There isn't much of a difference between this year and last, at least as far as the down months go. For some reason, I thought I was running out of ideas just this season, and last year I was effortlessly cranking posts out. Trying to reconcile the difference between the two, I went digging through the archives of this site. Around this time last year, I wrote a piece about the top-5 Mike LaCoss cards that were on eBay at the time. That made me feel better, both then and now. The period between the holidays and pitchers and catchers reporting is always going to be torture to the baseball nerd.
The scraps of winter league news aren't ever going to be of a meaningful sample size to do anything more than reinforce existing prejudices, either. Pedro Feliz sucking a basketball through a straw in a winter league doesn't anyone any favors. I might have to use some meager ad revenue to purchase a URL, but that's about the only ramification. It did bring to mind, though, just how off people -- professional media and fans alike -- can be about certain players. Pedro Feliz is an RBI guy; he has a little gold nameplate and everything. He drives in runs. Hey, my name is Pedro Feliz, and I drive in runs. Pedro Feliz is an RBI guy.
Problem is, he stinks. He gets more opportunities with runners on base than the rest of the team, converts them at a ridiculously low percentage, but still winds up with close to 100 RBI. Because he is forever coming close to that shiny three-digit number, he's an RBI guy. "It remains to be seen how the Giants would respond if they fail to re-sign Pedro Feliz. He's an RBI guy."
This also brings to mind the recent Warriors trade. Troy Murphy was a double-digit rebounder. A double-digit rebounder! How could the Warriors give up a double/double guy? Crazy! There go those Warriors again, always messing up...wait, did they just trade dead-eye shooter Mike Dunleavy too? My goodness, the Warriors just traded a great rebounder and a dead-eye shooter! Where is the offense going to come from now that Dunleavy isn't going to be draining open mid-range shots from the wing? Where are the rebounds now that elbow-throwing ogre Troy Murphy isn't muscling down the boards? If you don't follow the NBA, just know that those descriptions are akin to bemoaning a loss of triples with Steve Finley not on the roster.
There are just players who fall in some weird miscategorization vortex. Kirk Rueter knew how to win...until he didn't. Felix Rodriguez in his prime was great, but you couldn't leave him in to face lefties. Consider this an open thread to celebrate the miscategorized and mislabeled throughout sports.