Category Archives: Uncategorized

Mr. Octobers of Last Night (Oct. 3, 2014)

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Game-by-game:

O’s-Tigers: Kevin Gausman and Delmon Young.

Nationals-Giants: Joe Panik and Jake Peavy.

Dodgers-Cardinals: Matt Carpenter and NOBODY (nobody pitched good enough last night this game to get a Mr. October)

Angels-Royals: Yordano Ventura and Eric Hosmer

 

Standings (PP= Position Player, P= Pitcher, * means eliminated from playoffs):

P Kevin Gausman 3

PP Delmon Young 3

PP Joe Panik 3

P Jake Peavy 3

PP Matt Carpenter 3

P Yordano Ventura 3

PP Eric Hosmer 3

P Andrew Miller 3

PP Nelson Cruz 3

PP Mike Moustakas 3

P Jered Weaver 3

PP Brandon Crawford 1

P Madison Bumgarner 1

PP Brandon Moss 1*

2014 ALDS and NLDS predictions

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Here are my predictions for the 2014 ALDS and NLDS series:

The Orioles are a good team and have a flare for the dramatic, and also seem to like giving the middle finger to any sort of baseball logic and sense. However, I do not think they can beat the Tigers rotation. Their only shot will be to get to the soft underbelly that is the Detroit bullpen. However, it’s entirely possible that the Tigers’ won’t give them that chance. Tigers in 4.

The Royals/Angels series is a bit less clear, partly because I haven’t seen them “live” as much as I’ve seen the O’s and Tigers, but also because they are very different teams (while the Orioles and Tigers have more-or-less the same approach as each other). The Royals, as we saw during the Wild Card game, are an old-style team that loves to bunt and steal, while relying on pitching to try and make up for all the times that might fail (the Royals actually were one of the worst teams in the league in certain offensive categories this season). The Angels are more of a standard modern team at the plate, with a big-name lineup that was the league’s most productive offense, led, of course, by Mike Trout. Their pitching, however, is nowhere near as big-name as their lineup. With such different teams going at each other, and with strengths going against strengths, this could be anyone’s series. That said, I think the Angels are the better overall team, so I think they will win it. Angels in 4.

The Cardinals/Dodgers matchup is one that has happened many times before- they are two of the flagship teams of baseball and stalwarts of the National League. They met last year in the NLCS and the Cardinals won in 6, but I think this time it’ll be different. The Cardinals no longer have postseason man-god Carlos Beltran, Michael Wacha is still recovering from injury (although certainly the Cardinals maintain a very deep rotation) and Yadier Molina isn’t fully healthy either. The Dodgers, meanwhile, now are another year wiser and experienced, and, oh, right, have Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke all nice and lined up to pitch in order. If not for the fact Hyun-Jin Ryu is going to be coming off an injury and that Dan Haren has long had trouble against the Cardinals, the starting rotation situation for the Dodgers would look almost as good as Detroit’s looks like against the Orioles.

While the Cardinals do have the advantage in bullpen, experience and overall team depth, all of that might mean diddly-squat, though, because this is a best-of-five series and to win the Cardinals will likely have to win at least two games against the 1-2 punch of Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke (there are rumors that Don Mattingley will try to go with a 3-man rotation). I don’t think they can, even with Adam Wainwright and Lance Lynn. Dodgers in 5.

The Nationals hold a edge against the Giants because  of the Wild Card game. Because the Giants had to play that, they probably won’t be able to have Bumgarner pitch until Game 3. Jake Peavy and Tim Hudson, of course, are also perfectly good (and Ryan Vogelsong has his moments), but they aren’t Bumgarner. The Nationals, meanwhile, will have Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann, Doug Fister and Gio Gonzalez. So, advantage in the rotation. Nationals also hold the advantage in offense, with a deeper lineup that features two players (Denard Span and Jayson Werth) who were top-10 in batting average in the NL this season and with Bryce Harper having heated up after the All-Star Break and Adam LaRoche. While you can never count out Buster Posey and the rest of the Giants, I feel like the Nationals will win in 4.

 

So, there you go.

Looking at the “Pace of Game” rules that will be experimented in the AFL

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The Arizona Fall League will, this year, be a test bed for some possible rule changes to speed up the pace of play in baseball. It is, of course, an important issue, and I’m glad to see that already some possible changes will be tested. So, let’s take a look at what we’ve got here:

 

Batter’s Box Rule: The batter shall keep at least one foot in the batter’s box throughout his at-bat, unless one of a series of established exceptions occurs, in which case the batter may leave the batter’s box but not the dirt area surrounding home plate. (Exceptions include a foul ball or a foul tip; a pitch forcing the batter out of the batter’s box; “time” being requested and granted; a wild pitch or a passed ball; and several others.)

 

A fine rule to start with. A chunk of the killed time these days is because batters step out to take some practice swings or adjust some equipment after nearly every pitch. So, on the surface, forcing hitters to stay in the box is good. However, there are some possible flaws, mainly in the fact there are a ton of exceptions, with the biggest one being the fact the batter can still call “time”. Yes, sometimes when a batter calls time it is for a good reason, but other times it is just so that they can do the aforementioned practice swings or adjustments. So, ultimately, this rule will only help if umpires cut down on unnecessary calls of “time”, otherwise the problem will remain, just in a different form.

(MORE AFTER THE JUMP)

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Yesterday’s Mr. Octobers (September 30, 2014)

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It’s time for the MR. OCTOBERs of Yesterday.

Here’s how it goes: instead of going by day, we’re going by game. Each game will have an MVP position player and an MVP pitcher. The amount of points given are as so: the MVPs of a Wild Card game get one point, MVPs of an LDS game get three points, MVPs of a LCS game get five points, and MVPs of World Series games get ten points. Points are doubled if it’s in a Game 5 in the LDS or Game 7 of the LCS or WS.

So, last night’s Mister Octobers were position player Brandon Moss (despite losing, he was clearly the best offensive player of the game) and young Brandon Finnegan, who’s extra-innings pitching were a revelation.

Standings so far (PP= Position Player, P= Pitcher, * means eliminated from playoffs):

PP Brandon Moss 1*

P Brandon Finnegan

Bizarre Baseball Culture: Cal Ripken orders the 2001 Yankees to Save The World

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

Wolverine of the X-Men has a habit of appearing in comics he technically isn’t supposed to be in, simply because he’s popular. Well, Cal Ripken is the Wolverine of Baseball Comic Books.  He’s joined forces with Batman, led the Shortstop Squad, and been the subject of a bio-comic. Also, like Wolverine, Cal Ripken seemed to be able to recover from any injury, no matter how severe. But, it’s the first similarity that I’m focusing on, because, in the comic I will be looking at today, Cal Ripken appears in a story about the 2001 New York Yankees being Superheroes.

Let that sink in. The New York Yankees, in a comic that they themselves ordered and gave away, still had Cal Ripken in their comic and had him on the cover too.

YanksCalCover

Entitled “Championship Challenge” and given out September 28, 2001, it stars, as you can see, four of the greatest stars the Yankees had that season. Mariano Rivera! Tino Martinez! Jorge Posada! And, of course, the Once and Future Captain, Derek Jeter himself. But, of course, we also see Cal RIpken on the cover, letting everybody know that the Iron Man will be there! With such Ultimate Sports Force stalwarts as Rick Licht writing and Brian Kong doing the art, this was partially made as part of the Ripken farewell celebration, and it becomes even more obvious when you realize that originally Ripken’s final series would have been at Yankee Stadium if not for the schedule reshuffling that MLB did after the 9/11 attacks.

Anyway, go below the jump to read about the story:

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Plenty of Movement in Sept. 24’s post-European Championship Continuum Baseball Rankings

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The European Baseball Championships are over, and were won by the Netherlands. So it’s time for a new round of the Continuum Baseball Rankings! Go to that link for an explanation about them.

This takes into account both the overall results of the tournament as well as head-to-head matchups during it.

Anyway, there was plenty of movement in the rankings because of the tournament. The Dutch, for example, are once again in fifth place, overtaking Taiwan/Taipei. The biggest jump was made by the Belgians, however, who as I predicted earlier have begun to move up the ladder, jumping from 55 to 50. The biggest drop came for Great Britain, which went from 24th to 27th as a result of their play at the European Championships.

It won’t be too long before yet another update of the Rankings, as the Asian Games baseball competition is going on right now- although it should be noted that that will only take into account results for teams that sent professional players or their closest national equivalent.

 

Go below the jump to see the rankings:

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Roger Maris’ golf clubs could be yours!

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It’s that time again for unusual finds on eBay. This time, it’s not a mascot costume that stood next to a baseball legend, but rather a non-baseball sports item used by a baseball legend. One who, while not a Hall of Famer, long held the most famous single-season record in sports and in the minds of many still deserves to hold it.

Yes, you can buy the golf clubs of Roger Maris. And they were made by Hillerich and Bradsby, AKA Louisville Slugger!

Screen Shot 2014-09-21 at 12.35.03 PMI’m not entirely sure why you’d want them, especially for the 9-thousand-dollar price. I mean, there is the weird curiosity factor that Mr. 61-in-61 held those golf clubs, but just having them isn’t going to suddenly make you him, and it’s not like they hold any sort of baseball history value either, as a bat or a glove would.

But, hey, I’m not the one buying them…

(By the way, the Babe and George Didrikson Zaharias Foundation also has Joe DiMaggio’s driver for auction. That’s only 800 bucks!)

Bizarre Baseball Culture: Trying to find any sort of meaning in Blue Bolt V9 #1

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

The “Dick Cole” story in Blue Bolt (Volume 9) #1 is one of the most pedestrian stories I’ve ever featured here. There are no superheroes, science fiction elements, cartoon elements, or unintentionally hilarious outdated views on concussions. And yet, it is also just like a ton of other stories, in that it’s about somebody trying to fix a amateur game of baseball. So, in search of any way to make this interesting whatsoever, I’m going to look at this from various perspectives, trying to find any sort of meaning in it.

Here’s what I mean:

Back in college, we learned all about stuff like close reading and literary criticism, and more-or-else I realized that anybody can find anybody if they look closely enough. A Marxist, looking at Wizard of Oz close enough, will be able to find enough things to make him or her claim that it’s a Marxist work. Feminists looking at the same thing can also find something that will make them claim it is a feminist work. Still others can find meaning by looking at something psychoanalytically. There are countless others as well. Symbolism! Biography! Deconstructionism! Post-Modernism!

So, surely some sort of meaning in this story can be found by looking at it from various ways… right?

Right?

In the public domain, it is the first story here. So, from June 1948 and Novelty Press, it’s the Dick Cole story from Blue Bolt (Volume 9) #1.

Here’s the cover, the rest is after the jump:

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GO BELOW THE JUMP FOR MORE!

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Your 2014 Baltimore Orioles, AKA “Where The Hell Did These Guys Come From?”, a Q&A

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Last night, the Orioles won, walking off the Yankees in the 9th to lower their magic number to 3. It seems all but inevitable that they will clinch their first AL East pennant since 1997 within the next few days, perhaps as early as tomorrow.

And yet, many are likely asking: “Where the hell did these guys come from?”

It’s not a bad question, as the Orioles have continued to win, even after losing not one (Matt Wieters), not two (Manny Machado), but three former or current All-Stars to either injury or, in Davis’ case, suspension. In fact, if anything, they seem to have gotten better with every big player they’ve lost.

So, to answer some questions about the Orioles, here’s a Q&A:

Okay, so, the Orioles do still have Adam Jones and Nick Markakis, right?

Yes. They do.

And both of them were actually developed in the Orioles farm system?

Only half correct. Markakis was 100% home grown, but Adam Jones was originally in the Mariners system and was acquired in a trade for Erik Bedard back in 2008.

Oh, bummer for the Mariners. Anybody else from that trade on the Orioles roster?

Chris Tillman. Currently 12-5 with a 3.29 ERA.

Wow, the Mariners really screwed that up, didn’t they?

Yes, yes they did.

By the way, alongside Tillman, the Orioles rotation has done pretty good this year, what’s their story?

Wei-Yin Chen, a lefty who is currently 15-4 with a 3.59 ERA and some of the best control in the league (he has had the 5th lowest percentage of BB/9 in the AL this year), was acquired from Japan, where he was a member of the NPB Chunichi Dragons. Before that, he played in his native Taiwan.

Ubaldo Jimenez was acquired as a free agent this last offseason, and has not lived up to his $50 million dollar contract, with a ERA approaching five. It’s highly unlikely he’ll be a starter during the postseason.

Bud Norris was acquired from Houston in 2013 in a trade for L.J. Hoes and a minor leaguer.

Miguel Gonzalez was signed as a free agent in 2012, having never reached the Majors during his time in the Angels or Red Sox systems. He’s 9-8 with a 3.28 ERA.

And, finally, there is Kevin Gausman, the lone member of the starting rotation who is 100% Orioles. Although he was up and down between Baltimore and AAA Norfolk this year, at least some of that had more to do with taking advantage of MLB service time rules than his actual performance (he has a perfectly respectable 3.57 ERA). Only 23 and one of the top prospects for Baltimore, he loves powdered donuts and has a fastball that can hit triple digits at times.

Hang on, so those five guys and Chris Tillman have been the Orioles rotation this year? It looks like a bunch of guys who’d be mid-rotation guys on other teams.

Yeah. Feels that way, doesn’t it? In fact, if you were to look at FanGraphs’ pitching WAR leaders, you don’t see an Oriole until you get to 47 on the list- Tillman, who’s just ahead of Kyle Gibson of the Twins. If you were to look at the rotation’s FIP (Fielding-Independent Pitching, basically what a pitcher’s ERA would be like if they were pitching in laboratory settings with average fielding, luck, etc.), you’d see none of them have one under 4.

So, perhaps the Orioles’ rotation is playing over it’s head, getting lucky and taking advantage of the offense supporting them and the defense behind them. Another way to look at it, though, would be that perhaps having 5 steady mid-rotation guys is better than having one or two aces followed by more questionable pitching. I don’t know.

Okay, enough about pitchers? How about the long-ball?

Nelson Cruz was probably among this past off-season’s best free agent signings, as he’s worked his way from PED-suspended disgrace and poor fielder to dinger-pounding DH (currently 39 on the season), although he has cooled off significantly in the second half of the season, only hitting 11 of the 39 after the All-Star Break.

Go on…

The next highest number of home runs on the Orioles is 26, by Chris Davis, who isn’t available. Adam Jones has been having a good power year, though, and is currently at 25 homers for the year. Steve Pearce, a super-utility/backup 1B/backup OF, has been having a career year at the plate with 17 HRs. He’s another good free agent signing.

Say, where did the Orioles get JJ Hardy, again?

They acquired him from the Twins in 2010 for such immortals as Jim Hoey and Brett Jacboson.

Who?

Exactly.

So, who is Jonathan Schoop and how do I say his last name?

He’s a international free agent signing from Curaco, a member of the WBC Honkballers, long one of the top infield prospects in the Orioles system, and his last name is pronounced like “scope”.

Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Now, where’d the bullpen come from?

The bullpen is basically made up of failed starting pitching prospects. Closer Zach Britton? He was a starter coming up. Same for Brian Matusz, Tommy Hunter (Hunter was initially a starter for the Rangers, and was acquired in the same deal that brought Chris Davis to Baltimore) and Andrew Miller (who the Orioles acquired in July from Boston). Only Darren O’Day has never started a game in the big leagues. He, by the way, was taken off waivers from the Rangers back in 2011.

So, anybody else notable?

Delmon Young. David Lough. Ryan Flaherty. The Orioles have plenty of guys who you know you remember still being in the league but can’t quite remember much about. Well, Ryan Flaherty has been with the Orioles since he was acquired in the 2011 Rule 5 draft, but still.

So, really, how are the Orioles doing this?

They made some good acquisitions, a good bullpen and lineup, and the pitching is good enough. Also, they sacrificed Wieters’ UCL and Machado’s knee to the baseball gods. Only rational explanation.

Off-Topic (Not on a Tuesday or Thursday): Super Smash Brothers 3DS Demo Impressions/Observations

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Going on a completely-unrelated tangent here, here are my thoughts on the demo for Super Smash Brothers for the Nintendo 3DS. For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, Super Smash Brothers is a video game series in which the most famous video game characters in Nintendo’s pantheon (Mario, PIkachu, etc.) and occasionally characters from other companies (Sonic the Hedgehog, Pac-Man, etc.) beat the snot out of each other for fun and glory.

First off, it works, for the most part. I was worried about how the SSB franchise would translate into the handheld realm after being on home consoles up until now, but so far it seems pretty good. The controls take a bit to get used to and it certainly isn’t perfect, but it works well enough and the full version of the game will allow users to customize the controls.

Also, the screen is fine, even if you have a smaller 3DS. I have had few problems following the action in the demo, even with the smaller-screened 3DS I have. I still might want to eventually get the larger 3DS when it’s “new” incarnation comes out either late this year or sometime next year, but that’s more because of the fact it’ll have better battery life and be slightly more powerful.

The new characters playable in the demo (Mega Man and the Animal Crossing Villager) are a nice change of pace from the usual. The two new additions that are in the demo are Mega Man‘s titular character and the Villager from the Animal Crossing series. Both are a neat change from the usual. Mega Man, for example, lacks a physical “a-button” attack, instead merely shooting weak laser-pellets out of his handcannon, while the Villager has a bunch of unusual special attacks. One has him pocketing projectiles and then later throwing them back, another is launching a rocket that he can also ride, and still another has him plant a tree, water it, and then cut it down so that it falls on an opponent’s head. An interesting character to play as, and it’ll be interesting to see how long it takes to truly get a hang of him.

However, I feel like the 3DS version will just be an appetizer.  Oh, sure, it’ll be fun to play, but I think that once the Wii U version comes around, most people will focus on that, only playing the 3DS version when they are stuck waiting at an airport or otherwise on the go. The reason for this is because Smash has always been a home console game, played with the speakers blaring out some Nintendo classic hit as you see the action on a large screen, and with hands firmly around a true controller- in fact, Nintendo is even going to be releasing an adapter so that the old controllers still will be able to work. The fact that the Wii U version will be the first Smash in true HD is also a big plus that it has over the 3DS version.

 

More off-topic stuff on Super Smash Brothers as it is released.