RotoScoop.com

The Scoop

By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer

Bobby Jenks has retired 32 straight batters, which is pretty impressive. And to think, the Angels just gave him away. Then again, they did the same with Derrick Turnbow, and it’s not like that pen is hurting for arms.

Jake Peavy has been one of baseball’s best pitchers this season, and Petco Park has no doubt aided him in doing so. However, he’s been even better when on the road; he’s 6-0 with a 0.89 ERA and 0.84 WHIP away from home this season.

$30 million does seem a bit excessive for Eric Byrnes, and even more so when you consider Arizona has a younger, cheaper option in Carlos Quentin, who is all but gone now with the signing. Chris Young and Justin Upton aren’t going anywhere, and Quentin has obviously failed to impress in 2007. Still, he should develop into a fine hitter eventually, and Byrnes has a career .786 OPS. Byrnes has had a fine season this year, but he’s going to have to continue the improved hitting to be worth that contract as a corner outfielder.

For those in deep leagues, Jason Botts is worth a look. He’s set to get plenty of playing time, has a great hitter’s park at his disposal and a minor league track record that suggests he can rake. Strikeouts are going to be a problem, but there’s some power upside here.

Daisuke Matsuzaka has averaged 109.6 pitches per start this year – the most in major league baseball. I’m not saying he’s going to get hurt, but he does appear to possess some risk right now.

Time for our weekly check on Barry Zito here at RotoScoop: after getting knocked around at home by the harmless Nationals Tuesday, Zito sits with a 5.16 ERA, 1.48 WHIP and an 88/63 K/BB ratio over 132.2 innings. Only 6.2 years left on his contract!

Check out the bottom-five outfielders in BABIP so far this year: Andruw Jones (.241), Jermaine Dye (.246), Chris B. Young (.259), Barry Bonds (.261) and Ken Griffey Jr (.271). Not exactly a collection of scrubs there. As for pitchers, Felix Hernandez still has the worst BABIP (.344), while Chris Young (.251), Jeremy Guthrie (.252), Carlos Zambrano (.254) and John Maine (.261) have the best.

I already picked this guy up in my keeper league.

I’m still getting chills.

Top-5 Foreign Films

1. Oldboy
2. City of God
3. Amores Perros
4. Talk to Her
5. Y Tu Mama Tambien

Top-5 Martin Scorsese Pictures

1. Taxi Driver
2. Raging Bull
3. The Departed
4. Goodfellas
5. Casino

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19 responses to “The Scoop”

  1. butch Avatar
    butch

    Oldboy? C’mon…

    LEON (The Professional)
    La Femme Nikita
    Cinema Paradiso
    Amelie
    Man Bites Dog

    That’s not even m Top 5, but 5 that come waaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy before Oldboy.

    My advice: Think before you put something out there on the World Wide InterWeb. You obviously do it with your baseball info. Do it with these Top 5s man.

  2. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    Oh I put plenty of thought into these top-5s. What’s wrong with Oldboy? It’s not like I put some poorly reviewed personal favorite up there. First off, I’d definitely put LEON on there, but I excluded it since it’s in English…..Amelie? Really?

    Out of curiosity, what did you think of my 2-5?

  3. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    And if you want to get all Italian Cinema on me, Bicycle Thief is better than Paradiso.

  4. Todd Avatar
    Todd

    lol this is great. I love the top five lists. It’s not like Dalton put the equivalent of Gigli up there. Oldboy may not be my #1 but it deserves to be in the top 5 conversation. Same with Butch’s picks.

  5. Dreamweapon Avatar
    Dreamweapon

    I LOVE Cidade de Deus, it is easily one of my favorite movies of all-time. I even like the spin-off TV series on IFC. So, while I have railed on some of your movie picks in the past, I can’t on that one.

    HOWEVER, that said, the failure to include even ONE Kurosawa flick, when, frankly, his movies could occupy all top-5 slots on many people’s lists, is a glaring oversight. Do yourself a favor, set aside four hours, and watch Toshiro Mifune devour the screen in ‘Shichinin no Samurai’. FWIW, it’s ranked #10 overall on IMDB’s Top-250 list. Not Top-250 Foreign movies, that’s Top-250, period. Or, for about the same investment in time, you could watch ‘Yojimbo’ AND ‘Sanjuro’. There are legions of other choices, ‘Hidden Fortress’, ‘Throne of Blood’….you could fill an entire month’s worth of free time just watching Kurosawa films and be better off for the effort.

    Haven’t seen ‘Oldboy’ yet, though my buddy Erik goes on and on about it. I’ll have to check it out. But for the love of god, check out some Kurosawa. He’s only the greatest director of All Time… [g]

  6. Dreamweapon Avatar
    Dreamweapon

    Also, ‘Gangs of New York’ was one of the WORST movies I have ever seen, and the only movie I have ever walked out of the theater on. Thank you for not mindlessly including it amongst Scorsese’s best of list, like so many others would.

  7. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    Dreamweapon – I haven’t seen any of those Kurosawa flicks, so my lack of inclusion isn’t because of dislike. And thanks for the advice, I’ll have to check him out.

    “Gangs of New York” is awful.

  8. Mr. Tintle Avatar
    Mr. Tintle

    1) Goodfellas is marty’s crowning achievement.

    2) City of God is tru. Tru enough to be at the top.

    3) Amelie should be in there as well, followed by another french flick, the red balloon.

  9. Dreamweapon Avatar
    Dreamweapon

    ‘Amelie’? Please, some of you guys need to rediscover your sacks. [g] Even amongst JUST Jeunet films, I would take ‘City of Lost Children’ or ‘Delicatessen’ over that chick fare. You guys must be talking about the “the top-5 foreign films that your wife/girlfriend likes that you can actually stand watching”. It’s not the same thing. Soon you will be talking about Kieslowski’s ‘Tricolor’ trilogy. Gag me.

    Triple D-you will love Kurosawa’s work, I suspect. I honestly consider him the greatest filmmaker of all time, only Kubrick is even within hailing distance. Even using 50s technology, the primal nature of combat is so vividly rendered–far more convincingly than virtually every CG-bloated picture released these days. With very few exceptions (Malick, Anderson, a couple of others), modern American directors are complete hacks by comparison.

  10. Kritter Avatar
    Kritter

    Bro, that pitcher is sick, screw fantasy, I want him in green and gold RIGHT NOW!!!

  11. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    Mr. Tintle – I could easily see placing Goodfellas above Departed, but for me, it’s tough to not consider Taxi Driver and Raging Bull Scorsese’s best work.

    Dreamweapon did an excellent and appropriate job of browbeating you about this already, but seriously, does your husband like Amelie as well?

  12. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    Dreamweapon – OK. Now I’m for sure checking this guy out. You’ve sufficiently peaked my interest here. I love Malick, Anderson and of course Kubrick, so it sounds like we have similar taste. So, if you had just one Kurosawa movie to recommend, what would it be?

  13. Dreamweapon Avatar
    Dreamweapon

    Well, with tastes like that, I’m somewhat surprised you haven’t seen his stuff yet, but hey, that just means you get more to discover now. [g] So many other filmmakers studied him and modeled their movies on his. The Magnificent Seven is openly a remake of the original Seven Samurai, which is probably his most famous work, and not without reason, as its undeniably epic. Sanjuro and Yojimbo are part and parcel of one another and are great showcases for Mifune, who was a legendary Japanese actor and Kurosawa’s favorite. They are lighter in tone than much of the rest of his work, almost jaunty. Really fun. were both models for innumerable classic Westerns, and Lucas has always openly said ‘Star Wars’ was inspired directly by ‘Hidden Fortress’. He also did two excellent Shakespeare remakes, ‘Throne of Blood’ being the reimagination of ‘MacBeth’ and ‘Ran’ being the adaptation of ‘King Lear’. Both are great; Ran is the far more recent but I personally prefer the severer ‘Throne’….I know Ebert loves ‘Ikiru’, which was set in the then-present day and nothing like most of the rest of his work, but was profound in other ways.

    Plus, I’m not even mentioning dozens of his other films, most of which are in fact wonderful. He was unique for his combination of consistency and prolificacy. At the end of the day, I think if you asked 10 different people that same question, you might get 8 or 9 different answers. This answer is now absurdly long, but I personally love ‘Seven Samurai’, it’s probably my co-favorite “classic” movie along with ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. But it’s long, and it MIGHT not be the best introduction to his oeuvre. So, I think that, this being the modern age and you being a busy guy (too busy to read such a long post, but alas, irony is largely lost on me [g]), I would have to recommend you start with the much shorter but equally awesome ‘Yojimbo’. If you like that, the logical jumping off point is ‘Sanjuro’, which is essentially a continuation, and was made the following year. If you like those, well, then the entire catalog is open to you. Ok, peace out, gotta jet for now.

  14. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    Good stuff and thanks for the info. I’ve obviously heard of “Seven Samurai” and know it’s held in very high regard. I’ll def. update my netflix queue now.

    What are some of your favorite TV shows? Past and/or present.

  15. Dreamweapon Avatar
    Dreamweapon

    ‘The Wire’ is probably the best thing I have ever seen on television, ever. Too bad there is only scheduled to be one more season. There are a number of good dramas, but that show towers over everything. That’s hardly a revelation, though, it’s probably the most critically renowned (if criminally underwatched) thing on right now. ‘South Park’ and ‘Aqua Teen’ are stables for me. I loved ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Arrested Development’ when they were on….what else….hmm, I kind of watch ‘The Shield’, but not as religiously as I once did. Other than that, I honestly don’t really follow a lot of current shows, I basically watch sports or whatever happens to be most interesting in the History/Discovery/Nat’l Geographic/Travel-type channels. All of Michael Palin’s travel series are great, I esp. loved ‘Himalaya’. Oh yeah, HBO’s new ‘Flight of the Conchords’ is also great, if you’re into off-kilter humor.

  16. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    Ya, The Wire is definitely the best show on tv. I was a big fan of Deadwood too. I’m into the Shield, and of course loved Seinfeld and Arrested Development.

    Did you watch the Aqua Teen movie? If so, how was it?

  17. Dreamweapon Avatar
    Dreamweapon

    Deadwood was great, it’s absurd it was shut down early. Swearingen was one of the best characters on television. So dumb.

    Haven’t seen the movie yet….figured it would be better left to DVD in order to, ummm, better maintain my neurochemical status through the course of the thing, if you follow me. [g]

  18. RotoScoop Avatar
    RotoScoop

    I do follow you and completely understand.

  19. online sports betting Avatar
    online sports betting

    You have a good site, i enjoyed my stay!

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