Hey everybody! Do you remember that we have a real-life, honest-to-goodness Failure Baseball League? No?!? Well me neither, until a few days ago!
We're into August now, and the failures have had record breaking seasons. We started out the season by drafting heavily in the Twins direction (correct choice), then followed that up with a healthy dose of Indians (don't know how to hit baseball) and now it's pretty much all about the Mariners (liked them better the first time I saw them, when they were called the Ham Fighters).
Collecting these stats is truly a joy, and it affords me the opportunity to enjoy just how good we are at picking failures... and the astonishing number of absolute garbage players in MLB. In fact, I was looking for a replacement for LaTroy Hawkins (because he failed for the 149th time in his career) and I didn't know where to begin. Well, you know a good place to start when drafting failures? Pittsburgh's roster! Oh, they are chock full of losers! Gorzellany, Ian Snell, Paul Maholm... it's low-hanging fruit! So, faithful readers, let this be a lesson... when in doubt, DRAFT PIRATE PITCHERS!
Another fun thing to do is read the comments made on Sportsline about individual players and their fantasy value. Needless to say, most of the guys on our rosters have "little" or "none". I've also seen these comments: "Not Improving" (Justin Upton) and "Awful Again" (Homer Bailey). Hey, think positive guys! You're in the big leagues!
Before we begin with the recaps and the current standings, though, please allow me to pay homage to a man who may soon retire from the world of professional baseball...
Meat Hook.
It's not looking good for Meat Hook these days. The diabee-tus caught up with him (or rather, eating nothing but Wendy's caught up) and his team has fallen into complete disrepair. For 3 or 4 years, however, Meat Hook was the biggest stone-cold gangster in MLB. Let's see... in 1995 he punched a fan who was heckling him - at a minor league game. In 2006 he assaulted a woman in Birmingham (Barons up!). He was later sent to Promises Malibu, which, in addition to being a rehab center, is also likely a porn actress' name. He was sentenced to 30 days, but on the day of his pretrial - WHOOPS FORGOT ABOUT THAT - he failed to show up in court. A warrant was issued, which was funny, because it was the middle of the fucking season. You think they're going to have a hard time finding him?
Anyway, there's a lot of things funny about Meat Hook, but one thing that isn't funny is that he is grossly overweight.
No, wait. That is funny.
Alright Meat Hook, you take the rest of the year off and make one more run at conditioning in the offseason! Of course, by "conditioning", I mean "opting for lettuce on your BK Broiler".
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The standings!
Bacon n Butter - 66The Jesus Sanchez - 62Outright Release - 60Billz - 57The Short Bus Drivers - 54Of course, these numbers do not reflect the team statistics, which will be tabulated at season's end. For some of us, namely Short Bus Drivers, those numbers are going to look a lot better at that time.
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Well, enough putzing around, let's get to some awards!
We're going to have to crawl all the way back to April to start handing out the Jose Contreras Failure Awards, but it's worth it because there has been such a staggering amount of non-success in this league, it all needs mentioning!
And so, your failure award winner for April:
Barry Zito!
(hey Barry, is that how many hits you gave up today, or runs?)
Barry didn't just fail in April, he BOMBED. He completed the near-impossible 5 Loss month, posting an ERA of 7.61 on the way. In 23 innings he gave up 3 hoggs and 14 walks. All of these stats made him a pure cash cow for The Jesus Sanchez. And as icing on the cake, he was demoted to the bullpen, just over a year after signing his gigantic goddamned contract. Good thing the Giants suck now, or Barry REALLY would've stood out!
Honorable Mention in April goes to Ryan Howard, who batted .168 and managed to ring up 37 strikeouts. Those are MVP numbers!
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In May, the overall level of failure was lower, but there were still quite a few shining stars. On a team full of underachievers, this month's winner really goes for the glory!
Daric Barton!
(you think you'd want to wait until the canker sores healed before you got your picture taken.... guess not)
Now, the first question you may have is "Who?" And then you will probably snicker and say something like "You misspelled your first name". And it's true. There's usually a 'K' in there, buddy. OH BUT SPEAKING OF K's!!!!! Mr. Barton went down hard 20 times in May, posting a nearly-unbelievable .139 batting average. He slugged .244! Hey bonehead, Carlos Gomez gets that on bunting alone!
When you get 72 at bats, it's not a good thing to strike out in 20 of them.
But, as with most failures, you can't really hold it against him. I mean, come on. Look at that face. He was destined to failure when he was born.
Honorable Mention in May goes to Andruw Jones (.178 with 16 strikeouts?? Check his birth certificate!) and Elijah Dukes (.167, 18 strikeouts and 3 GDPs?? Get that man a Pepsi!)
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In June, the failures came out swinging a hot bat... a hot STRIKEOUT BAT. The totals for punchouts went through the roof with the leading team recording 178 total. That's almost 20 per player! Oh my god, make contact you losers!
So with all those hitters striking out in the hot summer sun, you'd think that pitchers would have an easy go of things, right?
WRONG! IT'S RINCON TIME!!!
This is one of those performances that deserves to be on a plaque somewhere. Let's see, where to begin? 3 home runs? Well, that's not TERRIBLE. I mean, it's pretty bad for a relief pitcher, but not the worst.
Oh. Wait. He only pitched 3.1 innings, you say?
So in the process of getting 10 outs in the entire month, he gave up 10 hits. As mentioned, three of them didn't come back into the field of play. He let in 7 runs, all of them earned. That adds up to a walloping 18.9 ERA. Hitters batted .526 off of him. BUT JUAN WASN'T DONE CONTRIBUTING TO THE FAILURE FANTASY LEAGUE!!!! He got himself cut by the Twins organization that had stood by him even when he was ballooning up to a disproportionate level and injecting steroids straight into his ass. Being cut from the Twins is hard to do. Look at how long it took them with Tony Fiore. And he drove a garbage truck to work.
Of course, Juan is the gift that just keeps on giving all year round. He landed on his feet - well, Cleveland, so really he just landed. Hard. And so far in August, he's throwing a 13.5 ERA Having given up 2 home runs while only getting 4 outs. Absolutely outstanding.
Honorable mention here goes to Rincon's teammate (who can never be cut, apparently) Mike Lamb. Big Mike posted a batting average of .063. No, I didn't forget a number. That's .063 as in "2 hits in 32 at bats". I'm sure Dave Siznewski could get more than 2 hits in a month! And he eats chicken wings with butter on them!
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Finally we come to July, where the real failures begin to shine. This is the time of year when the teams that are out of contention just plain stop trying. It's hot, they can't hit anyway, and even if they did the next guy would strike out. Why not just try for a homer every time???
Jack Cust does!!!!!!
Two things. First, Jack Cust sold me a used Lincoln in Rockford, IL. Second, he damn near set an MLB record in July for strikeouts.
Jack had 83 at bats. At least half of those must've been non-strikeouts, right? OH NO WRONG. He went back to the dugout with his head down a remarkable FORTY FIVE times! He hit .205 on the month, but managed to slug .446. How is that possible? Because of the 17 times he got a hit, 6 of them were home runs. Hey, 6 jacks and 45 strikeouts... like Llewelyn Moss says "That'll work"!
And Jack just keeps on going too. At press time, he has 17 at bats in August, and 8 of them are strikeouts. Awesome.
Honorable Mention in July goes to Royce Ring (yes, that is a real name) who pitches for Atlanta, which recently took a flier on a catcher named CORKY MILLER. Remember that name Twins fans? The guy who made the opening day roster instead of Liriano in 2006? That worked well. Anyway, Royce posted a 21.94 ERA in July, giving up 16 hits to mirror the 16 outs he got. Unfortunately, 13 runs came because of those 16 hits. And... no homeruns? How the hell does that work? Ah, I see. 7 walks. That will do it. Royce.
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And so there you have it folks. I'm going back into hiding for a few months, I'll see you at the football draft!
