Monday's Musings - 8/29/2011

- First off, my fantasy football draft was a disaster.  We play in a modified keeper league where you keep 6 and have two players available in a transition round where you can take a player off someone else's team in exchange for your first round pick.  I had #7 and there are really only 5.5 good rookie prospects so I figure I'll take Santonio Holmes off another dude's roster.  Well then freaking Snake takes him instead at #4.

I'm not panicking yet, figuring I have good RB depth with Ray Rice, LaSean McCoy, and Deangelo Williams, so I'll just hope I can get WR Greg Little or something at 7 and everything will be ok.  Then fucking Bear takes Williams off my roster with his #9 pick and I go into minor panic mode.  But now I have #7 and #9.  I know I now need a RB and, since I was unable to consummate a trade for Sam Bradford, need a QB as well since I'm not sure of Peyton's status.  I figure I'll grab Matt Stafford at #7 and then take the best available RB at #9.

Well guess what?  Bear takes Stafford at #9 and now all hell breaks loose.  It's suddenly going down as if I have no idea what I'm doing.  I end up drafting Delone Carter at #7 despite the fact that I have no idea how to pronounce his name and that he's the back-up RB, then Greg Little goes right after me and there is literally nobody interesting left to draft.  I end up going with Kevin Kolb and, just to show how panicked I was, I nearly took Jay Cutler here which is a move that I do believe would have gotten me kicked out of the league - although Bogart's dad probably would have tongue-kissed me since he loves the Bears like Joe Mauer loves sitting.

Then round 2 rolls around and I take Joe Addai because apparently I'm now handcuffing shitty running backs together.  Everything just snowballs somehow and by draft end I end up with all four Colt running backs and a receiver I've never heard of but he's #2 on Arizona and I've already got Kevin Kolb so what the hell?  Yes, all four Colt running backs (Addai, Carter, Donald Brown, and Javarris James).  Then the night ended with me getting a case of Coors Light out of the trunk of my car and me, Snake, Dawger, Bogart, and Bear plowing into a 30-pack of White Castle sliders.  Or maybe Snake walked home by then.  I don't know.  I had a lot of beer.

Still, though, I ended up with my big WR sleeper who I might as well tell you is Brandon Gibson from St. Louis because I know one of those assholes will put it in the comments anyway.  Trust me on this.  St. Louis is going to throw the ball a lot and Bradford won't be content to go dinking around to RBs and Danny Amendola again, one of the grown-up wideouts is going to have a big year.  You know it won't be Mike Sims-Walker because we've already seen his upside, so that leaves Donnie Avery, Gibson, or Danario Alexander.  Avery is coming off an injury and his name is Donnie and Alexander is already hurt, so not only is Gibson the most talented off all those dorks but he'll have the best opportunity as well.  Holy shit was that paragraph football nerd-y.  Sorry.  I like to stick to baseball and college basketball nerdy.  That's way more high class.  Like Outback vs. Olive Garden.

Anyway, here's the team:

Qb Peyton Manning, Kevin Kolb
Rb Ray Rice, LaSean McCoy, all the Colts, Demarco Murray, Javon Ringer
WR Hakeem Nicks, Dez Bryant, Jeremy Maclin, Andre Roberts, Brandon Gibson
TE Jason Witten
K  don't remember
DEF probably someone like the Saints

Not too bad.

-  You probably missed this because you don't pay attention to cool things, but Andre Drummond finally is officially on-board the UCONN train.  Drummond was ranked as the #1 center by everybody, and the #1 overall player for 2012 by ESPN and NBAdraft.net and the #2 player by Rivals and Scout.  Bascially he's an absolute monster - think Dwight Howard/Kevin Garnett - awesome on defense, awesome rebounder, and a developing offensive game, although based on sheer size and athleticism he's going to get his points.  A program changing type of player (assuming he ends up being eligible - some minor questions there).

UCONN was rumored to be in the lead for him, but he announced he was going to go to prep school for a year.  Then last Friday he tweeted that he would be attending UCONN after all, and the one UCONN fan I know pretty much lost his mind and maxed out multiple betting accounts taking the Huskies to win the whole thing at 30-1.  Not bad, actually, because it's now dropped to 15-1. 

Basically they now have Drummond, Jeremy Lamb who really started to come into his own at the end of last year, and Shabazz Napier and Alex Oriakhi who were keys in the tournament victory and should be better this year.  Add in freshman small foward DeAndre Daniels, the #10 player in the country no less, and UCONN has suddenly gone from a good team to a legitimate threat to repeat.  Fellow freshman Ryan Boatright (#48 nationally) can push Napier, so between the two the biggest weak link for UCONN is handled, and with Lamb, Oriakhi, Drummond, and Roscoe Smith this is going to be an incredibly good defensive team.  Between them, North Carolina, Ohio State, and Kentucky there are going to be some insanely good teams this year.  Should be fun.  Until I have to go watch the Gophers play.

-  I guess the big NFL news, besides that my team rocks, is that Mike Vick signed a 6 year, $100 million deal with the Eagles.  I was so interested in this news that I farted and then yawned.

-  Oh dude I almost totally forgot about this.  The other day on the radio Dark Star and one of the sidekick guys were talking Twins and they started talking about a the Twins needing a legit ace.  Whoever it was asked if Dark Star thought there was any way the Twins could get Felix Hernandez.  Dark Star said they'd have to give up "Kubel, a starter, and a young guy like Plouffe or Tolbert."  What.  The.  Eff?  I can't even see PA making that statement and he's a total retard, while Star - although a total retard - at least seems to understand baseball and the Twins.  I was just floored.  I think Kubel, any starter, and Plouffe or Tolbert might land you like,

-  Jesus Christ J.J. Hardy hit another home run tonight.  That's #26.  He's the first AL shortstop since 2007 to hit 25 or more in a season.  You know who the last one was?  J.J. freaking Hardy.  In a related note, did you know Khalil Greene hit 27 home runs in 2007?  That's weird.  Too bad he went all wack-o and crazied himself right out of the league.  True story.  Also a true story - I'm bored.  God this blog sucks.

-  Oh, but dinner tonight was a white chicken chili put together by the missus.  She likes her food a little less spicy than I do, so I would have added some cayenne pepper, but the flavor was excellent.  Mixing in black beans with the cannellini beans not only gave it a better flavor, but also was a nice contrast in color.  I mean come on, white, black, it's just like the black and white cookie.  Mrs. W - bringing racial harmony to the world one delicious recipe at a time.

Tuesday Talkings

I wasn't planning on posting anything tonight because, let's face it, just the idea of writing two days in a row makes me tired, but there's nothing else to do.

-  I'm watching the Twins for some reason (it's currently 3-2 Twinkies in the 2nd) and holy crap is Chris Davis the worst hitter ever.  Last night, when the Rangers scored something like 30 runs and had 64 hits, he went 0-6 and made two errors.  Now I've just watched him just wildly flail at two Pavano pitches.  He strikes me as the kind of guy who can crush a fastball if you try to blow it passed him, but any finesse whatsoever and he's hacking at it like Delmon Young wearing a blindfold.  Should end up being a hell of a softball player in a few years.

-  You want to know what sucks worse than Jose Mijares?  When you make a bet against Ryan Howard doing well because he's going up against Tim Lincecum and then Lincecum is scratched with the flu and Barry freaking Zito gets the start instead and gives up a home run to Howard in the first inning.

-  As you could have predicted there are a ton of rumors/stories/whatever regarding NFL player movement since they're actually going to play now, and there are plenty regarding your precious Vikings - McNabb, Sid Rice, Tavaris Jackson, Ray Edwards, and Kyle Orton are all linked to Vikings in one way or another.  I was going to run down each of these things individually but then I yawned and now I'm bored.  So I'll just say that T-Jax going to Seattle makes me giggle.  And lest you think they are just handing him a starting gig they've also signed sexy Matt Leinart.  And they still have Charlie Whitehurst who I'm pretty sure is a werewolf.  So yeah, I'd say they're in pretty good shape. 

 -  Other than that I guess losing Sidney Rice would be a big deal, but only because they don't have any other options, not because he's all that good.  He had one good year because Brett Favre realized that you can just throw the ball up high to him and no matter how not open he actually was he'd just go catch it.  Give him a real QB and he can't do jack.  Do you really think Ponder is going to come in and start flinging the ball around like he's playing drunk foosball?  No.  He needs precise route runners with good hands who can get open.  Rice can't do that.  If he comes back to the Vikes he's going to be bust city.  With Seattle he'd have a fighting chance, if only because none of sexy, crappy, or the werewolf are real QBs so they might buy into the whole "lob it up" strategy.

That being said, the Vikes still need him because what's the other option here, Bernard Berrian?  Buzz.  Your girlfriend.  Woof. 

-  Those two broads behind home plate are ridiculously hot.  God bless Texas.

-  I can't prove it, but I strongly suspect Carl Pavano is actually pitching underhanded.  It's the only explanation.

-  I finished the new Song of Ice and Fire book (same series that gave us the Game of Thrones TV show) and I'm stunned.  I cannot believe Voldemort was Frodo's father.  That is just stunning.

-  Chris Davis is the next Brooks Robinson.  Just so smooth, and such a termendous gloveman.

-  J.J. Hardy hit two home runs tonight.  That gives him 16 homers on the year.  You know who else has 16 homers this year?  The entire Twins roster combined.  Fact.  Hardy has become a top five shortstop in all the majors, meanwhile the Twins are hoping either a foreigner who dances around at the plate like Natalie Portman in that lesbian movie or a 28-year old who everyone is still waiting to reach his potential to take over the SS role.  Great.  At least the guys they got when they traded Hardy have done really well. 

-  FUN FACT:  Justin Verlander is completely unhittable against everyone in the league other than the Chicago White Stockings.  Tonight's line: 8ip, 7 hits, 1 walk, 7 Ks, 4 ERs.  Not bad, right?  As a Twins fan we'd take it every night, but not a great outing for Verlander.  The interesting part?  That's just the third time he's given up more than 3 earned runs in a start this year - two of them against the White Sox.  That's just the 8th time he's allowed as many as 7 hits in a game - three of those were against the White Sox.  That's just the 7th time he's had 7 or fewer strikeouts - 3 against the White Sox.  He's allowed 14 home runs this year - six of them against the Sox.  And it doesn't really matter because Detroit won and Verlander got the win, but it's kind of interesting.  Nobody else can hit him.  

-  Matt Capps just threw a fastball that was 93mphand pretty clearly had significant tail on it.  I'm pretty stunned too.  This is just like the ending of The Village - never saw it coming.

-  FUN FACT:  If Tim Lincecum is supposed to pitch and gets scratched they wipe out all player prop bets for that game.  The good news is that I didn't lose my Ryan Howard bet now.  The bad news is that I also had a bet on Aubrey Huff to not get an RBI and Vance Worley to throw more than 99.5 pitches, both won, neither was remotely affected by Lincecum not pitching, and neither is a win now.  Not fair.

-  Thome just came a few feet away from an opposite field jack to take the lead in the ninth.  Which is extra funny because I was just typing how I was watching this game and barely typed anything about it because the Twins have broken my brain.  Also funny - teh ball Thome hit should have been caught by Hamilton.  Looked like he misjudged it a little, got a little off-balance, and lunged a little too far in the wrong direction.  Just like that guy he killed by tossing him a ball.

Too soon?

-  Nishioka is a retarded version of Ichiro, and he just tied the game with a retarded version of a hit by hitting a bouncer up the middle and getting an infield hit out of it.  I really kind of hate him.  Only partially because of racist reasons.

-  Mauer pinch hitting.  Runners on the corners, tie game, one out.  Texas playing back at all infield positions.  You know why?  Because Joe Mauer is god damn ground ball machine and they know they can turn two.  Announcer guys are stunned by them playing back, but that's because they're idiots.  If you took a pitching machine and pointed it at the ground and fed it balls and had a contest with Mauer to see who could hit the most consecutive balls on the ground I'm pretty sure the machine would win.

-  Well fuck me.  You know that Simpsons episode where Skinner says something like, "You know none of these kids are going to college" and then when he realizes the kids are listening he says "Prove me wrong kids, prove me wrong"?  Well that's what I was doing there - daring Mauer to prove me wrong.  I'm a great motivator.

-  I also was going to try to look that quote up and to do it I just typed "google.com" into the google search engine box.  Maybe it turns out I'm the dumb one?

-  By the way, when Nathan blows this one I'm going to bed and not sticking around for extras.  I've got the new James Rollins book to read.

-  Ripped single, fielder's choice, hit batter, strikeout, strikeout and the Twins win and I gotta say, that was vintage Nathan:  some very good unhittable stuff with some terrible pitches mixed in.  He's back, baby.  Now somebody trade something good for him.

Week in Review 6-27-2011

I know I had mentioned that I was going to try to do a retro live blog of the NBA draft since I couldn't watch it myself, but I just couldn't do it.  I already knew what happened.  It's kind of like tivoing a Gopher basketball game, finding out the lost by 10, and then watching it anyway.  You just wouldn't do that, because the fun of watching sports is watching an event with an uncertain outcome in which you are emotionally invested in the result.  Knowing what happens and then watching is stupid.  I know there are people who would tivo a game and then watch it even if they know the end result already.  Those people are psychopaths.
 

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Minnesota Timberwolves.  I think they'd have been better off using #20 by either keeping Motiejunas or grabbing Marshon Brooks (or trading it for a veteran SG or C - Brad Miller is retiring) but I can be talked into Kahn's madness because #1 - it's fun and #2 - they did get a future 1st.  The real reason I'm going to praise the mad man here is because, despite himself, he did the right thing and picked Derrick Williams - and kept him (at least thus far).  In my opinion Irving is the surest thing - his downside is probably a long-time starter - but I think Williams has the most upside in the draft.  I suppose this belongs in the back-handed insult department, but kudos to Kahn for not outsmarting himself even though it became abundantly clear he wanted to.  So hurray for competence, accidental or otherwise.

2.  JaJuan Johnson.  The awesome thing for him is that he managed to get himself drafted in the first round, so like, congrats.  What I'm really fascinated about, however, is that the player Snake and I have been calling "College KG" for four years because his skill set was so similar to KG (and Hakim Warrick, FYI) will now be playing with the real KG.  I'd say he couldn't find himself in a better situation with the perfect player to pattern himself after on the same team, but the word "mentor" doesn't exactly come to mind when you think about Garnett.  How is he going to react to a young, new player showing up who has the same game KG himself had 15 years ago?  Fights?  Verbal assaults?  Undermining his confidence?  Or maybe he'll actually see an opportunity to sort of live on after he retires by doing everything he can do help Johnson.  I doubt it, and I'm thinking more of the pushing and yelling is likely, but I'm totally fascinated here.  I've never watched Hard Knocks or whatever, but if they did a show like that on the Celtics this year I would totally watch.  And just fast forward to the KG/JJ parts.

3.  Evan Longoria.  Big sexy is back, in case you missed him.  Longoria struggled so far this year after returning from injury, but he finally broke out this week.  Well, maybe not a total breakout, but in his last four games he has two 2-HR games, including Sunday's game against the Astros where he went 4-6 and missed he cycle by a triple.  Interestingly enough, this little hot streak has started ever since Longo dropped the batting gloves which reminds me of this dude I played amateur baseball with.  See, I hit with no batting gloves because I like to feel the wood (insert your own joke here).  Snacks played on the team too, and he liked to wear eye black because it was the most effective way for him to keep the sun out of his eyes in the outfield.  We had another guy who used a ton of pine tar, another guy who wore two big wristbands around his forearms, and another guy who wore his hat slightly cocked to the left.  All these things were done because they worked for people.  But then we had this one little weiner dork on on our team who did all of them - no batting gloves, eye black, pine tar, wrist bands, and hat cocked.  God he was such a little idiot, and he sucked too.  This really has nothing to do with Evan Longoria any more.  

4.  J.J. Hardy.  Well the Twins didn't need him now did they?  While the revolving door of Tolbert/Casilla/Nishioka/Plouffe has put up a combined .225 batting average and a whopping .339 slugging, Hardy hit as many home runs this past week (3) as Twins' shortstop have all year.  He also has multiple hits in 6 of his last 7 games, and for the season has the 4th highest average of all MLB shortstops (.304), the second-highest OBP (.369), the highest slugging (.538), the highest OPS (.907), and the fourth most homers despite only playing in slightly more than half the team's games.  Basically he'd be the best hitter on the Twins:  only Kubel has a a higher average and he'd lead the team in both on-base and slugging and be tied with Cuddy for the HR lead at 10.  Meanwhile Jim Hoey's averaged more than 2 base-runners allowed per inning in his 17 shitty innings.  I hate you, Bill Smith.

5.  Justin Verlander.  I think he's a cyborg of some kind, sent from the future to rescue major league baseball from crappy, wussy pitchers who both suck and are marshmallow soft.  Him and Roy Halladay (and maybe a couple of others) are just a completely different species.  I've always wondered what would happen if Gardy was managing Verlander.  Say it's the bottom of the 7th and the Twins were up 2-0, Verlander is at 98 pitches and just gave up back-to-back singles with Mijares warm in the bullpen.  When Gardy goes out there to try to get the ball from him do you think they would actually get in a fist fight?  Is there any way we can make this happen?


WHO SUCKED

1.  Minnesota Twins.  Well it's over.  I hope you didn't get sucked into believing this team actually had the ability to turn around that 13-29 start or whatever it was.  I know the weak division and sliding Indians and everything made things look possible, but all you had to do was keep looking at that lineup.  50% of that lineup every game should be hitting ninth, which, based on the rules of baseball as set down by the great Abner Doubleday, is illegal.  I know injuries have played a huge part of it - the team only has four guys who have enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title for christ's sake - but there were some pretty bad decisions made this offseason.   Specifically not looking for a viable back-up catcher when you know your starter is a china doll who only plays 2 out of every 3 games when he is healthy, deciding, "yeah, we'll go to war with Alexi Casilla as an everyday regular even though he's failed year after year after year" and not getting someone, anyone, to be insurance in case Morneau wasn't ready.  The season was set-up to be a  high-wire toward success, and the team tipped over and has gone splat on the city street below.  When you dig yourself a hole you can't weather a 5-game losing streak.  2 or 3, yeah.  Five?  It's over. 

2.  Sacramento Kings.  Let me get this straight.  First, the Kings trade the only guy on their roster who ever considers passing for John Salmons, a gunning ballsink with an absolutely enormous contract and the right to move down in the draft.  Then they usually their newly acquired 10th pick to draft Jimmer Fredette so they can team him up with Tyreke Evans in their back court.   This means their two starting guards both need the ball in their hands at all times and are both shoot first kind of guys, and their first man of the bench shoots the ball every time he touches it.  I think the two second round picks they made in Tyler Honeycutt and Captain Circus Ball himself were solid, but that can't over shadow this insane roster.  Fredette, Evans, Salmons, and DeMarcus Cousins?  Is anybody ever going to pass the ball?  And how quickly do you think Jimmer asks for a trade, before or after he's threatened with bodily harm by Cousins and/or Evans?

3.  Adam Dunn.  I'm going to admit that I was terrified when the White Sox signed Dunn.  Since he basically only hits homers, walks, or strikes out and the Twins' pitchers don't walk or strike out anyone I figured he basically just stand at home plate and hit tape measure home runs all day.  Turns out, however, the he's decided to completely suck instead.  This entire week he managed all of 2 hits (which both came in a game where he got 7 at-bats) and struck out 14 times.  14 times in one week!  I'm not a guy who looks at strikeouts as a huge negative, especially when balanced out with power, but holy crap that's ridiculous, especially when he's now struck out in his last seven consecutive at-bats and is now hitting .179 on the year with an OPS nearly identical to Luke Hughes.  Of course, it's still higher than Justin Morneau's so there's that. Plus Morneau is a huge girl.

4.   Madison Bumgarner.  It already feels like it happened 100 years ago, but you remember Captain Stripper Name's game against the Twins, don't you?  Let me refresh you:  single, double, single, double, single, double, single, double, strikeout, double, gone.  1/3 ip, 9 hits, 8 runs allowed.  Now  he did bounce back with a good game last night against Cleveland, but I feel like when you get shredded in such an epic way these things need to be mentioned whenever possible.  Especially when the team that shredded you ranks in the bottom 7 of all of MLB in runs scored, batting average, OBP, slugging, and OPS.  God what a fun year this has been.  I'm going to become a Lynx fan.


Just kidding.

5.   All the idiots who shouldn't have entered the NBA Draft.  There are always plenty of idiots who get bad advice and/or have an overinflated ego who go into the NBA Draft despite everyone knowing they have no chance of getting drafted or maybe a slight prayer at getting snagged in the second round except for them.  Some of those geniuses this year include Terrence Jennings of Louisville, who could have been a major player in the Big East next year, Jereme Richmond of Illinois who had a ton of potential but didn't bother to let it develop, Willie Reed of St. Louis who never had a prayer, Josh Selby of Kansas, who did get picked in the late second but probably could have been a lotto pick in a year or two, and Jordan Williams of Maryland, who was also picked in the late second but, like Selby, could have ended up a lottery pick in another year or two.  Well done, gentlemen.  Well done.  All of you will be awarded an Anderson Hunt Memorial Award for terrible draft decisions.


I finally started watching Game of Thrones.  Best show on TV, and it's not even close.  If you don't have HBO do yourself a favor and order it, download all the Game of Thrones episodes on HBO on Demand, watch them, realize how good this show is and how you've been wasting your time, and then cancel HBO after a month.  Brilliant.

Week in Review - 12.13.2010

 So how about those Minnesota Gophers?  The second half, and specifically that huge run to start the half, was great and all, but this team is just flat, man.  Sampson and Mbakwe played well when they go the ball, and Trevor continues to shock me with the things he can do, but this team is certainly in a bit of trouble.  Up just three points at half to Eastern Kentucky?  And that lead was only because Maverick Ahanmisi hit a half-court shot.  Not to mention how much worst it should have/could have been if the Colonels didn't miss a whole ass-ton of wide open three-pointers.

I know Al Nolen is gone, and he's the "glue guy" or the "catalyst" or whatever, but he's not going to be back until something like three weeks into the Big Ten season and if they don't learn to play better without him they're going to dig themselves a nice hole in the standings.  The Big Ten is deep and very good this year, playing like they have the last three games against any Big Ten team, including Iowa, will result in a quick deficit leading to a quick loss.

I won't say they sucked, because they did win and do a nice job in the second half and pounding the ball in the paint, but I can't say they're awesome either because they won a game they should have won by 25 by just 13.  Just two more games to get their shit together before conference play starts and the Gophers travel to Wisconsin and then Michigan State to open.  Right now I don't see any possible way they aren't starting 0-2. 


WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Jared Sullinger.  In our Big Ten Fantasy Hoops league, Sullinger went #3 overall to Elk and there was some questioning of the pick by some of the other players.  Although he was putting up good numbers he was outscored in Week 1 by several players who went right after him - Draymond Green, Jon Leuer, Demetri McCamey, etc. which made the pick look even more curious.  But Sullinger turned it on this week with a 40 point, 13 rebound performance against IUPUI and followed it up with "just" 17 and 5 against Western Carolina.  No, the competition wasn't exactly the best, but Sullinger is now 6th in scoring and 2nd in rebounding (to Mbakwe) in the Big 10.  Not bad for a freshman, and not bad for the #3 pick in the fantasy league.

2.  Rick Jackson.  I don't know if you're aware of this but Rick Jackson - the Syracuse power forward - has become an unstoppable monster.  He's like a better version of Trevor Mbakwe - yes, I'm serious.  After putting up a 17 pts./16 reb game against Michigan State during the week he followed it up with an 18 & 10 against Colgate this weekend, and that now gives him 8 double-doubles in the Orange's ten games this year.  With Jackson's development into a stud, Kris Joseph's big-time scoring ability, and solid point play from Scoop Jardine, the Orange are suddenly a contender without having gotten anything from their heralded freshman class.  If those develop as the season goes along, watch out. 

3.  Terrence Jones.  I read somewhere a lot of talk about how this class of Wildcats isn't like the last one, and you shouldn't expect a full-on stripped down roster:  Doron Lamb is almost certainly a 2-year player, Brandon Knight might have to go a second year, etc.  But one player who is basically certain to bolt is Jones, who is basically running circles around every opponent other than North Carolina.  He's had five double-doubles in nine games and has put up some absolutely monster performances including Wednesday against Notre Dame where he put up a 27 point, 17 rebound performance - and that was his second 17-rebound game on the year.  Guy is a beast.  He's also going to be a bust in the NBA.  That's a call, Bert.

4.  Louisville Cardinals.  I don't know exactly how this ended up happening because based on personnel it was looking like a down year in Louisville, but suddenly the Cardinals are 8-0 and extremely relevant after beating an awfully good UNLV team this weekend in Vegas.  Terrence Jennings is finally starting to show some of the Terrence Williams/Earl Clark he was supposed to be, but this is a very balanced team with 9 players who score at least 5.5 points per game and 6 who score at least 8.4, and is led by a dynamic backcourt of Preston Knowles and Peyton Siva.  I don't know if they have enough size to get through in March, but right now kenpom.com has them as the 11th best team in the country and an absolute lockdown defensive squad.  Good back court, balanced scoring, and great defense?  That's basically a blue-print for March success.  Add in Pitino and they could be a nice sleeper team.

5.  Boston College Eagles.  Coming into the year it was supposed to be Duke at the top of the ACC, followed by whoever emerged out of Maryland, North Carolina, NC State, or Florida State, and then a bunch of crap.  While most of the bunch of crap has lived up to it's name, BC has risen to the top and may have had the best week out of anybody this week, beating a pretty good Providence team at home and then going into Maryland and knocking off the Terps.  An embarrassing early loss to Yale has basically been wiped out, because other than those two wins they've also knocked off a bunch of BCS teams - not good BCS teams, but good enough to help out that RPI - Indiana, Cal, Texas A&M (also UMass).  Nice little surprise team here.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Mid-major "dynasties."  If we don't count the Atlantic-10 as a mid-major, and I don't, the two biggest mid-major dynasties are clearly Butler and Gonzaga, and suddenly each of them is facing the prospect of having to win their conference tournament to get into the big dance.  Butler sits at 5-4 and has lost every meaningful game and lost to crappy Evansville.  Gonzaga is 4-5 and in the middle of a three game losing streak, and outside of a win over Marquette they've done nothing, getting crushed by Illinois, Washington State, and Kansas State.  A couple of other really solid mid-majors over the last few years, Siena in the MAAC and Northern Iowa in the Missouri Valley, are looking like they can forget at-larges as well.  Siena is now 2-5 with some really, really bad losses (Albany, Princeton) an dis dead in the water, and Northern Iowa is 4-3 with losses to Iowa and Milwaukee.  Basically the first four teams I think of when I think mid-major are all either already out of the running for an at-large or are facing a major uphill battle.  Weird year.  Not counting the A-10, Mountain West, or Memphis, the Colonial might have the three best mid-major teams in the country.

2.  St. Johns Red Storm.  Wow we wow wow.  Well apparently my sleeper Big East squad is more sleepy than sleeper, because they had an absolute brutal week, losing to two A-10 bottom feeders in St. Bonnie's and Fordham this week.  St. Bonnie's is bad, but they are at least a halfway decent squad, but the loss to Fordham is inexcusable.  The Rams are 5-4, but are still one of the worst teams in the country after winning a total of just 5 games the last two years.  In short, these two losses are hugely embarrassing for St. Johns, and they almost kill their post-season chances.  They play in the Big East so they could go on a run and end up in good shape, but losing these two games says pretty definitively that this team sucks way too hard to do that.  I am awesome and picking sleepers.

3.  Pac-10 Contenders.  There are exactly two good teams in the Pac-10:  Washington and Arizona.  Both played road games against decent, but beatable, teams on Saturday with a chance to show how good they really are.  Both failed miserably.   Washington lost by one to Texas A&M and Arizona got crushed by BYU.  This whole demise of the Pac-10 thing is completely out of control.  I think this is year 3 of them sucking it up.  Get your shit together or we're going to have to replace you with the Mountain West.


4.  The Metrodome.  Nice stadium, lol.  Where are we, exactly?  Bratislava?

5.  Kyrie Irving.  I'm not a Duke fan, not remotely, but Irving's injury and possible out-for-the-yearedness really sucks in a lot of ways.  First, he was incredible and fun to watch.  Like a Ty Lawson who could score, and he was only a handful of games into his freshman year and was just getting better.  Seventeen points per game on 53% shooting and 45% from three with 5 assists and 4 boards as well and a 2-1 assist-to-turnover ratio?  Wow.  And we lose out on a juggernaut Duke team that had a legit shot at going undefeated.  Not that I like Duke, I hate them, but remember how much fun it was rooting against the Patriots their undefeated year?  And how awesome it was when the Giants beat them in the Super Bowl?  We could have had that again in March, but now we will just have to root against Duke with all the regular hate, not super extra hate.  I miss super extra hate.  I wish Favre was still a Packer. 


And about this whole JJ Hardy trade:  I don't get it.  The assumption is that the signing of Nishioka is apparently now imminent, which is fine, but we don't know anything about how his game will transfer.  Ichiro is great, but look at Kaz Matsui - no thanks.  And either way, he can play both middle infield positions, so would you rather roll with a starting tandem of Nishioka and Hardy, or Nishioka and Casilla?  Should be obvious.  With such a pedestrian return for him - two middle reliever prospects of dubious value - this trade doesn't make much sense to me.  I'll let Aaron Gleeman break it down since he does a better job than I and I've already written enough for one day, but Hardy was a valuable piece.  Even if one of the two players they got back becomes a competent reliever that's not as valuable as a quality everyday shortstop.  Not impressed with this off season so far.   Not at all.

Tuesday Talkings (mostly Twins signing talk, plus a little racism)

With no Gopher game until the weekend I should probably figure something else out to blog about this week.  I also haven't done the random writing whatever strikes my fancy post in quite some time.  The perfect storm!

-  First off, don't forget to play this awesome time-waster of a game. It's basketball on the computer, so it's like basketball for white people. So far since I posted yesterday it's been played 45 times and I'm still the champion. I'm like the Blake Hoffarber of fake basketball. Try to beat me, I dare you. Come on, you're really not all that important at work, trust me. Just don't forget to put in a nickname so you can claim credit for your pitiful score.

-  Speaking of basketball for white people, there's some not-at-all-rednecky guys trying to start up a basketball league for white people.  According to the league's founder, "Moose" Lewis, "people of white, American born citizens are in the minority now" and the whiteys only league is a league "for white people to play fundamental basketball, which they like" rather than a league like the NBA which is just "street ball" played by "people of color."

This guy is a genius.  A likely sociopath, but a genius all the same.  Are you telling me you wouldn't want to watch a league where Blake would be an athletic superstar?  Or watch Kirk Penny take David Grim to the hole?  And imagine someone like Ryan Anderson in that league?  He'd be like the white Larry Bird.  Granted this idea is about sixty years too late, but who says we can't turn back the clock?  Look at John Travolta or Julio Franco.

Credit given to With Leather, which is where I saw the story and also where I ganked that sweet image from above. 

-  Ok, with news from 1950 out of the way now we can get to the real important stuff:  all those Twins' signings today.  In case you missed it, the team signed all 8 of its arbitration eligible players today.  Let's look:

1. Brendan Harris, 2 years/$3.2 million.  Interesting that Harris got two years on his deal, and it's good for him because he gets about a $1 million raise over his salary last year.  I'd feel a lot better about this if he was the team's #1 utility guy but you know that's going to be Punto.  Since Gardy refuses to play Harris at second and Hardy is hear now the Twins are now paying $1.6 mil per year for either a backup utility player who will get 250 at-bats which sucks or for their starting third baseman which sucks because that means Harris is the starting third baseman.
2. Carl Pavano, 1 year/$7 million.  That feels like an awful lot to pay Pavano, but if he stays healthy he's good for 200 innings and although his ERA was high last year it probably shouldn't have been because his secondary pitching stats were all pretty solid and his xFIP (Fielding Independant Pitching, sort of a way to attempt to quantify what you would expect a pitcher's ERA to be based on his secondary stats) was a nice 3.96.  Fangraphs actually pegged his estimated value at $16.5 million last year and estimates it will be $13 million this year.  Seems high, but if he stays healthy and pitches like he did last year that $7 million will be a steal.
3. J.J. Hardy, 1 year/$5.1 million.  Pretty much a no brainer after picking him up for Gomez and the Twins probably saved a little money by not going to arbitration.  Even in a down year, and last year was way, way down, he's probably worth more than $5 million, so this is a good deal for the Twins.
4. Matt Guerrier, 1 year/$3.15 million.  Heath Bell just signed a 1-year/$4 million deal with the Padres, and it's hard for me to believe Guerrier is worth anywhere near what Bell is.  But then you look at the numbers:  2.36 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, a league-leading 79 games and 76 very good innings, and I suppose he is worth quite a bit.  A classic case of passing the numbers test but not the eye test, and since I'm a numbers guy I have to approve of this one, even if his middle name is Olson.
   
5. Delmon Young, 1 year/$2.6 million.  If he has that breakout season $2.6 million is a steal.  If we keep saying "if he has that breakout season" over and over again, eventually those "low-salary" seasons are going to add up to a whole lot of wasted time.
6. Jesse Crain, 1 year/$2 million.  $2 million for a player who hasn't been good since 2005?  I still have no idea why they offered him arbitration.  Let him go and I almost guarantee the Royals would have signed him, then the Twins get to light him up 18 times or whatever.  Win/win.
7. Francisco Liriano, 1 year/$1.6 million.  Good thing they didn't give him an Evan Longoria deal after that hot start in 2006, huh?  Still, similar to Delmoney, if he does come all the way back $1.6 is a steal.  Expect fluff pieces about how good Liriano's looked to start flooding in all spring training.  Oh wait!  They've already started (scroll down a bit, the actual article from pioneer press is already in the archives).
8. Pat Neshek, 1 year/$625k.  Pretty good living for never pitching, no?  Is he ever coming back?  Is he even still alive?  Did he change his name to Clay Condrey and start pitching overhand? 
   

Overall, pretty good signings I suppose. Nothing to blow your skirt up, but outside of the Crain signing (and the second year to Harris) nothing I'd quibble with.  Just get Mauer signed and then we can all be happy.  And also sign somebody to play third base.  And not Melvin Mora, somebody good.

-  I feel like I should probably apologize to Andy Rautins.  I know somewhere on this stupid blog I called something like "a shooting specialist who can't shoot" and although that might have been true in the past (37% field goal shooter his first three years) it certainly isn't anymore and he's a huge reason the Cuse are 18-1 and a viable national title contender.  He's increased his shooting percentage to 46%, including 41.7% from three (#2 in the Big East amongst players with at least 100 attempts), and he basically runs the offense for the Orange in the halfcourt.  Perhaps most telling, he's averaging the same amount of points as last year in the same amount of minutes but is taking 1.5 less shots per game and has upped his assists from 3.0 per game last year to 5.1 this year, good for fourth in the Big East.  That, my friends, is how you take the senior year leap.  Eric Harris did it.  Travarus Bennett did it.  Damian Johnson is trying to do it.  And Lawrence Westbrook can go to hell.

-  Finally, I've read two very disappointing books in a row ("Pirate Latitudes" by Michael Crichton which I would give a 1/10 and "Altar of Eden" by James Rollins which I would give a 5/10 but usually his books are at least an 8 so that's why it was a bummer) so I'm think I'm going to branch out and give this book a roll.  I'll keep you posted, but it sounds pretty interesting.  Plus I am a pretty big fan of sports gambling.  Biggest downside here is that it could make me want to quit my job, leave my family, and move to Vegas.  Or is that the upside?

BREAKING: Bye-Bye Gomez

Just heard on KFAN that the Twins traded Carlos Gomez to the Brewers for SS J.J. Hardy, who the Sidler actually advocated for last year.

I haven't found a link yet.  I will post it when I find one.

Here it is.  Still kind of sorting out my thoughts on this, will post more later.

Forget about J.J. Hardy

It's been written here before that we'd like to see the Twins acquire J.J. Hardy. Well you can pretty much forget that, or at least I hope so as the asking price is extremely steep according to my inside source (seriously, I have an inside source - or more accurately, I know someone who knows someone who is in the know). Whatever, the point is it's real information and I'm not making it up.

According to this source, the Twins inquired about getting Hardy from the Brewers, who asked for Denard Span, Francisco Liriano, and another prospect. I don't care what level "another prospect" is, that is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. Honestly, I'd have trouble giving up that for anyone below superstar status.

So that dream is dead. But hey, we still have Punto.

I want this guy to play SS for the Twins next year

Tell me this guy wouldn't end up in a ton of commercials for the Twins.

As I've mentioned more than a few times, I think J.J. Hardy is the most logical SS option for the Twins next season. Unlike some other options; he's young (25), talented, has power, is right-handed, and isn't named Punto.

One of the least-attractive rumored options is Orlando Cabrera. Aaron Gleeman did the work I was going to do in a post, but let's just say I don't think it is worth 3-years and $30 million to sign a 33-year old SS that was statistically worse than Nick Punto this season. Seriously, Punto is 3 years younger and had a better batting average, on-base AND slugging percentages, and a better revised zone rating than Cabrera.

Here's why Hardy would be an awesome addition--the list of Twins regulars with a better SLG than Hardy is as follows: Justin Morneau.

Twins regulars with a higher OPS: Morneau and Mauer.

Did I mention he's right handed and plays solid defense at a premium defensive position? And he's under team control (from what I can tell) for the next three seasons, albeit in the starting-to-get-expensive arbitration years.

What I can't figure out is what the Brewers will want in return. The rumors are that he's available since the Crew thinks Alcides Escobar is ready to take over at SS. But Hardy's bat and glove fits at 3B and 2B, so maybe they will move him to one of those positions to take over for Ricky Weeks or whoever is scheduled for 3B (Counsell, Hall, or Mat Gamel?).

With Sheets and Sabathia presumably leaving via free agency, I have to think Milwaukee would be interested in pitching. Another opening could be CF, but the corner OF spots are filled by Braun and Hart.

Would a Perkins + (minor league pitching) or Blackburn+ package be enough? What about Gomez and Span, could they have enough value? The Brewers system had a ton of solid hitters, so maybe expand a trade and get more minor league pitchers involved for some of Milwaukee's hitters?

I really have no clue what Milwaukee would want in return, but Hardy is a great fit for the Twins. Stick Harris and Buscher at 3B, call the infield done for 2009, and move on to the bullpen.

Tejas

Well, I'm here in Dallas, stuck in a crappy hotel all by myself. You know what that means, drunk blogging. There's no better way to waste time. You know what they got in Texas? Steers and Queers. And I ain't seen no steers.

Since I'm by myself I figured I'd have a nice steak or prime rib dinner to charge the company, but this place is surrounded by nothing but chains. Not even an Outback. So instead of some crap like Chili's or Crapplebee's, I headed over to the local Buffalo Wild Wings because it's always good and they have trivia (which I dominated). Coming down here I almost wore my Baylor hat, which I picked up because they are the sleeper basketball team of 2008-2009 TM, but thought better of it because Texans are crazy. I didn't some good ole boy in a ten gallon hat that says Texas A&M on it gettin' all up in my business. Plus, if stereotypes have taught me anything it's that all Texans carry guns and aren't afraid to use them. And I don't carry my gun anymore to travel, not since that little incident, so it wouldn't have been a fair fight. That's just stress I don't need.

I did enjoy the two dudes right next to me who ordered a big ole basket of boneless wings to share - and then shared the sauce too. Hello queers. Again, I didn't even dare look sideways at them since they probably had guns, too. With pink and/or rainbow grips, but still, they kill equally well and I have no burning desire to die. But it was cute. Anyway, on to the whatever.

- I had so much trouble finding a place to by beer and fill the tub as seen in the picture above. I went to a couple of grocery/convenience stores and nothing, and my handy GPS said there wasn't any place with Liquor, Bottle, Spirits, or Wine all that close. I finally gave up and went to the nearest place with 'Liquor' in the title, and wouldn't you know it, I think I'm in a dry city/county. As soon as I passed signs that said "Welcome to Dallas" (technically I'm staying in Irving) there was a big ass liquor store on the left and a big ass liquor store on the right. Dry counties are the suck.

- Speaking of things, on my way to the airport today there was a truck that was transporting fireworks next to a big old gasoline truck. That could have been explosive. (get it)

- Anyway, on to sports related things, this Delmon Young thing really has me intrigued. I hate to give up on him, particularly because the throw-ins is a big win for Tampa. Harris/Bartlett is pretty much whatever, but the Pridie/Morlan thing is a killer. Pridie is essentially worthless, while Morlan is still a top prospect, and he's awesome in OOTP. I fully expect him to be closing for the Rays one day. With that said, trading Delmon is pretty much giving up and admitting it was a shitty trade. Although, Sidler''s guy JJ Hardy has me really intrigued. I don't want to spoil his upcoming post - allegedly - but I really like that idea.

- By the way, in case you're curious about former Twins in the playoffs:
C - AJ Pierzynski
1b - David Ortiz
SS - Jason Bartlett
3b - Mike Lamb
LF - Terry Tiffee
Cf - Torii Hunter
RF - Casey Blake

SP - Matt Garza
RP - JC Romero
RP - Grant Balfour

Almost a full team. Just need a second basemen. Give 'em Eckstein and this team's taken the title.

- Funny story. So the other day I came home from work, and from my next door neighbors house I heard people talking in Spanish. I was like, I didn't know they moved. Then, the next day, I heard it again. I looked over, and I noticed that they were having their roof redone. By Mexicans. My neighbors are having their roof redone by Mexicans. I felt guilty and I'm not really even sure why.

- It seems the WNBA gave out their awards today. I'll be sure to blog on that at a later date. Make sure to remind me if I forget.

- So here's what I think about this Justin Cobb signing. I'm sure he's an excellent player and I totally trust Tubby, but I'm still a bit nervous. The fancy pants Daily Gopher interviewed his high school coach, and this is what troubles me: He doesn't attack the basket as much as I would like. His coach said that. Now, that was sandwiched in between a whole bunch of complimentary quotes, but it's still there. I'm under the impression that coaches will pretty much do nothing but talk up there players. Like, if you asked Rick Rickert's high school coach about him, he would say, "Good judgement. Tough guy. Awesome tough inside defender. Definitely will never float around the perimeter and forget about the paint. Hates the NBA. Hates Australia." So I'm a little bit nervous about that quote. But mostly I just wanted to make that Rickert joke, so shut up.

- On another Tubby note, he paid a nice little in home visit recently to 6-8 New Hampshire Center Andrew Fitzgerald, a four star player and Scout's #14th ranked center, who also ranks #100 overall on the Rivals 150. Adding a player like that to the already loaded 2009 class takes the Gophers into top 10 territory. Now, before you get all erect, Fitzy has a lot of heat on him, and plans to take a visit to Louisville later this month, so the odds on Tubby landing him after jumping into the fray so late aren't super terrific (the opposite of the odds that my server at BW's wanted on me - I mean, she called me sweetheart for pete's sake), but if Tubby can get him it would be a major get. A little inside info: He attended Brewster Academy in New Hampshire. The Gopher football coach is Tim Brewster. It's pretty much a lock.

- You know who was a really underrated all-time video game superstar who never gets any play; Yves Racine. Go go Speed Racine.

- On TV at the place tonight, since there's no actual sports tonight, was a replay of the Vikings game (nice special teams, geniuses) and an NBA preseason game between the Celtics and someone. You know who is going to take the NBA by storm? Bill Walker. Just dominant. He ended up scoring almost a point per minute tonight, which, by my calculations, means if the Celtics play him an entire game he'll average nearly 48 points per game next season. Take that Wilt. All he has to do is beat out Darius Miles for the spot. And, as much as I love Darius and his award winning performance as "Basketball Player #2" in Van Wilder, I really think he can handle it. I just came up with an awesome nickname for him. Sky. Bill "Sky" Walker. God that's hot.

- So some weirdo wanted more pictures of Wonderbaby. Fine. Here you go:
Please don't be a perv, guy.

- So I checked out the Brewers prospects, and they do have a couple of SS's in the top ten. Nobody way awesome though, so it might be a little tougher to pry Hardy away than I thought. Again, I want him to blog on this more than I, so that's all I'll say. I would love to have JJ Hardy over here.

- As much as I hate to admit this, I watched the Sex in the City movie recently, and let me tell you it is even worse than you could have imagined. Imagine the most high maintenance girl you know. Now imagine her PMSing hard. Now imagine being locked in a car with her for two and a half hours when she's had a bad day at work and "just wants to vent." It's like that but worse. Way worse. The movie has everything that should never be in a movie. It's a sad movie about sad women being sad, and sad women love watching it because it makes them feel better about their own sad situations and has a happy ending so they think there's hope for their sad selves. I don't even want to get into the fact that Mrs. W loved it.

- And you know what else? That show was actually pretty good for the first few years. It was funny situations acted out by fairly decent characters and wasn't too bad and their were some boobs sometimes. Then, in the last few seasons, the characters mostly just became caricatures of themselves and they were forcing characters into situations rather than having funny situations to begin with. I had a lot more to say here but now I realize what exactly it is I'm writing about so I'm going to just stop.

- Also, I've seen every episode. Shut up.

- What's way better than that is a little movie called Saved. I can't recommend it highly enough. It pokes fun at religion in a very fun way that is not offensive for the weirdies out there. It stars an awesome Rockin' Talkin' Macauly Caulkin, along with Mandy Moore, the underrated Patrick Fugit and Heather Matarazzo (lesbian), and the super hot and underrated Jena Malone. I'm sure there are plenty of you who won't find Jena Malone attractive, but for those who are intelligent here you go:If you don't see it, I can't help you.

- I'm currently reading Case Closed by Gerald Posner, a big ole exposition about the JFK assassination. I can't recommend it enough. How much do I know about the JFK thing? That he was killed in Dallas by Lee Harvey Oswald, and there are questions about what exactly happened, right. I was there too, but this goes into so much more. It's really quite illuminating.

- Dodgers, Rays.

- I was watching some Cowboys/Bengals replay at the bar tonight, and I decided for the sake of the Cowboys (and my fantasy teams) that Tony Romo should just throw to TO and Witten every play.

- The 2008 NBDL draft will be on November 7th, and will be televised on NBA TV at 7pm EST. Sweet. I might need to watch this. Last year's draft featured first pick Eddie Gill, and have zero idea who that is. Other first round luminaries included Jelani McCoy and Darvin Ham, leading me to believe the NBDL is not working out as hoped, since these guys are like thirty. Other first rounders of note would be Kevin Kruger and Kevin Pittsnogle, which clearly means the NBDL draft is the biggest joke ever. Later round picks of note include nobody. I can't wait for this year's draft, when Lawrence McKenzie, Tom Coverdale, and Shawn Respert are picked.

- Seriously though, I would watch this. I'm actually kind of excited.

- I got nothing. Here's some pictures I saved and have no idea when I'd ever use so take a gander: