Puttin' your weight into it

So, the other day whilst pondering the meaning of James Joyce's use of an amalgamation of several different languages and dialects in Finnegans Wake, I thought of a brand new baseball statistic (I also realized that Joyce's meaning was basically that the Broncos are totally awesome (his words)). The aforementioned stat that I thought of related to the ratio of slugging percentage to weight. In other words, do fat guys hit more home runs than skinny guys? Logic says they do, but I want to see if the stats back it up. So my statistic shall hereby be known as Prince Fielding percentage. The formula for it is simply: (slugging percentage/listed weight) x 100. It basically figures out who gets the most out of their weight, which should allude to whether or not the lardos hit more dingers. Without further ado...

The Top 5 (Qualified) Sluggers in Baseball:

1. Lance Berkman
Slugging Percentage: .690
Listed Weight: 220 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .314

2. Albert Pujols
Slugging Percentage: .640
Listed Weight: 230 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .278

3. Chipper Jones
Slugging Percentage: .630
Listed Weight: 210 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .300

4. Dan Uggla
Slugging Percentage: .620
Listed Weight: 200 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .310

5. Milton Bradley
Slugging Percentage: .615
Listed Weight: 225 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .273

The Bottom 5 (Qualified) Sluggers in Baseball:

1. Jason Bartlett
Slugging Percentage: .282
Listed Weight: 185 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .152

2. Willy Taveras
Slugging Percentage: .305
Listed Weight: 160 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .191

3. Michael Bourn
Slugging Percentage: .311
Listed Weight: 180 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .173

4. Marco Scutaro
Slugging Percentage: .316
Listed Weight: 185 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .171

5. Juan Pierre
Slugging Percentage: .318
Listed Weight: 180 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .177

For the Heck of It:

Frank Thomas' Career
Slugging Percentage: .558
Listed Weight: 275 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .203

Ryan Howard's Career
Slugging Percentage: .584
Listed Weight: 255 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .229

Prince Fielder's Career
Slugging Percentage: .535
Listed Weight: 270 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .198

Alfonso Soriano's Career
Slugging Percentage: .518
Listed Weight: 180 lbs
Prince Fielding Percentage: .288

So... conclusions? Well, as you can see, all of the top five sluggers are 200+ pounds, while all the bottom five sluggers are 185- pounds. There appears to be a correlation there. Some players get more extra base hits per pound--Berkman and Uggla. Yes, it's small sample size being only half of a season. The career numbers I added at the end show the monsters 250+ don't seem to hit in a more amplified manner than a 220-pounder. Soriano is also an anomaly in that he weighs very little and hits the ball very hard--his career Prince Fielding Percentage is a very good .288. Prince Fielder himself doesn't seem to get as much as he could out of that gargantuan 270 pound frame--a mere .198 PFP.

Yeah, kind of a stupid statistic to study, but I thought it yielded some interesting results. Most fat guys get a lot out of their poundage, but it is usually smaller guys like Soriano, Uggla and Manny Ramirez (career PFP .295) that get the most out of each and every pound.

For the Rockies Fans:

Matt Holliday's career PFP: .236
Todd Helton's career PFP: .273

P.S.
Joe Morgan said on Sunday Night Baseball that Kenny Williams made the Scott Podesednik, shitty Vizcaino and retired career minor leaguer for Carlos Lee trade in order to get the White Sox more offense. Kind of off topic, but seriously, how in the name of John Elway does Podsednik increase your offense over Carlos Lee. Podsednik would have to get on base more often and steal 200 bases without ever getting caught (including stealing home many, many times) for that to make sense at all. Thanks, Joe Morgan.

Musings on a Lost Season

We get it, Rockies. You're hilarious. I know you're just doing this to perfect your comedic timing and stage presence. You're like that guy at a party who puts the lampshade over his head trying to easily amuse the drunks still staying awake to watch you. Grounding into double plays every inning? Comic genius. Not touching second base on an easy double play ball? Priceless. Chucking throws from second base into the stands? Where do you come up with this stuff? Dane Cook must be writing your jokes because you guys are simply the living end. Here's a few quick thoughts on the last few days worth of worthless efforts by the Rockies.

1) Who the f@#$ does Ramon Ramirez think he is? Was throwing behind Jorv twice really that frickin necessary? Unless he was trying to spur the Rockies onto victory/"light the pilot light" as Clint Hurdle so inexplicably put it, he's just a douchebag who doesn't deserve to hold a jockstrap for anyone on our ballclub (and that's saying something right there.)

2) Can anybody hit?

3) Can anybody field?

4) I love Todd Helton almost as much as I love John Elway but can we please move him somewhere else in the batting order? 2nd would be a prime position since he gets on base a lot and will get a lot more fastballs hitting in front of Big Daddy. Of course, you don't want your number 2 hitter making $16 million a season.

5) Can anybody pitch?

6) Can anybody else manage?

7) As sad as it's getting for the Rockies right now they're still not mathematically eliminated from playoff contention yet. The Diamondbacks hold the division lead with a stunning 40-39 record. Jesus, does anybody want to win this thing?

8) Can anybody else own the team?

9) Can anybody else think of something we do more shittily than anybody else in baseball?

And finally...

10) Is this how they teach you to play baseball in Greeley? One has to wonder.

Go Drillers.

Comeback 2: Electric Boogaloo

This is the part in the 80's movie where it looks like it's over for the Rockies. Like Lorenzo Lamas as Chilly D, they've lost all of their friends from the Body Rock Crew because they became too big of a hot shot and they no longer have a job at a fancy club because they punched the owner when the owner tried to make out with them, and Lorenzo doesn't swing that way. It's time for the Rockies to win back their friends with heart-warming apologies so that there can be a montage where they get ready for the big dance/performance/competition/etcetera. If all goes well, it can end with a triumphant freeze frame.

It is the pathos of the 80's movie. Everything must look down and out, so that when they win in the end, it is all the better.

So far it has been one crazy summer for the Rockies. First they played like crap. Then they looked like they were running on a Ferrari engine. Now, the Royals and that mean Beckersted family have crushed the Rockies and Hoops McCann's dreams. We're talking about the Royals here--they're like the France of baseball, minus the culture. Yet, they keep robbing the Rockies of their precious hopes and dreams. It is totally not funky fresh, choice, or mint. The season is looking less and less salvageable with each and every loss to the Royals.

Come on, Rockies. Let's see that montage. Crank up the Joe Esposito and show us hit after hit, strikeout after strikeout, players learning from their mistakes and seeing the team win because of it. Maybe you need a biker kid from Bad News Bears or a Mexican kid from The Big Green. So those movies were from the 70's and 90's respectively, the principle remains--the Rockies are in the down part of the movie (usually 50-70 minutes in) and the must make their exultant comeback and triumph over the Nazis! Wait, I mean triumph over the rest of the baseball! Then, they can celebrate their glory by lifting that trophy up into the air, while the loudspeakers sing, "You're the best! Around! Nothing's gonna ever keep you down!" And... freeze frame.

That's my script for the 2008 80's Rockies season. Likely? No. Possible? No. Maybe? Yes.

Rox Recap 6/23/08 (Great. We're in....Kansas)

The Rockies and Interleague play usually go together like rama lama lama ke ding a de dinga a dong. Going into a series with the 34-43 Kansas City Royals, it was looking up for the recently rollin' Rockies. What was the tagline of those old Hertz commercials? Not exactly? Instead of keeping with the theme of success against the American League, the Rockies met their match in a frustratingly unfortunate manner. After being unable to stomach watching most of the game after the 4 run first inning, Eric and I flipped back and forth between the new American Gladiators. Then after giving up 2 more quick runs after finally starting to claw their way back in the top of the 5th, we decided instead to go mini golfing at the Hylands Adventure Land (also known as Anthony's Idea of Heaven) here in Broomfield. Seeing the final score when we returned wasn't just unfortunate, it was expected.

1) Jeff Francis added to his first inning awesomeness that has befallen his 2008 season by giving up another 4 runs, 3 with 2 outs. In 16 first innings this year, Francis has now given up 19 runs. When a team struggles to score runs, especially in the clutch, it's not very advantageous to be in a hole right out of the gate. After a decent run of quality starts, Francis has now nearly completed his total fall from grace (Jessie Spano style) and is now 3-7 on the season. Not exactly what you'd expect from a guy who's won 45 games the past 3 seasons.

2) It's pretty incredible to see what a snakebitten team looks like. No matter what the hell they do or how likely it seems they will score in a given inning, the Rockies will impossibly fine some way to bungle the job. Not 1 of any of Brian Bannister's career-high 6 walks came around to score, exemplified perfectly by the top of the 2nd inning. Two walks to Jerry and Hawper, a passed ball gets them to 2nd and 3rd with nobody out. If Tulo were to do practically anything but ground back to the pitcher, we get a run in and some of the momentum back from the Royals' four run first. Instead Tulo strikes out swinging. A walk to Iannetta loads the bases for newly healthy Clint Barmes who subsequently grounds into the 1-2-3 double play, ending the inning without a single Rockie crossing the plate. Then in the 5th with first and third and no out, Willy T comes to the plate. We couldn't not score again right? Wrong. Bill scorched the ball to third, Alex Gordon made a nice pickup and Iannetta was left in no-man's land. He was tagged out and Willy inexplicably didn't make much of an attempt to run to first on a ball he could've easily beat out. With Shake and Bake's RBI single immediately after and Matty's first home run after his stint on the DL, we still mustered a 3 run inning which could've easily been 4 or 5, swinging the pendulum of momentum the way of the Rockies.

Coming into the game the Royals and Rockies had identical 9-3 records in Interleague play, but the Rockies are going to have to figure out how to score runs when they are presented with opportunities if they're ever going to play competitive games into August and September.

Go Sky Sox.

Broncos capitalized with several exclamation points as such: BRONCOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So triumphant you are, Mr. Elway.

Well, I decided to take a short break from writing my screenplay--it's called Elway Vs. Predator. It's basically about John Elway saving the country of Armenia from an onslaught of vicious predators. He has to take on about 20 of them with only his awesomely tubular super powers. Right now, he can shoot lightning from his eyes, fart-fly (fly through air using the power of his farts as a propelling mechanism), and, obviously, throw footballs with such velocity that they explode predators upon impact. But I am open to suggestions, so let me know if you've got any good ones. I was trying to get Robert Altman to direct, but unfortunately he died. Now I'm thinking maybe Spike Lee or Roland Emmerich--to write a quick post. Remember from before? My many English teachers have taught me over the years that the hallmark of a truly effective sentence is a long, hyphenated, tangential interlude, strewn with adjectives, and commas, that causes the audience to completely forget what you were talking about in the first place. They also taught me that every sentence should have at least thirty words. That was a bad sentence. So was that. And that. Etcetera. Now that I have sufficiently bored and confused you, I'll get to the actual post...

Go Broncos.

Even though the Rockies are playing kinda ok lately, and the Broncos season doesn't start for two months, and the Broncos kinda bloweded last year, and some other reason, I've kinda got Broncos fever. In fact, I got an orange nose bleed this morning. Maybe I should see a doctor.

OTAs, workouts, and mini camp have begun hopefully. Well, I guess only the actual Broncos, maybe some coaches, and me have hope for the Broncos new season. They have several million dollars of hope in Ryan Clady. He scored a magnificent 13 on the Wonderlic, which is borderline illiterate. Hooray for America--the country where dumb people can get rich too. If there were commercials to celebrate America's amazing freedom, I feel I'm most qualified to write the slogans. Hey, Toby Keith has commercials to celebrate America's amazing freedom. He calls them "music videos" for some reason. I'm going to give that guy a call.

Today is National Tangents in Blog Posting Day, so I feel I must celebrate in my own little way. That was a tangent about tangents--so meta.

What was I talking about? Hope? Yeah, I think the Broncos are going to have a winning season. The defense is a huge question mark. But, the offense could be gosh darn good. Shucky dang darn good. Jay Cutler is good, I swear. He may not have shown it yet, but he has a monster lurking inside of him--the kind of monster with 30+ touchdowns. Selvin Young is stuck of the realness. He be dah infamous. Though, I'm pretty sure he doesn't murder people on Queens Bridge-- at least not officially. If he were, the Bengals would have already traded for him(cheap joke, I know). And Ryan Clady may not do good at book-learning and word-papers, but he look like he do good on football field. Plus, outside of last year, the Broncos have always had a stellar offensive line. Yes, last year's offensive line was, well, offensive, but I think Michael of Shanahan and Rick Dennison will whip them into shape. Now whip it. Into shape. Shape it up. Shanny is widely known to be a huge Devo fan (at least in the fantasy world inside my head). When the Broncos won the Super Bowl for the first time, he ended his rousing half-time speech with: "Question: Are we not men? Answer: We are Broncos!" And everyone screamed Broncos. There was also reverbed-out, instrumental guitar rock playing in the background. I know for a fact that this happened; I was there (in the fantasy world in my head).

Dear Broncos,
Claw with your fingernails for that inch, because when you add up all those inches that's gonna make the fucking difference between winning and losing; between living and dieing.
Sincerely,
Your most convoluted, tangential fan

Rox Recap 6/19/08 (Out of the Cellar, Into Your Hearts)

In a series where, as a fan, I couldn't possibly lose, somehow as the final swing of the bat whooshed through the Brian Fuentes fastball, I felt kinda bad for my Wahoo Warriors. After all, I was born an Indians fan because of my mom and became a Rockies fan once the city of Denver (and for me, the Rocky Mountain region) were blessed with a lovable team of misfits with our own Walter Matthau as coach in the form of Don Baylor. The Indians were completely outmatched in this series by the Rockies though with the injuries to their team just as all of our injured stars are returning to the field of action, it's not as shameful as the final stats would lead you to believe. But hey, the Rockies finally finished off an opponent after taking the first two games of a series for their first sweep of the season. It couldn't have come at a better time as the Rox finally climbed their way out of the cellar in the National League West thanks to a journeyman starter and a utility infielder finally living up to his offensive potential.

1) Jeff Baker went all Highlander on us, proving to us that there can be only one hero of this series. Kobe Bryant ain't got shit on this guy's clutchness. All Baker did was go 5-12 (.416) in the series, scored 6 runs, drove in 4, blasted 3 home runs including an inside-the-park job, and also stole his first base of the season. Pretty much the only thing he didn't do was get on the jumbotron, tell everyone in attendance to look under their seat where they would find envelopes that held keys to a brand new Nissan Sentra. He's got to be thinking, if it's this easy to hit American League pitching, he signed on with the wrong team. Though his playing time will most certainly be cut when Tulo and Barmes come back from the DL, we've got 6 games next week in American League ballparks where he can DH to his heart's content. For now, he's just ridin' the wave i.e. doing his best Keanu impression.

2) Who's this George of the Rose/Pink guy? Since when was he able to start rockin k's like Randy Johnson? Regardless of who he is and where he came from, Jorge de la Rosa is starting to make a believer out of the Rockies faithful. Of course, he's got a long way to go to regain the trust of at least the two of us here at Frost Brewed Baseball. I mean, some of you bandwagoners might have only tuned in for the last few weeks of games, but we remember his, let's just say, forgettable performances earlier in the year. After his much deserved banishment to the bullpen Rosie has not been the same guy since his spot start last Saturday in Chicago where he struck out 8 in 5 innings. Today, he gave up 3 runs in 6 innings and struck out a career-high 10. His breaking pitches, namely his looping curveball and frisbee slider beautifully complemented his low 90s fastball and swooping changeup. I don't know what clicked for him, but I could care less as long as he continues this marvelous streak of strikeouts and quality outings.

As sad as I am for my Tribe, seeing the Rockies accomplish something they hadn't done all year was a wonderful way to send us into the summer solstice. As the natural disaster known as Hurricane Nymets blows into Denver the big story is that Troy Tulowitzki could possibly be activated from the disabled list and could be starting at his familiar shortstop position tomorrow night. Let's hope he puts on his nicest Derek Jeter cologne and reverts to his 2007 form.

Go Nuts.

Rox Recap 6/18/08 (The Series Where I Can't Possibly Lose)

You gettin on this train? The Rockies are rollin down the track, comin to your cities, sleepin with your daughters, huntin your big game animals, and drinkin all your Yoo-Hoo and Coors...all the while still findin the time to win baseball games. Alright, enough with the Wyoming dialect (that's taking g's off the end of words. I know, it's weird, but there's only so many of us.) With the 4-2 victory over my Tribe tonight, the Rocko's have now won 5 straight series (for the sake of brevity I won't count the series they technically won against the Braves in April that was just concluded with Monday night's makeup game...so much for brevity.) You have to wonder what gives, but really the Rockies are winning games how they should be: solid starting pitching, occasional timely hitting, the longball, and a lights-out bullpen. The Rox have now won 10 of 14, own the best record in June in the National League and also the best record in Interleague play for said league. League. Though some questions about playing time and roster spots will soon need to be dealt with with Tulo and Grimesy set to come off the DL as early as Friday, dare I say it's almost fun to watch the Rockies right now? Ew, I feel dirty.

1) The Rockies and the Indians are almost identical teams this season. I should know because I follow both with the fervor of a 13 year old girl at a Jonas Brothers concert. They both had their seasons ended by the Jerk Sox last year, were both loaded with expectations and World Series aspirations at the beginning of the season but were quickly cut down by ineffectiveness, underachieving, no clutch hitting, poor starting pitching, a shaky bullpen, and the injury bug. The Rockies had Big Daddy, Tulo, Barmes, and Hawpe all hit the DL around the same time and the Indians now sport a star-studded injury report including Travis Hafner, Victor Martinez, Fausto Carmona, and Jake Westbrook. Though Grady Sizemore has picked up some of the slack since the team turned into the Buffalo Bisons (redundant I know), his boyish good looks and legion of female fans could only do so much to help the Tribe win. That being said, the Rockies could care less if Victor Hugo were on the disabled list because they're just out there to win a ballgame. They don't have time to feel sorry for the Tribe because no one took it easy on them when they were fielding a AAA team.

2) One guy who's going to have his playing time cut considerably with the return of Tulo and Barmes is Jeff Baker and right now he's playing like he knows tomorrow is Independence Day and Will Smith just went on vacation. In the last week or so he's raised his average from a paltry .220 to .276 and is finally starting to hit with the power he promised in September of 2006 when he hit .368 with 5 home runs and 21 rbis in just 22 games. He homered for the second straight game, this one finished with a lighter jog around the bases as opposed to his inside-the-Sarah-Jessica-Parker (otherwise known as the Matthew Broderick) on Tuesday. The Rockies are also 9-2 in his last 11 starts at second base. It's hard to imagine taking his bat out of the lineup right now and Skip Hurdle is going to have some decisions to make very soon.

3) Has the perfect storm passed for Jeff Francis in 2008? Though he has only 3 wins this year compared to 6 losses, it's not like he was just a one year wonder. In his first three seasons he won 14, 14, and 17 games. Not exactly fluke-worthy. It was only a matter of time before he remembered that he actually got Cy Young Award votes last year and began pitching like an ace. In his last four starts, the Franchise is 2-1 with a 2.88 ERA and tonight threw 6 solid innings, only surrendering 5 hits, 2 runs (1 earned) and did not walk a batter. If we can get Jeff on board with Cookie pitching the way he is, we could have the top of the rotation Rockies fans have dreamed was possible the past few seasons.

4) Taylor Buchholz has been so disgustingly effective this season, he's leading the Major Leagues in pitches per inning, all while maintaining a near spotless 1.47 ERA. He came into the game averaging 12.4 pitches per inning. In his 3 outs of work tonight? 13 pitches. There's something to be said for consistency...

As much as I feel bad for my Tribe at the pounding they've taken from my Rockies this series, it sure is nice to see the home team start to put it together. They're impossibly only 8 games behind the Diamondbacks for first place and finally won their 30th game of the season making their record a sterling 30-42. If the Rockies were an American League team, they'd win the World Series every year. Think about it. Maybe Hank Steinbrenner is right. Just make every team an American League team, so baseball could have even less to do with strategy and more in common with Blurnball.

Go Powell Pioneers.