It’s Official, Eick IS that River in Egypt.

When recently asked by Shatraw to provide his excuse for a HORRIBLE team this year, Eick gave us this wonderful reply:

“No excuse per se. I look at my team and I still think my team is solid.

I think I’ve just been caught in the perfect storm of nearly ALL my guys getting off to terrible April’s hitters slumping and pitchers getting rocked - nearly everyone on my team.

It has to balance out. I think I’m due for a big turnaround at some point, but it’s certainly looking painfully bad right now.”

I’m not sure what’s more sad; that Eick believes his team will do any upward climbing in the standings, or that he boiled his teams awful existence down to “a perfect storm of nearly ALL my guys getting off to a terrible [start].”

Nothing to translate here. His team is currently 51 points out of first, barely standing up at 37.5 points. I think MY team is terrible and I’m in 6th.

You had a good season, Eick. Enjoy Gary Sheffield.

Terrible Managers

There should be a sub-header reading, “That I Hate More Than Anyone Should,” because it’s true. Just watching baseball for what it is, certain managers stick out in one’s mind: Ozzie Guillen, Tony Larussa, Don Baylor…

But concerning fantasy baseball, there is a certain kind of coach that can single-handedly destroy a fantasy season. Cases in point:

Dusty Baker.

Hello. I feast on young pitcher’s arms and young hitter’s natural swings and offensive tendencies. If necessary, Baker will break his own son’s arm off at the elbow if it means one more meaningless inning pitched. I don’t have photoshop yet, but such an image will exist soon.

Newest victim: Edinson Volquez has been pitched into the ground recently, at the ripe old age of 24. Estimated time of arm problems: Eh, I’d say in about 3-4 months we start hearing about a “a slight tweak in the elbow.” At that point, Dusty will be in ecstasy at the mere collision of the words “tweak” and “elbow” in a single sentence.

Sign of Insanity: Of Joey Votto, the sweet-swinging rookie first baseman’s patience at the plate:

On Votto: “He needs to swing some more. I talked to him about that. Strikeouts aren’t the only criteria. I’d like to see him more aggressive.”

“A lot of this on-base percentage is taking away the aggressiveness of some young kids. Most of the time you’ve got to put handcuffs on a young to keep him from swinging.”

He needs to be more aggressive, but he shouldn’t strike out. On base percentage makes young hitters worse. Young hitters are usually terrible because they are too aggressive.

This is a logical breakdown of Dusty’s quote. He ascertained that by forcing Joey Votto to “be more aggressive,” he would in turn change Votto from the wonderful, patient, powerful hitter he is into a young, typically over-swinging piece of garbage. All of this makes sense when you remember that Dusty Baker’s head is empty, and at night Scott Hatteberg shrinks himself and his spaceship to a minute speck. He flies in Dusty’s brain and reminds him how much he loves veterans and the intangibles they bring to the game. How else could this even make a freaking lick of sense?

Ned Yost

Hi, I’m Ned and I’ve enjoyed watching the prospects of my Brewers organization succeed in the majors. And by that I mean that when called up, I offer nothing in terms of assisting player development and hope they just “heat up.”

Recent Victim: Ned Yost and his staff have done nothing to help Rickie Weeks turn into a good lead-off hitter. Sure, the runs are there now, but they are a statistical abberation.

Sign of Insanity: When speaking of Weeks’ bizarre ability to score 28 runs despite hitting .197 with a .324 OBP and the rest of the offense dead around him, Yost dropped the following science:

“Rickie’s a run scorer,” he said. “There’s nothing weird about it.”

Fantastic. Give this guy a permanent podium he can stand behind. Hell, strap him to it with suspenders. Yost gives you best reason why he’s a terrible manager in that quote. Stubborn, moronic, unmoved, christ, somehow this quote reeks of paranoia, as if Yost is afraid one day the Ghost of Robin Yount will force him to actually read the stats and gain any kind of knowledge from them.

Also, concerning maligned closer Eric Gagne, Yost elegantly put into words what I’ve tried to for weeks to express in smoke signals:

“I don’t have a timetable. I don’t have anything marked down that says when the 35th man gets on base I start to be concerned.”

Just so you know, I’ll be there when Gagne manages to walk 35 batters in an inning. And I will personally kick Yost in the mouth until he becomes concerned. Ridiculous. How do you really get away with saying crazy garbage like that? When your players are terrible, you should be angry, you should knock things over, and, if possible, you should be begging for an excuse to get thrown out of games! Something, for gods sakes!

“Yeah, he’s struggled a bit at times,” Yost said, “but he was a pitch away (Sunday) that could’ve gone either way two, three, maybe four times, completely ending the game and we wouldn’t even be discussing this thing that I find, pardon me, ridiculous.”

You know what’s ridiculous? A major league baseball manager who’s so recalcitrant that he can’t find a reason to be angry at a pitcher who has lost 5 games for his team. BE MORE CALCITRANT FOR GOD SAKES. There, are you happy Ned? Oh, what, you’re not happy until you murder an animal?

So be it.

Goodnight Sweet Prince

I hardly knew ye.

Dear Kyle Lohse

It’s me, the Mean, the Average, Reality. I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for about a month and a half now, and I’m glad we finally touched base. Now remember: You are a scrubby pitcher and no longer will you grace Shatraw’s team with respectable statistics. Just remember who you are and be true to that. There’s no sense in over-achieving, especially when I do not reap the benefits. Now, back to swimming in my swimming pool full of fantasy dollars.

Getting Jonesed

I think everyone who spends their time accumulating make-believe statistics has had this moment, which happened to ME of all people last night:

Me: Hmm…Jermaine Dye has been sucking butt this year. But he did hit a homer the other night…but I’ll bench him tonight. He’s probably still slumping.

Reality: Hi, yeah, you should’ve started Dye. He went 2-4 with a homerun, 2 runs and 2 ribbies.

Me: Fantastic.

Yeah, that jonesing occurred just this past inning. What did I receive instead of that sterling line from Senor Jermaine? Well, a perfectly useless 1-4 night from Matt Stairs. Jones.

Just today, Slanch’s team was graced with a huge jones. Based on John Maine’s career 6.00 ERA at the hands of the Dodgers, Maine rode the pine today on Slanch’s bench. At which point he threw 8 1/3 innings allowing one run and striking out four.

That, my friends, is a jones.

In other news, I picked up Austin Kearns. Sounds pathetic, but with the new ballpark, he can’t be this bad. I chalk it up to a bad month and I still think he’s good for 20 home runs, which should help replace Corey Hart’s absence. And to be honest regarding Hart, I watched a bunch of his games and the only thing more apparent than Ned Yost’s horrible manager’s instinct is that Hart is not hitting for power. He’s hitting for the gaps this year, and after one home run in April I’m pretty sure I’m right. He could be good for 20 home runs, but I see him hitting more doubles this year.

Also, I picked up Jason Bartlett to spell my MI slot when Jeff Kent remembers he’s so old he can’t bend over. Cheap steals at MI is always a good thing, especially when trying to replace Him.

I miss you.

Woof

Ever since I dropped Pedro Feliz, my team has existed as a study of duality. One day all of my starters and closers are shelled.

The next Ervin Santana and Johnny Cueto pitch like men possessed. Cueto was human, but I watched that game; the Cubs are H-O-T-T HOTT! I took a huge chance in starting Cueto against what I view is a great offense, and it paid off. He looked a lot more comfortable, although he struggled in the sixth inning and generally looked tired (not to mention he lost about 4 MPH on his fastball, yikes!). When Derrek Lee is HOTT, any pitcher is in trouble. Kind of wish I took him instead of Sizemore as my second pick…

Anyways, Santana was insane. I’ve been watching his games and at times he seemed completely unhittable. What was spectacular about last night was watching him maintain his poise through all nine innings. He had only thrown 80 pitches through the first 7 innings! Watching Torii Hunter steal singles and doubles in centerfield only reinforced my belief that this might be a break-out year for Santana.

The difference between Santana and Cueto/Lincecum is the defense. Outside of obnoxious rookies trying to error their way back to Double A (Matt Brown, two errors that led to runs in Santana’s previous start), the Angels D is awesome. Hunter, Matthews Jr, even Vlad is a much better OF defense than say, Adam Dunn, Freel/Hairston Jr/Patterson, Griffey Jr. Watching Adam Dunn running after fly balls in left field is truly hair-raising. And if he continues to look any more like a bloated- Steve McQueen, well he better hit more home runs to support my Johnny Cueto!

TAINT!!!

Fall From Grace: Ghost of Pedro

Fun. My team has been in shambles the past week, culminating with the impressive loss of potential you ace Yovanni Gallardo. This is the kind of injury that is back-breaking. And corrosively obnoxious considering the guy only gave up FOUR RUNS IN 20 INNINGS AND RECEIVED THREE RUNS OF SUPPORT. Brutal.

Every weakness of my pitching staff was revealed this past week. I felt like I was alone and naked in the cold dark night of the deserts of time. Also I felt like breaking Reed Johnson’s knee (just watched an hour of “Torture” on the History Channel, included a ten minute segment on Hammurabi’s Code, it was great).

I won’t go in to details, but my team has plummeted. I arranged a quick trade with Eick, nabbing James Shields for Corey Hart. I love Corey Hart. This deal hurt but I got a great Gallardo-clone here with a slightly better defense behind him.

And maybe, someday in the future, I’ll see your nice batting average and steals and homers and beards and mustaches on my future teams.

Also, yeah, I’ve been reading Ball Four. But I need more levity in my life.

That guy HATES Scotty Pods. HATES him.

AND THEN THERE WAS ONE

Pain, I See Nothing But Blinding Pain

Now I didn’t start Jon Lester. Best start of his short career, according to Rotoworld.

I didn’t start Boof Bonser. He gave up a solo shot to Joe Crede through 7 innings. Nothing else. Anger rising.

I didn’t start Phil Hughes. He got shelled. Anger starts to dissipate…

I started Johnny Cueto. Um, I then watched a broken bat single fall in (off of Brandon Phillips stupid outstretched glove), and then Ken Griffey Jr. decides he needs to slide to run down base hits. What? Why? And then he bobbles the ball, and is charged with the error, but all of the runs that came in during said error are charged to Cueto. Great. 7 earned runs later, my ERA has gone up by more than 30 points, and my WHIP has risen from 1.27 to 1.30. My anger is boiling over into madness…

I then turn the television to watch Raphael Betancourt give up a three run homerun.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way, my hitting’s okay tonight. But it doesn’t matter. Tim Lincecum is starting to get shelled right now. Nothing like crying myself to sleep at night.

My life is good. I’m telling you. It is.

PS- As I wrote this post, Jose Reyes committed an error which led to Billy Wagner blowing his first save this year.

PPS - As I wrote that PS, Tim Lincecum allowed three hits and an RBI double. When it rains it pours. Fuck me.