SimonOnSports

Watching last nights game got me thinking, when did the Intentional Walk become all the rage? During the entire 162 game regular season the St. Louis Cardinals intentionally walked a total of 44 batters while the Texas Rangers intentionally walked just 21. The intentional walk is something normally reserved for a special occasion, like the pitcher is coming up next, or the winning run is on 2nd in the 9th inning and you want to set up a force play. Last night alone the two teams combined for a total of 6 intentional walks and instead of strategy it just seemed like the casual thing to do. In some cases these walks backfired and in some cases they were completely befuddling. The Rangers decided, Fuck it, we're not pitching to Albert Pujols in any scenario. Hell we're not even going to pitch to him with 2 outs and no one on. Conveniently for Ron Washington, of the three times they intentionally walked Pujols the only time Holliday didn't do something horrific, like bo...

Oh the Red Sox fans, so cute with their addition skills. 04 + 07 = 11 . It's their year. Ugh. Vomit. Ugh. I've got math too, it says "Snobby Yankee Fan, we have more championships than you. Even if 22 of them came before I was born."

You know who doesn't need to see to hit a baseball off Roy Oswalt's head ? Manny Ramirez, that's who.

Who Invited Joe Blanton to the press Conference?

In 2010 Carlos Gonzalez was a hero to all of his fantasy owners. He paid out his owners who likely drafted him above the 10th round a pay day of #1 on the player rater. In all likelihood this will not happen this season, but let us take a look at some of the names who might generate some buzz and have the potential to join the ranks of the top 10. Before we get into whom may wind up being the CarGo of 2011, let us first take a look at any of the indicators for the breakout campaign that he may have given us during the 2009 season and the 2010 spring which. Finishing Off Strong / Figuring It Out Post AllStar: 62 Games, 42 Runs, 10 DBs, 12 HRs, 24 RBI, 11 SB, .384 OBP, .608 SLG%, .320 BA Playoffs: 4 Games, 5 Runs, 2 DBs, 1 HRs, 1 RBI, 2 SB, .632 OBP, .882 SLG%, .588 BA One thing that I always try to look at (and sometimes it bites me in the ass Josh Towers 06 ), is how a younger player finishes off the season. For Carlos Gonzalez the 2009 season was two stark differences.  ...

Taco Bell is currently in the news for being sued over their fake beef. They have fought back with a full page newspaper ad saying their beef is 88% percent BEEF and 12% secret . Since I don't think a pansy one page newspaper ad with the guts and heart of Jay Cutler will be enough, I present to you the Taco Bell 2011 Super Bowl Commercial. It Starts with a Trip in a Limo to a Mystery Location (Yes it's the Stupid Dominoes Ad) To Some Random Feed Lot in Mexico... "Do You Think Taco Bell Wants You to Know What Their Beef is Made of? Do you Think you DESERVE to know what kind of Cow they Use? Well I have a surprise for you..." "Boom, Kenny Mother Fucking Powers loves tacos" "Ahhhhh the mullet, the Jheri curl juice, in the sauce?" "Shut up bitch and give me a blow job... Oh my lines. You know what's more powerful than a Kenny Powers Fastball?" "Fucking nothing that's right, but this comes close..." ...

To Seattle Regarding the 2006 MLB Draft To The Machine Regarding Fear the Beard To Atlanta Regarding Your DL Stints To Brooks Conrad Regarding Fielding Practice To Florida Regarding the Bald Bearded One To Tampa Bay Regarding Minor League Bunting Drills To Boston Regarding The Bullpen

With the 2010 fantasy baseball season finally over, it's time to look back at those folks on draft day that had an MVP like season. You drafted them late and they performed like superstars. Catcher: Buster Posey (#17 Catcher, NR Overall), All of this picks with the exception of Buster Posey were mostly draft day bargains. For those of you whom were smart enough to draft Posey before the season starts and let him sit unused on your bench for months were eventually rewarded heavily. Posey finished ranked 3rd overall for all MLB catchers while playing in 2 less months. His numbers during this time frankly dwarf Joe Mauer's numbers for which you likely used a 1st round pick. First Base: Joey Votto (#8 1B, #36 Overall), One would think that the biggest bargain for first baseman would have come later in the draft but alas Joey Votto was the biggest bargain. Ranked #8 for first baseman in the preseason, Votto put up Albert Pujols like numbers just 3 rounds later. Second ...

Division Series Yankees over Twins in 4... The Yankees always beat the Twins and even with their pitching being arguably the worst in the AL CC should pick up two Ws and they will squeak by in one of the Pettitte Hughes starts. Rangers over Rays in 5... I love David Price, but frankly I've seen postseason Cliff Lee and I trust postseason Cliff Lee. In addition Shields has been less then stellar this season and the Rays offense has not hit the ball the past two weeks. Giants over Braves in 4... The West Coast G-Men will have too much starting pitching over the injured Braves offense. The games will likely be like 3-2 showdowns but the Giants should be able to take the series. Phillies over Reds in 4... Frankly I'm being generous giving the Reds a W in this series. The Reds had a great season but the Phillies have set themselves up to dominate a best of 5 series. Championship Series Rangers over Yankees in 7... Perhaps I should have confidence in the Yankees like...

1. AJ Burnett is the 6th Highest Paid Starting Pitcher in MLB this season. He is the 20th highest paid player in all of baseball. 2. Of the 93 MLB pitchers whom qualify*, AJ Burnett ranks dead last in ERA. 3. Of the 93 MLB pitchers whom qualify*, AJ Burnett ranks 89th in WHIP. 4. AJ Burnett is currently tied for having the second most losses in the league trailing only Kevin Millwood (Oreos) and Joe Saunders (LAA/ARI). 5. Of those 15 losses, just one was dubbed a "Tough Loss" which has the not so difficult bar set as a loss in which you earned a Quality Start. 6. Speaking of Quality Starts, AJ has thrown 13 this season putting him at a percentage of .41% which ranks him 101st of the 107 pitchers with over 140 IP. 7. AJ Burnett ranks 40th out of the 107 pitchers with over 140 IP in regards to run support. In comparison Kevin Millwood ranks 90th and Joe Saunders ranks 79th. (King Felix ranks dead last, ouch) 8. AJ Burnett has a WAR of 1 which values him at ...

Dear Tampa Bay, I think it's about time you looked in the mirror as a community and said to yourself, it's time to put up or shut up. You currently have three professional franchises within your metro area and you ardently support exactly zero of these franchises. The greatest injustice of all is of course the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays are now going on their 3rd consecutive winning season. They have a roster full of 20-somethings who are incredibly athletic and entertaining to watch. They are about to clinch a playoff birth for the second time in franchise history and quite likely will beat out the Yankees for the division and finish with the best record in the American League and yet you show up to the ballpark on the final week of the season with just over 12,000 people. 12,000 people is barely better than what the solid Triple A clubs get on an average basis. Currently the Rays stand 22nd in all of baseball in home attendance despite sitting a 1/2 from having the be...

I would like to preface this article by saying that as both a Yankee fan and an owner of CC in my fantasy keeper league for 5 straight seasons, I am a huge fan of the Yankee horse. I would love for him to win the Cy Young and to pitch up to that level. With that being said CC Sabathia should not win the Cy Young this season and frankly he shouldn't even come close. Below is a table of the Top 10 AL Pitchers according to their ERA. I've included a series of useful pitching statistics and shaded the boxes Gold, Silver and Bronze according to whom finished in the top 3 of each respective statistic. Even before delving into what the categories are or clicking on the image to expand the table so you can read it, one person blatantly stands above the rest of his competition. That pitcher is King Felix. King Felix is the most durable and reliable starting pitcher this season leading the league in Quality Starts and Innings pitched. He has also arguably been the most excellen...

Charlie Manuel - Umm, well hello, umm Carlos. Carlos Gonzalez aka CarGo - Uhhh, who is this? Charlie Manuel - Well you know its, [5 seconds of dead air], Chaaahhhllie Manuel. My team, you know, umm, lost in the World Series and umm, I guess that makes me umm the manager of umm the All Star Game. CarGo - Oh, Mr. Manuel, so is this good news about the All Star game? Charlie Manuel - Well, you know I had some hardish type decisions to make. Umm, they want me to pick umm the All Star team and umm well I don't remember people's names and things. So umm, I kind of picked guys umm, that were you know kind of All Stars before cause well they were all stars before so well they can be all stars again, right? I think that umm makes sense. CarGo - Soooo, that means I didn't make the team? Charlie Manuel - Well ya umm, I didn't really know your name, umm, there are so many people named Gonzalez and umm I just went with Adrian. And well umm, I have to pick a playe...

Dear Corey Hart, Hi Corey, I have a relatively simple question for you. See in 2009 I thought you were going to be some breakout 25/25 hitter and that you were going to build upon your steady career progressions in your 27 year old season and because of this I drafted you in my first round (8 keepers per team so 9th round in reality). But instead of getting 25/25 you put up a measly 12 HRs and 11 steals. You drove in basically no runs and frankly were a completely useless fantasy asset. In laymans terms, you sucked. So my question is pretty simple, why do you keep on hitting home runs this season? Why have you eclipsed your 2009 HR totals in 1/3 of a season? Can you go back to sucking so I won't be annoyed at the fact that the only year I owned you in a 4 season span was the only year you weren't remotely useful? It's just a little request. I mean your team is already out of it so no one would really care or notice if you only hit say, 4 more home runs the entire...

Numbers on Steroids is a look at baseball players during the 90s to see if anything screams out at you. Ken Griffey Jr. is essentially the great clean hope. He's the one player with historic home run power who has never been remotely linked to performance enhancers. He's the one player who came up as a phenom and lived up to his hype. With his retirement yesterday, now is the best time to take a look at his numbers and verify the lack of suspicion. Averages Say: Initial ramp up into his prime and steady decline afterwards At Bats Per Home Run Says: In 1993 Griffey turned 23 and started hitting homers at a high clip. Explaining It Away Unlike the numbers of Bonds or others Griffey's fit the bill for what you would expect a major leaguer / phenom to do. He made the major leagues as a 19 year old and while his numbers were decent, they were spectacular. Over the course of the next few years his numbers steadily increased (1995 he was injured played 1/2 the sea...

When it comes to fantasy trades and a leagues veto power I tend to be a little bit more lax than others. If someone in your keeper league is dumb enough to trade away a young Jose Reyes for Danny Graves, than perhaps the bigger problem is that they are in your league period and not that people take advantage of their idiocy. In reality you are just mad that you weren't the one to profit in the first place*. Anywho, earlier this season my buddy at work comes to me and says that there is a trade in his league that everyone is bitching about and is probably going to veto. On one end the player is absolutely positively desperate for a third baseman after poor draft strategy and a few injuries so just a few weeks into the season he's looking to make a deal for a third baseman. On the other end one guy has Chipper Jones and a need in the outfield. A deal is arranged where one party gets Chipper Jones and the other gets Bobby Abreu. On face value this is a bad deal. Chipper Jo...

Early this week Steve Phillips opened his mouth and forced me to create a post surrounding his ludicrous statements . As a result of writing this post I looked through my archives to find the picture to the right, in the process of finding the picture I stumbled across this post surrounding Steve Phillips Red Sox offseason thoughts in 2007 which included a trade as baffling as the Oswalt for Strasburg trade. So just for fun, let's debate which thought by Steve Phillips was worse. Trade 1, 2007 Offseason: Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester & Clay Buchholz for Johan Santana During the 2007 offseason the Red Sox were kings of the world having swept the Colorado Rockies 4-0 in the World Series, but Johan Santana was the best pitcher in baseball and the Twins quite obviously were looking to deal him. The Red Sox were amongst the whispered favorites so Steve Phillips master ESPN commentator was asked what he would do if he was Theo Epstein. This is when Steve Phillips lost his mind ...

I think we already know Steve Phillips' has extremely poor judgement but the words which came out of his mouth yesterday were so befuddling that I can't even contemplate how he ever was in a baseball front office nevermind General Manager of an MLB team. Steve Phillips yesterday said that if he was the GM of the Astros and the Nats called about Roy Oswalt he would ask for Stephen Strasberg and potentially more. Quite obviously if Ed Wade started off trade conversations with Mike Rizzo with this line of demands he would be laughed at and hung up on quickly. While this would be a dumb way to start up negotiations with a GM, it isn't completely and utterly ridiculous. What was completely and utterly ridiculous was this: ...if I think that I want Roy Oswalt to help me win this year, you know what? I'm one of the guys, I make that deal... Now this could be in any context and make sense. Like... Would he give up Josh Willingham and Destin Hood for Roy Oswalt? Or sli...

For whatever reason I have a small thing for people that are so out there that they often refer to themselves in the third person. It takes either incredible arrogance or simply being that out there. Jose Lima was that out there and while he wasn't a very good pitcher for the majority of his career, you certainly weren't ever bored watching him. So when Lima Time passes at just 37 years old it is a sad day and we all can hope that Lima Time is dominating today in heaven (or purgatory or hell wherever he wound up).

Oh look, delicious Pork Chop on a stick. Let me have that Kim Jones. Yummmmmy. H/T Couchwarmers