Week in Review - 7/5/2010

Way too tired from the weekend at the cabin to do a true introduction here, so I'm not going to. And the fishing sucked.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Cliff Lee. Cliffy just keeps driving his price up. He's about as white hot as a pitcher can get, throwing 17 innings this week and giving up just four runs while striking out 13 and walking just two. That included a complete game win over the Yankees, which made Lee's third straight complete game and the fourth in a stretch of five games.  His ERA is now down to 2.34, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio is 100-8.  Yes, 100-8.  Frankly, dude is redonkulous and he's peaking right now.  It might be expensive for the Twins to get him, but if they haven't given up on the season yet (and frankly, they might want to consider that) they need to pay whatever Seattle wants, because if Detroit or the White Sox get him, it's over.  Well, more over than it already is.  

2. Carl Crawford.  He ripped up the Twins pretty good, which followed him ripping up the Red Sox pretty good, in a season where he's ripping up pretty much everybody.  And I just love this guy.  He could stand to walk a little bit more, but how can you not love a guy who's going to hit .300 for you with 15 homers, 30 doubles, ten triples, and steal 60 bases at about an 85% clip?  In baseball history, a player has stole at least 50 bases, been caught 10 times or less, and hit 10 home runs in a single season just 19 times - Crawford has done it three times (Rickey also did it three times).  And guess what kids?  He's a free agent after this season.  If they are actually committed to making Cuddy Bear into a third baseman, I say go all the way and put him there full-time next year, sign Crawford, let Thome walk, and move Kubel to full-time DH.  Seriously, Crawford is so good.  Gimme gimme gimme I need I need. 

3. Justin Rose.  Pretty good bounce back for Rose this week at the AT&T National.  Last week, Rose looked like he was going to be the runaway winner at the Travelers after stringing together three good rounds, but a disastrous 75 on Sunday dropped him to ninth.  This week, rather than let that derail what has been a good year, he went out and did it again, racing out to a big lead by Sunday, but avoided the crash and shot a final round 70 in route to a one-shot win over Ryan Moore.  That means his last three tournaments have gone win-should have won-win, and he's absolutely peaking for the British Open in two weeks, a tournament where he generally plays pretty well.  And I was just able to snag him early this week at 33-1 to win.   

4.  Matt LaPorta. You remember LaPorta, right?  He was the big centerpiece in the deal the Brewers made to acquire C.C. Sabathia from the Indians (a deal that, despite the results, should be the blueprint for the Twins to acquire Cliff Lee).  Since then he's kind of puttered around, hitting .254 in 200 ABs last year and .236 so far this year, all while showing the power of Nick Punto - not exactly what was expected of him.  But since the Indians traded Russ Branyan last week and installed him as the full-time first basemen he's shown flashes.  He started the week with a home run in three straight games, bringing his season total to four, and then closed the week with a three-hit game against Oakland.  It might not be much, but he has raised his average from .211 when he was sent down in early June to .236 now, so maybe he's figuring it out.  Or maybe it's a small sample size fluke.

5.  Miguel Olivo.  If you've been paying any attention to Matt Wieters, and I know I have, you know he sucks beyond anything since Mark Salas.  The reason I bring that up, is that Wieters sucked so bad we had to bench him in fantasy, and to replace him in the lineup Snake picked up Olivo - and it's paid off brilliantly.  After thrashing the Padres and Giants this week to the tune of .409/.435/.727, which included a 9-16 stretch, he's now hitting .307 for the year with 11 home runs and 39 RBI.  Notice anything fun about those numbers?  Yep, they're all better than what Joe Mauer is doing.  Just a brilliant move by the Royals letting this dude go and instead tossing a shitload of money at crappy old Jason Kendall instead.  There's a reason Kansas City hasn't been relevant since the early 90s.  Also Miguel Olivo is better than Joe Mauer.  Fact.



WHO SUCKED

1. South America.  Brazil and Argentina were two of the favorites to win the World Cup, and may even have been the top two teams, depending on who you asked.  And with teams like England, France, and Italy already eliminated their paths to the final looked almost preordained.  Unfortunately for them, Germany and the Netherlands had other ideas.  First, the Dutch knocked of Brazil 2-1 thanks to an own goal and an ejection, and then the Germans completely destroyed Argentina 4-0, their third game with four goals in the tournament.  They are looking awfully good right now, and I'd expect the winner of Germany/Spain on Wednesday day ends up taking this thing.  No offense to Uruguay or the Netherlands, but I'd put my money on the Germans.   

2.  Timberwolves.  I'm sorry, but they are seriously confusing the crap out of me.  I don't really know what they were doing with the draft last year, I don't know what they were doing this year, and I don't have any idea what they're doing with their cap room.  Bringing over Pekovic is fine, and it sounds like he's supposed to look pretty good, but signing Darko to a 4-year, $20 million when nobody else was going to offer him four years or $5 per year?  This contract should have been either 4 years/$8 million or 2 years/$6 million.  Such a bizarre decision.  I heard somebody on the radio describe David Kahn as the scariest GM in ball, but not because of his plan or anything, but because he seems to be doing the kind of long-term damage that can ruin a franchise.  I believe it.  I seriously have no idea what he's thinking.

3.  Matt Guerrier. Not a great week for Mr. Guerrier, who allowed at least one run in three of his four appearances this week, including that complete meltdown on Saturday.  His overall numbers are still good (ERA of 2.82, WHIP of 1.12) and he continues to be effective despite mediocre stuff, so let's hope this isn't the start of his annual "tired arm meltdown."  Despite all the times perception doesn't match reality, occasionally they sync up;  Guerriers ERAs for April-September:  3.59, 1.97, 2.75, 3.15, 4.66, 4.27.  He's heading towards a possible third straight year leading the league in appearances, so I'd say the burnout is more likely than not.  Let's hope Neshek and/or Condrey are ready when his arm gets tuckered out so they can just be plugged in.

4.  Dontrelle Willis.  Well you got to figure that's about it for Willis, barring a complete reinvention, after he was designated for assignment by the D-Backs earlier this week - which makes two teams that have given up on him this year (the D-Backs got him from the Tigers for essentially nothing).  He walked 27 batters in 22 innings for Arizona, and has basically been a walk machine since he went crazy bananas back in 2008 when he walked an astonishing 35 batters in 24 innings, which followed a 2007 where he led the league in runs allowed (as in he allowed the most runs, not the fewest).  Hard to believe this is the same guy who burst on the scene and won rookie of the year in 2003 and then put up a gem of a season in 2005 and finished runner-up in the Cy Young voting.  He's only 28, but I'm not betting on a comeback because that's now three full seasons of complete disaster.  I am now resisting putting a "D-Train/Trainwreck) joke.  I'll save those for Jesse Crain.

5.  NBA Free Agency.  I know I already mentioned the Wolves, but overall this has been pretty boring, right?  Nowitzki back to Dallas.  Pierce back to the Celtics.  Gay back to the Grizz.  Joe Johnson gets his max deal (mistake), but it's to go back and be a Hawk again.  Lame.  The only remotely interesting deal so far is Steve Blake to the Lakers, which is a nice deal for everyone involved.  It sounds like Amar'e has either already agreed or is close to agreeing to a deal with the Knicks, and the Suns have clearly moved on, signing both Channing Frye and Hakim Warrick, so maybe this will get things moving.  I'm thinking Wade and Bosh to the Bulls, LeBron to the Knicks and then they swing a deal for a point guard (Tony Parker?).  I don't know what is going to happen to the Wolves, but I'm willing to bet they overpay for David Lee despite the fact that his numbers came on a bad D'Antoni team and as such are inflated two ways, and then, since they have Lee, Love, and Jefferson they'll trade Jefferson for fifty cents.  Great.  Awesome.  Sweet.



Also way too tired for an outro.  If you don't like it you can go to hell.  I have an 8am fart-tastic meeting tomorrow, what do you want from me?

Baseball Olympia

I know, I know, you're sick of hearing about Olympic Baseball, just bear with me for one post and it'll all be over.

Actually, I think it's a little weird that there is essentially no coverage for the Olympic baseball tournament. I suppose since it's going on during the MLB season and there are no major league players involved there isn't that much interest, but I heard Terry Tiffee is on the team so I thought I'd check it out a bit.

The most interesting thing about the USA roster is that Twins AAA pitching prospect Brian Duensing is on the team. Duensing was ranked the #10 prospect in the Twins system going into the season and had just an ok year at Rochester this season. The lefty compiled a 4.32 ERA and a 1.32 WHIP over 131 innings in 23 starts, striking out just 76. He's 25, and has moved fairly slowly through the system. He'll need to take a big step forward in the next couple of seasons to break through, but for now, he's an olympian and you're not.

He pitched well in relief in his only Olympic appearance thus far (USA is 1-1 right now), pitching to four batters and getting them all out, striking out two against the dirty Koreans.

A couple other interesting guys on the US team are Terry Tiffee (former Twin), Matt LaPorta (just traded in the Sabathia trade), and Taylor Teagarden (good catching prospect who was up for the Rangers for a bit and homered off Scott Baker). Thus far, Tiffee is 4-8 in two games, LaPorta is 1-8 with a homerun, and Teagarden is 1-3 in just one game.

Other names you might recognize include Canada's Rheal Cormier and Chris Reitsma, and Taipei's Tsao Chin-Hui and that's about it - and there's really no good reason to remember any of those guys listed above anyway unless you're a real nerd. So, in other words I guess, it's kind of a snooze fest. But USA takes on Cuba tonight at 10:30pm central, so be a real American hero and take a watch. [EDIT: Ok, I guess it's at 10:30 am tomorrow. And also I don't know if it's on TV. So just nevermind.]


In case you're curious, and I was, there are 8 nations involved (USA, South Korea, Canada, China, Chinese Taipei, Cuba, Japan, and the Netherlands) who each play each other once, with the top four teams advancing into a four team, single elimination tournament. Also of interest, this is the last year baseball (and softball) will be an Olympic sport. RIP.

Fat Pitcher goes to Fatland (+ some gopher news)

Still in Utah, but I actually have a little time to myself so I want to touch on a couple of things right quick.

First, since Snacks mentioned the all-star teams in a comment below, I have a comment or two about the all-star rosters. Naturally, the big markets like New York, Chicago, and Boston are going to be stacked because more home town voters = more players voted in. But what is bizarre is if you look at the NL voting, the Brewers are represented all over the place. Fielder #2 at 1B, Rickie Weeks #3 at second, Bill Hall #4 at third base, JJ Hardy and Jason Kendall in second place at short and catcher, and Ryan Braun, Corey Hart, and Mike Cameron all in the top six in the outfield with Braun the leading vote getter.

How does that happen? And I know they're decent this year and just got better by adding Fatbathia, but some of those guys straight up suck this year. Weeks is batting .208 with an OPS+ of 79 right now, and received more votes than the Marlins Dan Uggla who is OPSing .995 and is second in the majors with 23 home runs. Kendall hasn't been good in five years, while Brian McCann is having a tremendous season, not to mention Russell Martin, who didn't even crack the top five despite having three middle names, one of which is Coltrane, and a .305 BA. And Bill Hall is hitting .227 and has already struck out 73 times.

It's obvious that it is time to take the all-star balloting away from the public, they are getting to be bigger and bigger idiots each year. But you clearly can't let the manager or players name the team, seeing as how Jason Varitek was voted to the all star squad by his fellow players despite a line of .218/.300/.358, which is puntoian. There aren't a ton of good catching options outside of Mauer in the AL, but both A.J. Pierzynski and Ivan Rodriguez are OPSing around .750 and hitting around .300 and both deserve it much, much, much more than Varitek. Funny how I-Rod has made it many times with worse numbers in the past.

So, yeah, the All-Star game rosters are pretty much a joke, and the fact that the outcome of this game actually has an effect on the regular season is completely ridiculous.

Secondly, and more Brewery, I LOVE how they went after Sabathia to make a big push for this season. It's become pretty clear they are going to lose Ben Sheets after this season, so why not go after Sabathia for the second half of the year and hope that one-two punch at the front of the rotation and take you to a title. In the past we saw how devastating having two top shelf pitchers can be in a playoff series with the D-Backs and Johnson and Schilling, and if the Brewers can get to the playoffs they could do some serious damage. Bravo on having the balls to pull this off.

So who is coming to the Indians? Weirdly, along with the three players coming over there is the famous "player to be named later." This strikes me as super weird in this kind of trade. PTBNL's seem to be the kind of guys who are thrown into smaller, less high profile trades, and I can't ever remember hearing of one being involved in a trade of this magnitude.

The jewel of the trade, the "Carlos Gomez" is OF Matt LaPorta, the number 1 prospect in the Brewers' system and the #31 prospect in all of baseball at the beginning of the season according to baseball prospectus. He's done nothing to hurt his rankings, as he's been mashing through double-A pitching this year to the tune of .291/.404/.584 with 20 homeruns in 296 at bats. He hits for average, he hits for power, and he has the discipline to walk around 100 times in a season. The scouting reports say his defense is a bit of an adventure, but I am NOT looking forward to the Twins facing him year after year. He may be a September call-up for the Indians this year, with an eye towards next season.

The other good piece in the trade is RHP Robert Bryson, ranked the #10 prospect in the Brewers' system. It's still not clear if he's better suited to a starter or reliever role, but Bryson is intriguing with wicked stuff - a mid-90s fastball to go with a power slider. In 109 career minor league innings he's struck out 143 batters between rookie ball and class A and has avoided the control issues that plague a lot of young power pitchers. He's been nearly unhittable, and could very well be the Indians' closer of the future.

The last "prospect" included is pitcher Zack Jackson, who is mostly just filler. He's not a real stellar prospect, but who knows, he could find work as a reliable middle reliever.

So, if your curious, the Twins definitely got a better haul for Johan, and it's not close. Actually it kind of looks like the Indians may have jumped the gun a bit here and sold themselves a bit short. I would have expected a bit more coming their way for CC, but as shown by the Santana trade, you don't get quite as much as you'd think.

Quick Gopher Update: Rodney Williams has narrowed his list to Minnesota, Iowa State, Kansas, Miami, and UCONN. He also says he plans to narrow his list further after this weekend's Peach Jam. Royce White plays with Williams, and has said he is working on getting Rodney to join him in committing to the Gophers. Keep up the good work Royce, make it happen. In point guard news, Mfon Udofia reports Georgia Tech leads for his services, while the Gophers are said to be in the lead to land Johnnie Lacy. Let's hope they get one of the two.