FIRE JOE MORGAN

Maybe you've heard -- Buzz Bissinger is in the bloggy sports news ether today. Several people sent us Buzz's piece on Kerry Wood in the New York Times magazine Play from about a year ago. I read the article from start to finish. It's artfully written, evocative, unPlaschkely poetic -- and deliberately, wrongheadedly misleading. Buzz Bissinger, such a gifted wordsmith and storyteller, weaves a beautiful, heart-rending tale about Wood, but doesn't bother to do enough research to avoid coming to the exact wrong conclusion about Wood's generation of pitchers.

And that's where blogs come in. Bissinger writes:

The rule of thumb is that a pitcher should get some 400 innings of work in the minors before being called up. But with today’s baseball economics, La Russa knows that has become an untenable luxury.

Buzz's stance is clear: leave 'em in the minors longer! Wood, Prior, Liriano, King Felix -- they've been picked while still unripe. Big Bad Economics, Modernity, Progress -- whatever your boogeyman -- that's who's to blame.

Buzz is wrong. And had he done a modicum of research, he would have found this out immediately. I know this because people did that research for him here, here, here, here, here, and here. Good people on the Internet. Blogging. Posting on message boards. Thinking. Writing. Addding. Subtracting. Mother's basement-ing. Spreadsheeting. Checking on articles that get published in the Old Gray Lady so we don't just have to accept what's in black and white print as pure gospel.

How is this a bad thing?

Jared Park:

Pitcher, Minor League Innings (numbers courtesy of The Baseball Cube)

Steve Carlton, 306
Nolan Ryan, 287 (and quoted by Bissinger in the piece)
Don Sutton, 249
Tom Seaver, 210
Jim Palmer, 129
Bert Blyleven, 123

And a few current players with no durability issues:

Johan Santana, 334
C.C. Sabathia, 232.7
Mike Mussina, 178

Joe Posnanski:

I looked up, by decade, the number of pitchers who were 21 or younger and had seasons throwing 150-plus innings in the big leagues.

Here's what I came up with:

1960s: 32 different pitchers.
1970s: 26 different pitchers.
1980s: 15 different pitchers.
1990s: 5 different pitchers.
2000s: 8 different pitchers (so far).

Clay Davenport:

I dug out a 1974 Baseball Register I have, and, far more slowly, did the same for all pitchers who made their major league debut in 1973.
For the recent years the numbers were:

2004 averaged 137 minor league games and 433 innings (113 pitchers)
2005 109 games and 353 innings (100 pitchers)
2006 130 games and 434 innings (134)

Bounce to the old stuff:
1973 85 games and 420 innings (53 pitchers)

More Buzz:

Francisco Liriano, in his first full season with the Minnesota Twins in 2006, went 12 and 3 and seemed destined for greatness, but he will miss the entire 2007 season after undergoing ligament replacement surgery — the so-called Tommy John procedure — on his elbow last November. “The economic push is to bring kids up, and it’s unfortunate,” La Russa says.

Yes, so unfortunate that Liriano was called up after only 484.1 minor league innings. I looked it up. Searched for francisco liriano cube. Took 0.23 seconds.

Buzz -- Pulitzer Prize-winner, exceptional prose stylist -- arrived at the exact opposite of the truth. And thanks to an entertaining, extremely satisfying interview of Buzz by Boog Sciambi (spoiler alert: it ends with Buzz calling an unrelated radio host a "slimebucket" and Boog hanging up on Buzz), we know why Buzz did this.

It was because Tony LaRussa told him what conclusion to draw, and with maestro LaRussa conducting Buzz's train of thought, Buzz didn't care to punch a few numbers into Google ThoughtMaps to guide his thought-train into Accuracyville Station. (Is this better than the Underwater StupidTank metaphor from a few posts back? I can make it more convoluted, if that's the problem.)

Old Baseball Men told Buzz what to think and Buzz dutifully wrote what they told him. He did so beautifully, but I'll take an ugly truth over a beautiful falsehood every day of the week except those days I'm feeling really shallow. The Kerry Wood profile as a whole still has some value, of course, but how much value, considering its central tenet is based on purely anecdotal, and ultimately inaccurate, information? Why can't Buzz Bissinger see that blogs provide a valuable fact-checking service as well as a place to see athletes drink Creme de Menthe off a naked lady-shaped ice luge? And why is Buzz Bissinger in my house spitting on me, punching me, and screaming "Stop being so fucking goddamn profane, you cunt-word!" as I write this?

Next up: I tear Braylon Edwards a giant new poophole.

Labels: accuracyville station, buzz bissinger, underwater stupidtank to uninformed thinking island

Okay. So. "Costas Now."

Tonight, I was interviewed as part of that program's multi-part investigation of Sports and the Media. What followed the tape piece was a live discussion among Will Leitch of Deadspin, Buzz Bissinger of "Friday Night Lights" and "Being Very Angry," and of course the one guy you go to for any discussion of Sports and the Media: Braylon Edwards of the Cleveland Browns.

If you didn't see it, the discussion went like this:

Bob Costas: There are some criticisms about blogs. How do you respond?

Will Leitch: Well, I think some of them are valid--

Buzz Bissinger: I have to interrupt here. (to Leitch) Fuck you and everything you stand for.

Braylon Edwards: (to himself) I am going to kill my agent.

The argument I had tried to make in the pre-taped segment was: you can't say anything about "blogs," any more than you can say anything about any medium. There are good blogs and bad blogs. There are blogs that cover the personal lives of athletes, ones that cover only the games, ones that offer opinions, and even a few that quixotically and foolishly attempt to metacriticize the media as a whole. What Bissinger did that was so annoying to me was: he lumped all of these into one thing ("Deadspin," essentially), then took one article from one day out of a file that looked suspiciously like it'd come from Joe McCarthy's safe, and read one sentence from it aloud. And furthermore, he seemed to conflate the actual blog and the people who write for it with the silly comments people make at the bottom of every article.

It's a big dumb ignorant mistake to do this. It's a big hot wet mushy smelly bonebrained mistake to (a) use one sentence from anything as a representative sample of the thing, much less as a representative sample of all blogs everywhere, and (b) to mix blog comments and blog articles. It's an even bigger mistake, in my opinion, to disparage the level of discourse on the Internet and use blog comments as an example. (And swear a ton while doing it, while saying that the Internet is "profane.") Picking a random blog comment and wielding it as a club to bash "blogs" is like picking a random romance novel off an airport bookstore shelf and saying, "This book sucks. Fuck you, Tolstoy -- your medium is worthless!"

For what I hope is the last time, but is clearly not: the level of discourse on Athletics Nation, and Baseball Prospectus, and SoSH, and Joe Posnanski's blog, is every bit as high (if not higher) than what you can read in the best newspapers in the country. Bissinger's hare-brained attempt to prove Leitch an uneducated oaf by asking whether he had read any W.C. Heinz (which failed miserably when Leitch had, in fact, read some W. C. Heinz) was a perfect example of the old guard's attitude toward the new guard: you little shits don't get it. You don't know how to write. You have no gratitude or appreciation for those who came before you. So: fuck you. (P.S. I have never really read your blog.) (P.P.S. Fuck you, though, anyway.)

There are sports bloggers (and message-board posters) who write very well, in my opinion. There are those who love Ring Lardner and David Halberstam and Robert Creamer and Roger Angell. They try to write well, and entertain, and contribute to the universe of sports reporting. Please read them, Buzz. If you find nothing of interest, you can swear all you want. (For the record, FJM is extremely pro-swearing. We just feel you should be funny while doing it.)

If there is anything tangible and helpful to take away from Mr. Bissinger's performance -- and it takes a good deal of chaff-sorting to get anywhere near this little nugget -- I think it's this: a lot of the discourse and sub-discourse (commenting) on the internet is, in fact, pretty shitty. This is not news, though, really. A lot of newspaper writing and editorial writing and every kind of writing is shitty. It's just not as immediate and anonymous and easily-accessed as Internet writing is. Thus, the net has this reputation, now, as being a nihilistic and thoughtless meetingplace for people to spew venom. Partially deserved, partially not, whatever -- point is, the part that is deserved can be altered. We can all probably do a little better in this realm, by making sure that whatever we write has an actual point, and some thought behind it. So, there's that.

Okay. I guess that's it. As the kids would say: [/serious and unfunny discussion of Internet journalism standards]. Coming soon: more swearing!

[Just added two clauses to this post at 9:25 AM PST -- the clarification about what Bissinger actually did (taking one sentence and reading it aloud) and the subsequent (a), (b) follow-up in the next paragraph.]

Labels: buzz bissinger, costas now, the internet

An interesting twist in the ongoing saga of imaginary ESPN intern Bill Fremp. This week's JoeChat is significantly more Joe-like than last week's. Is Joe actually back at the keyboard? Or is Fremp adapting...changing...learning?

Let's take what I like to call a "look-see" (®©™ Fremulon, LLC, all rights reserved; the term "look-see" may not be used without written permission of Fremulon, LLC or its partners) and reserve our conclusions for the end...

JW (NH): Joe - man what a waste of $126M! Can Zito find his curveball working in the bullpen or is it harder to get consistent when you don't go every fifth day? Joe Morgan: Well every fifth day will not make you consistent.

Let me just pause here to say that one of the ways that we knew (and by "knew," I mean "wildly claimed") it wasn't Joe last week was: there was nary a "consistent" to be found. Count how many there are this week.

But the Giants do have to be worried about their investment. But many people saw this coming. (...)

Lot's of "but"s this week, already, too. Is this really Joe? Or an increasingly clever imposter?

Mike (Clearwater, FL): Hi Joe - Are the Rays for real? Can they really manage to stay near the top of the standings?

Joe Morgan: To say they can do it for the whole year is a bit hard to tell right now. So far they are doing eveyrthing right. But I feel like that ballpark will hurt them in the end, becasue it is so hard to be consistent there, where teams think they can score runs. You need a big home field advantage, and I do not think they have it. A lot of the fans, when they play the Yankees, for example, are New York fans. I think the mixture of fans there does not give them much of a home field advantage, which they need. But they do have talent and are playing very well together right now.

But...but...consistent...Yankees...nonsense. This smells like Joe. And yet, I can't quite bring myself to believe...

SprungOnSports (Long Island): You saw the Tigers and Angels last Sunday, what's your take on those two AL clubs who have not been playing to their potential as of late?

Joe Morgan: The Angels are playing up to their potential when you consider they have had injuries to their top two starting pitchers. The Tigers are just incosistent.

This is Fremp. I promise you. He's gotten better at his craft, but another "consistent," and a typo to boot? Gilding the lilly. Too perfect. Like the too-perfect English that Axis spies spoke when impersonating British businessmen.

They scored a lot of runs last week and are not scoring this week. The week before I saw them, they were on a hot streak. But it's easy to look good against Texas before you play the Angels. But I do think Detroit will play better as the season continues. And I thought Verlander played better and used his three pitches well. Again, as I have said before, it comes down to how Sheffield plays. He is their run producer and the difference maker. When he hits well, they'll do well.

More "but"s, and a Sheffield reference. I'm sorry. This is too stupid even for Joe. Not even Joe would call Gary Sheffield (.159/.321/.254) the "run producer" or "difference maker" on a team with Cabrera, Guillen, Ordonez, and Granderson. This is not Joe. This is the Wyatt Gwyon of Joe Morgan impersonators.

Kevin (STL): The Mets offense is not very consistent

Well done, Kevin.

right now....How much of that is due to Reyes struggles?

Joe Morgan: For some reason everyone wants to blame Reyes for everything that happens with the Mets. He is not even one of the top payed players on the team, and yet everything gets blamed on him, including last year's collapse.

...Well, he did hit .205/.279/.333 in September, unlike his buddy David Wright, who got blamed for the collapse way more (to the tune of: he lost the MVP because of it) despite the fact that Wright hit .352/.432/.602 with 6 HR in September. And I'm not sure what his salary has to do with anything, when you're just talking about on-field performance. This is such a weird response, I want to believe Fremp just took a break here and the real Joe sidled up to the keyboard for a moment...

They have Delgado, Beltran and Wright also playing for them. Now it does not help them that he has not been playing well at the top of the order. But there are other guys on this team besides Reyes, and the Mets need their veterans to step up.

Delgado may be done, but Beltran isn't playing that badly, and Wright has a .980 OPS this year. They do need Reyes to play way better. I think we can all agree on that. Can't we....Fremp?!

Dave (Chicago): Do you think Sheffield can make it back from his shoulder problems or is this the end of the line?

Joe Morgan: That is a big question with a veteran player. I had this conversation about Frank Thomas last year, when he got off to a slow start, but look what he ended up doing last year. When you are a young guy and this happens, you're in a slump, but when you are a vet it becomes an "end of the line" issue, and that's just the nature of the game. But Gary told me he is getting closer. We'll just have to see.

When did Gary Sheffield talk to Bill Fremp? I would've loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.

Tom (NY): Despite all the problems in Yankee-land, we are only 1 game out of first...surprised?

Joe Morgan: No I am not surprised; Boston has struggled of late and have kept the Yankees in it. You need to have Kennedy and Hughes win some game for you though. But looking at their potential they are capable of doing that. But I am not too surprised.

Now this...this seems like Joe. Rambling, semi-coherent sentence fragments. A completely inappropriate semi-colon after the first sentence. Ends exactly the same as it begins, rendering the middle meaningless. I'm going to be optimistic and say that right before this answer, Joe decided he'd had enough of Bill Fremp (Edgewood, KY) and fired him. Got back in the saddle. Pulled a Pat Riley and took day-to-day control of the team. Time will tell.

Joe Morgan: That's all the time I have! Talk to you next week!

Looking forward to it. (ominously) Whoever you are.

Labels: bill fremp, gary sheffield, joe morgan, joechat, wyatt gwyon

I will appear on a segment of HBO's "Costas Now" tonight.  Subject matter: Is Miley Cyrus too young for that Vanity Fair picture?  Or "Bloggers and Sports Media."  They interviewed me for both and haven't told me which one I'm in.

Labels: braylon edwards, costas now, miley cyrus, shameless promotions

Mel Kiper, Jr. is Planet Earth's most famous NFL draft analyst. This is what he's done the past two years. We know because we wrote these posts.

---

Monday, May 01, 2006:

Mel Kiper Jr's draft grades are in, for every team in the NFL.

For those who don't have ESPN Insider, every single grade is between a C and a B+. It's the old "on a scale of 4 to 7" spectrum. Thanks Mel! See you in 363!

---


Tuesday, May 01, 2007:

OMG He Did It Again!

NFL Draft time. That's right, you heard me. NFL Draft.

Remember May 1 of last year, when dak pointed out that Mel Kiper Jr. gave every team a grade between a C and a B+?

Mel did it again. This year, no one was worse than a C- and no one was better than a B+. The article should be titled "On a scale of B to C, how gutless is Mel Kiper, Jr.?"

---

So here we are. 2008. Mel Kiper Jr. sits down at his Apple Lisa (he's old-school) to write his annual Draft Day grades column -- the single most-read piece of writing he'll do all year. He digs deep in his soul to assign the most perfect letter-grade assessment of each team's performance on this, the day he was born to live, experience, and grade. Draft Day is Christmas, the Super Bowl, and 9/11 all rolled into one for Mel Kiper, Jr. Mel Kiper, Sr. put him on his knee when Mel Jr. was a boy and told him, "Son, there is a sport called football where grown men play a pushing game involving an oblong fun-ball. You will not be one of those men. There will also be men who select the best among these other men, the best 'football players.' You will not be one of those men. You will be the man who judges the men selecting the other men. You will write one article a year that anyone will read, wherein you assign a letter grade evaluating the performance of the men selecting the other men. You were destined for the role of giving these grades. Your mind will be honed like an ancient Indian arrowhead to pierce, with laser-like intensity, the precise letter grade zone that each selecting man deserves."

And Mel Kiper Jr. nodded, for he knew what his father said was true.

And then on April 28, 2008, he would give 31 out of 32 teams between a B+ and a C-. Because everyone pretty much did an "eh" job. Like every year. Except the Chiefs. They get an A -- Mel's first A in the three years we've been tracking this!

If Mel Kiper, Jr. were a college professor, at the beginning of the year he would hand out a piece of paper explaining his grading system:

0-50%: C
50-100%: B
2008 Kansas City Chiefs: A

See you next year, Mel!

Labels: football, mel kiper jr

Just want to give a quick "congrats" to Doug Spernelman, who was recently named Employee of the Year here at Fremulon Ins., Inc., LLC. Doug came to us after 11 years in H.R. over at Gruntwelk and Karp, and he's really done a bang-up job helping us weather the sub-prime storm.

Here he is accepting his award.


Great work, Doug.

(It's been like three years of nothing but attacking sports journalists. I'm allowed one of these.)

Labels: doug spernelman, fremulon insurance

Anti-modernization tracts are pretty much our bread and butter here at FJM. Rarely are they this multi-grained and buttery. Hit it, Frank Deford.

Possibly because I'm scared of technology, I'm not always pleased by what are called "advances" in our society. Sometimes I think we were better off in more innocent times -- which is, to say, back when I could understand stuff better.

At least he admits it. One point for admitting it. Deford 1, Sanity 0.

Actually, I consider myself secular Amish.

Admitting it again doesn't get you a second point.

Synthetic rackets pretty much ruined the beauty of tennis. Children have no business swinging lethal aluminum baseball bats. Now there's even talk that a new bathing suit made by Speedo, in which all sorts of swimmers are setting world records, constitutes "technological doping."

The tennis racket argument is one to which I weirdly subscribe. I used to follow tennis fanatically. The first time I ever voluntarily woke up early was to watch Breakfast at Wimbledon when I was like 7. But the other things...aluminum bats is a cost issue, I think, for little leagues and colleges and stuff. The bathing suit thing...? Never heard of it. How much of an advantage can a speedo be? Does it have an outboard motor attached to it? (Hope it's not an inboard motor! Hey-oooo!) (Ouch! Now that's what I call a "close shave!" Heeeyyyyy-oooooo! )

What were we talking about? Oh yes. The Unabomber was giving us an anti-tech panegyric.

You know what's even worse? Technology has made it so there are so few surprises left in the world. Is that really an advance? Parents know whether their baby is a boy or girl long before it's born.

Yes, we should all be like the peasants, and birth our babies in the fields, and decorate our nurseries in gender-neutral yellow. (You do know you can opt not to learn the sex, right? It's a choice. Choices are usually considered good things.)

You can tell who's calling you on the phone before you answer.

I'm calling bullshit louder than I've ever called bullshit in my personal history. Is there a single person on this crazy blue marble we call "Earth" who does not like caller ID? Caller ID is the greatest thing in the universe. How many unwanted calls have been avoided thanks to caller ID? A hundred billion? Does Frank Deford not know the specific pleasure one has when one looks at one's phone and sees "Work" and rotates one's Blackberry toggle wheel thingy to "ignore?" Does Frank Deford prefer -- when awaiting an important call -- to answer his ringing phone and hear the voice of a representative from Wachovia Bank who wants to know if all of his investment needs are being met? I ask you, people -- does Frank Deford not have one crazy ex-girlfriend?

The real joy in taking photographs was that you didn't know how they turned out 'til you got them back from the Photo Zip a few days later. Of course, some of the pictures were awful, but what's the fun of taking only safe shots instead of snap shots.

I measured the decibel level at which I called bullshit on the caller ID thing, and I am now buying a second amp and a kick-ass tweeter, and I am paying some very pricey A/V guys to install this equipment with like 6"-diameter cable connecting everything, and I am inventing a new kind of megaphone that has its own internal volumizing booster, and I am doing all of this in order to call bullshit louder than I just called bullshit on that other thing, because: are you fucking kidding me?

Listen, man -- I like nostalgia. I think there are certain aspects of our pre-internet days that were preferable to their modern counterparts. (For example, baseball cards were much better in the 1980's than they are now. Upper Deck ruined everything.) But taking pictures of important events in your life and then driving somewhere and dropping them off and then waiting a few days and then driving back and picking them up and finding out that half of them were out of focus and the other half sucked? This is not one of them.

Digital cameras are way better -- for the average non-professional, at least, which is all I can speak to -- than film cameras. Easier to use, cheaper to use, faster to use. If you are being driven crazy because you can't remember who played Hunt Stevenson in the TV version of "Gung Ho," IMDb is better than the old method: just going fucking crazy and never coming up with the right answer. (Which is: Scott Bakula.) That's the deal, man. Not everything newer is better. But a lot of stuff is.

Maybe that's why sport gets more popular all the time. It's about the last thing we have that still has some suspense to it.

Tell that to Obama and Clinton! (Political humor. Topical. Relevant.)

And that's why I can't stand the National Football League and National Basketball Association drafts. What disappoints me so about these protracted selections is that fans don't want surprises in the draft. Really, they don't. They want to look into the camera and see the picture before it's taken.

Is this true? I'm seriously asking. I don't feel this way. I don't like to know what I'm getting for Christmas, I don't like knowing plot twists in movies, and I don't particularly like knowing whom my team is going to draft. If I'm a Dolphin fan right now, I'm happy, because Long seems like a good bet. But I'm a tiny bit sad, because the wrapping is off the present on Dec. 23.

For weeks now, leading up to the real NFL draft this weekend, all sorts of self-appointed experts have been creating so-called mock drafts, and basically, they're all the same. Oh, some bloviator might have this linebacker going third and that one pegs him fourth, but it's pretty much the same names at the top.

That's because the 25 or so best players in the draft are pretty clear every year, and the needs of the 32 teams are pretty obvious, and the trends of the GMs of those teams are known quantities, so...people can predict things, kind of. Still, nobody nor his mother saw Ted Ginn, Jr. going #9 last year, did he or her?

The fans get brainwashed, and so if their team should dare take somebody who wasn't touted by the echo chorus, they have a fit.

Do they? Again, I am asking. I think fans have a fit because they are diehard and/or drunk, and use the draft to take out their frustrations on their GMs. Jets fans just seem to take out their frustrations, period, no matter whom they pick. I don't think it's always because the pick was unexpected or something.

Mock drafts become the reality that reality must accommodate itself to. It's like in school now, where children study how to take tests rather than study how to learn something.

An elegant analogy, but I'm not sure it's an apt one. Because again, I disagree with the central premise here -- that any variance from Mel Kiper's Mock Draft 16.0 drives people crazy. I think the fans are super knowledgeable and get upset when a team reaches too far, or skips over someone who they think could help them. Sometimes they're wrong -- amazingly, Mario Williams might end up being a better #1 overall than Reggie Bush, and who the hell saw that coming (if it indeed happens)?

It's also terribly ironic. Football fans always want their team to go for it on fourth down instead of punting, to take risks on the field, but when draft day comes they're all conditioned by now to be completely conservative ... lemmings.

Going for it more on 4th down -- last year's Super Bowl 4th and 13 abomination be damned -- seems to be a better bet than most coaches think. And again, I just don't think people freak out on draft day because of conservatism instilled in them by mock drafts. I think they freak out because people freak out about the things their football teams do.

And, of course, draft mistakes are legion. But draft-guessing has become a cottage industry, and essentially these seers are graded on how they assess the draft, not how their top selections actually play football after they are drafted. It would be as if you judged your stock broker on how well he picked the most popular stocks, not how well he chose stocks that actually went up in value.

Being a New England Patriots fan, I can definitively say that we judge Scott Pioli and Bill Belichick on how the guys play on the field. I was shocked when they took Ben Watson in the first round. I was surprised when they went with Maroney. But I didn't really get upset...because I am not an insane person who judges books by their covers. (Except for this one, which you can clearly tell is going to be awesome just by looking at it.)

I sometimes have the feeling that the more film we have of these players, the more sophisticated technology to study them, the less we know, both about the players being chosen and the professionals who choose them.

How can that be? Seriously. Even metaphorically, how can that be? You're telling me that today's GM knows less about Chad Henne now than he would have in the 1970's? How? Why? When? Which? Whap? Worf?

Football people have guts. I think, though, that too few of them any longer dare possess gut instinct.

There you go, NFL GMs. Ditch the scouting reports. Throw away the tape. Ignore the needs of your team. Put the blast shield down and use the Force to deflect the little laser blasts from the training drone.

(Yeah -- that's a ST: TNG reference and a Star Wars reference in the same post. Sometimes I play into the blogger stereotype. Deal with it.)

Labels: football, frank deford, political humor, scott bakula, star trek: the next generation, star wars

It's come to this: Ozzie Guillen saying out loud that he wishes he had a daughter so Derek Jeter could fuck her. In the already crowded Hall of Fame of Jeterbole (you can figure that portmanteau out), this is going to get its own wing.

"I keep saying the best [Yankees] player who ever happened—bigger than someone else, but I'm not going to say the name here—is Derek Jeter," Guillen began, perched in the Sox dugout.

Is "best player who ever happened" some weird, different category from "best player ever"? It certainly must have nothing to do with, I don't know, being good at baseball. Because Derek Jeter is terrific, spectacular, amazing at baseball (mostly). But he's nowhere near the best Yankee ever. I know it's tough, but I've always tended to think Mr. Babeland Ruthlor was the best. That's probably because I've always got my head buried in a book full of computers!

"Derek Jeter has everything in his life. He's got money. He's got rings. He's got …"

Guillen paused, because timing means everything in comedy.

"He's not married."

Well, yes. I suppose money should factor in the discussion of best Yankee who ever happened. In which case, I nominate whoever plays 3rd space base for the Intergalactic Space Yankees in the year 30-Space-40. He will make 3 alpha credits per year, which is a ton of alpha credits if you know anything about that sort of thing.

"At the All-Star Game (where Guillen managed him in 2006), I looked around to see if he has anything I don't like. No. He's the perfect man. Too bad I don't have a daughter."

Calling out Ozzie Guillen for saying crazy things is like calling Robin Williams out for being ... really really funny! I love you, Robin. Big fan of RV. Anyway, here's the part where Ozzie talks about wishing he had a daughter so Jeter could get all up in that hot mess. I always sort of thought Ozzie would raise his daughter to like guys with shittier OBPs, though. Then little female Ozzie could rebel and date Jack Cust or something.

Let's also not overlook the fact that Ozzie went all the way to "He's the perfect man" to describe Jeter. We've reached the point where you can't outdo other Jeter-praisers with talk of baseball or sports or sportsmanship or leadership. You have to go to overall quality of personhood. I look forward to the day when Time Magazine crowns Jeter "Invention of the Millennium."

"He's the best thing ever in the game. He's got everything he wants. He lives in New York. Even [ George] Steinbrenner loves him. Nobody is better than Derek Jeter in the game. Nobody."

There's one thing Derek Jeter doesn't have: true love.

Labels: derek jeter, ozzie guillen

Gilloolies? Let's go with Gilloolies.

You know what I'm talking about. Three days into the season, a sportswriter disembowels a player for "hitting .028!!! He's killing his team!!!!" Then a month or two later, it's completely forgotten because baseball's season is eternal.

Exhibit A, NUMBER ONE, AWESOME today: Wallace Matthews in Newsday.

Reyes, do you want to be a Jeter or a Rey Ordonez?

We're 18 games in, Wallace. Please don't use statistics -- which I'm sure you claim not to trust anyway -- to crucify a guy who is 24 years old and in all likelihood is going to be fine.

I'll summarize the intro for you: Derek Jeter is a supergod amongst gods, like all Titan-style, like Cronus and shit. Rey Ordonez was a bust. Jeter rules, Ordonez drools. Et cetera, ad nauseam.

Here's the meaty part:

This year, you [Reyes] are hitting only .280.

I'm excited to do this. Are you?

Jeter: .277.

You have drawn a mere four walks,

Jeter: 2 walks.

stolen only three bases in five tries,

Jeter: 0 steals.

scored only 12 runs.

Jeter: 7 runs (!)

Your OBP, .313,

Jeter: .309.

is worse than all but three other NL leadoff hitters.

-- but better than the living embodiment of heroism, Derek Jeter.

Even Rickie Weeks, batting .192 at the top of the Brewers' lineup, is getting on base more often than you.

And Jeter. Don't forget the man whose face I am nominating to adorn the next dollar coin, Derek Jeter.

Jeter is a terrific hitter. Jose Reyes is a terrific player. Wallace Matthews is driving an Underwater StupidTank to Uninformed Thinking Island if he believes that either of their starts is indicative of what their career values will end up being.

Labels: derek jeter, gilloolies, jose reyes, small sample size, underwater stupidtank to uninformed thinking island, wallace matthews

The title of this post isn't a rhetorical question. Objectively speaking, yes, a fast guy is more valuable than a slow guy on the basepaths. So if Xavier Slowplayer and Yadier Speedygas both OBP-ed .315 and slugged .390 and you could reasonably expect them to maintain those rates, I think you could say with a straight face, I'd rather have Speedygas because Slowplayer clogs the bases.

Maybe not the terminology I would use, but the point stands.

The problem is, 99.99463% of the time when writers use "clog the bases" or "clog the basepaths" or some variant thereof, the guy they're accusing of base-clogging is way better at getting on base, hitting home runs (the opposite of base-clogging -- it's base-Drano-ing!), or both. So it makes little to no sense to complain about their lack of speed. It's like grumbling that your awesome Bugatti Veyron has shitty trunk space. It would be nice if the Veyron could fit more than one of those baby-sized Coke cans in its cargo hold, but in the grand scheme of things, it's just not that important.

And now I realize that the whole analogy is completely mangled because the Veyron is fast, and base-cloggers are slow. Avert your eyes from this car crash of a mixed-metaphor clusterfuckfest.

Gwen Knapp has a theory that speed is undervalued in today's game, so the A's should abstain from signing Frank Thomas for the minimum. Too late, of course, but still. She pushed our clog the b-paths button, so here we go:

Sweeney is hitting .309, and he has already become an important clubhouse presence for the A's, much as Thomas was in 2006. Thomas or a hitter of his ilk would add a fear factor to the middle of the lineup, which is currently almost indistinguishable from the top. But Thomas would be an equal threat to clog the basepaths, where the A's move faster and more efficiently than they have in a long time.

Sweeney is off to a good start. OBP-ing .391, slugging .418. But we're talking 55 at bats. Thomas is off to a miserable start -- but in 60 at bats, he's already only four home runs shy of the total number of homers Sweeney hit all of last year, when, for the Royals, Sweeney went for a sweet .260/.315/.404.

Thomas got on base at a .377 clip and slugged .480 while appearing in 155 games. We could go back a year further and see that Sweeney put up a respectable .258/.349/.438 in 2006. But Thomas was a monster who (sort of undeservedly) got MVP votes in 2006, with his .926 OPS and 39 home runs -- for Oakland!

So Ms. Knapp: should we really be fretting about how clogged those bases are when it's pretty clear that Thomas is a way more valuable offensive player? Granted, he's 95 years old, but Sweeney's the one who appears to be in more drastic decline -- he hasn't even played a full season since 2001.

Verdict: I still haven't seen anyone use "clogging up the basepaths" in a way that makes any sort of compelling argument. Aren't you glad you know what I think about this?

Next post will be more shrill and have more jokes about barf and testicles and stuff, I promise.

Labels: clogging up the basepaths, frank thomas, gwen knapp

Gerry Fraley, two days ago:

When Thomas clears waivers this week, he will become a free agent available for the pro-rated minimum. If Thomas expects a deluge of calls from teams eager to add him, he will be disappointed again. The Big Hurt is the last to realize that he is finished.

Reality, today:

OAKLAND -- The Oakland A's today agreed to terms with free agent designated hitter Frank Thomas.

Hope you like clogged bases, Oakland. Good luck scoring with this guy constantly on base.

Labels: frank thomas, gerry fraley

From reader Evan comes this excellent Dustyism about Edwin Encarnación:

Encarnacion's homer kick-started the Reds' rally against Eric Gagne. Encarnacion is the most volatile player in the Reds' lineup - his early season defensive woes and his slump at the plate have been counter-balanced by a few clutch homers, often in the same game.

Fortunately for him, Reds manager Dusty Baker seems to be more patient with Encarnacion than previous manager Jerry Narron. "I'm happy for him because this guy bleeds internally, big-time," Baker said.

Of all the attributes of gritty players, "hemorrhaging" is rarely given its due. Especially internal hemorrhaging. Dudes who internally hemorrhage...man. Give me 8 guys like that, and a pitcher with anemia, and a couple bench guys with rotaviruses, and a closer with a leaky heart valve, and maybe a LOOGY with Polycythemia vera, and I'll win the division every time.

Labels: dusty baker, internal hemorrhaging, loogy, Polycythemia vera

This morning on my way to work, I was listening to the Mike Tirico radio show. Joe Morgan was spouting his usual nonsense about how the Yankees are a "confusing team," and how he's not sure how they're going to win games.

Then some crazy shit happened.

"They're not -- and I won't say manufacturing -- but producing runs."

I nearly drove my imaginary car through the walls of my mother's basement!

He won't say "manufacturing?" He won't say "manufacturing runs?"

Until this morning, "manufacturing" was one of Joe Morgan's favorite things to say. His favorite soccer team was Manchester United, just so he could get half a boner by saying "Man U" repeatedly. If Joe Morgan were an eskimo, et cetera et cetera.

"I won't say manufacturing." It's troubling, really. Has someone talked some sense into him? Has someone talked some different nonsense in to him? Is Bill Fremp doing a perfect Joe Morgan impression in audio-only interviews?

Aaand, this just in: Joe Morgan is in fact an eskimo!

Labels: bill fremp, joe morgan, manufacturing runs, mother's basement

Instead of "Hurt," get it? You guys do get it? You're giving me a raise? You guys are the best.

It's not me saying he's dead, though -- it's Gerry Fraley. I think he'll be the Big .830 OPS or So. Fraley is convinced that the man's arms have run out of what a Super Nintendo game instruction manual might call Ultimate Hit Power. He also sort of hates him as a person.

Here, you should just read this thing:

Self-absorbed Frank Thomas smelled a rat --

Bang! Is there a word for Internet-character-assassinating someone? E-slamming? iFuckage? It's not "pwned." Do not say it's "pwned." Anyway -- Fraley just www.crucified Thomas, and we're six words in.

-- when a rapid sequence of events led to Toronto releasing him. Thomas claimed the Blue Jays benched him on Saturday -- and subsequently released him on Sunday -- to prevent him from getting enough plate appearances to guarantee his $10 million salary for next season.

I'd say this is 100% accurate. How could saving $10 million not factor into anyone's decision about anything? If Mexican uberbillionaire Carlos Slim gets his bathroom re-grouted and the grouter is like, "That'll be 10 million two hundred thirty-six dollars," Carlos Slim would be all like, "You said it would be just two hundred thirty-six dollars no way what the fuck?!" And he's Mexican uberbillionaire Carlos Slim. The last guy who should care about money.

The point is, the Blue Jays could save some serious scratch by hoping Thomas got hurt or simply denying him the at bats. Why wouldn't they consider this?

"The Big Hurt" always has been unable to see beyond his own situation.

Yes. What a class-A Selfish Sally, caring about 10 million dollars. He ought to be given a stern talking-to, this Large Injury gentleman.

A year ago, the Jays could afford to wait as Thomas found his way out of a slow start and finished with 26 homers and 95 RBIs.

So you're saying he started slow last year...and yet he finished with very solid all-around numbers? I don't know, isn't it possible THE VERY SAME THING COULD HAPPEN AGAIN?

Last year Thomas hit .250 in April and .193 in May, but he kept walking and he kept hitting for power when he made contact. This year he's hitting .167 so far, but he's walking and hitting for power (3 home runs, tied for most on the team).

We're talking about 60 at bats, people. Nate McLouth has a 1.111 OPS. It's so early John Kruk is calling 40 wins for Randy Johnson.

They do not have that luxury this season. The reality, which Thomas does not recognize, is that he represented a hindrance to the club.

After 60 at bats, you're willing to make that call. David Ortiz was negative 6 for his first 60 this year. It's so early the Washington Nationals haven't played an official game yet (Fake Ed. Note -- fact check needed).

Thomas was a deadweight. He was hitting only .167 with three homers and 11 RBIs. Nothing indicated that Thomas, five weeks from his 40th birthday, was going to break out of the slump.

Other than the three home runs and the eleven walks. In 2006, Frank Thomas hit .190 in April with five home runs and seven walks. There was no indication this 37-year-old man was anything but completely toasted bread. He finished the year with 39 freaking home runs and a .926 OPS (and 114 RBI if you're into that sort of thing, which I assume Gerry Fraley is).

In his last 35 at-bats with Toronto, he had only four hits -- all singles -- and one RBI. Those few times Thomas reached, he

PARADE PARADE PARADE

PPPPPPPAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAADDDDDDDDDEEEEEEE

PARADE MAGAZINE

clogged the bases.

And now we're talking about 35 at bats. During which Thomas reached base 8 times. Not good, certainly, but not exactly the kind of Vladivostok-cold stretch that would compel you to release one of the greatest hitters of the past twenty years.

Except that -- gasp -- he clogged the bases, of course. Drop the bum.

With Thomas as the designated hitter, Toronto received little production from a vital spot in American League lineups.

Sorta like Boston the first fifteen games. I think they released Ortiz, though. Let me check MLB.com.

Yep, they did.

The Jays had already dropped him from batting cleanup last season to fifth this year.

Fifth! They outright released their number five hitter! The more Fraley argues against Frank, the more I think dropping him was a big mistake. The Fraley Effect, I guess.

Releasing Thomas puts the Blue Jays in position to craft a more suitable lineup. They will be a better club offensively and defensively without him.

Last year, of guys with more than 400 at bats, Frank Thomas led the Jays in:

OBP
OPS
Home Runs
RBI
Walks
OPS+
Adjusted Batting Runs
Batting Wins

He was 39 years old for the majority of the season. But now, at the age of 39-almost-40, after 60 lousy at bats, he's worthless. Worse than worthless -- he makes other guys sad!

Also, replacing Thomas in the clubhouse with Scott Rolen, who's on track to return mid-May from a spring training finger injury will change the Jays' internal dynamics for the better. Rolen understands how to establish a productive atmosphere.

See? Thomas puts up team-killing RBI, Rolen puts up motivational posters with pictures of eagles and words like "INTEGRITY." Stick with Thomas if you want baseball. Rolen's more of an atmosphere guy -- Glade plug-ins, incense, and oh, he's got a great eye for wallpaper patterns.

Thomas never embraced the obligation of setting a tone for an entire team. That the Chicago White Sox won the World Series in 2005 when he was not around did not speak well of Thomas.

Revised Ingredients for a World Series Championship:

Strong starting pitching
Lights-out bullpen
Timely hitting
Lack of Frank Thomas

When Thomas clears waivers this week, he will become a free agent available for the pro-rated minimum. If Thomas expects a deluge of calls from teams eager to add him, he will be disappointed again. The Big Hurt is the last to realize that he is finished.

You're 0 for your last 4! You're licked, Hurt! Take a seat and watch Rolen color-coordinate. He's a wizard with paint samples.

I'm thinking about getting some cash together and signing Frank Thomas to play for my new independent team, the Bloggytown Basecloggers. We're going to lead the league in home runs and our clubhouse is going to smell like shit.

Labels: clogging up the basepaths, frank thomas, gerry fraley

I have invented a name for the ESPN intern whose job it is to type in/clean up/invent Joe's answers to these chats. It's Bill Fremp. He's 22, he went to Conn College, but he's originally from Edgewood KY and is a diehard Reds fan, which is why he's covering for Joe by judiciously editing Joe's comments and stream-of-(lack of)-consciousness ramblings, and entering semi-coherent versions of same into the record. Let's see how Bill does today.

Joe Morgan: I may be the only one that feels this way, but I still believe the weather has had an adverse affect on some of th ebest hitters in the game.

Nicely-placed typo, Bill. You can't fool me. Joe's not typing this.

In places like Detroit and Boston, hitters are struggling. But you have to give credit to the guys who have persevered and fought through the cold weather. But as it warms up, there will be more offense coming from some of the best hitters in the game.

You've studied old chats, haven't you, Billy m'boy? You remember that sometimes Joe says "but" at the beginning of every sentence. You're good, I'll give you that. You're very good.

Randy(Knoxville,TN): Good morning Joe!! My question for you is about Alfonso Soriano...what are your thoughts on him as the lead-off man for the Cub offense? While he can provide instant offense with the long ball, he also strikes out a bunch and doesnt draw many walks. Last year he struck out 99 more times than he drew a walk(130 K's vs 31 BB). I love him as a hitter, but not at the top. What do you think?Thanks, Joe.

Joe Morgan: I have never felt like he should be a leadoff hitter, but both Torre and Piniella used him there because he felt more comfortable. But if I'm paying a guy millions of dollars, I'm going to hit him where he can serve the team the best. His on-base percentage is not where a good leadoff hitter's should be at.

Oh, Billy. Billy Billy Billy. You've already screwed up. The real Joe would have talked about how Soriano can steal bases and make things happen. The real Joe would never admit that there is such a thing as "on-base percentage," because the real Joe thinks "on-base percentage" is a made-up stat relating to Quidditch matches. The real Joe could not recall off-hand two teams Soriano has played for, much less their managers. This is far too good an answer. Ease off.

John (Toledo, OH): The Royals got back to back complete games from Bannister and Greinke, if they keep pitching well, are the Royals a .500 team? Are things finally turning around?

Joe Morgan: Things are turning around. They are getting better players there, and therefore they will play better. .500 is definitely a possibility for the Royals this year.

Dude. The first two sentences are reasonable facsimiles of what I'm sure Joe said. But. I know you want to make Joe look good, because your Pa told you lots of great stories of watching him hit when he, your Pa, was growing up in Edgewood KY and he'd skip school to go to Reds' games and watch Joe hit. But when you read Joe this question, and he said:

"Well I haven't really seen the Royals play enough to know. But they have been bad for a long time and maybe now they'll be good. It will all start with their pitching. You can't win without pitching. But there aren't any great teams out there, so maybe they have a chance. But I haven't seen them play enough to know if they can win on a consistent basis."

you should've just typed that. Don't have him make an actual prediction that makes it seem in any way that he has any idea what kind of season the Royals will have.

I'm going to suggest you go ahead and let Joe answer the next one, to remind yourself of his characteristic tone and style.

Jeff (Columbus, OH): Joe, what effect do losses like the ones the Indians have suffered against the Angels and Red Sox have on the team? As a manager, can you keep sending a closer out there that no one (other than yourself apparently) has faith in without damaging the team? Thanks

Joe Morgan: Their pitching has not been up to par. Teams like the A's were expected to be last in the west, but they're overachieving right now. The Indians and Tigers are underachieving, so you have to keep things in perspective.

There we go. Doesn't answer the question, makes a weird comment about the A's overachieving (and "teams like the A's [being] expected to be last in the west," which = ???), then drags the Tigers into it, and never mentions the issue of Borowski at all. There's your template, Bill.

Michael (Orlando, Florida): Hey Joe I love listening to you call games. What do you think we can expect from the Atlanta Braves this year. Do you think that we just dont have enough starting pitching. We know we will score runs. I think they already have seven 1 run losses this season.

For this answer, I'm going to put this symbol:

!!!

when I think Joe actually said or typed something, and this symbol:

???

when I think it was Bill Fremp of Edgewood, KY. The symbols will follow the text in question.

Joe Morgan: I'm actually surprised at the Braves. (!!!) I thought they would sneak up on the Mets and Phillies, and they still may. (!!!) They are a team you have to contend with. (!!!) Their defense is a little suspect overall, (???) although I must say I love Yunel Escobar (????????) as a shortstop. Their starting pitching needs to be better, (!!!) as it puts pressure on a mediocre bullpen. (???) Starting pitching is still the key to a pitching staff, (!!!) because they get you deep into the games so you can set up your rotation (!!!) of relievers (!!!!!!!!) to your advantage. (!!!!!!!!!!) You need innings from your starting pitching. (!!!)

All in all, I guess Joe said most of that. But there's no way he knows that Yunel Escobar is their SS, or that he's good, or how to spell his name.

Joe (Toronto): Last week you said Hanley Ramirez was the most productive player in the league. He doesn't lead in any major statistical categories, so why do you think that?

This is what we in the business of baiting Joe Morgan call: JoeBaiting. It's a reference to the last JoeChat, wherein Bill Fremp totally gave away that someone else was helping Joe with these chats when he declared that H-Ram was the best offensive player in the NL last year, and insinuated (in so many words, if you read between the lines) that he was using something like VORP to make such a decision. Thus, my buddy Joe here is trying to dig a little, to maybe find out whether Joe indeed was shown a VORP chart or something. Let's see what happens. It's exciting, isn't it, America?

America: (in unison) No.

Joe Morgan: If you consider everything---power, speed, defense, batting average, on-base percentage, RBIs, runs scored--then he comes out on top.

So far, so bad, for VORPies like me. Seems like Joe is using "traditional" stats. But wait...

Look at it from that perspective. Plus, he plays the toughest position on the field.

Could this be a coded message from Bill Fremp, of Edgewood, KY? Obviously, VORP is somewhat dependent on a player's position, as it is easier to replace a LF's production than a SS's. I think there's a chance Bill is trying to send us a message, that he is out there, somewhere, typing away. I'm here, he's saying. I'm at the keyboard. I can't speak out loud. He'll hear me. Help me.

SprungOnSports (Long Island): With Randy Johnson putting out a good start, and Webb and Haren making a great 1-2 how much do you like the Diamondbacks right now?

Joe Morgan: I was already a big fan of the D-backs before Johnson's outing, but you have to wait to see how he bounces back from this outing. But Johnson will not win or lose the division for them--they won it last year without him, and their young players are getting better. I like them even if Johnson doesn't pitch well. They were outscored by their opponents last year--that will not happen again this year. Justin Upton looks like the next Albert Pujols.

Joe Morgan citing RS/RA? No way. Joe knowing who Justin Upton is, and comparing him to anyone but Gary Sheffield? Iffy.

Joe Morgan: Thanks for your questions, and I'll see you next week at 10:30!

Joe knowing when his next chat is, down to the minute? Forget it.

I'm on to you, Fremp.

Labels: bill fremp, joe morgan, joechat

We'll be talking about this one for months, folks. NY Post me.

A-ROD LEAVES ABREU HANGING

Because every move he makes is under a huge spotlight, Alex Rodriguez was asked last night why he doesn't shake hands, exchange fist knuckles or acknowledge Bobby Abreu Bobby Abreu when Abreu homers in front of him.

That's right. Twice this season already, after Bobby Abreu hit a home run, Alex Rodriguez failed to high-five him, costing his team countless runs. (Under the 2008 official baseball rule changes, as you may recall, a post-HR high-five clinches the "bonus zone," wherein the umpire must roll a seven-sided die and award the high-fivers' team the number of runs equaling the result of the roll.)

As Abreu approaches the plate Rodriguez is off to the left side going through his preparation to hit, a program that includes a violent practice swing.

Violent and nefarious and villainous, like A-Rod! His practice swing is so violent, it tore through the fabric of space-time and poked through a hole in Nuremburg, Germany, where his evil bat struck Flocke the adorable polar bear cub in the head!

Truly, we've arrived at a nadir in A-Rod bashing. It's not his fault that every time Derek Jeter high fives a teammate, an orphan gets a tube of Rolos.

"I have always done that because I don't like celebrating on the field," Rodriguez said before last night's 7-5 loss to the Red Sox in which he went 1-for-4 and 0-for-1 in the clutch to lower his batting average to .067 (1-for-15) with runners in scoring position. "When the hitter in front of me strikes out, I don't go over and pat him on the shoulder."

0-1! 0-1! Torches and pitchforks, please, everyone. These clutch stats are, of course, entirely gratuitous. Yes, Alex Rodriguez is 1-15 with RISP this year. Last year with RISP he hit .333/.460/.678. That's right. A high-five-worthy 1.138 OPS. And for his career, he's at .960, right in line with his overall OPS of .967.

The Post truly has an unprecedented claptrap to paragraph ratio. We all know, anyway, that A-Rod only likes to high-five pitchers who're trying to tag him out.

Labels: a-rod

Someone found our site with the following search string:

www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Bert Blyleven fuck

Hope you found what you were looking for!

(This is exponentially funnier if you convince yourself to forget that Bert Blyleven once said "fuck" on the air.)

Labels: Bert Blyleven fuck

...comes the uplifting story of a tough as nails general manager who overcame the hardship of having the greatest baseball player to ever live on his squad, and went on to lead his franchise to three consecutive seasons of between 70 and 77 wins.

SABEAN

Catch it now in ballparks across America. Currently starring Brian Bocock, Jose Castillo and Jack Taschner.

Lowell Cohn, the man who thinks David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Carlos Beltran and Pedro Martinez suck balls, believes Brian Sabean is a great GM -- better than Billy Beane. Incredible, I know. But we have evidence. He wrote it down himself and put it on the Internet, which I like to call "the world's refrigerator post-it note":

Sabean makes GM moves; Beane runs a clearinghouse

My kid and I write a blog together.

I know. Boy, do I ever know. But this is your PRO-fessional stuff. I'm sure it's top-notch, not like those riff-raffy blogs out there.

In our latest offering, we argued who's a better general manager, Brian Sabean or Billy Beane, and I chose Sabean, although Beane is very good.

Wow. Wow. Je-whoa. Ber-splurgh.

There you have it.

BEANE = VERY GOOD

and

SABEAN > BEANE

so by the transitive property of general manager excellentitude,

SABEAN = SCRUMTRILESCENTABULOUS!

I'm lucky no one caught up with me in person, because I would have been stoned to death for proposing such an unpopular --

-- and wrong. Don't forget wrong --

opinion....Sabean got the Giants to the World Series in 2002, and Beane never got the A's to the World Series, and never will.

Never is an exceedingly long time, Mr. Cohn. It's longer than forever. I think it goes never > forever > Lowell Cohn's age > eon > era > epoch. MATHEMATICAL INEQUALITY ZING!

In Billy Beane's first two years as GM, the A's finished last in their division. In the following eight years, the team finished 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 2nd, and 1st. In the last two years, we've seen the Rockies go to the World Series and the mother-f-ing Cardinals win the damn thing. You're going to say with 100% confidence that the A's will never even get there with Beane at the helm?

I don't think Beane even cares about the Series.

[British accent] Yes. Yes, I do think you're right. He's a rather detached chap, isn't he? Hasn't the foggiest inclination toward winning 'tall. Hates to win. Likes to be buggered.

We're talking about Tony Blair, right? [end British accent]

He wants to do pretty well, wants to keep up appearances, wants to claim he's a poor small-market GM and, gee, not arriving at the ultimate destination -- the Series -- isn't his fault even though he's brilliant. So please don't blame him or expect too much of him. He has a built-in excuse.

I have to say, accusing Beane of actually wanting to lose in the playoffs is a new one for me. Lowell Cohn is claiming such an intimate knowledge of Billy Beane's psyche here it's just retar-diculous. And fun. It's a lot of fun. Thanks, Lowell.

And hey, you know if the A's got to the World Series and lost, people would pillory Beane for "building a team just good enough to lose in the big moments." Can't wait for that one.

Now hold on. This is where it gets good.

Sabean made the daring, unpopular trade of Matt Williams for Jeff Kent, which set up the Giants for years. Beane never makes trades like that.

Except for --

One reader pointed to Beane's Mark Mulder for Dan Haren, Daric Barton and Kiko Calero trade as proof Beane can deal like Sabean.

A fantastic trade. As the Germans say, wunderbar. As the Chinese-high-school-students-taking-German say, wunderbar.

Please. Haren already is gone.

For six -- six! -- minor leaguers! So for one Mark Mulder (who, since the trade, has posted one good season, one terrible half-season, and one even terribler twentieth-of-a-season), Billy Beane ultimately received eight minor leaguers and three solid-to-outstanding years from Dan Haren.

You're right. Sabean's better.

All Beane's good young guys already are gone -- Tim Hudson, Nick Swisher, Miguel Tejada. I could go on.

I bet he wanted to keep some or all of these guys, but there's that small payroll thing -- the thing that you apparently think is some sort of Billy Beane hallucination that makes him enjoy losing in the playoffs.

The A's aren't a baseball team. They're a baseball clearing house. In and out. In and out.

SEX JOKE SEX JOKE SEX JOKE

As far as Daric Barton goes, well, in the first place, who the heck is Daric Barton?

Daric Barton was one of the most highly-touted prospects in the nation. He placed 32nd and then 28th on Baseball America's list of top 100 prospects. In five minor league seasons, at ages ranging from 17 to 21, he had an OBP of .414.

Brian Sabean (angry): Throw him back. Bring me the corpse of Ryan Klesko!

Back to Cohn.

That's how I feel.

Thank you. It's good to share. Particularly in an article about baseball GMing. Your feelings are especially important in that context.

But, I can't ignore reality -- no one defends Sabean, his reputation is in the dumper. It's in the dumper even though he was under orders from up above, I believe, to patch together a team around the grumpy power-hitting left fielder because while the grumpy power-hitting left fielder was here, fans would not accept young players and rebuilding.

This is Lowell Cohn's only semi-legitimate argument. If, indeed, he was handcuffed by ownership, then yes, he was fucked from Day One.

But note, also, that this is pure speculation on Cohn's part.

You can question his guts -- interesting because his persona is Mr. Tough Guy. He could have fought back or even quit -- people do quit. He didn't show mondo guts allowing the Barry Bonds cronies and that one drug dealer to lurk in the clubhouse. Those are strikes against him.

Fun game: keep track of how many strikes Lowell Cohn launches against Brian Sabean in this article -- an article written to praise Sabean for being better than the "very good" (Cohn's words, remember) Billy Beane.

Sabean has other strikes against him, lots of crummy free-agent signings -- Armando Benitez, Edgardo Alfonzo, Ray Durham, and yes, Barry Zito.

So many strikes!

And Zito -- Jesus. Not enough strikes is more like it! Thank you.

He is notorious for one stinker of a lousy trade -- Joe Nathan, a terrific closer, and two other players for -- hold your nose -- A.J. Pierzynski.

More strikes! A strike that's also a stinker! This one is up there as one of the worst trades of the baby millennium. Those anonymous "two other players," by the way, Lowell, were Francisco Liriano (was pretty good in 2006, remember?) and sort of serviceable Boof Bonser.

After Dusty Baker left, Sabean hired Felipe Alou, who was too old, a guy the players couldn't stand. And now he has Bruce Bochy, who's shown no aptitude to rebuild a team that desperately needs rebuilding.

Strike strike strike strike strike strike strike. We're playing the "Strikes Against Brian Sabean in an Article Supporting Brian Sabean" Drinking Game, and everyone here has died of alcohol poisoning, had their ghosts rise from the dead and resume playing the game, and then had their ghosts die of alcohol poisoning.

The Giants' farm system has been a joke, nothing like the A's -- this is a positive Billy point here. The only productive player the Giants' farm system produced in the current century was Pedro Feliz, and he wasn't all that productive.

Aaaaaaaaannnnnnd there's another strike.

Sure, these are lots of bad marks against Sabean.

You have to love his restraint here.

Any team that depends heavily on Durham, Dave Roberts, Rich Aurilia and even Omar Vizquel is a team going nowhere.

But -- but -- this is the team built by the guy you're defending. Lowell? Lowell? Oh god, he got into the bushes again. Get out of there! (Gets umbrella, beats bushes) Out!

He needs to find out if his young guys can play. Amend that. He'd better pray his young guys can play -- Eugenio Velez, Dan Ortmeier, Brian Bocock, Fred Lewis and Rajai Davis. Aside from Velez, I don't feel confident about any of those guys. Do you?

Well, let's see here. Ortmeier OPSed .683 and .763 in the hitter-friendly PCL at ages 25 and 26. Bocock slugged .328 in A+ ball last year. Lewis and Davis have passable minor league résumés, but yeah. This is rough.

Brian Sabean for Mayor!

To his credit, Sabean has strong starting pitching --

Hurray! [cue YouTube video of parade that KT posted the other day]

strong, not great.

Cancel embedding of YouTube video. Cancel it now.

He has reasonable relief pitching.

"Reasonable Relief Pitching," the Brian Sabean Saga. An inspirational tale of love and loss, of Keiichi Yabus and Brad Hennesseys.

The batting order does not have power. It is a single/doubles club, not a home-run club, and that needs to change.

I think of it as more of an outs/more outs club. Is that a thing? Is that, maybe, what Sabean was going for? You're the guy who can read people's minds, Lowell. Please tell me that's what Sabean was going for.

Now that he is free -- finally free -- to make a real team, Sabean has to show he has a vision for his club and knows how to bring that vision to life -- not this year, but certainly in 2009 and after. I have defended Sabean, but now it's up to him.

I have defended him nobly! In this article where I outline, in exhaustive detail, the fourteen different ways in which he has utterly failed his team, his owners, and the city of San Francisco, I have defended him well. I defended him by mentioning Zito. I defended him by mentioning Bocock. I defended him by mentioning Pierzynski.

The defense rests, your honor.

He has to defend himself.

From you, Mr. Cohn. At this point, you're like the defense attorney half of Colin Ferguson and Sabean is the defendant half. You (Cohn/defense attorney Ferguson) are hurting your (Sabean/defendant Ferguson) own case.

But yeah, you're right. I'm convinced. Billy Beane blows.

Labels: billy beane, brian sabean, colin ferguson, lowell cohn

Usually we don't cover blogs, because everyone knows they're written by clinically obese, pimply-faced, wheelchair-bound agoraphobics with Oedipus complexes. Or Mike Pagliarulo. But I'm making an exception for Lowell Cohn, who writes! professionally! for something called the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, and who apparently is award! winning! as the blog description tells us:

Cohn vs. Cohn

It's a battle of the generations. Wizened, award-winning Press Democrat Sports Columnist Lowell Cohn squares off every Friday with his wise-guy, college-age son Iggy in a no-holds-barred debate on the sports topics of the day.

Here's the thing: you sort of want Iggy to come in and kick his 80-year-old dad's ass, right? Use your native Internet skills and limited attention span to show him who's boss, Iggy!

No such luck. For we see in this post that Iggy and his dad agree on one very important thing about baseball: there are men -- legends, really -- who are gamers. These are the men who Win Ballgames with their hustle and their grit and their filthy, muddy, dirty, bloody uniforms and the sheer willpower of their gamey, grindy hearts.

Gamers

This is a combo effort from Iggy and Lowell. What is a gamer in baseball? And who is a gamer?

Iggy, really? How could you? I feel betrayed. You were one of us, Iggy. I've lost all hope for the future. In a world full of Iggys, how can we begin to make progress?

We began thinking about this because the Giants have a clever ad campaign about gamers, and we decided a gamer is someone who does whatever he can to win -

Get on base, drive up the pitcher's pitch count, hit for power --

stealing home,

Stealing home?! Iggy. Jesus. Iggy. How far down the list is fucking stealing home when it comes to the skills you need to win a damn baseball game? How often has a steal of home won a game compared to, I don't know, a single to left?

Iggy, get off Facebook for once in your life and go read one of your fancy "websites" about baseball. You like "surfing the web," don't you Iggy?

making a diving catch, taking out the second baseman, hitting the clutch homer, always playing hard.

Hitting a home run, apparently, is only gameriffic if you do it in the bottom of the ninth. All other homers are for selfish stat-padding jerks and actually hurt your team. I know this is true because I read it in the Bible.

A gamer doesn't care about his stats.

A gamer will OBP .235 if it'll help the team (and it will)!

He never takes a game off for a phony reason.

Like trying to be in top shape for the postseason!

He gets his uniform dirty.

And not with tacos or fried chicken, like a non-gamer might (wink wink!). A gamer gets his uniform dirty the old-fashioned, American way -- with dirt and a dirt gun that fires dirt at your uniform.

We've made a list of seven gamers and a list of seven non-gamers of guys currently playing. We're calling the Gamer List, the Cal Ripken List - for obvious reasons.

(white) (the previous parenthetical may seem unfair, but just keep reading)

He was the ultimate gamer. He always played - you couldn't pry him out of the lineup. And he was a great fielder and hitter, one of the all-time great shortstops.

This is where Iggy and Pop fall down. You don't have to be good to be a gamer. In fact, it's better to not be good. Gaming isn't about hitting or fielding or baseball, it's about what's inside your body. Like your heart, or if your blood is susceptible to sickle-cell anemia.

He's the guy who changed the template for shortstops from swift little guys to big men with power.

Again, get this straight: swift little guys are the true gamers. Gaming 101, gentlemen. Power ruins baseball.

He was A-Rod before there was A-Rod.

And that's a good thing? Good Christ: A-Rod is everything that is bad about baseball, don't you know that? You're writing an article about gamers, not guys who look like they're wearing make-up while they break the all-time home run record and move over to third base even though they're on the way to becoming the greatest shortstop of all time to accommodate (spoiler alert) the #1 gamer on your list.

We're calling the Non-Gamer List the Barry Bonds List, for equally obvious reasons.

He's the greatest player of all time?

He was a great player but he was not a gamer.

Uh huh. Right. He never, ever helped his team win games.

He came to the plate so many times last year when he could have helped the Giants by hitting a ball to left field. Remember that crazy defensive shift teams used that exposed the left side of the infield and left field. Did Bonds ever once hit a ball to left? Get serious. He was a permanent resident of Jack City.

He was 43 years old and he OPS+ed 170. You're angry that he didn't hit enough balls to fucking left field? He got on base 48% of the time. For that alone you should have been cool with him sitting in a lawn chair in left field, facing away from the batter and playing a vintage Sega Game Gear.

And yes, he was a permanent resident of Jack City. He is the holder of the record for most home runs hit ever ever ever. If this makes you not a gamer, God help your team of gamers.

He wanted to hit home runs to make history.

What a monster! He should have hit some balls to left field to get his team to 72 or 73 wins instead of 71. Then we would always remember 2007 as the year Barry Bonds gamered, through sheer force of his gaminess, his team to a 73-89 finish. Instant Classic -- the entire 2007 Giants season.

He cared nothing about the team. He cared only about himself.

Iggy knows a lot about Barry Bonds' psyche. Even if this were 100% true -- did he help the team or not? Keep in mind a) he was the only regular on the Giants who OBPed over .344 and b) he led the major leagues in OBP. By 35 points.

THE CAL RIPKEN GAMER LIST:

Derek Jeter:

Original choice.

He is the essence of a gamer. No one else is like him.

I think Jeter's fragrance should have been called Essence of Gamer. That or Eau de Can't Go Left.

He is a great player, a sure Hall of Famer, and every day he plays like he's a rookie trying to make the club. He is a throw-back to another era. And he is the one who makes the play that wins the game.

I give you credit for calling Jeter, a guy who is not completely white, a throwback player.

Remember in 2001 in Game 3 of the division series against the A's --

No one, and I mean, no one, remembers this game. Who could remember such an obscure game? Please, lay the details on me --

when he ran across the field and backed up a throw from right field, a throw the first baseman missed, and he threw home and the catcher tagged out Jeremy Giambi who would have tied the game but he forgot to slide - a non-gamer. Jeter's was the ultimate gamer play.

Oh. Oh my God. You're right. I didn't know that about Derek Jeter. Since he did make that one play once, he must be awarded the Gamer of the Century Award posthaste.

(Derek Jeter has played in 123 postseason games. Think about that the next time someone brings up how many big moments he's had. 123.)

Now it gets crazy:

Mark Ellis: He is a gamer and he's what they used to call a hard-nosed ballplayer. He hangs in on the double-play pivot and he gets big hits and nothing bothers him, ever. He is the best player on the A's because of ability but mostly because of attitude.

Look, Cohn father and son, maybe it's time you get out of the blogging business. It's rough out there. There's a lot of competition. And you, as they say, are making no sense. How is Mark Ellis more hard-nosed or better attituded than Asdrubal Cabrera or Brandon Phillips or Kaz Matsui or Miguel Cairo or Mike Fontenot or Trey Willinshamerson, the second baseman on my high school team? He hangs in on the double play? How many major leaguers are constantly bailing on double play balls?

Mark Ellis is a good player who has many mediocre teammates. Can we agree there's nothing magical about him?

Aaron Rowand

This is going to be a long post.

The Giants hope to mold all their up-and-coming players in his gamer mold. He famously dove face first into a chain-link fence to catch a deep fly ball when he played for the Phillies.

I scorched my face in a Belgian wafflemaker this morning. Pressed it real good. Can I have $60 million please? Thank you.

Torii Hunter - A better fielder than Rowand, Hunter is famous for catching potential home run balls. He's a hustle player who brings energy to his team and makes his teammates play better.

You want to put that statement up for scrutiny in a court of law? This isn't basketball, where I'll buy that Magic Johnson or Steve Nash or Chris Paul make their teammates better (at least on offense, for a couple of those guys). How many more doubles does Torii Hunter make Jeff Mathis hit this year? Seven? Twenty? A hundred? You tell me.

Although he isn't a great hitter, the Angels gave him a 5-year $90 million contract this off season, which shows how highly people value his gamer contributions to a ballclub.

Whoops!

Nick Swisher - He does whatever he can to help the team win. He's a switch hitter and he can play several positions. His teammates love him, which is a must for any gamer candidate.

So now we have, gamer qualification-wise:

Play to win
Big plays
Hard-nosed
Good attitude
Hang in on double play
Hurt yourself
Catch balls
Make your teammates better
Multiple positions
Switch hitter
You make people smile

Here's my new theory: literally anything you do can make you a gamer. You like Neapolitan ice cream? Gamer. You play the harpsichord? Gaming it. Civil War reenactment buff? Game on.

Eric Byrnes - He makes diving catches in the outfield, always sells out his body. He always hustles on the base paths, and he'll more than likely be an analyst on ESPN when he retires, for whatever that's worth. Gamer.

ESPN analyst? Gamer.

Troy Tulowitzki - A great fielder, plus he has power and above-average size for a shortstop. He draws favorable comparisons to Cal Ripken Jr. - the highest compliment.

Read that again. Nothing in there has anything to do with the traditional definition of a gamer. This is just a description of a good baseball player. Great in the field, he hits well, he's big.

For the last time -- smaller is gamier. Do I have to refer you to the "david eckstein" tag on this very site? Bone up, Iggy.

THE BARRY BONDS NON-GAMER LIST:

Barry Zito: He never wins a big game. He always has an excuse. He always wilts under pressure.

He just sucks, okay? It's not that he's not trying. He's not good. He hasn't been good for a pretty long time. You want to make a list of players who suck? We can do that. It would make a lot more sense.

Maybe it's unfair to call him a non-gamer. Maybe he's just not good enough.

Thank you.

Manny Ramirez - An awful fielder, and he frequently doesn't run out fly balls. The other day against the A's, Manny stood and watched a long fly he hit to center field as if he expected it to be a home run -- not a gamer thing to do. It got caught.

So...it didn't matter. Let's also ignore the fact that Manny is known for absolutely killing himself to prepare for games, training-wise. Take some lessons from Mark Ellis, Manuel.

Eric Chavez - Clearly it was a mistake for the A's to sign Chavez instead of Miguel Tejada. Chavez is always hurt, and when he's in the game, he has a new batting stance every week - none of the stances work. Plus, he never has come through for the A's in the postseason, hitting a career .222 in October.

Seems like a dick move to pick on a guy who just can't get healthy. Wouldn't Chavy have been an example of a guy who would have been a quintessential gamer in 2004? Team leader, seems like a good guy, pretty great player? Now, since his back muscles don't work, all of a sudden he's an asshole? If Chavez is reading this, he's gotta be like, Come on, father and son bloggers, I just had like seventeen epidurals. You think I'm trying to suck out there?

Right, I'm trying new batting stances every week. That's apparently incorrect. The guy most famous for doing that is the captain of your Gamer Team and an American hero. I think he fought in Afghanistan.

Carlos Beltran - The Mets gave him $119 million to be the player they would build their team around. He's been unreliable, frequently missing time to injury and playing poorly in the playoffs. The Mets have shifted their focus to third baseman David Wright - an up-and-coming gamer.

This is just inexplicable. Carlos Beltran, on the whole, has been brilliant in the playoffs, with an overall OPS of 1.302 and a slugging percentage of .817! He hit 3 home runs in the 2006 NLCS for the Mets. Do Lowell Cohn and son remember the 2004 playoffs, when for 12 games Carlos Beltran hit like he was using Mjolnir for a bat? He hit 8 home runs in 46 at bats! This is the choker you're complaining about?

Also, games played as a Met: 151, 140, 144. Not perfect, but he's not exactly Rich Harden, either. The last two years Carlos Beltran has been super-valuable for both his offense and his defense.

Andruw Jones - He doesn't play center field as well as he used to, and he's a lock to strike out 100 times a season. He hit 51 home runs three years ago, and people started calling him the best center fielder in baseball. But last year, he hit only 26 dingers while batting a measly .222.

This is turning into a list of guys who used to be good but then declined. What in the name of Carlos Beltran's Mjolnir-bat is the point here? He strikes out and he's fat, so he's not a gamer? Tulowitzki is big, so he is a gamer?

I'm going to start writing exclusively in bewildered rhetorical questions.

Pedro Martinez - He's been hurt for the last 2 seasons, and who knows how long he'll be out now with a pulled hamstring. He's always been a controversial player, throwing at players' heads and fighting with old man Don Zimmer. Now that he isn't a dominant a pitcher, he's more of a distraction than he's worth. Gamers don't distract their teammates.

He's the most dominant pitcher of his era, and maybe ever. He's declining with age. What a lazy son of a bitch. Also, fighting another team's coach should be the number one characteristic of any gamer list worth its salt.

David Ortiz: This is a great hitter, a great clutch hitter. And he's a pleasure to watch. So why is he a non-gamer? Because he doesn't use a glove. He doesn't play a position. No designated hitter ever can be a gamer. Ortiz is the ultimate Half Gamer.

I like that Iggy and Lowell call David Ortiz "This." And they close with one final nugget of lunacy. David Ortiz -- the clutchiest, most beloved, winningest player in baseball in the 2000s -- is not a gamer.

A couple more things. Gamer list:

Ripken
Jeter
Ellis
Rowand
Hunter
Swisher
Byrnes
Tulowitzki

Or, in other words:

White
Half-white
White
White
Black
White
White
White

Non-gamers:

Bonds
Zito
Ramirez
Chavez
Beltran
Jones
Martinez
Ortiz

Or:

Black
White
Latino
Latino (Born in San Diego, but hey, a last name that ends in -ez!)
Latino
Afro-Caribbean (I think? Born in the Netherlands Antilles. Not white.)
Latino
Latino

Hmm. Also, shit, dogz. That non-gamer team, when they were healthy and not as old, would really have kicked the living tar out of the gamer team.

Labels: gamer, iggy cohn, lowell cohn

This little back-and-forth between former bungling Mets GM and current bungling ESPN color guy Steve Phillips and current Indians GM Mark Shapiro (who's coming off as competent and intelligent so far) was so absolutely unsurprising it made me laugh out loud:

SP: So we saw you on the computer there. Now I played solitaire on my computer in my office. What were you looking at on the computer?

Wonderful. So simple, yet so beautiful. Of course he's being self-deprecating and playing for a laugh -- but seriously, Mets fans, isn't there a not-so-small part of you that believes this is true? I like how cavalier he is about admitting that as the manager of a company with hundreds of millions of dollars in payroll, he had no use for a computer.

I don't know -- e-mail or something? He wasn't fired until 2003. I think he could have at least been on Prodigy or Compuserve or something by then. Newsgroups? Maybe he should've logged onto alt.movaughnfatorreallyfat.fat.cooked.

Shapiro responds with an extremely reasonable answer:

MS: Those were minor league box scores from the night before. I think he gave me the injury reports, too. You get those once a week and try and get caught up. You need to keep your finger on the pulse of what's going on...

Not included: "You're right, Steve, fuck a computer. They're only good for solitaire and porn, and the special dirty solitaire I downloaded with naked ladies on the cards!"

Throughout the rest of the segment, Shapiro is baited again and again with weird, subtly anti-objective analysis questions. Dan Schulman goes with something like "Don't you have to go with your gut sometimes?"

MS: I want to have the information I have back up my gut.

He's more diplomatic than that overall, but well done, Shapiro. Phillips will not be denied, though:

SP: You talked a little bit about the scouting reports and also about statistics. Where do the Cleveland Indians fall in this era where numbers have become more important than maybe the people (and where robots threaten to steal our women and our children)?

Parenthetical was implied, not spoken. Shapiro feints:

MS: We want all the information. We want the best statistical information. We want the best scouting information available. Medical gets overlooked so frequently.

There's a reason the Indians are a well-run franchise and Steve Phillips' main job is to provide us with grist. The sign on his desk at work says

STEVE PHILLIPS
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, FJM GRIST DEPT.

Labels: mark shapiro, steve phillips

The Good News is: JoeChats are back!!!!!

The Bad News is: not really.

Something has happened, you guys. Someone, I think, finally stepped in and gathered all the ESPN interns together and said: "Attention, dummies. One of you, every week, is going to sit at a computer and type in Joe's responses to these chat questions. I want you to take what he says and clean it up. Don't change the answer, just clean it up. Do a little on-the-fly editing. Maybe toss in a few actual facts -- make it so he doesn't look like a complete ignoramus. And before you hit 'return,' you spell-check, and you grammar-check, do you understand? So help me God, if I see one 'concetrate' you're all fired."

This is pure conjecture. But something has happened. Because the chat is about as exciting as...every other on-line chat with normal chat-answerers. To wit:

Scott, (Williamsburg, VA): Should Tiger fans worry about how the season has started?

Joe Morgan: You always worry, because if you get off to such a poor start, it becomes a mental problem. Guys start to press sooner and a lot of things start to happen. But with the lineup they have, they should be alright. They are capable of winning ten or twelve in a row.

The Joe I know would have expounded on the "mental problem," and perhaps wildly ascribed all sorts of phenomena to that mental problem, talked about how there are no great teams anymore, and then said something crazy about Dave Concepcion. This is far too concise and level-headed.

Brandyn S. - Chicago, IL: Joe - how much of an impact do you think the long road trip to Japan and then Canda had on Boston's slow start?

Joe Morgan: I think it had a lot to do with it. Boston's first two weeks of the season were set up for failure. For them to have to travel such a long distance, it set them up not to get off to a good start. I don't think it was fair to make the World Champions have to go through that.

No "when I was on the Reds..." or "when I was World Champion..." or anything.

Doug (Cincinnati) Joe, What is your take on the Reds this year? Do you think they can make a run for the playoffs?

Joe Morgan: It's too early for anyone to panic in Detroit, or for people to start printing playoff tickets in Cincinnati. I like what I've seen there, and with Cueto, Volquez, Harang, and Arroyo pitching well, they have the potential to be a playoff team. It'll depend on the young pitchers.

Dead giveaway that someone else is at the reigns. First of all, the construction of the sentence "It's too early for panic...and optimism" is a thousand times more sophisticated than the average JoeResponse. But second, and more importantly: no fucking way Joe can rattle off Cueto, Volquez, Harang, and Arroyo that fast. No way. I don't care if it is the Reds -- the Joe I know would have said something about Dusty Baker "having them in a position to win" or "bringing a winning mentality" to Cincy. Then he would have said that Tony Perez should be in the Hall of Fame, that when he played he had to walk sixteen miles from the on-deck circle to the plate uphill each way, and the word "consistency" would have appeared 1000 times in a row, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy"-style.

casey (san francisco, CA): As a diehard sf giants fan (and a frustrated one) i realize that the franchise is, to simply put it, a mess. What do you suggest the management do to turn things around in the bay, no matter how long it takes?

Here's a game you can play at home. Write Joe's answer to this question. Do it before you read his real answer. Then we'll compare the two. Here's my answer:

Joe Morgan [Ken Tremendous]: Well they need picthing, that's one thing. The Giants were all about Bonds, and now Bonds is gone. They have Vizquel who is still a wizard at short but they need the offense? I haven't seen them play this year, but when you lose a Barry Bonds you are going to have to replace that. Thjere is a lot of veterans on the team, so maybe they can rely on the veterans. Someone needs to step up.

You all probably had some version of that, right? Vague, rambling nonsense. Here's "his" "real" answer:

Joe Morgan: It's not going to be an overnight fix. The offense is a mess and the pitching may be as well. They have put a lot of pressure on Cain and Lincecum. Barry Zito is not the Barry Zito of old, and the pressure on their young pitchers will show. Their offense is just--I don't know where they will score runs. Their two most productive hitters--Bonds and Feliz--are gone. It's going to take a long time before the Giants are a contender in the West.

Sorry. That's not Joe being Joe. It just isn't. Cain and Lincecum? Barry Zito? Knowing that Pedro Feliz isn't on the team anymore? And the whole thing just...flows. It's a nice, well-organized, flowing stream of non-nonsense. And the way that that one sentence shows an interrupted thought: "Their offense is just -- I don't know where they will score runs." That's not a thing you type. That's a thing you say, out loud, and a court stenographer-type enters it into a chat window.

Eric (NYC): Hi Joe. What do you think of the Rays' decision to start the season with super-prospect Evan Longoria down in AAA? What kind of message does this send to the fans and to the rest of the team who are deperate for a winner?

Joe Morgan: If they're sending him down so that his arbitration situation will be put off a year, it's a joke to the fans and the teammates. If that's the reason, baseball should take a look at it and change that. It should not be normal procedure.

Okay, so this isn't the most eloquent answer ever. But Joe out-of-nowhere suggesting that a Tampa Bay front-office decision about Evan Longoria was based on the fucking arb rules? Are you serious, ESPN intern who is now just typing the answers himself while Joe talks on the phone to his kids?! How dumb do you think I am, that I would believe that Joe Morgan (a) knows who Evan Longoria is or (b) would know that he's in the minors or (c) that he would have an opinion on why he was sent down based on the fucking ticking-clock arbitration rules?! Give me some credit, ESPN Intern Who Is Now Typing Answers All By Himself While Joe Gets a Clark Bar From the Vending Machine.

Thomas (Toronto): Joe, do you like the Jay's chances? You've gotta like the addition of gamers like Eckstein and Rolen.

Nice. Good call, Thomas -- let's do an old-fashioned JoeBait. That'll get him fired up. This should be good.

Joe Morgan: Rolen has had a lot of injuries the past few years. Eckstein is a guy who knows how to win and plays to win.

Okay...okay...not the best start ever, but pretty good...keep going...

Rolen does the same thing when healthy. But they are a good team, they have excellent pitching. Starting pitching is still the key to winning, because it takes pressure off your middle relief and closers. You need to have good starting pitching to be World Champions.

...eh.

It's like he came back from the vending machine and tossed off a few nonsenses, and the Intern filtered them and sanitized the crazy. And we're left with...pfffft.

Eric (NYC): Hi Joe! I agree with you that Roberto Clemente is the greatest Puerto-Rican born player ever, but Pudge is something special too. He's the greatest defensive Catcher in history in my opinion. Your thoughts?

Joe Morgan: Apparently some people didn't understand what I was saying on Sunday night. I played against Roberto Clemente, and Willie Mays said he was the greatest player he played against. All the things Guillen cited about Alomar, that he could beat you in every way, were true about Clemente, but he had greater power. I've said that I would never compare anybody defensively to Johnny Bench, but Ivan Rodriguez was on par with him. But I still think Clemente was better. If Clemente (or George Brett or Rod Carew) were hitting in this era, with smaller ballparks and livelier pitching, they'd hit .370 every year.

So...no they wouldn't, obviously, and this answer is a little crazier than the previous ones. It still doesn't have that je ne sais quoi de sinistre that we know and love and fear and mock. But maybe Joe got sick of that young whippersnapper clattering away on the keyboard and decided to take over for himself for a while...

Scott Miami, FL: What's your opinion of the Marlins this year?

Joe Morgan: They've got possibly the best player in the league. I know a lot of people do not think that way. He can do everything, and can hit from power from shortstop.

KT: Haven't said his name yet.

He's a special player.

What's his name, Joe?

The other guys do not have as good a track record.

You're just stalling now. What's his name?

Ramirez gets better each year.

There it is.

The Marlins will be only as good as he is. His production will depend on how much other teams pitch to him.

Seems like the old Joe, right? But get this:

Joe Morgan: If you use statistics, last year he was the most productive player in the league.

I just accidentally swallowed my computer. Hang on.

Okay.

Joe Morgan said: "If you use statistics, last year H-Ram was the most productive player in the league."

Fuck. Just swallowed my computer again accidentally. I am typing this with my epiglottis. Hang on.

There we go.

In 2007, Hanley Ramirez did not win the NL Batting Title. He did not hit the most HR, or score the most runs, or have the most hits. He did not have the highest SLG or OBP. He didn't lead the league in SB or 2B or 3B or really any individual category. So, the only way that Joe could really mean what he says, is if he's talking about...

VORP?

Hanley led the NL in VORP last year, at 89.5. David Wright was second at 81.1.

Is it possible -- is it remotely possible? -- that Joe knows about VORP?

I just swallowed my computer and the coffee table it was on and my arm up to the elbow.

Mark (New York): Hi, Joe. What do you think of the Yankees pitching staff to start off the year?

Joe Morgan: They're like everyone else--not consistent, but with some great starts. Wang was great, but Kennedy did not pitch well. At this point, everyone is trying to gain consistency. Right now, that's the big problem with every time. You see a lot of teams around.500, and that's the reason.

Now this -- this is Joe Morgan. Two "consistents." A complete non-sequitor with accompanying typo: "Right now, that's the big problem with every time." A sweeping generalization about every team being mediocre, and a corresponding lack of context, given that after very few games, most teams will be around .500, because even a team that is going to play .600 ball the whole year would probably only be like 6-4 (or 4-6, or 2-8 if they got unlucky). Thank God. If Joe had said something about small sample sizes I might have freaked out and unhinged my jaw like a snake and swallowed the internet.

Here's his closing salvo:

Joe Morgan: I felt it is best for Detroit to get on the road, to take some of the pressure off of Miguel Cabrera, but they go to Boston now, and Boston seems ready to get on a roll. This road trip wasn't the one I had in mind for the Tigers, but I expect them to play better on the road. The other thing is that next week, we'll have a better feel for which teams are starting to gain consistency and which teams we have to worry about.

Again. A nice mention of "consistency," but is this really Joe? Is this a real JoeChat?

Long-time enthusiasts of this blog will remember that this has happened before, and like then, we wish only for Joe's speedy return to the keyboard. Stay tuned. This might get interesting.

Labels: joe morgan, joechat

Jim Lang is super smart:

The more I watch the Jays the more I despise the whole concept of Moneyball.

Yes. It's definitely the book Moneyball that screwed up the Blue Jays. Not B.J. Ryan or A.J. Burnett or Vernon Wells's 2007. It's...a book.

What moron ever came up with the idea that it was bad thing to move a guy over with a sacrifice bunt or to steal a base?

A moron named Mathematical Probability. He's a dick. Never picks up a check. Doesn't help his wife clean up the house. Thinks Daughtry is awesome. Asshole.

Sorry, but I will take Whitey Herzog baseball over Moneyball any time. For example; the Jays are trailing 1-0 in the sixth inning, there's nobody out and men on first and second. However, thanks to the screwed up concept of "Moneyball," the Jays go up there swinging away.

Well, that's close to a time you might want to bunt. It sometimes makes sense to bunt, depending on whether you need exactly one run or more than one run, and how late in the game it is, and who's at the plate, and who's on deck. So what was the situation?

Oh. You had Stewart, Rios, and Wells up -- your 2-3-4 guys -- against a pitcher with 77 total innings in the majors (though he's a really good prospect). I say: bunt, bunt again, suicide squeeze with 2 out!

Lineout, fly out and Vernon Wells caught looking.

That's Moneyball, holmes! Moneyball loves lineouts, fly outs, and called third strikes. Moneyball is all about called third strikes. What's not to love about Moneyball?!

I like, too, that a lineout isn't seen as bad luck, but the failings of a philosophy that has nothing to do with what he is talking about.

Thus endeth the inning and a golden opportunity to manufacture a run. Moneyball freaks will call me an idiot for even suggesting that you would bunt someone over to third base with no one out.

Okay: you're an idiot. Albeit, one with crystal-clear 20-20 hindsight.

Now, at this point, the Jays had not scored a run in the previous 14 innings. What have you got to lose by bunting a guy over and setting up an easy sac fly scenario?

An out. That's what you have to lose. A precious out, made by your #2 hitter, in front of your #3 and #4 hitters. A precious out, that you are just giving away, and the execution of which is in the hands of a dude with 15 sac bunts in 14 seasons. How do you think that's going to go, really? You think that's going to be a flawless, perfect sac bunt that gets the runners over? Guaranteed? 15 sac bunts in 14 years? You think that'll work out? You think he won't like bunt it right back to the pitcher for an easy toss to third? Or pop it up? Or foul it off and put himself into an 0-1 or 0-2 hole?

The fallacy of the "Why don't you just perfectly execute a difficult play and then everything will be awesome" gambit. Hey -- here's an idea. Why don't we just give everyone free health care? Then everyone will have it, and so then things will improve. Duh.

I have had it with Moneyball; give me good old Whitey Herzog baseball any day.

I have had it with people who have "had it" with Moneyball, who don't understand Moneyball. Take that.

Labels: jim lang, moneyball

Title is a half-assed play on words on a Richard Dawkins book title. Deal with it. Yesterday we saw a dude call Alfonso Soriano selfish because he had six bad games. (Has anyone noticed that noted egomaniac David Ortiz is 3-36? Diva!) Today's selfish oaf: Carlos Lee (HR totals the past five years: 32, 37, 32, 31, 31). I'm sensing a trend about selfish players -- they're freaking awesome.

There're some more gems in here, so let's get started, shall we, Joe Cowley?

Williams emulates a Twinning formula
Sox GM realizes talent alone doesn't guarantee anything

Talent, as we all know from years of sports journalism dogma, is anathema to winning. Teams win in spite of talent. Talent creates egos, egos create selfishness, selfishness results in too many damn home runs.

Keep your talent. Give me guys who volunteer at soup kitchens. Then I'll have a baseball team.

He spent years watching, studying and even copying it, to the point where it won him a World Series in 2005.

The truth is finally out there: Ken Williams is copying the formula of the 1989 Trumbull, Connecticut World Champion Little League team. Expect a call, Chris Drury.

Now White Sox general manager Ken Williams hopes he has moved a step closer to perfecting the model.

Thanks, Minnesota Twins.

So Ken, you're going to emulate the Twins' uncanny scouting and player development machine and work on bilking Brian Sabean out of Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser for one year of A.J. Pierzynski?

No, of course not. You're going to spout off some nonsense about reducing the amount of talent you want on your team.

''This job is one in which you never stop learning,'' Williams said Monday, hours before the Sox rallied to beat the Twins 7-4 in the home opener. ''Early on, I thought throwing talent at the wall would bring a championship, and, for three or four years, on paper we had the best team in the division.

''There were at least two of those years where Minnesota won the division and then came out and even said, 'That team there [the Sox] has more talent than us.' That really made me rethink some of the things we were doing, the approach we were taking.''

DON'T SAY GRINDER DON'T SAY GRINDER DON'T SAY GRINDER

It also forged the word ''grinder'' into his head.

ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH

White Sox fans: your general manager is officially building a baseball team based on a nebulous buzzword that's a synonym for submarine sandwich. Fear him. Fear him greatly.

He saw players such as A.J. Pierzynski, the Twins' cocky catcher who needled opponents with his antics to no end, all in the pursuit of winning. Torii Hunter, Jacque Jones, Denny Hocking, Doug Mientkiewicz -- the Twins' roster seemed perfectly put together to play the game the right way, frustrating bigger-budget teams along the way.

How about the fact that Hunter regularly hit 25 bombs a year, or that Pierzynski was an above-average hitter at the catcher spot, or that Mientkiewicz was one of the very best defensive first basemen in the game? No? Not important? You're right, it was probably Pierzynski's off-color jokes about what he did to Joe Crede's sisters that won the Twins the division. That's playing the game the right way!

Not only has Williams admitted to copying that model,

WHAT MODEL?

All you've said so far is that they're "grinders" and the roster "seemed perfectly put together" to "play the game the right way." Oh, and that you shouldn't "have the best team on paper." How are these not just read straight off page 1 of General Manager Press Conference Clichés, The Handbook?

but he also has had more money to budget his replica. Add a few tweaks of his own, such as adding players from outside the organization, rather than inside as the cheaply run Twins do, and ... ta-da!

That's another thing. The Chicago White Sox have the fifth-highest payroll in baseball, just behind the Red Sox. They're one Gagne away from equaling Theo's budget. Consider that when you think about what kind of job Kenny Williams is doing. Baseball Prospectus has the South Siders finishing with a sweet 77 wins. Prove them wrong, Kenny. Prove them wrong.

Williams signed Pierzynski, traded away selfish, all-or-nothing hitters such as Carlos Lee and built a stellar starting rotation before the '05 season.

Carlos Lee, EqAs since the trade: .274, .301, .300.
The guy they traded Carlos Lee for, EqAs since the trade: .264, .249, .244.

And last year Scotty Pods earned that .244 EqA in just 235 at bats because he was so banged-up and shitty the Sox never wanted to play him. Then, of course, at the end of the year, they just straight-up released him. The whole time, he was extremely grindy, though. He starred in that movie Grindhouse. I think he was the lady with the machine gun for a leg.

El Caballo, meanwhile, just keeps putting up 90-30-100 year after year after year. Get that shit off my team.

Credit where credit's due -- it was a wonderful pitching staff the White Sox had in 2005. But let's be honest, a lot of dudes were having career years. Garland, Contreras, even Buehrle -- all of them posted the highest full-season ERA+s of their careers in 2005, and none of them have really been the same since. This is to say nothing of the freakish, otherworldly performances of Messrs. Hermanson, Cotts, and Politte, who, as we love to point out here on FJM, all had ERA+s of 220 or higher. That's 1989 Dennis Eckersley shit. Fun fact: none of these three guys are even on major league rosters this year. The Podsednik-Pierzynski effect? Or (ahem) just a little bit of good fortune?

Bullpens are unpredictable and fickle; it seems like every year the eventual World Series champ gets out-of-nowhere contributions from their 'pen. Just last year, the Red Sox had Okajima and Delcarmen pitching out of their minds. But seriously, to get 185 innings of sub-2.00 ERA ball from the ne plus ultra of journeyman reliever triumvirates -- Hermanson, Cotts, and Politte -- is remarkably remark-worthy. And for the last time, it has nothing to do with grinding or scrapping from hardworking, undersized, fiery white hitters.

But the underlying trait Williams searches for is what he calls a ''Chicago toughness.''

You're right. I take it all back.

Labels: grinder effect, grinders, joe cowley, ken williams, scott podsednik, white sox

Friends, we have truly entered a strange era of sports journalism criticism. It's not like the salad days of sports journalism criticism, where all of the sports journalism was straightforward and sincere in its idiocy. Nowadays, it seems to me, the increasing prominence of sports journalism criticism has led to what appears to be ironic sports journalism, which -- again, it appears to me -- seems to be either (a) taking into account or (b) outright like seeking sports journalism criticism, in order to draw attention to itself or get more hits for its specific site, or just maybe to stir some good old fashioned shit. (If these pieces in fact contain what the legal system calls "intent," they might be properly called: sports journalism criticism criticism. This is one of those f(f(f(x))) deals that make Junior giddy.)

With this Pynchonian-style paranoia as my backdrop, I present to you what was called "The Most Ridiculous Article Ever In The History of Everything Ever" by reader Matt. It comes from Jim Armstrong of AOL, and it's called:

Baseball Stats Mania Rates a Zero

Let's go ahead and take it as a given that this turdpile may be tongue in cheek, or at the very least, bait. If it's a parody, it's brilliant. If it's sincere, holy God. And if it's bait, well, I just bit, and it tastes delicious, even though I know the hook is about to pierce me through the lower jaw and drain my lifeforce.

Given the state of the economy and all the political mud slinging going on, I probably should be worried about my country these days. But the truth is, I’ve got more important things on my mind, including the most important thing of all. Baseball.

Me too. Love baseball. Love it. Love everything about it. You and I have a lot in common, here, Jimmy. Let's talk baseball. What do you want to hit first? The Tigers' surprisingly bad start? The Go-Go Royals? The Yankees' injuries? How about Johnny Cueto?! Have you seen that guy pitch? Holey moley! Whatever you want to talk about, man -- it's your article. You pick.

No, not the lab rats who play it or the trust-fund babies who run it. Baseball has been around since they used cowpies for bases. It has survived despite itself for this long, so there’s no reason to think it won’t continue to.

So you're not thinking about the players, or the owners, or even the game itself. Seems like those are fun things to think about when one thinks about baseball -- the players, teams, or games. But okay. I'm all ears. What subject tickles your fancy this fine Spring day?

I’m worried about us, the fans. I’m worried that aliens are trying to attack our brains.

If the article stopped right here, it would be my favorite sports article of all time. Armstrong should have stopped right here, and then, as a publicity stunt, run onto the highway wearing only a Green Hornet mask and diving flippers, waving a toy gun and screaming about the Warren Report. He would be a legend.

At least they might as well be aliens. But for the record, they’re lifeless geeks who wake up every morning in hopes of creating a new baseball statistic.

Oh.

Sigh.

Hang on a second. I was half-asleep asleep on this old busted-up futon in my mom's basement, eating handfuls of sugary cereal out of the box and contemplating buying some vintage Ram-Man action figures off eBay, but now I guess I have to struggle to an upright position and try to address this guy's concerns.

Have you seen some of the quote, unquote stats out there?

My man: when you are talking you say "quote-unquote" to indicate sarcasm. When you are writing you can just put things in quotes. As in: Jim Armstrong is a "journalist." He is also "funny" and "smart" and I "want to hang out with him" because he seems to have a lot of "good" "points."

When I was a kid hustling autographs at Wrigley Field, the game was all about W’s and L’s. Now it’s about WHIP and VORP and OPS and BABIP.

Anyone who writes anything for a living should avoid cliché. I think we can all agree on that. This thought is now officially the #1 cliché about the baseball statistics debate. When I was a kid, people only cared about wins and losses. Now everyone is a nerd who loves weird stats and hates baseball. Please, all of you who have this thought, listen to me. Please. Here we go.

There have always been statistics in baseball. Always. Statistics like WHIP and VORP and OPS are better than the old statistics, because they give you more actual pertinent information. This is not up for debate. If you don't like these stats, don't use them. But don't tell me that they aren't interesting or good.

I just don't get it, man. No one ever said: "When I was a kid, if we were going to cut off your leg we'd give you a shot of whiskey and a rope to bite down on, and we'd just take a dirty hacksaw and just hack away, outside, on the ground. Why do all these nerds keep talking about 'anaesthesia' and 'sterilization?!'"

And let’s not forget the most important acronym of them all: HGH.

Has nothing to do with the argument you are developing. Not a stat. Bad writing.

VORP? WHIP? BABIP? Since when did a Harvard physics degree replace a ticket stub for admission to the left-field bleachers?

Since March of 2003. You didn't hear? You need a math/science/engineering degree from Harvard, Cal Tech, Harvey Mudd, MIT, or University of Mumbai. Or a Philosophy degree from Pittsburgh.

I don’t know about you, but I liked the way things were before some self-absorbed numbers cruncher dreamed up VORP (Value Over Replacement Player, whatever that means.)

It's pretty self-explanatory, but here. Read something. It makes you smarter.

Additionally: pandering to ignoramuses is not a flattering character trait. And being a snooty dick is? Hey! How'd you gain the ability to type, Ken's superego?

And while we’re on the subject, didn’t that guy have something better to do that day?

Here we go.

Like getting some fresh air

It's a-comin'.

instead of spending the entire day

Oh my god. I can feel it. It's so close.

in his boxer shorts

Do it!

in his

Yyyyyyyyyyyy...

mother’s

...yyyyyyyyyyyyyy...

basement?

...yessssss! Whoooooooo!



HOLY FUCKING SHIT THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!

In his mother's basement!!!!!

In his fucking mother's fucking basement!

Holy shit.

Holy shit, you guys.

In his mother's basement!

Boooooooooo-ya!

In his mother's basement.

He fucking nailed it, you guys.

Nailed it. Jesus.

Man. Okay. Just...that was awesome, is all. Awesome.

Let me guess.

Please.

The guy spends every waking moment of every day on his computer. And his only correspondence with the outside world is with fellow self-absorbed numbers crunchers who spend every waking moment of every day in dogged pursuit of the next esoteric pseudostat.

Keith Woolner is his name. He currently works for the Cleveland Indians. I guarantee he has watched more baseball games in the past ten years than you have. Also: they're not "pseudostats." They're just: stats. (They're not even really that esoteric, though I suppose what's straightforward to some might be "esoteric" to someone who never reads anything, or cares to, or has any intellectual curiosity at all.) (When did having zero intellectual curiosity about the world -- and a corresponding sneering contempt for those who have any -- become a positive character trait instead of a flashing warning signal that this person is a stubborn dummy?) (Oh -- right.)

These are the baseball writers of today. Forget Roger Angell and David Halberstam and all those other curmudgeons. They wrote about the romance of the game, the visceral attraction of the game, the simple pleasures of the game. They wrote about the Boys of Summer and the dads who took their sons out to the yard to watch them.

Fantastic writers. Brilliant. I eat 'em up. Most people I know love them.

Today, it’s all about the numbers and the psychos who crunch them.

No it's not. No. Wrong. It is not. Did you read Tom Verducci's piece about Red Sox fans in SI, for their Sportsmen of the Year issue in 2004? Do you read Leigh Montville, or Buzz Bissinger, or Bill Plaschke? Now, I am not personally a fan of some of these people, but they write about the humanistic elements of the game. That kind of writing is out there, if you want it.

They call themselves sabermetricians. I call them seamheads, among other things.

(crying) Shut up. That's mean. Shut up. (runs home)

I’m telling you, we need to stop these people before it’s too late. Before we’re all walking around in a cyberfog talking in acronyms that only Stephen Hawking could understand.

Come on, man. Hawking is such a hacky choice. At least go Roger Penrose, or Andrew Wiles, or Max Tegmark or something.

President Bush, your basic baseball junkie, needs to swing into action in the best interests of the country. He needs to have his Homeland Security Nazis break into these people’s homes and take a Louisville Slugger to their computers.

I don't exactly know how this is offensive, but I'm sure it is. Let's figure it out together. He mentions Nazis, which is generally considered offensive. He mentions them in reference to people serving in the U.S. Government, which is probably not supercool. He is asking the President of the United States to order the government to attack its citizens for talking about baseball statistics, which is interesting. Huh. Can't quite pinpoint it. At least it's a hilarious joke, though.

If not, I may have to resort to drastic measures. I may have to become a soccer fan. Think about it. There are no seamheads trying to take over the soccer world.

Ha ha! Fuck you, dude -- you're too late!

There can’t be because there are no numbers to crunch. Well, a few maybe, but not enough to get all hot and bothered about.

Also, soccer is cool and fun to watch.

Things are simpler in soccer. There’s no WHIP or VORP in soccer, just a few DOAs after the usual fan rowdiness in the stands. In soccer, all the stats are the same. All the goalkeepers have a .001 goals-allowed average and, at the end of the season, everyone ties for the league lead with one goal scored.

Not in baseball.

Right. Which is why we need more statistical analysis.

In the past few days alone, I’ve come across such stats as OPS (One-base Plus Slugging percentage),

Huh?!?!?!?!

GWRBI (Game Winning Runs Batted In),

Da-whaaaaaa?!?!

DIPS (Don’t Ask),

What'd you call me? You're a DIPS!

QERA (Quantified Earned Run Average),

That looks like "queer!" Heh heh heh heh heh!

WHIP (Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched)

Skler-boink?!?!?!?!

and BABIP (Batting Average for Balls In Play).

(slack-jawed; confused; drools)

Let me just get a few things straight. (a) You just found out about OPS? (b) You just heard about GWRBI, a stat that was so mainstream it was briefly on the backs of baseball cards in the late 1980s before people realized it was dumb? (c) You can't succinctly explain DIPS? Here.

Good thing Casey Stengel isn’t around to see this nonsense. All this numbers crunching might have interrupted his nap in the dugout.

And that...would be...bad?

Or Earl Weaver. He would have been so busy thumbing through computer printouts, he wouldn’t have had time to sneak in a half-pack of smokes in the runway.

Napping and smoking. You know -- baseball. What baseball should be. Napping and smoking while you manage a professional baseball team.

GM: Thanks for meeting with us.

Prospective Manager: Thank you for seeing me.

GM: Look. We are one of 30 professional baseball teams in the country. The franchise is worth about $500 million, give or take. We have a brand new stadium, partially financed by the taxpayers of this county. The revenue of our sport last year was roughly $7 billion. You are going to control a roster of 24-40 men, the average salary of whom is north of $3 million. They come from Canada, the U.S., Central America, South America, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and several Caribbean Islands. You have to make sure that they are used correctly, that their egos are in check, that they can withstand the grind of a 162-game schedule, that they don't do stupid extra-curricular shit like go to strip clubs, and you need to be aware of which guys are in trouble with steroids, which guys need carrots and which need sticks, and you'll need to soothe the feathers of the veterans (and rookies) who get sent down, and you have to do all of this while winning at least 90 games.

Prospective Manager: Got it.

GM: So, what will you do during the average game?

Prospective Manager: Nap and smoke.

GM: You're hired.

Prospective Manager: Great.

GM: Now you're fired. I wanted to hire you just so I could fire you.

Prospective Manager: But Casey Stengel napped!

GM: He managed the fucking Yankees from 1949 to 1960. You'd've napped too, if you had those players.

Prospective Manager: And Earl Weaver smoked!

GM: He also used stats. A lot. He famously encouraged his hitters to walk and knew the value of 3-run homers. Get out of my office.

Other than their utter lack of social skills, I’m not sure why all these computer nerds keep dreaming up new stats.

Look. It may be true that I have no friends, no wife, no children, and that I live in a soggy refrigerator crate in my mom's basement. That's no reason to be rude.

I guess my hope is that by dreaming up new stats, I will somehow attract the attention of a nice, introverted, monobrowed nerd girlfriend with bad teeth who will take pity on me and marry me and we can have nerd children who will grow up to be rocket scientists and develop a secret Doomsday Device with which we can rule the world!

In the end, the question is whether their numbers add to the enjoyment of the game. And the answer is no.

Shut up. Seriously, man, shut the fuck up. This is like saying,"I don't like action movies, so no one can ever enjoy action movies because action movies are terrible." If you don't want to use stats, don't use them. I don't care. But for the love of goddamned God, don't tell me that statistical analysis "doesn't add up to enjoyment of the game." You are telling me that my friends and I are incapable of enjoying baseball. I promise you -- I PROMISE you -- I enjoy baseball. I love baseball. This is not a situation where only one kind of person can love baseball. Lots of different people can love baseball for lots of different reasons. In my case, I love baseball every bit as much as you, but -- and here's the difference between you and me -- I also understand it. If you are interested in learning how to understand it, just ask. I can teach you in like 10 minutes. (And I don't even know that much about sabermetrics.)

I’ll tell you what adds to the enjoyment of the game, and I’ll put it in terms these geeks can understand.

(a) Fuck off, again, and (b) hit me...

ABAB (a Beer And a Brat).

Blammo. Nailed the joke. I give up. I will crawl into your cave with you and relearn how to enjoy baseball without using any part of my brain. Just my stomach. And we'll be alcoholics together and high-five a lot and yell "You Suck" at opposing players. Sounds like a good time.

Labels: f(f(f(x))), food acronyms, jim armstrong, liberal use of "food metaphors" label, mother's basement, sabermetrics, statistics

The baseball season is only a few games old, but Greg Couch is calling it like he sees it: Alfonso Soriano is a selfish fuckbutt. How does he know this? Because Kosuke Fukudome is hitting well.

Kosuke Fukudome is for real. But when you put him on the same field with Alfonso Soriano, it becomes clear that they aren't even playing the same sport.

Well, obviously. Fukudome plays nipponisme, a literal-sudden-death honor competition for Japanese robots to see how much “pain” they can inflict upon themselves (with pain measured in gigajoules). Duh. As if we haven’t noticed that Fukudome uses a samurai sword instead of a bat.

Fukudome emphasizes how selfish Soriano's play really is. Soriano, who's batting .094, will snap out of it and smack a lot of homers. When he gets hot, he'll do great things.

You see? It’s so simple. Fukudome has been hitting well, so he is unselfish. Soriano is hitting dumbly, so he is self-centered and doesn’t listen to my feelings even when I’m just pouring them out at him. How can the Cubs stand this guy? Great, so he’ll hit a bunch of homers. How in the fuck is that going to help our baseball team?

By the way, Matt Holliday started the year 1-18. What an egotistical monster!

But when he's cold, he has no way of getting out of it. Fukudome has dropped surprise bunts, hit long homers, worked deep into counts.

Listen, one of the things you listed is hitting long homers. If Soriano could hit long homers at will like you’re implying Fukudome can, I’m sure he would be doing this. We would have built statues of him in front of every stadium, synagogue and petting aquarium in America.

Someone tell Soriano that you don't get three runs for a 600-foot homer.

But you do in Distanceball, coming to the Outdoor Life Network and Black Lifetime in Spring 2009!

We have this stereotype about Japanese players, that they're fundamentally sound, playing for the team and doing things the right way.

Let me guess: you are about to say that this stereotype, like all others, is 100% true. We should probably just segregate America according to stereotypes.

Turns out, that's Fukudome. He did tip his cap after that ninth-inning homer on Opening Day, but when he has tried to join in with celebrations, it's funny-looking.

In summary...

Kosuke Fukudome: Had six good games, therefore unselfish. Japanese (humble, funny-looking).
Alfonso Soriano: Had six bad games, therefore selfish. Not Japanese (doesn't play right, hits home runs too far).

Stay tuned for the greatest article ever written about baseball. (I just wrote a teaser!)

Labels: alfonso soriano, kosuke fukudome

Reader Bruce sent us this beauty from Richard Griffin's latest mailbag.

Let's start with the letter to Richard, sent by Casey in Vancouver:

I found the outpouring of support for Reed Johnson in last week's mailbag to be somewhat laughable. Fans seem to think that Johnson is the superior player simply because he has a superior throwing arm...I am more interested in another stat, runs. According to baseball-reference.com the 162 game average for Reed Johnson is 85 runs scored. For Shannon Stewart the number is 102...if history tells us anything Stewart would almost certainly get 10-20 more runs in a season than Johnson would. Do you seriously think that Johnson's arm would save the Jays more than 10-20 runs in year?

We're all thinking roughly the same thing, right? Casey kind of cherry-picked his stats, and using runs alone as an offensive stat really doesn't do much for his case. The whole math of the situation doesn't really work; there's like 400 other variables that he's ignoring in this equation. And, of course, why does someone in Vancouver care about the Blue Jays?

Oh, Canada. You motherfuckers.

I'm hoping we can all at least agree at this point that Casey's use of stats leaves something to be desired. Maybe we should all pitch in and get him a subscription to BP? No? How about an Icelandic Buckless Belt?

Anyway, let's see how Richard Griffin responds to Casey's question.

I find the general attitude of seamheads and stat geeks like yourself towards real, human, flesh and blood players that don’t measure up to your computer-generated ideals to be sad.

Holy dick!

Seamheads and stat geeks like Casey? The guy who...wait -- say that again?

I find the general attitude of seamheads and stat geeks like yourself towards real, human, flesh and blood players that don’t measure up to your computer-generated ideals to be sad.

That's what I thought you said! Yay! Richard Griffin's crazy!

Do yourselves a favor: go back and re-read Griffin's opening remark, but in your mind, pretend that it's being read by Col. Nathan Jessup from "A Few Good Men." I think you'll be happy with the results.

The so-called outpouring of love towards Reed Johnson from fans and from this mailbag last week has nothing to do with Reed’s throwing arm or the fact that some statistical proof can be generated from a website that shows Shannon Stewart capable of producing 17 more runs than Johnson in a 162-game season. It has to do with the fact of dealing with a decent human being that has not been treated with the same respect he has shown the game he has chosen as his profession.

A truly staggering amount of crazy, packed into one sentence. I like "generated from a website," as if baseball-reference.com is just making stuff up.

And, again: "It has to do with the fact of dealing with a decent human being..."

Interesting piece of trivia: Richard Griffin composes his mailbag responses by painstakingly writing tiny words on the sides of strands of fettuccine, using the the tip of a guitar string dipped in ink. He then boils the fettuccine, throws it against the wall, and lets the pieces fall to the floor. The order of the words in his responses is determined by the order in which the strings of pasta fall. "fact...of...dealing...with...a...decent...mmm!"

Griffin follows this up with some weird anecdotal shit that's supposed to make us think that Reed Johnson somehow got dicked over by the Blue Jays, which is totally possible but sort of boring. And then, more pasta!

I don’t blame you for your immaturity. It’s easy for someone on the outside looking in to disregard the humanity of players. But it’s difficult for someone that has been in the major-league game for 35 years to do the same.

Casey gets attacked for being immature? Man alive. Disregarding the humanity of players?

Just to sum up, this is apparently where we're at in the year 2008. It doesn't really matter where you fall on the Joe Morgan / Bill James spectrum. If you so much as use any numbers to defend your argument, then it's safe to say that you have a total disregard for the humanity of players.

Just making sure we all understand the ground rules.

There will never be any apologies from my part for caring about players as human beings, no matter how flawed their skills may seem when run through a computer.

I need like four cups of alfredo sauce.

Labels: canadians, food metaphors, pasta, reed johnson, richard griffin, shannon stewart

I love/hate puns, so first of all, Lynn Henning and/or the editor in charge of writing Lynn Henning's headlines, congratulations/condolences on

Opening Weak: Will it end?

the title to your atrocious article on the Detroit Tigers' early struggles.

DETROIT -- A handful of things have conspired to make Opening Week a mini-disaster for the Tigers.

I feel bad for calling the article atrocious. Was that too harsh? How about poorly thought out, ill-researched, illogical and wholly unsatisfying? Or poopy-pantsy? Yes, let's go with poopy-pantsy.

One by one, here are some problems the Tigers are facing in the wake of Friday's 8-5 loss to the White Sox that didn't go over particularly well with Comerica Park's fans:

1. The team "doesn't look right"

The number one problem, I repeat, is "The team 'doesn't look right'" (unnecessary quotation marks sic).

Doctor: I'm afraid you're going deaf.
Patient: What's the diagnosis?
Doctor: Your ears...they don't look right.
Patient: Is there anything you can do?
Doctor: No. Once ears start not looking right...[shakes head]...they'll never look right again.
Patient: Thank you, doctor. This discussion has been eye-opening. Or should I say...ear-opening.
Doctor: [laughs and laughs.] That'll be $35,000.
Patient: What?
Doctor: [yelling] $35,000!
Patient: I heard you, I was just pretending to be deaf, like we talked about earlier. I love joking around.

Where was I? Oh right, a blog about baseball writing.

It's amazing how many shrewd observers have said this the last couple days.

Everyone agrees with me.

An ongoing belief is that Curtis Granderson's absence is taking a toll. The top of the order is out of whack.

If the problem is Curtis Granderson's absence, then might I suggest for your bolded Problem No. 1, instead of "The team 'doesn't look right,'" the more direct "Curtis Granderson is injured"? No? Too logical? You're right. You're the pro here, Lynn. I'm sorry. Sometimes I write and I write, and it just "doesn't look right." I go to my blog-writing teacher, and she says to me, "Junior, you have to be careful that when you write, your words 'do look right.' Then you won't just be a writer, you'll be a 'right'-er!"

Does this post have enough quotation marks and puns yet? Fuck no.

The leadoff spot is a team's ignition switch, and no player ignited a game offensively better than Granderson.

J-School Rule Number One: R. Kelly metaphors are always good baseball analysis.

Remember two summers ago when Placido Polanco was lost for six weeks and how the team struggled? He was the No. 2 hitter,

-- the "Ignition (Remix)," if you will --

but when he disappeared, so did the Tigers' offensive rhythm. Old-timers will remember the same thing happening in 1968 when leadoff man Dick McAuliffe was lost to an August suspension. It was the only time during a World Series season the Tigers struggled.

So you're on record: it was the "rhythm," not the fact that a good player was out and replaced by a worse player. How would the team's rhythm have been if Polanco were replaced by Chase Utley? Or Tito Puente? Or Rahzel? We'll never know, or at least we won't until I release my video game, "What If Placido Polanco Were Rahzel?" XBox 360, First Quarter 2009.

Okay, so your first TigerProblem was nonsense. Let's just move on.

2. Everything is upside down

What? Come the fuck on, Lynn. It "'doesn't look right,'" everything is "upside down." We're talking about a baseball team losing five (now six) games, not the crisis in East Timor or the movie Vanilla Sky. How about some tangibles here? Or maybe an acknowledgment that five (now six) games doesn't necessarily signify all that much?

This happens when a team is caught in an unexpected free fall. Friday's example of how completely twisted the Tigers have been in going 0-4 came in the first inning with the bases loaded and nobody out. Magglio Ordonez poked the first pitch to second for a rally-killing double play.

At least he didn't hit a rally-killing home run. That would have been the worst.

When a team is in rhythm -- go back to the karma Granderson creates -- Ordonez gets a single to right or double up the gap. Or, at the very least, a sacrifice fly.

Curtis Granderson's karma speeds up Magglio Ordóñez' bat. Placido Polanco's volunteer work powers Aquilino López' knuckle-slurve. Whenever Brandon Inge pays his mother a compliment, Adrian Grenier gets an erection.

This will change, guaranteed. But having your leadoff man and No. 3 hitter (Gary Sheffield also is sidelined with a finger injury) out of the lineup is an invitation to a screwy scoring chance.

So you could have written: Problem No. 1 -- Curtis Granderson is injured. Problem No. 2 -- Gary Sheffield is dinged up.

There was more freakiness in the fifth. With runners at second and third and one out, Jacque Jones ripped a grounder to a pulled-in Juan Uribe at second base. Jones was out and Pudge Rodriguez got doubled off second.

Comerica Park officially had morphed into the Twilight Zone. Don't be surprised if it lingers for a few more days or weeks.

There's a confusion of causation here. Mr. Henning believes that a Twilight Zone has spontaneously formed in Comerica Park, causing the Tigers to hit poorly. This is patently ridiculous. Clearly, what has happened is that the Tigers' poor hitting has itself generated a Twilight Zone. This explains why the Tigers' playbook is now a cookbook on how to serve human flesh and why Yorman Bazardo recently underwent surgery to give himself a pig nose.

3. Jason Grilli got lit up

That's it. That's the third problem with the Tigers. That's everything wrong with them. Sure, there are 13 more paragraphs detailing Jason Grilli's struggles, but I'm officially giving up. Just to recap, though, Tigers fans, here are your issues:

1. Start looking right
2. Stop being upside down
3. Jason Grilli

World Series, here we come!

Labels: lynn henning, tigers, twilight zone

If we had a FJM Declaration of Purpose, it would be to point out that you can't just say things like this and get away with them:

(ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, Miller and Morgan, on the subject of the Tigers)

Miller: That's a tough way to go to Fenway: 0-6.

Morgan: Well, every day you lose, though, Jon, the percentage is in your favor. I know it sounds a little bizarre, but a team as good as this team, 0-5 you figure: the percentage is in their favor.

Theoretically, I suppose what he is saying is that the team is "due" to win a game. Sadly, the purpose of a baseball season is not to win one game, but rather to win enough games to make the playoffs. Thus, the only possible thing you can say about the Tigers starting 0-6 is: that is a terrible start.

(The FJM Declaration of Purpose would be a small, unassuming Word document written in Helvetica. There would be a lot of cursing in it. And 26 years from now, when alien archæologists find nothing on our decimated planet but this document, they will assume it was the basis for our societal norms and government, and a new society will arise, and no one will ever write anything stupid about GlormBall, which is their national pastime.)

Unrelated postscript: Homeplate ump Jeff Kellogg just took a fastball to the face because A.J. Pierzynski seemed to get crossed up and just missed it. So he takes a fastball to the face and goes down like a sack of potatoes, and Jon Miller says, as they prepare a replay, "He's wearing a microphone, let's go back and have a look...) And I think, "Don't play the dude's audio!!!" And then they roll the replay, and it -- incredibly predictably -- goes like this:

(smack)

Pierzynski: Oh -- my God.
Kellogg: (on the ground) Fuck.

Come on ESPN. What word did you think was going to come out of a dude's mouth in that situation?

Labels: espn, fjm declaration of purpose, glormball, joe morgan

Joe Morgan is appearing on The Tim McCarver Show this week.

The medical term for this is: "an unholy alliance."

Labels: joe morgan, tim mccarver

I want to point something out in the quickly-becoming-tiresome Old Media vs. Bloggers debate: most stuff sucks. All stuff. In all forms. Most books suck. Most movies suck. Most magazines suck. Most trees likely suck if you get to know them. Fish, bugs, various metals -- they all probably mostly suck.

So yes, pipe-smoking Old Media dudes, you're technically correct: most blogs do suck. But then, so does most everything. Don't act like you're surprised about this development. And please, America's most talented sportswriter (or at least the guy compensated and esteemed as such), don't resort to hoary old clichés when criticizing the great new unknown.

"It’s all over the map," Reilly says about sports journalism on the dot.com world. "There's some good journalism, and some really horrible crap on there...

Again, this could be said about journalism. It's all over the map! There's good, there's bad! There's the Atlantic and then there's Chicks and Guns Weekly (you decide which one's good and which one's bad)!

...from guys holding down the couch springs in their mother's basement...

SIGH

I guess I shouldn't expect Mitch Hedberg-like ingenuity from jokes written by Reilly, who is, after all, just a sportswriter. Sportswriting is all over the map. There's some good stuff and there's some really horrible crap. There are, in fact, entire websites devoted just to the crap.

...that have never been in a locker room but are pining on this and that. And this gives them cache, and then they're being quoted? What? This guy is in his underwear.

But where is this underwear-clad man sitting? Underground, perhaps? Close to his maternal womb? Surely we need more information about whether this man is subterranean and whether he owns his own home.

They could use a Greyhound bus full of editors and it still wouldn't help them. So this is the 'new style of journalism' we gotta learn?

This seems like a really solid joke. Credit where credit's due.

"On the other hand, you see the solid writers they have on ESPN.com,

The place that currently Reilly under contract -- purely coincidence, of course --

who check their facts, go places, see people ... People who are classically trained in journalism are harder to get used to (on the Internet).

I love how he talks about journalism training like it's learning how to play Yo Yo Ma-quality cello. Of course there's actual Woodward and Bernstein-style reporting out there, and that's a real talent and skill. But how much classical training does it take to shit out an 800-word opinion piece on whether Matt Leinart should hot tub with Arizona State girls in the off-season?

It's like, for some of these, the faster you type, the better you're supposed to be? It's like the old days of sending a Western Union telegram.

No words. No words. I really didn't even think Rick Reilly was that old. But his own line here is like a joke we would construct in Furman Bisher's voice.

Once it's written and gone, do they ever look at it again? They're trying to type as fast as they can think.

I personally have the power to type my future thoughts, but for this blog I write in flowing longhand with a quill pen made from the feather of a moa (it's a very large pen). My personal secretary then makes mimeographs of my originals and types them into a 1936 Underwood typewriter, which has only the essential vowels (a, o). Her personal secretary then does something with the results. I'm not sure what, but it involves a computer.

"I really think a lot of this stuff (on the Internet) is read only by the people's parents.

WHO LIVE ABOVE ME I LIVE IN A BASEMENT LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT THAT PART

Do you read a live blog about a game? Why not turn on the game and listen to Vin Scully, the best live blogger ever?

That is a weird, weird, weird thing to say. I can't decide whether to be insulted on Vin Scully's behalf or insulted on bloggers' behalves or hungry or sexually aroused or what. Does Rick Reilly not understand that human beings are now capable of doing two things at once? Why can't I read funny or insightful things about a game at the same time I'm watching it? Does that make me un-American?

Ricky Reilly (I typed Ricky for some reason and I'm just going to leave it because I like the way it looks and because I think of this blog as a telegram STOP I just type and words come out and I never read them over or look at them again STOP): Why are you reading the Economist? Why can't you just consume the news like everyone else -- from Charlie Gibson?

Ricky Reilly: Stop watching the Tonight Show -- news comes from Charlie Gibson.

Ricky Reilly: Burn all Rolling Stone magazines. Whatever happened to reading liner notes?

Why do we need to hear what Mortermer Franks in his basement is thinking about it?

I think this is a bad transcription, but I fervently hope he said "Mortermer" and pronounced it slowly and deliberately. Guys who write for paper (I mean all paper things) need to just drop this "These guys are nobodies!" angle. If you're a good writer, and you have an interesting, insightful, or entertaining opinion, no one has any right to tell you to shut the f up. Until I am appointed to run the U.S. Department of Shit Writing Detection in 2012. Then all will kneel before me. And they will know fear.

"I was covering the Masters recently, was in the press room, in the clubhouse, on the course. And then I get back and there are three guys writing columns about the Masters, one in Houston, one in L.A. ... watching it with their buddies or their dad. Why are they writing?"

Because they enjoy it. Because they have ideas and emotions and jokes and they are human beings, who have a deep-seated need to express themselves. And yes, maybe 50 or 90 or 99 percent of them are bad ideas and insipid emotions and hacky jokes. But that remaining, small percentage of the pie -- the part that fits into Pac Man's mouth on the pie chart -- that stuff is good. And it doesn't matter if it's printed on stone tablets or radiowaved directly into people's brains. Forget the medium, dude. There's gold in them thar Internet hills.

Labels: mother's basement, rick reilly

Deal with this.

It seems like Joe has done a lot of good things in terms of education in his community. However, this criterion:

"This degree is awarded to one who has demonstrated intellectual and humane values that are consistent with the aims of higher education, and with the highest ideals of a person's chosen field," Mohammad H. Qayoumi, Cal State East Bay president, said in a statement.

[emphasis mine] does not seem to jibe very well with this:

Joe: I don't read books like that. I didn't read Bill James' book, and you said he was complimenting me. Why would I wanna read a book about a computer, that gives computer numbers?

Me: It's not about a computer.

Joe: Well, I'm not reading the book, so I wouldn't know.

Me: I'm not --

Joe: Why would I wanna read the book? All I'm saying is, I see a game every day. I watch baseball every day. I have a better understanding about why things happen than the computer, because the computer only tells you what you put in it. I could make that computer say what I wanted it to say, if I put the right things in there. ... The computer is only as good as what you put in it. How do you think we got Enron?

Apparently, the intellectual values that are the aims of higher education involve:

* not reading books
* criticizing the books you haven't read
* disparaging research
* being snooty about people who read books and do research

Congratulations, Cal State East Bay! Excellent choice for an honorary doctorate.

(One more, for old time's sake:

He is talking about the 2002 world-champion Anaheim Angels, but what he's really talking about is the book Moneyball (a book Joe Morgan hasn't read) and why it's bullshit (which is why he'll never read it). I try to point out the contradiction. "I think you should --"

Morgan cuts me off. "No, I shouldn't read the book. 'Cause I don't care about the book.")

Labels: honorary doctorate, joe morgan

Someone explain to me, in terms of baseball, what this means? Please?

And finally, a scout who recently saw Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton was reminded of a phrase he learned from an old scout: "The good ones have antlers." Said the younger scout of Hamilton: "This guy has a head full."

I'm not even angry. I'm just curious. Could Josh Hamilton be an early product of this research?

Labels: antlers, human-deer hybrids, josh hamilton

Epilogue to the Encarnacion / Brantley situation, courtesy of John Fay:

After failing to get down a bunt on three pitches, Encarnacion rocketed one into the left field seats for a three-run, walkoff home run.

Dusty Baker wanted it to happen this way -- really.

"You can't let him swing in that situation," Baker said. "He was struggling. I told (coach Chris Speier), 'I kind of hope he doesn't get it down so (he) can hit a three-run homer, and he hit a three-run homer."

"Being on the other side, he was one of the guys I didn't want to see up there in that situation," Baker said. "He's a clutch man."

so...many...levels of crazy...basepaths...getting clogged...in my brain...

When s is this f'd, I find it's best to simply write down every single thing that's disturbing, so that we all might more easily wrap our heads around the situation.

1) Dusty Baker didn't want EE swinging at all because he was "struggling."
2) Dusty wanted EE bunting, even though (as some astute readers have pointed out) EE has not a single sacrifice hit in over 7 years of playing baseball in the United States.
3) Dusty wanted EE bunting, even though he thinks EE performs well in clutch situations.
4) "clutch man"
5) Dusty wanted EE bunting, even though he believed that if he didn't get the bunt down, he would hit a home run.
6) The Reds hired Dusty Baker to be their Manager.
7) There are still some people in the Queen City who are not sending a handwritten letter every single day to Reds ownership begging for Baker to be fired.

Labels: clutch men, cutch, dusty baker, edwin encarnacion, john fey

You may have seen this already but it's just too fucking good not to share.

This video is porn. You've got Jeff Brantley, saying that now-batting Edwin Encarnacion should be taken out of the game. Why? Because he's not a clutch hitter. I won't tell you what happens next, but it's pretty awesome.

Okay, wait, I have to tell you. Edwin hits a game-winning home run. And the timing...it's just white fucking hot sports commentator porn.



Thank you Edwin. You have done a very great thing. In recognition of your efforts, you are cordially invited to my house to play NHL 2K7.

Labels: clutch, edwin encarnacion, jeff brantley, pornography

After his first inning groundout today, I believe David Eckstein is 0-10 and has not hit the ball out of the infield.

If I am wrong about the "out-of-the-infield" part, please don't email to correct me. I would prefer to live in blissful ignorance.

*UPDATE, from Dan (who got there first of like 50)

Eckstein just got the bloopiest of bloop doubles. Paul O'Neil immediately said, "Eckstein will get those kind of hits, cause he is the type of guy who just battles up there."

If Eck goes on a gritty 57-game hit streak, he knows who to thank.

(Me. He should thank me. Because I made him get that hit, because superstitions and jinxes are real.)

Labels: david eckstein, small sample size

Did we contribute, in some minuscule, 0.000000001% way to Murray Chass allegedly being bought out by the New York Times? The Big Lead is reporting Chass' impending departure. The news, of course, will take a few days to reach Murray, as he depends solely on the Pony Express for communication (the Postal Service, he maintains, is a passing fad that he won't abide).

I'm really torn. Should I feel bad about this? Or terrific?

To be honest, I'm already mourning the loss of hundreds of future statphobic-fish-in-a-barrel posts. If this news is true, FJM has lost a goldmine. (The VORPies flag flies at half mast today.)

Labels: murray chass

Except they're paid to give professional opinions about baseball. Opinions like these:

One scout says not to worry about Jimmy Rollins' atrocious spring (.188 with zero homers).

So I shouldn't panic and trade the reigning National League MVP because of meaningless spring training statistics. Good advice, scout! You are hereby promoted to Head Scout of Scouting. Hey, high-concept movie pitch: Life Scout. Tom Berenger stars as a crusty old baseball scout whose instincts are so good, an underachieving twenty-something hires him to "scout" his "life"! The scout scouts out women ("That one's got crazy boobs but also crazy eyes, steer clear!") and job opportunities ("Beer and video game tester -- score!), and over the course of the movie, Mark the underachiever teaches Jim the scout a few things about life, too.

But enough about my billion-dollar movie ideas. What else does this scout have to say about the guy voted the Best Player in His Baseball League in 2007?

"He's a solid underrated player. I don't see any change.''

You're right. He didn't win the AL MVP or the Cy Young or the Rolaids thing or the thing you win for coming back from cancer. He didn't win the NBA Sixth Man of the Year Award or the Caldecott Medal for best illustrations in a children's book. Underrated.

Your move, scouts.

[Troy] Tulowitzki appears determined to win the Gold Glove after losing out to Jimmy Rollins last year.

Oh, that's right -- Rollins won the Gold Glove, too. That poor, solid, unappreciated, underrated orphan child. Jimmy Rollins needs a hug and a higher rating.

"He has a swagger about him -- like Jeter,'' one AL scout said, paying about as high a compliment as you can pay.

Dr. Baseball Boss Guy: Ralph Scoutman. Good to see you. Come on in, sit down.
Ralph Scoutman: Thank you, boss man. I been rill busy scouting all over. Rill busy.
BBG: So you've been driving an old pickup truck all around America, picking up colorful local stories, getting dust in your wrinkles and putting crow's feet in the corners of your eyes.
RS: Exactly, boss. Just like you done told me to.
BBG: Excellent, Ralph. You are quite a scout. I mean, look at your eyes. So wise and knowing. It's like you can see inside me, right into my soul.
RS: Aw, shucks, boss. Just doin' my job. Seein' folks' souls -- that's just part of scouting.
BBG: Now what have you got on this Tulowitzki kid? I've never seen him before, but I've heard he's playing baseball up in the Rocky Mountains. What will they think of next?
RS: Oh, I seen him all right. Crashed my pickup right into their dugout and took out my bye-noculars. I got the dirt on Tulo.
BBG: Come up real close, whisper it into my ear.
RS: (whispering) He has a swagger.
BBG: Scoutman, you've done it again, you old fox! Call the mayor! Plan the parade route! We are the champions of baseball once again! Scoutman, you'll sit on the biggest float of all in the parade!
RS: Oh no, count me out, boss. I'm no parade-sitter. I'm just an old scout, scouting the best I can until I scout my way into the next world.

(Scoutman puts his hat back on and shuffles out of the office. As he leaves, he gradually fades away.)

BBG: Well, I'll be damned. He was a ghost all along.

Labels: jimmy rollins, scouts

Nice catch by reader Steven K. -- we hope.

Yanks-Blue Jays, 4-2

Top of the first, two out, Thomas hitting. Orel talking about Mussina and said, "When I came over to the AL, you always looked who you were going to pitch against. Whenever I saw Mussina, I knew I was in for a battle."

Scanned his game logs, looks like Orel never faced Mussina. Ever.

So remember, aspiring broadcasters: you're totally allowed to just make shit up.

Any chance someone can help prove that Orel never did, in fact, face Mussina? That would be nice. Otherwise we'd ruin our record of being exactly 100% right about everything.

** EDIT: Blargh. They met once in the 1997 ALCS. Thanks to the several of you who instantly pointed this out.

Still kind of absurd to say "whenever I saw Mussina..." when it only happened once.

Labels: mike mussina, orel hershiser

Ahhhhh, baseball! The crack of the bat. The sweet smell of dewdrops in spring. The checking of home/away splits. The improper substitution of a LOOGY just because the hitter is lefty even though the hitter has a like total reverse split. The whirring and clicking of massive Cray Supercomputers spitting out PECOTA Predictions. Swarthmore professors using something called "Chernoff Faces" to convert managerial tendencies into graphical/pictorial form. Baseball.

It's back again. And here's what we definitively learned from day one of the 2008 MLB Season: Nothing, dummies. It's a small sample size.

So instead, let's gallimaufry it up.

Several readers sent us to this article, which contains many of my least favorite words:

The Blue Jays felt like they needed an infusion of gritty players, the type who can spell the difference between winning and losing in tight games, and they believe they've added those pieces in third baseman Scott Rolen and free agent shortstop David Eckstein.

Rolen is going to cost them $12m this year, and he's already out for a few weeks with a screw in his finger. He turns 33 in a few days, and has played in 310 games in the last three seasons. But: he's gritty. Boy oh boy, is he gritty.

Eckstein is: Eckstein.

"When they take the field, they're both always on the ground," Gibbons said.

That's how fucking professional these dudes are. They obey the laws of gravity no matter what.

"They give us a toughness that I think we need."

They -- the left side of your infield -- will give you 800 AB combined and 15 homers, if you are lucky. (Did I mention Rolen had 8 HR in 112 games last year?)

Wells, Toronto's star center fielder, likes the idea of having Eckstein drive opposing pitchers batty with his knack for fouling off pitches, making contact and getting on base out of the leadoff spot.

For the ever-growing record, Eck saw an average of 3.64 pitches per AB last year, tying him for 317th on the list of all NLers with, among others, notorious hacker Jacque Jones. N.B. that fucking Roy Oswalt had a 3.76. You want a lead-off guy to see a lot of pitches and drive 'em batty -- go with Roy.

Many hundreds of thousands of you also pointed us to this article about tools.

The proverbial five tools for position players -- hitting for average, hitting for power, defense, arm and speed -- are covered throughout the survey [of MLB scouts], in one way or another.

Only one player really scored high in all of the above: Ichiro.

Really. Hitting for power. Huh.

Ichiro career: 67 HR in 4782 AB.

The panel of scouts rated him tops in all of MLB in the categories of Best Hitter, Best Bat Control, Best Outfielder, Best Arm and Best Baserunner. He also rated second in the categories of Best Bunter, Fastest Runner and Best Basestealer.

He also won Best Personality, Best Dancer, Girls' Choice for Brother, and Cutest Stubble. He is tearing things up at Central High, people! Rumor has it, this saucy little import has grabbed the heart of none other than Clarissa Prettyface -- Cheer Captain and Improbable Virgin -- and he is not letting go! But what will happen when her boyfriend Jock Fisterson finds out?

"You could put Ichiro down for almost everything -- best arm, best outfielder (when he wants to be), best basestealer, best hitter, and he could hit 50 home runs if he wanted to, but he'd rather get his 220 hits and bat .330," said one scout.

You guys don't get it. He's awesome. If Ichiro wanted to, he could play basketball and probably be like the best ever. So I voted for him for 2-guard in the NBA All-Star Game this year. He could fucking fly if he wanted to. That's why I put him down for "Best Bird Imitator." If Ichiro felt like it, he could totally discover important things about gamma ray bursts, which is why I voted for him for the Cal Tech Fellowship in High-Energy Astrophysics.

[Extreme side note. While poking around the internet looking at gamma ray burst articles and black hole articles and things -- part of my mandatory mom's basement/nerd study program -- I came across this article, which discusses the High Energy Astrophysics Division (HEAD) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

HEAD-AAS.

Why would you acronym yourselves to make HEAD-AAS?" What bunch of ass-faces.]

Diversion over. Let's take some mail, shall we? Edward writes:

In case you missed it, here's how David "I'm scrappy and pesky, and I should have gotten a 3-year deal for it" Eckstein's evening went:

• 1st inning: 0-1 count, lead-off groundout, setting up his team nicely with the first out.
• 3rd inning: Lead-off strikeout on 4 pitches, see 1st inning.
• 5th inning: With runners on 1st and 3rd and no outs. 1-1 count, grounds out to 1st, runner from 3rd doesn't score, though the runner on 1st does advance to 2nd.
• 7th inning: Runner on 3rd, 2 out. First-pitch ground-out to 3rd.

It must be said that he fielded his position flawlessly. But he did not remotely do his job as the lead-off hitter. 0-for-4, averages 2.5 pitches per at-bat, doesn't get the ball out of the infield.

Fun with small sample sizes. A lot of fun.

Adam writes:

The other day Steve Phillips said (this is a rough quote, the number is what is important): "The Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox could both score 1,000 runs this season."

The sheer stupidity of the statement is incredible. Now obviously anybody could score 1,000 runs in a season. Since 1900, however, only 7 teams have scored 1,000 runs in a season, with the modern-day record being 1,067 by the 1931 Yankees. Teams that have scored 1,000 runs in a season:

New York Yankees - 1,062 (1930), 1,067 (1931), 1,002 (1932), 1,065 (1936)

St. Louis Cardinals - 1,004 (1930)

Boston Red Sox - 1,027 (1950)

Cleveland Indians - 1,009 (1999)

Labels: cray supercomputers, david eckstein, gallimaufry, HEAD-AAS, hideki matsui's porn collection, ichiro, mother's basement, steve phillips

This actually happened.

Plaschke top columnist again

And again and again and again, apparently:

Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times won the sports column writing category for the third time in four years, highlighting final judging results announced Tuesday in the 2007 Associated Press Sports Editors contest.

Congrats to Bill, who's already salivating over Andre Ethier's 0 for 4 on Opening Day:

The kid's not ready.

The vet's in the corner, eyes full of resolve.

The kid's got nerves.

The vet's in the cages, arms poised to swing.

Kid.

Vet.

K.

V.

Baseball.

Writing.

Torre.

Dodgers.

Nerds.

Scouts.

Young.

Old.

Math.

Eyes.

Plaschke.

"I'm feeling equally honored and humbled," Plaschke said. "I'm also feeling very lucky because every day I read columnists in all circulation categories who are good enough to win this award. Sportswriters are at the forefront of the fight to keep newspapers relevant, and I'm just proud to be one of them."

"I'm coming for you, Torre," Plaschke continued. "You put Pierre back in or else. You saw what I did to Paul DePoStatNerd. I wrote his obituary. One sentence fragment at a time."

Labels: bill plaschke

Sean McDonough, mastering understatement:

Darin Erstad, the veteran. His first year in Houston...led the majors in hits and runs scored back in 2000, but his numbers have started to drift off in recent years.

"The Big Bopper's health has started to drift off in recent years."

"Dinosaurs haven't been quite as living as they used to be up until quite recently."

Darin Erstad has been regularly taking his ABs without a physical bat for years now, or at least that's what his numbers would indicate.

Then: was this Candy Maldonado's voice? It's gravelly, and it likes Darin Erstad.

I really like this signing right here, because here's a guy who can come off the bench. He can spell Berkman a little bit at first base, a very schooled first baseman. Can play the corner outfield, even center field on short notice...

I really want to support what you're saying, man. Erstad at the very least is a versatile defensive replacement, although I'm not sure how his legs are holding up in the outfield these days after all of those years of grinding and punting and shaving with a two-guard razor. As long as that's all you're saying. As long as you don't mention --

...and can swing a mad stick still.

Shit.

...
...
...

Here we go. Erstad hasn't hit since 2000. His stick has been mad to the tune of 4, 0, 7, 7, 4, 10, and 9 home runs the last seven seasons. He hasn't OPS+ed over 100 since the pre-9/11 world.

The disappearance of Darin Erstad's maddening stickiness predates the War on Terror, motherfuckers!

And yet the plaudits still come his way. This guy should run for President of the Multiverse on the platform "I am LaserBulletproof."

Labels: darin erstad, punter