Checking in on Tuesday Morning
Posted by SBG on Tuesday, November 28th, 2006 at 8:49 am
I'm not exactly inspired these days on the WGOM front. I've got a few irons in the fire, but I thought I'd check in.
The Wolves lost in Dallas, but made a huge fourth quarter push to get back in the game. They were down 20 in this game but tied it up with about two minutes to play. Once again, Randy Foye was the big reason why, but down the stretch he turned back into a rookie, taking every shot and hogging the ball. Oh well, he'll learn that when KG runs a pick and rolls to the bucket that he might be able to score, too. It was a moral victory, and in the NBA, that counts as a loss.
Watching Foye play and McCants last year should be a stark demonstration of how much that Joe Smith fiasco hurt. The T-Wolves have gotten nothing from the draft for years (and then they passed on Josh Howard for Ndudi Ebi). Guys like Mike James come expensive. And Foye already looks better than James. The Wolves have missed out horribly. Irony of ironies: they haven't gotten anything for years from the draft and this year they seemed to have gotten two players in Foye and Craig Smith. That's how teams succeed, by drafting well -- and finding a nugget in the second round every once in a while.
A while back, the transmission in my vehicle went out. I was driving it and it seemed like it was missing a gear (and it was). $2400 later, I got a week of driving before it failed completely last Wednesday as I was driving to work. It's still being fixed (under warranty this time), so Lucy has been driving me to work so that she can have a vehicle to do her various errands.
What's on your mind?
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Is it permissible to ask what kind of vehicle SBG drives?
Explorer. Notorious for transmission problems.
As are most vehicles that use Ford transmissions. Let me guess - was it a fluid/filter issue that caused the problems?
No, they said the fluid was in decent shape.
Well, that's a start. At one point Ford was turning out automatic transmissions with an internal filter that could not be changed. No matter if you put in new fluid or not, the thing was still a ticking bomb.
Sorry you're having vehicle woes.
The second time around was due to an error by the transmission place. I'm hopeful that everything is good now.
The T-Wolves have gotten nothing from the draft for years (and then they passed on Josh Howard for Ndudi Ebi).
Amen. I can see where the league would want to keep under-the-table deals under control, but I don't really know that the punishment fit the crime in this case. The Wolves paid a ridiculously huge penalty for that particular transgression.
David Dellucci has remarkably similar OPS splits as Jacque Jones, except that Dellucci has a more patient approach. Having Dellucci in the division isn't going to make our lives any easier.
Fun fact!
.238 -- isolated slugging of Justin Morneau, AL MVP, 2006
.230 -- isolated slugging vs. RHP of David Dellucci, $4M/year player, 2006
I'm certainly glad that we'll have Dennys "Million Dollar Man" Reyes around to help neutralize him in high leverage situations, but I'm not looking forward to watching him rake Mr. Silva.
Dellucci's OPS numbers the last 5 years
year age obp/slg vs Righties
2002 28 326/402 346/436
2003 29 313/352 332/376
2004 30 342/441 354/472
2005 31 367/513 369/525
2006 32 369/530 375/529
Funny how a guy who had never hit more than 10 HRs in a season prior to age 30 suddenly discovers a power stroke the last three seasons. But he's been a pretty consistent on-base guy to platoon against righties, juiced or not.
Surely playing in Texas and Philly for the last three years has inflated his numbers some, so the comparison to Morneau is a bit of hyperbole, but I suppose it's also worth noting that before 2004, he only once (his age 24 season) had as many as 250 AB in one season, so there's some SSST going on. And I'm not sure if there's any injury history going on there, either.
He is below-average at getting hits, average at getting on base and average slugging, all thanks to a strong platoon usage (208/272/315 in only 321 career PA against lefties, but 271/359/468 in 2297 PA against righties). The last two seasons, in particular, his SLG has been anomalously high.
In 2005, the Texas stadium didn't help him much. He slugged 485 at home -- well above his career average -- but a ridiculous (for him) 545 on the road (15 of his 29 HRs and 12 of his 17 doubles). In Philly this year, his home/away SLG split was 555/507. So I'd say he's been on quite the power jag the last two seasons, albeit in part-time duty.
Is Eric Wedge a platoon man, or is he gonna let Dellucci hack away at lefties like Gardy and Dusty did with Jacque?
I'm pretty sure he's a platoon guy. The Mariners traded for both halves of "Benuardo" (Ben Broussard and Eduardo Perez) last year, and I'm pretty sure that before they arrived in Seattle they were platooning in Cleveland. And Jason Michaels, while not dynamite against LHP, offers a pretty reasonable second half of a corner OF platoon with Dellucci.
I don't know that much about Delucci's defense, but if it's good enough, it could be reasonable to keep him in the lineup against a LH starter, as long as you move him down in the order and are willing to pinch-hit for him in key spots. Heck, if Gardy had done that with Jacque, I would've been thrilled to death, relatively speaking.
I'm curious to see what Sweet Lou is going to do with Jacque in the Windy City, provided that Jacque maintains his residence there. I've even heard whispers that Jacque might wind up moving to CF. His arm is definitely more of a liability there, and as a CF he'd have average range, but he's got a decent bat, overall, for a CF. If Soriano runs decent routes at all (I really have no idea on t his), he's apparently got a very strong arm, so the natural set-up in that case would seem to be putting Jones in LF (where the arm won't hurt you as much) and Soriano in CF. OR, if both of those guys wind up on the corners, putting Jacque in LF and Soriano in RF would seem to be a good solution, given the parts on hand.
Everything I've read about Dellucci indicates he's steady in the outfield - not a defensive stud, but perhaps a bit above average. I don't have stats to back that up, just scouting reports I've read.
I'd forgotten about Broussard. Looking it up on bas-ref, Big Ben has only had 368 career PA against LHP, compared to 1636 against RHP. The OPS dropoff is severe - .815 vs RHP, .693 vs LHP. Given that Broussard's career largely coincides to the Eric Wedge era in Cleveland (only 112 AB before Wedge took over in 2003), I'd guess this is one indication that Wedge is platoon-savvy.
I'm also curious to see what Lou does. One problem with moving both Soriano and Jacque to the corners is Matt Murton. Murton's got the same problem as Jacque - an average arm at best. He's got good speed, which may or may not translate to him having good outfield range, but I doubt the Cubs move him to center.
My money is on Soriano moving there. I would say that it's in his best interest, value-wise, but he's got that mega-contract with eight years. Unless Hendry was dumb enough to give him an out clause similar to Aramis Ramirez, I guess that scenario can be removed from contention.
In the end, I wonder if Jacque isn't on the outs in Chicago. He's not exactly a fan favorite, and if the Cubs could land a decent CF in return, I think they'd have upgraded their situation in the outfield.
Then again, once you've paid $136 million to Soriano, do you really want to go out and drop another $40 million or so on Dave Roberts?
Ben Wallace, Headband Man: "If you know the rules and break them, you expect to be punished. I can't try to put myself above the team or anybody else and wear a headband like I did. I'm man enough to take the punishment. But I'm not sorry."
Is this not the most moronic dispute in recent history? Why the hell Skiles would care about a player wearing a headband and why the hell Ben Wallace wouldn't find a way to get along with his coach -- both just escape me.
Well, Big Ben may just be a big old malcontent. On his way out of Detroit, he ripped our boy Flip. But, Flip's a walkin the park compared to Skiles. Personally, I want to see Ben in the headband, full-fro mode.
What if he actually has a hard time seeing through his forehead sweat?
I think you're missing the point, AMR. No one's bigger than the team--even guys with sweaty foreheads. Conformity wins championships. They've made movies and stuff about it.
Maybe the coach should demand everyone wear headbands, in solidarity with sweaty-forheaded Ben. Like when a high-schooler gets Leukemia and all his teammates shave their heads in solidarity with the chemo patient, only not as touching.
Plus, the mandatory headbands could be in the team colors or even have the team name or logo on them to really develop a sense of team pride. We are the Bulls! If you doubt it, just look at our headbands!
Hey, if the Yankees and Joe Girardi can mandate that everyone on the team be clean-shaven, could a team mandate that no one on the team shave more than weekly? Like, after he retires, when Manny Ramirez is a manager, could he dictate that everyone on the team look like they just woke up? (Dustin Hermanson would have to be his pitching coach.)
I take it all back, AMR, you totally get the point! Headbands for all and all for headbands!
I am signing on for season tickets to any team that ManRam gets to manage. That would be cool....
+10 to AMR just for the Mannyger idea.
The sweat, it stings and burns!
Dickie V. is announcing the Duke-IU game right now. I was excited because just got the surround sound set up in my house, but now I've got Vitale coming at me from all directions.
On the side - I can't believe I'm only at 114 comments. I'll have to get on that. I suppose not being able to comment on the game threads would account for some of that lack. Stupid Des Moines not having FSN North.
This game is killing me. IU is playing like a intramural team made up of chemistry majors.
Watch it. Moss was a chem major and could play a little IM basketball. (Granted, even though Moss is taller than most, Moss couldn't handle McRoberts.)
When I said that I was thinking specifically of a team here at Drake (8 Block Couch, if you care). I hate reffing their games. They're all terrible. Chem majors who could to 4 significant digits describe the physics of basketball, but can't successfully dribble more than 3 steps without traveling. And of course, no offense is ever meant towards Moss.
I'm the first to admit that understanding physics and performing physical activities are two nearly entirely unrelated things.
I didn't know there was another Drake person. I graduated from there 12 years ago.
Yep, I'm graduating this May. Also, I've been meaning to ask about the origin of your name. Any connection to Algona, Iowa?