The next step is to get some pitcher to use this as his warmup song:
I’m sorry, I just think “It’s Raining Men” is about the funniest song ever written. The fact that it’s performed by The Weathergirls makes it a billion times funnier, too.
So generally, nerdy baseball fans like me put Rangers GM Jon Daniels on the type of pedestal reserved for gentlemen like Theo Epstein and Billy Beane and Brian Cashman. One of us, we say, and we defend even his questionable moves.
His acquisition of Jeff Francoeur, even, is defensible. Through Frenchy was the worst regular right fielder in baseball, Daniels doesn’t intend to use him as an everyday right fielder, which cuts to the core of the difference between the Rangers and Mets. I’m not convinced Frenchy is the absolute best right-handed bench bat out there, but he’s got some value in that role. Just like Alex Cora’s got some value as a scrap-heap middle infield contingency plan, and decidedly not as a multi-million dollar free-agent signing.
But I will also allow another possibility: Daniels grew up a Mets fan in Queens. So I’m open to the slim chance that he manages his Rangers like a business but still secretly roots for the Mets like a WFAN-calling, David Wright-booing fan who worships Cora’s leadership and thinks Frenchy’s got all the potential in the world and is finally going to turn it around soon now that he’s got a new approach.
So when he is faced with the opportunity to acquire one of those players, he is unable to suppress the Mets fan inside. He saddles his team with Alex Cora and Jeff Francoeur because he has spent the last two years convincing himself that they’re winning players, gritty hustlers who will lead the Mets to greatness.
One of us!
Just a theory.
I know the guy’s not perfect, and obviously the Red Sox do play in a market that’s different from the Mets’. But it’s cool when Theo Epstein explains things patiently and in clear terms like this instead of just being all, “calm down you idiots, we traded a guy who can’t get the ball over the plate for a prospect with obscene peripherals.” To me, this is a deal you make if you’re in first, a game out, seven games out, whatever.
As far as I’m concerned, the real Roger Clemens trial will be for the newspapers covering the event, since the judge has put a media gag order on everyone involved. How will they keep this interesting without any actual information?
Well, the Daily News took a hell of a step today.
By far the most interesting thing about the entire baseball steroids scandal, to me, has always been that Victor Conte played bass in Tower of Power. How perfectly random.
And not only did the News convince him to write about it, they included a link to his recent composition, the BALCO Bebop, based on Take Me Out To The Ballgame.
It’s cheesy as all get-out, but the dude can really play:
More from Brett from SNY’s promos department, who obviously spends a lot of time scouting the competition.
So I think maybe the reports of Billy Beane’s decline were greatly exaggerated.
The A’s currently have in their starting rotation Trevor Cahill, a 22-year-old with a 168 ERA+, Gio Gonzalez, a 24-year-old with a 126 ERA+, Brett Anderson, 22 with a 123 mark, Vin Mazzaro, 23 with a 113, and familiar king-of-the-hill Dallas Braden, freshly 27 with a 124 rate.
But here’s the sort of interesting part: Of the five, only Gonzalez really strikes many batters out, and not really a ton. Cahill and Anderson get a lot of ground balls, but nearly everyone on Oakland’s staff is outperforming his peripherals.
So what’s that about? Most likely it has something to do with the A’s big park and good defense and a little bit of good luck. But I want to stay open to the possibility that Beane has figured out something about pitching that the stats community hasn’t picked up on yet.
I kind of doubt it. But then Braden is going on his third straight season of being about a run better than his xFIP, and Andrew Bailey’s like that too. Certainly far stranger things have happened within the normal course of randomness, but I’d like to be able to maintain this mancrush on Billy Beane as long as possible because he sort of looks like Norm MacDonald, so it helps me identify “my type.”
Anyway, Jeff Fletcher of AOL Fanhouse and I preview the A’s-Yanks series here:
This is my favorite promotion ever, obviously, and perhaps my favorite commercial. Just a great ballplayer serving tacos to a bunch of beautiful Coloradans. Carlos Gonzalez has got your tacos right here. Huge thanks to Brett for grabbing this somehow.
I can’t remember if I’ve ever been so proud. Hat tip to Sunil.
Courtesy of Sunil. Lots of good stuff here.
Cardinals slugger Albert Pujols just launched an opposite-field home run off Nationals pitcher Jordan Zimmermann. It was his 400th career long-ball.
Pujols is the 47th player to reach that feat and the third-youngest in baseball history, behind only Eddie Matthews and Alex Rodriguez. He is a .332/.426/.625 career hitter and has managed at least 30 home runs over his first 10 major league seasons.
Awesome. I knew he was young but didn’t realize he’d be the third-youngest ever to reach that plateau. <3 Albert Pujols.
Tedquarters 