|
|
|
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Job News ... FinallyA couple weeks ago, I discussed the contract negotiations I was going through regarding a new job. I had to keep the actual details quiet, because things were still going on behind the scenes in order to get everything finalized. I initially expected to get the go-ahead to spill the beans relatively soon, which is why I hinted at what was going on.Had I known the whole process would be delayed for various reasons, I would have at least tried to keep things to myself for a while longer. In other words, as amusing as it was to watch people here and elsewhere speculate about my new employer for the past two weeks, it was never my intention to build up this much drama or suspense. Thankfully, everything is now set in stone. In addition to maintaining this blog for going on five years, I have written for a number of other outlets, both online and print. Chief among them for the past several years has been RotoWorld, which also syndicated my columns to places like FoxSports.com and USAToday.com. I officially became a full-time RotoWorld employee in March, gaining the title of Senior Baseball Editor. Since then I've helped run the baseball section of RotoWorld.com while providing daily content of my own covering both baseball and football, and have written for and helped edit the Beckett-published Fantasy Sports Monthly. It has been a wonderful experience in just about every possible way and I'm pleased to announce that things are about to get even better. Three of the four major broadcast television networks have become major players in the online sports marketplace, with FoxSports.com and CBS.Sportline.com competing with the ABC-owned ESPN.com for a growing readership that some estimates peg at around 70 million people per month. Meanwhile, the fourth major network, NBC, has remained relatively dormant. That's all about to change. NBCSports.com is undergoing a complete overhaul and will have a from-scratch re-launch in conjunction with the start of the network's new Sunday Night Football, which kicks off the NFL season by debuting tonight. The goal is to compete with industry leaders ESPN.com and FoxSports.com by offering news, scores, stats, video, columns, and fantasy games. RotoWorld and its parent company, All-Star Stats, have been sold to NBC Sports and will be a major part of the new-and-improved site. The acquisition and NBCSports.com's overhaul have gotten an incredible amount of press, so rather than try to explain the details I'll point you to articles from USA Today, the Associated Press, Media Week, Broadcasting & Cable, Reuters, and MediaPost. As part of the site's re-launch, NBCSports.com has brought in mainstream media veterans like Tom Curran of the Providence Journal, Alan Abrahamson of the Los Angeles Times, Darren Rovell of ESPN, and John Walters of Sports Illustrated to anchor the football coverage, and will roll out a similarly impressive roster of writers for other sports in the coming months. Which is where I come into the picture. I've agreed to a multi-year contract to join the NBCSports.com stable of writers, covering both baseball and football. I'll be focusing on the same RotoWorld-based fantasy content during the site's infancy, with my role expanding gradually once NBCSports.com begins to fully take shape. In my brief writing career, I've been lucky to get in on the ground floor several times, from starting up this blog back when few people even knew what a "blog" was to creating The Hardball Times three years ago. I've found the start-up experience to be incredibly rewarding on a number of different levels and am thrilled to be getting that opportunity again with one of the country's largest media outlets. I've spent much of the past couple months learning about both NBC Sports and its parent company, General Electric, and in the process have become very excited about the direction NBCSports.com is headed. There's an incredible leadership base in place to carry out an aggressive and detailed plan, and I'm proud to be part of it. In terms of how this impacts the good people who come here each day to read my thoughts on the Twins and Jessica Alba, the answer is "not much." As part of my new agreement with NBC Sports, I will cease writing for various other outlets, but I made sure to include a stipulation in my contract that allows me to maintain AaronGleeman.com (it was harder than you might imagine). Beyond that, I promise to continue taking the mainstream media to task when they deserve it, despite the fact that I'm now arguably a member of the mainstream media myself. Scary, huh? I also promise not to become a shill for everything NBC, although I must admit to watching and loving the first two seasons of The Office recently and buying a GE speakerphone for a conference call last month. So, there you have it. This news is pretty huge for me, but is no doubt underwhelming to those of you who took my lengthy silence on the issue to mean that it deserved any kind of drama. With that said, it does allow me to dream about meeting Jenna Fischer at an NBC holiday party some day. I even have a conversation-starter lined up for when we cross paths. I learned last night that Fischer, whose brilliant portrayal of Pam Beesley has me incredibly smitten after watching a couple dozen episodes of The Office in a row, is married to screenwriter James Gunn. Why is that noteworthy? Because his brother is none other than Brian Gunn, who ran the now-defunct Redbird Nation blog and has contributed a number of articles to The Hardball Times. More amazing than me somehow convincing myself that she would care about such a thing is that I stumbled upon this information only after writing the above line about meeting Fischer at an NBC get-together. The lesson? It's a small world when you write about baseball and crush on actresses, and you should always check IMDB.com to see which celebrities the people you know are related to. While you ponder that and whether or not I'm deserving of a restraining order, make sure to check out the redesigned NBCSports.com, which featured an article by Yours Truly on the front page yesterday. If Jenna isn't impressed by that, I don't have a chance.     
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Twins 8, Devil Rays 0There's plenty of interesting stuff to discuss from last night's game, but I'd like to focus on Johan Santana. Once upon a time, this site was basically devoted to talking about Santana on a near-daily basis. I used to analyze his every appearance, campaign for him to be put into the starting rotation, and more or less fawn over him whenever possible.I've cooled on that somewhat over the past couple years, in large part because there's little need for a one-man Santana-praising machine these days. He's established himself as baseball's best pitcher and has received the national attention that comes along with that lofty standing. My goal was always to convince everyone that Santana was The Next Big Thing and that's clearly been accomplished.  Rather than marvel at and talk up each great outing Santana turns in, he's sort of become a forgotten man in this space. In fact, it's almost to the point that I discuss everything but Santana. He's been so automatic, both this season and in past years, that in many ways he's the least-interesting part of the team to discuss. After all, there are only so many ways to say someone is great. However, while watching Santana make the Devil Rays look silly last night, it struck me that I've gone from jamming his greatness down everyone's throats each day to taking him for granted, which is a shame. Santana picked up his MLB-leading 17th win of the season last night, putting up the following line against Tampa Bay: IP H R ER BB SO HR PITSantana improved to 17-5 on the season, including 8-0 since the All-Star break, and further cemented his status as one of the most dominant second-half pitchers in baseball history. He's now 43-9 with a 2.56 ERA after the All-Star break during his career, which is incredible until you consider his ridiculous second-half numbers since becoming a full-time member of the starting rotation in 2003: GS W L ERA IP H SO BBI'm really not sure what to say about those numbers, because they're so far beyond "good" or "great" or any other adjective that trying to describe them with one would just be silly. Since moving into the starting rotation for good three seasons ago, Santana has made 55 second-half starts and is 38-3 with a 2.05 ERA in 373.1 innings. Seriously. Thirty-eight and three. Two-point-zero-five. Back when Santana was just getting started on his annual second-half run, it looked like he might get screwed out of a second straight AL Cy Young Award. Santana was the best pitcher in baseball last season, but thanks to sub par run support and some bad luck he won just 16 games and finished third in the voting behind Bartolo Colon and Mariano Rivera. Just a few weeks ago it looked like Roy Halladay, Justin Verlander, Jonathan Papelbon or even Francisco Liriano would rob Santana again this season, but now he's the clear frontrunner with less than a month left on the schedule. Take a look at how Santana ranks among AL pitchers in the three big categories: WINS ERA STRIKEOUTSIt took a while, but Santana has finally claimed the top spot in wins, and leads the next-closest pitcher by 12 percent in ERA and 16 percent in strikeouts. For better or worse, those three stats (and saves, under certain circumstances) are what voters look at almost exclusively, which means Santana pretty much has the award locked up barring a collapse down the stretch. Not only is Santana atop the AL rankings in the three triple-crown pitching categories, he also leads all of MLB. If he can keep that up, he'll become just the eighth pitcher in the history of baseball to do so, joining Walter Johnson, Sandy Koufax, Lefty Grove, Grover Alexander, Hal Newhouser, Dazzy Vance, and Dwight Gooden as the only MLB-wide triple-crown winners. How's that for exclusive company? Even if he falls short of leading all of baseball in wins, ERA, and strikeouts, Santana can still make history. Since 1950, the only pitchers to win the AL triple crown are Roger Clemens (1997, 1998) and Pedro Martinez (1999). In other words, as great as Santana has been, he's in rarefied air this season. Let's say it once together, for old time's sake: FREE JOHAN SANTANA!
Monday, September 04, 2006
Notes From the WeekendSome notes I typed up while remembering why people used to refer to entries here as "Gleeman-length" ...The other version is that the Twins found a way to win once in Yankee Stadium despite not having Johan Santana, Francisco Liriano or Brad Radke on the mound, and managed to keep pace in the Wild Card race while the White Sox played the Royals. Which version you chose to accept as the truth probably says a lot about how you view the team in general. I suspect many would peg me for the "failing to make up ground" version, but I had low expectations for the trip to New York and was prepared to begin this week looking even further up at Chicago in the standings. Staying a half-game behind the White Sox while trading three games against the Yankees for three games against the Royals on the remaining schedules is a win for the Twins, even if it took losing twice to do it. Before that can happen, Christensen reports that Liriano will throw a bullpen session today, pitch a simulated game Wednesday, and then head to Rochester to start a Triple-A game Saturday. Those are a lot of hurdles that still need to be cleared, but at least there's a light at the end of the tunnel now. All of which is good, because it's looking less and less likely that Radke will ever pitch again. A 15th-round pick back in 2002, Harben put up very good numbers in the low minors and came into this season with a 3.23 ERA and 394 strikeouts in 390.2 career innings. However, his development took a major step backward as he moved up to Double-A for the first time this season, with Harben posting a 3.89 ERA and horrendous 74-to-67 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 122.2 innings at New Britain. I still like Harben's chances of becoming a quality major-league pitcher, because he throws pretty hard, gets tons of ground balls, and keeps the ball in the ballpark. Even during his struggles, he's still held opponents to a .254 batting average this year. With that said, he's already 23 years old and the Twins aren't lacking in young pitchers who project as middle-of-the-rotation starters. It's debatable how far he's fallen, but it should be clear to anyone with a working set of eyes that he's no longer making what were once relatively routine plays for him. Meanwhile, if you trusted the Twins' television broadcast, you'd never know that Hunter has changed at all. Even fans who are able to form opinions beyond what Bert Blyleven tells them seem willing to look past Hunter's decline defensively because he's been hitting well lately. That's ironic, because Hunter's less-than-outstanding offense has always been excused due to his excellent defense. That line of thinking is valid, because if someone is catching everything in center field, it's easy to overlook their not coming up huge numbers at the plate. Similarly, when someone comes up with homers in bunches like Hunter has lately, it's easy to overlook their mediocre defense. However, when the player in question is supposedly the "face of the franchise" and eats up 15 percent of the payroll, the whole either/or approach doesn't quite work. Hunter's recent homer binge has been wonderful to see given how little he helped the Twins offensively for much of the season, but once that lets up the Twins will be left with the same good-but-not-great hitter, except without the defense. Viewers tuning in for the opening of the Twins-Yankees telecast Sunday afternoon on WFTC got an unexpected surprise.It's sad that a newspaper has to treat readers like infants just because there were some "bad words" involved in the story being reported on. Instead of describing what happened like reporters do with every other story in the newspaper, that piece actually makes what took place involving Blyleven more confusing. Thankfully, plenty of you sent in adult-friendly versions of the incident. Here's a report from reader Nick Scribner: While he was talking about Joe Mauer in a pre-recorded video clip, he all of a sudden said, "We gotta do this f***ing thing over again, I just f***ed it up." He then said, "Oh, we're live?" He continued to apologize for his "use of language" during the pre-game and at the beginning of the first inning.See what I mean? You learn more about what actually took place in 50 words from some random person who watched the game on TV than you do in 150 words from a reporter in the state's largest newspaper. I'm sure Blyleven will get in trouble, because a segment of the population is offended by such things. What offends me more than someone mistakenly saying a word is that his employers have to "review the situation" and "could find itself in hot water" with the government. Actually, as the season wears on, what offends me most regarding Blyleven is his continued massacring of the English language and disinterest in adding any sort of actual analysis to games. Once upon a time Blyleven was the goofy color commentator who added a little humor to his analysis, but those days are gone. He can't seem to find time to offer up any kind of insight in between circling fans in the stands and botching players' names, and has recently stumbled upon the annoying habit of attaching "type" to the end of every description. As in, "Justin Morneau is a power-type hitter, "this is an important-type situation for Joe Nathan" or "Santana is a strikeout-type pitcher." I happen to like Blyleven. I think he deserves a place in the Hall of Fame and is someone who would probably be incredibly fun to hang out with. However, I've gradually grown tired of his on-air persona as it's taken on caricature-like qualities. The broadcasts are often almost painful to listen to and I find myself watching Twins games with the sound off more and more. LaPanta is a massive step up from Bremer when it comes to telling the story of what's happening during the game and I have a sneaking suspicion that he has a few Bill James books on the shelf at home. My favorite LaPanta-Blyleven exchange took place yesterday, when Hunter failed to track down a long fly ball that ended up being an RBI double that started the trouble for Matt Garza. It was clear that Blyleven wasn't going to say anything about Hunter's involvement in the play, even after a half-dozen replays. LaPanta finally said something like, "I expected Hunter to make that play when it was hit." That was predictably met with about 10 seconds of silence, at which point LaPanta just went on with the play-by-play. Between LaPanta's surprisingly stellar job subbing for Bremer over the weekend and Roy Smalley's solid effort stepping in for Blyleven last week, I'm starting to view the Twins' regular broadcast team in a different and less-flattering light. As much as Bremer and Blyleven are ingrained in Twins fans, a LaPanta-Smalley broadcast would be a lot more professional, insightful, and easier on the ears. On the other hand, Souhan deserves some praise for his most recent column. And yes, you read that right. Souhan is the epitome of a hack sports columnist and has done more to advance the myth of Hunter as the "face of the franchise" than anyone, but he's also now one of the few members of the local media to address Hunter's declining defense in a meaningful way. Nice work, Jim. Now see if you can avoid making another Wizzinator reference for a few weeks. Tyner's batting average is still above .300, which is surely what most fans see when looking at his contributions, but he's drawn a total of six walks in 173 plate appearances and all but four of his 51 hits have been singles. The end result is a poor .307/.335/.337 hitting line that Tyner masks by hitting for an impressive-looking average. Imagine how different things would be in the eyes of many fans if Tyner's .335 on-base percentage and .337 slugging percentage came along with a .275 batting average. All of which isn't to suggest that Tyner hasn't been valuable to the Twins, because he has. When Hunter went on the disabled list, he stepped into center field and did a fantastic job, and Tyner also provided a short-term spark in left field once Hunter returned. However, perception might be running away from reality as Tyner continues to play nearly every day in left field. Yesterday's St. Petersburg Times talked of Tyner turning his career around with the Twins and becoming "one of their fiercest weapons," which is the sort of thing that sounds good until you look past his incredibly empty batting average. WILD CARD W L WIN% GBThe Twins begin a three-game series in Tampa Bay this afternoon, while the White Sox head to Boston.
|
E-Mail: AaronGleeman@Gmail.com 
www.myspace.com/aarongleeman Read Me Elsewhere Rotoworld NBC Sports MinnPost Fat-O-Meter First Time: 92.5 pounds This Time: Still fat Minnesota Twins Stuff Minneapolis Star Tribune St. Paul Pioneer Press MinnesotaTwins.com LaVelle E. Neal III Joe Christensen Stick and Ball Guy Seth Stohs Nick Nelson Will Young Over The Baggy Howard Sinker Twinkie Town John Bonnes Phil Miller Jim Mandelaro Twins Territory Mike Decaire Pat Neshek Sports Stuff Dead Spin The Big Lead AOL Fanhouse The Hardball Times Baseball Prospectus Baseball Think Factory Baseball America U.S.S. Mariner Baseball Toaster Baseball Musings Minor League Ball Al's Ramblings 6-4-2 Bill Simmons Fire Joe Morgan Shyster Ball Rob Neyer Joe Posnanski Gregg Rosenthal MLB Trade Rumors Sports By Brooks MMA Mania Five Ounces of Pain Fan Graphs Non-Sports Stuff Gorilla Mask WWTDD? Buzz Machine Alan Sepinwall Egotastic A Socialite's Life Popoholic Hollywood Rag Splash News Online Hollywood Tuna IDLYITW The Superficial TMZ.com Perez Hilton Steve Silver Tony Pierce Wicked Chops Poker Shelley Rants Away Poker Road Film Drunk Guinness and Poker Tao of Poker Site Sponsors Chicago Cubs Merchandise Purchase MLB baseball tickets, New York Yankees tickets, Boston Red Sox tickets, Chicago Cubs tickets and San Francisco Giants tickets from Neco.com.   ![[Powered by Blogger]](http://buttons.blogger.com/bloggerbutton1.gif){kind=small}
 Official Fantasy Girl of AG.com OFGoAG.com Timeline: Heidi Klum (8/2002 - 12/2003) Jessica Alba (12/2003 - 10/2004) Elisha Cuthbert (10/2004 - 11/2006) Vacant (11/2006 - 6/2008) Keeley Hazell (6/2008 - Present) OFGoAG.com Candidates: Marisa Miller Jenna Fischer Kate Beckinsale Mila Kunis Elisha Cuthbert |