SB Nation User Blog: Boxkutter

Oakland's Line-up

Boxkutter — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 14:28:51 -0000

I just finally got around to looking at the box scores from last night's games, and checking the Oakland-Seattle one got me wondering... statistically speaking, is Oakland's line-up this worst of the modern era? Or at least since the mound was lowered in the early 70s?

At the end of the game, not a single starter was hitting over 250 (Three under the Mendoza Line). Only two had OBP over 315. I mean, if the best hitter in your line-up is Jack "Quad A" Cust, your team is having issues. Are they throwing games now, seeing how quickly they can catch up to Seattle and Washington in the race for Strasburg?

I know they are playing a lot of kids so they know what they have in their system, but why does it seem so many of their touted prospects come up lately and are average or below while so many other teams have kids that come up and hit the lights out (Jay Bruce, Ryan Howard, Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellsbury, Chris Davis, Dan Murphy, etc). So many A's players they bring up are below replacement level right now it seems. Dan Johnson wasn't very good, Daric Barton is a no glove, no power 1B (he won't last), Carlos Gonzalez strikes out too much and only has one decent stat (doubles which won't cut it), Crosby couldn't hit for shit, Charles Thomas was a decent LF until Atlanta traded him to Oakland, Emil Brown was usually an 800 OPS guy until coming to Oakland, Sweeney is a no power/no speed OF with a decent BA and OBP.... but is nothing special.

What's in the water in Oakland?

Olympic Extra Innings Rule: WTF?

Boxkutter — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:48:52 -0000

So I was just reading how Team USA lost another game, this time to Cuba in extra innings. But one line in the article really caught my attention:

"International baseball's new extra-innings rule was used for the first time Friday. Beginning in the 11th inning, runners go to first and second and teams can start at any point in their batting order."

So now. starting in the 11th innings every team starts with runners on 1st and 2nd and with any batter they want??? What the Hell is this? Why wasn't a bigger stink made of this? I know tons of people were pissed when soccer and hockey developed shoot-outs to eliminate ties in their sports, and I think this is so much worse. This is like if you made the goalie start from behind the net in a shootout situation. This rule really hinders the defense in Olympic action now. Awful, awful rule I believe.

Michael Burgess Promoted

Boxkutter — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:46:22 -0000

I have been keeping an eye on Burgess for most of the season, and eventually drafted him in my DMB Keeper league. I just noticed that he was promoted and had his first game in High A today. He went 1 for 4 with a solo HR.

My question.... do you think it was too soon? 46-136-401 BB-K-AB ratio in Low A. Very high K numbers and decent walk numbers. Will this promotion help or hinder him long term?

MVP/Cy Young Question

Boxkutter — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:13:55 -0000

A friend of mine brought this up to me a couple days and it got me (and him) wondering. With Volquez being a leading Cy Young Award candidate in the NL, and Josh Hamilton being a top MVP candidate for the AL, has there ever, in the history of baseball been a pitcher traded for a hitter and both go on to win the most coveted award the next season?

I would look myself, but I know many members here are much better at finding things like this. Also, I think it could bring up some interesting discussion.

Poll

Who has a better shot at winning an award this year, Josh Hamilton for the MVP or Edison Volquez the Cy Young?

Hamilton

43 votes

Volquez

19 votes

Both win awards

12 votes

Neither will win an MVP or Cy Young

37 votes

111 votes | Poll has closed

OT: George Carlin Passes Away

Boxkutter — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:43:03 -0000

Just saw this horrible news. He was my favorite comedian for many, many years. I still remember listening to his album "Playing With Your Head" for the first time when I was visiting my mother in Alaska. His comedy always made me think as much as it made me laugh.

He will be missed.

http://tv.msn.com/tv/celebritynews/george-carlin-dies/?GT1=7703

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) -- George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.

Carlin, who had a history of heart trouble, went into St. John's Medical Center in Santa Monica on Sunday afternoon complaining of chest pain and died later that evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas.

Carlin constantly pushed the envelope with his jokes, particularly with the "Seven Words" routine. When he uttered all seven at a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested for disturbing the peace.

When the words were played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a Supreme Court ruling in 1978 upholding the government's authority to sanction stations for broadcasting offensive language.

"So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I'm perversely kind of proud of," he told The Associated Press earlier this year.

He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several movies. Carlin hosted the first broadcast of "Saturday Night Live" and noted on his Web site that he was "loaded on cocaine all week long."

He won four Grammy Awards, each for best spoken comedy album, and was nominated for five Emmy awards. On Tuesday, it was announced that Carlin was being awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

When asked about the fallout from the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show that ended with Janet Jackson's breast-baring "wardrobe malfunction," Carlin told the AP, "What are we, surprised?"

"There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body," he said. "It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have."

Carlin was born May 12, 1937 and grew up in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan, raised by a single mother. After dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he joined the Air Force in 1954. He received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments, according to his official Web site.

While in the Air Force he started working as an off-base disc jockey at a radio station in Shreveport, La., and after receiving a general discharge in 1957, took an announcing job at WEZE in Boston.

"Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot," his Web site says.

From there he went on to a job on the night shift as a deejay at a radio station in Forth Worth, Texas. Carlin also worked variety of temporary jobs including a carnival organist and a marketing director for a peanut brittle.

In 1960, he left with a Texas radio buddy, Jack Burns, for Hollywood to pursue a nightclub career as comedy team Burns & Carlin. He left with $300, but his first break came just months later when the duo appeared on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. r Carlin said he hoped to would emulate his childhood hero, Danny Kaye, the kindly, rubber-faced comedian who ruled over the decade that Carlin grew up in — the 1950s — with a clever but gentle humor reflective of its times.

Only problem was, it didn't work for him.

"I was doing superficial comedy entertaining people who didn't really care: Businessmen, people in nightclubs, conservative people. And I had been doing that for the better part of 10 years when it finally dawned on me that I was in the wrong place doing the wrong things for the wrong people," Carlin reflected recently as he prepared for his 14th HBO special, "It's Bad For Ya."

Carlin's first wife, Brenda, died in 1997. He is survived by wife Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law Bob McCall; brother Patrick Carlin; and sister-in-law Marlene Carlin.

Movin' On Up

Boxkutter — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 05:26:17 -0000

I just read at MiLB.com that both Jeremy Hellickson and David Price are moving up to Double A Montgomery tomorrow.

Both have been absolutely dominant in Hi-A so far. I expect both to go through some growing pains (Hellickson more than Price) but I personally think they are the top two arms in the Tampa Bay system. I would rank them ahead of Davis and McGee. Am I the only one who feels that way?

Here are the season stats for all four pitchers:
Davis
Hellickson
McGee
Price

Just adding this line in case there aren't enough characters here.

DMB Draft

Boxkutter — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:37:42 -0000

Just thought I would throw this out there, maybe get some good conversation going. We are in the middle of our annual DMB Draft in my league. We are currently in the middle of the 2nd of three rounds. We've discussed expanding the draft with additional rounds, but we decided we liked it at 3 Rounds. Keeps the talent fresh and exciting because there are solid names out there every year.

30 team league with 25 man active and 25 man reserve rosters.

Eligible players include: Anyone in college or the minor leagues that is not currently on a roster, foreign players in the minors who are not in their first season in the states (for example, Villalona and Triunfel were not eligible last year, but have both been drafted this year), major leaguers who have never been on a roster before.

Older prospects many times don't get drafted because we also created a rule that states that any player 26+ years old with either 5 or more years in the minors or 2 or more in the majors are free agents.

Also, we do have Supplemental picks for teams who lose top free agents in the offseason. Teams are also allowed to trade their picks, with the only rule being that they need to keep at least one pick per year (and I think we have a max of like 7 picks per year too).

I have not drafted yet. I had pick 1.19 but traded it for picks 2.14 and 3.14. I am trying to rebuild my reserve roster after trading many of them off looking to win the past couple years. Here is what has transpired so far. Still a lot of names out there too. So far the drafts I like most are the ones by the Dodgers, Orioles, Phillies, and Astros (I planned on taking Zimmermann). Not a big fan of the Diamondbacks or Pirates drafts (both teams are in last place in their divisions and could use more immediate help).

Round	Pick	Team	Player
1	1 (1)	Oakland Athletics	Trevor Cahill
1	2 (2)	Texas Rangers	Chris Volstad
1	2 (3)	Arizona Diamondbacks	Todd Frazier
1	4 (4)	Cleveland Indians	Greg Smith
1	5 (5)	St. Louis Cardinals	Buster Posey
1	6 (6)	Kansas City Royals	Brian Matusz
1	7 (7)	Los Angeles Dodgers	Blake DeWitt
1	8 (8)	Los Angeles Dodgers	Jeremy Hellickson
1	9 (9)	Pittsburgh Pirates	Tim Beckham
1	10 (10)	Florida Marlins	John Lannan
1	11 (11)	Washington Nationals	Mat Gamel
1	12 (12)	Cleveland Indians	Jake Arrieta
1	13 (13)	Minnesota Twins	Gordon Beckham
1	14 (14)	Minnesota Twins	Yonder Alonso
1	15 (15)	Texas Rangers	Jason Heyward
1	16 (16)	Baltimore Orioles	Aaron Crow
1	17 (17)	Los Angeles Dodgers	James McDonald
1	18 (18)	San Francisco Giants	Chris Tillman
1	19 (19)	San Diego Padres	Aaron Poreda
1	20 (20)	Los Angeles Angels	Brett Cecil
1	21 (21)	Cleveland Indians	Ryan Tucker
1	22 (22)	Colorado Rockies	Tyler Robertson
1	23 (23)	Florida Marlins	Daryl Thompson
1	24 (24)	Baltimore Orioles	Stephen Strasburg
1	25 (25)	Cincinnati Reds	Madison Bumgarner
1	26 (26)	Arizona Diamondbacks	Jordan Schafer
1	27 (27)	San Francisco Giants	Wes Hodges
1	28 (28)	New York Mets	Brett Wallace
1	29 (29)	Atlanta Braves	Phillippe Aumont
1	30 (30)	Toronto Blue Jays	Jordan Walden
Sup-1	1 (31)	Kansas City Royals	Jhoulys Chacin
Sup-1	2 (32)	Philadelphia Phillies	Tim Alderson
Sup-1	3 (33)	New York Yankees	Luke Hughes
Sup-1	4 (34)	San Francisco Giants	J.P. Arencibia
Sup-1	5 (35)	Pittsburgh Pirates	David Huff
Sup-1	6 (36)	Baltimore Orioles	Angel Villalona
Sup-1	7 (37)	Washington Nationals	Jesus Flores
Sup-1	8 (38)	Tampa Bay Devil Rays	Carlos Triunfel
Sup-1	9 (39)	Houston Astros	Armando Gallaraga
Sup-1	10 (40)	Los Angeles Dodgers	Vince Mazzaro
Sup-1	11 (41)	New York Mets	Dan Cortes
Sup-1	12 (42)	Atlanta Braves	Brandon Jones
Sup-1	13 (43)	Toronto Blue Jays	Michael Saunders
2	1 (46)	Philadelphia Phillies	Neftali Feliz
2	2 (47)	Philadelphia Phillies	Nate Schierholtz
2	3 (48)	Seattle Mariners	Austin Jackson
2	4 (49)	Kansas City Royals	Eric Hosmer
2	5 (50)	Pittsburgh Pirates	Jesus Guzman
2	6 (51)	New York Yankees	Collin Balester
2	7 (52)	San Francisco Giants	James Simmons
2	8 (53)	Houston Astros	Jordan Zimmermann
2	9 (54)	Arizona Diamondbacks	Kyle Gibson

OT: Firefox 3.0

Boxkutter — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:06:15 -0000

I have been using Firefox for over a year now, since I saw several people here preach about how great it was. And once I installed it, I agreed with them.

But my question is this: Are any of you who have updated to Firefox 3.0 having any issues with it? I installed it a few days ago and it has been giving me a lot of problems. For one, a lot of the themes and add-ons don't work on it yet. I can deal with that though. The real problem is that my browsing has slowed down to a crawl. I am on a cable connection, and it's taking me almost five minutes to load each page when I browse now. I did not have this problem with 2.0. Am I the only one having this issue? I tried to find a download for 2.0 so I could reinstall that again, but when I installed it, it wouldn't work. It would freeze up or crash every time I tried to start it, so I moved back to 3.0 since slow browsing is better than no browsing.

Anyone else having problems?

OT: NFL Murder?

Boxkutter — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:53:40 -0000

Not sure how many have read about this whole thing, but about a day and a half ago a guy who spoke with the NFL about selling steroids, and provided them with names of players he sold them to was found dead of a gunshot would in his home. His off again, on again girlfriend was dead also. Seemed a little weird at the time, read about it here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3427526

Well, not the Medical Examiner has declared this death to be a suicide (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3429424). So apparently, he shot himself TWICE. Once in the stomach, and once in the head. Now, I have never looked into suicide much, but has anyone here heard of someone shooting themselves in the stomach before taking their own life?

Am I the only one who smells a large cover-up here? Am I the only one who thinks the NFL is more than just an innocent interested party here? This needs to become a federal investigation since it involved the death of a federal witness.

Best Prospect Ever!

Boxkutter — Mon, 19 May 2008 04:25:25 -0000

Well, I was just looking at a player that someone in our league is trying to trade me, and I realized, that if you subscribe to the Age Relative to League school of thought, he may just have been the best prospect ever. Take a look:

http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/R/Ricky-Romero.shtml

That's right. According to The Baseball Cube, Ricky Romero pitched 56.1 innings for Cal State Fullerton with a 3.20 ERA. Which is all fine and dandy until you realize he did it at the age of FOUR!!!! Looks like he had pretty good peripherals too. 46/18 K/BB ratio. It's just a shame it's going to take him 20 or more years to reach the majors (if ever).

So what happened to him? Why did his progress level off? He was young, but I am guessing had a good frame so was able to add some bulk and pick up some MPH on his fastball. Did he get sidetracked by a Pre-school scholarship and quit playing baseball for awhile? Maybe he had troubles in the classroom since he was so young. Maybe he just pulled a Sean Burroughs and peaked too early. Could he be a victim of Age-gate?

Oh well... guess there really is no such thing as a pitching prospect.

(And yes, I know it is a mistake on the site. Just having some fun. It's really a shame I need to add this onto my post since many year can't detect obvious sarcasm.)