Rants & Raves

I thought today would be a good day to bring back rants and raves… although there is not a lot to rave about. The MLB owners and the MLBPA are evidently intelligent enough to know that posturing in the media will not have a good effect on the fans. So we have seen very little of that… except by Robber Manfred in the beginning. “Shut up in the press and negotiate behind closed doors.”

I am rooting for the Bengals. They were my late father’s favorite team, but I won’t be mad if the Rams win. It should be a great game.

Kirsten Watson Revisited

I know that a lot of Dodger fans were very disappointed when the great Alana Rizzo left the Dodgers to be with her family on the East Coast and ended up working with the “Mad Dog.” Kirsten Watson was her replacement and frankly… she was timid, too soft and quiet, and very uninteresting… in the beginning. Many of us were quick to point that out. Maybe she was listening… someone was listening because Kirsten started evolving. She started being a little more bold, confident, a little less soft, and more outgoing. With each passing day, it seemed that her screen presence got better and better until she was pretty dang good. I am a Kirsten Watson fan and while I will never forget Alana (and she will never forget the Dodgers) Kirsten is now our girl. You go, Girl! We love you! If you haven’t watched the video below… enjoy!

Dodger Baseball

  • Well, in case you haven’t noticed, no news is not good news. It’s the last day of January and the DA has not made a decision as to charging Trevor Bauer… or maybe they have and just have not announced it. This falls into the category of “very strange.” Of course, the whole case falls into the category of “stanger.” When/if the DA announces anything, then we have to wait for the lockout to end to find out the disposition.
  • The longer I think about the Texas Rangers paying Corey Seager $325 Million the dumber it sounds. You can’t fix stupid. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Corey, but $325 Million? Ha, Ha, Ha!
  • Does Will Smith take another step forward in 2022 and become the best catcher in baseball? He’s on that path.
  • I have talked to several baseball people who think Diego Cartaya is a very special “generational player” who may get a callup in September and be ready in 2023. He will be 21 this year – 22 in 2023. I would not be inclined to say no.
  • On the other hand, Ryan Pepiot (who just become a Boras Client) will be 25 this year. His time is now… and I think it is in the bullpen.

Other Baseball News

  • The Sugar Land Skeeters have completed their rebrand. The Astros’ Triple-A affiliate is now the Sugar Land Space Cowboys, with a brand new logo and uniforms.

I Can’t Hear You

While I won’t single out people by name, it is pretty obvious that many people have left this site. Many used to do “drive-by shootings” on Trump and how awful he was. “He has killed hundreds of thousands.Biden Has Killed More! “He writes mean tweets.” Biden can’t put a coherent sentence together.Trump divides the country.” Biden’s Presidency has been nothing but a trainwreck! So, you have nothing to bitch about and no Fake Russian Collusion to tout… and you are gone! Good! You can’t handle the truth. That said, I hope Donald Trump disappears off the face of this earth and I would vote for Bill Maher – at least he has some sense!

This article has 17 Comments

  1. I was at that 9ers Rams game yesterday. That was an awesome atmosphere, with 50-50 fans screaming all day.

    Fantastic to end SF season. AGAIN!!

  2. Go Rams !! thanks Mark and all contributors for keeping this great site alive !!
    Hopefully full baseball season right around the corner !!

  3. No news is boring.

    Well, Scott Boras is very good at finding some GM or owner to buy into his nonsense and giving an outrageous contract to some player who has no chance of actually playing up to the dollars being spent. As much as I like Corey, he’s not worth that kind of money. Makes no sense. Money spent simply doesn’t equate to what the player produces on the field.

    How many big contracts actually pay off for the team?

    Over Trevor Bauer. Yes, Cartaya is getting a lot of buzz and may land on the big league roster sooner than later.

    When compared to the negotiations, baseball suddenly looks like a fast played game. Okay, I guess we’re going to skip spring training. Need time to plan a trip. On hold again. Why bother?

    Space Cowboys? Seriously? Like Skeeters better.

    In LA County, big effort to recall the DA.

    1. What is more baffling to me is that the Rangers also signed Semien. He is also primarily a SS. But I think they plan on moving him to second base. A lot of minor league signings still going on. Rumor here in Colorado is that the Rockies are going after Schwarber when the lockout ends. Still some name players out there, Correa, Story, Joc, Soler, Bryant. Do not watch pro football anymore. All the Stupor bowl means to me is that spring training is right around the corner. As long as the MLBPA and MLB get their heads out of their butts and reach an accord.

  4. Excellent article today on ESPN.com by Doug Glanville. The former outfielder gives his reasons why Barry Bonds and the other steroid era superstars do not deserve enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. Well written and thought out. Glanville states what many of us think.

  5. I wonder if the Dodgers experiment with Will Smith at different positions this ST to get a feel for it. From what I read and hear, Cartaya has a plus arm with high baseball IQ and possibly the better long term defensive catcher. l’m sure the team loves Smith’s bat and his ability to come thru in high leverage spots, so I assume they’ll keep both, but I hope the team explores Smith’s ability to help elsewhere, beside DH. The small sample size at 1st last year wasn’t too impressive, but 2nd base could be a fit.

    I’m coming to terms with life without Seager trying to look at the brighter side. For one, I’ve grown really tired of the average to below average defense at SS, and inserting an athletic more nimble handed SS will at least improve my entertainment value. Good to great defense is highly entertaining, at least in my estimation, and Seager hasn’t awed there in years. I’d like to see Lux get some run there this spring, as I’m still not sold on Turner for our team. If the team is really going to chase Soto in a few years (which I HIGHLY endorse), paying Turner similarly to what Seager got could make that difficult. I do think the Rangers panicked. New stadium and fans complaining for years about not spending. They went overboard. I’m not even sure where Seager transitions, because Josh Jung might be the long term 3rd baseman. 300 million for a DH is a Yankee move.

    Congratulations to the Rams proving there is more than one way to win in the NFL.

  6. I am not a fan of Kirsten Watson, I think her questions after the game are insipid, and she is not close to Alanna Rizzo in talent, but she did improve a bit.

    Trump said the virus was a hoax, had his people hide data; and encouraged people to ingest insane remedies including bleach. He also mocked masks.

    The GDP was recently up 6.4%, an incredible figure. Unemployment is down to 3.9%, which the Fed Chair originally appointed by Trump said is essentially full employment. The only economic problem is inflation, which is worldwide, and mostly due to companies not being able to meet increased demand, so raising prices. The United States is the only major country which has shown positive GDP growth since the pandemic. The infrastructure bill is leading to many building projects, desperately needed. A “trainwreck?” Oh, the stock market is up 10,000 points since Biden somehow took office, despite the people who tried to stop it, and have martial law declared.

    Biden is by no means a great speaker, but his sentences are certainly coherent. Clinton was a great speaker, and Republicans hated him for being too smooth. It is never going to change. The country would be in good shape, if it weren’t for the many groups who are threatening violence, and who apparently want a fascist state, even though they love to declaim about freedom. They may well get it, with the voter suppression they are pushing. I don’t think that anyone here would like living under it, as soon as they realized it, but that is almost always too late.

    I will probably follow the baseball season, but I am not following any baseball news right now. I would actually like to get Freeman, I would want the Dodgers to do very well now, rather than wait for a rebuild. Good wishes to everyone here.

    1. What are you smoking? I just looked at my 401 and it doesn’t look so well the last couple of months. Liars figure and figures lie and you my friend live in a delusional world if you try to defend Brandon.

      His administration is an abject failure . Brandon is corrupt as anyone in DC and the MSM is keeping him shielded. Three more years, three more years!

    2. Trump said the virus was a hoax had his people hide data; and encouraged people to ingest insane remedies including bleach. He also mocked masks.

      1. He shut down incoming flights on January 31st for which people like Biden and Sanders ridiculed him;
      2. I might also say that he implemented Project Warp Speed which resulted in a record-time vaccine for a virus he believed was a hoax? (this is way silly);
      3. He said it started in lab and was kicked off Social Media (it is now accepted that it probably did);
      4. Only a moron would think Trump was serious when he said to “maybe drink some bleach” but if the shoe fits;
      5. Before monoclonal antibodies and the Vaccine, I would have taken hydroxychloroquine – why lay there and die?
      6. I suppose you still believe cloth masks work?

      The GDP was recently up 6.4%, an incredible figure. Unemployment is down to 3.9%, which the Fed Chair originally appointed by Trump said is essentially full employment. The only economic problem is inflation, which is worldwide, and mostly due to companies not being able to meet increased demand, so raising prices. The United States is the only major country which has shown positive GDP growth since the pandemic. The infrastructure bill is leading to many building projects, desperately needed. A “trainwreck?”

      GDP is a good statistic. I liken it to BA. It tells a lot, but not all. Ask anyone on the street if they are better off now than in 2019. The US went from energy independent to energy-dependent and people are paying 2.5X for fuel to go to stores whose shelves are empty. You can tell people they are better off because the GDP says so, but hardly anyone agrees. His approval rating is sinking faster than the Titanic. Joe has taken a second job as the Director of Marketing for the Mexican Cartels who are allegedly making $100+ MILLION a week on human trafficking, fentanyl (more than enough to kill every American several times over), as a result of NO BORDER SECURITY! Fentanyl now kills more 18- to 45-year-olds than suicide, Covid-19, and car accidents, with the number of deaths experiencing a particularly sharp rise since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Fentanyl is tied to 64% of all US drug fatalities.

      And the Groups who are prone to violence are not right wing, but rather left wing fanatics like BLM and Antifa. The summer of 2020 riots resulted in some 15 times more injured police officers, 30 times as many arrests, and estimated damages in dollar terms up to 1,300 times more costly than those of the Capitol riot… to say nothing of killing over 34 persons.

      Biden left Billions of Dollars of Military Equipment in Afghanistan as well as thousands of Americans and/or Afghans who aided Americans and faced certain death. Yet, you probably call it a success just like Joe…. Yeah, Right!

      BTW, Georgia voters don’t think the new voting laws are suppression. They are dramatically better overall than NY, Delaware, Colorado, and many other states, while Biden’s approval rating drops to 34% in Georgia.

      Finally, what if the Trump family had accepted a million dollars from Foreign Governments? Well, the Bidens ahve accepted (documented) $31 Million, but no one in the media wants to talk about it!

      BTW, I don’t wnt Trump back either!

      1. He said it was a hoax, more than once, I saw him saying it on TV.

        He said, “Could people inject bleach?” to Deborah Brix. whom he had appointed as a key advisor on Covid, at a news conference which was televised.

        I may have transposed a number; the GDP rise was 5.7%. The number of new jobs created since Biden took office is 6.4 million. I would never give a president all the credit for job gains, but he is always a factor. The economy is doing remarkably well right now, though obviously not everyone is benefitting from it, but most are.

        Trump made a deal with the Taliban to pull all of our troops out of Afghanistan in May, in exchange for them not attacking until then.

        Of course many Georgians are happy with vote suppression. They and the Republicans in other states such as Texas and Florida, also are in favor of the legislature overturning any elections which Democrats win. I think that would be called totalitarianism. Once totalitarianism is instituted, it is almost impossible to remove. Anyone who reveres our history of liberty and freedom should be very worried about this country becoming a dictatorship.

        1. William,

          He did not say bleach… he said “Disinfectant.” I watched the tape. He says he was being sarcastic. I don’t think so, but to say bleach is wrong. He was simply trying to act smarter than he was.

          Do you want me to put up a list of 20, 50, 75 Falsehoods that Biden has recently expounded? I can.

          #1- He said he would not make a vaccine mandate and then he did.

  7. Not going to respond to the political stuff. But as to Watson, I think female sideline reporters are one thing every team could do without. Most are there for their looks. Alanna was a decent interviewer and she had some baseball knowledge, Watson may have improved her delivery, but she does not have very much knowledge of the game. Her in game interviews never interested me. In fact, I could go all year, never see another in game interview by anyone and be very happy. Now, in game injury updates, that is fine. Stick to the action on the field. I need more Vin type announcing and much less Orel and Kirsten.

  8. Latest report in MLB Trade Rumors is that the Union and MLB are still very far apart and that it’s looking more and more like the season may not start on time. “According to Rosenthal and Drellich, the MLBPA views the proposals thus far made by MLB as less favorable to players than were the terms of the 2016-21 CBA.”

    If in fact the Union views MLB’s proposals as worse than the last CBA, they aren’t getting closer to agreement – they may be farther away.

    MLB really doesn’t see the problem or just doesn’t want to address it.

    If veteran players aren’t going to be compensated for their seasons after age 30 because stats show that they get less productive after that, then there has to be a way to compensate players earlier in their careers.

    If one third of the teams (or more) tank every season leaving fewer available jobs for veteran players and no reason to watch teams that are trying to lose on purpose, and the rich teams subsidize the “small market” teams, then there should be more money in player salaries required.

    If they can’t figure these problems out, then MLB will go the way of the dodo bird.

    1. Totally agree that MLB Players need to be compensated better early in their careers. Maybe leave FA at 6 years but start arbitration earlier!

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