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Reader Bruce sent us this beauty from Richard Griffin's latest mailbag.
Let's start with the letter to Richard, sent by Casey in Vancouver: I found the outpouring of support for Reed Johnson in last week's mailbag to be somewhat laughable. Fans seem to think that Johnson is the superior player simply because he has a superior throwing arm...I am more interested in another stat, runs. According to baseball-reference.com the 162 game average for Reed Johnson is 85 runs scored. For Shannon Stewart the number is 102...if history tells us anything Stewart would almost certainly get 10-20 more runs in a season than Johnson would. Do you seriously think that Johnson's arm would save the Jays more than 10-20 runs in year?
We're all thinking roughly the same thing, right? Casey kind of cherry-picked his stats, and using runs alone as an offensive stat really doesn't do much for his case. The whole math of the situation doesn't really work; there's like 400 other variables that he's ignoring in this equation. And, of course, why does someone in Vancouver care about the Blue Jays?
Oh, Canada. You motherfuckers.
I'm hoping we can all at least agree at this point that Casey's use of stats leaves something to be desired. Maybe we should all pitch in and get him a subscription to BP? No? How about an Icelandic Buckless Belt?
Anyway, let's see how Richard Griffin responds to Casey's question. I find the general attitude of seamheads and stat geeks like yourself towards real, human, flesh and blood players that don’t measure up to your computer-generated ideals to be sad.
Holy dick!
Seamheads and stat geeks like Casey? The guy who...wait -- say that again? I find the general attitude of seamheads and stat geeks like yourself towards real, human, flesh and blood players that don’t measure up to your computer-generated ideals to be sad.
That's what I thought you said! Yay! Richard Griffin's crazy!
Do yourselves a favor: go back and re-read Griffin's opening remark, but in your mind, pretend that it's being read by Col. Nathan Jessup from "A Few Good Men." I think you'll be happy with the results.
The so-called outpouring of love towards Reed Johnson from fans and from this mailbag last week has nothing to do with Reed’s throwing arm or the fact that some statistical proof can be generated from a website that shows Shannon Stewart capable of producing 17 more runs than Johnson in a 162-game season. It has to do with the fact of dealing with a decent human being that has not been treated with the same respect he has shown the game he has chosen as his profession.
A truly staggering amount of crazy, packed into one sentence. I like "generated from a website," as if baseball-reference.com is just making stuff up.
And, again: "It has to do with the fact of dealing with a decent human being..."
Interesting piece of trivia: Richard Griffin composes his mailbag responses by painstakingly writing tiny words on the sides of strands of fettuccine, using the the tip of a guitar string dipped in ink. He then boils the fettuccine, throws it against the wall, and lets the pieces fall to the floor. The order of the words in his responses is determined by the order in which the strings of pasta fall. "fact...of...dealing...with...a...decent...mmm!"
Griffin follows this up with some weird anecdotal shit that's supposed to make us think that Reed Johnson somehow got dicked over by the Blue Jays, which is totally possible but sort of boring. And then, more pasta!
I don’t blame you for your immaturity. It’s easy for someone on the outside looking in to disregard the humanity of players. But it’s difficult for someone that has been in the major-league game for 35 years to do the same.
Casey gets attacked for being immature? Man alive. Disregarding the humanity of players?
Just to sum up, this is apparently where we're at in the year 2008. It doesn't really matter where you fall on the Joe Morgan / Bill James spectrum. If you so much as use any numbers to defend your argument, then it's safe to say that you have a total disregard for the humanity of players.
Just making sure we all understand the ground rules. There will never be any apologies from my part for caring about players as human beings, no matter how flawed their skills may seem when run through a computer.
Senator Mitchell? You can end your investigation, sir. I'm sure you've been doing a lot of hard work, pounding the pavement, rooting around in dark alleys, wearing trenchcoats, smoking pipes. I'm telling you now you can stop and relax. Our long national roidmare is over thanks to a gutsy young muckraker from north of the border, one Mr. Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star. At the cost of only his own blood, sweat, tears and pancreatic secretions, Mr. Griffin has fingered the culprit behind this whole steroid mess. Yes, there is only one. A lone gunman. A puppeteer behind the scenes. A criminal mastermind. A shadowlord lurking in the spaces our society dares not tread.
Who is it? It's a book. It's called Moneyball. Maybe you've heard of it?
People are always accusing me of misrepresenting what Moneyball was all about,
And it's impossible that you're actually wrong about it, so -- but there are so many facets and interpretations that it's tough to say anyone is really wrong.
I don't believe that's actually true, and certainly in this case, sir, it most undoubtedly is not. What you are about to say about Moneyball is unequivocally, unquestionably, indubitably wrong.
But think about this. One of the Billy Beane precepts was to look for college and, occasionally, high school hitters that were not really the greatest athletes on their team but had the discipline to wait for the right pitch and then smack the hell out of it when they found it. On-base percentage, dude. That's the wave of the future. Forget about how boring those four-hour games get. These were the bargains.
This is wrong, but not the wrongest part. That part we're about to get to. (As a an aside, does Griffin really blame Billy Beane for caring about winning at the expense of game length? We're trying to win games here, people, are we not?)
Take a deep breath, now, and pre-emptively duct tape your jaw so that it does not succumb to gravity, friends:
Now think of a college kid back then in the post-Mark McGwire era who knew he was always going to be on the fringe because he wasn't your most graceful natural athlete, but knew that if only he was a lot stronger, he could learn to play within himself and crush an occasional mistake pitch. As long as he didn't chase bad ones he could make an impact in this century's home run crazy major-league baseball. As for a position in the field, they could teach him to be adequate somewhere. Major league minimum of $319,000 (U.S.) is all that these kids wanted. That's the carrot. He had the stick. The rest was gravy. Before there was steroid testing, who, if they were on the fringe with a clear market for awkward sluggers, wouldn't take that plunge? Moneyball is over.
Wow. Wow. Wow. (The last "wow" was a backwards "wow," I'm so wowed.) It's so clear to me now. Moneyball is the root of all steroids! Bruce Willis is a ghost! Verbal Kint is Keyser Soze! How could we all have been so blind?
This book that Billy Beane wrote -- this devil's tome, those cursed words -- of course it's responsible for the great baseball evil of our time. Everyonewhoevertooksteroidswas anunathleticOBP machine. It's so obvious. "Awkward sluggers," all. "Fringe."
I feel that we're cleansed, now, America. Thank you, Mr. Griffin, or as they say in your native Canada, grazie. Now that you've revealed to us the truth, we can truly say that Moneyball, and therefore all steroid use, is finally dead.
So I wrote a half-assed post about Richard Griffin because he said something sort of weird and uncalled for. Then I left and did other things for awhile.
I come back to the computer and check my email and I have about 50 emails giving me attendance figures for the Toronto Blue Jays and the Oakland Athletics. Seriously. Many, many people felt strongly enough to research this and write in about it. Thank you.
Once again, as a reminder, here's the setup:
There was never any emotion in A's scenarios. That was pure Moneyball.
This is not Moneyball. There has never been a chapter dealing with "replacement value" for fan favourites, which is the difference between A's and Jays and why on most nights you can fire a cannon through the Oakland Coliseum and not hit anyone.
And now, in honor of all of you who wrote in, I'm selecting one of the emails at random and printing it. Congratulations, TL.
Really? Because according to MLB's regular season attendance statistics, the Oakland A's have outdrawn the Toronto Blue Jays at home five of the last six years (2006 being the lone exception).
Check it out: 2001: OAK (26,598) > TOR (23,647) 2002: OAK (26,787) > TOR (20,220) 2003: OAK (27,365) > TOR (22,215) 2004: OAK (27,179) > TOR (23,457) 2005: OAK (26,040) > TOR (24,724) 2006: OAK (24,402) < TOR (28,422)
AVG: OAK (26,395) > TOR (23,780) (by 11%!)
Even if we assume that Griffin meant the Coliseum is emptier (percentage-wise), a quick look at the numbers defeats this proposition as well:
Attendance as Percent of Capacity: 2001: OAK (60.9) > TOR (47.4) 2002: OAK (61.4) > TOR (40.0) 2003: OAK (62.7) > TOR (44.0) 2004: OAK (62.2) > TOR (46.4) 2005: OAK (59.6) > TOR (48.9) 2006: OAK (55.9) < TOR (56.3)
A gentleman named Titan (followed by a series of numbers) points out the following error in TL's math:
"That's not how percent difference works. It's merely subtracting the little number from the big number, not dividing. The correct separation is 13.3 percent [not 28%]. Still a big difference."
Some baseball writers really must ask themselves that question before they sit down at their Toshiba Satellite Pro 4300s. I don't even understand the logic behind this slam of Moneyball/Billy Beane/Oakland fans, from Canadian Bill Plaschke Richard Griffin of the Toronto Star. You can't really tell, but he's talking about the Blue Jays losing Vernon Wells: And please don't compare this to the A's losing Mark McGwire, Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada and the big three starters, including, this year, Barry Zito. There was never any emotion in A's scenarios. That was pure Moneyball.
This is not Moneyball. There has never been a chapter dealing with "replacement value" for fan favourites, which is the difference between A's and Jays and why on most nights you can fire a cannon through the Oakland Coliseum and not hit anyone.
Trading without emotion is Moneyball? I don't think that's true, but hey, sign me up anyway. And the difference between the A's and the Jays is this: a chapter dealing with replacement value for fan favorites. In Toronto, they follow a code, and that code consists of signing players according to their RVFFF.
Vernon Wells' RVFFF is 492.3 (adjusted for all-time). As we all know, the value of each RVFFF unit is 53,624 dollars per year, so Wells is a bargain at even $20 million per season. It's a good thing Oakland would never sign him, because if they did, they would automatically fill their stadium with that kind of RVFFF.
Several readers have written in to point out the crazy potshot Griffin takes at the end of his last column (the sex one):
The winter meetings, despite the unwelcome influence of player agents and younger, non-traditional GMs, is still one of the great traditions of sports.
The word "non-traditional" makes it sounds like all the GMs under 40 are gay or something. And according to Griffin, these decidedly homosexual general managers are universally-loathed vermin indistinguishable from Scott Boras.
Richard Griffin, meanwhile, bones his wife at the baseball meetings and makes babies with her like a real man, goddammit.
There's just one, actually. I demand to know exactly when and where Toronto Star columnist Richard Griffin has been having sex.
Wherever it has been held, it's always been memorable. I proposed to my wife, Debbie, at the meetings in Dallas in 1980. The next day, John Lennon was shot. My elder daughter, Kelly, was conceived at the convention, four years later in Houston. For me, these meetings will always generate strong emotions.
That's my attempt at a clever title for a bad article written about Frank Thomas. What do you guys think? Honestly. You can tell me honestly. I want to learn.
Anyway, here's the article. It was sent to us by our loyal reader James, and it features the musings of rapidly-becoming-my-new-favorite-sportswriter Richard Griffin, about the Blue Jays rumored signing of Frank Thomas. Let's take a look-see.
Not wishing anything bad on an aging ballplayer who penned the best comeback story of the year, but the best thing that could happen for Jay fans in the next week would be if Frank Thomas failed his physical.
Huh. Tell me why, there, Dick.
The anticipation of poor health is only wished upon the two-time former AL MVP if the reports emanating from the general managers meetings in Florida are true, that Toronto is on the verge of signing the 38-year-old slugger for a mega-contract of three years. Bad move.
Yeah, I figured you would only want the guy to fail his physical if he were about to sign with the Jays. Otherwise, if you're just randomly hoping that guys fail their physicals, you're just a weird asshole.
For an organization that prides itself on thinking outside the box, in looking for key players in the discount bin of discarded, or lightly regarded talent, the Jays, by pursuing Thomas, are showing very little in the way of middle-market imagination.
So...they can only sign guys who are lightly regarded or something? If a guy who fills a need for the Jays (DH) and can be signed for short years becomes available through free agency, they shouldn't look at him unless he fulfills the requirement of being "discarded talent?" Why?
Dropping a plodding slugger into the heart of the order only serves to make this team more one-dimensional than ever. The Jays should have seen the folly of that way of thinking in the second half, when their prized acquisition, third baseman Troy Glaus, slumped due to nagging injuries and, as much as he should be admired for playing through pain, dragged down an offence that went through the first half of the year as the AL leader in batting average and near the top in run production.
Well, they still finished second in the AL in team OPS and fourth in OBP. And Glaus still struggled to the tune of (in 153 games) 38 HR, a .293 EqA and a 7.4 WARP3. Which was the exact same WARP3 as Alex Rodriguez. Who, despite what you might have heard, is actualy very very good at baseball.
All of the greatest Jays teams have combined extra-base power and batting average with the ability to steal a base and go aggressively from first to third and from second to home on a hit.
Richard Griffin's Recipe for Success:
Look to the past for how to build towards the future. Disregard how much the game has changed in 15 years. Sign Kelly Gruber. Sign Manny Lee at SS. Ignore cold hard facts, like that the "Great" Blue Jays teams of the past also had phenomenal starting pitching and bullpens. Ignore certain other cold hard facts about the hitting on those teams, like that the DH on the 1992 World Champion Blue Jays was 40 year-old Dave Winfield, who hit 28 HR for that team. Sign Pat Tabler. Practice writing every day! Love your parents. Be Prepared
The World Series years in the early `90s and the playoff seasons through the mid- to late-80s always included smart, aggressive base running. For every John Olerud there was a Devon White.
Now along comes the broken-down Thomas to take whatever managerial skills John Gibbons ever showed out of his hands. The Jays skipper is an NL guy at heart. He has always annoyed his GM, J.P. Ricciardi, by insisting on bunting runners into scoring position in late innings. After watching Thomas in the playoffs against the Tigers, there is nobody in baseball who runs the bases with less aggressiveness and speed. It's not his fault, due to an assortment of injuries, but the fact is Thomas makes Bengie Molina seem like Donovan Bailey.
"Hey, Ken?" "Yeah?" "Hey -- it's Minka Kelly, from 'Friday Night Lights.'" "Hey, Minka. What's up?" "I want to have sex with you." "...Huh." "Something wrong, Ken?" "No, I mean...you're super hot, and I love your show, but...you can't run that fast." "I'm sorry?" "I don't know. You definitely have a lot of other skills. Like being hot, and having a perfect human form, and a great smile and flawless skin...and just to reiterate, you are crazy hot. But I really don't like to commit myself to a woman unless she can also run very quickly." "...Okay. Well. That's fine." "I'm sorry -- I just...I learned from the Toronto Star's Richard Griffin that even if you have certain skills in abundance, unless you can run the bases aggressively..." "No, I get it. I guess." "Cool. Thanks, for understanding, Minka." "Hey...do you have Junior's number?"
As for the rumoured cost of acquiring Thomas, it would be in the area of $10 million (U.S.) for three years, or two plus an option, taking the Jays though 2009. If Ricciardi thought that Carlos Delgado's contract was an untradeable albatross, he ain't seen nuthin' yet.
We're talking about a 2-year deal. Maybe 3. They will not have to trade Thomas. (Also, after Delgado signed his current deal, he was traded to the Mets. Neither here nor there, I guess.)
[Thomas] has a longer history of clubhouse divisiveness than he has of leadership — the one year in Oakland. Is he the kind of core, character player that the Jays claim to want to place under contract? No.
He is the kind of core, character player who put up a .316 EqA and 39 HR in a large baseball park last year. He also seemed to get along with his teammates just fine.
The Jays would have been better off going after a healthier right-handed hitter with extra-base power who could also play the corner infield spots and has a sense of baserunning that makes up for a lack of pure speed.
Someone like, hmm, Shea Hillenbrand.
This is one of the craziest things I have ever read. Honestly. I say that a lot, but I really believe this sets a new standard.
Frank Thomas has a history of clubhouse divisiveness. He is not the kind of core, character plaer the Jays should go after. They should go after a healthier right-handed hitter with extra base power who can play corner infield spots and a "sense of baserunning" that can make up for lack of speed. They should get Shea Hillenbrand.
Shea Hillenbrand was dumped off the Blue Jays last year, if you all remember, for being one of the all-time assholes. He bitched and whined that no one congratulated him on adopting a child. He got into a fistfight with his manager. He is a famous -- FAMOUS -- malcontent.
A malcontent FIRED BY THE BLUE JAYS LAST YEAR.
A malcontent who, in 80 games for the Blue Jays, before being let go because he is such a colossal twerp, had a -1 FRAR. (He only played 36 games in the field.) He had a 1.2 WARP and a .262 EqA. In 139 games last year, with the Jays and Giants, he walked 21 times.
At least he has an excellent baserunning acumen, to the tune of 16 SB and 9 CS in 868 career games. (Thomas has 32 and 23, if you're interested.)
He also made $5.8 million last year, Shea did, while being (I can't emphasize this enough) such a horrendous, unrelenting pain in the ass that the Blue Jays gave him his unconditional release.
Congratulations, Richard Griffin. You have written what I believe is the dumbest article of the year.
A couple of people have already written in to correct me: Hillenbrand was technically designated for assignement, not released. They also have pointed out that the Clubhouse Panacea Griffin wants for the Jays is the same guy who called Red Sox GM Theo Epstein a "fag." But he has a lot of smarts on the basepaths!...?...!
In the interests of fairness, I cut/copy/paste this theory from reader Richard:
I'm not a regular reader of Richard Griffin...I'm betting you aren't either. Is it possible that he's making a joke? For all we know...he lambasted Hillenbrand all season for being a douche in the clubhouse, and was making a joke to his regular readers like, "Yeah, we'll bring him back because he worked so well, WINK!" If he had given a bunch of reasons after mentioning him, I could see your angle, but because he just sort of drops the name off at the end of the article and doesn't say anything, well, I'm just saying it's possible he was attempting a funny.
I hope not. And I don' think so. But again, in the interest of farness, there's a possible explanation.
I finally got around to reading the Richard Griffin article that Junior assailed yesterday (see below, 18 Oct.). Here are a few more pieces of evidence Griffin gives that Billy Beane, and not Ken Macha, is at fault for the A's woes:
How could anyone blame Macha for losing to the Tigers? After second baseman Mark Ellis was injured, Beane gave Macha the combo of D'Angelo Jimenez and Mark Kiger. Jimenez may have been the worst starting second baseman in a playoff game this decade, while Kiger was making his MLB debut.
I could be wrong, but wasn't Ellis injured during the playoffs? Apparently, Beane was supposed to fly Robby Cano to Oakland, give him a fake moustache, and have him pretend to be Cobinson Rano: Oakland A's Second Baseman Who Is Totally On the Playoff Roster!
Ellis was also on the DL in early June, but I really believe that Griffin is blaming Beane for the A's not having an awesome backup 2nd baseman instantaneously in October. Now, that's not Macha's fault either. In fact, it's nobody's fault, really -- it's just bad luck. But as Junior's post below shows, there seem to be other things that are, in fact, Macha's fault. Like the fact that everyone on his team hated his guts.
During the regular season, when the A's were in Toronto, catcher Jason Kendall was suspended, so Beane elevated one of his Moneyball legends, overhyped draft choice, roly-poly catcher Jeremy Brown. Macha laughed in the face of a question about how much playing time Brown would get. "None."
Listen to me carefully, Richard Griffin. I have several points to make.
1. The fact that a catcher got suspended means that the GM, in this case Billy Beane, would be doing a huge disservice to his team by not putting another catcher on the team ASAP. So. They had a catcher in the minors, who is on the 40-man roster, who has decent AAA stats (.764 OPS, 13HR in 77 games -- not great, but workable), so he promoted him. What is the problem here?
2. Ken Macha laughing and being snarky about how much playing time a new guy is going to get is a dickish thing to do, and is exactly the kind of thing that got him fired.
3. Jason Kendall was out for four games. Four. So the worst thing that could have happened was that Jeremy Brown would be there for four games. In May.
4. In the last two full seasons, Jason Kendall, who makes $11 million a year, has OPSes of .709 and .666. In the minute sample size of MLB-level experience this year, Jeremy Brown was 3-10 with 2 2Bs. Career, 4-12. That shit ain't bad. Maybe Macha should have played him more. Or maybe he shouldn't've. But he definitely shouldn't have laughed at the question of how much the guy was going to play. What good does that do?
Macha's fault? During the ALCS against the Tigers, Nick Swisher lived up to his name, with five strikeouts in 10 at-bats, while ...another of Beane's prized drafts, Joe Blanton, was relegated to long relief.
In 2005 Joe Blanton made about $327,000 and won 12 games with an ERA of 3.53, giving up 178 hits in 201.1 IP. His OPS-against was .693. In 2006 he regressed terribly, his WHIP soaring to 1.54 (possibly due to some bad luck -- his K/BB stayed roughly the same and he actually gave up fewer HR). But tell me how Billy Beane is at fault for this. Is he the pitching coach too?
And as for Nick Swisher...I guess his .254/.372/.493/.865, 35 HR and 97 BB go right the fuck out the window in the face of three not so good games against the league's best pitching staff. Curse you, Billy Beane!!!!!!
Macha not a true believer A's canned him because he wasn't a Moneyball guy
Those fourteen beautiful words tell the whole story.
On Monday, Ken Macha became the sixth major-league manager fired since Oct. 1. A's GM Billy Beane, in making the announcement, claimed there was a "disconnect on a lot of levels." The disconnect seems to be that the ego-driven Beane cannot find anyone to religiously manage by the book — his book, Moneyball.
If you take the trouble to write a book about baseball, the least your manager can do is try to abide by it.
"There were things that transpired over the course of the year that the players were unhappy about,'' A's center fielder Mark Kotsay said.
How'd that get in there? Ignore that. Back to the real story:
Now, we're getting as tired as anyone else of the baseball term originally coined as the title of a Michael Lewis book on how to compete on a limited budget by going against the grain of traditional baseball thinking.
Amen! Macha had the players' support. It was Beane's megalomania and Moneyball-worship that probably cost the A's the World Series this year.
"I felt like he didn't protect me,'' Zito said. "I know a lot of managers do -- (White Sox first baseman) Paul Konerko told me that Ozzie Guillen would take a bullet for his players. I was upset but Macha was fighting his own battle and he probably couldn't process that kind of pressure, so, OK, I'll wear it.''
Like many other things once new, Moneyball has become old. It doesn't work because now everybody does at least a little outside the box thinking. It's like comparing Ozzy Osbourne of the '70s to Osbourne today. No more edge.
Just like the A's, Ozzy doesn't know how to do the little things anymore. When was the last time you saw Ozzy lay down a sacrifice bunt and give himself up for the team? Not recently enough, if you ask me.
"I know that the one thing any player wants from his manager is to be protected,'' catcher Jason Kendall said. "If there's a bang-bang play at first, even if you're out, if you're arguing you want someone there behind you. If you argue a pitch, even if you're wrong, you want someone joining in. And I'm not sure Macha did that.''
The point about the Beane and Macha lack of chemistry is that Macha never bought into Moneyball and often, with a dry, somewhat quirky sense of humour, would let his true feelings come out in quotes not always flattering to the talents of the players he was given by Beane.
It's the manager's right -- no, his duty -- to tear down his players every chance he gets. That's smallball. The kind of ball we used to play in the good ol' small days. When managers made players feel small.
"When I got injured, I felt disrespected,'' Kotsay said. "The 'puzzling' comment really threw me. My manager didn't have my back, and every manager's first business is to protect his players. That totally lost my trust in that relationship, between us as player and manager.''
When Little was fired in Boston after '03 due to the Yankees playoff debacle, Macha's bench coach Terry Francona (also not a big fan of Moneyball) was hired by the Sox and went on to win the World Series.
Who could forget Terry Francona's two-run walkoff homer to win Game 4 of the ALCS? Or his grand slam in the second inning of Game 7? Everyone will always remember the famous Francona bloody sock game. If there's one thing that's for sure, it's this: Moneyball principles had absolutely nothing to do with the Red Sox winning the World Series. It was the handiwork of one man: Terry Francona.
"The atmosphere wasn't positive, for some reason,'' Chavez said. "That was hard for us to deal with -- here we are, winning the division, we're banged up but we're still doing what we should be doing, and every time he spoke to us, he'd say how much appreciated the effort, but then you'd read things where he was always smashing people. ... This negative cloud was just eating at everybody.''
Clearly, Macha knew what Beane always thought of him. It was only Macha's success of making it to the post-season with a great second-half that kept Beane's wolves at bay.
Ken Fucking Second Half Macha. The only reason the A's were any good, ever. Preach on, brother!
"The fact is, when you have someone leading people, you want them to be a visionary, to forge ahead and be on the front lines,'' Zito said. "We felt like we were on the front lines, and he might have been with us but he didn't have the same conviction or faith. I think it was a fear of failure. He was a little more focused on the pessimistic stuff than on success.''
Beane always blames managers, but the fact is the A's were just not deep enough or good enough to advance to the World Series. Macha is a National League manager, with a love of small-ball. The A's was his first opportunity to manage in the big leagues, so he was willing to take whatever Beane offered, to get his foot in the door. He is better off moving on.
Like Francona before him, the guess here is that Macha, with another managerial job, will earn a World Series chance before Beane ever does.
Not one word of this article is out of place. God bless you, Richard Griffin. God bless you, you brave, brave man.
"Deep down inside, I think he cared about the players, he just didn't have a good way of communicating,'' Chavez said. "He was always asking me about guys, he wanted to know if they were OK, but I was always the one he talked to in his office and I was probably the one who least needed to be in there.''
Thanks to reader Jim for pointing us to this gem from Richard Griffin's past:
Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi along with Oakland's Billy Beane and other new-wavers believe in building offence through patience at the plate and taking no chances on the bases. That's a pre-WWII style of play. Under those criteria, Jackie Robinson could not have played in the majors.
Jackie Robinson. The dude with the .409 lifetime OBP.
Derek Jeter is a good baseball player who brings out the worst in baseball writers. Take this guy:
His name is Richard Griffin and he writes for the Toronto Star. Now, when I pick up and read the Toronto Star, as I do every day, I expect nothing but the finest, most objective, cold-blooded, rationalest, numbery-est baseball analysis out there. I was appalled to find the following article polluting the pages of my beloved Star:
Jeter's MVP on all levels Huge contributions on and off the field
Off the field, Jeter is a way better baseball player than anyone can imagine. Did you know he leads the AL with 46 off the field home runs and is second in off the field steals with 53? Off the field, Derek Jeter slays giant centipedes while riding an iron pegasus.
Yankee captain Derek Jeter looked bad in his first three at-bats against the Jays in last night's series opener. Then, in the seventh, with a runner on second, he drove a 3-0 A.J. Burnett offering into the centre-field stands for a lead the Yankees never gave back. Performance when it counts.
I checked the box score for this game. Jeter's home run put the Yankees ahead 4-3 in a game they eventually won 7-6. Great. A-Rod also hit a two-run homer in this one, but since it was one inning earlier, it didn't help the Yankees at all. I don't think they even keep score for the first six innings, right?
"It just gets us closer to where we want to be," Jeter said of the impact of his home run.
The key word is "we." There is no question that, despite what Red Sox' slugger David Ortiz argues, the AL MVP this year should be Jeter.
MVP Criterion #1: MVP must, at some point in the year, offer a quote that correctly refers to his team, a group of people to whom he belongs, with the plural pronoun "we."
Sure, the Yankee captain doesn't have the raw offensive numbers to match Big Papi, Justin Morneau or Jermaine Dye, but his contributions to winning go far beyond the numbers.
This needs a lot of explanation. Jeter sits with a .340 average — 14 homers and 95 RBIs — nice but not monstrous power numbers. Beyond that, he is a calming extension on the field and in the clubhouse in much the same way as his manager Joe Torre.
Oh, right. The Calm Eyes Effect.
MVP Criterion #2: MVP must be a "calming extension" on the field and in the clubhouse.
Derek Jeter gives his teammates free massages.
The classy way Jeter handled last week's Ortiz diatribe against his MVP candidacy was typical Jeter, pointing out that, as a Yankee, team goals are more important and then, on the weekend, interacting with Ortiz on the field at Yankee Stadium like a friend. End of controversy.
MVP Criterion #3: Classiness.
There is no jealousy emanating from Jeter with regard to any of his teammates. And if any of the baser emotions are hinted at by the media reporting on the Bombers, issues are quickly defused by Torre and/or his clubhouse equivalent, Jeter.
There is something supremely confident about a Yankee clubhouse. They arrived in the wee, wee hours of Sunday, exhausted after back-to-back doubleheaders against the Red Sox, bloodied from three losses, but unbowed. You wouldn't know it.
Maybe because they're like 50 games up and they knew they would clinch the AL East even if they lost all of the rest of their games. Or, alternatively, the explanation is Jeter.
The Yankees have had 14 players on the DL, led by outfielders Gary Sheffield and Hideki Matsui. Second baseman Robinson Cano missed 40 games. A-Rod has slumped badly at times and Randy Johnson has recorded 17 wins despite a 4.93 ERA.
They also have perhaps the best collection of offensive talent of any team in baseball history ever, including at least three players who have been on average more valuable than Derek Jeter over the course of their careers.
Yet here they sit, about to clinch the AL East for the 10th time in 11 seasons, with the other result being a wild card and a '97 World Series win.
No and no. It's the 11th time in 12 seasons. (CORRECTION: I'm wrong. He's right. It's 10 in 11. But he's still wrong about the next thing.) In 1997, the Florida Marlins won the World Series. Shouldn't you know that? Or barring you knowing it, shouldn't you have at least checked it out before writing it down to be published in a baseball bible like the Toronto Star?
Barring injury, the 32-year-old Jeter, five years after he retires, is headed to the hall of fame. He has a World Series and an All-Star MVP, but never the regular-season hardware. This should be Jeter's time.
MVP Criterion #5: It's the MVP's time.
His campaign talking points are simple. A normal-looking guy doing normal-looking things — only better. It would be a great response to baseball's distressing steroid scandals.
MVP Criterion #6: Be normal-looking. No uglies.
I was a Yankee hater until the late-'90s World Series. The easiest thing to hate was that they always seemed to be buying their stairway to heaven.
Oh Jesus. Really? "Buying their stairway to heaven"?
Voters may resent the Yankees believing they buy greatness, but just remember that Jeter is homegrown.
Besides, my daughter Kelly in her room at university has four pictures of Jeter and only one of me. If I'm going to be trumped, let it be by an AL MVP.
MVP Criterion #7 (Most Important): MVP must have four (4) pictures of him hanging in Richard Griffin’s daughter Kelly’s room at university. The number of pictures is non-negotiable.
Real quick, now, take a look at this guy one more time.
Notice that the top of his head is cut off. Could there be a fedora up there?
