TDC on Assignment in Surprise is No Surprise!

After nearly a five month drought, it was simply awesome to see me some live baseball again. The stadium was in great shape; the field was meticulously shampooed and conditioned for the afternoon game. After finishing my cigar and mint mocha frappé at the spectacularly underrated Paradise Café & Bakery on Bell Road, I joined a few thousand folks who enjoyed the afternoon watching the Rangers play the C-ROX. For all you snowbirds; it was ideal weather with it just touching the ninety mark.

what I liked…

* A fit & trimmer Millwood, occasionally going from 91 to 71 mph, with control, and going 6 innings.

* Nelson Cruz’s new attitude – very confident at the plate, great arm, refreshing hustle! I’m becoming a fan of his, again! (Yes, I gave up on him in late ’07)

* Joaquin Arias at short stop – solid defense, even though a couple of his throws were a bit off line; still needs to add another 25 pounds before he looks like a big leaguer.

* Josh being his old self at the plate, with a big fat contract in the making!

* Jarrod Saltalamacchia’s two doubles, plus his new maturity behind the plate – no longer looks intimidated by the crusty old veterans.

* Boggs’ & Byrd’s hustle, respectively. Wow!

* Murphy hitting a double at his first at bat; very reminiscent of his two-bagger bonanza last season.

* Chris Davis, fabulous – although he's had a slow start this spring, we saw all five tools on display all day long and remain confident! What a stud!

* Who’s Chad Tracy? The guy who hit the grand salami in the bottom of the seventh to break a 4-4 tie, while his dad watched from the other bench!

* Mike Hindman, working out at the kiddy-pool, as he likes to call it, was inspirational! Other than just a couple of minutes in the late afternoon, I didn't see him in the press box at all! In the morning, the Mighty MJH was working the backfields; keeping his eye on the Rangers’ up & comers. Then back there again in the afternoon (sunburned to prove it), watching Perez, Main, Beltré & others, just to keep us up to date with their progress. Mike works hard for us Ranger fans, and his reviews and fan-base over at InsideCorner.com speak for themselves. MJH is certainly in the zone when he’s covering the minors.

* Maddux in, Conner out! Keep Mark away from those pitchers!

* CJ working a strong inning.

what I didn’t like…

* Josh crashing into the center field wall - pretty sure the wall will be ok!

* Kinsler trotting to first on a couple of infield groundouts. [Whisper to Ian: "Dude, I don’t ever remember seeing you trot to first, EVER! Play like you mean it; that’s why we luv ya!"]

* Andruw Jones playing at all! What the hell are y’all thinking?? In spite of all the other reports, I say he is absolutely positively out the door before opening day, so why are we burning up playing time? Get the younger guys in the game and let them log some hours with the big dogs, dammit! Didn’t we learn our lesson with Sosa? I don’t know what kind of indecisive dance the TR brass is doing with Jones, but they should knock it off right now and quit wasting time.

* Although a respectable 6 innings, Millwood’s still not back to his ‘A’ game.

Honorable mention…

* Home run bombs from the C-ROX's Matt Murton, in the sixth inning and Joe Koshanksky in the seventh. Keep your eye on these two during the season. Both of these HR’s were flirting with 500 feet! Wow wow!

Final --> Rangers 8, Rockies 4

Rangers to date; 14-9

Sunday; Luis Menoza against the LA Dodgers.

ChopperJim

Copyright © 2009 ChopperJim All rights reserved.

Without perspective, this would be a big deal!

Have you noticed, with the economic times being what they are, words like billion and trillion have lost their impact? Let’s face it, we have a number of alarming issues in front of us, and if you’ll forgive the cliché, ‘difficult waters to navigate’ in our days to come. Even with that perspective, this is not a good month and I’m pissed!

It happened again! The frick’n Baseball Writers' Association of America (BBWAA) has snubbed me. This is eerily similar to what they did to Rob Neyer and Keith Law of ESPN, when they were not approved in December of 2007. However, being in good company doesn’t make the hurt go away. In fact, I continue to wonder aloud, ‘who the hell do they think they are?’ This is so distracting! All I want to do is resolve to focus on baseball and the first class sports journalism you’ve come to expect here at TDC, yet I remain distraught & riddled with panic! What can I do?

Hmmm, maybe there is a way to appeal? I suppose a petition package could be put together and presented to the BBWAA’s DFW Chapter Chairperson. I'm not going to say his name, but his initials are EG. I could ask Evan, errr, I mean EG, to carry it forward on my behalf to the BBWAA’s national executive staff for their review. But then I’m torn whether that would work or not?!? On one hand, why would the BBWAA chairperson, a local beat writer/blogger himself, give his accomplished and gifted competitor a leg up? Then again, I don’t mean to brag, but I know someone who knows someone who knows EG. Baseball in general is a close-knit community, and in large part, it’s plainly incestuous. In fact, the conditions are ripe for a few favors to be tossed around, grease a few palms, drop a few compromising photos and they’ll see things my way real fast. Yea, that’s it! That’s the plan! I could…

Listen to me!?!?! I have met the enemy and he is me! It’s time to reflect on the wisdom of Lord Acton; "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." Am I a bad man? Do I have to sell my soul, simply to gain entry to the stink’n BBWAA? Is this an obvious example of what happens when greed and ambition get out of control, and how it can make a person twist in the wind? Am I out of control? When dirty politicking rears its ugly head in this game of sports journalism - it makes me nutty crazy.

Now, although I am obviously ashamed of myself, this is not about my ego being hurt, like it was when I was cold-shouldered by the cool kids in high school. This is a big deal though. It’s huge when you consider the global cascading effect and the eventual impact it has on you, the TDC fan(s). For example, without a press pass, I’ll have to pay to get in the stadiums!! Consequently, I’ll have to manage that expense by increasing the subscription rates here at TDC. See?? This sucks for you too! Maybe I should just close up shop and not write about baseball ever again!?!?!

Ok, you know I won’t really do that! Sorry for all the drama, I’m just upset! The reality is, with millions of readers relying on TDC’s topical articles on a daily basis, I have a job to do. On top of that, with the dreadful economic times we’re in, I can’t put all of my employees out on the street and into the unemployment lines; my conscience just won’t allow it. So, this year, like in years past, I’ll continue to be a baseball fan first, a humble journalist second, paying my own way into the games, sitting in the stands with my Dictaphone in hand, so I can spread the good word to you, the loyal TDC fan(s).

So, together, let’s all agree to take the high road and decide right here, right now, to just – let – it – go! It’s time to sing Kumbaya! Besides, I’m not an Old Testament kind-a-guy, where an ‘eye for an eye’ is strictly necessary to maintain a balance in life. Those BBWAA elitists can continue with their lavish lifestyle in the luxurious press boxes, with their free Keystone beer, complimentary hotdogs, gourmet pork rinds and naked prostitutes dancing around!

Thank goodness for wars, famine and a bazillion dollar deficit to help me keep this in perspective.

Peace out, ChopperJim

Copyright © 2009 ChopperJim All rights reserved.

Milton Bradley and the Cubbies - Oh boy, what a bargain!!!

Milton Bradley and the Cubs finally came to an agreement for Milty's first multiyear gig in his 9 years with 7 different teams playing in the big show. Mike Bauman, a national columnist for MLB.com commented in one of his articles the Cubs could use a switch-hitting outfielder. Did he say, "outfielder"?? Did anyone bother to notice that he didn't play in the outfield for even two dozen full games last year? Anyway, let's forget about that for now and get back to; thirty meeeeeel-yon dollars!! Yikes!

Bradley has a lifetime average of 318 AB’s (2867/9) per year, with a standard deviation of 155. Considering he was hired by the Cubs for his offensive abilities, I’m going to ignore defensive contribution. With so few games played last year, that's pretty easy to do! So, $10M/per year, divided by 318 AB’s equals $31,391 per at-bat. Couple that with his lifetime hitting average of .280, that equals $112,113 for each hit! I chose to ignore OPS for this exercise, as well as, the fact he’s 30 and all performance stats will begin to decline. Then let’s realize that it will cost the Cubs around $873,786 for each home run, when you add up his 9 years, 103 total home runs, thus averaging 11.44 home runs per year (standard deviation = 6.95).

Now compare him to Mark Teixeira @ $22,500,000 per year with 6 seasons under his belt and averaging 569 AB's per year. So, we have $39,543 per at-bat; $136,355 per hit (.290 lifetime); $665,025 per home run (that's $208,761 less per home run than Milty).

Ok, I’m done! Thanks for reading – these numbers makes me sick to my stomach! I’ll stop before I get tempted to show that A-Rod, when facing Johan Santana in a New York City subway series game costs the two owners, albeit collectively, pretty close to $100K per at-bat, irrespective of their performance! Yikes again!

So, I leave you with one question; how long will Lou-P put up with Milty's crap? I'll go on the record and say they'll play nice until the early part of May!

ChopperJim

Copyright © 2009 ChopperJim All rights reserved.