A Man by any other Name

About a week ago I began to pen an article about Adrian Gonzalez being too high in the rankings. I’ve seen him going as high as 9 in mock drafts and usually no later than the late teens. And I have yet to see a single article offering a dissenting opinion. That’s when my contrarian ears perked up. As a rule if everyone loves something I tend to hate it. It usually occurs to me that once 100% of the public is behind a player, product or stock I own that there is nowhere for it to go but down. There is now no one left to be convinced so essentially value has been maxed out. So I set out on a mission to debunk his lofty ranking.

I knew all the reasons why ‘Dr. Gonzo’ (man needs a nickname-I'm trying a few out in this post) was to have a monster year. The home/road splits, the shift to a hitter’s park, the contract year, the great line up around him etc. It seemed too good to be true. So I dove into his stats looking for a chink in the amour. The results were surprising. His numbers are stunning. There’s remarkable consistency across the board. I could barely find any discrepancies. He’s batted ball rates barely waiver, his strikeout rate has dropped the last two years, he has the pedigree (former no.1 overall) and he doesn’t miss any games (avg.160GP/5 years).

Not satisfied with the pristine stats I’ve seen so far I dug deeper into these mythical home/road splits. Ugh…my case just got worse. Not only was ‘A-Gone’ affected by Petco but also notorious pitcher parks-Dodger Stadium and AT&T Park. He has a career SLG% of .364 in Dodger Stadium. He actually fared better against them at home. In total- 64% of his games are played in three of the kindest venues for hurlers.

I decided to re adjust some of his stats taking away those ballparks.

Here are his career SLG%

All games- .507

Road games- .568

Road games minus LA and SF -.595

I’m sure his lofty numbers in Colorado and Arizona might offset the LA/SF #’s but I didn’t think of that until after I did the math so the research is staying in there. Nonetheless I’m starting to become a believer. But I just can’t let this argument go yet. There’s a conversation I heard last year between two of the Padres announcers.

They had asked ‘Rocky’ about how difficult it was to hit in Petco. His answer was surprising. He said he stopped trying to hit HR’s when at home and therefore was able to use the park to take even strokes and correct any bad habits he developed while on the road. This might be nothing but its important to consider that while San Diego may not be friendly to hitters, it might be the most accommodating and friendly city in every other way.

You can crunch all the numbers you like. You can superimpose a Petco hit chart ontoFenway (like you see in this wonderful link below) and surmise that Petco robbed him of 15-20 extra base hits.

HYPERLINK "http://www.prosportsdaily.com/forums/showthread.php?t=559483" http://www.prosportsdaily.com/forums/showthread.php?t=559483

But how do you factor in playing half your games in your hometown surrounded by beautiful woman, surfing, Top Gun memorabilia and El Pollo Locos. Is there anything to this comment? Was Petco a glorified batting cage that enabled him to scorch the opposition on the road?

There’s no way of predicting how the ‘Chula Vista Chupacabra’ will respond to the pressure of hitting in Boston and New York, but if you just believe the numbers than he might be even better than people are predicting.

My initial argument was- why take .280-30-100 from ‘The Big Chimichanga’ in round 1 when you may get those numbers from Adam Lind in Round 10? But a deeper look at the numbers suggests that 30-100 might be the low end. Putting up 40-120 with a .600 SLG not only seems reasonable it seems almost automatic

While I still think top ten is a little high considering the depth of 1B, I can’t fault anyone for grabbing this potential MVP candidate. Well played ‘Senor Perilla’, you’ve convinced this skeptic.

So you think you could...

random rant i found on my iphone voice memo's.

i remember watching footloose as a kid and thinking why won't they let those kids dance. what a bunch of cranky bastards

now that I'm older, a little cranky and have a touch of bastard in me, I'm starting to think that those curmudgeons had a point

you can't foxtrot these days without stepping on a dead cat that hit a new dance show while it was being swung. (yeah i did make up that cliche)

the deepest cut of all must have been hearing Joe Buck do promos for Glee during the Super Bowl

the misery didn't stop there, i agreed to to leave the TV on Fox and sat through an episode of Glee. every memory of the past NFL season was instantly wiped from my memory

my already cold February testicles ascended further into my body

I'm not saying i want to live in a small town run by a tight ass Reverend but maybe Kevin Bacon loses that game of tractor chicken and then maybe i can watch a sporting event without seeing another dance show promo

be as fancy free as you want to be America but can't we get back to the good old days of TV

less dance
more Andy Sipowicz ass

Super Bowl Thoughts

Am I the only one not impressed with the national anthem? Two minutes and five seconds. Are you fucking kidding me? We all know you can sing. (You did win a contest)
Why is it incumbent on sports to keep the anthem alive? Why doesn't the song get played before the Oscar's or maybe before 24 or Lost?
Why does the NFL and the media have to dissect every play? This instant replay has gotten out of hand. David Caruso spends less time on murder cases then we do on some plays. I say abolish instant replay and accept that there will be human error. It hasn't affected baseball or soccer.
Having said that if you are going to review everything, then why not review Warner's final pass attempt/fumble.
And if it was a pass attempt like it was judged on a similar play in the first half, then where was the receiver and why was it not intentional grounding.

What's a little cut on your finger?

All of the reports i read about the Peters-Ruutu biting incident say something like "Peters started the skirmish by shoving the palm of his glove into Ruutu's face." "Ruutu responded by chomping down on Peters' glove, catching his teeth on the player's thumb." Everyone is calling for a suspension without asking themselves some simple questions. What would you do if a 6ft4in 230lb guy shoved his stinky hockey glove in your face? Could Ruutu breath? Was the thumb shoved into Ruutu's mouth? Andrew Peters has 7 points in 5 NHL seasons. He's as useful on the ice as a glowing puck. Getting your thumb bit one time seems like an acceptable consequence for someone that is constantly shoving his glove in faces of other players. This is a non story, lets move on!

Wes Welker Can't Dance

Wes Welker scores a touchdown on Sunday, drops to the ground on the snowy Gillette Stadium field and does a snow angel. He is flagged for a 15 yard penalty for excessive celebration. Should be the end of the story, right? Well in two days I've heard four separate broadcasters complain that it should have been allowed.

"It was just a snow angel." "It is Christmas." "Its just Wes Welker.""They should let that go." Those are some of the comments I heard. Why is the snow angel OK, but not dancing. Is it because Wes is white? I've always believed that if white guys could dance, then celebrating would be allowed in the endzone.

Every time I see a black player celebrate in any way, its considered excessive and offensive but when a white guy does something clever and resourceful, commentators politic to let it go.
I hate to be constantly harping on racism in sports (seeing as how i'm white) but it is so blatent and the NFL is such an egregious offender.
Rob

nice call

So normally I wouldn't bitch about NFL time twice in a row, but...

After all the bullshit that Bills fans and players had to say about their trip to Toronto, are we to believe that it's our fault for their crappy play? Maybe the cold football fans from the Rogers Centre decided to throw the football with less than two minutes to play in a must win game. Watching an entire Bills game can be excruciating at times but this one seemed to be on the right track. The running game was relentless, and I like most viewers assumed they'd stick with what works. But these are the Buffalo Bills. No one in sports can lose like this team. I can't think of any other sports franchise that memories that are attached with losing. We should have known. I wonder how long Losman can blame things, before he realizes that it might be his shitty play.

The Yankees, Mets and Red Sox are back pretending that there's nothing wrong with the economy. "Taxpayer field" is apparently going to after every closer in the league to make up for last year, while the Yankees are looking to scoop up all the starters. Meanwhile the Red Sox (and their fans) believe that the New York teams are trying to BUY their wins, even though they're doing the same thing, through the Asian market. How can they not think that they are in the same boat. So jack ass who's been a fan since 2004 said the Sox have a good farm system, but forget that the pin stripes brought up Jeter, and Rivera.

The NBA is still a love fest. And for F*ck sakes can someone, somewhere involved with these teams shut up their players. These guys say shit that that would get most people fined for tampering, which is apparently something they don't call in the NBA. As well as travelling. JayZ said in a interview that he would be going after LeBron James in 2010. You can't say that? Lebron said there was going to be a party here(NY) in 2010. You can't say that either. If I represented McDonalds, I can't be sayin I might go work at Burger King. Or that we might buy it. I know for a fact that the NBA has classes about how to act, what to say, behavior in public, television interviews. I just don't think these guys go. Or they don't listen. It's easy to learn how to tune out the teacher when you had a full scholarship to Georgetown, and graduated, but no remembers ever seeing you in class. The culture of the NBA is fraudulent from the get go. Guys that are thugs are glad to be rich and playing ball. The guys that grew up middle class act like thugs. And the guys that went straight from high school to the show talk like those first 17 years will never be overcome, even now as multimillionaires. Piss off! High school sucked for everyone, especially for those of us that didn't have Nike commercials the next day.
J

NFL-Nice Fucking guys Lose league

As an avid NFL fan, I cringe at the thought of Toronto getting an NFL team. It would be an absolute failure. Oh I'm sure the team would sell out and make a ton of money but they would never be winners in the standings.
Football is an intense, physical and violent game. In order to win you need to employ playa's that exhibit all of these qualities. And when I say playa's I mean thugs, gangsters and loud mouth primadonna's. There is no way in hell the disgustingly politically correct citizens of Canada would allow our team to be so brash. And by brash- I mean BLACK.
If you don't believe me, take a look at our Toronto Raptors. The whitest team in a league dominated by black men. Even some of the black guys on the Raptors are pretty white. The Raptors regularly lose because of a lack of rebounding and aggresiveness. Well, thats what happens when you bring a knife (white euro) to a gun fight(Plaxico).
If we can't tolerate Sean Avery saying sloppy seconds, how are we going to handle Ray Lewis or Pacman Jones all of a sudden dining at the Four Seasons downtown with their boys. Abhor those guys all you want, but in the NFL, those are the type of guys you need to win.