SB Nation User Blog: Stacey

Happy Veterans Day

Stacey — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:05:53 -0000

Pfc. Preston Snook leans back and waits for his pitch during a pick-up baseball game on Camp Fallujah’s sandlot baseball field. Marines from Regimental Combat Team 5 gather weekly to play ball, a way to relieve the stress of being deployed and relive their dreams of one day being a Major League Baseball player. (Photo by: Gunnery Sgt. Mark Oliva, 1st Marine Division)

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Thanks to all of our veterans and active duty military who have dedicated their lives to the safety of our country. There's really nothing that can be said to appropriately capture your importance, but know that I'm appreciative.

SBN Awards: Cy Youngs go to Zack Greinke and Tim Lincecum

Stacey — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:23:52 -0000

More photos » by Charlie Riedel - AP

2 months ago: Fans note Kansas City Royals starting pitcher Zack Greinke's 15th strikeout of the baseball game, during the eighth inning against the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009, in Kansas City, Mo. Greinke set a new franchise record for most strikeouts in a game. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

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As is to be expected, Zack Greinke took home the SBN Cy Young in a landslide. If the results had gone any other way I would have been astounded. The fact that one person gave a first place vote to Roy Halladay is actually annoying me. Here are your complete rankings:

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Zack Greinke	Kansas City Royals	28	1	-	143
2	Felix Hernandez	Seattle Mariners	-	17	6	57
3	Justin Verlander	Detroit Tigers	-	8	9	33
4	Roy Halladay	Toronto Blue Jays	1	2	11	22
5	CC Sabathia	New York Yankees	-	1	2	5
6	Jon Lester	Boston Red Sox	-	-	1	1

When I was deciding who to vote for, it all came down to four names. Greinke, Halladay, Felix Hernandez, and Justin Verlander. I ended up giving my first place vote to Greinke, 2nd place to Justin Verlander, and 3rd place to Felix Hernandez. Looking back at the numbers I probably should have voted King Felix with my second place vote. I must have been dazzled by Verlander's K numbers. They didn't glamor duck, though, as his votes went to Greinke, Hernandez, and Halladay.

To get an idea of just how good Greinke and his runners up were in 2009, here are their stats:

Player	WHIP	H/9	BB/9	SO/9	SO/BB	HR/9	IP	GS	CG	SHO	ERA	ERA+	HR	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS
Zack Greinke	1.073	7.65	2.00	9.50	4.75	0.43	229.1	33	6	3	2.16	203	11	.230	.276	.336	.611
Roy Halladay	1.126	8.81	1.32	7.83	5.94	0.83	239.0	32	9	4	2.79	157	22	.256	.285	.382	.667
Felix Hernandez	1.135	7.54	2.68	8.18	3.06	0.57	238.2	34	2	1	2.49	174	15	.227	.287	.318	.605
C.C. Sabathia	1.148	7.71	2.62	7.71	2.94	0.70	230.0	34	2	1	3.37	133	18	.232	.292	.360	.653
Justin Verlander	1.175	8.21	2.36	10.09	4.27	0.75	240.0	35	3	1	3.45	132	20	.243	.295	.369	.665
Jon Lester	1.230	8.23	2.83	9.96	3.52	0.89	203.1	32	2	0	3.41	139	20	.242	.301	.366	.667

Not bad, not bad at all. Greinke's numbers are just sick. SICK. Look at that HR/9. Look at that ERA. Amazing. In 28 of his 33 starts, Greinke gave up 3 earned runs or less. He won 16 games this year, which is very respectable, but if he'd been on a team with a half decent offense his win total could have been staggering. The Royals went just 17-16 in his starts. They managed to lose 8 games when Greinke gave allowed 2 or less earned runs. And that's why wins as a stat are useless :)

Check out the National League results below the jump. The final award, Most Valuable Player, will be announced tomorrow.

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Tim Lincecum	San Francisco Giants	18	13	-	129
2	Chris Carpenter	St. Louis Cardinals	9	4	7	64
3	Adam Wainwright	St. Louis Cardinals	4	4	10	42
4	Javier Vazquez	Atlanta Braves	-	5	7	22
5	Dan Haren	Arizona Diamondbacks	-	3	4	13
6	Ubaldo Jimenez	Colorado Rockies	-	1	1	4
7	Cliff Lee	Philadelphia Phillies	-	-	1	1
8	Jair Jurrjens	Atlanta Braves	-	-	1	1

Adam Jones Wins the Gold Glove: First for the O's since '99

Stacey — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:18:29 -0000

More photos » by Gail Burton - AP

This is Jones' first GG, and the first for an Oriole since Mike Mussina won in 1999. The Orioles haven't had a GG in the outfield since Paul Blair in 1975. (AP Photo/Gail Burton)

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Congratulations to Adam Jones. It's very exciting to have a Baltimore Oriole recognized for anything positive, especially when the accolades are so few and far between these days. Adam is an exciting young player and I couldn't be happier to have him on my team. According to the Bill James Handbook and Fielding Bible, he had the highest range factor of any center fielder and led in home run saving catches and outfield arm saved runs. Adam Jones is a very good defensive baseball player and I believe he'll only improve. Here are some of his great plays from 2009:

August 29th: Two great catches against the Indians

August 18th: Hauling in Reid Brignac's drive

August 16th: Stealing a Grand Slam from Mike Napoli

July 31st: Throwing out Big Papi

July 29th: Helping out Chris Tillman

July 12th: Robbing Alex Rios

June 29th: Robbing Youk while Gary Thorne makes a fool of himself

May 19th: Not so fast, Robinson Cano

May 7th: Diving catch against Justin Morneau

May 3rd: Blowin' bubbles, making leaping catches, it's what he does

April 28th: Take a seat, Chone

He's amazing, right?

However.

There is a reason the Gold Gloves are considered a joke by a lot of people. Anyone who pays attention to baseball knows that the best outfielder this year was actually Adam Jones' replacement in Seattle, Franklin Gutierrez. He was the best and it wasn't even close. Additionally, Carl Crawford has been one of the best defensive outfielders for years but he's never won a Gold Glove. That guy playing next to Crawford in Tampa Bay, B.J. Upton, is also deserving.

Torii Hunter and Ichiro Suzuki have had the two-thirds of the OF Gold Gloves locked down for years. If Adam had won instead of Hunter I'd feel a lot better about the award. If Crawford or Gutierrez had won instead of Hunter or Ichiro, I'd feel a lot better about Adam Jones winning.

I really hate that I can't feel awesome about this. But I can't. I love Adam Jones and there is no doubt in my mind that one year, probably in the near future, he will play centerfield at such a level that he deserves the GG. But this year isn't it.

Here is your complete list of American League Gold Glove Winners.

C	Joe Mauer
1B	Mark Teixeira
2B	Placido Polanco
3B	Evan Longoria
SS	Derek Jeter
OF	Torii Hunter
OF	Adam Jones
OF	Ichiro Suzuki
P	Mark Buehrle

SBN Awards: Rookie of the Year awarded to Elvis Andrus and Tommy Hanson

Stacey — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:17:07 -0000

More photos » by Tony Gutierrez - AP

Elvis Andrus, SBN's AL Rookie of the Year. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

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Below are the results for Rookie of the Year as voted by the SBN baseball writers. Elvis Andrus, the slick fielding shortstop from Texas, narrowly beat A's pitcher Andrew Bailey in the American League and Braves starting pitcher Tommy Hanson solidly won in the National League.

My votes in this category were as follows: Elvis Andrus, Brad Bergesen (the only one to give our boy a vote!), and Gordon Beckham. duck was even more of a homer than me as his votes were for Nolan Reimold, Matt Wieters, and Elvis Andrus.

Andrus wasn't too mighty with the bat, hitting just .267/.329/.373, but his fielding was so impressive that he ended 2009 with a WAR of 3.0.

My vote for Brad Bergesen was a sentimental one, for sure, but I do think he deserves the recognition. Despite not throwing a pitch after July 30th (thanks a LOT, Billy Butler), Bergesen still ended the season with a WAR of 2.3. There's no doubt in my mind that if 3E1N hadn't gotten in the way of the Butler line drive that he'd be much closer to the top of this list, if not number one.

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Elvis Andrus	Texas Rangers	6	9	6	63
2	Andrew Bailey	Oakland Athletics	11	1	3	61
3	Jeff Niemann	Tampa Bay Rays	3	5	3	33
4	Rick Porcello	Detroit Tigers	2	7	2	33
5	Brett Anderson	Oakland Athletics	5	1	3	31
6	Gordon Beckham	Chicago White Sox	1	2	8	19
7	Nolan Reimold	Baltimore Orioles	1	-	1	6
8	Matt Wieters	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	3	6
9	Brad Bergesen	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	-	3
10	Ricky Romero	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3
11	Travis Snider	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3

Check out the National League list below the jump. The results for Cy Young voting will be posted tomorrow.

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Tommy Hanson	Atlanta Braves	9	9	6	78
2	J.A. Happ	Philadelphia Phillies	6	9	7	64
3	Andrew McCutchen	Pittsburgh Pirates	8	3	5	54
4	Chris Coghlan	Florida Marlins	7	5	4	54
5	Dexter Fowler	Colorado Rockies	-	3	1	10
6	Randy Wells	Chicago Cubs	-	-	6	6
7	Garrett Jones	Pittsburgh Pirates	1	-	-	5
8	Casey McGehee	Milwaukee Brewers	-	1	2	5
9	Seth Smith	Colorado Rockies	-	1	-	3

Camden Crazies Projections

Stacey — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:42:07 -0000

Camden Crazies Projections

Head over to Camden Crazies to contribute your 2010 projections for the Orioles. I'm not planning on doing any community projections (all that number compiling makes my head hurt), and the more people who contribute the better the outcome will be.

MLB Trade Rumors Predicts Delgado to the Orioles

Stacey — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:41:25 -0000

More photos » by Henny Ray Abrams - AP

Whatddya say, Carlos? Interested in donning the orange and black? (AP Photo/Henny Ray Abrams)

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MLB Trade Rumors has released its list of the top 50 free agents for 2010 along with predictions where each will end up. They give the Orioles one player on the list: Carlos Delgado.

My first instict was, "Thanks, but no thanks." Delgado is old as the hills and he was injured most of last year. After I let it marinate for a few hours, though, I think I may be warming up to it just a bit. Don't get me wrong, it's not a signing that excites me, but it sort of goes along the same lines as signing Jim Thome. If he's healthy, Delgado will probably give you 25-30 HR and an OBP in the mid 300s. He'd be a risk given his injury last year but that might also make him 1) something of a bargain, and 2) willing to come to the Orioles because there isn't much of a market for him. His injury, by the way, was a labrum tear in his hip, similar to the injuries by Alex Rodriguez and Chase Utley, both of whom came back with no further problems (but neither of whom are 38 years old).

An argument against Delgado (and Thome, for that matter) is the fact that the Orioles have been pretty horrendous against left-handed pitching, and he doesn't provide much help in that area. While he has a career OPS of .806 against lefties, in the past few years they look more like this: .769, .752, .704, .789, and .965 (in just 26 games). While those are all higher than the Orioles team OPS of .691 against lefties, it's still not very impressive*. Even so, Delgado would still be an improvement as a 1B/DH.

So what say you? Yay or nay on Carlos Delgado?

*Also, just as aside, it's possible the O's will do better against LHP in 2010 just by virtue of not having Aubrey Huff (.650 OPS against LHP) and Melvin Mora (.690) in the lineup, not to mention possible bouncebacks by Nick Markakis (.682 OPS against LHP in '09, .843 in '08, and .751 career) and Ty Wigginton (.650 in '09, .840 career)

SBN Awards: Mike Scioscia & Jim Tracy win Manager of the Year

Stacey — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:11:29 -0000

More photos » by Jae C. Hong - AP

Manager of the Year? You don't say! (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

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The SBN baseball writers have voted on Manager of the Year for the National and American Leagues. The AL award goes to Mike Scioscia of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the NL award to Jim Tracy of the Colorado Rockies. Each blog was given two ballots for the awards that correspond with the league of the team it writes for. Votes were placed this year by myself and duck for the AL.

Whenever I'm asked about managers I'm never entirely sure the criteria on which I should judge them. I'm always capable of noticing the things I dislike about managers (especially Orioles managers), but it's harder to detect what makes a good manager, especially when the talent on the teams varies so greatly.

When smart people are asked about good managers, Mike Scioscia is usually near the top of the list. Scioscia, as has been noted by several people here, tends to get the best out of his teams. He effectively uses "small ball" and consistently runs fundamentally sound teams.

I didn't vote for him, though. Well, not for first place. I think that Mike Scioscia is a very good manager, don't get me wrong. But it's hard to determine how much of an affect a manager does or doesn't have on his team. The Angels are a well funded team with talented, high-paid players. I don't hold that against Mike Scioscia, certainly, but it does make his job easier. There's no way to know what he'd do with a different team, which is one of the things that makes choosing a MoY so tricky. My heart and head said to vote for a manager who took a team with less than optimal resources kept his team going strong throughout the year and got them to do things they didn't seem capable of. That's why my first place vote when to Rod Gardenhire.

On August 15th the Minnesota Twins were 56-60, in third place, and 6 games behind the first place Tigers. A good offense couldn't keep up with the ineffectiveness and injuries of the starting rotation, and it looked like 2009 wouldn't be the Twins year. But from August 15th to the end of the season the Twins buckled down and went 31-16, including a tie-breaking game against the Detroit Tigers the day before the Division Series started. What did Ron Gardenhire have to do with this? Who knows for sure. But the Twins didn't fade down the stretch and didn't lose their motivation, despite a rotation being filled with rookies, despite losing Justin Morneau on September 12th, when they were still 5.5 games out of first. Without Morneau, their 2nd best hitter, they'd lose just four more games over the final 21 games of the year.

Picking the best manager is hardly a science. The Twins weren't the most talented and they didn't have much luck, and Ron Gardenhire kept them going over 163 games and got them into the postseason. I think there's something to be said for that.

Rk	Manager	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Mike Scioscia	Los Angeles Angels	9	8	3	72
2	Ron Gardenhire	Minnesota Twins	9	5	1	61
3	Don Wakamatsu	Seattle Mariners	6	3	8	47
4	Joe Girardi	New York Yankees	2	4	2	24
5	Ron Washington	Texas Rangers	1	4	4	21
6	Terry Francona	Boston Red Sox	1	1	3	11
7	Jim Leyland	Detroit Tigers	-	2	4	10
8	Joe Maddon	Tampa Bay Rays	-	1	1	4
9	Ozzie Guillen	Chicago White Sox	-	-	1	1
10	Trey Hillman	Kansas City Royals	-	-	1	1

My second place vote went to Mike Scioscia and my third place vote went to Jim Leyland (although I don't really know why I voted for Leyland). Strangely enough, duck voted exactly the same way. I didn't vote for the NL Manager of the year, but check out the results below the jump. And keep an eye out over the next few days for the SBN Rookie of the Year, MVP, and Cy Young.

Rk	Manager	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Jim Tracy	Colorado Rockies	24	1	2	125
2	Tony LaRussa	St. Louis Cardinals	3	7	10	46
3	Fredi Gonzalez	Florida Marlins	2	6	5	33
4	Joe Torre	Los Angeles Dodgers	-	9	2	29
5	Charlie Manuel	Philadelphia Phillies	-	3	5	14
6	Bruce Bochy	San Francisco Giants	1	1	1	9
7	Bobby Cox	Atlanta Braves	-	1	4	7
8	Bud Black	San Diego Padres	-	1	1	4
9	John Russell	Pittsburgh Pirates	-	1	-	3

Eddie Murray Video: Amazing

Stacey — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 03:51:38 -0000

I was just reading through some old stories over at Right Off Russell and found what can only be described as the most amazing commercial in the history of ever. Please enjoy, and thanks to RoR for bringing it into my life.

Late night negativity

Stacey — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:30:12 -0000

I feel so bipolar when it comes to the Orioles. I look at the team and I feel hopeful. Promising young position players, promising starting pitchers, a GM who has done nothing but improve the team since getting here two years ago. Then two seconds later I realize how far this team is from contending and it depresses the hell out of me. This team won 64 games in 2009. That's at least 30 less than they'll need to even have a chance at the post season.

Our young players are getting better and Andy MacPhail is constantly doing what he can to improve the team, but it's hard to imagine this team getting to the level of the Yankees and Red Sox and, to a lesser degree, Rays.

Sometimes I think that maybe it's not that bad and that I just can't comprehend a good team in Baltimore. It's been so long since I've seen one that I don't really know what it looks like. And I've been let down so many times that I can't have confidence in any players or any front office. I think maybe our young talent is actually good. I mean, I hear it all the time and I see Brian Matusz have some success and Chris Tillman show promise. But remember Adam Loewen? Remember Matt Riley? I think of Nolan Reimold and I'm thrilled with his success, but then I remember Larry Bigbie. The ghosts of our awful past just can't let me believe wholly in our current players.

I want to have hope, but I don't want to have hope in something that will end up imploding. I don't even have any idea if they're worth my hope. I've been viewing baseball through this orange filter for so long that I can't tell what's real and what isn't. And it's hard to go on record with optimism about the future when I'm scared they will end up embarrassing me. Again.

I love this team and sometimes I wish I didn't quite so much. It'd be easier to just forget about them and be all "Joe Flaccooooo" all winter long and then if and when they did get their acts together in 2011 or 2015, then I'd show up. It'd be easier, but I could never do it.

64 wins. No team has won the AL East with less than 95 wins since 2000 when the Yankees took first with 87. Only once in that same time period did the wild card winner have less than 95, and it was only one less. How can they possibly do it?

RUMOR from Camden Crazies: Adam Jones wins a gold glove??

Stacey — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:42:18 -0000

RUMOR from Camden Crazies: Adam Jones wins a gold glove??

This is still just a rumor given that it came from a MySpace page, but an interesting tidbit for a slow Saturday. If it gets confirmed I'll obviously have a lot more to say about it. For right now I'll say: If true it's awesome, but not really deserved. But the GGs are a joke anyway.