AaronGleeman.com

• Roger Ebert, who's the greatest film critic of all time and still had his fastball at age 70, passed away yesterday after a harrowing battle with cancer. Even as cancer ravaged his body his mind remained incredibly sharp and he never ceased being the first review I read for every movie. And beyond his greatness as a writer and film critic Ebert lived a fascinating life and was a hilarious regular guest on Howard Stern's radio show for many years. Truly a legend.

• Parker Hageman of Twins Daily escaped from his parents' basement long enough to interview Glen Perkins about the role of sabermetrics in his career and I'm confident it's the best baseball article you'll read this week. Perfect mix of blogging, reporting, stats, and quotes.

• Speaking of Hageman, as part of his Opening Day trip to the Target Field press box he co-stars in this amazing GIF of Sid Hartman sipping hot chocolate.

• Believe it or not, the headline "Hopkins man trying to connect with woman he met at drunken driving class" is not about me. But can you audit those classes without the whole arrest part?

• Brett Favre's bedroom on draft day 1991 was absolutely spectacular.

• Who should be batting second for the Twins? I'm glad you asked.

• I jokingly asked via Twitter for someone to start a Tumblr page devoted to Roy Smalley's hair and the internet being the internet it now exists.

• I'm really hoping that J.J. Barea becomes a trend-setter.

• Probably my biggest regret in life was not having my breathalyzer to test John Bonnes midway through this week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode.

• My mom weighed in on the podcast.

• Someone over at "MLB 13: The Show" decided to make a video of me as a player in the game and they even included the glasses, constant five o'clock shadow, and slow bat. Screen shot:

Honestly, those frames are hipper than I'm comfortable with and I don't have that much range.

• I've been letting my NBC bosses know that I'm available to take over Jimmy Fallon's old spot.

• As a lifelong Howard Stern fan I loved that his guests on Wednesday were Drew Magary from Deadspin and Louis C.K. from being the funniest person alive. Stern and C.K. had a tremendous hour-plus chat and afterward my main thought was: "I really hope they liked each other." Because for some reason that would make me incredibly happy.

• If you like "Parks and Recreation" you'll love this.

• Apparently there's now a third sports radio station in the Twin Cities, as Love 105 has become The Ticket, with programming that includes syndicated CBS Sports Radio shows.

• With free agency around the corner Robinson Cano fired Scott Boras as his agent and hired Jay-Z, which has me wondering what type of commission Mase charges.

• Kirk Goldsberry of Grantland wrote an awesome visual, statistical, and analytical article about how LeBron James became the best player in basketball and then got even better.

• Presented without comment: For three games this year the Twins are hosting a "Wine, Women, and Baseball" event at Target Field, sponsored by Midwest Facial Plastic Surgery and Aesthetic Skincare and featuring "pamper yourself stations."

• During my weekly appearance on KFAN with Paul Allen we discussed Eduardo Escobar's Hall of Fame candidacy for a half-hour or so. Plus some other stuff, probably.

• "Mad Men" returning is exciting enough, but in promoting the upcoming season Jon Hamm was a great guest on "Comedy Bang Bang" and very amusing on "Seven Minutes in Heaven":

"I thought that would make you kiss me."

• My attempt to figure out exactly how bad the Twins will be this season.

• Hebrew school expellees aren't much help in trivia contests.

• If anyone cares, here's my roster for the 13-team Rotoworld fantasy baseball league.

• A long time ago lots of people thought Delmon Young would be really good, so that's cool.

• "Blue Valentine" is one of my favorite movies--it came out in 2010 and I've seen it at least 10 times--and you can watch it for just 99 cents this week on both Amazon.com and iTunes.

• Maybe it was just low expectations because everyone seemed to hate it at the time, but I finally saw "This is 40" and really liked it a lot, especially Albert Brooks and Maude Apatow.

• I donate to Maximum Fun every month because they provide tons of great, free content in the form of several of the best podcasts around. They rely on donations to keep afloat, so please join me in sending them some money for the annual pledge drive.

• Stand-up comic, "Parks and Recreation" writer, Twitter must-follow, and fellow "Bar Rescue" fan Joe Mande is coming to Acme Comedy Company in Minneapolis next month. We should all go.

• Interested in sponsoring a week of AG.com and advertising your product, service, local business, or website to thousands of readers per day? Click here for details.

• Some of this week's weird and random search engine queries that brought people here:

- "Jared Burton girlfriend"
- "Darin Mastroianni girlfriend"
- "Robb Quinlan girlfriend"
- "Fat Zubaz"
- "What happened to Scott Erickson?"
- "Who did the Twins all trade?"
- "Twins future prospect"
- "Is Drew Butera married?"
- "Dick Bremer hates Aaron Gleeman"
- "Husband says I'm fat"
- "Alexey Shved shirtless"
- "Byron Buxton shirtless"

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is "You and Me" by Penny and The Quarters from the "Blue Valentine" soundtrack:

This week's blog content is sponsored by Territory Train, which takes the heavy lifting out of planning and executing Twins road trips. Please support them for supporting AG.com.

• Don't worry: I'll continue working from bed.

• Nick Punto got robbed of a hit and tried to break his bat, Bo Jackson-style. It didn't go well.

• After reading this story it's hard to believe I was the one expelled from Hebrew school.

• The kid from Jerry Maguire turned 21 years old and his name was spelled wrong on the cake.

• Josh Hartnett is stealing my look again.

• Behold: Easily the worst column you'll read this week.

• MLB Network is launching a new sabermetrics show and I'm actually sort of optimistic about it because host Brian Kenny is always great.

• Zooey Deschanel might be the only person I'll forgive for leaving a World Series game early.

• I'll be wearing this costume for Halloween. For the past 10 years I've gone as a fat blogger.

• Google's new television commercial features the story of a music teacher from Louisiana who won $1 million by tossing a perfect game with Roy Halladay on "MLB 2K11." My favorite part? Brian Kingrey knew little about baseball before buying the video game, so he studied stats on Baseball-Reference.com and got scouting reports on Rotoworld:

Presumably our check is in the mail.

• I was all set to star in this before the weight loss.

• My favorite couple is having another kid.

• Johnny Depp seems weird, but at least he has a pretty good sense of humor about himself.

• Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com candidate Kelly Brook, looking all classy and everything.

• This week's "Gleeman and The Geek" podcast went so long we broke it into two episodes. Part 1 has talk of Joe Nathan's future, Jim Thome's choices, the Twins' medical staff, and blog comments. Part 2 has talk of John Bonnes' offseason blueprint, Ron Gardenhire's stance on platooning hitters, and my "sexiness levels." Oh, and they closed down the bar around us.

• Her new show is kind of unwatchable, but thankfully Mrs. Coach is still very adorable.

• I'd love to see a similar picture of the Twins' general manager.

• Hopefully the upcoming Playboy issue featuring Lindsay Lohan will come with a time machine.

• I'm no longer involved with The Hardball Times after co-creating the site back in 2004, but their annual book is always a must-read and looks better than ever this year.

• If even a fraction of the allegations are true Chris Cook is an awful human being.

• Game 6 of the World Series was crazy and the Win Probability graph is hilarious.

• This commercial is almost as good as the NBA lockout is bad:

I liked it so much that I bought this shirt. And this kid is my new favorite person ever.

• Michael Beasley's publicist annoyingly sent 20 e-mails promoting his charity game, but oddly enough there were no follow-ups after the event. And coincidentally nothing about this either.

• I'm apparently one of the few people who still loves Netflix.

• As someone who hates to talk to anyone on the phone I sympathize with Tony La Russa.

• Albert Pujols prepared for Game 6 of the World Series by putting on a sleeveless shirt and hanging out at Best Buy.

• Jerry Kill finally signed his seven-year contract and it has a $50,000 bonus for the Gophers winning a national championship, which will come in handy in the post-apocalyptic world.

• Next time you feel embarrassed about something, remember this: Thousands of people own a Donovan McNabb Vikings jersey.

• Hopefully comedian Patrice O'Neal recovers from his stroke as well as my mom did in 2002.

• My condolences to Roy Smalley, whose father passed away this week. Roy Smalley II was also a longtime shortstop in the majors and it's one helluva baseball family.

• I'll be tweeting lots of commentary, analysis, and snark during Game 7 tonight, so follow me.

• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is The Black Keys' new song "Lonely Boy":

Roy Frederick Smalley III | 1976-1982, 1985-1987 | SS/3B | Career Stats

Roy Smalley was born into a baseball family. His father, Roy Smalley II, spent 11 years in the majors as a shortstop in the 1940s and 1950s, and his mother, Jolene Mauch, was the sister of longtime big-league manager Gene Mauch. And together they made one hell of a player, as Smalley starred on back-to-back national championship teams at USC and was drafted by four different MLB teams before finally signing with the Rangers as the No. 1 overall pick in 1974.

He jumped right to Double-A as a 21-year-old and hit .251/.382/.433 with 14 homers and 86 walks in 125 games. Smalley was called up to the majors a month into his second pro season and struggled, hitting .228 in 73 games for the Rangers, but the switch-hitting infielder hit .340 in 43 games at Triple-A and opened 1976 as Texas' starting second baseman. However, after a slow first two months the Rangers traded him to the Twins in a June 1 blockbuster.

Not many 23-year-old former No. 1 picks are traded just two years after being drafted, but the Rangers parted with Smalley (plus Mike Cubbage, Jim Gideon, Bill Singer, and $250,000) in order to get 25-year-old Twins ace Bert Blyleven, whose contract squabbles led to his exit from Minnesota. Blyleven went on to have a Hall of Fame career, but spent just one-and-a-half seasons with the Rangers and eventually returned to the Twins a decade after the trade.

Aside from the Hall of Fame part Smalley had a similar Twins career. He spent parts of seven seasons with the Twins, emerging as an All-Star shortstop before being traded to the Yankees in an April of 1982 deal for Ron Davis, Paul Boris, and Greg Gagne, who eventually replaced him at shortstop. Then, after a few years with the Yankees and a half-season with the White Sox, he was traded back to the Twins in February of 1985 and finished his career in Minnesota.

Smalley's first go-around in Minnesota was without question his best, as he immediately took over as the starting shortstop in mid-1976 and hit .271/.353/.344 in 103 games for an 85-win team managed by his uncle. Shortstop was almost exclusively a defense-driven position in the 1970s and Smalley's now-modest .697 OPS was 82 points above the AL average. He slumped back to the rest of the shortstop pack in 1977, hitting just .231/.316/.315 in 150 games.

Mauch stuck with his nephew and he responded with a big 1978, batting .273/.362/.433 with 19 homers, 53 total extra-base hits, and more walks (85) than strikeouts (70) in 158 games. Smalley's adjusted OPS+ of 122 led all MLB shortstops, with only Dave Concepcion (114) and Robin Yount (110) also topping 100, and still stands as the best single-season mark by any shortstop in Twins history ahead of even Zoilo Versalles in his MVP-winning 1965 campaign.

It looked like Smalley was going to build on that great 1978 and take the next step to stardom in 1979 when he hit .341 with 15 homers, 65 RBIs, and a .959 OPS in the first half to make the All-Star team, but he slumped terribly in the second half, hitting just .185 to finish with a nearly identical-to-1978 overall line of .271/.353/.441. Despite the second-half fade he played all 162 games and led the league with 729 plate appearances, but Smalley's durable days were over.

He remained very productive during the next two seasons, hitting .274/.364/.415, but Smalley missed 29 games in 1980 and 53 games in the strike-shortened 1981 season because of back problems. Mauch was fired as manager in late 1980 and in 1981 owner Calvin Griffith publicly criticized Smalley for his alleged failure to treat the injury during the two-month strike. And four games into the 1982 season Smalley and his then-giant contract were traded to the Yankees.

Smalley split time between shortstop and third base, forming quasi-platoons with Bucky Dent and Graig Nettles while hitting .257/.346/.418 in 142 games. He was even better in 1983, hitting .275/.357/.452 in 130 games, but after a poor first half in 1984 the Yankees sent him to the White Sox for future Cy Young winner Doug Drabek. He hit .170 in 47 games for Chicago and that offseason Smalley was traded to Minnesota for the second time.

By that point Smalley was 32 years old and spent as much time at designated hitter as he did at shortstop, so there were no future Hall of Famers leaving Minnesota in the swap. In fact, neither player traded to the White Sox for Smalley played in the majors after the deal. And six months later the Twins re-acquired Blyleven from the Indians, teaming him with Smalley nine years after they were traded for one another.

Smalley still had plenty of gas left in the tank, at least offensively. He played some shortstop in 1985, but was primarily a DH while batting .258/.350/.419 in 382 games during the next three seasons. Those numbers may not seem like much from a DH by today's standards, but his .768 OPS was solidly above the 1985-1987 league average of .752 and Smalley's outstanding plate disciplined remained a big asset as he drew 167 walks versus 197 strikeouts.

He went out on a high note, hitting .275/.352/.411 in 110 games as a part-time DH, occasional third baseman, and emergency shortstop in 1987, as the Twins won their first World Series. Smalley didn't play at all in the ALCS and was limited to pinch-hitting duties in the World Series as Randy Bush and late-season pickup Don Baylor split time at DH, but he made the most of a minor role by going 1-for-2 with a double and two walks against the Cardinals.

Smalley's career with the Twins is somewhat hard to evaluate because he not only spent two multi-year stints with the team, they came a decade apart and he was a totally different player in each stint. In his twenties Smalley was a switch-hitting shortstop with great plate discipline and 20-homer power. In his thirties Smalley brought most of those same offensive skills to the table, except they came in the form of a slightly above average part-time DH.

His final three years as a role player were plenty valuable and being on the World Series team in 1987 was no doubt the highlight of Smalley's career, but his spot on this list is largely due to the six-season run he had as the Twins' starting shortstop from 1976 to 1981. During that time he hit .264/.350/.394 in 3,330 plate appearances, which was good for a 104 OPS+. To put that in some context, here are the OPS+ leaders among all MLB shortstops from 1976 to 1981:

Roy Smalley         104
Garry Templeton     104
Dave Concepcion     101
Robin Yount         100
Alan Trammell        94

During his first six-year stint with the Twins he was arguably the best-hitting shortstop in all of baseball, which is a remarkable feat that gets overlooked because shortstops back then rarely put up the type of lofty raw numbers they do today. Not many players in Twins history can say they were the top hitter at their position for more than half a decade and while his glove was never considered an asset Smalley's all-around game makes him the Twins' best shortstop.

TOP 25 ALL-TIME MINNESOTA TWINS RANKS
Walks                 549     5th
Plate Appearances    4675     8th
Times On Base        1607     9th
Games                1148    10th
Hits                 1046    10th
RBIs                  485    12th
Runs                  551    12th
Homers                110    12th
Runs Created          578    12th
Total Bases          1602    13th
Extra-Base Hits       315    14th
Doubles               184    15th
On-Base Percentage   .350    22nd
Triples                21    24th