Well, the GREATRIOTS did it

Well, after giving myself about ten days to process my feelings, I have come to accept what we all must accept: the Patriots won Super Bowl XLIX.  None of us have to accept that Tom Brady is the greatest QB ever (he isn't) or that Belichick is the greatest coach ever (actually, we might have to accept that one).  But the game is done, and thus football season is done.  No more horrible Simmons gambling advice (not sure how he finished on the season, but rest assured that you would have lost money if you followed him).  No more getting mad at thinking about what TMQ is probably writing, even though I don't even read his column anymore.  But most of all, no more NFL for like 7 months--except the combine, the draft, OTAs, training camp, the preseason, and all the ridiculous non-stories we'll have to deal with while trying to pay attention to other sports all summer.   Feels good just saying it.

Before we go, though, just a reminder: the NFL is a fucking joke.

One more reminder that the NFL is a fucking joke.

And finally, a final reminder that the NFL is a fucking joke.

Moving on.

It's almost baseball season yayyyy yayyy yayyy!

/realizes he will once again watch his favorite team lose 90 games this summer

Eh, whatever.  Since it's baseball season might as well start focusing a little bit more on baseball writing.  I hate Jonah Keri (I believe I have established this) even though he's really not that bad of an analyst and an inoffensively mediocre writer.  So, I will pick on stuff he writes even when it's not flagrantly horrible.  YOU CAN'T STOP ME.  Here are some dopey thoughts of his from his "worst contracts in baseball" article from last week.  Most of his picks for the top 10 are fine--I only briefly touch on them at the end of the post.  It's the honorable mentions that mostly get my panties in a bundle.  (Side note: good for him for doing a worst contracts, rather than a "most trade value" article, because fuck Bill Simmons and fuck anyone who appropriates his concepts into their own articles.)  

DH Nick Swisher, Cleveland Indians: two years, $30 million remaining

OF Michael Bourn, Cleveland Indians: two years, $27.5 million

...I try not to weigh team finances too heavily when analyzing these contracts, I can’t discount that the Swisher and Bourn albatrosses will hurt the small-revenue Indians more than they would nearly any other team.

OK, I guess fair enough, those are some non-ideal contracts.  But really, didn't both of them get paid more or less their market value at the time the contracts were signed?  I mean, why make this list at all if you're just going to list every single player who is into his free agent years and hasn't played well lately?  Bourn was awesome in 2012 and OK in 2013.  Swisher was good in both 2012 and 2013.  They both sucked in 2014 and had they been free agents this winter they'd have gotten "prove it" one year deals.  But I'm not sure I see the point here.  More significantly:
 
SP Edwin Jackson, Chicago Cubs: two years, $22 million

Among pitchers with at least 140 innings, Jackson’s 6.33 ERA was the worst in baseball last year by nearly a full run. With Jon Lester and Jason Hammel now in the fold, Jackson isn’t even ticketed for the rotation anymore. That means he’s either going to be a mop-up man in 2015 or on the chopping block in spring training.

How about some consistency?  Jackson's contract is probably worse than Swisher's/Bourn's, but on the other hand, the Indians don't have a lot of money and are trying to win now.  The Cubs have tanker ships full of money, and aren't really looking to compete until next year.  They could give a shit about giving Jackson $11 million (not even that much for a shitty innings eater, by the by) to make 30 starts this year.  Maybe next year it's a problem, but come on.  It's the Cubs.  Whatever.

SS Elvis Andrus, Texas Rangers: eight years, $120 million

Aside from the Boras lesson, the main takeaway here is one that we’ll repeat several times throughout this column: When dealing with players who are still under team control for a couple more years, clubs should tread very carefully before offering an extension that won’t kick in until those years have expired. The consequences of failing to exercise that care can be disastrous.

The Rangers actually have a pretty good revenue stream, so they very well may have foolishly jumped the gun when they gave Andrus that deal.  I mean "jumped the gun" in the sense that they didn't need to try to lock him up to a contract that they were hoping would be a discount over what he could make on the FA market two years later.  But the cautionary note up there is utterly useless for most of the teams that tend to sign players to these kinds of deals (Rays, Rockies, Indians, etc.).  Of COURSE it's risky to sign a player to a big contracts well before they hit free agency.  And then again, the alternative is probably losing that player when they hit free agency, which is risky as well.  Thanks for the GMing tip, Jonah.

SP Bronson Arroyo, Arizona Diamondbacks: one year, $14 million

Technically, Arroyo’s remaining deal is $9.5 million for 2015 plus a $4.5 million buyout to avoid his $11 million salary in 2016. Either way, the result is the same: Arroyo had Tommy John surgery in early July, making him a long shot to return before August and a virtual lock to deliver nothing of value for a moderate-payroll club that’s also overpaying Cody Ross and Trevor Cahill to not contribute.

Teams insure their contracts against major, predictable injuries, like, you know, pitchers who tear their UCLs.  There's no way this is even one of the 100 worst contracts in baseball right now.  Christ, I'd argue that Jon Lester's deal is worse than this one.

SP Ubaldo Jimenez, Baltimore Orioles: three years, $38.75 million

Oy.

OK, you win this round, Jonah.  That's a terrible contract.  Fucking Ubaldo.  

/Larry B cries Rockies fan tears

1B Joey Votto, Cincinnati Reds: nine years, $213 million

Votto signed his gigantic contract in April 2012, and in the two years since, I’ve agonized over whether to include him in my annual look at baseball’s best contracts; I left him off both times and got enough hate mail from Votto supporters to fill an Olympic-size swimming pool. And understandably so: From 2010 through 2013, Votto was around a six-win player every year, and an MVP award winner in 2010.

How quickly things can change. In 2014, he missed 100 games and hit for less power than ever before. It’s human nature to fixate on the recent past, and it’s pretty terrifying to see a 31-year-old player who’s owed $213 million after a season in which he hit .255 with six home runs — terrifying enough to make four years of absolute dominance seem like a distant memory.

So, yeah, again--don't bother making this list if you're just going to list a bunch of guys who are no longer in their team-controlled years and had a bad 2014.  I actually think this belongs in consideration for the list to a greater degree than those "meh" Swisher, Bourn and Jackson contracts, because it's so enormously gigantic.  But Votto isn't just some guy who had a couple good seasons, cashed in, and is now in decline.  He was an MVP contender for five straight years, then got hurt for one, and his best skill is getting on base, which tends to age well.  Jonah seems to know and understand all this and yet here we are.  Annoying.

Now we move into the guys who actually made the top 10.  I was fine with most of the names (Fielder, Hamilton, Pujols, Upton--go find the article on Grantland if you want, I'm not going to link to it) but we have a couple of problems.

4. OF Shin-Soo Choo, Texas Rangers: six years, $116 million (NR)

Oh come on.  Choo is like Votto-lite.  He was a 4 to 6 win player EVERY season from 2008 through 2013.  In fact, 2013 might have been his best year ever.  And like Votto, OBP is his best skill.  Now he stumbles in 2014 and he's got the 4th worst contract in the majors?  GMAFB.  It's especially insane when you factor in this:

7. 1B Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies: two years, $60 million (3)

Dude.  Choo was a mess last year, but he still had an OPS+ of 102 and an OBP of .340.  Even if he just rebounds a little bit in the coming years, and never makes it back to his 2013 form (which he still might do), he's a useful, above-average player.  You can make the playoffs with him hitting 2nd or 6th in your lineup.  Ryan Howard is absolutely worthless.  He hasn't even been above average since 2010.  His career is over.  There is, I don't know, like a 25% chance Choo lives up to the rest of his contract.  Maybe it's less than that.  But it's definitely greater than a 0% chance, which is the likelihood that Howard is worth more than even half his remaining contract.  I get that Choo gets dinged for having six years left instead of two, but he's also three years older than Choo, making it an absolute certainty that he's done.  What the hell is Choo doing ahead of him on this list?

Here’s another over-30 Ranger coming off an injury-plagued season who’s signed for waaaay too long and waaaay too much. Though Choo missed just 39 games last year, he first hurt his ankle back in April, so it’s possible a season-long mulligan is warranted. 

Again: guy has crappy 2014, and it's probably at least in part due to injury, and now he's got the 4th worst contract in the game somehow.  BOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

2. SP Matt Harrison, Texas Rangers: three years, $41 million (NR)

When the Rangers gave Harrison his five-year, $55 million deal in January 2013, they were rewarding a 27-year-old durable ground ball pitcher who’d managed the rare feat of putting up solid numbers in the AL’s worst pitcher’s park, in the process buying out three years of arbitration and two years of free agency. Even though Harrison was never a big strikeout pitcher by the standards of the time, the contract didn’t seem like much of a reach.

But now here we are, with Harrison having made just six combined starts in the past two seasons and coming off spinal fusion surgery. It’s unclear if he’ll ever pitch again in the majors, let alone take the ball every fifth day and produce quality numbers.

Buddy, again, insurance--and it's not even that astronomical of a contract.  Second worst in MLB, after only A-Rod?  WORSE than BJ Upton?  I'm not a Rangers fan, but I'm thinking Jonah might have some kind of grudge against that organization for some reason.  

Jonah Keri does not show us the funny

Jonah's annual MLB trade value column came out a couple weeks ago (ZOMG SIMMONS IS A GENIUS THIS IS THE BEST LISTICLE OF ALL TIME).  I give his analysis a B-plus, it's fine.  I give his ability to write coherently a C-minus, it is slipshod at best.  And most importantly, I give his sense of humor an F-minus, because it's fucking terrible.  Let's dive right in to his rundown of guys who were in the top 50 last year but fell out this year.

Meanwhile, it's time to retire Keith Law's brilliant "Sliced bread is actually the best thing since Matt Wieters" (41) meme … 

Keith Law is a gaping asshole, and there is nothing brilliant about anything he has ever done, perhaps other than convince people that he's an amazing baseball analyst.  That joke is terrible, Keith is terrible, and I hope he loses every writing gig he has before the year is out.  (Check the comments for PNoles's obligatory defense of Keith, because... well, I have no idea why PNoles defends Keith.  Keith fucking sucks.)

Desmond Jennings (39) improved his power, batting eye, and contact skills in 2013 and offers four more years of team control, so leaving him off this (stacked) list could wind up looking really stupid … 

Classic Simmonism: make arbitrary list.  Question own decisions in crafting said list, as if something is at stake, or worse, as if it wasn't possible to put an extra 15 seconds into re-ordering said list before publishing if desired.  Collect enormous paycheck.

Justin Upton (38) might have already delivered his best season, 

Almost certainly.  Fuck Justin Upton and fuck anyone who gave him serious MVP consideration in 2011.  No, I am not ready to let that go.

and his brother was the worst outfielder in the NL last season, ruining another excellent meme … 

That's not a meme.  It's a bit.  The Weithers thing was not a meme either, but at least this Upton one isn't horribly unclever.


Brett Lawrie (21) and Dylan Bundy (20) are Exhibits A and B for why we shouldn't overrate prospects until they actually start producing; and yes, I'm a terrible, Canadian-loving homer 

I mean, admitting it is nice and all, but the other option is to stop journalistically tonguing Alex Anthopoulos's balls and realize that the Blue Jays continue to be a mediocre team with mediocre management, no matter how many SUPER ULTRA GENIUS moves they make.  Anthopoulos is the AL's answer to Jack Zduriencik (Remember him?  He's the guy who invented RUN PREVENTION and took the 2010 Mariners to the Super Bowl!).

Also, all fans of all teams in all sports overrate prospects, but baseball fans are undoubtedly the worst about it.  The reasons are obvious (takes much longer for prospects to develop relative to other sports, takes longer for teams to go for bad to good relative to other sports), but that doesn't mean every fan who lights up a message board with a comment to the effect of "[My favorite team] would never trade [name of prospect who is at least two years from MLB and will probably never make it] for [established and available above average player].  [Name is prospect] is a sure thing." shouldn't be shot out of a circus cannon into an alligator pit.

[Shelby Miller] faded in the second half, which isn't that unusual for a pitcher tossing more innings than ever before. Then the Curious Case of the Disappearing Shelby happened, 

Is that a joke?  If so, no points awarded.

with the Cardinals opting to use Bob Forsch, Dane Iorg, 

Hooray for unremarkable players from the 80s!  Hope Jonah paid Pearlman his royalty fees for using that bit.

and a plate of toasted ravioli rather than put Miller in a postseason game.

TOASTED RAVIOLI!  THAT'S GOLD, JONAH!  GOLD!

44. Jonathan Lucroy, C, Milwaukee Brewers (NR): The Brewers owe Lucroy a total of $9 million over the next three years, or $14.25 million over the next four assuming they pick up his option in 2017. Here's a list of the things Lucroy would have to do to fail to earn that contract:

1. Hit .024 with 400 strikeouts and 968 errors

2. Suffer a career-ending stubbed toe tomorrow

3. Say the word "Smaug" 17,227 times in a row until someone stabs him

I'm not saying I've never used hyperbole to sell a joke.  But come on, what Jonah just wrote is terrible.  It's fucking horrible.  Especially the last part.  Jesus H. Christ-that line is Easterbrookian.

Given the flashier names around Lucroy on this list, he might seem out of place at first glance. But if anything, this ranking feels a little low.

More patented Simmons second guessing your own arbitrary ranking cow shit.  Infuriating.  YOU KNOW I THINK I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING HERE, BUT ON SECOND THOUGHT, MAYBE I'M ACTUALLY SMARTER THAN MYSELF AND THUS AM MAKING ERRORS THAT MYSELF IS UNABLE TO CATCH.  Fucking barf.

He delivered offense 5 percent better than the league average, excellent defense, and the health and stamina to play 138 games. After that campaign, [Salvador] Perez's contract looks even more unbelievable. Like, it's actually impossible to believe. The Royals owe Perez $1.5 million in 2014, $1.75 million in 2015, and $2 million in 2016. KC then has a $3.75 million club option for 2017, followed by a $5 million option for 2018 and a $6 million option for 2019, which would normally be Perez's first two years of free agency. That's $20 million for his next six seasons, for a four-win player.

WHAT?  A PRE-ARB PLAYER SIGNED A TEAM FRIENDLY CONTRACT TO GUARANTEE HIMSELF FINANCIAL SECURITY IN EXCHANGE FOR REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF MONEY HE COULD HAVE COMMANDED IF HE MAINTAINED HIS HEALTH AND SKILL AND GOT TO FREE AGENCY?  THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE.  

I mean, of course that contract is very team friendly.  The Royals are getting a great deal.  But to call it "actually impossible to believe" is actually really fucking dumb.

32. Jurickson Profar, SS, Texas Rangers (18); 31. Xander Bogaerts, SS, Boston Red Sox (NR):

Remember how Brett Lawrie and Dylan Bundy were high on last year's list?  This time around, Jonah promises to stop overrating prospects.

18. Troy Tulowitzki, SS, Colorado Rockies (23): I live in Denver. I'm at Coors Field a lot. Last fall, I spent two hours talking to de facto Rockies general manager Bill Geivett about … everything, really. And I still have no idea what the Rockies are doing, other than making arguably the best party atmosphere in and around any ballpark even better. This winter's Tulowitzki dance continues that theme. Tulo's name came up in trade rumors with the Cardinals, a team with enough talent to revitalize the Rockies' stockpile of good, young players and potentially set Colorado up with its best starting rotation ever. Instead, the Rockies more or less came out and said Tulo isn't going anywhere under any circumstances. 

A) Tulowitzki's extension, signed in 2011 and good through 2021, is fairly team friendly.  Even with his injury problems, which are overstated most of the time because most baseball fans are mouth breathers, he's a pretty safe bet to provide more value than it pays him over the duration.  In 2010 he put up 6.7 rWAR in 122 games.  Last year he put up 5.3 rWAR in 128 games.  I'll pay that guy $20MM a year (as he'll be paid from 2015 through 2019), even if I expect him to miss time, no problem.  He will have to move away from SS eventually, which will hurt his value, but that doesn't change the overall likelihood that the extension works out well for the Rockies.  

2) Just because the Cardinals were sniffing around doesn't mean there was any kind of a decent deal to be had.  If the Cardinals' management has a mentality anything like any of the Best Fans In Baseball who provided internet insight on the possibility of their team scooping up Tulo, it would be the worst trade in history if they offered any of their 10 best prospects, because LOLCOORZ (Tulo career on the road: .276/.348/.471) and INJUREEZ (see above).  I don't think any rational Rockies fan gave even a passing thought to the idea of trading him for future assets. And as far as current assets goes, he's one of the best in the game, and is locked up for the rest of his career to a good contract.  

D) Describing a passing and unsubstantiated rumor that the SS-needy Cardinals had interest in the best SS in baseball, who happens to play for a non-playoff team, as "this winter's Tulowitzki dance" is embarrassingly terrible analysis.

So, OK, they see an open window over the next two or three years, with Tulo and CarGo in their primes. But then why did they just trade Dexter Fowler for a bucket of beans?

Who knows, it was probably a bad trade, but the Rockies have had success recently in converting some "plenty of potential but no real results" young arms into decent SPs in recent years (Jorge de la Rosa, Tyler Chatwood).  Fowler has the same injury problems Tulowitzki does, and is of course not nearly the player Tulowitzki is.  He's also streaky, getting hot for a few weeks and then disappearing for a few weeks, which isn't the end of the world when the end of year results are above average, but hurts a little more when it's your leadoff hitter doing it as opposed to someone lower in the lineup.  

Further, Gonzalez is a natural CF who is ready to take over, and corner OFs (to replace Gonzalez in LF) aren't exactly hard to find.  They're probably going to run a platoon of Corey Dickerson (.819 OPS against righties last year as a rookie) and Drew Stubbs (never quite blossomed fully, but career .796 OPS against lefties) out there, and they used the money they would have owed Fowler to sign Justin Morneau to play 1B (which was a tire fire last year).  THAT move could also blow up, but if you give the situation more than just a cursory look, it's easy to see how all the moves fit together.  Sheesh.

Yes, I know you can tell that I'm a Rockies fan, and that you don't give a fuck about that fact or the Rockies themselves.  Let me have my moment tearing Jonah down.  It's the least you can do for me.

None of those moves or non-moves is that bad in isolation; Tulo is a superstar who, even when he plays only 130 games a year, is still the best shortstop in baseball and one of the 20 best players in the majors, and Fowler is a perfectly fine player who also has gigantic home/road splits. The bigger issue is that management doesn't seem to have much of a tangible plan, other than keeping its biggest star in town so fans will keep lining up to buy $12 microbrews on sunny afternoons and the club can keep raking in gigantic gobs of money that it pretends not to have.

That's the most cynical, retarded viewpoint on how an MLB team should manage its assets I've ever read.  Jonah is apparently one of those IF YOU DON'T MAKE THE PLAYOFFS BLOW IT ALL UP AND START OVER PROSPECTS ARE AWESOME guys.  What a dope.

15. Stephen Strasburg, SP, Washington Nationals (8): Strasburg falls a few spots from last year, since there's now at least a little doubt over his ability to take over the world. There's the still-tough-to-fathom innings-limit gambit of 2012, which sparks doubt over whether there was something else at play aside from a shot-in-the-dark guess at his appropriate workload in the thick of a pennant race.

What?  What the hell else could have been at play?  Someone in the Nationals front office ordering a shutdown so he could profit from betting against the team's postseason chances?  That decision was astonishingly dumb, but I'm 100% certain it was motivated solely by a shot-in-the-dark guess at Strasburg's appropriate workload.

13. Madison Bumgarner, SP, San Francisco Giants (27): Bumgarner should have ranked higher last year, so we're correcting matters this time.

Pretty much every player should have been ranked differently than they were on last year's list.  Please stop trying to sound like you've finally cracked the trade value code and are providing 100% accurate information, as opposed to last year when you were only providing barely-educated guesses.

12. Yadier Molina, C, St. Louis Cardinals (44): Wins Above Replacement underrates Molina, maybe severely.

CHECK OUT HIS CATCHER ERA!  ALSO HE FRAMES PITCHES A LOT!  Fucking gag me.  Not saying there's no value to pitch framing or "handling the staff," but to say Molina is "severely underrated" by any metric is laughable.  He's been a 6ish rWAR player these last two years.  I'm pretty sure he's not really actually a 10 rWAR player or something ridiculous like that.  He's not Barry fucking Bonds.

For now, though, Molina just might be the best player in the NL.

No.  He's not, and he's not in the top 5.  He might not be in the top 10.

5. Buster Posey, C, San Francisco Giants (4); 4. Evan Longoria, 3B, Tampa Bay Rays (5): There are always what-ifs in baseball, especially when it comes to the draft. But given the success the Rays had with their top picks in 2006 (Longoria) and 2007 (Price), we might need to give a team of scientists 100 years to figure out how Tampa Bay chose Tim Beckham over Buster Posey with its top pick in 2008.

No team has ever had mixed success with high draft picks!  It's impossible to believe it happened to the Rays!  Like, literally impossible to believe!

When SI's Tom Verducci wrote about Harper back in 2009, he called the Las Vegas–based teenager "Baseball's LeBron," adding: "Golf has Tiger Woods, basketball has LeBron James, hockey had Wayne Gretzky and military history had Alexander the Great, but baseball, like jazz, is a discipline that does not easily engender prodigies … So good and so young is Bryce Harper, however, that he explodes baseball convention." Those words weren't just hosannas from a seasoned and well-respected writer; they reflected the opinion of every talent evaluator in baseball. When Verducci revisited Harper in May of last year, right after Harper's major league debut, it was impossible to overlook the irony involved. "Harper's debut was the most anticipated debut in baseball history," Verducci wrote, "if only because of the volume, scope, and speed of coverage we give professional sports." Basically, Harper is megahyped because Verducci and I and everyone else who writes about the sport drools over Harper's ability.

IRONIC IRONY!  Good job by Jonah of 1) misusing that, 2) not grasping that there's nothing weird (let alone ironic) about a writer doing a profile of a megaprospect and then three years later noting that lots of people were eager to see said megaprospect reach MLB, and 3) incorrectly crystalizing his own point, awkwardly flailing and ultimately failing to give any insight into the feedback loop of hype he's trying to describe.  Good effort, Jonah.  Better luck next year.  At least you put Mike Trout at #1 on the list.  

Jonah Keri shits out a worthless 2013 retrospective, part 2 of 2

Before we get started, earlier today Deadspin informed me that Scott Miller and Danny Knobler were fired by CBS Sportsline.  Cue up the Nelson Muntz laugh, especially for Knobler (Miller wasn't THAT bad, although he certainly was bad), but mostly, be angry that Heyman remains employed.  Fuck that guy with a blender.

Now for the rest of Keri's groundbreaking opus regarding how baseball teams should be constructed and managed.

3. Having no weaknesses can be just as effective as being loaded with multiple stars.

Which team wins--Babe Ruth, Walter Johnson, Rickey Henderson and twenty two high school players?  Or 25 above average MLB players?  THE ANSWER MAY SURPRISE YOU.  Buckle your seatbelts and get ready for some fascinating analysis.

The A's have turned this idea into an art form. Josh Donaldson enjoyed a big breakout season in 2013. Otherwise, this was a team that relied on contributions from a wide array of players, all the way down to the bottom of their lineup, the back of their rotation, relief middlemen, and key guys off the bench. 

The Astros and Marlins, meanwhile, actually used no relief middlemen (who the hell came up with that term?) or key guys off the bench.  They just ran out the same 9 guys for 162 straight games.

After two decades of losing seasons, the Pirates finally broke through, rolling all the way to the playoffs. 

Did they do it because of Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte and a dominant bullpen?  No, of course not.  CLINT BARMES WAS THE KEY.  (Side note: Clint Barmes appeared in 108 games and had 330 PAs.  He OPS+ed 58.  Clearly, the Pirates had no superstars or weaknesses.)

Though Andrew McCutchen will likely take home NL MVP honors soon, the Buccos succeeded largely on the strength of diversified talent. They got solid contributions from their nos. 3 through 5 starters (Gerrit Cole, Jeff Locke, and Charlie Morton), from the bottom of their lineup (Jordy Mercer, once he grabbed the starting shortstop job), 

Fair enough, Barmes eventually lost his job.  But still, even if we allow for the fact that I'm picking nits and the Pirates actually were a very well-balanced team, holy Jesus on a pogo stick, no fucking shit not having any weaknesses can be as good as having some superstars to go with a bunch of terrible players.  I'm a Rockies fan.  I get it.  So does everyone else who knows anything about baseball.

and from several relievers beyond the closer and primary setup man (Justin Wilson and Tony Watson chief among them). With the trade deadline approaching, there were some wildly ambitious calls for a blockbuster move. Instead, Pittsburgh filled out its roster with useful complementary parts: Byrd to plug a hole in the outfield (he was great), and a past-prime but still functional Justin Morneau to help at first base (he hit for zero power but did at least post a .370 on-base percentage in 25 games).

I'm not going to point out the fact that the Pirates lost in the first round, as did the A's (for like the 7th time in their last 8 playoff appearances), because that's a doucheball thing to do.  Nevertheless, recent anecdotal evidence suggests that if the goal is not just to make the playoffs but to succeed once you get there, you might want some superstars like David Ortiz, Jon Lester, Buster Posey, Matt Cain, Albert Pujols, Adam Wainwright, etc.

Lest you think this is only a worthwhile strategy for low-payroll teams, remember the mockery the Red Sox went through when they devoted their offseason energy to acquiring players like Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, Stephen Drew, Jonny Gomes, Mike Carp, and Uehara, and the results they got from these complementary players.

That's the worst anecdotal support for a bad argument I've ever read.  

1) The Red Sox already had a bunch of stars which is why it made sense to surround them with complimentary guys 

2) Victorino, Napoli and Uehara are hardly "complimentary guys," each would play a significant roles on any team in MLB 

3) What mockery did the Red Sox go through for signing those guys?  I sure didn't read about it 

4) Jonah Keri is a twat

4. Keep an eye on the minors.

No fucking way.  Again, beyond those three quick words, sarcasm escapes me.  I can't even respond to that in greater detail.

As productive as in-season trades can be for some aggressive teams, the ideal scenario is to promote from within and have rookies shine. 

More of Jonah Keri's patented, trademarked, top secret team building tips:

1) Be sure to have both pitchers AND hitters

2) Guys who were good in high school and college tend to be good as pros

3) It's easier for guys to catch the ball when using gloves, make sure all fielders are using them

The Cardinals 

Oh fucking hell.  Not this narrative again.  HERPA DERP CARDINALS BEST RUN TEAM IN BASEBALL DO THINGS THE RIGHT WAY (as if such a thing exists) HOME GROWN PLAYERS LOW PAYROLL (they're in the top 10 or close to it every year) NONE OF THIS FANCY FREE AGENT NONSENSE.  But yeah, I'm sure Carlos Beltran and Matt Holliday (technically a trade, but they still had to resign him on the open market while he was shopping around) have nothing to do with their success during the past several seasons.  That's only, you know, two of their three best hitters.  Go back to 2011 and you've got Holliday and Lance Berkman, another free agent.  BUT BUT BUT YADI  Kill yourself, imaginary Cardinals fan talking in all caps in my head. 

rode great hitting with runners in scoring position and big contributions from veteran stars like Yadier Molina, Matt Holliday, Carlos Beltran, and Adam Wainwright in their pennant-winning campaign. But they probably don't make the World Series (or maybe even come close) without huge contributions from their rookies: 

This is true of like, every championship team ever.  Yes, they got huge contributions from established players.  BUT ALSO THERE WERE SOME YOUNG GUYS HOW NOVEL.  Can you name a recent championship or EVEN playoff team that DIDN'T get help from a variety of experienced and young players?  Christ, even the 2009 Yankees, with a payroll of a jillion dollars and an average age of like 35, had 23 year old Phil Hughes, 24 year old Melky Cabrera and 23 year old Joba Chamberlain playing significant roles.

If you're looking for teams that might outperform expectations next year, scan the high minors of their farm systems for major league–ready talent. 

This is like a tip you would read in a baseball video game instruction booklet.  "To improve your team try to trade with other teams for some of their young stars."  No fucking way, really?  Look for major league ready talent in the high minors as an indicator of future success?  You don't say.  Got any tips as to how I could more effectively drive my car?  Should I insert the key into the ignition before pushing the gas pedal?

5. Don't overreact to a bad season.

This is the only one of his five points that has any level of nuance.  And it's still fucking moronic.

Last Sox reference: 

OH MY GOD CHICKEN AND BEER.  CARL CRAWFORD AND ADRIAN GONZALEZ.  93 LOSSES.  NEVER FORGET NEVER EVER FORGET.  9/11 AND PEARL HARBOR ROLLED INTO ONE.  THE FACT THAT THEY WON A WORLD SERIES THE NEXT YEAR IS LITERALLY THE MOST IMPRESSIVE ACCOMPLISHMENT IN THE HISTORY OF HUMANITY.

If a talented team can play poorly enough to lose 93 games, then come back the next season and win it all, that bodes well for some of 2013's biggest disappointments. Everyone in the world loved the Nationals heading into this season. But Washington disappointed thanks to subpar seasons by multiple players. 

I don't mind the Nationals, but they disappointed because their 2012 was lucky as hell.  Look at that roster--how did it win 96 games?  They're not as bad as they were in 2013, but they sure as fuck aren't as good as they were in 2012.  That's an 86 win team right there if I've ever seen one.  A rotation that's good at the top but has no depth.  A so-so bullpen, featuring really only one shutdown guy (Clippard).  A lineup that should be good if everyone stays healthy, but which will never come close to staying healthy, because Ramos, Zimmerman, Harper and Werth are hurt all the time.  Let's not get carried away about the potential of the 2014 Nats.  They'll probably miss the playoffs again.

Adam LaRoche's power dipped dramatically, 

He's 33 and was never that good in the first place.

Wilson Ramos missed half the year 

Who could have seen that coming, what with his 238 GP in 4 MLB seasons?

(and Kurt Suzuki stunk in his stead), Bryce Harper missed 44 games, Danny Espinosa was awful, and the bullpen ran into trouble frequently. Think of the Nats' 2013 season as a bad result among a range of outcomes for a young and very talented team. And expect them to be right back in the playoff hunt in 2014, with a great trio of starting pitchers, a balanced lineup, and better luck than they had this year.

Oops, nevermind, let's get carried away and assume those problems with rotational depth, the so-so bullpen, and the injury-prone players will just solve themselves.  I don't know what their team BABIP or BABIP allowed was, but if we want to talk about luck from another angle, they actually outperformed their pythag wins by two last year.

The Jays can't claim the recent success the Nats had in 2012. 

Oh my God, this team again.  TORONTO BLUE JAYS, 2012-2013 OFFSEASON CHAMPS.  Wait, wasn't one of his points from this very article (in my last point) that we shouldn't get carried away with that kind of thing?  I forgot, the Blue Jays are the darling of every hipster baseball writer, so now we get to hear about how they're sure to turn things around in 2014 after somehow failing to win the AL East in 2013, as every Jonah Keri in the world told us they would last year.

In fact, with the Pirates making the playoffs this year, Toronto now owns the second-longest playoff drought in baseball, behind only the 28-years-and-counting Royals. But there were some good reasons for the baseball world to get excited about the Jays this year, even if 2013 ended with a last-place finish in the AL East. 

It didn't just end with that.  It also consisted of that throughout pretty much all of April, May, June, July, August and September.  It was kind of a running theme.  They sucked.  Badly.  Thoroughly.  Deeply.

Granted, the starting pitching sucked, the defense sucked, and Jose Reyes missed a big chunk of the season as everyone figured. But Toronto had a bunch of terrible players suck up tons of playing time this year, which in a twisted way bodes well for 2014. Replace the replacement-level performances of Melky Cabrera, J.P. Arencibia, Emilio Bonifacio, and Maicer Izturis with even average production and that alone could spur a charge back to contention. 

Just get a new catcher, second baseman, left fielder and shortstop (to play during the 120 games when Reyes is hurt)!  Just like that!  That'll fix those starting pitching woes!

As we wrote back in August: 

Oh good, a dash of Will Leitch-esque-ian first person plural.  Thank you so much.

"It's entirely possible that the Jays are a pretty good team hiding inside a terrible season."

I hope they lose 130 games next year.

We'll have to wait a while to see how it all plays out. 

Oh, will we?  Can't we just go down to the mall and buy a time machine to speed things up?

In the meantime, get ready for another hectic Hot Stove season, then for new contenders and new stars to emerge next year. Just 104 days until pitchers and catchers report. Can't wait.

Can't wait for Jonah Keri to hopefully one day go the way of Miller and Knobler.  I can only dream.

Jonah Keri shits out a worthless 2013 retrospective, part 1 of 2

The last time I dumped on Jonah Keri, the post only generated one comment (albeit a very good one), so I'm not sure if he's not a good target for this blog because he's usually not too shitty or if no one is/was reading the blog (or both).  But I'm about to do it again because this article is truly worthless.  It is a spectacular demonstration of unilluminating analysis.  It parrots a bunch of the stupidest "how to build a team" cliches in sports.  It should not exist, and you will feel dumber for having read the parts of it I copy and paste here.  The topic: What did we learn from the 2013 MLB season?

1. Winning the Hot Stove championship guarantees nothing.

This is so dumb as to not warrant a sarcastic response.

Every winter, teams scramble to make trades and splashy free-agent signings. When it's all over, we media know-it-alls tally everything up, then declare with breathtaking confidence who won and who lost. The problem is, we're doing it wrong. Signing the highest-priced free agent is great, but it might not get you far if you neglect other roster weaknesses to get there.

My god.  It's like a Malcolm Gladwell essay ("SOMETIMES PEOPLE DO STUFF AND BECAUSE THEY DO STUFF OTHER STUFF HAPPENS"), but even stupider.

The 2013 Angels were a perfect example of this phenomenon. 

If care about baseball at all and needed Jonah to tell you about this topic, either generally or as it pertains to the 2013 Angels, you obviously lied when you confirmed to me in my imagination at the beginning of the sentence that you care about baseball at all.  Please stop lying.

2. Bargain hunting can and does often pay off.

This one if fun if you imagine Billy Beane nodding to himself and stroking his chin while reading it.

Francisco Liriano. Russell Martin. Bartolo Colon. James Loney. Koji Uehara. Marlon Byrd. 

All of these guys (except Martin) are, in one way or another, flawed players who didn't command much salary in 2013 for good reason.  They vastly outperformed their pay, because that is a thing that happens in any labor market from time to time.  There were also dozens of bargain bin signings/flyers taken on players that seemed to be close to done in MLB in 2013 that didn't work out at all.  But go on, hit us with the ex post facto analysis that shows that obviously all of these guys were due to break out.

The list of low-priced free agents who delivered big returns for their teams in 2013 is a long one. Each of these players was acquired cheaply because he had a perceived defect. 

Actual defect.

The Pirates got Martin cheap because he hit just .211 in 2012 — even though he bopped 21 homers, played his usual strong defense, and was just 29 years old. 

They didn't get him that cheap--he's on a 2 year $15MM deal.  That's probably close to market value for a decent catcher.  He bopped 21 homers in 2012, but he did so in Yankee Stadium.  And his .211 BA came with a .311 OBP, which isn't horrible for a catcher, but isn't exactly good either.

Loney hit a catastrophic .249/.293/.336 in 2012, but he was just 28 years old, played excellent defense, and had put up some decent offensive seasons, albeit without the power you'd hope for from a slugging-heavy position like first base. 

Loney's 2012 was a dumpster fire.  First base defense isn't that important.  His last offensive season before 2013 that could be fairly characterized as "good" for a 1B was 2007.  He might have cracked the "decent" threshold in 2011, but you'd have to stretch the definition to get him there.  By all reasonable estimation he looked like a guy who should have been out of professional baseball by now.  The Rays probably overpaid him when they offered him $2MM for 2013 (unless it was not guaranteed until he made the roster out of spring training or something).

Liriano and Uehara had injury histories, though both had shown flashes of dominance when healthy enough to stay on the field. 

Liriano was utterly horrendous in 2009, 2011 and 2012.  As of last winter, he wasn't as close to being out of baseball as Loney was, but he was in the neighborhood.  Uehara is actually somewhat like Martin--a guy who, on a 2 year $9.5MM deal, wasn't really a scrap heap find.  He was being paid elite setup guy money; instead, he ended up being an elite closer, because elite setup guys and elite closers have exactly the same skillset. 

Byrd and Colon came with PED suspensions on their records (in Colon's case, one that hadn't yet ended), but Byrd was only a couple years removed from being a four-win player, and Colon actually pitched decently in 2012.

Byrd was bad in 2011 and utterly horrendous in 2012 (when he also picked up a PED suspension).  He is closer to 40 years old than he is to 30.  There was no reason on earth to believe that he would be able to be a contributing MLB player in 2013, which is probably why he ended up with the Mets to start the season.  Unlike Loney, I don't think he was overpaid ($700,000), but seriously, to say that teams should have seen his resurgence coming because he "was only a couple years removed from being a four win player" is fucking stupid.  Colon, on the other hand, was the best signing on this list--I'm surprised he didn't get more than $3MM after being above average in 2011 and 2012.  But also, he's old as fuck and wasn't in MLB in 2010.  So I suppose those things might have been red flags that kept some teams away from him.  In any case, maybe he just wanted to stay in Oakland and the team told him this was the best they could do in terms of salary.

Colon and Uehara were freaks, pitching abnormally well given their age (Colon 40, Uehara 38). But Martin, Liriano, and Loney in particular fit the profile well: players who'd performed well earlier in their careers who were still in their twenties and thus still had decent potential for bounce-back seasons. 

And yet, somehow, every single year there are dozens of guys who fit that profile who get signed to "fuck it, let's take a flyer on the guy and see if he has anything left" contracts and completely fizzle out and disappear.  It's almost like signing bargain bin guys is crapshoot, and this year the Pirates and Rays got lucky while the Rangers (Joakim Soria) and the Indians (Mark Reynolds) got unlucky.  Almost.

Plenty of old biases remain alive and well. Prince Fielder can fetch $214 million because there will always be someone willing to (over)pay for home runs and RBIs. 

Look, I agree that Prince's contract is bad and will likely be one of the worst in baseball within a few years, but he's not just getting paid for home runs and RBIs.  He had a down year in 2013 but from 2009-2012 his OBP exceeded .400 every season.  If you put me in charge of an MLB team with a league average financial/payroll outlook and told me that, for the upcoming season, I could sign January 2012 Prince to his contract or sign January 2013 James Loney to his contract, I'm going with 2012 Prince unless the team I'm in charge of is horrible/rebuilding.  2012 Loney was almost indescribably bad.  I'd figure out a way to make Prince's contract work.  Loney (the version available to me in this hypothetical) doesn't even look like an MLB player anymore.  Good for the Rays for revitalizing him, and who knows if they signed him based on the assumption that their hitting coach could fix an identifiable problem in his swing, but this is classic ex post facto smartest guy in the room stuff.

Meanwhile, defense remains underrated, 

It also remains extremely difficult to quantifiably analyze, particularly when it comes to WAR.  BBR has Loney at -0.2 dWAR and Fielder at -2.2 dWAR in 2013.  I know Fielder has the range of a traffic cone, but I have a hard time believing that there were 2 wins worth of difference in their defensive performances.

batting average overrated — to name just two misguided stances. 

Was this article written in 2003?  Who the fuck doesn't think batting average is a crappy stat at this point?  

We haven't had time to go through this year's free-agent crop yet. But if you want to find the bargains of 2014, look for under-30 players who play good defense, are coming off ugly seasons by traditional metrics, and have some history of strong performance two or three years ago.

Loney OBPed .293 in 2012.  Byrd OBPed .243 (not a typo).  It's not like either was some Scott Hatteberg diamond in the rough who was obviously a good player as long as you were willing to look past antiquated traditional stats.  They were awful.  Yes, signing scrap heap guys is always a good idea because teams need depth guys and occasionally a scrap heap guy turns back into a contributor.  But to say that guys like Loney, Byrd and Liriano were obvious candidates to have the 2013s they did is completely fucking disingenuous.  Shut up, Jonah Keri.  Go fuck yourself.

Tune in later in the week for the exciting conclusion, in which, among other things, Jonah will explain to us that 2013 taught us to "keep an eye on the minors."  I can't believe I don't need an Insider subscription to read this article!  Has anyone showed it to Ruben Amaro Jr. yet?

Fruit does not hang lower than this, part 2

When we last left Bill, he was lecturing us about how Jim Rice was the best power hitter of the 20th century, and possibly the best point guard and free safety as well.  Don Sutton was just some nobody who just happened to pitch at a very high level for 20+ seasons, and really, why the hell should that qualify him for the Hall of Fame?  Are you ready for the worst argument anyone ever makes when discussing a player's HOF worthiness?  Here it comes.

There's a reason I take this so personally: I was there.

I SAW THE GAMES SAW THEM WITH MY OWN EYES I DON'T NEED NO NUMBERS TO TELL ME PHIL RIZZUTO/CATFISH HUNTER/JIM RICE WAS A HALL OF FAMER.  I KNOW WHAT I SAW.

Carter, Rice, Morris and Gossage were the best players at their respective positions

No.

(or at least among the best) when I was growing up.

Maybe, but not everyone who fits into your flimsy "among the best" definition deserves to be the Hall. This should be brutally obvious, but I do like the implication in that parenthetical that he's willing to walk back his absurd claim that Rice was the best power hitter in the game for a 12 year stretch.

Shouldn't that be what the Hall of Fame represents?

You think that's rhetorical, but it's not. The Hall of Fame should represent the very best baseball players of all time, and by very best, I mean players who were really good and they stayed really good for a long time. I almost hesitate to include that clarification--it should be obvious that being the best of all time doesn't mean being really awesome for a short period of time. It means being really awesome for a long period of time.  Lots of players have been really awesome for a short or medium period of time.  They don't belong in the hall, because there are a pretty good number of other players who have been really awesome for a long period of time.  Holy shit, why do I even think I have to explain that to any of you people?  Embarrassing.  Suffice it to say, if you're not a fucking idiot, you know generally what the HOF "should represent."

Excellence over a reasonably long period of time?

Yes, but "while Billy was growing up" is clearly not a long enough window if you think that Rice belongs in. Having four 5+ WAR seasons (and another one at 4.9), and then having seven or eight other seasons in which you had around 25 HR and 2 WAR (because he didn't get on base enough and couldn't play decent defense or run the bases) is not excellence over a reasonably long period of time. Reverse the number of seasons Rice fell into each of those two categories--seven or eight awesome 5+ WAR seasons, and then four or five "eh he hit home runs but generally wasn't that good" and he's probably in the Hall, or at least a much better candidate.

The problems don't end there. Remember how your grandparents refused to use the TV remote control and insisted on getting up and changing the channels manually?

No. My grandparents loved the piss out of using the remote.

If there were a sports equivalent of that phenomenon, it would be the Baseball Hall of Fame, where the prevailing theme is, "That's the way they did it back then, so that's the way we'll do it now."

Oh brother. The HOF sure as shit needs to make some changes, but letting in more Jim Rices, or doing what he's about to propose, aren't any of them.

Not to turn into Chandler Bing here,

And in case you weren't already aware, there's your evidence that this column is from 2002.

but could the entire process be more dumb?

That Matthew Perry--he is just too much!  Anyways, the process definitely could be dumber. As bad as the BWAA is, they could hand the vote over to current members of the HOF, or to current players. That would be really, really dumb.

Could it be less fan-friendly?

How are you going to make it more fan friendly? By letting fans themselves vote for the players? Jesus H. Christ, what a disaster that would be. These last two rhetorical questions have really deepened my appreciation for the BWAA.

Could it be any less thought-provoking?

It's very thought provoking. See: the insane number of articles written and amount of debate that takes place every single year regarding who should get in and who should not. But I like that you wanted to add a third thing to your list of Chandler Bing rhetorical question complaints, even if you came up with something that is completely out of place.

Ask yourself this question: Did you argue about the Hall of Fame selections with anyone this week?

Yes, I either directly argue about them or read articles/comments in which people argue about them every single January.

Of course not ... you probably don't care.

You can see where he's going. This is not an article written for baseball fans, but an article written for people who say DURR HURR BASEBALL IS BORRRRING BUT I WOULD WATCH IF THE HALL OF FAME ADMISSION PROCESS WAS BASED ON 40 TIMES AND BENCH REPS.  Or something.  What baseball fan doesn't care about the HOF?

And why should you?

Because I like baseball?

It's like arguing about the Grammy Awards: You know they don't accurately reflect excellence in music.

Wow, that is mean. Comparing the HOF to the Grammys--I didn't realize he had anything that dark in him. But really, that's a wholly inaccurate comparison made by a person who has no fucking idea what he's talking about. (I mean with regard to the HOF. He obviously knows that the Grammys are a joke, because everyone knows that the Grammys are a joke.)

If they did, Toto wouldn't have won four Grammys in 1982.

LEAVE TOTO OUT OF THIS, ROSANNA IS A GREAT SONG

And that's why none of us really care about the Baseball Hall of Fame,

Every baseball fan cares about the HOF. Some non-baseball fans do too. I'm not sure if things were way different eleven years ago, or if Bill just has his head in his ass again. I am leaning towards the latter.

and the only people who do care -- ancient baseball writers -- will be dead soon, anyway.

If we're lucky. I'd still rather they be voting than fans, HOF inductees or current players though.

It's almost a lost cause. Almost. Of course, I still think the whole thing can be salvaged.

Wait! Tell us, Mr. Genius! Tell us how to save this thing that does not need to be saved! I'm sure your idea, like the rest of your ideas, is not horrid at all. THE HALL OF FAME NEEDS A VP OF CAWMON SENSE!

While driving to Shea Stadium five summers ago with my buddy Gus and his father, Wally, we came up with a brainstorm to save the Hall of Fame.

If only Billy Joel could have been driving on that same Queens highway at that same time.

We were inadvertently borrowing Bill James' plan to redefine Hall of Famers and "weigh them" for importance depending on their qualifications, a process James explained in his "Historical Abstract" (none of us were aware of this at the time).

I know I said last post that the next article any of us reads about reorganizing the HOF that didn't suck would be the first. My dismissal of such ideas does not apply to Bill James. I have not read "Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?" and I don't know the specifics of his weighing plan, but he's Bill James, so I'm sure it's very unterrible. In contrast, Bill Simmons is about to offer us a reorganization plan that deserves all the careful consideration given to someone who asks you to pull their finger.

Regardless, I'm positive that Wally invented the "Pyramid Concept."

As you'll see in my next post about this article, this is not something anyone should willingly take credit for. This is like saying "Wally invented parking tickets."

Here's the premise: In an ideal world, the Hall of Fame should be a place where someone could stroll in, spend weeks walking around, absorb everything about the game ...

I've never been, but I'm pretty sure that's more or less what the HOF is already.

by the time they departed, they would know everything there is to know about professional baseball.

And now you've taken it too far. That should not be the purpose of the HOF. That is what books and the internet are for. The HOF is for preserving all of the very very best and most interesting things about baseball. Much as Jonah Keri and Jeff Pearlman would like it to have an entire wing dedicated to utility infielders from the 80s, that kind of thing does not belong in Cooperstown.

Well, the way the place is presently constructed, all the Hall of Famers are sort of lumped together.

Right, the plaques are, but there's lots of other shit too. I've seen pictures. It's a big building.

It's like having a Hall of Fame for models and putting Cindy Crawford's plaque next to the girl who modeled as the "Before" picture in the original "Weight Watchers" ad.

I've never claimed to be some masterful writer with a deft touch when it comes to analogies, but I'm sure as hell better than Bill.  What an asshole.

So why couldn't we transform it into a five-level pyramid

No.

-- seriously, an actual pyramid, like a replica of the Luxor casino in Las Vegas --

This is a terrible idea and whoever thought of it should be kicked squarely in the balls.

where elected players are assigned to different levels?

Because.

More over the weekend. Just wait until you see which players he wants to put on various levels of his awesome pyramid-shaped HOF. Hooooo doggy.

Here's the problem with the people angrily wringing their hands and gnashing their teeth about the Marlins/Blue Jays trade

They are not acknowledging that the trade is a good move for the Marlins.  "They" includes really good writers like Jeff Passan, who carries on forever here about what a piece of shit Jeffrey Loria is.

[Loria and team president David Samson] were two men who for years lied about their finances, lied about their intentions, lied all to get Miami to build them a $634 million ballpark that was supposed to end this wretched cycle of turning a major league franchise into a swap meet.

Yes. They stink.

And yet all this time, throughout the lies, the SEC investigation, the embarrassing payrolls, the pocketing of revenue-sharing dollars...

All of these are shitty things that Loria has done/been involved with.  And yet: the trade was still the right thing for the Marlins to do.  They won 69 games last year.  There's no reason to expect the Nationals or Braves to get worse this coming season.  Would it be better for the Marlins to continue to trot out an expensive but non-competitive team?  When the Red Sox pulled this same exact shit three months ago, there wasn't a peep about embarrassment to the game or other such horseshit.  That's mostly because Loria is a known asshole and John Henry isn't (to the degree he should be), but the fact is that both teams made almost the exact same move and both of them are better off for it.  I'm not the world's biggest Jonah Keri fan, but he hits the nail on the head here.  It's worth a read.  To wit:

Thing is, the Marlins weren't going to win with the players they had, at least not for the foreseeable future. Last offseason, they signed Reyes, Buehrle, and Heath Bell while narrowly whiffing on Albert Pujols, breaking the bank in an attempt to build an exciting, winning team as they moved into a new ballpark. After all that, they won 69 games, finishing second to last in the National League in runs scored while allowing more runs than all but four other NL clubs. Free agents tend to produce their best results early in long-term deals, while they're still at or near their prime, then fall off in later years. The Marlins got productive Year 1 performances from Reyes and Buehrle, bundled them with a talented but hugely injury-prone pitcher in Johnson plus a couple of fungible veterans, and cashed them in for some intriguing prospects, plus the GDP of a Pacific island nation in salary relief.

If the Jeff Pearlmans of the world could stop crying about how the sanctity of baseball has been forever tarnished by this deal, maybe they'd realize what Keri realizes.  But what's the one thing that Keri:

It's a system, first and foremost, in favor of owners who fall in line with the commissioner's office. ... Loria hasn't made McCourt money from baseball yet. But he's pulled off a series of shrewd and increasingly profitable business moves, exploiting all the advantages afforded to members of MLB's ownership cartel.

and Passan:

[N]ot a word from the commissioner. Not a lamentation that by the time the balloon payments on the stadium hit, Miami taxpayers will owe more than $2.4 billion. Not a sign that he intends to protect the sport from the cretins within. And not a chance, unless public outrage on the matter changes his thinking, that he'll use his best-interests-of-baseball clause to keep Jeffrey Loria and David Samson from murdering another baseball market.

agree on?  Not that anyone needed a reminder, but Bud Selig is a real cumbucket.  My advice to you: if what Loria did pisses you off, or at least seems wrong on some level, don't bitch and moan about him.  Bitch and moan about the system that allows him to be him.

Oh shut up, Jonah Keri

I'd like to open this post with a three paragraph rant about why Jonah Keri annoys me, but I don't have the time or energy and you probably wouldn't have the patience to read it. My damn high school language arts teachers told me a thousand times to "show not tell" when it comes to writing effectively, so I think I will take their advice to heart and jump right into the article. I will not take any other advice they gave me to heart, as doing so might cause me to become a crazy divorcee with seven cats.

/cheap shot at perfectly nice people

Houston, We Have (Lots of) Problems

The Astros' blueprint for rebuilding

Fuck NASA for putting their mission control center in Houston. Thanks for decades of godawful lines like that, with decades more doubtless to come.

There are thousands of ingredients that go into building a successful baseball franchise. But sometimes the difference between a great franchise and a lousy one can be summed up with a single number.

This was published on Grantland, which is why Jonah channels Simmons (who is in turn channeling that worthless shithead Malcolm Gladwell) in his first sentence by handing us an obnoxiously oversimplified explanation. Ever read "The Tipping Point?" Don't, it's a waste of fucking time. Sometimes what started a small idea or event picks up speed and turns into a really huge idea or event thanks to certain factors. SPOILER ALERT. Oh sorry, should have said that before the other sentence.

In 2005, 2006, and 2007, the St. Louis Cardinals drafted a total of 24 players who've since made it to the big leagues — the highest number for any team during that three-year span. The Cardinals won the World Series last year thanks in large part to players like Jaime Garcia, Jon Jay, Allen Craig, and Lance Lynn.

In the 2005, 2006, and 2007 amateur drafts, the Houston Astros drafted a total of four players who've since made it to the big leagues, the lowest rate of return in the majors. The Astros went 56-106 last year, good for the worst record in baseball and the worst in franchise history.

And this is why Jonah Keri stinks. He found a cool stat, completely unworthy of anything more than a tweet, and is now trying to build his whole argument around it. DUR THE ASTROS NEED TO DRAFT BETTER. No fucking shit they do! But that stat and the Garcia/Jay/Craig/Lynn bit distort the issue beyond usefulness. As soon as you start saying the Cardinals had a parade and raised a flag "in large part" due to those four guys, you're ruining your article. I can no longer read it. As I stare at the page and try to process the words, all my mind can see is a picture of you wearing a dunce cap while grinning like Lloyd Christmas.

Garcia was halfway decent during the regular season (3.56 ERA but only 1 WAR) and postseason, although he did his best to try to make sure the Brewers got to the WS instead of the Cardinals (2 NLCS starts, 8.2 IP, 7 ER). John Jay was a 4th OF who moved into CF after Colby Rasmus got traded. He was worth a whole 1.3 WAR during the regular season and then mashed his way to a .182/.262/.218 triple slash in 63 playoff PAs. Allen Craig had more WAR than Garcia and Jay combined even though he only got 219 regular season PAs, and crushed the ball in the World Series, but it's not like he was on the short list for team MVP. And Lance Lynn threw a whole 34 regular season innings and got lit up in the WS. The totals for these four guys: 5.8 WAR, half of which were Craig's.

Sure, they needed every win they got just to make the postseason. You still can't say they won that title "in large part" due to these guys. It's preposterous. It's not close to close to being true. Pujols, Carpenter, Holliday, and Berkman generated 20ish WAR. Only one of them is a Cardinals farm product, and the one who was most important down the stretch and in the playoffs (Carpenter, DUH) was acquired via free agency.

Twenty-four to four. That's what separates baseball's champs from its chumps.

No, what separated them last year was 1) the Cardinals having one of the ten greatest hitters of all time 2) the Cardinals having a dominant pitcher get hot at the right time 3) the Cardinals striking paydirt on Berkman, who appeared to be mostly done in late 2010 4) the Braves taking a gigantic shit in their collective bed and then playfully rolling in it rather than bothering to show up for any of their September games.

Dumbass fans of faux-objectivity say "HEY KERI SOMETIMES WRITES STUFF FOR FANGRAPHS THAT MUST MEAN HE'S A BASEBALL SUPERGENIUS!" Meanwhile, he's distributing garbage like this. The article goes on for another 1000+ words describing changes in the Astros front office (getting rid of Ed Wade might be the platonic ideal of addition by subtraction), but why read it? I'm too distracted by this nonsense. Writing that those four homegrown players are "in large part" to be thanked for the 2011 Cardinals championship is no less obnoxious than the hundreds of "that Eckstein really has some heart, doesn't he?" articles that prompted the invention of the internet back in 2006.

Call this post nitpicky if you want; I'm sure that's what the mouth-breathers from FanGraphs would do if they knew/cared about little ol' FJayM. If you read Keri frequently, though, I hope you'd at least agree with me when I say that he's not nearly as baseball savvy or as good a writer as he thinks he is. In other words, this post is about more than a quick throwaway intro of his. It's about everything he writes. In other other words, I don't know how well this post will stand up and feel the need to make excuses about it before anyone even gets a chance to read it. That's probably a good clue that it's time for me to stop writing. I wonder what's on TV?

/turns on Sportscenter

/has seizure

Pretty Much Every Jonah Keri Column Is Identical

At least in the reaction they provoke from me, anyways. I'm always like "Good... fine... that works... OK, nevermind, that's pretty dumb." You'll see what I mean. From his column about MLB's current "failure dynasties."

Baltimore Orioles

Five bad moves

1. Firing Davey Johnson. Yes, he has an ego, and there's a long list of owners and front-office people who've struggled to get along with him. But all he's ever done is win, in New York, in Cincinnati and, yes, in Baltimore. The year before Davey Johnson took over, the Orioles finished two games under .500. The next season, they won 88 games and the wild card, followed by a 98-win season and a division title. The O's cut him loose, and they haven't sniffed .500 since.

First on the list, out of about a hundred things you could choose... something about a manager. Awesome. We have a label for that, I think. Yes, it must've been the loss of Johnson that caused Baltimore's pitching staff to go from an ERA+ of 112 in 1997 to an ERA+ of 95 in 1998. Clearly. Do managers do nothing? No. They help their team win or lose a few games a year. Do managers take a team from 98 wins to 84 wins? No.

2. Signing Albert Belle to a five-year, $65 million contract.

3. Hiring Syd Thrift, Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan as GMs.

4. Trading for Sammy Sosa.

5. Nearly everything else they did in 2005.

The order of reaction-provoking items was reversed, but now you see what I meant in the intro. OK... good... yes... that's a fair point... oops, you blew it.

Kansas City Royals

1. Trading Johnny Damon and Mark Ellis for Roberto Hernandez, Angel Berroa and A.J. Hinch.

2. Trading Jermaine Dye for Neifi Perez.

Good, fine...

There are a hundred ways to measure Jermaine Dye versus Neifi Perez in the 6½ years since this deal was made. Sometimes keeping it simple works best:

Homers since trade:
Dye 169
Perez 21

Awful. Just awful. He might as well have said, "There are a hundred ways to measure this trade in the 6 and a half years since it happened. Let's pick one of the absolute worst." Perez could have become a five time All Star since the deal was completed and still only have 80 home runs over that duration. Please- use any other statistic to make this point. Batting average. OBP. Runs. RBIs. Even fucking "games played" would be more relevant. You know, there are at least a 100 ways to demonstrate that the US Army is more powerful than the Mongolian army. Let's keep it simple:

Number of guys named "Mike" enlisted:
United States: 10,000
Mongolia: 0

3. The Colt Griffin/Roscoe Crosby draft.

4. Passing on a chance to move to the National League.

In 1997, with MLB set to usher in expansion teams from Arizona and Tampa Bay, the Royals were offered a chance to switch to the National League as part of a realignment plan. Here was a chance for Kansas City to forge an intrastate rivalry with St. Louis,

Fair enough.

likely driving greater interest and attendance for the team,

Yes, possibly.

while escaping the American League, ruled at the time by the dynastic Yankees (and later populated by other well-heeled powers like the Red Sox and Angels).

What... are... you... TALKING about? As if the Royals somehow blew a chance to live life on Easy Street by not switching. Are you, for lack of a better term, fucking nuts? In 1997, the Yankees had just won the World Series, true. And they were about to blossom in a dynasty that would win three more championships in the next four years. But here's the thing- they had also made the playoffs just twice in the previous fifteen seasons. So I really don't think it's fair to say the AL was "ruled" by the "dynastic" Yankees at that exact point. It was soon to be ruled by them, but that's entirely different. Meanwhile, over in the NL, the Braves had won four pennants and a World Series over the course of the previous six seasons. Doesn't that maybe sound like a team you wouldn't want to share a league with? And somehow the Angels get a mention here for winning, what, a single World Series and no other pennants? From that perspective, the Royals should be glad they didn't switch. The NL as of 1997 was ruled by the dynastic Braves (and later populated by other well-heeled powers like the Diamondbacks and Marlins).

Kansas City ownership, a faceless, inert group four years after the death of long-time owner Ewing Kauffman and three years before David Glass took the reins, decided to … do nothing.

OK, Bill Simmons. It sure does stink when teams don't do exciting things mostly for the sake of doing them, doesn't it? In that vein, here's a trade I think should happen by July- Seattle sends Felix Hernandez and Ichiro to Philadelphia for Cole Hamels and Jimmy Rollins. Well? Wouldn't that be awesome?

5. Hiring Tony Muser, then waiting so long to fire Tony Muser.

So this time it was two dick ups out of five. Really only one and a half out of five, because the Dye/Perez thing is a good point. He just blew the explanation.

Pittsburgh Pirates

1. Keeping Andy Van Slyke instead of Barry Bonds.

Partial credit- after reading a handful of Bonds books this past year or so, I've learned that the situation was a lot more complicated than Keri makes it sound.

2. Sticking with Cam Bonifay for too long as GM.

3. Sticking with Dave Littlefield for too long as GM.

4. Drafting Bryan Bullington No. 1 overall in 2002.

Really? Seriously? That's in the top five? It's not like that wasn't dumb, but I mean... it's the MLB draft. Shit happens, even with top overall picks. You only have to go back about six or seven years to find a miserable first round pick made by any team and then compile a list of current stars they could have taken instead (if only they weren't so stupid!). Here, I hate the Red Sox, so let's use them in spite of their wild success of late: In 2003, they took David Murphy (who did nothing for them before being traded to Texas, where he could still become an everyday player, but it's safe to say he hasn't lived up to expectations) when they could have had Conor Jackson, Chad Cordero, or Chad Billingsley. What a bunch of know-nothing dopes!

5. Selling the franchise to Kevin McClatchy.

Again, about one and a half out of these five points was a disaster. Although I'm sure he'd find a way to abysmally bungle the line, I think Joe Morgan would be tempted to call Jonah's performance here "consistent."

Jonah Keri + Rob Dibble = "What?"

Jonah Keri takes on the question of "Are the Red Sox a dynasty"?

It's a too-wordy article, but it does ask a good question. Basically, Keri compares the current Red Sox to two groups: teams that were actual dynasties (like the Big Red Machine) vs. teams that approached dynasty level (like the '86 Mets).

Now, I have a number of qualms about his method for classifying "approaching dynasty" teams - he highlights five one-year wonderteams (like the 1990 Reds, who didn't make the playoffs for any of the three years before or after their WS title, which, I think, precludes them from dynasty consideration. I might've chosen the late-80s A's as potential dynasties. Actually, it's a crime that he makes no mention of the late-80s and early-90s Blue Jays, who won four division titles and two WS in a five-year span.

Here's some stuff in here that merits mention:

"There's too much movement now," former Reds reliever Rob Dibble says. "Chemistry is a big deal. You need to come up with the same guys, stay with them, get to know their tendencies and their inside jokes. Otherwise, it doesn't work."

I suggest that Reds' GM Wayne Krivsky immediately telephone Rob Dibble and hire him as an inside-joke consultant. Obviously, the Reds' recent lack of success comes from an extreme dearth of tendency-knowing and inside-joke playing. Man, I loved Rob Dibble growing up, but he's an idiot.

Dibble knows something about the challenge of building a dynasty.

No, he doesn't. You are a moron, Jonah Keri. Rob Dibble knows something about injuring innocent first-grade teachers while throwing a public temper tantrum. The Reds' GM in 1990 (Bob Quinn) knows a lot about that challenge. Jonah, why didn't you interview him? You interviewed Rob Dibble. That's what I call "bad journalism".

In 1990, he was a member of the Cincinnati Reds team that won the World Series. Joined by Randy Myers and Norm Charlton, Dibble helped form the Nasty Boys bullpen, a collection of hard-throwing young relievers who -- along with Barry Larkin, Jose Rijo, Eric Davis and other young stars -- figured to form the nucleus of a Reds team that could reel off multiple championships. It didn't happen. Injuries and bad luck conspired against the team, and management soon took it apart.

Well, we could also consider that it was a team that really wasn't that good at all. In fact, Keri did a series of other articles on failed dynasties where he concludes (correctly) that:

Nearly two decades later, it's clear what the Reds' shortfall was: They just weren't all that good. Larkin is a player who deserves a spot in Cooperstown one day, but Davis was the poster boy for those teams, a player with all the talent in the world whose inability to stay healthy eventually sapped his ability. Players such as Duncan, Sabo and Armstrong had career or near-career years in 1990, then soon fell off the map.

And that's where Keri's article turns into a real stretch. There's no real comparison between the 2003-7 Red Sox and the 1990 Reds - because the Red Sox have sustained their success over a span of multiple years. They're not built solely on a few guys having career years. I'm not sure the '03-07 Sox are a dynasty, but they're getting pretty close.

"Once you break a link in the chain, it's never as strong as it once was," Dibble says. "Free agency has ruined the game."

What, Rob? You mean the advent of free agency (circa the 1970s) ruined the game? Yeah, you would know. You were playing in the sandbox when free agency was ruining the game.

Forgive Dibble if he sounds like the lords of the realm who still keep Marvin Miller out of the Hall of Fame.

I won't. It's stupid for Rob to long for a baseball past he never experienced.

It's not that he begrudges players the opportunity to choose their employer and make a healthy living. It's that, as a fan of the game, he misses those Mount Rushmore-level teams of the past, the ones you either respected or hated, but could never ignore.

Here's where Jonah Keri is an idiot. Not seven years ago, the Yankees won four titles in five seasons. That's a dynasty by any definition. In the same article, Keri mentions ten distinct baseball dynasties - over one hundred years, that's about a dynasty a decade. Major-league baseball, though experiencing some degree of parity, is not struggling from a lack of dynasty. Say what you want (and this the fault of your employer, Jonah), there are teams that we can't ignore in baseball today. They're the Yankees and the Red Sox.

Although teams such as the Yankees, Red Sox and Mets pull in and spend more money than their lower-revenue counterparts, bigger dollars haven't translated into the kind of juggernauts that once littered baseball's landscape, teams such as Casey Stengel's Yankees, Branch Rickey's Cardinals and John McGraw's Giants.

The 1996-2000 Yankees did that. The current Red Sox are doing that. Still - he's full of shit when he claims that those teams "littered baseball's landscape" - the three teams he cites are separated by 50 years!

Actually, Dibble was born in 1964, too young to remember any of those teams, barely in middle school when the Big Red Machine was winding down. He might pine for the powerhouse teams of the past, but more because of what he has read and heard than what he has seen with his own eyes.

Finally, some sense.
From 2000 to 2006, Major League Baseball crowned seven different champions: the Yankees, Diamondbacks, Angels, Marlins, Red Sox, White Sox and Cardinals.

How many times have I heard that stat? 2397812

Buzz past the Yankees' run to 1995,

Why? Because it disproves your point - that dynasties don't exist in contemporary baseball?

and you find a similar mishmash of teams in the winner's circle -- East Coast, West Coast and in between; big markets and small; expansion teams and old-time clubs. Bud Selig's oft-repeated mantra has come to fruition, for long-suffering White Sox fans, short-suffering Marlins fans and many of moderate suffering. "The most important part of our sport are the two words that I use at owners' meetings," Selig told a University of Wisconsin crowd last year. "Our job is to provide hope and faith -- hope and faith that your team has a chance to win."

Is that his job? Maybe so. If "acting in the best interest of the game" means "trying to make baseball a totally even playing field", I guess he is doing his job. Maybe, in order to accomplish this job, he could just hire Shane Stant to whack all the Red Sox' knees.

I think the job of providing hope and faith falls to the team's ownership. Yes, Orioles fans, unless Bud implements the Tonya Harding approach, you're screwed for the forseeable future.
____________________________________________________________________

For the record, I think baseball's level of parity is just about right. The dynasty-frequency doesn't seem to have changed. Maybe the luxury tax is the best way to go about limiting the absolute power of big-market teams and giving small-market teams a small leg up. It seems better, to me, than a salary cap system, which, to be honest is just too Communist for the American pastime.

jonah keri tries to write a "who belongs in the hall of fame" article

and just like everyone else who's ever tried to do this, he fails miserably despite his best efforts to not sound stupid. i think the FCC (if they are allowed to set standards for print media... are they?) should ban sportswriters from ever writing these things. it's a total train wreck every single time. even when they're right, as keri (in my opinion) is in many cases here, they still manage to provide such piss-poor analysis that the whole purpose of writing the article is defeated. let's let jonah take us on a one way trip to non-analysisville, with a stop at cliche junction on the way.

A dozen for the Hall

Craig Biggio's announcement that he'll retire at the end of the season should have Astros fans making plans to hit Cooperstown in 2013. Biggio is one of a dozen eligible or soon-to-be eligible baseball figures deserving of election. The 12 noted here are ranked by strongest case for induction, given their eligibility dates.

Marvin Miller: Father of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Ended the system of indentured servitude the players had served under for nearly a century.

never heard of this guy, but that's pretty awesome. he should definitely be in the hall in some way shape or form. you think donald fehr will join him one day? mwah mwah. *rimshot*

Mark McGwire (583 home runs, seventh all-time): Suspect whatever you want -- his 583 homers and .982 career OPS are what matter here.

aaaaaaaaaaaand we're already in trouble. like i said, it's not that i think keri is wrong. i think mcgwire, sosa, and bonds should all be in the hall eventually (because we don't know for sure who did roids and who didn't, and punishing those guys, just because their usage was more obvious than others, is wrong). but what an atrocious sentence! when you use the format "say what you will about [A], but [B]," [A] and [B] cannot be related. here, i'll demonstrate:

right- "say what you will about the strong possibility that he probably killed 2 people, but oj simpson was one of the greatest NFL running backs of all time."

wrong- "say what you will about the strong possibility that he probably killed 2 people, but due to his performance in lethal weapon 2 and a half, it's clear that oj simpson was a good guy."

jonah, when a guy in all likelihood accumulated the numbers he did due to steroids, you can't dismiss the issue by saying "say what you will about steroids, BUT..." that's not how logic works. again, i think mcgwire does belong in. but don't write poorly when you try to explain why, that's all i ask.

Goose Gossage (nine years of 150 or better ERA+): One of the most dominant relief pitchers of all time. A true fireman who'd often come in with the game on the line, rather than being pampered and rested until his team was up two or three runs in the ninth.

again, good selection, dumb analysis. as if "modern" relievers never ever ever enter games in tight situations, and "old skool" relievers never ever ever got multiple days rest between appearances or entered the game when their team was up 2 or 3 runs. puh-lease. i'm officially declaring it cliched and hacky to write about "the good ol' days" of pitching. "back when men were men! and starters finished what they started! and relievers only pitched in high pressure situations! and a soda only cost a nickel." baseball writers of america: shut. up.

Bert Blyleven (287 wins; 3,701 strikeouts, fifth all-time): Blyleven played for some lousy teams, in ballparks that significantly favored offensive production. Adjust his stats to neutral run-support and park-factor levels and he's well over 300 wins with an ERA near or under 3.00.

good selection, good analysis. but jonah's only 1 for 3 when it comes to actual players so far.

Ron Santo (125 OPS+, five-time Gold Glover): Sentiment aside, Santo was one of the best offensive and defensive third basemen of all-time. The Hall needs to go beyond handing out tickets to one-dimensional home-run hitters at non-premium positions.

sentiment included, ron santo doesn't belong in the hall. the gold glove is a joke. check out the HOF monitors and "similar batters" on his baseball reference page. when gary gaetti is your #1 most comparable player... it's a bad sign for your HOF chances. and all the guys on his top 10 list who made it in were catchers. it's not an exact science, of course. but if santo wasn't a wildly popular cub and didn't contract lupus, he wouldn't be getting talked about at all these days. here, i'll explain it in terms other sportswriters can understand: he belongs in the hall of very good, not the hall of fame.

2008 Tim Raines (808 SBs, fifth all-time): Lou Brock with a better batting eye, Raines had tons of pop for a leadoff hitter, but he hit a lot more doubles than homers due partly to Olympic Stadium's high fences. Rickey Henderson played in the same era, but that doesn't diminish Raines' greatness.

raines's hall candidacy has been discussed extensively by dan-bob here on fjm in a previous post. but its borderline nature aside- are you kidding me? that thing about the doubles and homers and olympic stadium's high fences? what? that might be some of the most anecdotal anecdotal bullshit i've ever read. for what it's worth, olympic stadium was a fantastic hitter's park (for both doubles and home runs) in its waning years. check out its numbers in 2003, the last year the expos played there full time. i don't know, maybe at that point they had lowered the fences since when raines played there. probably not; more likely, jonah keri (i think he's in his late 20s) went to a bunch of expos games as a small child, and remembers a couple times raines doubled off the top of the wall. therefore- this happened to him during his entire expos career.

2009 Rickey Henderson (2,295 runs, 1,404 SBs, both first all-time): The best leadoff hitter of all time and one of the biggest characters the game will ever know.

doesn't jeff pearlman know it.

2010 Roberto Alomar (10-time Gold Glover, 12-time All-Star): A rare combination of power, speed, great batting stroke and dazzling defense, Alomar ranks just below the Morgan/Hornsby class on the "best second basemen of all time" list.

that makes 2 out of 7...

2010 Barry Larkin (1995 MVP, 12-time All-Star): Similar profile to Alomar's, only at shortstop. The prototype for the A-Rod/Nomar/Jeter class that took over the position in the mid-'90s.

sort of, not really. not at all. larkin finished his career with 198 HRs. all 3 of those guys will probably have over 300 when they hang up their cleats. arod may have 800. jeter's career slugging percentage is only slightly higher (.463 vs. .444), but nomar and arod are crushing it (.528 and .577). just because larkin was one of the best SSs in the game for the 10 or so years preceding those guys' rise to stardom doesn't make him the "prototype" for them.

2010 Edgar Martinez (.312/.418/.515, two-time batting champion): I agree with the general sentiment that DHs should be penalized for not having any defensive value. But that doesn't mean no DH should ever be allowed in. Edgar was one of the best hitters ever to play the game. That's good enough for me.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO jonah keri, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. 1- horrendously anecdotal. 2- best hitters ever to play the game, compared to who? anyone who's ever played little league? he's MAYBE a slightly better candidate than santo. MAYBE. hard to say, when you factor in santo playing 3B. but check out martinez's "HOF monitor" and "similar batters." is this a guy that should be mentioned as an all time great? really? that is not rhetorical, the answer is no.

2011 Jeff Bagwell (.948 OPS, 1994 MVP): In an era clogged with slugging first basemen, Bagwell's on-base ability (.408 career OBP), handy glove work and huge peak seasons stand out against his peers.

3 for 10. good batting average. atrocious "reasonable analysis" average.

2013 Craig Biggio (3,014 hits, 1,826 runs): Another all-around threat who did everything well, and for a long time. Sabermetrician Bill James famously called him the second-best player of the 1990s. Not sure about that, but you could make a strong case for top five.

4 for 11. maybe. at least keri didn't say something stupid like "say what you will about him sticking his elbow way out over the plate whenever possible, but biggio gets hit with a lot of pitches" or "the turf at the astrodome turned a lot of potential doubles into singles for him because they got to the outfielders too fast." keep trying, jonah. you're not in that groove just yet.