TheBaseballStars

Look, Johan Santana was the man with the Twins. He put up one of the best seasons this side of the-turn-of-the-century Randy Johnson. In 2004 he was 20-6 with a 2.61 ERA to go along with 265 strikeouts. As the anchor of the Jon’s team, he led The Greatness to two titles and six seasons where The Jon didn’t finish any lower than third.

So it is with great sadness and an unabashed outlook on the future that The Jon brings this news: The Jon just traded Johan Santana.

The Deal

The trade is pretty straightforward:

Johan Santana and David Murphy
for
Ryan Braun, John Lackey and a third round pick.

The Reasoning

1. The Jon’s team is getting old. Here were my 5 keepers before the Santana deal: Ichiro Suzuki, Vladimir Guerrero, Johan Santana, Roy Halladay, Edinson Volquez.
   Ichiro and Vlad are in their 30s. Halladay and Santana are entering the 30 mark.
   I could have stood pat and let the season play out.
   With these guys I am guaranteed to finish in the top 3 … but like any good fantasy manager, The Jon knows The Jon’s weaknesses when it comes to creating teams. Which leads to :
2. The Jon’s offense never has any power. Seasons ago, The Jon had Manny Ramirez to take care of the power category. Once The Jon traded away Manny Ramirez it has been an age-old struggle to get power and RBI. You see, The Jon can’t pass up hitters that tally between 185 to 200 hits in a season.
   Sadly those types of hitters hardly ever get RBI. Braun changes that.
   Combine him with Adrian Gonzalez, Jorge Posada, Magglio Ordonez and Chipper Jones, and what you have is balance. Adding Braun to the mix brings steady power to all of the group mentioned above who have yet to get into their power swinging ways.
   Almost all of these guys are second half power hitters. This balances out with a team that also has Placido Polanco, Ichiro, Yunel Escobar and Vlad.
   So now there is a fine balance between table setters and power.
3. Have you seen The Jon’s pitching staff? This was best stated here … Basically, here’s the staff:
   Halladay, Santana, Volquez, Felix Hernandez, Cliff Lee, Ryan Dempster, Gavin Floyd and Fausto Carmona. The Jon plays seven pitchers a week because Dempster and Floyd qualify as relief pitchers.
   That means The Jon overwhelms other teams with pitching. And guess who has been carrying The Jon in pitching
   Volquez
   Lee
   Halladay
   Hernandez
   Dempster
   Santana …
   In that order.
   With the way The Jon’s team is set up, there is a little bit of overkill with pitching. Even if The Jon faces off against a good pitching staff, The Greatness still can have one to two more starters more than The Jon’s opponent. The Jon needed offense more than pitching and plus …
4. MMMmmmm … The Jon got there John Lackey dere.
   Mmmm hhhmmmmm John Lackey a good pitcher right dere.
   When Lackey is on he can be just as eemmmerrmmmmm hhhmmmm good as Johan Santana dere.
   MMmeeremmm John Lackey look like me dere.
5. Volquez is the real deal. More and more, he reminds The Jon as a young Pedro Martinez. Will he keep up his streak of not allowing more than two runs a game? Probably not, but the guy gets Ks, he knows how to pitch and with the Saturday performance he had against the Boston Red Sox in the bandbox known as the Great American Ballpark, Volquez showed poise.
   A quick example: In the top of the fifth inning, Volquez allowed a 1-Out double to Alex Cora. He then walked Kevin Cash. So he had two on with one out. He struck out Tim Wakefield after botched bunt attempt and then went down 3-1 to Jacoby Ellsbury.
   Changeup out of the zone swinging. Strike two.
   Another changeup in the exact same spot out of the zone. Strikeout. Inning over.
   Most young pitchers would have gave up a run. Santana usually gives up a run in that situation. The Jon has followed him enough to know.
6. The Jon gets Ryan Braun at the ground level. Let’s just say Ryan Braun repeats his rookie season. The Jon does not get Ryan Braun for Santana. This is a chance to get one of the best young power hitters in the game on the cheap.
7. The Jon finally gets young. The Jon has gotten the most out of The Jon’s former team. The Greatness will not hold on to The Jon’s aging stars only to watch them become insignificant in a couple of seasons. Baseball is in a state where the younger players are starting to replace the veterans. With this Braun Deal — if the Jon wanted to — The Jon could have five starters that are under the age of 26. That is a big difference where the second youngest keeper before the Santana deal was 29.

The Negatives

Still, it is Johan Santana.
If you have Johan Santana and claim your pitching keepers to be Santana, Halladay and Volquez, that is pretty formidable.

Say Halladay, Volquez and Hernandez, and all of a sudden, your pitching is suspect.

Santana is a benchmark fantasy player. He makes any manager feel confident about his squad.

Santana used to make The Jon rest easy at night. Now not so much. The Jon is gambling on Volquez and Hernandez to be the real deal. Santana and Halladay already were. It was great combo.

It will be strange to look at The Jon’s lineup Monday morning and not see the familiar name of Johan Santana.

An era has come to an end.

Baseball Tonight is really starting to …

Worry The Jon. Not only have they cut into highlights with 500 different versions of Web Gems, they are now doing this:

To commemorate the 100-year anniversary of baseball’s most famous tune, “Baseball Tonight” has asked nine popular musical artists to record a rendition of the song and engage in a battle of the bands. Based on the schedule below, each version will debut during “Baseball Tonight” at 10 p.m. ET, except where noted.

The nine artists: John Pizzarelli, Punch Brothers, Lloyd ,The Cab, Gretchen Wilson, Ozomatli, Branford Marsalis, Candlebox, REO Speedwagon.

ESPN then showed two segments Sunday night of Peter Gammons singing his own rendition. Good gaaawd.
You can see it here.

This goes on for two weeks folks. We have to watch this crap when we would rather see uuuhhh … baseball.

Highlights. Baseball. Analysis. Remember?

If you can’t beat ‘em, join em

You want some real music to check out? N.E.R.D. came out with their third album.

It is not as good as their first two, but there are still some songs that are worth getting the album for. Yeah, Pharrell might be played out, but N.E.R.D.has always broken up the monotony of most of the crap music today. As Buckwheat would say, Wake a wisten …

And finally the best album you never heard of, it’s Nicolay and Kay: Timeline.
Nicolay garnered some notice when he hooked up with Little Brother to make the Foreign Exchange: Connected album and he released this album in February … some of the best isht out today.
Let’s ride it out with the track “As the Wheel Turns.”
Once again, good luck this week fools.