The Veteran Presence 2005 Mrs. Urbina Memorial MLB
Preview: AL Central
MINNESOTA TWINS
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BB: The Twins have now come to represent organized
baseball’s response back to the Athletics and Moneyball¸
like some sort of pornography for the ubiquitious “baseball man” or the
mosaic of the FCC blocking Janet Jackson’s nipples. I’m not saying Joe Garagiola settles
into a hotel room after filing his eighteenth scouting report on Toe Nash and
finishes his night off with a bottle of gin from the hotel minibar and the soothing words of
the Twins Organizational Report in Baseball
America, but…ok, maybe I am saying that.
ED: I dunno. I don’t think Joe Jr. can ever love again
after trading Shea
Hillenbrand. He has betrayed himself and
his love of SCRAP~! How can the hands
that signed the approval on that deal be the same hands that…that…
BB: The Twins, much like the Athletics, spent two
seasons getting beaten up by the Yankees in the ALDS – unlike the Athletics, they
never actually came close to beating them, though. They would seem like a good
fit offensively as a team to challenge the Yankees – guys that put the ball in
play and don’t really walk that much – but it turns out the stuff that works
against the Indians and Royals doesn’t work so well when you get to the
stronger
PR: Just fielding a
team is usually enough to beat the Royals. Poor little Pieman.
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Performance Within American
League, 2004 |
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Win % Within Div. |
Win % Outside Div. |
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Yankees |
.644 |
.617 |
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Angels |
.551 |
.602 |
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Red
Sox |
.631 |
.602 |
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Twins |
.605 |
.514 |
BB: The Twins went 46-30 against the AL Central
last year, but only 35-33 against the other two divisions, a .514 winning
percentage. The Angels and the Red Sox winning percentage outside of their
division was .602; the Yankees, .617. I have no idea whether that correlates to
success in the playoffs or not (it’s an itty-bitty sample) but I know who I’d
want to bet on.
ED: I’d say
the biggest cause for concern would be putting up only a .605 Winning% within
the AL Central. I realize someone’s gotta win this
crappy division, but if you can’t put up a better Winning % against the Royals,
Tigers and White Sox, you really don’t deserve a playoff spot.
PR: I enjoy that Ed doesn’t include the team from
BB: Well, the White Sox deciding that scoring runs
in bunches is bad will help that runs against column a little bit.
ED: Who are you to doubt Kenny Williams? He is a baseball man! What are you? Huh?
BB: The Twins also saw fit to give Ron Gardenhire a
contract extension over the offseason.
Gardenhire is
my least favorite Mets utility infielder of the 80s, coming in just behind
Larry Bowa.
The top 10, by the way (in no particular order):
ED: Gardenhire
finishing behind Larry Bowa
in your heart? Did he touch you up when
you were a child or something? Did he
NOT touch you up when you were young? Do
I really want an answer to that?
BB: Are you asking me which one I’d rather have
molested me when I was a child, Ed? I think that’s really an improper question
but…well…Gardenhire’s gotta
have a softer caress than Bowa.
ED: Yeah, Gardenhire would
at least buy you a soda and try to molest you in the parking lot.
PR: Bowa would just make you tear your rotator cuff jerk…
well you know where I am going with this.
PR: Gardenhire is another of MLB’s anti-sabermetric trumpeters.
Each year he will babble about how he would rather have a guy strike out 200
times for every three run home run instead of walking because walking is the
sissy man’s way or something. Personally, I love Gardenhire because he will come up
with doozy
quotes like: (when talking about Luis Rivas)
“I just hope that little guy who
sits on his shoulder listens more than he did. That was Nanu. We saw Luis talking to him all
the time on the field. All
the time. That's a true story. We'd look at Luis, and he'd be
talking. And we just knew that Nanu was sitting there. Wasn't it Nanu?"
BB: OK – that explains it. I’ve always wondered
why Ron Gardenhire
always looked so goofy; it was just that the midget on HIS shoulder looks good
with Sun-In. And decides
that the Twins should keep their best power hitter in AAA every season.
And that the air conditioning needs to go on. And that the Vikings should
probably pick soon.
BB: The Twins organizationally continue to be
subject to the same afflictions that have prevented them from advancing in the
playoffs since their little run started – a surplus of talent in the outfield
that needs to be thinned out in order to increase the production from the
middle of the infield. These problems are propagated when the Twins trade for
an outfielder,
he has a great two months, and gets signed to a multi-year contract. And it’s
not as if the Twins stopped developing guys – seemingly new outfield prospects
pop out of their system each year. Last year, it was Lew Ford – the only Twin besides the
departed Corey Koskie
to post a decent walk rate – and Jason Kubel. Kubel decided to alleviate some of
the stress on Terry Ryan by suffering a crippling knee injury in the Arizona
Fall League that may threaten his career. That still does nothing for Mike
Ryan, Mike Restovich,
or Matt LeCroy,
all of whom really deserve starting outfielder jobs somewhere.
PR: Right about here is where Bill I debated the
merits of referencing those amazing Korean baseball cartoon thingies. Mainly
because the Lew
Ford praying for injury was spot on. I figured we could LINK EXCHANGE~! with our Korean
friends but I don’t think it would lead to Bill or Ed scoring any Korean booty.
Plus, we would then have to link to every single cartoon for every single team.
And that would lead to a lot more full frontal nudity that I am not sure I am
man enough to handle.
BB: Come on, you just had a kid; if you are man
enough for that, you should be man enough for Tony Batista. The Korean baseball
cartoons are far more perceptive about baseball (not to mention hilarious) than
pretty much anything I read all off-season and forget us – that guy deserves
the Korean booty. He rules.
ED: Ayup. I worry that Phil will ship him over and
replace me with him here at VP.
PR: I would like to believe that he is having his
way with young nubile American college girls on their semesters abroad. What
happens in
ED: No
organization represents their community better than the Twins, do they? I mean, there are a whooooole lotta pasty, Nordic guys in this
organization. I’m of the belief that
more organizations need to represent their communities like this.
PR: Wait a sec. I mean I know you have gotten used
to the Raiders representing
BB: I like this idea. It’s a lot like how MLS and
the WNBA distributed players to the places they were most closely related to
when the leagues started. Of course, Scott Spiezio already went to lead the
grunge revolution in
ED: Would
it be in bad taste to call for Terri Schiavo as a D-Ray? She’s in the community, to boot.
PR: Aww… she won’t be when this comes
out.
ED: Maybe I’m just writing this so it can lead to
an Eddie Vedder:
Seattle Mariner joke. Maybe I’m just
writing that because I want to make some barefoot hillbilly jokes about the
Braves or Reds or something. Maybe I
just really had nothing after I pointed out that the Twins have more Vikings
than the
BB: The Twins also have two bad organizational
habits. One is perpetually waiting for a player to develop, even when a better
solution is around the organization or easily acquirable. The 21st
century Twins have given thousands of at bats to Luis Rivas, Cristian Guzman,
and Jacque Jones, despite a staggering lack of development or production. Rivas
has never posted an OPS+ higher than 86 or lower than 79 in five seasons;
Guzman’s OPS+ runs 37, 67, 111, 80, 77, and 78; Jones appeared to break through
with a 125 OPS+ at age 27, but has come down since; his six seasons have
amounted to an OPS+ of…101.
PR: But Rivas is Nanu! Gardenhire even said so. And don’t
think I don’t have lingering fantasy bitterness towards Jacque Jones. I think
we might have found someone that Ron Dixon can out run.
BB: Get a flash of lightning behind him and Ron
Dixon will out run anyone,
I don’t care how fast they are. And I don’t care if Luis Rivas has Jobu on his
shoulder and his bats,
he’s not approaching respectability anytime soon.
ED: Bill
called Jacque Jones an ideal Giant in the ’04 Preview. But they’ve got the man with the
Urine-Stained Hands making outs for them now.
Ideal Jones matches at this point include
PR: Jones isn’t crazy enough nor can he play cover
2 enough to go to the Braves. And he is not white enough to play for the Cardinals.
The Mariners already have Randy Winn who might as well be Jacque Jones. The
Royals work. As do the Devil Rays. One of those teams will sign Alex Sanchez.
The other… will most likely trade for Bobby Higginson.
BB: So, of course, the Devil Rays already grabbed
Alex Sanchez. The Royals fit Bobby Higginson a lot better three years ago than
they do now; I am sure that the Handsomest GM almost found a way to get him on
the Royals by adding another team to the Weaver trade. Jacque Jones’ closest
comp in my head is Doug Glanville so…Cubs! He’d make a wonderful, wonderful Cub
next year.
ED: Well, he should be able to handle the heat,
anyway.
BB: The Twins’ decisions about when to bestow huge
contracts have hurt them as well. Torii Hunter got a big four-year deal after
his 2002 season, where he hit .289 with related gains in power. Without making
real progress in his walk rate, he’s now played 8 seasons with a career OPS+ of
…99.
PR: But… but… he took a home run away from Barry
Bonds!!! IN AN ALL-STAR GAME!!!! All while not on the juice. At least Hunter is
one athlete who plays defense in
BB: There are all kinds of ridiculous clauses in
Twin contracts, I’m sure. There’s gotta be some justification for the bizarreness that
goes on
BB: Shannon Stewart got his extension on the basis
of a .322 second half in 2003 and has since revealed himself to be the slightly
above-average player he was his entire career with the Blue Jays.
PR: Yet Prospectus
still turned on J.P.
BB: Hey – I think Keith Law is still crying in his
oxygen stat chamber over that. Give the guy a break.
BB: Joe Mays got a big four-year deal after a 2001
season where he had a fluky-as-anything BABIP. Since then, he’s pitched 225
innings with a 5.91 ERA.
ED: Hey, you started
this off by calling them the anti-Moneyball team.
There’s your proof.
BB: So this year’s Twins? They’re the most
talented team in this division, from 1-to-40. The players they lost over the
past season and offseason
will be replaced by a group of young players who can be expected to be an
improvement upon them. Those improvements will need to balance out the slipping
of the Twins’ older players and outliers last year.
ED: Well,
PR: Has anyone checked with Jack Morris about how
he feels towards all this? Kent Hrbek? Dan Gladden? Roy Smalley? Steve Lombardozzi? Les Straker? Juan Berenguer? George
Frazier? Heck – has anyone dialed Tom Kelly up? Has anyone even made sure Tom
Kelly isn’t meandering around the Metrodome asking where he could find Tom Brunansky?
BB: You know they send Mike Restovich over. “What? No, just say
your name is Tommie B. Yes, he demanded a white corner outfielder with a little
bit of pop who can’t field, and…yes, I know you fit that description Mikey, but he
wants to be comforted by someone who he remembers. Just take the money, read
him a story, turn the air conditioning on, and get out of there. Remember.
Tommie B. At all times.”
BB: Justin Morneau finally has a starting gig
penciled in at the beginning of a season, the one he should’ve had two seasons
ago – 1B,
PR: See, this is the problem with the Round Table
format. It gets hard to respond to sections that have the really good jokes
that you don’t wanna
get lost. Like I love Bill’s
BB: See – as we begin our magical journey through
meta-previewing – I have no problem succumbing to the funnies of Ed and Rippa
and not saying anything. I do have a problem when the comedy of baseball is too
much. Like the Rivas thing. What are we supposed to say to that? Or the Nationals?
Just in general! It’s too much.
PR: Ah, the NL East.
How I get goofy with thee.
BB: The Cristian Guzman era in
PR: Why couldn’t Linda Cropp have protested this deal?
Imagine what the DC Schools could have done with the money. (The right answer,
of course, is purchase more mercury thermometers.)
BB: Their first hope as a replacement is Jason
Bartlett, who has been pretty nifty the last two years in the minors, posting OBPs of .380 and
.415 with decent pop, including a .472 slugging percentage last year. He’s also
regarded as a plus shortstop defensively. That being said, I have a bad feeling
about the Twins actually giving him the job after spring training – I see him
having a bad spring and the Twins handing the job over to Nick Punto. Punto can also
take a walk but has all the power of an Amiga. And Juan Castro is Nick Punto without the
ability to take a walk.
PR: ESPN.com is probably being optimistic in
listing Punto
as having the job. Especially since Punto has played in exactly one spring training game as
of my writing this. And Castro is having a fantastic spring. What does this all
mean? That
BB: Castro has a nifty OPS of exactly 600 – 600! –
in 10 major
league seasons. Never mind that he couldn’t beat out Barry Larkin for the Reds
job last year (not that Larkin was going to lose it but it’s not like it was a
miscarriage of justice that Castro had to sit or anything)
ED: And?
It’s not like the Twins haven’t gone the last…20+ years without a decent
hitting SS anyway. That Juan Castro contract though…PEEEE-U.
How did they beat Jim Bowden to that?
BB: The one positional switch the Twins will
suffer from is Corey Koskie
vacating third base for Mike Cuddyer.
Cuddyer’s
been a prospect seemingly forever but has bounced from position to position,
going as far left on the defensive spectrum as shortstop and as far right as
right field. After filling in at second and third last year, he moves to third
full-time this year. I’m not too sanguine on his prospects – he basically has a
full season of major league at bats over his career where he’s hit
.257/.330/.433 – and when you combine that with likely defensive mediocrity,
that won’t fly in
PR: I will at least say that thank God they
finally changed the playing surface in the Metrodome because otherwise Cuddyer was a
dead man. (Of course, the roof is still white but that would take a Christmas
miracle.) I mean, the man bleeds enough from the nose already. He doesn’t need
bad hop choppers cracking him anywhere near his face. Though at least part of
me thinks that still would have been high comedy. The visual would have been
something along the lines of Bambi learning how to stand. (Crap – that was such
the week joke. I really wanted to make an Old Yeller or Where the Red Fern
Grows reference so I could make some sort of “Hopefully, the Twins won’t shoot Cuddyer because
he played with a diseased raccoon and got rabies” joke. I suck.) (Of course,
they might have replaced the surface LAST season. I am officially too tired and
too drunk to do the fact check. And honestly, you have to admit that Cuddyer foaming
at the moment might be slightly amusing. Ahh… who am I kidding. None of you
even know what Michael Cuddyer
looks like. Y’all suck. Burn
in hell.)
BB: Does he look like a
deer or something? Am I too young for this joke?
ED: He lost
me too, Bill. But Phil hasn’t slept
since last-June. Just humor him before
he goes a-shooting.
BB: The real upgrade is the one that was supposed
to happen last year – the crowning of Joe Mauer, King of Minnesota. Injuries
kept the überprospect
to 107 at bats in
ED: C’mon!
This is the AL Central. Keep pounding
that square peg until it fits into the round hole!
PR: The fewer Pat Borders at catcher appearances
the Twins have to deal with the better. Morneau wanting to catch is a
problem; not a solution. And I really believe in my heart of hearts that
BB: Again – I will make this complaint yearly
until it happens. If Major League Baseball is going to collect a billion
dollars from fantasy sites and companies in rights fees, that money needs to go
to good use. I DEMAND a Fantasy Player Discretionary (Slush) Fund. This means
that teams receive bonuses for doing things to improve the quality of fantasy
baseball. Does a team have a closer-by-committee? The Fantasy Baseball
Discretionary Fund would give them $3,000,000 to decide on a closer, announce
their choice, and give that closer 90% of all save opportunities for the rest
of the season, barring injury. That way, the team gets a little extra money
that outweighs the marginal risk of picking a closer, and fantasy players get
another option for saves. It has tons of possibilities – on all kinds of
scales. For $75,000, Carlos Beltran has to attempt to steal every time he gets
on base for one game. Or,
to do the opposite. For $150,000, Andy Pettite isn’t allowed to do his
pickoff move in a game. The Josh Phelps problem is where this came up in my
head first – that would’ve been the most expensive one of all. When he first
came up and was slugging .560 or so, the fund should’ve coughed up $6,000,000
to turn him into a catcher for 20 games. I am sure this will happen one day
because it simply has to.
ED: This may be the greatest thing ever written
at this site. We may as well stop now.
PR: "GREAT JOKE
BILL! FOZ WILL APPROVE!”
BB: The Twins will also get a huge boost in their
bullpen by getting a full season outside of the best relief pitching prospect
in baseball, Jesse Crain. Crain in the minors, 2003-04: 131 2/3
IP, 178 strikeouts, 42 walks. If Joe Nathan disappoints or gets hurt, the Twins
have his replacement ready; until then, he’ll be one of the best setup men in
baseball.
ED: You can’t replace a PVC~!!! Unpossible!
PR: Because I am constantly awake (it really is
bordering on the worst remake of A Clockwork Orange ever), I originally read
Bill’s comment as “Joe Namath
disappeared”. That got me to thinking who would the Feds question and in what
order. I came up with
PR: This seems like a good enough time to ask this
question: Does your name have to start with a J to be a member of the pitching
staff? Jesse Crain, Joe Nathan, Juan Rincon, JC Romero, Johan Santana, Joe
Mays, J.D. Durbin... How is Jason Johnson not eating innings for this staff?
There ya
go. Johnson straight up for Jacque Jones works on so many levels.
BB: $25,000 for Brad Radke to change his name to
Jihad. Well – that won’t play well in the red states. Jed?
BB: Jed Radke, seemingly already on the downward
slope of his career, pulled out the best season of his career last year, going
11-8 but with a 3.43 ERA. His strikeout rate nearly jumped a batter per nine
innings last year – if he can keep his K/9 closer to 6 than 5, his ERA will stay
down. Radke, and the rest of the pitching staff, will be affected by who’s
playing on the left side of the infield as well. Having Morneau (an adequate defender at
first) as opposed to Doug Mientkiewicz
at first will also add a few extra hits to the ledger.
PR: Aww… the left side of the infield won’t be able to
catch all the home runs Radke gives up though.
BB: Well, if Mientkiewicz was there, he’d at
least make sure he got the balls that got hit out somehow. They might be worth
something someday, you know.
PR: Closer to the value of Jeff Nelson’s bone
chips than Luis Gonzalez’s chewed gum. That is just one man’s opinion, of
course.
BB: What’s left over? Just the best pitcher in the American League.
Johan Santana finally got 35 starts and, well…you can officially call it a
success. 265 strikeouts, 20 wins, and an AL Cy Young in his first full season as
a starting pitcher. The one thing to watch out for is the rise in innings
pitched – the last Twins pitcher to tack on 70 extra innings from one year to
the next was Joe Mays, and Mays…we already talked about him.
ED: Yeah, I
can see Santana having an off year. He
is at least 26 though, so it’s not quite the same as, say, putting a ton of
innings on Kerry Wood or Mark Prior and the Twins had been careful with him up
to last year so I wouldn’t panic about the workload. Even if he isn’t as good as last year, he’ll
still be the big difference between the Twins and the rest of the pack.
PR: It is pretty amazing to think that after Johan
Santana the next best pitcher in the division is… umm… Jeremy Bonderman, I
guess. Is it too late for me to get a try out with the Royals? I could be the
subject of a Rob and Rany
rant.
BB: As I say somewhere
else in this thing – you score a 93 with the Nationals. Sorry buddy.
ED: Hey, getting to the playoffs has to count for
something when you’re in a division when no one has the right to dream about
the World Series.
PR: Is that like
winning the Atlantic Division?
BB: At first I wasn’t sure whether you were
talking about basketball or hockey but then I realized both hockey’s lack of
stasis and the sad truth that, either way, the joke is just as topical.
CHICAGO WHITE SOX
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BB: How did we get here, exactly? After their
division title in 2000, the White Sox had a core of young players to build
around – Paul Konerko,
Carlos Lee, Magglio
Ordonez, Keith Foulke,
and Mark Buehrle,
with highly-regarded prospects Joe Borchard and Joe Crede as the offensive base of a
system that had more pitching prospects than anyone in baseball. And then…Kenny
Williams took over.
ED: Ohhhh, how we love us some Kenny Williams. But then none of us are ChiSox fans.
BB: And since then…utter stagnation. The Sox have
won 83, 81, 86, and 83 games since then. They’ve tried trading for ace
starters, blaming their problems on their best players, and scragging all their pitching
prospects’ arms. When none of that worked, they resorted to desperate tactics,
giving Ozzie Guillen
the lineup card.
ED: Hehehehe. God bless the ChiSox.
BB: And now, after a year of failure and
mediocrity, Ozzie Guillen
– bless his testy little soul – has figured out what the problem is. Yes,
Virginia, the White Sox need to be more like Ozzie Guillen. Now, Ozzie Guillen hit
.264/.287/.338 over his career, and much like a 14 year old watching porn, he
wasn’t any good at bunting, but he liked the premise of it. Now, you would
think if Ozzie Guillen
was such a good team player and played on such a good team, his teams would
have performed well when he played there. Guillen was a regular with the White
Sox from 1985 to 1997. Those teams went 870-843, for a .507 winning percentage.
But it’s ok – Ozzie knows what he is doing.
ED: To be
fair, the Sox made the playoffs one of those years. Of course, it had little to do with Ozzie,
but…Hey! There’s your fairness!
PR: Wait, wait, wait. Does this mean everyone is
going to start keeling over with heart attacks? Aww… Frank Thomas is going have a
pacemaker and shrunken testicles.
BB: If they make him
bunt Scott Podsednik
over every game, he will.
BB: So, in this rich vein of thinking, the White
Sox have started to adapt their team to the Ozzie ideal. Carlos Lee is out,
replaced in trade by Scott Podsednik,
he of the 70+ steals last year. Never mind that Lee’s OBP was 50 points higher than Podsednik; Lee clogged the bases.
Aww…Ozzie
had a crush on Lance Johnson back in the day.
PR: John Cangelosi works
cheap, I hear.
BB: “What’s that? Aw crap, Restovich is back in AAA? Oh well.
Get Cangelosi.
He’s just as pasty and slow. I don’t care if he was never a Twin. Kelly won’t
know any better.”
ED: Hey,
Lance Johnson was a piece! When I think
of sexy ChiSox
of the Ozzie-era, I’m a-thinking One-Dog, then Frank Thomas…and probably Robin
Ventura. I think of Ron Karkovice only
when I want to suppress those desires.
PR: Ron Kittle works
just as well.
BB: What did Jack
McDowell ever do to you, Ed? Oh, dreamy crappy rocker.
ED: We
really need to evaluate the crappy music careers of crappy baseball players
in-depth. I mean, if we can get Bill drunk enough to do it.
BB: Juan Uribe actually had a pretty good
season last year, hitting .283/.327/.506 at age 24. So how do we mess that up?
Well, with Ozzie, we can get Juan Uribe to bunt fifteen or twenty more times. That’ll
knock his slugging percentage down a little closer to the Ozzie range. Then
WHAT? Uribe
only attempted to steal 20 times last year? (And was successful 9 times –
that’s ugly) He’s gotta
go 40 or 50 times minimum.
PR: Yeah sure. And
Chico Lind still believes he “misplaced” his pants.
ED: Well,
one of my personal favorite things about the Kenny-era White Sox is the hatchet
job they did with Jose Valentin. He strikes out too much! He only hits homers! He makes errors! Run him out of town! OK, so his OBP was stinky, no question, but
this is a team that has used Ozzie Guillen and Mike Caruso at short over the years. And it’s not like the Sox had any sort of
viable replacement lined up for him.
Yeah, this is a Kenny Williams team.
The fact that the Sox weren’t able to sign Omar Vizquel as his replacement still
depresses me. But I firmly believe Ozzie
is itching to become a player-manager.
BB: Valentin’s OBP was adequate until last year really
considering his power – and even last year Valentin was a passable offensive
player on power alone. I will officially fall in love with Ozzie Guillen this year
when he lets by-gones
be by-gones
and finally re-acquires Mike Caruso and inserts him at SS. That is really the
first step of the Ozzie player-manager scheme since, really, the only person
who might be worse than Guillen
at this point could be Mike Caruso.
BB: Aaron Rowand also busted out, hitting
.310/.361/.544. So how do we mess that up? Well, he walked far too much – 30
times in 487 ABs.
That’s way too passive. And he’s gotta bunt some more, too. Rowand’s gonna hit like .270/.300/.415 this
year and people are going to wonder why.
PR: He’s white with creepy facial hair and went to
Cal State Fullerton. If that ain’t
a recipe for scrappiness, I don’t know what is.
BB: In other words, Rowand will be more like Joe Crede, who
couldn’t even muster a .300 OBP last year, and has gone from a successful
rookie season in 2002 to being pretty much devoid of value at this point. Hey,
just as he gets expensive!
ED: That’s right. Kenny is an economically literate bitch!
BB: In what’s been a great offseason, one of the weirder
stories was AJ Pierzynski
kneeing the Giants trainer in the groin after requesting treatment on his own
groin. I’m not sure if this is part of the Corey Dillon advisories or not.
ED: Really, what’s a White Sox preview without
someone getting hit in the groin?
PR: Well AJ did try to trump himself by offering a
bounty on Giants pitchers during Spring Training. I have to ask though. The way
Felipe Alou
abuses his staff – why not just let them weed themselves out and save yourself the
money?
BB: Awww – and saving arms might be the one thing Felipe
actually does do well. But it’s ok.
BB: I’m not sure where Ozzie and Kenny got the
idea to rely on a pitching staff helmed by ex-Yankee Cubans but it’s at least a
different idea.
PR: The idea of a staff comprised of Yankee
foreign national rejects is brimming with possibilities – Adrian Hernandez,
Hideki Irabu,
Jose Rijo,
Tony Fossas,
Graeme Lloyd, Ed Figueroa, Pascual
Perez, Melido
Perez, Cecilio
Guante. Man
– I am bringing back some great and some horrible memories.
BB: Does Domingo Jean qualify for American
citizenship by being a member of the Columbus Knights of Columbus or something?
ED: No.
BB: Poor, poor Frank
Thomas.
ED: Yeah.
I’d feel sorry for Paul Konerko
too. But I remember what he did to my
fantasy team a couple of years ago. He
can’t suffer enough.
BB: When I do the column on my 10 favorite fantasy
trades of all-time, dealing Konerko
to Ed for Renteria
during the 2003 CC draft is right up there. The best thing is, the next year, I dumped Renteria and got Konerko for their
2004 seasons. You can’t possibly imagine how proud I get of myself
sometimes.
ED: Yeah, that’s what keeps Bill and Phil from
replacing me with the Korean cartoonist.
PR: Carl Everett being the replacement of Thomas…
and any of the outfielders is going to pay off in a big way. I can feel it. Oh
– I mean, in the comedy department. Not the production department. I still
would like to know if EA Sports went back to White Sox training camp to film
MVP intros. I am thinking that the Alomar brothers could be trumped.
BB: I have so many great ideas for MVP intros,
past and present. On Derek Bell’s houseboat…Lloyd McClendon after an
ejection…Carlos Beltran after the Yankees said they weren’t interested…Billy Beane after he
pulled off the Jermaine
Dye-Neifi
Perez trade…Mariano Rivera after game 4 of the 2003 World Series…Jeff Suppan walking
back to the dugout after getting thrown out on the bases (by freaking David
Ortiz) during game 3 of the 2004 WS…Ed after his inside-the-park home run.
ED: And
then Kenny signed Li’l
G to keep the DH spot warm for The Big Hurt. It’s a better signing than, say,
the Jermaine
Dye deal, if only because Li’l
G comes dirt cheap. It’s not like either of them has played a full season since
2001. Sure, at least Dye has some
defensive value and who knows what you can expect from Li’l G at this point. Of course,
it’s not like the White Sox will use Li’l G after he walks a few times and cheeses off Ozzie
with his lack of aggressive play so…never mind.
PR: Ozzie will never
approve of the way Jeremy runs the bases.
BB: …the manager’s room meeting between Li’l G and Ozzie
if Giambi
ever makes it up to the big team…
CLEVELAND INDIANS
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BB: The Indians pretty much had everything that
could’ve gone right for them go right last year, and you saw what it got them –
eighty wins. Well, almost everything. They were stuck with Omar Vizquel all
season.
ED: Yeah. But Omar’s gone now. And with him, most of my deep Tribe hate.
PR: Man, Omar leaving was a sad, sad day. At
least, the Indians are still in
ED: True. If you can’t hate
BB: We all have to move on from loss in our lives.
Sure, Omar just fit right in the snug arms of
BB: The big stars were on offense. Travis Hafner had the
quietest Jim Thome
season ever - .311/.410/.583, all for $316,350. But hey – the Rangers needed a
catcher. I hope Einar
Diaz was worth those 100 games or so.
ED: Are you
saying that John Hart isn’t a genius???
If you won’t, I’m certain Grady Fuson will mutter something about
him.
BB: And then Fuson will go tell a beat writer
that no one likes Billy Beane
after he wrote Moneyball.
BB: Everyone pretty much contributed. The Indians
hit .276/.351/.444 as a team and would’ve done better if it wasn’t for a very
mediocre bench. The only guy who really had an off season was Jody Gerut
(.252/.344/.405).
ED: Poor li’l college star.
PR: What is Gerut now? A million? Can we at least write
this preview without having to go back and add “Oh, Gerut is already injured”? SPORTING
NEWS 2003 ROOKIE OF THE YEAR!
BB: The day after Rippa wrote that, Gerut got
injured. That’s what he gets for never updating his blog. See Slotman – this is what’s going to
happen to you!
BB: On the other side of the ledger, the Indians
rotation put together a pretty good season on the backs of Jake Westbrook, CC Sabathia, and
Cliff Lee. Westbrook had the best of the three, but is the most likely to
suffer a whole bunch of regression with a very low strikeout rate. Sabathia is still
only 23 and is going to have a 2004 Ben Sheets season pretty soon. Lee had the
best peripheral stats, with 160+ strikeouts, but the worst ERA. His ERA is a
better bet to be lower than Westbrook’s than vice versa in 2005.
PR: Maybe the Indians
should remove Sabathia’s
feeding tube?
BB: Oh yeah – by the
time this gets out Rippa will regret that joke.
PR: By the time this gets out, I will have
forgotten what I wrote.
ED: I still
don’t know if I buy Sabathia
ever turning the corner that much, to be honest. He got lucky that Grover got ran out of there
before he could completely eat that arm, but none of the Indian managers since
have been especially kind to him. He’s
thrown 776 innings through the age of 24, has no concept of conditioning and
doesn’t exactly have the smoothest of deliveries. But I assume I’ll be calling for his arm to
fall off for about as long as Bill has been calling for Randy Johnson’s
wreckage. I’m thinking Cliff Lee will be
the best of the lot once he forsakes his love of the dong. Jake Westbrook on the other hand…he dreams of
a Derek Lowe payday one day.
PR: No, no Ed. Kaz Tadano did the gay porn. Not
Cliff Lee. Unless your implying there was a new video tape made in the
BB: Was Carmelo Anthony on this one too? What about Chris D.
Richards? He kinda
looked like Carmelo
Anthony, I think.
BB: The real problem for the Indians last year was
the bullpen, which I believe qualified for federal disaster relief because it
was in a swing state. I love David Riske but he did an awful job as closer.
Rick White pitched like someone forgot to feed him. Chad Durbin pitched like he
was trying to feed on Rick White. Kaz Tadano pitched like….must not work blue. Jose Jimenez was ugliest
of all – an 8.42 ERA in 31 games is almost unfathomable. Who gets to pitch 31
games if they’re recording an 8.42 ERA?
ED: Umm, David Cone ca. 2000?
PR: It was like Coors Field was a scorned lover
and decided to torment him for another year. Like Jimenez had cheated on her
with Jacobs Field so Coors sold his golf clubs, maxed out his credit cards,
didn’t pay for opening day tickets and made out with Bank One.
BB: So in this bizarre world of yours where
stadiums screw – what is Fenway?
Used up hooker or chaste old woman? Is Shea the ugly girl that needs to put
on 50 pounds of makeup to look pretty? And when a team is looking for a new
stadium, is that like telling your girl that if she doesn’t lose weight, you’re
going to break up with her? So
many questions. I am so young and have so much to learn.
PR: Shea is so your slump buster.
BB: Two years ago the Indians gave Jeremy Guthrie
a huge bonus to leave Stanford. Last year, he had a 4.21 ERA in AA with
unencouraging peripherals. Oh well – I guess it was better than giving the
money to Joe Mays.
ED: Or Arlo Guthrie. Or Woody Guthrie. Or Mark Guthrie.
BB: I really like the
PR: Plus, there is a bunch of injury clauses in
the deal that will give the Indians a break if Millwood is still a cripple. I
mean they could have given Wilson Alvarez $2 million a year. (Aww… poor little DePo). Or they could have given Eric
Milton 25.5 for three years. (Nope, that was the OTHER
BB: Aww…
ED: Bill
completely glosses over Aaron Boone as if the mention of his name brings back
too many painful memories. I hear he can
hit a knuckle ball. That may just be an
urban legend. Anyway, as much as the
Tribe have
been doing the right things under Mark Shapiro, this is still a
stinky-stinky-stinky move. It’s not that
Boone has no value – shoot, I’d put money on him having a better season than
his Anabolic brother – and it’s not like the Tribe are loaded with 3rd
base prospects, it’s just that the Tribe sure are shelling out a whole lot of
money for a 32 year-old guy with a bum knee whose only real value as a 3B was
that he had really nice range and a little pop. Of course, his pop was inflated
by playing in a small ball park – and a playoff home run – and his range…well,
we shall see. That’s still a whole lotta money for
him, though. Yeesh.
BB: Well I mean – they signed Aaron Boone like
last July. And really the media playing up Aaron Boone as someone Red Sox fans
hated with a passion last year was nonsensical. I mean, no one cared about
Boone hitting the homer. After the eighth inning, that game was over. It was
just a matter of which Yankee was going to end it.
BB: The Indians are going to regress some this
year – they’re young, but their pitching and their hitting was a little over
their heads in 2004. They remind me of the 2003 Royals – down to signing Juan
Gonzalez. Their long-term outlook is pretty bright, though.
ED:
Personally, I can see the Tribe making a run at the Twins. The pen will have to be much better, of
course. And it’s not like the pen could
be any worse. There are enough parts
that everything could come together…and it’s not like
PR: Ed has faith in Bob
Wickman.
Yes he does.
ED: Well, not enough to
be suckered into having him as a keeper.
PR: Still plenty of
time to draft him though.
DETROIT TIGERS
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ED:
Yeah. The middle of the Central divisions. Here’s where we lose readers. Time to insert complete randomness.
BB: So they weren’t the worst team in baseball
history. They’re spending money they don’t need to, using funds that should be
saved for signing players when they’ll actually make a difference between
contention and mediocrity as opposed to between mediocrity and ineptitude. But
they’ve already dealt themselves a few cards and they can’t change them, so
let’s see what they have to work with.
PR: Maybe they should be pumping some of that
money back into the community so that Dave Hogg doesn’t have to duck and cover
when going from his car to the press box.
BB: There’s an underrated if not awe-inspiring
pitching staff. Jeremy Bonderman’s
going to be a star if the Tigers keep his arm healthy – fortunately, Alan
Trammell doesn’t appear to like munching on young arms. Bonderman’s striking out nearly a
batter an inning, and his walk rate is acceptable – especially for a 21 year
old in the majors. Prospectus’ closest comp for him is 1969 Larry Dierker. That
year, Dierker
pitched 305 innings. At
age 22. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.
PR: Of course no one wants to see Larry Dierker pitch
over 300 innings now. And you call yourself an expert Bill. Bah!
ED: It’s
BB: How bad, really, could he be? The fantasy pool
pays $5,000 a start to any team willing to let Larry Dierker throw, minors included.
BB: Nate Robertson didn’t get a ton of hype but he had a
nifty little strikeout rate. Mike Maroth…didn’t lose 20 games. Jason Johnson…scarfed down
innings. Gary Knotts…upheld
community standards. Of course – the community standards of
ED: Not when Matt Millen becomes mayor of
BB: This is so begging for the “What would Brian Boitano do?”
treatment in a musical. Ah, a musical about the Tigers would be nice. They
could adapt the Python sketch…er…“How
Not To Be
Seen”.
BB: Poor Lino Urdaneta. He pitched in 1 game last
year and gave up 6 runs on 5 hits and a walk without retiring a batter for –
yes – the big ol’
infinite ERA. He then got outrighted
and from what I can tell, hasn’t picked up with anyone. That’s a pretty harsh
legacy to leave behind. When
you combine it with being a Tiger – poor fella.
PR: To me the most amusing thing was that, his one
game right after he got off the 60 day DL. Aww… his elbow healed just a little
too quickly… or not enough. Actually, the best is that he was a Rule 5er and
the Tigers were so desperate to keep him. Maybe they should have let the
Orioles draft him and then trade for him. And has anyone checked to make sure
that Lino
wasn’t, ya
know, one of the folks who kidnapped Urbina’s mom? I am just asking. I mean, he was in
Venezuelan Winter League… Hmmm…
BB: I am thinking it went down like this. Middle
of the winter season, Rich Garces
disappears. Several people bent on nostalgia for ugly Sox teams of the late
90’s and/or irony trips get upset. Everyone else reports it with comedy, as if
a fat guy disappearing is funny but a thin guy is a serious story. Well – if
they are going to report it that way, I am going to envision it that way. Garces gets
kidnapped but after a few days, he’s really upset because his diet isn’t really
up to par. So Garces
gets vehement about requiring a couple of cases of beer a day. Kidnappers are
not happy, but don’t have any leverage – so they decide to return back to the
field they got Garces
from and let him free and offer him a case of beer if he returns back with a
new ballplayer. Then Garces
kidnaps Limo Urdaneta
and – things work out better.
ED: Do you
think Kirk Gibson gave him a pep talk about being a real man? Sat him down, talked about how he won a World
Series while too crippled to even walk? Elaborate on it enough so that
he tells the kid that he was clinically dead – DEAD – for like 45 minutes that
game before he hit the homer off of Eckersley.
“So you think an infinite ERA is painful, kind? I was crippled, dead AND IIIIII saw Tommy Lasorda
naked! Sure, we’ve all dreamed of Tommy Lasorda soaping
up his li’l
turtle, but really, nothing can prepare you for the REAL HORROR! Yeah, you think you know pain? You wanna sit around feeling sorry for
yourself! FAH! You don’t know
anything! And don’t get me started on
Sparky Anderson’s li’l
skipper.” I’d give that speech about
8-900 times a year, if it were me.
PR: Yup. Whale. Nightmare.
Gone.
BB: Of course now, with the signing of Troy
Percival, the Tigers have TWO PROVEN VETERAN CLOSERS!!
PR: Are the Tigers going to determine who the
actual closer is by whoever has the more valuable mom?
ED: C’mon, you know Dombrowski’s gonna make Uggie a Met. He-he…he’s Venezuelan!
BB: World Series Ring Holding Veteran Pudge Rodriguez
pretty much sealed his Hall of Fame case shut with a .334/.383/.510 season in a
pitcher’s park.
ED: You
know what Marlins fans realized after Pudge left? He lacked SCRAP~! SCRAP~!
Now Paul LoDuca. He’s SEXYSCRAPPY~!
BB: But sadly, not
manly-meaty. Or is he? Ed? You are an expert on manly-meatiness.
ED: Nope.
Not manly-meaty. Manly-meatiness is only
acquired when one signs a Baltimore Oriole contract.
BB: NU’s Carlos Pena slugged .472 at age 26. By age 26, I
hope to have graduated from Northeastern.
ED: Ahh, to live is to dream. But trust me, that Liberal Arts degree will
be PURE GOLD when you get it.
PR:
Lubchenko: Lubchenko must
return to game!
Hibbert: [chuckles] Your playing days
are over, my friend.
But, you can always fall
back on your degree in ...
[reads chart] communications!? Oh, dear Lord!
Lubchenko: I know! Is phony major. Lubchenko learn
nothing.
Nothing! [cries]
BB: Ah, having nothing
to live for or look forward to. I need to drink more and think less.
ED: Yeah, that was pretty much how I too
approached my liberal arts degree.
BB: Carlos Guillen had a breakout season that
was 40% better than any season he’d had previously, and he managed to cripple
himself at the end of the season. I am…shall we say…skeptical. He did get the
Twins breakout season special long-term contract though.
PR: Carlos Guillen was an amazing fantasy
player for me last year. Then he got crippled. He was then the source of an
amazing amount of fantasy bitterness.
ED: Wasn’t
he supposed to be the reason that Freddy Garcia was a lush? Good to see moving Guillen away from Freddy worked out
so well for the Mariners.
BB: Hey – it opened up a spot for Rich Aurilia. And god
knows how many casual fans of baseball in
ED: Then they went to a Mudhoney show and reflected on days
gone by?
BB: Alex Sanchez – in a wonderful act of
benevolence – showed the world, truly, how to be devoid of value with a .300
batting average, hitting .322/.335/.386 and going 19/32 when trying to steal.
It seems too right that he started as a Devil Ray prospect.
ED: Aww, Bill wrote
all that and the Tigers released him. Is
Dave Dombrowski
hacking into my email? Is that why the
hot, wet college girls don’t email me anymore?
Damn you, Dave Dombrowski! Damn you to HELL! My life is meaningless without those emails!
PR: And really – was Alex Sanchez so bad that
Craig Monroe was an upgrade? I guess he hits the pretty long ball a little more
often. OH! And strikes out more… oh wait…
BB: And he will steal your belt if you aren’t
watching it. Is a culture of fear better than no culture at all?
BB: The Tigers are planning on handing third over
to Brandon Inge,
who showed life in his bat for the first time in his career last year and whose
best skills are as a defensive catcher. Yeah – this will work out well.
ED: Ya know, this division
really needs more sex appeal. Did you
know that Inge
is Norwegian for MANLY MEATY UTILISTUD? It is.
You need to Google
that term to find out. Ga’head. Google it. If
you break it down, you’ll find it. Start
with man meat. Anyhoo – Brandon Inge is the answer to making this
division sexier, the
BB: I’m sure after the bicycle shorts that all the
newspapers will happily report that this is one player who they can assure you
– judging from his legitimately-sized testicles – is not on steroids.
BB: The one player who the Tigers – scarily – may
have to build around is Omar Infante.
He hit around the league-average at age 22 last year, showing a mediocre walk
rate and pretty decent power. Prospectus has a pretty wide gap for comps for
him – Shawnon
Dunston,
Luis Rivas, Ryne
Sandberg, Mariano Duncan, Juan Uribe, and Toby Harrah. After this year, that list will
be pared in half, one way or another.
ED: Bill’s
young and idealistic. Phil and I enjoy
watching that sort of stuff die before our eyes. When he thinks he knows an answer he spouts
stuff off like he read it in some smarty-smarty book. Phil and I both know that if we want the real
evaluation of Omar Infante,
we’ll get it from Joe Morgan. Of course, no way Joe Morgan
would be caught dead doing a Tiger game so…OK. We’ll go with Bill on this.
PR: I thought we got
all our real evaluations from Fanball
and the Sporting News?
ED: Is there really any difference?
BB: The Tigers actually underperformed their
Pythagorean projection by seven games last year, but I don’t foresee them
making any huge gains. Adding Ordonez will pick up a game or two at a crippling
cost – but I guess they weren’t spending the money on the Red Wings’ checking
line wingers, so it had to go somewhere. The pitching staff will improve,
especially Bonderman,
but the performances of Pudge,
Sanchez, Inge,
and probably Pena are all going to Plexiglass back to career norms. Sorry Dave.
ED: Hey.
They’ve got the AS game this year too. There’s a solid shot that Bud Selig could get
mugged. That would be the best thing to
happen in
BB: My favorite quote about the
“He was
the Tigers' first-round draft pick in 2002 and immediately went on the shelf with
arm troubles. Baugh doesn't throw as hard as he once did -- his fastball
typically tops out in the high 80-mph range -- but he has learned some finesse.
That should make him a very entertaining pitcher for
ED: Aww. So sad, yet so true.
KANSAS CITY ROYALS
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PR: So I am married and have a kid thus have no
real control over my life or sleeping schedule. Yes, I have been the one
delaying all the various things that get published on the site because I never
know when I will get enough time to sit in front of a keyboard and be passably
funny. Work ebbs and flows, allowing me certain moments of creativity. (Lack of
sleep and booze tends to lead to the few other moments.) So I bargain with the
wife to try and get a day where I can write and focus. And said day immediately
flies out the window because she decides to sleep in till
BB: There are several themes in this year’s
preview. Namely penises
and hatred of women. …Oh boy.
ED: And next year it will be women and hatred of
penises. We try not to be predictable.
BB:
ED: Screw
you, buddy! Have you seen the
BB: OK – so is
ED: Aww, somewhere there’s
a Dick Vermeil gets Jose Lima’s VD joke.
I’ll let Phil take that home.
BB: Phil didn’t bother so I will. I will embezzle
$500,000 from the Fantasy Slush Fund to get Jose Lima to sleep with Dick
Vermeil, give him whatever venereal disease he has, and get me a front row seat
at that Dick Vermeil press conference.
|
Top 10
Matches, Veteran Presence TeamFinder:
KC Royals |
|
|
Gaijin Tony Batista |
98 |
|
OF Denny Bautista |
96 |
|
SP Todd Stottlemeyer |
95 |
|
Ball-holder Doug Mientkiewicz |
94 |
|
OF Jason Tyner |
93 |
|
Fatboy Carlos Baerga |
91 |
|
2B Homer Bush |
90 |
|
2B Marlon |
88 |
|
Lookin’ for Love Denny Neagle |
86 |
|
OF Bubba Crosby |
84 |
|
Hero of |
81 |
BB: Getting the Batista’s would have given them
every one in the majors over the past two years. When you throw in Batista’s
gaijin status AND his inability to draw a walk, he is the ideal Royal. And Mike Caruso scored a 97 till I discovered
his last season in pro baseball was actually AS a member of the Royal
organization. Whoops. And yes – I think Stottlemeyer is technically still
active. And I don’t care otherwise.
ED:
Yeah. I’m 100% certain Stottlemyre is
retired. But I assume the D-Backs are
still paying him. So that sorta
counts. And how can you leave off Shea Hillenbrand?
PR: I am more disappointed that Bill left off what
the score was for Eli Marrero – who actually did join the Royals. MULTIPLE
POSITIONS! SCRAPPY WHITENESS!!!!
BB: Sadly since I wrote that, Denny Bautista
retired. Of course, that leaves even more of an opportunity for him to become a
Royal now.
PR: Since you wrote that, KC also signed Joe McEwing who
easily surpasses Eli Marrero on the “Bill forgetting is shameful scale”.
ED: Well, that’s
not the ideal match. But it’s pretty
high up there.
BB: There’s a bunch of interesting prospects that
the Royals have. I’m just concerned about them developing since the last group
of prospects they had turned out two stars – Mike Sweeney and Carlos Beltran –
and a whole buncha
duds. Maybe this time around will be their 2000- Twins era. But I am skeptical.
ED: I’d be
less skeptical about the Chiefs quasi-plan of creating a defense from a hoard
of classic underperformers. But that’s a
different lot of chronic KC failures.
Personally, if IIIIII were Dick Vermeil and/or a man running the Chefs –
and really, who would want that? – I’d be a-looking at adding Ken Harvey and
Calvin Pickering to my D-line. They
couldn’t be any worse than the crud the Chiefs have set up.
BB:
PR: I was thinking either “Kansas City: Where Joe
Montana can be amazingly average” or “Kansas City: At least we’re not Kansas
City, Kansas”.
BB: Ruben Gotay is someone I like a lot as a
guy who made it to the majors in his age-21 season and has shown pretty
consistent pop and defense and – yes – an actual batting eye.
ED: Tony Pena can cure that, well enough.
PR: At some point in time, I remember having a
discussion about the worst double play combination of all time and that the
2004 Royals were strong candidates. Well, if Tony Graffanino is the starting second
baseman, I think the 05 version will be an even stronger candidate. I mean, did
you see how stinky Angel Berroa
was last year? (ROTY!
ROTY!) I
really wonder if the Royals didn’t think about sending him straight back to
like Winter Ball instead of down to Double AA last year. Of course, then he
would have been the MVP of the Caribbean World Series and we would have all
laughed and laughed and laughed.
BB: Poor Angel Berroa. From laughingstock of a Beane trade to Rookie of the Year and
cornerstone of the Allard Baird-doesn’t-really-suck-that-much sabermetric
platform to laughingstock again.
ED: Some
people never have a modicum of success.
Some people sabotage their success.
Allard Baird somehow fits into both cases. Odd, isn’t it?
BB: Chris Truby actually had a good year at AAA
last year which is kinda
amusing. Mark Teahan
still needs to start all year to come close to beginning the justification of
the Beltran trade, though. Of course, Truby hurt himself and is out for
months now.
ED: You
know what KC needs most? That’s right,
nuke testing. That’s right. I just threw
that out there because; A) I’m mailing this one in and B) I want to make Rob
and Rany
cry. Sorry, Pieman.
ED: Boy, is there ever
a whole lot of boring suck on this team. No wonder Bill gave up as early in as
he did. You know what will make this
team turn the corner? If you do, email
Allard Baird since he doesn’t have a clue.
There might be a few arms that won’t suck. There might be a few bats
that either won’t suck or can be peddled off onto some unsuspecting rube like
Allard Bai…Right.
Well…shoot.
BB: Baird gave Brian Hunter a minor league deal,
which means that literally anyone who at least has a name that sounds like they
were in the major leagues once can get a minor league deal. Jesus. Dee Brown
had the most innings in left field for the Royals last year and hit
.251/.293/.349 – but apparently that isn’t good enough for Allard.
PR: At this point in time, do you think that both
Brian Hunters come in a package deal?
ED: Is that
another penis joke?
BB: All I will say is – when your team’s beat writer
has to go to Primer to get ideas on columns IN SPRING TRAINING, there are some
serious issues with your team’s level of excitement.
BB: I think if Zack Greinke’s arm blows up, the Royals
should be contracted. The only reason they exist right now is for him to get
innings and service time so he can go somewhere better.
BB: I love me some Calvin Pickering. 6’5” 267 –
and those estimates are flattering. All he does is…you know…mash right-handed
pitching. Not like there’s a lot of that in baseball or anything. So really he
has no value. God.
Baseball sucks sometimes.
ED: If