July 6, 2012
Link-O-Rama
• I was on KFAN today with Paul Allen and Paul Charchian, and it was probably the most fun I've ever had on the radio. We talked Twins and shower sex, obviously. Download it here.
• Kevin Costner's little daughter in Field of Dreams played Louis C.K.'s girlfriend in the season premiere of Louie, blowing my mind in the process.
• Speaking of which, C.K.'s lengthy, unedited chat with Bill Simmons made a great podcast.
• I'm pretty sure this article is saying that picking Mila Kunis as Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com makes me a great person women should be lining up to date.
• Kris Humphries probably thought he'd never be on TMZ again once Kim Kardashian dumped him, but he was wrong. Congrats?
• No word yet on whether smoking this stuff will make you want to eat tasteless donuts.
• News that Brandon Roy is coming out of retirement to sign a two-year, $10 million deal with the Timberwolves makes this excellent eulogy of his career worth reading again.
• I've always felt guilty about having to step away from The Hardball Times after co-creating the site back in 2004, but this news makes me feel better about the future of THT.
• Vikings fans wondering how much to regret missing out on drafting Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III should read Evan Silva's detailed breakdown of Christian Ponder.
• If you haven't already, check out my star-studded, picture-filled, booze-drenched recap of the SABR convention in downtown Minneapolis.
• And here's a tidbit for anyone who already read the recap: Pizza Luce's general manager got in touch with me and he's a longtime AG.com reader. As always, the internet is amazing.
• I've enjoyed basically everything Aaron Sorkin has ever done, including HBO's new good but flawed show The Newsroom, but seeing his recycled dialogue all in one place is pretty jarring:
Of course, his recycled dialogue is livelier than most new dialogue, so I'll take it.
• People: Still the worst.
• Mark Appel likely lost out on at least $2 million by the Astros and Twins passing on him in favor of Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, and there isn't much Scott Boras can do about it.
• I know absolutely nothing about hockey, but Ben Goessling's detailed timeline of how the Wild snagged Zach Parise and Ryan Suter was still a very interesting read.
• I subscribe to 50 podcasts at this point, but two that have recently moved to the front of the line are Stop Podcasting Yourself with Graham Clark and Dave Shumka and Throwing Shade with Erin Gibson and Bryan Safi. I listen to both immediately when they come out each week.
• This might be the closest I'll ever come to having something I wrote in an actual newspaper, so my mom was pretty excited.
• Speaking of my mom being excited, she's now incredibly jealous of Jared Burton.
• It may not matter because the Twins stink, but everyone was right about Detroit's defense.
• Jim Thome is back in the AL with the Orioles, who come to Target Field on July 16.
• Jon Heyman, who regularly blocks critics and other writers on Twitter, didn't credit Buster Olney for breaking a story before him because Olney blocked him on Twitter.
• Two odd stories involving MLB play-by-play announcers, as Dave Barnett took an indefinite health leave from the Rangers and the Diamondbacks basically told Daron Sutton to go away.
• I'm obviously biased, but based on what NBC has done since taking over the Sunday Night Football franchise from ESPN it would be nice to see what they could do with MLB games again.
• Cameron Maybin doesn't hit many homers, but he sure makes them count when he does.
• Finally, in honor of Roy and his bum knees giving it another go this week's AG.com-approved music video is "The Weary Kind" by Ryan Bingham:
Aaron, please tell me you’re answering questions today too…cuz I have one.
“Gardenhire added that left-hander Glen Perkins was unavailable to pitch and that right-hander Jared Burton was SLATED TO SERVE AS CLOSER. ” (caps mine)
That’s from the MLB.com recap of yesterday’s game.
Why do you have to slate anyone as closer if the game is slipping away in the 8th? Bring your best reliever in earlier to get out of the jam!! Gardy, is not the brightest bulb in the lot. Slated as the closer. Never heard anything so stupid. You don’t need a closer if your other pitchers blow the lead.
Were we or were we not facing the Tigers’ best hitters in the 8th? Prince Fielder hit the big HR, right? He’s one of their best hitters. THEN WHY DON’T YOU HAVE YOUR BEST RELIEVER IN THE GAME IN THE 8TH? Get out of the 8th with the lead, and if Burton can’t do the 9th, find some other schlub to face the worthless bottom of the Tigers order. Not too hard to figure out.
Gardy was effectively saying Burton was unavailable to pitch before the 9th inning. Do you understand how screwed up that line of thinking is?
Perkins was unavailable from overuse. I get that. I do not, however, understand why Burton was unavailable against the Tigers best hitters.
Fireable offense.
I’m done with Gardy. DONE DONE DONE!!!!!
Why isn’t Gardy held accountable for such a silly excuse as Burton was “slated as closer.”
Comment by Matt #3 — July 6, 2012 @ 9:48 am
Matt, don’t expect Aaron to make the same mistake two days in a row. But if you read his blog long enough or dig through the archives, you’re sure to find him criticizing this aspect of conventional bullpen usage, albeit with less shouting than you’ve employed.
Most of the rest of understand this too. I didn’t see yesterday’s game, being in the wrong state and all, but now that I’ve seen the boxscore I’m rather grumpy about it. Also, I watched the Texas-Chicago game on Wednesday, and was equally peeved when the Rangers lost it in the 10th while saving Nathan for the lead they never got.
I’m not ready to jump on the “Fire Gardy” bandwagon yet, and certainly not over this. Remember that closer-related silliness is ubiquitous in the game today; any manager you can find to replace Gardenhire will do the same dumb thing.
Comment by Crazy Tom in Rochester — July 6, 2012 @ 3:51 pm