Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Woo hoo!!!!


I've never felt more loved and cared for in the world than I do right now. No less than 25 people have emailed, Twittered, Facebooked, and/or smoke signaled me to give me this glorious, wondrous news:

Two National League East foes swapped outfielders on Friday, as the Mets traded Ryan Church to the Braves for Jeff Francoeur. Church, a 30-year-old lefty hitter, was batting .280 with two home runs and 22 RBIs in 67 games for the New York. Francoeur, a 25-year-old righty bat, was hitting .250 with five homers and 35 RBIs in 82 games for Atlanta.

I repeat: someone has given the Braves actual value (with value defined as "a sentient being possibly capable of playing baseball") for Jeff Francoeur.

That it's the Mets only makes it sweeter.

I will sleep very, very well this weekend. Assuming of course I ever stop laughing.

(thanks to a jillion people for the heads up)
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 6:34pm (41) Comments

“Baseball”


Given that about 40% of my posts simply come from Googling the word "baseball," I fail to see the humor here.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:57pm (7) Comments

Betancourt to the Royals


Joe Hamrahi tweets:

The Royals have acquired SS Yuniesky Betancourt and cash from the Mariners for minor league pitchers Danny Cortes and Derrick Saito!

The Royals are probably the only team to which Betancourt could have gone and represented an upgrade at short.

How much of that contract is going to be paid by the Mariners? I would hope quite a bit.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 4:07pm (4) Comments

Quote of the day


OK, I lied. Meetings have beat the living crap out of me today. Just sucked out my soul and will to live. One meeting was even about having another meeting next week. I wish I was lying. I just need a beer or seven at this point. As such, anything else that happens today is going to be gravy. For now, a quote. It's from Bill Simmons who, amazingly, has a written product today instead of a podcast. Take it away, Bill:

Q: . . . If Jeter were suddenly cut by Hank Steinbrenner, and was rumored to want to play for Boston as payback, would you be on board?
-- Scott K., Fairborn, Ohio

SG: Of course! I'd absolutely want us to add a washed-up shortstop with no range. We could platoon him with Nick Green.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 3:46pm (12) Comments

Interview with Mike Marshall. No, the other one.


Fun interview with Mike Marshall over at Jorge Says No! The hitting Mike Marshall, not the pitching one. He's the president of the Yuma Scorpions in the independent Golden League now, and provides a lot of intetrestng info. Like the fact that the Scorpions have an affiliation with Colombian baseball, which is kind of weird and cool at the same time. And then there's this:

Jorge Says No!: And finally, your nickname was “Bigfoot.” How did this come to be?

Mike Marshall: I wear size 15 shoes. I am 6' 5" and move like a sasquatch. You get the idea.

Good interview, Josh. Keep 'em comin'!

Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 2:20pm (1) Comments

My Morning in Exile


I should call it my morning in Hell. I got four posts in over at the Blue Network when I was dragged into a meeting that probably didn't need my presence. Two hours later and I'm just now emerging, and no, I am not a better man because of it. And guess what? At 1pm, I have another meeting! Fabulous!

  • Neyer's all-time All-Stars are pretty fun, and they have the added bonus of showing us how stupid the every-team-gets-a-representative rule truly is.


  • The Dominican; she is complicated. This is a longish post, so maybe it makes up for only having four this morning.


  • Baseball is getting an eye in the sky. Note: the the video and graphics attached to the linked New York Times article came from analysis that THT's own Mike Fast did as a consultant for Sportvision last year, which is pretty damn spiffy. I hope he'll still talk to us now that he's famous.


  • Finally, 'Da Meat Hook may not be as ready to play as I suggested yesterday. I still think someone should make him a coach, however.


    • 1pm meeting notwithstanding, I have a lot of items in the queue, and I will be back and blogging this afternoon.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:26pm (5) Comments

    And That Happened


    Nationals 11, Astros 10: Everyone will be writing this morning about how Joel Hanrahan got the win in this game despite no longer playing for the Nats and how Nyjer Morgan scored the winning run even though he was playing for the Pirates when the game started. Even trippier, though, is that (a) both men were succeeded by vice-presidents named Johnson who were southern Democrats and former senators; and (b) Hanrahan had a secretary named Morgan, and Morgan had a secretary named Hanrahan!

    Astros 9, Nationals 4: While this one wasn't a continued game like the previous on, Jose Cruz somehow drove in the winning run and Bob Knepper got the win. Strange, really.

    Indians 10, White Sox 8: They're replaying this on STO as I write this, but looking at this box score makes me want to run away screaming. A 3:43 nine-inning game, the winning team's starting pitcher gave up eight runs on eleven hits in four and a third, and a game story in which the manager says that he thought it was OK for the closer to pitch a four-out save because, hey, he's had four days off? Nah, you can keep this one.

    Yankees 6, Twins 4: The Alfredo Aceves-as-starter gambit didn't go quite according to plan (3.1 IP, 4 H, 4 R), but a win's a win. Actually, against the Twins this year, a win's a win a win a win a win a win a win a win.

    Dodgers 11, Mets 2: The Dodgers rap out 17 hits and take 2 of 3 from the Mets, who have lost 10 of 13. 10 of 13. How'd they ever win three? It's a miracle!

    By the way, here's a great example of why I don't get enough sleep on nights I write these things. Looking at the Dodgers-Mets box score, I notice that Manny Ramirez has a bunch of twos. Two hits, at bats, runs, RBIs, walks, etc. I immediately think, "hmm, maybe I can say something funny about that." The first thing that pops into my mind is Doublemint gum, which is almost immediately followed by some vague memory of Mel Brooks telling a set of twins to "chew your gum" in one of his movies. Wondering if there was any worthy context around that, I search for "Mel Brooks" and "chew your gum." I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find the "Memorable Quotes" page for "Blazing Saddles." Forgetting that I have recaps to write, I read every single quote on there, laughing my head off because I had forgotten just how funny "Blazing Saddles" is. By the time I'm done I'm (a) wondering how many protests and carefully-crafted damage control statements the release of a movie half as explosive as "Blazing Saddles" would cause today; (b) missing Madeline Kahn an awful, awful lot (It's twue! It's twue!); and (c) many, many long minutes have passed and I've got nothing else to write about the Dodgers-Mets game. So I punt, go with that vague allusion to the "Bull Durham" quote, because really, that's about 95% of my material these days, and I move on.

    Multiply that by 15 games a night, five nights a week, and you see where my sleep deficit comes from. Moving right along:

    Cardinals 5, Brewers 1: I suppose you could blame the Brewers' bullpen for this -- they gave up five runs in the eighth -- but Joel Pineiro pretty much had Milwaukee handcuffed (CG, 3 H, 1 R, 5 K, 100 pitches). The Cards are now 4-2 over the first six games of a ten game road trip, and will enter the break after four against the Cubbies.

    Rays 3, Blue Jays 2: How did David Price bounce back from his awful start against the Rangers last week to beat Roy Halladay and the Jays last night?

    "Like every team, the Rays compile lots of data on opposing batters and share it with pitchers before games. Maddon asked pitching coach Jim Hickey not to go over the reports with Price. "We have so much information, and it's good. It's good to utilize it and we do utilize it," he said. "But there are certain moments when you really want to walk away from it and just permit your instincts" to take over.

    That's probably smart and all, but didn't Price go to Vanderbilt? They're supposed to be pretty smart down at that place, so you'd think he could handle the scouting reports too.

    Phillies 9, Reds 6: Inside the park homerun for Chase Utley, but then again, you know how I feel about those.

    Royals 8, Red Sox 6: David DeJesus hit a go-ahead two-run homer in the sixth inning, pulling the Royals back from a four run deficit. The loss pulls the Sox down into a first place tie with the Yankees.

    Giants 9, Padres 3: Lincecum continued to be ridiculous in the way he's been ridiculous lately into the seventh inning, but then he ran into trouble. Relatively speaking, of course, because to him, giving up three runs is like most pitchers getting touched for, like, six. His scoreless innings streak ends at 29.

    Marlins 14, Diamondbacks 7: This looks like the NL version of that Cleveland game.

    Rockies 7, Braves 6: Some of the pixie dust comes off of Tommy Hanson, as he gives up four runs on six hits in five innings. Still, he stood to be the winner until Pete Moylan and Mike Gonzales got into the game. I feel obligated to acknowledge the fact that Jeff Francoeur had a good game, going 3-4 with a double and a couple of RBI. This in no way constitutes an endorsement, however. Garrett Atkins, who has had a hell of a time this year, came through with a two-out, two-run, pinch-hit double in the eighth inning that proved to be the winner.

    Mariners 3, Rangers 1: How interesting and unexpected would it be if the Mariners sweep Texas and the AL West goes into the break as a log-jam of a three-way race? It's been a couple of years since that division has been really exciting, but when it is -- like it was back in 2002, say -- it's always fun for those of us back east to wake up in the morning and see what crazy stuff happened while we were sleeping.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:42am (24) Comments