Breaking News: Chapman is a risk
ByIn piece for SI.com, Melissa Segura wrote about how Cuban lefty Aroldis Chapman first got involved with baseball and how he ultimately came to defect, though more importantly she touched on the weaknesses in his game. If you don’t have time to read the 3,000 word article, then check out The Artist’s recap at TYU. I highly recommend checking out Seguara’s original article, though.
This is a common MSM timeline for these perceived super-prospects. First comes the absurd amount of hype, then comes the poo-pooing of their game by emphasizing their weaknesses, and the final stage is the subtle admission that the guy is extremely talented, but not perfect. Stephen Strasburg went through it, Justin Upton went through it, Joe Mauer went through, even A-Rod went through it. Chapman is riskier than most, but the potential reward is the greatest we’ve seen for an international amateur since Felix Hernandez.
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Meh, the article smacks of smearing from Cuban sources and standard propaganda from team sources.
I agree. I would take all of that with a grain of salt. Like anybody knows the exact conversations that he has had with his wife, or baby mama (whichever one it was). I’m sure the situation was far more gray than those one or two sentence quotes implied.
This is a common MSM timeline for these perceived super-prospects. First comes the absurd amount of hype, then comes the poo-pooing of their game by emphasizing their weaknesses, and the final stage is the subtle admission that the guy is extremely talented, but not perfect. Stephen Strasburg went through it, Justin Upton went through it, Joe Mauer went through it, even A-Rod went through it.
You know who didn’t go through it?
Melvin. His timeline is:
A) The absurd amount of hype
B) The poo-pooing of his weaknesses, emphasizing his insanely good game
C) The subtle admission that the guy is even better than perfect, and that we need to create a new word to encapsulate “Melvin-level-perfection”
Melvistic.
I was thinking:
“Perfectt”.
Eh, that only adds one letter which, IMO, is not sufficient respect for Him.
Fair enough.
We need to find a really, really cromulent word here.
Oh fun, another new word for me to look up: cromulent.
You’re helping improve my vocabulary everyday, heh.
tsjc knows how to embiggen even the smallest man’s vocabulary.
Holy crap, “cromulent” actually has a real entry at dictionary.com. Imagine that.
Matt Groening has power.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cromulent
(In my best Principal Skinner voice): OUTSTANDING Simpson’s reference there, Marcus.
Skinner: Uh oh. TWO independent thought alarms in one day? The students are over stimulated. Willy, remove all the colored chalk from the class rooms.
Willie: I WARNED YA! DIDN’T I WARN YA?
Yeah, that’s exactly how I looked up the word, dictionary.com.
I thought it sounded familiar, didn’t realize it was an old school Simpsons reference. Good times.
http://jacob.efinke.com/jeb.jpg (safe)
I wanna say that was the episode where they exhumed Jedediah Springfield’s body and actually found a silver prosthetic tongue …
I also think that episode featured Kiefer Sutherland as the museum curator.
DONALD! Donald Sutherland.
… then I can be Queen of Summer – - KING! King of Summer.
Yup.
When Lisa found out he was actually Hans Sprungfeld.
Don’t recall the Hans Spungfeld part.
/memory fails …
The poo-pooing of his weaknesses
What weaknesses?
Once, because he had given away all of the rest of his money to charity in the morning, Melvin tipped only 19% at lunch.
19% is still more than A-Rod tips at Hooters.
Sincerely,
Selena Roberts
But it’s no where near the right tip.
Sincerely,
Chipper Jones
My new favorite quote in the world:
(to miscellaneous cocktail waitress) “Hey, it’s, uh, it’s Tiger. I need you to do me a huge favor: uh, can you please, uh, take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and, uh, may be calling you, so if you can, please take your name off that, and, uh, what do you call it, just have it as a number, on the voicemail, just have it as your telephone number, that’s it. Okay? You gotta do this for me, huge, quickly.”
http://hypem.com/track/969778
I too greatly enjoyed this.
I’m still trying to figure out what the fuck he is asking though. Honestly, unless her voicemail says “Hi, this is Tiger Woods’ mistress, please leave a message” I don’t see how her doing anything to her own phone/voicemail would thwart Elin Woods’ investigations.
“Hi, I can’t come to the phone right now, I’m fellating Eldrick “Tiger” Woods of Windermere, Florida while his wife is home watching the kids and thinks he’s at the driving range practicing. Sorry I missed you, please leave a message after the beep and I’ll call you back after I get finished making hot nasty forbidden sex with Eldrick “Tiger” Woods, the world renowned golfer and husband of Elin Nordegren, whom he’s totally cheating on with me, some miscellaneous cocktail waitress.”
BEEP
Name Drop time:
My mother used to work at store whose owners had a house about two down from Tiger’s down in Windemere. They had three sons with whom I was friends and I used to go down there a lot. We’d ride our bikes around looking for T-Mac and GriffBones’s houses.
+1 for the “GriffBones” reference.
RIP, FJM.
Right before the beep of that voicemail, I’d like to think you hear Tiger say
“Hey miscellaneous cocktail waitress, did you just say my name – Eldrick “Tiger” Woo”BEEP
I think they’re going to invent a new knitting stitch, the “Crousett.”
Sounds like he’s just driving down his price.
i look at it as this.
The Yankees have the money and resources to over come a bad investment. Obviously. So give Chapman the money…take the risk.
and if he works out. Great. You got another El Duque that can help you win some games…maybe win a championship or 2.
and if he doesn’t work out. So what? No harm done.
See also: Kei Igawa and the 2009 World Champion New York Yankees
Kei Igawa holds the record for AAA wins–that’ll be a big feather in his cap when its time to renegotiate his contract!!!
Well I think people are still thinking $40-50 million being the price range for Chapman, which is an amount of money no one wants to make a mistake with.
I’ll surprised if he actually gets half that lower figure.
I’m with you. I can’t imagine any team paying him 40-50 million. That is bordering on straight recklessness.
*BE* surprised – surprised if I ever learn to type
Gyro Ball? Anyone?
Good thing we’re not the small market Red Sox, giving out franchise crippling contracts to players like Julio Lugo and Matt Clement.
In the SI piece, they talk about his abandoning his pregnant girlfriend … this kid is either really determined or really callous or both.
Hells yeah. Bitches and kids just slow you down. GET THAT PAPER, SON!
Sincerely,
Tom Brady
On a related note, John Daly admitted abusing himself into the bargain.
Chapman said, “The difference in starting the game is that you can impact the game greatly. You can pitch a lot of innings. As a closer, you only get one or two innings.”
At least he is already smarter than Mike Francesa and a large amount of Yankee fans. Starting pitchers are inherently more valuable than relievers. That should be a plus in his intelligence column.
True dat. They have high baseball intelligence in Cuba.
At least he is already smarter than Mike Francesa and a large amount of Yankee fans
That’s a low hurdle to clear, though, isn’t it?
I mean, he dresses himself and can read and write. He’s probably eclipsed Francesa on that alone.
hahah … quite true.
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE OBSERVATION
GET ME CHAPMAN’S LAST FIVE STARTS!!!!!
(chugs Diet Coke)
Get me Joba’s last 5 starts!!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRBkgshj8Cw (safe)
Mariano begs to differ.
I wonder if 30 starts of an average guy would make people appreciate the dominating reliever. I think Id rather have the dominator than the average starter.
Bo says:
Mariano begs to differ.
No, he doesn’t. Mariano was a starter, until he failed at that and couldn’t be a good starter. Then, he became a reliever and dominated.
But first, they tried to have him start, because Mariano the starter (if successful) would have been more impactful on wins and losses than Mariano the reliever.
Furthermore, Mariano the reliever is THE OUTLIER. No reliever before him has been even HALF as good as he has been. There probably won’t be another one half as good as him for like another century.
He’s a horrible comp for strategic purposes, because you can’t expect anyone to be as good as he is, and even as good as he is, he’s still not as integral to the Yankee titles as a guy like, say, Andy Pettitte (a solidly above average #2-#3).
Andy Pettitte is essentially an average pitcher at this point, right? He is more important and valuable to the Yankees than Mariano Rivera.
~200 > ~70
I like how Albertin Aroldis Chapman de la Cruz (a Jamaican-Cuban) and his girlfriend Raidelmis Mendosa Santiestelas (who looks like a garden-variety Anglo/Taino Cuban in this pic http://sports.espn.go.com/phot.....by_300.jpg ) had a baby…
and named her “Ashanti Brianna”.
- “Should we give her a Cuban name, or a Jamaican name?”
- “Neither. Let’s pick some generic American African-American/Caucasian pop-star kinda names.”
… aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, SCENE!
that pic is either very closely post-partum OR…they are having irish twins…
I had Irish twins once.
No, wait, nevermind, you meant something else.
TMI – no, wait! Not Enough, Not Enough Information, TSJC! Keep the thread going!
/needs to get out more
maybe they wanted her initials to be ABC. Ashanti Brianna Chapman. Easy to remember. As easy as ABC (excuse that horrible pun … or don’t excuse it)
prior to the wbc, el duque was my primary exposure to cuban players. so i always imagined the cuban national team as being made up of crafty, unflappable, ice-water-in-their-veins, professionals. then the wbc, and it’s probably just this particular group of guys and the amount of pressure they were under to win the tournament, but they seemed to go to pieces at the first sign of adversity: yelling at each other, pouting, etc
regardless, throw some money at chapman. at worst, we absorb another igawa
This org can sign an Igawa and not even blink or have to affect anything they do.
I would think they wouldnt let the chance to sign a premier lefty go.
we DID sign an Igawa. We signed THE Igawa.
i bet nobody says crap when you sign one.
you sign two, its ‘off with his head.’
I love the irony that someone named “Segura” is writing about risk…
(Spanish-English dictionary for those who don’t get it)