It’s safe to say that this past offseason has been one of the worst for Jim Hendry during his tenure as General Manager of the Chicago Cubs. The Los Angeles Dodgers made a mockery of the Cubs’ right-handed lineup in the playoffs by not throwing a single left-handed pitcher at them, and the Cubs responded to this glaring weakness by trading Mark DeRosa, the most versatile and well-liked player on the team – not to mention cheap, since he was in line to make an affordable $5.5 million in the final year of his contract – in order to free up some cash to sign a left-handed power hitter. For God knows what reason, Hendry doesn’t even make an attempt to sign Raul Ibanez, a clubhouse prince who is good for 25 home runs and 100 RBIs year in and year out. Nope, Hendry set his sights on Milton Bradley, a talented but mercurial journeyman (the Cubs are the eighth team he’s played for since his Major League debut in 2000) who just happened to put up career numbers in a contract year. The words “career numbers” sound good, but they come with one big-ass asterisk. Take a look at Bradley’s career year numbers versus the 2008 stat lines of DeRosa and Ibanez:
Raul Ibanez: .292-85-23-110-2
Mark DeRosa: .285-104-21-87-6
Milton Bradley .321-78-22-77-5
It’s a pretty average stat line as career numbers go, and don’t forget that he put up those numbers primarily as a DH, and he still only played 126 games due to nagging injuries. Yep, this is the man that the Cubs hoped would save them, to the tune of three years and $30 million. To add insult to injury, DeRosa now plays for the rival Cardinals.
“Let’s see, if I strike out like that 100 more times this year…I still make $7 million! Ahhhh hahahahahahaha!”
And would you look at that; now that Bradley has his money, he can’t hit water if he fell out of a boat. Well, let’s qualify that — he’s actually hitting .333…from the right side of the plate. He’s hitting .194 as a lefty, has been suspended for bumping an umpire, sent home by his manager after trashing yet another water cooler, and poisoned yet another clubhouse with his unpredictable temper. Bradley said before the season started that he had changed, that those days of flying off the handle (remember when he tore his ACL yelling at an umpire?) were long gone. How on earth did the Cubs believe him? Didn’t they see the “South Park” movie? Bad people always say they’ll change, but they never do.
So what do the Cubs do with Bradley now? He’s expected to take the next two days off to work on his approach from the left side of the plate with new hitting coach Von Joshua. A good start, but we have some other, admittedly extreme suggestions to the Bradley problem that we think the Cubs brass should consider.
The collective groan you heard when Alex Rodriguez announced that he would have “hybrid” surgery to repair his injured hip was not solely the work of the Yankee faithful. The ramifications in fantasy circles are staggering, especially if you, like me, happen to have the fifth pick in your draft.
Just a few days ago, I thought I had my draft strategy all figured out. The first round would simply be a matter of which of the Big Five (Hanley, Reyes, Pujols, A-Rod, Wright) fell to me. The mock drafts I conducted a few weeks ago indicated that Wright would be my guy, which was fine with me. The post-surgery view from the five-hole, however, is bleak. The Big Five is now the Big Four – Rodriguez is currently sitting at #49 in my draft room – and whichever player I take with my first pick now feels like a reach. However, after doing some stat sorting, I found my guy. He’s a former MVP with pop and speed. So why don’t I want to take him?
Here is everything you need to know about the depth at the third base position these days: On CBS Sports’ cheat sheet for the top players at each position, they list 41 starting pitchers, 25 relief pitchers, 67 outfielders, 25 first basemen, 25 second basemen, 25 shortstops, 30 catchers…and 15 third basemen. Fif, teen. But wait, it actually gets worse: of those 15 third basemen, two are full-time first basemen (Kevin Youkilis, Miguel Cabrera) one is a full-time catcher (Russell Martin), and one played nearly 100 games at DH (Aubrey Huff). In other words, just over a third of all the teams in Major League Baseball have a third baseman worth drafting. And they include Ryan Zimmerman and Edwin Encarnacion as two of those 11 players, meaning even that number is padded.
What this means for you, gentle reader, is that assuming Jose Reyes, Hanley Ramirez and Albert Pujols are no longer on the board, you are a stone cold fool if you don’t draft either David Wright or Alex Rodriguez at your earliest opportunity, and you could even be excused for drafting Wright or A-Rod ahead of the other three. (Don’t let this whole ‘steroids pariah’ hoopla scare you; A-Rod’s gonna put up crazy numbers this year.) Almost overnight, third base has become a fantasy wasteland, so you’d be wise to snag a stud third baseman if you can, especially now that Ryan Braun has lost his 3B eligibility and Troy Glaus decided to go under the knife at the 11th hour. But even when the big names are off the board, don’t panic; there are some players that can keep your fantasy team from having a smoking hole in the ground where third base used to be.
When we assembled our annual piece on the year in sports for Bullz-Eye, the piece was coming along really well, but something seemed a tad off to me. It was too…serious. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you. John and Anthony dissect sports as well as anyone. But one section of our year-in-review piece is dedicated to predicting what we think will happen. For me, that is a golden opportunity to let loose with the craziest idea you can think of, have a laugh, go all Onion on everyone.
After hearing that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were changing their name, this is what I thought of.
God anoints the ‘Devil’-free Tampa Bay Rays His new favorites; team wins World Series
No song with the word “Devil” in the title has ever made it to Number One on the pop charts, and the Almighty has the same rules when it comes to baseball. (This mandate clearly does not apply to hockey, though that makes sense now that we think about it.) When pitchers and catchers report for spring training, God will hold a press conference, admitting that He had been punishing Tampa Bay for their transgression. “I really like that Crawford kid, and the way they stole Kazmir from the Mets…that was sweet,” God will be quoted as saying. “It actually bothered me to give them the smackdown year after year, but now that they’ve cleared their name, as it were, I see big things for this team.” The Rays will win the Series in a thrilling Game 7 comeback against the Chicago Cubs, who will have a 3-2 lead with two outs and the bases empty in the bottom of the ninth, then proceed to walk in the tying and winning runs.
It is now late-August, and with the Cubs’ win today, they have the best record in baseball. The Rays are a game behind them in the win column. Incredibly, this World Series match-up still has a chance of happening. Indeed, my joke prediction has come closer to fruition than some of our more right-minded declarations (see: “The Detroit Tigers will win the Al Central”). That scream you just heard, by the way, was Cubs Nation telling me to shut the hell up for jinxing their team. Anyone who saw Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS knows that my ‘walking in the winning run’ scenario is not that outrageous.
Anyone wanting to know what tomorrow’s lottery numbers will be, give me a call. I’m feeling lucky.
The Boston Red Sox decided not to prolong the inevitable, swiftly dispatching the Colorado Rockies in four games to take their second World Series title in four seasons. They are the first team this decade to win two World Series, but this title carries a far greater distinction in the sports world; Red Sox Nation must now officially do what the rest of baseball fandom has been hoping they’d do for years: Shut the hell up.
No more talk about curses. There clearly never were any.
No more talk about the Yankees, and how they buy their teams. You just gave $70 million to J.D. Drew, and won two titles in four seasons. You’re the Yankees now.
No more talk about lack of respect. People were predicting the Sox as World Series winners in May.
No more talk, period. Ever. You’re now the big dogs, and as big dogs, you forfeit your right to complain about anything. If, a few years down the road, the Sox aren’t as good as they once were, shhhh. No one feels sorry for the Sox anymore, nor will they until the team sinks to Kansas City levels of despair. Enjoy the moment, but for your own sake, I would advise showing some humility. You just never know when the next 86-year drought will begin.
In a small Midwestern town, there are two kids with lemonade stands, across the street from each other. The kid on the northern side of the street wants to sell his stand. He’s had it for a long time, and he’s done well with it, but his lime-aid stand and chutney squishee stands are hemorrhaging money, so he decides to sell the lemonade stand to recoup his losses.
Two streets to the south, there’s a kid that sells grape juice. His stand is wildly successful, and while the kid is a little obnoxious, his customers love him because he wants to give them the best damn grape juice possible. The grape juice kid would love nothing more than to buy the lemonade stand that’s up for sale. He knows that he would be inheriting a loyal fan base that has wanted the lemonade stand owner to sell for years. The grape juice kid approaches the seller and expresses an interest in buying his stand.
Just then, the owner of the stand on the southern side of the street comes over.
“You can’t buy his stand,” he says.
“Why not?” asks the grape juice magnate.
“Because I don’t want you owning a lemonade stand,” he says.
“What do you care?”
“I don’t think it’s in the best interest of the rest of the lemonade stand owners.”
Leave it to our friends at Super Deluxe to spin the Barry Bonds “moral quagmire” in a way that no one has considered yet. And the sad part is that it does not seem at all beyond the realm of possibility that this is how Bonds would react, if given the choice in real life that he’s given here. Ladies and Gentlemen, “It’s a Wonderful Game.”
Well, at least I got the “______ in 5” part right. The guy holding the sign in the new Busch Stadium wasn’t kidding when he said, “Hit it to the pitcher.” Ye gods. Kenny Rogers was surely hitting cameramen off-camera after what he saw on the field tonight.
The game had two goats in place, depending on how it turned out. If the Cardinals lose, then your goat is Chris Duncan, who booted a routine fly out to right field when Jim Edmonds invaded his space and freaked him out, causing Duncan to take his eye off the ball. One pitch later, Sean Casey deposits a ball into the right field seats and gives Detroit a 2-1 lead. Later, Duncan misplays a ball at the wall – also hit by Casey, his second double of the night – but that does not come back to haunt the Cardinals in any way.
The goat for the Tigers, on the other hand, is undoubtedly Brandon Inge, despite his lofty batting average during the Series. He made the throwing error to first that allowed the first run to score. Then, after hitting a double, he was caught in a rundown between second and third after running on contact to a ball up the middle, which Jeff Weaver picked off and hurled to third to begin the rundown.
And then there was the worst play of the game, which will make sci-fi geeks the world over wonder if the Matrix really does exist (well, the sci-fi geeks that watch sports, anyway). With runners on first and second, Justin Verlander, who was toooooooooootally overexcited for this game, fielded a come-backer from Jeff Weaver, the freaking pitcher, and threw to Inge to get the force at third. Only problem was, he threw about three feet to the left of the bag, just like Joel Zumaya did in Game 3. If you combine the two official errors, and the unofficial baserunning error, Inge was involved in all three plays.
I did say at the beginning of the playoffs that the Tigers were a year early, that they weren’t ready to compete yet. Still, I have to think that the Yankees would have put up a better fight than this in the World Series. Maybe there is something to be said for the LDS being seven games instead of five. Until that day, congrats to the Cardinals, and World Series MVP David Eckstein (!), for proving us experts horribly, horribly wrong. Only five more months before the Cubs begin breaking my heart once again.
The camera doesn’t lie. Fox caught a shot of Kenny Rogers’ pitching hand that spoke a thousand words. Analyst Tim McCarver seemed to be giving Rogers the benefit of the doubt at first, calling it “discoloration,” but we were all thinking the same thing: dude’s got pine tar on his hand. The only way this gets better is if George Brett leaps from the stands to get in the face of the umpires.
Not that it would have mattered if Rogers left a jar of Vaseline on the mound next to him: the Gambler was, um, dealing tonight, limiting the Cardinals to two hits over eight innings (he washed his hands after the first inning, so even if he was cheating in the first, the Cards still couldn’t hit him for seven “clean” innings) and running his consecutive scoreless innings streak to 23. Jeff Weaver, to his credit, pitched very well, striking out five and walking one. But he basically lost the game the second that Craig Monroe hit that towering home run in the first inning, Monroe’s fifth of the postseason. One run was all that Rogers needed, though the Tigers added an RBI double by Carlos Guillen and an RBI single by Sean Casey.
Speaking of Rogers, every time they showed a close-up of him on that camera behind home plate, I thought of Henry Rollins. I half expected him to say, “I’m Kenny Rogers, and this is Off-Road Tattoo!” The close-up shots of Weaver, on the other hand, were like watching the Honkey Cam. He made a face that, to paraphrase Bill Hicks, was the human equivalent of showing a dog a card trick. Durrrr.
When Casey was in the batter’s box, I kept thinking, “What’s with the tongue?” He’s got some Michael Jordan thing going. Then Fox cut to a shot of four men wearing baseball-shaped masks over their faces, and I thought, “Hey, Los Straitjackets is here!” A very entertaining game all the way around, even if very little happened on the field until the ninth, when Todd Jones nearly blew the game after recording two quick outs and then giving up a single, booting a routine grounder, coughing up a double and then plunking a guy. Yadier Molina, the ninth inning hero of Game 7 against the Mets, grounded out weakly to shortstop. Game over. Yikes. Maybe send Joel Zumaya out for the next game that’s on the line?
Monroe gave a Yogi-ish quote in the post-game interviews, saying, “Living out this dream is what every kid dreams about.” No kidding?
At last, the Big Show has arrived and, despite the predictions of many, it is 100% New York-free. Anthony Statler and David Medsker break down each team, position by position, and offer their brilliant, armchair expert analysis on who takes the prize. (Keep in mind that at the beginning of the season, Medsker predicted the White Sox would beat the Mets in the World Series. Whoops.)
Catcher:Yadier Molina vs. Ivan Rodriguez
Johnny Bench is in hog heaven. Pudge and the youngest Flying Molina Brother are the hardest catchers to run against in baseball. The similarities, however, end there. Despite Molina’s heroic two-run homer in Game 7 of the NLCS, he’s actually a lousy hitter (.216-29-6-49). Look at that batting average again: it’s 84 points below Pudge’s average during the regular season. Plus, Pudge has been here before, winning it all as a member of the 2003 Marlins. He’ll be the calm in the storm for the Tigers youngsters. Edge: Tigers
First Base:Albert Pujols vs. Sean Casey
If Casey is healthy (he missed the final two games of the ALCS), he is extremely hard to strike out and provides the Tigers a nice line-drive hitter from the left side of the plate. With no disrespect to Casey, however, Pujols is the best pure-hitter in this series and possibly in all of baseball. Pujols can hit for power, average and is amazing in the clutch (he hit .397 with runners in scoring position in the regular season). Edge: Cardinals.
Second Base:Ronnie Belliard vs. Placido Polanco
Polanco has the edge in terms of batting average and fielding percentage (six errors to Belliard’s 11), but Belliard has considerably more pop than Polanco, hitting 13 home runs this season to Polanco’s four. The Cards get another edge, but this Series will not be won or lost by who’s playing second base. Edge: Cardinals
To see the rest of the World Series preview, click here.
