Friday, June 1, 2007

NL Central, hitting streaks, Mariner's payroll reset

Hey guys. I'm out of town right now on a spur of the moment trip. In fact, I'm in Cincinnati with my grandfather, who explained that "the Reds are so bad, I don't even watch them anymore." And it's true. We talked about this at length in our previous post. Since then, the Cardinals have dropped to only two games up on the still last place Reds. And Pittsburgh is now in 2nd place in the division. They are 23-30.
Here's something I've noticed lately. What about these hitting streaks? So far this year, we've had Torii Hunter go 23 games. Freaking A-Rod was on an 18-game tear. Brandon Philips; 22. Randy Winn; 20. Aaron Rowand; 16. Currently, Kevin Youkilis has a 22-game hitting streak, and just snapped a 9-game multi-hit streak, the 6th longest in the last 50 years. Ichiro is at a Seattle-record 24 games. Furcal just ended a 15-gamer. There have always been hitting streaks in baseball. But I don't remember so many being this long. Thoughts?

I also wanted to comment on a comment that BigFoote made in the Chat box. He said not to get discouraged about the lack of comments. He thinks he's the only reader. Well... sadly enough, that's not the case. I risk offending you here, BigFoote, but that's not my intent. I do appreciate you, loyal reader. But BHGM has been around for 2 years. In fact, the site usually, (on a typical, ok day) gets about 400 hits or so. By my estimate, there are at least 30-40 regular readers, from what I've seen of direct referrals and return visitors from the hit counters. And those are people that come check out the site almost every day. There are at least 15 subscribers to RSS feeds that automatically go to the site whenever a new post is made. So, you guys are out there - you're just not making any noise. I know you have to register to make comments on this blog, but that's why I have the Chatbox to your left - no registration required! Make good use of that tool. Or, do as Monkeypunch did.

'Monkeypunch' made a quality comment on the Mariner's Payroll post. Now, I'll talk about your comment in full when I get home, but for now, let me point out some important things. You mention that Beltre is coming back, he just needs to adjust his mechanics. You're wrong. Beltre had one good year. Like I said, the Mariners have you believing that these players are better than they really are. You can etch this in stone or carve it in wood - Adrian Beltre will never win another HR crown. Right now, his .280 batting average is higher than every season except 2004 and 2000. He is on pace to hit 29 HR's - more than any other season ever, with the exception of 2004. I don't believe he will ever hit more than 30 home runs. However, that was the only logical hole in your post, for the most part. I think you may have misunderstood my main point - that the Mariners have overpaid for these guys. Richie Sexson is not a bad guy to have on your team. But you shouldn't be paying him $15.5 million. You also conceded that the Weaver deal was 'crap' So why would you pay him almost $10 million? Give him a small base salary with incentives, or let another team take the one-year risk, and offer him $15 million - an amount he can't refuse - when he goes into free agency, as no team would ever give him more than a one-year. Anyway, we'll talk more when I get home. But keep up the good, insightful, intelligent comments like those.

The Mariner's Payroll is really $107 Million? - April 24th, 2007

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