Base Clogger Sighting!

I want to thank Joel Sherman for handing me my first "base clogger" article. A base clogger is someone, like say Jim Thome, who is always on base and keeps faster players, like say Juan Pierre, from going from 1st to 3rd on a single. Someone who can't score from second and base hit. Of course, they are usually, ALWAYS ON BASE. Which is a good thing. Sorta the point of the game. Do not make outs.
To be fair, Sherman's egregious error has nothing to do with those two words but this instead:

So even though he is followed in the lineup by two of the premier RBI men of the generation — Mark Teixeira and Alex Rodriguez — Johnson poses potentially a more troubling matchup with the bases loaded.

Nope. He's not.
Quick stats:
wOBA (weighted on base percentage)
A-Rod: .412
Mark: .390
Johnson: .371

I'll throw in some more for fun:
Jeter: .375
Posada: .371

Johnson is good. But by no stretch is more troubling of a match up than A-Rod/Teixeira.

Case Closed!

Let's Bring the Other Chicago Team in Here

No, not the Bears. Not the Blackhawks. Not the Fire or the Wolves. The White Sox (a singular, distant, unenthusiastic "yay" rings out on the South Side). Take it away Mike Rosenthal (me in regular/Mike in italics):

Taking a stab at 2010 season picks

I guess that's appropriate phrasing for picking a team on the South Side of Chicago.

Here is my vision for the end of the 2010 season: White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and general manager Ken Williams knocking FOX’s Chris Rose to the ground while wrestling for the World Series trophy.

That is actually the most realistic prediction in this article. Assuming they both crash some other teams World Series Trophy presentation. Which would be so great I can barely stand the idea.

Ozzie’s youngest son, Oney, ripping Williams in a tweet delivered straight from the victory podium.

Not as funny.

Ozzie’s oldest son, Ozzie Jr., pouring champagne on his girlfriend and fellow reality TV star, Kim Kardashian.

That's gonna happen anyway.

That’s right, I’m picking Team Wacko to win the World Series.

Ridiculous? Perhaps. But so is the notion of trying to predict the actual Series champ seven months in advance.

I don't know if it's ridiculous. The playoffs throw a wrench in the whole thing since they're such a crapshoot, but it doesn't mean you're going to run out and pick the Royals to win it all. You can use statistical analysis and complicated calculations to come to a pretty decent guess.

Spare me those computer simulations with their “deadly accurate” forecasts of exactly how many games each team will win.

Oh, I guess you can't.

Tell me which players will get hurt.

They have stats for that, it's called PAP for pitchers. Most, if not all projection systems take into account how many games a player will play based on his age and injury history.

Tell me which teams will provide the best replacements.

Projection systems do that also. Have you never heard of Baseball Prospectus?

Tell me which moves will be made in the July and August trading periods.

Call Peter Gammons, I'm sure he knows.

Tell me all that, and I will tell you which team will win the 2010 Series — or, at least, give you a reasonably good guess.

Well Mike, you are expected to look some things up. I'm sure SI has interns that can do that for you and compile the information in a readable way. I'm also starting to see how you picked the White Sox, you did no research and picked the team you could make the most jokes about.

Allow me to share my philosophy for this column, which my ruthless, unrelenting bosses demand, without fail, on the eve of every season:

I'm guessing it involves chicken bones and the blood of a virgin.

Never pick the Yankees.

Great, you've been wrong 27 times then. (yes I know he didn't do prediction for SI back in the 20's). The 90's must have been a tough time for you at the sports book Mike.

Almost never pick the Red Sox.

Last decade must have been a tough time for you at the sports book Mike.

Try to approach the column seriously, assessing each team’s strengths and weaknesses.

Hey, a logical step, way to go.

But then, at the precise moment my head is about to explode, go off the board. Hence, the White Sox.

I'm going to point out that I get what he's trying to do here, saying that predictions are nothing more than guesses so why not just have fun with them. But this is kinda his job, and he's blatantly admitting he put almost no time or effort into this column.

This season, the Yankees and Phillies look like the two best teams on paper. I can easily foresee a World Series rematch if the Series started, like, tomorrow. But a 162-game regular season and two playoff rounds will come first. The trick to identifying a potential champion is not simply picking the most talented outfit. The winner will need financial flexibility to add payroll, a strong farm system to deliver both quality depth and trade fodder and, last but not least, luck.

OK. All those things might help, but I would strongly recommend picking the most talented outfit. And not just the team with the strongest farm system. And to be honest, luck evens out over the course of a season. The Yankees weren't just lucky last year. The Phillies weren't just lucky. There were the most talented teams in their respective leagues.

The White Sox, at the very least, will be a better team than most people think.

Wow, Phil sounds really confident about that, I wonder why...

Their pitching, starting and relief, could be astonishingly good.

Alllllllright...it could also be astonishingly bad. Phil didn't give us any reason to believe him there.

They will score enough runs only if center fielder Alex Rios and right fielder Carlos Quentin produce monster seasons, and that’s a lot to ask.

So why would you pick them if you think their offense can't produce?

But the Twins’ loss of closer Joe Nathan created an opening, and if the Sox reach the postseason, a rotation of Peavy, Mark Buehrle, Gavin Floyd and John Danks could evoke memories of their title run in ’05.

There we go, a reasonable scenario where the White Sox could win it all. Though that offense still looks poor.

The White Sox probably are not as flush with cash as they were last season,

"Probably"? God knows you couldn't use any resource at SI to find that out.

when they obtained two pricey players, right-hander Jake Peavy and center fielder Alex Rios, within a two-week period. Their farm system, too, is not as deep as those of some other clubs,

Yeah, as reported by SI they ranked 25th. Not good.

but when Williams needs a piece, he usually gets it. Of course, Team Wacko annually leads the league in volatility, and the potential for controversy is even greater this season. Guillen, Williams and owner Jerry Reinsdorf will be the stars of a reality show on the MLB Network. Little good can come of such an endeavor, at least from a baseball perspective.

By the time that airs (mid-season) the press will have a whole litany of quotes to work with from Guillen already. Some racist, some sexist, some homophobic, but all offensive.

The beauty of the game is that virtually every contender can be viewed through the same cynical prism.

Really? That's the beauty of the game? Cynicism?

Bear with me now

Da Bears!!

as I harp on the weaknesses of every club that dares threatens my anointed champions. The Yankees largely avoided injuries with an older roster last season, and I’m not sure they can do it again.

Good point.

The Red Sox will excel at run prevention and reinforce their offense if necessary. But let’s see right-handers John Lackey and Josh Beckett both produce 30-plus starts.

So we're going with the injury thing again...alright.

The Rays’ starting pitching is not at the level of the two AL East super-powers, their bullpen will miss setup left-hander J.P. Howell early and their budget already is shot — not good.

Last year the Ray's were 7th in the league in ERA. 0.01 behind the super-powered Red Sox. And you just talked about how the starters for the Red Sox won't stay healthy. While you're at it, you could have pointed out that last year the White Sox had better pitching than the Yankees, and that was without Jake Peavy for most of the year.

So then Phil goes over a few other teams, nothing of note there.

Now to the inferior league
The Phillies already are worried about their pitching depth, though my guess is they will re-sign Pedro Martinez, who unfortunately cannot both start and relieve.

K, pitching depth, got it.

I love the Braves, but worry about the age/injury factor with closer Billy Wagner, setup man Takashi Saito and third baseman Chipper Jones.

K, pitching depth again.

The Marlins will hit, but their rotation beyond Josh Johnson and Ricky Nolasco is a crapshoot. The Brewers are similar, though their pitching is stronger overall.

Alright, chalk up two more for pitching depth.

Talk to me about the Cardinals, and I’ll bet you that at least one of their core players — most likely right-hander Chris Carpenter, maybe first baseman Albert Pujols — will miss significant time.

Injuries, a change of pace, thank god. Though he does point out Carpenter as a candidate for injury which implies (dun dun dunnnn) pitching depth.

The Cubs? Good luck to Lou managing that bullpen.

Arrr...Another for ye depths of pitchin'. Are we seeing a trend yet?

In the N.L. West, the suddenly trendy Rockies possess enough young talent to patch any weakness. My only question is...

Let me guess...

whether they can handle expectations, something they did not do well in ’08 coming off their only World Series appearance.

Ha, that's their biggest problem? Handling expectations? Bet the White Sox wish they had that as their only conundrum.

As for the Divorce Court Dodgers, manager Joe Torre has spoken openly about the team’ lack of a No. 1 starter, and owner Frank McCourt refused to add payroll in midseason even when he was, ahem, happily married.

This is just laughable now. Though in a way, lack of a number one starter isn't exactly pitching depth right? I mean kinda, but I want to give Phil one here.

The Giants’ pitching is terrific,

YES!!! Finally.

but I’m sorry, first baseman Aubrey Huff and super-utility man Mark DeRosa will not make enough of a difference offensively.

Damn, the one team in the league that can pitch, what a shame.

OK, that about does it. The White Sox are my only team left standing, though it’s always possible that Ozzie and Kenny will end up rolling in the mud.

Sounds like a main event for lockdown. Someone tell Hogan.

Hold off on your Internet snark, your vicious blogs and those ever-cheerful comments that appear at the bottom of my columns.

Dude, don't tell me how to run my blog.

The best part is, you can play the exact same process-of-elimination game that I just did, substituting your favorite team as champion. It’s baseball. It’s unpredictable.

I defy any Pirates fan to do this.

And it will consume us all for the next seven months. Enjoy the season, everyone.

Well that was a pleasant ending at least.

Case Closed!

So I've decided

...to just go with the whole article by Gordon Wittenmyer since it seems ripe for the plucking (him in italics/me in regular):

Cubs insist there's a new attitude, plenty to prove

Alfredo Villasmil, a respected Venezuelan baseball writer for that nation's largest newspaper, recently spent a couple of days in Cubs camp checking in on Carlos Zambrano, as he does every spring.
But for the first time, after this visit, Villasmil said, ''I'm going to tell you something: This is El Toro's year. That's the man I met [as a minor-leaguer], when he was hungry.''

I already made fun on this. On a different post. Still, it's 'Quote of the Year' so far this season. And yes I know the season hasn't started yet.

Can you take that to the bank, along with Zambrano's $91.5 million contract?

Can you take a comment by a journalist to the bank as sure fire proof that Zambrano is going to return to his old form? Of course, he's a journalist, that's why you used his quote.

Not until he proves it over the next six months and avoids the lapses that have undone previous seasons.
But as he takes the mound today for the opener of a make-good season for almost every returning player on this team,

I just like that it's a make-good season for "ALMOST EVERY RETURNING PLAYER", except for the ones that were so bad they traded them away.

Zambrano isn't the only Cub who seems at least hungry after a sour, bitter 2009.

Apparently, the Cubs goal this year is to beat Kobayashi in a hot dog eating contest.

Whether they can do it might start with how well they can break from their past, from all the billy goats, Bartmans and Bradleys -- all the real or imagined curses that seem to dog this franchise every season.

"Real for imagined curses"!?!!? Curses aren't real. The White Sox threw a frickin World Series and still got there before the Cubs.

And don't start with the stuff about that being a media creation. It wasn't the media who claimed an improbable catch wasn't made in 2003 because of a fan trying to catch a foul ball, or who brought in the Greek orthodox priest before the 2008 playoffs, or who committed errors around the horn in Game 2 of that series, or who gave Milton Bradley $30 million.

OK, I won't start with it. But it's true, they're a media creation. Just because Cubs management bought into it, doesn't make it real.

In fact, this was the first spring since manager Lou Piniella took over in 2007 that the media didn't ask him about curses or goats -- which might be a sign that the culture change Piniella talked about when he took over has begun to take hold.

Great, in what most people expect to be his last season as a Cub he finally changed the culture from losing thanks to curses to losing thanks to under performance, congrates.

Or that nobody expects enough from the Cubs this year to bother.

BOOYAH!!!

Either way, there's a palpable sense of starting over in 2010, which seems to have only a little to do with new ownership and absolutely nothing to do with that ''Year 1'' marketing slogan.

What a horrible slogan. Thank god they play at Wrigley Field.

''I thought guys came in with a little bit of an edge,'' first baseman Derrek Lee said.

Ugh...this is completely meaningless as to how the Cubs are going to do this year. That's just some standard quote from one of the blandest interviewee's in the game of baseball. Great player, but kinda bland.

Even some of the new guys noticed the businesslike, game-faced approach this spring from those with even a year or two of experience with this team. Camaraderie, jokes and Cubs Idol in the clubhouse were balanced against hours of sunrise sessions with new hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo and a constant buzz of purpose.

New hitting coach. A decent reason that the Cubs might have a better year. Camaraderie and jokes are NOT good reasons. Let's see if Greg expands on the hitting coach thing, maybe that he's instituting a new approach at the plate for some of the hitters that struggled last year:

One new outfielder, Xavier Nady, said the Cubs' clubhouse this spring reminded him of the Yankees team he was on last year.

Nope, just some crap about Nady claiming this spring reminds him of the Yankees. Minus, you know, all the Hall of Fame talent.

New center fielder Marlon Byrd said it reminded him of the 2003 Phillies, the year he broke in as a starter. That was the year the Phillies brought in Jim Thome and 18-game winner Kevin Millwood -- and started a run of seven consecutive winning seasons, including World Series berths the last two.

Of course they reached those World Series AFTER Byrd had already been traded to the Nationals, where he couldn't find a permanent spot on the team and floated between the Majors and AAA. On the NATIONALS!

The last 102 years don't disappear because you say it's Year 1. But new eras don't start before the old ones are killed off, either.
So how do you forget about '09, or even '08 for that matter?

It's Wrigleyville, so I'm gonna guess lots of booze and roofies?

''I don't think you can forget everything, and I'm not sure you want to forget everything,'' said Lee, the only player on the Opening Day roster who has experienced winning a World Series. ''There's some lessons to be learned from last year. You look at it both ways: You learn from it, and then you move on.''

Lee is so sensible it kills me. He's like an baseball playing Vulcan. (yeah, Battlestarwarscapricatrek reference!)

That's where the edge Lee saw comes in.
Geovany Soto (.218 in '09) lost 40 pounds since last season; Zambrano (nine wins), 20.

No wonder they're so hungry.

Soto, Alfonso Soriano (.241, 20 homers) and other returning Cubs might have spent more time in the cage with Jaramillo than they spent on extra hitting their previous spring trainings combined.
''At 6:30 [a.m.], you park your car and you're hearing balls flying in the cage out there,'' pitcher Randy Wells said of the difference this spring. ''People are just ready to go and ready to make a big season of it.''
Said Lee: ''I think guys have something to prove, and as a team we have some things to prove.''

Darn your sensibility Lee, say something weird or dumb so I have a good quote to leave on you jerk.

Case Closed!

Poor Choice of Words

I got this from the Chicago Sun-Times writer Gordon Wittenmyer:

Alfredo Villasmil, a respected Venezuelan baseball writer for that nation's largest newspaper, recently spent a couple of days in Cubs camp checking in on Carlos Zambrano, as he does every spring.
But for the first time, after this visit, Villasmil said, ''I'm going to tell you something: This is El Toro's year. That's the man I met [as a minor-leaguer], when he was hungry.''

Wow...take that unintended double entendre. With a quick, dry wit like that, Villasmil should be writing for Leno.