IT'S HAPPENING, PEOPLE! IT'S HAPPENING!!!!!!

BONDS DREAMS ON AS SUPPORT SLIPS SLIDING AWAY
By Murray Chass

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 

It's the most wonderful time of the year for bad sportswriting!  Hall of Fame voting season!  

P.S.--I got this from Murray Chass's blog, because Murray Chass is a blogger who writes a blog.

(Before we begin, Simmons was back to his old tricks last weekend, going 5-11, yes that's right, 5-11, putting him at 59-61 on the season.  Dogs went 8-8, they are now 92-96.  Year of the Dog, Simmons is a dicktoaster, etc.)

Hear ye! hear ye! hear ye! 

I am listening!  Also, not sure if that's an olde tyme Englyshe thing there, but you should capitalize the first world of every sentence!

Barry Bonds deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, 

Correct.

and he shall be elected to the Hall of Fame.

Maybe, maybe not.

Who makes such a proclamation? 

As to the first part of your sentence, everyone who follows baseball and isn't a wrinkled old puckering asshole.  As to the second part, probably Bonds himself.

Why none other than Bonds himself.

True, he is arrogant.  Fun fact: he is the only arrogant pro athlete who has ever lived, and he should be pilloried for it in the town square.  How dare he request enshrinement after the career he had?  Chass favorite Jim Rice, of course, was guilty of the same thing, but Rice is different, because he's not a CHEATING CHEATER and also he was NOT THAT GOOD AT BASEBALL.

In a typically arrogant and self-serving interview with an MLB.com reporter who has long been a Bonds sycophant, Bonds said:

“I love Major League Baseball. I always have and I loved playing the game. I don’t have any doubts that I’ll get there in time. I’m bothered about it, but I don’t sit here going, ‘I’m not going to make it.’ I don’t see how it stays the way it’s going. In my mind, in my head, I’m a lot more positive about it than I am negative. I think eventually they’ll do the right thing.”

Wow, that's not even that arrogant.  That's more like "I like the idea of being in the HOF, so I picture myself being there, and I think voters will eventually elect me."  Old age has perhaps mellowed Barry's sociopathic ways.

And he said:

“I deserve to be there. Clemens deserves to be there. The guys that are supposed to be there are supposed to be there. Period. I don’t even know how to say it. We are Hall of Famers. Why are we having these conversations about it? Why are we talking about a baseball era that has come and gone?

OK, that's a lot more arrogant.  Barry needs some PR help.  Still, he's conservatively one of the twenty best hitters ever (if you take his career from start to 1999, when he allegedly started juicing--that's a mere 445 HR, 460 SB, a 163 OPS+, and 103 WAR--and then discount the numbers he put up from 2000 to 2007 against what you'd expect a non-user with his history to do during that period of his career).  So let's go ahead and put him in the Hall.  I probably hate Clemens even more than I hate Bonds, but he's conservatively one of the 20 best pitchers ever, so fuck it, let's put him in too.  Doesn't seem too complicated to me.

“Era, era, era. Do the best players in the game deserve to be in the Hall of Fame? Yes. Everything that everyone has accomplished in baseball is in that book. Correct? So if that’s correct, then we need to be in there. End of story.”

Well, that's less arrogant than brutally realistic.  I can get with that.  Not a bad look on Barry.  Maybe he hired that PR person I was just talking about in between quotes.

Bonds referred to the baseball record book, not the excellent 2006 book “Game of Shadows” that tells you all you need to know about Bonds and performance-enhancing drugs.

Pictured: Murray Chass

But Bonds indeed is in the record book – for having hit the most home runs in a single season (73) and for having hit the most home runs in a career (762). He is there, on page 19 of The Elias Book of Baseball Records, because Major League Baseball has not amended his achievements.

Because doing so would be insultingly stupid to any baseball fan or player with a brain.  You know the reasons why.  I don't need to list them.  If I were to pick my favorite, it would probably be "And what do we do with guys who used amphetamines in the 70s and beyond?  Or the guys who used coke in the 80s and beyond?  What do we do with guys who aren't so easily proven to have used steroids?  What, Murray?  WHAT WHAT WHAT NOW GO LIVE IN THE MOUNTAINS SOMEWHERE AND DON'T BOTHER PEOPLE ANYMORE."

Seymour Siwoff, decades-long head of Elias Sports Bureau, explained why Bonds is there.

"God dammit, is that you again, Chass?  Stop calling me.    No, I know it's not Bud Selig.  I know it's you.  Stop."

“He wasn’t accused of anything,” Siwoff said in a telephone interview Saturday, then referring specifically to the 73 home runs Bonds hit in 2001 added, “When he did it, he wasn’t guilty of anything we knew of so he was put in. It was the record. I couldn’t dispute it.”

In retrospect, Siwoff said, “We know it’s a fraud. He never hit more than 49 home runs and he suddenly hits 73.”

As if the 73 is the only argument he has for enshrinement.

As for Bonds’ linking the record book and the Hall of Fame, Siwoff said, “The book has no bearing on the Hall of Fame.”

That's a good point (from a guy who doesn't seem to like Bonds), one that Chass immediately drops, because Chass is a shitty writer and a shittier logician.

Bonds is not in the Hall of Fame because in the two years he has been on the ballot, the voters – members of the Baseball Writers Association – 

A group as known for its intellectual prowess as professional athletes themselves--

have rejected his achievements, believing they were chemically aided.

Voting individually but collectively coming to the same conclusion, they have done that because they believe Bonds achieved his record numbers with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs.

They have also come to many other conclusions, like the idea that Jim Rice was a HOFer and Alan Trammell was not.  So.  Yeah.

[bunch of garbage about how Bonds and Sosa were totally using steroids skipped]

Like Bonds, Sosa eluded detection, but is any more circumstantial evidence needed? Convicts have been executed on less.

Ah, yes, executions: those are definitely something to hang your hat on in terms of "the authorities always get it right."

In an interview a couple of years before the recent one, the same reporter, Barry Bloom, quoted Bonds as saying about the Hall of Fame:

“You have to vote on baseball the way baseball needs to be voted on. If you vote on your assumptions or what you believe or what you think might have been going on there, that’s your problem. You’re at fault. It has nothing to do with what your opinion is. Period.

“If that’s the case, you better go way, way back and start thinking about your opinions. If that’s how you feel life should be run, I would say then you run your Hall of Fame the way you want to run your Hall of Fame. That’s what I think. That’s my personal opinion. If you want to do the Hall of Fame the way the Hall of Fame is supposed to be done, then you make the right decision on that. If you don’t, that’s on you. To stamp something on your assumptions, it doesn’t work for me.”

This article is like 25% quotes from Bonds, showing that he's kind of a jerk, and maybe in denial about the fact that everyone knows he used steroids.  OK, cool story.  It's only been told about 5,000 times in the last ten years.  I know you're a blogger, Chass, but let's start making some point or drawing some conclusions or something.

Bonds, I believe, uttered that mouthful before the voters judged him for the first time. 

You "believe?"  Does the interview have a fucking date on it or doesn't it?  Here, I'll Google.

/Larry B spends ten seconds copying and pasting a couple of those sentences into Google

August 6, 2012, which was before his first appearance on the ballot.  Do some fucking research for your blog, you dumb fucking hack. 

His words did not sway them. With 75 percent of the vote needed for election, Bonds received 36.2 percent, less than half. In his second appearance on the ballot last year, he fared even worse, dropping to 34.7 percent.

All of this is true.  Also true: last year's ballot was astonishingly stacked, and some of the socketfuckers in the BBWA have among their many unwritten HOF ballot rules "Don't vote for more than three guys even though you can vote for up to ten," so he probably lost some votes that way.  I'd be surprised if many voters who voted for or against him solely on his own merits/faults changed their mind between the 2013 and 2014 ballots.

The history of Hall of Fame voting shows that when players of star status appear for the first time, others on the ballot suffer. There’s no sensible logic to that because with 10 spots on the ballot, voters can vote for the super first-timers and still vote for others.

And yet they don't.  Look at this dolt who just revealed his ballot: he didn't vote for Randy Johnson.  Or John Smoltz.  Or Tim Raines.  Or Curt Schilling.  BBWA voters are the stupidest fucking people on earth.  They're stupider than NFL fanboys and fangirls.  Yes, I said it.

However, the ballot presence of Frank Thomas, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine did not affect Bonds. If any of the writers wanted to ignore the PED allegations and put an X next to his name, they would have done it.

Foolproof logic.  WE KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE.  The HOF voting process is broken, and should be fixed, starting with sending Murray Chass on a one way trip to Jupiter.

It is always possible that something could happen that would catapult Bonds into the Hall of Fame, but he shouldn’t hold his breath. The voters generally have demonstrated their unwillingness to elect tainted players, and a huge bloc of them would have to change their stance.

Yeah, definitely no tainted players of any kind in the HOF.  None at all.  If you aren't pure as driven snow, you're out.  Just ask Ty Cobb, Mickey Mantle, etc.

The Hall’s board of directors has made Bonds’ task more difficult with a change in rules of eligibility that also applies to other candidates. Players will no longer be eligible for 15 years; the board has cut that period to 10 years.

That change leaves Bonds with 8 years of eligibility instead of 13, a significantly shorter period in which lightning could strike on Bonds’ behalf.

Give Murray this: he's got subtraction down pat.

The Hall’s board also knows that players already in the Hall object to being joined by players whose credentials includes PEDs. 

Let's send Goose Gossage on that one way trip to Jupiter, too, while we're at it.  Here's what I'd say: ask the guys in the HOF who played with and against Bonds if they want him in there.  Ask Tony Gwynn, Greg Maddux, etc.  See what they have to say.  I'm pretty confident I know how it would turn out.

Some members have gone so far as to say they would boycott induction ceremonies if steroids users are elected.

OH MY!!!!!!  NOT A BOYCOTT OF A CEREMONY!  ANYTHING BUT THAT!  WHAT WILL THE HOTELIERS OF COOPERSTOWN DO!  THINK OF HOW INSULTING TO SAINT DEREK THAT WOULD BE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This far into the candidacy of PED players the Hall of Famers need have no fear of bad guys being elected. The decline in Bonds’ percentage of votes fits the pattern of voting for the most seriously challenged PED candidates. Their percentages have continued to drop, moving farther away from the 75 percent needed.

Yes, McGwire and Sosa and Palmeiro (off the ballot already) haven't fared well.  But here's the thing: add up the career WAR of those three guys--you get 172.0.  Bonds, on his own, had 162.4.  So there you go.

[Summary of the decline experienced by Clemens, McGwire, Sosa and Palmeiro skipped, because this is what we came for coming up next.  This is the good stuff.  This is the meat.]

Three other players on the ballot have resumes that are foggier than these five. 

Do tell--bring on the backne stories!

Jeff Bagwell, Mike Piazza and Craig Biggio have never been linked to steroids by anything other than news media mention, 

And we know how reliable those baseball writers are.  Why, take fringe one day-HOFer Todd Helton, a guy whose career arc couldn't scream much more emphatically "I DIDN'T DO STEROIDS."  Some asshole with a microphone decided to throw him under a bus once.  As a Rockies fan, I won't be furious if he never gets into the Hall (LOL COORZ FEELD), but I will go on a puppy punting spree if any writer dares to say "He was once linked to steroids by the baseball media..."

but in my view more time is needed to learn more about their past practices.

Like fucking what?  What the hell can we learn in the next however many years?  Should we wait for other players to out them?  Should we wait for Doc Brown and Marty McFly to show up and take you back to 1994, so you can see with your own eyes what those guys did in the locker room?

I voted for Bagwell on his first appearance on the ballot, when he received 41.7 percent of the votes. After several people told me that he had been heavily involved in steroids, 

Oh my God.  Kill yourselves, all of you anonymous Murray Chass sources/assholes.

I left him off my ballot the second year. He received 56 percent of the votes that year and climbed to 59.6 percent the next year. But last year he slipped to 54.3 percent, perhaps a victim of the newcomers on the ballot.

BUT BONDS WASN'T.  WE KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE FOR SURE FOR DEFINITELY.

Biggio will almost certainly be elected this time. He was only two votes short of election in the last election and should clear the threshold, even though a reporter friend told me that a dozen or more players told him that Biggio used steroids. 

Another strong killself candidate right there.

When I wrote that, Biggio’s fans were outraged.

Why, it's almost like a guy was having his character assassinated for no reason and people got mad about that!

If it’s not clear by now, I don’t vote for steroids-tainted players. 

Classic blogger self-righteousness.  

If steroids were legal, I’d have no problem with players using them. But they are illegal, and players who use them cheat. I can’t vote for players who cheat at the expense of their fellow players who don’t cheat.

Or for players who were once linked to them by quadruple hearsay, apparently.  Seriously, you "need more time" to figure out if the douchecanoe who told you that about Biggio was right or not?  What's the presumption here?  

/Larry B's head explodes

That brings me to Piazza. Piazza has been on the ballot for two years and avoided the falloff problem in his second year. 

Wait for it

He gained 57.8 percent, then 62.2 percent, an indication that he could be headed for election. 

Wait for it

But I have written about my belief that he was one of the steroids gang.

WAIT FOR IIIIIIIITTTTT

His many fans have excoriated me for my view, but they are blind to what I believe is strong evidence of his use. When he played for the New York Mets, he didn’t hide his acne-covered back. 

/game show sirens and buzzers and bells

/confetti falls from ceiling

/crowd cheers wildly

Steroids experts say that Piazza’s condition is one of the signs of steroids use.

I am happy to have the relative anonymity of the internet to tell everyone reading this two things that are absolutely true: 1) I have never used steroids, and 2) I have a medium amount of acne on my back.  Draw what conclusions you will.  You're welcome for the visual, by the way.

When I first wrote about Piazza’s possible use several years ago, his fans ridiculed me. They completely ignored a critical aspect of what I wrote. Piazza’s back cleared up completely when baseball began testing for steroids and remained clear to his retirement. It was not a stretch to conclude that Piazza had stopped using steroids to avoid being caught by a urine test.

OK, so, "not a stretch" that your hunch that was based on the flimsiest of anecdotal (and somewhat voyeuristic) evidence was not incorrect is the standard.  You know what?  I heard from a friend's grandpa whose uncle once worked the scoreboard at Shibe Park that Jimmie Foxx used to use pure opium to give himself superpowers.  REMOVE THAT MAN FROM THE HALL, BBWA.  HAVE YOU NO SHAME?????

Also, this next part is fun because it's the end of the article.  This is it.  Just a non-conclusory sentence, a chart, and blogger Murray Chass is done.  Time to go yell at the kids who are playing near his lawn, and then settle down with a nice warm glass of tomato juice.

Percentage of votes in Hall of Fame elections for players who have been linked to steroids use, some more specifically than others:

Murray Chass is a bad person who should be fired from his job as a blogger.  That is all.

Some jackass wrote a puff piece about Simmons for Rolling Stone, and it's horrible (part 3)

First of all, I meant to include this in the initial post in this series but forgot.  Check out the photo accompanying this piece, which presumably took up a full page in the print edition of Rolling Stone.  Look at it.  It's magnificent.  HE'S SO EDGY.  Nothing says "Authority on Sports" like an awkward dad wearing a douchey LA outfit about to throw a basketball at you.



This is your favorite "sports" columnist, America.  Good job.  You assholes.

In his columns, Simmons embodies the precise average of American maleness: He loves sports, 

Fine.

movies, 

Women love movies too.

fantasy baseball 

Much as I enjoy it, fantasy baseball is not that popular.  

and hot actresses, and is not unfamiliar with porn. 

YEAH!  THAT'S TOTALLY ME!  OMG I SHOULD WRITE HIM A LETTER AND TELL HIM AND MAYBE I'LL GET PUBLISHED IN THE MAILBAG!  YEAH TITS HIGH FIVE BRO

"I don't have a shitload of hobbies," he says. "I'm not very complicated."

You don't say.

Once a year, he goes to Vegas with several friends — 

 But why????  Tell us, Rob Tannenbaum!  Why would anyone go to Vegas?  It's hot there!

to gamble. 

No fucking way.

This is so shitty.  Why is this an article?  Even for Rolling Stone, this sucks.  Would it have been "controversial" if he went there to visit strip clubs?  More importantly, does anyone give a flying fuck why this simpleton goes on vacation?  He could be going to Vegas to check out its public library.  Who cares?  Is any of this relevant?

"He's much more interested in playing cards than in seeing naked girls," Jimmy Kimmel says, with a tone of disdain. 

OK?  I guess Kimmel is razzing him?  Is this relevant?  Come to think of it, it might be relevant, because if he's as bad at cards as he is at picking NFL games, man, he's going to have some financial problems.  

On his podcast, Simmons often talks about betting on games — up to $1,000 on individual games, or $2,000 on futures bets, he tells me. "I love gambling. I wish it was legal. But I never bet a lot, even in Vegas. Unless I'm really drunk."

HIGH FIVE AGAIN BRO!  REMEMBER THAT TIME YOU WERE SO BOMBED????  Bill Simmons is a 17 year old boy who somehow makes 7 figures a year.

He won't say whether or not he has a bookie in L.A., which means he likely does. 

SPICY!  SALACIOUS!  Who is reading this and going "Wow, I gotta keep going.  There might be something EVEN BETTER further down the page!"

And if he offers you a bet, you should probably take it — last football season, he won only 108 out of 256 picks against the spread in his column. "It was kind of a bummer," he says, though he points out that in 2006, he had his wife Kari make her own football picks in his column. "And she beat me. So if I had credibility after that gimmick, it was an accident." 

Another surprising display of self awareness.  Fair enough.  Although I suspect he is only saying this because he feels he has to, and still is 100% confident in most picks he makes.  THAT SPREAD IS WAY TOO HIGH.  THANKS FOR THE FREE TWO POINTS, VEGAS.  /team Bill didn't bet on beats spread by two touchdowns

(Kari was also at least as funny as her husband. 

Not a chance.

She said Lindsay Lohan would "look like a leather purse in 25 years no matter how much Proactiv she takes," and theorized that Katie Holmes "had her ankles removed" so she'd be the same height at Tom Cruise.)

Watch out, Joan Rivers!  Someone's coming for your "queen of celebrity bashing" crown!  Actually, now that I re-read the first part of that parenthetical, I totally agree.  Bill's wife IS about as funny as he is.

Simmons will always be associated with New England — he might love Tom Brady and Larry Bird as much as he loves his wife and two kids — but he's unsentimental about his roots. 

Wrong.  I can't wait to see how he spins this one.

"I don't think you could get him to go back to Boston at gunpoint," Kimmel says. 

If he could maintain his current role at ESPN while doing that (which of course would be impossible if he wanted to stay on NBA Countdown and he obviously does), I'm sure he'd do it in a second.  TOO MANY LAKER FLAGS ON CARS.  GOD THOSE FANS ARE JUST INSUFFERABLE.  FACK YOUUUU!

Simmons is credited as an Internet visionary, but he went into new media only because old media rejected him. 

That is completely correct.  While this article does suck, I like that it's being honest about Bill imperfections.  It's not that in 1990whatever he was like "I know exactly what the internet will be in 2014, so I'm getting on the train early."  It's that he's a bad writer and allegedly insufferable to work with, so he couldn't get an old media job.  Just because he stumbled ass-backwards into success by being good at making pop culture references appreciated by people as dumb as him (and I was that kind of person until 2004 or 2005, I admit, but I was also a lot younger and dumber then) doesn't mean we need to pretend like he invented the idea of blogging about sports.

"Boston," he says, "is where I failed."

Well, Los Angeles is where you continue to fail, but yeah, I get what you're saying.

He began his career as a lackey at the Boston Herald, the lesser of the city's two daily papers, "organizing Chinese-food orders" and covering high school teams. 

His co-workers could never understand what he was saying due to the huge silver spoon in his mouth.  I wonder how many other "applicants" he beat out to get that job?

He stood outside the Herald building on the Mass Turnpike, smoking cigarettes and "wondering what the fuck I was gonna do with my life."

Bill Simmons is, and always was, a boring clod.

Except for the addition of tall buildings, Boston hasn't changed since Paul Revere bought a horse. 

Still as racist as ever!

TV anchors and newspaper columnists keep their jobs for decades, and at the Herald, "mediocre writers were blocking my way," Simmons later wrote. 

Just as they should block the way of any sub-mediocre writer.  You know, I hate that all those guys who play minor league baseball are blocking the way and preventing me from playing major league baseball.  They've got a lot of nerve!

"I didn't do myself any favors," he adds now. "I was probably too arrogant, 

NO WAY I DON'T BELIEVE IT NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT

and could barely hide my disdain for some of the writers." After three years, "frustrated to the point of insanity," he quit and worked as a bartender. At 24, he began smoking pot, 

MORE SCANDAL.  I BET HE HAD A BOOKIE TOO.

and soon owned a four-foot purple bong. (In L.A., he discovered West Coast weed was way more potent, and one night, ended up "hiding behind the curtains in my living room for 40 minutes because I thought somebody was watching us. After that, I phased back big time.") 

BUT DOES HE LIKE STRIPPERS?????

He considered going into commercial real estate 

Dear sweet baby Jesus, can you imagining negotiating a contract with this guy?  My head hurts just from typing that sentence.

with his stepdad before he came across a new website, AOL, where even a Herald reject could write.

What if he had somehow caught on and stayed there, rather than moving to ESPN?  Would ESPN still be as cool as it was in the 90s, with AOL's sports wing filling ESPN's current role of "purveyor of incredibly shitty and celebrity-obsessed sports content?"  I guess it all depends on who gets bought by Disney in this hypothetical world.  Fuck Disney.

He wrote with a fan's dismay and delight, rejecting the idea of being objective (a Boston partisan, he openly despises the L.A. Lakers and any team from New York), 

Here are all the teams from New York he can name:

1) YANKEES!  FACK THE YANKEES IN SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER!

2) Knicks (but really, why hate them, they're not really worth hating)

3) Nets INSERT MIKHAIL PROKHOROV/YAKOV SMIRNOV JOKE HERE

4) They might have another baseball team, but I don't follow the minor leagues

5) /Bill eats paste

and attacking local sportswriters by name. No team would give him a press pass, so while newspaper guys padded short articles with boring quotes from athletes, Simmons distinguished himself by mixing in references to bands and movies (especially Shawshank Redemption and Karate Kid), 

Thank goodness.  Someone who really had their finger on the pulse of America's tastes.

and by writing long: "85,000-word essays about Rocky IV," Kimmel jokes.

OK, I will back off a little and admit that I like Rocky IV.  Non-ironically.

Simmons' early work had flaws — bitterness, cheap cracks about the manliness of female athletes, praise for the Counting Crows — 

Please delete the word "early" from that sentence and change "had" to "will always have"

but it was also funny, fresh, expansive, and even sentimental, especially when he wrote adoringly about his dad and their sports bond. 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

That's the secret element of Simmons' success: He's the most emo sportswriter around. 

I wouldn't call it a secret.  I'd call it an unfortunate and insufferable reality.

He once penned a 3,000-word column describing how his dog Daisy died of lymphoma. It's the Fall Out Boy of sports columns.

In that it's terrible and no one should pay attention to it?  Gotcha.

In 2000, when ESPN launched Page 2, a site that mixed sports, pop culture and humor, Simmons waited for his phone to ring. "That was probably the lowest I sunk, when ESPN didn't hire me for Page 2," he says. 

What an entitled little shithead.

He was in his early thirties, still borrowing money from his parents. 

But those mean people at the Boston Herald were mean and didn't let me write whatever I wanted to write!  It wasn't fair!  I didn't want that stupid really hard to get job anyways!

A few months after the launch, he wrote a column mocking ESPN's annual awards show, and his taunts got noticed. "I was on the floor laughing," recalls ESPN's John A. Walsh. 

John Walsh is a fucking dummy.  He certainly comes off as such in Those Guys Have All the Fun.

Soon, Simmons had his first ESPN assignment. If there's a moral, it's this: Bite the hand you cannot kiss.
I'd say the obvious "moral," if you're going to give the story of Simmons's success that much gravitas, is to appeal to stupid people.  There's a lot of them and they're easy to please.  His rise to power at ESPN is idiocracy in corporate media form.  I'll give him this, though--he's probably less of a shithead than Mariotti.

I'll wrap this up later.

This Jeter post goes out to all the STATS NERDS and HATERS out there

Hey!  I'm both!  Now let me warn you up front: use caution, everyone.  These takes are piping hot.  Salon's Allen Barra (who has also covered sports for the Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal; Greggggggggg approves) is here to drop some knowledge about the same topic covered in my last post: unanimity, and how stats nerds and haters need to get on board with the whole "Jeter deserves it" thing.

Shut up, stats nerds and haters: You’re wrong about Derek Jeter

Trollolololololololololololol.  Gotta hand it to him--if you want angry clicks, you need a good catchy headline.  And I know that most writers don't craft their own, but this one is so delightful that I'd suspect it was penned by Barra.  And if it wasn't, this post is dedicated to the editor who did write it, because that headline fucking rules.

Inflated steroids-era numbers might not show it, but the Yankees shortshop deserves to be a unanimous Hall of Famer

1) If you want to make the case that Jeter is the mostest bestest player evar, maybe don't call attention to the offense-friendly era that he played in.  Or if you do, make it clear that you think his numbers should be considered that much more impressive because of it, not that it is somehow dragging his numbers down.
2) I like that we're getting right to the good stuff up front: Jeter should be a unanimous HOFer, but not because of his numbers.  No no no.  Because of leadership.  And winning.  And of course, class.  Classy class class class.  Fuck class.  Identifying athletes other than those with Roberto Clemente-like track records of being a good person as "classy" is stupider than debating a player's level of "eliteness."  (Note: I don't think Barra uses the word "class" anywhere in this article.  But you fucking well know he's thinking it.)

To my knowledge, what the Baseball Hall of Fame did yesterday was unique: It tweeted the date for an induction ceremony for a still active player to be welcomed into Cooperstown. 

How long has the HOF had a Twitter account?  It's really not that interesting or impressive.  And I know I'm being nit picky and semanticy, so as to the more generic point that the HOF probably has very rarely announced the induction date for an active player via any medium, there are two obvious responses: 1) this is just another outcome of the attention-seeking behavior exhibited by the kind of player who announces his retirement before his final season starts, and 2) the cult of Jeter ballwashers creates outcomes like this, not the other way around.  If the baseball media world weren't full of 60 year old men who write Jeter at least two or three love letters per year, the HOF would not feel compelled to do this.

The date, if you want to make your reservations now, 

I do, so I can show up and boo him.

is July 26, 2020. (A player must be retired for five years before he goes on the ballot.) And if I were you, I wouldn’t wait.

"Hello, is this the Best Western in Cooperstown?  Yes, I'd like to make a reservation for July 26, 2020.  What?  Oh, OK.  I'll call back in late 2019 then.  Sorry for wasting your time."

Not only will Derek Jeter be a first ballot selection, he may well be what Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron weren’t – a unanimous choice. 

"May well" is about as correctly used in that sentence as it is in this one: "The United States government may well have carried out the 9/11 attacks."

If that happens, and I think there’s a very good chance that it will, 

I'm not sure whether to think of this as total delusion, or a clever sales pitch for something he knows is really really unlikely to happen, but slightly more likely if he can build some momentum for it.  The former is more fun, the latter is more pathetic.

it’s bound to stir up even more resentment toward Jeter than we’re seeing in the blizzard of stories that have already appeared since he announced Wednesday that 2014 would be his last year.

Either Barra reads this blog, or he's making a hilarious attempt to manufacture resentment towards this generation's most sportswriter-beloved athlete.  If any baseball writer did anything other than wash Jeter's balls in the aftermath of his announcement, I sure didn't see it.

If one had to synthesize most of the recent Jeter coverage under one headline, it would be: Is Derek Jeter a True Hall of Famer or Is He Overrated?

No, it would not.  It simply would not.  That discussion, which only takes place as an Around the Horn-ish lashback because of fucktards like Allen Barra who won't stop telling us about how Jeter cured polio and smallpox and invented the wheel, has made up about 2% of the Jeter discussion at any given point during the last ten years.  The other 98% has been garbage like this article.

Let’s deal with the first question. There isn’t any doubt that he is going to get into the Hall of Fame. Only nine players in the history of baseball have more hits than Jeter. He’s a 13-time All-Star with five World Series rings. And he’s tremendously popular. 

BUT HE HAS SO MANY HATERZ!  ALL THE MEDIA TRIES TO DO IS TEAR THE POOR GUY DOWN!  LET'S TAKE A MUCH NEEDED MINUTE TO ACKNOWLEDGE HIS GREATNESS, PLEASE!

If you put down a deposit on a hotel room in Cooperstown for July 2020, it’s good as gold.

Why are you still talking about hotel rooms?

Those who have cast doubts about his HOF worthiness have always stressed the lack of bold numbers on his statistics page on BaseballReference.com. 

Ah, those who have cast doubts on the HOF worthiness of one of the most obvious HOFers of the past ten years.  All of those people.  Who you always read about in the, uh, well, usually they make their opinions known in, uh... yeah, they're out there.  They are definitely out there.

What a fantastic straw man this is.  How dare all these multitudes of people say Jeter isn't an HOFer!  What are they, blind?

In other words, he never led the league in many offensive categories. This is true. He only led the league in runs scored in 1998 and in hits in 1999 and 2012, and HOFers have usually topped the list in more stats than that.

See, this is where you bring up the steroid era, if you're desperately trying to pump Jeter's tires.  Somehow he misses the opportunity.

He was never quite a match for the top superstars of his era. Or as Ted Berg put it in USA Today (in a piece titled “Derek Jeter is the most fervently overrated shoo-in for the Hall of Fame”), “In terms of overall value to his teams, Jeter just doesn’t stack up to recent historic greats like Albert Pujols and Barry Bonds, and can’t quite match great contemporaries like Chipper Jones and Jeff Bagwell either.”

As to Bonds, Pujols and Jones, he is right.  As to Bagwell he is stretching it.  Also, here is the very first sentence of Berg's piece:

"Derek Jeter is a bona fide, first-ballot Hall of Famer."

So, yeah.  The guy that Barra has cast as excessively critical of Jeter happens to hold the same opinion that I do: Jeter goes in on the first ballot, and should.  Funny that.  It's almost like people who take shots at Jeter don't think Jeter sucks.  They're just sick of the Barras of the world and are trying to introduce a little reason and objectivity to the discussion.  How dare they.

This is also true, but not to the point. Jeter is a greater player than a Yankee shortstop of the 1940s and early 1950s, Phil Rizzuto, who is in the Hall of Fame. 

Rizzuto was elected by the Veterans Committee almost forty years after he retired.  He is also one of the worst players in the HOF.  If he played for literally any team other than the Yankees, he would have been forgotten about decades ago (putting aside his name's appearance in "Billy Madison").

Nobody said Rizzuto should not be inducted because “He doesn’t quite stack up with Ted Williams and Stan Musial.” 

No, but hopefully, when he was up for election by the writers, they said he should not be inducted because "He doesn't have the counting stats, doesn't have the rate stats, and frankly just wasn't all that great at baseball."

Like Rizzuto, Jeter is a shortstop, and shortstops (and second basemen and catchers) aren’t expected to put up the same numbers as slugging outfielders or first basemen because their position is so much more difficult to play.

Jeter's offensive numbers are the whole reason he's going in.  He's such a better hitter than Rizzuto was that it's hard to describe the gap between them without hyperbole.  Rizzuto had an OPS+ over 100 just three times in his career.  Jeter's has only been under 100 three times.  Even if Rizzuto hadn't missed three seasons serving in World War II, he probably would have just barely cleared 2000 hits.  Saying "Rizzuto deserves to be in because shortstops aren't held to the same offensive standards as other players" is missing the point by ten thousand miles.

For that matter, of the 23 shortstops in the Hall of Fame, Jeter is probably more worthy than all but three or four – Honus Wagner, for sure, probably Arky Vaughan, maybe Cal Ripken and Ernie Banks (who is officially listed as a first baseman, though he won back-to-back MVPs at shortstop).

Ripken and Banks are much better players than Jeter.  Robin Yount belongs on the "probably" list if we're going to count guys like Banks who spent ~50% of their career at SS, as do Luke Appling and Ozzie Smith.  Alan Trammel is about equally worthy as Jeter, but forgot to play for the Yankees, so he may never even make the HOF.

Not that Jeter was great at shortstop. 

He suuuuure wasn't.

I don’t trust any of the supposedly scientific measures of fielding ability, 

That is wise, defensive metrics are pretty suspect, but let's see if you can show any basic knowledge of what makes a good baseball player in explaining whatever it is you're about to explain.

but here are two that surely have some measure of validity: Jeter’s career fielding percentage, 

Your grade for knowledge of what makes a good baseball player came in.  F-minus.

going into the 2014 season, is .976, compared to the average for players at this position over the same period has been .972. 

Savvy move by Jeter to let all those hundreds of grounders that a non-shitty SS would have fielded and perhaps then made an error on trickle past his sort of outstretched glove over the years.

His range in the field has been four chances per nine innings while other shortstops over the same span averaged 4.5. 

That's a good metric, but you sadly haven't processed how colossal that gap is.  First note: that's all other shortstops, not HOF-worth shortstops.  Ripken's RF/9 was 4.7.  The Brewers moved Yount off of SS as he entered his 30s, but while he was there his RF/9 was 5.1.  Banks was at 5.0.  Ozzie Smith's was 5.2 (yes, he's the greatest defensive SS of all time so not the most fair comparison, but I'm going for context here geez lighten up).  Second note: let's see, a difference between Jeter and an average shortstop of 0.5 chances per 9 means roughly one per two games or roughly... let's see here... fucking EIGHTYISH per season.  That's horrendous.  The average SS during the mid 90s through today makes somewhere between 70 and 80 (depending on games played) more outs per year than Jeter.  That's a huge deal.  What conclusion can we draw from that horrible number and his mediocre fielding percentage (while ignoring that fielding percentage is a nearly worthless stat).

I’d say that on the whole this indicates that Jeter was an average fielding shortstop, 

/Price is Right loser horn

perhaps a tad below average. 

He's a ghastly shortstop.  Has been pretty much his entire career.  Has no range.  Has a mediocre arm.  Good thing he kept his spot at the most important defensive position on the field when the Yankees traded for Fish Fillet-Rod (4.62 RF/9 as a SS, .977 fielding percentage).  That's leadership.

But he hit and ran the bases well enough for the Yankees to keep him there 

In spite of themselves, because they knew he'd throw a shit fit if they asked him to move to LF or somewhere else where he wouldn't hurt his team so much.

regardless of his defensive deficiencies.

Yeah, potato, poh-tah-toe.

In any event, he isn’t going into the Hall of Fame because of his fielding – he’s going in because of his hitting and base running.

Truest sentence in this whole article.  I couldn't agree more.  Unfortunately, his excellent offense and very bad defense combine to make him just a regular great player, not a "This guy deserves an honor that Ruth, Aaron, etc. didn't get" player.

Let’s save time and compare Jeter to a hitter who everyone acknowledges as a legitimate Hall of Famer – or at least they would if Pete Rose hadn’t tarted betting on baseball games.

This should be good.

Jeter’s career batting average is .312 to Rose’s .303, and even if Derek played another five seasons to match Pete’s 24 years, and his skills declined over that time as Rose’s did late in his career, Jeter would still end up with a higher batting average.

You know what, I'd like to give you the benefit of the doubt on that because the next few things you're about to say are so much dumber, but I'm not even sure if that's true.  Jeter's high batting average has always been bolstered by his ability to rack up infield hits.  I'm not saying that pejoratively, like "HAW HAW HE SUX CAN'T EVEN HIT BALL OUT OF INFIELD," I'm just stating it as a fact.  And it's a fact that matters, because if he played five more seasons, he wouldn't just lose batspeed.  He'd lose a lot of foot speed.  If he played five more seasons, I could see him perhaps getting to 4000 hits, if he stayed perfectly healthy, but I could also see his batting average dropping at least ten points during that time.  And losing ten points even if you're a player who doesn't rely on infield hits isn't that hard to do.  Frank Thomas lost seven points off his career average in his last five seasons.  Barry Larkin lost five.  Craig Biggio (who I'm using because holy smokes, he'd better get elected next year) lost seven.  And those guys were playing in their late 30s, not their early 40s.  But enough of this sort of dumb stuff.  Let's get to the REALLY dumb stuff.

Jeter has a higher on-base percentage than Rose, .381 to .375, 

Adjusted for park and era, Rose was better.

and had a considerably better slugging percentage, .446 to .409.

Adjusted for park and era, Jeter was just a little better.  Rose has the overall OPS+ advantage, 118 to 117.

When you combine these two numbers into the stat beloved by so many analysts, 

In 1998.

on-base plus slugging, Jeter has an even bigger edge, .828 to .784.

Repeat my point from above.

He has been a better power hitter than Rose with 256 home runs, 90 more than the Hit King, in around 3,600 fewer at-bats. And Derek is a far better base runner and stealer, 348 of 448 bases for a success rate of nearly 79 percent, while Pete was a base-stealing liability with 189 steals in 347 attempts for just 54.5 percent. And, if you want to throw in fielding, whatever shortcomings Jeter has had with a glove, he was better than Rose, who was never more than adequate at any of the several positions he played.

This is all idiotic for oh so many reasons, but let's throw Gamblin' Pete a bone here: early in his career, he was a better 2B than Jeter is a SS.  And he actually got pretty good in the outfield for a brief period in his early 30s.  He played 30,000 innings and racked up -14 dWAR, but had the disadvantage of switching positions several times during his career; Jeter has played 22,000 at the same position and has racked up -9 dWAR.  It's basically a push, unless you want to give negative points for players who have undeserved Gold Gloves, in which case Rose collects more negative points than Jeter.  But whatever.

But has Jeter been overrated by fans and an adoring press? 

Best non-rhetorical rhetorical question ever.

If you check my Wikipedia page – and I’m not advising you to since just about everything on it is wrong – you’ll find reference to a Deadspin story back in 2009 titled “Jesus Is the Derek Jeter of Christianity.” The author (unnamed) says that I “think Derek Jeter should win the MVP despite the pesky fact that Joe Mauer is a better candidate …”

Here's the Deadspin piece, written by one of those other FJM guys (who was unnamed then, but I believe has since revealed himself--notice Barra's not too subtle dig at this UNNAMED internet cretin trying to point out that Barra knows exactly jack shit about baseball).  Barra's argument basically comes down to "Well, Mauer has played better this year, but Jeter is Jeter winning leadership calm eyes."

Five years after the fact is probably a little late to say this, but lighten up, Deadspin. I never said Joe Mauer was a better MVP candidate than Jeter. 

Actually you sort of did, and if you didn't, you should have.

What I said was that most of Mauer’s statistics 

All of Mauer's statistics other than R and SB, and certainly all of the statistics that mean the most; specifically OBP and SLG.

were better and that “the case for Mr. Jeter” – the Wall Street Journal makes you refer to men who are living as “Mr.” – “as American League MVP is made by more subjective arguments.”

This is what I referred to way back at the beginning of the post.  Here it comes.  CLASS (or other words that mean class).

Come on, are you going to tell me that Derek Jeter wasn’t a great teammate and that he didn’t contribute to his team in ways that don’t necessarily show up in a box score? Except maybe in the “win” category?

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

After all, the Yankees did win the American League pennant and the World Series that year.

With Jeter starting at every position and even pitching to himself, like Bugs Bunny!

And really, why would Jeter need special arguments to be an MVP in a year when he hit .334 with 18 home runs, 212 hits, 107 runs scored, 30 stolen bases and an OBA of .406?

Because Mauer's numbers were significantly better in all (well, both) of those statistics that are actually very meaningful?

Have some of us overrated him a bit? A bit, maybe, 

Don't admit it!  It's a slippery slope from here to asking if he belongs in the HOF at all!  Allen, nooooo!

but we’ll happily bear that cross. See you in Cooperstown in 2020.

But I don't have a hotel room!  Can I sleep on the floor of yours?

This is a repeat of what happened in that last article I posted about.  So I'll post the awesome comment left there by an Anonymous: "I'll admit it. When I started reading that article, I thought there was no way Jeter deserved a unanimous vote. But he convinced me. Jeter does deserve to be a first ballot HOFer."  That's pretty fucking good.

If you know Allen Barra, do me a favor and let him know he's a fucking idiot. 

The Phillies Will Pay Ryan Howard $25 MM Per Year During His Age 34, 35, and 36 Seasons

(Apologies to the three of you who read this shitty blog via RSS feed. This is a repost, because some of the HTML in the old version of the post got messed up when I tried to edit something. Since I know nothing about HTML, I figured the best solution was to burn the whole thing to the ground and start over. ANYWAYS- the Phillies will Howard an awful lot of money when he's 34, 35, and 36, and....)

That's kind of dumb. It's roughly what A-Rod (by which I mean PAY-Rod, GAY-Rod, A-ROID, and FISH FILLET-Rod) is making at that age, but 1) A-Rod is the better player 2) A-Rod plays a more valuable position 3) A-Rod keeps himself in peak physical condition and 4) the Phillies aren't the Yankees. With slight modifications, similar arguments apply to the massive contracts currently held by Mark Teixeira (also a 1B, obviously) and Matt Holliday (not a Yankee, obviously). Except for Alfonso Soriano, who holds the worst contract in baseball right now- yes that's right I went out on a limb and said it- no other hitter in the game holds a contract that will pay them that kind of money at that age (Miguel Cabrera and Joe Mauer will be younger during the tail end of the deals they recently signed). It's simply way too much to invest in an aging 1st baseman. Jon Heyman- your poorly formulated thoughts?

Howard's contributions can be overlooked at times because of the overwhelming presence of Pujols, who's clearly the best player in the National League,

Look, I'm pretty sure Ryan Howard is neither overrated nor underrated but properly rated. If anyone's overlooking his contributions, which I don't think anyone in the national media is, it's not because of Pujols. It's because Howard isn't even the most valuable hitter on his own team.

and also because Howard is only part of a fabulous nucleus in Philly that includes Jimmy Rollins, Chase Utley and Jayson Werth.

Unlike Howard, Jimmy Rollins might be the most overrated player in all of baseball right now. If I hear one more announcer or talking head start blabbing about what a SPARKPLUG Rollins is, or how he's Philly's EMOTIONAL LEADER, I'm going to be sick. He's a leadoff hitter with a career .330 OBP. His power is overrated (career best HR totals: 30, 25, 21, 14, 14, 12), his defense is overrated, everything about him is overrated. Wait- what were we talking about again? Oh yeah. So throw Rollins out of that group. But Utley is by far more valuable than Howard, and if Werth backs up his strong 2009 with a strong 2010, you could make an argument that he's more valuable too. So that's just one reason you might not want to pay Ryan Howard $25 MM during his age 36 season; even now, he's not the most valuable hitter on your team.

Howard does have a few negatives, such as his high strikeout totals (an average of 189 the past four seasons),

Kind of a big deal, especially when you're hitting cleanup.

his weakness against left-handed pitchers (last year his OPS was 1.088 vs. right-handers vs .653 vs. lefties),

Definitely a big deal.

his age (30) and the possibility he'll decline during the contract as he gets older.

Oh, the "possibility?" You think he might not hit as well at age 36 as he did at ages 25, 30, or even 32? A bold prediction, Jon. You truly have the wisdom of King Solomon.

But the belief among skeptics of the deal that this was an obvious overpay isn't reflected one bit among baseball people.

Isn't reflected among stupid baseball people.

In fact, a few inside the game remarked that the package was strong though not unreasonably so and one actually opined that it was light.

That guy probably works for another NL East team, and was being sarcastic.

I agree with the prominent competing agent who said, "The $25 million AAV (average annual value) reflects fair market value.''

Oh wow, can you believe it? An agent (who probably represents Adrian Gonzalez, or Pujols, or Prince Fielder) thinks this was a fair deal! COLOR ME SHOCKED. I can't believe it. If you want to evaluate the reasonableness of a contract that will pay a fat first baseman $25 MM when he's 36, that's who you should go to for objectivity- an agent. Well done, Jon. And look, it really doesn't reflect market value. Take Yankees out of the picture, and the contract is one of a kind. Cabrera isn't locked up at that age via his deal. Mauer is, but he's a catcher for the time being. Todd Helton is just now finishing up a contract that certainly paid him too much at those ages, but that was signed in 2001 when money was a little looser. The Rockies (and any team not called the Yankees) won't soon be offering that kind of deal again. The best bet for a current comp to Howard's deal is Holliday's, but it's for less money and at least he plays in the OF (and plays it pretty well). There really isn't a market for fat non-Yankee 34, 35 and 36 year old first basemen. This deal just set it.

As boring as it sounds, it was a good deal for both sides.

Well, it's definitely a good deal for Howard.

There are those suggesting Howard won't be the player at the end of the deal, when he'll be 36, that he is now, and that isn't an unreasonable prediction.

Actually, those people are exactly right unless Howard takes steroids and turns into Barry Bonds. Also- nice sentence, asshole.

But A-Rod, for example, will be 42 when his contract will be up,

I already addressed this. Better player. Different position. More likely to age well. Most importantly, money coming from Yankee coffers.

and besides, that guess can be made about many long-term deals. One GM said five years isn't outrageous at all and actually praised Howard for not being greedy and insisting on seven or eight.

Look, Howard could have done that. And the smart thing for the Phillies to do (and what they should have done here) would be to tell Howard to pound sand. Some other idiot team can overpay him when he hits the FA market after next season. That's the dumbest part about this whole thing, really- the Phillies overpaid Howard a full 18 months before he would have hit free agency. Do they understand what leverage is? You overpay someone when you absolutely need them signed right then. You do not overpay someone when you're already in control of their services for their next 1200 at bats.

That Howard received $2 million more than Teixeira also seems about right under the circumstances.

It doesn't.

Teixeira has a more diverse set of skills,

He's a switch hitter. He hits for both average and power. He plays great defense. All reasons he's more valuable.

is slightly younger and signed in New York as a free agent, but he couldn't make a case that he has the same offensive impact as Howard, a classic slugger.

Yes, Howard piles up the HRs and RBIs better than Teixeira does. That certainly makes him a better fantasy player, but I don't think it speaks to his actual value very well considering his home park. Yankee Stadium may have a short RF porch, but Citizens Bank Park is a fucking joke from foul pole to foul pole. I hope that place burns to the ground tonight. Omar Vizquel could hit 15 HRs this season if he were to start for the Phillies. But there's no way that could happen, because the Phillies already have the best SPARKPLUG OF AN EMOTIONAL LEADER in the game at shortstop.

But here are a few more reasons Howard is worth this investment:

1) He's showed his value by finishing first, fifth, second and third in MVP voting the last four years.

Haha, this is great. Let's see- dipshit MVP voters like Jon Heyman have given Howard a lot of MVP votes. Therefore, dipshit writers like Jon Heyman can cite those votes as a reason to pay Howard $25 MM a season when he's 34, 35, and 36. What a nifty, convenient system.

There is a group of numbers people who think these finishes don't count, but there is no reason to think Howard was vastly overvalued in the voting.

No one thinks Howard is a bad player. No one thinks he isn't one of the best power hitters in MLB. And pretty much no one except Cardinals fans wouldn't want to have Howard on their team. But not at that price, at that age.

2) He also has averaged 49.5 home runs and 143 RBIs over the past four years, far more than anyone else.

OK, again, time for some perspective. He's a great hitter and produces a lot of runs. He's just not worth that amount of money at that age. Also- Phillies lineup + Citizens Bank Park + batting behind Utley = tons of RBIs. But I'm not significantly more impressed with his 143 average than with, say, Lance Berkman's average of 106 over the same span.

Everyone agrees that home runs are an important stat, but to those who believe RBIs are only a reflection of one's teammates, and thus pure luck, here are the top five RBI leaders since 1900: Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Barry Bonds, Lou Gehrig and Stan Musial. Five very lucky fellows.

Whoa! Watch out for that straw man! Better tear it down and burn it- make sure it can't hurt anyone. Give me a fucking break. No one with a brain says RBIs are "pure luck." We don't need to get into this. It's like when Joe Morgan waxes poetic about how no one respects stolen bases anymore. Plenty of people respect them- they're just not foolishly overvalued like they used to be.

3) It isn't unreasonable to suggest Howard might decline during his extension.

This is a separate thought, and doesn't belong on a list of reasons Howard is worth what the Phillies will end up paying him.

As a matter of logic, he probably will.

As long as he's not Barry Bonds, he definitely will.

But the evidence isn't strong that he's declining yet, (his 2009 slugging percentage of .571 wasn't significantly different from his .582 career mark), and even if he does suffer a slight drop off, it's from a tremendous height (his 198 home runs over the past four years are 29 more than everyone else).

Right. He's not declining yet. Because he's only 30. This contract doesn't even start until 2012. And it will comically overpay him in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Odds that he's still slugging anything in the neighborhood of .580 then: poor. You know, everyone is saying that the world is going to run out of crude oil at some point, but I went to the gas station yesterday and filled up my car. Therefore: we probably will never run out of crude oil.

Plus, he's shown he's serious about his game and his body. He has lost an estimated 30 pounds and remarkably turned himself into at least an average defensive first baseman from something a lot less than that. So in that way, he's actually on the rise.

On the rise and about to crash into his very low (for a pro athlete) athleticism ceiling.

4) He's a winner and a major part of one of the strongest lineups in baseball. Why mess with a good thing?

Awesome point. You're a fucking idiot.

5) The market could explode.

It won't. If Adrian Gonzalez or Prince Fielder hit the FA market after 2011 and sign contracts that pay them this kind of money when they're 34, 35, and 36, I'll eat my oversized foam cowboy hat.

The economy is improving, baseball is doing great and the appetite for superstars on the free-agent market is always strong, even in down times like the past couple years. "You can't really pinpoint what these guys could be getting on the open market,'' Boggs said, honestly.

Boggs is John Boggs, Gonzalez's agent. HMMMMMM. You think he likes the deal Howard got? In conclusion, don't ever let Jon Heyman run your baseball team.

What?

Bud Selig has failed at many things during his time as commissioner of MLB. (His response to steroids being the most obvious example; I'm also not happy with his handling of parity-related issues.) He has also succeeded at many things, but the article I'm about to highlight is supposedly about his failures so I just wanted to establish up front that I'm not a Selig apologist. I'm generally on board with this guy's premise. However: what?

The thought of major league baseball without Bud Selig as commissioner? I'm absolutely giddy.

Sure. I wouldn't say I'm giddy, but I do think it's time for a change.

Replacing Selig is the only way that major league baseball can really get their house in order.

OK... fine. I think it's hyperbolic to say that MLB's "house" is "out of order," or whatever, but fine.

Yes, Selig has done a number of positive things during his reign; having said that, he's missed the boat on other opportunities.

Hear hear! Such as...

Perhaps a new commissioner will embrace the concept of two 15-team leagues, and schedule one interleague game every day, rather than 2 dedicated interleague periods, leaving a lone NL game on the schedule.

What?

Maybe he'll recongize the necessity to go back to the balanced schedule, if for no other reason than to help the have-nots in the AL East have a fighting chance.

What?

The travesty of the whole "contraction" issue - a total red herring - and the "this time it counts" nonsense surrounding the All- Star Game are just two of the strikes against Selig.

Two of the least significant ones. People need to shut the fuck up about the All Star Game. Immediately.

Avoiding a work stoppage for 15-plus years is a genuine accomplishment.

What? Weren't we just talking about...

(pause)

What?

"Missed the boat" on the "opportunity" to fuck around with scheduling? Is this clown seriously bothered by the idea that two NL teams have to play each other during weeks when everyone else is involved in interleague? Is anyone out there- anyone at all- clamoring for fewer intradivisional games?

You know what, fuck it. Let's just keep Selig. I'd hate to have him replaced by a guy who has the same shortcomings, but also thinks it's a great idea to have at least one interleague series happening at all times.

Hey, I've Got a Great Solution to the Problem, Let's Yell at It!

I don't know who of you out there has been following the Chicago Cubs lately, but if you haven't, let me bring you up to speed. Their record is 18-1932, their batting average is -.432, and their team ERA is 3.87. Yup. Pretty good pitching. But anyway, who cares about the logistics. We need a solution! Dan McNeil just got promoted to having his own 4-hour long talk show on the radio in Chicago, and he has the answer: yelling! Take it away, Danny Mac!

We need a new Lou. This one won't do. Lou Piniella just isn't selling the Zen thing. Not to me or to anybody else. Most important, the 25 athletes under his stewardship don't appear to be processing his messages.

Lou Piniella: Hey Soriano, quit swinging at pitches in the dirt!

Alfonso Soriano: ::strikes out by swinging at ball four low::

Lou Piniella: Hey Theriot, quit swinging for the fences and slap it to right, like the good ol' days!

Ryan Theriot: ::swings as hard as he can and pops it up to the pitcher::

Derrek Lee: ::takes strike one::

Lou Piniella: ::Runs out of the dugout screaming to argue the call, now is kicking dirt and peeing on home plate simultaneously:: YOU PIECE OF $#@( what kind of #(@#ing #!#$ $#@! #$@* #$*( #$*$ing (percent sign) #@$! Barbara Streissand's #$@$@!!!!

Jake Fox: Hey, Lou's getting pissed off! I'm energized!

Geovany Soto: Hey boys, we've got this shit!

Cubs Players in unison: HUZZAH!

::Cubs win game 131-4::

And that's how it all went down.

I'm pleased when anybody reads anything, even a cocktail napkin,

You have very low standards.

but those books Piniella said he read last offseason should have been saved for Phil Jackson. He wears a satin robe better.

Joe Torre didn't singlehandedly win all those AL East titles by acting all calm, that's for damn sure.

Try as Piniella might to convince the world he's walking on rice paper without leaving a trace, he always has been most comfortable near the edge. Or completely over it. That's who he is.

Factors in winning a Major League Baseball division, in order of importance.

1) Manager comfortability
2) Yelling
3) Being in the four-teamed AL West
4) Removing bases from their proper locations
5) Runs scored

Unearthing bases. Kicking dirt. Spitting. Scratching. Fighting one of his own players, as he did in Cincinnati with the behemoth-sized Rob Dibble.

6) Fighting Rob Dibble

None of those outlandish behaviors will solve the Cubs' most urgent problems,

At least you admit this.

but when a historically fiery manager ceases to breathe fire, then you have a brand new problem to tack onto the list: resignation.

Or worse: a manager that doesn't instantly verbalize everything he thinks in a hyperpassionate matter. That fucks over the media hardcore.

We want to know you're still in there, Lou. C'mon, Lou.

You know Soto the Pothead is starting to turn things around......maybe you should cheer for him? He actually plays baseb-....ah hell. C'mon Lou.

Time for Piniella to take one of his struggling bullpen arms over the fence, the way the Tigers' Ryan Raburn did Tuesday night, to beat Kevin Gregg in the bottom of the ninth.

The play on words here was just simply effortless.

As Piniella awakens to a call to action, perhaps it also alerts general manager Jim Hendry to a problem on which he may want to act. Who's this team's closer if it's not going to be Gregg, who has blown three saves and is averaging more than 20 pitches per inning?

Good Danny. This is baseball. This is definitely something worth talking about. Maybe we should elaborate on this. Maybe talk about some possible solutions to the problem.

The more cerebral Lou can spare embarrassing Gregg with critical words. Just give him the ball in garbage time at the next opportunity. Actions speak louder than words.

Danny Mac's solution: Embarrass Kevin Gregg.

The original ''Plan B'' was Carlos Marmol, but he also has underwhelmed. I'm all for seeing Piniella wave Marmol in for mop-up duty, too, if there aren't more performances like Tuesday's, when he whiffed three of the four Detroit hitters he faced.

Alright so the nominal two best relievers on the Cubs are pitching with the team 5 runs down in the 4th inning. Danny Mac, you deserved every bit of that promotion.

We need more actions, those like Monday night when Piniella benched Alfonso Soriano for the Cubs' one-night stand in Atlanta. Good. Soriano needed it.

If this was a routine rest day (I don't know for sure), this is very funny.

Next move is to hit him fifth or sixth in the order.

Agreed. Every Cub fan in the universe knows this should have happened 2 years ago.

Of Piniella's regulars, only veterans Derrek Lee and Ryan Theriot have proven reliable. They are the only Cubs position players who should be an automatic when Piniella pencils in his daily lineup.

Kosuke Fukudome: .279 EqA
Milton Bradley: .263 EqA
Ryan Theriot: .263 EqA
Reed Johhhhnson: .269 EqA
Micah Hoffpauir: .262 EqA

You heard the man. Theriot's your lock to play every day. None of those other guys quite stack up.

Without acting, Piniella is running the dangerous risk of creating the impression he's losing interest. I couldn't believe it when he didn't want to talk about his team's habitual struggle to not capitalize on scoring opportunities the other night.

I can't believe that either, man! When your team is hitting .011 on the season with RISP and this is happening pretty much every other game, I can't imagine why Lou wouldn't want to talk to the media about it!

Maybe it's time for the guy to talk about going fishing.

Woahhhh

Maybe he should go fishing.

WOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I'm not encouraging Piniella to barbeque his players publicly. It won't mean squat if he rips one of his guys, unloads on an umpire or kicks Roger Bossard's majestic granules of sand all over Bridgeport this weekend.

This pretty much is the opposite of everything you've said thus far.

Nobody is asking for the postgame spread to be hurled against the wall of the clubhouse. Nothing contrived or falsely manufactured is necessary.

It's gotta come from the HEART!!!

Just show us you're not going to lie down and take it. Use the pencil like a carving knife. Messages are delivered when they land right in the gut.

Send a message! Instead of those losers, start Andres Blanco and Aaron Miles every day! That'll show 'em you care about winning!

Find new roles for those not handling their current ones. Keep shakin' up that lineup card and that bullpen. An untrustworthy pen has cost many managers their jobs.

Neal Cotts, you are now the closer for the Chicago Cubs.

So has indifference.

Alright Danny Mac, I've been pretty sarcastic this entire time, so let me level with you. It isn't that Lou doesn't give a shit. It's that unlike you, he understands that throwing an angry hissy fit isn't going to make professional baseball players play better. And if he doesn't otherwise feel like it, he won't do it. You stink.

I'm off to Hawaii, bitches!!!

Rick Reilly- Unfunny by Any Standard

This is a bit of a throwaway post, but-

1) If I tried to give either of these things I'm about to link a full FireJay treatment, I might end up drop kicking my computer out of my window.

2) We haven't posted in a while. Gotta give the people what they want.

So... there isn't a lot to say... other than I'm simply and completely shocked that this guy gets paid to sit around and think this stuff up. I'd rather he write a thousand heart-warming pieces about blind midget rugby players with irregular heartbeats than one more vomit-inducing attempt at comedy.

LAWLZ, WHAT IF WES HAD A MACHINE DAT MADE COACHEZ SAY WHATZ DEY RLY MEEN

OH NOES, LOOK AT DEEZ FUNNY WAYZ DUH CUBS COULD LOSE EVEN DOUGH DEY DONT MAKE SENS

Boooooooooooooo. Rick Reilly is somehow less clever than Jay Mariotti.

Ed Hardiman Baited Me Like A Month Ago And I Never Noticed

My apologies, Ed. Here's the trashpile of Ed's phony definitions of "slobbermetric" statistics.

Next to the top of the column, FOXSports leaves a link entitled "report this", so I obviously did.

Are you sure you want to report this content as inappropriate? FOXSports.com staff will investigate this content and deal with it as our Terms of Service dictate.

OK.

Optional: Please explain what the inappropriate content is,
or where it is on the page:

In this space I wrote....

"Dear FOXSports.com,

Ed Hardiman only wrote this column so he could appear on Fire Jay Mariotti, an excellent blog that makes fun of several "professional" writers that write for your site. He should be banned from ever having access to a medium that exposes his writing to thousands of people, because his complete lack of humor and intelligence causes neurons to explode. For the safety of the general public, his writing must be hidden from the view of all persons.

You really can't find the inappropriate content? Seriously? The entire thing is inappropriate and should be e-incinerated.

Sincerely,

-pnoles"

On the plus side, Ed, you had to look up the definition of all those stats you made fun of. My mission is accomplished.

I Need To Find A Way To Record And Play Back Audio Off My XM Radio

Because as I'm quickly learning, their "MLB Home Plate" channel is a fucking gold mine. And I want to be able to quote their fantastically dunderheaded analysts verbatim.

Like I've posted about a couple of times recently, you've got Rob Dibble running his mouth for three hours a day in the afternoon. I've also recently gotten into their morning show, which features Mark Patrick and Buck Martinez. The two shared a great exchange this morning, re: (who else?) scrappy white guys. This is all paraphrased because, as the title states, I don't have a way to record any of this nonsense yet. Mark will be (mostly) playing the role of "just the facts" guy, while Buck stands tall as the grit-loving quasi color commentator.

Mark: Interesting development for the Cubs yesterday- Lou Pinella dropped Alfonso Soriano to number two in the lineup and plugged Ryan Theriot in at the leadoff spot. Now... I understand Lou is trying to juggle around whoever he's got, and Theriot is a guy who plays hard. But I just don't know about having a guy at the top of the order who batted .266 with a .326 on base percentage last year.

Buck: (flustered, wanting to disagree without making a big deal about things because he loves small white guys) Well... yeah... but people would say the same about David Eckstein.

Yes, they'd say that. And they'd be right. It's sad- people who love Eckstein are now using him as justification for putting other short white guys who aren't very good into the same role he used to fill. This will inevitably lead to some people using Barry Bonds as an example that proves Shawne Merriman is a victim and people are only attacking him because he's black.

We Have A Label For This

CBSSportsline's Scott Miller doesn't seem to understand what causes baseball teams to win and lose.

Ah, spring. Time for the Pittsburgh Pirates to rev up for another season.

Which, you know, means they can practice overthrowing first base, missing the strike zone, failing to move runners over and maybe even devote time to tossing rainbows over a few cutoff men.

He then goes on to spend most of the piece talking about the Pirates' problems and 15 year streak of finishing under .500. But here's a little list I prepared which should shed light on some facts that Scott might not be familiar with.

Not reasons the Pirates were bad in 2007:
-overthrowing first base (fourth fewest errors in MLB)
-missing the strike zone (13th fewest walks)
-missing the cutoff man (not statistically measurable, but impossible to affect team's record by more than a couple games)
-failing to move runners over (see "missing the cutoff man")

Reasons the Pirates were bad in 2007, have been bad since 1993, and probably will continue to be bad for the foreseeable future:
-not employing enough good baseball players

Later:

The Pirates are packing treasures from their past -- spring instructors Mazeroski, Manny Sanguillen, Bill Virdon and Kent Tekulve -- as proof that this organization once was more than sunken treasure.

"We're starting to go back to the basics," said Sanguillen, who has spent much of his spring tutoring catchers Ryan Doumit and Ronny Paulino. "Vocal communication. Motivation. Try to bring passion back to the game, and belief. Make them believe we're going to win."

I hate to sound like a broken record, but you might want to also work on employing more good baseball players.

Presenting: Scoop Jackson Embarrasses Himself, Again

I was going to cover this article in its entirety, but this one particular snippet is so flagrantly awful, it's worth a whole post all by itself. I'll do the rest of it tomorrow. For now, just try to soak this up. Tell me why Randy Moss won't be taking home the NFL's MVP this year.

Moss won't win the MVP award because of his past. It hasn't caught up with him in this respect, but it's too deep for too many people to forgive so soon. If anything has been learned from Barry Bonds, it's you can't be an ass and expect the media to think you are a king, even when you play like one.

Scoop Jackson. Thinks Barry Bonds. Is an example. Demonstrating why someone can't win MVPs. I'm telling you, you can't make this kind of stuff up.

Barry Bonds has seven MVPs. Seven. All of which were given to him by the media. That's more than twice as many as any other player in baseball's hundred whatever year history. Six more than Hank Aaron. Five more than Ted Williams. Four more than Mickey Mantle. Four more than Stan Musial. Seven more than David Eckstein and Darin Erstad combined. Not only has Bonds won the most MVPs ever, no one else is even close. Unless Alex Rodriguez starts popping steroids (or more steroids, depending on your opinion) and reels off four in the next six or seven years, there's no chance Bonds' mark gets touched for the foreseeable future. It might not ever be touched. Bonds is the absolute worst possible example Scoop could have chosen to try and justify his point. Bar none.

This is like saying "Rudy Guliani will definitely not win the Republican presidential primary. If anything has been learned from Ronald Reagan, it's that you can't be a white male and be appreciated by conservative voters."

Or less politically, "There's just no way U2 will be remembered as a popular band. If anything has been learned from the Beatles, it's that you can't be a bunch of goofy European guys wearing ugly sunglasses and expect fans to love your rock music."

How about, "I predict cell phones are a passing fad. If anything has been learned from standard home telephones, it's that people don't like to talk to each other unless it's in person."

Let's get pop-culturally creative! "There's no way Lindsay Lohan will continue to be a gossip magazine regular in the near future. If anything has been learned from the long succession of vapid, drug abusing, airheaded whores that have preceded her in that sector of the public eye, it's that people just don't like to read about vapid, drug abusing, airheaded whores."

Something else from the world of sports! "I can't imagine LeBron James selling a lot of shoes via endorsement during his career. If anything has been learned from Michael Jordan, it's that people don't really care about what shoe a great basketball player's name is on."

How about movies? "The Godfather will never be looked upon as a great film. If anything has learned from Dude, Where's My Car?, it's that film scholars strongly favor serious and sophisticated works of art which can only be enjoyed when you're wasted."

I could go on and on. But I won't. Because I've gone about six jokes too far already. Come on, Scoop. Why don't you just play the race card like usual and be done with it.

In Order To Be a Sportswriter Who Covers a Team From New York, You Must Be At Least This Lazy

It's a tough winter to be Omar Minaya. His team is coming off an epic collapse. But they're also not getting any younger, and have several holes that need to be filled before opening day. You can guess exactly how the always idiotic New York sports media is going to react to pretty much anything he does. Let's just say he probably won't be getting a whole lot of slack.

Exhibit A: The New York Post's Joel Sherman (via FoxSports.com) weighs in on Minaya's somewhat risky, but extremely likely to make the team better in 2008, swap of Lastings Milledge for Ryan Church and Brian Schneider.

In fact, the Mets sound now about Church as they did about Victor Zambrano at the time of the Kazmir deal — as if they have the magic to tap abilities not shown previously. For Church, that means hitting lefties and being a base stealer.

You want Ryan Church. To steal bases. Here's an idea- maybe instead, you should just rely on Jose Reyes, Luis Castillo, and David Wright to steal like 350 between them, and let Church keep his career totals of 12 steals in 17 attempts pretty much exactly where they are. I love this fallback criticism of players, which pretty much betrays any sportswriter who uses it as an idiot. "Sure, [player] is alright. But can he steal bases?" As if everyone on a team needs to be capable of swiping 2nd and 3rd on consecutive pitches at any time.

But Church is 29. He probably is what he is, a 'tweener, too good for the bench, not good enough to start.

Anyone who OPSes .813 in 500+ plate appearances while playing half his games in RFK can start for my team. Is he an All-Star? No. Is he a starter? As long as he sits against lefties from time to time (making him a platoon starter, I guess, but still a most-of-the-time starter), yes. Meanwhile, the Mets' 2007 starter in right, the 35 year old Shawn Green, managed to OPS 30 points lower than Church in roughly the same number of PAs.

Schneider, 31, was only available because the Minaya administration horribly lost Jesus Flores to Washington for nothing in last year's Rule 5 draft.

So that's a knock on Schneider? Brian Schneider: so shitty, his team was only willing to trade him because they somehow stumbled onto a better alternative in the Rule 5. Had this unlikely event not happened, they would probably still be holding onto him. That's how much he sucks. What about the guy the Mets gave up for these two scrubs?

Milledge is fearless. He was not afraid of the majors or New York.

I would venture a guess that 95% of the highly touted prospects in baseball history who haven't lived up to their potential did not fail because of fear. They failed because they were not as good at baseball as everyone expected them to be.

He tends to give too many at-bats away.

At least he's not pissing himself with anxiety while doing so.

But not in pressure spots. He loved the big stage. As a former teammate of Milledge said, "he'll win games for you. The better the pitcher, the bigger the moment, the better the player."

This is all tiny tiny sample size stuff. But still,

Milledge's career: .257/.326/.414
"Close/late" situations: .275/.315/.431
During innings 7-9: .238/.293/.385
vs. Jake Peavy, Brandon Webb, Brad Penny, Josh Beckett, John Smoltz, Erik Bedard, Aaron Harang, Roy Halladay, and Dontrelle Willis (not in the class of these other guys, but let me cherry pick every once in a while, would ya?): .108/.195/.220

So yeah. Pretty huge cherry pick. And he's faced most of them for no more than 6 PAs. And he's had good games against other good pitchers like Cole Hamels. And he's only 22. I'm just saying... so far, in about 400 PAs, he hasn't exactly stepped up and dominated. Particularly in "big moments" against "big pitchers." Does this mean he never will? Of course not. It means that Minaya, who has a team that needs to win now, was not stupid to trade him and his questionable ability to contribute in 2008 (plus attitude problems, for what that's worth) for two guys who definitely are ready to contribute in 2008.

That is the biggest problem with this deal by Minaya. In 2007, Milledge was beset by injury and more bad behavior that the NL talent evaluator said has "turned people off since high school." So Minaya sold Milledge at a low value. My gut says that even if Milledge had another dubious year in 2008, he would still fetch a Schneider/Church level deal.

My brain says that if this happened, it would hurt the Mets in 2008 compared to what they can expect now. And Pedro Martinez, Carlos Delgado, and Billy Wagner would all be a year older.

But what if he were entrusted with 500-600 plate appearances and was the .300 hitter with extra-base punch and complete comfort in the clutch that his talent suggests?

That would be really nice, wouldn't it? It's also very unlikely to happen in 2008, given what he's done in the majors so far. 2009 or 2010? Maybe. But Minaya doesn't want to wait to see if this happens. I'm not saying I know that's the right thing to do, but can you blame him for taking his team in this direction? Is it a stupid move? Definitely not. Church and Schneider are unspectacularly solid. Together they will do more for the Mets next year than Milledge would have, it's a near certainty. This doesn't rule out the possibility that Milledge will eventually turn into Alfonso Soriano. But the Mets were a game away from the World Series in 2006. They were on pace to win 95 games in 2007 until mid September. The window is closing. It it worth trying to make something big happen in 2008 by trading one volatile player for two relatively known quantities? The answer is definitely not "no." (That is the worst sentence I've ever written.) In fact, it's probably "yes."

I've taken forever to get to my point, but now seems like a good time to do so. Articles like this are the ultimate in lazy journalism. "Hey, [team] better be right about [trade involving a prospect]! They'd better hope [prospect] doesn't become a hall of famer somewhere else!" Or as Sherman puts it in the first paragraph of the article,

The Mets better be right about Lastings Milledge. They better know that he will max out, at best, as a good player and not a star because he has character issues — not just immaturity — and those character issues are going to blunt his full talent from blossoming.

No shit. Really? You think? Writers pen this kind of stuff because it's a no-lose for them. If the trade ends up bombing and turns into the second coming of that infamous "Jeff Bagwell for a pack of Upper Deck baseball cards" deal between the Red Sox and Astros, they can tell everyone they saw it coming. If it works out, and the low risk/low ceiling guys the team acquires become part of a World Series winner while the prospect goes on to be a 4th outfielder, they can tell everyone that they just wanted to point out it was risky. Of course it's risky! That's what happens when you trade things (such as people) that change over time. I hope Joel Sherman talks to his financial planner in the same tone in which this article is written.

You'd better be right about that stock you're buying for me. *pause* You'd better be right. *pause* I'm just saying is all.

That would be awesome.