The Off-Topic Post of the Day ---- 03/07/09 ---- Make a baseball-related prediction

Eric Hull kicks ass, Gaby Hernandez struggles.
Chris Seddon plays well, Garret Olson less so.
Mike Wilson has a solid year, Mike Saunders is sort of ok (but kicks ass in 2010).

Bill Simmons at Page 2 sticks it to Oklahoma City pretty good.

Q: You are unfairly killing an entire fan base with your refusal to call the (Team That Shall Not Be Named) by its name. In your attempt to make another state feel better (rightly deserved) you are coming across as a pompous jerk to another one. Can you please start calling our team by its proper name?
— John H., Tulsa, Okla.

SG: No way. It’s like (TTSNBN) was a married couple and couldn’t conceive a child on their own, so they went and stole another couple’s kid (in this case, Seattle’s) after proving in court that the kid was living in an aging house and deserved to live in a new one … but then, in the insult of insults, it turned out they lived in a house that was just as old and decrepit as the kid’s old house. How would you expect me to support this? You stole their team. I will continue to call it The Team That Shall Not Ne Named, the Bennett City Hijackers and the Seattle SloppySeconds. And if it costs me every reader in Hijack City, so be it — I have 49 other states and hundreds of other countries to work with. I’ll be fine. You stole someone else’s team. If you were friends with a buddy who stole another buddy’s wife, you would not be friends with that person anymore. Hijack City is not my friend. At least until Seattle remarries.

Grady Sizemore will win the AL MVP.
The Angels will not make the playoffs.
Felix will have a big season.
The Mets will make the World Series.

During a fit of anger, instead of throwing a chair into a pool Jeff will toss Ms. Jeff into a pool.

1. M’s set a team record for bunts and singles

2. The phrases ‘manufacturing runs’ and ‘small ball’ are used so frequently by the announcers, they give up and just start calling it ‘baseball’. In a fit of hysterical excitement during a 15 run inning involving 6 bunts, 4 double steals, and 6 singles hit the other way, Rick Rizzs spends 20 minutes cackling and repeating the phrases “they’re doing all the small things right”, “they’re hitting behind the runner”, and sometimes shouting “he moved the runner over! he moved the runner over!”. It’s the most exciting season ever for an M’s announcer, including all of 2001, but excluding the final month of 1995.

3. A bunch of baseball teams go nowhere, and have no wildly controversial players. Their local media coverage starts a bunch of shit, beats it to death, and runs it ragged. They have column inches to fill, something has to get printed; in a fit of curmudgeonly behavior I stop reading the printed news for a month.

4. Jose Guillen says/does a bunch of stupid shit because he likes attention, and goes about it like a 2 year old. The media loves it, makes good copy. His team mates are so distracted wondering what stupid shit he’s going to do next, they forget about their own problems and actually play better.
Guillen is mistakenly labeled a leader when a rock in everyone shoe would have produced the same result. At the last minute they remember they play for Kansas City, and collapse at the wire in spectacular fashion.

5. Bedard pitches like a fricking madman, Felix suddenly realizes he’s just been throwing the ball and decides to start pitching, Morrow nails down his curve ball and sweetens the pot with a crappy straight change just to add variety. The trio wins 70 games despite the M’s hitting a record low number of homeruns, and make the playoffs.

6. Beltre gets traded by the deadline to a team chasing the postseason seeking the quintessential one more piece that will put them over the top. In return, they have to give the M’s a fantastically talented prospect, who in two years time is promoted to the bigs and nails down 3rd base for the better part of a decade. They also have to take on most of Silva’s contract, and a PTBNL, who turns out to be a not too shabby bullpen arm. The PTBNL pitches out of his mind for half a season, and is then traded for three more prospects. Ten years from now, the results of The Beltre Trade will be so fantastic, it is recognized as arguably the finest trade of all time, and only discussed in hushed and reverential tones.

+EV bet or no?

linky

In my defense, it was on the Facebook ads sidebar and I clicked out of curiosity.

Have any of you seen Goose Island or Midnight Sun brews around town for sale?