A Mixed Bag of Silly Baseball Comments

Dayn Perry's overly stilted introduction to his article on disappointing baseball players and teams:

Great expectations -- so much more than a heavy-handed Dickensian romp! In this case, we're talking great expectations unmet.

What? I guess when you dial up Dayn Perry's articles, you can expect a nickel's worth of baseball insight as well as a nickel's worth of literary criticism.

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An article regarding several recent disputes between batterymates:

"The very best pitch a pitcher can throw is the one he throws with his heart," said Brent Mayne, a veteran of 15 seasons and author of the book "The Art of Catching."

I think I know what Mr. Mayne is trying to say here... but (*&^ the heck, Brent, you can't throw baseballs with your heart!

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From a pretty pointless article where MLB player Ron Hunt, famous for being hit by a pitch a lot, was asked for his perspective on several recent mound chargings:

"I don't understand what is happening with all of this stuff," said Hunt from his home in Wentzville, Mo. "Maybe it's a case of me being 'old school' but it seems like they don't play the game the right way anymore."

I wish someone would take a poll of retired major leaguers and ask a simple question:
Do players today play the game the right way?

Hunt didn't establish himself as a player noted for being hit by pitches until he was traded by the Los Angeles Dodgers to the San Francisco Giants after the 1967 season.

"It was so cold in that ballpark in San Francisco that we had to wear everything we could under our uniforms to stay warm," recalls Hunt. "We bundled up so much it was hard to get loose and swing the bat. I just decided that I was going to crowd the plate, not give in, and hit the ball up the middle and do whatever it took to get to first base."

Apparently "playing the game the right way" means having such little confidence in one's hitting skill that it requires crowding the plate and hoping to get hit by a pitch.

That's playing the game the right way.

After Careful Consideration, Dayn Perry Decides that Winning is Good

Have you been wondering which MLB teams "need" to get off to a fast start this season? Here's the answer!

First, the painfully obvious.

Why are you writing it then? And leading your article with it, no less?

Look over baseball's six divisions and wild-card races and you'll find few clear favorites.

You can all see where this is going.

The Yanks, Red Sox or Rays in the AL East? The Dodgers, Snakes or even Giants in the NL West? Mets, Braves or Phillies? Heck, you can make a case for any team in the AL Central. And that's to say nothing of the crowded wild-card frays. In fact, only the Cubs stand as clear divisional favorites. Likely, this will result in quite a few close races, and that means every game — for every contender — will be important.

So a good half, maybe even 2/3 of all teams, are "contenders." And all contenders must get off to good starts. Thus, nearly everyone must win games early in the season. This level of analysis is hurting my brain- did Joe Morgan ghost write this?

The silly emphasis on the September stretch drive

First time I've ever heard it described as silly. Mets fans might not agree.

obscures a vital fact: The games in April count just as much as the games in September.

The cliches are beginning to pile up- everyone get out while you still can!

If a team blows the division by a single game, then that 9-2 yawner of a loss in April is as much to blame as the white-knuckled 4-3 defeat on the season's final day.

(Larry B takes out abacus, plays with the beads in a meager attempt to confirm this crazy mathematical theory)

With so many tight races ahead, the playoff hopefuls can't afford slow starts.

By which you mean pretty much no one can afford a slow start. Other entries on Dayn's "Can't afford a slow start" list- pitchers, hitters, guys who are mostly used as defensive replacements, managers, umpires, and beer vendors.

I've heard more relevant analysis from players and coaches who get interviewed during their jog into the locker room at halftime of a football or basketball game.

Dayn Perry: Insufferable Douche

Gee golly guys, Dayn Perry sure disapproves of signing any free agent pitchers ever, doesn't he?

The Hot Stove season isn't notable for its certainties, but here's one bankable assumption: teams are going to overpay for pitching.

Well yeah, that's pretty safe. Some teams probably will overpay. Some will get about the right price. And few might even make off with a solid steal.

It happens every year, like paying taxes or the swallows returning to Capistrano. Teams, frantic for help, cough up contracts that can best be described as "galactically stupid."

Agreed. That probably happens too often.

Consider some of the grim boondoggles of the past ... Darren Dreifort (five years, $55 million), Kevin Brown (seven years, $105 million), Carl Pavano (four years, $39.95 million), Russ Ortiz (four years, $33 million), Chan Ho Park (five years, $65 million), Mike Hampton (eight years, $121 million), Denny Neagle (five years, $51.5 million), Barry Zito (seven years, $126 million), Carlos Perez (three years, $15.6 million), and Carlos Silva (four years, $48 million).

And there's a nice glob of evidence to support that.



Lots of belly-itchers in there, and that's but a sampling. Sure, not every winter brings us Dreifortian/Hamptonian levels of irrationality. But you can bet teams are always (emphasis his) going to cough up more than they should for pitching help.

Always?

Really?

Never, in recent history, has any team given a reasonable contract to any pitcher?

There's an economic argument to be made that there's no such thing as an overpaid player — if the market dictates a given contract then that player is, by definition, worth that amount of money. That's true, to an extent. Contracts aren't acts of charity: they cost as much and run as long as it takes to get the player signed. However, as we all know, whether that player provides value on the dollar is another matter altogether. This is especially the case with pitchers.

Ignoring Dayn's insane need to climb on down from his pedestal way up there, this is all pretty true.

Pitching is a destructive art. The human body simply isn't designed to throw overhanded and at such speeds — it's unnatural and, done often enough, it almost always results in injury. As well, pitching entails much randomness and a level of precision foreign to other elements of the game.

Care for some more tea, crumpets, or caviar there Dayn?

(I have no idea what a "crumpet" is.)

Moving, on, your "almost always results in an injury" claim is pretty darn unfounded. There's plenty of guys in the majors who go in year-in and year out and don't have large injury risks associated with them. And you can go ahead and take your "pitching entails much randomness and a level of precision foreign to other elements of the game" argument right on over to Albert Pujols, mmmkay? Ask him, "Hey Albert....you don't need to be precise or anything with regards to where you swing the bat, right? You can just hit any old part of the ball and it just flies right out of the park, I'm assuming...."

And randomness? The only "randomness" in pitching is the luck of where a ball in play lands. You might also notice, Dayn, that this "randomness" applies to the hitter, the person who hit said ball. So in re: there's some kind of mystical randomness to pitching unbeknownstative to other parts of the game, go fuck yourself.

All of these factors conspire to render all but the most elite pitchers wildly unpredictable.

Did anyone else vomit in their mouth when Dayn Perry wrote the phrase "conspire to render?"

Anyone here see why the word "make" had to be replaced by "conspire to render"?

Did you get a vocab list or something that you needed to incorporate into this article?

Because that's the shit that goes on in high school, Dayn.

High school.

CC Sabathia at some point this winter will sign the richest contract ever for a pitcher. At age 28 and with a fairly positive health history, it's conceivable he'll be worth it. But it's not likely. In fact, it's overwhelmingly unlikely.

Some evidence would be nice. After all, you wrote this article to convince me that guys like Sabathia will be making too much money.

What's that? Too much to ask? Ok.....

Derek Lowe might sign a contract that takes him to age 40.

And isn't it possible that there's an amount of money that makes said contract worth it?

Andy Pettitte reportedly wants at least $16 million to pitch in 2009.

Absolutely does not mean he'll get it.

Oliver Perez, according to the impartial and rigorously scientific estimations of his agent Scott Boras, is one of the top-five lefties in baseball and should be paid accordingly.

That is truly frightening, if true. Quite a thing to say about a pitcher who didn't finish in the top 100 pitchers by VORP last season.

Why is this so? Why can't GMs resist these annual calls to madness? Perhaps the old chestnut that baseball is x% pitching (where x >>>>>> 50) is still believed by too many people within the game. Perhaps it's the notion that good pitching is too scarce these days.

Theory: If you don't do it, you're going to take a serious hit against teams that do. Sometimes, it's smart to "overpay" for that extra guy who's going to get you over the hump and into the playoffs, a feat that nets that team plenty of extra money in revenue. I mean I don't know, I don't write for a prestigious website like foxsports.com, so maybe I'm just clueless.

Whatever the reasons, it happens every time. In reality, unless you're a team of near limitless resources like the Yankees or Red Sox, you should take no part in helping along these sordid valuations.

There's another solid word for the vocab list. "Sordid." And unless I've missed my guess, it's pretty out of place there (check me on that one, dan-bob).

Also, our friend Dayn doesn't seem to understand that if you have no intention of signing a pitcher, you have every reason in the world to want to help along the "sordid valuations."

Hell, for almost every team in baseball, disinterring the four-man rotation would make more sense than throwing $80 million A.J. Burnett's way.

"Disinterring." Nice one. How many more you have left to check off?

Funny. You don't think throwing $80M at Burnett is smart, because he's injury-prone, and that's bad. A proposed "better" solution is to move to a dangerously exhausting 4-man rotation for 162 games.

Huh. And you don't see any contradiction in there at all.

In a sense, the ideal path to strong pitching is the same as it is with hitting: develop your own talent, identify the keepers, lock them up early.

And anyone without 5 solid homegrown starters locked up should just stop being competitive, sit around, complain all day, and become the Baltimore Orioles.

But given the going rates for free-agent hurlers, doing things the right way is even more critical. Otherwise, you end up throwing money — lots of it — at the problem. The historical imperative is that it almost never works. Now watch as teams far and wide ignore that history. Again and again.

Yeah. The Boston Red Sox are REALLY kicking themselves for paying $51M to talk to Dice-K and $52 more to sign him for 6-years. Kicking themselves right square in the face. The Dodgers just vomited money when they threw $36M at Derek Lowe over 4 years. All free agent pitcher signings are terrible, teams are stupid, everyone else is wrong, I'm Dayn Perry, and you can all go fuck yourselves.

Blind Dayn Perry Discovers Proverbial Nut

Dayn Perry? Dayn Perry? The FoxSports.com Dayn Perry? Surely you jest. Did he actually write a decent article that comes to a very sensible and logical conclusion? Next thing you know, Mike Celzic will reveal his fondness for VORP and FRAA.

Re: the shoving match that took place in the Brewers' dugout between Prince Fielder and Manny Parra last week:

As sure as the smog in Beijing, there's going to be someone who attributes whatever happens to the Brewers in the coming days to the near brawl in the dugout. If they fritter away their lead in the NL Wild Card race and fall hopelessly behind the Chicago Cubs in the Central, then it'll be because there's too much infighting. If they hawk down the Cubs for the division lead or pull away in the Wild Card, then it'll be because Fielder's tantrum "lit a fire" under the Brewers or some such. The underlying assumption — that the shoving match has any bearing on what will happen on the field — is a faulty one.

So here's the thing: if there's any correlation between clubhouse chemistry and winning, then it's either A) so weak as to be unidentifiable, or B) so weak as to be meaningless. Winning baseball is about scoring runs, pitching well, playing defense, staying healthy, and strategizing properly.

I'm as shocked as you are.

Dayn Perry Sits Down, Writes Meaningless Article, Cashes Paycheck, Laughs Maniacally

Someone, anyone, tell me why this article needed to be written. I'll give you zero guesses, because there is no right answer and I don't want to waste either of our time(s).

This year, wild card is hurting, not helping

For the most part, the wild card has been a good thing for Major League Baseball.

Correct. In fact, if I had to quantify it, I'd say the wild card has been good for MLB at a 99% rate of success.

Since the expanded playoff format was introduced prior to the 1995 season, we've seen more teams in contention, more teams making headline-grabbing trades at the deadline, and, in a related matter, increased fan interest.

Mmmmmmm-hmmmmmm.

After all, without the wild card, the 2004 Red Sox, 2002 Angels, and 2003 and 1997 Marlins wouldn't have been able to win the World Series in the first place.

I like the use of "after all" here, as if people really needed convincing that the wild card is good. It's like he's trying to justify something controversial like tax increases or immigration reform.

The wild card also means that intra-divisional rivals can meet in the LCS (as did the Rockies and Diamondbacks in 2007; Astros and Cardinals in 2004 and 2005; Red Sox and Yankees in 1999, 2003 and 2004; Braves and Mets in 1999; Braves and Marlins in 1997, and Yankees and Orioles in 1996), which lends some high-stakes tensions to the respective blood feuds.

As a Rockies fan, I have to say that they don't exactly have a "blood feud" with the Diamondbacks. But whatever. Even a big market team hater like me has to admit the 2003 and 2004 ALCSes were amazing.

So it's all good, right?

Right. Aaaaaaaaaaand... the article should end here.

Sure, the wild card has added drama to the regular season and engaged more fans in more cities.

You're dawdling. Get to your dumbassery.

However, let's not forget that the wild card comes with a cost. That cost is the division race between two or more truly great teams.

Wow. Since I'm a hyperorganized person (that is a lie, but whatever), let's parse this with a list.

1) This is not necessarily true. This isn't exactly college-level math, but if each league has 3 (three) divisions and only grants 1 (one) wild card, that leaves 2 (two) divisions that will only have one team (their champion) making the playoffs. I'm not sure what Dayn's definition of "truly great" is, but if the AL East has two 100 win teams that both make the playoffs, and the AL Central has a 96 win team that makes the playoffs and a 95 win team that misses out on the last day of the season, isn't that pretty dramatic?

2) I'm pretty sure a wild card race that could include as many as four or five teams well into September is cooler than a two or three team division race. Which, like I already said, isn't even necessarily precluded by the wild card.

3) If you asked 100 baseball fans what the "cost" of the wild card is, maybe 10 of them would say what Dayn said. The other 90 would stare at you blankly.

Think about it: In the wild-card era, when two division rivals are among the best teams in the game there's often less at stake because the second-place team has the wild card berth to fall back on.

I guess. The degree to which this is a bad thing, however, is dramatically overshadowed by the degree to which this is a bad thing:

Remember the classic NL West race of '93, when the 104-win Braves won the division and the 103-win Giants failed to make the postseason?

Yeah. I was pretty young, but I remember that. And you know what? It sucked. What a shitty situation for that Giants team. And for the fans, consider this: which is cooler- the Braves clinching the division on the last day of the season by beating the Rockies while the Giants lost to the Dodgers, or the prospect of a compelling Braves/Giants NLCS?

Those days are mostly over, thanks to the "hedge effect" of the wild card.

And not a year too soon.

It so happens that the 2008 season may provide us with two more examples. Courtesy of the Playoff Odds Report over at Baseball Prospectus, let's have a look at which teams have the highest odds of winning the Wild Card in each league:

Red Sox: 42.8%
Rays: 28.1%
Yankees: 15.8%
Twins: 5.2%
White Sox: 3.1%

Brewers: 48.5%
Cardinals: 16.8%
Cubs: 13.7%
Phillies: 9.4%
Mets: 7.9%

Here's what I see in both leagues: an exciting race in one division, which will award two spots to three teams, and a great secondary race in another division in which two teams (possibly "great" teams, depending on your definition) will fight for one playoff spot. Pretty cool. What does Dayn see?

As you can see, in the AL the top three wild-card contenders, according to the system, are in the East. Over in the NL, the top three wild card contenders are in the Central. In fact, the system predicts that the Rays will take the East with 95 wins, and the Red Sox will win the wild card with 92 wins. In the senior circuit, the Cubs are tabbed to take the Central with 96 wins, and the Brewers are in line for the wild card with 90 wins.

This is in the article just so Dayn can meet his pre-determined minimum word count.

Therein lies the problem.

Certainly, in these kinds of situations you'd prefer to win the division (that's especially the case this season, when so many contenders can't seem to win on the road and thus badly need home-field advantage in the playoffs), but for the Red Sox, Rays, Cubs and Brewers (and perhaps the Yankees and Cardinals) it's likely not going to be a matter of life and death.

Read that again, and see if it gets less stupid. If you're like me, it won't. So we're saying... that because the Yankees are Cardinals are both likely to finish with good records but miss the playoffs... that's somehow undesirable? Because there aren't more teams missing the playoffs despite good records? Here's what I think is too bad: when a team like the 1993 Giants wins 103 games and misses the playoffs. (A roughly similar situation happened in 1987 in the AL, when the 96 win Blue Jays lost the East by 2 games while the 85 win Twins won the West. I didn't look any further back than that, but I assume it was a semi-regular occurrence during the pre-WC days.)

That's too bad.

You're not just stretching- you're stretching to get to the point where you could be construed as stretching. Ridiculous.

Imagine, if you will, the all-in scenario: two — maybe even three — teams from the AL East battling down the stretch for a single playoff spot, and now imagine the same scenario in the NL Central.

OK. It's kind of cool. But not as cool as the wild card.

Brewers-Cubs, separated by fewer than 100 miles? Cubs-Cardinals and their long-standing rivalry? Sox-Rays with all their recent bad blood? Sox-Yankees with all their historical bad blood? Each of those hypotheticals is a compelling one because of the histories and — in most cases — proximities involved.

And here's the key- each of them could easily still end up being a significant and compelling race. It's not that hard to imagine: take the two teams you want to match up, and now simply pretend that the third team in the division wins it. Pretty cool.

As for the scheduling possibilities, the Brewers end the regular season with a three-game home set against the Cubs, and the Red Sox, in customary fashion, end the season against the Yankees. Potentially, that would be two "all or nothing" series on the final weekend, each pairing up regional and divisional rivals. Obviously, such a turn of events is almost impossible now, thanks to the wild card.

Almost impossible, unless of course the Cardinals/Rays win their respective divisions. Pretty unlikely but still possible for the Cards; reasonably likely for the Rays. So... not that impossible.

To be fair, the wild card on occasion provides drama of a similar nature — the 1998, 1999 and 2007 seasons all provided us with one-game playoffs to determine the NL wild card.

Obviously.

However, most often those match-ups are going to lack the hostilities native to intra-divisional match-ups (last year's wild card playoff between the Rockies and Padres is an obvious exception),

Again, as a Rockies fan, let me confirm for you (in case you couldn't figure it out for yourself) that the Padres and them have no bad blood or hostility whatsoever. Didn't really make the game any less exciting, did it? I know that 9-8, 13 inning walkoffs are pretty unlikely. The next one game wild card playoff will probably be a 10-2 snoozefest. But still... yeah.

and they generally aren't going to involve genuinely great teams (after all, it is the wild card — most often a signifier of goodness rather than greatness).

Thank you for that completely arbitrary and meaningless distinction.

As mentioned, the institution of the wild card has been on balance a positive for baseball.

This is like saying that on balance, having a job will help you support a family.

But let's not pretend it's without costs.

I'm OK with pretending that. Or, If you really don't want me to, I won't. I'll go ahead and acknowledge that it has one tiny and pretty much insignificant cost. I'm comfortable with either option.

If the possibilities detailed above come to pass, then the wild card this season will deprive NL Central and AL East fans of something truly special.

Yes, it has the potential of depriving them of a winner-take-all divisional race. Any disappointment they feel in the aftermath of this, however, will probably be abated by the realization that two awesome teams just made the playoffs instead of just one. Not mentioned here: the fact that AL Central, AL West, NL East, and NL West fans will be unaffected. Also not mentioned here: Dayn Perry stinks.

Dayn Perry Tries To Sneak a Flagrant Lie Past His Readers

Fortunately I have enough time on my hands to thoroughly disprove him. In this case, I don't think the problem is Dayn's idiocy. That's not to say that he's not an idiot, of course- but this time around I think he knew full well that his point was awful and decided to try to sneak it past everyone anyways. So which is worse- being stupid, or lying? I'll leave a question like that to Jack Handy. Let's just get down to brass tacks.

Among the major professional sports drafts, the MLB variant seems to get short shrift.

This is so for a number of reasons. One, college and high school baseball players are far less familiar to the sporting public than, say, those eligible to be drafted in the NBA and the NFL. Two, the MLB Draft is burdened by the "crap shoot" reputation, and, three, MLB draftees have far less immediate impact than those playing hoops or football.As for the first point, not much can be done about that one — college football and college basketball are and probably always will be more popular than college baseball (and certainly high school baseball).

As an aside that has nothing to do with the rest of this post, it's nauseating to me that high school football and basketball are now nationally televised. It's only going to exacerbate the already disastrous levels of corruption at sports' lower levels. Anyways-

As for the second point, well, it's a myth.

Is it? We can test that theory pretty easily, you realize.

Take a gander at the top 10 picks in a given year for all of the three major sports, and, generally speaking, you'll find similar levels of success or failure. MLB has its Brien Taylors, but the NFL and NBA have their Ryan Leafs and Chris Washburns, respectively.

Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy. Thank you in advance, Wikipedia. Let's take a look at the 5 year span from 1999-2003, because that gives the MLB draftees (who are obviously at a disadvantage relative to their NBA and NFL counterparts in terms of amount of time needed to make an impact) at least five years to have gotten to the big show and made an impact. I'll list the three leagues' top ten picks grouped together by year. I'll bold the guys I would consider to be flops. When it's all said and done, give or take a few possible disagreements between you and I about whether certain guys busted or not, you tell me whether or not you think the argument that the MLB draft is no more crapshootish than the NBA and NFL drafts really holds any water.

1999-

MLB
1. Josh Hamilton (obviously would have been bolded until 12 months ago)
2. Josh Beckett
3. Eric Munson
4. Corey Myers
5. B.J. Garbe
6. Josh Girdley
7. Kyle Snyder
8. Bobby Bradley
9. Barry Zito (the guy won a Cy; I don't care how bad he is now)
10. Ben Sheets

NBA
1. Elton Brand
2. Steve Francis (a tough call, but he was sick for his first six seasons)
3. Baron Davis
4. Lamar Odom
5. Jonathan Bender
6. Wally Szczerbiak (has had a better career than most would think)
7. Rip Hamilton
8. Andre Miller
9. Shawn Marion
10. Jason Terry

NFL
1. Tim Couch
2. Donovan McNabb
3. Akili Smith
4. Edgerrin James
5. Ricky Williams (what a weirdo, still has 7,000+ career yards)
6. Torry Holt
7. Champ Bailey
8. David Boston (David says: Hey kids, don't do steroids)
9. Chris Claiborne
10. Chris McAlister (meh)

2000-

MLB
1. Adrian Gonzalez
2. Adam Johnson
3. Luis Montanez
4. Mike Stoldoka
5. Justin Wayne
6. Rocco Baldelli (not even that good when he's healthy)
7. Matt Harrington (one of the stupidest athletes of all time)
8. Matt Wheatland
9. Mark Phillips
10. Joe Torres

NBA
1. Kenyon Martin
2. Stromile Swift (close to being a non-bust, but not quite)
3. Darius Miles
4. Marcus Fizer
5. Mike Miller
6. DerMarr Johnson
7. Chris Mihm (Andrew Bogut before Andrew Bogut was Andrew Bogut)
8. Jamal Crawford
9. Joel Pryzbilla
10. Keyon Dooling

NFL
1. Courtney Brown
2. LaVar Arrington (a tough call; in the same boat as Steve Francis)
3. Chris Samuels
4. Peter Warrick
5. Jamal Lewis (recovering in Cleveland from his prison rape quite nicely)
6. Corey Simon
7. Thomas Jones
8. Plaxico Burress (it's possible he and Darius Miles are the same person)
9. Brian Urlacher
10. Travis Taylor

2001-

MLB
1. Joe Mauer
2. Mark Prior (I really should bold him, but I'm trying to be overcompensatingly fair to Dayn)
3. Dewon Brazelton
4. Gavin Floyd
5. Mark Teixeira
6. Josh Karp
7. Chris Smith
8. John Van Benschoten
9. Colt Griffin
10. Chris Burke

NBA
1. Kwame Brown
2. Tyson Chandler
3. Pau Gasol
4. Eddy Curry (a decent offensive player when not being attacked by the NY media)
5. Jason Richardson
6. Shane Battier
7. Eddie Griffin (watch out for that train! not too soon!)
8. DeSagana Diop
9. Rodney White
10. Joe Johnson

NFL
1. Michael Vick (don't even try to argue this one)
2. Leonard Davis
3. Gerard Warren
4. Justin Smith (a fringe guy, but he got double-teamed a lot and still produced in Cincy)
5. LaDainian Tomlinson
6. Richard Seymour
7. Andre Carter
8. David Terrell
9. Koren Robinson (Koren says: hey kids, don't drink and drive.)
10. Jamal Reynolds

2002-

MLB
1. Brian Bullington
2. B.J. Upton
3. Christopher Grueler
4. Adam Loewen
5. Clint Everts
6. Zach Greinke (I'm being generous because he's still so young)
7. Prince Fielder
8. Scott Moore
9. Jeff Francis
10. Drew Meyer

NBA
1. Yao Ming
2. Jay Williams (almost definitely would have had a good career if he wasn't fucking stupid)
3. Mike Dunleavy Jr. (a tough call, but I'll give it to him for doing a little of everything)
4. Drew Gooden
5. Nikoloz Tskitishvili
6. DaJuan Wagner
7. Nene Hilario
8. Chris Wilcox
9. Amare Stoudemire
10. Caron Butler

NFL
1. David Carr (another tough call, but he can only blame his OL for so long)
2. Julius Peppers
3. Joey Harrington
4. Mike Williams (career derailed by Hostess snack cakes)
5. Quentin Jammer
6. Ryan Sims
7. Bryant McKinnie (insert sex boat scandal joke here)
8. Roy Williams
9. John Henderson
10. Levi Jones

2003-

MLB
1. Delmon Young (like Greinke, I'm cutting him slack for being so young)
2. Rickie Weeks
3. Kyle Sleeth
4. Timothy Stauffer
5. Christopher Lubanski (has good minor league numbers, but has progressed too slowly)
6. Ryan Harvey
7. Nick Markakis
8. Paul Mahom
9. John Danks
10. Ian Stewart (better than Lubanski in the minors and has flashed power in the bigs)

NBA
1. LeBron James
2. Darko Milicic (all you can really say is... oof)
3. Carmelo Anthony
4. Chris Bosh
5. Dwyane Wade (I almost labeled him a bust for this)
6. Chris Kaman
7. Kirk Heinrich
8. T.J. Ford
9. Michael Sweetney
10. Jarvis Hayes

NFL
1. Carson Palmer
2. Charles Rogers
3. Andre Johnson
4. Dewayne Robertson
5. Terence Newman
6. Jonathan Sullivan
7. Byron Leftwich
8. Jordan Gross
9. Kevin Williams
10. Terrell Suggs

Total busts:
MLB- 34
NBA- 18
NFL- 20

After a glance or two, I'm reasonably confident the same trends continue if you look at the whole first round, whole draft, or go back further into history. So, no, Dayn. You don't see the same levels of success or failure in the first ten picks across all three sports. In fact, it's not even close. But wait- there's more!

The third point? Certainly, the existence of the minor leagues means that MLB draftees have a longer wait than their NFL and NBA counterparts. However, it's not quite as long as you might think. Consider that as recently as 2005 we had these names called early on: Justin Upton, Alex Gordon, Ryan Zimmerman, Ryan Braun, Troy Tulowitzki, Jay Bruce, Jacoby Ellsbury, Matt Garza, Travis Buck, and Clay Buchholz. Needless to say, that's an impressive first-round haul — and one that's already making a serious impact in the majors.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that those are household names. Every one of those guys, even those not playing in big media markets, have received a significant amount of press. But how many are actually making "a serious impact" in the majors? Upton, Gordon, Garza, Buck, and Buchholz certainly aren't. Bruce and Ellsbury look good but haven't even played full seasons yet. Tulowitzki was awful before getting hurt this year and Zimmerman has a great glove but a mediocre bat. From that list I'd say that only Bruan has made an impact that could be characterized as anything close to serious. And I'm worried that I might be biased even in making that claim. Although I'm personally not Jewish like Braun, many of my best friends are, so sometimes I get caught up in the massive amounts of hype they pile onto any Jewish athlete. He's... he's actually legit, right?

In conclusion, Dayn Perry has done nothing to convince me of his claim that the MLB draft is the victim of several unfair misconceptions. It's still boring because even big NCAA baseball fans haven't heard of half the players. It's still a gargantuan crapshoot, much moreso than the NBA or NFL drafts. And even when it produces big stars, it still takes them an extremely long time to develop.

But after all that, here's the pathetic conclusion- since I'm no longer employed, I still watched the whole damn first round last Thursday. Damn you, hype. Your siren song always ends up costing me money, time, or both.

An Old Favorite!

Dayn Perry picks his surprising contenders next year

Bad news is: he picked the Reds. Now, according to the Colin Cowherd school of media, other teams in the Central will be gunning for them.

It's pretty much all just Dayn rambling about a few players on each team who are "solid" or "poised to break out" or "could be contributors". Honestly, I'm not even going to break it down, since it's just a bunch of wishy-washy statements about a few names.

OMG JARROD SALTALAMACCHIA the Rangers are a dark horse!

Also, here's the weirdest part - he picks the Rays, then adds this doozy:

As for the bullpen, Troy Percival was an excellent addition, and he'll greatly improve how the Rays fare in late, high-leverage innings.

What the hell is a high leverage inning? Does he mean the ninth? The eighth? The sixth? I have no idea which innings have more leverage than others.

We're Back Like a Fucking Vertebrae

It's been a few days. Sorry about that. The Google Analytics shows that people definitely stop coming here when we don't post, so I'm here to fix that. Hopefully. And who better to make our first post in 96 hours about than our old friend Dayn Perry? He's here to talk about how awesome Joe Torre is. I'm here to make fun of his attempts to do so. Am I anti-Torre? Not really. Am I pro-Torre? Again, no. I'm just tired of bad sports journalism.

Torre signing a good first step for Dodgers

Obviously, landing a first-rate manager like Torre gives the Dodgers instant credibility and a steady hand in the dugout. There's no questioning Torre's credentials, and when it comes to leading a contender to greater glory, his track record is unassailable.

Like I said, I'm not anti-Torre, but I wouldn't call his track record "unassailable." Taking three straight 90+ win teams to the playoffs and subsequently winning a grand total of four games with them is a bit of a blemish. No, those losses weren't necessarily Torre's fault (because he is a a baseball manager, not a baseball player). But the Yankees' playoff successes in the late 1990s also weren't really of his doing either. If writers like Perry want to trump up Torre's credentials and claim that he's a proven winner or some such bullshit, that's fine. But they can't do so without acknowledging that his teams have stunk in the playoffs since th 2004 ALCS, too. You can't have it both ways. Torre's track record has some incredible successes. It also has some miserable failures. Really, I would say the most impressive thing he's done in his career was put up with Steinbrenner for as long as he did.

Torre's also a highly adaptable sort. During his tenure in New York, the Yankees had a reputation for larding the roster with high-salary veterans. That's certainly true to an extent, but Torre showed a willingness to work younger talents into the mix. For instance, on Torre's watch youngsters like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Ramiro Mendoza, Alfonso Soriano, Nick Johnson, Robinson Cano, Chien-Ming Wang, Melky Cabrera, Philip Hughes and Joba Chamberlain all played vital roles. It's a skill that will serve him well in Los Angeles.

How lucky are the Dodgers right now? Wow... a manager that uses talented young players? Where else are you going to find one of those? Yes, I realize that overutilization of crappy veterans was one of Grady Little's downfalls. But among MLB quality managers, Little is the exception rather than the rule in that department. Managers of teams at every talent level across baseball utilize their up-and-comers. It's really not that unheard of. I don't see the fact that Torre managed like 10 good young players in 12 years in New York as reason to tout his abilities.

Overall, signing Torre means the Dodgers make a splash and position themselves as serious contenders in the down-cycled NL.

It means they have a different guy handing the lineup card to the umpires than they did last year. It does not mean they have any new players to add to that lineup card.

Specifically, the rotation figures to be a strength

Offensively, the Dodgers badly need better production from third base and center field

If LaRoche adapts as expected, he'll fill the third-base void

To that end, Andruw Jones, Torii Hunter or even the suspended Mike Cameron

Of course, with Torre comes the Alex Rodriguez speculation

Needless to say, he'd be a great fit in L.A

It's speculation at this point, but the Dodgers certainly have the coffers

If they do land Rodriguez, they'll immediately become

I'm no English major, but hey Dayn: you might want to think about varying your sentence structure a little but. Just a thought.

On the whole, nabbing Torre is a great thing for the Dodgers. However, they're not going to climb the standings in baseball's toughest division unless they're among the most active teams over the winter. Otherwise, Torre and his new employers are going to wind up disappointing one another.

What an awkward conclusion. Dayn is simultaneously implying that A) Torre will be mad at the Dodgers if they don't make some moves to improve their team and B) that the Dodgers will be mad at Torre if he doesn't help them win with the same players the team had last year. What?

He also admits that hiring a new manager doesn't do much to ensure that a team will become better, basically defeating the purpose of writing the article in the first place. I wonder if that was an accident.

now, let's cut to dayn perry with some breaking mlb playoff news!

dayn, are you there? please, give us your expert opinion about who the "players to watch" in this year's postseason are. i'm going to be extremely brief in my intro here and just flat out say this is one of the least-needed-to-be-written articles that ever didn't need to be written. if that makes any sense. you'll see what i mean.

October stars: These guys have to step up

These are the guys who are going to be in the spotlight this post-season and, to a great extent, these are the guys whose teams need them to rise to the occasion. In other words, these are the guys upon whom the fate of the World (Series) may rest. Let's have a look ...

get ready for some mind numbingly boring analysis that contains exactly one new thought/mildly interesting piece of analysis.

1. Alex Rodriguez, Yankees

from out of nowhere! who'd have guessed he'd be on this list? what a bold inclusion.

Rodriguez was actually a highly accomplished October hitter until the last two times he and the Yankees appeared in the ALDS. Against the Angels in 2004, A-Rod "hit" .133 AVG/.381 OBP/.200 SLG, and last year against Detroit he authored a paltry batting line of .071 AVG/.071 OBP/.071 SLG.

you can't be serious. a-rod didn't play well in the yankees' last two playoff appearances? i never heard anything about that. i wish the media would have covered it; that's the kind of thing i could read about for months and years on end.

2. Joe Borowski, Indians

pshh. a closer? like they ever matter during the playoffs.

3. Carlos Zambrano, Cubs

When Zambrano's on, he racks up ground balls and strikeouts by the truckload and he's one of the best in the business. When he's off, he's distracted, frustrated and unable to find the strike zone. The Cubs' fate to a large degree depends on which Zambrano shows up.

wow. another dark horse candidate! the media lightning rod that will start games 1 and 4 in the NLDS and potentially start games 1, 4, and 7 in the NLCS is important to his team's postseason success?

(god, i am using way too many sarcastic rhetorical questions in this post. i just don't know how else to illustrate my point. which is why i am an angry nobody blogger and not a national sportswriter like dayn perry. you know what, let's just breeze through the rest of these before i waste any more of your time or mine with nitpicky analysis.)

4. Manny Ramirez, Red Sox

what? no way. no freaking way. he's only their #3 hitter and a probable HOFer who, while beginning to decline at age 35, is still a moderately huge power threat. i'm sure they don't expect too much out of him.

5. Kelvim Escobar, Angels

the #2 starter on a team with a struggling offense? this is madness.

6. Roger Clemens, Yankees
7. Jamie Moyer, Phillies

you know, at least these guys aren't #1 or #2 starters, closers, or #3 hitters. so their inclusion on the list is a little less annoying. still... gag me. just blow out your elbow and retire already, you jackass. (that's directed at roger, not dayn or jamie! if dayn retired i don't know where i would get my bad baseball analysis from. and jamie i'm just kind of neutral on.)

8. Travis Hafner, Indians

how thought provoking. another middle of the lineup power threat.

9. Augie Ojeda, Diamondbacks

here we go! non-sarcastically, this is actually a great item for the list. he's orlando hudson's injury replacement. the d-backs have a very questionable offense, so they need all the production they can get out of a guy filling in for one of their better hitters. i wonder who told dayn to include him.

10. Matt Holliday, Rockies

there we go. that's more like it. who would have thought- the rockies' playoff chances apparently depend on their #3 hitter/MVP candidate!

so let's summarize- dayn perry decided to write an article about 10 guys who will have a big impact on the baseball postseason. he chose: four power threats who hit cleanup or in the #3 spot for their teams, two top of the rotation starters, two middle of the rotation starters (who used to be top of the rotation starters and also happen to be media darlings), one closer, and..... augie ojeda. what journalistic gusto! thank goodness for professionals like dayn who bring us these in-depth stories filled with information we could never discern on our own.


[firejay BONUS! here's an imaginary list of dayn's perry's "players to watch" (!) in the NFL this season:

1. peyton manning
2. brett favre
3. ladanian tomlinson
4. vince young
5. terrell owens
6. brian urlacher
7. carson palmer
8. frank gore
9. adam podlesh (punter, jacksonville; critical to the jaguars' field position game)
10. tom brady

i think that list pretty accurately drives home my point, if for some reason the rest of my rantings and ravings did not.]

someone please slap dayn perry

and not just for the way he spells his first name. i'm more referring to reasons like what he says in his latest article (in which he proposes a new triple crown for baseball):

As you know, a hitter wins the Triple Crown when he leads his league in batting average, home runs and RBIs. But there are serious problems with two of these measures. To wit, batting average makes no account for power or reaching base by means other than a hit, and RBI as a stat is so context-dependent that it's all but useless. Fortunately, there is a better way.

What you need in a Triple Crown are three measures that demonstrate a player's efficiency at the plate, his power and his prowess in terms of getting on base. You also need some built-in indication of playing time. In light of those standards, a new and improved Triple Crown — using only traditional measures of offensive performance — might include OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage), total bases and times on base.

that's right. the new triple crown consists of something that's extremely strongly correlated with slugging percentage, something that's extremely strongly correlated with on base percentage, and something that you get by adding on base percentage and slugging percentage together. this is like saying the NBA should have a "triple crown of rebounding", with the three categories in question being rebounds per game, total defensive rebounds, and total offensive rebounds. brilliant, dayn. brilliant. why would he choose these 3 pretty much equivalent categories?

With that in mind, let's take a look at our chances of seeing the NITC achieved in 2007. In the NL, there's no one with any serious designs on the honor. In the AL, however, we might be in business: at this writing, Alex Rodriguez paces the junior circuit in OPS and total bases, and he's tied with teammate Derek Jeter for the lead in times on base. So he's got a very real shot at winning the NITC.

oh. well that explains it. how convenient that dayn came up with this dumb idea, and it just so happens that a guy who's a media lightning rod (no pun intended) just happens to be having a season that coincides nicely with said idea. hey, i've got a great idea for another NITC: you can win this one by having the most home runs in your league as a rookie shortstop, turning the most unassisted triple plays, and having the most home runs in road games that put your team ahead in the 7th inning or later but in games your team ended up losing. well looky here. with 12, 1, and 3 of those (respectively), my boy troy tulowitzki of the colorado rockies is on the verge of winning it! it's baseball history in the making, folks.