BP cracks me up

[TruffleShuffle]

Aside from the fact that it's a gold mine of baseball information and insight, the annual Baseball Prospectus is also very funny. They openly insult players and managers who suck, and don't seem to take themselves too seriously. Go buy the book; it's the best $21.95 you can spend (unless you've gotten a huge discount from "Kristen.")

 

Here are a few of the cub-related things that made me laugh:

 

Tyler Colvin: "At this stage of his development, Colvin has a couple of significant holes in his swing; anytime your strikeout-to-walk ratio looks like Tom Brady's touchdown-to-interception ratio, that's bad news."

 

Cliff Floyd: "This is sort of what it's like when you finally get with your dream girl from sophomore year, only it happens twenty years, three children, and forty pounds later after one too many rum-and-cokes at your high school reunion. Hendry had long courted Chicago native Floyd, and jumped at the opportunity to add him to the roster in late January, a superfluous move that left all the Chicago outfielders feeling like the glass was half-empty."

 

Angel Pagan: "If you're going to have a generic fourth outfielder, better that he have a slightly blasphemous name. Indeed, until baseball becomes really big in Slovakia, this is the closest we're going to come to having our own Miroslav Satan."

 

Alfonso Soriano: "Virtually all of Soriano's PECOTA comparables have some or another kind of Cubs connection: Joe Carter, Andre Dawson, Dusty Baker, Don Baylor, Glenallen Hill, and Ernie Banks. Perhaps Soriano was predestined to be a Cub his entire life; there's nothing more Cubby than being a very good player who sometimes gets mistaken for a great one."

 

Daryle Ward: "Piniella used Ward in right field a couple of times last year, a sight that was not to be witnessed by children under the age of 13."

 

Mark Pawelek: "There's stuck in neutral, and then there's Pawelek..."

 

Steve Trachsel: "Trachsel made some kind of deal with the devil to sustain an ERA in the mid-fours in Baltimore while posting an unholy 0.65 strikeout-to-walk ratio. The Cubs fell under that spell and were foolish enough to trade two pretty decent prospects for him in third baseman Scott Moore and reliever Rocky Cherry. Trachsel rewarded them by turning in a sub-replacement level performance over four starts. To put it kindly, this was a serious mistake of valuation. One hopes the Cubs have learned from it and will pay more attention to peripheral statistics and less to things such as ERA and won-loss record going forward."

[treebird]

the biting sarcasm in all of them (especially soriano) smacks of christina kahrl. she's my favorite bp'er.

[Balsa]

Last year's was pretty good too.

 

Chris Duncan: "Is Chris Duncan the single worst defensive outfielder in modern memory? One usually needs to go to the stockyards to witness his brand of defensive butchery."

 

T.J. Beam: "After each shelling, Torre would tell Beam, "We beleive in you, we need you. I need you." It was like a musical, or one of those disturbingly homoerotic things that Kirk would sometimes say to Spock on Star Trek."

[TruffleShuffle]

my favorite is the section about the giants. man do they tear into them.

 

Rich Aurilia: "Let's get this out of the way: the Giants are just lousy with veterans who would make fairly good reserves, but whom they treat as regulars. Aurilia's a serviceable platoon cornerman who can pretend to play the middle infield for innings at a time, but he was signed to be the regular first baseman after the 2006 season. He hit the DL in June having started two-thirds of the Giants' games and hit .236/.278/.346. When he got healthy, he was dropped right back into the lineup, and played just as often. Naturally, he's signed for 2008, too."

 

Ray Durham: "The two-year contract to which the Giants signed Durham after the 2006 season made no sense given that his 2006 homer total screamed "fluke" and was paired with a defense only slightly stronger than "I thought it was flaxseed oil." ... His average will bounce back; his defense, however, is deadly to a pitching staff that was 11th in the league in strikeouts last year."

 

Pedro Feliz: "If he's batting seventh for you and you're not paying a lot of money and you get OBP from everywhere else... well he's still only a three-win player. He was fourth on the Giants in WARP3 last year and two of those four, Feliz and Bonds, aren't coming back. Send in your season-ticket renewal checks today!"

 

Kevin Frandsen: "Given a regular second-base job, Frandsen would play near-adequate defense and hit .270 with some doubles and not enough walks, making $400,000 for his trouble. Even an average year from Durham wouldn't return $7 million more in value than that because of the 10-15 runs he gives away on defense. Remember that the next time someone tries to tell you that Barry Bonds's salary was handicapping the Giants."

 

Ryan Klesko: "Klesko's return from shoulder surgery last year went reasonably well. If that seems generous given his season line, remember that a .344 OBP is to the Giants what seeing a minus sign is to the Spears family."

 

Fred Lewis: "As with Durham and Frandsen, there's just no way the difference between Lewis and Rowand was worth the investment in the veteran, as it's not entirely clear who the better player is between them."

 

Bengie Molina: "Molina has 152 career walks; Bonds walked 132 times last year. Nothing against Molina, who had another year off the factory line, but his was another "what's the point" signing. He did exactly what he could be expected to do, but no one came to the park to see him, he didn't make the Giants good, and he cost millions of dollars. Replacing him with a combination of Knoedler and Rodriguez might have dropped the team's 71 wins to a mere 70. Of course, that's all because of Bonds's salary again."

 

Dan Ortmeier: "From August 10 to September 22, Ortmeier started 20 times (delivering three walks and 20 strikeouts in 90 plate appearances) while Fred Lewis bided his time in Triple-A, a state of affairs that defies description. Can we use "Sabean" as a verb yet?"

 

Nate Schierholtz: "So if Ortmeier is the post-Bonds version of Linden, Schierholtz is the new Lance Niekro. With 125 walks and 66 home runs in roughly 2,200 minor league plate appearances, Schierholtz has the perfect combination of hackery and middling power to serve as Niekro's heir. That two-walk, no-homer cup of coffee last year was just a tease, folks; there's more to come! Tip for the Giants: aim that cloning ray at Matt Cain and Tim Lincecum, not your failed outfield prospects."

 

Omar Vizquel: "The giants re-signed him for his glove, but he also counts toward their collection of old, expensive players who can't hit."

 

Randy Winn: "The best two months of Winn's career, August and September of 2005, will end up costing the Giants more than $28 million over four years for a player who, at his best, is maybe one win better than the alternatives (sound familiar?). Winn has a limited no-trade clause for the rest of his deal, and while he's a good fourth outfielder, he's a marginal starter, especially on a corner. Winn, Roberts and Rowand are all taking playing time from Lewis and Davis, inexpensive players who are broadly comparable, potentially better, and tens of millions of dollars cheaper. The Giants have made decisions like that all across the roster, while feeding the idea that it was Barry Bonds's $16 million - a bargain in both theoretical and real terms - standing in the way of their plans. No franchise has wasted more money on marginal upgrades. This is a diseased organization that needs a complete and thorough cleansing, from the owner's box on down."

[javy knows my name]

Yeah, they certainly don't mince words over there.

[Balsa]

They weren't too kind to the Blue Jays either, but that was exceptionally harsh.

 

They didn't hold back on Michael Barrett either:

 

"Note to all red asses: your job security is entirely tied to your performance, and your act gets old fast when you stop hitting. In the first half of last season, Barrett had significant problems making contact with anything other than Carlos Zambrano's face and was promptly shipped to San Diego, where the only thin he hit was the disabled list following an August concussion."

[Roast]

I wonder how much of Barrett's sudden stoppage of all things offensive had to do with taking a foul ball to the berries. He was never the same after that.

[RazzinGTO]

I wonder how much of Barrett's sudden stoppage of all things offensive had to do with taking a foul ball to the berries. He was never the same after that.

I have been wondering about that too. I liked Barrett alot but when he took that shot he really hasn't been the same since.

[Clem Fandango]

I've been meaning to quote the Cliff Floyd line in my signature for a few weeks now but never got around to it.

 

Yeah, the book is hilarious, and awesome. Even if you don't play Fantasy Baseball, you should still buy this book, it's an awesome bathroom read

[Tyrant]

I've been meaning to quote the Cliff Floyd line in my signature for a few weeks now but never got around to it.

 

What sort of high school has an 18-year reunion?

[Hacking Out Machine]

My favorite comment on Trachsel was in the team section, where they were skewering Hendry for that moronic and pointless trade:

 

"The Cubs also made one outright terrible trade when third baseman Scott Moore and reliever Rocky Cherry , both of whom should become quality major leaguers were sent to Baltimore for a handful of starts from Steve Trachsel, who was only doing the rest of the NL Central a favor when he took the mound for the Cubs."

[Roast]

I've been meaning to quote the Cliff Floyd line in my signature for a few weeks now but never got around to it.

 

What sort of high school has an 18-year reunion?

Hahaha, nice catch.