Posts Tagged ‘Baseball’


With the lowest total of errors at the 3B position and the highest fielding percentage in the AL at the position, Joe Crede has obviously been effective at third base for the Twins in 2009. There’s a new metric that’s taken more seriously, though, and this is called the UZR.

Aside from the regular offensive contributions that Crede gives to the team, his UZR and his fielding stats have been top notch, and even better than his hitting. This has been invaluable to the Minnesota ball club.

To build on the UZR, there’s a stat called the UZR 150, which goes to show how many runs a player has cost or saved his team over the span of 150 games played at a certain position. Crede’s UZR is about 27 runs per 150 games at 3B. To put it into perspective, the next best in the AL after Crede there is Adrian Beltre, at around 17.

With dominant numbers like this, you have to wonder why Joe Crede doesn’t get more respect. In fact, hardly anyone realizes just how good he is at the position.

In conclusion, Crede has benefited this team in so many ways. Crede has provided power in 14 HR to the middle-bottom of the order…Crede has the highest fielding percentage in the american league (.985) with only 3 errors committed. Crede ranks at the top of all third baseman in UZR and UZR/150 saving an average of 25-30 runs.

There’s no question that Crede should win the gold glove at third base this season, in my opinion. Looking at the stats, he dominates his competition in UZR, fielding percentage, and errors. I don’t see why he wouldn’t.

The Twins seemed to get snubbed for these awards every year. Save for Morneau’s recent MVP award, there have been quite a few worthy fielders in recent years who haven’t won the award. Castillo, Morneau, and Mauer, to name a few.

The Gold Glove voters are biased, as are the All-Star voters. This would also explain whyCarlos Gomezdid not win a Gold Glove last year, despite being the best defensive CF in the Major League Baseball – along withGrady Sizemore.

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In order to play baseball well you will need strong legs, back and arms. You will also need a fair amount of endurance to go with the strength you develop. Each part will need to be adequately worked to give you a well-rounded performance.

In baseball no matter what position you play you need a strong throwing arm, however if you are going to pitch this is even more true. There are two ways to get the muscle tone you will need for pitching, free weights, and the different exercises available with the home gym.

The following exercises you can do to get a stronger arm strength: tricep pushdowns, bicep curls, wrist extensions, preacher curls, and many more. These exercises will increase the strength and flexibility in your arms.

The core is also very important to strengthen and the back plays a big part of the core. A bowflex home gym is the solution to training this are too. You can do lying lateral pull downs, back extensions, shoulder pull overs, and wide grip pull downs to name a few. These are great exercises to strengthen the back.

One of the most important parts of the body for a baseball player is your legs. They need to be strong and flexible. This means that along with regular training you will want to stretch as well. Everyone from the pitcher to the catcher uses his or her legs quite a bit. Bow Flex home gym exercises: Leg extensions, Squats, Lunge Leg aversion, Seated hip extensions, Leg press, Ankle eversion, and Ankle inversion. These and others are good exercises to build muscle strength and flexibility. It is important however that you do not focus on building massive muscle, as a ball player you will want lean athletic legs not bodybuilder ones.

Finally, to play baseball you need to be able to run at the drop of a hat, or bat as the case maybe. You may run a little or a lot in one game the point is you never know, so you will need to participate in a good cardiovascular workout to be prepared. Ball players will tell you most practices you will spend half the time running. Make sure your workouts on the Bow Flex are increasing your heart rate and providing you with a cardio workout.

Remember to rest when you are working out. Do not do the same muscle group too often. It needs to rest to be able to build up strength. A bowflex home gym is a great piece of equipment to get in shape on for baseball.

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Men are you tired of hearing about how flat your stomach used to be and how the heaviest thing you lift now is your gut over your belt? If so, thats about to change, as I (drum roll please) am about to show you How to Get Rid of the Beer Belly without Giving Up Beer! Now let’s get down to defining what a beer belly really is and determine if it is really caused by beer.

What is a beer belly? A beer belly is by definition a section of fat that has begun to live somewhere between your chest and the area you used to call your waistline. But is it cause by beer? The answer is no. Science and medicine has proven that beer bellies are actually caused by a build up in calories resulting from unhealthy eating habits and lifestyles. The stomach area is the region of the body where men have the greatest deposit of fat cells so, when the body intakes a lot of calories and doesn’t burn them up throughout the day, the body send the fat to that specific area right in your stomach.

Okay, now that we’ve discussed where that belly comes from, (probably those mashed potatoes you like to eat) we can now discuss what you can do to get rid of it. You should start by working on those fat cells that are spreading across your stomach. While I have already stated that beer is not the cause, it can contribute to your rotund stomach. Alcohol can make you hungrier (remember beer and pizza with the guys on Sunday night?). But if you stopped drinkg as much, you’d probably stop eating as much which would be one step on your journey to flat abs.

Cut the beer and you cut the increased appetite, but since this article is about How to Get Rid of the Beer Belly without Giving Up Beer, I wont try to convince you to stop. But you need to switch to either a beer with fewer calories or exercise more than you drink to balance out the increased calories. Exercising more than you drink sounds too much like hard work, so well skip that too and just focus on reducing the amount of calories taken in by looking at the best beers for your waist.

The first thought that probably comes to your mind when somebody says low calorie beer is those light beers that taste terrible. This article is not going to try to convince you of those beers, because we all know that real men don’t drink such girly drinks.

First we have the nice and dark Guiness Draught; this beer is not light and with only 125 calories and 10 carbs, you don’t have to worry about your belly. It’s also full of flavor so you don’t have to drink tons to make up for a bad taste. Second we have Beamish Irish Stout; it’s light on calories with only 131. Finally, we have Busch which only has about 133 calories and around 10 carbs. So drink responsibly and get rid of that gut!

So now you have the key to getting rid of your beer belly without having to but down the bottle. So the next time your wife or girlfriend tells you to get off the couch and lose some weight, go grab yourself another cold one, pop the bottle open and tell her you’re working on it now!

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