Gooooooooooooooooood Afternooooon, Everybody

Well, I've healed the only way I know how: drinking heavily by night, and, during the day, sitting around in my pajamas with my dog, listening to depressing indie music, and watching "Mike and the Mad Dog" all afternoon. (Oddly, the shriller Dog gets, the more soothing I find the show).

So, back to baseball. I'm getting so sick of saying, thinking, hearing, and writing "it's only spring training" that you can tell this last week is going to be a long one, but the monotony was broken up today when Carl Pavano pitched solidly... and narrowly avoided being attacked by a swarm of bees. No, really.

Meanwhile, Aaron Sele had a solid outing for the Mets. I'm rooting for him to make the team because he seems like an awfully nice guy, but I can't honestly say I think he'd be better than Mike Pelfrey. Solid long reliever though, maybe? And Billy Wagner got seriously lit up, but hey, don't worry, Mets fans: Armando Benitez may be available on the trade market! If Steve Phillips were still around, he'd know what to do about it...


Finally, as of last week, when I first discovered his existence, I've got a new favorite player: Denard Span, of the Twins. No relation, as far as I know; but I've never met or even heard of another Span outside of my immediate family, so I'm adopting him. This is all I've been able to find out so far: he's from Tampa, 23 years old and incredibly fast, apparently a very good fielder but without much of an arm, and... well, maybe hitting isn't his strong suite, but did I mention how fast he is? He'll be starting at AAA, but I was stung to find BP's PECOTA system projecting him Denard to hit .281/.330/.382 this season, with a VORP of -.7. I'm taking this as a personal affront. Mark my words: he's gonna prove everybody wrong! I'm so sure of this that if he doesn't end up with a positive Value Over Replacement Player by the end of the season, I'll change my name to Denard.*

You know, I really like the Twins in general: I adore Torii Hunter even though intellectually I realize he's been overrated much of his career, I'm pretty sure that Johan Santana is a god, the name Boof Bonser makes me smile... I could go on. So it pains me to see that they still seem to be seriously considering Sidney Ponson for a starting job. I know pitching is scare these days, but for pity's sake... do you have no one at AAA? Can't we all try to at least maintain a little dignity?


*Probably not really.