Jose Guillen's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, cycles and no-hitters are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

This is Jose's third Golden Sombrero of the season but the first since the inception of Off Base and first as a Giant. Guillen has been everything the Royals thought he would be after they traded him to the Giants for a Whole Foods gift card. Guillen is hitting .304/.350/.375 with a home run and 15K/2BB in 60 plate appearances with the Giants. But he does seem to have a low stuff-thrown/confrontation ratio so far hovering around a 0.8 ST/C.

Guillen went 0-4 with 4 strikeouts yesterday while DH-ing standing in right field. Blog favorite Buster Posey hit his 11th homer of the season and, while it would be more fun to write about him, let's take a look at Guillen's day at the dish...

Top 1st: Guillen struck out looking against Ted Lilly.

Top 4th: Guillen struck out looking against Lilly again. Lily had him mesmerized by his calm presence on the mound. Guillen demands a violent delivery!

Top 7th: Guillen struck out looking against Lilly for the MTD Hat Trick. He struck out 3 times, the same way, against the same pitcher. Why isn't this catching on?

Top 9th: Guillen struck out swinging against Jonathan Broxton.

Our Intern Goes To A Nashville Sounds Game

Through the magic power of Twitter, we somehow acquired the services of our very own intern. We even pay him in potato chips. Filosofer will occasionally stop by with a post and you can follow him at @Filosomesa. The debut features a trip to a Triple A game. And I agree with the experience, well, except for the country music.

Since this is my first official post, I figured I'd give everybody a better idea of who I am. Then I realized that I'm not all that interesting a person and you guys would much rather hear about baseball than me. So I'll give you a recap of the first minor league game I attended instead.

It was a Nashville Sounds game. Now I know a lot of people don't like minor league stuff because it's usually more gimmicky, but a giant guitar shaped scoreboard is pretty damn cool. Their playing of country music was pretty awesome too. Now, I'm mostly into rock of various varieties, but there's a fair amount of country in my library as well. If you don't like country music, well... What the hell would you be doing in Nashville anyway?

Anyway, if you haven't been to a minor league baseball game yet, you need to go. I paid $12 for my ticket. Do you want to know where I sat? Front row, right behind the screen. And that's because that's where I chose. For $12, I could have chosen pretty much ANY seat in the stadium.

If I'm going to complain about anything at the game, it would be the bugs. I have a slight (read: huge) fear of bugs, and they were EVERYWHERE. On the other hand, this was Nashville, so if I have a slight (huge) fear of bugs, what the hell am I doing in Nashville anyway?

Now, I'm a subscriber to Triple A being a fairly dull league player-wise. It seems to me that those are either the prospects who were close but not good enough, or were good enough but are washed up now. So if you want big or soon-to-be big name players, Triple A isn't for you. I, on the other hand, could care less. Let's face it, one of my major hobbies is simulating baseball games through a variety of media. If there's baseball, I'm excited.

To speed this up, the Sounds won. Would I have cared if they lost? Maybe. Like I said, I'll watch anything, so I try not to cheer for one team too much.

Anyway, in the future I'll make some real posts. Until then, well, do whatever it is you do.

Jason Repko's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, cycles and no-hitters are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

With on 6 games on Thursday, you'd think the odds on getting a Sombrero would be pretty low. Don't tell that to Jason Repko, he had plans of his own. Repko strikes out about 30% of the time so I was a little surprised it has taken him this long to record a Golden Sombrero this season. Then I realized he's only had 99 plate appearances this season and it all started to make sense. Jason is hitting .213/.286/.382 or what I like to call a mouth fart line. Repko went 1-5 with 4 strikeouts and a walk in 13 innings. Let's all rejoice under this Sombrero because it's probably the last time Repko will see more than 3 plate appearances in a game...

Bottom 2nd: Repko struck out swinging against Justin Verlander. There's no shame in that, Verlander has dominant stuff. Not for where I drafted him this year but that's another story.

Bottom 4th: Repko struck out swinging against Verlander. Repko bunted foul twice and then struck out swinging. Then he made the National League pitcher's walk of shame back to the dugout.

Bottom 10th: Repko struck out swinging Robbie Weinhardt. Weinhardt. Hehe.

Bottom 12th: Repko struck out looking against Jose Valverde.

Curveballs for Jobu: Nyjer Morgan Edition

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Tim Belcher and he's here because he's still upset about being drop kicked by Chan Ho Park.

Hey kids, I'm covering Jobu today because I know a little more about bench clearing bralws than Derwood. The summer of '93 was not a good time to be playing Wiffle Ball in my backyard.

Marlins 16, Nationals 10. Nyjer Morgan is having an interesting week. He might still end up being suspended for firing a ball into the face of a fan in Philly. Then he ran over 2 different catchers in shady at best behavior and cursed out a fan in Florida. But his coup de gras was his instigation of a benches clearing brawl that contained actual fighting.

Chris Volstad hit Morgan in the 4th and threw behind him in the 6th. Morgan charged the mound, grazing Volstad with a punch. Gaby Sanchez, running over from first base, hit Morgan with a closesline before looking to climb up on the top turnbuckle for his finishing move. Benches cleared, managers yelled and players were ejected. I don't even know if there was any baseball played.

Twins 2, Tigers 1 (10). Max Scherzer continued his hot streak post All Star break. He went 9 innings while giving up 1 run and striking out 9. In his last 83 innings, he has a 1.73 ERA and 76K/29BB. But it wasn't enough for the Tigers last night, the Twins would get a walk off single from Danny Valencia in the 10th.

Reds 6, Brewers 1. Aroldis Chapman got his first career win pitching a clean 7th inning, striking out 2. He would celebrate the win by lighting up a cigar and throwing a ball into the moon. Weeks, Hart and Braun combined to go 0-11 with a walk.

Brad Hawpe's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, cycles and no-hitters are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

In honor of Brad Hawpe's first Golden Sombrero with the Rays, and it's a good one, I searched Youtube for an accurate depiction of his night at the plate using a pinata FAIL video. I think this sums it up.



Brad Hawpe swung just as wildly tonight but even when he made contact there was no candy. It was sad for everyone involved. Well, maybe not the pitchers. Hawpe went 0-0 with 4 strikeouts for a nice looking .000/.000/.000 line in the American League. Let's take a look at a whole lot of swinging and missing...

Bottom 2nd: Hawpe struck out swinging against Shaun Marcum. Hawpe took ball 1 befor swinging at the next 3 pitches.

Bottom 5th: Hawpe struck out swinging against Shaun Marcum. Only 2 swinging strikes at this at bat while he took 1 looking and a ball.

Bottom 7th: Hawpe struck out swinging against Shawn Camp. Again it was a looking strike and a ball and 2 swinging strikes. The man knows what he likes.

Bottom 8th: Hawpe struck out swinging against Camp.

It would take a lot more research but it appears that Hawpe struggles against pitchers with some form of the first name Shawn.

How good was Albert Belle from 1994-1996?

The answer is really, really good.

If you can get past the Halloween incident, the throwing the ball into the stands and injuring a fan incident, or the stalking, Albert Belle's career was excellent: .295/.369/.564/143 OPS+/381 HR.

On the Zambrano Scale, Belle was a 7, and that's without the benefit of the rooster in his ear. Despite the serious mental deficieinces, Belle put together such an outstanding three-year stretch from 1994-1996 with the Indians that no one cared.

1994
.357/.438/.714/1.152/193 OPS+/36 HR
1995
.317/.401/.690/1.091/177/50 HR
1996
.311/.410/.623/1.033/158/48 HR

3-year average
.328/.416/.676/1.092/176/45 HR

Belle had a down year in 1997, his first with the Whitesox, but exploded again in 1998, putting together a .328/.399/.655 slash line with a 171 OPS+. Since retiring after the 2000 season, Belle is now a counselor and the assistant volleyball coach at Wennington High School.


Reccomended reading:

The Albert Belle Timeline

Chris Valaika's Golden Sombrero

A golden sombrero is awarded to a player who manages to strike out four times in a single game (real golden sombrero not included). It's quite the feat unless you're Ryan Howard or Mark Reynolds. Unfortunately, cycles and no-hitters are all the rage nowadays. Not for me, though. I will pour over the box scores to bring you the finest at swinging and missing.

Oh, I had to look Chris Valaika up. We here at Off Base have a both coasts bias. We often overlook what's going on in your precious midwest. So I'll occasionally miss a prospect from Cincinnati or Milwaukee or Pittsburgh. Basically anyone from the NL Central. But we're bringing in an intern to help us out with the divisions we don't care about.

Valaika, a 25-year-old second baseman, was called up a week ago and wasted no time collecting his first Golden Sombrero. The Sombrero almost got past me because it was slightly overshadowed by Aroldis Chapman's debut and 103.9 MPH fastball. Aroldis couldn't have gotten to the bigs at a better time after baseball recently lost that pitching prospect for the Nationals. I already forgot his name. I want to say Sam Steinberg. Anyway, Chapman will be all the talk until he has surgery when his elbow explodes.

I guess we might as well take a look at Valaika's poor night at the dish before Chapman completely hijacks this post...

Bottom 3rd: Valaika struck out swinging against Yovani Gallardo. He actually singled in the first so the night was "Mark Reynolds terrible."

Bottom 5th: Valaika struck out looking against Gallardo. Gallardo gave up 8 runs in 5 innings but it was better than his last start. I assume he wasn't robbed at gunpoint again last night.

Bottom 6th: Valaika struck out swinging against Gallardo.

Top 8th: Chapman strikes out Jonathan Lucroy by ridiculousness. Lucroy might as well have been swinging a spoon against the last pitch.

Bottom 8th: Valaika struck out swinging against Todd Coffey.

Curveballs for Jobu

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Pete O'Brien.

Orioles 5, Redsox 2. It's always nice when a jerk no one likes loses as was the case Tuesday when the O's defeated Josh Beckett. After the game, Beckett announced he has added a 9th necklace in preparation for his next start. With the win, Baltimore completed a 17-10 month of August, which officially makes them the favorites to win the 2019 AL East title. Marco Scutaro: 0-for-4.

Reds 8, Brewers 4
Astros 3, Cardinals 0

The staff at Jobu would like to officially put an end to the NL Central race. Tuesday's win for the Reds put them seven games up on the Cards, who when asked to come up to the plate and hit against Houston, declined.

Bluejays 13, Rays 5. Another home run by Brady Anderson-his 43rd-keyed a 10-run sixth inning for Toronto.

Pirates 14, Cubs 7. I had to check this statistic several times before publishing it, but the Pittsburgh win Tuesday was its fifth in the last 43 road games. 5-38. Somewhere, Spanky Lavalliere weeps while soaking in a bubble bath prepared by Jose Lind.

Royals 10, Rangers 9. Matt Treanor: 1-for-5.

Marlins 1, Nationals 0 (10). Chad Tracy singled in the only run in the bottom of the 10th to lead Florida to a win in front of an announced crowd of 11.