SB Nation User Blog: Man Mountain

Happy Birthday

Man Mountain — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 15:01:28 -0000

Today we mark the day that our beloved Brendan was born.

What can be said about Brendan that hasn't been more adamantly said about me? The wittiest, smartest, and best looking of a witty, clever and handsome brood at RR.

Here's a picture of him with German chancellor Angela Merkel taken from the window of a speeding tamale cart:

via i182.photobucket.com

Please add your own birthday wishes and antonyms for our favorite game-thread dominatrix below.

RLN Interview with Chris Welsh

Man Mountain — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:21:50 -0000

RLN Interview with Chris Welsh

My girlfriend Chris Welsh takes Bill from Redleg Nation for one of his patented mustache rides.

I think Welsh does his usual good job of being both candid and careful. He says some things I disagree with, but he continues to be the best broadcaster in the Reds' stable.

Congrats to Bill for a solid interview. It gets going at the 6:45 mark.

Griffey to Braves...UPDATE: Nope.

Man Mountain — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:33:01 -0000

Hmmmmm......

via www.theloveofsports.com

The official word is that Griffey hasn't made a decision yet, but all the noise out of Atlanta is that Griff's people and the Braves are finalizing the deal as I type this.

I'll update this fanpost (!!1!) if there seems to be a final word, at which point you can return your "Griffey is all class for ending his legendary career where he started it" and pick up your "Griffey is all class for wanting to be close to his family and maybe play for a contender one last time." No additional cost.

UPDATE: The AJC's Braves blogger seems certain that it's a done deal.

UPDATE 2: Griff changed his mind (again). You may now resume your appreciation for our fully-boxed Odysseus as he returns to rainy Penelope in Brian B's thread here: http://www.redreporter.com/2009/2/18/763710/griffey-to-mariners

National TV to Reds: "Get off our Lawn"

Man Mountain — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:49:07 -0000

National TV to Reds: "Get off our Lawn"

Via Awful Announcing.

One of the secondary arguments made in favor of bringing in a "big name" manager to the Reds such as Dusty Baker was that he would give the Reds a national profile. Attract free agent talent, yes, but also pique the interest of the general baseball fan.

Computer says no.

http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2009/01/look-at-fox-and-espns-early-baseball.html

That's 0 appearances for the Reds.

Keep in mind that ESPN has only named its games through July and Fox certainly has some flexibility built into its scheduling down the line. Perhaps the Virus and his merry band of havoc-makers will have the Reds a hot commodity by then?

Reds V. Mudcats, Friday April 3rd

Man Mountain — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 22:20:42 -0000

As most of you know the Reds will be playing two exhibition games against a team of their "future stars" -- one on April 3rd in Zebulon, NC and one on April 4th in Dayton, OH.

This is a smart and savvy move by the organization to welcome in the new Double-A affiliate and to reward Dayton fans for their remarkable support of the Dragons.

Tickets for the April 3rd tilt in Zebulon have been on sale since the late fall, but, with the beginning of Spring Training, the promotion for the event will be quite heavy in the local markets. Many good tickets are still available, but I anticipate a rush starting in late February.

Aside from your Cincinnati Havoc-Wreakers, the Mudcats squad will probably feature a lineup with Todd Frazier, Yonder Alonso and Juan Francisco among other young men of exceptional prospect.

So I wanted to put out an early call to any Red Reporters (both the jerks we know and the jerks who lurk) who are interested in going to check your schedules. Also, if you want to send me an email, I can organize an email list that might help us with tickets, updates, rides, places to stay, etc. You can find an email for me on my profile page.

Zebulon, NC is a small town to the east of Raleigh and is an easy enough trek out from the capital city. Here's some information on the event from the N&O:

Tickets for the Carolina Mudcats' April 3 exhibition game against their new major league parent club, the Cincinnati Reds, will go on sale at 9 a.m. Wednesday, the Mudcats announced Monday.

The game, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Five County Stadium in Zebulon, will pit the major league team and its Double-A Southern League affiliate.

Tickets will be available at the stadium box office or can be purchased by credit card via phone at 919-269-2287 or at www.carolinamudcats.com.

Bako Gone

Man Mountain — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:57:52 -0000

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20081008/SPT04/810080352/1071/spt04

Fay reports on Jocketty's "decision":

He hasn't talked to representatives for Corey Patterson and Paul Bako, and he probably won't.

"We're going to move on," Jocketty said. "In the case of Bako, we're looking to improve the catching. (Ryan) Hanigan had a good year. We're probably going to go younger."

and gets some passive-aggressive kicking in as well:

Patterson and Bako were two players fans loved to hate this year. Both also played for manager Dusty Baker in Chicago. Both signed late at Baker's urging.

Let the days of feasting continue apace.....

Jocketty Excited by New Hire for GM's Office

Man Mountain — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:31:07 -0000

Relevant Graph:

"We're excited to bring someone of his knowledge into our organization," Jocketty said. "Over his career of more than 30 years, he has worked in almost every facet of professional operations, as a player, as a league officer and even as a member of the media. We will benefit from his experience and insights."

This hire might strike a few of you as strange, but you can't argue with the wealth of the man's experience. I think he understands the direction the Reds want to take and is emblematic of their current thinking with regard personnel.

Seems to me like a good fit.

Jesus Tapdancing Slyde!

Man Mountain — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:13:50 -0000

Thank you, thank you, thank you Threepenny Review and Arts and Letters Daily.

The Red Reporter with a "Utility Belt"?

Yeah, more like a dance belt and a tube of chapstick:

At the beginning, both the name and the maneuver it labeled were a kind of gimmick, something to set him apart from the hundreds of tap dancers still flooding show business. In another way, Slyde was already unlike most of the other black hoofers of his generation and older. Their motto was "Never took a lesson in my life"; he learned his craft in a dancing school.

It wasn't just any dancing school. Located across the street from the New England Conservatory of Music, where young Jimmy took violin lessons, Stanley Brown's school was a hub of the black entertainment world. The greatest dancers of the age—Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, John Bubbles, and others—came by to visit, observe, teach a little, inspire. The students were required to practice tap fundamentals and take ballet, and the recitals were like professional shows, with agents in the audience.

One of the regular instructors, "Schoolboy" Eddie Ford, was a specialist in slydes, and he put together an act for Slyde and another student, Jimmy "Sir Slyde" Mitchell. As the Slyde Brothers, the two teenagers did flips and splits in the manner of the Nicholas Brothers, but slydes were their trademark.

via i15.photobucket.com

Wife? Children? A life beyond his mother's basement and Gregory Hines' jealous gaze?

Piffle:

Offstage, he was a private man, close to his parents until their deaths, ever the gentleman but a little slippery, reclusive, difficult to know. (The missing fingers on his right hand added to the mystery.)

He was fond of word play and tended to speak metaphorically, often in little tap koans that could sound like platitudes but would work in the minds of his pupils like slow-release pills, gradually gaining resonance, or time bombs, long opaque then making sense in a flash.

Lessons about the dance resonated as lessons about life: "You've got to fall," he'd say, "and you've got to learn how to get up, gracefully. Like you never fell. Everybody slydes sometime."

The shockingly truthful shocking video of truth!

via www.traditionintap.org

2008 Free Agents Sorted by Tim Dierkes

Man Mountain — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 22:36:52 -0000

via MLB Trade Rumors.

Tim sorts available position players by OBP and includes BB%.

Why BB%, because...

I also included BB%, the percentage of plate appearances in which the hitter drew a walk. This helps identify those whose OBPs may be deceiving because of reliance on batting average (Hairston's .338/.388/.475 line is an example).

Natch. Hairston's 6.6 BB% is good for second lowest on the list. Only Mark Grudzielanek's is lower, and he's ancient and one of Dusty's former players, so he might be one to watch if he doesn't decide to retire.

Milton Bradley does extremely well by this isolation, and Jason Giambi, Fernando Tatis and Doug Mientkiewicz look more appealing than they might otherwise.

Dierkes sorts starting pitching by K/9.

The only one of these pitchers I could see the Reds making a legit run at is Burnett, who does well by this dips.

The Speedwagon That Thought It Was a GM

Man Mountain — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:24:47 -0000

From Hal McCoy's article in Chicago yesterday, Bronson sat down to play bullpen GM for a few minutes.

Relevant graphs:

And Arroyo has a plan on how to make the Reds competitive next year, plus he didn’t need to send a babbling letter that makes little sense.

Here’s his plan. And it ain’t half-bad.

“The pitching staff is solid enough to win plenty of ballgames,” he said. “We really need a starting catcher — unless they are going to go with Ryan Hanigan and I haven’t seen him enough. We need a solid guy you can run out there five days a week, a guy who can hit a little bit, a regular guy instead of dividing it up between a couple of guys.

“We’re going to need two other guys who can hit, probably outfielders,” Arroyo said. “Our infield is decently set if (shortstop) Alex Gonzalez comes back. So we need a couple of outfielders to replace those home runs we lost (Adam Dunn, Ken Griffey Jr.).

“We just need a lineup, from top to bottom, that feels the same when we pitch against the other team’s lineup, so we don’t have as many weaks spots.” Arroyo added. “I mean, with the Cubs I’m facing a seven-hole hitter like Mark DeRosa, who hits .280. That’s the feeling we need to project to other teams.”

DeRosa had two of the three hits Arroyo gave up over seven innings Wednesday in a 2-1 win. And Hanigan was Arroyo’s catcher, contributing a double that led to the Reds tying the game, 1-1, in the sixth.

“We have enough right now in our starting staff and bullpen to win this division, for sure,” Arroyo said.

Some thoughts:

First of all, you've got to like that Arroyo went on record with his ideas -- whether you agree with him or not. You hardly ever see a baseball player willing to talk shop about personnel because of the subsequent hurt feelings in the clubhouse. Big ups there.

Also, coupled with his earlier statements about wanting to stay with the Reds, Arroyo does seem have more than a soundbite's interest in bringing a winning team to Cincinnati. I'm not sure why, but there it is.

As to his "plan" itself, I find it interesting for a few reasons.

1. He understands that the catching-by-committee experiment is a huge problem and is aware that Hanigan is an unknown quantity. No mention of Bako or LLM. (sour grapes over his boy Ross being let go?).

2. His Alex Gonzalez comment suggests that he knows Keppinger's defense is unacceptable at SS.

3. He frames the loss of Dunn and Griffey in terms of home run power rather than overall offensive value.

Nothing groundbreaking, but, as Hal points out in the article, it's more specific than anything that's come from the Reds' FO.

_______________________________________________________________

FWIW: The Denver Post is reporting that the Rockies might be looking to move Willy Tavares this off-season. He's fast, has zero power and doesn't seem terribly interested in walking; in short, he's everything Dusty loves in a son-in-law. Ironically, the Rockies have apparently expressed an interest in Arroyo more than once this season.