Archive for Uncategorized

Fun to read the real ones over at RotoGraphs.

1. Josh Hamilton will defy what seem to be everyone’s lowered expectations in Los Angeles by having an MVP season… and winning the Cy Young Award as well, after the Angels convert him to pitching and slot him into the rotation. Poor Jered Weaver. He didn’t think a bad spring would lead to losing his spot to an outfielder!

2. The Yankees win the division by going EVEN OLDER, with an April trade for left-handed reliever Darren Oliver, a May signing of 1B Eddie Murray, and the return of Bobby Richardson to second base after Robinson Cano opts to undergo season-ending breast augmentation surgery. New/old manager Yogi Berra leads them to their 28th World Series crown.

3. Mike Trout will be this year’s Mike Trout, going back in time to re-create his magical rookie season and give the Angels one more year of pre-arbitration eligibility.

4. Jeremy Hefner: National League Cy Young Award winner, and heir to the Playboy fortune.

5. Chris Davis, following his 2012 victory as a relief pitcher, will save more games this season than Wade Davis. Wade Davis will strike out more batters than the number of times Chris Davis strikes out. Ike Davis will hit more home runs than Wade Davis and Chris Davis combined. Rajai Davis will play more games than Doug Davis.

6. Josh Rutledge will be a top-50 shortstop.

7. Tim Lincecum will end the season with a higher ERA than he starts the season with. He will also end the year with more career strikeouts, more career walks, and fewer career wins, thanks to ongoing litigation about a handful of victories in 2011.

8. Jose Tabata outearns Travis Snider. In salary. Travis Snider, on the other hand, hits 38 home runs and comes in 4th in the NL MVP vote.

9. Chris Archer earns the most value of any Rays starter not named Price, Hellickson, Moore, Cobb, Niemann, Colome, Hernandez, Odorizzi, and Torres.

10. Manny Ramirez, finding success in Taiwan, returns to the major leagues as a starting outfielder for the Cubs. He hits 20 home runs in just over two months, and ends up with a $22 million contract to return next year as the regular DH for the Yankees.

A List of Fan Stereotypes Provided by Google Correlate, Sorted by City

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By popular demand*, here is the companion piece to Eno Sarris’s excellent Joey Votto on Hitting, published yesterday. As this is an exploratory post on a poorly understood subject, my intention here is not to give you any kind of exhaustive analysis, but simply to highlight some basic strategies that will be familiar to attentive fans. I hope that gathering these in one place will be enough to get a conversation going, because what we’re looking at here is quite possibly the next frontier in sabermetrics.

The Pickup Line

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Perhaps the strangest seven minutes I’ve spent all week is watching this WGN video compilation of 1970s Cubs spring training coverage. Learn all about how the Cubs are going to win it all in 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, and 1979. Go Cubs. Go.

Did you know Ernie Banks can sing (sort of)? And Jose Cardenal can juggle (sort of)? Now you will!

Caminho das Índias, or India – A Love Story, is a hit Brazilian telenovela from 2009. Duda is one of the main characters. Lucas is one of the guest stars. They had scenes together. Is this Lucas Duda’s life in an alternative universe?

This is Eric Chavez. Eric Chavez is a bad dude (just look at that evil twirly mustache that I totally didn’t draw myself). Eric Chavez is a murderer. He’s not a murderer of people. No, Eric Chavez is guilty of murdering something far more defenseless and expensive.  Eric Chavez killed my laptop.

Last Friday, I was minding my own business, covering my first game as a credentialed member of the sports media (how hard could it be if they let Carson do it?) from the Salt River Fields press box. Eric Chavez came to the dish against Bartolo Colon in the top of the first and lined a pitch back at me. Fortunately for my beautiful face, but less fortunately for my beloved laptop, Eric Chavez’s line drive ricocheted off the back of my laptop screen and rolled to a stop at the feet of the MLB stringer working the game.

The baseball, which was so negligently launched backwards by Eric Chavez, had cracked the bevel of my laptop and filled a third of my screen with spider-webs of shattered dreams. What looked like black electronic oil leaked from around the spreading cracks and white vertical stripes obscured much of what had once been a glorious view of my desktop.

After the game, I used my newfound media power to bully my way into the clubhouse to confront Eric Chavez, Destroyer of Computer and Scourge of Electronics. Not intimidated by the fact that he is considerably bigger and stronger than me, I asked him how he could live with himself for assaulting my property like that. He was, I am disappointed to report, remarkably unrepentant:

“If I had any type of control over where the ball went, I definitely would not be hitting it into the press box…. You know, I hit a kid about two years ago when I was in Boston and I broke his eye socket, and he had to have surgery. Now that I feel sorry about. Laptops can be replaced, but eyes can’t.”

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Today is the 145th birthday of Skyrocket Smith, first baseman for the 1888 Louisville Colonels, and namesake of my next-born child. These Colonels also included Ice Box Chamberlain, Toad Ramsey, Dude Esterbrook, Farmer Vaughn, Kick Kelly, Hercules Burnett, and Chicken Wolf. Just look at them. They can’t manage to locate a camera, let alone mount a concerted effort at baseball. They have absolutely no idea what’s going on. The following year they became the first club ever to lose a hundred games. Skyrocket was long gone, though. He joined the fire department in St. Louis and died of uremia at 48. Incidentally, Chicken Wolf was also a firefighter, and died of brain trauma at 41. Seems Toad Ramsey also died at 41, of pneumonia, while Farmer Vaughn succumbed to pneumonia as well, at 49. Dude Esterbrook passed away at 43; he jumped from a train that was taking him to a mental hospital. Pete Browning, longtime sufferer from cancer, cirrhosis, vertigo, and alcohol-induced brain damage, died at 44, shortly after release from a mental hospital. Paul Cook died of unrecorded causes at 42. Reddy Mack fell off of something and died at 50. Hub Collins died at 28 of typhoid, and Phil Tomney died at 28 of tuberculosis. OK, time to bring this post home with something light and amusing. Um…

Jeremy Guthrie has an actual vault where he keeps his sneakers. He keeps his money in a shoebox.

From Baseball Think Factory, 3/17/13:

Now Is the Time to Lock Up Dustin Pedroia

Dustin Pedroia is a 29-year-old second basemen who is signed for the next two years and with a reasonable team option for 2015. Normally, I would be against inking such a player to an extension, but I think I would make an exception for Pedroia. Here’s why:

—First and foremost, Pedroia is the face of the team and a really excellent player. In his first 6 years as a full-time player he’s put up 31.1 fWAR. He’s beloved by the fans, well-liked by his peers, and seemingly has an exemplary work ethic.

Exemplary work ethic. Well-liked. Beloved. So let’s take away his freedom.

So you thought you could go first-to-third on yet another Yuniesky Betancourt Super Error ©? So you thought maybe the world had tilted its freckled hand in your favor? So you thought that limp toss had some divine timing? You think it was an accident?

Guess again.

‘CAUSE YOU JUST GOT YUNI’D.

What can I compare Mike Petriello to? He is finer than a summer’s a day, a dew-crested tulip, or a big ol’ ziplock bag of melted chocolate. He is even finer than these things because no chocolate, flower, or Earthly rotation has enGIF’d MLB footage for me at 7:00 a.m. on Sunday morning.