Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Argh, it burns!

The site is still basically in an open beta, and that goes double for anything related to layout or appearance. Public sentiment against the black-on-black was near-universal, which I can certainly understand after looking at the site on my work system. At the time I'm posting this, we're currently set for eye-gouging yellow on the background, but with any luck there should be a more palatable combination in place by dinner time.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Improved background.

Good luck with the site.

I think everybody is dying for a trade. I've read your analysis on trades or possibles, but maybe you could throw us a bone and tell us of one you'd like to see.

Mine was Dan Uggla for Bautista & Paulino and anybody else needed to make it work, assuming we pick up a reserve catcher.

Ideas from you or others?

Anonymous said...

Good luck with this, Vlad. I've been reading your views on this team for a few years now (mostly on Primer) and am looking forward to adding this blog to my daily Bucs consumption list. Good to know that there are others out there who suffer like me.

Happy holidays.

Bucs Fan in NY

Anonymous said...

Good luck, Vlad. You have some of the best Bucco opinions on the internet, and believe you me, this site will be on my Favorites list.

Anonymous said...

Good luck - There can never be too much Bucco content on the Web.

I'm ready for a thousand hostile comments, but as a somewhat faraway fan (Belfast, Maine), who doesn't get to see the team, what is with the universal hatred for Ronny Paulino? Is he really that bad defensively, and is his effort so obviously half-hearted?

Vlad said...

Thanks for the good wishes, guys.

I can't speak for anyone else, Me&Terry, but my own personal dislike for Paulino comes from the effort thing. I've been to a fair number of games the last two years, and in every game where Paulino was the starter he made at least one significant mistake resulting from a lack of effort. He doesn't go to his knees on balls in the dirt, he doesn't shift his body behind wild pitches to the outside (instead jabbing at them with his glove, and if he misses them, oh well), and he doesn't even always bother to try and frame pitches that are borderline calls. The lack of effort just shines through, and it really colors your enjoyment of the game as a fan if you just paid $20 to watch him lollygag his way around the field.

Doumit makes a lot of mistakes, too, for me they're easier to swallow because they're generally errors of effort (i.e. he'll try to do something the right way and then botch the execution). Those are the kind of mistakes that sometimes lead to improvement, and if nothing else I give him a little credit for making an honest effort in the first place. If I couldn't deal with honest failure, I would've given up on the Pirates a long time ago...

As an analyst I recognize that someone like Estrada isn't really a better bet than Paulino going forward, but as a fan I can't wait to run him out of the job, so I don't have to see him play anymore. There were some players on last year's team who just had negative entertainment value for me, and Paulino was one of the biggest offenders.

Bmac21 said...

Vlad,
Good luck with the new blog! I enjoyed reading your posts at Bucs Dugout and will continue to do so here.

I'd also appreciate if you gave my new Pittsburgh sports blog a look, at http://raisethejollyroger21.blogspot.com/

Thanks!