A Bit of Celebration on Dee Gordon
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SYMMETRY, Dept.
There is a nice symmetry between these numbers: 26 and 13. Why do they matter? Well, they matter here because 26 represents the bases gained by Dee Gordon last year, in millions of dollars, and 13 represents what the team has to actually pay him for those bases.
So, yeah, that's one good way for JeDi to spend his free agent money, by coughing up a few prospects and then using a FA buck to buy a fiver. (Gordon was out in part of 2017, but in his full seasons of 2016 and 2015 were $25M and $39M, respectively. I believe he led the NL in steals, all three seasons 18-16-15.)
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ANTICIPATORY JUBILIATION, Dept.
There are very few things in baseball that a crowd can "wind itself up for" over a period of more than one or two seconds. ... strike three, sometimes a triple, well you got me sometimes we get to antipate the landings of Mike Zunino's homers for a minute or two. But that's still not much.
A stolen base is fun to anticipate, and Gordon gets 60 of them per year, like clockwork. Hey, who knows? Maybe the very first play on Opening Day will be a one-hop shot through the infield on Corey Kluber and then we get to spend, oh, 2-6 minutes raining jubilation on Kluber.
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A CHART OF SERENDIPITY, Dept.
The more amusing since the STATS AOL gang once spent a year using "serendipity" as its tagline. But it's fun in this TNT piece too:
But also in the batting order. They expect Gordon to provide a jolt of energy to the top of the lineup, after he hit .308 with a league-leading 60 stolen bases with the Marlins last year. He’s been a career .293 hitter in his seven seasons between the Dodgers and Marlins with 278 stolen bases. He has the second-most stolen bases of anyone in baseball since 2014.
And Gordon said he spent three consecutive hours one day recently texting with Edgar Martinez about hitting.
“And I’m like, ‘Oh, snap – I’m going to be so good!” Gordon said with a smile and his eyes wide.
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HEH
In Scott Adams' world, viewed through the Persuasion Filter, this is known as a "killshot" - the movie playing on a reel in front of your eyes with simple components and a simple, powerful outcome. Yep. 3 hours' texting with Edgar and we got this thing.
Serendipity, baby, the .333 version of Gordon rather than the .268 version and that's before we even get off social media.
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UND TAKE ZIS MIT YOU, DEPT.
Dee Gordon is a man "happy to be on the other side of the country."
It's a funny thing; we were auditing a suicide hotline and some amigo said that there were criminals hunting him. Stop whining, said the counselor (yes he did) and move to the other side of the country.
So, as DaddyO can tell us, there can be at least three (3) reasons for moving several thousand miles. Escaping a hostile (110-L) work environment, escaping felons, and escaping a two-decade-long playoff drought.
Hopefully Dee will be able to parlay his new lease of life, love and playoff contention, plus a few new Twitter friends, into an UP season for us.
BABVA,
Dr D