Department Of Silly Names

I now present the NHL blogger for the Raleigh News & Observer.  Let's all point and laugh!

Either that's the greatest pseudonym in the history of legitimate journalism, or he gets filed in the Family Cruelty folder between Milton Bradley and the boy named Sue.  Regardless, I'd like to know the etymology of the name.

FUELED! BY SATAN!

Not the first to mention this, but longtime NHL roflcopter Miroslav Satan, as of 12/22/07, has 666 career points.  That, of course, is funny because he's the only player whose point total matches his Yahoo! Sports player ID... and that's the only reason.

Also found in the Department of Obvious Comments is my bogglement that Miro has never suited up for New Jersey.  He's not exactly an impact player at age 33, so it looks like he's past the point where acclaimed penny-pincher and world-class prick Lou "Can't Talk Now, Too Busy Gobbling Cow Cock" Lamoriello might take a chance on him.  But a guy can always dream.

Phixing the Fillies

So.... the Phillies come off their most exciting season in a decade, and proceed to lose their all-star caliber center fielder. They guy they traded Thome for. They rationalize letting him go cause, well, their offense is already awesome, and Howard/Chutley are only getting better.

What they need is PITCHING. A 5-man rotation of King Cole and pray-for-rain, pray-for-rain, pray-for-rain, pray-for-rain really isn't a sustainable strategy.

So, with that in mind, take a look at this vomit-inducing sentence from Jayson Stark:
"Free-agent pitching options the Phillies have looked into: Akinori Otsuka, Byung-Hyun Kim, Roberto Hernandez, Kris Benson, John Parrish, Sidney Ponson and Chad Durbin."

Yikes. That's a perfect storm of garbage right there. I'm only disappointed there's no mention of Ho-Ram and Weaver.

Mitchell Report Cleanup

Well, I sure got fooled by Leitch and company. Hey, I just assumed that if it was on Deadspin it'd be true! Brilliant. I'd like that hour of my life back, please.

Yep... the report itself was entirely pointless and free of revelation. Nothing of any real consequence came out. In fact, Mitchell seems to have omitted the parts that were, actually, you know, IMPORTANT.

Anyway, I should have left my thoughts on the outcome to the professionals. To make up for that, here's a professional.

(thanks)

The Mitchell Report List

(UPDATE: It's the report. And it's totally different from the list I linked below, which is missing one very important name: F.P. Santangelo. From what I've read so far, the list isn't exactly comprehensive.)

(SECOND UPDATE: The list is B.S. I'm crossing out everything I wrote until later.)

Well, it looks like this is the list. The official list will be announced soon; when it comes out, I'll stick a link in the comments.

General thoughts:

* It's not really satisfying as an ending. It doesn't really decide or reveal anything conclusive. Then again, neither did the Supreme Court shakedown that gave Bush the presidency. In much the same way, they've given us this list as if to say, "OK, can we please move on now?" Fine by me.

* It makes me awfully uneasy to examine this list of names. The McCarthyism parallels at play are pretty terrifying. Our participation implies approval of the methods and behavior, which I don't. Then again, I'm not going to hate Albert Pujols or Jason Varitek forever because of this.

* Weren't a lot of these names already known? Most of this stuff isn't news. Roger Clemens? Mark McGwire? Sammy Sosa? Andy Pettitte? The Giambi brothers? Barry Bonds? Miguel Tejada? Gary Sheffield? We knew this stuff already! They'd all been linked to abuse at one point or another. Even Albert Pujols was tied to some rumors, and he's the only really prominent current player to get named/nailed.

* Albert Belle? Get outta here. That's crazy talk.

* Bagwell's presence is the only one that's extremely disappointing. That's the "oh no, not him" entry for me. He was a just-barely-in Hall of Famer before this... but I guess that's over now. He was so underrated and anonymous as a hitter, the perfect player to defend as a "cause." It's a shame it turned out like this.

For the Sox, this is pretty friggin bad. Not "Albert Pujols" bad... Big Papi and Manny Ramirez escaped a public shaming, and that's the most important development of the list. But it sure looks like Mitchell didn't let conflicts of interest get in the way. Look at how many Sox and former Sox got nailed. Prominent players like Johnny Damon, Mo Vaughn, Jason Varitek, Trot Nixon, Nomar Garciaparra. Minor or one-time players like Rich Garces, Paxton Crawford, Carl Everett, Dante Bichette, Wil Cordero, Manny Alexander, Jeremy Giambi, Julian Tavarez, and Jose Offerman.

And the big upset: there's way more Sox on this list than Yankees. The worst the Yanks get is confirmation of what we already knew about Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens and Jason Giambi. And even then, all the names except Pettitte (Giambi, Clemens, Gary Sheffield, Kyle Farnsworth) can be dismissed since they were mercenaries... they're not True Yankees. Not one Yankee on that list has had his public perception and reputation changed or damaged as much as Varitek has.

I'm sad that Varitek's on the list. But frankly he could stand to be taken down a peg or two anyway. All that Captain Courageous shit is way overblown. He's a great catcher, a great handler of pitchers, and a great leader, but his reputation has exceeded his performance ever since signing that contract. If anything, that reputation of his ought to help him resist and overcome the shitstorm that the Boston media is about to drop in his lap. I bet they cut him a break, because he's Jason Varitek, team captain and hard-nosed hero to so many.

What I find surprising is how unsurprising the Sox violators are. Privately, I figured Mo would turn up on the list. Nomar too, although I wouldn't be taking it so well if I hadn't read Seth Mnookin's tell-all Feeding the Monster last year and found out what a dick Nomar actually is. Nixon's injury history makes him a no-brainer. And I'm disappointed to see Damon and Varitek on the list, but their career-long resilience in the face of deeply physical play is at least partially explained here. You can look at what we know about them, slide steroids in there, and say ohhhhhh.

But even then, we can think less of these guys, but there isn't any important history to revise. You want to put an asterisk next to Varitek's shitty batting average, or Nixon's 28 HRs in 2003? Take 'em, be my guest. Doesn't change anything.

By the way, that reaction of mine is exactly why the asterisk thing is so stupid. Nobody wants to roll back the unremarkable performances. They just want to undo the symbolic ones, the magical ones that made us feel so good. We came to find out our joyous feelings were false, and we want to lash out. McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Pujols, even Brady Anderson and Bret Boone, they all get asterisks. But who gives a shit about Carl Everett, right? That's where the Bonds defenders are spot-on. If you take away the 73 HRs, you are required to remove everything else, which you just can't do.

Anyway, in closing, let us all pour it on the ground for our beloved Rich Garces. El Guapo's the one that really hurts. Say it ain't so, tons-of-fun!

Mitchell Report Release Day Chatroom

Welcome to the MLB Mitchell Report Release Day Chatroom!

>>Ebenezer69 has logged in and wants to chat.

>>Ebenezer69 wants to directly connect.

>>Ebenezer69 has directly connected.

One Good Thing About Being A Mariners Fan

Bill Bavasi didn't do this.

How does Tejada help the Astros? Can he pitch now? I wouldn't be shocked to see the change of scenery ignite a Tejada revival, but why would Houston prioritize him? I just don't get it.

Our stupid-GM-tricks theme may be reserved for free agents, but I say five players of any quality for Tejada constitutes overpayment. Cue the music, Alex!



Hey, ho, UP she rises, hey, ho, UP she rises...

Rich Eisen Wins

Check out the call on the Davenport touchdown.  Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

(hat tips)

Perfection

There's nothing I could say about how it feels to be a Mariner fan right now that you couldn't either read or infer from this post. I can't describe the transformation that has occurred in the last year, from seeing a bad team with a lot of talent that might be moving in a good direction, which felt all right, to being an OK team with a little less talent that you have no faith will chart a positive direction for itself under any circumstances. It's been painful and yet somehow extremely boring.

At least we bought low on Guillen and let him walk, that was smart. Should have offered him arbitration and gotten that draft pick, but if they want to let their extremely selective goody-goody-streak come out over the steroids thing, I'm not really complaining. I don't really believe that Bavasi will trade Jones for anyone not named Santana or Bedard (and no that doesn't include Ervin), so I'm not terrified this offseason (though remembering the Soriano trade does worry me). Mostly I just don't see any plan to take us from here to there; I can't see how it's going to happen.

And so the failure of the last 4 or 5 years or whatever has finally set in. I just don't believe we can really fix this situation. The talent is there, kind of. The front office isn't that stupid, really. At least they're good at drafting and otherwise bringing in minor league talent. We didn't lose Ichiro, who is now an awesome CFer. Beltre is a much better player and a much better deal than the national media is willing to acknowledge. And Felix is still one of the youngest pitchers of all time to do the kinds of things he's done.

There are reasons for hope, but I don't have any (quite unlike last year). Part of that is how much better the Indians and Red Sox and Tigers have gotten, but most of it is just about the Mariners. I just don't see it and I don't see how that's going to change. Why should I believe that there won't be an endless series of new Soriano-for-Ramirez-like-trades and Washburn-like signings? I don't. And so I can't see how the Mariners will ever be legit contenders again. It'll probably happen in the next 10-20 years (we have a big enough payroll and enough organizational talent, after all), and I hope to god it's while we still have Ichiro and Felix. But I'm having trouble imagining it.

So that's why these trades for Ho-Ram and Turbo were so utterly deflating. It's not that they were so horrible, although they were pretty durn bad. It's more that they erased any sense that we were moving in the right direction, which for (admittedly not that many) years of sucking was all we had. And now, none of us believe it. It's hard to see Bavasi being good enough to get this team to a World Series (though I still don't think he's that bad, in the end), and it's hard to imagine this ownership hiring someone much better than Bavasi. So what's the point in any of it?

Drunken Sailors, 2007

So... what does everyone think of the Guillen signing?

Here's what I think:

13M a year for this guy seems like utter madness to me, and that's before the Mitchell report weighs in with any future suspensions. Then again, I am on record as blasting the Royals for the Meche signing last year, and that turned out pretty durn well.

Redskins Mediocrity: Explained With Video

In the wake of Sean Taylor's death, people have been loath to discuss the elephant in the room: the Redskins have had yet another shitty year. As always, a promising offseason and high fan expectations explode into mediocrity and disappointment. Worst of all, the coaching staff doesn't seem to be doing their team any favors. That doesn't seem as important now, but the fact is that they've underachieved yet again.

Nothing illustrates the sadness of their situation better than the following video, sent to me a few months ago by Kelvin. It's so prescient, one can only be terrified by the subtitler's ability to see into the future, and predict that the Redskins would be bad.



This year will be different!

You say that every year!

Pats-Ravens

Briefly:

* I feel as if the Pats just won a playoff game. What an ending. I'm still wired. I think I got shin splints from jumping in the air so much after the two-minute warning.

* I'm also terrified that they're going to lose. Clearly that's relative (how terrified can you be at 12-0) but they've dropped two turdbuckets in a row and now face a team that's actually playing well. If this defense can't stop Kyle Boller and Willis McGahee, what will they do against good players like the Steelers have??? Oh noes...

* The Ravens have little to be ashamed of. (Bart Scott kinda does, but the damage had been done by then.) If I were them, I'd feel cheated... by my coaches. They did their jobs, and then Rex Ryan got cute with the timeouts. It's hard enough to beat the Pats when it's just the refs handing them the game... they don't need any help from the coaches.

(Two gamesmanship timeouts cost two teams their games on the same weekend. That's nuts.)

* Patriots WRs and TEs... this one was on you. Get your heads (and hands) out of your asses, please. Thank you.

* I had zero respect for Brian Billick this morning. But tonight, I have five respects for him. (Hopefully this video will survive the night...)



* In conclusion, have a totally off-topic nugget of joy!

Jason Maxiell Has A Hard Back

CANNONBALL COMIN'...

Good Kaufman Line

From today's predictable torching of the BCS:

On ESPN's bowl selection show Sunday, host Rece Davis debriefed a guy named Brad Edwards, whose bio on ESPN.com describes him as a "college football researcher." Davis called him "our BCS guru."

BCS guru? That poor man! What a pathetic thing to be an expert on. It's like being the world's foremost authority on "Charles in Charge."

Zing!

Public Service Announcement: MLBTR

(This message, or a variation on it, goes out every year near the trading deadline and near the winter meetings.)

Anyone reading this blog who hasn't put MLB Trade Rumors into their RSS readers yet... I mean, come on.  Seriously, cut the shit.  If it's July, August or November, and you're not checking MLBTR twice a day, then you aren't a baseball nerd.  Why bother reading Olney, Heyman, Rosenthal et al individually when Tim collates every piece of relevant info they drop into team-by-team summaries?  Start reading, and start getting smarter.