Top 5 Catchers in the National League 2001-2010

2001
1. Mike Piazza
2. Paul Lo Duca
3. Charles Johnson
4. Kelly Stinnett
5. Chad Kreuter

2002
1. Mike Piazza
2. Mike Lieberthal
3. Eli Marrero
4. Mike Redmond
5. Paul Lo Duca
5 (t.). Jason Kendall

2003
1. Javy Lopez
2. Jason Kendall
3. Ivan Rodriguez
3(t.). Mike Piazza
5. Mike Lieberthal

2004
1. Jason Kendall
2. Johnny Estrada
3. Ramon Hernandez
4. Michael Barrett
5. Todd Greene

2005
1. Javier Valentin
2. Michael Barrett
3. Jason LaRue
4. Ramon Hernandez
5. Brian Schneider

2006
1. Josh Bard
2. Brian McCann
3. David Ross
4. Chris Coste
5. Paul Lo Duca

2007
1. Russell Martin
2. Ryan Doumit
3. Josh Bard
4. Brian McCann
5. Chris Snyder

2008
1. Brian McCann
2. Chris Iannetta
3. Ryan Doumit
4. Geovany Soto
5. John Baker

2009
1. Brian McCann
2. Miguel Montero
3. Yadier Molina
4. Carlos Ruiz
5. Russell Martin

2010
1. Buster Posey
2. Geovany Soto
3. Carlos Ruiz
4. Brian McCann
5. Ryan Hanigan

Top 5 catchers in the American League 2001-2010

2001
1. Ivan Rodriguez
2. Jorge Posada
3. Robert Fick
4. Shawn Wooten
5. Einar Diaz

2002
1. Ivan Rodriguez
2. Jorge Posada
3. A.J. Pierzynski
4. Jason Varitek
5. Dan Wilson

2003
1. Jorge Posada
2. Greg Myers
3. Jason Varitek
4. A.J. Pierzynski
5. Ramon Hernandez

2004
1. Ivan Rodriguez
2. Jorge Posada
3. Javy Lopez
4. Jason Varitek
5. Victor Martinez

2005
1. Victor Martinez
2. Jason Varitek
3. Joe Mauer
4. Ivan Rodriguez
5. Jorge Posada

2006
1. Joe Mauer
2. Jorge Posada
3. Victor Martinez
4. Ramon Hernandez
5. Mike Napoli

2007
1. Jorge Posada
2. Victor Martinez
3. Joe Mauer
4. Mike Napoli
5. Kenji Johjima

2008
1. Joe Mauer
2. Mike Napoli
3. Kelly Shoppach
4. Dioneer Navarro
5. Kurt Suzuki

2009
1. Joe Mauer
2. Victor Martinez
3. Jorge Posada
4. Mike Napoli
5. Kurt Suzuki

2010
1. Joe Mauer
2. Victor Martinez
3. John Buck
4. Jorge Posada
5. John Jaso

The RCIAAS MVP Ballot: 10th Place AL

I'll be revealing who I would have voted for for the American League and National League MVP over the next several days with one place being revealed at a time. 

10th- Alex Gordon OF Kansas City Royals

Gordon had a great comeback season for the Royals, showing why he was so highly touted coming out of college.  Although, he did make the move to the outfield.  His quadruple slash was .303/.376/.502/.382.  He had a pretty solid season. 

Much of his defensive value came from his outfield arm, which is unlikely to duplicate, but has no bearing for why I would've voted for him here. 

There were many worthy candidates for the bottom half of the ballot but only a few strong contenders for the first couple of spots. (Spoiler alert: I do not have the real AL MVP in the top 3). 

Why Alex Gordon at 10?  Well, he posted a fWAR of 6.9, which actually placed him in 9th place in the American League for that particular stat.  He had a good offensive season and had positive value for his defense in the outfield for last season.  He had a better season then some realize and I think he's a worthy top 10 selection for the AL MVP.

Third Baseman of the Year

Taking a look around the infield, we're here to introduce the George Brett and Mike Schmidt Awards.

George Brett Award Finalists:

1. Adrian Beltre .296/.331/.561/.379
2. Evan Longoria .244/.355/.495/.365
3. Alex Rodriguez .276/.362/.461/.361
Honorable Mention:

Adrian Beltre- But he only has good seasons when he is about to be a free agent.  That's the narrative, right?  All inall, Beltre had a good season.  He definitely had an all-star caliber season.  According to fWAR he put up 5.7.  He had a much better season in 2010 but still, it was a good season.  His OBP wasn't great, only .331 but still managed to put a respectable wOBA up.  He had the highest wOBA for third basemen (well minus Brett Lawrie, but he only had 171 plate appearances.  He finished first for third basemen in slugging percentage. His defense was still spectacular.

Evan Longoria- A sub-par season by his standards, but still finished 3rd in wOBA (4th if you count Michael Young).  He finished 2nd in slugging percentage.  He finished 4th among third basemen with more than 400 plate appearances in On-base percentage.  His defense was great, yet again.  He missed quite a few games because of an injury but still played more than Beltre (133 to 124).

Alex Rodriguez- Only played 99 games but put up respectable numbers during that time.   His slugging numbers were slightly down compared to other third basemen, as well as his own career. None of the top third  third basemen played the full season, so you can't discount Rodriguez on that reason alone. 

Voting: 1. Evan Longoria 2. Adrian Beltre 3. Alex Rodriguez

Mike Schmidt Awards Finalists:
1. Pablo Sandoval .315/.357/.552/.379
2. Aramis Ramirez .306/.361/.510/.373
3. Ryan Roberts .249/.341/.427/.338
Honorable Mention: Chase Headley .289/.374/.399/.344

Pablo Sandoval- led NL thirdbasemen in batting average, sluggin percentage, and wOBA.  He finished 3rd in On-base percentage.  He only played 117 games, though.  His defense was pretty good.

Aramis Ramirez- Third basemen in both leagues this year had down years.  Ramirez finished 2nd in batting average, on-base percentage, and wOBA.  He finished 3rd in slugging percentage.  His defense was getting a little bit worse, probably due to age. 

Ryan Roberts- He was a beneficiary because of his defense and baserunning that fangraphs give him credit for in their WAR calculations.  He also played more games so he got some extra points in his WAR calculations, as well.

Chase Headley- He led NL 3b in OBP which is my favorite offensive stat.

1. Pablo Sandoval 2. Aramis Ramirez 3. Ryan Roberts

Pumping out Movie Reviews: Slackers

Slackers (2002) focuses on a group of three friends Dave (Devon Sawa), Sam (Jason Segel), and Jeff (Michael Maronna) who are caught cheating on a physics test by Ethan (Jason Schwartzman).  He then blackmails them into helping getting the girl that he so desperately stalks Angela (Jamie King).  While the movie is similar to other teen movies in the same genre such as American Pie; it's actually pretty funny. 

Story/writing: The story wasn't too bad.  But it wasn't entirely complicated or complex, either.  I'm kind of torn on how much of it, I should credit the story as opposed to the acting and the characters.  The blackmail angle was sort of contrived, I thought, but what do I know? Grade: 6/10.

Characters: Now here comes the fun part.  Every teen movie has the lovable slacker who doesn't try but is incredibly intelligent but is not focused on the normal success (Dave, in this movie).
You have the girl who will undoubtedly make him question his whole life and maybe make him change, Angela in this movie.
The main girl's best friend, played by Laura Prepon, in this movie.
You have the strange kid who's intelligent but crazy, Jeff.
You have the main character's true best friend who helps with the antics and shenanigans, Sam.
Then there's the bad guy.  Typically, this is a jock frat boy nerd.  Usually it's one of those three things, sometimes all three.  This time, it's the nerd, Ethan.
Grade: 3/10. It hurts to be stereotypical.

Directing: The strange flashbacks or daydreams are great.  While they don't contribute much to the storyline other than to re-enforce the idea that Ethan is a true creeper.  I don't know how the director could have improved but the pacing wasn't terrible. Grade: 8/10.

Suspension of disbelief: For four years of college, I have never experienced anything close to what the teen movies about colleges have tried to show me would happen.  Also, I never really bought into the whole blackmail cheating premise.  But that's just me. Grade: 2/10.

Acting: This is the strength of the movie.  Jason Schwartzman is perfect as Ethan.  I don't know of another actor who could've pulled that off, outside of maybe Zack Braff.  Jason Segel is always phenomenal.  Devon Sawa pulls off the cockiness of the character, perfectly. Michael Maronna was good, as well. All of the main charactes were great.  Angela was merely good. Grade: 9.5/10.

Dialogue: I didn't get the seed of doubt angle that Dave kept saying.  Ethan's lines were delivered and written perfectly. Most of the characters' lines were funny and delivered well. Grade: 8/10.

Genre specific: If we compare it to teen comedies, I thought it was funnier than most.  I also thought the acting was better than most. It wasn't funny enough to dominate the comedy genre but if we place it in with the other teen comedies, then the score is higher. Grade: 8/10.

Timing: The movie kind of dragged at parts, especially the I saw the sign part.  The comedic timing was there for the most part and it wasn't a long movie. Grade: 8/10.

Pseudo-philosophical questions/theme: I'm not 100% sure of what the theme was.  What I took from the movie was, it's better to be skillful at things that don't matter because ultimately those things that don't matter will be what gets you out of trouble.
In all seriousness, I'm not sure what the theme was. 
Grade: 0/10.

Re-watchability: I've seen the movie twice, now.  I saw it once on Comedy Central and began searching for a way to watch it again, much later.  I finally found it on Crackle, years later.  It was still funny.
Grade: 5/10.

Score: 57.5/100

See, I don't give great grades all the time.

Movie Review #2: Idiocracy

In Mike Judge's movie Idiocracy, the future is a lot dumber than it is currently.  People in fact, are quite dumb.  The premise is that those people who are dumber than average are reproducing much quicker than the smarter people.  Private Joe Bauers (Luke Wilson) accidentally goes into the future to see that humanity is being destroyed by stupidity.  He is forced to help out when they discover that he is the smartest person in the world.  Hilarity ensues.

Story/Writing: When I'm drinking I like to argue that the world is heading towards an Idiocracy future or a Gattaca future.  While this isn't necessarily part of my best drunken argument repertoire, such as my propensity to argue that the best show on television ever was Seinfeld.  Which is blatantly obvious, in my opinion.  Nevertheless, Idiocracy isn't a perfect story but it simply paints the picture that the future may not be all that it is cracked up to be.  Or to quote Southland Tales, "the future is going to be more futuristic, then originally thought."  In most movies and books, the future is always painted to be this perfect utopia or just at least smarter than the present. Grade: 8/10.

Characters: The various characters in the movie were pretty hilarious.  They were over the top stupid.  Which understandably has rubbed people the wrong way, but the main characters Joe and Rita (Maya Rudolph) were not perfect or even close to it.  Joe Bauers was going to be a tough character to pull off, regardless, but I think it could have been done better.  It's hard to fault the writers too much for Bauers.  Grade: 8/10.

Directing: Not an expert but the jokes were spot on.  Further, all of the little things that happened in the movie just added to the hilarity.  I particularly enjoyed the cars just driving straight off the bridge, the name changes, the product placements, etc. Mike Judge is hilarious. Grade: 10/10.

Suspension of disbelief: Once you get past the part that you're unsure of how Private Bauers and Rita had enough food and water to survive in their comatose state for hundreds of years.  You also have to get past the part  of whether the world would really get this stupid or not.  If you can't get past that, you're not going to enjoy the movie.  It took awhile to get past the first part. The second part wasn't as hard to get past. Grade: 8/10.

Acting: Let's get this out of the way right here. I'm not a fan of Luke Wilson.  I didn't think Luke Wilson was particularly good in this movie, in Old School, in the cell phone commercials where he's fat, etc. I didn't think he was very good in this movie, either.  In part, I guess, it's because I didn't like the characters.  Maya Rudolph was ok, nothing spectacular.  Dax Shepard was hilarious. Terry Crews was good. Justin Long provided me with lots and lots of laughs.  His scene was my favorite.  It doesn't matter if all the minor characters are fantastic if the major ones were nothing to talk about. Grade: 5/10.

Dialogue: If you buy the premise, then the dialogue is spot on.  I bought into the premise and thought the dialogue was fantastic. Grade: 10/10.

Genre specific: I've been a fan of all of Mike Judge's movies, so it's hard for me to be objective.  I thought it was hilarious. Grade: 10/10.

Timing: My girlfriend does not enjoy the last twenty minutes of the movie, saying that it moves too slow.  I tend to agree with her on this point, the last couple parts of the movie kind of drag.  That being said, the comedic timing of the rest of the movie is great and the first 45-50 minutes of the movie fly by.  How much do I dock for the last twenty minutes? Grade: 7/10.

Pseudo-philosophical/theme:  The theme of the movie I guess is to avoid stupidity try reading a damn book once in a while.  Also to smart people- have unprotected sex more often.
The real theme I would say is that we are getting dumber.  We need to correct this.  Otherwise this is going to happen.
It's just a hilarious public service announcement.
Grade: 6/10 (I agree with the theme just I wish there was something more to it.  I couldn't find it).

Re-watchability: Of course, I would watch this again.  I watch it a lot. Just ask my friends.
Score: 10/10

Final Score: 82/100

A stab at a movie review: Go

Reader's discretion advised: This post will contain some bad language. Just a heads up.

The movie Go came out in 1999 and it attempts to tell what happens after a drug deal from three different characters' points of view.  It follows Ronna Martin (played by Sarah Polley) who is a down on her luck cashier at a grocery store, who needs money to avoid eviction.  She attempts to buy and re-sell drugs from the drug dealer Todd Gaines (Timothy Olyphant).  It also follows Simon (Desmond Askew) andhis escapades with his friends in Las Vegas.  Finally, the story focuses on Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr) two gay actors who are atttempting to avoid getting in trouble with the law by helping to participate in a drug sting with Burke (William Fichtner).

"Wow, I didn't know we'd become such good friends, because if we had, you'd know that I give head before I give favors and I don't even give my best friends head so your chances of getting a favor are pretty fucking slim. "  -Todd Gaines

I have 10 categories for how I rank movies and the total score is equal to the final score I give the movie.  Feel free to disagree with me, if you want.  I'm not exactly an expert on films but I certainly know what I like.

Story:  It's at the very least a creative way to tell the story of the aftermath of a drug deal.  It was interesting that it followed three different stories to figure out what was actually happening in the movie.  Each of the three stories were entertaining and infromative to the rest of the movie.  The best one, at least in my opinion, was the story focusing on Simon and his friends.  Grade: 9/10.

Characters: Most of the characters were fully developed, I would hope so with the three different stories focusing on the main characters.  The characters that I didn't particularly enjoy were Simon's friend Singh (who wasn't integral to the rest of the story), Victor Jr., Victor Sr., and Claire Montgomery (played by Katie Holmes).  The reason for my distaste for Claire was simply because she morphs from one type of person at the near beginning of the movie (afraid and distrustful of Todd) to the exact opposite at the end.  It seems likely that if you are going to be distrustful of a drug dealer at one point, you will remain distrustful until the drug dealer does something to gain your trust, which to be honest, we don't see. Grade: 7.5/10

Directing: Like I said at the beginning of this, I'm not an expert at film or filmmaking.  So, I might not be the best person at judging for this particular category.  However, I think that you should be able to tell a difference between good directing and bad directing.  It's the in-between that'll probably cause me the most grief.  However, the director in this movie does a great job in telling the three different stories.  There's not that much discontinuity between the different stories so it actually feels like they are telling the same basic story.  My favorite part for choice of directing was the music in the chase scene between Simon and his friends and the two Victors.  Grade: 8/10.

Suspension of disbelief: I should be able to suspend my disbelief for the entire movie without running into a situation where I say, "there's no damn way this could happen in real life."  There's not that many times where I think that throughout the movie, except at the very end.  Once you see the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about.  Although the commitment to have Jay Mohr throw the tape recorder so girlish was just fantastic. Grade: 9.5/10

Acting: Sarah Polley was pretty good as Ronna (some people think she's better than that).  William Fichtner was fantastic as the police officer who is obsessed with an Amway-esque products.  Timothy Olyphant was great as a drug dealer.  Katie Holmes was good despite the character's complete change.  Nathan Bexton was great as strung out on drugs Mannie.  Jay Mohr was the same as he is in every movie.  Grade: 8/10. Only because I thought Polley could have been better, as well as Jay Mohr.  When two of your could be played by better actors, then there is a slight problem.

Dialogue: The dialogue was occasionally funny and witty.  Some of the dialogue was integral to the rest of the story and some of it was just there to be there.  My favorite scene for dialogue was with Mannie and the cat.  There wasn't anything that was glaringly awful.  The scene about Confederated Products is fantastic, as well.  Grade: 9/10.

Genre specific attributes:  The movie was supposed to be a comedic crime movie in the same vein of Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels or Snatch.  Both of which succeed at a level Go cannot approach.  Grade: 7/10.

Timing: A movie should have a certain pace to it so that you never feel like the movie is dragging.  That is one of Go's best features.  There's not a point in the movie where you really think that the movie is draggging except near the very end.  Just when you get tired of one character, they move to a different one. Grade: 9/10.

Pseudo-philosophical question and answer: What exactly is the theme of Go?  If pressed, I would say that the theme of Go is what Claire states at the beginning of the movie about the best part of Christmas is the fact that there is a giant surprise even if you are pretty sure what's going to happen or know what's inside, when you finally open it, it's always a surprise.  An even bigger answer to the theme question is what Jay Mohr states near the end.  It's an attempt to find out what the right thing is to do, even if it's just an approximation or if it is the half-assed thrown together kind of way. It also addresses the justification people might have to try and convince themselves that the wrong things that people do aren't really that bad. Interesting theme, I guess.  The movie also attempts to answer the question of what exactly is justice? Grade: 8/10.

Re-watchability: This is where I decide if I can watch the movie again.  Since, I have watched this movie a couple of times, now, I would say that yes I would be able to watch it again.  There's not that many glaring holes in the movie that bother me, no (overly)annoying characters, and bad dialogue.  There is enough funny lines, a certain sense of unpredictiability, as well an overall sense that you might need to watch it again to get everything out of the movie.  But it's not a movie I would immediately want to watch again or that I would feel like I would definitely need to. Grade: 8/10.

The movie ends with a pretty high score of  83/100.  This is pretty in-line with what IMDB has it ranked as (7.3).  Mine's higher probably because I like this specific genre of movies.