SB Nation User Blog: blalock84

JD is pulling a "Red" from Shawshank...

blalock84 — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:16:30 -0000

JD is pulling a "Red" from Shawshank...

Ben Rogers with hard hitting reporting...

I cant deny the fact that I do love having JD as our GM. We need the JD applaud .gif. He's done good work the last few days with the enviroment surrounding him... Being proactive in a destructive situation, props for doing solid work JD.

Dad catches foul ball, his little girl throws it back...

blalock84 — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:14:53 -0000

Dad catches foul ball, his little girl throws it back...

priceless... Thats just an awesome capture of emotions that parents have everyday. A great human moment.

World Cup of Baseball On MLB channel

blalock84 — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:08:13 -0000

World Cup of Baseball On MLB channel

Victor Rojas doing quality play by play, Justin Smoak playing 1B....

In game one, against Venezuela, Smoak absolutely demolished the baseball, 2 HRs and 3 extra base hits in first three at bats. He ended up 4-6 with 2 2Bs and 2 HRs... Yikes

The US lost in extra innings 13-9. They are playing Germany today. Tourney is being held in Germany

MiLB 9/7

blalock84 — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:26:42 -0000

Im tired of not having thread

and its Perez day!!

Hickory

Bakersfield

Frisco - 630 - Marteen apparently, last game of the year

OKC

Player page...

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MILB 8/28 - 8/29

blalock84 — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 03:54:38 -0000

8/28

ARZL: Ed Escobar - Tim Smith and Engel Beltre making second start

Spokane: Thompson - Looking sharp so far

Hickory: Brigham/Pimentel - Pimentel sharp again

Bakersfield: King Richard the Blieinhearted - He's doing what he normally does, 0 BB, 4Ks, but again, playing in the cal league means your gonna give up runs, he's given up 5 in 6IP.

Frisco: Beavan - Pitched great, remember how young he is, he's doing just fine.

OKC: Corey - 4-2 loss, but hey, Smoak hit a HR

MiLB Player Page of the day

8/29

ARZL - 9 - Rijo

Spokane- 9 - Tullis

Hickory - 6 - Neil Ramirez - looking for more Dirk-Reversal magic

Bakersfield - 9 - Tatusko

Frisco - 7 - Poveda

OKC - 7 - Benson

MiLB Player Page of the day 12.1 K/9... who knew?

ShRoOMs

Matt Murton DFA'd

blalock84 — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:00:18 -0000

Matt Murton DFA'd

LF who is a lefty masher, Id be all for him platooning with D-Murph in LF in the future. He'd be a better option than Boggs who isnt really a LHP masher. We already have a crowded OF, I know, but id love to pick him up as he could be a very useful player for us, especially if we move an OF this offseason.

Chris' struggles are over and Hank is done (this isnt a long statistical analysis with a bunch of graphs)

blalock84 — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:31:00 -0000

Chris Davis is actually a vampire, now, his vampiricism is more like the vampiricism out of Twilight, he doesnt get burned up in daylight, but instead, he's only slightly affected by it. Digging deeper into it, I discovered that he actually accidently drank the blood of Kiefer Sutherland prior to this season.

via towerweb.net

So, while not being a full vampire, he definitely felt the symptons earlier this year. I dug further into to it to see what in particular was causing his struggles. His performance on the road, where no one ever invited him, was just a paltry 223/.283/441. At home, where the brilliant Texas sun apparently had an extra affect on him and the female fans under 18 constantly grabbing his nuts distracted him, was noticeably terrible... .193/.243/.393. Now, what i found even more interesting is that his performance against pitchers who wore crosses (aka Left-Handed Pitchers) was extremely poor, .141/.202/.282... Yikes, it definitely seems like the crosses where doing their number on poor CD. All of those factors and the constant desire to suck all of the blood out of the young, sexy latino playing SS was really getting to CD. He needed some help, so Jon Daniels sent him to Oklahoma City where the Vampire Academy is located and where JD felt like Chris could get some real solid advice on how to deal with this.

When he arrived, he was immediately greeted by this really hot bad-ass chick who happened to also be a half-vampire.

via www.leninimports.com

Together they decided the best plan of action was just to go ahead and kill Kiefer and get rid of Chris' vampiricism in doing so. So, they went and found Kiefer's ass on the set of 24 and Kate, being the bad ass that she is, took her sword and sliced his head diagonally in half... From what i gather, the fight went something like this, but with Chris being the crazy half werewolf (he'd been bitten by MY who happens to be a werewolf) half Vampire and Kiefer being the bad dude:

(via ChaosSonic)

So, CD not only got layed by Kate, but also got freed from being a vampire (he's still a werewolf though, but he can control that). And as you can see by his performance in OKC the following days, he's gotten over it in fairly short order. My hope is that Chris can return to his 2008 form after overcoming this. I think there is good reason to believe that Chris is back and not even the cross wielding LHP are gonna own him.

Now, Hank Blalock is an entirely different matter

Poor Hank, what happened to you?

Well, we must start at the begining. Once upon a time, there was a young guy named Hank who was very good at hitting a baseball. He hit the baseball hard and was considered the best young hitter in baseball. However, over time, something started to get to Hank. He kept getting hurt, with injuries no one had even heard of. He could no longer even play 3B anymore and he started to lose his mind and his ability to recognize what a strike zone was or where Left Field was. Everything started becoming slower. What had happened to Hank can only be explained by this: He was bitten by a zombie. Not just by any zombie, but the zombie of Rudy Jarimillo. You see, in 2008 when it was said that Rudy was having 'surgery' he actually was going on a killing/eating spree... here is a picture of Rudy captured just before the photographer's other hand was eaten (he's the one with the hat):

via www.ghosthousepictures.com

I think you can see the similarities:

via 4.bp.blogspot.com

Poor Hank didnt even see it coming. Rudy ran him down after pulling another ball to 2nd base in BP and jumped on him, Hank was saved by teammate Mike Young who had seen this happen before but unlike with Mark Teixiera, Mike was unable to pull Rudy off Hank before Rudy bit Hank. Its been a gradual process, but Hank has been slowly turning into a zombie ever since. Unfortunately, Hank is a slow zombie and is absolutely incabable of doing the things that the zombies from left 4 dead can do:

via www.worstpreviews.com

Unfortunately for us Ranger Fans, Hank's zombieness has been haunting us all year, a .238/.274/.473 line is no good for any type of living dead creature. I just hope Jon Daniels has the good sense to take a chainsaw to Hank's head sooner rather than later. Maybe, he'll do the same to Rudy before he gets a hold of another young hitter and leaves him as a useless slow zombie. I fear that this has already happened to a couple of our players like Ian Kinsler who has recently been only able to see Left Field and incapable of hitting the ball on the ground, a common problem with players turning into zombies. Jarrod Saltalamacchia has also been suffering similar symptons to those poor Hank exhibited before his doom finally caught up to him this year. My hope is that Salty and Ian are left as fast zombies and are able to at the very least wreck havoc upon the Angels clubhouse before they are taken down by this dude:

via pix.motivatedphotos.com

While it seems implausible, I know, Fast zombies do exist, just play Nazie Zombies on call of duty 5 and get to level 35... after doing that, try telling me that fast zombies dont exist.

I have heard rumors of other teams having Vampires, ones who have their vampiricisim under control, on their squads, but i think JD's got it covered, he made sure to get us some vampire slayers, Super Bad Ass Left Handed Pitchers (SBALHP):

via theghostofmoonlightgraham.files.wordpress.com

and the next Van Helsing:

via insidecorner.dmagazine.com

Several other likely Vampires, Werewolves, Zombies, etc. in the league:

Daywalker is what i call him.

Definitely a zombie

A troll had sex with a zombie

Vampire/Werewolf cross, the ultimate vampire slayer

Full-blood Liken, brother of the massive black dude in the first Underworld movie.

Ortiz used to rule the late innings of the game as a vampire, but after blowing his cap, Ortiz has joined the ranks of Zombienation.

MILB Thread 8/24

blalock84 — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:02:59 -0000

ARZL: 9PM - Melo? - I see Melo as a mini-Font. His peripherals so far this year are eerily similar. Also, Tomas Telis, i like this kid, hitting 320ish, hopefully his walks go up to where they were in the DSL at some point, but the ability to square it up at 18 is nice.

Spokane: 830 - B Tullis - Alot to like about this Spokane squad, two good hitting prsopects (Mendonca and Velasquez) and three SP to watch. Tullis is one of them.

Hickory: 6 -N. Ramirez - Already through 4IP, 4Ks/1BB 0 ER and now 5Ks in 5 IP as i post this... and once again the Dirkatron Reversal is in play.

Bak: 9 - Tatusko - Meh, i only really like following Bake when they have Gomez or King Richard on the hill.

Frisco: 7- Ballard - ugh, not much to see here

OKC: 7 - Benson - yuk, ok this thread sucks now

Shroom

MILB

Player Page of the day

LAA/MIN and Saturday Afternoon Trade Talk

blalock84 — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 20:35:13 -0000

For those who dont know, the LAA/MIN game is on Fox (at least in Dallas it is)

Here's a link to the LAA/MIN gameday if you'd like to follow along:

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2009_07_25_minmlb_anamlb_1&mode=gameday

I helped clutter the last trade discussion thread with a ton of talk about Josh Willingham. So i figured i'd start a new one with some talking points to go along with a prayer meeting to call upon God to throw the Angels out of the baseball heaven they've pretty much enjoyed the last 6 years or so.

Halladay:

"the Phillies are now balking at the Blue Jays' asking price, which was formally presented Thursday as J.A. Happ, Kyle Drabek and Dominic Brown. It's believed they're hoping to substitute Carlos Carrasco for one of Happ or Drabek, particularly Drabek."

and now:

the Phillies have formally rejected the Blue Jays' proposal. Philadelphia is reportedly opposed to giving up both Drabek and Happ. (If i where the Phillies I wouldnt deal both of those guys either, but id do everything around that to make it work)

the Angels have "intensified their bid" for Halladay. The Jays are said to be asking for one player from the Halos' major-league roster and "another who could make an impact in 2010." (Ugh)

Willingham:

Newberg's Proposed trade idea:

Poveda+ Moreland for Willingham... I dont think that would be enough, but I do think if we added another mid teens level pitching prospect, like a Moscoso or Boscan we could likely do it. The Nats want young pitchers and I think we could interest them enough with some of or mid level pitchers to get a deal done.

Willingham's numbers: .288/.408/.553 for a .415 wOBA this year, Career: .269/.367/.483 for a .370 wOBA

He's upped his BB% to 13.7 over his career 12.0. His ISO is up about 50 points to .265. Anyways, whether or not he's the .370 wOBA hitter over his career or the .400 wOBA hitter this year, he's a valueable player and could be a useful hitter down the stretch for us. He's under team control through 2 more arbitration years after this year.

Interesting stuff...

and as i made this post the Twins go up 2-0 on the Angels.

Baserunning: Why have we lost runs due to this?

blalock84 — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:28:22 -0000

I found this snippet from Joey at BBTiA rather interesting:

MLB.com's Daniel Pauling recently lauded the Rangers' basestealing prowess thus far in 2009, which has manifested to the tune of the best team stolen-base percentage in the American League at 84.8 percent (67-for-79), but modern sabermetrics enable us to penetrate beyond the surface statistics and evaluate other aspects of baserunning -- and it is in this regard that Texas is not excelling, but rather floundering.

According to team baserunning statistics devised by former Baseball Prospectus author Dan Fox (now working as the Pirates' director of baseball systems development), that lofty basestealing success rate has amounted to a theoretical 4.53-run edge above what would be expected given the number and quality of the Rangers' basestealing opportunities (the best mark in baseball, and worth nearly half a win), but Texas actually grades out at minus-4.04 runs once the other team baserunning components are added to the mix. Why is this?

Basically, the Rangers have been a bottom-tier team in terms of generating additional runs by means of baserunning advancements on ground balls, fly balls and base hits; they have particularly struggled in that final category, grading out as the worst team in baseball in terms of advancing on base hits (minus-5.53 runs), and the baserunning numbers available at Bill James Online support this assertion, with Texas successfully advancing from first to third base just 10 times in 73 opportunities (or 13.7 percent of the time, the ballclub's worst seasonal mark since at least 2001) and from first base to home plate just 10 times in 45 opportunities, which is also the ballclub's lowest success rate since 2001.

I know i've loved our aggressiveness and effeciency when it comes to stealing bases. It seems like we have a well prepared, smart team when it comes to stealing bases, and while we arent the fastest team in the league, we have some guys that can move. However, the loss of advancement on hit balls is disturbing, we've lost over 8 runs in baserunning advancements on balls hit in play according to Bill James. And with the way we've failed miserably at scoring runners from 3rd with less than two outs, I think the runs lost b/c of not scoring from 1st on 2bs and 2nd on 1Bs is likely worse. Thats the difference in at least 2 wins, maybe more... and it could certaintly be the difference in a pennant. To me, I think a ton of this falls on the lack of aggressiveness by our 3b coach. I know there have been several times where i was pretty much screaming at the tv b/c we didnt send a guy home when he could have seemingly easily scored... Im not sure exactly where the entire disconnect is between the aggressiveness in stealing bases and the lack of aggressiveness in taking the extra base is, but I think a ton of it comes in the form of Dave Anderson, our 1st time 3B coach. I dont know much about the guy, but i do know that it certaintly seems like we have definitively lost runs because of his inability to send runners when they need to be sent.

I dont have a subscription to bill james online unfortunately, but id be very interested to compare these numbers to the #'s from last year to see if with nearly the same baserunners (Salty, Nelly, and Andrus for Vasquez, Laird and Bradley is probably most of the difference in runners) if we had better results on advancements on balls in play. I know from looking at Baseball Reference that Ian was one of the best at advancing last year. I dont necessarily want us to become uber aggressive like the Angels, but when you are losing that many runs b/c of lack of advancement on balls in play, you are being way too conservative. No matter what, those numbers are unacceptable and need to be improved upon,because this is something that seemingly could be improved upon simply by sitting down and having a chat with the team and especially with Dave Anderson.