John Kruk's Tiny Brain Tries to Analyze Baseball

I try to avoid writing posts about my favorite teams. I really do. Even my favorite sports blog, the dick joke-tacular Kissing Suzy Kolber, suffers from occasional unfunniness as its writers spend too much time on lame jokes and irrelevant news stories about their favorite teams (OMG apparently the Redskins are going to sign a new long snapper!). But sometimes a dick-for-brains fatso like John Kruk takes a horrifically analyzed shot at the squad you live and die for. And that's when you're allowed to break your own rules.

So I'm sitting there in my mom's basement last night, watching Lord of the Rings, eating Funyuns, and playing Stratego against my stuffed animals like usual, when I realize that Baseball Tonight is on. The Rockies have just finished off an 11-1 drubbing of the Angels. Since there were only a handful of games because it was a Monday, and because the Rox have now won 17 out of 18, I realize that there's actually a good chance they're going to get some airtime! It only happens about once a month (usually in the context of "How can the Cubs/Dodgers/Mets/Phillies lose to a team like the Rockies? Impossible") so if you're a Rockies fan you don't want to miss it. As soon as I flip the channel to ESPN, I see a screen displaying the following graphic:

Dexter Fowler 77
Chris Iannetta 233
Troy Tulowitzki 345

And who is talking about this mysterious set of numbers but everyone's favorite unitesticle, Mr. Kruk. I quickly realize the numbers indicate each Rockie's career games played. What's John's angle? Unfortunately I don't have the exact quotes, but what follows are reasonably accurate representations of what he had to say.

I mean, as you get going deep into the season, you don't know how these guys are going to play. They're inexperienced. These guys just aren't known quantities.

It quickly becomes apparent that Krukie's mission for this segment is to tell the nice people at home why the Rockies suck and have absolutely no chance at getting to the playoffs this year. Now, here's the thing. Any analyst can hold that opinion if they want to and it won't bother me. Go right ahead. I'm not some kind of zealot, sitting here saying "If you don't think the Rockies are going to win the World Series then you can just shut the fuck up right now." It's not like that, I promise.

But if you're going to say that they're not a playoff contender, try to pick a reason for doing so that makes some vague semblance of sense. Seriously. Go way, way, way out on a limb and find something better than this. The back of their rotation is shaky. Their pen is leaning on castoffs from other teams like Joel Peralta and Josh Fogg. Even with Brad Hawpe's monster season, they're not getting much offensive production from their outfield. Fine! Great! Go ahead and say those things. But this? So Fowler is young and inexperienced, true. I'll give you that. He may crumble down the stretch. But Iannetta and Tulowitzki are in their fourth fucking years in the bigs. They've both missed time due to injury, which is why their games played totals are relatively low, but it's not like they're a couple of unseasoned 21 year olds who were in AA last year. THEY WENT TO THE FUCKING WORLD SERIES TWO YEARS AGO. They're not experienced enough for you, Kruk? Go fuck yourself with a fucking soup ladle. Asshole. Oh, and here's another great point from Sir Tubsalot:

They won't be able to win the wild card because they have too many teams to pass in the standings.

Here's your current NL wild card standings, which John apparently hasn't checked since Memorial Day. Two teams, leading them by a half game, with only three months left in the season? No way can they climb that mountain!

His latest entry in the "Baseball Tonight Clubhouse" print article series is dedicated to finding other nonsensical reasons as to why the Rockies are doomed. I can only imagine how long it would take him to type all this up. He must have dictated it to an ESPN intern, and then eaten said intern.

I've been in the middle of a couple of firings, and it always seems as if you play better immediately after. When you're a player and your manager gets fired, most players feel responsible. I've been a part of a couple of similar situations,

Wait, have you ever been in that situation before? You only said so twice in the last three sentences. He then goes on to say that their recent hot streak is attributable to the firing of Clint Hurdle and the arrival of new manager Jim Tracy, and that the bump they're experiencing as a result of a change in leadership won't last. That's all well and good, but let me just apply a classic FireJay label to this post: managers don't do that much. This is (almost) the exact same team of 25 players Hurdle was managing. Clearly they have a lot of talent, having beaten up on legitimate teams like the Cardinals, Brewers, and Rays during this stretch. The fact that Hurdle wasn't getting much mileage out of them and Tracy is doesn't mean they're only playing better because of Tracy. It's obviously a number of things, Tracy's arrival being one of them. A manager can't make a team that started the year 20-32 go on a 17-1 streak. He can help, but the players have to play the games. And it's pretty obvious at this point that the Rockies have a collection of players who are at the very least capable of winning the wild card.

Colorado's run is just that, a run. In my mind, this team is not a threat to win the wild card. Even though the Mets and Phillies have played terribly lately, the wild card is still going to come out of the NL East.

There you have it, folks. Why can't the Rockies do it? Because the WC is going to come out of the NL East, that's why. Duhhhhh. No analysis. No explanation. John Kruk is a fucking simpleton among simpletons. And again, if you want to say Colorado won't win the WC, that's fine. But to say they're not even "a threat?" With the second best run differential in the NL (trailing only the Dodgers, thus obviously ahead of the Mets and Phillies), they're not even a threat? What are you, fucking nuts? Why won't Florida repeat as NCAA football champions this year? Because Alabama is going to win it all. How's that for an airtight explanation?

Both teams are almost unwatchable at the moment, but I'm still certain the Phillies will win the division and the Mets will take the wild card. [no further explanation given; end of article; beginning of John's nightly run to 7-11 for as many hot dogs as they happen to have on the rollers when he gets there]

Possible reasons Kruk feels this way:
1) He played most of his career with the Phillies, so he'll naturally favor any playoff scenario which ensures they'll get in
2) He's felt this way since the beginning of the season (and felt that the Rockies were no good), and simply refuses to change his opinion out of stubbornness. Of course, as we learned from the Cleveland "2009 AL Central Champs in Waiting" Indians, early season groupthink can be a dangerous thing
3) Standard east coast bias- Kruk (and the other the media members with whom he associates) can name more players on the Phillies and Mets than on the Rockies, and they play in cities with which he is very familiar while the Rockies play in one of those flyover states, so there's no way the Rockies can contend
4) He genuinely believes that because Chris Iannetta and Troy Tulowitzki have only played about 250 and 350 MLB games respectively (and because they trail two teams by a half game each in the current wild card standings, surely an insurmountable lead) Colorado will not make the playoffs. Nevermind the fact that the Mets are depending heavily on Daniel Murphy and Fernando Martinez, who have combined for fewer than 150 career games played. The Phillies, to John's credit, are indeed a team chock full of seasoned veterans. Their rotation is a complete and total fucking joke, but hey, at least they don't have any inexperienced players

It doesn't really matter which answer is correct. All I know is this: John Kruk is a card carrying horse's ass. There isn't a lobotomy complete enough to save ESPN viewers from his retardery. The next time I have reason to believe the Rockies will be on Baseball Tonight (which might be some time after the All Star break, assuming they don't lose any games between now and then) I'm not going to bother watching.

Before I go, here's some bonus moron-speak from Baseball Tonight's Chris Singleton about the Rockies:

I think they're making their run too early.

Yeah, you know, he's got a point. Wins are worth double in September as compared to June. The Rockies would be much better holding back, staying a good 5 or 6 games out of the WC, and then hoping they can put together another 11 game winning streak during the last two weeks of the season. It's not a fucking bike race, Singleton. You don't choose when to make your fucking push. If you win your first 100 games and lose your last 62, you'll make the playoffs. If you lose your first 62 and win your last 100, you'll make the playoffs. Good thing you share a set with John Kruk- otherwise I would have wasted a lot more of the time spent on this post ripping you apart as opposed to him.

I never thought I'd say this, but relative to some of his coworkers, that Steve Phillips is kind of an OK dude.

Shameless Ploy for Big-Market Readers

Just your average pre-playoff Tuesday, waiting for the Twins/White Sox game to start, getting vaguely excited about baseball. So I went sailing around teh_interwebz, casting my nets about for the good fish to be had. I happened to trawl around to Lake MLB.com, where I found a pearl of great price and subsequently decided to abandon this stupid metaphor.

But really.

MLB.com's FRONT PAGE is pimping the following article: "Yankees Fans Divided on Cubs-Dodgers"

What?

The day before the division series starts, and there's a front-page article on the ostensible home page for ALL OF BASEBALL, and what do we find? Articles about Cubs fans, Dodgers fans, Rays fans, Twins/White Sox fans, Angels fans... articles about actual baseball that has been played, or baseball that will soon be played...

Nope. Yankees' fans opinions about the NLDS. Oh, sure, MLB.com, you're a place where people can go to get good, relevant, insightful baseball coverage.... Actually, MLB.com, you're a joke, a portal where MLB can shamelessly cross-promote its various products (which I wrote about recently here) with a smattering of shit journalism thrown in. I will now end the world's first apostrophe to a website. But honestly - if my byline read "writer for MLB.com", I might punch myself.

It's a sad day when media portals like this one have to resort to asking random fans in New York (who seem to be overwhelmingly Italian-American, though it's by any means a representative sample) what they think about a National League playoff series.

The conclusion I'm drawing: Yankees fans are not baseball fans, do not care about non-Yankee playoff baseball, but that MLB.com is desperate for readers, so they pander to these generally-apathetic baseball fans by putting Yankee coverage on the front page.

QED!

Fuckity Fuckity Fuck

I know it's a huge secret around these parts which baseball team I root for. Lets just say that whichever "team" it is "lost" a huge "game" this evening. And now I'm really mad. So I'm going to take this garbage and shove it up Tim Dahlberg's anal orifice.

Cubs-Red Sox would be World Series dream
But there are some ugly possibilities for Fall Classic as well

This article just screams "pointless."

The big, bad Yankees are finally out and for that most of the country can be grateful.

I'm not sure what rock you've been hiding under for the past 8 years, but Yankee hatred has declined significantly in all non-New Yorkish non-Bostonian metropolitan areas.

Instead of constantly hearing about the ghosts of past greats at Yankee Stadium, this postseason we can focus on the present at not-so-historic Tropicana Field.

Right there with you in re: shut the fuck up about Yankee Stadium. But why is Tropicana Field even important? It's not part of your "dream" World Series anyway.

Instead of filling up seats in the Bronx, they’ll be taking them out, just in time for the holiday gift-giving season.

Okay you're paying waaaaaaay more attention to this than necessary. I'm removing whatever credit I gave you for making fun of the ESPN Yankee Stadium ZOMG Brigade.

But that’s not the only thing different about a World Series that has every chance to be truly memorable and an equal chance to be truly forgettable.

This would be a very true statement if you were arguing from the perspective of "the series itself might not be that exciting." But you're obviously gonna ramble on about how Milwaukee is boring or something.

There’s a surprise team from Florida

Who?

chances of an all-Chicago or all-LA matchup,

Both of which you are about to shit on immensely. We're talking Randy Marsh in South Park's "More Crap" episode level shitting.

OFFICIAL PUBLIC STATEMENT: I am a nerd.

and a Boston team ready to lay claim to a dynasty of its own.

Which is exciting, but when the Yankees do it, that's bad, right?

About the only certainty is that the Cubs will implode at some point because they are, after all, the Cubs.

You are an idiot who says idiotic things.

Keeping that in mind, here’s a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly matchups that could be this year’s World Series:

You forgot "the useless." Oh wait, you're not playing in the playoffs are you? Nevermind.

BOOM! Nailed that one. ::high-fives everyone in the room::

THE GOOD:

CUBS-RED SOX: This is the ultimate matchup, one that makes Bud Selig and Fox television executives drool at the mere thought.

Why should anybody fucking care about Bud Selig or Fox. Fox hired Tim McCarver for crissake. Anything that makes them happy should be deemed pure evil.

The backdrop alone would make this worth tuning in for, but this World Series would have more story lines than just the two classic ballparks. The Red Sox would be staking a claim to dominance much like their pinstriped rivals, trying for their third championship in five years, and you might have heard something by now about the Cubs trying to win their first World Series in exactly 100 years.

Sure, fine, whatever, if the Red Sox blow the Cubs out in 4 games, it still kinda sucks. A lot.

The only downside for long-suffering Cubs fans is that Boston would have the home-field advantage. But after waiting since 1908 to win the World Series, they could wait a few more days to play at home.

You had me going there. First you said something meaningful. Then you said one of the most useless sentences to ever grace the internet.

RED SOX-DODGERS: Imagine Manny Ramirez returning to Fenway Park to hit two home runs over the Green Monster in Game 1. OK, just imagine him returning to run hard all the way to first base. Either way it will be a show, made all the better should Joe Torre be able to exorcise some Fenway demons while dressed in Dodger blue.

Or, alternatively, it will be bad, because the Dodgers blow. And because Ned Coletti would have a shot at winning the World Series, a thing he deserves less than K-Rod deserves the Cy Young.

METS-ANGELS: Yankees-Dodgers would have been better, especially with Torre against his old team. But New York versus Los Angeles is never bad

New York Knicks vs Los Angeles Clippers. Boom.

Actually, let's back this up a little bit. Why is that never bad? Explain this. What if the Mets and the Angels have 2 very, very boring teams that don't have very many exciting or interesting players and are incredibly different in skill level and the good team blows out the bad team. How is that "good?" Sure, the ratings will be stellar, but who cares? That's just because a lot of people follow those teams. It doesn't make the World Series good.

THE BAD:

CUBS-WHITE SOX: Yes, we know the Cubs haven’t won a World Series since 1908 and that such a warm and fuzzy occurrence would be even more warm and fuzzy for Cub fans if they could do it against their crosstown rivals. But any magic about the Cubs and White Sox playing each other evaporated with interleague play and, outside of Chicago, who really cares if the north side is better than the south.

I'm sort of with you on this one. But I bet you were the same person who was pulling hard for Yankees-Mets in 2000.

About the only fun for the rest of the country would be watching Ozzie Guillen chase rats down the right-field line.

What?

No no no. Seriously. What?

Where the hell did you come up with this joke?

What makes a man sit down in front of his computer, think this thought, and say to himself "oh man, that's gotta go in"? Early 90's Full House Bob Saget called, he wants his sense of humor back.

DODGERS-ANGELS: Back in the day when the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees all played in New York it wasn’t a big deal when two teams from the same city met each other in the World Series because it happened quite often. It doesn’t happen that often anymore — Mets-Yankees in 2000 were the only ones in the last 50 years — but Los Angeles is the wrong city to make it happen.

Again, you pretty much ruled out the White Sox and Cubs as an interesting crosstown World Series, so which is the "right" city. Oh. New York, right? Because the rest of the country totally gives a damn about Mets/Yankees. Fuck you. Fuck you with a blowtorch.

The Cubs and White Sox at least inspire passion from their followers. In LA, fans get worked up trying to figure out the best inning to leave the ballpark so they can beat traffic.

This is a completely stupid and totally false generalization that should be swallowed up by the earth. Cub fans flock to the Cubby Bear in great numbers before the conclusion of baseball games. And did you watch the World Series in 2002? I mean I hate Eckstein and all that, but Anaheim's crowd was blanketed with thunder sticks both pounding together and making that blasted "X" formation. There was a shitload of passion in that series.

THE UGLY:

RAYS-DIAMONDBACKS: Let’s get this straight: Eva Longoria is one of the stars on “Desperate Housewives” who is married to Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs. Evan Longoria is the third baseman for Tampa Bay who always seems to hit crucial home runs. That should take about 10 minutes for Tim McCarver to explain during Game 1, after which there will be little left to do other than ponder the dismal ugliness of Tropicana Field and wonder why Randy Johnson is always so surly.

I actually have to give it up here. Nice McCarver burn.

TWINS-BREWERS: The Twins are a decent enough story, a young team that wasn’t supposed to do anything this year after losing Johan Santana to the Mets. The Brewers aren’t bad, either, especially if they make the playoffs after firing their manager with just two weeks left in the season. Match them together, though, and you’ve got a dud of a World Series played out in small-market Midwestern cities that not even the
super-sized presence of Prince Fielder can save.

Everyone hates a World Series full of budding young stars, right? No, in all honesty, this paragraph is a lame copout and I'm pretty sure fuck Justin Morneau that Tim Dahlberg has some sort of financial stake in Fox's ratings or some shit like that, because that's honestly 100% of your reasoning behind each and every one of these claims. The Twins are a bunch of lucky fuckbags that admittedly play a very exciting style of baseball. I would definitely love to see the Brewers in the World Series. They're an incredibly exciting team with young talent all over the diamond. You can't see anything in them except the fact that they have a fat vegetarian slugger and fired their manager last week. Fuck you, Tim.

Michael Jeremiah Celizic, Hat Vendor

More Hatguy

Here we are with 10 reasons to watch the World Series. Most people watch the World Series because it's the championship of baseball, a sport they like a lot. But for those of you who aren't sold by watching exciting, high-pressure baseball games, or championships in general, you're lucky our fedora-wearing friend was kind enough to point out some things that you may have forgotten about.

I’ve been around for a lot of Super Bowls, and I don’t remember ever writing about how the broadcasting network or the NFL is worried about the ratings because marquee teams aren’t playing.

Could be because it's the most watched TV event in the world.....

Instead, every year I get a list of Roman numerals telling me the XLI things to look for in Super Bowl XLI. They’re silly things, most of them, because they’re designed for all those people who are going to a party on the first Sunday in February and feel the need to know the names of the teams that are playing so they won’t look as ignorant as they are.

Why do you get these lists if they're for ignorant people? Tell the truth, are you speaking from experience, Mike?

Nah, he was never invited to a "party".

Several more dumb comparisons of the World Series and the Super Bowl later, we get to the reasons.

I: The Rockies

Ah. One of the Ten reasons is the Rockies.

Reason II: The Red Sox.

List concluded.

Okay, so you don’t know who they are because the nasty East Coast media

No need to address this again. We've covered it before.

which is responsible for all of the world’s ills going back to the plague, didn’t bother to mention them until the very end of the season, and you didn’t notice them winning 21 of their last 22 games on the way to the first World Series in franchise history.

Booooooooooring. Fantastic run-on, by the way.

But aren’t we a country that loves things that are fresh and out of the ordinary? And aren’t sports fans always whining about overpaid and arrogant stars? Well, the Rockies are fresh and extraordinary. They also have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball.

Everyone get excited for some fresh, non-whiny, low-paid action!

Here’s our Cinderella, folks. You love Cinderella during the NCAA basketball tournament, why not in the World Series?

Your stated problem isn't that not enough people are rooting for the Rockies, it's that not enough people are watching. Keep it straight.

Plus, they wear black uniforms with purple numbers. How often do you get to see that in baseball?

Plenty. All you have to do is pay attention to the Rockies when they aren't in the World Series.

II: The Red Sox

Wow....I actually hadn't read the 2nd reason before now. It actually was the Red Sox!

That loveable team from Boston was even more popular as a road draw than the Yankees this year. Unlike the Yankees, no one outside of the New York metropolitan area hates them.

Wow. Wowwwwwwwow. This is fantastic. Anyone need more proof that this clown doesn't know anything that isn't about New York. If only he read Fire Jay Mariotti and took note of the "i hate boston's sports teams" label!

When they won the World Series in 2004, it was their second crown in just 86 years. This year, they can make it their second in three years. Do you want to miss out on the establishment of the Red Sox dynasty?

Winning the World Series 3 years apart = sole criteria for establishing a "dynasty".

III: Snowball

This better be a pet name for a player, because if it's about the precipi-

It snowed over the weekend in Denver, the mile-high home of the Rockies. With any luck at all, it will snow again when the Series moves West.

Ugh.

Will they break out the orange baseballs? Will the players need chains on their shoes to negotiate the base paths? If you saw Matt Holiday sliding on his face in the dirt earlier in October, can you afford to miss him with snow to slide on? I’m also thinking chimineas in the bullpens — maybe weenie roasts, too. And, instead of bench-clearing brawls, how about a bench-clearing snowball fight?

a) That was when Celizic learned who Matt Holliday was (2 "l"s please!)

b) Rather than giving him the benefit of the doubt, I'm going to believe Celizic thinks that angry athletes would rather throw snow at each other than punch each other.

IV: Tulowitzki — No, it’s not an exotic Denver ballpark snack that comes from a part of the cow you don’t want to know about.

Right. It's a tropical disease. Remember?

It’s the Rockies' exciting rookie shortstop, Troy Tulowitzki. The kid could be rookie of the year, but you have to watch him because of the name alone.

Read: His name is the only thing Celizic knows about him.

V: Pedroia — Dustin Pedroia, like Tulowitzki, is a rookie and a middle infielder, playing second base for the Red Sox. He says he’s 5-2 and 115 pounds, but that’s just bragging.

Don't even know how to respond to that one.

VI: Defense

VII: Offense

Very specific to this World Series. I like it.

If you find defense boring, don’t worry. The thin atmosphere in Denver makes for a lot of home runs and Coors Field has an enormous outfield that generates hits like few other parks. One of those others is Boston’s Fenway Park, built in 1912 for guys who weren’t strong enough to get the top off a mayonnaise jar. It’s only the most venerable, most charming and most beloved park in baseball. Just looking at the field is reason enough to turn the television to the game. Plus, the Red Sox score a lot of runs there.

Awww, Celizic's getting a hard-on for the east coast again...isn't that cute?

VIII: Manny — There’s not a freer spirit in any game than Boston’s dreadlocked left fielder, Manny Ramirez

Chad Johnson. Your move.

who also happens to be as good a hitter as there is in the game, especially in October.

Manny Ramirez, 2007 EqA: .291
As Good a Hitter as There Is in the Game, 2007 EqA: .339

(Okay, Barry's is better, but we get it)

He’s also guaranteed to produce multiple moments that make you scratch your head and wonder which planet he calls home. He’ll stand at the plate admiring the wonderfulness of what he thinks is a home run, only to be held to a single when it bounces off the wall. Or he’ll say something that makes no sense at all.

What a free spirit.

And whenever he does something that would get other players roasted alive in the sports columns, all you’ll hear about him is, “It’s just Manny being Manny.”

Only from dumbasses.

IX: Big Papi — We’ve mentioned David Ortiz’s nickname once before, but a guy as big as the Red Sox’s designated hitter deserves his own paragraph, not to mention his own zip code.

HAHHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHAHA

::Celizic opens and begins frantically flipping through an MLB rule book.::

What will make this Series fun is watching him play first base in Denver, where National League rules will apply and there will be no designated hitter.

::Celizic breathes a sigh of relief and closes the book::

He’s as nimble as an ocean liner, except his team isn’t allowed to employ tugboats to nudge him around the infield.

Where does someone get the idea that it's good to write this?

At the plate, he’s always a threat to hit it out. In the field, he’s just a threat.

to......

X: River Dance – If the Red Sox win it all, their relief ace, Jonathan Papelbon, is going to do the most frightening rendition of that Lords of the Dance thing you’ve ever seen. No one this side of Simon Cowell can adequately characterize it. So just hang in there to the last game and see for yourself. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry — and if you’re actually a dancer, you’ll probably throw.

That one is actually pretty interesting.

Great list....except...

1) You listed both teams, and then 4 individual players.
2) Of those 4 players, there is 1 Rockie, and 3 Red Sox.
3) The Red Sox best player this year, Josh Beckett, was not one of them.
4) The best player in the World Series this year, Matt Holliday, was not one of them.
5) Offense and defense are listed were two reasons. Another good reason to watch: baseball. And does this mean that pitching is not a reason to watch the World Series?
6) ZOMG SNOW????

But you know, other than that, it was pretty interesting.

Who Are These Guys Again? The Colorado Mountains? Is That a Real Team?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Mike Celizic. I'm not sure if he's been made fun of here before or anything, but he sure is a bad journalist. That...thing...on his head is the reason I'm going to call him HatGuy, which is an original nickname that I just now made up for the first time ever, and definitely isn't copied from some really funny website. Ol' Hatty usually dabbles in writing about baseball twice a month. Yesterday was once such day. Let's check out the column.

Rockies would be royalty if on East Coast
Amazing run by no-names is like nothing we've seen in baseball before

Oooh, a Rockies column. That bunch of no-namies that plays is Colorado. 25 men who don't have names (and a manager who may or may not have one). This looks intriguing.

This is a terrific team that’s stormed out of the thin air of Denver and into the even thinner national TV ratings they’re drawing from an audience that has no idea who the Colorado Rockies are.

A play on words making fun of the nationwide popularity of a small market team? Genius! No one has ever done that before!

It’s doubtful that any team has ever arrived at the World Series with less cachet and name recognition than the Rockies.

I'll see your 2007 Rockies (a team that likely contains both the NL MVP and the NL Rookie of the Year, despite both of them lacking a name), and raise you the 2003 Marlins. Granted, they have a lot of players who are famous now, but we're talking about when they arrived at the World Series. And at that time, other than Ivan Rodriguez and ROY Dontrelle Willis, it was 23 guys who weren't given names at birth (some people on the team made up names mid-season, in case you were wondering how they communicated with each other, or why there was a player on this team listed under the alias "Tim Spooneybarger").

Most of the team’s players couldn’t be more anonymous if they were in a witness protection program.

Ah ok, thanks for writing this sentence. I really didn't know where you were going with this before now, especially because the title and first two sentences did not have the same essential meaning as this one.

And it’s not like many fans are bothering to get acquainted. Those TV ratings for their NLCS romp over the equally unknown Arizona Diamondbacks?

Hockeyesque, folks. Hockeyesque.

Who are these guys?

Get to the point, please. That's 4 statements, 2 rhetorical questions, 2 fragments, and one subtitle saying the exact same fucking thing. Maybe if you watched baseball before (minus Yankee games, and I'm still not sure if you even watch those), these players wouldn't be so foreign. You see, that's the important thing about being an "analyst". You learn about the entire league of teams so that if one of the lesser-known ones makes it to the World Series, you have more important and interesting things to say than, "BREAKING NEWS: World Series Team Not As Famous As Country Initially Hoped".

Brad Hawpe? Is that a right fielder or a typo?

Typo. Definitely a typo. (Side note: typo of spelling what word, exactly? Hawke, I guess?)

Tulowitzki — that’s a tropical disease, right?

Yep, death tolls from Tulowitzki virus are reaching the thousands in Hawaii.

Josh Fogg? Is he any relation to Phileas?

No, actually, but we're still trying to figrue out if he's the distant cousin of Kirk Fogg, the host of the ever-popular kids' game show "Legends of the Hidden Temple"

Then there’s Yorvit Torrealba. I know Torrealba — that’s a resort in the Yucatan, or maybe Majorca, right? But Yorvit? Sounds like one of those designer Scandinavian vodkas that comes in a frosted bottle and costs $12 a shot. Even their manager, Clint Hurdle, is named after a piece of track equipment.

Yadda yadda yadda, we get the point. This is so stupid, and can be done to the players on any Major League Baseball team.

It is a shame, because the Rockies are on an amazing winning streak, a roll like nothing baseball has ever seen. And that’s part of their problem: until the last couple of weeks of the season, they weren’t even in the playoff picture.

If I'm reading this right, Celizic thinks that the Rockies aren't getting any attention becuase they've been on a miraculous comeback run. Makes sense to me!

By the time they went on their almighty tear down the stretch, winning 13 of their last 14 games to force a playoff for the NL wild card with the Padres, sports fans around the country had already moved on to football.

What? Football happens every year. Why is this specific to the Rockies?

Besides, it was all taking place in the NL West, the games starting too late and the division too weak to make more than a ripple in the dreaded East Coast media.

Division too weak!?!??!???! The division with the highest winning percentage in the NL and 4/5 teams finishing the season over .500 is too weak???? Really?

They won the playoff and then seven straight playoff games, removing any sense of drama and competition from the NL playoffs, shrinking their audience even more.

Those IDIOTS!

They arrived too late and too quickly to pay grasp what they were doing

There is definitely something wrong with the 2nd half of this sentence.

especially since for nearly six months before the middle of September, there wasn’t any reason for the country to pay attention to them. Their line-up was made up of kids — a gang of first- and second-year players too new to the business to know that what they hoped to do is impossible.

Welcome back to www.doesnoresearch.hatspot.com

We'll throw out the fact that this last sentence doesn't make any sense. Rather, we're going to count the number of seasons that players in the Rockies' starting lineup have played in the major leagues, removing seasons in which they've played less than 50 games. Sound good?

Taveras - 3 (WS 2005, shoulda known that one, Mikey)
Matsui - 4
Holliday - 4
Helton - 10, a relative dinosaur
Atkins - 3
Hawpe - 3
Tulowitzki - 1 (HE GOT ONE RIGHT!!!!!)
Joetorrejessicaalba - 6 (dude's been bummin around the league since like 2001)

If these kids, who are so fresh and enthusiastic and devoid of braggadocio and bluster, were busting into the game in Boston or New York, they’d have been on the cover of Sports Illustrated by the All-Star break.

Unlikely, seeing as how they were 44-44 at the All-Star break. If they were in Boston or New York, people would be doing nothing at the All-Star break but bitch about how bad they are.

We’d have hailed them as the new faces of a game, the standard-bearers for a new generation of stars who are taking over the game.

Intelligent baseball minds have already done that. Ignoramuses like yourself are still trying to find out how you can suck Joba Chamberlain's proverbial dick.

This year, Troy Tulowitzki, Matt Holliday, Brad Hawpe, Josh Fogg and company were learning their trade and putting up their big numbers in Denver, where the game of choice is football.

It's time to play dan-bob's favorite game! One of these is not like the others.....

Josh Fogg, 2007: 4.90 ERA, 1.46 WHIP.

Hmmmm...well I guess these numbers are technically sort of "big".

And it’s not as if the Colorado franchise is wrapped in a mantle of heroic history and legend. It’s known for its mile-high home park, which is to ERAs what Denny’s Grand Slam breakfasts are to cholesterol levels. It’s not known for its great accomplishments in the regular season, much less the playoffs.

Gotta love it....Hatguy continues to put allusions to unhealthy foods in his columns.

The Rockies have one player with a national reputation — Todd Helton. He’s also the team’s only player making more than the $4.4 million that Holliday, the National League batting champion and the best outfielder most fans don’t know much about, pulls down.

Holliday, to the casually-informed fan, has more of a reputation than Helton. And he still hasn't touched home plate!

The team payroll is around $54 million — one of the bottom five in the game, and if you take away Helton’s $16 million, the other 24 guys are making a combined $38 million, which isn’t enough to pay the left side of the Yankee’s infield.

That’s another reason we don’t know much about them — their salaries. We live in a society that equates income with importance — what other explanation is there for the national obsession with Donald Trump and Britney Spears?

That's just a weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee bit of oversimplification there, Mikey. Is Prince Fielder really less "important" than Jason Kendall because Kendall makes more money?

The average salary in major league baseball this year is $2.7 million. The Rockies have at least 15 players making less than that, 11 players making under a million, and 10 — including starting outfielders Hawpe and Willie Taveras and starting infielders Tulowitzki and Garrett Atkins — making $400,000 or less. That’s not even enough to buy a house in one of Denver’s pricier suburbs.

"Willy". And where is this going?

None of that should diminish what they’ve accomplished or lessen the luster of the terrific crop of kids the team’s management has assembled. In an ideal world, which is one in which people are celebrated for the accomplishments and not their bank accounts, their presence in the playoffs would swell the national television audience instead of shrinking it.

If this is true, then you, Mike Celizic, are one of the chief reasons why we do not have an ideal world.

Go ahead and ignore them if you can’t be bothered to get to know who they are. Then sneer at the ratings they bring to the World Series, if that’s how you get your jollies.

I've made it clear several times that YOU haven't bothered to get to know who they are. And I'm reasonably sure that you think Josh Fogg is the only pitcher on the team. Nice choice, by the way. Fogg. I hear he's the best one!

But don’t turn around and whine about how the game has been ruined by all the spoiled-brat players who are making more money than third-world countries. And don’t ask what happened to innocent kids who play the game for the sheer joy of it.

Ummmm...those "spoiled-brats" were once "innocent kids". Did A-Rod make $20M his first few seasons? A lot of these Rockies players are very good, and will make a lot of money, and will be (mostly unjustly) thrown into the "spoiled-brat" category. Are these Rockies so innocent that they're going to say when they're 30, "No Mister GM, I want to play for less money than I'm worth in the market, because I'm innocent"?

They’re right in front of you. Playing in the World Series. Turn on the television and enjoy the show.

Scene: Celizic's living room, Game 1 of the 2007 World Series.

Celizic: (turns on TV) "Who the fuck is Francis?"

Isn't that some sort of species of fruit fly indigenous to Uruguay?

I'm an east coast bias crybaby

Did everybody notice the MLB headlines this week on si.com, espn.com, foxsports.com etc.

YANKEES STRUGGLE IN LOSS! TORRE TO BE FIRED!

PHILLIES LOSE!

CUBBIES LOSE LIKE THEY ALWAYS DO!

RED SOX WIN!

ummmmmmm.... If you knew nothing about baseball, you'd assume that three teams simply fell apart this week in the postseason, instead of getting soundly beat by an equally matched or better opponent.

Here are some facts:

Phillies pitching has not been very good all season. The Rockies, especially since the all-star break, have had one of the best staffs in the majors, especially after you adjust for park factors.

Yankees pitching has been below average. The Indians have two of the best starters in the AL.

The Diamondbacks have one of the best pitching staffs in baseball as well, and quite possibly the best bullpen. Lord knows how they score enough runs to win, but they do and have all season.

Even in losses, all the major sports news outlets somehow focus the story on all the marquee teams.

unaware the NL west even existed, several baseball "experts" are asked to evaluate it

this will end badly. from jon weisman's "fungoes" blog on si.com- NL West- Rockies in the Discussion. now let me just clarify- i have no problem with weisman himself. the blog itself looks pretty good overall. rather, i have several large problems with all of the people he interviewed for the piece. seven different "smart baseball people" were asked the same question. how many different ways they can be wrong/tragically oversimplistic in answering it? (sorry, this ends up being pretty long... if you don't care about the NL playoff picture, you might want to skip it. but i have no regrets about writing it. three quarters of the analysis in here is absolute baloneyshit. i had to do what i had to do.)

Flying around the bend like Franz Klammer at Innsbruck '76, the Colorado Rockies, with an eight-game winning streak capped by a three-game sweep at San Diego this past weekend, are still vying for a medal with one week remaining in the regular season.

when's the last time you saw a baseball team compared to an olympic skier? just saying.

If the Rockies can get over the hump, do they become the worst nightmare for their potential NL Central and NL East playoff opponents? Or do Arizona and San Diego still offer the biggest challenge? Sunday, I asked several online baseball writers for their thoughts:

and it would seem none of them did any research whatsoever before offering their answers.

Rich Lederer, Baseball Analysts: Arizona has the best record in the National League since the All-Star break, yet it has been well-documented that the Diamondbacks sport a negative run differential. San Diego has allowed the fewest runs in the majors, although skeptics say that is in large part due to the fact that the Padres play their home games at spacious Petco Park. Colorado has the longest current winning streak in baseball, but is still four games back in the West.

ok... good start. where are you going with this?

Hey, it's the playoffs. Throw out the analysis and logic, and bring on the Ouija board.

is that how you got your job?

Anything can happen come October.

thank you for the epic cliche. you must work for FOX's self-promotion department. i can just hear joe buck saying this in his douche-iest "playoff voice."

My hunch is that Colorado would do the best in the postseason, but the Rockies have to get there first.

a hunch. good. again, how did you get your job? however, i do have to give this guy some credit. he clearly doesn't know anything about the NL west; but he more or less admits to it. wait until you see how some of these other clowns try to fake their way through the fact that they have no idea about any of these three teams.

(side note- can you imagine anyone offering analysis like this about one of baseball's more loved-by-the-media divisions? it would sound ridiculous. "who's the favorite in the AL east? the yankees have been really good since may, but the red sox are really good too! let's throw out the analysis and logic and say... shoot, the yankees, i guess. no! wait. red sox. yeah, i'm going with the red sox. on a strong hunch." sigh. welcome to baseball in the year 2007.)

David Pinto, Baseball Musings: Which would I least like to face? The Arizona and Padres offenses just don't produce. They're both around 4.45 runs per game, near the bottom of the league. Adjusting for parks, however, gives San Diego an edge. San Diego's lineup sends good hitters to the plate, where that's not true for the Diamondbacks.

san diego-
team OPS: .727
team OPS+: 98
top 3 individual OPSes on the team: 1.004 (m. bradley, in limited action), .824 (a. gonzalez), .792 (k. kouzmanoff)
number of regulars with an OPS+ of 100 or greater: 6 (including bradley and mike cameron, both injured)


arizona-
team OPS: .735
team OPS+: 89
top 3 individual OPSes on the team: .859 (m. reynolds), .826 (e. byrnes), .819 (c. jackson)
number of regulars with an OPS+ 100 or greater: 5 (including the injured orlando hudson and chad tracy)

san diego has the edge in OPS+ despite having a lower raw OPS because they play half their games at petco park. other than that, the sole big difference is bradley, who is now out for the year. to give pinto the benefit of the doubt, i'll assume he gave his answer before bradley got hurt. but his answer is tragically simple anyways. "san diego has good hitters, arizona does not." use your brain buddy. reynolds and byrnes (whose SBs add an extra dimension of offense) aren't good hitters, but gonzalez and kouzmanoff are? look at the numbers, moron.

[Jake] Peavy and [Chris] Young make a terrific 1-2 punch in the rotation, but Young hasn't pitched well since returning from his injury.

young since his return, including a disastrous outing last night- 48 IP, 34 ER, 6.33 ERA. yeah- i'm gonna go ahead and say he's not really pulling his weight in the "1-2 punch" combo. sadly, the rest of david's analysis is pretty inoffensive, although still extremely oversimplified. but let's skip it and get to the real idiots.


Joe Sheehan, Baseball Prospectus: San Diego by just a little bit, mainly for the edge Jake Peavy has on Brandon Webb, and their having the best offense of the three teams.

that's all joe offers. that's it. peavy is better than webb (true, but how significant is that really? san diego's ace is probably the best SP in the league, and arizona's ace is like the 5th best... what a difference maker.) and san diego has the best offense of the three. before we take that as fact and move forward, let's just make sure it's true.

runs/game:
colorado 5.21
san diego 4.44
arizona 4.42


batting average:
colorado .278
san diego .248
arizona .250


OBP:
colorado .353
san diego .320
arizona .320


SLG %:
colorado .434
san diego .407
arizona .415


oooooooooooooooooooook. thanks for the analysis, joel. baseball prospectus is held is incredibly high regard by so many dedicated baseball fans (read: intense SABR people, who love numbers more than anything when it comes to proving a point). and this is the kind of guy they employ? almost makes me want to side with the joe morgans and jerry crasnicks of the sports journalism world.


D.J. Short, MetsBlog.com: I feel that the Diamondbacks are the biggest threat, simply because of Brandon Webb, who had a 42-inning scoreless streak earlier this year. Something tells me that he could be Orel Hershiser of 1988 revisited.

d.j. and joe from baseball prospectus should have compared answers before submitting. so webb is the singular reason he favors the d'backs. besides the fact that liking a team more than another based on one SP is pretty dumb (even when it comes to the postseason), what about the fact that peavy has a better ERA and WHIP this year? i guess because he didn't have a long scoreless inning streak, his season long dominance isn't worth as much.

(again, just like with the guy who picked the rockies on a hunch, can you imagine this kind of analysis being applied to one of baseball's more media friendly divisions by a so called baseball expert? "yankees or red sox? i'm going yankees, for one reason and one reason alone- i think chien-ming wang is slightly better than josh beckett." that would NEVER happen. welcome to the NL west.)

Led by a scrappy Eric Byrnes, the D'backs show a lot of fight and are more of an offensive force than the Padres.

review those numbers i just gave in response to joe from baseball prospectus, and tell me how this is true. well, the "offensive force" part anyways. the scrappiness part? i gotta admit- eric byrnes is scrappy as hell. he's like a version of david eckstein that actually plays above average baseball and even spends time in the sun occasionally. have you ever seen the way he somersaults on his followthrough every single time he's trying to throw out a baserunner from left field? plus, his jersey always has dirt on it. always. i think he practices his headfirst slide during pregame warmups. what a jackass. what a scrappy, gritty, gutty, hustlerific jackass.

The Mets have dominated the D'backs at Bank One Ballpark in recent seasons, including taking three of four there in May, but all the stats in the world mean nothing once the playoffs begin.

this wasn't asked, but thanks for telling us about how the mets have fared against them. also... the rockies... not really part of the question, then? ok.

Dave Studeman, The Hardball Times: I'd pick San Diego and Arizona over Colorado, because their pitching staffs are built for the postseason: ace starter, good No. 2 and 3 starters, deep bullpen.

the san diego and arizona bullpens are definitely awesome. and they both have an ace. however- let's look at these allegedly sweet no. 2 and no. 3 starters.

san diego
no. 2- chris young, who i've already discussed (6.33 ERA since august 1)
no. 3- greg maddux, 4.10 ERA, 1.24 WHIP (very solid), 6.29 september ERA in 5 starts (not solid), only a 101 ERA+ because of petco (shockingly unsolid)

arizona
i'm not as familiar with the d'backs rotation, so i'll just list the credentials of their next 3 best pitchers after webb, and we'll try to figure out who no. 2 and no. 3 are.
doug davis- 4.27 ERA (ok...), 110 ERA+ (ok...), 142 Ks in 187 IP (pretty good...) 1.60 WHIP (that is awful, for a potential #2 or even #3 guy)
livan hernandez- 4.85 ERA (that kind of sucks), 97 ERA+ (nope), 1.56 WHIP (not even close), 87 Ks in 200 innings (wow)
micah owings- 4.49 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 102 Ks in 146 IP (and a grand slam!)

so i guess owings is probably the #2, and davis is #3... i guess. are those the kind of guys you expect to carry you through the playoffs? i guess, as that one idiot said, "anything can happen in october!" and look at how good jeff weaver, jeff suppan, and anthony reyes were last year for the cardinals. still... neither of these top 3s are even close to elite as far as the whole league goes. although they've fallen out of the playoff picture, the dodgers have a much better 1-2-3 (penny, lowe, billingsley). the braves have an edge with smoltz, a rejuvenated tim hudson, and chuck james. the mets are comparable to both with perez, maine, and glavine. hell, i'll even take what the cubs have to offer with zambrano, lilly, and hill over what the d'backs are running out there. and all that's only in the NL. i mean, this whole argument only exists because chris young and maddux are hurt. were they healthy, the padres would be way better than all these teams in this department. but both have been hurt and performing poorly for a signficant amount of time, and these "experts" should know that.

Of the two, I'd give a slight edge to the Padres because their offense seems just a bit better, and I think a visiting team might have a hard time adjusting to their ballpark.

might have a hard time adjusting how? is the batter's eye covered with pictures of baseballs? is the outfield made out of trampolines? pathetic. and again, imagine this kind of analysis being offered re: the yankees and red sox. it's sad to realize the depth of information offered about certain teams just dwarfs that offered about other very talented and "significant" (as in, playoff worthy) teams.

Bob Timmermann, The Griddle: A question as puzzling as this requires a nap. And after thinking about the topic, I started napping. But once awake, the answer became no clearer.

unfunny. get to your answer.

Each team, if viewed objectively, looks like it should not be able to make the playoffs.

this is nonsense. what is the difference between objectively and subjectively viewing a baseball team's chances at making the playoffs? any act of trying to predict the future is inherently subjective.

I would have originally tabbed the Padres because of their pitching, but I'm just not sold on it.

although you probably don't know why, you are right. i've got $5 that says bob doesn't know young and maddux have been hurt recently.

I would have to go with Arizona because they actually have a manager (Bob Melvin) who seems to best be able to wring out the most from the talent he has available. The Padres are reminding me a lot of the 2004 Dodgers -- in a bad way.

thank you for that great piece of non-analysis. the rockies weren't picked to finish above .500 or 4th in the division by anyone during before the season started, but the fact they're going to do both has nothing to do with clint hurdle. bud black? terrible manager. couldn't wring water out of a wet sponge. (sarcastic joke does not apply to the fact that black just tackled his best hitter on the field, tearing the guy's ACL)

And I think the Rockies are not as formidable once Matt Holliday (who missed games Saturday and Sunday with a strained left oblique muscle, but will try to return Tuesday in Los Angeles) is subtracted from the lineup.

the rockies are not as good when their MVP candidate doesn't play. who'd have thunk? so he missed 3 games, all of which the rockies won, and now he's supposed to be back. and... this works into your answer.... how?

Ken Tremendous, Fire Joe Morgan: I think it's unquestionably the Padres. Although Young hasn't been quite as good since the injury,

young, pre-injury: 20 starts, 1.82 ERA, 0.99 WHIP
young, post-injury: 9 starts, 6.33 ERA, 1.39 WHIP

slight discrepency there.

he still has a WHIP of 1.06 for the season,

not relevant, since he's obviously not the same pitcher since he's been injured.

and he and Peavy are easily the best 1-2 combo in the division.

when healthy, yes. now, no.

No one on the entire team can hit, but no one on the Diamondbacks can hit either, and they only have one good pitcher.

at least all of that is vaguely correct.

Assuming the Pads make the playoffs, I wouldn't be shocked if they went to the World Series.

considering this is baseball, where even the best teams only win 2/3 of their games, and you only need 7 wins to get through the LDS and LCS, i wouldn't be shocked if any of the eight teams that make the playoffs go to the world series. also... the rockies? part of the question? i guess not.

so, finally, let's summarize: weisman asked seven baseball experts whether the padres, diamondbacks, or rockies present the biggest playoff challenge to teams from the NL east and NL central in the postseason.

-2 want to choose based soley on either peavy or webb, 1 of whom picked the padres because peavy is better than webb
-3 think chris young is helping the padres win games right now
-1 thinks the padres have the best offense out of all three teams
-3 fail to mention the rockies at all, despite the fact that they're a single game behind the padres for the wild card
-6 of them fail to mention arizona or san diego's bullpens, both of which are amazing
-1 thinks the diamondbacks don't send good hitters to the plate, but the padres do
-1 made their choice on "a hunch" after "throwing out analysis and logic"
-1 wants to remind us that all the stats in the world don't mean anything once the postseason begins
-1 required a nap before coming up with his answer

ah, online sports journalism. you've gotta love it.

eat a dick espn...

Okay, this is from a complete homer's perspective, but here it goes... go here and check out the NL MVP fan poll on ESPN.com. Click the link to vote for the NL MVP. Notice the names they give. Hmmmmm.... I feel like there might be someone missing. Like maybe someone who's number two in BA and OPS, number one in hits and extra base hits, and number 4 in runs scored and HRs. Oh, what's that you say? He plays at Coors field? Fuck him then I guess.

Eat a big fat dick ESPN.