Monthly Archives: November 2012

Off-Topic Tuesday has been cancelled… BECAUSE OF A MEGATRADE

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The planned “Off-Topic Tuesday” has been cancelled due to a shocking mega-trade: the Marlins have done it again. In their long history of firesales, they may have outdone themselves, trading almost every notable player they have not named Giancarlo Stanton, Ricky Nolasco or Logan Morrison for a bunch of prospects. Perhaps in a few years, should those prospects rise to become a good core, we will think this shrewd. However, right now, there are a few things to be noted:

1. Baseball in Miami has once again sustained a major wound.

2. They’ve alienated the one genuine star they have left:

3. The Blue Jays are now a legitimate power in the American League East, which will be even more of a madhouse than it was in 2012. 

 

More tomorrow.

BOOK REVIEW: “Baseball Is Just Baseball: The Understated Ichiro” by David Shields

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The most famous baseball player since 2001 is almost certainly Derek Jeter. But perhaps the most interesting player of the time period is Ichiro Suzuki. Or, rather, Ichiro… no last name needed. The first and greatest Asian everyday-player in MLB, Ichiro has dazzled with his quick baserunning, excellent defense, and the hitting that will lead him to be the first Japanese player to make it to Cooperstown.

And along the way, he’s amused and inspired baseball fans with his wit and wisdom. Perhaps it is because of his unique perspective on our culture, perhaps it is because of the way his translator interprets what he says in his native tongue, or maybe he just has a good way with words. But no matter what, through the years, Ichiro has been giving the world some great quotes. They have ranged from profound life-mottoes like “Failure is the mother of success,” to insults, such as “If I ever saw myself saying I’m excited going to Cleveland, I’d punch myself in the face, because I’m lying.” {sic}

(Ouch!)

For that reason, Baseball Is Just Baseball: The Understated Ichiro, by David Shields, is a book that, had it not existed, somebody would have had to create it. Originally published in 2001- Ichiro’s debut year on our shores- this new edition from Blue Rider Press (part of the Penguin Group) adds more quotes (bringing it up to his arrival with the Yankees) and a introduction by the author.

And, overall, it is a great read, providing the reader with bite-sized amounts of Ichiro wisdom. Starting with Shields’ introduction, which talks about how he first came to love watching Ichiro play, Baseball Is Just Baseball is a non-stop love letter to the outfielder, almost entirely made out of quotes by him, with some anecdotes here and there to provide context.

If the quotes had been simply placed in a random order, or even in some type of chronological order, the book may have seemed disjointed. Thankfully, however, Shields instead collects the quotations in a somewhat flowing style, where each quote is connected to those around them. The quote about Cleveland, for example, comes immediately after a quote about a time he missed a fly ball in Cleveland. This gives it something of a “plot” to follow, watching many of the quotes merge into each other and connect, showing how Ichiro’s opinions have shifted or have remained the same and also providing some humor to the proceedings (such as the aforementioned Cleveland quote).

However, it isn’t perfect. For one thing, it is heavily weighted towards quotes from Ichiro’s early years, likely a result of how this book was originally written in 2001. In addition, those who expect it to be a biography would end up being greatly disappointed- although Baseball Is Just Baseball makes no claim to being such a book.

However, all-and-all, I would recommend this book, especially for fans of Ichiro or of good baseball quotes.

FULL DISCLOSURE: THE COPY OF THIS BOOK USED FOR THIS REVIEW WAS PROVIDED TO ME BY THE PUBLISHER.

Random Video of the Undetermined Amount Of Time: Chicks Dig the Long Ball

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The 90s. Clinton was president, Super Nintendo was awesome, MTV still showed music videos, people were all fascinated by this new “internet” and, of course, there were a ton of home runs.

Nike knew this, and made a commercial to honor this age of homers. Of course, we now know that the long ball may not have been because of the shoes, but because of something else. But anyway, from the 90s, here’s the classic Nike commercial: “Chicks Dig the Long Ball”.

Coming up this week on the Baseball Continuum:

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Coming this week:

SUNDAY: A random video of the undetermined amount of time.

MONDAY: A review of Baseball Is Just Baseball: The Understated Ichiro by David Shields.

TUESDAY: Off-topic Tuesday and a WBC pool preview

WEDNESDAY: A WBC Qualifying pool preview

THURSDAY-SATURDAY: TBD

The More You Know: What is the Posting System?

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One of the big things in the baseball news today is that the Dodgers are the winning bidder for the rights to negotiate with Ryu Hyun-Jin, one of the best pitchers in Korea.

This is the result of the posting system between MLB and the baseball leagues of Asia, most notably the NPB but also the KBO, where Hyun-Jin is coming from. Essentially, it is a way to compensate Asian teams when their players head to America. It also benefits the player. You see, while a player in Asia can go wherever he wants if he is a free agent, it takes longer there to become a free agent, so the posting system allows them the chance to come to America while they are young and presumably in their prime.

It works like this: the team has to decide to post a player. Whether they do so is up to them, although the player can ask to be posted. There is then a period of blind bidding for the player: every MLB team can theoretically bid for the player, but they have no idea what the other teams are bidding.

When the bidding is over, the MLB team is then able to negotiate with the player. If they reach a deal before the deadline, the money they spent with the bid is sent to the Asian team, and the player comes over to the USA to play with the agreed upon salary. If there is no deal made, then the player goes back to Asia and nobody gets any money.

The posting system is controversial, as it puts a lot of risk to the teams (if they make a mistake, they’ve drained a ton of money into that mistake) and favors the big market teams in America (it’s highly unlikely you will ever see, say, the Kansas City Royals, get the services of a top play through the posting system). However, for now, it is essentially the only way for young Asian players to come to our shores.

And now you know!

Now up: The Glossary

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I sometimes use a lot of acronyms and words that some may be confused by. Therefore, I have created a glossary that can be found at the top of the page.

Let me know if there is anything you want to be defined.

Some presidential quotes about baseball for Election Day

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In the spirit of Election Day, a bipartisan collection of quotes about baseball, with a quote from every president since Taft, with the exception of Wilson, Harding and Lyndon Johnson, who didn’t have good baseball quotes. A big ups to the Baseball Almanac page on Presidents and baseball for being the source of most of these quotes:

“Saturday’s game was a fine one, but several times when a hit meant a run, the batter was ordered to bunt. I believe they should hit it out. I love the game when there is plenty of slugging.” – President William Howard Taft

“I do not suppose all the youth of America would care to be big league ballplayers, but I know they all would profit if the character of Walter Johnson was emulated by them.” – President Calvin Coolidge

“Next to religion, baseball has furnished a greater impact on American life than any other institution.” – President Herbert Hoover (who also was once notably serenaded with chants of “We Want Beer!” by Prohibition-era Philadelphia fans)

“I honestly feel that it would be best for the country to keep baseball going.” – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (in the Green Light Letter)

“May the sun never set on American baseball.” – President Harry S. Truman

“When I was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing and as we sat there in the warmth of the summer afternoon on a river bank, we talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I told him that I wanted to be a real major league baseball player, a genuine professional like Honus Wagner. My friend said that he’d like to be President of the United States. Neither of us got our wish.” -President Dwight D. Eisenhower (who may have played in the minors under an assumed name.)

“They said that I was too young to be president and you were too old to be playing baseball. We fooled them!” – President John F. Kennedy (to Stan Musial before the 1962 All-Star Game)

“I never leave a game before the last pitch, because in baseball, as in life and especially politics, you never know what will happen.” – President Richard Nixon

“I had a life-long ambition to be a professional baseball player, but nobody would sign me.” – President Gerald Ford (who did have a chance to become a professional football player, but who didn’t sign)

“For at least five generations, our family members have been avid baseball fans. We were particularly proud of Ty Cobb, a fellow Georgian, and simply let the negative aspects of his character fade into relative unimportance when compared to his achievements on the diamond. It was with mixed emotions that we observed Pete Rose getting his 4,192nd hit on Sept. 11, 1985, breaking one of Cobb’s seemingly invulnerable records. But we recognized Rose’s extraordinary spirit and determination. Few players ever made greater use of their natural talents or brought more enthusiasm to the game.” – President Jimmy Carter, in a 1995 editorial calling for Pete Rose’s reinstatement

“There were several other stations broadcasting that game and I knew I’d lose my audience if I told them we’d lost our telegraph connections so I took a chance. I had (Billy) Jurges hit another foul. Then I had him foul one that only missed being a home run by a foot. I had him foul one back in the stands and took up some time describing the two lads that got in a fight over the ball. I kept on having him foul balls until I was setting a record for a ballplayer hitting successive foul balls and I was getting more than a little scared. Just then my operator started typing. When he passed me the paper I started to giggle – it said: ‘Jurges popped out on the first ball pitched.’” -President Ronald Reagan, reminiscing about his time as a announcer for the Chicago Cubs (working from telegraph reports to recreate the game)

“Once, after an especially strong day at bat in a game at Raleigh, North Carolina, I was 3 for 5 with a double and triple, and a scout approached me as I left the field. That the first and last nibble I ever got from the pros.”- President George H.W. Bush (who met Babe Ruth when he visited Yale at the time Bush was the baseball team’s captain)

“Clearly they are not capable of settling this strike without an umpire.” – President Bill Clinton (on the strike of 1994)

“The most exciting way for a World Series game to end would be with a great throw from the outfield to nail a runner at home. The play would require three players (the outfielder, an infielder and the catcher) to make a good play.” – President George W. Bush (former owner of the Texas Rangers)

“Now, it’s been nine years since your last title, which must have felt like an eternity for Yankees fans, I think other teams would be just fine with a spell like that.The Cubs, for example.” -President Barack Obama, noted White Sox fan, to the New York Yankees during their visit to the White House after the 2009 season

Off-Topic Tuesday: One Last Thing on Star Wars…

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There was one last piece of advice I wanted to give Disney about their purchase of LucasFilm and Star Wars, which I didn’t really think about until after I had hit the “submit” button of the previous post on the subject. That piece of advice has to do with Episode VII, and it is simple:
Don’t make it about Luke, Leia, Han, Etc. At least, not directly.

For one thing, there’s the practical matter that the actors from the original trilogy are, well, old now. It’d be one thing if this was 20 years ago, or if this was a cartoon instead of live-action, but it’d probably be next to impossible to do any immediate follow-up to the original films. To actually recast the films would be to court disaster (although, then again, James Bond does it all the time). There have been countless video games, books, etc. that have been made that serve as de-facto sequels to the movies, so it’s not like there isn’t stuff out there already, I guess. And, finally, George Lucas has long said that, as soon as he started doing the prequels, that Star Wars was ultimately about Anakin Skywalker, his fall, and how his son went on to defeat and redeem him. Everything else was basically window dressing. So, basically, the story is done.

But what if the story became the story? Yes, the story of Anakin Skywalker and son may be done, but then again, things are never truly done. WWI and WWII have long been over, but the ramifications from them are still felt today. Great religious figures and philosophers may have been gone for centuries, but they remain important due to their teachings or deeds.

So, I think Disney should do this: it’s a “long time ago in a galaxy far, far away”, but it’s not quite as long ago. Instead, it’s been centuries since Return of the Jedi. Luke, Leia, Darth Vader, Han Solo, R2-D2, etcetra have faded into myth and legend, the Force has been all but forgotten, and the galaxy is no longer ruled by an empire or republic, but instead split between a half-dozen nations (none of them particularly nice), nations which are caught in seemingly endless cycles of war over resources, trade routes or simple hatred. Our protagonist would live under the rule of a draconian space-country, an heir to the Empire of the original trilogy, with a dash of North Korea in for good measure. He (or she) would be a teenager who hoped to have a better life but who was drafted into the Empire’s military. Growing up, he and his friends turned to tales of “The Skywalkers” (a family of heroes and villains who ultimately brought on a new hope and unified the galaxy). However, there is no room in the empire for such stories of rebellion and freedom, and so everyone, even our hero, have it drilled into them that they are just that: silly stories, with no place in reality. But the hero, deep down, still believed in them, and as a child had even said to have seen the Skywalkers and their allies as “ghosts” in his dreams. That, however, was years ago…

But then, one day, after being forced to lead an attack on a innocent civilization, our hero comes across an interesting spoil of war: a small android with a faded white and blue paint-job. Thinking it would make a nice mechanic for his I-Wing fighter, he takes it. But then, as he fiddles with it, the ancient droid sends out holograms at him of grand battles in space, of princesses and smugglers and light-saber fights, and then, finally, the droid shows him a hologram of an aged Jedi Master who says: “My name is Luke Skywalker, and I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

The hero realizing that the tales are true, and that perhaps he can make a difference. He practically begs the droid to show him more, and show him how, even calling the droid “Threepio” (the legends of the Skywalkers had gotten a bit confused over the centuries). The droid, after correcting him by showing a hologram of the real C-3PO identifying him as R2-D2, then displays a map (presumably to some sort of location from the Skywalker legends) and dispenses a “gift” to the hero: a light-saber.

And so the adventure begins…
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I’d totally watch a movie like that.

My WBC Projections as of Nov. 4, 2012

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One of the most popular parts of the Baseball Continuum have been the WBC roster projections. Therefore, here’s a look at my roster projections so far, with links to the most recent versions of each roster, in descending order of freshness (the higher up they are, the more recent the roster projection):

Dominican Republic (Version 2.0)

United States of America  (Version 2.00001)

The Netherlands

Australia

Canada

Panama

Puerto Rico

Mexico

Venezuela

 

The following countries are in various stages of projection development: Japan, Cuba, Korea, Taipei, revamps of Canada, Mexico, Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

WBC 2013 Projections: Dominican Republic Version 2.0

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My previous projections for the Dominican Republic are now rather out-of-date due to injuries, etc. So, here are new projections, taking into account new developments as well as injuries that might take out certain players. Like the USA projections, this is a ground-up rebuild, and not simply a cut-and-paste with changes.

The usual rules:

  • Any player coming off a major injury or who has a history of injuries is unlikely to participate. This is especially true for the pitchers.
  • Players that will be on new teams are less likely to participate, but shouldn’t be completely ignored, with the exception of pitchers.
  • Teams are made up of 28 players, of which 13 of them must be pitchers and two of them catchers.
  • The pitch count rules make relievers extremely important.

So, after the jump, my projections for the Dominican Republic WBC team:

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