Andre Ethier Signs Extension for Money

          

          Matt Kemp usually fills up the headlines when it comes to Los Angeles Dodgers outfielders, mainly because he’s good at baseball. He also dated Rihanna and is currently dating Eva Longoria, which is probably makes him cooler than me. But there’s another Dodger outfielder that can hold his own offensively, and his name is Andre Ethier. He has a career wOBA of .361. He’s a good hitter, and the Dodgers rewarded him with a 5 year 8 million dollar contract. This is a superb move by the Dodgers, because 8 million dollars in baseball money is…. Oops there was a spot on my computer, its actually an 85 million dollar contract…. Welp. This probably was a move to help the thriving Andre Ethier bobblehead community.

            Just when you thought Ned Colleti couldn’t get any funnier, mainly because of his fabulous mustache (Also I highly recommend you google search 'Ned Colletti' and look at the second image) , he just keeps delivering. In case you're new to Ned, he's a frequent visitor to 'Crazy Moves' town, and I'm not talking about his dancing ability, which is probably lacking also. Incidentally, he usually has coffee in Crazy Moves town with Brian Sabean. In effort to justify some of his moves, sometimes I think his mustache has a mind of its own, which uses mind control tactics to toy with Ned brain and makes him buy it nice conditioner. Then it makes him sign Juan Pierre to a 5 year 44 million dollar contract and it chuckles with some of Ned's chin hair.
          

            Andre Ethier is a good hitter, not a great one. He can’t hit lefties, posting a .215/.279/.329 line against left handed pitchers in the last 3 years. And while he can hit righties well, his defense is a liability as he posted a negative UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating, which measures total range) in 3 of the past 4 years. His WAR hasn’t been above 2.9 since 2008, which puts him right in the class of Josh Willingham and David DeJesus, 2 guys that don’t even know 85 million dollars exist in the world. That's all fine and good, explains Ned, except Andre Ethier is a superhero.

             That probably makes his UZR a lot better.

 He’ll be making 17 million dollars per year, which is more than Andrew McCutchen and Jose Bautista will make after signing their extensions for around the same amount of years. Both of those players add exponentially more value than Ethier, especially considering Ethier will be 35 by the end of the contract. Assuming Ethier is not Benjamin Button, which might be what confused Ned Colletti, he will have declined tremendously by that time. He’s already in his declining years, after peaking in 2008 with a 3.5 WAR. Considering Ethier has never provided tremendous value, he certainly won’t in the years during the contract, unless he meets Alexis Bledel who leads him to the fountain of youth, which is also probably what Ned is predicting. 

As I pray the aforementioned scenario happens to me instead of Ethier, mainly because it means Alexis Bledel is aware of my existence, it should be noted that the contract is not a complete disaster. Ethier is still a good hitter that should produce at relatively the same skill level for the next 1 or 2 years. The Dodgers and their new ownership are trying to win right now, and the upcoming free agency pool in 2013 is very shallow. Ethier will be a good hitter in the short term and should help the Dodgers in the short term.

           However, if the Dodgers don't win a World Series in the next 2 years, than the contract will hand tie Dodger ownership because thats 17 million dollars for a player that is declining towards an league average regular. Though the Dodgers have a chance to contend in the next few years, they're risking an even greater chance to contend in the years 2015-2017, because Ethier's contract will hold them down. It would have been much more advantageous for the Franchise to trade Ethier to an unsuspecting GM, and acquire prospects or other higher upside players. The Dodgers risk contending the years after 2014 or 2015, for the chance to contend in the next 1 or 2 years.

            But the Dodgers want to win now, and this definitely that will help that. Now their fate rest on Ned Colletti's mustache.

             Andre Ethier.

My Pick: Heat over Thunder in 7 Games

It's gonna be a classic.

A Rivalry is Born

Probably looking at the same thing as these guys (Link)

            Magic and Bird. It’s the classic NBA rivalry. They even made a Broadway play about it. I haven’t seen it, but if the soundtrack is anything like Wicked, count me in! We’ve never seen a rivalry like it since and probably will never see a rivalry that matches all the drama it had both on and off the court. I wasn’t alive when all the hoopla was going on, but from all the books I’ve pretended to read, there was something about those Celtics-Lakers Finals that can’t be put in words.

            In the time I’ve followed basketball, there hasn’t been anything close to it. For one, the 2000’s did not feature one Finals rematch except for the Lakers-Celtics. Those series were cute little nostalgiac matchups that made people daydream but never reached the same climax those 80’s Finals did. The Spurs have been good, but Tim Duncan is a cyborg and its tough to get on board with them when you’re worried about whether Tim is plotting with the Machines to conquer mankind. Our only real hope for a rivalry, has been Kobe Bryant and Lebron James, easily the two most talented and famous players of the past 6 years. Since Lebron made the Finals in 2007 for the first time, one of either Kobe or Lebron has made the Finals every year since. In 2008 and 2009, they each made their respective conference finals. And yet, we still have not seen a Lebron- Kobe Finals. And with Kobe turning 35 next season, along with the omnipotent presence of the Thunder, Kobe’s Finals days seem to have passed.

But walk with me to crazy-town for a sec. C’mon its not that bad, they have dynamite ice cream sandwiches! The current NBA Finals features two of the most dominant players in the NBA in Kevin Durant and James. And dare I say Magic and Bird might just be replicated? Not to such an extreme, mainly because Los Angeles is Los Angeles whereas the #1 tourist attraction in Oklahoma City according to Trip Advisor is the Museum of Osteology. Famous people vs. Skeletons. Yeah. But regardless of the markets, I’m convinced the Durant-Lebron rivalry could scrape the surface of a Magic-Bird kind of thing. Hear me out.

People tend to forget Lebron is still just 27, probably because he accidentally bought a 176 year old man’s receding airline, disguised as a pair of Air Jordans. Despite all the criticism, the Heat have made the NBA Finals two years in a row using a 3 man rotation. The team is only going to get better, assuming Pat Riley addresses their flaws in the subsequent offseasons. The Eastern Conference is theirs to be had as the Celtics are aging, the Bulls will only go as far as Derrick Rose’s toothpick legs will take them and Dwight Howard really has no idea what he’s doing. The Heat won’t blow up this team, and if they sign a Steve Nash type of player or can find a gem in the draft, they’re going to be title favorites for years.

Durant is only 4 years younger, and his Thunder look like their going to be the class of the Western Conference for years to come. The window for the Spurs, Mavericks and Lakers is closing fast, and the Griizzlies, Clippers and Nuggets all are much less talented than the Thunder. And don’t forget, the Thunder are the 6^th youngest team in the NBA. Also, Kevin Durant is 23. Just 1 more than 22! 25 more than -2!

Unless something drastic happens in the NBA, which is always a possibility, and a lot depends on where Dwight Howard is going, the Heat and Thunder are going to be the favorites in their respective conferences for years to come. That means Durant and Lebron will be seeing each other a lot. Both players are sure to be the two best players in the NBA very shortly, and arguably are already. I’m probably crazy for comparing this rivalry to Magic and Bird. But that’s what I’m going to do anyways. Magic and Bird played in the NCAA championship game before the Finals. Lebron and Durant played in a pickup Flag Football game before the Finals, so its pretty much the same.

On the World Series Rematch

            After a team wins the World Series, there’s a specific type of fan base from that team that is resigned to the fact that they will win every argument simply by restating that their team won the World Series. For instance, here’s an argument between a Giants fan and Rangers fan in 2012:

Rangers Fan: I like Cabbage

Giants Fan: I prefer broccoli, they’re like tree’s in food form! Sometimes I pretend they’re like little Ents in Middle Earth and I’m Pippen telling them about the Shire. It’s glorious!

Rangers Fan: That doesn’t even make sense.

Giants Fan: Yeah but, the Giants won the World Series.

Rangers Fan: What?

Giants Fan: Hashtag winning.

            Those lucky Rangers have had to hear that sophisticated rhetoric for two years, after their epic collapse in the 2011 World Series against the Cardinals. Now, 2 years after the Giants won the 2010 World Series, the Rangers return to the scene of the crime for the first time.

I imagine life as a Ranger fan being the greatest sucky thing in the history of everything. Ranger fans probably use more ‘buts’ than seniors at a high school prom. The Rangers have the best team in baseball for the past 3 years but they didn’t win the World Series. The Rangers have had an amazing offense the past two years but they didn’t win the World Series. Neftali Feliz is a great closer, but he choked in one of the biggest moments in Ranger history. Nelson Cruz hits a billion homeruns but he forgot his extend-o arms when he could have made the final out of the World Seires. Ian Kinsler has great hair but he’s never won the World Series.

            Now that they’re back in the city where everything began 2 years ago, I imagine there’s going to be a lot of the conversations like the won above. And the Cabbage will never win. Because the Rangers can never win any argument because of the buts, and the Giants will win every argument because they won the Fall Classic. And as I much as I advocate reveling in the 2010 glory for all its worth, there are some things that need to be let go. Because its 2012 not 2010.

            In 2012 the Rangers are a better team than the Giants. The teams come in with identical records of 33-25. The Rangers have the best OPS in baseball which is a full 100 points better than the Giants, despite having guys like Mike Napoli, Ian Kinsler, Nelson Cruz and Michael Young playing below their career averages. They have the 5^th best team ERA in the AL and are first in pitcher WAR. They have the 3^rd best defense in MLB according to UZR. The Giants have the edge in pitching, but the Rangers have the advantage in everything else.

            All I’m saying is let the Ranger fan have a little fun. I know, its not fun. He always double dips in the salsa. But if you’re going to pull the World Series card, you’re just as guilty, because its incredibly lazy and cocky. 2010 was a long time ago, even Bengie Molina has gotten to 2012.

It’s 2012. The Rangers have a great team, and the Giants are becoming one. Sit back and control that impulse to remind everyone BRIAN WILSON AND NELSON CRUZ KRKFRFVFSKMVBDFVKDFAJKV. It doesn’t have anything to do with the 3 games the Giants will play against the Rangers.

            Now that that’s done, I’m leaving this here.

While I'm at it...

This is cool too

And this ones my fave :)

I guess I lied, you can't hold it back. But fans shouldn't discount every single thing in this series and every single things the Rangers do just because the Giants beat them in the World Series and therefore nothing else matters. You can always look back on 2010, just remember to stay in 2012. Chances are you haven't read any of this and are looking at the gifs instead. Probably what I'm going to do now. Bye.

NBA Playoff Recap

Nice tucked in shirts fellas

           

 I haven’t written on here in a while for a variety of reasons:

- I am in college, so I have to pretend to do work so people don’t judge me. Some might say it’s already too late.

- I watched the solar eclipse, which made me rethink life. If the moon and sun combine, what hope is there for mankind?

            That’s all I got. But it’s been a month since I’ve written on this thing, which is both interesting to no one and matters to no one. But I thought I’d stop fake studying for finals right now and give a quick rundown of the NBA playoffs today, because surprising things are happening that are making the TNT inside Stephen A. Smith’s brain explode.

            Kevin Durant plays basketball well: In 2008-09, during the Thunder’s inaugural season, the team went 3-29 in its first 32 games. They were cute. Kevin Durant still played Doodle Jump. Russell Westbrook wore normal clothes. Scott Brooks only used 2 tubs of gel on his hair. The Komodo dragons living in James Harden's beard were only infants. 4 years later, they’ve become the first team not named the Spurs, Mavericks or Lakers to win the Western Conference since 1999. In fact, rather poetically, they beat all those teams to get to the Finals. They beat the Spurs after the team won 20 straight games and hadn’t lost more than 2 straight games the entire year. Before the series, they only lost 4 games with Tony Parker in the lineup all year. And yet, here we are. Also of note: Kevin Durant and basketball. Kevin Durant is playing like a monster on steroids, except skinny, which makes complete sense. Only 5 years into his NBA career and he’s already a scoring champion and poised to become an NBA champion. He also looks like he’s having a pee shiver when he’s shooting free throws. For many people, Durant is becoming the anti-Lebron: the superstar content in a small market, that comes up huge in crunch time, has better, more subtle facial hair and might win an NBA championship in 5 years, when Lebron is on the verge of being winless in 9 seasons. Speaking of Lebron…

            The Heat almost extinguished: Hold on let me finish LOLing at the headline… ok I’m good. Yes, Lebron James is now one loss away from going his 9^th consecutive season without winning a championship. The Heat need to win a game  6 in Boston and then a game 7 in Miami to have a shot at a championship. The Heat are now realizing what happens when your 4^th best player is either Shane Battier, Udonis Haslem, Mario Chalmers or Joel Anthony. However, I still expect them to win the series, because I think with their backs completely nailed against the wall, Lebron James and Dwayne Wade are going to go bazerk. It wouldn’t surprise me if Lebron has the game of his career, which has to be hiding somewhere in his receding hairline. It also wouldn’t surprise me if the Celtics win, because Rajon Rondo is playing like a top 3 point guard in the NBA and Kevin Garnett is yelling about stuff again. So yes, I’m saying either the Heat or Celtics will win. Probably the team with the most points. No… not even a chuckle? I’m picking the Heat. But even if they make the Finals, unless Lebron finds the 10^th gear he needs, the Thunder look like far and away the best team in the NBA. 

Giants Post: April Review

It's funny because he's sticking his butt out at the Umpire!

            

           It’s been two weeks since I last wrote a post, and the majority of that time was used thinking and completing this post.* Yep, I can guarantee this is going to be the most clever, and interesting piece of writing you will ever lay your eyes on.** These last two weeks also allowed more time for the 2012 Giants to develop as we now have 1 month of data compiled on the team. 30 games is still a microscopic sample size, and who knows how much of this month we’re going to remember in October, when Sergio Romo’s beard is home to live reptiles. Still, it was a month where baseball was played, and that’s always worth reviewing. Here’s how the Giants season has gone so far:

* not really

** Oops, that sentence was meant for my Great Gatsby book report, not this post. Lol silly me!

Pitching (Starting Rotation): Tim Lincecum ends the month with a 5.74 ERA. By comparison Jerome Williams has a 5.51 ERA. Still love his pooka shells. Linecum’s fastball was averaging 89.8 mph, the lowest speed of his career by about 2 or 3 mph which is significant for a player just reaching his prime. He’s had terrible command at times, and has for the most part looked nothing like the pitcher that won back to back Cy Youngs. But we’ve seen stretches like this from Lincecum where he loses his release point for a month before, most notably August of 2010 where he finished with an 7.82 ERA. Fun fact: The San Francisco Giants won the World Series that year. Wow that was fun. And factual! What also would be fun is a drinking game for every time Mike Krukow says ‘release point’ during a Lincecum outing. I digress.

            I’m a little worried these problems keep recurring, but his xFIP (expected fielding independent pitching) is the best on the Giants staff, which is the nerd way of saying he got really unlucky and pitched much better than his stats indicate. So I’m not worried about Lincecum, and in his last start against the Padres he gave up just 1 ER in 8 in, despite not having good stuff. He’ll be fine.

            Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner are money in the bank when it comes to reliable top tier starting pitching in baseball. Cain at one point scattered 3 hits across 18 innings, during which he toyed with a perfect game. Bumgarner has a 2.35 ERA and by the way he’s only 22. Also he’s not 23 yet. In addition, he only has lived 21 years and then one more.

            Of course, none of the aforementioned starters have the best ERA for Giants starters. That title belongs to Barry Zito. While Lincecum has gotten lucky, Zito has the highest xFIP on the team, and has gotten extremely lucky. Expect Zito regress tremendously, as he’s had good pitching stretches like this before for the Giants and subsequently struggled. Still, he’s the 5^th starter. Nobody is asking him to be Greg Maddux. While I expect him to regress, his command has been excellent so far, and as long as he doesn’t self destruct from his current pitching performance, I’m perfectly fine with Barry Zito. Yep, that statements going to come back to haunt me. Also let’s take a break and look at this:

Handsome fella, he really is.

Pitching (Bullpen): Brian Wilson’s season ending elbow injury hurt in terms of depth, but Santiago Casilla has been just as dominant in Wilson’s place. Casilla has been perfect in save chances, with a 1.04 ERA and has a line drive rate of just 8%, albeit an extremely small sample size of 8 innings. He also has the best picture on the team:

Overall, the bullpen has been good not great, posting a 3.64 ERA, as opposed to the 3.04 ERA in 2011 which was 2^nd best in the NL. It’s hard to find much to complain about in the bullpen. Romo and Lopez look poised to remain elite relievers and Clay Hensley has been a brilliant surprise.

Also Jeremy Affeldt was placed on the DL after picking up his son. Last season he was placed on the DL after slicing frozen hamburger patties….Oh. We move on.

Batting: Let’s start with the good. The Giants have scored the 6^th highest runs in the NL.  They have the 3^rd best OPS+ (OPS adjusted for ballpark). Buster Posey looks like he went to Naboo and got one of them robot legs and has now returned with galactic powers. Yep, still wondering why I have troubles with girls. Pablo Sandoval is attacking baseball like they took his funky monkey chocolate chip ice cream sundae. Melky Cabrera has an OBP of .355, and has looked like the 2011 Melky that posted a 4.2 WAR. After a rough start, Angel Pagan has banged out 4 homers and has gotten very comfortable at the plate. Overall, the offense has been a pleasant surprise. And yet…

            The Brandon Belt saga has continued, as he’s now stuck in a platoon with Brett Pill, despite posting a .360 OBP. I could write 80000 words on Brandon Belt, but I’d rather spend that time thinking of ‘Belt’ puns. Nate Schierholtz, after a hot start, is now swinging at anything thrown in his general direction. He even swung at a carbon dioxide molecule the other day. Odd. For some reason Bruce Bochy and Brian Sabean have a full on man crush on Hector Sanchez, and his .256 OBP. Emmanuel Burris, Ryan Theriot, Joaquin Arias and Brandon Crawford are fighting for two positions on the infield. Now seems like a good time to remind you I’m not writing about the Fresno Grizzlies. Those are not good players. The Giants also have a .178 avg with runners in scoring position, and are hacking at 33.5% of pitches out of the strike zone, 2^nd highest in MLB.

             

            The offense has been average, but Buster Posey, and Pablo Sandoval are still the only hitters you can really trust to produce. Everybody else has question marks and 3 or 4 of the hitters you know are going to stink like a smoothie blended with coyote feces and 1000 year old milk. However, the offense should be better than last year and some combination of Pagan, Posey, Sandoval, Cabrera and Belt should be good enough to scrap 3 or 4 runs a game.

            Fearless Prediction for May: Tim Lincecum will be much better. Brandon Belt will have the magic stick, and not the one Lil Kim was talking about. Jeremy Affeldt will injure himself brushing his mustache.

Hunter Pence: Person of Interest

           Hunter Pence is a good baseball player. You know this. In case you don’t, he has hit at least 22 HRs every season since 2008 and has never had a WAR below 3.2, including a tremendous 4.7 WAR last season. Yes Hunter Pence is good. That is not why we’re here. We are here because Hunter Pence is one of the most unorthodox baseball players you will ever see. Also he looks like an Alien. Here are tweets from Giants bloggers who watched him play tonight:

Hunter Pence drank 30 bottles of 5-hour energy before this game.
— Lord Melkington (@baycityball) April 17, 2012

Hunter Pence has to be an alien.
— Lord Melkington (@baycityball) April 17, 2012

Pence will get back at Lincecum by exploding out of Lincecum's stomach.
— DT (@gggiants) April 17, 2012

What a Pence of shit
— Teh Arubian Knight (@MelkyRowand) April 17, 2012

  My personal favorite:

Can't wait for Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones to come and save us from Hunter Pence
— Giants Nirvana (@GiantsNirvana) April 17, 2012

Here's what McCovey Chronicles, probably the best Giants blog, had to say on the matter during its preview of the Giants and Phillies series:

"Hunter Pence is the hitter to watch. There's always a chance he could molt and shed his exoskeleton, and you don't want to miss that."

            Yes Hunter Pence is a funky funky man. Here are gifs. that make me laugh.

Watch him fall down.




Watch him fall down again.



GIFSoup See him with a donut on his bat while he’s hitting.



A personal favorite.

            While searching up images for Hunter Pence, I stumbled upon this magical quote from 2008 from some dude named Mike. Here’s his caption for this picture:

            “Hunter Pence is more comfortable with warlords than baseball fans.”

            More pics!

Hunter Pence in lizard form.

He seems to be happy in this one.

Here he discovers he has “hands”

Here I think Agent J and K found him. Lance Berkman is about to get the eye light thing to make him forget everything. 

More Lizard!

Yep, Hunter Pence takes a lot of crap. He’s going to destroy us all one day because of it.