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 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?

John Kruk Stays The Course

Krukie, earlier today offering his prediction for who will win the NL Central this year:

I like the Cubs- and I've been saying this since day one.

It is day one, jackass. Or day five, I guess, if you want to be picky about those A's/Red Sox games. I guess he probably meant "since the beginning of spring training." That's still like picking a team to win the NCAA tourney when the brackets get announced, watching them beat East Bumfuck State A&M in the first round, and then reaffirming the pick as if you're going out on a limb by sticking to your guns.

In an unrelated story, it's been tough to keep holding on to this one, but I've still got Andrew W.K. as my pick for douchiest one hit wonder of the 21st century.

Add This Guy To the List of People David Eckstein Is Not Better Than

A quickie from JayBird's online column.

In signing the chubby and maddeningly inconsistent Juan Uribe to a one-year deal, Williams said something that blew my mind. ``Uribe is, and has been, one of the most consistent shortstops in the game,'' he said.

How does this statement blow your mind? Uribe's numbers don't vary ridiculously from year to year. I mean yeah, there's variation you can expect from every player there, but you know what you're getting. Low batting average, low OBP, decent-to-good power, high strikeouts, low walks. He does it every year. The problem isn't that Uribe isn't a consistent hitter there, Joe Morgan, the problem is that he's a bad hitter.

What's truly remarkable about Uribe are his FRAA for the past 6 years: 26, 19, 6, 14, 8, 19.

So, you win, Jay. I guess he is inconsistent in the field. You don't know in any given year whether you're going to get Uribe's pretty good glove or his awesome glove.

Consider it more proof that Williams is still in love with his 2005 title creation, even if the mission is 2008. Uribe hit .234 last season. His on-base percentage: .284. He fields well enough, but the Sox needed to part ways and upgrade the shortstop position. Free agent David Eckstein might be wearing down, but he's in shape, his winner's attitude is infectious and he'd have been a worthwhile gamble as a much-needed leadoff hitter.

David Eckstein, 2007 WARP: 2.4
Juan Uribe, 2007 WARP: 3.9

David Eckstein: winning attitude, skinny.
Juan Uribe: fat, kills people(?).

First comparison: Helps determine what a player is worth.
Second ocmparison: Pretty irrelevant to a winning team.

Granted, Eck can lead off because of his above-average OBP, and the Sox need that, but it isn't worth giving up anything more than they gave to Uribe.

Too much of the '05 everyday nucleus remains intact.

Problem with the White Sox: Too many guys who won the World Series together are on the team.

Williams will be forgiven if he trades for third baseman Miguel Cabrera

What the fuck could he possibly trade for Miguel Cabrera? He'd have to eat the salary of anyone that gets paid significant dough, and the Sox farm system isnt exactly crawling with prospects. (Maybe the Marlins will take Jerry Owens....PLEASE TAKE JERRY OWENS)

And, much as this will rile the ancient and ready-for-retirement Hawk Harrelson, won't a .500 season further relegate the Sox to No. 2 team status around here?

1) Who cares
2) Taking shots at the increasingly senile Hawk Harrelson shows such great professionalism.

As a final thought, it seems that Pittsburgh's new general management is going to use statistics to valuate players. We are now down to zero (0) teams in MLB that would be better off if a Fire Jay Mariotti writer took over as GM. Rats.

kevin youkilis is no eckstein, no erstad. so what is he?

you want to know why? because he's really good at hitting the baseball. for some reason though, espn.com's buster olney wants to equate the three of them- they're all grindy grinders who bring their lunchpails to the ballpark and play the game the way it was meant to be played. oh yeah, and they're all caucasian, too. no, olney doesn't DIRECTLY compare them; erstad and eckstein are never directly brought up. but look at the languague he uses. tell me you haven't seen this kind of journalism before, being used to describe players that the reader is supposed to love and adore because they try really hard and aren't that good at baseball. anyways i can't tell if this is an insult to youkilis, because he's being indirectly compared to two pretty mediocre/crappy hitters, or a death knoll for eck and ersty. after all, if we can have grindy grinders who OPS .921 (as youkilis is), why do we need crappy grindy grinders? oh my god, that just made me wonder... what if people like crappy grindy grinders because they're crappy? that's terrifying. i'd rather think about terrorism or SARS or a giant asteroid hitting the earth instead. let's just get to the article.

To Youkilis, every pitch matters

nice cliche to start things off. this in contrast to chase utley, who pretty much could give a shit less about most pitches he sees. he only tries when there's two strikes, or when he sees a pretty girl sitting in the front row behind the backstop.

From 60 feet 6 inches away, Kevin Youkilis looks a lot like a guard dog. You're trying to slip a pitch past him, and this damn hairy-chinned beast stands in the way, chained to the back of the batter's box, part Wade Boggs and part pit bull. Throw him a nasty breaking ball, and he lunges at it, fouling it off. Pump a fastball inside, and he fights it off. And finally, by the seventh or eighth or 10th pitch of the at-bat, the beast is poised to strike.

grindy grindy grinder. but here's the thing- and i'm sure i'll go over this about ten more times in the course of this article- fouling off pitches isn't the best part of youkilis's game, except i guess inasmuch as it helps him draw walks. really, the best part of his game is mashing the crap out of the ball. that's why he's slugging over .500 with 9 HR and 22 doubles. meanwhile, the two previously mentioned other men who have set the gold standard for grinding are slugging .385 and .341. for them, maybe fouling off pitches IS the best part of their game. much as i hate the red sox (obligatory boston sports team hatred mention) kevin youkilis is a pretty darn good hitter.

Youkilis, a 28-year-old first baseman, is no five-tool talent. He is not fast, he will never set home run records, and his peanut-butter-and-jelly swing will never inspire an Updike treatise. But he is relentless. "Every pitch to me is an at-bat," says Youkilis, sitting in front of his locker at Fenway Park.

lots of guys who are awesome hitters are not five-tool talents. travis hafner comes to mind. for a non-DH, how about carlos lee? doesn't matter. doesn't mean they deserve an article about how grindy and underdog-ish they are. also, from now on, when i rant about grindy grinders, i'm going to find a way to get "relentless" in there. that's a good one.

That's what separates grinders like Youkilis from rank-and-file big leaguers. It's the thing that gets him through the 1,458 innings of a 162-game schedule, the mind-set that helps teams win. For Youkilis, the most important pitch of the year is always the next one, which might be lined for a hit or, at the very least, mined for information.

as if there's a ton of guys out there in the big leagues who really don't care about the next pitch they see when they're batting, and never "mine" any information at all from pitches that they don't hit. actually, there are some player out there that fit that description; they're called NL pitchers. look, you just don't make it to the big leagues without doing this. i hate to break it to you, buster, but your boy youkilis (by the by, you realize he's not a yankee, right?) isn't really doing anything different than 98% of other major leaguers out there. he might be doing it better than a lot of them. but i promise you his approach isn't much different.

When Youkilis played Class-A ball for the Lowell (Mass.) Spinners in 2001, he struck out on three pitches in his first at-bat of a game -- fastball, changeup, breaking ball -- without taking the bat off his shoulder, and he stalked back to the dugout. "Why are you so mad?" asked Arnie Beyeler, the Lowell manager. Well, obviously, Youkilis explained with some exasperation, he had just taken a backward K on three offerings. "But you saw all his pitches," Beyeler said. "He's shown you everything he's got. Now you can go to work."

thanks arnie! i wish i had a gritty old manager full of sage advice and timeless wisdom to help me through my paper pushing job whenever i got frustrated.

That lesson stayed with Youkilis, who already had a strong sense of the strike zone. He drew 73 walks in 64 games during his first summer in pro ball, drawing the attention of A's GM Billy Beane and writer Michael Lewis, who immortalized Youkilis in Moneyball as the Greek God of Walks. (Actually, Youkilis is not Greek at all; he's a Jewish kid from Cincinnati.) With an on-base percentage frequently over .400, he forced his way to the majors.

i love the word choice here- he "forced" his way to the majors. since this whole article is set up to make youkilis look like some underdog longshot feelgood story, i just know olney picked that verb on purpose. as if all these crusty old boston red sox executives who only like players who are fast or can hit 50 home runs were sitting in a smoke filled room talking about what minor leaguers they should promote to the big club.

crusty exec #1: i have to say, we should take a look at this youkilis guy.
crusty exec #2: but he can't steal bases! and he's not a pure power hitter!
crusty exec #1: he gets on base a ton though. i'm afraid our hand is forced; we have to do this.
crusty exec #2: [angrily punches through top of bowler hat] damn these underdog longshot feelgood stories!

This year, through June, he ranks among the American League's top 10 in batting average and OBP.

oh. not so much of a longshot underdog feelgood story after all.

Setting his stance, the righthanded Youkilis stations his back foot at the very back of the batter's box -- as close to the catcher, and as far from the pitcher, as the rules allow. To say that his right foot is in the box would be like saying that a climber who is hanging onto a ledge by one finger is on the mountain; maybe some tiny particle of his instep is technically on the back line of the box but not the rest of his foot. This provides him milliseconds more to decipher a breaking ball from a fastball.

again, lots of freaking players do this. he is not special because he does this. he is special because he's a really good at it. what olney is saying here is akin to a consumer analyst claiming "so-and-so motors is a great car company because they try maximize their profits while keeping costs low and still putting out quality products that consumers want to buy." every car company tries to do that, you stupid imaginary analyst. so-and-so motors is just better at it than other companies. but it's not like they invented that line of thinking. christ.

i'm not even going to bother with the rest of the article, it's more and more and more and more of the same. needless to say: kevin youkilis is an awesome hitter because he has great plate discipline and because he racks up a very good number of extra base hits. his approach to hitting, however, is no different than the vast majority of major leaguers. buster olney needs to go back to just reporting on the yankees and how awesome they are. this whole "branching out and covering the red sox" deal isn't working so well.

also, due to this article, the lunchpail alert is at yellow.

it's all relative, i guess

dusty baker has been an invaluable addition to the baseball tonight team this year. in fact, i think i like him even better in this role than when he's employed as a manager and says stupid stuff like "i don't care about on base percentage if you can't run."

anyways, last night, dusty commented on hulking home run machine prince fielder:

"you look at him during highlights and the first thing you think is, 'he's athletic.'"

huh. i look at him during highlights and think, "man, what joke can i make involving him and all-you-can-eat buffets that isn't hacky or overdone?" then i realize there isn't one and go back to listening for dusty or krukie or steve phillips to say stupid stuff. fielder is listed at 6'0, 262. i'm pretty skeptical; the guy isn't exactly dmitri young but id say he's gotta be pushing three bills at this point. sure, he's athletic relative to 95% of the fat guys in the world. but he's most definitely unathletic relative to 95% of all professional baseball players. the point is- dusty baker has a tiny brain.