Week in Review - 7/26/2010 (Dan Haren edition)

God damn it.


WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Delmon Young.  No joke guys, I think we've reached the point where Delmoney is absolutely carrying this team.   In terms of the batters, that is, since really Pavariano is the combo that's really getting it done.  But batting-wise ever since that Canadian fella whacked his head like Billy-Bob, Delmon has become the man.  He's basically the third best hitter on the team this year, and that is only if you count Thome.  He's locked in the way Mauer was last year and Morenau was most of this year.

And he even made a play on Saturday night where he sprinted into the corner to catch a fly ball and then tossed out Miguel Tejada tagging (inexplicably) from first to second.  I'm starting to think something special is happenign.   Perhaps the best sign is what's coming out of the clubhouse from Gardy, Thome, and other teammates.  I know it's basically their job to blow smoke up the media and fan's collective ass, but last year you never heard anything positive about Delmon off the field (or on, for that matter) so even the faintest praise is a pretty positive sign.  And in this case the praise is flowing like the salmon to Capistrano, so we may very well have a monster breaking out here. 

2.  Miguel Cabrera.  Speaking of people who are overshadowing the advillian-challenged Morneau, Cabrera pretty much has the AL MVP wrapped up and we aren't even to August yet, and he killed pitchers again this week. 13-27 this week with 9 RBI, and he's now hitting .348/.421/.650 on the year, and is now first in slugging and second in OBP and AVG in all of baseball, and on top of that is third in home runs and first in RBI.  So he's basically doing what Joe Mauer did last year, but add in a possible triple crown.  Just a tremendous season so far.  I hope he hits Dan Haren in the face with a line drive.

3.  Kelly Johnson.  He hit for the cycle, which would be way more exciting but I know pretty much nothing about him.  I know he's a Diamondback and used to be a Brave, and I know he's a second baseman.  Does he play any other positions?  I don't know.  Does he hit .220 or .320?  Is he a 5 HR hitter or a 25 HR hitter?  Does he steal 3 bases or 60?  These are all answered with a shrug and a self-deprecating yet charming smirk.  So congrats on your cycle Kelly.  You've got a hell of a legacy going on here.  I hope you enjoy playing with the crap the Angels gave away to steal sexy Dan Haren away from you.

4.  Danny Valencia.  I still think he's probably a slap-hitting nancy girl, but I've been noticing that a lot of his hits lately are more of the line drive variety than the bloop/seeing eye grounder variety.  He put together back-to-back 3-for-5 games over the weekend, and he's now hitting .346/.398/.395 for the year, and if that was over an entire season thus far he would rank as the fifth best third baseman (OPS-wise) in the American League behind Adrian Beltre (wait, what?), Evan Longoria, A-Rod, and Michael Young.  Is he that good?  No, certainly not, and with a a slugging percentage lower than his OBP he is definitely a slap-hitting Judy, but still I feel slightly impressed.  He'd be a much better prospect to give the Diamondbacks than what the craptastic Halos gave for Haren, and not nearly good enough that they'd actually miss him.  Nice work, jackasses.

5.  Dan Haren.  He gets to pitch for a contender and gets to stay on the West Coast, the two things he said he wanted.  Well played, Haren.  Well played indeed.  Of course, he also said that going to a contender was the most important thing, and that he simply preferred to stay on the West Coast.  The Twins are a contender, allegedly, and would have been a good landing place.  This sucks.  



WHO SUCKED

1.  Twins.  I know they could have come up with a better offer than what the Angels gave for Haren.  I know they could have, because the offer the Angels put together was Joe Saunders, two middling prospects and a player to be named later.  I plan to look at this further, but for right now my first reaction is that this is a bunch of crap, and they were too pussy to put a real offer out there.  Seriously, this was the year to make a move like this.  The lineup is going to be worse next year.  Right now they have Hudson (when he's not hurt), Hardy (when he's not hurt), and Thome and next year they are going to end up going back to Tolbert, Casilla, and Harris.  Bank on it.  This was the time to make the move.  And if it didn't work out, Haren would still have trade value and they could flip him next year or two year's from now if needed.  Just a bullshit chicken-shit move.  Enough already with the small market bullshit.  Maybe I'm ungrateful, but I'm sick of scratching by to win the division and getting run right out of the playoffs.  Make a move already.  God I'm emotional right now.  This must be what women feel like all the time.

2.  Diamondbacks.  I'm too sleepy to look it all up, but over and over and over again the Arizona brain trust, and I mean that the same way people refer to David Kahn as the T-Wolves brain trust, said they would have to be blown away by an offer and that this wouldn't be a "salary dump."  Well guess what, assholes?  This was a straight salary dump.  They got a mediocre left-handed starter, a B prospect, a C prospect, and a nothing prospect.  Basically equivalent to a Twins offer of Slowey, Jesse Crain, Adrian Salcedo, and Matt Bashore.  Who?  Exactly.  The Twins could have bettered that offer with minimal effort and minimal affect on the overall minor league system.  Awesome.  Just awesome.   

3.  Paul Casey.  Here is the list of golfers who ranked higher than Paul Casey on the World Golf Rankings who played with him at the FBR Open in Canada this weekend:


Yep, nobody.  And yet, Mr. #8 in the world couldn't be bothered to make the cut.  Of course, neither did Sean O'Hair, Scott Verplank, Fred Couples, or Mike Weir, leading to a thrilling Sunday showdown between Carl "The Swedish Boss Hog" Petterson and Dean "Can't tell if he's Asian or not" Wilson.  This is where I would tell you who won, but you don't care and it doesn't matter.  And also I don't actually know because I didn't watch.  I was too busy crying.

4.  David Ortiz.  I somehow found myself watching the Boston/Seattle game Friday night, even though I didn't have money on it and had zero fantasy players involved.  No, I have no idea what I was doing there.  Not really the point, Tito.  The point is that with one out and the bases loaded in the top of the sixth in a 1-1 game, David Ortiz was picked off of third base.  And not by the pitcher on something weird, by the catcher.  And not by the catcher on a blocked ball in the dirt.  It was on a set play by the Mariners where the pitch was outside and the third basemen broke to cover and the catcher winged it down there as soon as he caught it.  Which tells me that it wasn't an isolated incident, but Ortiz was getting way too far off the base regularly.  Seriously where exactly was he going?  Where did David Ortiz think he was going?  Was he going to steal home?  Score on a ball in the dirt?  What could he have possibly had running through his head?  I can't decide if this is more Lew Ford or more Denard Span.   Maybe it's more Bill Smith.  You know, screwing something easy and simple and obvious up beyond all repair.

5.  Life.  You win again.  I feel like Wonderbaby^TM when she met Santa. 

Apologies to Rickie Weeks who probably deserved a spot in the Awesome column, but I had to give props to Danny Haren instead.  It's been a long time since I've had my heart broken like this.  I need to go drown my sorrows in alcohol and tears.  Maybe a nice bundt cake.

Monday Mumblings

Of course the big news today is Joe Mauer winning the MVP, and it nearly being unanimous.  I'm just curious about the guy who voted for Miguel Cabrera instead.  It seemed the consensus #2 candidate was Mark Texeira, not Miguel Cabrera.  But let's look:

Cabrera:  .324/.396/.547, 34 HRs, 104 RBI
Texeira:  ..292/.383/.565, 39 HRs, 122 RBI

Pretty close, right?  But by voting for Cabrera, this dude is saying he values things like average and on-base percentage over home runs and rbis, which is actually pretty refreshing.  But at the same time it's completely bizarre, because Mauer beat everybody in those stats.

If some ass clown had voted for Tex based on home runs and RBI, it wouldn't have surprised me one bit, as wrong as it would have been.  I was actually expecting Jeter to end up with a 1st place vote as well, since people are morons who want to make out with him all the time, but Cabrera?  You can't even use the "playoffs" argument since the Twins did that miracle comeback thing to steal the playoff spot.  I can't come up with any conceivable argument, and I've looked at this in every stupid way possible, to vote for Cabrera.  Boggled.

Lastly on MVP, I haven't been able to find the the actual full breakdown of the votes/points, but according to ESPN's "Others receiving votes" section, both Mike Cuddyer and Jason Kubel received votes.  There's not way that a hot 1-month stretch out of Cuddy would vault him ahead of the season-long excellence Kubel showed, right?  RIGHT?  Someone tell me when you find the voting breakdown.

-  Sticking with the Twins for a minute, Shooter had this little ditty in his "column" today:

It wouldn't be surprising if the Twins tried to make a deal with the San Diego Padres for third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff, 28, who in 141 games last season batted .255 but hit 18 homers with 88 runs batted in. Starter Glen Perkins would seem to be the bait.

 Now, it's Charley Walters here, so I'm guessing this is more him taking a name that was bandied about last year and tossing a rumor at it, but it's worth a short look at because Kouzmanoff's name seems to keep coming up.

Walters, of course, hits on average, home runs, and rbi, the relevant stats if this was 1988, but since we are no longer in the dark ages, let's look further. 

The Kouz hit .255/.302/.420 this year, and was about an average fielder range wise, although is .990 fielding percentage was obviously outstanding, and a major league record.  Those aren't great numbers, but I don't much care for Glen Perkins anymore, so I'd be willing to do that deal depending on Kouzmanoff's contract.

Which brings me to the real problem - I can't for the life of me find any details of his contract, and one site actually says he's a free agent.  Now, would it shock me if he was actually a free agent and Walters had no idea?  No, it would surprise me one bit. But I won't assume that, as much as I want to, and for now I will just say that pending his contract, I would be interested in a Perkins for Kouz swap.  If he's going to cost $5 million or less, I want him.  And if he's on the open market, and I don't think the Pads would resign him since they have prospect Chase Headley coming up to play 3b, I be willing to pay more like $6-$7, as long as it's just for two years or so - enough time for Valencia to properly marinate.

Thanks to intrepid reader Kate J. for the tip.

-  Hey, you guys remember how I told you Cincinnati would be all awesome this year, and how you should have watched them today in the Maui Classic?  Well, they rolled a pretty good Vandy team (ranked #24 with a win already over St. Mary's) 67-58, and believe me the game wasn't nearly that close.  I really hope you got in on the Bearcats when they were 200-1 to win the National Title, because that number is going to go way, way, way down.  Might as well jump on it now before it gets to like, 10-1 before the tournament starts.

-  Since we're talking about things I watched tonight, I also want to mention that although I hate Pitt, and I loathe them, and specifically Pitt point guards - from Brandin Knight to Carl Krauser to LeVance Fields, hate them all - but I think I might really like this kid Travon Woodall, and I'm kind of wishing I had picked him in my fantasy league (last four picks:  Ralph Sampson, Courtney Fortson, Mikhail Torrance, Jon Leuer - I feel dirty).  He's a sophomore, and although he wasn't a highly ranked recruit when he came out, and didn't make much of an impact last year, he's killing it this year.  Coming into tonight, he was averaging just 7.7 points per game, but added in 7.7 assists and 3.7 rebounds, and then tonight against Wichita put up 19 points, 6 boards, 5 assists, and 4 steals and just seems to be moving at a whole different speed than everybody else out there - almost Rico Tucker like.  Well, I like him.  And I'm actually giving him his own tag.  Yeah, that's right.  With luck I can grab him next round (only 3 left!)

-  This Lewis Jackson injury is going to be a big deal, mark my words.  It makes me a bit nervous that Boiled Sports seems to disagree with me, since they cover Purdue hoops and my opinions are basically of the "JaJuan gives me a boner" type, but they seem to be pretty split on this one over there.  Of course, as seen by the post above and my continued Rico Tucker love, I seem to have a real affinity towards lightning quick, slightly out-of-control point guards.  I know I'll miss him at least.

-  The television program "The Big Bang Theory" is simultaneously the most underrated and overrated show on TV. 


-  Finally, since I'm keeping this short tonight, I'll close with an email from studly reader Stan N.:

Minnesota Golden Gophers--what a ridiculous mascot. Maybe Minnesota Golden Mosquitos would be more appropriate. There's plenty of them in Minnesota too, and a mosquito is more intimidating than a gopher--at least they get more attention. When you're facing Wolverines, Badgers, Wildcats, Hawk(eye)s, etc. what can a Gopher do? I guess their record speaks for itself. Although I'm a Minnesota alumni and support its sports teams, I can't support Goldy the Gopher. I wish we could impeach Goldy and substitute a Timberwolf(I guess that's already taken), a Lumberjack or anything else that would command respect.

I'm not entirely certain about a Lumberjack, since that seems pretty gay, but I'm pretty on board with this.  Any chance we can get rid of Goldy altogether?  Snacks and Bogart, you are both lawyers, can we file a class-action or something?

Weekend Review - 10/5/2009

Wow, who would have thought we'd be sitting here still stressing about the Twins even  four days ago?  Quite the run to tie it (I think they are on a 16-4 run right now) and a little help from the Tigers and we are back to last year all over again.  That was a fun game to watch yesterday, and the cheers from the crowd when the White Sox scored and the chants of "Let's Go White Sox" were great moments.  Glad I had the chance to go.  No, I won't be in attendance on Tuesday, but I will most definitely be watching.  Let's hope we get the good Baker, not the gopher ball one.



WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Delmon Freaking Young.  What.  The.  Hell?  I have no idea what got into him, unless it was that little bean ball/I hate Mijares incident, but whatever it is keep it going.  Delmoney absolutely destroyed Kansas City in this three game set, going 6-13 with three home runs and 10 rbi and coming up with the biggest hit of the game in both games 1 (the grand slam) and game 2 (bases clearing double off Grienke) and then knocking out two homers yesterday.  To put his production this weekend in perspective, these three games representent about 3% of the games he's played in all year and he put up 25% of his season home run total and 17% of his RBI total this weekend.  Is he finally turning it around and showing the player everyone thought he would be coming into the league, or is this nothing more than a small sample size flash?  I don't care, just do it for one more game.


2.  Jason Kubel.  If Delmoney hadn't had such a monster series, we'd be talking about Kubel who is almost as hot right now.  In the three games against KC, he went 6-13 with 3 homers and 8 rbi - the big difference is we expect this from Kubel.  His three-run bomb in the first yesterday set the tone and took a whole ton of pressure off the rest of the team, and continued a season of utter dominance as he's now up over 100 rbi and a .300 batting average.  Seriously, this batting line:  .300/.369/.535 with 27 dingers, 35 doubles, and 102 ribi is just sick.  He has a better slugging percentage than Alex Rodriguez, a better on base percentage than Johnny Damon, a better average than Mark Texeira, more homers than Evan Longoria, Justin Morneau, and Derek Jeter.  Seriously, at this point anybody bashing Kubel is either completely retarded or just running a bit, because he really and truly has had an elite hitting season this year.

3.  Jacob Edward Peavy.  This is a repeat from last week, but how can I not include him again?  A week after completely shutting down the Tigers, he did it again, going eight innings this time, and giving up just 2 hits and 2 walks while striking out five and giving up no runs.  You can read my post last week and pretty much apply the whole thing this week.  Two interesting additional thoughts about Peavy, both supplied by Snacks this week.  First, how impressed should we really be by him shutting down the Tigers twice?  As snacky-boy said, Carl Pavano did it four freaking times.  Pavano is the definition of mediocre, so perhaps it isn't time to make sweet love to Peavy just yet - although I lean towards the fact that this guy is pretty good.  Second, Peavy doesn't miss a whole lot of bats, and that isn't a desirable trait in the AL.  He only threw four pitches that batters swung and missed at tonight.  For comparison sake, Manship had nine and even Jesse Crain had two.  That's not a good thing.  If the Sidler still read this blog and wrote for it, he could probably do this better than I.


4.  B.J. Upton.  Bossman Junior has driven me crazy this year, first being my preseason pick for MVP and then proceeding to alternate between being hurt and sucking all season long, but he finally played the way I expected him to all year this weekend.  He started off by hitting for the cycle and driving in six on friday, scored two runs without getting a hit on saturday, and .  The thing that drives me and probably actual Rays' fans crazy is that he has all the tools to be an MVP candidate, but his numbers have taken an inexplicable dip this year.  Batting average from .273 to .243, OBP from .383 to .312, SLG from .401 to .376.  It's even more dramatic looking at deeper metrics, his walk rate went from 15.4% to 8.9%, his line drive % went from 19% to 15.5%, and his fly balls up are 31% to 40% and he's suddenly swing at 20% of the balls he sees outside the strike zone, where he was at just 15% last year.  Perhaps most damning is that that last year his BABIP was a ridiculous .350, and now that he's at a more normal .315 his numbers are awful.  Is the Bossman just an average player?  My eyes say no, but my brain is starting to say a solid maybe.

5.  Hakeem Nicks.  It's unfortunate that he got hurt and had to miss three games, because it's allowed Eli to get cozy and snuggly with guys like Manningham and Steve Smith which might slightly slow down his quick ascent to the #1 WR on the Giants, but it's clear he's going to be a star.  They managed to get him in the game a bit this week and he responded with a 54-yard TD catch.  Is it safe to say he's the next Randy Moss?  Yes, I think it probably is.  


WHO SUCKED

1.  Miguel Cabrera.  Obviously losing two of three to Chicago and coughing up a 2 game lead with three to play means a whole lot went wrong for the Tigers, such as scoring one total run in the first two games, but supposed MVP candidate Cabrera really forgot to show up, going 0-11 for the series.  And it's not even so much 0-11, but how many opportunities he squandered.  Game 1, first inning two runners on and 1 out - Whiff.  Fourth inning, runner on nobody out - popup.  Ninth inning, runner on nobody out - popout.  Game 2, first inning, runner on two out - popup.  Third inning, runners on 2nd & 3rd, two outs - ground out.  Sixth inning, runner on one out - strikeout.  Eighth inning, two on, 1 out - double play.  Even in game 3 he came up twice with a runner on base and failed to get a hit.  Sure, game 1 was a blowout so it didn't matter and they won game 3 anyway, but he had every opportunity to win or at least change that second game and failed to come through time and time again.  Of course, this probably just means he's due and he'll do a Jason Kubel impression to Baker on Tuesday.


2.  Clemson.  They weren't exactly a national title contender or anything, but with a kick-ass RB like C.J.  Spiller and a ranking just outside the top 25 in the preseason in like every poll it looked like they were poised for a good year.  Oops.  The losses keep piling up, and at this point the Tigers are 2-3 and suddenly look like instead of fighting for a top tier bowl they'd be lucky to make the Poulan Weedeater Bowl.  Losses to TCU, Georgia Tech, and this weekend to Maryland aren't horrible by themselves, but add them up and they haven't won a meaningful game this year.  It's always a struggle with a freshman QB, and Kyle Parker hasn't thrown a TD since September 10th, but they just keep finding ways to lose, and this week it was missed field goals - they missed two in the fourth quarter, either of which would have tied the game.  They weren't exactly chipshots at 47 and 48 yards, but kicker Rich Jackson hit a 51 yarder earlier, so you know he had the leg.  Sorry Clemson, not your year.   


3.  Dallas Cowboy Playcalling.  If you had the misfortunate of watching this crapfest I feel for you, though I had to watch it to.  At the end of the game, the Broncos had managed to suck slightly less than the Cowboys and had a 17-10 lead, but Dallas had the ball, 3rd and goal, with nine seconds left - two chances to tie the game.  So they go to Sam Hurd.  Huh?  I guess he'd be after Witten, Williams, Crayton, and Austin, but ok, maybe he had a good matchup.  Nope, he was going against Champ Bailey.  Now, Bailey may have been passed by guys like Revis and Asomugha, but he's still top shelf.  So of course, he knocked the pass away.  Then they ran THE EXACT SAME PLAY, which he again knocked away - Game Over, Broncos win.  And this wasn't Romo checking down, Hurd was the #1 option and Romo was Weber-locked on him.  The announcer also commented that Romo threw at Bailey 16 times in his 42 attempts, which, clearly, didn't work (Bailey had four pass deflections and an INT, and I'd love to see the overall results of those attempts).  Just an absolutely bizarre strategy.  

4.  Oakland Raiders Rushing.  So much for the three-headed monster (McFadden, Bush, Fargas).  Well, it could be a three-headed monster if the monster was a pile of crap with pipe cleaners sticking out and cotton balls and googly eyes for the three heads, but it certainly ain't some kind of real monster after Sunday's output.  Fargas was the star, gaining a whole 24 yards and 10 carries, while Michael Bush got 10 and McFadden carried six times for -3 yards.  Darrius Heyward-Bay was the team's second leading rusher thanks to a 20 yard reverse.  The Raiders gained 45 total yards on the ground agains the Texans, who ranked as the NFL's worst defense and were allowing 205 rushing yards per game to their opponents before Sunday.  Of course, this could be more of a Jamarcus Russell thing than a RB thing, since the Texans stacked the line and dared Russell to beat them - which he didn't, completing just 12 of 33 attempts for 128 yards.  Holy god is that guy terrible.

5.  Gopher football.  I didn't watch the game because I was busy doing I'm not really sure what, but seeing as how they lost at home to Wisconsin in a game in which they were favored, I'm going to assume they sucked.  No doubt either the Daily Gopher or the Gopher Football Blog has slightly more detailed information if that's your sort of thing.