Odds and Ends

Lots of different topics in here...

The morning show I sometimes listen to on the way to work (XX 1090 AM in San Diego) had a handicapper on this morning discussing the NCAA tournament. The dude (I think his name was Brandon Lang) picked Louisville to win it all (duh) but had them beating...

wait for it....

Yep. VILLANOVA in the final. Personally I think the dude's smoking crack. Although I would probably be unsufferably obnoxious if they did make it that far. For what it's worth, I picked Xavier to win that regional, beating Duke (who knocks out my Wildcats in the regional semifinal).

Lots of interesting stuff being discussed in the UCB topics. Today it was offseason moves by management. Yesterday was the 25 man roster. Monday we considered what number would be retired next by the Cardinals (I voted for 51). I plan to elaborate on some of these topics later on, but if you're not following the blogs as discussions are posted you're missing out. See Cardinal 70 for the complete schedule of blogs posting the discussions.

Chris Carpenter pitched today and went 6 scoreless. I am a crusty old Navy man, but I am giddy - yes, giddy - about how Carp has pitched so far this spring. Fourteen scoreless innings is nothing to sneeze at. As we get closer to Opening Day, and the lineups start to feature more Major League hitters (also the WBC fniishes), we'll know better if this is for real or just a mirage; but the early returns are VERY favorable. I have put my money where my mouth is and drafted Carp for my only 'All MLB' fantasy team. Believe it or not, he's the only Cardinal on my roster. So don't let me down, Carp.

Called into the UCB radio hour last night. Good discussion. If I ever figure out how to post files here, I'll post the audio file. You should call in or at least log on to the chat room - every Wednesday night at 8pm Pacific. There is some discussion about moving the time to allow more participation, so stay tuned for an update.

Finally, there's the World Baseball Classic. As I type this (and although it won't appear until tomorrow morning on the site) the Japanese lead Cuba 3-0 after 5. In foggy Petco Park. Most of the baseball has been pretty good, with some great games. Both Netherlands/Dominican Republic contests were classics. The US' comeback last night against Puerto Rico. It's unfortunate that all of those games were on the MLB network, which virtually no one gets.

The players, most notably Chipper Jones, have raised some issues with the format. I couldn't agree more. Even this is packaged by MLB to make the most money. Let's take a look at some of the areas that cause head-scratching.

- Round Robin play. Only MLB could devise a system where there are 4 teams in a pool, and you may not play the other 3. Why don't they do Pool Play like other major international tournaments do it, like soccer's World Cup for instance? That way, instead of playing beating the Dominican, then losing to Puerto Rico, and having to play the Dominican again, you would play Panama in that third game (this would be what happened to the Netherlands).

You ask how the winner and runner-up of the pool would be determined? Try this. Winners get two points. Games that go to extra innings are a point for each team, with an additional point awarded to the winner. If you beat a team badly enough to activate the mercy rule, you get a bonus point. The two teams with the most points advance. In event of a tie, head to head result is the tie breaker.

This would also eliminate the useless 'seeding' game. It was ridiculous that Japan went 2-0 in pool play in the first round and end up the #2 seed, all because they lost the 'seeding' game to Korea 1-0. Same for the US and Venezuela.

- Rosters. The roster rules need to be more clearly defined. The Dutch manager had a legitimate point when he complained about Brian Roberts being added to the US roster 30 min before game time. MLB is meticulous about roster configuration during the playoffs, and they should show the same kind of rigor for this event.

- Venues. With all the pretty ballparks in this country, Miami's Joe-Robbie-Pro-Player-I-Don't-Know-What's-The-Name-Today-Park-Stadium was the best choice for the second round? Really? What, the Tropicana Dome busy with a Monster Truck Rally? I would have thought Atlanta, or Houston, or Phoenix would be a much better choice - and all 3 cities have a sizeable Hispanic population.

Love the choice of Dodger Stadium for the final, however. Can we park a Camaro at home plate and do a pull-away shot as part of the opening ceremonies?

- Coverage. I was in the car tonight picking up a box at FedEx, and thought I would listen to the game on ESPN Radio. So I turned it on. Turns out, the game was simulcast (which means, for those of you under 30, the same broadcast is being heard on radio and TV). Which means the guy calling the game on TV has to talk to the action so those of us listening on the radio can keep up with what's going on. The guys doing the game have no idea how to cover a game on the radio. These two bozos are chatting away on some ancedote about one of the players, and in the background you hear the crowd start to cheer. This is because Curtis Granderson just singled to right. Only after the cheering gets loud do your trusty play-by-play guys casually mention, Granderson singles to right, before continuing with their conversation.

No number of outs, no score, no count, no 'fastball for a strike', nothing. It's as if they think the audience tunes in to hear them talk about the bunions on their feet and not the game. This is why I used to mute Padres games on local TV (that and I can't stand Matt Vasgerian. Now that he's gone I might turn the volume up again).

I would have thought MLB was flush enough to spring for a second announcing team on the radio. Three years from now, call me and I'll do it for free; so long as MLB pays for my travel, accomodations, and meals.

Consider these helpful suggestions from a concerned citizen.

Big East Tournament Recap

Let me first say - categorically - I am rooting for the Nederlands. I made a comment in yesterday's UCB thread about how Americans love an underdog, well, you can't get much more underdog than a country with only two major leaguers on the roster (and those being Sidney Ponson and Randall Simon). Wow. Beat the mighty Dominican Republic team twice.

So yesterday kicked off the Big East tournament. This is the first year all 16 teams made the post-season tournament. Since the league expanded to 16 teams, the bottom 4 had been ineligible for the post-season event at Madison Square Garden. To accomodate those other 4 teams, the tourney format now includes a first round bye for the top 8 seeds, and a second round bye for the top 4 seeds.

Not that it helps Cincinnati at all. They faced less-than-mighty DePaul, who had finished the season with a league worst 0-18 record. Yes, that's not a typo - the Blue Deamons lost every single conference game. I'm quite sure this morning Cincinnati wishes the format hadn't changed, for DePaul won their first (and likely only) conference game against Cincinnati 67-57 in the tourney's opening round (and opening game). How much does that sting the Bearcat faithful? As a guy with an Xavier alum in the family, I can't help but laaaaaaauuuuuugh at the Bearcat misfortune. Lovely, lovely.

Another team not digging the new format is Georgetown. Remember two years ago they were a Final Four team? Ranked as high as #9 this year? Nothing like the conference season to separate the wheat from the chaff. The Hoyas would have squeaked into this tourney anyway as the #12 seed, but they probably would have gotten exactly as far as they will this year. St John's, making their first appearance at this event since 2003, dropped G'Town 64-59. Georgetown can kiss whatever slim hopes they had of making the NCAA's goodbye. I doubt they'll be invited to the NIT, but you never know - they are above .500 overall, although well under that mark in the conference.

Notre Dame kept their very slim NCAA hopes alive with an 11 point win over Rutgers. The Irish didn't have a good shooting night, but played suffocating defense to get the job done. They face West Virginia today in what very well might be a 'win and you're in' game for the NCAA. The Mountaineers beat Notre Dame at Morgantown, 67-58, in their 18 Feb conference matchup.

Most prognosticators put seven Big East teams in the NCAA tourney. That list does not include either Seton Hall or South Florida. In the final first round game, the Pirates beat S. Florida 68-54. As a reward, they get Syracuse today.

So your second round matchups are:

DePaul vs Providence, St. John's vs Marquette, Notre Dame vs. West Virginia, and Seton Hall vs Syracuse.

I would put these 6 teams as locks for the NCAA field: Louisville, UCONN, Pitt, Villanova, Marquette, Syracuse. I think if Providence beats DePaul, and they should be thanking the big Friar in the sky they don't have to play Cincinnati, they get in. I also think, as mentioned above, the Notre Dame/West Virginia winner will get in as well. I think 8 teams from the toughest conference in the country is about right. This league has had 4 or 5 teams in the top 10 rankings all season long.

We'll talk a little more about Villanova in tomorrow's post. The Cardinals have a bunch of off-days this week, so a bit of a hiatus there.

Is it too late to ask MLB to swap the teams around, so the USA and Dutch squads play here next week? I really don't care to see Japan/Korea/Cuba and whoever (Mexico or Australia) again at Petco. 3 of those 4 teams played here in 2006 (the other being the Dominican, whose players are returning to their MLB spring training complexes as we speak. Ha Ha Ha).

Pujols and the WBC

Today's Post Dispatch headline article discusses Albert Pujols. Because I'm constantly accused of having an opinion on everything, here are some thoughts:

- Albert's ready to go this season, and claims he's physically healthy. GOOD.

- Albert expects to get paid when he's a free agent next, is open to continuing to play in St Louis, but doesn't rule anything out. I think AP sees the fiscal reality of the times. The Cardinals, although making moves to improve the team, have made an organization decision not to spend ridiculous amounts of money on players. I don't have a problem with this strategy at all. I do think, however, for those few players that are the very very best at what they do (and AP certainly qualifies as one of those guys), the team should open the coffers to pay that guy fair market value. Especially when he's the face of the franchise, as AP is right now.

Who knows what AP will be worth on the open market in 2012. Since Texieria got $180M for 8 years this offseason ($22.5M per season), you can expect AP to be worth between 25 and 30 million a season, even though he'll be 32 at the end of the 2012 season. Think of him as a younger Manny Ramirez as far as free agent dollars goes. I don't know if the Cardinals will be willing to pay him that much for 5 more years, but they need to consider it, and I'm sure Mo is running the numbers even now.

I've watch the Padre debacle (RE: Peavy, Hoffman) with detatched bemusement. I'd really like to avoid that type of soap-opera scenario (jettisioning a productive member of the team, a franchise face-type guy, due to monetary reasons) with Pujols.

As far as his 'they could trade me' comments, well, noted. That's life.

- Albert wants to play in the World Baseball Classic. Cardinals don't want him to play without insurance provided by MLB. This one is interesting.

The Rincon saga was mentioned in the article. I think the Cardinals should DEMAND MLB indemnify them against injury to AP if he plays in the WBC and gets hurt. In a lot of ways, AP is our most important player; losing him to an injury suffered in this event would be devastating, both to the team and to the ownership. That only makes sense.

What I found most interesting about this discussion was AP's desire to play for the Dominican Republic. Especially in light of his becoming a US Citizen in 2007. The USA certainly isn't hurting for quality first baseman (Derrek Lee and the aforementioned Texieria among them, although I don't know if they're playing for Team USA this year), but why wouldn't AP play for this country? After all, he's lived most of his life here.

This isn't meant to imply he should be ashamed of being from the Dominican, or downplay his heritage. Far from it. And I don't know if he holds dual citizenship in the US and the DR. But does anyone else find it curious that he would rather play for that team than for ours? The DR has some guys who can play, but so does the USA. Come on AP, represent the red white and blue.