Friday, January 19, 2007
The Too-Early Preview: National League
It only sounds mind-numbing; patience, my friends.
Yes, I’m breaking-down EVERY MLB TEAM, but in the least scientific way possible, and that’s with two tablets of reticence and a big, tall glass of sloppy-journalism...and, after much deliberation, I’m doing it in two parts. This tried-and-true format is less to make it easy to search out your favourite team, and more because even I probably couldn’t get through 30 mini-encapsulations in one go, and I love my own writing.
(I originally had a great line in here about witty criticisms being, possibly, critty witticisms, but the whole thing had this rancorous vibe that wasn’t in keeping with the level of hilarity I try to produce...and you’re most certainly welcome for the omission.)
Arizona Diamondbacks
-Randy Johnson’s back in the pasture, grazing his way to 300 wins and the Fall of Hame or whatever that place is called, ready to retire in the dry heat of Arizona instead of the bright lights of New York;
-Orlando Hudson is the most entertaining defensive player in baseball and, really, the only Diamondback I’d pay to watch play...oh, wait. Eric Byrnes? All right, I’ll dish out to see him bash himself stupid against the leftfield wall;
-By the by, Brandon Webb’s "Cy Young" year was pretty underwhelming:
16-10 3.10 ERA
1.13 WHIP 6.82 K/9IP
5 CG 3 SHO
68.9 VORP
Just in case you thought he did something better than that...nope.
Atlanta Racial Slurs
-Pretty sound offence, though you’d think Jeff Francoeur was dinging blasts off the fucking moon by all the press he’s getting. Dude had an on-base percentage of .293 last year...a crippled snake with a bus pass walks more than he does;
-I’ve never been to Atlanta but GODDAMN do I hate their baseball team;
-Tim Hudson might rebound from a blah blah blah season with the blah blah blah blooooooooo BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING!
Chicago Cubs
-Seriously: Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, and Alfonso Soriano, all hitting at Wrigley? Good God.
-Good God and Good Thing too, as the Cubbies’ keystone-combo rakes about as well as a limbless crack-whore in the concrete of East-Hammertown;
-If Ted Lilly & Jason Marquis combine for more than 30 wins, I’ll send them both "World’s Greatest Grandpa" mugs...to hell with the expense;
-Does anybody still think that Mark Prior’s "mechanics" are the greatest thing to happen to Baseball since Cal Ripken Jr?
Cincinnati Reds
-Does Ken Griffey Jr have anything left, and will he drag it with him to rightfield?
-That’s three years in a row that Adam Dunn has crushed 40 or more homeruns, and all anybody can talk about is his batting average. Yeah, .234 is pretty dumb, as is his fielding in left, but hitting bombs and walking 100 times a year isn’t worse than getting 2 hits per ten at-bats instead of three, I assure you;
-I’ve said it before, and here it is again, like a fastfood-before-bed recurring-nightmare: Boy, did the Red Sox blow it with the whole Wily Mo Pena-for-Bronson Arroyo thing.
Colorado Rockies
-I’m calling out "comeback year" for Javy Lopez...less because I have faith in ol’ Javy, more because I believe that, given a full year, I could go .300/30/100 in Colorado:
Ryan Lawson, Coors Field
.370/.420/.540
35 2B
10 3B
32 HR
3000 RBI
Ryan Lawson, away from Coors Field
.191/.280/.290
1 2B (ricochet off pitcher resulting in semi-deep bruise)
1 3B (ricochet off rightfielder who had already fallen down with a broken ankle before ball was pitched)
1 HR (inside-the-parker - a ninth inning, two-out, two-strike bunt appears to go foul, and opposing players head to locker room; one senile umpire calls the ball fair, quietly, and watches intently as I round the bases like a thoroughbred charging for freedom; three-quarters of the opposing team are already in street-clothes as they’re told to resume the game that hadn’t finished yet; I am beaned in my first at-bat the next night)
5 RBI
-Honestly, Matt Holliday: .326/.387/.586? 34 HR? 45 2B?
-For serious, Garrett Atkins: .329/.409/.556? 29 HR? 48 2B?
-Riiiiiiiiiight.
Florida Marlins
-If it weren’t for Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera would be getting more ink than an imploding squid;
-Pretty impressive rookie year for Dan Uggla, with the 27 jacks at 2B, and that Hanley Ramirez at short looks like a decade worth of extra-bases...74 with the bat, 51 pilfered;
-Good luck to Anibal Sanchez - after that no-hitter last year, as a rookie, 2007 is going to feel like the day after X-Mas...
All.
Year.
Houston Astros
-I bitched and moaned about the Astros for all of 2006, and rightly so...though maybe it’s because they seemed to get an unrepresentative amount of time on national broadcasts. This year, watching Houston play might not be like shoving garden shears into my rectum while playing "tag" with a porcupine filthy with rabies;
-Carlos Lee: whatever. But they did move Willy Taveras to make room for Chris Burke and got Jason Jennings in return...the same Jennings who somehow managed a 3.78 ERA while playing in Colorado’s arcade-game park;
-Best of all, no more Pettitte, no more Rocket, no more drama...just Roy Oswalt ruling the roost, hoping that Brad Lidge can figure out how to save games again.
Los Angeles Dodgers
-I’m very evenly divided: I love watching Nomar Garciaparra hit, I hope Juan Pierre can return to his .320-hitting days, and I don’t have a problem with either Brad Penny or Jason Schmidt;
-Luis Gonzalez? Bah! Rafael Furcal is a has-been without ever having been a "has", and Jeff Kent has about as much business playing second as I do bitching about it. The main difference, of course, is that unlike Kent, I’m funny;
-Go Nomar.
Milwaukee Brewers
-Like the Bucks in the NBA, I am constantly amazed when it’s brought to my attention that Milwaukee hosts a Major League Baseball team;
-I mean, I’m looking up the individual stats just now, having no prior knowledge of goings-on over this past season: Baby Big Daddy Fielder hit 28 bombs as a rook, Bill Hall (?) smacked 35, and now they have .300-hitting (and .328-OBPing) Johnny Estrada behind the plate...and yet, still, I am unenthused;
-Maybe it’s Bud Selig - regardless of his ownership status, I’ll always identify this club with ol’ droopy-faced, fuckstick Bud and that skin-crawlingly irritating voice of his;
-OOOOOH! Jeff "I’m-a-man-of-Christ-and-I-don’t-support-stem-cell-research" Suppan is a Brewer! Oh well...maybe Ben Sheets can regain his 2004-form and return the Milwaukee Brewers to glory.
Sorry; sometimes, when you get a good idea for a joke, well...you just have to run with it.
New York Mets
-After Minnesota went down, I thought the Mets had it all locked up...and then Yadier Molina went and fucked up the entire World Series;
-Yes, I admit to Carlos Delgado man-love...and he’s going to keep mashing his way to 500 bombs, surrounded as he is by David Wright, Carlos Beltran, and now the 800-year-old Moises Alou;
-Jose Reyes proved he’s a legitimate scoring machine, and the Mets will need all of his speedy excitement to get over the fact that, for the first time in recorded baseball history, they don’t have anyone to pitch.
Philadelphia Phillies
-I’ll tell you what - if Philadelphia was my team I’d be pretty happy with Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard at the top of my lineup;
-Throw in Pat Burrell and a formerly great (okay, a one season great) Aaron Rowand, and you’ve got yourself five-ninths of a slightly-superior batting order;
-Freddy Garcia is far and away their best pitcher...and let that stand for what it will in regards to the rest of the staff.
Pittsburgh Pirates
-Jason Bay might’ve shot his stock up a little too high with his monstrous 2005 - career numbers in HR & RBI don’t offset the 15 extra-base-hit drop in 2006;
-They’ve just added Adam LaRoche, which means I can now enjoy watching him play;
-Let’s see a show of hands: who thinks Freddy Sanchez will get within 30-points of his .344 average last year? Freddy, put your hand down...
San Diego Padres
-Pretty interesting keystone-combo there with Khalil Greene & Marcus Giles - if they "play like they can" as Christine Neziol from my softball team is fond of saying, then they may be the best double-play duo in the majors;
-Brian Giles is the anti-Francoeur: he’d still be walking if it was made illegal and he broke both his legs;
-Saves might not actually mean anything, really, but 500 is a great number, and Trevor Hoffman is 18 away...add in Greg Maddux and a possible Jake Peavy resurgence, and San Diego looks like the place to be. Though mostly because I hear it’s really sunny, like, all the time.
San Francisco Giants
-Oh, Barry: since I have relented and bought a copy of Game of Shadows, entirely because the authors are on the verge, ludicrously, of going to prison, I now await your destruction of the career-homerun-record with glee. I will title a post with the date of the tarnishing, and the body will contain but one "quote" of yours from the book...maybe someone can smuggle a copy of it to you whilst you write out your revenge list in prison;
-If Barry Zito ever utters a word about playing the game for anything other than money, he should be dragged across the jagged rocks of ‘Frisco Bay until he writes a 50-cent cheque to every single person populating the United States;
-Geez, what ever happened to Steve Finley? Remember? 36 HR in 2004 at 39 years of age? 12 in 2005 after steroid-testing fully took hold? SIX last year? Boy oh boy, is that ever strange...
St. Louis Cardinals
-Albert Pujols can be as misquoted as he wants about the whole the-MVP-should-go-to-a-playoff-team bullshit - from now on, he’ll be referred to as that Whiny Little Shit (WLS) until he says something cool enough to let me forget his whimpering;
-What is it about Scott Rolen that makes everyone dewy-eyed for old-timey, hard-workin’ basbeall players? Personally, I think it’s the snub-nose - it subconsciously makes him look as though he’s really putting that thing to the grindstone;
-Like Secretariat, when they cut open David Eckstein after he’s dead, they’ll find a heart 30-times the average human’s...and, also like Secretariat, they’ll shave-off bits of his corpse and make a ventricle-corked, stretched-skin-rawhide baseball, and I will buy that baseball from a downtrodden collector in 40 years for three packs of matches and the promise of coffee at a later date.
Washington Nationals
-Omigod...listen this starting outfield: Kory Casto, Nook Logan, Austin Kearns. That totally sounds like some college kid hacked into MLB.com;
-Make fun all you want - at least the Jays didn’t spend a kajillion dollars on Royce Clayton like the Nationals did with Cristian Guzman;
-Nick Johnson is Washington’s lone "proven" power source...that should tell you all you need to know.
¶ 8:35 PM
Yes, I’m breaking-down EVERY MLB TEAM, but in the least scientific way possible, and that’s with two tablets of reticence and a big, tall glass of sloppy-journalism...and, after much deliberation, I’m doing it in two parts. This tried-and-true format is less to make it easy to search out your favourite team, and more because even I probably couldn’t get through 30 mini-encapsulations in one go, and I love my own writing.
(I originally had a great line in here about witty criticisms being, possibly, critty witticisms, but the whole thing had this rancorous vibe that wasn’t in keeping with the level of hilarity I try to produce...and you’re most certainly welcome for the omission.)
Arizona Diamondbacks
-Randy Johnson’s back in the pasture, grazing his way to 300 wins and the Fall of Hame or whatever that place is called, ready to retire in the dry heat of Arizona instead of the bright lights of New York;
-Orlando Hudson is the most entertaining defensive player in baseball and, really, the only Diamondback I’d pay to watch play...oh, wait. Eric Byrnes? All right, I’ll dish out to see him bash himself stupid against the leftfield wall;
-By the by, Brandon Webb’s "Cy Young" year was pretty underwhelming:
16-10 3.10 ERA
1.13 WHIP 6.82 K/9IP
5 CG 3 SHO
68.9 VORP
Just in case you thought he did something better than that...nope.
Atlanta Racial Slurs
-Pretty sound offence, though you’d think Jeff Francoeur was dinging blasts off the fucking moon by all the press he’s getting. Dude had an on-base percentage of .293 last year...a crippled snake with a bus pass walks more than he does;
-I’ve never been to Atlanta but GODDAMN do I hate their baseball team;
-Tim Hudson might rebound from a blah blah blah season with the blah blah blah blooooooooo BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORING!
Chicago Cubs
-Seriously: Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez, and Alfonso Soriano, all hitting at Wrigley? Good God.
-Good God and Good Thing too, as the Cubbies’ keystone-combo rakes about as well as a limbless crack-whore in the concrete of East-Hammertown;
-If Ted Lilly & Jason Marquis combine for more than 30 wins, I’ll send them both "World’s Greatest Grandpa" mugs...to hell with the expense;
-Does anybody still think that Mark Prior’s "mechanics" are the greatest thing to happen to Baseball since Cal Ripken Jr?
Cincinnati Reds
-Does Ken Griffey Jr have anything left, and will he drag it with him to rightfield?
-That’s three years in a row that Adam Dunn has crushed 40 or more homeruns, and all anybody can talk about is his batting average. Yeah, .234 is pretty dumb, as is his fielding in left, but hitting bombs and walking 100 times a year isn’t worse than getting 2 hits per ten at-bats instead of three, I assure you;
-I’ve said it before, and here it is again, like a fastfood-before-bed recurring-nightmare: Boy, did the Red Sox blow it with the whole Wily Mo Pena-for-Bronson Arroyo thing.
Colorado Rockies
-I’m calling out "comeback year" for Javy Lopez...less because I have faith in ol’ Javy, more because I believe that, given a full year, I could go .300/30/100 in Colorado:
Ryan Lawson, Coors Field
.370/.420/.540
35 2B
10 3B
32 HR
3000 RBI
Ryan Lawson, away from Coors Field
.191/.280/.290
1 2B (ricochet off pitcher resulting in semi-deep bruise)
1 3B (ricochet off rightfielder who had already fallen down with a broken ankle before ball was pitched)
1 HR (inside-the-parker - a ninth inning, two-out, two-strike bunt appears to go foul, and opposing players head to locker room; one senile umpire calls the ball fair, quietly, and watches intently as I round the bases like a thoroughbred charging for freedom; three-quarters of the opposing team are already in street-clothes as they’re told to resume the game that hadn’t finished yet; I am beaned in my first at-bat the next night)
5 RBI
-Honestly, Matt Holliday: .326/.387/.586? 34 HR? 45 2B?
-For serious, Garrett Atkins: .329/.409/.556? 29 HR? 48 2B?
-Riiiiiiiiiight.
Florida Marlins
-If it weren’t for Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera would be getting more ink than an imploding squid;
-Pretty impressive rookie year for Dan Uggla, with the 27 jacks at 2B, and that Hanley Ramirez at short looks like a decade worth of extra-bases...74 with the bat, 51 pilfered;
-Good luck to Anibal Sanchez - after that no-hitter last year, as a rookie, 2007 is going to feel like the day after X-Mas...
All.
Year.
Houston Astros
-I bitched and moaned about the Astros for all of 2006, and rightly so...though maybe it’s because they seemed to get an unrepresentative amount of time on national broadcasts. This year, watching Houston play might not be like shoving garden shears into my rectum while playing "tag" with a porcupine filthy with rabies;
-Carlos Lee: whatever. But they did move Willy Taveras to make room for Chris Burke and got Jason Jennings in return...the same Jennings who somehow managed a 3.78 ERA while playing in Colorado’s arcade-game park;
-Best of all, no more Pettitte, no more Rocket, no more drama...just Roy Oswalt ruling the roost, hoping that Brad Lidge can figure out how to save games again.
Los Angeles Dodgers
-I’m very evenly divided: I love watching Nomar Garciaparra hit, I hope Juan Pierre can return to his .320-hitting days, and I don’t have a problem with either Brad Penny or Jason Schmidt;
-Luis Gonzalez? Bah! Rafael Furcal is a has-been without ever having been a "has", and Jeff Kent has about as much business playing second as I do bitching about it. The main difference, of course, is that unlike Kent, I’m funny;
-Go Nomar.
Milwaukee Brewers
-Like the Bucks in the NBA, I am constantly amazed when it’s brought to my attention that Milwaukee hosts a Major League Baseball team;
-I mean, I’m looking up the individual stats just now, having no prior knowledge of goings-on over this past season: Baby Big Daddy Fielder hit 28 bombs as a rook, Bill Hall (?) smacked 35, and now they have .300-hitting (and .328-OBPing) Johnny Estrada behind the plate...and yet, still, I am unenthused;
-Maybe it’s Bud Selig - regardless of his ownership status, I’ll always identify this club with ol’ droopy-faced, fuckstick Bud and that skin-crawlingly irritating voice of his;
-OOOOOH! Jeff "I’m-a-man-of-Christ-and-I-don’t-support-stem-cell-research" Suppan is a Brewer! Oh well...maybe Ben Sheets can regain his 2004-form and return the Milwaukee Brewers to glory.
Sorry; sometimes, when you get a good idea for a joke, well...you just have to run with it.
New York Mets
-After Minnesota went down, I thought the Mets had it all locked up...and then Yadier Molina went and fucked up the entire World Series;
-Yes, I admit to Carlos Delgado man-love...and he’s going to keep mashing his way to 500 bombs, surrounded as he is by David Wright, Carlos Beltran, and now the 800-year-old Moises Alou;
-Jose Reyes proved he’s a legitimate scoring machine, and the Mets will need all of his speedy excitement to get over the fact that, for the first time in recorded baseball history, they don’t have anyone to pitch.
Philadelphia Phillies
-I’ll tell you what - if Philadelphia was my team I’d be pretty happy with Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley, and Ryan Howard at the top of my lineup;
-Throw in Pat Burrell and a formerly great (okay, a one season great) Aaron Rowand, and you’ve got yourself five-ninths of a slightly-superior batting order;
-Freddy Garcia is far and away their best pitcher...and let that stand for what it will in regards to the rest of the staff.
Pittsburgh Pirates
-Jason Bay might’ve shot his stock up a little too high with his monstrous 2005 - career numbers in HR & RBI don’t offset the 15 extra-base-hit drop in 2006;
-They’ve just added Adam LaRoche, which means I can now enjoy watching him play;
-Let’s see a show of hands: who thinks Freddy Sanchez will get within 30-points of his .344 average last year? Freddy, put your hand down...
San Diego Padres
-Pretty interesting keystone-combo there with Khalil Greene & Marcus Giles - if they "play like they can" as Christine Neziol from my softball team is fond of saying, then they may be the best double-play duo in the majors;
-Brian Giles is the anti-Francoeur: he’d still be walking if it was made illegal and he broke both his legs;
-Saves might not actually mean anything, really, but 500 is a great number, and Trevor Hoffman is 18 away...add in Greg Maddux and a possible Jake Peavy resurgence, and San Diego looks like the place to be. Though mostly because I hear it’s really sunny, like, all the time.
San Francisco Giants
-Oh, Barry: since I have relented and bought a copy of Game of Shadows, entirely because the authors are on the verge, ludicrously, of going to prison, I now await your destruction of the career-homerun-record with glee. I will title a post with the date of the tarnishing, and the body will contain but one "quote" of yours from the book...maybe someone can smuggle a copy of it to you whilst you write out your revenge list in prison;
-If Barry Zito ever utters a word about playing the game for anything other than money, he should be dragged across the jagged rocks of ‘Frisco Bay until he writes a 50-cent cheque to every single person populating the United States;
-Geez, what ever happened to Steve Finley? Remember? 36 HR in 2004 at 39 years of age? 12 in 2005 after steroid-testing fully took hold? SIX last year? Boy oh boy, is that ever strange...
St. Louis Cardinals
-Albert Pujols can be as misquoted as he wants about the whole the-MVP-should-go-to-a-playoff-team bullshit - from now on, he’ll be referred to as that Whiny Little Shit (WLS) until he says something cool enough to let me forget his whimpering;
-What is it about Scott Rolen that makes everyone dewy-eyed for old-timey, hard-workin’ basbeall players? Personally, I think it’s the snub-nose - it subconsciously makes him look as though he’s really putting that thing to the grindstone;
-Like Secretariat, when they cut open David Eckstein after he’s dead, they’ll find a heart 30-times the average human’s...and, also like Secretariat, they’ll shave-off bits of his corpse and make a ventricle-corked, stretched-skin-rawhide baseball, and I will buy that baseball from a downtrodden collector in 40 years for three packs of matches and the promise of coffee at a later date.
Washington Nationals
-Omigod...listen this starting outfield: Kory Casto, Nook Logan, Austin Kearns. That totally sounds like some college kid hacked into MLB.com;
-Make fun all you want - at least the Jays didn’t spend a kajillion dollars on Royce Clayton like the Nationals did with Cristian Guzman;
-Nick Johnson is Washington’s lone "proven" power source...that should tell you all you need to know.
¶ 8:35 PM
