Kuzul

It always hurts to see a batter struggling to hit at the plate. It is always annoying to see a batter swing at pitches they have no business swinging at. It is just as annoying for a hitter’s average to drop 100 points in a season.

These are the hitters who just cannot catch a break this season. They’ve hit in the past, but suddenly cannot find the ball. Some are struggling yet not doing terribly, others are just playing horrendously.

These are the 10 baseball players whose bat has, to be blunt, just went dead.

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Earlier this week, I asked a question on my twitter account: “Is there a better young pitcher/hitter combination in baseball than Tommy Hanson and Jason Heyward?”

Jordan from OriolesProspects.com, and @oriolesprospects on twitter, responded with Matt Wieters and Brian Matusz. The question and answer sparked both of our interests, so we decided to construct an article in which Jordan would make the argument for his Orioles, and I would make the argument for the Braves.

We both made our arguments a bit differently. Jordan went with an actual rating system whereas I just posted their numbers. You be the judge, comment below and gives us your thoughts or hit us up on twitter and voice your opinion. I’m @Ben_Duronio and Jordan is @oriolesprospects, as previously mentioned

Here is what we both had to say:

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Admit it: you’ve started thinking about next winter’s free agent market.

It’s nothing to be ashamed about. Baseball’s Hot Stove is boiling all year long; it’s only natural to be curious about who will sign where.

This week, the Bleacher Report Featured Columnists are here to assure you that you are not alone.

For this survey, I asked each respondent to say how much money and how many years eight big names should get when they hit the open market in six months. When averaged together, they look like pretty realistic deals.

In addition, I asked each FC to guess which team each player will sign with, and speculate on how each’s real-life contract will look relative to his true value. Finally, a “Santa” and a “Scrooge” for each player weighed in on why he deserves a huge payday or a scrimpy salary, respectively—some of the differences are really interesting.

Thank you to everyone who participated, especially those who submitted commentary at the last minute!

Note: I sent this survey only to the Featured Columnists who have been active in previous polls. If you are a new FC or you have changed your mind about wanting to participate, send me a message and I’ll be sure to keep you in the loop for next time!

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The MLB All-Star Game has been an event of diminishing returns in recent years. The ratings have plummeted and general interest has waned over the years, leaving the Mid-Summer Classic has nothing more than a blip on the radar.

The MLB All-Star Game once had significant meaning to the players and fans who saw the best of the best square off for the only interleague matchup outside of the World Series.

Pete Rose’s collision at home plate. Reggie Jackson’s moonshot. Cal Ripken’s home run. All were memorable moments from a game that is losing those moments and overall attraction.

The MLB All-Star Game needs a face lift. Here are five ways to make it happen.

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While the stars steal all the headlines in baseball, it’s a team’s backups that steal the bases, steal the hearts of fans and push a team far into the Major League postseason.

More often than not, the big market teams feature the best backups – in many cases, players who could start for half of the other teams in the league (perhaps more). It’s also true that some rosters feature former starters that are reduced to the backup role now that their age has caught up to them – but that doesn’t mean that each still can’t hit, or play defense.

At any rate, it’s a tricky one to piece together, but here’s my list of the top ten best backup bench players in Major League Baseball.

I think you’ll be quite surprised by the top choice…

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Yesterday, I took a look at 10 thus-far successful pitchers whose impressive starts I attributed to luck and declared that they would be unable to maintain their good fortunes for the rest of the season (click here for that article).

While I admittedly got some schadenfreude out of it, it was kind of depressing; as one commenter observed, the list was “almost every breakout pitcher this season.”

In the interest of fairness (and not seeming like a complete raincloud), here is a list of 10 starters who have sputtered out of the gate, but whose peripherals indicate that they’ll soon get back on track.

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It was a different world back in 1987.

No one had a cell phone. The Internet had not been invented. GM wasn’t broke. Barry Bonds had a normal-sized head.

And that’s when I learned to hate baseball mascots.

Some buds and I had tickets to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates play the Metsies. Now, mind you, getting a Buccos ticket back then was not the hardest row to hoe…the team was having trouble drawing in cavernous Three Rivers Stadium, which had all the charm of a Soviet era housing complex.

But these seats were behind the dugout…way past the budget of me and my Iron City brew drinking cohorts, who went to nearly every game that season in nose bleed nirvana. However, we had scored them for free from one of my customers at the bar I worked at back then while slogging through grad school.

The Bucs had put together a young, good club that later went on to win three straight division championships starting in ’88 under manager Jim Leyland. The team had the aforementioned Bonds with a normal noggin, along with Bobby Bo, Andy Van Slyke, Sid Bream, and Doug Drabek.

Plus, we were all looking forward to a Mets team that was just off of an ’86 series championship, what with Mookie, Hernandez, Daryl, and Dwight in their heyday. 

So we sat down to watch the game…and the friggin’ Pirate mascot got up on the dugout in front of us. Again…and again…and again. We spent a good portion of the game trying to peer around some schmoe who thought he was being cute and entertaining.

Siddown, will ya!?

Mascots are part of the dumbass side of baseball. The marketing stuff that teams engage in to “spice it up” and make it “jazzy” for a generation of fans who can’t enjoy life without the Ritalin they grew up ingesting.

They got started with the Philly Phantic and San Diego Chicken (what the heck a chicken has to do with a man of the cloth is anyone’s guess). Like fire ants and kudzu, which are also annoying, the trend seems to have spread through the majors unchecked.

Now, I’m a big fan of minor league ball. And somehow, the schmaltzy marketing crap doesn’t bother me as much at that level. It is the minors; after all…I expect some sideshow carney stuff. 

But the majors? 

Have some standards. It’s The Show.

Here’s my list of things that make a major league game…less major. Signs of the continued decline of our civilization.

Mascots

I love you, you love me, we’re a dysfunctional family…if you want to watch big furry things, watch Barney on TC. What’s next, free teething ring night?

“We Will Rock You”…

…and a bakers dozen of other really, really bad rock tunes played over and over and over again at the ball park. 

At DC-10 volume. 

What the heck ever happened to the organ, and conversing about the game during play? Nah. Let’s listen to some dead guy from England who wouldn’t have known a bunt from a swizzle stick back before he took the big dirt nap tell us how he’s gonna “rock us” whenever it’s rally-cap time. Bleeech.

Same goes for the stupid “Hey” song, sung by a guy who was convicted of pedophilia. Can it. Bring back the organ.

Different-Colored Jerseys

I’m watching the Rangers play the White Sox, and I can’t tell which team is the home squad! Why? Because the Rangers have on bright-red jerseys, and the Sox, for God knows why, blue.

They look like a couple of softball teams…I kinda expected to see “Dizzy’s Tavern” or something like that emblazoned across the front. 

The absolute WORST is the Red Sox wearing green…it’s just plain wrong.

Keep the classic uniforms classic. Home in white, away in gray.

Yeah, I know that other teams have created uniform visual assaults in the past…the Chi Sox in shorts, Pirates in the ’70s with those goofy-ass hats, and the old Astros’ LSD-inspired togs come to mind…but aren’t we supposed to learn from our mistakes instead of perpetuating them?

The Wave…

…is stupid. 

It was invented by drunk, stupid people in Seattle for the purpose of creating something to do during pro football television timeouts. Encouraging people to do it at baseball is also a dumb thing.

Dot Races…

…or any variant thereof. 

Is three-card Monte really so exciting? Watching people cheer to see the red dot beat the blue dot beat the green dot on a computer-animated scoreboard is, at best, an appalling demonstration of how the educational system in America has completely and utterly failed our society.

I mean…they’re friggin’ dots…on a friggin’ scoreboard…that a friggin’ computer generated. Mental masturbation without the orgasm. Go home and stare at some test patterns or something.

A Member from Every Team on the All-Star Squad

Classic case of the marketing guys overwhelming the common-sense nodes of the brains that run the game.

Sometimes a team sucks and really doesn’t deserve to have a member on the team. Like the Pirates. It’s not little league soccer, where everyone wins and we don’t want to hurt anyone’s self esteem. Best players should be on it. End of story.

No Beer After the Seventh Inning

This one is always marketed as “family-friendly.”

The mommy state strikes again. If someone is drunk and disorderly, toss ’em. Otherwise, allow us grownups to drink beer until the end of the game if we choose to. Unless we’re moving to Sharia law here in the states.

Instant Replay

Brought to you by the robotic, control-freak NFL where everything must be controlled by Big Brother.

Except, you know what? Surprise—replay isn’t perfect.

But at least when it was just the umps, it didn’t take five minutes to call it. Can the replay. Nothing can guarantee 100 percent accuracy, but that thing pretty much does guarantee there will be a long delay.

I wouldn’t mind, however, for some brave marketing person to do a re-run of that mother of all baseball promos gone bad, disco demolition night. 

Just to see some stuff git blowed up.

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