Tag: minor leagues

This would make me a Rays fan for the remainder of the season

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Worth watching baseball again: relief pitcher Jonny Venters continuing journey back to the big leagues, pitching for the Tampa Bay Rays’ Class-A Advanced Charlotte Stone Crabs

Jonny Venters is one of my favorite pitchers to watch, like ever.  Formerly a relief ace on the Braves, I enjoyed his ascent from AAA to the majors and watched him for the better part of three seasons, make hitters look absolutely foolish with a mega-power sinker thrown from the left hand and often at speeds in excess of 96 mph.

He was derailed when he blew out his elbow, requiring the dreaded Tommy John surgery that salvages careers, but effectively knocks guys out of action for at least a year.  To make matters worse, upon the return trail, something went horribly awry and he ended up blowing out his elbow again, requiring a second Tommy John surgery before he even made it back up to the majors.  So back under the knife he went, and another year lost to surgery and rehabilitation.

I actually watched Jonny Venters practice throwing again in the spring time of 2014, when I made a trip down to Orlando to watch some Spring Training baseball.  He was on a distant backfield of the Disney Wide World of Sports facility, practicing long toss with a catcher I couldn’t identify.  I was happy to see that he was back to performing baseball actions again, and had high hopes that the old Jonny Venters would be back to bolster the Braves’ bullpen.

But because life can sometimes be a harsh and cruel mistress, before the season even started, somehow Jonny Venters blew out his elbow a horrific third time.  Once again, he would need Tommy John surgery, and be knocked out of the third consecutive season.  To nobody’s surprise, by this point, the Braves had no choice but to release him, considering he was very much damaged goods, and unintentionally was a drain on payroll.

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Go G-Gobblers!

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Surprising nobody: the Gwinnett Braves announce finalists for the team renaming contest and they all suck:

  • Gwinnett Buttons
  • Gwinnett Big Mouths
  • Gwinnett Gobblers
  • Gwinnett Hush Puppies
  • Gwinnett Lambchops
  • Gwinnett Sweet Teas

I mean, it was a forgone conclusion that the new name was going to be a PC-friendly, vanilla, uncreative and probably determined regardless of votes, but c’mon, these are pretty particularly poor as far as options go.  Sure, passive-aggressive griefing options like Tax Burdens and classic no-brainers like the G-Spots weren’t going to get through, but surely some way better options must have fallen by the wayside in this shitty contest.

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The Gwinnett Barves

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

A little bit of backstory: the Atlanta Braves are one of the few organizations in baseball that owns the majority of their minor league affiliates.  It’s why all the teams they own are called “Braves;” the Danville Braves, Rome Braves, Mississippi Braves and Gwinnett Braves.  At one point, they stressed the importance of naming all their teams Braves, so that they could really reinforce brand awareness and strengthen their identity to all parts of the Southeast in which they resided in.

This was a stark difference to the vast majority of the rest of Minor League Baseball, who had team names that were often more whimsical and often identifiable to their specific towns/regions, like the Montgomery Biscuits, Modesto Nuts, Las Vegas 51s, Buffalo Bisons and Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp just to name a few.  It was almost a rite of passage for young players to work their way up the ranks, through teams with less than prestigious names, before they had the chances to hope to play for one of the 30 Major League Baseball franchises.

Personally, I’ve always felt the Braves were an organization of squares, to name all their minor league franchises Braves, in such a calculated and serious-business manner.  Like their 18-year old rookies in Danville might be able to close their eyes and imagine that they’re in a 35,000 attendance ballpark in Atlanta and suddenly translate playing like a major leaguer in their rinky-dink park that maybe 35 people are actually at.  Or that their fans will automatically love the Atlanta Braves solely because their favorite players in Jackson, Mississippi were ultimately traded to the White Sox or Diamondbacks.

Anyway, what prompted this post was this news that I saw that the Gwinnett Braves are taking suggestions for new names for them to use in starting in 2018.  The Atlanta Braves are finally opening up to the idea of naming one of their Jesus affiliates something other than “the Braves.”

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When inspiration hits like a baseball to the nuts

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

No, seriously: Tim Tebow accidentally hits a fan in the balls with an errant throw that only Tim Tebow could be capable of making

All through the day, I couldn’t really find anything I wanted to write about.  Perusing through usual local and national outlets, looking for anything that seemed interesting to write about, scanning through sports sites and pop-culture sites to see if anything sparked any inspiration, no dice.  As much as I hate to do so, it looked like it would be a day in which I wouldn’t have something to write about, as the goings in my life aren’t particularly fascinating currently and there’s little there to write about either.

And then a story about Tim Tebow accidentally nailing a guy in the nuts with a bad throw shows up, I make the not bad face and now I’ve got something to write about.  The internet giveth.

Honestly, the story itself is nothing home to write about, despite the layers of irony there is about Tim Tebow making a bad throw, despite it being in baseball and not football.  To nobody’s surprise, Tebow personally dissuaded the situation, by checking in on the guy whose nuts he rang, signed some stuff, probably said some prayers and bowed their heads, and everyone went home all smiles and happy.  Story over.  But that’s what Tim Tebow does with people, personally, engages them, is friendly to them, and everyone walks away better for the encounter.

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lol Braves: Ryan Howard, really?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SMH: Braves sign Ryan Howard to minor league deal

I can only imagine the things the talking heads said to themselves/one another to justify thinking that this was a fantastic idea.

“This guy has killed us for years.  He’s hit 52 home runs against us.  We should get him!”

“This guy has killed the Nats/Mets/Marlins throughout his career.  We should get him!”

“This guy is a former rookie of the year, MVP and a World Series winner.  We should get him!”

None of those are wrong statements, but they’re mostly applicable to the first half of his career, before a torn ACL pretty much destroyed his career after 2011.  The reality of the situation is that since that injury, he’s been a shell of his former self, batting .226 and hitting an average of 19 home runs a season, which isn’t terrible, but this is also a guy that once clubbed 58 in 2006 and 284 in his first six full seasons, regularly putting the fear of god into opposing pitchers and fans of other teams.

In all honesty, this really isn’t a bad signing.  It’s a minor league deal, which basically means that Ryan Howard is basically getting a set minor league salary while he’s playing in the minor leagues trying to prove that he’s still capable of playing baseball, and if he gets called up to the majors, he’ll get a pro-rated major league minimum salary, minus any incentives worked into the contract.  It’s a very low risk, high reward deal for the Braves, and if they didn’t pull the trigger, undoubtedly someone else would have.

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Maybe fourth time will be a charm

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I don’t pay nearly as much attention to baseball as I once did, despite that we’re living in kind of the era of the immediate, where tweets, alerts, push notifications and other means of instant communication exist to stay on top of things very easily if one really wanted to, like baseball news.  Often times, I miss out on Braves news much less any news around baseball, because I simply am not that deeply involved like I once did, and everything that happened in the baseball landscape was something I wanted to know.

However, among the things that I regularly Googled and checked on from time to time, was one of the pitchers that I really, really enjoyed watching and was a fan of: Jonny Venters.  Long story short, he was once an unhittable relief pitcher on the Braves, utilizing a left-handed power sinker from another planet, and even achieved All-Star status for his immense talent.  But the injury bug struck, and he underwent the dreaded Tommy John elbow surgery, and eventually he was released by the Braves.  Didn’t matter where he went, I knew that I was going to root for Jonny, and so I always kind of kept an ear to the ground even when he was signed by the Rays, fully knowing that it was going to be some time before he was cleared to pitch again.

Last summer, things looked really optimistic, and Jonny Venters made his way into the minor leagues to work his way back up.  Personally, I was stoked to see him taking the mound again, and I grew excited at the prospect of him getting back into game shape, and then getting called up by the Rays, who would unleash the power sinker from the left side onto the mostly unsuspecting American League.

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This is why MiLB > MLB

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

God I dislike the Phillies.  But damn if their Triple-A affiliates, the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, don’t have the most creative and socially active creative team in professional sports.  I not only have respect for their constantly moving and constantly producing creative, but I admittedly am a fan, even if they are a Phillies affiliate.  I have two Iron Pigs baseball caps; excluding promotional gate giveaways that I mostly collect and don’t wear, I can’t even say the same about the Atlanta Braves, for whom I only have a single baseball cap, that’s almost literally been worn to death and doesn’t quite fit right anymore either.

But anyway, I got an email from the Iron Pigs because I’m apparently on their mailing list because of the cap I purchased from them over the internet.  Usually I delete these emails instantaneously, and chide myself for not opening them, so I can go straight to the bottom and look for the unsubscribe button and then remind myself to unsubscribe the next time one comes in, to which the cycle repeats itself all over again.  However, the subject line was something that caught my attention and instantly piqued my interest: BACON VS. TACOS.

I like bacon.  I like tacos.  Never did I think that I’d ever have to pick a side between the two; after all, you can even combine them and get some good tacos with bacon out of them.  But apparently an ingenious promotion was birthed also involving the Fresno Grizzlies who have apparently re-branded themselves as the Fresno Tacos for some reason, but I am okay with that, because naming one’s self after food is always an entertaining idea in my opinion.

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