It's not easy having everyone say how brilliant you are (so I've heard); here's a clip from Kids In The Hall that embodies that struggle. Billy Beane might want to take note at how it's handled so nimbly.

• Don't they work on that in spring training?

    Contrary to the popular notion among the would-be readers of Harlequin Romance novels, much of spring training isn't spent by players austerely preparing themselves for the long season ahead with rigorous mental and physical activity. For the established player, it's more about screwing as many groupies as possible; drinking beer; barbecuing and enjoying the warm spring weather in their team's preferred locale of Arizona or Florida.

    When they're actually working though, they spend plenty of time practicing fundamentals that require repetition to make sure they're done correctly. Such drills include run-down plays; pick-off plays; double plays of pitcher to second base (they tell the pitcher to know which middle infielder is covering beforehand, and to fire it to the base even if the guy's not there; then they still screw it up when the season starts); plus bunts and weakly hit infield grounders in the no-man's land between the catcher, pitcher and first baseman. Because of the ponderous nature of spring training, one would think that major league players would be able to execute such simple plays that are practiced over and over and over again; but last night, I watched as the Kansas City Royals screwed up not one, not two, but three straight balls hit to the pitcher because they were clueless to the fundamentals of making the plays. 

    On the first play of the then 2-2 tie with the White Sox, Scott Podsednik bunted down the first base line and beat it out as no one----pitcher John Bale; catcher Miguel Olivo; or first baseman Billy Butler (who's atrocious defensively)----knew who should go for the ball.

    Man on first, no outs.

    Alexei Ramirez bunted, and there was confusion as to whom was supposed to be where again as the second baseman, Alberto Callaspo, was covering first; Butler, standing in the middle of nowhere in front of Callaspo, caught the ball before it got to the base.

    First and second, no outs.

    Jermaine Dye then walked.

    Bases loaded, no outs.

    Jim Thome hit a swinging bunt, again into no-man's land, and was thrown out at first as the go-ahead run scored. The Royals got out of the inning with no further damage and Miguel Olivo homered to tie it in the bottom of the eighth inning before the White Sox score two in the top of the ninth and won the game 5-3.

    Royals manager Trey Hillman was critical of his players for essentially screwing up a play that he's responsible for them knowing how to perform as second nature. Hillman's quote is a tutorial in denying responsibility for his own faults as a manager:

"It's a play that's designed defensively. It's been designed that way for a long time," said Hillman. "Second baseman has first base coverage and it was a good bunt. I can understand how he gets caught in between but if he gets caught in between he's got to get out of the way and let the pitcher get the ball to the second baseman."

    There's no excuse, first, for that play being screwed up; and second, for the manager not taking the blame for his player's mental error. When managing, the attitude of, "it's not my fault, he should know that" doesn't make it with me. I go back to the documentary about Bobby Valentine, The Zen of Bobby V that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

    A clip of Valentine at a public speaking gig was shown in which Valentine related a conversation he'd had with a coach who tried to explain that he'd told a player numerous times how to execute a certain play after the player had screwed it up. Valentine responded by saying that it was clear that he hadn't told the player enough if it wasn't second nature to him to get it right. 

    The Royals were a trendy pick to contend before the season started, but in watching this game, their starting pitching behind Zack Greinke and Gil Meche aren't the only problems they have. They have a manager who looked like a winner when he was hired (I had a man-crush on him myself) and has turned out to be far less than what was expected when the package was unwrapped.

    No matter how talented or untalented a team is (and the Royals aren't that good to begin with), there's no excuse for not executing such baseline fundamentals. These things win and lose games; and if you're looking for a reason why the manager across the state in Missouri, Tony La Russa, is where he is; and Hillman has had people scratching their heads for the better part of a year wondering if he knows what he's doing, this game was a prime example of why the Royals aren't going anywhere with him as the manager.

• The difference between John Sterling and Michael Kay:

    Jane Heller from Confessions of a She-Fan cultivated a friendship with Yankees radio voice John Sterling while she was working on her book and swears up and down that he's one of the nicest people in the world.

    Sterling isn't there to educate the fans on everything he knows about baseball; he's not there to try and be Tim McCarver and unravel every single little thing that's happening on the field ad nauseam; he's there to entertain, root for the Yankees and give people a laugh or two. Maybe when I have the Yankees on, I should just switch on the radio rather than hear the droning of Michael Kay as he babbles nonsensically about the the bizarre world he sees. 

    Kay strikes me as the type who wants to prance around barefoot through a flower garden, doing pirouettes and smelling the lovely scents of spring as he wears his Yankee hat and waves a Yankee pennant----tra la la la la----simultaneously considering himself a serious journalist and an imperative part of the Yankees success during their title runs. Last night, he was going on and on with broadcast partner John Flaherty about how the Yankees seem to really like each other; that they're a loose bunch enjoying each other's company; and that Mark Teixeira has said that that Joe Girardi is the best manager he's ever played for. (To put that into context, Teixeira has played for: Buck Showalter, Bobby Cox and Mike Scioscia; you be the judge as to the common sense of the Girardi assertion.) 

    Uh, yeah genius----Mr. Yankees-insider and baseball expert; the guy who "protected Joe Torre" during his tenure by keeping the unassailable Kay-opinions to himself about Torre's treatment of his coaches who'd been fired, then heroically let him have it as he was on the way to Los Angeles----they're playing loose and like each other because they're winning!!

    They didn't appear all that loose a few weeks ago when they were under .500. And since when does the players liking each other or their manager have to do with anything? Teams have hated each other and won and loved each other and lost; it has nothing to do with anything as long as there are clubhouse leaders to keep the peace. I can't understand how even Yankee fans tolerate this buffoon and his never-ending and rapidly expanding nonsense----a level of nonsense growing so exponentially that Stephen Hawking should start researching it to see if it'll ever end. Good grief.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 25

    I watched the end of the Rockies come-from-behind 8-7 win and heard the Rockies broadcasters say something to the tune of how great the ninth inning rally was because it came against "the best closer in the National League, Heath Bell". 

    Sorry. WRONG!!!!

    Bell, in his first year as the Padres full-time closer, is pitching very well and doing a great job, but one doesn't become the best just like that especially when Francisco Rodriguez has been all but unhittable with the Mets this year and has a resume in which Bell would be lucky to achieve half of what K-Rod's done in his career.

• Producers/investors/Hollywood moneymen take note:

    Have they secured financing for the homage to Billy Beane, the Moneyball movie, which if they were actually gonna make it probably should've been made in 2004? If they haven't, they'd better take a look at what's going on in Oakland right now with an Athletics team that looks well on their way to losing close to 100 games.

    Maybe Steven Soderbergh and Brad Pitt should move onto Ocean's 20; and Demetri Martin should come up with some more clever, slice-of-life jokes designed specifically to highlight how quirky he is 'cause the A's and the movie are both sinking.

    I know reality and Hollywood are in two different solar systems, but this could be out of the realm even for them. Perhaps they could make it into a Ben Stiller/Will Ferrell vehicle and turn it into a screwball comedy with an animated, Yoda-like figure to play Paul DePodesta and a trained orangutan to play Sandy Alderson. That might work better than the adaptation of the Lord of the Rings/Harry Potter of the baseball world, the Michael Lewis fantasy known as Moneyball. 

• A deal that makes no sense whatsoever:

    Even though the contract the Red Sox doled out to Drew was rightfully criticized at the time and was another in a long line of stat zombies declaring their love for Drew because of his on base percentage, the deal has worked out quite well for the club if you ignore the money that Drew's still owed ($14 million per through 2011). While Drew has been predictably on and off the field with injuries and he's been limited in his power production----stats----he still gets on base at a very high rate, plays solid defense, has benefited from not having to be "the man" for the Red Sox as he was expected to be everywhere else he's been (he sort of blends in with the scenery in Boston as his personality prefers); and most importantly, he's provided huge hits in the post-season.

    I've been open in my questioning of Drew's desire and whether he's worth all the aggravation of not knowing if he's going to be in the lineup from one day to the next, but for the Red Sox, he's been a good fit. And is the money all that big a deal for a cash cow like the Red Sox organization? If they were trading him just to dump the contract, they could certainly find someone other than Francoeur that they'd want and would be of more use to them.

    I went into another rant about Francoeur yesterday, and while the Braves would love to unload him, I can't see this trade happening. It sounds like something Braves GM Frank Wren would do in a heartbeat, but if the Red Sox did it, it would be another of the Bronson Arroyo for Wily Mo Pena-types of trades that turned out to be huge mistakes for the Red Sox because they went on the basis of tools rather than what their club needs.

    Not only would trading Drew for Francoeur simply be taking a headache off the hands of a club that has quite possibly the worst hitting outfield in baseball, but what would the Red Sox offense look like without the lefty-swinging Drew? Their remaining left-handed threats would be Jason Varitek, who's having a solid comeback year, but can't be counted on to be a consistent power hitter; David Ortiz, who doesn't look like he'd be able to hit slow-pitch softball right now; and Jacoby Ellsbury, who has no power at all. And to bring in Francoeur? For what?  

    The article itself made some statements that were confounding in their irrelevance and out-of-context innacuracy. Here are some of the quotes:

The loss of Frenchy, as his teammates and fans affectionately call Francoeur, would be severe.

Francoeur grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta and is one of the most popular Braves on the team. He played with and against Braves catcher Brian McCann on several Little League teams, and the two are close friends.

Last season, the Braves demoted Francoeur to the minor leagues before calling him up to finish the season.

The culprit: strikeouts.

Francoeur is known as an aggressive hitter, often swinging on the first pitch and accruing lots of strikeouts.

Frenchy, 25, has been in the Braves organization his entire career, and losing him would hurt the hometown fans who fervently cheer for him every game.

Drew, the highest-paid Red Sox, will earn $14 million this year.

Francoeur's salary is a reasonable $3.4 million this year and a deal might make sense if more players are involved.

The Braves have been very patient with Francoeur as his average dipped and his slugging percentage decreased.

Has the front office run out of patience?

    The loss would be "severe"? To whom? And why? As I said yesterday, Francoeur clearly doesn't listen or apply what he's being told to improve his game; he's been awful for much of the past year-plus; how is his loss "severe"? 

    He's one of the most popular Braves? He's close friends with Brian McCann? Yeah? So? What's that got to do with anything? 

    That the Braves demoted Francoeur is taken out of context; they demoted him alright; but brought him back after three days because he threw a tantrum and the reaction to the move was so vehement; and he wasn't much better after they brought him back than he was before they sent him down. And the only reason they've been this patient with him is because they don't have any alternatives due to the shoddy way the club's been built.  

    This is a stupid idea that makes no sense for the Red Sox; and it's been put forth by people who clearly don't know what they're talking about; are making stuff up; or have been given faulty information----or all three.

• Mets trade Ramon Castro to White Sox for Lance Broadway:

    This was a move that was a long time in coming. Castro has pop in his bat and is popular in the clubhouse because he's funny, but he's never been anything more than what he was with the Mets, and that was a part-time player who wasn't well-liked by either of his managers in New York, Willie Randolph or Jerry Manuel, and never showed the desire or durability to be a number one catcher despite receiving opportunities again and again; plus he was making a lot of money. ($2.5 million this year is a lot for a backup catcher who the manager doesn't like.)

    I mentioned in my book that the Mets should look to move him:

Ramon Castro is the backup catcher to Schneider. Castro has some good power when he’s healthy, but every time he gets a chance to play more than once or twice a week, he gets hurt. The Mets were discussing dealing him, but he’s making a lot of money. I’d trade him if the chance arises.

    The emergence, clutch hitting and handling of the pitchers by journeyman minor leaguer Omir Santos gave the Mets the chance to dump Castro as Brian Schneider returned and the jumped at it. That Santos knew the situation and he could be out of a job if he didn't continue to produce, and responded with a home run and a game winning single last night, shows that he's not afraid of the pressure; and that's something that's been missing from and hindered the Mets in the last few years.

    Broadway's been a decent starter in the minors and as minor league insurance or a major league long man/spot starter, he could have some use; plus he's got the perfect name to pitch in New York.

    It should be interesting to see how Castro's act plays in Chicago with Ozzie Guillen as his manager. Guillen isn't the type to put up with players whose desire is rumored to be lacking, but Castro can hit, so if he plays against tough lefties to spell A.J. Pierzynski and hits with some power, he should help the White Sox.

•  Viewer Mail 5.30.2009:

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE my comment about the A's yesterday:

"The Athletics roster looks like an expansion team." LOL!

    To make things worse, that was written before they got swept in yesterday's doubleheader by the Rangers. They look horrible. I can't expect Billy Beane to start getting criticized too heavily since we're in a world in which there are people who still defend Paul DePodesta's tenure with the Dodgers (before even getting to what's happened to the Padres since he's been there assisting in the organization of that train wreck); plus Beane has garnered enough executive credit in the bank to get a pass on some misjudgments, no matter how ghastly.

    The phone calls have undoubtedly already started offering Matt Holliday around the league. What they'll get for him with his impending free agency, I don't know, but he's hit better after a terrible start. I'd expect him to be traded sooner rather than later.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 24 

    In the end, whenever a managerial change is made, the relevant questions always come down to one of the following:

• Was the manager the problem?
• Was the manager a "good" manager?
• Could another manager have done a better job with the club?
• Is the new manager going to be able to do much better than the previous one?
  

    So, was Clint Hurdle the problem with the Rockies as they've played predominately mediocre baseball not just under Hurdle, but for almost their entire existence save for one hot streak in 2007 that propelled them the World Series? Of course not; he was neither the problem, nor the solution.

    Hurdle was what he was as a manager. His record as manager was as follows:

    Since their inception, the Rockies have had five winning seasons out of 17, including 2009. Those winning seasons consisted of two 83 win seasons; one 82 win season; a 77 win season in strike-shortened 1995 in which they made it to the playoffs as a Wild Card; and 2007. Three of the winning seasons came with Don Baylor as manager; one with Buddy Bell and 2007 with Hurdle. 

    This franchise has been using one formula after another to try and build a winning club in the light air of Colorado. Most of them have failed miserably.

    They've tried building a team to bash, bash, bash their way to respectability with Dante Bichette; Larry Walker; Vinny Castilla; and Andres Galarraga. That didn't work.

    The tried to import Jim Leyland, a respected, successful veteran manager to work his magic. Leyland grew so frustrated with the way the game played like a pinball machine in Colorado and, burned out after having managed for 14 straight years, he walked away from a high-paying contract and didn't return to managing for six years.

    They hired a respected assistant GM----Dan O'Dowd----from a state-of-the-art organization----the Cleveland Indians----that had had nothing but success within a budget for most of the previous decade. They rebuilt with athleticism; they rebuilt with expensive free agent pitchers; they built up their bullpen; they went back to being the Blake Street Bombers; they started developing their own players and failed and failed and failed again, until they developed some talented players and...had some success.

    After dumping many of the large contracts like that of Denny Neagle and Mike Hampton, they hired Hurdle to replace Buddy Bell and developed the likes of Matt Holliday; Jeff Francis; Jason Jennings; Aaron Cook; Garrett Atkins; Brad Hawpe; Clint Barmes; Chris Iannetta and Troy Tulowitzki. They starting sticking the game balls into a humidor to reduce the distance they'd travel off the bat, thereby mitigating the Colorado air. They still lost a lot of games, but at least they had some young talent producing. They made some smart bullpen acquisitions at a low cost such as Taylor Buchholz and Brian Fuentes; and they played respectably until that blazing hot streak that made them appear to be better than they actually were.

    Much has been made of O'Dowd's attempts to import players who lived by a "Christian moral code", and perhaps that's what continues to leave O'Dowd to be "Teflon Dan", never held responsible for the ills of his club. The question of whether Hurdle was a "good" manager is difficult to answer.

    What are you looking for in a manager? Hurdle was running the club on the field when the likes of Holliday, Hawpe, Francis, Atkins and Tulowitzki made it to the big leagues and began developing; if a team is running a rebuilding franchise, they could do worse than to look at Hurdle's resume with that list of players who became productive (and more) as big leaguers and decide that he's the man to keep an eye on their youngsters as well. Was he good strategically? I don't know how you can quantify that in Colorado, where the game is played so differently that no lead is ever safe even with the balls humidified. Leyland's aggravation after one year and resultant resignation should attest to the patience that Hurdle exhibited dealing with that situation.

    I can't possibly imagine another manager, from Tony La Russa to Joe Torre all the way back to Earl Weaver, Connie Mack and John McGraw who would know how to handle Colorado any better than Hurdle did. The team has payroll constraints and is constantly rebuilding from one strategy to another. O'Dowd has effectively utilized the Christian stuff along with the difficulty or running a team on a budget to shield himself from blame; but that hasn't saved Hurdle even though the manager is more important to developing youngsters once the game starts than the GM could ever be. The scouting staff finds the players; the manager writes their names in the lineup and nurtures them once they reach the big leagues. Does Hurdle deserve credit for that? Yes.

    Is Jim Tracy the answer to the Rockies problems? Sometimes a change is necessary. Hurdle had been there since 2002 and the players may have stopped listening to him; they may have grown complacent; they may have had enough and wanted to hear a different voice. The simple act of making a change could spur the team to play better out of guilt in getting the previous guy fired; or out of just getting a boost from the buzz of a new guy in the manager's office. 

    Other than the two years he spent in the wasteland known as the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tracy had a good run as a manager with the Dodgers and in the minor leagues; he was also a bench coach for two respected, winning managers in Felipe Alou and Davey Johnson. It was only because the Dodgers new GM, Paul DePodesta, demolished the team Tracy had cultivated into a title contender with some ridiculous, ill-thought-out trades, that the Dodgers were deprived of a possible championship run in 2004. Tracy is a good manager who has handled the veterans, disciplined and developed the youngsters and doled out his pitching staff's innings reasonably.

    The problem with the Rockies of 2009 is that their young bats, Garrett Atkins and Troy Tulowitzki specifically, look like shadows of what they were two years ago; their starting pitching is missing the injured Francis and their serviceable work on the whole has been rendered useless by a bullpen that can only be described as atrocious. What Tracy can do about that is unknown, but perhaps if the players are humiliated by their performances that got their manager fired, they can turn things around.

    One way or the other, the blame doesn't solely lie at the feet of the manager just as the credit didn't suddenly bloat his stature in 2007. One has to wonder when O'Dowd is going to be on the firing line, because he's been there ten years and he's the one in charge of this mess. He's been absolved of all blame, saying that he's as responsible as anyone but never taking the fall for any of his gaffes. I think his time's running out, though.

    Things had better turn around quickly for O'Dowd and he'd better hope that Tracy's the answer, because if the Rockies continue down the road they're on and finish with 90 or so losses again, all the self-righteousness in the world won't save him this time. 

• Jeff Francoeur either doesn't listen or doesn't comprehend:

    I understand that the Braves, with all their injuries and the haphazard way in which they built their outfield, have few options other than Jeff Francoeur in right field; Jordan Shafer shouldn't be playing in the big leagues either (they shouldn't have traded Josh Anderson); but eventually, they're going to have to do something to try and penetrate Francoeur's thick skull that his way just ain't workin' and he's got to start listening to someone who's going to tell him the truth and not just tell him how great he is; and if that means sticking Brandon Jones and Jeff Norton in right field for awhile, so be it for the greater good.

    I can't imagine that the Braves coaches aren't telling Francoeur that he's got to get more patient if he's ever going to fulfill that massive potential; I can't believe that he's so stubborn that he's just ignoring them; so it has to be something else. They were on the right track last year when they sent him to the minors, but backtracked on the move by bringing him back after a couple of days.

    I'm not of the school of thought of the stat zombies that Francoeur isn't any good, is a product of a few hot months two years ago and is totally unsalvageable; but if you look at his numbers from the beginning of 2008 until now, there's no defending him. When he goes up to the plate, he looks like he intends to wait until he gets a pitch to hit, but his entire life has been spent hacking away at anything that was close----and doing well with that strategy----that it's so ingrained in his psyche that he can't get away from it. 

    Francoeur has a rocket arm; a great glove; unlimited potential to be a big time slugger and MVP candidate; and what's so frustrating is that he does...not...listen. Swinging the bat from his ass as if someone's going to come and take the bat away if an at bat lasts longer than three pitches is a "strategy" that gets around the league within seconds. Now he rarely, if ever, sees a good pitch to hit because the opposing teams know that he's just going to get himself out if they don't bounce the ball twenty feet in front of the plate...and he might swing at that too!

    We haven't heard that same nonsense from earlier in the year that it was a "new" Francoeur with a "new" batting stance because his numbers and performance have been about identical to what they were last year, and probably slightly worse. He's not hitting for power and is becoming an automatic out because he needs to be bridled and no one with the Braves seems capable of taming him. It's time for some tough love without the self-pity and "poor me" maudlin whimpering Francoeur expressed when the Braves shipped him out last year. They acquiesced by inexplicably recalling him after three games.

    They've tried everything else, it's time for them to say, "you either start thinking while you're hitting or you're not gonna play". Nothing else has worked and he needs a genuine wake-up call, but at this point, I have no confidence in the Braves having the guts to do it after all this time and all this enabling and it'll be their own fault if he washes out completely. 

• The Carlos Zambrano tirade wasn't particularly entertaining to me:

    I wasn't offended or shocked by it as some in the media have claimed to be; to me it wasn't even close to something Lou Piniella might've come up with to fire up his team. Zambrano's very emotional and that's part of the reason that he hasn't been able to develop into the 20+ game winning, Cy Young Award-contending pitcher he should be.

    The six game suspension is a bit harsh and even if Zambrano's embarrassed by the repeated film clips and reactions to his explosion. Even if he feels it's an appropriate suspension, he should still appeal it so he doesn't miss a start. 

• Another torn hip labrum?

    So now Brett Myers joins the growing list of players with this mysterious injury that no one had ever heard of before the last couple of years. There's been Mike Lowell; Chase Utley; Alex Rodriguez; Carlos Delgado and now, apparently, Myers (and I may be forgetting a couple of people).

    What is this? Did this happen in the earlier years without anyone being able to diagnose it? Because I certainly don't remember this many players having problems with their hips. 

• Objectively, the Athletics roster looks like an expansion team:

    Ignoring for a moment that Billy Beane is running the Athletics, if you look at their current roster, it looks like something that would be patched together in an expansion year from the refuse of other clubs. Adam Kennedy? Bobby Crosby? Nomar (back on the DL, what a shock!) Garciaparra? Jack Cust? And the entire starting rotation aged 25 and under? Is anyone still expecting a hot streak similar to the A's teams of the early part of this decade? 

    I fell for the hype myself in the off-season, picking them to contend and win 84 games, but it's safe to say that the "genius" appellation----which lasted longer with Beane than it does with most media darlings----is officially off the table now. He's a good, smart executive; not the messiah.  

• Head in the clouds:

    Maybe I'm biased because I see it up close and personally, but the young, hot prospects for the Mets tend to show up in the big leagues and forget the fundamental parts of playing the game. It happened with Lastings Milledge and last night it happened with Fernando Martinez.

    In the bottom of the sixth inning, with Ramon Castro on second base and no outs, Martinez hit a pop up in front of the plate and didn't run. He sort of stood there looking disgusted and disappointed...until the ball bounced off of Wil Nieves's chest protector and bounced to the ground. Martinez got thrown out at first while he was still halfway there. In the context of the game, it didn't make much difference, but it could've.

    There's no excuse for this whatsoever, but I'd hesitate to come down too hard on a 20-year-old kid if I were the manager and coaches, especially since I'm sure David Wright, Gary Sheffield and Carlos Beltran probably already spoke to him about it. He seems a little overwhelmed in his first taste of big league action, so as long as he doesn't do it again, he gets a light talking to and a pass. 

    The thing about the Mets youngsters is that they seem to arrive not ready to play correctly as second nature. You don't see that with the Twins, Red Sox or Angels youngsters; perhaps it's something that has to be addressed in the minors from top-to-bottom as a teaching tool. Not running on a pop up shouldn't even be an option if there's a minuscule chance of the ball falling in fair territory and this has to be handled not in the big leagues, but in the low minors. 

• Clint Hurdle should demand resolution in his status:

    The rumors are floating around about Clint Hurdle's job security and he could be fired by today at the earliest. If I were Hurdle, who's in the last year of his contract, I'd just go over Dan O'Dowd's head to CEO Charles Monfort and say enough's enough already. Hurdle's being blamed for whatever's ailing the Rockies and GM Dan O'Dowd's been there for ten years and has received one pass after another for his ineptitude. 

    Is this roster better than 18-28? Yes. Were they as good as they were during that hot streak in 2007 that led them to the World Series? No. They've accumulated a good amount of minor league talent and shown skill at developing it, but that doesn't account for some of the massively expensive gaffes that O'Dowd's made and been allowed to skate through.

    Todd Helton's contract which still has $52 million guaranteed through 2011? The Troy Tulowitzki contract extension doled out when he was a rookie that still has $27 million? Yorvit Torrealba making $3.5 million? The disastrous signings of Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle?

    In the grand scheme of things, it's best for the Rockies faithful if O'Dowd does fire Hurdle because then there won't be anyone else to blame. Truth be told, I don't think Hurdle's that great a manager; probably somewhere in the middle-to-low end if one were to rank managers to-to-bottom, but that doesn't mean he deserves to be held solely accountable for their problems.

    With Hurdle's contract's up at the end of the year, he might feel better about himself if he pulled a Gene Michael from when he managed the Yankees and told George Steinbrenner, "Fire me or leave me alone!" Steinbrenner fired him, then he left him alone. A lesson to be learned from that however is that Steinbrenner relied on Michael when he needed someone with balls and competence to handle day-to-day operations of the team when Steinbrenner was suspended or desperate. At least Michael stood up for himself. Hurdle should do the same because since it looks like he's getting fired anyway; at least he'd go out on his own terms with his dignity intact.    

    *Note: The Blue Jays comments came in before today's backbreaking loss to the Orioles in which the Blue Jays: A) had Roy Halladay on the mound; B) had leads of 7-2; 8-3; and 10-8 (in the bottom of the 11th inning), and wound up losing 12-10.

Gabriel (a Blue Jays fan) at rock_bard@hotmail.com writes:

The Blue Jays just need to hit. Did you see how many baserunners they left in the Boston and Atlanta series? This game is about pitching and runs scored, they got the first one okay, now they need to start bringing those baserunners to the plate. The current lineup has to be either shaken, shocked, or whatever it takes so Alex Ríos and Vernon Wells hit in clutch situations. Also, I think Cito's approach may be a little too conservative. A little of small ball could be the push this team needs to manufacture runs, and hope the pitching can keep them in the game. Besides, they're only 2 GB the Red Sox, they can turn it around.

    They started the season so hot at the plate, especially guys from whom we should know what to expect by now like Lyle Overbay and Marco Scutaro; and they got such stunning contributions from Adam Lind and Aaron Hill (who hit a would-be game winning homer today if the bullpen had held the lead); plus amazing fill-in work from the young/journeymen pitchers, that there was no way to keep that up.

    Ríos and Wells are reaching the point where they have to be taken for what they are. I've made my feelings on Wells clear; he's an overpaid, slightly above-average player who's been historically injury-prone; Ríos can be a very good complementary player, but not a guy to build around. 

    The team wasn't as good as they were when they got off to that start, but nor are they as bad as this. Would it shock anyone to see a season of hot and cold streaks and an 81-81 finish?

    If GM J.P. Ricciardi was given truth serum (but not waterboarded, as conservative radio host Mancow Muller was as he tried and prove it's not torture, but afterward insisted it was torture and he'd say anything----true or not----to make it stop; the clip is below) I'm sure Ricciardi would've signed up for 81-81 before the season started and that may be where this is headed.

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes:

With the Jays sinking, do you think they'll put Halladay on the block?

    They'd have to collapse completely; and I mean a total collapse like losing 25 out of 30 after this nine game losing streak. For some reason, I think Ricciardi's going to keep his job no matter what happens this season; and it has nothing to do with his cockroach/rat-like survival instincts; I just think he's going to remain as the GM.

    With that in mind, I can't see them trading Halladay unless they're totally out of contention, the pitcher quietly asks to be dealt and they get bowled over by a deal. It'll have to be all three. I'm not talking about getting one or two prospects either; I'm talking Fernando Martinez/Bobby Parnell-plus from a team like the Mets. I do think he's going to get moved this winter one way or the other; his contract's up after next year. 

Jeff at Red State Blue State writes: 

LUMBERGH ****** HER! Sorry, Prince. Been holding that back. Had to let it out. Orel is a class act. I enjoy not only his commentary, but also the tenor of his voice. It's very pleasant to listen to whereas Morgan's sounds like my drunk uncle who Mom and Dad told us kids to stay away from at family reunions.

    We just need to see the "Oh face!" as in the clip from Office Space below. (And no, I'm not morphing into "October Gonzo" with all the clips.)

Joe at Statistician Magician writes:

I think that part of the problem is that the rotation was assembled with so much that could go wrong, that now Livan is penciled in because of that. If Livan is used as a spot starter then fine. If he is a fifth starter, then well, it matters who the first four starters are. I see Livan in the rotation. Not necessarily as a fourth starter. But it is a lack of *quality* depth that is hurting the Mets rotation. Plus, Neyer hates Livan Hernandez anyway. I think that part of the problem is that the rotation was assembled with so much that could go wrong, that now Livan is penciled in because of that. If Livan is used as a spot starter then fine. If he is a fifth starter, then well, it matters who the first four starters are. I see Livan in the rotation. Not necessarily as a fourth starter. But it is a lack of *quality* depth that is hurting the Mets rotation. Plus, Neyer hates Livan Hernandez anyway.

    What does one thing have to do with another? Does that somehow diminish what it is that Livan does do well? He's not the GM; he's not formulating the rotation. He's one of those guys that'll say, "when they tell me to pitch, I pitch; when they tell me to warm up, I warm up". And you find me even one rotation that doesn't have the potential to turn into a disaster zone with injuries to the wrong guys; even the ones I mentioned in the previous posting.

    Does Neyer "hate" Hernandez? I thought the main idea behind stat zombieness is objective analysis.

    And I'm still waiting to be removed from that Loyal Reader crap on your site and placed back onto the BlogRoll.

• An audience with the Godfather----who ain't the Godfather:

    Texas Rangers GM Jon Daniels was a guest on Mike'd Up with Mike Francesa today and I couldn't help but get the idea that Francesa was treating it as if it were (at best) a meeting between a professor and his graduate student or (at worst) a young up-and-comer being granted a meeting with the Godfather. 

    You can listen here and judge for yourself, but big chunks of the interview consisted of Francesa going on pompous, condescending, long-winded speeches basically telling Daniels what was what with the guy's own team, in addition to stuff about the rest of baseball.

    This would be fine if Francesa had been a former front office exec whose moved into radio, the 50-something veteran giving some words of wisdom to the 31-year-old whippersnapper trying to learn the ropes; but Francesa's not a baseball exec, nor could he ever be one. (I'd love to see it though; we'd be talking a Hawk Harrelson-level disaster.) He's just what he's always been----a fat guy in a radio booth.

    As for the Godfather persona Francesa projects, the difference between The Godfather, Vito Corleone and Francesa is in the same vein. The would-be Godfather actually got into the trenches to make his way in the world before becoming the boss. You can't just slide your way into it without paying the dues and taking the risks. It doesn't work that way.

• Is this a "phenom"?

    Here's the tag line for the ESPN Story about the Cubs recalling first baseman Jake Fox:

Cubs call up minor league hitting phenom Fox

    Hitting phenom?

    Well, the guy's about to turn 27 in two months and his minor league numbers have been good until this year, when they became Albert Pujols-like. I have no idea how he'll do in the big leagues (I've never seen him), but I'm not calling a soon-to-be 27-year-old who's been in the minors since he was 20, and has had 15 big league plate appearances (in 2007), a phenom. Sorry.

• The debate over Livan:

    Is Livan Hernandez a great pitcher? No. Was he ever a great pitcher? No. I would only go as far to say that, at his best, he was pretty good and benefited from durability and having some decent teams behind him; but the thought that he's a wasted signing and someone who should not be in a big league rotation is absurd because of what he did last night and has done for the majority of this season with the Mets.

    Hernandez presumably will always have the two attributes of being durable and throwing strikes and for a number five starter, that's a good thing to have. There are going to be games in which he goes out and has everything he throws up there rocketed back the other way like Charlie Brown when he's left lying on the mound in his underwear; but there are also games like last night against the Nationals (who can hit) and his last game against the Dodgers (who have the best record in the league) that make him worthwhile to keep around; and besides that, he provides an example to pitchers with twice the stuff of Hernandez, like John Maine and Oliver Perez, that they're making things far too hard on themselves by refusing to throw the ball over the plate and take their chances. 

    You constantly see stat zombies like Rob Neyer ridiculing Hernandez because of his perceived lack of stuff and that he's the Mets number four starter. He wasn't signed to be the Mets number four starter, but the problems with Perez have made that a necessity; and what difference does it make what number starter he is anyway? The guy pitching that night is the guy pitching that night, so by process of elimination, he's the guy. And since he's not good enough to be the number four or five starter, but is still doing some useful things for the club, they should dump him because he's being used as a four or five? The logic escapes me, if it even exists. And as of right now, the Mets don't have any options that are at least going to go out there and throw strikes and pitch deeply into the game if he's doing well.

    How many teams actually have a quality guy at the number five (or even four) spot in their rotation? The Red Sox; the Yankees; the Angels (if they're healthy); the Giants if Barry Zito and Randy Johnson are pitching serviceably; and the Reds. Everyone else is mixing and matching and hoping as the Mets are with Hernandez. He's not the guy to front a rotation, but how many of those guys are there? With Hernandez, at least he's willing to go to the mound, compete and give the bullpen a day of rest. In today's game, there's nothing wrong with that.

• Orioles 7-Blue Jays 2:

    People are bailing on the Blue Jays like they're the Hindenburg.

• Indians 5-Rays 1:

    Yankees players, management and fans from the present and past must be looking at Carl Pavano's recent run with the Indians feel the rage of his tenure with the Yankees and the colossal waste of time and money over four lost years. What makes it even worse that how Pavano's straightened himself out after that first disastrous start for the Indians in which he allowed 9 earned runs in one inning; he seems to be regaining some of his stuff's velocity and movement; and is really showing some competitive fire, much to the chagrin of Brian Cashman, Joe Torre, Ron Guidry, Mike Mussina, Derek Jeter, etc, etc.

• Sale items:

    There are always players who need a change of scenery to possibly fulfill their potential and add something to another club. Here are some players who I think need to get out of their current circumstances to find a fresh start elsewhere; they could also be acquired for little or nothing.

 Josh Willingham, Washington Nationals:

   He's not happy in Washington; is being benched periodically and is only playing now because Elijah Dukes is hurt; Willingham showed a flair for the dramatic with the Marlins and has the pop to hit the ball out of the park. I've always liked the way he hits.

Ian Snell, Pittsburgh Pirates:

     Snell has great stuff and looked like he was on the way to becoming a very good pitcher a few years ago, but he needs to get out of Pittsburgh; the culture of losing appears to have affected him. The Pirates would give him up for nothing since he's got $7.25 million coming to him through 2010.

Delmon Young, Minnesota Twins:

    The Twins look like they've had enough of him and although they wouldn't give him away (especially since they traded Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett to get him), he's almost definitely available for another team's young headache/washout.

Jon Rauch, Arizona Diamondbacks:

   There's no way to skirt the issue that he's been atrocious this year and is making almost $5 million through 2010, but he's been good and durable before; maybe a guru-type pitching coach in a better situation would revert him back to what he was with the Nationals. 

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 23
  

• Tigers 13-Royals 1; Orioles 4-Blue Jays 1; Padres 9-Diamondbacks 7:

    Like a scene from a bad action movie, you can almost see and hear the talk show idiots, moronic sportswriters and brainless fans leaping onto the bandwagon of the Kansas City Royals, hanging around there for awhile, watching Trey Hillman gack up games because of his insistence in using Kyle Farnsworth and Horacio Ramirez; then jumping to the Toronto Blue Jays as they're rolling along, but bailing when they careen back onto the road they're supposed to be on; and are then overtaken by the bandwagon of the San Diego Padres.

    When things are shaking out closer to reality by the end of June/beginning of July, they'll be off on another team for whom they've gotten the fever of the flavor. It could be the Mets; the Rays; the Tigers or whoever. And it puts into context how seriously these people should be taken as their opinions change from one day to the next. 

    The Royals? Good grief. Just imagine where they'd be if Zack Greinke had been a bit further away from perfect so far this season. They'd be near the bottom of the division and no one would've been paying much attention to them at all other than to admit they overestimated them in the spring.

   And no, the Blue Jays were never as good as they looked when----helped by an easy schedule; the stunning good health of their lineup; and fill-in pitchers performing above-and-beyond the call of duty----they tore off to a 27-14 record. Are they as bad as they look now that they've lost seven in a row? No, but with their starting pitching as inexperienced as it is; their lineup not being able to sustain the production from the first month-and-a-half of the season, and so many veteran players who are either going to end up on the DL of revert back to what they've been their whole careers, they're going to have difficulty hanging around playoff contention. And if you read between the lines of GM J.P. Ricciardi's ominous quotes while the club was being feted a couple of weeks ago, he knew the success was short-lived as well.

    The Padres? I have confidence my PADRES LOSSOMETER will be back online very, very soon and humming away.

• Indians 11-Rays 10:

    I flipped the game on in the eighth inning and saw: Rays 10-Indians 4; thought to myself, jeez the Indians...and moved onto other things. Then I heard the Mets broadcasters talking about Indians manager Eric Wedge and whether or not he's in serious danger of losing his job and they mentioned a great comeback that kinda went in one of my ears and out the other until I saw the game was over and the Indians had come back to win.

    I wouldn't get too hung up on the Indians comeback; they've got their own problems with what to do with Fausto Carmona; his line last night----1 1/3 innings; 3 hits; 5 earned runs; and 5 walks----are closer to Oliver Perez than Johan Santana and something's going to have to be done about it.

    As for the Rays, they can't be blowing ten run leads if they want to get back into contention, especially in that divsion. They have in-house closer candidates for the time being, but eventually, they'll have to bring someone in from outside. Huston Street is absolutely available from the Rockies; and there could be other names about whom they could inquire like Chad Qualls; but Dan Wheeler and Grant Balfour are about as good, if not better candidates. Then if Scott Kazmir continues to struggle...oh forget it; they ain't doing it. 

• White Sox 17-Angels 3:

    I can't do any hilarious "Chicago 17-NFL opponent 3" because there's no NFL team in LA; or Anaheim for that matter.

• Breaking Great:

    If there are people out there who don't watch Breaking Bad on AMC, you're missing the best show on TV since The Sopranos. Without sounding like some pompous asshole, I generally stopped watching most TV shows/sitcoms because the more I've read, the more I can see through the stories and lame, amateurish dialogue (hey, maybe there's a job for Michael Kay in there somewhere), but Breaking Bad is brilliant; complicated, imaginative, realistic and well-written.

    Before this new season started, they kept mentioning, "Emmy Winner Bryan Cranston" and I was wondering if I was supposed to know who that was, but Bryan Cranston played the dad on Malcolm in the Middle and the quirky dentist Tim Whatley on Seinfeld and has shown massive range in delivering the performance he does in the dark role of Walter White. The show's writing and acting are both great and you're missing out if you don't watch it. 

• More on Mauer:

    Joe Mauer homered again today; this time off of Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth inning.

    This is, of course, a very unusual hot streak. Even though Mauer doesn't have any obvious holes to exploit, he's not a 40-50 homer guy; but there's no reason he can't be a 28-35 homer guy. 

    One thing that I've always found fascinating about Mauer is how many people ridiculed the Twins selection of the St. Paul native as the first pick in the 2001 draft. All we heard was:

    It was a hometown pick.

    How could you take a high school catcher over the polished and near-big league ready Mark Prior?

    If they wanted a bat, they could've taken Mark Teixeira.

    Blah, blah, blah.

    Then it only got worse when Prior was in the big leagues less than a year later and looked to be a future multiple Cy Young threat by 2003.

    It was conveniently ignored that: A) while the Twins might have thought it would help attendance and interest if they drafted a hometown product, they're not an organization that's going to blow the first pick in the draft on an unworthy player even if he'd been born in the Metrodome; and B) while Prior was lighting up the radar guns with his poise, strut and gigantic calves, Mauer was decimating the minor leagues on his way to the big leagues by 2004. 

    How's that decision looking now? Or last year? Or the year before? In fact, does anyone know if Mark Prior's ever going to pitch again? That's why the Nationals should be given a pass if they dare to pass on Stephen Strasburg next month because no one knows what the results of a selection will be until at least 3-5 years down the line; then a case could be made that a team made a mistake or happened to be really, really smart and/or lucky. 

• I've run out of words to describe Michael Kay:

    I'd think the ladies reading this posting will sympathize with what I have to say.

    I'm sure most of you have been approached by guys----in bars, restaurants, at work, wherever----and heard some pretty lame pick-up lines. I don't mean corny but kinda funny; I mean lame. I used to use some silly lines that were designed to get girls laughing. Stupid stuff like, "That's enough about me; let's talk about you. What do you think of me?"

    Then there are just dorky, douchy, idiotic lines that guys come up with that will, at best, elicit an eye roll or a frown. That's all I could think of when Kay came up with his latest gem on Saturday; I'm paraphrasing from memory, but the basic line was:

"The Yankees have become the deli on the corner; they have a different hero every night."

    This wasn't a line where you just sort of laugh it off because it's so stupid; it was just cringeworthy at the feeble attempt to be witty. The worst part is that Kay, a former sportswriter, probably thought it was a clever, well crafted line that everyone would find cutesy and giggle at his gift for the language as he finds (to his sensibilities) new and fresh ways to entertain his audience. It was forced and pathetic; I almost felt bad for him because he obviously has no idea how ridiculous he sounds. Almost. 

    Because of this, I've ceased calling Kay a buffoon; he no longer qualifies as such. If anyone can come up with a more apropos way to describe him, I'm all ears because after that bit of idiocy, the best I can do is calling him a dingus. If someone's got something better, let's have it.*

*The bad pickup line story reminded me of when I was sitting on one of the speakers in a club called Sound Factory years ago and a skinny Asian guy came over to me and, in broken English, asked for the time; he turned away, hovered for a moment and came back, this time asking if I was homosexual. Telling him the time was as far as I was willing to go, but at least he had good taste and got right to the point. 

• Orel Hershiser in the broadcast booth:

    Although I shouldn't have been, I was somewhat surprised listening to Orel Hershiser during last night's ESPN telecast of the Twins and Brewers. (I hate to admit it, but I missed Joe Morgan, who had the night off. He always gives everyone something to write and talk about because he comes up with stuff from the moon so often.) Hershiser went into detail describing the swings and hitting style of Joe Mauer among others and it was fascinating to hear from a guy who was a former pitcher.

    Then again, it shouldn't have been surprising. Anyone who's great at what they do is going to find a way to counteract what their competition is up to; with Hershiser, that entailed finding out as much about hitting as he possibly could. I'd bet Greg Maddux could do a similar job breaking down the swings of various hitters.

    Hershiser's work as a pitcher and pitching coach undoubtedly prepared him to do the job he's doing now educating his listeners. There are people who learn terminology to make themselves sound like they know what they're talking about in their areas of "expertise", but it sounds different when someone truly knows what they're saying; and Hershiser's got it like that.

    On another note, I like Steve Phillips as a broadcaster, but does he remind anyone else of Bill Lumbergh?

• The blazing Padres:

    It looks like the Padres are about to win again because they came back from a six-run deficit to tie the Diamondbacks in the eighth and ninth; then took a two run lead in the tenth in Arizona. That'll be a ten game winning streak for a team that the consensus had winning maybe between 55 and 65 games. They're playing great, but given their lack of talent I can't see how it can last. 

    What this reminds me of is the 1982 Mets. The Mets had been a laughingstock from 1977 through 1981. (And I mean that literally. Keith Hernandez tells a story of when he and the Cardinals were busing to Shea Stadium to play the Mets the year their advertising slogan was, "That Magic Is Back" and the entire Cardinals team burst out laughing at the very idea.)

    In 1982, they played very good baseball for almost the first three months of the season despite having been picked to finish in their familiar position of dead last. By June 20th, they were 34-30, in third place and only three games out of first place...then the lack of talent caught up to them; the rest of the league caught up to them; and they collapsed so completely that they went 34-64 the rest of the way and wound up at 68-94. You know why? Because they didn't have the players. It's that simple. You have to have the players; and the Padres, like those Mets, don't. 

• Milton Bradley's persecution complex:

    Here's a new one from Milton Bradley: the umpires are calling more strikes against him in retaliation for his argument with ump Larry Vanover last month----ESPN Story.

    I cannot believe this for a couple of reasons. One, the umpires, while disliking certain players, are in their current position in the big leagues despite almost impossible odds of making it and fewer job openings because they're professionals. Some of them may not be very good at their jobs, but that doesn't mean they're twisting things to suit some vendetta and are willing jeopardize their careers to meet those ends.

    Two, the way the game is observed today with the video, computer simulations and stat zombies tracking everything, how long would it take for someone to find a discrepancy in the way balls and strikes are called on a respected and liked player such as Derrek Lee in comparison to Bradley in the same game? This type of stuff must've gone on years ago, but today? No way.

• Viewer Mail 5.25.2009:

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes:

Of course you predicted Mauer would hit for power. You also predicted the Yankees would win the WS, so you must be all-knowing and all-powerful.

    Jane knows the deal. No wonder she's my consigliere.

    It'd be nice if someone had predicted that Joe Mauer would eventually start hitting for the power he's shown so far. If only one person had the foresight to realize that a hitter with Mauer's hands; ability to hit too all fields; and adjust to what the pitcher was trying to do, would one day learn to turn on the inside pitches and begin rocketing them over the wall instead of being conservative and settling for line drives all over the lot. If only, if only, if only....

    Hold on a minute. Oh, yeah. I remember. Someone did. Here's a clip from my book in another moment of me straining my shoulder patting myself on the back (among other places):

Joe Mauer might miss the beginning of the season after surgery for a kidney blockage. The Twins must have a healthy Mauer if they’re going to be competitive at all. Never mind that he handles the pitching staff well behind the plate, but he’s the only major threat in the Twins lineup other than Justin Morneau. Mauer was a viable MVP candidate last season as he hit .328; had a .413 OBP and drove in 85 runs. I’ve said before and still believe that Mauer is eventually going to learn to turn on inside pitches just as Don Mattingly did and hit more homers; if that happens, then he’s going to put up massive—possibly triple crown—numbers.

    What makes Mauer's increased ability to lift the ball even more dangerous is that, like Albert Pujols, he hits a lot of his homers (as he did against the Yankees last week) over the center field fence. A pretty good barometer of how a hitter's seeing the ball and how good his timing is is evident when he's hitting a lot of balls right back through the middle.

    I've got to go and tend to my barbecue because I'm making pulled pork (yeah, yeah, I'm a Jew who eats pork; sue me) and have to make sure it's cooked because I don't wanna poison anyone (anyone here, anyway). I'll have another posting later with more about Mauer; Orel Hershiser's broadcasting skills (they're quite good); Michael Kay; and the Padres.

• A playoff atmosphere in May:

    There's something post-seasonish when the Mets and Red Sox get together. Maybe it's the history of the two clubs going back to 1986; maybe it's the way the Mets raise their game to play the Red Sox no matter how poorly they were playing previously and how everyone was deservedly dumping on them; but these past two games in Boston have had playoff-style intensity and drama.

    The Mets 3-2 win last night was crisply played; brilliantly pitched and full of highlight reel defensive plays before even mentioning Omir Santos's instant replay homer over the Green Monster. Mets manager Jerry Manuel clearly isn't impressed with Ramon Castro and has repeatedly said he likes how Santos has such a short, quick stroke tailored perfectly to getting around on power fastballs; last night his judgment proved accurate when Santos spun a 97-mph fastball from Jonathan Papelbon over the wall. Then the Mets defense (really!) saved the game in the bottom of the ninth on three beautiful defensive plays from David Wright, Luis Castillo and Ramon Martinez.

    This could be a post-season preview if the Mets cooperate, but these are the Mets we're talking about and they have Tim Redding pitching this afternoon against Tim Wakefield; the same Tim Redding who, as an emergency starter for the Yankees in Boston on July 15th, 2005, pitched one inning-plus and posted the following line: 4 hits; 6 earned runs; 4 walks and 2 strikeouts. (The Yankees dumped him almost immediately after that.) It would be typical Mets to sweep the Red Sox in Boston with three stirring wins...then come home to play the Nationals and lose two out of three. 

    On another note, David Ortiz is pressing and looks frustrated and terrible; but as I said in an earlier posting, he's been too good in his career to have fallen off the cliff so suddenly and his numbers so far are eerily similar to those of Carlos Delgado a year ago to the day. I still believe that Ortiz is going to start hitting when the weather heats up; he's lost confidence and needs to be dropped in the lineup for awhile, but Red Sox fans who are booing him are just spoiled, rotten brats with short memories of what Ortiz has meant to the organization on and off the field.

    And we don't hear the talk show imbeciles going on about how Gary Sheffield needs to go anymore. The mere idea that Sheffield could no longer hit was ridiculous to begin with; but hypothetically, if he was hitting .001 for the season, he'd still have the value of taking walks at necessary times, just as he did last night in setting the stage for Santos's dramatics. Plus he's a good influence in the clubhouse despite his reputation. His teammates have always liked him.  

• If this had happened a year ago, I'd really look like Nostradamus:

    The Rays have placed Troy Percival on the disabled list with shoulder pain and he's hinting at retirement----ESPN Story. The following is what I wrote in my baseball preview from last year regarding the Rays signing of the oft-injured Percival:

Oft-injured, 38-year-old relief pitcher Troy Percival returned to major league baseball and pitched very well for the St. Louis Cardinals after having retired from the Detroit Tigers after 2005 due to recurring injuries. After the season, Percival signed a two-year contract to become the closer for the Rays. It’s a big risk of a team with a minimalist payroll like that of the Rays to spend a large chunk of it on the likes of Percival. Percival seemed to bail on the Tigers after his injuries began to mount and having signed a lucrative contract. The Rays have to ask themselves two questions: Is Percival going to stay healthy and withstand a closer’s workload? And if the team is sitting twelve to fifteen games behind the Yankees and Red Sox in June and Percival feels a twinge in his shoulder, is the pitcher simply going to pack his things and go home? I wouldn’t have spent this money on Percival for a team like the Rays.

    Much like my horse-betting, I was off by a little bit (or a lot, depending on how you perceive time).

• Padres 3-Cubs 1:

    What would a Padres-Blue Jays World Series do to both the world of stat-based prognostication and the "take everything into account" world of prognostication? There wouldn't have to be a meeting of the minds between me and the stat zombies because we'd both be as dumb as the other.

    Of course, it's not gonna happen anyway. This is like a cool spring appearing in the middle of the Sahara desert; it's not real. The Cubs just can't hit.

    So, what's wrong with the Cubs? Is it just that they miss Aramis Ramirez that much? That Geovany Soto has looked atrocious? That Derrek Lee is swinging like there's something physically wrong that no one knows about? That Milton Bradley's done nothing? That Ryan Dempster predictably hasn't been as good as he was in 2008? That Aaron Heilman brought his gasoline can with him from New York (with a brief stopover in Seattle)? That Rich Harden wound up on the disabled list? That the barren farm system has nowhere close to what it would take to pry Jake Peavy from the Padres? Or is it all of the above?

    At this point, the talk of moving Alfonso Soriano to second base in order to get Micah Hoffpauir's bat into the lineup is worth a try. Manager Lou Piniella doesn't compromise on his defense----specifically his up-the-middle defense----but they have to find a way to score some runs and nothing else has worked. With Ramirez hurt and neither Mike Fontenot and Aaron Miles hitting, that Mark DeRosa trade to the Indians doesn't look too good now, does it?

    A team with championship aspirations can't be losing two straight to the Padres. Desperate times, desperate measures. Move Soriano to second for the time being.

• Yes, it's true; I'm whoring myself out:

    Above the link to my book, your eyes are not deceiving you. I've placed a Google Ads thingy on my site. I've now crossed the line separating man and who-er. I am now a who-er.

    Hopefully former NY Governor Eliot "Black Sox Scandal" Spitzer won't get any ideas 'cause he ain't coming near me with his clenched teeth, pasty white and bony body and black socks. I have limits, you know.

• Mets 5-Red Sox 3:

    One of the big factors in the Red Sox rise has been their grinders. It was when they finally supplemented their roster with players like Kevin Youkilis, Dustin Pedroia and Jason Varitek, among others that instead of throwing in the towel to teams like the Yankees, they frowned, balled the towel up and flung it into the Yankees' faces. There are times, however, that the bullying attitude backfires as it did last night against Johan Santana.

    Did Youkilis really think that Santana was throwing at him when he was hit in the elbow in the fifth inning and he glared and jawed at the Mets lefty? With the Mets leading by a run and Jason Bay on deck? Or was it just another attempt by the Red Sox to push around a reeling opponent? If that was the intent, it was a dumb move because all it did was piss off an already irritable Santana, who looked like he was in a sour mood because of the repeated miscues being made by the patchwork quilt the Mets defense has become.

    Youkilis stands directly on top of the plate and his elbow is almost in the strike zone; Santana isn't a head hunter; besides that, Daisuke Matsuzaka was repeatedly busting both David Wright and Gary Sheffield inside and neither uttered a peep in protest. If the Red Sox thought they were going to rattle Santana with that stuff, they can forget it. Santana's not a bully like Josh Beckett, so he didn't start bellowing and growling, charging toward the batter challenging him to a fight; he just blasted his way through the next two innings and kept the Red Sox off the scoreboard. And he's not a mental case like Oliver Perez, who'd let that distract him from his focus; if anything Santana was more dialed in because of the attempted intimidation. The Red Sox have more than one guy who tries that alpha male crap, and it's going too far thinking it'll work on everyone. Doing it to Santana was a mistake.*

*Beckett's one of those guys who tries to show and talk about how tough he is, but then gets into a real fight and gets his ass kicked. Graig Nettles told a story in his book, Balls, detailing how the Yankees of 1974 had a backup catcher named Bill Sudakis who went on and on about how tough he was and how many fights he'd been in, blah, blah, blah; then he got into a fistfight with Rick Dempsey...and Dempsey beat the crap out of him.

        One thing that came out of last night's game was how devastating the Mets bullpen----and dangerous on the whole the team can be----if they hold their heads above water through the summer, get healthy and get something from their starters behind Santana. It's not often that you see fastball hitters like J.D. Drew and Jason Bay overmatched, but Bobby Parnell dominated them with a fastball that reached 100 mph. They had the looks on their faces of, "who is this guy?" after the inning.

    If J.J. Putz is healthy and they get a forgotten and rehabbing asset with a high 90s fastball himself----Billy Wagner----back, the Mets rotation won't be an issue because the game's not going to be reduced to six innings as teams with superior bullpens have tried to do over the years, it'll be reduced to five innings. In a short playoff series, no one would want to see a Mets team with Johan Santana pitching at least two of the games and Wagner, Putz, Parnell and Francisco Rodriguez coming at them from the fifth inning on.

• Rich Harden on the DL? No way!!

    The Cubs have placed pitcher Rich Harden on the disabled list with a "back strain". It's going to be very interesting after the season when Harden goes free agent to see if anyone's going to risk giving him anything longer than a one-year deal. Harden has some of the best stuff in baseball, but, like Ben Sheets, is always hurt.

    At least Sheets has the excuse that he may have been overused early in his career; Harden was used very cautiously by the Athletics early in his career and is still never a sure thing from one pitch to the next. It doesn't help his cause that this season, when I've seen him, his fastball was getting over 90 mph only occasionally in comparison to his upper-90s fastball he's shown in the past; he looked like he was either hurting or holding back.

    Maybe he's better suited for the bullpen.

• I had some good stuff to write, but reality didn't cooperate:

    I tuned in late to the Yankees-Orioles game and when I saw that Alfredo Aceves was pitching, I automatically thought that Joba Chamberlain----despite his denials----was annoyed at Aubrey Huff's mocking fist pump after homering off of Chamberlain earlier this year, and threw at Huff, thereby getting himself ejected. I formulated a series of brilliantly crafted sentences, organized and clean, detailing why Chamberlain needed to grow up and how anyone who can dish it out and not take it is asking for more of the same from opponents just to get him rattled, but none of it had transpired as it had in my often overactive (don't ask) imagination.

    Truth be told, I was kind of disappointed. It turns out that Chamberlain left in the first inning after he was hit on the knee by a line drive off the bat of Adam Jones; he allowed hits to Nick Markakis and Huff before departing. I guess I'll just have to file the stuff away for when and if Chamberlain does something immature and use it then. Technically, many writers don't let accuracy and reality stop them from publishing whatever they want, but I'm not a very good liar. Speaking of which...

• Cheney-world:

    I'm not turning this into a long-winded political website, but I will say that you have to admire the balls of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and I don't mean because he's Green Beret courageous; I mean the sheer audacity.

    Having been proven to be a pathological liar and showing evidence of being a total psychopath would be fine if he just openly admitted as such (I've often said that at the very least, Cheney doesn't reference God and Jesus when detailing his schemes); but if you really believe that Dick Cheney gives a rat's ass about Americans he claims to be in danger of a nuclear attack by a terrorist; or cares about one of the soldiers his deranged view of the world has sentenced to death; or any one of the lives that were lost on 9/11, then your fantasy world must be even more interesting and bizarre than mine (don't ask).

• Cardinals 3-Cubs 1:

    I'd hate to be Cubs hitting coach Gerald Perry right now. Because the Cubs didn't hit at all in their three game sweep at the hands of the Cardinals, manager Lou Piniella (a superior hitting coach in his own right) is going to look for someone to do something about the team not being able to score or hit (they managed 14 hits for the three games). Just as Piniella is rough on his players when things don't go well, he's also rough on his coaches. Children should cover their ears if Piniella is having a "chat" with Perry over this lack of production. 

• Indians 8-Royals 3:
  

    I watched most of this game and I swear the following is true: with the Royals leading 3-2 in the top of the seventh, Horacio Ramirez was brought in to relieve Zack Greinke; I said aloud, "this game's over" and I didn't mean in a good way for the Royals. Next thing I knew, it was 4-3 Indians after Ramirez gave up a single to Asdrubal Cabrera; Grady Sizemore bunted Cabrera to second; Shin Soo Choo singled home Cabrera; Jamey Wright relieved Ramirez and allowed a double to Jhonny Peralta. Goodbye lead.

    It's not just that Ramirez isn't any good; not just that he shouldn't be pitching at all under any circumstances other than mop-up duty; but that Royals GM Dayton Moore signed him to a contract for $1.8 million this year. Why? I dunno.

    One of the main reasons that the Royals aren't going to maintain their position at or near the top of the AL Central this year is because they're relying on Kyle Farnsworth and Ramirez to get important outs; this and the fact that they only have two starting pitchers they can trust in Greinke and Gil Meche (and I don't want to hear about Brian Bannister) is why they'll fade out in the summer; probably early in the summer because Greinke can't carry the team forever.

• Salary dump and an agenda-driven deal, 101:

    In what was clearly a non-baseball move, Tony Gwynn Jr was traded from the Brewers to the Padres for Jody Gerut. Gerut's struggled this year after a very good comeback in 2008 and is injury-prone. Lest anyone believe this is a baseball move because the namesake of the Hall of Famer and Padres icon Tony Gwynn isn't much more than a backup outfielder/minor league filler at best. Gerut's making $1.775 million this year and Gwynn's making the near minimum.

    If the Padres really think they'll get much more from Gwynn than the Brewers did, their talent evaluation is worse than I thought. This was a "drum up some buzz" for the fans move; and a "get rid of a couple million bucks" move. Don't let anyone tell you different.

    And this Padres win streak is a mirage. Trust me.

• Are there no mirrors available in Colorado?

    Once this type of talk starts----ESPN Story----it's time to make a change. Rockies GM, "Teflon" Dan O'Dowd is again threatening manager Clint Hurdle as if it's his fault that this flawed team isn't playing better. O'Dowd's been there ten years, and when he talks about accountability, he's obviously never really referring to himself.

    Saying stuff like "It's unfair to blame him (Hurdle) solely for us playing like horse manure. I am just as accountable," doesn't do much good if there aren't any repercussions for the guy making that statement who's supposed to be running the show.

    O'Dowd has rebuilt the club in numerous incarnations (an apropos term considering the organizational focus on having players and staff living their lives based on a "Christian code of conduct"----NY Times Story, 10.23.2007) and had one successful season based on a blazing hot streak (that probably won't ever happen again, anywhere) which propelled them to the World Series in 2007. Other than that, they've been a poorly run, bad-to-mediocre team. Let O'Dowd blame and fire Hurdle because if the new manager he brings in doesn't work, maybe he'll finally take the fall for his own ineptitude.     

 Jake Peavy is weighing his options as both the Padres and White Sox await his decision on whether to waive his no trade clause and allow himself to be traded----ESPN Story. Peavy should just accept the deal and go to the White Sox.

    Those that read me regularly know that I'm not in the habit of telling grown athletes what they should or shouldn't be doing with their lives----it's not my business----and Peavy's family concerns and whatever else is affecting his reluctance to go to any team other than the few National League franchises to whom he's indicated he'd accept trades isn't something to be dismissed as a spoiled athlete trying to manipulate his situation. Players get a no-trade clause so they can control their own fate; and Peavy signed a below-market value contract (at the time in December 2007) with the Padres for $52 million through 2012 with a $22 million option/$4 million buyout in 2013; but isn't enough enough already with the speculation and wondering where he's going to end up? Wouldn't it be better to get this over with now that the opportunity is staring him in the face? 

    The Padres are rotten and desperate to unload Peavy. Peavy's all-out, all-the-time motion is such that there's no telling when his elbow or shoulder (or both) are going to blow out and leave him as a shell of what he is now. The White Sox aren't a great team, but they're good enough to loiter around contention in that weak AL Central and possibly make their way into the playoffs; once there, who knows what could happen in a short series if they're throwing Peavy, Mark Buehrle, John Danks and Gavin Floyd at whoever's on the other side of the field? 

    Family concerns can't be discounted, but Peavy was ready to go to the Cubs, so he can't be worried about being a small town, Southern guy looking wide-eyed and naïvely at the skyscrapers of Chicago mouthing the word "woowwwww" very, very slowly. He and his family would be perfectly fine there. He wants to stay in the National League, but he'd get used to the DH and the other aspects of playing in the AL as long as the team's winning. And if money's an issue, he can demand that the White Sox exercise his 2013 option in order to okay the deal. If they want him that badly, it's not much to ask as a concession.

    It's time to bail the sinking ship in San Diego because Peavy's valuable skills (upon which the clock is undoubtedly ticking) are being wasted in a hopeless situation that doesn't want or need him around anymore anyway. It's time to move on.

*Shortly after publishing this post, the news came down that Jake Peavy has blocked the trade to the White Sox and will be staying with the Padres for the time being----ESPN Story.

Could I have been wrong about a few things? Me? Wrong?

    It's late May and things are still a bit murky as to which teams are for real; which teams are fooling themselves and everyone else; and who's going to emerge from the parity that's taken over baseball. Let's take a look at a few things I predicted before the season and if it's time to re-analyze, reassess and regroup:

• Is it time to take the Blue Jays seriously? 

    They're obviously not going to end up with 90 losses and behind the Orioles as I predicted; Vernon Wells and Scott Rolen have stayed healthy (so far); and they've taken advantage of a weak early season schedule to get by with fill-ins in their starting rotation behind the sublime Roy Halladay.

    Have they been exposed as they've lost four of their first five games to the Yankees and Red Sox? Possibly. Their hot start has given them some wiggle room, but they're somewhat overmatched by the Yankees and Red Sox and aren't going to be able to hang around in first place for the duration. They could conceivably finish ahead of the Rays.

• Are the Rays victims of a slow start, or are they falling back to reality after last year?

    They've played better after a terrible start, but their plan for right field of Gabe Kapler and Matt Joyce has been the predicted disaster, and Pat Burrell looks clueless. I'd expect Burrell to start hitting when he gets healthy since he's historically and notoriously streaky. This team couldn't repeat the brilliant bullpen work from last season and that, more than anything, was why they jumped to the top of the AL so quickly. Concern has to be growing to very high levels about Scott Kazmir. He got batted around again last night and his fastball was consistently clocked at 86-89. I still don't think they're going to contend.

• The AL Central looks like a casting call for Beauty and the Geek:

    I'm not ready to bail on the Indians. Everything that could've gone wrong for them, has gone wrong and they're still within striking distance of the top of the rotten division. The Tigers are the team that may surprise because after all the concerns about them falling to a near 100-loss purgatory along with a rash of trades and firings, they're 22-16. They still have issues, but Edwin Jackson is looking like Dave Stewart did after he hooked up with Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan; and Justin Verlander is back to what he was three years ago. The bullpen's an issue, but they'll hang around in that division. I'm also not buying into the Royals as long as they're expecting anything of use from Kyle Farnsworth and Horacio Ramirez. Anyone in that division from top-to-bottom could end up winning it. 

• Are the Rangers maturing faster than I thought?

     I had them improving, but still finishing under .500. They've played surprisingly well and gotten stunningly good pitching. It's hard to see that continuing. The Angels have come through the shock of the Nick Adenhart death and the injuries to their starting pitchers and are still over .500 without much of a deficit to make up in the division. Once they get healthy, they'll take control again.

• Ready to bail on the Marlins?

    No. Every team in the NL East has issues; like the AL Central, they're all (except the Nationals, of course) going to be jockeying for position through the season and the Marlins have just as much chance as anyone to come out on top. The Phillies starting pitching has been woeful and, as predicted, Brad Lidge is struggling along with most of the rest of their bullpen. They'll right themselves to a point as well. I still don't think the Braves are any good. The one thing the Mets have going for them is that since they've played in such rotten luck in the past two years and everyone's dumping on them now, they've got nothing to lose and might band together in an "us against the world" philosophy and emerge from the sludge.*

*Speaking of the Mets, here's a cockamamie, Chris Russo/Mike Francesa-style plot from my own empty little head (at which the Mets would likely roll their eyes) to handle their injuries and lack of hitting: If Jose Reyes is out for awhile with his calf, move David Wright to shortstop; play Daniel Murphy/Fernando Tatis at third and first; and bring up Fernando Martinez to see if the Mets prize prospect can light a spark in right or left field. He's hitting well in Triple A; let's see what he can do. Their offense would be better and how much worse would their defense be? Wright played shortstop in high school and the room to roam might improve his throwing, an ancillary advantage to such a move is that it could be seen as a threat to Reyes's macho, Dominican sensibilities and get him to start busting his ass instead of jogging around half the time. Ramon Martinez ain't gonna cut it at shortstop as a replacement. 

• Whither the NL Central?

• My PADRES LOSSOMETER is stuck:

    The competition is so mediocre-to-heinous in the entire National League that the Padres have managed to climb back around the .500 mark, but it's not real. They're hideous and may be on the verge of trading Jake Peavy (again); I'll believe it when I see it. The Giants hitting has to be addressed if they're going to take advantage of a very good pitching staff. If they can get one, difference-making bat they'll be very dangerous. I'd be repeatedly calling the Astros about Carlos Lee if I were them. Joe Torre's brilliantly handled all the issues he's had to deal with for the Dodgers. The Rockies are better than they've played. 

    The Diamondbacks are living a nightmare culminated by that horrible news about Scott Schoeneweis's wife. Baseball's put into context when this type of thing happens as we've already seen all too often in the first two months of this season. 

• Yankees 9-Orioles 1:

    The Yankees have won seven in a row and are catching their groove as they start to get their stars (Alex Rodriguez) back from injury; and their other stars (Mark Teixeira and C.C. Sabathia) start to hit and pitch as expected. Of course, it's going to be said that the seven games during the current streak were against a questionable Blue Jays team; mediocre Twins team; and a rebuilding Orioles team; but so what?

    One of the more underappreciated aspects of the Yankees dynastic teams of ten years ago (and any great, successful team) is that they don't just beat up on the teams they should beat; they beat the living shit out of them. That, more than anything else----the Yankees-Red Sox drama; the back-and-forth with the Lou Piniella-led Mariners; the shoving matches with the Bobby Valentine Mets----was why those Yankees teams were in the playoffs every year.

    Taking a look at how those teams (and others) brutalized their undermanned opponents shows clearly how they took advantage of that superiority:

1998: The Yankees went 38-7 against the Orioles, Tigers, Royals and Devil Rays.

1999: The Yankees went 36-11 against the Orioles, Mariners, Devil Rays and Blue Jays.

2000: The Yankees went 18-4 against the Royals and Rangers.

2004: The Red Sox went 42-12 against the Tigers, Athletics, Devil Rays and Blue Jays.

2005: The White Sox went 41-15 against the Indians, Royals and Tigers.

2007: The Red Sox went 25-11 against the Devil Rays and Orioles.

    There's no reason to apologize for this. If a team is clearly superior to their opponents, then they should take every advantage of that superiority and account for games that they might lose to their true rivals by abusing bad teams. It's the law of the jungle and there doesn't have to be an excuse for it. 

• Dodgers 5-Mets 3:

    The Mets are becoming similar to the Grinch. It's like going to sleep on Christmas eve and waiting for Santa to arrive, then waking up and not only finding that there aren't any presents under the tree, but the tree (and the furniture) are gone. 

    I shut the game off with the Mets leading 3-1; then I woke up kinda knowing what I'd find when I checked the scores, and sure enough, the Mets had blown the game as Casey Blake homered off of John Maine to give the Dodgers the lead. It's a bad sign when these things are expected to happen rather than unique occurrences in their own right; and it's getting to the "enough's enough" point with Maine.

    The potential for an 18-game winner is there, but he has these lapses of concentration in every game he starts where he can't throw strikes and/or he gives up hits and walks to the opposing pitcher (Chad Billingsley had two hits and a walk last night), which is something a big chunk of the Mets pitchers have done this season on the whole. Maine's just turned 28 and should supposedly be reaching his prime as the consistent strike thrower and solid starter he was in 2007. The learning curve should be straightening out by now.

    It's hard to quantify how many games are lost because of an absence of fundamentals, but in watching teams like the Twins----who are a .500 team (at best) on paper----and how they end up contending when no one expects them to as they did last year, their attention to playing the game correctly is a big part of their success.

    Their cut-off men are in the right place; their pitchers know where they're supposed to be as they backup plays at the plate and on the bases; they throw strikes; they hit behind the runners and do the little things they're supposed to do because that's what's drilled into them from the low minors on through to the top. The Cardinals are the same way. Is there a code of fundamentals with the Mets? And if there is, why isn't it taking hold on their homegrown talent?

    The Twins and Cardinals appear to tell their players that if they don't do things the right way, they aren't going to play; but the caste system with the Mets lets the Jose Reyes-baserunning debacles slide because he's Jose Reyes. Like Maine, Reyes is at the age where he should be setting an example for the younger players like Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau are in Minnesota and Albert Pujols is in St. Louis.

    Now, instead of nurturing the player they relentlessly promoted in the winter, Daniel Murphy, they look like they're blaming him for not being a good outfielder. The guy's not an outfielder and catching those flyballs and line drives isn't as easy as it looks for someone who doesn't know what he's doing. Maybe it's time for some leadership and accountability to get them back on the right track because they're blowing games with stupidity and even with a watered down National League, that could cost them another playoff spot in October.

• Cardinals 3-Cubs 0:

    Anyone who disregards the influence a great manager and pitching coach can have on their players is either ignoring Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan out of convenience or don't know what they're talking about. How many more pitchers do the Hall of Fame manager and his longtime aide-de-camp have to rejuvenate before even the stat zombies accept that they've got something that other coaches and managers don't?

    Last night, I watched much of the Cardinals 3-0 win over the Cubs and saw Joel Piniero pitch an absolute masterpiece. This is the same Joel Piniero whose last season as an effective starting pitcher came in 2003 with the Seattle Mariners; the same Joel Piniero who the Cardinals got from the Red Sox for a journeyman minor league outfielder name Sean Danielson after Piniero failed in an audition as Red Sox closer. He pounded the strike zone with a sinker that was down around the knees all night; he changed speeds and mixed in his breaking pitches as he dominated a good Cubs lineup. 

    If this were an isolated incident with one pitcher for whom managerial/coaching advice finally clicked, it'd be one thing; but the number of pitchers who have learned to use proper mechanics and were willing to change isn't something that can be explained away. On this current Cardinals roster alone, there are other pitchers----Kyle Lohse, Ryan Franklin and Todd Wellemeyer----for whom teams have shaken their heads and thrown their hands up in the air, pitchers who've realized that La Russa and Duncan could save their careers and actually listened and applied what they were being told to turn things around. 

    It sounds like a small thing for players to understand that if they make some minor adjustments, they'll improve markedly; but for a major league player who probably breezed through the amateurs and the minors "doing it the way he's always done it" to accept constructive criticism and make changes to his game is not only a challenge physically, but more importantly, mentally; the La Russa and Duncan tandem get through to so many players, that it can't be simply waved away as no big deal and something that could've happened anyway.

• Somebody needs to rein that boy in:

    The Red Sox won last night's game over the Blue Jays 2-1, so the play didn't matter, but it might've.

    In the bottom of the eighth inning and his team leading by a run, Jacoby Ellsbury led off with a double. Dustin Pedroia bunted the next pitch foul, took a ball, fouled off another pitch, then took another ball...then Ellsbury got caught stealing third. (And I don't want to hear about the replays that showed Ellsbury was safe, because that's irrelevant.)

    Where was he going with nobody out and the middle of the lineup coming up?

    Was he any closer to scoring from third than he was from second?

    If there was one out, then maybe you try it; if the bottom of the lineup was coming up, then maybe you try it; but the MVP of the league was at the plate; then a slumping, but still dangerous David Ortiz; then a contender for the MVP this year, Jason Bay. Did Ellsbury need to try and steal third there?

    The risk/reward and the situation made it a boneheaded play even if he was safe; it's to the point with Ellsbury and his risky, unnecessary basestealing that if I were manager Terry Francona, the green light to steal whenever he wanted would've been rescinded from Ellsbury right there and then. This was a similar play to Ellsbury's steal of home against the Yankees with the bases loaded and two out and J.D. Drew (who kills Andy Pettitte) batting, except he made it. It was a dumb move either way then; and it was a dumb move either way now.

    Someone has to put the brakes on Ellsbury before he costs the team a game with his overaggressive enthusiasm for showing off his speed.       

• Dodgers 3-Mets 2:

    Good grief.

    There are losses and then there are losses; strangely the losses only seem to happen to the New York Mets. 

    It's a good thing I shut the game off and went to sleep because staying up for this would've added to the perception that there's no point to watching the Mets because of the very real (historic) possibility/probability that they'll formulate a new and heretofore unheard of, embarrassingly laughable way to lose.

    It's easy to nitpick about some things manager Jerry Manuel and the organization are currently doing. Playing Jeremy Reed at first base? Playing Angel Pagan in left field? Sitting Daniel Murphy, who was only a month ago being promoted as the New York version of Kevin Youkilis? But how can you get on Manuel and the coaching staff for expecting a veteran major leaguer like Ryan Church to perform the rudimentary function of, y'know, touching the bases as he's running past them? Do the Mets have to hold coaching clinics on not just baserunning for the likes of Jose Reyes, but going back to the peewee basics of tagging all the bases?

    Mike Francesa went off on the Mets, rightfully, for pinch hitting Pagan for Murphy in the ninth inning of Sunday night's loss to the Giants. It's May. If Murphy, who has been slumping after his fast start, isn't going to get the opportunity to hit in situations such as that, then when is he going to get the opportunity to succeed or fail? If he's going to be a "Met find" from the 13th round whose plate discipline is the story of his success, shouldn't he get a chance to hit? And if a veteran hitter or pinch hitter were available, then fine, but Angel Pagan? A journeyman outfielder? 

    This insistence of playing Jeremy Reed at first base is just as absurd. Never mind that Reed, before this season, had played one professional game at first base; never mind that he's also something of a journeyman, but why is Murphy not playing in front of him? Murphy was a third baseman and second baseman in the minors before being converted on the fly to the outfield; is he going to be any worse defensively at first base than Reed? Or, for that matter, Carlos Delgado? When writing out the lineup card and omitting Murphy----whom they specifically stated was going to play everyday in the spring----did Manuel confuse his Randys by thinking the Mets were facing Johnson instead of Wolf? There are lefties against whom lefty batters should get a conveniently scheduled day off; Randy Wolf ain't one of them especially if the intent is for said hitter to play every day.

    I suppose it's a positive that I didn't stay up to watch these festivities as they unfolded; but it's also a negative that a Mets fan is so jaded by the way his team continuously screws up that he figures it's easier and more prudent to get his rest and find out what happened in the morning instead of suffering and screaming as these bizarre incidents occur.

• The Prince will not join the mob chasing the Franken-Hinch monster:

    Dumping on the Diamondbacks hiring of A.J. Hinch has become trendy and it's an easy thing to attack----NY Times Story. It's a toxic recipe when hiring a front office person who'd never managed or coached anywhere at any time; who's so young (35) and unknown to many of the players; and who's going to be seen by the media and fans as another in the long line of highly educated (Stanford) and unwanted interlopers who are trying to take over another diversion for the masses with their pedantic and pretentious droning about numbers, formulas and calculations as they never cease to remind you of how smart they are. That the Diamondbacks have stumbled out of the gate under Hinch (2-6) and the players are openly questioning his hiring and his strategic decisions is only making his job harder. But none of this means that the decision is: A) for the long term; and B) not going to work.

    A manager's job is thankless to begin with and there's no doubt that sooner or later, Hinch is going to be fired or head back to the front office. That being said, Hinch's four-year contract----that's repeatedly referenced with shock and dismay----could have been doled out to try and give the neophyte manager some credibility with the dubious players. They may not believe he knows what he's doing, but unless GM Josh Byrnes is shown the door, Hinch isn't going anywhere either. If the players don't respect the manager, they could conceivably recognize that he's their manager and that they'll have to deal with it.

    Hiring any manager is a leap of faith. Baseball history is littered with managerial candidates who were thought to be sure-fire winners, but they haven't worked for one reason or another (Bud Black for example) and mostly have to do with dealing with the players or impatient/clueless owners and front office executives. Tony La Russa's gotten fired; Joe Torre's gotten fired three times and was forced out a fourth time after winning four World Series and making the playoffs on an annual basis; there's no way of knowing whether Hinch is going to learn quickly enough to keep the job or if the Diamondbacks are going to have to make another change, but he's got just as much chance of success as anyone else and, as always, it depends on the players. Managerial contracts are generally seen as a hazard of the job and relatively inexpensive sunk cost if it's not working. It's not as if Hinch is getting Joe Torre money to manage the team. I haven't been able to find the numbers, but my guess is he's getting about $500,000 a year with moderate escalators as the years pass if he does well. That's nothing for a big league manager and wouldn't preclude him being replaced very, very quickly. 

    If the players are not hustling or are openly challenging their manager because he's not one of "them" (even though Hinch's resume as a player is more impressive than guys like La Russa, Jim Leyland and Sparky Anderson) and because he's never coached or managed, then that's on the players. The easiest thing for Byrnes to do would've been to fire Bob Melvin and replace him with Kirk Gibson so Gibson could flip over the food table and scream and yell Mike Ditka style. While the comment of Hinch providing "organizational advocacy" was stupid and one that I'm sure Byrnes would like to take back, I'm not convinced that the decision wasn't made for Hinch to get a closer look at the clubhouse from the managerial point of view as the front office realizes that major changes have to be made; his managerial run might be for the short term with or without a four-year contract.

    It's a bit early to chase the guy with torches like he's the epitome of evil. It's only been eight games.

• The Luv Gov makes the rounds:

    I happened to flip on the TV this morning in time to catch former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer in his appearance on Morning Joe on MSNBC. It's fascinating how Spitzer is trying to reintegrate himself into public life with his railing against coroprate fat cats and their greed and he might be making some solid points, but I cannot be the only one looking at him and, instead of hearing what he's saying, am hearing this:

Blah, blah, blah----corporate greed----blah, blah, blah----fat cats----blah, blah, blah----regulation----blah, blah, blah----illegal transactions----blah, blah, blah----prosecutions----blah, blah, blah----convictions...

    All the while picturing Spitzer (don't think for a second that this is what I want to see first thing in the morning) wearing his black socks as his chin juts out and his teeth are clenched in intensity while his skinny, white body pounds away at some innocent (and undeserving of such treatment) prostitute. You will never convince me that the people sitting around that table chatting amicably with Spitzer aren't imagining the same thing.

    In the context of behaviors, Spitzer's activities were so reviled not because of what he was doing, but because he was such a hypocrite in prosecuting while prostituting. I can also guarantee you one thing: even though I have no clue whether his wife (who's pretty groovy in her own right) is letting him touch her again, he still thinks about and utilizes his recall of his nights with the call girls to, shall we say, relieve himself of the desires that prompted him to use their services in the first place. One doesn't just stop being a sleazy, horny scumbag just because he got caught.

• A mistake that can't be made:

    Because I don't like the way Joe Maddon manages his club on or off the field, the temptation is great to unleash on his unconscionable mistake of writing two third basemen down on the official lineup card that was handed to the umpires, requiring him to not only remove his intended DH and best hitter Evan Longoria from the lineup, but to bat pitcher Andy Sonnanstine third. I've given Maddon a hard time before for his mistakes, one of which at the very least cost the Rays a chance to get the World Series back to Tampa for a game six----Prince of New York blog, October 29, 2009----but the lineup thing's an easy situation for which to overreact and I can't bring myself to do it. 

    That's not to defend it. While it's an understandable error----in fact, he probably doesn't even remember writing down Longoria's and Ben Zobrist's names at third base (that's if he fills the thing out himself; some managers have their bench coaches fill out the lineup card)----if someone's got it so ingrained to do something day-after-day, it's an instinctive action that has to be given a pass when it results in a mistake; and the Rays did win the game. Publicly, if I were in the Rays front office, I'd say that it was something of a humorous screw up that didn't turn out to be a problem; but privately, I'd tell Maddon not to let it happen again. 

• Tigers 11-Athletics 7:

    Now the A's hitters don't even get on base with the frequency they once did. 

    Once upon a time, when Moneyball was at it's height and the Athletics were the toast of the the world due to the creative non-fiction of Michael Lewis, the Athletics didn't have high batting averages, but did have a bunch of guys who got on base and could hit the ball out of the park; now they don't even have that. Their leading home run hitter is Jack Cust (for whom Beane should've sold high last year) with five. With their starting pitching as bad as it's been lately (that's three straight days of their starting pitchers giving up at least six runs); as young as it is; and the way the bats aren't delivering anything to give the youngsters a margin for error, they cannot compete this way. 

    Matt Holliday's starting to heat up, so that should account for some more offense; Orlando Cabrera isn't this bad; but anyone who points to the Athletics slow starts in the past as a reference point for a future hot streak is neglecting to mention or conveniently ignoring that those teams had a very deep, young starting rotation that had already matured; this team doesn't. The club isn't as bad as this, but they're also not that good either. They're in for a long year barring a major and stunning turnaround.

    One has to wonder whether Beane's going to make a managerial change to shake things up. He's always been Michael Corleone-ruthless with his managers and never seemed to like Ken Macha all that much, making it easier to fire him with a load of money remaining on his contract and after Macha had finally brought the A's to the ALCS. Beane's said to be close friends with manager Bob Geren, but Beane engineered the departure of Art Howe to the Mets after Howe had won: 87, 91, 102 and 103 games in four straight seasons; then he dumped Macha while owing him a lot of money and after Macha had won: 96, 91, 86 and 93 games and including that ALCS loss in 2006. Will friendship trump ruthlessness as the A's continue to stumble? Geren's record in his three seasons: 76-86; 75-86; and now 13-21 is, to put it mildly, not good.

    The heat's finally coming down on Beane; what's the reaction going to be?

• Viewer Mail 5.18.2009:

Joe at Statistician Magician continues his theme from yesterday of (none too subtly) trying to hitch his wagon to my star:

Come on. We can call it Statisticianmagicianpl.com

    I'll ignore the audacity of having his blog name first with the generous addition of my initials at the end and present the warning that attaching oneself to me has about as much potential to be a fiery crash into the nearest mountain as anything else.    

• The issues with the White Sox and the ripping of GM Kenny Williams:

    Rob Neyer links this Joe Cowley article in questioning some of the decisions made by White Sox GM Kenny Williams this past off season. Neyer's quote:

All fair points, I think. Even if it's worth mentioning that the White Sox enter play tonight just two games out of first place. But you know, the problem isn't that Quentin, Ramirez, Danks and Floyd have failed to "match or exceed" what they did in 2008. The problem is that Ramirez and Floyd have been been absolute disasters. If those guys had just played 80 percent this year as well as last the White Sox would be just fine right now.

There's no telling if they will. Floyd's got a 5.20 career ERA, and before last season he struggled for two years with the Phillies. Ramirez's entire professional track record consists of his 166 games with the White Sox. He's now got a .307 lifetime on-base percentage. He's 27 (officially). Does he have much (if any) room for growth?

Perhaps not, but he can't continue to play as poorly as he has. Nobody's that bad. The same probably goes for Floyd, and for Josh Fields, and for Chris Getz, and for whoever's got the No. 5 slot in the rotation now that Jose Contreras has been deposed. I look at this team and I see plenty to be optimistic about. No, these White Sox aren't going to win 89 games, as they did last year. But 15-18 in the middle of May is no reason to panic, particularly in a division that might be taken with 85 wins.

I can't argue that Ken Williams had a great winter, because he left his manager without a legitimate center fielder and with a big question mark at second base. But when I look around the American League Central, I see question marks all over the place. Maybe Williams was simply playing down to the competition.

    I gave up questioning Williams after I picked the 2008 White Sox to win 69 games and fall to last place with the head-scratching decisions to trade for Orlando Cabrera, Gavin Floyd, Carlos Quentin and to sign a Cuban player Alexei Ramirez to a long term contract; and to keep manager Ozzie Guillen despite his incidents of insubordination and borderline personality; because of that, I'm not about to start questioning Williams now that his team's off to a 15-20 start in a rotten division. 

    The problem with referencing Floyd's career ERA in the big leagues and the minors is that it again falls into the stat zombie trap of relying too closely on numbers when evaluating. If Williams had done that, he never would've traded for Floyd. To this day, I still don't know what it was that Williams saw in Floyd that made him believe that he'd get anything useful from him, not just as a starter, but as a big league pitcher, period.

    Aside from some moderate success as a rookie call-up in 2004, and a few decent, but not overly impressive years in the minors sprinkled in with some truly bad years, Floyd never showed very much statistically to make anyone who wasn't scouting him on the basis of potential think they'd get anything close to serviceability from him, let alone 17 wins and near brilliance on numerous occasions. In fact, in looking at Floyd's 2008 Game Logs, his up-and-down performance is quite similar to stretches from last season, which lends credence to the idea that Floyd's a similar pitcher to Rick Reuschel in that he's a sinkerballer from whom you'll know pretty quickly what you're getting on that particular day, good or bad.

    As for Carlos Quentin, an injury-prone player is an injury-prone player and Quentin's always got some little bump or bruise that's hindering him one way or the other. It's possible that 2008 was his career year in which he finally stayed healthy and lived up to the expectations of being a first round draft pick of the Diamondbacks; and considering what he'd done for the D-Backs in his brief opportunities to play, I can't blame them for dealing him. The White Sox should expect a 25 homer year from him one way or the other even if he's not an MVP candidate. 

    With Ramirez, it's almost hysterical how a guy can go from being a 21-year-old phenom to a 27-year-old question mark within six months. Is it possible that playing shortstop is messing with Ramirez's bat? With the White Sox black hole in center field, they might be better suited to move Ramirez back to the outfield and stick Jayson Nix in at shortstop; maybe that'll wake up Ramirez's bat. 

    The Cuban players, much like the Japanese players, are always a giant roll of the dice. They cost a lot of money and the Cubans can be anywhere from 5 to 10 years older (or more) than their stated age. You literally have no idea what you're getting. You could be getting an Orlando Hernandez; or you could be getting an Osvaldo Fernandez; you just don't know. Williams got production from Ramirez last season and he also managed to squeeze something out of Jose Contreras, who I don't think ever would have done anything of consequence had he either stayed with the Yankees or signed with the Red Sox because he's an emotional pitcher who can't perform if he's not in a solid support system.*

*The mentioning of Contreras and the Red Sox brings up the point that no matter how smart the Red Sox have been as they've built an annual championship contender under John Henry, Larry Lucchino, Theo Epstein, et al, they've also been pretty lucky that (among other things) Contreras and Carl Pavano chose New York over Boston and became Brian Cashman's headaches. That's $72 million right there that wasn't flushed down the toilet.

    Long story short, Neyer's right about not panicking in that heinous division. The AL Central is so awful that the White Sox should hold their fire and see if Floyd, Quentin and Ramirez return to something close to what they were last year; and Williams isn't afraid to act swiftly when the time comes if their plugs don't fire.

• Questions about A.J. Hinch:

    Former Diamondbacks pitching coach Bryan Price questions the hiring of new manager A.J. Hinch in this story on ESPN.com. You can get a smart D-Backs fan's opinion on this matter here.

    I'm not convinced that the decision was purely related to this season alone. GM Josh Byrnes isn't stupid; he may realize that without Brandon Webb, the D-Backs have little-to-no chance of competing for a playoff spot and the Hinch hiring was designed to evaluate more than wake up his stumbling team.

    Hinch, having come from player development, could very well be on the field to look at what the club has and decide from the trenches whom to keep and whom to dump as they try to move forward. If the D-Backs were looking for someone to light a fire that former manager Bob Melvin couldn't because his style just isn't conducive to flipping the food table and getting into the faces of the players, they could've installed Kirk Gibson as manager. I'd think there's more to this hiring than a simple managerial change.

• Can the Rangers pitching keep this up?

    The one thing you'll notice about the Texas Rangers pitchers is how they're pounding the strike zone. They're still giving up their share of homers, but if they keep runners off the bases and allow their lineup to outslug (and they've won their games with little help from Josh Hamilton) their opponents, there's no reason they can't hang around .500 and in the AL West race. 

    Two things would concern me though: 1) Their entire pitching staff can't account for inevitable slumps as they run into the better teams in the East that can pitch (they, like the Blue Jays, really haven't run into any of the good teams yet); and 2) the Angels, despite the Nick Adenhart tragedy and their rampant injuries, have somehow found their way over .500; and now they're getting their pitchers back.

    The Rangers front office, GM Jon Daniels and team president Nolan Ryan, are going to have some decisions to make if they're hovering around the top of the division in the summer. Do they trade some of their minor league talent for immediate help and try to win? Or do they stay the course? I wouldn't do anything drastic because they don't have the pitching to be a title contender. And, even though I had him fired before the season even started, manager Ron Washington's hanging in there----the man's a survivor and that's not a bad managerial attribute to have.

• Viewer Mail 5.17.2009:

Gabriel at rock_bard@hotmail.com writes RE stat zombies:

An aclaration: I'm not a stat zombie, but I'm in favour of sabermatrics to go hand in hand with empiric knowledge. I know statistics try to explain everything, I study mathematics and I'm majoring in Statistic Analysis, but the main thing about the data is that you can't treat your results as definitive, and you have to acknowledge the empiric knowledge other people have in the subject, kind of the idea you had on your post about limiting Joba Chamberlain's pitches. I embrace statistics, but you have to look a the whole picture.

    The fundamental problem that I have with the stat zombies (aside from their condescending arrogance) is that the entire issue has turned into a factional dispute along the lines of republicans and democrats, or Sunnis and Shia, or whatever and whatever with no room for common ground. Those that inexplicably defend the likes of Paul DePodesta simply because he's one of "them" lose all credibility before any substantial debate can even begin. They're just as bad as people like Mike Francesa, who are incapable of admitting that they were wrong about anything. The only difference is that Francesa pulls his opinions out of his ass and adds the caveats, "Well, I woulda been right if..."; or "They shoulda won, but..."; the stat zombies point to the numbers as justification when they'd be better off and have some credibility if they said, "It was a numerically sound idea that was worth a shot and just didn't work; maybe I was wrong." Instead we get this type of thing: "I was right, the players just screwed up."

Joe at Statistican Magician issues a challenge:

Paul when do you want to combine our sites and have us duel "old school" vs. "sabermetrics" from post to post. :)

    Again challenging the Boss? Sorry Joe, but the truth is your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side. 

• Scouring the world for a power bat:

    If Carlos Delgado's hip is going to (at best) compromise him for the duration, and (at worst) put him out for the season the Mets are going to need a power bat; for now it seems as if they're going to be willing to mix and match with Fernando Tatis, Alex Cora, Daniel Murphy, Jeremy Reed and a cast of thousands, but if they want to take a chance on a guy who can hit the ball out of the park, the Brewers and lefty swinging Brad Nelson have just parted ways.

    Nelson's 26 and hasn't done much in the big leagues, but he's been used as a pinch hitter and never gotten a chance to actually play. The Brewers tried to outright Nelson to Triple A to make room for Mat Gamel and Nelson refused the assignment and elected free agency----AP Story. There's no way to judge a player who's been accustomed to playing everyday and has failed as the big league club used him as a pinch hitter and Nelson has proven in the minors that he can hit the ball out of the park; hits a bunch of doubles; walks; and doesn't strike out all that much for a pure slugger.

    If I were advising Mets GM Omar Minaya, I wouldn't make Nelson any promises, but that if he goes to Triple A and gets used to playing regularly again, he'll be in the mix at first base. If Delgado's out and they need some pop, they could recall Nelson, bat him seventh and give him a shot to play as a low cost alternative that might work or at least help a bit.

• Was Doug Davis right to be angry at his removal?

    In the Diamondbacks 4-3 loss to the Braves last night, Doug Davis and new D-Backs manager A.J. Hinch had a public and testy confrontation in the dugout as Hinch made the arguable decision to remove Davis for a pinch hitter trailing 3-2 and with two outs in the top of the seventh inning after Davis had retired eleven Braves hitters in a row, throwing only 80 pitches for the game.

    That pinch hitter Ryan Roberts struck out and reliever Jon Rauch somehow found a way to walk Jeff Francoeur didn't make the argument any more retrospectively sound even though Rauch escaped the inning without further damage. At the time, I felt that if the top-to-middle of the Braves lineup (including Chipper Jones, who'd already homered off of Davis) were coming up, I'd have pulled Davis; other than that, I probably would've left him in. It was a questionable managerial call that didn't affect the game's outcome as the D-Backs tied the game in the top of the ninth and lost it in the bottom of the inning.

• The Prince criticizes...the Prince?

    It's only fair, I suppose, that I give myself a taste of my own medicine. Just as I continually rip the likes of Mike Francesa for clinging to his nonsense of "da Mets hafta break up da core" crap much like he clings to his ever-present bottle of diet soda; and just as the stat zombies cling to the Moneyball myth much like they cling to their calculators and pictures of Tina Fey, I've said again and again that Scott Kazmir should be made into a closer.

    By now, it's clear that the Rays aren't going to do it even though I believe they should. This realization gave me a moment of zen that Francesa really believes that the Mets should trade one of their star players; that the stat zombies really believe that Moneyball is reality. Like any leap of faith or baseless belief, those that feel a certain way have reasons that they believe valid no matter how ridiculous in theory and practice. 

    Kazmir was awful again last night; he's been predominately awful for much of this season----2009 GameLogs----and he's never going to have the stamina to pitch a consistent 200+ innings as a starter because of his size and power motion. He should be a closer, but the Rays aren't going to do it, so since I'm on the record with it (again and again), I may as well stop saying it.

    And another thing: after I severely strained my already damaged right shoulder patting myself on the back (among other places) about picking the Marlins to win the NL East and that they started the season at 11-1, they've been about as bad as the Padres have been as they've gone 6-18. Much of it is because they haven't hit and haven't gotten much from their starting pitching; I'd expect them to straighten out in time to hang around contention, but since that hot start, they've been atrocious.      

• Denigration over debate:
  

    As the Moneyball house of cards continues to crumble, the stat zombies have little to cling to other than pompous condescension, inaccuracy and outright denial to save face. A book with theories that haven't worked; a demagogue who's finally receiving rightful questioning on his decisions; and a niche movie that has no basis in reality are all in jeopardy as the masses finally question the validity of an inaccurate and agenda-driven portrayal.

    Anyone who saw the over-the-edge reaction to my questioning of PECOTA on April 22nd, then the somewhat grudging agreement of my post about Billy Beane on May 11th can see that the stat zombies are panicking; and one of the commenters on Big League Stew has exemplified this new phenomenon of revisionist history to "prove" the value of a calculator above anything else in building a successful team. The commenter----I'm not mentioning his name, nor quoting him and he spelled my name wrong---basically grasped at the old argument for any position that's no longer viable: "You just don't get it."

    Uh, I may wield little more than a degree from a city college, but I kinda do get that part of the Moneyball argument is finding "undervalued" players, but the essence of Moneyball isn't the building up of an argument against old scouting techniques vs sabermetrics to place both in the debate; it's the offensive abuse of people who use aspects of picking players other than just numbers to prove a point while cutting others down using borderline libel. The implication in the book is that if you don't do things the way Billy Beane does and if you aren't a stat zombie, then you're an idiot; you're a fool; you're an antiquated moron living in the past and are destined to get trampled by the army of laptop wielding, Ivy League-educated "geniuses" who are gracing baseball with their presence as they re-make the game in the way it "should" be analyzed and how that "objective analysis" should be applied.

    Citing the Red Sox as an example of how the Moneyball theory has been a success is a slippery slope to travel. Even Bill James himself has said (I'm paraphrasing from memory) that his role is to provide numerical input to GM Theo Epstein; Epstein then uses his scouts, his assistants and his own analysis to come to a conclusion of which players to pursue and how much they're worth. If you believe that every Red Sox decision consists of a Wizard of Oz-type trek to Kansas for Epstein to be granted an audience with the "wizard" himself, Bill James on what to do next, then I can't help you.

    Do you consider the following to be Moneyball decisions as you interpret them of finding "undervalued" players? Signing Julio Lugo? Abandoning the "closer-by-committee" out of necessity and overpaying for Keith Foulke? Signing J.D. Drew? 

    Lugo's been an unmitigated and overpaid disaster; the closer-by-committee idea is right in theory, but has rarely, if ever, worked in practice and they overpaid for Foulke for one year of productivity; J.D. Drew has been better than expected for the Red Sox in terms of health and post-season production, but isn't a $12 million-a-year outfielder. Then there are the moves in which luck has been smiling on the Red Sox.

    Signing David Ortiz? That was a flier they took on a player who they thought might have helped them as a part-timer; and if Yankees GM Brian Cashman had listened to George Steinbrenner, who told him to sign Ortiz when the Twins non-tendered him, there's every possibility that Ortiz would've become Big Papi in the Bronx launching homers into the right field stands rather than a Red Sox legend. Manny Ramirez? Epstein and the organization had gotten so tired of Manny's act that they tried to trade him relentlessly and even put him on waivers hoping that some team would simply take him, his contract and his quirks off their hands; they wouldn't have won those two championships without Manny. As for Foulke, I'm sure the Red Sox and their fans would sign up for paying a guy $24 million for one year to get that title, which they wouldn't have won had they continued with the folly of a closer-by-committee, so that ended up working, but you cannot sit there and say that the "valuations" of players was how the Red Sox won their titles.

    So here we are.

    Instead of a back-and-forth of ideas, we get to the point where any dissenter is either called a names or ridiculed for "not getting it". It takes some time for any theory, which is slickly and authoritatively presented as unassailable fact, to be questioned. Next we'll hear that the stat zombies are offering the rewards that come with supplication to the tenets of blind faith that you'll find in any religion from Judaism to Christianity to Islam to Scientology or anything else. 

    If you blindly acquiesce to the will of others, you become their puppet. If you deny your own beliefs to the twisted views of these salesmen and carnival barkers who try to "convert" you to their way of thinking, you subvert your own mind. It's like literary works in which certain critics darlings are called "geniuses". For what? I dunno.

    I can't get through James Joyce; I've read Norman Mailer and haven't the faintest clue as to what he's going on about; I think Philip Roth is overrated; and I'd like to dig up the bones and choke Virginia Woolf. Does that make me a philistine? Or does that make me a willing dissenter to that which others anoint as gospel? Along the line, someone decided that the above-mentioned writers were brilliant and profound, and the appellation became reality, much like Moneyball.

    It's like the Woody Allen line from the film Anything Else:

...if a guy comes out onstage at Carnegie Hall and throws up, you can always find some people who will call it art.

     There are finally people questioning the validity of the narrative of Moneyball now that it's not only failing in practice, but because the book itself was so mean-spirited and strident in it's implications. Don't expect the stat zombies to go quietly because it took so long for them to get into this position to begin with, but we see the argument as it degenerates. First it was indignation; then it was ignorance of the failures; then it was outright denial and omission out of convenience to forward their beliefs; then it's smug condescension and attacks; we're in the midst of the grudging acknowledgement in certain circles that I might be right; then it will be the open qustioning and rejection of the agenda-driven testimony and gospel of Michael Lewis. Then we'll be able to move forward; but don't think the hard core stat zombies are going to go down without a fight.

• Manny's act is wearing on his defenders:

    I've been among those who've given Manny Ramirez a pass for his quirks and anti-social behaviors because of his brilliance with the bat, but I'm slowly moving over to the Tim McCarver school of thought that Manny's act isn't "cute", but it's embarrassing and implosive to his teams. 

    The new information that's being revealed about Manny's urine test is saying that he had elevated levels of testosterone----ESPN Story. Whatever he was taking is somewhat irrelevant now that he's been suspended and hasn't denied anything other than the lukewarm alibi that he had a "medical problem", but the mere fact that Manny seems to be treating this suspension as something of a vacation as he convalesces in Florida has to be upsetting not only Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, GM Ned Colletti and manager Joe Torre, it lends credence to Manny not being a harmless space cadet who happens to be a hitting savant, but a totally selfish individual whose main interest is Manny Ramirez; the ancillary nature of those that are paying him upwards of $25 million for his services is a matter of inconvenience in the world of "Manny being Manny". 

    The linked story says that Manny will meet with Torre when the Dodgers visit the Marlins on Friday, almost a full week after owner Frank McCourt said he wanted Manny to meet with the team; it's as if Manny's in Florida anyway because that's where he's having his in-season vacation and will grace the Dodgers with his presence.

    Undoubtedly, we'll hear that Manny broke down during the team meeting and apologized, blah, blah, blah. But it's increasingly clear that Manny's main interest is Manny and the other incidents in his career are minor issues that he has to deal with as he cashes his massive paycheck. If the Dodgers fall for it, they're either selling their souls because they need Manny on the field and off, or they're buying into the "Manny being Manny" crap. It's understandable in either circumstance, but they'll need a good delousing afterwards. 

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 22

• A Jose Reyes baserunning gaffe I neglected to mention:

    In my last post, I listed the weird and outright stupid plays and decisions made during yesterday afternoon's Mets-Braves game, but I forgot about Jose Reyes's other screw up in the bottom of the seventh when he doubled with one out; Luis Castillo grounded a ball in the hole between third and short and Braves shortstop Yunel Escobar grabbed the ball and calmly threw it to Chipper Jones to get Reyes by ten feet.

• Rays 8-Orioles 6

    It's time for the Rays to pull the plug on Troy Percival as their closer. Loyalty is great; trying to get some value for a contract is great; but when a pitcher who was once a flamethrowing, blow 'em away closer isn't able to generate a fastball with much more velocity than 86 mph and doesn't alter the way he pitches, it's going to get around the league pretty quickly that he's getting by with his former reputation. The hitters will catch up to him and they are. Add in how out-of-shape Percival looks and it's time for the Rays to give Grant Balfour a chance to close. Percival's numbers aren't bad, but it's his stuff that's the problem; it's not there and if they want to get back over .500 and live up to the pre-season hype, they can't do it with mediocrity at closer potentially blowing games they should win.

• Minnesota 14-Detroit 10:

    Brett Fav-ruh, after vacillating 789 times during the summer, stunned the Minnesota crowd by charging from the tunnel wearing his familiar #4 jersey for the Vikings and threw a touchdown pass to Adrian Peterson with 3 seconds on the clock. He then promptly retired, flew back to Mississippi; unretired and returned to the Vikings; retired again, flirted with the Raiders; agreed to, then reneged on a deal to do "stuff" for the Packers for $20 million; retired then returned to the Vikings in time for the next game....blah, blah, blah.

    In all seriousness, I watched a few of Dontrelle Willis's pitches and he still looked tentative. That he only walked two is a positive; that he struck out none and allowed eight hits in 4 2/3 innings is a bad sign. 

• Reds 10-Diamondbacks 3:

    Things could unravel for the Diamondbacks as they did for the Padres last year quicker than anyone could've imagined. This is the danger when a flawed team is built on the foundation of two great starting pitchers and one gets hurt. Manager Bob Melvin has already lost his job and not A.J. Hinch nor Tony La Russa nor John McGraw could do much better managing a team that's offensively feast-or-famine and defensively heinous.

    After last night's beating at the hands of the Reds (who Dusty Baker has playing excellent ball), the D-backs have fallen to 13-22 and 1/2 game behind the Padres for the basement in the NL West; I can't imagine how bad things are going to get once Doug Davis returns to being Doug Davis (a record of 11-11; 12-14; or 10-15 if things really start to plummet); and if they don't get Webb back. Jon Garland's been pretty much what everyone could've expected from Garland given the way his career's gone----lots of hits; lots of homers; a win here; a loss there; and if things continue as they are, there won't be much point in even bringing Webb back at all this year.

    By June (or sooner), the "For Sale" sign might be posted in Phoenix. (That could be a big reason that Hinch, the former player development guy, was named manager; so he could get a first hand look at whom to keep and whom to dump.) If the Mets aren't going to have a healthy Carlos Delgado, they could use Conor Jackson; Jon Rauch and Chad Qualls would be in demand for contenders like the Yankees or Rays; and the D-Backs could probably get something for Garland, Scott Schoeneweis, Miguel Montero or Chris Snyder. Other than Dan Haren, I don't know if anyone on that roster is safe and that includes Webb if he comes back healthy.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 21

    That's 4-18 since their 9-3 start. And before anyone even thinks about blaming 2009 on former owner John Moores's divorce, do you really believe that this team would be any better if they'd had the financial maneuverability to hold onto Khalil Greene? Or Josh Bard? Or Trevor Hoffman? This mess falls on the shoulders of terrible talent recognition from the front office because the drafted players that have reached the majors from the time that Sandy Alderson took over in 2005 as organizational czar are the following:

Chase Headley-a switch-hitter with good power/on-base potential.

Nick Hundley-a platoon/backup catcher at best.

Josh Geer-a soft-tossing righty who's gotten by fooling hitters in the minors; that won't happen in the majors for long.

Wade LeBlanc-currently getting shelled in Triple A.

Matt Antonelli-an infielder just activated from the disabled list with knee discomfort in Triple A.

    And that's it. If the Padres had some prospects to play, they could pull a similar move as the Marlins have done for years and let them play in the big leagues; but they don't. Instead, they're using veteran minor league journeymen like Edgar Gonzalez, Luis Rodriguez and Edward Mujica; and shot big leaguers barely hanging on in David Eckstein and Duaner Sanchez. Does anyone wonder why this organization is a train wreck?

    Don't anyone dare defend them.

• Viewer Mail 5.14.2009:

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE Sarah Palin:

Did you read that Palin got a book deal? Life is not fair.

    We can safely assume three things from this bit of news: A) Gov. Palin's not gonna write it; B) Gov. Palin's not gonna read it; and C) Gov. Palin had better get herself a damn good ghostwriter.

• Braves 8-Mets 7:

    I went to the Mets-Braves game today at Citi Field and it was a bizarre game all the way around. The Mets, as has become customary, cost themselves a chance to win the game because of laziness and poor fundamentals. Braves manager Bobby Cox clearly has no confidence whatsoever in starter Jo-Jo Reyes; and his late inning strategic decisions weren't just head-scratchers, they were inexplicable; and Gary Sheffield is heating up for the Mets.

    In chronoligical order, Bobby Cox yanked starter Jo-Jo Reyes in the fourth inning of a game he was leading 4-2 after he'd loaded the bases with no one out; then the reliever Buddy Carlyle allowed a grand slam to Fernando Tatis. Now, Jo-Jo Reyes isn't a very good pitcher and it's quite possible that he would've given up a crooked number had he been left in the game to pitch, but yanking a guy with a 4-2 lead after he'd retired the side in order in the second and third? Just because the bases were loaded? In the fourth inning? If Cox thinks so little of Reyes, he shouldn't even be in the rotation, especially with Tommy Hanson pitching so well at Triple A Gwinnett. Cox was spoiled for all those years with Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and John Smoltz and their stuff and dogged ability to wriggle out of trouble to the point that anyone else is automatically expected to be terrible by comparison that they never even get a chance to fail. They'll never learn to extricate themselves from tough spots if he sports such a quick hook. For a second, I thought it was a playoff game; and it wasn't as if Reyes's replacement did any better than the worst thing that Reyes could've done; Carlyle gave up a grand slam anyway.

    In the bottom of the sixth, Cox yanked Carlyle and inserted lefty specialist Eric O'Flaherty to pitch to...two righties leading off the inning for the Mets, Fernando Tatis and Ramon Castro. Tatis singled and Castro grounded into a double play; Ryan Church struck out, so the decision worked out and in all fairness, Cox has been using O'Flaherty against both lefties and righties and he's pitched well, but here are the problems: O'Flaherty has historically gotten pummeled by righties and his success this season is likely short-lived; Carlyle was scheduled to lead off the top of the seventh, so there was no reason to take him out especially with two righties coming up. The decision made no sense strategically or logistically.

    In the top of the seventh, with the Mets leading 6-5, David Wright, for some unfathomable reason, hopped up in the air as a ground ball (and potential double play) hit by Yunel Escobar rolled right between his legs as he was in mid-hop; then the runner at first, Omar Infante, went from first to third and Escobar, somehow made it to second on the play; presumably because he was busting it out of the box and knew that left fielder Sheffield wasn't going to be expecting him to try and make it to second. In an inning from which pitcher Bobby Parnell should've emerged unscored upon, the Braves tied the score at six.

    Leading off the top of the eighth, Martin Prado (he's a really good player) doubled off of J.J. Putz; David Ross popped up a bunt for one out; Kelly Johnson, batting for Jordan Schafer, doubled home Prado. Brian McCann had been in the on deck circle to hit for Peter Moylan, but once the Braves got the lead, Cox let Moylan hit; presumably the only reasons to do such a thing were to either leave Moylan in the game to pitch the bottom of the inning or to bunt the runner to third base for leadoff hitter Omar Infante. But Moylan never squared to bunt. He swung the bat a few times, fouled off a couple of pitches, went to 3-2 and eventually struck out...then Cox took him out of the game in favor of Rafael Soriano, who allowed a game-tying homer to Sheffield. There are several instances of "uh, why?" here. Why have Moylan bat if he's not bunting; then why have him bat if he's not going to go back out and pitch?

    Then, in the twelfth inning, after the Braves had taken an 8-7 lead on Prado's homer, Mets shortstop Jose Reyes hit the ball deep to left field. It looked like it was going out and Reyes was into his home run trot...but the ball hit the top of the wall and Reyes barely made it to second base for a double. Luis Castillo bunted him to third and that's where he stayed until the game ended. He probably couldn't have gotten a triple on the play, but that's not the point, this was another instance of the Mets horrible fundamentals and relentless showboating costing them the opportunity to win games. It's enough already.

    I honestly don't know what to do with Reyes other than tell him that if he does it again, he's gonna sit. I'm sure he's been spoken to about it, but the talks aren't sinking in to his head. Manager Jerry Manuel disciplined Reyes last year and he responded, it's time to do it again; and no more of this tantrum, holding his breath until he turns blue bullshit he pulled with Willie Randolph when Randolph benched him for lack of hustle; he's not the hot shot, 19-year-old prospect anymore; he's about to turn 26; he's considered a star player; it's time to grow up; and if the Mets bring up Fernando Martinez anytime this year, they're going to need Reyes to mentor him and teach him to play the game correctly and the way Reyes currently plays ain't it.

    As for Sheffield, I keep hearing these idiots calling into talk radio saying "he's gotta go!!!", but he's starting to get his swing back and what these fools don't realize is that even though Sheffield is shaky defensively (he made a nice play catching a long fly today), he's no worse out there than Daniel Murphy; and with his batting average----which is hovering under .200----he still walks enough to have around a .350 on base percentage. Isn't it an advantage to have a part-time veteran like Sheffield who can hit the ball out of the park and/or get on base when needed? And who's supposed to replace him? The Mets are only paying him $400,000 of his $14 million salary this year; anything they get from him is cake.

    This was a weird game. 

• Michael Kay is a buffoon:

    Driving home, I didn't want to hear the recap of the Mets game, so I listened to Michael Kay on ESPN Radio. Kay was ridiculing Reyes (with good reason) for his lackadaisical play and then had Peter Gammons on as a guest. After going through the Mets, Ryan Zimmerman and Roger Clemens, they discussed the Yankees. Kay, a Yankee apologist, was subtly trying to get Gammons to validate his hopes that the Yankees would steer out of their tailspin.

    Gammons believes----probably accurately----that the Yankees pitching is too good to continue stumbling as they are, but Kay went on and on with the oft-repeated alibis of how many games the Yankees injuries to the likes of Jorge Posada, Alex Rodriguez, Chien-Ming Wang; Brian Bruney, Hideki Matsui, etc. have cost them as an excuse for their 15-17 record as of this writing.

    Injuries are a reason for some of the Yankees problems, but a team with a $200 million payroll has no business using them as an excuse. A $200 million payroll should ensure a quality bench and at least serviceable rotation help. The Red Sox have had almost as many injury problems as the Yankees this year and last, but you don't hear them bitching about it; all they do is pick up for one another, hang in there and win; but it's as if the Yankees apologists like Kay can't come out and say the obvious: this team under Joe Girardi hasn't shown the fortitude that the Yankees under Joe Torre did during their dynasty. Those teams didn't whine; they didn't complain; they did their jobs confident that the replacement for the injured player would fill the spot adequately and the other stars would pick up the slack. If anyone's looking for a reason the Yankees issues, injuries may not be the problem, whining and lamenting their fate might be.   

• Common ground:

    The one thing that shocked me more than anything about the quote and link that Baseball Think Factory generously placed on their site for my posting about Billy Beane was how many of the commenters (somewhat begrudgingly) agreed with the basic premise of my argument that Moneyball has allowed Beane more leeway than another GM would get after making similar gaffes. It all adds to the growing evidence that the twisted narrative of Moneyball has done just as much damage as it has brought to light the importance of statistical analysis.

    Just look at the way the book callously denigrated Art Howe, Ken Williams and Steve Phillips (among others) by steamrolling them for the expediency to meet the hypotheis of writer Michael Lewis; and ballooned expectations for the likes of Paul DePodesta; J.P. Ricciardi; draftees Jeremy Brown, Nick Swisher and Mark Teahen (again, among others); and for Beane himself creating impossible standards to meet. 

    After the reaction of my posting entitled Pecota Schmecota on April 22nd----in which the stat geeks/zombies wanted to have me drawn and quartered for my heresy----that they would agree with me (again begrudgingly) about anything indicates the possibility for a peace treaty. Such a peace treaty would of course mean that they agree to become part of my army bent on world domination, which I would lead benevolently, but it's something to build on.

    Every army needs troops and if I can get the stat geeks to join with me, it would be similar to those that joined the Christian evangelicals who blindly voted for George W. Bush because he claimed to be a Christian. That they knew nothing about him other than that (some would say bogus) claim of piety didn't enter into the equation; he said he believed what they believed and that was enough to vote for someone whose main qualification for leadership was his politically expedient last name and this gave him a guaranteed bloc of voters before even uttering one mispronounced word. We're seeing the same thing with the support Gov. Sarah Palin is receiving despite the increasing evidence that she's a borderline imbecile.

    Is it asking too much for the stat geeks to enter into negotiations between the Prince, his current band of loyal followers Jeff (capo), Jane (consigliere), Gabriel (soldier), the occasionally recalcitrant Joe (always teetering on getting whacked), and the other loyalists in following me? Am I being Pollyanna? I hope not. Give peace a chance!

*Note: I was also linked and quoted by 'Duk on Big League Stew on Yahoo.com, for which I'd like to say thanks.

• The Mets lack of fundamentals:

    Is it me or do the Mets have a history (that I can remember going back to the Davey Johnson days of the 80s) of being fundamentally hideous? Aside from 2006, when Willie Randolph had them playing excellent baseball the right way for most of the season, they get thrown out on the bases and at the plate so frequently, it's got to cost them at least 20-30 runs a year.

    Last night alone, David Wright got thrown out at the plate on a fly ball that should've been deep enough for him to score and after Jordan Schafer made an off-line throw that Brian McCann had to catch on the first base side of the plate and reach back to tag Wright; then in the eighth inning, Jose Reyes inexplicably got thrown out at third base trying to stretch a double into a triple. Reyes: A) could've stolen third sometime during Alex Cora's at bat, and B) isn't any closer to scoring from second than he is from third on a base hit. 

    There's no excuse for it and it costs them games even though they managed to win last night.

• Phillies 5-Dodgers 3:

    I've just about had my fill of people claiming that in the long run the Dodgers are going to be better off because of Manny Ramirez's 50-game suspension. The arguments (the Dodgers are saving a chunk of his salary and will be able to deal for expensive help at mid-season because of that; Manny will be rested for the remainder of the season when he gets back; they've built up a big lead in a terrible division with their hot start; blah, blah, blah) are nonsense.

    If they had a ten game lead, then maybe the "big lead" argument would be valid, but they're 3 games ahead of the Giants and have been stumbling since Manny's been gone. He's the glue in that lineup and without him, they're right back among the rabble in the parity-laden NL. Plus, their starting pitching ain't that great to begin with and their bullpen is already being overused by manager Joe Torre. They'll still be in contention without Manny, but to say that their playoff position is safe without their best hitter for 50 games is ridiculous.

    A question: Why does Russell Martin have "J. Martin" on the back of his jersey? Does anyone know?

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 20
• Cubs 6-Padres 2:

    I'll ask again: if the Padres aren't going to win the games that Jake Peavy pitches, which games are they going to win? They could conceivably be worse than my predicted record of 56-106, which after a 9-3 start is almost unbelievable.     

• THE RYAN ZIMMERMAN HITSTREAKOMETER:  30

• Baseball Think Factory linked me again for yesterday's Billy Beane post:

    It's amazing: A) how much traffic is drummed up; and B) the intense reactions my postings get when they're up there. I think it's great; the more the merrier. 

    I didn't read all of the comments, but the ones I glanced at counted up Billy Beane's very good record as A's GM (although that really wasn't the point); mentioned that the Brewers 18-14 record isn't "stunning", but it is stunning if you look at their starting rotation and that they started the season at 3-8; and that Beane has been criticized for his foibles. This is probably true, but he's gotten more of a pass than other GMs would've been allowed based on little more than that book.

    The main point is this: if someone's going to be anointed as a "genius", they can't be making such gaffes (even if they're low-cost gaffes) as Nomar Garciaparra when anyone who's seen Nomar----over the past two years at least and past five years at most----should know that there was either some chemical assistance to his massive numbers or he's completely fallen off a cliff. Besides that, Beane isn't, nor has he ever been, married to the way the Moneyball narrative is presented. He tries different things to see if they work and it just so happens that his aggressive attempts to upgrade the offense for 2009 and reliance on young pitchers hasn't worked for 2009 yet, but he's still a sacred cow to the stat geeks and it's not fair.

• The Nats are getting attention for something good for a change:

    In case anyone hasn't heard about it yet, Ryan Zimmerman has a 29-game hitting streak. The Nationals have been the butt of jokes because of their bad play and former GM Jim Bowden's penchant for bringing in juvenile delinquents, but he was also the one who drafted Zimmerman, so that's a positive. ESPN will probably start breaking into programming to broadcast Zimmerman's at bats until he extends the streak and the press will be chasing after him; we'll see if he can continue the streak under those circumstances.

• Jeff Francoeur's hitting "style":

• Viewer Mail 5.12.2009:

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes:

Nice pix of you at the park!

    Yes. I am fantastic. I've got some pics of me at the racetrack losing my money on slow horses coming up soon.

Gabriel at rock_bard@hotmail.com writes RE Billy Beane and the Blue Jays:

I agree with you. Maybe Billy Beane hasn't got enough criticism because his personality, or maybe just because he's to Moneyball what Bill James is to stat geeks, and in the modern state of baseball, that is considered as perjury and you're an idiot if you ever doubt the commandments (like "Thou Shall Rank Ballplayers Based On OPS+"). On another subject, I think the upcoming series against the Yankees is what's going to define the experts opinion on the Blue Jays. I believe that if they continue hitting, they might not win like they're right now, but they can be serious contenders even in that tough division.

    Gabriel you are clearly not a zombie. I'm not sure about Jane though; there are conflicting symptoms. She's not a stat geek, but she is a Yankee fan and writes chick lit, but unlike most writers of chick lit, she can actually write; and unlike a chunk of Yankee fans, she's rational and humble. Hmmmm. I suspend diagnosis for the moment.

    As for the Yankees-Blue Jays series, the way the Yankees are playing and how injury-riddled they are, it's hard for it to be an evenhanded gauge on the Blue Jays prospects. The Yankees pitching staff is set for the series, so if the Blue Jays handle Burnett and Sabathia, they're going to start getting credit for the way they're playing. The Red Sox series will be a clearer indication of the future for the Blue Jays. 

    It just so happens that there's an article about the Blue Jays in today's NY Times. Even the Blue Jays front office, specifically GM J.P. Ricciardi, are pleasantly surprised at how they've gotten out of the gate even with the injuries to the pitching staff. I have to say, I kinda like Ricciardi. He's got a rotten temper; he speaks his mind sometimes to his detriment; he's a survivor; and he's not coming up with similar bullshit that we'd hear from Sandy Alderson or Paul DePodesta if the Padres had gotten off to a similar start as the Blue Jays.

    Those guys would be separating their shoulders as they patted themselves on the back as they came up with validation for themselves along the lines of: "Well, we knew the numbers were such that if we got the maximized performance from..." blah, blah, blah. Then it would degenerate (for me anyway) into the horn sounds the adults from Peanuts used to make. Ricciardi has credited the different, more aggressive plate approach advocated by manager Cito Gaston and coach Gene Tenace for the Blue Jays hot start and hasn't stuck to his own notions at the expense of the reality of what's working. Part of it is Ricciardi trying to keep his job, but so what? At least he's being honest.

• The Athletics were expected to contend, but...

    Just as there are teams like the Indians and Diamondbacks that were projected as contenders, but have gotten off to starts that promote onlookers to say, "they may not be as good as I thought, but they're not as bad as this", there are other teams----the Blue Jays and Royals----that weren't expected to be very good, but have gotten off to starts varying between solid and excellent. The Athletics made some serious upgrades to their offense and bullpen in the off season and are currently 11-18.

    They may only be 5 games out of first place, it would be inaccurate to call them contenders with their starting pitching as young and inexperienced as it is and their offense terrible thus far. With the way their moves haven't worked, I have to wonder when GM/genius Billy Beane is going to be criticized for his faults rather than continually feted for being brilliant based on little more than Moneyball.

    I've been guilty of this myself. While I've unloaded on the narrative of the book as being twisted, agenda-driven and a failure if it's followed to the letter, I've still called Beane a genius and given him a pass because of his adaptation to his circumstances and that he doesn't run his team as detailed in the book. Those that have run their teams as detailed in the book----specifically the Dodgers under Paul DePodesta and the Padres under Sandy Alderson----have been historic train wrecks. J.P. Ricciardi is now enjoying unexpected success with the Blue Jays because, as an act of self-preservation, he's allowed a manager he didn't even really want in Cito Gaston to run the team on the field without overbearing interference from above. And what of the Athletics of 2009?

    The trade for Matt Holliday was a surprise roll of the dice that Holliday would be able to hit nearly as effectively in a pitcher's park in Oakland as he did in Colorado and that his impending free agency would yield a big offensive year. Holliday's been clueless at the plate so far, but he's still a very good hitter, so I'd expect him to start hitting eventually and have solid, end-of-year numbers. As for the other acquisitions to improve the offense, they were either desperation maneuvers, clutching at past glory days or opportunistically inexpensive veteran signees. It's mid-May and they haven't worked.

    Jason Giambi has done nothing at the plate and even though he's a notoriously slow starter, his age and physical decline will trump his keen batting eye one day and that day could be happening right now. Orlando Cabrera was a worthwhile gamble for one year, but he's batting .223 with three extra base hits; Nomar Garciaparra's signing made no sense whatsoever since his decline has been ongoing since 2004 with one comeback season in 2006; and key youngsters----Ryan Sweeney and Travis Buck----who were needed to at least be serviceable, haven't hit at all. Then there's the contract (now a sunk cost) doled out to their own player, Eric Chavez, that still has over $26 million guaranteed through 2011; Chavez looks about finished at 31.

    The starting pitching has been good enough to have a better team record than 11-18; and the diverse, veteran bullpen's been very good, but both have been sabotaged by that atrocious offense which was built by Beane's sudden spending spree on veterans and his reliance on Moneyball tenets. Losing Justin Duchscherer from the starting rotation has greatly affected the A's because they miss the veteran presence and solid performance from last season that made him an All Star; but they've gotten nothing from Dana Eveland (he was sent to the minors last week); and the other young starters can't be counted on to carry a weak hitting club the whole year; so if they don't start hitting, they're not going to be able to account for the inevitable struggles a young starting pitching staff will endure. 

    Much is made of Beane's running the entire show from his executive box, and while he's been quick to dispatch managers who were declared fungible to the team's success, in case anyone hadn't noticed, Ken Macha is doing a brilliant job with the Brewers as he's steered them to a stunning 18-14 record. Beane's gotten by for years with his slick talk; his forceful personality; his adherence to ruthless and rapid decisionmaking; and that book which is a validation of the stat geek (except, IT HASN'T WORKED!!!!!!!); but eventually someone has to look at the Athletics bottom line----and I don't mean how much money the organization's making because of Beane's skill at manipulating payroll----I mean wins and losses and come to a different conclusion than the one that's currently out there of no criticism, ever, for the genius Billy Beane.

    People are quick to ridicule other executives whose clubs have failed on the field as they've made head-scratching personnel decisions that are based on aspects other than numbers, but there's a reluctance to criticize Beane either because of Moneyball or that they're afraid to experience his wrath. The results are what they are and the results of the Oakland Athletics on May 11th----11-18 and last place in their division----are exactly as they appear; and there's no way to dress that up and make it presentable.

• The Red Sox wanted solid play from Jason Bay and got an MVP candidate:

    I can't imagine that the Red Sox expected Jason Bay to handle the aura of replacing Manny Ramirez; joining a contending club for the first time in his career; and his upcoming free agency the way he has. They probably expected a cog in the machine who would hit for some power; get on base; play better, more engaged defense; and quietly go about his business. Instead, they've got themselves an MVP candidate.

    There are two ways to go for a player who's been playing in an obscure locale while putting up excellent numbers when he's traded to a media fishbowl and and expected championship contender: they can fall flat on their faces or they can rise to the occasion; and Bay's risen to the occasion and more. (Erik Bedard is an example of a player who can't perform when anything of teamwide consequence is expected from him.) Bay's playoff performance last season----3 homers; 9 RBI; a .341 batting average; and .471 OBP----showed him as a guy who was let out of his Pittburgh cage and went nuts (in a good way) with his freedom. Now he's accounting for the slumping David Ortiz with his clutch power hitting and is showing himself to be much more than what anyone could've reasonably expected. 

    With Bay's understated manner, his quiet competitiveness and handling of the Boston pressure is a bit of a surprise. His solid all-around play and power hitting is exactly what the Red Sox have needed and he's on the way to earning himself a lot of money in the last year of his contract and making the dumping of the now suspended Manny Ramirez into another notch in the belt of Theo Epstein and the Red Sox.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 19
• A confession:

    I have to admit that the hot starts of the Padres and Pirates gave me bewildered pause after I made my pre-season predictions of the Padres going 56-106 and the Pirates going 64-98. The Padres (9-3 after 12 games); and the Pirates (11-7 after 18 games) have settled into their daily bouts of losing.

    The Padres are what they are and even though there are still voices saying they won't be as bad as expected (yah, right!!), they could actually be worse; the Pirates young pitching is quite impressive even though they can't hit; but after watching John Russell run the club on the field and the way the front office has been re-enacting a skit from The Three Stooges since they took over, the credit they received after that 11-7 start was obviously an overenthusiastic response to a team playing over their heads. Losing 12 of 13 is about as bad as it can get...so far.  

• The Zen of Bobby V:

    I watched a big chunk of the documentary about former Mets manager Bobby Valentine as he manages the Chiba Lotte Marines in Japan and came away realizing what a piece of work Valentine is and understanding why he's only going to get another big league managing job in an absolutely perfect situation to deal with the complicated personality that is Bobby Valentine. 

    The film shows Valentine climbing Mount Fuji; explaining to his understanding and patient (and very attractive) wife why game results affect him so deeply; throwing tantrums when his team slumps; speaking of his baseball philosophy; and signing autographs for adoring fans. 

    Valentine's personality shines through in the documentary. He has learned enough Japanese (he says) to communicate, but I tend to believe that his Japanese is better than he lets on although he does use a translator to communicate intricacies to his team; and he ignores rules and regulations that he believes are wrong or stupid such as those regulating Japanese amateur drafting, which he flouts and stickhandles his way around to try and develop more players.

    What's also clear is how difficult a person Valentine is and why he's going to get another big league North American managerial job if: A) the team hiring him has a secure and/or desperate general manager who won't be threatened by Valentine's assertiveness and/or needs Valentine to try and save his own neck; B) is willing to pay him the money he wants (he'll want a lot); C) can deal with the inevitable controversies that arise when Valentine speaks his mind to the players or media with his jagged comments; D) accepts his stridency on and off the field in exchange for his managerial genius and overt arrogance; and E) can convince prospective free agents and trade acquisitions that Valentine isn't impossible to play for. 

    The movie itself is a fascinating study of a different kind of baseball man who either inspires intense reciprocal loyalty between himself and players he believes in, or outright loathing for those who can't stomach any part of Valentine's personality. I'd love to see him come back to the states to manage again because baseball can use a guy like him to jazz things up in an era of strategic ineptitude and dreary personalities.

• Brewers 12-Cubs 6:

    No one's paid much attention to them, but after a 3-8 start, the Brewers have won 15 of 20 and are right around the top of the NL Central a game behind the Cardinals. Their ability to hit and score was well-known before the season, but their questions were in their starting rotation and bullpen and both have performed well enough to stay competitive and more. 

    Only time will tell if the back of the starting rotation will be able to maintain their workmanlike performance, but they have an burgeoning ace/Cy Young Award contender in Yovani Gallardo at the top, so they'll at least be able to expect a good performance when he pitches; the rest of the rotation has journeyman names like Jeff Suppan and Braden Looper, but with their offense, no one's asking them to be the 90s Braves; just keep the team in the game until they can outslug the opponents. Trevor Hoffman's been great so far and the rest of the bullpen----Seth McClung, Todd Coffey, Mitch Stetter and Carlos Villanueva----have been solid enough to compete. 

    After losing both C.C. Sabathia and Ben Sheets from last year's Wild Card winning team, the Brewers were expected to struggle, but the rotation's held it's own and the bullpen is much better this year than they were last year with the arsonists Eric Gagne, Guillermo Mota and Salomon Torres from 2008. Unless the Cubs right themselves and play up to their potential, the division could be up for grabs and there's no reason that the Brewers can't hang around for the duration if they keep doing what they're doing.

• Tigers 4-Indians 0:

    A team with the pitching staff of the Indians----full of reclamation projects and stumbling starters----can't function if they don't score. I still believe they're going to right themselves in time to make a run in that rotten division, but Fausto Carmona's mechanics look totally out of whack. I remember him pausing to load when he lifts his leg; he appears to be rushing his delivery, and this will reduce the late sinking action and pop on his fastball because he's not getting on top of his pitches with enough leverage; and it could also be affecting his control, which has been horrendous so far this year. 

• Nationals 2-Diamondbacks 1:

    So, has losing three straight games to the two worst teams in the big leagues clued the Diamondbacks in to the fact that it may not have been Bob Melvin's fault that they're 12-19? 

    If your lineup is feast or famine; your defense is hideous; you've lost one of the top five pitchers in baseball (Brandon Webb) and are a team built on having two of the top eight or nine pitchers in baseball (Webb and Dan Haren); how could you expect to compete with these factors hindering you and blame the manager to boot?

• Viewer Mail 5.10.2009:

David at d@csupomona.edu writes:

Prince: I had to do a double-take when I saw your pictures from Citi Field. That guy with the hat on cannot possibly be the same guy in the picture sitting down with a drink in his hand. But in regards to baseball talk: I saw earlier that you predicted the Yankees to win the World Series, but in my opinion, their lack of quality and consistent pitching is going to be their downfall....again. A-rod or not, do you foresee another Yankees-less Playoffs, especially with how well the Jays, sox, and soon-to-be good again Rays are doing?

....oh, and on top of that, if the Yanks do continue this trend, how long do you think it will take before Girardi gets the axe?

    Dunno if this is good or bad(?!?) The differences in appearance can be attributed to several things: in the pic with the drink my hair was boy-band long and curly and I was in a darkened bar plotting my schemes; I've grown a beard; and, most importantly, it's all part of the duality of the Sith and the shadowy necessity of immersing oneself in the dark side. The guy with the drink was probably closer to reality than the gentle, harmless pussy I appear to be in the pics with the really cute, blonde fiancee. It's all part of a plan for world domination. (Keep it to yourself.)

    With the Yankees, I did pick them to win the World Series and they've been dealing with some borderline catastrophic injuries, but that's no excuse for the way they're playing. If a team with that lineup (even without Jorge Posada) can't do any better than what they did last night against Adam Eaton at a hitter's heaven like Camden Yards, they've got a big problem. It's a dicey thing to determine whether a team's injuries are an excuse or a reason.

    Eventually, their record has to be taken for what it is; and if the season's going down the toilet, they can't sit by and stick to the plan of moving forward with a younger, Brian Cashman-hand- picked manager if they're starting at empty seats in the new ballpark by mid-summer. The Blue Jays haven't played anyone good enough to get a gauge on whether they're for real or not (I'd say they're not); I had the Rays at 82-80, so I don't know that they'll be contending either; and the Red Sox will be there. By June, if the Yankees are still wandering aimlessly along, some changes are going to have to be made.

    Is it Girardi's overt fault? No. But he and pitching coach Dave Eiland were hired to have a better rapport and teaching style with the youngsters than Joe Torre, Ron Guidry, et al, and that just hasn't happened; the injuries were supposed to be avoided by a more strenuous spring trainging camp and that hasn't worked either; so just as he received too much credit for the organizational accomplishments of the Marlins when he managed them to 78 wins in 2006 (and got fired anyway after winning Manager of the Year), he'll get the blame if the Yankees stagger continues and it's the nature of the job that the manager gets the blame if things don't work.

    This isn't Kansas City, Pittsburgh or Florida where the moderate interest and low expectations are acceptable and allow a team to let their manager learn on the job. The Yankees have a new stadium, a terrible economy and a $200 million payroll; the manager takes the fall for that if expectations aren't met. The injuries have saved Girardi so far, but they won't save him forever.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 18
  

• Yankees 4-Orioles 0:

    Say what you want about Alex Rodriguez, but he has a flair for the dramatic on and off the field.

    I was at the Mets game last night (first trip to Citi Field; pictures are down below) and we saw the 3 spot go up in the first inning for the Yankees on the out of town scoreboard; there was a murmur that ARod had homered, but I couldn't get the web on my cellphone to confirm it, but it was believable and typical.

    Everyone's dumping on the guy; in the spring we heard brainless idiots suggesting that the Yankees would be better off without the best pure talent in baseball, drugs or not; and as the team stumbled out of the gate with other injuries, the realization hit and we suddenly heard the acknowledgment, "Hey, maybe we do need ARod."

    That book by Selena Roberts came out last week and while it's at the top of the baseball and sports bestseller lists, it's ranked #194 on Amazon.com and it doesn't appear to be generating the sales that a book that was pushed up in publication amid a series of ongoing scandals of a major public figure would warrant; and it's clear that the Yankees needed ARod's presence and bat, warts and all. He takes the pressure off of Mark Teixeira; he can account for the absence of Jorge Posada and day-to-day availability/unavailability of Hideki Matsui; and he changes the entire lineup just by being there and being ARod.

    Starting his season by ripping the first pitch he saw out of the ballpark is an exclamation point for what might end up being a defining season for Alex Rodriguez as he's being relied upon to save the Yankees; he clearly doesn't care about the Roberts book or has at least accepted that there's little he can do about it; has learned his lessons from Madonna well in making public statements about which their reception----positive or negative----are irrelevant; and it was a pretty good way to let everyone know that he's still a force who can carry a team on his back when necessary.

• Mets 7-Pirates 3:

    That outfield is a massive; and eventually, Jose Reyes is going to hit a ball into the right field corner which will be bouncing around for so long that he'll have circled the bases and be sitting in the dugout by the time they get the ball back to the infield, or he'll be able to circle the bases twice (can they have two runs for that?).

    As for the game, here's a question for Pirates manager John Russell: Do you know what you're doing?

    Here's the situation: the score's tied at 2 with the bottom of the lineup due up in the top of the seventh inning; eighth place hitter Brian Bixler doubles off the center field wall to lead off; pitcher Jeff Karstens is due up; instead of having Karstens hit, Russell pinch hits Delwyn Young; Young struck out; Nyjer Morgan was then hit by a pitch; Freddy Sanchez flew out to left field; Ken Takahashi relieved Sean Green for the Mets and got Nate McLouth to ground to first on one pitch. 

    Quick quiz----which is the better strategy? Do you: A) replicate what Russell did? B) leave Karstens in to bunt and not waste a bat in Young that you could use later? or C) send up a starting pitcher who is a better bunter than Karstens and, if he doesn't get the bunt down, can handle the bat well enough so there's a moment's hesitation before the infielders charging all out at the corners? or D) come up with something else?

    I would've chosen either B or C and absolutely not have wasted Young pinch hitting for the pitcher. If Russell didn't trust Karstens to get the bunt down, Zach Duke handles the bat well enough as does Ian Snell. He had options to bunt the runner over for the top of the lineup to try to get the run in and take the lead. Last night aside, the Pirates bullpen's been pretty good; why not try and get the lead when the opportunity presented itself rather than play so aggressively and do what Russell did? It made no sense. (For a second, I thought that he was going to have Young pinch hit for Karstens and try to bunt; then I really would've started screaming.) It was a dumb move all the way around.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 17
• Astros 2-Padres 0:

    Did the stat geeks show any love for Wandy Rodriguez? I'm not being a smartass; it's a legit question because I really don't know. It's nice to know that my eyes are still occasionally correct (at least so far); here's what I wrote about Rodriguez in my book:

I may be in the minority, but I think Wandy Rodriguez has the stuff to be a 13-16 game winner in the big leagues. Rodriguez went 9-7 in 25 starts and had a solid strikeout/walk ratio and allowed 136 hits in 137 innings. Rodriguez has to stay healthy and he’s going to be 30 this year, so it’s about put up or shut up time.

• Pics from Citi Field:

    The cap was pulled down low.

    The sunglasses were on.

    The tae kwon do and krav maga of the fiancee were prepared to uncoil for the protection of the Prince.

    I ventured to Citi Field for the first time last night.

    Photographs of the momentous even follow (click on them if you wanna see my beautiful awesomeness up close):

     We wandered out to the outfield to have a look at the Shake Shake and all the stuff that's supposedly out there; the lines for Shake Shack were way too long to even think about getting anything there; but the sightlines from the outfield were stunningly close. Parking was a pain in the ass because the main parking lots were all blocked off and we had to park in a lot across from the stadium under the train station; that wouldn't have been that big a deal had they made clear that that's what we had to do. I drove up Roosevelt Avenue until I got a chance to turn and head back because the lot was on the other side of the street from the original direction I was heading (if this makes any sense). Overall though, they did a great job with the ballpark. 

• There are two possible reasons that Manny Ramirez was taking hCG----pick the one that makes the most sense to you and run with it:

Isaac_lothor@hotmail.com writes:

I might believe manny's story, because I dont think the thought manny not consuming PED's in the past five years and consuming them now, when the tests are probably more frequent than ever, makes much sense. I think he would have to be stupid to do that, and if he IS stupid, then it is completely fair to say he didnt know what he was getting into his body, so I really don't see how assuming manny is guilty makes sense. IM not saying he's innocent, Im just saying we really dont know. Could you explain a little bit why you disagree with me?. I have no intention to insult or offend, I just want to understand you point of view.

    The following excerpt is from the extreme diet book for bodybuilders Body Opus by the late Dan Duchaine:

HCG is an injectable fertility drug. Its primary use is to induce ovulation. In men, HCG has been used as an adjunct to anabolic steroid use (either concurrently or consecutively) to normalize testosterone secretion.

HCG is not an estrogen antagonist; in fact, HCG will raise estrogen in men through higher gonadal estrogen secretion. Even optimal doses of HCG will not raise testosterone measurably in older men.

    Basically, there are two reasons for someone to be taking hCG. One, if they're trying to get pregnant; two, if they're coming off of steroids and trying to regulate their testosterone after using steroids.

    Now, Manny's a space cadet, but I find it hard to believe that he's so far out of it that he'd like to try and get pregnant or would be willing to take part in some deranged scientist's experiment to create the best hitting, pregnant man in the history of baseball. Or possibly, Manny really is from outer space and has dual reproductive organs, but his long term residency on our small planet has made necessary the use of such medications to be able to breed and create more little Mannys to further the plan to dominate the universe. 

    Obviously Manny was juicing and obviously, he's been busted with circumstantial evidence due to other drugs he was taking to account for his past use of PEDs. One thing I'm curious about with the MLB testing program is if they test in the off-season. Do they go and find the players no matter where they are and try to test them in December, January, February? I can't imagine that they do; if a player is on vacation or just refuses to see anyone to be tested, I don't know what baseball can do about it; it's not the NFL with their weak players association; there are limits to what MLB's Players Association is going to tolerate as far as invading the space of the players in the off season especially if they're free agents as Manny was.

    So, what's to stop a player like Manny----who was technically not even an MLB employee from the time of his filing for free agency until he signed with the Dodgers during spring training----from using all the steroids he wants from November until January, secure in the knowledge that no one's got a right to test him because he doesn't draw a salary from any team? 

    As for the idea that Manny "passed" a bunch of drug tests before this (which technically wasn't a failed test, just some irregularities in his urine tests that led to further investigation----NY Times Story) the testing procedures have been labeled as ludicrous by the stories of players being notified of the tests before they were administered; just as there are so many smart people formulating new, more difficult to detect PEDs even as we speak, they're also finding ways to mask the drugs they create. If Manny knew of the tests beforehand, you can bet that they found a way to beat them; and just as Alex Rodriguez was busted and reported to have failed a test in 2003, we don't know who else was on that list because the names haven't been reported. Supposedly, there were over 100 other players who failed and unless they release the names, we can safely assume that it's a pretty good shot that Manny was on that list as well with this new information.

• Diamondbacks fire Bob Melvin:

    If the Diamondbacks are making a change because they feel a change needs to be made, then fine; but if they're trying to pawn their club's failure on Bob Melvin, it's a blame game that's absurd. Is it his fault that the club----beset by injuries and trying to develop very young or very limited players and simulteneously contend----has flopped around for most of the last year? He writes the names on the lineup card, uses the right pitchers in the right situations and if it doesn't work, takes the fall and loses his job. Melvin may be vanilla; he may not be the guy to come charging into the clubhouse and flip the food table and start screaming at his players to get their attention; but he's a solid strategic manager and calm, steady person to let the young players play the game without being petrified of the guy in charge.

    Melvin's going to get another opportunity because he's a "oh, yeah; him" type who executives think of when they've been stymied in their other choices for a manager for one reason or another. People forget that the only reason Melvin wound up as the Diamondbacks manager was because Wally Backman's personal problems forced the club to dismiss him days after hiring him. Melvin was the second choice and turned around a club that had lost 111 games the year prior to his arrival. He also dealt with a difficult situation in his previous job managing the Mariners as he led Lou Piniella's players to 93 wins in his first year in 2003 and had to endure the entire team collapsing all at once in 2004.

    Diamondbacks Vice President for player development A.J. Hinch is taking over as the new manager. All I know about Hinch is that he's young (35) and presumably, since he's been in player development for the D-backs since 2005, he's familiar with and knows how to reach the young players his system helped develop. 

    Sometimes a change is necessary because the manager didn't know what he was doing or the players had tuned him out; sometimes a change is made to get a different set of voices in the clubhouse and light a fire under a slumbering club; but unless Brandon Webb comes back healthy sooner than expected, I don't see how Hinch is going to have much more success than Melvin did with this flawed and callow group. 

• A decision is going to have to be made on Micah Owings sooner or later:

    Micah Owings wants to pitch and he has very good stuff as a pitcher, but he's gotten rocked and been hurt over the past year after a 4-0 start for the Diamondbacks; he wound up back in the minors and was traded to the Reds; plus he's such a good hitter that his and the Reds future may be better served with Owings in left field instead of on the mound.

    The Reds need another outfielder and a bat and Owings isn't pitching well enough to justify staying there for much longer if he and the club are better off with him as an everyday player. Walt Jocketty and Dusty Baker must be kicking the idea around and if Owings is still resistant and continues pitching shakily, they're going to have to give him a choice of going to the bullpen or the minors or going to the outfield. What he does with the options is up to him, but Owings's career looks like his future lies in hitting the ball instead of throwing it.

• Rays 8-Yankees 6; Joe Girardi had better get the team's act together and quick:

    The following is reprinted with the disclosure that I expected the Yankees to play well and get off to a fast start and for manager Joe Girardi to win Manager of the Year (which was also written in the book):

Manager Joe Girardi will begin the 2009 season on the hot seat, and rightfully so. Girardi made the obvious types of mistakes that a young manager will make in terms of strategy and personnel, but that paled in comparison to the stories that were coming out of the Yankees clubhouse that the veterans couldn’t get used to the new manager and his cold, aloof manner after so many years with the charming and bigger than life Joe Torre.
Girardi has many attributes that make him look like a solid manager in the future. He’s intelligent; well-spoken and will learn from his mistakes as he goes along. It’s unlikely that he’ll repeat the same errors from last year, at least off the field. On the field, Cashman fired one of Girardi’s hand-picked coaches in third base coach Bobby Meacham and that was more than a GM simply making a change to a different third base coach; that Meacham was fired should be seen as a shot over the bow at Girardi because if it were only a matter of Meacham’s third base coaching skills, then he could’ve been moved to first base or to the bench; firing him was a message that Girardi could be next if things don’t get better in 2009.
This team spent almost half-a-billion dollars in contracts to bring in Sabathia, Burnett and Teixeira; if they don’t perform any better than last season’s inconsistent and sniping group, Girardi has to know that he’s the one that’s going to take the fall. Here’s how things are going to go: if the Yankees get off to a slow start—say, 8-12 after 20 games—Hank will start rumbling; if they’re around 14-16 after 30 games, Hal and Cashman will start making calls (my guess is to laid back, historically successful veteran managers who can handle the big city like Davey Johnson or Jim Fregosi) and let them know to be on the ready because the team might be making a move; then if they’re at or under .500 after 40 games, that’ll be a quarter of the season and Cashman will either make the move himself or Derek Jeter will go to the upper management and, speaking for the remaining veterans, say enough’s enough with Girardi.
Simply put, I’d strongly suggest that Girardi get the team off to a fast start if he wants to keep his job because if not, he’s going to get fired probably before the end of May and will wait a long time before getting another opportunity to manage in the big leagues.

    Injuries or not, the Yankees can't let this season get away from them and the plug on Girardi's tenure has to be loosening with every loss. ARod's coming back tonight and they'd better hope his presence sparks a hot streak, or else Bob Melvin's firing will be like dew dripping off a tree into a pond compared to the hurricane that's on the way in the Bronx.

    Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games for violating MLB's drug policy----ESPN Story----which will not only prevent Manny from being Manny (at least on the field) until the summer, but it may also eliminate him from Hall of Fame consideration in the latest installment of PED usage ruining a great player's reputation and place in history.

     I'd had an innocent morning up to this point; I was quite pleased with myself for this morning's post, went to lunch with my fiancee; went to the supermarket; came home, fired up some charcoal in my chimney starter for a grilled pepper salad (good recipe from Steven Raichlen available here); looked up at the sky and hoped it wouldn't start pouring before I was done; went in the house; sat down for a few minutes, checked email on my cell phone and read the following message via comments on my site from Jane Heller:

We want your take on Manny!

    My initial reaction: What the hell's he done now? Then I found out about the suspension.

    I can't say that I'm surprised. Of course the statement that the players association released is complete bullshit. The relevant excerpt follows:

"Recently, I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was OK to give me," Ramirez said in a statement issued by the players' union.

"Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I've taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons."

    This pile of crap proves two things: 1) Manny knows what he did because he's not denying anything, nor does he state any intention to fight the suspension; and 2) he not only didn't write the statement, it's unlikely that he even saw it.

     The ESPN reporters detail that the drug for which Manny supposedly tested positive is hCG:

...two sources told ESPN's T.J. Quinn and Mark Fainaru-Wada that the drug used by Ramirez is hCG -- human chorionic gonadotropin. HCG is a women's fertility drug typically used by steroid users to restart their body's natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle. It is similar to Clomid, the drug Bonds, Giambi and others used as clients of BALCO.

    Manny's playing with semantics here. Because the drug was prescribed by a doctor and is technically not a steroid, he's trying to pawn the blame off on others when he may or may not have known what he was taking in a "don't ask, don't tell" way to stickhandle his way around responsibility for his own actions. No one can ever be really sure of what Manny understands and what he doesn't; what Manny's ignoring because he's too lazy to listen or what he doesn't want to hear. I find it hard to believe that Manny didn't know what he was taking and it's quite likely that he felt a doctor's note would be enough to wriggle himself out of trouble if he got busted. It's apparently not. So now what?

    Well, the Dodgers certainly didn't need this as they're rolling with a 21-8 record and smoking hot. In fact, it would've been better for them had Manny just pulled a hamstring instead of being suspended because this is likely to be a gut punch to the team on and off the field since they've been leaning on Manny since he arrived last summer. Juan Pierre is probably quietly happy that he's going to get a chance to play regularly for the next couple of months and the NL West is so rancid that the Dodgers will still be at or near the top when Manny gets back; but the on-field issue is one thing; it's the off-field fallout that could hinder the Dodgers as they try to make do without their main man. 

    The Dodgers have gotten off to that hot start riding their bullpen heavily and fighting through injuries and a shaky starting rotation; without Manny, they're going to have some problems winning the games in a similar fashion since his hitting pretty much picked up where it left off last season. If anyone can steer his team through this kind of occurrence, it's Joe Torre.  

    How many teams who briefly kicked around the possibility of Manny in the winter are quietly breathing a sigh of relief now? Was this one of the "in the air" reasons that there was such a reluctance to even entertain the notion of signing Manny by teams that desperately needed his bat, like the Mets and Angels? And what is Dodgers owner Frank McCourt thinking as he's paying a suspended player so lucratively even if the contract is only for two years, maximum?

    I can't imagine that anyone's truly stunned by this; but what's more disturbing and damaging than anything is the drug he was taking and it's practical use. The above quote "restart their body's natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle" not only explains what Manny was suspended for, it calls into question all of his numbers during the steroid era because why else would he be taking such a drug unless he was dealing with the after effects of steroid use? What possible reason would he be taking this drug other than that?

    So does this mean Manny was using steroids during those years with the Red Sox and Indians when he was rising into one of the greatest right-handed hitters in the history of the game? I think we all know the obvious answer to that without specifically knowing the answer to that.

    Now as more and more names pop up as being PED users, the shock is wearing off because no matter who the player is, his reputation and what he's accomplished, they're all under suspicion now.

• Yeah? Or what?

    I'm going to have plenty to say about this Moneyball movie that's in the works, but for now, here's a quote from Rob Neyer's blog on ESPN.com from yesterday regarding the way the filmmaker, Steven Soderbergh, et al are going to incorporate the exalted Bill James into the film as a cartoon character:

It's odd to see someone you know become a cartoon character. Not that it would be the first time. Some years ago, a Bill James-like character appeared in a Sunday Walt Kelly's Pogo strip. But there's a big difference between a one-off in a strip nobody remembers -- this is the post-Walt Kelly, early-1990s Pogo we're talking about -- and a featured "role" in a Hollywood movie headlined by Brad Pitt and directed by a genius.

Two questions come to mind immediately:

1. Will it work in the film?

and

2. Can it be done with respect?

These are two completely separate questions. It might be a brilliant cinematic device, but if it's not respectful to Bill, I'm not going to enjoy the movie and you probably won't, either. Which shouldn't concern the filmmakers even slightly. They're not making it for us. They make a movie that appeals exclusively to our sensibilities, and they'll be closed down the first weekend.

I don't know if the cartoon thing, respectful or not, works for a mass audience. But when you've got a filmmaker like Soderbergh, you have to trust his vision and hope for the best. That's what I'm doing, anyway. And a little bit of respect for my old boss and friend would be a lovely bit of frosting on top.

    No one's arguing with the contributions that Bill James has made to the game of baseball, but it's getting to the point where it's a borderline crusade for the stat geeks and we're in a world where we're not allowed to dare question anything the man says, nor "disparage" him in any way. (Disparaging equaling disagreeing.) And what's going to happen if the cartoon plan isn't done "respectfully"? Are we going to have a similar reaction as the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in the country of Denmark that resulted in rioting? 

    The stat geeks get so worked up when anything they say is called into debate that it's as if they're religious fanatics and the secularists (the non-stat geek) is treated as a blasphemer when they don't fall into line behind their mighty numbers or "bible" as it were. I'm not implying that anyone's going to get violent; I mean, what are they gonna do? Start stabbing people with their pencils? Throw their calculators at people? But the words "done with respect," etc. strike a chord with me inspiring the question, "Or what?" 

    Never mind that the entire concept of a Moneyball movie would be a Harry Potter-level fantasy to begin with: a slanted and agenda-driven book written by a guy----Michael Lewis----who doesn't know much of anything about baseball and detailing a business strategy that plainly and simply hasn't worked doesn't sound like much of a movie to me; and now we're getting stuff like "proper respect" for Bill James, who's not----I hate to break the news----a deity.

• Rays 4-Yankees 3:

    It's starting to get to the point where the only thing that's saving Yankees manager Joe Girardi is the rash of injuries ravaging his team; but wasn't one of the main reasons Girardi was supposed to be an upgrade over Joe Torre that the rougher spring training regimen and more up-to-date exercise practices were going to keep the team healthier and steer the club to better starts so they don't have to climb out of deep holes from mid-season just to make the playoffs? The team's been in worse shape since Girardi took over; some of that is due to the players getting old, but who's to say that Whitey Herzog wasn't right when he uttered the famous, though curmudgeonly, phrase:

''If they'd eat a blasted steak or drink a blasted beer once in a while, maybe their muscles wouldn't keep ripping off their rib cages. Grover Cleveland Alexander never pulled rib muscles. Paul Waner never did and neither did Babe Ruth. Babe lived on hot dogs and beer. Sometimes that might be good for you.'' 

    I can't blame Girardi for the way the team's struggled, nor for the injuries, but the bottom line is what it is and since they spent a quarter of a billion dollars in the off-season to return to the playoffs in their new ballpark, the manager's not going to have much longer once Alex Rodriguez gets back. They can't afford to fall too far behind and run the risk of the season going down the toilet in this economy; the working class fans are reluctant to pay the exorbitant prices for tickets as it is and if the team's not in contention by early September (or sooner), well, that's not gonna fly with the Steinbrenners especially when there are viable and successful replacements available in Buck Showalter, Davey Johnson and Jim Fregosi. That the Dodgers are on fire under Torre can't be helping Girardi's case either.

    Regarding the Rays, I watched Troy Percival pitch the tenth inning and while the radar readings only popped up periodically atop the screen, he never recorded a number higher than 86 from what I saw; and he's fat. Given his history over the past few years, I'd say the Rays are going to use him to close as long as he's recording saves, but Percival's either going to get hurt or that lack of velocity is going to get him shelled. Grant Balfour will be closing by mid-season if not sooner.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 16
• Diamondbacks 3-Padres 1:

    If the Padres aren't going to win the games that Jake Peavy pitches, which games are they going to win?

    There's been some speculation about the future of Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin as the team staggers along, but I can't blame Melvin for this; he makes the majority of the right strategic decisions and has lost his ace starter for a team built on foundation of their 1-2 starting pitching punch of Brandon Webb and Dan Haren. There's every possibility that eventually, Melvin will take the fall, but it's a similar situation as when he got fired by the Mariners after all of Lou Piniella's players got old at once; what would they like him to do aside from what he's currently doing? 

• David Ortiz does not look finished:

    David Ortiz went 1 for 3 with a walk last night and is now batting .229 with no homers and 14 RBI; there's been speculation that his days as a major power threat are dwindling and have been affected by more than the departure of Manny Ramirez; his age is supposedly contributing mightily to the decline. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something physically wrong with him that hasn't been disclosed and as I watched him swing last night, I was reminded of Carlos Delgado and his lengthy slump with the Mets in 2007 and for half of 2008.

    Ortiz may not be as quick as he once was, but his hitting problems look more mechanical than anything else. He's off balance and lacking confidence and while he may continue to struggle for awhile, the reports of his demise are premature. Once the weather heats up, I think he'll go on a tear and start rocketing balls out of the ballpark again; probably not with the frequency he once did, but enough to be a run producer on a title-contending team; one that the opposing pitchers have to worry about once again.

• Viewer Mail 5.7.2009:

Jeff at Red State Blue State writes:

A proposed post: "On-Base Percentage, Schmon-Base Percentage"... see: http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/

Joe at Statistician Magician responds:

They SHOULD put it on the scoreboard, and in the Box Score, and during the game where the viewers can see it, etc. But they don't. I am not saying AVG is irrelevant, I am saying that it is less relevant than OBP.

    Suffice it to say that I agree with Shyster Ball's assessment of Jeff Francoeur on the link; quote: "Jeff Francoeur is an idiot."

Gabriel at rock_bard@hotmail.com writes RE the Angels:

I think I understand what you were saying about the Angels. Tonight against the Blue Jays, Scioscia managed to get expelled from the game, after Justin Spier hit Rod Barajas. Now I was only watching the Gameday (I live in Mexico), but, isn't it stupid to get you expelled from a rout (the score was Jays 13-0 Angels)? I think his emotions just exploded, but luckily, they did it in the one game they had already lost.

    I didn't watch much more than a tiny bit of this game because when I flipped to it, it was already 7-0, Blue Jays with Roy Halladay pitching; not much more to say than that about the game and the need to watch; but from the boxscore, Speier was getting pounded in the eighth inning (and for most of this season) and frustration could've played a part in him hitting Barajas; but the game recap says the pitch was a forkball, so if he was throwing at him, he wouldn't have been throwing a forkball.

    Even with all their problems----injuries and the emotional fallout from Nick Adenhart's death----that division is horrible, so the Angels may be able to squeak by even with the distractions. It sounds like Scioscia was protecting his players more than anything else.

Michael Fierman at www.michaelfierman.net/ writes: 

i hadn't been here before so i thought i'd check it out. good stuff. i'll book mark it.

    Any little bit helps. Now if only Joe would splurge and buy a copy of my book.

• Padres 2-Rockies 1:

    I watched a pretty good chunk of this game, not because I wanted to be watching the Clash of the Titans between the Padres and Rockies, but because I'd never seen Josh Geer pitch and couldn't believe that he's been as successful as he has so far this season and that the Rockies weren't able to get a bead on his below average stuff; nor could I believe that he's able to get out on the mound regularly with those rotten mechanics. After looking at his minor league numbers, I'm faced with the quandary of believing my eyes or the numbers. I'd tend to believe my eyes, but Geer's numbers in the minors are compelling enough to give me pause.

    Is Geer actually any good or is his stuff so weak that by the time the hitters get it timed and accustomed to someone who doesn't appear to belong in the majors, it's the eighth or ninth inning and he's been removed? His fastball was puttering in between 84 and 88 mph; he changed speeds effectively and threw strikes; in short, it looked like he was tricking the hitters and that doesn't last in the big leagues long term; they're going to catch up to someone like that. Usually, such a pitcher is a lefty like Randy Jones, against whom the batters are cussing and slamming things because they can't believe they're not crushing line drives all over the place against them; but Geer, a righty, also has a funky, herky-jerky motion going for him. Add in the unfamiliarity and you see the success. 

    In the minors, Geer put up great numbers by throwing strikes, relying on his fielders and taking advantage of the lack of discipline that defines most minor leaguers. The big difference between minor league hitters and big league hitters is discipline, adjustments and taking advantage of mistakes. Big league hitters catch up to guys who are dodging the raindrops and fooling them; they adjust to what they're seeing; and they don't miss fat pitches. If I had to guess as to what's going to happen with Geer, I'd say that by the time he's facing teams for the second and third time, they're going to start teeing off on him because I'm going to believe my eyes and say that the stuff just isn't there for him to last.

• The Yankees seem to take their stadium operations protocol from the history books:

    I'm of course referring to the Nazi dictatorship in Germany and any other brutal, repressive regime that you could name.

    In case you missed it, long story short, the Yankees had staffers who informed a relatively large bloc of fans that the game on Monday night had been canceled; the fans left Yankee Stadium and, to their horror after paying for the tickets, the game was being played----NY Daily News Story; the photographer who snapped the photo to the right was threatened with losing his press credential for taking photos of the events as they happened; the fans were denied re-entry by the brownshirts despite having valid tickets and having been told by stadium staff that the game had been called off. Now, Yankees hatchet man Jason Zillo is playing spin doctor to try and limit the damage that's already been done to the Yankees as these stories of heavy handed, dictatorial and abusive treatment of fans is coming to light. 

    Jane Heller detailed incidents of this type of behavior from the Yankee employees in her book in which fans were pushed to the ground and verbally abused without restraint from these flunkies. Then there was the story (that's almost Rod Serling-like in its irony) in which a fan was kicked out of the stadium for using the restroom during the seventh inning stretch playing of God Bless America----NY Daily News Story. They were celebrating American free will by removing it entirely. Now that this type of incident is coming to light, there'll probably be hundreds of them popping up all over the place and finally receiving attention as something more than a disgruntled fan who was unhappy with his Yankee Stadium experience. 

    This is all an extension of the arrogance of the entire Yankees organization from the top on down that they're somehow special and above the baseline rules for normal society; that they're allowed to behave this way because they're the Yankees and even the most low-level staffer is somehow a part of the organizational success; they can charge absurd prices for tickets; treat their loyal fans like garbage; and basically come across with the attitude that they're allowing the scum to come into their home if they toe the line and accept the abuse; the "you need us more that we need you" aura that permeates an organization that's forgetting that they're not a dynasty anymore; that they're not a monopoly and eventually, the seats that one angry fan won't purchase won't be filled within seconds of coming available. 

    The liberties taken by these stadium personnel aren't unique or unusual given the stories that have been floating around for years; this is what happens when you put a bunch of people who are nobodies in their everyday life and place them in a position of power if only for a few hours; history is littered with stories of this kind, and it's just now that the fan who doesn't go to games regularly and hasn't experienced it is taking notice because these employees are going so far over the line that it's impossible to ignore anymore.

    Whether the Yankees are going to do anything to become more fan-friendly is the question; and with the way the team is staggering; ticket sales are slumping; and that the stories are receiving the indignation they deserve, they're not going to have a choice. If they take steps to repair these issues, it's not going to be due to a change of heart, but because of a business decision that they can't continue their previous practices with the knowledge that they're going to lose even more customers who don't need to pay absurd prices for tickets to be treated like this.

• Red Sox 7-Yankees 3:

    I wonder if Theo Epstein and the rest of the Red Sox front office are laughing at the Yankees now. This isn't because the Red Sox have become the organization that others aspire to be, but because Yankees GM Brian Cashman took the steps to try and copy the template of the Red Sox by developing young pitchers; taking a stat-based approach; saving money and coldly dispatching players and staff who could no longer help with the goal of annual contention within a plan, and it's failed. The young Yankees pitchers didn't step in as the Red Sox pitchers have and the Yankees had to abandon Cashman's long term goal of getting the credit that the Red Sox front office has because of that failure and they threw money at their problems out of necessity.

    The roles of history are reversed and while the Red Sox have made some ghastly mistakes (Julio Lugo) and been extremely lucky (not getting Alex Rodriguez; Jason Bay filling Manny Ramirez's shoes adequately; Hideki Okajima, signed to be Daisuke Matsuzaka's friend and turning into an All Star-quality reliever), the Yankees are trying to keep up with the Red Sox and they're learning what it was like for all those years that the Red Sox were scrambling to stay close to the Yankees. If Epstein and co. aren't laughing, they're definitely smirking and shaking their heads at the Yankees clutching and clawing to keep up----and failing. 

• Mets 4-Braves 3:

• The Indians should hold their fire if the talk of an early-season sale is accurate:

    Jon Heyman from Sports Illustrated was on with Mike Francesa (grains of salt, anyone?) this afternoon and the duo was speculating whether the Indians, in the midst of an atrocious start, are going to start dealing veterans like Cliff Lee (30-years-old, and with an $8 million club option for 2010); Victor Martinez (30, with a club option for $7 million for 2010); Mark DeRosa (free agent after this year); Travis Hafner (nobody's taking that contract with $28.75 million guaranteed after this season no matter what he does on the field). It would make sense to explore trading some of these players if the Indians were in the American League East and had gotten off to this terrible start, but with the AL Central so weak and so winnable, it's silly to start thinking about it now unless boss Mark Shapiro is bowled over with an offer.

    A 10-17 record is what it is. Their pitching staff from top-to-bottom has been heinous, but the standings, aside from that 10-17 record, aren't such that the Indians should clear out the house early. That entire AL Central division is weak. The Royals have Zack Greinke, Gil Meche and then have to appeal to a higher power to win one of the other three days; and if you think Greinke's going to go 33-0 with a zero ERA, I've got a stack of books to sell you. In fact, every team in that division has holes big enough for Mo Vaughn to navigate his way through without turning to the left of right. The Indians, with all of their problems and this start in which everything that could've gone wrong, has gone wrong, are still only 5 1/2 games out of first place.

    The market for Lee will only improve once he starts pitching better (and he will start pitching better); Martinez is proving that last season was an aberration; and as long as he's healthy, the club can figure they'll get solid play from DeRosa. I'm not defending a 10-17 start, but in the past, the Indians have gotten lucky with oft-injured and mediocre free agent signings like Paul Byrd, and the flipside of doing business that way is what's happening now with Carl Pavano as he throws batting practice to big league hitters. Shapiro will make some smart and opportunistic deals to clear out the veterans whether it's May or August; (Omar Minaya of the Mets in particular has always had a thing for Lee). Shapiro will get quality back in his trades if he makes them, so there's no reason to do anything drastic now with their circumstances as repairable as they are.

• I dunno what this means; judge for yourself:

    You might remember that earlier this year, Roberto Alomar's ex-girlfriend filed a lawsuit claiming that Alomar had infected her with HIV by forcing her to have unprotected sex. The ex-girlfriend, Ilya Dall, has dropped the suit days before the matter was to begin litigation Friday----ESPN Story. 

    The timing is somewhat odd considering this was going on for so long; obviously a financial settlement (presumably with an ironclad gag order for the plaintiff) was reached. The only reason I'm even mentioning it is because it's an interesting story that's publicly known. What this settlement means, I don't know; I have my suspicions which I'll keep to myself. You can judge for yourself.

• Viewer Mail 5.5.2009:

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE Selena Roberts's book about Alex Rodriguez:

I'm not reading Selena R's book from the library or anyplace else. And I don't get why the NY media jumped on Girardi for speaking out against the book. Yes, there was a rainout so newspapers needed stories. But I agreed with him. Who cares about A-Rod's personal life (although I was riveted while he was going out with Madonna - I'm such a hypocrite). 

    You're not a hypocrite, but you are (not in any particular, intentional order): A) a woman; B) a Jew; C) a writer; and D) a Yankee fan. The Yankee fan bit would create an atmosphere of reluctance to read Selena Roberts's book, but the other attributes serve to make you one of the biggest yentas on this or any other planet and an entertaining writer. (Wearing a Yankee hat, of course.) 

• Mets 6-Braves 4:

    Before getting all enthused about the Mets comeback 6-4 win over the Braves, it has to be remembered that as much mockery that the Mets have received for their slow start, the Braves have been as bad, if not worse; at least the moves the Mets made in the off season made some sense. 

    I'm waiting for acknowledgment from the "experts" that the run of Braves brilliance----which they all seem to expect to happen again despite their limited talent level and bizarre team construction----is over and they're not very good; waiting for acknowledgment that Bobby Cox's managerial and John Schuerholz's executive "genius" stemmed more from having three starting pitchers that were going to win 15-20 games and log 220-260 innings; that they're desperately clinging to a past that will probably never be repeated.

    Aside from the improvements to the starting rotation with the additions of Javier Vazquez and Derek Lowe (they overpaid for both), what did the Braves do to warrant an expectation of contention after a 72-win season? Their bullpen and offense were the main culprits (along with injuries) to their awful year in 2008, and what did they do to fix those problems? They didn't address the bullpen; they signed another oft-injured, streaky and declining outfielder in Garret Anderson (after being rebuffed by a similar player in Ken Griffey Jr.); they inexplicably gave Chipper Jones a severance-inspired contract extension to further limit their flexibility; and Cox's lineup decisions are bordering on the bizarre.

    Why is the fearless nuisance Martin Prado not playing regularly? All we hear about Jeff Francoeur is how his new batting stance is serving him well as he returns to the hitter he was a couple of years ago, but no one's noticed that he's still up at the plate hacking at anything and everything anywhere close to the plate and has walked 4 times this year; Casey Kotchman is the pre-PED Rafael Palmeiro with his slap hitting; Matt Diaz is not an everyday player; and since seeing is a pretty important facet of playing baseball, who knows what they're going to get from Brian McCann when he returns? 

    The Mets may not be better than a mediocre team; but the Braves are worse and what's more, they don't even seem to know it, which is a big hindrance in fixing the evident problems. The Phillies starting pitching is a mess and Jimmy Rollins is on the decline (as I predicted in my book):

Jimmy Rollins’s numbers may be on the decline. He missed time due to an injured ankle (and I believe that affected his performance), but he’s small and aging (he’s 30). Rollins’s numbers were never as great as they were in 2007, so if he continues to play similarly as he did last season, it could be reasonable to think that that’s the player he actually is and not the player who won the MVP. He’s never been all that selective either and as he becomes less of a threat, pitchers are going to be less concerned about dealing with him and his numbers will decline even further. I think Rollins is beginning the downside of his career. 

    My pick of the Marlins in the division was treated with disdain by the stat geeks (who on the majority picked the Mets), but why not the Marlins? They're certainly better than the Braves and have just about as many flaws as the Mets and Phillies. The entire division is in shambles. Whoever staggers to the finish line and manages to be ahead by October will be the winner and it sure isn't going to be the Braves.

• Brewers 7-Pirates 4:

    Manager Ken Macha has the Brewers playing very well especially since the back of their starting rotation is a study in mediocrity and they're still waiting for Hells Bells to start ringing regularly with closer Trevor Hoffman. Bench coach Willie Randolph is getting through to flighty second baseman Rickie Weeks and they've managed to climb over .500 with little-to-no offensive contributions from J.J. Hardy or Jason Kendall.

    They may not have the depth to keep up with the Cubs and Cardinals in the NL Central, and it has to be remembered that another Billy Beane managerial castoff, Art Howe, had the Mets playing very well into the summer of his first season as their manager, but as of right now, the team's hanging in there far better than anyone could've expected after losing both C.C. Sabathia and Ben Sheets from last year's rotation.

• Carlos Zambrano strains a hamstring:

    I saw the play in which Carlos Zambrano strained his hamstring legging out a bunt on Sunday and wondered why someone like Zambrano who: A) has the power to hit the ball out of the park; B) is so big and heavily muscled that he's a likely candidate to strain something if he's sprinting unnecessarily; and C) is so valuable on the mound, wasn't told straight out "no bunting".

    Zambrano has had problems with his enthusiasm getting the better of him before. He's gotten so excited on the mound that he's hyperventilated and his emotions and durability are the only things holding him back from being a 20+ game winner year-after-year. He might not have listened if he was told to swing the bat, but at least he would've been told.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 15
  

*A note to all the stat geeks who laughed hysterically at my "stupidity" in referring to the Pythagorean Win Theorem as the Pygmalion Win Theorem, some of whom I'm sure are also under the assumption that I really refer to the library as the li-berry (complete with the spelling), it's a joke you humorless, sexless morons!!!!

•  I suppose I'm gonna hafta read the thing:

    It's a big story and it's generating a lot of attention on both sides of the aisle (those that hate Alex Rodriguez and those that think he's under relentless attack by an opportunistic, fame-seeking reporter), so I'm going to read the book. (I'm on the waiting list at #22, which should be a week or so; one would assume the li-berry will have a load of copies for such a controversial and requested book.)

    Already there are such intense reactions floating around that the book, much like the Tom Verducci/Joe Torre book The Yankee Years, may turn out to be anticlimactic. Selena Roberts, as she begins the promotional tour, has become an amateur psychologist----ESPN Story, diagnosing in pop-psychology fashion that ARod's desire for approval because of an absentee father has resulted in the insecure but gifted public piñata he's become.

    Yankees manager Joe Girardi is lamenting (in a somewhat maudlin, though understandable way) that it's enough already with the attacks on his third baseman; and as of this very moment, the book is ranked at #101 on Amazon's bestseller list. If I had to guess, I'd say the juiciest (pardon the pun) parts of the book will be leaked by the publisher in order to drum up sales and the book itself will be interesting, but not as earth-shattering as is being portrayed. Before even getting my hands on the thing, I'd say you'd be better off reading this or this.

• Mariners 8-Athletics 7:

    I caught a chunk of the extra innings of this game and without knowing what the Athletics bullpen situation was (who was hurting, unavailable and whatever), I have to ask why A's manager Bob Geren left Gio Gonzalez in so long in what essentially turned into a start of 108 pitches. Gonzalez wriggled in and out of trouble and was wild, but the 23-year-old has great stuff and a bright future; but why leave him in that long especially once the A's took a 3-run lead? I'll assume there was a reason (although with some of these managers, there sometimes isn't). Was Michael Wuertz unavailable for some reason?

    Jason Vargas looked nothing like the hideous, soft-tossing lefty he was with the Mets (whom they traded Matt Lindstrom to get) as he struck out four and got the win over 2 1/3 innings.

• Viewer Mail 5.4.2009:

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE Barry Zito blocking Jeff and Allen on Twitter:

Amazing that Zito (or his flunky) blocked Jeff on Twitter. I have yet to succumb to the Tweeting thing. Bad enough that I'm on Facebook.

    I don't get it. It just makes Zito look like a thin-skinned dick. I ain't goin' on no Twitter; and I've resisted Facebook up to now. There are certain people I'd truly like to get back in contact with, so I've considered it strongly (even filled out the stuff and then not submitted it), but there are more that I don't ever wanna hear from again and that's won out so far. Eventually, for promotional purposes, I'll have to bite the bullet I guess.

Jeff at Red State Blue State writes RE the prospect of Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan leaving the Cardinals:

Losing the TLR/Dunc combo would be catastrophic -- way worse than not signing real bullpen help this past offseason. I refuse to even think about it right now. It hurts too much.

    I agree. It's best not to think about it, sort of like contemplating the apocalypse. The Cards might turn into Padres Mid-West if and when it happens. Speaking of which: 

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 14 

• If Omar Minaya thinks the Mets need an edge, he's in a position to, y'know, do something about it:

    Mets GM Omar Minaya is a fine talent evaluator, a great guy and a good executive, but his comments about the Mets needing an edge (which he later backtracked from) were nonsensical considering the fact that he's the GM of the club and not some idiot with a talk show. The comments went as follows:

"We have good guys, solid professionals," Minaya says. "There is a smile on David Wright's face, a smile on Jose Reyes's face. But there is not an edge to them.

"Some people see edge as leadership. Sometimes, you need a little meanness to your game. Some people perceive leadership as meanness.

"I couldn't tell you that we have that type of guy. We have leaders. But everyone's perception of leadership is different."

    Minaya was in a position to deal with this in the winter. There were edgy guys available if he wanted to make a move on them. Eric Byrnes is making a lot of money ($22 million through 2010) and has been hurt and/or hasn't hit, but he's got an edge and is fearless; perhaps the scenery change would've helped him; the Diamondbacks would've given him to the Mets for nothing. He'd have been a more expensive, but better choice than Gary Sheffield for that kind of spicy additive.

    Or possibly, if he wanted to do something bold (that made sense, not the "break up 'da core" crap from Mike Francesa), he could've approached the Giants about sending Carlos Beltran for Aaron Rowand and Matt Cain. The Giants would love to get out from under Rowand's contract and Cain was up for discussion several times for offense. The Giants had considered Tim Lincecum for Alex Rios before last season, so why not Cain and Rowand for Beltran? The worst the Giants could say is no and that's a deal I would do.

    The Mets have needed an in-your-face guy who the opponents know is going to drop the gloves if they get out of line as teams tend to do with the Mets. The Mets are far too nice for their own good (like Minaya); this isn't news, but if Minaya's just coming to grips with it when he's seen what's gone on since 2007, then there's a blindspot that has to be addressed in the Mets front office.

• What are the Cardinals going to do about Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan?

    In case anyone hadn't noticed, Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan are at it again in making something out of nothing. They're on a level (or above) with Pat Riley/Bill Parcells/Scotty Bowman in that they take a player with a certain amount of talent and put him in the best possible situation to succeed with the caveat, "if you listen to me, we'll make it work". The guys who listen----the Kyle Lohses; the Joel Pinieros; the Ryan Franklins; the Ryan Ludwicks----turn the Cardinals into contenders when their talent level and penny-pinching front office indicates they're not much better than a .500 team. 

    Right now, the Cardinals are 17-8 and set to be right in the thick of the playoff race for the duration of the season even if the Cubs get back on track and take control of the NL Central. The entire league is pretty much crap and if it comes down to managers, then who better than La Russa to steer a shaky team into the playoffs and work some 2006 magic? This brings up the question of what the Cardinals and La Russa are going to do when this season is over because La Russa's going to be a free agent and has to decide what's more important to him, staying in his baseball home for the past 14 years and dealing with the overt cheapness that is now defining the Cardinals organization; or going elsewhere to a team that's going to spend some money to win. 

    The Cardinals situation is unique in that it's such a great baseball town and they love and appreciate La Russa; plus what better situation to exhibit one's brilliance than in a circumstance where few are expecting much because of the reluctance to improve drastically on paper with gaudy acquisitions? But La Russa may not need the aggravation anymore of not having the deep bench and bullpens he was used to; of asking for some veteran help and being patted on the head and ignored.

    Maybe he'd like to go somewhere on a 2-3 year contract and, at age 65, have a chance to win at least one more championship. There could be some big time, moneymaking jobs open at the end of this season. Appealing and potentially available situations are the Yankees, Mets, Orioles and if Jeff Moorad starts to spend to make things better, faster for the Padres, San Diego's a nice locale to end one's career.

    The Cardinals fans are loyal and they tolerate the frugality (to use a nice word) that's resulted in La Russa's trademark patchwork quilt of journeymen getting the job done, but part of that could be because they know that the team's going to be competitive no matter what because of La Russa and Duncan. What if the the manager and team parted ways? Could the Cardinals handle having a different manager? One who's going to keep quiet about the stinginess, but not have the skills or cachet to get the above-and-beyond performance form the players? If they keep playing like this, La Russa could force the club's hand to give him an extension, if he even wants one that is.

• Doesn't Barry Zito have something better to do?

    In case anyone missed it, Barry Zito has extended his "Twittering" to blackballing those that dare criticize his hideous pitching during his time with the Giants. Much to his chagrin, Jeff at Red State Blue State was blocked from Zito's Twitter account----blog.

    It's somewhat self-defeating for Zito to do something like this, isn't it? Doesn't it take more energy to block someone who you feel has offended you than to just let them say what they want? I made the point on Jeff and Allen's blog that perhaps Zito has some flunky doing his Twittering for him, but either way, Zito just looks like a baby. 

• No one saw Yovani Gallardo's emergence coming? Well, someone did:
  

    Everyone's in love with Yovani Gallardo now, but here's what I wrote in my book about Gallardo:

Yovani Gallardo missed most of last season with a knee injury, but returned late in the season to pitch well over the last two weeks and in the playoffs. Gallardo is only 23 and has Cy Young caliber stuff. If he’s healthy, he’ll be the Brewers ace for a long time.

• Speaking of my book:

    I picked Dodgers righty James McDonald as my Rookie of the Year choice in the NL after seeing his wicked stuff and how he handled the playoffs last season with so little experience, but McDonald's control has been non-existent and he needs to go back to the minors for some more seasoning.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 13

• Mets 7-Phillies 4:

    All day long, I had the radio tuned to the NY sports talk shows in the afternoon, Mike Francesa and Michael Kay; and all day long I heard the doom and gloom about the Mets. Francesa was again going on and on and on and on and on about his "break up the core" mantra, centering on David Wright; Kay was into his general "the Mets aren't that good" stuff (he's actually right); but the main point that everyone's missing is that the entire league on the whole doesn't appear to be very good and just as cream rises to the top, so occasionally does crap; if this is a war of attrition as to which team is going to outlast the others, then anyone----including the Mets----can win. 

    Francesa's not going to stop with his nonsense. I'd dearly love to see how he'd run a team for a couple of years instead of sitting around, harping on his own long ago diagnosis and cures for the Mets' ills. Francesa's not even baseball-savvy enough to fall into a category of "stat-geek vs scouting/context guy"; he comes up with his own "stats" that he thinks are relevant like his version of runs created. The formula is simple, he adds up the homers, RBI and runs scored of a particular player. Uh, even with my limited math skills, I kinda know that this "stat" is tripling the value of one occurrence because when a guy hits a homer he, y'know, gets an RBI and a run scored in the process. And his scouting skills and baseball knowledge are embarrassing for someone who thinks he's as smart as Francesa does; I still can't get by his advocating the Yankees pursuing a trade for Vernon Wells when Wells's free agency was beckoning even though the Yankees had a load of outfielders; the "logic" from Francesa was the following: "get the player, then worry about signing him". If the player is overrated, too expensive in money and players, or if the team just didn't need him wasn't taken into account. 

    Kay hates the Mets; he takes pride and joy in ridiculing them (and they do deserve it); but here's another guy who, I'm beginning to believe, is a combination of a buffoon (my usual term to describe Kay) and a bumpkin. He either feigns stupidity about the smallest baseball insights to give his booth cohorts on Yankee telecasts a chance to explain stuff to the viewer, or he really is stupid. Arguments for either side are welcome.

    Here's a newsflash for these guys: the entire National League looks awful!!! The NL East is going to be a race as to which team manages to hang on and win; the NL Central is going to be a battle amongst three or four teams; the NL West is under Dodgers control right now, but the Giants have better starting pitching and are hanging around, finding ways to win. 

    Anyone who's watched Chan Ho Park over the past few years when teams have tried to make him a starter can't be stunned by what he's given the Phillies so far this year (nothing); the entire Phillies staff is either hurt, stumbling or falling back from last year's heights; the Marlins bullpen is blowing games; the Mets are flopping around; the Braves aren't any good; and the Nationals are a punching bag. No one's running away with that division or the Wild Card, so to panic now and do something stupid is talk show fodder and ignorance personified and considering the people who are doing the rabble-rousing, ignorance is the operative term because they don't know anything about that which they're paid to be "experts".

• One useful tidbit from the Michael Kay Show:

    Joel Sherman of the NY Post was on with Kay yesterday and said something that perked my ears up when talking about Alex Rodriguez. I can take or leave Sherman and most of the stuff was of the general variety of what ARod should and shouldn't do, say and not say, etc; but one thing he brought up was a point that hasn't been related often enough: Steve Phillips was right. 

    Anyone who was around New York at the time of ARod's first foray into free agency remembers the uproar when Phillips, as the Mets GM and fresh off a World Series appearance, shunned ARod's open desire to play for the Mets because of the money and demands from ARod and Scott Boras, labeling said demands as fueling a "24-plus-1" mentality in the clubhouse.

    As things turned out, even though Phillips's reasoning for abandoning pursuit of ARod were more likely due to the Mets not wanting to pay the money it would've cost to sign him, the appellation has not just turned out to be true, but things are far worse than anyone could've thought eight years ago. On paper, the move turned out right as well. ARod's on-field numbers have been spectacular, but he hasn't come through in the playoffs; he's been busted for having used PEDs; his off-field life is becoming a Jose Canseco-level traveling carnival (complete with the smelly carnies); and he's being paid nearly a guaranteed $300 million for the Yankees to have to deal with this stuff.

    In retrospect, Phillips, whose tenure as Mets GM was never as bad as people portrayed, is looking better and better; and one has to wonder whether after a few more years, if he's going to get another opportunity to be a GM. Even though he's becoming a well-regarded broadcaster, would he want to jump back into the arena? Those that mock Phillips are generally the same people who still tout Paul DePodesta as a future GM candidate even though Phillips's on-field success was there for all to see as the Mets were the second best team in the NL for most of his tenure and DePodesta's main attributes are that he was nuzzling on Billy Beane's teat (coming to a theater near you!!!) and is one of "them" in that he's an Ivy League educated stat geek; that his time away from Beane has been a miserable failure doesn't factor in, I suppose. 

    Would Phillips take another GM opportunity if it were offered? Let's put it this way, he's got a gigantic ego and would probably love to prove his critics wrong, but the broadcasting gig is getting pretty lucrative and he's in a great position on the Sunday night ESPN telecast to get an entertaining feud going with Joe Morgan as he does what Jon Miller never has, point out (nicely) that Morgan's baseball-deranged. I'd advise him to stay where he is and bask in having been proven right even if it took nearly ten years for it to happen.

• Speaking of integrity and accuracy:

    There's an ad that Mel Kiper Jr. does for Sports Management Worldwide in which the course (it's not a school, it's a course) is advocated as a way to get into the sports field as an agent, scout or executive in just about any sport you could name. I dunno whether it works or not; I dunno if anyone's actually been placed in a stated position for any professional organization in any sport from the course, but it seems kinda dubious.

    Since many executives in sports today don't know what they're doing anyway, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to hire someone who carries a certificate from the above-mentioned website, but what athlete in his right mind is going to shun a certified and qualified player agent and their legal counsel to hire someone who's taken an eight week course as validation that they're now capable of negotiating multi-million dollar deals? 

    Kiper seems like a decent guy; loves what he does; has carved out a nice niche for himself in a heretofore unknown or unexplored area of being an NFL draftnik, but doesn't he make enough money from his other sources not to put his name to something like this and provide voiceover for the ads? It's quite odd.

• Rays 6-Red Sox 2:

    The Rays are starting to hit now and Andy Sonnanstine wasn't good, but he got through 5 2/3 innings without too much damage being done, but why, after his 4 for 5 performance last night and nearly catching a perfect game, wasn't Michel Hernandez in the lineup?

    There's something wrong with Joe Maddon's thought-process. Good grief. 

• Viewer Mail 5.2.2009:

The unrepentantly bawdy Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE ARod:

I wish A-Rod would hire you as his advisor instead of Guy Oseary, who "managed" him right into the ground.

    I'm a great----not good----great consigliere, the Jew-version of Tom Hagen for the 21st Century; but the problem is that I'd tell these people the truth and not what they want to hear. You've dealt with the Hollywood types and athletes are no different: they do not like being told the truth. I'd definitely advise ARod and take a fraction of the money he's presumably paid Oseary, but would walk the first time he ignored me to do something totally opposite.

Gabriel at rock_bard@hotmail.com writes RE THE PADRES LOSSOMETER:

You must be thrilled that the Padres Lossometer is increasing with exponential-like speed.

    Only in the context that I like to be right. (I'm starting to enjoy being right more than seeing my team win, which is dangerous on one hand, liberating on the other.) The first two weeks of the season is always fodder for people to humiliate themselves with overenthusiastic responses to things that simply aren't real. The Padres and their fast start for one, Emilio Bonifacio is another. The Padres just don't have much talent on their roster to be able to compete and things are gonna get much, much worse.

    Speaking of which:

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 12

• Alex Rodriguez should take a lesson from Allen Iverson in dealing with this new allegation of steroid use in high school:

    Here's a classic clip from an Allen Iverson press conference about Iverson's having missed practice. Practice?!?!

    With the allegations/revelations/implications slowly trickling out about Selena Roberts's biography of ARod, ARod would be well-advised to take a similar tack with the media as they question him about whether or not he was using PEDs in high school----ESPN Story----in high school?!?!

    I don't have any intentions to read the book (I might anyway, but I'm getting it from the li-berry and am not buying it), but if I were advising ARod, I would tell him to shitcan the public persona that he's held since he came into prominence (in high school?!?!) and react in the human way that Iverson did in that press conference. ARod should look at the questioner about his activities (in high school?!?!) and say:

"I'm not addressing the book's allegations----any of them----one way or the other, but are you guys really gonna stand here and bust my balls about shit I may or may not have done, or shit people are saying I've done in high school?!? Are you really?!?"

     You may not believe this, but I wasn't as gentle and cautious with my words as I am now; in fact, in high school, I said and did some things that couldn't be chalked up to a lack of social graces; if I were to run into anyone who I was quite likely to have offended with my Beavis and Butt-head sensibilities and they reminded me of whatever it was I said or did, I'd react with the following:

"I have no intention of explaining or apologizing for things I may have said or did when I was 15, 16, 17 or 18-years old. It was 20 years ago; and if you can't get over something I did or said from back then, then whatever it was that I did or said is the least of your problems. Now get the fuck away from me." 

    If ARod did this, he's get a chunk of the media off his back because they'd have nowhere to go; the guy's refusing to discuss it; he's openly ridiculing the question and the context; what can they do? 

    Selena Roberts may have written the greatest biography in history, filled with facts, quotes and footnotes; but she's also taking great advantage of this adversarial relationship she's undertaken with ARod; and I still have trouble getting past that NY Times Article in which she proffered the absurd and cryptic allegation that ARod's a slumlord. This new stuff is just silly anyway. So what if he did use in high school? It was almost 20 years ago and there were probably a large number of superstars playing today doing the same thing and worse, they just don't have an upcoming salacious biography about them hitting the shelves very, very soon.

• Rays 13-Red Sox 0:

    The Rays finally got some offense (from an unlikely source in Michel Hernandez) and pitching (from Matt Garza) and it will be interesting to see if this game is a springboard to a winning streak and reversion to the clutch hitting; solid pitching and defense; feisty; and somewhat lucky Rays from 2008.

    One thing I do not want to hear or see from Rays manager Joe Maddon is some nonsensical explanation that Dioner Navarro is the everyday catcher and Hernandez's performance last night (4 for 5 with a double, a homer and 3 RBI) was a great job for a backup and Navarro's back in the lineup now. Hernandez may be a veteran journeyman, but Navarro's batting .181 and Hernandez not only led the team at the plate, he called a nearly flawless game for Garza. Navarro's the long term answer, but Maddon should stick with the hot hand; I honestly don't know if he will.

    As for the Red Sox, Josh Beckett looks horrible.

• Yankees 7-Angels 4:

    Melky Cabrera has had a fire lit under his ass in a similar fashion to Robinson Cano and has apparently quietly won his job back as the semi-regular center fielder. This is partially due to him playing so well and so clutch and that Brett Gardner simply can't hit. Don't be surprised to hear the same people----Mike Francesa, etc.----who were ripping Cabrera for his terrible and lackadaisical play last season, suddenly jumping back on the Melky bandwagon with, "I always knew he'd be good" and that type of revisionist history.

• MLB Network teaches me something new: 
  

    There was a screen crawl during the Rays-Red Sox game that I found interesting; from memory, the relevant bit went something like this: 

Royals RHP Gil Meche passed his MRI and believes he'll pitch on Sunday.

    Meche had to leave his last start with back stiffness. I must say, I've had a few MRIs in my life and had no idea they were graded pass/fail. It makes me wonder whether I could've done more to pass, or less to fail as the case may be. 

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 11