Clem Fandango

I'm bored, and felt like trying to break it down a bit because I've also wondered how they could be so bad... 1) It looks like getting rid of Mather and adding Iannetta so Scioscia couldn't start a no bat catcher didn't stop him from making Bobby Wilson his primary catcher (.227/.294/.299) 2) It doesn't help that before Trout was called up the only player worth a damn on the offense was Mark Trumbo, who has been terrible this month (.594 OPS) 3) It also doesn't help that C.J. Wilson has been atrocious since the ASB (6.38 ERA/1.67 WHIP) and their big acquisition Greinke has not transitioned well at all (6.19 ERA/1.59 WHIP) 4) With the exception of Weaver and Wilson, they don't have a single starting pitcher with an ERA under 4.33: Jered Weaver - 2.74 C.J. Wilson - 3.62 Garret Richards - 4.33 Jerome Williams - 4.72 Dan Haren - 4.90 Ervin Santana - 5.46 Zack Greinke - 6.19 5) Their bullpen also isn't exactly shutting down the opposition... Ernesto Frieri - 39G, 1.88 ERA Scott Downs - 41 G, 2.97 ERA Latroy Hawkins - 38 G, 3.79 ERA Kevin Jepsen - 30 G, 3.86 ERA Jason Isringhausen - 44 G, 3.92 ERA Jordan Walden - 33 G, 3.99 ERA David Carpenter - 28 G, 4.76 ERA Hisanori Takahashi - 42 G, 4.93 ERA 6) Albert Pujols didn't start mashing the ball until May (to a degree, he only mustered an .800 OPS but had 8 homers in the month), which was when Mike Trout had his first full month on the team. Coincidentally, the Angels record in April (which Trout only had 3 games in) was 8-15. In May, when Trout turned on the jets, Pujols starting to heat up, Trumbo had his ridiculous month (1.077 OPS), and Weaver and Wilson were holding down the top 2 spots in the rotation (Wilson had a sub-3.00 ERA for 13 games up until this month and had it as low as 2.33 at the start of July), the Angels' monthly record the next two months was 18-11 in May 17-9 in June... then 14-12 in July, which was when the wheels started to come off... 7) They are 6-13 in August. Greinke and Wilson have been embarrassments, and Trumbo's magical season is starting to wear off (.594 OPS this month). 8) Three players can only take you so far on offense. For the season the combined OPs of Trout, Trumbo, and Pujols is .923. The combined OPS for the rest of the team's primary players/subs is .681: Bobby Wilson, C - 182 PA, .593 OPS Howie Kendrick, 2B - 450 PA, .713 OPS Erick Aybar, SS - 408 PA, .716 OPS Alberto Callaspo, 3B - 390 PA, .689 OPS Torii Hunter, RF - 417 PA, .783 OPS Kendrys Morales, DH - 386 PA, .774 OPS Maicier Izturis, IF - 269 PA, .630 OPS Peter Bourjos, CF - 186 PA, .612 OPS Vernon Wells, LF - 177 PA, .649 OPS Chris Iannetta, C - 139 PA, .717 OPS John Hester, C - 95 PA, .617 OPS 9) In an effort to get Trumbo's bat in the lineup they play him primarily in LF, where he has, for what it's worth, a pretty bad UZR rating (-3.3 UZR and a -6.9 UZR/150) and also a poor dWAR (-0.8), which is offsetting his offensive contributions to a degree. I'm sure there's a plethora of other reason far more complicated than the ones I focused on. All I really did was single out the obvious stats (ERA, WHIP, OPS, etc.)... but it's pretty obvious underperforming superstars and Mike Scioscia's love of defense is likely hurting them. I know Iannetta isn't setting the world on fire with his bat, but he's still a vast improvement over the other two options, and if Scioscia actually believes in the catcher ERA and game calling ability, he needs to take a look at how his pitchers are doing cause they're not doing too hot, no matter who he tried to justifiably throw out there

He might as well have said "I'm fine, The only thing I'm having trouble with is baseball"

Crazy numbers... http://blogs.thescore.com/mlb/2012/08/16/flip-flop-fly-ball-chapmania/ But for all the hoopla Chapman is getting because of his insane K numbers, it seems people have overlooked rthe fact that Fernando Rodney has this line so far this year: 56.2 IP, 5 ER, 9 BB, 55 K, 38 SV, 51 GF, 0.79 ERA, 0.79 WHIP, 474 ERA+ Rodney doesn't have the insane K numbers Chapman does, but Chapman is already getting mentioned as a frontrunner for Cy Young while I'm not sure anyone is really noticing that Rodney has only allowed 2 ER since May 27th. I kind of think Rodney's season has been more impressive in some ways.

http://deadspin.com/5936316/michele-smith-became-the-first-female-analyst-for-a-national-baseball-broadcast-yesterday-heres-how-viewers-reacted

I also just realized I put "shooting" and not "stabbing". Slip up.

Why did so many teams pass on him in the draft that he fell to the 76th pick? Signability issue?

That is [expletive] insane

Crazy old bump, but ESPN just put out an incredibly long and detailed write-up about the 17 days leading up to the stabbing of Greg Halman explaining a lot of what his brother, Jason Halman was doing and going through before he killed his own brother. Fascinating and tragic read... http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/8286055/seattle-mariners-gregory-halman-days-leading-death-hands-brother-jason

So much meatballery on the comments from the ESPN article. I know I shouldn't read them but I was morbidly curious to see how many "He's an idiot who sucks" type comments there were. There were a lot. Out of curiosity, with the exception of that one time Bobby V called out Castro for not paying attention, what other instances were there of Castro losing his focus and goofing on the field? Didn't he recently forget how many outs there were? Are those the only two things? I just think it's silly that in the tenure of his career in Chicago he has made a small handful of goofs in singular situations and because of that there are idiot people who think this is a bad contract

Huzzah!

Yeah at this point it's been well documented he was experimenting with a new pitch during his struggles, and once he abandoned it he went back to being effective. I'm just glad that was the reason and not a lingering injury or a lightning-in-the-bottle situation.

It wasn't my first Cubs game, but the farthest back I can remember to was probably Dodgers vs. Cubs in either 96 or 97 or something. All I know is it was a slaughterhouse on both ends. Tons of home runs. Piazza and Sosa both hit bombs onto Waveland. Cubs lost, naturally.

I think the Nationals are good enough to make the playoffs without Strasburg, so I'd probably shut him down

Does the bat noise sound like the former Braves' broadcasts on TBS? That always sounded weird to me. More traditional home run sounds... http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23980915&topic_id=10025018&c_id=mlb http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23980003&topic_id=10025018&c_id=mlb http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23977307&topic_id=10025018&c_id=mlb http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23970569&topic_id=10025018&c_id=mlb The sounds of the Blue Jays home runs (at least in the Rogers center, anyways): http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23969239&c_id=mlb http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23836837&c_id=mlb http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=22777305&c_id=mlb http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=22666317&c_id=mlb http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23408377&c_id=mlb http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=22778813&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_interstate To compare, here are some home runs from visiting teams at the Rogers center (sorry for the first couple, they recently played the white sox so you'll have to endure Harrelson) http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23951943&topic_id=10025018&c_id=mlb http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23932279&topic_id=10025018&c_id=mlb http://mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=23015953&c_id=mlb

Random, irrelevant factoid: I have an irrational love for the Toronto Blue Jays based solely on the fact that I like the way Buck Martinez's voice gets on home run calls, and also the way he says "Edwin Encarnacion" and "Jose Bautista" and the fact that whatever audio equipment they're using makes the sound of the bat coming off the ball sound completely different than any other broadcast I've heard.

He's obviously trade bait because of Beltre, unless they plan on moving Moreland in the offseason and replacing him next year, but what sense does it make to bring up a guy where he gets little playing time when he could be in the minors continuing to build upon his trade value by crushing the ball down there? I'm baffled.

So the Rangers have started him 6 times since the callup on August 1st, including one pinch hit situation. 4 times at 1B, once at 3B, and once in RF. None at DH. I would have to think spot starting one of your most valuable minor league assets while in the middle of a great minor league campaign is not the proper way to develop him. WTF are they doing?

I was curious about that, too. Also, Felix Hernandez's brother must be still on a roster as a favor... http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=hernan001moi If he can keep a roster spot, Mark Prior can keep a roster spot. The walk rate was atrocious but he clearly still has the ability to be an effective pitcher with that K rate. I know he was slowed dowbn by a non-arm related injury not too long ago. Was he still injured or did he come back from that already?

I'm not convinced that his intellectual prowess extended much beyond the statistical/baseball analytics realm. His statistical analyses were pretty sweet, though. He made me a believer on Khalil Greene. That one didn't turn out so well. Or J.R. Towels.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8278062/major-league-baseball-test-two-experimental-replay-systems

http://www.northsidebaseball.com//forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=58913&start=175

I really want him back on the Cubs. I don't even care if his walk rate huffs dong, I'm sure that can be worked on, and his K rate is still sexy and he's probably better than some of the other crap we trot out of the bullpen on a regular basis already.

Please be one of those super awesome Tampa Bay Rays style long term contracts EDIT: From Brett's blog, quoting Kapman...

A couple of my Braves fan friends seem to think that they won't be able to re-sign Michael Bourn. And with Chipper retiring, perhaps a Jackson/Vitters package makes perfect sense for them. That being said, they (being the fans) appear to be wanting to acquire someone for LF and move Prado to 3rd to solve the Chipper situation. Either way, A Vitters/Jackson combo should be enough to get a nice return from Atlanta if they were inclined to pull the trigger on such a trade, would it not?