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It sounds more and more likely that this Travis d'Arnaud for R.A. Dickey trade is going to happen.

d'Arnaud: power and a strong arm

Travis d'Arnaud is a top quality prospect, and the Mets fans should be pleased to land him, provided they don't have to give up much more than Dickey to get him.

Before tearing his posterior cruciate ligament this past June, Travis d'Arnaud batted .333 with a .380 on base percentage and beastly .595 slugging. There are some great Major League seasons associated with a .595 Slugging Percentage.

It's roughly what Ryan Braun slugged this past season.

Edgar Martinez did it in 1996, when he had 80 extra-base hits.

Ernie Banks slugged .595 in 1955, with 44 home runs.

Carlos Beltran: Unappreciated Met

Right now, a .595 slugging percentage in the Major Leagues would rank in the top 350 of all time.

The current season ranked 350th, as Mets fans can appreciate, belongs to Carlos Beltran in 2006, his best season in Queens, and he slugged .594. That year, Beltran hit 80 extra-base hits, including 41 home runs.

Those are some good memories, but let's not overrate what d'Arnaud is ready to do right now. He spent last season in a notoriously hitter's friendly Pacific Coast League.

Travis d'Arnaud needs to improve. His Minor League Equivalency stats say that he is not ready for prime time. Calculating his 2012 stats with the Las Vegas 51s, to project what he would have done with the same opportunity on the Mets, yields a dreadful .300 on base percentage and lots of strike outs.

Injuries are of some concern with Travis d'Arnaud. Looking at his player page, it seems he's lost big chunks of time in even years of his career: 2008, 2010 and 2012. His Double-A numbers in 2011 were impressive, and scouts agree that he can hit and has a strong arm. d'Arnaud will turn 24 in february. With six years of team control left, if he can stay somewhat healthy during his 20's, he should deliver elusive, over-market value at a premium position.

He's never faced Major League pitching. Like all players, he'll have to adapt to the adjustments Major League teams make with each new time they face him.

The Mets are better equipped to take on a player learning on the job, than a team like Toronto that is trying to compete in 2013.

Yesterday, my intuition was telling me the Mets would regret dealing with Anthoupoulous.

Roy Halladay was awesome for Toronto and Philadelphia.

After taking over for J.P. Ricciardi on October 3, 2009 AA's first trade took place about 10 weeks later, when he traded Roy Halladay and cash to the Philadelphia Phillies for Travis d'Arnaud, Kyle Drabek and Michael Taylor, whom he swapped for Brett Wallace.

Since then, AA has had a handful of other significant deals that for the most part look defensible, if not advantageous on the Blue Jays' part.

For example, one of the trades that may not have worked out was trading Alex Gonzalez, Tyler Pastornicky, and Tim Collins to the Braves for Yunel Escobar and Jo-Jo Reyes in July 2010.

After increasing his value with a solid 2010 on the Las Vegas 51s, Brett Wallace was traded for Anthony Gose. Until this afternoon (Saturday), Gose was rumored to be included in the trade for R.A. Dickey.

Similar to the MLE's for d'Arnaud, in 189 plate appearances for the Blue Jays last season, Anthony Gose had a .303 OBP with lots of strike outs (31.2% K rate).

Anthopolous had a handful of low-cost moves that panned out in small ways, picking up players like Rajai Davis and Carlos Villanueva for players to be named later.

What Brett Lawrie lacks in makeup, he makes up for in production.

The Blue Jays spectacularly won the Shaun Marcum for Brett Lawrie trade with Milwaukee.

The Colby Rasmus trade looks alright.

The miracle move of the last few years was getting the Angels to take Vernon Wells for Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera. It was such a great move that we forgive him for swapping Mike Napoli, a few days later, for less than he was worth.

The only other really big trade on AA's resume was his yard sale raiding of the Miami Marlins.

Anthopolous couldn't control the fact that what may be his career-defining trade, Halladay, would be the first trade of his career. The jury is still out on the move. Kyle Drabek could suddenly figure it all out. Gose could improve, or be traded for someone more useful. Travis d'Arnoud is in the balance. If he becomes a star player for the Blue Jays, then it could be seen as a good trade for them. If he is traded for a Starting Pitcher that helps them to a World Series Championship, then the Halladay trade will be viewed as a success.

Syndergaard sweetens the pot.

The Dickey/d'Arnoud deal could be a great trade for both teams. The latest rumor from Mike Puma of the NY Post, is that one of the players going to the Mets is 20-year old pitching prospect, Noah Syndergaard. Last season, at 19, the 6'5" right-hander threw just over 100 innings striking out 122 batters, while walking just 31, good for an impressive 4-to-1 SO/BB ratio. Equally impressive was how he limited opponents to just 81 hits and 3 home runs.

It was fun while it lasted, R.A.

The Mets picked up R.A. Dickey for next-to-nothing, back when Omar Minaya was the General Manager. Sandy Alderson flipping 1 year of R.A. Dickey for 6 years of d'Arnaud and 6 years of a young pitching prospect, like Noah Syndergaard, would be a fabulous haul.

At the same time, the Blue Jays will be a force in the AL East with a rotation of R.A. Dickey, Josh Johnson, Mark Buehrle, Brandon Morrow, and Ricky Romero. This move would presumably allow fringy left-handed starter J.A. Happ to work on his J.P. Howell impersonation in the bullpen, preparing to replace Darren Oliver as the primary lefty, whenever the 42-year old decides to hang them up.

R.A. Dickey is 38-years old, but he's a medical marvel - pitching without a UCL in his right arm. The knuckleball is not a highly-taxing pitch, and he is as good a bet as a 28-year old, maybe even better, to stay healthy over the next 2-3 years.

The question, still, is how much more will either team have to give up? Besides d'Arnoud and Dickey, who will all the other players be? Stay tuned to MLBtraderumors.com or their Twitter feed to not miss a thing.

This can be one of the best nights of the offseason. The following is our attempt to document the evening for posterity. 

Here's what's been happening lately in the world of baseball...

Julio Teheran gave up 1 hit & 1 walk in 5 2/3 innings two nights ago for Tigres del Licey. licey.com/archivos/Boxsc… #Braves
— Bobby Aguilera (@BobbyAguilera) November 30, 2012

***

Julio Teheran’s Tigres de Licey teammate, Hanley Ramirez is batting .381, but still hasn’t drawn a walk in 5 games.

***

Congratulations to New York Mets fans for retaining their face of the franchise, David Wright, on what looks like a team-friendly deal. Sure, they will be paying prime dollars for some post-prime years, but teams in New York should not be losing their bets players because of salary restrictions.

***

The Twins traded Denard Span to Washington for excellent pitching prospect, Alex Meyer. The 6'9" right-handed, flame thrower will be a cog in the Twins Major League rotation sooner than later.

At the same time, Ken Rosenthal says the Twins should have received a larger return in this tweet:

Liked #Twins’ return of Meyer for 3 years of Span, BUT some execs think it wasn’t enough. #Mets got Zack Wheeler for 2 months of Beltran.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) November 30, 2012

In one respect, you cannot really compare the All American Denard Span with World Class Carlos Beltran. In some respects, it could be a good point, as you can't really say that 2 months are close to 3 years.

***

The Texas Rangers traded for Cory Burns, a young relief pitcher the Padres DFA'd in spite of his minor league career 11.2 K/9 rate.

It'll be interesting to see if he can grow into a a solid piece of the Rangers bullpen, as they try to overcome the losses of Koji Uehara and Mike Adams.

***

There are rumors of the Royals considering the release of Luke Hochevar to avoid paying his projected $4.5 million salary next season after arbitration. When looking at Hochevar's career W-L record and ERA, the idea of releasing him makes sense...


There's value in the fact that Hochevar can be counted on for innings. Jason Marquis has made a lot of money primarily because of that skill. Fangraphs values Hochevar's performance favorably:

Luke Hochavar Fangraphs Value
2007: $0.1 Million

AP Photo / Tony Dejac

2008: $8.5 Million
2009: $6.7 Million
2010: $6.7 Million
2011: $10.5 Million
2012: $6.7 Million

The smart people behind Fangraphs are probably on to something here, making Luke Hochevar a good bet to be worth over $4.5 million in 2013.

***

Cleveland Indians Shortstop prospect, Dorssys Paulino turned 18-years old on November 21st.* Split between Rookie Ball and Low-A last season, Paulino achieved a .333/.380/.558 batting line with 7 homeruns and 11 stolen bases in 56 games. He was the Designated Hitter 10 times and will need to improve his defense, as 25 errors in 46 games is about as bad as possible.

*Happy belated birthday, Dorssys!

Enjoy your weekends, everyone!

The day Ichiro Suzuki gets inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, will be a bright day for Baseball History. Ichiro has been a classy gentleman and ambassador for the game of baseball to millions of people around the globe. His meticulous and exuberant play put a spell on fans who were awed by his precision, athleticism, speed, and laser throwing arm. In Ichiro's heyday, his otherworldly combination of skills brought fans to the edge of their seats the moment he stepped on the field.


Off the field, Ichiro is a walking and talking living legend. Never one to let his star's shine diminish, Ichiro recently sent something to a Mariners fan that goes above and beyond the norm.

Last week, Amy Franz, the woman who ran the Ichimeter at Safeco Field, keeping count of Ichiro's career hits, received a package in the mail. Imagine her excitement when she saw what was inside:


Even better is what Ichiro wrote in his note...


In case the image is hard to see, it reads:

"Dear Amy:Thank you for your loyal support during my career in Seattle.Your unique and faithful way of cheering was a constant inspiration to me.Although the color of my spikes have now changed, I would appreciate your keeping a pair from my Mariners' years.Best, Ichiro"

That's pretty solid. The whole "... was a constant inspiration to me" part has to be an awesome thing to hear for a superfan, like Amy.

News came out on Friday night that Ichiro Suzuki's agent, Tony Attanasio, said "There has been a lot of interest [from teams], but he enjoyed playing for the Yankees so much it’s hard for him to say no to the Yankees. His preference is to stay there instead of going someplace else, but we will wait and see."

Many Yankee fans want Ichiro back.

All Ichiro needs now is mutual interest from the Bronx Bombers, which is unlikely to surpass the interest he'll receive from other teams.

It is unlikely the Yankees would re-sign Ichiro Suzuki for anything above 4th outfielder status, because Brian Cashman would have to ignore several glaring statistical red flags.

From an overall perspective, Bill James's Win Shares for Ichiro have tumbled the past four seasons...

2009 Win Shares: 28
2009 Win Shares: 23
2009 Win Shares: 15
2009 Win Shares: 11

More simply, Ichiro's On Base Percentage, courtesy of Fangraphs is trending below league average.


More specifically, the past four seasons:

2009 OBP: .386
2010 OBP: .359
2011 OBP: .310
2012 OBP: .307

Ignoring defense, but looking at his overall offensive game on Baseball Prospectus...

2009 VORP: 47.6
2010 VORP: 34.7
2011 VORP: 6.2
2012 VORP: 2.4

Practically, Ichiro may be a hit machine, but he is indisputably an outs machine. The man has been in the Top 10 in the American League in Outs Made 10 times in his 12 year career. He finished 12th in one of the other two years.

Ichiro's proclivity for making outs is of historic proportions. After 12 seasons, Ichiro Suzuki is 190th all time in outs made, with 5,721. That is the most outs made by anyone 12, or fewer, years played in the Major Leagues. With another typical season for Ichiro, he will pass about 60 or 70 more players on the all time list, and 40 or 50 of them have played 17 seasons or more.

Where will Ichiro end up next Spring? It's no doubt that a great player like Ichiro will receive a Major League contract from a desirable team. Someone could sign him to a contract similar to the one Torii Hunter signed in Detroit.

Does Tony Attanasio have a good relationship with Brian Sabean? If not the Giants, the Mariners are the only West Coast team who could use an outfielder. Even if Ichiro wanted to play for Joe Maddon in Tampa Bay, the Rays could be too scared away by the numbers. How about Dusty Baker? He loves veterans and couldn't care less about OBP, since it usually just leads to clogging the bases, anyway. Maybe Ichiro could platoon with Drew Stubbs in Cincinnati.

In his career, Rogers Hornsby had 758 more plate appearances than Ichiro, and made 195 fewer outs.
— Bobby Aguilera (@BobbyAguilera) November 25, 2012

Surely, there are others who woke up this Thanksgiving morning and started looking at pitching stats from 1982. I'm starting a pitching project from 1982-present, and thought I'd share some early morning musings.


Thirty years ago, Pete Vuckovich won the American League Cy Young Award, with a sparkling 18-6 record. He started 30 games, with 9 complete games and a shutout. The player who probably should have won that year, Toronto's Dave Stieb, went 17-14, but his WAR was almost three times as high as Vuckovich's (7.3 to 2.5). Stieb had a slightly lower ERA, but an ERA+ that's 24 points higher, while starting 8 more games and throwing 65 more innings. The Toronto ace also threw 19 complete games and 5 shutouts.

We can see how important a pitcher's Win-Loss record was back then, when noticing that Vuckovich only struck out 105 batters, and he walked 102. BBWAA awards voters didn't have WAR or ERA+ to consider, when voting in 1982. They did have walks, strikeouts, complete games, shutouts, etc. They just didn't care about much beyond "18-6 is better than 17-14."

The 1982 Cincinnati Reds had a rough season, with a 61-101 record matching that of the abominable 2012 Cubs. At least, they had some interesting starting pitching.

This was the last year in Cincinnati for 37-year old Tom Seaver, after a 5-13 record and 5.50 ERA. Seaver would go on to give the Mets one more year in 1983, before finishing his career in the American League, wearing White and Red Sox.

At the top of the Reds rotation, a couple of hard luck starters stand out. Mario Soto went 14-13, with a 2.79 ERA and 274 strikeouts.

Bruce Berenyi had a league-worst 18 losses, but also a league best 0.3 HR/9.

Soto and Berenyi were in the Top 8 in the National League in Wins Above Replacement, and the Reds still lost 101 games.


The Reds lost 23 games that Bruce Berenyi started, the most in all of baseball. The worst winning percentage a team had behind any qualified starter in 1982 belonged to the New York Mets, who went 6-16 in games started by Mike Scott.

Again, this was early this morning. I rubbed my eyes and thought, "is that the Mike Scott - the '86 NLCS MVP from the Astros?"

Of course it was. What a remarkable turn of his career.

Mike Scott, before his 30th birthday:
29-44, 4.45 ERA, 78 ERA+, 10.0 H/9, 4.2 BB/9

Mike Scott, after his 30th birthday:
95-64, 3.11 ERA, 115 ERA+, 7.2 H/9, 7.4 K/9

What happened? Before, Mike Scott's age-30 season (1985), Roger Craig taught him the split-finger fastball.

Mike Scott is thankful for the split-finger fastball

Over the past few weeks, a bunch of stuff has been on my mind, and occasionally I'll try to document it somewhere, so that I won't forget it. Sometimes, it's a solitary tweet, like my shout out to Aramis Ramirez on Sunday morning.

Aramis Ramirez had such a great 2012. Batting .300/.360/.540 with 80 extra-base hits should earn some MVP votes.
— Bobby Aguilera (@BobbyAguilera) November 11, 2012

Instead of testing the patience of our twitter followers, let's jot a few more ideas down here...


Aramis Ramirez hit 50 doubles in 2012, the most in baseball. In fact, he lead the league in percentage of plate apperances that result in an Extra-base hit.

Aramis Ramirez has noticeably improved his D

***
Cubs fans silver lining: Alfonso Soriano was 17th in XBH%.
***

The Robinson Cano situation continues to fascinate. The cautionary tale is that Cano turned 30 last month and could see his skills precipitously decline in the way Chase Utley and billions of other human beings have before him. Taking a look at comparable players to Robinson Cano shows how vastly the opinions can vary.

The Chase Utley comparison portends to an injury-plagued future of diminishing slugging percentages. Optimistic comparisons to fellow Panamanian, left-handed, line-drive machine, Rod Carew are about as good as it gets. On his way to 3,053 career hits, Carew hit 1,458 before and 1,595 hits after his 30th birthday. His .328 career batting average, which ranks 34th all time, between Wade Boggs and Rogers Hornsby, remained constant pre/post the big 3-O, while he increased his on-base percentage. Carew's slash lines were Under 30: .328/.383/.430 and Age 30+: .328/.402/.429

Unfortunately, the similarities between Cano and Carew are more circumstantial and superficial than statistical. As we can see from Cano's career slash lines: .308/.351/.503, he has a higher slugging percentage. Unfortunately, for Cano fans, his OBP trails Carew's because his BB% has only recently begin to approach Carew's level.

Aside from their aesthetic similarities, their smooth swings, good faces, and nationalities, according to Baseball-Reference, Rod Carew has not ranked in the top 10 of any of Robinson Cano similarity scores.

According to B-R, here are CAno's Top 10 most similar players...

Similar Batters

Wright and Cano have many similar traits.

Chase Utley (912)
David Wright (882)
Jose Vidro (872)
Carlos Guillen (864)
Rich Aurilia (856)
Hanley Ramirez (851)
Brandon Phillips (849)
Chick Hafey (849)*
Nomar Garciaparra (848)
Victor Martinez (848)

* - Signifies Hall of Famer

Similar Batters through 29
David Wright (882)

George Brett had a good 2nd half of his career

Carlos Baerga (874)
Joe Torre (872)
Travis Fryman (871)
Bobby Doerr (870)*
George Brett (867)*
Tony Lazzeri (865)*
Ryne Sandberg (850)*
Nomar Garciaparra (847)
Aramis Ramirez (845)

* - Signifies Hall of Famer

The most ominous comparison in Cano's groups is that of Carlos Baerga. More than a drop of power/production in his 30's, Baerga's skills completely went away after his Age 26 season.

Carlos Baerga was not a good Met

Let's put it this way, from the start of their careers through the Age-26 season, Robinson Cano accumulated 13.6 rWAR, compared with Carlos Baerga's 19.4 rWAR. From Age 27 through last year, Cano has gone on to accumulate another 21.2 rWAR, while Baerga's rest of his career was good for -2.2 rWAR. Yes, that's a negative number.

Cano has already surpased the age of Baerga's meltdown, which is a good thing. Some of the names on his list were good older players, while others were not.

Carlos Guillen improved his OPS+, from a respectable 106 in his 20's, to 116 after his 30th birthday.

Jose Vidro had a .304 lifetime batting average and 113 OPS+ on his 30th birthday, only to see those numbers fall to .284 and 96 afterwards.

Rich Aurilia's OPS was 108 in his 20's and 91 in his 30's.

Robinson Cano's agent should look to draw comparisons between his client and Hall of Famer, George Brett. While Brett's batting average fell 21 points, from .316 in his 20's to .295 in his 30's, his on-base percentage stayed constant, and his OPS+ only went down from 139 to 132.

After turning 30, Nomar Garciaparra's batting average and slugging percentage fell 32 and 109 points, respectively.

Chick Hafey could hit.

Another Hall of Famer, Chick Hafey, had impressive rate stats throughout his career, but after turning 30, he only played in 388 games after turning 30.

In a total doomsday scenario for Robinson Cano's next team, one-hundred million dollars divided by 400 games players would come out to $250K/game.

Personally, I'm leaning towards a productive handful of seasons in Robinson Cano's future. To bring this full circle, one of the more optimistic comparison's is the #10 most similar player at Age 29: Aramis Ramirez. While A-Ram is a classic power hitter who's skills could have fallen off drastically after 30, but he just turned in one of the best seasons of his career at 34.

A debate among New York Yankees fans has been heating up over the past few days: the debate to trade Robinson Canó, or extend his contract, to a nine-figure deal, keeping him in the Bronx for the next several years.


Some Yankee fans want the Yankees to honor their team's heritage of spending more and more money, always improving the team, never acknowledging any fiscal limitations.

Other fans are wary of issues signing players, who are good today, to long-term contracts that will continue to pay them like superstars through their post-prime years.

Alex Rodriguez is most often used as the example of this argument, but the truth is there are dozens of examples since the Yankees signed Catfish Hunter on the last day of 1974.

Over at the MLBTR Yankees Facebook page, one commenter states: He's a talent that you see every once n a while but if he wants much than I say....let him walk.

We're not trying to poke fun at this fan's opinion, but my question is how often is "every once in a while"? Does he mean every few years? Every 20 years? Once in a lifetime?

I'm thinking that Robinson Cano is about as good as any second baseman we can expect to see for the next 15 years, at least.

There are many ways of measuring Robinson Cano's greatness.

For one, here is how he ranks among Second Baseman of the past 50 years, with at least 750 games played through their Age-29 season, by OPS+ (SPOILER ALERT: He ranks 3rd)...


I never would have guessed that, over the past 50 years, only 33 second basemen had an OPS+ over 100.

More detailed looks will show that Robinson Cano is among the league leaders in OBP, SLG, Hits, and Extra Base Hits.

Dating back to 1902, only Rogers Hornsby played at least half of his games at Second Base and hit more Homeruns than Robinscon Cano through their Age 29 seasons...


Let's open the floor to discussion... Should the Yankees extend Robinson Cano for the next 5, 6, or 7 years, at an expense over $100 million? Or, should they trade him for prospects, before losing him via Free Agency?

How many more games will Robinson Cano have as a Yankee? How many more should he have?

Last time around, we looked at the 2012 All Defensive Teams when ranking players by various defensive statistics, such as Fielding Percentage, Defensive Runs Save, Ultimate Zone Rating, and more.

Sadly and insatiably, much more.

This time, for brevity's sake, we're only using DRS and UZR.

Defensive stats should be reviewed with a larger sample size than just one year, hence the following:

2010-2012 All Defensive Teams
Min 1,500 innings

2010-2012 Ultimate Zone Rating
1b: Adrian Gonzalez 29.9

Sabathia should dump something cold on Gardner for being mentioned here.

2b: Dustin Pedroia 32.7
3b: Adrian Beltre 33.7
SS: Brendan Ryan 33.8
LF: Brett Gardner 51.5
CF: Peter Bourjos 40
RF: Jason Heyward 35.7

Both UZR and DRS love them some Brett Gardner, the only player to sweep the four categories in this post.

2010-2012 UZR/150
1b: Daric Barton 12.7
2b: Dustin Pedroia 14
3b: Adrian Beltre 14.6
SS: Clint Barmes 13.6
LF: Brett Gardner 35.9
CF: Peter Bourjos 23.9
RF: Ben Zobrist 20.9

Excellent Safeco fan reactions!

Peter Bourjos has consistently been a terrific defensive player for the Angels. Over the past three seasons, Bourjos has saved 13, 12, and 9 runs above the average Centerfielder. If he can imprive his offensive production, even getting to 2011 levels of suerficial production with a .271 batting average, 12 home runs, and 22 stolen bases, he could win a few Gold Gloves. What's odd is taht in 2012, he swung at fewer pitches outside of the strike zone, made more contact, but still couldn't improve his strikeout percentage. Peter Bourjos will be 26 years old on Opening Day. So, this is his time to shine.

2010-2012 Defensive Runs Saved
C: Yadier Molina 32
1b: Mark Teixeira/Albert Pujols 26
2b: Mark Ellis 35
3b: Adrian Beltre 45
SS: Brendan Ryan 67
LF: Brett Gardner 50
CF: Michael Bourn 51
RF: Jason Heyward 50
P: Mark Buehrle/Jake Westbrook 31

A.P. Photo

The brilliance of Brendan Ryan really shines with his 67 Defensive Runs Saved over the past three seasons.

By comparison, the nearest Shortstop is Alexei Ramírez with 41.

Pitchers and Catchers finally make an appearance. No surprises with Molina, Buehrle, or Westbrook, but there's a big surprise at catcher when DRS is converted to a rate stat, below.

2010-2012 DRS/1,200 innings
C: Humberto Quintero 13.1

Recognition like this surely makes it all worthwhile

1b: Daric Barton 13
2b: Ben Zobrist 15.7
3b: Evan Longoria 18
SS: Brendan Ryan 23.9
LF: Brett Gardner 27.9
CF: Peter Bourjos 18.4
RF: Josh Reddick 21.4
P: Jake Westbrook 66.4

Josh Reddick had a really good season. He saved 22 runs above average in right field this year. The A's really benefited from having him in RF, with Coco Crisp in CF, the two of them covering a lot of ground.

An outfield of Gardner, Bourjos and Reddick sounds good

How about that Ben Zobrist? UZR/150 has him as the best Right Fielder, and DRS/1,200 innings recognizes his work at second.

Despite this bobble, Ben Zobrist is an exceptional defender at multiple positions

It's surely bittersweet for some Astros fans who love Humberto Quintero, to see him succeed in Kansas City. The jury is still out on the trade to KC, because Kevin Chapman or D'Andre Toney could turn out to be really good. Quintero was on the Astros in 2010 and 2011, so his recognition here is mostly for his work on the Astros. In such, he pulls off an upset over Yadier Molina, worthy of Rulon Gardner over Alexander Karelin comparisons.

Where were you when Gardner beat Karelin?