Mediocrity comes to first base!

Well, the Nationals signed Adam LaRoche to man first base for them yesterday. The deal will pay Adam $7MM for 2010 and $8MM for 2011 with a mutual option (at $10MM) for a third year, but there is a Nats buyout of that third year for $1MM available.
When the news came out it was greeted by Nats Nation with a loud and boisterous response, one that was voiced exactly the same by my cat.



Everyone's complaint seems to be that Adam is just, well... average. Here's a clip from Boswell's column on the signing:

The Nats paid full price - at least. For a first baseman who has averaged 26 homers and 89 RBI the past five years - almost exactly the MLB average for the position - they gave a two-year deal for $15 million, plus a $1 million buyout on a third year at $10 million.

Well then! Ouchies! Yikes! But you know what (and someone on my twitter feed mentioned last night but can't find this morning)... That means we still got the 15th best first baseman in the major leagues. I know what LaRoche must be thinking, "What am I, chopped liver?" (Okay, big lie right there. He's actually thinking about all the sweet shit he's gonna get with his $16MM in guaranteed money. In fact, I'm pretty sure he's contemplating shit like a wet bar for his master bedroom bath.)

So, it could have been worse. There are about 15 teams out there, in fact, that have had/will have a worse first baseman than LaRoche. (And since statistics went 3,000 feet over my head, I know I'm probably confusing average with mean and median. To those of you scoffing at me for marginalizing the terms... my bad!)

For the record, I'm fine with the signing.

Now, let's move on to more salacious news. The Twitter feud between Collin Balester and Joel Hanrahan has heated up again. Remember last year when Joel called Collin a big fat nerdy-nerd? Well, this time it was Collin calling Joel names.

We get a tweet from Joel, who's spending his day on a golf course, and had some issues with his mode of transportation.



Ugh. The poor dude's golf cart broke down! Oh Noes!!1

Bally (obviously still steaming from last years tweet beat down) comes back strong with this, though.



Damn! He said Joel so fat, he gotta have a lifeguard for his cereal bowl!!! ! Zing! He said Joel so fat, he gotta put on his belt with a boomerang!!! Snap! He said Joel so fat, he has a much higher likelihood of dying from a heart related disease!!! Oh no he didn...

Wait. Wow. Well, Collin, that's just plan morbid. Way to ruin a string of good jokes, pal....