The blog seems to enjoy these, and since I still am the only person I know who reads Joe Posnanski's blog, here's some good baseball stuff to kill a half hour or so at work on Monday.

And by the way, if anyone tries is still trying to defend pitchers' wins and losses are important, you're wrong.

Also, I'm using the Bucky's Gas Stations label because I endorse what they do and I have no idea why this label exists but it made my day.

Labels: baseball, Bucky's Gas Stations, Joe Posnanski, Statistics

http://bleacherfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ucob-1280x960-1.jpg

The Royals' territory should have dotted lines for the areas where everyone stops caring in May.

Labels: baseball, Minnesota Twins, Royals in 2nd place?, The Deuce

As the Knicks' spent all of April channeling their innermost Billy Joel and crashing their season away, my attention turned not to spring football, which I don't really care about, but to the prospects of another summer of baseball. But thanks to the continued intellect of Bud Selig and the gigantic fucking wankfest that was the World Baseball Classic, it seems as though it's harder than ever to get jacked about the season. Well, I'm jacked.

And for those of you scoring at home we will once again be at Barrett's Barleycorn for opening day games, and you all should come out. Support the Royals, Cubs, Astros, Twins, etc.

A few predictions to whet your appetite for 162 games of great times.

NL

NL West-Dodgers over DBacks
NL Central-Cubs over Cardinals
NL East-Mets over Phillies
Wild Card: Phillies

NL Champ: Mets over Phillies
MVP: David Wright
Cy Young: Carlos Zambrano (or Johan Santana)

AL

AL East-DRays over Yankees
AL Central-Twins over Indians (then Royals, Tigers, White Sox)
Al West-Angels over A's
Wild Card-Yankees
NL Champ: Angels over DRays
MVP-Evan Longoria
Cy Young: CC Sabathia

World Series: Mets over DRays

Random Predictions:

1. Mark DeRosa, one of my five favorite players in the league, will really piss me off now that he's with the Indians.

2. Carlos Zambrano will be suspended for an incident this year but win the Cy Young anyway.

3. Mike "Little Babe Ruth" Fontenot will not mash like last year but will still OPS .900.

4. The Cubs fans will not like the Milton Bradley signing in August.

5. A. Peterson will spring for a Farnsworth jersey despite his hatred.

6. The Royals will be within 10 games of first place by August 1.

7. The Twins will win the division despite Joe Mauer never being fully healthy.

8. The Twins will have the best defensive outfield in baseball...despite having Delmon Young there.

9. Kevin Slowey, Scott Baker, and Franchise Liriano will combine to win 45 games.

10. The Astros will fucking blow, despite Mayfield telling me in earnest last week they were going to win the division.

11. The Fukudome signing will set Japanese-American relations back farther than Pokemon and Hello Kitty combined.

12. The White Sox will battle it out with the Tigers for last place.

13. The Tigers will literally have less than 5,000 fans at a game this year.

14. Brian Duensing will not stay with the Twins all season.

15. The Nebraska baseball team is and will continue to have its "7 and 7" year followed by Mike Anderson starting next year fighting for his job.

16. I will purchase the baseball package and enjoy the holy hell out of it while saving money from not going to the bar every third day in the process.

Enjoy it, everyone.

Labels: Barrett's Barleycorn, baseball, Minnesota Twins, Nebraska Baseball

So this Mitchell Report is a pretty big deal, huh? SportsCenter is fixin' to jump off into SIX HOURS of SportsCenter, all to cover the much-anticipated release of the Mitchell Report.

ESPN is already reporting that Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte are steroid users. Color us completely and totally not surprised.

How else you think is on here? I heard from the Yankees alone that there were All-Stars, a Cy Young winner (Clemens), and an MVP. I wonder who the MVP is? I mean, everyone knows about Giambi, so it's not like they need to be all secretive here about it. Could it be A-Rod? I honestly doubt that, but I think what this thing is going to show us all is...you never know.

Labels: baseball, shocking revelations, Steriods

While watching Jim Rome yesterday, one of his guest was explaining why the Yankees were still in the playoff hunt. His reasoning was that the AL Central was a weak division and the Yankees would be able to capture the wild card from them. What? Did I miss something? He made his point so emphatically that I had to double check the standings. Every team in the Central, except KC of course, is over .500 and has a winning record against East and West opponents. How could he make such a ridiculous claim and not get called out on it? How do these sports experts know so little? How do you confuse the strongest division as being the weakest? If your job was sports and you were going on a nationally televised show, wouldn’t you do a little homework first? I don’t know, maybe take a quick glance at the standings before going on air. It also pisses me off that no one is calling out the AL East as being weak. Why the fuck not? They only have one team over .500 and their second best team is Baltimore. Now that is a weak division.

Labels: Annoying, baseball, Douche Bags, ESPN sucks

Again, I feel like I'm just pissing in the wind here, but...Mike Greenberg is really, really annoying.

This morning he breathlessly threw out the hyperbole:

"Alex Rodriguez is having the best start to a season in the history of baseball."

Jesus Christ. How can you be just months from completely throwing this guy under the bus to hero-worshipping him? Especially when it is ultimately leading to the Yankees having an 8-10 record and 4 games back from first (sitting in fourth place, half a game in front of Tampa Bay)?

Not only that, but can we really say this is the best start to a season ever? I mean, I'm sure ol' Greeny poured over hours of web time on Baseball Prospectus and everything, but I'm guessing that there have been similar starts. Hell, here are some in very recent history. I'll have a little guessing game...I left out the games played and home runs here because it would be obvious:



Any guesses? Would you say, looking at these stats (in order to see them better, click on the picture and you can actually read the numbers), that one line is the "best start in the history of baseball?" Of course you wouldn't. You wouldn't because, dear Heavy Souler, you are one of sound judgement and rational opinion-making.

So, have you decided who applies to what line? Like I said, these stat lines are from recent history. And when I say recent history, I mean the years 2005, 2006, and 2007. The players are Derrek Lee (2005), Albert Pujols (2006), and A-Rod (2007).



How could you possibly suggest that the greatest start in the history of Major League Baseball--keep in mind, that spans over 131 years--could be incredibly similar to the best starts of the past two years? If it were the best start in the history of baseball, A-Rod's numbers would be about 20% better in virtually every category over the best starts of the past two years. In fact, I would argue that--unless A-Rod stays as hot or gets hotter over the next six games remaining in April--Albert Pujols had the all-around better month. And Derrek Lee's 2005 start could certainly be favorably compared, especially in the "pure hitter" sense.

Again, to people like Mike Greenberg and the majority of those at ESPN, all that matters is the East Coast, and in baseball, that just means Boston and New York. As long as a player hits a bunch of home runs in the month of April and they have a "B" or a "NY" on their hat, it translates into "the greatest start in baseball history."

It is utterly ridiculous, and beyond me that these guys NEVER get called out on stuff like this by ANYONE that joins them on the air. In the era of instant gratification and the need to have up-to-the-minute news five minutes ago, these type of people get a free pass. Well, not anymore, fuckers! Heavy Soul is on your ass!

Labels: Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Annoying, baseball, Chicago Cubs, Derrek Lee, Douche Bags, ESPN, Mike and Mike in the Morning, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, Statistics, Sucking

Just a reminder: Heavy Soul will be reppin' again at Barretts for Opening Day today. First pitch at 1:05, followed by more baseball, and National Championship action. Can't wait for work Tuesday morning....

--Could there have possibly been a worse Opening Night for me? The Mets and Cards? Puke. Although I will say the Mets are made up with a lot of players I like, which kills me. David Wright and Jose Reyes will be pretty exciting to watch until we're, oh, 40. Those guys are good.

--Speaking of puking, any dreams of the Cubs doing anything were erased by one simple sentence uttered on Mike and Mike in the Morning today: Steve Phillips picked the Cubs to go to the World Series. I don't know who he picked to play the Cubs, because I was too busy pounding my head on my desk and moaning "NO! NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" God, that guy is the biggest idiot on ESPN. And saying that is like saying "________ is the worst murderer in this maximum security Federal prison." Not good.

--EDIT: HOLY SHIT!!!! The Trib is selling the Cubs!!! HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!

There it is. I guess really, really quick hits. See some of you at Barretts!

Labels: baseball, Chicago Cubs, ESPN, idiots, Mike and Mike in the Morning, New York Mets, Opening Day, St. Louis Cardinals

Labels: Awesomeness, baseball, Cactus League, Chicago Cubs, Spring Training

Labels: Awesomeness, baseball, T-Shirts

For the love of Christ...I mean, come on, Cubs! How can one possibly love a team that continually does things to annoy the piss out of them?

Look, I wasn't too excited about the fact that the Cubs drafted that Domer Jeff Samaradasdflkjdsafsdalkjasdfljsdka. But reading things like this in the Tribune makes me want to puke:

Meanwhile, quarterback Brady Quinn and several of Samardzija's other
ex-teammates will be among 330 hopefuls attending the NFL combine. They may have to text-message him their 40-yard times, as he currently has too much
information to process to pay much attention to their performances.

"I know it's on the NFL Network, but I'm not going to be able to watch much of it,"
Samardzija said. "I'll call my boys every day and see how they did. Brady, I
don't think he's going to run around too much."

Samardzija is hoping to last long enough for his crew to watch him pitch in a Cubs uniform. He said former teammate Tom Zbikowski and some other pals are planning a spring-break trek to Mesa to check him out. Some could wind up crashing on the couch of the newly minted millionaire."If there's a bunch of people in the stands acting stupid, it's probably them," Samardzija said.

In other words, stay the hell away from Mesa this Spring. A bunch of overrated douche bags will be there.

Christ.

Labels: baseball, Cactus League, Chicago Cubs, Douche Bags, Jeff Samardzija, Spring Training