• Criticizing the Pirates trades would be premature:

    If the Red Sox are baseball's equivalent to an efficient and well-respected law firm, the Pirates are the seedy, swarthy, tweed jacket-wearing crew of barely qualified attorneys you find advertising on the covers of matchbooks who are trying to swim with the sharks and pick up their leftovers to eek out a living. They've done a poor job of it so far, but that doesn't mean that everything they do is inherently stupid. 

   Today the Pirates traded journeyman infielder/outfielder Eric Hinske to the Yankees for two minor leaguers, Casey Erickson and Eric Fryer; then they traded outfielder Nyjer Morgan and lefty pitcher Sean Burnett to the Nationals for outfielder Lastings Milledge and pitcher Joel Hanrahan. Weeks after having traded center fielder Nate McLouth to the Braves without getting as much as they could have and apparently not letting the rest of baseball know that McLouth was even available, the Pirates may have made some positive organizational improvements today. 

    The signing of Hinske made no sense to begin with for a team like the Pirates. Here's what I wrote in my book:

Eric Hinske is a good journeyman hitter who probably shouldn’t unpack his suitcase or invest in any Pittsburgh real estate because once the Pirates are out of contention (on April 30th), contending teams will be looking at Hinske’s bat. He can play the corner infield and outfield positions and hits the ball out of the park. 

    Even if the minor leaguers aren't anything more than organizational filler, that the Pirates got anything at all is better than keeping Hinske, who's undoubtedly thrilled to be going to the Yankees. Erickson is a 22-year-old in A ball who's been pitching in relief and hasn't given up any home runs this year; Fryer is a catcher who put up huge on base numbers in college and in A ball with the Brewers last year; he's slumped in high A with the Yankees this year.

    Morgan has personality and speed, but doesn't have any power and was caught stealing 10 times in 28 attempts this year which signifies a learning curve on how to use his speed to his advantage. He could be a useful, Juan Pierre-type of player for the Nats. Burnett is a lefty reliever and was the Pirates first round draft pick in 2000 and has become a lefty specialist. Going from the Pirates to the Nationals is something of a lateral move.

    The return on this trade has a very high upside for the Pirates as Hanrahan has shown potential as a reliever despite being terrible this year with poor control; he's got a good strikeout rate and while giving up the occasional homer, he could be a solid closer or set-up man. As for Milledge, the Nats are the second organization for whom he's worn out his welcome with injuries and poor play. I still think there's something salvageable and more in Milledge. He's only 24 and despite certain behavioral issues, I don't think he's a bad kid; he simply needs to grow up and stay healthy. Considering what they gave up, Milledge could wind up being a steal as a late-bloomer.

    It's easy to pounce on the Pirates for their seeming ineptitude in just about every facet of running their organization under the new regime. The McLouth trade has the makings of a huge gaffe not because the prospects they received don't have ability----they do----but becuase they jumped at the first deal available before sifting through offers for a marketable player like McLouth.

    What's done is done, and today's trades could eventually be seen as astute because they have the chance to be retrospectively smart.

    Those downtrodden and sleazy bottom-feeding law firms win a big case once in a while and shouldn't be underestimated because they're not as smooth as their more polished and respectable colleagues. 

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 42   

    Here are a few "what-ifs" in the baseball "cheating" scandal.

    What if Roger Clemens, instead of conferring with Jose Canseco on the use of performance enhancing drugs to revive his flagging career, he'd gone to meet with Gaylord Perry on his farm and learned the magic of Perry's use of Vaseline to make the ball dance illegally?

    What if Barry Bonds, instead of feeling marginalized and disregarded during the juiced up summer of 1998 as he had an MVP-quality year while playing clean and joined the PED party to get his due, decided that he wouldn't start using the same drugs that the "heroes" were using, but paid a visit to Amos Otis and learned how to cork bats? What if they'd cheated in a way that was "okay" with Major League Baseball?

    Would there be this indignation? This holier-than-thou attitude in which the miserable old-timers like Bob Feller grunt and growl about the players who "cheated" the game? Why is it that the Lords of Baseball----the owners and their puppets in the commissioner's office----are acting so stunned and ashamed at the way players "cheated" by doing something that wasn't against the rules of the game? Why can't the same be said for what the likes of Perry and Otis did for almost their entire careers?

    Let's just say hypothetically that Clemens learned how to throw a Vaseline-ball that danced just enough for him to regain a semblance of his 80s dominance, would baseball and the fans be reacting with such a "hang 'em all" attitude?

    Baseball has always had the "it ain't cheating if you don't get caught" aura about it. Perry has been called one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball by the exalted Bill James; why does he get a pass if he did it with the use of Vaseline rather than pure talent? What would he have become had he not started throwing the spitball? Perry himself has said that he started throwing the pitch because he was struggling and had a family to support; there's nothing wrong with that if the game itself is letting him get away with it, but isn't cheating cheating? Isn't using foreign substances to improve one's own situation the same in any context whether it's done by a jar of petroleum jelly or by a shot of Sustanon? Could Perry have won 300 games without cheating? Probably not. He was durable and he might've carved himself a career as a solid pitcher, but he never would've achieved the heights he did without cheating. How is that different from what Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro did? Why is it worse for the marginal big leaguers and career minor leaguers of the past 30 years who used PEDs to last in the big leagues long enough to get themselves a pension? 

    Corked bats, spitballs, scuffballs----all have aided players who had no business even sticking in the major leagues to become stars. Mike Scott was a journeyman righty with a straight 95-mph fastball whose career was on the downslide when he learned a "split-finger fastball" from Roger Craig. The reality is that Scott learned from someone how to use a piece of sandpaper tucked into one of fingers of his glove to make the ball dance provocatively and became a Cy Young Award winner and playoff MVP. Greg Maddux was long suspected of throwing spitballs as his balls darted left and right like none before or since, but since he didn't look like a baseball playing version of Arnold Schwarzenegger at his juiced and greased heights, no one complains. Don Drysdale threw a spitball. Don Sutton and Tommy John were solid citizens, popular in their clubhouses and communities, and lasted for 23 and 26 years respectively by doing a little creative renovations to the ball. Should they be raked over the coals as Clemens, Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez and everyone else? 

    And what about the "cheaters" who used hollow and corked bats? Or who skillfully smoothed the barrel of their bats to transform it from a round bat hitting a round ball to a flat bat hitting a round ball; are these players disgraceful or were they doing what they could get away with? The aforementioned Otis used doctored bats for pretty much his whole career; Norm Cash, whose numbers are teetering on, but not quite worthy of, Hall of Fame consideration used corked bats to achieve his heights. Why are these players and baseball itself given a free pass for letting this stuff go?

    Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, as complicit as anyone in the PED scandals of today, feigns innocence with the "I'm an old man who didn't know what was going on" routine just as the old mobsters who wanted to avoid jail time used to do. The commissioner in the 1970s Bowie Kuhn, staunch Nixon Republican, allowed Gaylord Perry and his brethren to get away with their creative use of formulated items on the field to achieve success. These things could always have been prevented if the heads of baseball really wanted to do it. Kuhn could've told the umpires to check Perry and if they found anything illegal, to eject him immediately and if he did it again, he'd get a long suspension, much like baseball is now doing as they bow to public and congressional pressure to "clean up" the game.

    What about players who crossed the picket line in 1995 and agreed to become replacement players? They're still treated as scabs even though the cold-shoulder treatment only lasted long enough for the established big leaguers to realize that guys like Rick Reed and Kevin Millar could help their clubs win and get them a post-season check; then they were accepted as part of the team, if not part of the union. Was what they did any worse than what middling players did to take jobs away from players who were better and playing clean? Everyone was trying to do what was best for themselves at that particular time, but are met with the transitory nature of what's right and wrong; what's legal and illegal, but it's all based on one's own value judgments and isn't easily transferred.

    There's always been a wink-and-nod attitude toward using every advantage a player can get away with and much like the PED scandal, baseball itself played a major part in the *growth* of the game and the players by illegal means. Home runs fill seats and helped people forget about the lost year of 1994 to make everyone a lot of money. Now baseball is trying to "clean up" with the use of amphetamines (performance enhancers players have used forever) punishable; with the use of PEDs punishable; and with a dumbfounded reaction to what was really going on for years and years with the tacit complicity from top-to-bottom, from the fans to the media to the players to the front offices to baseball itself.

    No one's all that bothered about the old-timers who themselves cheated to achieve career heights because it's not convenient for them to do so. To me, the cheating is all in the same context and everyone shares in the blame; it's trendy to act shocked and strident in the punishments for the players who are getting caught, but no one's giving any real grief to the owners of the clubs and the business of baseball itself because the blame game is being passed down to the players and their "gofers" like Brian McNamee and Kirk Radomski, and it's not right.

• I may have been wrong about Jerry Manuel:

    Jerry Manuel's strange and unexplainable strategic decisions are wearing thin.

    Admittedly, I saw perhaps five games that Jerry Manuel managed with the White Sox and have no recollection of them one way or the other; but when his was the name floated as most likely to take over for Willie Randolph when the noose around Randolph's neck tightened to the point of no return, I examined Manuel's managerial record and the numbers of his players.

    According to those numbers, Manuel handled the pitchers in an organized fashion while neither babying them nor abusing them. He had a set lineup and got his reserves enough work to keep them sharp and, for the most part, had a successful run in Chicago. The problem with numbers is that they don't tell the whole story, and after having watched Manuel in the past year as Mets manager, the number of head-scratching decisions he makes and either comes up with a bizarre roundabout non-explanation or charms his way out of it with his infectious laugh and likable personality have become prevalent and tiresome.

    I've checked all the game reports from ESPN to the New York Post to the New York Daily News to Newsday and the NY Times and no one asked Manuel why, why he chose to have closer Francisco Rodriguez throw three pitches to Derek Jeter with runners on first and second, two outs and Mariano Rivera scheduled to bat next. It was only after K-Rod ran the count to 2-1 that the intentional walk was ordered.

    In the cosmic scheme of things, it didn't matter because K-Rod then walked Rivera to force in a run and the Mets didn't do anything against Rivera in the bottom of the ninth, but there's a big difference between a 1-run deficit and a 2-run deficit. The game reports simply say that Jeter was intentionally walked before Rivera got his first big league RBI. They omitted the circumstances; circumstances that warrant an explanation even if there is no believable explanation. 

    It's rare that you have everyone agreeing on a decision and this was one of those times. Joe Morgan, Steve Phillips and Jon Miller were all bewildered at the call to pitch to Jeter; I'll guess that both the radio booths of the Mets and Yankees confused as well; as, I'm sure, were Omar Minaya and Jeff Wilpon; and Jeter himself looked out at K-Rod, grinned and motioned with his eyes toward the on-deck circle as if to say, "you do know who's coming up next, right?" I can promise you this: Randolph would've walked Jeter.

    I don't know what Manuel was thinking and at this point, I don't want to know because anything he says will probably be the familiar brand of nonsense that's come out of his mouth and eerily similar to the other stuff we've heard this year such as the players (even pitchers) are allowed to ignore orders to bunt and swing the bat; or the ridiculous stolen bases, bunt-and-runs, lineup decisions and overuse of pitchers that has gone on here for the first three months of the season. I'll assume Mike Francesa's going to address this today, but while the Mets injuries are an explanation for some of their struggles this year, they don't explain away strategies that are outright stupid on the part of the manager.

    The Mets didn't listen to me about Jim (22-7 since taking over as Rockies manager) Tracy last year when they were considering dumping Randolph. Are they going to listen to me now with Buck Showalter and Bobby Valentine available and waiting for big league work? Or are they going to let the self-fulfilling prophecy of injuries be an excuse for another subpar year when the entire National League looks horrendous? I have my suspicions as to the answer and it's not what we're going to want to hear.

    On another note regarding the managers in this series, Yankees manager Joe Girardi looks terrible. I dunno if he's got that flu bug that's floating around the Yankees clubhouse or what, but he appeared listless wuth sunken in cheeks and an exhausted demeanor. Is he sick? Is it the pressure? Or is it both?

• THE CURSE OF CAMMI, Rockies 3-Athletics 1:

    It's been mentioned that the only reason Bob Geren hasn't been fired as A's manager is because he's Billy Beane's best friend. That may be saving Geren for now, but if Beane had to make a change, friendship wouldn't stop him. In addition to that, it diminishes Geren as some kind of installed puppet who had no managerial skills at all when he took over and that's simply not the case.

    Geren's job as manager is not a situation of guy being there because he's friends with the GM and that he was a convenient and affordable replacement. Geren built an extensive resume in the minors as a manager and if the A's didn't hire him for the job, someone else might have. You can find a load of managers----Bud Black, Joe Maddon, John Russell to name three----that are far worse than Geren. That's not to say he doesn't do as he's told like most managers in the Beane way of running things, but he's not some blank-faced moron either.

    It's not easy incorporating a starting rotation of 21-to-25-year-olds and a lineup with shot veterans and/or players who can't play. If you're looking for a scapegoat, send a Roger Clemens-glare into the executive box at Beane and at Steve Zallian's CURSE OF CAMMI.

• Indians trade Mark DeRosa to the Cardinals for Chris Perez:

    Early this morning, the Cleveland Indians traded INF/OF Mark DeRosa to the Cardinals for right-handed reliever Chris Perez and a player to be named later.

    This is a great deal for both sides. DeRosa can play multiple positions (presumably, he'll spend most of his time in St. Louis at third base) and will again play on a contender as free agency approaches at season's end. This also signifies a bit of change in philosophy from the Cardinals front office, which had been taking the cheap/stat zombie route as they ignored manager Tony La Russa's pleas for veteran help and increased the likelihood that the future Hall of Famer----without whom they'd be relegated to the annual domain of the Pittsburgh Pirates, last place----would walk away as a free agent at season's end. The Cardinals may not be done dealing if they're going so far as to trade for players like DeRosa.

    Perez has a power fastball and closer potential at a young age (24) and his absence in the Cardinals bullpen will be mitigated by the way La Russa uses his relievers. Most, if not all, are interchangeable with the others. If Kerry Wood continues to pitch horribly as the Indians closer and with him signed for $10.5 million next year, is there a chance that a return to the starting rotation for Wood is being considered? He only moved to the bullpen reluctantly and his long injury history shouldn't deter such a decision; he's been so rancid as the Indians closer, it's worth the risk for next year if they give Perez the opportunity to close and he handles it.

    The Cubs have been roasted for trading DeRosa for three minor leaguers, especially since so many things have gone wrong for them this year. The deal ostensibly was made to clear salary space to get Jake Peavy and sign Milton Bradley. They didn't get Peavy and Bradley's been a bigger pain in the ass than usual and hasn't even made up for it with his bat. (Although after the blowup with manager Lou Piniella, a hot streak from Bradley might happen.) Trading DeRosa didn't make Piniella happy, but the three minor leaguers----Chris Archer, Jeff Stevens and John Gaub----have all put up excellent numbers in the minors for the Cubs. In the long run, the youngsters have the talent to end up being a big win for the future of the organization.

• The Curse of Cammi:

    If the original, leaked Steve Zallian/Moneyball script is accurate, is it possible that the settled down Billy Beane has left his "genius" in, on or around some unsuspecting waitress from a chain restaurant like Outback Steakhouse? Did the switch from womanizing, wheeler-dealer to a stable family man send his brilliance into a tailspin?

    Much like "The Curse of the Bambino" that haunted the Red Sox for 86 years, did the treatment of every "Cammi" that was left to pick her uniform up off the floor of some dingy hotel room and, presumably, pay a visit to her doctor in the near future, transform Beane into what he is now? The GM of a team that, quite frankly, is badly constructed and on their way to 95 losses?

    As Beane's "genius" is rightfully questioned; as his decisions fail; as his infallibility is disproved with every loss; as his unassailable calculations are revealed as, well, fallible, is there a chance that the "Cammis" of the world are coming back to haunt him if the script is uncovering Beane in ways he never envisioned? 

    Probably not.

    The "Curse of Moneyball" is more like it. 

    When such a book is written, where is there to go but down? Who, genius or not, has the ability to function with that albatross weighing them down? With agenda-driven people still trying to sell the theory as factual despite the never-ending anecdotal, statistical and results-oriented proof that it hasn't worked in theory or practice, could Beane or anyone maintain the shield forever?

    With each passing year, another casualty of the book's expectations is added to the sum. Is this what Beane had in mind when he took part in and exacerbated the book's nonsensical and illusory embellishment by Michael Lewis? Is it what Paul DePodesta had in mind as he was portrayed as the Harvard-educated Beane assistant who eschewed the big-money corporate world to grace baseball with his presence and "discover"----EUREKA!!!!!----the correlation between on base percentage and slugging percentage? 

    I doubt it. 

    Beane's ego is so immersed in what he does, his competitiveness so apparent that the female conquest story in the script might be accurate as an addendum to his baseball mastery. He didn't make it as a player to become a superstar, so he allowed Lewis to observe his managerial machinations to become a superstar in that realm. It worked, but it's also created this monster that is no longer controllable----the monster of impossible expectations. No matter what he does, he can't live up to the hype created by that book.

    The fans who believed every word in Moneyball's hypothesis, in which Lewis exhibited the skills to win a Twister competition (if there is such a thing), take solace in their numbers. They defend DePodesta and the stats to the end even with the results faltering on a daily basis.As they promote DePodesta with such a fanatical fervency that they're too blinded to realize that his 20-month tenure as Dodgers GM can't be thrown out as the low grade as if he's still attending Harvard; as the faulty aspects of the book are evidence in the failures and alterations of Beane in the intervening years since the book's publication, they cling to their teddy bear; their security blanket; their copy of Moneyball, refusing to realize or understand that it hasn't worked. This fact is not going to go away regardless of what they do to adjust it. 

    Is it "The Curse of Cammi"?

    Is it "The Curse of Moneyball"?

    Or is it simply objective reality?

    You tell me.

• The Mets are in a strangely better position than the Yankees:

    Even as the Yankees have beaten the Mets like they owed them money in the past three games, the Mets are still in a better position to go further into the playoffs than the Yankees if things break right, or even if they break somewhat right.

    The National League is so laden with mediocrity that the Mets are going to be within striking distance of a playoff spot----barring a total collapse----for the duration. No one's going to want to deal with them if they start getting their injured stars healthy in August. The only team that's shown any superiority so far is the Dodgers; every other club has issues to sort out and this advantages the Mets greatly.

    The Yankees? They'll make the playoffs because the next tier of the American League is so rotten. The Rays have had a hot streak lately, but their pitching issues will keep them at bay. Once in the playoffs, the Yankees face the daunting prospect of the flawed Tigers (do you want to face Justin Verlander, Edwin Jackson and Rick Porcello in a short series?); the gutty Angels; and the Red Sox, who are looking down at the Yankees and smirking at them as if they're little more than a nuisance to be batted away with a flick of the wrist. 

    If the Mets get into September in position for a run and make it, they'll have a far easier road. Anyone can emerge from the NL at this point, but we know pretty much who's going to be standing in the way for the Yankees. They'll have to live up to their massive payroll to get past those clubs. While satisfying, beating up on an injury-riddled Mets team and a bad Braves team won't help them in October.

• Viewer Mail 6.28.2009:

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE my posting yesterday about the Moneyball script:

Tatis didn't look too good last night. He seemed sort of out of it on that throw....As for your take on the Moneyball movie, the funniest line of all was: "I've read some crap in my life - the vast majority of it written by me. " LOL!

• Quick math inextricably links bad writing into a bad movie:

    It didn't take long for leaks of the original script of the Moneyball movie to start floating around. On Yahoo Sports, 'Duk provides a clip here. The bit in the link combines two areas completely unfamiliar to the stat zombie----knowing baseball and getting laid.

    Maybe I'm asleep at the switch, but it never occurred to me that when I said there was no potential for a movie in the Moneyball narrative that they'd toss the book entirely and go the route of total fantasy as they simply made stuff up Hollywood-style. Michael Lewis's text in the book is creative non-fiction in and of itself, but compared to the script, the book seems like it came from God himself. I haven't downloaded the entire script, which is also linked on the Yahoo Sports blog, but if this little snippet is any indication of the rest of it, it's a safe bet that the studio did the right thing in bagging it before any more time and money was wasted.

    I've read some crap in my life----the vast majority of it written by me----but it's the writing that makes any project work or fail and that is some bad writing. Steve Zallian has an impressive resume, but everyone's got a clunker inside them somewhere. Steven Spielberg made 1941; George Lucas made Howard the Duck; Francis Ford Coppola made Jack. It happens. This could've been a first draft that shouldn't have been released, but still...

    There's some potential there though. Potential that hasn't yet been explored. Instead of a "serious baseball movie" that made no sense and was based on a flawed, twisted and inaccurate book (in theory and practice) like Moneyball and altered in unforeseen ways, they could've made it a total spoof and tried to get it where the script belongs----on Mystery Science Theater 3000. There are always candidates popping up that belong on the brilliant but cancelled sci-fi spoof. Dee Snider's Strangeland was one; the atrociously written, poorly acted, heinously directed Sylvester Stallone/Burt Reynolds vehicle Driven was another (directed by my fiancee's Finnish countryman Renny Harlin). 

    Obviously that script wasn't the final-final shooting script, but a $50 million budget for that? It would've been a bigger black hole than Paul DePodesta's reign as Dodgers GM and the best thing for the studio (and everyone else involved) was to do what it did----trash it!!!

    Hollywood did something smart for once.

• The scripted sex scene reminded me of something else:

    Remember the film For Love of the Game? It was a nice little movie, family-friendly and----aside from some light adult moments----was borderline Disney/Angels in the Outfield/G-rated fare. I remember that before the film was released Kevin Costner threw a tantrum because a graphic sex scene was chopped out of the final cut.

    What could he possibly have been thinking? Would someone explain to me please why, other than the opportunity for Costner to do something he apparently can't get enough of----showing his ass on film----he would think that a film like that needed him thrusting and gyrating his hips into some broad? Good grief.

• How much longer are the Mets going to continue the Fernando Tatis charade?

    You have to wonder how much Fernando Tatis's reputation as an admirably nice guy is playing into the Mets continuously writing his name into the lineup. I don't want to hear that the club's injuries are requiring Tatis to play more than he normally would and that that's exposing his flaws. He's been horrible this year and pretty much what he was before last season's Comeback Player of the Year-winning performance when he couldn't hold down a big league job. He's become a double play machine and cannot be in the lineup at the expense of both Daniel Murphy and Nick Evans. He needs to sit----good guy or not----and return to the pinch-hitting, play twice-a-week role he's designed for. It's nothing personal.

• Lenny Dykstra deserves a reality show:

    In this month's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on HBO, there's a riveting story about Lenny Dykstra and the flurry of lawsuits that are circling his head like vultures. Correspondent Bernie Goldberg had done a story on Dykstra earlier this year detailing his "brilliance" in the world of business. Then, after the stories started coming out about Dykstra's creativity with his payment practices, Goldberg re-visited Dykstra.

    It's something you'll watch again and again as Dykstra slurs like a punch-drunk boxer and responds to the allegations by people he hasn't paid for "services rendered" by saying (I'm paraphrasing): "Fuck the printing company! They're a bunch of criminals," and "Fuck that flight attendant!" who'd naïvely allowed Dykstra to use her credit card to pay for a private plane, then didn't pay her back and didn't even pay her for the work she did on the plane. Then, after Goldberg suggests that Dykstra's broke, Dykstra reaches into his pocket and pulls out a roll of 100s to "prove" that he's got money. It's something you have to watch.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 41   

• THE GEOFF BAKER AWARD FOR POMPOUS ARROGANCE GOES TO----MICHAEL KAY!!!!!!

    The Yankees insecurities and cloak of arrogance has found its vessel in Michael Kay.

    Like most bullies, the Yankees strut and snarl when things are going according to their evermore expensive "plan". When Alex Rodriguez hits; when the pricey pitchers pitch; when their attempts replicate what was created in the mid-90s looks like it might work, they're the alpha-males of baseball. It's only when things go wrong that the veneer of superiority is washed away and they revert to the scared and paranoid organization that's waiting for something to go wrong. No one exemplifies this more than Kay. 

    I've gone on before about Kay's overt lack of even the most rudimentary aspects of baseball knowledge, which are humiliating for someone who portrays himself as an "expert", but it's the overbearing attitude when things, however briefly, go the way they're "supposed" to go that's fingernails on the chalkboard to me. Last night, ARod's big night was treated as if he'd erased every single thing that had gone wrong for him in the past ten years. Kay's enthusiastic reporting of ARod being "pumped" went far beyond a broadcasting homer openly cheering for his employer; he sounded like a fan you'd run into in any bleacher section of any team in baseball. Two shaky wins against a bad team don't cure all the ills for the Yankees. 

    Over the past three weeks, we've seen up-close-and-personal the Yankees problems. The confidence that was a hallmark of their championship teams was exemplified by Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Paul O'Neill, Darryl Strawberry and Tino Martinez. Now they're a bunch of mercenaries who have neither the pedigree nor the attitude to recreate the intangibles that Joe Torre's Yankees had. Every single small thing that goes wrong has the potential to unravel the Brian Cashman-masterminded return to glory.

    Their confidence is decimated with even the smallest amout of adversity and this is a main reason why they're unable to catch or beat the Red Sox. The Red Sox have guys who come charging out and play to win; the Yankees are flexing their muscles when they're in the middle of a long winning streak, but falter when they're hit back by someone weaker.

    If you watch any Yankee telecast, it's always Kay raving and whooping at any good thing the Yankees do, but when they lose the scared little wimp that they've become goes whimpering home to mommy. There's always someone to blame for their faults. The pitchers blame Jorge Posada for his game-calling while Posada has four championship rings; the hitters blame injuries; the fans blame the management; and the management blames whomever built the bandbox of a new ballpark.

    In case anyone hadn't noticed, this organization hasn't won a championship in nine years. That's nine years. But we still see the commercials for the new Stadium in which Kay's voice-over says the nonsensical "greatness has a new home" and realize that he's not simply reading ad copy, he truly believes it.

    Greatness?

    Where's the greatness?

    There's former greatness still there, but that doesn't extend to the new faces. The greatness came from a team effort. The greatness that was above the statistics that ARod is accumulating; the greatness in which the pitchers like Orlando Hernandez didn't moan to the press about Jorge Posada, but got into a fistfight with him to settle their differences.

    They're a bunch of whiners and babies and that's exemplified by the attitude in the broadcast booth. "We're the best, but only when we're winning." That doesn't work when they run into the Red Sox. It doesn't work when they run into the Angels. Until this team does something that shows the heart and fortitude the dynastic Yankees teams of the late 90s and early 2000s did, they have no business being so impressed with themselves to the point that their inane prophet, Michael Kay, is singing the song of how their storied past means anything now. The "greatness" they so readily reference hasn't been there for almost a decade. They're showing no signs of changing that trend; they're still flawed and weak no matter how much money they spend or how their cheerleaders chant the mantra like a hypnotized cult member.

• The save rule, the save rule, the save rule:

    Dunno if I had anything to do with this, but Kay made it a point to repeat not once, not twice, but three times that Mariano Rivera's entering the game with the tying run on deck meant that it was a save situation. This is after roasting him (amid the faint hopes that he misspoke) as he didn't know the save rule on Tuesday night. I tend to believe that his repeating of the rule three times indicates an attempt to wash away his cluelessness from Tuesday, and it didn't work. Repeating oneself over and over again in the same context is a dead giveaway.

• The steroid revelations make the counting of ARod's homers ludicrous:

    I'd be curious to hear what Reggie Jackson really thinks of ARod's tying him with 563 homers. While Sammy Sosa has a former teammate in Ryne Sandberg saying that Sosa doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame for his PED usage, there's a countdown on ARod's homers as if his own PED use was never revealed.

    Depending on which party you believe----and I'm not going to say I believe anything Selena Roberts said as she wrote that rip job of a book, but because she had an agenda and looked for negative things doesn't mean the book's inaccurate----it's possible that everything ARod's done in his career is tainted. Not just the past few years, but every year. To mention him in the same breath as the power hitters he's passing with every homer ignores the PED admission like it never happened. Why are Sosa, Mark McGwire and the others punished with public lambasting and open intentions of exclusion from the HOF debate while ARod's being celebrated as if he's accomplished his feats cleanly from beginning to end?

• Nationals 9-Red Sox 3:

    I saw bits and pieces of John Smoltz's first start with the Red Sox and thought he looked good enough considering the circumstances. His fastball was in the low-90s and his breaking pitches were sharp. He appeared nervous and a bit out of sorts with the new team, new league and scrutiny; and it's not like the Nats are a bunch of weak sisters at the plate. Even with that, I sense that Smoltz is going to be a part of the Red Sox bullpen late in the season rather than a starter as he tries to go out with one more championship. I just have that feeling. The truth is the Red Sox don't need him in their rotation and they'd be stupid to deal Brad Penny with Smoltz's injury history and age. 

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 40

• Red Sox 6-Nationals 4:

    You don't hear the Red Sox people trying to find solace in the "peskiness" of the Nationals as the Yankees did because the Red Sox aren't losing to the Nationals like the Yankees did.

    For every stat that people formulate and for every reason why one thing happens over another, there will never be a better way to determine a team's success of failure over the course of a season than to see how they treat the teams they should beat. The Red Sox have no excuse for losing to the Nats, and they don't lose to the Nats. The Yankees were in such disarray after the sweep at the hands of the Red Sox that they stumbled around and let the Nationals come into Yankee Stadium and beat them 2 of 3.

    There's always the excuse that any team can beat any other team at any time, and it's absolutely true, but no amount of head-shaking and shrugging can justify the Yankees bewildered play last week against a terrible team like the Nats. The Nats have shown some fight in both of the series with the supposed bullies of the AL East (possibly because of players auditioning to catch the attention of a better team), the difference is that the Red Sox laid down the law after toying with the weaker team and the Yankees didn't. 

    You can quantify how many more wins a team can accrue if they simply beat the teams they're supposed to beat and in a close race, it can be the difference between an extra home game in the playoffs or a road game; more importantly, it can be the difference between making the playoffs and not making the playoffs. You can pick any team in recent years who just barely missed making the playoffs and find the four or five games against teams they should've beaten, but didn't.

    Last year, the Yankees went 5-5 against the Royals, 1-2 against the Pirates, 1-2 against the Reds, and 2-4 against the Tigers. If they'd won six of the 13 games they lost to inferior teams, they'd have been tied with the Red Sox for the Wild Card. In comparison, the Red Sox abused the Orioles, Royals and Rangers to the tune of a 27-8 record. The Rays battered the Orioles last year with a 15-3 record.

    This, more than anything, can be the difference between making the playoffs and not. Earlier in the season, it was easy  to denigrate the Marlins hot start of 11-1 as a benefit to their facing the Nats, but at least they were beating a team they were supposed to beat. That's the law of the jungle.

• Yankees 8-Braves 4:

    I thought it was funny the way manager Joe Girardi charged out of the dugout to argue the blown pick-off call against his team, and as he was zipping by Brett Gardner, without breaking stride, he said, "Brett, shut up!" to keep his player from getting tossed.

    This game was a win-win for both the stat-zombies and "Joba Chamberlain as a starter" advocates, and those that want Chamberlain sent back to the bullpen. Chamberlain showed great control, poise and the pitch variety to be a good starter, then Brian Bruney almost blew the game in the eighth inning as they needed to bring Mariano Rivera in for a four-out save. It shouldn't hurt Rivera if he's needed tonight because he hadn't pitched since last week and didn't work all that hard in last night's game, but it's still an issue that they don't have anyone they can really trust in the eighth inning. 

    I wouldn't get my panties in too much of a twist about beating the Braves because the Braves aren't any good. Here's an interesting question: how are the Braves 11th in runs scored if they have two everyday parts of their lineup with on base percentages the level of Chipper Jones (.410) and Brian McCann (.416)? It's simple, they're playing Jeff Francoeur and Kelly Johnson regularly. 

    I can't tell whether Johnson's a good hitter having a bad year or the opposing clubs have found a hole in his swing and he can't adjust; he's not the same guy as he was in 2007 and 2008. As for Francoeur, the entire Braves organization must feel like strangling him. He has multiple-MVP talent, but refuses to wait for a pitch he can hit. It's as if he's afraid someone's going to take the bat away if he doesn't put the ball in play within the first three pitches of an at bat. If it's aggravating even to Mets fans who have an ingrained dislike for the Braves, it must enrage people who are rooting for them.

    The Braves are a weird team. They have All Star power hitters in Jones and McCann and only 53 homers for the year. They have a deep starting rotation with Javier Vazquez, Derek Lowe, Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson, plus a talented bullpen, and they can't put it all together at once. That's the sign of a bad-to-mediocre team. They've been healthy this year and are floundering behind the injury-riddled Mets. I said before the season that they're the fourth best team in that division and it's proving to be true. They've got good players without being a good team. 

• Firing Eric Wedge would be a farce:

    What precisely is a new manager going to do in Cleveland that Eric Wedge hasn't already done to try and get this team straightened out?

    Is a new manager going to magically fix that bullpen? Is the new manager going to perform a faith-healing on Travis Hafner and return him to the basher he was two years ago? Wedge is using the guys he has and they're not getting the job done. Is he now a worse manager than the one who was one win away from the 2007 World Series? A World Series the Indians probably would've won? It's silly. And I have a hunch that if the ownership overrules GM Mark Shapiro on the manager, they're going to bring Mike Hargrove back and he's not going to have any more success than Wedge did unless the players perform as expected.

    If I were Wedge, I'd openly ask: What exactly would you like me to do differently? They'd come up with something vague like scream and yell and get kicked out of a game or two; or possibly use the old adage that a "new voice" was needed. Who knows? A hot streak might pop up out of a managerial change, but it won't have anything to do with who's sitting in the manager's office, it'll be because Kerry Wood can close a game once in a while.

    This situation is different from the other managerial changes in baseball this year. The Rockies' Clint Hurdle was a mediocre manager who needed to go, and they brought in a better strategic manager in Jim Tracy to replace him. Their hot streak was a combination of relief from the axe finally falling and the players doing their jobs. The Diamondbacks had a fissure between upper management and manager Bob Melvin. Time will tell if it's their roster that's the problem or the "organizational advocacy" that A.J. Hinch was supposed to instill will get things in line.

    The Indians are different. Shapiro and Wedge are on the same page; Wedge is Shapiro's guy and if they fire Wedge the ownership is running the risk of alienating Shapiro enough that he may look for a better situation and he wouldn't be lacking in opportunities.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 39 

• Three cases from last night (that I saw) of managers not knowing what they're doing:

    Is it that difficult to make the right strategic decisions in obvious situations? I can understand if the circumstances are "six in one hand, half-a-dozen in the other" and the manager makes a move that just happens to fail, but made sense; or when he's boxed in and does what he feels gives him the best chance to win even if it appears to be the wrong thing to do, but last night I witnessed three different managers make three different rockhead maneuvers that made no sense in theory or practice. Let's take a look:

Cardinals 3-Mets 0:

    The Mets were down 1-0 in the bottom of the sixth, doing absolutely nothing with Joel Piniero (the latest version of pitcher in the Bob Knepper/Randy Tomlin ilk----journeymen who are physically incapable of losing to the Mets) when Piniero walked Luis Castillo to open the inning. Livan Hernandez was batting and while he was pitching too well to remove him for a pinch hitter, the only choice in that situation was to have the hitter bunt.

    Instead of bunting, someone----manager Jerry Manuel said he made the call; Hernandez took responsibility----put on a hit and run. Hernandez swung and missed at a low and outside pitch and Castillo was thrown out stealing. An opening was closed, not because of a bad bunt or a great play, but because the participants did something out-and-out wrong. 

    This was absurd in so many ways. First, this madness of Manuel giving such freedom to his players (especially pitchers) in which they're able to ignore orders to bunt and swing the bat has to end now. Second, Yadier Molina is the best defensive catcher in the league and Luis Castillo isn't the basestealer he once was. Third, the top of the lineup was coming up. You have to get the runner to second base to try and tie the game instead of rolling the dice with all those factors against you.

    I don't know who's protecting whom with this blame-game stuff, but Manuel's the manager and there's a time to give certain players a little freedoms based on instinct, and a time to tell them what to do. No chance there should've been a pitcher executing a hit-and-run there under any circumstances unless the pitcher/hitter is Micah Owings. Other than that, he's bunting. Period.

Royals 2-Astros 1:

    The Royals were leading 2-1 in the ninth inning with their closer, Joakim Soria, on the mound. The Astros got their first two batters on base via back-to-back singles by Miguel Tejada and Lance Berkman. Ivan Rodriguez came to the plate and, in a clear bunting situation, never squared once and wound up striking out. Kaz Matsui struck out. Then Jason Michaels grounded out. Game over. Pitcher off the hook.

    Is this ten years ago when Ivan Rodriguez was a *power hitter* and the MVP of the league? What possible reason was there for Rodriguez, a big time double play candidate and little more than a slap hitter now, to be swinging the bat? He's batting .250 and is an offensive liability who should be a defensive replacement at this point in his career and in this era*.

    Does Astros manager Cecil Cooper, who was an excellent player, remember how baseball is supposed to be played? That move probably cost the Astros the game last night.

Diamondbacks 8-Rangers 2:

    The Diamondbacks were leading 7-2 in the top of the sixth inning and the Rangers were batting. Jarrod Saltalamacchia singled to lead off the inning. Chris Davis flied out; Elvis Andrus grounded to shortstop and Saltalamacchia reached second base. Pitcher Jason Jennings was scheduled to bat...and Rangers manager Ron Washington let him hit.

    I repeat: the score was 7-2 Diamondbacks in the top of the sixth inning.

    Since I'm at a loss for a reason that Washington made this decision, I'm wondering if anyone has a viable and believable reason why he would do that. Jennings is a decent hitter for a pitcher, but the team was down by five runs. Did he think that...jeez. I can't come up with anything he could've been thinking.

    If he sends up an available bat from his bench, a bench that included Andruw Jones and Hank Blalock, maybe they could run into a pitch and hit it out of the park; maybe they'd single to drive the run in; maybe they'd walk and Ian Kinsler could do something productive. Maybe, maybe, maybe. But we'll never know because Washington inexplicably let Jennings hit, Jennings popped out and the game was essentially over after that. Unbelievable. And I'm sure GM Jon Daniels and team president Nolan Ryan are thinking the same thing as I was when Jennings walked to the plate: what's Washington doing?

• I'll cling to the premise that Michael Kay isn't this dumb:

    Much like conservative republican stalwarts Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh, who hypocritically roasted President Bill Clinton for his peccadilloes, all the while engaging in private activities betraying their GOP talking points (Gingrich fooling around with a staffer; Limbaugh abusing prescription drugs), Michael Kay portrays himself as a baseball "expert" five hours a day on ESPN Radio, then broadcasts the Yankee games doing everything but wearing a Yankee hat and waving a pennant to root for his team, and has the audacity to not know the rules in which a pitcher gets credit with a save.

    While the Braves were batting in the bottom of the eighth inning against the Yankees last night and leading 3-0, Kay openly wondered (right before Brian McCann's homer made it a non-save situation anyway) if Braves manager Bobby Cox was going to leave Mike Gonzalez, who'd pitched the eighth inning, in the game to pitch to Brett Gardner to start the ninth. Rafael Soriano was warming up in the Braves bullpen and Kay said something to the tune of, "it won't be a save situation then, but Cox can't worry about that." 

    Uh, hello?

    It would've still been a save situation, genius!

    Here are the rules for getting a save: 1) a pitcher enters with a lead, pitches three or more innings in relief, his team wins and he finishes the game regardless of the score; 2) the tying run is on deck when he enters the game; and 3) he has a lead of three runs or less. 

    If the score had remained 3-0 and Gonzalez started the ninth only to be relieved by Soriano, it was a save situation!

    I have to give Kay the benefit of the doubt and think he misspoke because I shudder to think that he truly doesn't know that rule. I can't believe it. I won't. Good grief.

• The problem with stat zombies is coming to a head:

    During Mike Francesa's show simulcast on the YES Network yesterday, they showed a clip from June 9th in which a caller----Matt from somewhere----suggested that Yankees manager Joe Girardi should've ordered switch-hitting catcher Jorge Posada to bat lefty against a lefty pitcher. I had to check the boxscores to hazard a guess of which game he was referring to because I only saw the tail end of the "debate" in which Francesa looked rightfully about to blow a gasket.

    I'll assume the caller was talking about the Saturday June 7th game against the Rays when J.P. Howell came in and pitched to Posada, who grounded weakly to third. (That could be wrong. If anyone knows the exact situation, let me know. The Yankees won that Saturday game anyway.) Howell's "bad" numbers against lefties this year were the proffered "reason" for such a stupid idea, and this is the danger of statistics being utilized for every single decision that's made in a game. You have people like this Matt-person, who clearly know nothing about the game of baseball, look at statistics and decide that they're going to tell people who've been in or watching the game all their lives how to devise strategies. 

    Never mind the fact that Howell's career numbers are far better against lefties than they are righties; never mind that this season's stats are probably a bit of a freak occurrence; and never mind that ordering a career switch-hitter (Posada, whose numbers and accomplishments at least warrant strong consideration for the Hall of Fame) to bat lefty against a lefty pitcher----forget all of that----doing such a thing would not only demolish the manager's standing everywhere from the clubhouse to the media to the fan base, but it would essentially be signing his own managerial death warrant whether it worked or not. This is what happens when people who study numbers and know nothing about baseball or baseball players think they're reinventing the game.

    The utter ignorance of the suggestion isn't the worst part; it's that the idea is so ridiculous, so nonsensical and they're presenting it in such a pompous, condescending and obnoxious way to people who do have an idea of how the game should be played! Numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers. It's enough!

    There are people who follow statistics that you can deal with and have a chance of convincing them that your way is better because there's a semblance of rationality there; then there are people like this person who called Francesa's show. There's no arguing with these zealots because they have the dual strikes of not knowing anything about baseball and thinking they do know something about baseball because they can read a stat sheet. It's like talking to a wall except a wall serves a purpose.

    The only situation I can think of in which a manager sent a batter to hit on the wrong side of the plate was in 1985 when Billy Martin was managing the Yankees and the deranged side of Martin overtook the genius side as the pressure of the pennant race sent him over the edge further than usual. On September 18th, Martin sent lefty-swinging Mike Pagliarulo to bat right-handed against Tigers southpaw Mickey Mahler. Catcher Bob Melvin saw Pagliarulo settling into the right-handed side of the box and said, "What the hell are you doing?" Pagliarulo responded that he was trying to get a base hit and eventually struck out. It was insanity.

    This is the issue with the stat zombies. Many of them don't know anything at all about baseball, and this Matt is the type of person I imagine walking up to Tony La Russa and trying to tell him what to do in certain game situations based on out-of-context numbers. Then they wonder why people like me are reluctant to listen to them and people like La Russa are losing their minds at the interlopers. It's offensive. Leave the game to people who know something about it. Please, before you embarrass yourselves and make your cause seem more ludicrous.

• I'm getting cranky:

    It's getting aggravating that I continuously write stuff and then have others, columnists and the like, say the exact same thing days later, and I don't receive credit for it. This looked familiar from Bob Ryan yesterday. It probably looks familiar because I wrote pretty much the same thing on Sunday. Ryan doesn't mention the other positive aspects of the Daisuke Matsuzaka signing such as the Red Sox digging into the Japanese market and getting Hideki Okajima, but other than that it's the same conclusion that Matsuzaka, by himself, hasn't been worth the money or the hype.

    Oh, and I remember writing something yesterday. Let's see what it was. Ah, yes. Here it is:

I have a hunch the Phillies are going to take their frustrations out on the Rays this week by putting up some crooked numbers.

    Brahh-heeem!!! BLLLAAA-CHHEEMMM!!!

    Final score last night? Phillies 10-Rays 1.

    You people stealing from me should probably start crediting me because if you think I'm not catching when you're saying what I've said days before almost verbatim, you're wrong. I just haven't said anything about it. And if it continues, that's going to change very, very soon.  

• Viewer Mail 6.24.2009:

Norm Depalma writes RE stat zombies and Moneyball:

i just chanced upon this blog, and am so glad to have found an anti-moneyball voice on the web.
Not that there aren't many salutary aspects to the Bill James world-view.  But the slavish devotion to half-thought-out statistical 'studies' by almost all the writers out there is as laughable as the slavish devotion to 'intagibles' by the previous generation of baseball minds.

I look forward to reading more of your blog in the future and hope that you are the vanguard of the counter-revolution!

    It's not good that a chunk of people reading my website just stumble onto it by accident, but I'm not sure what to do about it other than ask for some more word of mouth support from people like Norm.

    The fall of Moneyball continues, but don't expect those that have something invested in it to go away quietly. They're going to ridicule, mock, and continuously promote their brethren and defend the indefensible. The sad part is that they're blindly betraying their rationality argument when they do so. The only thing people who take everything----stats and other aspects of decision-making----into account when coming to baseball conclusions is to keep speaking out. Eventually, we'll win.

    For those of you that are still wavering, I have a message: give yourself to the dark side.

• Mets 6-Cardinals 4:

    In two weeks time, things could be much different, but if the Mets are able to hold things together through this stretch of the season, they could benefit with a tougher skin in September.

    The list of injuries the Mets have built this season is bordering on the ridiculous. Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran, Oliver Perez, John Maine, J.J. Putz are only the more recognizable names that have spent time on the disabled list this year. Ancillary performers Brian Schneider, Tim Redding and Alex Cora have been out as well. With the walking wounded so vast and the expectations and blame-game quieted for now, this could give the Mets hope as they slowly see their players trickle back into the lineup.

    In the past two seasons, the Mets haven't handled the pressure of the pennant race at all. Their stars were mostly healthy and even though they had the excuse of an injured closer last September when Billy Wagner went down, they were in position to make the playoffs in the last week of the season if they'd shown the guts they did last night against the Cardinals. Given the way manager Jerry Manuel has to rely on bench players and back-of-the-bullpen guys to make key plays, the pressure could be diminished as the season wears on if they keep getting such above-and-beyond the call performances from the likes of Brian Stokes.

    It was an impossible predicament for a second-tier reliever as Stokes came in with one out and a one-run lead to pitch to Albert Pujols with a runner on first base in the eighth inning, but Stokes somehow coaxed a double play from possibly the best right-handed hitter in the history of baseball. Stokes spent a few years in Tampa Bay getting pounded along with all of the Devil Rays, but I don't think people realize how hard he throws. Stokes is one of the hardest throwers in the league with a fastball in the mid-to-upper 90s and he got the job done last night when few were expecting him to.

    Daniel Murphy did his part; Alex Cora did his part; Luis Castillo did his part. What these Mets have to do is keep scrapping and hold their heads above water while hoping that the Phillies don't wake up. (I have a hunch the Phillies are going to take their frustrations out on the Rays this week by putting up some crooked numbers.) The schedule the Mets face in the next few weeks is a bastard.

    After three more games with the Cardinals, they have the Yankees, the Brewers, the Phillies, the Dodgers and the Reds. None are easy marks, but if they can scrape by and find ways to win at least half of those games, then they'll have the All Star break to assess where they are and which injured players are coming back when. How are they going to look if they're within five or so games of first place in either the division or the Wild Card as their reinforcements return along with the bullpen duo of Putz and Wagner? It's up to the bench guys now, but the pressure's off because no one's expecting anything more than a collapse. It's not the best of circumstances, but this could be the Mets opportunity to show they're not as mentally weak as they've seemed to be in 2007 and 2008.

• Rockies 11-Angels 1:

    This isn't a situation where a team got hot after a managerial change; what's gone on with the Rockies is freaky and can't be taken as a full-blown indictment of Clint Hurdle or validation of Jim Tracy. Tracy is a better manager than Hurdle, there's never been a question about that, but for a team to win 17 of 18 the way the Rockies have is a convenient-place, convenient-time confluence of events from the managerial change to the blazing hot streak. 

    Obviously there were issues between Troy Tulowitzki and Hurdle. Hurdle benched Tulowitzki earlier in the season and it appeared to be a parent/child relationship that had gone sour in adolescence. Hurdle nurtured Tulowitzki's career from when he was a rookie in 2007 and things went downhill from there with injuries, temper tantrums and slumps. It's no coincidence that Tulowitzki's gone on a tear since Hurdle was fired. There's speculation that the team might've had this hot streak had Hurdle stayed on, but part of the problem was the pressure of playing for a manager who the club had----intentionally or not----tuned out and that he was always a day away from being fired.

    The Rockies weren't as bad as they were under Hurdle and aren't as good as they've been under Tracy. In the shaky NL Wild Card chase, the Rockies could hang around as the season moves along. Considering how they looked a month ago, that's pretty good. 

    On another note, Dan O'Dowd must be one of the luckiest sumbitches on the planet. Like J.P. Ricciardi, every time you think he's on the verge of getting axed, his teams ignite or play just well enough to save his job. Maybe there's something to the Jesus stuff.

• And the guy standing around at second base with the crutches is...Akinori Iwamura:
  

    There's no correlation, but it'd be funny if the news that Rays infielder Akinori Iwamura's torn knee ligament's reduced seriousness and possible return by August had something to do with Ben Zobrist hitting like Chipper Jones since entering the starting lineup. If I'd been the club's starting second baseman and saw my job being snatched away with every homer Zobrist hits and every double play he turns, I'd crawl out there still wearing my hospital gown and under the influence of anesthetic. 

    Joe Maddon's not a very smart manager, but if he puts Iwamura back into the starting lineup after the way Zobrist's hit this year, then he's a fool. Normally, I'd say there was no chance, but Maddon's got a history of doing things that make absolutely no sense. I don't buy the "not losing a job because of injury" crap either. Zobrist should be the Rays second baseman whether Iwamura's back or not.

• Viewer Mail 6.23.2009:

David at d@csupomona.edu writes RE the Yankees:

Prince: What do you think the Yankee front office is regretting more right now as we approach the All-Star break? The contracts and money they dropped on players that isn't producing to their expectations, or the fact that they basically gave Joe Torre the slip, and now he's dominating as manager of the Dodgers?

    I doubt they're regretting letting Torre leave. It was definitely better for Torre to go to a less stressful atmosphere for his mental and physical health. No one wanted to see the pressure cause him to get sick and that's where it was heading if you looked at Torre's face and body language by the end of his tenure. Los Angeles was the perfect prescription and venue for Torre to finish his managerial career and GM Brian Cashman can now do things the way he wants to without a headstrong and successful manager to stand in his way. It's becoming more and more clear that Joe Girardi is exercising the will of upper management in his decisions.

    I wouldn't regret the signing of C.C. Sabathia even if he did get seriously hurt. They needed that horse at the top of the rotation. They were repeatedly warned about A.J. Burnett. He's been healthy, which was his big issue and he's pitched okay, so it hasn't blown up yet. Mark Teixeira's been great. The contracts they absolutely wish they could do over are Alex Rodriguez's and probably Jorge Posada's, but that's hindsight. These weren't decisions made by the baseball people, but were edicts from ownership.

    It's still too early to panic or to openly backtrack on any of last winter's free agent decisions. If there's something to reconsider, it's what they've done with Joba Chamberlain and jerked him around with no long-term, ironclad resolution in sight. On the field, they're too talented to keep playing like this no matter who the manager is. 

Aaron Weiner at weenman@gmail.com writes RE the failure of Moneyball:

I would like to know on what you're basing your judgement that Moneyball hasn't worked. Looking at the A's season stats since 2000, they've had a winning record 7 times, and went to the playoffs 5 times. Yes, they've been pretty horrible since 2007, but every team has it's ups and downs. On the surface, it looks to me like Moneyball has worked quite well for the A's over the past decade!

    You're making the mistake of equating the Oakland A's with the presentation of Moneyball itself. Of course, the two are inextricably liked forever and as much as Billy Beane tries to distance himself from the way he was depicted in the book, he was a willing participant and deserves his share of the responsibility in fostering the myths created by Michael Lewis. I think he got jazzed about being the subject of such a project. The book and the A's are two almost totally different entities from one another.

    Look at the basic tenets of the book----treating the manager as a disposable and powerless entity; drafting college players almost exclusively and ignoring such objective analytic aspects as speed and power-potential in favor of their amateur statistics; relying on Ivy League-educated, statistically-oriented, non-athletes to inject their brilliance into baseball at the expense of the grizzled scouts----you'll notice that not even the Athletics have followed them. 

    Beane has not followed the Moneyball narrative in the intervening years at all. He's signed some veterans when he's needed to; he's paid big money for Dominican prospects----something that the book decries; he's drafted high school players; he's paid his managers relatively well. The idea that the old-school scouting techniques were an antiquated way of finding players is put forth throughout the book, but the players that were found in the 2002 draft by the A's have proven to have been far less than what they were projected to be by their numbers. With the way Beane's methods are portrayed as having figured out how to beat the odds in the draft, for example, I'd literally expect the miraculous. In reality, their picks were somewhere in the middle-to-bottom of the pack in terms of long-term success.

    The book implies that Beane and his crew of Ivy League educated stat zombies are going to run roughshod over the non-statistically oriented clubs who are living in the 1950s and if you're not doing things the way that Beane and his acolytes do them, you're a moron who deserves to be mocked and humiliated. It's easy to point to statistics and numbers to provide a reason "why" something was done, especially when it doesn't work. That doesn't mean it was a smart thing to do.

    If you look at all the Moneyball proponents who've taken control in various front offices, they've either failed or they've adjusted their strategies to suit their needs.

• No matter how many writers like Rich Lederer write what amounts to be love-letter/interview extolling the virtues of Paul DePodesta as an executive, what DePodesta did to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 20 months he spent as their GM cannot be erased. They can try, but it's right there in black and white how he arrogantly and stupidly destroyed a team that was on the verge of contending for a championship.
• J.P. Ricciardi has been little more than a survivor as the Blue Jays GM. He's been relentlessly mediocre as he's made some smart moves; some ghastly mistakes and repeatedly embarrassed himself with his public episodes fighting with fans, media members and players. The team has never once been a legitimate contender under Ricciardi despite seasons in which their record has looked better than it actually was. Not once were they in position to make a late-season playoff run. Never.
• Sandy Alderson went to San Diego and took Moneyball to its logical conclusion as he did follow the Lewis tenets and took a team that had been a consistent division winner and ran them straight into the near-100 loss purgatory they now inhabit.
• The Red Sox used Moneyball aspects such as the bullpen-by-committee and pompous corporate double-talk until they failed in practice. Now they've built the best-run organization in baseball using both stats and old-school scouting techniques in addition to flinging money at their mistakes to cover them up.

    Michael Lewis wrote that book with a clear agenda of casting Beane and sabermetrics in the best possible light and while it worked as a readable book, it was a farce from the beginning to those who knew anything about the game. It was a twisted narrative that six years passing have proved to be a colossal failure in practice. No revisionist history, caveats and attempts to bring the book to the big screen are going to alter the fact that as a story and strategy, it can't and won't work because statistics are a tool and not the final answer in building a successful team.

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE the Moneyball movie's collapse:

Told you so! Even when Hollywood is about to shoot a movie, they find a way not to. What a business. I'm waiting to hear on three different projects and if one of them gets made I'll be shocked (and thrilled).

    With all the absurd, nonsensical chick-lit movies that they adapt from books, I find it hard to believe that they couldn't make one of your books into a good movie. The difference between you and the likes of Candace Bushnell is that you can actually write!!! 

Jeff at Red State Blue State writes RE the Moneyball movie's collapse:

Does that mean that Blind Side will be scrapped too? I'm crying myself to sleep tonight then. Oh wait, no, I have to stay up and watch the Cards v. Mets. As for Stat Zombie synonyms... how about "Number Nerds" or "Analytical Oompa Loompas" or just plain old "Twerps"?

   Don't people see through Lewis's hackneyed writing yet?

Joe at Statistician Magician writes RE the proposed trade of Jose Guillen for Jeff Francoeur and asks a question about Dave Magadan. Yes. Dave Magadan:

How are they better off with Guillen? An average hitting corner outfielder for a cool $12 mill? I would much rather have Franceour than Guillen. At least Jeff might have some potential in there. Guillen is an albatross. I am not saying the Royals should give anything up for Franceour, but if they could have him for practically nothing, then they may want to take that chance.

Paul, I was looking through Dave Magadan's stats and noticed that he didn't play many games. Was he injured a lot? Blocked? Undervalued? I ask because you are a Mets fan.

    They're not giving Francoeur away for nothing. Hell, I'd take him on the Mets if they were giving him away for nothing. The guy's physically gifted, but does...not...listen.

    The Braves are at fault for his struggles as well; they've messed around with him, sent him to the minors, etc. Excluding salary, Guillen's numbers aren't that bad and are pretty good compared to Francoeur, but does Francoeur help the Royals now? With the lineup they're putting out there behind that pitching staff? No way. Francoeur needs a hitting guru to get through his thick skull that he's killing his career with his impatience. Tony Gwynn, maybe? 

    Magadan was a slap hitter with no power whatsoever. He had a great year in 1990 and almost won the batting title that year. He was a prototypical #2 hitter if a fast, on-base guy was in front of him and a basher behind him. He slumped in 1991, was shifted to third base in 1992 and had a solid enough year platooning with...Bill Pecota, if you can believe that!

    Magadan didn't play regularly because he was a slow-footed singles hitter who was barely adequate defensively at first and third base. You couldn't play a corner infielder who hit 5 homers a year and only 25 or so doubles unless you were loaded at other positions and he played great defense; aside from 1990, none of Magadan's teams were ever that good when he was playing regularly. He was an extra piece who rarely struck out and got on base; a useful bench guy/platoon player for a good team.

• Reason #9,345 to worship Jane Heller:

    Weeks ago, my consigliere, Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan told me (I'm paraphrasing) that there was no point in going on and on about the Moneyball movie before it was actually made. Hollywood has a propensity for hyping up nonsensical projects----with or without stars attached----only to see them fall by the wayside for one reason or another. She should know with all the options on her books that have yet to result in an actual film. 

    Even with that sage advice, I was salivating at the prospect of seeing how they were going to find a way to make a movie about a skillfully twisted and inaccurate book such as Moneyball especially since the theory hasn't wooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrked!!!!!!!!!!!

    Now comes the news (linked in Rob Neyer's blog) that the project is in "turnaround" and/or has been scrapped----Variety Story. I doubt the movie will ever see the light of day. If someone with the reputation and the pop of Steven Soderbergh can't get it made, it's ain't gettin' made.

    In all my arrogance, I'd like to believe my repeated questioning of how they could make a movie of this book played a part in the sinking of the project, but I think it was just Hollywood being Hollywood. The level of fantasy the book would entail as it details the (non-existent) success of the Moneyball-advocates would be akin to a book/movie entitled, "George Bush, the Greatest U.S. President Ever-Ever," along with it's sequel, "Sarah Palin-The Genius That Saved The World"----it, like Moneyball itself, would be a farce.

• Where the hell is Hank?

    I was mentally preparing a very brief novella about "The Room Beneath Yankee Stadium." The gist was set to be how Hank Steinbrenner is locked away, safe from the media and in prevention of him hurting himself and others with his bloviating. Even I got bored with it, so I decided not to unleash it on you either. What's left is the question of where Hank is and why he's been so quiet.

    With the way the Yankees have played lately, you'd think there'd be some explosion in the offing by the deranged oldest son of George Steinbrenner. His threats and bullying were unfulfilled by action all through last season and it's obvious that the younger brother Hal is handling the club in a manner unseen in Steinbrennerian lore----calmly and rationally----as he leaves the player decisions to GM Brian Cashman and his staff. Still, I'm sure that Yankee fans would like someone to do some intimidating backed up by firings. 

    Fans are going to be indignantly asking how this team of stars could lose two of three to the Marlins, but the Marlins are a dangerous team. Losing two of three to the Nationals was inexcusable and the only reason the Yankees haven't lost four straight series is because of Luis Castillo's dropped pop-up. If they play poorly against a team that isn't very good in Atlanta with the Braves, will Hank come out of his hole? Or will he remain silent? 

    If this were twelve years ago, and this collection of stars was playing so haphazardly, the manager would've been put on notice, winning record or not. If this were twenty years ago, he likely would've already been fired; and if it were thirty years ago, the Yankees might be on their third manager this year. This is not to imply such reactionary ownership is a good thing, but Yankee fans have every right to wonder whether it's gone too far the other way and they're going to sit around calmly and patiently as the season unravels.

• C.C. Sabathia's biceps problem:

• Speaking of the Marlins...

    I received lots and lots of ridicule for picking the Marlins to win the NL East before the season; got some props when they started off 11-1; and more abuse when they had an atrocious run to put them under .500. Now they're only three games out of first place and have just as much chance as any team in the NL East to come out of that division. Their flaws are no more glaring than those of the Phillies or the Mets. In fact, with the team the Mets are putting out on the field, they're at best a 75-win team. Plus, the Braves aren't any good.

    The Marlins can bash and even with their atrocious defense and shaky starting pitching (supposedly a strength before the season started), they're still loitering around contention. Mark this down: if they hang within a few games of first place by the All Star break, their young starting pitching will have overcome the inexperience and find their groove. If that happens, the rest of the National League had better watch out for the best procurers of talent and maximizing of dollars in baseball, the Florida Marlins. 

• Is Dayton Moore preparing to make things worse?

    ESPN's Rumor Central is reporting the following (you'd better go here before reading further):

The Royals are watching Jeff Francoeur this weekend and there's still a chance that general manager Dayton Moore could be prompted to make a deal for the 25-year-old outfielder, Mark Bowman of MLB.com reported.

But to make this deal work, Bowman says the Braves may need to be willing to take on Jose Guillen. Guillen is making $12 million this season and he'll be owed and equal amount before his contract expires at the end of the 2010 season.

    The only reason to make this move is to get rid of Jose Guillen's contract and Jeff Francoeur does need a change of scenery, but this would not help the Royals right now. It would essentially signify that they know they're going nowhere this year and are taking a different road. Francoeur isn't going to help them achieve their ends, whatever those ends are. 

    Guillen is making $12 million annually and his contract is up after next year. Francoeur is making slightly over a million dollars this year and is arbitration eligible. Even with his awful year, he's going to get a substantial raise to, say, $4-6 million. Francoeur looks lost at the plate and unless the Royals have someone who can get through to him to stop swinging at anything and everything, he's not going to be much better for the Royals than he's been for the Braves. For right now, they're better off with Guillen who, salary aside, hasn't been that bad at the plate this year and nowhere near as bad as Francoeur.

    If the Royals are in salary-dump mode after the misguided expectations of contention before the season started, they're in far worse shape than anyone thought. 

• What to do if you're the Indians?

    Life would be much easier without the ambiguity.

    It's the ambiguity that's allowed J.P. Ricciardi to survive as long as he has with the Blue Jays and it's the ambiguity that's cluttering the decision to clear out the house for the Cleveland Indians. 

    After the last two excruciating losses to the Cubs, with a record of 29-41, five straight losses and a nine game deficit in the AL Central, GM Mark Shapiro's probably ready to deal. Normally it would take a fraction of a second to decide to cut their losses. They've done it before and have no hesitation about doing it again. But that AL Central is so rotten that a seven game winning streak would get the Indians back to within striking distance of the division lead. It's highly unlikely they're going to recover from everything that's gone wrong this season, but it's always possible. The Astros have famously refused to throw in the towel in recent years and it's paid off, so why not the Indians? 

    Reality is going to set in after another week or so and they're going to step up their efforts to deal Mark DeRosa, among others. My guess is that Shapiro's waiting for the calls and offers to come in and will start getting serious if and when the division deficit reaches double digits. That could happen as soon as today. Jon Heyman (take this with a grain of salt) said on Mike Francesa's show that the asking prices for the sellers has been exorbitant, but that's only a starting point. A team with money to burn and a part-time spot at DH could get almost anything they want from the Indians if they agreed to take Travis Hafner's contract. 

    Many teams (the Angels, the Mets, the Braves) could use DeRosa and Shapiro will be able to get a couple of good prospects for the free agent to be, but the other names on the Indians roster that could be available are intriguing. It makes no sense to trade Fausto Carmona now with the way he's looked; Carl Pavano's not going to bring back anything of note; Rafael Betancourt might yield a middling prospect as an add-on to another deal. The name I'd watch for availability (especially for the Mets) isn't DeRosa, but Ryan Garko. Garko's arbitration eligible and is a hard-nosed type who wouldn't cost that much in players if Shapiro puts him out there.

    Things aren't going according to plan in Cleveland, and it's nearly time to start getting serious about clearing some space. The Indians have tended to act sooner rather than later in the past and the "For Sale" sign is coming out of the garage as we speak.

• Marlins 2-Yankees 1:

    While A.J. Burnett was in the middle of his string of six straight strikeouts, Michael Kay couldn't shut up about the breaking ball of Burnett. "Six straight strikeouts for Burnett!! He's dealing!!!" Conveniently omitted was that in the middle of Burnett's "dealing" Dan Uggla hit a shot that could easily have been misidentified as a North Korean missile headed toward Florida; the Marlins were getting runners on base; and the Yankees were losing 1-0 because they couldn't figure out the budding superstar Josh Johnson.

    Then, when Johnny Damon missed Jorge Cantu's line drive, costing Burnett another run, all Kay could do was go on and on about how inexplicable it is for an outfielder to miss such a chance. Ken Singleton and Paul O'Neill suggested that Damon lost it in the lights, but it looked more like he simply missed it. Damon's not a good outfielder. I'd like to see Kay try to catch some flyballs for once. I had to play the outfield a couple of times when I was on the sandlots and it's ain't as easy as it looks.

    On another note, does manager Joe Girardi have a particular style or plan? Or does he just do whatever pops into his head? Why was Derek Jeter bunting with runners on first and second with no outs in the top of the eighth, then not bunting, then bunting? He ended up grounding into a double play. Jeter is not above moving runners along with a bunt, especially with the bats he has behind him. Damon is not a big-time strikeout candidate and was likely to at least get the tying run in if they'd been advanced on the proper strategic play, the bunt.

    Another question that has to be asked of Girardi is whether his strategies are being heavily influenced by Brian Cashman's office and their newfound reliance on sabermetrics. Girardi is in no position to be ignoring the "encouragement" of the front office when it comes to gametime decisions as Joe Torre was. When Torre first became Yankees manager, his GM, Bob Watson, wasn't going to interfere in the on-field stuff and since Torre won the World Series, he had a shield from being overtly told what to do over the rest of his tenure. Girardi is increasingly looking like a front man for the edicts of the front office. For a brainy former catcher who played for and was mentored by such inside-baseball proponents as Torre and Don Zimmer, Girardi's strategies don't add up and it's costing his team games.

• Is anyone really surprised by Daisuke Matsuzaka's struggles?

    Amid all the hype that surrounded Daisuke Matsuzaka's arrival in the States, you'd have thought the Red Sox were getting a true top-of-the-rotation starter. Instead, they've gotten a 5-6 inning pitcher who's benefited from being on a team that has: A) a lineup that scores plenty of runs; B) great defense; and C) a superlative bullpen to accumulate wins for the starter.

    Even with the nearly one-strikeout per inning, Matsuzaka is wild to the point where his pitch count is up around 100 by the fifth inning and his shaky mechanics and outright abuse in his formative pitching years are causing him to break down. It's hard to have positive imagery of what they're going to get from Matsuzaka in the next three years of his contract (which pays him $28 million). His acquisition had some ancillary aspects as the Red Sox cut into the Yankees monopoly of the Japanese market and they acquired an excellent set-up man in Hideki Okajima, ostensibly because he was Matsuzaka's friend and that he's lefty. For those reasons, you'd have to consider the Matsuzaka deal a success, but it's not because of Matsuzaka, since he's turned out to be a very ordinary, middle-to-back of the rotation starter. Nothing more.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 38   

• Stuff the stat zombies don't tell you:

    *Note: I Googled the words "stat zombie" and I'm faaaaarrrrrr from the first one to use the term, even though I wish I'd come up with it. Unfortunately, I'll have to come up with other innovations I guess. Suggestions are welcome.

    For those of you who don't spend your lives calculating PECOTA, UZR, VORP or any of the other dainty little acronyms the stat zombies create in between their pagan rituals mentally and spiritually connecting with Bill James, it's easy to be intimidated when someone's flinging numbers in your face to "prove" their assertions as fact. Many of you, not wanting to look stupid or be mocked and ridiculed, choose to stay silent rather than even ask whether the numbers are applicable.

    I have no such qualms. Let's take a look.

The Rays "run-differential" meaning they're better than they are:

    Because they're only one game over .500 and their front office is loaded with stat zombies, the Rays are one of the darlings of the infected media wing and those that are afraid to protest. (It's interesting how no one was openly saying how "smart" and "savvy" the Rays front office was before last season as they started looking like the 1969 Mets.) The Rays front office have been very, very lucky and are receiving credit for players that were procured by the previous regime (Scott Kazmir, Carl Crawford, James Shields, to name a few); and fell into success with scrapheap pickups (Carlos Pena, Grant Balfour).

    Very few people have authoritatively stated the fact that everything worked out well for the Rays last season until the World Series. It was then that manager Joe Maddon's bizarre strategies and tendency to zone out and forget to do things like the absent-minded professor (except he ain't no professor) cost the Rays dearly. Now, as they stumble along at 35-34 with a shaky bullpen, diminished performances, the residue of bad decisions cluttering up their brilliance, their run differential (number of runs scored vs runs allowed) is referenced as their "true" results. 

    The Rays run differential is currently +70. Technically, that means they should probably be about 5-7 games better than they are, which would put them in first place in the AL East and give them the best record in the American League. What's not taken into account is that it's an overly simplistic number that they use to pat you on the head and say, "we know better than you; don't you worry about what your eyes tell you."

    The truth is that the Rays are in their current predicament because they've gotten a far lesser performance from their pitching staff this year than last; their injuries have cost them; and their manager's cluelessness isn't being glossed over by dramatic wins.

    The number "+70" is being buffered by the number of blowouts in their games this year. According to Baseball-Reference.com, the Rays have had 22 games that ended five or more runs one way or the other. They've gone 15-7 in those games. If you take out the run differential from those games----which once the games are out of hand should be taken with a grain of salt----the Rays run differential becomes far less than what you'd expect as the removal of the blowouts----for and against----lowers their number to +30.

    They've lost 21 of their games in results that were decided by three-runs or fewer and it's not due to "bad luck" as the zombies will condescendingly tell you. In examining those games one-by-one, their losses came down to the following: bad starting pitching by Andy Sonnanstine and Scott Kazmir; rotten bullpen work by Balfour, J.P. Howell, Jason Isringhausen, Troy Percival and a couple of their journeymen pickups; and that they simply got outpitched. That's 21 losses. Had the Rays gotten even decent work from their bullpen in, say, three of those games, that's a record of 38-31. If Sonnanstine had been only mediocre instead of atrocious earlier in the year, that's two more wins and would make them 40-29 and right near the top of the league as the zombies assert they're "supposed" to be.

    To me, if you're losing close games like that, there's something wrong whether it's not getting the big hit or not having the pitchers perform. It has nothing to do with the taken-out-of-context stat of "run differential", but they're not going to tell you that because it would cripple their argument that the team is something other than what it is and what that is is a .500 team. 

    The zombies go on and on about such things as "the Rays team bullpen ERA is third in the AL" as if that matters for a reliever. If you look at all the other numbers (expanded I and II), the Rays are right at the bottom of the league and that's why they're in the position they're in. It's the blowouts that are making them look better and until they get the bullpen straightened out by finding someone who can legitimately close games, they're not going to "fulfill their potential", but if you ask me, since I had them at 82-80 this year, they are fulfilling their potential.

Joba Chamberlain's "great" numbers as a starter:

    Joba Chamberlain is turning into a brat who throws a tantrum if he doesn't get his way. I'm surprised that Jorge Posada, notorious for his temper, hasn't grabbed him by his throat and flung him against a wall to tell him in no uncertain terms that if he continues with this attitude, he's going to be crawling around on the floor looking for his teeth.

    We keep reading things from the zombies as to why Chamberlain should be a starter and I'm beginning to understand Mike Francesa's frustration when he receives a phone call by a whiny-voiced, numbers-crunching weasel as he starts asserting that Chamberlain's numbers since he became a starter are comparable to the Roy Halladays of the world. It's absolute nonsense given Chamberlain's overall performance and, more importantly, behavior as a starting pitcher.

    As I've said before, I believe Chamberlain could be a very good starter and a great reliever. Right now, the Yankees can afford to do something the Red Sox couldn't do with Jonathan Papelbon and leave Chamberlain in the rotation. But the shackles the Yankees have on the youngster with the pitch/innings-counts and the way he's behaving make it increasingly clear that his personality belongs in the bullpen before even getting to his stuff and contextualized performance.

    His numbers as a starter are respectable enough, but as Francesa said yesterday, Chamberlain's no longer special. He's "just another guy". Combined with his sour faces and overt disrespect to the veteran catcher (something Joe Torre wouldn't stand for, dunno what Joe Girardi's doing about it, if anything) he's making the decision clear without the Yankees bullpen issues coming into play.

    The rest of the league is so bad that the Yankees are going to make the playoffs one way or the other. You can bet the house that Chamberlain is going to be pitching in the eighth inning by September to get ready for the playoffs. But right now, they're muddling along as they stick to their "plan" with the young righty who not only needs his ass sent back to the bullpen after the All Star break, he needs a real good kick in it as well. His position as a second year player and not a veteran should preclude him from doing what he's currently doing as he acts like a spoiled baby who needs to be scared straight.

• Speaking of scared straight:

    The Mets have played excellent fundamental baseball since the Luis Castillo-dropped pop up fiasco last week. They've caught the ball with two hands, run balls out when batting and hit cut-off men. If that one game caused them to have a communal awakening and suddenly do the little things they're supposed to do, it might well have been worth it.

• Jim Leyland signs a contract extension through 2011:

    Much of what went wrong with the Tigers last year wasn't all manager Jim Leyland's fault (he did deserve a chunk of the blame for his panic-stricken early season screaming sessions and player position-shifts) but tensions between the manager and GM Dave Dombrowski, the last year of his contract amid predictions of disaster made Leyland a good bet (by me included) to be fired very fast.

    The Tigers are riding their starting pitchers Justin Verlander, Edwin Jackson and Rick Porcello to the top of the terrible American League Central despite getting nothing from Carlos Guillen and Magglio Ordonez. Their bullpen's been bad as well, but in that division, 86 wins might do the trick. If the reliance on Verlander and Jackson doesn't burn them out by the end of the season, they should be at or near the top for the duration. Dombrowski couldn't let Leyland hang in the wind for much longer, so an extension was only fair.

• Cardinals 10-Royals 5:

    If Zack Greinke had been somewhere close to human up until now, would Dayton Moore and Trey Hillman still have their jobs? The Royals organization is a laughingstock.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 37   

• I...do...not...get...it:

    I'm throwing my hands in the air.

    I just do not understand it.

    Someone please help.

    Someone obviously smarter than me.

    I'll just ask.

    Again.

    What is it about Paul DePodesta that the stat-zombies feel the need to relentlessly offer him as not just a competent executive, but the next coming of Branch Rickey? Why? 

    Every couple of weeks another interview, article or whatever pops up promulgating the myth that this guy knows what he's doing as a baseball man. This newest one if by Rich Lederer on "The Baseball Analysts"----link.

    Lederer left out that DePodesta is: faster than a speeding bullet; more powerful than a locomotive; able to leap tall buildings in a single bound; heals the sick with his almighty brainwaves; helps old women across the street and walks on water.

    Uh, fellas? I hate to break this to you, but any interview with a guy whose one chance as the top dog in an organization was a disaster not far from the Detroit Lions/Matt Millen purgatory is not going to be saved by a seven paragraph introduction/resume as to why he should be taken seriously. In fact, it's after paragraph five that it's already in the ditch.

    What possible difference could it make that DePodesta has worked in all of the listed organizations with some high-quality people when his one chance at being the boss ended so atrociously? You can read the interview and cover letter to his resume if you choose to, but it all comes down to the following:

    So what he worked with the people listed (many of whom have issues of their own in their results and judgment) and went to Harvard? Who cares?

    He was a two-sport athlete and he worked with blah and blah; he's nice; he has children; he's blih and bleh...so what?!? Are these aspects credibility-increasing instruments when his results with the Dodgers and Padres are what they are right there in black and white? How is it ignored that he was obnoxious and wood-headed in wrecking----and that's the right word, wrecking----a Dodgers team that was ready to compete for a championship if he'd just left it alone?

    What's most interesting in the opening is what's omitted. It's all taken out of context. The Padres teams that were successful had yet to be "Moneyballed" to the logical conclusion of the theory that we've seen in the past two years. The Dodgers won that division title in 2004 because they'd built up enough of a lead before DePodesta trashed the roster that they were able to hold on by playing barely over .500 after his hellish series of trades that left everyone wondering who and what they'd fallen for when they hired him.

    It's a farce. The stat-zombies are obviously still desperately trying to get another one of "theirs" hired to somehow "prove" that the attention paid to the numbers and little else is the only way to go. And don't you dare question them or get in their way. Every couple of weeks we see another interview or article trying to prop up this failure as an executive as if his Hall of Fame plaque should already be in storage, ready for unveiling in 2035.

    People in baseball seem to be wise enough (a true rarity) to ignore the zombies to this point, but the zombies still lurk and are not giving up and clearly, they never intend to either. I'd actually like someone to hire DePodesta as a GM again (just please, not the Mets), just so the fallacy can be revealed once and for all. But it wouldn't matter.

    While the initial thought is pleasing, reality hits me like a bolt of lightning. If he was hired again as the boss and failed miserably (again) and was fired (again), they'd still defend him. It's a rule to writing a resume, eliminate the bad stuff. The problem is that DePodesta's bad stuff was so heinous, so public, and so easily accessed that the customers they're trying to convince know about it and are unlikely to buy into the infomercial again----book, movie, resume and love-letters aside. It's like the GEICO commercials, entertaining at first, questionable second, tiresome third. We can hope against hope that they'll go away, but make sure not to hold your breath. 

• Speaking of which...

    I watched a chunk of the Dodgers 3-2 win over the Athletics last night and I have to wonder what we were all thinking in believing that the A's were ready to contend with such a young starting rotation. It's obvious now, but they're a strangely constructed team that isn't completely buried only because of the parity in the American League.

    Their young starting rotation has a bright future if they stay healthy, but it's very, very hard for teams with a starting rotation all between the ages of 21 and 25 to be consistent. Their results have been pretty much in line to what anyone with common sense would think they'd get from young, inexperienced starters: flashes of brilliance; flashes of horror; and a general requirement of having the area behind their ears wiped down with a ShamWow between innings. 

    I don't know what was going through Billy Beane's head when he decided to run the risk of going with an all-rookie starting rotation, a series of shot or near-shot veterans in the lineup, and a veteran bullpen from which it's always a gamble as to what you're going to get.

    Jack Cust should've been sold high last winter; Jason Giambi, who was brought in for sentimental reasons (something that Beane's supposed to be above) looks shot; Orlando Cabrera is playing about five years older than his listed age of 34; and Nomar Garciaparra is, guess what, on the disabled list. 

    They're not good; they weren't well-constructed; and no one's saying anything about it. As this ridiculous concept----the Moneyball movie----is set to start production, the main players of the "biopic" are increasingly revealed as clueless (much like the rest of us who don't boil human beings down to mathematical formulas), and not enough people are protesting. I don't know why.

• The Prince's Executive-ometer:
  

    I'm thinking of coming up with a 0-100 ranking system for sports GMs past and present; and no, I'm not sitting here sifting through every move an executive has made from the draft to the procurement of players to their hiring of managers, but if we start with Matt Millen being an absolute zero and smart, successful types such as Theo Epstein and Larry Beinfest being around 80-85, there's plenty of room to start coming up with a placement system based on results and not on an agenda. Suggestions are welcome.

    Oh, and if any of you stat-zombies/weasels intend to be smartasses here on my site with the "suggestions", remember this: Like "The Most Interesting Man in the World", I'm a lover and not a fighter; but I'm a fighter too, so don't get any ideas.    

• The stat-zombies are reduced to attacking one another:

    If you watch any documented history of the zombie, from the work of George Romero in the so-called "Return of the Living Dead" tragedy in Pittsburgh, to mainland England's destruction in what is now referred to as "28 Days Later," you'll notice that no self-respecting zombie attacks another zombie. It just hasn't happened...until now with the stat-zombie. 

    Joe at Statistician Magician linked my brief posting about the Rays yesterday onto Baseball Think Factory. This is the third time I know of that I've been linked on the site and the traffic it drums up is outlandishly great; but that pales in comparison to the amount of vitriol it attracts when you're not one of "them" and then even if you are one of "them". It's stunning how things degenerate. There's no discussion with some of the infected. It rapidly turns into a cannibalistic, nihilistic, self-destructive war amongst themselves.

    I only read some of the comments and the decline into absurdity from my first appearance on the site until now has been absolute. (I'm not acknowledging, nor responding to anything about me in any context over there; if they'd like to come after me, they can do it here on my turf----and face the consequences.) First, they attacked me for my posting that decried the exalted PECOTA system of predicting performance and results; then they kinda, sorta started agreeing with me that Billy Beane deserves some criticism for his mistakes since Moneyball; then they offered occasional nods to certain points regarding the Rays, a quick strike personal attack here and there, and then started arguing with one another. If you walked in halfway, you wouldn't know you were in the middle of an argument about baseball; you'd think you were in an Excite chatroom from 1999.

    I do not consider Joe a full-blown stat-zombie. You can reason with him despite some zombie-like symptoms. I'd place him more in the "carrier" stage of the stat-zombie virus as he foments some of the arguments by descending into stat-zombieness. Unlike many of those that commented on that BBTF posting, he's salvageable. Perhaps some enterprising chemist can come up with a Valtrex-like vaccine to preclude outbreaks of stat-zombiehood. In fact, Joe's been doing quite well lately for the "family" that I'm going to have a sit-down with my Mid-West capo and my consigliere to discuss a promotion. Big earners get their props.

    As for the other stuff, I promised the first time in April that I had something special on the way for you boys and it's coming. If you hate me now, you're really gonna freak out by the end of the year at the amount of chaos I inject into your PECOTA-protected, numerically-ordered, J.D. Drew-loving lives. 

    I'm a man of my word.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!

•  W.W.T.D?

    The above acronym stands for, of course, "What Would Torre Do?" and while watching the Yankees lose to the Nationals (proof that any team, no matter how bad, can beat any other team regardless of talent and payroll), then watching a bit of the Dodgers game, I thought about the Yankees' Jorge Posada vs his pitchers controversy. I wondered whether Joe Torre would've handled it differently that Joe Girardi has. 

    I can't help but think that Torre would've done a better job of nipping it in the bud or at least coming to some sort of resolution with the participants before it got into the media and the talk show circuit as a cause célèbre.

    I'm not sure what he could've done other than have an early season meeting while the concerns were being aired. Spring training might've been a better time to do it, but Posada's shoulder injury kept him from catching regularly and getting into a rhythm with the pitchers and that's only exacerbated the problem. This isn't going to go away while the starters are struggling. Every bad game (and good game for that matter) is going to invite the questions about the catcher-pitcher relationship. I'm starting to believe that the Yankees might have been better off doing something similar when they made the managerial change from Torre to Girardi as when Torre took over for Buck Showalter----make drastic changes in the team's composition.

    If you look at the Yankees from Showalter's last year of 1995 and into Torre's first in 1996, they had a different catcher (Mike Stanley-Joe Girardi); first baseman (Don Mattingly-Tino Martinez); second baseman (Pat Kelly-Mariano Duncan); shortstop (Tony Fernandez-Derek Jeter); and a chunk of the pitching staff was altered as well.

    Aside from the stupid attempt to incorporate three rookie pitchers into the starting rotation at once, the Yankees of 2007-2008 were basically the same team with the exact same lineup, only they had a relatively inexperienced and callow in every sense of the word manager who----through no real fault of his own----didn't know what he was walking into and had some growing pains to endure. The Yankees could've gotten rid of both Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada, which is what GM Brian Cashman, possibly partially remembering history, wanted to do.

    In retrospect, they might've been better served on and off the field because the Posada-pitcher war isn't helped by the underlying tension that still remains between Girardi and Posada from when they were competing for the starting catching job. Girardi's not going to undermine himself intentionally and hamper his ability to do his job, but subconsciously, he'd probably prefer a better defensive catcher as his baseball management mentors, Don Zimmer and Joe Torre, always did. They have to handle this and put differences aside because Posada's a smart, fan-popular veteran who can cause serious problems if this really starts to spiral.

• So why does the heinous blogger get roasted, but the popular columnist doesn't for doing the exact same thing?

    Where's Geoff Baker and his all-seeing, all-knowing omnipotence and generous willingness to educate when we need him?

    Here's a clip from Bill Simmons's latest column in ESPN the Magazine when discussing baseball eras and drug use (speaking of the magazine, they couldn't find a better cover photo of Maria Sharapova?):

For instance, Darrell Evans topped 20 homers just once from 1976 to 1984; then, at age 38, he belted 40. Is that less strange than Brady Anderson's famous 50?

    Doesn't this qualify as the same thing that the hapless blogger J-Rod (good grief) said in regards to Raul Ibanez that caused such a firestorm? And all J-Rod did was ask a simple question that everyone was thinking about whether they knew and liked Ibanez as a person or not. Is anyone going to attack Bill Simmons as they attacked J-Rod (good grief)? The difference is obvious. J-Rod's a blogger and Simmons is a famous columnist, so it's easier to attack the weaker animal. 

• Viewer Mail 6.18.2009:

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE Joe Buck Live!

After your review of Joe Buck's show, I'm not sorry I missed it. Sounds awful.

    It was actually entertaining in a rubbernecking sort of way. That never lasts as evidenced by David Lee Roth's foray into talk radio. I wouldn't expect Buck to be the host past his current contract. HBO isn't as forgiving of incompetence as FOX SPORTS. 

    Since you brought this up, I wanted to mention something about Tim McCarver, who became a multi-level broadcasting star in the 80s as he hosted the Olympics in 1988 as well as writing books doing talk shows and a little acting. Even though the game's passed him by a bit and he's overdue to be placed on the second tier of baseball-casters (Ron Darling would be a great choice as the next star analyst; the guy's terrific), McCarver was the best at what he did for a long while. The same cannot be said for Joe (Silver Spoon) Buck.

Gabriel Gutierrez at rock_bard@hotmail.com comments twice about the Blue Jays:

Gaston's secret is not managing since 1997. I think he made a mistake by keeping Downs in the game with a 5-0 lead. It wasn't a save situation, so he could had gotten by with League, provided he pitched well. Now Downs is injured and heading towards the DL.

3 more pitchers of the Blue Jays heading to the DL. It's kind of unusual the number of injuries that Toronto's arms have had recently. Could it be a coaching issue? What could be the real reason behind all these injuries?

    I questioned pitching coach Brad Arsnberg's methods years ago when the entire young starting pitching staff of the Marlins got hurt when he was coaching over there. The Blue Jays have had a similar run of injuries, but obviously since he's been there as long as he has working for two different managers, GM J.P. Ricciardi likes his work with the pitchers. Cito Gaston wouldn't have kept him if he didn't want to.

    I can't blame him for the groin injury to Roy Halladay; the toe injury to Downs; or for B.J. Ryan getting hurt (Ryan has, quite possibly, the worst mechanics I've ever seen). If they were all blowing out their arms, maybe he'd be a source of the problem. The young pitchers have gotten hurt with arm injuries, but who can say why and whether it's their training techniques. Pitching injuries happen all over the place and with the pitch counts and caution displayed today, they're still getting hurt. You can't pin it on one person or method unless they're doing something so totally against the norm. I doubt that they are.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 36

• The names trickle out during slow news cycles:

    Three months after Alex Rodriguez's name was leaked as having failed the 2003 PED tests, Sammy Sosa's name has come out as well----ESPN Story.

    Is this how it's going to go? During a slow news cycle where nothing much controversial in the world of baseball is going on, they're going to be intermittently revealed to create as much controversy and as many headlines as possible? And have the person or persons in the union who are responsible for the test results not being destroyed paid with their jobs?

    Sosa having failed the test shouldn't come as a shock to anyone who remembers what the skinny kid from the Dominican Republic looked like when he bounced from the Rangers to the White Sox to the Cubs. At 165 lbs, he and the would-be linebacker he became later in his career were similar in their transformation to Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk. When did the drugs take effect on Sosa's career? Was it in 1993 when he broke out and hit 33 homers for the Cubs? Or was it in 1998 when he hit 66? Did he raise the level of what he was taking?

    There's no way to know unless Sosa 'fesses up. After the way he feigned not speaking English at the congressional hearings (Sosa's part in the proceedings was obscured by Mark McGwire's refusal to talk about the past and Rafael Palmeiro's finger-wagging denials), I wouldn't expect a detailed account anytime soon unless he ordered Rosetta Stone language software. The way this is happening with the names sputtered here and there is wrong too.

    Sammy Sosa was doing something that it's abundantly clear a massive chunk of players were doing. As time passes, the late Ken Caminiti's assessment that half the players in the league during his time were on steroids pales in comparison to Jose Canseco's guesstimate of 85%. Canseco's been accurate in everything he's said so far. In fact, his allegations of  blackballing by baseball might be taken more seriously----as paranoid and self-serving as they were----as his accounts are proven truthful with stunning regularity.

    Given what we're learning with each name that pops out of the trickle-machine, Canseco's number may in fact be right. Now another big (pardon the double-entiendre) name comes out. That Sosa's finally been openly named as having failed that test in 2003 should come as a surprise to no one, but with the number of pro players using the same drugs who were lucky enough not to get busted, is it fair that only ARod and Sosa have been outed?

    Where's the union in all of this? Who precisely was the idiot who decided not to destroy the test results immediately when they had the chance? A related article regarding this is here. The relevant part of MLBPA president Don Fehr's statement (excuse) follows:

“In mid-November 2003, the 2003 survey test results were tabulated and finalized. The MLBPA first received results on Tuesday, November 11.

Those results were finalized on Thursday, November 13, and the players were advised by a memo dated Friday, November 14. Promptly thereafter, the first steps were taken to begin the process of destruction of the testing materials and records, as contemplated by the Basic Agreement. On November 19, however, we learned that the government had issued a subpoena. Upon learning this, we concluded, of course, that it would be improper to proceed with the destruction of the materials. The fact that such a subpoena issued in November 2003 has been part of the public record for more than two years. See, U.S. v. CDT, 473 F3d at 920 (2006), and 513 F3d at 1090 (2008) (both opinions have now been vacated). Other subpoenas followed, including one for all test results.

    It's a bunch of legalese in my estimation. Even if the MLBPA lawyers weren't going to resort to any chicanery and destroy them after the subpoena had been issued, according to the above statement, they had five days to destroy the results. Five days in which it sounds like they were screwing around, let the weekend interfere with the business of getting rid of the smoking gun and hung their constituents out to dry.

    Was there a protocol to destroying the results or could they have tossed them into a dumpster, doused them with lighter fluid and lit a match? Could someone have taken the test results and thrown them in the desert of Las Vegas somewhere, buried in a hole where no one could find them? Thrown them off a cliff? Or into the sea? Or simply just "lost" them? Who would've known what happened to the test results if the chain of custody was lost, but the results were with Don Fehr or one of his trusted minions?

    This all sounds very dicey and sleazy as if it's out of a Michael Bay film or bad fiction that David Baldacci or James Patterson would write, but it's the truth. Had the results simply disappeared, who would've known?

    It's easy to take the obvious players who turned into Babe Ruth-clones and hang them in public effigy, but what about other players who've gotten by based on luck and timing? They're not going to reveal themselves and their names aren't going to be on the lists. Sosa was always a heavy suspect, but just like ARod, this is an attempt by the people who are leaking the names to bust "this guy" or "that guy" randomly when there are many, many others who are going to get away with their own PED usage. The union should be held accountable by the players for this because what they did wasn't just stupid, it was a betrayal of their mandate in representing its members.

    The "most powerful union in sports" is looking amateurish, not because they're not getting the players paid, but because they're getting the players nailed when it all could've been left to rumor and innuendo without proof of guilt had they destroyed the evidence as they should've.

• Are the Rays "back" to their form from 2008?

    To quote Little Bit O'Luck, the pitchman for the "Take Five" scratch off game here in New York, "Whoa! Slow down, buddy!"

    The Rays have won six in a row, but their bullpen is still in shambles and three of those wins came against the Nationals. Last night they beat a Rockies team that was due for a loss after winning a stunning 11 straight games.

    As much as the stat-zombies self-justify their lust for the Rays with references to their run-differential, the team does not have a closer. And I don't mean a guy to accumulate the meaningless save stat, they don't have a closer----a pitcher who they can bring into a game with a one-run lead and the bases loaded against the Red Sox and feel confident he's going to get them out of trouble. (They do have someone for that, but his name's Scott Kazmir and they're not going to put him in the bullpen, I don't think.)

    Let's see what happens when they play teams that can really hit like the Phillies, Marlins and Rangers. I'd bet they're going to be back around .500 by July 4th because of that bullpen. If that happens, their run differential will mean absolutely nothing.

• Blue Jays 8-Phillies 3:

    It didn't come back to haunt the Blue Jays, but the mild-mannered (on the surface) manager Cito Gaston looked like he wanted to start choking someone in the top of the eighth inning when the Blue Jays loaded the bases with one out and Marco Scutaro hit a liner into the gap in left-center. Raul Ibanez caught the ball and threw it back in as if he knew that the game was going to be tied as Alex Rios tagged at third and scored...but Rios did a back-and-forth run like a cornered mouse and didn't score. Gaston had a look on his face like someone had just stolen his car right in front of him. The Blue Jays tied the score against Ryan Madson and blew the game open in the tenth, but they might've lost because of that one inexplicable rockhead gaffe by Rios.

    Speaking of Gaston, the guy hasn't aged from the time he was managing the Blue Jays back-to-back World Series teams in 1992-1993. He hasn't gotten fat like Bobby Cox or slow like Joe Torre and he's only three years younger than Cox and four years younger than Torre. What's his secret?

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 35

• The inauspicious debut of Joe Buck Live:

    Let me begin with what should be a clear indication of what I thought of the first edition of Joe Buck Live----today's winner of the GEOFF BAKER AWARD FOR POMPOUS ARROGANCE IS: JOE BUCK!!!!!

    Never mind the whole controversy that stemmed from Artie Lange's raunchy turn at the end of the show and on the web extension afterwards, I've got a question that I've asked numerous times but have never received anything close to a viable answer from anyone: Who came up with the idea of Joe Buck as the face of sportscasting? 

    Buck is a competent enough, though annoying baseball and football broadcaster, but the fact remains that he: A) wouldn't have gotten to this position if his name was Joe Williams rather than Joe Buck, the son of a Hall of Fame broadcasting legend; and B) he seems to be looking to expand his horizons far past what would be normal for a broadcaster who's focusing on what he's currently doing.

    Jack Buck was a truly great baseball announcer. He was professional, understated and had a distinctive voice and delivery that indicated he truly enjoyed what he was doing and wasn't trying to be a crossover star from sports to Hollywood to whatever as Joe Buck does. How much face time does the son need? At how many events does he need to be the focal point before he decides that it's enough? And why does he keep receiving all of these opportunities when he's not a charismatic figure that people want to see again and again?

    The younger Buck thinks he's funny, but comes off as smug. This unskilled extension into a David Letterman/Jay Leno-style show is indicative of his arrogance. Never mind the wonderment that I (and many others feel) that Buck is not just the play-by-play voice of FOX's baseball coverage, but football as well. People forget that before Curt Menefee took over as host of the FOX NFL SUNDAY, they were moving the entire set to wherever it was that Buck happened to be so his presence on camera could be maximized. Why? I dunno. Is there someone at FOX Sports that thinks Buck is that great that he has to be absolutely everywhere? 

    One of the few TV shows that I watch with regularity is Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares in which British chef Gordon Ramsay goes to various restaurants around the world and tries to help their (usually) clueless owners and chefs how to fix their businesses. One episode in particular featured a California chef/owner who was obsessed with getting his frozen dough pizzas (which looked heinous) into supermarkets. Ramsay asked him what the obsession was with getting his food into supermarkets, why not just cook his balls off and please his customers? I couldn't help but think of that chef in watching Joe Buck.

    Precisely what's wrong with busting ass and becoming the best broadcaster of sports that he can possibly be? Why does Buck have the desire to become the next Bob Costas even though has neither the magnetism nor the skills of Costas? Costas is one of the best broadcasters you'll ever see and the key is that people like him!!!

    Buck is not likable. He wasn't good on the show. Then, he does this HBO show and has the audacity to be bad at it!!! If you're gonna do it, you'd better be good and Buck is kinda blahhh----trying too hard to be funny, being lame; trying to be witty and entertaining, and looking like a desperate poser.

    As for the Artie Lange bit (the clip is available here via  Deadspin), I happen to think Artie is funny. I ran into him a couple of times while performing my duties of a former job (don't ask). He held the door open for me, I asked if he was Artie Lange and he said yes and was very friendly. And here's the best way to describe what a normal, down-to-earth, non-Hollywood douche bag Artie is: he had a car driving him to work on the Howard Stern Show before Stern went to satellite radio; after entering into a bagel shop to get his breakfast, Artie went back to his car and rather than getting into the backseat as most people would do when getting a ride from a car service, Artie got into the front and rode with the driver as if he wasn't any better than the man driving him to work. Would Joe Buck, in all his self-important pomposity do the same? 

    The show's awful. Buck's not funny and his statement blaming Artie's bawdiness for possibly ending the show after one broadcast was half-right. The show should be ended after one episode, but it ain't because of Artie Lange, it's because Buck was a bad idea to host a show of this kind and isn't any good at it. He should be happy his name got him into his current situation with FOX and leave it at that. The more he's out in the public eye, the more likely it becomes that someone in power at FOX realizes that they've backed the wrong horse as the face of their sports programming, then Artie Lange's behavior on his HBO show will be the least of his problems as he's relegated to being the new host of The Best Damn Sports Show, Period, or worse (if there is a "worse").

• Viewer Mail 6.16.2009:

Jeff at Red State Blue State writes RE Bryce Harper, the kid who's leaving high school at 16 to attend Junior College and get his pro baseball career going:

What? You don't know that Josh Beckett pisses lightning bolts made of gold? Ha! I'm intrigued... onto something else, Prince, what's your take on this Bryce Harper fella? (*Link: http://www.lvrj.com/sports/48018907.html) Extremely smart or extremely stupid?

    When I heard about this I thought to myself, "I bet Scott Boras is somehow involved," and it turns out that he's an adviser to the family.

    On the one hand, they may be acting somewhat naively as Boras uses them to carry out his vendetta against MLB's drafting system and rules; on the other hand, if the kid's that good and this is what he plans to do with his life, why not get started now before something bad can happen to him like blowing out a knee or getting beaned? The rules are there to be manipulated and if it's okay for a kid from the Dominican Republic to sign at 16, then why not Harper? If he gets a load of bonus money at his current age, he can always go back to college if baseball doesn't pan out if he even needs to with the kind of dough he'll get if he's that good.

    This reminds me of something I wanted to mention about Stephen Strasburg. It seems that the caveats are never-ending as to all the bad things that have happened to similar phenoms in the past. Just as Strasburg's abilities aren't a reason to anoint him to the Hall of Fame when his pro career hasn't started yet, the past failures of such flawed talents as Todd Van Poppel have nothing to do with Strasburg's future. Just because he was the first pick and is so heralded doesn't mean he's going to be a Roger Clemens-like success or a Van Poppel-like failure. Give the kid a chance to pitch before passing any judgments. 

• Follow the leader:

    After a bumpy adolescence in which they won their elusive championship and the "boy-genius" Theo Epstein rebelled against Larry Lucchino and "resigned" to work in charitable organizations after the 2005 season, stamping his feet, essentially screaming "I hate you!! I hate you!!!", donning a gorilla suit and ducking out of Fenway Park, the Red Sox have quietly righted their ship and built and organization that sets the trends in how other clubs are run. They initially struggled to find their way as they aspired to be a Moneyball team, but found their niche as a club that uses a combination of old-school scouting techniques and reams and reams of data to make their decisions, backed up by a lot of money to cover their mistakes. Sometimes it doesn't work as in the case of Julio Lugo, but most of the time it does as they discover players like Dustin Pedroia and Ramon Ramirez. It's going to be interesting to see how the number of wasted contracts on veteran pitchers influences the Red Sox as they deal with Josh Beckett's upcoming contract situation.

    Kelvim Escobar's return to the disabled list for the Angels made me think of the Red Sox and how they set the trends rather than follow them. Escobar missed all of last season with a torn labrum in his shoulder, returned to the Angels for one start, was sent to the bullpen after his stamina was put in question and is now back on the disabled list with an elbow problem. This is the same Kelvim Escobar who signed a $28 million contract extension with the club in mid-2006, won 18 games in 2007 and has spent almost the entire 2008 and 2009 seasons on the disabled list.

    Over and over again we see pitchers paid a lot of money on long-term contracts and unable to fulfill those contracts for more than a couple of years, if that. The way the Red Sox have eschewed paying out big money for pitchers and choosing to let them leave makes the Beckett situation something to watch. Beckett has an option for next season for $12 million, so he'll be with the club next year. Beckett is probably going to squawk about not getting an extension by the end of this year, but the Red Sox have tended to ignore the whining of their players and fans.

    Aside from flinging money at each and every one of their problems after the lost year of 2006 and continuing with the charade of making Jonathan Papelbon into a starter in 2007 (which only came to an end when Papelbon himself asked to be switched back to the bullpen), the club has thought of team-first and everything else second. The Red Sox have loaded up their team with starting pitching. Clay Buchholz is languishing in the minor leagues because the Red Sox have no place to put him with the big club; Justin Masterson's future is probably as a starter; but with Jon Lester and Daisuke Matsuzaka entrenched in their rotation and young arms like Michael Bowden hanging around, it may not make sense to make a long term investment in Beckett after next year.

    Beckett hasn't been particularly great in the past two seasons and as he reaches age 30 next year, the Red Sox are going to have to make a decision on whether to lock him up long term. Beckett's post-season resume and high opinion of himself are going to cause him to ask for a C.C. Sabathia/Johan Santana contract, and that's something I can't imagine the Red Sox doing considering how they smartly and ruthlessly allowed Pedro Martinez to walk away. Other teams tend to bow to public pressure. The Red Sox don't.

    With every pitcher that goes down with an injury in the middle of a lucrative contract, most teams still bite the bullet and spend the money to placate their fans. The Red Sox have mostly proven that they don't pay attention to public outcry. What happens with Beckett will likely be a new moment of trendsetting and unless he gives them a discount (don't count on it) it's clear how the situation is going to resolve itself as they remorselessly let him walk after 2010.

• The blame game on Jorge Posada:

    There's a lot of talk about Yankees catcher Jorge Posada's role in the way their pitching staff seems out of sync----NY Times Story. It's something I'm not buying.

    Just to put things into context, Posada was the primary catcher for three championship teams catching for a manager, Joe Torre, who wants defense behind the plate above all else and was a catcher himself and dealt with Bob Gibson. Posada handled (amid disagreements sometimes turning physical) such diverse and quirky personalities as Roger Clemens, David Wells and Orlando Hernandez, and didn't get along with Randy Johnson because he wouldn't back down to Johnson's bullying. Now he doesn't know how to deal with pitchers? 

    The inability to get on the same page with veterans A.J. Burnett and C.C. Sabathia is hard to understand because one would think they'd have a game-plan all set up before going out on the field. Chien-Ming Wang was caught by Posada when he won 38 games over 2006 and 2007, now Posada can't deal with Wang because his sinker isn't sinking? Joba Chamberlain has no business shaking off Posada at all because he's: A) in his second full year in the big leagues; and B) doesn't seem all that bright to begin with and certainly isn't in a position to be calling his own game.

    You have to wonder if this is due to some inadvertent and lingering tension from when manager Joe Girardi and Posada were vying for the starting catcher's job in the late 90s. Girardi is an intense competitor and there's no way he'd be stupid enough to sabotage himself in questioning his starting catcher, but under the surface stuff might still be there and it has to be handled and put aside for the greater good. If Girardi has any interest in keeping his job and having this star-studded team fulfill its potential and----more importantly----its expectations, he'd better get the situation under control and fast.

• Brett Fav-ruh may be coming back? No way!!!

• This ad could actually have been worse:

    During last night's Cardinals-Indians game, I saw the following ESPN ad featuring Buster Olney:

    At first, the shoe licking scene looked like a combination fetish video/intentional attempt to disgust, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much worse they could've made it. They could very easily have replaced the shoe with a dirty jockstrap. Then where would we be?

• Cubs fire hitting coach Gerald Perry:

    It's always interesting when a team fires the hitting coach like it's his fault that they're not hitting. There's a difference between being blamed and being to blame. Here, Perry's being blamed. Manager Lou Piniella, who's one of the best hitting coaches you'll ever find, all of a sudden doesn't like the way Perry teaches hitting after employing him for a total of six years with the Cubs and Mariners? 

    A hitting coach isn't like being a pitching coach when the pitching coach and the pitchers are always fiddling with things and keeping an eye on this or that. The hitting coach can only notice what he sees as mechanical mistakes and try to correct them, but there's very little he can do once the game starts. Their success or failure is only judged in retrospect.

    Ted Williams and Charley Lau are considered two of the best hitting coaches ever, but had diametrically opposed views of how guys should hit. Williams had the credibility of his own career and success stories with certain "no-hit" players like Ed Brinkman and feast-or-famine players like Mike Epstein when he was managing the Washington Senators. Lau's hitting numbers as a player were unimpressive, but his hitting coach numbers are amazing as he tutored such future stars as George Brett and Hal McRae among many others. Firing the hitting caoch as the Cubs did yesterday with Perry is a "we gotta do something" move even if it's just change for change sake. If the Cubs start hitting like the 1927 Yankees, it won't be because of their new hitting coach.

    And who is their new hitting coach? It's Von Joshua. Joshua was a journeyman outfielder in the 70s and wasn't a very good hitter, but again, who knows about his skills as a hitting coach? Maybe it'll work. The thing about Joshua, to me, is that he's one of the faceless "blah" guys who'd pop up in every baseball card pack you ever opened as a kid. When my father was buying me packs of cards in the late 70s, early 80s, my time was spent sifting through the cards hoping against hope that a Reggie Jackson would miraculously pop up. Generally, what we'd get would be nine zillion duplicates of: Ross Baumgarten, Hosken Powell, Doug Rau and...Von Joshua. Hopefully for the Cubs he's worth more as a hitting coach than he was as a baseball card.

• Viewer Mail 6.15.2009:

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE the Francisco Rodriguez-Brian Bruney dustup:

OK. You're right about Bruney. He should have kept his mouth shut.

    Yeah, but K-Rod overreacted as if he felt he had to confront Bruney for appearance' sake and did so during batting practice yesterday. His initial reaction to the comments from Bruney----basically asking, "Who?!?" as if Bruney was beneath his notice----was pitch perfect. The shouting match was dumb.

• THE GEOFF BAKER AWARD FOR POMPOUS ARROGANCE:

    Today's winner is: MICHAEL LEWIS!!!!

    The author of Moneyball was on MSNBC this morning pushing his new book on fatherhood. (No offense, but who cares?) He briefly talked about Moneyball and the movie which he says is set to begin filming next week.

    "Um, I hate to break this to everyone," the Prince said as he glanced conspiratorially around the room, "but...MONEYBALL HASN'T WOOOORRRRKED!!!!!!" 

    It's as if there's a silent contract among the stat zombies, the publishing industry and those that have something invested in the theory that they'll keep on repeating the story and hope no one will notice that it's a sham.

    Fellas? I'm not going away.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 34   

• The Magical Managerial Change:

    Jim Tracy was a far superior manager to Clint Hurdle (as well as about three-quarters of the managers in baseball) before he took over as Rockies manager, but ten straight wins is a bit of a fluke. The Rockies were never as bad as they looked under Hurdle, but aside from that even flukier, searing hot streak at the end of 2007 that took the Rockies all the way to the World Series, Hurdle never distinguished himself as anything more than a run-of-the-mill example of managerial mediocrity----not great, not terrible. Even with that, it doesn't say much for what the players thought of Hurdle at the end that they've exploded like this now that Tracy's in charge. Tracy's managerial skills only partially explain the way the Rockies have played since he took over.

    Unless a managerial change is done as a lightning strike that came out of nowhere, there's generally speculation that drags out over months that wears on the players because they know that they're possibly costing a man his job and they have to keep answering questions about it. It gets to the point where players (and media, and fans) want the trigger pulled to get it over with already so everyone can move forward. It's stunning that Hurdle even lasted as long as he did with his record as bad as it was.

    So what accounts for this hot streak? Three things: the relief of the deed finally being done; Tracy being a better manager; and the players playing better.

    Even the most self-absorbed players don't want to feel responsible for the manager being fired. Carlos Delgado went on a Ruthian hot streak after the Mets fired Willie Randolph last year and while the two clearly disliked one another, Delgado wasn't trying to do poorly under Randolph. The same is true for Troy Tulowitzki of the Rockies. Tulowitzki started hitting almost as soon as Hurdle was out the door. Was there animosity between the players and the former manager or were they waiting for the inevitable? It certainly appears as if Tulowitzki and Hurdle had had enough of one another. 

    The players knew that Hurdle began the season on notice and as the losses piled up, they knew that it was only a matter of time. It's then that it's better to just cut it quick and clean to end the speculation. Relaxation plays a large part in a player's performance. It's also a relief for the players to know that their manager knows what he's doing and that's one thing Tracy's always had going for him even through the past five years of his career in which he had to deal with a clueless and overbearing GM, Paul DePodesta, with the Dodgers and then spent two hopeless years managing the Pirates.

    DePodesta ripped apart a team that was on the verge of possibly winning a championship right out from under Tracy and the Pirates are, well, the Pirates. Is he going to have much more success with the Rockies? There's a limit to what he can do because while they've got some great young talent and their bullpen has been the key to their recent play, I had them at 81-81 before the season started and that's pretty much what they are. That being said, with the state of the rest of the National League, an extra win here or there and the Rockies are in contention for the Wild Card. Considering where they were three weeks ago, that's pretty good.

• Uh, yah. Whatever:

    Brian Bruney of the Yankees ripped into Mets closer Francisco (K-Rod) Rodriguez's over-the-top celebrations after finishing games. I was going to write a while load of stuff about Bruney, K-Rod and why Bruney would be better off if he kept his mouth shut. The gist was set to be: A) how can Bruney say anything when Joba Chamberlain's fist pumping, gesticulating and buffoonish behavior is far worse than anything that K-Rod's ever done? and B) who is Brian Bruney to say anything? 

    But K-Rod beat me to the punch with his response that boiled down to: "Who are you to say anything to me?!? as he verbally slapped Bruney down. The link and the careers of the two pitchers speaks for themselves far better than anything anyone could say.

• Is this part of the plan or is Lou Piniella losing his edge?

    Who knows what's going through the head of Cubs manager Lou Piniella? But given his history, one would think that he's have exploded all over the place already given the Cubs up-and-down play. They're still only 3 1/2 games out of first place despite a record of 29-30, so there's no reason to panic. Once they get their injured players healthy (Aramis Ramirez was an unappreciated part of that lineup) they should be okay, but since when has logic and reason had anything to do with a classic Piniella lunatic-show?

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 33
• THE GEOFF BAKER AWARD FOR POMPOUS ARROGANCE:

    Today's winner is...Tim McCarver!!!

    Believe it or not, Tim McCarver has a music album out. Where he got the idea to make a music album is out of my realm, but what do I know? (I looked for a link, but couldn't find one.) They played a bit of one of his songs during the Yankees-Mets game yesterday and I resisted the urge to stuff a burning piece of coal from my barbecue into each one of my ears.

    On the bright side (depending on how you look at it) he did inspire me. Coming soon will be "THE PRINCE OF NEW YORK SINGS" as I put out an album with relevant cover tunes along with somewhat altered works. Included will be the following list. (The original artist and/or inspiration is provided.):

1. Love Gravy-Chef from South Park
2. Sex Farm-Spinal Tap
3. Psycho Killer-Talking Heads
4. One Night in Bangkok-Murray Head
5. Skills to Pay the Bills-Beastie Boys
6. I Am Superman-REM
7. New York, New York-Frank Sinatra
8. My Heart Will Go On-Celine Dion
9. Kung Fu Fighting-Carl Douglas
10. Hells Bells-AC/DC
11. 1-877-Kars for Kids Commercial Song (assisted by my background singers-The Creepy Scoutmasters)
12. The Theme from the Michael Kay Show-Lyrics Adjusted *Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics*
13. The Theme from Mike'd Up, the Mike Francesa Show-Lyrics Adjusted *Parental Advisory Explicit Lyrics*
14. The Imperial March-The Empire Strikes Back (whistled version)
15. The Entrance Music from Mr. Perfect, Curt Hennig (whistled version) 

• Yankees 9-Mets 8:

    Do the Mets now have to go past taking infield practice (which they started doing earlier this year even though few, if any, teams do it anymore); past minor league instruction of the fundamentals; past college, high school, sandlots, little and peewee leagues? Do they have to go straight back to Tee Ball to get their players----big league veterans most of them----to play the game correctly?

    I can honestly say I've never seen anything quite like the way the Mets find new, innovative and humiliating ways to lose. Luis Castillo's dropped pop-up was a symptom of the problems that have plagued the Mets for years. How many other teams in baseball with designs on contention have two veteran big leaguers drop pop-ups that would've ended games? (Carlos Delgado dropped one earlier in the year, but they held on and won.) How many teams lose games because one of their players didn't remember to touch all the bases as Ryan Church did in Los Angeles against the Dodgers?

    What makes it worse is that these players are not nervous rookies. Castillo is a thirteen year veteran with three Gold Gloves. Is it really necessary for the Mets to tell well-paid players like Castillo who have championship rings to use two hands when they catch the ball? To tell players like Church to touch all the bases as they're going around? These are not fundamental mistakes; they're lazy screw-ups that you expect to see made by children ages 5-7, not three-time All Stars who are about to turn 34. 

    For a team that's lost out on the playoffs in the past two seasons by one game and blown playoff opportunities in epic fashion, you'd think the Mets would've learned their lessons that nothing can be taken for granted. You'd think they'd learn that they have to win every game they possibly can and not hand them off in moments of inexplicable gaffes. Injuries are not an excuse for the way the Mets have lost over the past three days and last night was the summit (they'd better hope) of head-shaking, eye-rolling incredulity. The National League playoff picture is so muddled and the parity is so expansive that the Mets should be in contention for a playoff spot toward the end of the season no matter what happens, but if they lose by one game again, they'll have last night's 9-8 loss to the Yankees as the tipping point. 

    The Mets still have: one of the top three pitchers in baseball (Johan Santana); one of the top three closers in baseball (Francisco Rodriguez); one of the top three third basemen in baseball (David Wright); and the best center fielder in baseball (Carlos Beltran). That should enough no matter how many injuries they endure if they catch the ball and play the game right. 

    Last season at about this time, Willie Randolph's tenuous job status was reaching its conclusion as he was fired (in a clumsy, ham-handed way----what a shock!) and Jerry Manuel took over. Randolph took the fall for the team's slumber as they staggered their way through games looking like they were thinking of anything and everything other than where they were and what they were doing. It's a year later. They're still playing like they have other priorities like looking cool as they make one-handed grabs. Is Manuel to blame for this? Is is the minor league operation? Is it the coaching staff? Is it the players who don't listen?

    No one would've said a word had Alex Rodriguez hit one over the center field fence to end the game for the Yankees. It would've been a tough loss, but not an embarrassing one. This was a win that they handed over to the Yankees for no reason other than the simple exercises of using two hands to catch pop ups and watching the ball. Where does the blame lie? The teams that have far less money and talent than the Mets (the Twins for example) don't do stuff like Castillo did, like Church did, because they're taught from the time they join the organization that they play the game the right way or they don't play. There's accountability, not apologetic alibis. They stay in contention because they make the plays they're supposed to make. They hit cut off men; they move runners along; their pitchers throw strikes; and they touch all the bases and catch pop-ups. What's the wealthy Mets excuse?

    A year ago, when Randolph was clearly on the verge of being fired, I suggested Jim Tracy as a successor. In case anyone hadn't noticed, Tracy has the Colorado Rockies on a nine game winning streak. His teams play the game correctly and he knows what he's doing strategically. This isn't revisionist history here. Manuel was the logical choice to replace Randolph last year because it was easier to elevate the bench coach to the manager's office than it was to bring in someone from the outside to come in and make drastic changes. It almost worked. But as this year has progressed, Manuel has done odd things and explained them with a Sarah Palin-like gift for incoherence in the hopes that people will shrug and walk away not listening or not bothering to try and decipher what he'd said.

    Now the Mets, with their massive payroll, are stumbling around again. Did Jeff Wilpon watch what went on last night? Has he watched and listened as the Mets have flopped around like a team whose heads are in the clouds? At what point are they going to take a step back, not try to be nice to two truly likable men in GM Omar Minaya and Manuel and say that it's enough. They're paying their management team very lucratively to run this club and it's not just that something's missing, it's that they play like they've never played baseball before or are trying to reinvent the game into something that they think has a better aesthetic. 

    It's enough. Enough with the Tee Ball lack of fundamentals. Enough with the head shaking and charming their way out of tough interviews and legitimate questions. The Mets didn't listen regarding my affinity for a more strategically oriented manager who didn't put up with such crap like Tracy, Buck Showalter or Bobby Valentine. Now they're where they are trying to swallow another loss for which they deserve and will receive endless ridicule until they start winning consistently and make the playoffs. If I were Jeff Wilpon, I'd tell Minaya straight out that this team has until the All Star break. If they're not going to remove their heads from their asses, then I'm overruling him on the manager and bringing in either Showalter or Valentine. And if he doesn't like it, he can leave too. It's time to slam down the hammer because enough's enough.

    The Yankees are in no position to be chortling either. They received a gift last night. As Joba Chamberlain and Jorge Posada looked like two incompatible sex partners and their empty eighth inning again forced them to use Mariano Rivera for more than one inning, they have giant problems of their own. With the new Yankee Stadium playing like Coors Field East, they're going to have to get their pitching staff straightened out and not use Rivera as if he's 29 instead of 39 because their playoff run is going to be real short if they don't gather themselves.

• Nominees needed:

    I didn't hear or see anything that qualified anyone for the GEOFF BAKER AWARD FOR POMPOUS ARROGANCE, but if anyone did hear or see something that made the grade, please let me know.

•  THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 32
  

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE the Ibanez vs the Blogger flap:

Ibanez sure gave that blogger a lot of attention. Are you next, Prince?

    I wish. I haven't seen any of J-Rod's (good grief) appearances, but most accounts say that he was stammering and backtracking all over the place. These guys would not wanna be dealing with me I don't think. 

Jeff at Red State Blue State writes RE Geoff Baker and the new award his self-declared greatness spawned:

Through the interwebs, I'm looking you in the eye, Prince, and saying that I will adamantly search for deserving Geoff Baker Award recipients. To add to the list of Berman, Morgan, etc... Harold Reynolds, Sean Casey, Barry Larkin... hardly journalists, but they get their say and all three of them sound like idiots most of the time who are better off being remembered for their play and character on the field rather than in the studio where... well, where words (English words no less) tend to elude and work against them.

    Oh, we're not gonna have problems finding nominees. We might even have to put it to a vote on certain days. 

Jeff also writes RE my nickname to compete with "J-Rod":

Good grief is right. I remember when lifetime minor leaguer John Rodriguez was called up during the 2005 season, he was referring to himself as "J-Rod" and I couldn't take him seriously after that. Neither could he... he's long fizzled away now. For you, Prince, if PONY ain't good enough, how about "Prince Daddy" or "Princeowitz" or "Le Bowitz" (in a French accent)?

    You won't believe this, but when we played hockey as kids, I became Le Bowitz in a French (Canadian) accent. "Le Bowitz backhand, SCORE!!!!!" 

Matthew Minor at callmeminor@hotmail.com also writes RE Baker's award:

Hey Prince,
First, I love your work and read it daily. This is probably a coincidence, though certainly a strange one I'm sure you'll agree, but here's a link to a post by the guy from Shysterball doing a Baker Award. I saw his first though am not sure whose was posted earlier.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/shysterball/

scroll down a bit...

-Minor

    Thanks for the support and the link. I looked at it. It was posted yesterday afternoon looong before Jeff even sent me the link to Baker. I don't generally read Shysterball and I seriously doubt they read me, but Baker's arrogance is so vast that there's plenty of room for multiple awards in several categories. I've bogarted the one for "POMPOUS ARROGANCE", but there's plenty to go around in that morass of self-importance/sainthood.

    Baker's going to be dealing with a lot of this after that column, but since he's so much more advanced in every way than the rest of us, one would assume he's able to handle it. The difference between me and Shysterball, I think, is that I'm not gonna let it go. I intend to squeeze every single ounce of juice out of it and then some.

Franklin Rabon at fjrabon@gmail.com writes RE the Pirates trade of Nate McLouth:

I still don't understand why everybody looks at this situation as they needed to trade McLouth to clear room for McCutchen.  McLouth looks more to me like a left fielder anyway and I don't really look at Nyjer Morgan or Brandon Moss as guys that need to have a starting spot.  What's wrong with putting McLouth in a corner spot, letting McCutchen play center and then choosing between Moss and Morgan for the other spot?  If they ended up going with Morgan, that one be one of the fastest and best defensive outfield in all of baseball.  They'd probably getting over 100 stolen bases from their outfield alone.

This isn't like a case where an older veteran catcher is blocking a young great defensive catcher, or two corner infielders are blocking a up and coming corner infielder, etc.  Part of the very reason why McLouth was traded for is that he could easily be slid over into left when Schafer was truly ready for the big leagues.  Why the Pirates apparently couldn't do that is beyond me.

    Obviously, they were dumping the salary whether they admit it or not. I kinda like Morgan. (He was a pretty good junior hockey player, which is interesting for a Northern California kid.) Like I said when the trade happened, I bet the Braves gave the Pirates a "take it or leave it" ultimatum and the Pirates panicked. I wouldn't have been against trading McLouth if they'd offered him around the league and sifted through multiple offers and let teams start bidding against one another and themselves, but other teams like the White Sox were wondering why the Pirates didn't let them know that McLouth was even available.

• Those who say the idea didn't cross their minds are liars:

    Anyone who knows anything at all about baseball and has seen what's gone on over the past fifteen years had to have looked at Raul Ibanez's power surge and at least had the thought cross their minds that something chemical was going on even if they don't admit it. With all the piling on that's being done to J-Rod (good grief), he's being used as a symbol for the vitriol "real" writers feel for those who state their opinions without having to deal with the Milton Bradleys, Josh Becketts, Erik Bedards and Jeff Kents of the world----and have the audacity to get people to read and respect them. 

    Ibanez adamantly insists he's clean. Three words: he'd better be. 

• The inaugural GEOFF BAKER AWARD FOR POMPOUS ARROGANCE:

    Given Baker's over-the-top, self-congratulatory and obnoxious column yesterday, there will be a new feature here at PAULLEBOWITZ.COM----THE GEOFF BAKER AWARD FOR POMPOUS ARROGANCE. I'm not going to openly seek out candidates just to have one on a daily basis, but whenever a worthy winner surfaces, he'll be recognized by this award. Submissions are encouraged.

    The first winner is...GEOFF BAKER!!!!! (Who else?) Congratulations(?)

•  Should the Mets place a call to Pedro?

    John Maine was placed on the disabled list with "fatigue in his surgically repaired right shoulder". Is it time for the Mets to call Pedro Martinez and do exactly what is probably the wisest course of action with Pedro at this point in his career? Have him pitch only the four (and hopefully for the Mets) five months of the season?

    The options to replace Maine aren't all that attractive. Fernando Nieve, Nelson Figueroa and Jon Niese don't light the world on fire and the trade market is too expensive to get anyone really good without overpaying, so why not see if Pedro would take a contract for the rest of the season? He'd light up the clubhouse and if he can still pitch, he's better than anything else the Mets have.

    With this type of issue, who can say if Maine's going to be able to start when and if he does come back. Oliver Perez is M.I.A. and there's a guy sitting out there waiting to return who we know can handle New York. If Pedro's got anything left in the tank, Maine can move to the bullpen for the rest of the season and Perez might be positively influenced by Pedro's presence (if they ever find Perez, that is).

• Red Sox 4-Yankees 3:

    I have two questions, one for the Red Sox and one for the Yankees.

    One, Brad Penny's never been accused of being a member of MENSA, but there's dumb and there's dumb. It didn't come back to haunt the Red Sox, but why would you throw two pitches so close to Alex Rodriguez (and drill him with the second one) and possibly wake the Yankees up? For what purpose other than Penny being a rockhead?

    Two, is Joe Girardi that sensitive that he's ignoring basic baseball strategy after being criticized for daring to ask Mariano Rivera to walk Evan Longoria last week (even though that move was questionable too) that he's going to "defer to his veterans" in every situation?

    Last night, after Francisco Cervelli doubled home Melky Cabrera to tie the game at one, Derek Jeter wasn't asked to bunt the runner over. Why? Is it beneath the captain to be asked to bunt? Is Girardi doing one of the worst things a manager can do by hearing criticism and altering his strategy to shield himself rather than doing the right thing? That's a short step away from the managerial gallows.

    The Yankees ended up scoring two runs and took the lead, so the strategy didn't affect the game's outcome because the Red Sox came back and won, but it was still the wrong move by Girardi; and Jeter should've been bunting on his own if the manager didn't call it.

• Indians 4-Royals 3 (10 innings):

    Another day, another strategy from Royals manager Trey Hillman to account for his atrocious bullpen. Now, he's not using Jamey Wright, Juan Cruz or Kyle Farnsworth in the eighth inning. He's just going to go straight to his closer Joakim Soria in the eighth innings of games. This is the same Soria who recently returned from three weeks on the disabled list because of a strained right rotator cuff.

    Oh, and it didn't work because Soria gave up a booming double to Jhonny Peralta to tie the score (it was about two feet from going out of the park) and Farnsworth lost the game in the bottom of the tenth by having something happen that could only conceivably happen to Kyle Farnsworth when Shin Soo Choo's game-winning line drive hit a seagull and bounced past Coco Crisp. The bird survived. Dunno how much longer the same will be said for the jobs of Hillman and GM Dayton Moore.        

    Jeff at Red State Blue State sent me the following link concerning the Raul Ibanez vs the Blogger flap----Seattle Times article.
    In reading the link, it becomes clear that perhaps it's not just the accountability that the bloggers supposedly don't have in the eyes of the article's author, Geoff Baker, it's possible that the condescending arrogance and overt self-importance (along with an unnecessary and vividly detailed resume) are playing a part in people scanning the mainstream work and saying, "I don't wanna read all this stuff" and moving onto other avenues to garner opinions. In fact, the text of the article reminded me of Homer Simpson in the Simspons episode in which he performed a comedy routine for Mr. Burns's birthday and delivered the following image:

    Along with Homer's performance was the following dialogue: link.

    It's like Baker is saying, "I'm a professional writer, blah blah blah. I do my research, blah blah blah. I look the subjects of my articles in the eye, blah, blah, blaaaaaaah."

    Who cares? 

    The entire episode in which the blogger is being roasted is being used as the impetus to try and put the reins on the future, and that future is likely to take people like Baker and marginalize them to the point that they're trapped on a level with those that need "formal training"----whatever that means. The worst parts of all of this are on a couple of levels. When is someone considered a journalist and when is someone considered a member of those that are beneath Baker (that appears to be everyone who doesn't have a bachelor's degree in journalism and isn't a local BBWAA chairperson)?

    Is Stephen A. Smith a journalist? Mike Francesa? Michael Kay? Chris Russo? Selena Roberts? Keith Law? Where does the line begin and end?

    Stephen A. Smith is a fine writer, but the times he's been on TV or written about baseball, he proves that he quite literally knows absolutely nothing about the game. Nothing. Because he's a newspaper columnist, does he qualify under the terms that Baker lays out as someone who's allowed to discuss these matters?

    Francesa was into his statements of how "the Angels admitted their mistake with Francisco (K-Rod) Rodriguez" again yesterday. Despite my best efforts (that I detailed on June 3rd) to try and validate the patently absurd admission, I found nothing. Is it going to become fact if he keeps repeating it over and over again? Is Francesa a journalist or a hack with a radio show?

    Law is portrayed as a "scouting expert" on ESPN, but he didn't remember that Emilio Bonifacio had been traded by the Nationals last winter; he didn't know the difference between Jerry and Johnny Narron a few years ago; and he seems to have memorized scouting terminology and catchphrases to make himself sound like an expert; does he qualify? Kay is a fool; Russo's a moron, plain and simple; and having read Roberts's biography on Alex Rodriguez, I can honestly say that it barely qualifies as an undergraduate term paper masquerading as an intentional rip job to further her own career.

    So do these people qualify as journalists? Under the definition provided by Baker, I guess so because they have "training" and look their subjects "in the eye".

    The way in which Jerod Morris's blog about Raul Ibanez is being savaged, you'd think he outed a closeted player's homosexuality. What exactly did Morris write that was so out of line? I'm still waiting for an answer to that question I posed this morning.

    Do I think that Ibanez is using PEDs? Judging by the player's reaction to the mere mentioning of the possibility, I'd say no, but what does that mean? If a poll was taken after Rafael Palmeiro's virtuoso acting performance in front of congress, complete with the angry, finger-wagging denial, the consensus would've been, "well, he wouldn't be that stupid to actually have been using if he's denying it so fiercely," but it turned out he had used the drugs in the past, and was dumb enough to use them and get caught a few months later.

    No one knows whether any player is clean today. No one. While I believe that Ibanez is clean, would anyone----anyone----be stunned if he got busted given what's gone on in baseball over the past fifteen years? With the number of players who've been considered to be "the one" who stayed away from PEDs and ended up not being so pure? 

    Anyone can start a blog, but how many people are actually reading them and taking them seriously? It seems to me that Baker is clutching at the dying newspaper genre to try and cut the new world off at the knees by ridiculing those that partake in it. Are the above-mentioned people (and just about any other idiot with a forum of radio, print, television or whatever) somehow qualified under the difficult standards of Geoff Baker? Have you heard some of these sports talk shows and the dreck that comes from them? The way they stir up controversy while not having any idea of what they're talking about?

    Have you heard of Joe Morgan? Chris Berman? Suzyn Waldman? I could go on and on about people who are getting paid for their "contributions" to sports, but are clueless, brainless and/or pushing an agenda.

    Could it be that there are people who don't want to read the insipid opinions and borderline vomit-inducing arrogance that Baker exemplifies in that article? That they don't want to read about what the players said out of their book of cliches? That they'd like to read or hear someone who takes a stand on a certain position and presents it in a coherent way? Baker's body of work is indeed impressive (just ask him), but if he doesn't want to be lumped in with the underworld of bloggers, he'd better find a different line of work because this type of reporting isn't going away and contrary to his article, there are people out there who contribute more because they're smarter and better than those that are called "journalists" who gained the appellation because they have a piece of paper from a university and look their subjects in the eye. 

• Does Raul Ibanez realize what a favor he's done for this guy?

    Maybe I should try this.

    In case anyone missed it, Raul Ibanez had a freakout because a blogger named Jerod Morris, who goes by the name JRod (JRod? Good grief.) and who blogs for Midwest Sports Fans----the initial posting is here and the follow up after the hullabaloo is here----questioned Ibanez's MVP-quality performance so far this year by floating the possibility of PED usage. Frankly, I'm not sure there's much reason for reading it since it's kinda dull, but it's there if anyone's interested.

    A few things about this:

    One, I don't think "JRod" (good grief)...*

*I'm willing to accept nominations for a catchy nickname to attach to myself. P-LEB ain't gonna cut it and while Jeff at Red Blue State shortened Prince of New York to PONY, that's not gonna light a fire either. Any suggestions? Could be dirty or clean. Whatever. Here are some suggestions to get the ball rolling: Mr. Hot; Darth Escribus; Dr. Semi-Colon (or simply ; sort of like Prince's former symbol-thingy); the Bay Ridge Punisher; the Fifth Horseman; and the Vocabularial Assassin.   

...was out of line in his comments. He didn't openly accuse Ibanez of using funky means to achieve these career-heights that he never had before. Ibanez is on pace to hit over 40 homers and JRod (good grief) placed all of the caveats and numbers and park factors and whatnot into his posting. 

    In this era, with Roger Clemens still adamantly insisting that he'd never used any PEDs and using his wife as a human shield to protect his legacy; with Rafael Palmeiro wagging his finger at congress only to get busted a few months later; with Mark McGwire mumbling incoherently about not discussing the past; with Jose Canseco outing so many players and being proved, one by one, to be truthful; and with players who no one really suspected like Manny Ramirez getting caught, is it wrong to wonder whether there's something going on with Ibanez even if there isn't? J-Rod (good grief) didn't accuse Ibanez of anything. All he did was mention it in the context of the era. I see nothing out of line about that.

    Second, Ibanez appeared to be ready for this as if he had the explosion and somewhat over-the-top reaction prepared to go if and when the speculation popped up. It was all in his head and waiting to come out. Perhaps he'd even practiced the reaction when he was alone in the bathroom staring into the mirror. It just so happened that J-Rod (good grief) came out with the questioning of a 37-year-old player tearing up the league with numbers he'd never previously approached.

    Part of it too is that Ibanez has been a very good player for a long time, but hasn't gotten his due. Ibanez didn't make it to the big leagues until he was 24 and then wasn't an everyday player until he was 30. Late bloomers happen and Ibanez was one. Ibanez could've been a player who was never given a chance and seized it when the opportunity came. He's never been an All Star and he missed most of the Mariners' playoff runs while spending three seasons with the Royals splitting his Mariners career. When he did get a chance to play in the post-season in 2000, he managed only 3 singles in 9 games.

    Because Ibanez was a late draft pick (36th round in 1992); was at first a part-time player even in the minors; and didn't get a chance to play regularly in the big leagues for so long, he's probably defensive about being doubted because he's been subjected to that his whole career and that's completely understandable. No one wants to hear that they can't achieve their goals and they certainly don't want to have their success questioned in such a way when they do make it. 

    Third, Ibanez did this J-Rod (good grief) such a huge favor that if J-Rod (good grief) had paid for this kind of publicity, it wouldn't have been as effective. The guy was on Outside the Lines on ESPN yesterday!!! The traffic to his blog is going through the roof because of this. I didn't find anything in his writing that would make me say, "I hafta see more of this guy!!" but I'm sure others will be going back to his postings again and again. Did J-Rod (good grief) have this in mind when he wrote the posting? I doubt it, but why not ride the wave?

    Finally, J-Rod (good grief) saw the need to "correct" Ibanez's blanket assertion that J-Rod (good grief) was a "42-year-old blogger typing in his mother's basement" by responding that he's "a 27-year old professional writer and sports fanatic who contributes to Midwest Sports Fans, not a middle-aged guy banging away at a computer in my mother’s basement as was speculated in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer." 

    Yeah? Who cares? It's as if Ibanez called J-Rod (good grief) an asshole and J-Rod (good grief) came up with a load of charts, graphs and photographs to prove that he is, in fact, a human being and not an asshole. What does he care what anyone thinks of him or his writing if he's confident enough in what he says and stands behind it?

    This was much ado about nothing. If Ibanez had heard about the article and shook his head and said, "gimme a break, huh?" then there'd be no story, no J-Rod (good grief) getting all this attention, and no debate about where the line should be in writing about things on the internet(s).

• Tigers 2-White Sox 1:

    Could Tigers manager Jim Leyland's justifiable mistrust of his bullpen cost the Tigers toward the end of the season?

    Last night, because he had no one trustworthy to hand off Justin Verlander's 2-1 lead, Verlander threw 122 pitches in finishing off a great performance. This year, because of that bullpen "led" by Fernando Rodney and Brandon Lyon, Verlander has thrown: 121, 118, 114, 112, 119 pitches addition to the 122 last night. Verlander's last pitch was a 98-mph fastball so he clearly had something left in the tank, but as the weather gets hotter and the season winds down, he along with Edwin Jackson could tire down the stretch because of this extra work. 

    Leyland's walking a fine line of having to win to keep his job and taking care of his young pitchers. He's been judicious with Rick Porcello, who hasn't thrown more than 95 pitches in any of his starts and is usually yanked after around 85, but the Tigers have to do something about that bullpen. They've got the starters to take the hideous AL Central, but only if they're able to contribute late in the season.

• Rockies 4-Brewers 2:

• Red Sox 7- Yankees 0; were they really expecting anything different from A.J. Burnett?

    The Yankees newfound reliance on statistical analysis didn't cause them to hesitate in their pursuit of A.J. Burnett as they signed a pitcher whose career results are, at best, mediocre to an $82.5 million contract. Burnett's history has been well-documented by many voices, stat zombies and not; he's been healthy when there's money on the line; he's been consistently good when there's the potential for a big payday looming; and he's the epitome of the thoroughbred that outsiders see as someone who needs little more than a tweak here, a tweak there to be bridled and maximized----but then he pitches as he did last night.

    Burnett's been healthy, which given his career genesis is something of a surprise; and he hasn't been bad on the mound, but he hasn't been what the Yankees were expecting when they ignored the truth (or cherry-picked to justify the lucrative contract) and chose him over Derek Lowe to fill out their starting rotation. Putting aside last season's career year of 18-10, Burnett's average year went something like this: 10-12 wins; 8-12 losses; an ERA of around four; a fantastic hits/innings pitched ratio; occasional dominance; streaky wildness; lots of strikeouts; and continued questions of "what if he ever puts it all together". The one thing that hasn't happened (yet) that's happened in every single non-contract season is that Burnett hasn't missed any starts. 

    After last night's odious performance against the Red Sox, Burnett is 4-3 with an ERA of nearly five. Even if he catches his groove over the final 20 starts of the season, he's going to win, maybe 12 games, not because he isn't any good, but because that's what he is. He's a 12 game winner who isn't worth the money the Yankees paid him and there's still the injury-bug creeping around him like a swarm of malaria-carrying flies. 

    Would the Yankees have been better off with Lowe? 

    You tell me. Lowe has made at least 32 starts a year since 2002; he gobbles innings; he throws strikes; he's a sinkerballer, so the Yankee Stadium home run ball wouldn't affect him as it does Burnett (Lowe's only allowed two homers this year); and he cost the Braves $20 million less than Burnett cost the Yankees. I don't want to hear that Burnett is 3 1/2 years younger because his injuries makes the argument baseless; and Lowe wouldn't have been bothered at all by pitching against his former club in Fenway Park last night.

    Burnett hasn't been a disaster, but since a major factor in his signing was his historical success against the Red Sox, his two starts against them this year have been nothing short of atrocious. The Yankees can justify this signing all they want (they don't have much choice now), but the bottom line is that Burnett wasn't worth that money and it's not his fault because at 32-years-old, this is what he is. What makes it worse is that they were warned and were too arrogant and/or stupid to listen.

• The Nationals cave in to the pressure:

    It'll be interesting to see how long and far the contract negotiations for Stephen Strasburg go when the Nationals and Scott Boras are sitting across from one another. I wouldn't expect a quick resolution. Will he be worth it? Or will it be another in the long line of "can't miss" prospects that, well, miss?

    There have been so many people documenting the successes and failures of high draft picks, especially pitchers, that I'm not getting into any list here, but the sheer number of pitchers who've been expected to be the next Sandy Koufax, Roger Clemens, etc, and have faltered is legendary. Now there's this pitcher who's been clocked at triple-digit velocities that were heretofore made up speculation for successful pitchers such as Bob Feller and Walter Johnson; and unsuccessful pitchers like Steve Dalkowski.

    You can forget about the $50 million Boras is demanding for Strasburg; but even if the Nats pay over $20 million for the kid to sign his name, there's great potential for it to be money thrown down the toilet. So many bad things can happen to a young pitcher----he can get hurt; he can make it to pro ball and get pounded; off-the-field distractions and expectations can derail him----that the money simply isn't a good investment. If you look at the number of pitchers who carried the weight of these expectations around, how many have lived up to the hype? Check this list of number one draft picks and decide for yourself the likelihood of Strasburg turning into Randy Johnson or ending up as a monumental disappointment. 

    Considering the number of successful pitchers that have come from countries that aren't subject to the draft, that $20 million (my guess as to what the price tag will end up being) and the $50 million that Boras is demanding, could be spent on between 30 and 80 of the most talented youngsters that a scout worth a damn could find in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela; for the Nats to take that kind of money and give it to Strasburg, who's never thrown one professional pitch, is insanity even if he becomes a serviceable big league starter. If any team wanted to save money and show a serious pair of balls, they'd say, "I'm not paying that money to an amateur. I'm drafting the best available players who are signable for a reasonable amount and then I'm pouring my money into international scouting."

    The results couldn't be any worse than what's currently going on in the MLB draft where, in a good year, about 15% of the drafted players even make it to the majors, let alone make it successfully. As much of an off-the-wall failure that the Moneyball theory was regarding the draft (and has been abandoned by its proponents), the idea of altering the selection process was a sound one. It's going to take a gutsy team to follow through on this idea and it hasn't happened yet since the Nats caved in and drafted Strasburg knowing what they were in for; but maybe the Strasburg contract will be the beginning of the end of teams not using common sense spending practices----if Boras lets him sign one, that is.

• The televised draft:

    I watched the first few minutes of it and the whole thing was ridiculous. It looked like the set of one of those irritating infomercials with Mick and Mimi selling the Magic Bullet or that new thing they've come up with that's got a juicer attachment and all that other crap for whatever number of payments for just $19.95.

    Other than Strasburg, I hadn't the faintest clue who the other players were and no one's going to know whether their talents are going to translate to pro ball until they ditch the aluminum bats and vastly different amateur game for the rigors of professional baseball. We get the scouting reports and their amateur stats (as if they matter) and are supposed to get jazzed that we have a 15% shot (at best) of seeing these players make the big leagues in 4-5 years. The whole this was a waste of time. I mean, who cares? Let me know when the guy's close to the big leagues, then I'll pay attention----if they get that far.

• Indians 8-Royals 4:

    Do the Royals comprehend exactly why they shouldn't be using Jamey Wright in the seventh and eighth innings over Kyle Farnsworth? It's not that Farnsworth is better than Wright, it's that Farnsworth is being paid nearly $5 million this year and he's never going to get straightened out (as much as he can be) if he doesn't pitch. Wright's been terrible lately, but he's not supposed to be in the position the Royals keep putting him in to begin with.

    I understand that manager Trey Hillman must be gun shy after the way the season's gone and the bullpen has predictably blown up one game after another, but at some point, he's got to shut his eyes and say, "this is what I got" and Farnsworth's salary alone puts him ahead of Wright in the pecking order. If Wright were pitching well, it'd be one thing; but he's getting shelled worse than Farnsworth.

    The entire Royals organization is a laughingstock that doesn't have a clue as to what they're doing and you have to start wondering about the job security of GM Dayton Moore and, by proxy, Hillman. Moore's been there since 2006 and it's time for some positive results and they're just not there on or off the field. The believability of the excuses has dried up. Accountability is next and that's a bad sign for Moore.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 31

...you're the genius, they're the stat zombies; you figure things out, they've never had sex. You're clearly the winner here...

    I'm re-posting that Kids in the Hall clip from a couple of weeks ago because: A) I think it's funny; and B) to prove a point:

    Much like Einstein in the above clip, I am not receiving my due from the masses who prefer to be kept in the dark to reality. The reality that statistics are not the end-all, be-all of human existence; the reality that I'm smarter than they are; the reality that spotting a good ballplayer isn't just boiled down to his OPS or strikeout/walk ratio. I'll assume they've accepted that they're going to die as virgins.

    Here are a couple of interesting bits of news/opinions; the first is clipped from ESPN.com:

Philadelphia Phillies closer Brad Lidge has gone on the 15-day disabled list because of a sprained right knee.

The move was announced before Tuesday's series opener at the New York Mets and was retroactive to Sunday.

Lidge is 13 for 19 in save attempts this season with an 0-3 record and 7.27 ERA in 28 games. Last year, he was 41 for 41 in save chances as Philadelphia won its second World Series title and first since 1980.

Philadelphia filled the roster spot by purchasing the contract of catcher Paul Bako from Double-A Reading.

    Uh. Yah. 

    Let's see. Someone wrote that there was something wrong with Lidge the other day after watching him blow another save because he couldn't get the proper bite on his breaking pitches. Let's see if I kind find the quote. Hmmmm. Oh. Here it is:

 Something's wrong with Brad Lidge:

    We're hearing the speculation about Brad Lidge's fragile psyche as he's repeatedly blown saves and looked out of whack on the mound, but after last year's nearly perfect season, it's obvious that there's something wrong with Lidge physically. His knee was a problem earlier this year and with the lack of bite on his breaking pitches, he's not able to drive as effectively as he should and this is flattening his pitches. His confidence does look shot, but that might not have anything to do with a mental block, but because he's going to the mound knowing he can't pitch at his best as he did last year.

    And y'know who wrote that, don't you? On this past Sunday? It was ME!!!! 

    Then there's this little gem that Rob Neyer linked by someone named Dave George from the PalmBeachPost.com with the following clip:

It's time somebody considered converting Dontrelle to an outfielder rather than a pitcher. He batted .286 with seven extra-base hits for the Marlins in 2007, and three of those hits were triples. Went 3-for-3 in a 2003 playoff game, too, and hit two home runs in a 2006 game against the Mets.

We're talking about a great athlete by any measure, and an enormously positive clubhouse influence, when he's right. Aren't those the same reasons that the St. Louis Cardinals stopped trying to help [Rick] Ankiel find home plate with his pitches and put him to work instead finding a new career as an everyday player?

If the situation hasn't reached critical mass, it can't be far away. Willis has one major-league victory since joining the Tigers in 2008. Far worse, he's walked 50 batters in 49 innings for Detroit overall. That's not pitching. It's aiming.

The Tigers have done just about everything they know how to do with Willis on the psychological side, though, including sending him down to Class A Lakeland last summer to work on his control under minimal pressure.

At 27, Willis may not have enough time to start over as an outfielder in the minors, the way Ankiel did, but giving Dontrelle a bat and a new mission might be the same as giving him a lifeline right now.

    Hmmm. That's not a bad thought. Someone cleverer than this George person must've thought of it before. Who could it have been. Hmmm. Let's see. Oh. Yeah. Let me go check my li-berry. 

    Here it is. The relevant clip:

Dontrelle Willis is said to have lost weight from last season and it will be up to new pitching coach Knapp to try and unravel Willis’s complicated, herky-jerky windup and put it back together so the Tigers get the charismatic, innings-eating ace that Willis was in Florida, and not the guy who couldn’t throw strikes and when he did, gave up towering home runs. Willis has to straighten himself out because he signed a lucrative contract with the Tigers and if he can’t throw strikes, he could be the next in a long line of pitchers like Rick Ankiel and Adam Loewen to move from the mound to the outfield. His problems appeared mechanical and psychological instead of physical.

    I remembered it because I wrote it!!!! 

    Walk away...walk away...you're the genius; you're the genius...

•  A safety net isn't always a good thing:

    The Texas Rangers yesterday ended the speculation about Ron Washington's job status (sort of) by exercising his contract option for 2010. Having almost been fired last year, I thought Washington would be dumped very early in the season, I admit that even I underestimated Washington's survival instincts as his ability to get the Rangers to continue playing hard for him has translated into wins and first place in the AL West. That doesn't necessarily mean he's a good manager, although the players not quitting on the manager is a positive attribute to have and occasionally more important than being a dugout tactician; but just when Washington knows he's going to get paid next year no matter what, he does something so overtly stupid that the Rangers front office must be having second thoughts about exercising the option.

    In last night's game, the Blue Jays led 4-0 going into the bottom of the sixth inning. The Rangers scored three runs and had runners on first and third with one out and Elvis Andrus at the plate...and Washington called for a suicide squeeze. Andrus didn't get the bat on the ball and the runner, Marlon Byrd, was caught in a rundown. (It didn't appear that catcher Rod Barajas had tagged him as he tried to get back to third, but that's beside the point.) Even if it had worked, this was a stupid thing to do.

    The Blue Jays were reeling; Andrus doesn't strike out very much and is very hard to double up on a ground ball. As long as he didn't pop the ball up or strike out, the Rangers were probably going to tie the score. Why put the squeeze play on there and why make it a suicide squeeze? After Byrd was called out, Andrus flew to right field and the Blue Jays eventually won 6-3. It wasn't just a roll of the dice that came up craps, it was a case of "let me do something here" on the part of Washington when he should've let his players play the game and hoped for the minimum result of Andrus getting the tying run in. Can the Rangers re-think the exercising of that option even if it's been announced?

• The track meet begins in Pittsburgh:

    The Pirates have been getting never-ending grief for their rapid fire trade of Nate McLouth, but if Andrew McCutchen is as good as he looks, the only reason to give them a hard time for the trade is because they didn't offer McLouth around the league before trading him to the Braves. McCutchen's numbers in the minors are impressive enough; and his gifts, though raw, are clear to anyone who knows anything about baseball, but it was when I saw him run out the first of his two triples last night that I said, "Whoa!"

    There have been players who've been fun to watch as they run out triples, especially in New York with Mookie Wilson and Jose Reyes; and Bo Jackson was close to the fastest man to ever appear on a baseball field that could actually play baseball, but when McCutchen got moving around the bases, he didn't look like a baseball player; he looked like Michael Johnson setting a sprinting record. His movements weren't wild either, he was fluid and smooth like he was running track. (I looked for a clip online, but couldn't find one.) No matter what happens with the Pirates and the players they acquired for McLouth, center field doesn't appear as if it's going to be a hole because that McCutchen is going to be something if he hits and I think he will. The kid's going to be a star.

• The Yankees are being obstinate for the sake of it:

    Phil Hughes came into the Yankees 5-3 win over the Rays in the seventh inning and blew away the heart of the Rays lineup as they looked totally overmatched by Hughes's fastball and curve. The thing is that Hughes has a smoother motion and the personality more fitting of a starting pitcher than Joba Chamberlain does, and while I'm not a hard core proponent of Chamberlain being relegated to the bullpen immediately and sentenced to life imprisonment, I wonder why the Yankees are being so hard-headed and contrary about making a move that's similar to having six in one hand, half-a-dozen in the other.

    It's as if they're saying, "We're not moving Joba to the bullpen" simply because they don't want to give in to those that are calling for the move. They've invested publicly and privately in Chamberlain being a starter and that's where he's staying, no matter what; their pride is on the line. It doesn't matter that their numbers (which are repeatedly pointed to be the stat zombies as to why Chamberlain belongs in the starting rotation) are remarkably similar as starting pitchers. Hughes's control has been much better and Chamberlain's been more dominant when he's been on (scroll down to "Pitching Role" on the provided links to compare), but Hughes has last season's terrible, injury-plagued campaign dragging his numbers down; if he'd been just okay last year, he'd have the far better numbers as a starter.

    Without getting into any crackpot conspiracy theories, it seems as if there's a silent agreement in Yankeeland that the best way to keep their innings and pitch counts down to where their computer printouts say they should be is to split their seasons and roles. Hughes will stay in the bullpen until say, August; by then the Yankees should be pretty well assured of their playoff spot and Chamberlain will be returned to the bullpen to prepare for the playoffs and Hughes will take his rotation spot. (Hughes might get sent down to Triple A soon so he can start in preparation for this move no matter how well he pitches out of the bullpen.)

    It's understandable, but if the Yankees leaked this intention without confirming or denying it, they might not have to deal with the Mike Francesas of the world going on about it every single day and it might make their lives a little bit easier as they go about their business.

• The Tigers are the least flawed team in the AL Central:

    Not that it's anything to be bragging about, but the Tigers have the fewest flaws in their heinous division and, if things go well for them, they could emerge from that pack of mediocrity. After watching yesterday's game, I'd be cautiously optimistic if I were a Tigers fan.

    Joel Zumaya came in and was powering the ball at nearly 100-mph again (even though he allowed a game-tying homer to Paul Konerko); their bullpen could be an issue down the road as Brandon Lyon's been terrible; Fernando Rodney's up-and-down and Zumaya's always an injury risk, but with their starting rotation as good as it's been, the Tigers should remain competitive. 

    Justin Verlander is back on his game; Edwin Jackson been fantastic; and Rick Porcello's shown great maturity for a 20-year-old in his second pro season. Armando Galarraga has been hit or miss, but he's been fine for a back-of-the-rotation starter. I wouldn't expect much of anything from Dontrelle Willis and Jeremy Bonderman returned from injury last night. Manager Jim Leyland has pushed his young starters harder than he normally would because he's obviously skittish about his bullpen, but as long as they're healthy and strong as the season winds down, the Tigers will be in contention. Pitching coach Rick Knapp has had a positive influence on the young pitchers.

    Their lineup could be a problem because Gerald Laird and Adam Everett have been as weak at the plate as expected, but both have contributed to the pitching staff's success with their defense. They have to hope that Magglio Ordonez provides some power in the second half because two homers by June ain't gonna cut it. Even with the one-man-gang of Miguel Cabrera, they might have to go fishing for a bat, but it would be unwise to gut their farm system any further than they already have for the likes of Cabrera, Willis and the departed Edgar Renteria. They may have to make do with what they have, but in that division, that just might be enough.

• Viewer Mail 6.9.2009:

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes RE the Washington Nationals:

I'll be sitting through Yankees-Nats and won't mind a bit if the Yankees blow them away!

    The Nats are atrocious, but they can hit and their kids might get jazzed about playing in Yankee Stadium; plus Adam Dunn is a good bet to be the first guy to put one into the upper deck at the new stadium. I wouldn't take them lightly.

Isaac at Isaac_lothor@hotmail.com writes RE Tom Glavine and the Braves:

I agree with the braves' release of glavine, but I think they might have a reason to apologize. They weren't honest to him. As you said, they should have told him in the offseason that they didn't think they would need him anymore, instead of telling him he would pitch in atlanta. Releasing him was right. Lying to him was wrong

    Has it been established that they lied to him? Or was Glavine hearing what he wanted to hear like some deranged, obsessed wannabe paramour? There was a guy (yes, a guy; I'm irresistible, but there's a point where enough's enough) who used to harass me while I was working; I had no choice but to deal with him because of the nature of the job and he didn't want to get the message that: A) I'm not gay, and B) if I was gay, I'd like to think I could do better than him. (He was pretty gross; in fact, he looked identical like this character from Little Britain----seriously.) 

    On one level it was funny, on another it was disturbing. My sister said the following by way of advice: "You should just explain to him..." before I held my hand up and stopped her. This is where women (and apparently men) get into trouble with people trying to romance them: they try to be nice. If I'd stood there and started explaining to him that I wasn't interested and to please leave me alone, he wouldn't have heard a word I said. To him it would've been, "he stood there talking to me for fifteen minutes and was being really nice". It stopped when I started glaring at him and snarling----again, seriously----like I was going to rip his throat out.

    The Braves were paying homage to their history with Glavine rather than doing what needed to be done (the kinder and cleaner thing, as it turned out) by telling him to retire in the winter. You'll see a backlash against Glavine very soon if he keeps this up. Watch.

Gabriel at rock_bard@hotmail.com writes RE my possible need for a baseball-related intervention:

I watched the Diamondbacks-Padres game from the seventh, when the Cubs-Reds matchup ended. I watched 25 innings of (mostly) poorly played baseball. Do I need an intervention?

    One word: YES.  

• You choose to sit through a game in which the Washington Nationals are involved:

    The applicable caveat is when you're a fan of the team they're playing, and I'm a Mets fan. There's also the possibility that the Mets will do something memorable (and not necessarily positive) as they did on Saturday by having runners pass one another on the bases and making Nationals starter John Lannan's job so easy that they looked on the verge of delivering him drinks and a wet towel out on the mound.

    The Mets took care of business yesterday, scoring five runs in the first inning against rookie Craig Stammen on the way to a 7-0 win; they used walks and wildness rather than power. Livan Hernandez continued to put on a clinic on how to get hitters out (the Nats' lineup isn't bad) without the better stuff of his rotation mates John Maine and Mike Pelfrey. One wonders if they were paying attention.

• You're surprised to see two teams groveling for forgiveness within days of each other:

    Tom Glavine is going to play this rift with the Braves and the allegations that they used him, lied to him and cut him to save money for all it's worth. Now, he's considering filing a grievance against the Braves----ESPN Story.

    What he hopes to achieve through all of this is anyone's guess. My hunch is that Glavine instinctively saw this coming all the while he was going through rehab trying to get back to the big leagues and blinked away his subconscious screaming at him that it would happen.

    While players are regularly dumped for financial reasons, these types of grievances are very hard to win; and I truly believe that had the Braves felt that Glavine had anything left, they would've been perfectly happy to place him in their starting rotation for a run back into contention. Glavine needs someone to objectively tell him that his stuff is gone and it's time for him to retire and let this go before he embarrasses himself and the Braves any more than he already has.

    Logically, it would've been far less painful for the Braves to let him come back to the big leagues and pay him to get shelled than to go through all of this; and Glavine's performance from late 2007 with the Mets, with the Braves last year and what they saw in his rehab starts led to his release. The only monetary aspect to the decision was that they didn't want to flush a million bucks down the toilet to delay the inevitable and hinder their already limited chances to contend. I'm going to keep saying it: the Braves have no reason to apologize to Tom Glavine for thinking of their team first and history second. 

    In a move related to the Braves, the Pirates have sent out letters trying to explain their reasons for trading one of the club's few remaining stars (and one of the most popular Pirates), Nate McLouth, to the Braves for three minor leaguers.*

*Note: If I need an intervention for all of this stuff, anyone who would willingly purchase season tickets to the Pirates needs to be forcibly committed.

   This trade made no sense financially or otherwise. The Pirates had signed McLouth to a very reasonable contract extension earlier this year (3-years, $15.75 million); they didn't let the rest of the league know McLouth was even available; and they again look like a club that is content to keep trading their recognizable and expensive names away for whenever the "future" is. This letter isn't going to help the perception that the Pirates are dancing in the dark.

• You watch the debut of a would-be phenom and he reminds you of a slightly better-than-average 80s journeyman that few others remember:
  

    Tommy Hanson made his much-anticipated debut for the Braves (more anticipated because he was taking the start for which Glavine was penciled in) and got knocked around for six earned runs in six innings during the Braves 8-7 comeback win over the Brewers.

    Hanson showed a good fastball in the mid-90s and a sharp curve; he also had his control and displayed impressive poise for a 22-year-old arriving amid all of this turmoil and hyperbole. That being said, he didn't remind me of Josh Beckett, but of the former Padres and Yankees pitcher from the mid-to-late 80s, Andy Hawkins. His motion was similar with the way he cocked his arm and both were big and tall.

    I don't know if that's what Braves fans want to hear as they're expecting an 18-game winner and Cy Young Award contender, but Hawkins was a serviceable pitcher for a few years and won 18 games once. There are worse pitchers for a youngster to be compared to.

• You sat through the medieval torture of the last 10 innings of the Padres-Diamondbacks 18-inning marathon:

    I'd finished barbecuing and flipped back-and-forth watching the late afternoon games. The Diamondbacks were leading 6-0 in the sixth inning before the Padres scored five in the bottom of the ninth (the last three being on a pinch hit homer by David Eckstein off of Diamondbacks closer Chad Qualls) to tie the score.

    That was it for the scoring (and hitting for the Padres, who didn't get one single hit after they tied the game) for the tenth, eleventh, twelfth...all the way to the eighteenth inning when the Diamondbacks, batting against Padres infielder Josh Wilson----out there because the Padres ran out of pitchers----scored three in the top of the eighteenth. 

    And I sat through the whole thing.

    Oh, that reminds me----THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 30

• You cap the night by watching the Phillies and Dodgers and muse on the convenience of the pitcher's name:

    The game ended with a 7-2 Phillies win, but the most interesting part was Phillies starter Antonio Bastardo. The 23-year-old lefty has pitched well enough in his first two big league starts, but the most advantageous thing for him are the confluence of events that led him to the one club in baseball for whom his name will be the most convenient. If Bastardo's success doesn't continue when the Phillies return home, at least he won't be subjected to the profane taunts of the notoriously rowdy Philadelphia fans----he'll just think they're chanting his name!!!

    Do I need professional help?

    You be the judge.    

• Nationals 7-Mets 1:

    Sometimes the Mets play like they have early dinner reservations.

• I thought I was being really smart for a minute...

    While reading the ESPN Magazine article about Stephen Strasburg, the thought occurred to me of agent Scott Boras reversing the process that brought the likes of Daisuke Matsuzaka to North America; of what would happen if he took Strasburg and sold him to the highest bidder in Japan rather than risk him winding up with the Nationals, having him hold out, signing with the Nats and having to go to the minors or, worse, play for the Nationals. (Although Washington D.C. wouldn't be a bad place for a young guy with that kind of tidal wave of press and attention following him around.)

    I thought I'd come up with something innovative that no one else had thought of...until I opened the NY Times this morning and it was mentioned as a passing and unlikely possibility; until I Googled the words "Strasburg to Japan" and saw how many things popped up. 

    Is it such a bad idea?

    What would be the rules regarding such a stickhandle around the MLB Draft?

    What if Strasburg went to Japan for a year or two, signed a contract for $50 million guaranteed along with an agreement that he could leave Japan to sign with a Major League club after those two years with a baseline fee that would guarantee the Japanese club made money on the deal? With the marketing and attendance opportunities such a coup would present, it would be win-win for everyone, except MLB of course. The Japanese club would turn the tables on MLB for swiping so many star players; Strasburg would get his money and the opportunity to wind up with the Yankees, Red Sox or Dodgers rather than the Nats; and Boras would shove it to the commissioner's office and continue carrying out his vendetta.

    At this point, there doesn't appear to be any way for the Nats not to draft Strasburg (I'd admire them if they didn't and came up with a viable reason other than money) but it'll be after the fact that the real fun begins and we see where this whole mess is going to wind up.

• Tigers 2-Angels 1; and Edwin Jackson as Dave Stewart:

    For all the ridicule that Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski deserves for sending the Braves Jair Jurrjens (and Gorkys Hernandez, who was just traded in the Nate McLouth deal) for Edgar Renteria, his heist of Edwin Jackson from the Rays for Matt Joyce is making up for it. 

    Before last season, Jackson looked like a guy who didn't know what to do with his natural gifts of a near-100 mph fastball, a slider and a change up. He won 14 games last year and showed flashes of brilliance along with flashes of "I don't know what the hell to do next, so I'll fire a 100-mph fastball" and he didn't strike out many hitters. Now, with the Tigers (and one would have to assume that new pitching coach Rick Knapp, who came from a Twins organization that preaches the mantra of "throw strikes" to its pitchers), Jackson's pounding the strike zone, going deeply into games and has a look on his face like he means business as he executes his game plan.

    I kind of understand what the Rays were doing in that trade; Jackson had been so inconsistent and was coming to the point in his career that he was going to be making big money through arbitration, but for Matt Joyce? Joyce is another in a long line of players that you can find relatively cheaply through free agency, the waiver wire or by mining through other teams' systems.

    In retrospect, if Jackson keeps pitching like this, the Rays front office won't be considered as "smart and innovative" as they were last year, especially since they benefited from what the previous Devil Rays administration (as decried as it was) had built with trades and draft picks.

• Now this takes a pair of balls:

    Julio Lugo is upset with his lack of playing time----ESPN Story.

    Uh, yeah? So?

    I want to be clear here: I admire when people show courage within reason, like if the Nats decide not to take Strasburg because they don't want to be extorted by Scott Boras; I'm speechless when someone like Julio Lugo complains about not playing every day and references 2007 when detailing why he should be playing every day.

    Julio Lugo has been a Carl Pavano-level disaster for the Red Sox for similar money. He's done almost absolutely nothing since joining the club as a free agent in a move by the Red Sox whose wisdom was rightfully questioned and has been injured again and again. He hasn't hit; he was never a good fielder; and now he's complaining about not playing. And the 2007 season he's referring to? Yes, the Red Sox won the World Series, but it was in spite of Lugo rather than because of him. Batting .237 with a .294 OBP and 19 errors at short isn't something to be pointing to as a reason he should be playing now. 

    If Lugo's trying to shoehorn his way out of Boston, this is the way to do it. I'm sure Theo Epstein has been looking to dump him for most of the past two years, but now this might just do the trick and get him released outright as they eat the remaining $15 or so million he has coming to him. There are teams that are desperate enough to use Lugo if they don't have to pay him. I gulp when I say this, but the Mets have the holes to take a shot at him as a cheap, veteran utility player, but after this, Lugo's days in Boston are numbered when Jed Lowrie's ready to return. Red Sox fans will say good riddance.

• The Beltran-LaRoche war of words stems from a language barrier:

    In case anyone missed it, Carlos Beltran said he was "embarrassed" at the Mets having been swept by the Pirates and Adam LaRoche took offense to that and retorted that Beltran had "no class". I think this whole episode is a miscommunication between players because Beltran is: A) using English as a second language and having a bit of trouble with semantics in trying to express his frustration; and B) Beltran is one of the few remaining Mets veterans with any on-field sway as he awkwardly grabs the leadership mantle that's missing with Carlos Delgado out for an extended period. 

    Beltran has always been smooth and fluid on and off the field. He's shied away from being a leader because he's quiet and it isn't his nature to be standing front-and-center as the team spokesman. I find it hard to believe that Beltran would intentionally disparage the Pirates like that even if what he said is true. LaRoche is smart enough to understand that, and he probably privately agrees with it after the way the Pirates handled the Nate McLouth trade. 

• Something's wrong with Brad Lidge:

    We're hearing the speculation about Brad Lidge's fragile psyche as he's repeatedly blown saves and looked out of whack on the mound, but after last year's nearly perfect season, it's obvious that there's something wrong with Lidge physically. His knee was a problem earlier this year and with the lack of bite on his breaking pitches, he's not able to drive as effectively as he should and this is flattening his pitches. His confidence does look shot, but that might not have anything to do with a mental block, but because he's going to the mound knowing he can't pitch at his best as he did last year.

• Viewer Mail 6.7.2009:

Franklin Rabon at fjrabon@gmail.com writes RE Tom Glavine:

One more thing to note about the glavine release.  Although inevitably any time a player is released, its because of financial reasons, the collective bargaining agreement states that cannot be the reason for releasing a player.  History shows us that the only way clubs get in trouble with this clause is if they outright say that the decision was for financial reasons.  Generally all a club has to say is that their scouts believed the player could not have significant success at the major league level and they're usually in the clear.  So that's exactly what the Braves said.  Again, not the most ideal situation to put your club in, but I don't think its a big deal either.

    Glavine didn't show much last year when he pitched and if he was still throwing similar (or worse) stuff, the Braves had every right to say, "we don't think this will be good enough" and dump him. And the truth is, Glavine hasn't shown much of anything worthy of being in the big leagues pitching for a team that has designs (however misguided) on contending since 2007, if then. When a guy doesn't want to leave on his own, sometimes he has to be dragged off the field. It's career euthanasia and it's an act of kindness in the long run----for both sides.

    On another note in the realm of finances, the Padres "assessment" of Trevor Hoffman being finished has been proven to be completely off the beam this year, huh? The guy's been great.

Issac at Isaac_lothor@hotmail.com wanted to clarify his comment from yesterday about pitcher injuries:

With Santana, I meant the knee injury he had at the end of last season. He had surgery just after the season ended. That is usually mentioned when people talk about his shutout on game 161 of the season, that he had the injury and even with that he dominated. Here's the link about the bone spur, this was released before delgado went on DL: http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090514&content_id=4738918&vkey=news_nym&fext=.jsp&c_id=nym... I dont know if it hadn't been diagnosed, but somehow the mets knew he had it, on may 14th

Sorry about the mistake with the Zambrano pitches. You're probably right about Zambrano's injury. I also made a mistake when talking about sheets. I was trying to say he should have had surgery in the offseason. And I knoe this would probably have affected his paycheck, but my point is that when an injury requires surgery to be completely healed, it's usually better to get it as soon as possible, instead of risking getting it worse, or being unable to perform well because of the injury. And I mentioned heilman because, even though he didnt need surgery, he pitched all of last year with tendinitis in his knee, and by middle november, he was said to be healed. He should have taken the needed treatment at the beggining of the season, instead of wating and pitching even worse than he does when healthy

    Johan Santana's a horse.

    In looking at the article from Putz's earlier bout with elbow pain, they made it sound like something he could pitch through; either he was downplaying it because he wanted to pitch or it got worse over the three weeks since. The Mets wouldn't have put him out there if they knew he needed surgery. 

    I don't like casting aspersions on a person's character, but with Sheets, I get the impression that he wanted to get his contract first and worry about his health later with the attitude, "if I'm hurt, I'll get surgery." In years past, he would've gotten a contract too, but the economy stuck a pin in his plans.

Franklin Rabon at fjrabon@gmail.com writes RE Tom Glavine:

You should perhaps check out John Smoltz's comments on the whole Tom Glavine fiasco.  It's almost comical at how bitter the guy has become.  He's unfortunately turned into the new Curt Schilling for the red sox, an injured pitcher who thinks he is much more important than he is and keeps giving his opinion on things that don't have anything to do with him.

The thing is that I really do believe that the Braves wanted Tom for the insurance policy, they thought he'd be able to throw faster than 82 MPH consistently (which is what his average fastball has been sitting at in rehab starts) and they figured Tom would be too proud to pitch in the state he'd be pitching in now.  Obviously this is a worst case scenario, well other than Tommy Hanson not being ready or getting hurt.

I have friends of mine who just got out of law school, who have multi-thousand dollar per month loan repayments who were just told by their bosses that they wouldn't have a job.  And Tom is whining because the Braves wouldn't give him a million dollars to show that he couldn't pitch anymore?  I'll always love Tom Glavine, but c'mon now Tommy, just retire.

    Smoltz's comments are available here.

    Smoltz is clearly bitter about his split with the Braves and is venting using Glavine as a vessel to achieve his ends. I wouldn't put Smoltz in the category with Schilling in terms of pure unlikeability, but Smoltz has always been really impressed with himself. He's one of those guys who claimed to be the best defensive center fielder on the Braves while Andruw Jones was at the height of his powers; or that he could make a living on the PGA tour (Smoltz is a great golfer----just ask him!). 

    They're both great pitchers and maybe the Braves could've handled it differently, but this is similar to when Al Leiter got angry after the Mets pulled an offer off the table to pursue Pedro Martinez. At what point is the team, which has paid both Smoltz and Glavine a lot of money, allowed to move on without being ravaged in the press? How long does the severance last?

    The Smoltz thing is sort of worse because I was under the impression that he was going to be ready earlier than this; we're not far from the All Star break and Smoltz still isn't pitching in the big leagues; so had the Braves brought both pitchers back, they would've been demoting two-fifths of their starting rotation near mid-season to accommodate Glavine and Smoltz; and possibly delaying the beginning of the career of their top pitching prospect; and no one knows what they've got left anyway.

    It's a farce and in the coming weeks, no matter how well or poorly Hanson pitches or if the Braves make a trade for another starter, people will start taking a step back and coming around to our line of thought in that the Braves did the right thing and have nothing to feel sorry about.

    The following is verbatim from a comment that was submitted; it's quite possibly the best comment I've ever received anywhere from anyone:

4ymvcz 61nl1y at abcudenbba@akuml.com writes:

1ZwLd, <a href="http://www.fddhjffypg.com">bslmez</a> , [url=http://www.3coc34jmsp.com]nmazo[/url], http://www.hho9yyiuoeh.com md9w7

    Are these nuclear codes? Illicit responses to my attempts to cut the stat zombies down to size? Is it Klingon? If anyone knows, I'd be curious; any and all deciphering will be welcome.  

• My patience is wearing thin with the self-justification and hypocrisy of the stat zombies:

    Joe at Statistician Magician sent me this bit of "ha-ha, we told you!!!" about J.J. Putz after the fact from stat zombie Dave Cameron. (I'm not bothering to check, but did the zombies rip the Putz trade when it was announced?) Cameron, with the assistance of the always infallible hindsight (except when the stat zombies discuss Paul DePodesta's tenure as Dodgers GM, which they inexplicably still defend) has unloaded on the Mets for daring to try and upgrade their bullpen by acquiring a former All Star closer to be their set-up man. Here's the relevant quotes as Cameron, like any stat zombie who's been bullied and abused, kicks the guy when he's down:

Today’s news that J.J. Putz has undergone surgery on his right elbow and will miss the next two months should come as a shock to no one. We talked about his obvious health problems a few weeks into the season, and the only surprise is that it took this long for the Mets to put him under the knife.

Given the information available at the time, the deal looked like a continuation of Omar Minaya overvaluing “proven” relief pitching. In retrospect, the trade to acquire Putz has been a total disaster.

Jason Vargas has settled in nicely as the Mariners 5th starter and has clearly been the best player in the deal to date. Endy Chavez has provided his usual excellent outfield defense, and has been worth 0.5 wins in part-time work. Carp is having a big year in the PCL, adding power his already patient approach. Carrera is proving that the “Endy Chavez in training” tag has some merit, flashing terrific defense and a lot of walks in Double-A. 

Meanwhile, the Mets are paying about $6 million this season for three guys providing replacement level performance. There’s almost no chance they’ll pick up Putz’s option for 2010, and it wouldn’t be surprising if the team decided not to offer arbitration to either Green or Reed. That would leave the Mets with a big fat zero to show for the entire deal.

They didn’t give up any future stars in the deal, but once again, trading youth for relief pitching fails to pan out. I’m pretty sure the Mets would love to have Jason Vargas, Mike Carp, and Ezequiel Carrera back, at the very least. When you give up seven guys, odds are one or two are going to come back to haunt you.

    The Mets trade for a guy in Putz who was just about unhittable as recently as 2007, pitched quite well down the stretch in 2008, was intended to be their set-up man this year, and just happened to have a recurrence of his elbow issues and you're going to sit there and reference Jason Vargas and Endy Chavez as reasons that it was a bad deal? Jason Vargas? Endy Chavez? 

    I'm curious if Putz had pitched through his elbow pain and pitched well, would we be hearing this indignation of "we knew it!" Would we be hearing people of this kind saying the Mets made a mistake in dealing Vargas, Chavez, Aaron Heilman, Joe Smith and three minor leaguers?

    Did anyone look at how Vargas pitched for the Mets and the Marlins before requiring surgery on, guess what, a bone spur? Or notice that he had the now-famous torn hip labrum and didn't pitch at all for the Mets organization in 2008?

    Vargas was serviceable as a rookie in 2005 with the Marlins; he was nothing short of hideous in the majors and minors in both 2006 and 2007 and I can promise you one thing, his positive results in for the Mariners this year are not gonna last because the American League teams will figure him out and start punishing him, sooner rather than later. If you'd like to find something about which to give Mets GM Omar Minaya a hard time in regards to Vargas, then acquiring him at all in a trade that sent Matt Lindstrom and his 100-mph fastball to the Marlins is more than enough; not sending him away in this trade.

    Endy Chavez? Chavez is probably the best defensive outfielder in baseball and a good guy, but Jeremy Reed is a suitable replacement for him and Chavez barely played for the Mets after Jerry Manuel took over as manager. He doesn't hit enough to be a regular player and, much like Reed, will be a defensive replacement more than anything else. Was trading him such a gaffe? Are the Mets problems boiling down to not having Endy Chavez when he wouldn't have been playing anyway?

    Heilman had to get out of New York and even after the Mariners dealt him to the Cubs for Garrett Olson, he's pitched about as poorly as he did for the Mets. Olson? He's been rotten as a starter and the assertion that he "has shown the potential to be a useful LH reliever" is the last vestiges of the stat zombie pulling an opinion out of his ass in the hopes that no one will check out their veracity. Olson as a lefty reliever? His relevant career platoon splits are the following: lefties have hit .312 against him with a .400 on base percentage; righties have hit .306 against him with a .388 OBP. At least he's consistent----he gets shelled by both. The Mariners can know what to expect. And who knows what's going to happen with the minor leaguers?

    It's like beating a piñata to take a trade that hasn't worked out as planned and rip it retrospectively. If an idea is a sound one, but fails, does it then become a bad idea or one that just didn't work? It's not like the Mets gave up Fernando Martinez or any of their top prospects to get Putz; they gave up some filler and no one knows what the Mets will look like if they get Putz and Billy Wagner back healthy in August. It could be the equivalent of two major trades to bolster the bullpen if they can hang around striking distance of a playoff spot until then. Ripping the deal now is just piling on as a method of proving one's own point that wasn't provable to begin with unless there was a convenient manipulation of facts and selective memory.

• And now some selective use of stats with Joba Chamberlain:

    It's hysterical how VORP (Value Over Replacement Player----don't bother trying to remember it, it won't be on the test) is used when it supposedly "bolsters" an argument, but is ignored when it doesn't fit into the plot. Rob Neyer purports to "end" the Joba Chamberlain argument with the following:

• Viewer Mail:
  

Gabriel at rock_bard@hotmail.com writes RE the unbelievable number of torn hip labrums, an injury we'd never heard of before a year ago: 

In a classic Prince foreseeing, http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090605&content_id=5156840&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb.

    More people are beginning show their appreciation for me judging from my increased traffic, among other things.

Isaac Ramírez at Isaac_lothor@hotmail.com writes RE injured pitchers:

Putz' injury was already diagnosed as a bone spur, a few weeks ago I think. He was pitching with pain, but he made up other excuses for his struggles, probably to not look like a baby. And by the way, doing that is really stupid IMO, as HEILMAN, Zambrano(shoulder injury, a little rest, a 130-pitch no-hitter, and then three straight awful otings), Sheets(lost his chance for a contract in the spring for trying to rest hiss shoulder instead of having surgery in septembrer) and others. Johan for example, did the opposite, and look at his succes now(I know he's great, but an injury would make him less great)

    Putz had a cortisone shot a few weeks ago for elbow soreness, but no one had diagnosed the bone spur; the Mets wouldn't have had him pitch if he needed surgery. 

    I dunno what you're supposed to do if a guy as big and historically durable as Zambrano has a no-hitter going. I don't think 130 pitches is out of line and Zambrano only threw 110 pitches in that game----GameLogs. Plus, Zambrano's got a history of pitching horribly for stretches at a time; I doubt one thing had anything to do with another. 

    How would Sheets have looked to prospective employers if he went on the DL in September as his team was fighting for a playoff spot with an eye on his own future as he ignored the team needs? And until no team was willing to sign him to a contract, he was insisting he was healthy for this year and then had surgery.  We still don't know what his plan was; was he intending to sign a contract, try to pitch and then go on the DL to collect his salary? It was a little sleazy.

    I'm not sure what you're referring to with Santana, but if you're talking about his elbow surgery, that was when he was 24 and had just entered the starting rotation for the Twins; and even that was a simple and relatively minor bone chip. There was no reconstruction going on there.

Jeff at Red State Blue State writes RE Adam Dunn's disputed strikeout: 

I agree in that I'd hardly consider Dunn to have a "great eye" considering all those Ks. That strike three in the 8th? Well, I think the MLB Network guys said it best with something like "In that situation, you gotta swing because that's a strike." It could've gone either way, I suppose, but in situations like that, I want to see some action... and less tight jersey on Dunn. Can't they get this guy fitted properly? He looks like that ugly big girl at the beach with the tight tank-top.

    The call wasn't anything as bad as it's being portrayed; I've seen far worse calls in bigger situations than a guy getting a milestone win that he's eventually gonna get anyway. 

   In discussing Dunn's jersey, I'm reminded of Beavis and Butt-head when Beavis had a rash on his balls and said, "Hey, Butt-head, I think there's something wrong with my shlong; take a look." To which Butt-head responded, "Uh, no thanks Beavis."

    I never really spent much time looking at Adam Dunn's wardrobe that closely; maybe I should I guess. It's probably better if we don't start speculating as to why they call him "Big Donkey".

• Why bother?

    In Rob Neyer's latest blog posting he wrote and linked several sources that said the same thing about the pitch to Dunn and Dunn's eye that mirrored what I said yesterday and what Jeff wrote in his comment. I was gonna start bitching about having written something first and not getting all that much credit, but why bother? What's the point?

    The Prince innovates; not imitates. (And he corrects; and points out contradictions; and fact-checks unbelievable nonsensical embellishments; and he's good lookin'; and he can cook...)

• Rays 3-Royals 2:

    The Royals' problems were very neatly explained in the eighth inning of yesterday's 3-2 loss to the Rays when, with a 2-1 lead, Jamey Wright (a member of his sixth organization in the past seven years, only counting his two tours with the Royals once) was called upon to be the "bridge" to closer Joakim Soria. He gave up a single to Joe Dillon; got Michel Hernandez on a fielder's choice force out; struck out Reid Brignac; then gave up a towering blast of a home run to B.J. Upton to give the Rays the lead and the game. 

    Here's a question: why is there a journeyman pitcher like Jamey Wright out there in the eighth inning while Kyle Farnsworth (also a journeyman, but with his $9.25 million, 2-year contract) reduced to pitching in games in which the Royals are behind by at least five runs?

    I can't blame Wright for this; he is what he is----a mediocre veteran who should be kept around as a long man out of the bullpen. The person to blame for this mess is Royals GM Dayton Moore. Moore made the initial mistake of signing Farnsworth and expecting something other than what he's been his entire career; and compounded the mistake (about which everyone, stat zombie and not, warned him) by giving Farnsworth a guaranteed two-year contract. And never mind Farnsworth, where was Juan Cruz, who hasn't pitched since May 31st? Why would anyone put Wright in that situation to begin with?

    Moore started his tenure as Royals GM so promisingly. He was coming from a successful organization with the Braves; he'd worked long enough under John Schuerholz to have learned a few things; he spent time examining the Royals organization before making any capricious decisions; cleared out the scouting staff and brought in new blood to rebuild the farm system; signed a few name free agents that have worked out well like Gil Meche; overpaid for, but at least got a guy who can hit the ball out of the park, in Jose Guillen as a signal that the Royals meant business and wanted to be taken seriously by free agents; and then hired a manager with a sterling and wide-ranging resume in Trey Hillman. Then he started making signings that were, at best, head-scratchers and at worst stupid.

    In addition to Farnsworth, he signed Willie Bloomquist to a 2-year contract; traded Ramon Ramirez (currently pitching brilliantly as the Red Sox set-up man) for Coco Crisp (batting .228); traded Leo Nunez (also pitching well out of the Marlins bullpen) for Mike Jacobs, a guy they didn't need.

    Would the Royals have been better off this season with Nunez and Ramirez in the bullpen instead of Farnsworth and Wright? Could they have lived without Crisp who seems to have lost his starting spot? Without Jacobs, who's clogging up the DH spot for Billy Butler, and while Butler should be a DH because he's almost as bad defensively as Jacobs? All the while, both are blocking Kila Ka'aihue, who should be in the big leagues. 

    Just think about where the Royals would be if Zack Greinke had been something close to human over the first two months of the season; or if they were in the American League East. They'd look like the Nationals. Hillman has shown a stunning lack of attention to fundamentals and a wooden approach to strategy that make his resume look like something someone fudged just to get a job, and Moore's maneuvering since the signing of Meche have been universal calamities.

    This team is not good. They're not contenders and never were even though there were voices who were picking them to be the "sleeper" of this year's American League; even though some stat zombies began contradicting their pre-season predictions of nomalcy (75 wins, maybe) with the caveat of, "hmmm, the Royals look pretty good".

    No, they didn't; and now they're showing their flaws every day that Greinke's not on the mound. There are no financial excuses anymore; they've spent some money and they're in a bad division. There was no launching into contention from the Royals, just a familiar sequel to their wheels coming off, only this time, a lot of people didn't expect it, but it's happening anyway because this is what they are.

• Accentuating the positives:

    Speaking of the Royals, Brian Bannister has returned to his own annual career path of getting off to a hot start, looking unhittable, having people celebrate him as if he's turning the corner...and getting shelled when the summer approaches. This isn't Bannister's fault. This is the fault of the management team who don't know how to maximize what it is a guy does instead of trying to get him to do what they want him to do.

    Obviously Bannister gets off to these hot starts early in the season because he's a quick starter for whatever reason. Rather than use that to its best possible advantage, they keep putting him out there until he's getting raked around like it's batting practice. What they should do is use him in the starting rotation early in the season while he's effective, then send him to the bullpen when he's historically started getting pounded.

    Not everyone can be a 200-inning, 12-15 game-winning horse; or a 20-homer guy who drives in 85 runs. There's nothing wrong with having a role player doing his job to help the team and placing him in the best possible circumstances to squeeze the most out of his abilities. How many Albert Pujolses are there? How many Zack Greinkes are there? Not many. It takes managerial intuition and recognition of talent to appreciate what a player does well and place him in that role. Tony La Russa does it; Earl Weaver used to do it. 

    Weaver had an outfielder named Pat Kelly with the Orioles in the late-70s who would get off to hot starts and be batting well over .300 into the summer; then as the season wore on, his numbers declined to what they generally were supposed to be and Weaver didn't play him as much. This was smart use of personnel; not simply putting a guy in a situation he couldn't handle, using him too much and exposing him. Managers don't know how to do that today because they either don't know what they're doing or have front office people shoving stat sheets in their faces demanding that the play players who shouldn't be playing as often and it's screwing up their results.

• J.J. Putz could be out for the year:

    Mets set-up man J.J. Putz has admitted to feeling a sharp pain in his elbow that's hindering him from getting the proper velocity on his fastball or the bite on his split-finger----NY Times Story. Sharp pains are never good, but no one will know anything until he sees the doctors. Perhaps it'll be a bone chip or something that can be treated with rest.

    Either way, the idea to acquire Putz to be the "eighth inning closer" was a good one on a couple of levels even if he never pitches for the Mets again. They had to do something to make their bullpen from last season more palatable; and they didn't give up that much to get him anyway. Manager Jerry Manuel didn't play Endy Chavez at all after taking over as manager; Joe Smith was up-and-down and was terrible for the Indians early this year before being sent to the minors; Jason Vargas was rotten for the Mets; Aaron Heilman had to go; and who knows what's going to happen with the minor leaguers the Mets traded?

    The Mets bullpen was bad last year, but had Billy Wagner not gotten hurt, they would've made the playoffs. It happened and there's nothing that can be done about it. They can either piece together their bullpen again with Bobby Parnell as the eighth inning guy; and/or they can try and acquire a veteran reliever from a club that's out of contention. Michael Wuertz can be had; Cla Meredith from the Padres wouldn't cost all that much in terms of players; and there are gambles like Danys Baez of the Orioles (Mets GM Omar Minaya's tried to get him a couple of times). As long as Francisco Rodriguez is healthy, the Mets can still piece their bullpen together without Putz.      

• A.J. Burnett's six-game suspension is a bit much:

    Yankees pitcher A.J. Burnett was suspended for six games for throwing over the head of Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz after Vicente Padilla had twice hit Mark Teixeira. It was clear retaliation, but truthfully, there's a difference between sending a message and throwing at a guy's head. Burnett's pitch was over Cruz's head, but not at his head; and Cruz had to know it was coming. Burnett's control was quite good that night, he doesn't have a reputation as a head-hunter, so it was obvious what he was doing; he definitely didn't want to hit Cruz in the head; but the league's punishment is going to cause more trouble than prevent future incidents.

    The Yankees knew what Padilla was doing and so did the umpires. Teixeira yelled at Padilla, and the benches didn't clear; Burnett was allowed to retaliate and it was over. No brawls, no screaming, no nothing, and Cruz didn't even get hit. A fine would've been sufficient; Burnett shouldn't have to miss a start for protecting his hitters.

• Cardinals 3-Reds 1:

• Randy Johnson wins his 300th game:

    Randy Johnson won his 300th game this evening with a 5-1 win over the Nationals, but all we're going to hear about is the borderline strike three call by home plate ump Tim Timmons on a 3-2 pitch from Giants closer Brian Wilson to Adam Dunn in the eighth inning with two outs and the bases loaded. The broadcasters on the Nats telecast couldn't shut up about it and it extended to the Marlins booth in their game against the Brewers as they mentioned it as well. Well, I saw the pitch and as a completely disinterested observer, it was borderline.

    The pitch wasn't clearly low as was implied; Dunn's "great eye" doesn't automatically mean that his simple act of taking a 3-2 pitch means that it was a ball; and I find it hard to believe that Timmons was thinking about preserving Johnson's 300th win by expanding the strike zone out of convenience. Could the pitch have been called ball four? Yes, but it was too close to take.

    The argument regarding the number of walks that Dunn draws over the course of a season as validation for his "great eye" is specious reasoning. By that logic, since he's almost a guarantee to strike out at least 165 times this year, it could just as easily be called a strike because he's either doing one or the other in a big chunk of his at bats and his strikeouts outnumber his walks by 50-70 on an annual basis. The Nats are going to complain about it, but it was a marginal call that shouldn't diminish Johnson's accomplishment.

• On another note of the Nats broadcast, who thought it was a good idea to hire Rob Dibble?

    Rob Dibble was a buffoon on Baseball Tonight and got fired.

    Rob Dibble was an insipid clown as a sidekick on the Dan Patrick radio show; he was fired.

    Rob Dibble was on that useless The Best Damn Sports Show, Period as part of that group of idiotic wannabe frat boys; he was fired.

    Now he pops up again as the "analyst" on the Nats' broadcasts. Why? I dunno. Maybe they're hoping that his presence will drum up attention for people to watch a hopeless and hapless organization that's currently going nowhere except to the bargaining table with Stephen Strasburg. (A word of advice: bring the checkbook and have enough ink in the pen to write a lot of zeroes.)

    In listening to Dibble, I'm somehow reminded of David Lee Roth's doomed foray into talk radio; the rapid-fire, stream-of-consciousness rants that have absolutely nothing to do with anything are impossible to follow and sound as if they're coming from someone who's smoked a little too much pot and can't shut up nor stick to one subject coherently for more than one sentence. Sitting there and listening, I can't remember much of anything he said; not one thing he added to the broadcast. I do remember that he was talking about how great his I-Phone is and wouldn't stop going on about the called third strike on Dunn. It was little more than background noise that invited the occasional frown and query of "what the hell's he going on about?" 

    This was nothing like Phil Rizzuto and his somewhat charmingly short attention span while he was in the Yankees broadcast booth all those years; it wasn't anything akin to Michael Kay's incessant toadying on the Yankees broadcasts; it was someone who's purported to be "edgy" because he was a take-no-prisoners flamethrower as a pitcher who took delight in headhunting with a 100-mph fastball. Not taken into account is how despised he was around baseball during his career, even in his own clubhouse.

    Did the Nats pause and think about the fact that Dibble's penchant for wearing out his welcome in every broadcasting job he gets is probably a pretty good indicator that he's not very good at the job? I'm curious as to the length of the contract he has to do the telecasts because if anyone in power at MASN is listening, he's not going to be there for the length of it; you can lay a pretty good amount of money on that.

• Viewer Mail 6.4.2009:

Jeff at Red State Blue State writes RE my mentioning Scott Feldman copying Roy Halladay and my attempts to do the same during my ill-fated attempts at pitching:

Interesting. I used to copy Hideo Nomo's motion, though it was only for show. Most people thought it was weird to see a catcher throw down to second like that, but I didn't care that I didn't catch any base stealers because I looked cool doing it.

The good thing about that is you can trick the runner as you're about to release the ball a la Nomo, by not releasing it and tag him out as he tries to score.

Joe at Statistician Magician writes RE the same subject:

All one has to do is put a dollar bill on the ground, so that the arm will follow through. Then one can become Tim Lincecum. It's as simple as that.

    That might be even more effective with me since I'm a Jew.

John Seal writes RE my comparison of the 2002-2004 Mets and the current Braves:

Don’t forget the rotting corpse of Julio Franco! It earned itself several sympathy contracts from BOTH teams.

    Who could forget Julio Franco? Ping-ponging back-and-forth between teams as he neared 50-years-old and still wrapping the bat around his head in his stance as if he were a mere 46. He'd still be playing if anyone would have him. He's going to be managing the Mets Rookie team in the Gulf Coast League. Hopefully he won't push to activate himself like Roger Dorn.   

• Pirates trade McLouth to the Braves for three minor leaguers:

    Just like anything else, hindsight will be 20/20 and the only way to truly analyze this trade for either the Pirates or the Braves; but the Braves took away some of the public relations sting of releasing Tom Glavine by acquiring a recognizable name in Nate McLouth from the Pirates for minor league pitchers Charlie Morton, Jeff Locke and outfielder Gorkys Hernandez and he does upgrade their outfield immediately, although at this point, anything would've been an upgrade.

    There are a few ways to look at this deal. McLouth has only played in six games at Turner Field, so there's not much to go on as to how the change from a more hitter friendly ballpark at PNC Park in Pittsburgh will affect his power. He's hit 30 career homers at home and 30 on the road. McLouth isn't a difference-maker in the lineup, but as said before, he's far better than what the Braves were throwing out there until now. He's not a guy the opposition has to sit and fret over at the plate and because he won a Gold Glove last year, he's considered a "great" defensive center fielder when, from everything I've read (I don't follow defense this closely), he's, well, not.

    Even with all of that, he can run; he can hit the ball out of the park; he's very inexpensive (he signed a 3-year, $15.75 million extension with the Pirates before the season started); and if Jordan Schafer can ever catch up with a fastball, McLouth can be moved to a corner outfield spot. The Braves gave up a lot to get a player that may not be worth it in the long run, especially since he doesn't adequately address the Braves major issues in the back of the starting rotation and offensively.

    Charlie Morton pitched in the big leagues last year and struggled with his control, but has pitched very well at Triple A Gwinnett this year and should be in the Pirates rotation now if they're starting another long-term rebuilding project, as they clearly are. When I saw him, he reminded me of Carl Pavano in body type and stuff (the "good" Carl Pavano; not the buttocks-bruising, car-crashing, disabled list-inhabiting, model-chasing, beach-going Pavano that was paid lucratively and wastefully by the Yankees for four years).

    As for the other two young players in the trade----Gorkys Hernandez and Jeff Locke----who knows? Hernandez has become the designated minor leaguer that every team wants. That can go well for him (Hanley Ramirez) and the organization that gets him; or badly for him (Andy Marte) and the organization(s) that trade for him. He's young, can run and play center field. Locke is a lefty whose numbers have declined as he's advanced through the Braves system, but as with any minor leauger at the age of 20, 21, it's a matter of luck, coaching and talent.

    It's easy to understand what the Braves are trying to do as they upgrade their woeful outfield and distract from the Glavine fiasco, but this might be another one of those trades that ends up looking atrocious three or four years down the road because the Braves thought they were better than they are. In 2007, they were non-contenders when they traded Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Elvis Andrus, Matt Harrison and two other minor leaguers to get Mark Teixeira and Ron Mahay. During that flurry of futile activity, they also traded Kyle Davies for Octavio Dotel. The team faded out and was a non-contender down the stretch as Dotel got hurt and Teixeira wound up being traded to the Angels a year later because he wouldn't give the Braves an expected discount for the privilege to stay as a free agent.

    Almost immediately following those deals, the accolades poured in for the preparing-to-move-upstairs-to-the-club-presidency John Schuerholz at his aggressiveness in returning to glory, but it was more of a case of, "I'll go for it now to cement my perceived genius and leave the mess to Frank Wren if it doesn't work" and that's exactly what happened. 

    I have no idea what the Pirates are doing. They're obviously bagging the season and the stupid quotes from GM Neal Huntington are a lesson in corporate crap:

“The easiest path would have been to hold tight and to play it out and then just to see how things go forward,” Huntington said. “But for us to be that consistent championship-caliber organization, we need to make the tough decisions, and in this case we believe it was the right decision.”

    "Championship-caliber organization?" The Pirates?

    The remaining Pirates fans who care what's going on with the club don't want to hear this garbage as long as they still have a manager in John Russell who doesn't seem to know what he's doing; a GM, Huntington, who's looking increasingly like a puppet for the team president, Frank Coonelly, whose main focus after coming out of the MLB commissioner's office to take over the Pirates looks to be making sure the payroll slots for draft picks are adhered to. How many more rebuilding projects are the Pittsburgh fans going to sit still for and continue paying the prices to go to the park to watch a team that's going to win maybe 70 games?

    I also have to wonder whether Huntington and Coonelly let it be known that McLouth was available to the rest of the clubs in baseball. To assume that other teams will know that a player can be had isn't enough and with the contract McLouth had signed in February, it sure looked as if the Pirates planned on keeping him. Would the Giants have been interested? The Yankees? The Cardinals? The Reds? The White Sox? The Twins? 

    From a distance, this looks like the Braves called with a good offer and told the Pirates that it was "take it or leave it immediately", another aspect of Schuerholz's style that he undoubtedly passed onto Wren. Whereas an experienced management team would've said, "Screw you, go somewhere else for an outfield bat then," and hung up the phone, I'll bet that Huntington and Coonelly panicked and made the move immediately without calling around to see if they could do a little better. 

    McLouth, once he gets over the shock, will be thrilled. The Braves, with their flaws, are ten times the organization that the Pirates are. He must feel something similar to Andy Dufresne as he escaped from the Shawshank Prison of baseball. Like Andy, with the Pirates, McLouth crawled through a similar amount "of shit smelling foulness I can't even imagine, or maybe I just don't want too. Five hundred yards... that's the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile," that the Pirates have become and came out clear the other side to a better organization and situation. The Pirates may end up getting the last laugh if those prospects develop, but it'll take another three-to-four years of 70 annual wins (at most) to get there and there won't be any fans left to watch if it does happen.

• Was that Scott Feldman or Roy Halladay?
  

    I didn't watch enough of the Yankees 4-2 loss to the Rangers to hear if anyone from the broadcast noticed, but Rangers pitcher Scott Feldman has obviously been watching film of Roy Halladay because he's copied his motion to the point that you wouldn't be able to tell the two apart. From the deliberate bringing of his hands over his head; to the dramatic hip turn as he turns his back to the plate; to the pause and then robotic release on a stiff front leg, the motions are identical.

    It's working for Feldman as he's now 5-0 and looks great as he pounds the strike zone like Halladay does, but this doesn't mean that the motion makes the man. I'm proof of that. I used to copy, at various times, Nolan Ryan, Greg Maddux, Tom Seaver and Orel Hershiser. The problem was that I got results like Kip Wells. Copying the style doesn't always help unless there's some ability there to begin with.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 28

• Braves release Tom Glavine:

    Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports is reporting that the Braves have released Tom Glavine just as he's proven healthy enough to return to the big leagues. While this absolutely the smart decision----it was financially absurd to bring Glavine back to the majors, pay at least a million bucks and possibly $4.5 million for a 43-year-old who would probably have to squeak by any good hitting big league club----it was still handled clumsily.

    Obviously the Braves were quietly hoping that Glavine wouldn't recover enough to be able to pitch and that he'd retire on his own, but they discounted his determination to come back and were forced to make this move. It's just another in a long line of Braves transactions that are reminiscent to the early part of the decade as the Mets did things that made absolutely no sense on or off the field. What's even more comical is how the Braves used to openly mock the Mets because of the Braves overall success and that the Mets could never beat them on the field. I suppose what goes around comes around eventually; and the Braves have brought this on themselves. Let's go through the checklist:

They're overpaying for free agents; constructing their team poorly; and treating their players shabbily: 

    In the early part of the decade, the Mets overpaid for a pitcher named...Tom Glavine to entice his defection from Atlanta to New York. The Mets decided, in all their wisdom, that converted catcher Jason Phillips was the answer at first base; that Mike Piazza wouldn't mind being moved out from behind the plate without being consulted; and they traded for a shot Roberto Alomar.

    The Braves overpaid for Derek Lowe (although he's been as advertised so far); they chased after a free agent, Rafael Furcal, that they didn't need; whiffed on Jake Peavy; and are counting on pitchers who they shouldn't count on like Jo-Jo Reyes. They didn't address their glaring needs in the outfield adequately as they signed a fading veteran Garret Anderson who should be a bit player at most; they expected too much from Matt Diaz, a pure platoon player. 

They've mishandled their young players:

    The Mets recalled Jose Reyes at age 19 and jerked him around while he was having hamstring injuries, seemingly clueless as to how to handle the problem correctly. Their talent evaluators misidentified how useful Dan Wheeler and Ty Wigginton could be and dealt away Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano.

    The Braves have yet to unlock Jeff Francoeur's talent because they've been reluctant to challenge him to become more selective or risk being benched or sent down, and when they did send him down last year, they caved to his whining and the local pressure and recalled him after three days.

    After his promising first week, Jordan Schafer showed that he was clearly overmatched by even barely above-average fastballs until his recent demotion. They've yet to recall a starting pitcher they need, Tommy Hanson; the thought is it's due to financial concerns and not wanting him to accrue big league service time, costing them more money in the long run.

They misjudged a Japanese import:

    The Mets moved Jose Reyes to second base to sign Kaz Matsui for $21 million, and Matsui was a lot of style and mediocre substance. The Braves signed Kenshin Kawakami for $23 million and he's been up and down, at best. 

They're doling out severance packages and cutting ties with veterans clumsily:

    For reasons that have yet to be explained, because Al Leiter and John Franco had been loyal leaders on the Mets during the late 90s and early 2000s, the Mets front office kept re-signing them even when it was clear they had nothing left to offer. 

    The Braves lavished a lucrative contract extension on the still great, but oft-injured Chipper Jones. The contract pays Jones $42 million through 2012 when it's unfathomable that he'll be able to provide anything more than a part-time power bat who sits with numerous aches and pains. They were blindsided by John Smoltz's decision to bolt for the Red Sox, possibly because they were still smarting from the Rafael Furcal fiasco in which they thought they had a deal with Furcal, and he turned around and went back to the Dodgers.

    It's an insult when a pitcher like Smoltz doesn't just leave, but does so because he wants a better chance to win. They re-signed Glavine for 2008 in what was a "star comes home" type of decision that had nothing to do with on-field skills, and he pitched poorly and got hurt; now they've dumped him instead of parting ways with him cleanly in the winter.

    The Braves and their fans had better hope that somebody over there wises up; that a bright and courageous person in their front office realizes that the Braves great run of the 90s and early 2000s had little to do with signing players and having things just somehow work out; it had to do with three great pitchers, all of whom are heading to the Hall of Fame----Tom Glavine, John Smoltz and Greg Maddux. It had to do with a lucky draft of 1990 when they were scared off from Todd Van Poppel's contract demands and wound up with a "consolation prize" from Florida named Chipper Jones.

    Until they move away from the sentimentality and misjudgments in personnel, they're not going to return to contention; and you can forget about another run of division titles, because that's not happening again no matter what they do.

    The Glavine decision is the right one, but it should've been made more gently in the winter and it could've been had they flatly told their veteran pitcher to retire before they had to do this. If the Braves front office wants to look back into the past and relive the laughs they shared at the expense of the Mets, all they have to do is look in the mirror, because they're doing the exact same things and getting the exact same results: a public relations nightmare and a decaying product on the field.

• Phil Hughes to the bullpen is a good move for the Yankees:

    Mark Feinsand of the New York Daily News is reporting that the Yankees have moved Phil Hughes to the bullpen for the time being and placed Chien-Ming Wang back into the starting rotation for tomorrow. Despite the calls for Joba Chamberlain to be moved back into the bullpen, this decision is a positive one for now and the future. 

    As I said the other day, no one should doubt that Chamberlain is going to be the set-up man for Mariano Rivera in the post-season; so as long as he's healthy, his role during the regular season is essentially meaningless. Wang is a starter and not a reliever, so it made no sense to prolong the inevitable and keep him out of the rotation. With Hughes, it's a good idea to let him pitch out of the bullpen for awhile and not just because it keeps him in the big leagues.

    For years, two of the best managers in history, Tony La Russa and Earl Weaver, used future starting pitchers out of the bullpen to get them acclimated to the big leagues and used to pitching in stressful situations. Weaver did it with Doyle Alexander, Dennis Martinez, Scott McGregor and Mike Boddicker. La Russa did it with, recently, Dan Haren and Adam Wainwright (who closed in the playoffs in 2006 and helped the Cardinals win the World Series).

    Hughes has proved pretty much everything he can prove in the minors; letting him pitch out of the bullpen in the big leagues is better than demoting him and he might learn a thing or two that will make him a better starting pitcher in the future.     

• Braves 6-Cubs 5:

    Blowing a 5-0 lead is unacceptable for any team, especially one that had World Series aspirations before the season started; especially against a team that is, at best, mediocre; especially when the reliever who blew a big chunk of that lead has blow away stuff if he only throws strikes; and there's extra-especially no excuse for that reliever, Carlos Marmol, to come into the game and, as the first thing he does, walk the unwalkable Jeff Francoeur on four straight pitches. This is the same Jeff Francoeur who'd walked five times for the entire season prior to that travesty and hadn't drawn a walk since May 15th. Manager Lou Piniella must've sensed what was coming when that happened, but couldn't do anything to prevent the inevitable----another embarrassing loss for the Cubs.

    Kevin Gregg is and isn't to blame for the eventual loss. He is what he is: a less-than-adequate closer, so it shouldn't come as a shock when he blows games the team needs him to lock down. The Cubs are starting to look like they're expecting bad things to happen to them and that's worse than a simple slump. In fairness to Gregg, the Cubs wouldn't be in a much better position had they signed one of the better closers who were available in Francisco Rodriguez, Brian Fuentes, or if they'd kept Kerry Wood. The big onus falls on the lineup, and that's under Piniella's jurisdiction.

    The team hasn't hit. Aramis Rairez is out with a dislocated shoulder; Geovany Soto hasn't hit at all and looks like there's something wrong with him physically; Milton Bradley's been a predictable handful and hasn't hit either (and is now hurt again); and it's unfair to count on Aaron Miles and Mike Fontenot to pick up for the missing offense. Even with the shakiness of the pitching at times, the bullpen and starting rotation have been good enough to have a record better than 25-25; last night notwithstanding. The problem's been the offense and unless that performs up to snuff, they're not going to be any better than this. 

• Aaron Heilman should be made into a starter:

    His numbers aren't great this year (but they're pretty much in line with what he was in the last couple of years with the Mets; he still elicits a groan from the home fans when he enters the game) and his high ERA is a result of a couple of appearances where he got pasted, but it's time to grant Aaron Heilman his wish and make him into a starter either for the Cubs or for another organization.

    They've changed his mechanics from a waist high, close to his body set position to stopping at his chest and far away from his body. The result appears to have been negligible. Any time mechanics are adjusted, be it for a pitcher or hitter, it's mostly changing for change sake because something's not working or they're legitimately trying to keep a guy from hurting himself. It only gets attention if it yields a positive result, so I wouldn't put too much stock into what they've done mechanically. No, Heilman's problems are between his ears.

    The guy doesn't like pitching out of the bullpen. He sees himself as a starting pitcher and that's the role he prefers. He gives up too many homers and looks like a kid heading to the dentist every time he's brought into a game in relief. He's 30 now and has been a moderately successful starter in the minors. Not great, but good enough to be a serviceable fourth or fifth starter for a decent team in the big leagues. All the talk of his "high elbow" in the launch position is just an excuse to justify keeping him out of his preferred role. At this point, he's not doing anyone much good out of the bullpen, so there's nothing to lose by making him a starter. It might be best for everyone involved and it just might work.

• Fact-checking on Francesa:

    While discussing how good Francisco (K-Rod) Rodriguez has been for the Mets, Mike Francesa started on a dubious and somewhat disingenuous diatribe about how the Angels had screwed up their bullpen and admitted that they made a mistake in letting K-Rod leave. It sounded a bit odd for a close-to-the-vest team like the Angels to publicly express regret for a personnel decision from which there's no turning back so early in the season. So I checked it out...

    I googled the words: Angels regret losing K-Rod; Angels regret losing Francisco Rodriguez; Angels admit mistake K-Rod; Angels miss K-Rod----and nothing the level of Francesa's implication popped up. 

    Either he's exaggerating like a child embellishing a story that came from imagination-land; he heard something from someone on the inside and related the information without outing the person inside the Angels organization (that's possible I guess); he's providing information accrued from third, fourth or fifth hand sources; or he's validating his own statements by claiming an admission on the part of the organization that hasn't actually happened.

    It sounded a little strange for a professionally run club like the Angels to come right out and say such a thing: A) two months into the season; and B) when other teams have been reluctant to express similar sentiments with players who were clearly big blunders. The Red Sox haven't out-and-out admitted the Julio Lugo mistake; and the Yankees never made any comments attributable to anyone in the organization about Carl Pavano while they were still paying him. Would the Angels denigrate their replacement closer Brian Fuentes publicly in such a way and alienate not only him, but the other players?

    Then there was Francesa's slick use of numbers to prove his point. The claim that the "Angels had blown nine saves" was twisted to suit his purposes. Fuentes has, for the most part, pitched well. Not as great as K-Rod's been this year, but K-Rod's been almost perfect for the Mets.

    What people need to understand (not to be condescending) is that a blown save can occur at any time; it's not relegated to when the closer comes and gacks up the game. So, if say Jason Bulger or Justin Speier (the third tier of the Angels bullpen) come into a game when it's technically a save situation in the seventh inning and lose the lead, that's a blown save. The Angels big problem this year hasn't been Fuentes, but Scot Shields.

    It's been Shields who's done the heavy lifting all these years with the Angels as the unappreciated set-up man, coming into games and pitching multiple innings as he left the ninth innings and the glory and money of the save stat to K-Rod. Shields has been the best set-up guy in baseball since 2004, but this year, he's been rancid. If there's anything to blame for the Angels' mediocre start, part of it is due to the tragic death of Nick Adenhart; part of it is due to the injuries to the starting rotation; part of it is due to the offense; and part of it is due to the bullpen; but to openly say that they made a mistake with K-Rod wasn't something that rang true and upon doing a little bit of research, it turns out it wasn't completely accurate in any context.

    It's not that hard to twist things to suit one's purposes; nor is it hard to catch it, especially if it's done clumsily.

• Yankees 12-Rangers 3:

    When Vicente Padilla hit Mark Teixeira for the second time and Teixeira (who's looking like a bit more of a hothead than anyone expected after his confrontation with Carlos Gomez earlier this year and the screaming at Padilla) started yelling, I thought for sure the notoriously hot-tempered Padilla was going to charge at him and start a donnybrook, but he didn't. Are the Rangers putting something in the guy's water?

• Could Carlos Zambrano's issues make him available?

    The Cubs/Carlos Zambrano-chronicles continue as he missed the team flight to Atlanta and he could be disciplined by the team as he's simultaneously serving a suspension from the league for his bat-swinging, Gatorade-demolishing, umpire-ejecting tirade last week----ESPN Story.

    He's got around $90 million coming to him and at age 28, it's time for him to start growing up and fulfilling his Cy Young Award/22-game winning potential. Jeff at Red State Blue State, who lives in Chicago, has said that they're getting tired of his selfish acts over there. With the Cubs needing a spark, could they do something drastic like see what the market is for Zambrano? Just to see?

    These things tend to start small. Look what happened with the Yankees in 2000 when they acquired David Justice. GM Brian Cashman had simply called Indians GM Mark Shapiro to ship a 1999 championship ring to former Yankee employee Gary Tuck, who'd joined the Indians after the 1999 season. Shapiro offhandedly mentioned that Justice was available and the next thing you knew, Justice was a Yankee and was playing like an MVP with 20 homers in 78 games as he helped them to another World Series win. If someone calls the Cubs about their troubled righty, what could it hurt to at least consider it? 

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 27     

• The argument that rages by the day:

    Did you know that Joba Chamberlain's real first name is Justin? This is your fact for the day.

    Mike Francesa must have been crestfallen that Chamberlain pitched so well and so efficiently last night. His daily, authoritative rants that Chamberlain should be a reliever----permanently----create conflicting loyalties. He wants the Yankees to win, but he also wants desperately to be right so people will think he's a baseball "expert", although being right and being accurate are two different things when looked at over their entire context.

    Before this season, I was an advocate of Chamberlain being given the chance to start without the constraints of pitch counts/innings limits that are clearly hindering his development, and didn't even prevent him from getting hurt last year. This season, at least, I felt that Chamberlain should've been sent to the bullpen because: A) the Yankees needed him out there; and B) they have a surplus in the starting rotation to be able to afford moving Chamberlain out of the rotation.

    I can see either argument and be swayed. Last night, Chamberlain pitched eight excellent innings against a compromised Indians lineup that was without Grady Sizemore.*

*Speaking of whom, if his elbow injury is indeed the worst case scenario----ESPN Story----then GM Mark Shapiro might as well bag the season even in the woeful AL Central. If they're not going to have Sizemore for two months, you're talking about August before he's back and by then, they could be 12 or more games out of first place. Mark DeRosa, especially, should have bag packed and be ready to move at a moment's notice.

    So what to do with Joba?

    The big advantage the Yankees have is that the parity in baseball has smoothed their road to the playoffs to the degree that they don't really have to worry about making it as long as they play reasonably well. The Blue Jays are fading; the Rays are shambolic; and the other two divisions are a joke even if the Angels and Rangers are battling it out for the Western Division down the stretch since neither are going to have more wins than the Yankees or Red Sox. Right now on June 2nd, you can put the rivals in the playoffs. Then what? 

    Hypothetically, if they leave Joba in the rotation for the remainder of the season, the smart move in order to ensure the best possible outcome in the playoffs would be to move Chamberlain back to the bullpen to set up for Mariano Rivera. The starting pitching in the playoffs is irrelevant because in a short series, a pitcher gets no margin for error and gets yanked at the first sign of trouble. Which is better? Having Chamberlain pitch one game in a five game series (and he'd be, at best, the third starter), or having him available in every game to blow through the seventh and eighth innings?

    As of right now, any Yankees playoff series would begin with C.C. Sabathia ready to pitch games one and five; after that, it would come down to how they'd like to match things up. Andy Pettitte's playoff history gets him one of the starts, probably game two; then A.J. Burnett and if Chien-Ming Wang is back in the rotation, one or the other could pitch either games three or four (if the series got that far). There would be no need for Chamberlain as a starting pitcher, and I think that's been the Yankees plan all along; Chamberlain to the pen for the playoffs; and it's the smart, winning move.

    They can do what they want from now until then as long as they keep him healthy. If the bullpen becomes such an issue during the season, there should be some veteran set-up men available right now----Michael Wuertz of the A's has always been underrated and Kiko Calero of the Marlins has been pitching well; Huston Street of the Rockies is probably out there too. The debate will continue, but in reality, it's pretty meaningless as long as Joba doesn't get hurt.

• White Sox 6-Athletics 2:

    The surest sign of a bad team is the lack of cohesiveness in performance. By that, I mean the A's haven't gotten their roster to put it all together all at once for the majority of their games. If they score a bunch of runs, their pitchers allow more; if they get good starting pitching, they don't score; and if they have a lead in the late innings, their bullpen (which has been mostly good this year) has a bad night and gacks it up.

    The "For Sale" sign is being posted outside of the clubhouse and I'm sure Billy Beane is taking offers as we speak because the A's are not going anywhere this year but back to the drawing board.

    The White Sox are sometimes run very oddly by manager Ozzie Guillen. In general, if a team acquires a veteran, the manager tries to get him into the lineup or at least get him one at bat so he can feel a part of his new team. Late Friday, the White Sox acquired Ramon Castro from the Mets; Castro's been with the White Sox for four days and hasn't seen any action at all. Are they trying to spin him off somewhere and don't want him to get hurt? You'd think he would've played in one of the games he's attended so far. It's a little weird, but then, so is Ozzie.

• Diamondbacks 3-Dodgers 2:

    Organizational advocacy has its privileges.

    No one's much noticed, but the Diamondbacks have played much better under A.J. Hinch since their shaky start on and off the field. They're probably not going to contend this year no matter what, but they're shifting some players around (Mark Reynolds will be better at first base than he is at third, but then a mannequin with a glove on an extended arm as if it were in a display case couldn't field much worse than Reynolds), and they're getting a look at some of their youngsters like Daniel Schlereth. Plus Justin Upton is developing nicely. After that start in which there was nearly a player-mutiny, 11-12 under Hinch ain't too bad.

•   The Mets are screwin' up my process:

    I was mentally organizing a posting about the Mets and how similar they look to the mid-80s Cardinals, stealing bases and making do without home run power while still scoring plenty of runs to win...then they blew a 5-0 lead and lost 8-5 to the lowly Pirates. I'll have to save it for another time.

• THE PADRES LOSSOMETER: 26   

Jane Heller at Confessions of a She-Fan writes:

Pavano and Greinke have something in common: they both threw strikes. What a concept. In the "old days," it didn't seem as if pitchers were afraid to pitch to contact. Not so these days.

    Bob Tewksbury (that's a name from the Yankee past!) said years ago when he was encouraging young pitchers to throw strikes (I'm paraphrasing from memory, but the gist is the same): "Throw the ball over the plate, chances are the guy's gonna pop it up."

Gabriel at rock_bard@hotmail.com writes RE the possibility of the Blue Jays pursuing Matt Holliday:

Come on, let us have hope. But, to be fair, to whom would you sell B.J. Ryan to make space for a good bat? They can stay in contention for most of the season, as has been the case for the last couple of years, only this time they'got help in the jump start they got at the beginning. With the help of a legitimate cleanup hitter, they have a chance.

Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

Loosely translated for this context: Hope? Dude, you've come to the wrong place for that. Remember, I'm a Mets fan; hope's meaningless here.  

• Zack Greinke's "secrets" to success:

    I watched a big part of Zack Greinke's start against the White Sox yesterday and even though it was technically his "worst" start of the year, he still got through it allowing only three earned runs and eight hits in seven innings. While his path to becoming a star blocked by a bumpy first few years in the bigs (he lost 17 games in 2005 and struggled with depression), he's dominating big league hitters in 2009. Here's how he's doing it:

He throws strikes: 

    It's not that he's simply throwing the ball over the plate and using his defense to help him out. (With the Royals defense, that might not be that great an idea.) The most important thing that he's doing is controlling his secondary pitches, specifically his wicked curve. The advantage a pitcher has when he's able to get his breaking ball over the plate at will is massive. No pitcher, regardless of how hard he throws, is going to get away with a fastball by itself. Any pitcher getting his breaking pitches over once in awhile helps him a great deal; but Greinke has taken that to an entirely new level. 

He throws very, very hard and conserves his best fastballs for when he needs them:

    If you watch a Greinke start, he's usually effortlessly popping about 93-94 mph; then, when there are runners on base or he wants to put a guy away, that fastball is humped up to 98 mph. The old-timers used to call this "pitching in a pinch" in which they'd exert themselves enough to get the batters out when there wasn't anyone on base, but reach back for the little bit extra when they needed it. Tom Seaver used to do it; Nolan Ryan used to do it; Johan Santana does it; and now Zack Greinke does it. 

He uses the entire plate and strike zone:

    This too sounds simple, but if it's so simple, then why don't other pitchers do it? Greg Maddux not only used the inside and outside corners, but he worked up and down in the strike zone; but Greinke is demonstrating a Maddux-like command...while throwing about ten miles an hour harder than Maddux did. Unless Greinke makes a mistake, no hitter's going to get more than (maybe) one or two pitches to hit during a game.

    There are so many pitchers who are afraid to pitch inside because they don't have the velocity to keep big league hitters from turning on the pitch; Greinke has the velocity. Then there's the fallacy (put forth by those that don't know anything about pitching) that a pitcher has to "keep the ball down" to be successful. It's nonsense as long as a pitcher has a fastball that has enough pop to keep the hitter from being able to: A) catch up to it; and B) get on top of it. Seaver's rising fastball, especially, was impossible to resist and impossible to hit. Hitters knew it was coming and couldn't do anything about it or stop themselves from swinging at it. 

He comes up with a plan and he executes:

    It wouldn't matter if he was going to the mound and ripping the ball at 98 mph with a curve that falls off the table if he didn't execute his pitches and adhere to the plan of attack on the hitters. Many pitchers go to the mound with an idea of what they want to do, but forget about it when they get into trouble and try to muscle their way out of their predicaments; Greinke hasn't done that. Orel Hershiser and Maddux were masters at sticking to what they wanted to do and remaining calm when others would've panicked. 

    Greinke can't possibly continue to pitch as well as he has so far this year since there's nowhere to go from near-perfection but down; but as the year moves along, he's going to be able to maintain at least a competent level performance when he doesn't have his best stuff. As his reputation for throwing strikes and ability to wriggle out of trouble goes around the league, hitters aren't going to risk falling behind him in the count, because with that curve, they'll be dead before getting a pitch to hit.

    Add in that he's on a bad team with a rotten defense and his accomplishment is even more impressive. It's a pleasure to watch a pitcher who at such a young age has figured it out because many times it takes a much longer time for that to happen, if it happens at all.

• If I were one of these kids' parents, there would've been an incident...

    ...and that incident would most likely have included several people trying futilely to pry my hands from the coach's throat.

    In case you missed it, there were a couple of courageous performances from two college pitchers over the weeked----NY Times Story----as University of Texas pitcher Austin Wood pitched 13 innings in relief and logged 169 pitches. Boston College pitcher Mike Belfiore pitched almost ten innings in relief.

    It's not that this type of coaching malpractice should be a shock to anyone because it's gone on forever in college baseball; and I have no idea whether either one of those kids have big league potential (one would assume that they do), but how could any coach in his right mind sacrifice a kid in his early 20s for one game?  And if you think that's the first time they were abused, it's like a restauarant that sees a rat and thinks that it's the only one running around the place; multiply it by ten and you'll be closer to the truth.

    The weak defense would be, "well, the kid said he felt alright and wanted to pitch". Yeah? So? If the kid wanted to try heroin, would you let him do that? If the kid wanted to travel to Iraq or the tribal regions of Pakistan/Afghanistan seeking adventure as a tourist, would you let him do that? If he wanted to ride a hot air balloon around the world without knowing what he was doing, would you let him do that?

    You have to wonder if there'll be any repercussions for this because there's no viable excuse for it. Part of a coach's mandate is parental. They have to protect the players from themselves just as a competent parent would; but these coaches clearly had no concern for anything other than trying to win a game; and if I were one of the parents, the coach and I would have a problem. A big one.

• Who was that guy?

    Carl Pavano must have a twin brother because there was no comparison between the guy that pitched against the Yankees yesterday and the guy who was Yankees property for four lost years, financially and physically.

    Pavano allowed 3 runs in 7 1/3 innings, struck out four and walked none and looked determined in the same way he was in 2003 and 2004 when he attracted the attention of not just the Yankees, but the Red Sox, Tigers and Mariners, who all offered him similar contracts to join them as a free agent. (That's why the Yankees deseve something of a pass for what happened with Pavano during his heinous four year term on their roster/disabled list; if they didn't pay him, someone else would've.) He didn't get the win because his bullpen gacked up the lead; the Indians won in the bottom of the ninth.

    The Pavano who languished on the disabled list and became a punchline/punching bag always appeared as if he'd rather be on the beach than on the mound; the guy pitching for the Indians is not that guy. The Yankees players and front office are right to be bemused----and pissed off.

• Viewer Mail 6.1.2009:

Gabriel at rock_bard@hotmail.com writes RE Matt Holliday and the Blue Jays:

With J.P. Riccardi talking about trading, I can really see Matt Holiday in a Jays uniform in August and September. He is a good fit, and he's starting to hit. 

    No chance in hell if Ricciardi's thinking before he acts.

   Billy Beane's going to want big league ready pitching and a bat for Holliday. Ricciardi didn't seem to believe that the Blue Jays' hot streak to start the season was real and they're falling into where most expected them to be even in a best-case scenario; so right there, you're talking about sending, say, Ricky Romero and Travis Snider for renting Holliday because they don't have the money to keep him and he's not going to want to stay in Canada for less money when there'll be teams who'll pay him and let him play closer to his Oklahoma birthplace.

    The Blue Jays aren't contenders; nor are they going to be buyers in the summer and the main reasons are that they have neither the money nor the prospects to spare for an unrealistic gamble that's not going to pay off.

    The teams that could have interest in Holliday, in my empty head, are the following:

Minnesota Twins: They've shown a strangely surprising aggressiveness in the past couple of years. (They put in an inexplicable waiver claim on Jarrod Washburn last year only to see the Mariners, in an even stupider move, pull Washburn back and keep him.) Would Beane be willing to take Delmon Young and one of the Twins' young pitchers? Holliday would fit right in as a righty bat between Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau.

San Francisco Giants: The Giants have a load of young prospects in the minors; it's hard to see why they'd give them up to rent Holliday when they could go after a player with a long term contract like Carlos Lee, but Holliday's a bat the Giants need to score more runs for that pitching staff.

Atlanta Braves: They're not viable contenders and their outfield is one of the worst in baseball, so it'd be a mistake; but GM Frank Wren hasn't distinguished himself (aside from getting Jair Jurrjens for Edgar Renteria) as thinking before he acts and if the Braves are around .500 when Beane intensifies his efforts to trade Holliday, would the Braves give up some young pitching (James Parr) and some other stuff for Holliday?

St. Louis Cardinals: They wouldn't have to worry about eating a big contract and Holliday might like St. Louis enough to give them a discount to stay (although the organization's become so cheap, they still might not have interest in keeping him); Albert Pujols would be dancing around with some legit lineup protection and the Cardinals have the youth----Chris Perez for example----that Beane's going to want.

    He ain't going to no Blue Jays.