2009 January « Mike Scioscia's tragic illness

The Distant Future… the Year Two Thousand… (Nine.)

January 31, 2009 at 9:09 am | Posted in baseball prospectus | 7 Comments

Finally, a bright point in this long, cold, and particularly boring offseason: Baseball Prospectus has released their 2009 PECOTA projections. There’s a lot of different projection systems out there, but BP‘s are almost always more accurate than anyone else’s. (I particularly enjoyed their predictions of the fall of the 2007 White Sox on the nose, and the larger amount of faith in the 2008 Rays than anyone else.)

Since this is a pay service, I won’t out-and-out post the spreadsheet here. But what I will do is point out some very interesting things that stand out related to the Dodgers.

Which Mediocre Starter Should Get Signed?
Wolf: 133 IP, 1.40 WHIP, 4.50 ERA, 14.1 VORP
Looper: 125.2 IP, 1.39 WHIP, 4.62 ERA, 9.2 VORP

And In the Outfield?
Dunn: .262/.396/.541 36hr 34.6 VORP
Manny: .295/.391/.538 30hr 49.0 VORP
Abreu: .282/.368/.436 13hr 20.8 VORP

More evidence that if we don’t get Manny, I strongly prefer Dunn over Abreu.

Notable MLB Position Rankings by VORP?
Martin: 5th, behind Wieters, McCann, Soto, Mauer
Loney: 17th, above Youkilis, C.Pena, Helton
DeWitt: 24th as a 3B. This score would get him 22nd at 2B, tied with Iwamura
Blake: 21st, above Rolen and Mora, but behind Mat Gamel and Brett Wallace
Furcal: 7th, above Jeter, Tejada, Young, Tulowitzki
Kemp: 5th among CF! above Hamilton, Granderson, Upton
Ethier: 3rd among RF! above Bruce, Pence, Markakis, Ordonez
Billingsley: 13th among SP, above F.Hernandez, Sheets, C.Zambrano, Lee, Cain
Kershaw: 38th, above Lilly, Slowey, Dice-K, Lester

Surprisingly Good!
Tony Abreu, after barely playing for two years: .261/.314/.377 7.6 VORP
Ivan DeJesus, despite not making it to MLB yet: .269/.338/.346 14.3 VORP

Surprisingly Bad!
Jason Repko, after a good year in AAA: .210/.284/.332 -14.4 VORP

Just In Case You Don’t Think This is Going To Look Weird…

January 30, 2009 at 8:31 pm | Posted in Russell Martin | Leave a comment

…it is.

Much Ado About Nothing

January 28, 2009 at 5:47 pm | Posted in Charlie Haeger, James McDonald, Jon Garland, Tanyon Sturtze | 7 Comments

Manny’s coming. Manny’s going. Manny’s napping. Manny’s making a tuna fish sandwich. Manny’s visiting San Francisco. Oh, wait, that was just Manny watching Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Manny’s considering wearing Spock ears when he plays. Manny might go to Japan. Manny might just go to P.F. Chang’s instead.

Think we haven’t had enough of that yet? Just replace the name “Manny” in that sentence with “Randy Wolf”, and that’s basically the two things we’ve been living with around here. Constantly, endlessly, eternally. So lets ignore the both of them and catch up some of the other things, minor though they may be, affecting the 2009 pitching staff.

* James McDonald’s going to be a reliever! So says Rick Honeycutt to Ken Gurnick. In the vacuum of “James McDonald”, I don’t really have a problem with this for his development. It helps keep his innings down, it’ll give him a low-pressure way to ease into the majors, the jump in his velocity as a reliever last year has been well-documented, and – as Honeycutt mentions – it worked out well for Chad Billingsley. Besides, the thought of McDonald/Kuo/Wade/Broxton in the pen is pretty slick, and we haven’t even discussed Troncoso or Elbert yet. But the problem I do have with this is that the starting rotation is hardly overflowing with options, so I’m not quite sold on the idea of removing one of them. Assuming that Wolf or Looper does end up signed, that means that the #5 slot is… Jason Schmidt? Claudo Vargas? That said, Billingsley barely made it through half the season before he was pushed into the rotation (ironically, when Schmidt was injured the first time). Don’t be surprised when the same thing happens here.

* No one has to suffer through Jon Garland! Thanks to him signing in Arizona for one year and a mutual option for a second. Now, it’s true that I did say I’d prefer Garland over Wolf and Looper the other day. But don’t mistake that for meaning that I really wanted Garland on the team. For the price and durability, it’s a good deal, but the freefalling strikeout rates are an enormous concern – if it falls any further, the fact that you’ll get 200 innings out of him won’t matter if he’s allowing six runs per nine. I wouldn’t have minded having him; but I’m hardly crushed to have missed out.

* Tanyon Sturtze is back! Uh, great? Our intense distaste for the never-really-that-good Sturtze was well detailed here last year, but I particularly enjoyed this take from Giambi Mustache Squad:

Sturtze, a favorite of Torre’s when he was managing the Yankees, is a right-handed reliever whose specialty is coming into close games and immediately letting up home runs. He is a desirable asset to Torre’s pitching staff because his versatility allows him to serve as an ineffective spot starter as well.

That sounds about right. Assuming that Sturtze’s Medicaid doesn’t expire before March, he’ll be… what? Can I even say “competing for a spot in the bullpen?” There’s already five locks to make the roster in Broxton, Kuo, Wade, Mota, and McDonald, plus Troncoso and Elbert kicking around, plus the possibility that a 5th starter loser like Schmdit or Vargas ends up here, plus the fact that Colletti’s said he still wants to sign another reliever. What is it, would you say, you do here, Tanyon?

* Knuckleball knuckleball knuckleball! Signings don’t get much more minor than picking up a guy that the Padres just non-tendered, but still: I’m firmly rooting for Charlie Haeger. How could you not love a knuckleballer? The Dodgers haven’t had one since Tom Candiotti nearly twenty years ago, and have one of the best knuckleteachers around in Charlie Hough. Haeger’s only 25, anyway, so he’s still got time to put in twenty years as the next Tim Wakefield. Until he goes to Albuquerque and gives up eleven homers in his first start. Charlie Haeger: favorite MSTI minor league signing in years.

* It’s still cool to read if it’s about baseball! Finally, congrats to Dr. Weisman and his new book, 100 Things Dodgers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die. Check it out.

Did Kansas City Just Help Define the Market for Chad Billingsley?

January 26, 2009 at 11:55 am | Posted in Chad Billingsley, Cole Hamels, Zack Greinke | 13 Comments

It’s not often I get to feature Kansas City Royals news on this site, so let’s take a moment to reflect on trading Odalis Perez for Elmer Dessens, considering Esteban German, and the unfortunate acquisition of Angel Berroa as recent - though tenuous – ties between Los Angeles and Kansas City. Since I’m pretty sure that the Royals could dump their entire roster and still not be in on Manny Ramirez, what could they possibly have done now that’d affect the Dodgers? CBS Sports and their suspiciously Pete Hornberger-looking columnist Danny Knobler have the answer:

We’d known for a while that the Royals were interested in signing Zack Greinke to an extension, but today’s news of a four-year deal is still noteworthy. Finally, the Royals have shown a willingness to keep a young talent rather than trade him away.

Greinke’s deal will pay him $38 million, sources told CBSSports.com.

Somewhat lost in the Manny-mania, Furcal-kerfluffle and… uh… starting-rotation flu of this offseason is the need to start identifying which of the crop of young players is worth keeping around and getting them signed to long-term deals. Andre Ethier, Russell Martin, and Jonathan Broxton each reached arbitration this year; James Loney, Matt Kemp, and Chad Billingsley aren’t far behind. You just can’t go year-to-year in arbitration with all of those guys; not only will their prices increase every year, the complete lack of cost certainty ruins your planning. I think we’d all agree that Martin is the highest priority due to the utter lack of catching, and there are rumors that discussion towards that end have been had. Logically, wouldn’t a top young ace like Billingsley be next in the queue?

It’s not exactly a fair comparison between Greinke and Billingsley right now, because Greinke was arbitration-eligible while Billingsley still has one more year of low-priced servitude. That being said, let’s compare Greinke, Billingsley, and another young starter who recently signed a deal – Cole Hamels.

Pitcher	Yrs/$	’09 Age	Service	Yrs Bought	IP	ERA+	Extra Credit…
Hamels	3/$20.5m	25	2.143	3 arb-eligible	543	133	married Survivor babe
Greinke	4/$38m	25	4.057	2 arb, 2 FA	658.7	105	missed ’06 w/anxiety
Billingsley	–	24	2.110	1 more until arb	437.2	132	broke leg in November

Hamels and Billingsley are actually surprisingly similar – look at those ERA+’s – though the fact that Hamels was a postseason hero and already arbitration-eligible as a “Super 2″ player skews the comparison slightly. Still, Hamels is making $6.8m/year to skip out on arbitration, while Greinke is getting $9.5m/year to bypass his first two years of free agency as well. Assuming that Billingsley has another solid year, he’ll enter 2010 with three arbitration years left, but with better stats than Greinke. I mean, there’s no longer any remaining question about whether we want him around, right? So why not buy out his three arbitration years and the first year of free agency with a 4 year, $36 million deal? It’s more per year than Hamels, because it includes a year of free agency where Hamels’ does not; it’s slightly less than Greinke because while Billingsley is the superior pitcher, it only takes away one free agent year whereas Greinke just signed away two.

I really don’t expect anything to happen with Billingsley this offseason; not with him still being a year from arbitration and coming off a broken leg. But by this time next year, other young stars like Felix Hernandez and Jon Lester will be coming up on arbitration years, and if they’ve signed even bigger contracts than Greinke and Hamels, it could pull Billingsley’s price up even further. We all know we want him – let’s get it done.

Time To Play Pin the Pitcher On the Dodgers

January 24, 2009 at 11:38 am | Posted in Ben Sheets, Braden Looper, Jon Garland, Randy Wolf | 26 Comments

We all know that the Dodgers are going to sign a starting pitcher to help replace Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, and Greg Maddux. (No, monkeys – Claudio Vargas and Shawn Estes do not count.) Now, I’ve advocated here several times why Ben Sheets should be that man, especially with his price dropping so far. He’s the only pitcher available who has the chance to be great rather than average, and a team as close as the Dodgers are really ought to be taking a small-money chance on him, even with his injury history. But from everything we’ve heard, Sheets to the Dodgers just isn’t going to be happening. So let’s forget him for the moment and try to make a choice about the guys that have been linked to Los Angeles: Randy Wolf, Braden Looper, and Jon Garland.

We discussed Wolf and Garland in our look at the available free agent pitchers back in December, and I’m still not happy that Randy Johnson went to San Francisco rather than put on the Blue. But really, we always knew that judging whichever one was signed was going to be strongly influenced by the type of deal they’re given. It’s one thing to prefer Garland to Looper with no questions asked; it’s quite another if Garland was expecting four years while Looper only two. However, if you believe Peter Gammons, they’re all coming in on a level playing field:

Essentially Randy Wolf, Jon Garland and Braden Looper are getting similar offers in the range of $5 million per year (plus options and incentives). As of Friday, Wolf was not close to reaching a deal with any team.

So, it seems that the money will be the same, and there’s a 98% chance that one of these men will be wearing Blue next season. That being the case, let’s pick one, so that we can say “I told you so!” when the Dodgers inevitably end up with one of the others. Remember, none of these guys are ace-quality types.

2009 Age!
Looper: 34
Wolf: 32
Garland: 29
Advantage: Garland, by a surprising amount. I had no idea Looper was that old, but then again, he has been around since 1998.

Durability!
Looper: After eight years as a reliever, was converted to starting in 2007; has made 30+ starts in each of his two seasons in the rotation.
Wolf: Missed most of 2005 and 06 after undergoing major arm surgery; after a successful first half in LA in 2007 missed most of the second half with more arm pain. Did bounce back to throw 190 innings last season.
Garland: Seven consecutive years of 30+ starts and 191+ innings. Has never been on the DL.
Advantage: Garland, again. Wolf is less reliable than Sheets (it’s true, look it up) and while Looper hasn’t been hurt, he is the oldest and has a short track record starting.

Production!
Looper: ERA+ of 89 and 102, WHIP of about 1.32 as a starter.
Wolf: ERA+ of 100, 84, 97, 93 the last four seasons. However, he was awful in a great park in San Diego in 2008 (81 ERA+) and fantastic in a tough park in Houston (119 ERA+) after being moved. So, who the hell knows.
Garland: Steady, but boring. After three good years to finish off his White Sox career (128, 105, 112 ERA+) he was lousy in Anaheim last year (91 OPS+, 1.505 WHIP).
Advantage: None. All three of these guys are basically mediocre. Wolf gets it done with more strikeouts than Garland and Looper, but sometimes with less success. Choosing one on this point would be like choosing who’s hottest of Helen Hunt, Brooke Shields, and Katey Sagal: they all get a solid “meh.”

Upside!
Looper: is going to be 34, so there’s not much upside left here.
Wolf: It’s hard to say that a 32-year-old with an injury history has upside, but he was near the top of the NL in strikeouts before he got hurt in 2007. Again, last year’s bizarre performance really skews this – he was fantastic with the Astros, but how could he have been so bad in San Diego?
Garland: none, with the caveat that moving into the NL West from the AL would certainly help him. What you see is what you get: 200 innings of reliable, low-strikeout, roughly average performance.
Advantage: Wolf. I guess.

Bill James 2009 predictions from FanGraphs!
Looper: 11-10, 4.03 in 187 IP
Wolf: 10-12, 4.29 in 195 IP
Garland: 10-11, 4.38 in 186 IP
Advantage: Push. If this doesn’t show you how mediocrely average all of these guys are, nothing will. No wonder they’re all in the same financial ballpark.

Fun “hometown boy returns” angles for local papers!
Looper: Zero. Grew up in Oklahoma, went to Wichita State.
Wolf: Huge upside for Wolf here; we already lived through all the “he went to Pepperdine!” and “he grew up watching the Dodgers!” stories in 2007.
Garland: But a late contender in Garland, who’s from Southern Cal and apparently grew up a Dodger fan as well!
Advantage: Push, Wolf and Garland.

Verdict!
Well, Braden Looper didn’t win any of these categories, plus he’s the oldest and has the smallest track record. He’s out. Really, it comes down to the differences that Wolf and Garland can offer you. Wolf is probably the more talented pitcher, and if he’s healthy and on his game he’s a better option than Garland. But on the other hand, if these are the three guys you’re choosing from, you don’t need an ace. With the other questions in the rotation, you want a guy who you know can pick up innings. Between Billingsley’s leg and big innings increase, Kuroda’s shoulder, and Kershaw’s youth, there’s no one we can say will almost definitely give us 200 innings. Garland, by all accounts, can. They won’t be great innings, but league-average innings do carry value. So when one of those three hits the DL – and trust me, one will – I’d rather know we have a steady horse like Garland than a question mark like Wolf.

So, I guess I’m going to have to swallow hard and say, that assuming the money and length are about equal… I choose Jon Garland over Randy Wolf. Which of course means we’ll be welcoming Braden Looper to LA in a few days.

(Who are we kidding, though? Ben Sheets is still the only right answer. I know it sounds like that goes against what I just said in choosing the reliability of Garland over Wolf, but it’s not quite the same. Sheets is without question a more talented pitcher than Wolf and he’s more durable, as well. With how low his price has dropped, and how close this team is, it’s worth it to take a gamble on an ace-quality pitcher. Draft pick be damned.)

We’re About To Learn What’s More Important

January 21, 2009 at 2:09 pm | Posted in Brad Ausmus, Jeff Kent, Russell Martin | 8 Comments

Update: apparently, Ausmus went ahead and agreed to terms with the Dodgers less than an hour after I originally posted this. He’ll get $1m for one year. Not to be outdone, the Padres then turned right around and signed Henry Blanco – who, as you’ll see below, is superior to Ausmus both at bat and defensively – for $250,000 less. Just in case you need to be bludgeoned over the head with it, the Dodgers just paid more for an older catcher who can’t hit or throw than the Padres did for a guy who can do a bit of both. Because, that makes sense. I strongly look forward to Vin Scully explaining that Ausmus went to an Ivy League school 50 times this year. The original post from this afternoon remains below.

Would you prefer having a backup catcher who can actually produce… or one that Joe Torre might actually play? We’re hardly alone in the Dodger blogosphere in calling for Russell Martin to get some more rest (check out his declining OPS by month last year, bouncing back only in September when he did get some time off); it’s been one of our recurring themes for quite some time. And no, Joe, third base does not count as a rest, though with Casey Blake around that’s unlikely to happen as much as last year.

While we’ve all spent countless words on Manny, Furcal, and starting pitching, it shouldn’t be ignored that backup catcher is a pretty important role if we want to see Martin live to age 30. In 2007, we had the Token Veteran Goodness of Mike Lieberthal, who had all of one RBI that year. In 2008, we had the Token Veteran Goodness of Gary Bennett explode in our faces
(and all over the infield), only to be replaced by Brotherhood of the Traveling Masks member Danny Ardoin. Clearly, the Token Veteran route hasn’t worked out. So what’s the plan for 2009?

Uh oh.

Free-agent catcher Brad Ausmus, seeking to play for a team near his home in Del Mar, Ca., is in the process of choosing between the Dodgers and Padres, according to major-league sources.

The Dodgers are Ausmus’ likely choice, sources say – they figure to be a stronger contender in the NL West next season than the Padres, who are reducing their payroll to $40 million.

Ausmus is going to be 40 years old in April, and hasn’t been a good hitter since… well, ever. Only twice in his long career has he even been a league-average hitter, and the last time came ten seasons ago in 1999 – when he hit the 100 mark right on the nose. Last year he sank all the way to an abysmal .218/.303/.296 with just 11 extra base hits in 81 games with Houston. ”But MSTI,” you might say. “A catcher who can hit is the exception, not the other way around. Ausmus is a good backstop with a strong arm, which is more important than his bat.” Well, that might have been true once upon a time. It’s just that now, he’s actually a detriment behind the dish – FanGraphs has his defensive value on a three-year slide, placing him at a negative value in the last two seasons. Plus, his 20.8% caught stealing ratio would place him third from the bottom of the catchers who played enough to qualify in 2008, if he’d been a qualifier.

Clearly, Ausmus isn’t going to help much whether he’s besides the plate or behind it, and it’s not like there aren’t other decent backstops out there. Former Dodger Henry Blanco is coming off a respectable .292/.325/.392 season with the Cubs, and has thrown out more than 45% of base stealers in four of the last five seasons. Former Red Javier Valentin put up a decent 2008 of .256/.326/.411 and is even a switch-hitter. So why are we considering a player that’s inferior to both at the plate and to at least one in the field?

Oh, right. Because he’s this year’s Token Veteran Backup Catcher. Maybe his name recognition will cause Torre to at least play him; but with those stats why would you want him to? You’d almost rather see a run-down Martin every day.

(No, we didn’t miss today’s announcement that Jeff Kent was retiring. It’s just that it was basically a foregone conclusion and we’ve covered his career here already. Besides, now is not the time for looking backwards! We must move forward, not backward, upward not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom! Best of luck, Jeff. We’ll miss you. There were more than a few times where you carried this offense. You prickly jerk.)

On This, of All Days…

January 20, 2009 at 10:25 am | Posted in Jason Repko, Jonathan Broxton, Russell Martin | 1 Comment

…let’s be thankful for the anti-capitalistic indentured servitude we still have over our young players.

According to FanGraphs, Russell Martin was worth $21.5 million in 2008. I won’t get into their fancy description of how they arrived at that figure here, but it’s basically a calculation of how many “wins” he was worth over a replacement player, and then multiplying that number by how much a win is worth. In Martin’s case, even though he slipped a bit from 2007, the fact that there are so few decent catchers out there mean that the replacement level for catchers is pretty low, so that’s why he’s so high. So how much did the Dodgers just sign Martin for, avoiding an arbitration hearing? Only $3.9 million, since Martin had almost no negotiating leverage at all. I’m just going out on a limb here, but I’m thinking that Turtle would get slightly more than that were he available on the open market. That being the case, how about we get him signed up long-term so that we never have to see what his value on that market would be like?

It’s much the same for Jonathan Broxton, who was worth $11.8 million last year according to FanGraphs. For 2009, he gets $1.825 million plus incentives. Think about that: Broxton is getting far less for 2009 than admitted cheat Guillermo Mota just signed with Los Angeles for. Now, I know the situations aren’t really comparable because Mota has earned free agency and Broxton has not. It’s just an insane situation to think about.

This almost evens out the fact that last year, Andruw Jones provided negative $2.4 million worth of production. That almost seems too generous, but then you have to remember that he missed a good portion of the year.

Speaking of indentured servitude, Tony Jackson points out that Jason Repko has been asking for a trade for two years. It’s hard to think an injury-prone outfielder with a .229 career batting average would really have that much to complain about, but I can’t really argue with Repko; if he’s never really going to get a shot in the crowded Los Angeles outfield situation, why not let him go somewhere else? That’s not the notable portion of the story, though – it’s the fact that Jackson claims that Repko, entering his 11th year in the organization, still has two minor league option years left. I’m pretty sure that Jackson made a mistake there (there’s no way that a player who’s appeared in the bigs in three of the last four years has only used up one option year), but if he’s not wrong, that will mean that Repko will have been tied to the Dodgers for twelve years before gaining his independence.

Well, At Least It Won’t Be With the Dodgers

January 19, 2009 at 4:04 pm | Posted in Scott Erickson | 8 Comments

Are the major leagues really that desperate for pitching? Apparently they are, according to former FOX Sports/Monday Night Football eye candy Lisa Guerrero:

An excruciating experience to me is watching a baseball game from the stands, in say, Mexicali, while my husband, a 40-year-old pitcher attempting to make a comeback after a two-year hiatus, is on the mound doing his darndest to last five innings and locate the strike zone.

If you don’t know who Lisa Guerrero is, it’s wildly entertaining to imagine that her husband is actually Pedro Guerrero. Unfortunately, the truth is much more gruesome, as we’ll see later:

Every pitch he throws seems to be going in slow-motion, although surprisingly, he’s registering up to 90 mph on the radar gun. Pretty good after riding the couch for 2 1/2 years. Scott Erickson’s jersey number here is 53. Somebody else has his traditional 19.

Oh, Scott. If your wife is even ragging on how soft you’re tossing and you’re stuck with a number that you usually see on non-roster spring training invitees in the Mexican League, it’s really time to call it quits, no? Actually, I take that back, because in just looking up your stats, I see you haven’t even had a league average ERA+ since 1998 - which means you’re about a decade past your “expired on” date. How is it even possible you’ve stuck around that long? You’re not even left-handed. On top of that, I remember that he wasn’t even that good with the Dodgers in 2005, but a 6.02 ERA? I don’t remember him being that bad.

But hey, at least it’s working out in Mexico: his 7.71 ERA in 9.1 innings includes walking 10 while whiffing 2 (not a typo!), allowing 14 hits and 3 homers. On the other hand, who knows what the hell is happening in a league in which former Dodger infielder Oscar Robles (career OPS+: 78, 5 HR) is putting up an .894 OPS with 9 homers. Are they playing in Little League parks?

Back to the point, former Dodger Scott Erickson is attempting a comeback, which should normally have us dropping to our knees and praying to whichever lord you choose to that his desiccated corpse won’t end up back in Dodger blue. But no, friends! Not today! Why not? Well, it’s hard to get a job with an organization when your wife has just opened up her big yap to criticize the man at the top of the ladder:

Also being honored were George Brett, Goose Gossage, the Alou family and Whitey Herzog. The hosts were actors Brendan Fraser and Don Johnson.

All in all, a pretty impressive group of folks were in attendance. So who wouldn’t want to get dolled up, have a nice steak dinner and listen to these legends share baseball stories?

Apparently, Frank McCourt.

At exactly 9:28 p.m. the Dodgers owner stood up and made his exit — right in the middle of Dave Winfield’s speech. Guess he didn’t want to sit through the rest of the honorees. The ones he missed were Herzog, Brett, Gossage and Tommy Lasorda (although, to be fair, McCourt can listen to Lasorda’s speeches any time he wants).

McCourt missed some great moments, including Gossage ribbing Brett about “the pine tar incident” and calling him “a cheater,” and an off-color joke by Herzog that I’d love to pass along here but Sports Editor Randy Harvey would just edit it out.

Guess you had to be there, but McCourt wasn’t either. Maybe he had to rush home to catch “Saturday Night Live?”

Excellent work, Lisa. Way to stunt your husband’s already slim comeback chances by insulting 1 of the only 30 people who could give him a job. Why stop there? Maybe next you could write about how Little Caesar’s Pizza gave you the runs or that the Nintendo Wii just flat-out sucks. Still, as Dodger fans: we thank you for saving us from the inevitable disaster to come. Please insult the McCourts at every opportunity.

You Saying Jesus Christ Can’t Hit a Curveball, Cerrano?

January 17, 2009 at 11:04 am | Posted in Andruw Jones, Brad Penny | 6 Comments

Let’s do a completely insane roundup to kick off a holiday weekend…

* Mouthpiece Sports has a great collection of the absurd updates people have made to one of the greatest old-school sports games of all time, RBI Baseball for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Sure, the “Friedrich Nietzsche pitching to Jesus Christ” version at right is pretty entertaining, if not completely confounding, but I especially like the “dead musicians version”, which they explain to include:

In case you’re wondering, that’s Kurt Cobain taking a conservative lead off first. The pitching rotation consists of Elvis, Dimebag Darrell, Sid Vicious and Ol’ Dirty Bastard.

* We’re venturing into “completely obscure degrees of separation” territory here, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Remember the early 90′s television show, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose? No, of course you don’t. In the third season, a new character was added, played by Harold Pruett. The character, described in Wikipedia as an “athletic, good-looking bricklayer” was named Bradley “Brad” Penny. But wait, we’re not done there. Harold Pruett later starred in 1994′s Embrace of the Vampire, which is mostly remembered only for being the movie in which the female lead (Pruett’s character’s girlfriend) finally took her clothes off. That female actress? Alyssa Milano. Which means that she went from being naked on-screen with a guy who’d previously played a character named Brad Penny to dating the actual Brad Penny. There’s something just entirely too creepy in all of that.

* Finally, we’ve all been enjoying the new Andruw Jones-free lives we’ve been given, aren’t we? Well, just to add slightly more salt in that expensive wound, Diamond Leung has an account of Jones’ interview with an Atlanta radio station in which he blames you. Yes, you, specifically.

Asked about fan reaction to his struggles, Jones said, “I think they went a little overboard with it.”

Have you lost your mind? You got paid $36 million to hit .158 with three homers and strike out in nearly one third of your at bats. You admitted in that very same interview that you weren’t in good shape. Hell, none of those three dingers even came in front of the home fans. How can you possibly think the fans went overboard? I’d say that the lack of violent assaults against you constitutes remarkable restraint on behalf of the fans.

So Long, Fatty

January 15, 2009 at 5:20 pm | Posted in Andruw Jones | 11 Comments

We’ve all known it was coming, but according to Tony Jackson, it’s official: Andruw Jones, aka “Hindenburg”, aka “that fat sack of crap”, aka “BOOOOOOOO!!!” is no longer a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers, having been released today as agreed to when he deferred most of his salary for this season.

I, for one, hope he catches on somewhere in the National League. Rumor has it that not only is he dying to go back to Atlanta, but that he was actually seen wearing a Braves hat on television at a college basketball game the other day, though it’s unclear about Atlanta’s level of interest. Mainly, I want the chance to see him come back to Dodger Stadium and receive a welcome not seen since John Rocker’s first trip back to Shea Stadium. You think Dodger fans don’t have emotion? You just wait for that.

Which will, if past tradition holds, be quickly followed by him hitting three monstrous home runs. But that’s a worry for another time. For right now? We’re so happy you’re gone, you utter disgrace. I’m happy to be able to reuse this picture from last week, and I look forward to you being completely out of baseball by July.