Wager Update

As I have mentioned previously, I have a bet this season on who will end up with better statistics on the season between Corey Hart (my pick) and Nick Markakis. We came up with a very complicated method for comparing the players, which isn't important here - I'm just going to provide the raw statistics as of games through July 22.

Corey Hart .286/.325/.507 16 hr, 59 rbi, 14 sb, 108 h, 52 r

Nick Markakis .295/.400/.489 15 hr, 54 rbi, 9 sb, 111 h, 66 r

As with last time, these guys are pretty close. Markakis has a pretty big lead in OBP and runs, and Hart is pulling away in stolen bases and has a decent lead in SLG, but all of the other categories are still up for grabs. If the season ended today, I think I would lose the bet but there are still two months to go. The Brewers are getting hot as they push for the NL Central lead, while the Orioles may dump players at the deadline. My hope is that Hart and Markakis will trend with their teams from here on out, bringing Hart ahead in the end.

Markakis vs. Hart

As I previously posted, I have a running wager this season with a friend regarding the performance of Nick Markakis of the Orioles and Corey Hart of the Brewers. As it is turning out, we could not have picked two more similar players through the first two months. Here are their respective stats as of today:

Nick Markakis: 187 at bats .251/.367/.433 9(hr) 24(rbi) 7(sb) 28(r) 47(h) 7(2b) 0(3B) 33(bb) 43(k)

Corey Hart: 196 at bats .296/.347/.464 6(hr) 27(rbi) 9(sb) 26(r) 58(h) 11(2b) 2(3b) 13(bb) 40(k)

The only significant difference is that Hart has a higher batting average, which Markakis makes up for with walks (leading to a higher OBP). I still feel pretty good about the wager, though. To this point, Markakis and the Orioles have played above their heads (the Orioles are 26-26 right now) and should slow down - in fact they have lost seven of their last ten games. The Brewers, on the other hand, have been unable to get things going. They are currently 26-27 and while they may not be as good as I thought before the season, I still expect them to pick up the pace. I somehow doubt that Prince Fielder will stay on pace to only hit 19 homeruns this season (after hitting 50 last season).

So, I believe that while Markakis' stats are the best you can hope for out of him considering the performance of his team and the players around him, Hart has considerable room for improvement once his team begins to play better.

Spring Training Photo Dump

I finally got around to going through the rest of my pictures from Spring Training. Here are the best of what's left.

The first one has a story - I have a bet going into this season with a friend of mine regarding who will have a better season, my breakout pick, Corey Hart, or Baltimore's Nik Markakis. Since I got to see Baltimore play while I was in Florida, I took a bunch of pictures of Markakis and emailed the following awkward looking one to my friend, offering to let him out of the bet, if he wanted:

The next one has no story, I just think it is a nice looking picture (Chris Duncan singled to rightfield on this pitch):

The next pair of pictures concerns me as a Cardinals fan. I hope that this isn't the extent of the video crew that the club is using for internal purposes.

Here is a closeup of the guy:

Finally, rookie Adam Jones (who the Orioles acquired from Seattle as part of the Erik Bedard trade) had a nice spring and I expect him to be a very good all around ballplayer for years to come. Here is a picture of him just prior to contact.