Everything Else

The Doll’s Trying To Kill Me And The Toaster’s Been Laughing At Me – FFUD’s ’18-’19 Player Reviews: Jeremy Colliton

By Sam Fels 1637 0

In truth, the whole season, or at least the last 67 games of it, was referendum on Coach Cool Youth Pastor. The Hawks kind of telegraphed their intentions with their quotes and moves last summer and at the end of the season before that. You knew from the moment they brought him over from Sweden this was a guy they really liked, even if Chris Block made him cry. You knew the relationship between Joel Quenneville and Stan Bowman had gone beyond the breaking point, and everything pointed to Colliton being their hand-chose replacement. The Hawks backed themselves into a corner of having to hire him, when it was clear that Quenneville was never going to finish the season unless by some miracle. Colliton almost certainly wasn’t ready for this, but the front office isn’t going to be around for another coaching hire. At least you wouldn’t think. So it was a shotgun wedding. Did we learn anything? I’m not sure. But we had a lot of fun along the way, and in the end, isn’t that the real truth? The answer is no.

It Comes With A Free Frogurt!

The first thing that Colliton supporters will use to highlight their case, if these things actually exist, is the power play. Honestly, the power play was never a high priority for Q, as the Hawks won three Cups with a malfunctioning one either in the regular season or the playoffs or both. The PK and even-strength were given far bigger priority. So the Hawks’ power play languished, last in the league and by some distance. It was painful to watch, if not truly soul-destroying.

Look, there was clearly a lot of talent that was going to waste on it. But Colliton is the guy who got Duncan Keith off of it, trusted Erik Gustafsson to run it by himself, got it moving everywhere, and by the end of the season it finished 15th. That sounds disappointing, as it was flirting with the top-10 there for a hot minute, but when you think of where it came from, running at below 12% for awhile, to finish at 20% and to run at near 40% or above for six weeks or so is really an accomplishment. It went stale toward the end of the season when the Hawks really could have used it, but hopefully a more stable second unit and Patrick Kane not dying of exhaustion next year will curtail some of that. It was the only reason the Hawks go anywhere near a playoff spot.

To give Colliton only that would be a touch unfair. Connor Murphy played his best hockey when not being used as a blame-pawn by Q, and ascended to the toughest responsibilities. It was Murphy and Dahlstrom who closed out a fair few number of games at the end, with Keith and Seabrook on the bench. Similarly, Dylan Strome was provided an atmosphere to flourish, which you can’t guarantee would have happened under Quenneville (who was much more fair to young players than his rep suggested, however). Drake Caggiula looked useful, if not dynamic, though that could just be being freed from Edmonton. For the most part, not always, Colliton put players where they could succeed. If that meant Saad on the third line because that was his best fit, then that’s where he went. When it didn’t work, it could be argued it was because that player is just utterly talentless.

The Frogurt Is Also Cursed

You can’t go any farther without talking about the defense. It was the worst in the league, the worst in the analytic-era, and didn’t improve really at all. Was this all Colliton’s fault? No, because he was given about a defenseman and a half to work with. Jokiharju barely played for him, and when he did is when it was becoming clear he was overmatched. Still, there didn’t seem to be any sign of an upturn, and the excuse of not having a training camp ran thin after a while. He wasn’t installing Matt Nagy’s offense here. It’s hockey. If the Hawks were grooming a batch of youngsters to play the way they are going to when they matter again, you could maybe see it. But there really wasn’t. And there was no tweaking of anything to compensate for what the Hawks didn’t have, namely mobility in defense.

And Colliton’s system may be stupid anyway. It was infuriating seeing Murphy or Keith or Dahlstrom or whoever end up at the blue line in their own zone chasing one guy. Any team with any advance scouting knew that simply having a forward come high and a d-man go low would bamboozle the Hawks, and at worst leave a forward trying to defend down low with a d-man out covering the points and getting nosebleeds. It didn’t make a ton of sense. Even if the Hawks had the talent, we don’t know that this would work.

Colliton also suffered from not really acting like the boss. Brent Seabrook was never scratched, even though he was no more effective than Koekkoek, Dahlstrom, or Forsling. From what I can gather, that was merely because he and Colliton played together on a WJC team and the Hawks wanted the coach to have another veteran ally in the room. Especially as Keith couldn’t have made it any clearer he thought Colliton was a moron from day one. Kane was used for 25 minutes a night, and yes this was just about the only weapon the Hawks had, but it left him paste by the middle of March. It also showed no other plan.

The penalty kill was historically bad, and again, that was a matter of lack of talent, but there didn’t appear to be many changes to try and help it out. Teams could get passes through the box whenever they wanted. The Hawks never altered to either sink deeper or try and play with more pressure. They just kind of floated in the middle, which wasn’t working.

Also his wife doesn’t like us (though this is generally the norm among my friends and acquaintances).

Can I Go Now?

It doesn’t really matter, because Colliton will be here as long as Stan is, you would think. On any logical level, that’s what will happen. The rosy picture is to say that we’ll get a much clearer read on Colliton with an improvement in talent levels on defense. But it’s not clear that the Hawks will, or even can, do that. He’ll get his vaunted training camp to install the ideas that apparently have to be decoded by the Rosetta Stone, so that won’t be a crutch he and the team can wield any more.

Colliton is also going to have to win over the vets. Kane didn’t care or rock the boat because he was getting 25 minutes per night, and Toews is Toews and the captain and will always try and hold things together. You wonder how much longer any of these last if the Hawks don’t get off to a good start. How he gets Keith to play without both of his middle fingers extended is another mystery. Whatever the actual relationship between Colliton and Seabrook is, it probably has to be put under the test of Seabrook ending up in the pressbox some nights. You can’t improve this defense with #7 playing every night. At least it’s impossible to see how. If Crawford is finally fully healthy he’ll have a say as well. Can Colliton avoid a full out rebellion if some or all of this comes to fruition?

If Colliton’s strength is bringing along young players, we’ll have to see it more this year. Kubalik is coming over. Outside chance Kurashev is here. Sikura needs to go from threatening to actual usefulness and actual goals more to the point. Whatever d-man who is actually good, or even just ambulatory, needs to be harnessed. The penalty kill has to be something other than a war crime. And there have to be tweaks to a defensive system when called for.

It’s a lot. It was always a lot to deposit this coach with barely any experience in the middle of an organization that is thrashing wildly looking for any shore or bank. It was unfair. But there are far less excuses now. Stan has his guy, and he has to give him whatever they both decide they need for both to succeed. If Keith or Seabrook aren’t on board, then they have to go or it has to be clear that Colliton is the boss and they’d better get in line.

Good luck.

Previous Player Reviews

Corey Crawford

Cam Ward

Collin Delia

Duncan Keith

Connor Murphy

Henri Jokiharju

Gustav Forsling

Erik Gustafsson

Carl Dahlstrom

Brendan Perlini

Alex DeBrincat

Chris Kunitz

Artem Anisimov

Marcus Kruger

Dylan Strome

Jonathan Toews

Brandon Saad

Dominik Kahun

John Hayden

David Kampf

Patrick Kane

Drake Caggiula

Dylan Sikura

Baseball

Series Preview – Reds vs. Cubs: Tell Your Statistics To Shut Up

By Sam Fels 1272 0

vs.

RECORDS: Reds 22-27   Cubs 29-19

GAMETIMES: Friday-Sunday 1:20

TV: NBCSN Friday, ABC Saturday, WGN Sunday

WHO DEY: Blog Red Machine

PROBABLE PITCHERS

Anthony DeSclafani vs. Kyle Hendricks

Tyler Mahle vs. Yu Darvish

Tanner Roark vs. Jose Quintana

PROBABLE REDS LINEUP

Nick Senzel – CF

Joey Votto – 1B

Eugenio Suarez – 3B

Jesse Winker – LF

Yasiel Puig – RF

Derek Dietrich

Jose Iglesias – SS

Tucker Barnhart – C

PROBABLE CUBS LINEUP

Kyle Schwarber – LF

Kris Bryant – 3B

Anthony Rizzo – 1B

Javier Baez – SS

Jason Heyward – RF

Victor Caratini – C

Daniel Descalso – 2B

Albert Almora Jr. – CF

 

The NL Central is weird. Weird things can happen in baseball over two months. Hell, it can happen over six. The Reds show up today, and they’re last in the division. Yet they have a +25 run-differential, which is fourth-best in the entire NL, behind the three first-placed teams. Hell, the Cardinals have a +21 run-differential, and they’re a game behind the Pirates, who are -42. This probably evens out, and relatively soon, but for now it’s certainly odd viewing.

The way you get to that, or at least one way, is having great pitching and a woeful offense. The Reds have those. So they’re always holding opponents to few runs, but their offense rarely catches up, and when they do it’s a binge. It’s like your rare trips to Stan’s Donuts (don’t even try to play that you don’t get like three things at Stan’s. I know you. I see you).

Since we last saw the Reds, they lost two of three to the Dodgers at home and then split with the Brewers in Milwaukee, including an abstract performance art piece on Wednesday afternoon that they dropped 11-9. Not much has changed with the Reds in just eight days. One difference for the Cubs is that they’ll see Anthony Desclafani and not Luis Castillo, which is definitely a trade up if you’re the Cubs.

DeSclafani’s career has been kind of all over the map, and he’s had his injury problems. His strikeouts are up this year, but his grounders are way down and when summer finally hits in Cincy that’s generally not a recipe for success as balls tend to ride the humidity and methane from Skyline out into the right-field bleachers a ton. DeSclafani has changed this year by choking off his slider into a curveball, throwing that pitch more more than he ever has and five times as much as he did last year. He still uses the slider a quarter of the time, and it’s still his most effective pitch as far as what hitters do against it.

The Cubs also didn’t see Tyler Mahle, who’s been great and isn’t walking anyone essentially. Mahle features a fastball, change, and curve, and the change and curve get a ton of grounders for him, which will be a real boon in his home park.

Other than that, you know the drill. Eugenio Suarez will kill the Cubs at some point this weekend, Senzel is heating up, Dietrich is the only other one hitting, and the pen has multiple weapons before you even get to Raisel Iglesias at the end.

For the Cubs, they’re apparently still trying to exhume Descalso today, and Hendricks returns home where he’s given up no runs in his last two starts in white over 17 innings. Pedro Strop won’t return this weekend but is very close. Yu’s revival started against this Reds team, and they’re an offense you can get healthy against. There’s a nasty looking road trip after this, so another series win would certainly be the right prep for it.

Baseball

Reds Spotlight: Then Back To My Place Where I Will Get You Votto

By Sam Fels 1052 0

We’re going to try to add these to our baseball previews. At least as long as our sanity allows.

There are many signs of the apocalypse these days. Look around daily, and you’ll probably find one. Maybe it’s the imminent heat death of the planet. Or the fracturing of the political scene. Or increasing feudalist society across the world. Perhaps nuclear winter in the Middle East.

Joey Votto with a 74 wRC+ feels like it’s not too far down the list either.

To be fair to Votto, he did start like this once, just once, before. In April of 2016, he hit .226 with a wOBA of .276. He struck out nearly a quarter of the time, just as he did this season. That time he was hitting a ton of grounders, which he isn’t that time, and we’ll circle back to in a sec. And when all was said and done in 2016, Votto ended up slashing .326/.434/.550 with a 158 wRC+. And really, that’s what we should expect from Votto until he doesn’t do that, even if we get to September 20th and he’s still doing this. I’ll still believe he’ll end up with superior numbers. It’s one of those things where even seeing the body won’t prove to me he’s dead.

That doesn’t mean there doesn’t feel like something’s off with Votto. One, he’s swinging at way more pitches out of the zone, and the real jump is he’s not getting to any of it. The past three seasons, Votto has made contact at between 75%-78% of the pitches he swung outside of the zone. This year it’s 63.1%. He’s making less contact than he has in a long time, and his swinging strikes are as hight as they’ve been in a decade. What’s the deal here?

You heard Jim DeShaies mention when the Cubs were in Ohio that Votto’s fly balls are way up, and that’s true. 42.5% of his contact is in the air, up from 30% last year and a career rate of 33.3%. It’s come at the cost of his line-drives, which is what you think of when you think of Votto. Those are down to 20.8%, from last year’s 31.4%, and his usual rate of around 25%. His hard-contact is down a touch, but not to these kinds of margins.

Is Votto trying to go for a little more power? Well, one of the signs of age is a problem with the fastball, and Votto is certainly having that. For his career, Votto hit .324 on fastballs and slugged .593. This year those numbers are .191 and .338, which leaves your jaw shattered on the floor. And Votto can’t seem to get to it anywhere. Check out the location of his whiffs on fastballs for his career and then this year:

Votto’s struggles on off-speed pitches also suggests he’s leaning to get to the fastballs and is getting caught. He’s in-between. Votto simply doesn’t miss this much, so something seems to be up.

He is 35, which is when you’d think players would start to fade. But off a cliff like this? There is a comparison, and that’s Albert Pujols who is something of a contemporary of Votto’s. Pujols fell off the face of the Earth in his age 37 season, which may surprise you. At 36, while hardly the country-side wandering monster he was in St. Louis, Pujols had a 113 OPS+ in Anahiem. The next year it was 80, and he’s been a sinkhole ever since.

That can’t be happening to Votto, can it? The guy who looked like he could line a single to center whenever he wanted? This has happened once before, and then Votto tore a hole in the Earth. That turnaround in 2016 started in May. They’re still waiting on Votto this year.

Baseball

Series Wrap – Sox Split With Astros: The Arrival?

By Sam Fels 1327 0

Game 1Box Score: Astros 3, White Sox 0

Game 2 Box Score: Astros 5, White Sox 1

Game 3 Box Score: White Sox 9, Astors 4

Game 4 Box Score: White Sox 4, Astros 0

There are moments during a rebuild that at the very moment you take immense joy in. There aren’t many, and the future very well may bring a different context to them. Perhaps even a farcical one. Hell, Cade McNown had a three touchdown game once. But you save that for later. Because on the night, or at the time, it portends to a real future. To knowing that the patience was worth it. A glimpse of what could be. Tonight, Lucas Giolito gave White Sox fans that. Yeah, Jose Altuve and George Springer have been out, but that’s still one of the AL’s best lineups without them against him. With them it’s the league’s best. And Giolito put them down and wouldn’t let them up. Made them say uncle.

Giolito got 11 whiffs in total, and five on his slider, of which he only threw 17. The change has been the main weapon of the year, but there’s nothing wrong with having a couple in your arsenal. Giolito only threw 25 balls all night. That lowers his ERA to 2.77 on the year. That’s two runs over his last 28 innings.

Those kinds of numbers are the mark of an ace. If you watched Giolito tonight and saw a pitcher becoming everything he promised, I won’t stop you. And that’s the kind of thing that portends to better days. If you feel like basking, go right ahead. These things don’t happen every day in the phase the Sox find themselves.

We can clean the rest up.

-I suppose the opposite side of the spectrum is when your team is just outclassed, as it appeared on Tuesday with Justin Verlander. Verlander will do that a lot of teams, but this one felt especially like the bigger kid keeping his hand on the littler kid’s forehead.

-Back on the good side of the spectrum, Eloy Jimenez introduced himself to the Crawford Boxes, with three homers in two games. Jimenez bombs, Giolito silence. It’s a pretty nice formula.

-You know if it wasn’t for that Toronto start, Nova has three good starts in a row. But ifs don’t get you anywhere. Nova was purely sinker on Wednesday, throwing it 55% of the time. Other than that it was just change and curve, and he cut out his four-seamer totally. See if he continues with that.

-Josh Osich has put together three straight scoreless outings, two of them multiple innings.

Move on to the next 1st place team, the Twins.

 

 

 

Baseball

Series Wrap – Cubs Split With Phillies: Could Have Been More, Could Have Been Less, So It’s This

By Sam Fels 1208 0

Game 1 Box Score: Phillies 5, Cubs 4

Game 2 Box Score: Cubs 3, Phillies 2

Game 3 Box Score: Cubs 8, Phillies 4

Game 4 Box Score: Phillies 9, Cubs 7

The Cubs should have won on Monday, but didn’t. The Phillies should have won on Tuesday, but didn’t. And each scored over eight runs in their other wins, so a split is just about right. In the words of Gennaro Gattuso, “Sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit.” And considering these are two of the three first-place teams in the NL, splitting seems about right that way as well. And because everyone else in the NL East is intent on doing a damn fine Mets impression, or is the Mets, you get the feeling the Cubs and Phils might do this more than a few times more before the boxes are packed. Let’s clean it all up.

The Two Obs

-The big story of the series is the bullpen, and I suppose that’s only right. Darvish was a touch unlucky to give up three runs over six, and I thought Brad Brach was a touch unlucky to give up a run in the ninth. Segura fists one over the head of Rizzo, and that seemed to be the theme for the rest of the series. The Cubs seemed to get their fair share of BABIP Kung Fu treachery all series. Kintzler got a grounder from McCutchen in the second game, it just happened to find a hole. Happened again today too.

Still, the pen gave up runs in all four games, though the last two it was asked to go for five full innings. Chatwood took all of them yesterday, so two runs over five innings is fine for one pitcher. For some reason it’s not fine for multiple, and I thought Not John Wick was Kung Fu Treachery’d as well today for one of the runs.

We all know that the return of Pedro Strop isn’t going to fix anything, especially because he won’t be used anywhere but the 9th. Moves will have to be made. So let’s not harp on it.

-While we’re on the pen, Carl Edwards needs to drop the slide-step. He’s not Pedro Strop, who can control it. He struck out the side today, so it seems odd to nitpick. But his velocity drops when he uses it, which he was with no one on base today for some reason. He also loses most of his pitches high to arm-side because his arm can’t catch up. For someone who has such trouble repeating his delivery, just have him worry about one.

-Lester’s last two starts comprise 8.1 innings and nine runs, 17 hits. There’s going to be market corrections like this, because Lester is giving up an obscene amount of hard contact. 41% to be exact. He’s been able to raise his Ks and lower his walks, and up his grounders, but he’s going to have to find a way to limit the loud noises he’s surrendering. It was thunderous today. A quarter of the contact today was line-drives, half in the air, and with the wind blowing out that’s a problem.

-The Cubs have been through a dicey turn of the rotation, and they went 3-3. Hendricks was iffy on Sunday, with Lester iffy the day before that. Darvish and Quintana were good, but Hamels and Lester were not. You’ll take breaking even when you didn’t break even on good starts.

-The War Bear has four hits in his last two games, eight in his last seven, and has been on base 11 times in that stretch. Nothing definitive yet, but the start of something?

-Almora took the plaudits last night, as he should, but when he came up with the bases loaded today you kind of knew it had to be a soft grounder. Even in this upturn in May, he’s still nearly at 60% grounders. You can’t find success that way.

-Javy sure made it look easy, didn’t he? If he’d got backspin instead of topspin on that ball in the 8th today, the Cubs probably tie it.

Onwards…

 

Everything Else

Hawks Add Two Forwards You Probably Already Thought Were Added, Does Another Have To Go?

By Sam Fels 2067 0

It’s a morsel, but it’s something. Today, the Hawks announced the signing of Anton Wedin, which we’d already talked about before a few weeks ago. Wedin is something of a scratcher lottery ticket, as players who pop off for the first time at 26 and not gaudy numbers are hardly a sure thing to ever escape the AHL. But he costs nothing, the Hawks get a one-year look-see, and then they can decide if they want to continue this relationship.

There’s also been buzz that the Hawks have officially signed Dominik Kubalik, who is currently lighting up the World Championships for the Czech team, along with old friend Michael Frolik. Kubalik is the far more enticing and surer bet than Wedin. He’s 23, and though he kicked a hole in a lesser European league, that hole was really big in Switzerland. He has some experience on this side of the ocean, playing in juniors with one Dominik Kahun, and having two Dominiks with last names beginning with K surely won’t kill Pat Foley or anything.

The Hawks still have some work to do, as Perlini and Kampf haven’t been re-signed yet, though you’d expect the latter is no problem and the former is not someone the Hawks are going to give up on quite yet. And you start doing then numbers, and you begin to wonder here.

Kubalik is going to be a Hawk. It would be an upset if he spends anytime in Rockford, just as Kahun made an immediate splash. And while we generally would snicker that this is the Hawks trying to prop up one of their prospects again (John Hayden come on down…now keep going…no don’t stop…), their European finds generally have been useful. So let’s map it out, and pencil in Wedin for a 4th line role to start. He can be this year’s Suckbag Johnson in October.

Caggiula-Toews-Kane

Top Cat-Strome-Saad

Kahun-Kampf-Kubalik

Wedin-Anisimov-Perlini

No, this isn’t what Opening Night will look like, and if it does I highly suggest you find something else to do for the winter than bother with this. We have to, you don’t. This is just what it looks like right now, and that’s not even mentioning Sikura, Kurashev who is a possibility to come aboard, MacKenzie Entwistle being an outside shot, and I guess I still have mention Hayden here as he’s still signed for one more year (if he plays more than 10 games with the Hawks though I’m going to shove my whole fist down my throat).

What you see is a fair number of young, fast, nippy wingers (other than Entwistle), all of who are unknowns, all something of a lottery ticket, but the more you have and try the more chance that one or two will work. Sikura really should be in the NHL full-time next year, despite never scoring showed flashes of being a useful player. Kurashev flashed at the WJC, though I doubt the Hawks would be ready to try him at center just yet. So there’s something of a little jam.

Now you know what are stated aims are here. Flog Anisimov for whatever you can just as long as he’s gone, move Caggiula to your fourth-line center, sign an actual top six forward, and let’s dance. And maybe that is the plan, because you don’t feel like the Hawks are going to carry all of this into training camp. Though stranger things have happened.

While the Hawks talk about their cap space, it’s not that simple. No one who is currently a free agent is going to break them, as you wouldn’t think Perlini, Sikura, and Kampf are going to lop off more than what, $3M off? That’s $17M to play with.

But it’s the following summer that’s an issue. Let’s assume the cap takes another $4M jump as it did this one, and that’s a cap of $87M. The Hawks currently have $49M committed for 2020-2021, which is $28M in space. With whatever deals that above-mentioned trio sign, let’s call it $25M.

And more than a third of that, without any signings this summer, is going to be eaten up by Alex DeBrincat‘s next contract. Ain’t gonna be no bridge for him, and if he puts up another 35-40 goals, he’s going to point at Mitch Marner‘s deal and say, “THAT!” Certainly William Nylander‘s $6.9M number would merely be a jumping off point. And if Top Cat brings Strome right along with him during the season, that’s another $6-7M for Strome, and suddenly that $25M in space is now somewhere around $10M if you’re lucky. And then you have to wonder what Kahun and Caggiula get if they have good years. It won’t come close to eating up that $10M, but suddenly the space this summer to sign free agents looks a little tight when thinking about the next.

So yeah, punting Anisimov saves you $4.5M for two more years, and maybe that’s enough. The fear around this lab is that the Hawks might have a bigger number in savings in mind. You know where this is going.

You know how we feel about Brandon Saad. You can read Pullega’s review for a refresher. But you can make the argument. It’s $6M in savings. And you have to admit that Saad is something of an odd fit right now, though one who made it work for most of the season, including a dominating stretch from the middle to the spring. The Hawks are loathe to load him up with Toews and Kane, which you can understand. But Saad’s never taken to, or really been tried all that much, on the right side to play with Top Cat and Strome. Pairing him with Toews leaves the right side open, but you don’t really want to play DeBrincat there as he’s a bigger scoring threat on the left. The idea of Saad and Kane flanking Strome was tried, but then DeBrincat is playing with Toews and they need something on the right side that the Hawks don’t really have unless one of these kids pops. Saad made serious mileage out of a third line role, but the question the Hawks might be asking themselves is, “Could Kahun or Kubalik or Kurashev or all three do just as much there at a fraction of the cost?” Alternatively, could they try a combo of those kids in the top six and hope one or two of them can at least ride shotgun.

Saad’s value is clearly higher than Anisimov’s. While he has his faults, he’s still a nimble forward with size who gets you 20-25 goals and solid possession play. It’s not like those grow on trees. And considering how the defenseman market is Erik Karlsson and whatever state his bursting red crotch dots are in and then a whole bunch of trash, you could understand the hesitance (if you don’t necessarily agree with it, which we don’t).  So a trade might be necessary.

I don’t know what the names would be. Carolina was interested last year, but their different status might change that. We were asked about The Island yesterday on the podcast, with Leddy returning, which would be hilarious and also wrong. Saad’s always seemed like a perfect Predator, but he won’t be dealt in the division. There would be a market though.

I don’t want it, but you can see it.

Everything Else

The Bruins Have Saved You Before

By Sam Fels 2424 0

I know it’s dark. I know you woke up this morning not quite believing what you were in for, what you had seen. I know you’re desperately trying to awake from what seems a nightmare. It can’t be real. Not even the most vengeful of gods would subject you to this. But alas, sports are not here for a constant feel-good state. They’re meant to swing y0u from one pole to the other, so that each moment is just a little more vivid than if you didn’t know the other side. I won’t tell you to embrace this, because it’s not possible. But you will remember this when things swing the other way, whenever that might be.

Only Sophie can empathize. Yet another Boston championship…or true death.

Still, we’ve been here before. It was eight years ago. Sure, there were two less Red Sox World Series rings then, and three less Patriots’ Super Bowls (good god), and perhaps the combination of those five parades down the cursed and ill-designed Boylston St. have pushed you past the edge of understanding or acceptance. I get it. It’s a lot to battle against.

Still, there was a fate worse that awaited us in June of 2011. Do you remember how vile those Canucks were? Do you remember how they’d sat and waited until the cap ruined the Hawks and they could arise simply by watching us fall away? Wouldn’t have a Canucks victory, matching the only one we had at the moment, be worse than this? You may say no, but you’re forgetting that Burrows winner after taking an overtime penalty that could have capped a glorious comeback. Or the beginning of the Keith-Sedin Holy War.

Remember how unstoppable it all looked? Ryan Kesler beat the Predators by himself. The Sharks meekly lifted their heads just high and just long enough to have them violently chopped off. They were never in that series. Did you forget the opening games of that Final were won on goals by Burrows and Raffi Torres? You probably did, and on purpose. After Burrows should have been ejected for trying to gnaw off Patrice Bergeron’s finger, no less.

But then the Bruins saved you. Saved us all. They demolished the Canucks in Boston for two games, and though they dropped Game 5, they’d set down a marker that there was no way Vancouver was going to win in Boston. Which set the stage for one of the best nights you’ve had as a Hawks fan. Don’t tell me about soaking in schadenfreude. What is it you think we do here?

Kesler’s tears? Luongo’s 1000 yard stare? The Sedins hauling off to the dressing room as quickly as possible. They’ve done this before.

You may dread the next two weeks, and you should. You can’t believe your luck that these are your choices. And you can’t remain neutral. Neutrality in sports is for assholes. It’s hardly the point.

You don’t get to choose, at least sometimes, who you turn to for salvation. Sometimes there’s only one choice. It may feel wrong, but you know that when it’s over you’ll be glad you did. The relief will be palpable. And you’ve done it before. The muscle memory should be of some comfort. No one said it had to be pleasant. Just that it was necessary.

I’m trying here. I really am.

Baseball

The 2016 White Sox Come Back For Their Nostalgia Tour

By Sam Fels 1295 0

Deep down, you kind of love this, right Sox fans?

I’ll admit to being a bit distracted in 2016 with my side of town, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of all that went on with the White Sox in 2016. And frankly, I’m happy for the reminder of just how ridiculous it was. I didn’t appreciate it enough. And how important it might be, because that team ended up smashing the previous model for the White Sox and giving fans this one, which is pretty much what they wanted for years. Except for that botched Machado thing.

When Todd Frazier and Adam Eaton were doing handbags at ten paces on Monday, all the details came flying back. Because you really have to take a step back and marvel at the pure farce that the mere suggestion Drake LaRoche should haul his hilljack ass out of the clubhouse half the time caused his dad to retire! No one asked that Drake probably couldn’t read was something that was amiss, just that he belonged out there taking grounders. I mean, if you think about it for too long your brain bubbles. An adult male, or at least a facsimile of one, was told to stop bringing his child to the office, a place of business, and he reacted by packing up his stuff and going home.

This seemed such a normal request, and no one ever bothered to ask Jose Abreu what he thought about it, being separated from his entire family for years. I don’t have to wonder too hard why Adam Laroche probably didn’t care all that much about that. But you add the layers to it and it gets so much better. Jimmy Rollins, an actual grown-up even if he was completely busted as a player by that point, needed all of eight minutes in spring training to make it clear to Kenny Williams this shit had to stop. And then he saw the reaction, took 40 games, and decided he’d had enough of this shit. And this is a guy who built a career in Philadelphia!

And it just kept getting better. If anyone was really paying attention, Adam Eaton would have been the subject of talkshows nationwide after claiming Drake LaRoche–again, a child whose marketable skill is probably chewing cud–was a team leader. Where else could this have taken place? If he had said that in New York the Post and Daily News would have euthanized him for his own good. And yet it merely passed by here.

Adam Eaton was just the torch-carrier from Nick Swisher and his Dirty Cat Salon ploy, which had everyone in the clubhouse ready to go Brutus on his ass. That doesn’t mean anyone should have sided with Frazier either. Any player Hawk Harrelson likes that much should be heavily side-eyed.

Oh, did we forget Hawk Harrelson leaving the booth to check on Frazier after like, a bruise? Where else could this happen? What did Frazier and Herm Schneider do when Hawk breathlessly and covered in sweat burst into the trainer’s room? The correct answer would have been stabbing him with a tranquilizer and going about their business. I’d really give anything to go back in time and see that scene.

I’m trying to picture Michael Kay sprinting down the Yankee Stadium tunnels to see if Gleyber Torres’s allergies were acting up, and no vision of it doesn’t have Brian Cashman catapulting him into the East River. There wasn’t one functioning element to the whole operation, and I’m really greatly saddened it basically took place in the dark.

Sox fans may think I’m mocking them, but I’m really not. If you’re going to be a dysfunctional mess, why not just go for it? Don’t half-ass it. Go big or go home. When the Sox become contenders again, the 2016 team will be talked about in bars and living rooms across town as a sign of where they’d come from. It’s their Lee Elia tirade. It’s Dave Manson chasing Mike Keenan down a hallway during an intermission.

It all went so wrong that Kenny Williams’s policy of collecting whatever veterans he could find, sometimes multiple times, and rolling the dice again and again was consigned to a dumpster out back and never to be spoke of again. Maybe the Sox won’t get there but at least you know they’re run by something resembling adults.

The Goodman or Steppenwolf needs a show about the ’16 White Sox. They need to be burnt into the memory of every baseball fan. And they’ll be a turning point for an entire organization. 20 years from now the Sox will still vow to never be that again. It’s so wonderful. You basically have the Bulls being a cover band for them now. What a gift.

Baseball

The Disconnect And The Solution

By Sam Fels 1532 0

As I watched the Cubs bullpen fritter away another lead last night, the second game in a row they’ve done so even if it came on a collection of bleeders and excuse-me’s, I have to admit I get the fans’ angst. I might not be there with them, but I can’t tell them they’re wrong. And you know how I love telling people they’re wrong, especially when I’m from the same side. The bullpen this year is perhaps the biggest spot of neglect the Theo Epstein regime has infected the team with since they slammed back into relevance in 2015.

And it of course comes back to this winter. They kept telling us they didn’t have the money for Harper or Machado, and you didn’t have to squint all that hard to see the arguments about why signings like that didn’t make sense for the Cubs. I may not agree with that assessment, but I can understand the argument. However, fixing a bullpen is far cheaper, and for the Cubs to turn their pockets out at the thought of adding the cheapest part of a baseball team was as bewildering as it was infuriating.

And yet, as the winter dragged along and the Cubs made nary a move outside Brad Brach and casting a net to find whatever various flotsam would fall into it, there wasn’t a peep out of the Cubs front office. For a team as savvy with the media (at least on baseball matters) as the Cubs are, surely there would be a leak somewhere or a nudge that Theo and Jed were as surprised with the budget closing as we were. They talked of major changes in the wreckage of a two-day slump last October, and then nothing. Surely if things had changed between then and when the markets opened up, someone somewhere would know. And yet nothing. No whispers of fidgeting anywhere.

That doesn’t mean to cast the front office as perfect. Far from it. No matter their plans, they were counting on Brandon Morrow, which was a poor choice. Perhaps they couldn’t have predicted that Carl Edwards would run farther from competence than toward it, given his age, but he wasn’t in a position to be counted on either. You can’t account for Pedro Strop getting hurt…except he has the last three seasons. While this front office has had its problems identifying and collecting pitching, this seemed an egregious error. It is not like them to stock a complete component of a team with hunches and wildcards. And yet, here we are.

Which I guess perhaps lends credence to this story from Patrick Mooney about the Cubs and Marquee. Now, no one is going to buy this hook, line, and sinker, and nor should they. There are still more than enough variables to fuck it all up, like if no one actually picks up Marquee which Crane Kenney seems so sure of. And anything Crane is sure of you best bet you should take with a whole shaker of salt.

Still, perhaps the lack of any itching or antsy-ness from the front office over the limitations this winter stems from knowing it was a one-year deal? That they would simply have to grit their teeth through this winter knowing with the money coming off the books in the form of Hamels and Zobrist, combined with greater income would turn next winter around? Perhaps they knew with the room they’ve left for midseason acquisitions they’ll be fine? We’re essentially talking about two arms here. And if Kimbrel is going to wait until after the draft to drop the compensation, a prorated salary for half a season is probably only $5 or $6M, no? Half of a Ken Giles will cost $2M. Alex Colome a little over that. I guess I shouldn’t worry.

I don’t want to be that guy who blindly trusts what he’s being told, especially by the uber rich. Still, the complete lack of agitation in the front office, apparently, makes me think something is afoot. And the Cubs being on top of the division only buys them more time. But the answers need to be relatively soon.

Everything Else

You Get What Anyone Gets – Saying Goodbye To The ’18-’19 San Jose Sharks

By Sam Fels 1579 0

You had one job to do.

Let it be known forth that the San Jose Sharks are the only Bay Area organization that can only wield its location and power to fuck itself. Whereas everyone else stationed there slowly (or not) takes over the world and is influencing their various spheres and others, the only sphere the Sharks can influence is the inside of their thigh with a warm, yellow, and constant stream. And now it’s well and truly over for them. This generation of this team, one that promised so much, is done. Charred. Finished. Fertig. Verfallen. Verlumpt. Verblunget. Verkackt. Whatever hope they might have had for beyond went out the window with Joe Pavelski’s sense of direction.

This is probably their most spectacular crash yet. They got the best defenseman on the planet for nothing. A song. They added him to a team that already had three scoring lines, one of the best d-men around (Vlasic, not Burns). And it seemed that despite their best efforts, it would work. They had a goalie doing the lindy hop in net all season. Didn’t really matter. Their coach was insistent on continually lighting a fuse of playing Brenden Dillon more than Joakim Ryan. The Sharks kept putting it out. Joe Thornton could barely move. Fine. Hertl moves to center and no one cares. Perhaps they picked the lock.

They had miracles on their side. They trashed everyone’s favorite overhyped darling in the first round. They benefitted from Gabriel LaxativeLog’s lazy ass in the second. They had perhaps the only team that’s a bigger collection of failures and stomach-acid-pukes than them waiting. They got more bounces. They had an entire city on the verge of meltdown (to be fair, that’s St. Louis’s natural state, thanks to the dangerous levels of methane that surrounds the place emitted from every resident every four minutes).

Cue faceplant.

And now it’s all ash. Peter DeBoer proved that any idiot can get a team to a Final, even twice. Hell, he just got beat by one. How did icing Michael Haley in the playoffs instead of…oh I don’t know, any kindergartner with two legs work out? Speaking of which, Dillon spent most of the playoffs looking like said kindergartner sprinting for the Sesame Street phone at playtime, and yet he played more than Ryan. Hey, did getting Karlsson back for those five games in February feel worth it? You were given the best toy in the whole league and you broke it. Fine work all around there.

This was a team that had a whole division basically fall in front of it, and still let Calgary’s line and a half plus a d-man waltz by it for the title. It was the first to contain two Norris winners in a decade, and then Brent Burns spent a month proving why his Norris should be melted down and poured over his head, if only to rid us of his hideous beard. If Burns came from Omsk instead of Canada Don Cherry would have beaten him with a 2×4 by now and they would have made that the Canadian flag.

Much like the Raiders, the Sharks probably need to be thrown out of the Bay Area now. Everyone else gets it. The Warriors are the best team in their league’s history. The Giants, inexplicably, created a dynasty out of hilljacks and sex fiends. Though the A’s trophy cabinet may be empty, they still stand for all that is progressive and cool about their sport despite drawing only parole board hearings to their games and playing in a literal sewer. The Raiders didn’t do shit, and have been sent off to where rejects go…off the strip in Vegas. Sadly, that’s not an option for the Sharks. Maybe Reno would work better.

They’ve left us with this curse of a Final. Just like they left us with Vancouver and Boston once upon a time. The Sharks have launched a bunch of plagues upon the hockey world through their incompetence. The Hawks dynasty started by running them over. The Canucks in ’11. We could have been rid of the Ducks sooner if the Sharks didn’t blow a #1 seed by trying to out-belch them. The narrative that Sidney Crosby would never get it done again was solved by a week with the Sharks. A Kings affirmation could have easily been snuffed out at the first possible hurdle. The Sharks turned it down four times.

The Sharks are everything bad about Silicon Valley, leaving the rest of society to clean up their mess without any of the benefits. They are the bubble-burst without the bubble. Somehow, they still leave the sticky residue all around without ever having put anything together. And “Sharks” is one syllable, you illiterate fucks.

Heretofore, the Sharks will be symbolized by both Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton, their two greatest ever players who will never win a Cup, even when they flee trying to do so. You know what your problem is, Toronto? You’ve got San Jose running through you. They will soon be joined by Joe Pavelski, who definitely should have been playing and will definitely be able to identify his family in five years, and Logan Couture. Maybe Brent Burns, assuming he’s not facing the wrong way the rest of his life, which he most certainly will be.

It’s best if you just break it all up now. The happiest you will be is everyone forgets you for a few years while Hertl and Meier thrash about trying to constitute a first line. Thornton retires, Pavelski and Karlsson walk, maybe try and cash in on Vlasic and save him from the fate that awaits him. It’s not in you, Sharks. That much is clear. Like everyone else out there, you thought you had big ideas and could change things. But all you did was annoy the piss out of people and give way to something much worse. Oblivion is your only salvation.

Thanks for nothing, fucksticks. Now we have to deal with this.