FJM has gone dark for the foreseeable future. Sorry folks. We may post once in a while, but it's pretty much over.
You can still e-mail dak,Ken Tremendous,Junior,Matthew Murbles, or Coach.
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.
I've had a couple of people send me none-too-enthusiastic defenses of the Blake trade. This is what I wrote to one guy:
As with almost all trades, of course there's a pretty significant chance that Blake rakes for two months and the two prospies amount to nothing. Blake does, however, have a BABIP of .343 that seems pretty unsustainable. Take that away, his average drops back down to .265, and you're looking at a very average piece.
There's the argument, I suppose, that Torre simply was never going to play LaRoche every day. But to me that seems like allowing lower-level decision-making craziness to dictate further craziness on the upper levels.
Mike Scioscia Exhales Carbon Dioxide and Gaseous-Form Winning
It's tough being Bill Plaschke these days. His man Ol' Snakeskin Boots Colletti is running the underperforming Dodgers, Pencilneck DePodesta having long been run out of town on a Plaschke-sharpened rail. Can Bill bring himself to admit that some of Bootsy's moves have been questionable at best? Well, no, not yet. You see, losing isn't about the players. It's about the air in the clubhouse.
Dodgers need to play the Angels' brand of ball
Scioscia, the former Dodgers catcher, is the model manager who has created an atmosphere of winning.
It's that simple. Mike Scioscia brings a Glade Plug-In labeled "Winning™" into the clubhouse and everyone who breathes it in gains 15 points in average. I love baseball.
Does anything seem familiar, here, your honor? Let me distill these two articles:
August 2006:
Around the hotel...
In the corner...
Around the hotel table...
In the corner...
Around the hotel room table...
In the corner...
Aaaaaaand...January, 2007:
Down below...
Up above...
Down below...
Up above...
Down below...
It was a tough code, Plaschke's writing style, but I think I've broken it:
A = (physical location) B = (different physical location)
A B A B A B A B
Fast-forward to present day. The first sentence in Plaschke's column reads as follows:
In one dugout, they were fuming....
Guesses as to the follow-up?
If you guessed
In the other dugout, they were thankful.
you guessed correctly! You win a glamour shot of Ned Colletti holding a blazer over his shoulder. The photo is autographed by Juan Pierre.
The Angels consistently win, but it's not enough.
The Dodgers lose but, hey, well, everybody else in the division stinks, so whoopee!
Remember:
A B A B A B A B The Angels expect to win.
The Dodgers don't know what to expect.
The Angels live by a standard of excellence.
The Dodgers live by the seat of their pants.
Still got it, Plaschke! Reading a Plaschke column is like being in one of those cartoons where a dog watches a tennis match and its head bobs back and forth as the ball caroms left and right. It's exactly like that, except you get a lot more misinformation.
Scioscia speaks from the strongest seat of any major league manager -- unchallenged, unquestioned, and undeniably the boss.
And that's why the Angels win. I believe the Dodgers are being managed by a sixth grade class from Terre Haute, Indiana as a class project, correct?
Torre sits on a throne of cardboard, deserving of instant respect but admittedly receiving little from a crowd much more amateur than those professional New York Yankees.
Oh right. They've got Joe Torre, widely believed to be one of the better managers in the game. Where's the atmosphere of winning (AtmoWin, for short), then?
His young players still don't listen. When they should be looking at the scoreboard, they are looking in the mirror. When they should be moving the runner from first, they are often only interested in advancing themselves.
When they should be throwing to the cutoff man, they are reading Men's Health for ab workout tips. When they should be sacrifice bunting, they are buying effeminate designer jeans. When they should be fouling off pitches, they are masturbating. Always, they are masturbating.
The Angels are all about winning in October.
([sigh] All together now,) THE DODGERS --
The Dodgers are all about surviving tonight.
When Frank McCourt examines the admirable amounts of money he has spent to revive the Dodgers franchise, he needs to look at those two dugouts, and ask himself two questions:
Is all this money changing the culture?
Is he rebuilding the championship belief system that Scioscia took with him to the Angels?
Stop. Read back all that Bill Plaschke has written. Is there one thing -- one thing -- about actual baseball?
I think it's possible that Plaschke believes "baseball" is the name for a leadership camp you go to that teaches you about "brands," "cultures," "atmospheres," and "belief systems."
McCourt finally has the right manager, but all the losing is turning Torre into just another museum piece. Hired for his gravity, Torre's surroundings have rendered him weightless.
So Torre is the right manager. But he's not really the right manager because he's losing. Or is it that the losing is turning him into the wrong manager? Oh, fuck it, I'll just shit out another cute metaphor. How about one about gravity? Yeah, gravity, that's it. [lights a cigar, leans back, and falls asleep for fourteen hours]
McCourt may have some of the right kids but not all of the right kids. They all might eventually be All-Stars, but it's clearly not going to happen for all of them here.
While waiting for some of these players to figure it out, McCourt needs to figure them out.
Who is a ballplayer? Who is not? Who can continue to grow here? Who will not?
Blake DeWitt, he's a ballplayer.
Perfect. PERFECT. Of course Bill Plaschke loves Blake DeWitt. Blake DeWitt, a corner infielder, is OPSing .695. He had a .472 OPS in the month of June after a hot start. I repeat: .472. That is very nearly Jason Varitek June-bad.
How do they find a bunch of other guys who play the game the right way like he does?
I will tell you where: literally anywhere. Of the 30 men listed as "3B" on Yahoo!'s sortable stats page, only two have OPSes lower than Blake DeWitt's: Marco Scutaro (who really plays shortstop) and Jack Hannahan (who is Jack Hannahan). So Blake DeWitt, despite being "a ballplayer" (whatever you want that to mean) and "play[ing] the game the right way" (also borderline meaningless) is probably, objectively speaking, the worst or second-worst offensive third baseman in the major leagues.
WHERE WILL WE EVER FIND A BUNCH MORE BLAKE DEWITTS?
Some of their other youngsters have much more talent, but, having been coddled since double A, they might never become ballplayers here.
It may be time to trade some of that flashy talent for somebody who understands the fundamentals. And, yes, once again, Matt Kemp's name is being whispered through Dodgers offices.
This is a classic and well-worn Plaschke truism: the problem is always, always talent. You don't want too much of it, that is. Talent kills. Talent gets you in trouble. If Bill Plaschke were assembling a professional cello team, he would blackball Yo-Yo Ma right off the bat. Players such as Kemp and Andre Ethier and James Loney have been more highly touted than guys such as Casey Kotchman, Maicer Izturis and Erick Aybar.
But it is those Angels who have a better understanding of winning.
Sure, sure. Kemp, Ethier, and Loney have nothing going for them except better OPSes, ceilings, and ages than Kotchman, Izturis, and Aybar.
Izturis and Aybar are middle infielders, but man: those are sub-DeWitt numbers.
Before Thursday, the Dodgers had a better team batting average and on-base percentage than the Angels, while scoring only 10 fewer runs.
Yet the Angels had won 11 more games.
Why?
Luck. Not only luck, perhaps, but luck is a huge part of it. The Angels are currently overperforming their Pythagorean record by a league-leading 6.6 games. Second place is the Brewers, who are only outperforming their Pyth by 3.9. In other words, the Angels have been really, really lucky. Sometimes that luck lasts over the course of the season. Sometimes it doesn't (see 2005 Washington Nationals). The Dodgers, meanwhile, are marooned two games below .500 in part because they're two games below their Pythagorean. They've been a little unlucky. The Angels have a culture that believes in winning over statistics, winning over awards, winning over everything.
Or it's the culture. Right. I forgot. All you have to do is value winning and then the Pythagorean is meaningless. You can take your Pythagorean and shove it up your Pythagor-ass, eggheads. Of course: Takashi Saito is so caught up in winning the Rolaids award he could give a shit about winning a game. It's a culture where the Angels have committed seven fewer errors, grounded into eight fewer double plays, and do all the little things that are hidden beneath the numbers.
The Angels' winning culture is so strong that they have allowed a mere 3.99 runs a game (5th in baseball) compared to the Dodgers' ridiculous 4.05 runs a game (6th in baseball)! What a bunch of losers! These are the things you can't judge by numbers. (Ignore the fact that within a sentence in which he complains about numbers, Plaschke cites number of errors and number of GIDPs.)
Then there's the statistic that shows a team's ability to win close games while manufacturing runs.
The Dodgers are 1-31 when they score two runs or fewer, while the Angels are 8-13.
This is not "the" statistic that shows a team's ability to win close games. It's not even "a" statistic that shows that. This is nonsense. The Angels are 8-13 when scoring two or fewer runs. You know what that is? That's insanely lucky. Probably unsustainably lucky. Of the 2212 teams that have played full or partial seasons since 1901, six have had better winning percentages than the 2008 Angels when scoring two or fewer runs.
The Angels are going to start losing a few more of these games.
In 2007, the Toronto Blue Jays led the league in the vaunted "Record When Scoring Two Runs or Fewer" category, going 15-32. They won 83 games. The Colorado Rockies, who won 90 games and went to the World Series, went 3-36 in such games, which sounds pretty fucking awful until you realize what the fuck you're even talking about. You know what all of this means? Absolutely fucking nothing. It's a junk stat, or at the very least, something with so much noise in it that it's really, really hard to be drawing conclusions about cultures or atmospheres or belief systems.
The above three paragraphs (I'm counting the middle, one-sentence Plaschke-graph) were a complete waste of time. I'm worked up.
The Angels lose John Lackey and Kelvim Escobar, and they just get better.
The Dodgers lose Andrew Jones and Rafael Furcal, and they fall apart.
It's Andruw. You should know this. He was signed by your best friend Ned for the fifth-highest annual salary in MLB and he's OPSing .521. I haven't heard you talk about this much, really.
Scioscia's current team isn't as glitzy as his former team. But on a daily basis, they make a far stronger commitment to obtain the only piece of baseball jewelry that matters.
What does that mean, in baseball terms? So far, you have mentioned the following:
atmosphere of winning not looking in mirrors not being only interested in advancing themselves championship belief system more players like Blake DeWitt less talent more fundamentals winning over statistics winning over awards winning over everything fewer errors fewer double plays
So: make fewer errors? Don't hit into double plays? That's what I've retained. "What the Angels have, they've got ballplayers," said Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti. "They refuse to have anything else. That was the Dodgers three decades ago. That's where we're trying to go now."
Ohhhhh. Ballplayers. I'm really starting to see why Plaschke and Colletti (Plolletti? Claschke. Definitely Claschke) get along so well. And so this discussion leads to the same place it leads seemingly every night in the bleachers and on Dodger Talk.
What about Ned?
He has had the flexibility. He has had the money. He has had his chance.
But some nights, it seems as if every Dodger he acquired in his three years here is either too old, too bruised or too boneheaded to figure out how to win.
From Ned Colletti's Wikipedia page:
"Colletti's notable player transactions, as GM, include signing Takashi Saito, Jason Schmidt, Juan Pierre, and Andruw Jones, and trading César Izturis for Greg Maddux."
Yikes. Schmidt, Pierre, Jones...you want to bash Colletti a little, Bill? Not even a little?
Some nights, many nights, the Dodgers are the worst possible embodiment in a town that understands baseball.
They are the anti-Angels.
Nope. It's all about the mystical powers of Mike Scioscia.
Part of the reason that Paul DePodesta was fired from his job as the previous Dodgers general manager was because, during his final aborted managerial search, he did not even inquire about the availability of Scioscia.
If the same fate befalls Colletti this winter, it will be because he could not create the sort of culture embraced by the likes of Scioscia.
According to Baseball Prospectus' Third-Order Wins, the Angels are actually a 44.9-43.0 team and the Dodgers are a 44.5-43.5 team. That 0.4-win difference? 100% Scioscia.
Lest you think that Mike Scioscia actually has the magical managerial ability to will his teams to victories in close games through atmosphere and branding and calm, baseball-faced, steely-jawed resolve, I present to you the following: during his tenure as Angels manager, Scioscia's teams have won 54.0% of their one-run games. Which is very good. Sixth in baseball, in fact. Makes sense: they have the sixth-best record in baseball over that span (2000-2008).
The Dodgers, with their culture of losing, their miserable, all-talent-no-fundamentals rapscallions, their carousel of managers, have only the tenth-best overall record from 2000-2008. But their winning percentage in one-run games is .559, .019 higher than Scioscia's Stalwarts and good for third in baseball. Those close ones -- that's where you really see the mettle of a team! That's where manufacturing and bunting and sacrificing and striking out if necessary if it's for the good of the team truly comes into play.
The team that won the highest percentage of one-run games from 2000 to 2008 is the Oakland Athletics, who have a culture of insidious numbers and are run by the chess computer Deep Blue.
The second I finished reading this article, Blake DeWitt saved Hiroki Kuroda's perfect game by bare-handing a 7th inning bunt attempt and flinging it to first to get Gregor Blanco by a step.
I mean, it's mind-boggling. Mike Pizza once hit 40 home runs and OPS+ed 185 as a dude who has to sit in a painful crouch for half of a three-hour game every day. Plus he wasn't a Bondsian-level jerkass, just sort of prickly-blah.
Everyone loves Pizza!
Not Paul Lukas, the guy who usually does Uni Watch, a feature I think I enjoy. Lukas also insists on calling Mike Pizza "Mike Piazza," which I don't really understand.
Good riddance, Mike Piazza
For fuck's sake, calm down.
Now that Mike Piazza has retired, people are already debating whether his Hall of Fame plaque should depict him in a Mets cap or a Dodgers cap.
The answer is clear: Marlins.
If you look at the numbers, it's no contest -- his greatest years were in L.A.
Yeah, he had four or five of his best offensive seasons with the Dodgers, no doubt. But he also four pretty amazing years with the Mets, spent more seasons in New York overall, went to that Subway Series with them in 2000, and held baseball's first "I'm not gay" press conference in New York. So there's something of a contest here, Lukas.
And as a lifelong Mets fan who never warmed up to Piazza, I don't want his enshrinement tied to my team, anyway. Here's why:
The truth comes out. This article isn't about Mike Pizza's Hall of Fame cap at all. I just read the whole thing -- it's actually six numbered bullet points about why Paul Lukas hates Mike Pizza.
Which is fine. It just seems a little disingenuous to Trojan horse the thing inside a "Which HOF cap debate?" question. Just call it "Lukas Loathes..." and put it on your personal blog. Come to think of it, this whole piece doesn't really belong on a major sports media outlet's website, now, does it?
1. When it became apparent that he'd have to move from catcher to first base, Piazza's behavior ranged from disingenuous to manipulative. A classy player would've stepped up and said, "I'll do anything to help the team -- where do you want me to play?"
As Derek Jeter did in 2004, leading to the formation of an unbreakable bond between Jeter and new arrival Alex Rodriguez. Together, these lifelong friends and eventual co-captains would go on to win six consecutive championships, with Rodriguez shattering the record for home runs by a shortstop and becoming the greatest of all time at his position.
A-Rod, ever magnanimous, gave all credit to Jeter: "Derek showed true leadership by shifting to third and allowing me to continue to play at short, where I'm most comfortable. I couldn't have hit all of those clutch ninth-inning home runs without his unwavering support."
Jeter: "He's the king of New York. He eats the pressure for breakfast and asks for seconds. That's why they call him Clutch-Rod."
Rodriguez: "I have a strong feeling there would have been a devastating hurricane in the southeastern United States some time in 2005 if Derek Jeter had not shifted to third base. Just one of those feelings, you know."
What were we talking about again?
But Piazza kept playing dumb, tossing out quotes like, "Well, management hasn't said anything to me about it, so I really don't know."
Oh, right, Pizza. I don't know. Let's say you're the greatest fucking hitting catcher of all time, no one from your team has told you directly that they want you to move to first base, and it's not like the A-Rod of catching has just been traded to your squad. In fact, you yourself are the A-Rod of catching, hitting-wise.
Do you preemptively volunteer to play first?
I'm not fucking moving anywhere 'til I'm told to.
Right, the whole city of New York is talking about it but you have no clue. Sure.
You heard it here first: Paul Lukas expects players to switch positions based on talk radio chatter and Post back page headlines.
When skipper Art Howe eventually mentioned to some reporters that Piazza would be taking some infield practice at first base and the reporters then told Piazza, he acted all offended because Howe didn't tell him beforehand.
It seems like this would kind of piss me off too.
2. One reason he didn't want to play first base was that he was obsessed with that stupid record for most home runs hit by a catcher -- a record that exactly one person in town cared about. Can you guess who that one person was?
The ghost of Mohammed Atta?
(Hint: Rhymes with "Mike Piazza.")
Oh. It was baseball historian and NYU Classics professor Ike Miazza. Figures.
3. Of course, once Piazza finally played first base, we found out the real reason why he'd been avoiding the issue: The guy's a horrible athlete.
So horrible he made over $120 million playing a sport professionally while not being a seven-foot-four acromegalic from Madeupeasterneuropeancountry-ovakia-istan.
Great hitter, yes, but not a good athlete.
Ah yes. David Ho: great AIDS researcher, but not a good scientist.
No coordination, no footwork.
Note to all aspiring high school baseball players: it takes zero coordination and zero footwork to play catcher for a Major League Baseball team for nearly 15 seasons. Catcher: the position played by physical dum-dums!
And it went way beyond his inability to play first base. I defy anyone to find one instance -- one single instance -- of Mike Piazza properly executing a slide into second or third base. Never happened. Why? Get this: MIKE PIAZZA CAN'T SLIDE. It's true. When he tried to slide, he'd spaz out and trip. Really!
And because he couldn't slide, Mike Pizza shouldn't...wear a Mets cap...in the Hall of Fame?
I feel like we've gone off the rails a little bit, people. 4. When the New York Post implied that Piazza was gay, he held that little press conference where he declared his heterosexuality. OK, fine. But he missed a huge opportunity to say, "But what if it was true? What if I was gay? So what? What if one of my teammates is gay? What if one of YOU is gay? It's no big deal. Listen, I'm straight, but this whole thing is really a nonissue." In a city with a huge gay population, that was an opportunity to show some real community leadership, and he totally spit the bit.
Yeah, it would've been cool if he had done that. I bet Mike Pizza is a little homophobic. Or maybe he's really gay. I don't know. But I also bet that a good number of the Mets that Paul Lukas absolutely adores are also a little homophobic. It seems like a professional athlete thing to be.
** EDIT **
Also, as many many many readers have just pointed out to me, Pizza sort of did say the whole thing was a nonissue:
"In this day and age, it's irrelevant," he said. "I don't think it would be a problem at all."
So at least at that press conference, he didn't seem all that homophobic at all. He was a gay-friendly Pizza, like one with basil and Roma tomatoes. (Note: I did not say "with sausage" because it's too phallic, I did not say "with pineapple" because it's too fruity, and I did not say "with clam and garlic" because that's too vagina-y.)
** END EDIT **
5. A few days after Roger Clemens beaned him in 2000, Piazza said that the incident had made him reassess the DH. "I thought the DH could be a good thing for me later in my career," he said, "but now I see that it's bad for baseball, because the pitcher can throw at the batter with no fear of retaliation." So what did he do after leaving the Mets? He shopped himself to American League teams with hopes of becoming a DH. None of them were interested, so he signed with the Padres, but then he went to the A's, where he happily DH'd. Hypocrite.
He said that first thing after he got a damn concussion from one of Clemens' 160-mph torP.E.D.oes. Five years later, you want him to end his career out of the mere principle of sticking to an offhand anti-DH comment to the media after he got hit in the head?
6. "The runner goes, here's the throw from Piazza -- and it comes in on two hops."
He was a bad thrower. He was also the best player on your favorite team for years and years. He slugged .941 in the 2000 NLCS. He hit 40, 38, 36, and 33 home runs from 1999-2002, batting in anywhere from 94 to 124 runs in each of those seasons. And yes, he broke the record for home runs hit by a catcher, which is kind of a big deal if you're the type of person who cares at all about what hat a man wears inside the Baseball Men Hall of People Who Hit and Pitched and Fielded Well.
Was Piazza a tremendous offensive player? Yes. Did I sometimes cheer for him? Yes.
Sometimes?
But he never fulfilled his potential as a star, in the fullest sense of that term. Too bad.
star Pronunciation: \ˈstär\ Function: noun 1 : a player who changes positions as soon as Jesse from Queens calls into Mike and the Mad Dog and asks him to 2 : a player who does not try to hit more home runs than anyone who has played his position ever has in the history of the game 3 : a player who practices sliding, not hitting 4 a : a player who uses his "I'm not gay" press conference as an opportunity to speak out for gay equality, or barring that, b : a gay guy 5 : someone who has never contradicted in action what he or she has once said in words 6 : Yadier Molina, because hey, what an arm!
KT said it already, and here's the link. It seems that rational thought has somehow insinuated itself back into Le Ravine Chavez (pronounced sha-vay). But wait -- here's Snakeskin Boots Colletti's quote on the matter:
"Is he [Pierre] a bench player or is he not starting tomorrow?" Colletti asked. "It's a long season. You've got to compete, you've got to play. I understand the build-up to Opening Day. But you look at a lot of Opening Day rosters and there are players you can't even recognize. It changes day by day."
Reading between the lines, I'd say it's fifty-fifty that Bootsy's going to DFA Ethier by the end of the week so Torre's forced to play a real man in left field. A man who can bunt. A man who can swunt. A man whose skills range from bunting okay to swunting acceptably well. A man who is constantly hailed as the consummate professional but was already complaining before the decision was made to replace him with a better player ("If they want to go a different route," Pierre said, "I can live with it and I have to understand it but it's something I don't get.")
Snakeskin has spoken. This story is far from over.
It doesn't matter that it was written two and half weeks ago. This column will live on through the ages. They will speak the name of this column and shudder in fear and awe. This is the ur-column.
Pierre and Plaschke, a pairing like prosciutto and melon, like mini-golf and beer, like Travolta and Cage. Behold.
Dodgers' Juan Pierre is right where he belongs
I would argue that Pierre would belong better in the cast of the movie Gosford Park than atop a major league lineup.
VERO BEACH, Fla. -- There's a boxer in the house.
There's a tiresome stylistic contrivance in the house. "Yeah, last year, I got beat up pretty good," says Juan Pierre.
There's defiance in the house.
You see how he brought "in the house" back for another spin? You see that? That's what it takes to play in the writing big leagues, son. Take notes. Repetitive notes. Fragmented notes.
Poetic notes.
"If people really think the reason we lost last year was because my arm wasn't strong enough, or because I didn't get on base enough, hey, that's cool, I'll be the man, I'll take it," says Pierre.
Look, spare me the martyr shit, dude. A guy who loses his house to a tornado is a victim. You ain't no victim. The Dodgers lost for a bunch of reasons. It definitely did not help them that they gave the guy with the second-worst OBP on the team the most ABs.
There's resolve in the house.
"I'm coming into this season with a chip on my shoulder . . . just like every season," says Pierre.
Does that mean we can expect EqAs of .256, .253 and .255 (Pierre's last three chip-shouldered seasons)? Maybe you should try playing happy or somethin'. Mix it up.
No. No no no no no no no. They can. They really can. They did. They are. The fact that you, Bill Plaschke, for some reason believe that Juan Pierre plays an entirely different, incalculable, unknowable, ineffable, ethereal, spiritual, intangible, holy, effervescent, incorporeal, bioluminescent, antioncogenic game that is emphatically not baseball does not make it so.
They have run the numbers, and they are ugly.
Bloggers downright brutalize him.
This is akin to saying "Everyone who has written on a typewriter despises rabbits." Blogging is a medium, nothing more. It is not a religion. It is not a creed. We do not all think in lockstep. This is a motherfucking boring-ass recording.
I like him.
Boom! The Plaschke turn. You thought I was going one way and then I went the other -- Plaschke-style. Let me show you how it's done:
"Most people hate turtle shit. They say it's stinky. They say it's runny. They say it doesn't serve a purpose anymore in today's workaday world.
I like it."
Now that the Dodgers have added Rafael Furcal's health and Andruw Jones' pop, I think Juan Pierre's presence at the top of the lineup will be as oversized as his cap.
Um, is he going to get any better at, you know, hitting and stuff? He's turning 31 this year. He's been very bad, I don't know if you've been watching the Dodger baseball team or anything... Now that the Dodgers have moved him to left field, I think Juan Pierre will fit as easily there as his bat fits on a bunt.
Because if at all possible, you want your left fielder to slug .353.
Now that Joe Torre is installing an aggressive running game, I think Pierre's ability on the basepaths will be as evident as the dirt streaks on his jersey.
Is he really going to steal more than the 64 bases he stole last year? That would be a terrible sign because it would mean he would be eating up like 700 plate appearances. Also: will baseball writers ever tire of mentioning dirt streaks as a proxy for baseball skill? Perhaps when we move to silicon-based fields, as I am proposing we do in 2011.
Now that it can be a complement instead of a cornerstone, I think the idea of Juan Pierre will work.
New euphemism for "shit player": "complement."
"My game is not pretty, it's just not pretty," Pierre says. "You have to be an old-school guy to appreciate it."
Your game is extremely pretty. It's exciting to watch guys take huge leads, play cat and mouse with the pitcher, kick up dirt when they slide. It invigorates the crowd. Kids love it. This is the best thing about your game -- its entertainment value. Casual fans probably love watching you play, and I don't blame them. You're f.u.n.!!!
Yours is a crowd-pleasing style all in all, Mr. Pierre -- so it stands to reason that if the crowd has turned on you, well, things probably aren't going well, are they?
That's one more reason this will be a good year for Juan Pierre.
Torre is one of those old-school guys who appreciates him.
"He does things the right way," Torre says.
If I were implausibly saintly The Wire Season 5 character Baltimore Sun City Editor Augustus "Gus" Haynes, I would slide my wise-person glasses down my wise, wise nose and pithily growl, "Cut that quote." Because it's the billionth time we've read that about the millionth different player, and it doesn't add anything. It detracts.
Contrary to the winter hopes of many Dodgers fans, Torre's lineups have indicated that Pierre will be the starting left fielder ahead of Andre Ethier.
It makes sense.
Sure it makes sense. Andre Ethier is a major-league caliber player who gets on base, hits for some power, plays good defense, has a decent throwing arm, and is currently 25 years old. Juan Pierre is a professional longshoreman who has convinced a baseball team to pay him tens of millions of dollars despite the fact that he cannot get on base, cannot hit for power, runs borderline-insane routes in the outfield, and has an arm so feeble he struggles to open jars of kalamata olive tapenade.
What's the issue here?
Pierre adds an irreplaceable speed component to the top of the Dodgers order. And, in left field, what Pierre lacks in arm, he can overcome with that speed.
That too. What Pierre lacks in OBP (twenty points to Ethier last year), he can overcome with speed. What Pierre lacks in EqA (eighteen points), he can overcome with speed. His zero homers -- well, he's fast. His 32 extra-base hits -- he's speedy. His team worst 75 OPS+ -- guy can motor. "Johnny Damon never had much of an arm, we moved him to left field, it worked out fine," says Torre. "You can offset that kind of arm with your aggressive play. You can get good jumps, get to balls that other guys can't."
Johnny Damon is on the downslide. Johnny Damon is 34 years old. Johnny Damon was never a big power hitter. Johnny Damon has like fifty-nine different injuries. Last year Johnny Damon out-OPSed Juan Pierre by 62 points. It was Johnny's worst season in seven years.
Pierre also brings something that, during last season's doldrums, everyone seemed to forget.
You can find it in a locked box in his Fort Lauderdale home.
It is the severed finger of Angela Lansbury.
He's one of only three Dodgers with a World Series ring.
But the finger -- the finger is what will lead the Dodgers to victory. Well, it'll have about as much impact, anyway.
You know who else has a Florida Marlins 2003 World Series ring? Ugueth Urbina. The evidence is conclusive: World Series experience causes you to travel to Venezuela, pour gasoline on some men and commit attempted murder on them with a machete. Ugie Urbina: he's a winner™! "The young guys know about it, they ask about it sometimes," Pierre says. "But I don't like wearing it. I'd rather lead with my actions."
"I'd rather lead off and finish third, first, second, second and first in outs in the league the last five years."
Those actions were uninspiring early last year, the first of a five-year, $44-million contract that was questioned before the ink was dry.
Trying too hard, he spent much of the early season surrounded by boos for a mediocre batting average, an awful on-base percentage and general ineffectiveness.
There you have it: when Juan Pierre sucks shit, it's because he's trying too hard. When some dickface like Pat Burrell or Adam Dunn posts a low batting average but a high OBP, he's a lazy fuckbutt. Plaschkevision.
"Yeah, I heard everybody," Pierre says. "It was like, 'Pierre, you stink' ... 'Pierre, go away' ... I heard it all."
I don't really advocate yelling insults at players, but hey: sort of perceptive work, there, Dodger Stadium crowd. I'll see you at the ballpark in person several times this year. I'll be the one in the Juan Pierre Laker jersey (Crossovers, trademark dak).
He batted .308 after the All-Star break, three points higher than his average during Florida's 2003 world championship year. He finished with 41 runs batted in, the same as in the championship year.
Batting average has never ever ever ever been Juan Pierre's problem. That's one of the like two and a half baseball things he's good at. The issues are twofold here, though: 1. Batting average is stupid and 2. Batting average is really, really stupid. Actually, I'll make another point here: in the second half of 2006, Juan Pierre improved (presumably from not trying too hard) and hit .311! He had found his stroke! He was bound for a roaring comeback! Sign this man to a $300 million deal!
Then in the first half of 2007, he batting averaged .282 and OBP-ed .311. :(
You can do a lot of fun things with pre- and post-All Star Break splits. Will Juan Pierre settle in and become the Juan Pierre of 2003-2004, when he was a valuable major league player? It's possible. Weird shit happens all the time. But after three execrable offensive years, it's hard to bet on a guy who's permanently out of his twenties. He scored four fewer runs (96), stole one fewer base (64), and, with the exception of a lack of plate discipline amid a lousy offense, he performed just as he did in Florida.
With the exception of getting on base, the most important thing a hitter can do, he was fantastic. Damn Rafael Furcal's lousy year! He's to blame for Juan Pierre's lousy year. Thank god Furcal's ankle is healthy so Pierre's eyes will work again.
In the end, Juan Pierre did exactly what Juan Pierre does.
Embarrass everyone except Bill Plaschke.
While unfairly taking the fall for a team that crumbled around him.
What exactly is unfair about saying a player burned through a ton of at bats and didn't help the team? You know what's unfair? Andre Ethier, a better player in every aspect of the game except baserunning, is being denied playing time because of a bad contract. These are Ethier's prime baseball years. He's not going to be playing as much baseball as he should. He will never get these years back. He is not a kid anymore. He's played in 279 major league games, and he's played well in those games.
Juan Pierre hit zero home runs last year. Mythical fairy creature David Eckstein hit three, for Chrissakes, and he swings a three-inch bat carved out of a candy cane.
The truth is, the idea of Juan Pierre was a good one, and still is.
Plaschke has spoken. This is The Truth. They will carve this column on alabaster tablets and hang them in our most hallowed halls of justice. Wise men will memorize these words and teach them to our young to prepare them for the trials of life. This column is the new Torah.
I can't believe you just gave away my billion dollar crossover jersey idea.
Of course, the proper Pierre jersey is actually a Kings jersey. Both Pierre and the Kings are awul; plus, on first glance Kings/Pierre/9 looks like a French Canadian hockey player.
It's been a while since I live-blogged one of Steve Phillips's patented "here's what they need to do" type segments on BBTN or SC. This one just blew my skirt up. I'm going to go ahead and type it out in full...
Now that the Los Angeles Dodgers have Joe Torre in place, it's time for them to address their roster for the 2008 season. Here's what they need to do to be a playoff and World Series-contending team.
They need power. There's two positions they're going to go to. First: third base. They need to be in the market for Miguel Cabrera. There's rumors that the Florida Marlins are willing to trade him. They have to check it out and see if a deal can be made. They also have to talk to Scott Boras and see if there's a deal to be made for Alex Rodriguez. They have to land one of those two guys to add power to a line-up that was ranked fifteenth in home runs in the National League.
Next, they have to go to centerfield -- Juan Pierre has to move. To improve the defense and offense, Pierre has to go to left field, and look for the Dodgers to make a play for Andruw Jones or Torii Hunter, and even if they have to settle for Mike Cameron or Aaron Rowand, they will upgrade defensively and add power to the line-up.
And finally, now that they've added some pieces through the free agent market, it allows them to put together some young pitchers with some young position players, and go to the Minnesota Twins and knock their socks off, and bring Johan Santana to the West Coast.
If they make those deals, they're going to the World Series.
See? Super easy. Just give ARod $350m. Let's just start there, at that no-brainer -- give the guy $35m/yr for ten years, and lock him up. Or, if you don't want to do that, trade every good young cost-controlled player you have to the Marlins for an awesome player who is under your control for two more years, but who made $7.4 in arbitration last year and guess what? He isn't going to make less this year, or next, nor is he going to sign a long-term deal for anything less than like $22+m/yr for eight years. Hell, maybe $25m/10 years. $40m/fifteen years, plus a $200 McDonald's per diem? Some huge deal.
So, just, like, do that, you know, and then there's an easy second thing to do, which is: move your terrible overpaid CF to LF, and sign either the 32 year-old Hunter or 30 year-old Jones, either of whom you can have for around $80-120m for some number of years, and both of whom are probably over the hill defensively and maybe also offensively, and both of whom you'll be paying like $18m a year when they're 36 or 37 and they'll just be miserable, out there, in Dodger Stadium.
And so that's great, you did those two things, and your payroll shouldn't be that bad. $108m last year, with about $14m coming off the books in dead money...depending on whether you pick up Kent's $9m option***...but you also have to re-sign Saito...let's call it $100m (wild conservative guess). So, $25m for Cabrera and say $18 for Torii/Andruw gets you to $143. Not terrible. Then you just put together all of the great young cost-controlled players that you somehow magically still have after the Cabrera deal -- and you have probably traded Kemp, Loney, Billingsley, and some minor leaguers for him -- and you trade for Santana, somehow, (maybe Scott Proctor straight-up? Would Minnesota do that?) and you give him his $13.25, so we're at maybe $156m+, and you have no young cost-controlled players at all, like fucking none, at all, anywhere, at any level, anywhere, and if you are lucky enough to re-sign Santana and not quickly lose him to free agency and somehow give him the contract he will demand ($210m over 8 years?) you have a $170-$180m payroll that has:
1B Nomar 2B Kent SS Furcal 3B Cabrera LF Pierre CF Hunter/Jones RF ??? C Martin
P Santana P Penny P Loaiza P Schmidt P Lowe
With, again, fucking no one waiting in the wings when Nomar, Kent, Furcal, Penny, Schmidt, and probably someone else all go down with injuries on like April 9. Maybe Torre can work some magic?
Anyway, this plan seems good to me. Thanks, Steve. Enjoy the World Series, L.A.!
Want to Copy Someone? Do the Opposite of What They Do!
I have a question for Michael Ventre, who, one would think, has actually watched sports in order to prepare for his job as a sportswriter.
His article is called "Dodgers Hope ‘Red Sox West’ Brings Success" and has the subtitle: "Nomar signing cements move to try and [sic] copy Boston’s winning formula."
You can probably figure out what the article is about: the Dodgers have named Grady Little their manager, and now signed Nomar, and Billy Mueller, and also have Derek Lowe. So, Ventre writes, they are trying to copy the Red Sox' blueprint for success.
Here's my question for Michael Ventre: you are wrong.
Fine. Not really a question. Who cares.
Grady Little was fired because he (a) made one of the worst and most memorable blunders in the history of managing, and (b) did not in any way fit into the Red Sox' modified-Moneyball blueprint for success (RSM-MBFS). So, hiring him is the opposite of copying the RSM-MBFS.
Nomar is a 32 year-old SS with no plate discipline who was traded because his diminishing bat speed and history of injuries made him a bad fit in the RSM-MBFS. Therefore, (see above).
Billy Mueller was a very important part of the RSM-MBFS. But he is 34 and his skills are declining, so the Sox let him go. Don't you think that if he were a viable candidate to continue contributing to the RSM-MBFS he would still be a part of the RSM-MBFS?
Derek Lowe is a head-case who doesn't strike anyone out and the Dodgers gave him a 14-year $214 million contract.
Read the article. It's really dumb and talks about Ned Colletti a lot -- a guy who is so completely the opposite of the kind of dude who would be the architect for the RSM-MBFS it's not even funny.
