In The Good Ol' Summertime

Summer is fast approaching.  It’s getting hotter and hotter as the months go on.  Baseball’s getting deeper and deeper into the season.  Soon July will be upon us.  And in baseball that means one thing.  The Midsummer Classic Waste Of Time That For Some Reason Doesn’t Reward The Best Players And For Some Stupid Reason Determines Home Field For The World Series.  You think after 80 or so years of doing it, baseball would come up with a better name for it.  We also get the Home Run Derby, which is my favorite part.  I grew up watching Mac and Sosa and Bonds and Griffey hit massive HRs which were mostly all roided up but were still awesome to see.  It’s been a little stale since then, what with the steroid rules and such.  We’ve gotten the occasional fun time with Josh Hamilton’s display a few years ago, but that isn’t as common as before.  Most of the time, it’s because they don’t staff it correctly with the real best HR hitters.  And now that there are team captains picking the squads, it’ll get even worse.  Remember last year how instead of Lance Berkman, Prince Fielder picked Rickie Weeks?  That was dumb.  Now Matt Kemp, captain of the 2012 NL squad, is going to pick Andre Ethier to the team.  Ethier is a good hitter with decent power, but not as good as some other guys.  In fact, the article I linked to says that he definitely wants Ethier (at least it reads that way) and is only “considering” guys like Carlos Beltran (the NL leader entering today in HR and just hit his 18th) and Giancarlo Stanton (who has 14).  If the players can’t even get this right, why bother having it at all?  I don’t get why we don’t just pick the top 5 guys in HR in each league and let them swing it out.  If someone doesn’t want to participate, keep moving down the list.  It’s strange, I know, wanting to reward the best players instead of your friends.

You can do better Matt Kemp.  You can do better.


By the way, why is he still thinking he’ll go?  He’s hurt.  Shouldn’t the Dodgers say “No thanks, we just gave you an unbelievably big deal and don’t want to risk it over The Midsummer Classic Waste Of Time That For Some Reason Doesn’t Reward The Best Players And For Some Stupid Reason Determines Home Field For The World Series.”?  This world can be strange sometimes.

Details of conversation between Colletti and Ethier's Agent Found

Ned C. : "Hey Nez!  How's it going, my good friend?"

Nez Balelo: "Fine Mr. Colletti.  How are you?"

NC: "I'm doing fine.  The reason why I called was...well, you know how we have new owners."

NB: "It was in the news."

NC: "I told them that I want to start talks on an extension with Andre Ethier.  And they are cool with it!"

NB: "Oh.  I'm glad to hear that.  Say Ned?"

NC: "Yessir?"

NB: "Didn't you give Juan Pierre a $44 million contract in 2007?"

NC: *awkward silence for 1 minute, then* "Oh, you remember that?"

NB: *Eyes light up and $$ appear on each eyeball.  The sound of a thousand cash registers ca-chinging to the Hallelujah Chorus plays in the background.*

I am so looking forward to the overpay Neddy's going to do on this one.  Ethier's a really good player, and from what MLBTR has posted, is looking for 14-15 mil over 4-5 years.  Ethier is just now hitting 30, which means that in this contract he'd be getting 15 mil as a 35-36 year old OF.  That's a lot to be paying, especially since he hasn't played more than 139 games in the last 2 years and doesn't walk a whole lot (career 363 OBP) while providing decent power.  This has backfire written all over it, cause once he hits those 34-35-36 years, that lack of OBP can really bite him where, as my mother would say, "The Good Lord split him." as his OPS will start to tank.  But, this is Ned Colletti we're talking about here.  I'm sure he'll do the right thing.