With All The Trade Prattle I Hope You Didn't Miss Halley's Comet

What in the heck was that?

An 80 mph knuckleball! Yikes! I guess I've never spent any time watching Mr. R. A. Dickey. The knuckleball is suppose to be a gentle floating butterfly that pisses batters off as it meanders through the hitting area.  Dickey's knuckleball is like going from the gentlemanly visage of Honest Abe to ABE LINCOLN VAMPIRE KILLER.

Damn it R.A. Where did you get that thing? And when does your contract with Lucifer run out?

I guess I just hadn't been paying attention. What if it's now possible for a person to learn how to shoot that R.A. Dickey 80 mph knuckler to a spot at the top of the zone and get the umpire to call it a strike? That would change everything. Might have to go all NASCAR and ban the damn thing.

So much more fun to watch a baseball game where you get to see something new in baseball instead of the endless prattle about the Lee/Gould trade. Never has so much keyboard hammering gone on about something of so little import. Or at least since the day before with the endless prattle about a Cuban prospect that nobody has seen play but everyone knows how he projects.

Look. I don't need advanced metrics to know that a 36-year old man, whose listed on his own team's info as 6-foot-2, 270 pounds, can't play baseball. He certainly might be able to swing a bat and possibly, maybe have some possible success at doing it but c'mon people. What's the point. For me I like the trade because for a moment or two it would stop the beating of a dead Loney. That alone is worth it to me.

On the other side you got people crying the blues because you have to give up some soft thrower in A ball who if a miracle happens might see the middle of the rotation for some major league team some day. Or not.

Carlos Lee might provide some entertainment for the non-geek fans so I see no harm in doing it. On the other hand I don't care. I too believe Loney statistically (OMG!) will do as well as Lee the rest of the season if he only plays against right-handed pitching. So whatever.

The Happiest Man at Chavez Ravine. That would be Stan Kasten. The magical early run of the Dodgers almost got him stuck with Ned for at least another year or two. Now short of a replay of the early season win by committee he gets to say stuff like we're starting over and building around our core of great young players. Uribe, Loney, Rivera, Kennedy, etc., gone. Also Ned's medical guy who said that that pitcher from the Giants was medically sound. He'll never say it but Stan is beaming on the inside. 


Mr. Van Slyke. Sadly I think everyone is now willing to work together in taking apart the Van Slyke bandwagon, folding it up and putting it away into the storage locker for use at a later date. It didn't help that Mattingly tortured him by putting him in against Dickey. I predicted that Uribe had a better chance of hitting a line drive and, well, that happened.

 There are reasons why managers don't like playing minor leaguers ahead of old, grizzly, gritty (I'm kidding about the grizzly, gritty part OK?) veterans. Last night was the perfect example. Just because a kid has stats in the minors doesn't make him a better player than a below average major leaguer. Now my pal Dee Gordon, well, it's unlikely that any other another manager in baseball would have stuck with him this long. I applaud Don Baseball for hanging in there but it's rare you see this kind of thing.

The Sabre Cult.

Terry Pruett

I don't really even know what you're saying here. I assume you're making some obscure and otherwise disproved point that RBI are a valuable stat. Guess what...you're wrong. RBI mean NOTHING. Loney is not a good major league hitter. Period. He blows. If you put a GOOD hitter in the cleanup spot, he will pick up RBI. And no, if you put MATT Treanor in the cleanup spot, he won't...perhaps his brother MARK would, but I don't know if he exists. RBI are almost completely a matter of where a good hitter bats in the lineup. They have absolutely NOTHING to do with a hitters overall offensive capability and productivity.

OK Terry let's calm down buddy. A lot of parents tell their kids never to discuss politics or religion with strangers because things can get, well, out of hand. I think it would be wise for parents to now include baseball statistics. The whole thing seems a little cultish if you ask me. I don't think anyone has actually  been killed or reprogrammed yet but I definitely think koolaid is involved.