Thoughts About Baseball and Batman

Thoughts About Astrology and Baseball

2012-02-13T18:31:00.000-08:00

So far the excitement surrounding the Super Bowl and the Republican Primaries and the Grammys and the impending storm of the Oscars has done very little to alleviate the length of the baseball off-season. And with 50 days left until Opening Day, I need something more than just news of the latest transactions to occupy the baseball part of my brain. Luckily I had the foresight to compile a gigantic database with all sorts of interesting sortable information about the players from the 2011 season. One of the ways I can organize my database is by birthday, so I decided to see what would happen if I generated lineups based on the astrological signs of all the players!

I started paying attention to astrology when I heard this humorous song by "Weird Al" Yankovic and realized that the lyrics would be a good way to learn the signs and their order. I don't follow horoscopes in the newspapers or even believe in the tenets of astrology per se (although I try to keep up to date on any interesting developments in the field), but I've taken it upon myself to learn a little bit more about it in the interest of providing my project with some context. Each sign falls into one of four categories corresponding to the four Classical elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. The three signs from each elemental category have one of three qualities: Cardinal, Fixed, or Mutable. Each sign is also either Positive (Fire and Air) or Negative (Earth and Water).

I thought the coolest way to organize this pursuit was to set up a series of hypothetical round robin tournaments, whereby the three signs from each element play against each other, with the four winners moving on to the next round. It's not fully fleshed out yet, but I'm thinking of using some combination of the other astrological qualities and the sum total performance of the players on each "team" to determine the order of who plays whom in the tournament (this is important when we start taking the rotations of starting pitchers into account). I've also assigned each astrological team to an actual major league team (in case I want to make this experiment an actuality using, for instance, a videogame interface).

Here's a graphical representation of how the project breaks down so far:

The Water Bracket appears to be the most evenly matched division with each team within a few thousand swp of the mean (64,152.9) and within a handful of players of the median in that column (86.5). It's sad that Cancer is the weakest of the three teams, since that's my sign, but there's no reason to take this personal. Aries looks like it's poised to run away with the Fire Bracket, which shows a clear decline from Cardinal to Fixed to Mutable (Sagittarius is the lowest scoring of all the teams). The Libra team leads the league in player efficiency: they average 823.1 swp per player (Aquarius is last with 579.9). But the strongest team out of anybody without a doubt is Virgo with 22 more players and nearly 19,000 more points than its next competitor. It's interesting that that would be the case for players born during the hottest part of both the year and the playoff race.

More detailed analysis to follow, including breakdowns of the best players on all the teams, the process by which I decided which real team should represent each astrological team, and some delightful matchup predictions. Until then, keep watching the skiis...

Thoughts about LEGO Lord of the Rings...

2012-02-07T19:00:00.000-08:00

When I got my first look at the upcoming LEGO Lord of the Rings sets this weekend, I was filled with equal parts excitement (for the hours of fun I'll get building and playing with them) and nervousness (for the hundreds of dollars I'll end up spending on them). Then excitement took over for good when I thought of the impending possibility of a LEGO Lord of the Rings videogame coming down the pipeline. I mean, LEGO has made successful games out of Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman, Harry Potter, even Pirates of the Caribbean... pretty much every property they've licensed that wasn't based on a videogame to begin with (that of course excludes Prince of Persia).

Now, an interesting question about these licensed LEGOs is whether they're based solely on the Oscar winning films, or whether they draw from the source material more directly? This issue not only affects whether we'll get to see a Tom Bombadil LEGO set, but it also impacts the plot of this potential videogame. Because, as much as I'm a fan of the movies, I definitely take issue with a few of the storytelling choices made by Peter Jackson and Philippa Boyens - most notable among these is the complete deviation from Tolkien's character of Aragorn. I'll explain this particular issue in detail below, and when I do, I hope I will get everyone hoping for a more faithful adaptation of the story in LEGO videogame form.

"I do not want that power. I have never wanted it."

This line is spoken by Aragorn in The Fellowship of the Ring movie when Arwen (haven't seen a minifig version of her yet) brings up the subject of his lineage. For those of you who missed the movies, Aragorn is descended in direct line from Isildur, who took up his father Elendil's broken sword and used it to cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand. It takes him three movies, but eventually Aragorn owns up to his role in the epic tale, takes up the Sword that was Broken, and takes his rightful place as the King of Gondor.

The story of the unwilling hero, imbued with some great innate talent, but who is unable to use it for whatever reason, is certainly recognizable enough in the line of epic storytelling. Joseph Campbell describes it in depth, outlining the process whereby the potential-hero leaves the familiar world and goes on a journey of self-discovery in order to "return with the elixir" and activate the hero-potential. Aragorn is certainly a hero in the midst of a Hero's Journey, but his journey is far advanced beyond the point of having any doubts about who he is, what power he has, or whether/how to use that power.

Aragorn's lineage carries with it more than just his inheritance, which is basically rulership over all the free lands of Middle Earth. The fact that he's a descendant of kings means that the blood of a more ancient and powerful race of men runs through his veins. Now, this isn't an issue of racism or eugenics; in Tolkien's world of fantasy and mythology, not all Men (or Elves) are created equal. The very first and most powerful humans (the Numenoreans) were taller, hardier, and longer-lived than the current species, their blood having been mingled with lesser men over the generations. As a direct descendant, the blood of Numenor runs nearly true in Aragorn, which is evident in his advanced age: 87 years old, which is "no longer young even in the reckoning of Men of the Ancient Houses."

Perhaps Aragorn went through a period of doubt about his true potential, but if so, this liminal stage likely took place between age 20 and 25 - after Elrond revealed to him his true name and ancestry, but before his friendship with Gandalf. All this is detailed in the extensive appendix to Return of the King (the book) and might potentially make good subject matter for a prequel to Aragorn's Quest (the Wii game). Or maybe even another movie. Lord knows Peter Jackson and Co. will need to come up with some more ideas before the intellectual property rights default to someone else. But the point is, over his six decades of adventuring, the literary Aragorn has a fully-developed sense of who he is and what he will become.

Another way the Aragorn of the books honors his link with the past is his relationship with Elendil's broken sword, called Narsil. This is Aragorn's heirloom, a symbol of both his lineage and his identity; so much so that when the Hobbits first meet Aragorn in the books, he carries the shards of Narsil with him rather than bear any other weapon. He has the sword reforged in Rivendell (and renames it Anduril, Flame of the West) before the Fellowship sets out, and subsequently invokes the blade's ancient power at many points throughout their journey. By contrast, in the movies he wields some random sword until the third movie when Elrond finally delivers Anduril to him. Here I was assuming that Peter and Philippa made all these drastic changes to Aragorn's character so the audience could see him make the choice to become king... but then he doesn't even make the choice at all!

The Lord of the Rings LEGO sets are slated to hit shelves this summer, and nothing about a game has been announced at this juncture. We can only hope that The LEGO Group takes its tried and true path with licensed products and sends our favorite fellowship to consoles everywhere. And if/when they do, we can only hope that the game draws from ALL the source material rather than acting as a copy of a copy of an adaptation. But based on the company motto - LEGO is derived from the Swedish phrase "leg godt" meaning "play well" - I'm sure they'll make the right choice.

Thoughts About Primaries...

2012-01-27T18:29:00.000-08:00

Last night, CNN hosted the final debate to take place before the Florida Republican Primary, which is on Tuesday 1/31. The debate featured the four remaining candidates: Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum - a pool that has been significantly narrowed over the previous three contests in the primary process. By all accounts Romney, the once and future frontrunner, stood his ground against Newt Gingrich, who is generally considered the better debater. Each candidate's performance in the debate says a lot about their chances of winning the Republican nomination for President, and about their chances of challenging incumbent Barack Obama. But rather than picking apart their responses to questions about the hot-button issues or analyzing their speech patterns and facial expressions for insight into such crucial intangibles as confidence and leadership qualities, let's take a look at how they all got here.

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul are the only two holdover candidates from the 2008 Republican primaries. Last election cycle, Romney had some epic clashes with eventual nominee John McCain during the debates, and eventually dropped out of the race in early February. The former Massachusetts Governor can be recognized by his decidedly Mormon family (an endless stream of smiling, healthy-looking offspring, all dressed in white) and his eerily Manchurian Candidate-esque appearance and mannerisms. Ron Paul resembles your friend's hip grandpa: he's the oldest candidate on the ballot (even a year older than McCain, although he doesn't look it), he wears a lot of sweaters, and he's never shy about rambling on about his crazy ideas. The former gynecologist's politics lean more towards Libertarian than Republican, but the GOP has been kind to him during his 20+ years serving in the House of Representatives for Texas, so he remains on the party's ticket.

In his first ever presidential campaign, Newt Gingrich was surging after his double digit victory in last weekend's South Carolina primary, but after last night's debate, pundits are quick to announce that his momentum is waning. Gingrich served as speaker of the House during the Clinton administration, and is quick to take a bunch of credit for the period of peacetime and economic expansion that Clinton presided over during that time, the longest in the country's history. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is still hanging in this race, refusing to throw in the towel mostly based on his win in Iowa. He won by just 34 votes over Romney, and the contest would have instantly been headed to recount-town were it anything but a non-binding caucus.

The most talked-about candidate who didn't even make it to the primaries has to be Herman Cain, he of the questionable sexual history and policy plans taken straight out of a videogame. Michele Bachmann took her haunting stare out of the race after Iowa, and Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman followed suit after New Hampshire (despite the latter candidate garnering a strong 3rd place finish with 17% of the vote). Huntsman - who was a member of a band called The Wizards while growing up in Palo Alto, CA - endorsed fellow Mormon Mitt Romney, while Texas Governor Perry endorsed Gingrich, setting the stage for their all-out battle in South Carolina.

Pundits claimed that South Carolina primary voters pride themselves on voting for the eventual nominee. With Romney looking like the clear favorite leaving New Hampshire, it's interesting that they didn't jump on the bandwagon and effectively wrap this thing up before Florida. The fact that they picked Gingrich says a lot about the importance of debates and drives home the point that a poor or effective performance can make or break an election - as if Nixon didn't teach us that lesson effectively enough back in 1960. But with Romney leading in delegates and in the polls, coupled with his triumph at last night's debates, puts him in a pretty darn good position going forward. That is, unless the Ron Paul Revolution spreads across the nation (as we all know is inevitable, even if it takes a different name). If you live in Florida, make sure to vote this coming Tuesday. And if you hail from anywhere else, just clap your hands if you believe...

Thoughts About Football...

2012-01-16T16:21:00.000-08:00

Let's Try to Understand some of the Football that happened Last Weekend

I have, in my hands, a copy of the Sports Illustrated 2011 NFL Preview. It's got Atlanta Linebacker Curtis Lofton on the cover, because Peter King had picked the Falcons to win the Super Bowl. As it happens, they were eliminated one week ago by the New York Giants in the Wild Card round, who (after yesterday's win against the defending champion Green Bay Packers) are now slated to go up against the San Francisco 49ers - with a trip to the Super Bowl in the balance.

In the NFL Preview, each team has a 2-page spread - a pattern I hope to see the Sports Illustrated Baseball Preview return to in the future. There's an article about each team, a profile on the coach, a "Spotlight" on a particular player, and of course the Projected Lineup. Some might say it's useless to look at pre-season rankings this late in the year, since various changes throughout the year will cause most of them to be out-of-date or inaccurate. But they are useful to see how the teams and the players got to where they are now (the playoffs) from where they were then (potential teams, only existing within the pages of a magazine).

I have the pages marked for 4 teams: the Baltimore Ravens, the New England Patriots, and the aforementioned Giants and Niners. These 4 teams will all play next week, and 2 of those 4 will go to the Super Bowl, or so I'm led to believe. This is a pretty important cultural event, the Super Bowl, if for no other reason than the commercials. And Sports Illustrated is a magazine whose predictions are fun to make a story out of. So let's take a look at the men who SI's writers think were likely to factor into the teams that could play in the big game.

New England Patriots
Projected Finish: 1st in AFC EAST
Actual Finish: Same
Spotlight on: Chad Ochocinco, one of the team's three starting Wide Recievers. Now he sat out most of last game, after compiling just 276 yards the whole season. The top-performing player on Tom Brady's offense last week was TE Rob Gronkowski with 145 yards - SI describes him as "highly skilled". The article mostly features the new defense surrounding powerhouse NT Vince Wilfork (who incidentally had 1.5 sacks in their trouncing of the Denver Broncos).

Baltimore Ravens
Projected Finish: 2nd in AFC NORTH
Actual Finish: T-1st in AFC NORTH
Spotlight on: Anquan Boldin. The team's top Wide Receiver was expected to gel better with QB Joe Flacco (pictured (in the magazine, as well as above)) after spending a year playing together. Well, he earned 887 yards this year... after 839 the year before. Not sure if it's working out how they planned, but he's still the team's #1 WR - he had a team-high 79 yards in last week's win over the Houston Texans. I have no idea what stats to use to judge Quarterbacks, but pro-football-reference has him at an 80.9 Passer Rating, a drop from 93.6 the previous year...

New York Giants
Projected Finish: 3rd in NFC EAST
Actual Finish: 1st in NFC EAST
Spotlight on: Jonathan Goff, the would-have-been-4th year Linebacker, had he not missed the whole season with a knee injury.
WR Hackeem Nicks gets the picture in the article. He's supposed to "hold together New York's untested receiving corps" - all signs point to success, as he trailed rookie Victor Cruz in total yards, but still hit the 1,000 mark himself. However it has been Nicks's turn to shine in the playoffs, combining for 280 yards and 4 touchdowns in the Giants' two postseason games.

San Francisco 49ers
Projected Finish: 4th in NFC WEST
Actual Finish: 1st in NFC WEST
Spotlight on: Aldon Smith, a Linebacker who in 2011 somehow ended up with 14.0 sacks in just 16 games... The clear focus of the article was on Jim Harbaugh, their new Coach, recently departed from Stanford (and the brother of Ravens coach, John Harbaugh. There's a chance for the brothers to meet in the Superbowl, if things turn out right.

I'll certainly be pulling for that eventuality as I watch the games next week. Maybe at that point I will also know enough about the teams in question to actually make some meaningful observations about the Big Game.

Top Players: AL & NL 2011

2012-01-11T10:18:00.000-08:00

While the analysis of Box Office numbers is fun and insightful and economically significant, let's not forget the original focus of this blog: Baseball statistics. Using my patented Baseball Database, I have calculated the Top Players in each position in each league, which I now present in lineup form.

Some pretty impressive players all around. A good mix of young players and veterans, expected performers and breakout stars. Let's break them down further, not by position or by team, but by how they were expected to do from a fantasy standpoint. Granted, my system is going to be a little incongruous, cuz I'm using mlb.com's rankings and a form of calculating fantasy points (swp) that has been outdated for many years. But I believe that in combining the two, I'll arrive at a sort of Hegelian synthesis of fantasy evaluation methods.

Four (4) of our players ranked within the Top 10 according to MLB: 1B Miguel Cabrera (who anchored my fantasy team btw), SS Troy Tulowitzki, LF Ryan Braun (who won this year's NL MVP, prior to a positive PED test), and 1B Joey Votto. By contrast, there were four (4) total batters who ranked out of the top 100: CF Curtis Granderson (who surpassed all expectations by destroying his career-highs in HR, RBIs, runs and walks), C Miguel Montero (high-ranked catchers are very hard to come by, since catchers as a position don't produce a lot of points), SS Asdrubal Cabrera (a legitimate breakout All-Star season), and LF Alex Gordon. Gordon, a former 3B prospect [see also Ryan Braun] who everyone had just about given up on, was by far the lowest-ranked starter among all others on the team (458).

The highest-ranked pitcher was Roy Halladay (16). The two hurlers who accomplished the near-superhuman feat of breaking 3,000 points were ranked 32 (Kershaw) and 50 (Verlander). One starting pitcher from each league had surprising and unexpected seasons: Ian Kennedy (232) and James Shields (240). Non-Closer Relief Pitchers rarely contribute enough points to warrant a roster spot (unless your league measures Holds, in which case you'll need a couple of the best). Craig Kimbrel was this year's Rookie of the Year, so it's understandable why he was ranked 213 - just 9 slots higher than teammate Jonny Venters, who had a shot to win the closer role right up until opening day. Valverde, who performed significantly worse than Kimbrel in terms of both stats and ability to control his emotions, ranked 117.

This is all part of an ongoing process to use these numbers to hone in on different players' fantasy value, but updates on that project will have to wait, as there is a whole real world out there to see and experience.

New Year, New Lists!

2012-01-08T13:30:00.000-08:00

Well, we're back from a glorious 2011 Holiday Season, one that wrapped up the last year before the coming consciousness shift of 2012. With the baseball season over, action shifts to offseason trades, new contracts for free agents, and exchange of arbitration figures. Very little is happening in my Batman world since beating Arkham City - I'm going to remain spoiler-free and skip the 6-minute preview of Dark Knight Rises, and I hardly think the New Years Eve marathon of the 1960s Adam West TV series should garner much coverage on the blagosphere. To occupy this dark cold time of the year, I have been engaging in the creation of two sortable databases that cover the two new subjects of this blog.

The first is a comprehensive look at the 2011 baseball season, with a wealth of information for each qualifying player, including position, swp (for each team in the case of a trade or other mid-season acquisition), birthday, hometown, draft position, and school history. The other is a list of the biggest movies that came out in 2011, listed by release date, distributor, North American opening weekend gross (so we can compare movies from the beginning of the year to later releases), and production company (pending).

As is the case with most database work, there is a lot of number crunching that has to go into play before any interesting or publishable findings can come out, but here are some preliminary findings about how the major distributors did at the box office this year, in terms of opening weekend ticket sales:

1. Warmer Bros. Pictures
$623.7 million

The leader in market share for 2010 continued its dominance last year, grossing the most opening weekend ticket sales out of all the major distributors. Of course, it never hurts when your slate includes the biggest release in movie history (let alone of 2011): Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 ($169.2m). The company also boasted the film with the 6th highest opening weekend sales: comedy sequel The Hangover Part II ($85.9m). (The next biggest comedy on their slate was Horrible Bosses, which missed the $30m mark by less than $2m.) Green Lantern, a movie inspired by a property from Time Warner-owned DC Entertainment (formerly DC Comics), grossed $53.2m in its opening weekend, a figure sure to be dwarfed by next year's fellow DC behemoth The Dark Knight Rises. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows was good for $39.6m - who knows how many sequels that franchise will churn out. It's no wonder the film unit accounts for about 40% of parent company Time Warner's bottom line.

2. Paramount Pictures
$535.8 million

With 16 notable releases in 2011, the film distribution arm of media conglomerate Viacom (see also MTV Networks, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, and the BET family) took home the silver medal. Its top-opening film - Michael Bay's Transformers: Dark of the Moon - made $97.9m in its debut weekend, good for the third-highest opening of the year. A pair of Marvel Comics movies - Thor and Captain America, both foreshadowing next year's ensemble epic The Avengers - were basically locked up in a tie for second: $65.7m and $65.1m respectively. Next on their list is another three-quel, this one in the horror genre rather than an effects-driven event film (Paranormal Activity 3: $52.6m). Three animated movies featuring high profile celeb voices (Kung Fu Panda 2, Rango, and Puss in Boots) each grossed over $30m in their opening frames. Rounding out their $30m+ releases is Super 8, Paramount's second collaboration with director J.J. Abrams in the last three years.

3. Universal Pictures
$330.7 million

The studio's biggest tentpole, Fast Five, had just the 5th highest-grossing opening of the year (just edging out Hangover II with $86.2m). The only other movies on its slate that broke the $30m mark were animated Easter comedy Hop ($37.5m) and disappointing period/sci-fi actioner Cowboys & Aliens ($36.4). Bridesmaids, like Horrible Bosses before it, also missed out on the $30m milestone, but what it lacked in B.O. it made up for in breakout performances. If we consider Focus Features (also owned by Universal's parent company NBCUniversal, which is itself owned by Comcast and GE), the grand total goes up by about $36m (the imprint's biggest release of 2011 was Hanna with a mere $12.4m)... but it's not enough to move it up in the rankings, and I consciously didn't want to get too much into the corporate game on this post.

4. 20th Century Fox
$301.2 million

News Corp's film unit didn't make any real big splashes, with their two biggest releases (X-Men: First Class and Rise of the Planet of the Apes) languishing in the mid $50m range. Rio once again proved the lucrativity of animated features with $39.2m in its opening weekend. Specialty division Fox Searchlight contributed barely $3m to the till, but it's hoping to bank big in awards season with Oscar contender The Descendants and pretentious-favorite The Tree of Life.

5. Columbia Pictures
$282.5 million

Here's where the corporate ownership game really comes into play: if we combine Columbia's take with the other banners that operate under Sony Pictures Entertainment (TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, and Sony Pictures Classics) the total goes up to $382.9m, and the conglomerate as a whole rockets up to third place on the year. Combined or not, the company's biggest grosses were Battle: Los Angeles and The Smurfs (tied with $35.6m) followed closely by old TV show remake The Green Hornet and comedy Bad Teacher. A pair of Adam Sandler comedies round out the slate (Just Go With It and Jack and Jill).

6. Walt Disney Pictures

$205 million

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides ($90.2m) and Cars 2 ($66.1) led the way for the Mouse House, while throwback The Muppets missed the $30m mark by less than $1m. A corporate note: if we add the $107.5 million grossed by Disney-owned Touchstone (led by Real Steel, Gnomeo & Juliet, and The Help) the Disney machine eclipses the News Corp machine.

7. Summit Entertainment
$178.5 million

Summit made basically all its income from The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 ($138.1m). Its next highest release, Source Code, garnished just over 1/10th of the haul made by the vampire/werewolf tween drama. The final corporate note of this post: if this week's deal that will see Lions Gate buy Summit for $400m had occurred last year, the combined moviemaker would have grossed $244.1m between them.

Batman walks into an Apple Store on Black Friday

2011-11-27T09:23:00.000-08:00

INT Apple Store: DAY

[The crowd is pushing and shoving and shouting, all trying to get the attention of the sales associates. There's even a crowd at the Genius Bar and Lecture Classroom area, filled with people who know it's the craziest shopping day of the year, but can't stay away, because they need their sweet fix of the Apple Store.

[We are looking out at the front door from the inside of the store, just skimming the tops of the customers' heads. Suddenly a black caped form drops from the sky, straightens up, and is revealed to be Batman. A hush briefly falls over the crowd, as the customers' attention turns to the dark figure, shades of irritation in their faces for having their deals interrupted. Batman's eyes narrow.

[The business and hubbub breaks out immediately afterwards, twice as loud and rambunctious as before. No one even notices Batman is there anymore. Our hero confidently wades into the fray. He walks up to the nearest blue-shirt, who is explaining the features on a new iPad to a customer. His name tag says Deron.

[Two shot of Deron talking to the Customer.]

DERON
Now if you touch the screen with three and a half fingers, and drag them in a triple-zig-zag pattern, you can open…

[As Deron turns away from the customer to demonstrate the screen gesture, the camera follows him to look at the appliance. A muffled yell is heard, faintly distinguishable from the general clatter. When the two-shot returns, Batman is standing in the Customer's place.]

DERON
Holy sh…

BATMAN
I need a pair of in-ear headphones with a built-in microphone. NOW!

DERON
Um… well, sir, if you'll just give your name to Stacy here…

[Stacy pops up beside him.]

STACY
I can just put you in our system and the next available…

BATMAN
You don't understand, this is an emergency.

DERON
That may be, sir, but it is Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year. We have a lot of customers expecting the biggest deals we have to offer. You can't just…

[Batman grabs Deron by the lapels, swings him around, and smashes him up against a display of 27" monitors. Customers are startled. Stacy screams.]

BATMAN
You listen to me, you pimply little punk. You get me a set of headphones, or people will die.

DERON
Die…? What could you possibly need…

BATMAN
Joker fried my previous set of headphones in our last encounter at the chemical plant, and remotely disabled the Blu-Tooth connectivity in the Batmobile. I need to be able to interface with the voice activated Batcomputer while I'm driving around the city trying to solve the Riddler's clues. It's part of their nefarious plot to force me to venture out into the mall on the busiest shopping day of the year.

DERON
And you couldn't go to a Best Buy…?

[Batman punches the display next to Deron's' head, and sparks fly.]

BATMAN
Your store was closer. Now…

[He draws up close to Deron's face.]

BATMAN
…are you going to be part of the problem, or are you going to help me find a solution?

[Deron is about to pass out from fear, when Stacy comes up behind Batman and tentatively holds out a set of headphones. Batman grabs it without even turning to face her.]

STACY
Free… of charge, sir…

BATMAN
Thanks.

[He drops Deron to the floor and turns on Stacy, towering over her.]

BATMAN
And also one of those carrying cases for a 17" laptop.

STACY
Sir…?

[Batman glowers at her. He doesn't want to shout "Now!" again, or bad things will happen. Stacy knows this and hurries off, through the crowd of people that has gathered.]

STACY
Excuse me, pardon me…

[Batman now stands there silently, next to Deron's limp form, amid a pile of smashed monitors and computers, the unopened set of headphones in his hand. A crowd of people stares, snaps pictures, and takes video footage. Employees do the same with the display iPhone models. It gets a little awkward.]

BATMAN
I mean, might as well pick up a case for my new… portable Batcomputer… as long as I'm here…

END

Arkham City Post #18: Showdown with Joker at Monarch Theater

2011-11-22T09:38:00.000-08:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

Before I even had time to process the deaths of Hugo Strange and Ra's al Ghul, my principal antagonist and arch-enemy appeared on a screen in front of me, holding Talia hostage at gunpoint. He revealed that he was keeping her at the Monarch Theater - who knows if it was just a coincidence, or if he somehow found out my chilling secret and chose that location because of its connection to that fateful night...? But either way, my objective was clear, and it was a simple matter of dispatching the snipers Joker had placed on various rooftops to cover the theater entrance.

Joker and Talia were on the stage in front of the screen: Talia on her knees, and Joker standing with a gun behind her. I knew the bastard's trigger finger was too quick to try a Reverse Batarang, so I resolved to calmly listen to what he had to say - which shocked me more than an electrified floor at Arkham Asylum's penitentiary wing: he demanded that I hand over Mr. Freeze's cure! Why would he need the cure? He had already taken it and was long on the road to recovery. When I explained that I didn't have it, that I had gone through all this nonsense to retrieve it from him, Joker looked as shocked as I was... which gave Talia the opportunity to deftly escape and stab him through the back with her sword.

Now in addition to the trauma of seeing three of my most iconic foes die right before my eyes and my confusion about what was going on with the cure, I was puzzled by the question of why Joker didn't even bother to restrain or disarm his hostage before making demands... but then, to my immense relief, Talia produced the cure! Apparently she had stolen it from Harley Quinn, which explains why I found her tied up in the steel mill. But did she steal it after Joker had a chance to use it on himself? Otherwise, how did he look and sound and act so healthy? Unless...

Then it hit me. It was something Joker said when we first met at the steel mill, when I was distracted by the decoy in the wheelchair without a pulse: "You fell for the old fake Joker gag..." This whole business with Joker being cured was just a ruse, a double-blind set up both to confuse me and to flush out the real cure. And now that the real, still sick Joker knew where the cure was, he had no need for the messenger... so before I had time to adequately warn Talia of the situation, he pulled the trigger from his hiding place in the second deck. I seethed with rage and sadness as Talia's lifeless form slunk to the ground. I wanted to ask her why she didn't suspect something when she saw a fully-healthy Joker parading around, since she had stolen the cure before he had a chance to use it... but I decided that wouldn't have been right for the situation.

Before I had time to get into it with the real Joker, the fake Joker suddenly came back to life (I'm sorry to say, but I took something like that in stride, at this point) and grabbed the cure, which had slipped gently from Talia's hand when she fell... but he grabbed it in the most peculiar way: his hand became a mass of fluid matter, and he absorbed it into himself! That was when I began to realize: the impostor Joker was none other than Basil Karlo, Clayface, who had snuck IN to Arkham City just for the purpose of impersonating the world's greatest crime boss. But now that the ruse was over, he unleashed the fury of his full power on me, turning the gutted theater into a battleground.

Luckily I had plenty of Freeze grenades on hand, which I could use to temporarily harden Clayface's outer shell, all while dodging his swinging blades, crushing hammers, masses of projectile clay, and his patented rolling-ball attacks. When I had adequately frozen him, I grabbed Talia's sword, which was still embedded in his clayish mass, and hacked the sucker to bits. Just as I was about to expose the precious precious cure, Joker pulled his final card from up his sleeve: he detonated explosives placed on the floor, which led us straight into Wonder City and the Lazarus Pit where I originally battled Ra's al Ghul. Clayface was too injured to re-form himself, so he sent an army of man-sized clay soldiers after me, which I was easily able to keep at bay with Talia's sword while also using grenades to freeze Clayface's main mass until he was subdued enough to grab the cure from his tainted insides.

But Joker wasn't done yet: I don't know what he was planning on doing with the control panel high atop the Lazarus Pit, but I stopped him from doing whatever it was by hurling my sword directly at him, piercing the control box, and causing a massive explosion that at once sent Clayface into a boiling pit of lava and separated Joker from my line of sight. The first order of business was to drink about half the cure, finally putting that saga to rest... but then Joker hit me with some hardcore philosophy. As we all know, my one rule is that Batman must never take a life, EVER, not even Joker's, even after all the people of Gotham he's killed and all the drama and heartache he's put me through personally. Would it be on the same level if I were to simply deny Joker the cure and let him die of Titan poisoning, the result of his own twisted scheme? Surely the circumstances would allow me to bend the rules this one time. Plus, nobody would have to know...

Just then, Joker jumped out of the shadows and jammed an icepick into my right shoulder. Normally this type of thing wouldn't even cause me to bat an eye... but it had been a long night and I was in the middle of some deep conjecturing... so the shock caused me to lose my grip on the cure. As the vial shattered on the ground, Joker tried to frantically lap up the remains - while I was thankful that my enemies are usually reckless enough to prevent me from having to make any of the real hard character-redefining choices. But truth be told, I had already decided on a course of action, and told the Joker so before he took his final breath: even after all he's done, I would have saved him...

Arkham City Post #17: Protocol 10 In Effect

2011-11-18T16:42:00.000-08:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

I didn't know it at the time (what with the being unconscious and all), but the collapsing train was actually caused by a missile fired by one of Hugo Strange's TYGER helicopters. It seems he had put Protocol 10 into effect, which consisted of using heavy firepower to level everything in sight within the borders of Arkham City. And here I was expecting some brilliant strategic masterstroke. It's always the smartest of my enemies who disappoint me the most...

But before I found all this out, there was the little matter of being trapped under a huge mass of debris. Joker had somehow avoided being crushed and was crouching over my incapacitated form, ready to cut my throat with a knife, when who should appear to save the day but Talia! She offered herself up in a trade: if Joker would let me go, she would bestow upon Joker the secret of immortality! I was obviously in no position to object, being helplessly pinned to the floor, so I only watched in horror as Talia surrendered her sword to Joker and led him out. But my spirits were lifted slightly when she alerted my attention to a homing beacon she had attached to herself, allowing me to pick up her trail.

Before I could start out, I received a little help from Catwoman, who showed up in the nick of time and helped me escape from under the rubble. She ran off to avoid the deadly air strikes while I immediately set out in search of Talia. However, Alfred and Oracle had the NERVE to hinder my quest and provide me with a new main objective: they wanted me to apprehend Strange before they would help me rescue Talia. After some harsh words regarding chain of command in this operation, I agreed to help save the inmates - although most deserved to be condemned by society, Batman couldn't let hundreds be slaughtered by Strange's attacks*.

*Never mind the many thousands more that would die if Joker was allowed to become immortal... not that I would ever kill him anyway... But I knew in my heart that Talia would never deliver on this promise. Which was one of the reasons I needed to get to her quickly: since Joker would clearly kill her the moment she refused his promised prize.

Before I could get into Strange's command center at the top of Wonder Tower, I had to search and scan a number of TYGER helicopters to find the control codes, which I could then input into my Cryptographic Sequencer. After that, I had to make my way to the foundations of Wonder Tower (which were heavily guarded by TYGER guards), input the codes into the elevator, then scale the tower to access the control terminal. Once at the top, more TYGER guards, heavily armed and equipped, were protecting Strange himself. I felt bad about beating up on these operatives, many of whom started out as good cops who were influenced by Strange's hypnotic mind control techniques - and perhaps those of his mysterious "master" who he referenced over the radio during my trip through the TYGER processing center. But it wasn't like I was planning on delivering any permanent damage to any of them.

Even after breaking through Strange's defenses and taking out some of my long built-up frustrations on his face, he remained optimistic about his long-term success. He was going on and on about his view of himself as Gotham's savior, when his gloating was abruptly cut short as a razor-sharp blade passed through his chest from behind. As the villain lay dying, his "master" was revealed - the only man in my rogue's gallery with enough power and resources to back such a nefarious scheme: Ra's al Ghul. So the real mastermind behind the whole plot was just using Hugo Strange as a puppet. And when Strange failed to live up to expectations, he was murdered in cold blood. I only wanted to humiliate Strange by knocking his thugs around - I didn't know it would get the poor guy killed. But in a disgusting, morally reprehensible way, Ra's's actions saved me thinking through a difficult conundrum. Because let's get real: Strange knew my secret identity. I couldn't very well have just turned him over to the proper authorities. It wasn't like I could have staged some elaborate ruse involving Robin dressing up as Bruce Wayne in order to deflect attention and "prove" him wrong...

Anyway, as Ra's was wrapping up his "I want to take over the world" speech (which I had to sit through for the thousandth time, at least), Strange, with his dying breath, voice-activated Protocol 11. As a five second countdown to an eminent explosion of the tower flashed up on the screen, I had no choice but to grab Ra's and crash us both through the window. As we hurtled through the air - me latched onto Ra's like a parachute instructor to a first-timer - he made the worst decision of his criminal career so far: he stabbed HIMSELF through the chest, apparently hoping to catch me with the end of his blade as it passed through his ribcage. Needless to say, I just let go, and the thrust ended too short to pierce my armored costume. And then for good measure, Ra's continued to fall and was impaled on a sharp piece of stone. I'm no expert on the capabilities of his Lazarus Pits, but this looked like a tough predicament for him to recover from. So today marked the ignominious ends to two of my most formidable opponents...

Arkham City Post #16: Confronting Joker in the Steel Mill

2011-11-16T13:09:00.000-08:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

Upon heading back into the Steel Mill, I was greeted by a video message from Joker. He dropped hints in his chatter that this would definitely be our final confrontation, the most telling being a meta-reference to the disappointing ending of his favorite TV show that "all took place in a church." Way to date the piece, Joker; I thought Gotham City was supposed to be timeless. I didn't watch that particular show myself, but the knowledge that Joker was a fan just made me want to punch him in the face all the more.

All my new technology came in handy, especially the Freeze Grenade, which I needed to create ice rafts on the various water channels buried deep within the steel mill. I also learned a new trick: throwing a Remote Control Batarang through an exposed electrical arc, imbuing the projectile with an electric charge. This allowed me to power up various hard-to-reach fuse boxes in the area. I surprised Dr. Stacy Baker, the doctor I had rescued in my first trip to the mill. Apparently she had done a pretty good job staying out of sight, seeing as she hadn't been recaptured. Her survival might have had something to do with the lead pipe she tried to take a swing at me with, before she saw who I really was. I was glad she was able to curb her swing first, ask questions later instinct... cuz if she had connected with that pipe, I don't know if I would have been able to curb mine.

As I was crawling through a particularly isolated steam vent, I saw the strangest sight: Harley Quinn, bound and gagged without a soul in sight. After some coaxing, she let on that there was some proprietary stolen Mr. Freeze technology hidden in the boiler room. (This turned out to be a cluster grenade that could freeze multiple enemies to the ground at once.) I didn't think twice about how she found herself in that particular predicament. I chalked it up to one of the newly-revitalized Joker's famous mood swings. Had I stopped to question her a bit more, I might have learned something that would help me later on.

Instead, I continued on to Joker's secret lair, where he was gazing at himself in a mirror. Only when I saw his sickly, scarred, pockmarked, still clearly Titan-infected reflection, I was shocked: could the cure not have worked after all? But when the actual villain turned to face me, it was the familiar, emaciated yet healthy figure of Joker himself. He had the nerve to try and teach me some kind of moronic lesson about something or other... as if I had anything to learn from that sick clown. Then, to my surprise, he jumped down off his platform and challenged me to fisticuffs, one-on-one style.

Well, this was a new streak of courage, which promised to make this final showdown all the more gratifying. In these types of situations, my enemies usually resort to throwing wave after wave of henchmen at me. Rarely am I afforded the opportunity to deliver a beatdown to the main crime boss himself (Penguin was clearly the exception). But no matter how many times I tried to deliver a finishing blow, the fiend wriggled out of the way with near superhuman quickness. Right as my gratification turned to frustration, the tried and true group of henchmen came.

These were not just your typical thugs with weapons - which ran from bats to knives to fire extinguishers to riot shields. But the one-armed clown (whose other half I left beaten up at Penguin's headquarters) and a beefed-up Titan Henchman as well. This Titan monster was more powerful than the ones I faced back at the Asylum - as he charged, he protected his face from a quick Batarang, removing one of the main ways I could incapacitate one of these brutes. This left my arsenal with only my new move, the Ultra Stun, and it was hard to get in close enough to execute the "full attack action" (or, more colloquially, the triple button-press) it took to pull it off. But it was all worth it, because when I did jump on its back to take control of it, I could independently execute each of its moves: the charge, the ground pound, and the regular punch. That made it much easier to eventually take out the entire crowd.

Then, just as I was about to stand triumphant over Joker's debilitated form, wouldn't you know it a train falls on me. That's right, a train. And guess who goes unconscious (again). Yerp, that would be me.

Arkham City Post #15: Pre-Steel Mill Adventures

2011-11-14T01:59:00.000-08:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

But Oracle was right: I should focus on my primary objective of confronting Joker in the Steel Mill and securing the cure for good. I was hearing radio chatter from Joker and his thugs that was simultaneously encouraging and disheartening: Joker sounded fully healthy, which meant the cure had apparently worked. That was good news for me, if I could ever get my hands on it... and provided he didn't drink it all himself. He had to have saved some for me, right? Sure we're arch-enemies, but there's no way he could let me die, right? Unless I was taken down by his army of thugs, who seemed to be revitalized by their boss's sudden recovery.

Their revitalization might also be due to their advanced weaponry: thermal vision equipped sniper rifles, which essentially turned the whole city into one massive predator challenge! In order to put off dealing with this irritating heightened security, I decided to try to cross some side missions off my list as opposed to adding more on. The idea being that these would provide me with some welcome w00tz - and in one case, a cool gadget upgrade, allowing me to use the disruptor to detonate a nearby mine. (This was courtesy of the undercover cops locked barricaded inside the Iceberg Lounge; good for them for staying industrious!) Not only that, but it would be infinitely less satisfying to enter my final showdown with the Joker with so many loose ends.

Firstly I decided to tackle the Riddler's challenges, seeing as I had left those hostages in the lurch for quite some time now. Nygma wouldn't give me the location of his next hostage unless I had solved a requisite amount of his riddles, but luckily I was pretty diligent about solving any that I came across during my travels. Riddler had set up many elaborate death traps from which I had to rescue the hostages: electrified floors, rotating blades, a life-sized Three-card Monte-style gimmick with a hidden hostage substituted for the money card (I used my Detective Mode to thwart Nygma's attempt to cheat at that one). My personal favorite was when I used my Line Launcher to snag a hostage, who was hanging over a deadly drop, then crashed through a window to safety. But determining the location of Riddler himself required solving nearly all the riddles on the map, so I let that be till later.

Zsasz was next on my list: it wasn't hard to isolate the location of his hideout after having the Bat Computer trace the calls he was making to various payphones across the city. The hardest part of that whole mission was resisting the urge to hang up on the bastard once I had found his phone. You see, the time necessary for the computer to trace his calls necessitated listening to Zsasz's twisted ramblings on the other side of the phone. But it was all worth it to sneak into where he thought he was be secure, knock his scarred ass out, and lock him in a cage where he belonged.

Deadshot would have been harder to track were it not for a series of stupid mistakes he made that led me right to him. The evidence I was able to gather from both a tripod he left at one of the crime scenes and the impression his body made in the snow as he laid prone to take a shot led me to a PDA he left behind where he evidently thought it would be secure. From that I was able to determine his next target's location and confront the assassin in the act. It seemed almost too easy, and for a minute I was worried that he was setting a trap for me; but the ease in which I bested him in our one-on-one showdown put my fears to rest.

As for the Identity Thief and the Watcher in the Wings, it was just a matter of scouring the city and keeping my eyes open for sightings. Analyzing the third victim of the chilling serial killer led me to his hideout, where the killer trapped me and revealed his identity: famed surgeon Tommy Elliot. Rebranded as "Hush," Elliot had used pieces of the faces he had surgically removed to graft himself a new face: that of Bruce Wayne. It still didn't explain the fingerprints though... After meeting the mysterious figure three more times and scanning the symbol he left behind, I was able to overlay their locations onto a map of Arkham City, leading me to his final meeting place: the Church. He revealed himself as Azrael, a member of the Sacred Order of St. Dumas. He delivered a chilling prophecy of doom, the meaning of which remains unclear. We'll just have to see how things play out: I wasn't about to alter my whole mission based on the arcane ramblings of a mysterious figure with a flair for the dramatic.

Now I was finally ready to enter the Steel Mill via the back door... when what should I come across but the last Titan container! Now I had to go back and check on Bane, right? As it happened, rather than destroy the Titan containers as he had promised to do, Bane had gathered them all to his hideout in the Krank Co. toys factory. This attracted a squad of TYGER guards who were interested in confiscating the Titan for themselves. Bane and I teamed up to take them all out, but it turns out that fighting alongside Bane is very similar to fighting against Bane, as you still have to dodge his blind charges and avoid his reckless swings and ground-pounds. In the end, though, I ended up fighting against Bane as well, as he had never intended to destroy his share of the Titan containers anyway. Turns out he just wanted to control the entire supply. But I used my wits to trap him in a cage (which must have been much stronger than it looked to contain the muscly beast), after which I proceeded to take care of the Titan containers myself. And now, with my side mission checklist truly complete, I was ready to press on.

Arkham City Post #14: Down the Rabbit Hole...

2011-11-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

To make up for his stubbornness (which led to the loss of my cure), Mr. Freeze provided me with a new gadget based on his freezing technology: a grenade that could create a freezing blast, either stunning enemies or creating a block of ice that would float on a mass of standing water. It was necessary for me to escape the GCPD building, the main door of which Freeze had barricaded with a mass of ice. The only path out was blocked by some broken pipes spewing steam into the hallway. A freeze blast on each of the offending pipes did the trick, and I was ready to hunt down Harley Quinn and my cure.

Except as soon as I left the building, I saw Vicki Vale's news helicopter shining a light directly on me. Apparently in addition to sneaking in and stealing the cure, Harley had also leaked my location to the press. I was more annoyed at than concerned by the situation - it would have been easy enough for me to dodge the attention of an amateur helicopter pilot - until an RPG streaked across the sky and sent the chopper into a tailspin. Following the source of the radio broadcast led me to the crash site: an open area overlooked by the majestic Dini Towers, from which snipers were taking pot shots at the news team. I was easily able to take care of the snipers (while also recognizing and appreciating the metagame reference), rescue the damsel in distress, and deliver her to the safety of the Church/Medical Center. Although I stopped short of granting her request for an exclusive interview.

As I was delivering Vale to the Church, I thought I caught a glimpse of a sickening vomit-green colored top hat flitting in and out of view. But before I could react, my attention was drawn by a radio communication from Alfred informing me that Lucius Fox had been working diligently on developing his own cure, and that it was ready for me to use! In hindsight, that broadcast, which would allow me to circumvent the Main Objective of the entire ~~game~~ adventure, seemed exceedingly suspicious, despite Lucius's genius. But something unexplainable drew me to the canister Alfred had delivered, and I injected myself with the "cure" it contained totally cavalierly. Needless to say, the injection did not in fact cure me, but rather caused me to pass out, for the fourth time tonight...

...and for the third time tonight, I woke up from unconsciousness to find myself tied to a chair. But this time, I was sitting at a grotesque tea party attended by a bunch of brainwashed thugs wearing rabbit masks - clearly the work of the Mad Hatter. Just what I needed, I thought, another random encounter with a villain who had seemingly nothing to do with my main objective. Jervis Tetch then appeared and explained that he had implanted a hypnotic suggestion in my brain that caused me to see what I wanted most: in this case, the cure. The more I struggled, the crazier the hallucinations got: I found myself in a void, balancing on the face of a stopwatch, surrounded by attacking rabbit thugs. It took some willpower, but I was able to master my mind (you'll remember from my previous adventures with Scarecrow Toxin and Demon's Blood that I have ample practice in combat while under the influence of dangerous psychoactive substances), subdue Tetch's army, and destroy the magical hat that was responsible for all the mind control.

As I left the Mad Hatter's hideout in Park Row, I stopped to pay my respects to Crime Alley, the site of my parents' murder on that fateful night. Nearby, I noticed another victim of the Identity Thief, this one situated next to a knife bearing Bruce Wayne's fingerprints. I was unnerved by the find, but determined to find out the truth, when I noticed a mysterious figure watching me from a rooftop! He was wearing a red hood and cloak, and when I approached him, he gave me some cryptic message and disappeared, leaving behind a mysterious symbol, which I scanned into the Bat Computer. What the heck, I thought, as long as I'm still riding the rejuvenative high from Ra's Al Ghul's Demon's Blood, I might as well add another couple more side missions to the list...

Arkham City Post #13: Confronting Mr. Freeze

2011-11-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

With a sample of Ra's Al Ghul's blood in hand, my next objective was to bring said blood to Mr. Freeze at the old GCPD building. However, I was distracted by several new challenges on my way back up to the surface. There were groups of armed enemies using backpack-mounted sensor jammers, preventing me from scanning the room with Detective Mode. There were enemies wielding riot shields, who required a special arial attack to disarm. And to top it off, I received word over Strange's radio that a new prisoner had just been introduced to Arkham City: Mayor Quincy Sharp.

I was so eager to use my new Interrogation skills on that slimy, power-hungry excuse for a psychologist-turned-politician that I dropped my primary objective and headed straight for him, despite Oracle's warnings to stay on task. When I found him, I was glad I did, as he was about to be shot full of holes by a group of understandably furious inmates. When I took out the thugs and got my hands on Sharp, all he would divulge was that he decided to put Hugo Strange in charge of Arkham City because he had "powerful friends." Who could be more powerful and influential than Strange? Joker was out of commission with his sickness. Penguin and Two-Face are more small-time crooks than story-driving masterminds. Ra's Al Ghul was suffering from a Lazarus overdose meltdown. But as this information provided more backstory than an actionable goal, I filed it away and headed to Freeze.

Victor was able to synthesize the cure easily enough using Ra's's Lazarus-enhanced blood - score one for the insight of the World's Greatest Detective. But once he was done with the procedure - which produced two drinkable vials of cure - he did something utterly confusing: he took hold of one vial and placed the other in a locked safe. Right when it seemed he was going to hand over the McGuffin to me, he thought he could get tricky and make some demands of his own: apparently Joker had kidnapped Freeze's frozen wife Nora as incentive to develop the cure in the first place. Freeze now wanted me to find and retrieve Nora before he would deliver the cure to me. And before I could even begin to negotiate, he crushed the vial he was holding right before my eyes!

The funny thing is, I would have gladly agreed to help reunite Freeze with his wife; what harm would there be in aiding a genuinely troubled (and sometimes downright helpful) supervillain in his quest for peace of mind? And if he'd given me the cure beforehand, it would have only made it easier for me to complete that mission. But instead, I had to teach the frozen popsicle a lesson. His armored suit and devastating freeze gun made him too powerful to face head-on, but luckily the forensic lab provided a veritable plethora of options for me to make use of in taking him down.

His suit was equipped with a heat tracker, so he was able to follow whatever path I took through the lab. Luckily I was able to use that fact to lure him into a number of traps to inflict some damage: I could set up some explosive gel next to a weak wall, I could perform a takedown by jumping out from under a grate or smashing him through a window or dragging him off a ledge or just sneaking up behind him, and I could nail him with one of my signature gliding kicks. In addition, my new gadgets contributed to my efforts: I could jam his gun with my Disruptor or I could use the Remote Electrical Charge to fire up either an electromagnet or a motor that electrocuted some water on the floor, stunning him long enough to deliver a Beatdown.

The armor on his suit was so effective that I had to deliver several of these takedowns to fully defeat him - plus I had to use diversity, since he was tactically smart enough to adapt to my methods (i.e. freezing the grates, vantage points, windows, electromagnets, etc. so I couldn't use those takedowns twice). After his beating, Freeze's fit of madness subsided and we could get back to logical discussions about both of our problems. When I agreed to go after Nora on his behalf, he agreed to give me the cure... but to our horror, when he opened the safe, the vial was missing! In its place was a note from Harley Quinn, who must have crept in, accessed the safe from the wall side, and stolen the cure while I was tied up with Freeze. Man, what is it about these supervillains that always make them insist on fighting me instead of just agreeing to work together for once? It looked like I had yet another hoop to jump through before I got to taste my precious cure...

Arkham City Post #12: The Demon Trials

2011-11-07T07:56:00.000-08:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

It was good to see Talia: it's always comforting to have a member of my adventuring party who knows my secret identity, and with whom I could be totally open. Plus she's easy on the eyes, know what I'm sayin' - check out that midriff - OY! And she understood the severity of my plight as soon as she lifted my mask and looked on my grotesque, sickly complexion. However, she would not let me past the guards unless I committed to taking up her father's crusade to cleanse the world of wasteful and destructive society, and to usher in a new world order. It sounds a lot like what our political correct generation would call eco-terrorism, and between you and me, I wasn't too keen on the idea of becoming the next Ra's Al Ghul, despite the perk of immortality. But my situation left me little choice but to agree to take part in the Demon Trials.

Talia led me down a long staircase, past a coterie of ninja henchwomen, into a bare room. In the room was a table on top of which sat a gilded chalice. I was instructed to drink, and followed through, despite my knowledge of the cup's contents. One sip, and my mind was instantly transported to an expansive desert landscape, standing on a floating sand dune surrounded by puffy white clouds. Oh great, I thought, another mystical journey through a psychotropic dreamscape. Only, in contrast to the abject terror and nightmarish vibe of Scarecrow's fear gas, the Demon's Blood provided a feeling of vitality and empowerment, which I was sure was not limited to my mental state.

Ra's's ghostly form appeared and tasked me with gliding from dune to dune without touching any of the jagged mountains or sand below. You ever have those dreams where you feel like you're not quite flying, but gliding gently, with total control? Well the sensation was more dreamlike and incredible than anything I had ever experienced, and I've done my share of majestic gliding, in the real world, no less. The task wasn't hard, so it didn't surprise me when, after the effects of the drug had subsided and I found myself back in that small underground room, Talia entered and offered to bring me to the "final challenge." Who else could it have been but Ra's Al Ghul himself?

I would have been hard-pressed to face The Demon's Head in single combat had his magical draught not revitalized my body and temporarily halted the effects of my Titan infection. As I tried no to think of what the mysterious substance was doing to my insides, the doors opened, revealing an old and sickly-looking Ra's. It seems as though he wanted me to kill him rather than fight him. Only then could I truly take his place at the head of the League of Assassins and usher in his new world order. But since I wasn't interested in killing anyone EVER, much less leading an organization based on killing anyone that stands against them, I flatly refused. Then, in a rare display of vulnerability (inspired no doubt by Talia's presence), I opened up and informed them of my mission to get a sample of Ra's's blood so Mr. Freeze could complete his cure.

I hated lying to Talia - I had to tell her that I was willing to "take a life in order to save the world" before she would let me into the Demon Trials. And apparently she believed me. Which actually makes me feel not so bad for telling that particular lie to Talia. Cuz if she really knew who I am and really was my "beloved," she'd know that I was never going to decide to take a life - not anyone's - at any time - for any reason. So either she was totally fooled into thinking that I'd change into something I'm not... or she knew I was lying, and let me go through anyway, knowing that this was the only chance I had to save my life.

Either way, I was this close to getting what I came for, when Ra's took the predictable next step: he tried to force me to kill him by attacking me. But not before getting a full blast of rejuvenation from his Lazarus Pit. All of a sudden, the dreamlike desert landscape hallucinations from the Demon's Blood started popping up again. But this was no flight fantasy played out inside your mind while you're locked in a room tripping out; it was an actual battle with real, blade-wielding ninjas. And on top of it all, Ra's Al Ghul was teleporting everywhere and occasionally transforming into a sand giant, spinning around and shooting blades everywhere, like a demented Genie from Aladdin.

But little did he know this wasn't my first rodeo (at least in terms of handling real life combat situations while hepped up on psychoactive substances - I must have beat up 15 thugs plus a Titan henchman while under the influence of Scarecrow Toxin back at the Asylum, in Intensive Treatment). Plus, I had something now I didn't have then: the ability to blast my foe with electricity, which helped slow him down enough for me to pummel him into submission. I got the blood sample I wanted, and also thought I would do good old Ra's a kindness and let him in on the deduction I made: using the Lazarus Pit in excess was eroding his constitution. He knew as well as I that the only way to save himself would be to call off that damn fool crusade of his. But we also both knew that he would never give up his mission as along as he lived - just like I would never break my one rule, even with my life potentially on the line. I guess I can see why he wanted me for his successor after all.

Arkham City Post #11: Wonder City

2011-11-04T08:16:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

As the blood trail leading to Ra's Al Ghul's hideout seemed to be leading down, not up (which made me question if the line launcher was the right gadget for this job), I thought of someone else I'd met in an underground setting: Calendar Man. Even though the events of this adventure all take place in a single night, the calendar in the real world keeps on changing, and today was Halloween itself - the holiday Calendar Man mentioned when I first saw him! After clearing the courthouse of some more random Two-Face thugs who had wandered in, I spoke good old Julian Day, still locked up in his cell. He didn't seem to say anything interesting, but while he was blabbing, I noticed a calendar on the wall with a number of dates circled, mostly major holidays. Was I supposed to return to talk to this nut on each one of these days? And if so, what would be my reward?

This Calendar Man business seemed like too much of a meta-mission for my tastes, so I continued following the trail, which took me deep into the Subway Tunnels, and from there to the Sewers. After a brief, purely conversational run-in with my old friend Croc (where else would he be hanging out?) and the return of the annoyingly-chattering Joker Teeth, I got to the roots of the matter and learned a little trivia about our great city. Apparently Gotham was built over the collapsed ruins of an older city. Don't ask me how that's logistically possible - it doesn't seem to make sense unless the original city was built underground to begin with. This old city, called Wonder City, whose crown jewel - Wonder Tower - looms over Arkham from the center of Hugo Strange's Restricted Area.

According to what I learned from the voice blaring over the PA system, Wonder City was to be a sort of eco-utopia, where everything was run on a renewable source of energy known as Lazarus. Wait, as in the pits? Could it be that Ra's Al Ghul could have been behind the Wonder City project, which took place generations ago? If that's the case, it would make sense that he would choose this location for his lair. Or perhaps the location chose Ra's, so to speak, if there was a Lazarus Pit close by.

This was one of the droids I was looking for.

There could be no doubt that the League of Assassins was close by, as I soon found myself beset on all sides by ninjas and ninjettes wielding sharp and intimidating swords. They had to be coming from somewhere, but the only door I could see - a giant circular affair, flanked by two large statues - was sealed by some unknown method. I had to find out how the league was getting in and out, and it dawned on me that Wonder City's famed Mechanical Guardians might hold the key. If these droids were powered by Lazarus, their surveillance system might have still been operational. To find out, I had to scan the memory systems of all the Guardians scattered around the ruined city, while also dodging sword swings and dealing with my quickly deteriorating health.

Yes, that's right, Joker's Titan-corrupted blood was beginning to really take it's toll. Dizzy spells, sudden muscle fatigue, fits of coughing culminating with spitting up blood. I'm sure it didn't help that finding this cure required pushing my body to its utmost limits. I didn't get the full disease meltdown until I gathered all the data from the Guardians and found out that the ninjas were using their swords to open the doors. I had just countered one of their swings, inserted the unorthodox key into the lock, and knocked out the sword's holder in one swift motion, when the doors opened to reveal not Ra's Al Ghul's secret hideout, but a blinding white light, out of which I could hear the voices of my parents urging me forward.

Just as I was about to succumb to the warm feeling of comfort that I knew would accompany the end of my quest (and my life), I saw a figure emerge from the light who alone gave me the will to cling to life: my one true "beloved" Talia Al Ghul.

Arkham City Post #10: Hunting the League of Assassins

2011-11-02T12:39:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

Once I was done with Grundy, that little runt Penguin had the audacity of jumping down into the arena himself with his giant rocket launcher. I honestly don't even know if my Disruptor would have jammed his weapon - I was so hepped up on Free Flow Focus, that just dodged every single one of his rockets and delivered the imminent beatdown that was coming to him. Then I did what any sympathetic ally would have done: I delivered Penguin to Mr. Freeze.

Victor was understandably pretty pissed at Cobblepot for taking his suit and locking him up and all, but he knew I would find some way to beat the tar out of him if he hurt anybody, so he took the moderate route and locked Penguin up in one of his own display cases. I believe it was the one reserved for Bruce Wayne. Correct me if that's not what's known as dramatic irony?

Freeze and I then got into a lengthy scientific discussion about the cure he was working on for Joker. I guess he had synthesized the formula, but wasn't able to keep it from deteriorating. He needed to get his hands on some enzyme contained in the blood that has regenerating powers. As I was racking my brain about which criminal might have control of the underground organ market in Arkham City, it dawned on me: Ra's Al Ghul's blood very well might have some of that enzyme, from his generations of being exposed to those Lazarus Pits of his. It seemed too perfect at the time, so it didn't even occur to me that it was just an excuse to showcase another villain (like the Poison Ivy spores conveniently being located in Croc's Lair. I mean, come on, what plant even grows in the sewers...?)

As the thought occurred to me, I said Ra's Al Ghul's name out loud, which instantly got a reaction from the caged up ninja dressed like Kitana. She smashed through the glass, shouted something about the League of Assassins, and sprung off. Of course, I thought, that ninja must be a part of Talia Al Ghul's elite ninja strike force. And I was in incredible luck: she had cut herself as she smashed through the glass, and the blood left a perfect trail across Arkham City for my Detective Mode to follow.

But seeing as these assassins are quicker and more nimble than I - curse my gigantic thighs, which can deliver a powerful attack, but sometimes hamper my movement - I knew that I'd need another of my wondrous gadgets: The Line Launcher. Instead of having the Batwing drop it off in a little pod, like I did last year to help me get out of the Botanical Gardens after tangling with the first of Joker's Titan-enhanced henchmen, Alfred chose to send the gadget in with a personal courier: my second-favorite Robin, Tim Drake. Seeing him made me feel a little like Mario, running into Yoshi on top of the castle, but not being able to interact with him in any meaningful way. Tim offered to help, but I told him that he was needed in Gotham. To make it seem like I was telling the truth, I gave him a sample of my infected blood and instructed him to cross-check it with hospitals in the area. I mean, it is true that I work better alone, but I mostly just didn't want him to see me in my current state.

I pressed Tim for news from the outside world, and he informed me that the St. Louis Cardinals had just won the World Series against the Texas Rangers, completing one of the most dramatic comebacks in baseball history. It would have been nice to see the Rangers win their first championship in franchise history - as opposed to the Cardinals, who already have 11 titles to their name, second only to the Yankees. But I also like that a team led by arguably the best living hitter (and unquestionably the most aggravating living manager... or should I say, ex-manager) can win it all despite near-insurmountable odds. I was looking forward to catching the highlights at home on the Bat-flatscreen once all this Arkham City business was over.

After catching up on events outside the perimeter wall, I turned my attention to the Line Launcher, which acts as a sort of instant zipline creator, allowing me to travel across a large horizontal distance. Over chasms, through a spinning blade trap, you name it. And I had trained further so that I could launch a second line in another direction while traveling along the first, enabling extended travel at right angles. My increased agility also enabled me to detach the launcher and balance on the line like a tightrope walker. Just the thing for tracking ninjas through a criminal-inhabited jungle of steel and concrete as if my life depended on it...

Arkham City Post #9: Boss Fights in the Museum

2011-10-31T23:16:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

Having taken care of that pesky shark, my next stop was to confront Penguin in the Iceberg Lounge, where he had holed himself up with Mr. Freeze's ice gun. I mentioned Zelda before, and the comparison seemed more relevant than ever under these circumstances: me heading to the deepest point in the Museum (read: dungeon), equipped with a new gadget that's tailor-made to see me through the final showdown with the enemy at hand (read: boss fight). I always thought that term was somewhat of a misnomer: most of the "bosses" one encounters in videogames aren't really bosses in the sense that they direct or supervise workers. With the exception of the final boss, they're mostly just henchmen who have significantly more power than the average, run-of-the-mill grunt you run into during the rest of the adventure. However, in this case, the term took on new meaning, considering that Penguin is one of Gotham's most fearsome crime bosses...

The Iceberg Lounge was a circular room with a raised outer balcony surrounding a lower level. Extending from the balcony was a walkway leading to a gazebo-like structure, under which Penguin had camped out. Luckily the balcony was punctuated with decorative arches, behind which I could hide and avoid Penguin's freezing blasts. The Disruptor has a limited range, so it was a simple matter of getting close enough to Penguin, activating the gadget to temporarily put his gun out of commission, then punching his lights out. If it sounds a little too easy, it absolutely was. But taking care of Penguin was not even half the battle.

No sooner had I rescued the last hostage I could, when Penguin popped out of nowhere with a second wind and a rocket launcher. After a nasty fall, I found myself in a large creepy basement chamber where my Disruptor would do absolutely no good. Chained up on the far side of the room was a gigantic zombified creature, which I would have mistaken for the Grey Hulk if I didn't know the difference between the Marvel and DC Universes. This creature was in fact the mysterious Solomon Grundy (born on a Monday). He can apparently be revived from death with the application of large quantities of electricity. And each time he is so revived, it makes him stronger than before. So having been alive for more than 600 years, he was understandably pretty darn massive.

As I stared at Grundy's fist, mere inches away from my face, held back by what turned out to be a rather flimsy chain apparatus, it occurred to me that I had overheard some of Penguin's henchmen make reference to some kind of "monster" that he had chained up in the basement. These conversations always took place while I was sneaking around, before they knew I was on the premises, and the content of them never stuck in my head because I have a tendency to jump out of the shadows and start cracking skulls before they finish talking. I really should learn a little patience, since it's no fun to miss out on plot points. There's just something about the tone of a henchman's voice that immediately triggers my punch-without-mercy reflex.

Anyway, Grundy was easily able to break free of his chains in such a way that he could use his former shackles as gigantic flails. (Whosever idea it was to attach weighted metal spheres to the ends of a chain, the other end of which was fastened to the wrist of an unkillable giant zombie definitely gets an A+ in the foresight department...) It was all I could do to dodge out of the way of his vicious attacks and leapfrog over the chains as he swung them in a circle "ring around the rosie" style. I wasn't getting hit, but any time Grundy lost any life, these electrical columns rose out of the floor and zapped new life into the beast. I knew I would have to destroy the housing for these columns somehow, and using my new "Quick Fire" combat strategy seemed like the best bet.

The Explosive Gel is a wonderful gadget indeed. It can blow through weak walls, it can stun enemies, I spray it in the shape of a little Bat-logo. But because of the time it takes to apply (roughly four seconds, or about one standard action in nerdspeak) it was never very effective in combat. So I spent the last year honing my skills with the gel, enabling me to set it up in one fluid motion during combat: while performing a nifty-looking somersault, I whip the gel out of my utility belt, spray it on the ground, and replace it before I'm even back on my feet. This is the tactic I used on all three of the Grundy-renewing electrical pylons, sending Penguin's caged beast crashing to the ground.

...So imagine my surprise when the pylons magically repaired themselves not once, but twice - the last time sending so much electricity into Grundy that he burst into flames, along with the entire area around him. He was stronger and faster than ever, but I eventually was able to take him down using the same strategy, after which I smashed my fist through his glowing, zombified heart. Even though Grundy wasn't really anyone's "boss," he sure made for a prototypical and challenging boss fight.

Arkham City Post #8: Shark Repellant Bat BEAT DOWN

2011-10-29T16:20:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

I was determined not to get distracted again as I headed to the Museum for the THIRD time; so imagine my chagrin when an emergency broadcast came over my radio. But rather than pulling me off to yet another side mission, this message actually reconfirmed my previously set location. Apparently a group of elite undercover cops, hand-picked by Commissioner Gordon, who had infiltrated Penguin's gang (against my counseling, btw) had since been discovered, and were being held hostage in the Museum. I hacked the security panel and rescued the first officer from a group of unarmed thugs in the main exhibit hall.

Penguin fancies himself a collector, and as such he had retrofitted the museum's display cases to serve as prison cages. Some of these contained live subjects (such as a masked female ninja - my first thought was Kitana from Mortal Kombat, but I had suspicions as to who she really worked for), some contained the mutilated corpses of enemies who had crossed Penguin in some way, and some were left empty in preparation for future captures. I noticed spots for some of my old friends (Joker, Harley Quinn, Two-Face) and two spots for me: one for Bruce Wayne and one for Batman. I'd better make sure Penguin never gets his hands on me - I'd hate to see his look of disappointment about having to revamp his entire trophy case when he realizes he can only have one or the other.

I made my way through the maze of the museum until I reached Penguin's imposing gladiator pit, wherein I fought wave after wave of henchmen, and simultaneously battled an unmistakeable sense of deja vu. Then it came to me: Rocksteady featured this fight in their E3 2011 demo, (along with the battle with Two-Face's thugs at the Courthouse and the predator tutorial challenge in the Church) which I played a few months earlier. I suppose they included these three sections in order to give players a taste of all three varieties of henchmen. What Rocksteady did NOT include in the demo was what followed the henchmen: a gigantic half-baked Titan monster in Penguin colors. A quick check of the map revealed that there was in fact a Titan container in the Museum (which I destroyed as soon as I located it), and an even quicker Ultra-Stun allowed me to deliver a quick Beat Down.

The next step in my journey took me into the Terrors of the Deep exhibit, which Penguin had flooded and frozen, using Mr. Freeze's technology, I suspected. My suspicions were confirmed when I noticed that one of the undercover cops had broken free and was attempting to escape across the ice, when he suddenly froze in place. There was Penguin, standing on the balcony leading into the Iceberg Lounge, wielding Mr. Freeze's ice gun. As I carefully ventured out onto the ice to rescue the cop (plus the other three in the room), I was brutally attacked by a giant shark straight from the set of Jaws. Luckily he didn't destroy all the ice - Bats don't like the water, unless they're safely situated in a turbo-charged, fully-armored watercraft.

I knew I had to find some way to get past Penguin's ice gun before confronting him, so I re-established my primary objective: find Mr. Freeze. Maybe he could give me some clues about how to disable his weaponry. I found him in a display case of his own, tastelessly decorated with palm trees and surfboards. He was without his suit, so only a vial of some eerie glowing blue liquid plugged directly into his heart was keeping him alive. But before I could rescue him, I was confronted by yet ANOTHER gigantic one-armed Russian henchman, this one wielding a sickle. After I took care of him and his coterie, I learned that he and Mr. Hammer "worked" together as a former side show attraction: the Abramowitz Brothers conjoined twins. Apparently after their separation, they both pursued parallel lives of crime for different crime bosses, but each kept their trademark patriotic weapons. (Get it? Hammer and Sickle? Russian? See what they did there?)

After I rescued Freeze, he informed me that he had indeed developed a countermeasure system to prevent people from using his weapons against him. The only problem was that it was located in his suit, which was being guarded by armed thugs in the Armory across the lake. A quick predator sweep through the room took care of them, and I was able to configure my newest gadget: a firearm Disruptor, which incapacitated the weapons of any armed thugs nearby. Hmm, the Remote Electrical Charge in the Steel Mill and the Disruptor in the Museum... the one-gadget-per-dungeon structure of this adventure was making me feel more like Link from the Zelda series than the Prince of Persia.

I ran into one more obstacle before I could confront Penguin in the Iceberg Lounge: all the ice in the lake had melted, forcing me to glide onto a nearby raft and pull myself across the room using my Batclaw. The only problem with this strategy: you guessed it, the shark. No sooner had I ventured out into the middle of the lake when I was confronted by a toothy mass of fins and gills splashing about and trying to capsize my raft. I didn't have any shark-repellant bat spray in my utility belt, since it DOESN'T EXIST (although the reference was not lost on me), so I turned to my next best option: my fists. See below for a snapshot of what went down, including a pretty descriptive tutorial prompt at the bottom of the screen:

Arkham City Post #7: Taking Out the Sensor Jammers

2011-10-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

There was one more obstacle preventing me from actually getting inside the Museum once I reached it, all the way in the Southwest corner of the city, in the "Bowery." See, when you look at this city - Gotham - the way it's built, the way it looks, and how it feels, and then you see neighborhoods like the Bowery, how can you help but think of New York? But when you see the gleaming and smoking Industrial District (to the Southeast), it does kind of recall the feel of Pittsburgh. Which is probably what they'll focus on in that movie being filmed about me in Pittsburgh.

http://arkhamcity.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2817

Anyway, that one obstacle was the Sensor Jammers. I had to find and destroy three of them, because they were preventing me from using my Cryptographic Sequencer, which I needed to get through Penguin's security. The Sensor Jammers were located all throughout the city, but the last one was buried deep inside the Subway Tunnels... which incidentally ran directly under the TYGER Restricted Area directly in the middle of the city, with the towering bank of searchlights rising up over high barbed-wired walls like a giant panopticon, and out of which anti-aircraft fire streams towards you if you try to glide into it. The tunnels might be a useful entry point if it comes to any REAL sneaking around in Big Brother's Corporate HQ.

I also found another Titan container in the Subway. I wasn't even keeping track of them on my map, just kind of blowing one up whenever I came across it. And, hey, it looked like I was making some progress on my side quest to remove the Titan threat from Arkham City. The concept of working with Bane for this mission in and of itself was not altogether alien to me... at least not in the unbridled, wildman, survival of the fittest Anarchy of Arkham City. I'll tell you what, I don't object to lot of what these costumed super-villains are doing, on principal... It's just that so many of them get caught up in dumb criminal schemes that make me feel obligated to fight the shit out of them and get them off the streets. Call it a superior moral compass, or call it compulsion, but it's totally defined me as a hero. But in Arkham City, it's just such an every-man-for-himself, Will to Power environment, with the only structure (literally and figuratively) coming in the form of a wall around the perimeter. Sometimes Strange Alliances are formed when a high-level vigilante is thrown into a land grab between factions of thugs controlled by three of the DC Universe's most powerful villains ever dreamed up...

But seemingly in exchange for making progress on the afore-named side mission involving Bane, I ran into another pressing radio broadcast on the way back to the Museum. A murder victim in an alley, whose face had been cut off and bandaged; not by Hannibal Lecter, but by a man who (according to eyewitness statements) looked just like Bruce Wayne. Seeing as I have encyclopedic knowledge of Gotham's police records, I recognized that murders with this M.O. had been popping up all over the city. The papers were calling the killer "The Identity Thief." Looks like Gotham's most publicized billionaire playboy was the latest victim, in a sense. In another vey real sense, though, the murder victim was the victim. And in yet another very real sense, I had just picked up a sixth, by my count, side mission to worry about. Add to that Hugo Strange's voice coming over the TYGER Security radio, announcing that Protocol Ten would commence in a matter of single-digit hours. This was going to be one hell of a night...

Arkham City Post #6: Questions Questions with The Riddler

2011-10-26T09:10:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

But on my way to the Museum to bust into Penguin's headquarters, I intercepted a radio frequency from Arkham Security that Officer Cash's medical team had disappeared from the Church. I couldn't go losing allies, regardless of how dire my medical situation might soon become (what with some of Joker's Titan-infected blood coursing through my veins and all), so I resolved to go save them. When I arrived at the scene, who's annoying mug should I see projected onto a screen hanging from the church ceiling but Edward Nygma's. So it The Riddler was behind kidnapping the medical team, putting some urgency behind his taunt that solving his riddles was a matter of life and death.

Nygma was broadcasting from an encrypted frequency, and he wouldn't give me more clues as to where the hostages were kept until I solved a riddle located somewhere in the church: "This instrument always plays from the heart." It didn't take me long to recognize the large pipe organ - not only was it the only instrument in the building, but the body part terminology was easy to spot. As a reward for my correct answer, Nygma told me that the first hostage was located in the courthouse, where I had left Two-Face strung up.

As I left the church, I ran into a thug I recognized as having had some dealings with Riddler. If I was able to interrogate him, I could use the information to find out more about the hostages. Or, barring that, at least more information about the locations of those damn Riddler trophies, which are always welcome sources of experience-providing w00tz. It also opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me going forward through the city, as Riddler Informants (highlighted green by my Detective Mode) would pop up in random groups of thugs. This meant I had to keep each informant conscious as I took out the rest of the group to allow for interrogation. A little extra challenge, but it was worth it to add those little question marks to my map.

After I freed the first hostage from the Courthouse, he gave me the frequency on which Riddler was sending his broadcasts. Great, I thought, now I'll have to listen to his irritating taunts through the remainder of this adventure. But when I tuned to the frequency using the Cryptographic Sequencer, I just heard The Riddler's voice on loop giving a clue for another riddle. This was a word-game, that could only be solved with a strange device, called the Enigma Machine, which was also delivered to me by the hostage. However I decided that the hostages would have to wait for now, because my mission of finding a cure for my condition seemed more pressing at the moment - otherwise, I wouldn't be able to save anybody OR defeat Strange.

But as I thought about letting those hostages sweat for a while, I felt a little relieved to see The Riddler taking an active role in this particular scheme. He was little more than an ominous voice hiding from the shadows during my last adventure, and actually getting to look at his face made it a very distinct reality that I would get to punch it later on. But my fantasies would have to wait, as I was still a long way from the Penguin's hideout in the Gotham Museum.

Arkham City Post #5: The Search for Mr. Freeze

2011-10-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

When I came to, I found myself strapped to a chair; so for those of you keeping score at home, that's 3 prolonged periods of unconsciousness on the night so far, after 2 of which I woke up in some form of restraint. But this one was followed by the most drastic consequences and dynamic plot twist encountered so far. The look of Joker's more-disgusting-than-usual white, scarred skin was enough to deduce that his blood was indeed contaminated with Titan... but now, so was mine! After I couldn't squeeze anything from Joker about Protocol 10, he directed my attention to some recently used blood transfusion equipment, with me on the other end.

After I got over the initial sense of revulsion (and the subsequent recognition of the severe irony) of having some of my arch enemy's blood intermingled with mine, I couldn't deny the brilliance of the tactics: now finding a cure was my priority as well as Joker's. I was also blown away by the drastic increase in personal stakes between last year's adventures in Arkham Asylum and now: before I was fighting to save my city, to take another step forward in my crusade to rid the citizens Gotham of their ridiculously costumed persecutors. But now I was fighting to save my very life. It kind of puts things in perspective, and hopefully gets more people interested in the plot of the game...

Joker threw me one last piece of information before sending the wheelchair to which I was tied crashing through the window down to the street below: Joker had commissioned Mr. Freeze to find him a cure. This is nothing too surprising - remember Mr. Freeze was formerly Dr. Victor Fries, a brilliant scientist - and it seemed like the good doctor was close to completing his task... until he completely vanished off the map. My first objective was to find him. I figured I'd head to the coldest point in Gotham, which I could easily figure out using my hi-tech, totally advanced, state of the art Bat-Thermometer.

But first, I felt compelled to add yet another side mission to my list. This materialized when I stopped to chat with a political prisoner who had figured out how to send an SOS signal over the radio. He told me that he worked for Strange before he was thrown in there, but before he could go into any detail, he was killed by a perfectly-placed shot from a sniper. I scanned the scene for evidence and was able to discover the trajectory of the bullet, which led me right to a shell casing that I immediately recognized as belonging to... that's right, Deadshot. There must be some people in Arkham City that Strange wants taken out pretty thoroughly if he's willing to hire the world's deadliest assassin. I would have to try and get to them first.

The coldest point in Gotham turned out to be the old GCPD building, where Freeze was using one of the old forensic labs to do his research. But all I found was Penguin's thugs, who had apparently kidnapped Freeze and set up a guard around the place. Penguin's thugs were noticeably tougher than Joker's: they were equipped with heart monitors resembling the suicide collars used by the old Asylum. Joker wouldn't have been industrious enough to deck his henchmen out like that if he hadn't stumbled upon the equipment at the Asylum. Now that there are multiple sets of henchmen running around, it's fun to see the different types of people each villain chooses to fill his crew with. Joker goes for quantity (i.e. anyone who'll sign up), Penguin goes for quality, and Two-Face actually sends his goons out to give campaign speeches. I guess he wants to keep his henchmen "on message." Whatever, they all make the same sound when they hit the ground, so it doesn't matter to me.

Seeing as my leads to finding Mr. Freeze had gone cold (so what if there's a pun intended wanna start something?), I had to use some of my newly cultivated powers of persuasion to interrogate one of Penguin's thugs. He told me right away that Cobblepot had set up his secure fortress in the Gotham Museum. But as I headed for the door, I found that my remote electrical charge couldn't open it. I could, however, use the cryptographic sequencer for the purpose it was originally built for: to open locked doors. All I had to do was download the municipal codes so I could hack into government computers. It felt good to hack into The Fed's computers to get what I needed - usually my sense of justice causes me to refrain from messing with government business, but these circumstances were rather dire. Now I knew where to go, and had the means to get there.

Arkham City Post #4: The Joker's Steel Mill

2011-10-23T20:17:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

It was almost time to pinpoint the origin point of Joker's radio transmissions... but I was distracted once again by a distress flare in Gotham Harbor, near where I started my AR Training missions. As I entered the building, I was surprised to see none other than Bane, his gigantic roided-up frame hunched over a map on the wall. Apparently he has some weird sixth-sense for news of the Titan formula, having so much of it in his blood stream, and he had caught wind of 12 containers of the stuff that Joker had somehow managed to get off Arkham Island. He claimed to want the Titan destroyed as much as I did - apparently he wants a monopoly on the physique-enhancing chemical market - so we agreed to each take out six containers and then meet back at the harbor. Hey, if I can keep track of four side missions, why not five...?

Each container thankfully contained a radio homing beacon, and my Bat Computer was able to mark the location of all six on the map. The closest one was guarded by a few hapless Joker thugs, and after dispatching them with ease, I made short work of the container with my explosive gel. The second container appeared to be locked deep within the Sionis Industries steel mill... which was incidentally the location of Joker's radio broadcasts. Interesting how my paths always seem to converge. There didn't appear to be any clear way in, so Alfred stopped just short of suggesting I dive through the main chimney, referring to the strategy as "suicide." But desperate times sometimes call for desperately taking a page out of the Santa Claus handbook.

Note to self: whenever Alfred describes something as "suicide," remind me to file it under "daring and awesome and fun to boot." I grappled over the lip of the chimney, and immediately divebombed into a drop which I knew ended with a lake of molten hot magma, the natural by-product of the steel industry. (I should know - I'm having a movie filmed about me in Pittsburgh, PA, the steel capital of America.) I prepared to pull up dramatically and glide gently into the inevitable crack in the infrastructure, but luckily there was a wire spread across the pit, onto which I gently settled. I must say, all this tightrope business in the early part of these adventures has me feeling more like the Prince of Persia than the Dark Knight.

Once inside it was a matter of sneaking through the vents until I came upon the giant empty space of the loading bay. There was the doctor who Harley had kidnapped from the Church, and who had apparently failed to find a cure for Joker's illness. As punishment for her failure she was about to fall victim to a giant clown with only one arm... but in that arm he held a gigantic sledge hammer, from which he got his name (the nearly 40 clowns waiting around him referred to the giant as "Mr. Hammer"). But at the last second, the clowns dragged her away to the smelting room, where she was to be guarded by a group of armed thugs, waiting for some unimaginable purpose. Maybe Joker wanted her alive, just to lure me in there. Whatever the motives, I obliged by clearing the room and rescuing the doc.

From her I learned that Joker was suffering from an illness caused by his blood being contaminated with Titan - Bain's influence reentering the atmosphere. At least the disease didn't also make him bigger and stronger, like what happens with a Titan overdose. Having a sick Joker on the loose is bad enough: it makes him desperate. Never mind a sick Joker overpowered by an experimental chemical. I also grabbed a piece of some industrial electrical machinery and modified it to allow me to shoot a remote electrical blast - picture Raiden's lightning bolt, except that it also allowed me to power up certain electrical devices remotely. Thankfully, one of those devices was the door that let us out of that room.

Another one of those devices was a wrecking ball in the loading bay that I could swing back and forth to crash through the wall Joker was hiding behind. But I couldn't use the controls before I tangled with Mr. Hammer himself. It's a good thing my battles with the Titan henchmen at the Asylum prompted me to master a new combat move: the Ultra Stun, wherein I could triple-button mash Stun to take care of overlarge enemies like this guy. Before I punched his lights out (pictured above), I noted his Russian accent and distinctive tattoos. Then I went after Joker.

I burst in on Harley Quinn weeping at the feet of a shrouded figure seated in a wheelchair. She pleaded me to leave them alone. I tossed her aside like a ragdoll. After failing to respond to verbal questioning, I used detective mode to scan the vitals on the figure in the wheelchair: deceased. That's when the real Joker jumped out from behind me and hit me with a double dose of knockout gas. And that's when I was knocked the fuck out...

Arkham City Post #3: The Church and Side Missions

2011-10-21T23:07:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

While I had my cowl's Detective Mode equipped to scan the bullet trajectory evidence, I noticed a human form huddled in the basement. I cautiously crept down there and found Calendar Man locked away in the courthouse's holding cells, muttering something about Halloween being a good time to come and see him. Why was he locked in the holding cells? Could he have been referencing "The Long Halloween?" Is that even in the same continuity as Arkham? How can I even be sure what the date is? But I had to file these questions away, as I had more pressing matters to attend to.

Outside the courthouse, I found a couple of civilians huddling together for safety. These weren't criminals, but employees of the company that used to run security for Arkham City before Strange took over - political prisoners, if you will. There was clearly something Strange wanted kept hidden, and I resolved to find out what that was, with the help of these folks - however many I could find.

On the way to the church, I ran into a familiar sight: a glowing green question mark situated on a rooftop; only this one was enclosed in a steel dome next to an unfamiliar sight: a circular floorplate embossed with a similar question mark. Standing on the plate caused the cage to open up, allowing me to snare the Riddler Trophy with my batclaw. As soon as I did, Edward Nygma's irritating voice came over my in-cowl radio, informing me that completing his challenges this time around was not just a silly diversion, but a matter of life and death. Bringing my list of things to file away up to three...

Inside the church, I found Harley Quinn and her thugs holding several doctors and police officers hostage. Harley split, giving me the opportunity to show off a few of the new Predator Mode moves I had developed throughout the past year. Back at the Asylum, I had four basic ways to take out enemies: I simply choke them out (either from sneaking up behind them, jumping out of a floor grate, or waiting for them as they rounded a corner), string them up by dropping down on them from a vantage point, pull them over a ledge, or smash down on them through a glass ceiling. To these tricks, I added the ability to break through wooden panels behind which a thug might be hiding, choke an opponent out with my legs from a platform above them, and a special trick whereby I could take out two nearby thugs in one move (I call that one the "let's put our heads together" attack, for obvious reasons...).

I interviewed the hostages - among which were familiar faces Aaron Cash and William North - who informed me that when Harley left the building, she took with her one of the doctors for the purpose of "fixing up the Joker." I guess I gave him a worse beating than I thought back at the Asylum; and I'm sure his recovery process was not aided by the megadose of Titan he injected himself with before our final showdown. I can't imagine the effects of coming down from that trip - the mind-altering effects that nearly took hold between when I was shot with a Titan dart and when I injected myself with the antidote were not insignificant. But if Joker was the one who fired the shot from the church belltower, I might have a chance to ask him about the experience myself.

As I found out after climbing to the top of the church, it turns out that Joker wasn't indeed up there: the gun was fired by a remote control radio device... and was wired to a series of hugely exaggerated explosive devices. I just barely had enough time to scan the radio receiver with my Detective Mode Evidence Scanner and dive out the stained glass window before the whole thing went up in flames. But I got enough information to put a trace on the radio signal Joker was sending. But since it appeared to be coming from the other side of the city, I decided I needed a more effective means of getting around...

I connected to the Batcomputer to embark on a little training session to ready myself for an upgrade for the grapnel gun that Lucius Fox still had in the prototype stages. The increased power would enable me not just to grapple up to a point, but to launch myself into the air above said point, leading to further gliding and grappling potential. But before I deemed myself ready for such an upgrade, I decided to put myself through a series of Augmented Reality (AR) missions that tested my ability to glide through various targets and make use of my newly-learned divebombing skill. It was not easy, but I didn't get to where I am today through lack of discipline, and I eventually rewarded myself with the more powerful gadget - much to Alfred's chagrin. Apparently he disapproves of me using a device that Lucius was still testing, but in an environment five times as large as the Asylum, I knew I would need a little extra edge to traverse ground more quickly.

With the Grapple Boost in hand, I was ready to head towards Joker's radio signal... until I was distracted by a ringing payphone, which I couldn't help but pick up. On the other end was the chilling voice of Victor Zsasz, who informed me that he would murder a hostage if I failed to answer another ringing phone somewhere within the city in a certain amount of time. The computer was able to track down the source, but it took time, and I had to make use of all my grappling, gliding, and running skills to get there in time. I kept Zsasz on the phone as long as I could, but it wasn't enough to triangulate the position of where he was calling from. As the FOURTH thing for me to file away, I don't doubt he'll call back at some point.

Arkham City Post #2: Rescuing Catwoman

2011-10-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

Two times in one night already I'd been knocked unconscious for an extended period of time, and I hadn't even put on my Batsuit yet. This could not be good for my brain cells, I thought, but probably nothing worse than an average encounter with Scarecrow Gas. Except after Scarecrow Gas, I don't usually get woken up staring straight at the short and stocky form of The Penguin. The failed society figure spouted some nonsense about my family having destroyed his family, and how he aimed to take revenge on my face with a pair of brass knuckles.

While I was racking my brain to try to remember any social strain between the Waynes and the Cobblepots, I felt the first blow land across my jaw. As he reared back for another punch, I determined that it wasn't particularly important for me to remember our personal family histories at this juncture. I grabbed his fist inches before it connected, bent his hand back and distinctly counted as I broke every one of his fingers. It's a good thing TYGER security doesn't handcuff their prisoners behind the back, like how real-life police do it, because then things might have gotten tricky. But as it happened, I was able to break free of the shackles with an extra-human display of strength and easily take down the group of about five henchmen Penguin had surrounding him.

It was tougher to pull off my awesome combat techniques while wearing a monkey suit than it normally is in the Batsuit. The arch support is definitely not as good in my wingtips, but they're still able to deliver a walloping impact. Also, headbutts are noticeably more painful without the reinforced molded plastic of my cowl, but the temporary sting is worth it to see the big scary henchmen fall to the ground with blood in their eyes. Once I was done with the group, I went over to Penguin, who was nursing his shattered hand over in a corner by a fence, and delivered him a Mortal Kombat style uppercut that sent him flying higher in the air than even Sub-Zero could send Scorpion on his best day.

After that it was just a matter of getting to higher ground so I could use my wrist-communicator to contact Alfred. He immediately had my Batsuit dropped in via the Batwing. It's good to have Alfred back. Don't get me wrong, Oracle was great throughout Arkham Asylum, but there's something about Alfred being a butler that makes it easier for me to order him around - as opposed to, you know, a handicapped former sidekick. Although, I think I've provided Joker more than adequate payback for shooting Batgirl in the spine, at least in terms of gross hospital visits, and she's such a trooper to still want to contribute any way she can.

Once I got my suit on - the process actually took me about 30 minutes overall, what with all the complicated machinery involved, but thanks to modern montage technology, I accomplished the task in about four quick shots - I inserted the security card I stole from the guard into my Cryptographic Sequencer and tuned it into the TYGER security feed. What a difference a year makes for technology, huh? The good ol' C-S is no longer limited to overloading security panels on doors - and in addition to the TYGER feed, I could also scan broadcasts from Gotham FM and the Gotham Police Department. And people wonder why I'm not excited about the iPhone 5...

I heard a broadcast from the security feed that my old pal Catwoman was being held captive by Two-Face in the old courthouse, and that the binary-obsessed villain was planning on killing her, and that Strange intended to have his forces do nothing about the situation. Some quick action was in order, so I set the courthouse - which happened to be right in front of me - as my waypoint and glided straight there. Inside, Two-Face had Catwoman suspended upside down over a vat of acid and was a coin flip away from sending her plunging to her doom. But luckily the good head prevailed and the former District Attorney set about the process of giving the feline anti-hero a "fair" trial. While he talked, I snuck up to a vantage point above the crowd of 40-something henchmen who were listening and dropped directly into the fray.

Many of the henchmen split immediately upon seeing my grim visage, but the ones who didn't were tough. Luckily I was not completely out of combat practice, as I had been at the commencement of my Arkham Asylum adventures; in fact, I had worked hard to improve my skills. Right from the start, I could take an opponent out from a standing position, provided I had enough momentum in my attacks. I had also developed two additional techniques, both utilizing the cape: one in which I could grapple someone and quickly deliver a flurry of blows, and another wherein I could vault off a stunned opponent and deliver a fearsome strike from the air. I also had taught myself to split my focus among multiple opponents, allowing me to counter two strikes at once in one fluid motion. You don't think I would go so close to Arkham City without preparing myself, even in the supposedly safe guise of Bruce Wayne?

All during this combat session, Two-Face was taking pot shots at me with his pistol from behind a reinforced glass cage. I must have performed too elaborate of a flourish on the last opponent, because right after I had cleared the room, Dent lined up a direct hit, right to the bat-logo on my chest. It's a good thing the Batsuit is made of reinforced kevlar, but the impact knocked the wind out of me and surely cracked a couple of ribs. While I was catching my breath, I head Catwoman escape her bonds of her own accord, right before an unfavorable coin flip from Two-Face would have spelled the end of her. She slashed him with her claws and was about to finish the job when Two-Face pulled his second hidden gun (she should have known he wouldn't ever carry just one of anything). Luckily I had regained enough wherewithal to grapple his ass and suspend him dangling over the ominous vat of acid.

After a touching reunion, I asked Selina if she had any information about Protocol 10. It sure seemed like she didn't know anything - she fed me some line about how it could be Strange's big plan for dealing with me, but we didn't have any time to go into the details, as I noticed a green laser sight - in the pattern of a twisted smiley face - slowly climbing up the side of Catwoman's face. She's lucky I'm so observant, as I whisked her out of the way just in time to avoid having to clean up cat brains from off the floor. On the other hand, I was lucky enough to have waited until the shot was fired to make the save, as the bullet-hole through the window coupled with the point of impact on the ground allowed me to trace the trajectory of the shot, and thus find out where the shooter was situated - the bell-tower of an old church being used as a medical center. Unfortunately, while I was analyzing the evidence, Catwoman slipped away using her whip. But I doubt this would be the last time we would meet within the confines of the prison city...

Arkham City Post #1: Opening Sequence

2011-10-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT!

A year has passed, apparently, since that seemingly endless night where I found myself trapped within the confines of Arkham Asylum by my arch-nemesis The Joker. I had to battle through a significant portion of my rogue's gallery - Bane, Scarecrow, Killer Croc, Poison Ivy - and overcome some overwhelming challenges before I defeated the Clown Prince of Crime himself in a daring, Titan-enhanced showdown high on the rooftops of the Arkham Penitentiary. But in the end, justice prevailed and the Titan program, which claimed the lives of co-conspirator Dr. Young and so many other innocent victims, was shut down.

However, as is often the case with the plots of supervillains, the completion of one obstacle only leads to the emergence of a much nastier one. Such was the case with Arkham City, the heinous and despicable slum/prison devised by Gotham City Mayor (and former Warden of Arkham Asylum [and current host body for the spirit of Amadeus Arkham, apparently... at least according to those mystical/magical Chronicles of Arkham that appeared throughout the last adventure]) Quincy Sharp. It seems we are no longer interested in attempting to rehabilitate criminals and reintroduce them to society - we simply quarantine them in a portion of the city that we give up for lost and try as hard as we can to prevent their escape.

Well, I had just about had enough of this scheme, so I dressed up as my alter ego, billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, and marched down to a press conference to mobilize some political support for the burgeoning "Shut Down Arkham City" movement. Everything was going well, Wayne's speech was inspirational and moving, Vicki Vale was lookin' fine, and the crowd was just getting into it... and that's when the SWAT team arrived. I was immediately surrounded by troops that I recognized as belonging to TYGER, Dr. Hugo Strange's company that recently took over security for Arkham City. I couldn't very well make a display of my mad skillz right there in front of all that press, so I had no choice but to go quietly. Which is easy to do once you let yourself get cold-cocked with the butt of an assault rifle...

When I regained consciousness, I was tied to a chair with Strange's sickening chin-bearded mug pressed right up against mine. The stench of his breath made it hard for me to concentrate on much that he was saying, but I did catch a mention of something called "Protocol 10" ... OH and also he let drop that he knows Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same person. (Maybe you remember an episode of the Animated Series where Alfred, Robin, and I dealt with a similar problem? Yeah, adopted from the same case files. This is how it "really" happened.) He cautioned me not to try to escape, otherwise he'd tell the whole world my secret.

I thought about it for a minute, blinded by an interrogation-style hot light, staring at my chair-bound form in the mirror ahead of me, listening to Strange's haunting introduction video. It sure would be a hassle if everybody in Gotham knew the identity of Batman. The government would probably freeze all my assets, raid Wayne Manor and demolish the Batcave. I have enough cash stashed in my Bat-mattress for Alfred, Lucius, and I to set up shop on some deserted island and operate under the radar for quite some time, but I couldn't afford to be off the streets long enough to set that up. On the other hand, I would be able to do far less good if I remained trapped in here as Bruce Wayne, allowing Protocol 10, whatever it might be, to go into effect. I resolved to escape, and pulled it off by rocking myself out of the chair and headbutting the guard who responded. Before I was overtaken by a slew of Strange's armed minions, I was able to snatch the security encryption card from the original guard's radio, which I was sure I'd be able to make use of later.

I was tossed into a courtyard and forced at gunpoint to fall in line with a bunch of foul-mouthed, foul-smelling, orange-jumpsuited inmates. They took one look at my designer suit and bruised face, and thought they could have their way with me once the gates opened. If only they knew... Actually, some of them did get an opportunity to know very soon after that. After a few moments in a holding cell with Jack Ryder (yes, the famous news reporter was imprisoned by Strange as well, for what reason I could only guess), the gates opened and a flurry of enemies jumped the fences and attacked immediately. No point in holding back in displaying my skillz now, as survival mode fully kicked in. Plus, I thought, showing off a little might convince that damn fool Ryder to stick close to me, however useless he had already proved in a fight. It's always good to have allies on the inside...

Even with my hands and feet shackled together, I was able to make use of my impressive physical prowess to counter the incoming attacks and put down the first wave. My undoing was trying to help Jack Ryder to his feet and support him to the end of the gauntlet, which distracted me enough for one of Penguin's goons to sneak up behind me and crack me in the head with a lead pipe. He dragged me before the short, bird-like villain himself - cigar in hand and broken beer bottle in place of a monocle - who promptly booted me in the face, after which all went black.

Arkham City: Intro

2011-10-19T09:57:00.000-07:00

I know the World Series of Baseball starts today, but seeing as no teams from Gotham City are participating, I find it hard to focus on the sport. Especially since there are such exciting events going on in the world of my alter ego, The Batman. Yes, it's true, the bat is out of the bag: the blogger you all knew as Pankin is, in fact, the true caped crusader, protecting the innocent citizens from nefarious villains that threaten the very fabric of our society. I couldn't hold in the truth any longer ever since the release of a highly anticipated video game chronicling my latest adventures through that maze of sin and death known as Arkham City.

The folks at Rocksteady Games did such a great job of portraying me and my adventures through Arkham Asylum two years ago that I graciously extended them the license for using my likeness and personal history a second time. They took a little liberty with the character design (notice the discrepancy between the REAL Batman (me, right) and a ludicrously exaggerated statue of the version of "Batman" used in the game (left)). But the replication of my patented fighting style, the use of the gadgets included in my utility belt, and the choice of actor to impersonate my voice (Kevin Conroy from the Animated Series) are all second to none.

What follows is a series of excerpts from my personal case files that were compiled during the actual adventures upon which Batman: Arkham City is based. As you may know, I'm not in the habit of publishing my own personal notes, preferring to filter them through various channels such as comic books, television shows, and feature films. But based on the hype surrounding the release of this game, I figure I'd make an exception.

Please enjoy the outpourings of my expert detective's intellect as I take you through a harrowing journey into the heart of.... ARKHAM CITY!

Fair warning: SPOILERS WILL FOLLOW!

Projections vs. Reality: St. Louis Cardinals

2011-10-16T11:06:00.000-07:00

Just under the wire with a post about the Cardinals again, as they could be one win away tonight from knocking the Brewers out of the postseason and reaching the World Series for the first time since 2006. I personally hope the Brewers win two at home to advance, partly because I like the Brewers, but partly because it would be too much of an underdog story to have a team projected to finish 4th in the division play in the Fall Classic. However, the first comment the scout makes in "Enemy Lines" is that you can never count this team out because of their pitching staff and Manager Tony LaRussa's impeccable ability to strategically run his bullpen in the ground.

The next comment is that "there's nothing not to like about Chris Carpenter." Well obviously this scout never consulted the Brewers - who have their own set of issues with the hurler - or examined Carp's injury history, which caused him to miss two of the past five seasons. Keep in mind, their plan was to have Carpenter as the #2 starter behind Adam Wainwright, before the latter went down for the year with Tommy John surgery. The scout praises replacement Kyle McClellan's curveball, which nevertheless wasn't enough to keep him in the rotation for the full year. He also claimed

The scout also comments on Albert Pujols' apparent lack of focus throughout the spring. Perhaps the looming promise of free agency and the potential of a $30m a year contract distracted him a bit. This distraction apparently continued to the regular season, as 2011 was the first time in his 11 year career that Pujols failed to hit .300 or reach 100 RBI (he missed both by 1). Another thing the scout got right was that the Cardinals would not be happy with Ryan Theriot's defense - he cost his team between 8 and 12 runs with his glove at SS... but was anywhere from 3 to 6 runs above average at 2B (where he moved after the acquisition of Rafael Furcal).

One mis-judgment by the scout was that "Colby Rasmus is way too good a player to trade" - tell that to the Toronto Blue Jays, who acquired the potential star centerfielder in a blockbuster trade. I don't think the scout writes the "Modest Proposal" section, but that includes another mis-judgment: play Allen Craig in RF over newcoming veteran Lance Berkman. Tell that to his 31 HR, .959 OPS, and 5.2 WAR. (That WAR includes 5.9 offensively and -0.7 on defense, as he's definitely better suited as a 1B/DH type.) Craig played well in 75 games (2.1 WAR), and was better in the field (1 to 8 runs saved), but even when they needed another outfielder, the Redbirds went with Jon Jay (1.3 WAR) more often than not, so they must think less highly of Craig than the editors of SI.

"The Number" is 10 blown saves by the 2010 Cardinals' bullpen, "the fewest in the NL since 2004." All that changed in 2011, where the team blew 26 late-inning leads. Ryan Franklin (he of the 93.1% success rate last year) blew 4 of his 5 chances, and was promptly replaced by youngster Fernando Salas (and later in the playoffs by Jason Motte, who doesn't even figure as the ONE non-closer reliever in the SI preview. That spot goes to Mitchell Boggs, who was good, but didn't figure nearly as much into the team's bullpen. This is one grievance I have with the SI Baseball preview: the bullpen is such a big part of a team's strategy and success, and they leave room for a closer and ONE other reliever? When the football preview leaves room for the entire defense and offensive line? Where's the respect to America's true pastime. OK rant over. Enjoy the NLCS tonight...).

Projections vs. Reality: Milwaukee Brewers

2011-10-13T14:58:00.000-07:00

Let me just say right off, that as soon as it became apparent that the Brewers would make the playoffs, they were my pick to win the World Series (against the Rays, but let's not get into that...). I wasn't sure how they would get past the Phillies, but thankfully they didn't have to. But after falling behind 2 games to 1 against the Cardinals, they still have their work cut out for them. Their run is even more impressive seeing as they were projected to finish 2nd in the division behind the Cincinnati Reds.

Not to rag on the scout in the "Enemy Lines" section, but he got two things noticeably wrong. The first involves the pitching staff: "With Zack Greinke out ... they're scrambling." Well, as it happened, Greinke compiled just the fourth-highest pitching WAR (Wins Above Replacement) among Brewers starters. And even though he missed five starts due to an injury, his pitching WAR per start is still fourth on the team. Here's how the numbers shake out with Milwaukee's entire starting staff (the same as projected by SI, by the way):

The second thing the scout got wrong had to do with starting third baseman Casey McGehee, who the projected lineup has him batting fifth, behind the inspiration for Beast Mode: "He can protect Fielder." McGehee could have done so with numbers resembling last year's 23 HR, 104 RBI, and 3.0 WAR. However McGehee played so poorly in 2011 that he actually recorded one win below replacement (-1.0 WAR), the lowest of any Brewers player. Kudos to manager Ron Roenicke for trusting the numbers and going with Jerry Hairston at 3B for the playoffs. Below is a graphic illustrating the drastic decline in production:

Speaking of trusting the numbers, the "Modest Proposal" section refers to a sabermetric theory that a team's worst batter (i.e. the pitcher, for National League clubs) should bat 8th in the order instead of 9th. That way you have the top of the order coming up with men on base more often, or something like that. Be that as it may, Roenicke trotted out a batting order with the pitcher batting 9th for all 162 of the Brewers' games this year. "The Number" emphasizes the lack of baserunning speed by powerhouse first baseman Prince Fielder, claiming that he only went from 1st to 3rd on a single ONCE last year. The baseball-reference stats pages lump 1st-to-3rd and 1st-to-home scenarios together - they have Fielder with a "3" in that column. That number increased to "8" in 2011, so maybe he increased his running drills in the off-season or learned to pick up the ball flight better. Either way, he definitely still knows how to hit:

Pretty much the only discrepancy between the projected lineup and reality is that newcomer Nyjer Morgan started the majority of games in CF rather than Carlos Gomez, who served more of a defensive replacement role. Also the batting order was rejiggered a little towards the end of the season putting Corey Hart into the leadoff role rather than Rickie Weeks. And solid backup Mark Kotsay (whose swing I really like) is missing. But other than those small differences, this team played as planned, and won.

Projections vs. Reality: Texas Rangers

2011-10-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

Last year's AL champions, the Rangers were picked to finish second behind (*chuckle*) the fearsome Oakland A's. (Let me just get in a quick aside here: it's strange being a fan of a team that consistently underperforms expectations. I want the A's to do well each season and as a fan, I naturally set irrational expectations for them. And when I see them projected to finish first, I always share in the optimism throughout the baseball community. But then I take a look at the projected lineup, and it seems like the baseball community is showing my same irrationality. Which is fine, but I can't help wondering when everyone else will wise up and see the numbers...)

In the "Enemy Lines" section of the SI Preview, the "rival scout" makes 7 points about these Rangers. Three of them consist of gushing about Josh Hamilton's Mickey Mantle-esque strength, Adrian Beltre's unrivaled athleticism at the hot corner, and Mitch Moreland's strong spring performance. Well, the former two players put up strong seasons despite both missing time due to injury, and the latter player quite frankly didn't hit like a starting first baseman on a playoff club. However, this club didn't have anything close to a traditional setup at first base. New acquisition Mike Napoli, a catcher by trade, spent most of last year playing first for the Angels due to an injury to Kendrys Morales, and SS-turned-2B-turned-3B-turned-DH Michael Young can play any infield position, which includes 1B. Both filled in for Moreland a bit in 2011, mostly against lefties.

The scout also pegged C.J. Wilson as a back of the rotation starter, completely misinterpreting his successful transition from reliever to starter last year. Maybe pitching behind Cliff Lee last post-season taught a lot about leading a team from the left side of the rubber. His similar prognosis for Colby Lewis, however, was rather accurate. Neftali Feliz didn't become a starter this year, so he didn't have to worry about developing another out pitch beyond his fastball. The Rangers couldn't play Julio Borbon over David Murphy due to the former's general ineffectiveness, so they lost a little there defensively. But the scout nailed it when he predicted they'd package Chris Davis for a pitcher (although it wasn't a starting pitcher, as predicted).

The "Modest Proposal" is strikingly similar to Detroit's: they should use their heavy-hitting new acquisition as catcher instead of general utility role. Napoli did get enough at-bats to be considered a starter, although he split his time between catcher, first base, and DH. "The Number" refers to how Rangers pitchers last year recorded just .190 strikeouts per batter faced. They didn't improve too much - just to .196 - but apparently it was enough to improve their staff ERA from 3.93 to 3.79.

Projections vs. Reality: Detroit Tigers

2011-10-08T21:45:00.000-07:00

Actually getting the chance to sit and watch a postseason game all the way through (thanks, weekend!), which gives me the opportunity to begin some real hard analysis. (The slow, methodical pace of baseball games makes them more fun to watch while multitasking, and I can't think of any better additional task than writing about baseball.) I wanted to do a feature involving the Sports Illustrated Baseball Preview issue, and what better way to do that than by looking in hindsight what it says about some of the teams in the playoffs.

We'll start with the visiting team in tonight's contest, the Detroit Tigers. This team was projected to finish second in the AL Central to last year's division winners, the Minnesota Twins. Along with these projections, each article includes a scout's take on some key players, a "modest proposal" for how the team could be managed differently, and a statistic that supposedly tells something about how the team will perform. I'll go through those three elements and see how they measure up to reality.

According to said scout, the Tigers' success hinges on Miguel Cabrera, who is allegedly "right there with Albert Pujols" offensively - which the numbers support. Justin Verlander is obviously the recognized leader of the staff. The scout claims that Max Scherzer and Rick Porcello are overrated (not entirely untrue), but seemed very bullish on Brad Penny and Phil Coke - one of whom struggled to the tune of a 5.30 ERA and the other was sent back to the bullpen from whence he came.

The apparent key to the bullpen - even more than nerve-racking closer Jose Valverde - is Joaquin Benoit, recipient of the Setup Man of the Year award in 2010. He certainly continued on that same path this year, with his average fastball velocity holding steady from last year at right around 94 mph. The Tigers hope Benoit will continue to anchor that bullpen through the duration of his three year contract. The scout also pegged Austin Jackson to "take the next step this year," yet he saw his OBP decline by nearly 30 points, despite an increase in walks.

The "Modest Proposal"is to give Victor Martinez more playing time at catcher than at DH to maximize his value. That's only if you agree that inserting Alex Avila as the number one catcher "is a bit forced" - an opinion not shared by All-Star voters this year who justifiably handed him the starting job for the AL. Martinez also figures into "The Number": 76.13 at bats per home run by Detroit's 2010 DHs. Even though Martinez only hit 12 bombs this year (to go with his 103 RBI), they still improved that number to 42.50 in 2011.

Two major midseason acquisitions that the SI folks could never have anticipated bolstered the playoff version this team: new #2 pitcher Doug Fister (brought over from the Mariners) and left fielder Delmon Young (from the Twins). However, aside from those two players, the projected lineup pretty much accurately represents the actual real-life lineup. Rest assured, that's not always the case, and I will not hesitate to elucidate every little discrepancy that exists when applicable.

Sho-menuchi Swing-i-yo: Baseball and Aikido

2011-10-05T18:39:00.000-07:00

The MLB Playoffs are finally here! (And have been since last week, but whatever I've been busy.) After a grueling six months of regular season play, we've narrowed it down to seven of the best of the best teams. I haven't been covering the playoffs because it's taking all my energy just to stay up to date with the proceedings myself, while simultaneously trying to manage my "real life" activities. But there are plenty of reputable press outlets devoting more resources to the story than I could ever hope to achieve on my own.

As it happens, one of my "real life" activities is playing softball, which is very similar to baseball in most respects. So seeing as how this is a great opportunity to combine the two subjects in the title of this blog (Baseball and Life for those with short-term memories), I'd like to share some thoughts I had while reflecting on my time taking BP at the batting cages last night. They involve my swing and how I can potentially improve it using the precepts of another one of my real life activities: Aikido. These two activities dovetail nicely - both involve physicality, can be meditative in nature, and contribute to overall self-betterment.

Here are four ways in which my brief studies in Aikido have informed the work in progress that is my baseball swing. And although I won't get a chance to try out these findings any time soon, since tonight's game has been postponed due to torrential rain in Los Angeles, I will be sure to keep my loyal readers up to date as far as my softball performance in future games.

- Stance

The Aikido stance (Hanmi posture) has you stand with feet shoulder width apart, one foot slightly in front of the other, with your weight spread evenly between your two feet. (Further, the weight on each foot should be evenly distributed between all four corners of the foot: each side of the ball and each side of the heel.) I know some batters like to start with their weight all the way back in preparation for a tremendous leg kick, but I personally feel more comfortable when I'm fully balanced. And since pitch reaction time isn't so important in slow-pitch softball (where I more often find myself having to slow down my approach due to the large amount of time it takes the ball to reach the plate), having my weight evenly distributed allows me to really settle in comfortably and wait till the perfect moment to start my swing.

- Bat Position

When performing technique in Aikido, there should always be a straight line between your center of gravity and your hands (see the picture at right). Even before actively trying to apply Aikido to baseball, I would hold the bat with my arms oriented such (rather than tucking the elbows in or holding the wrists up by my ears), as I felt it put my arms in the best position to generate power.

- Menuchi

But since it doesn't make sense to hold a bat as low as the O-Sensei holds his sword (pictured above), we have to combine the basic principle of establishing a line emanating from the center of gravity with another basic technique. Menuchi is the main technique in Aikido for protecting the head against a straight or downward strike. It involves raising the hands quickly but smoothly while shifting weight forward slightly. It can also be performed with a sword, most notably a wooden practice sword, which is similar to a bat in most respects. While the weight distribution and orientation of how the body is facing differs from how it's used in Aikido, using the Menuchi motion in the batter's box helps by reminding me of how the arms should be positioned and by putting the hands and arms in a more action-oriented position.

- Stride

When warming up in Aikido, one of the exercises we frequently do is to take "laps" back and forth across the dojo floor. We take these laps step by step in a very specific manner: move the front foot forward while remaining planted on the back foot, then as soon as you plant the front foot, move the back foot forward proportionally, and reestablish balance. You are supposed to emulate the feeling of gliding across the floor rather than pushing off from the back foot. The strategy of making an Aikido-style stride - rather than doing a big leg kick or double-tap with my front foot and planting it firmly down during the swing - allows me to actually move forward, through the ball, as I swing, generating more power and producing a more even, smooth swing in general.

...at least theoretically. As I mentioned, I thought up with this stuff hours after taking about 15 minutes' worth of swings at the batting cages (in the same way as an actor always thinks up the perfect line reading on the way out of the audition or a comic thinks up the perfect joke after losing the improv cage match), so I wasn't able to put this theory into practice. But the form is sound and time-tested by generations of Aikido practitioners in Japan, and the Japenese love Baseball!

Developed Teams: St. Louis Cardinals

2011-09-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

As of this writing, the Cardinals are the only team in contention that I have not yet profiled for this project. And they're surging fast, as Wild Card teams in both leagues have faltered to the point of coming within a hair's breadth of giving up their leads. And with only two days left in the season, I just slipped under the wire with this, the profile of the St. Louis Cardinals' developed roster:

Talk about a well-rounded squad: except for the back end of the rotation, this team has everything. The lineup has a nice mix of power, average, speed and defense. The rotation has a good mix of established stars, up-and-comers, and washed-out no-names. And a couple of star setup men back up two guys who are currently closing in the majors (but only one of which was projected to do so). Their one weakness is starting pitching depth, as they weren't able to furnish even one contestant for long relief, but the prognosis gets slightly better when we recall that Kyle McClellan did some starting this year (however ineffectively) to fill in for the injured Adam Wainwright.

As this is likely the last of these I will complete before the end of the regular season, let's harken back to my old practices and start with the players still on the club. Starting with perennial All-Star Albert Pujols, even though there's not much I can say about his greatness that hasn't already been said... including the possibility of him leaving the team next year via Free Agency. (To me, it doesn't seem likely, but I've been wrong before.) Then there's also perennial All-Star Yadier Molina, the center of this team where heart and grit are concerned. Skip Schumaker made the transition from OF to 2B three years ago, but his offensive production hasn't really justified him starting in either position. And Jon Jay gets the backup outfielder spot, although it could just have easily gone to Allen Craig (they were ranked precisely two spots away from each other according to MLB's pre-season projections). Incidentally, both have had very good years, although Jay has seen more at-bats.

On the mound, the only starter to remain with the team is Jaime Garcia (who, incidentally, shares a birth day and date with your humble narrator, the only current major leaguer to do so... probably shouldn't have said that, for identity-theft protection reasons... but it's a nice piece of trivia). Out of the bullpen, we've got McClellan, who's making his bid to contribute as a swingman; righty-righty combo Boggs and Motte; and the kid who unexpectedly got a chance to close for the Redbirds, Fernando Salas. (On a side-note, what is it about pitchers of Mexican descent who became surprise closers this year? Not only has Salas been extremely effective, with a WHIP under 1 and a strikeout per inning, but Javy Guerra (although he was born in Texas) has put up an ERA under 2 while amassing 20 saves for the Dodgers. Something to think about...)

Where's the beard!?

As far as players who have struck out on their own, we've got the ever-solid Dan Haren... about whom everyone scoffed when Billy Beane acquired him for Mark Mulder back in 2004, but just you go ahead and compare the careers of those two pitchers after the trade. J.D. Drew has struggled recently, his fall to mediocrity occurring as fast as his rise to stardom was supposed to be meteoric. Placido Polanco started the All-Star game at 3B this year (due in large part to a non-competitive field of players at the hot corner), but he remains one of the game's premier contact hitters. Speaking of premier players, Coco Crisp is right up there in the stolen base category: he trails only Brett Gardner in the AL and Michael Bourn in the NL. He's also not bad with the glove. But the most heralded defender on the team has to be Brendan Ryan, who's currently at SS for the Mariners.

Also on the Mariners are my backup infielder (Adam Kennedy) and his runner-up (Jack Wilson). Wilson is renowned for his glove, but I felt that Kennedy has more versatility and could contribute more coming off the bench. Also with him on the bench is pitcher-turned-outfielder Rick Ankiel. Nope, he hasn't gone back to pitching. Nope, he also doesn't routinely post OBP's well above .300. Brett Wallace was supposed to hit big starting at 1B for the Astros, but his individual performance has been roughly as disappointing as his team's as a whole. We know Luke Gregerson has talent setting up for Heath Bell, but we'll see if the righty gets a chance to close if/when the big guy hits Free Agency this winter.

A couple of players started the year with the Cardinals, but found themselves on the way to Toronto at the trade deadline. These are CF Colby Rasmus (whose relationship with manager Tony LaRussa supposedly played him off the team) and pitcher P.J. Walters (who has struggled in the minors as a starter for both clubs). Speaking of struggling in the minors as a starter, that statement also accurately describes Clayton Mortensen, who rounds out a cringe-worthy bottom 40% of the rotation. As for #3 starter Chris Narveson, what he lacks in name recognition, he makes up with almost exactly league-average statistical output.

Well, there you have it! I have written a developed team profile for every team now currently in the hunt for the playoffs, and then some. I don't know what exactly these findings tell us about these teams' chances of making the playoffs or how they'll fare therein, but I do hope they are as fun to read as they were to write. Next up: profiles of the developed rosters of the WORST teams around the league.

Developed Teams: Tampa Bay Rays

2011-09-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

Remember way back in the beginning of September when the Rays trailed the Red Sox by upwards of 7 or 8 games in the Wild Card race? Well in the recent weeks, they've pulled to within 2 games, and are in very real danger of making the playoffs. In celebration of their upstart success, here's a team made up of players developed by the Tampa Bay Rays:

Hamilton, during his "working
through some issues" phase

This is one of the most solid top two-thirds of a lineup you'll find anywhere, real or fantasy. We all remember what Carl Crawford was capable of doing just one year ago - i.e. serving as one of the most electric table-setters in modern leadoff history. B.J. Upton has developed into a legitimate power/speed threat after finally settling into a position. We all know about Josh Hamilton's MVP award, batting title, and former career-threatening drug habits. Evan Longoria hits home runs and does commercials (he's a double threat!). Aubrey Huff has slowed down a bit, but let's not forget (let's not forget, Dude) how he all-but carried the meager offense of the world champs last year. And Delmon Young took a few big steps back after a potential breakout season last year, but hopes of heading back to the playoffs after a trade has seemingly put some bounce back in his step.

The glut of outfielders makes for a somewhat imbalanced bench, but there really wasn't anything else to choose from. All the developed infielders are on the field in the starting lineup, with the exception of another first baseman, which doesn't help anybody. It's cool to have an established power hitter in Gomes and a future star in Jennings, but I'm sure any fantasy developed manager would like to have a little more versatility out there. But remember that this team has only been around for 13 years, so it's impressive they have such a star-studded roster as it is.

Speaking of stars, check out that rotation - every member of which still pitches for the Rays today. It includes rookies and All-Star starters, and includes some of the best young pitching talent under 30. The bullpen has a few question marks, including the role of closer, which is occupied by the rookie who was projected to close until the acquisition and subsequent rebirth of Kyle Farnsworth. But Wheeler is a veteran presence and Veras has proven his adequacy. But then there's the corps of spot starters, all of whom seem to have settled nicely into that role in real life, after tasting slight success in major league rotations.

Overall, this is one of the most well-rounded teams out there. If there was such thing as a Developed Team Tournament (hint hint for those friends of Rob Neyer who put together the virtual showdowns between those various All-Time Teams), I'd definitely put the Rays among the top contenders. That is, if every member of the infield stays healthy and the bench depth isn't tested at all. That could prove problematic. But in terms of top-shelf talent on paper, these youngsters will be hard to beat.

Developed Teams: San Francisco Giants

2011-09-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

Last week, I profiled a developed team of the AL Champion Texas Rangers. So what better time to introduce their opponents (and eventual defeaters) in the 2011 World Series, the San Francisco Giants:

An offense that earned the nickname "Torture" last year does not improve much when we look at players the Giants have developed, with only two offensive threats gracing the field. Conversely, the pitching staff excels across the board, whether it's the starting staff (featuring two-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum and the exact staff who backed him in the 2010 post-season) or the relief corps ("Fear the Beard" indeed...). It's especially interesting that all the Developed Giants' best players are still with the team, so it's not as if they're bringing lots of talent through the minors and letting it get away. The best player on this squad who left for greener pastures is undoubtedly Joe Nathan, despite the fact that he spent all of 2010 recovering from Tommy John surgery. He joins two other capable closers in the Giants bullpen: Brian Wilson and David Aardsma (who, incidentally, hasn't pitched at all in 2011 due to hip/Tommy John surgery).

But where to go from here? The more I try to write about this lineup, the more depressing it looks. I mean, look at that infield. Ishikawa may be good with the glove, but he's far below replacement level at first (or would be if he were even in the majors at this juncture). Pedro Feliz is a proven veteran, but one who's spent most of his time at third (a spot occupied by Pablo Sandoval, one of the two aforementioned threats). Emmanuel Burriss has good speed on the basepaths and Matt Downs has swung the bat pretty well for Houston, but neither are what you'd call top shelf talent. Kevin Frandsen has spent all of 2011 in AAA, where he hasn't exactly put on a show. Cody Ransom has put on a show in AAA... but it's led to just 12 sad games in the majors so far.

The outfield isn't much better: Fred Lewis never really developed into anything special, Nate Schierholtz profiles as more of a late-inning defensive replacement, and John Bowker hasn't yet shown that he can hit in the majors. Eugenio Velez is only on the roster because he was the only other player who had played in the outfield. Strangely enough, the position at which the Giants have the most stability is catcher, with Buster Posey and Yorvit Torrealba both having spent time as well-qualified starters for good teams.

But, ah, that pitching staff. We all know about the top four guys, all of whom played key parts in the Giants' World Series title last year. Cain is right there behind Lincecum, Sanchez has been bit by the injury bug, and Bumgarner still has his best years ahead of him. And while Kevin Correia has struggled a bit, despite his All-Star appearance, he's actually pretty decent for a fifth starter. In the 'pen, the quality doesn't drop off even beyond the three guys who've made their living closing games: Sergio Romo's ERA is so miniscule you'd have trouble finding it and Scott Linebrink has contributed to one of the league's best relief staffs on the Braves. If pitching and defense really is the key to winning championships, this club has the late-inning hardware to deal with the low-scoring games that come with that strategy.

Next week, in my effort to profile all the 2011 playoff contenders before the 2011 playoffs begin, I'll be looking at the Tampa Bay Rays, who are doing their best to edge out the Wild Card leading Red Sox.

Developed Teams: Texas Rangers

2011-09-16T14:20:00.000-07:00

Back to Baseball! After a long hiatus due to Burning Person, work travel, and the shock of returning to the de-fault normal world, I'm finally ready to resume filling the pages of the Internet with the wealth of statistical knowledge I have stored in my head and on my lists.

I now see that it would be foolish to try and complete a developed list of all 30 teams by the end of the season, but I can at least finish all the teams likely to make the playoffs. To that end, here's a developed team of the AL West-leading Texas Rangers:

This team has a lot of two things - namely first basemen and starting pitchers - and not a lot of anything else. To start from a position of strength: Mark Teixeira is clearly one of the elite hitters of the last decade, possibly even of his generation. What's more, he played the majority of his career for the Rangers (his first 4+ seasons, soon to be eclipsed by the Yankees). Carlos Pena, on the other hand, played only 22 games in Texas before bouncing around to five other teams - and most people in baseball were surprised that that number didn't become six at this year's trade deadline. Mitch Moreland, the Rangers' current starter at 1B, has played some games at 3B, right? Oh, wait, that was Chris Davis, who didn't make the team. Moreland played some RF... but sometimes you have to take the non-traditional path to make these types of projects work.

And those are only the first basemen to make the starting lineup. We've also got the Indians' starting (but injured) DH Travis Hafner (who played one more game for Texas than did Pena) and the Mariners' starting 1B Justin Smoak (acquired in the Cliff Lee deal just last year). Not a very versatile infield bench, but believe me, if there were any better choices, I would have made them. I submit as evidence the starting SS Joaquin Arias and the only player developed by Texas actually listed as a 3B (Mike Lamb), neither of whom has played in 2011.

If you look closely, you'll notice someone else who hasn't played in 2011 at the top of the order. But look at what Scott Podsednik did last year with the bat, split between KC and LAD. The veteran, who stole more bases than his advanced age last year, got a deal with Toronto, but missed making the roster due to injury. Julio Borbon hasn't played much this year, after being slotted as the starting CF, but on the other side of the field, Laynce Nix has swung the bat very well for Washington. On the bench, I chose to go with the proven speed of Jason Bourgeois rather than the potential power of John Mayberry Jr.

Now let's check out the starters. We all know about John Danks's struggle to win games earlier this season, and Colby Lewis has been so-so. But C.J. Wilson has brilliantly followed up his first season as a starter with an All-Star appearance, 16 wins, and an ERA just north of 3. Edinson Volquez started on Opening Day for the Reds, but has struggled so much with his command that manager Dusty Baker sent him to AAA for 13 starts in 2011. R.A. Dickey and his knuckleball have led to good peripherals, but the Mets haven't been able to win him many games. And that's just the starting rotation.

Alexi Ogando has been a great starter since following Wilson's lead in moving from the bullpen this season (although his stamina over a full season is still something he needs to work on). Derek Holland's moustache has brought success to the lefty, who currently is sitting on 14 wins. And Aaron Harang has taken the first step towards turning his career around with 13 wins for San Diego after three straight seasons of 6 wins apiece in Cincinnati (moving from a hitter's park to a pitcher's park might have something to do with that...). Not included in this roster: former playoff pitcher (and more recent trade bait) Tommy Hunter, former 17 game winner (and current minor league fodder) Scott Feldman, and of course veteran Doug Davis.

There was talk of moving Neftali Feliz to the rotation, but when Ogando cut in front of him, Feliz was forced to remain the closer. He hasn't been as dominant as in his Rookie of the Year season, which also included a trip to the World Series, but quite frankly a club could do a lot worse. Joaquin Benoit has shown almost equal flashes of brilliance and mediocrity as a setup man, and in 2011 he's been about on par with workhorse Nick Masset. Darren Oliver is with Texas now, and he was developed by Texas, but he's had a circuitous route back to his original team - one that's taken the veteran through seven other clubs, plus an additional stint with the Rangers in the early part of the Millennium.

The only two key players from this roster I haven't mentioned by name are former star Ivan Rodriguez and current star Ian Kinsler. In my opinion, these two players perfectly bridge the gap between the successful Rangers in the end of the 1990s and the successful Rangers in the start of the 2010s - except this current team also includes a competent pitching staff and a front office led by one of the team's and the game's most famous pitching legends. We'll just have to wait and see if they can repeat last year's long and deep trip into the post-season.

Developed Teams: Detroit Tigers

2011-08-23T17:21:00.000-07:00

With the first-place Tigers having just swept the second-place Indians in a crucial three-game series, the upstart team's chances of holding onto contention just dropped another peg. In honor of keeping the momentum going, here's an entry on the Detroit Tigers:

The first thing you'll notice is the lack of an impact bat in the middle of the order. Yes, Curtis Granderson is enjoying an historic year, but seasons of 40-30-120 with an OPS close to 1.000 are hardly the career norm for Grandy. Alex Avila made a trip to the All-Star game this year, but he's far from a proven major leaguer. Matt Joyce and Brennan Boesch are shaping up into solid young power threats, but they project more as very competent sidekicks than heroes in their own right. Cameron Maybin has been very impressive this year, but, as I've said MANY times before, these lists are based mostly on pre-season rankings. Hence the presence of Ryan Raburn, who has a lot of Fantasy value, which is probably mostly because of his versatility.

In addition to Raburn, there are a few key players plagued with disappointing seasons. Brandon Inge actually went down to AAA for a spell to work on his swing before his return this weekend. Omar Infante has regressed to his career norms after an enigmatic All-Star selection last year, but the Marlins are losing a lot of his value by letting him play all 114 of his games this year at 2B, rather than shifting him around the diamond as the Braves (and the Tigers before them) used to do. Andres Torres has reminded us all why last year was his only full season in the majors. And his teammate Cody Ross has some pop in his bat, but one good October does not a serviceable regular make.

What appears to be a one horse race for supremacy of the pitching rotation is actually a one-two punch, if we take 2011 stats into account. Justin Verlander is obviously the leader here, in terms of stuff, style, and consistency, but Jair Jurrjens is dominating opposing hitters the way he did in 2009. Let's hope he's not developing into a sine wave type player, alternating good years with bad ones. After those two, however, there's very little in terms of substance, at least in 2011. Rick Porcello still shows a lot of promise, especially at the tender age of 22. French and Oliver should be on very short leashes, considering their performances in the minors this year.

The bullpen has it all: a current workhorse closer (Cordero), a former closer (Rodney), a career setup man (Frasor), a veteran LOOGY (Miller), and an oft-injured potential star (Zumaya). However, there is not enough collective star power to make up for the lack of starting depth and a patchwork offense built around questionable pieces. If only this were a few years ago and John Smoltz could have bolstered that rotation...

Developed Teams: Milwaukee Brewers

2011-08-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

The Brewers are a double-relevant team to feature next for this project, as they are both currently in first place in their division and recently played host to my most recent foray to a Major League Baseball stadium. Miller Park marked ballpark #16, which officially pushed me over the halfway point in my quest to visit the home parks of all 30 Major League teams. So let's see how this NL Central-leading team would fare with a roster made of only players developed over the years:

First, notice the impressive glut of power hitters in the middle of this order. Then, observe how many of these hitters are still with the team - pretty much all the ones that matter. Weeks, Braun, Fielder, and Hart have 10 All-Star appearances and four Silver Sluggers between them, and all are under 30 years of age... that's enough talent to build TWO lineups around. Bill Hall has been a moderate power threat as recently as last season, but he's currently languishing in the Giants' minor league system as a superutility player.

Michael Brantley and Matt LaPorta are two players who have developed into regulars after going over to Cleveland in 2008's CC Sabathia deal and subsequently making their debuts for the Indians. Looking at the shortstops, I feel I have to once again clarify that I put these lineups together using pre-season rankings and 2010 stats. J.J. Hardy has bounced back to a great season with the Orioles after a disappointing last year with the Twins (23 HR, .507 SLG), but would it surprise you that Alcides Escobar was ranked nearly 100 places higher than Hardy over the off-season (193 to 280)? I guess that's why you have to play all the games to find out who will actually perform.

After you're done marveling at the wealth of offense on this club, make sure NOT to scroll down to the pitching staff. Because if you did, you'd see a rag-tag bunch, only ONE of whom has pitched in the majors in 2011. That would be staff ace Yovani Gallardo, the pitcher I saw shut down the Dodgers in my recent visit. Parra has mostly pitched in relief for AAA Nashville, Ben Sheets - once the face of the franchise - remained unsigned after an injury riddled tour with the A's in 2010, Rogers is quickly losing promise. Only Dana Eveland has shown some semblance of success, pitching rather well in 23 starts for the Dodgers' AAA affiliate in Albuquerque.

The first three pieces of the bullpen are very solid indeed. John Axford's breakout performance has pushed veteran closer Francisco Rodriguez to a setup role. Mike Adams was widely credited as the best non-closer reliever who was traded this trade deadline. And everybody needs a LOOGY, so why not have one with a Yale degree like Craig Breslow? Carlos Villanueva is a pretty dependable swingman. But after that, you have nondescript guys and prospects (such as Jeremy Jeffress who went to Kansas City along with Lorenzo Cain in the deal that netted Milwaukee Zack Greinke this off-season).

Predictions: lots of high-scoring games.

Developed Teams: New York Mets

2011-08-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

The other day, I happened upon a game on TV featuring the Mets... and what better reason to feature their developed lineup? And what more introduction do I need than that, seeing as you already must know the drill by now?

I'll say this for the Mets: they've been able to hold on to most of the top shelf talent they've developed. Which could be the sign of good management, who was able to lock up their best young homegrown players... or it could be an indication that they didn't develop a whole lot of top shelf talent that was worth trading away. YOU DECIDE!

A.J. Burnett - the developed pitcher with the best career - was a difficult one to place: he was drafted by the Mets and spent three years in the minors before being traded to Florida in the deal for Al Leiter. Although he only spent two years in the Marlins system, he pitched more innings for them before his debut (147.0 < 239.2) and pitched in higher levels (Rk, A- < A, AA). But there's something about someone getting traded as a prospect, even a low-level one, that seals the bond between that player and his original team. Also, just think of where this rotation would be without him!

Mike Pelfrey looks like he's on his way towards a sine wave career (alternating good and bad seasons) and Jonathan Niese still has a lot to prove with just one full season under his belt prior to 2011. Kazmir was once a top prospect, but he hasn't adjusted well to life on the west coast. Nelson Figueroa has been playing the journeyman for nine seasons, and just when he was slated to spend his first season in a major league rotation at age 37, he totally dropped the ball. Again, if we were going by 2011 stats, Dillon Gee would TOTALLY be in the rotation (he's certainly given my fantasy team a shot in the arm as a waiver claim) and Mejia would be... not on this list, as he hasn't appeared in a major league game, as of press time.

The biggest name to have left the Mets after being developed is the hottest closer (not) on the market, Heath Bell. In what has since turned out to be a lopsided trade, Bell was sent to the Padres in 2006, along with Royce Ring, in exchange for Jon Adkins and Ben Johnson. But who could've known that the former 69th round draft pick would have blossomed like he did? Bell's actually got a pretty solid bullpen complementing him out there: Lindstrom has closed before and represented his country in the World Baseball Classic as recently as 2009. Takahashi has flourished as both a swingman (in the NL) and a straight reliever (in the AL). And Dotel was just part of a major trade last month at the ripe age of 37. Aaron Heilman - once highly touted enough to have his name bandied about in a proposed trade for Barry Zito (along with his developed teammate Lastings Milledge, another flameout) - now is simply struggling in the bullpen.

The top four guys in this batting order, when healthy, can compete with the most stacked lineups in the league. However Reyes with his hamstrings, Davis with his ankle, and Wright with his back have all settled down for a long summer nap, courtesy of long stays on the DL for each of them. Wigginton was an All-Star last year, but that was largely because he played for a team that needed an All-Star. Carlos Gomez hasn't yet developed into the star we thought he would. And Daniel Murphy needed all of last year in the minors to figure out his life. With not much help off the bench (Jay Payton, in fact, is still technically a Free Agent), the club's stars will be under more and more pressure to stay healthy.

So there you have it: you have Met the Mets! I think my next venture, as we approach playoff season, will be looking at some teams that are actually in first place in their divisions and have legitimate shots at playing in October.

Developed Teams: Cleveland Indians

2011-08-07T12:48:00.000-07:00

Were you able to work out the identity of the other surprise Central Division contender who I mentioned in my last post? I didn't think it would be hard, but then again, I consider myself a sort of 'amateur expert' on this stuff. It should be no secret, however, that the other team I was referring to is the Cleveland Indians.

The pitching staff, which features CC Sabathia as headliner, looks a lot like the pitching staff to which CC belongs in real life - not a lot going on after the legitimate Ace. His fellow 1st round pick in the rotation, Jeremy Guthrie, now playing with Baltimore after being claimed on waivers, has some halfway decent peripherals to go with his 5-15 record, and Fausto Carmona has historically had two rotten seasons for every good one. His current rotation-mate in Cleveland, Josh Tomlin, is having a very good season, flashing some great control in just his second major league campaign.

UPDATE 8/8: When I posted this yesterday, I had listed J.D. Martin as the 5th starter, based solely on his pre-season rankings (seeing as he has spent 2011 as a swingman in AAA Syracuse), assuming that in real life, he'd compete with the two long-relief types I talk about below. However, later on, I realized a glaring omission in the statistics I had compiled for this project: namely the omission of Bartolo Colon. Maybe he slipped under my radar because he missed the entire 2010 season - but he shouldn't have because he was projected to start for the Yankees, and so far he's done a pretty nice job. The 5th starter spot is officially his, as noted in my revised graphic, above.

Jeanmar Gomez and David Huff both put up pretty good numbers for AAA Columbus, but have each made just a handful of starts for Cleveland this year.

Cleveland has developed a pretty deep bench of relievers, but they're notably lacking a proven 9th inning force. Mujica was good enough to be the centerpiece of a trade for a good young center fielder, so that gives you an idea of his talent, but he's logged only 2 Saves in his career. Pretty much the rest of the featured staff are young and effective setup men still with the Tribe (Lewis is in the minors and Laffey was traded just this off-season). And let's not forget Frank Herrmann, who has become a regular in 2011, and notable washed-up-but-once-solid veterans Danys Baez and David Riske.

The lineup's most notable features are two of the best sluggers from the '90s, Jim Thome and Manny Ramirez. Thome is currently a part-time DH, pursuing his 600th Home Run with the Twins, and Manny unceremoniously retired from the Rays after his second positive test for PED's. When healthy, Grady Sizemore has the ability to be a centerpiece for any lineup, either at the top or in the middle. Victor Martinez, while his skills behind the plate have been questioned, has leadership ability and intangibles galore. Just ask his current teammate on Detroit, Jhonny Peralta - the two All-Stars are doing their part to keep the Tigers in first place.

Peralta pushes Marco Scutaro off his normal position of SS, but he's had enough experience as a utility guy to be able to play anywhere in that infield. Before his struggles this year, I would have said that Kevin Kouzmanoff has the ability to provide great defense and middling power at the hot corner. And Russell Branyan can always be counted on to belt a few home runs, no matter the circumstances. Izturis is a great sparky presence off the bench and Ben Francisco is good enough to start in the outfield in the event of Manny suddenly becoming ineligible for some reason (I can't imagine why). Ryan Church doesn't currently have a team, but I figured with Manny out there in left, this squad would need as much outfield protection as they could get.

Developed Teams: Pittsburgh Pirates

2011-08-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

There are currently two total surprise teams who are in contention for the Central Division lead in their respective leads. These are both teams I like and want to see succeed. So in light of that, I have decided to profile them next in my developed teams project. The first of those teams is the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Rather than go by the developed players still with the club (of which there are a respectable seven, with one returning after a stint with other clubs), I'd like to go down the lineup as if I was introducing them before a game. I'll do a brief scouting report and go over some of their history. That might help keep this fresh. Oh, just for tradition's sake, there are a respectable seven developed players still with the team, one of which has returned after stints with other teams.

Leading off, we have Rajai Davis, who brings a lot of speed to the table and not much else - he leads the league in SB this year, but has only 1 HR and a negative defensiveWAR playing mostly Center Field. Luckily these Pirates have someone better to whom they can hand most of the AB's as the captain of the outfield: All-Star Andrew McCutchen. At age 24, the former 1st round pick has the potential to continue developing into a power-speed threat and a franchise player - plus he has really improved his fielding up the middle. Between those two is another first rounder, Neil Walker, who burst onto the scene last year and has put up some respective, if not eye-popping, numbers.

We all know how Jose Bautista has found one of the most impressive power strokes in the game last year in Toronto. What we also (mostly) know is that h started his career as a utility infielder in the Pirates' system, even though he bounced around a couple of other major league teams as a Rule 5 pick before putting on a Pittsburgh uniform. Looking at his minor league career, it's clear which team did the developing. You'll notice that Aramis Ramirez is at 1B on this team, which is strange because he's never played even an inning at first base in his major or minor league career. Well, we couldn't have both him and former first-round pick Pedro Alvarez both manning the hot corner (and the best developed first baseman on the squad, Steve Pearce, has only had a couple of cups of coffee so far in the majors), so someone had to shift. Since neither of them play particularly well in the field, I figured it was a wash as to who made the move.

Jeff Keppinger appeared in a non-developed related lineup I posted about just the other day, and although he hasn't played a lot of SS the last couple of years, that's where he's listed on MLB 11: The Show, so it all works out. Ryan Doumit gets the nod due to his 2010, and Jason Kendall gets the back-up job because of what he's meant to the team over the course of his (mostly early) career, although if we were going by more recent performance it might have made more sense to include Ronny Paulino. Also Nyjer Morgan is in that top bench spot - signifying the guy who would most likely DH in an interleague situation. Based on last year's/his career numbers, I would have liked to include Jose Guillen in a more substantial role, but seeing as he remained unsigned this year and is ostensibly retired, it just didn't seem right.

The starting staff is a little enigmatic, filled with mid-level talents and questionable players in general. Bronson Arroyo had put up decent numbers, although nobody quite knew how, given his stuff, but the truth might be just about catching up to him at age 34. Tom Gorzelanny, although he was picked in the 2nd round, has never really projected as anything more than a number 3 or 4 starter. Paul Maholm has shown flashes of competence, but the 1st rounder hasn't racked up enough strikeouts to be really effective. Zach Duke has been given a new lease on life by the Diamondbacks, but he's in the process of squandering that away. And Chris Young has been good, but he hasn't avoided injury since, well, ever.

The bullpen is a different story, with two top-shelf closing talents available in Leo Nunez and Matt Capps. The bullpen is stacked with lefties, with Burnett and Gonzalez (who are both struggling a bit this year), and Joe Beimel (who is not only a hometown hero, but the subject of a very catchy bullpen-related tune during his time co-setting up for Takashi Saito with Jonathan Broxton on the Dodgers). Their long reliever, veteran and all-around good guy Tim Wakefield, has alternated between starter and swingman for most of his career, and it looks like he'll settle in with the latter for his twilight years.

So there you have it. If you can guess which team I'm choosing next time (it's not hard), drop me a line in the comments section. I like reading comments...

Trade Deadline Analysis

2011-08-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

It's not that I don't like my Developed Teams Project... it's just that newsworthy events keep happening in and around the Baseball world, and I'm drawn to write about those rather than stick to an arbitrary deadline I've set for myself for finishing all 30 teams before the playoffs. Such as the much more exciting, very real, non-waiver trade deadline that just passed this Sunday. Lots of people changed teams that day. Not as many as some people thought. But still it's been pretty exciting following all the action. Here's a 25-man roster (cuz I like those) made up of all the players who moved this deadline:

So, yeah, that's what it would look like if I were in charge. Rather than go through the above image, I'd like to go through position by position, using the numbered guide (which is how you mark the positions while you're keeping score, if you're curious).

1 Starting Pitcher
MLB: 5
Prospects: 14

Believe it or not, those five above were the only Major League caliber starters who changed hands on/before this deadline. Fister has surprisingly been the most successful, but this wouldn't be the first unexpectedly dominant starter Detroit has picked up from Seattle in recent years. (I'm looking at you, Jarrod Washburn, 2009... and we all remember how well that turned out, right?) The most celebrated pitcher on this list (Jimenez) has put up the least impressive numbers, having fallen from his incredibly fluky 2010. But we should have all seen that coming. I mean, who goes 15-1 before the All-Star Break? WHO DOES THAT?!!? Hopefully he picks things up and keeps the dark horse Indians in contention.

Bedard came back from a nonexistent 2010 to draw attention from a first-place team. It's fortunate that Boston made that deal, since it looks like Clay Buchholz is going to be out for the rest of the season. Edwin Jackson should be getting used to the late-July move routine, after a 2010 deadline deal sent him to Chicago from the Diamondbacks. Speaking of the Diamondbacks, if they are able to hold off the defending champion Giants and make it to the playoffs, Jason Marquis will have been to the post-season at least once with every team he has played for except the Nationals. I mean, that's the case already, but still...

For those of you not familiar with minorleagueball.com, John Sickels ranks each club's top 20 prospects for each year. Of those 14 predominantly minor-league starters who were traded during the 2011 deadline frenzy, 11 of them were ranked by Sickels. Four have B+ ratings: Drew Pomeranz and Alex White, who went from CLE to COL in the Jimenez deal; Zach Stewart, acquired by CHW in the 3-way deal that sent Edwin Jackson to STL; and Robbie Erlin, who helped TEX acquire Mike Adams from SD.

Three more have B ratings: Zack Wheeler, traded straight-up by SF to NYM for Carlos Beltran; Jarred Cosart, who moved from PHI to HOU in the Hunter Pence trade; and Joseph Gardner, another piece of the Jimenez extravaganza. (Looks to me like Colorado got quite a return on their investment. Whether or not these three pieces will be ready to complement Tulo and CarGo before their long-term deals expire remains to be seen.)

C and C+ are average, so no need to mention them here. I will mention Charlie Furbush, 1) because he's got a cool name, and 2) because he has spent some time pitching in the majors for DET before getting sent to SEA for Fister.

1.1 Closer
MLB: 1
Prospects: 2

Just Francisco Rodriguez as the sole Closer of note here, and as this deal happened well before the deadline, I'll assume you've already heard all about it. A couple of guys who have racked up a few saves in the minors, but nobody ranked by Sickels, so we'll leave it be.

1.2 Reliever
MLB: 10
Prospects: 8

Wide open market for relievers this year. Adams and Uehara will help TEX in their push to repeat as AL champions. David Pauley has been a surprising success, and Brad Ziegler's crazy delivery has continued to work for him. TOR gave up two of its big pieces (Frasor and Rzepczynski, which I've learned is pronounced zep-CHIN-ski, according to ESPN) in the same 3-way deal, but got a very promising major league ready player in return, so I endorse that decision heartily. Octavio Dotel also left in that same trade, but he barely missed the cut.

Zep and veteran Trever Miller were the only two lefties moved, while Brian Fuentes and Craig Breslow stayed put in OAK. Tommy Hunter was also traded in the Uehara deal, despite pitching in the playoffs for TEX last year. He spent some time starting in the minors this year, but only appeared in relief in the majors. I wonder if he'll ever get back on track to be a viable starter. It could only help the Orioles.

2 Catcher
MLB: 0
Prospects: 2

Neither of the two catchers (Tim Federowicz nor Julio Rodriguez) were ranked by Sickels in 2011, although Fed did get a mention in Boston's "Others of Note" section. Seems like a very lackluster centerpiece for the Dodgers to get back for Trayvon Robinson, their organization's #3 ranked prospect, who went to SEA to help BOS get Bedard. Maybe it was a future salary dump by Ned Colletti, in preparation for the McCourt divorce proceedings to affect the team for years down the line...

3 First Base
MLB: 1
Prospects: 5

Derrek Lee has been disappointing for BAL, but we'll see if going back to the NL Central and joining a surprising contender (PIT) will pump him up a little bit. Two of the "prospects" listed here (Chris Davis and Brandon Allen) have spent disappointing time in the majors, but are currently tearing up AAA. Not much for them to prove in the minors; now they just have to man up and perform - for BAL and OAK respectively. The only ranked prospect is Jonathan Singleton, who draws a B+ and status as Philadelphia's #2 prospect. Hopefully he'll go some of the way to making Houston a respectable franchise at some point down the line (he's currently in A+ level).

4 Second Base
MLB: 2
Prospects: 0

Orlando Cabrera played 2B for CLE, but will likely move over to SS for SF, since the other guy on this list (Jeff Keppinger) will likely step in the second-sack position. What makes Cabrera better than Tejada is anybody's guess, but thankfully for the Giants, neither of these two were the top acquisition by their team this year.

5 Third Base
MLB: 4
Prospects: 1

The Royals traded both Wilson Betemit and Mike Aviles this year, which was to be expected with one of the best 3B prospects in the game (Mike Moustakas) hot on both of their heels. (Never mind that he's currently hitting under .200...) Jerry Hairston is listed at 3B, but he's also played a fair amount of LF this year, and hopes to help MIL with his diversity. Mark Teahen was basically a throw-in for TOR in the Jackson-Rasmus deal. And the lone prospect, Francisco Martinez (C+ by Sickels), goes from DET to SEA in the ever-present Fister deal.

6 Shortstop
MLB: 1
Prospects: 2

Yup, Rafael Furcal is it, he of the .197 AVG in his injury-plagued first half with the Dodgers. Yamaico Navarro (C+), late of the Red Sox, can play every infield position and might give Yuniesky Betancourt a run for his money in KC sooner rather than later. Zach Walters (of Note) was tearing up A ball when he was traded as part of the Marquis deal, but might have to settle for a utility role with WAS if he comes up soon, as they seem pretty set at all three infield positions.

7 Left Field
MLB: 3
Prospects: 2

A couple of starters at this position were moved at the deadline - one who was projected to start for the Reds (Gomes) and one who emerged as a surprise contender for the Blue Jays (Patterson). Incidentally, the guy Patterson replaced in the projected lineup (Rivera) was also moved, and he's currently picking up some starts at first base for the Dodgers. Speaking of the Dodgers, they sent their organization's #3 prospect (Trayvon Robinson, B) to the Mariners in the Erik Bedard deal, and didn't get nought back but a handful of unranked prospects from the Red Sox. To round out the list, I feel like I should mention Thomas Neal (B+, SF's #5 ranked prospect) who went to Cleveland for Orlando Cabrera.

8 Center Field
MLB: 3
Prospects: 1

Perhaps no team did as good a job filling a glaring void as the Braves did when they acquired speedy leadoff center fielder Michael Bourn. The Blue Jays will enjoy Colby Rasmus, as he's a tremendous young talent, but they have plenty of offense. As for the other two not mentioned above, Jordan Schafer played in the majors for Atlanta, but he won't make a difference on baseball's worst squad, in this year or the next. And Erik Komatsu, (C+, MIL's 10th ranked prospect) was exchanged for superutility player Jerry Hairston.

9 Right Field
MLB: 5
Prospects: 4

Right Field is where most of the magic happened this deadline. Hunter Pence is one of the most promising young players in the game and Carlos Beltran is a proven veteran who has just this season found a burst of new life. We know how Beltran reacts to the late-season rental dynamic - he went to the NLCS with the Astros after being acquired in a pre-deadline deal in 2004 - but we'll see if Pence brings his game to the next level (i.e. superstardom) while playing for a contender. Ryan Ludwick, on the bench above, will hopefully give the Pirates the additional offensive shot in the arm they need to keep fighting for their division.

The other two major league quality RF'ers are Kosuke Fukudome (who hopes to play Ludwick's role for the Indians) and Casper Wells (a ready-to-play prospect shipped from DET to SEA for Doug Fister). Neither of the minor leaguers at this position were ranked, but three of the four (Chih-Hsien Chiang, Alex Castellanos, and Bill Rhinehart) are tearing it up stats-wise in AA-ball.

Developed Teams: Arizona Diamondbacks

2011-07-27T17:03:00.000-07:00

My grand plan was to profile the Diamondbacks in honor of their fair city playing host to the 2011 All-Star Game. But that was over two weeks ago and we're now closer to the Trade Deadline than the mid-summer classic. However, it's better late than never, and The Plan will continue as promised... if a little behind schedule.

For such a young team - having existed for just 13 short seasons - they have a remarkable store of talent. Their offensive prowess is evident from the list above, even if the key middle-of-the-order bats didn't spend considerable time actually playing for the Diamondbacks. Dan Uggla was picked up by the Marlins Rule 5 style before his debut, and put up very impressive power numbers for the Fish. Carlos Gonzalez was a major piece of a blockbuster trade to the A's while still in the minors (the same trade in which the D-Backs parted with Brett Anderson, btw). Carlos Quentin played about a full season's worth of games over his first two seasons in Arizona before having his best years in the south side of Chicago.

Of the recently-developed Diamondbacks still with the team, the breakout performances of Justin Upton and Miguel Montero have more than overshadowed Stephen Drew's disappointing production. Mark Reynolds just left the team last year, and we know he can mash, but he also can strike out a Major League record amount of times. The guys on the bench are nothing spectacular - Cust and Barajas are the only two who have spent any significant time starting for a Major League team. The rest are solid backups, which is more than some teams I've looked at for this project can say.

What really amazes me about the D-Backs is the abundance of pitching that has come out of their system over the years. Not all of it is top-shelf talent, but using just the players included on MLB 11: The Show's rosters, the 'Backs have 29 pitchers to their name. It's interesting that the game's youngest team (tied) has developed twice as many pitchers as the game's oldest team (bonus points if you can name that team. Hint: they already have an entry in this project).

As I said, not all of them are that high-caliber. Their three highest-ranked pitchers (according to MLB.com's preseason rankings) fall between 100 and 120: one is a potential star who's shown flashes of brilliance but can't escape injury (Brett Anderson), another has the exact same description, just replace "injury" with "mediocrity" (Max Scherzer), and the third is currently playing out the veteran star closer fantasy (Jose Valverde).

Brad Penny has had a nice career for himself (he's another guy who started his Major League career with Florida after lingering in the Arizona farm system), and Chris Capuano has been living comeback to comeback. It was of course an act of purest optimism to have put Brandon Webb on that list at all, seeing as he hasn't pitched since 2009. But the Sports Illustrated baseball preview had his name there, and MLB has him as the next-highest ranked pitcher after the above three I already mentioned, so I figured, whatever.

After Valverde, their bullpen gets a little weak, but thankfully they have enough surplus starters to back them up, even if everyone not mentioned above has struggled mightily this year. But, as I've mentioned many times before, this team was put together with pre-season rankings, since that's when I started compiling these lists, believe it or not. And since it's taken me so long to get through THIS much of the project, imagine how much more complicated it would have been while trying to keep up to date with all the stats...

Watching Games on "Double-Bloop"

2011-07-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

Throughout most of this season, I've been somewhat neglectful of the actual standings, stats, and on-the-field proceedings, preferring to focus on historical data in the form of my various fanciful projects. But every once in a while, the stars of the baseball world align and draw you to the television for an especially memorable event. The Home Run Derby/All-Star Game was one such event. This weekend's four-games-in-three-days series between the Oakland A's and the Anaheim Angels was another.

I love watching the games live whenever I can, but more often than not my schedule requires me to record the games and revisit them later via DVR. When watching the games on delay, I find it increasingly difficult to limit my use of fast-forward to the commercials, and sit through the entire telecast. If a pitcher is taking his sweet time "setting the tempo" or a batter steps out of the box to adjust his unmentionables, or there's a break in the action to collect shards of broken glass from the field, I find myself double-blooping forward.*

Quadruple-Bloop (Double-Double-Bloop)

* "Double-Bloop" is a term I first heard from my cousin referring to watching a previously recorded program on the DVR at an increased speed. It was based on the sound made by TiVo systems when you push the fast-forward button two times in quick succession. As it happens, I don't have TiVo, but I still use the term... in the same way as I don't always use the Kleenex or Band-Aid brands, yet I'll still ask for them. 10 points for Branded America.

However, due to the uncertain nature of DVR technology, I'll often find myself wanting to skip just a few minutes of treacle here and there, but end up blasting way too far into the future or intermittently stopping and starting so much that it basically doesn't save any time and only adds to the frustration. So while speeding through Sunday afternoon's game last night, I developed a system of watching games on double-bloop that provides a good overview/summary while still letting you get through the game in less time than it takes to watch Return of the King.

First of all, I will watch the first three innings uninterrupted. This gives me a chance to see every hitter in the lineup bat at least once, get a sense of how each pitcher is throwing, and evaluate how the two teams look on the field. I've noted many times that Baseball is broken up into thirds, and in my experience, the first third of a game is usually the most telling about how the general tone of the game will play out. For example, when the A's tagged the Angels for 8 runs in the first inning last night, you could be pretty.... pretty..... pretty sure how the rest of the game would turn out.

Then, when the away team's pitcher walks off the mound after the third inning, and the increased speed begins, I immediately fix my eyes on the game status graphic in the corner/along the top of the screen. A lot of times, the action happening on the field is too fast to follow without getting dizzy, so I use the graphic as a visual cue to point out things it might be worth watching. This is also a strategy I picked up from my cousin, but for some reason, the system just clicked last night.

The first thing I look at is the score. If any number of the score changes, I immediately hit play and even skip back one or two 30-second intervals (if your system doesn't do that automatically on double-bloop). Scoring plays aren't always the most exciting or highlight-worthy, but runs are explicitly what win games and what most tangibly shift the momentum in a game. Even if it's not an especially interesting play, I still like to have a good handle on who scored, who drove him in, against whom, and generally who was involved in the play.

The next thing I look at is the number of outs. If at any time the number of outs jumps to two (as it will at least 17 times every game), I will push play and watch until the final out of the inning. Again, two-out plays aren't necessarily any more exciting than one- or no-out plays, but as far as getting a feel for the overall progress of the game, it's especially nice to see how a pitcher finishes off the opposition and also to see the between-innings line score. If we jump right from a one-on, one-out situation to a commercial, that indicates a double-play, so I will usually stop and skip back to see it, because double plays are generally either exciting or well-executed fundamentally - or both.

There are exceptions and situations not covered by these rudimentary rules. For instance, what about pitching changes? Spectacular diving catches? Benches-clearing brawls? The system isn't perfect - in fact, it hasn't been beta tested beyond the course of one game. But this is how I have decided to do it, and will continue to until I discover something better. And I've deemed it exciting enough to put out here on the Internets for all to see. Prove me right, people! Prove me right...

The All-Star Game!

2011-07-14T16:41:00.000-07:00

Remember when the All-Star game happened two days ago? Well, I wrote something about it yesterday! Here's a link to Charge-Shot!!!, a blog that holds a very special place in my heart... specifically a place that occurs on Wednesday afternoons...

All-Star Tuesday: One Year Later

Liveblogging the 2011 State Farm Home Run Derby!

2011-07-11T17:41:00.000-07:00

11:08pm EST

And will you look at that!? Cano has come back, not only to tie Gonzalez, but to beat him with two outs to spare! Just when I was beginning to lose interest. Just when I thought it was not about the competition. Just when I thought the rest of the broadcast would be comprised of the first-timer going through the motions and flaming out after an impressive two rounds, he comes back with a flair for the dramatic and wins it all, proving that the Derby can be exciting and unbelievable and fun for the whole family.

We've had a lot of fun here tonight, but what we should take away from all this is that it's never too late for a feat of sheer will to help you overcome nearly insurmountable odds. And that you should never give up, no matter how stacked the circumstances are against you. And that it's not over until it's over.

I hope you've all had fun reading my real-time thoughts about the amazing piece of history we just saw occur. And since I've still got an hour before my flight starts boarding, I've got nothing left to do but recount it in my head over and over....

10:51pm EST

Fielder's long road to 15 he needs to keep his league alive in this competition is off to a slow start. I think we can call this one right now for the American League, both in terms of cumulative totals (53-19) and in that the eventual winner will come from the AL. The NL may have won its first All-Star game in a long time last year, but they will have to wait until next year to seek triumph in the Derby.

So it comes down to this, a battle between AL contestants, between AL East players, between representatives from perhaps the most storied rivalry in the sport right now, the Yankees and the Red Sox. Each has exactly the same home run total coming in (not that it matters). Each has exactly the same on the line.

It's looking a little one-sided now, as Gonzalez continues his hot streak and gives Cano an equally astronomical mark to reach as he puts up a 13-spot on the board in the finals. Pretty straightforward now as Cano is finished unless he can perform exactly as he did in the second round. No flameouts allowed, or the Yankee's night is finished!

10:28pm EST

It's always around this time in the Home Run Derby that my interest starts to fade. I've seen all the contestants take their swings. This cumulative second round is really just an extension of the first round, which we've already seen happen. The competition aspect is a little muted, unless Prince Fielder can follow up his awesome swing-off performance (5 HRs in 5 swings!) with an even more impressive second round - the lone NL representative will need another 5 just to put him ahead of the leader's first round performance, and that's assuming Gonzalez goes homerless in his next 10 outs.

Meanwhile Ortiz added 4 to his total, pulling him even with Gonzalez, so that all his teammate needs to surpass the team captain is one more. Cano continues to mash, all but assuring him a spot in the final two. (Although he'd better pull back if he wants to have anything left in the tank for the non-cumulative final round.) Thus unless Fielder goes on a spree of 10+ homers in a row, he's pretty much out for the count. Is it me, or does making the first and second rounds cumulative put way too much emphasis on the first round? I guess the competition part is less important than just seeing all those power hitters up there doing their things.

Wow, Cano just blasted his 11th in the second round, to go with his 8 in the first round. I predict a flameout, just like what happened to Jason Giambi in the fated 2001 contest when he lost to Luis Gonzalez after setting a first-round record. To return to the present, Adrian Gonzalez just eliminated his teammate and captain with a single home run, but keeps on blasting more and more, tying Cano with 20 total homers. (At least now each contestant has an equal chance of flameout.) Fielder, the NL team captain now needs to belt at least 15 bombs in this second round to remain in contention. At least he's going last to maintain the drama. Although it's looking more and more like the blowout we knew it would be in the first round....

9:47pm EST

The two batters last to hit are the "Team Captains" of the AL and NL squads. I'm watching this from an airport bar, sitting too far away to read any of the closed captions of the commentary, so I'm not exactly sure how this works. In the rules, it says the top home run totals advance to the next rounds, so what should it matter what team they're on or who their captain is? But I guess leadership counts for something, as David Ortiz and Prince Fielder get last ups.

I remember when "Big Papi" went through a scare a couple of years ago, where commentators and fans pronounced him gone from the ranks of serious home run threats. But although he'll likely never again approach the 50-homer totals he's amassed in seasons past, he's still showing some pop out here in the desert.

Prince Fielder is an appropriate contestant to be up right now, especially considering all the hype surrounding the new Moneyball movie coming out. (No, I haven't seen the trailers, and no, I don't plan to, despite my fascination with both the Oakland A's and the entertainment industry; Spoiler Free is the Way to Be.) Some of you might recall that back in 2002, the A's draft team was terrified that the Brewers, who picked before the A's, would deprive them of their prize, outfielder Nick Swisher. How happy they were when supposedly sentimental reasons (Fielder's father, Cecil, played for the Brewers in the past) led to Prince's selection, leaving Swisher for the A's. And it's a good thing Beane didn't pick Fielder when he had the chance - when your team is second-to-last in the league with a .337 Slugging Percentage, who needs an offensive force with 50-homer potential?

Well, it's settled! Or is it? A-Gon and Robbie Cano are definitely advancing, but then we have three guys tied with five home runs apiece all vying for the last two spots. It looks like we're going into a 5-swing tie-breaking swing-off for each three. Since the totals from the first two rounds are cumulative, these tie-breaker round homers don't count towards that total. It's nice that there's still a chance for equal participation from AL and NL... although the advantage clearly goes to the two AL-guys with high totals.

The final tally (swing-off totals in parenthesis, advancing players highlighted):

AL: 26

Gonzalez: 9

Cano: 8

Bautista: 4

Ortiz: 5 (+4)

NL: 15

Holliday: 5 (+2)

Weeks: 3

Kemp: 2

Fielder: 5 (+5!)

9:19pm EST

Jose Bautista: where did this guy come from, am I right? Someone without any real history of smacking a lot of home runs last year suddenly discovers some amazing power and leads the league getting a chance to start in Toronto. Now he's on pace to do something that has been done only eight (8) times in Major League history: finish the year with more than 60 home runs. He's not going to set any Derby records with just four homers, but I'd rather have someone who can hit them in games than hit them in exhibitions any day.

I've got to say, I'm not too excited by Matt Kemp's chances to put up a lot of dingers here in Arizona. He is famous for smacking hitting his homers to straightaway center field, and this park has a gigantic wall up there, plus it is extra deep. I hope he doesn't try to change his approach to pull or push too much, because it's that straight-out power that helps him succeed in the 395-foot-to-CF Dodger Stadium. And sure enough, he didn't get one out of there until his final outs, with most of his hardest hits landing for flyouts to straightaway center. I've got to say, I'm not very optimistic about the National League's chances so far...

AL: 21
Gonzalez: 9
Cano: 8
Bautista: 4

NL: 10
Holliday: 5
Weeks: 3
Kemp: 2

8:59pm EST

Wow, Cano's off to a hot start. Three bombs in his first four swings. If only he hit enough dingers during the season to crack the top ten in homers in the AL, it might justify his presence a little more? Maybe it has something to do with his position - he and Rickie Weeks are both second basemen, not a position historically noted for home run power. And yet there's his teammate, Curtis Granderson (second in the league in HR) providing Cano with a rosin bag and pumping up the crowd rather than taking cuts at the plate. Puzzling...

Cano does have some kind of sweet swing, though, doesn't he? Which brings me to another concern that potential #HRDerby contestants seemingly should have: the effect that taking so many "fake" swings has on one's regular-season swing. Maybe it's some weird confirmation bias, but it seems to me that in the past, players who have performed well in the Home Run Derby suddenly experience a drop in power production immediately following the exhibition. Perhaps Rickie Weeks is aware of that possibility and is using his bright-blue neon shoes as a superstitious way to combat this real or imagined trend.

I don't know if anyone has conducted any kind of study on this, but Weeks seems to be most likely to suffer a post-derby power outage than the rest of these contestants. He only last year developed his power stroke, and who knows how all this emphasis on his big flies will affect his approach at the plate in the future. Perhaps his poor showing in this year's Derby (only 3 home runs) will cause him to second-guess his swing and start making adjustments. I wish him continued success - if only for the sake of his younger brother, who has just taken the first steps on what promises to be a long and fruitful career with the Oakland A's - but don't care too much about the rest of 2011, seeing as he's not on my fantasy team.

AL: 17
Gonzalez: 9
Cano: 8

NL: 8
Holliday: 5
Weeks: 3

8:41pm, EST

Looking at the list of players appearing in the 2011 State Farm Home Run Derby in Phoenix tonight, I can't help but cock my head to the side in slight confusion at how they select the participants. I get that there are four representatives from the AL and four from the NL, but shouldn't it be the top Home Run hitters from each league? You'd think so, but then why is Adrian Gonzalez (tied for 10th in the AL) stepping in to lead off for this squad?

And I know Matt Holliday did a good job of picking up his team when Phat Albert was down with that wrist injury, but when his another one of his teammates (Lance Berkman) is surprisingly leading the National League in Home Runs, don't you think he deserves to be up there swinging the bat, rather than commenting from the sidelines? As much fun as it is to see the hulking, bald-headed, cornfed Sooner swing the bat, dude's not even in the top ten in the league.

I have to plead ignorance here; do the powers that be on the Home Run Derby committee go down the line of the players with the highest HR totals in each league until they get four that say yes? Or is there some algorithm they make use of to determine the best contestants - one that takes into account home run totals from the current year, the previous year, while also weighing in some special "showmanship quotient" to make sure the broadcast is entertaining?

Maybe Berkman was approached for this honor and declined. His amazing first-half comeback makes for a great story, but maybe he doesn't want to jinx it by putting himself in this kind of spotlight. Maybe at age 35 and with a troubling injury history he's worried he might tweak something over the course of several dozen exhibition swings. Or maybe he wasn't even asked, for some undisclosed reason. Even after thinking about all these questions during the first commercial break, I haven't been able to figure it out. Respond with thoughts in the comments section, or Tweet them at me why not at @Hunter_S_Batman

AL - Adrian Gonzalez: 9

NL - Matt Holliday: 5

Developed Teams: Philadelphia Phillies

2011-07-09T23:16:00.000-07:00

Last week, in addition to meeting a White Sox fan from Chicago, I also met a Phillies fan from Philadelphia (imagine that). I know several Phillies phans, but this is the first I've met since starting this Developed Teams project for my blog, so it brought to mind what might happen if we put a roster together with only the players that the Phillies developed and shepherded (most if not all of the way) to the majors. Here it is:

When I did this project in the past, it was almost as difficult finding enough position players for the Phillies as it was to find starting pitchers for the Reds. There were almost no hitters to spare, but luckily I could scrounge up just enough to fill a lineup card. The majority of the heavy hitters are recently developed and hence still with the team (although Rollins, Utley, and Howard are all three reaching maturity and have all three had their issues with injuries). Domonic Brown is in there over Pat Burrell cuz he was just ranked so darn high before his pre-season wrist injury, and it seemed wrong not to have such a sure future star in this lineup, even despite his lack of experience. And Carlos Ruiz is becoming one of the most solid catchers in the National League.

As far as players the Phillies have let go, speed demon Michael Bourn is probably the best right now - he's tearing it up on the basepaths currently leading the league in steals. Scott Rolen and Marlon Byrd are both well past their primes, but can also both contribute with their bats. Pat Burrell is a former franchise-type player who's recently been relegated to spot-starter duty. Nick Punto is still a solid backup utility infielder and "Tofu" Lou Marson is a fan favorite in Cleveland.

Starting pitching is this club's biggest strength by far - the Phillies are one of the few clubs who have managed to develop more quality starters than relievers. Looking at just 2011, you'll see more struggling pitchers (Myers, Floyd, Drabek, Happ) than successful ones (Hamels, Wolf, Carrasco)... and even one who hasn't pitched yet in '011, and likely won't (Silva). But as far as track record goes (or in Drabek's case, enormous potential), they definitely have all proven to be effective starters at some point in their major league careers. Ryan Madson is the only pitcher who's had a taste of closing (at least they had one!), and Kyle Kendrick has proven himself an effective swingman.

If we were going by 2011 alone - which it is now more conceivable to do, since we've got half a season under our belts... although I will refrain from that and stick to my guns about using mostly pre-season predictions - Josh Outman would have replaced Silva on the list of long relievers, due to his (so far) successful comeback from a lost 2010 season. Also in the bullpen, Simon would be out (citing lack of production more than his recent troubles with the law) and Tejeda has barely played this year. Taking their places would be surprising success story Antonio Bastardo (0.84 ERA, 5 saves, in 32 innings) and Taylor Buchholz, a bargain-bin pickup by the Mets who is actually contributing at the major league level.

Strengths:
- Starting pitching across the board. Veterans, prospects, mid-level starters, you name it. Plenty of quality innings from this staff.
- A powerful middle of the lineup, provided it can stay healthy. And good tablesetters at the top, with plenty of speed.
- A pretty versatile and talented bench to boot, with all positions adequately covered.

Weaknesses:
- Although it doesn't show up in this 25-man roster, a complete lack of depth. Philly developed only 15 hitters total, which leaves just two (2) to stock in the "minors" in case of injury.

Next time, in honor of Tuesday's All-Star Game in Phoenix, I'll be profiling the Developed Arizona Diamondbacks.

Developed Teams: Chicago White Sox

2011-07-07T15:18:00.000-07:00

Last week, I met someone from Chicago. "Are you a Cubs fan?" I asked, expecting her to shower her support on the lovable losers. "Nope," she replied, "White Sox... even though I'm from the North Side." Now, although I have somewhat of a professional relationship with the Cubs, I've always admired the White Sox, mostly due to Frank Thomas and memories of one of my friends from 3rd grade who wore his Sox cap until it turned into a Sox yarmulke. So here's a team made up of all the best players developed by the Chicago White Sox:

Not a lot of developed Sox are still with the team: only 7 by my count - and the two batters on the bench are only there because of a lack of an established backup catcher or utility infielder. The only two batters in the lineup have had subpar seasons from the left side of the infield. And the only pitcher in the rotation is actually having a decent season despite a typically lackluster strikeout/walk ratio. The bullpen has a couple of strong arms: one projected closer who's been bumped to middle relief, and vice versa.

The high turnover rate makes this developed team one of the most exciting, because it includes a lot of people we are not used to seeing in Sox uniforms. Some of them - most notably Chris Young, Gio Gonzalez, and Mike Morse - never suited up for the Sox in the majors. Others - such as Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Lee, and Jon Garland - were Sox mainstays who played some of the best years of their careers in pinstripes.

You'll notice a glut of outfielders, of varying age and skill. I picked Cameron to start, partly because he had the most secure projected starting job out of Spring Training and partly because he's had the longest and best career out of the other two backups. His actual 2011 hasn't been up to snuff, but the same can be said for the other options.

Also remember that Mike Morse started the season as an outfielder and is only at first base for the Nationals due to an injury to Adam LaRoche... but before you accuse me of switching stuff around midseason after I explicitly said I was basing these lists mostly on preseason predictions, let me say that I already had Morse listed as a first baseman because that's his position on MLB 11 The Show. I made the conscious choice to put him at first over Brandon Allen (despite the current Arizona Diamondback's higher rating in the MLB.com predictions) due to his slightly higher production in '10. And unlike Cameron, that choice is paying off.

The pitching staff has a couple of promising breakout hits: Daniel Hudson, who absolutely KILLED IT after his trade to Arizona last year, and Gio(vanny) Gonzalez, who's currently anchoring my fantasy rotation. Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland provide "veteran leadership." And such nondescript starters as Clayton Richard and Brandon McCarthy are making names for themselves in other rotations.

Recap:

Strengths:
- Good mix of young and veteran hitters would produce strong numbers if they ever got a chance to all play together.
- Lots of budding stars anchored by cool veterans in the rotation (plus they've got starters to spare).
- Established relievers join some young prospects in the bullpen.

Weaknesses:
- Lack of infield versatility off the bench, putting a lot of pressure on starters to stay healthy.
- No one pitcher who has served as a successful closer for multiple seasons.

Next time: Philadelphia Phillies

Developed Teams: Los Angeles Dodgers

2011-06-30T17:14:00.000-07:00

It's not every day that a Major League team declares bankruptcy. The news of Frank McCourt's latest sleazy and foolish dealings has dominated the headlines, with the prospect of MLB taking over the team looming like a stormcloud over the fair city of Los Angeles. In honor of their tarnished image being all over the news, let's give a shout out to the Los Angeles Dodgers and a team made up of all the players they've developed.

Their lineup contains only two players (if you count Loney as the AL-only DH) who have stuck around since being developed, which points to a very aggressive style of general manager. Of the stars who have since left the team, only Adrian Beltre and Russell Martin put up significant numbers while with the Dodgers. (Remember Beltre's career 2004 and Martin's breakout 2007?) Paul Konerko was traded after just 55 games with the boys in blue, before becoming a star in Chicago. And Victorino, Gutierrez, and Santana never saw major league time with the Dodgers, traded away while still in the prospect stage. The one notable stickaround is legitimate first-half MVP candidate Matt Kemp, who may not even be voted into the All-Star Game (travesty of travesties!).

I won't even mention the suspect middle infield or extremely questionable bench in the interest of shortening these articles (I've done seven in roughly a month, so with half the season left to go, I'll have to average more than two a week to finish this project by the playoffs) and in favor of spending more time talking about the awesome homegrown pitching staff! Kershaw and Billingsley are set to become a lefty-righty combo for the ages. Kuroda is a Japanese import, so technically he was developed by his home country, but technically he did start his major league career with LA. Lilly took a roundabout path to get back to his hometown(ish) team, but now he's back where he started, in more ways than one!

With the exception of Joel Hanrahan (also traded away before pitching for the Dodgers' big club), the bullpen is in even worse shape than the bench. Broxton and Kuo are injured (injured bad). Saito has pitched all of 2.0 innings in '11 and Feliciano (an off-season pickup by the Yankees) hasn't played at all. And Kenley Jansen is proving that he more accurately profiles as the closer of tomorrow than the closer of today.

To recap:

The Strengths:
- A potent middle-of-the-order attack running four-deep on a good day.
- Outfield defense, as all 3 spots are manned by career centerfielders (two of them above-average defensively).
- A legitimate ace pitcher backed by a good mix of crafty veterans and solid performers with some upside left.

The Weaknesses:
- A bench that doesn't include any real power threats or late-inning defensive whizzes.
- A bullpen filled with a lot of potential, but few legitimate performers.

Developed Teams: Cincinnati Reds

2011-06-29T16:06:00.000-07:00

I originally resolved to cover this developed team after I was able to see them play at Dodger Stadium. (Also because I have a certain professional interest in the team and the city from the most recent TV show I worked on.) But that was now more than two weeks ago and in the time I've let this project go by the wayside, the Dodgers have become a much more interesting and relevant team to cover than the Reds. However, a plan's a plan, and I'll get to the Dodgers next time.

When I attempted similar versions of this project in the past (once in 2000 to coincide with All-Star Baseball 2001 on the N64 and once in 2005 with MVP '05 for the PS2), the Reds were almost impossible to compile because of a pure lack of pitching. I would be hard-pressed to think of five starters developed by the Reds between those two years combined. And as you can see, all but two pitchers out of 12 on the staff are currently with the Reds, and none of the key players were around as far back as 2005. What we're seeing here is a clear trend in the direction of developing good young arms, which has seemed to serve Cincinnati well (if their 2010 trip to the playoffs is any indication).

The Big Donkey himself, in all his glory.

But young arms aren't all that's recently come out of the Reds' pipeline. In addition to future All-Star Johnny Cueto and disappointing/injured Cuban import Aroldis Chapman, the Reds have former MVP Joey Votto, budding outfield star Jay Bruce, and quietly solid Drew Stubbs to their credit. Although they're languishing around .500, their incredible offense is not to blame - they lead the league in hits and runs, and are 3rd in AVG & home runs. No, what's holding them back at the moment is a combination of ineffectiveness and injury regarding several key starting pitchers. If I had a nickel for every major league team for which that's their problem, I'd have the majority of the nickels.

What about the ones the Reds let get away? Well, the list is rather small. The only big bopper, Adam Dunn, has to play out of position with Votto occupying first base and no DH in the National League. Although the way he's playing now - in his first year as a full-time DH - I'd rather have his division rival Austin Kearns out there in left; at least he contributes a (very) little with his glove. Edwin Encarnacion was another guy in danger of being slapped with the "full-time DH" mark, until Toronto decided to give him some playing time at the hot corner.

What this team is lacking in star power, it makes up for in... actually having enough players to field a full roster. Not very impressive, I know, but the couple legitimate (at least on paper) power threats do show tremendous promise and those young arms have mostly upside. If I'm still playing videogames in 2016, I'll bet this team suddenly becomes one to watch.

Developed Teams: Atlanta Braves

2011-06-18T16:14:00.000-07:00

Remember that discussion about players with the longest tenures with one team? A few weeks back, that spurred the Developed Teams project. Well, I just found out the answer to the question of who's had the longest active tenure with one team: It's Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves. He's right in front of Todd Helton from the Rockies, the one about whom the discussion took place. In honor of Chipper's incredible career - he's up there with Mickey Mantle on the list of greatest switch-hitters of all time - let's profile a team made up of the Braves' best homegrown talent:

There's Chipper himself -
doesn't he look so young...

As with the other teams in this series, I'll start with the players still on the real life Braves. Unlike most of the other teams in this series, those players make up the real crux of the story. There's Chipper Jones, obviously, whose marvelous career I won't try to explain in a sound byte. There's star outfielder Jason Heyward, whose potential is somewhere up around the cumulo-nimbuses. Perennial All-Star Brian McCann (Erickson?) and converted infielder (and batting title contender) Martin Prado make up the rest of the still-on-the-team lineup.

Three of the four dedicated relievers on the Developed squad still play for the Braves - indeed, two are rising stars. The rotation as it stands above - drawn up based on pre-season rankings and ignoring season-ending injuries - consists of mostly current Braves, including two rookies. If I were to have made the rotation using 2011 stats to date, it would contain many fewer current Braves...

The thing is: those other starter candidates are still on the team, in the bullpen. That's right, the number of decent Starters by the Braves outnumbers their number of decent Relievers. And remember, it's a lot easier to be a good reliever than a good starter. And that's not even counting what Charlie Morton (who didn't make my list all those months ago) is doing for the Pirates. There's Matt Harrison (who wasn't even ranked by MLB) and Jason Marquis (who's bouncing back like we knew he should) as well.

Adam Wainwright, when he
pitched for Danville in 2000.
He won't throw a pitch in 2011

Kyle Davies was struggling in the majors, but he's currently in the middle of a pennant race, pitching for the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. I wonder if they're named after the original The Natural. I mean, it's plausible, right? The movie was from 1984 and the team only adopted that name in 2008.

In addition to developing a wealth of starting pitching, the Braves have three very strong shortstop candidates. However, they don't really have a true center fielder. The two candidates - Jeff "Frenchy" Francoeur and veteran bench/DH type (though still listed as CF) Andruw Jones - display a characteristic shared by a great many of these former/developed Braves: they have great baseball names (c'mon, who's ever seen it spelled with a "u" before?).

LaRoche hearkens back to "LaLoosh" in another '80s baseball movie. (It could have been Freddie Freeman, who's currently pulling his weight in his rookie season.) Andrus is the only active major leaguer with the name "Elvis" and Escobar is the only person ever in baseball associated with the name "Yunel." DeRosa has a nice ring to it. And just marvel at the syllables involved in Saltalamacchia (5 on a good day).

A solid team, especially considering Kelly Johnson is going the extra mile to prove that 2010 was no fluke. Next time, I'll look at a team I saw play recently, the Cincinnati Reds.

Developed Team: Anaheim Angels of Anaheim

2011-06-05T14:07:00.000-07:00

Interestingly enough, the next team on the Yankees' AL West road trip is the We Hate Playing In the O.C. Angels of Anaheim. Interestingly enough, the next time the Yankees come to Anaheim: September 11th. Hey, the Yankees have to play somewhere on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, why not sunny southern California?

What do we always start with? That's right, a whopping 12 members of this 25-man squad I've selected are still currently with the team (or would be, discounting DL stints). The Angels do seem like a team that has a near constant stream of talent coming through the pipeline, which is why they usually don't make too much of a splash on the Free Agent market. Not a lot of big power hitters (incidentally, their biggest (and most injured) slugger is one of those pesky, hard-to-classify, foreign-type players), which is why they're also near the bottom of the league in slugging percentage as well.

They also have a shortage of developed outfielders, which is why two of the four they're carrying (Jim Edmonds and Garret Anderson) have announced their retirements prior to 2011. As you've (hopefully) seen in my most recent entry on the New York Yankees, I've decided to discount certain retirements/unsigned statuses (Troy Glaus), and injuries (Kendry(s) Morales) in the interest of fielding the coolest and best team possible.

The two active outfielders on the team have that power-outage problem I mentioned before, but they bring plenty of speed to the table. They'll join Erick Aybar as the main table setters, hoping for plenty of line drive base hits from contact hitters Howie Kendrick and Alberto Callaspo, cuz the only legitimate home run threat NOT on the 1000 day DL is Mike Napoli.

The top of their rotation is made up of two solid pitchers still with the team: Jered Weaver (currently anchoring my Fantasy team) and Ervin Santana. The next two in the rotation have since been traded to be starters on other team. And the last has recently become a starter after spending some time as a reliever. Five solid starters, but not much depth after that.

The bullpen has plenty of depth, with three pitchers of closer-quality. The rest of the bullpen has some questionable characters in it - some because of ability in addition to injuries and circumstance - but it's quantity over quality for this team. Interestingly enough, one of the only key players to not have spent a significant time on the Angels during their actual careers is one of those closer-types: former closer Bobby Jenks.

Jenks also serves as a cautionary tale about using the player evaluation system of a videogame. When I re-created this developed team on MLB 11 The Show, the game had Bobby Jenks ranked above all the starters on the team, including Jered Weaver and John Lackey. How can a guy who'll give you 70 innings with a 3.51 ERA is better to have than a guy who'll give you 218 innings with a 3.98 ERA? Sometimes games are weird.

Overall, this team has some pretty solid arms and a bullpen that will protect a lot of leads, but the offense (much like their offense from much of the mid-2000s) will have to rely on scrappy base hits and smart baserunning more than big time power to score runs. I could run a 162 game simulation with them, but it would be on a system with some questionable evaluatory and presentational quirks. I'll just stick to imagination and move on to my next team on the list. [But likely only after I return from my week-long venture to E3...]

Developed Teams: New York Yankees

2011-06-01T13:58:00.000-07:00

I know I said the Angels would come next, but the A's have since moved on to their next opponents: the New York Yankees. And since I was able to catch their matchup on MLB Network last night, I might as well jump right into their developed team while they're fresh in my mind.

What do we start with, traditionally? Developed players still with the team, of which the Yankees have 10. A pretty average amount, so far. You'll notice the presence of the entire Yankees' Core Four on this developed team - for those of you not versed in Yankees lore, that's Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte, who all came up with the team around the same time - despite the fact that Pettitte has announced his retirement (again) prior to 2011. I decided to put this team together based on aggregate major league experience and projected level of 2011 talent, regardless of the ability/willingness to produce in actual 2011. I figure if we're positing an alternative universe where thousands of trades/free agent signings never took place, what's a couple of ignored injuries and nullified retirements into the mix?

From left: Jeter, Posada, Rivera, Pettitte

Speaking of ignored injuries, Pettitte's imagined rotation mate, Phil Hughes, went on the 60-day DL and is out indefinitely after just 3 starts in April. And Christian Guzman still counts himself among the unsigned Free Agents. But other than Guzman (who played on a World Series caliber team as soon as last year), it was either Kevin Russo or Ramiro Pena for the utility infielder spot. Neither of those two have played in 2011 nor amassed sizable major league careers. The Bronx Bombers seem a little weak on infielders in general, once we get past middle infield stalwarts Jeter and Robinson Cano. Nick Johnson was the only other choice at 1B, and while he has had a longer career than Juan Miranda, only one of the two are currently starting for a major league team.

The outfield, however, is solid, despite the injury to Alfonso Soriano (again, ignored). In fact, he might not even be the best candidate to round out this group, considering the up-and-coming status of Jose Tabata, who never actually played a game with the Yankees, but spent parts of four years in their minor league system before a trade to Pittsburgh. At 22 years old, he would fit in better with 24-year-old Rookie of the Year runner-up Austin Jackson and 27-year-old speedster Brett Gardner. But, again, I'm going with former major league pedigree over potential future stardom. (Hence the presence of Hideki Matsui, who is playing so poorly that he's actually costing the A's money to put him in the lineup every day.) Other outfielders who didn't quite make the team: Toronto's Juan Rivera, Los Angeles's Marcus Thames, and Cleveland's Shelley Duncan. None of these three can match the performance Melky Cabrera is putting up for Kansas City right now (good enough for me to grab him for my Fantasy Team), plus he can play other positions than LF and DH.

Sports Illustrated sure loves the Yankees, huh?

To go over the other three hurlers in the rotation, Ian Kennedy is really coming into his own in Arizona. Phil Coke is proving he can start in Detroit. And Ivan Nova is barely holding on in NY. Jeff Karstens has started 2 out of every 3 games he's played this year, so that's kind of a red flag for Long Relief. Based on my comment about past major league pedigree, I could have had Chien-Ming Wang (he who hasn't pitched since 2009) join him in the bullpen, but he just had shoulder surgery in March and isn't likely to contribute in 2011. There's also Alfredo Aceves, who has a mix of starts and relief appearances for the Red Sox, but he only has one good season under his belt - not enough to warrant a spot.

Plus, why mess with the strength of the team (the bullpen) by putting questionable starters in there? In addition to the Yankees' current setup staff behind Hall of Fame closer Mariano Rivera (namely Joba Chamberlain and David Robertson, sporting a combined 2.06 ERA), we've got the Phillies' acting closer Jose Contreras, the Nationals' star setup man Tyler "The Yankee Clipper" Clippard, and Marlins lefty Michael Dunn (I hadn't heard of him either, but he was ranked on MLB's preseason rankings, and every club needs a lefty out of the 'pen). Honorable mentions who would be star relievers on most other teams: Ramon Ramirez on the Giants (1.64 ERA in 22 IP), Mark Melancon on the Astros (2.05, 26.1, 3 SV), and Daniel McCutchen on the Pirates (1.19, 22.2).

So, there you have it. The New York Yankees' developed team. As much fun as I had putting this together, I'm not embarrassed to say I hope the A's can take at least ONE GAME from their real-life team when they play each other later this afternoon...

Happy Memorial Day!

2011-05-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

Happy Memorial Day to all you out in the blag-o-blag! I hope you're all enjoying your well-earned holiday and the nonstop baseball action on the Tube! For me, it's Tim Hudson leading the Atlanta Braves against Aaron Harang and the San Diego Padres. It's funny to think that in my Developed Universe, Huddy would still be leading the A's... but such is the ever-changing flux of life.

It's also funny to think that TV used to be known colloquially as "the tube" (presumably because it was made of some kind of tube). I guess that's still a slang term, but generally - at least among the ever-expanding higher-tech crowd - the term "tube" (or "tubes") has now come to refer to the Internet... which is gradually replacing television as the way most Americans get most of their entertainment. Coincidence? Or is our culture somehow inextricably linked with the concept of tubes?

I've taken the holiday weekend off from my Developed Teams project (also cuz I'm spending most of my time trying to solve virtual 1940s crimes in L.A. Noire), but seeing these two teams play has given me an idea of who to write about next. Once I'm done with my slate of currently-planned programming. Long Story Short: Expect to see the Braves' and the Padres' developed teams up here sometime in the next week. You might be surprised about which current stars land on the list...

Developed Teams: Oakland Athletics

2011-05-26T12:50:00.000-07:00

Oh Boy! The A's are in town! I noticed when I saw them on my local Fox Sports affiliate, playing against the (not quite) hometown (but wish they were) Angels. In honor of this series - and because the A's are unabashedly my favorite baseball team - I'll move straight on in my Developed Teams project, to the Oakland Athletics.

First of all, to start with what I always start with: developed players still with the team = Eight (8). Not as much as the Cubs or the Red Sox, two teams with significantly higher payrolls in significantly better baseball markets. It makes sense that a team with a historically great farm system but historically poor finances has historically been forced to part with some of their best talent. But you must do the what you can with what you have where you are.

What might have been...

Rather than focus on those eight, let's marvel at the sheer outfield power the A's have traded away, most without even playing a single game for Oakland's big club. Of the 463 HR and 1,580 RBI that came out of the outfielders on this roster (Andre Ethier, Cruz, Swisher, and Ludwick [as DH here]), only 80 HR and 255 RBI benefitted the A's (all from Swisher from 2004-07). And who did the A's get via trade for these outfield talents? Milton Bradley, Keith Ginter, Gio Gonzalez / Ryan Sweeney, and Carlos Pena, respectively. ONE player who's made a significant difference in the majors. Sad showing from Mr. Moneyball indeed.

Of course it took a little juggling and creativity to get all those outfielders into my lineup, as Swisher has only played CF close to regularly in 2007-08, when he played to the tune of 30 total zone fielding runs BELOW average with the A's and White Sox. Also, while we're on the topic, Mark Teahen has played exactly 3 games at 2B in his whole career. But the only other infield options - Bobby Crosby and Esteban German - haven't played at all yet in 2011, so I would feel bad about giving them a spot.

Look at that defensive whiz...

Some of those guys to whom I did give spots are there for purely sentimental reasons. I'm looking at early 2000's throwbacks Eric "Chokey" Chavez, Jason "Yankee-steroid-apologist" Jerk-ambi, and to some extent Miguel "MVT" Tejada. But Chavez won a bench job with the Yankees out of Spring Training, Giambi's got an OPS over 1.000 to go with 6 HR in part-time duty with the Rockies, and Tejada's starting at SS for the defending World Series Champions. So as far as nostalgia goes, you could do much worse.

The three A's batters currently with the team are still struggling to find themselves and develop into their full potential. Barton, Suzuki, and Pennington are all entering the prime of their careers, all performing under their potential, and all lacking in the one aspect the A's currently need most: power at the plate. Two of the four A's pitchers currently with the team are out with injuries: Andrew Bailey since the beginning of the year and Dallas Braden for the rest of the year. Trevor Cahill (despite losing his second game last night) and Brad Ziegler have been absolutely solid in their roles.

Teammates called his 2-seam fastball "supersink"

Cahill and Braden are joined by three veterans, two of which are former members of the Big 3, and the third is a current non-member of baseball's most famous Big 4. Tim Hudson's ERA is approaching his FIP; Joe Blanton has been dubbed the "mere mortal" on a Philadelphia staff filled with greats; and Barry Zito - just when you think he's about to turn things around (the Hardball Times even published a study confirming as much), he drops off a cliff again.

I picked my two long relievers - Vin Mazzaro and Tyson Ross - because they're young and hip and likely to make contributions to their big league clubs this year. If I were going for established major leaguers (albeit ones whose 2011 future is uncertain), I could have just as easily gone with Rich Harden (signed by the A's, but injured) and Jeremy Bonderman (unsigned).

Check out the three closers in this bullpen! Three projected closers, anyway. Bailey's been hurt (see above) and Kevin Gregg's been ineffective enough that he probably wouldn't be closing if a better pitcher were available. Strategically, it would probably be better to replace him with a lefty - him or Santiago Casilla, who's been awful so far this year. But for the bullpen, I wanted to get all the high profile, established guys in there.

There's a lineup made up of only players developed by the A's, each one with their own story to tell. Next time, I'll feature their opponents in this four-game series - AL West rivals, the Orange County Angels of Anaheim.

Developed Teams: Chicago Cubs

2011-05-25T13:12:00.000-07:00

Because my post about the Red Sox's developed lineup was such a success (judged only by my own standards), I'll continue right away with their opponents in last weekend's interleague series: The Chicago Cubs.

To continue the tradition, let's look at the players developed by the Cubs who are still currently with the Cubs: for the record there are 11. Four of those 11 are starting pitchers - Zambrano, Wells, and Cashner were projected to start in the rotation, but the latter two have managed only one game apiece so far in 2011; the fourth, Coleman (listed as LR), has been making (rather poor) starts in their stead. Three more are relievers - current star closer (Marmol), returning former starter (Wood), and returning ever-solid setup man (Marshall).

For batters, they have former All-Star catcher Geovany Soto and future All-Star shortstop Starlin Castro. Outfielder Tyler Colvin is trying to bounce back from a puncture wound from a broken bat that ended his 2010 season. He hasn't done a good job of it so far, but I think he shows a lot of promise. The 11th player on this list, Kosuke Fukudome, brings up an issue that I could have addressed with Boston's Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideki Okajima: players "developed" by a foreign country's baseball league. While it's not really proper to lump these foreign stars in with legitimate homegrown talent, I find it better than the alternative, which is to just leave them out of the project altogether.

As far as stars that Chicago let get away, the list is pretty thin. Casey McGehee has shown some offensive firepower, but he's got some world class lineup protection with Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder. Who knows if he has what it takes to anchor an offense all by himself. Corey Patterson and Ryan Theriot both have had careers alternating between acceptable and awful. And Eric Hinske isn't even a starter for his current team (Braves). The bench is a mish-mash of also-rans and defensive replacements.

Ricky Nolasco has blossomed into a pretty great starter, but their rotation could still be in trouble considering Sergio Mitre has moved exclusively to the bullpen following his trade to the Brewers. The rest of the relievers have been very effective, some of them very surprisingly (I'm looking at you Kyle Farnsworth, in his first season closing full-time, at age 35). Downs and Wuertz: for pitchers who can only manage 1 IP per game and don't rack up a lot of saves, I suppose they're about as good as you can get.

Honorable Mentions: Darwin Barney won the starting 2B job out of Spring Training, and his .315 avg would totally earn him a spot if we were going by 2011 stats alone. Sam Fuld wowed some peeps in the early days of the season with some timely hitting and a couple of great defensive plays, but he's slowed down a bit (all except for his 12 SB). Jeff Samardzija and Juan Cruz are threatening to put together very solid seasons in middle relief. And if Jamie Moyer comes out of retirement, I'm gonna have to find a spot for him on this roster somewhere...

Developed Teams: Boston Red Sox

2011-05-23T18:49:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the historic series on ESPN and Fox, I've decided to start my developed teams project with the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs (separately, of course). Seems like as good a place to start as any. So without further ado, here's how the Boston Red Sox would look today if they were allowed to keep all the greats and near-greats that they developed through their minor league system:

10 players from this team are currently on Boston's real-life active roster (6 of whom are legitimate stars), which seems to be pretty good in terms of player retention. I don't really know how it will stack up against later teams, as I've just started this project and patterns haven't really started to emerge yet. It will generally be the case that teams use a glut of homegrown players on their roster, as they're usually both young and cheap. 2 more players (both from the bench) are still in Boston's system, but have yet to log any playing time in 2011. The fact that players of this sort are on the team at all bespeaks a relative lack of serviceable major league position players developed by Boston.

In fact, their roster is so weak that they couldn't even fill a whole 9 spots with current major leaguers - as you'll notice, flameout prospect Brandon Moss (you might remember him from the Manny Ramirez deal?) is currently languishing in the Phillies' AAA affiliate. And David Eckstein on the bench is still an unsigned free agent. But the rest of the lineup should make up for the weak links. Jacoby Ellsbury has bounced back from an injury-wasted year, and Dustin Pedroia should follow suit soon. Kevin Youkilis plays third base in real life (IRL), but I had to shift him to first due to a surplus of infielders (Freddy Sanchez won a batting title in '06 while playing third base... let's just ignore that he hasn't played there since).

The hottest player who Boston let get away is clearly Hanley Ramirez, who played exactly 2 games for the Sox before starting off an All-Star career following a trade to Florida. He's currently off to a slow start, but like Pedroia we should count on him to improve. Also headed to Florida in that same trade is Developed Boston's 5th starter Anibal Sanchez. This brings up an interesting quality of these teams: players who were developed by a certain team, but who never played any games with that team. The bottom three starters in Boston's rotation share this quality.

Carl Pavano was drafted by the Red Sox and made it all the way to AAA in their system before being traded to Montreal for Pedro Martinez the year before his debut. Jorge de la Rosa was signed by Arizona, but only pitched for them for one year before jumping ship for the Mexican Leagues for a year. The Red Sox then picked him up, developed him all the way through AAA, then sent him to Milwaukee (by way of Arizona) again a year before his debut. The same situation happened with their nos. 2 and 3 setup men, Francisco and Betancourt respectively.

You'll notice two starting pitchers in relief pitcher slots. I felt no need to punish teams that have developed an excess of starters by relegating their nos. 6 through 8 or 9 to fantastical Developed AAA teams. So on teams that deserve it, I've given them a little extra flexibility. If we were going on 2011 stats alone, Justin Masterson (5-2, 2.52 ERA) would clearly replace Pavano (2-4, 5.30), but as I said before I'm going more on pre-season predictions, which are more permanent and requires less keeping track.

Developed Teams, an intro.

2011-05-18T19:38:00.000-07:00

On the Rockies vs. Phillies game on ESPN, the commentators made a point about how Todd Helton has one of the longest active careers having played with only one team. It's been more than 14 years since Helton first picked up a bat and strapped on his first baseman's mit for the Colorado Rockies, and he hasn't put on a different uniform since.

I don't remember who the other players on that list were, but Helton's very impressive career got me thinking about team loyalty. When an organization signs an amateur player and shepherds him to the major leagues, there is a natural bond that forms between the player and the team. Whatever might happen to that player after his debut, there's never any doubt as to which team found that player (whether through the draft or a free agent signing) and made him major league ready - for what team he is a "homegrown" player.

Similarly, if a prospect spends significant time getting "developed" in one team's system and then is traded to another team just prior to his debut, I'd say the bond falls with the "developing" team, rather than the debuting team. Furthermore, the developing team doesn't necessarily have to be the drafting team, if a young player happens to be traded soon after being picked up. There's no set science and a lot of it has to do with feel and instinct.

Now, with that concept of developed teams in mind, imagine a world in which all active players still played with the teams that developed them. No trades, no contracts - just all rosters set up this way for a single season - let's call it this season. What might that look like? Who would have the best teams? Where would the best players be? And which teams have been the best not only at developing the best players, but holding on to them as well?

I have to make a confession: I'd been thinking about this issue even before I heard the ESPN blurb about Todd Helton. Long before, in fact. This idea of homegrown teams goes all the way back to an old baseball periodical I used to read back in the early 2000s. Then they made another appearance in Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Lineups, which I read thoroughly. I've even recreated these "developed teams" in several different points in history using video games as a simulator. (In the past, I've done this experiment with All-Star Baseball 2001 for the N64 and MVP Baseball 2005 for the PS2. You may think I have too much time on my hands? Not so: I just complete the project really really fast.)

I am currently in the process of completing this experiment with current rosters, with the hope of using MLB 11 The Show this time around. As you can imagine, I'm using the default rosters - no reason to get myself HACKZD by downloading roster updates on a compromised network. Concurrently, I will be putting an inordinate amount of weight on preseason rankings rather than tracking each player's progress through the 2011 season.

I'll be posting these developed lineups as I complete them and deem them worthy for publishing. They will be done quickly and in no particular order. I will address and attempt to explain certain ambiguous decisions where the developing team isn't crystal clear. Hopefully, as I hope for every project I do for this blog, it will be fun for me and interesting to read about. Only you, the readers, can be the judges.

Top 50 Prospects

2011-05-07T09:50:00.000-07:00

One of the most exciting aspects for the more forward-thinking fans of professional sports is analyzing who has the best chance to become the stars of tomorrow. Some of us are content to gape in awe at today's All-Stars and league leaders and admire their amazing talent and the impressive numbers they put on the board in the present. But, as the Roman Emperors knew all too well, glory is fleeting, and today's franchise players are tomorrow's journeymen, and it's always nice to keep an eye on those who will take up their mantle.

With that in mind, I'm going to take a look at MLB's list of Top 50 Prospects heading into the 2011 season. And, since we all have a short attention span, I'm going to focus my look on those players likely to spend significant time in the majors in 2011. To do this, I will look at the 2010 Top 50 list (that's as far back as my research goes) and try to determine some patterns.

21 of the Top 50 prospects in 2010 spent significant time at the Major League level last year. 11 of those 21 spent some time at AAA in 2009, the last year contributing to their ranking. 9 of the remaining 10 peaked at AA. And 1 special pitcher made it to The Show without even one full year in the minors. Bonus points if you can name that pitcher. I'll give you a hint: he's not on the Top 50 list for 2011, as he will likely miss the entire year following right elbow surgery. That's right, not one of the Top 50 2010 jumped directly from any level of class A to the majors.

Moving ahead to the 2011 list, let's start by looking at holdovers from last year. There are 21 members on the '11 list who also made an appearance on the '10 list. Since my research only goes back a year, I can't be certain as to how making an appearance on two lists in a row affects chances of success in the Majors. But thinking it through logically, it shouldn't bode well. Prospects are only valuable insofar as they quickly graduate from prospecthood into Major League playerness. The longer someone remains a prospect, the less chances he has to be part of a Major League team. But on the other hand, if someone is twice recognized as a top prospect, shouldn't that be a clear sign that the talent is there? We'll just have to wait until 2012 to find out.

Looking back at my observation about Class A ballplayers, there are 14 players on the 2011 list who peaked at Class A or lower. I would say that we could rule these guys out immediately, except that 3 of these guys are among the 21 holdovers from last year. We'll have to see how these two interplaying statuses affect their chances of reaching the big leagues.

10 players on the 2011 list spent at least a little time in the Majors in 2010, vs. only 7 players on the 2010 list who reached the bigs in 2009. 6 of the 2010 7 made meaningful contributions to their 2010 clubs. Looking at the 2011 10, I see 8 who were slated to start with their 2011 clubs (according to the all-important Sports Illustrated predictions). Here's the full 10, organized by placement on the 2011 prospect list:

Hellickson and Drabek have settled in as solid starters for their teams. Minor, SI's pick to start the season as the Braves' 5th starter, appeared in just one game before losing the job to Brandon Beachy (who has been absolutely lights out). Chapman and Sale have been languishing in the non-Save-earning depths of their respective bullpens - the former dazzling and the latter struggling.

Domonic Brown would have started the season for the Phillies had he not broke his hand. Desmond Jennings had a more uncertain role - the Rays' acquisitions of Johnny Damon made the baseball world question whether the highly touted outfield prospect was as ready for action as we all thought he was. Freeman is barely holding onto the starting job in Atlanta and Arencibia is slugging pretty well for a Catcher, which plays right into Toronto's game plan. And Alonso is blocked at First Base by a dude better known as the NL MVP last year. He and Brown are the only two members on this list without any time in the Majors in '11.

Of the remaining 40 players on the list - all with no major league experience - only 3 saw playing time in April: Michael Pineda (SP, SEA), Zach Britton (SP, BAL), and Brandon Belt (1B, SF). ALL of those 3 were first timers on the list. To attempt to put that number in perspective: out of those 10 players charted above, 5 were first-timers on the list in '11. Keep in mind, though that we've only just passed the first half of the first third of the season, so a lot of these guys will still make it to The Show before we wrap up the playoffs.

I hope that sufficiently breaks down at least some of the more familiar names on the list. I would expect even casual fans to have heard of the likes of #1 ranked Mike Trout, fierce phenom Bryce Harper, and sure-to-be-fast-tracked-to-the-majorsDustin Ackley, but the rest of those minor league guys likely won't reach prominence until they're called up for the first time. Until then, we can only wait, watch the list, and think about the future...

National League All-Acquired Team 2011

2011-04-27T13:35:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since Part 1 of my All-Acquired Team project hit the tubes a couple weeks ago - it turns out that real actual-factual baseball (plus the emergence of my fantasy team as an early powerhouse!) has had more interest for me than my lists. But I'm of the mind that completing a project is nearly as important as starting it, so I'd like to bring this little experiment to a close, with the...

2011 NATIONAL LEAGUE

ALL-ACQUIRED TEAM

At first glance, the lack of offense is the most immediately apparent feature of this roster. You can only see two significant threats: Jayson Werth (signed a huge Free Agent deal with the Nationals) and Dan Uggla (acquired via trade by the Braves). Of Werth's three full big league seasons, they've all been good (for an average of 4.2 WAR), but they've all come in hitter-friendly Citizens Bank Park with an All-Star offense surrounding him. Uggla has never had an OPS below .800 in his 5 seasons in the bigs - all with the Marlins after being acquired as a Rule 5 pick from the Diamondbacks. After those two, the lineup consists mostly of question-marks and also-rans.

Carlos Pena gets pretty high marks in MLB's pre-season rankings; I guess they're banking on a change of scenery from the miserable dome in St. Petersburg FL to the friendly confines of Wrigley Field in Chicago will account for his batting average rising above the mendoza line. (It hasn't yet in his 20 games with the Cubs, as he's currently sitting at .169.) His backup is high-strikeout slugger Adam LaRoche, who joins Werth on the Nationals. Interestingly enough, when I plugged this lineup into MLB 11: The Show, the CPU picked LaRoche to start over Pena. The swp from 2011 backs up this decision.

The rest of the starting infield features an aging shortstop who experts say can't really play the position anymore (Miguel Tejada, signed by the World Champion Giants) and a utility infielder who is projected to spend most of his actual 2011 time vying for playing time (Ty Wigginton, signed with the Rockies). The bench actually looks pretty strong with an established middle infielder in Ryan Theriot (who will start at SS for the Cardinals) and a lot of versatility in All-Star Omar Infante (traded for Dan Uggla) and Bill Hall (Astros) - both super-utility types turned regular second basemen. They would look really strong if they had a decent team to back up.

Rounding out the outfield is Cameron Maybin, whose defensive talents should really shine through for the Padres in spacious Petco Park, and Lance Berkman, who will attempt to play in the outfield regularly for the first time in six years. The move seemed to rejuvenate him; he's hitting .378 with 6 HR for the Cardinals. Nyjer Morgan, who rather recently became eligible for this list, can back up any of the outfield spots.

The real strength of this team is the starting pitching. We've all heard about Cliff Lee and his signing by the Mystery Team *cough* Phillies *cough*, and he's continued his lights-out K/BB brilliance into 2011. But the real depth to this imaginary staff comes with two acquisitions by the Brewers. Yes I know that Zack Greinke is still injured and hasn't made his '11 debut yet, but MLB 11: The Show picked him as the #1 starter over Lee. Shaun Marcum has pitched to a very nice 2.73 ERA, 1.146 WHIP in his 5 starts. Matt Garza has been striking out everyone for the Cubs, despite being unlucky in the win department. And Javier Vazquez hasn't been anywhere close to regaining his 2009 form with the braves (6.52 ERA, 2.017 WHIP).

But the talent doesn't stop with five pitchers, and this is reflected in the Long Relief (LR) position. Kevin Correia has already thrown a complete game and came out of the bullpen for the Pirates and Aaron Harang leads the league in wins pitching for the Padres. Other notable starters who were left off the roster: Jon Garland (also a complete game after a late start for the Dodgers), Tom Gorzelanny (struggling a bit for the Nationals), Armando Galarraga (trying to give the Diamondbacks a taste of his near-perect glory), and Chris Young (trying to re-jump-start his injury-plagued career with the Mets).

Quite a wealth of arms; I would have included more on the roster, but I felt it was necessary to represent with a complement of full-time relievers. Which would be worth it if there were more than two useful relievers acquired by NL teams over the 2010-11 off-season. We've got J.J. Putz, re-entering the closer market with the Diamondbacks, and doing a darn good job of it. We've got Takashi Saito, a former closer in Japan, who was brought in to set up and mentor the Brewers' young Canadian closer John Axford before going on the DL with a hamstring strain. And then we've got the rest.

My next project (really it's more of an idea) has to do with the hottest prospects in the game, and which of them we have a chance to see reach the majors any time soon. But before I get around to analyzing MLB's Top 50 list, we'll hit the one-month mark of the 2011 season, which I feel requires some sort of recognition and recap of the top performers so far.

Liveblogging Jackie Robinson Day (Already)

2011-04-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

Turned on the MLB Network to see the Yankees hosting the Rangers. And I see that every player has 42 on his jersey. That can only mean one of two things: my TV is broken or it's Jackie Robinson Day!

Jackie Robinson Day is a fun tradition. And I think it's better that they went all-out and put 42 on everyone's jerseys instead of leaving it as a by-request-only thing. That sets up an "I'm more commemorable of history than thou" kind of dynamic. And while it may seem a bit over-the-top to have #42 on everyone's jerseys for a day, it's just as over the top as retiring #42 on every major league team for the rest of the time.

And it's nice that Baseball's greats are still active and involved enough in the current tradition to be commemorated in a sport-wide ceremony. And to appear on popular branded celebrity-themed reality shows. And also to potentially go to jail for obstruction of justice. Well, it's give and take...

Seeing as how my Goal for this blog this season is to limit my coverage to games (or parts of games) that I happen to see, here are my thoughts on this rematch of last year's ALCS. First on Ivan Nova, the Yankees' rookie starting pitcher. It looks like he has some good movement to that fastball, really cuts back in on right-handed hitters. Looks like he complements that with a decently-biting slider. I don't know if he'll be able to make his living in the AL East with those two pitches, but at the moment, he's all the Yankees got.

He certainly didn't last long against the Rangers: 4.1 innings, 5 runs (reliever David Robertson allowed 1 of his 2 inherited runners to score). I don't know if it's too soon to write off the Yankees, but there would be some poetic justice in seeing a free-agent-gobbling powerhouse with unlimited funds fade into mediocrity for a few seasons, regardless of what it would do to TV ratings.

Meanwhile, in a battle of #4 starters, the Rangers' young lefty Matt Harrison seems to be throwing the ball pretty well. Harrison came over from the Braves (with Elvis Andrus and Neftali Feliz) in the deal for Mark Teixeira, so it's fun to see these two face each other tonight. (Tex was 0-3 with a K and a GDP against him tonight.) He had failed half-season stints as a starter in 08 and 09, was used primarily out of the bullpen last year, and was left off the Rangers' postseason roster.

Harrison wasn't in the Rangers' projected starting rotation until rather late in the pre-season. But a good spring training line - coupled with injuries to Tommy Hunter and off-season gamble Brandon Webb - put him front and center. And he's performing pretty well, what with his perfect W-L record and WHIP under 1.000 on the season. Also stuffwise: he's changing speeds well, and according to fangraphs, his fastball speed has increased each year he's been in the majors.

Harrison is one of those young pitchers that are helping to redefine this Rangers organization as one focused as much on good pitching as stacking the lineup with mashers. And his performance tonight solidifies that: 8 innings, 2 runs (one on a Granderson homer), just a 3/3 K/BB ratio, but he induced a franchise record 6 double plays. That's good for 99 swp, for those who care about such things.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the mound, we're seeing the major league debut from 27-year-old rookie Lance Pendleton. After 6 seasons in the minor leagues as a mostly-effective starter, he's finally getting his first tosses in The Show, and he has not disappointed: 3 perfect innings in relief, including 3 strikeouts. I wonder if we'll see him as a rotation filler later in the year if Freddy Garcia continues to struggle or if Phil Hughes spends significant time on the DL with his "dead arm." (Maybe the Yanks should have made the Hughes Rules a little more strict than the Joba Rules...)

So now it's Neftali Feliz to try to close it out, facing... you guessed it: Mark Teixeira, the very man for which he was traded. It's interesting that the entire complement of pitchers used by the Rangers tonight was acquired for this guy, who's now off to an uncharacteristic fast start this year. But a groundout completes the ofer for Texeira.

An A-Rod double gives the Yankees some life (that's at least good for my fantasy team), but Joe Girardi is putting that life in the hands of Eric "Chokey" Chavez, who surprisingly comes through in the clutch with a pinch-hit RBI single! I know a lot has been made of Miguel Tejada's decreased defensive range and inability to play shortstop regularly, but I will always rue the day when Billy Beane let Miggy walk in favor of signing Chokey to a long term deal. I mean, the A's missed out on some pretty impressive numbers that Tejada put up for Baltimore (150 RBI anyone?) before he suffered his power outage.

Now I'm just trying to find something to write about before the game ends, as Posada gets on base with a walk. But Russel J. Martin flies out to end it, finishing out a rather adventurous save (and the first run allowed of the season) for reigning AL Rookie of the Year Neftali Feliz. Good performances from guys like Harrison and Alexi Ogando kept Feliz in the bullpen this year, but I feel like it's just a matter of time until he cracks the starting rotation. Like I always say (because I've heard so many smarter people say it) a pitcher can give his team six times more value if he pitches six times the innings.

That's it from Jackie Robinson Day. See you next time with the NL All-Acquired roster!

American League All-Acquired Team 2011

2011-04-13T15:40:00.000-07:00

Most of the fun of the baseball off-season is wrapped up in players changing teams for the next season. I did a three-part post chronicling player movement over the off-season, but now that I have my hotly-anticipated Sports Illustrated Baseball Preview in hand - which notes which players on each lineup are newly-acquired - I can see which roles those players will play on their new teams. And using that information, I can compile the best of those players into a fantasy lineup. Here is one such lineup representing the best players newly acquired by American League teams over the '10-11 off-season.

OK, so I got a little carried away and a lineup turned into a full 25-man roster. But this way you get a sense of how this team might play over the course of a full season. Nota Bene: the player rankings are from MLB.com's system and are current to before the start of the season. Moving from top to bottom and using the cliche'd "compliment sandwich" to evaluate this team seems in order, as their very strong offense and bullpen flank a downright pathetic starting pitching staff.

Boston's big acquisitions lead the way on offense with Baltimore and Texas also looking to field some key players. I've talked a little about picking more versatile players to stock a bench rather than just the most talented hitters - hence the presence of David DeJesus, who can play all three outfield spots well, over a guy like Johnny Damon (ranked 299) who will likely be limited to DH/LF duties for the Rays (especially now that Manny has essentially been dishonorably discharged). However, in the case of Guerrero and Reynolds, I was mesmerized by their home run totals and couldn't help but include them in the roster.

I had to revamp the pitching staff due to injuries and ineffectiveness. We would have had higher-ranked pitchers such as Brandon Webb (419), Vin Mazzaro (447) or Rich Harden (507), except those three are either starting the season on the DL or in the minors. I think I'm putting too much stock in those MLB pre-season rankings, but I just like the way their website is designed so much....

Yes I realize that both members of my middle infield are injured. I didn't remove them because a) I think they'll both be back in their respective lineups eventually while it's unclear what role the injured/demoted pitchers will play this year and b) I didn't want to go through the trouble. So there.

I have Soriano as the closer because he has the best closer-quality stuff. Gregg is ranked significantly higher because he projects to actually record some Saves this year for the Orioles while Soriano will be stuck behind Mo Rivera for the Yankees. It's encouraging that Fuentes has such a relatively high ranking for a setup man... but that's probably because the folks at MLB could see that Andrew Bailey has become a true injury risk.

As followers of my alter-blogging-ego might know, I recently picked up a copy of MLB 11 The Show. Using the game's superior game simulation/roster manipulation skills, I recreated this project, but with a twist: I simply put ALL the acquired players on a single team and let the CPU sort out what would make the best lineup. The results were a bit strange if also a bit predictable.

The starting outfield included Carl Crawford in LF, Vladimir Guerrero in RF, and ... Hideki Matsui in CF! Those of you who didn't see Guerrero try to play in the outfield last World Series should probably avoid the footage, because it was painful. And Matsui can barely man LEFT field, let alone center. I understand the game values hitting over defense (as video games are wont to do), but then why leave Adam Dunn on the bench in favor of ... MANNY RAMIREZ!!?! Granted this was before his retirement, but MLB ranks him 268, a full 234 places below Dunn. Someone somewhere got their signals crossed.

Other than those changes, though, the lineup and rotation (minus the injured pitchers) were pretty similar. I think they had Frank Francisco in there, but, again, minus the injured pitchers. The cool part about using the game, is that I could actually see a cartoony representation of how this team might look and how they might play. Incidentally, in the one simulated game I had the patience to (mostly) sit through (while doing other things), the AL team beat its NL All-Acquired counterpart in a thrilling come-from-behind victory. Next time, I'll go over the National League's squad.

Arrested Development: Stuck in Spring Training

2011-04-06T15:48:00.000-07:00

I had a great time at Spring Training in Phoenix. It was great to see some preseason action and to be right next to the players and to be immersed in baseball action for a whole weekend. Then the following week, in Phoenix again, I enjoyed the exhibition game that took me into a new Major League ballpark. But as fun as it was watching the D-Backs beat up on a team from the Mexican League, it's now the first week of April, and I'm ready for some regular season action. The Sports Illustrated Baseball Preview is finally out, and I'm ready for the games to count.

So when my latest travels took me to south Florida and the cab driver said we were close to where the Marlins played, I got extra excited. Could this be two new stadiums for me in as many weeks? We were on a tight schedule, so I had the cabbie swing by the stadium, just to pay my respects. As it turns out, it was where the Marlins play... but only during the Spring. That's right, we were actually close to Roger Dean Stadium, the facility shared by the Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals. Still cool to see the outside of the facility, but again it's not exactly Major League grade. No matter where I turn, it's back to Spring Training!

Other occurrences might signal that I'm not quite ready - emotionally and spiritually - for the season to start. Remember that big "30 Projected Lineups in 30 Days" project that was due to start as soon as the SI baseball preview came out? Well, I picked up the preview issue this Monday, and I have some not insignificant issues with it. First of all, there's that cover story about the Phillies' rotation. Don't get me wrong, I'm totally enamored of the Phillies' rotation, and I think it's cool that Roy Halladay is on the cover two years in a row. But who's idea was it to give them all dumb superhero names and contrived origin stories? I've read Gary Smith's work before, and enjoyed it very much, but Tunnelman? Loose Laser? I couldn't get through all six densely packed pages of it....

Then there's the projected lineups, of which SI is the gold standard, in my opinion. Looking forward to these 30 lists is basically what gets me through the off-season. (Well, that and friends, family, loved ones, and Arkham Asylum.) This year's lineups are well-organized (although they've replaced the one-page story on each team with a broad, sweeping article about each division) and accurate (that's what happens when the issue is released a few days after the start of the season), but I'm a little confused with some of the personnel decisions on who to include.

Many teams are slated to begin the year with one or several key starters on the disabled list for one reason or another. Whether it's Chase Utley's tendinitis or Matt Holliday's appendectomy, some players don't enter the year 100%. I'm confused, though, how SI decides whether to leave the injured player in the projected lineups or remove them in favor of a replacement. In the Sporting News' preview issue, players expected to start the season on the DL were marked with an asterisk. No such luck for SI. Here are some of the contradictions I've found:

INJURED, BUT IN LINEUP

Aforementioned Phillies 2B Chase Utley (knee tendinitis) and RF Domonic Howard (broken hand) still show up in the issue.

Brewers SP Zack Greinke injured his ribs playing basketball.

Athletics CL Andrew Bailey strained his forearm during Spring Training.

Indians CF Grady Sizemore is having knee surgery and is always a question mark to stay healthy.

Dodgers 3B Casey Blake started the season on the DL for a back strain, but he was just activated today.

As stated above, Matt Holliday is having his appendix removed.

Mets LF Jason Bay is out with a muscle strain, Astros SS Clint Barmes broke his left hand, and White Sox DH Adam Dunn is also having his appendix out, but those injuries/procedures occurred after press time.

INJURED, NOT IN LINEUP

Cardinals ace SP Adam Wainwright underwent Tommy John surgery and isn't in the magazine, although he doesn't project to play at all in 2011.

Mets ace SP Johan Santana doesn't show up either although he's only on the 15 day DL. (UPDATE: Looks like he's actually having another left shoulder surgery and is out indefinitely. Yikes...)

Blue Jays SP Brandon Morrow is replaced in the mag's rotation by Jo-Jo Reyes, although the projected starter is only out with a forearm strain (see Andrew Bailey).

Tigers veteran 2B Carlos Guillen is out and replaced in the lineup by Will Rhymes. To name another washed up veteran, Royals C Jason Kendall won't start the season, and is replaced by new acquisition Matt Treanor.

Rangers playoff-worth SP Tommy Hunter has a strained groin and should pitch for most of the season, and yet erstwhile RP Alexi Ogando has his spot in the rotation.

-

Due to the inconsistencies in this year's issue, it might be a while before I can start my project, if I don't abandon it altogether in favor of more flexible, far-reaching, and altogether shorter endeavors. One will definitely be an All-Acquired team for each league (followed by a piece about how that team plays on MLB 11: The Show, which I've been itching to buy ever since I learned it came out almost a month ago...) and something chronicling the game's top 50 prospects.

Until then, the silver lining is that my flight back to LA has seat-back TVs, so I'll be able to catch most of the Twins/Yankees game on ESPN's Wednesday Night Baseball. Maybe that will be enough to launch me into the throes of regular season awesomeness.

More Baseball...

2011-04-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

...Is on TV today! Don't you just love this time of year, when everyone is so excited about the baseball season starting that there are random games on TV all the time? I personally wish it was like that all the time; and with MLB Network in full swing, I don't see why it shouldn't be the case.

Today's evening broadcast featured the contest between the AL Champion Texas Rangers and the Boston Red Sox, the team that most pundits agree had the most productive off-season. It was 1-0, on the strength of an Ian Kinsler homer (his second to lead off the game in as many games), but Adrian Gonzalez and David Ortiz quickly made it 2-1 on the strength of a bloop and a blast, respectively.

Watching Colby Lewis throw his 87 MPH fastball and 80 MPH curve/slider combo, I'm wondering if he'll have any trouble repeating his very effective '010 comeback season. He came back to the states last year, fully rejuvenated by a full year of domination in Japan, and he must have brought some of that confidence with him to the mound. I know he just finished pitching in a grueling post-season, but will the pressures of playing back in the majors full-time balance out his competitive fire, and expose his weakish stuff? We'll see.

Oh, I also noticed that Mitch Moreland is up at first today for the Rangers. Ahh, maybe there's going to be a platoon setup going on here - Napoli will play 1B against lefties while Moreland will man first sack when a righty's on the mound. Factor in some extensive backup for Yorvit Torrealba behind the plate, and you've got a situation where Napoli gets some significant at-bats. Cuz, seeing as he's on your team, you might as well let him contribute all he can.

But, what's this!? We've switched over to the Orioles Rays game for Manny's at-bat. Wow, a pitcher's duel here, 0-0 in the 7th. Chris Tillman pitched a gem for the birds, but he surrendered the ball to a reliever after his 6 innings. Aaaand, now that B.J. Upton just singled up the middle, the Orioles are no longer pitching a team no-hitter. Can you believe it? That was the first Rays hit of the game, and it came with two outs in the 7th inning.

It's strange that manager Buck Showalter opted to make it a "team no-hitter" rather than give his youngster who just barely made the team a chance at history. Tillman is only 23, smack in the middle of those formative years I keep talking about, so his workload is being closely monitored. And although he had logged a very manageable amount of innings in his past career, they opted to pull him at 6 innings and 101 pitches - right at the exact point where Craig Wright says it's foolish to set a fixed pitch count limit.

Oh well, I hope Tillman rewards the Orioles' care by having his arm hold up for years and years without injury. Or rather I hope chance rewards the Orioles' care by not bestowing injuries on Chris Tillman's arm.

But what's this? The hitters at the top of the Rangers order are mounting a comeback with a double by Kinsler and a triple by new 2-place hitter Elvis Andrus. I like the Rangers' choice to go with power at the top of the order and speed/contact as number 2. Then the rest of the lineup can mash it with the best of them. Again, it all comes down to the pitching.

I'm going to try, this year, to write more about the games, live and televised, I happen to catch, with a special emphasis on the A's, Dodgers, and players on my fantasy team. I think this will make the whole blog thing more manageable than trying to cover everything that happens in the sport - I don't have the time or the manpower for that task. Knowing about everything that happens in the sport - my unstated goal - will hopefully give some more meaning to my coverage, limited though it may be.

But if the plan is to report on what you watch, than the road to moderation leads through knowing when to stop watching. So I'm going to give the blog and post length a rest before the Red Sox somehow manage to put a rally together and take back the lead...

The A's First Game of the Season...

2011-04-02T09:10:00.000-07:00

...And it's on TV, no less! I didn't catch the beginning - I was en route from the airport when I read a tweet about Josh Willingham hitting a homer in his first at-bat as an Athletic (the first player to accomplish that feat since Frank Thomas in 2006, according to @OaklandAs). Thus I missed some first inning fireworks, just like I did in the Diamondbacks exhibition game a few nights ago. But unlike the Diamondbacks game, there weren't any more fireworks for me to see.

Those two runs that came on the Willingham homer were the only two the A's would score all night. Fortunately, though, A's starter Trevor Cahill allowed fewer runs than that (his only ER came on a bases-loaded walk)... but unfortunately, he only lasted 4.2 innings. However, In un-typical Cahill fashion, he finally lived up to his name and struck out 8 batters in that span. But after an A's bullpen meltdown - led by former elite lefty Craig Breslow - and a King Felix Hernandez complete game effort, the Athletics extend their opening day losing streak to 7 games.

I don't particularly agree with Manager Bob Geren's style of handling the A's pitchers in last night's loss - but then again I haven't agreed with much Geren has done since his tenure as skipper. First, pulling Cahill with a close lead after 105 pitches in the 5th. As I wrote about before, I am now a full convert to Craig Wright's school of handling young pitchers, which states you should limit their workloads during their formative years (age 18-24). But he measures workloads in innings pitched per year and batters faced per start - nowhere does he condone the use of a fixed pitch count per game. And, if his system is followed correctly, an occasional start consisting of 120 - 140 pitches shouldn't be uncommon, even for a youngster like Cahill.

Trevor Cahill enters the 2011 season just having turned 23. Here's how his formative years have stacked up so far (including minors and majors):

2006 (age 18): 9 IP
2007 (age 19): 105.1 IP
2008 (age 20): 124.1 IP
2009 (age 21): 178.2 IP
2010 (age 22): 205.1 IP

Not overworked by any means - he's averaging 124.1 innings over his formative years so far. Especially compared to former young flameout Frank Tanana (mentioned in Wright's article in the Hardball Times Annual), who averaged 238.2 innings in his age 18-24 seasons. Given his relatively stable progression through his young years, why don't you let the kid pitch a little deeper into his first opening day start?

Then, Geren relieved Cahill with lanky lefty Jerry Blevins (whose signature rests proudly in that same Hardball Times Annual), who pitched to two batters before he was lifted from the game for... another lefty, Craig Breslow. If you read the box score, you'll see Breslow got saddled with the BS and the L, and he deserved them both. But, to be fair, he wasn't put in a position where he could thrive. Breslow's what I could classify as a "lefty setup man." He's good enough to pitch to lefties and righties (i.e. not a LOOGY), so he can work a whole inning. Plus, he's experienced and gritty enough to pitch in high leverage situations. And while I'm fully in support of stretching relief pitchers in terms of innings pitched, why would you replace Blevins, who profiles as more of a "long reliever," with Breslow, a short reliever, and then expect the short reliever to pitch multiple innings. It's the little things and arbitrary classifications of bullpen roles that win and lose ball games.

Well, at least my Fantasy team is off to a good start, with King Felix's performance. Now it's time to finally throw out my bad luck A's batting practice jersey, and turn my head forward to the next 161 games.

Projected Lineups in Action

2011-04-01T10:45:00.000-07:00

The other day, while traveling, I got my first taste of projected lineups for the 2011 season. With the Sports Illustrated baseball preview not yet on the shelves and the ESPN Magazine preview issue waiting for me at home, I decided to take a new, unexplored route: The Sporting News.

There were two baseball-related issues on the shelves, so I got them both: one was the weekly issue, including a two-page spread for each division, and the other was a fantasy baseball yearbook. The former is up to date, the latter was published before the new year, thus before many of the lineup-shaping trades occurred. It's interesting to see the two different takes and how things have changed, but it's obvious which one is more informative.

With the Phillies/Astros game on TV right now, I have the chance to see how the projections measure up against reality. Cuz in baseball, the lineup is a team's lifeblood, and it's important to see how good the pundits are at predicting reality.

For the Astros, only one notable change, and that's due to injury. Former Rockies prospect Clint Barmes was replaced in the field at SS and at the 2-hole in the lineup by Angel Sanchez, who was acquired last year and actually played the lion's share of time at shortstop for the 'Stros. Only one other change in the batting order: veteran 2B/super utility Bill Hall hits 5th, in front of young 3B Chris Johnson, but otherwise it was a pretty good job by the folks at TSN.

The big change for the Phillies was actually predicted by TSN, but not reflected on the page. They list 2B Chase Utley as the 3rd place hitter, but they amend that choice with an asterisk, denoting that he was expected to start the season on the DL, this time with knee troubles. This move bumps Shane Victorino to leadoff and Jimmy Rollins to 3rd place. Wilson Valdez fills in at 2B and bats 8th.

I don't know why TSN assumed Ben Francisco (filling in for injured prospect Domonic Howard in RF) would hit 5th behind Ryan Howard instead of the actual choice of LF Raul Ibanez. Probably because they thought splitting up the LH batters was important enough to put the weaker foot forward. In any case, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel decided to go with the more traditional choice.

ALSO, this just in from the crawl at the bottom of ESPN: Mike Napoli will start at 1B for the Rangers. A fantasy darling, what with the ability to post power numbers at catcher, but also with first base eligibility, Napoli was acquired over the off-season from the Angels, by way of the Blue Jays. I always thought he would be a better choice than Mitch Moreland, and now I've been somewhat vindicated. We'll see how he hits against Jon Lester and the Red Sox.

Wow, you guys, aren't lineups fun!?

Exhibition Baseball at Chase Field

2011-03-30T21:39:00.000-07:00

The 2011 Major League Baseball Season starts tomorrow! Isn't everyone excited? I know I am. But, like so many of you baseball fiends out there who just can't wait for regular season action to check out baseball at your local stadiums, I checked into an exhibition game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Sultanes de Monterrey at Chase Field in Phoenix last night. Half the D-Backs squad was actually across town in Mesa playing the Cubs in a Spring Training contest, but the other half - including starters Justin Upton, Chris Young, and Melvin Mora - officially opened the gates to the big league park and hosted a team from the Mexican League.

Because of scheduling constraints, I arrived to the game in the second inning, thus missing a grand slam by utility infielder Ryan Roberts, which put the Diamondbacks into a lead that they would never relinquish. Incidentally, I learned that Roberts distinguishes himself from the hundreds of other random utility infielders out there with a shock of tattoos all the way up his arms and around his neck. It's amazing the things you learn from watching the jumbo tron at games that you wouldn't pick up through a normal TV broadcast.

When I entered the stadium, I noticed that the pitcher for the Sultanes was apparently named Value. At least that's what it said on the back of his jersey. Then I noticed that all the Sultanes players had that name above their numbers; and below their numbers, it read Carta Blanca. I later learned that Carta Blanca is the name of the local beer brand produced by the company that owns the team. And that the team had been in existence, owned by that company, since 1939, and that the team had originally taken the name of the brand as their team name! Anyone who's upset about lucrative sponsorship deals and corporate stadium names should look at what's been going on in south of the border baseball and at least be thankful that we haven't gone that far in this country.

A quick look at the Sultanes' active roster showed a couple of former major league names that I was excited to see, namely Erubiel Durazo (former Diamondback and Athletic) and Karim Garcia. Those two, however, didn't make it to Arizona to play. A more in-depth look at the roster showed that Durazo hadn't played since 2009, and Garcia since 2007. But that gave me a chance to see other stars of the Mexican League, such as Agustin Murillo, Lorenzo Buelnas, and Baltazar Lopez (whose home run stunned 22-year-old starter Charles Brewer, who made it through five strong innings).

As far as level of competition goes, the Mexican League is classified as AAA-ball, so it was understandable that the Diamondbacks whipped the pants off the Sultanes to the tune of an 11-4 score. J.J. Putz came in for the ninth, struck out the first two batters he faced, then hit a batter, walked the next batter, and gave up an RBI single before retiring the side. The former closer-turned-setup man-turned-back-to-closer will hope for some quieter ninth innings as he has to face major league talent in the regular season.

So that's how my first trip to Chase Field went, in a nutshell. It was my first trip to the stadium, so I picked up a miniature bat, bringing my total to 15. I have now watched a game at half the major league stadiums in existence. As I continue my journey, I will think of you, my loyal readers, and send updates from across the country!