Questions–Practical and Rhetorical
WBC:
Will ESPN announcer Gary Thorne ever pronounce Juan Encarnacion’s name correctly? There are some foreign names that a native speaker of English will never pronounce correctly, but Spanish names are typically not among them. Encarnacion is really not that hard, Gary. Have you tried getting some help from your Spanish-speaking broadcast partner, Jose Mota? Or is driving not the only arena of activity in which a "real man" doesn’t ask for directions?
Shouldn’t the WBC use international umpires as well as Americans? (Did they in the Asian Pool?) Shouldn’t the American major league umpires be involved?
Will people ever learn to keep politics separate from baseball? WBC games are not enhanced by a plane flying over the stadium with an anti-Castro message, or people in the stands wearing anti-Castro messages or carrying anti-Castro signs. Can’t people come to terms with the fact that some players are happy living and playing baseball in Cuba and don’t want to defect? How would US players feel if Venezuelan fans came to the park with anti-Bush signs? Why is it OK to criticize Cuba, when China, that bastion of human rights, was invited to play in the WBC without incident? Might part of the reason be that China was playing half a world away and everyone knew the Chinese team wouldn’t not get out of Round 1? Or is it that the US covets Cuban players like Yulieski Gourriel and wants to emphasize why they can’t get him?
The Korean team is doing better than expected for a country that hasn’t been playing baseball all that long. They have beaten both Japan and the USA. Might they have a point about their ability to gel quickly as a team–five of their players went to the same high school–or is it as my father used to say about MLB All-Star teams, they can play together because they all know how to play fundamentals? Or is it a little of both?
Into what should the WBC evolve: A substitute for the Olympics or a true World’s Championship?
Spring Training:
Eric Byrnes hit an RBI single and scored a run yesterday in the D’Backs’ split-squad 10-7 loss to the Rockies. (The Snakes beat the Giants 7-4 in the other game). Byrnesie left no one on base, but he struck out once and did not walk. The 1-4 left his batting average at .250. Byrnesie, it was a productive single, but when will we see a multi-hit game from you? You will end up batting 8th, not leadoff or 2nd, if you hit .250.
Of course, .250 would be lofty for Marland Williams, the guy Melvin puts in CF after he’s figured Byrnes has played enough for the day. Williams went 0-2 with 2 K’s and has yet to get a hit. Will he break his 0-for-Spring Training streak?
At last, the AZ Diamondbacks show up on MLB.TV again, (and again courtesy of the White Sox), but it is a day game after a night game, and so Snakes manager Bob Melvin is again resting the fragile, elderly (yeah, right!) Eric Byrnes. Backup outfielder Luis Terrero is getting the start in 71 degree, sunny Tucson, while I am sitting in 54 degree, rainy Oakland, wanting March to be over. Even though, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "April is the cruelest month", a cold, rainy no-Byrnes-on-TV-March is not much better. <sigh> Why me?
NCAA:
How it is that a team like Hofstra (24-6) gets left out, while Monmouth (18-14) and Hampton (16-15) get to play in?
Life in general:
Is it ever going to stop being windy and rainy in Oakland?
Kéllia Ramares
Oakland, CA
mlblogsbyrnesblog
Headline from the D-Backs official website:
DaVanon earning playing time
Just once it would be so nice for Eric Byrnes to play for a team that has enough respect in him that such a headline would not exist. Shades of Billy Beane (may he rot in Hades)!
First we don’t get to see live action of Byrnes in Spring Training, and now it looks like we won’t see much of him in the regular season. I feel sick.
Eric, come home and take over the job from one of the more annoying KNBR hosts. We’ll show you all the appreciation you deserve.
(Can you tell I’m feeling frustrated? Thanks for letting me rave on, Kellia.)
I just read the article. Thank you for pointing it out, Pat. Rave all you want. I think you and I are on the same page. I’m frustrated, too.
I don’t mind DaVanon earning playing time as a switch-hitting fourth outfielder who can play all three positions. But it’s been clear from the start that this reporter, Steve Gilbert, has no faith in Eric and has been emphasizing DaVanon spelling Byrnes in center “against tough righties.” Today, he mentioned DaVanon spelling Gonzalez and Green “against tough lefties.” But Gonzo is the team leader and slugger, more likely to be spelled in day games after night games because he’s 38. The big question is how much of this “spelling” is Gilbert’s own view and how much of this reflects Melvin’s plans to quickly platoon Eric if he doesn’t start the season HOT.
Who I can’t wait to see disappear is Marland Williams, whom Melvin routinely puts into the games after Byrnesie’s had 3 or 4 at-bats. He has yet to get a hit! Clearly, he’s not ready for prime time.
Eric needs to play everyday, especially if they want him to groove a good batting stroke after abysmal, aberrant 2005. But I get the feeling, from Gilbert, from a couple of blogs I read, from the way the lineups have turned out, and even from Josh Byrnes’ comments when Eric was signed, that little is really expected of him offensively. They will keep him in when he is hot, and will be quick to pull him when he is not, rather than working with him to tame that streakiness of his. This even has me wanting to wait until mid-April before I spend money on tickets to the Giants-D’Backs series the last weekend in April. I don’t want to pay a ton of money I can ill-afford and not see Byrnesie play. If he starts slow, the Snakes will do what the Birds did: they’ll drop him to 8th in the order and then they will play him only against lefties.
He needs a team that needs a CF for the next 4-6 years and is not looking to rent one while the one they are really waiting for is seasoning in Triple A.
If you think about it, Byrnesie had this problem in Oakland as well. When they signed Kotsay to his extension last year, the front office comments suggested that they wanted Kotsay in 2000, the year they brought Eric up. When they got Payton, they said they wanted him when he signed with San Diego. Byrnesie has been the backup plan; the A’s always wanted others, and when they got the others, they got rid of Byrnes. In fact, they were looking to get rid of him even before that. What with all the trade talk in the offseason after 2004. (As if Thomas, Watson, and even Keilty have turned out well).
BTW, I agree with your about Billy Beane. He’s itching to trade Zito, I know it!
Mazilli of Balto wanted Eric, but got fired a less than a week after Eric joined the Birds. I don’t know that Perlozzo felt the same and with Sam fighting to retain the managerial position he wanted to so badly, it was easier to just platoon Byrnesie then work with him to solve the problem, especially since the Birds had much bigger headaches to deal with last year.
With Eric not on TV, I can’t tell if he has made any adjustments to his batting stance. I have noticed that WBC announcers have said that Adrian Beltre has changed his stance and it is working for him.
One problem I have with Eric is that I don’t think he’s the most original thinker in the bunch. Daryl of Daryl’s Place, a Baltimore Orioles season ticket holder, told me that Eric had established a reputation in Baltimore of being a hard worker, who took extra batting practice and was willing to take instruction. All Good. But I didn’t see any changes in his batting stance as he became mired more and more deeply in his slump. That suggests his hitting instructors were not giving him that instruction, and he hadn’t found a different way for himself. This means that unless he gets instructions, he’s not going to change, he’s just going to work harder. And while working hard pays off in the outfield, one needs more relaxation and proper technique for hitting.
If the manager and coaches have low expectations, and don’t work with him, because he’s 30, because he’s only going to be there until Chris Young is ready, etc., he won’t improve much. Then it will become a vicious circle because then they will pull him when he gets cold. He’s not a “come off the bench” kind of player. Even though all players get cold and they might get benched for a couple of days because of it, they don’t all get platooned the way it is already looking like they are making plans to do to Eric, if Gilbert is to be believed.
So Eric is not only under the pressure to do better than last year–and it is certainly OK to demand THAT of him–but he’s under the pressure to start HOT and stay HOT, because they don’t have the faith to stay with him when he gets cold, or the time or interest to work with him when he gets cold. After all, they have DaVanon now and are just waiting for Chris Young to be ready. In fact, I think that even if Byrnesie is back to 2004 form by September, he will largely disappear when they call up Chris Young. Eric is going to have to bat .300 or better to remain the regular CF late in the season if Chris Young is everything they claim he is. More pressure just to stay in the lineup is not what a guy needs when he has to learn to relax more at the plate.
And I don’t want to see any more articles about how much energy Eric brings to the clubhouse. Energy is an essential to a winning team, but neither Eric, nor Eric and Orlando Hudson alone, can carry the team on that level.
As for Eric coming home…not yet. He’s going to keep playing baseball as long as he can. He probably does have a future in broadcasting. I don’t listen to sports talk (or any other talk shows for that matter), but by all accounts and the one interview with him I have heard, he is articulate and will do well in that arena. But not yet.
I do hope he does come home. I don’t know why the heck he had a house in Phoenix even before he signed with the D’Backs. I keep hearing he likes to surf, so I would have figured he’d buy something in Southern California if he wanted warmer weather than we have here. They don’t do much surfing in the desert. Maybe he thought it would be a good investment, but I could tell him a few things about energy that should convince him that living in the desert is a bad idea in the long run. Of course, I would much rather talk to him about his hitting.
Thanks for giving me an entree to rave, Pat. Let’s hope the second half of spring training will be more Byrnes-friendly than the first.
Beware the Ides of March.