They described Kerry Wood as bombing out as the Cubs’ closer and then being out of baseball for a few years before coming back with the Indians.
This did not happen. Wood was a pretty good closer who was expensive and became obsolete when Marmol matured. He left in free agency, and was no more "out of baseball" than any other free agent.
Then they went on to say that the criticism of Dusty Baker for ruining Mark Prior’s career — and nearly ruining Kerry Wood’s career — was "unwarranted." Fuck you, Twins radio announcers. You’re awful at your jobs. You have Suzyn Waldman to thank for the fact that I’m listening to you right now.
October 6th, 2010
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Apparently Brian Fuentes just struck Jorge Posada out with an "offspeed changeup." Next I expect he’s going to get Curtis Granderson on his speedy quick four-seam fastball with four seams.
October 6th, 2010
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During a pitching change, somebody — and I don’t know who it was — declared that Roy Halladay’s no-no tonight is going to "cement" his Hall of Fame bid.
Roy Halladay. Who has, in 13 seasons, done this. Apparently he had no chance at the Hall until he threw a no-hitter in the playoffs.
Fuck the heck? You do realise it’s the second no-no in postseason history, right, guys? Do you think Don Larsen is the only pitcher in the Hall? I mean, holy shit; Halladay has been one of the best pitchers in baseball for his entire career. This game was amazing, but, come on; it isn’t even Halladay’s first no-hitter this year. If Roy Halladay isn’t a clear Hall-of-Famer, what’s the Hall of Fame for again?
October 6th, 2010
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Award talk! Let’s start with the stupid one. Okay, the stupidest one.
Okay, fine, the Gold Glove is the stupidest one. But I ain’t taking anything like the time to run through all the damn Gold Gloves. You know, until afterward, just like last year. First, let’s talk about who will win the Manager of the Year. It will be:
AL: Ron Washington
NL: Dusty Baker-Stupid
Now let’s talk about why that’s wrong. Ron Washington isn’t a terrible choice; he is (wrongly) perceived as having led the Rangers to a stunning upset, when it was clear to like absolutely fucking everybody before the season began that the Rangers were going to be good and the Angels were going to be bad. But the real reason Washington’s going to win it is because he did cocaine and then said he was sorry, and that kind of makes this season look like a big "redemption" story like sportswriters are total suckers for.
If I were giving out the AL Manager of the Year, I’d probably give it to Joe Maddon again, and not just because he’s the world’s oldest twenty-something hipster. Insofar as a manager has impact on a team’s performance — and, really, it’s way way way less than the players no matter how you slice it — you could probably lay the team’s overperformance or underperformance on him. And the Rays have done some pretty good overperforming this year, not just busting into the playoffs, but also swiping a division title away from the Yankees (a better team). I think it’s just — just! — possible that good management makes enough of a difference in tight spots that he could reasonably get credit for that. Besides, he’s a big damn hipster and that’s funny.
As for the NL, well, did you know that Johnnie B Badd already has three Manager of the Year awards? It’s true. Sad, but true. He’s probably the worst manager in all of baseball, too, given his utter disdain for men reaching base and his habit of slaughtering young pitchers left and right. Did you know that Edinson Volquez only lasted 1.2 innings tonight? And that he’s only 26 years old and has already had Tommy John surgery? Oh, and that Dusty Baker chose a 26-year-old rehabbing Tommy John patient who only threw 62 innings this year — and those rather badly — to start game 1 of the NLDS? Arf. Anyway, Dusty’s going to win because the Fatinals were supposed to be awesome and the Reds came out of nowhere and kicked their asses, even though that had almost nothing to do with Dusty Baker and almost everything to do with Joey Votto.
If I were to hand out the NL Manager of the Year award, I might be totally perverse and give it to Brad Mills. Who’s that, you ask? Fucking nobody, I reply. He’s the manager of the utterly awful Houston Astros. Why would I do such a thing? Because the Houston Astros — even though they were terrible, mind — overperformed their third-order expectation by ten games. That’s a shitload. They finished 76-86, and should, by all rights, have been 66-96. That’s amazing.
If I had to give it to a manager of a team that didn’t suck, I’d pick Bud Black, because the Padres were way better than they had any right to be. See a pattern? Yeah.
October 6th, 2010
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Roy Halladay just finished no-hitting the Reds. He came one walk away from throwing his second perfect game this season, and the second perfect game in postseason history. Still pretty fucking good.
And toothpick-munchin’ Dusty had every Reds hitter swinging for the fences on every pitch. Which was funny to me.
No analysis here, except to point out that the TBS booth crew completely fucking broke the unwritten rule about not talking about a no-no while it’s in progress. But Dusty steadfastly adhered to the unwritten rule about not messing up a dude’s no-hitter by getting any goddamn hits. Good work, soon-to-be Manager of the Year Dusty Baker!
October 6th, 2010
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They’ve just announced the Comeback Player of the Year awards, which I didn’t think they were going to do until after the playoffs. That sort of voids the very next two articles I was going to write, huh.
They picked Tim Hudson, which is 100% completely insane (seriously, Tim Hudson? Where do you fools figure Tim Hudson went? He was awesome in 2008, was awesome last year until he got hurt, and then got better and was awesome again), and Fransisco Liriano, which is 100% completely correct.
For reference, I was going to pick Liriano and Pat Burrell, who legitimately did make a huge, unexpected comeback this season. Unless I got perverse and picked Carlos Zambrano. Did you see what the fuck he’s done since he came back? Seriously, here are his ERAs by month:
March/April: 6.56
May: 5.00
June: 5.01
July: 0.00 (but in only 0.2 IP, so it doesn’t really count)
August: 2.23
September/October: 1.10
I mean, holy shit. No lie, his xFIP has stayed appalling all year long, which indicates that it was mostly luck, but… holy shit.
October 5th, 2010
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