Hello all. You know what's weird? We are sitting here, the day before the World Series starts at the end of a season where the Twins fired their manager and I haven't written one word about it. I still love baseball. I've still watched almost every playoff game possible. I have a strong rooting interest in the Royals over the boring and overused Giants. I still care about who is going to manage the Twins. Yet nothing. I was worried at one point that I may have lost my interest in blogging, but I'm super excited to write about college hoops again. So basically the problem is the Twins. The Twins have destroyed my interest in writing about baseball. Completely. I hate them.
It's hard to care about who the manager is going to be when they're already saying they're not going to spend. Like this. And they can't stop doing things like signing Ricky Nolasco for four years or needlessly extending Kurt Suzuki instead of trading him at the peak of his lifetime value. They finished dead last in the division and won the second fewest games in the AL, and this in a year when they got a miracle season from Phil Hughes and saw Danny Santana break out. Without two or three breakouts from the youngsters in the rotation they once again have a better chance at losing 90 than winning 82, and too many bad contracts have assured that they can't add any kind of impact starter which means they'll sign some schlub and hope to hit another Hughes-like home run, which is damn unlikely once and nearly impossible twice.
At this point the hope is to wait for all the talent in the minors to get up to the big leagues, a plan which was pushed back with injuries to Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton, but it's a plan nonetheless. This year's Royals show that it can work, although I'm pretty sure that plan fails more than it works and the development of the three-headed monster in the back of the bullpen may be more important. Maybe 2-3 years from now Sano and Buxton are studs, Santana and Brian Dozier are an excellent double play combination on both sides of the ball, Josmil Pinto has learned how to be a catcher, Oswaldo Arcia and Aaron Hicks are viable big league outfielders, Kennys Vargas is a big time power hitter, and Kyle Gibson, Alex Meyer, and Trevor May are solid rotation pieces. Maybe then they emulate the Royals and package Kohl Stewart and Nick Gordon for a big-time stud top of the rotation ace and really go for it. Sure, maybe. That's a whole lot of ifs though for a team without any more money, and a whole lot of eggs in one basket without much of a contingency plan.
This all sounds awfully negative, but it hasn't been all bad. Despite Denard Span and Ben Revere's outstanding seasons (they finished tied for the NL lead in hits) I was in favor of those trades to stock the farm system with power arms, and low-cost low-year signings on reclamation projects like Hughes are just fine as long as they are low-cost low-year. I also thought they did a nice job clearing useless players at the trading deadline for whatever they could get last season, except of course for throwing a bunch of money at Suzuki.
It's just disheartening, knowing that they won't spend money to increase payroll in any meaningful way, and I'm convinced they're going to hire Doug Mientkiewicz as the coach since he's already completely inundated with the Twins small market crap that doesn't work. All of which would mean nothing would change and they'd continue to pin their hopes on hoping a big group of young players all hit their primes at the same time. Like I said that can work and it's happened before here, but ugh, it has also gone horribly wrong. Remember this is a team that seems like the last holdout refusing to experiment with a bunch of radical defensive shifts, so I find it unlikely they'll be changing philosophies any time soon.
And with all that being said, I bought into a season ticket package for this upcoming season for the first time. I'm an idiot.
Royals in 7. And I'll try to live blog at least one game.
Showing posts with label Good god the Twins suck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Good god the Twins suck. Show all posts
Monday, October 20, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Monday Musings
I know, I'm a terrible blogger. But it's really not my fault. Gopher basketball is in a dead period for recruiting, so there's nothing to talk about there, and the Twins are sucking the life out of me once again on their way to another probably 90+ loss season. How depressing is it that they're at .500 at the quarter mark of the season, but it feels like they're overachieving on a massive level? It just feels like they're about to go on a 3-17 streak. Anyway, since I have a bye in softball tonight, might as well put the time to good use. I mean use. Here's some stuff:
- I suppose the biggest news locally is that Kevin Love has come out and said he won't sign an extension with the Wolves and plans to test free agency after next season - which means there's no chance in hell the Wolves end up signing him. It was somehow both completely expected and a huge stomach punch at the same time. Kahn really fucked us by not giving Love that fifth year (plus the whole out clause thing), and the only hope was that Flip could somehow trick him into staying. Looks like it didn't work, so it's time to shift into getting as much as the Wolves can for him. I would prefer it happen prior to this year's draft since it's so loaded, but Love wants to go to a contender and it's hard finding one of those with both young and promising players and draft picks, and assuming nobody will trade for him unless he agrees to sign a long term deal with them Love's going to need to be on board with his destination. Some possibilities:
- I suppose I may need to do a Phil Hughes breakdown at some point, given that he's been lights out in his last four games. Seriously, a 1.37 ERA, a WHIP under 1.00, an opponent's slash line of .230/.228/.300, and 20 Ks vs. 0 BBs in 26 innings is really impressive stuff. He'll throw again on Wednesday in San Diego, and if he throws another gem, which seems likely given both the opponent and the park, I'll put up a post looking at his results a little more in depth.
- Remember how I hit the trifecta in the Kentucky Derby and was going Sizzler? Well I hit it for the Preakness too. Same bet, same risk amount. Big difference, however, in payout. The Preakness had 10 horses, while the Derby had 19, so odds were significantly reduced already, and then the Preakness had 3 big favorites hit the first three spots while the Derby at least had one significant longshot sneak in there. So the Derby payout was $1,541. The Preakness payout? $38. No joke. Was quite the letdown, but at least I've hit two now so I'll be playing for my own Triple Crown in a couple weeks.
- Looks like Justin Morneau's skull seems to finally be ok seeing as he's off to a hell of a start. He's hitting .327, which ranks 5th in the NL, with 9 homers (6th) and 32 RBI (4th). Seriously once teammate Troy Tulowitzki finally gets hurt Morneau might be the front runner for MVP. His power is way up, with an ISO near his career high in his MVP year, and although you can at least partially credit Coors for that, Morneau deserves the credit for cutting his K rate nearly in half and getting back down to where it was in his prime years. He's being more aggressive, particularly at balls in the strike zone, and is hammering them pretty good. His HR/FB rate is probably unsustainable so the home runs will probably taper off a bit, but he's in line for a pretty damn good season. Here's a nerdy article talking about how he's one of the top players when it comes to hammering the ball compared to last season.
- Among major league starters the Twins' have three of the highest 15 WHIPS - #1 Kevin Correia at 1.68, #10 Ricky Nolasco at 1.53, and #15 Kyle Gibson at 1.47. That, of course, doesn't include Mike Pelfrey who got shut down with a fake injury with a WHIP of 1.99. I mean that's just like what? Doesn't something need to be done at this point? From the constant injuries that go from day-to-day to season ender without a trip to the DL, to the jettisoning of any talented player if they don't play "the Twins way", to this constant need to go back to the same shitty veterans like Matt Guerrier and Jason Bartlett just because they've been Twins before, to the in season roster mis-management that leads to not having a center fielder but having four shortstops this organization is a complete mess. I need to write a whole post on this before I find myself down the rabbit hole here. To sum up:
- I was going to try to hit on the Gophers recruiting targets for 2015, but holy hell are Richard Pitino and the boys busy. According to 247sports.com they have 26 offers out to 2015 unsigned players and I just really don't feel like going through all of that right now. There are various levels of interest from the recruits, so I'll just hit a couple of the highlights (all rankings from 247 industry composite number) -
PG Jarvis Johnson (Minneapolis, MN), #81 overall/#18 PG - A De La Salle kid and the first legitimate shot for Pitino to keep the border closed on the players he wants. At all but the top programs keeping the borders closed on your top talent is a good way to build a program, and a guy like Johnson is good enough to boost the Gophers without being so good he's got programs you can't say no to after him - although Michigan State did just get involved so gulp. The Gophers are considered a pretty big favorite over Wisconsin for his services, but the whole Sparty thing throws everything off. Pretty important recruit here.
SG Jimmy Whitt (Columbia, MO), #96 overall/23 SG - This guy is piling up offers left and right, and although Arkansas is considered the favorite I've seen his name pop up around the Gophers a couple of times and there are so many teams involved things are still pretty murky. One wrinkle is it looks like he digs Kansas but they haven't offered yet, so most likely once Kansas misses out on some of their top targets they'll move on to Whitt and he'll sign immediately even though he acted like he liked all these other schools because Kansas is jerks.
SF Danjel Purifoy (Centreville, AL), #43 overall/#10 SF - Worth noting as he's the highest rated player who is given "Warm" interest in the Gophers by 247, along with every SEC school and Maryland, Michigan, and Wichita. Yes, Kentucky has reportedly offered but I'm guessing he's a back burner type for them, just given Calipari's ability to grab top 10-ish recruits at every position every year. Purifoy should get you seriously excited given he's an absolutely insane athlete who can handle the ball. He'd come in and immediately start for the Gophers and he can score, defend, and rebound already. His jumper isn't very good right now but when nobody can stop your drive you can be a bit more patient with that. This guy, we want.
PF Alex Illikainen (Grand Rapids, MN), #65 overall, #17 PF - If you could say the Gophers have one traditional recruiting strength regardless of coach, it's been out state Minnesota kids. I'm trying to remember a non-city kid from the state who the Gophers wanted and didn't get and I can't think of one. The closest I can come is Cody Johnson who ended up at Iowa State but I don't think the Gophers really recruited him. I guess you could count J.P. Macura if you wanted but I meant more country kids, not places like Lakeville, and the whole coaching change thing makes it a crap shoot. In any case, the Gophers should be in decent shape for Illikainen, although the competition isn't from anyone who strikes particular fear into my heart (Cal, Creighton, Iowa State, and Indiana are the other schools who have offered and he's shown interest in). He's a perfect stretch four who can also run the floor well and finish in transition, so he not only is from Minnesota but he'd fit Pitino's system perfectly. He's pretty much a Gopher Hole wet dream, and in this case I can't blame them.
C Akolda Manyang (Duluth, MN), #1 overall JUCO, #1 overall JUCO C - Pulling kids from Junior College is always a crap shoot as their are some incredible success stories and some disasters and everything in between, but he's highly rated, he's seven feet tall, and he's at least got some other high majors after him (Oklahoma, Arizona State). I promise if things heat up I'll try to track down some kind of scouting or more info on him, but for now he's really tall and some people like him.
Honestly if Pitino got an all Minnesota class (with Manyang, Illikainen and Johnson) that would be a pretty good class and make those weirdos who want the team to be like, only Minnesota kids happy too. Two top 100 kids and the top Juco would be a nice step up for the program and a natural build, made all the easier by it being local kids. That being said, Pitino is so aggressive and he has so many offers out to so many top kids I'm hoping that after so many near misses last year he finally lands somebody that is like wow - #22 Allonzo Trier, #39 Eric Davis, #42 Jalen Adams, #21 Brandon Ingram, #6 Chieck Diallo, #27 Moustapha Diagne, and #16 Doral Moore are all in play to various degrees. Hopefully he gets one (or more).
- I suppose the biggest news locally is that Kevin Love has come out and said he won't sign an extension with the Wolves and plans to test free agency after next season - which means there's no chance in hell the Wolves end up signing him. It was somehow both completely expected and a huge stomach punch at the same time. Kahn really fucked us by not giving Love that fifth year (plus the whole out clause thing), and the only hope was that Flip could somehow trick him into staying. Looks like it didn't work, so it's time to shift into getting as much as the Wolves can for him. I would prefer it happen prior to this year's draft since it's so loaded, but Love wants to go to a contender and it's hard finding one of those with both young and promising players and draft picks, and assuming nobody will trade for him unless he agrees to sign a long term deal with them Love's going to need to be on board with his destination. Some possibilities:
- LAKERS: The long rumored destination given Love's ties to LA, this is going to be a tough one to make work. The Lakers have a ridiculous amount of money tied up in Kobe ($30m) and Gasol ($19m) and would almost certainly have to include Gasol to make the money work and that does the Wovles very little good. They also have basically zero interesting young players with the possible exception of Kendall Marshall. They do have the sixth slot in the lottery in this year's draft, but they've already traded their 2015 and 2017 first round picks, which means they can't trade 2016. No chance Love gets to the Lakers without a third team getting involved.
- CHICAGO: Taj Gibson and Jimmy Butler are a decent starting point to get a trade done, and the Bulls have #16 and #19 in this year's draft, and Chicago has 2015 first rounders from both Sacramento and Cleveland. Gibson, Butler, and four first round picks would normally be enough to get it done but both those 2015 picks have some weird protections on them that actually mean they're either going to be non-lottery picks or no picks at all. Probably the front-runner.
- GOLDEN STATE: The Warriors can offer the best package of players, giving either Harrison Barnes or Klay Thompson as the centerpiece and maybe including either David Lee or Andrew Bogut. They have zero draft picks to trade, however, having given up their 2014 and 2017 already. The Warriors would likely need to get a third team involved, but starting with Barnes or Thompson is a good jumping off point.
- BOSTON: I'm assuming the Wolves have no interest in Rondo, but Boston can still start with Jeff Green and Kelly Olynyk which is a decent enough start. More interestingly, the Celtics have the #5 spot in the lottery in 2014 and the #17 pick as well, along with three 2015 firsts, and two first in each of 2016, 2017, and 2018 (thanks Brooklyn!). I'm not sure if Boston's involved at all, and they're further from contention than anybody else on this list, but the combination of draft picks and the ability to use Rondo to entice a third team to throw some stuff in makes Boston the team I'd most like to see Love traded to (also it's nice to have traditions, and Minnesota stars going to Boston is a tradition as old as time).
- PHOENIX: The Suns have the last spot in the lottery this year and picks 18 and 27 as well, and will get the Wolves pick if it falls to #14. They also have the Lakers' 2015 first rounder. Assuming they won't give up Erik Bledsoe there isn't much here player wise, but I can already see the Wolves trying to talk fans into some combination of the two Morris twins and Archie Goodwin.
- KNICKS: They're going to come up because they're New York, but they have no chance of getting a trade done. Their only asset is Tim Hardaway, because they've completely traded away their next three drafts. The Knicks' only hope is that a trade doesn't get done and they can get him as a free agent.
Best case scenario is some of these teams and others get together and somehow the Wolves end up with a huge haul. Something like the Wolves get a bunch of the Celtics picks, and the Celtics ship Rondo to the Bulls who then throw an extra pick or Jimmy Butler or somebody the Wolves way. Of course, I've been a Minnesota fan for long enough to expect a terrible trade. They'll probably deal him straight up for Andrew Bogut.
- I suppose I may need to do a Phil Hughes breakdown at some point, given that he's been lights out in his last four games. Seriously, a 1.37 ERA, a WHIP under 1.00, an opponent's slash line of .230/.228/.300, and 20 Ks vs. 0 BBs in 26 innings is really impressive stuff. He'll throw again on Wednesday in San Diego, and if he throws another gem, which seems likely given both the opponent and the park, I'll put up a post looking at his results a little more in depth.
- Remember how I hit the trifecta in the Kentucky Derby and was going Sizzler? Well I hit it for the Preakness too. Same bet, same risk amount. Big difference, however, in payout. The Preakness had 10 horses, while the Derby had 19, so odds were significantly reduced already, and then the Preakness had 3 big favorites hit the first three spots while the Derby at least had one significant longshot sneak in there. So the Derby payout was $1,541. The Preakness payout? $38. No joke. Was quite the letdown, but at least I've hit two now so I'll be playing for my own Triple Crown in a couple weeks.
- Looks like Justin Morneau's skull seems to finally be ok seeing as he's off to a hell of a start. He's hitting .327, which ranks 5th in the NL, with 9 homers (6th) and 32 RBI (4th). Seriously once teammate Troy Tulowitzki finally gets hurt Morneau might be the front runner for MVP. His power is way up, with an ISO near his career high in his MVP year, and although you can at least partially credit Coors for that, Morneau deserves the credit for cutting his K rate nearly in half and getting back down to where it was in his prime years. He's being more aggressive, particularly at balls in the strike zone, and is hammering them pretty good. His HR/FB rate is probably unsustainable so the home runs will probably taper off a bit, but he's in line for a pretty damn good season. Here's a nerdy article talking about how he's one of the top players when it comes to hammering the ball compared to last season.
- Among major league starters the Twins' have three of the highest 15 WHIPS - #1 Kevin Correia at 1.68, #10 Ricky Nolasco at 1.53, and #15 Kyle Gibson at 1.47. That, of course, doesn't include Mike Pelfrey who got shut down with a fake injury with a WHIP of 1.99. I mean that's just like what? Doesn't something need to be done at this point? From the constant injuries that go from day-to-day to season ender without a trip to the DL, to the jettisoning of any talented player if they don't play "the Twins way", to this constant need to go back to the same shitty veterans like Matt Guerrier and Jason Bartlett just because they've been Twins before, to the in season roster mis-management that leads to not having a center fielder but having four shortstops this organization is a complete mess. I need to write a whole post on this before I find myself down the rabbit hole here. To sum up:
- I was going to try to hit on the Gophers recruiting targets for 2015, but holy hell are Richard Pitino and the boys busy. According to 247sports.com they have 26 offers out to 2015 unsigned players and I just really don't feel like going through all of that right now. There are various levels of interest from the recruits, so I'll just hit a couple of the highlights (all rankings from 247 industry composite number) -
PG Jarvis Johnson (Minneapolis, MN), #81 overall/#18 PG - A De La Salle kid and the first legitimate shot for Pitino to keep the border closed on the players he wants. At all but the top programs keeping the borders closed on your top talent is a good way to build a program, and a guy like Johnson is good enough to boost the Gophers without being so good he's got programs you can't say no to after him - although Michigan State did just get involved so gulp. The Gophers are considered a pretty big favorite over Wisconsin for his services, but the whole Sparty thing throws everything off. Pretty important recruit here.
SG Jimmy Whitt (Columbia, MO), #96 overall/23 SG - This guy is piling up offers left and right, and although Arkansas is considered the favorite I've seen his name pop up around the Gophers a couple of times and there are so many teams involved things are still pretty murky. One wrinkle is it looks like he digs Kansas but they haven't offered yet, so most likely once Kansas misses out on some of their top targets they'll move on to Whitt and he'll sign immediately even though he acted like he liked all these other schools because Kansas is jerks.
SF Danjel Purifoy (Centreville, AL), #43 overall/#10 SF - Worth noting as he's the highest rated player who is given "Warm" interest in the Gophers by 247, along with every SEC school and Maryland, Michigan, and Wichita. Yes, Kentucky has reportedly offered but I'm guessing he's a back burner type for them, just given Calipari's ability to grab top 10-ish recruits at every position every year. Purifoy should get you seriously excited given he's an absolutely insane athlete who can handle the ball. He'd come in and immediately start for the Gophers and he can score, defend, and rebound already. His jumper isn't very good right now but when nobody can stop your drive you can be a bit more patient with that. This guy, we want.
PF Alex Illikainen (Grand Rapids, MN), #65 overall, #17 PF - If you could say the Gophers have one traditional recruiting strength regardless of coach, it's been out state Minnesota kids. I'm trying to remember a non-city kid from the state who the Gophers wanted and didn't get and I can't think of one. The closest I can come is Cody Johnson who ended up at Iowa State but I don't think the Gophers really recruited him. I guess you could count J.P. Macura if you wanted but I meant more country kids, not places like Lakeville, and the whole coaching change thing makes it a crap shoot. In any case, the Gophers should be in decent shape for Illikainen, although the competition isn't from anyone who strikes particular fear into my heart (Cal, Creighton, Iowa State, and Indiana are the other schools who have offered and he's shown interest in). He's a perfect stretch four who can also run the floor well and finish in transition, so he not only is from Minnesota but he'd fit Pitino's system perfectly. He's pretty much a Gopher Hole wet dream, and in this case I can't blame them.
C Akolda Manyang (Duluth, MN), #1 overall JUCO, #1 overall JUCO C - Pulling kids from Junior College is always a crap shoot as their are some incredible success stories and some disasters and everything in between, but he's highly rated, he's seven feet tall, and he's at least got some other high majors after him (Oklahoma, Arizona State). I promise if things heat up I'll try to track down some kind of scouting or more info on him, but for now he's really tall and some people like him.
Honestly if Pitino got an all Minnesota class (with Manyang, Illikainen and Johnson) that would be a pretty good class and make those weirdos who want the team to be like, only Minnesota kids happy too. Two top 100 kids and the top Juco would be a nice step up for the program and a natural build, made all the easier by it being local kids. That being said, Pitino is so aggressive and he has so many offers out to so many top kids I'm hoping that after so many near misses last year he finally lands somebody that is like wow - #22 Allonzo Trier, #39 Eric Davis, #42 Jalen Adams, #21 Brandon Ingram, #6 Chieck Diallo, #27 Moustapha Diagne, and #16 Doral Moore are all in play to various degrees. Hopefully he gets one (or more).
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Thursday Thoughts
- So the "big" news of the day in Gopher land is that the Big 10/ACC Challenge match-ups were announced and the Gophers got screwed. No, it's not Florida State for the 12th time, but they ended up getting slated to go on the road to Wake Forest. Despite finishing 7th in the league, the Gophers get last season's 11th place Demon Deacons who are probably going to be even worse. At the same time, the 6th place Hawkeyes get North Carolina, and Illinois and Indiana, who both finished below the Gophers, get much more favorable match-ups in Miami and Pitt, and last place Purdue got a fun match-up in NC State. This is horseshit.
There are 14 Big Ten teams. There are 15 ACC teams. Should be pretty straight forward, although with the realignment I suppose they had some leeway to play with things, but this is bullshit. No chance in hell Purdue, 12th in the Big Ten, should get NC State, who finished tied for 7th. If things were fair, horrible shit box Virginia Tech sits out (not Notre Dame) and based on records you get:
Virginia vs. Michigan
Louisville vs. Wisconsin
Syracuse vs. Michigan State
Duke vs. Nebraska
UNC vs. Ohio State
Pitt vs. Iowa
Clemson vs. Maryland
NC State vs. Minnesota
FSU vs. Illinois
Miami vs. Indiana
Wake vs. Penn State
Georgia Tech vs. Northwestern
Notre Dame vs. Purdue
BC vs. Rutgers
Way better and much more fair. Fucking NCAA Fascist bastards. Wake sucks, and they might even be worse next year. One of their top bench guys is transferring, and they're losing two starters. It's probably not all bad because their two leading scorers are back and they've got some decent young players, but I'm crabby so I'm bitching because the Gophers clearly got screwed because they're looked at as a bottom tier Big Ten program. Maybe they are but shit, you don't have to out of your way to fucking remind me. I need a drink.
- Going with Knob Creek.
- A little more news that might be of interest to Gopher fans is that Naadir Tharpe is transferring from Kansas. You may remember Tharpe from blogs such as this one because at one point he was ranked #90 overall and the #20 point guard in the country and all things pointed to him being a Gopher. If you don't feel like reading back, Tharpe had a two school list of Minnesota and Rutgers and then Rutgers signed Myles Mack so he canceled his official to Rutgers and the Gophers were in the driver's seat. Then Josiah Turner signed with Arizona (which did not work out well - DUI, kicked off team, transfer, reneg on transfer enter NBA draft, not drafted) which meant Kansas didn't have a point guard in their incoming class so they called Tharpe and about five minutes later, without even a visit, he was a Jayhawk. Once again, I don't need to be reminded constantly how the Gopher program ranks nationally. Thanks again, Tum Tum Nairn (who did almost the same thing).
Now, after 3 so so years in which he's made pretty good progress each year (1ppg/1apg to 6ppg/3apg to 9ppg/5apg) he's out. Kansas is fairly loaded at guard, and Tharpe actually lost his starting spot for a few games, but Tharpe is transferring to be closer to his daughter in Massachusetts (I think) who has been having some health issues. I would assume BC, UMass, and any of those Rhode Island schools are in play, and who knows, maybe UCONN. This is a pretty clear case of somebody who deserves a hardship waiver to be immediately eligible. So he's probably 50/50. The NCAA is neat.
- It's been awfully hard to keep up with the Twins this year considering they never seem to play, when they do it's almost always day games, my vpn trick to make mlb.com think I'm in California so I can watch their games on my computer has stopped working, and the pitching staff is once again horrible. Who could have possibly predicted that trying to upgrade the starters by signing two mediocre or worse starters and resigning a terrible one wouldn't have worked?
The team's starters post an ERA of 6.08, a WHIP of 1.64, a FIP of 4.74, and a xFIP of 4.95, numbers that are second worst, worst, second worst, and worst in the majors and this was coming into the day not even accounting for Pelfrey getting destroyed. Every single one of those numbers is worse than last year. Look at this rotation (ERA/FIP/xFIP/WHIP):
They're clawing around .500 thanks to an offense that has been putting up a shocking amount of runs ranking fifth in the majors, but man does that ever feel like fool's gold. Second in the majors in walks (after finishing 7th last season) should hold up and the team likely will keep putting runners on base, but there feels like to much fluky, timely hitting bringing in all those runs especially since they were a bottom six run scoring team last year. Sam Fuld (who I thought was brought in to be a fifth/sixth outfielder, not an every day starter), Trevor Plouffe, and Chris Colabello are all probably playing way over their heads, and I find it unlikely that Brian Dozier really has the kind of power he's showing so far. Now Joe Mauer and Aaron Hicks should probably be better than they're showing (can you believe Chris Herrmann pinch hit for Hicks today? Talk about a career low point) so it could kind of even out a bit, but if this team's going to do anything it's with pitching. And this pitching sucks. At least
- The Kentucky Derby is this weekend, and I'm always big fan and have given you jerks picks each of the last four years. Four years ago I hit Super Saver and two years ago my wife picked the winner with I'll Have Another, so you know what that means - I'm practically guaranteed to pick the winning horse.
My favorite bet is Intense Holiday at 16/1. He fits the profile of your typical derby winner - solid year at age 2 with improvement at age 3. He's also one of the best closers in the field. If he can stay middle of the pack for most of the race he should be able to make a late charge. Like this horse a lot. Also put down on Danza at 9/1 and Medal Count at 25/1. Danza is coming in hot and is a fast horse, but also has a lot of stamina in his pedigree, could very well be a wire to wire winner. Medal Count is similar to Danza in that he has a lot of stamina, but similar to Intense Holiday in that his best bet is to win with a late charge because he's not as fast as Danza. Long shot to win but I'll take a closer with stamina at 25/1. My kids chose Candy Boy (25/1) because hey, candy, and the wife went with Vicar's in Trouble because "he sounds British." So there you go. I'll probably do some kind of trifecta or exacta or something with my three horses and one of the front runners. Looking to win big this year.
BOATLOADS!
(ended up doing an trifecta box with Danza, Intense Holiday, California Chrome, Commanding Curve, and Wildcat Red)
There are 14 Big Ten teams. There are 15 ACC teams. Should be pretty straight forward, although with the realignment I suppose they had some leeway to play with things, but this is bullshit. No chance in hell Purdue, 12th in the Big Ten, should get NC State, who finished tied for 7th. If things were fair, horrible shit box Virginia Tech sits out (not Notre Dame) and based on records you get:
Virginia vs. Michigan
Louisville vs. Wisconsin
Syracuse vs. Michigan State
Duke vs. Nebraska
UNC vs. Ohio State
Pitt vs. Iowa
Clemson vs. Maryland
NC State vs. Minnesota
FSU vs. Illinois
Miami vs. Indiana
Wake vs. Penn State
Georgia Tech vs. Northwestern
Notre Dame vs. Purdue
BC vs. Rutgers
Way better and much more fair. Fucking NCAA Fascist bastards. Wake sucks, and they might even be worse next year. One of their top bench guys is transferring, and they're losing two starters. It's probably not all bad because their two leading scorers are back and they've got some decent young players, but I'm crabby so I'm bitching because the Gophers clearly got screwed because they're looked at as a bottom tier Big Ten program. Maybe they are but shit, you don't have to out of your way to fucking remind me. I need a drink.
- Going with Knob Creek.
- A little more news that might be of interest to Gopher fans is that Naadir Tharpe is transferring from Kansas. You may remember Tharpe from blogs such as this one because at one point he was ranked #90 overall and the #20 point guard in the country and all things pointed to him being a Gopher. If you don't feel like reading back, Tharpe had a two school list of Minnesota and Rutgers and then Rutgers signed Myles Mack so he canceled his official to Rutgers and the Gophers were in the driver's seat. Then Josiah Turner signed with Arizona (which did not work out well - DUI, kicked off team, transfer, reneg on transfer enter NBA draft, not drafted) which meant Kansas didn't have a point guard in their incoming class so they called Tharpe and about five minutes later, without even a visit, he was a Jayhawk. Once again, I don't need to be reminded constantly how the Gopher program ranks nationally. Thanks again, Tum Tum Nairn (who did almost the same thing).
Now, after 3 so so years in which he's made pretty good progress each year (1ppg/1apg to 6ppg/3apg to 9ppg/5apg) he's out. Kansas is fairly loaded at guard, and Tharpe actually lost his starting spot for a few games, but Tharpe is transferring to be closer to his daughter in Massachusetts (I think) who has been having some health issues. I would assume BC, UMass, and any of those Rhode Island schools are in play, and who knows, maybe UCONN. This is a pretty clear case of somebody who deserves a hardship waiver to be immediately eligible. So he's probably 50/50. The NCAA is neat.
- It's been awfully hard to keep up with the Twins this year considering they never seem to play, when they do it's almost always day games, my vpn trick to make mlb.com think I'm in California so I can watch their games on my computer has stopped working, and the pitching staff is once again horrible. Who could have possibly predicted that trying to upgrade the starters by signing two mediocre or worse starters and resigning a terrible one wouldn't have worked?
The team's starters post an ERA of 6.08, a WHIP of 1.64, a FIP of 4.74, and a xFIP of 4.95, numbers that are second worst, worst, second worst, and worst in the majors and this was coming into the day not even accounting for Pelfrey getting destroyed. Every single one of those numbers is worse than last year. Look at this rotation (ERA/FIP/xFIP/WHIP):
- Ricky Nolasco: 6.67/5.36/4.32/1.75
- Phil Hughes: 5.14/3.42/3.72/1.39
- Kevin Correia: 7.33/4.21/5.24/1.67
- Mike Pelfrey: 7.32/8.22/6.87/1.88
- Kyle Gibson: 4.34/3.55/4.79/1.55
As Ian Malcolm once said, "that is one big pile of shit." Gibson's the only one who has looked halfway decent but his last two outings have been pretty bad and I fear his hot start was mostly fluky. Hughes has been far and away the second best starter on this team so far. Phil Hughes! The good news is most of these guys aren't quite as bad as they've looked since with one exception their FIPs and xFIPS are lower than their ERA, which suggests that either luck or bad defense is making things worse and considering the team's horrendous corner outfielders it could be that, but they aren't suddenly going to get better. The bad news is that Mike Pelfrey might actually be worse than he's looked. Worse!
They're clawing around .500 thanks to an offense that has been putting up a shocking amount of runs ranking fifth in the majors, but man does that ever feel like fool's gold. Second in the majors in walks (after finishing 7th last season) should hold up and the team likely will keep putting runners on base, but there feels like to much fluky, timely hitting bringing in all those runs especially since they were a bottom six run scoring team last year. Sam Fuld (who I thought was brought in to be a fifth/sixth outfielder, not an every day starter), Trevor Plouffe, and Chris Colabello are all probably playing way over their heads, and I find it unlikely that Brian Dozier really has the kind of power he's showing so far. Now Joe Mauer and Aaron Hicks should probably be better than they're showing (can you believe Chris Herrmann pinch hit for Hicks today? Talk about a career low point) so it could kind of even out a bit, but if this team's going to do anything it's with pitching. And this pitching sucks. At least
- The Kentucky Derby is this weekend, and I'm always big fan and have given you jerks picks each of the last four years. Four years ago I hit Super Saver and two years ago my wife picked the winner with I'll Have Another, so you know what that means - I'm practically guaranteed to pick the winning horse.
My favorite bet is Intense Holiday at 16/1. He fits the profile of your typical derby winner - solid year at age 2 with improvement at age 3. He's also one of the best closers in the field. If he can stay middle of the pack for most of the race he should be able to make a late charge. Like this horse a lot. Also put down on Danza at 9/1 and Medal Count at 25/1. Danza is coming in hot and is a fast horse, but also has a lot of stamina in his pedigree, could very well be a wire to wire winner. Medal Count is similar to Danza in that he has a lot of stamina, but similar to Intense Holiday in that his best bet is to win with a late charge because he's not as fast as Danza. Long shot to win but I'll take a closer with stamina at 25/1. My kids chose Candy Boy (25/1) because hey, candy, and the wife went with Vicar's in Trouble because "he sounds British." So there you go. I'll probably do some kind of trifecta or exacta or something with my three horses and one of the front runners. Looking to win big this year.
BOATLOADS!
(ended up doing an trifecta box with Danza, Intense Holiday, California Chrome, Commanding Curve, and Wildcat Red)
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Monday, August 26, 2013
Monday Musings
A lot has happened recently. I am writing about some of it.
- Josh Perkins, #25 player in the class of 2014 and one of the top point guards committed to Gonzaga on Saturday. This is meaningful because his final 3 were Gonzaga, UCLA, and the Gophers, even if the Gophers were a long shot given that he hadn't visited Minnesota in over a year. Although the Gophers still remain in the running for many top 100 type recruits and others and are on a few Top 5 type lists, with each player that commits elsewhere you can feel Gopher fans' collective butthole pucker just a little bit tighter.
See, that's the thing about taking a gamble such as hiring a 31-year-old head coach with only 1 year of head coaching experience at a mid-major, it only ends up being a good gamble if it works out. As much as it has been awesome seeing the Gophers pop up in a bunch of conversations with stud recruits, it's all for naught if the team ends up with nothing but a bunch of plan C fallback types it's going to add a lot of fuel to the fire that this was a bad hire for a Big Ten school, even if I don't believe that to be the case and I'm pretty sure all those people are either really old or really dumb (Dawger hi!) or big fat assholes.
I also don't think losing out on Josh Perkins is any reason to panic either, because the Gophers were pretty unlikely to get him anyway. At this point a class of J.P. Macura, Lourawls Nairn, Wade Baldwin, Isaiah Whitehead or Rashad Vaughn, and Reid Travis, Paul White, or Josh Martin is both realistic and one of the best classes in Gopher history. There are plenty of back-up options still out there that I'd be happy with as well. Really, we're nowhere near time to panic. Although as a lifelong Gopher fan I completely understand the impulse. Really, I do. I'm actually typing this while hiding under my bed.
- Speaking of Nairn, he's going to be on campus this weekend for an official visit, one of only three he's planning on taking (the other two are to Oklahoma and Indiana). He'll be attending the big Gopher/UNLV football game along with two other recruits, 2014's J.P. Macura and 2015's Alex Illikainen so needless to say, it's a pretty big football game for Gopher hoops. Not to mention that with Rashad Vaughn transferring to Findlay Prep in Nevada for his senior year UNLV has wormed their way into his Top 11 so there's a very real possibility that the winner of this game will vault to the lead for Vaughn's services. Is it likely? No. It's a near certainty.
- In other commitment news class of 2014 point guard Emmanuel Mudiay committed to Southern Methodist over the weekend. This is significant for many reasons, but the main one is that the #2 PG and #5 overall player in the class (according to ESPN) will be attending SMU which is not Kansas or Duke or Kentucky. SMU is his home school in Dallas, and no doubt that had a ton to do with it, as did the fact that the coach is Hall of Famer Larry Brown, but this is absolutely huge. Not only is SMU about to have the best player in their history (I assume) but with Mudiay on board this early he can start working on other big-time recruits and sell them on Brown, SMU, and Dallas. Now, no matter how fast the program rises Brown will get bored and bail in no more than 3 years because that's what he always does, but the next few years just got pretty interesting. Tyus could do the same thing for the Gophers, but unfortunately I'm fairly certain that ship has sailed to Duketown.
- I took WonderbabyTM, who is five years old now by the way, to see the movie Turbo over the weekend and I was pleasantly surprised. Any time you can work in House of Pain's Jump Around, We are the Champions, Snoop Dogg, Eye of the Tiger, and an homage to Bad News Bears in Breaking Training you're generally looking at a winner. Even if it was kind of stupid. Because snails can't talk, you see.
- Remember all that excitement about seeing some young Twins' prospects hit the major league level? Ok maybe not excitement but it something more than boredom. Interest, maybe? Anyway, how horribly has that worked out? Aaron Hicks - demoted twice, hitting .176 at Rochester and now on the DL. Kyle Gibson - good debut, horrible since, no command whatsoever, and now back at AAA. Only Oswaldo Arcia could be considered a success among the rookies mainly due to his young age (22) and his bat (6th in the AL among rookies in batting WAR), although his fielding has been such a disaster he's technically actually been worse than replacement level. Chris Parmelee probably proved he's a AAAA guy once and for all, Vance Worley and Scott Diamond were disasters, Liam Hendriks was Liam Hendriks, and Cole De Vries disappeared. You could get a little bit excited about Sam Deduno if you want, but really only because there's nothing else to grab onto here. It's 2am at the bar, nobody better panned out, and suddenly taking Sam Deduno home is starting to look attractive. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Twins are drunk.
- It seems with E.J. Manuel hurt and Kevin Kolb's career possibly over there is the very real possibility that the Buffalo Bills will start undrafted free agent QB Jeff Tuel in Week 1 vs. New England (over Matt Leinart, which is in and of itself hilarious). Tuel went to Washington State where he must not have been too shitty. The real issue is for those in survivor leagues. I have always made it a hard and fast rule to never take a road team in those, but with no real clear cut home team to pick the Patriots on the road against Tuel is really tempting. Sometimes breaking the rules is exciting.
- I just started watching Breaking Bad (I know, I know). It's really freaking good. Turns out sometimes the masses are actually correct. I'm only 4 episodes in, but it's good to see Walt see the error of his ways and give up the drug trade. I'm interested to see where the show goes from here with the drug angle eliminated. Must be something pretty awesome, considering how much everybody loves the show.
- Yesterday was my 13th Anniversary with Mrs. W (yes, we got married pretty young). She's still hot, and she's still awesome. Pretty cool.
- I'm weirdly excited about college football, more than I ever have been before despite knowing almost nothing about it, to a shameful level. All I really know is that the games are fun to gamble on, the player props are super fun to gamble on, the games are fun to watch before college basketball starts, and I'm rooting my ass off for Florida this year. Why Florida you ask? Good question.
Last year, probably February sometime, I was perusing one of the gambling sites I used and saw Florida at 20/1 to win the National Championship. This was when the Gators were rolling and ranked in the top 5 and I was like whoa, 20/1 those are great odds! Let me throw $50 down on that and we're goin' Sizzla! A week or so later I go to look at what all bets I have pending and I notice that I accidentally bet on the Gators to win the FOOTBALL National Championship. I don't even know if they're good, but they're in the SEC so as long as they can lose only once or less they should be in ok shape. Also yes I was drinking that night.
- Finally, this:
Also, this Skylar broad is kind of a buzzkill.
- Josh Perkins, #25 player in the class of 2014 and one of the top point guards committed to Gonzaga on Saturday. This is meaningful because his final 3 were Gonzaga, UCLA, and the Gophers, even if the Gophers were a long shot given that he hadn't visited Minnesota in over a year. Although the Gophers still remain in the running for many top 100 type recruits and others and are on a few Top 5 type lists, with each player that commits elsewhere you can feel Gopher fans' collective butthole pucker just a little bit tighter.
See, that's the thing about taking a gamble such as hiring a 31-year-old head coach with only 1 year of head coaching experience at a mid-major, it only ends up being a good gamble if it works out. As much as it has been awesome seeing the Gophers pop up in a bunch of conversations with stud recruits, it's all for naught if the team ends up with nothing but a bunch of plan C fallback types it's going to add a lot of fuel to the fire that this was a bad hire for a Big Ten school, even if I don't believe that to be the case and I'm pretty sure all those people are either really old or really dumb (Dawger hi!) or big fat assholes.
I also don't think losing out on Josh Perkins is any reason to panic either, because the Gophers were pretty unlikely to get him anyway. At this point a class of J.P. Macura, Lourawls Nairn, Wade Baldwin, Isaiah Whitehead or Rashad Vaughn, and Reid Travis, Paul White, or Josh Martin is both realistic and one of the best classes in Gopher history. There are plenty of back-up options still out there that I'd be happy with as well. Really, we're nowhere near time to panic. Although as a lifelong Gopher fan I completely understand the impulse. Really, I do. I'm actually typing this while hiding under my bed.
- Speaking of Nairn, he's going to be on campus this weekend for an official visit, one of only three he's planning on taking (the other two are to Oklahoma and Indiana). He'll be attending the big Gopher/UNLV football game along with two other recruits, 2014's J.P. Macura and 2015's Alex Illikainen so needless to say, it's a pretty big football game for Gopher hoops. Not to mention that with Rashad Vaughn transferring to Findlay Prep in Nevada for his senior year UNLV has wormed their way into his Top 11 so there's a very real possibility that the winner of this game will vault to the lead for Vaughn's services. Is it likely? No. It's a near certainty.
- In other commitment news class of 2014 point guard Emmanuel Mudiay committed to Southern Methodist over the weekend. This is significant for many reasons, but the main one is that the #2 PG and #5 overall player in the class (according to ESPN) will be attending SMU which is not Kansas or Duke or Kentucky. SMU is his home school in Dallas, and no doubt that had a ton to do with it, as did the fact that the coach is Hall of Famer Larry Brown, but this is absolutely huge. Not only is SMU about to have the best player in their history (I assume) but with Mudiay on board this early he can start working on other big-time recruits and sell them on Brown, SMU, and Dallas. Now, no matter how fast the program rises Brown will get bored and bail in no more than 3 years because that's what he always does, but the next few years just got pretty interesting. Tyus could do the same thing for the Gophers, but unfortunately I'm fairly certain that ship has sailed to Duketown.
- I took WonderbabyTM, who is five years old now by the way, to see the movie Turbo over the weekend and I was pleasantly surprised. Any time you can work in House of Pain's Jump Around, We are the Champions, Snoop Dogg, Eye of the Tiger, and an homage to Bad News Bears in Breaking Training you're generally looking at a winner. Even if it was kind of stupid. Because snails can't talk, you see.
- Remember all that excitement about seeing some young Twins' prospects hit the major league level? Ok maybe not excitement but it something more than boredom. Interest, maybe? Anyway, how horribly has that worked out? Aaron Hicks - demoted twice, hitting .176 at Rochester and now on the DL. Kyle Gibson - good debut, horrible since, no command whatsoever, and now back at AAA. Only Oswaldo Arcia could be considered a success among the rookies mainly due to his young age (22) and his bat (6th in the AL among rookies in batting WAR), although his fielding has been such a disaster he's technically actually been worse than replacement level. Chris Parmelee probably proved he's a AAAA guy once and for all, Vance Worley and Scott Diamond were disasters, Liam Hendriks was Liam Hendriks, and Cole De Vries disappeared. You could get a little bit excited about Sam Deduno if you want, but really only because there's nothing else to grab onto here. It's 2am at the bar, nobody better panned out, and suddenly taking Sam Deduno home is starting to look attractive. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Twins are drunk.
- It seems with E.J. Manuel hurt and Kevin Kolb's career possibly over there is the very real possibility that the Buffalo Bills will start undrafted free agent QB Jeff Tuel in Week 1 vs. New England (over Matt Leinart, which is in and of itself hilarious). Tuel went to Washington State where he must not have been too shitty. The real issue is for those in survivor leagues. I have always made it a hard and fast rule to never take a road team in those, but with no real clear cut home team to pick the Patriots on the road against Tuel is really tempting. Sometimes breaking the rules is exciting.
- I just started watching Breaking Bad (I know, I know). It's really freaking good. Turns out sometimes the masses are actually correct. I'm only 4 episodes in, but it's good to see Walt see the error of his ways and give up the drug trade. I'm interested to see where the show goes from here with the drug angle eliminated. Must be something pretty awesome, considering how much everybody loves the show.
- Yesterday was my 13th Anniversary with Mrs. W (yes, we got married pretty young). She's still hot, and she's still awesome. Pretty cool.
- I'm weirdly excited about college football, more than I ever have been before despite knowing almost nothing about it, to a shameful level. All I really know is that the games are fun to gamble on, the player props are super fun to gamble on, the games are fun to watch before college basketball starts, and I'm rooting my ass off for Florida this year. Why Florida you ask? Good question.
Last year, probably February sometime, I was perusing one of the gambling sites I used and saw Florida at 20/1 to win the National Championship. This was when the Gators were rolling and ranked in the top 5 and I was like whoa, 20/1 those are great odds! Let me throw $50 down on that and we're goin' Sizzla! A week or so later I go to look at what all bets I have pending and I notice that I accidentally bet on the Gators to win the FOOTBALL National Championship. I don't even know if they're good, but they're in the SEC so as long as they can lose only once or less they should be in ok shape. Also yes I was drinking that night.
- Finally, this:
Also, this Skylar broad is kind of a buzzkill.
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Is Brian Dozier like, good?
Back on June 19 I wrote about some of the Twins' and how they'd looked so far this season and said I had pretty much given up on Brian Dozier being a future building block for the Twins. Lately, it seems like Dozier has been in the news almost constantly and pretty much always positively, always seeming to be getting big hits. It made me wonder if I was wrong, and maybe Dozier was starting to figure some things out at the plate. So I checked it out:
Pre All-Star Break: .235/.310/.386
Post All-Star Break: .226/.273/.403
So yeah. I'm still right and this guy still sucks. He's just been "clutch" in the past week or so and it's making everybody fall in love with his scruffy beard scruff. Turns out his future is maybe as a utility guy in the mold of Denny Hocking or Jeff Reboulet with less plate discipline and more power. And he's hitting lead off this year. Obviously everything is going according to plan.
Pre All-Star Break: .235/.310/.386
Post All-Star Break: .226/.273/.403
So yeah. I'm still right and this guy still sucks. He's just been "clutch" in the past week or so and it's making everybody fall in love with his scruffy beard scruff. Turns out his future is maybe as a utility guy in the mold of Denny Hocking or Jeff Reboulet with less plate discipline and more power. And he's hitting lead off this year. Obviously everything is going according to plan.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Can we Answer any Twins' Questions yet?
Before the baseball season started this year I said the Twins' weren't going to be very good. Bold prediction, I know, but I also said that would be ok because it would give us a chance to answer some questions about some of the Twins' "fringey" guys and figure out who would be a future building block for the team and who wouldn't - or at least shouldn't. I think we are far enough into the season at this point to at least start looking at the answer to that question on some of these dudes.
Chris Parmelee - Parmelee has always hit well in the minors, including crushing AAA pitching last year to the tune of .338/.457/.645 with 17 homers in 64 games and as he's just 25 years old there's still hope, but it is fading and fading quickly. He's hitting just .223/.302/.346 so far this year, and believe it or not that's only a slight regression from where he was in last season's late audition when he was terrible.
To put it in perspective, that OPS he's sporting is about what you'd expect from a typical Alexi Casilla season, and considering Parmelee is a poor fielder and not a good baserunner he's clearly been one of the least valuable players on the team this year (and his -0.4 WAR backs me up). Since his only possible positions are ones of premium offensive importance (1B/RF) and he offers little besides his bat, things don't look good. He's not showing the power he displayed at AAA and complimenting that by walking less and striking out more. Other than all that things are going great.
Brian Dozier - Might as well follow up one big disappointment with another, because Dozier flat stinks, hitting just .230/.284/.340 and basically performing like a slightly non-broke man's Drew Butera without the premium defense and a tough position. Actually although he's a pretty horrendous shortstop he's been decent second basemen, but decent fielding can't offset that piss poor hitting or whatever it is he's doing up there.
The saddest part of all of this is that thanks to his solid fielding and good base-running (fangraphs has him as the #2 base-runner on the team which includes things like going from 1st to 3rd on a single and what-not) Dozier actually ranks as the 4th best Twin position player this year by WAR (behind Mauer, Florimon - more on him later, and Morneau). That's not a positive regarding Dozier, more of an indictment of how awful the Twins have been seeing as how he ranks 62nd out of the 86 players in the majors who qualify for the batting title in WAR. I've pretty much given up on this guy.
Trevor Plouffe - Plouffe hasn't been able to follow up on his torrid streak last year where he hit 13 homers in 22 games, making Danny Valencia expendable (well, more expendable) and finishing with 24 homers on the year (the most for a Twin 3B since Corey Koskie's 25 in 2004) but he does seem to be settling in to the kind of player we could expect year after year. It's pretty good, and would be very good if he was a better fielder.
Plouffe's value almost solely comes from his bat, and his year he's hitting .264/.344/.457 and should end up in the vicinity of 20 homers again assuming no more injuries. Plouffe's OPS of .801 ranks 6th in the AL among third basemen, which is great but is offset by his fielding. Plouffe's cut down on his errors, which is encouraging, but his range is the fourth worst in the AL among 3Bs (as imprecise as this is). I don't know if you can teach range, so at this point he probably is what he is: a guy with stone feet who will hit around .260 each year with about 20 dingers and walk a little. Good enough for you? Good enough for me, provided he continues to clean up his fielding.
Pedro Florimon - He isn't a guy who I even dreamed about thinking about the possibility of him being in the Twins' future when contention time rolls around again (please roll around again) but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Granted he's a pretty terrible hitter (slightly better than Dozier this year, though) but his fielding and base running (7 steals in 7 attempts helps here quite a bit) have turned him into the second most valuable Twin so far this year with a 1.4 WAR. Yes, once again this mostly just means the Twins are really horrible, but comparing him league wide yields some eye opening results.
Among all shortstops in the major leagues, Florimon ranks 1st in range, and ranks 3rd in overall fielding value since he makes too many errors right now. Add in some excellent base running (tops on the team, fourth among all big league shortstops, and despite floundering around at the plate Florimon is the 8th most valuable shortstop in the majors, all things considered. It seems a bit bizarre I'll grant you, and fielding and base running metrics aren't an exact science, but he does pass the eye test there as well so it's close enough for me. He has increased his power and his walk rate this year compared to last, and although at 27 we're probably past time for a big breakout if it was coming (and his minor league numbers suggest that it certainly wasn't) Florimon should end up sticking around for a while as either your slick fielding number 9 hitter or defensive whiz substitution guy, both of which are far from where I had originally though he'd be which is the California Penal League where they don't wear caps or sleeves.
Glen Perkins - I was of the opinion that Perkins was a half-way decent set-up guy of the dime a dozen type who would probably manage to get a few saves and hopefully the Twins would trade him because saves are so overvalued. I still think they should probably trade him, but now, with him proving to be nearly unhittable (WHIP 0.82/OAV .165 - both 4th best in the AL) and striking out 12.62 per 9 innings (7th best), and being under team control until 2016 if they decide to roll with him as their future closer, I can deal.
That being said, they would be foolish not to at least listen to offers come trade deadline time. Perkins has been great, but closers are notoriously volatile and the Twins likely won't really even need a closer until 2015 at the earliest, so a contender with closer issues like Detroit (yes, even though GASP they're in the same division) or Arizona or Boston or somebody might be willing to drastically overpay from a prospect perspective. If somebody is willing to give you a legit prospect or even a young established player at a greater position of need (would Detroit give up Rick Porcello, for example?) wouldn't you have to do it? I guess this all depends on how you value closers. If you're like me and think most closers are interchangeable with their set-up men then yes. If you're wrong, then no.
That's about it outside of the starting staff (who I will look at in an upcoming post because geez what a mess that is). I could go through a couple of other guys with questions like "Can Eduardo Escobar help justify the Francisco Liriano trade by becoming the next Denny Hocking/Jeff Reboulet type?" (No, notwhite gritty enough) or "Can Wilkin Ramirez stick around?" (Honestly I don't even know if he's still on the team) but that doesn't really seem like something I'm going to do.
Chris Parmelee - Parmelee has always hit well in the minors, including crushing AAA pitching last year to the tune of .338/.457/.645 with 17 homers in 64 games and as he's just 25 years old there's still hope, but it is fading and fading quickly. He's hitting just .223/.302/.346 so far this year, and believe it or not that's only a slight regression from where he was in last season's late audition when he was terrible.
To put it in perspective, that OPS he's sporting is about what you'd expect from a typical Alexi Casilla season, and considering Parmelee is a poor fielder and not a good baserunner he's clearly been one of the least valuable players on the team this year (and his -0.4 WAR backs me up). Since his only possible positions are ones of premium offensive importance (1B/RF) and he offers little besides his bat, things don't look good. He's not showing the power he displayed at AAA and complimenting that by walking less and striking out more. Other than all that things are going great.
Brian Dozier - Might as well follow up one big disappointment with another, because Dozier flat stinks, hitting just .230/.284/.340 and basically performing like a slightly non-broke man's Drew Butera without the premium defense and a tough position. Actually although he's a pretty horrendous shortstop he's been decent second basemen, but decent fielding can't offset that piss poor hitting or whatever it is he's doing up there.
The saddest part of all of this is that thanks to his solid fielding and good base-running (fangraphs has him as the #2 base-runner on the team which includes things like going from 1st to 3rd on a single and what-not) Dozier actually ranks as the 4th best Twin position player this year by WAR (behind Mauer, Florimon - more on him later, and Morneau). That's not a positive regarding Dozier, more of an indictment of how awful the Twins have been seeing as how he ranks 62nd out of the 86 players in the majors who qualify for the batting title in WAR. I've pretty much given up on this guy.
Trevor Plouffe - Plouffe hasn't been able to follow up on his torrid streak last year where he hit 13 homers in 22 games, making Danny Valencia expendable (well, more expendable) and finishing with 24 homers on the year (the most for a Twin 3B since Corey Koskie's 25 in 2004) but he does seem to be settling in to the kind of player we could expect year after year. It's pretty good, and would be very good if he was a better fielder.
Plouffe's value almost solely comes from his bat, and his year he's hitting .264/.344/.457 and should end up in the vicinity of 20 homers again assuming no more injuries. Plouffe's OPS of .801 ranks 6th in the AL among third basemen, which is great but is offset by his fielding. Plouffe's cut down on his errors, which is encouraging, but his range is the fourth worst in the AL among 3Bs (as imprecise as this is). I don't know if you can teach range, so at this point he probably is what he is: a guy with stone feet who will hit around .260 each year with about 20 dingers and walk a little. Good enough for you? Good enough for me, provided he continues to clean up his fielding.
Pedro Florimon - He isn't a guy who I even dreamed about thinking about the possibility of him being in the Twins' future when contention time rolls around again (please roll around again) but it's not out of the realm of possibility. Granted he's a pretty terrible hitter (slightly better than Dozier this year, though) but his fielding and base running (7 steals in 7 attempts helps here quite a bit) have turned him into the second most valuable Twin so far this year with a 1.4 WAR. Yes, once again this mostly just means the Twins are really horrible, but comparing him league wide yields some eye opening results.
Among all shortstops in the major leagues, Florimon ranks 1st in range, and ranks 3rd in overall fielding value since he makes too many errors right now. Add in some excellent base running (tops on the team, fourth among all big league shortstops, and despite floundering around at the plate Florimon is the 8th most valuable shortstop in the majors, all things considered. It seems a bit bizarre I'll grant you, and fielding and base running metrics aren't an exact science, but he does pass the eye test there as well so it's close enough for me. He has increased his power and his walk rate this year compared to last, and although at 27 we're probably past time for a big breakout if it was coming (and his minor league numbers suggest that it certainly wasn't) Florimon should end up sticking around for a while as either your slick fielding number 9 hitter or defensive whiz substitution guy, both of which are far from where I had originally though he'd be which is the California Penal League where they don't wear caps or sleeves.
Glen Perkins - I was of the opinion that Perkins was a half-way decent set-up guy of the dime a dozen type who would probably manage to get a few saves and hopefully the Twins would trade him because saves are so overvalued. I still think they should probably trade him, but now, with him proving to be nearly unhittable (WHIP 0.82/OAV .165 - both 4th best in the AL) and striking out 12.62 per 9 innings (7th best), and being under team control until 2016 if they decide to roll with him as their future closer, I can deal.
That being said, they would be foolish not to at least listen to offers come trade deadline time. Perkins has been great, but closers are notoriously volatile and the Twins likely won't really even need a closer until 2015 at the earliest, so a contender with closer issues like Detroit (yes, even though GASP they're in the same division) or Arizona or Boston or somebody might be willing to drastically overpay from a prospect perspective. If somebody is willing to give you a legit prospect or even a young established player at a greater position of need (would Detroit give up Rick Porcello, for example?) wouldn't you have to do it? I guess this all depends on how you value closers. If you're like me and think most closers are interchangeable with their set-up men then yes. If you're wrong, then no.
That's about it outside of the starting staff (who I will look at in an upcoming post because geez what a mess that is). I could go through a couple of other guys with questions like "Can Eduardo Escobar help justify the Francisco Liriano trade by becoming the next Denny Hocking/Jeff Reboulet type?" (No, not
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Gophers' Kick-Off The Season
I was considering making this a live blog of the Gopher/UNLV tilt, but there area few issues with that:
1. I don't care enough about the Gopher football team to write about it exclusively, even in one post. Honestly off the top of my head right now I can name exactly one player, MarQueis Gray, and that's probably only because his name is so sweet. It's not that I never watch the team. I probably go to 2-3 games a year at TCF Bank and watch a handful more on the tv. It's not appointment viewing like the hoops team, but if I'm home and they're playing I'm watching. The problem is that every time I watch a game I immediately forget every player whose name I learned. Plus the Gophers are always so shitty that nobody is ever good enough to notice until they get to their senior year, and then they're gone. So it's really not my fault.
2. The game starts way to late for an old man who doesn't care. I don't want to start a live blog and then end up bailing at halftime because Ipassed out fell asleep.
Instead, I will watch the game and may write a thing or maybe two things or maybe more. I don't know. What am I, Kreskin?
Naturally, to make the game interesting I am involved in some wagering. I have the Gophers -2.5 as the third leg of a three-team, six-point teaser with Vandy already having hit (need BYU to win by 5.5 or more as well to win this), OVER 52 total points, OVER 25.5 total points first half, Gray OVER 11 completions, and whoever UNLV's boner running back is over 69.5 rush yds. Should be a hoot. As Jack Napier once asked, "You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
- Great, it's 10:02 and I still haven't found the game because it's on some weird channel. I assumed I'd be able to handle this.
- BOOM! I'm there and I didn't miss a minute of action. Although I'm guessing that's not necessarily a positive thing.
- Troy Stoudermire is still on this team? This has gotta be like, year 7. He's stuck around college longer than older brothers Damon and Salim combined at this point.
- UNLV just picked off Gray in the redzone on a batted ball that was only batted because Gray threw the ball so directly to a linebacker on the Rebels that he was too stunned to actually catch it. And this on the same drive where Gray missed a wide open guy for a TD a few plays after missing a wide open guy for a first down. Gonna be a long year.
- Seriously remember how like, when Glen Mason was here he'd get your hopes built up that maybe this Gopher team was different before ripping your heart out midseason in some gruesome, Mola Ram style? It's nice to not have to deal with that anymore.
- Good thing the Rebels are terrible. Field Goal.
- Official Gopher basketball schedule was released today and there's really no way to sugarcoat this - it's freaking awful. Gopher Nation spent more time on it here than I'm going to, but basically even though the overall non-conference schedule is good (Duke and likely two other quality teams in the Battle for Atlantis and a trip to Florida State) but the home slate is awful. Check it:
- Wow this is absolutely terrible. The Gophers have punted like twice or something and UNLV can't really do anything. Pretty sure the Vikings are going to win more games.
- Jesus this is just like watching a Twins/Royals game.
- Gray with three completions in the first quarter, which is technically on pace to cover my "OVER 11 Completions" bet. Not on pace? The over 25.5 first half and over 52 game. It's 3-0. And I think it's actually been worse than that so far. No chance I'm getting to a second half.
- Is there anything better than a d-back picking up a clearly incomplete pass and starting to run it back as if it was a fumble? No. There's not.
- If Gray and this UNLV QB guy had a contest where the balls were actually rigged so if they hit a live person they'd explode and you had to stand there and let them throw at you from 10 yards away you'd die of old age. Or boredom.
- Do you want to know what sucks about the Twins' training staff's complete inability to diagnosis, recognize, or treat any kind of injury? Besides of course making it take longer from injury date to return date on guys like Kyle Gibson? If Matt Capps and/or Carl Pavano were healthy these last 9 months or whatever and actually pitching the Twins could get value out of them. If they held on to them all year and they were at least not totally putrid they could do that thing where you offer arbitration, then when they signed multi-year deals elsewhere the Twins would get draft picks or, to be safer because god knows you don't want Capps to sign anything to stay on your team, just trade them. Assuming Pavano was doing his usual 200 innings, 4.50 ERA thing you know somebody'd give up something for him. And Capps? Even though he sucks he could be great Dodger bait right now.
The Dodgers' closer, Kenley Jansen, was just shut down indefinitely because of a heart condition. This is a team so desperate to win and win now they took on a shitload of possibly dead money just to acquire a slugging first baseman (and a disgruntled pitcher) and gave up a couple quality pitching prospects for the privilege. You're telling me at this point they're not panicking? That they wouldn't overpay to get a "known closer" with 150 career saves (which he'd have if he pitched all year) and who had 42 just two seasons ago? I mean, yeah he sucks, but teams are idiots about the save statistic, and team's who are panicking are even dumber. Then add in their desperation to win and keep relevant compared to the Angels, the billions they falling out of their asses, and "shiny new toy" syndrome the new owners are falling prey too and you know the Twins could fleece them. Well, I should say a normal team could fleece them, the Twins would probably end up trading Kyle Gibson along with Capps to get a slap hitting middle infielder. Because lord knows they don't have enough of those.
- Gopher TD!!! I have no idea what happened.
- These pictures of Vegas make me want to go gamble and play craps at the Tropicana. Seriously, Tropicana is the second best craps run of my life. First would be the San Remo, which is now Hooters, which is probably the most depressing thing ever. That place blows now.
- I know you can win in college ball with a QB who doesn't throw very well but who can run like a mo-fo, I know this. But I really don't like it. I want a QB who can sling that pill like Mox. Is that so much to ask?
- Gophers miss a 10 yard field goal with a minute to play in the half. I'm going to bed. All my bets suck. The Gophers suck again. This is all highly annoying.
- And for the record no, I have not danced with the devil in the pale moonlight, but it sounds sexy.
1. I don't care enough about the Gopher football team to write about it exclusively, even in one post. Honestly off the top of my head right now I can name exactly one player, MarQueis Gray, and that's probably only because his name is so sweet. It's not that I never watch the team. I probably go to 2-3 games a year at TCF Bank and watch a handful more on the tv. It's not appointment viewing like the hoops team, but if I'm home and they're playing I'm watching. The problem is that every time I watch a game I immediately forget every player whose name I learned. Plus the Gophers are always so shitty that nobody is ever good enough to notice until they get to their senior year, and then they're gone. So it's really not my fault.
2. The game starts way to late for an old man who doesn't care. I don't want to start a live blog and then end up bailing at halftime because I
Instead, I will watch the game and may write a thing or maybe two things or maybe more. I don't know. What am I, Kreskin?
Naturally, to make the game interesting I am involved in some wagering. I have the Gophers -2.5 as the third leg of a three-team, six-point teaser with Vandy already having hit (need BYU to win by 5.5 or more as well to win this), OVER 52 total points, OVER 25.5 total points first half, Gray OVER 11 completions, and whoever UNLV's boner running back is over 69.5 rush yds. Should be a hoot. As Jack Napier once asked, "You ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?"
- Great, it's 10:02 and I still haven't found the game because it's on some weird channel. I assumed I'd be able to handle this.
- BOOM! I'm there and I didn't miss a minute of action. Although I'm guessing that's not necessarily a positive thing.
- Troy Stoudermire is still on this team? This has gotta be like, year 7. He's stuck around college longer than older brothers Damon and Salim combined at this point.
- UNLV just picked off Gray in the redzone on a batted ball that was only batted because Gray threw the ball so directly to a linebacker on the Rebels that he was too stunned to actually catch it. And this on the same drive where Gray missed a wide open guy for a TD a few plays after missing a wide open guy for a first down. Gonna be a long year.
- Seriously remember how like, when Glen Mason was here he'd get your hopes built up that maybe this Gopher team was different before ripping your heart out midseason in some gruesome, Mola Ram style? It's nice to not have to deal with that anymore.
- Good thing the Rebels are terrible. Field Goal.
- Official Gopher basketball schedule was released today and there's really no way to sugarcoat this - it's freaking awful. Gopher Nation spent more time on it here than I'm going to, but basically even though the overall non-conference schedule is good (Duke and likely two other quality teams in the Battle for Atlantis and a trip to Florida State) but the home slate is awful. Check it:
- American - a powerhouse in the Patriot, but likely staring at a down year. Terrible.
- Toledo - terrible
- Tennessee State - a top tier team from a bottom tier conference. Not an NCAA Team, but sadly probably the second best home opponent.
- Richmond - a mid tier team from a mid tier conference. And that's strong praise for this slate.
- North Florida - terrible
- South Dakota State - best home NC opponent by a significant margin, yet still the kind of team that has to win their conference tournament to make the NCAA tourny
- North Dakota State - terrible
- Lafayette - terrible
- Wow this is absolutely terrible. The Gophers have punted like twice or something and UNLV can't really do anything. Pretty sure the Vikings are going to win more games.
- Jesus this is just like watching a Twins/Royals game.
- Gray with three completions in the first quarter, which is technically on pace to cover my "OVER 11 Completions" bet. Not on pace? The over 25.5 first half and over 52 game. It's 3-0. And I think it's actually been worse than that so far. No chance I'm getting to a second half.
- Is there anything better than a d-back picking up a clearly incomplete pass and starting to run it back as if it was a fumble? No. There's not.
- If Gray and this UNLV QB guy had a contest where the balls were actually rigged so if they hit a live person they'd explode and you had to stand there and let them throw at you from 10 yards away you'd die of old age. Or boredom.
- Do you want to know what sucks about the Twins' training staff's complete inability to diagnosis, recognize, or treat any kind of injury? Besides of course making it take longer from injury date to return date on guys like Kyle Gibson? If Matt Capps and/or Carl Pavano were healthy these last 9 months or whatever and actually pitching the Twins could get value out of them. If they held on to them all year and they were at least not totally putrid they could do that thing where you offer arbitration, then when they signed multi-year deals elsewhere the Twins would get draft picks or, to be safer because god knows you don't want Capps to sign anything to stay on your team, just trade them. Assuming Pavano was doing his usual 200 innings, 4.50 ERA thing you know somebody'd give up something for him. And Capps? Even though he sucks he could be great Dodger bait right now.
The Dodgers' closer, Kenley Jansen, was just shut down indefinitely because of a heart condition. This is a team so desperate to win and win now they took on a shitload of possibly dead money just to acquire a slugging first baseman (and a disgruntled pitcher) and gave up a couple quality pitching prospects for the privilege. You're telling me at this point they're not panicking? That they wouldn't overpay to get a "known closer" with 150 career saves (which he'd have if he pitched all year) and who had 42 just two seasons ago? I mean, yeah he sucks, but teams are idiots about the save statistic, and team's who are panicking are even dumber. Then add in their desperation to win and keep relevant compared to the Angels, the billions they falling out of their asses, and "shiny new toy" syndrome the new owners are falling prey too and you know the Twins could fleece them. Well, I should say a normal team could fleece them, the Twins would probably end up trading Kyle Gibson along with Capps to get a slap hitting middle infielder. Because lord knows they don't have enough of those.
- Gopher TD!!! I have no idea what happened.
- These pictures of Vegas make me want to go gamble and play craps at the Tropicana. Seriously, Tropicana is the second best craps run of my life. First would be the San Remo, which is now Hooters, which is probably the most depressing thing ever. That place blows now.
- I know you can win in college ball with a QB who doesn't throw very well but who can run like a mo-fo, I know this. But I really don't like it. I want a QB who can sling that pill like Mox. Is that so much to ask?
- Gophers miss a 10 yard field goal with a minute to play in the half. I'm going to bed. All my bets suck. The Gophers suck again. This is all highly annoying.
- And for the record no, I have not danced with the devil in the pale moonlight, but it sounds sexy.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Twins Remain Delusional, Make no Moves at Trade Deadline
Aargh this is frustrating. Once again, the Twins made no moves at the trade deadline (outside of the Liriano deal) despite being irrefutably out of playoff contention and having players other teams covet but who don't or shouldn't figure in the team's future plans - you know, the perfect combination to make a whole bunch of trades (see: Astros, Houston). Last season the team had Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer, and Joe Nathan (among others) who were all going to be free agents and all could have been traded away, yet none were. I was frustrated but understood the thinking at least, given that the Twins would receive a draft pick for each once they signed somewhere else - that isn't the case this year.
There were reports of team's after Denard Span, Justin Morneau, Josh Willingham, Jared Burton, and Glen Perkins, and there was absolutely no reason to hold on to Morneau or Burton (and maybe not Perkins either, depending on your opinion of his future). At this point the Twins need to realize they're at least two more years if not more away from contending and it's time to figure out who is going to be a part of this team when it comes back around, assuming it does, and then trade everybody else. Span is still a pure leadoff hitter, and although he and Revere are somewhat redundant he's also signed to a very team friendly deal through 2015 so there's no reason to trade him unless a deal knocks you on your ass, which apparently the Reds didn't do today - although if you could get Homer Bailey and a couple good prospects I'd have pulled the trigger. Willingham's kind of in the same boat, pretty much the team's only pure power hitter who is also signed to a great contract through 2014, so I get holding on to him too. But the rest?
Morneau has a big contract, owed $14 million next year and a pro-rated $14 for the rest of this year so it might be a litter tougher to get full value back, but it was reported the Dodgers, Giants, and Blue Jays were all after him, but the Twins were asking for too much back, including a major leaguer in return and having the team that received Morneau pick up his entire contract. Well guess what? If you can't get that this year you sure as shit aren't going to get it next year when he's just going to be a two month rental for some team. At least this year whatever team traded for him would get an entire year and change out of the deal. Now? They've basically gambled that he can get himself back to a $14 million a year player, at which point they won't be able to afford to resign him after his contract is up because they're hamstrung by the Mauer deal. Best case scenario at this point is he plays out of his mind, walks, and they get a pick. Well played, Terry Ryan.
And as for Burton and Perkins? They're relievers. Relievers pretty much grow on trees. Reports are the Rangers were going after Burton and that "Perkins was in high demand today." What? For what reason would you possibly hold on to middle relievers when you aren't a contender? Perkins, maybe, if you've decided he's your closer of the future (foolish, but it at least makes some sense) but Burton? The average lifespan of a middle reliever on a team is 1.2 years, a figure I completely made up but it sounds right. From year-to-year they're notoriously unreliable, and the odds Burton is on this team when they're back in contention are basically nil. It just doesn't make a lick of sense.
Who on this team might possibly matter in the future? Mauer, because they're stuck with him. Span, Revere, Willingham, Dozier, Plouffe, and Parmelee? I mean, I like Ryan Doumit quite a bit, but on a team like the Twins he's just a placeholder so if anybody comes sniffing around him (and it sounds like nobody did this year) he's another one who should be traded. Diamond's pretty much the only starter worth penciling in your 2014 rotation, and between their lack of value and youth they'll obviously hold on to guys like DeVries, Deduno, Walters, and Hendriks, but pretty much everybody else needs to go and if they don't trade Carl Pavano at the waiver deadline I'm going to start making Molotov Cocktails.
There's no point to being shitty with old, crappy players who are going to be out of the league by the time you stop sucking. The Astros have it figured out, trading Chris Johnson, Wandy Rodriguez, Brett Myers, Brandon Lyon, J.A. Happ, and Carlos Lee in the last month. Basically everybody they knew wasn't a key building block or had no chance of developing into one. The Pirates used this basic strategy for years, and are now in line to make the playoffs for the first time since Barry Bonds couldn't throw out Sid Bream. Their leadoff hitter for most of this season (Jose Tabata) and one of their starters (Jeff Karstens) were acquired for Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady in 2008, their second guy off the bench and super utility man was acquired from the Cubs for two middle relievers in 2009, two other starters were acquired in the Nate McLouth trade (Charlie Morton) and Octavio Dotel trade (James McDonald), and they got their closer (Joel Hanrahan) for Lastings Milledge when they gave up on him. They've also got great organizational depth thanks to the sheer volume of prospects and minor leaguers they've acquired. Of course, it also helps that they've nailed the draft recently (Pedro Alvarez, Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, Starling Marte) but the point stands.
And of course, what do Dick and Bert open up tonight's broadcast with? How glad they are nobody other than Liriano was traded. Honest to god I think I'd rather have Hawk Harrelson's over-the-top homer shtick than this aw shucks folksy we love these boys bullshit these two keep slingin'. No wonder the Twins' brass can get away with this, the announcers are feeding the fans this crap and they're eating it up based on what I've heard on the radio and read on the internet. It's like some sort of crazy collective delusion where everybody thinks this team is team is thisclose to being a contender again - like a cult like those Waco guys or the Mormons or Dyson Vacuum Cleaner Owners. Guess what, idiots? This is the worst version of the Twins we've seen in our lifetimes. FACT. The 1981 and 1982 editions were a worse combo than 2011 and 2012, but I was too young to care or even realize what was going on, and outside of then this is the worst two year stretch in team history. There is no quick fix. When you need to burn your house down for insurance money and then build a new, better house you don't run around swapping out a few chairs for equally shitty, but different chairs - you burn that mother down with gasoline and a bazooka. Like Beavis would.
There were reports of team's after Denard Span, Justin Morneau, Josh Willingham, Jared Burton, and Glen Perkins, and there was absolutely no reason to hold on to Morneau or Burton (and maybe not Perkins either, depending on your opinion of his future). At this point the Twins need to realize they're at least two more years if not more away from contending and it's time to figure out who is going to be a part of this team when it comes back around, assuming it does, and then trade everybody else. Span is still a pure leadoff hitter, and although he and Revere are somewhat redundant he's also signed to a very team friendly deal through 2015 so there's no reason to trade him unless a deal knocks you on your ass, which apparently the Reds didn't do today - although if you could get Homer Bailey and a couple good prospects I'd have pulled the trigger. Willingham's kind of in the same boat, pretty much the team's only pure power hitter who is also signed to a great contract through 2014, so I get holding on to him too. But the rest?
Morneau has a big contract, owed $14 million next year and a pro-rated $14 for the rest of this year so it might be a litter tougher to get full value back, but it was reported the Dodgers, Giants, and Blue Jays were all after him, but the Twins were asking for too much back, including a major leaguer in return and having the team that received Morneau pick up his entire contract. Well guess what? If you can't get that this year you sure as shit aren't going to get it next year when he's just going to be a two month rental for some team. At least this year whatever team traded for him would get an entire year and change out of the deal. Now? They've basically gambled that he can get himself back to a $14 million a year player, at which point they won't be able to afford to resign him after his contract is up because they're hamstrung by the Mauer deal. Best case scenario at this point is he plays out of his mind, walks, and they get a pick. Well played, Terry Ryan.
And as for Burton and Perkins? They're relievers. Relievers pretty much grow on trees. Reports are the Rangers were going after Burton and that "Perkins was in high demand today." What? For what reason would you possibly hold on to middle relievers when you aren't a contender? Perkins, maybe, if you've decided he's your closer of the future (foolish, but it at least makes some sense) but Burton? The average lifespan of a middle reliever on a team is 1.2 years, a figure I completely made up but it sounds right. From year-to-year they're notoriously unreliable, and the odds Burton is on this team when they're back in contention are basically nil. It just doesn't make a lick of sense.
Who on this team might possibly matter in the future? Mauer, because they're stuck with him. Span, Revere, Willingham, Dozier, Plouffe, and Parmelee? I mean, I like Ryan Doumit quite a bit, but on a team like the Twins he's just a placeholder so if anybody comes sniffing around him (and it sounds like nobody did this year) he's another one who should be traded. Diamond's pretty much the only starter worth penciling in your 2014 rotation, and between their lack of value and youth they'll obviously hold on to guys like DeVries, Deduno, Walters, and Hendriks, but pretty much everybody else needs to go and if they don't trade Carl Pavano at the waiver deadline I'm going to start making Molotov Cocktails.
There's no point to being shitty with old, crappy players who are going to be out of the league by the time you stop sucking. The Astros have it figured out, trading Chris Johnson, Wandy Rodriguez, Brett Myers, Brandon Lyon, J.A. Happ, and Carlos Lee in the last month. Basically everybody they knew wasn't a key building block or had no chance of developing into one. The Pirates used this basic strategy for years, and are now in line to make the playoffs for the first time since Barry Bonds couldn't throw out Sid Bream. Their leadoff hitter for most of this season (Jose Tabata) and one of their starters (Jeff Karstens) were acquired for Damaso Marte and Xavier Nady in 2008, their second guy off the bench and super utility man was acquired from the Cubs for two middle relievers in 2009, two other starters were acquired in the Nate McLouth trade (Charlie Morton) and Octavio Dotel trade (James McDonald), and they got their closer (Joel Hanrahan) for Lastings Milledge when they gave up on him. They've also got great organizational depth thanks to the sheer volume of prospects and minor leaguers they've acquired. Of course, it also helps that they've nailed the draft recently (Pedro Alvarez, Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Gerrit Cole, Jameson Taillon, Starling Marte) but the point stands.
And of course, what do Dick and Bert open up tonight's broadcast with? How glad they are nobody other than Liriano was traded. Honest to god I think I'd rather have Hawk Harrelson's over-the-top homer shtick than this aw shucks folksy we love these boys bullshit these two keep slingin'. No wonder the Twins' brass can get away with this, the announcers are feeding the fans this crap and they're eating it up based on what I've heard on the radio and read on the internet. It's like some sort of crazy collective delusion where everybody thinks this team is team is thisclose to being a contender again - like a cult like those Waco guys or the Mormons or Dyson Vacuum Cleaner Owners. Guess what, idiots? This is the worst version of the Twins we've seen in our lifetimes. FACT. The 1981 and 1982 editions were a worse combo than 2011 and 2012, but I was too young to care or even realize what was going on, and outside of then this is the worst two year stretch in team history. There is no quick fix. When you need to burn your house down for insurance money and then build a new, better house you don't run around swapping out a few chairs for equally shitty, but different chairs - you burn that mother down with gasoline and a bazooka. Like Beavis would.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Monday Musings
- Biggest news of the day is the Big 10/ACC match-ups have been released, and your Gophers will be traveling to Tallahassee to play the Seminoles of FSU. This should be one hell of a good test to see how good the Gophers are next season, because FSU loses only two of their top 6 players from last year's NCAA team, and they always play well at home (where they always seem to beat Duke or UNC every year). Add in a very good recruiting class and their killer defense and this is one of the better teams the Gophers will face in non-conference play in the Tubby Smith-era. If the Gophers can handle FSU's defense, they'll be able to handle any Big 10 team's defense. I'm very much looking forward to this one. With the Gophers in the Battle 4 Atlantis with team's like Duke, Missouri, Memphis, and Louisville they have all the potential in the world to build a really nice resume before we get to conference play. Or crash and burn and make sure we all now we are once again in for another thrilling year of mediocrity. I know which one I'm hoping for - although the mediocrity thing does have a comforting ring of familiarity to it.
The other matchups:
North Carolina @ Indiana - has the ring of a marquee matchup to it, but with Indiana installed as the favorite to win the National Championship by Vegas (it's true) and UNC basically gutted from last year this is going to be a 10+ point spread.
NC State @ Michigan - One of the three top matchups (along with Gophers/FSU and Duke/Ohio State), and a really good test for an NC State team that is suddenly finding itself the ACC favorite (even more so if Amile Jefferson picks them today/tomorrow).
Maryland @ Northwestern - The Terps lost most of their talent from an already poor team, while Northwestern's window has probably closed on that elusive first NCAA bid. Even so, the Wildcats should walk here.
Iowa @ Virginia Tech - Va Tech is going to be super terrible this year, but this is actually a pretty perfect match-up for an Iowa team trying to reach up and grab mediocrity. This game will go along way towards telling us if they're there yet or still a year away.
Nebraska @ Wake Forest - yeah nobody cares
Ohio State @ Duke - This will be billed as the top matchup and not without reason. Having the game at Cameron evens the odds a bit, because OSU would roll if this was played in Columbus - and might anyway
Virginia @ Wisconsin - You ready to hear about what a great match-up this is and then be bored to sleep within the first five minutes? This one might not break 70 total points.
Michigan State @ Miami - Really interesting match-up here. The Spartans are probably better talent-wise but will still be working on playing without Draymond Green, while Miami has a nice core group of Durand Scott, Reggie Johnson, Kenny Kadji, and Shane Larkin back from last year's team that almost made the NCAA Tournament. I think at home the Canes might sneak this one out.
Purdue @ Clemson - I have no idea what to make of Purdue this year since the whole team from two years ago is gone. Clemson's losing it's entire starting back court who just happened to be their top two scorers. Call this a toss up.
Georgia Tech @ Illinois - The Illini were horrid last year and now bring in a new coach. Getting Georgia Tech at home is the kind of major opponent they need - shitty, but still a major conference team.
Boston College @ Penn State - oh my god, gross.
If I had to pick it right now, I'd go Florida State, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Wake, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Miami, Purdue, Illinois, and BC. That's 7-4, Big 10.
- One other college hooops note, I was going to do a little writing on Julius Mays, the guard who graduated from Wright State but still has a year of eligibility so was looking to do that thing where you pick a school you want to go to and then find a grad program they have that your current school doesn't offer so you can just transfer and play right away who was considering both Illinois and Purdue. He would be a pretty important piece considering the lack of guards the Illini and Boilers are both currently sporting due to his 14 points per game and also because Julius Mays is a pretty sweet basketball name. Kentucky, however, was also interested in Mr. Mays and because Kentucky is awesome and the Big 10 sucks, Mays will be a Wildcat next year so I guess there's not much more to say about that, is there? These things will happen when you can't motivate yourself to post more than once a week because the Twins have punched you in the nuts.
- Speaking of the Twins, yuck. The worst part of this is that when your team totally sucks you should at least be able to look forward to watching the future start playing, but who on this team is even the future? Scott Diamond, suddenly, and Brian Dozier? Maybe? There's suddenly no third basemen at all. I mean there's nothing now that Valencia is apparently a total flop and Luke Hughes was traded or released or whatever. We're looking at a solid 3 years or so of crappy old free agents before Miguel Sano is ready, assuming he sticks at third and doesn't get moved to the outfield. Will it be Kevin Kouzmanoff next year? Or Mark Teahen? Maybe Ty Wigginton (that's who I'd put my money on)? You can be sure that no matter what, he's going to be old and suck. But at least Sano is keeping things interesting while we wait. Big thanks for Snacks for emailing me this:
- I didn't really like Bryce Harper from day one since he sounded like kind of a douche, but I've done a 180 on him because apparently the mainstream media (more like Lame stream, amiright?) is way too all over hoping this kid fails and makes a fool of himself. Over the weekend I saw a few different headlines and they were all like "Harper injures self in clubhouse tantrum" or "Harper may miss time after embarrassing spaz out" or something of that variety. So I read them because, at that time, I wasn't a fan and was hoping it would be really bad (with apologies to Bryce's dad, who was maybe the second best Twins' catcher ever), but holy shit are people stupid. After going 0-5 with 3 strikeouts he hit the wall with his bat, which ricocheted and hit him in the head. First of all, who hasn't done something similar like hitting the wall with your bat? Secondly, when do you think the last time this kid went 0-5 with 3 ks was? I'm going to guess never, which will probably torque you off a bit, and hitting something with a bat has got to be nearly as common place as getting crabs from a "fan" when you're a major leaguer (or minors even, from what I hear Brendan Donnelly).
Between this retarded witch hunt and Harper's attitude after getting intentionally beaned by Cole Hamels - all he did was trot to first with no looks, no attitude, no nothing - I'm starting to become a fan. Then you add him to the best pitcher in world history in Stephen Strasburg, one of my personal faves in Gio Gonzalez, the underrated Jordan Zimmerman, a bunch of young players who some of at least have to workout, and yet another future star in minor leaguer Anthony Rendon and I'm suddenly a Nationals fan. May even have to get a hat. But they also have Jayson Werth, so I really can't be that much of a fan. F that guy.
- Apparently Josh Hamilton is over how he killed that guy because in case the Twins have made you turn off baseball for good this year he's destroying everything that gets thrown near him. I find it semi-fascinating because I am fascinated easily but also because he's such a unique player. Without getting bogged down in the nitty gritty stat world, he's aggressive as hell and swings at anything. He swings at the highest percentage of pitches of anyone in the majors, and the rest of the guys on the list are either shitty hackers (Clint Barmes, Delmon Young), strikeout machines without the power (Alfonso Soriano, Chris Davis), or solid, but not power, hitters (Starlin Castro, Brandon Phillips). Adrian Beltre and Miguel Cabrera are #11 and #14 on the list and are near his production levels, but they do it because they make contact a lot with all those swings (85% and 83%) while Hamilton is at just 67%. In fact, that 67% is the fourth worst in the majors behind human fan machines Yeonis Cespedes, Adam Dunn, and Carlos Gonzalez. So he swings at way too many pitches and misses way too many of them, yet he's leading the majors in basically everything.
So how is he doing this? Obviously by crushing the ball when he does make contact, but it's not by hitting line drives where he's around league average, it's that when he gets the ball in the air it's flying over the fence. Nearly half of the flyballs he's hit this year have been home runs, tops in the league (Matt Kemp is the only other player even close to Hamilton), more than double his usual percentage, and a number nobody has approached like, ever (or since 2002 when this data became available). He's also hitting .407 on balls in play, but the numbers say that should be around .330 even on this hot streak. So I got some news for ya - Hamilton is going to go down in a big way, whether it's simple regression, injury, gets a hankerin' to chase the dragon again, or finally gets charged for murdering that guy with a baseball. If you have him in fantasy, trade him. Or just watch him burn.
The other matchups:
North Carolina @ Indiana - has the ring of a marquee matchup to it, but with Indiana installed as the favorite to win the National Championship by Vegas (it's true) and UNC basically gutted from last year this is going to be a 10+ point spread.
NC State @ Michigan - One of the three top matchups (along with Gophers/FSU and Duke/Ohio State), and a really good test for an NC State team that is suddenly finding itself the ACC favorite (even more so if Amile Jefferson picks them today/tomorrow).
Maryland @ Northwestern - The Terps lost most of their talent from an already poor team, while Northwestern's window has probably closed on that elusive first NCAA bid. Even so, the Wildcats should walk here.
Iowa @ Virginia Tech - Va Tech is going to be super terrible this year, but this is actually a pretty perfect match-up for an Iowa team trying to reach up and grab mediocrity. This game will go along way towards telling us if they're there yet or still a year away.
Nebraska @ Wake Forest - yeah nobody cares
Ohio State @ Duke - This will be billed as the top matchup and not without reason. Having the game at Cameron evens the odds a bit, because OSU would roll if this was played in Columbus - and might anyway
Virginia @ Wisconsin - You ready to hear about what a great match-up this is and then be bored to sleep within the first five minutes? This one might not break 70 total points.
Michigan State @ Miami - Really interesting match-up here. The Spartans are probably better talent-wise but will still be working on playing without Draymond Green, while Miami has a nice core group of Durand Scott, Reggie Johnson, Kenny Kadji, and Shane Larkin back from last year's team that almost made the NCAA Tournament. I think at home the Canes might sneak this one out.
Purdue @ Clemson - I have no idea what to make of Purdue this year since the whole team from two years ago is gone. Clemson's losing it's entire starting back court who just happened to be their top two scorers. Call this a toss up.
Georgia Tech @ Illinois - The Illini were horrid last year and now bring in a new coach. Getting Georgia Tech at home is the kind of major opponent they need - shitty, but still a major conference team.
Boston College @ Penn State - oh my god, gross.
If I had to pick it right now, I'd go Florida State, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Wake, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Miami, Purdue, Illinois, and BC. That's 7-4, Big 10.
- One other college hooops note, I was going to do a little writing on Julius Mays, the guard who graduated from Wright State but still has a year of eligibility so was looking to do that thing where you pick a school you want to go to and then find a grad program they have that your current school doesn't offer so you can just transfer and play right away who was considering both Illinois and Purdue. He would be a pretty important piece considering the lack of guards the Illini and Boilers are both currently sporting due to his 14 points per game and also because Julius Mays is a pretty sweet basketball name. Kentucky, however, was also interested in Mr. Mays and because Kentucky is awesome and the Big 10 sucks, Mays will be a Wildcat next year so I guess there's not much more to say about that, is there? These things will happen when you can't motivate yourself to post more than once a week because the Twins have punched you in the nuts.
- Speaking of the Twins, yuck. The worst part of this is that when your team totally sucks you should at least be able to look forward to watching the future start playing, but who on this team is even the future? Scott Diamond, suddenly, and Brian Dozier? Maybe? There's suddenly no third basemen at all. I mean there's nothing now that Valencia is apparently a total flop and Luke Hughes was traded or released or whatever. We're looking at a solid 3 years or so of crappy old free agents before Miguel Sano is ready, assuming he sticks at third and doesn't get moved to the outfield. Will it be Kevin Kouzmanoff next year? Or Mark Teahen? Maybe Ty Wigginton (that's who I'd put my money on)? You can be sure that no matter what, he's going to be old and suck. But at least Sano is keeping things interesting while we wait. Big thanks for Snacks for emailing me this:
Oh hell yes. So anyway I don't really know what to make out of Scott Diamond or Brian Dozier, but at least so far they don't make me want to put myself into a coma until the end of baseball season so they got that going for them. Considering Dozier is hitting just .250 and doesn't walk (with so-so pop) and Diamond has looked good in his two starts but is doing it with a ridiculously low BABIP I'm pretty much clearly grasping at straws, but I think straws is all we got. Like a homeless clown at a chocolate milk collection.Sano stood in the batter’s box awhile to watch his homer against relief pitcher Carmine Giardiana. He trotted the bases, but virtually stopped a few feet before touching the plate, taking off his batting helmet as Kernels catcher Abel Baker barked at him.
Sano glared at the Kernels dugout after finally touching the plate, with Kernels players continuing to give him significant grief. He took a step toward Baker, and the dugouts began to empty, with umpires Fernando Rodriguez and Paul Clemons, as well as both teams’ coaching staffs, doing a good job of squelching what could have been an ugly scene.
- I didn't really like Bryce Harper from day one since he sounded like kind of a douche, but I've done a 180 on him because apparently the mainstream media (more like Lame stream, amiright?) is way too all over hoping this kid fails and makes a fool of himself. Over the weekend I saw a few different headlines and they were all like "Harper injures self in clubhouse tantrum" or "Harper may miss time after embarrassing spaz out" or something of that variety. So I read them because, at that time, I wasn't a fan and was hoping it would be really bad (with apologies to Bryce's dad, who was maybe the second best Twins' catcher ever), but holy shit are people stupid. After going 0-5 with 3 strikeouts he hit the wall with his bat, which ricocheted and hit him in the head. First of all, who hasn't done something similar like hitting the wall with your bat? Secondly, when do you think the last time this kid went 0-5 with 3 ks was? I'm going to guess never, which will probably torque you off a bit, and hitting something with a bat has got to be nearly as common place as getting crabs from a "fan" when you're a major leaguer (or minors even, from what I hear Brendan Donnelly).
Between this retarded witch hunt and Harper's attitude after getting intentionally beaned by Cole Hamels - all he did was trot to first with no looks, no attitude, no nothing - I'm starting to become a fan. Then you add him to the best pitcher in world history in Stephen Strasburg, one of my personal faves in Gio Gonzalez, the underrated Jordan Zimmerman, a bunch of young players who some of at least have to workout, and yet another future star in minor leaguer Anthony Rendon and I'm suddenly a Nationals fan. May even have to get a hat. But they also have Jayson Werth, so I really can't be that much of a fan. F that guy.
- Apparently Josh Hamilton is over how he killed that guy because in case the Twins have made you turn off baseball for good this year he's destroying everything that gets thrown near him. I find it semi-fascinating because I am fascinated easily but also because he's such a unique player. Without getting bogged down in the nitty gritty stat world, he's aggressive as hell and swings at anything. He swings at the highest percentage of pitches of anyone in the majors, and the rest of the guys on the list are either shitty hackers (Clint Barmes, Delmon Young), strikeout machines without the power (Alfonso Soriano, Chris Davis), or solid, but not power, hitters (Starlin Castro, Brandon Phillips). Adrian Beltre and Miguel Cabrera are #11 and #14 on the list and are near his production levels, but they do it because they make contact a lot with all those swings (85% and 83%) while Hamilton is at just 67%. In fact, that 67% is the fourth worst in the majors behind human fan machines Yeonis Cespedes, Adam Dunn, and Carlos Gonzalez. So he swings at way too many pitches and misses way too many of them, yet he's leading the majors in basically everything.
So how is he doing this? Obviously by crushing the ball when he does make contact, but it's not by hitting line drives where he's around league average, it's that when he gets the ball in the air it's flying over the fence. Nearly half of the flyballs he's hit this year have been home runs, tops in the league (Matt Kemp is the only other player even close to Hamilton), more than double his usual percentage, and a number nobody has approached like, ever (or since 2002 when this data became available). He's also hitting .407 on balls in play, but the numbers say that should be around .330 even on this hot streak. So I got some news for ya - Hamilton is going to go down in a big way, whether it's simple regression, injury, gets a hankerin' to chase the dragon again, or finally gets charged for murdering that guy with a baseball. If you have him in fantasy, trade him. Or just watch him burn.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Tuesday Talkers
Well my derby picks didn't exactly work out, but Mrs. W randomly picked the winner, "I'll Have Another", probably because she's a raging alcoholic and that brought in some dough. Which, naturally, she immediately assumes is hers and has already been trying to figure out what to buy with it. Funny how that works. When I win and make a withdrawal, she's buys something. When she wins and I don't make a withdrawal, she's buys something. Frankly as long as she keeps reading that book I don't much care what else she does. In any case, sorry for the shitty derby picks. Here's some other thoughts on what's going on.
- Gopher dream transfer Trent Lockett picked Marquette over the Gophers, and it appears that your favorite team was never really in the mix. Whether it's because Lockett had no interest (understandable), Tubby and no interest (ridiculous), or simply because they didn't have a scholarship (come on), from what I can tell from very limited research he never even considered the U. It's too bad because he would have been the second or third best player on the team depending on where you want to slot Dre Hollins, but if the Gophers were going to lose a player (well kind of) losing one on the wing was the way to go. They should have enough perimeter guys to get them through, but this puts a ton of extra pressure on the Hollins twins. Assuming Mbakwe is healthy (yes a big assumption) it's going to be on those two how good/how far this Gopher team can go. Well, them and Charles Buggs, the next Hakim Warrick/JaJuan Johnson. Give it time. Love has patience.
- Sticking with college basketball, inside sources have confirmed for me that Butler is moving to the Atlantic-10, which is a great move for both parties. Butler gets to step up and challenge itself with programs like Xavier and Temple (assuming they're not moving because frankly I can't keep up with all the moves), while the A-10 grabs another marquee school (I know they weren't last year, but back-to-back Final Fours says a lot). Apparently the A-10 is also looking to grab VCU and George Mason out of the Colonial, and that pretty much has to vault them ahead of the Mountain West for basketball power, doesn't it? Certainly Conference USA if they weren't there already, and possibly even the Pac-10 the way things are going lately. Crazy basketball world. Next thing you know San Diego State will be in the Big East.
- I know, I should talk Twins but they suck worse than Woody Allen movies. I mean, all these people are in the lineup tonight: Komatsu (I literally have no idea who this is, where's Ben Revere?), Brian Dozier, Danny Valencia, Trevor Plouffe, Drew Butera, and Jamey Carroll. How many of those guys are big league hitters? Valencia and Plouffe combined make one? Honestly how many Twins could you even write anything positive about this year? Span (for being a good leadoff guy), Willingham (for not completely tanking after his hot start), and Doumit (for doing exactly what he's supposed to - be average at everything with average defense at 3 positions)? I mean for fuck's sake they were just praising Mauer for hitting a double - a double that was a blooper down the left field line (yes I'm actually watching the game, but just until Mrs. W is out of the shower because she won't watch this garbage and they're way too shitty for me to go all the way downstairs to watch.)
I guess the bullpen has been better than expected because three guys are having good years out of there (Burton, Gray, Burnett), but you Burnett and at least one of those other two is going to go back to sucking, the most important reliever (Capps) might be the worst one in the pen not named Maloney, and pretty much all of this is moot because the Twins have to have the worst rotation in all of baseball. And there's no hope for the future. None. The only possible prayer is the Twins' knock this upcoming draft out of the park with a bunch of college players who are going to be close to ready and can get here before Morneau and Mauer are completely washed up, because you know damn well the Twins are stuck with those two for the rest of their careers because nobody else is going to overpay to that extent. A terrible present and a non-existent future. This is exactly how the Wolves used to feel. I guess the Twins need a Rubio in this draft. What would that be, some kind of pitcher with studly stuff who makes the game fun to watch? Yeah, I'd take that. Thanks for nothing, Kyle Gibson. But apparently this team completely owns Dan Haren, which makes total sense.
- Staying with baseball for a moment, did you see my boyfriend Cole Hamels got suspended for five games for admitting to intentionally hitting Brian Harper's dickhead kid? And here's how it went down - Hamels plunked him in the back, not the head or anywhere, but the back - the most accepted place to hit someone intentionally. Harper went to first without a look, without a glance, without a reaction (which was kind of surprising because unlike his dad I thought he was kind of a dick). Then later Hamels comes up and Jordan Zimmerman hits Cole in the leg, to which he just jogs down to first without a look or reaction. Hard-nosed baseball where all parties understand exactly what's going on. But because Hamels admitted it he gets rung for five games (which for a starting pitcher means 1 game but still). What about Zimmerman, shouldn't he get a game too? It's all so stupid. I'm not a big whiner about the "pussification of America" since I think football and surfing should be outlawed as too dangerous, but this is so stupid. If somebody hits a dude in the head then yeah, hammer him. But this was harmless. Hamels should pitch in a skirt next time. If nothing else it'd be kinda hot.
- Last baseball thing quick. I was following a Mets' game the other night due to a wager I made (3 actually, and I won all 3 so suck it) and these were some Met players: Kirk Nieuwenheis, Andres Torres, Josh Thole, Justin Turner, Ruben Tejada, Mike Baxter, and Mike Nickeas. Those are all batters. I'm in a pretty deep fantasy baseball league and regularly play baseball player prop bets so I know players quite well even in the NL, and I'm only vaguely familiar with a couple of those guys. That team may be more messed up than the Twins, and they have more money (although most of it is wrapped up in Jason Bay lolololol oh wait Twins/Mauer right). Actually bite my tongue because apparently when your recreations all involve following players you sometimes miss shit like the Mets are 17-13. I'm not going to go sever my own limbs with a chainsaw and then drown myself in my own blood.
That was pretty morbid. Go Twins.
- Gopher dream transfer Trent Lockett picked Marquette over the Gophers, and it appears that your favorite team was never really in the mix. Whether it's because Lockett had no interest (understandable), Tubby and no interest (ridiculous), or simply because they didn't have a scholarship (come on), from what I can tell from very limited research he never even considered the U. It's too bad because he would have been the second or third best player on the team depending on where you want to slot Dre Hollins, but if the Gophers were going to lose a player (well kind of) losing one on the wing was the way to go. They should have enough perimeter guys to get them through, but this puts a ton of extra pressure on the Hollins twins. Assuming Mbakwe is healthy (yes a big assumption) it's going to be on those two how good/how far this Gopher team can go. Well, them and Charles Buggs, the next Hakim Warrick/JaJuan Johnson. Give it time. Love has patience.
- Sticking with college basketball, inside sources have confirmed for me that Butler is moving to the Atlantic-10, which is a great move for both parties. Butler gets to step up and challenge itself with programs like Xavier and Temple (assuming they're not moving because frankly I can't keep up with all the moves), while the A-10 grabs another marquee school (I know they weren't last year, but back-to-back Final Fours says a lot). Apparently the A-10 is also looking to grab VCU and George Mason out of the Colonial, and that pretty much has to vault them ahead of the Mountain West for basketball power, doesn't it? Certainly Conference USA if they weren't there already, and possibly even the Pac-10 the way things are going lately. Crazy basketball world. Next thing you know San Diego State will be in the Big East.
- I know, I should talk Twins but they suck worse than Woody Allen movies. I mean, all these people are in the lineup tonight: Komatsu (I literally have no idea who this is, where's Ben Revere?), Brian Dozier, Danny Valencia, Trevor Plouffe, Drew Butera, and Jamey Carroll. How many of those guys are big league hitters? Valencia and Plouffe combined make one? Honestly how many Twins could you even write anything positive about this year? Span (for being a good leadoff guy), Willingham (for not completely tanking after his hot start), and Doumit (for doing exactly what he's supposed to - be average at everything with average defense at 3 positions)? I mean for fuck's sake they were just praising Mauer for hitting a double - a double that was a blooper down the left field line (yes I'm actually watching the game, but just until Mrs. W is out of the shower because she won't watch this garbage and they're way too shitty for me to go all the way downstairs to watch.)
I guess the bullpen has been better than expected because three guys are having good years out of there (Burton, Gray, Burnett), but you Burnett and at least one of those other two is going to go back to sucking, the most important reliever (Capps) might be the worst one in the pen not named Maloney, and pretty much all of this is moot because the Twins have to have the worst rotation in all of baseball. And there's no hope for the future. None. The only possible prayer is the Twins' knock this upcoming draft out of the park with a bunch of college players who are going to be close to ready and can get here before Morneau and Mauer are completely washed up, because you know damn well the Twins are stuck with those two for the rest of their careers because nobody else is going to overpay to that extent. A terrible present and a non-existent future. This is exactly how the Wolves used to feel. I guess the Twins need a Rubio in this draft. What would that be, some kind of pitcher with studly stuff who makes the game fun to watch? Yeah, I'd take that. Thanks for nothing, Kyle Gibson. But apparently this team completely owns Dan Haren, which makes total sense.
- Staying with baseball for a moment, did you see my boyfriend Cole Hamels got suspended for five games for admitting to intentionally hitting Brian Harper's dickhead kid? And here's how it went down - Hamels plunked him in the back, not the head or anywhere, but the back - the most accepted place to hit someone intentionally. Harper went to first without a look, without a glance, without a reaction (which was kind of surprising because unlike his dad I thought he was kind of a dick). Then later Hamels comes up and Jordan Zimmerman hits Cole in the leg, to which he just jogs down to first without a look or reaction. Hard-nosed baseball where all parties understand exactly what's going on. But because Hamels admitted it he gets rung for five games (which for a starting pitcher means 1 game but still). What about Zimmerman, shouldn't he get a game too? It's all so stupid. I'm not a big whiner about the "pussification of America" since I think football and surfing should be outlawed as too dangerous, but this is so stupid. If somebody hits a dude in the head then yeah, hammer him. But this was harmless. Hamels should pitch in a skirt next time. If nothing else it'd be kinda hot.
- Last baseball thing quick. I was following a Mets' game the other night due to a wager I made (3 actually, and I won all 3 so suck it) and these were some Met players: Kirk Nieuwenheis, Andres Torres, Josh Thole, Justin Turner, Ruben Tejada, Mike Baxter, and Mike Nickeas. Those are all batters. I'm in a pretty deep fantasy baseball league and regularly play baseball player prop bets so I know players quite well even in the NL, and I'm only vaguely familiar with a couple of those guys. That team may be more messed up than the Twins, and they have more money (although most of it is wrapped up in Jason Bay lolololol oh wait Twins/Mauer right). Actually bite my tongue because apparently when your recreations all involve following players you sometimes miss shit like the Mets are 17-13. I'm not going to go sever my own limbs with a chainsaw and then drown myself in my own blood.
That was pretty morbid. Go Twins.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
It's Going to be a Long Summer
There's a reason, outside of my debilitating illness, why I haven't been posting as much this baseball season as usual and it's pretty simple - this pitching staff sucks to the point where, even if the offense has a monster game, they still have a pretty damn good shot of losing. It's gotten to the point where when Liam Hendriks didn't allow a run in the first inning tonight it actually sparked a conversation between me and Luxembourg (Luxembourg is my imaginary pet goat who wears a top hat and monocle and is quite fond of British slang." I was all like, "whoa, I can't believe the Twins got out of the first without giving up a run" and Lux was all like, "Well old bean, I'm pretty sure this tosser is a bit of a dab hand at knobbin up the easy-peasy, so I wouldn't exactly be gobsmacked when he cocks up this one." and I was like, "damn straight, goat."
Anyway, my imaginary limey goat is not really the point, the point is how freaking bad this team's pitching staff is. I mean you got a bunch of soft-tossing noodle-arms and and the one guy who can actually bring the good stuff is more terrified of throwing the ball over the plate than that one guy from Teen Wolf who pees himself when he dad wolf gets up in his face. I mean seriously, look at these average fastball speeds: Blackburn - 90.3mph, Marquis - 88.7mph, Hendriks - 90.1mph, Pavano - 86.3mph. What. The. Frunk? Doesn't it almost have to be intentional to assemble this murderer's row of girly throwers?
And no, you don't necessarily have to throw hard to have success and I get that, Jered Weaver and Dan Haren don't throw hard but are a couple of the best in the league, and teams like the Giants and D-Backs have success despite not having many burners on staff, but you still have to people to throw your fastball effectively. According to fangraphs the Twins' fastballs collectively had been 18 runs worse than average this year - second worst in the majors behind Kansas City. And they also rank in the bottom half of the league in every other pitch, including change-up which I thought was like the one thing they were supposed to be able to do. I'm going to go ahead and say that's not good.
And even when the starting pitcher manages not to stick his own dick up his ass there's always the bullpen to put the ball on the Tee. The team has all of three quality starts so far - one by Hendriks and two by Pavano. In those three, the Twins lost after Glen Perkins got more hammered than your mom at a frat party, they lost because they couldn't hit (at all) against Shields, and they actually beat the Yankees. Ok that was less dramatic than I thought but the bullpen still really sucks.
What's really sweet is Fangraphs gives every player a value in WAR (which stands for Wins above Replacement which means how many wins a player is worth over a random AAA player) and if you were to look at the Twins bullpen right now, Brian Duensing and Alex Burnett are the only two who have been better than a AAA dude this year, and we know Burnett sucks in real life and there's zero chance that stays accurate. In fact, on the entire team it's just those two and Pavano and Blackburn who rank above 0 and all four of them just barely make the cut. Honestly what this all means is is you could give me a list of all AAA pitchers in the majors with the best prospects crossed off, and I could spread it out on the floor and let Luxembourg just start pooping, and take the first 12 names he pooped on and make them my pitching staff and they'd probably end up just as good, if not a little better, than the Twins collection of ball hurlers.
Read that shit again. A random collection of AAA pitchers, picked out by Mrs. WWWWWW picking out names that sound hot, are probably as good or better than the Twins' pitching staff. There are positives I'd love to dwell on - Mauer, Morneau, and Span look like they're back, Willingham has been unstoppable, and that's the whole list but it's something, but I can't get passed this pitching staff. Do you realize I just wrote like four paragraphs on how bad their pitching is without doing anything other than barely mentioning Liriano, who is the poster boy for sucktastic disappointmentitude? Seriously this entire stupid season is stupid and I hope there's a strike or something or at least an earthquake.
Anyway, my imaginary limey goat is not really the point, the point is how freaking bad this team's pitching staff is. I mean you got a bunch of soft-tossing noodle-arms and and the one guy who can actually bring the good stuff is more terrified of throwing the ball over the plate than that one guy from Teen Wolf who pees himself when he dad wolf gets up in his face. I mean seriously, look at these average fastball speeds: Blackburn - 90.3mph, Marquis - 88.7mph, Hendriks - 90.1mph, Pavano - 86.3mph. What. The. Frunk? Doesn't it almost have to be intentional to assemble this murderer's row of girly throwers?
And no, you don't necessarily have to throw hard to have success and I get that, Jered Weaver and Dan Haren don't throw hard but are a couple of the best in the league, and teams like the Giants and D-Backs have success despite not having many burners on staff, but you still have to people to throw your fastball effectively. According to fangraphs the Twins' fastballs collectively had been 18 runs worse than average this year - second worst in the majors behind Kansas City. And they also rank in the bottom half of the league in every other pitch, including change-up which I thought was like the one thing they were supposed to be able to do. I'm going to go ahead and say that's not good.
And even when the starting pitcher manages not to stick his own dick up his ass there's always the bullpen to put the ball on the Tee. The team has all of three quality starts so far - one by Hendriks and two by Pavano. In those three, the Twins lost after Glen Perkins got more hammered than your mom at a frat party, they lost because they couldn't hit (at all) against Shields, and they actually beat the Yankees. Ok that was less dramatic than I thought but the bullpen still really sucks.
What's really sweet is Fangraphs gives every player a value in WAR (which stands for Wins above Replacement which means how many wins a player is worth over a random AAA player) and if you were to look at the Twins bullpen right now, Brian Duensing and Alex Burnett are the only two who have been better than a AAA dude this year, and we know Burnett sucks in real life and there's zero chance that stays accurate. In fact, on the entire team it's just those two and Pavano and Blackburn who rank above 0 and all four of them just barely make the cut. Honestly what this all means is is you could give me a list of all AAA pitchers in the majors with the best prospects crossed off, and I could spread it out on the floor and let Luxembourg just start pooping, and take the first 12 names he pooped on and make them my pitching staff and they'd probably end up just as good, if not a little better, than the Twins collection of ball hurlers.
Read that shit again. A random collection of AAA pitchers, picked out by Mrs. WWWWWW picking out names that sound hot, are probably as good or better than the Twins' pitching staff. There are positives I'd love to dwell on - Mauer, Morneau, and Span look like they're back, Willingham has been unstoppable, and that's the whole list but it's something, but I can't get passed this pitching staff. Do you realize I just wrote like four paragraphs on how bad their pitching is without doing anything other than barely mentioning Liriano, who is the poster boy for sucktastic disappointmentitude? Seriously this entire stupid season is stupid and I hope there's a strike or something or at least an earthquake.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Twins off to a Great Start
Well that was pretty embarrassing. In fact, it was so embarrassing that let's just go ahead and list all the cool things that happened and then maybe we can decide which is the worst.
1. Getting swept by a team that has finished last in their division for four straight years, hasn't had a winning season since 1997, hasn't broken 70 wins since 2005, and once again has an over/under win total in Vegas of sub-70 by a combined score of 15-5. Actually I'm pretty sure this is the most embarrassing part, but there are all kinds of embarrassing parts that make up this part, so let's keep going.
2. Getting two hit through 7 innings by Jake Arrieta, who is at least a semi-prospect and the best pitcher the Twins' faced in the series. Still, Arrieta is in his third year and has yet to post an ERA under 4.60 or a WHIP under 1.46 in a season, and using game score as a metric he has never pitched a game that scored 75 or higher (for reference, there were 354 such games last year alone). Well, he never had, that is, until opening day against Minnesota where his 7ip-2h-2bb-4k masterpiece scored exactly 75. So yes, that means Arrieta best game of his career was this last one. Great.
3. Getting shutout for 7+ innings by Tommy Hunter, a failed prospect who is already on his second team in just his fifth year. He's only been good enough once to make more than 20 starts in a season and ended up in long relief with Texas before being traded to Baltimore for a set-up man. The Twins finally scored, but because the rally started with an error both runs they scored were unearned. This wasn't Hunter's best game, game score-wise, but it was just the third time in his career he pitched at least 7 innings without giving up an earned run.
4. Getting no hit for 7 innings by Jason Hammel, a journeyman who is on his third team in his 7th year and spent two years as a reliever and has as career ERA of 5. My calculation of his game score puts him at 78, one less K worse than his career best of 79. Considering he allowed zero hits over the first seven innings, I think we can consider this the best start of his career, meaning two of the three starters the Twins faced put up a career best day, while the third guy was merely put up one of his best starts. That, my friends, is a pretty shitty indicator for how this season is likely to go from here.
5. Collectively the Twins scored one earned run (and 3 total) and tallied 10 hits against those three starters in 22 innings while striking out 12 times. Yes, that's more Ks than hits and one run per game against three pitchers who all have a career ERA over 4.40. The Twins overall are batting .163 (28th in MLB), with an OBP of 238 (30th) and a SLG of .228 (30th). Their five runs and 15 hits also rank dead last. Pitching ranks 26th in ERA and 24th in opponents' batting average, dead last in strikeouts, and the Twins are one of only four teams who haven't had a quality start yet.
6. The Twins are paying $23 million this year to a player who hit 1-for-10 and whose only hit was a weak infield groundball that managed to be hit in a perfect spot for an infield hit. Two of their "biggest" free agent acquisitions (Jayme Carroll and Ryan Doumit) hit a combined 0-for-18. The team managed just three extra base hits (2 for Morneau, 1 for Willingham) and were out-homered 5-to-1. Yeah that was a whole bunch at once but I'm getting frustrated.
Getting swept, and convincingly swept, by a terrible team while getting completely shutdown by three sub-par pitchers. Is it possible to open a season any worse? At least there are only 159 games to go.
1. Getting swept by a team that has finished last in their division for four straight years, hasn't had a winning season since 1997, hasn't broken 70 wins since 2005, and once again has an over/under win total in Vegas of sub-70 by a combined score of 15-5. Actually I'm pretty sure this is the most embarrassing part, but there are all kinds of embarrassing parts that make up this part, so let's keep going.
2. Getting two hit through 7 innings by Jake Arrieta, who is at least a semi-prospect and the best pitcher the Twins' faced in the series. Still, Arrieta is in his third year and has yet to post an ERA under 4.60 or a WHIP under 1.46 in a season, and using game score as a metric he has never pitched a game that scored 75 or higher (for reference, there were 354 such games last year alone). Well, he never had, that is, until opening day against Minnesota where his 7ip-2h-2bb-4k masterpiece scored exactly 75. So yes, that means Arrieta best game of his career was this last one. Great.
3. Getting shutout for 7+ innings by Tommy Hunter, a failed prospect who is already on his second team in just his fifth year. He's only been good enough once to make more than 20 starts in a season and ended up in long relief with Texas before being traded to Baltimore for a set-up man. The Twins finally scored, but because the rally started with an error both runs they scored were unearned. This wasn't Hunter's best game, game score-wise, but it was just the third time in his career he pitched at least 7 innings without giving up an earned run.
4. Getting no hit for 7 innings by Jason Hammel, a journeyman who is on his third team in his 7th year and spent two years as a reliever and has as career ERA of 5. My calculation of his game score puts him at 78, one less K worse than his career best of 79. Considering he allowed zero hits over the first seven innings, I think we can consider this the best start of his career, meaning two of the three starters the Twins faced put up a career best day, while the third guy was merely put up one of his best starts. That, my friends, is a pretty shitty indicator for how this season is likely to go from here.
5. Collectively the Twins scored one earned run (and 3 total) and tallied 10 hits against those three starters in 22 innings while striking out 12 times. Yes, that's more Ks than hits and one run per game against three pitchers who all have a career ERA over 4.40. The Twins overall are batting .163 (28th in MLB), with an OBP of 238 (30th) and a SLG of .228 (30th). Their five runs and 15 hits also rank dead last. Pitching ranks 26th in ERA and 24th in opponents' batting average, dead last in strikeouts, and the Twins are one of only four teams who haven't had a quality start yet.
6. The Twins are paying $23 million this year to a player who hit 1-for-10 and whose only hit was a weak infield groundball that managed to be hit in a perfect spot for an infield hit. Two of their "biggest" free agent acquisitions (Jayme Carroll and Ryan Doumit) hit a combined 0-for-18. The team managed just three extra base hits (2 for Morneau, 1 for Willingham) and were out-homered 5-to-1. Yeah that was a whole bunch at once but I'm getting frustrated.
Getting swept, and convincingly swept, by a terrible team while getting completely shutdown by three sub-par pitchers. Is it possible to open a season any worse? At least there are only 159 games to go.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Monday's Musings - 10/11/2011
Don't read this. No, seriously, I mean it. I don't know when it happened but somehow I've become painfully unfunny lately. This blog is brutal. For inspiration I read through some of my posts from a year or two ago and they were pretty good, but not only that they inspired some pretty awesome comments that led to awesome conversations in the comment section. Now? Nothing. I've got nothing. This is going to be terrible.
- First off the big news is that the Lynx won the WNBA championship. Here are my thoughts on that:
- Next up I suppose we need to discuss the Vikings, despite the fact that Don McNabb has somehow managed to combine a noodle arm with the inability to throw the ball anywhere near where he's trying to. I mean seriously, have you ever seen a worse QB than McNabb? Have you ever, for kicks, decided to try to throw a curve ball when you play catch with a football? And it doesn't actually curve or anything, it just goes through the air with a complete wobble, about as far from a spiral as possible? That's what McNabb's ball is looking like these days. The Vikings have no chance to win more than 4 games this year unless Christian Ponder is the next Andy Dalton. Poor AP. He's wasted like Rico Tucker was wasted that one year.
- Speaking of the Gophers, once again the football team got waxed in embarrassing fashion. Here are my thoughts on that:
- Also in the shitty football team department, how about that "Dream Team." In case you missed it that's how the Eagles were being described this off season after signing Asomugha, Steve Smith (the bad one), and Vince Young. Now they're 1-4 after getting beat by the Bills, and wait what? Somehow signing Vince Young is supposed to be a good thing? Sometimes a guy who was great in college and sucks in the pros just sucks. He doesn't always need a change of scenery or a new scheme or whatever - Vince Young just sucks. And so do the Eagles apparently. Who knew that just assembling a bunch of talent with no real regard for how it fits together wouldn't work out Too much crazy.
- Speaking of crazy, are you watching this Terra Nova show? Fuckin' dinosaurs, man. I don't really know what the plot is yet, but next on House: some crazy disease nobody can figure out, a crazy doctor who plays by his own rules, and a plot twist. Sounds spicy!
- You know what's sweet? Winning an over 9 runs bet in a game that was tied 3-3 in extra innings when the home team hits a walk-off grand slam. That, my friends, is luck.
- Anybody still in a survivor pool for the NFL? If you are it means you're either incredibly smart, and knew not to trust Eli Manning even in a home game against a horrid defense (unlikely, but possible) and also knew that Tavaris Jackson and Charlie Whitehurst would combine to play an efficient, solid game with few mistakes (impossible), or you're stupid. So yes, I'm telling you if you're still alive you're stupid, because the Giants were the obvious play and not taking them meant you trying to be cute which usually doesn't work out. So if you're still alive congratulations on being dumb and lucky. You suck.
- So what exactly is the deal here with the MLB playoffs, we're going to go from an awesome Divisional round to a shitty Championship round? Actually I guess we shouldn't really worry yet since it really doesn't matter if the early games are blowouts or are close, just as long as we get to games 6 and especially 7 and they're close it'll be entertaining. How awesome was last round? Three Game 5s that all ended as one run affairs including one that went to extra innings? AND the Yankees lost? It was a little slice o' heaven. I shed a tear and I swear as A-Rod was whiffing on that Valverde heater I could hear Hallelujah playing in the back ground. With the song and the crying it was just like when Marisa Cooper died.
Anyway, I thought Girardi made one of the absolutely most brilliant managerial moves I've ever seen, but then followed it up with a classic bit over over-managing. First, his pull of Nova after just two innings and 31 pitches was just a great move. Nova had given up two first inning home runs and a double in the second, but he'd also struck out two batters and retired the last three batters he'd faced. Sounds like an ok beginning, but watching the game you could tell he didn't really have it. Most managers would let the pitcher go another inning and try to get him through the fifth. Girardi saw Nova didn't have his A game and yanked him immediately. Great move.
Of course, much like that damn overconfident hare who somehow lost to the turtle, Girardi thought he was awesome and made one too many moves, pulling Phil Hughes after just an inning and a third despite the fact that he was dealing but had just given up a hit. That didn't come back to bite him immediately, but Hughes was looking like he could have pitched deep into the game and suddenly Girardi had to really stretch his bullpen. That included pitching C.C. Fatbathia on short rest and he eventually blew the game. I'm just really curious how things could have worked out if he left Hughes in - and he should have.
Lost in all this, of course, is that Fister (Fister? I hardly know 'er) was looking amazing, which is no real surprise because he's been a whole different pitcher since being traded to Detroit. His Ks/9 jumped by 50% from around 6 in his career with Seattle to 9 per 9 innings once he came to the Tigers and was suddenly completely unhittable and looked it that night. I can't help but wonder if it's because of Leyland. Maybe Seattle was like the Twins and were trying to force him to pitch to contact or some similar retardation and Leyland just cut him loose. It's possible and you damn well know it. Why do you love Gardy so much, sicky?
- Speaking of the Twins, I'm pretty sure I'm done with those season wrap-ups I was doing. In my defense I got through 3 positions so that's pretty good I think considering how shit-boxy this team was. And all the positions left are depressing. Middle infield? Gross. Starting pitching? Vomit. The bullpen? Yuck. I guess the outfield is semi-interesting, but mainly that's because of Ben Revere and Joe Benson. Can Revere develop a little power or learn how to walk? Either one of those would make him a legit big league leadoff hitter. And can Benson become the five-tool stud he's purportedly potentially possible to be or is he going to end up moving to the middle of the country where he becomes a bouncer at the Double Deuce and starts up a fling with the local doctor while feuding with the local rich guy who kind of a dick?
I don't know. I mean, I guess it'll be a semi-interesting offseason with decisions to be made on several guys, but most of those decisions are going to be of the "offer a contract: yes/no" rather than trades which are way more fun. Hopefully they do some interesting things and figure out how to get this team back on track. God knows I'll be here.
Also, obviously, I learned how to caption photos that I post, so that's probably going to get run into the ground.
- First off the big news is that the Lynx won the WNBA championship. Here are my thoughts on that:
- Next up I suppose we need to discuss the Vikings, despite the fact that Don McNabb has somehow managed to combine a noodle arm with the inability to throw the ball anywhere near where he's trying to. I mean seriously, have you ever seen a worse QB than McNabb? Have you ever, for kicks, decided to try to throw a curve ball when you play catch with a football? And it doesn't actually curve or anything, it just goes through the air with a complete wobble, about as far from a spiral as possible? That's what McNabb's ball is looking like these days. The Vikings have no chance to win more than 4 games this year unless Christian Ponder is the next Andy Dalton. Poor AP. He's wasted like Rico Tucker was wasted that one year.
 |
| See these blast points? Too precise for Donovan McNabb. |
- Speaking of the Gophers, once again the football team got waxed in embarrassing fashion. Here are my thoughts on that:
- Also in the shitty football team department, how about that "Dream Team." In case you missed it that's how the Eagles were being described this off season after signing Asomugha, Steve Smith (the bad one), and Vince Young. Now they're 1-4 after getting beat by the Bills, and wait what? Somehow signing Vince Young is supposed to be a good thing? Sometimes a guy who was great in college and sucks in the pros just sucks. He doesn't always need a change of scenery or a new scheme or whatever - Vince Young just sucks. And so do the Eagles apparently. Who knew that just assembling a bunch of talent with no real regard for how it fits together wouldn't work out Too much crazy.
- Speaking of crazy, are you watching this Terra Nova show? Fuckin' dinosaurs, man. I don't really know what the plot is yet, but next on House: some crazy disease nobody can figure out, a crazy doctor who plays by his own rules, and a plot twist. Sounds spicy!
- You know what's sweet? Winning an over 9 runs bet in a game that was tied 3-3 in extra innings when the home team hits a walk-off grand slam. That, my friends, is luck.
 |
| It's like the luck of the Irish only I'm not Irish so you figure it out |
- Anybody still in a survivor pool for the NFL? If you are it means you're either incredibly smart, and knew not to trust Eli Manning even in a home game against a horrid defense (unlikely, but possible) and also knew that Tavaris Jackson and Charlie Whitehurst would combine to play an efficient, solid game with few mistakes (impossible), or you're stupid. So yes, I'm telling you if you're still alive you're stupid, because the Giants were the obvious play and not taking them meant you trying to be cute which usually doesn't work out. So if you're still alive congratulations on being dumb and lucky. You suck.
- So what exactly is the deal here with the MLB playoffs, we're going to go from an awesome Divisional round to a shitty Championship round? Actually I guess we shouldn't really worry yet since it really doesn't matter if the early games are blowouts or are close, just as long as we get to games 6 and especially 7 and they're close it'll be entertaining. How awesome was last round? Three Game 5s that all ended as one run affairs including one that went to extra innings? AND the Yankees lost? It was a little slice o' heaven. I shed a tear and I swear as A-Rod was whiffing on that Valverde heater I could hear Hallelujah playing in the back ground. With the song and the crying it was just like when Marisa Cooper died.
Anyway, I thought Girardi made one of the absolutely most brilliant managerial moves I've ever seen, but then followed it up with a classic bit over over-managing. First, his pull of Nova after just two innings and 31 pitches was just a great move. Nova had given up two first inning home runs and a double in the second, but he'd also struck out two batters and retired the last three batters he'd faced. Sounds like an ok beginning, but watching the game you could tell he didn't really have it. Most managers would let the pitcher go another inning and try to get him through the fifth. Girardi saw Nova didn't have his A game and yanked him immediately. Great move.
Of course, much like that damn overconfident hare who somehow lost to the turtle, Girardi thought he was awesome and made one too many moves, pulling Phil Hughes after just an inning and a third despite the fact that he was dealing but had just given up a hit. That didn't come back to bite him immediately, but Hughes was looking like he could have pitched deep into the game and suddenly Girardi had to really stretch his bullpen. That included pitching C.C. Fatbathia on short rest and he eventually blew the game. I'm just really curious how things could have worked out if he left Hughes in - and he should have.
Lost in all this, of course, is that Fister (Fister? I hardly know 'er) was looking amazing, which is no real surprise because he's been a whole different pitcher since being traded to Detroit. His Ks/9 jumped by 50% from around 6 in his career with Seattle to 9 per 9 innings once he came to the Tigers and was suddenly completely unhittable and looked it that night. I can't help but wonder if it's because of Leyland. Maybe Seattle was like the Twins and were trying to force him to pitch to contact or some similar retardation and Leyland just cut him loose. It's possible and you damn well know it. Why do you love Gardy so much, sicky?
- Speaking of the Twins, I'm pretty sure I'm done with those season wrap-ups I was doing. In my defense I got through 3 positions so that's pretty good I think considering how shit-boxy this team was. And all the positions left are depressing. Middle infield? Gross. Starting pitching? Vomit. The bullpen? Yuck. I guess the outfield is semi-interesting, but mainly that's because of Ben Revere and Joe Benson. Can Revere develop a little power or learn how to walk? Either one of those would make him a legit big league leadoff hitter. And can Benson become the five-tool stud he's purportedly potentially possible to be or is he going to end up moving to the middle of the country where he becomes a bouncer at the Double Deuce and starts up a fling with the local doctor while feuding with the local rich guy who kind of a dick?
 |
| Future Joe? |
Also, obviously, I learned how to caption photos that I post, so that's probably going to get run into the ground.
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