Some random crap

B.A. got a numba of things on which he would like to comment, foo!

1. Just joined a good Facebook group which is called "Robinson Cano is better than Jose Reyes will ever be."

Some of the comments of the weenie Mets fans who want to defend Reyes are pretty funny. Here are a few:

Reyes has more hits, runs, triples, walks, stolen bases, and a better on base percentage. He's only one point away from tying Cano's average and Reyes is on a better team. Reyes is a better player and will last as long, if not longer, than Cano

-Matt Rudolph on August 10, 2007

Firstly, Reyes is a leadoff hitter, dumbass. Of course he's going to have more hits if their averages are the same. Secondly, I like how he puts a positive spin on how Reyes is just 1 pt from tying Cano's BA by neglecting to make mention of the fact that Reyes was hitting around .320/.400/.450 at the end of June, while Cano was about .260/.300/.390. Thirdly, what the fuck does being on a better team have to do with this discussion? Fourthly, you, presumably, engage in acts of self-gratification to Reyes's speed, something Reyes is heavily reliant on, which does not last forever. In fact, Reyes will probably lose a step within the next few years because explosiveness declines with age. As said on Clarence Bass's (fitness author) website:

Performance in events that require explosive strength seem to be less well maintained.

And explosiveness in the lower body declines much more easily than the upper body. So Reyes is eventually going to lose those explosive first couple steps (and hence, some infield hits) and will get caught stealing more if he continues to just run all the fucking time.

wtf is this bullshit group... all of you yankee fans are jealous or [sic] reyes and cano will never be better than reyes ever ever ever

-Connor Henson on August 26, 2007

This comment made me laugh. The guy sounds like an annoying 12 year old girl (sorry for the redundancy, and they come at all ages, FYI) with his "you're just jealous!" and "he'll never be as good ever ever ever!", arguments analogous to the ones girls would use when defending their fondness for the Backstreet Boys. OK Connor, I don't know why that's your name, since you're a girl, but, you think Reyes is a lot better than Cano?

Connor: Oh my God, Jose Reyes is like...so much better than Robinson Cano, it's like...oh my God. Alright, anyhooooooo...I have to go to the maaaaall and get this purse that I saw in the windowwww. Because, it was hot, like, woah. And, oh my Goooood! I think Todd will be there! He's like...SO CUTE...and his friend Preston. Oh my God...he's gorgeousssss...

Anyway, Connor lacking what comprises a male human being (a penis and the typical way one with a penis acts and talks) aside, Cano will never be better than Reyes? Well, um, he kind of already has been better than Reyes...

Jose Reyes (career)
.287/.332/.428
99 OPS+
.275 eqA
27.6 WARP3

Robinson Cano (career)
.313/.345/.488
119 OPS+
.291 eqA
25.5 WARP3 (and Reyes came up before Cano, he's been worth 3.4 more wins over the same time period)

And don't start screaming about stolen bases, eqA takes those into account. So Connor, as a word of advice, baseball really isn't a girl thing. Watch the View and Oprah Winfrey instead. That'll be much more satisfying for you, I'm sure.

2. Rick Ankiel named as HGH guy...incredibly depressing

So happy for the guy. He was able to overcome the disaster that happened to him back in 2000 when he couldn't keep his pitches in the same zip code and become a power hitting outfielder. Awesome story. And then we find this shit out.

3. Steroids sent to Troy Glaus

Not terribly surprising. Dumbass. If I was as big as Glaus, I would simply keep myself in good shape. Stay light, but explosive. Sledgehammers, medicine balls, etc. Of course steroids will improve performance, but in the long run it hurts because with a guy as big as Glaus, tendons and ligaments can only handle so much. And Glaus has had his fun with injuries.

Overall, just glad that MLB.tv is working on my laptop now, so I can watch Yankees games. Good to see you back at first base, Douggy. I expect you to send some shots into the fountains this weekend.

In the mind of Kenny Williams

B.A. Baracus love his mind-readin' device, foos! I recently used it on Kenny Williams, the awesome GM of the Chicago White Sox.

Man, why isn't this team doing well? I thought getting Darin Erstad would solve all the problems! Alright, it looks like we're going to have to take it up a notch. I'm going to pursue David Eckstein. He's won 2 world series. By himself. He was the best player on each of those teams. You know what? Here's my ideal lineup for next season. I'm going to load this roster with winners:

1B Darin Erstad (age 34)
2B Luis Castillo (age 32)
SS David Eckstein (age 33)
3B Joe Crede (age 30)
LF Scott Podsednik (age 32)
CF Steve Finley (age 42)
RF Jermaine Dye (age 34)
DH Jim Thome (age 38)

Talk about a roster of winners! That's a total of 9 world series rings! We'll get Castillo by trading Paul Konerko. Straight up. I don't know why you'd trade 2 rings for just one ring. For some reason the Mets would rather have 32 year old Paul Konerko than 36 year old Carlos Delgado. So I said, hell yeah! We're getting the better end of the deal! And Steve Finley, well, the Rockies gave him to us for some free Uno's Deep Dish. So, as I said about the Konerko deal, hell yeah! As far as the pitching staff is concerned, why should I do anything differently?! Garland, Buehrle, and Contreras were awesome in 2005! They'll do it again. 2008 White Sox: the 2008 World Series Champions!

The White Sox are absolutely horrible. And they're trying to get horrible-er.

As they are now, here are their team numbers:

.243/.317/.396
86 OPS+
943/453 K/BB ratio
62/33 SB/CS

And the average age on the team is 30. Adding David Eckstein's career 87 OPS+ will be an improvement...only because it's not Juan Uribe's career 78 OPS+. Kenny Williams might be the worst GM ever. The only good hitters in that lineup are Konerko and Thome, but Thome is going to be 38, and he's such an injury risk. Konerko will be 32 next year, and despite the slow start, really picked it up, and has a PrOPS of .917, which isn't too far off from where he's been in his last 3 seasons. Dye overachieved big time last year, came back to earth this year, and is going to drop even further as he turns 34. Although he has gotten a little bit unlucky this year, as he only has a .262 BA/BIP, by far the worst among AL rightfielders, I still wouldn't expect a whole lot out of him in the next few years. In fact, I expect the White Sox to be hilariously bad next year with Ozzie Guillen calling everybody a maricon and cursing 5 times a sentence in his press conferences.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Billy Wagner blows a save...
Jose Reyes has fallen under a .300 BA, a .370 OBA, a .440 SLG...
Pat "the Bat" Burrell continues ripping the Mets new assholes...
St. Patrick's Home for the Elderly resident and soon-to-be AARP member Jamie Moyer shut the Mets down...
Yankees beat Daisuke Matsuzaka, Josh Beckett, and Curt Schilling...
Derek Jeter has now hit 6 of his 9 home runs off Red Sox or Mets...
ARod continued to drive Sox fans out of their minds with hatred...
Yankees help knock overachieving Okajima's ERA up...
Jason "C stands for crap" Varitek makes a throwing error leading to 2 runs and ARod laughing his ass off in the dugout, caught on NESN for all Sox fans to view...
I overheard Red Sox fans screaming about the Youkilis-ARod play in the 7th inning for the totally wrong reason, further strengthening my idea of typical Sox fans being fake fans that know jack shit about baseball...

The smile on my face says it all, foo!

We're overdue for another excitement update

Jose Reyes has excited us all to the tune of his line of:

.297/.368/.436
114 OPS+
.297 eqA
9 HR

Meanwhile, Jimmy Rollins has bored us by going:

.288/.339/.517
118 OPS+
.292 eqA
23 HR

And Hanley Ramirez has put us to sleep with his line of:

.332/.389/.557
149 OPS+
.325 eqA
23 HR

Now, we all know that Philadelphia's field, Citizens Bank Park, is a hitter's park, but even so:

Jose Reyes (2007)
on the road: .289/.365/.429, 4 HR

Jimmy Rollins (2007)
on the road: .292/.354/.495, 9 HR

And now, Reyes is better as a leadoff hitter because he gets on base more. However, if Rollins was used right, he would be more valuable because his power advantage over Reyes outweighs the OBA advantage Reyes has.

As far as Hanley is concerned, it's not even close. He's so much better than Reyes offensively. He needs work on his defense, but defense is easier to fix than offense. So, all you Reyes schlong lickers out there, realize something: he's not even the best SS in his division.

Tim McCarver is still never right

During today's Dodgers-Mets game:

David Wright is one of the best 2 strike hitters in the National League.

Really?

David Wright (2007)
0-2 count: .128/.150/.205 in 39 AB
1-2 count: .070/.086/.088 in 57 AB
2-2 count: .160/.169/.240 in 75 AB
3-2 count: .375/.615/.750 in 56 AB

He's been great in full counts. Sucks in every other count. McCarver truly is the legendary man who is never right.

B.A.'s offensive outlook on upcoming Yankees-Tigers series, game 2

I managed to get my anger out by putting a big loan shark behind bars while avoiding capture by the MPs. Of course, the client stiffed us. Hannibal has turned the A-Team into the C-Team. C being for cheap, charity, and crap. But anyway, that just piles onto how fucking pissed I am about how this week has gone for the Yankees. Second time this week the Yankees have lost an extra-inning game. Fucking Magglio Ordonez and his .383 BA/BIP. And his PrBA of .297. And his PrOPS of .898. The guy has always been a very good hitter. There's no doubt about that. But come on, NOTHING will go wrong for him this year. It's not even like he's knocking the cover off the ball. Only 18.4% of the balls he puts in play are line drives. Well below a lot of other hitters. He and Curtis Granderson lead the AL with their .137 OPS over-performance. I mean, you can talk about how Posada's getting lucky and all that shit, which is partially true. But at least Posada is 5th in the league in line drive percentage at 22.7%. Ordonez isn't even close to the top of the league. His check swing little piece of crap over Cano's head extending inning for Guillen to drive one over the wall in left made me wanna drive my mohawked head of iron through the concrete wall. The Yankees never catch a break this year. That's why their fucking Pythagorean win/loss is 6 games better than their actual win/loss. And if they do catch breaks, it's always in bunches. That's what happened when they were OPSing .953 as a team over that one stretch. They were finally catching some breaks in addition to hitting well (they were all hitting HRs like crazy in that stretch too). Ugh, anyway. Here's the outlook for game 2.

Yankees facing Jeremy Bonderman
Bonderman after his fantastic start, like last year, has sucked in the second half. In his last 35.1 innings, he's surrendered 7 homers after allowing just 13 in 119.2 innings. His control's been erratic, too. 15 of his 40 walks on the season came over those 35.1 innings. Righties and lefties are pretty similar against him in terms of BA and OBA but lefties hit for better power off him. Righties are .270/.312/.393 off him while lefties are .270/.317/.468. The IsoP of .198 jumps out at you, as he's allowed 14 HR, 22 2B and 2 3B to lefties in 344 AB this year. This is no anomoly. It's historically true as well that lefties own him, as from 2004-2006 lefties have a .276/.340/.464 line off him. So, tonight, Giambi, Damon, and Betemit should start, and of course Abreu. This should strengthen a team of guys who have .319/.388/.505 line in 188 AB off him.

The Yankees have to win this game. They own Bonderman. They have Wang going, although he's on the road which concerns me a bit. The Red Sox are playing the embarrassingly bad White Sox and raping them. The Mariners and their overachieving by 7 wins seem to get every damn break going as far back as Gerry "Blumpkin" Davis's awful call back in May that fucked the Yankees over. They have to win the next three games. It's going to be tough to win Monday with Mussina going, although I read in the Post that he thinks he found a solution in his last bullpen session. I hope so, because Mike Mussina in his last 2 outings has been retire-when-you-get-back-to-the-dugout-after-Torre-takes-the-ball-from-you bad. Let's go Yankees.

B.A.'s offensive outlook on upcoming Yankees-Tigers series, game 1

I didn't bother writing one for game 3 because I was so fucking pissed about the first two games I couldn't think rationally. I never wanted to see backup catchers die painful deaths as badly as I did after the past two games. And watching that 467 year old loafer, Garret Anderson, who flies open on every swing and sucks, hit that 3-run homer...no words to describe my anger. Anyway, back to business.

Game 1, Yankees face Andrew Miller
Good News
Miller's just coming off the DL from a hamstring injury. Being 6'6", he not surprisingly is like a young Randy Johnson and a current Daniel Cabrera in the control department. In his major league career, here are his numbers:

Andrew Miller (career, MLB/minors)
69.1/80.0 IP
4.67/2.59 ERA
43 BB, 69 H (1.615 WHIP)/26 BB, 72 H (1.225 WHIP)
58 K/65 K

This guy ain't no Joba Chamberlain. He walks a lot of guys, and he's hittable, since he's allowed close to a hit per inning and does not have an astronomical number of strikeouts.

Bad News
This guy owns lefties. Lefties in 50 AB are .140/.233/.180 with just 2 doubles, no homers, and 20 strikeouts. A strikeout rate of 0.40/AB! You see, Mike (Myers)? THOSE are the kinds of numbers a lefty specialist puts up. Anyway, here's what I'd do with the lineup. You HAVE to Shelley Duncan and Andy Phillips in there. I'm sure Torre starts Phillips regardless but he MUST get Duncan in there. I'd put Betemit in for Cano just to give him a day off against a tough lefty, but he got half a day off in the slaying on Tuesday, and Betemit is absolutely useless as a right-handed hitter. In his career, he is .233/.280/.354 with 61 K in 195 AB. That's a strikeout every 3 AB basically. Horrible. Giving Cano the day off against Bedard last week seemed like a good idea until I realized how terrible Betemit is right-handed. The guy is purely a left-handed hitter. So, anyway, I hope Torre reads this or another person close to Torre tells him this. If he had Shelley Duncan in the lineup on Monday instead of Johnny Damon (this ain't Monday morning QB'ing either, the righties all hit Moseley hard that night), he could have given the Anaheim bullpen a nice souvenir and the Yankees could have had that game won early.

But, we got a great outing from Pettitte last night. Some big hits off Lackey. And another overpowering inning from Joba Chamberlain. Especially sweet to see him strike out that little piece of shit, Orlando Cabrera. He fucking sucks. Anybody who wants to give him credit for being a decent offensive player needs to realize that this is the first season he's had an OPS+ over 100. And he's still got time to drop, too. And he should have more throwing errors, but Casey Kotchman catches everything and has probably saved him numerous times. Games 2, 3, and 4 outlooks will each come at some point before that corresponding game.