Tuesday's Frosty Mug
by Kyle Lobner on Jan 12, 2010 8:44 AM CST
in News
33 comments
Some things to read while finally getting it right.
If you've spoken to me in the last 12 hours or so, you've probably heard me mention how much I hate writing the Mug on days like this. Far and away the hardest days to write the Mug are the days when there's one major national story out there (especially when it's steroids), and a collection of hundreds of blogs and sites I've gathered specifically to provide diverse points of view on baseball all stop what they're doing so they can become the 300th voice to blather about it.
Today, it's Mark McGwire (FanShot). Tom Haudricourt posted about him five times yesterday. College basketball analysts are making jokes about it. Paging through my morning reads this morning was like standing in front of a toilet and flushing it over and over, as nearly every site's top story is an attempt at some new angle of rehashing the same crap everyone else is covering.
As such, we're a little light on Brewer stories today. My apologies.
Alcides Escobar's impressive performance in Venezuela this winter is turning some heads, but it's not his VWL batting title that's drawing the praise. Craig Calcaterra notes that Reid Nichols was impressed by Escobar's 14 walks in VWL play, which raised his OBP to .440. Calcaterra cautions against reading too much into it, but if Escobar can add some plate discipline to his game and raise his OBP a bit it would add a lot to his value.
Walk Like a Sabermetrician has an interesting post today looking at league average batting by position in 2009. The Brewers were the only team in baseball to be 20 runs above average at three positions (first base, second base and left field), but were also below average at catcher, shortstop and in right field.
I'll be the first to admit to complaining about front office decisions and other factors that make me less excited than I could be about the organization. With that said, I wouldn't really rate myself as an unhappy fan, so it strikes me as strange that the Brewers will fall somewhere below 20 in Joshua Fisher of The Hardball Times' Fan Happiness Rankings.
In the minors:
- Brewerfan.net recently polled their readers to compile a prospect ranking, and the results are in. It'll be interesting to compare their results to ours.
- Speaking of our results, you have until 4 pm today to cast a ballot for the #6 spot in our Community Prospect Rankings. Zach Braddock leads Angel Salome by 68 votes at this point.
- Responding to a request from me, Chris Mehring has a look at some of the nutritional information available to Brewer minor leaguers. It certainly sounds like the training staff has done an excellent job of putting information on a bulletin board, but I still don't know if anyone is reading it.
If you love the major sports stories of the day and wish we spent more time gossiping discussing them, then Miller Park Drunk's latest fan fiction, featuring Randy Wolf, might be just what you're looking for.
If you're in or near Milwaukee and looking for something to do this Friday morning, the Journal Sentinel is holding a Tweetup in their lobby, and Tom Haudricourt will be one of the reporters on hand. Even if you're not a Twitter fan, the opportunity to grab a free coffee or doughnut and ask Tom what he thinks of your favorite Brewer blog might be worth the trip.
Around baseball:
Dodgers: Signed pitcher Scott Dohmann and infielders Nick Green and Argenis Reyes to minor league deals.
Pirates: Have reportedly reached a deal with outfielder Ryan Church.
Rays: Signed first baseman Dan Johnson to a one year, $500,000 deal.
Royals: Signed pitcher Matt Herges to a minor league deal.
Also, as pointed out in the comments of yesterday's Mug, I whiffed on Aroldis Chapman signing with the Reds. FanHuddle has some new details on his contract, which will pay him $25.25 million over the next five seasons, with a $5 million player option for the sixth year.
Elsewhere in free agent pitching:
- Doug Davis is reportedly interested in pitching for the Nationals, but they've got other priorities at this point.
- The Ben Sheets/Cubs connections aren't going away.
On this day in 2000, the Brewers acquired Jaime Navarro and John Snyder from the White Sox for Cal Eldred and Jose Valentin. Navarro would go on to make five starts in his second stint as a Brewer, posting a 12.54 ERA in 18.2 innings before being released in April.
I struck out on birthdays today, so we'll have to settle for wishing former Expo Casey Candaele a happy 49th.
A quick side note: Near the end of the season there were a lot of complaints from players about the bulky size and somewhat silly appearance of the new S100 helmet. But if you really want to see a ridiculous helmet, click that link and check out the one Candaele is wearing in his baseball card. It's hard to get more ridiculous than that.
Oh, and hopefully I can make up for a crappy news day with pictures of a baby zebra.
That's all I've got for you today, unless you're a fat guy looking for a job as a professional dancer.
Drink up.
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Also -- required fat guy dancing video
Taking shallowness to new depths -- FtJ's blog
by Fatter than Joey on Jan 12, 2010 9:38 AM CST reply actions
Analogy and Candaele
When I read the “flushing the toilet” reference today made me laugh my head off. Fond City Conference baseball memories. I was kicked out of Cherokee Park (now Harden Field, 35th and Howard in Milwaukee) “for life” when I was about 8 years old for (with my brother) flushing as much toilet paper down the toilet, again and again, causing a huge mess. The parkee was not pleased. Needless to say my younger brother and I ran away laughing.
And Casey Candaele and baseball cards…can we think of some other players whose card you would get no matter how many packs of cards you bought and never get the Rod Carew or Jim Rice or Ron Guidry or Robin Yount card? How about former Brewer Dwight Bernard?
My first or second year of collecting cards
I’d open packs and get guys like Mike Lum and Rob Andrews in every other pack it seemed like. Of course I wasn’t aware that those cards were more frequent than others… If you look at this sheet you can see a duplicated row…
So in fact, in some cases, there were more cards made of certain players….
By the way — I see 11 players on this sheet that played for the Brewers at some point in their career — Can anyone name all of them? One Milwaukee Brave as well….
Taking shallowness to new depths -- FtJ's blog
by Fatter than Joey on Jan 12, 2010 10:17 AM CST up reply actions
How depressing would it be
To be a Major League veteran and 1) actually have a desire to play for the Nationals; and 2) have the Nationals say they don’t want you?
Doug Davis must be in a very dark place right now.
by Cheeseandcorn on Jan 12, 2010 9:45 AM CST reply actions 2 recs
Fan happiness
Apparently he doesn’t know any Twins fans in real life (or people are a lot more positive than my co-workers are.) 6th? Most people I know are worried about third base and the wheels falling off the rotation again, especially if Slowey doesn’t come back the same or if Pavano is, well, Pavano.
That list is awful
Marlins are in the top 10 despite the fact that nobody goes to their games (do they even have fans?), as are the Giants, who aside from the Royals might be run by the biggest moron in the major leagues. Yet the Brewers, who have both one of the most entertaining core of players of any team and a fanbase who topped 3,000,000 home attendance two years in a row (despite being the smallest market of any team) aren’t in the top 20?
Ryan Braun: He loves it.
Giants Fans
Even when the team is bad, they tend to show up to the park and are tremendously loyal. They have a huge fan base and once someone is a Giants fan, they tend to be that way for life. Not to the extent that the Packer fans are, but they have a pretty loyal fan base.
Giants fans will show up
but they sure as heck will complain about the team when they’re there. “Loyal” does not mean “not critical.”
(much like Packers fans, really)
Do you think
It would be fair to say that a lot of fans are happy “when it rains”?
I.e. they like to critique, criticize, slam their team. After all, they perceive it as their team, good or bad, theres always going to be something they can complain about or improve upon.
Not unlike Brewer fans, for that matter.
That's all I've got for you today, unless you're interested in some Chris Capuano/Tom Haudricourt Fan Fiction.
yes
It’s a bad list all around because it does conflate things like the fan experience at the park with happiness with the team on the field…people like going to Miller Park, doesn’t mean they’re going to be happy seeing yet another Suppan start when they’re there. They’re still fans, they’re just complainy fans.
Or it could be like the Marlins, where people both don’t show up and the fans they do have are resigned to decent players being shipped out the minute they’re arb-eligible (exaggerating, but that’s the way people feel.)
Not unlike most teams, I'd imagine ...
unless you’re a Royals fan or a Pirates fan. Maybe “fan apathy” would be a more interesting study.
Yeah, there's really two sects of loyal fans
Those that never think the team is good enough, and those that will blindly follow the team predicting a championship every year.
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, "That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
Brewer fans are way above average
When it comes to fan happiness? We have the best stadium in the nation, the hardiest tailgating tradition in the world, a GM who alternates between mysteries and miracles, a scrappy bunch of young players who know how to have fun, a future hall-of-famer, and a really huge dude who smashes the heck out of the ball. I’m having more fun following this team than I did with Harvey’s Wallbangers.
Happy? I’m happy even when we lose sometimes. Brewer ball is plain ole fun
"I’m happy even when we lose sometimes"
When did you feel like this?
Get out of my dreams and into my Chuckie Carr
-Molitorfan 12/23/09
No kidding, it's awful.
The Royals are not included in the “train wrecks” that are apparently teams 21-30?
You've got a couple screws missin' up in your toolbox, if you think that you'll stop this man from hittin' moonshots.
It's a statistical Anomoly that loyal Royals fans are happier.
Something about small sample sizes…
Applying Simpsons and Star Wars quotes to Brewers discussions since 2009.
if you want other teams' entertaining fanfic...
Roar of the Tigers has an ongoing art+text series of Tigers pitchers with superpowers. It’s great.
the illustrations on the site are hillarious
especially the one of Magglio roasting a marshmellow over Verlander’s Flaming Hands.
"That's not a weird stat. Rickie is a run-scorer," Yost said. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter," Yost told reporters. "See, you guys have no concept. He's a run-scorer. So there's nothing weird about it. That's what he does."
Why is Bob Knight's comment a joke?
I really wonder. What is a performance-enhancing substance? Cough medicine might be performance-enhancing. Contacts might be performance-enhancing. Gatorade. He brings up a really good point, actually.
E: George 4 (5, throw, throw, throw, throw).
what was his comment?
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, "That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
It's the link at "college basketball analysts are making jokes about it"
Bob Knight on ESPNEWS: “You know, Gatorade is a performance -enhancing substance.”
E: George 4 (5, throw, throw, throw, throw).
nice.
Yeah, I couldn’t agree with you more. It’s a question of where do you draw the line. Just look at the list of illegal substances in the olympics. For example, Alcohol can calm your nerves, so it’s banned.
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, "That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
Knights a tool
There’s a world of difference between artificially injecting hormones that mimic testosterone and intake of sodium, chlorine and potassium. He’s trying to generalize the argument to make it zero sum. In Knights magical world….
Shoes – Gone. Increase traction, support feet, increase performance.
Helmets and Pads – Gone. They artificially increase the willingness to take a shot to the head or body part protected.
Food – Gone. Good food high in the types of things in Gatorade (like Bananas) should be outlawed, they provide performance enhancing substances. You are only allowed to eat fatty foods since they do not offer any advantage.
Doctor prescribed drugs – Gone. An athlete should have to live with the symptoms of whatever ills them. By treating them you give them a performance enhancement.
Clothes – Compression shorts offer muscle resistance, and wearing clothes that artificially cool you via wicking of sweat are performance enhancements in his little world.
See Knight is trying to zero sum it all. When it’s a matter of as tcyoung points out, where we draw the line. Anabolic roids is considered a class III narcotic.. Gatorade is not. Sure makes me feel like Knight knows of a lot of people doing PEDs and is trying to muddle the argument against them.
Wow
here’s the video of everything he said.
Apparently this is the point Bob Knight doesn’t realize:
The difference between taking steroids and drinking gatorade or, say, taking vitamins isn’t about how they enhance performance. The issue is that Steroids have negative side effects, while something like Gatorade does not. Because some athletes don’t want to risk organ failure down the road, not everyone is willing to take the supplement. That creates an unfair advantage to those players who take the risk.
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, "That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
What about Tommy John surgery?
I don’t see a good place to draw the line. And then, if your argument is completely based on the negative side effects, what about drugs that can be administered safely?
And finally, if there’s a non-baseball medical issue, or even an injury, and a doctor prescribes a steroid for recovery, is that OK?
E: George 4 (5, throw, throw, throw, throw).
If the steroid is prescribed by a doctor, it's OK for a player to use it,
so long as he files some paperwork, I believe
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, "That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
I don’t see a good place to draw the line.
You’re right. It’s a very hazy line. Taking anabolic steroids should always be considered crossing the line due to the long term effects. Many of the other banned substances are banned because we simply don’t know their long term effects yet, and don’t want to find out the way that many juicers from the early days found out.
Cards Announcers On Gamel's First Career HR, "That’s all they need is another home run hitter".
I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the [imbibed liquid] involved in this case is not that.
The thing that's always intrigued me about Justice Stewart's oft-repeated line:
Just how much porn was Mr. Justice watching? “Friends, I’ve seen some absolutely filthy stuff, things that you can’t un-see. That stuff is obscene. This ain’t.”
by Rubie Q on Jan 13, 2010 7:16 AM CST via mobile up reply actions
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NL Central Standings
| W | L | PCT | GB | STRK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cincinnati
|
57 | 46 | .553 | 0 | Won 2 |
|
St. Louis
|
56 | 46 | .549 | 0.5 | Lost 1 |
|
Milwaukee
|
48 | 55 | .466 | 9 | Lost 2 |
|
Chicago
|
46 | 56 | .450 | 10.5 | Lost 2 |
|
Houston
|
42 | 59 | .415 | 14 | Won 2 |
|
Pittsburgh
|
36 | 65 | .356 | 20 | Lost 1 |
(updated 7.30.2010 at 4:51 AM CDT)
Certain photos copyright © 2010 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
