STatbook In the Car

Pedro is the future in Pittsburgh

admin — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 04:09:53 +0000

When will he be a Yankee?

AUTHOR: admin

My funny little update

admin — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:01:37 +0000

This is an update since there hasn’t been one in a while

AUTHOR: admin

The Short Bus.

Chris — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:06:59 +0000

Short Bus:
1. noun. (derogatory) school bus shorter in length than a conventional school bus commonly used to transport students with physical or mental handicaps.

One can’t help but wonder why someone would name their team the Short Bus. Is he admitting defeat before the competition has even begun? Does he seek to soften the blow that losing will bring by stating (very) publicly that we shouldn’t even really be doing this? Is there some underlying psychological issue at work here??

Or it could be the other way…

Perhaps Vallar is some sort of Bond super villain lulling us to sleep with his innocuous team name, hoping for the league to let down its guard just before the Short Bus lowers the boom…or is it possible that the Short Bus can be both overplaying and underplaying its hand simultaneously, both master and servant ??

The Short Bus draft at first glance certainly seems to have been driven by a confused, tortured soul—a man, no creature, that was so conflicted by the core values of the franchise that the best pick in franchise history was almost immediately followed by its worst.

The best was the fortunate snagging of Danny Haren. Haren was precisely what the Short Bus needed: a horse, a rotation anchor that could lead the pitching staff out of the mid-pack mediocrity that plagued last year’s group of hurlers. Haren, despite being a completely obvious pick nevertheless gave Bus fans hope that the GM was more Dr. No than Gomer Pyle. Then…

Jimmy Rollins.

While Rollins was not the worst pick of the draft (adjusting for need, round and player selected), he just might have been the second worst. First let me state that Jimmy Rollins was not the worst player in baseball in 2009, he was just the worst player that any team allowed to bat 967 times. If one were to glance at his OB% for example, you’d notice that not only does it not start with a .4, it somehow doesn’t even start with a .3; his honest-to-god real-life OB% was a dismal .296. I honestly have nightmares that a Spaceman line-up might actually one day feature Ramon Santiago who racked up a .318 OB%, I am actively attempting to move Heaven and Earth to ensure that scenario never occurs, yet here is Jimmy Rollins getting snagged in round freaking one with the overall 6th pick….words begin to fail me. It’s safe to say that the next 200 players taken were ahead of Jimmy ‘the Outmaker’ Rollins on my draft board.

Deep Breath…

The bizarre Good Jason/Bad Jason act continued into the next round as the Short Bus Brain Trust grabbed both Jorge Cantu and Andy McCutcheon . While Cantu belongs on someone’s roster, he’s just a better 25th guy than he is your 13th man…McCutcheon saves the round though.

This might be a good time to comment upon his keeper list: Joe Mauer. I’m not sure that I need to say more here as Joe M is at worst the #3 property in the league, his relative fragility (prone) is the only thing keeping him from being the slam-dunk #1 player for the upcoming season adjusting for position. The S Bus has a nice group of infielders who can swing the bat and field their positions fairly well (or very well in Pedroia’s case) and the squad headed into the draft with two damned useful starters, Wandy Rodriguez and Clay Buchholz. The pitching staff got lots better with Haren and would have been borderline impressive if Hanson would have gotten snagged instead of jroll.

Part II to come detailing the rest of the Short Bus draft…

AUTHOR: Chris

Short Bus to come….

Chris — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:27:58 +0000

Nights in White Satin

Ok, that’s Justin Heyward, lead singer of the Moody Blues, not Jason Heyward….

AUTHOR: Chris

Sherman Marches South

Chris — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:34:18 +0000

I first looked at Dr. Henry Sherman’s squad a few nights ago and after wondering why he kept Eva Longoria-Parker and David Beckham, I quickly concluded that I had slammed down about five too many beers and decided to give the project some ‘breathing room’.

In the cold hard light of day his keeper list looks a bit more like what I would expect from a baseball team (although I would imagine that having Eva Longoria share shower space with a team might tend to boost morale). In any case, Hank’s roster can be broken down into three categories: stars and soon-to-be stars, ‘didn’t you used to be good?’ types and, well, John Maine.

Stars include Mr. Longoria, Trevor Hoffman, Carlos Lee, Verlander and star-in-training Gordo Beckham. A pretty diverse mix of exceedingly useful frontline players to be sure. Supporting that strong core is a collection of handy and semi-handy guys like Bell, Sizemore and Maggs and the sort of handy Mike Lowell.

And John Maine.

Like so many folks in the medical profession, Dr. Hank outsources much of his daily grunt work; his fake baseball franchise is no exception. In his case this includes farming out the draft to two semi-literate competitors who almost certainly would have spent the eight hours prior to the draft drinking alcoholic beverages. Clearly this was a recipe for success.

The first pick by the Docs proxies required very little in the way of actual decision making acumen as Felix Hernandez was the obvious choice (although some independent spirits might have opted for Dan Haren instead, much in the same way some people have actually purchased a Saab instead of a BMW). Felix and Verlander are not only astoundingly rich at an absurdly young age, they are also excellent pitchers…the drunken basement duo also added a few live arms later in the draft in Kazmir, Joba and Matuz to give the absent Docs quite an interesting mix of potential, promise and probable frustration.

The hop-impaired twosome followed the no-brainer King Felix selection with four straight position players: Pence, Andrus, Loney and Howie Kendrick. There are good reasons to like each of those four, although the strongest case for Loney is that he is, in fact, a firstbaseman and he’ll likely be one in 2010…Loney is a lot like Mark Grace minus the glove….and minus the .390 OB%…and without the, um, power of a Mark Grace….

A n y w a y, the twin beer-into-urine transforming biological entities that were selecting players for the Mississippi Docs changed tack again after the Joba-Kazmir-Matusz selections that followed the Kendrick-Loney-Pence-Andrus movement. The next four picks had a very specific quality in common: Massive Disappointment. Vernon Wells, Russell Martin, Delmon Young and Jhonny Peralta all at one time were the jewels in the eyes of their respective MLB franchises—-fast forward a few years and collectively they are possibly the worst use of one hundred million dollars since Warner Brothers signed REM.

The officially sanctioned inebriated combo went into ‘gamble’ mode as they selected in turn, Franklin Morales, Brett Myers, Nieves and Manny Parra (to be fair they did grab a catcher and a decent reliever in there, but that’s boring). Those four are DMB equivalents to $1 lottery tickets; they are usually losers and even when you ‘win’ it’s almost always another ticket (which will be a loser) or something like $5…basically it’s just not worth the time and effort involved. For what it’s worth, Myers did hold lefties to a 233/314/360 line which looks promising until you notice that righties slugged .754 off of the guy!!! In other words, every right handed batter that stepped in against Myers last season slugged collectively better than Mark McGwire did in 1998…for that ‘performance’ Myers was rewarded by the Astros with a five million dollar contract; the human concepts of ‘fair’ and ‘rational’ died grisly deaths that day to be sure.

Overall, the Doc’s trip south had its ups and downs…the Sherman’s army might not march Atlanta-like into 14 straight post-seasons, but with enough luck, pluck, moxy and Longoria the playoffs might one day take a detour through Mississippi which frankly could use an invasion.

AUTHOR: Chris

The Band.

Chris — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:12:05 +0000

In honor of the upcoming installment profiling the Mississippi Docs.

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

AUTHOR: Chris

Pete’s LaCock

Chris — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:37:05 +0000

Pat’s Back.

After a year off the younger Bur is back in the league. Wild rumors have been circulating throughout the league as to what Pat was doing over the past year; One source claimed that Pat was interning for Bill James in Boston immersing himself in all things baseball, another claimed that Pat has been serving as Bono’s personal valet and yet another speculated that Pat was close to proving that pi really is just 3.14. In any case, the head ‘Cock’ is back in the saddle and prepared as ever.

Keeper list:

(7 batters, 3 pitchers)

The LaPud keeper list was an interesting mix of frontline pitching (Santana, Franklin) and numerous third and second basemen (Kinsler, Cano, Figgins, Reynolds) add in a Tejada, an Ed Jackson, a Luke Scott and an Adam Jones. With a nicely balanced ten man roster, Pat headed into the draft with the overall number one pick.

After the die roll freed an impressive list of “A” level talent, Pat pulled the trigger and made the easy choice of selecting ‘The best starter in the league 2009 stat version ™”, Zach Greinke. Greinke got over his mound-shyness in a big way and provides Pat with an impressive 1-2 punch in Zach and Johan. Pat the went to work on the bullpen snagging three relievers out of his next four picks, including two of the best ones in terms of sheer stats: Bailey and Wuertz (sounds like a personal injury law firm)…add to that Slugging Dave Ross C and Pat came flying out of the gate.

Best Value Pick: Mota at 10 was pretty sweet.

Worst Pick: Honestly can’t pick one.

Overall, Pat’s offense will keep him from being one the very best teams in the league, but his pitching can keep him competitive in the Wild Card race.

Grade: 8 out of 10.

AUTHOR: Chris

Long Time Gone…

Chris — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:44:25 +0000

It’s been a while, so I thought I’d start off with a video:

Long Time Gone

AUTHOR: Chris

Power Rankings 0428

Chris — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:08:52 +0000

Time for the league power rankings at the one eighth season mark:

(Mostly based on runs scored v runs allowed)

spots 7-17 could change very rapidly over the next two weeks.

1. Spacemen: +40 runs. Bullpen has been ridiculous…62 IP, 41 H, 17 bb, 58 k, 7 runs allowed mostly on 5 hr allowed.

2. Trailer Trash: +30 runs. Bullpen has been sick as well, but the Wanger is 4-0 with 2 runs allowed in 33.2 IP. Nice.

3. Lowell Ave. Alumni Club: +17. The highest scoring squad in the league, led by perennial mashers Fernando Tatis and Alexi Ramirez and Huff and for some reason Garret Anderson.

4. Big Ben Umbergers: +12, I have no idea what an ‘Umberger’ is, but they can apparently pitch.

5. Burs: +8. The front three of the Bur rotation is underperforming and should come around…look for better things out of this staff. Bay has been a monster.

6. Rottens +6. A key injury sapped the momentum of the SoCal pitch creation machine…losing Cust could mean a five game reduction in pitches thrown by the opposition of 20-25 per game.

7. Bullies +1: This offense is ready to go all apeshit on some poor staff.

8. Endorphins: +7. Smoke plus Mirrors plus danny cabrera=a temporary decent record.

9. Beerbellies: +1. Sabathia and Wainwright’s all around fine pitching has only netted them three wins bewtwen them

10. Housemartins: +2. Roy Halliday and Timmy Lincecum are startimng to heat up.

11. Sweatsox: -2: Looking for a bat to help out the decent pitching.

12. Short Bus: -8. When will Swisher return to the mound???

13. Docs: -4. Verlander and decent bullpen weighed down by awful backend of the rotation.

14. Jimmies: -6. Still working out the kinks with an offensive ballpark. Utley and Markakis have been Ruthian, most of the rest of the team has been Blauserian.

15. Redbirds: -10: Choo has been pretty great, while Howard and Dunn have been pretty bad.

16. Free Blago: -14. Looking for a few good arms.

17. Fighting Hellfish: -10. Santana and pray for a looooong storm.

18. Playboys: -10. Looking for some consistant O as well, Youk needs to step up, now.

19. Senators: -17. Starting pitching has been a letdown.

20. Snoballz Chance: -43. The number one pick in the 2010 draft is….

AUTHOR: Chris

Opal

Chris — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:20:37 +0000

Their mighty

Magick Power