Countdown to the season
Del Olaleye: College football weekly update
Del Olaleye
Aug 1, 2018, 8:40 am
Kliff Kingsbury is not all that liked by Baker Mayfield. Thomas B. Shea/Getty Images
Scott Frost gets robbed
Apparently winning a national title as a player and being the next savior of Nebraska football doesn’t make you exempt from getting robbed in Lincoln, Nebraska. That is what happened to new Huskers coach Scott Frost. In his first summer back as a Lincoln resident Frost had his house broken into and initial reports valued the stolen merchandise at $165,000. Frost has since disputed the initially reported value. He made that clear as part of a statement: “I would like to clarify that some items initially reported as missing have been found, including some of the rings listed on the police report. Also, the value of what we believe to actually be missing is lower than what has been publicly reported." It was reported that some of the missing things were found in the garage which was actually the point of entry for the burglars. Somebody better tell coach that Lincoln isn’t the same as it was when he left. Don’t think his former coach Tom Osborne had to worry about anyone breaking into his home. Then again he won three national titles. Legends can leave all their doors unlocked in Lincoln.
The house was being remodeled so no one was living at the home at the time. That made the theft easy as all the items taken were in boxes. The stolen swag consisted of title rings and multiple pairs of Jordans. Frost has coached at Nike schools for the last nine years of his career. He was the head coach at UCF most recently and the offensive coordinator at Phil Knight’s love child Oregon before that. He now coaches at Nebraska, one of the premier schools for Adidas. I’m sure #3StripeLife will excuse it this time, but the next time Frost has his house robbed the stolen items better consist of Yeezys and Hardens vol. 3s.
Baker Mayfield has some thoughts on Kliff Kingsbury
Baker Mayfield’s journey is a tired story. So I won’t really get into it. Just know that before he was a star at Oklahoma he was walkon at Texas Tech. A really good one in fact. He started his career 5-0 as a starter. He got hurt during that season and that is where he claims his relationship with Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury changed. In a clip from his docu-series for Fox Sports he says that after he got hurt the relationship between himself and Coach Kingsbury took a downturn. According to Mayfield, Kingsbury treated him after the injury as if “he hadn’t done anything for him”. That’s only the quarterback’s side of the story and Kingsbury has responded to his former signal caller’s words in a short statement to TMZ, "I’ve always been a huge fan of Baker and loved working with him. He had an incredible career at Oklahoma, and I wish him nothing but continued success as he begins his NFL career.” Certainly not a denial of Mayfield’s words but Kingsbury has nothing to gain from engaging in a back and forth.
Wherever the truth lies, it certainly isn’t a departure for college coaches to all of a sudden play a game of “new phone, who dis?” when it comes to players who are no longer useful to them. The word attrition is used to describe players who don’t play regularly somehow finding their way out of the program. Some of it is suggested (politely forced) by coaches and other times it is voluntarily as players look for a better opportunity to play. Mayfield’s talent makes him one of the lucky ones. It turns out he could’ve played anywhere and got the chance to beat his former team three years in row during his time at Oklahoma.
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After finishing up with the Guardians the Astros have a rather important series for early May with the Seattle Mariners heading to town for the weekend. While it’s still too early to be an absolute must-win series for the Astros, losing the series to drop seven or eight games off the division lead would make successfully defending their American League West title that much more unlikely.
Since their own stumble out of the gate to a 6-10 record the Mariners have been racking up series wins, including one this week over the Atlanta Braves. The M’s offense is largely Mmm Mmm Bad, but their pitching is sensational. In 18 games after the 6-10 start, the Mariners gave up five runs in a game once. In the other 17 games they only gave up four runs once. Over the 18 games their starting pitchers gave up 18 earned runs total with a 1.44 earned run average. That’s absurd. Coming into the season Seattle’s starting rotation was clearly better on paper than those of the Astros and Texas Rangers, and it has crystal clearly played out as such into the second month of the schedule.
While it’s natural to focus on and fret over one’s own team's woes when they are plentiful as they have been for the Astros, a reminder that not all grass is greener elsewhere. Alex Bregman has been awful so far. So has young Mariners’ superstar Julio Rodriguez. A meager four extra base hits over his first 30 games were all Julio produced down at the ballyard. That the Mariners are well ahead of the Astros with J-Rod significantly underperforming is good news for Seattle.
Caratini comes through!
So it turns out the Astros are allowed to have a Puerto Rican-born catcher who can hit a little bit. Victor Caratini’s pedigree is not that of a quality offensive player, but he has swung the bat well thus far in his limited playing time and provided the most exciting moment of the Astros’ season with his two-out two-run 10th inning game winning home run Tuesday night. I grant that one could certainly say “Hey! Ronel Blanco finishing off his no-hitter has been the most exciting moment.” I opt for the suddenness of Caratini’s blow turning near defeat into instant victory for a team that has been lousy overall to this point. Frittering away a game the Astros had led 8-3 would have been another blow. Instead, to the Victor belong the spoils.
Pudge Rodriguez is the greatest native Puerto Rican catcher, but he was no longer a good hitter when with the Astros for the majority of the 2009 season. Then there’s Martin Maldonado.
Maldonado’s hitting stats with the Astros look Mike Piazza-ian compared to what Jose Abreu was doing this season. Finally, mercifully for all, Abreu is off the roster as he accepts a stint at rookie-level ball in Florida to see if he can perform baseball-CPR on his swing and career. Until or unless he proves otherwise, Abreu is washed up and at some point the Astros will have to accept it and swallow whatever is left on his contract that runs through next season. For now Abreu makes over $120,000 per game to not be on the roster. At his level of performance, that’s a better deal than paying him that money to be on the roster.
Abreu’s seven hits in 71 at bats for an .099 batting average with a .269 OPS is a humiliating stat line. In 2018 George Springer went to sleep the night of June 13 batting .293 after going hitless in his last four at bats in a 13-5 Astros’ win over Oakland. At the time no one could have ever envisioned that Springer had started a deep, deep funk which would have him endure a nightmarish six for 78 stretch at the plate (.077 batting average). Springer then hit .293 the rest of the season.
Abreu’s exile opened the door for Joey Loperfido to begin his Major League career. Very cool for Loperfido to smack a two-run single in his first game. He also struck out twice. Loperfido will amass whiffs by the bushel, he had 37 strikeouts in 101 at bats at AAA Sugar Land. Still, if he can hit .225 with some walks mixed in (he drew 16 with the Space Cowboys) and deliver some of his obvious power (13 homers in 25 games for the ex-Skeeters) that’s an upgrade over Abreu/Jon Singleton, as well as over Jake Meyers and the awful showing Chas McCormick has posted so far. Frankly, it seems unwise that the Astros only had Loperfido play seven games at first base in the minors this year. If McCormick doesn’t pick it up soon and with Meyers displaying limited offensive upside, the next guy worth a call-up is outfielder Pedro Leon. In January 2021 the Astros gave Leon four million dollars to sign out of Cuba and called him a “rapid mover to the Major Leagues.” Well…
Over his first three minor league seasons Leon flashed tools but definitely underwhelmed. He has been substantially better so far this year. He turns 26 May 28. Just maybe the Astros offense could be the cause of fewer Ls with Loperfido at first and Leon in center field.
Catch our weekly Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast. Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and I discuss varied Astros topics. The first post for the week generally goes up Monday afternoon (second part released Tuesday) via YouTube: stone cold stros - YouTube with the complete audio available via Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.