Ray’s Ramblings: All Over The Map

Have you seen the new show Blindspot? It stars Jaimie Alexander, and you know, or should know, how much I’m a fan of brunettes that have light eyes. Like a lot. Couldn’t place her until I looked her up though… she is Lady Sif from the Thor movies and Agents of Shield. How much did my geek out there scare you? Hey, Halloween is coming so you shouldn’t be surprised. Did I mention, a lot?

Kole Calhoun had 26 homers but a mere .422 SLG. That’s hard to do. Part of the blame goes to the fact he hit a mere .256 but he also had just 23 doubles and two triples. That’s pretty damn hard to do when you rack up 630 at-bats. Only four men had that many at-bats in 2015. All of them had better SLG marks: Jose Altuve (.459), Yoenis Cespedes (.452) and Manny Machado (.502).

Dee Gordon hit .333. He has not hit .300 in two seasons. That’s the same number of seasons in which he’s failed to hit .235.

Buster Olney is reporting the following for the Mets rotation in the World Series: Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz in the World Series, in that order. At the same time, another report suggested that Harvey would be getting the call in Game 1. 

Speaking of the playoffs, I saw this today and it’s pretty damn interesting. Check out the velocity increase for some hurlers this postseason. The leader at increasing his oomph from the regular season to the post season is Aaron Sanchez who has added 2.8 mph to that heater.

Alex Rodriguez has made over $378 million in salary during his career. No one else has made more than $265 million (Derek Jeter). The highest paid hurler of all-time? Try CC Sabathia ($192 million). Moreover, there is only one player in the top-6 in all time earnings that didn’t play for the Yankees – Manny Ramirez (nearly $207 million). Don’t feel bad for Manny. He grew up in New York.

Speaking of Halloween. You know I’m a fan, right? Friday night I bet many of you will be out there whoring around. That’s what I normally do on Friday nights at least. This week though it’s an in-house, pre-Halloween party. Two classics on tap: Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Add in some Buzz Ballz and, well, I guess I will be doing what I normally do on Friday nights, just in private and not out in public for all to see.

Wondering about Kyle Schwarber are you? If you aren’t, you should be. I don’t worry about the bat, massive power is his calling card (if you watched any of the playoffs you know that). You have to check your leagues rules closely because if your league isn’t set up just so Schwarber could lose a ton of his value. What am I talking about? Schwarber appeared in 45 games in the outfield starting 38 times. He will qualify in the outfield next year virtually everywhere as the majority of leagues require a 20 game rule to qualify for a position. However, do you know how many starts Kyle made at catcher? Well he made just 15. Uh oh is right. He did appear at the catcher’s spot 21 times, but he only started 15 times. Check those rules. If your setup is appearances than Schwarber is likely fine and will be able to be slotted in as a catcher. If your league uses starts though, we could be in lots of trouble.

Who is Jorge Soler and what should you expect in 2016? I discuss in Daily Trends.

Matt Williams gets bashed for being a bad manager with the Nationals. I won’t comment on that. I will comment on the player. Do you younger folks know how good he was? He never got in trouble, worked hard, always hustled and played strong defense at the hot corner. He also hit 378 homers with 997 RBIs in his career. He had four seasons with 100-RBIs include 1999 when he drove in 142 runs. He also hit 30-homers six times including 43 in 1994. Wasn’t that the strike shortened season? Yes it was. Williams hit 43 homers in 112 games. He had a shot to break Rogers Maris’ homer record before Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire and Barry Bonds did. 

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