Brandon Beachy left Sunday’s game when he felt a twinge in his right elbow. His feelings were not met with optimism on Monday, as the MRI taken on his elbow revealed a partial tear in a ligament in his elbow.
The Atlanta Braves have not given any word on what this means, but have said that he will seek a 2nd diagnosis from Dr. Andrews, The most re-known elbow ligament transplant specialist in the country.
Posted in Baseball
Tagged Brandon Beachy, Brandon Beachy elbow, Brandon Beachy MRI
Yahoo Roto Arcade posted an article on Colby Rasmus’s recent streak and pondered whether he has broken thru for 2012 or whether the Blue Jays will see their erratic outfielder come back down to Earth. Fantasy owners and non-believers are gathering around one of the most mind-boggling questions of 2012, but the answer can be worth a league championship IMO.
They talk about his lefty-splits for the season and his K/BB rate to justify that this streak is meaningless, but if they are using his hot streak to justify this conversation, how about looking at how Rasmus stacks up against lefties during the streak?
Two things I see here that I feel benefit Colby in the long run. One thing is that the Blue Jays don’t start him against every starter. He has sat when they played Johnathan Niese and the Mets, he has sat when Matt Harrison of the Rangers pitched. His splits against lefties aren’t good, but the Jays make sure they don’t constantly match him up against hard lefties all the time. Sitting him down against lefties 20% of the time will only have him lose 70-90 ABs this season. Seeing he is a #2 hitter now he’ll make-up for those at-bats on the top of the order as well against pitching he can hit.
Another thing I see is that he is walking and kinda hitting lefties better than I thought. He has 2 walks in the 24 at-bats shown here, and these lefties aren’t necessarily the easiest group to be at-bat against (David Price, Quintana, Cliff Lee, CJ Wilson, Matt Moore). The stretch improves as the days go by.
Also, he has walked twice vs lefties, considering that he has probably only walked 2-3 times during this entire stretch. And over that many at-bats and with the talent of lefties he’s facing, I think along with his streak its a real achievement that he’s at-least doing something against lefties instead of dragging his stats down playing them.
Do I think Rasmus breaks out this season? Very probable. He might’ve needed a little space to grow mentally, and it might have been his fragile ego and his quick call-up to the fire criticism of LaRussa that may have slowed his progress. Hopefully the Blue Jays still have a leash on him where they can encourage his growth in this atmosphere, and that he doesn’t need constant coddling from the likes of his dad.
But if he’s doing a 1 for 4 against good lefties daily, especially since there are only about 3-4 legitimate tough lefties in the AL East, I don’t see how the splits will become a hindrance if his skills improve. With that momentum, I expect to see a .285/24/87/94/16 line at the end of 2012.
With that in mind, I see a buy-kinda high scenario. If you’re crying in your coffee over Lorenzo Cain, Chris Young, or Alex Gordon this season, Rasmus could be your guy to get your team back into shape for the Summer run.
Posted in Baseball
Tagged blue jays, colby rasmus, colby rasmus fantasy, fantasy baseball
Ron Artest AKA Metta World Peace’s case was that he was overzealous in celebrating a dunk over the Oklahoma City Thunder on this great Sunday. But the video shows a very brutal hit to the face of James Harden, and my reaction of total shock.
10 game suspension at least if you ask me. Knowing his history, and how the NBA has been cleaning up the game, wouldn’t be surprised he’s gone for the season. What do you think? Whoever guesses it right I’ll give you a shoutout of anything you want on my blog (keep it clean).
I haven’t written in a long time; hopefully that will be the last time I will say that. Just lost my old website so back to the blog we go. My weekly rant will be small today.
Soooo Yahoo projections gives Mark Trumbo a 1-star vs. a flyball lefty in a hitter’s park? Based on last year’s stats? Are you kidding me? Its Matutz or however you spell the post-hyper’s name. This guy is making a comeback, fangraphs has charted his fastball is getting better and back to where it was in 2010, and he might take the next step in 2012.
But Yahoo didn’t mention that in their scouting. This is what I have to say about it, replace Bret with Yahoo:
YES it is!! Bobby Valentine is butting heads with Youkilis, telling the media that something is WRONG with Lester. What the hell ever happened to the point that maybe Lester had a bad outing?
Anyway, you have him being booed constantly by fans, and Pedroia spoke out against Valentine for his remarks on Youkk. No one likes the guy.
And for that matter, these same issues came about with Manny. Manny was a malcontent, he had issues with some players in the clubhouse (and in the dugout *cough* *Youkilis* *cough*) and with management. He couldn’t be controlled up until the point he was traded out of town.
Where Valentine comes as a correlation, and where one thinks it might be a positive correlation intentionally created by Valentine, is he is hyping his players up to hate him based on how he disses their play.
Let’s face it, there are a good amount of Donnas on this team, and what may have been keeping them cohesive and non-brattish was to have a bigger asshole whom everyone can come together and bash. Manny did it, and we only heard of the issues with Manny, but never anyone else. Manny leaves, and all these Donnas start losing their game, and you then hear how they become negative aspects of the team.
Bobby Valentine sees this, and knows they will play hard if they are trying to prove Valentine wrong. And hate the man’s guts at the same time. Let’s hope it works like it did with Manny, and not like it did with Jimy Williams (I’m taking the former).
Go to MLB.Com and look up some Bud Norris pitching performances in 2011. This guy doesn’t just have electric stuff; this guy can take down the best hitters in the game with no sweat. His K/BB is ridiculous. All he needs to do is avoid big innings (all young players have this issue) and we’re not talking about a #1 ace here.
You watch his stuff. All I’m saying, don’t shoot me when I say this, all I’m saying is that there is some Johan Santana/Pedro Martinez in his stuff. There really is. He gets it together this year, you will be seeing him in the top 40 in next year’s fantasy draft.
I’m warning you early on Buddy, don’t miss out on him. Other than two lousy innings, he might have an ERA or less than 1 right now. Keep an eye on him. Trade for him while his value is LOW and pretty much only mofos like me know about him.
Hell, get MLBTV and watch him pitch. You won’t be disappointed.
Posted in Baseball
On MLB TV today, Harold Reynolds and Dan Plesac (I think) were talking about Rafael Betancourt pitching, and mentioned how hard it is for pitchers because of the altitude and vastness of field.
Plesac talked about how he heard the hardest thing for pitchers he learned from the Rockies pitching coach Apadaca is recovering from starts. He says because of the fatigue of the area pitchers had lighter workouts in Coors than when on the road. This recovery made it hard to pitch consistently on a high physical level.
They also stated how it is very rare to see any pitcher, reliever or starter, have two consecutive good seasons playing at Coors. Legitimate, but something to think about in terms of pitchers in Coors.
Posted in Baseball
This commenter claims to have seen him practice and talked about how his arm looked during the post-game practice:
“Sosh & co are sure trying to make this 3B experiment work. Mark stayed about 1/2 hour extra today taking grounders and throwing to midget coach Dino Ebel at 1B. his throws were all over the place, but he’s giving it the college try. i wish you Angel fans good luck with this (not really but thought id say that to appease the karma gods 
) “
Posted in Baseball, Fantasy baseball
Tagged trumbo, trumbo defense, trumbo fantasy
Edwin is a very gifted hitter, and looking back at 2011, his 2nd half stats showed:
Post All-Star Break
64 Games Played
11 HR
36 RBI
34 walks
38 K’s
.291 avr/.382 obp/.504 slg
The first half was abysmal but he also had been trying to come back from a bad wrist injury. He is capable of a lot of power and rbi’s with his bat; it has been his defense that may have kept his confidence down. Now he is slated to play sparingly in the field and take up the DH spot so in terms of hitting it is all about him. He is very streaky so it is unclear how much he could breakout this season, if at all.
Edwin Encarnacion Links (Outbound Analysis)
March 2012: Poster has a graph showcasing a positive linearity to Edwin’s patience and his 2nd half greatness last year. Showcases he can provide good pop if he works the count at the plate more often.
