Tag Archives: baseball

Some stuff you should probably read

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Some things I recommend you read:

On the new commissioner, his challenges, and the bloc that was against him:

Other stuff:

 

Random Thoughts (August 3, 2014)

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Some random thoughts this Sunday, some of them on baseball, some of them not:

1. I wish that that “double no-hitter” last night had continued past the seventh inning. That truly would have been a sight to see. Only once has there been a no-hitter both ways after nine innings, by the way.

2. I still can’t believe how bad Ruben Amaro Jr. is at his job as Phillies GM, at least as far as the last few years go. It makes the glory days of the late-aughts seem a million years ago, and the lack of prospects in the wings means it could be a long road back, especially if he continues to refuse to flip what few trade pieces he has left.

3. It’s good to see Manny Machado has once again become Manny Machado instead of that slumping guy from the first half who got hurt and threw his bat in anger. One of these days he will literally throw out a man at first while standing on the wall that separates the field from the seats.

4. It’s going to take awhile to get used to David Price being in a Tigers uniform.

5. A video you should see of a one-armed pitcher in a youth all-star game.

6. It’s over a week old now, but I still recommend “An Idiot in Exile” by Pat Jordan, on Johnny Damon’s post-playing days.

7. It is truly sad to see Jim Kelly as he is now, but also truly inspiring to see him continue on despite his cancer.

8. Guardians of the Galaxy is a fun (and funny) movie and I think you all should go see it.

 

Some stuff at the bottom in the August 2, 2014 Continuum Baseball Rankings

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It’s been awhile, but it’s time to update the Continuum Baseball Rankings! The C-Levels of the European Championships took place recently, and since it included previously-included Continuum Rankings teams like Israel, Ireland and Slovenia and involved senior teams (i.e. the best players they could round up given circumstances), it counts in the Rankings! Of course, the best players that these teams could get aren’t necessarily that great (the best rosters in this tournament would probably be beaten by fairly good D3 college teams)- Israel didn’t have Minor League ringers this time around like in the WBC Qualifiers, for example. But still, it counts, and Israel won it.

So, the movements in this installment (all at the bottom of the rankings, more or less):

  • Slovenia and Ireland swapped places, with Slovenia (which finished 2nd in the tournament) taking 47th while Ireland (4th) fell to 48.
  • Romania entered the rankings at 49, pushing Mongolia (inactive) back to 50.
  • Finland, Latvia, Hungary and Norway made their Rankings debut, being 51, 52, 53, and 54, respectively. Norway is now the lowest-rated team in the Rankings, and would, if they were to face a Senior USA team (which could mean anything from Indy Leaguers all the way up to MLB-filled WBC teams), lose over 99.39% of the time.

 

Lastly, a note about methodology: To make updates a bit more active, I am considering making it so that the Rankings cover everything 18 and over. This would bring in results by college teams and the like. Such a change won’t be made until 2015, but it’s something to note.

 

Anyway, current rankings are after the jump:

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How to Tell if a Deadline Deal is Real in Five Easy Steps (Humor)

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1. Is it not past the Trade Deadline?

It ended 4:00 PM today, Eastern. So if somebody around midnight starts squawking on Twitter that Marlon Byrd is Bronx-bound or that the Dodgers have shipped Matt Kemp somewhere, they are WRONG. In theory such things could happen if they put them through waivers first, but it’s unlikely to happen this soon after the non-waiver deadline.

2. Is it an actual account?

Because, really, if MLB Network, Jim Bowden and ESPN all fell for various fake Twitter accounts today, so can you. Before you retweet that hot news about Joe Superstar going to City X for Prospect Z, check to see how many followers that account has (I’m going to doubt that the real Buster Olney only has 12 followers), and whether the seemingly-lower-case “L” at the end of “Rosenthal” is actually a upper-case “i” or a | symbol. Unusual spaces in the name or unprofessional profiles are also another clue.

3. Are other people confirming it? Is the team confirming it?

If all of Baseball Twitter is in agreement that the trade has happened, it probably is true. If the team says it happened, it definitely is true.

4. Don’t get fooled by obviously fake trades. The Yankees and Red Sox haven’t traded with each other one-on-one since 1997 and they aren’t going to start now.

Wait… what?

5. Also, assume any trade by Ruben Amaro Jr. of the Phillies is fake, especially if it involves any players from the team’s late-aughts glory years.

Because, seriously, after this year, I’ve come to the conclusion that Amaro won’t get rid of them until they retire.

Future Possibilities for International Games

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At the start of the season, regular season games were held in Sydney, Australia.* Whether you like it or not, it was not the first and won’t be the last time that MLB opened overseas. But, where will MLB go next? Here’s an overview of possibilities:

 

* This was partly written immediately following those games, but fell by the wayside until now, so here it is.

A Return to the Tokyo Dome

Used under Creative Commons license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en), taken by “DX Broadrec”.

Location: Tokyo, Japan

Baseball Pedigree: Has hosted baseball since it opened in 1988, home of the Yomiuri Giants, hosted WBC games in 2006, 2009 and 2013, hosted MLB season-opener games in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012. Japan is one of the preeminent baseball nations on Earth and host to the world’s 2nd most prominent baseball league.

Capacity: Between 42,000 and 55,000 (depending on configuration)

Pros: Japan is baseball-mad, has shown it can pack the stadium for MLB games, and the Tokyo Dome is highly-familiar to MLB officials and some players thanks to it’s many previous MLB-related events. Being a dome makes weather considerations non-existent, and Tokyo’s status as one of the world’s greatest cities allows for plenty for players to do when not playing.

Cons: It’s been done before several times, it’s a type of stadium that has been phased out of MLB, and, while this isn’t much of a factor that MLB cares about much, there is the time difference issue, with night games in Tokyo being early morning games in the Eastern USA and very, very, very early morning games in the western part of the USA.

Likelihood of return: It’s inevitable that MLB will return to Japan again sometime in the future, the question is whether the Tokyo Dome is the place it will happen. More-than-likely yes, but I’ll be looking at other possible Japanese sites later on.

(HIT THE JUMP FOR THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE)

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New Link: Just A Bit Outside

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A new link now on the Continuum: “Just A Bit Outside”. From Fox Sports, it’s a site somewhat in the vein of Grantland, Sports On Earth, or SI’s MMQB site, only unlike those, this one only focuses on baseball. Already it has some neat stories up, so check it out.

Some stuff from the past week you should probably read

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Here are some things from the past week that could make for some good reading if you have time:

First off, a long read on Tom Emanski and his baseball videos (and the endless commercials that stemmed from them) from Erik Malinowski.

The ever-great Joe Posnanski on Glen Perkins and his appearance in the All-Star Game.

An excellently written but extremely distubring story by Greg Hanlon on Mel Hall, professional ballplayer and pedophilic sexual predator. Needless to say… it’s not a happy story. Like… at all.

The Midseason GIF Awards.

And, of course, my look at Mr. Go.

BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE: “Mr. Go” is about a GORILLA PLAYING BASEBALL IN KOREA

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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.

Oh boy.

I have covered many strange things on Bizarre Baseball Culture over time. There was the story about baseball in 2044, there was the Pokémon episode, the comic where the hero basically uses PEDs, the comic where Billy The Marlin and Spider-Man had to save Jeff Conine from Doctor Doom, and, of course, all of those “Ultimate Sports Force” comics. But perhaps none can compare to the 2013 Korean/Chinese epic that is… Mr. Go. 

Yes, Mr. Go. A film much beloved by people throughout the baseball internet for the sheer curiosity factor of those blog posts at places like Big League Stew last year, but rarely actually seen by it. I, however, was able to procure a copy of the film, in the form of a DVD from Hong Kong, acquired from a Canadian seller on eBay. All for you, the readership of the Baseball Continuum (and anybody who found this link).

So, buckle up, because below the jump, we dive deep on Mr. Go. Prepare yourself, because gorilla baseball, MLB cameos, banana-shaped thunderstix, pizza commercials, a bullpen-cart chase and other madness awaits you:

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5 Thoughts on The 2014 All-Star Game

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1. That was an enjoyable All-Star Game. Not all of them are. Some of them are slogs that you just want to end so that people can stop complaining about it and where it’s obvious at least some of the players who have left the game have also left the stadium to get a flight back to their hometown or their usual team. But this year, it seemed like everybody was actually enjoying themselves.

2. Okay, there were a few blots. The whole controversy over Adam Wainwright grooving a ball for Derek Jeter, for example, which could all be avoided if the whole home-field advantage thing was dropped (it’s believed Chan-Ho Park did something similar for Ripken in 2001, but there wasn’t home-field at stake then, so nobody cared). And, of course, there was the fact that they went the entire broadcast and not once mentioned Tony Gwynn, apparently having kept all the tributes to him in the pre-game on Fox Sports 1, which nobody was watching. I feel like MLB should have some sort of “In Memoriam” montage in the 4th or 5th inning of every All-Star Game, personally. But that doesn’t happen, so it falls to the announcers to pay tribute, and it’s sad that the passing of a man who was a fixture of the All-Star Game for years didn’t get even a mention.

3. As for the game’s theme? Well, it seems like La Opinion in Los Angeles summed it up:

Screen Shot 2014-07-16 at 11.20.12 AMDerek Jeter is leaving. It’s going to be Mike Trout’s league. He deserved the MVP last night, much like he deserved the last two AL MVPs that he didn’t get and will probably deserve the AL MVP he’ll get this year barring injury or some other unforeseen circumstance. He’s going to be the Face of Baseball, the most common ballplayer in commercials (such as the ones for Subway and Major League Baseball itself that he is in now), the ballplayer even people who never watch baseball will be able to name. It was going to happen anyway (especially if Bryce Harper doesn’t pick up the slack) but last night confirmed it.

4. It was nice that Glen Perkins and Kurt Suzuki, the two Minnesota Twins in the game, got to have a spotlight in the 9th as Perkins came in to close in front of his home (and hometown) fans. Sort of surprised that they didn’t bring in Suzuki as a pinch-hitter in the 8th to give the home fans an at-bat by a Twin, though.

5. All five runs by the AL came off Cardinals pitching, so if the Cardinals make it to the World Series and lose in 7, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

That was the worst Home Run Derby of the Modern Derby Era, but I know how we can save it.

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Well, that stunk. Oh, sure, the 2014 Home Run Derby had it’s moments, but in my mind at least, it was the worst Derby since the Modern Derby Era began when ESPN started showing it live instead of on tape delay.

And I think the problem was format. Oh, sure, there were other things wrong: the rain was totally outside of everyone’s control, of course, and Target Field was never going to be the place to give us one of those Derbies that remind us why they hold the event in the first place (such as the 1999 one in Fenway, or Abreu’s performance in Pittsburgh or Hamilton’s in New York). But, mostly, it was the format.

Oh, sure, the new format of having brackets leading up to a showdown between the best HR hitter of each lead seemed good in theory, but in practice, it stunk. Mainly because it forgot the main reason we watch the Derby: to see lots and lots of dingers, especially those from BP legends like Giancarlo Stanton, who can (and did) send balls into parts of the stadium you never even knew existed.

With the bracket format, however, Stanton and Jose Bautista sat around a lot, and by the time they got back from their bye, they were rusty, and the now-truncated 7 outs (instead of 10) didn’t really give them much time to warm up. The result? Last night saw us see a lot of Todd Frazier (who isn’t bad, but is far, far from a Giancarlo Stanton, HR-wise) and very little Stanton and Bautista. Only the fact Yoennis Cespedes was still going throughout the whole thing kept it from being a total snoozefest.

So, here’s my idea on how they can fix the HR Derby:

9 Players: 4 AL, 4 NL and one Wild Card

Having “Captains” pick teams has been more good than bad, so that can stay, but for sake of time the number of players overall should go down. So, instead of picking four teammates, as they did this season, they will only pick three, as they did in previous years. However, a “Wild Card” spot would be added, to be decided upon by the powers that be. It could be a prospect who has impressed (like Joey Gallo), it could be a recently-retired slugger who probably still has some pop in his bat (imagine if Jim Thome, for example, had been swinging last night), or it could be for a MLB player who the captains just couldn’t find a spot for.

10 Outs, but Only 2 Rounds

Each batter would get 10 outs, but, to make the Derby shorter and less of a drag, there would only be two rounds: the first round of 9 (which would also act as a “AL vs. NL” round, with the winning team getting a bunch of dough for the captain’s charity), then a second, championship round of three.

And, hey, if they NEED to pad it out a little… why not have a third round of the top two who survive the round of three?

I’m just saying.