State of the State of Minnesota Sports

This post should be prefaced by Tyler Fraser aka T Fresh by saying having any sports is better than having none. I'm/He is looking at you Iowa. The Arena Football League and the NBA D-League does not count.

What Tyler Fraser Learned From Living in Iowa:

There is a difference between professional sports and major league sports. While both may be paid for it, a professional AFL player may be paid $200 a game, which apparently makes him a professional. However, a NFL player will make a lot more than that, makes them a Major League Player. So there is your difference. Pro < Major League.

Now onto the State of the State of Minnesota (Sports).

NFL - Vikings

We are in a rebuilding year whether the coaches will admit it or not. Donovan McNabb is simply a stop gap player to help Christian Ponder learn the NFL system. While I still think the Vikes will be around .500 this year, I am not expecting big things. Our secondary is questionable as well as the offensive line. Antoine Winfield is not getting any younger and can’t cover everyone. Our next 2 best CB’s are Cedric Griffin who is coming off of 2 ACL surgeries and Chris Cook who not only was injured physically last year with his meniscus tears but I really think that him not playing at 100% and getting torched on the field and subsequently benched messed him up mentally too. Cutting McKinnie had to be done; you cannot show up to camp weighing 400 lbs and expect it to be cool. Go work on your record label and your ole defense. Hutch needs to get back to his old self and stay healthy and the same with Anthony Herrera. I don’t know who our center is and I am not looking it up. Phil Loadholt had a sophomore slump year last year but is looking like he is in great shape and is ready to return to his old form. Our new LT protected Peyton and that’s good enough for me. AP is hopefully ready for another great year but the question remains will the best running back in the NFL be able to carry this team? And who will Donovan throw the ball to? After Percy Harvin the options get pretty limited. Berrian had a nice grab in the Dallas game for 6, but the safety really missed and couldn’t tip it away. Michael Jenkins best quality is his run blocking ability down the field. Aromashadu (Sp?) will be lucky to get past the 5^th WR spot on the chart. As far as the state of the Vikings, I will give them a B-, and that is based on the idea that Christian Ponder will eventually take over and be a successful NFL QB.

MLB - Twins

It’s over Johnny. The Twins have given up this year and it's pretty obvious by putting both Thome and Kubel on waivers. The bullpen feels the hurt of losing Matty Guerrier, Big Jon Rauch and (unfortunately) Jesse Crain. Yes, Joe Nathan may have returned to his old form and Glen Perkins is quite the set-up man, but who else do the Twins really have in the 'Pen? The bullpen is one of the strengths that the Twins always had, and now in the upcoming offseason we need to work to make it as strong as it once was.

Our rotation isn’t in much better shape. Frankie Liriano is a mess right now and he is supposed to be our "ace." Hot Carl Pavano has had an extremely disappointing year and I'm wondering if the Twins overpaid for his talents. The rest of the rotation: Blackburn/Baker/Duensing/Slowey is such a joke I can't even comment on it. The Twins lack the ace that we had in Johan Santana and/or Brad Radke and it shows. I wouldn't feel confident in sending any starter out if I had to win a game. Along with the bullpen, the starting rotation is a priority in fixing the team and making us competitive in the years to come.

As far as the position players:

Catcher:

Joe Mauer needs to nut up at catcher or switch positions. I understand that he will never be the power hitter who crushes 30+ homers a year but for all the money we pay Joe he needs to at least drive in some runs in big situations and not weakly ground out to 2nd base. I am done being a Mauer apologist and if he cannot produce then it is time to look to move him. Oh and Drew Butera is not a viable back up for Mauer, since Butera can barely bat above the Mendoza Line.

1st Base:

I am probably going to get ravaged for this, but I say trade Justin Morneau and let Joe Mauer take over 1st base full time. He is obviously athletic enough to play anywhere on the field, and really first is the best place to put him since his fragile body can't handle being behind the plate full time. I love Justin Morneau but at this point he is expendable and if the Twins can trade him for some pitching I don't see why that is not a good move.

Middle Infield:

Tolbert/Casilla/Nishioka are all garbage and they need to have a better year next year. All of them have been disappointing this year and have played way under their potential.

3rd Base:

Danny Valencia has been the unfortunate target of criticism from Gardy, but really what else can he do. He plays solid defensively and hits the ball decent. It is only his second year and I'm looking for him to be solid in years to come.

OF:

Span needs to come back strong off his concussion issues, and with Ben Revere and Cuddyer, who I hope the Twins re-sign, set up for a pretty solid OF. The Twins will probably low-ball Cuddy and he’ll end up signing with someone else who gives him a fiar deal, but if he does resign and if Span can get healthy then the OF seems pretty solid, especially with an upcoming Aaron Hicks as an OF prospect. Cuddy deserves the money since he will play any position on the field, and he will play even if he has “general soreness.” **Cough Mauer Cough**Plus hopefully we will still have Kubel too, who had a very nice season going before some injury issues.

The Twins Grade: C and falling. Make some good moves this offseason Billy.

NHL - Wild

I live in the state of hockey but I honestly have no idea where the Wild are right now. They have a new coach so we will see what happens. I know last year there were some injury problems and we had a lack of goal scorers. The Wild did go out and make some moves for some guys who can put the puck in the net. As it is with most of our favorite teams, the Wild also seem to be in a rebuilding stage and hopefully everyone can stay healthy and the Wild will bring back pride to the state of hockey.

The Wild’s Grade: C-. Unproven first year coach and a new look team.

NBA - T'Wolves

IF there is an NBA season, the Wolves have me excited for their season. Finally, Ricky Rubio has come to Minnesota and our first round draft pick Derrick Williams should make for a nice little front court with K Love and B Easy (that’s assuming B Easy stays out of trouble). Rambis and his triangle offense are gone, and hopefully Kahnsie gets a new guy in here who lets these guys do what they do best.

K Love: rebound and be scrappy.

D Will: dunk on everyone and be athletic.

Ricky Rubio: run fast and pass the ball and not be like anybody else.

B Easy: ummm….

Wes Johnson: get better in your 2^nd year.

Darko: stand around and look confused.

Wolves grade: C+, depends on who we bring in and how our talent develops. The Grade could also be n/a since there probably won’t be a season.

WNBA - Lynx

Of course the one Minnesota sports team that is a legit championship contender would be our favorite ladies the Lynx of the WNBA! Maya Moore is crazy good and she is killing it in her rookie year. Let’s just say I may be attending a game at the old Target Center when the playoffs come around. I’m not going to pretend I know a lot about the Lynx because I don’t. I know Maya Moore is good and Lindsey Whalen is our PG.

Lynx Grade: A, and your WNBA CHAMPIONS 2011!!!

Gophers:

Football:

Well, when we all wanted Glen Mason gone when I was a freshman, a guy named Timmy Brewster rolled in the Minneapolis. Oh, how wrong we were. I would like to apologize to Mr. Mason for all the “fire Mason” chants I joined in while in the Dome. I never knew how good we had it until Basement Brew started selling empty promises while continuously proving he couldn’t coach his way out of a paper bag. But now, all has changed. Jerry Kill has arrived and by golly, he seems like an actual football coach! No nonsense BS promises about the Rose Bowl and Pasadena, just a disciplined man who has found success in every place he has coached. While this may not be the year for the Golden Gophers, hang tight, because Coach Kill has us pointed in the right direction, and with his recruiting ability and proven track record, look out for the University of Minnesota football program in a few years.

Gopher Football Grade: B, moving on up though, and giving it time.

Basketball:

After an extremely unfortunate season, littered with players leaving and devastating injuries, Tubby is still here. As long as he keeps doing what he’s doing and recruiting well and making sure we have a PG, the Gophers will eventually get deep into the tournament. We have some good freshman coming in this year to help the backcourt and with the frontcourt of Mbakwe and RSIII, we should look to dominate down low again. Also Maurice Walker who got hurt early in the non-conference schedule should look to come back strong for his sophomore year. Similar to the football program, we are moving in the right direction; maybe Tubby can get another ring.

Gopher Basketball Grade: A-, good recruiting and solid players returning along with a great coach in Tubby Smith.

There are basically 2 themes to The State of the State of Minnesota Sports:

1. Rebuilding

2. Rebuilt and moving forward

So we have proven that we can get on the right track, but now all of our favorite teams need to take the next step and get to the next level, to show all Minnesotans that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that Minnesota Sports aren’t so bad after all.

Thanks for reading.

Return of the Blog

Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to The Mendoza Line.  A sports blog that will feature a number of writers sharing their views on anything and everything sports.  For those of you who aren't familiar with the Mendoza Line it is normally applied to hitters that can't break a .200 batting average.  Mario Mendoza, our namesake and the player in which the Mendoza line is named after (obviously) spent 9 years in the majors and his career average is .215.  The cutoff for the line has since been moved to .200 and I must say if you're a major league baseball player and you can't crack the Mendoza Line then you are an incompetent hitter and don't deserve to be playing professionally.  You should actually probably be working at Wal-Mart, unless you're a pitcher and in that case your worthless batting performance is justified. 

Throughout the fall, the writers of The Mendoza Line will bring you week by week predictions on college and professional football.  I'll have a weekly post on the top 5 college games you should be watching each week while you drink beers and eat brats because let's be honest, football is so much better if you're slightly intoxicated.  We'll also have polls on a regular basis that mean absolutely nothing but we would love for the readers, if we have any, to take part in.  Also, we'll be partaking in a fantasy football league and talking about that here.  The last thing we'll be doing is a random "where are they now" segment and if you have any athletes that disappeared off the map and want to know what they're up to these days let us know and we'll write about it even though you could use that google thing.  That's pretty much what will be up on this site along with random posts about stuff that pisses us off in sports like the two previous pieces on east coast bias and the bullsh*t ncaa garbage.

I'll end this post by saying the ncaa is in a world of hurt after Nevin Shapiro spilled the beans on his dirty deeds as a Miami booster.  The ncaa has to change something because these boosters should not be able to give these "student-athletes" drug and prostitution money without some repercussions.  Does Miami deserve the death penalty? Absolutely yes. The ncaa needs to send a message to these schools that they aren't willing to stand by while traditional powerhouses get away this garbage.  The idea of "student-athlete" is no more in my opinion.  These athletes are essentially already professionals while at school (I'm looking at you Mr. Pryor).  I don't know how many times I went to class and saw a player sign in and wait for the person they reported to leave and then follow right behind them.  Millions of students are paying their way through school or racking up thousands of dollars in loans and these athletes can't sit through a 50 minute under grad communications class, give me a break.  It's a broken institution and the rules need to be changed.

Thanks to everybody that will inevitably read this blog and hopefully ya'll stick with us as we attempt to hopefully bring you barely above average sports writing.  

The Plea for an Undisputed Champion

If I had it my way – A call for a true playoff in Division 1 FBS College Football – By Brian Meyer
Every year around October when the first batch of Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings comes out, the debate about college football supremacy begins. It is the only major sport (that anyone cares about) that does not have a true playoff system. Add to that the passion of rowdy (drunken) college kids that attend games across the country every Saturday; this leads to many passionate debates in bars, blogs, forums etc.
The BCS has certainly faced its fair share of criticism. Proponents argue, “Hey it’s better than what we had.” I suppose there is a fair argument to be made there. A traditionalist like me would probably disagree in the end. I was perfectly happy with the bowl system of yester-year. I love the bowls! They’ve been watered down no doubt, and the idea of playing on New Year’s Day isn’t as special as it was even five years ago, but there is something special about bowls to me.
I can certainly look at myself in the mirror and know that I am in the minority. Most casual fans cannot understand or grasp the idea of the system. The modern fan has been tailored to want closure with their sports. Over the past few years I’ve come up with my own system. I don’t know how the money thing would shake out (other than there are billions of dollars to be spread out to a lot of schools and sponsors and god knows who else). This is just my system that would preserve the bowl system that I cherish (kind of) and give the fans the closure they so desperately want every year.
First of all… if nothing else, the BCS is a tremendous ranking system. The problem with it is that the BCS as it stands today serves only one purpose; to determine #1 and #2. That’s it! 3 through 25 are irrelevant in terms of the “National Championship.” Every week when the BCS rankings come out though, it ranks out 25 teams. It’s a formula that takes the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, the Harris Poll, and an average of some of the major computer polls. It jumbles it all up and it comes out with a percentage. Then it spits out the rankings. I say that it is a great ranking system, because it is. It’s just not a good system to determine #1 and #2, for a variety of reasons that I could probably create 2 or 3 more blogs about.
So my thought is, we’ve evolved to this point, why not continue? One thing to keep in mind about the BCS… it is mainly run by groups of guys from your 6 major conferences. Those are the ACC, Big Ten (12), Big East, Big 12 (10), Pac 12, and SEC. The realist in me takes this into account, and therefore it isn’t as easy as saying “Top 8 in the BCS… have a playoff.”
The argument against a playoff (and a valid one) is that it may diminish the short regular season (which has little to no margin for error). I happen to agree with this. I love the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament as much as anyone, but it has made the regular season completely meaningless. UConn this year was an above average team throughout 4 months of the season, but got hot at the right time and won it all.
In football especially, there should be a higher premium on regular season success. Winning your conference after 8 or 9 games + a conference championship game in some cases, is a tremendous accomplishment, and should be rewarded. The idea that anyone of these BCS executives would leave out any of these BCS Conference champions is pretty silly. It just won’t happen, so the Big East (as of 2011) would still get someone to my big dance. With all of that said here is how my playoff system would look.
 12 Teams get in
 The 6 Conference Champions from the BCS Conferences would receive automatic bids
 The top 4 conference champions (based on the Final BCS Rankings) would receive 1st round byes. This places a premium on the regular season, particularly at the end of the year when teams are playing their rivals (Auburn-Alabama, Michigan-Ohio State, Iowa-Min… never mind)
 Unlike the structure of today, I would not restrict the amount of teams a single conference can get into this tournament. Right now each conference is limited to only two teams. I say if the SEC is great and has 3 teams worthy, then let them in.
 From this, I am simply giving out 6 at large bids for the remaining spots in the tournament based on the final BCS Standings. There should be no more whining from fans from mid major conferences like the WAC or Mountain West. It should be extremely easy to make this tournament for 1 or 2 of these types of schools, and then we can see if a Boise State is in fact good enough to hang with the big boys.
 Home games are given to higher seeds in the 1st 2 rounds of the tournament
 Conference foes cannot play each other until the semifinals, unless it cannot be avoided.
 Semifinal and Finals would be played at BCS sites, rotating every year. My suggestion would be to drop either the Fiesta Bowl or Orange Bowl sites, or whatever. Smarter people than me can figure that out, and I’m sure the profiteers will figure it out.
 Anyone else would go to bowl games as per the structure that we currently have.

That’s it. Pretty simple. Doesn’t diminish the regular season, and more importantly, doesn’t water down a playoff with potential chump teams that have 2 or 3 losses that do not deserve to be anywhere near this tournament. Everyone has a fair shot. So based on this system, this is how last year’s playoffs would have looked. Read this and then try to tell me that you wouldn’t cream yourself thinking about some of these potential match ups…
Who’s in…
1. Auburn – SEC Champions
2. Oregon – Pac 10 Champions
3. Wisconsin – Big Ten Champions
4. Oklahoma – Big 12 Champions
5. TCU
6. Stanford
7. Ohio State
8. Arkansas
9. Michigan State
10. Boise State
11. Virginia Tech – ACC Champions
12. UConn – Big East Champions

First Round
8. Arkansas vs. 9. Michigan State
5. TCU vs. 12. UConn
6. Stanford vs. 11. Virginia Tech
7. Ohio State vs. 10. Boise State
Quarterfinals
Ark-MSU Winner vs. 1. Auburn (SEC potential match up could not be avoided)
TCU-UConn Winner vs. 4. Oklahoma
Stan-VT Winner vs. 3. Wisconsin
OSU-BSU Winner vs. 2. Oregon

And then the final four teams play it out in the Semifinals and Finals. One undisputed champion!

I think anything more than 12 teams is too many in college football. Once you get outside of that you are talking about a lot of mediocre football teams. I hope you enjoy this, and if you’re a college football fan like I am, it’s hard not to think about things like this.

Media Bias?

Hello World,

for my first post on the blog I am going to go with current events however for anyone that is watching it really is not current events. The media is so incredibly slanted to the East Coast that it isn't even close and also isn't even funny. The first question you might ask is Matt why do I care this is a sports blog and the answer is this has everything to do with this.

The reason this comes up is the ridiculous coverage of the EARTHQUAKE in the East Coast here today. To begin with you would think the modern world is ending like the movie The Day After Tomorrow if you listened to the way the new covered today’s events. The president was more than likely moved to a confidential bunker where he sat down sipping margaritas while he got a briefing on the events in Libya and plans were in place to repopulate the world as a whole. Then we realized that the earthquake was a joke and nothing was wrong no one died and the world wasn’t going to come to an end

Enter my point on east coast biases in sports and you'll realize a direct parell. Let's go back a few years and think to the year where the Rays went to the World Series and you will truly get the point. ESPN which should be known as we fly a flag of the original 13 colonies played the world series less than preseason football highlights and major league soccer because there beloved Yankees or Sox weren’t involved than any time in history. Okay ESPN I get it, you have a lot of people that work there that would give their first born son to cover the Sox or the Yanks but common man try being a journalist for once and covering the entire league than someone who worships the ground that the cheater AROD walks on. The first story on every first page is something to do with Yanks and Sox even in the winter. I am getting sick of this. I get that a large contingency of America loves or hates them and ratings by nature go up (I graduated with a degree in marketing and it’s a marketers wet dream) but on a journalistic level you all suck.

Going forward what would I do if I was them; report the facts. The Yanks and the Sox are good but let’s be realistic there is other great stories out there. Even when it doesn’t come to baseball report the best teams even if they aren’t east coast teams. Report more stories about what teams in the Midwest and west are doing right for their communities and stop only focusing on east coast. Lastly stop freaking when little things happen to east coast teams. You don’t report when Jason Kubel or Joe Mauer goes on the DL so don’t report on Robinson Cano.

Overall the media needs to realize the Middle America doesn’t care about everything that happens on the east coast especially when this happens...

The College Football Atmosphere

The NCAA has had probably the worst offseason ever. It will forever be remembered as the offseason when THE Ohio State University (finally) got busted for player benefits and one of the NCAA's biggest revenue producers The U, Miami University being absolutely thrown under the bus by something named Nevin Shapiro. While all college football fans should be talking about final depth charts and who is going to be starting and the pre-season rankings, most are talking about all of the blatant violations by two of the biggest schools in college football.

First of all, something about Nevin Shapiro. The guy looks like he is 5'8" and the only reason he got picked in the park to play is if he brought the football. Not only are you an idiot for getting busted on a Ponzi scheme, but then you decide to throw your alma matter directly under the bus. I get it, you had loads of cash and you loved throwing it around at U football/basketball players, but would you have ever revealed these allegations if you weren't in prison? My guess is no. I'm not a huge U fan but really, grow a spine.

Now on to some NCAA rules. First, the idea that these scholarship athletes don't have enough money to buy food or whatever is ludacris. You are getting a full ride for tuition and housing!!! If you are broke and need extra cash for tattoos or whatever you spend your money on then I have this advice for you: take out a G Dang loan like the 98% of people who are in college. And if you are as good as you think you are then you should have absolutely no problem paying those loans back with that big pro contract you sign. There is no reason why college athletes should be paid for their services. They are no different than every other student at their school. Jay Bilas compared college athletes to a music major who is on full scholarship and the musician making some cash by playing a extra gig at a local establishment. Was that music major recruited to play music for the University and undoubtedly bring in revenue for said university? No, they were not. Apples to apples Mr. Bilas.

And here is my final thought. Every college cheats, but some are just better at not getting caught for awhile at it. The SEC is full of cheaters, take a real good hard look at Alabama, Auburn and LSU. Auburn almost got busted with $Cam Newton. USC got busted. Ohio St. Now Miami. How much longer before another big name's dark recruiting secrets are revealed? Every big name school in the NCAA does it. It is just a matter of time before they all get caught for something.

Thanks for reading. Much more to come in the future.