Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic

But, okay, I'll be baited. Because the bait is a delicious juicy worm of an article about Boston vs. New York, pierced on the lure of an expert sportsman who looks like this:


I've missed you old buddy. Welcome back.

How does Boston compare to N.Y.? It doesn’t

Big Apple superior to Boston in nightlife, atmosphere, and especially sports

Let me begin by agreeing, agreeing, and saying: "Fuck the heck?" Among even the most ardent supporters of Boston, MA you will find few who think it is a "better" city than New York. New York is much larger, has many more people and things, and stays open very late. New York is awesome. Boston is also awesome, but in a smaller, more ornery way.

This is why I believe that this is one of those fun sports journalism articles designed to rile people up, get them screaming and yelling on the comment boards, make them send the link of the article to their buddy Weebs in Rehoboth with a note that says "Look at this fucking guy who thinks Boston sucks!" and drive traffic to the site. It's pretty transparently concocted to drive Boston fans nuts. Having said that, and knowing that I am 100% on to you, HatGuy, let me now spend two hours of my life reprinting and dissecting it. Then you'll see who's boss!

Beantown? That’s it? Beantown?

There may be a city with a worse nickname somewhere, although I’m not sure what it could possibly be. Is there a Phlegmville out there?

Well, thanks to the fine people at this site, I can offer you some options:

Annapolis, Maryland is "Crabtown." That's pretty bad. Beaver, OK -- already a terrible name for a place -- proudly self-identifies as "The Cow Chip Throwing Capital of the World." Well done. Birmingham, AL can't even really distinguish itself, when it announces that it's "The Pittsburgh of the South." Lyons, KS, about 30 miles due north of me here in Partridge, advertises itself as "The Unexpected Pleasure." Dubious, if you've ever been to Lyons. Santa Rosa, NM boasts that it's "The SCUBA-Diving Capital of New Mexico," which: isn't NM a land-locked desert? Noxubee County, Mississippi, waves on its flag: "Home of the Dancing Rabbit Festival and Magnolia Pilgrimage," next to which "Beantown" looks pretty effing good.

Boston also has: The Athens of America, The City of Kind Hearts, The Cradle of Liberty, The Hub of the Universe, and Puritan City, which are all pretty good.

On the one hand, you got Beantown. On the other, you got the Big Apple, Gotham, the City that Never Sleeps. Did Sinatra ever sing a song about Boston? Did anybody? Even the old rock group “Boston” never sang a song about Boston.

I don't love "The Big Apple," particularly, though it did lead to a truly excellent moment in rock music history when Mick Jagger exhorted: Go ahead / Bite the Big Apple / Don't mind the maggots. Gotham is okay, the City that Never Sleeps is wonderful. As for Sinatra, no, I don't believe he did ever sing about Boston. Though the band Boston certainly did. They even mention Hyannis, which is like Sinatra adding a line to "New York, New York" about how fun it is to hang out in Amagansett.

What were we talking about? Oh right -- nothing.

No wonder Boston has such an inferiority complex. Compared to New York, it really is inferior.

Again, in terms of cities qua cities, not a lot of dissent here. Not proving anything. Not getting anyone riled up. New York City, population: 8.2 million or so, the cultural, economic, and all-night society capital of the country/world, is "superior" to Boston, small/ancient/ provincial whaling town, population 600,000+. You really know how to take a controversial position.

This is like saying: "Benin? Fuck that. America is the superior country."

You want to put Boston in a good light, pick a comparable town. Like Cleveland. Or Sacramento. Maybe Minneapolis.

This is probably a good idea, actually. Comparable cities and climates (except Sacramento). I think Boston rates pretty favorably here, though the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra is among the finest in the world, and Minneapolis has an excellent music scene. Anyway, all fine cities, all better comps for Beantown than New York, which should only be compared to like London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo...places like that.

Now let's get to the really stupid part: sports.

OK, Boston’s won two World Series in the past four seasons and the Foxborough Patriots have won three of the past six Super Bowls. Even a New Yorker will admit that’s a nice little run. But can we have a little perspective here?

Most days of my life recently have included someone -- friend or new acquaintance -- saying some version of this to me: "Wow -- life is pretty good for you right now." And they are right, and they are not talking about my recent promotion to Associate District Director of Claims Oversight here at Fremulon Ins., Inc. What they are talking about is my love of New England-based sports franchises. And they are saying it because -- if you don't closely follow sports but somehow closely follow this blog -- the NE Patriots are about to play in their fourth Super Bowl in seven years, and feature a quarterback who is somehow handsomer at the end of each game than he was at the beginning; the Boston Red Sox have won two of the last four World Serieses; the Boston Celtics are 33-6; and also there is a hockey team.

That's a pretty amazing run, by any city's standards.

And since we are pretty clearly heading for a HatGuy history lesson, allow me to add for the record that the Yankees haven't won a World Series since 2000; the Giants are currently in the Super Bowl (the ostensible point of this article, I guess) but haven't generally been that good in the last several years; the Jets are the Jets; the Mets are the Mets (and were doubly the Mets last year); the Knicks, one suspects, are about to be disbanded after what will most likely be some kind of like RICO-style Federal intervention; and also there are two hockey teams.

In the first decade of this young century, there can be absolutely no question that Boston is the all-sports center of the universe. That's not fanboyism. That's just the situation. Soon, the ride will end, and maybe New York, or Dallas, or San Francisco, or Atlanta will emerge. But 2000-2008, so far, taking all sports into consideration, it's Boston, and anyone who says differently is stubborn or weird or looking for a scrap. Or HatGuy.

The Yankees won the World Series five straight years from 1949-53 and went to the World Series in 10 of 11 seasons. More recently, they won three straight and four out of five. The Red Sox have, what, six titles? Call me when you get to 26, which is what the Yankees have, and then I’ll start adding in all the titles won by the Giants, Dodgers and Mets and you can slink back up I-95 and comfort yourselves with a nice, warm pot of beans.

As far as baiting goes, this is pretty tepid stuff. My blood can boil, friends, and right now I'm maybe at like 98.7 or so. History doesn't concern me so much. England ruled the world for hundreds of years, but I'd invest in China right now over the UK if given the choice, no matter how many pro-Henry IV essays you might churn out. It also doesn't help your case so much when you point out that New York has had four professional baseball franchises, since it only highlights how absurd the comparison is between the two cities. (You think the Peruvian army is awesome? How about I send the US Marines, Navy, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, and various state militias! Then we'll see how good Peru's army is!)

I’ll grant you that nobody has ever dominated any sport the way the old Celtics did back when the NBA wasn’t important enough to get its playoff games broadcast nationally. And the Bruins were a pretty good hockey team back when the Knicks, which used to be a basketball team, were also pretty good.

Thank you for acknowledging that the Celtics (still) have the most NBA titles. Bill Russell has more rings than fingers to put them on.

But what have you guys really done? Three football titles, which matches the three that the Giants and Jets have won — not counting pre-Super Bowl championships, of which the Giants have four.

What have you guys done? Three football titles, which is barely the same number as these two teams have when added together! Pathetic.

A couple of World Series wins after 86 years of nothing, zip, nada.

Yes, those were bad, dark days. Fortunately, they are over now, and the team has now won two of the last four. So things are looking up, I'd say.

A basketball team that could win a title again — 22 years after its last one. In the immortal words of former Net Derrick Coleman, whoop-de-damn-do.

It will be its seventeenth, if it happens. Why are you allowed to cite Yankee championships of the 1940's, Jet championships of the 60's, and Giant championships of the 80's, but all previous Celtics championships are disregarded with a pithy Derrick Coleman rebuff? As Mark Eaton once said, "What the fuck is your point?"

And when you get done feeling good about all of that, what’s left? New York has Broadway and Wall Street and Fashion Avenue and Harlem and Spanish Harlem and more museums than you can shake a palette knife at. Boston has, well, I’m not sure what it has. I was going to say Harvard and M.I.T., but those aren’t really in Boston; they’re across the river in Cambridge.

Burned! Boston, you got burned. Hard. That is a hard burn, man. Wow. That is some cold, cold shit right there. Damn! Burned to a crispy carbony ash. Bam. Shut down. Down for the count. TKO, HatGuy.

HatGuy is schizophrenically having the kind of argument two five year-olds might have about their dads.

"My dad has won a lot of sports championships recently."
"...Well...but...my dad has a Porsche."
"What does that have to do with sports championships?"
"...My house is bigger."

Anyway, even if we give Boston Harvard, when all of those movers and shakers take delivery of their sheepskins and go out into the great world, they don’t stay in Boston. They go to New York or Washington or somewhere else important.

Some of them stay in Boston. But yes, many of them do leave, so they can be in much bigger cities with more cultural, political, and economic advantages, like New York. You are so totally proving an awesome point!

Now, it may be that Boston has charms that I haven’t seen during my many visits to that town. And given the condition of the local streets, I never will see them.

Have you ever tried to get anywhere in Boston? There’s not a single 90-degree intersection in the entire city. And the next time someone stops for a red light will be the first.

New York -- and I say this having lived for several years in both places -- is a far more dangerous town for pedestrians. This might be due to the fact that it has 7.6 million more people, and people walk a lot more. I would put Boston navigation on the far end of the bell curve for difficulty, yes, but you really haven't seen difficult until you emerge drunkenly from a bar deep in the West Village at 4:18 AM and try to find Seventh Avenue.

OK, so there are subways, but they close down at night. What good is that?

It's not terrible. For a city of its size, Boston's T system is pretty clean, safe, and effective. And not surprising that New York's subways remain in operation for more hours, given, again, the 18.4 million person/tax base advantage they service.

Speaking of subways, have you ever wondered why in New York the subways are identified by letters and numbers, while in Boston they go by colors? Could it be that when they built their systems, people in New York could actually read and count? Just asking.

Am I most upset by (a) how bad a joke this is, (b) how lame a dig it is, (c) how clumsily it is presented, (d) how transparent an attempt to get Bostonites angry it is, or (e) that he ended it with "Just asking," as if that's like the final twist of the knife after this devastating indictment of Eastern Massachusetts's intelligence level? Oh -- or (f) the fact that Boston is famously like hyper-literate, rendering the whole dumb gambit nonsensical, to go along with lame and sad?

I'll say: (a).

I’ll grant that Boston was a great city as recently as 220 years ago. And while New York was coddling Tories because that’s where the money was, Boston was off firing the shot heard round the world and starting the Revolution. (Of course, once Boston started it and fought a battle or two, it shipped the whole thing off to New York, New Jersey and Philly and finally to the Carolinas and Virginia and took the rest of the war off.) Back then, the only city with as much cachet as Boston was Philadelphia.

Can anyone effing believe how long an article this is?

But when it came time to choose a capital for the newly formed United States, George Washington rode up to New York City. And when the Founding Fathers were looking for a place to put the National Treasure, they put that in New York, too — or was that just a movie?

I honestly wonder whether HatGuy knows that the U.S. Capital is currently not New York.

Anyway, it’s been a while since the days when if you said “Adams,” people didn’t automatically think of beer. Boston’s a fine little town, one that I have had many wonderful times in. But it ain’t New York, not in sports and not in anything else.

No, it is not New York in many many aspects. But it is far superior to New York in sports, 2000-present. And you are a poor flame-fanner.

I admit it’s not perfect in New York. We do have to put up with Donald Trump, and Rudy Giuliani refuses to shut up and go talk family values with his third wife.

Take...that?

But on the whole, it’s a heck of a town.

Yes it is, my friend. Yes, it is.

Now what the fuck is your point?

Labels: boston vs. new york, food metaphors, fremulon insurance, fuck the heck, HatGuy, mike celizic

It's all happening at once, people. Let's savor this, the day after the final day of baseball, before we all begin obsessively following Memphis Grizzlies basketball and Columbus Blue Jackets hockey and Columphis Blue Grizzlies Lazyjokemashupball.

HatGuy, your entry please?

The Red Sox had generations of teams that were characterized by 25 players taking 25 cabs. No wonder they spent 86 years between championships. Now, they’ve won twice in four seasons by becoming a band of brothers who seem to genuinely enjoy each other’s company. They have stars, but you think of them as a true team.

Of course! Fuck! Why'd they wait 86 years? Friends are what win in baseball! Friendshipball! Watch out, Red Sox. Your 2008 favorites for the championship: my uncle Steve and his friend Mike. So what if they're only two guys instead of twenty-five and Mike has a shriveled left arm and Steve drinks crystal meth dissolved in Mountain Dew Game Fuel, the Halo 3-themed Mountain Dew. They go deep-sea fishing on the weekends! They're friends!

Now let's readjust our monocles and look at the bread around this idiocy sandwich:

That’s why he won’t end up in Boston. The Red Sox had generations of teams that were characterized by 25 players taking 25 cabs. No wonder they spent 86 years between championships. Now, they’ve won twice in four seasons by becoming a band of brothers who seem to genuinely enjoy each other’s company. They have stars, but you think of them as a true team. To add a person who has never had many friends in the clubhouses he’s inhabited doesn’t make sense.

Zero guesses as to whom HatGuy is referencing. Negative three guesses. Yep, you got it, and I took guesses away from you before you made any. There you have it. Not enough friends = no deal. I like the image of A-Rod calling up his old teammates, begging them to tell the Red Sox that yes indeed, I, Hank Blalock/Jay Buhner/Bobby Ayala/Hideki Irabu, was A-Rod's friend you better believe it.

I am undecided whether A-Rod will be worth the hundreds of millions of dollars he will be seeking, but the number of friends he has on Facebook will be low on my priority list.

Now you, Jon Heyman, sally forth with your offering!

The Red Sox disproved the old "crapshoot'' theory espoused by a lot of folks who keep losing in the playoffs. The best team won in 2007, and that is no fluke.

Look, I'm not losing in the playoffs. My favorite team isn't losing in the playoffs. Joe Torre has won a lot in the playoffs. Joe Torre often disagree, but he and I agree on two things: Top Chef is now more enjoyable than Project Runway and as long as the series remain as brief as they are, the playoffs are distinctly, perversely crapshootish. The best team probably won in 2007, but how about just last year? 83-78 sound right to you, Jon? Was that a fluke?

And finally, we grow closer to the emergence of our special guest star for the evening, who appears courtesy of Bob DiCesare:

Rodriguez appeared in the American League Championship Series twice with the Mariners, once with the Yanks, and distinguished himself in none of the three.

Exactly right. None of the three except for the first two, in which he slugged .773 and .516 and slammed a combined 4 HR and 10 RBI. And hey, in that last one he OBP-ed .353 and hit a horrible, team-damaging solo home run.

One number echoes within the mountains of glorious statistics compiled by Rodriguez throughout his career:

13.7, his earth-shattering WARP3!

zero, his number of accrued World Series at-bats.

Oh.

Fact is, the Yankees are in far greater need of a Scott Brosius, a Bernie Williams, a Paul O’Neill than an uninspired (and uninspiring) A-Rod.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Brosius nostalgia tour continues. May his glorious name live on throughout the offseason and for all offseasons throughout eternity!

Labels: a-rod, HatGuy, jon heyman, mike celizic, red sox, scott brosius

For two years now, even as he compiled (literally) MVP-level statistics, the press has been asking: "What's wrong with ARod?" They based their ideas that something was wrong with ARod on his performance in a very very small number of games in October, which is like basing John Gielgud's acting career on "Arthur 2: On the Rocks."

Yes, he swiped the ball from Arroyo's glove, and yes, he failed to come through in the "clurmtch," or whatever that word is. But so did every other Yankee. Sheffield popped the ball up in key at bats. Matsui K'd a lot. Giambi forgot to take his medicine and turned back into a pumpkin. They all fell apart, but only ARod got blamed. And in the 2005 postseason, when he went 1-14 (the very definition of a small sample size) the press was all over him like a cheap suit.

Now he's off to a torrid start, and the new fun story to write is "ARod Finally True Yankee!!!!" But whom are they going to blame now, based on a tiny sample size?

Not...surely they wouldn't...oh my God...Run!!!!!!!!!!

Time to ask ... what’s wrong with Jeter?

As A-Rod's fortunes soar, Yankee captain down in dumps

Mike Celizic

Alex Rodriguez has undoubtedly had many moments — some of which could be timed with a calendar — during which he wished he were Derek Jeter. This is not one of them.

The Yankee captain and New York’s favorite baseball player since Don Mattingly has been having a rough go of it this year. It’s not so much his hitting, although his average is sinking fast after a torrid start and he’s got just three RBI in 12 games, but his fielding that’s been a problem.

Jeter has made a lot of errors so far. But so has Mike Lowell. And unlike Jeter, Lowell is actually a good fielder. Freaky things happen in small sample sizes. That's why after a week Ian Kinsler is 2nd in HR. That's why people say things like "At this pace, Garth Iorg will have 300 RBIs!" and then he ends up with like 34. You really can't tell anything about a player's year after 40 AB or 10 games in the field.

For the record, the reasons Jeter has made a lot of errors are probably: (a) it's been really crappy playing conditions, or (b) he's never been that good a defensive SS, or (c) it's a complete fluke.

Jeter has won three Gold Gloves, but he’s not on his way to winning a fourth. Through 12 games, he has six errors, the most in the major leagues.

For the millionth and final [sic] time, Gold Gloves are 99% meaningless.

Everybody’s writing about his problems catching and throwing, but no one’s trying to run him out of town. Yankee Stadium with him would be like the Sistine Chapel without Michelangelo’s ceiling work.

I’d ask you to imagine A-Rod in the same situation, but you don’t have to, because we’ve seen what would happen...He was booed at every opportunity and flayed daily by the talk-show guys and the columnists, many of whom suggested the only way for him to fix things was to take the first plane out of town. I was one of them, and I don’t apologize for it.

You should. It was insane. In 2005-06 he hit 83 HR, drove in 251. He walked 181 times. His OBPs were .421/.392.

SLG .610/.523.

EqA .354/.319.

His WARP3s were 13.0 and 7.5 (same as Troy Glaus in 2006, BTW), and if he had been able to play his natural position on the field, they would probably have been much higher, all things being equal.

Even when he had his legendarily "terrible" year, when everything "fell apart," when he hated New York and was a "head case" and everyone in the world wrote about how he didn't fit in with the Hallowed Pinstripery of New York, he was an awesome, awesome baseball player. Who in his right mind can think differently?

He had come to the Yankees as the best player in baseball.

By last season, he wasn’t even the third best third-baseman.

J'accuse, Monsieur de Chapeau!!!

And the worse it got for A-Rod, the better it got for Jeter. Every bad throw, every late-inning out, every clumsy attempt to explain himself made A-Rod look more misplaced and Jeter more the true Yankee hero.

Jeter had a great year last year. ARod had a very very good year that looked bad only in comparison to his outstanding previous years. It happens.

So this year, A-Rod showed up wearing high stirrups and after a couple of games to warm up started hitting — for average and power, in early innings and late, by day and by night.

I don't think this makes cognitive sense. "...after a couple of games to warm up started hitting." Does that mean, "after taking a couple of games to warm up?" Also, the part that comes after the dash reads like a weird parody of "Paul Revere's Ride."

After three years of waiting for him to do his part, he was suddenly doing everybody’s part.

He has been doing pretty much what he did in his 2005 AL MVP Season, when he went .321/.41/.610 with 48 HR, a .354 EqA and a 13.0 WARP3. This didn't come out of nowhere, people. He has always been this good. He was this good even while you were all talking about how bad he was.

But there’s something wrong with this picture — the Captain’s early-season slump, especially in the field. The SABRE folks will tell you that Jeter has never been a particularly good shortstop despite the Gold Gloves, but his teammates, his manager and anybody who watched him every day will differ.

"The facts will tell you some information. Some casual anecdotes will contradict this. Your choice."

There are some things the stats don’t tell you, and unless you watch the guy every day, there’s no way to tell you about them.

I've seen somewhere in the vicinity of 500 Yankee games, I'd say. And I think Jeter is vastly overrated as a fielder by every anecdote-toting sportswriter and fan out there. Twice a year he goes deep into the hole to his right, stabs a backhand, jumps in the air and gets the guy at first by a step. It's very impressive and flashy, but it doesn't nearly make up for the fact that he gets nothing to his left. He has what people often call a "high baseball IQ" in that he is very alert and smart when the ball is in play -- I will give him that. He takes relays well and is very athletic. But he is nowhere near the league of the Vizquels, Everetts, or even Cabreras of the world.

But there’s no denying he’s killing his team in the field right now, and his hitting isn’t that great either. Come to think about it, he’s not even stealing bases with his normal ease — just one-for-three on the season.

He's not off to a great start, but his OBP is .390, which tells you his patience is still there. And it's been like 50 AB. In 2004 Jeter had an 0-32 in April, and ended up having a fine offensive year.

It’s as if he and A-Rod are two yo-yos that are out of synch. When A-Rod was down, Jeter was up. And now that A-Rod is tearing the cover off the ball, Jeter is down. It’s a little spooky. It’s as if he thrives on A-Rod’s negative energy and is being sapped by A-Rod’s success.

Or, alternately -- and I don't mean to disparage the Yo-Yo/Vampire-Energy-Suck Theory, which seems air-tight -- ARod has always been awesome, Jeter had a mediocre first 50 AB, and this is all pointless and stupid.

I’m sure — well, pretty sure, anyway — it’s just an aberration, that Jeter’s problems are just a slump that will pass and not the result of him trying for the first time since A-Rod arrived, to keep up with and outdo his teammate.

Yeah, probably. Or -- and bear with me here -- what if ARod, brimming with jealousy and malice, is secretly poisoning Jeter with a magic serum that causes him, Jeter, to have a slightly mediocre first 50 AB of the season and be slightly worse in the field than normal? Could such a serum exist? Get on this. Pronto.

You never thought of Jeter as needing to outshine anyone. He’s shared the stage with plenty of great players, and it’s never stopped him. On the other hand, in the three years that A-Rod’s been playing next to him, he’s always been the leader and A-Rod the guy trying to keep up.

The roles are reversed right now. Jeter says it’s just a slump. So do Joe Torre, his manager, and Brian Cashman, the team’s G.M. They’re probably right.

But what if they’re not?

I said get on this! Visit every witch doctor in the city! Search ARod's home for boiling cauldrons! We will get to the bottom of this, fair readers. That I promise.

Labels: arod, derek jeter, gold glove award, HatGuy, mike celizic, small sample size, true yankee

Today, I'm going to talk about HatGuy talking about people thinking about whether A-Rod's sleepovers with Jeter are important. So many operators! (Math guys, you know what I'm talking about. (I am not a math guy, no emails about math please.))

A-Rod must learn it’s not about getting along

I don't fundamentally disagree with him there. "Must" is a bit strong.

Alex Rodriguez thinks it’s important that he and Derek Jeter don’t get along.

And you think it's so unimportant you're going to write an article about why his thinking that it's not important is important enough that he "must" change for the good of the team? More "important"s in the next sentence? No problem -- this is so unimportant I can't believe I'm bothering to critique how important he thinks it important is important important.

As he said in his first interview in Yankee camp, relations are so strained that the two superstars, who were once fast friends, don’t even do sleepovers any more.

Sleepovers? The word conjures up visions of little A-Rod’s mom calling little Derek’s mom to arrange a play date.

Here HatGuy is extremely charitable about what visions of A-Rod sleeping over at Jeter's place actually conjures up. Kudos on the restraint. Joke grade, though: C.

Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth, the two greatest players on the first Yankee dynasty, didn’t speak to each other, and the Yankees just kept on winning titles. In the 1960s, most of the Dodgers had no use for Don Drysdale, but none of them called press conferences to whimper about it.

Yes. Slap a fedora on me -- HatGuy is making an argument against chemistry!

Every athlete who’s ever played a game realizes that there are going to be teammates who aren’t going to like each other. Everyone would love for every team to be one, big happy family, but it’s not as important as winning.

This paragraph is like the cherry on top of the whipped cream on a hot fudge sundae that I'm eating out of my hat!

A-Rod’s stature is born of the same reality. If his teammates tend to be annoyed with him, it’s not because of how much he makes — they all make plenty — but because he doesn’t come through nearly often enough in the clutch.

Oosh. You had me at "no such thing as chemistry" and then you had to go run your mouth about clutchyclutchness. I think the Yankees probably don't like A-Rod because he's a weird, aloof dick. (And also the clutch thing. They all believe in that stuff, so it's definitely possible.) People hate Barry Bonds because he's a weird, aloof dick -- a much bigger one than A-Rod. Has nothing to do with clutch or not clutch with Barry (not anymore at least).

You could imagine them rolling their eyes at this latest confession by their third baseman and wishing he’d just forget about his image and go out and pound the baseball. That’s all anyone’s ever wanted from A-Rod — performance.

Deep, deep sigh. How many times do we have to go through this? Statistics are a record of what happens on a baseball field -- a measure of "performance," if you will. Certainly, they're an imperfect measure, but a measure nonetheless.

As a New York Yankee, Alex Rodriguez has posted EqAs of .311, .354, and .318. He's hit 119 home runs. He may have been the best player in baseball for one of those seasons. These are great performances. Not historically great, perhaps, but great.

What’s funny is that A-Rod has the reputation for being slick, but it is Jeter who is slicker than snot on a doorknob.

Snot on a doorknob? Snot on a doorknob? That's it. I'm done. Not worth it. I'm out of here. See you later.

[door slam]

[car driving away]

[weekend on private island in Dubai shaped like part of a palm tree]

Okay, I'm back.

Fine, one more section.

What they want is for A-Rod to hit the ball when it counts. They don’t care what he does or doesn’t say, as long as he does his job, which is to get big hits in big games, to carry the team when it’s down, to forget about his image and use his enormous talents to take the game by the throat and not let go.

They don’t care about stats or all-star appearances or endorsement deals. And they absolutely don’t care about his feelings.

They care about what the fans care about — performance.

They don't care about stats, they care about performance? Stats are a measure of performance.

STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.
STATS ARE A MEASURE OF PERFORMANCE.

They're not made up numbers that have nothing to do with baseball. They're a pretty good measure of how valuable you've been on a baseball field. Consider this: if you watched all 162 Yankee games last season, could you rank the Yankee players in order of most to least valuable? I bet you'd be pretty wrong in several cases. But stats -- numbers -- can give you a better, more accurate picture. Because you can't catalog, quantify, and remember everything you've seen. You have no idea if A-Rod went 166-572 or 148-593. That's why we write things down. It helps our brains out, it doesn't hurt them. Sure, you can add in things that you observed that are difficult to quantify to your overall evaluation of a player. But I can't stand when people say "stats" are that grossly different from "performance." They're a reasonably close approximation. They just are.

Of course, he pretty much sucked in the last two playoff seriees he played.

P.S. He wasn't that bad in the playoffs before those series.

Labels: arod, arod-jeter sleepovers, f(f(f(x))), HatGuy, mike celizic, yankees

...napalm the sumbitch.

As everyone is well aware, the Bears are getting less respect than a Park Avenue interior decorator who shows up in the infield at Daytona in a Volkswagen Beetle with a fresh flower in the dashboard vase.

Everyone is well aware of that, specifically?

Nice work, Celizic.

As dak just pointed out to me, the man who wrote this gets to vote on who goes into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic

And instead I got, like, a shirt. And "The Wire: Season 2" on DVD. Which is awesome, but it's no Celizic Hat. And I'm angry.

For this reason, and also because Junior's last couple posts contained an unreasonably small amount of anger/swearing, I present some thoughts on Magic Mike's latest word-conglomeration, which is sub-titled, hilariously:

Bronx Bombers could have enough to being in Zito after dealing Big Unit

Like the Yankees couldn't pay for them both. Like they care if their payroll is $206 million or $222 million. Whatever. Let's see why ol' Mikey thinks the Yankees should deal Unit and pick up Zito.

The Yankees went into this offseason saying they wanted a leaner payroll and younger lineup in 2007. Word out of the team’s front office also was that Brian Cashman, the general manager who looks like Jeff Van Gundy, but without the sunny disposition, had wrested control of the team away from George Steinbrenner’s Tampa-based committee of crack baseball advisers.

I'd just like to say here that the patented Mike Celizic "...x is like y..." comparison used in this paragraph is actually not totally, completely terrible. Calling Cash a grumpy version of Jeff Van Gundy kind of makes me laugh. Maybe he's getting less hacky/boring with his jokes.

Experience has taught us to take such pronouncements with a grain of salt the size of the Matterhorn.

Nope. He's not. That's pretty hacky/boring.

Invariably, every Yankee long-range plan crumbles the moment an overpriced and superannuated superstar comes on the market. They couldn’t help themselves; it was the Steinbrenner way, and to expect them to behave any differently was like expecting a St. Bernard to swear off drooling.

And that one is just weird. In fact, it's fucking weird. (Take that, Junior.)

But this year, it’s been different...[excised discussion of Sheffield and Wright trades] And now, word is that the Yankees are shopping the Big Unit himself, Randy Johnson. Suddenly, the idea that the pinstripes have an actual plan that will not only keep them competitive but also build for a future that’s farther away than next March, isn’t so farfetched after all.

Read that last sentence. Savor its tangled syntax. St. Bernard-style drool over how hard it is to parse.

Can this mean the Yankees are about the join the Barry Zito sweepstakes? Yankee fans hope it does; Red Sox fans hope it doesn’t.

Huh. Red Sox fans hope the Yankees don't get Barry Zito, you say?

Barry Zito 3-Year Splits vs. Red Sox, 2004-2006

2-3, 6.45 ERA (7.20 at Fenway)
7 GS
38.2 IP
50 H
27 ER
30/22 K/BB
.309 BAA

Yeah. We wouldn't want that coming at us four or five times a year. Especially if it's instead of this guy:

Randy Johnson 3-year Splits vs. Red Sox, 2004-2006

7-1, 4.87 ERA
10 GS
61 IP
59 H
33 ER
64/32 K/BB
.252 BAA

Both relatively small sample sizes, obviously, but still.

Moving Johnson makes all the sense in the world for New York, which is another reason it is so surprising. This hasn’t been a team that’s made a lot of intelligent moves ever since its run of four titles in five years ended after the 2000 season.

Since then, they got: Mike Mussina, Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, Randy Johnson, and Bobby Abreu. They also kept: Chien-Ming Wang, Robby Cano, Melky Cabrera, and Phillip Hughes. There have been a bunch of high-profile disasters, absolutely. Lots of them. But don't tell me that these weren't intelligent moves.

Johnson is a first-ballot Hall of Famer and one of the most dominant power pitchers of all time. But he’s 43, he’s coming off his second back surgery, his 2006 ERA was 5.00, and he’s got $16 million coming in salary next year. By some measures — 17 victories being the primary one he’s still a premier pitcher. But for $16 million, a team can buy a lot of replacement.

I don't get this. Yes, he is clearly old and passed his prime. No question. He might be worse next year than he was in '06. But he might be better. And even though he was hurt, he still threw 205 innings. And, best of all, after next year, he's off the books -- he's a one-year committment right now, to a team that doesn't care about money anyway.

Trading him might be a good move, depending on what you get back. But not because of his salary. They don't care about his salary. I promise, they don't.

So let's see what Mikey's plan is.

[$16 million] just happens to be the annual salary Zito, the premier free agent on the market, wants for each of the next six years...Zito is still on the good side of 30 and has never had injury problems. He’s not the same pitcher who won the Cy Young four years ago, but he’s still the best starter available and one of the best lefties in the game. In other words, he’s exactly the kind of pitcher the Yankees need to continue to control the AL East; exactly the kind of guy they’ve always pursued with the single-minded determination of a border collie chasing a Frisbee.

First of all, sweet metaphor. Second: Barry Zito wasn't the ace on his own team. His OPS-against over the last three years is basically idenitical to that of Mike Mussina, to whom you are about to refer as: ...39 and losing effectiveness. (He also has like 2.5 times as many BBs as Mussina in that time frame.) Zito's pretty good, but a #1? Seriously?

[The Yankees] aren’t going to win the World Series without a couple of top young arms in the starting rotation. Wright wasn’t it. Carl Pavano shows no signs of being the man, either. Johnson is old and very hittable. Chien-Ming Wang is a terrific number two or three starter, but he’s not an ace. Mike Mussina is 39 and losing effectiveness...[R]ight now, the Yankees need a number one. Zito could be that man. And if Randy Johnson can be made to disappear, the Yankees could have the money to sign him.

Wang is a way better candidate for a #1 than Zito right now. I don't know how he does it, with his like 0.04 K/IP, but he does it. That power sinker is something to behold. Zito is a flyball pitcher who walks a ton of dudes, and he'd be making 30% of his starts against the Sox and Blue Jays. And they'd have to sign him for 6 or 7 years.

Also, again, the Yankees have enough money to sign him regardless. They have enough money to sign anyone. That is not the reason to move RJ. And where is the section of this article where you discuss the oft-cited rumors that RJ wants out of NY? I mean, the guy has a no-trade, so in order for these discussions even to be happening, he kind of has to want out, right? And where's the obvious counter-point that if they do not pay Boras/Zito $100 million over 7 years, they would have that money, plus the RJ-off-the-books money to pay for Carlos Zambrano, a far better pitcher than Zito, when he becomes a free agent in 2007? Are you going to talk about that, Mike?

Mike?

He's gone.

Okay. Back to "The Wire."

Labels: barry zito, HatGuy, mike celizic, randy johnson, yankees

I'd sneak into the MSNBC.com offices and toss Mike Celizic's freelance writing submission in the incinerator.

Here's what he'd do:

What if we all had do-overs in sports?

Everybody makes mistakes, but not everybody admits them. And, when you get high enough up in a hierarchy, getting someone both to admit to a mistake and then correct it can be like spending your days down at the docks waiting for the Titanic to come in.

That's the opening paragraph. Yikes. "When you get high enough up in a hierarchy?" "...getting someone both to admit to a mistake and then correct it can be like..." Is that English?

And what is that analogy? The Titanic? Seriously? The only thing hackier than making a reference to the Titanic as a classic disaster is making a reference to New Coke.

That’s why it was so refreshing to hear NBA commissioner David Stern not only admit that his beloved high-tech synthetic basketball was a bigger mistake than New Coke

Oh my holy Lord.

but also order the microfiber ball banished at the turn of the new year and replaced with the familiar cowhide sphere the players know and love.

For Stern, it was a do-over. And seeing it happen had to make a lot of people wish there were more mulligans in sports, because the landscape of the games we pay to see other people play is littered with the kind of mistakes that cry out for correction.

The first thing I thought of that could and should have been corrected in the first two months after it was introduced was the designated hitter. The American League came up with that abomination in 1973, and it should never had made it to 1974.

Pretty sure that should read: "...should never have made it..."

That’s just my opinion

It's not iron-clad mathematical fact? You have misled me, sir!

and I recognize that many baseball fans whose powers of reason are otherwise in tip-top order believe the DH is the greatest thing to happen to baseball since beer vendors.

Mike Celizic writes like a man who has seen witty, urbane, humorous men speak in old movies and television shows and is trying to imitate them, but who dropped out of school in 8th grade and drinks a lot of really cheap brandy every morning at 11:00. And wears a funny hat.

But there are a lot of other situations that everyone would agree would have benefited greatly if teams and individuals could do it all over again...

I’m pretty sure the day will come when Michelle Wie will wish she’d have put off turning pro until a couple of years after her Sweet 16 party and concentrated on winning in the women’s game before taking on the men.

Really? She's still like 17 or something and is super super rich, and famous, partly (largely) because she got a lot of press for playing with men.

If Brett Favre could do it all over again, he might want to revoke his decision to play one more year with the Packers instead of either retiring or asking for a trade to a team that could actually play football.

Maybe. The Packers are terrible. But that dude really likes playing football. And you really think he would ask to be traded? Really?

These are the best examples of "Mulligans People Would Like To Take In Sports?" Not like Jean Van de Velde at the 1999 British Open? Or Mike Martz running Marshall Faulk more in the 2002 Super Bowl? Or the Trail Blazers taking Sam Bowie over Jordan in the draft? No? You're going with "Michelle Wie shouldn't have turned pro?" and "Bret Favre should have asked for a trade?" Okay. Hennessy's in the cabinet, Mike -- help yourself.

If we could only hit control-Z for life’s well-intentioned blunders

You know he just learned how to do that on his computer.

how much easier would it be? Alex Rodriguez could have reversed his trade to the Yankees and found a home in a city with more adoring media and fans. And the Houston Texans could have decided a month into the season that they were going to take either Vince Young or Reggie Bush after all and let somebody else have Mario Williams.

ARod, maybe. Texans, definitely. Now you're cooking with gas, Celizic!

Pete Rose could go back to when he agreed to a life-time ban and started confessing his sins right then and there.

This is effing genius. Pete Rose would not go back to the first moment he bet on baseball and decide not to bet on baseball. He would go back to the moment he agreed to the lifetime ban for betting on baseball and apologize. Excellent plan.

If the NHL’s players association had the ability to go back and fix a bad decision, we would have had a hockey season in 2004-2005. Same thing for major league baseball had the players had the ability to say, “oopsie,” and ask for another shot at getting it right in 1994.

I know that 22 years later, Portland still wants to throw Sam Bowie back into the NBA draft pool and take that Michael Jordan fellow who went third to the Bulls.

There it is. Right after "the NHL shouldn't have struck in 2004." Well placed.

Back in 1979, the entire National Football League ignored a pretty good college quarterback because of what they thought was certain knowledge that the kid was a little too small and didn’t have a strong enough arm for the big time. Finally, in the third round, the 49ers wasted a pick on Joe Montana, who worked out all right in the end.

Here's my problem with this: Yes, obviously, all those other teams would have loved to have had Montana. But is it a "blunder" not to have taken him? No. He happened to be the perfect fit for the newly-designed Bill Walsh offensive juggernaut in San Francisco. But that doesn't mean he would have been just as awesome for the Browns or something.

To me, a "blunder," a thing you should want to take a mulligan for, is a thing that everyone in the world can see is a mistake, but you ignore them and do something else. Like not drafting Jordan. Or not drafting Reggie Bush. Or not pulling Pedro in Game 7 in 2003. Sometimes things happen that are very unexpected -- like, say, Tom Brady turning out to be a great QB. But the fact that Tom Brady turned out to be a great QB doesn't mean that all the other teams blew it by not drafting him before the 6th round. Because that would mean the Pats themselves actually blew it like 5 times. See?

Tom Brady, like Montana, was passed up repeatedly before going in the sixth round to the Patriots.

Oh. You don't see.

If life came with do-overs, Grady Little could go back and pull Pedro Martinez before the Yankees could come back and win the 2003 ALCS. Leon Lett could run across the goal line in the Super Bowl with his fumble recovery before holding the ball out for Don Beebe to knock loose.

Pedro thing: absolutely. Lett thing: embarrassing, but the Cowboys won that game like 78-4.

Ara Parseghian could have gone for the win against Michigan State in 1966.

Look, I hate ND. But this famous slam on Parseghian is a mystery to me. The Irish had lost like three guys (Nick Eddy, their QB Hanratty, and someone else who I am too tired to look up) and their back-up QB was (I believe) diabetic or something and was like vomiting from exhaustion. And the next week they beat USC 300-0 and won a share of the national title. Maybe the more manly thing would have been to try to score, but I kind of don't blame the guy for playing for the tie. Neither here nor there.

Ralph Branca could throw a different pitch to Bobby Thomson.

Sure.

John McNamara could have put in a late-game defensive replacement for Bill Buckner.

Dave Stapleton was ready and willing. You're on a roll, Mikey!

Dennis Eckersley could have pitched around Kirk Gibson.

Oops.

Pitched around him? Gibson hadn't played in forever and had like 3 bad knees, and Eck's ERA was like 0.000003 and there were two outs and a guy on first and Steve Sax was on deck. Pitched around him? Are you serious?

Maybe you can argue he shouldn't have thrown a backdoor slider on 3-2. But you cannot argue, ever, that Eck should have "pitched around him."

Mike Tyson could decide to find a protein source that wasn’t attached to Evander Holyfield’s head.

Hilarious.

If only it were as easy for all of us as it was for David Stern.

If only you would retire and run a men's haberdashery, like you are destined to do.

Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic

Does the name Mike Celizic mean anything to you guys? He's a typist for MSNBC.com, who sometimes types about sports. I can't remember if we've ever written anything about him before...check the archives. There might be one or two musings on his talents. I honestly can't remember. Anyway, he just wrote an article for MSNBC.com called -- I kid you not --

Glavine Finally Erases His Playoff Demons.

As in: Tom Glavine.

As in, the guy who clinched the 1995 World Series with this line:

8 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 8 Ks.

And the guy who won Game Two of that same WS with this line:

6 IP, 2 R, 3 H, 3Ks.

The guy with a 2.47 World Series ERA. The guy who has given up (pay attention to this) 33 hits in 58.1 WS innings.

That guy. That guy finally erased his playoff demons with a Game Two Division Series win over the Dodgers.

I know he's had some crappy outings in the playoffs. I know that he's like 13-15 lifetime in the postseason. But when you play in the postseason every year for 32 consecutive seasons, you'll have some crappy outings. Whitey Ford was 10-8 in the postseason, and had an ERA over 8.00 in his final World Series. Think he had any playoff demons?

Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic

A follow-up to Junior's post below. Let's also look at this section:

It’s not fair, but that’s what selling yourself as the greatest ballplayer who ever lived and coming to town with all that money gets you.

ARod "sells himself" as the greatest ballplayer who ever lived?! To the best of my knowledge, ARod has never been Muhammed Ali, exactly.

Players never think of that end of the bargain when they’re demanding an emperor’s ransom as free agents. The never stop to realize that when you make that much and make such claims, the fans are going to expect you to live up to the hype and the numbers on your paycheck.

Tom Hicks gave ARod $100 million more than the next highest bidder was willing to give. Should he have turned it down? No, he should not have. Also, he was traded to the Yankees. He has never made salary claims from the Yankees. Also, during the time when he was almost traded to the Red Sox, ARod tried to restructure his contract to decrease his AAV, and his own union wouldn't let him. Also, Mike Celizic is awesomely handsome and smart and good at what he does!

And, it should well be noted by the Man in the 1/2 Gallon Hat, if anyone in baseball has consistently "lived up to the hype," on an individual stats basis, without ever incurring a hint of steroid scandal, and without ever doing anything to embarrass the front offices of the teams for whom he has played, it is reigning MVP and likely eventual all-time home run champ and first-ballot HOFer and guy-who-switched positions-to-accomodate-the-egos-of-lesser-players-and-also-try-to-win-a-World-Series and perennial All-Star: Alex Motherhumping Rodriguez.

So everyone just effing cool it.

(P.S. The moment he slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove like a sissy and got called out in Game 6 of the ALCS in 2004 was the happiest moment of my life, to that point. But he's still awesome.)

(P.P.S. It was immediately surpassed, as the happiest moment of my life, one batter later when Arroyo somehow got Gary Sheffield to pop up foul on a 38-MPH curve. Do you guys remember that? That was insane.)

Labels: arod, HatGuy, mike celizic

HatGuy. Oh, HatGuy.

I don't know what to say anymore. But I have to say something, because: You wrote another article about the Yankees.

And here's another, more specific, problem. On May 13 (check the archives below) we posted about your Yankees article, in which you wrote that the Yankees should try to trade three young players for Alfonso Soriano. Here are some words you typed:

The Yankees are suddenly without two thirds of their outfield. The offense is hobbled. Something’s got to be done.

And now, two months later, you write an article titled:

Panic in Bronx? It's not time yet
Yankees still have time to catch BoSox, so no need to make rash trades

Now, maybe, to be fair, you don't title your own articles. But later, you write:

...they’re probably still the favorites to win the division. So throwing away a few more prime prospects to get more high-priced veterans doesn’t make any sense.

So, I just...I don't know what to do anymore. Read his whole article if you want -- it's rambly and weird and silly. But that's the gist.

On a total side note -- are there any Yankees fans out there who remember when Jim Kaat (or maybe Ken Singleton, though I think it was Kaat) tried for like two months to give Alfonso Soriano the cool nickname "AlSo," like a companion piece to "ARod," I think, and it sounded terrible and totally didn't catch on and everyone was just embarrassed for him?

I remember. It was awesome.

Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic, yankees

For anyone who considers him/herself a Red Sox fan, the scene at Fenway last night was heartwarming and beautiful. Pedro Martinez, in full Mets regalia, was given a spontaneous and lengthy standing ovation by the faithful, after a video highlight package ran on the jumbotron between innings.

This was the only possible way to welcome the guy back. All he did for seven years was dominate the 'roided-up, DH-laden AL during its absolute most 'roided up and offensively-minded years, at a level that perhaps no one in history has ever dominated his league. He got the 1999 Sox team to the ALCS when Troy O'Leary was the 5-hole hitter. In Game 5 of the ALDS, unable to raise his arm above parallel-to-the-ground due to shoulder trouble, he came out of the bullpen and threw six no-hit innings against the most potent offense in years, in their home park. He threw 100 pitches, all basically side-arm. Something like 80 of those pitches were change-ups. Lofton, Vizquel, Alomar, Manny, Thome, Baines, Cordero, Fryman, Alomar...not one hit.

Earlier that year, he went to the Stadium for a crucial game against the Yankees. Chili Davis hit a solo bomb in the 2nd. Then Pedro struck out 17 Yankees and threw a one-hitter. By my recollection, he did not allow a ball to be put into play in fair territory after the fourth inning. His K/BB ratio in 2000 was 284/32. His ERA+ was 285. He was ridonkulous. He might be the best pitcher ever.

But HatGuy says: Fuck that noise.

For seven years, most of them brilliant, Pedro Martinez gave the Boston Red Sox everything he had and everything they could have wanted. He copped two Cy Young Awards, won 117 games against just 37 losses — a .760 winning percentage — and he won a game in the 2004 World Series in which the Red Sox broke their 85-year run of futility.

Considering all he’s done for Boston, there’s just one thing the Fenway faithful can possibly do when he scales the Fenway Park mound Wednesday night for the first time since chasing the free-agent bonanza to the New York Mets after the 2004 season.

They’ve got to boo him like no one not named Roger Clemens has ever been booed in Boston’s little jewel of a ballpark.

Here's a tip for HatGuy. When you are using that literary/rhetorical device where you have this long build-up in one direction, and then suddenly stop and do a 180 and instruct your audience that actually the solution is the opposite of what those facts suggest, the 180 has to be brief. For example:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is an honorable man. He is a church-going man, with a beautiful wife and three lovely children. He is respected in the community, loved by his peers, and for the last twenty years has done an extraordinary job teaching our city's children how to read and write. But he also snuck into a wildlife reserve and raped a hippo.

So he should go to jail.

I say all this because after the endless build-up of pro-Pedro stats from HatGuy, the sentence "They’ve got to boo him like no one not named Roger Clemens has ever been booed in Boston’s little jewel of a ballpark" lacks a certain...anything. "They've got to boo him." That's the way to write that. Its own paragraph -- just one line. "They've got to boo him." Not, "They've got to boo him like no one has ever not un-booed a guy who was also once booed by them never didn't get booed louder than, and also Fenway is beautiful!"

But I am not here to teach HatGuy how to do his job. Oh wait -- yes I am.

They’ve got to hiss and scream and bellow until the air is congested with spittle.

Ewww.

They’ve got to boo his backside back to that mango tree in the Dominican Republic he once talked about sitting under.

Again, that last sentence...yikes. But enough syntax. Let's talk about your central point, HatGuy. I am eager to hear your defense of booing the greatest pitcher who ever pitched for this team. I believe in the theory that fans have a right to boo players toward whom they have ill feelings. I also happen to believe that it's kind of lame to boo people, especially when they brought you a tremendous amount of joy. But let's see what you think.

I’m just as confident that Red Sox Nation will come through on this one as I am that the coming fall lineup of network television shows will plumb new depths in personal abasement.

Yorps, is that a bad joke. HatGuy has exactly one move, comedy-wise: the ol' pop culture comparison. "Dusty Baker is about as popular in Chicago as Nick Lachey at a birthday party for Jessica Simpson." "Phil Garner was as mad as a mother who saw Britney Spears almost drop her baby." And so forth. This is bad joke telling. And bad writing. And HatGuy commits another sin within this sin, which is: his lame similes are also wordy and faux-intellectual. "...plumb new depths in personal abasement." I think he likes to imagine himself in a Victorian smoking jacket, smoking a long cigarette, trading barbs with Oscar Wilde and chortling world-wearily at the fools he must suffer. And he's still wearing the hat.

I’m equally confident that a majority of commentators will spend the next day talking about what a shame it is that Boston’s fans didn’t give Pedro the love and respect he is due for all the great things he did for the franchise.

How dare they theoretically do that!

If anything else happens — the fans cheering wildly or the commentators congratulating them for booing boisterously or no one taking notice of the occasion at all — I’d be as shocked as I would be if the president let slip that his favorite newspaper is The New York Times and his favorite news channel is MSNBC.

What did I just say about wordiness? Look at that "joke." HayGuy typed that into the 14 year-old IBM word processor he still uses, and he stared at the little four-line LED screen, and the joke took up all four lines, and he looked at it and he read it again and again and he said, "Yep -- that is some good cookin'." Here's one more tip, man: punchlines usually have one punchline. As in:

Mugger: Your money or your life!
Jack Benny: (after long pause) I'm thinking it over!

not:

Mugger: Your money or your life!
Jack Benny: (after long pause) I'm thinking it over and also I am considering it!

I’d also be as disappointed as I’d be if I set out to construct a hot fudge sundae and discovered I was out of whipped cream.

I don't even know what to make of this. Why leave this in? You already made this point with the brilliant and incisive double-punchlined political commentary of the last sentence. Now we get...what? Round three in your personal battle against humor and brevity. This is like something a third-grader would come up with to amuse his parents. But not as charming.

For the fans, Pedro’s return to Fenway shouldn’t be about doing what’s right by their former hero. If sports started working that way, the entire player-fan dynamic would be turned on its head.

I would like to show HatGuy what happened when Orlando Cabrera came back to Fenway as an Angel soon after the 2004 World Series win. He was given a standing ovation every time he came up to the plate. The guy was on the team for three months.

He used to play there, and then he went to not just another town, but to the hated Big Apple. It doesn’t matter that he didn’t sign with the New York Yankees, because the Mets haven’t occupied a terribly choice piece of real estate in Boston hearts since 1986 and that episode with Bill Buckner.

I will speak for Red Sox fans, knowing that some may disagree.

Yes, Sox fans hated the Mets, because they beat us in the World Series. But then, 18 years later, we won the World Series, and a large part of the ensuing catharsis was being able to look at anything colored blue and orange without dry-heaving. The Mets are just another team now. We don't like them, but we don't stay up nights hating them, either. We "who cares?" them, like we do every other team, except the Yankees. So, yes, it does matter that he didn't sign with the Yankees.

It also doesn’t matter that he left Boston because the Mets offered him more money for more years than the Red Sox were willing to pay. Nor does it matter that a substantial number of Boston fans felt the team was making a good move by letting him go.

Oh but wait just a cotton pickin' minute here, HatGuy, it absolutely does matter. Why? Well, I'll let you answer.

He did, after all, have a talent for saying annoying things, and, as everyone knew, his shoulder was damaged goods, and his arm was probably going to fall off within the next month or two anyway. The really, really smart baseball people said that the Mets were fools to give a guy like that four years, when the odds were high he wouldn’t last that long.

I take it from your tone that you are about to blast the Boston front office for this, but the fact remains that he was 33, had worn out his welcome, and required a massive investment (on an aging team) to stick around. Let the record show as well that everything Pedro said and did indicated that he wanted out of the brutal AL East, where he had to face the Yankees, Jays, DRays (a great hitting team in 2004), and even O's for like half his starts, and into a division where he could get paid more and face a pitcher once every 2-3 innings. This move was a win-win. The Sox freed up payroll, Pedro left town a hero and got pizz-aid, and although the Sox lost a once-in-a-lifetime pitcher, they also lost a guy whom they would have had to pay $15 million at age 37, and that might not have been such a smart idea. But you know that:

The jury’s still out on whether four years was a wise investment. All that matters now is that the Red Sox thought he was on the downside of his brilliant career and it was better to let somebody else take the risk. That happens to be similar to the thinking when Roger Clemens was allowed to leave after 13 seasons in Boston — he was almost through and there wasn’t any sense keeping him around. That brilliant bit of thinking was professed 10 years ago.

Yes, that was a mistake. Made by Dan Duquette, who made a lot of mistakes. Different FO, different situation. Just because Roger Clemens, who is like 6'3" with legs like sequoias, has managed to stay fit and strong and good, doesn't mean 5'nothing" Pedro will, too, forever.

The point is that he left for another team, and no matter how justified he was in doing so, as long as he continues to perform at the highest level, the fans will see that as abandonment.

No, we won't. It's sad, but it's okay. We have 22 year-old Jon Lester and 25 year-old Jon Papelbon and 22 year-old Craig Hansen, all of whom are cheaply under our control for the next six years. So, we're good. Thanks.

Plus, cheering for a team is really cheering for laundry, as someone wiser than I once said. In San Francisco, they still love Barry Bonds, not because he’s a swell fellow, but because he wears the uniform and still hits the ball out of the park now and then. And the greater the body inside the familiar upholstery, the more he’ll be hated when he leaves.

The "familiar upholstery?" Is Barry Bonds a couch? Seriously, man, just because a word is longer doesn't mean it is better. Or correct.

It has nothing to do with decency or logic. It’s an emotional thing that operates in the deepest levels of our cluttered brains. Pedro was great, and now he’s being great for those cursed Mets. Therefore, he has to be booed.

Yes, it is an emotional thing. But that emotional thing, for many of us, is: the guy was amazing. Best ever in our lifetimes. Carried us through some dark years. Ended his career in Boston by winning Game 3 of the World Series, shutting down one of the best offenses in baseball. Gave us hundreds of wonderful memories. Won a ring. Moved on. God bless him.

Reviling old heroes is what makes the game fun, and few are bigger than Pedro. Red Sox fans have already shown what they’re capable of when they booed Johnny Damon on his return. Now it’s Pedro’s turn.

Johnny Damon went to the Yankees. Everyone on the Yankees gets booed. Also, a lot of people cheered. Also, what is the point of this article?

They’ve got to give him everything they got. To do otherwise would be an insult to what he meant to Boston and a travesty of what it means to be a fan.

This is just nuts. You're nuts, HatGuy. I can't be any more specific or insightful than that. You're bonkers.

They can cheer him whenever his career is finally winding down and he’s making his last stop. Until then, it’s full hiss ahead.

Or, they can cheer him loudly and show that they respect and love what he did when he was here. Which they did. And which they will probably mostly do again tonight. And which I would do, if I were there, regardless of what upholstery he's wearing.

Labels: food metaphors, HatGuy, mike celizic, pedro martinez, red sox

First of all, thank you all for your concerned e-mails as to our whereabouts. No, we were not assassinated by a Joe Morgan-led attack squad, nor were we beaten to death by a 1980 New York Yankee Bat Day Commemorative Bobby Murcer Model Bat wielded by HatGuy Celizic. Dak is in San Francisco, and Junior, Murbles and I were simply working at our real jobs, which, though they dramatically cut down on the time we spend trawling for idiocy on the World Wide InterWeb of Data, are what allow us to feed and shelter ourselves while we trawl for idiocy on the World Wide InterWeb of Data. But thanks for the concern.

More importantly, good news! Our beloved self-same HatGuy, the President and CEO of Let's Yankee It Up! Inc., L.L.C., has, and this is going to come as a shock to many of you, I think, written an article about the Yankees.

But here's the kicker: it's not just an article. It's a stupid article! Double bonus! In fact, it is so stupid, it is called "A-Rod is great — but not in the clutch." Excited? Me too!

Disappointingly, Celizic makes some good points. Undisappointingly, he also lays down some huge boners.

[After the recent Red Sox series] A-Rod went home with his reputation intact as a hitter who doesn’t produce in the clutch and doesn’t win games. We’re hearing more about that reputation in New York these days as the depleted Yankees struggle to score runs.

The Yankees have scored 259 runs this year. That is third in all of MLB.

After a while, you start to wonder what people thought he was when the Yankees traded for him before the 2004 season. He had that huge salary, true, but you can’t judge a player by his paycheck — at least you shouldn’t. You go by what he does on the field. A-Rod was sold as the premier player in the game, and he’s been that, winning a second MVP trophy last season. He hits for power and for average. Once the game’s best shortstop, he moved to third to accommodate Yankees captain and hero for life Derek Jeter and became one of the game’s best third basemen.

The Yankees got what they paid for and what everyone should have expected. What they didn’t get was what A-Rod never was — a great clutch hitter. You heard it when he was with the Mariners and then the Rangers. Both teams failed to win when he was there and got better when he left. Therefore, he’s not a good player.

Now, at this point, if you're like me, and I think you are, you are thinking: "I hate Mike Celizic." Because: "clutch" hitting either doesn't exist or exists in some intangible way that is nearly impossible to measure, and also (as plenty of previous posts on this blog and plenty of Baseball Prospectus articles and the like have shown scientifically) ARod is really really really good at baseball, in every inning, and has plenty of "clutch" postseason hits and HR and everything else. Thus: the previous boldfaced paragraph is one of the dumbest things ever written.

But here's the kicker: HatGuy, out of nowhere, suddenly reveals that he was writing it ironically. Which is an even bigger "what the hell?" moment. Check it out:

That’s nonsense, too. You don’t average 40 home runs, 120 RBIs and 120 runs a season without helping to win games. And three-run home runs that get your team off to what becomes a 12-4 victory aren’t meaningless. If the Mariners and Rangers got better when he left, it was because they got better pitching and more balanced lineups.

So now HatGuy has journalistically like reversed course without warning. I frankly don't think it's very artful, either. I think he just doesn't know whether he believes that ARod is clutch or not-clutch, and is trying to cover all of his bases. Because he flip-flops back again:

Anyway, Seattle is bad again, and whose fault is that? Probably still A-Rod’s. He is, as a recent Star-Ledger piece by Dan Graziano was headlined, “A Lightning Rod.” The $25 million salary draws the attention. And his numbers in clutch situations galvanizes opinion.

Now I'm really confused. Is ARod clutch? Not clutch? Overpaid? Are his teams better when he leaves? What does this guy believe?

There is evidence to back up the claims that he’s not the greatest clutch player in the game. A-Rod has relatively modest numbers batting with runners in scoring position late in close games, numbers that look humble next to those of the Red Sox’ David Ortiz. People remember his failure to produce last year in the playoffs against the Angels and in the final four games of the seven-game loss to the Red Sox the year before in the ALCS. When he hit into an inning-ending double play late in a recent game against the Mets, it was mentioned high in every game story.

I can't believe I have to do this again.

ARod, postseason:

118 AB, .305/.393/.534. 6HR, 9 2B, 19 R.

That's pretty good.

And yes, he has had some high-profile postseason failures, but anyone who saw the Mariners-Yankees series in 2000 when he hit .409/.480/.737 in 22 AB and hit a HR off the top of the left-field foul pole at the Stadium and was basically the only Mariner hitter who showed up...any of those people laugh at junk like this.

On a side-note, has anyone ever looked at Emmy Award-Winning Sportscaster Joe Morgan's lifetime postseason numbers?

181 AB. .182/.323/.348. Now that's bad. But back to HatGuy:

"It'll never stop until I win five or six world championships, and hit a Joe Carter home run to win one of them," Rodriguez said, the New York Daily News reported. "I don't take anything personally. I think it's comical. Anyone who drives in 130 runs has to hit in the clutch. I've done a lot of special things in this game. For none of that to be considered clutch is an injustice."

Any psychoanalysts in the house? I'm guessing this is some hard-core inadequacy coming out in the form of overblown self-confidence. But what do I know?

When he was in Seattle, Edgar Martinez and Ken Griffey Jr. were the guys who carried the team. A-Rod was the complimentary weapon who made Martinez and Griffey that much more fearsome.

.316/.420/.606. 41 HR, 134 R, 132 RBI, 100 BB. Those are Alex Rodriguez's 2000 numbers.
.324/.423/.579. 37 HR, 100 R, 145 RBI, 96 BB. Those are Edgar Martinez's 2000 numbers.
.285/.384/.576. 48 HR, 123 R, 134 RBI, 91 BB. Those are Griffey's 1999 numbers (his last season in Seattle).

Someone tell me how ARod, playing SS, was less a guy who "carried the team" than he was a "complimentary weapon" who "made Martinez and Griffey more fearsome." What kind of retarded claim is that? Don't make me do a WARP analysis to prove that those numbers from a SS are more valuable than those from a DH. Please.

But he never has been a guy to put a team on his back and drag it out of a slump or through the late months of a season. He wasn’t with Seattle, wasn’t with Texas. There was never any reason to expect he would be in New York.

So, we are back to arguing that ARod is not a clutch hitter?

And also, what exactly could this guy have done in Seattle or Texas that he did not do? He played every day and put up MVP numbers every year. You can't just say "he never put a team on his back" without explaining what you mean. What do you mean? You are a bad journalist. Speaking of which, it's been five seconds, so you should stop saying that ARod isn't clutch and go back to saying that the claims that ARod isn't clutch are short-sighted.

Yet, he’s the person everyone points at when things go wrong. In that game against the Mets, the Yankees left 17 runners stranded, but A-Rod got the blame for his late-game double play. In the Monday loss to Boston, A-Rod did more than any of his teammates, but the home run he hit gets devalued because of the game situation.

Nicely done. Now, quickly go back to saying that ARod isn't clutch.

It could be that his deep desire to prove himself worthy is what holds him back in those clutch situations. Derek Jeter can walk to the plate with the pressure ratcheted up to crushing levels, say to himself he has to get on base, and do it. A-Rod can walk up in the same situation, say the same thing, and end the inning, 6-4-3.

Great. Thank you. Now quote a meaningless statistic to prove...nothing, and then explain it with unscientific babble:

And it could also be that his tendency to try too hard may prove to be his undoing in New York. This year, under pressure from the owner and the fans and the media, his average is mired in the .270s, nearly 30 points below his lifetime average. If he were somewhere that didn’t demand as much, he might be giving more.

Batting average? Even for you, HatGuy, that's stupid. So far this year ARod is 47-172. If just six -- six -- bleeders through the infield, or line shots at infielders, or flairs behind second, had fallen in, he'd be at .308, above his lifetime average. So...shut up about BA. And shut up about how NY is such a pressure cooker. ARod played there last year, I think, and won the goddamn league MVP. And by the way, shouldn't you be flip-flopping on whether ARod is clutch by now?

But none of that should say he’s been a failure or even a disappointment. The numbers are there. The MVP plaque is on the wall. The team continues to win the AL East and get into the playoffs, and, if it hasn’t gone to the World Series, it’s hardly his fault alone. Before he got to New York, the Yankees had already gone three years without a World Series win. Since then, all they’ve done is go two more years without a title. But it’s been a total team effort.

What point are you making about ARod right now? Do you even know?

The Yankees could win without him, but that doesn’t mean they should move him.

Who said anything about moving him? He's one of the three best players in baseball, even playing out of position to satisfy Jeter's ego. He makes $25m a year. Who would take him? Why would they trade him? What are you talking about?

He’s still a great player, one who will help a team win a lot of games over the course of the season.

Uh huh...steady now...that's good, Mike...keep it together...

He never was the player who will carry a team to a championship, and probably never will be. But that’s what he’s always been and what the Yankees accepted when they traded for him. If they want a great clutch hitter, it’s not fair to carp about A-Rod. They’ve got the money. Let them buy one.

All together now:

What????????

Labels: arod, clutch, HatGuy, mike celizic, yankees

Or has he?

Mike Celizic, the Right Honorable Supreme Royal Commandant in Charge of Mentioning the Yankees As Much As Possible Without Getting Fired, has ostensibly written an article about Jim Leyland and the Tigers. But don't worry. In like the third paragraph, we find this little nugget (emphasis mine):

When they’re fired, as all coaches and managers ultimately are, even the blame is tepid, the critics admitting that a manager can’t win with a lousy team even as they flog him out the door for managing a lousy team. Then, when he shows up elsewhere and starts to win — as Joe Torre did in New York after lackluster stints with the Mets, Cards and Braves — he’s suddenly a hero and remains so just as long as his players remain better than everybody else’s.

And then a bit later we get...

And yet for all that, it is recognized that some managers are better than others. There aren’t many of them, but they’re the guys who always seem to make teams better. Billy Martin used to be able to do that before the asylum that was the Bronx Zoo and the mad shipbuilder Yankee owner drove him so far into the bottle he never climbed out.

And then, amazingly, we get this...

They’re not winning by playing things safe. The New York Yankees, known for their patience at the plate, had 166 walks and 198 strikeouts as of the close of business Sunday; the Tigers just 92 walks and a whopping 257 Ks, bit they also had 56 home runs — eight more than the powerful Yankees.

Dude, you're not fooling anyone. Just write about the Yankees. Get a tall glass of scotch, don the fedora, sit down at your old-timey 1950's typewriter, and whip off 50,000 words about Robby Cano.

You know you want to.

Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic, yankees

The article isn't very controversial, but Mike Celizic, the Chancellor and High Commander (American/Western Media Division) for the United Front to Prevent Anything Ever Being Written That Is Not About the Yankees, has written another article about the Yankees.

Here are some of the articles this Nationally-Read Sportswriter has written about baseball in the last few weeks:

"Unit Putting Yankees in Trouble" (5/14)
"Yankees-Red Sox Opener a Classic" (5/2)
"Torre Living in the Past With Rivera" (4/26)
"Mets Could Be Apple of N.Y.'s Eye" (4/12) (about how the Mets are stealing the Yankees' fan base)
"Yanks Will Rally From Weak Start" (4/11)

On a side note, you might also notice a contradiction in the articles:

"Don't Insult Game, Barry -- Quit Baseball" (3/29)
"Culture of Cheating Damages Baseball" (3/30)

and

"Giant Among Men: A look back at some key moments in the amazing career of Barry Bonds" (5/12)

Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic, yankees

Mike Celizic, the Chairman and Executive Vice President of the Committee to Write About Only the Yankees and Red Sox No Matter What is Going On Anywhere Else in the League, has written a column about the Yankees.

When the tabloids start pushing Alfonso Soriano as the man who can save the Yankees, you know there’s trouble in the Bronx.

I do?

What makes [losing Hideki Matsui to a broken wrist] a disaster of epic proportions is that the Yankees are not built to win low-scoring games. Their game plan is to roll out slugger after slugger after slugger, throw up six runs or more a game, and hope their pitching can make it stand up. Without two major sluggers, that plan isn’t going to work.

He's totally right. What are the Yankees going to do without Matsui and Sheffield (for like 10 more days)? I mean, yes, they've still got Jason Giambi and his 1.209 OPS. Fine. But they need more. Okay, I mean, yes, they have Alex Rodriguez, the best or second-best player in baseball, but, I mean, come on. That guy barely hit 48 HR last year. He didn't even unanimously win the MVP award. And, okay, Derek Jeter is still there, but the guy doesn't even have a 1.000 OPS (it's .956, although he just homered, so it's a little closer.) I mean, where is this offense going to come from? Johnny Damon, Jorge Posada? Gary Sheffield when he comes back in like a week?

I am with Mike on this. Hideki Matsui had an .807 OPS through 119 AB this year. Eight Oh Seven! That is almost forty points higher than second baseman Robby Cano. There are only 37 other OF in MLB (barely even one per team!!!) that have a higher OPS this year. This kind of production is absolutely, positively irreplaceable! (Unless you can trade for someone like Curtis Granderson, who has an .809 OPS so far.)

Other teams call up whatever they have on the farm and hope for the best. The Yankees have done the farm thing — Melky Cabrera and Kevin Reese have taken the shuttle from Columbus. But they’re not into the hope thing. Instead of throwing wishes at the schedule, the Yankees go shopping.

"Instead of throwing wishes at the schedule?" You know you can edit these things before you send them in, right Mike?

[Soriano is] the reluctant left fielder for the Nationals, who are already waving the white flag of surrender and talking about next season. He’s a free-agent-to-be and he’s got a fat contract. The Nats don’t want his salary or his whining, and are willing to move him right now. Unlike a lot of other teams with outfielders to trade, they don’t need anyone who can help right now.

So the Yankees could conceivably dip down into their system for some prospects in Double-A, toss in Cabrera, Reese, Bubba Crosby or any combination thereof, and get themselves a deal.

"Hi, it's Brian Cashman calling. I'm great, how are you? Great. Hey...I'm interested in Soriano. Uh huh. Well, I understand, but how about this: first off, you can choose any of our excellent AA prospects. And believe me, there are a lot of great players down there. Wait -- you didn't let me finish. Plus, we will throw in Melky Cabrera. Melky -- with an "M." Oh, right -- from "Perfect Strangers." I think that's "Balky." Uh huh. Yes, I did see him drop that pop-up against the Sox the other day, but he's really...uh huh. Okay, forget him. How about Kevin Reese. No, Kevin. Kevin Reese. We just called him up. He's great -- he has a .712 OPS at AAA this year. And here's the best thing -- he's only 28 years old! Uh huh. Okay. No, of course I am not trying to insult your intelligence, I just...no, wait. Before you hang up, let me tell you about a little guy we like to call Bubba Crosby, and his lifetime .311 SLG. This 29 year-old phenom has really established himself -- hello? Hello?"

Soriano doesn’t enjoy left field, but he’ll play it willingly if it gets him back to the Yankees. He can hit (currently batting .271 with 10 homers and 33 RBIs), although he has as much discipline at the plate as a glutton has at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Again, you are allowed to change the very first thing you write down if it's not good.

Soriano also can steal bases and play second.

That will come in handy when trying to replace their LFer.

Soriano already has worn the pinstripes, which helps. Plus, the fans sort of like him, but, then again, Yankees fans, like fans everywhere, like anyone who hits the ball out of the park 30 or 40 times a season and drive in a bunch of runs.

Why get this guy? Because he has already played for you, which means you thought little enough of him to trade him, and your fans sort of like him. Also, "drive" should read "drives," if you want to use verbs correctly.

I doubt there’s anyone in New York who thought there was any way Soriano ever would return to the Bronx. As much as the team enjoyed his hitting, his inability to take a pitch and his erratic defense didn’t fit in with the Yankees’ way of doing business. He’s been a bit of a whiner and sometimes a malcontent since then in Texas and Washington.

So get him back already! It sounds like a perfect fit!

But Soriano might be the best player the Yankees can get. If he is, you can bet George Steinbrenner will order GM Brian Cashman to get it done. And if it’s not Soriano, it will be somebody, even if it’s just Jeromy Burnitz.

Burnitz this year: .188/.235/.352. Salary: $6m.

The Yankees are suddenly without two thirds of their outfield. The offense is hobbled. Something’s got to be done.

And Mike Celizic has the answer: trade players nobody wants for Soriano, and failing that, get Burnitz.

Labels: food similes, HatGuy, mike celizic, yankees

Because every sportswriter in the country thinks it's really funny to write a preposterous story as a prank and try to get people to believe it. We owe this scourge to George Plimpton's 1985 masterpiece "Curious Case of Sidd Finch," of course, which was beautifully written and just barely plausible enough and great. The modern-day versions are not.

To wit: this little gem by MSNBC's own Mikey C., who is worse at humor than he is at, like, everything else.

What kind of reaction is he expecting? "Wha..? Matt Leinart is going to forego the NFL draft to be a ballroom dancer?! What!?!?!?!? You've gotta be kidding me! This is insane! Hang on, let me keep reading...uh uh...right...well, this certainly seems like legitimate journalism...my God, what a huge story. How come no other journalistic outposts are reporting this? What a scoop!!!!!"

And then, to make matters worse, he does the ol' Plimpton-inspired "look at the first letter of every paragraph and you'll get the joke" thing at the end. As if even the most CNS-challenged moron hasn't figured out what the deal is by that point.

There's an old literary anecdote that T.S. Eliot gave Ezra Pound his first draft of "The Waste Land," which included long sequences of couplets. Pound returned the draft with almost every single couplet crossed out, and a note that basically said: "You can't write couplets unless they're better than Pope's. And these are not better than Pope's."

I include this anecdote, risking merciless ridicule in the comments section, because I would like officially to say to all sportswriters: You cannot do the stupid April Fool's Day Fake Article Thing unless it is better than "The Curious Case of Sidd Finch." Cool?

Flourish. Exeunt. Curtain.

Labels: HatGuy, mike celizic

Mike Celizic is wrong all the time. And the interesting thing about Mike Celizic and how he is wrong, is that he often explains his reasoning in a way that indicates that he knows he is wrong. It's very confusing.

To wit: here is his explanation for why Chris Carpenter should have won the Cy Young this year.

Get over the notion that Roger Clemens deserved his eighth Cy Young Award on the basis that he had the lowest ERA in 10 years and is as old as the Rocky Mountains and equally as admired.

Nice opening here -- a crazy run-on sentence, which also ascribes to people a belief I don't think they hold. I think most people held the notion that Roger Clemens deserved his eighth Cy Young on the basis that he had an awesome year. And comparing the amount he is admired to the amount the Rocky Mountains are admired is clumsy and bizarre.

The Cy Young Award goes to the best pitcher, not the most popular, not the one with the best human-interest sidebar nor the one who stands to get the most endorsement deals for hanging up another plaque.

Again, I think that there are plenty of people who simply believe Clemens was the best pitcher last year. I don't believe there were a lot of people who thought he should get the Cy Young Award because he is popular, or because they want him to get endorsement deals. (What does that even mean?)

And as much as I found what Houston Astros' Clemens did last season beyond belief, he wasn’t the National League’s best pitcher. That person would be Chris Carpenter, the St. Louis Cardinals ace who blossomed after seven years of underachievement into a starter who went 21-5 with a 2.83 ERA, seven complete games and four shutouts. And if it’s not Carpenter, it’s Dontrelle Willis of the Florida Marlins, the 2003 Rookie of the Year who rebounded this season after a sophomore slump to lead the NL in wins with 22.

But it’s not Clemens.

Now.

Solid arguments can of course be made for all three of these guys. Let's get this out of the way:

Carpenter: 241.2 IP, 204 H, 18 HR, 213/51 K/BB, 1.06 WHIP, .231 BAA. He went 21-5, 2.83.
Clemens: 211.1 IP, 151 H, 11 HR, 185/62 K/BB, 1.01 WHIP, .198 BAA. He went 13-8, 1.87.
D-Train: 236.1 IP, 213 H, 11 HR, 170/55 K/BB, 1.13 WHIP, .243 BAA. He went 22-10, 2.63.

To my eye, it's almost a wash. Carpenter and Willis get the slight nod in innings over Roger, but all three WHIPs are essentially identical, and superb. Carpenter wins in Ks, but Clemens's absurdly low hit total (probably party the result of good situational karma) deserves consideration. Clemens and Willis both allowed a ridiculous 11 HR. Really, any one of them is a good candidate. (I can't help but add that Johan Santana had a better year than all of them, and he didn't win his league's Cy, because... well, read my earlier post about Bartolo Colon. Neither here nor there.)

Let's see why Celizic favors Carpenter.

I’ll admit the arguments for Clemens are attractive, even if they’re not compelling. He rang up 1.87 ERA, which is the lowest since Greg Maddux fashioned a 1.63 ERA for the Atlanta Braves in 1995, when umpires were still giving him three or four inches outside the black on both sides of home plate... if the Cy were given to the best age-adjusted performance or the most impressive performance by a guy who uses a walker to get to the team bus, Clemens would be your man.

Why are you making fun of Roger Clemens's age? He's an unbelievable pitcher. Partly because of how old he is, but take his numbers and ascribe them to a guy half his age and they're still just as impressive. What point is Celizic trying to make here? Or is it just a lame joke?

But there’s a little problem with wins; Clemens had just 13 of them against eight defeats. His defenders will say quite accurately that the Rocket got less support from the Astros than Anna Nicole Smith would get from a Kleenex bra. They were shut out in seven of his starts, five of which ended in 1-0 scores, and handed him just 18 runs total in his first 11 starts.

If Clemens were still pitching for the New York Yankees, he would have won 20, but if a squirrel had longer ears and hind legs and a little powder-puff tail, it would be a rabbit. The game isn’t about ifs, it’s about numbers.

Please read that last sentence again.

So, Roger Clemens pitched well enough to win 20 games with a team that had a better offense. But the game isn't about ifs, it's about numbers. So, to put it another way: this game is about numbers, and if one thing -- that has nothing to do with numbers -- were different, Roger Clemens would have won the Cy Young.

Roger Clemens should not win the Cy Young award for individual achievement in pitching because of the failures of the other 24 guys on his team. Explain that. Imagine I run a world record-setting opening leg of a 4x100 relay. I blow everyone else away. Then the next guy stumbles and accidentally swallows the baton and poops in his pants and we lose. Am I a bad runner?

Although I think Carpenter was the man on the basis of start-to-finish consistency, I wouldn’t think it a horrible injustice if Willis were to win. Dontrelle did have one more win, 22 to 21 for Carpenter, and an ERA of 2.63, which was two-tenths of a run lower than Carpenter’s 2.83.

Dontrelle's bullpen was slightly better in his starts than Carpenter's bullpen was in his. So Dontrelle deserves...what? Points for being a good cheerleader? And Dontrelle's ERA was two-tenths of a run lower, which means that Carpenter gave up one extra earned run roughly every four or five starts.

Carpenter...was steady from start to finish — although he struggled somewhat in September —

Carpenter was always good. Except for a period of time when he was bad.

--and he anchored a staff for the National League’s winningest team. He’s a guy who spent six years in Toronto, never winning more than 12 games and putting up a winning record just twice.

Irrelevant.

Last year, he started to find his way with the Cardinals, going 15-5.

Irrelevant.

This year, he added six wins without adding any losses. He, and not Roger Clemens, deserved to be the NL Cy Young winner on Thursday.

Debatable. But not for any of the reasons you mentioned. Certainly not because he had more wins.

Labels: cy young award, HatGuy, mike celizic