I had a beer this past weekend that made me angry. Just for a second — after all it was my son’s first birthday party, the weather was perfect, friends everywhere and babies splashing in the baby pool — but it made me angry. Hop Shortage from Knee Deep Brewing in Sacramento. I like Knee Deep’s Hoptoligist, and their Tanilla sweet porter. But the Hop Shortage was just too much hops. And I love hops. But this was too much. I called it a “jump the shark” moment. It also made me wonder — since I love certain beers that others consider too hoppy — if ‘hop balance’ exists. Perhaps spreading the hops around to different kinds makes for better beer. Some of the worst beers I’ve had were the ‘single hops’ series from Hermitage. One note better be fantastic if you’re going to try and make a song out of it. And Hop Shortage was like my baby boy, bashing that gong over and over again. I mean seriously, who buys a gong for a baby.
Last week, I was in San Diego. Love that city, if mostly for the beer variety you can get at your average Vons. Didn’t make it to a brewery, but I did get to interview a few Padres. I made some mistakes — I mistook Dale Thayer for Cory Luebke because he was sitting at his locker (with audio!), and I sat in Carlos Quentin‘s chair until I leaped about a foot in the air when he came back to it — but also had some success. Chase Headley talked to me about hitting for power in PetCo (dicey) and also his relationship to numbers. Numbers can screw you up, is part of the story, but it’s also interesting to see how his swing has changed over the years. And then I talked to Luke Gregerson about how he avoids platoon splits with just one secondary pitch — the slider — when he told me he has a few sliders. Three or seven to be exact.
For fantasy, I worked up Anthony Rendon (with some Nolan Arenado) and Justin Masterson. Masterson is Jamaican, so I want to love him, but he only has two pitches, and they’re both pitches with platoon issues. After projecting Billy Hamilton last week, I took a look at which guys were making more contact this year, since that’s one of the first stats to become reliable. And, as always, Wednesdays is Saves and Steals day at RotoWorld.
Trying to make it out to Chicago this summer, but need to pay some bills. I could fit another piece into my schedule, if you know someone that’s looking!
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