The Most Ridiculous Game Ever: Huskies-Baylor

Little did Richardson know, the play had begun.

Perhaps you had noticed that Nick Holt has been fired as defensive coordinator for the Washington Huskies.  Perhaps you asked why?  Why would you fire a man who was so well regarded when we hired him and is best friends forevers with Steve Sarkisian?  Perhaps you are an idiot.  It seems that way.  Hey man, I just call it how I see it.

Yes, the Husky defense was terrible this season, giving up just about 450 yards per game, or roughly the season total in yardage for Kasen Williams.  Now, I would not be opposed to facing Kasen Williams as an opponent each week, but this would only be ok with me if he was the only member of the opposition.  I am confident that Desmond Trufant, Quinton Richardson, and Sean Parker could combine to hold one person under 100 yards receiving.  Sadly, this is not how football works.

Some Thoughts on Tony Wroten

Anyone who has watched a Husky game this year will have noticed Tony Wroten. The commentators make sure of that. Even without the unending praise doled out to him by the commentators, it is hard to miss the big, energetic, super-hyped freshman, as he often plays point guard and touches the ball on almost every possession. The opinions resulting from his play have been all over the map. Some fans love him and some fans hate him. Personally, I am still very divided on my opinion of Tony Wroten. As such I am going to use this blog post to muse about Tony Wroten and his impact on the Huskies (and maybe, by the time I am done writing them, I will have firmed up an opinion.)

Throughout Lorenzo Romar's tenure as UW Men’s Basketball Head Coach his teams have been fast-paced and high scoring. With this style of play comes a certain amount of risk, but it also comes with a potential for a lot of reward (and it is fun to watch). Sure, players are going to have turnovers and they might force bad shots, but they are also going to get highlight reel dunks, wide open fast breaks and draw lots of fouls. Tony Wroten embodies this offensive philosophy to a fault.

Being the most athletic and probably the most naturally talented player on the Husky squad often leads Tony Wroten to try and take matters into his own hands. When the Huskies are struggling to score, Tony often decides charge head first into groups of two or three defenders under the basket in an attempt to make a layup. Sometimes this works beautifully as he makes an acrobatic play and scores two for the Huskies. Sometimes it fails as he throws up a desperation shot that clanks away harmlessly. Most often it results in a trip to the free throw line. The problem with this is Wroten can’t shoot free throws! He is only shooting 52.7% on the season. It doesn’t do much good earning 20 trips to the charity line if you only convert on 10 of them.

When he does look to pass Wroten often finds the most difficult player to reach on the court and tries to make a highlight reel pass. This results in him often throwing the ball to teammates not in a position to catch it. Those errant passes can turn into turnovers, which can often turn into easy buckets for the opposition. Pushing the tempo and running the other team out the door is great and all, but only if you are scoring points because of it. Even with the high level of difficulty, the Dawgs don’t benefit if their point guards passing results in fast breaks for the other team more than it results in the occasional wow play.

When he isn’t trying to put the team on his back, he often looks lost and out of touch with the rest of the offense. His points don’t come in the flow of the game like CJ Wilcox or Terrance Ross’s points do. He just looks out of sync to me. He throws up three pointers when a pass would do or drives into the key right when a teammate is making a cut. Much of this could be because he is just s freshman and only played 11 games with his Washington teammates. Hopefully he figures out how to play in the Lorenzo Romar system soon and finds some on court chemistry with his fellow Huskies.

Watching Tony play you can tell there is hope for the future. He has the potential to be a great player. The occasional slashing drive or precision pass brings out optimism in even the most cynical fan. However, right now it just isn’t all put together. There are too many rough edges. This all leaves a fan to wonder if Tony Wroten will be able to put that potential together before he inevitably jumps to the NBA. Will the dawgs even benefit from his immense natural talent or will we just get to watch the growing pains? I certain hope he stick around long enough to let us enjoy the fruits of this seasons labor.

Brandon Roy Retires

I remember this exact play.
I have no life.

In news that makes me personally very sad, Brandon Roy has retired from professional basketball due to his knees no longer existing.  Sadly, the man that was everything that a Washington Husky should be will never be able to continue to be a basketball ambassador for the state, a role which he has fulfilled better than anyone ever could have imagined.

Looking at Roy's basketball career, its amazing to see how much the guy grew, not just as a player but as a person.  Hell, he was 50-50 for going pro straight out of high school before Romar convinced him to at least play a year for the Huskies.  A few years later, and he's the greatest player in Husky basketball history and among the best Blazers ever, cementing his legacy which, unfortunately, will forever have ended too soon.

Nevada Sucks, Terrence Ross Rebounds

"I'ma love you tender."

Let's get it out of the way: this Husky team is far from my favorite.  They're sloppy as hell, especially Tony Wroten, and they make awful decisions far too often.  Even so, there is a lot of positive in this season already, and I'm more than happy to look into it.

First off, the Pac-12 is terrible, and that's good for the Husky.  Yes, it'll be hard to garner any national respect, but the Husky sure aren't going anywhere huge this year, and a Pac-12 championship, be it regular season or tournament, will easily get them a solid NCAA seed.  UCLA looked like they'd be tough to beat, but have imploded along with Reeves Nelson.  Sure, Cal is damn good and is going to remain that way, but the Huskies are as good if not better thanks to their athleticism.  Strangely, Stanford and Oregon State seem to be the biggest challenges beyond that, and is anybody really worried about them?

A Few Tidbits from Around the Web: Marshawn Lynch, The Seahawk Good at Offense

You might have noticed over the last several weeks that Seahawks runningback Marshawn Lynch has been tearing up the league. Over the last four weeks Beast Mode has run for 591 yds and 5 td and received another 87 with one td. In my fantasy league he has been the top scoring running over that four week stretch. He beat out Ray Rice and Arian Foster. That is really good. In fact it is the best performance by a Seahawk runningback since Shaun Alexander wore the a Seattle jersey. Now if only the rest of our offense could do something. Anyways, to honor the only good offensive player on the Seahawks I have decided to dedicate this entire Tidbits to him. So here are my favorite Marshawn Lynch links.

• Possibly the greatest run in Seahawks history, Beast Mode causes a Beast Quake.
• Seattle Native Kenny Mayne talks to Marshawn back when he was a Buffalo Bill Rookie.
• Seattle Times sports columnist Jerry Brewer talks about Marshawn's upcoming payday.
• A recent great run against the Eagles, definitely reminiscent of the Saints game.
• A quick throwback to Marshawn's college days at Cal.

The Mariners do Something with Stuff and Things

In their first real activity of the offseason, the Mariners have done what I hoped and prayed they would do for some time now, and acquired a catcher.  Say hello to John Jaso, Mariners fans, and keep in mind that the alternative is Miguel Olivo.

Why do I bring this up?  Well, because Jaso is bizarro-Olivo, which is exactly what I like catchers to be.  No power, lots of walks, no arm but solid behind the plate: literally all of Jaso's skills are the opposite of Olivo's.  What this means is that the front office has either a.) come up with a way to combine two human beings into one, giving us one of the better catchers in baseball, or b.) realizes that Miguel Olivo is a terrible baseball player.

So yes, John Jaso isn't exactly a perfect player.  His defense is pretty so-so (at the hardest position, but I digress) and he can't hit too well.  On the plus side, he takes tons of pitches and should do better than he did last year, but not as good as two years ago.  Remind you of Brendan Ryan?  Ryan isn't the .290 hitter he was for the Cardinals in 2009, but he isn't the .210 hitter he was when we acquired him.  As such, if Jaso stabilizes into something like a .320 OBP player, he's certainly a perfectly usable catcher and I'm more than happy that the Mariners got him.  Who knows, maybe someday soon we will have worthwhile pieces all over our lineup!

Excerpts from the Guy Next to Me

Recently, I attended the Husky-Oregon State game.  Yes, it was a rather depressing time to be a Husky fan, but not only because we played so terribly.  It just so happens that the worst kind of fan decided to sit next to me.  While not complaining about the weather, he took time out of his busy schedule to complain about how terrible the Huskies are.  Later, he started throwing things at the polite Beaver fans sitting a row or two in front of us.  The following is a transcript, from memory, of his various comments.  For the sake of our younger readers, all expletives have been replaced with the slightly less offensive "Bobby Ayala."

"God [Bobby Ayala] it, Nick Montana sucks.  It's an embarassment, why do we even keep him on the [Bobby Ayala] team?" (Editor's Note: This was at about the 3rd play of the game.)

"Nick Holt is such a piece of [Bobby Ayala], fire his [Bobby Ayala]!  If they don't fire him right now, the whole athletic department should get [Bobby Ayala] fired."

"Come on 31, you're so [Bobby Ayala] bad.  It's Nick Holt's kid, what a [Bobby Ayala] disgrace.  Look, where's 31?  Didn't make the play again!  He's [Bobby Ayala] worthless!" (Editor's Note: Cort Dennison is not Nick Holt's son, nor is he expected to make the tackle on 30 yard pass plays.)

"Hey! [Bobby Ayala] you, [Bobby Ayala] the Beavers, you [Bobby Ayala] are a disgrace! (Throws cup at friendly OSU fans in front of us who haven't said a word despite a 20 point lead) [Bobby Ayala] you!"

"This weather is [Bobby Ayala] terrible, [Bobby Ayala] this the game is almost over let's leave.  [Bobby Ayala] Nick Holt." (Editor's Note:  This was with about 4 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, when it wasn't raining at all.)

In short, I love the Huskies but great googily moogily, people like this make me not want to.

Seahawks are Their Own Worst Enemy

Open your eyes! that was clearing illegal contact, not pass interference!

The Seahawks season has been turbulent and unpredictable so far. Going into each week we never know how the team will play or what the outcome will be. They have lost games they were supposed to lose (Steelers), won games they were supposed to lose (Giants). The Seahawks have been close against teams only to lose at the end (Falcons) and pulled away early and cruised to a win (Rams). Basically they have been a very inconsistent team. However, the one place the Seahawks do have consistency is in their ability to hurt themselves with penalties.

You know how it appears that the Seahawks have an important drive stalled because they end up facing a 3rd and 30 caused by penalties in every game? Well it isn’t your imagination, they do. Throughout the season the Seahawks have been their own worst enemies, as they consistently find ways to hinder themselves through untimely and stupid penalties. Table 1 shows the total number of penalties the Seahawks have committed and the total numbers of yards surrendered because of penalties in each of their 10 games. With 96, they rank second in the league in total penalties (It should also be noted that only counts accepted penalties.) Only the Oakland Raiders have more penalties, coming in with 103 (I know it is probably just coincidence, but the Oakland Raiders old head coach Tom Cable is now the Seahawks Assistant Head Coach.) That is 96 times that the Seahawks have given the other team free yards or taken away yards from themselves. To put it another way that is 96 times that Seahawks have essentially done the other team’s job for them. So, why is there such a penalty problem?

The first and most obvious reason is probably directly related to Coach Carroll. The style of play that he preaches to his players is a fast paced athlete driven one. He wants his players to run around the field and use their speed, strength and general athleticism to make plays rather than on a complicated system or play package. He is not there to out coach the other team with strategy. To steal a cliché, he likes to let the players play. This style of play also leads to more penalties as guys rely more on muscle and adrenaline than hours of study and practice. Watching the Seahawks you can tell that lots of their penalties are caused by this hyped up athletic playing style. They struggle with personal fouls, pass interferences and illegal contact penalties, which can all be attributed to aggressive and athletic free flowing style of play. With big physical corners, the secondary has been especially suseptible to this kind of penalty.

The Head Coach also attributes to the penalty problem with his general demeanor. NFL analysts always say that coach’s hate penalties more than anything, especially stupid penalties like false starts and delay of games. Seahawks Head Coach Pete Carroll is different. In week 10 the Seahawks penalty problem was especially visible as they committed 13 penalties for 100yd and barely hung on to beat the Ravens. During his post-game press conference Carroll had this to say, “[Penalties] could have lost us the football game today, but it didn’t.” Hearing it live you could tell he was irked but not as upset as many coaches. This is a similar theme at all his press conference when penalties come up. You can tell that he is clearly frustrated with the lack of discipline on his team, but it is more of a secondary issue. From the outside looking in it appears Pete Carroll just doesn’t put the kind of emphasis on minimizing penalties that other coaches do.

The final reason I see for the Seahawks penalty problem is their general lack of experience. It has been widely noted that the Seahawks area very young team. According to the CBS broadcast last week the Seahawks are the second youngest team in the NFL. Prior to recent injuries, the Seahawks offensive line exhibited this youth and lack of experience more than any other group of the roster. Their five starters were included two rookies, a second year player and third year player and Robert Gallery. This youth has led to lots of growing pains. As they learn about the NFL style of play, the O-line has been struggling with false starts and holding penalties.

The first two reasons for the Seahawks large amount of penalties are built right into the design and build of the team. Pete Carroll wants a fast, strong athlete based team, which is going to increase penalties, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Additionally, Pete Carroll doesn’t appear to put an emphasis on decreasing penalties like other NFL coaches. Neither of these is likely change. The third reason should get better as our players age and gain experience. However, the Seahawks front office has made it their goal to keep a young team, so we should always have some problems with inexperience. As long as Pete Carroll and his staff stay in charge of the Seahawks we should expect to see the Seahawks get flagged for a higher amount of penalties than the league average. As fans we are just going to have to get used to it.


Sources: Yahoo Sports

2011 MLB Season Recap

Way back in March we made some predictions about the MLB's five best and five worst teams for the upcoming season. Now, another MLB season is in the books and the World Champions have been crowned. However, between our preseason predictions and the final out in October a lot of baseball happened.

Despite his teams overall lack of success, LA Dodgers CF Matt Kemp made a serious push for the NL triple crown. He finished the year in third for batting average (.324), first in HR (39) and first in RBI (126). This was all good for a wRC+ of 171. Surprisingly, Kemp's awesome season wasn't even the best in the league. He finished second in the NL and fourth in baseball. The most impressive offensive season belonged to Jose Bautista who finished the year with a wRC+ of 181. His season would have been even greater had he not cooled off in the last two months and batted only .260 with 12 HR. You will notice that neither Kemp (NL HR leader) nor Bautista (AL HR leader) managed to hit 50+ HR. Their seasons helped to prove that the steroid era has officially come to an end.

On the other side of the game, pitchers continued to dominate. In the off season the Phillies set up one of the best rotation in the history of baseball by adding Cliff Lee to the existing rotation of Roy Halladay, Roy Oswalt, Cole Hamels and a fifth starter. This dream rotation didn't disappoint. The Phillies starter's had a 2.86 ERA and 932 Ks. Even with the Phillies awesome starters they didn’t have the best individual performances. Justin Verlander and Clayton Kershaw led the charge, as each won their respective leagues pitching triple crown. At only 23 Kershaw had probably the best season in the bigs and added his name to a growing list of young aces.

Probably the most exciting moment of the season happened on the last day when there were four teams (Red Sox, Rays, Cardinal and Braves) that had to win on the 162nd day to make it into the playoffs. The Red Sox (a pre-season favorite) and the Braves lost on this final day showdown finishing epic collapses and letting the Rays and Cardinals into the playoff. After earning there unlikely playoff berth , the Cardinals bested all comers in the MLB playoffs and took home their 11th World Series Title. So, before the off season free agent frenzy and front office shakeups kick into full gear lets take a look at the USTN preseason predictions and see how we did.

Table 1 shows our predictions for the five best teams and who the actual five best teams were. We managed to get 3 out of the five teams correct. The Rangers, Yankees and Phillies all dominate the league as we predicted. The Yankees and Rangers with their bats and the Phillies with their arms. If it hadn't been for a final month meltdown by the Red Sox we would have gotten a fourth team correct, but as we all learn the BoSox just love fried chicken and beer too much. Really, just our prediction of the White Sox sticks out as bad. However, if you read the pre-season post you will see that they were a kind of throw in. We really only picked them because we need a fifth team. This isnt a great excuse, but I still think it is a valid one.

 Table 2 shows our predictions for the five worst teams and who the actual five worst teams were. Overall we did a pretty crumby job on this one, missing on three of the five picks. We only managed to get the Mariners and the Royals right. Royals just barely squeaked in as they finished in a three way tie for fifth worst. Luckily the Mariners easily met our expectations. The biggest glaring mistake of all the preseason predictions was the Arizona Diamondbacks. Not only did they finish out of the bottom five but they actually finished the season in the five best. I suppose I should have known that bullpens are very volatile and that they couldn’t be as terrible as they were in 2010. However, as far as I am concerned this one really came out of nowhere.

Why I Hate You: A Simple Guide

No one likes Nickelback.  More specifically, no one with a soul likes Nickelback.  They can't even spell nickle correctly.  They embody everything douchey in the world really, and everybody knows it.  However, when you stop and think about it, it's often hard to think of just WHY you hate them, or really anything else.  I mean, why are such things as greasy long hair douchey?  The same applies to sports: how can one be sure they hate any specific team?  While I certainly can't give you a reason for all your unfounded hatred, let me at least try.  Because without hatred, what is sports other than a fun past time that doesn't cause health problems?

San Jose Earthquakes are Jerks

On Saturday night the San Jose Earthquakes took on the Seattle Sounders FC at Century Link field (the field formerly known as Qwest). This game was the last regular season game ever for famed Sounder's Goal Keeper Kasey Keller. To celebrate his career, the Seattle fans showed up in droves, 64,140 of them to be exact, setting a Sounder's attendance record. The Sounders rewarded the loyal fans with an exciting come from behind victory. Additionally, on an emotional night dedicated to him, Kasey Keller made an amazing series of saves to prevent the Earthquakes from pulling to far ahead. However, the thing about this game that really struck me was how dirty the San Jose Earthquakes played.

Admittedly I have very small sample size, one game, but the Earthquakes appear to be a team full of bully's. They had four yellow cards issued to four different players in the game. They tackles hard and dirty the whole game. Several times they grabbed and held back Sounder preventing them from making a play. All the fans could see it an let the Referee's know what they were missing with their boos.

More striking than the yellow cards were the two fights San Jose players started with Seattle players. The first fight started when an Earthquake slide tackled Alvaro Fernandez. It was a hard tackle but appeared clean, but some of the players started jawing. Than things escalated when an Earthquake shoved Mike Fucito in the back. This really pissed off the Sounders and caused a whole group of players to group up and start pushing and shoving. After a couple of minutes, the Referee finally gained control and broke everything up.

The second fight was much more egregious. After a hard battle over the ball a San Jose player pushed Seattle star Osvaldo Alonso in the back causing him to tumble to the ground. This attack didn't sit well with Alonso, who is a bit of a fireplug himself, and he quickly stood up and charged the San Jose player. The Referee really struggled to break this one up as neither the San Jose player nor Alonso wanted to back down.

Basically, after watching all the fouls and the two fights, it became obvious to me that the San Jose Earthquakes are a bunch of jerks. I have never been a fan of dirty teams, be it the Pittsburgh Steelers, Philidelphia Flyers or anyone else. This dislike of dirty teams now extends into professional soccer. I will now be rooting hard against the San Jose Earthquakes anytime I see them.

Hockey Has Reappeared

Watch, for his sake.

After months and months of really not caring at all, everyone's prayers have finally been answered.  That's right, hockey has started up once again!  Whether you're a fan of NHL 12 or simply are aware of what hockey is, your 5th or 6th favorite sport is back.  There's no reason to worry about anything anymore; just sit back, relax, and wonder why the shootout still exists.

Of course, there's more to this NHL season than just vague entertainment for the masses in Minnesota.  Indeed, there are tens nay, elevens of interesting stories!  For instance, there's the ongoing Sidney Crosby concussion story.  After getting laid out twice last season, Crosby's been out for an awful long time trying to regain the ability to stand up without wanting to vomit.  It really is somewhat horrific how badly concussed Crosby was, made all the worse by the fact that he's far from the first to have such problems in the NHL.  Hopefully this, coupled with Manny Malhotra's unfortunate eye incident, will help the NHL begin to protect their players' heads better.  Because if Sidney Crosby is out, then the NHL will most certainly respond to help their Golden Boy.

Suck for Luck, Not Worth It

Last year’s Heisman Trophy runner-up was Standford QB Andrew Luck. As a red shirt junior at Stanford, he threw for 3332 yds, 32 td and 8 int, while completing an amazing 70.7% of his passes. He was so good on the field and in the minds of scouts that he secured himself the guaranteed number one overall selection in the 2011 NFL draft. Than in early 2011 he shocked the world by deciding to return to Stanford and finish his degree, rather than enter the NFL. Luck turned down millions of dollars in guaranteed money for another chance to win the Heisman, win the National Championship and finish his degree (because college is important kids!). He also extended hope for NFL franchises weak at the QB position, that weren’t the Carolina Panthers, for one more year.

Now with the 2012 NFL season under way and prized college QB Andrew Luck a little closer to being available, many franchises are starting to see their hope of snagging him turn into a reality. Fans all across the NFL, including those in Seattle, have started Suck for Luck campaigns. The fans that are part of these campaigns are rooting for their teams to lose for the chance at drafting Andrew Luck first overall in the 2012 NFL draft. These supposed loyal and supporting fans are turning their backs on the present in hopes of a brighter future. The theory goes suffering through one really bad season would be worth the agony in order to get the best available player in the NFL draft. A player many think is the best and most NFL ready QB sense John Elway.

Luck has been described by many NFL scouts and experts as a can’t miss pick. However, over the many years of NFL football, there have been lots of other can’t miss top end QB prospects. Guys like Ryan Leaf, Joey Harrington and JaMarcus Russell (or Aaron Curry if you leave the QB position) were all pegged as future NFL stars. They were all supposed to be franchise savers. Yet, none of them turned out to be quality players.

The point is a draft pick, no matter how good the player was in college, is never a sure thing. The football played in the NFL is much faster and hard hitting than that played in college. There are not division two opponents to pick on and walk on CB to burn. Not everyone can make the transition from the NCAA to the NFL.

Even if Luck can make the transition into an NFL star, there is always the injury bug to worry about. In a sport as violent as professional football, injuries can ruin the career of even the most promising player. Even top draft picks are not protected from susceptibility to injury.

Take for example the case of the 2008 Lions, who went 0-16, which is the worst season record ever. For that miserable season they were reward with the first overall pick, which they used to select Matt Stafford. During the few games he has played Stafford has looked good. The problem is he has only played in 17 games of the potential 36 during his 3 year career. Stafford career has so far been struck by the injury bug. During the span of Stafford's career the Lions have won 12 games is 36 chances. It is still early in his career and it might all turn out good, but the Lion’s fans suffering through an 0-16 season didn't suddenly turn them into contenders.

I am sure the Lions fans, the real fans, would have rather the Lions won a few games. The joy brought from your team winning a game now in the present is worth more than the potential that they might win a game in the future. Think about last year and the Seahawk’s win over the Chargers where Leonnnnnnnnn Washington returned two kicks for TD, or the win over the Saints in the playoffs and how you felt watching those games. Would you have traded those wins for a chance to draft a QB who might turn into something special? Most fans wouldn’t. You watch your team’s games to see them win and experience the emotions that come with those wins.

So, to all the Suck for Luck promoters out there I ask, what is the point of even having a team if you can’t ever enjoy the present and have to look towards the future?

Sources: ESPN.com, Yahoo Sports

A Salute to Seattle Mariners I Never Want to See Again

Positive reinforcement!

Baseball thrives on statistical analysis.  One of my favorite writers, Joe Posnanski, recently commented on the fact that only in baseball can one throw up a random stat line and get a picture in their head of who that player may be.  With today being the last day of the baseball regular season, it is time to truly look into these statistics and realize that age-old truth: the Mariners are terrible.

Yes, I know it's nothing new.  In fact, the terribility of the Mariners has a storied history, ranging from the Van Winklean longevity of Diego Segui's suck to the overwhelmingly varied suck of Yuniesky Betancourt, a man who could exhibit every single baseball skill in the exact wrong way.  Of course, as a Mariners fan, one can always hope to get rid of players like that, even if there is little chance that our wishes will come to fruition.  As such, it is time to look back at the 2011 season and pick out the players who really shouldn't ever play on the Mariners ever again.

A Few Tidbits from Around the Web

Writing original and thought provoking posts can be so taxing on the mind. So I will work on them later. Time for me to post more content without doing any creative brain work. Here are some links to interesting sports related web content, enjoy!

• It is no secret that the Seahawks offense has been terrible. The Onion got this exclusive as to why.
• The Mariner's ownership group is one of the most mysterious in professional sports. The Seattle Times wrote this interesting piece about them.
• After stumbling aroudn the internet, I ran into this semi-serious post about closer walkup songs.

People Who Are My Favorite

It has come to my attention that a lot of what I write is fairly negative.  Of course, this is the one thing holding us back as a nationally respected news outlet.  No player wants to hear negativity about themselves, and as such our blog gets held down to avoid hurting anybody's feelings.  This stops today!  As such, I am here to introduce to you a list of players that I love, regardless of sport.  Who knows?  If you're really lucky and ask nicely, maybe I'll even say why I like them.  That way other players can try to emulate them (here's looking at you, the entire National Football League) and also be my favorites.  Even with this exciting undertaking, let's agree that nobody likes Boston.

Manute Bol: I never said they had to be alive! (editor's note: they really should be alive.)  Not only was Bol a somewhat hilariously single-minded player, the man was great off the court, contributing huge amounts to improving his homeland.  Furthermore, the man used to fight off lions when he was nothing but a mere 7'7" sheep herder and coined the term "my bad."

Curtis Granderson: Sure, his stats are ridiculously inflated by playing in a park specifically designed to give him homeruns.  Sure, his defense is pretty average and he can't make much contact.  Even with all that, Granderson (question: why does Blogger say it is spelled wrong here but not above?) is a productive player who is quite hilarious in his blogging (check Yahoo! Sports) and wears his socks so high as to be completely adorable.

Evander Kane: He knocked out Matt Cooke with one punch as a 19 year old.  That is all that matters.

Mauro Rosales: My brother and I attended the first Sounders home game this year.  Rosales came in as a sub and I immediately decided he would be my favorite.  I can only assume that, upon hearing of his newfound burden, Rosales decided he must live up to that title and immediately became an MVP threat despite getting payed the veteran's minimum.  I know how to pick 'em!

Ryan Kesler: Because interview bombing is an art.

Matt Bonner: He created the Coach B Fundamentals of Basketball video, which is hilarious.  He is also the Sandwich Hunter.  Hilarity forever, as well as (strangely) excellent basketball ability.

Cameron Maybin: Being a Padres fan, there is very little happiness nowadays.  Pretty much the entire roster is spare parts, with very little hope for the future beyond Anthony Rizzo and his .125 batting average (hooray!)  Luckily, Maybin makes me believe that somebody in San Diego knows anything about baseball.  The guy got traded for Miguel Cabrera, then everybody stopped caring and the Padres got him for practically nothing.  Now THAT'S awesome.  Admittedly, I rarely get to see him play and haven't heard a peep from him, but he plays great defense (7.5 UZR) and leads the Padres in homers.  In other news, he has nine homers.  Damn Padres.

Seahawks Week 1 Reaction: 33-17 defeat

Below are my thoughts and reactions to our disappointing loss to the 49ers in week 1. If you're interested, here's some reaction and analysis of the game from Field Gulls, 17power, and HawkBlogger. I might have hit up on a few things they didn't, but I probably sound like a broken record if you've read those since there appears to be a lot of consensus in the Seahawks blogosphere.

• The first-half offense..yikes. It’s going to be a long season if the Seahawks offense decides to show up an hour and a half late to every game. Even worse than expected, the offensive line allowed way too much pass-pressure and the run blocking was no better. There’s no way T-Jack is off the hook either with the terrible pocket presence he showed and holding onto the ball way too long at times. Those 5 sacks were a shared responsibility between him and our line. On one play Golden Tate had his coverage burned but TJ overthrew the ball on what would have been a sure TD. The 49ers offense wasn’t much better, but their o-line at least played well enough to give Alex Smith some time and set up those FGs.

o Okung appeared to uncharacteristically struggle at times with a few penalties and allowing a big sack on 3rd-2. I wonder if this is at all related to the ankle sprain he endured earlier in preseason. I’ll have my eye on him in particular next week.

o James Carpenter and Breno Giacomini looked like they were the most abused. Carpenter in particular had trouble with speed-rushers. Don’t start up with the hysteria about him being a bust yet. We’re still experiencing the lockout fallout effects and he’s a huge work in progress. That being said, he’s probably on Tom Cable’s shit list and if Robert Gallery is back next week then I wouldn’t be surprised to see Carpenter sitting this one out.

o I didn’t notice much from John Moffitt and Max Unger..I think that’s a good thing (?).

• The Seahawks defense -run defense in particular- was great. They limited the 49ers to 209 yards of total offense, 1/5 in the redzone, and 1/15 on third down conversions. Yes...the 49ers offense is nothing to write home about, but holding a past Seahawks killer, Frank Gore, to 2.7 ypc is no small feat either. I believe few teams did that last season against him. We knew our defense was going to be the most consistent part of the team this season, but they showed some real potential this first week.

o Of all the big name FA acquisitions we’ve had this off-season, re-signing Mebane to a reasonable contract might have been the biggest. Mebane is one of the guys who probably won’t rack up lots of sacks and garner much fan attention, but he is passively contributing by drawing double-teams and collapsing the interior.

o The secondary wasn’t bad either and looks much better than last year. Although the Niners game plan obviously called for screen passes and such, it looked like we forced Smith into some checkdowns when they wanted to throw further downfield.

o Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor are the real deal. These two are the youngest safety tandem in the league. They both had a couple tackles for lost yardage at critical times. ET was everywhere and Kam is going to be one of those guys that severely disincentivizes receivers from running routes into his coverage zone. On one play, he was gearing up to put a huge hit on Vernon Davis but pulled back as he realized the ball was overthrown and avoided any chance on getting called for a late hit. Smart.

o Brandon Browner also played well and looked like he had Braylon Edwards frustrated for most of the game. There’s going to be a lot of temptation from Seahawk fans to curse him for all the pass interferences he’ll likely attract, but that’s the nature of the beast when you have a 6’4’’ 210lb cornerback. Keep in mind those PIs are still much more preferable to giving up big plays Kelly Jennings style. The PI call on him in the end zone was unfortunate since it looked like Braylon Edwards was the first to push off him. A much worse shit call on him was the roughing the kicker penalty. David Akers should have been a soccer player with that flopping.

• Tedd Ginn Jr thinks he’s the new Leon Washington..but not quite since his 2 TD returns weren’t against the Chargers. Nonetheless, Ginn is damn fast and a legitimate special teams threat. I wonder how much it hurt not having Michael Robinson and Byron Maxwell (both injured with sprains) on special teams during those returns. In fact, I just read a bit ago the Seahawks signed FB Eddie Williams. Watching the game, it looked like they simply played way too aggressively on the kickoff return and left the outside lanes wide open. Just about anyone I know is faster than whoever our kicker is because it looked like he was in a position to push Ginn out of bounds. *Sigh* Josh Brown would have nailed him…

• Conservative QB play. I’ve read a lot of Seahawks fan reactions looking to lynch T-Jack for playing so timid and not giving looks to wide open receivers. I think once we’re deeper into the season and Rice is back, we’ll (hopefully)start seeing him make some decent long throws downfield, but for now the emphasis on QB play will be more about ‘not losing the game’ as opposed to ‘winning the game.’ And that’s absolutely intentional by PC. I think everyone is still stuck in last season’s mentality of seeing Hasselbeck throw aggressively downfield in futile attempts to put us back in the game. That time is over, and it’s for the better.

In summary, this is one of those losses that is not nearly as bad it seems and there’s definitely some silver lining. Our solid run defense will be a good foundation to build on and the offense in the 2nd half recaptured momentum in a meaningful way that the Niners never had. More importantly, they hung in there despite the awful first half display and put us within a 2 point differential in the 4th quarter before special teams blew it. A win is a win, but if I’m a Niner fan (and I used to be) I feel like I’m heading into the next week with more question marks than us. They can’t rely on Ted Ginn Jr. to bail them out and we know something about that with Leon Washington from last season. Lastly, this isn’t a season where we evaluate success in terms of just wins and losses. At this point in the re-building phase, we’re probably more interested in evaluating key individual performances (Russell Okung, Kam Chancellor, etc) and developing the pillars of our team (run defense, gelling of offensive line, etc). Keep that in mind.

Comments? Any other significant points to add?

On another note, ill plan on following Kevin’s lead and get out a post on the top 5 NFL teams for 2011 soon before next week. Since I’ve seen about 6% of the season, I’ve got an edge.

Philip Rivers is a Jerk...?

Something that I notice recently is that there is a general consensus around Seattle fandom (myself included) that Philip Rivers is a jerk and a general bad sport. Many fans would go as far as to call him an A-hole. This interests me because I cant figure out exactly why he has this reputation. Sure he flipped off the crowd a few years back, but plenty of other players have done similar things and managed to shake the jerk reputation. The biggest example of this is Ray Lewis, who was an accomplice to a murder, yet fans still love him. Rivers has definitely produced on the field (58 TD to 22 INT in the last two seasons) to a point where most players would earn fans, but he just doesn't. His negative vibe appears to hurt him in the wallet also, as he doesn't have very many, if any, national endorsements. It seems to me that Rivers must exude a natural aura of jerkiness because for whatever reason people just don't like him.

NFL 2011, The Bottom Five

After a long and boring lock out and a fast and exciting preseason, the NFL regular season has begun. As is customary around here at USTN we are going to breakdown the top five and bottom five teams in the league. This will give you a chance to see who will be playing with the Super Bowl in their sites and who will be playing with Andrew Luck in theirs. Our football super-fan Tyler will be covering the best five, so look for his post shortly. I, Kswiss, your less football obsessed author, will be previewing the worst five teams.

In past years you could start your list with the Lions, Raiders and Browns in ink at the bottom and work on filling in the final two from there. This year, picking the five worst teams was a bit of a challenge. There appears to be a lot of mediocrity in the league this year. Only two of the five teams jumped out at me as guaranteed bad. The one common characteristic you will see in all five teams is questions about the ability of the QB. The NFL is a QB driven league and quality play at that position is required to find success. In the past teams with weak QB talent tend to struggle and this year should be no different.

Trades that Matter: MLB 2011

"Soon I'll have your rotation spot, Miss Iowa!"

Every year in Major League Baseball, there are a few trades that shake up the whole league and make a big difference in the playoffs.  Be it Cliff Lee pushing Texas to the World Series or Carlos Beltran hitting like a thousand homeruns, trade season is always exciting.  Of course, now that rosters are about to expand, no traded players from here on out can be on the playoff roster, meaning that moves are just about done for the year.  Of course, this gives us a chance to look back at the least important trades of the season, excluding any trade that only involved one player and cash and/or PTBNLs.

Three Seahawks to Consider Liking (or think slightly positive of) in the post-Lofa Tatupu era

With Lofa Tatupu and Matt Hasselbeck gone, there seems to be a lot less to cheer about as PC boasts a team of mainly talented young players that have yet to prove themselves. To help ease the pain, here's what I think are a few underrated Seahawks that should either play a good season, have some strong upside in the long term, or are just flat out fun to like. Much to the dismay of Matt Swanson, two of my picks are what he described as 'solid choices' in filling the shoes* of Kelly Jenning's haterade.

Leroy Hill - Prominent ESPN writers who are never ever wrong have described Hill -along with Daryl Washington and NaVorro Bowman- as one of the three emerging linebackers in the NFC West. I'm not sure I would go that far as Hill is 4-5 years older than both of those guys, but Hill has reportedly had a great camp and has definitely put on a pretty good showing in preseason. He's been reading defenses well, made some good plays, and in general playing with the aggressive form that got him drafted in the first place. Hopefully this is him channeling his off-the-field problems into the game. But most importantly, his one-year signing makes him a low-risk gamble on a player that is still talented. As much as it hurts, cutting Lofa Tatupu makes more sense given Hill's prospect for decent veteran linebacker play this season.


Kam Chancellor - Another shiner in camp, Kam has had a huge presence in run support and had quite a few tackles for lost yardage in preseason games. At 6'3'' he looms over most other DBs and fulfills PC's vision of a monster strong safety. Given his performance thus far, I could see him having a strong first-season similar to the one Earl Thomas had last year. Hopefully he's benefited from watching Lawyer Milloy play last season and learning how NOT to play strong safety. Come on, Matt, have you ever seen Kelly Jennings -or many Seahawks DBs before him for that matter- hit like this or this? The closest Kelly Jennings could ever get to that is by paying Leonardo Dicaprio to break into his dreams and plant those memories (they call that 'inception' in the dream-trespassing-corporate-espionage industry).

Jon Ryan - Yes, I know what you're thinking: "Hurr hur what a punter omgwtfbbq!" The reality is that Jon Ryan actually had a relatively big and underrated impact on the successes of last season. He only had one touchback all of last season and ranked 5th amongst all punters in fair-catch percentage. During last season's final game against the Rams, he had four punts within the other teams 10-yard line. One of them was on the 2nd yard line. Also, he's in general awesome.

And unless you haven't already, you should already be liking -in some cases lusting- returning Seahawks Earl Thomas, Russell Okung (if the guy can stay healthy), Mike Williams, David Hawthorne, Leon Washington, Chris Clemmons, and Raheem Brock.



Your thoughts? Other nominees?

*Ironically, these would actually be small shoes as I believe Kelly Jennings wears a size 6 in young boys.

Three Seahawks to Consider Hating in the post-Kelly Jennings era

With Kelly Jennings gone, so too is our number one method for relieving stress and anxiety. I mean, come on, you know exercise, stress balls, or even masturbation will never come close to the proven method of screaming Kelly Jenning related slurs/insults at the TV. So instead of resorting to hitting your significant other*, I want you to consider three Seahawks you should use to fill that empty void of hate:

Tavaris Jackson - At first during the preseason, I was happy to make excuses for TJ due to the terrible pass-protection and poor play in general from our young offensive line that got screwed from the lockout. On the other hand, he has thus far not been holding up his end of the bargain when it comes to dealing with pressure packages. In pressure situations, QBs are also responsible for either throwing it away or dumping off to an open player in the flats. The past games he's started we've seen a lot of him holding onto the ball way too long and retreating backwards for lost yardage instead of rolling out of the pocket. If Jackson maintains the starting position with below-mediocre QB play (just not bad enough to justify Charlie Whitehurst), he should be a top candidate for directing your Seahawk related fury at.

Aaron Curry - If Mr. Magoo was black, had a more intimidating posture, and played football, they would call him Aaron Curry. He is one of the most aloof players on defense; always in the wrong spot at the wrong time. Tricking Curry with play-action is a lot like pretending to throw a ball for your dog and quickly putting it behind your back - you know, when the canine briefly chases off only to stop for a whole minute and realize something is not right. Fortunately, management has finally caught onto this and re-structured his contract to make this season his last. This could very well be his last year as a Seahawk unless he finally starts making some plays.

Golden Tate - When he's not stealing maple bars or pissing off NASCAR fans (but does anyone really care about NASCAR?), he's dropping passes. One of Tate's latest bobbles in preseason against the Vikings first-string defense resulted in a interception TD. Even though PC & Schneider have shown that they won't hesitate to cut their losses with respect to personnel, I have a hard time believing they won't give a roster spot to a player they gave a first-round grade to in the draft.



Your thoughts? Other nominees?


*The views expressed in this post do not necessarily the represent the views of the Unique Sports Themed Name blog. They could very well be pro-domestic violence, but I've always been a writer that goes against the grain.

Kelly Jennings is Gone

"Not fair! No jumping!"

As of today, Kelly Jennings, master defender, is no longer a Seattle Seahawk (or really any kind of Seahawk.)  This may not be forever, but we can always dream that it is.  The Seahawks traded the former first round pick; drafted in front of Mathias Kiwanuka, Greg Jennings, and Maurice Jones-Drew, to name a few, to the Cincinnati Bengals today for DT Clinton McDonald, who I am sure is a football player.  That's right, the Seahawks managed to take a low first round pick from a few years back and turn it into a 2009 7th rounder who has played 8 games in his one year.

A Few Tidbits from Around the Web: Larry Bernandez Takes Over the Baseball World

The Seattle Mariners have had a runaway success with their Larry Bernandez commercial. The supposedly fake star of the commercial has become one of the fan favorites. Jerseys have popped up all over Seattle and people have even taken to dressing like the "star". It makes you wonder if the Mariner's marketing guys had any idea what they were creating. As such, I see it as fitting to dedicate this edition of Tidbits to Larry Bernandez.

• The commercial that started it all.
• The newest commercial from the Mariners adds to the legend of Larry.
• Nike has even got in on the action releasing a Hair-itage shirt.
• He has even taken over the King's Court.

Best Player Ever: Matt Stairs Retires

Your Uncle Matt.

Reading through a Joe Posnanski article (read him, then you'll know nothing I do is original), I found this stat line:

.262/.356/.490
.262/.356/.477

The top is Reggie Jackson's career line, the bottom Matt Stairs'.  It seems a bit ridiculous to look at that and realize just how close some of their overall stats were if you eliminated the 6000 more at-bats that Reggie had.  Matt Stairs, of all people, has numbers like a historically great power hitter.  If you really think about it, though, why not?  The man swung for the fences literally every single time he came up to the plate, and, despite a diet of beer and more beer, he had a lot of power in him.

Mariners Acquire Funny Names

Thank goodness he's wearing pants.

On some teams, you're lucky if the funniest name available happens to be "Casper," and why not?  It's a solid name, fairly fun sounding but not ridiculous.  There is no shame in a team having a Casper as their funniest player name.  The Mariners, of course, aspire for only the greatest in all aspects of their organization (editor's note: except the baseball part), and as such not only acquired one Casper Wells, but also the immortal Charlie Furbush.

Alright, to be fair, the Mariners had to pay a high price to acquire such hilarity.  Yes, Doug Fister (you barely even know 'er!) will be sorely missed, both for his pitching ability and his hilarious, juvenile name.  I mean, the Mariners really had never been graced with such a hilarious name as Doug Fister in their history, but I suppose the public wanted a less horrifying image brought up by their funny names.  Now Charlie Furbush?  Come on now. Family appeal right there, that's for sure.  That may just be the greatest last name in sports since Gerald Firecrotch joined the New York Knicks in the 1960s (look it up.)

NHL Offseason Part 3: The Flames Won't Win It

Champion.

Continuing our 30 part series on why NHL teams suck, let us move on the pride of the worst part of Canada: the Calgary Flames.

1. Centers matter usually:  Quick, name the Flames' first line center.  Stop drinking that hot liquid, because you're about to spit it onto your dinner date for a very embarrassing situation, because it's Olli Jokinen.  Yes, the Olli that was a minus-17 last season.  The Olli that wins a mediocre 47% of his faceoffs and scored a mediore 54 points in 79 games.  The other centers? Matt Stajan and 700-year-old Brendan Morrison.  If you hadn't caught my drift, Olli is very, very mediocre (beyond the occasional mustache he sports.)  Sure, that can be ok for your third-line center (ask Kyle Wellwood!), but you usually want a good player centering Jarome Iginla.  If you agree with this last statement, you obviously don't work in the Flames front office, as they have no desire to bring in any other good players.  Which leads me to....

Seahawks QB situation post-lockout

The news: The NFL lockout is over, but so is Matt Hasselbeck’s time as a Seahawk. Last March he walked away from an offer of a $7 million 1-year contract. In what was probably a classy move by most accounts, Carroll and Schneider recently called Matt up to thank him for his contributions to the organization, but let him know that they have decided to “go in a difference direction.”

And congratulations, Seattle, as that new direction -for the time being- is the duo of Charlie “Clipboard Jesus” Whitehurst and the other less known Michael Vick, Tavaris Jackson! Jackson agreed to terms of $8 million over 2-years. With his ties to Bevell in Minnesota, we knew he was a real possibility.

Why a Whitehurst-Jackson duo is not the interim QB answer: When I first read the news that we weren’t bringing Hasselbeck back and instead signing Jackson, I had to focus on not spontaneously combusting. After that I tried to remain optimistic. I thought to myself “Hey, maybe Jackson will have a 2008 type season where he started 5 games and ended up posting a 95.4 passer rating.” Over the past two seasons he actually possesses the best overall passer rating out of all the viable free agent QBs. As Mike Sando notes, he actually has a better career passer rating than Kevin Kolb – yet that’s really more of a reflection of how overhyped Kevin Kolb is than an actual comment on Jackson. But that’s about as ‘glass half full’ as I can get about Tavaris Jackson.

The reality is that Tavaris Jackson is leaving a team that had a more stable offensive line, a plethora of offensive talent to work with, and an effective run game with Adrian Peterson. Why would one expect him to suddenly improve under objectively worse conditions with the same offensive coordinator?

Some Seahawks fans and commentators have objected to writing off Charlie Whitehurst arguing that he’s had very limited play time. Fair enough, but the play-time we’ve seen has been unimpressive to say the least. In last season’s game against the Buccaneers, early in the 1st quarter Hasselbeck managed to sustain an offensive drive which finished with him rushing untouched into the end zone sustaining an injury typically seen in retirement homes. After taking over for Hasselbeck, Whitehurst went on to only throw for 66 yards for the rest of the game. Even Whitehurst at his best has not given me much to write home about. During last season’s final regular game against the Rams, his 61-yard throw to Ruvell Martin was blatantly under-thrown and arguably should have been a touchdown by most league average QB standards. His persistent tendency to scramble under pressure, give only one look, and general lack of pocket awareness are real deal-breakers.

What’s more, both guys have the same basic skill set. For the most part, they have the same positive attributes (mobility and strong arms) and weaknesses (reads and progressions). In that sense then, we are asking two similar QBs to compete for the starting job. There isn’t really any absolute competition taking place within the QB position.

To be sure, Carroll had the intention of bringing in Matt Leinart to also compete for the position. That shows Carroll and Schneider aren’t confident with the current QB situation either. They could make more moves still and at this point more (actual) competition should be welcomed. Since there’s no compelling argument that suggests the duo of Jackson-Whitehurst is better than the status quo of Matt Hasselbeck at QB, I’m left feeling even more doubtful about the Hawks ability to compete this season while re-building.


P.S. At least Tavaris Jackson doesn’t have to worry about this from Chris Clemmons

Goodbye Matt Hasselbeck, You will be Missed

Back in 2001 the Seattle Seahawks traded for a bald, slightly pudgy, non-athletic looking back up QB from Green Bay named Matt Hasselbeck. With only two unremarkable seasons as Brett Favre’s backup in Green Bay to go on, Hasselbeck appeared to be mediocre at best. The fans had mixed feeling about his future with the Seahawks. After two consecutive mediocre seasons, as the Seahawks starting QB, a still bald, slightly pudgy, non-athletic looking Hasselbeck appeared to be in the decline of his career. The 12th man had mixed feelings about his future as the Seahawks starter. Then, on July 26th 2011, the Seahawks parted ways with Matt Hasselbeck.

Looking only at the beginning and end of Matt Hasselbeck’s career with the Seahawks a lot of similarities can be seen. Looking at these ends, someone not familiar with the Seahawks would probably view Matt Hasselbeck as a rather unremarkable NFL passer. They would probably wonder what all the fuss over a mediocre talent leaving is about. However, like any good story, by skipping the middle they would be missing out on a lot of really good stuff.

During his 10 seasons in Seattle Matt Hasselbeck accomplished more at the QB position than any other player in the Franchise’s history (except maybe Dave Kreig). He had three Pro-Bowls seasons. The best of these was 2005 when he threw for 3459 yds, 24 td and only 9 int all good for a 98.2 QB rating. He set the all-time passing yards records for the Seahawks with 29434 yds. In more recent seasons, he provide a sense of stability to a Seahawks offense whose personnel was often in flux. Just knowing that number 8 would be under center provided many Seahawks fans with a feeling that we had a chance in any game. Most importantly, he led the team to six playoff berths, including the magically 2005 Super Bowl run.

For someone like me who didn't start actively following the Seahawks until around 2003, Matt Hasselbeck is really the only QB we have seen. Sure, guys like Trent Dilfer and Seneca Wallace started a few games, but for the vast majority of the snaps Matt Hasselbeck lined up under center. His prevalence during my football watching existence had a huge impact on me as a fan. During that time he taught me exactly what a quality west coast passer should look like. Through his actions both on and off the field he presents an example of a sports star that was both humble and confident. A delicate balance that is very rare in the modern sports world. He showed me what good sportsmanship looks like and made me want that from all my athletes. For all these contributions my sports fan life I thank him.

Goodbye Matt Hasselbeck, you will be missed.

Source: Yahoo Sports

NHL Offseason Part 2: The Avalanche Won't Win It

Google Images tells me this is Peter Budaj.
I am inclinded to agree.

Continuing in our 30 part extravaganza on why every NHL team sucks, today we look at the Colorado Avalanche, who apparently have a full team and not just Paul Stastny.

1. Goaltending: Alright, the Avalanche couldn't save a shot to save their life last year, and I apologize for using the word "save" so often but it's true.  Peter Budaj (.890 SV%) doesn't exactly inspire confidence, so the Avalanche needed to get a new goalie.  While they did this, they did it in the worst way possible.  Semyon Varlamov wanted off the Capitals (a team that he was the third goaltender on), was willing to leave the country to get off of them, AND was a restricted free agent.  The Capitals had no use for him and wanted rid of him, meaning that if anybody offered any sort of offer sheet for him, the Caps would take their second round pick compensation and call it good.  So of course the Avalanche traded a first rounder AND a second rounder for him, because they don't know how trades work.

NHL Offseason Part 1: The Predators Won't Win It

This cost as much as their first line.

With the NHL off-season finally under way, just like we all hoped for, we are given the chance to look at the only league not shutting themselves down.  As such, this begins our thirty part session of why each NHL team will not win the Stanley Cup, based on the summation of their roster and various other factors, such as wind speed and number of Russian players named Ovechkin.  First up: the Nashville Predators!

1. Their leading scorer: Quick, who led the Nashville Predators in scoring last season?  If you guessed Sergei Kostitsyn or Martin Erat, congratulations! You are looking on Yahoo! Sports just like I am.  That's right, these two accomplished men, fresh off seasons in which nobody on Earth knew who they were (including Mrs. Erat), managed to be the leading scorers on an NHL team.  Sure, they would have been sixth in scoring on the Vancouver Canucks, but what do you want?  Oh, people who are good at scoring goals?  My bad.

Taking the Coach's Advice

I was perusing the my Yahoo Fantasy Baseball free agent list the other day, looking for catchers, when I came across Chris Iannetta. What caught my eye about Iannetta was his .373 OBP. This is really high, one of the highest in the whole league. I decided to click on Iannetta and learn a little more about the Rockies catcher. That is when the real surprise happened. I found out the Chris Iannetta is only batting .220. You read that right, his OBP is .153 points higher than his AVG. This is crazy! Obviously Iannetta took his little league coach's advice about a walk being as good as a hit to heart.

Seeing Chris Iannetta's huge differential got me wondering about the differences between OBP and AVG in the major leagues. Of qualified leaders, who has the biggest difference? Are there any other players in the league that suck at hitting the baseball, but still manage to find their way on base at eye popping rates? To find out i turned to fangraphs. Figure 1 shows a a list of all qualified leaders who have at least a .100 point difference between OBP and AVG.

Figure 1

The answer to the first question, who has the largest difference between OBP and AVG, doesn't surprise me. Jose Bautista is having a monster year. He is batting .336 and had 31 hr by the all-star break. This means opposing teams are terrified on of (proof reading is for chumps) him, which leads to lots of walks, both intentional and unintentional.

The real surprise to me is the answer to the second question. There are several other players who are crappy at hitting, but who still manage to get on base, like Chris Iannetta. Carlos Santana (maybe he IS the same person as the guitar player, it might explain the hitting), Mark Reynolds, Carlos Pena and Jayson Werth all own low AVG with much higher OBP. However, the ultimate differential belongs to Adam Dunn, who is hitting a measly .160, but still managing to get on base at a .292 clip. Looking deeper into Adam Dunn's stats I came to the conclusion that he has just quit swinging the bat. Dunn has a BB% of 14.6 and a K% of 36.3. Combined that is 50.9% of his plate appearances where he fails to put the ball in play, amazing!

Sources: Fangraphs

Matt Misses You, Sports: Part 1

Going into my fourth week here on the Hood Canal, I've been fairly out of the loop for the sports world.  Yes, I'm not a big fan of this, but it's one of those things that you just have to live with.  Besides, I'm sure nothing interesting has happened lately.  Here's a few thoughts I've had on what I think has been going on lately:

• The Mariners finally called up that Dustin Ackley kid.  He should be pretty good eventually, but he'll struggle this year.  He's probably batting about .220 about now and playing shaky defense.  Oh well, we'll have to live with it.
• The NBA Draft just finished up I do believe, that was probably interesting.  Good thing the NBA has to have worked out their whole labor struggle by now and didn't have that ruining the affair like the NFL did.  By the by, they've shored up their labor agreement by now right?  They're not that stupid.
• The Women's World Cup: Did Landon Donovan grow his hair out?
• The Oregon football team sure seems clean-cut for all their success.  What a breath of fresh air to see a group of kids without any baggage winning at a high level.  Kudos to Chip Kelly on being such a high character individual.
• Shouldn't Shawn Kemp's kids be college age by now?  I mean, shouldn't they be good at basketball?  I hope something comes of that.  A college could recruit all of them and field a team for a couple years, that'd be cool.
• Hockey free agency.  That's something right?  Word on the street is teams will need a lot of help to get to the salary floor.  Good thing there are such quality free agents as Tomas Fleischmann and Brett Lebda available!

The Mariner’s Offense Sucks, Pass the Blame Around Part II

Much like Carlos Peguero, Mariners starting catcher Miguel Olivo has been a wreck at the plate this year. So far he has an AVG of .222, OBP of .267 and SLG or .399. You read that right; he has an OBP of .267. To compare, Worst Player in the League Yuniesky Betancourt has an OBP of .255 with the Brewers. Some might argue that catcher tend to be worse offensive players; so to judge his true offense value, we should only compare him to other catchers. This argument doesn’t hold water. When you compare his wRC+ or WAR to all other qualified catchers on Fangraphs, he comes in dead last. This isn’t some kind of down year either. Olivo has a career wRC+ of 80. That means we can’t even hope he starts producing at his career levels. Even for a catcher, Miguel Olivo can’t hit.

Despite this awful offensive performance, he gets a ton of love from the Mariners fan and analyst community. I think some of the reason for this is that he is second on the team in HR. However, the majority of the reason is because Miguel Olivo isn’t Rob Johnson. After suffering through two years of atrocious catcher play from Rob Johnson, Mariners fans are eager for anything else. I once found myself wishing that Guillermo Quiroz would stick, just to end the Rob Johnson debacle. However, this lack of being someone else is not an acceptable excuse for Miguel Olivo’s poor hitting. The Mariners need to get more hitting out of the catching spot.

The problem with Olivo is the Mariners don’t have any simple solution. There isn’t a minor league catcher that has shown any batting skill waiting to be called up. The existing backup, Chris Gimenez, is actually somehow worse at hitting than Olivo. On top of that Olivo brings other things to the table, besides his offense (which is good considering how bad his offense is) which might be helping the team win games.
Among the Hispanic players, Olivo has become a team leader. The other guys look up to him. As long as they aren’t trying to emulate his offense, this is a good thing. As a player Olivo has always acted like a professional. It would be a good thing for his work ethic and competitive fire to wear off onto the younger Mariner players. It is one of those intangibles that coaches and reporters are always talking about requiring but there is no way of measuring.

In addition to his leadership Olivo appears to have done a great job with the pitching staff. Ranked by ERA, the Mariners pitchers are the fifth best in the major league baseball. I am sure that means he has one of the best catcher’s ERAs in the league. However, catcher’s ERA is more of the sign of correlation than causation. It doesn’t really measure the impact of a catcher on the pitcher’s skill. I don’t know of any readily available statistic that measures a catchers impact on a team’s pitching. Regardless of a lack of a metric, the Mariner’s pitchers are on a roll, set to have the best season as a group in Mariners history, and we probably should give Olivo some of the credit for that.

That is where the problem lies with Miguel Olivo. His two positive traits, his leadership and his handling of the pitching staff, are immeasurable. We can’t directly relate either to team wins. We just have to accept that in the leadership and pitch management department Miguel Olivo is helping the Mariners win games. So, how do we know if his positive input from the intangibles is outweighing his negative input from the hitting? How do we know if we even need another solution at catcher? We don’t. We just have to accept Eric Wedge playing him at starting catcher everyday as proof in the Mariner’s belief that Olivo helps them win games. This is a crappy solution for a team so terribly in need of offense.

As I see we are stuck with three possible outcomes to the Olivo problem:

·         The first is we just accept things as they are, hope his intangibles really are doing something and keep ignoring the fact that he can’t hit a lick. This is the worst choice, but also the most likely to happen.

·         The second is we trade with another team for a new catcher that can hit. This is the ideal solution. The problem is catchers that can hit don’t come cheaply on the trade market. They are rare and very valuable. I just don’t see the Mariner’s being able to make a good trade that brings new catcher here.

·         The third and the solution I would like to see, is just a little bit of a spin on the first. The Mariners keep Olivo, but they reduce his playing time, and by doing that reduce the negative impact he has at the plate. In his place they keep trying any of the plethora of minor league catchers floating around in the organization and hope one of them breaks out. This allows Olivo to continue to offer his intangibles to the team without hurting the team offensively on a daily basis. It also opens the door to the possibility of finding someone, anyone, else to play catcher for the mariners on a Daily basis.

Sources: Fangraphs, Yahoo Sports

The Mariner’s Offense Sucks, Pass the Blame Around

The Seattle Mariners are sitting at 39-40 and only 2 games behind the Texas Rangers for the AL West lead. They have achieved this record almost entirely because of their pitching staff. This has been much discussed in the Seattle sports seen. The pitchers are truly great. The starting five have a combined ERA of 3.16 and trail only the Phillies and their staff of aces. Once they figured out who was good and who needed to be sent back to Tacoma, the bullpen has also been lights out. Led by Brandon League and David Pauley they have a combined 3.50 ERA.

Despite all this pitching prowess, the Mariners have managed to only win exactly half of their games. This is because the offense is epically terrible. As of Monday, the M’s have a team wRC+ of 79, which means as a whole they are 21% worse than the major league average. The team’s offensive futility can be expressed more traditionally by looking at the AVG, OBP and SLG. In those three categories the Mariners are hitting .227/.295/.338. As a group their hitters deserve a big old FAIL.

When you break the team down and examine the plate struggles more closely you can see that no one position is to blame. Every position on the Mariners has performed below average except, thanks to Justin Smoak, first base. Some of poorly performing players have been publicized quite a bit. Guy’s like Chone Figgins, Jack Cust and Michael Saunders get hammered (or in Saunders case got hammered) by the press and fans alike for their struggles at the plate. However, other failures at the plate seem to go unnoticed, specifically, Carlos Peguero and Miguel Olivo. The situations and solutions related to each are unique; Carlos Peguero’s situation is an easy fix while Miguel Olivo’s is much more complicated. However, one thing is for sure, if the Mariner’s offense is going to improve they are going to have to get more out of the positions these guys play.

Let’s take a look at the Carlos Peguero Situation first. It is less complicated and has a clear fix. I will take a stab at Miguel Olvio and what to do there in the next post.

After the watching Michael Saunders fail miserably at the plate for the first couple months of the season, the Mariner’s sent him down to Tacoma. Taking over for him in left field has been a combination of Mike Wilson (now back in Tacoma), Greg Halman, Mike Carp and most frequently Carlos Peguero. Fans and commentators across Mariner’s nation have become enamored with Peguero. Looking at his massive powerful frame and witnessing his all or nothing swing it is easy to see why many Mariners fans want him to succeed so badly. Peguero shows the signs of someone that might someday turn into a legitimate offensive threat in the big leagues. Mariner’s announcer Dave Sims like Peguero’s approach so much he went as far as to say he looked like a Stargell or McCovey style player (USTN writer Matt ranted on that here). Unfortunately, so far all Peguero has shown is promise. His natural athletic features haven’t translated into baseball success.

On the season Peguero is batting a measly .205 with a wRC+ of 85. On top of not being able to collect many base hits, Peguero doesn’t walk and strikes out all the time. He only has seven walks on the whole season and two of them are intentional. He has struck out 40 times for a staggering 34.2% K%. His biggest strength has been his strength. So far he is slugging .419, which is impressive considering how infrequently he actually gets hits.

At the major league level Peguero is not effective. To replace him the Mariners have two other Tacoma alums, Greg Halman and Mike Carp, currently on the big league roster. In limited major league playing time Halman has a wRC+ of 172 (and, unrelated to the topic of this post, he offers a very noticeable upgrade defensively over Peguero). Mike Carp was on an unbelievable hitting tear, down in Tacoma; in 56 games he had a .353 AVG, 19 HR and 58 RBI. So far in his sporadic major league playing time he is putting up an exactly league average wRC+ of 100. Both of these guys are currently having their playing time blocked by the Mariners insistence on putting Peguero in LF and both would offer offensive upgrade. With 37 games and 127 PA under his belt, Peguero has proven to be way over matched at the major league level. The best solution for both the Mariners and Peguero would be to send him back down to AAA, where he can work on his hitting approach against easier pitching. The guy shows serious potential but he just has not put it together yet.

Sources: Fangraphs, Yahoo Sports

News Flash: Rob Johnson is Still Terrible at Hitting!

The Mariners have a long full history of poor performing players on their roster leaving ,by trade or free agency, only to have them succeed else where. I dont know if it happens more to the Seattle team than other, but as someone who follows them closely it sure seems like it. In recent history, guys like Mike Morse, Matt Thornton and Shin-Soo Choo have all been dumped by the Mariners during cold streaks only to have them move on and find success elsewhere.

However, I have good news for those fans out there that are sick of seeing all of our ex-players succeed elsewhere. It is also bad news for the Padres. Former Mariner's starting catcher Rob Johnson still sucks. Through 38 games he is batting a measly .180 and has a wRC+ of 41. That guy is still terrible at hitting.