Lesson learned: don't write about anything unless you can detach your emotions when you have to. Back to baseball. The White Sox could trade Chris Sale for A-Rod and I'd still love baseball. The Twins and Indians could alternate World Series titles for the rest of my life and I'd still love baseball. Announcers and sportswriters could be banned from using any words other than "steroids", "HGH", and "Gold Glove winner Derek Jeter" and I would still love baseball. Baseball never makes me hate myself or makes me feel like I'm not a person. Baseball makes me calmer and happier than I would be without it. It's time to write about some fucking baseball, because I need to remember that spring is coming. One day soon, I'll have Keith Law's contempt of ignorance to focus on instead of my own.
12/16: Cardinals sign 2B Mark Ellis, 1 year, $5.25M. A solid alternative to Kolten Wong, the kind of depth signing the Cardinals always make. Good deal.
12/16: Royals sign 2B Omar Infante, 4 years, $30.25M. Infante had a career year with the Tigers last year, and there's little reason to believe he'll repeat it. Still, a second baseman who hits like the average major leaguer? Sign the Royals up. If I ran the team I'd probably make a similar gamble to turn a weakness into a strength, back up the Shields acquisition, and push all in for 2014. This is one I'll be watching all season, because this is the Royals' best chance to make the playoffs in decades. If they fail, it's probably curtains for Dayton Moore.
12/16: Rockies sign RP Boone Logan, 3 years, $16.5M. We know multi-year deals for LOOGYs (Lefty-one-out-guys) are stupid, right? And we know pretty much everything the Rockies do is wrong? We do? OK. Let's move on.
12/16: Indians sign RP John Axford, 1 year, $4.5M. Axford's rate stats hit a low point before moving from Milwaukee to St. Louis last year, but like everyone else who puts on a Cardinals uniform, he seemingly turned it around in 13 late-season appearances. Axford's always gotten his K's, but relievers have a short shelf life and everything points toward a pronounced decline. I wouldn't even find this a worthwhile move if he stayed in the NL.
12/16: Braves sign SP Gavin Floyd, 1 year, $4M. I always liked Floyd when he pitched in Chicago, but he's leaving behind a legacy of averageness and one injury-wrecked season in 2013. He's slated to miss at least the first two months of the 2014 season while he recovers from flexor tendon surgery as well as Tommy John. If he comes back strong, the deal could reach $8.5M with incentives and the Braves could get 15-20 decent starts out of him. If he doesn't, they've thrown away $4M- not an inconsequential amount of money for the Liberty Media-era Braves. Just because I'm biased in favor of former Palehose, I'll take the over and say this works out fine.
12/16: White Sox trade RP Addison Reed to Diamondbacks for 3B Matt Davidson. I'll grant that everything I know about Davidson I've read off the internet and I don't know what kind of player he'll turn out to be. That said, the Sox got a potential third base answer with all his years of team control intact in exchange for a relief pitcher. Score, score, score. This looks especially great next to the Peavy-for-Garcia and Santiago-for-Eaton trades. Have I mentioned that I think I like Rick Hahn as my GM? Dude has gotten stuff done.
12/18: Phillies sign SP Roberto Hernandez, 1 year, $4.5M. Cases like this make me feel old. Hernandez's dominant year leading the Indians to the playoffs was 7 damn years ago. Since then, he stopped using the awesome fake name Fausto Carmona, aged a couple years instantly due to the removal of his fake identity, and started being terrible. A team grasping at the fringes of relevance like Philly needs as many starting pitching candidates as they can get their hands on, but with ex-Fausto clearly in their top 5, it doesn't look good.
12/18: Twins trade C/OF Ryan Doumit to Atlanta for SP prospect Sean Gilmartin. The Twins are another team that needs as many pitchers as they can get, and 2011 first-round draft pick Gilmartin is indeed a pitcher. He's also 23 and hasn't shown any ability to succeed above Double-A yet. Doumit is a low-OBP guy with some pop and some versatility. He should provide depth backing up Evan Gattis and Justin Upton this season before hitting free agency next winter. Doumit is more valuable in Atlanta than he would be elsewhere because Gattis is shaky at best at starting catcher. Playing Doumit in a lineup stacked with whiff-happy guys isn't ideal either, but it didn't cost them anything.
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Thursday, January 23, 2014
An Open Letter to Richard Sherman
Dear Mr. Sherman,
You are awesome at football. You stated as much on national television. That is nothing to apologize for. If Michael Crabtree was as awesome as you, he would have been the one Erin Andrews was interviewing on the field. He was not, and your team won the game. Please accept my sincerest congratulations and my wishes of good luck against Denver.
I understand some people have termed your words classless, tasteless, thuggish, all the code words for "I told you this would happen if we let the colored folk intermingle with us whites." It's crap. There are a lot of people like me who don't equate honesty with disrespect and we loved what you said. It was unfiltered and improvisational, but more importantly, it was honest and true. And the whole "OMG he scared a pretty blonde sideline reporter!" thing is overblown and foolish. Erin Andrews has seen worse, and besides, she did her part and she's just happy people are talking about her. You expressed yourself as a man in the moment and of the moment, and I loved it. I found your revelry in your own greatness inspirational, like Kevin Garnett after winning his ring.
I've written on previous blogs about the no-win situation in which people of your stature sometimes find themselves: stick to the script and be labeled a bore and a crappy interview; say what's on your mind and have people wonder what's wrong with you. I don't think there's anything wrong with you, Richard. Keep doing what you're doing and pick Manning off three times when you go do that thing in New York a week from Sunday. If you make media day fun, that's okay too. Just make sure you're enjoying it as much as the morons who get paid to overreact to the things you say.
Love,
The Everlasting Dave
P.S.: As long as you're taking my advice, my mom likes your uniforms. So go ahead and win the game too.
You are awesome at football. You stated as much on national television. That is nothing to apologize for. If Michael Crabtree was as awesome as you, he would have been the one Erin Andrews was interviewing on the field. He was not, and your team won the game. Please accept my sincerest congratulations and my wishes of good luck against Denver.
I understand some people have termed your words classless, tasteless, thuggish, all the code words for "I told you this would happen if we let the colored folk intermingle with us whites." It's crap. There are a lot of people like me who don't equate honesty with disrespect and we loved what you said. It was unfiltered and improvisational, but more importantly, it was honest and true. And the whole "OMG he scared a pretty blonde sideline reporter!" thing is overblown and foolish. Erin Andrews has seen worse, and besides, she did her part and she's just happy people are talking about her. You expressed yourself as a man in the moment and of the moment, and I loved it. I found your revelry in your own greatness inspirational, like Kevin Garnett after winning his ring.
I've written on previous blogs about the no-win situation in which people of your stature sometimes find themselves: stick to the script and be labeled a bore and a crappy interview; say what's on your mind and have people wonder what's wrong with you. I don't think there's anything wrong with you, Richard. Keep doing what you're doing and pick Manning off three times when you go do that thing in New York a week from Sunday. If you make media day fun, that's okay too. Just make sure you're enjoying it as much as the morons who get paid to overreact to the things you say.
Love,
The Everlasting Dave
P.S.: As long as you're taking my advice, my mom likes your uniforms. So go ahead and win the game too.
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
You Know It's Obvious, But...
I put up last night's post in what was little more than a fit of rage, and it was less coherent than the subject deserved. I'm going to try and unpack my thoughts a little here. If you care, awesome. If not, my readership is unchanged.
For those who don't want to read the articles in the links, here's the short summation. Caleb Hannan wrote an article for Grantland.com about a putter- a golf club. Let's start with that. This story started with a golf club. It's also about the woman who invented it, a physicist by the name of Essay Anne Vanderbilt. While verifying her credentials as a physicist, he discovered that she was a fraud- no doctorate, no MBA, no education that would lend credence to her sales pitch that the putter was a scientific breakthrough. She was a struggling mechanic who, by all accounts, was impossible to work with. This part is good reporting. Not anything I would care about, but hey, it ruined a con artist's life and would give boring old dudes something to joke about on the golf course. But that wasn't what made this a big deal. Hannan chose to lump something else in with those fraudulent credentials: Essay Anne Vanderbilt was born a man. In pursuing this angle on the story, Vanderbilt's correspondence with Hannan goes from distant but helpful, to furious and threatening, to pleading with him not to out her, offering proof of her nonexistent degrees in exchange for a NDA on her past. Hannan refused. On October 18th of last year, Essay Anne Vanderbilt killed herself.
Christina Kahrl, a trans woman who writes about baseball (very well) for ESPN.com, was brought in to write a critique of the piece. Some of what she said should be obvious to anyone with the slightest bit of empathy. Much of the story was not information Hannan had any right to make public. The responsible thing to do would have been to push her about her fraudulent credentials while assuring her that her gender identity, as it was not pertinent to the story, would be off limits. Trans people kill themselves at a rate 26 times higher than that of the population as a whole. Some estimates have the trans suicide rate at 41%. Four. One. Violence against trans people remains an under-reported and tragic phenomenon. None of this was news to me, but it probably was for some. I really only learned one thing: the idea of a "deep stealth" transperson. That's someone who cuts oneself off from his or her previous life completely in order to start a new life as a new gender as Essay Anne Vanderbilt did. It was once second only to repression as the most recommended way of dealing with gender dysphoria. I can't imagine anything more horrifying.
Reacting to the blowback, Grantland Editor-In-Chief Bill Simmons wrote an open letter. This is where I went from sad to angry. Bill's like Jon Stewart, or the fine folks who make The Simpsons, or Green Day. He's been a part of my pop culture experience for half my life. I've read his columns since he was ESPN.com's Boston Sports Guy. I've read his books, "The Book of Basketball" and "Now I Can Die In Peace". I find him knowledgeable, persuasive, goofy, occasionally insufferable- all the things you want from a good columnist. To Bill's credit, he takes responsibility for running the story and admits several mistakes, but so much of what he says is completely culturally tone-deaf. It makes me think he doesn't really know the implications of taking that responsibility. Here are some of the things he said that made me want to breathe fire.
"On Wednesday morning, we posted a well-written feature by Caleb Hannan about an inventor named Essay Anne Vanderbilt, a.k.a. “Dr. V.” "
(When your subject kills herself, who cares how good the writing was?)
"Caleb only interacted with her a handful of times. He never, at any time, threatened to out her on Grantland. "
(Except that's what happened after she died. I don't see how he needed to put words to an obvious implied threat. Would he be asking her and her family repeated pointed questions about her gender identity if he had no intention of writing about it? Get real.)
"For us, this had become a story about a writer falling into, for lack of a better phrase, a reporting abyss. The writer originally asked a simple question — So what’s up with this putter? — that evolved into something else entirely."
(Um, yeah. The guy who writes about a golf club is the one who fell into an abyss. Not the transwoman whose clearly tenuous grip on reality was shattered by a piece about a golf club that turned into... whatever you want to call what it turned into.)
"Not only did we feel terrible about what happened to Dr. V, we could never really know why it happened. Nor was there any way to find out."
(Really, Bill? You don't know? I have a guess.)
So in the end, all I have is anger at a cultural monolith I used to mindlessly consume, and a new respect for Christina Kahrl. The word "courageous" is passed around the LGBTQ community like a blunt at a 311 concert. I have a better word for her: Tough. She is a tough person to speak for those who need it. There are still plenty of people who troll the internet making it clear they think gender dysphoria and homosexuality are perversions and sicknesses but also a choice somehow, and it takes more toughness than I think I'll ever have to stand in that world and say, "bring it on".
I need something good to come out of this. I need to know I'm a better person for having given this thought. So here's my conclusion: Self-definition is something hetero-normative people don't even think about. They are the way they are and that's the way they should be. For LGBTQs, self-definition is an essential part of life. It is the heart of their rights as humans and too often we treat it like it should be a privilege. Be gay, but don't do it in front of me. Be a lesbian, but don't get married. Be bi, but only if you're a girl, because that's hot. Be trans, but don't go out in public looking like that. If you don't know what you are, quit navelgazing and find a nice person of the opposite gender. Get to work making the next generation of entitled morons who don't learn to think in shades of grey.
Grantland and I are broken up, but as I said in the previous post, Rany and Jonah can still hang out sometime. As for what it means for my blog, I have no clue. I want to tell you I plan on writing about these issues if and when they come up. I want to brag that I've never been afraid to ask questions about myself, the people I share this planet with, the tribal mentalities that turn people against each other to distract us from what's really going on. I want to believe I'm the kind of person who has something to say when it's obvious someone has been mistreated. And yet I've written thousands of words about American goddamn Idol and baseball. I've wasted so much time and I'm not getting it back.
For those who don't want to read the articles in the links, here's the short summation. Caleb Hannan wrote an article for Grantland.com about a putter- a golf club. Let's start with that. This story started with a golf club. It's also about the woman who invented it, a physicist by the name of Essay Anne Vanderbilt. While verifying her credentials as a physicist, he discovered that she was a fraud- no doctorate, no MBA, no education that would lend credence to her sales pitch that the putter was a scientific breakthrough. She was a struggling mechanic who, by all accounts, was impossible to work with. This part is good reporting. Not anything I would care about, but hey, it ruined a con artist's life and would give boring old dudes something to joke about on the golf course. But that wasn't what made this a big deal. Hannan chose to lump something else in with those fraudulent credentials: Essay Anne Vanderbilt was born a man. In pursuing this angle on the story, Vanderbilt's correspondence with Hannan goes from distant but helpful, to furious and threatening, to pleading with him not to out her, offering proof of her nonexistent degrees in exchange for a NDA on her past. Hannan refused. On October 18th of last year, Essay Anne Vanderbilt killed herself.
Christina Kahrl, a trans woman who writes about baseball (very well) for ESPN.com, was brought in to write a critique of the piece. Some of what she said should be obvious to anyone with the slightest bit of empathy. Much of the story was not information Hannan had any right to make public. The responsible thing to do would have been to push her about her fraudulent credentials while assuring her that her gender identity, as it was not pertinent to the story, would be off limits. Trans people kill themselves at a rate 26 times higher than that of the population as a whole. Some estimates have the trans suicide rate at 41%. Four. One. Violence against trans people remains an under-reported and tragic phenomenon. None of this was news to me, but it probably was for some. I really only learned one thing: the idea of a "deep stealth" transperson. That's someone who cuts oneself off from his or her previous life completely in order to start a new life as a new gender as Essay Anne Vanderbilt did. It was once second only to repression as the most recommended way of dealing with gender dysphoria. I can't imagine anything more horrifying.
Reacting to the blowback, Grantland Editor-In-Chief Bill Simmons wrote an open letter. This is where I went from sad to angry. Bill's like Jon Stewart, or the fine folks who make The Simpsons, or Green Day. He's been a part of my pop culture experience for half my life. I've read his columns since he was ESPN.com's Boston Sports Guy. I've read his books, "The Book of Basketball" and "Now I Can Die In Peace". I find him knowledgeable, persuasive, goofy, occasionally insufferable- all the things you want from a good columnist. To Bill's credit, he takes responsibility for running the story and admits several mistakes, but so much of what he says is completely culturally tone-deaf. It makes me think he doesn't really know the implications of taking that responsibility. Here are some of the things he said that made me want to breathe fire.
"On Wednesday morning, we posted a well-written feature by Caleb Hannan about an inventor named Essay Anne Vanderbilt, a.k.a. “Dr. V.” "
(When your subject kills herself, who cares how good the writing was?)
"Caleb only interacted with her a handful of times. He never, at any time, threatened to out her on Grantland. "
(Except that's what happened after she died. I don't see how he needed to put words to an obvious implied threat. Would he be asking her and her family repeated pointed questions about her gender identity if he had no intention of writing about it? Get real.)
"For us, this had become a story about a writer falling into, for lack of a better phrase, a reporting abyss. The writer originally asked a simple question — So what’s up with this putter? — that evolved into something else entirely."
(Um, yeah. The guy who writes about a golf club is the one who fell into an abyss. Not the transwoman whose clearly tenuous grip on reality was shattered by a piece about a golf club that turned into... whatever you want to call what it turned into.)
"Not only did we feel terrible about what happened to Dr. V, we could never really know why it happened. Nor was there any way to find out."
(Really, Bill? You don't know? I have a guess.)
So in the end, all I have is anger at a cultural monolith I used to mindlessly consume, and a new respect for Christina Kahrl. The word "courageous" is passed around the LGBTQ community like a blunt at a 311 concert. I have a better word for her: Tough. She is a tough person to speak for those who need it. There are still plenty of people who troll the internet making it clear they think gender dysphoria and homosexuality are perversions and sicknesses but also a choice somehow, and it takes more toughness than I think I'll ever have to stand in that world and say, "bring it on".
I need something good to come out of this. I need to know I'm a better person for having given this thought. So here's my conclusion: Self-definition is something hetero-normative people don't even think about. They are the way they are and that's the way they should be. For LGBTQs, self-definition is an essential part of life. It is the heart of their rights as humans and too often we treat it like it should be a privilege. Be gay, but don't do it in front of me. Be a lesbian, but don't get married. Be bi, but only if you're a girl, because that's hot. Be trans, but don't go out in public looking like that. If you don't know what you are, quit navelgazing and find a nice person of the opposite gender. Get to work making the next generation of entitled morons who don't learn to think in shades of grey.
Grantland and I are broken up, but as I said in the previous post, Rany and Jonah can still hang out sometime. As for what it means for my blog, I have no clue. I want to tell you I plan on writing about these issues if and when they come up. I want to brag that I've never been afraid to ask questions about myself, the people I share this planet with, the tribal mentalities that turn people against each other to distract us from what's really going on. I want to believe I'm the kind of person who has something to say when it's obvious someone has been mistreated. And yet I've written thousands of words about American goddamn Idol and baseball. I've wasted so much time and I'm not getting it back.
Monday, January 20, 2014
We Can't Choose How We're Made
I'm going to hide what is possibly the most important thing I've ever written in between countless baseball posts with no readership. Well, second most important. It's a reading exercise. Read this, this and then this. It's a lot of reading; the first one is at least twice as long as it needs to be. But if you make it through and have no problem with the sequence of events detailed within, we can't be friends. I check Grantland pretty much every weekday, because their sports coverage is thought provoking and informative, and their pop culture coverage is so pretentious and asinine it makes me feel good about listening to twenty-year-old alternarock, watching the same old syndicated cartoons until I've memorized every episode of The Simpsons, American Dad, and King of the Hill, and playing my Playstation 2. But continuing to read them after this is going to be tough for me. None of what happened is OK. Admitting ignorance and vowing to improve is a great first step, but for me it's too little too late. If you don't get it and you know someone in the trans community, ask them why it's not OK. I think they'll say what I'm about to say right here: the idea of outing a trans person without their or their family's consent is beyond the goddamn pale and I can live without Steven Hyden and Bill Barnwell. Maybe I'll sneak a Jonah Keri every now and then, because fuck it, I love baseball and Jonah's the best. If you just don't care about this, that's alright. There's plenty of stuff I don't care about. But it means we can't be friends. Again, I wish I could be nicer about this. But I wish- no, I fucking beseech whatever gods exist, have existed, and will exist- that everyone could be smarter about this.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Winning the Winter, part 9
This installment of baseball reactions is brought to you by one of the worst albums ever (Daphne and Celeste's "We Didn't Say That") and one of the best albums ever (Against Me!'s "Transgender Dysphoria Blues"). I find both of them to be breathtaking works of staggering genius. Tonight I will be watching the season premier of American Idol, and if I decide I hate the internet enough to follow through, I might liveblog it too.
12/12: Nationals sign OF Nate McLouth, 2 years, $10.75M. If the Nats made this deal expecting McLouth to play every day in the outfield, it would be a mistake. The Nats have World Series aspirations, after all. But as a fourth outfielder, I guess it's fine. McLouth's career path from young five-tool prodigy to waiver claim to useful outfielder has been fun to witness.
12/12: Mariners sign 2B Robinson Cano, 10 years, $240M. I'm not going to list all the ways in which this is a terrible signing, because that's been done all over the internet and I have nothing of real value to add. This signing coincided with the hatchet job quoting former Mariners officials saying GM Jack Zduriencik got the job on false pretenses and has no real qualifications. He's gotten credit for building the Brewers into a real franchise for a few years, but thus far he hasn't been able to replicate that success in Seattle and it's probably fair to ask how much of the good work was really his. Maybe Seattle has made back-to-back terrible GM hires. Or maybe there's a Rays-esque layer of talent bubbling just underneath the majors that's almost ready to join Cano. What do I know. Well, I know signing middle infielders into their 40s is pretty dumb. There's only one way this ends, and it's not with Jack Z handing Robby a gold watch on the field in October 2024.
12/12: Giants sign 1B/OF Michael Morse, 1 year, $6.5M. They say there's no such thing as a bad one year deal, so let's just call this one a push. Morse has been riding the value of his brief stretch of adequacy in Washington for 2 terrible years. The Giants won't get anything out of it, but at least it'll be over in ten months.
12/13: Mariners trade RP Carter Capps to Marlins for 1B/OF Logan Morrison. Morrison is a buy-low candidate, but it's getting doubtful that he'll ever fulfill the promise of his first season-and-a-half. Maybe he and Hart form a platoon or something, but there aren't enough at-bats to go around for everyone Jack Z has acquired. The Marlins did well to get an asset in this deal, as Capps is a young, controllable, K-happy reliever with closer upside.
12/13: Tigers sign RP Joba Chamberlain, 1 year, $2.5M. Detroit's bullpen failings were a big story in 2013, but the additions of Joe Nathan and Joba seem like sensible moves. Joba's never reached the promise he once had as an overhyped Yankees prospect, in large part due to poor control, but he still strikes guys out and the move to a big park can't hurt. Good deal for the Tigers.
12/13: Rockies sign 1B Justin Morneau, 2 years, $12.5M. And the Rockies go from one end-of-the-line former great first baseman to another. The cost isn't exorbitant, but Morneau hasn't even been a league-average first baseman since his concussion issues began. I guess it's not impossible he's a useful player for a season or two, but the Coors Field bump is largely a thing of the past. This looks like more of the same old no-plan Rockies to me.
12/14: Mets sign Bartolo Colon, 2 years, $20M. The big man's found a way to stay productive into his 40's. The wheels could come off at any time, so this is riskier than giving more money to, say, Ubaldo Jiminez or Matt Garza. But the Mets needed to fill the Matt Harvey void, and there's a chance this will work. It's difficult to put odds on it, but the new "No walks, no homers" Colon looks like a good fit at Citi Field. It's a great deal for Colon regardless. $20M guaranteed to pitch at 41 and 42? That's insane. On second thought, this is probably not going to work out for the Mets.
12/12: Nationals sign OF Nate McLouth, 2 years, $10.75M. If the Nats made this deal expecting McLouth to play every day in the outfield, it would be a mistake. The Nats have World Series aspirations, after all. But as a fourth outfielder, I guess it's fine. McLouth's career path from young five-tool prodigy to waiver claim to useful outfielder has been fun to witness.
12/12: Mariners sign 2B Robinson Cano, 10 years, $240M. I'm not going to list all the ways in which this is a terrible signing, because that's been done all over the internet and I have nothing of real value to add. This signing coincided with the hatchet job quoting former Mariners officials saying GM Jack Zduriencik got the job on false pretenses and has no real qualifications. He's gotten credit for building the Brewers into a real franchise for a few years, but thus far he hasn't been able to replicate that success in Seattle and it's probably fair to ask how much of the good work was really his. Maybe Seattle has made back-to-back terrible GM hires. Or maybe there's a Rays-esque layer of talent bubbling just underneath the majors that's almost ready to join Cano. What do I know. Well, I know signing middle infielders into their 40s is pretty dumb. There's only one way this ends, and it's not with Jack Z handing Robby a gold watch on the field in October 2024.
12/12: Giants sign 1B/OF Michael Morse, 1 year, $6.5M. They say there's no such thing as a bad one year deal, so let's just call this one a push. Morse has been riding the value of his brief stretch of adequacy in Washington for 2 terrible years. The Giants won't get anything out of it, but at least it'll be over in ten months.
12/13: Mariners trade RP Carter Capps to Marlins for 1B/OF Logan Morrison. Morrison is a buy-low candidate, but it's getting doubtful that he'll ever fulfill the promise of his first season-and-a-half. Maybe he and Hart form a platoon or something, but there aren't enough at-bats to go around for everyone Jack Z has acquired. The Marlins did well to get an asset in this deal, as Capps is a young, controllable, K-happy reliever with closer upside.
12/13: Tigers sign RP Joba Chamberlain, 1 year, $2.5M. Detroit's bullpen failings were a big story in 2013, but the additions of Joe Nathan and Joba seem like sensible moves. Joba's never reached the promise he once had as an overhyped Yankees prospect, in large part due to poor control, but he still strikes guys out and the move to a big park can't hurt. Good deal for the Tigers.
12/13: Rockies sign 1B Justin Morneau, 2 years, $12.5M. And the Rockies go from one end-of-the-line former great first baseman to another. The cost isn't exorbitant, but Morneau hasn't even been a league-average first baseman since his concussion issues began. I guess it's not impossible he's a useful player for a season or two, but the Coors Field bump is largely a thing of the past. This looks like more of the same old no-plan Rockies to me.
12/14: Mets sign Bartolo Colon, 2 years, $20M. The big man's found a way to stay productive into his 40's. The wheels could come off at any time, so this is riskier than giving more money to, say, Ubaldo Jiminez or Matt Garza. But the Mets needed to fill the Matt Harvey void, and there's a chance this will work. It's difficult to put odds on it, but the new "No walks, no homers" Colon looks like a good fit at Citi Field. It's a great deal for Colon regardless. $20M guaranteed to pitch at 41 and 42? That's insane. On second thought, this is probably not going to work out for the Mets.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Winning the Winter, part 8
Most of baseball took this past week off, so I did the same. Time to start making up for it with a lightning round.
12/7: Marlins sign IF Rafael Furcal, 1 year, $3.5M. Any new position players the Marlins bring in can't hurt. While Furcal no longer gets enough extra-base hits to be considered an upgrade for most teams, and while it remains to be seen if he can handle a position change this late in his career, he's probably better than Donovan Solano. Maybe only by a little.
12/7: Astros sign RP Chad Qualls, 2 years, $5.95M. The 'stros have made a few additions to the big league club this winter, but I'm not sure any of them are really upgrades. Signing a replaceable right-handed reliever like Qualls is one such move. Maybe his presence lifts them from a 60-win season to a 61-win season.
12/7: Red Sox sign RP Edward Mujica, 2 years, $9.5M. Mujica is a step up from replaceable reliever, but his home run and K rates are cause for concern going to the AL East and Fenway Park. Could be another misstep from the GM who brought you Andrew Bailey, Joel Hanrahan, and others. Then again, none of those guys had an awesome nickname like "Chief". Also, said GM presided over the 2013 World Series champions. So, again, there's a nonzero chance he knows his business better than I do.
12/8: Mets sign Curtis Granderson, 4 years, $60M. This is one of my favorite moves of the winter. Not an overly long contract (Granderson will play next year at age 33) at about the going rate for a power hitter, and it fills a position where the Mets had a real need. Consistent power and durability mean there's every reason to believe Granderson is going to be an asset in the field and at the plate for at least half this contract. Also- you're saved, Mets fans. No more Jordanny Valdespin. Granderson and Chris Young are a murderer's row compared to what they've been running out there in recent years.
12/10: Marlins sign 1B/OF Garrett Jones, 2 years, $7.75M. He's got some power, but he strikes out too much and he's not regarded as a good defensive player anywhere. The Marlins already had a guy just like that, except Logan Morrison is still young enough to hope for some improvement. Whoops. The Marlins' whole first baseman shuffle got them nowhere in their quest for a major league-caliber offense.
12/10: Rockies acquire SP Brett Anderson from A's for SP Drew Pomeranz and SP prospect Chris Jensen. A salary dump by Oakland, but with some upside coming back. Jensen was old for his league in 2013 and may not even be a prospect, but his peripherals were nice last season. Pomeranz, 25, found himself demoted to AA last year but injuries haven't completely ruined his promise. Anderson is also 25 and injury-prone, but he's got a major league track record and a contract that was reasonable when the A's gave it to him. This could be nothing-for-nothing, but I'll always take the upside on strikeout pitchers leaving the Rockies organization.
12/10: White Sox trade SP Hector Santiago to Diamondbacks for OF Adam Eaton. Diamondbacks trade Santiago and SP Tyler Skaggs to Angels for IF/OF Mark Trumbo. This is going to be a fun one to look back on in five years. Just to make a snap judgement, I like it for the Angels the most, because they got two pre-arbitration arms that could quite easily make their rotation. The Sox also did well, because Santiago's sub-4 ERA in 2013 had some fluky indicators and they potentially solved their perennial CF hole with Eaton. The Diamondback paid through the nose for power hitting, simple as that. Trumbo looks to be heading into Adam Dunn territory when it comes to swinging and missing, and it's going to take a lot of homers to make up for poor OBP's and bad defense. It's not Myers-for-Shields bad, but unless Kevin Towers hits upon the magical combination of grit and clubhouse chemistry that leads to the postseason, moves like this one should threaten his job security.
12/11: Mariners sign 1B/OF Corey Hart, 1 year, $6M. Hart's coming off two knee surgeries and heads to a place where 1B/DH types are plentiful and home runs go to die. I recommend nihilism for any Mariners fans who happen to read this. It'll make everything that's yet to come so much easier.
12/11: Pirates sign SP Edinson Volquez, 1 year, $5M. If Pirates fans are hoping this works out like the Liriano signing, well, I hope they continue to hope. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. Even if I find it sorely misplaced in this situation. Unless ownership's ready to give the payroll a permanent boost- and I don't see it happening- deals like this represent all kinds of missed opportunities. Someone else could be taking those starts and making that money, and whoever those someone elses could be, they're probably better at baseball than Volquez.
12/11: Pirates re-sign SP Charlie Morton, 3 years, $27M. Morton, for example, is better than Volquez. It's an unexciting sign for the Pirates, and given that 2013 was a career year for Morton in almost all categories, it's reasonable to expect a backslide. But he's only getting paid to be average, and while that's his ceiling, it's not an unrealistic one.
12/11: A's trade RP Jerry Blevins to Nationals for OF prospect Billy Burns. The A's get a speedy outfield prospect with plate discipline, and the Nats get a 30-year-old lefty reliever. I like it for the A's, but as a win-now move it's okay for the Nats. They're going to have Harper, Span, and Werth until half past forever anyway.
12/11: Tigers sign OF Rajai Davis, 2 years, $10M. This was not the move Tigers fans were anticipating when Dave Dombrowski traded away Fielder and Fister and cleared payroll space. Nothing wrong with having a decent defensive fourth outfielder, but it's hard to believe the Tigers are done making moves.
12/7: Marlins sign IF Rafael Furcal, 1 year, $3.5M. Any new position players the Marlins bring in can't hurt. While Furcal no longer gets enough extra-base hits to be considered an upgrade for most teams, and while it remains to be seen if he can handle a position change this late in his career, he's probably better than Donovan Solano. Maybe only by a little.
12/7: Astros sign RP Chad Qualls, 2 years, $5.95M. The 'stros have made a few additions to the big league club this winter, but I'm not sure any of them are really upgrades. Signing a replaceable right-handed reliever like Qualls is one such move. Maybe his presence lifts them from a 60-win season to a 61-win season.
12/7: Red Sox sign RP Edward Mujica, 2 years, $9.5M. Mujica is a step up from replaceable reliever, but his home run and K rates are cause for concern going to the AL East and Fenway Park. Could be another misstep from the GM who brought you Andrew Bailey, Joel Hanrahan, and others. Then again, none of those guys had an awesome nickname like "Chief". Also, said GM presided over the 2013 World Series champions. So, again, there's a nonzero chance he knows his business better than I do.
12/8: Mets sign Curtis Granderson, 4 years, $60M. This is one of my favorite moves of the winter. Not an overly long contract (Granderson will play next year at age 33) at about the going rate for a power hitter, and it fills a position where the Mets had a real need. Consistent power and durability mean there's every reason to believe Granderson is going to be an asset in the field and at the plate for at least half this contract. Also- you're saved, Mets fans. No more Jordanny Valdespin. Granderson and Chris Young are a murderer's row compared to what they've been running out there in recent years.
12/10: Marlins sign 1B/OF Garrett Jones, 2 years, $7.75M. He's got some power, but he strikes out too much and he's not regarded as a good defensive player anywhere. The Marlins already had a guy just like that, except Logan Morrison is still young enough to hope for some improvement. Whoops. The Marlins' whole first baseman shuffle got them nowhere in their quest for a major league-caliber offense.
12/10: Rockies acquire SP Brett Anderson from A's for SP Drew Pomeranz and SP prospect Chris Jensen. A salary dump by Oakland, but with some upside coming back. Jensen was old for his league in 2013 and may not even be a prospect, but his peripherals were nice last season. Pomeranz, 25, found himself demoted to AA last year but injuries haven't completely ruined his promise. Anderson is also 25 and injury-prone, but he's got a major league track record and a contract that was reasonable when the A's gave it to him. This could be nothing-for-nothing, but I'll always take the upside on strikeout pitchers leaving the Rockies organization.
12/10: White Sox trade SP Hector Santiago to Diamondbacks for OF Adam Eaton. Diamondbacks trade Santiago and SP Tyler Skaggs to Angels for IF/OF Mark Trumbo. This is going to be a fun one to look back on in five years. Just to make a snap judgement, I like it for the Angels the most, because they got two pre-arbitration arms that could quite easily make their rotation. The Sox also did well, because Santiago's sub-4 ERA in 2013 had some fluky indicators and they potentially solved their perennial CF hole with Eaton. The Diamondback paid through the nose for power hitting, simple as that. Trumbo looks to be heading into Adam Dunn territory when it comes to swinging and missing, and it's going to take a lot of homers to make up for poor OBP's and bad defense. It's not Myers-for-Shields bad, but unless Kevin Towers hits upon the magical combination of grit and clubhouse chemistry that leads to the postseason, moves like this one should threaten his job security.
12/11: Mariners sign 1B/OF Corey Hart, 1 year, $6M. Hart's coming off two knee surgeries and heads to a place where 1B/DH types are plentiful and home runs go to die. I recommend nihilism for any Mariners fans who happen to read this. It'll make everything that's yet to come so much easier.
12/11: Pirates sign SP Edinson Volquez, 1 year, $5M. If Pirates fans are hoping this works out like the Liriano signing, well, I hope they continue to hope. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things. Even if I find it sorely misplaced in this situation. Unless ownership's ready to give the payroll a permanent boost- and I don't see it happening- deals like this represent all kinds of missed opportunities. Someone else could be taking those starts and making that money, and whoever those someone elses could be, they're probably better at baseball than Volquez.
12/11: Pirates re-sign SP Charlie Morton, 3 years, $27M. Morton, for example, is better than Volquez. It's an unexciting sign for the Pirates, and given that 2013 was a career year for Morton in almost all categories, it's reasonable to expect a backslide. But he's only getting paid to be average, and while that's his ceiling, it's not an unrealistic one.
12/11: A's trade RP Jerry Blevins to Nationals for OF prospect Billy Burns. The A's get a speedy outfield prospect with plate discipline, and the Nats get a 30-year-old lefty reliever. I like it for the A's, but as a win-now move it's okay for the Nats. They're going to have Harper, Span, and Werth until half past forever anyway.
12/11: Tigers sign OF Rajai Davis, 2 years, $10M. This was not the move Tigers fans were anticipating when Dave Dombrowski traded away Fielder and Fister and cleared payroll space. Nothing wrong with having a decent defensive fourth outfielder, but it's hard to believe the Tigers are done making moves.
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Nothing's Gonna Ruin My Holiday
I've been participating in a mental illness support group for the past two years-plus. A lot of my fellow bipolar sufferers have problems around this time of year. Trying to put on a happy face to match the people you share a holiday with, coming to the end of a year uncertain what the next twelve months will bring, that sort of thing. I am not one of those people. Christmas is and always has been my favorite day of the year. I have a generally cool family, we really do care about each other, and that's always come first on Christmas. I know a lot of people who can't say the same for themselves, so I'm always grateful that when the year comes to a close I've got good people in my life. Here's my Christmas timeline, as we count down the hours to Christmas #32 in the life of The Everlasting Dave. Some dates may be off, but I kept it as close as I could.
1982-88: No clear memories of any of this, just establishing the traditions we kept for years. Reading "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" on Christmas Eve. Decorating the tree with ornaments we still have to this day. Hanging the stockings. Christmas morning at home, always getting pretty great gifts, especially considering that my parents never had tons of money. Going to my grandparents' house for Christmas night, with big extended family and a big dinner. Even with just a couple gifts per person, the pile of presents spilled out across the living room and by the end of the night wrapping paper was everywhere.
1989: This is an estimate- it may have been '90 or '91- but a friend of my grandparents gave me my first Walkman on Christmas, along with a cassingle of a Chicago Cubs rally song. I started borrowing my sister's REM and Jesus Jones tapes, and within a few years my collection of radio mixtapes and store-bought albums on tape were my most prized possessions. Maybe the same year, maybe a year or two later, my aunt gave my parents the first CD player we ever had and a copy of "A Very Special Christmas", the pop-stars-doing-Christmas-Carols album. I still love the U2 and Run-DMC songs (Christmas in Hollis is my favorite non-punk Christmas song), and I'm pretty sure Bruce Springsteen's "Merry Christmas Baby" is the reason I cannot stand The Boss to this day.
1992: The Christmas of Super Nintendo. First kid on my block- maybe my whole school- to have one. I beat my dad in John Madden Football (the first one) on a last-second field goal to break the system in, and my sister and I spent most of the next week trying to beat Super Mario World, then beating it again and again.
1994: My grandparents had moved to Florida, so we went down there for Christmas. I was 12 years old and completely geeked out over this alternative rock thing, so my gifts included copies of Nirvana's Unplugged in New York, Stone Temple Pilots' Purple, and (I believe) Offspring's Smash. I still have the first two tapes. I also remember swimming in December, which was mind-blowing to me at the time. My sister tried to get me to have some of my grandparents' booze while we stayed up late watching a Green Day concert on MTV. I said no.
1995: We went to my aunt's house in Virginia this year. I have three clear memories of this: My dad being strongly affected by a Christmas mass in a big beautiful church, my sister being jealous that I got Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (still on cassette!) and she was stuck with Presidents of the United States of America, and receiving from my aunt some amount of internet time via dialup on her laptop. I was entranced and spent the whole time on MTV.com. In retrospect, this Christmas was a blowout win for me.
1996: I got my first CD player, a Jeep boombox, and my first CD: Beck's Odelay. This year, New Year's was a bigger deal than Christmas for me, because I had a Magic: the Gathering night with a bunch of friends on New Year's Eve. A few weeks later, we would get our first PC and I could go on MTV.com in the comfort of my own home. Score.
1998: Back to Florida to spend Christmas with my grandparents, but the big gift was a trip a bit further south to Miami to meet in person with my internet girlfriend. That was probably the best Christmas present ever, and for at least a couple years, those few days in Miami were the best days of my life.
2003: Christmas in chemo. That pretty much says it all. I'm not sure who was there on which days that winter, but I know most of my family made some effort to get there and help out with transportation, medication, whatever was necessary. I like to say I've never had a bad Christmas, and if someone brings this one up, I say "Everyone else might have been worried, but have you ever been on IV Ativan? This was a merry Christmas." This is true, but more seriously, I remain humbled to this day that my family rallied around me the way they did. All the Magic cards and Pearl Jam bootlegs in the world don't compare to that level of suiting up and showing up. Magic cards and Pearl Jam bootlegs are still awesome, though.
2004: My first Christmas without any family. Good friends, my then-almost-inlaws, and the joy of no longer being hooked on pain meds and benzos. A literal and symbolic end to the nightmare that was my late 2004.
2008: Our first Christmas after the passing of my then-girlfriend's father, we split the day between my family and hers. A lot of time in transit, but also lot of good time spent with good people. There was a really good picture taken of us toward the end of the day, where you can see so much exhaustion and contentment and, I think, some hope.
2010: I consider this the first Christmas of the rest of my life. I was in a mental hospital until just a few days before Christmas, and I spent much of the day at my uncle's house, drinking beer and trying not to say much of anything. The big upside to this Christmas was that it was the first one I feel I was truly selfless, spending most of my money on gifts for others instead of worrying about myself. It felt good and I try to do at least a little of that every year now.
2012: The best Christmas ever. My terminally-ill sister, both my parents, and I spent the day together at my dad's place. Gifts weren't the point- a couple jokey things, some gestures, whatever- but getting to marathon Simpsons and Family Guy one last time with my sister is one of the best Christmas memories I'll ever have.
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