Armadillo Sports
Saturday’s 6-pack
— UNLV 86, Boise State 83 OT- At one point, Boise State led 32-9.
— Miami OH 90, Ohio U 74- RedHawks are 25-0, country’s only unbeaten team.
— Saint Louis 86, Loyola Chi 59- Billikens are 24-1, 12-0 in A-14.
— Wisconsin 92, Michigan State 71- Badgers shot 15-35 on arc, scored 1.35 ppp.
— Akron 99, UMass 92- Zips were 38-43 on foul line, UMass 11-17.
— Yale 83, Dartmouth 70- Yale/Harvard are tied for first in Ivy League (7-2).
Quote of the Day
“Hold tight to the joys that make you smile, and never let them go.”
Roy Bennett
Saturday’s quiz
What well-known singer/actor was a part owner of the ABA’s Oakland Oaks?
Friday’s quiz
Patrick Mahomes played his college football at Texas Tech.
Thursday’s quiz
Over the last five years, Toronto Blue Jays have the best batting average.
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Saturday’s Den: Baseball thoughts, with spring training starting
— Los Angeles Dodgers are looking to win the World Series for the third year in a row; six of their top seven hitters in their lineup are over 30 years old, but if they stay healthy, would be hard to bet against them again this year.
— Bronx Bombers haven’t won the World Series since 2009; was funny listening to their fans whining when they Dodgers signed Kyle Tucker; welcome to my world fellas, I root for the A’s, almost everyone spends more than the A’s.
Someone posted a list of who they thought the best GM’s are, and they listed Brian Cashman #3, which is a tremendous load of crap. If you play checkers, and you start 95% of your games with more checkers than the other guy, then you shouldn’t go 16 years without winning.
— Boston Red Sox have made the playoffs in only two of last seven seasons; they run their team like they’re a small market team like the A’s. Hello??!?!? Boston is a big city, freakin’ act like it and pay your players. It was stunning when they let Alex Bregman get away this winter.
— Remember the Jonah Hill character in Moneyball? In real life, that person is Paul DePodesta, and he now runs the Colorado Rockies’ front office. He had been working for the Cleveland Browns in the NFL; he’s the genius who recommended giving QB Deshaun Watson the huge contract with all the guaranteed money in it. Whoops.
I’ve been trying to figure out who will/won’t play for the Rockies this year; I’ve decided that they will probably platoon a lot, which makes their players less attractive for fantasy teams. They will be interesting to follow this season.
— Tampa Bay Rays are back at Tropicana Field this season; popular wisdom is that this will help their pitchers, hurt their hitters. The spring training stadium they played in last year was a very good hitter’s park.
— Pittsburgh Pirates haven’t finished over .500 since 2018, haven’t made the playoffs since 2015, but they’ve added Marcell Ozuna, Ryan O’Hearn to their lineup this year, they’ve got pretty good starting pitching, and the NL Central ain’t that great. Can the Pirates contend this year?
— Arizona has missed playoffs seven of last eight years; they re-signed P Zac Gallen Friday night for one year, $22M, which helps them. Arizona finished over .500 five of the last nine years, lost the World Series three years ago. They need OF Corbin Carroll to recover from his hand injury.
— Famous birthdays, February 14th:
Dave Dravecky, 70
Jim Kelly, 66
Meg Tilly, 66
Drew Bledsoe, 55
Richard Hamilton, 48
Darius Songaila, 48
Nick Pivetta, 33
Jadeveon Clowney, 33
Gabriel Moreno, 26
Brooks Lee, 25
Nolan Schanuel, 24
Jaxon Smith-Njigba, 24
— Last three years, White Sox lost 101-121-102 games, pretty dismal; they traded for Mets’ prospect Luisangel Acuna, signed Japanese 1B Munetaka Murakami, OF Austin Hays, can they make a big leap and contend this year?
I’d be more confident in the White Sox if their general manager actually knew that Acuna isn’t a switch-hitter. In four different interviews last week, their GM was saying how Acuna bats from both sides of the plate, which would be great, except that he only hits right-handed.
Oy.
— Minnesota Twins finished 70-92 last year; their payroll is $30M less than it was three years ago, and the new person in charge of the franchise doesn’t seem eager to increase the payroll.
Derek Shelton is the Twins’ new manager; he was the Pirates’ manager for six losing seasons, he is used to working for cheapskates. No bueno.
— Last year, Houston Astros missed the playoffs for the first time in nine years; this year, they have five infielders, but only four spots in the lineup for those guys, since Yordan Alvarez will probably DH most of the time.
Interesting problem; I have Isaac Paredes on my fantasy team, so it would be great if he was in their lineup every day. He needs to play somewhere where the left field foul pole is kind of closer than normal to home plate- he pulls a lot of fly balls. We’ll see what happens; sounds like there were no takers for 1B Christian Walker.
— Milwaukee Brewers have been in the playoffs seven of last eight years; they were 97-75 last year, but they let P Freddy Peralta go to the Mets, which figures to hurt them.
— Kansas City Royals moved some of the fences closer to home plate, lowered some of them too, how much does that help their hitters/hurt their pitchers? Kansas City finished over .500 the last two years; they’ve only made the playoffs once since winning the 2015 World Series.
— Most interesting part of the early season will be the new ball/strike challenge system, which is a real thing this year; everyone liked it in spring training last year. Will be fascinating to see how different teams handle their challenges; who they let challenge pitches, and when.
