Tag Archives: Baseball

July 13, 2011

How to Make the All-Star Game More Interesting

By chappy81

The pool might had as much coverage as the actual game...

I just got done reading a fellow bloggers post (Chris Ross) on why the All-Star game is boring, and doesn’t need to be meaningful to be relevant. Seeing how I doubt the A’s will be in the World Series anytime soon I don’t really care that home field advantage is a result from the game, but do agree with most everyone that it’s ridiculous to have the outcome effect the World Series. Exhibition does not equal “meaning something” last time I checked, but who are we kidding, we want to be entertained regardless of the stakes.

The ASG has been on the decline for years now (based on the ratings the last few years), and with numerous players dropping out for whatever reason, we don’t usually even have the real “stars” of the game out there playing. I read the other day that over 10% of the league made an All-Star team for a second straight year. How ridiculous is that? I understand pitchers ducking out from pitching too recently, and other guys actually ON the DL, but guys like Jeter being “emotionally tired” is stupid reason to miss the mid-summer classic. I hope he donated the money he got for getting selected, because he doesn’t deserve that bonus. Maybe he knew deep down he didn’t deserve to be the starter and wanted Asdrubal to start in his place since he was clearly better this year. Either way he should’ve at least shown up.

Anyways, this wasn’t supposed to be a bash the guys who are in the game post. It was supposed to be a little constructive, so here’s three easy ways I think that the MLB could fix the All-Star game aka make it more competitive and entertaining for us baseball fans…

  • This first move would automatically make me like the actual game more. Have the players that the people voted into it, finish the games. Maybe that won’t work with pitchers, but for the hitters this is an easy way to change the structure on how it’s managed. I want to see the best players decide the game in the clutch. I don’t care about seeing players like Miguel Montero, Matt Wieters, Howie Kendrick, Scott Rolen, etc. coming up when it matters in the late innings. I want to see the starting lineup out there, so let’s make a rule that all the fan selections come in to play after the fifth or sixth inning to finish the game or as close to that selected starting lineup as possible.
  • Offer up a monetary gain for the winning team. I don’t know one person that isn’t inspired by money, and I doubt even the players could pass up the chance to win an extra half million each. Instead of just giving all of them a $500K check as thank you for showing up bonus, they should only give that “bonus” money to the winning team. Let’s see how serious the players get with a half million on the line. Maybe even make the losing team donate some money to charity or something along those lines.
  • Push the game back one day. This seems like the easiest fix on my list. Start the season one day earlier and give the players one extra day before the ASG, so we can get the best pitchers to pitch. No offense to Robertson, Wilson, Walden, or League, but wouldn’t you rather see Verlander, CC, Felix, Price, and Haren pitching instead? No need to answer, it was a rhetorical question.
One last quick thing they should do is add some more skills challenges. It feels like the HR derby is as popular as the actual game, so why not try to add to it. I don’t give two craps about the celebrity softball game, ok maybe watching EA and Kate Upton wasn’t terrible TV, but it wasn’t good either. How about they do an outfielders challenge where they set up targets on all the bases and you get points for accuracy and maybe some bonus point for hitting targets on the fly. How about a game of horse between pitchers. Like throwing certain pitches to parts of the strike zone like a whiffle ball strike zone, and making the next guy match it or they get a letter. How about a presidential race like in Washington. Put some players in those funny president suits and have them run a lap. I could think of a million stupid little games that I would watch if pros were doing it, so I’m not sure why they wouldn’t try to include a few extra skills challenges, and I’m sure the players would be down, well, at least the ones that like to have fun. As always though, no changes will be made and baseball will be stuck in reverse yet again…

11 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Sports

July 10, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

As always By will be covering the Giants and Chappy will be covering the A’s portion.

San Francisco Giants (1st place 50-40)

Oakland Athletics (4th place 39-51)

Three Up –

Oakland A’s -Mark Ellis is wrecking pitchers lately going 11-32 with four doubles, three homers, and 7 RBI’s in his last seven games. Too bad he’s now a member of the Rockies. Tough for me to find a lot of positives outside of Jemile Weeks and Scott Sizemore, but I guess our leading RBI man Josh Willingham is healthy and back in the lineup. Guillermo Moscoso pitched 24.2 innings only giving up one run, but was sent back to AAA today. I guess that shows you how good our pitching has been even with numerous injuries. I’d like to see us trade a couple of these pitchers for a bat. Is that asking too much? I guess so. I think it’s a good thing they are going to let our top prospect Chris Carter keep playing in Oakland. It’s not like he could do worse than Barton was doing at first base. I hope we sell off some players and get something worthwhile at the trade deadline. I’d love to see them unload Fuentes.

SF Giants – There’s so many positives to write about, but I’ll keep it short.  Let’s start with the obvious, the Giants remain in first place, and the only goal for the miSFits is to win their division and make the playoffs.  Another positive, the G-Men are sending four All-Stars to the desert, and if not for horrible run support for Mad Bum, perhaps five.  How about Barry Zito guys!?  While most Giants fans are raving about his “return” to prominence, I still remain skeptical.  Let’s just appreciate his last three starts for now before we go handing him the Cy Young shall we?  And lastly, it is good seeing Buster Posey in the dugout again.  We miss you buddy ~

Three Down – 

Oakland A’s – Where to start!?! We score no runs, and the only games we win are 1-0 or 2-0. Those wins are also few and far between. We are last in the worst division in the AL.  We’ve hit the fewest homers, and are in the bottom three in all of baseball for runs, RBI, and batting average.  When you see stats like Kurt Suzuki has 6 of our last 16 hits, and Derek Holland with a career 5.22 ERA holds you to a 4 hit CG shutout, you know you’re in trouble. I’m tired of writing how they can’t hit, so I’ll spare myself. If there wasn’t enough bad mojo going around this team, even fans are dying at the park when they hit foul balls…

SF Giants – I hate to sound redundant, but the one downer for these Giants is their hitting.  While they remain scrappy and stay true to form with their “A Different Hero Every Night” approach on offense, it’s hard to fathom them keeping it up the entire season.  Especially since it started last season.  Overall, not much to complain about with the Giants, especially while they’re in first.

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Sports

June 29, 2011

All-Star Voting Makes Sense for the Most Part…

By chappy81

This morning I was checking out how the All-Star voting was going, and to my surprise there weren’t a ton of terrible choices on the ballot. It’s the final update until the selections are revealed, and since I’m much more of an AL guy, I’m only going to break down who I feel should be starting for the AL. In the NL I only see one real snub. Matt Kemp not being in the outfield is f***ing ridiculous, I mean Holliday and Berkman have had a nice season and all, but their seasons don’t even compare to Kemp’s triple crown numbers.

Catcher: Russell Martin (2,779,592 votes), Alex Avila (2,345,065 votes), and Joe Mauer (1,699,604 votes). Might be the first year in awhile we don’t have Joe Mauer starting for the AL behind the plate. Russell had a nice start to the season, and has rode the wave of Yankee voters. I’m torn because Avila clearly has better numbers than Martin, but he also plays third and first from time to time. Martin plays catcher every game he plays in. There aren’t any super standout catchers this year, so I’ll say the voters got it right…

First Base: Adrian Gonzalez (4,014,722 votes), Mark Teixeira (3,077,242 votes), and Miguel Cabrera (2,184,480 votes). You’d think first base would be a tough choice with so many stars manning the position. Not so much in this first half, as Gonzo has been going off since opening day. If he decided to sacrifice some of his average for power, he might be in the triple crown race. Hitting .357, with 16 homers, and 71 rbi’s might just be more offense than the A’s have had all season… My runner up for the position isn’t even on the list. I’d have Konerko as my backup above Tex and Miggy, because he’s been a guy on a mission to destroy pitching this year and has done it.

Second Base: Robinson Cano (4,724,816 votes), Dustin Pedroia (2,979,181 votes), Ian Kinsler (1,896,259 votes). For some reason I thought Ben Zobrist belonged on this list, but I guess he was only hot for a quarter of the season since his numbers didn’t look that good when I just looked at them. Cano easily has the best numbers of the AL 2nd baseman, and is also a gold glover in the field. The people made a solid and correct choice imo.

Third Base: Alex Rodriguez (3,735,406 votes), Adrian Beltre (2,935,373 votes), and Kevin Youkilis (2,724,286 votes). I think I’d actually take Longoria if he hadn’t been hurt for a month of the season. This is probably the toughest choice for me. The top three all have similar stats, Beltre has more HR’s and RBI, but A-Rod is hitting nearly 50 points higher, so I’d probably give it to the best fielding 3rd baseman, which is Adrian Beltre. I don’t feel like you could go wrong with either of these three candidates though.

Shortstop: Derek Jeter (3,392,128 votes), Asdrubal Cabrera (2,885,778 votes), and Elvis Andrus (1,971,514 votes). This is the first ridiculous selection. Not sure why Jeter was in the running in the first place, because he started the year worse than we’ve ever seen him play. Asdrubal on the other hand has had a break out year that nobody saw coming. If it weren’t for him, the Indians wouldn’t have had nearly as much success. This is the first eyesore in the AL lineup.

Designated Hitter: David Ortiz (4,237,043 votes), Michael Young (2,235,504 votes), and Jorge Posada (1,453,385 votes). Big Papi is easily the guy here. I would’ve had V-Mart in second place over Young and Posada. Actually, I’m not even sure why Young is on this list since he plays pretty much every position. Ortiz is the right choice though, he’s been mashing the ball all year long, and made people forget that they thought his career was over last year.

Outfield: Jose Bautista (5,263,846votes), Curtis Granderson (4,582,419 votes), Josh Hamilton (3,173,000 votes), Jacoby Ellsbury (3,051,675 votes) Carl Crawford (2,294,337 votes), Nelson Cruz (1,912,783 votes), and Ichiro Suzuki (1,912,062 votes). If you asked me a month ago I would’ve said Matt Joyce deserved to be on the team, but since I wrote about him at the beginning of the month he decided to come back to earth with a prolonged slump. I also wondered out loud why the Asian voters can get Yao into the NBA All-Star game, but can’t get Ichiro in. Ichiro doesn’t deserve it this year so it’s a good thing, but I will miss his pregame speech trying to fire up the AL team. Jose and Curtis are the obvious choices and having monster seasons, but Josh Hamilton as the third outfielder? He’s only played 42 of his teams 80 games. I’d take Joyce or Ichiro over Hamilton’s first half, because they played pretty much everyday. I think Jacoby Ellsbury deserves the third spot of all the guys in the top six in voting. All in all pretty good selections from the voters, and probably the most reasonable choices in years. Are more people paying more attention to baseball this year, because we might miss the first half of the NFL season? Maybe, and it’s reflecting in the voting…  

 

10 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Sports

June 22, 2011

Excitement in Oakland, and His Name is Jemile Weeks

By chappy81

It’s been a little over two weeks since the A’s called up the 2008 #1 pick, Jemile Weeks. MCeezy already declared him his favorite current A’s player on facebook the other day, and I have to say I’d agree with that sentiment. Hopefully writing about him doesn’t jinx him like I did writing about Matt Joyce’s great year, but sometimes you have to risk it when you’re excited. It’s been awhile since one of our position player prospects caused this much stir on Athletics Nation (the best A’s blog). Yeah, there was excitement when Chris Carter was called up last year, but ultimately he didn’t do anything. Weeks on the other hand, has been tearing the cover off the ball. He hit three triples in his first week in the big leagues. He has been playing so well he has earned his spot as our leadoff man the past few games. He’s also seems to have taken our longest tenured A’s player’s spot, 2B Mark Ellis (11 years with Oakland), in those two short weeks. If we still had Geren as our manager, I bet Weeks would go back to the bench when Ellis comes off the DL today, but now that we have a competent manager, I don’t see Melvin taking the hot bat out of the lineup. He’s already given Matsui some confidence, and has shown that he will play the best players every night. How has Weeks earned that leadoff spot? By taking professional atbats and swinging at a very low rate of balls out of the strike zone. Translation; he doesn’t swing at bad pitches, and when he does swing he connects on 80% of pitches. So far the switch hitter is batting .362 with an OBP% of .400, .572 SLG%., and 4 steals to boot. To say he’s been our table setter over this current six game winning streak would be the understatement of the day. He’s had a couple of blemishes in the field, but that can be overlooked when he’s making more great plays than bad ones. Weeks has great range because of his speed, and even with this very short sample size, I feel he could win a gold glove one day if he continues to work on his fielding.

Maybe A’s fans are getting a little ahead of themselves with Weeks already saying that he is the next Reyes. I saw a comment yesterday that Weeks even hit a triple off Chuck Norris! All kidding aside, even though his small sample size has been great, it’s tough to see him being able to keep it going as well as he has. I’m sure he’s bound to hit a rookie wall at some point. Even if he does, I can’t think of a prospect that we’ve called up in the last four years that wasn’t a pitcher that I was this excited about! Maybe Kurt Suzuki, but it looks like we finally found a solid offensive piece, after numerous underwhelming prospects (Barton, Pennington, Carson, Watson, Crosby, Buck, Keilty, and many more). The only thing I’m cautioning myself for is that he has been hurt a lot over the three years in our farm system. It’s probably because he plays with reckless abandon, which usually results in an injury or two, but there’s noway you’d want to change that since that’s what makes him successful. Maybe he needs to learn something from Reyes as he said this year that he needed to learn when to go 110% and when to go 80% which is why he’s been a lot healthier this season. As of the moment, I’ve developed a Curry-like mancrush on Jemile, and he’s already paying dividends if you picked him up for your fantasy team!

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Sports

June 15, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

As always By will be covering the Giants and Chappy will be covering the A’s portions.

San Francisco Giants (38-29 1st place) Oakland A’s (28-40 4th place)

Three Up

Oakland A’s – They broke their 10 game losing streak against the White Sox in a comeback win. Unfortunately they went from second to fourth during that losing streak. We thankfully have a new manager (Bob Melvin) that I wrote about last week, so now I can’t work in any disses about the team overcoming Geren’s minimal coaching abilities. The new Bob has already started making the players do some infield practice before games, which is rare this day in age for any team to practice much infield work before games. The good part about this hire is he’s already proactive attacking one of our big weaknesses (A’s are ranked 27th in fielding with 51 errors). Now if he could only figure out some good drills to get them to hit! Bob Melvin seems to like keeping Matsui in the lineup everyday, which was something Geren couldn’t seem to do as he sat Matsui against lefties. Matsui even answered with a homer off a lefty last night. Hopefully this means Matsui will get comfortable at the plate knowing he’ll be in the lineup all the time. Andrew Bailey is finally closing games for us this season, too bad there aren’t any games for him to close. Scott Sizemore, who we got from Detroit, is already our best option at 3B even though he’d never played the position prior to coming to the A’s. Jemile Weeks was also called up when Ellis went on the DL, and has impressed me a lot more than Chris Carter did last year during his first MLB stint with three triples in his first seven games.

SF Giants – I just got home from a fantastic early dinner and as I type this, the G-Men hold a 5-0 lead against second place Arizona in the 5th.  I also see that Pablo “Panda” Sandoval has already left his mark on this game, bringing in the game’s first run.  Panda provides us with a much needed bat, at an absolutely desperate time.  It’s one thing that we lost Buster Posey for the entire season, but now Freddy Sanchez’s year is in jeopardy, and Freddy has been knocking in clutch runs all season.  I guess a positive we Giants fans can take out of all of this, is the fact that we’re still in first place, believe it or not!  And the reason why, is that the Giants epitomize the concept of team ball.  When someone goes down, the next person simply steps up and fills in.  I mean, we’ve had Nate Shierholtz hitting third at times, Nate Shierholtz people!  And now he has a few walk off base hits notched under his belt.  There’s a different hero every night with these guys, very similar to last season.  So if you’re an optimistic person, which I’m usually not, but if you are, you must be thinking we’re sitting pretty atop the division despite being dealt the worse possible hand you can be dealt.  Things can only get better from here, right?

Three Down

Oakland A’s – We have five starting pitchers on the DL, and Brett Anderson was that fifth starter to land on the DL. He’s avoiding Tommy John surgery, but it sounds like he might still have to have it down the road. I’m no doctor, but it doesn’t sound like these plasma injections do very much from other players accounts. We’ve called up some prospects mainly because of the numerous injuries. SP Graham Godfrey had an interesting way of getting called up the the big leagues, but we are really missing those starters that went down. Hopefully McCarthy comes back soon which seems likely. We’ve lost 13 of 14, and I might already be rooting for Seattle to take the division. (I’ll wait till the All-Star break, but it’s sad I’m already pondering picking who I want to win the division not named the A’s.) Daric Barton continues to digress this season. Not sure how much longer I can root for a guy that is in his third year, and having his worst season of those three years, he feels like Bobby Crosby all over again. Hopefully we are prepping Chris Carter or Michael Taylor in the minors to play first base. Maybe we should’ve hung onto Brett Wallace who is having a decent year in Houston…

Even Chriss Angel runs out of magic.

SF Giants – To the outsider looking in, you’d probably chuckle at the idea of being unhappy with a first place team.  But if you’ve been following the Giants closely like I have, especially these past two seasons, you know we win a lot, a lot of close games.  In unbelievable fashion at times.  How much magic do we still have at our disposal?  We’ve got to run out eventually right?  As long as we’re bottom dwellers in terms of offensive production, specifically scoring runs, and as long as our aces look like jokers on the mound (Tim Lincecum and Jonathan Sanchez), we’ve got reason to be concerned.  Hopefully Brandon Belt can get healthy and show us some of that bat we’ve all been told is coming.  The only consistent thing I can count on with these Giants, is Ryan Vogelsong giving up two runs or less every game.  The sad part is, some of those games are losses.

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

June 6, 2011

Hey Sabean, Don’t Forget You Have Whiteside!!

By chappy81

I think the Giants might have the most videos on youtube of any team since they won the WS. Some are entertaining and others are pretty lame. In the wake of the whole Buster Posey debacle as he got plowed at home, the Giants GM Brian Sabean pretty much said he hopes Cousins of the Marlins never plays again. It was an unpopular statement everywhere except in SF, and kind of reminded me of how Dan Gilbert reacted when Lebron left the Cavs. To say I disagree with his comments would be an understatement, and Larry Granillo brings up some solid points on why Sabean should’ve questioned some other plays at the plate in the Giants not so distant past. Anyways, enjoy this song someone made about the Giants backup catcher Eli Whiteside.

(Actually Whiteside is no longer hitting .200, it’s down to .170).

15 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Sports

June 1, 2011

Some Love For Matt

By chappy81

No, I’m not talking about MCeezy. There’s another Matt out there that is tearing up Major League pitching this year, and it seems like nobody is talking about him. Maybe one of the only reasons I’ve noticed his existence is because he’s on two of my fantasy teams, but there’s good reason to take notice of what he’s been doing this year. While others try to figure out if Jose Bautista is “for real” or not, nobody is really talking about ML leader in batting. Matt Joyce is hitting a ridiculous .370 this year. I’m not so sure he’ll keep that up, but it definitely should warrant some more attention than it has received. Maybe it’s because he’s in his fourth year as a pro making him slide under the radar in a time when people are more excited about a rookie sensation like Eric Hosmer. His career normals are in the .250/10/40 range, but then again, Joyce was always in a platoon situation or just a substitute when someone got injured. Fortunately for the Rays, Manny Ramirez decided to call it quits, errr, fail a drug test, and open a spot in the lineup for Joyce. He’s probably already done as much as Manny would’ve done at the plate this year, and plays some really good defense to boot.

With 3 more homers, 10 more RBI’s, and 6 more runs this season, he will have career highs in all categories (already has career highs in doubles and SB’s). At his current pace he’ll have those well before the All-Star break. Can you label this a fluke? I wound’t, because looking at his games played each season as he’s never played over 92 games in a season. He’s always hit for power, but the average has never been there like it has this year. If you had to pick an MVP for the Rays this year, it would be Joyce hands down. Longoria, Damon, and Zobrist have been good on and off, but the rock in the lineup that’s been hot all year long is Matt Joyce. What I can’t figure out for the life of me is why Maddon puts Joyce so far down in the lineup. Sometimes he has his .370 hitter in the six or seven slot. A guy that hits with power and average should be in the top three hitters or protecting Longoria. I know we have one Rays reader, so maybe he can explain Maddon’s theory of putting him so far down in the lineup half the time.

If you didn’t know it’s all-star voting time, and there’s sure to be some bad picks as there are every year. Here’s how I feel like the AL outfield should look. Joyce, Bautista, and Granderson. Too bad it will probably be something like Crawford, Ichiro, and Hamilton or something like that…

16 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Sports

May 20, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

As always, By is covering the Giants portion, and Chappy is covering the A’s portion for this post.

San Francisco Giants (1st, 24-19) Oakland Athletics (2nd, 22-22)

Three Up

Oakland Athletics – They swept the Angels in a quick two game series, and also swapped positions with them to be in a tie for first place in the AL West for the first time this season. That didn’t last long as they lost two straight to the struggling Twins and were promptly sent back to 2nd place. Their offense has gotten progressively better over the last week and a half. They’ve actually averaged nearly 5 runs a game over their last 10. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Coco Crisp has been getting on base, stealing bases, and scoring runs. When he does well, they seem to score a lot more runs. Their pitching has still been their crutch to lean on. They lead the majors in ERA at 2.68, which is the only sub-3.00 ERA in all of baseball besides the Braves 2.88 team ERA. Andrew Bailey is getting closer to returning, and will be a welcomed addition to an already great bullpen.

San Francisco Giants – Giants are sitting pretty at first place despite playing average ball.  So there’s not much to complain about here, furthermore, they just did a mini sweep of division, no everything rivals LA in LA.  So a major f**k yeah for that.  The Mark DeRosa injury could be looked at as a down, but I see the positive in it.  For one, he was hitting like s**t.  Second, we’re too deep not to circulate other players in and out of the lineup, giving tough-minded guys like Mike Fontenot a shot at some p.t.  Hopefully DeRosa takes this time to clear his mind, and find his swing.  Finally Madison Bumgarner finally got his first win of the season, the Giants are on the up and up from here on out.

Three Down

Oakland Athletics – Hideki Matsui hasn’t really shown much promise thus far in the season. Maybe the inconsistent playing time has something to do with it, but I feel like there’s a chance he might just be old. Dallas Braden had season ending shoulder surgery, which was a downer but not unexpected. I’m a huge Tyson Ross fan, and he’s done admirable filling in since Braden went down, but he got injured, and apparently Brandon McCarthy did too, so that’s a hole in the rotation. Maybe Harden will eventually not be hurt or maybe another round with Outman wouldn’t be terrible. Bob Geren is still making questionable lineup/bullpen changes and tinkering that seems to prevent the team from keeping their continuity, but the players seem to be overcoming the handicap of having him as a manager, which must be one tough obstacle.

San Francisco Giants – I can’t complain about much these days, perhaps the injury to Pablo Sandoval has put a damper on our inconsistent hitting.  I’m not satisfied with Tim Lincecum’s 3-4 start.  I was hoping for him to be blazing toward another Cy Young early on.  But those are all ‘whatevers’ in my book.  The Giants are in first in the NL West, and this should lead to an interesting series with the A’s.

Next Up – The battle of the bay. Inter league play starts and the battle for bay area bragging rights is on the line.

Win or lose Chaps, we’re still friends o.k. !?!?

Yeah, no hard feelings a quarter of the way through a season!

4 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

May 19, 2011

Rainouts Aren’t Always Bad

By chappy81

There’s been a ton of rain outs in the MLB this year. Too bad the pros aren’t allowed to have fun like these college kids during rain outs. They can’t afford to get injured. I think I posted a video like the one below last year with two teams having a talent show trying to one up the other team. This one was a lot more friendly. A few of the skits were a little lame, but all in all it looks like a good way to spend a rainy day…

18 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Sports

May 19, 2011

Can Jaime McCourt Save the Dodgers From Frank?

By chappy81

Surprise, I actually took this picture...

For some strange reason Frank McCourt has been trying to sell to the fans that he actually cares about the team. He’s been making appearances on local TV as well as radio shows. The callers have been funny as they tell him how much they dislike him, and all the questions on his moves being for the “best interest of the team” usually net a comical response from Frank. I understand the team has gotten to the playoffs 3 of 4 years under his rule, but the players that got them there were in LA before he took over, so I’m not sure why he keeps playing that card. He overpaid for Manny, but that’s the only guy I can think of that he really brought in. It’s painfully obvious to a non-financial guru like myself that he has been in over his head since he bought the team, and NOTHING he does will ever get the fans to trust him again.

As a Warriors fan, I know about battling an owner, and I battled with deciding what degree of support to give the Warriors for years under Cohan rule. It’s almost impossible to abandon your team, but once fans start the revolution there’s no going back. Just like the Warriors fans did with Cohan over his final couple years, Dodgers fans are starting to do the same. I guess it helps that both owners were on the verge of being broke. I feel like it’s way past the tipping point when fans pleading with anyone and everyone that will listen to buy their beloved team. Some Dodgers fans have even started sites like this one, which is begging Mark Cuban to buy this team. I’m sure Cuban is probably into the idea, and has been in the running for purchasing a few baseball teams, so if you can get one at a discount why not try. Maybe he’ll wait till after the Mavs are done with their season.

All in all it’s been a wacky year for the Dodgers. Aside from Kemp and Ethier there haven’t been a ton of bright spots for them, until today. Ethier might have even made a salute to the owners during batting practice yesterday. Jaime McCourt decided to sound off for the first time in awhile. Today she requested that the Supreme Court look into a forced sale of the team to prevent the MLB from seizing the club. It’s not a shocking move by any means, but it is a huge step to getting the Dodgers back to their normal selves. It would be great to see more talk about their on-field product instead of what Frank messed up on in the news headlines. The MLB looks like it’s almost assured to seize the team, so if Jaime can get the court on her side which she’s been trying to do for months, it will speed up the process of getting a new owner in there that would be a relief to all Dodgers fans. I highly doubt anyone wants the league running their team, unless you’re the Hornets and are being saved.

Obviously Jaime has been against the big Fox television deal that Frank keeps insisting will save this team financially. I have one reason to side with Jaime, and that reason is you’re never in a good position when you’re broke. It sounds like $3B would be a huge TV contract and would relive some debt for the short term, but I’m almost positive they could do better than the deal offered. Fox probably smells blood and wants to take advantage. Here’s a good quote from Jaime that really shows the differences between the two sides as in I don’t think Frank really has the best interests of the team in mind.

“As I’ve said all along, my goal is to resolve this situation for my family in a way that also advances the best interests of the Dodgers fans, players and franchise. This motion will hopefully provide some momentum in the right direction.”

6 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

May 6, 2011

Let’s See How Far We’ve Come

By mceezy

So I heard that song while doing a little grocery shopping at my local Nugget Market. It always takes me back to my time working for the Sacramento River Cats. It’s probably the only place I ever heard that song, but for some reason they put it on every single promo dvd that I was forced to see thousands of times. Anyway, switching the big league baseball, we’re basically a month into the season, so it’s time to see where we’re at it… who’s overachieving, who’s underachieving, and most importantly, will it continue?

The first guy that jumps out at me is Lance Berkman. I never doubted the guy’s credentials, but it seemed like he was on the decline the last two years. He got off to a slow start last year in Houston, and then after being traded to the Yankees, he never got it going, and quickly became an afterthough. He was far from the most attractive free agent out there, but St Louis was quick to snatch him up. I believe the A’s made a phone call that was never returned, if I remember correctly. (sounds about right). Through 10 games, Berkman has 10 home runs and 32 rbi. In his 39 games as a Yankee, he had just 1 home run and 9 rbi. WILL IT CONTINUE? I doubt it, but NOT because Berkman will fall off, rather as a result of Pujols catching fire and carrying the team for a while, and then Holliday, and maybe Berkman again. The point is, there’s not enough RBI to go around for any of these guys – even Pujols – to have a monster season.

The next thing that jumps out at me is the fact that Alfonso Soriano leads the Major Leagues in home runs, with 11 through 29 games. If he can manage to stay on the field for an entire season… I WON’T say he’s on pace for 59 home runs! But I WILL say it’s not too far-fetched that he could flirt with his career high, his lone year in Washington where he hit 46 bombs. WILL IT CONTINUE? I don’t know, you kinda learn to bet against anything going right for the Cubs. It’s hard to imagine Soriano staying focused, or healthy, or both, for an entire season. What he may be able to do is build up some value to become a trade deadline asset.

Jered Weaver could win 30 games! Okay, it’s highly unlikely, but when you win your first six starts, one can’t help but think about a guy racking up 30 of em. He finally lost a game this week, blemishing his record to the tune of a 6-1 mark. Still, all he has to do is win just 24 out of his remaining 27 starts. WILL IT HAPPEN? F*** no, but as long as you play for my favorite team’s archenemy, anything’s possible. I’ll say this much, if he did win 30, I guarantee four of them would have been against the A’s.

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May 3, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

This is our second installment of Elephants and Seals. And just like last time Chappy will be covering the A’s, and By will be covering the Giants.

San Francisco Giants (13-15) Oakland Athletics (15-14)

Three Up

Oakland A’s – They lost two of three in LA, but came on strong over the weekend to take 3 of 4 from Texas to bring themselves over .500.  Their bats seemed to wake up against what we all kinda knew was some weak starting pitching out in Texas. Kurt Suzuki hit two bombs after having his newly born daughter. Willingham hit a game tying homer, and Matsui hit a walkoff in yesterdays series winning game, so there’s some reason for optimism for the offense. Andrew Bailey is throwing again, and should be back sooner than later as he’s set to face some live hitting this week. That is a big relief because Fuentes is about as scary a ninth inning as you’ll get. He doesn’t throw hard, and puts guys on base giving A’s fans a heart attack every time he’s on the mound. Bailey we need you back! Coco Crisp’s bat is as lively as his hair these days, and when he’s on, he scores lots of runs. Oakland pitchers still lead the league in ERA at 2.76. They are did pretty good in April for their standards, because April is a month they almost always have a losing record in. You don’t win a division in April, but you can be far enough behind to lose it if you aren’t careful. I mean, we could be the Twins with only 9 wins.

San Francisco Giants – 1.  We won the 2010 World Series.  I know that was last season, and that historic event is a thing of the past, but when your beloved team plays as inconsistent as they have been, despite the talent and experience they possess, well then you got to hang your hat on something.  We’re only about 7% into the season, and if they don’t clean up their act by the 20% mark, I’ll throw this trump card away.  Which brings me to my next ”up” ~

2.  We’re only 7% into the season!  It’s still very early and the Giants are much below .500 ball thanks to  taking two out of three in five of the past seven series’.  They’ve been in a lot worse situations, and for them to be even despite not finding themselves is a good sign.

3.  Aaron Rowand is hitting .300 (o.k. .296) and Pablo Sandoval is hitting .313 with five dingers.  These are two players who contributed very little last season.  Aaron Rowand was considered a free agent bust, and Panda was looked at as a fluke.  The Giants are currently 11th in hitting in the N.L. but it’s neither of these two’s fault.  If they keep playing this well offensively, it will almost be like we picked up two solid free agents this year.

Three Down

Oakland A’s – Kevin Kouzmanoff is supposedly on the team more for his defense prowess, yet he’s already made 6 errors on the season. If his bat actually worked, I wouldn’t mind the errors as much, but this is getting ridiculous, and these errors are leading to runs almost every time he kicks an easy grounder. The team as a whole hasn’t been good defensively, but I doubt they will be tied for the lead the league in errors. The offense as a whole is offensive as they’re ranked 27th in the league in runs scored, don’t have a hitter over .300 in the lineup, and swing at way too many pitches early in the count. Pitchers that give up a few runs to us still are in the game in the 7th. Aside from Barton, I’m not sure anyone in the lineup knows how to work a count, unfortunately his working the count has resulted in a high amount of strikeouts. Pitchers are throwing 70 pitch complete games against us. Ok, not really, but you get the point. We have renamed the Oakland Coliseum to the Overstock.com Coliseum or O.co Coliseum. This is in the three down section, because it sounds lame.

1.  We won the 2010 World Series.  I know you’re asking, how can this be an ”up” and a ”down”?  It’s an ”up” from a fans’ perspective, especially someone like me who is grateful he witnessed a World Series championship during his lifetime.  It’s been a ”down” for the actual team.  I tried not to think it, but it’s becoming more and more apparent, the Giants have a World Series hangover.  They’re too busy making music videos with Keenan Cahill that they forgot there’s a season to play.  But then again, this is the reason why we fell in love with these guys, they’re a bunch of goofy clowns and miSFits.

2.  Missing Andres Torres has been a huge downer for the Giants.  He’s a great lead off man, and plays a fantastic center field.  The one thing that’s underrated about Torres is his defense.  Our outfield has been our week spot early on, especially when we threw Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff out there (wtf!) but with Ross back, and Torres on his way, I’ll stop holding my breath on every fly ball.

3.  Pitching and hitting.  If it’s not one, it’s the other.  This is reminiscent of years past with these Giants team.  They’re winning or losing games, 1-0 or 9-8.  Neither side can get it together consistently and act as a cohesive unit.  Like I mentioned earlier, we’re 11th in the N.L. in hitting.  I’m not concerned about average starts from Timmy, Jonathan Sanchez and Matty Cain, but Madison ”Mad Bum” Bumgarner has struggled big time.  Last season he was brilliant in the post season, we’ve only seen one glimpse of that pitcher since.  Could I actually be asking this, but are we missing Barry Zito?  If it’s come to this, then that’s a huge downer.

Next Up

Oakland A’s – Taking on the best team in baseball, Cleveland Indians at home. They found a little groove offensively against Texas, so hopefully that keeps up. I can’t wait for the day when I’m not shocked when they put up 4 runs in a game.

San Francisco Giants got to start doing their best Charlie Sheen impression, winning.  We got the Mets and Rockies next, very winnable series’.

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April 19, 2011

Doin MLB Power Rankings

By chappy81

With two and a half full weeks gone in the MLB season we find ourselves about 10% of the way through the season. It’s time for some waaay too early power rankings! I’ve seen way too many baseball games thanks to the free MLB package preview those first two weeks. Thankfully that’s over, so I don’t find myself watching a Marlins vs. Astros game anymore (which is probably for the better). For some reason I’ve been more focused on baseball more than the opening games this weekend of the NBA playoffs. Anyways, this might be the most accurate power rankings I’ll have all year because I’ve actually seen almost all the teams play. There are some shocking teams already in this young season, and for now this is how the top 16 shakes out!

#1 Colorado Rockies (12-4) – Whoa, I thought they’d be pretty good this year, which is why I picked them to win the NL West, but didn’t see this torrid start coming. Tulo is on pace to hit over 80 homers this year. If he keeps that pace up, they might be able to stay atop these rankings for awhile.

#2 Cleveland Indians (12-4) – Mceezy’s pick to win the World Series. I was very skeptical of this team and his pick, but they’ve got some swagger and confidence early in the year. Also, one guy who always seems to be in the playoffs, Orlando Cabrera is on their team. Wherever he goes, they make the playoffs except when he was on the A’s for half a year and didn’t make it… Grady is back, and that’s only going to help them.

#3 New York Yankees (9-5) – Is there starting pitching ever not a question mark? It doesn’t seem to matter that much when you put up runs like this lineup can. AJ Burnett is off to a good start, so maybe he doesn’t suck after all. Would I move Jeter down in the lineup? Yes!

#4 Texas Rangers (11-5) – They’ve lost two straight series (one to the Yankees), but keep on mashing the ball with or without Hamilton in the lineup. Anytime you are scoring as much as them you have a chance to win in every game. Their starting rotation is a concern, and the bullpen is even more of a concern, we’ll see what happens with that. Hopefully it will spell their doom.

#5 Philadelphia Phillies (10-5) – Not an exciting offense anymore, but you only need to score a few runs with that pitching staff. I might have underestimated how good they are with or without Chase Utley and Jayson Werth. I guess I should’ve probably picked them to win the NL East…  Continue reading

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April 11, 2011

Masters, Manny, and a Beat-down in Pittsburgh

By chappy81

Charl was given his green jacket signifying that he is the Master of the Universe, yet the storylines don’t seem to surround his four birdie finish. I’m not one to push golf onto anyone who can’t stand watching guys read putts for five hours, believe me I understand why it would be boring, but this weekend was one of the most exciting finishes we might see in any major for awhile. When there were about 8-10 holes left to play for the leaders, the CBS crew couldn’t even figure out who’s shot or which players they even wanted to show because there were so many people atop the leaderboard. We didn’t see a whole lot of Charl during the day, but did get a lot of Tiger shoved down our throats. Tiger looked great for the front nine, and it looked like he had some of his swagger back busting out his fist pumps. Unsurprisingly to me that seems to be the topic of conversation today on whether Tiger is indeed back or not. It’s tough to say when he missed critical putts down the stretch that he usually would’ve made during his domination days. Regardless of whether he’ll be as dominant as he once was, he’s relevant again. The other story was about how Rory McIlroy caved to the pressure, and was one of the only people to shoot over par on Sunday. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t win, but more so that he caved, and he seemed to give up after his triple bogey on the 10th. He’s a 21-year-old, so I wouldn’t worry about him. It’s like last year when Dustin Johnson choked away a lead on the final day at the US Open. I’m sure he’ll learn from what happened, and his skills aren’t disappearing. All in all, I think golf is healthier than it’s been in awhile. I’m not going to go all Geno Auriemma and cry if you don’t care about golf, but this past Sunday was a finish that I feel like any sports fan would’ve enjoyed.

Manny is retiring… Lots people go to Tampa to retire, and Manny doesn’t seem to be the exception to that rule. I’ve always loved then loved to hate Manny depending on which team he was playing for. I guess the bigger deal about his retirement is if he’ll make it into the HOF. All along I’ve been for the steroid era players getting into the HOF. It’s an era, and whether there was cheating or not, you have to acknowledge the best. Baseball has always had the worst HOF setup in my eyes. The snubs feel ridiculous, and most of the time those who are snubbed were “bad” character guys. I feel like the HOF is a popularity contest that nobody really wins in unless you were a classy person on and off the field. Personally all I care about is what was done on the field, cheating or not, he was still one of the greatest. With that said, I’d put Manny, Clemens, A-Rod, and Bonds in. Who cares if I or anyone else doesn’t like them as people they still were amazing players that carried baseball for two decades.

Apparently, safety in stadiums is an issue… The MLB League passes are free for everyone for the first week of the year, and I’ve watched a lot of teams I probably won’t see for the rest of the year. One common theme seemed to be empty seats in stadiums. I’m not sure if it’s the cold weather across much of the country or if it’s a correlation that fans no longer feel safe bringing their kids to the ballpark after the Dodgers incident. Whatever the case, this recent video from a Pirates game was insane. Dude was either completely wasted or just can straight up take a hit. The rent-a-cop billy clubbed him three times and he didn’t even flinch! This might be the most excitement the Pirates fans have all season…

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April 8, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

We sometimes neglect our teams in writing posts since we follow them so closely that we feel like everyone probably already knows what’s going on with them, in reality, that’s probably not true. Now that we have a Giants fan in the mix in By, I figured it would be fun to do an overview of our two favorite bay area teams from our homer perspectives. I’ll be writing up the A’s portion and By will be doing the Giants portion for this season.

Oakland 2-5

San Francisco 3-4

Three Up

Oakland A’s – Our starting pitchers have picked up where they left off last season, and by that I mean dominating the first six innings of their games, and only giving up two earned runs or less in all but one appearance. The new offensive guys (Dejesus, Willingham, and Matsui) in the heart of the order aren’t producing much, and unfortunately the other guys in the lineup are doing what they did last year, which is leaving runners in scoring position. They have had the lead at one point in every game this year, but can’t seem to keep it for too long in most cases. We still seem to have a heavy handicap in the home run department, but we seem to be getting more guys on base than last year, so there’s a little hope on the horizon. They’ve been close in every game late, because of that great starting pitching. If it weren’t for them thinking they were playing soccer to the tune of kicking 9 fielding errors, they could easily be .500 on the year. Somewhat concerned about this start.

San Francisco Giants – This is simple.  One, Lincecum, Sanchez, Cain, Zito & Mad Bum.  A solid bull pen, and the game’s real life version of Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn to close it.  I’m not worried about a 3-4 start.  Perhaps I’m being a little generous when mentioning Zito in that list, but I can’t uninclude him when he’s rockin’ the new ‘stache.  Two, we have a group of loveable guys who all play hard together and get along with each other.  Yes, Aubrey Huff in the outfield scares me, but the young studs in Buster Posey and Brandon Belt in our every day lineup more than make up for it.  Do not sleep on Miguel Tejada, by the way.  And three, we are still the defending champs.  This season is (now) seven games in for the Giants.  I’m not worried about a 3-4 start.

Three Down

Oakland A’s – Their bullpen is already injured like it’s mid-season. It was supposed to be a heavy strength for the team coming into the season, so far all we’ve been left with is blown leads. Balfour and Fuentes our big acquisitions in the pen this off-season both blew saves in their first tries as Athletics with Bailey on the DL. Their fielding was never a problem last year, but with 9 errors in only six games this year they are dead last in that category. Their last two games in Toronto that were errorless, and same with the day game in Minnesota today, so that has me feeling like it was just a little early season rust. Hopefully that’s the case. Maybe all the talk of needing to upgrade at third got to Kouz’s head as he’s tied for the team lead with three errors. Lastly the A’s have been terrible with runners in scoring position this season only logging three hits when that chance arises.

San Francisco Giants

1)  We got smoked by L.A.

2)  Duck the Fodgers.

3)  We haven’t produced runs consistently, spoiling some good outings by our starting pitchers.  Add to that, our bull pen hasn’t looked as crisp as they did during last season’s historic playoff run, so I guess there’s some cause for concern there.

3a)  It would be nice to have Cody Ross back.


5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports