Health

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I Love You, Man

Q.  Which version of Iwakuma was that, getting beaten by the Yankees?

A.  The second version.  Or the 2 1/2 version.  As we recall, there have been three iterations of Mr. WBC:

  1. The spring training version with a short fastball and a nibble-and-pick game, the one who had MLB hitters standing on the plate and swinging from the back leg. 
  2. The sharper version, with a 90 fastball he'd use inside and up in the zone, the one who is demonstrably an MLB middle-of-the-rotation starter. The Shaun Marcum comp.
  3. The elite version, the one with a 82 MPH "change-slider" who dominates.  The James Shields comp.

Against the Yankees, I didn't feel the arm action was as snappy on the slider -- in fact the fastball velo was down, too, and it seemed that his arm was fatigued from the 13 K's or something.  But the slider was good, all his pitches were good, and he needed about 47 unlucky breaks to give up three earned runs.  Jason Vargas has done worse.

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Q.  Bad breaks, like what.

Our sex-obsessed culture

Everywhere you look today, there’s sex selling. I’m not even talking about human trafficking this time. I’m not even talking about the magazines and music videos and TV advertisements. No, I’m talking about every time you log onto your computer and there’s a spam message or even an ad waiting for you to talk about increasing the size of your penis, or getting laid tonight, or meeting hot young singles right now. It’s beyond irritating.

Image: 

Kevin Gausman, RHP, LSU - SSI pre-draft $0.01

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=== You Won't Get Any Arguments About ... ? ===

... Gausman being worthy of a top-5 pick.  Experts don't think that this draft has any player who stands out as a #1 overall, nor that it has the embarrassment of riches that a few others have had ... last year Anthony Rendon was a typical 1-1 but went #6 overall.  In 2006, you had Max Scherzer, Tim Lincecum and Clayton Kershaw going outside the top five (behind Longoria, Morrow and others).

Mark Appel, Kevin Gausman, Kyle Zimmer, and Max Fried aren't considered up to the Hultzens, Bauers, Coles and Bundys of last year by (1) the general consensus or (2) by me, for what that's worth.  You've got two exciting high school hitters, one college catcher, and Appel and Gausman that look worthy of the top five.

Of course, Jay-Z may know things that we don't, as he did with Danny Hultzen last year.  Exactly nobody outside of pro baseball expected Hultzen to go top five, but Zduriencik's judgment turned out to be right.  Who knows?  Maybe Max Fried really is Clayton Kershaw or maybe Stephen Piscotty really is Carney Lansford.  If so, Zduriencik will let us know... after the draft.

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