Tag Archives: hot stove

January 11, 2013 · 3:14 pm

The Only Logical Way to Start the New Year

So… I’m guilty.  I have pretty much started the new year doing everything you’re supposed to stop doing.  I don’t make resolutions (unless DRINK MORE COFFEE counts?),but I have spent the last 11 days altogether slacking on life.  Will eventually answer emails and clean my stuff up and all that.  Maybe on Opening Day or maybe not.  Further updates at a later date.

Anyway, in baseball news, the Hall of Fame announced who they will be inducting this year and the answer is nobody.  Not even in the Odysseus sense: nobody with a capital N.  Just nobody as in nobody because the baseball writers are on a power trip and really we need a new way of voting so that arbitrary in a way that suits us fans a little better.  A hint: arbitrary is arbitrary, no matter how you spin it.  No one was inducted this year.  Life goes on.

Moving right along.

This past month or so has been pretty sleepy, mostly, with the new CBA pretty much guilting everyone into finishing up their offseason early, as was intended, I think.  Catchers and pitchers (in)voluntarily report to Spring Training a month from tomorrow.  There are still a few players floating around and a cover guy for MLB The Show to be picked, but otherwise, crickets

In the meantime, I am entertaining myself with movie award season.  My Golden Globe prediction ballot is all filled out and I’m still celebrating about Beasts of the Southern Wild and Silver Linings Playbook knocking everyone else out with their sort-of-surprise Oscar noms.  And recovering from the shock that Trouble With the Curve didn’t, like, clean up.

Justin Timberlake is a man of many talents.  Baseball broadcasting, sadly, is not one of them.

Diamond Girl

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December 19, 2012 · 10:19 pm

Eugenio Velez Trivia and What Billy Beane Wants Us To Know

In this episode of My Offseason Was a Failure, Jon Daniels has said that while he did not mean to throw Josh Hamilton under the bus by saying he hated him, this offseason has been sort of lousy.  “Disappointing,” was the word he used, I think, but sort of lousy works too.  In Jon Daniels We Still trust, though, so I’m just hoping they can figure out how to make it a bit less lousy, because there are all sorts of great people still on the market and the team’s already pretty rad.  Things will be fine.

In other (old) news, Eugenio Velez signed with the Blue Jays, which keeps them solidly in the spot of the smartest big spenders this offseason.  I like these Blue Jays, I like them a lot.  The AL East just got a lot more interesting – even more interesting than the Orioles totally being good, which was pretty interesting to begin with.

Trivia, y’all:  Eugenio Velez started his career in Toronto back in 2001 but they weren’t that into him and the Giants claimed him in the Rule 5 draft a few years later.

Apparently they’re into him again, now?  Let’s Get Back… Together, as the Giants slogan said.

The A’s are making moves because while all the other ordinary teams made moves at the Winter Meetings the A’s donotliketheWinterMeetingsatall.  So they signed Hiroyuki Nakajima who said, in one of the best presser openings ever, that we could just call him Hiro.  Other hilarious thing about this press conference was Billy Beane’s repeated emphasis on the fact that they were in on this and serious about this even though the media was not covering it Billy Beane was, like, a hipster before there were hipsters.  He is also sexy and cool.  Goes without saying.

In Giants news, Tim Lincecum may have cut his hair.  Except I don’t think that guy looks like Tim Lincecum at all.  Also, no one was this interested when I cut my hair.

Diamond Girl

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December 13, 2012 · 8:56 pm

Baseball Teams Do Not Care About Their Fans.

Baseball teams do not care about their fans.  I came to this realization today.

And I don’t say this for the reasons you think – it’s not the jawdropping prices on tickets and water (HUMAN NECESSITY, by the way) or the fact that they trade everyone’s favorite players or only give away their junky bobbleheads to a completely arbitrary number of people just so they can watch us get trampled/kill ourselves after all that time surrounded by raw and horrifying humanity.

No.  I’m not talking about any of that.  Although on second thought…

Still no.  I’m talking about the alarming way that they all do things on the same day in the offseason.  Weeks (okay, it’s actually days, but it’s the offseason and we’re baseball fans and it feels like weeks) go by with nothing happening except for the odd rumor about a player you may or may not have heard of going to a team you may or may not have heard of.  I am partially kidding and partially looking at you, Indians.

And then suddenly they all decide on one day they’re going to tear up the World Wide Web and make all their moves and make their fans’ heads spontaneously combust.

Ahem.  Josh Hamilton signed with the Angels today much to his surprise and her surprise and meanwhile, the Giants were all, LOL, that was just a joke, of course we want Andres Torres.  And they signed him again.  We fans responded, “Yes, duh, we were wondering what getting rid of him was about.  Glad it was a joke.  LOL or whatever.” 

While I’m happy about the Torres move because hell, how could you not be, I am really hating the world because of the Josh Hamilton thing.  Baseballisabusiness, but signing within the division is not a nice move under the best of circumstances, which are not Josh Hamilton’s, and if what the Rangers are saying is true, that Hamilton didn’t call them until the deal was all inked, then that doubly does not make Hamilton look very good.  I am unusually angry at him.

I think Hamilton is an extraordinary player, but I think the Rangers will be all right without him.  Likewise, I don’t think either of the cash-happy LA teams will finish in first place next season.  Not even second place, if you peek in my crystal ball.  The Rangers are in a very interesting position right now and I think they will certainly make some significant moves either now or at the trade deadline, while in the NL West, the Giants are eying the Dodgers but pretty much staying put, but I am of the opinion that both teams will be just fine.  In addition to being the new Moneyball, in a strange turn of events.

But I can say with certainty that everyone will do silly giveaways for the first 20,000 fans and sell $8 water.  It’s nice that some things never change.

Diamond Girl

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December 10, 2012 · 12:58 pm

My Unicorn!

Michael Young is a Phillie.

Despicable Me - Unicorn GIF

Oh, Despicable Me.

That was how I reacted.  Michael Young was my unicorn in that he was like a fluffy stuffed animal and I was very attached to him and more specifically, attached to him as a Ranger.  That man was a Ranger for a very long time.  “How long, Obi Wan Kenobi?” Luke Skywalker might ask.  “A very long time,” Obi Wan would answer.

Now I get that baseballisabusinessMichaelYoungisstillabaseballplayertheRangershadtodoit and all of that, but I’m still sad.  These made-over Rangers are going to take some time to get used to.  (Mike Napoli in Boston red, what is up with that.)  I wish I had Gru to take me to the amusement park to get a new Michael Young in a Rangers uniform.

I blame Hollywood for giving us kids false perceptions of beauty and false hopes about what happens when our stuffed unicorns are disintegrated.

Diamond Girl

p.s.  Presumably Young had some say/a lot of say in where he landed, yes?  Which would mean that he chose Philadelphia?  But who would willingly choose to live in Philadelphia and be a Phillie?  I bet he and Cliff Lee are going to be besties.

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November 19, 2012 · 8:07 pm

Catch-Up Time

Sorry for my absence!  I’ve been sick and going through prolonged baseball withdrawal, which is not a good combination.  (Also been eating a lot of cranberry chocolate, which is pretty much the greatest thing currently on Planet Earth.)

I know what you’re thinking, but you need to go buy your own.  You can’t have mine.

But I am back and ready to tackle some big things like the fact that every single MLB player is fleeing to the Blue Jays and also that our very own Buster Posey was named Most Valuable Player.

We knew he was most valuable.  But it’s still pretty marvelous for everyone else to confirm it.  We are very lucky to have Buster in San Francisco and while it’s faded from memory now, it really wasn’t a given that he’d be back every day after his injury in 2011.  There was a lot of uncertainty that his mammoth season just about wiped out, but it’s incredible all the same.  Congratulations, Buster.

The American League was a bit of a murkier prospect.  Much was made of the Mike Trout vs. Miguel Cabrera thing and there were more than a few outraged baseball fans when Cabrera took the award in what ended up being not a very close race at all.  And I was annoyed by that.  Because frankly, what it came down to was one very good baseball player vs. another very good baseball player.  I saw Trout play in Anaheim and he was amazing to watch.  I’ve never personally seen Cabrera play, but I have no doubt he is amazing as well.

I would venture to say that this wasn’t all about advanced statistics and sabermetrics; I think as the arguments went on, Cabrera came to signify old school and Trout, new school, in some people’s minds and while that’s fine, it sort of defeats the original argument that these decisions should be entirely based on advanced stats.

I also have to what the point is of an award that is voted on by people if those people are all going to vote based on a certain stat sheet – which stats are important to different people?  I have always thought the point of the BWAA awards was that writers who see these players every day make judgment calls.   A judgment call cannot, really, be right or wrong.  The writers picked the person they picked and ultimately, he’s one of the best players in the game right now.  End of story.

But were you all on Team Trout or Team Cabrera?  Maybe they should have just named Buster Posey Most Valuable Player in the League, People, Deal With It and left it at that.  Much less controversy.

Diamond Girl

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