Meche intent on not pitching like Gil Meche

Spring Training '07 Preview: Kansas City Royals

When Gil Meche agreed to a 5-year, $55 million deal with the Royals this offseason, he knew his days of coasting through the league as a fundamentally mediocre pitcher were over. In fact, Meche recalls the day of the signing as clearly as his first day in the big leagues.

"When I got this huge contract, I was all like, 'whoa shit, I need to pitch a lot better now," he said. "It was fun sort of goofing off in Seattle, tossing out the occassional decent start every couple months, but I'm making a lot of money now, so I feel like I ought to concentrate on being a really good pitcher."

Meche refuses to accept praise for his refreshing new mindset, attributing all the credit to the motivational thinking of Royals General Manager Dayton Moore.

"What were we gonna do," explained Moore, "give him $6 million and have him putz around out there with his 1.50 WHIP like he's done every year of his life? Hell no. We gave him fifty-five million dollars thinking it would be a major wake-up call, a way of letting him know, 'you're making a lot of money now, so you better not pitch like you have in your entire career up until this point.'"

Meche has gone so far out of his way to not pitch like himself, he plans to go by the name "Brandon Ryder" this season so that fans will assume he's an up-and-coming young prospect and not a pitcher coming off two 5.00+ ERA seasons in the last three years despite playing in a massive, pitcher-friendly home stadium. He has also not ruled out pitching left-handed, throwing nothing but knuckleballs, and wearing slanty-eyed novelty glasses to make himself appear Asian.

What's next, frosted tips?

"Ha, no way," laughed Meche. "A green mohawk, actually."

Rangers expect Sosa to regain '60-homer form'

Spring Training '07 Preview: Texas Rangers

General Manager Jon Daniels knows that his Texas Rangers had some problems last year: starting pitching, bullpen, the list goes on and on. The Rangers' most glaring flaw, however, besides every other imaginable aspect of baseball, was their inability to hit home runs.

Daniels could have sat idly by or made some minor cosmetic changes and pretended everything was all better, but instead, he went out and made a huge splash.

How big of a splash?

Try Sammy Sosa. As in, "three-time sixty home run hitter" Sammy Sosa.

"I couldn't believe no one had signed Sammy Sosa," Daniels explained. "When I saw he was available, I assumed it was like Jorge Sosa or some young Diamondbacks guy I'd never heard of, but when I called him in, it was really him! How did everyone forget about him, did they all just assume he was signed? Here was a guy with 588 career home runs, and he was more than willing to accept a minor league contract. What a rare find! Talented and modest."

Asked if he believed Sosa could actually duplicate his 60-HR totals from seasons past, Daniels answered, "Yeah, of course he can. Why couldn't he? How much could have possibly changed in a couple years? The guy had knee problems in 2003 and he still hit 40 homers. What, did he just get all weak now or something? In three years? How much sense does that make?"

The rest of the Rangers' front-office has echoed Daniels' enthusiasm about the Sosa signing.

Rangers Assistant GM Thad Levine recalls, "When Jon said he was looking for more power, I said, 'I got two words for you: Sammy... Sosa!' I thought it was a funny joke, but I think Jon took it a little too far when he actually signed him. Although, Frank Thomas going to Oakland last year happened after someone lost a bet, and that actually turned out alright."

As for Sosa himself, when asked if he felt he could regain his 60-HR form, the slugger responded with guarded optimism.

"Ummm - probably not?" replied a characteristically modest Sosa. "I guess I could maybe get a ball over a fence now, if there's a whole bunch of wind or something, I haven't really tried in like a year. I doubt I can hit the ball 500 feet anymore, but that's mostly just because I'm older; you know how getting older makes you a whole, whole lot weaker. I am a little more experienced now, and I do know the pitchers a little better, so maybe something in the 8-11 HR range isn't out of the question."

Erstad brings 60 games worth of toughness, hustle to Sox

Spring Training '07 Preview: Chicago White Sox

Ninety-six. That's the number of games played Darin Erstad has averaged over the last four seasons.

Ninety-six million. That's how gritty Darin Erstad is.

The Chicago White Sox, in an effort to get tougher and hustle some more, added Darin "Tuffygrit" Erstad this offseason. Needless to say, the team is already excited about what he can bring to the table for at least fifty or so games in 2007.

"I feel like there were about 60 games last year where we were not tough," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen attempted to say. "If we have Darin for half of those, I feel like we will be tougher and get us some winning baseball."

He added, "[BLEEP]."

White Sox GM Kenny Williams jumped at the opportunity to bring Erstad's five-tool combination of toughness, grit, hustle, presence, and injury-proneness to Chicago.

"He brings a certain presence to the clubhouse," said Williams. "Him just being there reminds other players to be tough and hustle. Even when Darin's hurt, he's still right there in the clubhouse, like he's telling the other players 'hey, I can be just as valuable when I'm not playing!' The guys really respond to that, you know?"

Angels outfielder Garrett Anderson, Erstad's longtime teammate in Anaheim, raved about Erstad's ability to affect a team's entire mentality.

"He does get hurt a lot," explained Anderson, "but when he's out, if your team struggles, people talk about how you're just missing Erstad's presence in your lineup, and you don't feel so bad. If your team succeeds, then people say 'imagine how good they're gonna be when they get Erstad back!' Nothing Darin does ever has any negative impact on anything, and that's why I feel like Chicago is really gonna love him."

FBI institutes "Mariners Protection Program"

Spring Training '07 Preview: Seattle Mariners

The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently unveiled their new "Mariners Protection Program," an alternative to the Witness Protection Program that, rather than completely erasing the lives of endangered witnesses, simply places persons who testify onto the Seattle Mariners.

"We finally found a happy medium," said William Souther, the program's co-founder and director. "People don't have to give up their lives, but once they're sent to Seattle, national interest in them rapidly dissipates. It's also kind of exciting for them, they get to play on a professional baseball team."

Souther said the idea struck him after he realized that he hadn't seen nor heard anything about Adrian Beltre, runner-up for the 2004 National League MVP award, in more than two years.

"I couldn't believe how effectively they were hiding these guys," gushed Souther. "Beltre, Richie Sexson, Eddie Guardado, Carl Everett, Jarrod Washburn, Mike Hargrove - used to be sought after by other teams, then all the sudden, whoosh! Vanished into thin air. Apparently Jeff Weaver just headed out there too - good luck finding him and killing him now, Bill Stoneman!"

Souther added, "The best part of the program is, the witnesses don't have to hide from anything. Their games will be televised, they'll be covered in the papers - somehow, no one ever seems to notice or care. As long as the people they testify against aren't third generation Seattleans, they couldn't be less interested anytime they see that teal spikeyball of safety."

Mariners GM Bill Bavasi, when asked if he was concerned about having to deal with an upcoming influx of random citizens onto his baseball club, said he wasn't fazed.

"No biggie," Bavasi commented. "They can't be more useless than Jeremy Reed."

The St. Joseph's, Boston College, Stills and Nash Eagles

In one of the more pathetic sports stories I have ever heard (thanks to my friend Grib for the tip), St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia is officially adopting the Boston College Eagles as their school football team.

That factual statement is already so far beyond a joke, I'm not really sure what else I have to say in this post. Here's a cartoon airplane:

Forbes knows less about sports than that dude yelling at the bar

I'm usually Numbertruster McStatso in this blogspace, but this Forbes Magazine list attempting to quantify the 100 Best General Managers in sports is about as pitiful as it is retarded.

Using a poorly conceived mishmash of flimsy stats called "winning improvement index" and "payroll containment," Forbes has determined that the best GMs in sports are:

1. Kevin McHale, Minnesota Timberwolves

2. Jay Feaster, Tampa Bay Lightning

3. Billy King, Philadelphia 76ers

4. A.J. Smith, San Diego Chargers

5. Lou Lamoriello, New Jersey Devils

6. Don Waddell, Atlanta Thrashers

First off, besides Feaster and Lamoriello, none of the others have won a championship; King's 76ers did make the NBA Finals in 2001, meaning four of the six best GMs in sports have a combined one Finals appearance in 29 seasons (McHale's Wolves have gotten past the first round once in his 11 years there.) Also note that McHale, King, and Waddell could all conceivably be fired in the next year and their fanbases would be happy. Can the same be said for Billy Beane (#26), John Schuerholz (#42), or Ozzie Newsome (#89)? Not to mention A.J. Smith constantly feuding with coaches and giving away Drew Brees to New Orleans, or Don Waddell adding Keith Tkachuk to the group of one-dimensional forwards he calls a team, or EVERY SINGLE CONTRACT Billy King and McHale have dished out in the past four years?

All right, so the list is BS. I don't need to waste more than a paragraph debating that point. My question is, though, how can Forbes, which seems so smart when it's sitting in my investment banker friends' bathrooms, come up with such a fundamentally flawed module?

Big problem number one - this garbage "Winning Improvement index" is meaningless. Billy Beane is the highest-ranked baseball GM at #26, just one spot above fucking Bobby Clarke, who was fired earlier this year and probably should have been two years ago. The list apparently treats winning and winning percentage as numerical equivalents between all sports; in the NFL, the Chargers went 14-2 this year, in the NBA, the Mavericks have an .847 win percentage, and in the NHL, with win totals weighted because of overtime victories, Buffalo technically has a .733 win percentage. Meanwhile, no team in baseball even finished above .600 in 2006, and the '01 Mariners, who set a modern record for wins, still only finished at .716. No matter what, improvement in baseball is never going to be as numerically drastic as it will in the other sports, and, as a result, Dave Taylor (#18) of the hapless LA Kings is a better GM than the Twins' Terry Ryan (#53).

Big problem number two - Counting "winning improvement" and not just "winning" improperly rewards GMs who happen to have taken over for struggling teams. The Chargers were 31-65 in the six seasons prior to A.J. Smith's arrival, which not only means that pretty much anything the Chargers would have done under Smith would have been an improvement, but it also means that Smith was allowed to reap the benefits of five seasons of high drafting, including the infamous Michael Vick trade orchestrated by John Butler prior to Smith's tenure that resulted in LaDanian Tomlinson, Shawne Merriman, and Drew Brees coming to San Diego. The team obviously improved after that, and, long story short, A.J. Smith has a Winning Improvement index of 209, securing his space on Dumbnumbers Magazine's list of stupid doodooheads.

I could go on to talk about how the list only measures vague franchise results, not the actual actions of the GMs, or about how it doesn't weigh in highs and lows or playoff success, or pretty much anything about anything, for that matter, but what's the point? We all know that it would just more or less confirm what this list tells us - that Isiah Thomas of the Knicks (#82) and Dave Littlefield of the Pirates (#84) are better GMs than the Red Wings' Ken Holland (#90) and his three poorly indexed Stanley Cups.

Leyland motivates Tigers with vaguely gruff mumbles

Spring Training '07 Preview: Detroit Tigers

Jim Leyland, the master motivator whose barely-audible strings of authoritative cliches motivated the Tigers all the way into the World Series last year now faces an even greater challenge: motivating his team again in 2007.

"We had a good year, lot of good young players," mumbled Leyland, his cigarette-soaked voice seemingly coming from his moustache. "We can't be lazy, we've got to be good again this year, do some good things, good players, and play some good baseball."

Leyland's managerial style of occassionally saying things about stuff may be a radical departure from what every other manager in the league does, but the young Tigers are not shy about praising their usually inaudible leader.

"He gets me so goddamn motivated," beamed righty Justin Verlander as he unleashed a barrage of highly motivated 98 MPH fastballs during a bullpen session. "Before he got here, I was throwing in the low nineties and hanging breaking balls all the time, but when he became our manager and started mumbling things like 'big game today gotta look alive' or 'Verlander, nice something something of the something,' I just instantly started pitching so much better. I'm pretty sure one of those 'somethings' was a swear word, too."

Though Leyland's reputation as a motivator is well-known, he is more than humble when asked to explain his success as a manager.

"I don't know," Leyland admitted, "maybe other teams' managers don't say things ever or toss occassional witty quips to the press? It sure worked last year, I guess. I also [bleep] find that throwing in a bleeped swear word where one couldn't possibly belong in a sentence makes for good sound bytes. I figure that probably got us like an extra five wins."

Drew adjusting to being douchebag in entirely new league

Spring Training '07 Preview: Boston Red Sox

A new team. A new city. A new league. A new, non-douchey J.D. Drew?

Hardly.

The Red Sox aren't surprised that J.D. Drew has adjusted to being an enormously unlikeable douchebag in the American League - after all, they wouldn't have gambled on a 5 year, $50 million contract if they were worried Drew couldn't adjust - but they've been pleasantly surprised with just how quickly he's adjusted to American League douchebaggery.

Red Sox hitting coach Dave Magadan raves, "J.D. is just one of those guys who can roll out of bed, walk into the batter's box, and be a giant douche. Kind of reminds me of George Brett, you know?"

Drew has already impressed some of his teammates with his complete lack of regret for holding out, his humorously low games played totals, and his generally unwarm demeanor, but Drew says he won't be content until he establishes himself as an elite American League Douchebag.

"Douches in the American League are on a whole 'nother level," Drew said. " You got Manny, A-Rod, Billy Beane, Curt Schilling, Carl Everett is probably on some team - you're sort of starstruck at first, but it's just up to me to prove I belong."

When asked about the biggest adjustment he would have to make, Drew responded, "I think having the Designated Hitter changes some things. Now if I have an ankle injury or something, I could probably still get in the lineup as a DH, so I'll have to make sure to get a lot more injured. I'm excited - I want to be remembered as one of the most notorious douchebags ever to wear a Red Sox uniform."

He added, "At least for like two years, then maybe I'll hold out and go to, I don't know, the Angels or something?"

Suck it, Manatee!

Looks like the Buccos came ready to play this season. Bring on Bassett Hound!

Headlines: Thursday, March 1

Angels kind of hoping Matthews is still taking steroids

With news breaking that Gary Matthews Jr. may have taken steroids before his all-star 2006 season, the Los Angeles Angels, who signed Matthews to a 5 year, $50 million contract this fall, are all sort of secretly hoping that he hasn't quit the juice.

"Um, yeah, steroids are really bad," admitted Angels GM Bill Stoneman. "I guess he should stop taking them? I don't know, I really hope he doesn't go back to playing like a disposable journeyman, especially after all that money we're giving him. Hmm..."

Sabres looking for Zubrus to bolster eighth line

The Buffalo Sabres are excited about their acquisition of veteran winger Dainius Zubrus, who coach Lindy Ruff described as "A solid two-way player who should really fit in well on our eighth line."

Sabres GM Darcy Regier explained, "We already have about fifteen forwards who can score, but depth is a really important part of this league. We'll dress four lines, our fifth and sixth lines will stay in the locker room, the seventh will hang out in the parking lot, and Dainus will watch the games from his hotel room next to a telephone."

He added, "We have a window of opportinuty right now, and we don't want something like a flu outbreak or a team plane crash to derail our momentum."

Ravens swear they're done sleeping with Jamal Lewis

The Baltimore Ravens again parted ways with runningback Jamal Lewis yesterday, though numerous reports are suggesting that Baltimore may relapse and invite Lewis over before training camp starts.

"No, I'm serious this time, we're finished," coach Brian Billick kept saying repeatedly. "No, I'm not drunk. Shut up, I'm not. I'm really really serious. I'm through with Jamal, I don't care what happens to him."

Defensive Coordinator Rex Ryan said that he "Isn't buying it" about Lewis and added, "When I tried to delete Jamal's number from Brian's phone, he yanked it away and started screaming at me. Does that mean we'll see Lewis in a Ravens uniform again? I don't know, you tell me."