Friday, Jan. 16
Sorry for no activity– daily life, prepping for school, running a bunch of errands, and generally being hectic contribute to my lack of posting. While there’s been no real posting lately, I can say that I’ve virtually finished my 2009 pitching preview and will post it first thing Monday morning. A few newsworthy things:
Apparently the Brewers were thinking about chasing Dunn. Even though the internet is in love with Adam Dunn, I like this move. Two reasons for this– it’d be taking on way too much in salary considering the arbitration cases of the five Brewers who are eligible (more on this later), and even though replacing Corey Hart with the Dunnotron would greatly improve the team, watching a lineup of Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun, Adam Dunn, Bill Hall, Mike Cameron, and Rickie Weeks would undoubtedly set the record for most strikeouts in a single season. We’re one step away from putting Jose Hernandez back at shortstop. It’d make me cringe.
One of the things the article mentioned was that the Brewers were considering sending Cameron to the Yankees instead of replacing Hart with Dunn tit-for-tat. The plan would’ve involved shipping Cameron off, moving Hart to center, and putting Dunn in right field. I’m not sure the increase in salary (Dunn SHOULD command $15 mil/year or so, considering his ability) would justify the incredible dropoff there would be in shipping an excellent defender in Cameron off and replacing him with an average one in Hart. Remember, one of the things that makes Mike Cameron a very valuable commodity is his sublime defense. Trotting out a daily outfield of Braun, Hart, and Dunn would sure let batters tee off towards the gaps and ultimately make our pitching staff worse.
In other stuff, J.J. Hardy signed for super cheap and Dave Bush signed for cheap enough. Considering Hardy is one of the best shortstops in the game, grabbing him at the price of a tiny bit more than Nick Punto is awesome. One of the knocks i’ve always had on Hardy is his range, but his positive UZR numbers so far in the major leagues are significantly awesome to the point where it’s almost set in stone about a major leaguer. If there’s any way that I need to eat my words, it’s one where a great player turns out to be better than he actually is. J.J. “Makes Me” Hardy.
Tomorrow is Fox Sports North’s second annual Hockey Day Minnesota where the hockey fans throughout the upper Midwest watch an endless supply of hockey for about 16 straight hours. What many fans don’t realize is that events like this are staffed by a company that employs less people than you think, so workers put in an awesomely long day preparing and broadcasting this event. No company seems to have any money anymore, so they like to exploit interns like me to do 12+ hours of work on a Saturday and pay them absolutely nothing. It’s okay, though– as long as I get to watch the Wild-Ducks game from the press box tomorrow night (I will), it just might all be worth it. Hopefully I’ll get to do this at Twins games this summer.
Youtube of the week
This lengthy post isn’t coming out until the end of the week, but I’ll keep posting them as I see fit. When I was in high school, my friends and I browsed websites like this one and this one. These websites are for amateur comedic filmmakers who are challenged to make a 5-minute-or-less clip with or without a plotline. The makers of the website rent out a small theater in New York and show a public audience 7-8 of these videos and the top five videos as rated by the audience get to make another one for next month’s screening. One time, in high school, my friends and I made one of these videos and sent it in. It never was considered — the video, production, and script were all terrible — but occasionally there are people who send in videos who are actually funny. One of these series lasted six episodes, and it was hilarious. Check out Jesus Christ, Supercop.
“Stigmata. Something’s wrong.”
See you Monday.