I've seen what Peter King wrote in his Monday Morning Quarterback column. And since you have shared it with us, I will share it with the world:
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. The American League East race is looking pretty darn over.
b. Coffeenerdness: You've got to examine what it is that you do, The Coffee Beanery. Because making lattes is just not your forte, if the semi-coffee-flavored espresso I had at Houston Intercontinental Airport is any indication. Thin and weak is no way to go through life, Mr. Blutarsky.
c. I honestly think Jason Varitek is a bigger loss to the Red Sox than Manny Ramirez would be.Empirical studies have shown that The Coffee Beanery's lattes are in fact 1.25 to 1.5 times as strong as lattes from national chains like Starbucks, Peet's, and Seattle's Best, no matter how many
Animal House references you throw in to insult them.
Oh, and I guess he wrote a thing about Jason Varitek and Manny Ramirez. He might have had some kind of case over the past three seasons, when Varitek posted EqAs and WARP3s of:
2003: .289, 6.8
2004: .297, 7.5
2005: .297, 7.3
But I get the feeling Mr. King hasn't watched too many Red Sox games this year. Or opened his Yahoo! Sports profile page any time in the last few months, a thing that would take roughly two seconds. Varitek, for the unfamiliar, has suffered a steep decline this season:
2006: .256, 3.9
While he's not quite Yorvit Torrealba (.249) or Brad Ausmus (.210 (?!)) yet, he's not Joe Mauer (.336), either. Meanwhile, Manny Ramirez has been the same Manny Ramirez he's always been. Check these numbers:
2003: .337, 8.4
2004: .324, 7.7
2005: .327, 8.1
2006: .343, 8.2
That is remarkable, consistent excellence on the field of play. Regardless of how many times he peed in the Monster.
Given that the Red Sox acquired (a probably washed-up) Javy Lopez, it's hard to even make the argument that the drop-off between Varitek and his replacement is larger than the drop-off between Manny and his potential backup (Wily Mo Pena, I would guess).
Here is where Peter King, if allowed a chance to respond in this forum, would counter with homilies about pitch-calling and leadership and chemistry and rah-rah spirit. And honestly, in 2004 or 2005, I don't think I would've been that upset about that argument. But in 2006, it's pretty indefensible.
Labels: jason varitek, manny ramirez, peter king, red sox
We love our readers. I hope you guys know that by now. And I'm personally sorry that I haven't posted at least once a day for the last month. Believe me, I'd like nothing more than to be blogging 18 hours a day.
But back to you, the readers. You've been doing your part, and for those of you who don't write in or don't realize how many people do, here's just a quick rundown of the type of stuff we get in just a one-day span. It's Gallimaufry time.
From Nick:
I don't know if you guys heard this, but last night around 12:30 on ESPN Radio's Gamenight, these two clowns were debating whether or not Manny Ramirez was a Hall of Famer.
And by "debating" I mean they sort of threw it out there and then both agreed that he wasn't. One of them said he thought about it a long time, and then was persuaded by the second guy's opinion. Did they discuss, his career OBP of .410, or the fact that he has has never had even a mediocre full season in the Majors, or that by the time he's done he'll have at least 550 dingers? No.
The discussion basically went like "well, 455 HR's is a good number, but hey Dave Kingman had 500 HR's and he's not in the HOF." (Of course Kingman had 442, and he also had a career line of .236-.302.-478 compared to Manny's .313-.410.-600) And then they discussed how Manny sometimes looks like he's not trying. Then they strangely moved on to how Papi Ortiz has a better chance of making the HoF if he keeps going because he's so clutch; they never menitoned Manny's World Series MVP.
My favorite part is that their counterexample is Dave Kingman because he had 500 homers, when in fact he didn't even do that. Manny is so far ahead of Ortiz in the Hall of Fame race it's ridiculous.
From Evan (and many, many others):
Not sure if you saw this. Verducci from SI tries to argue that OBP may not be the best barometer of lead-off hitters. Part of it made my brain hurt.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writers/tom_verducci/06/20/reyes/1.html
A lot of people pointed us to this article, probably because we've been so hard on Jose Reyes in the past. After reading it, though, I'm not as angry as a lot of you. Here's why: up to this point in the season, Jose Reyes has been a fantastic hitter for a shortstop. Fantastic. Look at these numbers: a .361 OBP, a .495 SLG, an .856 OPS. He's stolen 34 bases and only been caught 8 times. When Verducci wrote the article, he was only OBPing .338, but it's hard to go back and criticize a guy for what now looks like prescience rather than an attempt to justify the hype. Reyes' play over the course of 73 games has justified the hype. Get back to me at the end of the year if he's back down to the .330s, though.
From David:
McCarver did a long riff on how brilliant and throrough in their
research the Red Sox were before deciding to go out and trade for Mike
Lowell in the off season. Never once mentioning that he was a
grudgingly accepted contract dump - the price of doing business in the
Beckett deal. Not sure if you can find the transcript anywhere (2nd
inning, Saturday's game) , but he went on and on and no one stopped
him. Lowell is certainly exceeding the rosiest projections of any Red Sox analyst. It's pretty crazy to argue he was anything other than a means for the Sox to get Beckett.
From Tony:
Oh man, come on.
The play by play guy just said.."They have the most foul territory here in Detroit, more than anywhere, and that's why they have such a low team ERA." Then, as if to cover him self, he said, and the pitchers probably are
maturing as well.
Would like to know which play by play guy said this, but thanks for that, Tony.
From Joey:
Thought I'd give you all a heads up on more Tim McCarver fun from Saturday's FOX Game of the Week:
"Tim McCarver: In Scrabble, W's are worth 4 points. S's are only worth 1 point. But as far as Papelbon is concerned, S's are worth a lot more than W's.
Joe Buck: Folks, feel free to turn off your TVs right now. Go do something else. Good Lord..."
Source: http://www.lookoutlanding.com/story/2006/6/24/153755/748
FJM: As far as FJM is concerned, neither W's or S's are worth anything as statistics.
From Frank:
im watching tonights game...first thought, does ozzie (osbourne) guillen ever drink his water or does he always spit it out.I'm pretty sure this was actually from Chris Berman.
From Jesse:
Don't know if you guys caught the brilliant exchange between Joe and Johnny in the bottom of the 11th tonight. As Podsednik came to bat with the winning run on 3rd and 2 down, both Joe and Johnny (but particularly Joe) expressed their supreme conviction that the Astros would be wise to pitch around Podsenik to pitch to Iguchi, as this would be "playing the percentages." Presumably they were talking about the lefty-righty thing, as Qualls was pitching. Notwithstanding the fact that Iguchi had, oh, 2 homers and 7 RBIs in the game to that point, had they examined the percentages they would have discovered that (1) Iguchi is, overall, a much better hitter than Podsednik, and (2) Iguchi, the righty, is actually much better than Podsednik against righties...
I'm sure you guys can make the numbers look much better than I could, so I'll leave that part to you.
I'll just organize them a bit better:
Scott Podsednik 2006 OPS
vs. LHP: .552
vs. RHP: .810
Tadahito Iguchi 2006 OPS
vs. LHP: .671
vs. RHP: .839
The lesson is: never, ever pitch around Scott Podsednik.
From David:
Don't know if you saw Sportscenter the last day or so.
They had Schlereth, Salisbury, and Golic ranking the QB situation of every team in the NFL.
While they did name the Patriots as number one, one of the "geniuses" made a comment that Tom Brady will never lead the league in stats.
UMM, last year, Brady led the league in passing yards.
People still don't think Brady can throw the ball. Amazing.People are still trying with the football stuff, and I condone this. Hey, if you've got Marcelo Balboa or Dave O'Brien complaints, go ahead, send them in.
And one last one, from Charlie:
Don't know if you guys caught this last night but in one of the extra
innings in the Stros-White Sox game, Bobby Jenks through a pitch that
Joe Morgan identified as a slider, but the speed flashed 97mph. Joe
then went on and on about how nobody can throw a slider 97mph so the
radar gun must have gotten it wrong.A radar gun, with its digital readout, qualifies as a computer in Joe's world. They are not to be trusted. In the coming Artifical Intelligence Wars, whose side will you be on? Whose side will the radar guns be on? Don't go crying to Joe when a radar gun kidnaps your sister.
That's just a selection of emails from a 24-hour period. Bottom line: you're our eyes and ears. Wherever the sports media are embarrassing themselves with their ignorance, you're there. Thank you.
Labels: manny ramirez, scott podsednik, tim mccarver, tom verducci
Apparently, (future) Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg has a column on Yahoo! Sports called
4-for-4. The hook?
"
Yahoo! Sports' MLB analyst Ryne Sandberg gives four answers to four pressing questions in the major leagues."
Will the answers be in any way satisfactory or well thought out? Sadly, the answer to that question is a resounding no. Does the correct answer in the previous sentence make me 1-1 for today's post? No, I choose not to frame my writing in a nugget-sized, at-bat-style format.
Most of Ryno's analysis is banal or self-evident. (Example: "The Yankees just got back to .500 and that's always the first sign for a team on the rise. Once you get to .500, you can make a move.") But there's one question that Sandberg fumbles particularly egregiously.
3. Is Manny Ramirez a Hall of Famer?
Here's what Sandberg has to say:
I think the Boston Red Sox outfielder has taken advantage of Fenway Park. He's very comfortable there hitting balls off the Green Monster, and he's been very constant in what he contributes year in and year out with his run production.
At this point of his career, Ramirez reminds me of Jim Rice and Andre Dawson. Both of them hit over 400 home runs in their careers, but they're not in the Hall of Fame yet. Ramirez could have six or seven years left and wind up with 500-plus home runs. At that point, you could talk about Manny as a Hall of Famer. But not now.
As far as I can tell, the first paragraph helps Manny’s cause. He hits well at home? Fantastic. He’s consistent with run production? Great. If Sandberg is trying to argue that Manny’s numbers are inflated because Fenway is a good hitter’s park, he certainly doesn’t present any evidence to suggest that that’s the case. I don’t have Manny’s Boston home and away splits in front of me, but why don’t we look at his years in Cleveland years just to do a quick and dirty check of whether Ramirez is actually a product of Fenway’s Green Monster? The following are Manny’s OPS+’s from the years 1995-2000, when he was a Cleveland Indian: 148, 145, 143, 146, 174, 185. In all five of those years, he was in the top ten in all of baseball in OPS+. In 1999 and 2000, he led the major leagues in OPS.
So I'm not sure what Ryne is trying to say there.
Then Sandberg compares Manny to Jim Rice and Andre Dawson, great players both, but really, how similar to Manny Ramirez are they? Off the top of my head, I would say not very. Let’s go to the numbers, the only tangible record of how all three hitters actually performed. Manny (without a real decline phase yet, of course) has a career OPS+ of 156, extraordinarily high. Willie Mays’ career OPS+ is 156. (With about a season and a half of serious decline at ages 41 and 42. Amazingly, Willie had an OPS+ of 160 when he was 40!) Rice and Dawson check in at 128 and 119, respectively. And I’m not just poaching OPS+ because it’s convenient and it proves my point. Dawson is a clearly inferior hitter who had power but generally did not draw walks and managed to play for a long time. Rice is closer, and he won the 1978 AL MVP, but outside of that one phenomenal year, you know how many other seasons he surpassed Ramirez’s average OPS+ of 156? Zero. Manny’s been above it the last six years and counting, including one crazy year of 190.
So what is Ryno’s point? That, like he says very clearly, Rice, Dawson, and Manny all have 400 homers and Rice and Dawson still aren’t in? This doesn’t make any sense. Manny is 32, and he’s still hitting very effectively. Why not compare Alex Rodriguez with all the guys who’ve hit 380 home runs in their whole careers even though he’s clearly better than all of them?
The point is, comparing home run totals for a player who is still in his prime to the totals of guys who are done with their careers really doesn’t help us all that much. To take it to an extreme, if a guy came in and hit 122 homers in one year, then retired, would he make the Hall of Fame? You certainly wouldn’t say, “Well, Jeff Blauser hit exactly 122 homers in his whole career, too, and he sure ain’t in the Hall.” You would measure how much better this god-like player was than the rest of the field for that one season, and weigh it against the fact that he only contributed that single season to his resume. And then you would decide.
Thanks for not answering the question of Manny Ramirez's Hall-worthiness at all, Ryne Sandberg.
Labels: hall of fame, manny ramirez, ryne sandberg
