Levity/Around the Horn
Of all the regulars at the superb Baseball Prospectus website, Jim Baker is usually my least favorite. Maybe it's that his name is homonymic (if that's a word) with the whoremongering TV preacher of '80s yore; more likely it's that for the most part, he's not nearly as clever or funny as he seems to think he is. Reading his latest piece tonight at the gym, however, I am obliged to render propers, because this had me snort-laughing:

Valentine's Day counterbalance

The best thing I can say about Valentine's Day is that it's over. The second-best thing is that all that candy is now half-price. If you feel self-conscious about eating chocolate out of a big heart that you bought for yourself, just dump the contents into a manly aluminum lunch pail and toss the box away.

I don't care what anybody says to the contrary, though--Valentine's Day is for women. How do we prove that theory? Try an experiment. Let's take twenty couples. For half of them, we'll have the men forget Valentine's Day. For the other half, we'll have the women blow it off. Which "forgotten" control group will be more upset, do you think: the men or the women?

Right--we don't even have to file for the funding necessary to make that experiment happen. We already know what the results will be and what they will prove: It's a woman's holiday. Not that I'm complaining about that, mind you. Women deserve a holiday all their own. I'm wondering, though, how about a man's holiday for balance? Some might say that every day is a holiday for men because we've got it so good. Spare me that line of crap! I'm talking about a genuine, no-doubt-about-it, for-men-only holiday. I was thinking about this as I watched a man bring flowers to his wife yesterday. What about a holiday where men get six packs of beer delivered to where they work. Just to set it apart from an ordinary six-pack, it could even have a Mylar balloon tied to one of the bottles with a picture of a drunken frog vomiting into a dumpster and saying something like, "It tasted better on the way down." You know, something that men would think was funny.

If you're curious, Valentine's Day was indeed observed in AIS World Headquarters, but in a rather pro forma way: Annie got flowers, I got a card, she went to pottery as usual for a Monday night, and that was pretty much it. I'd like to say that every day is V-Day here, but, you know, I'm trying to keep it real...

Also was skimming ESPN's Spring Training primer for the NL and got to wishing I was the GM of the Colorado Rockies. I'd exploit the home-field advantage to the hilt, paying top dollar for elite free agent hitters and home-growing all my pitchers, with the possible exception of second-tier relievers (I think Steve Reed actually was a Rockie for a long time). This strikes me, if nobody else, as interesting, since it runs counter to my general theory of how to build baseball rosters: develop hitters, who tend to make a more immediate impact after reaching the majors, and import your top-tier pitchers as free agents because they're more likely out of the age where they're most likely to get injured, and have probably learned their craft. (For the Phils, for instance, this would have meant trading Brett Myers this past winter, if not sooner, and definitely Cole Hamels during the 2003-2004 off-season... before he started his run of injuries and idiocy, I should note.)

(And yes, the BP crew have made a similar argument about the Rockies in the past. So what? Good artists borrow, great artists steal...)

Otherwise, does it strike anybody else as odd that you can write the same thing about the Cincinnati Reds every single friggin' year? Lots of talented outfielders, no pitching, Griffey's gotta stay healthy. I've liked the Reds for 15 years now, despite Nazi apologist Marge Schott's long association with the team (she's now dead, of course). But I'd find it ironic and a bit sad if they chose 2005 as the year to make the charge I usually predict for them around this time, as they parted ways with career-long Red shortstop and Cincy native Barry Larkin this winter. A bunch of teams wanted Barry to suit up for them, including the defending champion Red Sox, but he just didn't want to put on another uni and chose to retire. (Ironically, he's now working for the Washington Nationals, albeit for the ex-Reds GM Jim Bowden.) I had the chance to work with Larkin covering the 1997 World Series for nbc.com, and thought he was a great guy--fun, smart, very down to earth. Though he did mock my attachment to the Phillies.

Finally, I've hated the Milwaukee Brewers for so many years that it seems second nature. But between Bud Selig's sale of the team, their very strong minor league system, and the canny trades they made this winter, bringing in slugging OF Carlos Lee and potential ace Jose Capellan for mediocrities Danny Kolb (now the Braves closer) and Fast Guy Scott Posednik (whom I was terrified Ed Wade would snatch up--and he did try), I have to admire how the Brewers are building. It's a nice park, too--I stopped there for lunch one miserable day in November 2003, while on a business trip to Milwaukee. And how can you not love the sausage race? I hereby declare the Brewers my new Reds, at least until Larkin rejoins the organization. Which he will.