Posts Tagged ‘All Star’

Let’s call it Wednesday

Posted: July 8, 2015 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball
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The Major League baseball All-Star teams where announced this week. You can complain about the starters all you want, but it’s a fan vote and until they change it there’s nothing you can do about it. If you’ve listened to the Sports Time Radio podcast you know that Mr. Fantasy can’t stand the fan voting.

I thought the American League reserves were close to what I thought they would be with the exception of a couple of players. I thought that Mookie Betts of the Boston Red Sox would be the choice for that team, but they went with Brock Holt. While Betts has better stats and is a full time starter I understand why they choose Holt. Holt has played every position except for pitcher or catcher and since the game “counts” a manager can use that kind of flexibility on his bench. The big surprise to me was the fact that Alex Rodriquez (A-Rod) wasn’t named to the team or even in the final 5 voting. Is there anyone who isn’t surprised by the kind of numbers A-Rod has out up. A-Rod has played in 78 games, he’s hitting .280 with 16 home runs and 47 RBI’s. His OPS Is .892 with an Slugging Percentage of .505 and an On Base Percentage of .387. I can’t even begin to tell you how odd it is that I’m actually writing that A-Rod may have been snubbed as an All-Star this season. Is there a chance that after all of the trouble baseball has had with A-Rod that he was more or less kept off the All-Star team. A-Rod’s teammates  Dellin Betances and  Mark Teixeira were selected as reserves and Brett Gardner is on the Final 5 ballot. You could make a case for Xander Bogaerts of the Red Sox being left off the team, but he has a chance to make the team as he is in the Final 5 vote as well. Besides Gardner and Bogaerts, the other 3 players on the Final 5 ballot are Yoenis Cespedes of the Detroit Tigers, Brian Dozier of the Minnesota Twins and Mike Moustakas of the Kansas City Royals. Who do you like out of those 5?

In the National League the Final 5 ballot looks like this. Johnny Cueto of the Cincinnati Reds, Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Jeurys Familia of the New York Mets, Carlos Martinez of the St. Louis Cardinals and  Troy Tulowitzki of the Colorado Rockies. While only 1 of the players will make the N.L. team you could make a case that 4 of them should already be on the team. I’ve heard a lot of people om television complaining that Kershaw wasn’t selected. Kershaw is 5-6 with and ERA of 3.08 and while those are good numbers they’re not as good as the other 2 starters who are on the Final 5 ballot against him. Cueto is 6-5 with a 2.61 ERA and Martinez is 9-3 with an ERA of 2.70. Why the big outrage over Kershaw when Cueto and Martinez have better numbers and no one is complaining that they weren’t named to the team. Looking at the National League team far and away the biggest snub is Tulowitzki. Tulowitzki leads all National League shortstops with a .320 batting average. He’s 4th in home runs with 9, 2nd in RBI’s with 45 and has played in 75 games this season. Jhonny Peralta of the St. Louis Cardinals won the fan vote and Brandon Crawford of the San Francisco Giants was added to the team as a reserve and I think both players belong on the team, but you can’t tell me that Tulowitzki doesn’t. There’s your 5 final ballot National League guys. Who are you voting for?

Who’s the top free agent left on the market in the NBA? Actually it would be LeBron James. James is very busy playing general manager for the Cleveland Cavaliers making sure they sign the players he wants them to sign. Case in point the Cavaliers just signed 32-year-old Williams to a 2-year, $4.3-million contract. Williams played 27 games for the Charlotte Hornets last season. Williams averaged 17.2 points per game and 6 assists per game. Williams did play a little over 30 minutes per game, but don’t expect that out of him for the Cavaliers next season. Tristan Thompson is still trying to work out a deal to return to Cleveland and it’s being reported that James won’t resign with Cleveland until they come to an agreement with Thompson. It had been reported that Cleveland reached an $80 million extension contract deal with Thompson on the first day of free agency, however, the deal fell apart and there has been no update regarding the contract discussions since. There is no other team in the NBA that is going to give Thompson this kind of money; so expect him to resign with the Cavaliers eventually. Don’t forget that Cleveland has already signed Kevin Love to a $110 million contract extension. Additionally, the Cavaliers resigned guard/forward Iman Shumpert for $40 million. When the franchise re-signs James and Thompson as widely expected, Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert will be facing a massive luxury tax bill. Don’t forget that J.R. Smith and Matthew Dellavedova are also free agents, but James hasn’t expressed any interest in resigning either player yet. While James has found it very easy to spend owner Dan Gilbert’s money this off season have the moves Cleveland has made moved them any closer to winning an NBA title.

The NBA Champion Golden State Warriors told David Lee and his agent that they would do what they could to trade him. There was even some talk that Golden State would package their 1st round draft pick with Lee in a deal, but that didn’t happen. Yesterday Golden State traded Lee to the Boston Celtics for veteran swingman Gerald Wallace. Lee lost playing time when the Warriors opted to go with smaller lineups that featured more 3-point threats. Lee averaged 7.9 points and 5.2 rebounds in 18.4 minutes last season, his lowest averages since his rookie season. In the 2013-14 season, Lee averaged 18.2 points and 9.3 rebounds while playing 33.2 minutes per game, but Warriors head coach Steve Kerr decided to give the bulk of Lee’s playing time to Draymond Green, who averaged career highs in points (11.7), rebounds (8.2) and assists (3.7) during the Warriors’ title run. Wallace played in 32 games for the Celtics last season. He averaged 1.1 points per game and 1.8 rebounds per game. Wallace hasn’t averaged double digit in points since 2011-12 season when he split time between the New Jersey now Brooklyn Nets and the Portland Trailblazers. Wallace has 1 year left on his contract and will make 10.105.855 for the 2015-16 season. It seems like Boston got the better end of this deal, but Lee didn’t fit into Golden State’s system; so it was better for them to deal him even if they didn’t receive fair market value.

You can listen to the Sports Time Radio podcast on BlogTalkRadio.com

You can also follow me on Twitter @Burketime

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Let’s call it Wednesday? 7/16/14

Posted: July 16, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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So this may be the slowest sports week of the year. Major League Baseball is on their All-Star break. Most of the big name free agents in the National Basketball Association have signed with teams. National Football League training camps don’t open until next week for most teams. The National Hockey League gets pushed to the side unless they’re actually playing games. Even the World Cup has ended; oh what to do.

If you’ve been following NBA free agents and where they ended up signing, did you notice that the Los Angeles Clippers didn’t sign any players? Could that be because Donald Sterling still owns the team? This is going to be the case right into the regular season unless something big happens. Even though Sterling was offered a unbelievable $2 billion dollars for the Clippers I don’t think he wants to sell the team and will do everything he can legally to hang on to them. While I don’t side with Sterling or the comments that he made he is allowed due process like any other American is and we have to deal with this. I don’t know why he didn’t take that offer and run; since it was way over what the team is worth, but he didn’t. It looks like his family would like him to take that offer, but that might end up being decided in court as well. As it looks, this will drag out into the NBA regular season and how will this affect the Clippers? Would you go to a Clippers game if Sterling still owns the team? Why would Sterling hang on to this team if attendance drops and the Clippers start to lose money. Who knows when this will wrap up as it looks like Sterling is going to go through every and any legal channel he can find to some how try to hang onto the Clippers. It’s a tough spot for the NBA and new commissioner Adam Silver to be in to start the season.

Did you watch the MLB All-Star game last night? I think the MLB All-Star game is far and away the closest to an actually game than any of the other sports. The American League defeated the National League 5-3. Max Scherzer was awarded the win while Pat Neshek took the loss. Glen Perkins of the hosting team the Minnesota Twins got the save for the American League. Mike Trout won the Most Valuable Player award. Trout was 2 for 3 with a triple and 2 RBI’s in the game. While Trout was a good of choice as any, weren’t you secretly rooting for Derek Jeter to win the MVP in his last All-Star game? I can honestly say that I was and Jeter did enough to win the award, but Trout did a little more. Jeter went 2 for 2; leading off the bottom of the 1st with a double and scored the 1st run for the American League. Maybe it would’ve been overkill had they given Jeter the MVP award, but hey Mariano Rivera won it last season pitching just one inning. Jeter got his moment to say goodbye after 6 innings as Alexei Ramirez came out to replace Jeter after the American League had taken the field. It was a nice moment for the 14 time All-Star as Jeter waved to the fans and tipped his cap. Jeter waved multiple times at the National League dugout and I think he hugged everyone in the American League dugout.

The British Open starts tomorrow (Thursday) or as it’s just being called now The Open. ESPN has the coverage and you know they have to be jumping up and down that Tiger Woods has decided to play. While I think it would be a bit of a surprise if Woods ended up winning this tournament, but it would be a great scenario if it happened. Woods isn’t that far removed from being injured and you have to wonder if he’s 100% healthy. I’m sure Woods is most people’s pick to win this weekend, but there are some other golfers to watch. Lee Westwood should’ve won The Open last year at Muirfield and he may bounce back and win this year. How about Bubba Watson? He can play big in big tournaments or he could go out and double bogey the front nine, but he’s fun to watch. Graeme McDowell may surprise some people this week. He’s from Northern Ireland and should be familiar with the course; so don’t be surprised to see his name high on the leaderboard though the weekend. So there are a couple of other names other than Tiger Woods to look out for over the weekend for you.

You can find Sports Time Radio on BlogTalk Radio and you can find me on Twitter @Burketime.

How was your Week? 1/25/14

Posted: January 25, 2014 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, sports, Uncategorized
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So it turned out to be the New York Yankees who signed Masahiro Tanaka. It took a seven year contract for $155 million to get the deal finalized. Then of course there’s the $20 million posting fee that the Yankees now have to pay to Tanaka’s Japanese league team the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. It had been reported that Tanaka had narrowed his choices to the Yankees or the Chicago Cubs. There was actually a report that another team had offered Tanaka more money than the Yankees did but they never said if that team was the Cubs. A lot of scouts have been saying that Tanaka is a #2 rotation type of pitcher but the Yankees paid an awful lot of money for a guy to be a #2 starter. Of course we won’t know anything until the regular season starts and we see how Tanaka matches up against major league hitters. After the Tanaka signing it was being reported that Matt Garza had signed a four year, $52 million dollar deal with the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers came out and said they hadn’t signed Garza and he needed to pass a physical before they could agree on a deal. We’ll see if the Brewers end up with Garza or if it turns into a Grant Balfour type of situation. Balfour by the way agreed this week to a two year deal with the Tampa Bay Rays for $12 million dollars. Now we start to look and see where pitchers like Ervin Santana and Ubaldo Jimenez end up signing as we get closer to the start of spring training.

The NBA announced the starters for the All Star game. The Eastern conference starters are LeBron James and Dwayne Wade of the Miami Heat. Paul George of the Indiana Pacers. Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks and Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Western conference starters are Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers. Kevin Love of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Stephen Curry of the Golden State warriors and Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. This is the fan voting and these are the players voted to start by the fans. Bryant is injured and probably won’t play; so he’ll be replaced as a starter. You also have to wonder if wade will be ready to go by the All Star game as he has missed the last four Heat games with a knee injury. With every All Star game where the starters are selected by fan voting there was some complaints about the starters. For me I think the biggest omission from the starting line up is LaMarcus Aldridge of the Portland Trailblazers. While I’m sure Aldridge will make the All Star team it would’ve been nice to see him get the fans votes to start the game. Aldridge is an M.V.P. candidate and the Trailblazers are 32 – 11; two games behind the Thunder in the Northwest division. I’m sure you have your own snubs. Who do you think should start the All Star game?

It’s the NFL’s week off before the Super Bowl and this season they’re playing the Pro Bowl on the week off. They had a draft to pick the teams and I tried to watch it and just couldn’t. It’s an idea they stole from the NHL where two captains pick the teams. In this case it was Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders picking the Pro Bowl teams. While the NHL has stream lined their draft and it runs quickly and smoothly the NFL’s was a lot of fluff and way, way too much time between draft picks. I hope the NFL noticed the issues with this set up and can get it corrected by the time they do this next season. I doubt it will make any difference at all in the Pro Bowl itself as the game isn’t taken seriously by the players. Oddly the Pro Bowl still does very good ratings. While I’ll flip over to the game from time to time, but can never watch the entire game. Do you watch the Pro Bowl?

So how was your week?

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime

How was your Week? (7/13/13)

Posted: July 13, 2013 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, football, hockey, sports, Uncategorized
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After a week off to announce the Sports Time Radio All Stars, we’re back.

I’m a little disappointed that baseball hasn’t gotten more attention on the highlight shows. For whatever reason there seems to be a lot of NBA talk, even though Dwight Howard signed a week ago with the Houston Rockets. While I enjoy the NBA I don’t need to see more highlights from your summer league games than I do from an actual baseball that counts in the standings. I’ll take most of the blame for this as I don’t have the MLB network on my cable package. I guess if I want my baseball highlights I’ll have to breakdown and upgrade my cable package but like almost everyone else out their I’m not looking forward to spending the extra money.

Did you vote for the last spot on the All Star team? I always vote once and I cast my vote for Joaquin Benoit (Detroit Tigers) in the American League and Yasiel Puig (Los Angles Dodgers) in the National League. Out of the ten (10) guys that where on the ballot these where the two (2) players I wanted to see. Of course I didn’t get my wish as Steve Delabar (Toronto Blue Jays) & Freddie Freeman (Atlanta Braves) won the fan voting. The Toronto fans and the Atlanta fans teamed up to vote for each others players and I know there was some issue with this. Dan the Man pointed out on the show that the San Francisco Giants had a team they partnered with, but right now I’m drawing a blank on who that team was. It was a promotion to get you to vote for each others players. This isn’t a big an issue to me as it is to some experts; it’s the All Star game and you’re allowed to vote for whoever on the ballot you want to vote for.

Ilya Kovalchuk walked away from the NHL and a contract that would’ve paid him $77 million. Kovalchuk is from Russia and more or less just wanted to go home. He made $23 million on the contract before leaving and I’m guessing will play in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) next season. A lot of people have called Kovalchuk out for doing this but I don’t see an issue with this. If Kovalchuk wanted to go home and play hockey he should be allowed to be. The New Jersey Devils don’t have to pay off the contract and I don’t believe it will count against their salary cap. While the Devils have to replace Kovalchuk I think they would rather replace him than deal with an unhappy player.

Believe it or not NFL training camps are getting ready to open. I thought I heard the New Orleans Saints open training camp first on July 18th. These aren’t your father’s NFL training camps. With the new collective bargaining agreement teams can still have doubles; two (2) practices in the same day, but their only allowed to wear pads for one (1) of these practices. While I’m sure these practices are very, very tough I’d like to know how they compare to the older training camps? “Are you ready for some Football”

New Era Summer Styles

Posted: June 27, 2013 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, basketball, sports, Uncategorized
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I ran over to New Era to find a pic of the All Star Hats that are supposed to be worn during the Home Run Derby to tweet to Big Jack. It’s Woven and 100% polyester. What really drew me to it was the colors. It reminded me of the old school Mets colors. I’m diggin’ this hat so much. I think I’m going to pick up a National League cap 7 5/8. It’s $35 but since I am an “insider,” it’s $28. One thing I know New Era makes the best caps and they are the only ones I will wear. As I was searching the site I came across several other styles out for the summer.

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The Hardwood Classics Camo were the first caps to grab my eye. They are woven with 70% wool & 30% cotton. The bill is in camouflage and the logo is a classic version. I like the classic logos but not a big fan of the camo only on the bill. Which leads us a to a great camo hat.

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This style is called YOTS. These hats make it difficult to chose between the All Star caps. I love classic logos. These are 70% wool and 30% polyurethane, woven. I really like the all camo but the black and white draws me. The Diamondbacks cap is just cool and how can you not like the Braves Old School logo.

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Youth two tone is woven, 20% wool, 80% polyester and is for sizes, 6 3/8 & 6 3/4. They are a cool for for the kids. If I had kids, I would definitely pick one up and hopefully to plant the seed of college.

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The MLB Splatted is woven, 30% polyester and 70% wool. I’m not super in love with this style. I do love the classic logos. The splatted bill looks great with some hats and not so great with other teams. I’m not saying I wouldn’t wear it, of course unless it was a White Sox cap. It has a low priority on my list but hey if say someone somewhere were to give one as a gift. I’d definitely wear it. Hey it’s worth a try.

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4th of July Stars & Stripes fitted hats are 100% polyester woven. I can only assume that these caps will be worn by all teams playing on the 4th of July. Many stadiums put on fantastic firework shows, so I can imagine it being a great day to go to a ball game.

If your wondering about New Era’s other styles, you’re going to have to go to their site. I only wear 59Fifty Fitted Cap, so I’m only going to talk about them. Hopefully the Dodgers get out of last place and Mr Fantasy buys me a new 59Fifty 75/8 fitted cap.

Dan the Man
@mantime8