Quick Hits and Links

By The Common Man

The Common Man is tired after he stayed up late last night, putting together a Trade Tree that you should really check out.  It starts with the first amateur draft in 1965, runs through two division titles 20 years later, and three Hall of Famers.  TCM is also working on a big project with Bill today that should start rolling out later this week (we hope), so here are a bunch of links that are heartily endorsed by The Common Man:

Good news for Twins fans, as ESPN prospect and draft guru Keith Law really likes the team's first three picks (sorry, Insider only) after the first day.  The Twins got the best-looking college middle infielder, Levi Michael, with their first pick.  A big bat in Travis Harrison, a 3B who may need to move to 1B.  And Hudson Boyd, a big high-school kid who already looks like a right-handed Bobo Newsom, who throws hard.

Dayn Perry reminds us that there are other ways to take out the catcher than Scott Cousins body-block.  For instance, Ty Cobb preferred the flying kung-fu jumpkick to the groin.  Which might be effective.  We should see more of this.

Delmon Young has been nothing short of an absolute disaster for the Twins this year.  He's hitting .223/.255/.270 with just one home run in 157 PAs and almost a 5-to-1 K/BB.  But hey, at least watching him play defense makes your eyes bleed!  Bad reads, non-existent effort, simply missing balls that bounce past him.  It's ugly.  Nevertheless, LaVelle E. Neal III, Twins beat writer and Al Newman impersonator extraordinaire, reports that the Twins are going to play Ben Revere and his terrible arm in RF in deference to Delmon Young and his strong arm in LF.   Ron Gardenhire explains that he's made this decision,

"Not to mess with Delmon more than anything else... He's got his hands full in left, so we'll keep him working out there and not trying to mess with his mind any more. We're trying to get him hitting. I think if you start switching him in the outfield, he's got something else he's got to worry about. So just leave Delmon alone." 

Right, don't mess with him.  Because you wouldn't want him to start playing badly or anything.

David Schoenfield looks back on what was undoubtedly the greatest draft ever, by the 1968 Dodgers.  It helped that no one else really knew what they were doing and the Dodgers had a tremendous player-development system.  The players the Dodgers selected garnered 219.5 WAR in their careers and 23 All Star appearances. 

Literally Unbelievable continues to be hilarious, as idiots continue to believe that stories on the The Onion are real.  Never not funny.

The Common Man tends to agree with Craig Calcaterra that Bryce Harper is an immature pissant, who needs someone to sit him down and teach him how to behave as a professional baseball player.  Even if the pitcher is jawing at you, you act like you've hit a home run before, and that you will again.  It's no big deal.  And that the best way to prove how good he is to simply be better than everyone else around him.  At the same time, Brien Jackson makes an excellent point that pitchers need to be held accountable for their bad behavior as well, and that retaliation is unacceptable.

FanGraphs recently debuted Mitchel Lichtman's Ultimate Base Running as part of its WAR calculations.  Despite his trouble getting picked off last year, Denard Span leads the Twins this year, with Delmon Young and Matt Tolbert right behind him.  The Common Man don't know how he should feel about a stat that tells him that Delmon Young and Matt Tolbert are good at anything.

Marc Maron's WTF podcasts continue to be incredibly fun listening.  On yesterday's show, Maron interviews the very funny possible real-life troll Brian Posehn, who you might remember from Mr. Show, The Sarah Silverman Show, or Just Shoot Me.  Posehn regales Maron with stories of getting into drugs as a youth, getting out of drugs, the nature of pot and how it changes the more you smoke it, obsession, morbidity, nerdiness, heavy metal, and living with Patton Oswalt at the start of their careers.

Remember a couple weeks back, when TCM discovered that Brent Morel hadn't drawn a walk in over 100 plate appearances  in 2011?  Well, he finally did in plate appearance #117.  Good for him.  The new leader is Felix Pie, who has zero walks in 86 plate appearances so far this year.  Good luck, Felix!

Finally, from Norway, it's important to remember that it's good to have goals: