Players Added to 40-Man Roster 2013-14

One thing I'm thankful for: the Rule 5 Draft. Every December, MLB holds this event, a rare occasion where each team gets the chance to unabashedly pilfer talent from the organizations of their competitors. However, there are a couple of important stipulations: 1) Any player taken in the Rule 5 Draft has to remain on his new team's active (i.e. 25-man) roster for the entirety of the upcoming season or risk being returned to his original team. 2) Only players NOT on a team's expanded (i.e. 40-man) roster are eligible to be drafted in the proceedings. It's this second stipulation that led to more than 100 players being added to their team's respective 40-man rosters prior to last week's November 20 deadline to protect them from the Rule 5 Draft.

Naturally my heart was all aflutter with all these roster moves, even though there was not a household name in the bunch. The closest thing to a recognizable player is Cardinals AAA CF Oscar Taveras, Baseball America's #3 ranked prospect going into 2013, but who had his 2013 season with the Memphis Redbirds marred by a high ankle sprain (628 points, 13.4 points per game). But there are some very impressive talents on this list of players who figure either to be part of their respective teams' immediate of long-term plans. Here they are, arranged by position in graphical depth chart format:

Let's start with the highest-scoring player (in terms of minor league stats, of course) both because he scored the most points and to address any possible confusion. The confusion of the type blovy8 experienced when he noted in the MLB Trade Rumors comments section: "The odds are against you whenever you try a link to Michael Taylor." This refers to the fact that the link in the article leads not to Michael Anthony Taylor, the Nationals farmhand who got called up last week, but to Michael D. Taylor, major leaguer for the Oakland Athletics in 2013. The Michael Taylor in question was drafted in the 6th round by Washington out of Ft. Lauderdale FL in 2009, the same year as the other Michael Taylor was involved in the flurry of moves involving Matt Holliday and the A's. Playing exclusively for the Potomac Nationals, the fast A or A+ league in the Washington organization, our Taylor showcased a combination of speed on the basepaths (51 SB) and doubles power (41 2B), which means he profiles as a traditional leadoff hitter who could make a push to make Denard Span expendable before his 2015 contract option comes due.

Next on the list in terms of raw points is Colorado's class A SS Rosell Herrera, a 21-year-old switch hitter from the Dominican Republic. I know the South Atlantic League is on the lower end of the minor league skill spectrum, but putting up a .343/.419/.515 slash line (.933 OPS) before you're allowed to drink is impressive at any level. I would bat him second in front of Ji-Man Choi, 1B who played all over the Mariners system last year. Although he didn't score as many fantasy points as Boston's plate discipline expert Garin Cecchini (95 BB to 86 K between A+ and AA in 2013) to the former San Diego contact hitting specialist Dean Anna (he and his .331 AVG were traded to the Yankees on the Rule 5 protection deadline, which makes him not your typical November call-up), Choi bats left handed and displays the combination of power (18 HR in 122 games) and bat control (.295 AVG) you'd like to see in a typical number 3 hitter. Plus he contributes to the international flavor of this lineup.

For pure cleanup hitter power, you have to go with Tulsa Drillers LF Kyle Parker in the Colorado organization. His 23 HR (most among the players called up) and .288 AVG form a good statistical base for the former 1st round pick (in 2010 out of Kentucky). Across the outfield and next in the order, I'd put Mississipian lefty Carlos Moncrief, who showed a decent power/speed combination (17 HR, 15 SB) to go along with an .824 OPS for Cleveland's Akron Aeroes in AA. Michael Oelman, Baltimore's closest internal option to replace Matt Wieters behind the plate, outslugged Yankees #1 prospect (according to MLB.com) Gary Sanchez at the A+ level. In other offensive news, since the deadline in question, RF runner-up Randal Grichuk has been traded to the Cardinals in the Peter Bourjos-David Freese deal.

The most impressive pitcher, statistics wise, has to be Kendry Flores, another young Dominican (he'll be age 22 in 2014) who most recently played exclusively at class A. In his 22 starts last year, Flores posted a not quite Cliff Lee-esque, but still very impressive 8.06 K/BB ratio (137 K's to only 17 walks) with a WHIP under 1 (0.918). In an ironic twist, Kyle Lobstein, the next-best 2013 pitcher to be protected from this year's Rule 5 Draft was acquired by the Tigers from the Rays in LAST year's Rule 5 Draft. Although Lobstein wasn't kept on Detroit's 25-man roster last year (he made almost as many starts in AA as in AAA), the two clubs worked out a trade to allow the former 2nd round pick from Flagstaff AZ to stay in the motor city. Oakland's Raul Alcantara actually scored a couple more points per game than Lobstein, but he also pitched in lower levels (A and A+) albeit with a much improved 3.11 combined ERA compared to the 5.09 he posted in 2012, his first year since being acquired in the Josh Reddick-Andrew Bailey trade.

This team's number 4 starter is one whose name I'll bet Houston broadcasters are practically salivating over trying to pronounce: Asher Wojciechowski. I'm sure the Elias Sports Bureau has a file on this, but I'd be willing to bet that the former 1st round pick by Toronto has to be in the running for the curviest name on the back of his jersey award. Anthony Ranaudo, another former 1st round pick who dominated in both AA and AAA, rounds out the rotation. He represent's Boston's second player on this chart, tying Colorado, Cleveland, Detroit, and Tampa Bay for the most of any team represented. In the bullpen, AA closer Jeff Walters, the only representative from the Mets organization, is the most impressive, but as I've heard and agreed with many times before, these stats are unfairly inflated by saves and a pitching position whose top performers averaged just under 60 innings last season can't be as valuable as those who averaged more than 150 innings.

I know we're still months away from pitchers and catchers reporting to Spring Training, but it's never too early to get a head start on analyzing your favorite team's 40-man roster. I for one am looking forward to being fully informed the next time a top contract is selected for any major league roster. Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy the offseason!

Arkham Origins, Part 6 - Meta Game Review

Well, I'm back - not the Caped Crusader whose case files you have been reading over the past weeks, but the humble blogger who so enjoys occupying the skin of his favorite childhood superhero. As extremely loyal followers of my Twitter feed already know, I finished the story mode of Batman: Arkham Origins about a week ago and found the final encounter(s) with Bane all the way through to the dramatic denouement at the prison chapel to be somewhat underwhelming. I know Arkham City - arguably one of the best games of all time - is an extremely hard act to follow, and I heard the rumors that primary studio Rocksteady was pulled to work on the next (read: PS4) game in the Arkham series. But I have to believe that WB Games Montréal could have mustered up a more compelling final boss than a carbon copy of the fight we already had with Bane, followed by a much less nuanced version of the Mr. Freeze fight from Arkham City.

But just because I'm overly critical of the ending, doesn't mean I didn't thoroughly enjoy playing most of Arkham Origins. A friend of mine described the game as "standing on the shoulders of giants, but not doing much more than that," and while I agree with that statement, it's always fun to cavort around Gotham City as Batman. And there were actually some elements of this game that I enjoyed more than the previous installments, such as the much more detailed and involved leveling up system and the extremely impressive crime scene investigation feature. And I will say that the side missions are arranged in such a way that it's actually fun to wander around the city completing them rather than it feeling like a chore. And I was a fan of the shock gloves in particular, even if it made Batman's hands and forearms look even more bulky and Gears of War-ish.

Now here's what I didn't like about the Origins experience. Number 1 has to be the bugginess. I know that with a map roughly three times the size of Arkham City, you should expect a fair amount of open world jank. But when such programming limitations keep you from actually completing the objectives of the game - such as in the above video of me trying desperately to interrogate an Enigma data handler - that's out of the realm of acceptability. Also, what is up with him being called Enigma instead of Riddler? Granted I'm assuming the name change comes after collecting all the datapacks and destroying all the relays (I'll get around to completing those missions after I finish playing my buddy's copy of Bioshock Infinite, which I temporarily traded for my copy of The Last of Us), but I struggle to see how that trope could possibly add anything to the villain's character. In my opinion, it's much more interesting when he simply introduces himself as The Riddler.

Firefly was one of the assassins in the main story mode.

My other main beef was with the story, particularly the extremely convenient side effect of Venom that it permanently damages its user's memory. This is far too perfect a deus ex machina to deal with the fact that in this universe, much like Christopher Nolan's, Bane knows Batman's secret identity. It's just a damn good thing he didn't get around to telling his army of mercenaries before he perma-fragged his brain with his ultra-steroids. And what's the significance of having eight assassins? Since it was Christmas themed, they could have at least gone with 12, like in the song. And why were some of them integral to the main story while others were relegated to optional side missions? And if the assassins were the focal point of the story, why were there other optional side missions involving non-assassin villains? The whole effort just seemed stilted and disjointed to me.

But again, despite all my railing against the shortcomings of this game, I will return to it to eventually finish all the side missions and hopefully level up to capacity (although I'm not sure I will be able to complete some of the Dark Knight Challenges seeing as "predator rooms" are rather scarce what with the story mode completed and all). And it's not just the completionist compulsion I feel that will bring me back - I legitimately enjoy the gameplay and the fun of exploring the city, even if the snow and the few strands of lights here and there fall somewhat short of the Christmasy ambience I was hoping for. But perhaps the main reason I will enjoy going back for more is that I will get to wear the batsuit from the classic 1960s TV show, which I earned for preordering a copy of the game for PS3. It's just too bad they didn't include a hot pants Robin skin as well...

Holy Realistic Physique, Batman!

Arkham Origins, Part 5: The Royal Hotel and Bane

As I was tying up Copperhead and locking her into a shipping container to await the arrival of the police, she plead with me to let her go in exchange for the location of where Joker was holding his meeting with all the remaining assassins. However, since Electrocutioner was still at large, the unique electromagnetic signal produced by his gloves would lead me right to the lot of them. At the risk of sounding like a reality TV ingenue, everything happens for a reason: I gaffed and forgot to adequately secure an unconscious supervillain, but his freedom made it easier for me to accomplish my new objectives. It wasn't, however, a mistake I would make again.

The signal from the gloves led me to the historic Royal Hotel, outside of which there was an entire squad of heavily armed SWAT Officers guarding the front entrance. At first this seemed like too tall an order, even for me, and began to search for an alternate route. But then I remembered what happens in the main menu sequence if you wait around long enough before pressing start - a thrilling scene of me jumping directly in front of a couple of armed thugs and escaping without a scratch. [Another thing that happens in the main menu is that Christopher Drake's evocative musical score integrates Carol of the Bells into the main theme for an extra-Christmasy feel, but that's not totally relevant here.] So I used the disruptor on two of the outlying officers, threw a smoke bomb, and jumped right in. It wasn't my most graceful encounter - the fight involved mostly mindless evading and a whole lot of quickfire Batarangs - but I came out on top in the end... only to find that the front door was locked anyway. I guess you can't believe everything you see in an opening title sequence.

I eventually found my way into the hotel lobby via the underground parking structure. I rode an elevator - featuring some Christmas-themed elevator music, which was not as cool as if it had been James Bond-themed, like in GoldenEye - up into the lobby, which was being patrolled by a group of thugs that had been converted from Black Mask's service into the Joker's. By the way, when I mentioned that Roman Sionis was Italian, it was not just based on his given name (Rome is the capital of Italy after all), but also on hearing his henchmen refer to each other as "paesan" and use the exclamation "madon" - as in "Madon, that Vicki Vale is hot. What I'd like to do to her..." It was rather frustrating taking them all out, not because they posed a particularly difficult threat, but because I was at the point in my Dark Knight Challenge progression where I had to perform four "exotic" takedowns - vent, corner, explosive gel, and hanging ledge - and no matter where I stood on the ledge directly above my last opponent, the takedown prompt just wouldn't come up. I guess that Sonic Shock Batarang is nothing more than a pipe dream.

After receiving an A grade for clearing the room, despite missing out on that fourth elusive takedown, I was rewarded with the object of my search in a most shocking fashion. The Electrocutioner himself crashed through the skylight and landed with a dull thud, following an exchange that almost certainly involved the Joker revealing himself as the man behind the (Black) Mask to the three remaining assassins and pushing poor Buchinsky out of the penthouse window. (I can only assume this is how it went down, since I wasn't there after all...) I never like to see anyone full-on die, but like the Native Americans before me, I didn't let any part of him go to waste, as I scavenged his extra cool shock gloves. Good thing I did too, because as I made my way up to the penthouse, I found that Joker had converted the hotel into his own personalized death trap, including setting up a twisted Simon Says-esque game that I was forced to play in order to save an innocent victim's life, and decking out the ballroom with twisted amusement park funhouse roller coaster rides. He certainly wasted no time in establishing his own unique dramatic style.

Upon reaching the penthouse, I found to my horror that the Joker had rigged buildings all over the city with explosives, with all the detonators set up in a row right here in the room. I watched helplessly as the Clown Prince of Crime blew up a building right in front of me, the explosion visible through the frosted window of the penthouse. Thankfully it was only an empty construction site - he was only making a point with that one, but I knew I had to stop him before he could take any lives. I easily overpowered him physically (pictured) and got a couple of good punches in, when I found to my annoyance, that the mercenary known as Bane had stuck around to act as the Joker's personal bodyguard. Bane proved himself the most cerebral of the assassins, assuming (correctly) that I would make my way to Joker, whereupon the giant of a man would be lying in wait. This incarnation of Bane drew more from The Dark Knight Rises than from the Animated Series, seeing as he had a host of mercenaries at his call and that he began our encounter wearing a stupid jacket - but at least it wasn't furry and at least his mask didn't cover his mouth, making him at least semi-understandable.

We exchanged our first few punches to the strains of Rossini's overture to The Thieving Magpie (shades of A Clockwork Orange), but when the fight brought us outside onto the landing, Bane stripped off his jacket and activated his supply of Venom, the supersteroid that somehow amplifies both his skeletal and muscular structure. At this point, he didn't approach the size and strength he would attain in our Arkham Asylum fight - perhaps the Venom had been building up in his system all that time, causing a more massive reaction to the drug - but he was still by far the most formidable opponent I had ever faced. When he got into a Venom-induced rage, he would charge over and over again, forcing me to madly dodge out of the way each time. Not even a Batarang to the face would slow him down (funny how he would become MORE susceptible to that trick later in his career) and God forbid I happened to dodge anywhere near a corner, because he would turn on a dime and hit me three or four times without fail. Thankfully, since he was not quite as superhuman in size as he would eventually become, I was able to straight up counter some of his attacks and use combat takedowns to damage his Venom pack, but no matter how many times I did so, there was always some left in the tank for him to utilize. Plus there was the usual influx of Joker's thugs to worry about.

All through my sojourn through the hotel, Alfred was in my ear about calling Captain Gordon to help me with the fight against Bane. I was of course against it, being in the lone wolf stage of my character development, but towards the end of that fight I was glad that Alfred made the anonymous call against my wishes. Just as I thought I could take no more punishment, two helicopters appeared out of the sky and opened fire chasing Bane into a helicopter of his own, manned by his mercenary crew. Unfortunately Joker's men returned fire and sent the police helicopters into a tailspin, and then Bane returned fire on us - with a rocket launcher, no less - blowing the Joker clean off the ledge of the hotel and into a deadly free fall. Staying true to my character, the only thing I could do in response was to leap after him and try desperately to save my new arch enemy...

Arkham Origins, Part 4: Gotham Merchant's Bank and Sionis Steel Mill

Upon emerging from the sewers I encountered a singing telegram of sorts delivered by three rabbit mask-wearing goons, delivering a message from someone called the Hatter. As they concluded their rhyme, just as I was about to engage in this "Very Low Threat" encounter, their masks began to spark and they fell unconscious. I saw how tonight was going - lots of distractions that didn't seem to impact my main objectives whether I went after them or not - and since I knew of a suspicious looking hat shop just across the street from the Gotham Merchant's Bank in the Burnley district, I decided to indulge in a little side quest. Inside the shop, to no great surprise, I encountered a little man dressed as the Mad Hatter from Lewis Carroll's classic tale who had kidnapped some poor blond number and dressed her up as Alice from the same story. He was using some form of extremely potent mind control to keep her from resisting, but whatever he set loose on me was even more potent, transporting my mind into a psychedelic Alice in Wonderland themed platforming adventure.

Even though this character's nefarious kidnapping and cosplay obsession presumably weren't part of Black Mask's plan with the assassins, I could see how this fellow, no matter meek he might appear, could be a very effective contract killer, what with his ability to control minds and all. MY mind, however, was too strong for him and I was able to navigate his mental obstacles and rescue the girl by use of the Reverse Batarang, a tactic that would become useful years later when Ra's al Ghul held his daughter Talia at knifepoint after our battle at his Lazarus Pit in Arkham City. But unlike Talia, this Alice lookalike, once rescued, did NOT maintain her composure - she just kept crying and wailing despite all my reassuring words, showing absolutely no gratitude for the fact that I had just saved her life. I thought this town must really be going downhill if even the hostages have no class...

After taking care of business at the hat shop, I crossed the street with just enough time to stop Joker from accessing Roman Sionis's funds in the bank. Only when I entered the vault, it looked like Sionis's alter ego Black Mask had everything under control... that is until I saw the real (i.e. unmasked) Roman Sionis brought out in handcuffs and beat senseless by whoever had donned his trademark outfit. I knew who it was even before the madman took off the mask and revealed, for the first time, his pale white skin, green hair, and ghastly painted on grin: The Joker. It seems it wasn't enough for him just to steal the money, he had also administered a deadly toxic laughing gas to the Bank Manager, who died with her face in a hideous grin that still haunts me to this day. Oh, and he also blew up the vault, giving me just enough time to dive to (relative) safety - as safe as a bank lobby filled with armed thugs could possibly be. Which for me is actually pretty safe.

After dispatching with the thugs and exiting the bank, I ran into (you guessed it) another distraction. This one was an unattended baby carriage placed in the road by Shiva, not the Fantasy Football trophy, but a little-known ninja sword expert of Asian descent. I chased her around the city a little before heading to Sionis's former Steel Mill because I knew the vital experience I would gain by defeating someone of her caliber would aid me not only in this quest, but in quests for years to come. [A metagame note here: the Critical Strikes upgrade unlocked by defeating Shiva is frequently the very first upgrade I purchase when playing Arkham Asylum (and believe me, there have been enough times to gather a considerable sample size). The fact that it's not available until so late in the game suggests that Batman somehow learned this extremely useful move during first encounter with Shiva, which is an effective use of the "your enemies define you" flavor.]

I fought my way through the Steel Mill, gathering an important piece of information in the process: Roman Sionis had a pacemaker installed due to the very real Long QT Syndrome. This fact was referenced before when I "reconstructed" the crime scene at Lacey Towers (when Penguin was nosing around the crime scene before the police got to it, he was visibly distressed at not finding a pacemaker scar on the body of the Black Mask decoy shot by Joker), but since it seemed out of place to see it then anyway, I just pretended that it was a bit of new information I got through hacking Black Mask's computer. After taking out an armored enforcer - a big mini-boss type character that makes me feel more like I'm playing Streets of Rage 2 than Arkham City - and clearing out a group of Joker's henchmen from the secret underground drug lab for which the Steel Mill was merely a front, I found the Italian gangster bound up in his office. I freed the poor bastard and was about to get into some world class interrogating, when I was suddenly ambushed and poisoned by another dextrous female assassin known as Copperhead.

The snake-inspired killer (just take a look at that tongue) had a deadly bite, but thankfully I was able to analyze the scene enough to find a sample of her poison, scan it, and send details to Alfred in the Batcave. He quickly formulated an antidote and sent it to me in the Batwing for an airdrop, but the catch was I had to make it up to ground level to reach the canister. On the way up, the poison caused some traumatic hallucinations, including one of Alfred being very mean to me, and haunting visions of two people I had failed to save that night: Commissioner Loeb and the still-grinning Bank Manager. I also had to do some hand-to-hand combat with Copperhead while doped up on poison, which gave the illusion that there were multiple copies of her (again, think back to the desert-based hallucinations of Ra's al Ghul brought on by drinking the Lazarus chemical in Arkham City). After a few tries (those hallucinations do make things a bit more forgiving) I held her (them?) off long enough to give myself a deep injection of antidote and finish off the pendejo (pendeja? She started it, it was her word for me) once and for all.