Friday, January 27, 2006
more than 5 questions for the al west
oak: i love the big hurt signing. besides the obvious, it allows payton (somewhat better against lefties) and swisher (tons better against rhp) to platoon in left (which could work as nicely as the lofton-michaels 05 platoon). if their staff can stay healthy, this is clearly the team to beat out west, no?
sea: in 05 they had 80% of their staff had era's over 5. in 06 it could be down to 20%, or even 0%: hernandez, washburn, moyer, piniero (can't possibly be so bad again - i see a rebound season), and meche. is this the most improved america-based team in the al?
laa: other than at 1b (with young cuban slugger kendry morales seemingly ready), the angels made zero improvements this offseason. does this aging team finally slide to the middle of the pack? will colon's back allow him to be the much needed workhorse?
tex: multiple questions here. does buck finally pull the plug on the lance nix/sarge jr. tandem of ugliness? how soon will they regret trading 26 year old princeton alum chris young ($400k, 31 starts, 7.49 k/9, ~1.5 bb/start) for oft-injurred adam eaton? was the staff overhaul actually an improvement (i say no)?
oak: i love the big hurt signing. besides the obvious, it allows payton (somewhat better against lefties) and swisher (tons better against rhp) to platoon in left (which could work as nicely as the lofton-michaels 05 platoon). if their staff can stay healthy, this is clearly the team to beat out west, no?
sea: in 05 they had 80% of their staff had era's over 5. in 06 it could be down to 20%, or even 0%: hernandez, washburn, moyer, piniero (can't possibly be so bad again - i see a rebound season), and meche. is this the most improved america-based team in the al?
laa: other than at 1b (with young cuban slugger kendry morales seemingly ready), the angels made zero improvements this offseason. does this aging team finally slide to the middle of the pack? will colon's back allow him to be the much needed workhorse?
tex: multiple questions here. does buck finally pull the plug on the lance nix/sarge jr. tandem of ugliness? how soon will they regret trading 26 year old princeton alum chris young ($400k, 31 starts, 7.49 k/9, ~1.5 bb/start) for oft-injurred adam eaton? was the staff overhaul actually an improvement (i say no)?
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
a couple of links
the next letterman? heeeeeeere's stewie!
also, for you baseball fans who dabble in the poker: a buddy of mine from high school tipped me off that the guy who developed the PECOTA system for bp is a 2+2er (goes by nate the great or something).
the next letterman? heeeeeeere's stewie!
also, for you baseball fans who dabble in the poker: a buddy of mine from high school tipped me off that the guy who developed the PECOTA system for bp is a 2+2er (goes by nate the great or something).
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
5 questions for the al central
chisox: will thome's plate discipline rub off or will these guys continue to hack away?
cle: have they done enough this offseason to keep up with chicago? i like the perez signing (to platoon with broussard), but can they finish more than a distant second?*
minn: do mauer and morneau make the leap, or is this the year they finish 4th?
det: welcome to the post-higginson era! what will hurt them more: the lack of guys who can get on base or their rotation's lack of progress (even bonderman faded in 05)?
kc: minkietwicz, grudzelanek, sanders (what was this guy thinking?!). terrence long. will they ever learn?
*latest rumor has boston including kelly shoppach in the crisp deal, getting josh bard in return. could that deal get any more lopsided?
chisox: will thome's plate discipline rub off or will these guys continue to hack away?
cle: have they done enough this offseason to keep up with chicago? i like the perez signing (to platoon with broussard), but can they finish more than a distant second?*
minn: do mauer and morneau make the leap, or is this the year they finish 4th?
det: welcome to the post-higginson era! what will hurt them more: the lack of guys who can get on base or their rotation's lack of progress (even bonderman faded in 05)?
kc: minkietwicz, grudzelanek, sanders (what was this guy thinking?!). terrence long. will they ever learn?
*latest rumor has boston including kelly shoppach in the crisp deal, getting josh bard in return. could that deal get any more lopsided?
this ain't rick james' thunderbird
friday nite nina and i went to an nba developmental league game. we have our own team in town - the albuquerque thunderbirds. five things i really liked about this:
1. for $25 a ticket, we had the best seats you could get. at an nba game, these tickets would've cost, i dunno, three grand. and yes, i'm ignoring the fact that for $15, you could've sat literally 6 feet behind us.
2. they play music during the game. not just during timeouts and stuff, but while the game is going on. i don't know why i liked this so much. maybe because there were some people nearby who stood up and danced to every nelly song that came on. also, at the start of every quarter you're instructed to stand up and cheer until the t-birds score their first point. awesome.
3. the thunderbirds have some kid who just graduated cornell. you gotta love seeing the ivy league represented in anything affiliated with the nba. move over bill bradley, here comes cody toppert. this smooth southpaw dripped 3 after 3 en route to a thunderbird victory.
4. the t-birds are coached by michael cooper, and their opponent on friday (the austin toros - terrible teel unis on those fuckers by the way, the attempt at looking retro does not work) was coached by dennis johnson. cooper vs. dj! it was like a 80's lakers-celts reunion. dj has a belly and seems to be pretty lost as a coach. the toros were horribly out-rebounded and gave up back door cut after back door cut. poor team defense. cooper had the t-birds looking good though.
5. the contests for fans. similar to minor league baseball stuff, except that here if you lost or missed or whatever, they still gave you the prize. a guy in the seat in front of us had to make 3 foul shots in 24 seconds and then make a short put. he proceeded to throw up 5 air balls and miss the putt. but here's your pizza! also, they had those sumo suits.
other things of note:
-the thunderbird cheerleaders were entertaining, but not really in a good way. one fell over during a routine, another tried some sort of simple jump and almost bit it on the landing. at least there were a lot of spirit fingers. if dallas cowboy cheerleaders make like $50 a game, i wonder what these gals are brining home - a left over chicken finger and some bleu cheese?
-the halftime show. this was some local asian-style drum group. made up of all overweight white people.
players of note:
-andre emmett. the one player i was really looking forward to seeing. imagine going from bobby night to dennis johnson. i'm pretty surprised emmett isn't on an nba roster right now.
-cj miles. college is probably looking pretty good right now.
-marcus fizer. emmett and fizer were the toros only threats. fizer is fuckin huge.
-yuta tabuse. yup, the tiny asian who had a run with the suns summer league team. this guy was the crowd favorite, and for good reason. good defender, quick, somehow scored some layups in traffic. plus he looks like a guy you'd see at best buy monopolizing the free play station. also, we got a free t-shirt with his name on it with thunderbird written in japanese.
all around, we had a great time. the nba d-league - it's faaaantastic.
friday nite nina and i went to an nba developmental league game. we have our own team in town - the albuquerque thunderbirds. five things i really liked about this:
1. for $25 a ticket, we had the best seats you could get. at an nba game, these tickets would've cost, i dunno, three grand. and yes, i'm ignoring the fact that for $15, you could've sat literally 6 feet behind us.
2. they play music during the game. not just during timeouts and stuff, but while the game is going on. i don't know why i liked this so much. maybe because there were some people nearby who stood up and danced to every nelly song that came on. also, at the start of every quarter you're instructed to stand up and cheer until the t-birds score their first point. awesome.
3. the thunderbirds have some kid who just graduated cornell. you gotta love seeing the ivy league represented in anything affiliated with the nba. move over bill bradley, here comes cody toppert. this smooth southpaw dripped 3 after 3 en route to a thunderbird victory.
4. the t-birds are coached by michael cooper, and their opponent on friday (the austin toros - terrible teel unis on those fuckers by the way, the attempt at looking retro does not work) was coached by dennis johnson. cooper vs. dj! it was like a 80's lakers-celts reunion. dj has a belly and seems to be pretty lost as a coach. the toros were horribly out-rebounded and gave up back door cut after back door cut. poor team defense. cooper had the t-birds looking good though.
5. the contests for fans. similar to minor league baseball stuff, except that here if you lost or missed or whatever, they still gave you the prize. a guy in the seat in front of us had to make 3 foul shots in 24 seconds and then make a short put. he proceeded to throw up 5 air balls and miss the putt. but here's your pizza! also, they had those sumo suits.
other things of note:
-the thunderbird cheerleaders were entertaining, but not really in a good way. one fell over during a routine, another tried some sort of simple jump and almost bit it on the landing. at least there were a lot of spirit fingers. if dallas cowboy cheerleaders make like $50 a game, i wonder what these gals are brining home - a left over chicken finger and some bleu cheese?
-the halftime show. this was some local asian-style drum group. made up of all overweight white people.
players of note:
-andre emmett. the one player i was really looking forward to seeing. imagine going from bobby night to dennis johnson. i'm pretty surprised emmett isn't on an nba roster right now.
-cj miles. college is probably looking pretty good right now.
-marcus fizer. emmett and fizer were the toros only threats. fizer is fuckin huge.
-yuta tabuse. yup, the tiny asian who had a run with the suns summer league team. this guy was the crowd favorite, and for good reason. good defender, quick, somehow scored some layups in traffic. plus he looks like a guy you'd see at best buy monopolizing the free play station. also, we got a free t-shirt with his name on it with thunderbird written in japanese.
all around, we had a great time. the nba d-league - it's faaaantastic.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
the ob
for those of you who remember fondly when i used to put together that rag known as oscar's bicycle, here's the last issue, dated september 2004. this one never got mailed out, as i planned to just start publishing it online. but really it just became the 9th and final issue of my beloved "magazine". i'd like to say there'll be a comeback, but i said that in january 05 and look how that worked out.
for those of you who remember fondly when i used to put together that rag known as oscar's bicycle, here's the last issue, dated september 2004. this one never got mailed out, as i planned to just start publishing it online. but really it just became the 9th and final issue of my beloved "magazine". i'd like to say there'll be a comeback, but i said that in january 05 and look how that worked out.
5 questions for the al east
nyy: is posada going to use those trade rumors as motivation or continue his decline?
bos: rumor has it you need 9 players on the field every day. are you sure you want alex cora and adam stern to be 2 of them?
bal: do you think the lopez/hernandez thing is going to work out behind the dish? lopez seems like he will sulk and underproduce if he's not the everyday backstop, so trading him for a good young outfielder or pitcher seems like the way to go.
tb: is this the year we get a glimpse of bj upton and/or delmon young full time? for a team with so many youngsters, they sure do seem to have a lot of egos to fit into that outfield.
tor: hey, it's the hinske shuffle! it's nice to have 5 corner infielders and all, but do you really want hinske as your 5th of?
also, here's an exercise to get you ready for your fantasy draft (makes you figure out where everyone signed, etc). off the top of your head make a list of every starting position player for every team. this is a perfect thing to do during a boring meeting. i haven't done pitchers yet but i know they'll be harder for me. it's always frustrating to see which completely obvious ones you just can't think of (e.g. i could place duffy in cf for pitt but couldn't think who played lf - dumb). check your answers for nl and al. i was in the 90's percent-wise for the al, but florida helped knock my nl rate down to ~80%. i haven't done the rotations yet, but i know i'll be significantly worse at it.
nyy: is posada going to use those trade rumors as motivation or continue his decline?
bos: rumor has it you need 9 players on the field every day. are you sure you want alex cora and adam stern to be 2 of them?
bal: do you think the lopez/hernandez thing is going to work out behind the dish? lopez seems like he will sulk and underproduce if he's not the everyday backstop, so trading him for a good young outfielder or pitcher seems like the way to go.
tb: is this the year we get a glimpse of bj upton and/or delmon young full time? for a team with so many youngsters, they sure do seem to have a lot of egos to fit into that outfield.
tor: hey, it's the hinske shuffle! it's nice to have 5 corner infielders and all, but do you really want hinske as your 5th of?
also, here's an exercise to get you ready for your fantasy draft (makes you figure out where everyone signed, etc). off the top of your head make a list of every starting position player for every team. this is a perfect thing to do during a boring meeting. i haven't done pitchers yet but i know they'll be harder for me. it's always frustrating to see which completely obvious ones you just can't think of (e.g. i could place duffy in cf for pitt but couldn't think who played lf - dumb). check your answers for nl and al. i was in the 90's percent-wise for the al, but florida helped knock my nl rate down to ~80%. i haven't done the rotations yet, but i know i'll be significantly worse at it.
t-minus 4 minutes
nasa is launching a rocket to jupiter. you can watch it here (just click on "watch video"). the launch window is from ~1:10pm est to ~3:10pm est. as of now the projected take off is 1:30pm est.
is harland williams on board?
nasa is launching a rocket to jupiter. you can watch it here (just click on "watch video"). the launch window is from ~1:10pm est to ~3:10pm est. as of now the projected take off is 1:30pm est.
is harland williams on board?
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
the price is wrong bitch
somehow this same schedule has worked out each of the last few weeks: a party on friday with some boozing and game playing (including this gem: shout about tv. one downside - it can only be played 3 times), some poker on saturday (either at 2am or 3pm), and beer/wings/football-watching at a bar on sunday. those things alone can make for some snappy weekends.
but it's what happened on saturday morning that set this past weekend apart from the others. normally at this time of year, you'd correctly suggest that we were snowboarding. but since new mexico has been as dry as lucille bluth's cooter and as warm as jake plummer's neck this winter, we haven't been boarding since late december. instead we did something i haven't done in over 5 years (insert joke about sex and marriage here). i'll give you a hint - it involves a (marginally) long thin rod and struggling to put something in a hole (wait, insert another joke about sex and marriage). yup, we went golfing.
we woke up saturday morning expecting the typical 50+ degree weather. it was a little cold when we went to breakfast, but by the time our foursome was on the putting green trying to pretend like we knew what we were doing it was still only 37 degrees. i was only wearing a sweatshirt, didn't have a hat, and, oh yeah, SUCK AT GOLF. at least my belly was full of bacon.
nina and i went to a driving range a few times over the summer, but other than that we haven't "played" golf (golden tee excluded) since the summer of 1999. and then i was using righty clubs and swinging one handed (not kidding). we did go to a driving range in the summer of 2000, and i even used my own clubs. but that didn't stop me from launching my driver into the range fairway on the first swing. it even made that helicopter noise. woo woo woo woo. yeah it was awesome.
so saturday we're playing the par 3, and we step up to the first tee with a few practice swings. only one among us is a golfer (dan) and he's giving us some pointers. i couldn't hear over the chatter of my teeth, but apparently i don't need no stinking advice - i par the first hole. a tee shot with a 7 iron that never leaves the ground, a chip, and a one put. a thing of beauty. or should i say, the only thing of beauty until the beer cart caught us around hole 7.
i somehow managed a 5 on the seond hole, but you can pretty much guess how it went the rest of the round - 6's, 7's, 8's, a no finish. all on a par 29 with greens so close that you could pee on them from the tee box with the proper hip action. at least the course was a littered with terrible players - at any time a ball could fly (though roll is probably a more appropriate verb) at you from any number of places and often there were twice as many players on your fairway as you had in your group.
but even though golf is the one sport i am truly terrible at, it was really fun. we spent most of the time laughing at each other and i got to say "i'm gonna punch this one out!" about 17 times. and since it's important to set goals in life, here's to hoping i can break 60 next time.
somehow this same schedule has worked out each of the last few weeks: a party on friday with some boozing and game playing (including this gem: shout about tv. one downside - it can only be played 3 times), some poker on saturday (either at 2am or 3pm), and beer/wings/football-watching at a bar on sunday. those things alone can make for some snappy weekends.
but it's what happened on saturday morning that set this past weekend apart from the others. normally at this time of year, you'd correctly suggest that we were snowboarding. but since new mexico has been as dry as lucille bluth's cooter and as warm as jake plummer's neck this winter, we haven't been boarding since late december. instead we did something i haven't done in over 5 years (insert joke about sex and marriage here). i'll give you a hint - it involves a (marginally) long thin rod and struggling to put something in a hole (wait, insert another joke about sex and marriage). yup, we went golfing.
we woke up saturday morning expecting the typical 50+ degree weather. it was a little cold when we went to breakfast, but by the time our foursome was on the putting green trying to pretend like we knew what we were doing it was still only 37 degrees. i was only wearing a sweatshirt, didn't have a hat, and, oh yeah, SUCK AT GOLF. at least my belly was full of bacon.
nina and i went to a driving range a few times over the summer, but other than that we haven't "played" golf (golden tee excluded) since the summer of 1999. and then i was using righty clubs and swinging one handed (not kidding). we did go to a driving range in the summer of 2000, and i even used my own clubs. but that didn't stop me from launching my driver into the range fairway on the first swing. it even made that helicopter noise. woo woo woo woo. yeah it was awesome.
so saturday we're playing the par 3, and we step up to the first tee with a few practice swings. only one among us is a golfer (dan) and he's giving us some pointers. i couldn't hear over the chatter of my teeth, but apparently i don't need no stinking advice - i par the first hole. a tee shot with a 7 iron that never leaves the ground, a chip, and a one put. a thing of beauty. or should i say, the only thing of beauty until the beer cart caught us around hole 7.
i somehow managed a 5 on the seond hole, but you can pretty much guess how it went the rest of the round - 6's, 7's, 8's, a no finish. all on a par 29 with greens so close that you could pee on them from the tee box with the proper hip action. at least the course was a littered with terrible players - at any time a ball could fly (though roll is probably a more appropriate verb) at you from any number of places and often there were twice as many players on your fairway as you had in your group.
but even though golf is the one sport i am truly terrible at, it was really fun. we spent most of the time laughing at each other and i got to say "i'm gonna punch this one out!" about 17 times. and since it's important to set goals in life, here's to hoping i can break 60 next time.
Friday, January 13, 2006
a rose by any other name
today nina's office had some sort of volleyball/team building event. naturally she wanted to name her team something completely ridiculous, and offerend up "the volley lama" as a suggestion. she said her teammates were not amused, which is not that surprising (most of them are the type of folks whose favorite movie is van helsing). some of them didn't even get it.
nina told me she also contemplated offering up "boutros boutros volley" - cmon, tell me that is not an awesome team name. with that in mind we started coming up with names for the players on such a squad. here are some we came up with.
spike lee
orville reddin-blocker
the grave digger
set green
five-oh (to protect and serve)
the idea stems from the names we enter on the screen when bowling:
bowlwinkle
spare tire
manute bowl
strike-asuarus
feel free to add (or gimme) some mo team and player names for bowling or volleyball. and yes, i am well aware of how cool this is. but cut me some slack. i haven't written a post in like 3 weeks.
today nina's office had some sort of volleyball/team building event. naturally she wanted to name her team something completely ridiculous, and offerend up "the volley lama" as a suggestion. she said her teammates were not amused, which is not that surprising (most of them are the type of folks whose favorite movie is van helsing). some of them didn't even get it.
nina told me she also contemplated offering up "boutros boutros volley" - cmon, tell me that is not an awesome team name. with that in mind we started coming up with names for the players on such a squad. here are some we came up with.
spike lee
orville reddin-blocker
the grave digger
set green
five-oh (to protect and serve)
the idea stems from the names we enter on the screen when bowling:
bowlwinkle
spare tire
manute bowl
strike-asuarus
feel free to add (or gimme) some mo team and player names for bowling or volleyball. and yes, i am well aware of how cool this is. but cut me some slack. i haven't written a post in like 3 weeks.
