Irascible Blogger Finally Employs Voodoo

I was doing a happy little jig in my kitchen about three months ago - right about the time we signed Xavier Nady - when my lower back seized up something fierce. A paralyzing spasm unlike any I'd ever felt.  A couple days ago, Dback closer JJ Putz wrenched his back in similar fashion.

On March 5th, I broke my arm in two places, just above the left hand.  First break ever.  A week later, Zach Duke broke two bones in his left hand.

This Friday, I climbed up Squaw Peak, with my broken wing and balky spine.  I've hiked this hill hundreds of times without incident, but on the way down, near the bottom, I sprained my left foot.

Watch where you step, Diamondbacks.

What Foolish Backwards People!

I rarely get out to the far west side,  but on the car trip to tonight's Coyotes game, we happened upon something pretty astonishing. It's mostly farm fields and sad, dusty cults surrounding the stadiums out there. But until today, I had no idea just how backwards some of these religious enclaves are. 

thrilling climax and denouement >>>

AFL Game Recap

Caught a few Dback prospects today, in an AFL game over at Muni. Fans were greeted by this sign on the box office window.


Yeah, this definitely sounds like the Diamondbacks.

thrilling climax and denouement >>>

Endless Summer

• On a day Carlos Gonzalez hit two home runs, and Edwin Jackson solidified the White Sox' hold on first place, the Dbacks lost to the Washington Nationals, before the smallest crowd (15670) in Chase Field history. Eight of the nine smallest crowds in franchise history have now materialized in the last few months.
  


• At the two thirds mark, Arizona is on pace to lose 102 games. They should finish better than that, but are sixteen games out. Not from first place. Sixteen games from fourth place. Looking ahead, Dan Haren and Max Scherzer try to propel contending teams forward. Followed by tomorrow, and the next day...and the next.
  


• Update 8/6: Haren yielded ten hits last night and hasnt won for the Angels yet - despite an ERA under three.

Like our Dbacks, San Diego is unseasonably cool this summer, and it feels good. A thick marine layer lingers past noon most days, affording longer, brisker walks with the wife, without the usual bake and sweat. In the afternoons, our son and I body surf in the Pacific with the occasional "dolphin". They're thirty yards out, with large dorsal fins and the real estate agents all call them dolphins. Whatever. I'll be home Saturday, swimming safely with accumulated carob leaves in my own backyard pool.

More On Salary Dumps


I dont object to redistributing 2011 payroll. I have a problem reducing our chances of contending - and I think you do that swapping Haren and Ed Jackson for Joe Saunders and Hudson, even if some money can be applied elsewhere. It's almost as if the Dbacks thought process was as follows:

1. Our biggest competitive liability is pitching.
2. Haren and Jackson represent our largest financial liability among pitchers.
3. Neither Haren nor Jackson were good 2010 values.
4. Therefore, trading Haren and Jackson makes us more efficient (ie dedicated payroll) and flexible (future expenditures).

But failure to meet 2010 expectations doesnt resign either workhorse to fall short of 2011 expectations or preclude either from being an attractive contractual value going forward. Both are recent All Stars. Haren's got a high BABIP and strong peripherals, suggesting he could enjoy a significant "comeback" year. Jackson is more erratic, but a terrific athlete with a powerful, durable arm.

We didnt need to dump their contracts. We needed to optimize their talents by dumping organizational obstacles; namely a toxic manager, a subpar defensive catching tandem, immature offense, below average defense and a disturbingly ineffective pitching coach. Haren and Jackson were underutilized (if not outright squandered) by a dysfunctional organization.

If their careers deteriorate, Saunders maintains and Hudson develops, it'll be fortuitous - but if Haren recaptures most or all of his consistent mojo, he's virtually irreplaceable at $12M on the open market. Guys who throw 200 innings at 30% above league average run prevention are valuable and rare.

• Finally, welcome to four new readers who just dont get it, inexplicably voting for Joe Saunders in our latest poll! Friendly reminder: Diamondhacks is a haven from that sort of thing.
  

About Town

• Derrick Hall's working overtime, preempting chatter that the looming Haren deal is a rebuild or salary dump. I would feel better if he was working overtime actually ensuring the sort of "A+" deal he's publicly fantasized about. Or working at something he's more experienced at - like looking really concerned when a spectator is hit with a foul ball.

• Sweeping the Mets was nice, prompting someone named Cash Kruth over at mlb.com, to call Arizona one of the hottest teams in baseball. According to Bill James' formula, the Mets sweep made us the tenth hottest team in the NL, tied with Pittsburgh. You decide.

• The Diamondbacks dipped below the 2 million attendance pace tonight, for the first time this season. Not an easy thing to do on a Friday night.

• Is Gibby turning it around? It's too early to tell, but the answer is No.

• Back to Haren. Is the goal for next year to merely "get better" or is it go to the playoffs? An important distinction when this year's team projects to lose 95 to 100 games. You can get better than that just by breathing, cant you? Cobble together a cheap, merely bad bullpen. That's a huge improvement right there. Spend a couple hundred thousand on any pitching coach not named Mel. Why, you've skyrocketed up to 75 wins.

Going to the playoffs is harder, and the question becomes, Are you more likely to do that with Dan Haren or a staff anchored by people you get in exchange for Dan Haren?

It can go either way, but the key word above is "likely"and the short answer is "Haren." I'm off to San Diego for a couple weeks, so the long answer will have to wait, but basically the Diamondbacks' primary impetus for this trade is not to get better in 2011. They'd like to get better and will try to get better, certainly, but the driving factor in all this is that they'd prefer not to pay Dan Haren. The driving factor of the opposite clubs, like the Yankees, is winning. Neither bodes well for Arizona's contending chances in 2011.

• In local news, the valley's largest body of water vanished a couple nights ago. Seriously, a billion gallons...gone. Whoosh.

I hope the same cant be said of 2011.

About Town

• Phoenix is implementing parking fees in its popular hiking preserves. Last fall, I started walking from home to my closest mountain range, partly to avoid parking issues, and will continue to, after the weather cools down. It's a better workout and a richer overall experience when I get out of the car.

• What's wrong with Dback leadership and organizational structure? Tom Krasovic at AOL Fanhouse provides several compelling insights. (Hat tip: kishi/snakebytes).

• Looking for a fresh new measure of bullpen badness? How about our best reliever, Aaron Heilman ( 11o era+; 30+ IP) is worse than the Padres worst reliever (Mujica 121 era+). Yeah, that's already park adjusted. Ouch.
  
  
• Franchise low attendance last night -16664. Should we remind Derrick Hall that "school's out"? Seasonally, he's slightly ahead of 2005's attendance trough, but only because most windfall draws (ie Yankees, Cardinals twice, Cubs) have already visited. Maybe with Strasburg and some bobbleheads, they'll keep pace with the 05 nadir.

• The Cubs barely drew 20K here recently, which reflects the local malaise, but also Cub fans' conditional support for their team at the turnstiles. Apart from an entrenched binge-drinking scene at Wrigley disguised as fan loyalty, Chicagoans are frontrunners pretty much like everywhere else.

• Been out of town for a spell, so still havent witnessed a so called "Legends Race", but fans seemed turned off for several reasons. Mark Grace, who never placed in the NL MVP's top dozen finishers, is a "legend"? Why? Does he have a big dick or something? As if that mystery isnt enough to further shrink franchise prestige, Derrick's misguided marketers continue to exploit Steve Bartman for cheap laughs.

You may recall the nerdy Cubs 'superfan' who actually apologized to media fueled mobs for trying to catch a foul ball in the stands - and who absorbed mountains of unwarranted abuse (incl death threats requiring police protection for his family)? Any baseball club with an ounce of class would leave that guy alone.

• Best Kirk Gibson quote, and I'm paraphrasing:

I'd rather have a bunch of bad ballplayers who win, than good players who dont.

Probably stole it, but a clever, effective way to convey priorities. I cant imagine a 'new school' development guy like AJ saying that. Alas, Gibson is 2-5

• Chris Young snuck onto the All Star team as the Dbacks' required rep. Even though there are more deserving outfielders, Young's is still a nice comeback story. Congratulations on perservering, Chris. Just dont think you really deserved it.

• Speaking of All Star Games, it's currently 110 degrees outside, in the shade. Can hardly wait for the glorious 2011 AS weekend Derrick and MLB have planned for "the fans". A hundred and thirty on the pavement. Angry protesters surrounding the venue. Reluctant players and coaches. This should be a huge boon for the city. Bravo to Bud Selig and Bud Lite. We can tell you have both the fans' and game's best interests at heart.

About Town

Crowded sports week locally. We all saw the Cardinals get swamped by a powerful New Orleans Brees faster than you can say "Hurricane Katrina" or "Lower Ninth Ward" - or Hines Ward for that matter. It was that quick, and a bigger train wreck than Phoenix Light Rail, which has sustained only 52 crashes to date.

Here's a picture of Dback fans (above) descending on downtown to protest Friday's incomprehensible release of Eric Byrnes. Just kidding. There arent that many Dback fans since Colangelo left. Actually, it's the first mile of Sunday's PF Chang's Marathon, which wends its way through Phoenix each January, much like today's MLK parade - only five hundred times bigger, longer and whiter.

Allan Hubris Selig also oozed into town, up the north side of Camelback Mountain to be precise, hosting his annual owners' meeting at the exclusive Sanctuary resort. It's there leading industrialists will discuss how to make their game more relevant to recession ravaged fans, and possibly have a massage. The steeply priced, 53 acre mountainside spa is owned by fruit wholesaler and Cincinnati Reds' top banana Bob Castellini , which Commissioner Selig has deemed to be in the best interests of baseball this weekend.

The Dbacks inked Adam Laroche, tossing a transformative monkey wrench into Ken Kendrick's Five Year Ho Hum Hitting Initiative, but the sizzling story about town appears to be the inexorable departure of Eric Byrnes. The Republic is running at least four articles on it, the most revealing of which confirms that his controversial $30M extension was, at the time, more or less a consensus front office decision.

This is a crushing blow for dbbp's self styled cognescenti, who've spent thirty months stridently misinforming fans that our boy genius GM was double crossed by the devious Jeff Moorad of their comic book imaginations. Like virtually all FO quotes, the appearance of unity exceeds the reality somewhat, but assuming Moorad "went rogue" or didnt enjoy significant front office backing betrays an ignorance of how big organizational decisions necessarily transpire.

Josh Byrnes "went along" in 2007 because he projected Eric and several teammates (most notably CY and Drew) to be more productive than they proved to be, and he knew he could flip the blocked talents (Quentin, Carlos Gonzalez) for a prime time starter - which is what he wanted and essentially what he did with Haren. Ownership had the money to splurge on Eric Byrnes, Josh overestimated other pieces, and they all got burned by the injury and immediate, precipitous fall even EB's harshest critics couldn't envision. Josh Byrnes "went along", and it's refreshing to hear he and Kendrick eventually acknowledge their part in the decision.

Herb Sendek's 14-5 Sun Devils hopped atop a closely bunched Pac-10 with a pair of convincing road wins in Oregon. Derek Glasser looks like he's partied too much recently and has visibly lost a step, but Sendek's kids still play a pesky matchup zone, and Ty Abbott has emerged as a primary scorer, to help out the crafty Kuksiks.

The overacheiving Coyotes and Suns are both enduring worrisome slumps. Not as fundamentally worrisome as December's chilling conversion of Meredith Baxter from a fresh faced, fluffy-haired MILF with an adorable overbite to a wrinkled lesbian donning oversized bowling shirts. But worrisome still.

I spent this MLK day hiking the circumference trail around Squaw Peak, or Piestewa if you prefer, dancing in and out of a light desert rain. Years ago, I hiked downtown, when Meachem was governor, on this day. I marched right behind Art Hamilton's big black ass, because it seemed like the right thing to do. Now I march up and around a different mountain.

Final thought on King. In 1964, before passage of the Civil Rights Act and not a year after President Kennedy was killed, he spoke before 450 Kiwanis Club members in an oppressive southern backwater. He was thirty five and said this to his overwhelmingly white, and uncomfortable, audience:

We will match your capacity to inflict suffering on us with the capacity to endure suffering. You may throw us in jail, bomb our homes, threaten our little children, and, difficult as it is, we will still love you.

Can you imagine? Can you further imagine he said this in Phoenix, at a long gone restaurant which is now a Quick Trip I fill up at most every week. I never knew. Maybe one doesnt need to book a flight to Washington DC and stand at the Lincoln Memorial to feel inspired. The inspiration, and mountains to climb, are both right here.


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A couple snapshots I took from Sunday's marathon, just north of 24th St and Camelback.


The Ethiopian Lead Pack




...and an hour later, here come the Americans!