The Rookies

The classic PC game Scorched Earth provides an instructive model for the Blue Jays.

The Sports Illustrated report this afternoon that the Toronto Blue Jays have dealt Roy Halladay to the Phillies in a three-team deal confirmed what most Jays’ fans have known since the team’s early hot start last year fell apart; the team’s officially gone into rebuilding mode. However, the question remains as to just what that will entail, and the Jays’ recent history is not auspicious in that regard.
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It was quite the non-waiver MLB trade deadline today, with the White Sox picking up Jake Peavy, the Red Sox landing Victor Martinez and Casey Kotchman, and the Tigers dealing for Jarrod Washburn, among other deals.

However, it was a pretty rough deadline for many of us Blue Jays fans; not only did general manager J.P. Ricciardi trade star third baseman Scott Rolen to the Reds, they also apparently agreed to pay part of his contract and made the trade because he was unhappy in Toronto, making things even worse. Moreover, Ricciardi failed to deal Roy Halladay, the most-discussed potential trade piece; I argued a while back that the team should hang on to Halladay and go for broke next year, but the Rolen salary dump makes it clear that the Jays’ corporate masters are in full fire-sale mode, meaning Halladay’s likely to be traded in the winter. In my mind, it would have been better to deal him now and maximize his value with a year and a half left on his deal than hope you’ll get something later on when he’ll be a one-year rental.
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Sometimes unusual is good.

Clearly, the headline isn’t literally possible.

But Tim Lincecum’s complete game, 15-strikeout, two-unearned run outing got me thinking. So I went to Baseball-Reference and did some searching. Go figure: No one else in their database, which dates back to 1954, had the exact line of 9 IP, 15 K, 2 R, 0 ER.

Doing a similar search, for complete game shutouts with 15 Ks and three or fewer walks yields 16 results; doing a search for a complete game with one unearned run allowed and 15 strikeouts returns two games.

And yet Lincecum’s line is, I can say with full confidence, unique, mostly because of an error by Edgar Renteria.

Josh Willingham probably thought his two grand slams would be the most unusual happening of the night. Then Lincecum’s line happened.

Sometimes, baseball’s funny like that.

Am I an awful person for thinking Miguel Olivo oughtn’t be a Kansas City Royal anymore? He isn’t the worst player in baseball history, and not even the worst in the league right now. But he’s frustrating, and when his lubed-up glove gave Arizona a couple of runs in the 4th inning, I did some yellin’ in The Rookies’ executive chat room. There were a lot of capital letters and swearwords involved.

In a fit of fury, I maaaay have even referred to him as Miguel [Fellatio-administering] Olivo. I regret that choice of words now. All the same, Miguel C. Olivo is a special kind of awful when it comes to most facets of the game of baseball. Read the rest of this entry →

Welcome back to the RANT, the only place on the internet where we put old men before beautiful women. Music and boobs after the jump. Read the rest of this entry →

Here it is, noble, rapidly-diminishing readership, the second installment in The Rookies Podcast.  In this episode, three of us go roundtable to discuss the imminent arrival of the baseball season, homerism, steroids, and appropriately, the rookies most likely to have a breakout year. Now featuring slightly less awkward silence and aggressive typing! Please try to ignore the horrific sound near the one minute mark, too.   Otherwise, enjoy. It runs about 35 minutes this time. I want to stand and jummmmmmmmp again.
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Welcome back to the RANT, rovitz here, and damn it feels good to be done with school for a little bit and on spring break. Sorry for not being around the past few nights, between tons of homework and other things that shall not be mentioned on here, I haven’t had time. Without further ado, here we go! Read the rest of this entry →

Before I begin, I would like to make a point to the younger collegians that frequent this blog:

Don’t ever graduate.

Not because graduating suddenly means hardship and separation from all the people you’ve learned to love over the last few years of your life. Mostly, don’t graduate because, right before you graduate, it gets really hard. So hard, in fact, that I can’t even bring myself to happily acknowledge the dick joke that just happened right there. (That’s right, kids – college will eventually make you hate dick jokes. I suggest quadruple majoring in things that require few books.)

That’s why my blognificance here has been relegated to a couple snarky comments (note: sorry bout that, boys).

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Welcome to the nightly RANT, today I came to the realization that I miss one thing in the world more than anything. Read the rest of this entry →

Now that all of this A-Roid 2003 nonsense has been uncovered, it’s time to ask, who are some of the others of the 103 on that God forsaken list? Now my favorite team is the Phillies, so I’ll be listing all of the suspects I think have used steroids in the past. I’ll look over all 25 current players on the active roster and attempt to decipher the ‘roiders from the real. To tell you the truth, any player in Major League Baseball could be a suspect. Hell, Paul Byrd used HGH. PAUL BYRD! If anyone had told me he was a roider I’d bet Donovan McNabb’s left kidney that it was a lie. So here we go, these are the suspects from my beloved Phils.

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