Something About Baseball

You're missing out on other things

2010-07-31T14:11:00.004-04:00

I noticed this blog ranks well on Google if you search my name, but it's hardly recent.

Go check out my work on Thank You, Internet at the South Florida Sun Sentinel or my Justin L. Abrotsky LinkedIn page if you're interested in me.

Don't get used to seeing "United States" and "first" in the same sentence

2006-02-16T14:57:00.000-05:00

Whether anyone cares or not, the World Baseball Classic is getting pretty darn close, with the United States first to announce their 30-man roster.

It's a pretty nice team; not exactly as much of a favorite as the current odds suggest, but formidable nonetheless (even with the inexplicable absence of one Todd Mathew Hollandsworth).

You probably saw this coming, but here’s the Something About Baseball starting lineup prediction for ~~the New York Yankees~~ Team USA:

1) Johnny Damon (CF, New York Yankees)
2) Derek Jeter (SS, New York Yankees)
3) Alex Rodriguez (3B, New York Yankees)
4) Derrek Lee (1B, Chicago Cubs)
5) Ken Griffey Jr. (LF, Cincinnati Reds)
6) Chipper Jones (DH, Atlanta Braves)
7) Michael Young (2B, Texas Rangers)
8) Jason Varitek (C, Boston Red Sox)
9) Vernon Wells (RF, Toronto Blue Jays)
Starting pitcher: Roger Clemens (Freelance)
Closer: Billy Wagner (New York Mets)

I can't wait to do this for the Dominican Republic and Venezuela once they announce their final rosters.

Alex Gonzalez is about to impress a lot of people

2006-02-07T15:09:00.000-05:00

Not to post nothing but Red Sox news here, but they did sign shortstop Alex Gonzalez (not to be confused with Alex S. Gonzalez) last week to a one-year, $3 million deal.

Maybe I've got an elevated value in my mind of the man Kevin Millar called "Sea Bass," but I think this guy is easily worth more than $3 million. Believe it or not, Gonzalez is the best defensive shortstop in the game, and quite possibly the best defensive player in baseball not named Scott Rolen. His offense could be better, but he's a pretty good clutch power hitter (against the Yankees no less).

Now that he's playing for a nationally (or even regionally) recognized team, watch him prove his true worth this year, and then sign for a considerably higher amount next year.

With a name as cool as Coco Crisp, you would think he'd be worth more

2006-01-26T22:48:00.000-05:00

It appears that, at least for a moment, the trade of Guillermo Mota and Andy Marte from Boston to Cleveland for Coco Crisp is off.

Good for Cleveland.

I don’t understand why a team that was very close to the playoffs last year (me, being the genius that I am, had them going to the World Series before the season started) would get rid of such a good outfielder in return for a third baseman who has scant MLB experience (and is younger than I am) and a relief pitcher whose only great performances came with the comfort of Eric Gagne backing him up (back when that really meant something).

Hopefully, if they decide to still move Crisp to the Red Sox, they’ll get some better talent for him.

You are not going to tell Mr. Barry Bonds what to do

2006-01-24T19:41:00.000-05:00

When you were growing up, did you have a kid in your neighborhood that was about the same age as you, but would never come outside and hang out? I did. He wouldn't come outside to build a fort, he wouldn't help us start a lemonade stand, and he wouldn't even trade baseball cards.

Apparently, Major League Baseball has one of these kids, and it's none other than Barry Bonds, because he doesn't want to play in the World Baseball Classic anymore and he doesn't want to bat second no matter what Giants manager Felipe Alou says.

I'm actually going to stand up for Bonds in this situation. He hit over 700 home runs, and may even hit 756 someday. He's allowed to do whatever he wants. I won't even blame him when we get creamed by the Dominican Republic in the World Baseball Classic's final round. It was probably going to happen anyway.

Let's not count the chickens before they hatch, no matter how wonderful the eggs are.

2005-12-02T09:29:00.000-05:00

How about those New York Mets? Recent trades for Xavier Nady, Tike Redman and Carlos Delgado plus the signing of Billy Wagner make next year's team look pretty good. If that’s not good enough, they’re trying to get more players, namely Manny Ramirez.

So the Mets are going to finally win the National League East title, eh?

Not so fast. Let’s not forget the Mets have had a team that could have easily won the division on paper in any of the past ten years (with the exception of 2004). Why would this slightly more impressive team be any different? I want to see results before I give them an automatic playoff berth, but that’s just me.

South Florida plays a fiddle as Marlins burn to the ground

2005-11-22T06:23:00.000-05:00

The Florida Marlins are nearly set to trade off stars (albeit underachieving ones) Josh Beckett and Mike Lowell to the Boston Red Sox for three prospects.

The deconstruction of the Marlins has finally begun, and it was inevitable. The team was drawing near-worst attendance while paying a respectable mid-range salary.

If the fans won’t come to see a game, then why bother giving them a good team? You can’t make money that way. This may have been the first trade of the Marlins' offseason, but it will not be the last. This team is going to be taken apart completely.

Hopefully, Florida can recover from this, start making money and find a reason to keep this team in South Florida. Personally, I’m not very optimistic.

The irresistible urge to criticize voting

2005-11-17T22:05:00.000-05:00

After having no problem with any of the other postseason awards, including the otherwise controversial American League Most Valuable Player, I have to criticize something.

That being said, I cannot believe the National League MVP voting. Sure, I agree with Albert Pujols winning it all, but let’s look a little deeper, at the rest of the top four vote getters.

How in the world did Andruw Jones get second place? He batted .269 with a .349 on-base percentage. I don’t care about his Gold Glove-winning defense or how many home runs he hit, .269 is never, ever MVP-quality (at least not since 1961, when Roger Maris needed to hit more home runs than any player in history, or 1944, which I can’t explain). Derrek Lee should have been a solid second place with a Gold Glove of his own and nearly league-best numbers in almost every offensive category (even 15 stolen bases), regardless of how bad the Cubs were.

And I don’t just have a problem with second place. I actually have more of a problem with fourth. Miguel Cabrera was clearly the fourth-best player in the National League this year, yet the voters gave that nod to Morgan Ensberg, whom Cabrera had numbers either equal to or much better than in every category. Sure, Ensberg was on a playoff team, which I understand counts for something in voting, but I think the reason the Astros made it had more to do with pitching than his boring .283 average.

A-Rod picks up another MVP award because Ortiz can't pick up a ground ball

2005-11-15T00:53:00.000-05:00

Woody Allen is often quoted (misquoted?) as saying "[Varying number] percent of success is showing up."

With that in mind, I don't understand why Jayson Stark is even entertaining the idea that a designated hitter, David Ortiz, would have been a more deserving recipient of the American League Most Valuable Player award than the winner and legitimate infielder, Alex Rodriguez.

While he concedes that defense did play a role in Rodriguez winning his second MVP, he misses the point that it's not even important that it was good defense, but that it was any defense at all. Rodriguez showed up every game for every part of every inning he played, while Ortiz typically just had to stand up and bat every other inning. Once again, another great job this year by the voters.

Rounding up the "other awards"

2005-11-11T09:52:00.000-05:00

All the 2005 MLB awards are given out so far except the all-important Most Valuable Player.

Huston Street and Ryan Howard were the AL and NL rookies of the year, respectively, Ozzie Guillen and Bobby Cox won AL and NL Manager of the Year votes in landslides, Bartolo Colon won the AL Cy Young Award and Chris Carpenter won the NL Cy Young Award.

This surprises even me, but I actually have no complaints whatsoever with any of these. I know a few people will complain that Roger Clemens didn’t win the NL Cy Young despite having a 1.87 earned run average. Remember, however, that when he won it last year his numbers weren’t all that great, so this was a wonderful make-up call by the voters. Good work, folks.

The public is going to forgive somebody?

2005-11-03T20:59:00.000-05:00

Hey, Jason Giambi has a new endorsement deal. Wow, that’s great.

No, seriously, it is great. Huge embarrassments like Giambi’s steroid scandal can typically ruin a public figure forever. Look at what happened to Ron Artest last year. The media is still talking about it and probably will forever. Heck, look at Pete Rose or even Kermit Washington. (I won’t mention athletes who endured the outrage of America outside of their sport, but I think everyone can think of one example.)

The idea of redemption is a beautiful thing, but the act of it is even greater, because when guys like Giambi and Ray Lewis can put the past behind them and do some good with their lives, everybody wins.

The Dodgers have no money and no patience

2005-11-01T09:24:00.000-05:00

The Los Angeles Dodgers (of Los Angeles) have fired General Manager Paul DePodesta. At times like this, I'm glad I haven't been a Dodger fan since April 5, 1993.

They gave the guy $10 million less to work with in each of his two years as he made trades in 2004 and 2005 that made the team more cost-efficient and, more importantly, younger and built towards the future. Why couldn't the Dodgers keep him for another year or so to see if this is going to work out?

After "Moneyball", most baseball experts know the system DePodesta learned from Athletics GM Billy Beane can work incredibly well. It just takes a couple years. Hopefully, he'll get another chance with a smaller-market team that has no choice but to trust him.

"Dude, I thought we said no more Journey psyche outs."

2005-10-26T11:48:00.000-04:00

Every team the White Sox played this postseason have appeared to get no breaks and no luck. Between the Jermaine Dye “Did it hit him?” incident and the AJ Pierzynski “Stealing first base” incident, it would appear that the White Sox are using some supernatural force to hex the other team.

Well, dearest readers, they are, and that force is none other than former lead singer of Journey, Steve Perry. Journey’s song “Don’t Stop Believing” has been adopted as the Sox’s theme song and Perry is now appearing at games. Maybe I’ve seen “BASEketball” too many times, but I believe in Perry’s ability to psyche out opponents. I wonder if he’ll get a World Series ring for his efforts.

Podsednik gets the recognition he should have had two years ago

2005-10-25T08:17:00.000-04:00

Now that Scott Podsednik is getting all this national attention for hitting an improbable game-winning home run off Brad Lidge in game two of the World Series, I’d like to address something that has been bothering me for two years:

Podsednik should have been the 2003 National League Rookie of the Year. Yes, Dontrelle Willis, who did win it, is now the bigger star, but Podsednik had the better year. A .379 on-base percentage, a .314 batting average, 43 stolen bases, 175 hits and over 100 runs are numbers that any team would love to get from a leadoff hitter. And even if the voters were intent on giving the award to a pitcher, what about Brandon Webb, who had 30 more strikeouts and had an earned run average nearly half a run lower?

On a more personal note, this guy also single-handedly carried my fantasy baseball team back in the middle of the 2003 season, when Willis, also on my team, began to fall apart down the stretch.

Wait a minute...

2005-10-21T09:45:00.000-04:00

It’s official: it's the Astros and White Sox in the World Series.

How the heck did this happen? At the beginning of this season, I don’t think anyone would have said the Astros would do poorly, and only a few would have counted out the White Sox when it came to having a .500 season, but who would have put these two together in the World Series? What happened to the Yankees? The Red Sox? The Marlins? The Cardinals? The Twins?

Don’t get me wrong, this should be a fun series to watch, based around dynamite pitching and speed, but it’s just a little surprising to see these two teams that had hardly any preseason hype.

Ten jobs I'd rather see Joe Torre have

2005-10-18T19:34:00.000-04:00

Joe Torre is going to stick with the Yankees for 2006. What a shame. He’s already cemented his legacy in pinstripes; it’s time for him to move on. Here’s my list of the top 10 jobs Torre should have instead:

10) ESPN baseball analyst (Yes, again, just to expedite Larry Bowa’s departure.)
9) Aged action movie star along the lines of Clint Eastwood
8) Pope
7) and 6) Manager of the New York Mets or Boston Red Sox (Just to watch baseball writers everywhere wear their fingers out writing story after story about a Torre-Steinbrenner feud.)
5) Guy in the Goofy costume at Walt Disney World
4) Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (And the vacancy was open so recently!)
3) Stand-up comedian (Have you ever seen his press conferences? They’re dry humor at its finest.)
2) President of the United States
1) Manager of the Florida Marlins

White Sox theater

2005-10-18T06:50:00.000-04:00

The White Sox are set to try and win their first World Series since 1917. Of course, by now we all know they probably could have won in 1919, since Hollywood won’t let us forget what happened then and who exactly was involved.

I, for one, am rooting for these guys to win. Aside from their style of play, it would be nice to see them break away from being one of the least likeable teams in baseball over my lifetime, but then again, maybe my viewpoint was skewed after they were used as movie villains.

By the way, speaking of throwing games and motion pictures, hopefully this year a World Series team doesn’t lose out just so someone can film a movie like the Cardinals did last year.

Great offense leads to "great defense"

2005-10-13T21:01:00.000-04:00

I know there are more important things going on, but I have to comment on Marlins third base coach Perry Hill's expectations that Mike Lowell will win the National League Gold Glove award at third base.

Is he crazy? Everybody knows that you can't win with offensive numbers as bad as Lowell's. If such a thing were possible, Alex Gonzalez would have won the award at shortstop last year instead of the overrated fielder, but better hitter, Ceasar Izturis.

Sure, the award isn't for great offense (they leave that to the Silver Slugger), but hitting is the only thing that draws attention in order for voters to notice someone is playing their position better than everyone else.

Look at the list of past winners. See something in common over the past dozen or so years? They're all offensive powerhouses (and even admitted steroid users, in Caminiti's case). I won't criticize Scott Rolen, who might be the greatest defensive player I've ever seen (with the possible exception of Gonzalez), but everyone else probably wouldn't have won if their averages weren't at least in the upper .200s and they weren't generally hitting between 20 and 40 home runs.

Maybe in a perfect world, Hill would be right, as voters would give every player a fair chance regardless of supposedly irrelevant statistics, but we don't live in that world, and Mike Lowell probably won't get the award that he deserves.

By the way, I'll be a nice guy and won't even mention how Lowell could possibly have stopped hitting so well in the 2005 season. There's no way I'm even going to hint at it.

If it takes 18 innings, is it really being played well?

2005-10-11T03:54:00.000-04:00

ESPN writers, as many others have, praised Sunday’s 18-inning battle between the Braves (without Todd Hollandsworth, I might add) and the Astros as one of the greatest in playoff history. Eric Neel even put it at second all-time.

I considered it to be a memorable, classic game, but I’m not so sure if it was all that great. After all, it wasn’t a case two teams playing their best against each other; instead it was two teams struggling to play less badly than the other. A great game should involve two teams playing hard and well. Here’s two games that are much better examples of postseason classics in my lifetime, both from the World Series (I won't separate it from the rest of the playoffs like the ESPN guys):

1) The Twins winning the World Series in 10 innings over the Braves. Jack Morris pitched the entire game for the champions in a game where both teams played flawless defense.
2) The Marlins’ 11-inning win over the Indians, also in the seventh game of the World Series, in 1997. I still watch this game at least once a year. Much like Sunday’s game, both teams had to use all of their good relievers (and some lousy ones), but in this one, the crucial hits came around much sooner. As impressive as an 18-inning game can be on paper, watching inning after inning of players trying to be a hero with one home run swing and missing is depressing after a while.

Thanks to Mark Newman for mentioning both of these games on MLB.com Monday.

Why, Bobby?

2005-10-07T12:59:00.001-04:00

Bobby Cox is quite possibly the finest manager of my lifetime, but even he can make mistakes. For example, as his Atlanta Braves made their final cuts for the shortened playoff roster, the 25 players did not include left-handed reserve outfielder Todd Hollandsworth.

Of all the players on the Braves, I’ve probably seen Hollandsworth the most, since he was a vital part of Florida’s 2003 World Series title. He’s a clutch hitter, an underrated fielder and performs well in the postseason.

Now that I think about it, maybe Cox is a little overrated.

The season is over, and it's time to clean out a few desks

2005-10-04T10:04:00.000-04:00

Several managerial vacancies have emerged in the past couple of days, the most notable being Detroit, Florida, and Los Angeles (of Los Angeles). Why? Because each actually has a shot at being a playoff team next year.

I'm expecting the more hopeful candidates in these three cities. Those include Jim Leyland, Lou Pinella and Jim Tracy (although not with the LA job, obviously). Second to them, I'd expect to see some young up-and-coming third base or bench coaches (like those named in the Florida article) to get the jobs before veterans that are several years removed from the game. In other words, good news for Joe Girardi, and bad news for Davey Johnson.

Boston's weekend rental

2005-09-30T02:05:00.000-04:00

The Red Sox acquired Mike Stanton from the Nationals Thursday for minor leaguers Rhys Taylor and Yader Peralta so they can get his services for the final four games of the season.

Yeah, that's right; two minor league pitchers are now part of the Nationals organization for as long as the next half decade just so the Red Sox can have more left-handed relief pitching for four games.

This is ridiculous. I know they're trying to make the playoffs but don't they have any faith in their farm system to develop future stars? Taylor did, after all, put up good numbers so far in the Gulf Coast League (1.49 ERA in eleven appearances, five of them starts). Furthermore, shouldn't the team have some confidence that their current bullpen can get them by the Yankees and/or Indians in the standings? Those are the guys who will be pitching in the playoffs.

I'm predicting that Boston will win two of three against the Yankees and force a playoff game to determine the American League East winner, which they will win (the Indians will take the wild-card spot). I guess I'll just have to wait and see if that's thanks to Mike Stanton's help. If he makes a massive impression on Yankee hitters between now and Wednesday, then maybe I'll admit this trade actually made sense.

At least until Yader Peralta wins the 2013 National League MVP award.

The Astros are as good as in the playoffs, trust me

2005-09-27T02:58:00.000-04:00

The Houston Astros lost Monday to the Chicago Cubs, which leaves them with a seemingly small one-game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League wild-card race.

"Wait, he said 'seemingly;' what gives?"

The Philadelphia Phillies will choke. They are a team genetically engineered to do such a thing. Billy Wagner will always spite his talents and blow the high-profile save, Bobby Abreu becomes unable to hit when the national spotlight shines in his eyes, and the team generally has a recent history of coming close in this very race and then losing it in the last week. This happened in 2003 against the Marlins and last year against these very same Astros. It will happen again.

In less than a week, I could be a genius

2005-09-19T21:55:00.000-04:00

Please, let me explain. Way back in April I did my annual MLB predictions and placed the Cleveland Indians on top of the American League Central Division. Sure, it seemed a bit unreasonable at the time, but now the Tribe has been beating the pants off of everyone lately and is a mere 3 1/2 games behind the White Sox going into a three-game series in Chicago.

Of course, beating Freddy Garcia, Mark Buehrle and John Garland in a row won't be easy, but even if they take two out of three here they'll probably be in good shape to take the division. Why, you ask? Look at the strength of schedule: after this, the White Sox have two four-game series against respectable division rivals Minnesota (76-72) and Detroit (67-81) while the Indians get a virtual vacation against the two worst teams in the American League, Kansas City (48-99) and Tampa Bay (62-88). If it's still close after that, they finish the season against each other with three games at Jacobs Field.

(For those wondering, the rest of my preseason predictions had the Marlins, Cardinals, Padres, Yankees and Angels all winning their divisions with the Mets and Red Sox getting the wild-card spots and Florida sweeping Cleveland in the World Series.)

The most we've heard about a guy named Mordecai since last Purim...

2005-09-14T02:51:00.000-04:00

This one goes out to the Marlins fan in all of us, or maybe just me and a couple dozen in South Florida: Mike Mordecai, the good luck charm/infield replacement from Alabama is back after finishing up his first season as a minor league manager for the organization. I remember reading that he was always a great guy to have in the dugout to motivate players, teach young guys and steal signs. I also remember seeing a couple clutch homers from him and half-decent middle infield work. I'm sure he's gotten a little rusty, but when your other veteran backup is Damion Easley (Can they give out an opposite to the gold glove? The Soot Glove, perhaps?), he could be a valuable defensive addition.

Of course, as a massive Marlins fan, you can't take me seriously at all.

Barry Bonds is back, the Giants are relevant again, and the world can now rest easy.

2005-09-13T09:52:00.000-04:00

Bonds returned on Monday and hit a ground-rule double in his first at-bat. ESPN News pulled off some wonderful coverage of the event, changing their "Breaking News" box in the corner of the screen every 10 seconds, from "Barry Bonds on deck" to "Barry Bonds takes practice swing" to "Barry Bonds scratches left arm" to "Oh, wow! Barry Bonds is totally at bat right now!" to "Barry Bonds: the doubles to LCF"* and so on. Meanwhile, the stat-tracking of Bonds can continue with record-obsessed fans everywhere, even if between the Negro League, the Dead Ball Era, steroids, Babe Ruth starting off as a pitcher and Tommy John surgery hitting statistics are only relevant to their era and are merely a suggestion at greatness...

(* = Yes, it was actually this gramatically off. Only for a few seconds, though. Yes, I am a loser for having noticed.)