Let me tell you, after months of boredom and little to write about during maybe the worst sports summer on record, it's great to have some exciting things going on in sports.So, instead of hearing about Mike Vick for the 100th time in a single day, we have NFL and college football, playoff races in baseball, trade demands in the NBA and, as if we needed it, more scandals.

- I'm torn about the Kirilenko trade demand. On one hand, I hate it when players who aren't franchise guys get paid max money, and then whine. However, those players are usually whining because their teams aren't doing well, and the reason is because their salary has handcuffed the team (Jermaine O'Neal, for example). That's not the case with AK-47 (which is, btw, the best nickname in the league). He's on a winning team, but he's incredibly frustrated by the fact that Jerry Sloan refuses to utilize his talents. So, despite the fact that I hate seeing highly paid guys demand stuff, I would love to see AK get traded to a team that will utilize him, because he's one of the more unique talents in the league. I've seen a lot of trade scenarios proposed, but I'm not buying the AK for Shawn Marion deal or any trade to Golden State. There's really only one team I see as a good fit who also has the contracts and players to offer in return, and shockingly I haven't seen it proposed anywhere.

Andrei Kirilenko to Memphis for Mike Miller and Stromile Swift: Seriously, who wouldn't want to make this deal? It's an easy call for the Jazz, they get some cap relief in the long term, and they get the perfect complement to the Williams/Boozer pick and roll tandem. Miller is one of the best pure shooters in the NBA, and is far more suited to the standard Jerry Sloan offense than Kirilenko is. For Memphis, they get maybe the most dynamic defender in the NBA, and a guy who is excellent in a transition, international-style offense. Memphis coach Marc Iavaroni comes from the Phoenix group of coaches, and is installing a similar up-tempo offense. Memphis, who is my dark horse pick for next year, would have a lineup of Lowry/Conley, Navarro, AK, Gasol, and Darko. Would you want to face that? This deal needs to happen.

- You know, I've reached the point that nothing Isiah Thomas does would surprise me. If it weren't for OJ, I'd say that Isiah has ruined his reputation more than any other former star athlete. Since he stopped playing, he's manage to destroy the CBA, underachieve as coach of the Pacers, completely destroy the Knicks franchise for the forseeable future, and get mixed up in a sexual harassment scandal that has made he and the Knicks organization look stupid and bigoted. This begs the question, "How does the man still have a job???" Look, I know he's a legend as a player, and yeah, he's a pretty decent evaluator of talent, but he's a complete and total failure as an executive. Isiah, for the sake of basketball fans everywhere and for the sake of your legacy, step down and leave the spotlight before you completely ruin all memory of your playing days.

As a side note, this whole Isiah trial has confirmed what we already know about Stephon Marbury, mainly that he's certifiably crazy. Really, it's been a real breakout summer in the crazy department for Starbury. I can't wait for the season, I have a feeling he's going to end up doing something completely absurd and unheard of. I don't know what, I just feel something coming.

- Moving out of the NBA and into late-season baseball, the AL looks all sown up, but we've still got legitimate races in all 3 divisions and in the wild card in the NL. This is where baseball gets good, because every game matters.

The Mets held off the hard-charging Phillies for at least one game behind a brilliant outing by Oliver Perez. Let me tell you this, Perez has had his problems with inconsistency, but his stuff is as good as anybody in baseball. He was dealing today, and everything was nasty.  He made some hitters just look silly.

The Brewers lost what was probably the most important game of their season, despite a very good outing by their young stud Yovani Gallardo, who has really impressed me with the way he carries himself. He has great composure for a rookie to go along with his nasty stuff. After he gave up a walk and a single in the first inning, he faced Chipper-Teixera-McCann with runners on first and third and managed to get out of it with allowing just one run. In the next 6 innings, he struck out 7 and allowed 2 hits to match John Smoltz's great outing. Despite the extra-innings loss that probably spelled doom for the Brew Crew's playoff hopes, it was an impressive outing by the rookie.

- Switching gears yet again, did you see Matt Flynn over-the-head flip to Colt David on LSU's fake filed goal??? That might be the coolest play all year. Seriously, that was awesome.

-Say what you want about Florida's close call with Old Miss, but I can't get over the line that Tim Tebow put up. 261 yards and 2 TDs through the air, and 166 yards and 2 TDs on the ground (that gives him 17 TDs, 1 INT, 0 FUM through 4 games). Really, I just love this guy, he's totally unique. Typically when you think "running quarterback" you think the Mike Vick-type speed guy who makes quick moves to get some yardage and usually ends up sliding or running out of bounds (Pat White is a good example this year), but that's not Tebow. He doesn't have the mind-blowing speed or tricky moves of those guys, he runs like a fullback. Tebow doesn't avoid contact, he initiates it. Who knows how long he'll last playing that way, but it's a lot of fun to watch a guy who runs like he does.

- I don't know if anyone else caught this, but I watched the very end of the Georgia-Alabama game and was completely dumbfounded by one of the announcers. I don't even know who was calling the game, but near the end of an extremely close, hard-fought game that went into overtime, during a stop in play one of the announcers asked the other completely out of the blue "what do you think Britney should do?" The other announcer, very confused, asked "Britney who?", and got a reply of "Britney Spears". To this he very rightly responded "who cares, we've got a freaking overtime game going on here, pay attention stupid" (ok, so I made that last part up a bit). Seriously though, what the #### was that? It was so absurd and out of place that I wasn't sure I heard it right. Did anyone else catch this?

- Lastly, the NFL. I must say this; I really dislike Terrell Owens. He's cocky, selfish, and acts like a diva. That said, his touchdown celebration and subsequent response to the NFL's fine were absolutely genius. That might never be topped, it was just sheer genius.

- The game I'm watching this week is Packers-Chargers, and I'm torn on who I want to see come out on top. On one hand, I'm a huge LT fan, and I absolutely love my NC State boy Phil Rivers (who had a seriously underrated college career). However, my grandparents are from Wisconsin and my Grandpa taught me to be a Packers fan. I love watching a rejuvenated Favre this year and I'd love to see them do well. I don't know who I'll be rooting for, but I'll definitely be watching that one, should be a good game.

- 35 days and counting until college basketball gets going, I can't wait.

If you haven't heard about it yet, you should check out Darko Milicic's rant against the officials at the Eurobasket tournament. I will warn you though, it's pretty vulgar, so if you get offended easily, stay away. Really though, somebody needs to tell Darko to get a handle on his mouth. After previously calling now-teammate Pau Gasol soft, now he goes and says this. It's not like the reporters didn't give him chances to get out of what he said either, but he just pressed on and kept getting more and more obscene. Really, I'm looking forward to the Darko era in Memphis, there's no telling what might happen. He's come off as completely crazy this offseason, the kind of quotes you usually see from Ron Artest, but his reputation as a player is that he's soft. Are we going to see crazy Darko next year? Are we going to see the lazy Darko who didn't play in Detroit? Who knows. Can we arrange for Memphis to trade for Steven Jackson or Artest? The comedy potential of that would be off the scale.

Greg Oden is having exploratory surgery on his knee. Now, to be perfectly honest, this is probably nothing. It's not reconstructive surgery, and Oden will probably be good to go in camp. However, if you're a Blazer fan, especially a long-time fan who lived through Bill Walton and Sam Bowie, then you've got to be feeling nervous about Oden's various maladies this offseason.

This just in, NBA players are stupid. Seriously, Shawne Williams, what are you thinking? Been reading "Stephen Jackson's Book on How to Stay Out of Trouble", have you? Pro athletes disgust me sometimes.

Important free agents still out there: Chris Webber, Michael Pietrus, Anderson Varejao, Sasha Pavlovic, and Charlie Bell. I'm surprised Webber isn't signed yet, I was sure he would've picked what contender he wanted to play with and signed up quickly, but he's still out there. Still, you gotta think he'll be signing with Dallas eventually. He's not going to San Antonio or Phoenix, so the Mavs are his best chance of snagging a ring.

Game 3 of the WNBA Finals tonight. I know, you probably don't care, but I'll be watching to see if Diana Taurasi drops 30 on the league's best defensive team again.

For all you basketball statheads out there, I'll be making a post shortly on some of the lesser known statistical measures out there, so make sure to check back on that.

Switching gears, reports say that Kevin Everett is making much better progress in his recovery than originally expected, and doctors are optimistic that he will walk again. My prayers go out to him and his family, you hate to see that happen in a sporting event, and it's good to hear that his condition is improving.

I went into Monday Night trailing by 15 points and with Edge James as my only hope. He produced 17 points, and I squeaked out a win. Course, I wouldn't have needed that if I'd started Adrian Peterson and LaMont Jordan, 40 points on the bench kind of sucks.

Apparently, Romeo Crennel comes from the Charlie Weis school of quarterback management.

Again switching gears, Jerry Crasnick has a great article on my boy Troy Tulowitzki, who is putting together a very veteran-like rookie season for the Rockies. He trails Jose Reyes and Jimmy Rollins by just .001 in fielding percentage, but he's had 100 more chances than any other shortstop in the majors. Pretty impressive for a rookie. He's almost like the anti-Ryan Braun, who carries a big stick, but is the worst fielding regular in the league. The sheer gaudy offensive numbers will get Braun ROY, Tulo might be the more valuable rookie.

Anybody know what A-Rod is hitting so far in the month of August? That would be .533/.600/1.367, yeah, that's right, a 1.367 SLUGGING PERCENTAGE. That's just obscene. My friend asked me the other day if i thought A-Rod would hit 60 HRs, and I said "no way". After looking at the numbers, I'm not so sure. 8 HRs in 20 games? He very well might with the way he's hitting. What was a close MVP race with Ordonez has turned into a runaway.

In the NL MVP race, much as I'd like to say my man Prince Fielder should win it with a spectacular second year, but I can't really endorse that even if the Brew Crew make the playoffs. The simple fact is that Ben Sheets has been every bit as important to that team as Prince has. Chase Utley would probably be the choice if he hadn't missed a good chunk of time with injury, but alas, he did. To me, it comes down to Matt Holliday and David Wright. Both have very similar offensive profiles, and it'll probably come down to team performance. If the Rockies pull off an improbable comeback and make the playoffs, Holliday has to be the choice, but otherwise I think the trophy goes to Wright.

If you haven't seen him yet this year, you should try to catch the late innings of a Cubs game to see Carlos Marmol pitch. He throws high heat, and his slider really breaks dramatically. I definitely don't consider myself an expert on pitchers, and often I can't even tell a pitch is breaking until I see the slow-mo replay, but Marmol's ball really moves. He's fun to watch.

Well, that's all for now folks. I'll leave you with this trivia question. Who holds the NBA record for most blocked shots by a rookie?

Well, after a marvelous vacation in Europe with the family, I'm back and ready to catch up on all the sports news that I missed in my absence. I had occasional internet access on the trip, but nothing constant, and I think a lot of stuff slipped through the cracks while I was out, so I'm gonna have to catch up.

The pressing business on hand is that we have a competition to finish. The NBA Legends competition finals between Hoffman and I was postponed until after my trip since we were so pressed for time beforehand. So, we need to set a date of some sort for that final round. I'm thinking some time this weekend, though I'm not sure exactly what's ahead for me over the next few days. At some point, I'll be moving back to the dorm, so I'll have to work around that, but it shouldn't be too much trouble. Hoff, let me know when things would work best for you.

In addition to that, a few words on the world of sports that may or may not be as incomprehensible as you would expect from someone who is majorly jetlagged.  

- Barry hit his bloody homerun, just like we all knew was coming. Now maybe the world can get over one of the most twisted and divisive sports stories in recent memory.

- Man, don't the Falcons feel stupid for letting Matt Schaub get away now? Really, when was the last time an athlete fell from the sport's next uberstar/game-redefiner to complete disappointment and utterly disgusting human being as fast as Mike Vick did? It wasn't that long ago that he was the single greatest prospect ever to pull on an NFL jersey. People were going crazy to see him because he was such an unbelievably brilliant talent. He was going to become the face of the game and a hall of famer, the question was not "if", but "when" that was going to happen. Now, his disappointing career is almost certainly over and he is one of the most despised figures in sports. Unreal.

- Someone told me a funny joke the other day. They said that Miami was reuniting Shaq and Penny Hardaway and that the Celtics are seriously pursuing Reggie Miller to come out of retirement...What do you mean that wasn't a joke?...

- In the realm of actually good NBA moves, the Warriors bought out Adonal Foyle and his oversized contract, and the Spurs sign Ime Udoka to a 2-year deal at one mil a pop. Seriously guys, this is why the Spurs keep winning, they make moves like this.Easily my favorite for the ring headed into next year.

-How is Chris Webber still not signed? Shouldn't he have already picked the team he thinks best gives him a chance to win and gone ahead and gotten the vet's minimum.

- In other news, looking to add even more veteran depth to their bench, the Miami Heat sign Julio Franco...

- If Ryan Braun had been in the league since day 1, we would be talking MVP right now, despite his fielding struggles. As is, he's having one of the great rookie seasons I've ever seen.

- If you could bet on this sort of thing, the odds that Sam Cassell will not be the clips come year end would be astronomical. Absolutely no way he doesn't get swapped.

Alright, that's it for me because I'm about to pass out from exhaustion. Hoff, let me know about times for that final round.

As a last note to everyone, I read Dean Oliver's Basketball on Paper over my trip, and it is a revolutionary look at basketball statistics. I'll be covering some of it in my next "Analyze This" (coming after the competition is done), but I would strongly encourage you to read it if you are a coach, statistician, or avid fan. It's really a great read. Also, Jack McCallum's Seven Seconds Or Less is a great inside look at an NBA team. It's well-written, and has genuine laugh-out-loud parts as well as serious insight.

Analyze This

I am a statistics geek. There, I said it, it's out there for everyone to see. I see PPG and OBP in my sleep. I'm obsessed with analyzing players through statistics. The sports world is a-changin, and if you want to keep up, you better know all about B/40 (Blocks per 40 minutes), YAC (Yards After Contact), OPS (On-base Plus Slugging), BABiP (Batting Average on Balls in Play), and eFG% (Effective Field Goal Percentage). So, with that in mind, I'm going to look over some of the common statistics in sports and find out what the strengths and weaknesses of those particular statistics are. In addition, I'll look at some of the less common statistics that you may not have heard of. Due to the vast amount of statistics there are to look at, I think I'll probably make this a running thing where I'll do a post every week or so with more statistics. That is, unless people think this is a stupid idea, then I won't do it and just go cry in my closet instead, so let me know what you think. Anyway, for this time I'm just going to look over some basic, commonly used statistics.

BA (Batting Average)

What Is It?
Batting Average is a baseball statistic that measures the ratio of hits to at bats.

How Is It Useful?
BA has long been the standard measurement of a hitter's performance, and it makes sense. The more hits a player gets when he's up to bat, the better a hitter he is, right? In general, it usually is a pretty good predictor of a how good a hitter is, with a BA over .300 being pretty good, over .350 being top-notch, under .250 being pretty bad, and under .200 (the Mendoza line, named for famously poor-hitting SS Mario Mendoza) being absolutely terrible.

What Are Its Flaws?
BA really has 2 major flaws. The first flaw is that it doesn't account for walks. For example, when evaluating a leadoff hitter, whose purpose is to get on base any way possible, BA tells you that Willy Taveras (.320 BA) and Dustin Pedroia (.322) are basically equal. However, Pedroia has drawn a walk 13 more times in 30 fewer ABs, meaning he gets on base at a significantly higher percentage than Taveras. The second problem is that BA treats all hits as equal, whether it's a bunt single or a home run. Lets take a look at the case of Prince Fielder (.278) vs. Juan Pierre (.280). Again, very similar batting averages. However, Fielder has 58 EBH (Extra Base Hits, i.e. doubles, triples, HRs) to Pierre's 17 EBH. Obviously, Fielder's power makes him the more effective hitter, but BA doesn't show that. The answer to these two problems, of course, is to use BA in conjunction with OBP (On Base Percentage) and SLG (Slugging Percentage) in order to analyze a player.

SB (Stolen Bases)

What Is It?
Pretty obvious, it's the number of bases a player has stolen.

How Is It Useful?
Well, it tells you which guys are speedy on the basepaths. Guys with lots of stolen bases usually make better top-of-the-order guys (if they can couple it with a decent OBP), and they can rattle pitchers when they're on base simply because of the chance they might steal.

What Are Its Flaws?
Stolen bases is kind of a sneaky statistic in that it looks very simple at first, but has a lot more flaws than it appears. The first flaw of the SB statistic is that if a player who isn't a good baserunner tries to steal a lot, he'll probably get a decent number of steals, but he'll also get caught a lot. For instance, would you rather have Juan Pierre (33 SB in 42 attempts) or Shane Victorino (27 SB in 29 attempts)? The best solution is to look at SB% (Stolen Base Percentage, SB/(SB+CS)) to see how useful a player is when stealing bases. Keep in mind, however, that an out is far more important than an advance from first to second, so the percentage needs to be much higher than 50% for a basestealer to actually be useful. In fact, statistics have shown that on average, if you're successful less than 75% of the time, you're actually hurting your team more than helping it.

BPG (Blocks Per Game)

What Is It?
A measurement for the number of shots a basketball player blocks on average each game (Total Blocks/Games Played)

How Is It Useful?
A high BPG average is usually indicative o####ood post defender. An average above 2.5 is usually very good for a post player, and anything above the low-1s is good for a guard.

What Are Its Flaws
As with all per game statistics in basketball, it suffers from not taking into account the number of minutes played. For example, Jermaine O'Neal averaged 2.6 blocks last year compared to Alonzo Mourning's 2.3. Thos look pretty comparable, with O'Neal having the slight edge. However, O'Neal averaged 15 minutes more per game than Mourning did, which puts Mourning's per minute average at a whole different level. The other flaw with blocks is that, well, it's just not a very good measure of whether you're a good defender or not. Players who block a lot of shots often do so by losing rebounding position to try for a block, and they often get in foul trouble by attempting blocks. Also, very good shot blockers tend to see their block numbers drop as players realize how good they are and decide to try and avoid them. If you watched an Ohio State game last year, you could see this happen as teams were very hesitant to go into the post against Greg Oden. So, what do we make of the blocks statistic then? Well, whenever evaluating a player by their blocked shots, be sure to incorporate fouls and rebounds into your equation. If a player has a high block per foul rate and they still rebound the defensive glass well, then they're probably a pretty good post defender. It's a little simpler for guards, since any shotblocking you get from them is an added bonus. If you see a guard/forward with high block numbers (like Gerald Wallace), that probably means they're a pretty strong defender.

FG% (Field Goal Percentage)

What Is It?
A basketball measurement of how many field goals (any shot that isn't a free throw) you make per field goals you attempt (FGM/FGA)

How Is It Useful?
It's very useful when trying to analyze a player's effectiveness as a scorer. Players who have a higher FG% are typically better shooters and therefore more efficient scorers. For example, Kobe Bryant has averaged 24.6 points per game in his career to Allen Iverson's 27.9 . However, Kobe's FG% is 30 points higher than Iverson's, indicating that he is the more efficient scorer of the two.

What Are Its Flaws?
Mainly that it doesn't account for the difference between post players and guards. Post players regularly put up FG%s of over 60%, since the vast majority of their shots are right around the rim. Guards, on the other hand, are much more likely to be launching more difficult shots from further out. One answer to this is eFG% (Effective Field Goal Percentage), which weighs three-pointers as 50% more important than 2-pointers [(FG + 0.5*3P) / FGA]. eFG% is in general a much better all-around measurement than straight-up FG%, and generally what I use when analyzing players.

Sacks

What Is It?
A football measurement for how many times a player tackles an opposing quarterback behind the line of scrimmage.

How Is It Useful?
It's a good way to measure how well a player (usually a defensive end) can get into the backfield and make plays. Double-digit sacks are very good for a defensive end/outside linebacker, and anything in the upper single-digits is pretty good for any other defensive position.

What Are Its Flaws?
Hmmm, where to start? Well, first of all, it isn't really a very good indicator of whether or not a player is a good defender, since many rush ends concentrate on the sack at the expense of run defense. In general, TFL (Tackles For Loss) is a better statistic, and total tackles is also something you should take into account. For example, Mark Anderson of the Bears had 12 sacks, but only 28 total tackles. Compare that to Adalius Thomas, who had 11 sacks but 83 total tackles. Who would you rather have? The other thing to note is that sacks may also be the result of a strong secondary (good coverage resulting in the QB hanging on to the ball too long), or the result of a defensive scheme that emphasizes blitzing.

There you go, the first edition of Analyze This, maybe the first of many. Kudos to the first person who can name me all the players executing each statistic in the pictures.

We're right around the halfway point of the MLB season, which means its time to take a look at all the various things going on around the league.

Rookies
It's always fun to take a look around the league and see who the future stars are. With that in mind, here's a list of the top rookies up to this point, and some other guys to look for in the second half. I'm going to exclude Japanese imports since I don't really consider them rookies and they're usually not young enough to qualify as "future stars".

1) Ryan Braun

I've been paying attention since he was called up since I own Braun on my stratomatic team, but I think he's slipped by a lot of people. Hunter Pence has grabbed most of the rookie attention, but Braun has only 3 less HRs and 1 more SB (8 in 9 attempts compared to 7 in 11 attempts) in 100 less ABs, and has a higher OBP and SLG. Now, he's not exactly slick with the glove, but he's easily been the best rookie hitter this year.

2) Hunter Pence

Right behind Braun has to be Pence, who has been tearing up the league since he got called up.  With a .364 AVG, 11 HRs, and .972 OPS, he's been one of the game's best hitters, and probably deserved All-Star consideration. It's too bad he's stuck on the cellar-bound Astros.

3) Dustin Pedroia

Possibly the most amazing thing about Pedroia's statistics is how incredibly horrendous he was to start the year. In the month of April, he wasn't even touching the Mendoza Line with a .182 AVG and .544 OPS. Since then, Perdroia has been red-hot, resulting in a .320 AVG and .402 OBP on the year.

4) Reggie Willits

The prototypical leadoff man in a league where the leadoff man has become a dying art. Willits has an obscene .424 OBP and 18 SB in 20 attempts. This while playing all 3 outfield spots. He's come out of nowhere to interject himself in the ROY race.

5) Troy Tulowitzki

He got pub for pulling off a an unassisted triple play earlier this year, but the slick-fielding SS has gotten progressively better as the year has gone on. With a .285 AVG and .795 OPS, he isn't breaking any records, but he's been above average at a difficult position for an improving Rockies team.

Others:

You'll note a distinct lack of pitching in that list. Well, the young pitchers called up this year have been either disappointing (looking at you Homer Bailey), injured (Phil Hughes), or haven't gotten enough burn yet (Yovani Gallardo, Andrew Miller). Depending on if their teams decide to keep them up, Gallardo and Miller are guys to watch going forward, and Hughes looked brilliant in pitching 6 innings of no-hit ball before getting hurt. If Hughes gets healthy later this year, he's one to watch for. Another young pitcher, Tim Lincecum, has been alternately brilliant and terrible. Maybe his last two games (14 IP, 20 SO, 7 H, 4 BB, 0 ER) are a sign that he's adjusting to the big leagues. If so, the league better watch out for the young ace-in-training. Alex Gordon had the big hype coming into the season, but he got off to a really rough start. He's warmed up lately to the tune of a .327 AVG and .883 OPS in June. Jarrod Saltalamacchia has been excellent when he's been on the field, but the Braves are having trouble getting him playing time behind Brian McCann Other position players to watch include Delmon Young, Chris B. Young, and James Loney.

Race of the Year - NL West

With the exception of the Giants, everyone in this division has a shot at winning it. Even Colorado at 7 games back is a team with tons of talent. It wouldn't surprise me if this one cam right down to the wire. Another interesting sub-plot of this division is that the NL's two best pitchers, Jake Peavy and Brad Penny both reside there. For the record, I'm projecting the Padres to win on both counts (the division and Peavy for the Cy Young).

Milestone Mania

We've already seen an amazing amount of guys hit milestone career marks, and we're still waiting for the big one (Mr. Bonds, of course). Special kudos to Craig Biggio for grabbing 3000 hits as a gritty player and classy guy, and now that you've got it you should retire and stop embarrassing yourself (.258 AVG, .301 OBP).

Time to Worry

Halfway through the season, and the Yankees are 3 games under .500, 12 games behing the Sox, and 8.5 games out of the wild card. It might be time to admit that this team just aint gonna get it done.

A Swing and a Miss

If anyone wants to teach a young player to not swing for the fences all the time, they should tell them all about the decline of Andrew Jones. In 2000, Jones hit .303 with 36 HRs and 21 SBs. Since then, his average has declined, his steals have dropped off precipitously, and his SOs have risen. Jones should be doing better than he is this year, but this slump really shouldn't come as much of a surprise to anyone, Jones' swing has more holes than Swiss cheese.

 
Nearing the end of his home run chase and with shouts of "Cheater" encircling him wherever he goes, Barry Bonds was chosen as a starter for the All-Star game.  The fans have looked past the rumors and scandal and hate and have awarded a great player the berth that he deserves in what is probably his final All-Star game. In the heat of all the accusations and the chase for the legend, we've been missing that Barry is back to his old self, mashing the ball around the yard with every at bat, and fully deserving that All-Star start. Gee, it's a good thing the fans got this one right.

This is apparently what everyone would like you to believe. Barry deserves to be the All-Star starter, and if you don't think so than your view is clouded by the steroid accusations. You know what? I don't buy that. I couldn't give a #### about the steroid stuff, whatever he did he did, there's no way I can know. What I do know is this.

Barry Bonds does NOT deserve to be starting the All-Star game. Not only that, but you could make a good case that he doesn't deserve to be there at all. Now, I know that this is the case with several players on the All-Star roster (Carlos Beltran, Ivan Rodriguez anyone?), but none of those guys have gotten the kind of attention that Bonds has gotten for it, and everybody is admitting that they don't belong there. Nobody is saying that about Barry, yet it needs to be said. So, with all those gaudy offensive numbers we see associated with Barry, why doesn't he deserve that spot?

Reason #1: Fielding

Barry is, quite possibly, the worst fielding semi-regular outfielder in the NL. His Zone Rating is a horrific .817, because he just doesn't have any kind of range in the outfield anymore. Of LFers with a comparable number of innings played, Barry's 105 total chances are by far the lowest. Not only does he not have range, but he doesn't have an arm anymore either. Of all LFers with over 200 innings played, Barry is the only one who doesn't have an assist. 480 innings in the outfield, and not one assist. There's not a statistic to measure how many runs Barry gives up with his poor fielding, but I would wager it's a pretty large number.

Reason #2: Playing Time

Barry can hardly even be considered a regular anymore, he takes too many games off. He's actually played less innings than the Astros' Hunter Pence, despite the fact that Pence didn't even start the season with the team. Most people didn't even think of Pence for the All-Star roster (despite his gaudy numbers) because he's a rookie who got called up halfway through the season, but he's played more innings than Bonds.

Reason #3: This isn't the old Barry

Lets get something straight, this isn't the same Barry Bonds who was absolutely destroying pitchers from '00 to '04. That Barry put up completely unheard of numbers, with slugging percentages in the 800s, a batting average in the high 300s, and a ridiculously gaudy OPS. Now? Barry's average and power numbers aren't nearly as good as they were in his dominant years. The times he does put the ball in play he's good, but not nearly on the same scale as before, when it seemed like every pitch Bonds saw over the plate turned into a home run. The thing is, pitchers are still pitching him like they did before, they're still incredibly scared of him. He's on pace for over 160 BBs this year, nearly the same amount he had when he smashed 73 dingers in '01. Yes, some of that has to do with Barry's plate presence and keen eye, but it's mostly a factor of pitchers being afraid of the dominant Barry we all think of, and being afraid to give up yet another home run on the quest to break the record. That treatment from pitchers, despite Barry having regressed a good deal as a hitter, is giving him a ridiculously high OBP, which is the main statistic people will bring up with him this year. Barry is still a good hitter, but scouts and analysts all year have been saying that he looks much more human at the plate than he has every looked, and yet pitchers continue to treat him like a god.

The fact is, there are more deserving players to start this game than Barry. Matt Holliday is an MVP candidate and should've been a shoe-in as the starter. He's an excellent fielder, has offensive numbers that are comparable, and he trails only Jason Bay among LFers in innings played. Alfonso Soriano could also lay claim to that starting spot, with similar offensive statistics, more games played, exceptional fielding (better zone rating, range factor, fielding percentage, and he's got 10 assists to no errors) and he steals bases. Also, why not talk about Hunter Pence here, as he's been arguably the best outfielder in the NL since he was called up. Even Eric Byrnes (who didn't make the NL roster) deserves consideration over Bonds with his higher average, ability to steal bases, and his exceptional fielding in all 3 outfield spots. 

Does Barry deserve to be an All-Star? You can certainly make a case for that, especially with stinkers like Beltran and Aaron Rowand on the team. You can argue him for sentimental reasons or because he was really the only Giant worthy of going, whatever. What you can't argue is that he deserves that starting spot. Lets stop making this into "the fans' apology to Barry" and start being mad that 2 guys who clearly deserved that spot more didn't get it.

 More All-Star Notes

• My boy Prince Fielder got his starting nod at first base, now I want to see him crush some balls in the Home Run Derby. Just remember Prince, they don't count inside the park homers.
• Brandon Phillips getting left off the roster made me cry. Freddy Sanchez? Phillips is on pace to go 30/30 this year, it's a travesty that he isn't on that roster.
• Poor Roy Oswalt, the man gets no respect. He goes out and suffers for a terrible team (a lot, he leads the league in innings pitched), and gets no love as an All-Star.
• This year's big "What were they thinking?"  award goes to Brian Fuentes, who lost his role as closer just as he was being picked as an All-Star. Apparently his 20 saves were more important than his 4.17 ERA in 36 innings.
• The backlog at SS in the NL is amazing. All 5 of the top shortstops (Reyes, Ramirez, Renteria, Rollins, and Hardy) probably deserve to be All-Stars more than half the guys on the roster. Not only that, but there are more coming. Troy Tulowitzki and Stephen Drew might just be joining that group in a few years. Wasn't it not long ago that shortstops were just supposed to be the light-hitting, good-fielding guys?
  

Some interesting stuff happening today.

The deadline for withdrawing from the draft is today, so we get to decide find out if Georgetown will be a final four contender next year, if Georgia Tech will have any hope of winning games, if Cal will threaten the big dogs in the Pac-10, and if Sean Singletary will be first-team All-ACC twice in a row.

Top pitching prospect Yovani Gallardo makes his debut for the Brewers. Scouts are comparing Gallardo to Fransisco Liriano from last year. Reports are he's got a mid-90s fastball and an absolutely devastating curve. More exciting for me is that I've got Gallardo on my strat-o-matic team (for those of you who not familiar with strat-o-matic, I'll probably write a post about my team a little later and explain it), and the faster my elite prospect gets me good starts, the better.

If you haven't seen it yet, go to ESPN.com and check out the video of Prince Fielder's inside the park home run. I don't think I've ever seen a centerfielder misjudge a ball that badly. Fielder, all 260 pounds of him, can't even slow down as he passes home and is still running when he hits the dugout. High comedy.

I'm not a big golf fan, but my friend pointed this out to me today. Tiger Woods is 12 for 12 on majors when he's leading going into the final day. Pretty impressive. However, he's never won one coming from behind on that final day. That's unbelievable to me. For all the hype that Tiger has gotten (deservedly), he's never made a final day comeback at a major.

You know, I thought it was a pretty well-acknowledged point that Tim Duncan is the greatest power forward of all time, but I've been amazed at how many people will vehemently argue that point. I might have to post about this soon.

I love statistics. I'm a basketball statistics nerd, and I've just gotten into it with baseball the last few years. It kills me that no one has come up with a decent defensive statistic in basketball. Blocks and steals are a poor indication of how good a defender somebody is. Hollinger over at ESPN has come up a slightly better statistic (points saved), but even that has huge holes in it. I'd love to see some sort of better defensive statistic. I also wonder why they plus/minus isn't a standard statistic for b-ball, it seems like it would be pretty useful.

Just on a random tangent, I was perusing Chad Ford's top 100 prospect list for the draft, and noticed that Glen Davis has been rising up that list. So, I clicked on Davis to see his profile, and the player similarity they mentioned was Oliver Miller. Now, I'm a big fan of Davis, but how are you a first rounder if your closest comparison is someone I've never heard of? (Just looked him up. Played for 6 different teams and averaged 7 and 5 for his 11 year career. meh)