ahead of myself here, but how badly is it going to suck playing in the NL park in the World Series and losing Thome's bat?
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