Royals Moving To Spread Offense

Kansas City is headed toward their 5th consecutive season finishing in the bottom 5 in runs scored in the American League. I should note that I only went back 5 years so that stat might be somewhat of an understatement. In times like these, it's important to shake things up. So the Royals signed former Miami Dolphin and West Virginia quarterback Pat White to run their new-look spread offense which I can only assume means trying to get hit by a pitch and then stealing second, third and home. It should be an exciting new brand of baseball in Kansas City.

GM Dayton Moore hasn't had much success in putting together an offensive juggernaut that doesn't strike out or get on base. They're going to finish with the fewest team strikeouts and actually will finish above league average in OBP this year but will still finish next to the bottom 5 in scoring. How does that happen to a team that has a league average .301 BABIP? I'm sure the guys at Fangraphs could tell you but I figure it's a second to worst Home Run/Fly Ball ratio of 6.3% and Yuni Betancourt. Brandon Wood would like to know why Yuni Betancourt has a starting short stop gig in the majors. But I digress.

The Royals have a pretty good looking minor league system and I like Moore's new fangled approach toward former prospects. I don't know what he's been feeding Wilson Betemit this year but of all of sudden Betemit has 10 homers and a .297/.383/.522 line in 240 PA. Is Pat White ever going to contribute at the major league level? I don't know. He was drafted by the Angels coming out of high school in the fourth round in 2004. The Angels drafted him again in 2007 followed by the Reds in 2008 and the Yankees in 2009. He's a huckuva athlete (quote sponsored by John Madden) and probably would do less damage than Yuni Betancourt if the Royals plugged him into short tomorrow.

The Royals will allow Pat White to continue his pursuit of playing professional football but I'm rooting for him to make it to the majors and make an impact for the Royals. Just imagine the thousands of words Joe Posnanski could write about him.

[alternate WVU image, SFW but still fun]

Micah Hoffpauir'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.

Micah Hoffpauir gets credit for being one of my favorite names in baseball and making the least of his plate appearances. In his 30 PA this season, he has 5 hits and a walk to go with his 11 strikeouts. Brandon Wood nods his head in approval. It took Hoffpauir a mere 5 games with 4 or more plate appearances to record his first Golden Sombrero this year. Unfortunately, for me, the 30-year-old isn't going to be much more than a bench player so these Sombreros might be few and far between.

Usually in special Sombrero situation such as this, I try to break out a nice pinata bloober video but I'm out of them and college football is on. Let's take a quick look at Micah's anti-heroics at the dish yesterday...

Top 4th: Hoffpauir struck out looking against Dave Bush. 3 pitches.

Top 5th: Hoffpauir struck out swinging against Bush. 4 pitches. Micah was trying to get out of there with the quickness. He had the season premiere of Vampire Diaries recorded.

Top 7th: Hoffpauir struck out swinging against Brandon Kintzler.

Top 9th: Hoffpauir struck out swinging against Mark Rogers.

Good game Hoff. Can I call you Hoff?

Curveballs for Jobu

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

Today's honorary bay boy is Jeff Clement and he's here to remind you that he was taken 4 picks before Troy Tulowitzki. Oh, and he's a Pirate now.

Hey kids, looks like I'll be in charge of Jobu for the foreseeable future. Uncle Derwood suffered a crippling injury to both hands in an unfortunate soup can opening incident. We're trying to decide whether to put him on the 15 or 60 day DL. In the meantime, you're stuck with me at the helm which means plenty of highlights of poor relief pitching. Let's get at it...

Rockies 13, Diamondbacks 4. The Rox won their 8th straight and will continue to get top billing until they lose. They're only 2.5 games out in the NL West and I will switch my allegiance to them in the wake of the demise of the Angels. Troy Tulowitzki went 3-3 with 2 home runs and a double while raising his line to .327/.394/.567. If the young short stop can stay healthy for a full season, he will join the ranks of players who get snubbed on MVP votes. *cough*Chase Utley*cough*

Rangers 6, Yankees 5 (13). The playoff series preview ended in dramatic fashion with Nelson Cruz hitting the walkoff home run in the 13th inning. After a rough 3 innings from C.J. Wilson, the Rangers employed 300 relief pitchers to finish the game off. Derek Jeter went 1-7 but made close to $140,000 for the game. I can't wait for the Jeter hot stove bidding war. It's going to be fun to watch the Yankees bid against sanity.

Marlins 3, Nationals 1. Number of brawls: 0, number of fans in attendance: 37.

Phillies 8, Mets 4. I didn't even realize the Mets were still fielding a team. Roy Halladay gave up 4 earned runs but won his 18th of the season inching him closer to the Cy Young. Chase Utley went 1-5 but the hit was a home run. I still don't think he's healthy.

Rays 9, Blue Jays 8. Jose Bautista continued his assault on baseballs hitting 2 more home runs (46). Adam Lind hit his disappointing 21st homer of the year. It would be interesting to see how good the Jays could be if they played in any other division and stopped leading off with Dewayne Wise. But Yuni Escobar threw the ball in the general direction of first base allowing Evan Longoria to score the go ahead run on an error in the 9th inning.

Giants 1, Padres 0. In what will be the most compelling race down the stretch, the Giants slid by the Padres for the old virtual tie for 1st place in the West. My money is still on the Rockies due to their inability to lose in September. Blog favorite Buster Posey: DNP.

Austin Jackson'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.

Austin Jackson is having a much better season than most people expected out of him and he's probably your 2010 AL Rookie of the Year. While his strikeout (149) to walk (43) ratio is fantastic for all the wrong reasons, this is actually Jackson's first Golden Sombrero of the season. The Yankees fliped the young outfielder to the Tigers for Curtis Granderson's inability to hit lefties and the Tigers are winning the trade this year. Jackson is hitting .303/.359/.411 while being dirt cheap and UZR seems to think he at least plays a capable center field. His production should tumble some next season as his .415 BABIP isn't sustainable. Granderson, meanwhile, couldn't hit your mom if you could get her off the couch and teach her to throw lefty.

But on Thursday, Jackson didn't have much to offer at the plate going 0-4 with a walk and four strikeouts. So before we all go patting the Tigers on the back, let's take a look at how the rookie padded his strikeout totals...

Bottom 2nd: Jackson struck out swinging against Gavin Floyd. He did draw a lead-off walk in the 1st inning so I'm willing to cut him a little slack on this one.

Bottom 4th: Jackson struck out swinging against Floyd. He saw 5 pitches and they were all strikes. He used all of his patience on that 1st inning walk.

Bottom 6th: Jackson struck out looking against Gavin. I stand corrected. He took 3 balls before watching strike 3.

Bottom 8th: Jackson struck out swinging against Sergio Santos.

In comparison, Granderson: DNP.

Curveballs for Jobu

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

Today's honorary bay boy is Dax Jones and he's here to remind you that his only career homer was of the inside the park variety.

Hey gang, I'm back in charge of Jobu today because, quite frankly, I think Derwood packed his bindle and jumped on the train out of town. I'm going to put his crazy looking mug on some milk cartons and see if anything turns up. If you see him on the streets, proceed with caution. He's very unstable and will probably try to sell you nose hairs. Anyway, there were only 6 games yesterday but that doesn't mean I don't have plenty to talk about. Let's get to it...

Rockies 6, Reds 5. It's September which means the Rockies don't just get hot, they catch fire. The Rockies finished off the 4 game sweep of the Reds while extending their winning streak to a season best 7 games. The Rockies scored the go-ahead-run in the 8th inning with the old fashioned straight steal of home. With the squeeze on, Chris Nelson caught Rockies' pitcher Nick Masset asleep at the wheel and swiped home for his first career stolen base. The last time that happened was 4/21/06 by Dan Uggla. CarGo: 0-4, Votto: 0-4.

Cardinals 11, Braves 4. Somehow, Colby Rasmus talked Tony La Russa into letting him play and all he did was go 4-4 with 2 home runs. Those are the kind of shenanigans that will probably get Rasmus benched for three games. Let's see, some guy A. Pujols hit a home run. Nate McClouth managed to get in the game and went 2-2 skyrocketing his line to .178/.284/.269 while getting the Brandon Wood nod of approval.

Giants 7, Padres 3. John Garland threw batting practice to Aubrey Huff, Juan Uribe and blog favorite Buster Posey all of whom hit towering home runs. Kevin Corriea wasn't about to be shown up by Garland and teed up a ball for Pat Burrell. I don't know if he threw it underhand or placed it on an actual tee or if they practiced before the game but Burrell smacked that thing 421 feet of off the top of Petco. David Eckstein: 1-4. What's up, little buddy? Good to see you still have work.

Rangers 4, Blue Jays 2. Nelson Cruz went 2-4 with his 25th double of the season to raise his line to .313/.368/.567. He could have really helped my fantasy team if he hadn't made as many trips to the DL as your sister made to planned parenthood this year. Jose Bautista hit his 44th home run of the season. Thankfully, no letters were harmed by this dinger. I'd like to set the over/under on Bautista home runs at 31 for next season. Dewayne Wise led off for the Jays and went 0-4 to see his OBP fall below .300 for the season. Either Cito is just mailing it in now or doesn't understand some basic fundamentals.

At Least A Giant Letter B Didn't Fall On Me

I survived my birthday on Monday fairly unharmed. Sure I'm missing an eyebrow and had to shave my head but other than that and any possible liver damage, I came out of it relatively unscathed. It's not like I went to a baseball game and had a giant letter B fall on me...

A fan at the Toronto Blue Jays' game was OK on Monday after being struck in the right shoulder by a tumbling, metal "B" from a sign honoring Jackie Robinson.

The middle-aged man had a scrape after a foul ball by home run leader Jose Bautista of the Blue Jays dislodged one of the letters in a tribute honoring Robinson's retired No. 42.

Canadian craftsmanship at its finest. Jose Bautista's retooled swing is making some real noise this season. Bautista already leads the league in homers (43) but he's now dismantling The Rogers Center one letter at a time.

Anyway, now that the birthday festivities have run their course, I should be back posting about the home stretch and usual nonsense at my regular pace. Sorry for the interruption.

Curveballs for Jobu

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

Today's honorary bay boy is Bob Welch.


Nationals 13, Mets 3. Danny Espinosa, who would've been a perfect middle infielder and No. 3 hitter in front of Benny Rodriguez (Timmy Timmons had a worse throwing motion than Wendy Peffercorn), popped two home runs, one a grand slam, and drove in six runs to lead the Nats. Espinosa, already better than Alvaro Espinoza, has three home runs in five games since last Wednesday's minor league call up.

Indians 3, Angels 2. Carlos Carrasco threw six innings of two-run ball, got a no-decision as Shin-Soo Choo delivered a single in the ninth for the Tribe, then traded his mind for a plum and six raisins: "We've got a very good rotation, a very good team," Carrasco said. "The rotation is good, the bullpen is good, everything."

Phillies 7, Marlins 4. The Phils moved to within in a half game of first-place Atlanta. MTD's ex-boyfriend Chase Utley had a couple singles and a couple RBIs to back Roy Oswalt, who allowed three home runs but won for the fifth time in six decisions in a Philly uniform.

Whitesox 5, Tigers 4 (10). Alejandro De Aza: 0-for-0, run.

Happy Labor Day Or Happy Birthday To Me!

I'm sure there is some reason behind Labor Day (please don't email me, I'll google it if I really want to know) but for most of us it's day off of work so we can eat, drink and play Wiffle Ball. It's basically the end of summer Fourth of July. For me, however, it's also occasionally my birthday. On this special day, I like to imagine that you're all celebrating me. But I have a massive ego (that's what she said) and I'm wildly delusional. So while you're trying to figure out how to wrap that steak in hot dogs, let's take a look at my birthday game plan...

1. Finish writing this while enjoying a delicious breakfast of Popeye's fried chicken and scotch. It both warms and stops my heart.

2. Shave my arm hair for a more wind resistant Wiffle Ball bat swing.

3. Apply Bryce Harper/Ultimate Warrior eye black. Do push up to psych myself up.

4. Nap.

5. Put sheets in the washing machine, I got eye black everywhere.

6. Head over to the party house/Wiffle Ball backyard.

7. Drink more rum than Captain Morgan.

8. Strike out 12 with my devastating riser.

9. Declare war on Vermont.

10. Hit on a fire plug I mistook for a short redhead.

Then I'll probably pass out about three feet from the couch. Jealous?

You're welcome for the day off and celebrate my birthday responsibly. No drinking and driving kids. Uncle MTD will be too drunk too bail you out of jail. I've been informed I'm not allowed back on the Internet today so I'll see you guys tomorrow when I manage to get my eyes to function.