Scott Rolen, juggler and third baseman for the somewhat obscure, noncompetitive, NL East Misspelled Division's Philadelphia Pillies.

We have Montero and Upton who can hit. And we have Haren who plays every five days so he doesn't really count.

Reynolds is a slugger but he strikes out more often than he gets a hit. Which is unfortunate but it is what it is. He gets hits with men on base.

But besides that...

we lack a true leadoff guy. Stephen Drew just doesn't pass muster at this point. Maybe it's beacuse he had a bad year last year, but he's really a number-two guy. Felipe Lopez was a great leadoff hitter but we traded him (Thank you, Josh Byrnes). For what exactly?

I'm not sure.

I don't think we got much of anything from Milwaukee.

Except to end a third straight season without a regular second-baseman.

And who's out there? O-Dog. Felipe again. But I doubt they'd come back with open arms. Yes, Byrnes has managed to alienate the two best free-agent second basemen out there. How bout a round of sarcastic applause for him?

Oh, I should stop blaming things on old Greedo, shouldn't I?

But it's too much fun...if Gerardo really disposed of him cleanly, then who would I blame my sorrows on? Eric Byrnes? There's got to be something funky with that last name and the Diamondbacks. The first year Eric was here and the first year Josh was here, everything seemed okay. But then it kinda burned like a grease fire in McDonalds and now we have no money because we're paying the brilliant Byrnes duo.

Says the girl wearing the Byrnes t-shirt.

Maybe I should blame it all, including the nonfire of Byrnes (and AJ Hinch) on Kendrick, the owner.

That's what my parents do. Not that they know the names of any D-Back executives. But whenever something's wrong, they blame the Wilpons. Castillo dropped the pop-up? The Wilpons shouldn't have approved the signing. They should have fired Minaya for signing guys like that for more than they're worth. Oliver Perez is pitching? That was another bad move by the Wilpons. They shouldn't have let Omar have that much money. They raised prices at Starbucks? Blame the Wilpons for not having a benevolent influence on the economy.

So maybe I'm kidding about that last part, but really. In a way the Wilpons and their real estate stuff can have something to do with the economy. What do I know? Even my history teacher knows I know nothing about economics.

From a psychological standpoint, I'm probably placing the blame for everything on Byrnes because I have mental problems and can't deal with blaming stuff on myself. Or something. But then again, the Melvin firing came as a surprise to me.

Whatever. Back to what we need.

Hitting that Byrnes is too cheap to pay for. Because what is he willing to trade for a first baseman who can hit? A catcher with a bad back. We will also be willing to trade him for a second baseman who can hit. Actually, Minaya might do that. When you're a bad GM, deal with other bad GMs is the moral of that story. But we are willing to trade our shortstop for: a pitcher. Who is from the AL, so presumably can't hit.

Our top pinch-hitter last year was Jon Garland (he was AJ's first choice, anyway). Jon Garland's lifetime BA is about .100. This is why we need decent hitting, so we don't have to do cringeworthy things like that.

Drew can hit sometimes. So can Parra. So, honestly, what do we need? We need one of the other OFs to be able to hit. We need a hitter at first base. We need a real second baseman (and I don't want to get Luis Castillo because he can't field and no one else on the team can). We need some decent hitters on the bench.

Easier said than done.

Ignore that, just scroll down until there it is, under the link list.

So talk about stuff...your team, hot stove, tell a joke, just say hi. I had to change my background because the text didn't show up on the other one. Well, it did, but it blended in so it was annoying to read. Anyway...it's there. Talk, please.

We could do a lot, we could do a little. We don't have a terrible amount of money (Omar Minaya may make bad decisions but at least he's willing to spend and at least the Wilpons weren't as hoodwinked by the Ponzi Scheme people as we thought) and judging from our past offseasons we don't like to do that much.

What do we need?
1. The obvious choice is a first baseman. We might get Overbay, but if we don't we can convert Montero or Upton into a first-baseman. Why? Snyder is a better defensive catcher, but putting Montero at first will allow us to utilize his good bat on a regular basis. Upton, despite what certain fangraphs might say, is not a great right-fielder. He's already been moved around, and we can't move him back to center (Young and Parra are already duking it out) or third (because we all know what happens when Reynolds plays first). We have too many outfielders as is, so we have to do something about them. Of course, a healthy CoJack would be fine, but we don't know if that's an option. Worst-case, we do as we've done and platoon Ryal, Allen, etc.
2. Starting pitching. We've got four capable starters plus Kevin Mulvey. If AJ puts Mulvey in there, we're doomed one out of five days, but we can't do a four-man rotation, at least not at first, because of Scherzer's lack of pitch-efficiency and the questions about Webb after his surgery. An ideal guy would be someone like Livan Hernandez who isn't going to cost us too much and will eat up innings, be efficient, and hit well enough. Of course, we could also get RJ and pay him what he's worth, but...I'll get to that later. We clearly can't trade for a Matt Cain or even a Ricky Romero, and I'd laugh if someone said we were in contention for Lackey. But a low-to-mid-market starter (please not Jamie Moyer) like Hernandez would do the job nicely.
3. A bullpen. Chad Qualls is an excellent setup man, but our stupidity in not having a real closer is just annoying. It makes me wish we still had Mantei (even though he was always injured)! Or, you know, Valverde. We could sign JJ Putz, as his value's gone down with his playing time. Or we could sign RJ and have him close, if we pay him what he's worth. We need just a few more guys, because with Vasquez, Schlereth, Zavada, and Qualls, we're halfway there. We need a longman, though, and that won't be easy. Maybe we can get someone from a fire-sale team like the Marlins or the Pirates.
4. Get a second baseman who we will agree will play the whole damn season for once! Ojeda can't do it, Roberts can't do it, Whitesell can't, Ryal can't--these guys are utility guys. We could get O-Dog back, but luck being what it is he would probably injure his wrist in August again. Is Craig Counsell a free agent? He always looked good in a D-Backs uniform.
5. Find a way to make our guys more alert both in the batter's box and in the field. I don't care what you have to do, just do it. Our spaciness is embarassing sometimes, isn't it, Mark and Stephen?
6. Even though he's a space cadet, we can't send Stephen Drew to New England! We can't! They would outsmart us and give us nothing for a guy who at least goes out there, plays, and does better than most of the rest of the mediocre team.

What will we do? We may get a frst baseman, but my guess is that Roberts will stay at first, Mulvey will be our fifth starter, we'll get some crap relief from Kansas City or somewhere, and we'll finish at the bottom again. But they might do something right for once...who knows?

See, for the past few years we've had a platoon of guys getting smacked at the window that is first base and not quite fitting through, bouncing off the panes for some or another reason. Who?

Chad Tracy. Third base with shot knees who had to do something for the money we were paying him.
Tony Clark. Somewhat non-clutch and also somewhat old. He got released.
Conor Jackson. He had to be an outfielder and then he got Valley Fever.
Mark Reynolds. Hard as it was to fail at fielding something more than his 2008 tenure at third, Mark outdid himself at first and was moved back to his slightly better position.
Chris Snyder. Why? He's tall, I suppose. Or we put the other catcher in but we still wanted him available in case the other catcher got injured.
Adam Dunn. He was horrible in the outfield, why not see if he's any better at first?
Rusty Ryal. We kinda had no one else to put there.
Brandon Allen. Is supposedly the 1B of the future, but is clearly not the 1B of right now.

And bear in mind that these are the guys I can name off the top of my head. How many of these guys are with the team now? Reynolds, Jackson, Ryal, Allen...and Snyder. Snyder is a better defensive catcher than Montero and Hester, no question. But that is most likely because Snyder is used to these pitchers and he has more experience. But with the experience he gained while Snyder was injured, Montero improved at calling games and whatnot. Hester is still young, so there's still a lot we can do with him. So why not trade Snyder? He batted well (by his standards) last year but Montero's got more pop on the bat, which AJ the all-knowing has deemed thumbs-up worthy.

So if we trade Snyder for a first baseman while we figure out something long-term, that might not be so bad. It might even...(dare I say it?) make sense! Of course if Anthopoulos and Byrnes can't agree on anything, they can't. Both GMs, I believe, have not negotiated with one another's team--though several players have done work for both organizations. Of course, Byrnes having AL east background may mean he's done something with the Jays, and if Anthopoulos has been around long enough he'll have dealt with the D-Backs.

But, nonetheless, having Overbay back in a D-Backs uniform would be nice. Say what you will about other Snakes-Jays players (Lopez, Sexson, Barajas, Roberts, Stottlemyre, Schoenweis, Davis, Batista, etc.), a significant amount of whom played for Milwaukee as well. Sure, Overbay had about as much playing time with us as Lopez, but that means we can more quickly give him a fresh start.

Or something. 

But what really got to me was that he got pulled over for speeding. And, well, who can really blame him for speeding? Your car will get hit, honked at, yelled obscenities at, etc. if you drive at the legal limit. Everybody speeds, and to me there's no clear reason.

Not everyone needs to get places fast. I'm sure some people do, but what with traffic lights and traffic itself, speeding doesn't seem to make a huge difference in getting places faster. It makes us go over the speed of maximum fuel efficiency, so it's not good for the environment. And it's not like people get a rush from driving at 65 or 70...right?

But it's not just on the road that speed is an obsession. Take, for example, Star Wars. In every movie there is something based on speed. In episode I, it's the speed of the podracing: how fast does Anakin go? Can he beat Sebulba? It's how he gets to be a jedi! And then there's Darth Maul taking forever to lord it over Obi-Wan and make him die a slow death--which, eventually, is his downfall because it gives Obi-Wan enough time to recover and surprise Maul, quickly sending him to what is regarded outside the extended universe as his death. I could go on about this, but you get the point.

And what is energy? Mass times the speed of light squared. The speed of light, which is pretty fast, drives everything.

Also, the first person to do something, the fastest to reach a goal of some sort is lauded, whether it's a celebrity who gets bombarded by the media or an average citizen whose community regards them with a bit more respect.

And then we can go back into sports--there's the whole dispute over Caster Semenaya's true gender just because she's a lot faster than the other women. If she had ran a bit slower, then would this be happening? No. People are regarding her as unnatural because she's so fast.

And then, of course, there are the pitchers, who are mostly judged on how fast they can throw. You've got a guy like AJ Burnett who throws wildly, but very fast--he gets millions of dollars. You get a control pitcher who walks less, his pitches are just as pretty in a different way--but he doesn't get paid as much.

They say time is money, but when you're a baseball player you're making hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year, and if you're a bit late you aren't going to lose your bitterly-earned dollars. So why was this guy speeding? You can't blame him. It's part of his culture.

First of all, last night. It was November 4, it was the Night the D-Backs Won. It would always be the Night the D-Backs won. But now, because they're the Yankees, everyone will remember it as the Night the Yankees Ended Their "Drought". People will forget the D-Backs, because no one in New York other than me ranks the D-Backs higher in their rememberances than they do the Yankees. So of course they went ahead and stole that night. Okay, they steal money, they steal players, they steal the world series, they steal bases. They even steal one another's stuff! But stealing our night? The D-Backs were already linked to the Yankees with that, now it's like we're just another footnote in the pages of YANKEES ALL THE TIME ZOMG WE ARE SO COOL.

Secondly, overnight my whole became a Yankee fan: literally half the people I saw were wearing Yankees gear. Jerseys, hats, t-shirts, jackets, sweatpants...it was Yankees Central. I have never seen most of these people show any sign that they were Yankee fans before: it was just a cruel reminder before they start shouting, "27! 27! 27!" when they know nothing about baseball. Bandwagoners annoy me so much...

Thirdly, guess where the stupid parade route goes by? City Hall. Guess how far away from City Hall my school is? A few avenues. Guess who is going to be unable to get to the subway after school tomorrow?

Ah, well. The Angels wasted no time in re-signing El Comedulce.

And it looks a lot like Billy will be in our rotation in 2010: Yusmeiro Petit got claimed off of waivers by the Seattle Mariners. Also, we declined Chad Tracy's options and let the Nats claim Doug Slaten...

It's good to know we're at least up to something.

Oh, no.

A few days ago, I rewatched game 7 on my iPod, and it was magical. It was brilliant. They caught Paul O'Neill trying to make his double into a triple and then Schill shut down the Yanks for a while after that. The D-Backs did nothing either, because the Roid Rocket was pitching at 97 MPH, and at least they looked better at the plate than he did--they didn't twirl around when they swung.

And then the Yanks get up on Soriano's homer-that-shouldn't-have been and somewhere it kinda rained a little, and they didn't close the roof because it would have taken too long. So they were ahead and we were in trouble and then Schill had to get out and Brenly called him his hero, and he did pitch a hell of a game. But then it was time for a specialist and then in came RJ.

RJ would have made a great closer. I mean, he was a great starter, no question, he still does get brilliant fairly often. But just think. All six feet and ten inches of him, throwing fastballs that went right by you--kapow! Well, he outpitched Mo in that game.

Because then after RJ was cool and lights-out, the D-Backs got real lucky. Mo Rivera made a throwing error. See, that's the irony of the situation. Mo blew this WS save by throwing crooked, but the D-Backs' closer blew a couple of games because he threw the ball straight down the middle.

But this was the one game that counted, and Mo threw crooked and it was all good to go on Damian Miller's bunt. And then a few batters later, it was tied. And then the bases were loaded with one out, and Gonzo hit the ball in the right spot, and after that run crossed: I have never seen Curt Schilling run so fast ever.

Of course, that team eventually separated, as teams are wont to do even if they are not the Florida Marlins. But where are they now? Are any of them still playing?

Yes.

Okay, there are obvious non-players such as Gonzo the executive, BK the restarautier, Schill, who's a blogger now, and Gracie and Matt Williams, who are announcers for the D-Backs. But some of them are still playing, none for AZ, and they've pretty much scatttered:

RJ has found his calling as a reliever in SF, helping out the very good Giants bullpen. He managed to get the best of the D-Backs in several meetings this year.

Rod Barajas, backup catcher in 2001, had a good year for the Blue Jays as an everyday player. He didn't leave Arizona until a few years ago, actually, and he went to Philly first before coming to Toronto.

Craig Counsell, NLCS MVP, somehow managed to slam 8 triples at the age of 39 for the Brew Crew this year, despite getting caught stealing more than he reached safely--which was only 3 times.

If any others are still playing, they aren't doing anything that has caught my eye. But it just goes to show how much baseball cycles through only 8 years. Or something like that.

But anyway, happy anniversary, guys! 

But there's a rather...incriminating wave of fan comments in on a certain article that I'm not going to link to. Find it and poison your eyes if you really gotta. Myers says to Hamels, "What are you doing here, I thought you quit?" and the fans start hating on Myers.

Do these people forget that for the past few years, Myers has been the opening day starter? I don't care if Hamels was injured this year, I don't care how bad the Phils used to be--last 3 years they won the freaking division, even if they were handed it on a silver platter in 07 by the flailing Metropolitans. But come on. These guys are saying how wonderful Hamels is, how evil Myers is, how Hamels beats him any day in any situation, how without Hamels Myers wouldn't have a WS ring, blah blah blah.

All this because Myers had the balls to say what those fans had probably been thinking?

Please. Sometimes you have to open your mouth and say what needs to be said, and this is one of those situations. Hamels is the golden boy, and if you say something bad about him people condemn you as a loser or an angry fanatic who thinks he's supposed to be Cy Young or something. Poor Cole, he was injured, he can't help it, he's only 25.

Sure, it's been a long year. But if he was INJURED at the beginning, then it was shorter than everyone else's. When you do badly, worse than expected, whatever--you get back to work and try harder. You want it to end but that's not the kind of thing you say at random to a press conference. Do you? You wait until AFTER THE WORLD SERIES IS OVER or AFTER YOU'VE USED UP ALL YOUR CHANCES. Hamels has not, by far, had the toughest year of any Phils pitcher.

Pedro Martinez did well for the Dominican Republic in the WBC, but his team got knocked out by the Netherlands. But Pedro labored away in the Dominican, waiting for his chance. Oppurtunity finally knocked and he took his chance and tried hard every time. Sure, he's a nutcase, but he doesn't complain when he does badly. He just shrugs and says the Yankees are his daddy or something.

Jamie Moyer is the oldest player in baseball right now. He hits guys in the head with his 70-mph fastball and is way past his glory days. He's had a long career, he's separated from his family in Florida, he had a horrible year this year. He got moved to the bullpen when Martinez came up, and he worked away. And he got left off the WS roster. Is he complaining? No. He's thankful that he's gotten to play a kid's game for a career until he's 46, made a lot of money and can support his family.

Brad Lidge has been miserable. After his phenomenal perfect Cy Young worthy year last year, he didn't come close at all to anything resembling that. His ERA ballooned, he blew a zillion saves, he got demoted, and he blew a world series game. He doesn't complain either--he's just thankful that he's still on the roster and Manuel still gives him chances.

So, Mr. Myers, you are not a hero, you are not an ace, but you know that you are playing a kid's game and you know Hamels doesn't appreciate it. Maybe you don't, either, but you call him out on it.

And Mr. Hamels, you can't complain. You have hundreds of kids wearing jerseys with your name across the back, everyone in America knows who you are, you have a gaudy ring to wear on your finger, and you've got years in baseball ahead of you. And maybe you're disgusted with yourself, maybe you're tired, but you've got money and you've got talent and you've got freedom and you've got a dream job and you should consider yourself extra-lucky that these fans have your back no matter what you say.