FJM a Colby Rasmus article

Before I start on some fun (at least for me), let me first say that you need to know about the blog Fire Joe Morgan, a site dedicated to making fun of horrible articles that lack logic and comprehension skills.  You can probably figure out why they are titled the way they are.  Anyway, the blog has been extinct for about two years unfortunately.  Anyway, I'm attempting their style on a clearly inexcusable article that lacks logic.  Here's the full article if you wish:

Two days after the Cardinals traded Colby Rasmus and his dad, scouts, GM’s and other baseball insiders have weighed in, and the landslide opinion is the Cardinals made a long term mistake for short term gain and did not get enough for Rasmus. 

Wait, the Cardinals traded Colby's dad, their scouts, GMs, and baseball insiders... wait no nevermind.  That was a confusing sentence.  Also it's a run-on sentence.  Yeah that's pretty much exactly the consensus opinion though.

  I say those people are living in fantasy-land and Mozeliak did just fine with this trade. 

That's funny because you just called almost everyone reading this article dumb.  Or mentally insane.  Fantasy land can mean a lot of things all of which are negative.  So basically you start the article insulting pretty much all of your readers.  Well done.

I’d like to hear one trade Mo turned down as the deadline approached that addressed more of the Cardinals needs than this one.

What a dumb thing to say.  First of all, this assumes Colby Rasmus absolutely without a doubt had to be traded.  I'll stretch logic on that one and say he absolutely did.  How the hell are we supposed to know what other offers Mozeliak got?  Seriously, if that information is somehow public, direct me there now.

It addressed starting pitching, relief pitching, and the Patterson addition avoids the subtracting depth issue.

Oh great guys.  We replaced Colby Rasmus with Jon Jay and Jon Jay with Corey Patterson.  Even if you believe Jay is equal to Rasmus (and I don't), Patterson is in no universe equal to Jon Jay.  So by definition, we subtracted depth.  Not to mention, Patterson is the worst major league baseball player.  He has a .292 on base percentage with minimal power as a corner outfielder.  He can play centerfield too, but he's mostly a corner outfielder.  For those who love average, he has a .253 average so that sucks too.

The criticism of the deal is all based on the “Potential” of Rasmus.  Potential.  Something we have seen a very brief glimpse of at the major league level and maybe a smaller one in 4 seasons at the minor league level.

Heh.  I wish that was the only reason for criticism.  Nah, Colby has also - and this is something that escapes so many people for some reason - proven to play out some of his potential.  Did everybody go in a coma in 2010?  Seriously, I feel like his 2010 season never happened.  He batted .276 with a .361 on base percentage and 23 homers.  That is not something you can just give up for a rental and spare parts.

A lot of them are also ignoring another major factor and that is what’s between Colby’s ears and who seems to have a Darth Vader like control of it

He just put that statement there without any evidence.  I'd like for that to be on the record. There is no evidence that Tony Rasmus has that much control over Colby.  And apparently, Tony Rasmus is out to ruin his son's career by devastatingly giving him bad advice.  It works in 2010, nobody gives a shit.  It doesn't work in 2011, all of a sudden he's the devil.

Does he appear to have all the tools to be great? At times, yes.  But when has he shown it consistently enough for someone to believe that’s the everyday player he will become.  At some point potential takes a back seat to what you know.

2010 Season.  Wonder how much I'll have to reference this.  Go look at his stats and unless you think strikeouts really are the devil, you really won't find anything to support the fact that he wasn't an everyday player last year.  He was a well above average player actually.  Great, I might even say.  Here's where he gives us "reality checks."  This oughta be rich...

 Rasmus is a career .258 hitter (1445 plate appearances) in 2 and a half seasons in the majors. He hit .277 (1776 Plate appearances) in the minors.

Wow!  Referencing just his average?  Really?  What is this 2001?  Rasmus is so valuable in so many ways, none of which are reflected in average because average, by itself, tells us almost nothing.  It doesn't tell us how much he gets on base, how much power he has, or how many homers he has.  Is Yadier Molina a better hitter than Albert Pujols is?  No, not even the author thinks this.  Yet, here is referencing average by itself.  Good job.

He has struck out 332 times in the bigs, 348 in the minors.

Who gives a shit?

144 walks in the majors, 200 in the minors.  His slugging % is .442 with the Cardinals, .485 in the minors 

You do know that 144 walks in just 1,500 plate appearances is good for walking about 10% of your plate appearances right?  Which is amazing.  Well, not quite amazing.  His nearly 12% walk rate the last two years however are amazing.  Pujols has a 13.2% career walk rate and Holliday a 9.3% career walk rate.  Wait, isn't this argument supposed to be against Rasmus?  Just clarifying here.  Also I have no idea what is wrong with a centerfielder slugging .442.  Jon Jay, who I'm sure you love, has a .440 slugging percentage.  Seriously you are hurting your own argument.

 But he has potential right?

But you just... said... what?  How is...?   Readers... you... understand?

 Beyond the numbers, there is Daddy Rasmus and Colby’s grey matter.  Tony Rasmus has been on message boards and publicly criticizing the Cardinals since Colby was in the minors. 

True.  Wonder how this is supposed to affect Rasmus the player though since it clearly didn't last year when Tony was the loudest.  In fact, I haven't heard from Tony this year.

And you know Colby has had to hear the same thing from him.  That’s not good.  Now that Daddy Rasmus has unloaded and held nothing back since the trade, is there any doubt in anyone’s mind that Colby had no chance winning the battle between the two Tony’s? 

Winning the battle?  What are they arguing about?  The organization said, publicly, that they would allow Rasmus to work with outside help aka Tony Rasmus.  So apparently, Tony put up a white flag?

Colby is a 24 year-old kid that apparently can’t think for himself.  Even Toronto’s GM has or will reach out to Daddy Rasmus to figure out how to deal with Colby.  Are you serious? He’s 24, If he is that sensitive and hard to figure out, does he really have the mental toughness to be a star? Time for Colby to grow up. 

Well, you're the one who said he can't think for himself.  He obviously can.  Unless you're implying Tony has mind control chips inside of Colby's head?  If so, then your argument is valid.  Alex  Anthropolus (should I be surprised you either didn't bear to learn his name or were too lazy to spell it?) reached out to Tony Rasmus to make it clear that they were ok with him helping his son.  Something the Cards... weren't so clear about.  The Cards stance was more "You can work with Tony... but if you fail, we'll hold a grudge against you" and judging by the trade THEY DID.

And secondly, never understood why Colby needed to be a star in order to stay on our team.  Is 2010 season Colby not good enough?  Colby kind of does need to grow up, but hello it's the managers job to help him grow up.  Tony seems sort of like a hostile manager that has one certain specific way of managing and if you don't adhere to that philosophy, you're left in the dust.  Brendan Ryan?  (By the way, that trade has turned out awful)  Well, since it's now the 21st century and Generation X is coming in who were all "coddled," it's time for a manager to start adjusting to his player's personalities and helping them grow up.

Jon Jay has outplayed Rasmus for a shot as the everyday Center Fielder

True.  But does anyone actually think that will continue?  Colby goes 2-4 with a homer and a walk.  Are you surprised?  Probably not.  Jon Jay does the same.  Now are you surprised?  Most likely.  Colby does that in his sleep.  Jay walks a below average amount of the time and has decent, not great power.

The biggest difference between the two players is Colby has more power for the long ball, but Jay is hitting .310 with  a .440 slugging % and has just 13 RBI fewer than Rasmus in 89 fewer plate appearances than Colby

Well, I gave up on RBIs as a statistic to use to prove the worth of someone.  Mostly because it has nothing to do with the power of a hitter.  It is completely dependent on luck.  Better stat?  RISP.  Jay has a .716 OPS compared to Rasmus .772.  Colby just has more power in general.  His isolated power (difference between a hitter's slugging percentage and average - meant to try show raw power since slugging is largely dependent on average) is .180 as compared to .128 for Jon Jay.

Jay’s defense has been better than Rasmus’s.  

 Well, that's purely opinionated.  Although most metrics agree with you.  Wish you would have referenced those metrics.  It's not hard.

(One note off the reality check – Here’s a “what if” no one is tossing around.  What if Jay develops into an all-star?  There is only a 17-month age difference between the two.  Is it still a bad deal?)

What if Tyler Greene becomes an average player?  It could happen, sure, but it's not exactly something we should depend on.  Also 17 month age difference is missing the point a little.  One is 24-years-old, was a hot shot prospect, had one great year, and is in a massive slump.  The other is 26-years-old who quietly moved through the system with pretty mediocre numbers and then shocked everyone with his MLB performance.  I think this is Jay's potential and not to be an All-Star.  Realistically, does anyone see Jon Jay getting much better than this?

Sometimes the marriage between a player and an organization just does not work. It happens.  That’s life.  Even between good organizations and good players (and Rasmus has just been average, not good). It’s ok and also a smart move to know when to move on.  I think the Cardinals were finally at the move on point.

True.  Again.  I just don't understand why they HAD to move on here.  For a package that was of lesser value than Rasmus.  Rasmus has been good.  2010 SEASON!!!!  STOP IGNORING IT PEOPLE!

Why are we to assume that only the Cardinals know the whole story.  In the sports world, that’s just not the case.  Other teams know the numbers.  Other teams know about Daddy Rasmus.  It’s just other teams often believe they can fix what one or more teams couldn’t 

Do you have some sort of fetish or something?  Do you like calling people Daddy?  What the hell, why are you treating Colby like he's 5.  FIX WHAT?  OH MY GOD.  Sometimes, teams just have to be patient with a hitter.  Have you never heard of slump?  Colby was basically having his 2010 season when July 1 came along and then from then on he was in a massive slump.  Longer than normal yes but it was still a slump.  And when Colby starts hitting in Toronto, you shall see.

Sometimes it works, a lot of times it doesn’t.  Why would another team willing pay top dollar when they know they are helping another team get rid of a problem? That’s foolish on their part.

Getting rid of a problem?  Were the Cardinals not in first when we traded Rasmus?  How big of a problem was he realistically?  Apparently not enough to make the team bad or even awful.  I'd like to know how he was a problem.  Tony Rasmus?  That's a problem.  But does any of the team actually care about that?  The problem was that he was causing the manager too much work.  I'm sure the Jays are happy to oblige and give him all the work he needs.

With the uncertainty of Pujols, Carpenter, Wainwright, Berkman, and more for next season ,the Cardinals needed the more immediate approach rather than long term.

Eh, well Wainwright's as good as locked up next year with a team option.  Pretty much the whole rotation is locked up as well.  We have our outfielder for next year too (Oh shit no we don't because WE TRADED ONe OF THEM).  Freese and Matt Carpenter should provide stability at 3B next year.  Molina's still catching.  The only holes now are ones that we just created with RF and the middle infield, one of which is potentially already solved with Dan Descalso.  Hell, our whole bullpen is pretty much cost-controlled.

So really there's not much uncertainty.  The word "needed" is aggravating.  We didn't need to have a more immediate approach since we are pretty set up for the future, we just chose to.

They can win this division this year

Which implies that they couldn't win it with Colby which is just asinine.  I'll skip some bullshit about how Cards fans somehow deserve this chance even though we had one of the greatest teams of the decade in the middle and won a World Series and just drove out a young centerfielder.  What city doesn't deserve it?  Well New York and Boston, but that's just stupid to bring fans into the argument.

Oh yeah, back to potential.  When six plus years of actual numbers and several years of custodial interference in his career have shown what they show, it’s time for potential to take a back seat. 

Ironic, I think.  The actual numbers show the exact opposite of what he's implying they show.  They show an above average centerfielder who is having a down year.

Let someone else find that potential and good for the Cardinals for moving on.  I hope it’s a win/win.  I hope the players the Cardinals acquired help this team to another World Series.  I hope Rasmus shines with Toronto.  If he does good for him. If he becomes what so many others think he will, it still does not make this a bad deal.  Reality sure was not going to let that happen here.

And here's what I hate about people.  He just set himself up so he cannot possibly be wrong.  Listen, here's all the reasons why I'm right and even if I'm wrong - even if my whole post is wrong - well... it wouldn't have happened here anyway so my opinion is still right.  If Rasmus shows the potential he has, holy shit this will be some kind of awful deal.  Dan Haren-esque.

Also, kudos for mentioning how we didn't make a bad deal and then not name anyone we got even once in the article.  Pretty incredible in my opinion.

Double Feature

I saw two movies at the Drive-In tonight so I'll review them and put my thoughts down here about them.  I went expecting to see Green Lantern and X-Men: First Class, but instead got Transformers and Super 8.  Needless to say I was extremely disappointed.

Transformers
Well, I really was not planning to see Transformers 3 at all.  I thought I knew what I was getting and I didn't like it.  Stupid mindless action without a plot.  Well, I was spot-on, but it was worse than I feared.  If you want to watch two hours and thirty minutes of robots fighting each other with the fate of Earth at stake (of course), then this might be the movie for you.

First, the obvious problems with the movie.  For one, there was no character development.  They relied completely off the first two movies which may have worked out ok if there wasn't a different girl in the third movie.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't buy the romance between Shia LaBeouf and Rosie Huntington-Whitely.  We see the first time they meet, but that only confused me more of why they were together.  He comes and talks to her like a cocky asshole and then stumbles and fumbles with whatever was in his hand.

The second problem was that it was predictable.  I'm avoiding spoilers, but through the whole moon conspiracy and the impending threat of the end of the world, there's never any doubt as to what will happen.  And for the love of God, will they please get some balls and kill some important characters?  They keep bringing back the same 10 people who somehow avoid all the bullets and machines and stay alive everytime.  Everyone who dies is some random military person or robot who the audience could not care less about.

And I won't reveal who but the human villian in this movie's motives are faulty at best.  He's basically there to provide another "storyline," but the reason for his actions make no sense at all.  Why is he doing what he's doing?

To finish, the last 30 minutes I really wanted to get out of there.  I was bored to tears because the fight scenes kept going on and on and I really knew what was going to happen.  There were literally no surprises at all.  Congratulations, Michael Bay.  You made an action-packed movie boring.  Though, I'm in the minority among my friends as most of them have liked it.  Then again, I'm not sure many would disagree with what I'm saying (except for the boring part), they were just willing to look past it.

Super 8
I really enjoyed this movie a lot more than  Transformers 3 though I suppose that isn't saying much.  I went into it with some good expectations actually and came out with those expectations mostly fulfilled.  This had a plot as well which I was not actually expecting since the trailers revealed nothing at all.

Basically, this movie is about a small town where weird stuff starts happening.  For one, a massive train crash that happened because a truck rain straight into it.  Then people and dogs start disappearing.  The set-up and suspense of this movie was perfect.  I was completely lost and pulled in as to the mystery.

Most of the movie is seen from the eyes of Joe Lamb and his friends.  One of his friends, Charles, is an aspiring moviemaker who drags in his friends to make a movie for a film festival.  They witnessed the train crash and even filmed some of it.  There is enough character development for you to care about what happens to the characters and even an interesting backstory.

The payoff of the movie was disappointing though.  I was expecting good things, the first 90 minutes increased my expectations, and the ending was a big letdown.  As my dad said, this is so corny.  I still think Super 8 is a worthy watch, but the ending really left me sour.

How this started

I'm laying in my bed sometime during the middle of the night and I can't sleep.  My body is refusing to cooperate with my brain right now.  When I can't sleep, my brain wanders off into as many possible topics as you can think of.  Well, this particular time, I was thinking about how right now I am irrationally and oddly motivated to watch the best shows on television.  I'm not even talking in the recreational sense.  I NEED to watch these shows.  It's gone past a hobby at this point.  It's almost like it's my job this summer to go through all the television shows.

I don't mean job in the bad sense. Sometimes when I write about sports, it feels like I am obligated to write anything down rather than me posting for the fun of it.  It didn't happen in the beginning, but happens a lot more now because I am a writer on a blog with several people.  When you have to contribute to a blog with someone other than yourself, you naturally feel guilty if you go through periods where you don't post often and the other person is shouldering the load.

Anyway, this got me thinking: Do I really want to go into Journalism?  I guess this is a good time to say that I was Sports Editor on my high school newspaper.  I pretty much have always held Journalism higher than other subjects.  I have never really been sure that's what I want to actually do for a living considering I'm not outgoing and probably won't enjoy going out of town all the time.  But throughout my high school career, nothing has come close to matching my interest quite like sports writing, specifically blogging.  I guess it would be accurate to say that I was almost waiting for some other major to come and sweep me off my feet.  It never happened.  So alas, I go into college with the intent of majoring in journalism.

Anyway, back to the the middle of the night and TV shows.  I started going through my list of TV shows and wondering how I was able to watch so many episodes in weeks' times.  First, I watched Lost in a matter of probably a month or more.  I thought about how I constantly watched new episodes no matter the time.  I needed to get to the newest episode.  I started this in Spring Break which basically meant this wasn't an issue.  When school started, it became an issue.  So I chalked up this need to the show being... well Lost.  They found a way to draw you back in every episode.  That's kind of what they're known for.

Then I watched five seasons of Dexter in a relatively short amount of time, usually stopping at around 3 A.M each night.  Ok, well the more I thought about how I constantly had to go back and watch new episodes, the more I realized what was happening.  Dexter is a good show, but I wouldn't necessarily call it a show that you watch that is killing you to have to wait a week to watch another episode.  Yet, here I was doing that very thing despite not having a huge twist or hook except for maybe the last four episodes of Season 2 and the end of Season 4.  Other than that, it does not even compare to Lost.  So I realized that I had this weird motivating factor that I wanted to watch a list of TV shows in my head before summer was over.  This factor kept me watching new episodes despite not having a huge hook at the end.

Well it really hit me with Breaking Bad.  Again, I'm not bashing the show, but it is not a show that has a huge hook usually to draw you back in.  Ironically, their hook, if anything, comes in the first few minutes when they reveal something that hasn't happened yet, but makes us scratch our heads.  Why is this relevant to how this blog started, you ask?  Well when this particular thing hit me, I had this insatiable desire to share this with other people.

I had this feeling that I could not drive away.  I did not want to share my feelings about what was happening.  No, I absolutely HAD to.  Seriously.  It sounds weird, but I could not ignore it.  It was like I was addicted to heroin and I could not resist needling myself.  Writing, it hit me, is officially my drug.  I have blogged about sports for two full years now with May of 2009 being my beginning.  I am actually, looking back, surprised it took me this long to start a blog about my thoughts.

Back to the Journalism comment, this kind of made me realize that I legitimately want to enter Journalism.  I'm not doing it because it's the only thing that appeals to me.  I'm doing it because I love to write and I love sports and if I can only combine those two things for a career, then I'm living a hell of a life for myself.  That was a thing I remember hearing at a Webster conference about sports journalism.  Don't enter sports journalism because you love sports.  You have to love to write as well.  Well I wasn't sure then, but I am definitely sure that I love to write now.

So this long story brings about the beginning of this blog.  I called it My Drug, because writing is essentially my drug.  I love writing about sports, but it's almost as if I need more.  It's not like I'm getting paid, but I am writing for a legit website, not blogger.com (Sorry Blogger.com, I do love your site).  However, with this blog, I am writing it as a recreation.  My random thoughts on random things if you will.  Much like how I HAD to write what I thought regarding my addiction to TV shows, most of these posts will be of the HAD to write variety.  To give you an example, an idea pops into my head.  That idea is expanded and eventually I figure it would make a good blog post.  At that point, it's game over.  I will write that blog post basically against my will.  I will have this idea crunched into my mind and it will not leave until I post it.  Such is the brain of myself.  For the record, this is not going to be a blog about my day and how it went and interesting things that happened during it.  If you're being honest, you probably don't give a shit about how my day went... unless your my parents and that doesn't count.  No, if you want to see how my day went, follow my Twitter account.

Now, that I have filled my writing need for the night, it's time to go back to bed.  Oh yeah, and I guess I'll do what I plan to do in the future.  Make a playlist of the songs I am currently listening to:

Playlist:
Childish Gambino: Freaks and Geeks (Shout-out to Drew Higgins.  One of the most well done "I have the biggest..."  songs.  If you don't like those type of songs or couldn't figure out what went after biggest, don't listen to the song)
J Cole: Lights Please
Busta Rhymes: Look at Me Now (This is the famous, technically not great song that I can't stop listening to - If Busta wasn't singing, I probably don't like this song - Plus, a deep shame at putting Chris Brown on my first playlist made me cheat - Sadly,I already know next post's popular, technically not good song)
Radiohead: Just
Eminem: The Way I Am (An Eminem song will likely be a regular feature)

Well, I'm impressed I made a halfway decent playlist.  Two oldies, one popular song, and two lesser-known songs.  That will probably be the way my playlists will be constructed, most likely rap.  I'm not a fan of country and I have no idea where all the good rock artists are like in the late 1990s (perhaps this is just nostalgia for me) so my playlists will be rap-centered with a high effort to get other genres involved.