Just Watching some Baseball and Stuff

Sitting here watching the Rays/Indians Wild Card game, and since the Danny Salazar vs. Alex Cobb match-up is less than intriguing rather than Live Blog the game I'll just write down some thoughts as they run through my head instead, especially since I haven't been around for a while what with feeling a bit under the weather.

Bets for tonight:

Rays -115
Alex Cobb UNDER 6 Ks (BIG!)
Danny Salazar UNDER 5 Ks (BIG!)
Delmon Young UNDER 2 h+r+rbi
Cobb UNDER 96.5 pitches  (MEDIUM!)

-  Since you asked, yes, I do like the 2 Wildcards in each League format.  I know some people hate it, but some people hate spicy food too - people are morons.  Think about it like this:  when there was just one Wild Card, you had 3 division winners and the WC in each league, so where's the advantage of winning your division when the WC and one of the division winners are treated exactly the same?  If you were out, say, a game from the division lead with 2 games to play and had the wild card wrapped up there was no incentive to try to win it, rather rest your players and set up your rotation for the playoffs.  Now?  There is a HUGE advantage to winning the division - HUGE.  No idea why people don't like it.  You guys are all idiots.

-  Speaking of things that people like, I usually don't like things that people like but I admit I'm pulling for the Pirates this year (and no, it has nothing to do with Francisco Liriano or Justin Morneau).  I just think that after so many years of being terrible I'd like to see them have a nice run, just like if the Royals made it.  I know Pittsburgh has had plenty of success with the Penguins and Steelers, but I don't know, such a historic franchise just being managed into the ground into an almost total failure, then rising 20 years later?  It's a good story.  And one us Twins fans should start to think hard about.  MORE GARDY!  HOORAY FOR BEING CRAPPY BUT LIKABLE! MORE RON GARDENHIRE PLEASE!

-  Oh good, Salazar has it dialed up to 98.  Excellent.

-  My my how things have changed with the optimism regarding the Gopher basketball 2014 recruiting class.  After getting mentioned by many, many top recruits and making numerous final cuts, it looks like they're going to get out with Josh Martin, who, right or wrong, dropped well out of ESPN's Top 100, and whichever of the Big 3 (if any) Pitino manages to grab.  There's still plenty of time and plenty of players left to get a solid class (Carlos Morris, Nate Mason, Josh Cunningham, Bonzie Colson, etc.) but the dream days of a monster class are dead, barring scoring two of the Minnesota kids.  I'm not knocking Pitino and I'm only a little disappointed, if only for myself for expecting a miracle, but it seems shooting for the stars with a brand new head coach with only a short time to recruit for the 2014 signing period may not have been the smartest thing for my mental health.  It turns out obsessively refreshing Twitter on a recruit's decision day just makes you angry and tired.

There's still no reason to panic or to start worrying about Pitino as a recruiter.  It isn't easy to make up ground in one off-season when most of these kids have relationships with other coaches going back years, and it's also tough to sell a program when suddenly someone like Michigan State swoops in at the last hour and steals a kid away like Pennywise the terrifying clown.

Yes, this is Tom Izzo.

So let's chillax a bit, bro, and dial it back.  Grab a couple of decent kids, pray for 1 (or 2!!!) Minnesota guys to stick around, and let's see what Pitino has as far as game planning/game day chops and then give him a full year+ of recruiting before we throw a fit.  Yeah, it's quite the change in tone from the reaction after he was hired and when he had gotten off to an intriguing start with recruiting, and I'm as guilty as anybody, but it's more realistic as well.  What I should have said a long ass time ago was that Pitino probably wasn't a hot shot young kid with a good name who was going to set the world on fire, nor was he an over-matched poor hire who was going to drown, but the truth, as in most things, lies somewhere in the middle.  We'll find out approximately one year from now, if not sooner.  No, this isn't doom and gloom here.  I like the Martin kid, and if nothing else Reid Travis is said to now be seriously considering the U, where he wasn't prior to Pitino coming around.  So that's something.  Love has patience.

-  I caught up on Breaking Bad in about 2 weeks just in time to watch the final 2 episodes "live" and there's no doubt in my mind it's the greatest show of all-time.  I'll admit to not having watched The Wire or The Sopranos, the two shows most think of as being in the running with BB, so the only other things I have to compare it to are Lost and Game of Thrones (Comedy is a different category in my opinion, and that's a Seinfeld runaway - Simpsons would have been right there too if they ended it after like, 8-9 seasons - with Scrubs solidly in second but without the re-watchability factor of Seinfeld).  Lost was right there where Breaking Bad was for 3-4 seasons and then fell completely apart, and Game of Thrones is based on books that I've read multiple times so there are no real surprises.  Thus, nothing compares to Breaking Bad.  Finale was pretty much perfect, and if you disagree you're mentally ill.

-  Good sweet lord, is Delmon Young the greatest playoff hitter of all-time?  He just hit the unhittable Danny Salazar about two billion feet out to left.  I know shit like, "clutch" doesn't technically exist and stuff like that but it's hard to believe when every time you look up Delmon is back in the playoffs hitting another home run.

-  Speaking of the mentally ill and Delmon Young, keeping Ron Gardenhire is still nagging at me.  He's not the worst manager in history, obviously, and a lot of his issues are exacerbated by a front office and club mentality that both enables and emboldens him, but the game has passed him by.  Whether you want to call him "old school" or ""stuck in his ways" depends on how generous you want to be, but he's not a forward thinker.  Whether it's sac bunting all the time, loving the stolen base, the insistence at speed in the leadoff spot at the expense of getting on base, the insistence on someone who can "handle the bat" in the 2-spot at the expense of getting on base, the whole "pitch to contact" thing, the "hit to all fields" thing, the love of the scrappy white player, or his refusal to platoon players no matter how much their splits call for it, that's a lot of "advanced" strategies that he refuses to engage.

I get that the guy is probably a great clubhouse leader and I would probably pick him out of any major league manager in steak grill-off or beer chugging race, but enough is enough.  Look at the teams who made the playoffs:  The Rays, Indians, Pirates, and A's all use advanced metrics, defensive shifts, and platoon situations to take small payrolls and maximize their ability to win games - something the Twins could certainly use.  But look at this quote from Terry Ryan,  

"I don't think he likes to platoon players at all. I don't either. Put guys out there that are everyday players, then you don't have to platoon. You're always looking for players that can play 162 games, right? That's what I'm looking for. I don't go out looking for platoon players."

 That doesn't accomplish anything other than validate the manager's outdated philosophy and style, and explains why nothing has changed from when Jacque Jones was constantly starting despite being nearly helpless against lefties to Trevor Plouffe constantly starting despite being hapless against righties almost ten years later - he hasn't had a reason to change so why should he (oh, right, the success of the A's, Pirates, Rays, and Indians this year).

Last season, for example, the A's had Brandon Moss and Chris Carter - both of whom could crush pitchers who threw with one hand, but struggling against pitchers who threw from the other.  So they put them together and ended up with 556 plate appearances and put up a line of .267/.349/.559 with 37 homers, 91 rbi, and 86 runs scored.  That's basically Josh Willingham last year, except he made $7 million (and was considered a steal) while Moss and Carter combined to make about $6 million less.

At this point baseball has evolved to the point where doing things "the right way" isn't enough because "the right way" is constantly changing.  For a time, building a team on solid fundamentals and not walking opponents was a winning strategy, but you need more.  It's no longer a checkers match, and although chess match might be a bit much it's getting closer.  Too bad the Twins just resigned a manager and still have a GM who are stuck on Connect Four.

BAM!  Don't pretend you don't like that analogy.

Actual Picture

-  Intentionally walking Delmon Young - so it's come to this.  Baseball is a strange, strange game.  And my satellite just went out.  Fucking weather.  God bless you internet.

-  So I have early season futures (To Win World Series) on the A's (33/1), Braves (14/1), and Cardinals (23/1) so that's pretty good.  Of course, I also had Twins, Royals, and D-Backs and that's pretty bad, but I'll take that 50% every time, especially since I wasn't exactly confident in either the Twins or Royals picks.

-  Danny Salazar exits with 4 Ks.  I'm a genius.  Time to get Alex Cobb out of there.

-  I just stumbled across a twitter conversation between a recruiting expert and a Gonzaga blogger, and the gist is that if that Looney kid commits to Duke before Reid Travis makes a move it's suddenly a West Coast battle between Stanford and Gonzaga.  Yes, I know recruiting experts generally know only slightly, slightly more than the the general public with a few exceptions (I'll put Adam Zagoria up there) and bloggers know basically nothing, it's still not a fun read.  I don't want to talk about it.

-  Satellite went out again.  This time the steam I found is in Spanish.  Excelente!

Well the satellite's not coming back and my internet feed is apparently shit.  I'm also tired and have already written too much for any mortal human to read.  So I guess I'll see you guys later.

Fare thee Well, Danny Valencia

In a move that surprised only people who are still surprised by a Jack-in-the-Box, the Twins grabbed the first opportunity that presented itself to get rid of Danny Valencia, forcing him to take the walk of shame across the diamond at Fenway like that chick you picked up at Applebee's, sending him to the Red Sox and receiving rookie league OFer Jeremias Pineda in return.  And thus ends the tenure of one of the most disappointing Twins' ever.

The Twins struggled to find a 3B for years following Gary Gaetti with guys like Scott Leius and Ron Coomer probably the best they've had (with Tony Bautista being the worst) so when reports starting coming out about this Danny Valencia character and how he could be the future at third for many years to come, it was a tiny bit extra thrilling - like a tramp stamp.  Valencia was consistently ranked as the Twins' 5th-10th best prospect from 2008-2010 by most raters, and made a great impression in his rookie season (2010), finishing third in the AL Rookie-of-the-Year voting despite only being up long enough to accumulate 322 PAs after hitting .311/.351/.448 with 7 homers while playing above average defense.  All was good. Confidence was high.  Spirits were good.  Of course, there were plenty of warning signs.  Valencia's BABIP was .345, one of the highest marks in the league and most likely a huge outlier, and Gardy was constantly dropping hints that he wasn't happy with Valencia for various reasons.  That, with a deep thinker like Gardy whose analysis is generally based on either hustle, grit, or how often he has the team over for a BBQ, was probably the kiss of death.

Following his breakout first year his stats fell off, with Valencia striking out more each year, walking less, chasing more balls and making less contact, and his defense consistently got worse as well.  This, along with Valencia not saying hi to Gardy in the halls one time even though he totally saw him and said hi to Jerry White right after and when Gardy wrote him a note in study hall about how hurt he was Gardy saw Valencia and Repko laughing and he just knows it was about him, led to more and more public criticisms which in turn led to more pressing by Valencia which always leads to more failure and so here we are.  Poor MLB numbers, poor minor league numbers this year that were well below what he did coming up, and Gardy's tender feelings meant the Twins would jump on the first offer to get him out, and they did.

In return for Valencia the Twins received Jeremias Pineda, and there's good news and bad news here.  BAD:  He's not Michael Pineda.  GOOD:  According to everyone he is already an elite level center fielder.  BAD:  He's still in rookie ball, for a second season, at age 21.  GOOD:  He's supposed to be crazy fast.  BAD:  He doesn't appear on any Red Sox prospect lists, even one I found that goes all the way up to 60.  GOOD:  Hitting .421 this year.  BAD:  Hit .188 in the same league last year and has a BABIP of .500 of this year.  GOOD:  Always invites the whole team over when he has a Karaoke party.  BAD:  Shows absolutely no power nor plate discipline. 

Really they didn't get much here, but they probably got more than you'd expect for Valencia, based on how they clearly feel about him ever since Gardy saw him holding hands with a girl Gardy fancied.  Pineda may never develop into a real live good hitter, but he already has one elite skill (defense) and one above average skill (running) so if he ever does learn how to hit he could be another Ben Revere, although it's likely he's more just organizational fodder.  Valencia, on the other hand, was under team control until 2017 and wouldn't even have hit arbitration until next year, and could have fulfilled the role of "back-up 3b" capably for at least another year.  Despite some rough numbers this year his line drive % is identical to his good rookie year and his BABIP this year is under .200, all of which means he's not as good as he was in 2010 but isn't as bad as his numbers suggest in 2012.  So yes, a good, cheap, back-up 3B with a little bit of upside.  But, as we all know, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, so when Valencia didn't include Gardy on the emails where everyone was planning what to wear to the end of the year banquet he probably sealed his own fate. 

Bottom Line:  Pineda is probably the best the team could have hoped for in exchange for Valencia, but the team would have been better off keeping him, but couldn't because Gardy is Regina George.

Ohmigod you guys

Manager of the Year

As sad and pathetic as it is there are actually psychopaths out there who truly believe Ron Gardenhire is a great manager.  Well to those of you who are out there I am sorry to tell you that a great big giant fist just ripped its way through the anus of your argument today, because Gardy started Ben Revere in right field tonight against the Red Sox.

Assuming you have heard of baseball you are no doubt aware that one of the main prerequisites for a right fielder is a good arm, owing to the fact that at times you'll have to make the throw from right field to third base - basically the longest throw in the game.  In fact I'd say the only prerequisite to playing right field is having a decent arm given the list of nearly immobile stiffs who've patrolled right in baseball history.  Instead tonight Gardy put Ben Revere out there, the player with one of the worst outfield arms in history and the guy who throws the ball in a way generally reserved for women, children, invalids, and Shannon Stewart.

And who was in left field, typically the outfield position given to the player with the worst arm?  Delmon Young.  Now, Delmon's arm will never be confused with Roberto Clemente or Carlos Gomez or that kid from that movie, but just watching the games you know his arm is far, far better than Revere's.  We can even go into nerd stats a bit to prove this, although full disclaimer:  I don't know how good these fielding stats are, but they're better than nothing.

According the the Arm Runs Above Average stat Delmon's arm has been that of a completely average outfielder this year, at 0.1 runs better than the average, and over his career his arm has actually been very good, mostly due to a couple of great throwing years in Tampa, including 2007 where he threw out an impressive 16 runners on the bases, all of which coming as a DUH DUH DUH right fielder. 

Revere's arm on the other hand has been 2 runs worse than average, meaning his arm alone has given teams 2 more runs than an average arm would so far this year, so you're looking that an arm that costs the team about 4 runs in a full season, and that's as a CF/LF (note:  he more than makes up for that with his range, but that's not what we're talking about).

So we have clear evidence, both quantitative as well as qualitative, that Revere has a terrible arm and much worse than Delmon Young.  So why would Revere play in right and Young in left?  I can think of two reasons, and neither is flattering for your favorite manager.

The first possibility is that Delmon Young said "I'm not comfortable playing Right Field" which doesn't make any sense because that was his main position when he was with Tampa.  It also doesn't make sense because when a player says "I don't want to do this" when it's something that clearly would help the team a good manager would say "Tough, do it or sit or be traded."  Since we've seen Gardy roll over like a frenchman in the past when it comes to letting the players run the team this is, unfortunately, a distinct possibility.

The other reason I can come up with is that Gardenhire is a moron.  You know how a lot of times in the past (and present) whenever he'd do the lineup if somebody was filling in for a regular he'd just put them in the same spot in the batting order?  So like, last year if Casilla was playing for Hudson he'd hit Casilla second even though it greatly weakened the lineup or Mike Redmond batted third a bunch of times when Mauer would sit?  I'm betting there is a good chance this is the same stupid crap.  Kubel would normally play RF but with a tough lefty on the mound he's sitting for Revere (who, by the way, is also left-handed and is hitting 73 points worse vs. lefties than Kubel this year).  So rather than do the smart, logical thing and shift Delmon to right and play Revere in left, he just plugs Revere into Kubel's outfield spot because apparently not only is shuffling a lineup similar to solving Fermat's Theorem, but changing around the outfield is akin to figuring out the alchemical fucking formula to turn lead into gold.

Honest to god.  So the two options are either the manager is incompetent and lazy, or spineless and stupid.  Manager of the Year though, and they can't take that away from him.  I looked it up.

- As long as I'm here I might as well tell you guys about the latest Danny Dan Gladdenism I heard on the radio, and no I have no idea why I've heard so much Twins radio this year, it's not like I'm a long haul trucker.  So about a week ago whoever the new announcer guy is brings up the Moneyball movie that's coming out.  Gladden says, and I'm paraphrasing here but the the same points remain, "Yeah I know about Moneyball, that book by Billy Beane.  I just don't think that kind of stuff works.  I'm not going to see that movie.  I didn't read the book and I'm not going to see the movie."

The book isn't by Beane, it's just about him, and he doesn't think "that kind of stuff" works but he never read the book and thus can't possibly know what it talks about other than "stats" which is not really the point of the book anyway.  Just a beautiful way to sum up Dan Gladden, and all of the staunchly "old school" guys who hate the idea that there are newer, more advanced stats that can help understand some parts of the game at a different level.  God I miss Fire Joe Morgan.

-  Lastly, take a look at these two rotations and tell me which you'd rather have.

Pitcher 1:   3.21 ERA, 1.19 WHIP, 3.75 K/BB
Pitcher 2:   4.71 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 2.10 K/BB
Pitcher 3:   5.00 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 1.47 K/BB
Pitcher 4:   4.58 ERA, 1.56 WHIP, 1.54 K/BB
Pitcher 5:   4.56 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 2.23 K/BB

OR

Pitcher 1:   3.45 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, 2.40 K/BB
Pitcher 2:   3.56 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 2.50 K/BB
Pitcher 3:   3.81 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, 2.88 K/BB
Pitcher 4:   3.72 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 2.44 K/BB
Pitcher 5:   4.41 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 2.34 K/BB

The first group is the current Twin rotation, the second group is Kyle Lohse, Matt Garza, Phil Humber, R.A. Dickey, and Livan Hernandez.  Isn't that the most saddest depressing thing you've ever heard?  Seriously if it wasn't for the tens of dollars I'm making from advertising on this site I'd burn it to the ground.  Through the computer or something.  I heard if you put a match in the USB port cool shit happens.

-  Lastly, and this time I mean lastly, I just want to mention that there is a already a sequel filming for the world's most awesome movie, and everything about it looks awesome.  From the name (Piranha 3dd) to the new additions to the cast (David Hasslehoff, the guy who plays Todd Packer on the office, and the incomparably insane Gary Busey) everything looks just right.  Usually sequels have a low % chance to be good, but the first one was so good as hitting everything you want in a creature/horror movie (hot chicks, boobs, gratuitous nudity, making the bad guy the true star, lots of killing, and creative deaths - second only to the Friday the 13ths here) that I totally trust them here and can't wait to see this.  Between this and Shark Night it's a banner year for killer fish movies.

Week in Review - 05/16/2011

Seriously you guys, I am an awesome chef.  Not that tonight's meal was particularly difficult (steaks for the guys, turkey burgers for the broads all on the grill plus a romaine salad) but it's the attention to detail that's the important thing.  Steaks and turkey burgers were all perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned, and although the salad was just romaine, cucumbers, carrots, and edamame, but rather than just lazily slicing the veggies the cukes were peeled, sliced, and quartered and the carrots were shaved, not to mention how I boiled and shelled the edamame.  Now that's a salad.

But really, I've mastered the grill and can cook anything to near perfection.  I can make a great garlic lemon butter for fish and have an absolutely killer dry rub for chicken wings.  I took my dad's ole reliable beef stew recipe and, using nothing more than various spices in my cabinet and a little celery revitalized it to the point where my mom was basically begging me to take home the leftovers.  Chili?  Please.  I've got three different recipes that are all great (a tomato-based one, a beef broth based one, and a simple one that can be made in under an hour).  The last time I made pork chops I was begged for the brand name of the seasoning I used (hint:  I made it myself.  Holla.)  I'm basically bulletproof (except for homemade fries on the grill.  I can season them to perfection but I can't make them crispy.  If anybody can help please e-mail or leave your tip in the comment section).

So in other words, I just had a great meal and am possibly a little drunk.  Let's type some words.

WHO WAS AWESOME

1.  Joey Votto.  Votto always makes me mad because a year or two ago it looked like both leagues would have a monster hitting first baseman from Canada - Votto for the NL, Morneau in the AL.  Only now our version has turned into a chicken-legged little girl with noodle arms, a scrambled brain, and a comprised immune system while Votto has continued to build upon his MVP campaign from last year.  He's in the top 5 in basically everything in the NL, he's hitting .350 and leads the league in walks, and has the Reds in first in the NL Central - helped by a couple of walk-off hits Votto put up this week.  He also reached base in each of the first 33 games of the year, and hasn't hit an infield pop-up since 2009 (no joke, that's for real).  Meanwhile our Canadian is at the point where hitting the ball of the wall is a major accomplishment.  Gross.  This is like trying to book a Canadian music act and hoping for Rush but getting stuck with Bryan Adams.  Yes, Rush is awesome.  If you don't think so you probably think Nickelback is awesome too.  Actually now that I think about it I think Nickelback is Canadian.  I should have just used them instead of Bryan Adams in that analogy.  Oh well, too late.  To sum up; Awesome:  Rush, Joey Votto.  Girls:  Adams, Nickelback, Morneau.

2.  Jose Bautista.  It's not often I admit I'm wrong (mostly because I rarely actually am) but I was way off on Bautista.  I thought we had a bit of a Brady Anderson situation on our hands last year, but this season Bautista hasn't slowed down as evidenced by his three bombs he hit earlier today against your precious Twins squad (although to be fair hitting them against Duensing and Slowey isn't exactly Spahn and Sain).  Actually during the broadcast I heard Dick or Bert mention that since September of 2009 Bautista has hit more home runs than any other player in the league with 77 and the next closest was in the 50s.  Since Dick or Bert said it I'm going to assume it's probably not accurate, but the point remains - somebody fixed something in this guys swing and he went from Gary Gaetti to Eddie Matthews (no relation to Cory).  I don't think he's going to continue to slug .868 because that's just not possible (right?), but he's become the best hitter in baseball.  For your reference, his sixteen home runs are more than Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, Cuddy, Kubel, Thome, Delmononucleosis, Valencia, and Denard Span combined.  Sick.


3.  Russell Westbrook.  Since we're talking about things I was wrong about why not go ahead and throw Russell Westbrook out there since he basically completely dominated the Grizzlies (along with Kevin Durant of course, which doesn't hurt).  I thought his questionable outside shot and so-so ball handling at just 6-3 meant he'd be a tweener his entire career.  Maybe he's still a bit of a tweener but it doesn't matter because he's also unguardable.  It apparently doesn't matter that he'd still lose a game of HORSE to Ralph Samspon because he can do things like score 40 in game 3 and drop a triple-double in game 7.  Seriously if you were starting a franchise today who would you take over him?  James, Wade, Howard, Durant, Rose, and that's it.  That's the whole list.  It's like you don't really realize how good he is, possibly because he's actually in the shadow of his own teammate, but Westbrook is the real deal.  Russell, not Lawrence. 

4.  Carlos Boozer.  What the hell Boozer?  For most of the playoffs the easiest bet possible was to take the under on Boozer.  It'd usually be something like 15 points, 10 rebounds, or 25 combined and it was always easy money.  Now all of a sudden in the last two games he's been an absolute dynamo who can suddenly and inexplicably can any jumper he tosses up.  In game 6 vs. Atlanta he scored 23 (on 10-16 shooting), just his second 20 point game since April 2, and then had what looked like an ok game in the opener vs. Chicago (14 pts, 9 rebs) but I swear he scored every single time the Bulls needed a bucket.  Plus the guy can't shoot for shit yet hit 50% of his jumpers.  Or maybe he can shoot, what the hell do I know?  I only watch the NBA in the playoffs, I'm not a psycho.    

5.  Zach Britton.  When your team sucks and you have no hope you need one of two things to keep your fans interested:  a superstar or a young dude who could become a superstar (which, incidentally, is why the Twins' season is going to be boring until Gibson gets the call).  Luckily for the terrible for years Orioles it looks like they might have finally found a new great hope (since Wieters turned out to be more Drew Butera than Johnny Bench) in Britton.  After his nine inning 3-hit/no-run performance against Tampa this week (in which he didn't get the win because the O's offense can give the Twins a run for their anti-money) he ranks 7th in the AL in ERA (2.42) and ninth in WHIP (1.02) and has been the starting pitcher in six of the Orioles' wins (out of 18 total).  Dude's looking like he's going to live up to the hype.  Hope must be a pretty sweet thing to have.  I wouldn't know.  And I'm not just talking about sports, I'm talking about life.  My tears taste like steak tonight.


WHO SUCKED

1.  Ron Gardenhire.  I've never made it a secret that I think Gardy is a terrible game manager (and why would I because that should be obvious to even the weird old ladies who watch the Twins), but in particular two things he is seemingly addicted to have been absolutely driving me crazy this year:  the early inning sac bunt and the late game pinch run.  I can sort of give him a pass on the early inning bunting just because this team is so awful and struggles to score so much that maybe getting a runner on first with nobody out is actually a major accomplishment.  I can't, however, excuse the late game pinch running.  An example would be Saturday's game, where Justin Morneau doubled with 1 out in a tie game in the ninth and was immediately pulled for Alexi Casilla, meaning that one of the only decent bats on this team (despite what I wrote above) was replaced with a faster version of Nick Punto.  How often does that pinch runner even matter?  What percentage of possible at-bat outcomes would result in a score by Casilla and not a score by Morneau?  How often would Casilla do something stupid like getting picked off?  You eliminate an important batter (IN A TIE FREAKING GAME) for, at-best, a marginal uptick in your odds to score.  Just so stupid.  Of course it didn't matter in this case since the bullpen decided getting batters out was for fags, but the point stands.  Retarded move.


2.  Rajon Rondo.  Rondo was basically the key guy if Boston was going to beat the Heat.  The big 3 of Boston aren't as good as Miami's 3 guys (and every nickname I've ever heard for these guys is terrible - Moheatos?  Heatles?  Please) but could at least hang tight.  Rondo's matchups, on the other hand, were very Celtic-favorable because let's face it Bibby is about as mobile as Luka Mirkovich at this point and Mario Chalmers is Mario Chalmers.  Unfortunately for Boston Rondo never bothered to show up.  I know he was hurt for games 4 and 5 and that's rough but it doesn't excuse the missed lay-ups or somehow continually losing Chalmers on defense.  And I really think that if Rondo doesn't figure out how to make a jump shot he's got a limited shelf life.  Although I'm already baffled at his success despite having Jeff Hagen type range.  Whatever.  I don't like 'em.  He looks like Momaw Nadon. 

3.  Alex Gordon.  Raise your hand if you thought Alex Gordon's hot start meant that after four disappointing years full of up and downs between Kansas City and AAA Omaha everything suddenly clicked.  Ok, now if you're currently raised your hand what I'd like you to do:  take your other hand and make a little puppet out of it to distract you, and then use the hand you have raised in the air and grab the nearest gardening tool you can find and stab your face.  Honest to god, this guy is awful and he can't even field to make up for it.  Just in case you're still on his jock here are his stats this week:  0-4 with 2 Ks vs. Freddy Garcia.  0-1 as a pinch hitter.  1-5 with 2 ks against Ivan Nova.  1-4 with 2 ks against Justin Verlander.  1-4 with a K vs. Brad Penny.  Seriously.  Outside of Verlander that is a shitbox group of pitchers and yet he managed to get almost no hits while striking out almost constantly.  Yes, I think he finally gets it.  I'm shocked Dawger and Bogart haven't picked this guy up yet.

4.  Jon Lester.  Sigh.  Why do so many players upon whose bandwagon I thrust myself upon end up letting me down?  And I don't even like the Red Sox....hate 'em, in fact and all their obnoxious fans with their stupid accents and overuse of the word wicked and the pink mafia that constantly invades Fenway Park.  But that's  not the point.  The point is that for some reason Lester has decided that getting people out is super overrated.  I might be overreacting a bit because it's not like he's been awful - he'd pretty clearly be the best pitcher on the Twins (of course, I think whoever the ace of the St. Paul Saints is might take that honor as well) but he's just not taking that next step I've been waiting for.  Everybody I love let's me down.  Hear that, kids?  You're my last hope for happiness.

5.  Miami Heat.  Oy.  That's it?  That's all you can do against Chicago?  Sorry Heat, but that was pretty freaking pathetic.  I would write more but I'm tired and fuck the Heat.  Dwyane Wade, despite one of the most egregious misspellings of our generation, is one of my favorite players in the entire world.  Lebron and Bosh?  Whores.  Weak, sissified whores.  And despite Lebron's very stellar performance at the close of the Celtics series he still hasn't shown he can be a big time player.  He can defer to Wade all day long, because it's pretty clear who the Alpha is here.       



Be honest.  You googled Momaw Nadon, didn't you?  And then you laughed.


Finally, I just want to mention that this will now be the official video of DWG for when something awesome happens.

Butera vs. Morales

I was asked recently by a follower on Twitter (seriously guys, I'm on Twitter.  Follow me and all your greatest dreams will come true) to do a breakdown of Morales vs. Butera.  I'm assuming the question is "who should make the postseason roster as the backup catcher", because it's pretty clear Morales is a far better hitter while Butera is a defensive whiz who, HR against the Phillies not withstanding, might as well go up to the plate with a whiffleball bat.  Frankly, this one is easy as well:  there is zero reason to have Butera on the postseason roster.  Zero.

First, just to explain how bad Butera is at the plate, remember that I mentioned in a post last week how his OPS is one of the ten worst in the entire league.  His .185/.220/.294 isn't just anemic, it is laughably bad, and registers as an OPS+ of 34.  For some perspective, in Nick Punto's worst season he posted a 53 - 56% higher than Butera.  That is the same jump you see going from Denard Span to Danny Valencia or J.J. Hardy to Joe Mauer - it's a big difference.  Any time you are that far from Nick Punto's worst season, you have issues.  Morales isn't exactly hitting the crap out of the ball so far this year, but we saw last year in the time he was up that he is a good (at worst average) hitter, and somebody you could easily use as a PH.

Ok, fine.  That much was already clear, we know Morales is a better hitter.  So why would we consider Butera?  Three reasons:

1.  He's an awesome defender.  Yes, yes he is.  I mentioned this last week, but he's one of the best in the league at throwing out would-be base stealers, and has done the majority of his work with one of the slowest pitchers to the plate in all of baseball.  He's phenomenal, really.  But it doesn't matter.
 
Mauer doesn't need a defensive replacement in the late innings.  For one, he's a pretty good defensive catcher on his own (which I will likely repeat over and over in this post) and two, there's generally no such thing as a late inning defensive replacement at catcher.  This isn't like putting in Jason Repko for Jason Kubel.  Plus you would never, ever take Mauer's bat out of the lineup in any game close enough to warrant needing an upgrade on defense - just in case you go into extras.

So we can pretty much rule out Butera getting any PT in this situation. 

2.  Morales isn't good enough to fill in for Mauer behind the plate when he needs rest.  Well, he's 0-2 throwing out base stealers this and although he was a respectable 8/18 last year he also allowed 5 passed balls in just 29 games, or one fewer than Mauer and Butera have allowed combined so far this year and is nowhere near Butera (or Mauer) in terms of overall defense.  But, again, it doesn't matter.

This isn't the grind of the regular season, this is the slow-it-down dog-and-pony show playoffs, where you frequently have a day off between games and sometimes "travel day" really means two.  There's a reason why teams with a strong front of the rotation have such an advantage in the playoffs, and that's because the games are spread out you never have to go more than four hurlers deep and often only need three.  That same extra rest and logic would dictate that Mauer won't need a break for his aching knees or back or shoulder or heel or locusts or whatever current ailment is plaguing him.  There will never be a need for Butera (or Morales) to start a playoff game, and if there is, it's already over.

So we can pretty much rule out Butera getting any PT in this situation. 

3.  He's Pavano's personal catcher.  I have seen situations where there is a true need for a personal catcher, whether it's personal or strategical, but that isn't the case here.  Once again, although Butera may be better at throwing runners out than Mauer, it's not like Joe is Brian Harper back there - he's still one of the best catchers in the league and will be just fine.  Not to mention Pavano came out and said that the whole Pavano's personal catcher thing was just as much to give Mauer a regular day off as it was for any strategic reasons.  This one doesn't matter either, and we can once again rule out Butera getting any PT in this situation.

So there you go.  There is absolutely zero reason for Butera to be on the playoff roster because there is absolutely zero situations where it would make sense for him to actually play.  Morales would likely not see much of the field either, but he can at least give you an at-bat here and there where needed and you know it's not wasted - you can't say the same for Butera.

Really, the only arguments for letting Drew play would include words like gamer, gritty, warrior, chemistry, good teammate, and "he's been here all year", the types of arguments that writers like the Fire Joe Morgan guys have shown to be essentially meaningless cliches, clung to by aging sportswriters as the game and logic pass them by.

In other words, this sounds exactly like something Gardy is going to be all over. 

Six Very Important Things this Morning 8.5.2010

1.  An ugly win is still a win.  And any win over a team like the Rays is a good thing, but man did they do everything they could to lose this one.  They wasted a monster outing from Scott Baker, the kind that reminds us that when he is on he is nearly unhittable.  They missed countless opportunities to get more runs across, and ended up heading into the ninth with just a 1-0 lead that was promptly squandered by new closer Matt Capps, with a healthy assist to the piss-poor outfield that seemed to make mistakes all game long, only to have Baker pitch around them - something Capps couldn't do. 

But despite their stunning ability to strike out on pitches out of the zone last night, they managed to squeak out a win over the Rays thanks to Delmon Young's big single in the 13th.  Of course, that hit came with runners on the corners and nobody out, so you would have thought a big inning was coming, but this was the Twins, and much like the rest of this series they were unable to get anything resembling a timely hit after Young, ending up on the right side of the 2-1 victory thanks to Matt Guerrier's six straight outs.

I do realize I've been a bit hard on this team in this series, and if they can win tomorrow they end up with a split, and you can't really expect anything better on the road against a team like Tampa, but they have just been so close in every game.  When two good teams matchup it's often the little things that make the difference, and do you really feel good with Gardy out there being the difference between a win and a loss (hello Guerrier vs. Upton two nights ago).  He clearly does some things right, enough to make the playoffs more often than not, but he is not a good game manager.  Sometimes that makes the difference.  I'm not calling for his head or anything, but sometimes he can really piss me right the hell off.  Seriously, go ahead and start keeping track of all the really good game decisions he makes.  I'll wait.



2.  Is it weird that nobody cares about this?  A-Rod finally hit his 600th career home run yesterday afternoon, just a mere 12 games and 46 at-bats since he hit #599.  I know everybody hates A-Rod, and for some reason the fans boo whenever he comes to bat, but I've never quite understood that.  Because he makes a ton of money?  They all make a ton of money.  Because he used steroids?  They all used steroids.  I mean, 600 HR, even in this day and age, is still a pretty special thing.  Only six other people have done it, with A-Rod being the youngest to reach that mark, and before you go spouting off about cheaters know that two other members, Bonds and Sosa, are cheaters too.  And doesn't A-Rod's cheating seem slightly less grievous somehow than Bonds or Sosa.  Bonds went from a great hitter to probably the second best of all-time, while Sosa went from a AAAA player to a home run hitting machine who still sucked.  A-Rod, to me, just doesn't seem anywhere near that level.  I actually kind of like the guy.  I'm not saying I want to go pick out curtains or anything, but if he threw some money at me and there was a little wine and maybe a back rub involved, who knows?  

3.  There is no way Bud Selig will be able to handle this.  You have probably heard the Texas Rangers are having all kinds of financial troubles, which is really too bad since they could make a run at the World Series this year.  What you may not have heard is that they are currently up for auction and it's basically Nolan Ryan vs. Mark Cuban.  So it's stoic, professional, respects the game ex-stud pitcher and maybe the most famous baseball name in history Nolan Ryan versus trashy, spazzy, do it his own way, insult every in power and get fined every five minutes Mark Cuban.  Now I think Cuban would be good for baseball - he would treat his players great, spend on a Yankee-level for payroll, and give MLB its best villain since John Rocker - but I'm guessing Bud Selig disagrees.  Of course, this is the same guy who thinks the All-Star game should mean something and almost wrecked the game twice (strike, steroids), so I like my chances.

4.  This is what Carlos Gomez should have been.  Sigh.  Back in 2007, Carlos Gomez was one of the Mets top prospects while Carlos Gonzalez was one of the top prospects in the Arizona system.  Both were centerfielders.  Both were fast as all hell.  Both were toolsy.  Both were plus defenders.  And neither understood the strike zone.  Both have been traded since then (Gonzalez twice), but while we've seen Gomez struggle to become more than a fast, inconsistent player, Gonzalez has become one of the best in the game.  After hitting two home runs today he now has a line of .319/.349/.559 with 23 home runs, 72 RBI, and 15 steals, numbers that rank him as #2 in the NL in batting average, #4 in slugging, #6 in RBI, #7 in homers, and #6 in OPS.  Take heart though, Carlos Gomez fans (all one of you), most defensive metrics have Go-Go as a much better defender than Gonzalez.  Take that!  Although Gonzalez did have one unfair advantage - he go to learn from the great Todd Helton.

5.  Edwin Jackson made me look like an idiot.  Remember how I was all like, "Jackson will suck in the AL he's not even good in the NL" and "Chicago is so stupid they totally got stuck with Jackson" and "I'm smart"?  Well I'm still an idiot.  Jackson led the White Sox to yet another stupid win, which makes them something like 50-1 in the last two months, pitching seven very good innings, allowing just one run on nine hits and a walk while striking out six.  Not a masterful shutdown performance, but pretty solid, even if it was against the suddenly punchless Tigers.  Seriously, what is going on with the Sox pitching?  It doesn't even matter who they throw out there, they are all Cy Young candidates.  I don't know what kind of magic elixir they have in Chicago, but I suspect it has something to do with Dayton wings.

6.  Brett Favre is a creepy perv?  Favre retirement talk, with him finally coming out and saying it's all about the health of his ankle and that he hasn't made a decision yet, but that's not important.  More interesting is that Jenn Sterger (pictured below), famous for having a large rack and being a Florida State fan in a cowboy hat, has told Deadspin that Favre used to send her pictures of his ding-dong when they were both employed by the Jets.  Now, I'm all in favor of people sending each other pictures of themselves in various stages of undress, but generally only when it is something both parties are interested in (or the sender is a woman).  When it's a dude sending pictures of his crank (or of him holding his crank while wearing crocs) to a chick who isn't interested, not to mention to a not interested chick who is 20 years younger than him, I get a little skeeved out.  Like, Pete Rose in his underwear skeeved out.  But doesn't this also seem like something Rose would do?  Looks like my Favre = Rose comparison just continues to get more and more accurate.

Random Thoughts while watching the Twins

I once again have the opportunity to watch an entire Twins game with sound, and once again am going to take advantage while blogging whilst watching.  I won't be doing a live blog, since those seem to always end up boring lately and it's hard to get excited about the Mariners, but I'm sure some game or announcer related things will sneak in here.  I don't know.  I don't know if there's time.  I gotta go to Home Depot later.

-  First, it seems pitching a perfect game has become easier than your sister after a couple glasses of Boone's Farm.  On the heels of Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay's perfectos, Armando Galarraga pitched 8 and 2/3 perfect innings before having it broken up by an infield it, and according the radio the guy was only safe thanks to a bad call by the umpire (I haven't seen the replay, but I'll assume the umpire was probably racist).  And the list of guys with perfect games is so weird.  Out of the 20 perfect games, you have some that don't surprise you.  The Hall of Famers:  Sandy Koufax, Cy Young, Addie Joss, Jim Bunning, and Catfish Hunter and soon to be Hall of Famers:  Randy Johnson and Roy Halladay (if he can keep it up).  Then there are guys with electric stuff you don't really surprise you:  David Cone, Dennis Martinez, and even Mike Witt - the fact that they were unhittable for one day isn't a huge shock.

But then the rest of these guys.  Throw out Charlie Robertson because I've never heard of him and the two guys who did it in 1880 because the rules were all kinds of fucked up then, but Len Barker?  He only won double-digit games twice and never posted an ERA under 4.80.  Don Larsen?  You would never had heard of him if he didn't toss that perfect game in the World Series.  He never won more than 11 games in a season, and spent most of his career as a reliever.

The weirdest part is the sheer amount of soft-tossing lefties who achieved perfection:  David Wells, Tom Browning, Dallas Braden, Kenny Rogers, and Mark Buehrle.  That's as many nancy-boy southpaws who have done it as Hall of Famers.  It's just so weird.  I'm not taking anything away from the achievement, any way you look at it, it's still only been accomplished 20 times, but the list is mind-boggling.  Apparently Brian Duensing is more likely to toss a perfecto than Felix Hernandez.  So weird.

-  I just saw the replay.  That was a bad call.  I was also just reminded that Griffey Junior announced his retirement today.  Man was that guy good.  And since I am pretty sure he was never using anything performance enhancing (other than Mr. Burns' Nerve Tonic, which is not on the banned list) I can't help but wonder what would have happened if he had gone on the Barry Bonds diet. 

Griffey played until about 30 years old before he started getting injured all the frickin' time.  At that point, he had hit 438 home runs with a batting line of .296/.380/.568, giving him an OPS+ of 147 in 7,319 plate appearances.  At age 30, Bonds had hit 292 homers with a line of .286/.398/.541 for an OPS+ of 158 in 6,038 plate appearances.  Pretty close to equal.  So let's say Griffey stays mostly healthy and got as many at-bats as Bonds after age 30, and hit home runs at his same pace.  He would have ended up with 831 career HRs.  And if he hit the Balco diet and hit them at the rate Bonds did after age 30, he would have ended up with 908. 

I know it's a pretty useless exercise and uses a ridiculous amount of assumptions and conjecture, but still kind of fun to look at.  One thing is clear:  Griffey should have used the roids.  Burnsie's Tonic just couldn't quite cut it. 

-  Matt Tolbert somehow got a hit.  Dick:  "The Twins have some speed on the bases."  No, he's white and "gritty" and "scrappy."  That doesn't make him fast.  And he promptly tries to steal and gets thrown out by 8 feet.  Beautiful.  Gardy's fascination with that guy might be the worst part of him as a manager, and that's saying alot.

-  Now Punto walks, and Dick wants him to steal too.  What's this guy's fascination with stealing?  He would have thrived down in New Orleans after Katrina. 

-  Milton Bradley just stole third without a throw thanks to Kevin Slowey paying zero attention to him.  That's your go ahead run with only one out in a 0-0 game here in the bottom of the fifth.  I know Milton Bradley's crazy.  Like Carl Everett crazy, but I love his game.  I bet you didn't even know that in 2008 he led the league in OBP and OPS, and that he's broken a .400 on base percentage three times.  But he doesn't steal a ton of bases (career high of 17, hasn't hit double digits since 2007, and the two he stole in this inning just tripled his season total) so nobody cares that he gets on base all the time.  He's like the anti-Vince Coleman, but you probably like Coleman better because you're a moron.  Thanks for ruining baseball.

-   Oh, and he scored on a sac fly, so his heads up steal of third probably just won the game for the Mariners - who, I'll remind you, I claimed were a sleeper World Series contender.  I'm so dumb.

-  Since the M's are basically out of it already, I wonder when they'll deal Cliff Lee.  He's on the hook for $9 million this year, but he's a free agent after this season.  If the Twins tried to acquire him (LOL) I'd assume they wouldn't be looking to add payroll in the amount and length he'd be asking for, so it would have to be a half-year rental sort of deal.  Which I would be fine with, depending on what they are asking for.  I'm not sure what exactly I'd be willing to give up - haven't really thought about it - and I'm sure somebody else would be willing to offer him more + a contract (I'd bet he ends up a Met), so it's really just a pipe dream, but since they won't end up making a big trade deadline deal, pipe dreams is all I got.

-  They just showed the Galarraga replay again, and man, I don't like the guy or anything but that really sucks for him.  Maybe even worse, apparently the umpire admitted after the game that he blew it.  I'm sure that makes Galarraga feel a lot better.  Ugh.  Just a terrible situation.  And if Miguel Cabrera isn't a terrible terrible terrible fielder and let's the second basemen get that, we aren't even discussing it and are instead trying to figure out why there are so many perfect games this year.  He was probably drunk.

-  By the way, I just want you all to know that Matt Wieters fucking sucks.  It's like he's purposefully going out of his way to intentionally hurt me.  I'm shifting all my love to Stephen Strasburg, who, by the way, will be making his first big league start June 8th, which is only six days away.  I will be flying out to Washington for the occasion.*

-  It's still 1-0 Mariners and we're now in the 7th.  The good news is if they can get Lee out of the game (doubtful) Seattle's closer is David Aardsma, who in no way should be a closer and is the kind of closer you can rally against in the ninth.  Just like Jon Rauch.  :sadface:

-  Cuddyer dinger.  Tie game.  Suck it, Cliff Lee.  And Snacks.  I know you hate the guy with everything you have, but I can't enable this anymore.  There's no reason to hate him, guy can mash.  Sure, he chases the slider down and away all the time, but it's small price to pay for the power he brings.

-  Oh hell yes.  Cuddy is leaving the team for bereavement because his father-in-law died (that's not the hell yes part) and Danny Valencia will be called up.  Thank god we finally get to see this guy play.  I'm sick of hearing about him without seeing him.  And what happened to Luke Hughes?  And Trevor Plouffe?  Why do they keep recycling Tolbert and Casilla instead of giving one of these guys an extended look?  And just cut Harris.  Oh wait, you geniuses signed him for two years even though you only had to sign him for one.  For such a successful and well run organization sometimes these guys are dumb as shit.

-  Valencia's stats at AAA this year:  .298/.350/.380 with no homers and 34-13 BB/K ratio.  I could not be less excited.  Sounds like another slapper.  It's almost like they draft these kind of guys on purpose.  Seriously, the draft is in like a week and I expect them to go off the board and get a guy whose bio reads:

PROS:  Scrappy.  Tough.  Gritty.  Hustles.  Dives a lot.  Slides into first to show his hustle despite all the evidence that it's a dumb play.  Can play multiple positions.  Regularly invites teammates over for a barbecue.

CONS:  Can't hit.  No idea of the strike zone.  Gets an extra-base hit once a month.  Makes terrible base-running decisions.  Is either short and white or short and ethnic.  Definitely short.  Is a "Gardy" kind of guy.

-  Slowey lets the first two batters get hits in the seventh, but gets out of it with a double play (started by Tolbert!) and a pop-up.  We got a ballgame here folks.

-  Apparently they've given up.  Leading off the 8th, Punto attempted to bunt and ended up striking out and then Span did bunt and was thrown out by Lee on a pretty nice play.  I guess they've decided they can't hit him.  If only it was Aardsma out there.

-  I've come around on the Celtics/Lakers final.  I'm pretty fired up for it.  Definitely rooting Celtics here.  Even though I hate all Red Sox fans and most Patriot fans (but definitely all Red Sox fans), I have no problem with the Celtics.  I grew up a Laker fan because I hearted Magic Johnson and hated the Celtics and Bird because I had to, as I've gotten older I appreciate the Celtics more and more, and I'm rooting for them because I hate Kobe and still love KG and definitely love Ray Allen.  I've also learned to appreciate Michael Jordan.  I hated that guy and considered him nothing more than a high-scoring ball hog who managed to win.  But after watching a new generation of ball hogs who suck (I'm looking at you Tracy McGrady) I have to give Jordan some props.  He's still just the fifth best player ever, but that's higher than I used to have him.

-  I think Jesse Crain has a new curveball.  That thing is pretty nasty.  No way he had that pitch before, I would have noticed.  And he put Seattle down 1-2-3 in the 8th.  Pretty sure that's never happened before.

-  Sweet!  Aardsma is in to face Mauer/Morneau/Cuddy in the ninth.  This probably will end up not even being a save situation for Rauch.

-  Four pitch walk to Mauer.  Looking like a Morneau 2-run dinger here.

-  Or a wild pitch and a Morneau ground out to move him to third (look at that Twins baseball!  Giving up his at-bat to move a runner up!)  So now we have go-ahead run on third with one out for Cuddy.

-  And he hits the ball as hard as you can, but right at the shortstop who is playing in.  So it's up to Kubel.  All he does is win games.  Or strikeout.  Also a big fan of the pop-up.

-  Fly out.  Shit.  And apparently this has turned into a live blog of the game.

-  Guerrier goes 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth.  And I am getting way tired.  Stupid west coast.  And I hate traveling out there, every single sporting event is done by 8pm.  When you're out there alone and have nothing better to do than sit in a hotel bar and watch sports, that really puts a bit of a damper on things.

-  Twins lose.  Excellent base-running by the Mariner guy.  I'd write more on that play but I'm really tired.  Suffice it to say, that call to ruin the Big Cat's perfect game wasn't the only bad call tonight.





* = No, I'm not.

Two Live Blogs for the Price of One

I finally have a chance to sit and watch a Twins game in peace and to completion, and on an actual TV with actual sound instead of on the computer, so why not live blog it?  Of course, it's already the bottom of the seventh and the Twins are down 2-1 to the Yankees, but still.  It's a real TV with actual sound.  Which could definitely be a negative.  Whatever.  You suck.

8:08 - Delmoney!  Just as I sit down to watch, Delmoney hits one about 390 off the wall to tie the game at 2-2.  So runner on second with one out.  I would be willing to bet any amount of money that they don't get that run home.

8:10 - Like clockwork, Hardy bounces it right back to Pettitte who catches Delmon too far off the base and he's erased.  The ghost of Lew Ford strikes again.  Now it's a runner on first with Harris up and two outs.  I would now be willing to bet any amount of money x 2 they don't take the lead.

8:13 - Maybe Delmon would be a good name for a boy (Baby Boy W = 11 weeks from arrival and counting).  Or do I go with Delmoney?  Or just Delmon, but call him Delmoney?  Man, there are so many decisions you have to make with a kid on the way.

8:15 - Guerrier is in.  I kind of hope he ends up facing A-Rod.  Just because he can't possibly give up another home run, can he?  It's not like we're talking Jesse Crain here.

8:17 - A quick box score check shows A-Rod made the last out in the last inning, so this is definitely the safest time to put ole Matty Yardball in the game.

8:18 - Francisco Cervelli.  That's just fun to say.  And have you seen some of these guys on the Yankees now?  Juan Miranda.  Ramiro Pena.  Damaso Marte.  Alfredo Aceves.  Boone Logan.  Sergio Mitre.  They're like a linguist's dream.  And also sound like the roster of the Puerto Rican team from the World Baseball Classic.

8:21 - He walks Cervelli.  Walks will haunt.

8:25 - Butera just hit the ball as far as he can, which was really just in the gap, and it was still almost caught by Gardner, but just went off his glove.  First career extra base hit.  Congrats.  Way to only get a double, slow ass.

8:26 - Hold up.  Why the mother hell isn't Gardy pinch running here?  I know Mauer is DHing so if you pinch run and he moves to catcher you lose your DH.  But it's the 8th damn inning in a 2-2 game.  Guess what you do here?  YOU PINCH RUN GOD DAMMIT!  It's the 8th!  Odds are that spot won't even come up again.  And if he's trying to sac bunt - which he is with Span - even if you get Butera to third you'll have to hit it very deep to get him in.  This move makes zero sense at all.  None.  Zero.

8:28 - Awesome.  Span makes a bad bunt, Butera freezes at second, but A-Rod boots it and it's now first and third and nobody is going to say a word about not pinch running.  Bert and Dick haven't even hinted at it.  God this is annoying.  I hope Butera gets tossed out tagging on a medium deep fly ball.

8:29 - Line out.  1 down.  Mauer up.  This is screaming 4-6-3.

8:29 - Serious, Gardy makes more game mistakes than anybody I've ever seen ever, but this crap always happens and nobody ever calls him on it.  I have no problem granting that he is clearly a good manager in terms of managing people/egos/whatever, but his game management skills are worse than Dawger trying to manage a fantasy football team.

8:34 - My bad.  It was 6-4-3.  What a waste of an inning.  I wish I could blame this on Gardy somehow.  That was still a really stupid non-pinch run, even though it ended up not mattering.  It will at some point.  I often wonder if the Twins would make it further in the playoffs with somebody who understood basic strategy.  I bet he loses to kindergartners in checkers often.

8:36 - That GB Leighton song is brutal.

8:40 - Swisher with a monster blast off of Rauch.  Mariano is about to get two saves in one day.  Sweet.  I'm so glad I'm watching.

8:41 - I really liked the Lost finale, by the way, if you're wondering.  And I'm sure you are.

8:42 - Cuddyer has a pretty good arm, throwing out Tex going for two on a ball hit into the corner.  I'm still depressed.

8:45 -  So Pettitte warms up, but then before Morneau gets to hit they pull him and bring in Rivera.  So clearly the whole point of having Pettitte warm up was just to stall.  Doesn't seem legal.  Dick and Bert are saying it's supposed to be against the rules, so that basically guarantees it's completely legal, but it seems like it shouldn't be.  If I cared I'd be outraged.

8:49 - Cuddy lines one into the dugout.  I'll bet anything he was trying to take out Gardy.  I now approve of Cuddyer.

8:52 - Three weak grounders and we're done.  And if you thought this blog post was boring, the game was ten times worse.


Will the fourth quarter of the Eastern Conference Finals be any better?  I'm guessing no.

9:41 -  I took a short break to watch Above the Rim before I remembered this game was on.  How can you not love a basketball movie with 2-Pac, Marlon Wayans, and a guy who plays basketball against an imaginary opponent with no ball.  Plus, Bernie Mac back when he was funny before he got all popular and then sucked.   GET OFF OF ME!!!!!!!

9:42 - I don't know what happened, but Big Baby apparently got clocked in the head and is quite a bit disoriented right now.  So disoriented, that he basically sprinted right at the ref, who to his credit didn't get out of the way.  I don't know about you, but if a big black man is sprinting towards me with a crazed look in his eye my general strategy is to throw my wallet at him and run.

9:44 - Oh, and by the way that whole sequence was ten times more fun than the Twins game.  He went down like Zach Galifanwhatever when Tyson decked him in The Hangover.  Great movie.

9:46 -  We're heading to the fourth with the Tragic up 9.  Let's hope for a little entertainment here.

9:47 - When you go to put in labels for the posts (the little tags below each post), as you are typing tags you've used in the past with the same letter combinations popup.  When I was typing "Orlando Magic" in there, "Magic Taco" popped up.  I have zero idea what this could be referring to.

9:50 - Jason Williams is still playing, by the way, and after toning down the And 1 Mix Tape Tour crap he's actually a really solid back-up point guard.  It's kind of tough to get past the "White Chocolate" nickname, though.  Plus how he framed Randy Moss back in high school for all the issues he had.  It wasn't moss, it was Whitey Chocolate holding him down.  I'd mention his high school transgressions here, but for the life of me I can't remember what any of them were or why he ended up at Marshall.  I think he might have punched out some dumb white hick at a bowling alley, but that might have been Allen Iverson.

9:53 - Speaking of And 1, did anybody ever watch that show on MTV from like seven or so years ago, where it was basically Top Chef but instead of cooking it was basketball?  And instead of basketball it was street ball?  And Magic Johnson hosted?  And some white guy won?  It was so, so awesome.  I need to find a way to watch it again.  Plus, not working from home anymore I can't get my And 1 Tour fix on ESPN2 from noon - one every afternoon.  At least they're bringing back NBA Jam.  I love fake basketball.

9:56 - Oh my god.  Tell me Rico Tucker wouldn't be a dominant force on the And 1 Tour.  I should shoot him a message on facebook and tell him.  We're friends, so he wouldn't mind.

9:57 - Rashard Lewis has 12 points tonight.  I think that is what he had in games 1-4 combined.

9:58 - So I just checked, and it turns out Snacks put us down for the Magic to outscore the Celtics from the 12:00 mark to the 6:00 mark of the fourth quarter, and for the 6:00 to 0:00 half-quarter as well.  I didn't even know you could bet half quarters.  I think one of us has a problem.

10:00 - So it seems Kendrick Perkins was ejected for getting two technicals, and now Big Baby is down with a dented forehead, so guys playing relevant minutes for the Celtics include Nate Robinson, who is a good dunker for a midget and good in an uptempo game - the opposite of what the Celtics do, Marquis Daniels, who has been a third-stringer for like 10 teams in 10 years, and Michael Finley, who actually makes the Celtics average age increase by coming in the game.

10:02 - I haven't looked this up to verify or anything, but when Garnett, Pierce, Allen, Finley, and Rasheed are one the floor together, which they haven't been all night, their combined age is 207.

10:05 - Orlando is up 13 with 7:24 left.  Why is everything so boring tonight?  I actually have full control over the TV, and I'm bored out of my mind.  Watching Bernie Mac and that kid from that movie play one-on-one for Boomps is the most entertained I've been.  I wish I had a White Men Can't Jump DVD here.

10:08 - In case you were wondering, Rasheed can still shoot.  Also in case you're wondering, it would be pretty damn funny if the Celtics blew a 3-0 lead in the same year the Bruins blew a 3-0 lead.  I only know that because I heard it on the radio.  No, I don't watch hockey.  I'm not some kind of mouth-breathing cretin.

10:12 - The lead is now 18.  This is really fun.

10:16 - Marquis Daniels ended up leaving with a concussion at some point when I wasn't paying attention.  That explains everything.

10:18 - Lot of effort out there on both sides.  It's just a battle.  You got to love this passion and drive.  This is why the NBA is so much better than college, nobody is out there just going through the motions.  So much love for the game.

10:25 - Just realized that Kendrick Perkins is now automatically suspended for game 6 since he got ejected in game 5.  He's super, super important for the Celtics because he's basically the only one who can guard Howard.  And the play he got his second tech on was pretty bad, like NBA the fix is in bad.  Except I'm pretty sure the NBA wants Celtics/Lakers, so expect them to change the rules to get Perkins back in there.

10:27 - Game over.  Post over.  What a waste of time this all was.  Although if I wasted just one other person's time reading this, then I've done my part.

Zack Greinke has Lost Something

Yes, I am aware that Zack Greinke finally picked up his first win yesterday and good for him.  I'm actually all too aware of it since he was on Snake and my Fantasy Baseball team.  As you might imagine with that being the case, I've paid way too much attention to Greinke, including listening to radio broadcasts of Royals' games using the MLB app for my phone.  At I've noticed that he isn't nearly as good as he was last year.  Since someone was looking to acquire him in our league, I did a little more digging, and I found some interesting things.

No, I'm not judging him based on his paucity of wins this year - I do actually understand baseball.  And I know his basic numbers look pretty good; he has an ERA of  2.73 and a WHIP of 1.12.  There's nothing wrong with those numbers, even if they aren't as dominating as last year.  So dig deeper with me, won't you?

Let's start with a few basics.  First, his K/9 is 7.5.  Good, very good in fact, but a deep drop from the 9.5 he posted last year.  At the same time, his HR/9 allowed has nearly doubled from 0.43 to 0.85.  Again, good numbers, but substantially worse than last year.  Opponents are hitting .248 against him this year, up from .232 last season, while his BABIP is at .296, below his career number of .314 (he was at .313 last year), which suggests that the opponents average is only going to increase from here.

The home run increase can be attributed to giving up more fly balls (41% FB last year, 46% this year) and a higher proportion of those are flying out of the park (6.8% of his fly balls have gone out this year compared to 4.5% last year).

What's causing this?  I can see a couple of things, and the first is a drop in velocity on his fastball.  Last year he averaged 93.7mph, this year he's down to 92.2mph - not an alarming drop, but enough to make a difference.  And that difference has been enough to account for a huge difference in Greinke making batters miss.  Last year, batters made contact just 77% of the time they swung at a Greinke pitch - this year that number is 87%.  To put it in perspective, that 77% ranked him 17th in the majors.  This season, that 87% number ranks him 105th out of the 115 pitchers who qualify for the ERA title.

Finally, there is a stat called FIP, which stands for Fielding Independent Pitching, which takes in all pitcher stats and spits out a number that is a projection of what you would expect the pitcher's ERA to be in a generic park with an average defense behind him.  Last year, Greinke's FIP was 2.33.  This year, it's 3.45.

In conclusion, although Zack Greinke is still a very good pitcher, but so far this year he's been no more than very good - not anywhere near the dominant force he was last season.  Considering he was historically good last year and only managed to win 16 games, he's going to be lucky to hit 12 this year, which means that us trading him (along with Matt Kemp) for Jason Heyward, Ricky Nolasco, and Jimmy Rollins was definitely the right move.

Also I didn't start researching this to convince myself of that or anything, in case you're wondering.

By the way, prior to tonight A-Rod was 4-6 with 3 home runs against Matt Guerrier.  Can we all please remember this when a bunch of yo-yos start stumping for Gardy as manager of the year?  Please?

World Series Game 2 Live Blog

Picking this one up in the bottom of the second with the Phils leading 1-0 and Pedro looking very, very good - four batters, four outs, three by strikeout, and if the Phillies can manage to steal this one, I'd be the happiest little girl in Switzerland, with my pretty hair all in braids while I drink my hot chocolate and pet a Saint Bernard. 

-  Ibanez with a nice diving catch that maybe saved a run, or at least a hit.  What's he doing out in left field?  He should be DHing.  Unless they put my boy Matty Stairs at DH?  Please let this be true.

-  And now we get Jerry Hairston, Jr. instead of Nick Swisher.  Hmmm, le'ts see.  Swisher OPS = .869, Jerry Hairston, Jr. = .710.  For you uniformed cretins out there, that's the difference between Jason Kubel and Orlando Cabrera.  I'm not sure I make that switch, assuming similar defense, under any circumstances.  Of course, Hairston is a light-hitting player who can play multiple positions well.  Gardy would start him at bat him second.

-  Burnett with a lot of movement on his ball tonight, so much so that Jimmy Rollins just missed a breaking ball by about a foot - and I'm not exaggerating.  Must be because he has his fancy personal catcher, a catcher by the way who OPSed  .560 this year, which is somewhere between Mike Redmond and Alexi Casilla, and even worse than Nick Punto.  He's been benched for  Jorge Posada, who OPSed .885, which is slightly better than Justin Morneau.  So the Yankees have torpedoed their offensive two ways, one because of a completely overreatction and one because of a big crybaby of a pitcher.  Nice job.  By the way, Posada and Molina both threw out 28% of attempted base stealers.  Nice job A.J.

-  Wow.  Walking Utley to face Howard?  Wow.

-  Well, he whiffed him.  Point Girardi.  Still think the Molina and Hairston moves are balls stupid.

-  Pedro walks Molina.  Nice job you jackass dominican or puerto rican or cuban or whatever.  This sets it up for Jeter to be "a yankee legend."  Or strikeout like the probably gay douchebag he is, hahahahahahahahahaha.  Suck it, jeter.

-  I want you people to stop for a minute and realize just how good Pedro Martinez was in his prime.  Because I'm trying to watch the game online I don't really have time to do a ton of digging, so we're just going to use ERA to analyze him.  More specifically, ERA+ which basically compares your ERA with the league average ERA in that season and gives you a numerical number, with 100 = league average.  Well Pedro has the #1 ERA+ of all-time (since 1900) in 2000 when his ERA was 1.74 (league average was4.92).  He is also #8 on that list.  And #16.  And #25.  And #31.  You know how good Zack Greinke was compared to the rest of the league this year?  He was #30.  Nobody else has three top 16 seasons.  Only Walter Johnson also has four top-25 seasons, and nobody else has five top 31 seasons.  Needless to say, he is the all-time career leader in that stat amongst starting pitchers (Mariano is the all-time leader).  Make no mistake, this guy was absolutely, unfathomably, incredibly, untouchably awesome. 

-  And while I was typing that Texeira homered to tie the game.  That only cost the Yankees $500,000 ($20,000,000 / 40 homers).  Good lord.

-  Oh, I forgot to mention, I looked it up and indeed Matt Stairs is the Phillies' DH.  Not only that, but he has the Phils' one RBI tonight.  That guy is so freaking awesome.  I love that big crazy goofball.

-  Do you watch The Office.  Man, that was the best show for every year up until this year.  Suddenly it seems they have no idea what they are doing with the characters or where they are going with any of the storylines.  It still has it's moments, and it still has some really, really good episdoes (the wedding episode was awesome), but I'm just not sure what's going on here.  Actually, The Office is really similar to Tubby's 2010 recruiting class so far.  Kind of unimpressive, a let down from previous years, but still time to turn it around/show how I'm wrong and I completely trust the people in charge.  Holy crap that's brilliant.  I feel like Samuel Taylor Coleridge over here.

-  We're watching Vampire Diaries right now.  Well, the wife is.  I'm watching the Phillies continue to look like fools against Burnett.  Anyway, it's pretty much just like Dawson's Creek with Vampires and is nowhere near as good as True Blood, but it has the third hottest black chick I've ever seen, a grown-up and hot Maureen from Freaks and Geeks, and this hot chick named Nina Dobrev who was also in the criminally underrated movie "Never Cry Werewolf" starring Hercules.  That was a lot of words so just shush and look at her:

-  Well, Matsui just hit a weak pop fly to right field, but because this new Yankee Stadium is an absolute joke (think Sandlot in Dusty Diamond All-Star Softball), it somehow managed to clear the fence.  Seriously, Pedro pitches a hell of a game, but now he's trailing because of that garbage?  Shouldn't there be some kind of rules in place to prevent people from building these monuments to subpar power hitters?  G.  A.  Y.

-  Ibanez has almost an identical stance to Jim Eisenrich.  And just got called out on a pitch that was both low and outside.  I was waiting for the pro-Yankee umpiring to show up.  Freakin' conspiracy man.  Like the moon landing.

-  Jesus this guy just called Stairs out on the same pitch.  That pitch is nowhere near a strike.  Might as well turn this game off right now, it's clear that MLB doesn't want the Yanks down 2-0.

-  So I stumbled across a reference to a movie called "Tyrannosaurus Rex" coming out in 2013.  Immediately you could have called me Hugh G. Rection.  I was very excited, is what I'm trying to say, aroused even, if you will.  Then I read the synopsis.  It's about a boxer who gets caught up in an underground fighting ring.  Shouldn't people be arrested for that shit?  And not only for misleading me so horribly, but you know this movie is going to star Cam Gigandet.

-  Back to back Yankee singles (including one by Hairston, dammit).  That will do it for Pedro.  Hell of a game.  And they are going to Chan Ho Park.  I'm going to assume they're writing this one off and are happy to go back to Philly with a split.

-  Park had a 4.43 ERA and a 1.40 WHIP.  There have to be better options.  Also, who knew that asians could grow full beards?  Other than Genghis Khan and that cult leader from Japan guy who tried to use Sarin Gas in the subway.  Wait.  So Park is a supervillian?  Makes sense, since he just gave up a hit and another run.  Totally worth it since "Mr Intangibles and Mr. Yankee and total clutch performer who can do anything" just failed to get down a sac bunt and struck out.  Suck it, Jeter.

-  Double play after Howard catches the ball in the air or doesn't or something.  Honestly I couldn't even tell on several replays if he caught that or not.  Then again, I'm a little drunk. 

-  I know I'm talking about TV alot today, but shut up it's my blog.  Get your own if you don't like.  Anyway my point here is that I stopped watching Heroes.  The first season is still one of the best seasons of all-time of any show, for serious, but it has totally lost it's way.  Not only has the writing petered off and become it's own little SyFy original movie script, but they can't kill anybody off.  They have killed like, ten people on that show, only to have each and every one of them (somtimes multiple times each) come back to life, not really be dead, or basically find some back way to get them back on the show.  That's all fine and dandy for a kids show, where you can't expect children to deal with death and all that jazz, but this is ridiculous for an adult show, and specifically a science fiction show.  Even Vampire Diaries just killed off a major character with a stake through her hot boob. I just can't do it.  I'm out.

-  Phils down two and will now have to face Chamberlain and Rivera.  Not lookin' good here.

-  Whoops, nevermind, we're going with Mariano for two here.  I don't know if I agree or disagree in this situaton, but mostly because the Twins have never had a manager who can think outside of the "closer for the ninth" box, despite the fact that Captian Dumbshit

-  A huge walk to Rollins in an 11-pitch at bat and a single by Victorino passed "gold-glover" Texeira and we're in business.

-  Shit.  Utley grounds into a double play, mostly the umpire called anything within a foot of the plate a strike so he had to hack around.  Seriously, this is some of the worst balls and strikin' I've seen in a while.  Also, thanks for cutting to a replay of Jeter pumping his fist as you go to commercial, Fox.  Lord knows we don't see/hear/read enough about him already.

-  Mrs. W just asked me who was winning the game and when I said the Yankees she made a very nice noise of disgust.  So at least I got that going for me.

-  Ibanez doubles in the bottom of the ninth with two outs.  It's now up to Matty Stairs.  I think I'm in heaven.

-  Nevermind, he strikes out.  That wasn't very exciting.  Oh well, a split is what you had to hope for.  The Phillies are in pretty good shape, and Yankee fans are all douchebags, and don't let Ashley Tisdale tell you differently.

Twins

1.  Obviously losing the first game isn't ideal, but I don't think anybody outside of the delusional and the wildly optimistic expected them to win this first game - not only due to the circumstances but also because of the pitching matchup.  The important thing in my opinion was that they made sure they didn't get blown out and let the Yankees know this is going to be a series, not a walk-over, and I think they accomplished that.  The score isn't as close as I would have liked at 7-2, but the team was able to get hits - actually outhitting the Yankees, and had plenty of opportunities to score, just couldn't get the big hits.  Even getting two runners on against Rivera is a bit of a mental win for the team.  I don't believe in moral victories, so this isn't one, but I do believe in moral losses - as in if the Twins got blown away here I could see them just rolling over and getting swept.  They now after to win three of the next four, which is going to be quite a chore, but game 1 gave me some hope, despite the loss.

2.  I am perplexed by Gardenhire's use of the DH.  Harris, really?  I understand why he was going Morales since he was swinging such a hot bat earlier this year, but now that he's looking overwhelmed (six pitches against Porcello, six swings-and-misses) why go with Harris?  Even the radio announcers were laughing at the Twins DH, saying they look like a national league team who doesn't have a DH and has to scramble to find one.  The move here is to play Gomez in center, shift Span to right, and move Kubel where he belongs which is no where near the field.  Gomez is a better CF than Span, and Span is immeasurably better than Kubel in right.  You gain far more in the field than you lose with Gomez's bat compared to Harris, if you actually lose anything at all there.  It's a no-brainer.  Which, of course, means Gardy will never, ever do it.

And speaking of my boy Kubes, I'm pretty sure he could face Sabathia 50 times without getting a hit.

Also, Rockies Guy - what happened?