Offseason Review: The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

Hometown Hero Jered Weaver

In terms of an immediate impact and difference making offseason, the Angels may have taken the cake. The addition of Pujols can't be denied, because adding the best first basemen of our generation is more often than not a good way to help your team win some games. The Angels roster is, top to bottom, pretty damn good. Since the addition of Pujols and CJ Wilson was pretty heavily publicized, I'm going to write about what could go wrong with their two major acquisitions, and some of their less obvious moves.

Contract Corner: Ryan Zimmerman

The Nats ain't fuckin' around. This offseason they've made some pretty monster moves, but the six year extension that will keep Ryan Zimmerman at the capitol's hot corner through 2019 (2020 with the club option) may be the biggest. I'm usually pretty skeptical about huge long term contracts, but skill like Zimmerman's doesn't come around too often. His career line is .288/.355/.479 career hitter and last years stats pretty much duplicate those numbers, but in the 09 and 10 seasons he batted for .297 and .307 averages respectively.

Exonerated

MVP

I tried to come up with some dignified sounding introductory sentence to this post but it's not happening, so I'm just going to be inflammatory. This fucking rules.

Offseason Review: Seattle Mariners

Last year's Mariners MVP Dustin Ackley

In terms of fast-acting impact moves the Mariners were quiet this offseason. They shed rapist shit bag Josh Lueke by trading for John Jaso and signed a bunch of depth players. There is very little to say about any of this. The strategy Seattle needs to enact is in development, and aside from hoping Hong-Chih Kuo pitches well and can stave off injury long enough to become tradeable, these moves don't necessitate much analysis. 

Contract Corner: Manny Ramirez

Over the course of my working life I've been employed at two different delis in two different parts of the state of Wisconsin. When I first entered the sliced cheese and meat market I had no idea what pastrami was. I always figured it was one of those old people meats that Nickelodeon cartoon characters would use as a token gross food product that lame grandpas would suggest instead of pizza. Boy was I wrong.

Offseason Review: Detroit Tigers

The new one-two punch

I want to preface this post by saying that, despite the fact that my loyalties lie in Milwaukee, I'm not bitter about Prince's move across the lake. I think it was beneficial for both Milwaukee and Detroit that Prince move on. Loyalty is loyalty but its 2011 and free agency is a lot different than it was in Stan Musial's day. On a personal note, as my love affair with baseball goes on, my sense of loyalty towards one team diminishes. I'm a Brewers fan, without question, but my sun doesn't rise and set on what they do. Fielder is an excellent athlete and has earned his check. I'm still going to make fat guy jokes.

Offseason Review: Minnesota Twins

After going first-to-worst in 2011, the Twins had few resources to rebuild or maintain their team in the offseason. Most of the issues responsible for their seemingly freakish collapse lie in the hands of injury. Disabled listees include, and aren't even close to limited to: Joe Mauer, Kevin Slowey, Joe Nathan, Delmon Young (twice), Denard Span (twice), Jason Kubel and the tragically concussed Justin Morneau. The Twins, being decisively out of contention by August, traded Delmon Young to Detroit for two prospects. The path was paved to a dismal 63-99 end of the season, second worse only to the utter shit show Houston Astros.

Mike Cameron Retires

Mike Cameron first put on a Brewers uniform in 2008, the most exciting year of Brewers baseball in my life. He had come to the team on a one year contract, but was immediately endeared to his fans as a clubhouse leader and committed athlete who was excited to be in Milwaukee. After one additional season in Milwaukee he signed a two year contract with Boston, who eventually released him in the middle of his second season with them. After a very brief stint in the Florida Marlins franchise he was again released, signed a minor league contract with the Nationals, and decided to hang it up after 17 MLB seasons.

Offseason Review: Chicago White Sox

What the fuck is going on in Chicago? I usually like to quiet the impulse inside of me that wants to scream that I'd be more capable of managing a team then the current staff, but the White Sox are testing me. So let's review.

The Brewers Pitching Dilemma

The men in question

The Brewers are on the cusp of having to make some extremely expensive decisions. Shaun Marcum and Zack Greinke are both free agents next season, and could fetch a pretty decent amount of money. Both pitchers have stated a desire to stay with the Crew and are waiting to talk extension. Zack Greinke, acting as his own manager since firing SFX, the firm representing him last Winter, is rumored to have already had talks with Doug Melvin. Nothing obvious has resulted so far from either player, as the decision to invest in either of these guys is a heavily nuanced situation.

Offseason Review: Kansas City Royals

Future MVP Eric Hosmer's first big league hit

The Royals, much like the Indians, made some fast moves in the earliest parts of the offseason and then dropped off. Also like the Indians, the Royals have to be strategic and timely with their investments. If they throw too much money at someone at a time when they can't compete, it's going to be paralyze them when they could. If they get too impulsive and trade a key player like Eric Hosmer or Alex Gordon, they could throw any immediate future relevance away.

Tim Wakefield retires

Tim Wakefield has been in Major League Baseball since 1992. I was six years old when he threw his first major league pitch for the Pittsburgh Pirates. At the time of his retirement, Wakefield was the oldest active player in the majors. The most amazing thing about all of that is that he was drafted to play a position he wasn't good at and wouldn't be able to form a career around. Tim Wakefield was drafted to play first base, and when a scout told him that he wasn't going to last long playing a position he started playing around with the knuckleball.

Think about that. Tim Wakefield's career was basically fated to end when he made the inscrutable decision to start throwing the sparsely seen knuckleball. This decision established the roots of a career spanning two decades, two World Series rings, exactly two hundred career wins, over two thousand strikeouts and one career home run.... yeah that's true! His legacy won't be his domination, he wasn't that dominating pitcher. It will be a testament to determination and endurance. Thanks for a fun, and unlikely career, Tim.

Offseason Review: Cleveland Indians

The Cleveland Indians didn't do a whole lot in this offseason. Given their mid-market status combined with their surprisingly dominant first third of the 2011 season, I don't think the Tribe wanted to do much more than tweak their roster before taking another run at it in 2012. Almost immediately following the conclusion of the World Series, Cleveland made a move to acquire ground ball pitcher Derek Lowe from the Braves. Lowe will join Justin Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez as the ground balling gauntlet that the power-filled AL Central will have to contend with this year.

Pitching improvements were made even more busy when Fausto Carmona was discovered to actually be the four year older Roberto Hernandez after Dominican police reported that the pitcher had been been using an assumed name. They acquired Kevin Slowey who had just been traded to the Rockies about a month and a half prior and signed Jon Garland (best known for his work on the Bernie Mac show) who is looking to bounce back after an injury shortened 2011 season.

Grady Sizemore showing that it's never a bad idea for professional athletes to do this sort of thing, ever.

The infield defense needed some shoring up with the added emphasis on ground ball pitching so they signed the gold glove worthy Casey Kotchman who will be sharing time with Carlos Santana and Matt LaPorta. They also re-signed the constantly injured dong champion/power threat Grady Sizemore who still has potential assuming his body doesn't go in to renal failure at some point in the season. By the way, if you Google image search him you can find an even more scandalous shot involving him holding a teacup over his wiener, which he sent to his now fiancee Brittany Binger. This is just my cute way of saying congratulations to Mr. and Ms. Sizemore on their engagement!

Truth be told, Cleveland couldn't have done too much. Detroit looks pretty poised to take the division again, the Twins can't possibly be as bad as they were in 2011, Kansas City is on the very precipice of excellence, the White Sox....are going to suck, but still. They can hope that they are able to kick some ass and with a little luck compete, but it's gonna be tough.


Real quick commentary on an interesting possible x-factor here.  The infield is young and promising and if they can focus on their gloves, the Indians could be awfully tough to score on. I really like Jason Kipnis and Lonnie Chisenhall a lot. They are young and malleable and able to be coached. It wouldn't be a bad investment to keep a focus on defense and hope luck pays off.

In Memoriam: Gary Carter 04/08/1954-02/16/2012

It's been a busy/exhausting 48 hours for me but I wanted to be able to write something brief about Gary Carter, who lost his battle with brain cancer yesterday at the age of 57. I don't have to recall his hall of fame career, laden with awards and accolades. I also don't have to speak on his personality or deep faith or love of the game. If you want any of those well deserved sentiments, you can find them in seconds online.

I wanted to speak on what the life of Gary Carter, the kid, means to me on a more personal level. It's a general and uncomplicated idea, but it's also rare. Carter took the field to perform for his fans and to exhibit his love of baseball, which was explanation enough for his incredible skill to shine through. It goes without saying that kindness, humility and child like enthusiasm are a rare find on a stage where the incentive to excel is rooted in fame and huge amounts of money. Therein lies my inspiration to write to honor and esteem Gary Carter. Thank you for being "the kid". Thanks for reminding young people that baseball can stay fun even if you do it for a living. Thank you for forging a career that takes the cynicism out of people, like myself. Rest in Peace.

Offseason Review: Toronto Blue Jays

2010-2011 AL Home Run Champ Jose Bautista

Toronto's been a pretty strange place for the past couple years. The city has been mired in baseball boredom and mediocrity, finishing nowhere above third in their division every season since 2006.  Last year a small spark of promise revealed itself in out-of-nowhere MVP candidate Jose Bautista. Bautista had been waived and traded by the Pirates, Rays, Royals, Orioles and Mets before finding a home with Toronto in August of 2008. In 2010, after never having a season with more than 16 home runs, Jose Bautista hit FIFTY FOUR FUCKING HOME RUNS, leading the entire American League in that category.

Finally the team had someone to build around, and it looks like that's what's going on now. The moves have been quiet, but impressive. They did take a stab at trying to get Japanese ace Yu Darvish but fell short to the Rangers. They also were rumored to be in on the Fielder sweepstakes, but with Bautista's surprise surge and Canadian power threat Brett Lawrie coming over from the Brewers for Shaun Marcum, the front office decided not to invest heavily in more slugging. Moves like that are wise, and indicate that the Jays are biding their time for a precise time to strike. Strategy like this is crucial when you're playing in the hardest division in baseball.

Brett "I HIT BALLS GOOD" Lawrie

The hardest impact the Jays made was to shore up the ol' bullpen. They extended Casey Janssen who posted an impressive 2.26 ERA over 55 IP last year. They acquired Francisco Cordero off of free agency, and he'll be setting up for closer Sergio Santos who was acquired in a trade for Nestor Molina from the idiotic White Sox. I'll get more in to how I feel about that when I review the Sox offseason, but I wanted to give props to the Jays for some of the voodoo shit they've been pulling off the past couple years. First expunging the stench of Vernon Wells contract for catcher Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera, and now the acquisition of a really, really good looking youngish arm in Sergio Santos. I'm not sure what baffles me more, the Jays luck/ability to manipulate trades or the teams they trade with being insistently counter-intuitive with the concept of trade value.

The Jays still have a ways to go. They extended the shaky Brandon Morrow who has yet to live up to expectation. Kyle Drabek showed a whole lot of promise in the minors and showed questionable results in the bigs, but has a while to shake it off. Patience is key. The franchise looks on the up and up and the management appears to be competent enough to keep them in that direction. I'm gonna guess the the Jays finish five games above five hundred this year. Expect to see a whole lot more dingers up in the Rogers Centre this year.

And a whole lot more goofy freakouts too.

Oh and I almost forgot that, maybe more important than anything else, the Jays got tired of their weird extreme determined Blue Jay logo and brought back this classic. Can't go wrong.

Contract Corner: Yoenis Cespedes

The newest/highest paid member of the Oakland Athletics

So I totally shit the bed on Sunday when I said the Yankees were gonna be the surprise team in on Cespedes. The Oakland A's (of all teams) came out of nowhere with $36MM in hand and signed him for four years. I'm not exactly sure what the hell to make of this, because the A's have made it pretty clear by stripping their rotation and trading off their closer that they do not intend to compete in the next year, or likely the year after that.

One argument could be made that if Cespedes succeeds to an ideal extent, an unlikely scenario by my estimate, that the $36MM four year deal could be a bargain. He has huge raw power and is going to be given an immediate shot in the bigs to become the A's every day right fielder. There is an immense hype surrounding the defector, who put up a .333/.424/.667 line with 33 home runs in 99 RBIs in 90 games over 2010-2011, but he's playing in unfamiliar territory. I'll get in to what this means for the A's specifically more when I do my offseason review (get ready for 15 paragraphs on the impact of Jonny Gomes), but for now I'll say this. If Cespedes pays off and performs to his ceiling, Billy Beane will have maybe earned his extension, if not, he's going to make Lew Wolff look like the biggest rube on the planet.

Offseason Review: Tampa Bay Rays

My pick for AL ROY 2012

This time last year the Rays were a team patching up a roster that had a budget-induced wound the size of the highest paid outfielder of all time. They replaced Carl Crawford with Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez, the latter of whom was suspended and subsequently retired amidst the deserving boos of many-a Tampa Bay fan. They lost their closer to free agency and replaced him with aging reliever Kyle Farnsworth. They lost game after game after game. ESPN posted an article written to express that, while the season started rough for many teams, it would only be a matter of time before they righted the ship. The Rays, however, were doomed.

Come October, they proved them wrong. The upstart Tampa Bay Rays played solid, determined baseball through the entire second half of the season. The incentive of a championship was so far removed from a logical conclusion that the determined, focused style of play exhibited by Tampa Bay can only logically be attributed to immense talent. They didn't make it out of the first round, but the fact that the ragtag Rays even made it to the postseason was landmark.  I remember the night when they locked down the wild card, as does anyone else who cares about baseball. It was epic, and the only team who I wanted to see win the whole goddamn mess more was my hometown Brewers.

Today is Monday, February 13th, and I hate the Tampa Bay Rays. And why is that? Why would I hate a team with such a Cinderella conclusion to what should have been a totally shitty season? Why would I hate a team that does all of the little things a team with a tiny budget has to do to stay competitive? A team with an elite pitching staff, won of whom took home rookie of the year for last season and another one who I'd put money on to do the same this year, why?! A team that in many ways is structured the way my hometown team was for years, why the hate?! Here is why.

 

 Two pretty quiet and inconsequential moves brought a sex offender and red faced racist to the team. Former Oriole Luke Scott was picked up out of free agency after a totally unimpressive years where he batted .220 with a .301 OBP and 9 hate fueled home runs. He also took time away from his mediocrity to tell a reporter that he didn't believe that Obama wasn't born here, and throw plantain chips at his black teammate while telling him to stop behaving like an animal. Then there is Josh Lueke. Acquired from the Seattle Mariners for catcher John Jaso. A relief pitcher with great stuff, major league promise without a doubt. He's also a TOTAL RAPIST.  I don't want to get too in to the details because it doesn't really have to do with an offseason review, just Google Josh Lueke and it'll come up almost immediately. I usually don't let ethics or opinions interfere with my ability to like an athlete or a team, but rape and blatant, vocal hate cross lines. It's one thing for an athlete to be a prototypical jock, or say something stupid in the heat of the moment, but what happened with these dudes is totally inexcusable. I've said it before and I'll hold to it if it ever occurs, if people like this were on my team, I'd root for someone else.

ITS KEPPINGER TIME!

I'm gonna step down from my pulpit and actually analyze the moves they've made. They are scarce so there isn't much to say. Jeff Keppinger provides some depth to an already pretty decent infield. Luke Scott is replacing Johnny Damian at DH... I can't really explain that one, pretty dumb given Damian's affordability and maintaining solidity. Carlos Pena returns to Tampa which is a step up from Dan Johnson as far as offense is concerned, and since they let Casey Kotchman walk defense obviously doesn't mean shit to them, so that's cool. The best thing they did was locking up Matt Moore for five years at $14MM. Moore at just 17 days of major league experience and 10 innings of purely brutal postseason madness and proved the quality people had expected of him. Assuming he stays healthy, $14MM over five years is gonna look awfully affordable for that dude.

"Baseball genius" Joe Maddon

Also extended this offseason was the Napolean of a roster with consistently hemorrhaging talent, manager Joe Maddon. Year after year this dude brings it to the table and proves that he ain't nothin' to fuck with, bringing his small market team a .509 W/L record in the toughest division in baseball. This extension TOTALLY RULES for Maddon. It puts slack on the pressure that comes with being largely accountable for the performance of a team totally stilted by a low budget. If young'n GM Andrew Friedmen's luck runs out, it doesn't necessarily spell the end of Maddon's tenure as manager, even if it does diminish his credibility.

So where does that leave the Rays for 2012? In a competitive seat for sure. No one in the AL East is ever definitively behind the steering wheel, but the talent that exists in the Rays (no matter how loathsome some of it is on a personal level) can't be denied. Keep an eye on Desmond Jennings and Matt Moore if you're interested in seeing some crazy electric talent in its blossoming stages.

What To Do About Hamels' Contract

Dashing

 The Philadelphia Phillies' number one handsy boy Cole Hamels is set to face free agency, and it brings up a serious set of issues for the Phillies front office to deal with. As far as payroll is concerned, it seems the sky's the limit, but with how long ownership will want to pony up enormous contracts for a surefire championship teams that aren't winning championships is hard to say. Don't get me wrong, I think the window for the Phillies to win is still wide open, but it's closing fast, and we're talking about a player with one year left before he reaches a very lucrative free agency.

Adorable

The starting three in the Phillies rotation kicks ass right now. Halladay, Lee and Hamels were a very integral part in making Philadelphia the best team by record in baseball last year. Veteran goatee king Joe Blanton and promising young right hander Vance Worley round out as solid of a four and five as any rotation could have.  Hunter Pence is an amazing trade acquisition from last year to help cover the loss of Raul Ibanez who aged himself out of the roster. The offense is still good, but the core of it is aging. So what does this have to do with Hamels?

Priceless

 

Well, assuming the front office learned anything from Ryan Howard, it means that salary and years are going to have to be a rational factor in how Hamel is approached. Not just from the standpoint of Hamels, but how the team is going to be restructured once the already pretty old players get older. Hamels isn't going to settle for a three year deal when pitchers like CJ Wilson are getting paid up the ass by the Angels, but the Phillies aren't going to want to throw an amount of money at him that could anchor them down to irrelevance. If I were Cole I'd tell Heidi (the beautiful minx in the past two pictures) to start looking at real estate in New York or Los Angeles and get ready to pitch my ass off for the next six months.


I know that none of the media I've posted on here is baseball relevant, so here's a video game home run Cole Hamels crushes off of R.A. Dickey in MLB The Show. MRsuh1312 deems it "rettarted"

Rettarted indeed!

Offseason Review: The New York Yankees

The Yankees destroying the Brewers in a 2011 interleague game

Uncharacteristically, the Yankees have had two consecutive pretty slow offseasons in terms of the exploiting the free agent market. Not that they hadn't tried. Last year it was all but certain that Cliff Lee was going to be wearing pin stripes until he took a pay cut to pitch for the Phillies, and the same thing happened this year with C.J. Wilson turning down more money to go to the Angels. I'm not totally sure about how actively they pursued Yu Darvish but all reports suggested unambitiously low bids.

Newest Yankees slaughterhouse, Michael Pineda

The Yanks quietly pulled off some of the more important/impressive/risky moves of the offseason. C.C. Sabathia was expected to opt out of his contract, but GM Brian Cashman wasted no time offering a hearty $25MM one year extension (with an additional $25MM vesting option with a $5MM buyout) to his contract. The Yankees also engaged in, almost without question, the weirdest trade I've ever seen. On January 23rd, the bombers and Mariners traded top prospects. Promising young slugger Jesús Montero was traded along with Hector Noesi for a highly touted pitching prospect named Michael Pineda, as well as another young pitcher Jose Campos. In my personal opinion the Yanks stole the show on this one. I happened to watch one of Pineda's starts last year and almost everything about it looked smooth and dominating. Lot's to look forward to regarding that trade.

Realistically there isn't much the Yanks had to do. They shedded the soon-to-be-traded A.J. Burnett from the rotation and added in Hiroki Kuroda, good move. People always assume that New York automatically has to pull off some ape shit move in the offseason, totally forgetting that they still have an amazing first infield, amazing-ish outfield (I could see Curtis Granderson contending strongly for MVP for the next three or four years), amazing closer, solid bullpen and pretty decent rotation. The thing is I think they still may pull off the craziest shit ever and put some enormous money in front of Yoenis Cespedis. For those of you don't know who Cespedes is please click the video below. He had a weak  showing in the Dominican League this Winter but that wasn't totally shocking as it came off a year hiatus from the game. I've heard comps to a young Bo Jackson. If that happens, this dude is going to slay everything in sight for years.

 

THIS VIDEO IS TOTALLY RIDICULOUS! WATCH!

Offseason Review: Baltimore Orioles

The Orioles played a crucial part in the biggest night in baseball last season. September 28th, crawling towards midnight, Jonathan Papelbon blows what would be his last save opportunity in a Red Sox uniform. One strike away from securing the wild card and the unlikely combination of a Nolan Reimold game tying double and Robert Andino walk off single secured a season ending dagger for the Sox.

Since then they've done almost nothing besides piss South Korea off by signing their top pitching prospect Seong-Min Kim out of protocol. There isn't much Baltimore can do though besides be very patient and rebuild. Unfortunately for Buck Showalter and Dan Duquette it looks like management will have to symbolically turn over a few more times before the talent and farm system produce talent that can be even remotely competitive. Signing Ayala, Betemit and Larish are this years Derrek Lee are Vlad Guerrero contracts, pithy bandages and desperate looking trade chips for a team that can't possibly compete.

Adam Jones and Nick Markakis are legitimate trade candidates, and I think both good grab a good haul. Guthrie just got traded to the Rockies for next to nothing. The process is going to be slow and frustrating, especially when fans have to see these guys chase the unabating juggernaut Yankee and Red Sox.  Expect the Orioles to finish dead last. Next year too.

Contract Corner: Billy Beane's monster extension

no, no, no, no, no......

Billy Beane has been extended as the General Manager for the Oakland Athletics through the 2019 season....no no no no bad bad no no bad bad bad bad bad no....

OK look, I don't hate Billy Beane. I understand sabermetrics and their value and realize what putting moneyball in to the limelight did for baseball. I also get that rebuilding takes time and that for small market teams competition is a perpetually uphill battle. Benefit of the doubt aside, the A's haven't enjoyed a postseason berth since 2006. That's five completed seasons for a team in a four team division. A team that seems to be an undying state of rebuilding

I'm not supposing that Beane deserves to lose his job, but why would you want to secure the job of the head of a management staff who hasn't won in THIRTEEN CONSECUTIVE SEASONS for another SEVEN YEARS!? Shouldn't he have a little bit of a fire under his ass, so as to prevent consistent manic rebuilding? If Beane's personality resembles Brad Pitt's spazzy disjointed depiction of his, then the A's should be very, very worried about the next half of a decade plus.

Before anyone gets up in arms about this, ask yourself this. If Jim Hendry was depicted by Ryan Gosling in some movie glorifying the modest accomplishments that the Cubs had achieved under his tenure, would he still have his job? Yep! He totally would.  They should have kept him on until 2016, waited on a new stadium, collected revenue and hoped in one hand, while signing a pink slip with the other. If the experiment fails in that amount of time, it's probably time to rebuild the front office, manically.

Offseason Review: Boston Red Sox

I know there is a good chance that we'll see some last minute trades and signings, but with the 2012 season just weeks away I figured I'd start recapping the offseason team by team. I'm going do it Eastern, Central, Western, American League first.
 

BOSTON RED SOX

Perennial MVP Candidate Adrian Gonzalez

Last year I picked the Red Sox to beat the Phillies 4-1 in the World Series. WOOPS! This year I predict that the Boston Red Sox are going to beat the Phillies 4-1 in the World Series. Here's why: the Red Sox went all out in acquiring and signing Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford respectively. And while there was a bust in Crawford, Gonzalez did exactly what he was expected to do, and that is smash the living shit out of the ball.  The starting three pitchers should be, at the very, very least competent enough to win games assuming they stay healthy. By my estimation it would be a very reactionary move to identify a team of this caliber with last year's late season collapse.

The Red Sox let iconic fist pumping, death glaring closer Jonathan Papelbon walk and responded by acquiring Mark Melancon from the Astros and Andrew Bailey from the Athletics. They are replacing a mediocre/aging J.D. Drew with possible breakout candidate Ryan Sweeney who is trading in the cavernous Coliseum for the hitter-friendly Fenway Park. There is a weak back two spots in the rotation but Oswalt is a likely candidate to help shore that up, and with the likely departure of (probably former) captain Jason Varitek, a door opens for promising catching prospect Ryan Lavarnway.

THE POWER OF RYAN LAVARNWAY



The only major issue is at short. The Sox...for whatever reason... traded away Jed Lowrie in the Melancon deal and Scutaro for RHP Clayton Mortensen. They have Nick Punto, but I can hardly type that out without wanting to punch a whole in my goddamn computer screen for how goddamn stupid it is to not even trying to rely on Nick goddamn Punto to play the hardest defensive position in baseball... still I'm sure they will figure it out. Worst case scenario, Pedro Ciriaco is in their system and for some dumb reason I have faith in that guy.

Nick Punto in all his wobbly glory

Seriously though, you have my prediction. Boston Red Sox in five.

Contract Corner: Elvis Andrus, Jeff Suppan

2010 All Star Elvis Andrus

Yesterday the Texas Rangers and shortstop Elvis Andrus avoided arbitration by coming to an agreement on a three year 14.4MM contract. This is a pretty sensible contract, albeit questionable in necessity. The three year deal eats all of his arbitration seasons doesn't delay his free agency, so it kind of begs the question as to why this would even need to happen? With promising prospect Jurickson Profar waiting in the wings it seems a little premature to lock someone down at a position that's as difficult to draft suitors for as shortstop. Still, three years gives both players time to prove their  respective roles in the organization. If I had to guess, they wanted to lock proven all-star Elvis Andrus down in case his value increases without gambling a whole lot of cash.  All in all I'd say it's a win.

As a Brewer's fan seeing this dingus' face pisses me off, but I guess I get it. Depth is important for any franchise and it won't be bad for Padres coming up to get some pointers from ol' soup but don't expect much in terms of quality.  Apparently he'll make almost a mil if he makes the majors but given his close to 5 ERA last year in Kansas City's minors, I wouldn't count on it. You can pretty much copy and paste the review of this deal for Russell Branyan and Mike Cameron's contracts using mediocre offensive/defensive stats. Wasn't even thinking about the fact that they are all ex-Brewers.

Contract Corner: Bill Hall, Clayton Kershaw

Bill Hall

Usually I'd be full of snark about an aging, declining utility man (ex-Brewer nonetheless) but the Bill Hall to the Yankees contract seems pretty agreeable on both sides.  $600K base salary with $50K paid incentives for each 50 at bats from 100-250 and 100K payouts for each 50 at bats after that. Hall looked totally shitty last year splitting time with Houston and San Francisco with a .211/.261/.314 line, and two home runs.

So why invest at all? Here's my guess. The guy who looked forgettable to Houston last year is the same guy who had 85 hits and 18 HRs while playing in the AL East in 2010. Not a bad gamble at $600K for a vet who may be craving a ring.

2011 NL Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw

I love this gawky Cy Young award winning monster. I also almost don't even care what his contract is so long as it satisfies him and baits in an owner interested in keeping him around and winning championships. At the age of 23, Clayton Kershaw has already been in the majors for four seasons. In 2011 he earned the distinction of being voted the best pitcher in the National League. In a franchise where the pressure of pseudo-ownership of the psychotic McCourt family dissolved in to non-ownership, and the lack of incentive that comes with a losing team, Kershaw came up huge. The contract details are as follows: $500K signing bonus, $7.5 million in 2012 and $11 million in 2013. Not bad for either side. If you're inspired by horrible camera filters and HIGH OCTANE SPORTS HIGHLIGHTS!!! the video below is worth watching.

21-17

THE INTIMIDATOR

I know I said I don't care about the Super Bowl, but if you're anything like me there were a few instances where you were thrust from your throne of ambivalence and made to hop around like you were being controlled by a drunken marionette operator. I had no vested interest in either team, my enthusiasm was wrought from the admiration of skill and effort. The instinct that I had indicating a Giants win held true but it was all gut. My capacity for drinking heavy beers was dramatically overstated.

The reason I'm approaching my Super Bowl review with zero analysis or play by play is because I think there are a ton of people like me who watched and enjoyed despite who might win. I missed the Eastwood commercial so I can't give that credit for getting all jacked up, but I went in to the second half energized and focused, which is way more than I can say for most events that I don't deem sobriety worthy. Perhaps it was Madonna's innovative and unprecedented call for world peace... either way.

Admittedly, and probably horribly evident in my writing, my sports renaissance occurred later in my life. Unlike other Wisconsinite 80's babies who carry with them vivid memories of Favre's green and gold victories, my youth was spent collecting awful punk compilations and adhering to since-proven-fairweather politics. Still, I've been absorbing sports and sports information at such an intense frequency over the past half of a decade that not everything Wisconsin sports can excite me anymore. My loyalty towards a team is less about uniform and more about athletic performance. So, it goes without saying that the Super Bowl, the cumulative showdown resulting from a series of one and done games, shouldn't be exciting. This game was.

It's refreshing to shut off the sports scope and just watch a bunch of dudes put there heart in to the game. Even the slop and the imprecision were noted by passion and intensity. Grit can be what separates a boring blowout or low-scoring  snore fest from a fucking awesome game, which we were given on Sunday. I'm happy for both teams and don't even really care that the Packers didn't make it this year.

I also want to think Scrimshaw Pilsner for being an excellent accompaniment to the implicit indulgence that comes along with watching a football game with friends and family.

Super Bowl Scumday

Ft. Meat

Off to my Dad's house in Illinois for my annual family food chugging, Heineken swilling indulgence fest. The event I'm speaking of is known to most as the Super Bowl, and if you're anything like me, you barely care about it when your team isn't playing. Whatever though, it's going to be a blast. I predict the Giants to win and to consume about 14 beers and six pounds of meat and cheese cubes. Hope you all have a good weekend.

Contract Corner: Todd Coffey

God damn you Dodgers and your taking all of my favorite mediocre ex-Brewer free agents! Relief pitcher and former National, Brewer and Red is now Dodger. After a pitiful 82-79 year for a team with a Cy Young award winning pitcher and deserving candidate for the NL MVP award, the Los Angeles Dodgers did an impressive job collecting forgettable free agents for no discernible reason.  Todd Coffey is now joins Chris Capuano and Jerry Hairston Jr as another not great ex-Brewer-now-Dodger who I still really liked for whatever reason.  I can't really make sense out of signings of players like this other than that they might serve as trade chips for low end prospects down the line, but to what end? I'd try and find the logic that's inherit in them not having an owner right now but that kind of got blasted to bits when I heard they made a huge run at Fielder. Oh well, whatever! Here's to you, Mr. Coffey. I hope the California sun casts beautifully over your giant belly at Dodger stadium as you make your mad dash from the bullpen.

The Fourty Million Dollar Bar Tab

2010 AL MVP Josh Hamilton

First off I want to say that addiction isn't even kind of funny. The chemical dependance on substances is tragic and the ability to resist it with even a measure of success should be applauded. The pressure Josh Hamilton must have gone through to remain sober as long as he did is immeasurable and shouldn't be looked down on.

All that being said, the mistake he made in a bar in Dallas on Monday should be criticized. The details regarding Hamilton's relapse are pretty foggy and probably will remain that way because it looks like it came with relatively little scandal. Something that is known is that at one point his teammate Ian Kinsler stopped by the bar to discourage Hamilton from further drinking. The fact that Hamilton was cognizant enough of the wrongfulness of his decision making to let Kinsler know what was up indicates a lot. Scandal or not, the sheer awfulness of this decision can't go unmentioned.

Seeing as this is at least loosely about sports I'll keep my opinions within that scope. In terms of an athlete's contract, this couldn't have come at a much worse time for Josh.  Internal debates within the Rangers organization, once seemingly split down the middle, likely shifted decisively in one direction about what's going to happen with the 2010 MVP. It simply can't make sense for an already strained franchise to invest heavily in a player who's afflictions are already laid out for them. The "three or four drinks" Hamilton ingested in a "weak moment" may have cost him millions and millions of dollars. I hope for his sake that the fan base and newspapers recognize that as punishment enough so he can focus on his recovery. Godspeed!

Contract Corner-Edwin Jackson, Ryan Rowland-Smith, Gerardo Concepcion, Casey Kotchman

Clearly, I tried to find the most adorable name for contract discussion, and frankly it saddens me that there isn't a key for a backwards "R". Anyways what I'm going to do with this is just offer brief opinions about recent signings.

Edwin Jackson

Jackson last year with the Cardinals

 If everyone in the MLB retired today and wrote an autobiography about there careers, I'd want to read Edwin Jackson's before everyone else. In Jackson's nine year career he has pitched for seven different teams. His career stats look like those of a back of the rotation pitcher (4.46 ERA, 60-60 win loss) but has steadily improved, last year posting a 3.79 ERA and a 12-9 win-loss. He was the author of the ugliest no hitter I've seen in my life, throwing 149 pitches and walking eight batters. He was also one of the main players in St. Louis' Hail Mary series of trades that got them in to the playoffs and eventually won him a World Series ring. And now, for one year, he's a Washington National.

So what's with the Bobby Bonds treatment?  Edwin Jackson is a deceptively good pitcher. Every fourth or fifth outing it seems like he gives up 15 runs in two and a third innings, but he wins more than most four pitchers. I'm not saying he deserves Cliff Lee money but if Suppan can get 4 Yrs 42 Mil then I think Jackson deserves to at least get to know his neighbors. If I had to guess, the Nationals trade Jackson to the Rangers on July 15th.

Edwin Jackson's No Hitter

Ryan Rowland-Smith

I don't know much about this dude. He's an Australian and I saw him get smoked in an interleague game that brought Seattle to Miller Park. I also know that his dad is a "celebrity trainer".
That being said, apparently he's also part of Theo Epstein's mystery plan that is going to put rings on the fingers of the Chicago Cubs some day. I'm skeptical about the whole Epstein revolution and it doesn't help my skepticism that he is bringing a guy around who neither the Mariners or the Astros felt was up to standard. I guess we'll see.

Gerardo Concepción

I don't know very much about Concepción other than the fact that he's a young Cuban pitcher with a pretty decent amount of promise. What I do know that there is an incredible amount of mystique around all of the foreign free agents who have come to light this offseason. Darvish and Cespedes being obvious examples, but even some Milwaukeeans have already adopted Aoki as an adequate substitution for Braun assuming a suspension takes place. None of this has to do with Concepción necessarily, but it wouldn't do Cubs fans much good to look at this guy as some definite ace. For the record I've heard most scouts put his ceiling at a high four, low three pitcher. Still, a very young and promising looking prospect is never a bad acquisition. Concepción looks a lot more like a sneaky Epstein move for potential championships down the road.

Casey Kotchman

This signing actually made me a little jealous. Being of the mindset that defense wins as many games as home runs do I had no idea why no one in Milwaukee thought would be a good platoon partner for Gamel in games when one or two runs might make the difference. Alas, Kotchman is now an Indian. I think it's an awesome, relatively cheap signing for the Tribe who only have former Brewers prospect and current bust Matt LaPorta manning first. Travis Hafner is also capable of maybe playing first but my guess is that he is too busy watching sick 1999 clips of the WWE because according to Wikipedia he's a "huge fan of Stone Cold Steve Austin". 

To be honest I don't have much to say about this signing and what it means for Cleveland, but I will use it as a pedestal to talk about how horse shit awards are. Golden Gloves being the obvious example in this case. Here's an interesting Kotchman fact: he holds the major league record with 2,379 chances without an error at first base. Gold Gloves? Zero. Here are some first basemen with Gold Gloves in the AL-Mark Teixeira, Mark Teixeira, Adrian Gonzales, Mark Teixeira, and Mark Teixeira. I'm not trying to take anything away from the dude, but if he weren't a Yankee and a slugger, Mark Teixeira would not have four gold gloves. The same could be said for Jeter's five. 

Awards are meaningless anyways but if I didn't appear crotchety on here I wouldn't be doing my job.

Kamikaze

In three days, a rematch between the New York Giants and New England Patriots of Homeric proportions will be staged in Indianapolis. Super Bowl Sunday, and no matter who wins, tales will be forged in the mouths of the fans of both teams that will be told until they die. The Super Bowl, an ultimately arbitrary happening, contends with and probably more often blights major disasters and war in overall new coverage. And I couldn't care less.

That's not accurate, I care. I care about the visceral experiences of snack eating, excessive drinking and yelling that elite athletes in their prime attempting feats on the biggest possible stage that would kill me if ever attempted by me... suck. I care about it because its fun, but the investment is non-existent.  Today a friend of mine asked who I wanted to win, and I came up short by half-assedly giving some forgettable bullshit about rooting for underdogs. Frankly, the pedantic grooming attributed to Super Bowl marketing irritates the shit out of me, and only serves to water itself down.

This a sports blog, and only kind of. I am a grumpy, impatient baseball fan who has thus far only written objective analysis in an attempt to seem professional. That got exhausting so now I'm going to write flailing opinion pieces ranting about what I think is so goddamn wrong all the time or how awesome something is. I'm not going to be too intellectual about it, I'm not going to go to deep. I figured I'd start by undermining any notion of integrity someone may have in me as a writer about sports by talking about how dumb The Super Bowl is. 

Take note: this is a clumsily written intro about what I'm going to attempt to do with this blog. Usually I won't start writing an hour before I have to go to work, but inspiration sparked me and I decided to not take it for granted. Spring training is just around the corner. I can't wait.