Baseball Daily Digest Radio with Joel Henard and Me! Will Air at 7:00 ET

Baseball Daily Digest Radio with Joel Henard and Albert Lang will air at 7:00 PM ET 3.12: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thefantasyinsiders/2012/03/12/baseball-daily-digest-radio-with-joel-henard-and-albert-lang.

We’ll be joined by special guest Steve Gardner of USA Today and talk Madison Bumgarner, Buster Posey, Carlos Santana, Kenley Jansen, Yoennis Cespedes, Albert Pujols, Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, Kyle Seager, LABR, Spring Training and much more.

Baseball Daily Digest Radio with Joel Henard, Albert Lang & Mike Rudd from 12.12

Baseball Daily Digest Radio with Joel Henard, Albert Lang & Mike Rudd from 12.12: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thefantasyinsiders/2011/12/13/baseball-daily-digest-radio-with-joel-henard-and-albert-lang

We covered:

• the Angels free agent tandem, what the Rangers could do (sign Kinsler long-term, Darvish) and what about Kendrys Morales and Mark Trumbo.
• Ryan Braun
• Mark Buehrle, Heath Bell, Hanley Ramirez, Ozzie Guillen and the Miami Marlins
• The Chicago White Sox firesale
• Prince Fielder’s potential landing spots
• Daniel Bard’s transition to starter
• Jimmy Rollins and his future
• The bizarre Trevor Cahill trade
• Ian Stewart and Aramis Ramirez moving on
• the Hall of Fame with clips from Tommy Lasorda on Ron Santo and Ted Williams

Baseball Daily Digest Radio with Joel Henard and Albert Lang to air at 7:00 PM ET

Baseball Daily Digest Radio with Joel Henard and Albert Lang at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thefantasyinsiders/2011/12/13/baseball-daily-digest-radio-with-joel-henard-and-albert-lang to air at 7:00 PM ET.

We will cover: the Angels free agent tandem, Ryan Braun, Kendrys Morales, Mark Trumbo, Mark Buehrle, the Chicago White Sox, Hanley Ramirez, Jose Reyes, Prince Fielder, Carlos Beltran, Heath Bell, Daniel Bard, Rafael Furcal, Jimmy Rollins, Buster Posey, John Danks, Ian Kinsler, Trevor Cahill, Arizona Diamondbacks, Jarrod Parker, Oakland As, Ian Stewart, David Ortiz, Huston Street, and much more

Check You Out on the Flip Side: Jason Marquis

A stathead…er…An untrained observer with a working knowledge of the National League for the last eight years who stumbled upon the back of this card would likely assume that some combination of Roy Oswalt, Brandon Webb, Jake Peavy, Carlos Zambrano and Aaron Harang would fit the bill as the top starters in the National League from 2004-2009.

Not so fast! Marquis and his 9.5 WAR (Fangraphs) but amazing winability (80 Ws) is clearly involved, as noted by this fine 2010 Topps card.

Never mind that his 4.9 K/9 rate was the fifth lowest among starters with significant innings from that era (it was worse than Woody Williams, Kris Benson, Cory Lidle, Dave Bush, and many others). In addition, his ERA (4.49) was similarly amongst the worse, as were his FIP (4.84, which only bested Jeff Suppan) and xFIP (4.68). Like Jack Morris (who I revere), Marquis just pitched to the score. Right…

While that’s a lot of negativity, we can say that Marquis was durable (and averageish). He threw 1,177.1 IPs during that stretch, the fourth most behind Oswalt, Harang and Zambrano. Of course, that took its tool as he started the 2010 season late and struggled to win just two games. Apparently, it’s hard to pitch to the score when the Nationals are involved.

He pitched better on the surface in 2011, good enough to look like an innings eater to the Diamondbacks. Unfortunately, shortly after he was traded to Arizona, he broke his fibula and missed the rest of the year.

Regardless, Marquis has come a long way from Staten Island and the Little League World Series. In case you don’t remember, Marquis was on the third-place little league squad in 1991. He even beat Chad Pennington.

Pitching and winning must have seemed real easy in little league. It probably seemed harder but not impossible from 2004-2009. I imagine wining seems a lot more difficult now after struggling with losing teams and injuries.

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h2h Corner ~ Check You out on the Flip Side: John McDonald

I really don’t want to drag McDonald through the mud…but the person who wrote the back of this card must have about the loosest grasp of the game of baseball as anyone.

Since when does a pivotal base runner steal just six bases? If your previous career high was 3 stolen bases two years ago, saying he established a career high is meaningless. Rickey Henderson or Tim Raines establishing a career high, now that’s back of card worthy.

Similarly, two years before this card was printed McDonald accumulated 14 RBIs. It’s just not interesting (or maybe in that fact that it is so uninteresting it has become interesting) that he beat that total by two.

The author did get something right – it looks like McDonald was good defensively in 2005. He had the third best UZR of his career, so there’s that.

In actuality, 2005 was McDonald’s best season, but not because he stole six bases or knocked in 16 guys. No sir. It was the only time his average on balls in play was above .290 (his career number is .267). It’s really amazing that he has stuck around for 13 seasons. I can’t imagine the author of the back of this card lasted that long.

Still, his career isn’t without note. In 2007, he was voted the most popular Blue Jay (beating Roy Halladay). He is often known as the “Prime Minister of Defense” which, apparently, is a play on the first prime minister of Canada (yeah I thought they just let those Mounties run the country also).

But, most notably, McDonald is one of two players in major league history, according to Wikipedia, to be traded for himself.

Of course the most momentous trade of McDonald’s career would come in 2011, when the Blue Jays shipped him and Aaron Hill to Arizona for Kelly Johnson. The desert wasn’t kind to McDonald who batted just .169/.222/.203 for his new team, but he’s been average on defense!

As a glove man, he’s fantastic. As a baseball player, he’s better than Willie Bloomquist.

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