Death Star Blows Up The Black Hole

I forgot about the draft!!!!!

I had another football draft and I totally forgot about it. Decided to sleep in. I happen to check ESPN fantasy Sunday to see when my draft...and realize that I missed it by 12 hours!!!

As it turned out, I did a decent job of ranking players so I ended up with a good team for the most part. We'll see how good this Sunday.

Eric Chavez kills me. After Aaron Small shuts the A's down on Saturday, he decides to take this potshot....

"He's another guy we should have put up a bunch of runs against and we didn't do it. We've seen some pretty average pitchers over the course of the season and when we have, we don't do anything. It's pretty hard to explain. ... Not one of us felt like we shouldn't have put five or six runs on the board. But this is what we've done all year against mediocre pitchers."

Maybe Eric, you have such a problem with these guys, is because....I don't know....that your team sucks? That since you lost Giambi and Tejada, you can't hit your way out of a paper bag? With more holes than your swing? Think that might have something to do with it?

It's amazing what Billy Beane has done with Oakland the past half decade. But as much talk you hear about Moneyball and sabermetrics and On-Base Percentage...Oakland's success has been all about pitching. Pitching, pitching and more pitching. First it was Hudson, Mulder and Zito. Now it's Zito, Haren, Harden and Blanton. You know who the A's are without those guys? Think Rockies and Royals and then subtract 10 victories. Because the scariest guy in their lineup is Chavez. And he probably hits eighth for us.

And enough talk about Billy Beane and Moneyball. Most people who talk about the book and criticize it have never read it. The book is basically a guide on how to compete as a small market team with the big market giants. You do it by drating smart (no high school players) and to scout guys who know how to get on base. Because you have less money, that means you have less margin to error. So it basically cuts down on the guesswork involved in scouting. There are issues that come up in the book, like Beane's aversion to bunts and stolen bases. That's the stuff that makes traditionalists like Joe Morgan nuts. But it really misses the entire point of book. I'm not a Beane apologists, but it's a great book for any baseball fan that's interested in how a front office works and everything that goes into a fielding a major league team. Here's the Amazon link for any who wants to buy it. You be the judge.

He has a great glove but this guy has never had the monster "carry me on your back sort of season that Tejada or Giambi" had. Is it any coincidence that Oakland fell short of the playoffs last year? Yeah, their pitchers wore down, but that wasn't the biggest issue. The problem was that they couldn't score enough runs to take the pressure off the pitching staff. So when Zito or Mulder did have a bad outing, noone was there to pick them up. He's a good player, but hardly the guy you build an offense arround. He's a nice complimentary piece. Nothing more.

But I'm not surprised that this bozo was mouthing off. This is the guy who suggested the Yanks time had passed and that it was time for new blood in the 2000 playoffs. We all know what happened after that.

And if he had a problem with being shut down by Small, how did he feel about losing to Shawn Chacon, who had never won a game this late in the season until this year? Chacon didn't have his best stuff, yet still managed to stiffle the A's for a 7-3 win.

So the Death Star rolls into the Black Hole and all their bad ass fans and take two of three this weekend and five of six in Oakland for the season. Tupac would be so ashamed if he wasn't dead.

I know the press loves David and Goliath stories. They would love to see the small-town A's slay the big-town dragons. But it's never going to happen. Not until their cheapass owner opens up his pocketbook and gives his GM a chance to compete for the best players. Namely some bats to back up his pitching staff. What he's done on the Bay has been amazing. But unless he gets someone better than Eric Chavez to anchor his lineup, he'll always fall short. Maybe Nick Swisher can be that guy. Only time will time.

Members of Infidel Nation are going to be whining all week over the fact that they had to make up a game against the Chi-Sox today. They would have preferred to wait until the end of the season to see if it had any bearing on the standings.

I say tough. Deal with it.

They needed to play the game in the regular season so it still meant something. If the Sox had clinched the division by then and the Yankees-Sox were still in a battle for the division....How far would be if the Chi-Sox decided to phone it in and play their scrubs? No, let them play the game when it still means something. As it stands, the Sux lost today 5-3. Schilling looked like two day old shit which bodes real well for stretch run for them. So it was a great offday for Empire.