One of the best infographic artists has an amazing book out there called Flip Flop Fly Ball.

We have talked with and about Craig Robinson in this space before.  This time, we bring your attention to a recent project that Craig undertook – building famous baseball players out of Legos.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I know we are supposed to talk about Royals and Cardinals baseball here at i70, but sometimes you reach out and find something fun and baseball related and you just have to share.  There are no Royals or Cardinals players in the images below, but there are nine pretty awesome Lego creations of some great players.

Keep an eye over at Flip Flop Flying to track down any more that Craig makes.

Use the controls below to look through the nine images of Pete Rose, Dennis Eckersley, Jose Bautista, Sergio Romo, Randy Johnson, Mark Fidrych, Andre Dawson, Barry Bonds, and Fernando Valenzuela.  Please note: all images are the property of Craig Robinson.

Fernando Valenzuela

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Fernando Valenzuela - He finished his career with the Cardinals, but he was most famous as a Dodger.

Bill Ivie is the editor here at I-70 Baseball
Follow him on Twitter here.

LINEUPS FOR THE 83^rd ALL-STAR GAME ANNOUNCED

Aces Verlander of the Tigers and Cain of the Giants Earn Starting Honors

KANSAS CITY, MO – The 2012 All-Star Game managers, Tony La Russa and Ron Washington of the Texas Rangers, have announced their starting lineups for the 83^rd Midsummer Classic, to be played on Tuesday at Kauffman Stadium.  The lineups were announced at this afternoon’s 2012 All-Star Game Press Conference.

La Russa’s National League lineup will be:

Washington’s American League lineup will be:

Cain, now a three-time N.L. All-Star, threw the first perfect game in Giants franchise history and the 22^nd of all-time on June 13^th against the Houston Astros.  His 14 strikeouts were tied for the most ever in a perfect game, matching Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax.  The eighth-year hurler, who has a 3.29 career ERA, threw 21.1 innings without allowing an earned run in the 2010 Postseason, helping lift the Giants to the city of San Francisco’s first World Series Championship.  Cain became the sixth pitcher in Major League history to make three starts in a Postseason without allowing an earned run.  His streak of 21.1 innings without allowing an earned run to start his Postseason career is the sixth longest in Major League history.  The durable right-hander has made at least 31 starts in each full season of his career (2006-2011).

Verlander, now a five-time A.L. All-Star, was both the 2011 American League Most Valuable Player and the 2011 A.L. Cy Young Award winner after going 24-5 with a 2.40 ERA, becoming the 10^th pitcher of all-time to win both in the same season and the first since Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley in 1992.  The Old Dominion product was also the A.L. Rookie of the Year in 2006, when he helped Detroit reach the World Series for the first time since 1984.  Verlander becomes the first pitcher ever to win an MVP, a Cy Young, the Rookie of the Year Award and to start an All-Star Game in his career.  Don Newcombe won the three awards but never started the Midsummer Classic in his four All-Star appearances.  Verlander owns a career record of 116-62 with a 3.45 ERA and has thrown two no-hitters in his career.  The Virginia native will become the seventh different Tigers pitcher to start the All-Star Game (10^th overall).

The 2012 All-Star Game will be played at Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday, July 10^th.  The 83^rd All-Star Game will be televised nationally by FOX Sports; in Canada by Rogers Sportsnet and RDS; and worldwide by partners in more than 200 countries via MLB International’s independent feed.  Pregame ceremonies will begin at 8:00 p.m. (ET)/7:00 p.m. (CT).  ESPN Radio and ESPN Radio Deportes will provide exclusive national radio coverage of the All-Star Game.  MLB Network, MLB.com and SiriusXM also will provide comprehensive All-Star Week coverage.

For more information, please visit allstargame.com or royals.com/2012.

Once again the Kansas City Royals are starting the season by solidifying themselves on the Mt Rushmore of baseball futility. They have yet to win a home game! They let Prince Fielder, and Jose Bautista steal bases. They found a way to lose a game that’s never been done before, or if it has no one can remember, by hitting two consecutive batters to force home a winning run. It’s frustrating to the point of being mystifying how one organization can come with so many ways to be terrible.

It’s not like we haven’t seen this before. In January I wrote a post called Winter Worries. Unfortunately it appears a lot of my worries are coming true. The past two weeks have reminded me of 2004 more than the Kauffman Era. Key players are on the Disabled List. Veteran players have regressed. Rookies have regressed, in the case of Greg Holland, spectacularly. The league has adjusted to the younger players and they appear to have trouble adjusting back. I don’t know if Ned Yost is going to jump in the shower with his uniform on, or flee the team in the middle of the night. Since that whacky stuff has already happened, probably not. But it would not shock me if the Royals find some other way to make their fan utter “WTF” and national media text “LOL” to all their friends. You see, this organization has more of a track record for creating scenes fit for a Yackety Sax Youtube video than winning baseball games.

I’ve been told thirteen games is not a large sample size. Let me tell you about a sample size: Since April 18, 2000, the date David Glass assumed sole ownership of the Royals, the Royals are 813-1144. That is the worst record in the Major Leagues during that time. (They are 2 games back of the Pirates in case you were wondering.) Is that a big enough sample size? Royals fans have been told by non-stake holders that the Royals have one of the best farm systems in Major League Baseball. We’ve been told that this 2012 version is better on paper. I guess I should believe that, but fans don’t print up t-shirts, and you don’t get to hang banners in your stadium for being good on paper and winning awards from publications. You get those things by winning baseball games.

The organization tells us it takes 8 to 10 years to build from within and go from terrible to winner. Really? Tell that to Andrew Freidman General Manager of the Tampa Bay Rays. He was promoted to General Manager after the 2005 season. At the end of 2008 the Rays were American League Champions. I hope Jon Daniels of the Texas Rangers doesn’t hear that it takes 8 to 10 years to turn a team around. Daniels was also promoted to General Manager at the end of the 2005 season. It took him four seasons but the Texas Rangers won the AL Pennant in 2010 and 2011 and look to make another run, not just for the playoffs, but for the World Series title. Both of these General Managers took over their organizations six months before Dayton Moore took over the Royals. Want another example unfolding in front of our eyes? Look at the Washington Nationals. In March of 2009 Mike Rizzo was promoted to General Manager of the Nationals. Granted, the Nationals haven’t won anything yet, but they look a lot more promising than the Royals right now. Tell me again how long it should take to rebuild an entire organization?

DO NOT tell me I need to be patient! And that I’m some how not a good fan because I’m losing patience with “The Process”. I’ve been patient. The fact that I even care enough to let this baseball team make me mad says enough about my patience. It’s not like I’m being unreasonable. I was not expecting to see a World Series or even a division contender from the Royals this season. What I am expecting is for the Royals to not be fundamentally terrible in the field and on the base paths. I’m expecting them to not walk the bases loaded. I’m expecting them not do things that are so off the wall and terrible that the Royals land on baseball blogs for the wrong reasons, and become punch lines for late night television. All I’m asking is that the Royals be mediocre as opposed to historically terrible.

Is it too much to ask of the Royals to not open their home schedule with a half inning so bad that casual fans tune out for the rest of the year? Is it too much to ask the Royals to not spiral into a losing streak that has diehard fans questioning why they root for this team in the first place? Is it too much to ask that the Royals be more relevant than Major League Soccer in their own town? Is it too much to ask that the front office find some other marketing drivel to defend their terrible on field performance? It shouldn’t be. Other teams in worse markets than Kansas City have used a process to turn their organizations around. Asking Royals fans to trust Dayton Moore’s “Process” is becoming too much to ask.

KEMP UNANIMOUS PICK FOR NL Stan Musial AWARD
Bautista holds off Ellsbury in American League

There were some outstanding performances this year in Major League Baseball. However, one clearly stood out from the pack.

Los Angeles Dodger outfielder Matt Kemp was named the National League Stan Musial Award winner for 2011 in voting held by the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. Kemp received all 15 first place votes and completely dominated the rest of the voting field like he did in putting up almost a 40 HR/40 SB season for the Dodgers this year.

Coming in a distant second was Milwaukee outfielder Ryan Braun, who garnered most of the second place votes from the group. Braun’s teammate, first baseman Prince Fielder, came in third.

Interestingly enough, even though Los Angeles pitcher Clayton Kershaw outpointed Philadelphia hurler Roy Halladay in the BBA’s Walter Johnson Award voting for best pitcher, Halladay received more points for the Stan Musial Award.

Over in the American League, there were more ballots cast, perhaps due to a more intriguing race. When the dust had settled, though, Toronto’s Jose Bautista had held off Boston’s Jacoby Ellsbury by a handful of points.

Bautista received eleven of the 22 first place votes and 225 total points, while Ellsbury received five first place selections and 200 points overall. Detroit Tiger first baseman Miguel Cabrera came in third with 183 points and three first place nods. He was followed by two of his Detroit teammates, including Walter Johnson Award winner Justin Verlander.

The complete voting results are as follows (first place votes in parenthesis):

American League
Jose Bautista, Toronto (11) 225
Jacoby Ellsbury, Boston (5) 200
Miguel Cabrera, Detroit (3) 183
Curtis Granderson, Detroit (1) 135
Justin Verlander, Detroit (2) 126
Adrian Gonzalez, Boston 109
Dustin Pedroia, Boston 68
Robinson Cano, New York 55
Ian Kinsler, Texas 35
Michael Young, Texas 28
Evan Longoria, Tampa Bay 25
Alex Gordon, Kansas City 20
CC Sabathia, New York 13
Paul Konerko, Chicago 12
Adrian Beltre, Texas 10
Alex Avila, Detroit 8
Jered Weaver, Los Angeles of Anaheim 6
Ben Zobrist, Tampa Bay 6
Mike Napoli, Texas 4
James Shields, Tampa Bay 3
Victor Martinez, Cleveland 2
David Oritz, Boston 2
Melky Cabrera, Kansas City 1

National League
Matt Kemp, Los Angeles (15) 195
Ryan Braun, Milwaukee 134
Prince Fielder, Milwaukee 83
Joey Votto, Cincinnati 79
Justin Upton, Arizona 77
Roy Halladay, Philadelphia 49
Troy Tulowitski, Colorado 49
Albert Pujols, St. Louis 46
Jose Reyes, New York 42
Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles 31
Lance Berkman, St. Louis 28
Dan Uggla, Atlanta 14
Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco 13
Cliff Lee, Philadelphia 11
Hunter Pence, Philadelphia 6
Michael Morse, Washington 5
Brandon Phillips, Cincinnati 3
Ian Kennedy, Arizona 2
Andrew McCutchen, Pittsburgh 2
Carlos Gonzalez, Colorado 1

The Baseball Bloggers Alliance was formed in the fall of 2009 to encourage cooperation and collaboration between baseball bloggers of all major league teams as well as those that follow baseball more generally. As of this writing, the organization consists of 316 blogs spanning all 30 major league squads as well as general baseball writing.

The BBA is organized under a similar structure as the Baseball Writers of America, where blogs that follow the same team are combined into “chapters” and only two votes from the chapter on an award are counted. The blog chapters that are focused on general baseball were allowed two votes as well, which they could use both on the same league or split between the two leagues.

Chapters generally followed one of two methods when casting their ballot. Either representatives of the chapter were given the ballots for voting or a “group ballot” was posted, accounting for both of their votes.

Notably, though the Alliance’s awards come out well before their official counterparts, the BBA selections have matched those of the Baseball Writers of America in all but two instances in the past two years. This, of course, does not include the Goose Gossage Award that is exclusive to the BBA.

Ballots are posted on the respective blogs and for this award, were tabulated on a 13-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 point scale for first through tenth place. In the interest of transparency, links are given below for the ballots. Chapter affiliation is in parenthesis. Those chapters that decided on the group method are noted with an asterisk.

American League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Baltimore Life and Sports (Baltimore)
The Bat Shatters (Minnesota)
The Blue Jay Hunter (Toronto)
Boston Red Thoughts (Boston)*
Camden Crazies (Baltimore)
Contract Year (Oakland)*
Detroit Tigers Scorecard Blog (Detroit)
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Kings of Kauffman (Kansas City)*
Lady At The Bat (New York)
Misc. Baseball (History)
The Next Level Ballplayer (Other)
Seattle Mariners Musings (Seattle)
Some Thoughts On Baseball (Toronto)
Tigers Amateur Analysis (Detroit)
The Tribe Daily (Cleveland)*
Twins On Twins (Minnesota)

National League
Advanced Fantasy Baseball (Fantasy)
Appy Astros (Houston)
Blog Red Machine (Cincinnati)
Cincinnati Reds Blog (Cincinnati)
Dugger Sports (Philadelphia)
The Flagrant Fan (General)
Fungoes (St. Louis)
Misc. Baseball (History)
The Next Level Ballplayer (Other)
North Side Notch (Pittsburgh)
Phils Baseball (Philadelphia)
Rockies Woman (Colorado)
22 Gigantes (San Francisco)
Where Have You Gone, Andy Van Slyke? (Pittsburgh)

Prior Winners: 2010: Josh Hamilton, Texas; Joey Votto, Cincinnati
2009: Joe Mauer, Minnesota; Albert Pujols, St. Louis

The official website of the BBA is located atbaseballbloggersalliance.wordpress.com. The BBA can be found on Twitter by the handle @baseballblogs and by the hashmark #bbba. For more information, contact Daniel Shoptaw at founder@baseballbloggersalliance.com.

Even as resilient as this Cardinals team had proven to be over the past three months, it’s hard not to wonder whether this past weekend may have been a critical turning point in the season. We all know the stories of the Cardinals’ injuries by now, but up until Friday night, the team still held a share of first place in the NL Central.

Once again, the Cardinals had rallied to overcome a deficit and had knotted the game at 4-4. With closer Fernando Salas on the mound for the top of the 9th, the Cardinals seemed to have the upper hand in the game. But with 1 out, Blue Jays right fielder Jose Bautista sent a long fly ball towards the Cardinals bullpen. Jon Jay tracked it all the way to the wall, leaped high in the air, but missed the ball by inches. The Blue Jays took the game, and Milwaukee took over the division lead.

Twenty-four hours later, it was the 3rd inning (and the men in blue) that did the Red Birds in. With the score tied 1-1, the Blue Jays had runners at the corners and 2 outs when catcher J.P. Arencibia hit a hot-shot to 3rd base. Daniel Descalso made a diving stop, but his throw pulled Lance Berkman off the bag. Berkman was able to make it back in time, but the 1st base umpire called Arencibia safe, allowing the runner from third to score and the inning to continue. The next batter jacked a 3-run homerun, and in the blink of an eye it was 5-1 and the Jays were on their way to a 6-3 victory. The Brewers, meanwhile, pulled 2 games ahead of the Cardinals in the division.

Sunday afternoon, the Cardinals were locked in another tight ballgame in the 6th until a chopper to first base resulted in an errant throw home and opened the flood gates for another big inning. In 48 hours, the Cardinals lost 3 winnable games; and 3 important games in the standings to the Brewers.

As difficult as a home-sweep would normally be, it’s twice as hard for the Cardinals under their current set of circumstances. If you want to sum up the first half of the Cardinals’ season with one number, one telling statistic, it might be 77. That’s the number of games reserve right fielder Jon Jay has played in, leading the team in that category.

Not a single opening day starter has missed fewer than 5 games this season. David Freese, Matt Holliday, and Skip Schumaker alone have missed a combined 102 games thus far. Three-time MVP Albert Pujols will have missed 4-6 weeks by the time he returns to the lineup, and ace Adam Wainwright will not throw a single pitch for the 2011 squad.

With this recent sweep, the Cardinals have now lost 12 of their last 15 games. While it’s nearly impossible to say that a sweep in June was the knock-out punch for the Red Birds, it has certainly knocked them down in a big way.

The Cardinals have 13 games left before the All-Star Break against the Orioles, Rays, Reds, and Diamondbacks. They’re also getting David Freese back. Mid-to-late July will bring the return of Allen Craig, Albert Pujols, and Eduardo Sanchez. The rest of the team has to get back off the mat and roll with the punches until then, or postseason chances could be lost by the time the Cardinals are back at full strength.

As July quickly approaches, so does the halfway point of the season. The Cardinals still find themselves in second place just a game back of the Milwaukee Brewers even after dropping 10 of their last 12, including a seven game losing streak, and losing yet another player—some guy named Albert Pujols—to an extended stint on the DL. For a team that cannot seem to catch a break, they sure do appear lucky to be where they are.

But a mini shake-up started this week as the Cards released Miguel Batista and called Lance Lynn back up from AAA to take the open spot in the bullpen. And Lynn responded by giving the team three scoreless innings Friday night after Jake Westbrook could not make it out of the 5th inning and Mitchell Boggs finished the frame. The last straw for Batista was his involvement in the horrific 8th inning against the Philadelphia Phillies Tuesday night. In fact, that inning could have been the last straw for a couple different pitchers, but Batista was the first to take one for the team.

And really, something had to be done. To think that the Cards and Kyle McClellan were six out away from beating the Phillies and Roy Halladay only to have the victory jerked out of their hands by a combination of hit batters, bases on balls, and a handful of hits was a sickening start to a big series with one of the elite teams in the league. That inning set the tone for a series loss to Philly and their stellar rotation. Though Westbrook could not go deep into the game Friday against the Jays, the Cards’ starting rotation had been eating up more innings of late. And that is exactly what the doctor ordered for the bullpen, which is already starting to show signs of overexposure with three months yet to play this season.

Speaking of overexposure, the Cards may need to start keeping an eye on Fernando Salas. He served up the game-winning home run to Jose Bautista Friday night, taking the loss. Though he is still 4-2 on the season, it seems like Salas is giving up runs in every other outing lately, and that is a disturbing trend for the de facto closer.

The Cardinals also brought Raul Valdes up from AAA Memphis, giving them three lefthanders in the bullpen. I don’t know that the move should serve as a notice to Trever Miller and/or Brian Tallet, but the extra lefty is not something you see every day on a Tony LaRussa/Dave Duncan roster. Valdes was OK as a starter but really began pitching well as a reliever at Memphis—his ERA was 0.55 in 14 appearances—and deserved the promotion. But it may not be a stretch to think the bullpen shake-up could continue over the next couple of weeks based on the results those pitchers produce in their coming outings.

With the trade deadline looming and no NL Central team running away with the division, John Mozeliak and co. have begun to take action in tweaking the roster. Rumors are starting to swirl about certain teams calling certain other teams to inquire on certain players, but at this point there is no reason to play fortune teller. Obviously the Cards could use more pitching; so could 29 other teams. But the front office and coaching staff certainly know what they have right now and what could be brought in to help the team.

The moral of the story? Don’t get too attached to anyone in the bullpen right now. Because changes may be coming soon. In fact, they have already started.

Chris Reed also writes for InsideSTL Mondays and Bird Brained whenever he wants. Follow him on Twitter at @birdbrained.

Some think a .281/.314/.489 line with 20 home runs and 66 runs batted in equals $18million over three years. It does if you’re a catcher in the major leagues. John Buck of the Florida Marlins could not be happier. Those are the career best numbers Buck, the only major leaguer born in Wyoming, put up last year with the Toronto Blue Jays. Those numbers earned John a spot on the 2010 American League All-Star team, where he went 1 for 2 with a double, and a 3 year contract with the Marlins.

Some question whether the 1998 7th round draft pick of the Houston Astros, who came to the Kansas City Royals in the Carlos Beltran trade, has finally come into his own or if his season was merely the result of 437 plate appearances in a hitter’s ballpark in Toronto in a line up with fellow All Stars Vernon Wells and Jose Bautista. Buck, who turns 31 in July, will be starting his 8th season in the big leagues when he steps onto the field as the opening day starting catcher with the Marlins. His first 6 years in the majors, were spent with Kansas City before leaving for Toronto prior to the 2010 season. He was a career .235 hitter through 2009 with a career high of 18 home runs in 2007 and 50 rbi’s in 2006 with the Royals. Buck has not been in the majors because of his hitting. He has never shown much plate discipline, striking out 23.9% of the time while walking just 6.5% of the time. But with Victor Martinez out of the Marlins price range, it’s assumed they put a premium on Buck’s intangibles and leadership qualities he’d shown in Kansas City.

But Marlin fans are hopeful Buck can help fill the void created when secondbaseman Dan Uggla took his 33 home runs and 105 rbi’s to Atlanta in the off season. Early projections has put John batting seventh in the Marlins lineup ahead of rookie thirdbaseman Matt Dominguez, the 12th overall pick in the 2007 draft. Rightfielder Mike Stanton, who hit 22 homeruns in only 100 games last year as a rookie, is believed to be the cleanup hitter in the revamped Marlin lineup. Make no mistake, the key to the Marlins offense is shortsstop Hanley Ramirez and his .300 batting average, 21 home runs, 92 runs, 76 runs batted in and 32 stolen bases, hitting third. Chris Coghlan coming back from injury and putting up similar numbers he produced in his rookie season of 2009 when he hit .321 in 504 AB’s with 31 doubles and 6 triples but in the leadoff position in 2011 would be everything the Marlins could hope for. But if Buck can show the power he displayed last year in Toronto, there is definitely room in Florida for John to move up into the heart of the lineup.

Even if John can put up similar numbers to his 2010 season, I don’t think they will earn him an appearance in this years All-Star game, nor will they vault the Florida Marlins any higher than another 4th place finish in the powerful National League East. But coming from Toronto, Buck knows all about playing in a tough East division. If my projection of 70 Marlin victories for this season comes to pass, John Buck might even think he’s back in Kansas City. But this time, he’ll have an $18mm contract, the memory of a positive experience in the 2010 All-Star game and another year in the big leagues……and that would make anyone happy……no matter where you’re from.