Easily the greatest sport ever…
The game-ending call in Arlington on Monday night was undoubtedly one of the worst strike calls I’ve ever seen. Even closer Joe Nathan knows they got away with one they most certainly did not deserve.
Edit to add: Excellent stuff here by MLB.com posting it with all four calls (home and away TV and radio). Hat tip to my co-host Jason Collette for posting that on Facebook.
Are you sitting at your desk thinking, “I wanna hear MORE of Paul’s voice, after all he only does a 2+ hour podcast each week!”?
You’re not alone and I have just the remedy for you.
Listen to them all back-to-back-to-back-to-back for best results!!!!
In his 2013 debut, Trevor Rosenthal pops 100 MPH twice with strikeouts against Paul Goldschmidt and Miguel Montero.
It’s been a bit quiet around here since the release of the SP Guide, but not because I’ve just been sitting on my butt doing nothing (my full DVR can attest). Check me out at these various outlets:
Baseball Prospectus:
GuySpeed:
Daily Fantasy Sports Network:
Betting Dork Podcast:
Fantasy 15 Fox Sports Podcast:
Fantasy Fix Podcast:
You too, Eisen.
(Most of you are like, “but you’re not Jason Collette”. No, no I’m not, but I do cohost that podcast.)
Ladies and gentlemen,
You’ve been waiting all winter for this moment and the day is finally here. The finishing touches are being put on the 2013 Guide and it will be released this afternoon. Those of you who have ordered will find it in your inboxes this afternoon. The army of 1 is working at a Paul Walkeresque and Vin Dieselian rate to get everything in order with final edits, clean ups, charts, graphs, and even the final handful of profiles.
A tidbit out this morning from MLB Trade Rumors talks about how the Tigers are now looking for a closer via the trade market because SURPRISE SURPRISE their entirely unproven rookie who spent 32 seconds at Triple-A and has all of his pitches guided by Apple Maps (I’ve used this joke ~718 times now) isn’t panning out. Who could’ve possibly guessed that this wouldn’t work?! I personally feel they have several worthy options in-house already including Octavio Dotel, Joaquin Benoit, and the best of the bunch in my opinion Al Alburquerque, but manager Jim Leyland seems to favor Phil Coke over all of them and now going outside is an option. I’m not one of those guys who thinks I could be an elite GM off of the street tomorrow and I love Dave Dombrowski, but I don’t understand the thinking there. How was there no contingency for Bruce Rondon and why are none of these hard-throwing studs the team already has an option? You were OK going with someone whose never been in the majors, but Al-Al can’t get a look? His stuff is straight up NSFW!
This part of the news item from MLBTR especially killed me:
Don’t you dare trade a high upside 24 year old potential stud for a freaking closer. Yeah I’m sure teams would line up around the corner to get Porcello for a closer. The Dodgers would also move Nick Punto for Miguel Cabrera! Andrew Bailey. GTFOHWTS. To be fair, he didn’t say Bailey for Porcello, but just GTFOH with Bailey no matter what. He pitches 30 innings a year.
You better get a helluva lot more than that back if Porcello is the centerpiece of a trade. Honestly, this situation sets up perfectly to go by committee, but Leyland is a bit more old school about the closer’s role so he’d probably just want one guy. Coke could be nasty against teams like the Royals and Indians, both of whom have several lefties. Like I said, I trust DD to make the right move. I would definitely be interested in any of the Nationals guys or I guess I should either because they aren’t trading Rafael Soriano five minutes after signing him. So Tyler Clippard or Drew Storen would look great in the 9th inning for the Tigers, but if the price is too high just stay in-house. And for the love of beagles, do not sign Jose Valverde.
I wanted to give y’all an update on where things are with the guide as we near release. The original target date for the release of this year’s Starting Pitcher Guide was March 1st. We aren’t going to hit that date, but we are definitely zooming ever closer to release. There have been several sleepless nights in a row – and I’m not complaining, I absolutely love working on it – and there are still more coming up. In order to put out the guide I’m comfortable with more time is needed. The date you can now look forward to is March 8th. By the way, this is why I usually hesitate to set a firm date at the very beginning of the process. I just never know exactly how long it’s going to take. Those of you that asked me via email or Twitter probably noticed I was rather non-committal.
But now we have a firm date!
For those of you with drafts this week (March 2nd and 3rd) who wanted the guide specifically for those drafts only, it simply will not be ready in time. If the guide is no longer of use to you and you want a refund on your order, please email me at thespguide@gmail.com. While I really wanted to release on March 1st, it was only a key date because it started a month. It was arbitrary beyond that. Most drafts and auctions will still take place well into March and the guide will be ready in time for all of those.
The first thing I see most mornings about 3 inches from my face.
The anticipation and excitement surrounding the guide has been incredible and I truly appreciate it. Please know how hard I have been working to give you the best product possible. If I was smart, I would’ve just blame Doug, right? When it doubt, throw it on the new guy?
I probably could’ve slapped it together to meet an arbitrary date I set in my head and never really announced, but I saw zero value in that. I take pride in putting together a product you will all love and this final week-plus will afford me the time to put together the best iteration yet. I know several of you are very excited for it and I know the last thing you wanted to hear was that it won’t be released this instant, but at the same time you now have a firm date to look forward to and it’s next Friday.
Now, here is a beagle with a fitted sheet on his head.
And the same beagle inexplicably guarding my socks:
“I’ll protect these.”
Baseball By Paul 