SB Nation User Blog: houksyndrome

If you feel like laughing then check this out

houksyndrome — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:14:10 -0000

This link totally cracked me up:

http://www.sportspickle.com/features/volume8/2008-1126-pirates.html

not a bad idea, as a backup plan I think we should try to sign Goro from Mortal Kombat - that would at least cover 4/5 of the starting rotation. Perhaps religious icons and/or comic book or video game characters could be a real gold mine for us. While we are at it we could sign Saul or Ward from New York in the original NES Little League Baseball game. :)

What is our salary cap situation like?

houksyndrome — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:48:32 -0000

Do we have the money to sign Brandon Jacobs? I don't know how many guys we need to resign in the offseason. However, imagine what we would be like if we had a power running game? We have a phenomenal defense, a good QB. If we had a power running game I think we would be the best team in the NFL - we might be anyways, let's face it, if we hadn't negated a TD with a holding penalty and our long snapper hadn't been injured we may well have beat the Giants. I think we are very close to being a great team - could Brandon Jacobs be our missing piece?

Okay, so what happened on the first two interceptions?

houksyndrome — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:06:49 -0000

I don't have a tape of the game and I'm sure many of you do. They hardly showed any replays of the first interception at all, so I don't know if my analysis is correct. We like to line up in a bunch formation on one side with Holmes isolated on the other side and have him run either out or post routes. From what I saw of Holmes' route it looked like he was trying to fake the DB into thinking he was running a post and then get behind him for a big play. It looked to me like Ben didn't set his feet and square up to make the throw and as a result badly underthrew an open Santonio Holmes. This interception was a terrible decision by Ben. He has a nasty habit of throwing w/o setting his feet.

On the second interception I believe Indy blitzed and Holmes was the hot read. Ben threw the ball ahead of Holmes but Holmes stopped and the ball got picked off. I don't know whether Holmes was supposed to keep running or not (often times the receiver is supposed to find an open spot and then stay there). I also don't know whether that pass would have been complete if Holmes had kept running, the DB was in pretty good position to at least break it up. I don't think we had any other open guys though because I think Moore stayed in to pick up the blitz. I think Ben made the correct decision to throw to Holmes there, just with terrible results - then again I don't have the tape, so if someone else was open on that play let me know.

Overall, our passing offense made progress today. Ben was generally throwing the ball to open guys (30/42 for 280 yards). The second interception might not have even been his fault. I think that possibly due to missed practice there was miscommunication between Ben and his receivers - there was a 3rd down play in the first half where Ben thought Ward was running an in route or a post and Ward ran deep instead - the result was a FG instead of a first down and possible TD.

You know what they say in sports, "you're never as good as your best statistical performances make you look and you're never as bad as your worst statistical performances make you look." In his last 10 quarters, Ben has 8 interceptions - only 2 of which were clearly the result of bad decision making on his part. 2 were on Hail Mary passes, 1 was on 4th down, 2 were on batted balls and 1* was because Holmes stopped running. The other 2 were definitely due to stupid decisions by Ben. I noted the last one with an asterisk because Holmes may have been supposed to stop running.

Anyways, let me know what you think.

Lawrence Timmons

houksyndrome — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 06:46:01 -0000

I like having the combination of him and Foote on our team. I think their abilities complement each other nicely. In particular, Timmons is great in passing situations - he is good at blitzing and good in coverage, basically a sack/turnover machine. However, from my vantage point he needs a LOT of work on run defense. He got plowed into the end zone by McClain a couple weeks ago, and today he failed to tackle Benson a couple times. I'm very worried about his ability to tackle Brandon Jacobs. Fortunately, we have Foote, who doesn't get run over very often. From here on out, I expect to see Foote in for running situations and Timmons in for passing situations and I think that will be just fine for us.

NFL PLAYER SAFETY?

houksyndrome — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:12:53 -0000

I heard John Clayton on ESPN yesterday say that Polamalu was wrong and that the NFL is genuinely concerned about the safety of its players. I say, that is a half-truth, they want increased player safety in so far as it increases TV viewership, ticket sales and product endorsements. if they are so concerned about player safety then why are they talking about EXTENDING an already grueling 16 game season? It is a well-known fact that former NFL players have a dramatically shorter lifespan than the average American. Yet, they are talking about extending the season and increasing the amount of physical punishment the players have to endure. Oh well, I guess it's just big, ugly linemen that are going to be receiving most of the beating and when was the last time you saw one of those guys in a commercial?

Jason Bay and the Red Sox, what do you think?

houksyndrome — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 02:30:12 -0000

I don't really care for the BoSox anymore, I was rooting for them over NY in 2004, but their fans also root for the Patriots so. . . yeah. However, I like Jason Bay - he was good for us his entire career (minus 2nd half of 2007). Thus, I think I shall root for Bay and his team in the post-season. But enough about me, what do you think? Who are you rooting for this post-season?

2009 draft?

houksyndrome — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:58:40 -0000

We already will have 2 very early 2nd round picks and it is looking more and more like we will have 2 very early first round picks as well (possibly 2x top 5). I have heard that this year's draft class is better than last, particularly w/respect to pitching. Last time I checked, our org. needed more pitching (understatement). Who are considered the top prospects in the 2009 draft? This Alvarez thing sucks, but if we can get two stud pitchers out of it then I won't be so bummed. Thoughts?

Player development strategies

houksyndrome — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:44:34 -0000

I am very interested in the Pirates new player development strategies. It is definitely a great idea to have system-wide level concepts and consistent instruction as players move up the system. For example, a pitcher should not be told to change his arm angle every other season. One concern that I have about this is exactly how much leeway individual coaches are given to come up with and implement their own ideas and generally use their own initiative. I feel that anytime you have a large centrally-run system where everyone follows the prescribed "rule book", you potentially lose a major edge - namely the creative brilliance of your employees, in this case the creative brilliance of our coaches. Obviously, this probably doesn't apply to our existing player development personnel. However, I think it's one reason why Jewett isn't coming back, basically his unwillingness to become an automaton. Such a centralized, we have established protocols for everything from batting stance to how many sunflower seeds a player can eat in a game, system is a good idea when your coaches are completely incompetent, as many of ours likely are. However, I feel like the ideal scenario is one in which we hire excellent coaches, instruct the coaches on how we want to do things, and let them use their creativity and initiative to help us attain excellence in player development. Anybody got thoughts on this, in particular, how do good developmental
systems operate?

How is a "player to be named later" determined?

houksyndrome — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:23:04 -0000

This is a pretty naive question, but it confuses me. When a team makes a trade for a player to be named later, does the team have any idea who that player will actually be? I assume that they don't know exactly who they are getting, otherwise they would just announce it, right? Do they basically have a list of guys to choose from and they check out all of those guys and decide which one is best? If anybody can break this down for me I would be grateful.

Congratulations to Xavier Nady! X Junior born yesterday.

houksyndrome — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:19:16 -0000

And may I be the first to ask: what kind of stuff does the kid have? Does he have any plus pitches? Which major league starters does he compare to? WTM, you should get over to Nady's place with your radar gun and find out. Hey, in 2032 we could have quite the pitching staff. Jamie Romak should also be breaking in with the big league club at about that time. I'm calling it right now, 2032 is gonna be our year!