So dumb. I actually had a Week in Review about 90% done and all typed up. I saved it before bed last night with the intent of finishing it off this morning, except when I went there it was gone. Completely gone. So I'm just going to do this thing instead where I type stuff that you end up reading for some reason.
- Good win for the Gophers Sunday winning in Penn State. It's not so much a great win because Penn State is any good (spoiler: they aren't), but more because losing at PSU right after rescuing their season would be exactly the kind of thing the Gophers would do. Also I should say that when I say the Gophers "rescued" their season after beating Indiana all I mean by that is they shifted the season from a epic flameout to what will probably end up being a disappointing season, but they still have a chance to do something at least. So yeah, I'm not exactly throwing a party just yet but at least they managed to beat Penn State. God I was so convinced they were going to lose. Thank god I'm stupid.
Now the Gophers are 2-4 in Big 10 play, and at an absolute minimum they're going to need to get to 9 wins to even get within sniffing distance of an NCAA bid, especially because Virginia Tech - their one hope for a quality out of conference win - keeps sucking. With 12 games to go that means they need to win at least seven more. Here are the easy wins left on the schedule: Nebraska at home. That's it. Everything else is going to at least be a little tough; HOME: Northwestern, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Ohio State, Indiana, and Nebraska. AWAY: Michigan State, Iowa, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Wisconsin. Yikes. They're gonna be favored in what, 3 games? Maybe four? It's long ass road to those 9 wins, and I'm not even sure 9 would get there. Looking like another long year. I need a vacation.
- Elsewhere in a rare move the Twins made that I actually like they signed reliever Joel Zumaya to a one year deal for $800k (with incentives that can double that), but it's a non-guaranteed deal so if his elbow (which you may remember exploded in a game against the Twins) isn't all the way back they can just cut him easy peasy lemon squeezy. Good deal.
He's been hurt a lot since bursting on the scene in his rookie year of 2006 - he hasn't thrown more than 39 innings in a season since then - but if he can somehow stay healthy he could end up being a real bargain. Zumaya has always been a flamethrower (his average fastball for his career has been 98.5 mph, topping at an average of 99 his last two years and he's struck out a batter an inning for his career) and like many of that ilk he's struggled with his control. 2010, however, was different. Although he was still throwing hard and still striking people out he also had gotten the wildness under control, slicing his walk rate basically in half and was developing into a dominant reliever pre-injury. Big fan of the signing.
- Sticking with baseball, why the hell would you trade a 23-year old pitcher who already has one of the best fastballs in the league and has already proven himself to be a #2 type pitcher and if he ever fully developed a second pitch he could end up a full on ace. I know Jesus Montero is thought to be one of the best hitting prospects in baseball and he definitely hit well when he was up with the Yankees last season but it was just 69 plate appearances and how is that all the Mariners got for Michael Pineda?
If Seattle was dead set on trading Pineda and his 171 high quality innings Montero would have been a nice centerpiece to the deal, but there should have been at least a couple more prospects thrown in. Now Seattle has a nice middle of the order future with Dustin Ackley, Montero, and Justin Smoak but they're pitching is suddenly pretty thin again behind Felix. And the Yankee rotation just went from crazy shaky to Sabathia, Pineda, Hiroki Kuroda (who they signed like, 3 minutes after making this trade), Ivan Nova (who finished ahead of Pineda in the ROY voting last year), and their choice of Phil Hughes, Freddy Garcia, or A.J. Burnett. You know the worst part? And of those three pitchers the Yankees get to choose from as their #5 would be the Twins' ace. I'm going to go lick a car battery now.
- No matter how disappointing the Gophers' hoops season might be to you at least it's not as bad as what's going on with Pitt. The Panthers have been dominant in their own way over the last several seasons and were expecting more of the same this year, starting the year ranked #11, but things haven't exactly gone according to plan. An 0-3 week with a 20 point home loss to Rutgers leaves Pitt in dead last in the Big East at 0-6 and currently riding a 7-game losing streak that started with a home loss to Wagner. Wagner! There's no doubt the Gophers' season has been a bit of a disappointment but it's nothing like what Pitt fans are going through. This year Pitt is hands down the most disappointing team in the NCAA and it isn't remotely close. They're just like The Phantom Menace.
- What's more sweeter than a Packer season ending early? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Suck it, Packers.
Showing posts with label Jesus Montero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jesus Montero. Show all posts
Monday, January 16, 2012
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Doc Gooden is insane
Real quick:
I loved Dwight Gooden growing up. He was easily the most talented pitcher I had ever seen. He then ruined his career with coke (seriously Damon Wayans character in The Last Boy Scout - which is an awesome awesome movie and if you disagree I will find you and kick you in your balls - was the football version of this guy) and has had some well-publicized battles with drugs. Now he's battled back to be on twitter. Naturally I follow him. He is a Yankee fan. Based on his tweets last night he has a fool proof, 3-point plan to restore the Yankees to glory:
1. Sign Jose Reyes.
2. Trade A.J. Burnett for Jason Bay.
3. Trade the team's top 4 prospects for Felix Hernandez.
Everything about this made me laugh. Just, very quickly:
1. Reyes would actually be perfect for this team - except they signed Jeter to that extension and are still on the hook for $33 million the next two seasons. Reyes isn't going to play 2b with Cano there, and you can't give up on A-Rod after one sub-par season when he's still owed $133 million through 2017 (note: Holy fucking shit! I'm giggling over here.). They only way they're signing Reyes is if they can move Jeter or A-Rod, and they have about as much a chance of that as trading A.J. Burnett.
2. Oh. Right. Trading Burnett was leg 2. It actually makes sense to bring up Bay here, since the Mets are one of the few teams who would at least consider trading for Burnett if it meant they could shed Bay. Both are owed in the low $30 million range for 2 years left each, but Burnett has been awful for 2 years and will be 35 next season, while Bay is two years younger and has more battled injuries than been terrible, and his last full season, although coming two seasons ago, was an awfully good one. In short, this is the kind of trade that I totally get why a Yankee fan would try to sell as realistic, but it really isn't.
3. I don't even care who the other three guys are, you don't trade Jesus. Judas tried that shit and he's now Hitler's love slave, but there's a whole lot of dumb in this idea. The Yankees are getting old. Cano and Brett Gardner were the only regulars under the age of 30 this season, and I'm not sure I'd count on Gardner as a fixture in the outfield. Hughesy and Nova are their only starters under 30. They're old, and right on cue they've actually started developing some young talent - Montero and Cano are studs. There's some good pitching prospects in the pipeline, and they've got a lot of positions covered. They're in good shape. But Gooden's plan is to abandon that and gut the system for one guy - a great pitcher, yes, but yeah no.
In short, I freaking love crazy Dwight Gooden. That is all.
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| Where the hell has this picture been all my life? |
I loved Dwight Gooden growing up. He was easily the most talented pitcher I had ever seen. He then ruined his career with coke (seriously Damon Wayans character in The Last Boy Scout - which is an awesome awesome movie and if you disagree I will find you and kick you in your balls - was the football version of this guy) and has had some well-publicized battles with drugs. Now he's battled back to be on twitter. Naturally I follow him. He is a Yankee fan. Based on his tweets last night he has a fool proof, 3-point plan to restore the Yankees to glory:
1. Sign Jose Reyes.
2. Trade A.J. Burnett for Jason Bay.
3. Trade the team's top 4 prospects for Felix Hernandez.
Everything about this made me laugh. Just, very quickly:
1. Reyes would actually be perfect for this team - except they signed Jeter to that extension and are still on the hook for $33 million the next two seasons. Reyes isn't going to play 2b with Cano there, and you can't give up on A-Rod after one sub-par season when he's still owed $133 million through 2017 (note: Holy fucking shit! I'm giggling over here.). They only way they're signing Reyes is if they can move Jeter or A-Rod, and they have about as much a chance of that as trading A.J. Burnett.
2. Oh. Right. Trading Burnett was leg 2. It actually makes sense to bring up Bay here, since the Mets are one of the few teams who would at least consider trading for Burnett if it meant they could shed Bay. Both are owed in the low $30 million range for 2 years left each, but Burnett has been awful for 2 years and will be 35 next season, while Bay is two years younger and has more battled injuries than been terrible, and his last full season, although coming two seasons ago, was an awfully good one. In short, this is the kind of trade that I totally get why a Yankee fan would try to sell as realistic, but it really isn't.
3. I don't even care who the other three guys are, you don't trade Jesus. Judas tried that shit and he's now Hitler's love slave, but there's a whole lot of dumb in this idea. The Yankees are getting old. Cano and Brett Gardner were the only regulars under the age of 30 this season, and I'm not sure I'd count on Gardner as a fixture in the outfield. Hughesy and Nova are their only starters under 30. They're old, and right on cue they've actually started developing some young talent - Montero and Cano are studs. There's some good pitching prospects in the pipeline, and they've got a lot of positions covered. They're in good shape. But Gooden's plan is to abandon that and gut the system for one guy - a great pitcher, yes, but yeah no.
In short, I freaking love crazy Dwight Gooden. That is all.
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| Trade me again and I'll kill you (NOTE: that doesn't really make sense but I really wanted to use this picture) |
Monday, September 12, 2011
Monday Musings
I was actually going to bring back the good ole Weekend Review since we have three sports running right now, but then i was like meh. So here's some thoughts from the weekend.
- I know it would be in bad taste, what with the Coach Kill stuff, to badmouth the Gophers about losing to New Mexico State so I'm not going to do it. Also making fun of the Gophers for losing to stupid shitty teams has kind of gotten old. Instead I'll put on my happy sunshine magic ice cream glasses and look at the positive. In that case I need to point out that Da'Jon McKnight is really damn good at catching the ball and also getting open. McKnight had 9 catches for 146 yards and a score on Saturday, which was 50% of the teams catches and somewhere in the 60% neighborhood of their receiving yards. And also he just looks like a player out there. Catching that many balls from a wide receiver forced to play QB and a freshman is a testament to his ability. Guy's solid. Might end up actually being even better than Eric Decker, but far less sexy.
- So you're Michigan. You have the fastest quarterback in the NCAA since Major Harris. The type of QB you never have, tending to stick to the tall, white, immobile pocket passer type like Jon Navarre and Elvis Grbac. So you decide to implement the west coast offense? Just stupid. And I know they won, but you know why they won? Because in the second half they were like, "Denard, go be Denard" and that's mostly what he did. Did he miss some wide open receivers? Yes. Did he make some terrible decisions? Yes. Did he make some incredible plays with arm and legs? Yes, yes he did. That is why you let Major Harris loose. He completed less than 50% of his passes, but still threw for over 300 yards and 4 TDs while rushing over 100 yards. That's what guys like this do. And, if you're a good coach, you realize this and mold your offense to fit him, not try to cram Major Harris into a Joe Montana bit. Whoever the Michigan coach is recognized that in the second half, it'll be interesting to see if he recognizes that for the rest of the year(s). Also yeah that probably doesn't warrant a place in the suck column but I'm sure as shit not going to devote an entire post to fucking Michigan football. And also I started this post when they were down 24-7, so I'm kinda stuck.
- How about Austin Jackson's week? Jesus what an asshole. Here's how it went down: 0-5 2 Ks, 1-5 2 Ks, 1-6 3 Ks, 0-4 2 Ks, 0-2 2 Ks, and 1-4 with 2 Ks. That's 3-26 with 12 strikeouts, 3 runs scored, 0 rbi, and 0 steals. You know how I know how shitty he was? Because the fantasy baseball playoffs started this week and not only do we have this cock mouse on our roster, but we stared him. Why would we start him you ask? Because the week prior he went 18-34 with 3 doubles, 3 triples, 2 homers, 5 rbi, 8 runs scored, and 2 steals. So yes, he's quite an ass.
- Speaking of that, how about that Donovan McNabb this weekend? I actually thought he looked pretty spry and his piss poor numbers are probably more the fault of that crappy offensive line than actually McNabb's fault, but any time you fail to crack 40 passing yards and you play the entire game that clearly isn't good. Defense looked good at least and AP is a stud and it's not like they got blown out against a clear playoff team so I'm not panicking or anything just yet, but that line needs to get it figured out in a hurry.
- Since the Twins have no hope, and as such I don't currently see any reason to discuss until the season's over and we can figure out which bums we hope get booted, let's talk about two of the top prospects in baseball who are now up with the big clubs: Jesus Montero, C, Yankees and Matt Moore, P, Rays. Montero, who has been the Yankees #1 prospect for like 10 years, has been up now for about a week and a half and has smoked the ball, hitting .308/.400/.654 with 3 homers and basically been somewhere between Ryan Braun and Jose Bautista. Moore has been tabbed the #1 pitching prospect in baseball by some and considered a future ace by most. The Rays don't have him slotted in a rotation spot yet, so I'm guessing he'll be used out the pen similarly to how they used David Price a few years ago.
Meanwhile the Twins top prospects have either regressed or are 17 years old. It's gonna be a long couple of years, boys. I suggest you jump on over to the Royals bandwagon with me.
- Lastly, since we're talking about hope and how there is none for Minnesota sports teams, the Houston Cougars are about to become the newest mid-major who can do some serious damage after an epic weekend of signings. The Cougars, who I can only assume are cheating, signed SF Danuel House and PF Danrad "Chicken" Knowles. Why this is notable, besides someone voluntarily going by the name Chicken, is because House is the #15 player in the class of 2012 according to Rivals.com, and Knowles is ranked #47 so this is a huge step for Houston. Both are from Texas, which helped Houston out at least somewhat, but both also had offers from Baylor and Arkansas (which is practically Texas) and House chose the Cougars over the Longhorns (as well as Kansas, Ohio State, and Arizona). So not only is this one huge get for a completely unknown coach at a subpar program, but it's two huge gets.
Sigh.
- I know it would be in bad taste, what with the Coach Kill stuff, to badmouth the Gophers about losing to New Mexico State so I'm not going to do it. Also making fun of the Gophers for losing to stupid shitty teams has kind of gotten old. Instead I'll put on my happy sunshine magic ice cream glasses and look at the positive. In that case I need to point out that Da'Jon McKnight is really damn good at catching the ball and also getting open. McKnight had 9 catches for 146 yards and a score on Saturday, which was 50% of the teams catches and somewhere in the 60% neighborhood of their receiving yards. And also he just looks like a player out there. Catching that many balls from a wide receiver forced to play QB and a freshman is a testament to his ability. Guy's solid. Might end up actually being even better than Eric Decker, but far less sexy.
- So you're Michigan. You have the fastest quarterback in the NCAA since Major Harris. The type of QB you never have, tending to stick to the tall, white, immobile pocket passer type like Jon Navarre and Elvis Grbac. So you decide to implement the west coast offense? Just stupid. And I know they won, but you know why they won? Because in the second half they were like, "Denard, go be Denard" and that's mostly what he did. Did he miss some wide open receivers? Yes. Did he make some terrible decisions? Yes. Did he make some incredible plays with arm and legs? Yes, yes he did. That is why you let Major Harris loose. He completed less than 50% of his passes, but still threw for over 300 yards and 4 TDs while rushing over 100 yards. That's what guys like this do. And, if you're a good coach, you realize this and mold your offense to fit him, not try to cram Major Harris into a Joe Montana bit. Whoever the Michigan coach is recognized that in the second half, it'll be interesting to see if he recognizes that for the rest of the year(s). Also yeah that probably doesn't warrant a place in the suck column but I'm sure as shit not going to devote an entire post to fucking Michigan football. And also I started this post when they were down 24-7, so I'm kinda stuck.
- How about Austin Jackson's week? Jesus what an asshole. Here's how it went down: 0-5 2 Ks, 1-5 2 Ks, 1-6 3 Ks, 0-4 2 Ks, 0-2 2 Ks, and 1-4 with 2 Ks. That's 3-26 with 12 strikeouts, 3 runs scored, 0 rbi, and 0 steals. You know how I know how shitty he was? Because the fantasy baseball playoffs started this week and not only do we have this cock mouse on our roster, but we stared him. Why would we start him you ask? Because the week prior he went 18-34 with 3 doubles, 3 triples, 2 homers, 5 rbi, 8 runs scored, and 2 steals. So yes, he's quite an ass.
- Speaking of that, how about that Donovan McNabb this weekend? I actually thought he looked pretty spry and his piss poor numbers are probably more the fault of that crappy offensive line than actually McNabb's fault, but any time you fail to crack 40 passing yards and you play the entire game that clearly isn't good. Defense looked good at least and AP is a stud and it's not like they got blown out against a clear playoff team so I'm not panicking or anything just yet, but that line needs to get it figured out in a hurry.
- Since the Twins have no hope, and as such I don't currently see any reason to discuss until the season's over and we can figure out which bums we hope get booted, let's talk about two of the top prospects in baseball who are now up with the big clubs: Jesus Montero, C, Yankees and Matt Moore, P, Rays. Montero, who has been the Yankees #1 prospect for like 10 years, has been up now for about a week and a half and has smoked the ball, hitting .308/.400/.654 with 3 homers and basically been somewhere between Ryan Braun and Jose Bautista. Moore has been tabbed the #1 pitching prospect in baseball by some and considered a future ace by most. The Rays don't have him slotted in a rotation spot yet, so I'm guessing he'll be used out the pen similarly to how they used David Price a few years ago.
Meanwhile the Twins top prospects have either regressed or are 17 years old. It's gonna be a long couple of years, boys. I suggest you jump on over to the Royals bandwagon with me.
- Lastly, since we're talking about hope and how there is none for Minnesota sports teams, the Houston Cougars are about to become the newest mid-major who can do some serious damage after an epic weekend of signings. The Cougars, who I can only assume are cheating, signed SF Danuel House and PF Danrad "Chicken" Knowles. Why this is notable, besides someone voluntarily going by the name Chicken, is because House is the #15 player in the class of 2012 according to Rivals.com, and Knowles is ranked #47 so this is a huge step for Houston. Both are from Texas, which helped Houston out at least somewhat, but both also had offers from Baylor and Arkansas (which is practically Texas) and House chose the Cougars over the Longhorns (as well as Kansas, Ohio State, and Arizona). So not only is this one huge get for a completely unknown coach at a subpar program, but it's two huge gets.
Sigh.
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