pretty much thought of being a tool here in Tucson as well, with most comparisons being made to one of those garden tools that rhymes with toe. He’s the only guy who “stood up” to the cult of Lute Olson here in the “Old Pueblo” because all that bastard ever did for the school was place it on the map nationally for 25 years and bring home a national championship, that bastard. His ability to spout moronic observations is well known and tbh, I think the guy spends more time on the golf course than actually running down any stories much less checking anything for validity He was also on of the guys who was big in getting Tucson to invest in more spring training baseball, but had his head up his ass when it came to suggesting a valid location for it, namely suggesting the ballpark be on the southside to attract the fans to the ballpark from our huge hispanic population. Instead of thinking like a baseball player and thinking that Marana made more sense to reduce the travel time which was why no one wanted to come to Tucson to play to begin with. While I’m dissing him, he also looks like one of Jim Click’s illegitimate sons.

the D’Backs are one of those love/hate things about Arizona that falls squarely into the whole Tucson/Phoenix fiasco/rivalry. This rivalry has had the vitriol ramped up so bad that there are legions of folks down here in Tucson (and points south) that think that anything from Phoenix is bad and that they think that the folks from the capitol feel that they are the center of the Universe. That is based on the sordid history that ranges from school rivalries to politics and money, i.e. if you want to know what drives Tucsonans crazy, look at the number of highway miles alotted to Phoenix and the amount to Tucson or alotment of money for school buildings per district or that Pima County is as liberal as San Francisco, whereas the East Valley is… well you know what I mean) etc. The folks from Phoenix have given a good many Tucsonans the impression that the town is good for one thing only, as a place to get gas on the way to Mexico.

That stuff spills over into the stuff that Hansen writes, Hale was a local U of A alumnus who was on the last collegiate national championship team at the U of A and was considered to be a front runner for the D’Backs job if/when Melvin left. With the change in ownership, well he wasn’t part of those plans and it stands to reason that he would be gone afterwards. Hansen loses his best (and most likely only source) for anything DBacks related and presto chango, here’s your hatchet piece du jour. Add into this the movement of the AAA club (not the parent club’s fault, but….) and the movement of the spring training site (which pissed people off big time since it was local tax dollars that went into building it) which essentially killed sprint training in Tucson (and more tax dollars lost). That management decision has reaped all kinds of ill will down here and essentially spat on the good will that was generated by Colangelo with the original naming of the franchise because people down here were originally dubious and wished that the Franchise had simply been called the Phoenix Diamondbacks and stop trying to pretend otherwise. Colangelo sold people, even the skeptics by the moves of establishing spring training In Tucson, the promo tours, the buses bringing in fans from the hinterlands.

So while the piece is hardly objective, it helps to know what is behind it, not that I condone it, but I do understand it.

That guy is an idiot

b) It was proven this year that you can get a quality no. 3 starter for 6-7 million. Maybe we can do that, and throw a heavily incentive laden deal to a reclamation project like Duscherer or Bedard or Sheets. One of them should bite, yeah?

c) Spending money on relief pitchers is a crapshoot, but I guess 4-5 million on 2 guys isn’t too much. Let’s just hope we spend it wisely, and not on ERA, like with Schoeneweis. Who could have predicted his crappy year, right? Well, let’s see, his ERA in 2008 was 3.34, but his FIP was 4.97 and his tRA was 5.70. He simply isn’t a good pitcher and never was.

d) We need a big bat at 1B or LF and we should spend most of the money there. Trouble is, there aren’t many options. Bay has a good bat, but he’s aging and his defense is going from bad to worse. Damon is the same, only his bat isn’t as good. Nady is an option but outside of that banner year in 2008, he’s never been an above average player. At first base, only Branyan and Nick Johnson would be good enough, but Branyan might ask for too much given the season he’s had and Johnson would also have to accept an incentive laden deal given his history.

Basically, if we want a big bat at first or in left, we need to work out a trade.

have to play 1st. Kendrick call me bro.

Two and a half hours is a long shopping trip. Plus I suspect he probably could have just bought a Chris Young autographed baseball online for less than $300…

but Hansen’s inability to consider Max Scherzer an asset pretty much advertises his idiocy.