Monday, April 27, 2009

"Strong" Start, eh?


This was the headline on Reds.com today - the homepage of the franchise. In it, the headline outright lies that Gonzalez is off to a "strong" start. To wit:

Alex Gonzalez's 2009 stats:

.152 - 1 - 6 , if you subscribe to traditional metrics, in 14 games and 51 PA.

He's OPSing a cool .461 and his OPS+ is a wicked 16, so far, for those of you who consider more sabermetric categories.

The people who write for MLB.com and the teams' respective pages probably have a lot of corporate-mandated optimism and corporate-controlled atmosphere, but this kind of stupidity is inexcusable.
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9 comments:

  1. IridescenceApril 27, 2009 at 10:06 AM

    LOL and besides the idiotic phrasing it's funny to think that the guy who made this thinks Alex Gonzalez is the most exiting player the Reds have any anyone would tune in to the game just to watch him.

    I mean I can see saying that about Bruce or Phillips or Volquez but Alex Gonzalez?

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  2. TonusApril 27, 2009 at 11:44 AM

    Why would they be using Gonzalez as a selling point, when in that same lineup they have Votto, who has an OPS+ of 167?

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  3. UnknownApril 27, 2009 at 11:46 AM

    Perhaps they are refering to him being "strong" as in he's up to 32 reps on the 225 bench press, and not in reference to his play. A clever dig at his repeated injuries from last year while sarcasticly pointing out that he's sucking while healthy?

    Ya, probably not.

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  4. BengoodfellaApril 27, 2009 at 12:54 PM

    Actually Martin, you could be on to something, that could be it. When you are talking about the Reds, the weight room may be the best place to look for big achievements.

    Gonzalez also looked really bloated when I watched him play the other night. That has nothing to do with nothing but still...

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  5. AnonymousApril 27, 2009 at 4:24 PM

    IN a similar vein, there is an scrappy Eckstein article in the LA Times yesterday. He "does the little things...."
    Fielding Bible states otherwise for the past two years.
    http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-shaikin26-2009apr26,0,2022295.story

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  6. dan-bobApril 27, 2009 at 4:25 PM

    WATCH IT BEN

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  7. BengoodfellaApril 27, 2009 at 5:12 PM

    I mean, I was just saying, that ummm the Reds have players who hit a lot of homeruns so they probably are in the weight room a lot. Yep, that's what I was saying. I know I wasn't saying anything negative about the team.

    Any team that has a player hitting .150 and the MLB team page refers to him as having a "strong" start is a team I have no problem with.

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  8. Chris WApril 29, 2009 at 8:15 AM

    reds suck

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  9. dan-bobApril 30, 2009 at 3:33 PM

    ok, now you're just being silly.

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