Recently spotted headline: Emerging Craig, Cards agree on 5-year deal. This seemed like an appropriate time to reflect on that miracle of nature — a miracle transpiring each year, like clockwork, in our own back yards! — of the emerging Craig.
Some interesting, meaningless numbers:
** Lou Marson (CLE), 3 for 14, all singles, with 8 walks. SLG .214. OBP .500.
** 8 times on base for Ezequiel Carrera (CLE) (5 hits, 4 walks, but one of those hits was a home run)… 8 stolen bases. 1 caught stealing. He is making quite an effort to run. (Last spring, 5 times on base, 2 steals.)
** BJ Upton leads the majors, caught stealing three times. But he’s also batting .429, so not too much to complain about.
** There have been two intentional walks so far this spring. Jason Jaramillo (HOU) and Xavier Paul (CIN).
** Darin Ruf (PHI) has been hit by four pitches. No one else has been hit more than twice. Do people not like Darin Ruf?
** Hector Noesi (SEA) has walked 8 batters in less than 5 innings. He has also given up 11 runs (9 earned), including 2 homers. Worst pitching stats of the spring? Sam Demel (HOU) probably doesn’t think so. 11 runs in 2 1/3 innings, 4 home runs, 3 walks and a strikeout. Batters hitting .556 against him. Jordan Lyles (HOU) also has a case. 18 runs and 26 hits in 8 innings (.553 AVG against him). And Pedro Villarreal (CIN). 14 runs and 19 hits in 4 2/3 innings. Batters hitting .633.
** Jimmy Henderson (MIL) has allowed 6 stolen bases (leading the majors) in just 3 1/3 innings On the other hand, David Huff (CLE) has picked off 3 baserunners in 10 innings.
My list of 14 keepers in my AL-only Scoresheet league is due on Friday. We start with 13 keepers and 2 crossover privileges for players who are now in the NL. I traded for an extra keeper and an extra crossover privilege.
The players I’m sure I’m keeping:
As you read this, I am undoubtedly sleeping in after flying to Phoenix for Spring Training and the great FanGraphs Jamboree with my two beloved, wretched children, ages 6 years and 17 months respectively. I’m staying with my mother in Scottsdale, which is why the kids are along. I don’t have to pay any money for accommodations, but I will be paying in other, more subtle ways. Agreeing to bring her grandchildren with me across the country, through the air, in a tiny cylinder with small seats that are easily kicked at a time of day when both of them are typically asleep, is part of that cost.
Nevertheless, I’m excited to be here. I’d be more excited if I was credentialed for this week. I had dreams of standing shoulder to mid-thigh with guys like Jonathan Broxton and Brandon McCarthy, and peppering them with questions both insightful and inane. But alas, somewhere along the way, a ball got dropped and I won’t be cornering Vin Scully and demanding to know how he stops time and apparates like a Harry Potter villain to startle Don Blasingame.
Sure, this is a loss to me, and I feel terrible about it. But I don’t feel bad for me; I feel bad for you. Because while I will still be tremendously important and generally terrific even without my credentials, not needing the external validation they would provide, you will never learn the answers to the answers to the burning questions that I was all set to ask.
Unless…unless I posted them here and intrepid reporters across this great land banded together to locate the interview subjects I won’t be able to get to, and demand answers to these important questions! Yes! Yes, this is what we will do. Here, my friends, is what I was planning to ask at Dodgers camp on Thursday. Feel free to share anything you discover in the comments below. Now, go forth my minions, and seek answers to the following:
1) (To Andre Ethier) You French or sumthin’?
2) (To Zack Greinke) Who would win in a pillowfight, you or TJ Simers?
3) (To Juan Uribe) Why are you?
4) (To Clayton Kershaw) You’re a lefty, and everybody says all lefties are junkballers. Show me your junk.
5) (To Don Mattingly) How come you never shaved your sideburns?
6) (To Nick Punto) Really? You think tearing the clothes off of athletic young men isn’t even a little gay?
7) (To Ned Colletti) How much of your ability to convince others you know what you’re doing do you attribute to your mustache?
8) (To Alyssa Milano, who appears without warning next to me in the locker room) How the hell did you get in here?
9) (To Josh Beckett) TJ Simers and Dan Shaughnessy strip down to the waist and engage in a spirited boxing match according to the Queensbury Rules. Who would win, how many rounds would it take, how much joy would America derive from the proceedings provided it was streamed live to the Inter Nets, and how much beer could you consume in the interim between the first punch and one of them collapsing dead to the delight of millions?
10) (To Vin Scully) Will you adopt me?
PHOENIX, Ariz. — R.A. Dickey, who started Team USA’s opener in the 2013 World Baseball Classic, set a few things straight when asked about the team and its chances. “It’s not about the names. It’s about the makeup,” said Dickey, emphasizing that any gap in the Americans’ star power will be amply filled by mascara and rouge. Asked about his teammate’s comments, David Wright added: “Listen, don’t get me wrong, we’re all going to leave it all out there and hopefully come home with a trophy. But let’s be real — the main reason I’m here is to look completely fabulous in front of an international audience.”
1. Travis d’Artagnan, C, New York (NL). d’Artagnan was captain of the Toronto Musketeers, a semipro team led by Louis Merloni and killed when a ball hit him in the throat at the Siege of (Kevin) Maastricht in 1673.
2. Gary Sanchez, C, New York (AL). Far too distracted making Will Ferrell movies.
3. Francisco Lindor Chocolate Truffle by Lindt, SS, Cleveland. Lindor used to be 175 pounds, until he started to eat all twenty varieties of hard chocolate shell with smooth chocolate filling. Now he is 425 pounds, and has the second-lowest range factor in professional baseball, ahead of only some guy on the Yankees.
4. Mike Old, 3B, Texas. Not to be confused with Mike Olt, Mike Old turned 106 last October.
5. Kaleb Coward, 3B, Los Angeles (AL). Afraid of the ball.
This picture, which I cannot source because I cannot find where it came from, and google image search cannot find it for me, speaks to me on many different levels:
Buzzfeed offers its picks for The Ultimate Fictional Baseball Team. A little too much Major League for my taste — Jake Taylor, Pedro Cerrano, Willie Mays Hayes — but can’t really quibble with most of it.
My pick for the best fictional team is the 2013 Astros.
Your picks in the comments.
The World Baseball Classic is underway, and that means I’m way late on getting you your triennial/quadrennial Best Names Bracket. For this year’s field of 32 (with pairings randomly assigned), I made sure each WBC-qualifying nation was represented, although inevitably some countries (I’m looking at you, Netherlands) are better represented than others (*cough* USA). Click to embiggen, download, fill it out in whatever fashion you like — even if it’s just a list of each round’s winners — and send in your bracket! A CHAMPION WILL RISE!
NOTE: In order to fairly assess each matchup, creative and politically incorrect mispronunciation may be required.
NOTE (2): Pictures are provided for educational purposes ONLY and should be ignored when selecting winners; otherwise some entrants, and by some entrants I mean Odrisamer Despaigne, might enjoy an unfair advantage.
Carefully posed portraits of all of your 2013 St. Louis Cardinals.
Courtesy of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and photographer Chris Lee.
