The Edmonton Oilers haven’t been relevant for quite a while. It has been more than 20 years now since former owner Peter Pocklington allowed LA Kings owner Bruce McNall to have a little chat with Wayne Gretzky during his honeymoon, convincing him (and his wife) that a move to Hollywood was is Gretzky’s best interest. Late in the summer of 1988 the Oilers exiled Gretzky from the Great White North and with him, an era that included four Stanley Cups in a 5 year span. Since then the Oilers have had their moments but for the most part have been mired in mediocrity. New Owner Daryl Katz is hoping to change all of that.
According to the Sports Business Journal, the Oilers are negotiating a contract with an “internationally renowned” architect who will design a new hockey arena that will be the gem of a new downtown entertainment district. Whoever the architect is (the Oilers won’t name names until the deal is final), the article makes it obvious is obvious he or she is not someone familiar with designing sports arenas, so it should be a pretty interesting building.
Along with this famous architect Katz will hire two other partners to help with the design. This will include a group based in Denver who DOES have experience with sports arenas as well as someone local to make sure Alberta building codes are being followed. It looks as though this operation will get pretty expensive. Early estimates place costs at $450 million for the arena with an attached practice rink and another $100 million in additional costs to develop the surrounding area. L.A. Live, the Arena District in Columbus and the Gaslamp Quarter near Petco Park in San Diego have all been looked at as templates.
To date, no public funding has been approved to subsidize construction. This is very refreshing since in other sports, teams are constantly screwing with their books to show loss where there is profit in order to cry poor and garner tax dollars to help them build their palaces. Included in this area will be hotels, condominiums, restaurants and nightclubs, office towers, and student housing supporting three local colleges.
Typical Oilers Fans
Time will only tell whether or not a new stadium will help turn around a franchise with a rabid fan base hungry for a winner. Studies have shown that a new baseball stadium creates what has been coined as “the honeymoon effect” which increases attendance by as much as 37% in the first year of a new stadium’s life. I don’t know if the Oilers are selling out, and I understand that differences between baseball and hockey may alter that increase substantially, but it certainly won’t hurt. With that extra revenue, a couple good young players (they had the #1 pick in the draft this past year and will probably have a high pick again), and they easy ways you can circumvent the NHL salary cap, the Oilers can give their fans the competitive team they deserve sooner rather than later hosers.
The Gold Glove Awards are voted on by coaches throughout the league and are given to whom they perceive to be the best fielders at each position. The American League incarnation of the awards was released today. Here they are:
Pitcher: Mark Buehrle
Catcher: Joe Mauer
1B: Mark Teixeira
2B: Robinson Cano’
3B: Evan Longoria
SS: Derek Jeter
OF: Carl Crawford
OF: Franklin Gutierrez
OF: Ichiro
For the most part the coaches did, in my opinion, a terrific job. Lots of players that deserved Gold Gloves (Brett Gardner, Mark Ellis, Daric Barton to name a few) did not get them, but the guys the coaches picked are fine and I won’t argue with any of them. Except one: Derek Jeter.
For years debate has raged about the quality of Derek Jeter’s defense. Stat heads say he is lousy, Yankee apologists want Derek Jeter’s defense to make sweet, sweet love to them. Jeter has become the linchpin in the debate about the usefulness of numbers in baseball. Many baseball traditionalists have been beaten into submission by the nerds and their math as far as offense is concerned, but the one thing Joe Morganites have held onto for a while has been defense. “You have to watch the games to determine who is good defensively, not just look at numbers,” they say, “you fuckin’ nerd.”. I totally agree. Allow me to explain………
For as long as baseball has been around, there have been errors. Errors and Fielding Percentage (the % of plays on which a player doesn’t make errors) are the mainstream benchmarks for evaluating defensive ability. These stats are deeply flawed for two reasons. First off, errors are based on the subjective judgment of the team’s official scorer. Second, and most importantly, the fundamental flaw of the Error lies in its definition. An Error is credited to a player when it looks like he should have made a play but did not record an out. So there are two ways to avoid errors. You can make every play, or you can make it look like a play could not have been made. A lead-footed fielder (Pat Burrell, Adam Dunn, Fatty McInfielder) won’t come close to fielding a ball that even average fielders would get to but won’t be credited with an error because he didn’t misplay/bobble/drop the ball. It just fell or whizzed past his slow, lumbering ass. Conversely, great fielders who flub balls that most fielders wouldn’t even come close to making a play on are credited with errors. Errors don’t work.
“Eric, didn’t you say you agreed with the people who say you have to watch games to determine who is good defensively? Get to that shit.”
In 2004 Baseball Info Solutions (headquarters in Coplay, PA) began Plus/Minus. Every play of every game is watched and charted by by game charters who enter the outcome of the play into a computer. They record the exact distance, direction, speed and type of every batted ball and whether or not the fielder made a play on the ball.
Say, a ball hit softly into the hole to the right of the shortstop (Baseball Info. Solutions has very detailed “vectors” mapped out on the field but I’m being less detailed for simplicity) is fielded successfully and converted into an out 26% of the time. If the shortstop converts the play he is awarded +.74. The player gets credit for the play being made (1.0) minus the expectation that he should have made it (.26). If they play is not made he receives a -.26. The sum of these debits and credits are added up over the course of a season and published in various publications.
I have issues with this process. Namely, cumulative stats have problems. It is possible that the reason Chase Utley is perennially toward the top of 2B Plus/Minus is due to the fact that he has lots of playable balls hit his way. His stats are padded because his pitchers induce more groundballs or just by randomness. To account for this, Baseball Info Solutions also publishes the totals from the past 3 years. This gives a larger sample size and is more representative of players’ actual defensive prowess. So you see, YOU DO have to watch the games to know who the best defensive player is. All of them.
It just so happens that I have a copy of this year’s Bill James Handbook, which has the results from Baseball Info Solutions’ exploits during this past (2010) season. Guess who is in the bottom five Shortstops when it comes to Plus/Minus in 2010? Guess who is in the bottom 5 for the past 3 years?
Derek Jeter.
So while Jeter has been part of some of the most iconic defensive plays of the past decade, he’s not a good defensive shortstop. At age 36, his free agency case is one that will be a lot of fun to follow. While it will be fun to watch the Yankees overpay for a mediocre player well beyond his prime, it won’t be fun when your favorite team is negotiating an extension with their shortstop, and the player’s agent is citing the contract the Evil Empire gave to The Captain’s corpse as precedent for a deal. We shall wait and see.
Lots of people love Led Zeppelin. I am one of those people. Nevermind Robert Plant’s impressive and rare vocal range, or Jimmy Page’s guitar riffs. Nevermind John Paul Jones’ technical soundness, or the fact that John Bonham is mentioned in Step Brothers. What makes Led Zeppelin truly great is the vast spectrum of sound one can enjoy while listening to their anthology. I spent an entire week this semester listening to every Zeppelin album, in order. I listened to an album a night while I “did homework”. It was staggering. Bluesy stuff, middle eastern stuff, early metal, folk music, these guys dabbled in everything. Combine the quality of what your ears are enjoying with all the rock and roll intangibles (sex, drugs, Satan, mud sharks {go ahead and Google that one}, sex, long hair, iconic album cover or two, a vomit-induced death, sex) and you’ve got one of the greatest rock bands of all time. These guys were able to own a title like that despite being a little nerdy (come one, The Battle of Evermore? When’s the Dragonball Z marathon guys?)
So while I greatly appreciate what it means to Get the Led Out, my youth had not wnabled me to do so in a live setting. Until last weekend, anyway. I fell into a set of free tickets to “Get the Led Out” at Penn’s Peak. Get the Led out is the east coast’s preeminent Zeppelin cover band. I haven’t written anything non-baseball related in a while and I don’t go to concerts that often so this was special to me. I’ve decided to write a review. Here it is:
All of these guys are knockout musicians. Gangly frontman Paul Sinclair does a terrific Plant imitation and maintains vocal strength all the way through a trying 2 and ½ hours of performing without a set break. Sincalir is a bit awkward on stage, but even the coolest of us (me and Henry Winkler, of course)would have a difficult time looking natural with nothing but a microphone in our hands during long instrumental breaks littered throughout these songs. While Sinclair’s shortcomings as a performer are a bit distracting, they certainly do not over shadow his prowess as a vocalist. Apparently, he also does Aerosmith stuff and I’d be willing to bet he kills that stuff too.
What Sinclair loses in his on stage persona is picked up by co-lead guitarist Jimmy Marchiano. Marchiano is easily the best performer in the group and one hell of a guitar player. The other half of the guitar duo is made up by daywalker Paul Hammond. Both guitarists played Gibson Les Paul guitars for most of the concert, with Fender Stratocasters mixed in where that surf-riff sounding plucking was appropriate. Hammond switched to an SG doubleneck a few times as well, one just like the doubleneck Jimmy Page used.
You guys have to understand that musically, guitar players are a lot like Wide Receivers are in the NFL. They need to have their place in the sun at least a few times each show to remain appeased and if they don’t get that they can become a bit cranky. As such, talented guitar players often indulge in a long, drawn out guitar solo that one might classify as….masturbatory. These guys were no exception. The two of them had a long blues riff, deliverance style solo together that lasted for a few minutes. Other than that Marchiano pretty much played by the book and Hammond’s only other infraction came during the “violin bow solo” during Dazed and Confused. For those of you who haven’t heard that song, go listen to it (just past the 2 minute mark) and then find a live version and watch that, too. The part of the song I’m referring to is my favorite part of the song. The lead guitar player runs a violin bow over his guitar strings creating a noise that sounds like hell is rising up from beneath the earth. It is fucking cool. But the sound itself does not deserve 5 minutes of my time. Hammond thought it did. Other than those two goofs they were great.
Bassist Billy Childs is very good. He looks a bit strung out on stage but while simply looking at his face may lead you to believe he is on the verge of death, looking at his fingers tell a different story. He’s probably the best bass player I’ve ever seen play live. The occupational hazard that comes with being a bass player is that people tend not to notice you. I, as someone new to critically observing live music, am no different. Sorry, Billy.
Drummer Adam Ferraioli is good too. He also engages in the obligatory solo during Moby Dick which lasts entirely too long. Ferraioli is a great drummer and it’s a shame that what I now associate with him is a fucked out drum solo. That said, Zeppelin is no picnic on the drums. The wide array of musical styling, as I mentioned above, requires the ability to play several complicated and compound beats. Ferraioli nailed them all.
The group was rounded out by super-utility man Andrew Lipke. Lipke played some guitar, some keyboards, he sang backup vocals and toyed around with some other cool effects. He is the kind of musician that bands need to be great. Let’s face it, good guitar players are fairly easy to come by. Only the top 1% of guitar players on Earth make their band great (your Hendrix, Van Halens and your Steve Howes). Even guys like Alex Lifeson, Randy Rhoades and Keith Richards are pretty replaceable. As for drummers and bass players, it’s nice to have elite options but it is not a necessity. John Entwhistle might be the best bass player of all time but he’s the last member of The Who you’d be able to name. Guys like Lipke, who can adequately play several instruments and allow flexibility and diversity in the music are the lifeblood of live music. He and Sincalir are the ones who make this band great and are the irreplaceable members of the bunch.
I would have liked to hear more songs, but Zeppelin songs are long and you can’t fit as many into a two and a half hour window as you would at a Green Day concert where songs last 3 minutes. Still, I think they should bag the look-at-me solos and do an extra couple songs. Really that’s the only improvement I can think of. These guys were awesome and I’d be glad to see them again. Here is a link to their website with touring info for the future.
Here is a video of them doing When the Levee Breaks (my favorite Zeppelin song) at the House of Blues a while back. They did not play this last weekend because of those faggy solos.
And here is Kashmir...Hammond is on the right playing the Danelectro specially tuned for Chase Utley's walkup music
Iglesias was making an impact in Cuba as a 17 year old and defected in July of 2008. The Red Sox gave him the biggest amateur signing bonus in team history, a healthy $6.25 million. He’s played one full season of pro baseball and might already be primed for a cup of coffee in the big leagues next September.
Offense:
Iglesias has a short swing and makes consistent contact but his size drastically limits his power. As a result, pitchers in the majors and upper levels of the minors won’t be scared of him and will attack the strike zone with extreme prejudice. He’ll be forced to put the ball in play, which will limit his walks and as such limit his OnBase%. The reports about his ability to hit .300 in the future are optimistic but not ridiculous. He won’t be an asset offensively, but isn’t bad enough to be detrimental.
Defense:
He’s fucking incredible. Watching him take infield practice was like watching that “Beautiful Liar” video, you know, with Shakira and Beyonce (on mute, of course). It looks like he was put on Earth to field groundballs. Effortless transfers, excellent range, fielding balls behind his back. I’ve got a video of him taking infield below. Unfortunately, he’s relatively modest in that one, the best moment coming at about the 1:15 mark when he fields the ball in his glove, transfers it to his throwing hand and whips it to first in one smooth motion. He’s already one of the best fielding shortstops on the planet. The value he provides defensively will make him one of the 10 most valuable shortstops in baseball during his prime.
Carpenter was drafted out of high school in the 7th round of the 2004 draft by the Tigers but decided to go to college. Carpenter had Tommy John surgery during his freshman season at Kent State, then had another elbow procedure his sophomore year. His medical history is a big reason he fell to the Cubs in the third round in the ’08 draft.
Carpenter has pitched almost exclusively as a starter during his career, but he is working out of the bullpen in the AFL and I really like what I saw from him as a reliever. While Carpenter has not been told that the Cubs plan a move to the pen, I’d anticipate a phone call soon if I were Chris.
Stuff:
His four-seam fastball sits between 91-94mph as a starter and was mostly 95-97mph as a reliever. A few days after I left, Caprenter reportedly touched 100mph with his heater. It doesn’t have a lot of movement on it but his height allows him to pitch on a pretty extreme downward plane which makes it tough to elevate. It will induce plenty of weak grounders.
Carpenter’s secondary stuff needs work. He has an 82-85 mph breaking ball that looks like a slider, but Carpenter actually calls it a curveball so we’ll call it a slurve. It is inconsistent and it movement isn’t always as sharp and devastating as you would like to see, and his command of it is inconsistent.
He also throws a straight changeup that with velocity in the mid to high 80s but it’s not a very good pitch. He’ll need to work on that soon or run the risk of lefties making him pay at the big league level.
Mechanics:
There’s a little bit of effort in Carpenter’s delivery (that’s to be expected from a guy who touches 100mph on the radar gun) and its possible it may have been the cause of his elbow trouble in the past. Carpenter hasn't had any injury problems since turning pro so maybe he’s past the injury bug for good. Carpenter needs to repeat his delivery better, and his inability to do so causes him to struggle with control in spurts. His front foot doesn’t always land in the same spot. Sometimes it land toward the third base side of the plate and he has to throw across his body to get the ball to the plate. This probably isn’t good for his arm.
Stats:
He posted a 2.82 ERA and a 118-to-52 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 130 2/3 innings across two levels in 2009, and a 3.41 ERA and 112-to-57 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 134 2/3 innings, mostly at Double-A, this year. I’d like to see the walks come down a bit.
Carpenter could stick as a starter if he improves his secondary stuff and working as a starter will allow him to pitch more innings and do so. However, his injury history, tendency to get wild, and lack of secondary pitches at age 24 tell me he is destined for the bullpen, albeit high leverage innings therefrom.
From: Newbury Park High School, CA (Drafted by Dodgers in 4th round of 2007 draft) The Pirates acquired Lambo (along with James McDonald) from the Dodgers at the trade deadline in the deal that sent Octavio Dotel to LA. Both McDonald and Lambo are very talented but haven’t seen their tools translate to the field. It was a good trade for the Pirates who seem to be heading in the right direction (toward the top of the league in draft spending this year) as an organization. Everyone says they feel bad for Pirates fans, and while it is a shame that the franchise has been the butt of baseball jokes for almost 20 years, don’t feel bad for their fans. They have the Steelers and Penguins who are plenty good enough. Fuck you, Pittsburgh. Stop complaining.
Lambo’s talent has never been in question. His character, however, has always been a huge issue. The concerns about his makeup are largely what caused him to fall to the 4th round of the ’07 draft. He began his pro career on a tear and was named the Dodger’s #1 prospect by Baseball America prior to the 2009 season. I had a chance to see the good and bad sides of Lambo while I was in Arizona. Lambo is a boom or bust type of prospect and a big part of his future will be determined by his attitude and work ethic.
Offense:
The good is his raw pull power. He has a simple swing with good leverage (you can see it in the BP video I posted below). He killed fastballs all weekend and, while his power is greatest when he pulls the ball, he can hit balls into the gap the other way as well. He has below average speed and won’t help much on the basepaths.
Defense:
Lambo played first base in high school and I think he’d be an above average defender at first if he were asked to play their everyday. The Pirates have kept him in the outfield where his poor range is redeemed a bit by his above average arm. While he can’t throw as fast and far as you’d like a right fielder to throw, he is very accurate.
Character concerns:
The bad has been his on field behavior. Arguing loudly with an umpire (attendance is sparse here, so I could hear every word, and arguing in a Fall League game? Who cares dude?) and, after flinging his bat into the seats on a swing and miss, he held up the game until the young fan who was nearly killed by the bat gave it back bat. On his next swing, Lambo lost grip of the bat again and flung it right back into same spot, and once again made a big fuss about getting his precious bat back. He’s already been suspended once for marijuana usage, but I couldn’t care less unless it negatively impacts his work ethic or ability to play the game. I am, however, concerned about the immaturity he's shown and the fact that the Dodgers were fed up enough with him to exile a potential star at age 22, because that's a potential sign that he's not going to fare well with coaches trying to help him improve or teammates who will have little patience for bullshit.
