Where they stand: Dominican Republic, 5-1; Puerto Rico, 4-2; Mexico, 2-4; Venezuela, 1-5. The Dominican Republic wins the Caribbean Series.
Quick summaries:
Puerto Rico 8, Mexico 2. Jesus Feliciano (Mets) and Angel Sanchez (Boston) each had three hits as Puerto Rico stayed alive in the first of yesterday's two games.
Dominican Republic 7, Venezuela 4. The Dominican Republic scored four in the first and never looked back to clinch the Caribbean Series.
More detail on the final day of the Caribbean Series after the jump.
Bug Holliday (1867)
Don Heffner (1911)
Buddy Blattner (1920)
Willard Marshall (1921)
Hoot Evers (1921)
Joe Black (1924)
Fritz Peterson (1942)
Bob Oliver (1943)
For the second consecutive day, there do not appear to be any players with connections to the Minnesota Twins born on this day.
Since it doesn't look like SBG (or any other Citizen) had something lined up for the big tilt, I'll borrow FTLT's postscript to today's video and run with it. The voice of John Facenda gets me pumped up for football. Jim Nantz and Phil Simms? Not so much.
Consider this your official Super Bowl 40-Something gamelog/dumping ground/ashtray. (If you need a little more Facenda before the big game, this one on Quarterbacks is HOF caliber.)
Tom Daly (1866)
Pat Moran (1876)
Charlie Jamieson (1893)
Earl Whitehill (1899)
Al Smith (1928)
Juan Pizarro (1937)
Burt Hooton (1950)
Benny Ayala (1951)
Dan Quisenberry (1953)
Damaso Garcia (1955)
Carney Lansford (1957)
There do not appear to be any players with connections to the Minnesota Twins born on this day.
Where they stand: Dominican Republic, 4-1; Puerto Rico, 3-2; Mexico, 2-3; Venezuela, 1-4.
Quick summaries:
Dominican Republic 7, Mexico 2. Home runs by Juan Francisco (Cincinnati), Kevin Barker, and Fernando Martinez (Mets) led the Dominican Republic.
Puerto Rico 7, Venezuela 1. Home runs by Jesus Feliciano (Mets) and Danny Valencia led Puerto Rico.
Today's games: Puerto Rico v. Mexico; Dominican Republic v. Venezuela. This is the last day of the series. A Dominican Republic win or a Puerto Rico loss clinches the series for the Dominican Republic. If the teams are tied, there would be a tie-breaker game played Monday.
More detail on the games can be found after the jump.
Where they stand: Dominican Republic, 3-1; Mexico, 2-2; Puerto Rico, 2-2; Venezuela, 1-3.
Quick summaries:
Puerto Rico 7, Dominican Republic 3. Danny Valencia had two hits and drove in three runs to lead Puerto Rico.
Mexico 3, Venezuela 2 (10 innings). An RBI single by Vinny Castilla in the bottom of the tenth drove in the winning run.
Today's games: Mexico v. Dominican Republic; Puerto Rico v. Venezuela. A win by the Dominican Republic and a loss by Puerto Rico would mean that the Dominican Republic had clinched the series.
Recent transactions involving former Minnesota Twins players:
Arizona signes Doug Deeds.
Cincinnati agrees to terms with Orlando Cabrera on a one-year contract.
The Dodgers agree to terms with Ramon Ortiz on a minor-league contract.
Oakland claims Steve Tolleson off waivers.
Philadelphia signs Luis Maza.
Philadelphia places J. C. Romero on the restricted list.
Toronto signs Howie Clark.
Please place any additions or corrections in the comments.
Max Flack (1890)
Roger Peckinpaugh (1891)
Don Hoak (1928) Al Worthington (1929) Hank Aaron (1934) Norm Miller (1946)
Mike Heath (1955)
Roberto Alomar (1968)
Let's see, the Twins took Pavano over Washburn... signed Jim Thome and Orlando Hudson... no Tony Batista, no Livan Hernandez... and the Mauer deal is imminent? We're one Hinske signing from perfection.
So here are the CHONE projections for 2B in 2010. You could break it down in different ways, but I'll try to roughly group them such that players within each group are more or less interchangable.
In Group A, we have Chase Utley at 6.1 WAR. No one is close to him.
In Group B, we have Dustin Pedroia, Ian Kinsler, and Robinson Cano, between 4.2 and 4.7 WAR.
In Group C, we have Zobrist, Hill, Polanco (3B), and Brian Roberts, between 3.3 and 3.8 WAR.
In Group D, we have Kelly Johnson, Dan Uggla, Jose Lopez, and Howie Kendrick, between 2.6 and 3.1 WAR.
Group E gets a lot bigger: Between 1.9 and 2.4 WAR, we have Rickie Weeks, Brandon Phillips, Orlando Hudson, Sean Rodriguez, Felipe Lopez, Martin Prado, Akinori Iwamura, Maicer Izturis, Eric Young, Clint Barmes, and Jayson Nix. Some of those guys are actually backups (the Angels have ridiculous middle infield depth), but I'm sure they're not untouchable and if someone was in need, they could probably trade
Group F, between 1.2 and 1.7 WAR, has Tony Abreu, Tug Hulett, Alberto Callaspo, Skip Schumaker, Mark Ellis, Luis Valbuena, Chris Getz, Jamie Carroll, Ryan Roberts, Mike Fontenot, and Luis Castillo.
And then there are even more players lower than that.
Essentially, we've got about 11 players above Orlando Hudson, about 10 players roughly interchangeable with Hudson, and about 10 players one notch below Hudson. I think this mostly explains why the market for Hudson has been pretty soft--Hudson is solid, but not so good that you couldn't get a close replacement on the cheap. If you go the cheap route, you're probably going to take a 0.5-1.0 WAR hit, but you can use that money elsewhere. And you could certainly wiggle the defensive numbers around somewhat to get a slightly different view, but I don't think that the big picture changes much. Hudson looks like he'd be a good acquisition for the Twins because the Twins have pretty awful middle infield depth:
2.5 WAR -- Hardy
0.7 WAR -- Punto*
0.2 WAR -- Tolbert
0.1 WAR -- Casilla
-0.4 WAR -- Plouffe**
*Not to jump the gun on Punto Day, but at that value, he'd have been worth roughly $8M over 2009-2010 by fangraphs' valuation. His contract's obviously not a huge bargain, but the Twins have beans for middle infield depth, so I guess I don't mind reaching a little bit in an area of weakness.
**That's at SS with a -12 runs below SS rating. If he's an average-fielding SS, CHONE would have him pegged at about 0.8 WAR.
Daring to dream and inserting Hudson into that list gives the Twins two legitimately league average players in the middle infield, relegating Punto and Tolbert to the bench, which gives the Twins reasonable options should Hardy or Hudson get injured or slump badly.
2.5 WAR -- Hardy
2.2 WAR -- Hudson
0.7 WAR -- Punto*
0.2 WAR -- Tolbert
0.1 WAR -- Casilla
-0.4 WAR -- Plouffe**
For comparison, in 2009 Punto/Cabrera/Tolbert/Casilla combined for 0.1 WAR.
Where they stand: Dominican Republic, 2-0; Mexico, 1-1; Venezuela, 1-1; Puerto Rico, 0-2.
Quick summaries:
Dominican Republic 7, Mexico 1. The Dominican Republic scored four in the first and never looked back. Nelson Figueroa (Mets) pitched a complete game for the victory.
Venezuela 5, Puerto Rico 2. Raul Padron homered and drove in three runs to lead Venezuela.
Today's schedule: Mexico v. Puerto Rico; Venezuela v. Dominican Republic.
Germany Schaefer (1876)
Bill Rariden (1888)
Possum Whitted (1890)
Eddie Ainsmith (1890)
Joe Sparma (1942) Steve Brye (1949) Rob Picciolo (1953) Rusty Kuntz (1955) Chris Bando (1956)
Dan Plesac (1962)
Chris Coste (1973) Ben Hendrickson (1981)
Over the next three weeks I'll be bringing this run of Blue Monday to a close. What started out as a week's worth of interesting blues videos has sprawled into three months of Mondays (and I haven't even shown some of the videos I had originally selected). It's been fun sharing my enthusiasm for blues with the Nation, and I hope you've enjoyed some of these videos as much as I do.
This week's videos were shot at or near the famous Maxwell Street Market in Chicago, the very heart of the Chicago blues scene. Both were filmed in 1964 for the movie And This Is Free (which I have not seen in its entirety). If you pay attention to the kids in the Chicken Man video, at around 1:10 a boy in the background starts singing Bo Diddley's eponymous #1 hit, which makes me wonder if the footage isn't a bit older than 1964. Bo Diddley, of course, was a huge figure on the Chicago blues scene himself, and recorded for the Windy City's famous Chess Records label. The Chicken Man is after the jump.
nibbish wrote: The first two or three times, I had a little thrill... after that, it started to become something like "just how badly do I want to associate this song with the NFL?"
Dread Pirate Will Young wrote: Agreed, that would be spectacular. At this point, I've got to think AC/DC will be one of the next couple of years.
freealonzo wrote: Flaming Lips would be awesome. We'd be talking about that show for ages.
cheaptoy wrote: Well, right now they're working as "Heaven and Hell" with Dio, so that idea probably wouldn't fly with anyone trying to make money.
Milt on Tilt wrote: The two most adorable hours in the year.
I've actually set my DVR for the Westminster Dog Show next week too. I'm a sucker.
AMR wrote: cheaptoy being here makes me think...
Black Sabbath
UncleWalt wrote: But when would we watch the Puppy Bowl? I actually missed the onside kick watching the little buggers.
UncleWalt wrote: Yeah. I'm almost sick of it. While watching Reggie jump in slow mo for the fourth or fifth time, a friend, who doesn't watch a lot of football, asked, "Wait. Did that really happen?"
Algonad wrote: Somebody will have to paste a Calvin with a Twins hat urinating on the statue once we get a photo of it. In fact, I think I'd make that my new Avatar!
brianS wrote: Mauer's splits for 2009:
As L to Left: .503 AVG .500 OBP .899 SLG .593 wOBA .396 ISO .448 BABIP
As L to Cent: .443 AVG .434 OBP .631 SLG .456 wOBA .188 ISO .415 BABIP
As…
brianS wrote: the better for the pigeons to poop on.
New Britain Bo wrote: So it's not OK for Janet J. to unleash some boob, but Pete Townsend can flip his gut out there? Not fair. Just sayin.
Zack wrote: I'll go back and add people later, I don't turn on my PS3 often. But I'll be more than happy to play some games of The Show with you all! My PSN ID is ZackMoney.
E-6 wrote: Heh. I hate to encourage vandalism, but it wouldn't bother me if Selig's shrine met a similar fate.
frightwig wrote: Or else this should be the sculptor's model:
This also is a laugh...
"The Brewers and Miller Park are in this city because of the commissioner's vision and dedicated efforts," Attanasio said Monday.
He bought another city's team…
cheaptoy wrote: That's what I was trying to get at in my response, but I was, sadly, unable to do it as wittily as it sounded in my head.
E-6 wrote: Bud Selig to be honored with statue outside Miller Park.
UncleWalt wrote: Even though my iPod is distressingly overly populated by … I still really enjoy listening to the album on which this song was recorded. Nice choice.
February 8, 2010, at 5:50 am 
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Recent Letters to the Editor
In Response to Happy Birthday--February 8,
E-6 wrote: Bug Holiday? I thought that was the Fourth of July.
In Response to I Figure If This Doesn't Pump You Up For Football--Nothing Will,
nibbish wrote: The first two or three times, I had a little thrill... after that, it started to become something like "just how badly do I want to associate this song with the NFL?"
Dread Pirate Will Young wrote: Agreed, that would be spectacular. At this point, I've got to think AC/DC will be one of the next couple of years.
freealonzo wrote: Flaming Lips would be awesome. We'd be talking about that show for ages.
cheaptoy wrote: Well, right now they're working as "Heaven and Hell" with Dio, so that idea probably wouldn't fly with anyone trying to make money.
Milt on Tilt wrote: The two most adorable hours in the year. I've actually set my DVR for the Westminster Dog Show next week too. I'm a sucker.
AMR wrote: cheaptoy being here makes me think... Black Sabbath
UncleWalt wrote: But when would we watch the Puppy Bowl? I actually missed the onside kick watching the little buggers.
UncleWalt wrote: Yeah. I'm almost sick of it. While watching Reggie jump in slow mo for the fourth or fifth time, a friend, who doesn't watch a lot of football, asked, "Wait. Did that really happen?"
cheaptoy wrote: I'm with Jeff A.
Milt on Tilt wrote: But who will sponsor that?
In Response to Cup of Coffee: February 8, 2010,
Algonad wrote: Somebody will have to paste a Calvin with a Twins hat urinating on the statue once we get a photo of it. In fact, I think I'd make that my new Avatar!
frightwig wrote: Well, now you've both talked me into it.
brianS wrote: Mauer's splits for 2009: As L to Left: .503 AVG .500 OBP .899 SLG .593 wOBA .396 ISO .448 BABIP As L to Cent: .443 AVG .434 OBP .631 SLG .456 wOBA .188 ISO .415 BABIP As…
brianS wrote: the better for the pigeons to poop on.
New Britain Bo wrote: So it's not OK for Janet J. to unleash some boob, but Pete Townsend can flip his gut out there? Not fair. Just sayin.
Zack wrote: I'll go back and add people later, I don't turn on my PS3 often. But I'll be more than happy to play some games of The Show with you all! My PSN ID is ZackMoney.
E-6 wrote: Heh. I hate to encourage vandalism, but it wouldn't bother me if Selig's shrine met a similar fate.
frightwig wrote: Or else this should be the sculptor's model: This also is a laugh... "The Brewers and Miller Park are in this city because of the commissioner's vision and dedicated efforts," Attanasio said Monday. He bought another city's team…
cheaptoy wrote: That's what I was trying to get at in my response, but I was, sadly, unable to do it as wittily as it sounded in my head.
E-6 wrote: Bud Selig to be honored with statue outside Miller Park.
In Response to Robert Nighthawk - Goin' Down to Eli's + the Maxwell Street Chicken Man,
E-6 wrote: Now that's the stuff.
In Response to Happy Birthday--February 7,
E-6 wrote: Your wife should try and get a gig here.
SBG wrote: Yep. It was on the river, but not on the river that separates the states.
In Response to A.A. Bondy - American Hearts,
UncleWalt wrote: Even though my iPod is distressingly overly populated by … I still really enjoy listening to the album on which this song was recorded. Nice choice.