fat EMO kid baseball blog

The title says it all, Sergio Meat-tray is very frustrating to watch. This guy has great stuff, just doesn’t seem to have any idea where it’s going. Maybe he should talk to the opposing hitters, they seem to be figuring it out just fine. Oh, and these fans dressed up like umpires, again? It was funny for about 5 minutes. I’m just glad I didn’t pay $2500 for the seats behind them.

The Yankees need another starter – I am now officially the last person on earth to write about this. Names to keep in mind? Not much. Jon Garland, Doug Davis, Livan Hernandez? Who knows, suddenly the Yankees are payroll-conscious, so maybe we wont get to enjoy this year’s version of Cecil Fielder or Jose Canseco.

Another big Boston/New York series this weekend. If you need a cheap win for your fantasy team, I recommend you pick up John Smoltz, who I’m sure will have no trouble striking out about 12 Yanks, in a 13-4. Or so it seems to go this season.

I didn’t post at the trade deadline because, well, if you are reading my blog for your trade deadline news, then it might be time to turn off the PC. Anyway, still trying to make sense out of this Scott Rolen to the Reds trade. I have never liked Edwin Encarnacion, but getting him and two other young guys? You have to like this from the Blue Jays side, considering Rolen didn’t want to be there anyway. Encarnacion is a bum, but still, he might be somebody someday.

Finally, since I promised I would…

You may or may not have seen the news recently about the disasterous train wreck in Indiana. In case you missed it,
here is an image that describes the horror much better than words ever could.

Congratulations Artie Lange, I think the torch has been passed.

Amazing how the Yankees can look so good and then so bad. Sabathia has been good, but shouldn’t he be better than this? Throwing balls away, swisher doing tricks out in RF, making a watered-down Scott Kazmir look like CY Young…get this out of your system now before the playoffs, because when you lose, you lose ugly. The Rays have some incentive now to add Cliff Lee. The AL East Race is far from over….

-Bitter Yankee fan who is convinced the world will end tomorrow

What a year it’s been for the Mets, 10 guys on the DL, a dropped popup to lose a game against the Yankees, a big contract for Oliver Perez, and now this (http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4359215), a GM accusing a beat writer of getting the VP of player personnel fired.   Classy, Omar.   So, by Minaya’s logic, I am going to write a negative article about Derek Jeter, hoping that the Yankees cut him so I can finally play shortstop in the bigs. 

Well, I guess we shouldn’t be too hard on him, considering his other recent episodes of incredible judgement.  Lets not forget this is the guy who brought in 900 year old Moises Alou, and then did the only thing that could be possibly make the Mets outfield worse:  replace 900 year-old Moises Alou with NOBODY.   This is the same guy who signed Oliver Perez to a long-term contract, passing on much less incompetent pitchers such as Derek Lowe and well, everyone else.  This is the same guy who has left the Mets with such a watered-down minor league system that their second best option at first base this season is a AA outfielder. 

So, rather than manning-up and firing this fellow in the first place, Omar let it drag on for a week, then finally called a press-conference (after days of pressure from the media and fans) only to basically blame the situation on a writer.  I guess the order of things goes players -> coaches -> managers -> front officer -> sportswriters??  Make sense.  Too bad Phil Rizzuto isn’t still around.  A few “holy cows” and he could clear out the whole Yankees front-office. 

Needless to say, it has been a great week to be a Yankee fan.

Nice, short, week in Fantasy Land.  The acquisitions of Soriano and Lackey (and Aaron Cook) proved to be huge.  I am up 9-1 as I write this, thanks to Bobby Abreu’s HR in the tenth after 9 shutout innings from Lackey.  Looking forward to trying to upgrade the catcher position, and move one of my extra hitters for someone I can use more frequently. 

Random Thoughts:

• Finally get wins from Hamels and Halladay in the same week.
• I Wish I could have kept Dallas Braden, somone got a gift from me
• If Carlos Pena could hit his body weight, he’d be a very good fantasy player
• Leo Nunez looks pretty solid, he could be the Marlins closer for a while
• If Ian Stewart gets his average up to .250, I’ll write a thank you note to the Colorado coaches for letting him play enough games at 2B to be eligible.

In other news, the Yankees swept the Tigers, who have nice pitching, but little else.  I expect that whoever wins the AL Central will be making a quick exit from the playoffs.  The Yankees got great pitching all weekend, the best news being the solid start from Joba today, and more dominance from Phil Hughes, who, as long as he can throw his fastball 90% of the time, can’t be touched.  Translation:  KEEP HIM IN THE PEN. 

The best news of all was Boston losing two in a row to Toronto, letting the Yanks get to within one game of first place.  Toronto seems like they want to win enough games to make it tough to trade Halladay.  

Speaking of Halladay, I saw that Phillies scouts were at his start today against Boston, making it even more likely that the Phils are the front-runner in the trade sweepstakes right now….only 12 days til the trading deadline, it’s like counting down to Christmas.

Thoughts on last night’s game

• Rain at a Yankee game….again….
• Looks like we have to live with Texeira’s streakiness
• A-Rod is back in midseason form
• Phil Hughes is as good as anyone right now…6 K’s…and really 7 as he threw a perfect pitch to Brian Anderson that was called a ball
• You never know what to expect from Burnett
• Unless they are playing Boston or Anaheim, you really get the feeling this team can come back in any game
• Hey did anyone else notice that the Yanks actually beat a starter they had never seen before?
• The Tigers have a decent team, but this is the class of the AL Central?  There is a major gap between the AL East and the other divisions.