Posts tagged LanceBerkman at FanHouse

July 31 is rapidly approaching. Buy or Sell lets each team know where they stand.

It is absolutely, completely 100% unfathomable to me that we have to answer this question for the Astros. They're currently standing at 44-51, in last place in the NL Central, 13 games behind the Cubs and 8.5 back of the Wild Card. They've got no pitching staff to speak of and their offense is old. This team isn't a contender and they're in serious danger of falling into a huge rut because of the emptiness of their farm system. The answer here is an emphatic, "SELL! SELL! SELL!'

And yet, Ed Wade isn't convinced. He seems to think that there's a way for him to patch the team together and make a run at something this year. At the very least, he's refusing to rebuild this year. That's a dangerous idea for a team that's top two prospects (Hunter Pence, J.R. Towles) are already in the majors. Of course, Wade is the guy that sent a passel of prospects to Baltimore for Miguel Tejada over the winter, so don't doubt him on this one.

The other problem the Astros face is that they don't really have any terribly attractive "sell" candidates. Their best players (Lance Berkman, Roy Oswalt, Carlos Lee, and Tejada, I guess) are all kind of old and locked up until the 2011/2012 neighborhood. Really, the Astros kind of look to be painted into a corner for the near future, and having Wade at the helm isn't going to help things.

Admit it, you think it's cool that the Home Run Derby's in Yankee Stadium tonight. The thought of Josh Hamilton launching a ball into Monument Park has you just a little more geeked than you want to admit. Truth be told, you like home runs and the Derby has a ton of them. Maybe you're an NL fan that wants to see Evan Longoria and Josh Hamilton in action, or an AL fan that's curious if Dan Uggla can really be that good. And making fun of Chris Berman and Joe Morgan, well, that's just plain fun.

Anyways, come along after the jump where I'll be joined by a number of FanHouse luminaries while we chat live during the Home Run Derby, giving you the hard hitting analysis you want for the most meaningless event this side of the Slam Dunk Contest. I'll be kicking the chat off around 7:30 while the Derby starts at 8.

Obviously the fantasy season is past the halfway point, but you gotta work with me here. There aren't any games that count for the next few days, so it's the perfect time to formulate these teams. Unlike the actual All-Star game, there are different parameters for judging who makes the fantasy All-Star team. Value matters. For example, Hanley Ramirez is obviously the best fantasy player in baseball. He was a high first round pick in every draft, though, so he's not really exceeding expectations.

There's a reason you make the fantasy All-Star team this way ... owners don't win leagues by drafting Hanley Ramirez first overall. You do, however, win your league by loading up on value picks like Josh Hamilton and Geovany Soto ... while you lose your league by taking some of the big names I'm going to list on the "bad" team.

I've named each team after their backstop. Why? I felt like it.

Let's have fun.

TEAM GEO (these are the fantasy All-Stars)

C - Geovany Soto -- You can convince me that you thought Geo was a top ten catcher and that he'd hit 20 home runs coming into the season. You can't convince me that you had him top three and on pace for almost 30.

The Home Run Derby has, in recent years, become a massive parody of itself. What used to be a short, fun diversion the night before the All-Star Game has devolved into a three-hour orgy of excess. There's three rounds now, which ensures that by the end of the night the finalists will be too tired to lift their arms over their heads, let alone hit home runs. There's a million commercial breaks and the thing never seems to end at a reasonable hour.

Still, the Derby is the only baseball on tomorrow night. The only Derby I haven't watched all of in recent memory was the one in Pittsburgh, during which I attempted to sneak a giant banner with an internet-based phrase poking fun at a certain overblown ESPN personality that loves the Derby onto the cameras. My friends and I failed, went to the bar, and yep, watched the Derby. So instead of saying that the Derby is played out and boring, let's embrace the fact that we're going to watch it anyways. A full preview of what I'm expecting from each participant and what you might see during the broadcast is after the jump.

When it comes to managers, I'm a fairly generous guy that will give skippers a chance to prove themselves before burying them under an avalanche of invective. Generally, though, all managers fall into the typical baseball cliches that drive people like me (read: nerd bloggers) insane. Cecil Cooper's been on the job for nearly a year when you count his time as the interim guy last year, but he's finally pushed the buttons. When asked about Lance Berkman's bunt single on Saturday night, here's what Coop had to say:

"That's a good play," Cooper said of Berkman's decision to bunt with the third baseman playing him deep. "That's a baseball player's play. It's a nice job. We need baserunners. If you hit a ball out of a ballpark, I call them rally-killers when you get down like that. We need to keep a rally going, and that was a nice play to me."

Question: When you are down by four runs, what do you need? Answer: Four runs. Question: What does a two run home run get you that a bunt single doesn't? Answer: Two runs, and thus, two runs closer to tying the game up if you're down by four. But somehow, that home run kills the rally, while the bunt single kept it going. The Astros lost the game 5-1. Cecil Cooper is crazy.

Via the predictably incredulous Fire Joe Morgan.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

St. Louis Cardinals (29-21) at Los Angeles Dodgers (25-22) - 10:10 PM ET

The consensus this season had the St. Louis Cardinals to stink, and stink mightily. Wrong again, America. You want a reason for the renaissance of the Cardinals? Look no further than Ryan Ludwick. The outfielder has some Pujolsian splits this season (.336/.418/.733 going into Friday night), and has sprinkled in some big hits including a walk-off HR against Tampa Bay, and a two run HR to provide the margin of victory last night against the Dodgers (a game interrupted by rain in Los Angeles, if you can believe that one). Want another reason? Ryan Franklin taking over ably for the injured Jason Isringhausen is another reason St. Louis is near the top of the standings.

Lance Berkman's Big Puma moniker isn't exactly new -- it was started by Berkman, Lance Zierlein and John Gramato on a Houston-area radio show all the way back in 2006. Still, as Berkman is off to the hottest start of his career, it's probably time for the name to gain a new national audience. It is just that perfect.

How did it come about? People used to refer to Berkman as "Fat Elvis," but on the radio show Berkman insisted he was "... more like a puma so I'm not sure why people call me Fat Elvis." Big Puma was born.

Now Berkman has taken the next step toward national, and even international, moniker stardom: He is the recipient of a song dedicated to the Puma. That's pretty cool. Sure, the song sounds like a weird mix of corporate, Christian, and psychedelic rock -- or like if the Barenaked Ladies were even lamer -- but hey, how many of us are the impetus for songwriting? Very few. And no, that poem your emo kid friend wrote about you does not count.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing matchups

Houston Astros (25-20) vs. Chicago Cubs (27-17) - ESPN -7:05PM Est.

While some people are busy spending their time pondering whether or not Chipper Jones is going to be able to maintain that .400 batting average of his (here's a hint: he's not), Lance Berkman is looking to join Larry in the discussion.

Lance is currently in the midst of a 17-game hitting streak in which he's hitting .565--Can he hit .500 for the rest of the season? I say yes--with 8 home runs and 27 runs driven in. He's used that streak to raise his average on the season up to .399. In other words, he hit ball good. Make ball go far.

Of course, Lance won't be the only player in Minute Maid Park tonight who's swinging the magic wand.

One of the biggest surprises for me to this early point in the baseball season is the mild success of the Astros, who are sitting at 22-17 though almost a quarter of the season after being picked by many people to wallow at the bottom of the NL Central. That's an impressive start, but it's just a start. Well, unless you're Steve Campbell. Steve's ready to hand Ed Wade a key to the city for resurrecting the Astros.

Maybe Smith knew what he was doing with all that inside information after all. Wade is less than a fourth of the way into his first season on the job, and he already has done what many suspected was impossible.

[...]

Brad Lidge, Chad Qualls, Luke Scott, Troy Patton, Adam Everett and Chris Burke were just part of the price Wade paid to reshape a lifeless lump of the 89-defeat team he inherited. Wade traded five players for shortstop Miguel Tejada, three for closer Jose Valverde.

Trading eight players for a shortstop with maybe one or two good years left and a decent closer is a good thing all of the sudden? The Astros are off to a great start, but Lance Berkman's putting up numbers that only Barry Bonds has even dreamed of. Miguel Tejada's hitting like he did when we thought he was 28. Shawn Chacon is pitching like a reasonable starting pitcher. What are the odds of these things continuing? What are the odds of them happening two years down the road when the Astros still don't have those eight players Wade traded away? What's Wade going to do to address their barren minor league system? Shouldn't these questions be answered before saying a GM is a good hire?

People say this a lot, but baseball is often defined by failure. More often than not, a batter fails to get a hit and that's what the game revolves around. Somehow, Lance Berkman's been avoiding this key tenant of late. Before a fifth inning pop-out last night, he'd gotten a hit in eight consecutive at-bats, tying a team record that's only been matched twice in all of Astros' history.

Behind Berkman's hitting and walking (the Nationals walked him twice intentionally last night), the Astros pulled out their fifth straight win, clinched when Carlos Lee singled home Kaz Matsui in the bottom of the ninth. The win actually pulls them into third in the NL Central, ahead of the sliding Milwaukee Brewers, and two games above .500 in what was supposed to be an ugly year for the 'Stros.

So why are they playing so well? It's mostly due to the heart of their order. Berkman, Lee, and Miguel Tejada are all killing the ball right now. On the mound, Shawn Chacon and Brandon Backe are adding some depth to what was supposed to be a painfully thin pitching staff. It's hard to count on a hot start to last when guys like Chacon and Backe are helping carry it, but maybe Ed Wade's crazy "mortgage all of the future for 2008 and maybe 2009 if I'm lucky" strategy isn't as completely insane as we all thought it was. Actually, the Astros are probably just headed straight for the "Ed Wade Zone" this year: 82-85 wins and no playoff berth.