Amazing job by the Phillies. I haven’t been to an On Deck game in a while. I remember it was at the Vet against the Orioles. There was none of this.

Found at mlb.com.

Imagine my excitement for a headline like this from Rob Neyer: Bruce Chen Tabbbed As Royals’ Opening-Day Starter This is the perfect example for the reason that my hopes of grand announcements is flawed. How many Royals fans want an event that tells the world their best pitcher is Bruce Chen?

Now, BC wasn’t exactly terrible last year at 12-8, 3.77. To me, his 2-ish seasons with the Phillies jump to mind first. In 31 whole games started, he piled up a 7-9, 4.28. In 2000/2001 that was average on average teams.

I was curious to see what Royals fans have had to put up with over the past few seasons. At least they had some Greinke, right? As always, Baseball Reference is awesome. We’ll start from 2000:

Jeff Suppan for 3 years, Runelvys Hernandez (haven’t thought about him in a while), Brian Anderson, Jose Lima, Scott Elarton, Gil Meche for 3 years, Zack Greinke, and Luke Hochevar last season. Poor KC.

Some other things …
Minor League Guy plays for the Cardinals. Well done by both the play-by-play guys for being funny but not too mean to the rookie. Also, an amazing job by the graphics guy to throw the graphic together.

Honus Wagner card up for auction. If I ever become rich, I’m not sure I’d waste money on flashy cars and boats. But probably will spend on houses and suites at sporting events. However, that one thing that money would not matter … this card.

Finally, 49 things you should know about Jamie Moyer.

Ice Cream Helmet
Gym Class Lineup – You can set your lineup now for the next game, April 4th, Cardinals in Miami. I’d have to go with OF being the closest matchup between Beltran and Morrison.

First, Nate Silver …

Detroit Tigers sign Prince Fielder for 9 years, $214M, per @JonHeymanCBS

— Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight) January 24, 2012

Then, MLB …

OFFICIAL: @Athletics agree to terms with RHP Bartolo Colon on 1-year contract.

— MLB (@MLB) January 24, 2012

It’s like the same thing repeated. Obviously, teams are at different points in their signing process, so these shouldn’t be compared. But just the fact that they posted so close to each other, and the A’s would never have the chance to sign Price, makes it somewhat interesting.

Redbirds Info
Saw this on Uni Watch

“I sure don’t think of myself as a fat person, just someone who carries extra weight. I’ve never seen anyone on the DL with pulled fat.” – Rod Beck

So simple. How is that not always the argument of heavy athletes? “I’d put on muscle, but all you hear about is guys pulling muscles.” Nice work Rod Beck on this quote that must be 20 years old that I just heard today. Sure hope RB knows about Google Alerts. He’ll be pretty excited today.

No one seems to be talking about solving some of this with expansion or contraction. I don’t think contraction will happen, but why not expansion?

It will take a bit of work. It might lead to more distance between the top teams and the bottom. If they wound up as small market losing teams it would be more competition with the likes of the Pirates and Royals at the top of the draft. My only suggestions to help with this, and this is just for fun, so these could be argued, would be a cap or lower luxury tax threshold, and reworking the draft. Having a global draft with limits on draft pick salaries is a must without my expansion suggestion.

My first shot at the new teams are Portland and Vegas. Rivals for the Mariners and DBacks. This would bring the total to 32 teams, 16 per league. Then the divisions can be divided up with 4 teams in each. For the playoffs there could be no wild card, or two with some sort of bye for the top division winners. Oh, and the World Series homefield is for the league with the better record in interleague, which I have been saying forever. Also, with an even number of teams in each league eliminates that odd NL-only matchup during interleague times of the season, which really screws with the out of town scoreboards.

While I’m making things up, might as well come up with the divisions.

I didn’t do anything drastic. Seems to fit pretty well. I probably screwed up some rivalries, but most of the geographical ones are still in place.

The Blue Jays had 3 triples in a row last night. 3! The best is the announcer saying ‘you don’t see that everyday’ after the 2nd one.

I love triples. I wanted them to be worth more than home runs in my fantasy league. I think we settled on them being worth the same.

More: Baseball Reference blog has some facts including the last time this happened was the Expos in 1981.икони

Sadly, this can’t be much worse than the usual ESPN announcers. If the video gets taken down, the key quote is, “The Cardinals have seven walk-offs this year, most of them at home.” Ugh.

I watched some of Sunday Night Baseball and got to see how awful the new crew is. I had high hopes after getting rid of Morgan, but that also meant getting rid of Miller. I also had high hopes because when I was at ESPN a few months back and asked about that particular duo (I subtlety hinted how awful they were and the employee subtlety agreed with me) and was told things would be ‘different’. Which to me meant better.

An Eric Bruntlett jersey? I know the triple play to end the game against the Mets was amazing to see and a big deal, but HOF worthy? Watching the video again … unassisted triple play to end a game. Ok. Oh, MLB had embed code …

Anyway, this new exhibit sounds pretty cool. Not that I need a reason to go to the HOF. I’ve been saying I would go every summer for the past few years. I haven’t been to Cooperstown since Schmidt and Ashburn were inducted. I have only been to the museum once, I think it was the year before that. So yea, it’s been a while. It was certainly in the plans for this summer before my internship came up.

I think Mrs. Phanatic made an appearance tonight. I look forward to some quality video tomorrow.

Phillie Phanatic plunks mom on birthday – 4/18.