*** VD 13 Commentary Thread ***

[heyelander]

I think that is my profile pick on facebook !

I thought the same thing

[Kevin Seitzer]

I thought the same thing

From the time you and Feral climbed Mount Rainier together? Which one of you is that in the front?

[The Feral Slasher]

From the time you and Feral climbed half of Mount Rainier together? Which one of you is that in the front?

Fixed

[The Feral Slasher]

When one shopper buys up all the Lite Caesar, then other shoppers will pay more for the remaining flavors.

I disagree

[Kevin Seitzer]

I disagree

Demand makes buyers like flavors they normally wouldn't purchase.

[Bene Futuis]

Bloomberg worse than Trump? Oh, fucking please. :eyeroll:

[Bene Futuis]

I might have cut into my overwhelming advantage by my misguided last two picks. Panic picks, both! Hopefully Kyle Tucker gets a job out of ST with the Asterisks.

[heyelander]

#30 Johnny Bench

He wrote his first “I’m going to be a major-league baseball player” essay when he was in the second grade, and wrote some version of it for a class just about every year after that.

How sure was he? Here’s my favorite Johnny Bench story, one of my favorite baseball stories period. When he was in the seventh or eighth grade, he got a “C” in penmanship. This hit him hard on two different levels. On one level, Johnny didn’t get C’s in anything. He was a perfectionist, and so the grade itself was unacceptable.

But the subject made it much worse. A “C” in penmanship qualified as a full-blown emergency. How would Johnny sign all the autographs for all those kids looking for a hero if he couldn’t write his name legibly, much less artfully?

So here’s what he did: He went down to Ford McKinney’s Texaco Station, and he practiced signing his name again and again until the loops in the H and two Ns in Johnny were exactly the same height and width and had the same natural rhythm. Once he got that down — and it definitely took quite a while — he worked on adding flourishes to the J and the B so that people would know they were getting an autograph that mattered.

He practiced and practiced, trying out different techniques, giving the letters different looks, until he felt like he had the autograph just right. And when he did get it just right, he began signing it over and over and offering the autograph to people.

“Keep this,” he would say. “I’m going to be famous.”

He liked doing this so much that he went down to the gas station again the next week to sign autographs and again the next weekend and again the next. By the end, Ford McKinney had so many Johnny Bench autographs that he simply stuffed them in a shoebox for safekeeping. Many decades later, he told Bench he still had that shoebox somewhere or other.

...

So he signed fast and at 18, he went to play for the Peninsula Grays, a Class A team in Newport News, Va. It is all but impossible to fully capture the impact he had in Newport News. Sure, you can look at the numbers — he hit a robust .294 with 22 homers in 98 games and you can imagine that he played defense like no one had ever seen — but even that doesn’t describe how much the people in Newport News loved him.

Put it this way: There was a sign in left field at the ballpark there that read “HIT A HOMER HERE, WIN A FREE SUIT.” Bench hit 10 balls over that sign, two in one game. Yes. He won 10 free suits.

...

Something happened that rookie year, something so absurd that it’s almost beyond belief. It’s my second-favorite Johnny Bench story. Bench was catching a veteran pitcher named Gerry Arrigo, and on this day, Arrigo didn’t have anything on his fastball. Anyway, that’s how Bench saw it. He kept calling for breaking balls and offspeed stuff instead.

Arrigo didn’t see things at all the same way and he kept shaking off Bench.

They continued this dance for a while until finally Bench went to the mound to make his case. He explained that Arrigo’s fastball was just not popping. Arrigo, in turn, explained that Bench was a rookie and that, considering the circumstances, he should just shut the hell up. This disagreement went on for a few seconds until finally, the two men understood that they were at an impasse and Bench shrugged and went back behind the plate.

And he called for another curveball.

And Arrigo shook him off again. Bench called for the fastball, which Arrigo threw with all the fury he had inside him.

Bench reached out with his right hand and caught it barehanded.

“You should have seen his face,” Bench would say.

[Bene Futuis]

Great stories. Keep 'em coming, Heye!

[Bene Futuis]

My mock team so far:

P	Gerrit Cole - NYY	1	6	6	LS
P	Shane Bieber - CLE	2	10	25	LS
2B	Jose Altuve - HOU	3	6	36	LS
1B	Anthony Rizzo - CHC	4	10	55	LS
OF	Eloy Jimenez - CHW	5	6	66	LS
3B	Josh Donaldson - MIN	6	10	85	LS
SS	Bo Bichette - TOR	7	6	96	LS
P	Sonny Gray - CIN	8	10	115	LS
P	Roberto Osuna - HOU	9	6	126	LS
OF	Kyle Tucker - HOU	10	10	145	LS
P	Kenley Jansen - LAD	11	6	156	LS
OF	J.D. Davis - NYM	12	10	175	LS
OF	Lorenzo Cain - MIL	13	6	186	LS

Started off really strong but faltered a little bit there after the first six picks and ended up with several "value" players who I didn't really plan on getting. Trying to incorporate only a very few speculative, risky picks but ended up already with three risky plays in Bichette, Tucker, and Davis.

[Bene Futuis]

Addison Russell's entire blurb in this year's Baseball Prospectus:

"The 24-hour national domestic violence hotline number is 800-799-7233."

[revo]

Addison Russell's entire blurb in this year's Baseball Prospectus:

"The 24-hour national domestic violence hotline number is 800-799-7233."

You're up, Footooies

[Bene Futuis]

You're up, Footooies

Gracias. If Feral would stop stealing all the good players, this would be easier. McCullers was the latest ARGH elicited.

[Bene Futuis]

Maybe we can just do a Yahoo free league instead of Fantrax, since the points thing is confusing everyone? Dunno, I'm just here to make things moderately more difficult for everyone else.

[Ken]

Maybe we can just do a Yahoo free league instead of Fantrax, since the points thing is confusing everyone? Dunno, I'm just here to make things moderately more difficult for everyone else.

It would be hilarious to change it back to roto after the draft is done.