Random MLB News And Discussion 2012

[Ennder]

Nothing that the A's do this year has anything to do with bashing Beane, this was a pretty magical season that has very little to do with the full range of talent they put on the field.

 

Having said that the Rangers had a great team that just slumped badly at the wrong time, can't blame the GM for that. Sometimes nobody is to blame, it was just bad timing.

 

Dusty Baker is one of the 10 worst managers in baseball and his team might win the World Series, try not to read too much into these things.

[DuWayne Steurer]

http://espn.go.com/dallas/mlb/story/_/id/8490251/josh-hamilton-waited-quit-chewing-tobacco

 

Basically, Rangers president Nolan Ryan is being critical of the timing of Josh Hamilton giving up tobacco, saying he should have waited til the off-season. I'm sorry, I didn't know there was ever a 'bad time' to stop putting addictive, harmful substances into your body.

 

On the other hand, this article has some good stuff from Hamilton too, about how he had such a horrible 2nd half because caffeine.

 

Guy doesn't run out of excuses, that's for sure.

[Baldkin]

He had the approach of a T-baller all season: Swing at anything and everything. It's no surprise pitchers stopped throwing him strikes and he struggled.

[Invader3K]

I wonder if Hamilton was just putting too much pressure on himself with it being a contract year and all.

[jjfanec]

He had the approach of a T-baller all season: Swing at anything and everything. It's no surprise pitchers stopped throwing him strikes and he struggled.

 

He had 60 walks this year and his strikeouts were high but nothing crazy. His OBP was .70 higher than his BA. I guess I didnt see many of his games so I am not sure if his approach was that terrible

[Baldkin]

He swung at 59% of the pitches he saw. His O-swing% was 45%. He was really, really tough to walk.

 

For a comparison, Carlos Gomez, the notorious free swinger, has a career high of 39% O-swing percentage.

[AZBrewCrew]

Bob Brenly leaves WGN, new FSN AZ Dbacks announcer.

 

http://www.abc15.com/dpp/sports/sports_blogs_local/Bob-Brenly-Steve-Berthiaume-to-replace-Mark-Grace-in-Diamondbacks-TV-broadcast-booth

[brettac1]

Heath Bell/Cliff Pennington to the D'Backs, Chris Young to the A's, Yordy Cabrera to the Marlins. Love it as an A's fan. Hopefully this means they keep Stephen Drew around, though hopefully not by paying him his $10 million option.

[TooLiveBrew]

I have no context for this image, and honestly I've forgotten where I even saw it... but it needs to be shared

 

http://i.imgur.com/nYCLL.gif

[PrinceEatMeat]

Haha, I really wanna know what that was. Looks like a really extravagant celebration of some sort. Really weird.

[Warning Track Power]

Sheer boredom has me looking up random things and this one has me hating the DH more today than I did yesterday:

 

In 16 MLB seasons (1832 games), David Ortiz has only played 257 games in the field at 1B. That's an average 16 games per year in the field or 14% of his total MLB games.

 

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/o/ortizda01.shtml

[MJLiverock]

Kinda of a funny article about the real conversations when managers charge out to argue with umps.

 

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121214&content_id=40650956&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

[FenderMan]

For some reason this just hit me, but it's going to be really strange this coming season with Chipper Jones not being an active player on the Braves. I was always a fan of his and was a big Braves fan in the 90's (second to the Crew of course), and he was one of those guys that was just always there, doing what he always did. I'll miss seeing him play.

[TooLiveBrew]

For some reason this just hit me, but it's going to be really strange this coming season with Chipper Jones not being an active player on the Braves. I was always a fan of his and was a big Braves fan in the 90's (second to the Crew of course), and he was one of those guys that was just always there, doing what he always did. I'll miss seeing him play.

Agreed. His motto/slogan has been my signature since I saw he'd announced his retirement. Definite HOFer, and I'll miss that quiet, sweet swing.

[Patrick425]

Not sure how anyone can say baseball is a boring game:

 

http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/8772294/strange-true-feats-2012-mlb-season