Tag Archives: MLB

Argument: The Padres Are The Most Non-Descript Team In Baseball’s History

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Okay, I may be wrong here, and I’ll get to the point in a second, but far as I can tell, here’s what the “All-Time San Diego Padres” team would look like going by WAR, minimum five years with appearances on the team:

Starting Pitchers: Jake Peavy, Andy Ashby, Andy Benes, Randy Jones, Eric Show

Relievers: Trevor Hoffman, Heath Bell, Mark Davis, Scott Linebrink, Craig Lefferts, Luke Gregerson

Catchers: Terry Kennedy, Benito Santiago

First Basemen: Adrian Gonzalez, Nate Colbert, Ryan Klesko (also OF)

Second Basemen: Tim Flannery

Third Basemen: Chase Headley, Phil Nevin

Shortstops: Garry Templeton, Khalil Greene

Outfielders: Tony Gwynn, Dave Winfield, Gene Richards, Brian Giles

Tell me, oh reader, does that strike the fear of god into you? The answer: No, not really. I mean, yeah, it’s got two Hall of Famers and another likely one (Hoffman), but it doesn’t look like an “All-Time Team”, but rather a “Probably going to win a Wild Card if there aren’t too many injuries” type of team.

And that’s what leads me to this: The Padres may well be the most non-descript team in Baseball’s history. They aren’t good, they aren’t bad, they just usually seem to be… there, as if they exist only to make sure the schedule is full and that the divisions are even. Sometimes it seems as if they don’t even exist at all outside of box scores and the bottom-ticker of ESPN.

To put it another way: I once took a online quiz where I had to name all 30 MLB teams. The Padres were the last ones I remembered to put in.

And that’s why it is a bit surprising to see the Padres make so many deals this off-season- just yesterday they acquired Justin Upton and Will Middlebrooks, not long after they had acquired Matt Kemp and Wil Myers, leading me to say this:

But why is it in the first place that the Padres seem to far down in the Baseball Zeitgeist?

I have some ideas:

1) Lack of Postseason Success

The Padres have been to two World Series- 1984 and 1998. Both times, they got to play Washington Generals to some of the greatest teams in history, going down to the 1984 Tigers in five games and being swept by the 1998 Yankees. And the road to those World Series aren’t particularly notable outside of San Diego. The 1984 NLCS, for example, is more known for a Leon Durham E3 that set-up a big Padres inning that doomed the Cubs.

2) They traded away Ozzie Smith and Roberto Alomar

Fun fact: If I hadn’t had the “minimum five years” thing for the All-Padres team, the Shortstop would have been a young Ozzie Smith and his double-play partner would be a young Roberto Alomar. Problem for the Padres: they traded both of them away. And it’s not like they were nobodies treading around in the minors when the Padres traded them away- they were both traded coming off of All-Star seasons. One would think the Padres’ history wouldn’t be so nondescript if they had had them for most of their careers.

3) No No-Hitters

The Padres are the only team in baseball without a no-hitter. That means that they lack one of the signature moments that every other MLB team has.

4) They are crowded out

They share the same division as the Giants and Dodgers, who suck up almost all of the attention given to NL West. Not having the history of other “stuck in the division of giants” teams like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, or Cincinnati means that they look even more non-descript by comparison.

…

This is all a shame, really. They have a beautiful stadium and lovely weather, and San Diego has a good baseball culture (amateur, etc.) even if their team doesn’t get much attention outside of the area. Perhaps the Padres’ moves this off-season will finally get the franchise that big moment that we can remember it by.

The Best of 2014: Giancarlo Stanton’s $325 Million Dollars in perspective

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This article was originally published on November 15, 2014:

Giancarlo Stanton will, likely, get $325 million dollars in exchange for playing for the Miami Marlins for 13 more years (assuming he doesn’t get traded or opts out).

That, scientifically, is known as a buttload of money. How much money? Let’s go through it…

$500 Million: The value of the Miami Marlins, according to Forbes. Yes, Jeffrey Loria is basically saying that Giancarlo Stanton represents 65% of the value of the team itself.

It is over 20 times Babe Ruth‘s career earnings after inflation.

It is over 1.6 times Ken Griffey Jr.’s career earnings after inflation.

It is over 1.2 times Barry Bonds‘ career earnings after inflation.

$311 Million: The GDP of Sao Tome and Principe, a island nation in the Gulf of Guinea

$785.20: The amount of money every person in the City of Miami would receive if Giancarlo’s next contract was split up equally amongst them.

Giancarlo would be able to buy eight 1962-63 Ferrari 250 GTOs (which sold for $38 million dollars in August) with his proposed new contract’s money.

$294 Million: The cost, adjusted for inflation, of Titanic, the second most expensive (when adjusted for inflation) movie production of all time.

812.5 years: How long the President of United States would have to be in office to make that amount of money ($325 million) from the job.

$292,198,327: Total salary earnings (without inflation) of Shaquille O’Neil over his entire NBA career.

10: The number of NHL franchises, according to Forbes, with a value below $325 million dollars.

All of them: The number of MLS teams, according to Forbes, with a value below $325 million dollars. If he were in a soccer sort of mood, Giancarlo could afford to buy both the most and the third most valuable MLS team at the same time with the money he will earn over his next deal.

The original cost to build Fenway Park was $650,000 dollars, which is $15.9 million dollars when adjusted for inflation. That means that Giancarlo Stanton over the span of his hypothetical new contract would be able to build 20 Fenway Parks circa 1912, and he’d have enough money left to do just under half of a 21st.

$25 Million: How much Giancarlo would make in an average year under his new contract.

$10 Million: GDP of the island country of Niue. It would take Niue two and a half years of it’s entire gross domestic product to pay for one year of Giancarlo Stanton.

I don’t think anyone can imagine how big Mike Trout‘s deal will be if this is anything to go on.

Winter Meetings Tweets of the Day (December 11, 2014)

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Throughout the 2014 Winter Meetings, I’ll be showcasing the best tweets. Here are yesterday’s.

Yesterday was the last day of the Winter Meetings. Stuff happened.

For example, Mat Latos was traded to the Marlins, but along the way his wife nearly had a nervous breakdown:

https://twitter.com/DallasLatos/status/543067387395059712

https://twitter.com/DallasLatos/status/543070684373868544

https://twitter.com/DallasLatos/status/543073000929898496

https://twitter.com/DallasLatos/status/543075589360730113

https://twitter.com/DallasLatos/status/543086304645623809

Meanwhile, the many deals on the hot stove left some dazed, confused and at times sarcastically passive-aggressive:

https://twitter.com/clairbearattack/status/543090393403760640

The trade of Yoennis Cespedes, of course, gave those goofballs at the BBQ some material:

But, let us finish with the true meaning of season: Hank the Brewers Dog dressed as Santa.

https://twitter.com/JATayler/status/543084669827575808

Adorable.

Winter Meetings Tweets of the Day (December 10, 2014)

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Throughout the 2014 Winter Meetings, I’ll be showcasing the best tweets. Here are yesterday’s.

 

The Cubs’ many actions have led to many noting that Back To The Future II predicted they would win the 2015 World Series. Leading Jonah Keri to make this observation:

Confusion reigns at times during the Winter Meetings:

The Dodgers made their presence known again, with a Dee Gordon deal with the Marlins. Among those they got back is a rather unfortunately named infielder:

The best quote of the Meetings was given:

The Astros are being optimistic:

And those loveable goofballs at the BBQ hit the nail on the head:

Today is the final day of the Winter Meetings, and it’s already been busy. Come back tomorrow.

Winter Meetings Tweets of the Day (December 9, 2014): Waiting for Lester

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Throughout the 2014 Winter Meetings, I’ll be showcasing the best tweets. Here are yesterday’s.

Yesterday was about waiting for Jon Lester:

…And that’s just other people! I was on the story ALL DAY under the hashtag #HasLesterSignedYet:

But then… this morning:

Yes, Jon Lester is signed! And he’s a Cub!

 

Now maybe something else can happen today since he’s no longer holding up the entire free agent market.

Winter Meetings 2014 Tweets of the Day (December 8, 2014)

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Throughout the 2014 Winter Meetings, I’ll be showcasing the best tweets. Here are yesterday’s.

The Veterans’ Committee didn’t elect anyone. This was an outrage that Old Hoss Radbourn would not let stand… until he thought about it a little:

Meanwhile, the entire proceedings are in some ways being held up by the fact that everyone is waiting to see where Jon Lester goes, and also how much he gets. Problem is, the news on him. It’s been Lester, Lester, Lester. So much, in fact, that I think poor “Yakyu Night Owl” may have gotten a bit confused (or, more likely, he was just making a joke about the Lester-thon):

Meanwhile, the Athletics are getting rid of everybody in one of those firesales that Billy Beane has every few years. It continued yesterday, with Brandon Moss and (although not yet official) Jeff Samardzija leaving town. These are like Marlins firesales, only slightly less aggravating for baseball in general and the Athletics always end up back in the playoffs in about two or three years anyway. Still, Jessica Kleinschmidt had a warning for all fans of the Athletics:

Oh, and Marc Normandin poked fun at one of the great off-season cliches: “Kicking the Tires”:

 

Come back tomorrow to see Tuesday’s best Winter Meetings tweets.

THIS YEAR’S MYSTERY TEAM WILL BE THE ███████

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Next week, the Winter Meetings begin in Orlando San Diego. And while we no doubt will see funny images on MLB Network like Kevin Millar hanging out with Goofy at the Zoo and Brian Kenny trying to explain to Captain Jack Sparrow the Chicken why the win stat must be sent to Davey Jones’ locker  the slaughter, ultimately, it will be about one team. What team is that? Why, it’s the ██████████████!

Here’s how it will happen, of course:

The ██████████████, after all, will no doubt be the ones that will be rumored to be signing ███████████ on the first day, and the team that will be behind the massive three-team trade involving ██████████████████, █████████████, and ██████████████, which will feature ███████ and top prospect ███████, amongst others. Everybody will think the deal is nuts, but some will praise the ███████████’s GM, █████ ██████████, for his initiative and brilliant thinking. Others will call for his firing.

Meanwhile, the ██████████████’s current star, ███████ ███████, will then make a funny comment on Twitter about how he fell asleep in his █████████ home a few hours ago and is honestly wondering if he missed anything, and then make a second comment saying that this is the first time he heard about the ███████████ trade. It’ll be retweeted by everyone and become a meme, with people talking about how “█████████ is sleeping, make sure you do your deals now” or what-not. Everyone will be sick of it within 48 hours and it will then be resigned to the dustbin of baseball memes.

Then, however, a lull will fall upon Orlando San Diego for most of the second day. Instagrams of Joe Maddon walking around EPCOT SeaWorld and Alex Rodriguez showing up for reasons beyond mortal minds will fill the void while Ken Rosenthal is forced to tell Twitter people that A) he is taller enough to ride Space Mountain than a panda bear so stop asking and B) he’s too busy to go to Disney World the San Diego Zoo right now. But then, the ██████████████ will be rumored to have been talking to Scott Boras. But about who? The speculation will go throughout the day, until finally, we hear that █████████ has signed a deal! Except, it’ll turn out that that report is actually a fake account, and that ██████████ is actually going to somebody completely different.

Overnight, people will start talking about how lots of pizza is arriving at the ██████████████’s suite, and wonder whether this is proof that ██████████████ will be signing ████████. Nothing will really materialize, but, hey, it’ll kill time.

Then, later on, the ██████████████ will make that one final splash, signing ██████████. People will instantly declare them to be World Series favorites…

….and then, in 2015, they’ll miss the playoffs.

Whoops. Well, at least the ██████████████ will always have their great 2014-2015 offseason to remember.

(This article was originally published last year– hence the crossed-off parts)

Josh Donaldson is the best player most people aren’t familiar with

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In case you missed it, Josh Donaldson was traded from the Athletics to the Blue Jays in exchange for Brett Lawrie and prospects Kendall Graveman, Sean Nolin and Franklin Barreto. The wise among us immediately saw this as a great deal for the Blue Jays, at least in the short-term, and a puzzling one for the Athletics, at least in the short-term.

Then there were others who disagreed with these assessments. “Orioles Uncensored” perhaps had a good response to them:

While no doubt the people @OsUncensored was speaking to may have been Orioles fans who remember the Donaldson/Manny Machado spat of last year, the fact is that many people probably don’t truly understand how good a player Donaldson is. It’s not their fault, after all, Donaldson is a relative newcomer (he’s only played 405 career games) and has played his career in Oakland. His traditional stats aren’t too flashy (his career BA is .268), and last year was his first time as an All-Star.

So here’s a bit of a primer. Donaldson is a 28-year-old 3B (although he has played C in the past) from Florida, although he grew up and went to both High School and College (Auburn) in Alabama. He didn’t grab hold permanently in the majors until 2012, his age 26 season. He didn’t become the type of player who gets into headlines for being traded, though, until his sophomore season in 2013. He hit .301/.384/.499, and his WAR was second-best in the AL, behind only Mike Trout. While his averages were down in 2014, he still was the 2nd best in WAR in the AL, and he had the third best WAR overall across the past two seasons, behind only Trout and Andrew McCutchen. Why? Because WAR doesn’t just hitting- Donaldson is a spectacular fielder, winning the 2014 Fielding Bible Award (a more sabermetric version of the Gold Glove) while being credited with saving more than 30 runs since 2012. That, along with his hitting, make him one of the best 3B in the game.

And those offensive numbers that seem a bit low, by the way, will likely grow. He is now going from O.Co Coliseum- an infamous pitcher’s park- to Rogers Centre, where extra-base hits are plentiful and where the park factors are more favorable for the hitter.

So, that’s who Josh Donaldson is.

Giancarlo Stanton’s $325 Million Dollars in perspective

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Giancarlo Stanton will, likely, get $325 million dollars in exchange for playing for the Miami Marlins for 13 more years (assuming he doesn’t get traded or opts out).

That, scientifically, is known as a buttload of money. How much money? Let’s go through it…

$500 Million: The value of the Miami Marlins, according to Forbes. Yes, Jeffrey Loria is basically saying that Giancarlo Stanton represents 65% of the value of the team itself.

It is over 20 times Babe Ruth‘s career earnings after inflation.

It is over 1.6 times Ken Griffey Jr.’s career earnings after inflation.

It is over 1.2 times Barry Bonds‘ career earnings after inflation.

$311 Million: The GDP of Sao Tome and Principe, a island nation in the Gulf of Guinea

$785.20: The amount of money every person in the City of Miami would receive if Giancarlo’s next contract was split up equally amongst them.

Giancarlo would be able to buy eight 1962-63 Ferrari 250 GTOs (which sold for $38 million dollars in August) with his proposed new contract’s money.

$294 Million: The cost, adjusted for inflation, of Titanic, the second most expensive (when adjusted for inflation) movie production of all time.

812.5 years: How long the President of United States would have to be in office to make that amount of money ($325 million) from the job.

$292,198,327: Total salary earnings (without inflation) of Shaquille O’Neil over his entire NBA career.

10: The number of NHL franchises, according to Forbes, with a value below $325 million dollars.

All of them: The number of MLS teams, according to Forbes, with a value below $325 million dollars. If he were in a soccer sort of mood, Giancarlo could afford to buy both the most and the third most valuable MLS team at the same time with the money he will earn over his next deal.

The original cost to build Fenway Park was $650,000 dollars, which is $15.9 million dollars when adjusted for inflation. That means that Giancarlo Stanton over the span of his hypothetical new contract would be able to build 20 Fenway Parks circa 1912, and he’d have enough money left to do just under half of a 21st.

$25 Million: How much Giancarlo would make in an average year under his new contract.

$10 Million: GDP of the island country of Niue. It would take Niue two and a half years of it’s entire gross domestic product to pay for one year of Giancarlo Stanton.

I don’t think anyone can imagine how big Mike Trout‘s deal will be if this is anything to go on.

 

Looking at the Team MLB roster for the Japan All-Star Series

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Above, you can see the roster for the Japan All-Star Series for Team MLB. As you can see, the term “All-Star” is sort of loose. Oh, yes, it’s a good team, and there are plenty of All-Stars on it. It’s definitely a team you’d be able to make the post-season with in a 162 game schedule. But on the other hand, the pitching staff isn’t exactly world-beating and the outfield is thin due to the pull-outs of Bryce Harper and Adam Jones, meaning a utility player like Ben Zobrist or Chris Carter will be playing a bit there. Another worry is that Evan Longoria might have to leave early because his fiancee is very pregnant, and, honestly, I’m surprised he’s going in the first place with something like that going on.

Anyway, here’s a bit of a run-down on the MLB roster… after the jump:

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