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Scott Howard, terrible talent evaluator.
November 30th, 2009In perhaps the mildest of silver linings, Scott’s personal whipping boy LaRod Stephens-Howling (LSH) had one of the greatest single game special teams performances this old Dr. can recall. The guy was a two-way threat, drilling returners, downing punts inside the 5, and obviously, making the big return that kept things interesting (and ultimately, Scott-soul-crushing). Somewhere, Steve Tasker said, “I coulda done that.”
Effeminate Suns dominated by Kings’ big man
October 21st, 2009One of the primary concerns going into the season was the Suns’ lack of interior defense. This concern increased when Sideshow Bob went down with a foot injury. (Side concern – centers with foot injuries don’t have a great history of recovery).
Those concerns were realized last night, when the Kings’ Jon Brockman worked over the porous Suns defense in the low post.
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Go Dawgs!
October 12th, 2009The University of Washington v. Arizona game was decided on an improbable, much-reviewed, crazy-toons play that will be reshown ad nauseum on sports highlight shows for years to come. Check it:
Les Paul
August 13th, 2009The passing of Les Paul requires a word or two. You can pull up any news story or wikipedia entry to get details on his incredible career as both an inventor and musician. There were certainly others inventors working to develop the solidbody electric guitar (Paul Bigsby, notably, among others), but Paul’s “Log” guitar was both innovative and had the advantage of being invented by a successful popular musician.
Hard-hitting, thorough Cards analysis.
August 13th, 2009Mike Gandy still sucks.
Farewell, Wally Pipp. Er, I mean, Chris Young.
August 12th, 2009As noted, Chris Young was sent to the six and 1/2th circle of hell lovely Reno, Nevada to work out some kinks in his swing, or get over his headache, or do whatever one does in AAA when you completely fall apart as a hitter.
Last night, Louie and I observed first-hand the coming out party for Pipp Young’s possible replacement, Aussie superman Trent Oeltjen.
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Try to guess what I am now.
June 22nd, 2009
Who am I?
Think U of A, think stupid hat . . .
Lettuce wraps and epic fail.
May 26th, 2009So, I enjoyed a tasty meal of Americanized Chinese food at the PF Chang’s in Chandler last night. I was joined there, though at a separate table, by failing (failed?) DBacks reliever Jon Rauch. He of the 7.23 ERA, .313 opponents BA, and giver-upper of back-to-back RBI singles as part of the DBacks blowing a six-run lead in the 8th and 9th innings to lose on Monday. Read the rest of this entry “
The winner's curse.
May 19th, 2009Just a quick note 5 minutes before the draft – While more common to the NFL draft (and Card’s draft picks in particular) the “winners” of the NBA draft can be saddled with a millstone around their neck, in the form of overpaid, underperforming high first-round draft picks.
Paging Kwame Brown to the white courtesy phone, please. Kwame Brown, to the white courtesy phone.
It's not you, it's me.
May 8th, 2009Bob Melvin has been fired. The firing should not be seen as an indictment of Melvin, but instead of GM Josh Byrnes.
Baseball managers can’t do much to help, or hurt, their team. Firing one is the easy way for a baseball front office to deflect blame away from the GM, scouts, and minor league system for team performance. But the real problem with supporting scape-goating the manager is that if improvement occurs, the idiots in the mainstream media will say “DBacks improve thanks to new manager,” because they are generally too stupid to realize that correlation is not causation.
If the DBacks improve, it will because the players play better. Playing ability is almost all talent; managers’ yelling won’t help you hit a curveball. Within a year or so of getting to the majors, you know what you’re going to get with most players, because minor league performance is generally a very accurate predictor of major league performance. So, anyone expecting huge breakout seasons from guys with three or more years in the league will be disappointed. Late career breakouts should arouse suspicion. The DBacks might have a little leeway as so many guys are 25 or below.
But fretting over the manager distracts from the real issue: talent on the field. Lack thereof goes to the front office, not the manager. Firing the manager should almost always be considered a mea culpa by the front office that they have been doing a bad job. Remember this.
