SB Nation User Blog: tdi1985

All-Star Selections

tdi1985 — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:05:30 -0000

Check this out for more information about how each player got to the game. I'll summarize it here though, too!

AL Starters:

C. Joe Mauer
1B. Kevin Youkilis
2B. Dustin Pedroia
SS. Derek Jeter
3B: Alex Rodriguez
OF: Josh Hamilton - 3.7 million votes
OF: Manny Ramirez
OF: Ichiro Suzuki - Lone Mariner
DH: David Ortiz

They announced Josh Hamilton first, so it will be interesting to see if he actually surpassed Manny, or if those were read off in alphabetical order, or what.

AL Pitchers:

SP. Scott Kazmir - Players pick
SP. Roy Halladay - Players pick - Lone Blue Jay
SP. Justin Duchsherer - Managers pick - Lone Athletic
SP. Cliff Lee - Players pick
SP. Ervin Santana - Players pick
SP. Joe Saunders - Players pick
CL. George Sherrill - Managers pick - Lone Oriole
CL. Mariano Rivera - Players pick
CL. Jonathan Papelbon - Players pick
CL. Joe Nathan - Managers pick
CL. Joakim Soria - Managers pick - Lone Royal
CL. Francisco Rodriguez - Players pick

A crap load of closers!

AL Reserves:

C. Dioner Navarro - Managers pick
C. Jason Varitek - Players pick
1B. Justin Morneau - Players pick
2B. Ian Kinsler - Players pick
SS. Michael Young - Players pick
3B. Joe Crede - Players pick
3B/1B. Carlos Guillen - Managers pick - Lone Tiger
OF. J.D. Drew - Players pick
OF. Carlos Quentin - Players pick
OF. Grady Sizemore - Players pick
DH. Milton Bradley - Players pick - On the show, Francona said Bradley will be starting at DH, in lieu of David Ortiz

Great news about Kinsler, Young and Bradley!

AL Final Vote:

1B. Jason Giambi
2B. Brian Roberts
3B. Evan Longoria
OF. Jermaine Dye
OF. Jose Guillen

####

And here is the link for the details about the NL selections.

NL Starters:

C. Geovany Soto - First Rookie to start at catcher in the NL
1B. Lance Berkman
2B. Chase Utley
SS. Hanley Ramirez
3B. Chipper Jones
OF: Ryan Bruan
OF: Alfonso Soriano
OF: Kosuke Fukudome

I could think of some more deserving NL players that should have been starters.

NL Pitchers:

SP. Aaron Cook - Managers pick
SP. Tim Lincecum
SP. Dan Haren - Managers pick
SP. Ben Sheets
SP. Carlos Zambrano - Managers pick
SP. Brandon Webb
SP. Ryan Dempster - Players pick
SP. Edison Volquez - Lone Red
CL. Brian Wilson
CL. Kerry Wood - Players pick
CL. Brad Lidge
CL. Billy Wagner - Managers pick - Lone Met

NL Reserves:

C. Brian McCann - Managers pick - Lone Dodger
C. Russell Martin - Players pick
1B. Albert Pujols - Managers pick
1B. Adrian Gonzalez - Lone Padre
2B. Dan Uggla
SS. Miguel Tejada - Players pick
SS. Cristian Guzman - Managers pick - Lone National
3B. Aramis Ramirez - Players pick
OF. Matt Holliday - Players pick
OF. Nate McLouth - Players pick - Lone Pirate
OF. Ryan Ludwick - Players pick

NL Final Vote:

3B. David Wright
OF. Pat Burrell
OF. Corey Hart
OF. Carlos Lee
OF. Aaron Rowand

The announcers didn't add the commentary on every player about if they were a players or managers pick, but if I don't have the commentary, you might be able to infer if the player is the only one from his team, like Guzman is (although they did say he was a managers pick).

Top Teams Represented:

Red Sox - 7
Cubs - 7
Rangers - 4
Angels - 3
Twins - 3
Yankees - 3
12 teams with 2
12 teams with 1

VIDEO: KC Announcer Comments on Bradley from Wed's

tdi1985 — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:06:03 -0000

MovieUploaded by idt5891

VIDEO: KC Announcer Comments on Bradley from Wed's

Bradley co-winner of AL player of the week

tdi1985 — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 19:07:49 -0000

Bradley co-winner of AL player of the week

Bradley shares the honor with Joe Crede:

Texas Rangers outfielder Milton Bradley and Chicago White Sox third baseman Joe Crede have been named the Bank of America Presents the American League Co-Players of the Week for the period ending June 8th...

...Last week, Bradley hit .478 (11-23) with five home runs and nine RBI. The 29-year-old outfielder racked up 29 total bases, along with a 1.261 slugging percentage, three doubles and 12 runs scored. Bradley walked nine times, stole four bases and posted a .647 on-base percentage in seven games. During a four-game series against the Cleveland Indians from June 2nd-5th, Bradley went 7-for-13 with four home runs, seven runs scored and seven RBI, including a multi-homer game on June 3rd. On June 7th, the Harbor City, California native went 2-for-5 with a home run and two RBI against the Tampa Bay Rays. On the season, Bradley is batting .340 with 14 home runs and 43 RBI. This marks the first career weekly award honor for Milton Bradley...

...Tourneau, the world's largest watch store, will present both Milton Bradley and Joe Crede with luxury Swiss Tourneau timepieces, suitably engraved, in recognition of their achievements as players of the week.

(Hey, I got a watch from Tourneau once!)

Clinton has 9 players named to Midwest League All-Star Game

tdi1985 — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 05:20:41 -0000

Clinton has 9 players named to Midwest League All-Star Game

Clinton sends the most players to the Midwest League All-Star game, with Lansing and Kane County coming in second with seven players.

Four LumberKings will start:
Catcher Jose Felix
First Baseman Ian Gac
Shortstop Renny Osuna
Outfielder Mitch Moreland

Pitchers:
Neftali Feliz
Kennil Gomez

That is all the article alludes to, but they say there is one more pitcher, so that leaves 2 unnamed position players.

The article also says that Clinton manager Mike Micucci is likely going to be involved in the staff for the Western Division team.

If I had to guess, the three unaccounted players are likely:
Beltre, Timothy Smith, and Beavan.

Review of LSB opinions on Hamilton trade

tdi1985 — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 21:13:20 -0000

I thought it would be a fun exercise to review the opinions of various LSB'ers around the time the Hamilton trade happened. For the sake of disclosure, I didn't have much of an opinion at the time. I didn't say anything on here, but I remember being skeptical, like a lot of you. I did make a comment back when the Reds took him in the rule 5, that he had been quite a bust up to that point.

Anyways, let the fun begin:

From the first thread posted by Zywica:

Liked the trade:
Walter Sobchak

Disliked the trade:
Brian Thomas (more skeptical, than a hater)
Requiem (more risk-averse than JD)
Miles (too risky)
hurlerhurley (compared it to CY trade)
OC (I'll let the quote speak for itself)

Neutral:
coolaid
t ball
BudLight
ghtd36
sprite
slc ranger

Interesting comments:

I'm not a big believer that Hamilton can maintain his 2007 production, but it's worth a shot. - t ball

strikes me as a deal that could turn out really well or really badly for either club. - t ball

I feel we were buying high on Hamilton and selling low on Volquez. - mattrpav

Volquez probably not going to have a lot of success in the Great American Ball Park. - coolaid

Volquez is the next Fausto Carmona... - miles

i think Eddie-V has a better chance of adjusting AND succeeding in the national league than this Hamilton ass-clown has of knocking around American League pitching... the AL has consistently been the better of the two - OC

Miles was pretty much one of the few that were convinced Volquez was going to be pretty good. I don't think any of us could have predicted he would perform this well.

A good prediction from ab03, was that the Rangers would hire Johnny Narron

The next thread posted by Z didn't have a whole lot of opinions about the trade, but had significant conversation about Hamilton's faith, that I doubt people would joke about now.

In AJM'S first post about the trade he was pretty neutral, recognized that it was a need for need trade, but he leaned towards not making the deal. Also made some lineup implication predictions, and expected that Cruz and Botts would be DFA'd and that Murphy would start in AAA.

Liked the trade:
rangeressary
the other dierk in dallas
RCCook (seemed to like the upside)
tricer
WyoRanger
LAMuscleFag (he likes Hamilton's shoe size)
thedirkatron
Brian Thomas (liked it after more reflection, I guess)

Disliked the trade:
hurlerhurley (straight up says he doesn't like it)
Longhorn (upset to see Volquez go)
Kyle MC
mattrpav
Dustin (whose profile isn't available on 2.0, either didn't set it up, or he deleted it, thought that was interesting)

Interesting comments:

I'm not sure how long he will stay in CF. He's not that fast and has a decent arm, i guess... He better hit and continue to hit... - Longhorn

Hopefully he wont try to commit suicide again and overdose with pills. Hell, lets hope he doesn't decide to jump off a building in Dallas. However, he does have a good choice. Lets see if he wants to jump. Go for Bank of America Plaza, Renaissance Tower, Bank One Center or Chase Tower. Happy jumping, Josh - Hurlerhurley

There was a thread linking to a poll on the trade

Fixed this link

You can go to the thread and get a pretty good idea of what people think based on the grades they declare they gave the deal. Some of the more interesting grades (meaning they're extreme values, or people that didn't talk about it in earlier threads):

Grades:
hurlerhurley: C+
rentz: B+
DSheppard: B+
Ed Coffin: A-
rooster: B
DJCahill: A- (I think)
NYTXFAN: B+
Redcaps: C
Randy Richardson: C+
zackaryl: F (whoever that guy is)

That's the bulk of the main threads that were dedicated to the subject. I'm sure there is some amusing commentary that I'm missing.

Minors Multimedia Guide

tdi1985 — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:40:17 -0000

So, thanks to bigskinny for pointing out that milb.tv game video is archived and available for free after the games are finished. They don't always have video for every game, but a the RedHawks get video quite a bit. For the lower level teams, all they ever really have is audio, but that can be enjoyable if you're bored and thirsty for more baseball. All you need for the archived video or live audio is a milb.com account.

Texas Rangers Minor League Affiliate Multimedia Guide

Oklahoma RedHawks: Video - Audio

Frisco RoughRiders: Audio

Bakersfield Blaze: Audio

Clinton LumberKings: Audio

As an example of how you can access the RedHawks video, you need to register at milb.com, then go to that link for the video, and click on "select month" and go back to May. Click on any of those video links on the right, and it should come up!

Hopefully this isn't old news to most of you (the free video is news to me).

Beltre Lands at No. 10 on BA's Weekly Prospect Hot Sheet

tdi1985 — Fri, 30 May 2008 20:01:00 -0000

Mr. Beltre makes the list this week

No. 10 Engel Beltre, OF Rangers

Team: low Class A Clinton (Midwest)
Age: 18
Why He's Here: .407/.407/.630, 11-for-27, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 6 RBI, 4 R, 0 BB, 2 SO, 0-for-1 SB
The Scoop: While the Eric Gagne trade may have proved to be a waste of time for the Red Sox last year, the biggest prize to come out of it on the Rangers side could well be Beltre. This season, Beltre is the youngest player in the Midwest League, but he's held his own to the tune of a .272/.298/.406 line for the year. He's been a key contributer to the MWL's best team in Clinton, batting leadoff and playing center field every day. He ranks fourth in the league in both hits and runs scored and is second in triples. Right now, he's on a six-game hitting-streak and is also working on a streak of four straight multi-hit games.

Really cool line, good to see him getting some extra base hits, RBIs. Want some more walks, but its only one week. The hit streak is pretty cool too.

Lumberkings kick ass!

What is wrong with this picture? ESPN annoys me

tdi1985 — Thu, 29 May 2008 04:18:24 -0000

I know there aren't too many ESPN / BBTN fans out there, but I really have reached a breaking point.

First of all, it was the other night that I think Orestes Destrade called Hamilton "Jeff Hamilton." Destrade even talked about how he was a part of the Rays organization when Hamilton was there... I understand people misspeak sometimes, but this is supposed to be the premiere baseball program, on the premiere sports network. You can't make mistakes like that for a player that is killing the ball like Hamilton.

Then tonight, this comes up...

Tell me what's wrong with this picture?

via i4.photobucket.com

I swear, if a team isn't from somewhere in the Northeast/Chicago or Southern California, ESPN just doesn't give a shit about them.

I should say, they did make a correction at the end of the show, but it just goes to show how little effort they put into doing a show. Honestly, how difficult is it to query your own organization's stats site to see how a player really ranks. Nope, let's just make it up. He has to be in first in all of those categories, there aren't any other teams but the Yankees, Red Sox and White Sox in the American League.

OT: How are your MLB 2k8 Rangers doing?

tdi1985 — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 04:48:35 -0000

The real Rangers aren't giving us too much to be excited about, so let's talk about our MLB 2k8 Rangers. I know there's at least a few other people out there playing it as consistently as I am. So, post some of your more exciting stats thus far...

So far, my team is 44-30, on top of the AL West, leading the Mariners by 4 games.

My starting lineup vs RHP w/DH:

Catalanotto: .304/.310/.563
Kinsler: .347/.346/.734 21 HR 8 SB
Young: .423/.438/.931 26 HR 54 2B 15 3B
Hamilton: .336/.333/.758 17 HR 22
Blalock: .337/.348/.680 25 HR
Broussard: .382/.387/.747 14 HR
Saltalamacchia: .367/.367/.704 15 HR
Murphy: .290/.294/.517
Bradley: .292/.291/.640 19 HR
----
Laird: .226/.235/.391
Cruz: .326/.323/.539

Oh yeah... as you can see, I don't really take walks. When you can hit like that, there really isn't any reason to be patient at the plate. Plus it has never really been easy for me to determine balls and strikes in baseball games.

Rotation:

Millwood: 9-6 2.29 ERA 97 Ks .196 BAA 0.75 WHIP, 114 IP
Padilla: 8-2 4.18 ERA 73 Ks, 90.1 IP
Jennings: (was on the 60-day DL) 1-3 5.73 ERA
McCarthy: 7-4 4.47 ERA
Gabbard: 8-2 3.81 ERA
----
Wilson: 1-2 16 SV / 18 SVO, 3.09 ERA
Guardado: 1.40 ERA 2-0, 9 Ks in 19.1 IP
Francisco: 2.22 ERA 1-2, 17 Ks in 24.1 IP
Benoit: 4.12 ERA 1-3, 36 Ks in 39.1 IP
Rest of the pen is mediocre.

I should probably increase the difficulty of the sliders, but I started from the pro difficulty and have already boosted them some. Oh well, I'm having fun, and Josh Hamilton gets A LOT of triples.

John Sickels' Prospect Profile for German Duran

tdi1985 — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:01:45 -0000

John Sickels' Prospect Profile for German Duran

Mr. Sickels does a pretty good job, talking about how Duran
developed into a player people started to take notice of. Went from an unknown, that the Rangers were high on, to a sleeper, to a solid B prospect in Sickels' book this year. He still projects him as just a solid career utility guy, but says that if he were given 500 ABs, he could get 30 doubles and 15 HRs.

His versatility is also a plus. Duran isn't a future star, but he should have a long career as a really good bench guy who could be better than some players with regular jobs.
(apparently block quotes don't work on fanshots)