2007 Off Season: December 2007 Archives

New Years is an interesting concept that I never really understood. How exactly did replacing a calendar become a holiday? The conspiracy theorist in me believes that no matter what the official reasons were for celebrating New Years Day, it was probably a marketing ploy by the Hallmark Corporation to try and pump up the sales of cards and calendars. It is not just replacing a calendar that is odd but it is how people react to this event. All around the world tonight people will join together and consume large amounts of alcohol as they carefully watch the clock and count down the seconds until all 2007 calendars will become obsolete. They will then wildly cheer, throw small torn pieces of paper into the air and kiss complete strangers. They will then sing and dance late into the night then try to navigate the police infested streets trying to avoid field sobriety tests. After a few short hours of sleep these people will drag themselves out of bed and curse being alive as they find that their headache is more painful than being a Tampa Bay Ray lifetime season ticket holder.

The World Wide Web can be a fascinating place filled with amazing and wondrous things. It can also be a magnet for the bizarre. Whenever you open a browser window it is like starting a new adventure. I often feel like an archeologist about to uncover some long lost civilization or a tidbit of knowledge that has been hidden from the general public since the beginning of time; Internet time that is. Of course the exact opposite is also true. It is entirely possible that you will wander upon the most strange and unusual information that you ever imagined. I mean how many people do you know that launched their Internet browser actually searching for a Breakfast Cereal Character Guide or Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Museum? Still, once you start searching you become engaged with these sites and they take on some kind of significance. Today I took a circuitous path on the web and uncovered what I thought was a pretty cool site and an even cooler idea.

To anyone who has happened across this blog and read more than one entry you may have surmised that I am a baseball fan. It was also probably fairly obvious that I don’t follow any other sport with much regularity. With Spring Training, a 162-game regular season, three rounds of play-offs including the World Series, the General Manager and Winter Meetings; there is not much time left to get completely into another sport. Besides, the other sports can’t really even be classified as full sports. I mean most of them have what I would refer to as an abbreviated season playing at most 82 games for the NBA and the NHL and even worse 16 games for the NFL. Very few of these sports even have teams play on consecutive nights let alone for a whole week straight. The worst culprit is of course the National Football League.

Quiz Question: When do you know that you are too close to a team and a subject? Answer: When the subject starts invading your dreams I had a fairly fitful night of sleep on the couch after Trina’s birthday. I made a mental note to myself to never give sharp objects to my wife as a gift item if yesterday was any indication. I knew that I was going to be doing some serious shopping today to try and make up for yesterday so as I drifted off to sleep last night my mind was preoccupied. That coupled with a late dinner at El Paso Barbecue seemed to have an odd effect on my subconscious as I began to have what many would probably say were strange and unusual dreams. To me they seemed pretty normal but every time I have recounted them I am met by a awkward glance and a raised eyebrow. One person went so far as to suggest I seek professional help. I have no idea what that means.

Today is my wife Trina’s birthday. I would tell you how old she is but I once suggested that we both take a karate class and I watched in horror as she put a 6 foot 3 inch instructor down on the map and stop within millimeters of putting her fist through his nose lodging it into his brain. It was at that moment that I realized I have absolutely no control in my marriage and some 26 years later I still live in fear of my life. Let’s just say that Trina does not look a day older than she did when I first met her in high school. I cannot possibly imagine what it must be like having a birthday just 2 days after Christmas. As a kid that had to be the worst. You really couldn’t have a birthday party since everyone was away for Christmas holiday. Most of the gifts that you received would be wrapped in Christmas paper. Trina tells a story that once when she was little she was given a pair of pajamas. She received the tops for Christmas and the bottoms for her birthday. That has to be one of the most depressing things a kid could imagine. I mean who wants pajamas for their birthday? I would have much rather gotten a G.I. Joe with life-like hair and a kung-fu grip. Based upon her horrendous childhood birthday experiences I made a promise to myself that I would always try to make her birthday special.

As if my life were not frantic enough, fate threw me a wild card. For the past four years I have been using IX Web Hosting as my hosting service. They have been very good to work with and their service has been outstanding. One of the few drawbacks has been that IX Web Hosting has been content to maintain their servers with PHP4. This version is nearing its end of life and as such needs to be upgraded. I inquired of IX Web Hosting what their plans were for supporting PHP5 since both Now Hitting and Diary of a Diehard both utilize PHP for some of their processing. Technical support informed me that they had a new server configuration which would meet my needs. All it would take would be for me to migrate my data from the existing server to the new server configuration. How hard could that be?

“The best kind of prize is a surprise.” That quote uttered by Johnny Depp’s character in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory never rang more true than today. After a long and sleepless night where I looked at the clock more times than Chris Young struck out last season; Christmas morning finally arrived. While the kids rested quietly in their beds I was up pacing the floor waiting for them to get up. What a weird turn of events. It is usually the kids who are up early while the parents are begging for a few more minutes of sleep before getting up to begin the gift unwrapping extravaganza. But then most parents probably have not been waiting for an Arizona Diamondbacks National League Western Division Championship sweatshirt for nearly three months either. So with some well placed noises and rustling the other members of my family finally awoke from their slumber and got up. We all rushed downstairs to see what wonderful gifts Santa Claus had left us during his late night visit.

From a holiday perspective Christmas is about as close to baseball as anything I have found when it comes to excitement. To prove that point I briefly considered republishing the updated Twas the Night Before Christmas entry that I posted the night before Spring Training began under the title Spring Training Eve. But I figured you deserved new content rather than something that could be found using the search box on this blog. So instead I’ll focus my comments on what this day and this holiday means to me. There is nothing quite like the anticipation waiting for Christmas morning to arrive. Part of the excitement can be attributed to wondering what gifts may be awaiting you under the Christmas tree. More often though the excitement is building to see what others may think of the gifts you had gotten for them. With a family of 5 children, every Christmas Eve sees the excitement levels reach epidemic proportions. Trina of course would argue that this family contains 6 children since in her eyes I have not quite begun acting like an adult. A fact that many times I pride myself on.

On September 28, 2007 I like many Diamondbacks fans were glued to the television to watch the opening of the final 3 game series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies. This game had huge implications as the Diamondbacks were still trying to seal a play-off spot. That night Brandon Webb took the mound and beat the Colorado Rockies. This win coupled with a loss by the San Diego Padres allowed the Diamondbacks to secure a play-off berth and become the National League Western Division champion. There was a tremendous celebration on the field with the players leaping into each other’s arms. At our house there was a similar celebration with me and the kids dancing around the family room throwing root beer and Sprite into the air much to the chagrin of Trina who is still finding sticky spots on the walls and floor. As part of the celebration the Diamondbacks were given T-shirts and hats commemorating their victory and NL West championship. They were also given sweatshirts with the NL West Champion posted to the front. I of course would have to have one of these sweatshirts to remind myself of the magical year I had just witnessed. I rushed to the Diamondbacks shop on MLB.com (the team shop was closed by this time). The online shop already had the sweatshirts listed as available and I quickly placed an order. According to the confirmation page I should expect to see my sweatshirt within a week which should be plenty of time for me to have it for the post season; or so I thought.

What do you get a guy for Christmas who seems to have everything? Last year Brandon Webb received a National League Cy Young award after completing his best year as a professional. He followed that up in 2007 with an even better year statistically. Unfortunately San Diego Padres ace Jake Peavy happened to do just a little better and took away Webb’s chances of taking home a second consecutive Cy Young. The Diamondbacks went Christmas shopping early and got Brandon Webb an ace to follow him in the rotation. That’s a pretty nice gift if you ask me and it is going to be pretty tough for anyone to top that. Old Uncle Henry is going to feel pretty inadequate when Brandon opens up the autographed Orlando Hudson bobble head that he got Webb for Christmas (by the way I would be more than happy to accept such a generous gift should Uncle Henry have any extras that he might not know what to do with). So is there anyone who can top a wrapped Danny Haren under the tree? I would have to say Ashland Kentucky could answer with a resounding “Yes!”

Every once in a while there comes a hidden benefit to writing your own blog. This happened to me this week when I received an email from Dave Rouleau of Baseball Digest Daily. Dave offered a unique opportunity to Jim McLennan of AZ Snake Pit and myself. We were each provided with a list of five questions to answer about the Arizona Diamondbacks. The results were then posted on The Bloggers Roundtable – Arizona Diamondbacks for review and comments.

Today marked the next episode of the newest Major League Baseball game show, Name That Steroid User. This show began several months ago when testimony from the grand jury assigned to the Balco investigation was leaked to the press and names began to be mentioned of what players may have been taking performance enhancing drugs. For sweeps week the Mitchell Report was released where more than 84 players were named as using steroids or human growth hormone. After that extravaganza no one believed it could be topped but that is not the case. Today former Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Jason Grimsley’s federal sworn statement was unsealed naming yet more players in the pyramid of performance enhancing drug users.

There are only four shopping days until Christmas. I know this because my wife and kids have a giant countdown sign that hangs in my direct sight line when I am sitting at the dinner table. They all insist that this is purely coincidental but I am beginning to wonder. The other indication I have that Christmas is arriving shortly is that the number of hints being dropped by my wife have risen substantially over the past week or so. This I think is due to the fact that she knows that I have not done any shopping nor have I taken any of the kids out to do their shopping. She further drove home her point by reminding me of the truck stop debacle of 2004 when all of my gifts appeared to have been purchased at a local 24 hour trucker hang out. Personally I didn’t see anything wrong with a wallet with a chain that attached to your belt and really who couldn’t use a set of mud flaps for their car? Granted the silhouette of undressed women may not have been my first choice but hey I got a pretty good deal on them. No, it was clear that I was not going to get away with that this year which meant that regardless of how much I dreaded Christmas shopping, today was the day. Fortunately, I have the perfect gift in mind and there’s only one place to get it.

Last Friday the Arizona Diamondbacks made quite a splash in pulling off several deals which on paper look to make the team much stronger. The cornerstone of these deals brought the ace of the Oakland Athletics pitching staff to Arizona to provide some much needed depth to the starting rotation. With this one deal, the Diamondbacks for the second time in their history would sport what could be the National League’s best 1-2 starting pitching punch. Not since the glory days of Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling have people talked about a Diamondbacks pitching staff having this kind of depth and dominance. While Brandon Webb is still the ace of the Arizona staff, you could make a strong case that Dan Haren is also the ace giving the Diamondbacks a number 1 starter and a number 1a starter. Have two players of this caliber at the front of your rotation should minimize the length of any losing streak as either of these two can dominate an opponent. Today at Chase Field the Diamondbacks held a press conference to introduce their newest starting pitcher.

The Arizona Diamondbacks announced yesterday that they had reached an agreement with manager Bob Melvin on a contract extension through 2010.  This announcement follows a busy off-season for Melvin who was earlier named the National League Manager of the Year.  The extension had been long expected as the two sides had been talking since shortly after the Diamondbacks ended their play-off run against the Colorado Rockies.  The delay in the announcement was not so much due to involved contract negotiations or haggling over money as it was a matter of time constraints between Melvin and General Manager Josh Byrnes not being able to get together.

When Tony Clark signed a one year contract with the Arizona Diamondbacks the expectations were that he would come in as an insurance policy to be used in case the Diamondbacks youth movement didn’t pan out.  In that season Clark saw more than his fair share of playing time getting 349 at-bats and put up statistics that were well above his career averages.  His .304 batting average coupled with 30 home runs and 87 RBI infused life into the Diamondbacks and led to a 2-year contract extension that kept him in what was then purple and turquoise.  Despite the gaudy numbers that Clark put up that season, expectations were that his role would continue to be a back-up infielder and pinch-hitter for the snakes in 2006.  Clark would also take on the role of clubhouse leader and mentor for young Conor Jackson to help mold him into a more complete defensive player.  Clark had an injury plagued 2006 campaign but his off the field contributions were immeasurable to this team as Arizona began infusing more youth into its roster.

Nearly everyone, myself included had lamented at the lack of progress the Diamondbacks had been making this off season. If I would have stopped to think about it, it does seem almost laughable that I would be stressed out that Arizona had not pulled the trigger on any number of deals. After all this is a team that was among the youngest in all of the major leagues and by all accounts was set for a long run of success as this core of young talent matured. Really all that was lacking was a little starting pitching depth and that too didn’t seem very far removed if you looked at the farm system. But in a society that revolves around instant gratification we fully expected the Arizona Diamondbacks to aggressively go after each and every free agent or entertain every trade to make themselves better.

One of the more interesting rules within the collective bargaining agreement stipulates that a player must be offered a contract or salary arbitration by a specified date or the player is eligible to become a free agent. The date for 2007 happened to be Wednesday December 12. The Arizona Diamondbacks had six players that fell under this stipulation. Fan favorite and reserve infielder Augie Ojeda agreed to a one-year contract last week with the Diamondbacks eliminating the need for salary arbitration. The remaining five players were all offered arbitration thereby protecting their status as Diamondbacks players. Those five include pitchers Juan Cruz, Brandon Lyon, and Jose Valverde as well as catcher Chris Snyder and second baseman Orlando Hudson. Offering salary arbitration to this group was not much of a surprise. Each of them played a valuable role in 2007 and are expected to have an important part in the success of the 2008 Diamondbacks. The question is what is the next step for each of these?

On March 30, 2006 Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig authorized an investigation into the alleged usage of steroids by major league players. The investigation was led by former Senate Majority Leader George J. Mitchell. In 2006 baseball was reeling from the allegations that steroids and other performance enhancing drugs were tainting the game and ruining its integrity. These charges came to the forefront of society after two reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper penned the book Game of Shadows that described the ever expanding use of performance enhancing drugs and focused especially on Barry Bonds who was at the time chasing Hank Aaron’s home run record. George Mitchell’s investigation would last 21 months and include requests by the Mitchell commission to interview owners, players, coaches, and other baseball personnel. Throughout the investigation the committee met with stonewalling tactics by many parties with the majority of players declining to cooperate. Finally after a long and drawn out process of gathering information Mitchell was to make his findings public.

Since Saturday I have been hunkered down at my computer wading through the mountains of data that I have accumulated over the past 10 years trying to put together a plan of action. The Arizona Diamondbacks definitely have not made this easy on me. I think I have gotten soft in my old age (old age being a relative term. I still think of myself as young but according to my kids I am ancient). I am used to the easy life where I get a note in the mail from the Diamondbacks then they have an open house at the ballpark where I can go and spend the day sitting in the various seats at Chase Field and take pictures of the sight lines to try and imagine whether a particular seat will work for me for the upcoming season. With this year’s abbreviated schedule I did not have that luxury. It was as though the Diamondbacks just assumed I knew where I wanted to sit next season. Oh what a very silly assumption.

There are times I am such an idiot. Now before anyone jumps on that first sentence let me assure you that Trina has already begun marking my idiotic days on the calendar and so far she has more days marked than an entire baseball season and she is only up to June. Trina and I have this understanding that from mid-February through October I am pretty much worthless and unavailable due to baseball season (Trina continues to argue that I am pretty much worthless all the time but from November through February I am at least available). Whenever something needs to be done around the house during that time she just notes it in her notebook and once baseball season is over she gets out the book and I work on stuff until baseball season starts which by the way is only 77 days, 1 hour, and 18 minutes until the first Spring Training game. Some of the stuff on the list isn’t bad and not real time sensitive although the kids are starting to complain that they have not had running water in their bathroom since the Houston Astros series in mid-May of last season. Somewhere in the garage are my tools so I began cleaning things out to get to them. One thing led to another and soon I had the garage completely tore apart to the point that not even a bicycle would fit inside. After what seemed like every waking hour for the past month I was finally able to get the garage back in order and find my toolbox.

I thought I had overcome Trina’s need for additional Christmas shopping yesterday but she see seemed undeterred. In fact she was fairly insistent that not only did we need to get some non-Diamondbacks related gifts but we also needed to get some Christmas decorations put up. There are so many things wrong with what she said that I have no idea where to even start. First I thought Christmas was supposed to be a holiday filled with love and joy. How is that possible if we give non-Diamondbacks related gifts? I can guarantee that if I get up on Christmas morning and there is not at least one item with an Arizona Diamondbacks logo on it then I’ll quit believing that there is a Santa Claus. And I don’t mean that guy at the mall either. I’ve already tangled with that clown. There is no way he is the real Santa, his suit was not even Sedona Red. It was more Cincinnati Red than Sedona Red and we all know that Santa prefers his boys in Sedona Red. It was Trina’s second comment that really piqued my interest though. Did she say she wanted me involved in decorating for Christmas?

“Dear, we really need to talk about Christmas” the words were accompanied by a less than gentle tap on the head. I looked up from my Seat Relocation Form to find a somewhat irritated looking Trina standing above me.
“What did you hit me for?” I asked.
“I’ve been standing here for 5 minutes repeating myself over and over” was her reply. I had to wonder whether General Bernard L. Montgomery or General Dwight D. Eisenhower had to deal with similar intrusions by their wives when they were planning the Battle of Normandy? I can just imagine Mamie Eisenhower prodding her husband to stop all these silly battle planning sessions to go to the mall with her and watch her try on clothes from Victoria’s Secret. I instantly tried to erase that mental image as no one wants to imagine Mamie Eisenhower in an Infinity Edge push-up bra.

One of my earliest Christmas memories was sitting on the couch with my parents and little brother watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on television. I thought that was one of the coolest shows I had ever seen. I was completely entrenched in the story of a young reindeer who had been ostracized from the reindeer Olympics for what can only be assumed to be a failed performance-enhancing drug test. How else do you explain the sudden appearance of a light-up nose and the ability to leap long distances after getting a kiss from the somewhat homely looking Clarice? I was especially taken aback when Rudolph and his friends Hermey the dental obsessed elf and Yukon Cornelius who I believe was based upon the character of super agent Scott Boras and set out to flee from Abominable Snow Man and ended up on the Island of Misfit Toys. Many a day have I felt like a Charlie-in-the-box none more so than today.

Each year on the last day of the Winter Meetings baseball holds it Rule 5 Draft. I’ve tried to explain what exactly the Rule 5 Draft is in previous posts but no matter how much I try to simplify the process it still comes out as convoluted. Today marks the 2007 rendition of the draft. Coming into these meetings I will be the first to admit that I was a tad bit nervous for the Diamondbacks. When you have a young group of players like the Diamondbacks have on their roster it is hard for other players to break in and hence the talent pool gets a little clogged up at the minor league level. This leads to many more opportunities for players to be left off the 40-man roster and exposed to the Rule 5 Draft where other teams can take advantage. This was the case two years ago when the Diamondbacks gambled with Dan Uggla only to see him selected by the Florida Marlins and turn in an all-star caliber season in 2006. None of us want to see that happen again.

It’s the first Thursday in December and that can mean only one thing: it’s time for the monthly on-line chat with Arizona Diamondbacks President Derrick Hall. Since taking office last year Derrick Hall has made himself available nearly every month via an online chat on the Diamondbacks web site. He takes 30 minutes of his day each month and allows Diamondbacks fans to ask him questions about the team and the organization. I always love attending these things. On the one hand it gives me an opportunity to pester the Diamondbacks with questions without feeling overly guilty. On the other hand it gives me a chance to hear what other fans are thinking or what they may be interested in. That in itself can be quite eye-opening and at times comical.

In the days leading up to this year’s Winter Meetings in Nashville, all we heard about was how this off season would be the perfect storm for an unprecedented number of trades to occur. With a relatively light free agent class of players available teams would be forced to the trade table to make any deals they needed to make their ballclub better. Local post offices would be overrun with players standing in line to get change of address forms. Rumors were flying more wildly than a Mitch Williams fastball. The Arizona Diamondbacks figured prominently in many of these rumors in their quest to find another starting pitcher. The problem was that baseball’s General Managers all appear to be proponents of gun control laws as none of them have been willing to pull the trigger on any deal.

Not all the baseball news originated from Nashville Tennessee today. The Arizona Diamondbacks jumped into the local headlines when they announced ticket prices for the 2008 season. This of course is always an important time in our house as it marks the day when Trina knows how much of our budget I am going to consume with ball tickets. It’s not a matter of if I will consume any of the budget it is just a matter of how much I will consume. I try to put a positive light on things by stating that baseball season tickets are much cheaper than buying drugs. Trina though seems unconvinced especially when I suggested that I would love to upgrade our seats to Dugout Box seats. My ultimate goal is to someday have seats in Section N above the Arizona Diamondbacks dugout. My life could be complete and I would die a happy man if I had season tickets in that section. Trina must feel very similarly as she made the comment that I could get those seats over her dead body. It’s good to see that we are both on the same page and have our priorities aligned.

Just a few short days ago I wrote about how the Arizona Diamondbacks had a glut of outfielders and how Carlos Quentin now found himself as the odd man out without a position to play for the Diamondbacks. Like most everyone I anticipated that Arizona would use Quentin as a bargaining chip at the Winter Meetings in Nashville to try and land a starting pitcher that they desperately need. The upside of a Carlos Quentin is amazing. While he struggled a bit last season I think a lot of that had to do with the injuries he was dealing with including a partially torn labrum in his non-throwing shoulder and towards the later part of the season a hamstring problem. Even one down season there was grounds for optimism for the former first round draft pick from Stanford. He has above average power and is decent defensively. The Diamondbacks should be able to parlay a young talent like Carlos for a serviceable starting pitcher.

In the long dark tunnel of the baseball off season burns a faint lantern of light. The lantern is usually quite dim except for three brief days in December when it illuminates the landscape and brightens an otherwise dark and dreary few days. That lantern of course is the Winter Meetings when the General Managers and club officials meet to discuss the game of baseball. It is the Major League Baseball equivalent of the office Christmas party. It is a chance for everyone to gather in one place, review all that was accomplished over the past year and celebrate a little bit.

As the calendar rolls over to December I find myself with a lot of days where there is very little news coming out about the Arizona Diamondbacks. There are just so many times a guy can re-read Steve Gilbert’s articles on Diamondbacks.com without beginning to feel like some sort of cyber-stalker. My daily routine usually includes checking ESPN, FoxSports, Diamondbacks.com, MLB.com, Yahoo Sports, and Baseball-Reference.com (you can never get tired of looking at baseball statistics). At each site I devour any new content I can find and in the absence of new content I will re-read the top 5 stories just to make sure I didn’t miss anything. My day could best be summed up by shampoo bottle instructions: wash-rinse-repeat. To say I am going through Diamondbacks withdrawals may be an understatement.