FIRE JOE MORGAN

Post #1377: The Relatively Short Goodbye

2008-11-13T20:54:00.002-05:00

Hello, everyone.

After 21 years, and almost 40 million posts (we'll have to check those numbers, but it's something like that), we have decided to bring FJM to an end.

Although we have not lost our borderline-sociopathic joy for meticulously criticizing bad sports journalism, the realities of our professional and personal lives make FJM a time/work luxury we can no longer afford.

We started this site with two purposes: to make each other laugh, and to aid and abet the Presidential campaign of Bob Barr. Although we failed in the latter goal, we gleefully succeeded in the first, and thanks to a grassroots internetty word-of-mouth kind of a deal, we appear to have positively affected the lives of actual citizens as well, which astonishes and delights us to this day. We really never thought FJM would be for anyone but us. We are thrilled and kind of humbled to have been proven wrong.

We thank all of you for the kind emails, and the tips, and the support. To each and every person who ever contacted us: hat tip to you.

Perhaps the future holds another project for us on which to waste massive amounts of time. For now, we will leave the site and the archives up as a testament to the fact that if you work hard enough, and blow off enough social occasions, and stare at the internet enough, and get nerdy enough, and repeatedly ignore entreaties from your friends and loved ones to please God stop blogging about Bill Plaschke and get out of the house it's a beautiful day!, then you, too, can...have a blog.

Again, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you. And as Joe Morgan himself might say:

"I really haven't seen them play...slidepiece...Dave Concepcion."

Love,

dak, Junior, and Ken

OMG OMG OMG!!!!

2008-10-29T23:17:00.002-04:00

OMG you guys!!!!

Could the 19-year "Sunday Night Baseball" broadcasting partnership of ESPN's Jon Miller and Joe Morgan be coming to an end?...

Well-embedded baseball moles contend the answer is "yes" to both questions. Both Morgan and Miller have two years left on their ESPN contracts, but that would not prevent a change.

OMG!

Sources said Morgan could be shifted to the network's midweek baseball telecast, where he would work with a new play-by-play partner.

OMFG!

[snip]

What's coming to light is how unpopular Morgan has become with many of his ESPN colleagues, who are less than thrilled with the way he prepares for a telecast. Some of them also don't respond well to what they call Morgan's haughty attitude, which he has displayed during some of his more outspoken performances in internal ESPN meetings.

Prone to on-air mistakes, Morgan also has come under some intense media scrutiny. And during those moments when he's made a mistake, the give and take between him and Miller can sound strained. But some of this stuff (if you don't take it all seriously) is kind of funny.

Couldn't agree more.

OMFHWOMSHIFHPSKSHHGCDOSAG!!!!!!

Stay tuned.

"What Fucking Language Is This?"

2008-10-25T01:48:00.003-04:00

That is the title of an email I received from Don and Kim M. in reference to the latest Plaschke cut to drop.

Here are the first four lines -- like the 30 free seconds you get from iTunes. These are unedited:

On Brett Favre Pass, a legacy catches hell.

Barely makes sense.

It is a dead end street, but a sports bar there is a thoroughfare of debate.

Does not really make sense.

What's he doing? Where was he doing it? Who called whom? Why Brett why?

Does not in any way make sense. Sub-Seussian nonsense.

On Brett Favre Pass, some folks are wishing he had thrown his last.

No.

Bill? The English Language is on line 1. It wants to know why you hate it so much.

[Edit: I woke up this morning to several hundred million emails defending Plaschke, and insinuating that what I failed to understand is that Brett Favre Pass is an actual street in Green Bay. I knew that. Even if I hadn't known that, I could have determined it from context. It's capitalized, for God's sake.

What I object to are clauses like, "...a legacy catches hell." Which: ??? And "...a sports bar there is a thoroughfare of debate." What the fuck is a "thoroughfare of debate?" A thoroughfare is a road, or highway, as I understand it. A highway of debate? That makes zero sense. What he means is "a locus of debate" or "an epicenter of debate" or something. But that wouldn't match up faux-poetically with the fact that Brett Favre Pass is a dead-end street, so he went with "thoroughfare," which is nonsense.

As for the last two lines, I object to: the goofball poetry, the overblown musing, the whimsical Dr. Seuss rhythms, and the unpleasantly haughty linguistic transmogrification of "Pass" into "pass."

The only person in America, apparently, who assumed I knew that Brett Favre Pass was the name of a street and had something else to comment on was John M., who wrote:

I...wish you would have included this sentence, which is not only vintage Plaschke, but also would have given you an excuse to use the food metaphors tag:

"Whatever, it has been the equivalent of a warm farewell followed by the guy changing his mind, barging back through the front door for one last piece of pie, spilling that pie on his lap, dropping messily asleep on your couch."

For you, John M., the world.]

Irrelevant/Counter-Irrelevant

2008-10-22T22:06:00.005-04:00

It's time to play no-one's favorite game, "Irrelevant/Counter-Irrelevant," with Jayson Stark and Jim Caple. The goal is to make as many irrelevant points as you can in the space alloted. First, Irrelevant: The Phillies Will Win!

These Phillies won't be playing in this World Series because they're the best team in the National League.

Well, they did win the second-most games, and had the second-best run differential, trailing only the Cubbies. They scored the second-most runs, had the most HR, and had the fourth-best ERA, only 0.03 behind second-place Milwaukee. So, maybe they aren't the best team, but they're certainly very close.

They're here because they're the toughest team in the National League.

Fuck all that statistical noise. It's about toughness. The Phillies are tough. The Phillies are like a hockey team. The Phillies work in an Alaskan cannery 19 hours a day. The Phillies could knock out Kimbo Slice in thirteen seconds.

And that toughness is the biggest reason I think they'll win.

I'm going with "they hit the most HR in the league and have a really good pitching staff." But whatever.

"They're the most mentally tough team" in the field, an NL general manager told me three weeks ago.

That NL GM? Robert Duvall. Legendarily tough. Tough old sonofabitch. He knows tough. When he said this he was driving in a pick-up truck with 300,000 miles on it, that he built himself, and he was on his way to a black bear-wrestling contest, in which black bears take turns seeing if they can defeat him. And he's mentally tough, too. He once survived fifty days of waterboarding without giving up any information. The waterboarder? Marlon Brando, on the set of The Godfather. So I think he knows what "tough" is.

By the way, I'm currently watching Game One of the Series on like an hour TiVo delay, and Tim McCarver, after Shane Victorino almost got picked off second, said something like, "You've probably heard that you should never make the first or third out at third base, but in this case, you should never make the first out at second base."

What he could have said: "You shouldn't get picked off in a [fucking] World Series game."

And he was just the lead singer in a chorus of GMs, scouts, coaching staffs and players who have run into this team along the way.

They're called the "Stolen Bass-es" and they're performing this Saturday at the St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church in Germantown, PA.

Tim McCarver just referred to Jason Werth's double as a "check swing plop job," which: ewww, and then he talked about Ben Zobrist racing to the line to grab said plop job by saying, "Gives you an idea about the closure [sic] speed of the Rays' outfielders." Why is Tim McCarver allowed to broadcast?

These people are always talking about "the way they play," and "how hard they play" and how much fun it is to watch these Phillies play.

What [people who talk about the Phillies] Talk About When They Talk About [the Phillies]:

1. The way they play
2. How hard they play
3. How much fun it is to watch them play

These people sound very interesting and knowledgeable.

These Phillies don't seem imprisoned by their team's tortured past. In an odd way, they almost seem inspired by it. They constantly talk, right out loud, about how driven they are to write their own history, make their own mark, put their own stamp on their franchise and their ballpark.

Look, as a Red Sox fan, I understand the importance of a traditionally-losing franchise being undaunted by the past. But let's also acknowledge that we are deep into this "Why the Phillies Will Win" argument, and we have nary a mention of Cole Hamels, Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Pat the Bat, Brad Lidge, or, you know, anything related to what actually happens on the field of play.

This is a group that sets the bar as high as it can be set, and a group of players who seem remarkably comfortable on this stage.

What? Who? When? How? Which? For? Make? Jump?

What is the evidence for this platitude?

They've won 12 games this year in which they trailed after seven innings. They've won 29 games decided from the seventh inning on. They've won a half-dozen games they trailed by two runs or more in the eighth inning or later, including a defining NLCS game in Los Angeles last week.

The Phillies will win because they are often behind late in games. I get it. I think the Phils should be fine late in the game -- it's not like the Rays' bullpen had the best OPS-against in the entire league or anything.

They may not have the best starting rotation in this World Series, but they do have the best starting pitcher -- Cole Hamels.

Hey look! Something about an actual player!

I expect him to win Game 1, set the tone and buy the offense a night to apply the Rust-Oleum after a week off. History does tell us that 10 of the last 11 Game 1 winners have gone on to win the Series.

Actual analysis! This is so much fun! (Though that is a pretty small sample size, at least it's something.)

So Game 1 starters are often Series-changers. And Hamels fits that mold. The Phillies also have the best bullpen, and the best closer (Brad Lidge), in this World Series.

Best closer, maybe. But best bullpen? The Rays' bullpen had a .220 BAA. The Phillies, in the NL, had a .251. Their OPS-against was a little worse, too.

Much like the Rockies last year, this team heads into this World Series playing as well as it has ever played.

So very soon, the Phillies will be able to hoist the Championship Trophy, just like the World Champion 2007 World Series Champion Colorado Champion Rockies, the 2007 World Series Champions of Championships! Champs!

Maybe 20-5 isn't 21-1, but it's in the same stratosphere. The difference, though,

...is that the Rockies didn't win the World Series, like you are predicting the Phillies will?

is these Phillies aren't just a good team that got hot. They're a team that was built to win, a team with all the ingredients to win, and THEN they got hot.

...okay...

As the Rockies found out last October, it isn't always the hottest team that wins the World Series.

The Rockies were hot! The Phillies are also hot! The Rockies didn't win! The Phillies will win, because they are better than the Rockies! I should go back and rewrite this without invoking the Rockies, which are irrelevant to my argument! Too late! Deadline is here! Oh well!

But when the hottest team is also the toughest team, that's a whole different story.

You're telling me. I just read that story. And it's a doozy.

How about this, instead of what you wrote:

The Phillies have a very good pitching staff, a very good bullpen, and hit the most HR in the league. The Rays are a bunch of 24 year-old kids who had never, before this season, played a meaningful game after like April fucking 13th.

Now it's time for Counter-Irrelevant: The Tampa Bay Rays Will Win!

As always, my esteemed colleague arrived at his World Series prediction after consulting with scouts, general managers and other people throughout baseball.

Didn't seem to help him.

He observed the Phillies up close and personal from opening day to the final game of the NLCS.

He observed their toughness. Missed all the HR and good pitching performances.

He studied the statistics, sorting through OPS, VORP and WHIP in search of tell-tale trends.

No he very obviously did not. He did no such thing. Take that back.

He carefully analyzed player matchups, spoke with the participants and called upon more than 30 years of experience covering the game.

Then he talked about toughness for twenty paragraphs.

Likewise, I made a careful study before making my prediction. Namely, I noticed that Tampa Bay rays play in the American League. Which is why I'm picking them to sweep.

Not the strongest argument, but I'll accept it.

The AL...dominated interleague play yet again this season, winning 149 of the 252 games played.

I'm not sure what Braves-Royals games have to do with the World Series, really. I'm still with you, ish, though.

To put that in perspective, that winning percentage would translate into a 96 victory season. The last time a league struggled as much as the NL has, Geena Davis was the catcher and Tom Hanks was the manager.

Didn't the AAGPBL become a success, after Geena Davis did that split when she caught the foul pop-up and got on the cover of Life magazine? Not that I've seen that movie 25 times, or anything.

If you're scoring at home, the Rays were 12-6 in interleague play while the Phillies went 4-11, the worst record in baseball.

The Phillies had to play Toronto, Boston, Oakland, LAA, and Texas. Tampa got Florida, St. Louis, the Cubbies, Houston, Florida again, and Pitt. Eh...maybe it's a wash. The Phils had a rough patch against some pretty good teams. Big deal.

Look, it's nice the Phillies won the National League pennant and that Warren Giles trophy will look good in their office. But now they're playing with the big boys.

Matt Garza, B.J. Upton, James Shields, Evan Longoria, Carlos Pena, Grant Balfour...these are all names of people who play for Tampa Bay. You should talk about them.

The Rays are a well-balanced team with power, speed, great defense and deep pitching.

Getting warmer...

They are so loaded with young talent that they were able to put a pitcher with just five major league games of experience on the mound and see him silence the defending world champions in two games of the ALCS.

...warmer...

They have an experienced manager

Joe Maddon: 251-286 (537 total games). Never managed in the post-season before this year.
Charlie Manuel: 573-485 (1058 total games). Managed in the post-season twice before this year.

It took me 21 seconds to look that up.

who is willing to use his bullpen in unconventional ways if they make sense, rather than sticking to ways that boost his closer's arbitration figures.

Probably because his "closer," Troy Percival, is injured and out for the season.

And, more importantly, did I mention they play in the American League?

Yes. Very well done.

P.S. Tampa: 2nd-best team ERA, 2nd most Ks. Only 9th-most runs scored. My money's on the Phillies.

P.P.S. Originally, after the line about Maddon using his bullpen non-traditionally, I went on a long and snarky diatribe about how Brad Lidge pitched in like 70 games this year and never once went more than one inning. I was very pleased with myself. Then Timothy wrote in and politely pointed out that Brad Lidge plays for the Phillies, and Joe Maddon manages the Rays. So I swiftly deleted that shit and replaced it with the Percival line.

I am, as always, a dummy.

Poetry

2008-10-19T13:47:00.003-04:00

Bears-Vikes, 14:56 left in the 2nd quarter. Marty Booker drops an easy TD pass from Kyle Orton, bringing up 2nd and goal from the 15. The announcer, whose voice I do not recognize and whose name I am too lazy to look up, watches the Bears' offense come to the line and paints his verbal picture thusly:

Everybody out, two wide ends, wide outs, two tight ends, and everybody split out. And Orton calls time out.

Or, if this were 1959, in the West Village,

Everybody out!
[saxophone blast]
Two wide ends,
Wide outs,
[saxophone blast; snare roll]
Two tight ends, and
Everybody --
[saxophone blast]
Split --
[saxophone blast]
Out!
[saxophone solo]
And Orton
Calls...
Time out.
[applause]

"Jerry 'Needs An Instruction' Manuel" --Chris Berman (1955-2008)

2008-10-17T18:20:00.006-04:00

KT covered some Manuel lunacy in the Gallimaufry, and there's more where that came from:

While the big offensive trio had respectable statistics or better, they didn't stop the September slide. Manuel said spring training will be a time of teaching, for him to give "clarity" to players on his methods. Execution in the clutch is his emphasis, and the Mets likely will bring in new offensive players, most likely in the corner outfield spots.

So Manuel plans on teaching "clarity" (I assume this means making the team watch The Love Guru repeatedly), teaching guys to be clutch, and bringing in guys who are clutch.

Good luck with that, Jerry Manuel. I have some suggestions about how you teach guys to get clutchier:

1. Just before Jose Reyes takes a swing in BP, scream in his ear "It's Game 7 of the World Series!" and also punch him in the gut because that's what butterflies in the stomach feel like.

2. Secretly feed the team laxatives before practice because that's what butterflies in the stomach feel like.

3. Make the team eat butterflies.

4. Kidnap Carlos Delgado's kids and hold them at gunpoint while Carlos takes BP. "You like pressure, Carlos? This is what the playoffs feel like." Then, after Carlos strokes a home run, shoot one of the kids. Just in the leg, though. Remember, it's just a game.

5. Strap Luis Castillo to a speeding train. "Unless you hit in the clutch, Castillo becomes the meat in a train sandwich." Everyone comes through, and you reveal that you basically just wanted Castillo gone anyway.

6. One bat in the clubhouse is filled with plastic explosives. Stay on your toes, gentlemen.

7. Put up a picture of Derek Jeter in the clubhouse.

8. Be positive.

"You don't see a lot of guys that have statistical numbers play well in these championship series," Manuel said.

This is so bonkers I don't know where to start. First of all: what are "statistical numbers"? How do they differ from "numbers," "statistics," or "numerical statistics"? Are there "statistical letters"? We have a right to know. Second: Jerry Manuel is claiming that doing well in the regular season is a detriment to playing well in the playoffs. That's right. You want to be a playoff hero? Fuck around for 162. Careful, David Wright. Don't let those numbers get too statistical!

Third, here are your League Championship Series leaders in on-base percentage:

1. Mark Grace .575
2. Will Clark .529
3. Kevin Youkilis .518
4. Carlos Beltran .476
5. Ryne Sandberg .457
6. Dusty Baker .451
Manny Ramirez .451
8. Darrell Porter .450
Gary Sheffield .450
10. Albert Pujols .449

Look, these are pretty stupid because we're talking about minuscule sample sizes. But those are, for the most part, pretty awesome players. Players who did accrue very statistical numbers. Pujols, Manny, Sheffield, Sandberg. And hey, Carlos Beltran's number 4! Guess what: Carlos Beltran also leads the world in Divisional Series OBP and SLG. His career postseason OPS is a cool 1.302. But he still needs clutch lessons from Jerry Manuel, according to Jerry Manuel.

"What you see is usually the little second baseman or somebody like that carries off the MVP trophy that nobody expected him to do. That's because he's comfortable in playing that form of baseball, so therefore when the stage comes, it's not a struggle for him."

Here are the World Series MVPs for the past 10 years:

2007 Mike Lowell
2006 David Eckstein
2005 Jermaine Dye
2004 Manny Ramirez
2003 Josh Beckett
2002 Troy Glaus
2001 Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling
2000 Derek Jeter
1999 Mariano Rivera
1998 Scott Brosius

Two of these 11 players sort of stink. The rest range from very good to Hall of Fame locks. Because the best players in the playoffs are the best players. Period. Sure, there are Brosius-style flukes once every few years. But Jerry Manuel is mistaking the fucking Brosius Exception and turning it into the rule. That's plain dumb. Also, Jesus: coaching your team in a way that you think will produce a Craig Counsell or David Eckstein MVP award is white-hot, untrammeled madness.

Your team has: Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, David Wright, and Johan Santana. Your bullpen stinks and you need some more starting pitching depth. But you were second in the league in runs scored, tied with the Phillies, who are in the World Series. "Clutch" hitting is not your problem. "Clarity" on your methods is not your problem. "Statistical numbers" are certainly not your problem.

But hey, by all means, start getting rid of the guys whose numbers are too good. The more silly things happen, the better things go for me, a critical asshole with the free time on a beautiful sunny Friday afternoon to blog about dumb remarks about baseball.

Let's Gallimaufry This Shizz

2008-10-17T15:18:00.004-04:00

Gallimaufry time, mofos.

Mark S. writes in and says:

In the Oct. 13 The Sporting News, somebody put together a panel of 16 former major-league shortstops and asked them some questions.

First I'll list the 16: Biancalana, Bordick, Burleson, DeJesus, DeMaestri, Elster, Foli, Fregosi, Harrelson, Joost, Kasko, Kubek, Larkin, Maxville, Menke and Petrocelli.

Second, the relevant question on the table: "Jeter or A-Rod?"

Survey said:

Jeter 11
Too close to call 3
A-Rod 2

And with it runs a quote from Menke: "A-Rod will end up breaking some records, but Jeter is a winner."

Interesting. I have just conducted my own survey. The question on the table: Biancalana, Bordick, Burleson, DeJesus, DeMaestri, Elster, Foli, Fregosi, Harrelson, Joost, Kasko, Kubek, Larkin, Maxville, Menke, Petrocelli or Logic and Reason?

The results:

Biancalana: 0
Bordick: 0
Burleson: 0
DeJesus: 0
DeMaestri: 0
Elster: 0
Foli: 0
Fregosi: 0
Harrelson: 0
Joost: 0
Kasko: 0
Kubek: 0
Larkin: 0
Maxville: 0
Menke: 0
Petrocelli: 0
Logic and Reason: 1

I think everyone pretty much knew where I was going with that right from the beginning, which is why it delighted me to actually type it out and make you read it.

Back to

Many people reported this quote from Fire Joe Morgan favorite Joe Morgan, but Rob C. is the one I happened to flag, so he gets all the credit and the rest of you can suck it:

Just driving home from work with ESPN radio's call of the game on. Morgan talking about Beltran's great playoff performance in '03:

"I read an interesting article that talked about how scouts will look at a player's performance in postseason games to see how his mental makeup is, if he can handle playing under pressure. I think that makes sense to a degree, but you can't put too much weight into it, because we all know that the playoffs are a very small sample size. You don't want to put all your marbles in one basket."

I almost drove off the road.

This really does make me feel as though something has been accomplished, somewhere, by someone(s). However, lest you think for one second that Mr. Morgan has come to his senses in like a large-picture worldview kind of way, peruse this little beauty from just the other day, sent in by 1.4 million of you, quoted here from Clark:

Joe Morgan just did a location spot during which he asserted -- repeatedly -- that "they [Red Sox] cannot beat them [Rays] by outscoring them."

And here I'd thought that was the *only* way to win a game.

Oh, Clark. You silly man. There are plenty of ways to win baseball games. Outscoring your opponent...not un-outscoring them...doing the un-opposite of not un-outscoring them...the list goes on.

Alexander points us to a special video presentation here at Gallimaufry Time, which includes Matt Stairs and what can only be described as unfortunate phraseology:

"You want to rephrase that, Matt?"
"Yes, I do. Ahem. When you get that nice celebration coming in the dugout, and you're getting your weiner diddled by the guys--"
"Okay, thanks. That's enough."

And now, a special Golf Note, from Chad, who, after a lengthy and kind series of compliments about our site, writes:

A note from the Ryder Cup: Johnny Miller stated, "the US will miss Tiger, as he is one of the two greatest clutch putters of all time. The other being Jack." Guess who is in the top 5 in career putting statistics. Yup, Tiger and Jack. The fact that they are better tee to green than anyone else AND were/ are great putters is why they are the two greatest GOLFERS of all time! They had more chances to make "clutch" putts because their long games gave them more opportunities. They made more "clutch" putts because they are GREAT putters! Remove the word clutch from Johnny's statement and it is true.

Clutch is bullshit! Tiger and Jack have made more non-clutch putts, too! Once again, because they are great putters!

I digress. Thank you again for your work. I thoroughly enjoy it!

Now, you might be thinking, "How did this mildly interesting note about golf make it into the Gallimaufry?!" I'll tell you why. Because at the end it says:

Sent from my iPhone

That is insane. Chad typed that whole thing on his iPhone, people. Including the all-caps words. And not one single typo. It probably took him eleven hours. That's dedication.

As long as we're going multi-media today, here are the Built Ford Tough Keys to the Game from NLCS Game 3, sent in by Daniel:

Phillies: Win this game too, like you won the other games, at the other place
Dodgers: Try to do the things you did 6 weeks ago, when you won a baseball game

I like the idea that "Remember August 30!" is a "Remember the Maine!"-style battle cry for Dodger fans.

On a separate note, Ô¬ÒË¾ý writes in and says:

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Ha ha ha! I agree, my friend. You never know what is going to come out of Harold Reynolds' mouth these days!

Let's play the absurd expectations game, says Kyle:

Sporting freshly trimmed, thick braids for the NLCS, Ramirez went 2-for-4. Not quite the torrid hitting the Dodgers were used to from him since he joined the team...

What, pray tell, counts as "torrid" in a one-game sample, if not 2-4 with a double off the CF wall? Even if you think that 2-4 isn't "torrid," using a one-game sample size to evaluate a baseball player is like using a 4-game sample size to determine that Eli Manning is suddenly better than Peyton Manning. And no one would ever be dumb enough to do that.

Finally, we close with some more bad news for Mets fans. Here's your new manager, on the first day of his new deal, talking about how to take his team to the next level:

On his first full day as the Mets' long-term manager, Manuel forcefully attacked the SABR-type mathematical analysis some have fixated on in recent years.
"You get so many statistical people together, they put so many stats on paper, and they say, well, if you do this and you score this many runs, you do that many times, you'll be in the playoffs," he said.
"That's not really how it works, and that's what we have to get away from. And that's going to have to be a different mind-set of the team in going forward. We must win and we must know how to win rather than win because we have statistical people. We have to win because we have baseball players that know and can understand the game."

Congratulations to the Phillies, for winning the 2008 NL Pennant. Congratulations to the 2009 Phillies, Braves, Nationals, and Marlins, for all of the easy victories you will have over the 2009 Mets.

Congratulations 2008 NL Champion Philadelphia Phillies!

2008-10-16T02:09:00.002-04:00

Not one of ESPN's 18 baseball experts picked you to make it to the Fall Classic.

Mazel Tov, Greg Dobbs and co.!

Snippet

2008-10-13T23:27:00.004-04:00

We don't have a lot of time these days, which is why our posts are appearing less frequently than Sarah Palin on Meet the Press. (Ooooooooooooh shit! Political humor! Bam!) Anyway, I just got home from work and am watching the highly entertaining latter innings of the NLCS Game 4, and overheard Timothy McCarver say this:

Boy, a devastating turn of events here in the 8th inning. The 2-run shot by Victorino to tie it, and Matt Stairs with a 2-run homer. Neither were cheap.

Forget about the big ol' [sic] that needs to nestle its way in there, right after "were." Just go look at the videotape of Victorino's line drive HR, which cleared the RF wall by about 30 inches. What does "cheap" mean to you, there, Tim?

That's it. Just a little snippet. We'll try to post more soon.

Fun With Math

2008-10-11T00:22:00.004-04:00

ALCS Game 1. Sox up 2-0 in the ninth. Your graphic reads:

ALCS History:

Game 1 winner has won series 12 of 22 times (55%).

Your announcer, Chip Caray, says:

As you can see, winning Game 1...very important.

Or: the minimum amount of "important" a thing can be and still be considered "important" in any way.

That's all. Just wanted to point that out.

Albert Pujols Was Not A Good Enough Pitcher To Win The MVP

2008-10-05T19:05:00.004-04:00

I for one can't wait for the deluge of Ryan Howard-for-MVP columns from older dudes wearing RBI Glasses™. RBI Glasses™: Available at ShittyLensCrafters all across the country. Hey, here's the first one, from Bob Klapisch.

Me: Bob Klapisch, you're writing a column about your awards picks. What are you going to call it?

Bob Klapisch (stopping to think for exactly 0.00038 seconds): The Klappie Awards! I'm on break.

Bob Klapisch's Klappie Awards

MOST VALUABLE PLAYER, NL: Ryan Howard, Phillies.

Nope. Wrong. So so so so so so so wrong. You should be criticized on some sort of hypercritical baseball blog for that opinion.

We’re prepared to face the firing squad on this one, having passed over Albert Pujols.

Klapisch is talking about a literal firing squad. He has written his farewell notes to his wife and kids. But he's doing this because he's a man. A man taking a stand. A man choosing another man who is ranked 30th in his league in VORP for MVP. These are the kinds of causes for which a man like Bob Klapisch is willing to stare death in the face.

Mark DeRosa and Cristian Guzman had higher VORPs than Ryan Howard. VORP is not the final word by any means; it obviously has deficiencies. But hey, also: Ryan Howard was 6th on his team in OBP. Think about that.

But as unthinkably dangerous as the Cardinals’ slugger was, he couldn’t get his team to the postseason. Howard did.

You're right. Albert Pujols did not nearly pitch well enough, or for enough innings (Can you believe zero innings? What a bum!) for the Cardinals to to make the playoffs. (The Phillies had a team ERA of 3.88; the Cardinals 4.19. Albert Pujols? More like Albert Not A Very Good Pitching Coach!)

Pujols should have lobbied to have St. Louis the city moved to Oregon, where his Cardinals would have won the NL West by two games and he would be lauded as a clutch MVP baseball superhero with quality intangibles and a leader with the uncanny ability to come through when it counts. But unfortunately, Pujols has never been good at getting entire cities to spontaneously change their geographical locations.

Ryan Howard batted .168 in April. Albert Pujols' batting averages, by month (and I know batting average doesn't matter. Here they are anyway): .365, .373, .302, .347, .398, .321. Bob Klapisch, do you think for some reason that games played in April don't count in the standings? Ryan Howard batted .213 in August.

Granted, Pujols had better season-long numbers.

Granted, "The Wire" is a "better" show than "Hole in the Wall."

But Howard was in another reality in September, when impact players make their mark.

But "Hole in the Wall" and one very funny moment where a guy couldn't fit through the hole in the wall, and that is the kind of impact that impact TV shows make when it counts.

While the Phillies were catching and passing the Mets (again), Howard batted .352 and hit 11 home runs — one every eight at-bats.

While the Cardinals were playing baseball, Albert Pujols batted .357.

Ryan Howard hit behind Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley. If Albert Pujols hit behind Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley, he would have had 493 RBI. Do the math. It checks out.

He finished the season with a mediocre .251 average, but otherwise led the majors with 48 HR and 146 RBI.

Sure, he hit by far the most home runs. RBI are bullshit. Here are things he didn't lead the majors in:

EqA
VORP
WARP1
WARP2
WARP3
OBP
OPS
SLG
WPA
BB
BA
R
Literally any defensive statistic. Any of them. Just pick one.

You know who led or was damn close to the lead in a shitload of those statistics? Albert Pujols. The 2008 NL MVP.

Food Metaphor Fans: This One's For You

2008-10-04T01:02:00.004-04:00

Tense times in the ALDS, but FJM fans know what's important to be listening for: food metaphors. Reader Brandon sends in the following Buck Martinez beauty, re: Jonathan Papelbon.

Jonathan Papelbon, not wasting any time, going to his bread and butter there, and that's the cheese.

Simply magnificent, Buck. He sure didn't serve up a meatball!

Colin Cowherd Nonsensical Falsehood of the Day

2008-10-03T13:39:00.003-04:00

Driving in this morning, heard Cowbones lay this little ditty on his army of listeners (paraphrase):

Lou Pinella, when he was a player, was the kind of guy who never took a day off.

Lou Pinella, games played:

1969: 135
70: 144
71: 126
72: 151
73: 144
74: 140
75: 74
76: 100
77: 103
78: 130
79: 130
80: 116
81: 60
82: 102
83: 53

So...it's truer to say that Lou Pinella, as a player, never didn't take a day off.

Colin Cowherd once again proving: you can just say anything you want and no one will care.

Let's Talk About What's Important, Here

2008-10-01T18:24:00.007-04:00

Cubs-Dodgers starts in 10 minutes. Huge series -- probably the most intriguing DS in a pretty overall-intriguing DS year. Cubs trying to overcome 100 years of failure, the result of a curse put on them by a man with a goat. (This, unlike other curses, is actually true. It is an actual curse. A real-life witchcraft/black arts type situation. I know, I know -- I don't generally believe in curses, but in this case, science, logic, and reason all point to the Cubs' failure to win a World Series being the result of an honest-to-God occult situation. It's hard-core fucking Goonies type stuff. That's the deal.) And the Dodgers trying to overcome exceptional mediocrity with the help of Manny Ramirez, who apparently, Red Sox fans are surprised to find out, has been phoning it in since July of 2002.

Anyway, it should be a very interesting series, and not just because it's fun to listen to Ron Santo's insane-yet-somehow-charming homerism. But let's get right to the heart of the matter. How do Yankee fans feel about it?

I mean, that's obviously the #1 fucking thing we all have on our minds, right? Where do average, run of the mill Yankee fans stand on the Cubs-Dodgers series? Someone should fucking write about that. Is everyone going to just ignore that huge fucking question mark? Is the liberal media just going to blow off the single most important question heading into the Cubs-Dodgers series -- namely: how do Yankee fans feel about it?! This is an outrage. This is a farce. I cannot believe that nobody is going to investigate how Yankee fans feel about the Cubs-Dodgers series. I swear to God--

Oh. Okay, good. Someone wrote about it. Phew.

NEW YORK -- Along the avenue that borders the bleacher entrances to Yankee Stadium, the souvenir shops remained shuttered on Tuesday, as did most of the bars and restaurants. There will be no baseball in the Bronx until next year, and none left in this 85-year-old facility.

So there's no point in writing an article about the Yankees right now. The End.

But two figures near and dear to Yankees' fans hearts will take their teams head-to-head in the National League Division Series, as Joe Torre's Dodgers and Lou Piniella's Cubs prepare to open their best-of-five series on Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. ET on TBS at Wrigley Field.

Lou Piniella, I'm sorry, is not a "Yankee." Lou Piniella is more a Mariner, a [Devil] Ray, or a Red than a Yankee. I know he played for them for like 12 years, but he wasn't like super good, really, and he's way more well-known for being a manager these days, and he won a WS with the Reds, and 116 games with the Mariners one year...

Hey -- Jeff Suppan is on the Brewers now, and Matt Stairs plays for Philly. Why don't you go ask Pirates' fans how they deal with the gut-wrenching choice of who to root for.

And yes, I am saying that Jeff Suppan is as important to the Pirates as Joe Torre is to the Yankees. And yes, that is totally fair. And no, I will not be reading my email after I post this.

Outside the press entrance at Yankee Stadium, fans clustered for autographs from players cleaning out their lockers for the last time. Even though their Yankees missed the playoffs for the first time in 13 seasons, many still felt a rooting interest with Torre, who brought the Bombers there 12 times.

"I'm rooting for Torre. I'll always root for him, no matter what," said Jason Cardona, a 33-year-old Yankees fan from the Bronx. "[Piniella] wasn't like Joe Torre. He never won the World Series four times.

Hey Bryan. Great article on how Yankees fans feel about the Cubs-Dodgers series. Great stuff. I love the part where some random guy says he's rooting for the Yankees because of Joe Torre. That really cut to the quick. But you know what would make the article even more interesting? If you could somehow find someone...who isn't so sure who to root for.

Pat Bostonia of Wayne, N.J., was more conflicted. A season-ticket holder who estimated she attended more than 1,000 Yankees home games since the late 1970s, Bostonia, 49, was not sure who she'd prefer to see move on to the NL Championship Series.

Bingo.

"[Torre is] a great manager and a great guy, and I say good for him," Bostonia said. "I don't wish him any harm. To tell you the truth, if [the Yankees] aren't in, it just doesn't mean anything to me. I do wish him the best.

"If the Yankees aren't in, it just doesn't mean anything to me." And with that simple declaration, the author of this article, and his employer, MLB.com, realized there was nothing interesting about this angle, and decided never to publish it. And that's why you never read it, and I never commented it about it, and you never read my commentary, and none of us wasted our time.

"But I'm also a big fan of Lou Piniella.

Uh oh! Now what kind of boring non-bind do we find ourselves in?!

I'm not watching anything. I'm going to go home and put my head in a corner. Lou's a real doll, kicking the dirt and everything. I love them both."

Wow, this is getting pretty goddamn uninteresting. We'd better keep going. Is it possible to interview a woman with a comical name that sounds like it was made up by Jackie Mason in the 1960's?

Miriam Pinto, who drove to Yankee Stadium from Springfield, Mass., to say goodbye to the old place one last time, said the Dodgers-Cubs series would probably draw her in only because of the 68-year-old man filling out Los Angeles' lineup cards.

"I'll probably flip back and forth on them, but to see Joe Torre sitting there, I think that's a good thing," Pinto said. "I'm upset the Yankees aren't there, but Joe Torre deserves it. I think [the Yankees] let him go in the wrong way."

There you have it. A made-up woman with a ridiculous name is a fan of Joe Torre. But what about people with names that are bad parodies of Italian-American Sopranos-style goombahs? What do they think?

"I was glad that he left for somewhere else," added Savino Stallone, 54, who made the drive from Stormville, N.Y., with his daughter, Jennifer, and son, Joseph.

1. There's no one named "Savino Stallone" in the whole world.

2. There's no such place as "Stormville, NY." This is a parody of Italian people. You got drunk and made all of this up.

3. If there were actually a person named Savino Stallone, from Stormville, NY, his kids would not be named Jennifer and Joseph. They would be named I-Roc and Pasta Fagiole.

Steve Lombardi, who operates the Yankees fan site WasWatching.com -- a play on Phil Rizzuto's old scorecard trick of writing "WW" for plays he'd missed -- plans to watch the NLDS closely, believing that the winner may very well go on to win the NL pennant.

Here -- I'll rewrite this graf in a way that points out how pointless this article is:

Steve Lombardi, who likes baseball, plans to watch the NLDS closely, believing that the winner may very well go on to win the NL pennant.

When the part of the paragraph that links it to the overall premise can be removed without any consequence to the paragraph, there is something wrong with the premise.

"I want to see the Cubs win it all because I believe that gives Lou Piniella an excellent shot at making Cooperstown as a manager," Lombardi wrote in an e-mail.

You emailed this guy? You sat down and emailed him? This was pre-meditated?!

"Lou won 90 games with the Yankees [in 1986].

Not interesting or remarkable.

He won a ring with the 1990 Reds. His teams in Seattle made the postseason and once won 116 games in a season. Bringing the Cubs their first ring in a century would be the icing on the cake for Lou's resume -- and one that Cooperstown could not ignore."

This is probably true. And you know what no one in the entire world would think about, or care about, or mention in his HOF ceremony? The three years he mediocre-ly managed the Yankees.

Further complicating the issue,

Is that even possible?! This issue is so complicated already!!!!!!!111!!1!!11!11!111!11!!!1111!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!111111!!!!!!!1111111111111

on some level, is the makeup of the Dodgers' roster. While Torre, Mattingly and -- to a lesser extent -- Dodgers third-base coach Larry Bowa and reliever Scott Proctor lend a Yankees flavor, the Red Sox are especially well represented.

Oh shit. Oooooohhhhhhhhhhh shit. There are former Red Sox on the DOdgers?!!?!?!?!?!? How WILL the YANKEE FANS' OPINOINS OF THE CUBS_DODGERS SERIES be changed nowe THAT tTHEY HAVE THIS INFORMATION BAOUT THERE ARE RED SOX FANS on the DoDGERS?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Manny Ramirez hit .396 in 53 games after joining Los Angeles and changed the clubhouse culture of a team that also features Derek Lowe and Nomar Garciaparra, three frequent thorns in the Yankees' sides.

Sure, I'll write this article. How much will I get paid? A dollar a word? Okay. Then I'll just keep writing words until you tell me to stop. Cool?

"Those are former Boston Red Sox players and I'm not too friendly with them," Cardona said. "Like Jorge Posada said on [the YES Network program] 'CenterStage,' he can't stand the Red Sox. I don't blame him. I'll always be a Yankees fan, no matter what."

You heard it here first: Yankee fans will continue to root for the Yankees. How is this not the main headline on Drudge?

"It's very strange, but let me tell you -- since Manny left Boston, I'm a Manny fan now," Pinto added. "He's just got to cut his hair, that's it."

So, let me get this straight. Now that a guy doesn't play for the team you hate, but rather plays for a team you are neutral about, which is managed by your favorite team's former manager, you no longer dislike that player as much?

Where is CNN? Where is the MSM on this? Where is the Presidential address from the Rose Garden? Why am I still typing these dumb sarcastic rejoinders?

Oh my God, look -- he's still writing this article.

Robert Anderson, 45, made the trip to Yankee Stadium from Brooklyn, N.Y., on Tuesday, hoping as much for autographs -- Chien-Ming Wang and Joba Chamberlain stopped and signed for most -- as to spend a little more time at his favorite stadium.

Saying that "there are a lot of memories in this place," Anderson said his interests would be with the man who steered his club during the most recent dynasty seasons.

This is the same result as the first person you interviewed. Why are you including this?

"I'm pulling for him," Anderson said. "I'll go for the Dodgers. You've got Torre, Mattingly, Bowa. I'll watch it, but it will never be the same because we're not in it."

So there you have it. Yankee fans: owners of various boring feelings about an event that doesn't really affect them.

Dear Jon Heyman

2008-10-01T03:55:00.005-04:00

Okay, I thought I was finished, but I'm not.

Dear Jon Heyman,

I know you probably think you're a guy who "doesn't rely on stats" and "thinks there's more to the game than numbers," but I submit to you that the only reason you selected Francisco Rodriguez to be your AL MVP (MVP!) is that he corralled a large (a record, in fact -- !) number of saves. Saves, as I'm sure you've been told many times, are a ridiculous stat, the kind of stat that gives stats a bad name. So you really shouldn't use them when making such important decisions as selecting your fictional #1 MVP choice on your fake MVP ballot.

I will now list various players, persons, and other entities in the American League of U.S.A. professional baseball who were more valuable than Francisco Rodriguez:

Grady Sizemore
Joe Mauer
Dustin Pedroia
Alex Rodriguez
Carlos Quentin
Josh Hamilton
Milton Bradley
Aubrey Huff
Miguel Cabrera
Kevin Youkilis
Ian Kinsler
Brian Roberts
Nick Markakis
Vladimir Guerrero
Mark Teixeira
Jermaine Dye
Cliff Lee
Roy Halladay
Ervin Santana
Joe Saunders
Jon Lester
Daisuke Matsuzaka
John Danks
Joe Nathan
Mariano Rivera
Joakim Soria
Joe Maddon
Terry Francona
Mike Scioscia
The crowd at Camden Yards
A replay monitor
Heart, the intangible quality
Heart, the band
Ed Hochuli
The wind
Chief Wahoo
Jim Abbott
Curtis Pride
Gravity
Roberto Petagine
Levi Johnston
Birds -- all of them. Just birds in general.
This guy Rick who fixed my rearview mirror
Monster.com
Zombie Bernie Mac
I bet if Scot Shields or Jose Arredondo were the closer they would have broken Bobby Thigpen's record too, I'm just saying -- does this count as an entity?
Evan Longoria

I Figured Out How To Win The MVP

2008-10-01T03:16:00.003-04:00

I want to stop writing about Jon Heyman. We're not targeting him, we're not keeping an eye on him, we don't have anything personal against him. Honestly: you send shit in, we read each thing, and then we decide which things make us angry.

This makes me angry.

I mean, look, it's late, I just ate a giant bone-in ribeye and I'm sleepy. But a quick rundown here: guess who Heyman picks for AL MVP?

(Easy one. Just think about who would make you the angriest.)

Yeah. It's K-Rod. The same K-Rod who ranks something like 80th amongst relief pitchers in WHIP. Behind dudes like Tyler Walker and Mike Lincoln and other made-up names of guys who went to your high school. Don't like WHIP? Fine. He was also only fourth amongst relief pitchers in the AL in WPA.

It gets better. Numbers one and two on Heyman's NL MVP ballot were Manny Ramirez and C.C. Sabathia, two men who combined to play something like 4 total innings in the NL. I'm not even being nitpicky here. Take a look at the MVP criteria:

The rules of the voting remain the same as they were written on the first ballot in 1931:

1. Actual value of a player to his team, that is, strength of offense and defense.

2. Number of games played.

3. General character, disposition, loyalty and effort.

4. Former winners are eligible.

5. Members of the committee may vote for more than one member of a team.

See number two there? Yeah. Apparently the rules of voting don't mean a goddamn thing to Jon Heyman.

So here's my secret way to win the MVP. Play 50 games really well, then sit out the rest of the year. Say you injured your biceps, your triceps, your quadriceps, and your quinticeps (these are fake muscles). Then wait until the end of the year and pray that your team narrowly makes the playoffs. You point to your amazing 50-game run and Jon Heyman and his ilk immediately choose to ignore the literally hundreds of players who played full seasons in blatant disregard for the rules of voting.

Or how about this: people like Heyman say that if your team doesn't make the playoffs, then the whole season is essentially completely devoid of value. Nothing -- nothing you do can redeem your individual performance. But let's take it a step further. No one remembers who gets eliminated in the NLDS. Hell, who cares who loses in the World Series? The only team that has a season of value at all is the team that wins it all. So let's wait until the absolute end of the playoffs, until the final out is recorded, and every year we'll give the MVP to the guy who has the ball when the World Series ends. 'Cause fuck every guy who's not on a winner. Fuck you if your teammates were only good enough to get you to within one win of the wild card. That renders your season moot.

I will insert a baseball-playing tarsier at first base in Game 7 of the World Series, and when the closer fields a comebacker to the mound and flips it to that tarsier, I will declare the tarsier the MVP of baseball because without him who knows what would have happened to the team during that final out and isn't that the definition of value? Yes. Yes it is.

Holy Cow, Does Jon Heyman Hate VORP

2008-09-25T20:10:00.004-04:00

I just crunched some numbers and data about various things that exist, using a scientific process verified by several mathematicians at top universities, and I came up with some interesting results.

Here are the five most boring things in the world, in order:

5. Slowed-down time-lapse photography of a small puddle of room-temperature water evaporating.
4. Two people you have never met, wearing identical colorless shirts and pants, talking about the dreams they had last night.
3. Debating what "Valuable" means w/r/t "Most Valuable Player."
2. Lying in a sensory deprivation tank and staring straight ahead at a blank wall while you listen to white noise.
1. Ann Coulter

So right away, we're on risky ground with articles like this one from SI.com's Jon Heyman -- it's the third most boring thing in the world, according to science. And beyond that, it's borderline hysterical in its boring and righteous anger:

Once again, VORP has nothing to do with MVP

Zero. There's a number the stat people will understand.

That's the relationship between VORP, the stat that the stat people love, and MVP.

Well, that's just not true.

If you hate the stat, you hate the stat. I'm not sure why you should hate a stat that uses a relatively sophisticated model to calculate not just how good a guy's stats are, but also what position he plays, and essentially evaluates how hard he is to replace (the true measure of "value," to me...oh God...I'm the third-most boring guy in the world right now). But if you hate it, you hate it. Not much I can do but keep posting on this blog.

You cannot, however, say that there is "zero" relationship between VORP and MVP. Because even if you choose to ignore it, it exists. Last year ARod won the MVP, and was 1st in baseball in VORP. Rollins, kind of a crummy pick, was at least top-10 (9th, actually, in the NL, behind several other more deserving candidates). People were generally happy with the choice of Ryan Howard in 2006...and it just so happens that he was 2nd in the NL in VORP, right behind Pujols. Morneau was a terrible choice, much-reviled and controversial...and he was 13th in the AL. I don't really remember anyone complaining about Pujols or ARod in 2005...and they were 2-3 in VORP in all of baseball. Only DLee was above Pujols in the NL, and if he had won, nobody would've been angry.

Keep looking at the list. The MVPs of the league are generally very high VORPulators, year-to-year. So it makes some sense that in order to predict who will win, or who should win, we can look at VORP. Right?

Baseball Prospectus, as of a few days ago, had Alex Rodriguez leading the AL in VORP (which stands for (Value Over Replacement Player) the stat its enthusiasts think is the best stat in the world to determine player value, and also the best to help determine who's the Most Valuable Player.

Maybe not "the best," but, you know, pretty effing good, I think. Better than batting average.

But as you can see, while VORP may tell you something, it shouldn't determine who wins the MVP award. Beyond containing two of the letters in MVP, there appears to be almost no relationship whatsoever here.

But...I just...we...you...I...facts...

I happened [sic] to love A-Rod. He's turned himself into a very good third baseman (he's probably the best defender on the Yankees), he's a three-time MVP (though I don't believe he deserved it the year his Rangers finished last), he's the best all-around player in the game and he's not among the prime list of reasons for the Yankees' demise this year (though, there are plenty of Yankees officials who'd have him on that list).

Yet, A-Rod shouldn't sniff the MVP award this year.

I'm with you on this, for the record. Like every other bored American who is bored at the yearly debate over what boring ways we should boringly parse the boring term "Valuable," when there is no 100% obvious winner, like Barry Bonds the year he steroided .370/.582/.799 with 46 contes for a team that made the playoffs, I take the famous approach espoused by Supreme Court Justice Stewart in reference to pornography, who said, "I can't define exactly what pornography is, but oh lordy, this FMF pictorial has me hard as a diamond." In other words, given a number of players with roughly equal stats, there is a kind of gut-level instinct one uses to cast the tie-breaking vote. That could be: did the guy's team make the playoffs, and was he an important part of the stretch run? Did the guy happen to have a lot of hits in crucial situations? Did other players on his team go down with injuries, making his production even more important to his team? And perhaps most importantly, is this guy a SS or CF or C or something, meaning that his production from that position is even more valuable, given the paucity of high-production players at that position?

(In other words, in addition to whatever kind of gut-checking you want to do, you can look at VORP and WPA and stuff like that.)

For the record, again, ARod's WPA is barely above 0 this year -- 0.28. Look at Mauer's. Or Pedroia's. Or a bunch of other people's. He is not the MVP this year.

If devotees of VORP (I'm already on their bad side after calling them VORPies last year) think their stat is key to determining the MVP, they should think again. It's worth a glance, at best.

It's worth a glance at least. It's a measure of how valuable a player is, compared to other people at his position. What is the downside of looking at it very seriously?

But VORP is supposed to be an all-encompassing stat,

No it's not. Doesn't account for defense, and doesn't account for "clutch" the way WPA does. No one is arguing it is all-encompassing. No one. What people do argue, occasionally, is that if a guy isn't even in the like top 10 for VORP or something, like Justin Morneau that year, maybe he shouldn't be the MVP.

and it led some numbers people to determine that Hanley Ramirez was a viable NL MVP candidate last year. And led many to say that David Wright was the NL MVP in a year in which Wright's Mets choked (Wright himself says no way was he MVP).

1. HRam was, indeed, a viable candidate.

2. What is Wright supposed to say? "I know my team choked harder than any team in the history of sports, but: Me for MVP!"

3. I don't understand why people debate about whether a guy's team has to make the playoffs to win the MVP, and some say "yes" and some say "no," but when a guy's team just barely misses the playoffs at the last possible second, meaning that they were in the race the whole year, and the guy in question hit .352/.432/.602 in September with 6 HR and 9 2B, it's like, "No fucking way that guy is teh MVP!!1!!!!!111!!!"

VORP, like other stats, doesn't come close to telling you everything. It doesn't take into account how a hitter hits in the clutch (oddly enough, some stat people think that's just luck, anyway),

See above. Then see WPA page. Then remember that no one in the world with a brain thinks that the MVP award should be blindly handed out to the guy with the best VORP.

As for "clutch" "just being luck," what we actually think is that it's very hard to be "clutch" year in and year out. (For example, ARod's WPA last year was 6.85. This year it's 0.28. Two excellent offensive years, two wildly different "clutch" results.)

or how many meaningful games he played in (at last count Grady Sizemore was high up on the VORP list, as well). VORP has some value. But like all other stats, it doesn't replace watching the games or following the season.

I have never watched a baseball game, so I can't speak to this. I'm not even sure what it is. What I can tell you is: watch live baseball all you want. I'll be in my grandmother's attic (following a legal dispute over squatter's rights with my mom w/r/t her basement), staring at my computer, looking at a little thing I like to call "data." That's all I care about. Data. Raw data. Baseball is good for one thing only: the production of data. That's what I believe. If I and my friends had it my way, the games wouldn't even be "played," but rather "simulated" by 1000 PCs, and the results would be downloaded directly into my brain through Optical Quanta Resonance (OQR), and instead of "discussing" the games the next day, my friends and I would just await the Retinal Scans and then text each other brief congratulations, depending on whose favorite "team" won, and then we would all go on with our lives, grateful that the annoyance of actual "baseball" had been removed from our lives, allowing us to spend more time writing code for our start-up social network site, which we are I think going to call "Together-ing!"

A-Rod may have the best VORP. But he shouldn't be on anyone's MVP ballot, much less at the top of the ballot.

I now want ARod to win.

It's Cool

2008-09-23T03:34:00.004-04:00

It's cool everybody. Everything's cool.

Jason Bartlett was voted MVP of the Tampa Bay Rays by the Tampa Bay chapter of the BBWAA.

I know, I know, he's supposed to be a very good defender. But let me say some things about Jason Bartlett: He's missed like 30 games this year; he's hit three fewer home runs this year than Carlos Zambrano; he's 8th on his own team in VORP; and he plays on the same team as Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria, and B.J. Upton.

I just want to announce here on this blog, that if any baseball analyst of any kind tells me that "you really have to watch Jason Bartlett play every day to understand how much he means to this team," and that same analyst is found drowned at the bottom of my hot tub the next morning, and I am found standing upon that corpse, in the hot tub, wearing my trunks and a hoodie and just relaxing and smoking a joint, and maybe ordering a pizza or something, and instructing the delivery guy to come in through the gate because I'm in the back standing on a body in my hot tub -- if all of that happens, I would really appreciate if someone could meet me outside, by my hot tub, and float me a few dollars for the pizza, because I will be in no mood to get off of that corpse, or get out of the hot tub for that matter, and plus I will probably have forgotten to bring some money out to the hot tub with me.

Thanks guys. You're the best.

Darin Erstad Swings Wildly, Makes Last Out in Big Z's No-Hitter

2008-09-14T22:30:00.001-04:00

Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Yes. You are.

He should have tried to punt.

Ned Colletti Should Be Time Magazine's Person Of The Millennium

2008-09-14T19:20:00.006-04:00

I know it's early, but I don't think it's too early to make that call. After all, the Dodgers have a winning percentage of .517. Think about it. 51.7% of the time, the boys in blue have vanquished their opponents and bathed in their blood. If you ask Bruce Jenkins, for this Colletti deserves nothing less than the Executive of the Year Award. If you ask me, we should stop kidding ourselves and just give Colletti the MVP, the Cy Young, the Rolaids Relief Man of the Year Award and the Latin Grammy for Record of the Year.

General manager Ned Colletti, belittled all season for the signings of Jones, Pierre, Jason Schmidt, Rafael Furcal (who may yet return to play shortstop), Hideki [sic] Kuroda and Nomar Garciaparra, is now a candidate for Executive of the Year after picking up Ramirez, Casey Blake and Greg Maddux for a pittance.

1. Hiroki Kuroda is a pitcher for the Dodgers. Hideki Kuroda is the associate producer of Eko eko azaraku: B-page and Eko eko azaraku: R-page as well as the one of the directors of Inu no eiga (All About My Dog), the delightful 2005 comedy feature. (According to IMDb user chrischew2: "It loosely follows Kentaro Yamada (Shidou Nakamura), a timid media planner whose latest campaign for dog food is so stifling—not to mention utterly side-splitting—that it brings back memories of his childhood Shiba dog, Pochi. And weaved between this heart-warming tale are bursts of zaniness, from a spontaneous musical or a mockumetary to a dog's-eye-view of infatuation.")

Totally understand the mix-up, though. They get it a lot.

2. Here is a list of teams with winning percentages greater than that of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball organization:

Tampa Bay Rays
Boston Red Sox
Toronto Blue Jays
New York Yankees
Chicago White Sox
Minnesota Twins
Los Angeles Angels
New York Mets
Philadelphia Phillies
Chicago Cubs
Milwaukee Brewers
Houston Astros
St. Louis Cardinals

Yes, the Los Angeles Collettis are tied for the 14th-best record in baseball. The Florida Marlins also sit at 77-72, but keep in mind that Marlins GM Michael Hill had the luxury of a $22,650,000 payroll, whereas Ned had to make to with just $118,188,536. Juggling the egos of guys who make more than the entire Marlins pitching staff isn't easy!

The great thing about the Dodgers is that their biggest problem - the oppressive weight of clubhouse discord - seemed to disappear overnight.

In Bruce Jenkins' world, there exists one Universal Baseball Law:

The significance of the oppressive weight of clubhouse discord >> The significance of hitting

Jenkins' sentence is actually spot-on, if you'll allow me to adjust the wording slightly.

The great thing about the Dodgers is that their biggest problem - their complete inability to hit for power - seemed to disappear overnight when they got a guy who could hit for power.

There. It's the best sentence Jenkins and I have ever co-written!

Of course Colletti gambled on Manny -- you're getting fired if you do nothing, so you might as well pay the price in talent (no one the greater Los Angeles area seemed to place any value on the next six or whatever years of Andy LaRoche) to acquire a rent-a-player in a desperate Hail Mary attempt to save your job. And hey. Look. It worked. That was easy.

Jeff Kent, forever disapproving of the club's petulant youth, was lost to a knee injury (it has to be more than coincidental that the Dodgers won 10 of their first 11 games in his absence).

It has to be more than coincidence -- we thus have conclusive evidence that Jeff Kent was poisoning his teammates just like that mom in the Sixth Sense did to the little kid version of Mischa Barton.

Jeff Kent -- tragic sufferer of Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

Torre put financial issues aside, benched Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones, and stabilized the outfield - for now and years to come - with Ethier and Matt Kemp.

Somehow, the fact of the existence of Juan Pierre and Andruw Jones on the payroll and the fact that it required one hundred-some-odd games and the addition of a Hall of Fame outfielder to compel Torre to bench Messrs. Pierre and Jones are now points in Colletti's and Torre's favor? This is the equivalent of two gardeners driving to your house, digging a twenty-foot hole in your front yard with a backhoe, buying two bags of sand, pouring the bags into the hole, and then getting lavished with praise for the sand part of the whole operation.

Arizona's problem isn't so much the standings. That deficit could disappear in a week.

Well, actually, the standings are a huge problem for Arizona. They're 4.5 back with 14 to play. That's an enormous deficit. Of course it could "disappear in a week," but that's incredibly unlikely. BP has them at 2.05397% to win the division. That sounds like a problem to me.

It's the club's desultory reaction to a crisis. Virtually all of the fire and inspiration from last year's team - Eric Byrnes, Jose Valverde, Orlando Hudson, Carlos Quentin when healthy - has vanished.

You heard it here first: the reason Brandon Webb and Dan Haren pitched four shockingly, horrifyingly grotesque abominations of games against the Dodgers was the absence of Eric Byrnes and Eric Byrnes' Motivational Hair™.

Eric Byrnes' Motivational Hair™, winning division races since 2007.

(Eric Byrnes' Motivational Hair™ comes with seventeen free instances of Eric Byrnes Inspirationally Falling Down While Throwing The Ball©® (patent pending).)

Whatever

2008-09-06T16:33:00.003-04:00

When I tell you people that the reason we haven't posted more is because we haven't found that many good articles, I'm not kidding. We thank you for the links you send in, but more often than not they are little snippets instead of whole chunks of good ol' fashioned goofballness. We prefer the latter. However, in the spirit of...something...here's this weekend's Trite Snippet of Bonedumbiness:

Fox Saturday Blechball (that's the Mad Magazine parody of "baseball"). DBacks/Dodgers. Your announcers are Mark Grace and Josh Lewin. Your hitter is David Eckstein. Commence blechitude:

Lewin: David Eckstein jumps away from [an inside pitch]. He's been kind of a World Series Good Luck Charm himself. He's been there and made a difference with teams with red in their color scheme before, with the Angels and the Cardinals.

Grace: It's hard to win multiple rings, but Eckstein has done that.

All by himself, is the insinuation.

He's just a...he's a guy that just...everything he does just helps you win baseball games.

Except for hitting and fielding.

He's not flashy. Just a tough, scrappy out.

Lewin: A couple years ago, Sports Illustrated polled major leaguers, they asked, "Who gets the most out of the least?" And the runaway winner of that question -- 62% of the players -- said it's this guy, David Eckstein.

Grace: He just finds a way. He's smart. And you don't say that about too many ballplayers. [brief interlude, joking about how Mark Grace is a "genius."] But this is a smart ballplayer, he knows, he studies -- he knows his opponent. Great work ethic.

[wild pitch sends the runner to third with 2 down]

Lewin: We talked about Eckstein, who is listed as being 5'8".

Whoa whoa whoa whoa. It's my understanding that he is 5'7", 165. This I know to be true in the same way that I know the sun rises in the East. Now you're telling me that he's 5'8"??????

He cops to being 5'6".

[KT's brain melts]

And Mike Scoscia has said "5'3" of that is probably heart."

If this is true, it's a serious medical condition, and he should not be exerting himself.

Grace: And guts.

Makes less sense than saying that it's "heart."

[Eckstein strikes out swinging.]

Fin.

Jiminy Christmas

2008-09-03T11:03:00.004-04:00

I'm not sure what to make of this.

The tone and content are so over-the-top fawning that I initially thought it was satirical. After all, Simers has been critical of the Dodgers' front office -- and in this same wry manner -- before. So, read and enjoy with this warning: the joke may be on you. Yes, you, not me. I am infallible. Plus, as is always our preference here at FJM, we like to take everything at face value, because then we have more ways to avoid working at our real jobs.

One way or the other, you have to love the headline:

It's a no-brainer, Dodgers' Ned Colletti is baseball's best general manager

...

No. No, he is not.

And furthermore, hypothetically serious-and-not-satirical L.A. Times: you think it's a "no-brainer?!" You not only think that Ned Coletti is baseball's best general manager, you think the fact that Ned Coletti is baseball's best manager is a no-fucking-brainer?!!?!?!?!?1/1/11/

(Man, I hope this isn't a parody. Because I am already borderline-hysterical, and we're only at the headline.)

I guess when you make a completely unsupportable, borderline-sociopathic claim, your only real move is to launch immediately into an over-the-top support of it. Like when you say that living relatively close to an uninhabited part of Russia not only means something, it makes you good at foreign policy. (One admires the chutzpah, even while one is offended at the notion that someone thought that would work.)

Who says the Dodgers' decision-maker is out of his league?

Me! Me! Over here! I do!

With the acquisitions of Manny Ramirez and Casey Blake, he's fooled the rest of the National League.

I'm going to go ahead and short-circuit this whole line of reasoning right off the top. These were both fine deadline-pick-ups. But the Red Sox were the very definition of desperate. Even when offering to pay the man's entire salary, there were only two teams interested in Manny -- L.A. and Florida, and Florida apparently wanted not the $7m left on his contract, but in fact $9m, the extra $2m ostensibly to sign the draft pick(s) they would get when they offered Manny arbitration at the end of the year, he declined, and they got the compensation pick. Demanding extra cash, on top of the 100% subsidy you are being offered to have one of the greatest RHH in a generation come play for you, seems like the MLB version of extortion to me.

Anyway, the point is, the Dodgers -- on July 31 at like 3:01 PM -- were the only game in town. Now, Coletti deserves credit for being that game, but it's not like he picked up some scrub from the scrap heap because he believed in him, and now that guy is awesome. He traded a few guys for Manny Ramirez. Who's leaving at the end of the year. And yes, it has certainly energized this city, but again...the team is under .500 since the trade.

As for Blake, when he was acquired he had an .830 OPS. He now has an .826 OPS. He had a .303 OBP in August. He's 35.

Sat down with Ned Colletti before Tuesday's Dodgers game to discuss the details of his acceptance speech once he's officially named Major League Baseball's executive of the year. "Huh?" said Colletti,

The correct response.

and now you know why he needs a speech writer.

And better Assistant GMs.

It's over, of course, the Dodgers playing minor league outfits now, and a lock to win the division title on the strength of Colletti's wizardry-- Manny Ramirez and Casey Blake suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

The Dodgers are 69-70. A game and a half back of Arizona. They are 15-16 since the trades. They recently lost like 8 in a row. And they're "a lock" to win the division? A fucking "lock?"

This is, however, what makes me think the article is earnest. The Dodgers do have an incredibly easy schedule down the stretch. So...it's genuine, right?

"Help me out here, Manny," Colletti shouted, while trying to divert attention from his genius.

Hang on. Is this a satire? I suddenly think this is a satire again. Hang on -- I have to go read it again to see if Simers is punking me.

I don't know. Too close to call. I'm going to keep on keepin' on, becuase I'm in too deep now.

"What do you need?" said Ramirez, later hitting his 10th homer as a Dodger.

"Don't you think Ned is baseball's executive of the year?" I asked.

"Yeah," Ramirez said, "for having me here for free."

Andruw Jones
Juan Pierre
Nomar Garciaparra
Jason Schmidt
Chan Ho Park

vs.

2 months of Manny Ramirez.

The team is under .500.

CAN'T REALLY call it the resurrection, because while he's good, he's not that good. But as GMs go, Colletti looked like a goner before Blake and Ramirez arrived.

"I didn't feel it," Colletti said, and as a general rule -- dead men don't feel anything.

The team has been almost exactly as mediocre since the trades. 15-16. 69-70.

Desperate times, desperate measures and Colletti improved the Dodgers without it costing the owner a penny. That makes him the best GM in baseball in the minds of most owners.

The Red Sox are currently starting home-grown players at first, second, third, and CF. Their best pitcher is home-grown, as is their closer who is top-3 in baseball. Their 6th inning guy is home-grown, their 7th-inning guy is home-grown, their spot-starter is home-grown. They've suffered significant injuries to Ortiz, Drew, Schilling, Lowell, and Beckett, and they're going to make the playoffs again, probably, for the fifth time in six years.

Theo Epstein < style="font-weight: bold;">"Do you think there are other teams out there saying, 'Ned's desperate, let's help Ned out?' " Colletti said, while proving the point, I guess, that he's just smarter than all the other GMs in somehow stealing Ramirez and Blake. No doubt, he fooled them all. Oldest trick in the book, too, luring your opponents to sleep, which explains why early on he signed Jason Schmidt, Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre -- everyone figuring the Dodgers were finished with such a cast of misfits.

Okay, so this is obviously sarcastic. I honestly don't know what to think. Is he saying that Colletti is still a bonehead and that we should all remember how many bad choices he made, and that they shouldn't be whitewashed by the recent, more successful additions? Or is he saying that yes, the guy was a bonehead before, but now he is awesome and should be Executive of the Year, for realskies?

Thoughts?

Then the Dodgers passed on David Eckstein, on the recommendation of scouts, Colletti said, even though the Dodgers needed a second baseman. Whatever it takes to make Arizona overconfident.

Again, he's being sarcastic, but I would argue that passing on Eckstein should automatically make someone Executive of the Year, just for having the guts to expose himself to what will surely be intense media hatred.

The Dodgers even allowed Arizona to claim him, another genius move by Colletti, the Diamondbacks probably thinking now they have added just the right missing piece to the puzzle. So how come they got drilled by St. Louis Tuesday night?

I'm so fucking confused.

Now he is saying that Colletti was smart to pass on Eckstein, because AZ...lost...with Eckstein...on Tuesday?

Maybe I'm just not that smart. But that's hard to believe, since I live fairly close to Stanford University, so I must be intelligent.

So many things go into the making of baseball's executive of the year, one day kids everywhere hoping to be just as cunning and famous as the Schmoozer, the former Cubs' PR guy who went on to become the great GM of the Dodgers.

"Stop the madness," Colletti said.

"It's over; Dodgers win the division," I said.

"We just lost eight straight," Colletti said.

WTF is going on? Colletti is the voice of reason? Or Simers is baiting him to his face? Or both?

And the Diamondbacks, who have 14 games remaining against challenging opponents to the Dodgers' six, completely fell for the feint. "Stop it," said Colletti, "it's not over."

Sincere again, somehow. This article is a sincerity Rorschach test.

Like an Academy Award nominee, I'm sure, he doesn't want to think about the baseball award until he actually hears his name called.

"I'm done winning awards," said Colletti, and you can just imagine how cluttered his office and home must be with all the awards won over the years.

The final blow to my sanity. This reads like a slam, but a quick glance assures us that Colletti has, indeed, won many awards.

I give up. I can't analyze baseball journalism anymore. I need to change careers. Oh -- I know: I live close to the Pacific Ocean, so that means I am a World Class marine biologist. I'll just focus on that, then.

Wins Are For Losers, Part Eleven Million

2008-08-27T18:28:00.006-04:00

Hi. We're still alive. So is Richard Griffin, but unlike us, Richard is using his life force to promulgate horrible misinformation about baseball.

We come upon Richard as he is about to answer a very reasonable question from a gentleman named Neil Shyminsky. Neil?

Q: Hi Richard,

Maybe you can explain this one to me. In the past couple weeks, I've been hearing all of this talk about A.J. Burnett's "career year", which will possibly lead him to opt out of his contract at year's end. Remembering that his ERA was well over 5.00 just a month ago, I double-checked his stats.

Sure enough, this season's ERA is more than half a run higher than his career ERA and his WHIP is also much higher than normal. His strikeout numbers are good, but they're only slightly better than his career K/9 (innings) ratio, and are actually lower than last year's K/9 numbers. In fact, his win-loss record and games started numbers are the only numbers that are noticeably better than what he's put up over the last 5 years. In contrast, Halladay's ERA, WHIP, and K/9 are shaping up to be the best he's ever compiled in a year where he's thrown at least 150 innings. But where's the love for his "career year"?

My question is this: when was it decided that a context-specific stat like wins is the determining factor in declaring a "career year", especially when Burnett's ERA and WHIP seem to suggest it's actually his worst? Or is it maybe that the "career year" stat is the number that we don't see - namely, A.J.'s usual 5-10 games lost to injury?

Neil Shyminsky, Toronto

Neil makes a lot of good points. That's why you didn't see me jumping in like an asshole and calling him a lot of profane names, even though that's what I was put on this earth to do. Neil probably got a 5 on his AP Physics exam. Then he majored in electrical engineering at McGill, married a nice French-Canadian girl named Ghyslaine, and settled down in Toronto, where he became a fan of the Blue Jays.

Richard Griffin, meanwhile, got a 2 on his AP Physics test (claimed to be sick that day), dropped out of Lakehead, cheated on an Inuit girl named Arnakua'gsak, and is about to say something stupid about baseball.

A: The reason that this is a career year for Burnett is that baseball is a team sport and the team goal is victories.

This is, presumably, the same reason that between the pitching Hernandezes, Livan (10-8, 5.48 ERA) is having a better season than Felix (8-8, 3.28 ERA). Don't you understand baseball is a team sport, Felix, you selfish prima donna?

The Twins enjoyed Livan Hernandez' winning ways so much, they decided to cut him from their baseball team. Guess they hate victories, which are the goal of sports.

Major League Baseball is not Fantasy Baseball where every ERA, WHIP, VORP or DORK stands on its own.

Dork is a slang term that means "dick," which is a slang term that means "penis."

Major League Baseball: Where no penis stands alone.®

(Slogan courtesy of Richard Griffin.)

No matter which way you slice it, Burnett has been more valuable to the Jays this year than in either of his previous two seasons in Blue Jays black.

I will slice it using Win Shares. It has the word "win" in it, and like you said, baseball is about winning.

2006 9.8
2007 12.1
2008 9.4

Burnett's biggest contribution this year compared to years past is that barring injury, he'll pitch more innings than he ever has as a Blue Jay. But come on: a lot of those innings have been horrendous. Guy had a 6.07 ERA in April and a 5.06 ERA in June. Heck, even though he's sort of turned things around, his ERA in August is 4.96.

In his best 22 starts this year, A.J. is 15-4 with a 2.97 ERA, while in his less than magnificent seven outings, he is 1-5, with a 10.30 ERA.

For a guy who thinks stats are penises, you just dropped a real shitty-smelling dick of a stat, sir. What is this arbitrary division of 22 "good" starts versus 7 "bad" supposed to convey? Burnett was awful in those seven bad outings, yes -- and yet he got a win in a game when he allowed seven (!) runs. He also gave up 8 runs twice, 6 runs twice, and 5 runs twice, and his team lost all six of those games. Because A.J. Burnett pitched really badly. These games count. They are bad. They hurt the team.

Of his 16 victories, 4 came when Burnett gave up 4 or more runs. They weren't laughers, either, where Burnett was "pitching to the score" or some such nonsense -- they were all decided by two or fewer runs. So in a world where Vernon Wells or Lyle Overbay or Alex Rios hits a little worse in those four games, Burnett could have very easily gone 12-9, or 12-11, or 12-13 -- making him a huge loser in Richard Griffin's book.

A better, more nuanced argument here would be that although Burnett's 4.58 ERA is unsightly, he has made 14 very strong starts where he allowed 2 or fewer runs. Whether through skill or through luck, he managed to cluster a lot of the runs he's allowed this year into three or four absolutely horrendous outings. And I guess that's more valuable than allowing 4 runs every time out.

(As an absurd example, consider a guy who pitches nine scoreless innings 34 times and then allows 1,000 runs in his last game. Bad ERA, but pretty solid year. Although also consider that wins alone still might not capture the season this Mr. Awesome Except For One Disaster delivers -- it's possible that his teammates let him down and don't ever score for him, leaving him with a season record of 0-1. Poor Mr. Awesome Except For One Disaster!)

In all of those seven starts, Burnett has allowed between 5-8 earned runs, while averaging 5-2/3 innings. To dismiss wins as a “context specific” stat is silly in a team sport that by definition is a “context specific” sport.

Anyway, you've heard it in this space so many times before, I'd have to express the number in scientific notation. Wins are a bad metric.

My new, fairly self-evident theory is that Diplodocus-intellected sportswriters elevate the importance of the statistic that is called a "win" for a pitcher simply because it's called a win. But it's still a statistic, guys, and a bad one at that -- one that depends on your offense and your bullpen.

My proposal: we give the win a new name. We call it the DORK. We call a loss a BLORK. Thus, pitchers now have DORK-BLORK records instead of win-loss records. Won't Richard Griffin feel manly when he extols Andy Sonnanstine's heroic 13-6 DORK-BLORK record? Sonnanstine knows how to DORK, yes he does! Derek Lowe is 10-11? Needs to put his team on his back and lead them to the DORK. I don't care how close some of his BLORKs are, because hey, the bottom line is: you play to DORK the game.

BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE

2008-08-27T14:55:00.005-04:00

Sorry it's taken so long. It's just that this is post #1353, and we wanted to take our time and really get it right. So let's go with Bruce Jenkins and his screed about the dire consequences of adhering to pitch counts.

These are the dark ages of pitching.

I like opening grafs that read like Star Wars scrolls.

It is a time of cowardice and fear, oblivious to the lessons of history. If there's a bond among starting pitchers of the pitch-count era, it's that they were born too late.

Yes. I'm sure Barry Zito wishes he were born in 1884, and instead of making $126m over the next six+ years, he had made $40 per 350 innings and lived in a crappy one-bedroom near the park and aspired to drive a Model T and read with great interest news of the first plane flight and carried a watch fob and used a glove that was only slightly bigger than his hand that he had to leave on the mound for the guy on the other team to use and died of typhoid at the age of 28. Ah...the good old days, for baseball players.

One of life's great truisms is to finish what you start.

All kinds of [sic]s here, but I can't grammar-police this article. There's too much other work to do.

It's what you tell your kids, your surgeon, your contractor.

Who tells his surgeon this? And in what context? Like, through the anaesthesia somehow, you say this to your gall bladder surgeon, who has decided to half-ass it?

This once applied to baseball, with precision, but now there's a new law: Just quit. Let somebody else finish the job. You did your part, now go be a cheerleader.

Pause briefly to say: BP has done a lot of work on pitch counts, as evidenced in their PAP (Pitcher Abuse Points) index. You can find that here. Other, more qualified people than I have researched the effects of pitch counts on the human physique, and I won't pretend to know nearly as much as they do. But it stands to reason, in this day and age, that 7-, 8-, or 9-figure investments should be protected slightly more than their more expendable counterparts in years past.

It also stands to reason that pitchers probably have to work a little harder these days to be successful, what with all of the modern strength training, nutrition, drug abuse, tape-watching, analysis, and preparation that hitters have at their disposal. Albert Pujols (and others) routinely go into the clubhouse immediately after at bats to review the tape on how the pitcher got him out. If you could go back in time and take Nap Lajoie into a room after Rube Waddell K'd him on three pitches and show him a glowing box with a video replay of the at bat, he would call you a demon, slit your throat, tear out his eyes, and generally freak the fuck out. It's a different game, these days.

That's my lob to Jenkins. Here's his return:

Pitch counts have destroyed not only the elements of pride and accomplishment among starting pitchers, but the art of winning. If one thing characterized the great pitchers of the past, from Bob Feller to Warren Spahn to Tom Seaver, it's that they learned how to win. You don't get that from a "quality start" and a nice, early shower. It's when you understand the difference between a breezy sixth inning and a stressful ninth, when you brought that victory home, and can't wait to do it again.

I would say, based purely on anecdotal evidence, that there are many pitchers who would like to close out more games than they are allowed. I would also say, based on anecdotal and statistical evidence, that the average pitcher in this league can convert most save opportunities that might come his way, and the average good closer can convert like 90-95% of them, so there just really isn't a good reason to throw Brandon Webb back out there for the ninth inning of a 5-2 game after he's thrown 125 pitches. Or whatever.

Tim Lincecum would love to close the deal.

Tim Lincecum is fourteen years old and weighs 88 pounds. I don't care if his delivery was designed by NASA torque specialists. He can just relax and let someone else pitch.

So would Matt Cain, Dan Haren, Scott Kazmir and Carlos Zambrano. They're all prisoners of the pitch-count era, trapped inside a philosophy that characterizes every organization.

Haren, Cain, and Z have been relatively injury free so far. But here's the 24 year-old
Kazmir over a less-than-2-year-span:

March 25, 2008	Placed on 15-day DL (Left elbow strain)
August 26, 2006	Placed on 15-day DL (Left shoulder soreness)
July 30, 2006	Placed on 15-day DL (Left rotator cuff inflammation)

That's at least two and maybe 3 different arm injuries. You want that guy pushing it?

Complete eradication

In 1904, a 30-year-old Yankees pitcher named Jack Chesbro led the American League with 48 complete games.

Yes. I'm sure he was still firing 94 with wicked movement late in those games. I'm sure for most of the 450+ innings he threw that year, he was fresh as a daisy. Things that happened in 1904 are incredibly relevant today. I mean, 1904 was virtually yesterday, in baseball terms. I mean, that's only 10 years before this rule:

In the case of fire, panic, or storm, the umpire does not have to wait until the pitcher has the ball on the mound to call a time-out. [9.04]

was adopted. It's only a few scant years before women gained suffrage. There's basically no difference in baseball -- or any sport -- between 1904 and now. To prove that, here are some things that happened in the 1904 Olympics, held in St. Louis:

European tension caused by the Russo-Japanese War and the difficulty of getting to St. Louis kept many of the world's top athletes away.

One of the most remarkable athletes was the American gymnast George Eyser, who won six medals even though his left leg was made of wood.

The marathon was the most bizarre event of the Games. It was run in brutally hot weather, over dusty roads, with horses and automobiles clearing the way and creating dust clouds.

1. The first to arrive was Frederick Lorz, who actually was just trotting back to the finish line to retrieve his clothes, after dropping out after nine miles. When the officials thought he had won the race, Lorz played along with his practical joke until he was found out shortly after the medal ceremony and was banned for a year by the AAU for this stunt, later winning the 1905 Boston Marathon.

2. Thomas Hicks (a Briton running for the United States) was the first to cross the finish-line legally, after having received several doses of strychnine sulfate mixed with brandy from his trainers. He was supported by his trainers when he crossed the finish, but is still considered the winner. Hicks had to be carried off the track, and possibly would have died in the stadium, had he not been treated by several doctors.

3. A Cuban postman named Felix Carbajal joined the marathon. He had to run in street clothes that he cut around the legs to make them look like shorts. He stopped off in an orchard en route to have a snack on some apples, which turned out to be rotten. The rotten apples caused him to have to lie down and take a nap. Despite falling ill to apples he finished in fourth place.

4. The marathon included the first two black Africans to compete in the Olympics; two Tswana tribesmen named Len Tau (real name: Len Taunyane) and Yamasani (real name: Jan Mashiani). But they weren't there to compete in the Olympics, they were actually the sideshow. They had been brought over by the exposition as part of the Boer War exhibit (both were really students from Orange Free State in South Africa, but this fact was not made known to the public). Len Tau finished ninth and Yamasani came in twelfth. This was a disappointment, as many observers were sure Len Tau could have done better if he had not been chased nearly a mile off course by aggressive dogs.

That seems like 2008, Beijing, right? Good. Let's keep going.

Last year, Arizona's Brandon Webb topped the National League with four. The complete game has become as obsolete as five-man pepper, the two-hour game, guys swinging three bats in the on-deck circle, and coaches hitting practice pop-ups with a fungo bat.

1. NO PEPPER

2. If every game were Mark Buehrle v. Joe Blanton, you'd get bored in May.

3. It's hard to hold three bats.

4. Coaches still do this.

The sins of pitch-count madness are evident nightly, but there was no more glaring example than Lincecum's July 26 start against Arizona.

I can't believe you're not going with Johan for "the most glaring example." His bullpen has lost him like 6 games this year, and those games, unlike the Giants', actually matter.

Lincecum, a freakish phenomenon who has not had a hint of arm trouble, was demonstrating why some sharp observers consider him the best pitcher in the National League. He had 13 strikeouts, no walks, radar readings of 98 mph and a 3-2 lead, striking out the side in the seventh inning and finishing it with his glorious, unhittable changeup.

Time out! That's it for Lincecum. He'd thrown 121 pitches in his last outing, and now he was at 111, and ... well, can't you see? It's right here on this piece of paper.

It's also right here in the part of my brain that creates and registers "common sense." This game is meaningless. Tim Lincecum is the future of your organization. Remove him from the game.

Manager Bruce Bochy turned to setup man Tyler Walker, and thus was bestowed an outright gift to the opposition. Walker is a fine fellow and an earnest competitor, but he has about one-tenth of Lincecum's ability.

Most pitchers do -- Lincecum is awesome. Which is why it wouldn't really make sense to stretch him past 111 pitches in a meaningless game in late July when he'd thrown 126 pitches four days earlier.

As that one-run lead became a two-run loss, the fans couldn't believe it. They came for De Niro and got SpongeBob.

In this analogy:

Robert DeNiro = Good Actor

SpongeBob = ...Bad...Actor?

KNBR's Ralph Barbieri, who had watched from the stands, spoke for a lot of fans when he angrily called the station, got on the air and said, "If I'd known that was going to happen, I wouldn't have gone to the ballpark!"

You would have missed seven good innings of Tim Lincecum pitching, which, if you're a Giants fan, is about as good as it can get right now.

It would be misguided to blame Bochy, pitching coach Dave Righetti or general manager Brian Sabean. They only reflect a cautious stance taken throughout baseball, and if they have decided to protect Lincecum's arm - the better for him to dominate when the team becomes relevant - who's to argue? They've been consistent with their rules, involving all of the starters, so it would look silly for Lincecum to suddenly have a 150-pitch game.

Correct. Why did you write this article?

More than a numbers game

The problem isn't so much the pitch count, an honest endeavor, but the dismissal of all other factors. Fatigue can't be measured by a counter that suddenly reaches "100." For a laboring pitcher, 90 pitches could be a solid two hours of hell. For someone on cruise control, 120 pitches is about as stressful as a Caribbean vacation.

True 'dat, my brother. Other things you should consider: does the game mean anything? Is the pitcher the complete and utter future of your franchise? Did the pitcher throw a lot of pitches in his last (also meaningless) game? If the answers are: no, yes, yes, then you should pull him after seven innings.

There are so many more reliable signs of trouble: if a pitcher can't throw a strike on 2-and-0, if his curveball loses snap, if he constantly lifts or shakes his arm (indicating discomfort), if he takes more than his customary time between pitches, if he starts shaking off the catcher when the two have been in sync all night, if he walks the leadoff man with a five-run lead, if he can't throw his money pitch when he had it two innings earlier, if he's fussing with needless pickoff throws, if his body language betrays frustration.

The implication here: major league managers and pitching coaches have never considered this. They have seen pitchers exhibit this trouble and thought nothing of it. They have watched the absence of these signs and thought nothing of it. They have simply never thought to consider these factors at all. Not once. And they never go up and talk to their pitchers between innings and ask them how they feel. They never have, or formulate, plans. They just wait until the eighth inning and toss a reliever in there. Managing.

In a recent outing against Houston, CC Sabathia pitched his fifth complete game in the nine starts he'd made for Milwaukee. He threw 130 pitches, raising a torrent of alarmist nonsense. Fortunately, manager Ned Yost didn't join in the geeks' pencil party. What Sabathia has done for the Brewers is a story, something exceptional. It's called rising above the rest - the very essence of sports. Yost had a great answer, too, when asked if Sabathia threw too many pitches. "Never once did he labor," he said.

It has not occurred to Mr. Jenkins, apparently, that CC is 99% likely to leave the team after this season. Which means: the Brewers could not give less of two shits [sic] how beat up he gets. They are driving for the playoffs. If CC blows his arm out in June of next year, that's Hank Steinbrenner's problem.

In other words: Open your eyes, everybody. Follow your instincts. By all means, protect an often-injured pitcher such as Rich Harden, a star (think Pedro Martinez) near the end of his career, or a prospect who hasn't worked a 100-inning season in his life. But when you have a young, healthy starter and you're making distinctions between 110 and 120 pitches, you've driven way off the road.

Tim Lincecum had thrown a grand total of 62.2 innings in professional baseball before throwing 146 with the Giants last year (after 31 of those minor league innings). He is on pace to throw 216 this year.

...nobody wants to be blamed: by the media, talk-show hosts, agents, the players' association or executives protecting their financial investments. When I spoke with Bochy in the aftermath of that Lincecum game, he actually mentioned Kerry Wood and Mark Prior, who gallantly took the Cubs to the brink of the World Series in 2003, then broke down with sore arms later, prompting some after-the-fact hysteria targeting then-manager Dusty Baker.

I wouldn't call it hysteria. I'd call it "anger."

Don't be so quick to blame then-Giants manager Felipe Alou of ruining an arm when Jason Schmidt crafted a one-hit, 144-pitch shutout at Wrigley Field ("I'd do it all over again," Schmidt recently said. "There's nothing like knowing the game is in your control.")

July 16, 2008	Recalled from minors rehab
June 28, 2008	Sent to minors for rehabilitation
June 01, 2008	Recalled from minors rehab
May 20, 2008	Transferred to 60-day DL
May 11, 2008	Sent to minors for rehabilitation
March 30, 2008	Placed on 15-day DL (Recovery from right shoulder surgery)
November 01, 2007	Removed from 60-day DL
August 13, 2007	Transferred to 60-day DL
June 18, 2007	Placed on 15-day DL (Right shoulder surgery - out for season)
June 05, 2007	Removed from 15-day DL
May 30, 2007	Sent to minors for rehabilitation
April 17, 2007	Placed on 15-day DL (Right bursa sac inflammation)
May 24, 2005	Removed from 15-day DL
May 10, 2005	Placed on 15-day DL (Strained right shoulder)
April 16, 2004	Recalled from minors rehab
April 16, 2004	Removed from 15-day DL
April 10, 2004	Sent to minors for rehabilitation
April 03, 2004	Placed on 15-day DL (Right shoulder stiffness)
April 24, 2002	Recalled from minors rehab
April 13, 2002	Sent to minors for rehabilitation
May 11, 2001	Recalled from minors rehab
April 30, 2001	Sent to minors for rehabilitation
April 20, 2001	Recalled from minors rehab
April 13, 2001	Sent to minors for rehabilitation
September 01, 2000	Transferred to 60-day DL
August 23, 2000	Recalled from minors rehab
July 29, 2000	Sent to minors for rehabilitation
August 30, 1996	Recalled from minors rehab
August 11, 1996	Sent to minors for rehabilitation

Not that many games have been under his control, really. What with all the injuries.

Don't single out Yost as some type of renegade because he believes in Sabathia's durability. And don't join the lunatics blaming Baker for the downfall of Prior and Wood.

We've covered the situation in Milwaukee. And we're not lunatics. We're people who watched Dusty Baker have Kerry Wood throw 141 pitches after an injury-riddled early career and asked: "WTF?" (Also, how is Kerry Wood different from Rich Harden? Remember back when you suggested protecting Rich Harden?)

Baker's Cubs went for it that year. They had a postseason in their reach, they had the right pitchers for the job, and those men wanted the ball - all night, if that's what it meant. People can sit around adjusting their spectacles and analyzing, but they have no idea how it feels to actually compete.

I'll have you know that I once pitched six grueling innings with a sore toe in a little league game against Rent-a-Wreck in 1988. I gave up four runs but also drove in three with a 3-R bomb to left off Dave Forgione. We won 19-4. Then my mom took me for ice cream. So, yeah, I think I know how to compete.

"Nothing that happened to me was because of that man (Baker)," Wood recently told Chicago reporters.

This reminds me of something...oh. Right.

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman (Miss Lewinsky)."

I bet you fuckers never thought you'd get a Monica Lewinsky joke on this blog, did you?! You never saw that coming! I got you! I got you all!

Sincerely,

Jay Leno

P.S. Viagra!

"You have guys who go through their whole careers and don't get injured. Other guys pitch two years and get injured six times. I don't think it has anything to do with a manager or a pitching coach or anything like that. It's either going to happen or it's not."

This is an oddly fatalistic attitude to apply to a game that requires extreme stress on a player's muscles, ligaments, and tendons. I don't think winning the dead lift competition has to do with how strong your legs are. It's either going to happen or it's not.

If more people realized that, and trusted their eyes, we wouldn't have pitch counts at all.

This condescending sentence seems like a good place to end.

What? There's like 10000 more words?

A game of honor

The complete game is a badge of honor among starting pitchers, and historians will view the early 21st century as a veritable wasteland. Only Toronto's Roy Halladay and Milwaukee's CC Sabathia (eight each this season) bear any resemblance to the iron-man performers of the past. A few notes on the subject:

Fernando Valenzuela, with the 1986 Dodgers, was the last pitcher to have at least 20 complete games in a season. This century, no pitcher in either league has reached 10.

Then Fernando Valenzuela went on to pitch 10 more years of awesome baseball and got elected to the Hall of Fame with 350 wins.

Oh no wait -- that's not what happened. What happened was, he threw like 1550 innings before the age of 25, had that last good year in 1986, then the next year his WHIP shot up to 1.5 and he never had a good season again due to -- in no small part -- a lot of injuries.

The Giants' Juan Marichal had 30 in 1968, a season dominated by pitching statistics, but how about Ted Lyons with the 1930 White Sox? That was a hitters' year of almost comical proportions. The Yankees hit a collective .309, the National League hit .303, and eight batters hit .370 or better, yet Lyons had 29 complete games, and the co-leaders in the National League had 22.

Yeah, how about Ted Lyons and those 1930 numbers? Crazy. 297 IP. But more to the point, how about Ted Lyons and that 1931 arm injury that made it impossible for him to throw his cut fastball anymore? And how about the fact that he never pitched anywhere close to that number of innings again? And how about the fact that he's in the HOF even though his 1.348 career WHIP is only slightly worse than Bronson Arroyo's? It was a different game, man.

Also, do you do any research? I have no idea if Ted Lyon's arm injury was due to the 297 innings he had thrown the year before. For all I know he injured his arm waving a sign of support for Herbert Hoover, who was President in 1930, because that's how fucking long ago 1930 is. But why use Fernando and Lyons, two guys who got badly arm-injured the very next year you cite for each of them, to try to prove your point? That's crazy.

[...] As recently as the 1998 season, there were 212 instances of a starter throwing at least 125 pitches. Last season, it happened 14 times.

Baseball is lost.

I don't think every arm injury is caused by pitcher abuse. I do think that certain pitchers could complete more games, if they wanted to, without career-ending injuries. So why did I take three hours to break down this article? Because it's in my blood, man. It's in my blood.

Lewinsky!

People Say Dumb Shit at 3AM, Too

2008-08-22T02:56:00.002-04:00

Mary Carillo: "Anyone will tell you how hard it is to come back from behind, but coming back from ahead can sometimes be even trickier."

Yes, sure, in that way that things that are impossible because they make no sense are also tricky.

The Most Hyperbolic Thing Anyone Has Ever Written About Any Subject in the History of the Universe

2008-08-18T16:23:00.003-04:00

Thanks to reader Andrew, we know know what it is. It's this, from Richard Justice:

That's why nothing that happens this year in sports will be as emotionally powerful as what The University of Texas has planned for August 30. That's when Vince Young's jersey No. 10 will be retired by the Longhorns.

I'll allow that it's possible -- possible -- that this event will be the most emotionally powerful thing that happens in sports for the week of August 30. After that: you're insane.

EDIT:

A few people have written to suggest that perhaps the article was deliberately over the top, and intended to mock UT fans. Not familiar with the vagaries of UT-related journalism and crowd reaction, I have no idea what to make of this. If it is indeed satirical, my sincere apologies to RJ.

This exchange does occur in the comments section:

Posted by: Ben at August 18, 2008 04:09 PM

The worst part of this article is that Texas alums will be too dense to realize that Richard is "hooking" them. Alas, this is the most significant peril of engaging in irony.

[You got that right. A guy with the Austin American-Statesman ripped me big-time for going overboard. Really? Over the top? That little article? I thought it was understated. Good Lord, those people are dumb.--Richard]

A Bridge Too Far

2008-08-18T15:11:00.003-04:00

Kurt Streeter has an article in the LA Times today about Maury Wills, and his newfound peace after committing to a life of sobriety. It's very nice and optimistic, and Wills seems like a good guy who's overcome a lot.

But then he screws it all up, Streeter does, with shizznit like this:

The fact that Maury Wills is not a Hall of Famer, the fact his greatness is not honored as it should be by the Dodgers, makes a mockery of baseball justice.

Oops.

Wills, career: .281/.330/.331. That's a hefty 88 OPS+. He did steal 586 bases, which is good for 19th all-time. He was caught 208 times. Of course, Rock Raines stole 808, was only caught 146 times, and had a 123 career OPS+, and nobody in the world, for some reason, thinks he deserves to be in the HOF. Vince Coleman stole 752 bases and had an 83 OPS+. Campy was 649-199 with an 89 OPS+. Getting the picture?

Maybe you want to go back and tone down the "mockery of baseball justice" rhetoric a little?

No?

Peruse the record books.

On it.

Wills, you will see, walked from the game with oneleagueMVP award,

Yes, he did, in 1962. And even for the always-fucked-up MVP voting, this was one fucked-up vote. Here. Look at what happened. Look at Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, and Hank Aaron's numbers. Try to argue that that Wills should have won because he had 104 steals, even if he also had a league-average OPS+. League average. (Hell, look at Frank Howard, Tommy Davis, and Stan Musial's stats. WTF?)

"But Ken," you're probably saying, "Wills was a SS. That is an important defensive position." To which I say, "Shut up, you stupid stat geek. Go play with your mom in your mom's basement where you and your mom both live because you're a geek and you have no friends except your mom because you live in her basement! Booooooooo-ya!" Then I high-five my buddy Weebs, who also hates stat geeks, and then I point out that Willie Mays was an exceptionally good CF whose EqA was like 50 points higher and that, FWIW, BP's FRAA has Wills at -7 in 1962.

three World Series rings,

This guy has four. Point: nobody. Also, I wouldn't hype his postseason success too much, since Wills went .244/.289/.282 (!) in 78 postseason AB.

586 stolen bases

Covered that.

and a .281 batting average,

Yet another thing he has in common with Al Bumbry and Pat Tabler.

all garnered after he came to the majors as a 27-year-old rookie.

Make some comparisons.

On it.

Wills stacks up well against many infielders already perched in Cooperstown. Ernie Banks and Rod Carew never made it to the World Series.

Oh my Godding God. Ernie Banks hit more than twice as many HR as a 24 year-old SS in 1954 (44) than Wills did in his entire career (20). Rod Carew had 3000 hits and a career .393 OBP. And you're saying that Wills "stacks up well" against them because they never made the World Series?

You do know baseball isn't like tennis, right? There are pitchers and OF and catchers and third basemen and stuff. You know that, right? And you remember when free agency began? Yes? So you realize that, for example, Ernie Banks never had the opportunity to go anywhere else, really, to try to get a ring? That he was entirely at the mercy of the quality of his team?

Did you think about any of this?

Pee Wee Reese and Luis Aparicio never won an MVP.

Great. Pick two extremely borderline HOFers and point out that they weren't good enough to win an award that is often given to the wrong person. Strong argument.

Ozzie Smith not only had a lesser batting average and fewer stolen bases than Wills, he went without an MVP award and won just a single World Series title.

I know I've said this before. I will say it again. This is one of the dumbest things I have ever read. Yes, he did steal fewer bases than Wills -- 6 fewer. He had 580. You're hanging your hat on six fewer stolen bases?! Well, that's a mighty rickety hat rack, friend, because he was also caught 60 fewer times. As for BA, well, you know how I feel about BA. Ozzie had an 87 OPS+, so 1 lower than Wills.

To sum up:

6 fewer steals
60 fewer caught stealings
1 fewer MVP, though he finished 2nd in 1987
2 fewer single-handedly-won World Series titles, because baseball is a game where individuals can win World Series titles, as I understand it

Oh -- also, Ozzie Smith was, for all intents and purposes, the greatest defensive SS the game has ever seen.

Moreover, few great players put their stamp on baseball as Wills did.

ao;ifga;vrba'rhafgoinv';rpewofvllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

[six days later]

Sorry. I had a massive stroke and passed out on my keyboard.

Defend this.

Dodgers fans of the heady 1960s can still recall the chant that rang through Chavez Ravine when little No. 30 led off first base, ready for another steal.

"Go, Go, Go, Go!"

Never heard that before. I guess I'm ignorant, since Maury Wills put his stamp on baseball like no other player. More than Babe Ruth, or Hank Aaron, or Rickey Henderson, or Jackie Robinson, or Bob Gibson, or Yogi Berra, or Cal Ripken, or Barry Bonds, or Pedro Martinez, or Steve Carlton, or Mariano Rivudsfjindskkkkkkkkkklllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

[11 days later]

My doctor has advised me to cease this line of discussion.

Sisyphus: Rock :: KT : JoeChat

2008-08-13T12:15:00.004-04:00

This hill doesn't look too steep. Let's get a-pushin'!

Joe Morgan: The fact that the Mets lost another game proves to me that the last three outs are sometimes tougher than I've ever thought they were.

English Language: [explodes]

Cole (California): Hey Joe, im a HUGE D'backs fan. By trading for Dunn, did they make a mistaking trading for him since they already have a hitter like him in Mark reynolds?

Hey Cole. KT here. Real quick: Mark Reynolds is nothing like Adam Dunn. Mark Reynolds has a .335 OBP in 223 career games (.324 this year, in 113 games). He has 81 walks in those 223 career games. Adam Dunn has 82 walks so far this year. He has a career OPS of .900. He hits 40 HR a year, every year, like clockwork. He is, and I know Mark Reynolds is young, a far better hitter than Mark Reynolds.

Thanks for your time.

Joe Morgan: They do have a lot of hitters that strike out.

They are also 19th in OPS. Dunn immediately becomes their team leader in OPS. It is a good thing for their team that they got Dunn.

That's one of the problems on that team. But Dunn helps because he will supply power that they also do not have. It will make for a frustrating offense, but he will definitely hit the ball out of the park on a consistent basis.

This marks the first time I have ever supported Joe Morgan using the word "consistent."

Darek (Chicago, Il): Good day Joe. What are the chances of Ken Griffey Jr. playing in 2009 ? Do you see him retiring or returning to Seattle ? He might call it quits if the White sox go on to win the series, but it's a longshot

Joe Morgan: Griffey is in a situation now where he will have to decided as the season goes along.

English Language: [weeps]

He has had some bad stretches, but the last time I talked to him, he told me he felt much better. It's yet to be determined what he's going to end up doing.

KT: I hate to beat a dead horse --

Universe, Speaking from 2006: Too late.

KT: -- but the man asking this question asked you for your opinion on what Ken Griffey, Jr. is going to do next year, and your answer was to say: "It's yet to be determined what he's going to end up doing." Which the guy -- and everyone else -- knew already, which was why he asked for your opinion.

Universe, Speaking from 2006: Dump your financial stocks. They're going to tank.

KT: Now you tell me.

Springfield,Massachussets: will the redsox make it to the world series again

Joe Morgan: Their chances of making it back took a big shot when they traded Manny. I don't think people realize how valuable he was, and how much pressure he took off the other players. Without him hitting behind Big Papi, they will pitch around him in big situations.

KT: There's something poetic about the fact that the night this chat took place, Ortiz hit two 3-R HR in the first inning of a baseball game.

Joe Morgan: I have felt all along that the Cuvs were the best team in the NL,

Me tov.

and the Red Sox in the AL, but now the Angels have proven to be the best by far in the AL. [...]

Angels: 75-44, +63 run differential.
DRays: 72-47, +65
Sox: 70-51, +118

Wins are all that matters, really, but I wouldn't say the Angels are "the best by far."

Mark: Joe, as of right now who is the AL MVP?

Joe Morgan: That's difficult to answer because the season is not over,

KT: The question was "as of right now."

Theoretical Joe Morgan: Right, and it's hard to answer because of what will happen in the future.

KT: But...the question is: right now, who's the MVP. Like, now. At this moment.

TJM: But I can't answer that, because I can't tell the future.

KT: Hang on. Let me try something. What time is it.

TJM: No way to tell.

KT: Because you don't know what time it will be in the future?

TJM: Correct.

KT: Fair enough.

and the last month usually determines that. I keep hearing about Josh Hamilton's great story, but that's not what the MVP award is all about.

Amen. The guy might lead the league in RsBI, but he's also had a ton of RsBI chances, and there's a better candidate on his own team: AL OPS leader Milton Bradley.

Carlos Quentin has kept his team in the mix since Day 1. But there are other guys who should be in the mix. Dustin Pedroia in Boston should get some votes.

Pedroier is having an excellent year. But how about Kevin Youkilis, and his .960 OPS, excellent defense (2 errors last night notwithstanding) and 58 XBH?

Justin Morneau is still the leader of the Twins.

Trent Reznor is still the leader of Nine Inch Nails. Doesn't mean he should be MVP.

Someone like A-Rod could get hot and carry the Yankees to a playoff berth, so he could be in consideration.

Look at the guy's stats and tell me he shouldn't be "in consideration" right now. I don't think he should win, but he is most effing definitely "in consideration."

I would say, as of now, Quentin would get my vote.

Not a bad choice. After all that.

Nick (Brooklyn ,NY): Hey Joe, I just wanted to get your opinion on the Yankees. They've been a little shaky lately since losing Joba, How do you think the last month and a half is going to turn out for them ?

Joe Morgan: They've been shaky in general. The trade that sent Farnsworth has made them unreliable in the 8th inning, and their starting pitching needs to be more consistent, like Mussina has been and Joba was. Their offense hasn't been consistent either. They'll have a good game, a couple of poor games, then another good game--they just haven't been consistent.

Look at how many "consistent"s we have. Here. I'll reprint that, and bold the "consistent"s.

Joe Morgan: They've been shaky in general. The trade that sent Farnsworth has made them consistent in the 8th inning, and their consistent pitching needs to be more consistent, like Consistent has been and Joba consistent. Their consistent hasn't been consistent consistent. They'll have a consistent game, a consistent of consistent consistents, then consistent consistent consistent--consistent consistent consistent't consistent consistent.

Mike (NY,NY): Are the Rays done without Evan Longoria? Do they go out and try something bold like getting Shef or Barry?

Joe Morgan: They definitely need to try to get another hitter. They are shorthanded now, but so are a lot of teams. They have stayed the course, so to speak, without making trades at the deadline that could have brought them another hitter. I hadn't thought of him, but Sheffield would be a great fit for that team.

Joe's Brain: Got in a bunch of "consistents," mentioned Sheff...what else do I have to do today? Oh -- eat. I should eat something.

Nick (Brooklyn, NY): Joe, If you had to make your prediction for who's going to make the AL Wild Card at this point in time, who do you believe it would be?

Joe Morgan: I would pick Boston at this point, but the White Sox and Twins are right there as well. The Rays also have a chance if Boston surges past them.

Joe's Brain: Why do I feel weird?

Joe's Guardian Angel [Tony Perez]: You just made a prediction.

Joe's Brain: Yuck. I hate it. Never again.

Joe Morgan: See you next week, everyone!

Why not, I guess.

Pointless Ode To A Big Donkey

2008-08-13T04:42:00.008-04:00

Another guy doesn't like Adam Dunn. His name is Paul Daugherty, and I'm going to write about his column. It will be a total waste of time for everyone involved, particularly the reader. This territory has been covered one million times. Please, I beg you, do not waste your time reading about another Adam Dunn article.

Instead, I recommend checking out the photos of the fake-or-not Bigfoot of Georgia, arranging wake-up calls for your friends from Hannah Montana, or getting super high and playing with this thing.

Last warning: you have read this article and the corresponding criticism may times before, in slightly different forms. Go away, now.

Dunn Too Much To Afford
Defense, demeanor, salary too costly

The Reds, who are exciting only when they're not playing, traded Adam Dunn to the Arizona Diamondbacks Monday for a 23-year-old Class-A starting pitcher named Dallas Buck who, in another life, died in old Western movies...As insignificant as Dunn was to winning here, 40 homers and 100 RBI don't appear magically every March.

Nobody was winning in Cincinnati. Maybe Dunn was "insignificant to winning" (?) because his team sucked, and Dusty Baker chews a toothpick that makes him dumber. I'll give Daugherty this: it takes some pretty serious ballzos (an Italian word meaning "balls") to point out Dunn's massive productive abilities, and casually dismiss the notion that he might have been helping his team win in the same sentence. I look forward to reading Mr. Daugherty's new book: "Thousands and Thousands of Delicious Slices of Mouth-Watering Pizza That I've Eaten: I Hate Pizza."

Stop reading this, and call your mother or listen to Wowee Zowee or play some table tennis or whatever gets you through the day.

After the club traded Ken Griffey Jr., the brass wanted to see if Dunn would emerge as a clubhouse presence. Apparently, after 11 days, the brass had seen enough.

Why should this apply only to Dunn? Don't get me wrong -- I get why they traded him, though I don't understand why they didn't do it earlier. But let me ask this: did anyone emerge as a clubhouse presence after Griffey was traded? Why should Dunn be singled out for failing to do so? If that's one of the criteria that the Reds value, then shouldn't anyone who didn't emerge as a clubhouse presence be given the same demerits, even if it doesn't end in a trade?

Maybe it's because he's a veteran, and he makes a bunch of money, and you ask a little more of guys like that. I could see that. I'm sure they'll hold Francisco Cordero -- a player with more experience, making just a bit less than Dunn this year -- to the same scrutiny.

This is so boring and such old news. EVERYONE GO SWIMMING I DON'T CARE IF YOU HAVE A POOL OR NOT.

Regardless, Dunn's tax bracket didn't match his production, at least not here. He'd have wanted too much money for what he provided. Dunn was who he was: a guy who could hit a baseball 400 feet more often than almost anyone else, but couldn't produce a two-out RBI single.

Obviously the first thing you do after reading something like this is check out Dunn's numbers this year. Find out how many RBI singles he has with RISP and two outs. In the back of your mind, you get greedy. You're hoping for something like 25 singles in 70 such at bats.

But I'll admit when I'm beat (sort of). You know how many singles Dunn has this year with two outs and runners in scoring position?

One.

Wa-unnnnnn.

Point: Daugher -- fucking no! Wait. Let's look at the rest of Dunn's line with 2 outs and RsISP:

In 37 AB's (pretty small sample, of course): .216 / .453 / .730 (!) (1.183 OPS)
6 HR, 20 RsBI, 15 R, 13 BB

Dude was pretty fucking good when it mattered, if you think that's when it mattered. Now, everyone, take a nap.

He was a big man whose bigness could give the impression he wasn't trying. Baseball wasn't his passion. It was his job. He played it that way.

I can't tell you how beautiful I find this paragraph. It starts almost on Dunn's side, and by the end, we're just straight up slamming him for -- God forbid -- playing baseball like it's his job. Which it is.

"Another day closer to retirement," Dunn said once a few years ago, around the batting cage before a game. That was Dunn. His teammates liked him, but he didn't lead. Laid back should be a character trait, not a career choice. Not when you're making $13 million.

Every attempt to discredit Adam Dunn makes me love the guy even more. He sounds like everyone's Dad.

But, oh, Adam Troy Dunn. You made the cardinal sin of baseball. Instead of using your laid back-ness as a character trait, you used it as a career choice. Didn't you know? It's totally acceptable for laid back to be a career choice if you're making, like, the league average, which is roughly 62 times the national median household salary. But once you're making 13MM/yr? Dude. Character trait only. Big mistake.

Also, by the way, his teammates liked him. Daugherty just told us that. They liked the guy. His mistake, apparently, was that he didn't lead stop reading this and do something productive like balancing your checkbook if people still do that I don't really know.

It's doubtful Arizona will keep him after this season. Dunn will be the prototypical DH in '09, when his adventures in Left Field Land won't be duplicated.

On the off chance that any eccentric billionaires are reading this blog: I will pay one hundred U.S. dollars, and maybe more, for admission to a theme park called Left Field Land. May I make a suggestion, please? There should be a really good fried chicken restaurant in the food court called "The Fowl Pole." Also a giant waterslide into a pool shaped like Ted Williams' torso. And I hope this goes without saying: no women or minorities should be allowed inside Left Field Land.

To be dealt to Arizona, Dunn had to clear waivers. Any other club could have claimed him and the trade would not have been made. None did.

What's that? You think just because Paul Daugherty writes about baseball for a major newspaper, he should have a fundamental understanding of how waiver trades work?

You're so silly. I like you.

Only clubs with records worse than the Diamondbacks could have put in a claim on Dunn that would have made a difference. And most of those teams are out of contention, and have no reason to add Dunn's salary in a hopeless year. In fact, there were several reports that teams with better records than the Diamondbacks also put in claims for Dunn, hoping they might be able to snatch him up. So, more accurately: "Other clubs did claim him and the trade still happened."

Those enamored with numbers couldn't get enough of Adam Dunn. Stat freaks genuflected at the foot of Dunn's on-base percentage, while dismissing his detractors as ill-informed hacks.

Far be it from me to suggest that a columnist, who just demonstrated a basic misunderstanding of how waiver trades work, in the midst of writing an article with such a trite premise that I'm getting tired of making fun of it, might be an ill-informed hack.

Forty Homers! Hundred RBI! Hundred Runs! Look at that man ... Walk! The standard argument was, and is, "How do you replace numbers like those?" We're about to find out.

One thing you have to say about stat geeks: there are no stats that they love more than Runs and Runs Batted In. Excellent research, good sir.

And you know what? Great work all around, guys. I formally invite anyone still reading this to join me in a murder-suicide pact.

NOTE: After reading the article in its entirety, I noticed that a number of commenters pointed out Daugherty's mistake about how trades work after the July 31st deadline. No corrections have been made as of the time this blog went to press, which is not a real thing.

Thanks to reader Mark R. for the article tip.

EDIT: Great note by reader Benjamin, who points out that only NL teams with a worse record than the D-Backs could have blocked a trade to Arizona.

The Worst Political Commentary Of All-Time

2008-08-12T21:05:00.005-04:00

Ken Tremendous calls in to report...

Top of the fifth inning of the Red Sox / Rangers game. Your radio announcers: Joe Castiglione and some other dude.

Joe C: "You look at the Rangers, you figure you're gonna give up runs in bunches, but they're also gonna score runs in bunches."

Other guy: "Kind of like the Bush administration."

Enjoy parsing that one in your nightmares tonight!

I Say We Boycott 24 Hour Fitness

2008-08-12T16:11:00.004-04:00

Anyone seen this ad that they're playing during the Olympics, where a bunch of dudes are trying to play volleyball, and the reveal is that they're being beaten soundly by Kerri Walsh, of the U.S. Women's Beach Volleyball team? Really great stuff, sure, but one line towards the end is so dumb I had to post it on this blog about baseball (or whatever this blog is -- I have no idea anymore).

After defeating the guys on the other side again, the ball rolls up to Kerri's feet. As if to rub it in their faces, she says: "Best seven out of twelve?"

Then in my really mild fantasy, the commercial ends like this:

Guy 1: I'm sorry -- best seven out of twelve?
Guy 2: Are you sure you don't mean, just, first to seven? Or best of thirteen? I mean, that'd be the same thing. You could say either of those things and it would make sense.
Guy 3: Maybe she means best out of seven. That would make sense too.
Kerri Walsh: No, no. Best seven out of twelve. First to seven. Even if it takes twelve games.
Guy 2: Okay, but, no, because, um, what if we tie, 6-6?
Guy 1: What if -- wait, let me think for...okay, yeah -- what if she means, we put our best seven games from a larger twelve game set, and compare that with her best seven games from the same larger set of twelve. Is that what you meant?
Kerri Walsh: [silence]
Guy 2: How many people --
Kerri Walsh: Best seven out of twelve.
Guy 2: How many people laid eyes on that line before it got into the final print of this commercial. Eight? Twenty? Forty, probably, right? At least forty?
Director [off-camera]: Fifty one!
Guy 3: Wow.
Kerri Walsh: I didn't think about...I just...my Mom was...best seven out of twelve.
[three minutes of nothing but Kerri Walsh crying]
Announcer: Twenty Four Fitness! Shove it up your own butthole!

EDIT: Clip is viewable online here. (Thanks to reader Nicholas K.)

Dog Days of August

2008-08-11T17:31:00.003-04:00

Yes, it's true, we haven't been posting much in August. However:

...

I got nothing.

Here's a JoeChat. Short, for some reason, but it counts, people.

Joe Morgan: Seems like the tensions of the pennant races are starting to catch up with teams. Let's get started!

Ken Tremendous: I would have just been so delighted if he had written:

Seems like the tensions of the pennant races are starting to catch up with teams. Let's get retarded!

Sadly, he won't hear that stupid song for about 10 more years, because it will take him that long to buy a tape player, and they no longer release albums on reel-to-reel.

Matt (Philly): Hey Joe, loved seeing you play in Philly. Who do you think wins the NL East?

Joe Morgan: No one can predict that yet,

Anyone can predict that. They might not be correct, but anyone can predict it. Especially someone paid to, essentially, predict things.

but I believe if Rollins starts playing close to his MVP form then the Phillies will win. The Mets play well, but then they get one injured part and they seem to fall apart, but that goes for the Phillies too.

So...that analysis is kind of a wash, then?

But the Phillies have proven they can win on the road, while the Mets and Marlins struggle more on the road. [...]

True...but the Phillies are only 5 games over .500 at home, which seems like it kind of neutralizes the road thing. (They're 3-2 at home since this chat took place, meaning they were only 4 games over .500 when he wrote it.)

Seth (Hershey, PA): Hey Joe. Do the Yankees have any chance of making the playoffs if Joba is out a while? Thanks

Joe Morgan: I think they would still have a chance because I think they would find another starter.

...find him where? Like, there's a starter somewhere in their clubhouse that they didn't know about? Like he's been hiding in Melky Cabrera's locker?

Remember, the Yanklees

Awesome "[sic]". I don't know why that typo tickles me, but it does.

still have a great lineup, and it would have to win games for them...which it can do. If I can put runs on the board, it will make my pitcher more comfortable, so I believe in lineups.

I believe in them, too, Joe. I believe.

The Yankees have a very good lineup.

Multiple Emmys. Multiple.

Todd (Philly): Joe - your best guess - does Milwaukee fold in light of what happened last night? Seems to be a yearly trend (i.e. folding) which must also be concerning....

Joe Morgan: Well what happened last night will not have an affect as to whether they fold or not. Things happen during a season, and that is not the first or last time something like that has happened between teammates. I heard someone say it was a good thing, but I do not think it is ever good to fight your teammates since it divides the clubhouse, as different guys take different sides. But I do not think it will affect whether or not they fold.

I'm going to hand it to Joe on this one. The BrewCrew are undefeated since this chat. Hindsight is 20-13 (like Ted Williams's actual vision), so it's easy to say this, but I think this is the kind of analysis that actually allows the guy to shine. Relatively speaking.

Neal (Providence RI): Now that the Angels have picked up Teixiera do you think they are a great team (like your old Reds teams)? Deep starters, shut down bullpen, hitters that go for power, avg, can bunt...sounds good to me

Joe Morgan's Brain: Stay cool. Stay calm. Just give a regular answer. Then, purchase a plane ticket to whatever "Providence RI" is. Find Neal. Shadow him in a dark trench coat. When he is alone, pounce. Hold a knife to his throat. Show him a team picture of the 1975 Reds. Say something like, "This is a team. These men are champions. No one will ever compare, you son of a bitch." Slit his throat. Change clothes, burn them, get back on the plane, fly home...before anyone knows you're gone.

Joe Morgan: Well I will not compare them to my Reds team, because my Reds team, in my opinion, was an All-Time great and we do not know that about the Angels yet. But I do think the addition makes them the World Series favorite because of everything you said. But they have not won yet, so I cannot compare them on that level.

Joe Morgan's Brain: Well done. Now enact the plan. Wrap this up.

Joe Morgan: Going back to the Brewers incident, I thought Ned Yost did a very good job handling it with the media and keeping it under wraps. Once you start talking, it opens up a can of worms. Sorry for some of the technical problems in the middle of the chat. We'll chat again next week.

Sadly, Neal will not be around to see it.

I believe that kid from those live SportsCenter ads just said:

2008-08-09T15:26:00.001-04:00

"You gotta stay dehydrated out here."

10 Ft. Pole Dept.

2008-08-08T18:50:00.000-04:00

Oh goodness.

Sorry, everyone.

Quick Question

2008-08-07T13:09:00.004-04:00

Is there anything more boring, in all of sports, than the Brett Favre saga?

Anything?

Some candidates:

1. Watching the second quarter of an NBA preseason game in slow motion.
2. Watching NASCAR qualifying through your neighbor's window, using the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.
3. A press conference where the Minnesota Wild announce the hiring of a new assistant trainer, and the mics don't work.
4. Reading Peter King's thoughts on Starbucks.
5. SportsCenter. (N.B. may not count as "sports.")

Fremulon Merchandise

2008-08-05T18:32:00.005-04:00

Fire Joe Morgan is happy to announce that we've finally brokered a deal with Fremulon Insurance's legal team, wherein FJM now has the rights to distribute the Fremulon "unity diamond" logo and Fremulon merchandise. It was a pretty intense negotiation, as I'm sure you can all imagine.

In the end, Fremulon's in-house attorneys agreed that, despite Ken Tremendous's frequent complaints about management and senseless business trips to Buenos Aires, FJM had, in fact, done a fine job of publicizing the Fremulon name. Thanks to Herb Plaam for making this all possible.

Available here.

Remember, these things are customizable, so you can change the color of the shirt, or the kind of shirt or whatever. Unfortunately you can not change the name "Zazzle."

Analysis

2008-08-01T11:46:00.008-04:00

You're a ChiSox fan. Against all odds, your team is +76 in run differential and leading the AL Central. Your GM, who can be a dunderhead sometimes, made excellent moves last off-season, and got you Carlos Quentin and Nick Swisher, and even though Swish is underperforming a bit, somehow Jermaine Dye is having his best year, and Jim Thome is putting up an .890 OPS, and you're getting some great innings out of John Danks and Gavin Floyd, and Scott Linebrink is making bloggers everywhere look stupid since we all thought getting him was a terrible move.

In short, things are going really well.

Then, at the trade deadline, your GM goes out and gets: Ken Griffey, Jr.

Who's good. Who might make your team better. But who is 38. And gets hurt a lot.

And then Ken Williams says: We're going to play him in CF, and maybe move Swisher to first, and (presumably) bench Paul Konerko (?). Or something?

Huh.

Needless to say, if you're you, you're a little confused by this. At least you're wary. Junior hasn't played CF since like 1965, and is Konerko going to DH against lefties or something? And how would Konerko take it if he's benched since he makes $12m a year through 2010, because, again, your GM can be a dunderhead sometimes? And what in the world is a defensive OF of Dye, Griffey, and Quentin going to look like?

In times like these, you, a ChiSox fan, have only one place to turn for analysis. There is only one place you go to get the real insider "here's what this means" and "here's what we can expect" breakdown.

You turn to the Trib. You turn...to Mike Downey.

Ken Griffey Jr. in a Sox Uniform? I'm Stoked

He's stoked, you guys. He and his boys are psyched. Dude. Bro. Seriously? I'm fucking stoked about this. Griffbones is going to crush it.

I zipped over to the Web sites as fast as my fingers could type Thursday to find out if it was fiction or fact.

I forgot I am a journalist and don't have to get information the way everyone else does, so instead of talking to my colleagues or calling someone in the Reds' FO or something, I "zipped" over to the "Web sites" as fast as "my fingers could type." Because I have never used a computer, and don't know how to, and had to ask my 5 year-old nephew what someone who used a computer would say if they wanted to tell people they had used a computer.

Cincinnati Enquirer, 9:47 a.m.: "Reds trade Griffey."

Not might trade. No "trade Griffey?" with a question mark. Did trade.

And to the White Sox yet!

And to the White Sox yet! Say boys, didja hear? Junior Griffey is to be a Chicagoan! Well slap my thigh and call me a dirigible! Roosevelt has a plan for the Krauts, by Joe! Extree, extree! Say, what news from the coast? Harvard defeats Cal in the Rose Bowl! The Maine is lost! Thousands gather to see new "Talking Pictures" -- the marvels of science never cease!

The Tribune, 9:36 a.m.: "Griffey headed to Sox."

Sorry. Just want to make sure I have the timeline correct.

8:?? or 9:?? AM: The Sports- and Editorial Departments of the Chicago Tribune, where Mike Downey works, learn of the impending trade of Ken Griffey, Jr. to the White Sox.

9:?? AM: Someone at Mike Downey's own paper begins to write up an article about how Ken Griffey Jr. has been traded to the White Sox. Downey, presumably, naps at his desk.

9:36 AM: Mike Downey's own paper, the Chicago Tribune, then posts the article, on its Web sites, about the Griffey trade. Downey: still napping.

9:47 AM: The Cincinnati Enquirer posts an article about the Griffey trade on its Web sites.

Somewhere around 10:?? AM: Downey awakens, wipes drool from face. Is informed somehow that Ken Griffey, Jr. has been traded to the White Sox, a team that plays in the town where he works as a journalist.

10:02 AM: At a complete loss as to how to pursue this information, so as to ascertain its validity, Downey turns on his computer for the first time ever. Has to go through a series of steps to create a Tribune user name and password. Sees confusing screen about software updates ready for download. Calls IT.

10:28 AM: Tribune IT guy Derek Greenhorn finishes installing Windows update on Downey's computer, tells Downey that he can now access the internet. Downey stares at him blankly.

11:56 AM: Greenhorn finishes an accelerated tutorial on "surfing the web." Downey is pretty sure he has a handle on it.

11:57: Downey tries to, in his own words, "smurf the World Wide Weird," ends up erasing his own hard drive and those of the 6 people closest to him. Tribune server crashes. Smoke pours out of Downey's computer. Downey realizes he is hungry and heads down to get himself a personal pan pizza and a tall glass of beer from a neighborhood restaurant while Greenhorn rushes to save the Tribune computer system.

2:18 PM: Downey smurfs the Weird under close supervision from Greenhorn and two Chicago-based FBI agents whose domestic terror-alert system has mis-identified Downey's computer's IP address as the possible epicenter of an internet-based terror attack.

2:19 PM: Downey does a Google-brand World Wide Weird seach protocol for "Cincinnati red baseball player Ken Griffey Jr was he traded? please help me internet I've never done this before am I doing this right? oh God, well, here goes nuttin'!", hits "shift," then "delete," then -- sure that he's figured out the right move here -- "help," then finally "return," and gazes blankly at his results. He then subsequently zips over to the Enquirer sports page, and sees that at 9:47, they published an article about the Griffey trade.

2:55 PM: After another brief nap, Downey wonders aloud whether his paper, the Chicago Tribune, has posted anything about the Griffey trade. So after a quick refresher course with Derek Greenhorn over in IT, who is now actively posting his resume on Monster.com because, in his own words, "I can't work with these boneheads for one more second or I'll kill myself," Downey figures out how to zip over to the Trib Web sites, and sees that at 9:36 AM -- several minutes earlier than the Enquirer posted their story, the Trib had posted a newsflash about Griffey being traded to the White Sox.

"Hot dog!" says Downey, to no one, as he munches on his now-cold personal pan pizza. "I'm going to write an article about this amazing day I'm having!"

Excellent news. I was stoked.

Oh, that Ken Williams, always something up his sleeve. If not an ace, then a king.

Or a 38.7 year-old oft-injured corner OF with a 103 OPS+. So, like, maybe the 9 of clubs.

Ken Griffey Jr., in center field at the Cell?

Yeah. Scary, right?

A cause to rejoice—set off the fireworks.

Oh. You went that way with it.

If you can get a guy who has more home runs than Frank Robinson, Mark McGwire, Harmon Killebrew, Reggie Jackson, Mike Schmidt, Mickey Mantle, Ernie Banks and Lou Gehrig, hallelujah and amen.

Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds: also available. Omar Vizquel has more hits than Reggie Jackson, Joe Morgan, Mickey Mantle, and Enos Slaughter. Maybe they should pick him up, too.

I began to picture it.

Ball after ball dropping in front of Jr. Line drives that Swisher would've caught easily splitting the gap for run-scoring doubles. Griffey running back and to his right, then pulling up lame as Nick Punto rounds second and thinks about trying to score...

Griffey in between Carlos Quentin and Jermaine Dye in the outfield?

OK, so maybe it wouldn't be the defensive equivalent of Reed Johnson in left, Jim Edmonds in center and Kosuke Fukudome in right, but it'll do. (Dye has been playing a mean right field, in fact.)

Griffey in CF won't be the equivalent of Tribune IT guy Derek Greenhorn in CF.

Ah, but Griffey right behind Quentin and Dye in the batting order? I like the sound of that.

Well, he'll definitely be better offensively than Brian Anderson. You've got that going for you. But to reiterate: 103 OPS+. Oft-injured. Center Field.

Followed by Jim Thome sixth, Paul Konerko or Nick Swisher seventh and Joe Crede (as soon as he comes back) eighth? Pitchers will swallow their seeds and gum.

The line-up is better. But this is not Manny Ramirez. It's 38.7 year-old Junior Griffey. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Could this be true?

I don't know, man. Zip over to a few more web sites and see what's up.

Uh, oh:

ESPN, 10 a.m.: "Griffey to ChiSox: Will He Agree?"

Mike Downey, a sportswriter for one of the biggest media outlets in one of the biggest media centers in the world, is getting his insider info from web sites. Like I do.

Who says bloggers and the MSM don't have anything in common?

Major League Baseball's authorized site, 10:20 a.m.: "Griffey to White Sox, pending OK."

Who refers to MLB.com as "Major League Baseball's authorized site?" That's like saying, "You know what my favorite TV show is? Emergency Room."

Oh, no.

Junior won't go? Say it ain't so!

You are 1,000 years old.

I was salivating. A pickup of a 38-year-old outfielder doesn't usually excite me. But gimpy old Edmonds hasn't done too badly for the Cubs, has he?

Fair enough. Not a good predictor of how Griffey will do -- at all -- but fair enough.

Now you're telling me a whopper is on the line but could slip off the hook? Ken Griffey Jr., a man who needs only eight more hits to have as many as Ted Williams?

If you think about this for a second, you will realize that this is not a good reason to want a guy on your team. Because it means he is old. What you want is a guy about whom you could say: "He's currently in his prime, and his prime is comparable to Ted Williams's prime" or something. This is like saying, "I want Dr. Grzlickson to perform my surgery. He has performed more than 1000 surgeries in his 82 years as a practicing doctor."

A man with more hits than Joe Morgan, Ryne Sandberg and Jim Rice?

See above.

What a sight in a White Sox suit he would be. Only 17 more hits and he can catch Nellie Fox. Only 31 more and he can catch Luis Aparicio.

Ugh. See above, again.

But wait?

He might refuse to come?

Who thought it was a good idea to print an article that details every mundane twist and turn in Mike Downey's personal musings on whether the Griffey trade would get done, without any analysis or insight into (a) what it will mean or (b) how it was accomplished or (c) any quotes from people involved or (d) anything remotely resembling entertainment?

Griffey has a right to turn down any deal to a new team? He might stay in his hometown of Cincy instead of favoring us with his presence here in Chi-town?

Yes. We know all of this. It happened in the past, and then did not hold up the trade. This is like having someone recount their dream to you and then tell you, unnecessarily, at the end, that it was all a dream.

I checked the sites one more time.

Seriously, man -- do you not understand that you, a professional journalist, have access to the same sources that are giving these reporters at other papers and web sites the information that they are then using to write these articles? If I were the President, and I wanted to know if the Senate had confirmed my choice for a Supreme Court Justice, I might try calling a Senator on the phone instead of refreshing Drudge every five minutes.

Cincinnati.com, 10:32 a.m.: "Report: Griffey OKs deal."

There were comments from readers, presumably Reds fans, as if Junior definitely was a goner.

Pretty clearly the first time he has ever looked at a web site. "And there are readers' comments at the bottom! And advertisements for products! And best of all, I won a free iPod!"

"Good luck, Griffey," wrote one. "I hope you can play in a World Series." (He never has, so as Frank Thomas might put it, join the club.)

But was it a mirage? A false alarm? Would it be a big tease for Sox fans to come this close to having Griffey on their side?

This article has taken on the timbre of a grandpa recounting the story of the Great Griffey Trade of '08 to his 4 year-old grandson as the grandson drifts off to sleep. Which the readers of the article, coincidentally, have begun to do as well.

I went to Fox Sports' site to see what was up.

I decided to insert yet another middleman between me, a professional sports journalist, and the sports journalism information I needed.

Fox had been a source for that "Griffey OKs deal" report.

I am bored.

"OK, I'll Go."

That was the headline I found. Griffey approved a deal to the Sox, the story claims as fact.

This is torture. This is like, you get on the elevator at work and you see a guy you kind of know, and he says, "Hey Ken." And you go, "Hey Jim. What'd you do this weekend?" and Jim says, "Well. When I left work on Friday I realized I was hungry. Which is odd, since I had just had a granola bar like 30 minutes earlier. But, nonetheless, there I was: hungry. So I walked East down Fremont Street about .3 miles until I came upon Gary's Deli. I went inside. I looked at all my options, food-wise, and settled on a bagel. I took it to the counter and paid for it with cash. The total was $1.97 after tax. So I took the bagel and I walked to the parking lot where my car, a 1998 Camry, was parked. Inserting the key into the lock, I gained access to my car, got into the driver's side, started the engine, shifted into 'drive,' and headed for home..." And the door opens on your floor and you run away.

A Junior achievement award for Ken Williams and company.

Who doesn't love a good pun?

Awaiting confirmation, I tried to conjure up an image of Junior in the Sox clubhouse.

"I drove the 12.8 miles to my house, parked the car in my driveway, exited the Camry, locked the doors, and headed inside..."

Would he dye his hair platinum blond like A.J. Pierzynski? Grow a goatee and dye it blond like Juan Uribe and Bobby Jenks? Wear his facial hair a different way every day like Swisher?

Or would he simply be good old, classy, mature, solid-citizen, credit-to-the-game Ken Griffey Jr., an asset to anybody's team?

These are some fucking exciting musings.

A clock is ticking and they still claim Junior is on his way.

I'll believe it when I see him. What was that song Pierzynski and the guys played during the 2005 World Series?

"Don't Stop Believing."

OK, A.J., play it again.

And that's how it ends.

You know. Baseball journalism.

Why Not Just Call It "Will This Happen: Yes or No"?

2008-07-30T18:41:00.004-04:00

"Oddsmakers" today on PTI. Stat boy pro tempore Luke Russert throws out the first one: "Chances the Twins take first place tonight in the AL Central."

Okay. The Twinks are 1/2 game out and they're playing the ChiSox, so the question is basically "chances the Twins win tonight." Your pitching matchup is Gavin Floyd vs. Livan Hernandez. For what it's worth, Vegas has the Twins as very slight favorites. Let's see how Tony and Mike break down tonight's game:

Tony: Game's being played in Minnesota.

Mike: Yes.

Tony: They've won two in a row, so they've got momentum.

Mike: Yes.

Tony: They're a pretty amazing team, organizationally, in the sense they got rid of Johan Santana, and still a half game out. I think the Twins are ahead of almost every team in baseball in that regard, so I will go as high as 100%.

Mike: They have to be smarter, Tony; they don't have a trillion dollars to spend like your boys the Yankees and the Sox. They don't have that kind of size market, and they do a great job. They've also had about nine "break points" if you will this year, where they could have gone ahead of the White Sox and they failed in every one of those. They may do it next week.

Tony: So you're going against?

Mike: Tonight, I'm going with the White Sox who blew a four run lead last night -- should've won that game. White Sox win tonight -- not projecting beyond that -- so I'm saying a 0% chance.

I'm not sure exactly what TK is saying. I think he believes that the Twins are ahead of almost every team in baseball in the coveted category "getting rid of Johan Santana." Makes sense, considering the Marlins and Astros also got rid of him -- hey, sometimes you can't beat everyone.

Wilbon likes the ChiSox chances in part because they blew a four run lead last night, but should've won anyway. He is 100% certain that they will win tonight, but steadfastly refuses to make any predictions beyond tonight. Because, really, that would be ridiculous.

The game is called Oddsmakers. This is the one predictive game that makes sense to me: "what are the chances?" It's based on the simple notion that, obviously, we can't know for sure what's going to happen in the sports world, but we can make educated guesses about the likelihood of certain events. These two guys destroy that whole idea in the span of 40 seconds.

I know, I know. It's entertainment. It's designed for one guy to stand on each side of an argument. People say dumb things all the time, and there's no point in picking on them. Yesterday I blamed ourselves for creating this blog, and having to post stuff like this. But you guys continued to read, so today I'm blaming each and every one of you.

FJM Sensitive Man Award for July

2008-07-30T01:33:00.003-04:00

goes to Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com, for this inexplicable slam on a disabled man:

Credit Donovan for not shying away from the subject or pleading ignorance to how it works. He's the highest-paid coach in college basketball, a future Hall of Famer with more national titles than Def Leppard's drummer has arms.

Here's what I imagined happened in the Rick Allen household tonight:

Rick Allen: Honey, I'm home.

Rick Allen's Wife: How was your day, dear?

Rick Allen: Great. I spent the morning at the Raven Drum Foundation, which as you know, since you're my wife, is a charity I started in Malibu to encourage kids with disabilities to try to overcome them and lead normal, productive lives.

Rick Allen's Wife: That's wonderful. Would you like some dinner?

Rick Allen: Sure. But you know, after a long day of helping children overcome their disabilities, I think what I'd like to do is just sit down, relax, and read some articles about sports -- just to take my mind off of the whole idea of "disabilities," you know?

Rick Allen's Wife: Absolutely.

Rick Allen: That's why I love sports journalism. It's totally "me-neutral," you know? It's a chance just to forget about the fact that I only have one arm. Let's see here...oh. Perfect. An article about Summer basketball camps. No chance of encountering any unpleasantness here.

(one minute later)

Rick Allen: Oh come on!

A Journalistic Highlight

2008-07-29T15:33:00.003-04:00

Daniel Oshinsky of the Rocky Mountain News reports from Beijing that FJM is inaccessible in China.

I find this to be excellent.

What's the matter, China? Can't handle EqA? Big fans of bunting over there? Love Livan Hernandez, hate Johan Santana?

We will not stop blogging until every Chinese citizen has the right to read curse-filled nonsense about Dusty Baker. And that is a kind-of promise!

I Hate It When People Say Things

2008-07-29T04:34:00.005-04:00

Every day 100,000,000 people say a combined 4,000,000,000 meaningless things about baseball. (Those numbers are exact, by the way.) Harping on any one of these things said seems just as meaningless as saying it in the first place, but, we made the mistake of creating this blog and everything. It's our fault, really.

Brian Sabean was on 710 ESPN radio today, and was asked who he liked to win the National League pennant. A two-minute response in which he didn't pick a team ended with the following: "One thing we've learned: any [team that] wins the first round is dangerous, and can win the World Series."

Oh really, Sabes? Let's take a look at some recent teams, and see just how right you are.

2007 Boston Red Sox: Won in the first round; won the World Series
2007 Philadelphia Phillies: Lost in the first round; did not win the World Series
2006 Oakland Athletics: Won in the first round; did not win the World Series, but were dangerous, and could have won the World Series if they had not lost in the ALCS
2006 Los Angeles Dodgers: Lost in the first round; did not win the World Series
2005 Chicago White Sox: Won in the first round; won the World Series (were also dangerous)
2005 Kansas City Royals: Did not win in the first round (missed playoffs); did not win World Series

Holy shit -- he's right.

But it's so mindbending...any of the four teams who win in the first round can win the World Series? And they're all dangerous? It's so counter-intuitive that I feel like we're lucky that we've learned that at all! How could it be that teams still competing in the playoffs have a better chance of winning the World Series than teams that have been eliminated? Goddam, this is like trying to read The Sound and the Fury for the first time.

EPILOGUE

Okay, I've spent the last six hours really deep in thought. I did some meditating, some breathing exercises, took like 6 Provigil, ate about 9 ounces of $800/oz. ginseng, and roughly 3/4 of a dose of teonanácatl. I put Sabean's quote on the wall and just stared at until I was able to come up with some other Truths. Here's what I came up with:

1. Any team that makes the playoffs is dangerous and can win the World Series.
2. Any team that wins the second round is dangerous and can win the World Series.
3. Any team that wins the World Series is dangerous and can win the World Series.
4. Any team that is within about 10 games of first place at the end of August is dangerous and can win the World Series.
5. All of the matter and all of the void is connected in a way that is beautiful, terrifying, and perfect.
6. Brian Sabean signed Barry Zito to a $126MM contract.

JoeChat Marathon

2008-07-27T16:44:00.002-04:00

It is one of the rules of blogging that the more individual posts you make, the higher the traffic will be to your blog. Unfortunately for the investors of firejoemorgan.com, (Bear Stearns, Countrywide Home Mortgage, Qwest, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, KBR, The National Iranian Oil Company, and Fremulon Insurance), we don't really understand those rules. Thus, I am now going to combine the last like four JoeChats into one monster "Best of July" JoeChat that will be long, dense, and unfun for everyone.

Ready?! Awesome!

Joe Morgan: Last week's interleague play, with the White Sox and the Cubs, was very telling. Home field means a lot; both teams were much more comfortable at home. I never thought home field was such a big deal when it came to good teams, but I found out differently.

I'm not going to make it. I'll never get through the marathon JoeChat. Go on without me. Tell my wife I love her.

Frank (Rockmart, GA): Do you think the NL East is wide open, or will the Phillies find some consistency soon and begin to pull away from the pack?

Since right away I can tell everyone ignored my suggestion to stop JoeBaiting, let's go with the flow and count the JoeBaits. This "consistency" is: 1.

Joe Morgan: I think it is wide open because all the team have weaknesses.

No perfect teams. Teams have weaknesses. 1975. Tony Perez. There: I just gave you all the answers you will find in this JoeChat.

The Phillies starting pitching needs help, as does the Mets' pitching and they need consistent offense as well. And the Braves I just cannot read; they lose close games and are not consistent.

It's amazing, isn't it, folks? We're like 4 years in to this grand experiment we call "JoeChats," and the issues we face are the exact same ones we faced in 2005. Consistency, indeed.

It is wide open and the team that plays well on the road will win it. The Marlins are a group of young guys, who is they get hot will be able to stay on a streak longer than the other team because they are so young.

[yikes]

Frank : The home team in the Rays-Red Sox series has consistently come out on top.

2.

Do you look for that trend too continue? Are the Rays going to the World Series?

Joe Morgan: I think it will continue. Like I said, it seems like home field has become more and more important. It seems like teams just play better at home. [...]

A fact somehow unique to baseball in 2008.

Brad(NM): Hey Joe..not many are talking about what a great season Oakland's having due to the success of the Rays and Cards and such. Do you give them a chance at winning the West? Where does their pitching staff rank in the league?

Joe Morgan: They have a chance, because when you look at the Angels their offense is down.

Side note: you know what's amazing? The Angels and A's, three weeks after Joe wrote this, have almost the exact same run differential, and the Angels are 12 games up. The Cubbies are +72 over the Brewcrew and they're tied. Pretty incredible.

If they had better offense they would be farther ahead at this point.

A fact somehow unique to the 2008 Angels, apparently.

So I think the A's have a great shot at winning the West, unless the Angels start hitting.

Angels: still not hitting that well. A's: almost no chance at winning the West.

You are right that the A's are flying under the radar, and that may be because the Rays have a bit of a better team and are leading their division. But the A's have the tools to get it done.

Hindsight = fun.

Kent Remendeaux (Oscenns City):

I'm flattered.

Hi Joe, love your work. Can Delmon Young start hitting more consistently

3.

and help the Twins overtake the White Sox and hold off the Tigers?

Joe Morgan: I have to admit I am shocked at his lack of power and production. Usually when a guys [sic] has a good first year you expect them [sic] to get better. Of course he had to adjust, in leaving Tampa, but we are far enough into the season that he should be coming around. There is something missing there right now. I still think he is one of the next stars of the AL, but I thought he would be further along at this point.

PECOTA's 50th percentile had Young at .288/.323/.445. 15 HR and 32 2B. Projected totals: .297/.338/.400. 6 HR, 29 2B. So, his HR numbers are down, but otherwise it's pretty close. And remember: he's 22.

The Twins will need him if they are to catch the White Sox. As far as the Tigers, they are on a thin rope, because if they have another bad stretch they are finished.

Can you be "on" a "thin rope?" You can be on a tightrope, and you can be on thin ice. I'm not sure you can be on a thin rope.

I am watching Gladiator right now. The accent work in this Oscar™-winning movie is truly terrible. Joaquin Phoenix sounds like a geeky high school kid reciting Monty Python sketches.

Joe Morgan: That is all the time I have for today. Thank you for all the questions. We'll chat again next week.

No. You will chat with me again right fucking now.

Joe Morgan: I think the addition of CC Sabathia to the Brewers will be the big difference-maker in the NL Central. If you're the Cubs, you need to fear the Brewers more than anyone else in that division. They may need to make a move in response.

Kudos to Big Joe on this one. Unless the Harden trade had already happened, and he just hadn't heard about it.

Blueberry Johnson (NY): Hey Joe! Any opinions on allstar selections? Biggest snubs?

I am going to label "Blueberry Johnson" JoeBait #4, because: Blueberry Johnson?!

Joe Morgan: I would say there are a few things that jump out at me. Ian Kinsler probably deserves to start over Pedroia, though Perdroia has had an excellent hot streak recently. [...]

"Perdroia?" It's pronounced: "Pedroierr."

Sam (Lake Bluff, IL): Joe, how many more wins does Sabathia give the Brewers? I know he was the biggest difference maker on the market, but how much of a difference does he really make in the standings?

Joe Morgan: It's hard to say that he'll make a difference of, say, ten games, because even if he goes 10-0, someone starting in his spot would have won at least a few of those games. I think his advantage is psychological--he lets the Brewers know that they can match up pitcher for pitcher with anyone. It energizes the whole Brewer franchise.

He also strikes people out and pitches well. That's another advantage he gives the Brewers. Seriously -- how did this movie win an Oscar? It's like a community theater Shakespeare play with one good actor and decent special effects.

Steve (New York): Joe, you did the Yankee game last Sunday, what were your thoughts on Joba Chamberlain?

Joe Morgan: He threw the ball well. I saw a guy who was quickly gaining major league starting experience. You have to remember, the Red Sox make hitting adjustments well, and aside from that one bad inning, he controlled them very well.

Questions for learning:

1. According to the text, how did Joba Chamberlain throw the ball?

(A. "Well.")

2. How do the Red Sox make hitting adjustements?

(A. "Well.")

3. How did Joba Chamberlain, aside from one bad inning, control the Red Sox?

(A. "Well.")

Corey: (Philadelphia, PA): Joe: What do you think of the Braves decision to put Francoeur in AA for a couple of games? Do you think Francoeur deserved the benefit of the doubt and just try to fix it at the big league level, rather than just being demoted that quickly?

Joe Morgan: I cannot go along with that decision to send him to the minor leagues. Jeff Francouer lives in that area,

Not a consideration.

has played well for that team for the last three years,

Kind of a consideration.

and drove in a hundred runs last year.

Maybe a consideration, in that he has been a pretty good hitter, but RsBI isn't maybe the best way to show that.

You have guys like Ryan Howard and David Ortiz batting under .200 for much of the season.

The last time Ortiz was under .200 was May 2. He followed that up with a month of 1.026 OPS. On the day he was sent down, Francoeur had a .287 OBP and was 7-his last-52. And he's 24. Sending him down to work on his swing wasn't an insane idea.

I did not like the idea of doing that because it messes with a guy psychologically. You have a hitting instructor in the big leagues--work it out with him!

You also have the minor leagues. Where players can practice baseball without harming the part of the organization that matters.

Andy (St. Louis): Joe, you said the race between the Cubs and Brewers is going to be great to watch, but have you forgotten about the Cardinals?! They are resilient and find ways to win. Ankiel is hot, Pujols is back, and the starting pitching has been excellent compared to original expectations. Do you think they have any chance of contending for the division crown or wild card?

Joe Morgan: You're right, the Cardinals are in that mix. [blah blah blah] We're talking about Sabathia, but if he gets hot and starts hitting like he did last year, that will only give the Brewers yet another shot in the arm.

I am assuming that he is saying that if Sabathia starts hitting "like he did last year," that will help the Brewers. For the record, last year, in a very telling sample size of 3 AB, Sabathia had 2 hits, for a very significant .667 BA. These are important facts that totally matter due to their significance in terms of mathematics, and are highly predictive because of how significant they are.

Three data points is only two more than 1, which is the absolute minimum number of data points a guy can have. (For the ever-growing record, CC is .264/.278/.472 in 53 career AB, which is pretty darned good for a pitcher, and pretty darned irrelevant in terms of the Brewers' chances this year.)

Gladiator is over and I am now watching Airplane II, which -- no joke -- has better acting than Gladiator.

Ben Morgan (Omaha, NE): Joe, as a White Sox fan I'm looking over my shoulder at the Twins and beginning to be a little worried. For a while I kept myself calm by convincing myself they weren't for real and they would cool off but how long can I use this defense mechanism? I think the Sox are for real but I'm starting to think this is more than just a hot streak for Minnesota. Thoughts?

The Twins are kind of a smoke-and-mirrors team. They're in the middle of the pack of most offensive and pitching categories, they're dead last in the AL in HR, and are only +21 in run differential. They've started to come back down to earth, predictably, since this chat took place, going 3-6 in their last nine games. Detroit has a better run differential, but are 4 games behind the Twinkies -- my guess is, as time goes on, here, Minnesota idles or fades, and Detroit is the team challenging Chicago for the division.

Joe's guess is: Ron Gardenhire is awesome and every team could win but who knows but we'll see but if things go wrong for a team then they won't win but maybe Chicago?

Joe Morgan: I agree, you should give Minnesota a lot of credit, especially Ron Gardenhire, the manager. He knows how to handle young players and they play hard for him. When I watched Minnesota play last night against Boston, I realized that this team is for real. It's going to go down to the wire with the White Sox and Twins. Detroit could be in it, but if anything goes wrong, they are finished. But I still like Chicago to win the division.

See?

Joe Morgan: In closing, I have never fel that the All-Star game winners should get home field advantage in the Series.

I agree.

It's an exhibition and not fair to the team in the Series.

Amen.

The best way to do it is to alternate it year by year.

...sorry?

That's the best way to do it? Randomly-declared oscillation?

Not, you know, who had the best record? Which might make teams play hard all the way through the end of the season? Which might make otherwise meaningless games in late September incredibly meaningful? Which means the greatest prize would meritocratically be awarded to the team who performed the best?

The best way to do it is to ignore the results of the sport you are playing in favor of a metronomic inevitability?

'kay.

This is more of a made for TV thing, and yet we still ended up with a tie once. I never lost an All-Star game when I was playing, so I don't think that should be the way you judge home-field advantage.

Yorps. This last part doesn't even make sense.

Let's keep it rolling!!!!!

Buzzmaster: We've got Joe!

Still!

Jacob (FL): Joe, you gotta feel for Dan Uggla after his performance last night. Could that affect him for the rest of the season?

Uggla since the break: 1-25, for a tidy .332 OPS. This is almost certainly the result of making those errors (which ended up not affecting the outcome of the game in any way) and not a random 25-AB fluctuation in the middle of the season. Because MLB players are frail little babies who never recover from things like non-game-affecting errors in stupid exhibition contests.

Joe Morgan: I definitely feel for him. I certainly hope it does not affect him, but we (meaning fans and media) will have an effect on how he handles the rest of the season. If we continue to bring it up and talk about it, it will be tough for him to deal with. The last error was a tough ball, as it jumped up at him, but it's obvious he was nervous out there, and understandably. It showed in his play.

I don't know. Maybe he was nervous. But maybe he just had a shitty night. He's never been Orlando Hudson out there at second. Give him a break.

These are now "comments" instead of "jokes." I think I'm dehydrated. I need a Joe I.V.

Chris. P (NY): What are the Chances of Bonds being a Yankee? Cashmen could of said No but he didnt. How well can Bonds do at Yankee Stadium?

I hate to be "this guy," but it delights me how many dumbdumb errors Chris P. (NY) made. He doesn't even know how to spell the name of his own GM. Because the Yankees are about to swarm all over everyone and win the East as Manny Ramirez claims that the Red Sox have never respected him and that they should give him $40m more when he asks out of a game against the Yankees in late July with a mysterious knee ailment, I am going to exact petty revenge by reprinting Chris. P (NY)'s question with [sic]s.

Chris. [sic] P [sic] (NY): What are the Chances [sic] of Bonds being [sic] a Yankee? Cashmen [sic] could of [sic] said No [sic] but he didnt [sic]. How well can [sic] Bonds do at Yankee Stadium?

God, that felt good.

Joe Morgan: As great a player as he has been, you can't say how well he would do this year because he hasn't had spring training, hasn't had live pitching to hit against, and hasn't played period. [...] I'm not sure why Barry wants to play, since playing less than half a season would make him a hired gun, and his place in the history of the game is better than a hired gun.

This...this is why we do what we do.

Barry Bonds shouldn't come back this year...because it would tarnish his reputation?

Barry Bonds.

Being a "hired gun" would tarnish.

his repu.

tation.

Here are things that could tarnish Barry Bonds's reputation, at this point:

1. Committing double murder of Tom Brokaw and Dame Judi Dench
2. Defecting to Afghanistan, joining Taliban, leading Afghan baseball team to Gold medal over American team in Beijing
3. Running high-end dog fighting ring where the dog fights take place on Princess Diana's grave
4. Inventing time travel but instead of traveling back in time to kill Hitler using it to go back to 1989 in order to start taking steroids earlier than he originally did

Things that will not make a motherfletching dent in Barry Bonds's reputation:

1. Being labeled a "hired gun" by playing for the Yankees

Joe Morgan: I think Clint Hurdle and Terry Francona managed the game very well last night, trying to win the ballgame instead of just making sure the players got in. Winning should be the first priority. Thanks a lot, everyone!

Thank you! Let's keep going!!!!

Andy (Grand Rapids, MI): Do you think the Tiger's can still win the Division?

Joe Morgan: Well they can still win it but they cannot have anymore 4-5 games losing streaks. They are on a thin line right now.

Can you be "on a thin line?" You can be on thin ice, you can be on a tightrope, there can be a thin line between love and hate, there can be a thin blue line or a thin red line, you can be on the red line, the orange line, the green line, or the blue line, but I'm not sure you can be "on a thin line."

The Marlins are leading the Cubbies 6-5 in the 6th (it is now the next day -- that's how long this JoeChatMarathon is) and Alfonso Soriano just popped up to second after a leadof single, shattering his bat so violently and horrifyingly I was sure all eight Marlins were going to be found dead with maple spikes in their foreheads. Something should maybe be done about these bats.

Blueberry Johnson (NY): Joe, Texas has been outscored by 33 runs this year. Yet, they are still have a .520 winning percentage. How are they doing it?

Joe Morgan: I think run differential is just a stat that does not mean a lot. Look at what the Dbacks did last year. Run differential is a deceptive stat.

First of all, a hearty "Welcome Back!!!" to Blueberry Johnson. How have you been, man? Great to hear from you again. I was not sure you were going to ask another question, since you are a fictional character from a children's story.

Second of all: Yes, good work, a stat that shows you how many runs you have scored versus how many runs you have allowed does not mean a lot. You know what does mean a lot? Team triples. If your team is tripling a lot, that means your guys are hustling, and you will win a lot. Just ask Arizona and San Francisco!

By no means look at run differential. If you did, you would see that the divisional leaders in run differential are all either in first place or within 1.5 games of first place, except for Oakland. Don't look at last year, either, because you'll accidentally learn that 4 division winners led their division in run differential. The Phillies were only 6 behind the Braves, and Arizona pulled one of the flukiest seasons ever (-20), somehow finishing ahead of the +101 Rockies, who then went to the World Series.

Just because there are quirks and occasional exceptions doesn't mean a stat is "deceptive." You don't have to be a genius to understand that the number of runs a team scores, and the number of runs it allows, is probably a pretty good indicator of how good the team is and how well it has played.

DLee just went yard to tie it up. That guy is awesome.

Fred (Montgomery Village): Joe, The Phillies have been doing pretty good without everyone hitting at the same time (Rollins, Utley, Howard, Burrell). How good will this team be once they all hit at the same time?

Joe Morgan: Well we are deep into the the season and they all hit well to get the lead and now they are not all hitting. Now they may not all start hitting at the same time, and even if they do they still need better pitching and bullpen support.

Opposite of analysis. The exact opposite of analysis. The platonic ideal of "nothing."

Jim Edmonds just tried to bunt a guy to second, in a suddenly-tie-game in the seventh with nobody out and DeRosa and Fukudome behind him. Jim Edmonds, in his career, has 7584 total plate appearances and 10 sac bunts. And a .933 OPS in his last 50 games. Good call, Lou.

DeRosa walks, Fuku pops up. If the Cubbies don't take the lead here, you'll know why.

Jordan (Slinger, WI): Joe: The Brewers are in the midst of a series with St. Louis right now, and have a series with the Cubs at the end of the month. Come August, who will be on top of the division?

Joe Morgan: I still think the team that is on top now, is still the team that will be on top later. The Cubs may be able to gain a few games here with the Brewers and Cards playing each other now. But when the Cubs are on the road they are not near the best team in the NL. It is a three team race, and will be right down to the wire. It is really hard to tell. Two weeks ago I thought it would be the Brewers, but teams go through spells.

It's time for the game where we take a 100-word answer from Joe and boil it down to its essence.

Jordan: Who wins the Central?
Joe: One of the teams in the Central.

SprungOnSporks (Longer Island): The Twins are 23-9 in their last 32 games. Can they keep it up and catch the ChiSox?

Joe Morgan: Well they are only a half game behind, so I think they already caught them in some ways. But it will be very hard to keep playing that type of baseball, winning 23 out of 32. I think they can win the division, but everyone in the division is looking back at Detroit at this point. I think it is going to come down to a three-team race as the season comes to a close.

"SprungOnSporks" has to be a JoeBait, or a shout-out, or something, and I appreciate it. Also:

Q. Who wins the A.L. Central?
A. One of the teams. Same as the N.L. Central.

Wild pitch to Daryle Ward. Both runners move up. Now they're walking Ward to load the bases. Wouldn't you love to have that out back, Lou?

Brian (Chicago): Do you think Francisco Liriano should be brought up, or do you think it will hurt the chemistry the Twins have created?

Joe Morgan: It will not hurt the chemistry because he is a pitcher. [...]

He's also quite good, and I haven't heard anything about how he's a terrible dude or anything, and also: you seriously wouldn't bring an awesome starting pitcher up because of completely unfounded "chemistry" concerns, Brian? You think Livan Hernandez is going to keep winning games with a 1.60 WHIP and the league hitting .332 against him? Really?

Mike Fontenot's bases-clearing double gets Jim Edmonds stupid bunt attempt off the hook. Reason and logic take another one on the chin.

Joe Morgan: I think we are going to see a lot of close races here in the second half of the season that come down to the very end. A lot of teams can win and many of these races will come down to which team gets hot at the right time.

Opposite of good.

Catch your breath everyone. We're done.

Dodger Fans, Rest Easy

2008-07-27T02:58:00.005-04:00

There's a steady hand at the helm of your ship. A hand that wears a cowboy hat. A hand that also wears snakeskin boots. Ned's hand.

What's that? You just traded a 22-year-old catcher with a .994 OPS in 2008 and a pitcher with 335 strikeouts in 262.2 minor league innings for a defensively challenged third baseman with a career 106 OPS+ who turns 35 in a month?

And he's a two-month rental?

Relax -- there are good reasons for this. Excellent reasons. Reasons like -- Ned, you want to take this one?

"Casey Blake is a gamer," said Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti.

See? Don't you feel better now? What, you need more? Ned's got more.

"I think we improved the club," Colletti said. "Blake's a grinder with great character, a passionate player."

That's not all, Dodger fans. In addition to the privilege of trading away two talented prospects, you'll get the added benefit of continuing to block the progress of Andy LaRoche, who's racked up an .898 OPS in 1796 minor league at bats, has been heralded as a top prospect for what seems like hundreds of years now, was projected by PECOTA to OPS something like .850, and yet can't seem to ever be good enough to play in more than a handful of games in a row for the Dodgers. Ever. (LaRoche, by the way, has awful numbers in the majors this year, but he's been incredibly hit-unlucky (BABIP of .200) and he's walked more than he's struck out. Plus -- dude. The guy has gotten all of 59 at bats. Angel Berroa has gotten 89 at bats for Joe Torre's TerribleVetSquad already.)

It's not like Carlos Santana and Jonathan Meloan are sure things. Santana is kind of old to be in High A (and he's in the hitter-friendly Cal League), and Meloan has been terrible as a starter (though he should be a reliever anyway). But we're talking about giving them away for two hundred-some-odd at bats of Casey Blake. .336 career OBP Casey Blake. Bad defender in an already defensively suspect Dodger infield Casey Blake. Gamer Casey Blake. Grinder Casey Blake. Beardy Casey Blake. Casey Beard.

So yeah, I guess if I had to give this trade a grade, I would give it an A-. The only reason there's a minus is: there now appears to be a gamer surplus in the Dodger clubhouse. What happens when a team attains such a dangerously high gaminess quotient? Will Juan Pierre grow a thick, Baron Davis-style beard to prove that he's more of a gamer than Blake? What if Jeff Kent shoots himself in the foot with a crossbow just so he can play through the pain of a crossbow wound and be hailed as the gamiest Dodger of all? What if Nomar turns himself into a 5'6" white guy, and then Broxton transforms himself into Brett Favre in retaliation, and then Hong-Chih Kuo tops them all by becoming the ultimate gamer: a 5'6" Brett Favre?

I think the answer to all of these questions is: the Dodgers and their fans win, that's what happens. Casey Blake is the key to the World Series. Ned, you're a genius.

Next Up: A.O. Scott and David Denby Discuss the Surging Mets

2008-07-24T19:01:00.006-04:00

Wanna fuck your brain up? Watch Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith channel their inner Pauline Kaels and break down The Dark Knight:

I watched it already, so my brain is fucked. And yet the video, paradoxically, gives you so many things to think about.

1. They're even worse at this than they are at talking about sports. This might be the biggest surprise of all, because they're both terrible at talking about sports. You would think you couldn't find another thing in the world for them to be worse at, and yet ESPN has managed to find that one thing.

2. The least surprising thing about the video is Skip Bayless' take -- people love The Dark Knight, so there's no way in hell he could say anything positive about it and show his face in the ex-Cold Pizza Show studio ever again. Watch how quickly he follows "It's a good movie, not a great one" with a very loud "I didn't like it that..." as if to wash away the memory that he even admitted it was good.

3. We now know the only opinion that can bring together Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith: hatred of Maggie [hard "g" sic] Gyllenhaal.

4. I never, ever, ever thought I would hear, in an oral review of The Dark Knight, the words "How about a Sanaa Lathan or a Gabrielle Union?"

5. I actually sort of liked it when Stephen A. talked about how Batman "touched on your soul."

6. The quality of the film criticism here is about on par with IMDb.com message board posters or YouTube commenters. "NOT ENOUGH BATMAN!!!" "JOKER WAS TOO STRONG!!!!" "Maggie Jizz-n-balls is UGGZZZZ!"

7. Skip Bayless' original draft: "Bottom line, the movie isn't that good, Heath Ledger is overrated as the Joker, and I still don't think Heath Ledger is dead. Show me the body or I'm going to assume he's still alive. That's just me. Show me the body. Back to you, Stephen A."

Time Magazine Is Not A Source For Correct Baseball Information

2008-07-24T14:43:00.006-04:00

Time.com is running a horribly designed piece called "The Evolution of Barry Bonds" that requires you to click 21 times to get to all of the (extremely minimal) content. Each page has, in total, six numbers, one of which is the year.

For example:

1986

Games Played: 113
Batting Average: .223
Home Runs: 16
Runs Per At Bat: 25.8
Listed Weight: 185

That's all you get on one page. Oh, wait. You also get a picture of Barry, two giant ads for Health.com, approximately one hundred links to other Time.com articles, and two separate targeted (?) text ads that read

I "Hate" my Yellow Teeth

The Secrets Dentists don’t want you to know about Teeth Whitening!

But enough about their hideous design. What the fuck is

Runs Per At Bat: 25.8

That is not a thing, Time.com. That is not a recognizable baseball statistic, and even if it were, it wouldn't be a meaningful one. "Runs Per At Bat"? First thing that jumps out at you -- Time's "Runs Per At Bat" is pretty clearly not, in fact, actually runs per at bat.

In 1986, Barry Bonds scored 72 runs in 413 at bats for a runs per at bat total of 0.17433414. He scored 0.17433414 runs per at bat. That is what should appear in a table after the words

Runs Per At Bat

Right? Anyway, after some head-scratching, I figured out what Time.com means when they say "Runs Per At Bat."

Are you ready?

They mean "At Bats Per Home Run."

Of course! Obvious. How could I not see that's what they meant when they said, right there in black pixels on my white screen, "Runs Per At Bat"?

In 1986, Barry Bonds had 413 at bats and hit 16 home runs, for an at bats per home run total of 25.8125. That ratio went down precipitously as he infused himself with more and more awesome chemicals that make you strong, but if Time.com has its way you'll never find out about that, because it will take you four hundred clicks to even get to 1994 or so, by which time you've probably already gone off to play Line Rider or something.

EDIT:

Yes, as a couple of you have pointed out, this article is a year old. And it's still wrong.

SECOND EDIT:

After over a year on the web, very quietly and very mysteriously, the "Runs Per At Bat" error has been corrected.

Jim Riggleman Has Superhero-Level Powers Of Self-Deception

2008-07-23T16:51:00.006-04:00

And Jesse Baumgartner of MLB.com must be his sidekick. Take a look at these mind-bendingly denial-ridden snippets from a piece Baumgartner wrote about Seattle's abysmal DH situation:

Different approach at DH

SEATTLE -- Most American League teams use the designated hitter position to stick a little more pop in their lineup. David Ortiz of the visiting Boston Red Sox would be a prime example.

Most American League teams try to play someone who can hit in the position of Designated Hitter, a job whose description reads "Someone who can hit." It's taken approximately four billion years for life to evolve from some sort of self-replicating ribozyme into a creature, man, whose brain is able to complete the difficult task of assigning a good hitter to DH.

But that's not the way the Seattle Mariners approach that part of their team.

What if...

What if we played a bad hitter at DH? An execrably, eye-gougingly, fingernail-scrapingly awful hitter?

Would that help us win games?

"I'm just kind of using it just to try to have some contact in that spot, and maybe be able to move some runners and hit and run and that kind of stuff, get some at-bats for some guys," interim manager Jim Riggleman said.

Yeah, that's it. We don't want a home run hitter, or a doubles hitter, or a hitter at all. Give me a lamp at DH. Or an Eames chair. Is an Eames chair available? No? Then get Jose Vidro.

By the way, Mariners fans, your manager just said: The purpose of the DH is to "get some at-bats for some guys." Yes, the DH's at-bats don't officially count, do they? Riggleman's not sure. He has to check the rulebook.

"It's not a classic DH spot

-- the kind where the guy hits well --

where we're looking for our DH to give us 25 to 30 home runs and 100 RBIs, that's just not what we are. So I'm fine with it the way it is."

Now, on the one hand, I know he's the manager (interim manager at that), not the GM, so he kind of has to say things like this to put a good face on things, but on the other hand, what in the bloody flying fuck are you talking about? Would it be crazy for him to say, "Hey, sure, we're hoping to get a little more production out of that spot." Or even more sensibly: "We think Jose's going to hit a little better from here on out." Would that absolutely ruin Jose Vidro's confidence to the point that Vidro can no longer successfully OPS .584, as he's doing right now?

You heard me: Jose Vidro is OPSing .584. He's a few at bats short of qualifying for the OPS leaders minimum, but after a cursory look I'm pretty sure that would be the worst figure in the American League.

He's your DESIGNATED. H. I. T. T. E. R.

While the team sometimes puts an extra catcher in the lineup at DH,

That is such sad beginning to a sentence.

Jose Vidro has been the mainstay for much of the season -- Tuesday' s start was his 61st this year at the position.

Vidro is about as far away from Ortiz as you can get. He has just five homers this season and is hitting .223 with a .267 OBP and 41 RBIs.

Additional note to the Mariners: Jose Vidro has an EqA of .218 and a WARP3 of -0.5. He is one of the worst hitters in baseball. His numbers are embarrassing even for, like, a historically-great-fielding catcher. He does not field for your team.

But you knew that, right? I mean, there's no way this is a surprise to you or anything --

"I'm astonished to tell you the truth when I look up and I see Vidro's average is what it is,

I know you're a professional baseball manager and everything, but dude, seriously, Riggleman, have you ever even seen a game this year? Members of the uncontacted Yanaigua tribe of Bolivia know that Jose Vidro has a sub-.600 OPS, and you don't seem to have a clue. He plays on your team, bro-bro.

because I feel like every time he goes up there I'm very confident that he's going to give us a good at-bat," Riggleman said.

Things that belie Riggleman's confidence: EVERY SINGLE OTHER AT BAT JOSE VIDRO HAS HAD THIS YEAR.

"And for the at-bats that he has, he's knocked in quite a few runs ... he's been fairly effective in the way we want to use him.

There, my friends, is the standard if you want to be the designated hitter for the Seattle Mariners professional major league baseball club: in order to be considered "fairly effective," you merely have to be the worst hitter in your league. That is all.

Send your résumés to:

"I Want To Be The Mariners' DH"
c/o Jim Riggleman
.266 OBP Lane
Ridiculously Low Slugging Percentageburg, WA 98134

And for now, while many teams would prefer some additional pop in the lineup, the Mariners are content to stay with their different breed of designated hitter.

Can a baseball franchise be declared clinically insane? I believe, if organizations were to be treated as human beings, one of the legal criteria for a franchise to be officially designated "insane" would be

1. Franchise claims to be content with a .584 OPS player as their DH.

"It's not a classic DH situation, but I feel good every time he walks up to the plate," Riggleman said.

"It's not the classic DH situation where you expect a professional baseball player to at least put together a major league-quality at bat, but what do I know about baseball? I'm a millet farmer from sub-Saharan Africa," Riggleman said while farming millet. "I feel good every time he walks up to the plate, primarily because here, in America, I have clean water and food with enough niacin in it to stave off pellagra. Plus, very little chance of getting sleeping sickness."

"The numbers may say otherwise, but I think he's going to give us good at-bats."

Jose Vidro has been way better than a .584 OPS hitter in the past, so I hope for the Mariners' and Riggleman's sake he's right. On the other hand, Vidro's 34 and he batted .189 in the month of June. .189!

Maybe there isn't anyone in the entire Mariners organization who can hit better than that, or maybe Jim Riggleman is in such profound denial he's forgotten what the rules of baseball even are anymore.

Pepperidge Farm Cookie Ad Old Guy Voice In My Head: "That Reminds Me Of The Time..."

2008-07-23T13:48:00.004-04:00

Remember when John Kruk, Steve Phillips, and Harold Reynolds used to do Baseball Tonight together? Those were halcyon days for FJM. It was a more innocent time: gas cost 20 cents a gallon, the iPhone was a wild, unsubstantiated idea I had in my head, and women didn't yet have the right to vote.

This quote from Pirates manager John Russell reminded me of a particularly stupid night for Krukie, Phillips, and HR. A night so dumb, it will live on in transcript form on the Internet forever, or until our robot friends overthrow us and turn us into their information superhighway. Think about it.

On to the Russell business:

Manager John Russell was asked, too, if his team performs better behind Maholm.

The premise is that the Pirates looooooooove hitting behind Maholm because he's pitching not quite as crappily as the rest of the Bucs' pitching staff. Plus he's a gamer, and he picks up the tab at Cheesecake Factory every once in a while, not like Gorzelanny, that chipmunk-faced turd-ass.

"Oh, definitely," he replied. "I don't know if you can actually see it. But I know, when I played and we knew we had a guy starting who was going to keep you in the game, you feel like you have a chance to win. I remember playing with Steve Carlton, and we knew if we did our job, he'd do his. That's what Paulie's starting to supply for us."

Right, John. You know, I don't think I can actually see it. 'Cause look:

RUN SUPPORT

Tom Gorzelanny: 5.85
Zach Duke: 4.84
Ian Snell: 4.49
Paul Maholm: 4.45

Your guys actually hate Paul Maholm. They'd rather hit for Gorzy, who's been an absolute abomination with a 6.57 ERA and a 1.83 WHIP. Tony Peña, Jr. can pitch better than Tom Gorzelanny, and yet your Pirates, the same Pirates who claim to be trying so hard for nice, sweet, athletic Paul Maholm, are offensive monsters for noted dog-puncher Thomas Gorzo.

Anyway, time-travel your mind back to the distant past of Spring 2006, and re-read this nonsense for me. It's three men with three competing, equally ridiculous ideas, each more passionate than the last.

FJM At Work

2008-07-22T14:41:00.006-04:00

Hey, writers. It's easy to get on our good side. No need for invective, spittle, vitriol, or cantankerosity. Just be a cool dude, acknowledge that everyone screws up sometimes, and fix things. Jeff Passan, covered here earlier, just did it:

(Editor’s note: Jeff Passan is not an oddsmaker for a reason. His attempt at laying odds on teams making the postseason was, in the words on one e-mailer from MIT, “ridiculously stupid.” So he dusted off his TI-83, went to work and got them right. Updated odds are now included and mathematically correct.)

Humility. Civility. Progress. Human things.

Dusty Baker Loves OBP

2008-07-22T13:36:00.006-04:00

Mark this date down: July 20, 2008.

Ken Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn don't have the best batting averages, but Reds manager Dusty Baker doesn't plan on doing anything different with the two sluggers when it comes to filling out a lineup card.

NATIONAL HOLIDAY!

Griffey's .236 average and Dunn's .230 average are the two worst of any active everyday starter. Only part-time catcher Paul Bako's (.213) is lower. But Griffey, the No. 3 hitter, and Dunn, the No. 5 hitter, are leading the way when it comes to on-base percentage, and for that reason, Baker isn't planning any changes.

Baker, long a skeptic of sabermetrics, the study of baseball statistics, began reading a blog called Fire Joe Morgan late Sunday afternoon.

"Those fellas make some good points," Baker said. "They're profane as hell, and they're probably gay, but they make some good points."

That's not what he said. What he said was:

"Their averages are low, but their on-base percentages are still high," Baker said. "Their on-base percentages are higher than some of the guys who are hitting.

I'm afraid. This is some parallel dream world, right? I've just taken salvia and fallen into a utopian fantasyscape populated by black David Dukes, funny Robin Williamses and OBP-loving Dusty Bakers. That is the only explanation.

Why do you love OBP, Dusty? Tell us tell us tell us all of the reasons!

I know they can hit, but it also helps to get on base and put a pitcher in the stretch. That's the thing. Most starters don't like being in the stretch."

Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh.

I feel sick.

The only...reason...to...get...on base...is...to...put...the pitcher...in the stretch?

?!

!

?

!?

On the list of good things about being on base, the order goes, roughly:

1. You're on base.

2. You didn't make an out.

3. Again, great, hey -- you're on base.

...

...

...

One million, four hundred thousand. The pitcher is in the stretch.

Besides loving OBP, Dusty Baker is also a big fan of the French Laundry.

"It's the most amazing place," said Baker. "What I liked best about it was that they give you a piece of fabric you can use to wipe your mouth, wipe your hands -- whatever you want. They call it a 'napkin.' I highly recommend the French Laundry."

---

ADDENDUM:

I'm actually happy for Dusty. It is a legitimate point to make that pitchers, in general, are a little worse from the stretch. It's just funny that he hates OBP so much that he feels like he has to bring up something relatively insignificant (compared to JUST BEING ON BASE IN THE FIRST PLACE) to justify even talking about it.

Reader Cletus adds:

While I agree that "getting on base" and "not making one or more outs" are by far at the top, putting the pitcher in the stretch is part of
the story.

MLB, 2007, bases empty: .262/.324/.417 (102,842 PA)
MLB, 2007, 1/-/-: .281/.339/.439 (34,166 PA)

The actual impact is slightly larger, given a runner on first is not a guarantee that the pitcher will go from the stretch (e.g., blowout, LHP with good move, Jack Cust on first, etc.). But even +37 points of OPS is nothing to sneeze at. It's virtually the only aspect of "lineup protection" worth caring about.

Caveat: A little bit of that will be selection bias: Good pitchers will be pitching more often with no one on, thus a mildly disproportionate amount of those 102,842 PA will be against pitchers with low WHIPs.

And another helpful caveat from Ed:

Good hitters tend to be clustered together at the top of the lineup. So, for example, your #2 hitter will have a runner on first far more frequently than your #9 hitter.

New Criterion For Being Good At Baseball: YOU MUST IMPRESS DAVID O'BRIEN

2008-07-22T01:01:00.007-04:00

---

Snap-billed mreetwass
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The snap-billed mreetwass is a legendary creature with the body of a unicorn, the tail of a griffin, the face of a Korean person, and the wings of a leprechaun (if a leprechaun had wings). The mreetwass feeds on DVDs of the Larry Sanders Show and reproduces once a year, always on Cinco de Mayo. The mreetwass is notable for only being identifiable by one Mr. David O'Brien of Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. O'Brien is the world's foremost and only authority on mreetwasses and Mreetwassery (the study of mreetwasses); all inquiries should be directed to him.

Wikipedia entry created by awesomeobrieninternet69 at 02:30, 21 July 2008.

---

Now imagine that same bullshit, but in place of the word "mreetwass" insert the words "impact offensive player." You pretty much have the premise of David O'Brien's piece on trading Mark Teixeira.

Is Teixeira, with his Gold Glove-level defense and likely .290-30-120 to .310-45-130 offensive range for many years to come, worth $20 mill a season? I’d say only to a team that has a huge payroll, at least $150 mill or so. Not to a team with a $100 mill payroll, because while he piles up stats, he’s not a player, at least from what I’ve seen, who puts a team on his back and delivers big hits when the team needs it most.

The mreetwass, you see, doesn't settle for hitting 35 home runs or 125 RBI. He concentrates on leading the league in Distance Carried (Team on Back Division) and Hits (Bigtime Department). He wins David O'Brien over.

All Teixeira has done is put up OPS+es of 150, 126, 144, and 131 the last four years, along with the aforementioned stellar defense. He does "pile up stats" because he's very good at baseball, and baseball people who watch baseball games record stats to show how good or bad someone is at baseball. That said, he will probably be overpaid. I can't stress this enough: I'm not arguing that he won't be overpaid. I'm taking issue with O'Brien's reasoning, not his conclusion. There are some perfectly good non-mreetwassian reasons to not retain Teixeira's services:

1) He has a career home/away OPS split of .955/.859, so some team paying for his fat home run totals and ostentatious slugging percentages may be being a little misled by the Ballpark at Arlington.

2) He plays first base, where you can usually find some decent hitting, and decent power hitting at that.

3) The first base thing means his defense, which is very good, is perhaps not all that valuable.

4) He will get something like 7 years, $140 million, and he's not quite on that super-elite near-1.000 OPS-hitting level of guys like Pujols or A-Rod or (pre-2008) Miguel Cabrera.

5) He'll be 29 next year, so in your megadeal for him you're going to be getting some 34- or 35-year-old Tex in there.

But I'm drifting from the point here, which is: what are David O'Brien's crazy reasons for pooh-poohing Teixeira?

Say, for instance, during the first six weeks of this season, when the Braves were dealing with a slew of injuries and Chipper Jones was carrying the offense with help from either Brian McCann or Yunel Escobar, but not much from Tex.

Stupid Tex -- didn't you know that all truly great players kick ass for the first six weeks of the season? That is prime time, baby. Real men mash in April.

Slow-starter or not (and he’s a slow-starter, every season), the Braves needed to count on him for power and RBIs, and didn’t get it on a regular basis until about two months into the season, when they were already back in the standings.

So if Teixeira swats 20 bombs post-All Star break in 2008, is he an asshole because he waited until his team was out of contention? I'm confused. I'm so used to the exact same argument being used against guys who peak too early. Hey, the 2007 Mets were 22-12 after six weeks. Was that the right time for them to play awesome?

Even yesterday, his two-homer, three-RBI game didn’t have much impact, seeing that both homers were solo shots, one early in the game when the Braves were already down 6-1, and the other, well, I’d have to look it up, it was so relatively meaningless near the end of an utter blowout loss.

Mreetwasses only homer when the game is within two runs either way. It's a switch they just turn on and off. Also, no solo shots: those are for dickheads.

Anywaym [sic], this isn’t to diminish his skills or output.

Not at all. You just called his last home run "relatively meaningless" and said he doesn't deliver "big hits when the team needs it most." How could he be offended?

He’s durable and piles up stats, year after year.

This is entering Blyleven territory. People, Jesus: stats are just records of things that happen in ballgames. You only "pile up stats" because you do good things, over and over again, game after game, year after year. Ergo: you are good.

But I know an impact offensive player, a player whose performance seems bigger than his numbers because he gets so many key hits. And I know the opposite.

And there we have David O'Brien's definition of the mythical mreetwass: it's someone who impresses David O'Brien. Someone who "seems" good. Someone who has the goddamn courtesy to get "key" "big" hits when David O'Brien is watching WPCH-TV and not when David O'Brien is in the kitchen for a second to pour David O'Brien a bowl of Smart Start for David O'Brien to eat.

Of course, there's also the opposite of the mreetwass, the shünkrogle. I wonder who might be one of those...

A-Rod, for instance. Dude piles up huge numbers, year after year. Tremendous numbers.

He must be terrible!

But let me ask you, how many SportsCenter highlights can you remember this year of A-Rod late-game homers or walk-off hits? Maybe a couple or few early on, but lately?

The shünkrogle, as we all know, is miserable in the all-important statistical category of SCHYCRL-GHW-OH,L (SportsCenter Highlights You Can Remember of Late-Game Homers or Walk-Off Hits, Lately). This trumps his OPS+ (159) and his EqA (.334) and his VORP (39.6).

The greatest thing about SCHYCRL-GHW-OH,L is that it's different for everybody. It could be 3. It could be 0. It could be 49.5. It's what you remember, and you can't be wrong about that. Finally, a stat that the fan can participate in. "What's your SCHYCRL-GHW-OH,L?" should be ESPN's new slogan for the big show.

A-Rod’s the highest paid player in the game, and many will tell you he’s the best player in the game. But he’s not the player I would build a team around if I could have any player. No way.

Mine neither, probably, at least not if we're talking about a team for both now and the future and not just this year. He's too old for that. But for this season, and this season alone, I'm not sure you can do too much better than A-Rod. Pujols? Utley? Berkman? Hanley? Chipper? Sizemore? Wright? It's a short, short list.

But you know, you just have to listen to the guy who literally wrote the Wikipedia article on mreetwasses (and probably shünkrogles, I have to check), David O'Brien. And he says, emphatically: NO WAY.

I have to hand it to David O'Brien. He's basically solved baseball analysis. Come up with a fake term ("impact offensive player"), fake-define it with subjective, self-referential, fake parameters ("from what I've seen...big hits when the team needs it," "performance seems bigger than his numbers," "key hits," "I know an impact offensive player"), and presto, you're Earth's premier expert on that fake term -- no amount of actual baseball information can ever change that. It's like creating your own Planet Baseball with the absolute data isolation of a short-lived Wikipedia page, and then ruling the shit out of that planet. You know what? Congratulations, David O'Brien. You have to respect that.

Wins Are Important

2008-07-21T15:57:00.004-04:00

Follow-up on the Johan Santana nonsense below, in re: wins:

Twins general manager Bill Smith, on Livan Hernandez, who improved to 10-6 with a 5.29 earned-run average with Saturday's victory over Texas: "I'll take the (10) wins. Who do you want, a guy who's 10-15 with a 2.80 ERA or a guy who's 16-8 with a 7.00 ERA? I'll take the 16-8."

Really? I'll take the other guy, and going forward, I will destroy you, because the guy with the 7.00 ERA sucks and has gotten lucky, and the guy with the 2.80 ERA is good and has gotten unlucky.

Do you really not understand this?! Seriously? You're a GM, and you don't understand this?

I can't believe he really said that. That would be grounds for immediate dismissal.

EDIT:

Yes, I understand that if this is being said about the past only, that it makes sense to be happier about more wins. But the fact is, in that situation it's irrelevant anyway, because those wins aren't due to that pitcher's performance. They are due to the hitters' performance. And if you are going into the playoffs, or looking at next year, you'd always rather have the good pitcher instead of the mediocre/bad pitcher anyway.

What he is saying is: "Would you rather have a dirtball who spends a lot of money on scratch-off tickets and just won $3000, or the steady, solid financial manager who earns 16% a year, reliably. I'll take the lottery guy! He won $3,000! That's way better than 16% a year."

Awards Are Important

2008-07-21T15:37:00.000-04:00

I go to New York for five days and Murray Chass starts a blog? What the hell is going on here?

Let's cleanse our collective palate with a lime sorbet known as: Phil Rogers's Mid-Season Awards.

Quick review: awards are meaningless, the criteria are absurd, this is all bunk.

Worst Surprise, Player: Johan Santana, Mets.

In the time it takes to read the explanation, try to name 50 guys who are "worse" surprises than Johan Santana. Go!

Who would have thought this guy would fail to grab a spot on the National League All-Star team?

Anyone who (a) understands that wins are overvalued and/or (b) knows that the ASG voting is borderline sociopathic, as evidenced by the facts that (b-sub1) Cristian Guzman had to be on the team as the Washington National representative and (b-sub2) that somehow the NL players or Clint Hurdle or a bunch of pederastic chimps or whoever actually chooses the reserves got together and decided that (b-sub2-sub1) Miguel Tejada and (b-sub2-sub2) Brian Effing Wilson should be on the All-Star Team, despite the fact that (b-sub2-sub1-sub1) Lance Berkman and (b-sub2-sub2-sub1) Tim Lincecum were already representing their respective teams and actually deserved to be there.

A two-time Cy Young Award winner in the AL, he was expected to dominate after being traded from Minnesota to the Mets. He pitched well, statistically, in the first half, going 8-7 with a 2.84 ERA in 19 starts.

Hmmm.

Trying to parse your complaint.

Categories Johan Santana Is In The Top 10 of So Far, In The National League:

Innings
Strikeouts
Strikeouts/9IP
ERA
WHIP
K/BB

But the Mets have been only 10-9 behind him.

How can you be this stupid?

The man is pitching very very well, as the above facts indicate. It's not his absolute best year ever, but he's having a very good year. You acknowledge that the team is only 10-9 behind him. And this is all presented in service of his election to "Worst Surprise, Player" in your mid-season awards.

I don't normally like to be strident, but that is incredibly stupid.

Let's imagine I am part of a 25-man team that makes frozen 4-cheese ravioli dinners. And every time I'm on a shift, I take my syringe and I expertly inject the pasta with goat cheese (my task) and I have like a 99.4% success rate of successful goat cheese injection, and when my raviolis go on to the next man on my team, ready for edam infusion, they are just perfectly formed and looking tasty and delicious. And by the time they reach the end of the assembly line, they are torn to shreds, leaking gouda, and somehow covered in bat feces -- so bad are the other men on Team Ravioli.

So my boss, Hunt Sperkleman, C.E.O. of Sperkleman Four Cheese Ravioli and Penne Arrabiata, Inc. (NASDAQ Ticker: SFCR: 92.50, +10.68, +13.1% as of Monday, 12:02 PM EST, thanks to rumors of a takeover bid from Sheinhardt Wigs), comes down to the assembly line, and he looks around and he sees all the morons on my team. He sees W.K. Horflitz, whose nose is running directly into the pasta cutter. He sees Janet Przyblr, who's on the phone, gabbing with her new husband, as chunk after chunk of unmelted brie just goes rolling by on the assembly line. He sees them all, and he says: "Ken! You're disappointing me!" and I say: "Why, Hunt?" and he says, "Only 8 out of 15 people who eat these raviolis like them!" and I say, "But I did my job!" and he says, "You can go ahead and end this metaphor now -- I think people get the idea."

The good news is that Santana is historically a fast finisher, although Thursday didn't bode well. He gave up five runs in four innings against the Reds.

Here.

On April 6 he gave up one run in 7 IP against the Braves and got a loss.

On May 4 he gave up one run in 6 IP with 8 Ks against the D-Backs and got an ND.

On June 6 he gave up one earnie in 6 IP and got a loss thanks to a second, unearned run.

In his next start, June 12, he gave up 3 H and 0 R in 7 IP (with 10 Ks) and got an ND because his team also scored 0 R in those 7 innings.

He then lost three decisions in a row, twice pitching okay, once going 7 strong against Seattle, giving up 7 H and 1 run but losing anyway because again, his offense did nothing.

He got another ND on July 4, going 8 innings, giving up only 6 H and 2 R, striking out 6 and walking zero, but -- and you see this trend emerging here -- his offense fell down like one of those little plastic deer when you push the button underneath its pedestal, causing its legs to collapse.

Here are the scores of the games the Mets have lost with Santana pitching, and the # of earned runs Santana gave up while in the game:

3-2 (2)
3-2 (3)
5-2 (1)
6-1 (4)
5-4 (0)
2-1 (1)
4-2 (3)
5-3 (4)
3-1 (1)

So, in the nine Santana-involved losses the Mets have suffered, they, the Mets, have scored a total of 18 runs. 2 runs a game. Their offense averages 2 runs a game, in those losses. And this face somehow makes Johan Santana the "Worst Surprise, Player" of the first half.

Let's go back to the assignment. How many Worse Surprises can you name?

Richie Sexson
Freddie Sanchez
Edgar Renteria
Melky Cabrera
Jeff Francoeur
Gary Matthews, Jr.
Robby Cano
Paul Konerko
Carl Crawford
Derek Jeter
Alex Gordon
Alex Rios
Miggy Tejada
Defending NL MVP Jimmy Rollins
Bobby Abreu
Brett Myers
Justin Verlander
Nate Robertson
Andrew Miller
Joe Blanton
Aaron Harang
Homer Bailey
Dontrelle Willis
Fernando Rodney
Ian Kennedy
Phil Hughes
Fausto Carmona
Jeremy Bonderman
Roy Oswalt

There are some.

All big-name players, pretty much, who have been disappointments (though some, like Verlander, are coming on strong). Hey -- how about Carlos Delgado? There's another one.

Rookie of the Year, AL: Jacoby Ellsbury, Red Sox.

Ellsbury is hitting only .269 but he has stolen 35 bases and scored 60 runs. He gets a slight edge over Tampa Bay's Evan Longoria and Texas' David Murphy.

Tacoby Bellsbury EqA: .255 (below average)
Evan Longoria EqA: .303 (way above average)

Please. I love the guy. He's part Native American, and quite sexy, but if you give Bellsbury the award you are doing so because of what he did last September and October, and that's insaner than insane. Longoria is destroying Bellsbury statistically this year -- and he's a great fielder, too. It would be a shame if Longoria lost.

Manager of the Year, NL: Jerry Manuel, Mets.

Get ready for some hard-core retroactive association.

This is a premature call, but you've got to be impressed with the 17-9 record since Manuel replaced Willie Randolph on June 17.

I do? The Mets underperformed all year. Then a thing changed, and they eventually started not underperforming. Should I be impressed with their 8-9 start after Randolph left? Because that's the awesome record they jumped out to in their first 17 games after Randolph left. 8-9. Thank God they got rid of him when they did, or they wouldn't have been able to go 8-9 in those next 17 games.

He has enabled an uptight clubhouse to relax and is riding a 10-game winning streak after Thursday's victory in Cincinnati.

This is all Manuel. Not Reyes, Pelfrey, Wright, Delgado, Beltran, Wagner, Maine, or anyone else. Manuel.

Florida's Fredi Gonzalez was looking like the choice before the Mets went on the winning streak. He has put his team into contention with a $21 million payroll, a nice little bit of sleight of hand.

Has had team in contention all year with payroll lower than salary of Derek Jeter, or ARod, or Giambi: nice little bit of sleight of hand.

Happened to be managing team with $680 million payroll when team finally stopped underperforming and reeled off 10 in a row: Manager of Year.

Jeff Passan: Royals Are Locks To Win The AL Central

2008-07-21T15:03:00.005-04:00

I get it: math's not cool. There's no social capital to be gained from knowing linear algebra or Zeno's paradoxes or how to add. But come on: at a certain point some examples of Sports Math are simple enough that they should enter the realm of Sports Common Sense. And fucking that math up is just sloppy, lazy or both. One example: playoff odds.

Jeff Passan has written good stuff. I heartily enjoyed learning that Ichiro gives a profanity-laden motivational speech deriding the National League before every All-Star Game. But seriously, dude, if you're doing a playoff odds piece, just make sure your numbers are somewhat close to adding up to 100%. Otherwise, you end up with shit like this (cut up and pasted):

Chicago White Sox
Odds: 8/1

Minnesota Twins
Odds: 8/1

Detroit Tigers
Odds: 15/1

Now, we know that at minimum, one team from the AL Central will definitely make the playoffs. That's how the rules work. But according to Passan, the White Sox have a 1 in 9 shot, the Twins the same, and the Tigers a 1 in 16 shot. Add those probabilities together and you get 11.11% + 11.11% + 6.25% = 28.47% ... meaning there is at least a 71.53% chance that someone else -- that is, the Royals or the Indians -- will win the Central. Congrats, Royals fans!

This isn't hard. I know it's all funny and hilarious and cool to say "Ha ha, I suck at math" or "There's a reason I didn't become a mathematician" or "I have a math-related learning disability" -- Lord knows I often introduce myself at cocktail parties with the last phrase and always get huge laughs -- but if you're writing a playoff odds piece, then it's inherently, at least in part, a math piece too. Sorry. You chose to build this house made out of shit, now you gotta get your hands dirty forming these shit bricks. Or something.

For comparison, Baseball Prospectus has the following playoff odds:

Chicago White Sox
71.81287%

Minnesota Twins
31.40557%

Detroit Tigers
6.38942%

In other words, the Sox are something like 2/5 shots, the Twins are a little worse than 2/1, and the Tigers are -- hey -- 15/1, or close to it.

BP's numbers leave the Royals at 0.22737% to make the playoffs. Sorry, Royals fans.

Postscript: Kudos, Jeff, on listing run differentials in your column.

Post-postscript: If any reader wants to run all the numbers team by team, division by division to show who Passan is really picking for the playoffs, I will welcome your email and question your life priorities.

About That Murray Chass Blog

2008-07-17T12:44:00.006-04:00

We might as well get to this. Yes, the first entry in Murray Chass' blog, a blog written by a professional sportswriter and and semi-professional blogophobe, needs a little editing ("Whatever impact honmefield [sic] advantage has").

The most glaring error in logic-slash-sanity, though, occurs two-thirds of the way through:

One way would be to reward [with home field advantage] the team with the better won-lost record. But that idea wouldn’t work logistically. Baseball can’t wait until days or even a week before the World Series is scheduled to start to determine where Series game will be played. Airlines and hotels don’t work that way.

Unless all of professional baseball is actually one long kabuki play, I'm pretty sure that at no point in history has anyone known where the World Series will be played until the winners of the two leagues have been determined (in modern times, that means waiting until the League Championship Series are finished). As reader Rob points out, last year "the host of World Series game one wasn't known until 11:33 PM on October 21st when the Red Sox finished off the Indians. Game one of the World Series was played on October 24th."

And yet those diabolical airlines and hotels, true gatekeepers of baseball's ultimate prize, acquiesced and let the Rockies fly to and stay in the city of Boston. Weird how modern society works, isn't it?

Someone may have even used a computer to book those flights and hotels.

*** UPDATE ***

Reader Chris contributes the following:

While I loathe having to defend Murray Chass, even a little, as someone who works in baseball, I can tell you that his point about booking hotels and flights is actually sort of right.

What reporters and others do is reserve hotels and flights for the four (or two, if they wait until the LCS starts) possible cities in each league for the dates that are already set based on the All-Star outcome. That's a lot better than having to do it for eight (or, uh, four, if you wait) for a whole host of possible combinations.

Thanks, Chris. I'm also hearing that the reason the NBA and NHL can use home-court/ice advantage in their playoffs is that they simply don't use as many hotel rooms overall compared to the World Series, so it's a little easier logistically.

*** UPDATE TO THE UPDATE ***

This is riveting stuff for some of you guys, so I'll print this rebuttal to Chris, which comes from Timothy.

MLB wouldn't have to book for 4 or 8 cities if they give it to the team with the best record. This is because, obviously, you can eliminate the team with the worst record from having home field. So, if they wait until the LCS, they would have to book in 3 cities instead of 2. If they do it before the LDS, they would book in 7 cities as opposed to 4. I doubt they do it before the LCS though, for two reasons:

1. The LCS typically runs almost 2 weeks, so doing it before this is probably enough time

2. If you book before the LDS, you would have to book several different cities for the LCS, then also several cities for the World Series to account for all possible combinations. Even in their current system, I doubt they do this.

So, presuming they wait until the outcome of the LDS to be final, booking 3 cities instead of 2 is a small inconvenience to have a better system in place for the team with the best record to get 4 games at home.

*** THE "WILL THIS BE THE LAST UPDATE?" UPDATE ***

From reader Matty:

As the director of reservations in an MLB city, and former director at a hotel that was the contractual home of MLB visiting teams in Chicago, I have SOME insight here (also, I was here both when the White Sox won the World Series, and the Cubs went to the playoffs on the last 2 occasions, so I’ve worked the situation). Every MLB city has a contracted “home” hotel for visiting teams. The contracts contain language that force the hotel to accommodate teams during the playoffs. Reservations are not a concern for them.

The media, does, indeed, make “speculative” reservations – but only a few days in advance. For instance, when the Cubs took a 3-1 lead on the Marlins, we had a huge spike in press reservations. After the Bartman game, roughly half of these cancelled. BUT, we didn’t get the big spike until the Cubs went up 3-1.

Q: When Is A Blog Not A Blog?

2008-07-16T14:38:00.008-04:00

A: It's still a blog. Its author is just in denial.

I felt a lot better about giving the Flooky and the Beans guy a boost in traffic, but I feel like it's our duty to report the following news: Murray Chass has started a blog. It's about shodo, the ancient Japanese art of calligraphy. Well, not really. Primarily, so far it seems to be a blog about hating blogs. At least that's what the very first words of its mission statement proclaim:

This is a site for baseball columns, not for baseball blogs. The proprietor of the site is not a fan of blogs.

Let me translate that into confusing ChassOrwellian-speak:

This is a blog for baseball columns, not for baseball blogs. The proprietor of the blog is not a fan of blogs.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. This blog is not a blog. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

He made that abundantly clear on a radio show with Charlie Steiner when Steiner asked him what he thought of blogs and he replied, “I hate blogs.”

[shaking fist] You hear that, James Fallows, Malcolm Gladwell, and Murray Chass? I hate what you do. I hate it because of what it's called. It sounds funny. I hate it because there are some bad blogs. Meanwhile, there has never been a bad newspaper column, book, magazine, painting, mobile, or stele. Those forms of expression are fine.

Keep watching the space at http://www.murraychass.com/about.php to receive updates as to which types of media are acceptable. (Conundrum: http://www.murraychass.com/about.php has recently ruled that websites are now, in fact, unacceptable. So should you visit again? It's up to you.)

He later heartily applauded Buzz Bissinger when the best-selling author denounced bloggers on a Bob Costas HBO show.

He was alone, watching in his living room, but he remained convinced that the television machine had an applause input microphone (A.I.M.) that would allow Mr. Bissinger to hear his ovation. No amount of research on the nonexistence of the A.I.M. would convince him otherwise.

Bloggers, however, are welcome to visit this site; so are stats freaks, fantasy leaguers and Red Sox fans. How else will they know what is being said about them by a columnist they love to hate?

I, for one, am sick of wrongheaded writers telling me I love to hate them when in fact I hate to hate them. A note to Baylessian contrarians: you should take no joy in being so wrong about something that throngs of people rise up as one to denounce you. This should not be what it means to be a writer. When thousands of people write you angry emails about something you said or wrote that was wrong, you should not shrug your shoulders and say, "I must be doing something right if I got so many people interested!" No, sir. Sir, no. You were wrong. That is the end of the story. You were so wrong you made people angry. There is no glory in your profound wrongitude. Please stop doing this.

Otherwise, this site will most likely appeal primarily to older fans whose interest in good old baseball is largely ignored in this day of young bloggers who know it all,

Ignored? I would argue that no matter what kind of baseball fan you are, there is more baseball writing, research, opinion, and debate than there ever has been in the sport's history. Verducci is still writing some excellent, longer pieces for Sports Illustrated. Gammons writes a thing or three every week. Your man Buzz is still kicking around. Reilly, if you like his sort of thing, just signed an 18-year, $400-million deal, mainly (we hope) for writing. Every time I write a post, a Roger Angell column does not disappear from this plane of reality.

and new- fangled statistics (VORP, for one excuse-me example),

May I remind people that in this fateful piece for the New York Times, Murray Chass wrote "To me, VORP epitomized the new-age nonsense" and "For the longest time, I had no idea what VORP meant and didn’t care enough to go to any great lengths to find out." and "Finally, not long ago, I came across VORP spelled out. It stands for value over replacement player. How thrilling. How absurd. Value over replacement player. Don’t ask what it means. I don’t know."

So it is possible -- no, probable -- no, certain -- that Murray Chass still does not know what VORP means, and yet hates it with every fiber of his wizened being. This is the equivalent of a person who's lived in Muncie, Indiana his whole life hating a specific dish in a restaurant in Doha, Qatar.

which are drowning the game in numbers and making people forget that human beings, not numbers, play the games.

February 27, 2007, New York Times: "People play baseball. Numbers don’t."

Maybe Murray Chass just doesn't have that much more to say. That's okay. He's had a long, storied career. He's won awards. He was inducted, as he tells us in his biography, "into the Western Pennsylvania Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Pittsburgh." But there's no need, Murray, to spit such vitriol at new ways of enjoying sports simply because you aren't interested in them.

E-mail comments are also invited, but visitors to the site are asked to omit the obscenities.

Remember, this is a man who several paragraphs earlier informed us that he "heartily applauded Buzz Bissinger when the best-selling author denounced bloggers on a Bob Costas HBO show." Bissinger began his applause-worthy, highly informed, well-reasoned, level-headed argument by telling the gentleman next to him "I really think you're full of shit."

“I have spent my professional life in the print world, where obscenities don’t see the light of day,” Chass said. “They will remain in the dark here as well. It will be a good test for bloggers and Red Sox fans to see if they can control themselves.”

"The time for obscenities is on national pay cable television, where a grown man and father of three can ambush an unsuspecting young writer with a torrent of spittle-accompanied expletives, thoughtlessly and carelessly excoriating an entire medium without retribution or moderation from the host. That is where obscenities belong, and that is where I applaud them. Shouted at other people, on television."

Mr. Chass: you're angry at nomenclature. Really. Ideas are ideas. Writing is writing. By starting this blog, you're acknowledging as much. Welcome to the blogosphere.

Weird Things To Say During The Home Run Derby, Vol. I

2008-07-14T22:54:00.004-04:00

Rick Reilly, after Josh Hamilton's 28-homer first round and all of the talk of Hamilton's apparently prophetic dream that he would someday compete in the Derby at Yankee Stadium:

It's a lousy night to be an atheist!

It already seemed weird at the time, but now it seems even weirder that God, if He does indeed exist, would shove it in the atheists' faces by having Hamilton break Bobby Abreu's hallowed first-round record of 24 home runs (was Abreu's night also a bad night for atheists?) and then come right back and force Josh to hit only 3 taters when the contest is on the line. Questionable storytelling sense, God.

P.S. Not only did Erin Andrews snub Justin Morneau for Hamilton immediately post-Derby, but during the trophy presentation she clearly pronounces his name as "Mar-neau," Executive Vice President of MLB Rob Manfred goes with something like "Myrrh-neau," and Boys and Girls Club Giant Check Giver Guy just flat out insults him with "Jason." We get it, guys: Morneau didn't do heroin. So he's bo-ring!

The lesson, as always: it's better to do heroin and then stop doing heroin and then lose the Home Run Derby after an impressive first round than it is to not do heroin and then keep not doing heroin and then win the Home Run Derby after a pedestrian first round. Of course, I'm not telling you anything you haven't heard a thousand times already.

Two Great Tastes That Go Great Together

2008-07-14T19:54:00.013-04:00

Of course, I'm talking about the State Farm Home Run Derby and alternative post-grunge southern rockers 3 Doors Down.

Gotcha! It turns out that combination is an unmitigated disaster! I was really talking about:

Here's how it works: I supply the Gallimaufry, you get hammered. Shot clock violation!

Let's kick it off with a tip from reader Zach G., who points us in the direction of CBSSports.com's Scott Miller. Scott has made some interesting choices for his Anti-All Star Team:

Shortstop: Jose Reyes, Mets.

He's got talent. He's got speed. He's got pizzazz. He's also got an infuriating case of immaturity.

I'd say he's got talent, speed, pizzazz, and an acute case of the 2nd highest OPS among shortstops. This guy is the opposite of an all-star? Jose Reyes?

Sure, his numbers are respectable. But this guy has the tools to be great. And he won't put out to get there.

Put out? I don't know, maybe it's not so crazy. Maybe Reyes should try letting some 16 year-old dudes feel him up at Siobhan's party next Friday night.

Dude. There's going to be so much Zima.

I was there in Anaheim when he threw a colossal fit on the field when interim manager Jerry Manuel removed him from the game as a precautionary measure to protect a mildly strained hamstring. It was the worst thing I've seen on the field since Jose Guillen threw a similar fit years ago while playing for the Angels.

And, sure, why not. I'll throw down the race card again. Why doesn't wanting to play so bad that he's willing to throw a fit about it garner him "gamer" status? Why are guys like Milton Bradley, Carl Everett, and Jose Reyes all considered "hotheads" or whatever while jerks like Paul O'Neill are applauded for their fiery style?

Speak of the devil...

Right field: Paul O'Neill, Yankees.

Yes, the comeback of the year! Anybody who has seen O'Neill at The Stadium in his broadcasting capacity this summer will tell you the guy looks like he still can play. Certainly, he has a high enough opinion of himself to give it a whirl.

So, one thing that Scott Miller and I have in common with not only each other but also every single person alive on the planet is that we hate Paul O'Neill.

But this is crazyballs. He doesn't play baseball anymore, so why is he on Scott Miller's Anti All-Star list?

The most asinine occurrence of the year came in April, when Yankees fans were giving it to reliever LaTroy Hawkins because he was wearing O'Neill's old No. 21. Nobody had worn it since Paulie, but because Hawkins' first choice was one of a zillion numbers the Yankees had retired, he had to pick another. So he attempted to honor Roberto Clemente ... and Yankees fans reacted as if he had dumped manure during the Pope's visit.

O'Neill, of course, had the perfect venue to make life easier for a new Yankee: the airwaves. He could have stepped up and urged fans to welcome Hawkins. Instead, O'Neill said he found it sort of surprising that someone was wearing his number. Strange to see his old number warming up in the bullpen, O'Neill said.

I feel sick in a way that I never quite have before. I have a headache that feels like it starts in my ears and then goes all the way down my spine, and my stomach feels like it's going to eat itself. It's not because of Scott Miller's writing, but because of the position he's put me in: I now have to defend Paul O'Neill.

O'Neill said that it seemed strange to him to see his old number warming in the bullpen, and for this act alone, Scott Miller is willing to overlook the fact that he doesn't even play baseball anymore and put him on a list of Anti All-Stars. Truly amazing.

Oh, and of course:

Third base: Alex Rodriguez, Yankees.

Let's just keep the 'maufry moving, shall we. Hey -- chug that shit! This is G+L time, remember?

Reader Tristan decided to subject to himself to the horror that is "1st and Ten" this morning. And for making such a decision, he got what he deserved. Garbage...and Nelly:

 I have to admit I haven't been watching the whole show, but I flipped
to it and saw the guest they have to match wits with Skip today is
Nelly. I kept it on to see what he would say, and he actually threw out some
decent, stat backed analysis of the Cardinals race to catch the Cubs.

"I think we can catch the Cubs. The point is, I think, will we have
enough offense down the stretch to catch the Cubs. I think our pitching is
where it is, I think our ERA right now is around 4.18, I think when we
won the world series it was around, like, 4.5, so I think right now we
can, but we're overachieving..." (A little more talk about picking up
a bat to protect Pujols)

Skip's turn to talk (I tivo'd back to get it right):

"I hope you're right because I have been driving your bandwagon since
opening day, cause there's something about this club I like, and I
can't really do it statistically on paper, but there's some spirit, some
character, someTHING going on there. And by the way, Tony LaRussa should
be the first half manager of the year in all of baseball..."

Nelly (primary jobs: Rapping, acting)- Knows the Cardinals ERA, doesn't
specifically mention Pythag, but I'd like to think that's what he was
referring to when he says the Cards are overachieving.

Skip (primary job: sportswriter)- Can't do anything specifically on
paper, attributes the Cardinals success to "something" going on there.

I understand tomorrow Woody Paige will be debating T. Pain on the merits of Schilling's case for the HOF.

People. There are seven members of the ESPN staff currently announcing the Home Run Derby. If that's not reason to drink, I don't know what is. (I guess maybe if your wife just left you or something? Seriously, though -- seven people? And one of them is Rick Reilly?)

Finally tonight -- you guessed it. More Adam Dunn bashing! This time reader Derek wants us to join in on the misery of reading John Fay's reporting on the Reds.

Four of their highest-paid, most experienced players are having bad years. Among Griffey, Adam Dunn, Aaron Harang and Bronson Arroyo, none is having even a mediocre year.

Forget the other guys -- I don't even care. We all love Adam Dunn here at FJM and we're not afraid to admit it. He gives us the kind of Three True Outcomes boner that's getting harder and harder to find in this post-steroids "emphasis on fundamentals" bullshit era that is so much less exciting and awesome than the days when everyone did a ton of drugs and hit the ball 4,000 feet and you didn't even have to worry about explaining to people about why it's stupid to bunt because it was never even an issue because for crissakes even your catcher could hit 30 home runs a year because he was doing things to his body that were making him better at baseball but of course god forbid people who play baseball should be allowed to do things that make them better at baseball --

Sorry. You're the ones who are supposed to getting drunk. I'm the 'mauf man. Apologies.

Adam Dunn is having a better than mediocre year. You all know this. He is doing the two things that are most important for hitters very well: getting on base (380 OBP) and hitting the ball hard (538 SLG). Unfortunately, John Fey has found someone to agree with him in his assessment that Dunn's year is -- again, remember this -- not just not great, but not even mediocre.

"That's a fair assessment," Baker said. "You pay attention to them because they're big guys. They're the highest-salary guys."

Good job, Dusty.

Our hearts continue to go out to the fine people of Cincinnati, who will have no choice but to drown their sorrows in Graeter's Ice Cream and Skyline Chili until DB steps down.

If all four were close to their average big-league numbers, the Reds probably would be right in the thick of the National League Central race.

Adam Dunn, career averages:
247 / 381 / 521

Adam Dunn, 2008:
228 / 380 / 528

Alright. You're drunk. And I've always been a huge Mike Gallego fan, and he's pitching in tonight's derby. So time for me to tune in.

Thanks to reader Ted for the G+L Store picture.

Turdclump

2008-07-13T12:30:00.006-04:00

The Kansas City Star's Jeffrey Flanagan has started a blog wherein he defines all the different types of sports fans. One of them is a "nerdy" character who loves stats. Guess what he named it.

Just guess.

You'll never guess -- just try, even though you'll never guess. It's hilarious.

I'm not going to tell you what it is, but you should try to guess, because you'll never get it.

It's hugely inventive, and super duper hilarious. Guess.

Remember that Mr. Flanagan writes for the KC Star -- one of the best sports newspapers in the country. The same paper that employs Joe Posnanski and Jason Whitlock (who's a bit goofy on TV, but the man can write). A smart, forward-thinking newspaper with interesting columnists and controversial opinions. Remember that, and then guess what Flanagan named this statistically-minded "nerd" character.

You'll never get it. It's fucking funny, though. Super funny.

Okay. Just guess.

What was your guess? Was it

Mom's Basement

?

If it was, you were right!!!!

Mom's Basement is a guy who never played sports &mdash or probably was embarrassingly bad at them — but nonetheless firmly believes he is an expert on any sport because he thinks sports can easily be reduced to a series of mathematical equations, or acronyms that go on forever, like the OPSTS, which I think stands for "Oh please shove those stats..."

This is painful. One long run-on sentence of pain and misery. Trite, poorly-written, turgid, and simplistic, and it wraps up in the neat little bow of: the worst version of that hacky "crazy stat acronym" joke I have personally ever seen.

Mom's Basement is aptly nicknamed because I'm convinced that's where, at 54 years old, he still resides, crouched over his computer, wearing his Star Trek jammies, researching whether, statistically speaking, it is better to bunt with a runner on second and none out in the fifth inning of night games during the mid to late spring when there is a Democrat in office and the national ratings for "American Idol" are exceeding the ARF (average rainfall) of Moose Squat, Alberta.

Why do you hate periods so much, Flanagan? Jesus. Maybe his editor said, "Okay, fine, you can write a totally hackneyed turdclump about nerds who like stats. But I'm limiting you to three sentences." And Flanagan was like, "Well then, I'm gonna get my money's worth!"

Let's break this monster down.

Mom's Basement is aptly nicknamed

You picked that name, braggart.

because I'm convinced that's where, at 54 years old,

I'm 32.

he still resides, crouched over his computer, wearing his Star Trek jammies,

Dude. Seriously? Star Trek?

Let me explain something to you. "Nerds" don't watch Star Trek anymore. This is a painful, painful joke. You cannot get hackier than this joke.

Jokes about nerds : Star Trek :: Jokes about airplanes : Those peanut bags are hard to open!

researching whether, statistically speaking, it is better to bunt with a runner on second and none out in the fifth inning of night games during the mid to late spring when there is a Democrat in office and the national ratings for "American Idol" are exceeding the ARF (average rainfall) of Moose Squat, Alberta.

Sorry. Can't do the breakdown anymore. It's just too awful. This chunk of text is the linguistic representation of what comes out of a person when they get a colonic.

Mom's Basement cringes at the notion that sports are actually played by human beings and ultimately won and lost by such non-statistical factors such as fear or intimidation or simply stronger wills.

Listen to me, friend. This character you are describing? This person doesn't exist. There is no such thing as "Mom's Basement." Yes, there are people of all ages who (foolishly, I guess? according to you?) attempt to learn things about the game they love. Those dicks. There are people who love statistics, who use spreadsheets, who like the back of the baseball card as much as the front. But they all love baseball. They all love watching baseball, and going to baseball games, and they all acknowledge that there are non-statistical factors at work. Mom's Basement, as you have described it, does not exist.

Mom's Basement is a boogeyman, invented by small-brained people with no aptitude for, or interest in, learning shit. It's the baseball equivalent of a dummy going to an art museum, looking at a Miró, and saying, "That ain't art! My 2 year-old could do that!!!!!!" It's a desperate, desperately unfunny, desperately boring, desperately hacky, desperately transparent attempt to make yourself feel better about not being smart enough to understand what OPS+ means, and because you don't know how to type "define:OPS+" into Google you invent this character and hope you can pick up a few cheap laughs from readers who are as uninventive as you are.

You write for a great paper, man. Act like it.

Today in Sacrifice Bunting

2008-07-11T01:46:00.004-04:00

Ah, sac bunting. While it is excessively polite -- "Here, other team, take one of my precious outs. No no -- I insist! Allow me to make it as easy as possible for you." -- it is also strategically numbskulled. If you took the idea of bunting and applied it to World War II, it would be the equivalent of notifying the Germans ahead of time that the Allies were heading for Omaha, figuring: hell, we still have the advantage at Sword and Juno.

Today, anecdotally:

Nate McLouth of the Pittsburgh Bucs, sporting an OPS in the upper .800's and 17 dongs on the season, stepped to the plate with a runner on in the late innings of a tie game against the New York Moustaches. Whether on his own or because he was following orders, he attempted to bunt on the first pitch he saw, and fouled it off so awkwardly you could sense his embarrassment. (Who can blame him? He probably hasn't been asked to bunt in a real game in years, given that he is an awesome hitter, and bunting is stupid for awesome hitters.) Then the next pitch arrived at home plate and he lined it into the RF seats for a 4-2 Bucs win.

Some of you out there will claim that Moustaches' pitcher Jose Veras grooved a FB on pitch #2 b/c he believed McLouth to be bunting. To you I say: get your own damn blog.

Also, reader carterman files this report:

Does it make sense to sacrifice bunt with a guy who had a .662 SLG (and 1.120 OPS) at Double-A, who despite currently hitting ~.210, had a 2-run homer earlier in the game, not to mention that he's a catcher, and has probably never had to sac bunt in his life? And then when he manages to pop it up over K-Rod's head and manages to get on base only when K-Rod throws the ball into center field, to sac bunt with your next hitter, who's hitting .335/.392/.549 coming into the game?

The Texas Rangers think this is an appropriate course of action down by 1 in the 11th inning with Max Ramirez and Ian Kinsler up at the plate. Even more baffling is that Ron Washington had been kicked out earlier, so you can't really pin this on him (unless you want to pin it on his philosophy or lack thereof).

I blame it not on Ron Washington, but on society. Society is to blame. And Ron Washington.

I Get Agita From Watching PTI's "Big Finish" When Shaughnessy is Co-hosting

2008-07-10T20:22:00.001-04:00

n/t