Trevor Hoffman: "You're (Dirk) interesting to talk to. You're definitely deeper than your average guy"

"Thanks, I think."

Dirk Hayhurst is deeper than the average guy. He thinks a lot. Maybe he thinks too much to be a successful major league pitcher. Bruce Walton told us that a pitcher needs to have a short memory.

Lucky for us, being deeper than average helps make him a great writer.

Hugo, in his review of Bullpen Gospels, said that it "is hilarious, touching, unflinching in its honesty, and unapologetic in its basic decency." This one is all that again, plus it has the story of meeting, at the start of the book, and marrying, at the end of the book, Bonnie, which gives the book an added dimension that the other didn't have. It gives him someone on his side.

His family? It's still a mess and they never seemed to be on his side. His grandma calls Bonnie a whore the first time they meet. His dad tells him that he is making a big mistake when Dirk tells him that he and Bonnie are getting married. His mom? There is some serious passive aggressive stuff going on between Dirk and his mom. I'm not always 100% sure which one is in the wrong. He seems to take everything she says in the worst possible way, and she seems oblivious to how hurtful some of the things she says are.

With some of the things she says, well, it is easy to see why he doesn't like it. Perhaps the funniest bit in the book is the conversation he and his mom have when she phones him, waking him up, to say how proud she was to have seen him on ESPN SportsCenter's highlights. The highlight? He gave up a big home run to Manny Ramirez. She claims not to understand why he's not thrilled to be on national TV. It is just hilarious, a proud mom, excited that she saw her son on TV, and a son that wishes he could just curl up and die.

Dirk is incredibly introspective in the book, you find out what he is feeling about everything. You can't help but be very happy for him when he gets the word that he is being called up to the majors. It is just a great moment.

Then when things don't go well for him with the Padres (and it really doesn't go well, he had an ERA of 9.72 in 10 appearances) the introspection turns to depression. I'll admit I found this part of the book hard to read. Not that it was a bad read. I mean we all have self doubt. We all have times when things go badly. Fortunately, most of us don't get to see our worst moments played in slow motion on national TV. But reading about someone else's worst moments and self pity is something I find tough to do. I guess I have grown to expect my heroes to suck it up, to hide that stuff.

That's me, I know. And Dirk's just being honest. That's why we like his writing so much. He's so honest. During this part he is very painfully honest.

Dirk is never afraid to show himself in a poor light. In the worst of his self pity, over how bad things are going for him in the majors, he describes a scene with Bonnie where his behavior is almost unforgivable, but she forgave him so we should too. I'm sure we have all had those moments when things are going awful and your friends are trying to cheer you up but everything they say just make things worse.

Fortunately the book ends on a lighter note, the wedding goes well, and the epilogue talks about the first day of spring training with the Jays, getting us Jays' fans primed for the next book.

There are tons of funny stories about life in Triple-A and the hazing that rookie major leaguers go through (not that I want to be imagining what a bunch of hairy baseball players look like in Hooter's girl clothing). You'll be surprised at the amount of thought put into bringing a bag of candy to the bullpen. I'm always surprised at how funny baseball players find getting naked and putting their junk into their teammates' faces is. It really isn't something I've ever had the urge to do.

Mostly you are reminded how much you like Dirk, despite him putting all his faults on display, or maybe because he puts all his faults on display. I've always said that I really don't want to get to know the players. I don't want to be like some of the media guys who will talk up a player because he is good to interview or trash a player because he snubbed them. It is harder to analyse them fairly if you know one is a creep and then next one is a really good guy.

Players never stay with your team forever. It is easier to deal with them leaving if you don't have a personal attachment. With Dirk, we were thrilled when he joined the Jays. And sad when they let him go. Far beyond his value as a player, because we think of him as a friend. We know more about him than we do some of our close friends.

The book is a terrific read. If you loved Bullpen Gospels (I'd have a hard time believing you are a baseball fan if you didn't) you will love Out of My League too. You can pre-order it at Amazon.ca or Amazon.com if you are on the other side of the border. Or you can wait until February 28th and pick it up at your local book store. I'm sure, after the success of Dirk's first book, they all will have it on their shelves.

The opening weekend is over and Moneyball came in number 2 to Lion King 3D. Many of us have seen it. My youngest liked it so much that he has seen it twice already. I think I might go see it again too. 

I figure it is time to have an open thread about it, I'd say no spoilers but I think we pretty much all know the story, there isn't much for surprises in there, if you know anything about recent baseball history.

Rob Neyer has his review here. I agree that it wasn't too long, it could have been longer in my view. 

My only real complaint, and it is a minor one, is that they didn't have to made the old scouts look quite so old and out of it. Hollywood shorthand for old, show a hearing aide and a bad fitting toupee. I know this was one of the points of the story, that the scouts weren't willing to change with the times, but maybe they didn't have to hit you over the head with how old and out of touch the scouts were. 

Yesterday, on the radio, I heard one of the MLB radio guys complaining about them doing a movie about Billy Beane when Brian Cashman is obviously the better GM and would make for a better subject for a movie. I don't know, I don't think I'd pay money for a movie about the guy that can spend the most money winning against all odds. Yeah there is a skill in winning even when you can spend more than anyone else, but I don't think it has that underdog appeal that the Moneyball movie has. 

What did you think about the movie?

Took my boy to Moneyball this afternoon, after a long morning at the Medi Center. He jammed his wrist into the ground playing football at school yesterday and it wasn't feeling any better this morning and there was some swelling. The doctor figured it was a 'green stick fracture', but after x-rays he said it is just a soft tissue injury. He'll be fine, but won't be playing hockey for a few days.

Anyway, the movie. I liked it. I'm an easy sell, I liked the book and I like Aaron Sorkin. His characters talk the way I wish real people talked. I liked the movie, maybe not as much as The Social Network, but it was good.

I love the 'Adapt or Die' line. That's true in any industry, you always have to be willing to embrace new ideas. If you aren't young enough to believe you can do things better the world is going to pass you by.  It still amazes me how much baseball was against the idea of change. Poor teams were expected to compete with other teams spending several times as much on player salaries, by doing the exact same things the rich teams were doing.  

I've seen a couple of reviews complaining that the movie made the scouts look stupid, and yeah it did. You have to short-hand a few arguments that, I'm sure, went on a lot longer between Billy Beane and his scouts. Having the scouts talk about how a player had a 'good face' or that because a player had an ugly girl friend means that he had no confidence, were a little much. But then I'm sure there were scouts that have said things like that. 

Brad Pitt was fine as Beane, he was in every scene, but the role didn't ask him to stretch to the limits of his acting ability. The ability to smile disarmingly seemed like the most important part of his role. I liked Jonah Hill. Philip Seymour Hoffman was good as manager Art Howe, playing him as someone that was more worried about playing for his next contract than about winning. He didn't  buy into Beane's program. The movie made me wonder why Howe wasn't fired before mid-season. 

One of the things I found myself doing was to  look at the books on shelves in Beane's office and Peter Brand's office. It looked like it could have been shot in front of any random book shelf at my house. Various Bill James books, Total Baseball, John Thorn and Pete Palmers book The Hidden Game of Baseball and the Elias Annuals were prominent in many shots. 

Bill James' name came up quite a lot. In the scene where John Henry tried to get Beane to work for the Red Sox (who could turn down a $12.5 million contract?) one of the selling points was that Henry had hired James: "I don't know why no one did that years ago". I always used to wonder that.

It was an enjoyable. Not much action, lots of talking, like most Aaron Sorkin shows. But my boy enjoyed it too so it must not have been too boring. 

I've been playing computer baseball games since I first got a computer, a long time ago. I've played Earl Weaver Baseball, Diamond Mind Baseball, Baseball Mogul and several others.

My favorite, the last few years, is Out of the Park Baseball and they have just come out with a new version, Out of the Park 12.  I was a very happy blogger when I got an email from the nice folks that make OOTP Baseball asking if I wanted a review copy of the new release. Why yes I do. 

Out of the Park is a baseball simulation game. If you want the experience of being a GM/manager of a major league team and don't want to go through the trouble of working your way up from a team's mail room and earning the job, this is about the best you can do.

In OOTP 12 you deal with almost everything a real GM has to. You deal with he amateur draft, sign free agents, make trades, stock your minor league system, watch players option years, the rule 5 draft, injuries, waiver wire, owner's expectations, batting order, pitching rotations, budgets, scouting reports and dozens of other things. About the only thing you don't have to worry about is having idiot bloggers second guess your every move.

I downloaded the game yesterday and, of course, inserted myself as GM/Manager of the Jays. You can play as just GM, set up the batting orders against lefty and righty pitchers and simulate the games, but I like to play the games so I can decide to bunt (yeah right, I'm going to bunt), steal, hit and run, bring in relievers and all make all the rest of the in game moves myself.

The game starts you out 2 days before the start of the 2011 season. That's kind of minor piss off for me, as all the decent free agents have been signed and you are kind of limited as to what you can do to improve your team. Imagine how thrilled I was to have Jayson Nix as the default 3B and very few free agents of value to replace him. As in real life, my sim Jays had several players on the DL to start the season. Frank Francisco, Octavio Dotel, Brandon Morrow and Dustin McGowan are on the major league DL and a couple of dozen guys were on the minor league DL. The game has almost the full Jays minor league system, the only Jay minor league team missing was out Dominican Summer League team. Yes, Brett Lawrie is in Vegas. His defense is rated pretty bad, so I'm giving him some time in the minors to, hopefully, improve. 

My first moves where to offer contracts to Troy Glaus (yeah I know he'd never sign with the Jays again, in real life, but he as the only ok free agent 3B left, and he didn't seem against signing with me) and Bengie Molina, as well as to a couple of players that would sign a minor league contract with the promise to release them if they aren't called to the majors by May 30. I figured some depth might be a good thing. As in real life, you offer a contract and the player takes a few days to think on it. 

I 'shopped' Jayson Nix and Jose Molina. There are several ways to try to trade a player, one is shop, which is basically announce to the other teams (all computer managed) that you want to trade the player and they offer back what they would be willing to give up for him. I got b level prospects for each.

I've played 9 games, my Jays are 6-3 (playing a game with 1 pitch at bats takes about 10 to 15 minutes). I know we won't continue to win at that rate. My goal is, like Alex, is to add prospects as best I can and get the team together that I think will be able to contend in the future.

You don't have to play it my way. There are several different ways you can play the game. You can play a 'Historical Game' starting any year you like, from 1871 to 2010. I think I'm going to play as the Expos, starting in 1981, the 'Blue Monday' year. It might be fun to start as the 1927 Yankees too. Or what ever team and era interests you the most. 

You can also sign up for 'online' leagues, if you would rather not play against computer opponents. Or you can make a custom league. If you wanted to play with a balance schedule or move the Jays out of the AL East or put an MLB team in, say, Calgary, Alberta, you can. Or you could start out by putting all the players in a draft pool. 

It isn't a reflexes game, you don't swing a bat or make the pitches or anything like that. There is little for graphics. Text tells you what happens each play. No game pad and no visuals of a player sliding into second. 

The game keeps track of a ton of starts for you, including things like WAR or wOBA numbers and ZR for fielding. 

There are some changes to this version of the game. A slightly improved look, improved in game AI, improved trade AI, changed player contract negotiations:  you can offer signing bonus, vested option years, buyouts and performance bonuses. They've changed how injuries work, now it can take a few game days to diagnose an injury, where, in older versions you were told the length of an injury as soon as it happen, which isn't very realistic. With the new way, it takes a couple of days before you know if the player has to go on the DL or not. Unless it is like a broken leg or something, then you know right away. Players can even have career ending injuries.

I really like the game. It costs $39.99 US and I think it is well worth it. If you want to see some screen captures, learn more about the game or even order the it, go take a look at their site. 

Last week a got a review copy of Shawn Green's book The Way of Baseball, Finding Stillness at 95 MPH. I love baseball books and Shawn Green was a favorite of mine.

I'll admit, I am likely the least spiritual person you are ever going to meet. I'm not a big believer in Zen or any of that. But I do think there is something of value in finding something that clears the mind or finds stillness as Green talks about in the book. For me I've found that in running and playing drums. I'm not saying I was ever good at either but to get in a rhythm on the drums, my mind had to clear, I had to just let everything leave. I found the same with running. I'd get into a rhythm, my mind clears and all is good. So reading the book got me interested in doing those things again. I think I deal better with things if I have a few minutes a day where my mind goes off to do things by itself.

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"Away he went, turning out all the lights save for the one cage I was in.  I stayed, who knows how long, alone in a cold, dark building, throwing sliders that wouldn’t slide into a worn, plastic tarp, trying to figure out more than just pitching."   - Dirk Hayhurst, the Bullpen Gospels

The Blue Jays managed to get through their 2009 offseason without signing a single major-league free agent.  They were the only team in baseball to do so.  Nor were there any particularly big trades. However, that particular Jays offseason was a big one for me, because during it, the Jays acquired righthanded pitcher Dirk Hayhurst. 

Because he played in the inferior league and all the way out on the west coast, I didn’t actually know much about Dirk’s pitching, other than he had come over from the San Diego Padres organization where he had pitched mostly in relief.  But I had been following his "Non-Prospect" Diary on Baseball America for months and I loved it for the way it seemed to me an entirely new form of baseball writing – honest, hilarious, and touching, while avoiding all the usual sports clichés.  So I was very happy to see the Jays bring Dirk into our scold (as a group of Jays are called – hey, better than our closest relatives, crows (who group in a murder) or ravens (a grief) – but I digress).   

Hayhurst, who pitched quite credibly for Toronto last season, was kind enough to send me an advance copy of his book, The Bullpen Gospels, which is due out at the end of March.  With stellar reviews from Keith Olbermann, Rob Neyer, Tim Kurkijan, Tom Verducci, and Trevor Hoffman, among others, the book hardly needs my seal of approval to cement its place in baseball’s literary canon.

But it sure has it.  The Bullpen Gospels is hilarious, touching, unflinching in its honesty, and unapologetic in its basic decency.  Major league athletes are expected to be confident to the point of arrogance – in fact, we think of it as essential to their success -- but in Gospels, the author turns a hard, narrow focus on his own self-doubt.  The hilarious minor-league antics and touching tales of stepping out of his uniform to act like a real person, I had come to expect from Hayhurst’s "Non-Prospect Diary", but I wasn’t prepared for the raw honesty regarding offseason life back in Ohio or the nagging self-doubt that regularly accompanied the pitcher everywhere, including the mound.  

I was even less prepared for the extent to which I related to that part of the story and how many of the same experiences I had myself had – the messed-up family life, the sometimes crushing self-doubt.  And, most of all, the way that those things cause the desperate need to prove oneself by succeeding to the fullest in one’s career – how that drive for success leads to ever-greater outward success without ever fixing the problems that caused that desire for success in the first place – because, how can it?  

But, in a way, that’s the point – strip away the media persona and the trappings of the professional baseball player, and what is a minor-league player?  A young man, probably in his early-to-mid 20s, with sporadic but near-crippling self-doubt, equally intermittent feelings of invincibility, a desperate need to prove himself without a full understanding of why, little money, and, playing the percentages, serious father issues.   And here I thought that all Dirk and I had in common was our love for comic books.

None of this is to take away from the fact that The Bullpen Gospels is very much a baseball book.  The ball scenes are exciting, the moments of team camaraderie genuine and memorable, and the bullpen hijinx hilarious.  I have no doubt that the former and current players who have extolled how accurately Gospels captures the essence of playing baseball for a living are completely right.  But I thought the book was much more than that.  As Hayhurst himself mentions in his conversation with Trevor Hoffman late in the book, it’s not only about what baseball is, but also what it’s not.

When the book starts out and Hayhurst’s career is scuffling, he looks to baseball success as a stand-in for life success – a shortcut to solving his problems and becoming the man that he wants to be.  But it’s only through baseball success – the Texas League championship, the minor-league all-star selections, the promotion to the bigs (spoiler alerts!) - that he comes to realize that baseball success isn’t some key to life success.  Life is both starker and richer, more complicated and more fulfilling, than the baseball mythos.

It’s difficult to write an autobiographical book in which you are fair about yourself.  I speak from experience – although I was a biochemistry major in college, I lacked the scientific inspiration to do my honours thesis in that field, so I fell back on my other major, English, and wrote a book of creative autobiographical non-fiction.  I had the stories to tell but not the willingness to make myself look bad, nor the dishonesty to make myself look good, so I ended up writing as little about myself as possible.  But full credit to Dirk – The Bullpen Gospels tells the stories that make him look good and doesn’t shy away from the ones that make him look bad.  I can’t believe I spent the 2009 season rooting for a guy who yells at his grandmother to shut up!

As a lawyer, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the unbelievably hilarious Kangaroo Court scenes -- some of my favourites in the book – where players bring one another up on "charges" -- ranging from the effects of eating too much Mexican food to talking about oneself in the third person to rank stupidity -- and try them before a jury of their peers. 

I can’t encourage you enough to pick up a copy of The Bullpen Gospels.  You will speed through it and, if you are like me, gain a new appreciation for ballplayers, not for the work that they do, but for the men that they (at least, some of them!) are.  You will laugh your tail off on one page and, quite possibly, tear up on the next. Most of all, laughing with the guys on the team, suffering through uncomfortable bus rides and fleabag motels, experiencing the agony of letting a game slip through your fingers, the despair in getting busted down a level, and the joy in victory, you’ll feel like you – an ordinary person – are a ballplayer.  But you’ll also feel like the ballplayer is, for once, an ordinary person.   


Pre-order The Bullpen Gospels.

Short Update:  I received an e-mail from Dirk that confirmed the length of the book is 340 pages, to allay some fears in the comments that the Garfoose ate a hundred pages.  Too bad, I was hoping I just got the special Director's Cut edition!

Earlier this season, Minor League Ball's John Sickels took a look at the Jays' farm system and set forth a list of the Jays' top 20 prospects.  Now, with just a few weeks left in the minor-league season, Sickels brings us an update on how each has progressed, giving us the good and bad news.  He's still quite high on Travis Snider and Brett Cecil.  Some other high/low points:

• David Cooper, 1B, Grade B: Hitting .255/.333/.372 for Double-A New Hampshire. Very disappointing, no power, mediocre batting average and OBP, looks like I overrated him. BB/K ratio is decent, so he still has a chance to improve but needs to make progress quickly in '10.
• J.P. Arencibia, C, Grade B-: Hitting .224/.272/.409 for Triple-A Las Vegas. Poor strike zone judgment is holding production back. Good with the glove but has needs big adjustments with the bat.
• Ricky Romero, LHP, Grade C+: 10-5, 3.66 with 90/44 K/BB in 116 major league innings. One of the best rookie pitchers in baseball, somewhat surprising after a mediocre minor league career. The talent was always there, but he lacked consistency before.
• Mark Rzepczynski, LHP, Grade C+: 2.86 ERA with 104/40 K/BB in 88 innings between Double-A and Triple-A, 4.38 ERA with 37/19 K/BB in 37 innings in the majors. Looks good so far.

Generally, things aren't looking great on the hitting side, though I do think Cooper seems to be improving and you have to give him credit for starting his first full professional season at AA, a tough test for any minor-league hitter.  In addition, there are some hitters Sickels' didn't rank that have shown substantial improvement this season - Moises Sierra, Johermyn Chavez, Adam Loewen, and a couple of others.  On the pitching side, the system itself looks a bit thin but only because Romero, Cecil, Ray, Mills, and Rzepczynski all made their major-league debuts this year.  In particular the trio of Romeo, Cecil, and Rzepczynski look like an excellent threesome on the left-handed pitching side - but Rzepczynski has a lot more still to prove and Romero and Cecil have to avoid the dread injury bug as they start to shoulder big league workloads.  Also, the system will get an infusion of pitching if the Jays can sign their 2009 draftees - Jenkins, Paxton, Eliopolous - which is much needed. 

The truth is, the Jays system is really interesting in that it never gets very highly ranked by people who rank prospects systems, but it has been extremely consistent in developing major-league players for the Jays.  It's not flashy, but it has been an effective source of cheap, quality major-league players.  Halladay, Romero, Cecil, Rzepczynski, Hill, Lind, League, Wells (a week ago we could have added Rios to the list) - all are Jays draftees, and of course don't forget Marcum, Janssen, Litsch, and McGowan.  Many other current Jays have spent significant development time in the Jays' minor-league system.

Of course, once the minor-league season rounds up, Bluebird Banter will take a look at the system's season in review and review and update our own top 30 prospects list.  Lots of changes, I think we'll find.

For as long as I've had a computer I've played computer baseball games on it. In the days of my old Apple II+, with no hard drive, the game was pretty simple, then for a few years "Earl Weaver's Baseball" was the game of choice. Then the last few years I've played various versions of Diamond Mind Baseball, which is a straight replay type game.

Out of the Park Baseball is a baseball simulation where you get to play the role of the GM and can be the  Manager,  as well. It is a text game, there are no graphic of players making plays, if you want an arcade game, this one's not for you. I first came across it around version 6 and really liked the game. Then when version 8 came out I bought that one and hated it, played it enough to know it wasn't for me.  But version 10 has been out for awhile and they had a sale over the All-Star break so I thought I'd try it again. The short review, as much as I disliked version 8 I like version 10, they seem to have fixed the things that bothered me about version 8. More after the jump.

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