North Correia: A Free Agency Story

The MLB Winter Meetings have ended.  There were a lot of moves made and our Twins were in thick of it by making trades and offers to free agent pitchers for them to turn down.  Then, the totally thinkable happened: an average to below average starting pitcher that literally never misses bats (well, 5.7% of the time he does) signed a two year deal.  Welcome to the North, Correia!

DWG already covered Corriea briefly in his live blog of last night's Gophers/Bison tilt, but it probably should be mentioned again that this wasn't what we were looking for as a first splash in free agency.  Jon Marthaler of Twinkietown is apoplectic about the signing and rightfully so.  The worst part about this is that it's $5MM per year that can't be given to someone else.  As the Twins repeat their mantra of being small budget and having limited money to spend over and over, you'd think they'd be a little more wise and a lot more patient with it.  If someone scoops you at this point in the off-season on Correia, you wish the poor bastards luck and trot out Sammy Deduno instead.  Another thing about Correia is he's not exactly some big-time workhorse.  He's never logged 200 innings, coming closest in 2009 at 198.  He's averaged 157 innings pitched over the past 3 seasons.  Correia throws a 4-seamer 25% of the time at 90 mph, a 2 seamer 21% at 90.6 mph, a slider 24% at 87 mph, a curve 12% at 77 mph and a change 13% at 86mph. You can see that his mix doesn't vary speeds much, so he has to rely on location and movement to be effective.  According to Fangraphs.com his only pitch that was plus from an average runs allowed perspective was the changeup.

Pass the tobacky.

The best part about watching the winter meetings is watching the interviews.  Seeing Charlie Manuel in a suit trying to act like a regular human that doesn't wear leggings and a windbreaker to work was great.  The interview I saw was a day or two before the Revere trade and you could tell he knew it was happening.  They asked him about their hole in center field and he said they were focusing on getting a defensive presence out there.  Manuel was curmudgeonly and loveable.  You know he threw some Red Man in after the interview to take the edge off.

The Terry Ryan interview on MLB network that occurred just after the two trades was also great.  Terry Ryan looks like a turtle.  An angry, angry turtle.  I should have recorded it because I can't find it online.  Essentially, he said what we've all been thinking and saying for the last year or two.  The Twins have some depth in the outfield and are sorely in need of pitching.  He went on to mention that they've had a number of offers out to pitchers but they couldn't give away the money. Sadly, now we know he did give some cash away to Correia.  After seeing this interview it makes me lean even more towards thinking this was a panic move.

Also of note was that he listed Hicks, Benson and Mastroianni in that order when asked how they'll fill centerfield.  Spring training will be interesting from this standpoint as a stand out performance could land any of the three the job.  I suspect we'll see Mastroianni there to start and as DWG pointed out, he was at least somewhat useful in under 200 ABs last season.  Hicks, 23, had a lot of success last season in AA.  He's a good defender in centerfield with a big arm.  He has power and speed on the basepaths.  His strikeouts are a tad high, but he also walks at a good rate, so he projects to a top of the order type.  Benson was injured much of last year with the dreaded hamate bone injury (that's the tiny bone at the base of the ring finger in the palm of your hand where hitters often hold the knob of the bat).  He also had a knee cleanup in August.  He hit like crap, but I'm willing to give him a pass due to injury issues.  He's 25 in March, so it's possible he makes the team as a reserve outfielder with Mastroianni starting and Hicks in AAA at the beginning at least.  Then when they suck and Hicks is tearing up AAA, they can make a move.

Hamate

 
Ryan also indicated that they are probably done subtracting for the time being and would prefer to add via free agency rather than trade.  He indicated that he thought the team could compete as-is and when asked about starting pitching he mentioned Worley, Diamond and Liam Hendriks.  He also said they have guys like Nick Blackburn and Brian Duensing as depth.  At which point I yelled "Oh, come on!" at the tv. This was of course before we got the Correian Barbeque.  Your Twins rotation right now looks something like this:

THE PAIN

#4a Scott Diamond
#4b Vance Worley
#5a Liam Hendriks
#5b Kevin Correia
And then the clusterflap for the last spot: Kyle Gibson, Cole DeVries, Nick freaking Blackburn and Sammy Deduno.

If Gibson starts in AAA there's a legit chance that with Gibson, Meyer and May the Rochester Redwings will have a better staff than the Twins.  The hope is of course that there's one more signing coming in for the Twins.  They still have some money under their self-imposed cap, so they just need to get some sucker to agree to sign on the dotted line.

Starters that are still out there:

Shaun Marcum is still kicking around.  He doesn't throw hard and is kind of old (31 in two days), so maybe the Twins have interest.  He's a better pitcher than Correia, but that likely means he'd cost more too.  He's the chick at the bar that used to be pretty hot, and is probably still worth a roll.

Ryan Dempster is also out there and rumors indicate the Twins made an offer.  He's already declined a two year/$25 million offer from the Red Sox because his old ass wants a three year deal.  He's 36 in March and definitely on the decline, so if he's asking that much it's a definite no-go.  Similar to Marcum, he's an older chick at the dive bar that really isn't all that hot but has big boobs at least.

Edwin Jackson is still out there!  He still wants a multi-year deal and I'd still give it to him.  (just like last year)  He had probably his best year yet last season for the Nats when they gave him a one year, $12MM deal.  He is reported to want a 4 or 5 year deal, probably in the 50-60MM range.  Big bucks and we hate that.  The dream scenario here is that Edwin hangs around until the zero hour and is forced to make bad decisions like he's at the bar until close and all of the cool franchises have already left with their pitchers and the Twins have been bellied up to the bar all night making kissy faces at him and he just goes for it. 

Jair Jurrjens is available and has a fun name.  The Twins reportedly are after him as well.  He's just 26, but is coming off a brutal, Blackburnesque season.  He is a former all-star though and could be a cheap, short term signing.  He's the newly single chick at the bar that kind of let herself go because she was depressed and stuff, but now she's got a gym member ship and stuff and who knows what could happen?

Brett Myers is crazy and seems to just be drawing interest from the Orioles and Twins for the most part.  He's the crazy chick that bites and scratches but mostly in a fun way.

Joe Saunders...made an offer already, meh.  Lefty and still better than Corriea.  He's the chick with the lazy eye.

Frankie Liriano also already offered.  WTF?  I think any other team in the league would be a better fit.  I mean, how many chances does he need to prove he can't turn it aroun in Minnesota?  He's the on again, off again girlfriend that cheats on you all of the time.

LOL Brett Myers

Fare thee well, Francisco Liriano

Everybody knew Francisco Liriano was going to be traded, it was just a matter of where to and for what.  With the starting pitching market drying up after Cole Hamels resigned with the Phillies, Matt Garza got hurt, Ryan Dempster basically saying he'd only waive his no trade rights to go to the Dodgers to play with his BFF Ted Lilly, and Zack Greinke (Angels), Anibal Sanchez (Tigers), and Wandy Rodriguez (Pirates) already have been moved, the Twins looked to have some leverage to maximize their return.  The best pitchers still thought to be available were Josh Johnson, James Shields, and Liriano, but with the Marlins reportedly asking for the world for Johnson and the Rays on the fence about whether to move Shields, Liriano may have been the most attractive option for teams looking for pitching help - and plenty still were.  Texas, the Dodgers, Atlanta, and St. Louis were all rumored to have interest in him, so the hope was the Twins could play them off each other to get at least one good prospect in return.

Instead, they traded him to the White Sox for a couple middling prospects in IF Eduardo Escobar and SP Pedro Hernandez.

Escobar ranks right around the 10th best prospect in the Sox system (but keep in mind the White Sox have the worst system in the majors according to almost everyone) and a plus fielder at three positions, and in fact was ranked as the top fielder in Chicago's system for four consecutive years by Baseball America.  That's good.  What's not so good is his bat.  He's hit at a sub-Puntoian level in his 97 at-bats this year, putting up a slash line of .207/.281/.276, which is a stellar combination of not getting on base and having zero power.  And it isn't exactly like he's just struggling to adjust to major league pitching, because his career line in the minors is .266/.303/.354, an OPS on par with Drew Butera's major league numbers this year.  He did sign when he was 17 and is still just 23 so there's time to develop something, but it's likely not going to be power.   The Twins are starting him at Rochester which is a good move so he can work on his hitting, which is good because as it stands right now his upside is probably as a utility backup infielder.  If he can figure out a way to hit .280 or so with at least a little gap power, combined with his fielding, he could be a starter for the Twins along the lines of Alcides Escobar, but that's probably his absolute ceiling with a floor of Denny Hocking.

Hernandez, the pitcher the Twins got in the deal, generally ranks around 20th in the White Sox system, depending on what you read (and remember, again, the Sox have the worst system in baseball).  He was acquired by Chicago in the Carlos Quentin trade, and you know it's always a good sign when two different organizations are willing to trade a prospect.  He is a lefty, which is good, and his career minor league numbers are decent, which is also good.  He's spent time as both a starter and reliever in the minors, and has a career ERA of 3.42 and WHIP of 1.24 in six minor league seasons.  He had a shot at the Sox rotation back on July 18th, making his first career start against Boston, but gave up 12 hits and 8 runs in just four innings and was sent back to AAA.  He was striking out batters at a pretty respectable rate up until he hit AAA, but this year, after being re-promoted to AAA, registered 17 Ks in 17 innings.  It's pretty obvious why the Twins' were interested -  his fastball sits at 89 mph and he doesn't walk anybody, the Twins' wet dream.

With Liriano hitting free agency after this season, as well as his erratic pitching since his surgery, nobody was going to pay a monster bonanza to get him but he flashed enough success that several teams were at least interested, and the best Terry Ryan could do was two 23-year old barely prospects from the team with the worst farm system in the league?  Still, there are a couple of positives:


1.  Although their upside isn't all that high, both Hernandez and Escobar are 23 and in AAA, and as such both will likely hit the majors with the Twins this year so we'll see what the Twins have quickly.  Both are likely to contribute at the big league level in some capacity, with Hernandez downside a bullpen arm/spot starter and Escobar a utility man, with Escobar having a chance to slot in to 2b (assuming Plouffe/Dozier are the left side of the infield for a few years at least) and Hernandez could end up in the rotation.  If Ryan couldn't get high upside guys, he at least was able to get players that will at least do something at the MLB level, and I guess that's a good second option.


2.  It was time for Liriano to go.  I heard a couple idiot callers on the radio complaining about the Twins' giving up on him and seriously dudes, he sucks.  How many years can you get sucked in by his potential?  This is the guy who has lost his spot in the rotation multiple times and has had an ERA over 5.00 in three of the last four years, including this season.  Suddenly you think he's put it all together because he struck out 15 batters one game?  He has a few starts like that every season, and every season it's the same story as he bombs out his next start.  Trust me, he hasn't suddenly figured it out.  You know who else once struck out 15 guys in one game?  Ron Villone.  Yeah, exactly.  And the no-hitter?  According to game score Liriano's was the worst no-hitter in history.  I'm not impressed by a no-hitter for the sake of a no-hitter either, because Phil Humber has one too.  It was time to move on.  You can only get fooled by potential for so long before you're no longer and optimist, you're an idiot.

Week in Review - 6/25/2012

So in Back to the Future, right, Marty goes back in time and effs everything up by pushing his future dad out of the way of that car and then his mom falls for him instead and puts Marty's actual existence in jeopardy to the point where he starts to fade out of existence before his future parents finally kiss, right?  But if he fades out of existence, then he can't go back in time and screw everything up between his parents, so then he'd exist again, right?

Wait.  Actually they clear all this up in #2.  And pretty much make it clear at the end of #1.  I really shouldn't have written that paragraph up there with 20 minutes left in the movie.  Which, yes, I've seen many times but not in several years.  This intro here is really starting to ramble.  I'm going to stop talking now.  This is me not talking.


WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Francisco Liriano.  I can't remember the last time I wrote anything good about this guy and who knows when this opportunity will occur again so with apologies to Josh Willingham's clutchitude I'm giving Frankie the Twins' reserved spot this week.  After another good start against Pittsburgh, Liriano's numbers in his last five starts are looking downright respectable - 30ips, 16 hits, 9 runs, 12 walks, 35 Ks, .155 OAVG, .497 OPS, 2.67 ERA.  He's basically been completely different than he was his first first pass through the rotation to start the season where his ERA was near 10 in his six first starts with an OPS over 1.000.  He's throwing more strikes and thus cutting back on the free passes, and his K-rate is actually up as well.  Which is the real, Liriano?  The walk machine who gets knocked around the yard like he's Jason Marquis, or the one who suddenly looks like a capable #3 or #4 starter?  Honestly I don't have a clue, so hopefully they trade him right quick and let somebody else figure it out.  As the honorable barrister Vincent Gambino (aka Jerry Callow) once said, "I'm finished with this guy."

2.  Lebron James.  Others have said it better and I'm sure others have said it worse (although that seems slightly less likely) but holy crap did this guy figure all this shit out.  His numbers were ridiculous (29 pts/10 rebs/7 assists/2 steals for the finals and similar for the overall playoffs, but they don't tell the whole story because he just completely owned that court.  Every time he posted on the wing or block the Thunder could either double, in which case he made the right pass 90% of the time leading to easy Miami baskets, or leave somebody to try to play him one-on-one which led to a Lebron score pretty much every time.  He can control the game posting up the way Barkley did with regularity, but with Magic Johnson's ability to see where the defense is going before they go there and make the perfect pass and (early) Jordan's ability to score by driving if he gets 1-on-1 coverage.  It's just sick, and I fear his stats next year - he may legitimately threaten to average a triple double.  If you're a Lebron hater (and I think somehow I lost my Lebron hate after realizing he's really just a dumb kid who didn't know what he wanted and then seeing him grow up in these playoffs) you better pray to baby santa jesus that he doesn't develop a jump shot.  It would be like watching a real life NBA Jam guy out on the court.   You wouldn't even have to put in the "big head" code because of that giant 'Bron melon. 

3.  Mario Chalmers.  You could put Mike Miller or Shane Battier here as well because all three of those dorks had either a tremendous series or several huge moments/games, but I'm picking Chalmers to single out because he's young while Battier is like a wrinkly-headed Methusaleh and Miller might legitimately retire because of his severe back issues, and also of course because the A-hole Wolves traded Chalmers on draft day when their point guards were Sebastian Telfair and Kevin Ollie (note:  I'm not making this up, those were their PGs that year unless you want to count Randy Foye).Anyway, if you go game-by-game in the Finals you see Game 2:  Battier with 17, Game 4: Chalmers with 25, and Game 5: Miller with 23 - there was always someone stepping up for the Heat.  While this series was billed as Big 3 vs. Big 3 and Lebron will get most of the credit for the win (and deservedly so) it shouldn't be ignored that while the Thunder became the Big 2 (more on this later) the Heat because the Big 4 each night, albeit with a different 4th piece.  Chalmers and Miller hit some big shots which shouldn't be a surprise based on their college resumes, while Battier hitting big shots was a pretty big shock since Duke is a bunch of choking a-holes.

4.  Chris Sale.   I completely loved this dude the last two years as a reliever, and pretty much figured with his stuff (double-figures in K/9 both the last two years) he was setting himself up as Chicago's future save-getting-saver guy.  But, smartly, the White Sox realized he was too good to only use like, 3 innings a week and half of those with a 3-run lead and nobody on base, so they decided to turn him into a starter.  Would it work?  Of course, because Sale is practically unhittable and he's been that most of this year.  After nearly throwing a no-hitter against Milwaukee, Sale now leads the AL in ERA at 2.24 and second in WHIP at 0.96 (behind only teammate Jake Peavy).  He has 89 Ks in 88 innings against just 23 walks and 62 hits, leading to a .193 opponent's batting average, which is third in the league.  In short, this dude is wicked good.  Which is the kind of thing you can get when you spend a high draft pick on a polished college pitcher.  Seriously, Kevin Gausman is going to come back to haunt the Twins.  Bank on it.

5.  Toronto Blue Jays.  Not so much the results because they were only 3-3 (although I guess on the road against Milwaukee and Miami that isn't too terrible), but because of their power numbers, the likes of which we haven't seen in Minnesota since I was still playing softball.  This past week four dudes in MLB hit four homers - three of them were Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and Colby Ramsus (those are all Blue Jays, dumbass).  Brett Lawrie hit two as well, to make 14 homers for the week.  I'm willing to bet the Twins haven't hit 14 home runs in a week since back in 1930.  Pairing that offense with a young pitching staff to build upon including Brandon Morrow, Kyle Drabek, Ricky Romero, Drew Hutchison, and Deck McGuire and the Blue Jays are set up for a long run of success.  Is what I would be saying if the Jays weren't in the AL East, but they are so they're pretty much effed.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Twins.   I know a 3-3 week with two wins over the Reds for this team is like, the best week in history but honestly this might be one of the worst teams, especially offensively, in the history of the history of the world.  Fourteen total runs in those six games, which including facing studs like Kevin Correia and Homer Bailey.  Twelfth in the AL in runs.  Thirteenth in homers.  The overall average is decent (8th), but there's zero power behind it (13th in ISO - power discarding average) and is boosted by the 7th highest BABIP despite one of the five worst line drive rates in the league.  Awful.  And throw in the pitching woes and it's hard not to believe this is the worst team in the league.  Worst ERA in the league.  Worst opponent batting average in the league.  Fewest quality starts in the league.  Fewest strikeouts in the league.  The only team whose pitching can compete with the Twins in terms of shittiness is the Rockies, and they play in a launching pad so they at least have an excuse.  And the real killer is there is nothing on the horizon to make you at least hope for the future.  So I quit.

2.  Kendrick Perkins.  Now, it's probably a little mean to pick on Perkins because his one real skill is defending big centers and the Heat didn't have a big center who they played at all (Joel Anthony and Ronny Turiaf combined for 5 minutes total in all five games), but man was he exposed out there. Bosh just completely owned him in every game and I'm pretty sure I saw Udonis Haslem school him at least once.  You don't really expect to get any offense out of him, but outside of a 12 & 10 game in Game 3 he averaged just over 5 boards and about 3.5 points per game, well under his season averages.  Basically he was completely useless, but I actually enjoyed watching someone get torched so easily so it was kind of fun at times.  Probably not if you were a Thunder fan or anything, but I bet it was a god damned riot if you live in Seattle.

3.  James Harden.  Remember how the big thing everyone talked about with the Thunder a couple of weeks ago was how they'd have to make a decision on keeping either Harden or Serge Ibaka?  Unfortunately the best thing you could say about Ibaka in the Finals was that at least he didn't play as badly as Harden, and boy was he awful. He was actually good in Games 2 and 5 and the Thunder won Game 1, but he was so terrible in Games 3 and 4 - pretty monstrously important games in a best of 7 series, that you can make a pretty convincing argument that he's the biggest reason the Thunder lost.  Beardy Bearderson was 4-20 from the floor in those games, including 1-9 from three, and lost his confidence to such an extent that he actually started passing up open shots, which probably hurt the Thunder more than the misses did.  Not saying the Thunder could have beaten the Heat even if Harden played well, but they sure as hell weren't going to beat them without him.  I mean, would Three's Company have been as funny and sexy without Janet?  Actually I'm pretty sure yes.

4.  Tim Lincecum.  His final line on his latest start actually ended up ok, 6 innings - 3hits -3runs - 4walks-8 Ks - but the way it started was as ugly as his season has been.  Against a really, really crappy A's offense he allowed single-single-single-walk-groundout-walk and suddenly Oakland had put up 3 runs.  Then he struck out the next three batters and allowed only two base runners the rest of the game.  Some might this is a good sign that the old Lincecum might be back, but he's done this before (8 inning 3-hitter against San Diego and a couple other good outings), but all it's really resulted in is an ERA north of six and a WHIP more than 25% higher than his career number.  I mean, he's lasted less than six innings nine times already this year compared to just six times all of last season.  His walks and home runs are way up, he's allowing way to many line drives and no longer inducing easy pop-ups, and his fastball is down over 2mph to last year - and that last one is really the killer.  A lot of things can be ascribed to luck, and Wiley Wiggins here has had some bad luck this year, but when you drop down to a Blackburn-esque fastball when you're a strikeout pitcher?  Yikestown.

5. Adam Dunn.  Well if you were looking for last year's version of Adam Dunn I think we found him this week, because his extremely stellar season took a short detour off the rails (although not before he covered his season prop of OVER 20.5 HRs - holla).  This week Dunn came up to the plate 27 times.  He walked 5, and struck out 13.  Of the nine times he actually put the ball in play he hit two singles.  All of which adds up to a .095 average (and slugging).  Granted, when you have a dude like Adam Dunn you're going to get weeks like this and have to hope you get enough of those 4 home run weeks to balance it all out, but it's still worth pointing out a shitty week like this, and it's kind of jarring when you see a dude who struck out 13 times last week.  Also I just saw that Michael Cuddyer was 2-25 and I'd love to make fun of him a little bit but now it's too late cuz I wrote all this crap.  And you just read it.  Ha ha I win.



Pretty excited Juwan Howard has a ring, you guys.  I mean he was my fourth favorite Fab Five guy and all (1. Jalen, 2. King, 3. Webber, 4. Juwan, 5. Jackson, 6. Rob Pelinka), but I was/am such a huge fan it's nice to see one of them get a ring, especially since he was such a key cog in that machine.  And as we know, Juwan always wins:

In your face kid from Modern Family

Also seriously how freaking sweet is this thing:

There are, literally, hundreds of college basketball starting lineups I want.  If they exist.

No Shtick: Piranha 3d is the best movie ever (movie blog)

-  We are watching Season of the Witch (the medieval movie with Nic Cage) and some guy just said that the witch Nic Cage is supposed to escort to the Abbey was "just given a powerful sedative."  That didn't sound right to me, so I looked it up.  The word "sedative" didn't exist until the 15th century.  This movie takes place during the crusades, the last one (Indiana Jones excepted) ended in the 14th century.  Nicely done.  Might as well be on SyFy.

-  Oh and just a few minutes before this Nic Cage's character was batting crossbow quarrels out of the air left and right from about 25 feet away with his sword.  And the crossbowmen had the high ground, just to add a little extra believability.  I've never seen a movie try to go with that move, not even the cheesiest of the cheesy.

-  That being said, this was actually a very good movie for about an hour.  Nice creepiness, a good dark halloween'y feel, nothing too over the top from Cage, just a solid movie to go in the creepy movie rotation for each October.  But this last half hour right here.  Oy.  Yikes.  Laugh out loud bad.  Took this movie from a 7 to a 3.  Ever seen someone get hugged to death by fire?  I have.  Skip this one.

-  also dammit!  I really hate how in order to watch the Twins on MLB.com I have to trick it into thinking I'm not in Minnesota which means I have to login remotely to my work network.  But if I do that it brings in a big filter and I can't get to sportsbook.com because it's blocked.  Arg.

-  And now it's time to get really excited folks, because we're about to watch Piranha 3d (not in 3d), the remake of the shockingly bad old version that had the ugliest naked hot chick of all-time.  I'm excited for this one because it has piranhas eating people, Elisabeth Shue so you know it's a serious movie, and porn stars so you know there are boobs.  Very fired up right now.

-  By the way I have tomorrow off, which is why we're sitting around watching movies.  You know who took the night off?  Francisco Liriano's fastball, slider, and change-up.

-  The menu music on this DVD is some kind of Keith Sweat/R. Kelly sounding thing and it shows a bunch of broads shaking their asses.  I'm guessing this is spring break themed.  I'm also guessing I outed myself as both old and white.

-  Open:  Guy in a boat, fishing and drinking beer (sweet) in a "restricted government area".  Probably dead soon.  AND OH MY GOD HOLY SHIT IT'S RICHARD DREYFUSS.  And guess what he's singing?  "Show me the way to go home.....I'm tired and I wanna go to bed....."  Freaking sweet.  Great little homage right there.

-  The bottom of the lake just fell into the earth creating a whirlpool and sucking Hooper and his little boat into the water where he was eaten by piranha.  Not one lick of that scene made sense.  I will forgive it because of the Dreyfuss and the future boobs.

-  Jesus:  Elisabeth Shue, Jerry O'Connell, Ving Rhames, Adam Scott (not the golfer, the funny guy from Parks & Rec), Christopher Lloyd, Eli Roth, and Dina Meyer.  Holy shit.  That's a hell of a cast.  Expectations raised.

-  This credit sequence is pretty awesome.  It's spring break, so basically they're just showing a bunch of young nubile coeds shaking their asses.  Yeah.  I'm in.

-  Shue plays a cop.  Could have predicted that.

-  Kelly Brook too.  Her to 12 year old girl, "Nice phone."  12 year old girl, "Nice boobs."  Freakin' perv.

-  Mrs. W keeps talking over this movie as if it's just some movie.  I don't think she gets this is Piranha 3d and I've been waiting for this movie my whole life.

-  Jerry O'Connell just showed up. He's apparently a girls gone wild producer type guy, which is already probably the most realistic thing in this whole movie.  Seriously that movie where he (possibly) rapes Tara Reid that I think is called Body Shots?  I bet he's done that like 20 times in real life.  And probably used drugs at least half of them.

-  Creepy O'Connell hired some local kid to help him out with the girls gone wild filming tomorrow.  That local kid's mom?  Elisabeth Shue, the cop.  DUH DUH DUHHHHHHHHHHH.

-  Ving Rhames will be playing one of Shue's co-worker cop guys.  Based on the type of movie this is and the fact that Ving Rhames appears to be black I'm going to guess he won't make it to the end credits.

-  They found Dreyfuss.  He's much less eated than I would have expected.  Actually looks more like a plague victim than anything else.  Shue is contemplating closing the lake, but it's spring break so it's going to be tough since this is such a lucrative time of year.  Such an original twist.  I've never seen this in every other movie of this type ever.

-  Some dude just cliff dived into the lake and got eaten in the face by the piranha in about 4 seconds.  Luckily there was nobody else around to see that there were fish that eat people in this lake.  The lesson, as always, is that you should never go cliff diving.  It only results in death.

-  Townie dude who got hired to do porn had to babysit his younger brother and sister.  He just paid them cash money to take care of themselves so he could do the porn thing.  I bet that won't bite him in the ass later.  Like the piranha, I guess.  I just kind of walked into that one.

-  There are a whole lot of nice butts in this movie.

-  BOOBS!!!

-  Chick motorboating another chick while bending over in a thong.  We've definitely taken a bit of a turn here in these last 3-4 minutes.

-  So Towny dude has a towny chick with that whole we like each other but neither of us can admit it vibe and she was just ripping on the girls gone wild crowd but then creepy o'connell starting yelling at towny guy to get on the boat and help him so she was irritated by the whole thing and decided to go on creepy guy's boat and drink champagne.  I don't know.

-  Holy crap the camera man is Andre from The League.  Everyone is in this movie.  And Andre is wearing a stupid hat and has zinc oxide covering his nose.  This movie is almost too self aware to make fun of.

-  Those two chicks from before just decided that swimming in no swimsuits is way more fun than swimming in any swimsuits.  No complaints here.

-  We now have two broads swimming in full frontal and full backal nudity set to opera music with the blue background of the water highlighted by sunlight, and the nudity complimented by dark blue swim fins.  I've been trying to come up with a sentence to complete this entry but I'm just going to leave it without one because there's no way I can write anything here.

-  The two dudes who wrote this also wrote Sorority Row which was a pretty solid flick and, although I don't remember any nudity it did feature Audrina who basically counts for nudity even if she's clothed since she's basically walking sex.  Her and J-Woww.

-  Speaking of J-Woww I think Season 4 started tonight and I neither watched nor Tivo'd it.  I think I'm over it.  Not J-Woww, of course, because I'll always love her with my ding dong, but over the show.  Enough already, am I right?

-  I just looked up the poster for this to post at the top of this post.  Might as well be the Jaws poster.  Nice.

-  Speaking of looking things up, here are those chicks who were skinny dipping for 7 minutes straight.  Only $1 per night at Redbox people.

-  The piranha are growling.  They're growling like rabid dogs.  And they look like prehistoric coelecanths that had sex with piranhas and made babies with red eyes and a thirst for blood.  Which I suppose they might be, since this movie hasn't explained why there are piranhas that suddenly appeared in a Texas lake after an earthquake at a government facility.  Well when you type it all up like that this movie doesn't make much of any sense.

-  I'm guessing we're done with the happy fun plot set-up full of boobs and butts and jokes and Jerry O'Connell and are about to get to the killing and the screaming and blood.  Mostly because we are halfway through the movie and it's about time to get rolling, and also because two divers in Miz Shue's employ just discovered a giant cache of piranha eggs and then got their faces eaten off.by what can only be described as "one massive shitload of flesh eating fish."  Maybe time to close that beach now, eh?

-  God I wish I had seen this in the theater.  That last orgy of fish eating people scene would have been so awesome in 3d.  You know what else would be awesome in 3d?  Raquel Welch.  3d is my apartment number.

-  Pretty sure I tore my ACL today chasing the kids around in the basement.  Between that and hurting my back sleeping I think there's a good chance I'm too old to live anymore.

-  Well I guess we aren't completely done with the sex stuff yet, because Jerry O'Connell just did a body shot (ironic since he was in that movie with that name) off that blonde chick who is currently wearing a swimsuit that is made up of approximately three cloth bottle caps.

-  Towny dude just did a body shot off that girl what that he likes.  Good for him. Except that before he could take the lime out of her mouth with his mouth she threw up.  Been there.

-  Christopher Lloyd just showed up.  Turns out he's playing a crazy mad scientist.  Weird.  A good way for the movie to explain where the piranha came from, since they were able to snag a live speciman that was still holding onto the dead, and stripped of flesh, body of one of divers they pulled out of the lake.  Seriously the way these things strip flesh they might as well be called Ramsay Bolton.  NERD JOKE!!

-  Doc Brown says it's some kind of prehistoric piranha called Pygocentrus something or other, which actually turns out to be the genus of piranha which puts this movie already 100x more accurate than any other movie I've ever blogged on here.  They were thought to be extinct for 2 million years, but that earthquake caused a rift and somehow they came up to the real life.  So there you go.  Somehow this seems more believable than those other movies.

-  Chick is now parasailing topless.  If these movies have taught me anything it's that topless chicks always end up dead and anybody who goes parasailing gets eaten when they land in the water.  So this chick is double-fucked.

-  I still can't get over the fact that Andre is in this.  I hope he ends up the hero.

-  This is pretty shocking, but naked parasailing chick just got her legs eaten off.  In a nice twist on an old standby, the boat actually gets going again and the parasail gets going again and picks the chick up, but she's dead and her legs are gone from the thigh down.  Nice touch.

-  also a nice touch?  We are now staring at a wet t-shirt contest hosted by Eli Roth, which is kind of weird because I always thought he was a fancy director guy but it turns from looking at imdb page that I'm pretty far off and he actually just directs a bunch of crappy second rate horror shlock.  So it makes a lot of sense that he's in this.

-  Hey Ving Rhames!  Still alive.  Score one for the black man.  I bet he can't swim though.

-  Towny guy's little brother and sister who he paid to stay home but they snuck out got stranded somehow when they lost their boat but they found them and now those two little kids are on the sex boat with the girls and their boobs.  They're going to grow up fast.

-  Sex boat got stuck in some weeds and is now stuck, nevermind that it's about an 80 foot yacht so that seems kind of ridiculous.  Jerry O'Connell now losing his shit.

-  Also losing their shit?  these sweet ass piranhas at this buffet that is spring break.  Hundreds of thousands of nubile young ladies and douchebaggy frat dudes, meet bloodthirsty and awfully hungry sweet ass killer fish.  so awesome.  This is like the Normandy Beach scene at the beginning of Saving Private Ryan.

-  Too many people got on the big stage though and now it's tipping, dropping people into the waiting jaws of the hungry fish.  I'm sad to say they totally stole this scene from Spring Break Shark Attack.

-  Oh holy crap.  So the big stage is going down and things are breaking and falling and all kinds of crap and some cable snaps and goes flying through the air and cuts this chick in half diagonally through the chest.  But get this, before she falls in half the thing, since it went through her chest, slices her bikini off and it falls down before into the water before her body falls apart, so we get a nice three second shot of her big ole boobs before her top half diagonally slides off her bottom half and into the water.  Freaking sweet.

-  Holy crap again!  Now Eli Roth is in the water and trying to swim to safety and get up on a boat, but the chick who is trying to pull him up on the boat isn't strong enough and he calls her a "fucking whore."  As she's trying to save his life.  And then he just got his head run over by a boat.  This might be the greatest scene in the history of movies.

-  And Elisabeth Shue just fired her tazer into the water and killed one fish.  Nice work sheriff.  At this point it's like watching the watching the Twins try to hit.  Futile.

-  Now some douchey frat douche grabbed some motorized dinghy to escape and wouldn't let anybody else on and was just running people over, but then he ran over some girl and her hair got caught in the blade so the motor killed.  So now he's pulling the cord again and again trying to get it re-started, but each time he does so it just reels in more of her hair and brings her closer to the blade and her inevitable death.  But just when you think she's definitely going to die by the motor chopping her face off they throw you a curveball and instead the motor rips her hair and most of her face skin off so she's just eyeballs and blood.  And then the people tip the dinghy over and everybody gets eaten anyway.

-  Jerry O'Connell's boat just crashed, again, and this time both him and the sexy blonde went overboard and got eaten.  But the blondy got eaten by a piranha started at the back of her neck and eating it's way out of her mouth.  Pretty bad-ass.

-  Somehow this turned into a non-stop thrill ride.  And Jerry O'Connell didn't die he managed to get back on board, but his legs and basically everything under his waist were stripped of flesh.  He's very unhappy about losing his penis.  Seems reasonable.  and now he died.

-  And, just to keep things classy, we get to see the fate of his penis, floating along in the lake, as if a bratwurst and a plastic worm mated, before a piranha comes buy to snatch it up.  And, just to make sure everything is super classy, it then burps and vomits up the penis with a chunk missing.  I wish I was making this up.

-  Ving Rhames status:  Still alive, but currently standing in the water and using an outboard motor as a weapon to decapitate fish.  That's both awesome and stupid.

-  Ving Rhames status:  dead.  But he got way more of them than they got of him.  Sorry big fella.  Racial laws dictate you never had a chance.

-  Elisabeth Shue is looking very good for an old lady by the way.  Kathleen Turner and Meg Ryan should take notes, if it wasn't already tragically too late.  Maybe they could use a little piranha to the face treatment.  It's all the rage in Switzerland.

-  The brunette slutty big boob chick from earlier (not to be be confused with the blonde one who got eaten in the mouth) is still alive.  I find this confusing.

-  That chick, the two little kids, and Liz Shue are now going from the stranded and sinking sex boat to the good police boat driven by the guy from Parks and Rec.  To get there they have to crawl across a rope suspended across the water from one boat to the other doing an upside down monkey crawl kind of thing.  The piranha have also apparently learned to jump for food.  So they're jumping up at the four people crawling across.  They eat one but three make it.  Guess who got eaten.  Yep, big boobs Mcbrownhair.  'tis a blimmin' shame.  She was a brave lad.

-  Towny dude just saved towny chick by using Jerry O'Connell's corpse as a decoy to distract the fishies and then jumping in the water and swimming to her rescue and then getting pulled out by the good boat by the toe rope he wrapping around himself.  I also wrote this whole paragraph as he was explaining his plan because since he's a nice towny boy it's going to work.

-  They just took the time to make out.  Good thinking.

-  THE PLAN WORKED!  Despite the boat not starting right away to cause false drama, it worked when Parks and Rec guy got 'er to fire up in the nick of time.  Also he used a flare and a compressed air tank to blow up the boat.  Took a bunch of piranha down.  If you say there's half around that submerged boat and half back at the Spring Break slaughter, we're half way done.

-  According to Chris Lloyd, who just examined the piranha speciman they left with him has no mature reproductive organs.  These killers are just the babies.  And Parks and Rec guys says, "So where are the parents" and then is immediately eaten by a gigantic piranha flying out of the lake and we roll credits.

-  That.  Was.  Awesome.  I would have preferred a little more of an ending, but I suppose they did the smart thing and ended it the way they did because finding a satisfactory ending to these movies is difficult.  Also the only realistic ending at this point would have been for them to get off the lake, call in the Marines, and bomb the every loving jesus out of that lake.  And that's mostly pretty boring.  Also pretty boring?  The James Rollins' novels lately.  Just not doing it for me.  Luckily, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's new one is out, and that's already got me all jazzed.  I can't recommend those books or this movie high enough.  In fact, if anybody wants the first Preston and Child book (The Relic) just email me with your address and I'll send my copy over to you.

Also you should rent this movie.  Rocks.

Week in Review - 6/13/2011

Guess who had Ruler on Ice to win the Belmont at 42-1?   Yep.  I know my only published pick (via Twitter) was Master of Hounds so you'll just have to take my word for it.  That means I've nailed the winner in the last two triple crown races and my two picks finished 2nd and 3rd in the Kentucky (and I picked the winner of the derby last year).  I think it's safe to say I'm awesome at handicapping horses.  So I celebrated by cooking up some steaks, and I want to share the method here with you - the Alton Brown method.  Simply salt and pepper your steak, then turn a burner on the stove up to high and preheat your oven at 500 degrees.  Once everything is heated up, toss some olive oil in a cast iron pan and throw the steaks in there on the burner.  2-minutes each side to get a nice sear.  Then throw them in the oven and go two minutes per side again (may have to adjust up or down for desired doneness).  And that's it.  Super simple and completely delicious, maybe even superior to using the grill.  Give it a shot.

Now on to the boring part.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Francisco Liriano.  He ended up losing the no-hitter and the shutout, but Franky's outing on Sunday against Texas was far, far more impressive than the actual no-hitter he threw earlier this year.  He was actually hitting his spots (first time ever?), his fastball had some major tail action on it, his slider was basically unhittable, and he was even using his change-up effectively.  He was perfect through six and didn't allow a hit until the 8th, which was almost inevitable after the Twins kept him on the bench for nearly a half-hour by battering a couple Texas pitchers for five runs in the bottom of the seventh in that rare occasion when you actually want your team to hurry up and get out.  You could tell his rhythm was broken after that (that's on him, of course, you need to be able to adjust to that) but altogether his performance was nothing short of dominant.  This version of Liriano is an ace, a game-changer, a slump stopper, and a potential playoff killer.  It's just too bad we only see this version once a month or so. 

2.  Ben Revere.  Snacks already claimed him as his new favorite player so I won't step on any toes, but man I really like Revere right now.  He's not perfect or anything - he doesn't walk enough to be an elite leadoff guy, he has no power at all, and his arm would be better suited to playing second base - but what he does have is energy, speed, great center field instincts, and he's giving the team what they need - a jolt of energy.  Infield hits, bunt hits, reaching base on a wild pitch after striking out, stealing bases, he's just really fun to watch.  Now, I know this schtick will get old unless he learns to walk, learns to have a little power, or can hit .330, but for now you can put me in the "big fan" camp, and I think he has far more potential than Gomez.  I don't know that he'll ever develop much power, but his plate discipline says he should learn to walk and he did hit over .300 at every minor league level, so I'm encouraged.  Side note - I was going to sponsor his baseball-reference.com page, but some jackhole beat me to it. 

3.  Dallas Mavericks.  It's tempting to give most of the credit for the big finals win to Dirk, but really there are a bunch of guys who carried this team at times.  Terry had a monster game in the clinched and was their whole offense in the first half, Kidd was hitting his shots and running the offense as only an old man can, and Tyson Chandler had the kind of finals that makes guys millions, if only he was a free agent.  Hell, even Deshawn Stevenson made a difference, both with his defense on baby soft Lebron and his 3 big 3-pointers in the first half tonight.  I hate manufactured crap like "this is what happens when a real 'team' takes on 'superstars"", but for this series at least it was the truth.  Miami had no answer for the fluid way Dallas played together and thank god.  On a happiness scale I'm not sure if I'm happier that Dirk won or Lebron lost, but they both rank way up there.

4.  Mike Leake.  Welcome back, Mr. hippie surfer shoplifter, welcome back indeed.  He had an insane rookie year that saw him skip the minor leagues entirely and get off to an absolutely blistering start (5-0, 2.22 ERA through early June), but since then things have been very rocky.  He ended up burning out last year and was shut down in late August after he put up an ERA of almost six and a half in his next 10 starts and a disastrous move to the bullpen.  This year has been rough as well with an injury, the whole shoplifting thing, his first ever minor league action, and a move to the bullpen, but things might be coming around now.  Back-to-back 8 inning efforts with just two total runs allowed and and 11-to-2 strikeout to walk ratio this week.  Love this guy, love everything about him, and very glad to see him back to makin' hitters look like fools, as well as seeing him back on our fantasy team.

5.  Mike Moustakas.  Yet another one of Kansas City's stud prospect, third baseman Mike Moustakas made his debut this past week and .  Eric Hosmer looks like the real deal and Alcides Escobar is their SS of the future who is valuable even if his hitting doesn't come around, so they've got 3/4 of the infield covered.  Now, Moustakas and Hosmer were generally ranked #1 and #2 in their system, so not everyone else has their pedigree, but it's notable that they have catcher covered (Wil Myers, #8 prospect in all of baseball by Keith Law) so if they can just find a few competent outfielders (I think Jarrod Dyson has a future similar to Escobar, but in CF) their future lineup should be pretty well set.  The biggest question will be enough pitching will develop to make them competitive, but the minors are pretty heavily laden with big-time pitching prospects (including Danny Duffy, Jeremy Jeffress, Aaron Crow, and Tim Collins who are already up).  Things better come together, because I have a $100 bet with Snacks that the Royals will win the AL Central before 2015, and god knows I can't afford to lose that kind of money.  I would hate to have to choose between booze and feeding my kids.  I think we all know which way that one is going to go.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Colby Lewis.  You remember good ole Colby, the dude who the Twins chased on Saturday after just more than an inning?  You might remember him as the guy who gave up two hits each to Alexi Casilla and Delmon Young despite pitching just one and third innings.  Not to mention giving up a sick number of hits/runs in between and getting run early with a final line of 1.1ip/7h/6er.  Ouch.  But what you might not know is that he also pitched against the Tigers earlier this week and might actually have pitched worse.  Line:  3.1 ip/10 hits/9er/4 hr.  Yes, that's nine earned runs and 4 homers allowed - two of which were to that piece of crap Brennan Boesch.  So, in case your math skills are bad or you are a girl, that's 15 earned runs allowed in one week and that includes a game against the Twins triple A lineup.  In all seriousness I really hope Mr. Lewis has been saving most of his money, because that paycheck might be drying up pretty quick here.  Actually what do I care?  Guy sucks.  Get a real job, hippie!

2.  Tim Lincecum.  Since he's in the NL you probably have no idea he's been brutal. In fact, even if you're paying attention he doesn't look that bad - 3.41 ERA and 1.19 WHIP - but this week he's been completely brutal.  He had two starts this week and in the longer outing he lasted five innings, and that was against the epically shitty Nationals.  The Reds are at least good, but when you're Lincecum you just don't give up 7 hits and 7 runs in 4 innings to anybody - and he only struck out one guy.  Very bad if you're a big fan of diminutive whirling dervish floppy haired pot-smoking hippy pitchers - or Wiley Wiggins.  The good news is nerd stats (I'll spare you) don't point to anything that's significantly different that normal so this is more likely a blip on the radar rather than indicative of a Soria-style breakdown or anything, but god, getting ripped by the Nats is just freaking embarrassing.  It'd be like getting busted by O'Bannion. 

3.  Oakland Athletics.  Wow are these guys god damn awful.  Look at that lineup and count the actual major league hitters.  I see David DeJesus and Josh Willingham, both who would be good fourth outfielders for a team, and Coco Crisp who is a quality leadoff hitter.  That's it.  Their infield has to be the worst collection in the league - other contenders like Seattle and San Diego at least have one quality bat (Justin Smoak and Chase Headley), but Oakland has nothing.  Throw in the injuries to starters Dallas Braden, Brett Anderson, Tyson Ross, and Brandon McCarthy and you can see why they've won just one of their last 14.   Of note:  they still have a better record than the Twins.  FML.

4.  Ryan Howard.  No, not the mid-level executive from a mid-tier paper company in Pennsylvania who was addicted to cocaine and then committed fraud, I'm talking about the fat first baseman for the Phillies.  You know, the guy who was inexplicably given a 5-year $125 million contract THAT DOESN'T EVEN START UNTIL NEXT SEASON despite the fact that his body type (fat to mostly fat) and playing style (high strikeout power hitter) mean that, at best, he's going to be a blacker Matt Stairs by the end of that contract.  And this week was a preview, because he had three hits all week (not counting today where he had three hits and three rbi which kind of negates this point but I already typed all those words before I looked it up and saw he had a good day today).  Any way the point is that Ryan Howard is fat and that was a stupid contract.  Like, Mauer-stupid.

5.  Lebron James.  I almost feel like you could just call out the entire Heat team as sucking, but the difference is that there were games where Bosh played amazingly well (including tonight), Wade pretty much carried the team the entire series, and Lebron was straight up invisible way too often so you have to pick him as the goat.  Not only did he handpick this team to win championships, but he hand picked this fucking team to win the championship.  This shit was orchestrated with one goal in mind and they failed.  And they didn't fail because of Wade (no surprise, the guy was nails in the playoffs and finals) and they didn't fail because of Bosh (surprisingly good this entire finals), they failed because Lebron was unable to carry the team for even small stretches and was about as valuable as that fat kid in Teen Wolf in the fourth quarter.  God there is just an amazing psychology paper waiting to be written on Lebron.  If I wasn't so dumb I would totally write it.  That's not true.  I'm too lazy.  I just want to go fishing.  


Lastly, just to brighten your week, here are Wonderbaby^TM's mad baseball skills on full display:

Frankie says Relax

You guys probably didn't hear about this at all, but Francisco Liriano pitched a no-hitter last night, which is awesome and a lot of fun to watch.  But what some people, particularly those who didn't watch and just like to talk about it on the radio, are missing is that this was one of the more underwhelming no-hitters ever thrown.  Not this year, I mean ever.

He struck out only two batters, just the 13th no hitter ever and first since 1980 with two or fewer whiffs.  He also walked 6, just the 22nd time a pitcher threw a no-ho and walked that many and his two strikeouts were the fewest out of that group.  He also threw just 66 strikes out of his 123 pitches.  I checked all starters from that night and his 54% strike rate was better than just Ryan Vogelsong's 51% - the same Ryan Vogelsong who was making his second start since 2006.

In other words, he did the same crap he always does.  Nibble nibble nibble and drive me and every pitching coach in the world bonkers, but this time it worked to perfection because the White Sox (sans Konerko) are a bunch of sissy nancy-boys who swing the bat with their little noodle arms and most of the time they make contact the speed with which the ball comes off the bat wouldn't break a spider's web.  I mean, it worked.  It did, he pitched a great game, and I'm thrilled for him.  I enjoyed the hell out of watching the end, and actually clapped my hands once and said "YES!" out when he got the last out, and coming from a reserved fan like me that's a pretty big reaction. 

I just want people to settle down a bit.  This doesn't mean Liriano is back to form or is on the cusp - again - of becoming an ace pitcher.  Don't forget that the lineup he no-hit is the same group that only managed four hits off the infinitely hittable Nick Blackburn.  So enjoy it, but don't expect him to suddenly "get it."  Sorry to rain on your stupid parade.

I was going to write more, but I just saw that Ice Cube is now doing Coors Light commercials.  Jesus Christ.

How bad are the freaking Twins?

Holy crap you guys, how bad are the Twins? I think we've gone beyond slow start at this point and have officially reached "gunning for the top pick in the lottery" status. I mean, what's been remotely promising so far? They can't hit or pitch, and they're making up for it by running the bases like a bunch of third-graders and fielding like absolute garbage, not to mention everybody who gets hurt needs an ambulance to carry them to the DL for half the season. Twins' baseball used to mean pitchers who threw strikes, fielders who made plays, and just enough offense supplemented by rarely making mistakes on either side of the ball. Now it means getting swept by the Royals.

Granted injuries have left them a bit short handed at times, but it's hard to just chalk up this many hurt players to bad-luck or the training staff - pretty sure it's a big ole contagious case of pussy-itis started by Morneau last year which has now affected half the roster. A week off for the flu? A couple of weeks for sore ribs and the flu, including pulling yourself from the starting lineup because "you can't get loose?" Several months (or more) off because of sore legs? It's baffling, but it fits their candy-soft mentality.

Worse, the players that do play can't hit. Jason Kubel's resurgence closer to his 2009 form after a sub-par 2010 is literally the only positive thing you can say about any position player:

Denard Span seems to have settled into a career role of "completely average lead-off who erases half of the good things he does by being really really fucking stupid running the bases." The problem is who could take over for him? Nobody on this team can handle center field (including Span), and the most likely candidates on the current roster are Jason Repko, a career back-up, and Rene Tosoni, who looks like a smaller, and possibly dumber, Lew Ford. I'm afraid we're stuck with Span until Revere is ready (and I wouldn't mind Denard in LF).

The middle infield is a complete mess, with someone too slow to play first playing at second and two subpar defensive second basemen alternating at shortstop. At least Cuddy can occasionally mash one - neither Tolbert or Casilla is anywhere near a major league quality hitter. (as mentioned here, combined they are the third-worst hitting middle infield since 1980). To make it even worse, Casilla might be the worst fielding shortstop in the league (and gives Span some competition for dumbest player), and the only the reason it isn't clearly him is because Tolbert gives him a run for his money.

The corner infielders should be ok, but Morneau can't seem to figure this whole "baseball" thing out. His power is basically completely gone along with both his patience and his aggressiveness, which sounds like it doesn't make sense but it does. Not only is he swinging at too many pitches (decreased patience) he's also swinging more like a slap-hitter and making contact more often, but poor contact (decreased aggressiveness). Basically he's a complete mess out there, and his drop of Tolbert's throw in that disastrous eight inning against the Royals over the weekend was one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen. I'm not worried about Valencia, at least. His numbers aren't great but if you did into the nerd stats (I'll spare you) he looks like he's just been unlucky and should be ok.

Catcher, geez, where to begin. Either Butera or Holm would make a fine back-up. Lots of teams carry a very good defensive catcher who can't really hit so no big deal. But when you hamstring yourself so severely by trading your two major-league ready back-ups in Jose Morales and Wilson Ramos, this is the situation you create when your dandy of a starter gets hurt for the one hundredth time. I get they thought they needed Capps and had to give Ramos to get him, but why then trade Morales? Mauer is a huge injury risk and they know this, so why guarantee having a guy back there who can't outhit most pitchers? Just a stupid, short-sighted move. Probably the most irritating thing of the entire season.

I don't even know where to being with the pitching. Basically all the starters have decided to stop throwing strikes because when they do throw strikes they're just getting crushed all over the yard. The only two starters with numbers that don't look like they should be an auto-trip to Rochester or the waiver wire are Duensing and Baker, and nerd stats tell us that Duensing is the only one who can remotely even hope to have keep it up.

We all know Blackburn sucks, and Pavano is Pavano and will giveth and taketh away, but this regression by Liriano from promising to disaster could very well be the logo for this season. He's been absolutely dreadful, and he's taken his always maddening approach of nibbling around the corners of the plate to a whole new level. Unfortunately for him, however, the scouting report is out and nobody's chasing. He's tripled his walks from last year, and with him being behind in basically every count to every batter they're pulverizing the ball when he finally puts it in the strike zone. He's already a third of the way to last year's walk total and half way to last year's home run total, all while allowing nearly two baserunners per inning. And sadly, there's no reason at all to think this is going to get better.

Then, if by some miracle, a starter does put together a nice outing there's nobody in the bullpen who bothers getting people out other than Glen Perkins, and if you believe he's suddenly become a good pitcher then go ahead and email me your home address so I can drive over and hit you in the face with a hammer. Joe Nathan is obviously broken, Jose Mijares has seemingly completely lost sight of the strike zone, and the rest of the guys (Hoey, Hughes, Burnett, Manship) are exactly as advertised - terrible and probably don't belong on a big-league roster. Hughes is particularly troubling because he sucked with the Royals yet the Twins jettisoned the promising Rob Delaney to make room for him, and he's suck even worse since joining the team.

That leaves Matt Capps, a competent closer, but the kind of player people who overrate the save stat love and people who love nerd stats underrate a bit. He's serviceable and can get outs but is always a candidate to get completely throttled because his stuff is underwhelming and if he isn't razor sharp with location he's very hittable. All that means he is a thoroughly mediocre bullpen arm, which also he means he's very clearly the Twins' top reliever.

Where does that all leave the team? A terrible hitting team that ranks last in the AL in runs scored, batting average, slugging percentage, and OPS (and second to last in OBP). A terrible pitching team that ranks dead last in the AL in ERA, opponents' batting average, and strikeouts. A terrible fielding team with a corner outfielder playing second, a couple of poor second basemen playing shortstop, a left fielder in center, and DHs playing corner outfield. A team with the worst run differential in baseball (outscored by 64 runs this year - more than 2 per game) and the worst record in the game.

Maybe things will turn around when (if) everyone gets back from injury. Maybe those who are struggling will get it figured out. I don't know. What I do know is that no team in history has every made the playoffs after a start this poor. I also know that I totally made that up because I don't actually know where to find that information, but it sounds like it's probably correct, doesn't it?

Seriously, this sucks. I don't know how to handle a summer without meaningful Twins baseball. I may just need to adopt a new team. I think I'm a Royal fan. They at least have hope for the future.

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.

Game 1 - Yankees/Twins running Diary

I just finally got the baby to sleep (for how long who knows, stay tuned) but I'm just now able to put some thoughts down on virtual paper here for your game 1 Yankees v. Twins matchup.  We're in the bottom of the second, and here is what I have to say so far:

-  I really hate sac bunting in the first, especially with the second batter of the game.  If the pitcher just doesn't have it early, you're giving him a free out.  Plus, there's that whole thing about how sac bunts don't really help you very often, which has been statistically proven.

-  Liriano pees his pants when Marcus Thames is up.

-  Sabathia intentionally throwing at Thome because of that one time when they played together in Cleveland and Thome didn't invite him to a BBQ party at his house.

-  If Cuddy was saving it for the playoffs this year, I'm ok with that.  Although he owes us about 10 more based on his play all season.

-  So that's where we stand.  2-0 Twins, Liriano looking mostly good.  Sabathia just struck out Valencia who did an awfully good impression of someone who has never seen a slider before.  CC looks good, I have a hunch he's on tonight, but after intentionally beaning Thome because he slept with his wife he made his one mistake to Cuddy and luckily he was able to take advantage, so Liriano needs to keep this up and keep the Twins ahead because I don't think they're going to get much more.

-  Tonight's drink of choice:  Three Philosophers beer.  To be followed by Coors Light.

-  Double for Hardy, which proves that all of you who questioned me when I said the Twins had the advantage at shortstop can now suck it.

-  Slower Vince Coleman swings like a girl - again.  Inning over.

-  So I had the most fantastically interesting dinner last night.  We went to Vincent with work, the kind of thing I desperately miss with my new job, since if you pay way to much attention here you know I used to get fancy dinners all the time (along with a lot of fun travel) that I don't anymore, so I was really looking forward to it, and I ended up trying several things I'd never had.

We opened with appetizers both comforting (baked camembert) and exotic (escargot), and I did end up trying the snails, which was my first time ever.  They basically drenched them in a garlic butter sauce (to mask the taste) and serve them boiling hot (to mask the texture) which leads to me to ask why exactly people eat them at all, but I tried them and other than being hot they were fine.  Of course, I mostly tasted garlic butter, which I think was the point.  Back to the game, more about the meal later.

-  Leadoff walk to Gardner.  This, frankly, sucks, and Liriano is doing that thing where he looks scard to throw a strike, nibbles nibbles nibbles, and walks a bunch of guys.  At least Jeter's up, this is a double play waiting to happen.

-  OMG throw a strike asshole.

-  Base hit Jeter.  First and second nobody out and I want to cry.  That's the second 0-2 count he's had where he's allowed the runner to reach base.  I can't help but feel like we've got the bad Liriano tonight.

-  Two fly outs and a K of A-Rod that left him looking absolutely silly.  So maybe we have the good Liriano, although I'm starting to suspect they are one in the same.

-  TNT just let us know Sabathia and Orlando Hudson are good friends dating back to 1999 when they were teammates in the Sally League.  I wonder what color skirts they wore and who baited the hook when the went fishing.  Base knock, Hudson.

-  Mauer grounds out with Hudson running and slides into first like an idiot (but is out), but noone of that matters because O-Hud ends up taking third like Jake Taylor on a bunt.  Brilliant play.  I guess Hudson skirt is the color of rocket fuel and veteran savvy.  And he just scored on a wild pitch, 3-0 Twins.  I'm starting to feel good and I hate it.

-  Ron Darling, one of our announcers tonight, "Along with throwing, giving up passed balls has been a big weakness of Posada this year."  So what, exactly, is left?  I know.  I bet he always invites Sabathia to the BBQs at his house.

-  Favorite text so far tonight, courtesy of Snacks, "I will commit murder at a twins game someday due to bathroom etiquette rules."

-  Liriano gets Thames out.  Everything is coming up Millhouse.

-  Great inning for Liriano, which brings me back to my great meal.  The next course I had was a poached eggs with a salted cod puree, bell peppers, and little slices of some kind of sausage.  I'm not usually an egg fan, at all, but the other option for this course was a pureed soup of root vegetables, and I do not like pureed soups, so I went with this.  The accompaniments were good enough to offset my usual distaste for egg, and I thought it was quite good, although not very exciting.  More coming up.

-  Here's an idea - the Twins sign Carl Crawford for next year, trade Kubel or Delmon for a pitcher, and outright cut Cuddyer.  Who's in?

-  Next course I was really tempted to go with the white fish, because there's nothing more I like than a really well cooked piece of fish (other than maybe properly cooked, rock-salted prime rib with a well seasoned au jus) but I just couldn't bring myself to pass on the wild boar because, really, when am I going to have wild boar again?  It was pretty good, stringy to be sure and the closest taste I can come up with to it would be beef jerky (which is not remotely an insult) but overall quite good and I'm glad I had it.  Also came with brussel sprouts which I had also never tasted, and these were pretty outstanding.  I don't know if they were just good plain or if it was the squash puree mixed with them, but I was impressed.

-  1-2-3 for Liriano including a couple of strikeouts and he's back to looking sharp.  I'm really glad I didn't jump in my car, drive to Target Field, hop the fence, run on to the field and tackle and/or choke Liriano whilst yelling "They can't hit you asshole!" Not that I was contemplating it.  Barely even warmed up the car.

-  Oh, and FYI - I'm chatting with a Yankee fan as I watch, and if he's any representation of that team they are really, really down on this year's squad and don't feel remotely confident.  As in, win this first game and the fans, if not the team, will curl up and die faster than a snail in a boiling vat of garlic butter.  My biggest concern is who pitches the 8th.  That inning is going to make or break this game.

-  Easy inning for Sabathia, and through five these are a couple of good pitching performances, although nothing compared to Halladay's no-hitter earlier today.  Which, incidentally, is what the announcers for this game just talked about for that entire half-inning.  So, to recap, three idiots who get paid handsomely to do a job I could do much better, just spent an entire inning talking about a game that was already over.  Brilliant.  And I know everybody thinks they could be a better announcer than the actual announcers, and most of you are wrong, but I actually could be better.  I'd be the next Jack Buck (NOT Joe) crossed with a little Vin Scully and a dash of Keith Olbermann back when he was good combined with Brad Pitt's looks and Brad Pitt's body.

-  Texeira double here in the top 6 with one out.  It's still 3-0, and now I'm terrified Liriano is going to walk A-Rod because he's scared to set up the 3-run, game tying HR.  Seriously, if that happens this is a sweep.  No way the Twins could survive having the momentum yanked out from under them like that.

-  Indeed, he walks A-Rod (although I'm pretty certain that ball four was a strike).  Game all set to be tied here.  Full expecting my heart to be ripped out.

-  Base hit by Cano, 3-1.  I don't think I can do this.  Might have to just change the channel for a while.

-  Strikes out Thames, which has to be huge pyschologically since that guy hits everything Liriano throws, and hits it a ton.  Now it's Posada, and Franky is at 97 pitches so you know Gardy's hair trigger is getting itchy.

-  Old man time with a base hit to score one, now 3-2 Twins, runners on first and second for Granderson, who should probably strike out on 3 pitches.  Christ, guy has no clue where the strike zone is anyway.

-  Granderson off the wall.  Yanks lead 4-3.  I'm done.  Fuck this.

-  Oh my sweet christ Sabathia walked in the tying run after walking Valencia on four straight pitches.  How can that possibly happen?  And with two outs after having struck Valencia out twice already.  Just throw it down the middle and odds are he pees his pants.

-  Tied heading to the seventh, just waiting to see if it's Guerrier or Crain who loses the game.  In the meantime, I'll tell you about my dessert.  I went with the Nutella crepe with vanilla ice cream and I have to tell you this might have been the best thing I've ever eaten.  I had never had Nutella, but I know it's popular in certain places, and it was certainly popular with my mouth last night. The warm chocolatey crepe combined with the cold vanilla ice cream was perfect, and I'm not a dessert guy at all.  No chance I would have ordered it on my own if it wasn't part of our Prix Fixe menu.  And I'm damn glad it was.  Outstanding.

-  Crain on.  Hopefully he'll be the Nutella Crepe in my garbage can of my life.

-  Now I'm done for real.