Link Roundup
Dave · July 14, 2009 at 9:22 am · Filed Under Mariners
Mike Salk, of the Brock and Salk show on ESPN710, has started collecting a bunch of relevant baseball links from around the web every morning, and posting them on his blog. If you’re looking for one stop shopping in a recap of recent Mariner tidbits, he’s doing the legwork for you. Brock and Salk is easily the best thing going in Seattle sports radio right now, so support them by checking out their work too.
Also, I’ll be on the air with Brock and Salk at 2 pm to defend my Bedard/Washburn for Hardy suggestion. Salk thinks I’m crazy, just like the rest of you. I’ll do my best to convince him that I’m not totally insane. Should be fun.
Thanks for the link to that blog. And thanks for your work on the JJ Hardy post. Not sure you hear that enough.
Dave, you are right about Brock and Salk. Living away from the PNW, I listen to Seattle sports radio on the net at work. I utterly gave up on KJR a some months back. I swear, I find it astounding that the KJR guys who presumably go to M’s games and/or watch them on TV nearly every day could know so little about the M’s or baseball.
Salk seems interested in baseball more than any other sport. Moreover, he actually desires to learn about new methods of understanding and evaluation because learning about baseball makes it more fun and enjoyable. That’s why I enjoy listening to him. Even Brock, the ex-NFL QB, comes across as less-jockish than many other non-athlete sports radio hosts.
Hmmm…I’m pretty sure calling Brock and Salk the best thing going in Seattle sports radio is much more of a reflection on how bad the Seattle sports radio scene sucks as compared to their true talent.
Brock and Salk do good work. I’ve been extremely impressed with both of them in my dealings with them on and off the air. They’re smart, well read guys with a desire to understand the subjects they’re talking about. They are way, way better than your typical sports radio hosts.
I completely agree. I find myself disagreeing with Brock on most of what he has to say – especially concerning baseball (he thinks Rob Johnson is the greatest thing since sliced bread) but it works with the contrasting style of Salk to reign him in or just flat out mock him.
Very entertaining show. I’m no fan of the rest of the line-up (the national guy in the morning is unlistenable) but it’s nice to hear some intelligent baseball commentary over the air.
Wait, you are talking about the most hyped prep-football prospect in the state history, had a rather disappointing college career in UW, and became a journey-man NFL QB languishing in the bench for a while, and retired into real estate. You are telling me he knows baseball? That tells me you don’t need to be a genious to be a sports radio talk show host.
Irony strikes.
I don’t think your idea is crazy. I quite like it.
Better than The Groz?
I wonder if when Brock and Salk say that USS Mariner is required reading everyday they meant it literally, as in their job mandates that they do so.
I can’t say that I’ve listened a lot (mostly around Dave’s appearances, plus whatever I hear pre- or post-game until they start taking callers and I snap the radio off to pre-emptively save my sanity). But based on that, it’s a pretty good show. Unlike virtually everyone else in sports talk radio (not just in Seattle, but in every market where I’ve listened) Salk isn’t a blowhard with inflexible (and mostly incorrect) opinions. Brock strength isn’t baseball knowledge, true, but he actually admits that (again, something very rare in sports talk radio, or talk radio in general) and that’s actually incredibly valuable if it provides an opportunity for the listening masses to learn along with him. (I do wish they’d embrace that more, with little “Brock learns about X” sessions — why is ERA a bad stat for evaluating pitchers, say, or why run prevention is as valuable as run creation, etc — but that might be a little hard on Brock.)
As far as Dave’s JJ Hardy idea goes — I think it might be reasonable, but it’s not the bargaining position I’d start from. It might be where I arrive in the end, but I think I’d start with just one of the two pitchers plus some AAA fodder. Granted, most of the surplus talent in Tacoma is not interesting to a team with the newly-minted Home Run Derby champ holding down 1B, but perhaps Zduriencik’s three-way-deal talents could come into play once again.
At least you guys have something resembling radio talent – I am in one of the biggest markets here in Atlanta and get stuck with either A) Christopher Rude and Perry Laurentino a.k.a “The Rude Awakening” or B) Mayhem in the AM with “Steak” Shapiro, Nick Cellini, and Chris Dimino. Man, this town’s radio selections clearly suck – and I would take the Stews over them. God bless the internet and decent blog reads.
Not living in Seattle anymore, and not spending a lot of time listening to sports radio either, I never would have thought to look at a blog of a sports radio show for anything particularly interesting. Imagine my surprise when I went through their last few weeks’ worth of posts and found them to be insightful and interesting.
Kudos to these guys.
Salk links to Larry Stone’s Ichiro article, but I think I like Larry’s blog post even better.
Salk is annoying…the other day he wouldn’t shut up about Jr.’s batting average…I thought he read USS Mariner every day?
You know that a radio show is bad when it takes the name of Ravishing Rick Rude’s signature move.
Interesting. Today he links to Fangraphs for evidence that the M’s have the second-best team defense in the league (as opposed to a recent columnist who claims they’re one of the worst, based on Fielding % of course).
Just reading the blog, he seems like one of the more open-minded sports talk hosts I’ve ever encountered, but I’ve never actually listened to the show.
Do you mean in regards to the Hardy trade, or just in general? 😉
I wish I could listen (stupid work) — should be a good one. It would be fun to see if you could change my opinion.
Listening to Keith Law with Brock and Salk, Law just stated that he doubts the Brewers would trade Hardy for Bedard and Washburn. Brock and Salk sounded flabbergasted. I’m sure they wanted ammunition for their coming convesation with Dave, but it backfired…
I know Dave does a lot with Fangraphs. Is there a reason why you can select OF in the defensive category (which I assume is a combination of the three OF positions), but you cannot do the same for IF?
Nice to see that our OF is so much better than everyone elses…
Brock Huard is an awesome guy, and I often side with Salk, but honestly I find the show annoying and repetitive (same argument will go on for two hours). Whereas Elise Woodward on KJR will have a more put together, flowing segment with just as much, if not more intelligent debate. (She’s on at the same time. The KJR guys who are on other times will have moronic stances and terrible radio demeanor.)
Fangraphs is a work in (rapid) progress; it’s possible nobody thought of that (or nobody has asked for it, so they thought of it but made it a low priority). Use the Site Feedback section of their (mostly, and unfortunately, overlooked) forums to suggest it.
Intelligent debate? On KJR? Man, that’s like…. a sign of the apocalypse or something. Dogs and cats, living together!
Can’t wait to hear what you have to say on the air Dave. I absolutely second your sentiment that Brock and Salk are the best sports talk personalities in Seattle. I have been impressed, especially with Salk, in that they don’t just spout cliches they’ve been fed about sports. I know Salk has made several intelligent points that no one on KJR would touch with a 10 foot pole. Love the show, love hearing you on the air Dave.
Dave time!
I think Salk is a very intelligent guy, I just am put off by his East Coastiness. When you aren’t on the radio, he comes off like a Colin Cowherd blowhard. I think he likes to hear himself talk. But on the other hand, anything is better than KJR.
I am with you on Elise at KJR, she should host a more prominent show. Woodward rocks!!
Dave didn’t seem as gung ho about the JJ Hardy trade on the radio as he did in his post yesterday.
He doubted they would trade Hardy at all …
And the first caller thinks that both Law & Dave are wrong, and that they should be buyers, because one big bat in the line-up would skew the runs-scored numbers.
Maybe Dave’s not so gung ho because that comment thread sucked the life out of him.
On one hand, I’m sure radio talk shows want people to call in and disagree. It fills air time and possibly gets other people to call in as well.
On the other hand, I turned off the radio as soon as Dave’s segment was done as I really don’t want to hear anything that the people calling into a sports radio talk show have to say.
He said the Brewers probably wouldn’t trade 850 at-bats by J.J. Hardy for 29 starts between Bedard and Washburn. After he talked about position players being more valuable than pitchers, that made it sound like a good argument for the Brewers not trading J.J. Hardy, but Dave did the math and it makes them about 1 win better.
I know! It’s unnerving. You can put your mind at ease by trying to listen to all the other hosts on KJR though.
And what does this guy think that the M’s have to offer to get a big bat? A team in contention isn’t going to give up a big bat for Bedard or Washburn (or both) and I don’t see that the M’s have the prospects available to get a big bat from a team that’s selling.
I agree with Keith Law on both counts: the Brewers aren’t likely to be willing to trade Hardy and the M’s should look to be sellers rather than buyers this year. It’s been fun to watch the team again this year but there are still too many holes that need to be filled to be legit contenders.
Why do people continue to insist on this false dichotomy of “selling” or “buying”?
Because it’s a lot simpler than talking about “the marginal impact of a transaction on team wins and losses, reduced to present value.”
Which makes me wonder: What’s the discount rate on wins in MLB? Is a win next year worth 5% less than a win this year? 10%? 0%?
Obviously, this is affected by a team’s relative position in the standings. Teams with better records have a lower (possibly negative) discount rate than teams that are out of the pennant race this year. But it would be interesting to try and pry apart what the discount rate(s) is/are for various teams.
Speaking of Stone’s blog (someone up there was), he has a great piece on Ichiro visiting George Sisler’s grave. If there’s one thing that I think links Griffey and Ichiro and makes their friendship work, it’s that both understand that they stand in the midst of the entire history of the game and appreciate those who paved the way for them.
Every time you think you have a handle on it, another side of Ichiro’s awesomeness is revealed. The guy is like the origami of awesome.
And how great would it have been to be on that private jet flight with a giddy Felix and his family, a bantering Ichiro and Griffey, Wakamatsu, and a couple of bemused Texas Rangers?
What about the infamous Reid Brignac…is it worth it to give up some arms to aquire him.
By arms i’m reffering to the likes of Mark Lowe or Sean White packaged with OF Greg Halmaan and someone like Juan Ramirez, Nathan Adcock or Michael Pineda.
We have a few arms with some promise, but is it too much to give up to get something we need not just for now but also for the future? Right now i have to think that is something the Rays are looking for is live arms with promise.
I think any conversation with the Rays probably begins with Aardsma.
Dave –
Is there a reason why both times i’ve heard you call in and talk to Brock and Salk, you always thank Mike and not Brock. Is there a reason? Both times, the two of them have brought attention to it, so I was just curious.
Is there going to be an All Star Game open thread?
Profmac –
Probably because Salk is the only one who says a thing while Dave is on most times.
Then I called in to talk about that rediculous Pierre proposal awhile back, and confused poor Brock so bad he thought I was Dave… That probably didn’t help 😉
I think it’s because Salk calls Dave.
Mitch in the morning is still the best sports show in seattle, but i understand why some don’t enjoy some of the stuff he does. Talkin baseball with geoff baker on wednesday mornings is far and away the best segment of radio anywhere during the week. However, Brock and Salk and Callabro’s show are better than anything else on KJR and very good.
[wrong thread]