Fun with T9

1. Take out your cell phone.

2. Make sure the text message settings are on T9.

3. Create new text.

4. Type the word "Roids."

5. Enjoy the coincidence.

I Have $20 Riding On This Man

Miguel Tejada - mvp, dynamic slugger, franchise face of the Baltimore Orioles, quickly deteriorating defensive genius, steroid user, 33-year old father of two.

the hits just keep on coming for Miggy. i hope that most of those hits stay in the ballpark, because i have a $20 bet with the ejected fan that Tejada does not send the ball over the fence 20 or more times this season. this may seem like a foolish bet (not nearly as foolish as the time ejected fan bet me $5 that i couldn't get 100% on "my name is jonas" whilst on level "easy" in Guitar Hero 3), but it is looking wiser and wiser by the minute. first, let's examine why you all probably think i'm a jackass for making that bet.

Tejada's HR totals the last 3 years:
2007: 18 in 133 games
2006: 24 in 162 games
2005: 26 in 162 games

right off the bat, notice that if Miggy was healthy enough last year to play 162, he'd have been projected to hit about 22 dingers. assuming a linear projection then, he might hit 20 this year, had he stayed in the AL east with the Orioles. alas! he moved to a notorious hitter's park at Houston's Minute Maid Park. so why wouldn't he hit at least 20?

dubbschism: i bet you $20 that Tejada doesn't hit 20 homers this year.
ejected fan: what? are you ducking* crazy?
dubbschism: yes.
ejected fan: dude, he's playing in Houston this year. in that ballpark? come on.
dubbschism: yes or no? will you bet?
ejected fan: dual* yes.

*for those of you unfamiliar with t9-style** swear words, here is an incomplete dictionary:
dual = fuck
shiv = shit
ducked = fucked
ducking = fucking
citag = bitch
...you get the idea. for extra fun, type in the word "coal" and then scroll through the word list.

**for those of you unfamiliar with t9, use the ducking internet.

okay! the only problem here with ejected fan's reasoning is that Minute Maid is not a HR park! its park factor for 2007 places it 14th in baseball. Camden Yards? 3rd place. based on a simple linear projection of Tejada's recent work and his move to Minute Maid, he'll hit 17 home runs - and that's if he plays 162 games. based on his history, he's a good bet to play 162, but with recent allegations, he probably won't. so far he has appeared in all 16 games the Astros have played.

of course when i made my bet, i figured Tejada was 31, not 33. (apparently, he's dug himself in a pit of fibs so deep he's not even sure how old he is supposed to be.) and i'll admit, i didn't realize how average MMP was for HR hitters, but i did have an inkling his HR total was padded slightly by the friendly confines of Camden Yards. i also have a feeling that Tejada is easily flustered (and given his reaction when E:60 correspondent Tom Farrey confronted him with his birth certificate, i guessed correctly) and the fallout of being named in the Mitchell report would affect him in some way. although to be fair, when future HOFer Rafael Palmeiro fingered Miggy as the cause of his own steroid allegations, Tejada shook it off and produced at his typical level the following season. but for all the teeth it lacks, fans are taking the Mitchell report much more seriously than whatever Palmeiro has to say. working against me is the fact that Tejada has 3 taters in 16 games, putting him on pace for 30. and we know how important those kinds of projections are.

on another note, i'm so ducking glad i'm not as big of an Astros fan as i used to be. Ed Wade is quickly approaching Brian Sabean level as far as GMing skills are concerned. dude trades the farm for Tejada and Jose Valverde, somehow convinced that they're going to contend in the NL central (worst or second-worst division in baseball, to be sure) without any pitching besides Oswalt. then, as if to say, "verily! i have no idea what running a baseball team entails!", he claims not to care that Tejada is actually two years older than he originally thought. my guess is he had no clue how old he was to begin with.

HGH Makes You Ugly, NOT a Better Baseball Player

my original purpose with this post was to bash Paul Byrd and throw him in the "crummy Indians pitchers who should probably be in the minors or maybe even collecting their MLB pensions" bin along with Joe Borowski. but i started writing this article last night during the Sox-Tribe game, the one in which Byrd lowered his era from 11.05 to 6.07. not that he pitched a gem, exactly - he was cooked after 6, although he did only throw 78 pitches. therefore i decided i'm not really here to eviscerate Paul Byrd as a pitcher. this here is a good old-fashioned hide-behind-my-monitor-and-whatever-super-
fast-connection-my-place-of-employment-has-to-the-web-so-Paul-
Byrd-can't-fire-back-at-me ad hominem attack.

to quote that creepy Irish gypsy that just got out of jail on The Riches, "such is the power of the internet."

Paul Byrd took HGH. to many, that makes him a cheater. according to the San Francisco Chronicle (which, for my money, has to be the world's greatest source for spilling the word on doping baseball players), Byrd received shipments of the drug between 2002 and 2005. according to Byrd, it was to treat a pituitary gland tumor. now, i'm no medical doctor, but i am an internet expert. and a google search for "pituitary tumor HGH" doesn't seem to bolster Mr. Byrd's case at all. surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy seem to be the treatments for such an ailment. but whatever. let's give him the benefit of the doubt. let's also assume then that pituitary tumors help transform a fringe-average pitcher into an above average pitcher. you want proof? fine.

Byrd's ERA+ for the last 7 years:
2001: 108. not bad, not exactly stellar. let's call it "Byrdesque."
2002: 127. we'll call that "Gibsonesque."
2003: did not play (TJ surgery)
2004: 110 (19 games)
2005: 113
2006: 93. the year he stopped receiving HGH. whoops!
2007: 100

alright, alright, i'm cherry picking here, and there are a lot of factors at play. most notably, of course, is that they put a new ligament in his arm in '03, which for most guys, results in a livelier fastball. but his old ligament seemed to be working fine in 2002, the year he started receiving shipments of HGH.

now i'm really going to bowl you over: word on the streets is that HGH doesn't enhance athletic performance. this has been talked about for more than a year now, but NO ONE EVER MENTIONS THIS CAVEAT when they talk about "cheating ballplayers." i was at Fenway the other night and some meatheads were chanting "H-G-H!! H-G-H!!" at jason giambi - completely embarrassing because everyone knows that giambi's drug of choice is anabolic steroids. although he DID have a pituitary tumor in 2004, so i can only assume that these meatheads were in fact licensed endocrinologists familiar with giambi's case file.

so i tricked you!! you all thought that this article was going to be some sort of forensic statistical investigation, a CSI: sabermetrics that would prove once and for all that Paulie Byrd, he of the game four 2007 ALCS domination, is nothing but a lying, cheating, whore of a man who needs to pump drugs in order to throw a baseball 60 feet. (yes, 60 feet - that's another way he cheats. he moves the rubber six inches closer to the plate on days he pitches. asshole.) well, if you thought that, you were wrong. i don't think HGH helped him at all. i don't believe that he took it on a doctor's orders for a pituitary tumor, especially given WHERE he obtained the drugs from, although i do think that he thought it would help his performance...which, of course, means he DID cheat. or at least he tried to cheat.

so why the sudden spike in Byrd's performance for 2002? well for one thing, he's not as bad as i'm letting on here. yes, he doesn't have an overpowering repertoire, he lacks an "out" pitch, and he has trouble sniffing 85 on the JUGS. on the other hand, he has awesome control, to the tune of a 1.5 BB/9IP ratio, good for second best in the AL that year. (sidenote: he led the league last year with a 1.31 mark.) plus he has that funky old-schooly delivery, a novelty, to be sure, but a novelty that can mess with a hitter's timing. maybe, just maybe, he put everything together for one glorious run for a glorious KC team in the glorious summer of 2002. (Royals' record that year: 62-100.) it happens sometimes.

but read up, spread the word, and help destroy the disinformation that is the HGH hoax. the next time Steven K. Phillips (the 'K' stands for 'Kazmir') or John F. Kruk (the 'F' stands for 'Fatty') refer to HGH as a "PED," you go right up to your television, look it in the eye, and say "you mean PUD." (performance un-enhancing drug.)

wait! before you go, that ad hominem attack i promised you!! Paul Byrd is ugly. not Julian Tavarez or Randy Johnson ugly, but at least Nick Swisher ugly, if not worse. also he is a self-righteous churchy-churcherton who basically uses his status as a christian to justify that taking HGH is not cheating. also, he plans on writing a book about his being "born again." it will be titled "The Free Byrd Project," which has nothing to do with Skynyrd and contains other puns on his name. the third chapter is titled "Why I Became a BasePaul Player." i have nothing against people who want to write books but come on, could you be any more self-important? because who wants to read about a journeyman pitcher who barely strikes out 5 batters per 9 innings? oh that's right, you do. otherwise you would have closed this window a long time ago.