It's a Festivus for the rest of us.
On Tuesday it was announced that the Royals had agreed to terms on a one-year contract with “shortstop” Yuniesky Betancourt to be a utility infielder for the coming 2012 season.
The news spread across Twitter just as everyone was sure the “veteran infielder” being pursued by the Royals had to be former Atlanta Brave and owner of two World Series rings, Edgar Renteria. All the pieces and arguments for Renteria seemed to fit the normal criteria Dayton Moore uses when acquiring players: Brave, World Series, reputation greater than performance.
To everyone’s shock however it wasn’t Renteria but the erstwhile shortstop Betancourt, who for his brief stint with the Royals was either supremely hated by fans or merely tolerated for “being better than the last guy”. His 2010 performance of a meager .9 WAR and negative 9.5 UZR (!) suggested that even though he may have been better than the guy before him, simply being able to write the same name next to the “6” in the lineup everyday holds little significance when that name performs at a pretty terrible level. Read more…
Scap-load swoon.
We can all now breathe a sigh of relief that we finally know the destination of Gio Gonzalez. That feels good, doesn’t it?
For the past few weeks Gonzalez has been mentioned as one of the top targets-du-jour among the available pitchers throughout the majors. Focusing mainly on his high overall strikeout rate, and being mesmerized by his odd-handedness, GMs and fans have pined for the opportunity to trade anything and everything for the right to slot the Athletic into the No.3 spot in their rotation. (heh)
Well, the Nationals and Mike Rizzo were that team.
On Thursday, Washington and Oakland agreed to a deal that would send minor leaguers Brad Peacock, A.J. Cole, Derek Norris, and Tommy Milone west in exchange for the left-hander. Jumping at the opportunity to partner Gonzalez with Stephen Strasburg and Jordan Zimmerman, Rizzo and the Nats gave up a ton for a very risky pitcher. Read more…
This is not The Process you're looking for.
So, sometimes things happen that cause us to lose focus on the things that we’re trying to get done. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on part-2 to the Talking About Pitching post, editing and re-editing and reaching out to some old colleagues to provide their opinions, so that I can be sure to bring the readers of KoK the best possible content. For me, it’s a labor of love, and the first real opportunity I’ve had to speak (write) openly about my experience as a coach and trainer.
But alas, during the midst of offseason rumors, came some breaking, but not all that surprising news: Chris Getz is still under contract with the Royals.
On Monday of last week it was announced that the only player not offered a contract for the upcoming 2012 season was Aaron Laffey, who was just claimed off waivers a short time ago. There were 31 unsigned players offered a contract including, the immortal, Chris Getz. Read more…
I love me some Tim Hudson
Now that we’re in the midst of the baseball offseason and the Winter Meetings are still a week away, pure baseball news will be a little harder to come by for a while. With that, I thought it would be a good time to do something that I’ve been asked to do by fellow bloggers and readers for a while now, but have been reluctant to do so.
My post a couple weeks ago in response to the Bob McClure Q&A posted at FanGraphs generated a fair amount of positive attention, but also some criticism. Which is to be expected. I received more than a few emails (look for those in a future KoK Mailbag, because I think it’s important to give both sides of this argument about pitching) in which it was pretty clear that I’m not explaining my side very well. I’ll try to do better.
So as a way to better explain things, to give a different perspective, and to get a little (or a lot) more in depth about pitching, I’ll be talking with some old colleagues about their philosophies and breaking down some of the Royals players individually, as we see them. Read more…
It's good!
But, can we sell that? Doing good in the world is not a lost concept, as two of my students have recently shown… fight the power!
Good news.
Well, good news to me, anyway. Two of my students made the news this week and they have something interesting in common.
Andria Enns was profiled in the Independence Examiner for her next adventure spreading the ideas of peace journalism in the world. I take no credit for this, by the way. She was inspired by my colleague Steven Youngblood to pursue this concept. He took her to Uganda a summer ago and, she says, changed her life.
I have to be honest here and admit I’m not completely comfortable with the principles of peace journalism. How can you not be comfortable with an effort for peace, you say? Well, that’s the problem. Read more…
