- I feel like such a massive douchenozzle for ever doubting David Wright. I didn’t draft him with either of my first-round draft picks in fantasy, and he was gone by both my second picks. And then I allowed him to go for $33 in my auction draft. That actually is decently high, but I paid more for Prince Fielder. What a fuckface I am.

- I admit it: I’ve never gotten the appeal of the “Auto-Tune the News” thing.

- I just saw some people describe the first two seasons of Friday Night Lights as soap opera-y. Sorry, I only watch soap operas with amazing production values that air on AMC.

- Speaking of which, I think I’m going to end up buying this poster.

- It’s kinda amazing how FIFA consists of more national teams than their are member states in the United Nations. Especially considering how much a joke FIFA seems to be.

- It took until I was 24 years old for me to get my first, “I used to have a crush on you.” I feel like that’s kinda sad.

- Red Dead Redemption convinced me to tell myself not to buy any games for a while (except for Starcraft 2). Steam constantly makes such a pronouncement extremely difficult to adhere to. Really, Left 4 Dead 2 for 10 bucks? Yet I resisted. Perhaps I am developing some semblance of willpower.

- I think we can all agree that The Shield has one of the best series finales of all-time. But it also has one of the best series premieres. What other show(s) can say that?

- Do not slam your putter length-wise into the ground, no matter how half-assed you might think the slam will be.

- Girls really do dig guys with iPhones – I witnessed it firsthand. Maybe I should carry around my iPod Touch and pretend it’s an iPhone.

- INCEPTION is less than three weeks away. I wonder how many (more) wet dreams I’ll have about it between now and July 16th.

- In case you were wondering: yes, oil is still pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. I say we nuke the site from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure. I’m so original.

If I didn’t make it clear with the last post, I’m keeping track of all these tweets because I know they eventually disappear (into the Library of Congress archives), and I also like to expand on the 140-character comparisons.

Once again, hit the jump for the fun with numbers.

5/7

Cal Ripken Jr.: 3185 hits, 8893 outs. Tony Gwynn: 3141 hits, 6662 outs.

This is just to show that not all 3,000 hit club members are made alike. Career-wise, Ripken is probably the worst hitter out of all 27 members. Meanwhile, Tony Gwynn was able to slap the ball around wherever he wanted, even at 350 pounds.

5/8

Jamie Moyer: 2362 K, 1122 BB. Tom Glavine: 2607 K, 1500 BB.

I don’t like Tom Glavine. I believe he’s only going to make the Hall of Fame because he was so durable and played for the winningest team of the 90s (for some reason, there’s no easy google search to confirm this, and I’m not doing the math to compare them to the Yankees). He also got half a foot off the plate until Questek came around. What better way to belittle him than to compare him to Jamie Moyer? This has nothing to do with that final game of 2007, nope.

5/9

Perfect games: 19. Unassisted triple plays: 15. Four-HR games: 15.

Sure, the unassisted triple play is all luck — as opposed to the other two — but they are all cool numbers anyway.

5/10

Livan Hernandez: 1.04 ERA. Livan Hernandez: 5.18 xFIP.

What this means is that this Cuban defector is due to fall back to earth. Hard.

5/11

David Wright, Career: .308/.389/.519. David Wright, 2010: .293/.417/.552.

His 2010 numbers have fallen a bit in the past few days, and now he’s even more in line with his career stats, at least when it comes to OBP and SLG. Sure, he’s striking out an obscene amount — which is frustrating as hell — but he’s still by far the best hitter on the Mets. And also one of the better hitters in baseball.

5/12

Brady Anderson: 210 HR, 315 SB. Derek Jeter: 228 HR, 308 SB. @PixelGorilla

Proof that I give my fans what they want. PixelGorilla asked for a Brady Anderson comparison, so I gave him one.

5/13

Tom Glavine: 4413.1 IP, 118 ERA+, 1.74 K/BB. Bert Blyleven: 4970 IP, 118 ERA+, 2.80 K/BB.

More Glavine hate, sorta. Or more just pointing out that if Glavine is a no-doubt Hall of Famer, than so should be Blyleven.

5/14

2010 Nationals, May 14th: 20-15. 2009 Nationals, June 19th: 20-46.

This is just mind-blowing. I can’t believe the Washington Nationals are 20-15. And they haven’t even called up Strasburg yet. Fuck me.

I’d say this is as good a time as any to gush about the guy who will become — if he isn’t already — the best position player the Mets have ever had.

In the 868 games he’s played, he’s racked up 143 HR, 575 RBI, and 126 SB, while hitting at a .308/.391/.517 clip. Of course, during the SNY broadcast of tonight’s game, Gary Cohen had to put Wright in company with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio, saying that only those three New York players reached 1,000 hits in that few games with that many home runs. That’s stretching it a little bit, but Wright’s career is certainly off to an awesome start and anyone that booed him this past week deserves to have beer poured on his head.

Looking at those HR and SB totals got me thinking that Wright could possibly become a member of the 300-300 club — a club I didn’t realize included Reggie Sanders and Steve Finley until I just looked it up. Sure, it might also include Barry and Bobby Bonds, Willie Mays, and Andre Dawson, but those two other guys kinda sour it, don’t they? At least if we’re talking about Hall of Fame status. Both of them are behind even Jim Rice in career WAR!

But then I thought of another stat to add to that club: a .300 average. That eliminates all but Willie Mays (yes, Barry Bonds’ career average is only .298). If David Wright somehow manages to maintain that all-important .300 number, people will be talking about him in company with Willie Mays all the time. The Hall of Fame couldn’t be far behind.

Sure, I may be perpetuating the idea of these stupid arbitrary clubs, but even I have to admit they’re kinda fun sometimes. Everyone loves round numbers, and the beauty of a .300-300-300 club cannot be denied. I probably should have named this post after the idea because it’s so awesome.

Plugging Wright’s career stats into the quick and dirty Bill James career assessments formula, he has a 91% chance of reaching 300 HR, and a 72% chance of reaching 300 SB. I’d say the former percentage is spot-on, but even I’m not that optimistic about 300 SB. I feel like a player’s SB totals decline faster with age than his HR counts, but I forget if this has actually been proven or not. But it seems obvious, doesn’t it? Either way, the .300 average might be the toughest to end his career with.

Admittedly, the 300-300 club is going to explode in the next few years, as Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, and Carlos Beltran are all locks. And Mike Cameron and Bobby Abreu will probably enter it as well. Even Derek Jeter has a shot. But out of all those, A-Rod and Jeter (the two Yankees, of course) are the ones who would be hitting over .300. And A-Rod isn’t a lock for that batting average milestone, since he’s signed with the Yankees for I believe the next 28 years. He’s bound to continue his decline and he’s sitting at only .305 right now.

In ten years we might be looking at a snazzy .300-300-300 club that everyone can love, and it will possibly contain Mays, A-Rod, Jeter and Wright.

Man, people will only hate New York even more once this is plastered all over ESPN. But I hope you’ll remember you heard it here first.*

*Or at least pretend that I’m actually the first person to ever say this. I did the requisite Googling and I didn’t find anything, but nothing on the internet is original.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NTRvlrP2NU

In related news, I really want Tom Watson to win the Masters at 60 years old, just so no one can pretend golf is a sport anymore.

The other commercial is not bizarre — just homoerotic. I feel like anything involving a male cast member of Jersey Shore is bound to have gay undertones, and I guess non-Mets fans will argue that David Wright has the same effect. Fuck you.

I present to you a Vitamin Water commercial starring David Wright and The Situation:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W-nCmN_Ovk

- David Wright’s 2009 was an anomaly. And I still love him. I’m ashamed that I didn’t have enough faith in him to fight off all bidders for him in my auction league. FORGIVE ME.

- Albert Pujols proved once again he is not of this earth.

- Roy Halladay is going to absolutely roll over the National League. 7 IP, 1 R, 9 K will be a normal line for him this year.

- Jason Heyward is truly the Messiah. Goddamn it.

- Mark Buehrle is able to do whatever he wants on the baseball field.

On a side note, having to watch a commercial before watching a one minute highlight is fucking bullshit. The NHL allows all sorts of highlights on YouTube, why can’t the MLB? I guess because the latter is a real league.

- The Royals are unbelievably awful and Zack Greinke — if he does win another Cy Young — will do it in spite of the pure ineptitude around him.

- Livan Hernandez — before yesterday — led active pitchers in Opening Day starts. How the fuck did that happen?

- Pitching like dog shit doesn’t hurt your extension negotiations, Josh Beckett.

- Tiger Woods tried to ruin the most holy day of the year. Cheat on your wife all you want, just don’t have a bullshit press conference on Opening Day, douchebag.

I’ll also be shocked if the season closes out without Johan Santana getting hit in the face with a line drive. As embarrassing as it was to see Santana throw behind Pablo “Kung-Fu Panda” Sandoval in retaliation, and then let up a home run to the fat fuck, I guess it was better than the aforementioned scenario. If Parnell throws another gem like he did yesterday, I’d probably store him away for the rest of the season.

So the Mets lineup is officially done now. Gary Sheffield has the highest OPS left on the team, but he only can play 3 games a week before breaking down, which leaves Jeff Francoeur as the most dangerous everyday bat on the team currently. How did it come to this? The entire CORE down, 12 games behind the Phillies, 10 games out of the wild card. This is worst case scenario shit.

Meanwhile, the Braves are actually staying in the hunt for the NL East title, thanks to Brad Lidge continuing to make up for all the blown saves he missed last year. The goddamn Braves are 5 games ahead of the Mets, and they have Tim Hudson coming back. Why am I still getting worked up over this? Didn’t I declare the season dead a month ago? I should be happy with Parnell’s promising walk-less start, and that should be enough.

Everyone knows David Wright has struck out a lot this year (70 times). Everyone pays attention to his now .356 batting average. A good amount are also aware of his .444 on-base percentage, now that the stat is displayed on most broadcasts and scoreboards. And of course, we all know his home run total is shockingly low (4). Combine all these and you have a high BABIP. What is BABIP, you ask? It is Batting Average on Balls in Play:

where H is hits, HR is home runs, AB is at bats, K is strikeouts, and SF is sacrifice flies. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

After tonight’s 4-4 performance — of which no hits were a HR — Wright’s BABIP has risen to .471. For the past week, there have been numerous articles about how Wright will eventually come back down to earth. Even this very morning, Fangraphs made sure to join in on the fun, putting forward the data that shows that for whatever reason, Wright’s groundballs are finding holes. Well, that’s what happened once again tonight. Maybe Wright will be the first man to defy the BABIP gods for an entire season. Extremely rare is the season where a player has a BABIP over .400, but Wright is currently destroying that barrier, with no sign of letting up. He has shown no sign of hitting any home runs anytime soon either, but I’ll let that slide.

The most interesting part about this phenomenon has to be the continuing penetration of sabermetrical analysis into the mainstream. Never was it more evident than when I heard Gary Cohen mention it on the SNY broadcast a few days back. People knew Wright was having a strange season — who strikes out more while hitting less home runs? — but BABIP provides an easy way to quantify it. It is almost “luckiness” in number form. I say almost because there might be something more to it than that, and no one has quite figured it out. Maybe it’s just INTANGIBLE, which would explain why Derek Jeter’s career BABIP is .360. That’s how you become the Yankee captain. See, it’s not LUCK, it’s CLUTCH. Ichiro is right behind him at .357, but you could have guessed that. The guy hits line drives off of bounced balls.

I can’t say that Wright will keep this up for the entire season, because he won’t, but I don’t think he’s going to strike out at this rate for the entire season either. Maybe he will be able to keep his average this high. Maybe he’ll end up with the line of a speedy second baseman: .350, 10 HR, 45 SB (let’s ignore the RBIs). And maybe another stat will be ingrained into the collective psyche of casual baseball fandom.

I’m not even sure what to throw up on here — it’s 2 AM and I’m totally exhausted due to both the time and the Mets. I just felt like acknowledging the fact that I stayed up to watch what I hope is the most comically bad Mets game of the season. And David Wright is now the only guy hitting on the team (well, Angel Pagan actually went 4-6), so the Dodgers started walking him halfway through the game and will probably continue to do so for the rest of the series. But he’s not a leader. I quote MLB-GAF:

This proves that David Wright isnt the type of leader needed for the Mets to be a good team.

Kobe would rape Church in the shower for that shit and make Beltran watch.

My blog has come back about three times as offensive, hasn’t it?

Citi Field had its inaugural game tonight, and it started with a Padre hitting a home run off of Mike Pelfrey. The next inning Pelfrey fell off the mound like the big goof he is. Then Ryan Church did his best Daniel Murphy impression. Sure, David Wright became the first Met to hit a home run in the new park, revealing the brand new apple, but his dramatic game-tying 3-run bomb turned out to not be enough. Yet it gave Mets something to cheer about, and a memory for everyone who attended that opening game. Even I’ll always remember that, despite watching it from my desk chair. Who else would hit the first home run at a stadium that hopefully brings a new, less pitiful era for Mets baseball? The House of David, indeed. Shit, that’s way too cheesy.

I think tonight definitely helped to illuminate just how much of a pitcher’s park Citi Field is going to be. Both Beltran and Wright crushed balls to center field — Wright’s moreso than Beltran, I think — and neither managed to make it out of the park. Maybe in the summer it’s a different story? Maybe during a less windy night? Nonetheless, I don’t think anyone will disagree that the park is not going to help boost the home run totals of any Mets players. Wright, Delgado and Beltran are going to need to earn it if they want 30 home runs. Or just hit them when they play at Citizens Bank Park.

The other New York team — where else would you see the Yankees referred to as “the other New York team”? — got its ass handed to it 15-5 by the Tampa Bay Rays. The best part was Nick Swisher pitching a scoreless 8th inning, striking out Gabe Kapler in the process. Pretty sure he should just retire now to become a professional steroid abuser. I didn’t see much of the game, but I know Chien-Ming Wang obviously sucked, and the highlight montage at the end of the game seemed to display the Yankees total ineptitude in the field. Before the season started, I told a friend I thought Joe Girardi’s job was safe through this season, but now I’m starting to have my doubts. Yes, I know it’s barely been a week, but Wang having two spectacularly terrible starts has to worry everyone connected to the Yankees. He has already given up more runs than he did in the whole month of April last year. Not that such an occurrance is Girardi’s fault, but the loss last night can certainly be somewhat attributed to his overmanaging tendencies. It’ll be interesting to see how Yankee brass reacts if the team is ever more than 10 games out.

I can’t think a better way to waste four hours of a weekend than totally fucking up two fantasy baseball drafts. One head-to-head and one roto. In the post-draft assessment, I think I’d be better off if I could switch the two teams around. I really should just wave the white flag in the roto league. I had no idea about the 1250 innings limit until someone brought it up in the draft chat, and by then I had already shoved a multitude of starting pitchers up my ass — something I should have done in the head-to-head league. So basically, I read up on some fantasy baseball strategy over at The Hardball Times, and then proceeded to apply it to the wrong league. I am awesome.

You’re only going to want to read on if you want a round-by-round breakdown of my failure.

The format:

[Round]: [H2H Draft (draft #)] vs. [Roto Draft (draft #)]

Round 1: David Wright (5) vs. David Wright (4)

I actually missed the first four rounds of my roto draft due to Verizon DSL being total shit, so I was pretty happy to see I still ended up with my mancrush. Three fantasy drafts in two years, and David Wright has been my first pick every time. I very much doubt he will let me down.

Round 2: Tim Lincecum (20) vs. Lance Berkman (21)

This is where I already started ignoring the advice of The Hardball Times. Although, it’s tough to get mad at picking the amazing manchild that is Lincecum. I can’t say I’m disappointed with the auto-pick of Fat Elvis, either.

Round 3: C.C. Sabathia (29) vs. Dustin Pedroia (28)

I am a fucking moron. Taking SPs with two of my first three picks? Good way to guarantee that my offense will be comparatively anemic. I bet Fatty gets hurt this year, considering a person with the build of pregnant Octomom isn’t supposed to throw 250 IP each season. Once again, auto-pick proves to be smarter than me.

Round 4: Russell Martin (44) vs. Matt Kemp (45)

I have no problem with either of these Dodgers.

Round 5: Shane Victorino (53) vs. Dan Haren (52)

How I allowed the round timer to run out and auto-pick, I will never know. Victorino is the baseball equivalent of herpes. Goes without saying that Haren is better. It’s not like he’s AIDS or anything. Here’s hoping my proposed trade for Ellsbury is accepted.

Round 6: Adam Dunn (68) vs. J.J. Hardy (69)

Another round for which I have no pertinent entertaining commentary. I just guess I’m happy defense doesn’t matter for either of them.

Round 7: Robinson Cano (77) vs. Ervin Santana (76)

Needless to say, I am hoping Cano bounces back this year. And by bounce back, I mean I hope his BABIP isn’t historically awful.

Round 8: Derek Jeter (92) vs. Bobby Abreu (93)

Two old dudes that could possibly suck this year. Sweet.

Round 9: Joakim Soria (101) vs. Ryan Doumit (100)

The first reliever appears! I didn’t even know this Doumit guy, but it looked like he had decent stats for a catcher. Too bad I should have once again drafted a reliever at this point. Like Soria…

Round 10: Vernon Wells (116) vs. B.J. Ryan (117)

…since Soria was selected right before Ryan in the Roto draft. Fuck me.

Round 11: Joey Votto (125) vs. Francisco Cordero (124)

Votto was a good pick, but once again, a reliever I wanted was selected right before Cordero. Whatever, he’ll give me some saves.

Round 12: Brian Fuentes (140) vs. Raul Ibanez (141)

Fuentes is probably better than Cordero (and shit, even Ryan), which shows how much quicker relievers were going in the roto draft. Ibanez served me well last year, so I had to pick him up again. Of course, he only serves well in fantasy.

Round 13: Chris Young (149) vs. Mark DeRosa (148)

Not that happy with this round. I guess Young is OK, but I think I selected DeRosa only because he was eligible for so many positions. But that’s good for a BENCH player, not utility. I should have just selected JI. JIM THOME.

Round 14: Scott Baker (164) vs. Scott Baker (165)

I think I’m going to call this a push.

Round 15: Jered Weaver (173) vs. Erik Bedard (172)

Pretty sure this is where my roto draft fell off a cliff. Yep.

Round 16: Justin Upton (188) vs. Jered Weaver (189)

I really let these Hardball Times rankings get into my head. I never would’ve drafted a Weaver once, nevermind twice, otherwise.

Round 17: Mike Pelfrey (197) vs. Jair Jurrjens (196)

Goddamn it.

Round 18: John Maine (212) vs. Mike Pelfrey (213)

Homerism at its worst.

Round 19: Joey Devine (221) vs. John Smoltz (220)

Devine was selected 70 spots before this in the roto league. An even better example of how terrible my strategy was in the roto draft. The Smoltz pick occurred right after I found out about the innings limit. My despondence led me to pick for spite. The Braves fan in the league voiced his displeasure.

Round 20: Hong-Chih Kuo (236) vs. Hong-Chih Kuo (237)

I am very happy with this pick in both leagues, amazingly.

Round 21: Grant Balfour (245) vs. Chris Perez (244)

It should have been Balfour in the roto draft, not the H2H. Luckily, he was still available after the roto draft, so I immediately dropped Perez to pick him up.

FINAL JUDGMENT: I think I picked worse in both leagues than I did last year. I took too many non-save accumulating relievers at the end of the H2H draft, and took too few of them in the roto draft. Fortunately, my offenses are decent and balanced — the roto league moreso. Maybe I should wake up more than 10 minutes before the draft and come up with some definite strategies next year. And then stick to them, instead of giving in and drafting sexy starters. Sexy in the stats sense only, obviously.