Overheard: Mind Sandwiches
There was a time when men were men, women were women, and hermaphrodites shopped at Work World and pretended nobody noticed their C-cup and day’s growth of beard. It was a simpler time, a time when people would live in a place for years without ever knowing their neighbors’ names; when white people would cross the street if they saw a person of a darker race, or a different race, or someone with a particularly deep tan; when people would eschew the drab meaninglessness of their day-to-day responsibilities and instead fully invest themselves in the drab meaninglessness of managing a pretend baseball team.
Ladies and gentlemen, that time is now.
I started this blog almost a decade ago and then almost as immediately shelved it in favor of watching TV in my underwear and wondering where my youth went. Well, I found out where it went. It went to eight years of watching TV in my underwear and wondering where my youth went. But no more! I will no longer be beholden to the whims of a social contract that I never signed. Underwear be damned, is what I say.
But, before I get back to that, let me scrape the metaphorical sides of the peanut butter jar that is my brain and gather enough thought-butter together to smear it on the blog-bread and hope that it isn’t so far past the expiration date that it’s lousy with unreadability-salmonella and you, the reader, wind up with the disappointment-shits. It’s already looking bad.
It is thus that I begin this, The Week That Was.
Movers & Shakers
So, I would normally profile the trades, adds, drops, etc. that occurred this week, but since we’re only a week into the season, and a couple weeks removed from the fantasy draft, nothing goes here.
Top Performers
The tale of the tape is showing a strong performance by Tony! Toni! Toné! in the first week of the season, with Magic Mike close on his heels and Jabo riding bitch for now. This actually bodes well for Jabo, given that he was in Peru eating guinea pigs for the entire week, and wasn’t even paying attention to his team. Which, taken another way, could mean that his meddling will drop his team faster than a coed’s panties after the roofies hit.
Top Performers: At Sucking
While the real TP:AS obviously are the guys bringing up the caboose on this cattle train, I’d like to draw particular notice to places 9, 10, and 12. Between them, they have their names on the trophy 6 times. And yet, there they are. Languishing. I’d make a joke, but the tears get in the way.
Baseball, Ray
It’s that time, folks! Time to bust out the lazy writer’s crutch! PREDICTION-PALOOZA 2015!
NL East: Washington Nationals
As I write this, the Atlanta Braves are sitting atop the leaderboard, and the Nationals can’t get out of their own way. It’s tough to let the Greatest Rotation of Our Lifetimes be the Greatest Rotation of Our Lifetimes when the fielders are setting up in a zone defense and think they’re playing a soccer game. Match. Friendly. Thing. I’m sure Vegas is getting a lot of action on the Barves going all the way (spoiler: they’re not), but I’m betting the Natty Ice’s get things together and ride the 5-headed monster of the GRoOL to a cakewalk divisional championship.
NL Central: Pittsburgh Pirates
This is the most legitimately competitive division in the majors right now (the AL East has more parity, but that’s the fat-kid slapfight of the MLB this season), and I think it’s going to come down to the Cubs, Pirates, and Cardinals. I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m thinking “CUBBIES WOOOO.” Well, yes, I am thinking that, but not as hard as you think I’m thinking that. The thing is, the Cubs average age is closer to “still needs to hold hands while crossing the street” than “able to buy hookers and blow on the St. Louis roadtrip,” and with youth comes infuriating errors and inconsistency. For that reason alone it’s going to be a Pirates year. That said, if the last 5 games are any indication they’ll at the very least be an incredibly entertaining team to watch. Jorge Soler is a small god, and he’s mine all mine for the foreseeable future.
NL West: LA Dodgers
While the Padres may be trying to pull a 2007 Cubs (minus Jim Hendry signing Ted Lilly while having an EKG) and buy a division, they still have “I lost the” Will “to live” Middlebrooks as their starting 3rd Baseman, and the only backup they have when he inevitably craters in June is something called “Yangervis.” That’s not the funny part. The funny part is that that’s one of their strongest infield positions. Meanwhile, the Dodgers’ brass will be busy rubbing their big, throbbing brains together and figuring out new and inventive ways to spend a billion dollars that the Padres and Giants don’t have to buy marginal wins. It’s gonna be a long, blue winter, folks.
NL Wildcards: Cubs/Cardinals
The Cards are probably going to run away with the first wildcard. I hate them like I hate racism (because I’m culturally obligated to), but they’ve got too much boring depth at every position to ever go on the schneid for too long. Slow and steady wins this race. The second wildcard ain’t coming out of the East, so you can just wipe all those teams off the board. People are high on the Marlins (Buster Olney predicted they’d go to the World Series or something), but I just don’t see it. They have a nice outfield, but that’s about it. The Padres, even with their shortcomings, are probably the team that will “really” get the second WC, but I’m going full homer here and picking the Cubs. The youngsters have to hit, and the rotation has to stay competent, but if all the cards fall in the right way, they’ve got a legit chance at being this year’s Royals (check the AL WC writeup for who I think is this year’s Royals there. Spoiler: it’s the Royals).
AL East: Crapshoot (Boston Red Sawx)
All of the AL East is sort of good! All of the AL East is also sort of bad! Yay, parity! Which also means that all of the AL East is almost unwatchable. Sure, you’re all “yay! I love the dingers! Let’s watch the Red Sawx!” and then you realize you’ll get all the dingers you want and more because while they’re going to hit a metric fuckload, their rotation may as well be five guys named “Who?” and their bullpen consists of a literal pool of amorphous hominids trying desperately to get the ball to their 45-year-old closer, who’s already on the DL. And this is the powerhouse of the division! I think the leaderboard is going to be a crapshoot all the way up to the last week of September, and it’ll probably come down to the Sawx, the O’s, and the BJ’s. I’m going Sawx, because they have enough talent in the minors to pry Hamels away from the Phils, right after they find a crowbar big enough to pry Reuben Amaro Jr’s head out of his ass.
AL Central: Tigers
Up until a week ago, I would have said Indians. But a week’s a long time when you’re busy being swept by the Tigers while MY your starting catcher goes on the DL for 6-8 weeks (and probably longer) because his knee bends the wrong way and your #2 starter is busy trying to catch liners with his teeth. In case I’m not being clear enough, it’s been a rough week for the Tribe, my (distant) second favorite team in all of baseball. The Tigers aren’t a panacea, but they’re still a “good” team. They don’t have the Greatest Rotation of Our Lifetimes anymore, since Mad Max left to be part of the Greatest Rotation of Our Lifetimes, but it’s still solid with “the” David Price “is right,” Annabelle “the dirty” Sanchez, and whatever leftovers are in the Tupperware labeled “Verlander.” And with Miggy having lost 40lbs of fat and found 40lbs of muscle somewhere (COUGH B VITAMINS COUGH), JD Martinez continuing where he left off last year, and V-Mart being healthy-ish, I think they’ll hit enough to fend off the Royals.
AL West: Seattle Mariners
So, it’s not just me, is it? Have the Angels managed to become the most detestable team in all of baseball (other than the Cardinals)? That’s pretty impressive, considering that prior to this the strongest opinion anyone had ever had about the Angels or the entire city of Anaheim was “they exist!” Not that I’m a big Josh Hamilton backer, but Arte Moreno makes Josh look like Job, down to the boils and and the sackcloth and ashes. Actually…yeah, those are track marks and he’s just filthy because they found him under an overpass, trading his MVP award for an eightball of heroin and a dixie cup full of dirty needles. You be you, Arte. You be you.
AL Wildcard: Royals/Orioles
A lot of ink has been bled about the new-look White Sox, and while I think they’re going to be over .500 this year, I don’t think they have enough depth to sustain them for the full year. Can you name a single pitcher of theirs not named “Sale” or “Samardzjia”? Of course you can, Jose Quintana has been one of the best/luckiest lefty pitchers in the AL for the last couple years, and they just spent a billion dollars on something called David “Mrs.” Robertson. But other than that, nothing. Meanwhile, the Royals have picked up where they left off, they still have a nutty bullpen and juuuuuust enough hitting, and they still play the best D in all of baseball. And the Baltimore Showalters just keep on Showaltering, and that’ll be good enough to play in the “playoffs” (you don’t get to lose the quotes until it’s at least a 5-game series).
FIN
I’m not done predictorating! But I need something to write next time. Lazy writer’s crutch, etc etc. In the meantime, that was The Week That Was.