It’s Inter vs. Bayern

By Blaidd Drwg

For the Champions League final after Inter advanced on a 3-2 aggregate over Barca despite losing today 1-0 and Bayern advancing after crushing Lyon in the other semi-final.

I only got to see the last 15 minutes of the Inter-Barca game and it was a hell of a match. I still think that the goal that Barca scored late in the game was a offside, but Inter still managed to ward off a tremendous onslaught, down a man for most of the game, against arguably the most talented club in the world.

The Finals on May 22nd should be interesting. My prediction – Inter on top 2-1.

Peter Reinhart On Bread

by Coltrane

Peter Reinhart gave a highly entaining and informative class on bread, April 17 at Sur La Table in Kirkland. He signed copies of his new book “Artisan Breads Everyday.” (As well as many of his other books.)

During the class he referenced this 15-minute clip on Ted.com.

Here’s his “stretch and fold technique” on Youtube, and this is his “Shaping a Boule” (French Bread) technique. Both were presented during the class at Sur La Table.

It’s not a Peter Reinhart post without reference to the Bread Baker’s Apprentice. If you’re at all interested in baking bread, buy the book. You won’t be disappointed.

And thanks to Peter for such a funny and engaging class.

Sorry, I Couldn’t Resist…

By Blaidd Drwg

I would be remiss in my duties if I did not make a comment on another nostolgic Griffey piece of peplum from last week, this time from Steve Kelley of the Times. Some of the comments from both Griffey and Wak make me think that they are sharing the same delusion about the rapidly declining skills that Griffey has. Note to Griffey, Wak, Z and all the Griffey defenders – this is not 1999 anymore. Griffey is a shadow of his former self and needs to put his ego aside, announce he is retiring at the end of the season and take the role as bench player/cheerleader that he seems most suited for at this point in his career.

Some wonderful gems from the piece:

“So Griffey takes pitches. Lots of pitches. He works the count the way manager Don Wakamatsu preaches to all of his players. He waits for that one pitch in his at-bat that he can work with. The Mariners’ offensive strategy is simple. Make the starting pitcher throw dozens of pitches in the early innings. Wear him down. Get “the horse” out of the game early. Get into the bullpen fast.

Griffey fits that philosophy and that plate patience is one of the reasons the Mariners re-signed him for his 22nd big-league season.”

I am not sure where this notion comes from – Griffey sees 3.88 pitcher per plate appearance, which is almost exactly league average and slightly below the team average of 3.92. He is also not particularly patient – he swings at 44% of the pitches he faces, which is league average and it is also one of the highest percentages in the Mariners lineup (and highest % for him since 2006) – even higher than Ichiro and only outdone by Milton Bradley (which is surprising considering he is a patient hitter) and our favorite hackers Jose Lopez and Jack Wilson. Griffey also swings at 30% of the first pitches he gets, with only Bradley swinging at more. Sorry Mr. Kelly – the numbers don’t show what you are saying.

The Mariners offensive strategy may be to get pitchers out of the game early, but they aren’t really doing it. They are just about league average in their opponents starters appearance lengths – just over 6 innings and 99 pitches per start, about what you would expect from a starting pitcher in April. There have only been 5 of 19 games in which the opponents’ starter failed to last 6 innings this season and there have been 8 times where the opponents starter has pitched at least 7 full innings in a game against the M’s. Need to work on that Wak.

My favorite quote from Griffey:

“I’m not going to get the 2-0 fastball. I understand that,” he said, walking toward the field to take batting practice. “I have to be selective, wait for a pitch that’s over the plate that I can hit, whether it’s a changeup, or curveball.”

Here is what Griffey has faced this season:

Pitch Type	% of Pitches (2010)	% of Pitches (2009)
Fastball	63.8%	64.2%
Cutter/Splitter	9.0%	8.0%
Slider	6.4%	7.7%
Curve	10.6%	9.2%
Change	10.1%	9.9%

The percentages of what he is seeing really haven’t changed – he sees roughly 72% fastballs, and 17% breaking stuff.

Teams aren’t afraid of him anymore – he is swinging at 22.3% of his pitches outside the zone (as opposed 20.6% over the last 8 seasons), making less contact with pitches in the zone at 82% this year (87.8% over the last 8 seasons) and missing a lot more – 10.3% of his swings. Even if you don’t believe the numbers – if you watched the end of the M’s game yesterday, you could see if for your self. Bobby Jenks threw Griffey 3 pitches – a 94 MPH Fastball that Griffey took, a 95 MPH fastball that Griffey was way behind on and fouled off and a 96 MPH fastball down the heart of the plate that Griffey came no where close to hitting. There were your fastballs, Junior, why didn’t you hit them?

If Griffey Makes the All-Star Team as a Starter…

By Blaidd Drwg

…I am no longer watching a baseball game involving him. It is bad enough that you have the Mariners asking fans to vote for him, but you also have this moron who created a site to encourage fans to vote for him. Folks, he ranks dead last in production among AL DH. He doesn’t deserve to be at the game unless he buys a ticket. From the aforementioned Vote for Junior Website:

Goals:

1. Vote Ken Griffey, Jr. into the AL’s starting lineup for the 2010 All-Star Game in Anaheim.

2. Once that happens, get him back in the Home Run Derby.

As much trouble as I have with the logic defying voting Griffey as a starter goal, the suggestion that a guy with 1 extra base hit over the first 19 games of the season even being considered for the HR derby causes this guy to lose all credibility.

I realize that All-Star voting is a joke and a popularity contest, but generally the fans come close to getting it right. A couple years ago, someone floated a proposal to have 1 honorary spot on each team reserved for a retiring player. They would participate in the pre-game and get a nice ovation, but would not actively play in the game. That is the kind of thing I would be happy to see for Griffey, assuming that he actually realized it was time to call it quits. Otherwise, the only worse selection I can think of for an AS game would be this one in 2008 – and it was made by a Manager.

I say, if you want to vote for someone, vote for the guy who actually deserves it – Adam Lind.

A Note to the Mariners

By Blaidd Drwg

Dear Wak and Z,
It is time to end the ridiculous experiment at DH you have with your Griffey/Sweeney Platoon. Neither Griffey or Sweeney looks like they can hit their way out of a paper bag and yet you insist on playing one of them daily and hitting them high up in the lineup. It is time to release Sweeney and offer him a coaching position if you want his “character” in the clubhouse and to put Griffey on the bench as a PH and occasional DH – he is washed up and everyone who pays attention, including your opponents, has figured it out. Nostalgia is nice, but not if you want to compete for the division. Once this is done, you can move Bradley to DH and call up Mike Saunders and put him in LF. Let’s face it you need to do something to wake up this anemic offense and Saunders can’t possibly be worse than the 500 OPS that your excuse for the DH position has put up.

Signed,
A Disgusted M’s season ticket holder

Running on the Red Sox – Part 2

By Blaidd Drwg

I didn’t get a chance to finish the last post due to technical issues, but there are several disturbing trends with the Sox catchers – in general, their ability to throw out runners with Wakefield on the mound is shaky at best, teams realize that it is easy to run against Wake, and there is a very disturbing trend downward in Varitek’s throwing abilities.

I didn’t understand the Sox resigning Tek – he can’t hit and he can’t throw anymore which generally makes him a paperweight on the bench. The Sox seem to have the same fascination with Wakefield – he isn’t particularly effective anymore and he seems to give teams more scoring opportunities by letting them run against him, but, thankfully, it looks like he will be heading to the pen when Matsuzaka comes off the DL. There is probably only one way to improve on the ability to throw runners out – go get a catcher who can actually do it.

Running on the Red Sox

By Blaidd Drwg

The 9 stolen base disaster the other day got me thinking – I always heard that the Sox, and Jason Varitek in particular, were easy to run against, so I thought I would take a look at just how easy it is to steal against them. The following chart represents the numbers for all Sox catchers over the last 16 seasons. Generally, all of the Sox catchers have been below average to terrible.

Year	SBA	CS	PCT CS	Rank	League Avg	MGR	Catcher(s)
2010	36	1	3%	29	25%	Francona	Martinez, Varitek
2009	151	23	13%	30	28%	Francona	Varitek, Kottaras
2008	96	32	25%	21	27%	Francona	Varitek, Cash
2007	107	32	23%	19	26%	Francona	Varitek, Mirabelli
2006	108	23	18%	29	29%	Francona	Varitek, Mirabelli
2005	87	29	25%	21	29%	Francona	Varitek, Mirabelli
2004	123	31	20%	30	30%	Little	Varitek, Mirabelli
2003	101	35	26%	26	31%	Little	Varitek, Mirabelli
2002	118	50	30%	20	32%	Little	Varitek, Mirabelli
2001	223	51	19%	30	31%	Williams/Kerrigan	Hatteberg, Varitek
2000	159	47	23%	28	31%	Williams	Varitek, Hatteberg
1999	159	58	27%	25	31%	Williams	Varitek, Hatteberg
1998	132	58	31%	18	31%	Williams	Hatteberg, Varitek
1997	171	53	24%	29	32%	Williams	Hatteberg,Haselman
1996	147	36	20%	29	29%	Kennedy	Stanley,Haselman
1995	80	41	34%	10	30%	Kennedy	MacFarlane,Haselman
1994	98	38	28%	23	31%	Hobson	Berryhill, Rowland

A couple notes about the chart – the League Avg column represents the percentage of baserunners thrown out in all of baseball for a particular year and the Catchers column has the starting catcher listed first (by number of games caught) and the primary backup catcher listed second. Notice the trend down in SB CS % – I keep hearing that teams are being more selective about the places they are choosing to steal (unless you are the Mariners this season) and those numbers seem to indicate that. I was surprised that the Sox were 29th this season in CS % with teams running all over them (the next most attempts against a single team is 18). The Nationals are last with a 0% CS rate, although their opponents have only attempted 6 SB against them, so for the purposes of this exercise, I feel pretty confident saying the Sox have the easiest battery to run against. This chart makes one thing obvious – historically, the Sox are generally in the bottom third of the league in throwing guys out. Really makes me wonder how many runs this has cost them over the years. So, where does the problem lie? Is it Varitek, is it the other catchers, is it the pitcher, manager or some combination of them. Here is the chart of Jason Varitek vs. the other catchers. In most of these seasons, the other catcher represent the battery of Wakefield and the catcher who is not Varitek.

	Other Catchers			Varitek
Year	SBA	CS	CS PCT	SBA	CS	CS PCT
2010	25	1	4%	11	0	0%
2009	43	7	14%	108	16	13%
2008	30	16	35%	56	16	22%
2007	44	12	21%	63	20	24%
2006	62	10	14%	46	13	22%
2005	22	8	27%	65	21	24%
2004	46	8	15%	77	23	23%
2003	40	12	23%	61	23	27%
2002	37	19	51%	81	31	28%
2001	172	33	16%	51	18	26%
2000	55	13	19%	104	34	25%
1999	35	12	25%	124	46	27%
1998	83	39	32%	49	19	28%

Food Humor

By Iron Chef Leftovers

Posted this evening on Facebook by author and sometimes comedian Trevor Corson:

Ran out of gum. Looked in the cupboard for something to chew. Now freshening up my breath with a piece of dried pollock. Is it sustainable? Who knows, it’s probably been dead since 1950.

I guess I expect this from someone who wrote a book about lobster sex. My comment- “The better question is what were you doing with dried pollock in your cupboard?”

The 2010 NFL Draft

by Coltrane

The NFL Draft has a new format this year: Round 1 is today at 4:30, Rounds 2 and 3 are tomorrow starting at 3:00, and Rounds 4-7 are on Saturday starting at 10:00 am. All times pst.

An interesting subplot will be to see who goes first– Colt McCoy or Tim Tebow. One mock draft has McCoy at #38 and Tebow at #41. I won’t be shocked if either of them go in the first round instead.

Seahawks picks:

Round 1: #6

Round 1: #14

Round 2: #28 (60th overall)

Round 4: #6 (104th overall)

Round 4: #29 (127th overall)

And some other stuff in later rounds that will be lucky to make the roster.

Waiting For The Other Shoe

by Coltrane

The Seahawks have the 6th and 14th picks in the 2010 NFL draft. This is a deep draft, and it’s deep for offensive and defensive linemen in particular. Having said that, the Seahawks should draft the best available lineman with both first round picks. This is the type of draft where the Seahawks could get their next Walter Jones and/or their next Cortez Kennedy, so long as they don’t blow the picks on skill-position players.

Bill Simmons sums up my concerns about the Seahawks draft (and Pete Carroll) on ESPN.com. He’s referencing the 6th pick:

On Monday’s B.S. Report, Mike Lombardi compared this spot to playing pool: The Seahawks also pick 14th, so they want to make this “shot,” then have the cue ball bounce to a spot where they’ll have another easy shot. This analogy works splendidly unless it’s 2 a.m. and you have some chain-smoking drunk dude trying to pull it off. And I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Pete Carroll might be the chain-smoking drunk dude.

I found it perplexing that Seattle handed the coaching/front-office car keys to Carroll this past winter for two reasons. First, it’s always weird when NFL teams pay huge money to lure successful college coaches when the jobs are so fundamentally different. It’s the distant cousin of Hollywood’s allowing star actors to direct (with a similar track record of success). So you excelled at a job that’s 75 percent recruiting and 25 percent strategy, you’ve been basically playing the “Pro” level of “Madden” and now we’re asking you to jump to “All-Madden” without a safety net, and you have no feel for the other 31 NFL rosters because you haven’t been following our league at all. This should work great!

Second, Carroll became the Patriots’ coach the same year I launched my http://www.bostonsportsguy.com website. He did such a dreadful job that a reader once e-mailed me, “Pete Carroll answers the question of why Fredo was never given control of the Corleone family,” followed by my immediately nicknaming Carroll “Coach Fredo” for the rest of his tenure. As it turned out, the comparison was an insult to Fredo. It took Carroll two years to destroy a Super Bowl team, and after he left, it took the Patriots two years to win a Super Bowl. You couldn’t do worse. Even Fredo has “banged two cocktail waitresses” on his résumé.

Now, this was a good 10-plus years ago, and I was smoking a ton of pot back then, but I specifically remember thinking to myself in 1999, “Pete Carroll is definitely not meant to coach professional football or pick the players.” I didn’t think Carroll was meant to coach football, period. His USC experience revealed that he’s meant to recruit 18-year-olds, hop around on the sideline, pump his fists, do the rah-rah routine, design fun defenses and give likable news conferences. We already saw this routine in the NFL: His name was Herm Edwards. It’s not going to work.

That’s a much longer quote than usual, but parsing it out wouldn’t make as much sense. There is no “quick fix” that’s going to make the Seahawks a Super Bowl contender. Drafting someone like RB C.J. Spiller or QB Jimmy Clausen would be a flashy pick, and the fans would love it, but it would putting the cart before the horse. That’s not how to rebuild an NFL franchise. Especially with the new-look Seahawks.

The new Seahawks are going to require agile offensive linemen. Offensive line coach Alex Gibbs likes mobile guys that dive into the defenders’ knees. Rob Sims didn’t fit that type, so he’s now with the Lions. Personally, I find Alex Gibbs’ tactics repulsive, but that’s a subject for another post.

If Safety Eric Berry drops to 6th then the Seahawks have to take him. Otherwise hopefully it’ll be Big Guys all the way.