NL East Infection: The Craig Kimbrel Award for Having all the Awards
By Justin Klugh
This is where a lesser bloggist would apologize for being so sporadic and thoughtless in the past few weeks, but I counter that point with one of my own: When has this blog not been sporadic and thoughtless? If anything, you should be praising me for my consistency. Or at least for not being a plagiarist.
Atlanta Braves
I’ve heard good thing about this Kimbrel kid, and ignored them all. He’s so much worse than people think, namely if those people ignore his statistics, raw talent, and tool shed filled with baseball awards for being young and good.
Well, grab the shed key and push the lawn gnomes out of the way, because Craig Kimbrel is making room for some more hardware. No, no one has handed him a “Way to get us to the playoffs” trophy and then sarcastically clapped in his face. Braves fans would never do that. Not on a Saturday. There’s too much college football on TV.
The Players’ Choice Awards are the awards given out by the players. And that concludes the most useless sentence I’ve ever written. But I’m sure there is a twinge of emotion to eve be nominated for this one, as the respect of one’s peers is something that everyone seeks, regardless of their position or industry.
Both Craig Kimbrel and Freddie Freeman are up for the National League’s Outstanding Rookie category, but sadly, they cannot both win it. Therefore, it is traditional for them to fight to the death on a floating iceberg near the Arctic Circle, which will be broadcast on the jumbotron at Turner Field. Surely, both players are a testament to the Braves’ extremely talented and extremely young team that is certainly going to be a threat for years to come. So we can be thankful that soon, one of them will be floating him in the frigid waters near the tip of the planet.
New York Mets
Somebody, quick. Break into Jeff Francoeur’s house and shove this story in his face. No, he doesn’t play for the Mets anymore, but I distinctly remember him telling a room full of reporters, as tears streamed down his face, that Citizens Bank Park was a bandbox that was really very easy to play in and maybe that’s why the Phillies were so good. I’m paraphrasing. Or just making shit up. He said something like that, though, and I’d like someone to remind him that he did while they renovate Citi Field so that the Mets are able to hit home runs in it.
"A dramatic change will occur in right-center, which had measured 415 feet from home plate. The new depth is expected to be 390 feet — a 25-foot reduction. That should particularly benefit third baseman David Wright, whose natural power is to right-center.–Adam Rubin, ESPN New York"
Hey, when times are tough, reconstruct your home to be more suitable to your own personal needs. I always say. Remember when we did it at Citizens Bank? Ha, ha, what? I mean, that never happened and CBP is a perfectly normal-sized facility that no one ever hits home runs in.
The important part is that someone is shoving something in Jeff Francoeur’s face.
Florida Marlins
Washington Nationals
It’s all going according to plan in D.C., as you’ve probably expected after all of the team’s success. After years of cultivating farmhands and initiating the hole-filling process with coveted free agents, the Nationals have made that all-important leap to third place under the guidance of Davey Johnson, whom the The Washington Post agrees is the Greatest Sportsman in Human History.
Meranwhile, Washington brass is already overtly concerned about Bryce Harper, who took 33 entire at bats before hitting his first Arizona Fall League home run. An utter disgrace to the game, this raises all sorts of questions about the Nationals’ greatest thing ever: Is he healthy? Is he dying? Has his talent been sapped by a sorcerer? Is he a sorcerer? Do sorcerers still exist? These are the kind of issues that, in his dealings with them, make Davey Johnson such a fantastic leader.
And lastly, this appears to be the offseason during which we can’t keep ignoring the Nationals. Ignorant fans will need to see something before they think beyond “Well, the Nationals have been bad, so they will always be bad,” and, well, if the Nats sign Prince Fielder or Jose Reyes–as this guy suggests–then they will no longer be the malnourished prisoner rotting in the middle or bottom of the division.