Doc Gooden is insane

Real quick:

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.

Trade me again and I'll kill you (NOTE:  that doesn't really make sense but I really wanted to use this picture)

MLB 2011 Mid-Year Check-In, Part I

Since we're at the symbolic mid-year point for the 2011 MLB season, I might as well give you some thoughts to chew on from my super smart brain.  I'm going to go with the pleasant resultss so far this year today, and tomorrow I'll toss out the big disappointments.  As usual, we'll be covering the entire league as well as your local nine.  In no particular order:

1.  Michael Cuddyer.  I wrote him up glowingly just a week ago, but I'm just stunned by my own turnaround him.  Thanks to his knack for picking up his hitting when the team most needs his bat as well as his willingness to play wherever and whenever he's needed (unlike many others on this sissified team) I've come around on everything I used to hate.  The two things I hated most were his inability to law off the outside slider in the dirt when he had 2 strikes even though he knows it's coming and his media-whore-ishness. 

At this point, however, I've just come to accept that almost everybody has a hole in their swing and that's just his, and I'm beginning to realize his mediawhoreishness is really just attempt to be a team leader.  Seeing how Joe Mauer is an emotionless robot and Justin Morneau usually can no longer remember what day it is or what his name is, Cuddy's tried to become the leader the team needs.  Since he's really just a country bumpkin at heart it doesn't really come off all that well but at least he's trying.  

Hopefully they trade him for a prospect and then resign him at a reduced price next season.   Although I want Kubel back as well.  So I guess they need to trade Delmon Young, whose value is at an all-time low, and Denard Span, who looks like he may never play again.  This team can't even build a roster correctly. 

2.  Jose Bautista.  Let me guess.  You, like everybody else, figured Jose Bautista for a Brady Anderson like fluke last year, whether it was due to steroids or just some weird convergence of craziness or something.  I did, but after his start to this year - leading the majors with 31 homers already - I'm sold.  Maybe I'm really stupid, and obviously it's not out of the questions that he's getting pharmacological help for two years rather than just the one, but I'm now a believer.  Maybe I just want to believe.  I don't know.  It's not like this kind of neither never happens - it's just rare.

3.  Ben Revere.  I have to admit I was never really all that excited for Ben Revere.  All I ever heard was how he was basically the next Juan Pierre, and statistically Pierre isn't all that great.  He gets a lot of hits but makes a lot of outs because he never walks and he's fast with no power.  I wasn't interested.  But now that Revere is here, I get the good stuff.

Yeah, he'd still be better if he walked a bit more often and unless he develops some power he's going to struggle because the outfielders, especially the left-fielders, can play him shallow and take away that slap single to left, but he's fun to watch, no doubt.  Incredible fast, maybe the fastest Twin on the bases I can remember along with Guzman and Gomez, hits well enough, can steal bases, and is the best defensive CFer the team has had since Puckett.  I'm on board.  Whether he can ever develop into a true leadoff type hitter or will be more doomed to be a #9 is yet to be seen, but his downside is an exciting bottom of the order guy with his upside an all-star lead off hitter.  What's not to love?

4.  Adrian Gonzalez.  Remember how Gonzalez put up like sickening good numbers hitting in the grand canyon that is Petco Park while being surrounded in the lineup by guys like Chase Headley and Ryan Klesko and everybody said that he'd kill the league after he signed with Boston?  Well it's happening.  .354 to lead the league with 77 rbi to lead the league and 17 homers (ranks 10th).  If you're curious, a season with a .350 BA, 25 homers, and 120 rbi has only been done three times since 2000 (Pujols, Larry Walker, Magglio Ordonez) and not once since 2007.  Pretty crazy stuff.

5.  Justin Verlander.  Speaking of crazy, Verlander is having an absolute monster year of a career year, which is pretty amazing considering he's already finished in the top-11 in Cy Young voting four times in his six year career.  His ERA of 2.15 is a full run better than his previous career best while his WHIP of 0.87 is 0.3 better than his career high and his 12 wins so far are nearly 2/3rds of the way to his high of 19 (that's right, somehow Verlander has never won 20 in a season).  Looking at the nerd stats he's pitching nearly identically to how he usually does style wise, but the results have been better so we can expect Verlander to come back towards his career averages a bit (which is good for Twins' fans) but he's still a damn good pitcher either way wit the inside track on his first Cy Young win.  I really really wish the Twins could find a way to get somebody like this someday.  Come on, Kyle Gibson.

6.  Jose Reyes.  The Mets aren't very good or anything, but have been slightly better than expected aat around .500 and the biggest reason is that Jose Reyes has been completely and totally ridiculous.  He's currently leading the NL in batting average at .354 which is made even more ridiculous by the fact that he was hitting just .310 on May 22nd but has hit .413 in the 34 games since with multiple hits in 22 of those 34 games.  Basically with a crappy team whose #2 and #3 players are hurt in David Wright and Johan Santana they're in a position to get a huge return if they can find a trade partner for Reyes.  He's a free agent so they need to move him (or sign him I guess since they're a New York team).  Maybe the Twins could get him for a Mauer + Casilla combo.  Do it. 

7.  Paul Konerko.  Sort of lost in all the hub-bub over Jose Bautista transforming from 4th outfielder to most feared hitter in the AL has been Konerko's transformation from washed up old man to 2nd most feared hitter in the AL.  Although I'm sure all Twins' fans have noticed.  From 2004-2006 he was incredible with 3 top-22 MVP years, but then started a skid that looked like it was pretty much the final slide of his career.  In fact, for 3 straight years from 2007-2009 he was pretty average and an average hitting first baseman isn't very good.  But then last year - boom - .312 with 39 homers and he's continued it this year by hitting .319 with 22 HRs to this point.  Actually, know that I think about, Konerko's resurgence should probably be more suspicious than Bautista's transformation, but it just isn't because he's a rare commodity (a non-douchey White Sock) and it's fun to say Konerko Konorked it.   


8.  Scott Baker.  With all the hand-wringing over the Twins', and particularly over the state of the starting pitching, somehow it's been lost that Baker is having a career year.  His ERA at the break is just 3.01, ranking him tenth in the AL, which is a full run better than his career mark.  And, after an uncharacteristic start to the season where he was struggling to find the strike zone he's now got his walk rate down back where it traditionally belongs and is doing it while putting up a career high strikeout rate.  Basically he appears to really be coming into his own and he's doing it by doing things he can control:  strikeout rate, walk rate, and home run rate (which is down this year).  He's shown too many flashes in the past for me to be straight up excited by this and I have to say there's a big part of me that's just waiting for the regression, but I'm definitely mildly intrigued. 

9.  Michael Pineda.  Credit goes to Snake for drafting this guy for our fantasy team, but he's been an absolute gem.  His 8 wins lead all AL rookie pitchers and he also leads in WHIP at 1.04, ERA at 3.03, and strikeouts at 103.  In short, he's been a complete rookie stud who is the leading candidate to win AL Rookie-of-the-Year and a fabulous compliment to Felix Hernandez, giving Seattle an excellent 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation.  Unfortunately outside of those two, Justin Smoak, Ichiro, and Dustin Ackley the entire team is worse than the worst Twin.  Yeah, for real.

10.  Pittsburgh Pirates.  Speaking of teams that are usually really bad you have to hand it to the Pirates who, at 47-43, have a decent chance to finish over .500 for the first time in 18 years, and actually sent three players to the All-Star game.  Since they hired Neal Huntington as GM in 2007 they've been very patient and have worked to build their farm system and it's now starting to pay off (not unlike what the Royals are doing).  They've mainly worked through the draft (picking up Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, Pedro Alvarez) that way, but have also done well in trades, nabbing Jose Tabata from the Yankees (in the Xavier Nady/Damaso Marte trade that also netted Jeff Karstens), Ronny Cedeno from the Mariners for Jack Wilson, as well as starters James McDonald (from the Dodgers) and Charlie Morton (from the Cubs) for Octavio Dotel and Nate McLouth and they signed all-star Kevin Correia as a free agent and grabbed all-star Joel Hanrahan from the Nats for nothing.  They're definitely building something in Pittsburgh.  Whether they can go any further or if this is it, it's gotta be exciting if you're a Pirate fan.  Assuming those still exist.

NBA Game 3. And Go.

I mostly covered everything that was interesting that happened this week in this post from Friday, so I won't rehash with a Week in Review post.  Instead I'll do sort of a running blog of the NBA game and mention anything from this weekend that pops into my head.  And you're going to sit there and like it.

-  First off I'm going to come right out and admit that today was an awful gambling night, one of the worst I can recall in recent memory.  If I haven't already told you this, my main gambling during baseball season is to spend time analyzing the player props and making the proper picks based on what my math says are the best plays.  So far this season (since a formula tweak in mid-May) the system has been +16.08 units, with only three losing days.  Then this weekend it went -1.31 units, -0.48 units, and today was -3.46 units, easily the worst gambling day of the baseball season.  Doesn't feel good.  With three straight losing days my confidence is shaken right now.  Stay tuned.

-  That being said, I could take today from a disaster to just a bad day by doing well on NBA props.  Here's what I'm going with:  Both teams combined under 14 made 3s, Chandler over 17.5 pts+rebs, Bosh over 8.5 rebs, Nowitzki over 7.5 made FTs, Terry over 1.5 made 3s, and Lebron over 1.5 made 3s.  It's gonna be a bad night either way, but if I can at least hit a majority of these I can mitigate it.  I really don't want to have to deposit again.  Sending a $500 Western Union moneygram to Manuel in the Philippines makes me feel icky.

-  I should also mention I'll just be doing the second half of the NBA game because I missed the first half.  Looking at the box score the Heat are up 5 at half and every single one of my bets is in absolutely terrible shape.  Good.  Great.  Grand.  Wonderful.

-  I guess if I'm going to talk sports I need to start with the Twins since they just swept the royals in a four game series.  I suppose it's tempting to think they may have righted the ship, and with Cleveland getting swept in four by Texas and the second place team barely hovering around .500 that they have a shot, but lets look a little deeper.  The offense in this four-gamer was driven by Revere-Rivera-Tolbert in Game 1, Span-Young-Revere-Hughes-Butera in game 2, Revere-Casilla-Tolbert in Game 3, and Casilla-Repko-Hughes in Game 4.  Do we really think those guys are that good, or was this lightning in a bottle?  And is the pitching, which held the Royals to 6 runs in the four games, suddenly clicking or is KC just that bad?  I hate to say it, but I think this was more the demise of 2011 Kansas City more than the resurgence of the Twins.  Haters gonna hate.

-  I love this Maverick team.  Miami scored 8 straight to open the half and drove their lead to 15.  So the Mavs just said, "ok" and made smart plays, smart passes, and good shots while Miami acted like a bunch of idiots and suddenly the lead is just 7.  Also I hate the Miami Heat and Cameron Diaz.

- Hottest player in ball not named Michael Morse:  Jose Reyes of the Mets.  He's 2-3 with a double with 2 runs and a ribbie tonight, which is his 10th straight game with a hit and his 12th multi-hit game in his last 18.  I'm going to write that again - he's had more than one hit in 12 of his last 18 games.  Before this Royals' series I don't know if the Twins had 12 multi-hit games by a player all year.

-  Yeah here's the problem with my Lebron over 1.5 made three pointers bet.  I forgot that he can't shoot for shit.

-  I really like Tyson Chandler.  I mean, offensively he's a bit retarded, but he just blocked two shots and then saved a ball back to his team by diving out of bounds.  The guy is the perfect kind of building block guy for a team.  Excellent defender, excellent rebounder, doesn't need to score but can put it in the hoop if he's close enough, but doesn't give a crap for scoring.  Not exactly what you'd want out of the #2 pick in the draft but considering Dallas got him basically straight up for Eduardo Najera I'd call that a steal.  Also, Mavs now lead.

-  James for three!!!!  I mean oh crap.  I mean good. I'm so conflicted.

-  Terry for three!!!!! Good!  I mean good!!!

-  By the way, I also have a pretty good chunk of change on both Wade for MVP and Dirk for MVP.  If Lebron wins it I'm probably going to have to sell at least one car.

-  I know what you're thinking:  didn't this used to be a Gopher blog?  And yes, it still is, but I know I haven't done much on the basketball team but really you should just shut up because it's the off-season and also you're being kind of rude.  But, very quickly, here is a very short rundown of the 5 unsigned players for 2012 that Rivals says the Gophers have offered:

• SG Gary Harris (Fishers, Indiana - #6 SG, #26 overall) - Very good player with a lot of quality midwestern offers including Indiana, Michigan State, Purdue, and Louisville.  He's not coming here.
• C A.J. Hammons (Mouth of Wilson, VA - #11 C, #55 overall) - a strong season has teams like Ohio State, Kentucky, and Purdue looking at him.  None of those teams have offered yet, but if he doesn't sign with Minnesota fairly soon it may be too late.
• G Javontae Hawkins (Flint, MI - #18 SG, #92 overall) - he's from Flint but Izzo doesn't want him so that's kind of weird.  He lists Ohio State, Michigan, USC, and West Virginia as the leaders (all have offered) and the Gophers are lumped with about 15 other teams behind them.  Outlook:  not likely.
• SF Demarquise Johnson (Phoenix, AZ - #28 SF, #122 overall) - Tubby is after him very hard, but he sounds like he's looking to stay on the west coast.  This is the guy I really want - he's athletic and can score from in or out.  Like everything I'm hearing about him.
• PF Khaliq Spicer (Dearborn Heights, MI - unranked) - Gophers are competing with a couple of crappy MAC and crappy A-10 teams (like Dayton) for his services, so it's either a diamond-in-the-rough situation or a reminder that the Gophers suck.  Sounds like he's a pretty good athlete, but also pretty raw, who would be that sweet ass rebounder and shot-blocker whose scoring range is "dunk."  I love that kind of guy, as long as he's a complimentary part of the class, not the focal point.

So there you go.  Three guys they won't get, one good one they might, and one they have to beat out Central Michigan for.  Whew, I'm overwhelmed here.  I'm sweating.  Dynasty here we come.

-  Uglier jumper:  Shawn Marion or random WNBAer?  No, you're right that's not fair.  Shawn Marion or random women's high school player?

-  So how about that Blake Lively?

-  I love it when Miami is stupid and leaves Dirk open for three (it's now 70-70 with 10 minutes to go).  On this one Dirk set a pick for J.J. Barea and both Chalmers and Haslem fall all over themselves to chase Barea and Wade doesn't even take a step out of the corner to rotate off of Terry.  Dirk open.  Dirk make.  Game tied.  Except Bosh just dunked on an absolutely gorgeous pass from Lebron.  I really wish he wasn't such a doosh.  Such a great passer.  Fourth best passer ever at that height:  Magic, Bird, Penny.

-  You know what I really hate?  Restaurants that automatically put lemon in your water.  Is this the default now?  Is lemon in water so freaking popular with people that it's just assumed everybody loves it?  Because guess what?  I hate it.  New rule:  from now on every time there's a freaking lemon in my water without my being asked I'm going to pour the damn thing out on the floor.  Join me, won't you?  Like they say in all those commercials with sad music and sad animals and sad babies or whatever, "Together, we can make a difference."  END LEMON WATER NOW!!!!

-  Ha ha go to hell Lebron.

-  Lebron has now been called for both a travel and a double dribble in the last five minutes.  Also if bitching to the refs was an olympic event they'd just skip gold and give him a platinum.  He's like if the Yankees and Kobe Bryant had a kid.  What if this thing was Lakers/Heat?  I'm pretty sure I'd be going Heat because I like Wade but god, talk about Sophie's Choice of douchery.

-  The Mavs have missed about 7 threes in the last 1 minute.  I don't like how this is going.  Heat up 6 with 4 to play.

-  Who the hell is Joel Anthony and why are we pronouncing his name Jo-El?  Is that' Superman's dad?

-  So I watched the original Tron the other day for the first time in at least 20 years.  It was really, really stupid.  Yet we get a long-awaited sequel to that and I"m still sitting here waiting for Jurassic Park 4.  That's really fair.  Although the last rumor I heard for a fourth Jurassic Park was military trained raptors with weapons strapped to their backs (I'm not kidding, that was a legit serious script) so maybe we just hold steady at three, which was actually one too many.  Really?  Raptors, which have been held up as the smartest of all dinosaurs through the entire trilogy, are going to suddenly NOT eat Dr. Grant and that kid because they blow air through a raptor skull?  And do we really need to bring in a bigger badass than the T-Rex?  I think he was doing just fine, thanks.  Go to hell, movie.  Go to hell.  At least we got Pterodactyls. 

-  FACT:  Jason Kidd cannot guard Dwyane Wade.  Also FACT:  Dwyane Wade's mom can't spell for shit.

-  Ha ha Lebron you donkey ass face!!!

-  Jason Terry has now missed 3 three-pointers, anyone of which would win me a bet.  I don't care if I lose all my bets if Dallas wins, but if Miami wins and I get cleaned out I'm going to be VERY unhappy.

-  Well the Heat won and I went 1-5 on my game bets.  Really just a fabulous day.  I'm never posting again.

-  Since I'm quitting blogging this will be the last thing I ever write on here, but I do need give a little shout-out to Mrs. W, who ran an entire half-marathon today, while I'm still tired today from mowing half the lawn yesterday.  Way to go, baby, and I know you are disappointed in 2:28, but I think it's pretty damn amazing, and I love that even after that you can still give me a look like I'm an idiot when I want to take your picture.