Repeating the Triple Crown

By Blaidd Drwg

Miguel Cabrera currently leads the American League in batting average (by a lot) and RBI (by a handful) and is second in HR (by a few), so I think it is safe to talk about the possibility of Miggy repeating his Triple Crown feat of 2012. The triple crown has been completed only 16 times in 125+ years of baseball and only 2 players have done it twice – Rogers Hornsby and Ted Williams. It got me thinking, how close has anyone actually gotten to completing back to back Triple Crowns? Thanks to baseball-reference.com, I can take a look:

Player	Triple Crown Year	Next Season	Next Season AVG	Next Season HR	Next Season RBI	AVG Behind(Ahead)	HR Behind(Ahead)	RBI Behind(Ahead)
Cabrera	2012	2013	1	2	1	(.027)	5	(5)
Yastrzemski	1967	1968	1	7	8	(.011)	19	35
F Robinson	1966	1967	2	4	3	.015	14	27
Mantle	1956	1957	2	3	6	.023	8	20
Williams	1947	1948	1	6	3	(.014)	14	28
Williams	1942	1946	2	2	2	.011	6	4
Medwick	1937	1938	4	6	1	.020	15	(6)
Gehrig	1934	1935	6	3	2	.020	6	51
Foxx	1933	1934	7	2	4	.029	5	35
Klein	1933	1934	*	5	*	.051	15	55
Hornsby	1925	1926	*	7	6	.036	10	27
Hornsby	1922	1923	1	5	*	(.013)	24	42
Cobb	1909	1910	2	2	2	.001	2	29
Lajoie	1901	1902	1	9	*	(.002)	9	56
O’Neill	1887	1888	1	9	4	(.014)	8	5
Hines	1878	1879	1	5	5	(.009)	7	10

A couple of notes about the chart:

Next season refers to the season following their Triple Crown.
Next season AVG, HR, RBI refers to their league rank in each category in the season following their Triple Crown. An * means they were not in the top 10 in that category.
AVG, HR, RBI Behind (Ahead) refers to how far behind the leader they were in the season following the Triple Crown in each category. If the number is in (), it is how far ahead of the 2^nd position they were in that category.
Cabrera’s ranks are through August 18^th.
Ted Williams did not play in 1943 due to military service (or 1944 or 1945, which is why I used 1946).

It is interesting that no player has really come close to repeating the Triple Crown. Ty Cobb would be the one who was probably the closest, but he was a distant 2^nd in the RBI race, so it really wasn’t all that close. You could make the argument that Ted Williams was closer, but it wouldn’t technically be back to back because of the 3 year gap. I wasn’t surprised to find that BA was the category that the player was most likely to lead the league in the next season, but it was a bit surprising to find that no triple crown player lead the league in HR the next season. I have a feeling that for most of these guys, their Triple Crown season represented their career year, which would go a long way to explaining that.

Can Miggy do it? It will be a fun ride over the next month and a half to find out.

2013 NFL MVP Odds

by A.J. Coltrane

2013 NFL MVP Odds at ESPN.

Rank	Candidate	Odds
1	Peyton Manning	5-1
2	Aaron Rodgers	13-2
3	Colin Kaepernick	10-1
3	Drew Brees	10-1
5	Adrian Peterson	12-1
5	Tom Brady	12-1
7	Matt Ryan	15-1
8	Robert Griffin III	18-1
8	Russell Wilson	18-1
10	Andrew Luck	25-1
10	Calvin Johnson	25-1
10	Eli Manning	25-1
Source: @BovadaLV

I think the best value is Matt Ryan. Atlanta has two outstanding wide receivers and they’re going to have to throw to win. It’s an interesting look at who’s considered “hot” right now.

How Not to Run the Bases

By Iron Chef Leftovers

From the LA – CIN game on July 25th. This play almost never works, but it worked well enough to fool Shin Shoo Coo. Added bonus: you get to hear it called by the great Vin Scully.

The embedded video doesn’t seem to want to work, so here is the link:http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2013_07_25_cinmlb_lanmlb_1&mode=video&content_id=29143039&tcid=vpp_copy_29143039

http://undefined/shared/flash/video/share/ObjectEmbedFrame.swf?content_id=29143039&width=400&height=254&property=mlb

How Not to Throw a Baseball

By Blaidd Drwg

I do like Raul Ibanez, he has had a decent career and seems like a genuinely nice guy. He is, however, a horrible fielder. Teams have been taking extra bases on him all season because of his terrible arm and he really should be playing DH at this point. The August 6^th game against the Blue Jays may have been a new low for his defense. In case you have not seen it, this is just embarrassing:

Edit: It was a bad day for posting videos. Here is the link since the original isn’t working anymore: http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?content_id=29489041

Hmmmm…

By Blaidd Drwg

I saw this in the transactions on espn.com this morning:

Twins: Placed 1B Justin Morneau on revocable waivers.

Generally, once you get past the trading deadline, teams do not announce when they have put a player on revocable waivers (and will usually put their entire team on waivers just to see who gets claimed). Basically, the way it works is that you put a player on revocable waivers for 48 hours. If anyone claims him, you have 3 options:

1) Work out a trade with that team

2) Let him go to that team for nothing in return. (The other team assumes the entire remaining contract for that player)

3) Pull him back off waivers. (You then can’t trade him until the season is over)

If there is more than one team that makes a claim, the only team you get to negotiate with is the one with the worst record at the time of the claim. If no one claims the player during the waiver period, you can then trade him to any team you would like, just like you could before the trade deadline.

Seeing this makes me think there is a deal in place for Morneau and he might be on the move. We shall see.

Schwingfest 2013 at Swiss Sportsmen's Club In Bonney Lake

by A.J. Coltrane

Link to the 2011 (brief) post on the same subject. It includes a video of the wrestling. Schwingfest is wrestling meets alchohol meets dancing. In no particular order. And a day-long playlist of polka-ish music.

I find the Swiss music to be fairly monochromatic to the point where it becomes almost hypnotic after a few hours. It’s just there because it always is, and always will be.

Continue reading “Schwingfest 2013 at Swiss Sportsmen's Club In Bonney Lake” →

Schwingfest 2013 at Swiss Sportsmen’s Club In Bonney Lake

by A.J. Coltrane

I find the Swiss music to be fairly monochromatic to the point where it becomes almost hypnotic after a few hours. It’s just there because it always is, and always will be.

Continue reading “Schwingfest 2013 at Swiss Sportsmen’s Club In Bonney Lake” →

The Best QB in the NFL is…

By Blaidd Drwg

In a league where you have Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers, would you consider Alex Smith the best QB in the league?

Well apparently Chief’s Offensive Coordinator Doug Pederson does:

“Ultimately, every team has to have a quarterback,” Pederson told The Kansas City Star. “I think we have the best in the league.”
…
“There are a lot of great ones, but over time, Alex has proven he can get it done,” Pederson told the newspaper. “He’s a sharp guy, he brings a wealth of knowledge, he’s experienced, he’s a proven winner the last couple of years, and he needs a team to embrace him.”

Alex Smith has proven he can “get it done”? Really? The same Alex Smith who has only two seasons in 8 years in the league where he started more than 10 games? The same Alex Smith who proved so inept at running an offense earlier in his career that he has managed to compile a 38-36-1 career record? The same Alex Smith who last season couldn’t win back his job after he got hurt from a guy whom, up until that point had thrown 14 passes in the NFL?

Must be a different Alex Smith we are talking about.

The whole story is here on ESPN.com.

Clint Dempsey!

by A.J. Coltrane

Clint Dempsey! And I couldn’t be happier about it! The Sounders inked the #1 or #1a USMT player for the rest of this season and three years beyond it.

Grant Wahl, on how the deal got done:

…He was up for coming back to MLS, but the only teams he was interested in playing for were Seattle, Los Angeles and Toronto. What’s more, Dempsey’s side was asking for a huge financial commitment: $40 million at first. According to a source with intimate knowledge of the deal, Seattle countered with a first offer of $30 million — $20 million of its own money and $10 million from the league — including the transfer fee to Tottenham.

Los Angeles and Toronto were also interested in ponying up for Dempsey, multiple sources said, but Toronto (which is working on its own Designated Player deals) accepted that it was better for the league if Dempsey were playing in a U.S. city. Moreover, Los Angeles is expected to announce soon that it has filled its maximum three DP slots with the extension of Omar González’s contract.

“I think it was important that [Dempsey] ended up … how do I say this politely? … not in Los Angeles,” said Roth. “Because from a perception standpoint it would make MLS look essentially like a one-team league when it came to important international players. The Red Bulls are probably in there as well. But if not us, who? We double the attendance of everybody else [in MLS]. We’re in the top 25 in the world in attendance. I had promised the team if there was an available star player we would get him, and I thought he was a perfect match for Seattle.”

From July 18 to July 20, Seattle’s owners put together their best possible offer, and with Durbin handling the negotiations a deal took shape that involved a total commitment of $33 million. The transfer fee for Tottenham would end up being $9 million, and Dempsey’s three-and-a-half year playing contract with Seattle would end up paying him a total of $24 million — or $6.86 million per year, breaking David Beckham’s MLS record salary of $6.5 million. (Keep in mind that Beckham also earned a percentage of ticket and jersey sales.)

Pretty awesome. Dempsey is my favorite U.S. player. He’s 30, so the Sounders get his late prime plus additional tread left on the tires. As of today, he’s the probably the best player in the league.

The Sounders offense is going to be scaaaarrrry! Dempsey and Eddie Johnson supported by Obafemi Martins, Lamar Neagle, Brad Evans, Mauro Rosales, Steve Zakuani, Osvaldo Alonzo… that’s a ton of talent.

I’ll say it again! Awesome!

Disappointment at the Trade Deadline

By Iron Chef Leftovers

The trade deadline is always interesting in baseball, but this year just seemed plain boring. Sure there were a couple of bigger trades and I am happy with the move the Red Sox made in getting Jake Peavy for Jose Iglesias, but beyond that, it was the moves that didn’t get made (and one that did but I can’t figure out why) that were odd.

The Diamondbacks, just 2 ½ games out of first place, traded Ian Kennedy to San Diego. Granted, Kennedy’s 5+ ERA has not looked great this year, but there are things to consider – his stats suggest that his ERA should be about a run lower than it is and he is probably better than whoever the D’Backs are going to plug into their rotation to replace him. It is possible that the D’backs see something in Kennedy that scared them into making a deal with one of their division rivals, but they effectively dealt a decent starting pitcher for a LOOGY (Joe Thatcher), a mid-level prospect and a 2nd round draft pick. Not a great haul. What am I missing here?

The Mariners decided to stand pat despite having a few moderately tradable commodities. It seems that management is trying to keep fans by winning a few more games than they would if they dumped Morales/Ibanez/Perez. Well, I am not sure that winning 80 games will keep the fan exodus from happening any more than winning 70 games will. I suspect the reason is that they are trying to win at least 76 games – so they can make the bullshit argument that they improved over last season and that the 3…er 5…er 7 year plan is still working. The M’s are effectively out of it – 12.5 games back of the A’s for the division lead and 9.5 back of Cleveland for the 2nd wild card spot. Even if they get close to .500, they are still going to be playing to a mostly empty stadium come September, so why not deal Ibanez and Morales (they are both free agents at the end of the season) for something more than a bucket of balls and just play the kids and see what happens.