Uncategorized

Baseball Prospectus

Here is something Will Carroll wrote today:

Randy Johnson hasn’t had any knee problems so far this season, but he will begin a planned series of Synvisc injections later this week. Synvisc is the synthetic lubricant that Johnson first began using last year. The injections come in a series of five, one week apart, but he is not expected to miss any starts during the process.

I hadn’t heard this before. And now that I have I further wonder about the whole prohibition about performance enhancing “drugs,” and out ability to differentiate between various regimens. And our motivation for doing so.

If our goal is to see the most best performances, shouldn’t we allow anything that would make for better sport? Certainly the Romans would have.

And if not, what is our goal? I enjoy watching beer besotted yuppies play softball sometimes. I enjoy being one of them, sometimes. But I have a hard time imagining how my “regularness” has anything to do with my entertainment. Well, I do enjoy Ken Loach films.

But that’s the point. For the most part these rules are legally and morally arbitrary. They pretend to be fair, but in reality they discern moral divisions even St. Augustine would find inscrutable.

By the way, as irritating as I find his self promotion, Will Carroll delivers the goods. And as best I can tell he’s the only reason to buy the BP subscription. Not that there isn’t other stuff of some value, but that the only thing that you can’t buy anyplace else are Will’s natty notes.

SportsBlurb.com

Guide veteran Mark Allen Haverty has launched a new website and asked me to contribute a story, which I’ve done after years of failing to contribute a story to support the Mixed Nuts League.

You’ll find it here.

Mark’s best thing I think are short interviews with various people in baseball who don’t often get published in a Q+A format. These are minor leaguers, scouts, assistant GM, etc. These will be appearing at the new site, along with various other writing about baseball and football for the fantasy player.

ESPN.com – GEN – Bonds’ trainer allowed to retest seized vials

Why Bonds’ childhood friend wants to retest the vials isn’t obvious, to me at least. Why the defense is making a big deal about the timing seems specious, too. It’s 10:00, do you know what performance enhancing drugs your favorite athlete is taking? Or thinking of taking?

But the really interesting point here comes in the last graf. THG users are getting banned en masse by the Olympic committee, but the drug wasn’t banned by baseball until a few months ago. But more crucially, there are athletes who used supplements from Balco that Balco supposedly said were legal, that may not have been legal.

Just like when Jackie Onnasis went to a doctor to address her depression and he shot her up with methamphetamine (without telling her, apparently), the Balco dudes could have been dosing our most beloved athletes by telling them they were getting legal stuff. Which in baseball, at least, THG was.

Of interest, too, is Jorge Posada’s comment about the MLBPA agreement with the World Cup. He said, Cool, that’s a good thing, but they have to tell us what’s banned. Why? Because, he says, he uses a fat burner and somone else he knows uses something else, both of which are on the Olympic banned list.

The point is that maybe there is a dark side to this story, but I doubt it. I’d rather my athletes train on chicken fried steak and mounds of mashed potatoes, but until someone comes up with some new rules that our overmuscled friends can work with, we’re subject to the market place. And there, strength beats ethics. At least most of the time.

Major League Baseball : Ask Rotoman

The new one’s out, written before Jose Contreras gave himself over to Jorge Posada’s charms and kicked some Oakland butt. If there is something I left out it’s the concept of nibbling and confidence. Pitchers who are able to throw strikes and get guys out have the confidence that they’ll be able to do that always, or at least much of the time. They throw strikes and use the natural advantage pitchers have over hitters to do well.

Guys who worry about that nibble, don’t throw strikes, and end up pitching at a disadvantage.

Supposedly that’s Contreras’s problem. And Posada calling his game for him is supposedly the solution. We’ll see what happens when he pitches against a team that actually has hitters in the lineup, but in general I buy it.

Yahoo! News – Gore Pledges Over $6 Million to Democrats

Grammatically expressed, of course, Gore would have pledged more than $6 million to democrats.

In my lifetime no Democrat screwed the pooch more grandly than Al Gore did. Embracing him seems problemmatic on a number of levels. As my good friend Beck might say, You’re a loser, baby. Is anybody arguing?

But of course the Dems in the race shouldn’t not take the money of this year’s most prolific Howard Dean endorser. The bottom line is that Al Gore is a loser, but we have to beat the guy who won last time.

And Gore’s book on the environment is pretty cool. We’ll be way better off with someone who agees with Al Gore than we are with the oil-sucking creep who has the job now.

And that’s what really scares me.
Rotoman

ESPN.com – MLB – Reds’ Kearns hit by pitch, sustains arm fracture

He has been slow recovering from last year’s shoulder messes, and now this. Remember that while he was once considered a better prospect than Adam Dunn, he arrived after him because of two years of bad hands (if I’m remembering correctly). These have been injuries of commission, he isn’t jaking it, but it sure looks like some guys just get hurt a lot, and one of those is Kearns.

Ask Rotoman’s Message Board

The discussion board is back up. In fact it has been for a while.

Discussion Board down

I gather it has been up and down of late. The hosting company has been having troubles with this machine. This is aggravating, and indicates why changes need to be made. Thanks for your patience, and you can always send questions to peter@askrotoman.com.

Thanks.

Yahoo! News – Half-Naked Couple Cause Stir Up a Tree

I wasn’t paying that close attention, but my read of the NY Times story today about this incident neglected to mention that the older of the two was a transexual and that they sexed it up in the tree.

The Times, however, mentioned things that AP did not. That Mayor Bloomberg used this escapade as an example that NY wasn’t boring, and that the police/fire department had laid inflatable mats at the base of the tree in case the lovers fell from their nest.

ESPN.com – MLB – BROOKSSCORE

Yesterday a homer, today an honestly deserved win. Might it soon be a problem (in deep leagues, of course) to figure out where to slot this guy in?