dear mlb.com: please don't hire writers who suck at their jobs

honestly. picture this: you're an executive assistant junior vice president for major league baseball. one of your (very limited) responsibilities in this position includes managing the league's official website. wouldn't one of your first moves be hiring an editor who actually knows the difference between good and terrible writing? evidently, whoever is filling this imaginary vice president post in real life failed to make such a hiring. because no editor with half a brain would allow articles like this one by barry bloom onto a major entertainment corporation's site. we're really facing a double fisted attack of bad journalism- shitty analysis and overall clunky writing. let me show you what i mean. this guy could benefit from coherency lessons given by woody paige.

Ten good reasons to watch postseason
From Yanks to broken curses, playoffs sure to bring excitement

oh good. you say the yankees made the playoffs? when did this happen!?!?! do they have any newsworthy players on their team?

It's that time again when all the formulas for postseason matchups have come to an end.

aaaand... the crap begins. what does it mean to "end" a formula? we have subject/verb disagreement problems already.

The playoffs are starting, baby, and from Wednesday's opening of three first-round series to a possible Game 7 conclusion of the World Series on Nov. 1, we'll have nearly a month of non-stop thrill-a-minute Major League Baseball action.

Not that there's anything wrong with it. The month of September was incredible, with nearly half the 30 teams in the Majors still in the hunt on Labor Day.

remember what i said about clunky writing? here's a great example. the sentence "not that there's anything wrong with it" is referring to baseball in the month of september, as in, hey, october is great but let's not sell september short. but this is so poorly written that when i first read that sentence i thought it was a continuation of the previous paragraph. as in " get ready for some non stop thrill a minute baseball action... not that there's anything wrong with that!" come on, barry. organize your sentences/paragraphs like you actually make a living as a professional writer.

Heading into the final weekend, seven National League teams were still standing. After Monday's one-game Wild Card playoff game at Coors Field, only the Mets, Brewers and Padres didn't make the dance.

With all this as the background, this could be the best rock 'em, sock 'em postseason in history. And here are 10 good reasons to watch. Hold on to your caps.

i'm not sure what the list of top ten "rock 'em, sock 'em" postseasons looks like. not that i want to overhype the whole yankees/red sox thing, but i assume 2004 is probably on there. 1997 as well? maybe 1991? whoops, no time to think! better hold on to my cap as we go through ten (eight, for the purposes of this posting) atrociously explained reasons to watch the 2007 playoffs.

1. The Yankees are the only American League team returning from last year's postseason.

that's right, here you have it, folks. the number one reason this year's postseason is going to be great: THE YANKEES ARE INVOLVED! thank goodness. what would we have done without them?

And having the Yankees around is always a good thing. They're the team that everyone loves to hate, except Yankees fans world-wide who now share the passion of their principal owner, George Steinbrenner, the self-acclaimed "Boss."

what an absolutely god awful run-on/incomprehensible sentence. the average american 6th grader would be able to identify that as poor writing. furthermore, did steinbrenner really give himself that nickname? i'm not saying i know that's false, i'm saying i'm skeptical.

You know, 26 World Series titles are never enough. And the last one came over the Mets in 2000, shudder the consequences.

shudder the consequences? what the hell are you talking about? shudder the consequences isn't even a real figure of speech. are you saying it's bad for the mets to lose to their crosstown counterpart? or that it's bad that the yankees haven't won a title since 2000? if i as a reasonably discerning and intelligent reader need to ask these questions, you have failed abysmally in your role as a writer.

2. The Commissioner has been crowing about parity for years, and now he's got it. The demise of the defending champion Cardinals cements the fact that there won't be a repeat World Series winner again this fall. It hasn't happened since the Yanks won three straight from 1998-2000. Since then, Arizona, the Angels, Florida, Boston, the White Sox and Cards have won in succession. Bless revenue sharing.

now here's a place where i really have a problem with bloom's analysis. bless revenue sharing? what the hell are you talking about? true, no one has repeated as champ since 2000. great. cute. yay underdogs. but the playing field in terms of player acquisition in baseball is still horrendously uneven. look at payroll distributions across the league's 30 teams. when good free agents become available, let's be honest- there's really only 10 or so teams that are going to be able to sign them. and now teams that try to build from within instead of through free agency are beginning to face increasingly exorbitant contract demands by prime draft picks, making going after premium talent in that way much more difficult. let's just say the gap in player acquisition capability between the yankees and baseball's bottom feeders is a whole lot larger than between the new england patriots and football's bottom feeders. (and yes, i know the NFL has a salary cap, thanks. the point still stands. baseball is certainly not rife with parity.)

3. Any postseason that includes the Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox and Phillies has to be a good one.

why? because these teams are older and play in bigger media markets than other teams?

These are storied franchises with storylines to spare.

i think you mean, "these are storied franchises with media friendly storylines to spare."

The Phillies haven't even been to the playoffs since the 1993 World Series. And we all remember how that one ended. Right, Mitch Williams? The franchise of 10,000 losses has won once, 1980 against the Royals in the World Series plagued by George Brett's hemorrhoids. There's enough collective angst here to fill a Boston teapot.

what? what the fuck? where does a boston teapot and "angst" fit into this whole thing? boston (obviously, famously) won it all in 2004. they're really not that angsty anymore. the yankees might have angst issues but it has nothing to do with lack of recent success (and by recent, i mean the last 15 years... spare me the dramatics about how they haven't won a title in a whopping 7 years). the phillies haven't won it all in 27 years, but that's not THAT bad. the cubs and their fans obviously have tons of angst due to their extended championship drought, but that's not what you chose to highlight in this bullet point, was it barry? get a clue.

5. This has got to be the year that the Billy Goat curse goes away, don't you think?

the cubs are maybe the 2nd best playoff team in the NL. maybe. they would be sizable underdogs in a world series against any of the AL playoff teams, if they even get there. there are many good reasons they had the fewest wins out of all 8 playoff teams. but the real problem here isn't this sketchy, "hey, why not?" analysis. it's the way barry decides to end his paragraph.

After all, the Red Sox broke their drought by whacking the Cardinals in 2004, and the White Sox followed suit by sweeping the Astros in 2005. Both hadn't won since just after the first World War. The two numbers to keep in mind are 1908 and 1945 -- the last time Cubbies won and the last time they played in the World Series. Fair is fair.

fair is fair? what the fuck does that even mean in this context? i can't even guess. it looks completely thrown in. like if you were hanging out with a friend who suddenly said "hey, i'm hungry. i think i'm going to make a sandwich. fair is fair."

6. The Tribe is suffering from its own mini-curse, having last won in 1948, the second-longest drought behind the Cubs. At least it's been to the World Series three times since then -- 1954, 1995 and 1997, losing on the last pitch of the latter to the Marlins in Game 7. Props to Bill Veeck for breaking the color line and putting Larry Doby and Satchel Page on the 1948 team that defeated the Boston Braves. For that alone, the Indians deserve better.

if you're really into karma and all that crap, they got what they "deserved." they won the world series that year. you just said so yourself. or are you really saying they should win another world series for something progressive they did 60 years ago that already won them a world series?

7. This edition of the Diamondbacks is reminiscent of the posse that was chasing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. No matter what they did, they couldn't shake them, forcing Butch to constantly turn to his partner asking, "Who are these guys?"

you have antecedent problems in that sentence, barry. big antecedent problems. and besides that, where the hell is this going?

Well, the rest of the baseball world is about to find out. They can't hit, they wear Sedona Red now and their closer sprints out of the bullpen at Chase Field to the soulful strains of a rap tune called, "Big Papa." All they do is win.

you also have "incredibly awkward reference problems." so the diamondbacks are like the posse chasing butch cassidy and the sundance kid... because butch and sundance don't know who they (the dbacks) are? also, i love "all they do is win." one of my favorite nonsensical sports cliches. i'm pretty sure they do other things. like lose occasionally. and go through all the other things baseball teams do, like practice, go to team meetings, and attend the occasional charity event.

8. The Curse of the Bambino is behind them, but the Red Sox can't seem to shake the cursed Yankees.

why not? because boston has won a world series more recently? because they just won their first division title over the yankees in like 10 years?

They came back from a 3-0 deficit to win the 2004 AL Championship Series. They just won their first AL East title since 1995.

excuse me, 12 years. but go on, tell me why the red sox can't shake the yankees.

But they didn't make the playoffs last year, and this year they've spent a whole lot of money on Japanese pitchers just to get back. Can the world take another Yankees-Red Sox ALCS? You bet. We'll let you know in a week.

thanks so much for not answering the question. i think what you were actually getting at is the fact that baseball fans nationwide "can't seem to shake an insufferable amount of yankees/red sox media analysis day in, day out, and from every conceivable and forced angle." yeah. that sounds about right.

10. Baseball in November. You can't get enough of it. Game 4 of the 2001 World Series between the Yanks and D-backs was a seminal one in the history of postseason play. It began on Oct. 31 and as the game spun into extra innings, the clock above the Yankee Stadium scoreboard struck midnight, sending baseball into November for the first time ever. Derek Jeter hit the homer in the bottom of the 10th to win it, and he was dubbed "Mr. November" by the New York tabloids. Who will be Mr. November this year?

the only way baseball gets played in november this year is if the world series goes 7 games (hasn't happened since 2002) or if it goes to a game 6 which then goes past midnight. in that case, rather than a new "mr. november" being crowned, i'm pretty sure that regardless of which two teams were involved in the series we'd just be treated to a 2001 jeter montage to remind viewers nationwide that there will only ever be one "mr. november." and of course, let's not forget that jeter will forever also be forever remembered as "mr. clutch", "the captain", and "the sexiest goddamn human being ever to wear a baseball uniform." thanks ESPN.

that's all for this horrible column. thanks, barry bloom. you almost talked me out of watching the baseball postseason. asshole.

Cry about it some more, pussy....

I know that the meaning of this site is to knock on sportswriters who write about sports as a career, but I couldn't resist this cry baby Padres fan's post on his well read MVN blog.

Matt Holliday never touched the plate and Tim McClellan knows it. He absolutely knows it. He stood back and did not make a call because he knew it. A thought process happened, and then he made the call in slow motion. They are interviewing Matt Holliday on TBS at this very moment and even he won’t say he touched the plate. Quote, “The umpire said I did, so"

First of all, shut the fuck up you bitchy, sore-loser faggot. Second, maybe Holliday didn't know if he touched the plate or not because HE SLAMMED HIS HEAD INTO THE DIRT as he was sliding in. And although I believe that he probably didn't touch the plate after watching the replay, all video evidence is inconclusive. So even if the MLB had a video official with replay rules, it still would have been too close too call.

What’s more, I am flat out, right now accusing Tim McClellan of making a call that, if not downright influenced by a desire to punish Sandy Alderson and the Padres, was at the very least a call that ended a ball game which he had no evidence to make. A call that ended a team’s season. I can’t prove that it was consciously or subconsciously influenced by any bias. But I believe it. See, the non-call was already a call. It was saying he did not touch the plate. Never seen an umpire reverse a call? Guess what? You just did.

Apparantly you don't watch much baseball, because if you did, you'd know that McClellan takes FORRRRRRREVERRRRR to make any call.

And fucking hell... there is no conspiracy against the Padres. Maybe next time take a second or two before you post hyperbole filled shit like this.

ESPN and other idiots like this guy keep stirring the pot (as they always do), trying to make a huge story out of Holliday's slide. This really is a non-story. Please ignore the blown call on Atkins' HR, and the fact that close calls like this happen all the time in baseball. You got screwed, boo hoo hoo.

Shut the fuck up, and go back to watching the Chargers win the AFC west--- oh wait

pleading for leniency will get you nowhere

espn's michael knisley, re: colorado's 13 inning win over san diego in the NL wild card playoff game:

A long, stressful, extra-inning night finally ended a long, stressful, extra-game regular season Monday in Denver, and the Colorado Rockies flew away to Philadelphia and the National League Division Series ...

... on Holliday.

Matt Holliday.

please don't make dumb puns like that. i promise you, less than 2% of your readers are impressed. yet, 2 paragraphs later-

In that sense, if you'll excuse the pun, the game was a baseball holiday...

what the shit did i just say? if you're a professional writer, and feel the need to preface a pun with "if you'll excuse the pun..." that should be your first hint that it was a terrible idea to write it in the first place. idiot.

Michael Ventre Is The Worst Writer We Make Fun of

Don't believe me? Exactly one of his articles I've read has not shown up here. Exactly one was just acceptable enough for me to not completely tear apart. Now, let's hear him talk about grit, hustle Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

They don’t have A-Rod. They don’t have Big Papi.

No. They have Vladimir Guerrero, a stupid, Spanish-speaking moron with a .311 EqA who is awful at baseball.

In the estimation of many, they don’t have much, or at least, they don’t have enough.

6th in baseball in runs scored. Lackey. K-Rod. Vlad. A little thing called Kelvim. Who says this team doesn't have enough?

Many onlookers don’t quite know what to make of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. They peruse their lineup and wonder how such a team can maintain their membership in the American League, let alone qualify for the postseason.

Then the onlookers actually do some fucking research (a concept foreign to you, Ventre) and realize that the Angels have a .345 team OBP, good enough for 3rd in the AL.

The Angels consist of low-key manager Mike Scioscia, a bashful superstar who speaks little English in Vladimir Guerrero, a veteran slugger who is even quieter than Guerrero in Garret Anderson, and a bunch of fellows unknown in most households.

Yes, slugger Garret Anderson. 16 HR. .272 EqA. Slugger. Garret Anderson. I guess Ventre didn't quite expel all of his man-juice all over Garret Anderson when he got 10 RBI in a game.

With an unorthodox assemblage comes unorthodox ways. The Angels don’t do things flamboyantly.

Are "unorthodox" and "flamboyant" antonyms now? (that's just a different word for "opposites", Mikey)

They’re rarely the opening story on “SportsCenter” or even “Baseball Tonight.”

Well sound the alarm. This must mean the world thinks they suck! Same with the Indians, Padres, Phillies, and Rockies! Stupid non-firsties!

And even though they have had spirited in-division rivalries with Seattle, Oakland and Texas over the years, such clashes generate a mere fraction of the attention that is received whenever the Yankees and Red Sox tangle.

I'm not saying that this is wrong, but everyone knows why this is true. Nobody except complete idiots think that the Angels aren't a good team for the reason that they aren't constantly in the national limelight.

The Angels thrive primarily because of their outstanding pitching, led by the three starters set to trod the bump in the division series — John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar and Jered Weaver.

No. This is false beyond reason. This is living proof that Michael Ventre has never seen a page of statistics in his life. The Angels have the 11th best ERA in baseball. This is not outstanding. Can anyone refute that? Above-average, yes, but not outstanding. They have scored the 6th most runs in baseball. Their offense is better than their pitching. How can someone argue that the Angels are thriving primarily because of outstanding pitching?????

But the Angels have to score runs, they don’t have many big sticks to do so — they ranked 12th in the AL in dingers this season — so what turns out to be special about them is their ability to act as scavengers, collecting runs by whatever aggressive means possible.

5th in OBP, 6th in runs. Correlation? I think so. But go ahead and attribute it to their scraptacular ability to manufacture runs.

The Angels like to run. Their mantra is to take the extra base. They knock base hits and keep a constant flow of runners zooming around the base paths. They have the personnel to play that way, a lineup that includes Chone Figgins, Orlando Cabrera, Gary Matthews, Jr. and rookie Reggie Willits.

Fuck. I want to make fun of this so bad, but I just can't. Like I mean it's all true....it's not why they're scoring runs or anything, but it's true.

They’ll swipe bags whenever they seen an opportunity, too. Figgins led the team in steals with 41, followed by Willits with 27, Cabrera with 20 and Matthews with 18. The Angels ranked third in the majors in thefts with 139, behind the Mets and Orioles. Of course, only one of those three clubs managed to abscond with a playoff berth.

Which makes an argument for how irrelevant the stolen base is in the long run. It can have a significant impact on an individual game, but getting caught stealing wipes out the expected run value of roughly three stolen bases. That's the whole reason that SBs don't mean all that much unless you have a guy who steals at an absurd success rate.

It’s a little odd to think that Scioscia would preside over this bunch. He had an illustrious career as a catcher, and as such, was more of a tank than a hot rod. In 13 major league seasons, all with the Dodgers, Scioscia amassed a grand total of 29 steals.

Gotcha. It's completely unrealistic for Scioscia to think steals are useful because he was slow. I mean, even though he was a catcher, and the stolen base is something a catcher needs to be thinking about all the time when the other team's guys are on base, I think you have a great point here. Simply awesome. Also notable: Billy Beane was the first MLB executive to understand the true (high) value of a walk, and he was terrible at walking as a player! 11 BB in 309 AB! This should, theoretically, make it impossible for him to think walking is good!

No, this is less of a tribute to Scioscia’s personality than it is to his intellect. He happens to be managing a club that is in a mid-major market — yes, it’s Southern California, but no, it’s not really Los Angeles — and as a result, owner Arte Moreno and general manager Bill Stoneman have opted to keep the payroll low and rely on the kids.

I told you last time. The Angels have the 5th highest payroll in baseball! They pay their players $109M! This is not a mid-major market. This is a major market. They have the 5th highest attendance in baseball. How many more ways can I say this? Only the Red Sox and Yankees spew significantly more money at the players than these Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. You, Michael Ventre, are grossly stupid and completely fucking ignorant.

Guerrero injured his elbow and might be used as a designated hitter against the Red Sox — since he may not have the throwing power to handle right field — and Scioscia knows Guerrero is more comfortable at the plate when he’s playing the outfield than he is as a DH.

Vladimir Guerrero, last 3 years, as DH: .318/.372/.536
Vladimir Guerrero, last 3 years, overall: .328/.389/.572

I'm not convinced that's true. I'd attribute such a small difference to something called slight varaince over 233 ABs.

Figgins was slowed in the month of September by a wrist injury.

I bet it's as dramatic as the last one.

Chone Figgins, 2007 season: .330/.393/.432
Chone Figgins, 2007 September: .302/.390/.413

Granted, he's been worse/not playing in the past week, but word choice there is Ventre's, not mine.

But the Angels have to hustle to get even. The Red Sox merely have to hope for a sudden clap of thunder from one of their longball specialists.

Pitching, hitting, and defense are nice, but no, the key to the Angels winning this series is hustle.

Despite all the comparative stats and past performances, the Angels are hoping that battling pays dividends, that taking the game to the opposition in small flurries instead of waiting around for a haymaker will prove beneficial.

And then they can point and laugh at the Red Sox who are just "waiting for the 3-run homer". That's all the Red Sox do to score runs, anyway. I mean, don't even look up that the Red Sox are 4th in MLB in runs scored despite being 18th in HR. No, that's totally fine. Publish it. I don't care.

Actually I do. It bothers me. I don't like you.

Hey, it’s worked so far. Why tamper?

And that's the end. Look Ventre, you have done a great job of attributing the Angels success to the wrong thing in pretty much every feasible way. Let's recap, you think:

Angels pitching > Angels offense
Importance of Angels hustling, running, stealing > Importance of Angels getting on base

You're a fucking joke, Ventre. You're a worse writer than Mariotti. There. I said it.

(I still hate Jay more)

(and Jay Mohr)

(I just earned myself an awful, awful play on words label for this post)

bill simmons wants to remind you that boston sports fans are different than those from other cities

the point of this post is roughly the same as that of a great post dan-bob made back in august. and he's a better writer than me, so if you don't want to be bored by my rambling, just click that link and forget all about this. or, if you're bored, and have a mild to medium distaste for simmons, stick around. i'll make it worth your while. ANYHOW-

it should be abundantly clear to almost anyone at this point: the sports guy is a pretty ok writer until he starts talking about boston, at which point he becomes an insufferable douche. what is the deal with (some) boston sports fans? get a clue, folks. i hate to keep going back to this issue and griping about it, but it's so damn prominent in today's sports media that i feel like i have little choice. before i dive into this simmons article from last week, please allow me to set up the premise with a brief list. here are the facts about boston's sports teams:

1. no one cares about the celtics
2. the patriots are enormously popular, probably because they've been really good for several years now and many people would rather cheer for a winner than a team with any geographical, familial, or sentimental connection to them
3. the red sox are enormously popular, probably because a) they've also been pretty good for several years now (see point 2) and b) because they were famously long-suffering underdogs for a decades and then won it all, and any "successful underdog story" attracts tons of fans.

most importantly:

4. they have pretty passionate fans... wait for it, here's the important part... JUST LIKE DOZENS OF OTHER CITIES ALL OVER THE COUNTRY. this is the real problem here; people like simmons and the author in the piece by dan-bob i linked above seem to think that just because espn saturates its programming with boston related coverage, all of a sudden their fan base is different and special and magical and more important than other fan bases. like i already said: get a clue, boston fans. you're not different. you may be more numerous than lots of other fan bases (because of points 2 and 3 on this list). but in terms of the passion you feel for your teams, and subsequent appropriate reactions to what they do on and off the field: you're. not. special.

sorry about that. just had to establish it before i commented on bill simmons' thoughts on whether or not it's ok to boo athletes. take it away, bill. i think this is a pretty interesting subject, and i'm approaching it with an open mind.

(intro about heidi from "the hills" being booed for singing at a club skipped)

ok, let me amend what i said: i'm approaching it with an open mind so long as bill doesn't reference "reality" shows aimed at 14-24 year old girls during his intro.

Cheering and booing will always be the purest reactions spectators can have. When somebody delights a crowd, we cheer. When somebody angers a crowd, we boo. Simple. Booing, which dates back to the sixth century, when Greek playwrights were booed, gained steam in Rome's heyday, when gladiators were cheered and jeered for their efforts. But it didn't really round into modern form until professional baseball, college football and boxing took off, in the late 1800s.

ok, fine. i'm liking this this so far. like i said way back at the beginning of this piece, simmons can be pretty decent when he's not talking about boston's teams.

Then, somewhere along the line, sports fans decided it was acceptable to mock their own players. No star was immune, not even legends like Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio, all of whom took heat for the size of their contracts. When salaries and ticket prices skyrocketed in the 1980s and '90s, the player/fan dynamic changed for good. Now everyone is fair game, helpless victims of these 10 words: "Hey, I'm paying a lot of money for this ticket!" When we direct venom at our own guys, though, the results can be spectacularly unproductive. And yet we keep doing it. At what point is "tough love" just damaging?

i'm still enjoying the piece. but remember that last part, about people booing because they pay for tickets. notice the context in which simmons writes it. clearly he's implying that booing is bad, and subsequently, having paid for a ticket is no excuse for doing it. this will be important later.

Antoine Walker was treated so unfairly by Celtics fans that he'd search them out in the stands to ask with a pained expression, "Why aren't you supporting us?" Eagles fans booed Donovan McNabb on draft day and picked him apart for the next nine seasons (and counting), even though he has taken them to four NFC championship games. Yankee fans jeered Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera even after they proved themselves to be the glue of four World Series champions. Keith Foulke clinched the first Red Sox title in 86 years, but when he broke down the following spring, he got lambasted. Now more than ever, you're only as good as your last game.

true. right or wrong, this is the way things are. so tell me, bill, since you're implying with these examples that booing is usually inappropriate, why should fans cut athletes like these guys a break?

Does this make sense? Not to me. I believe a player should be booed by the home crowd for four reasons only:

ok, like i said, i'm approaching this open-mindedly. i don't really have a strong opinion on the matter, so i'm willing to listen to the reasoning of someone who doesn't approve of booing.

1) a noticeable lack of effort,

that makes sense. pro athletes are being paid tons of money while playing games. they should at least put out effort while doing do.

2) an indefensibly dumb mistake,

this is a little nebulous. i assume he means something like flagrantly roughing the opposing team's quarterback to cost your team a 3rd down stop or calling a timeout when you don't have one in basketball, as opposed to booting a ground ball or missing a free throw. that makes sense as well.

3) if the coach keeps stupidly trotting him out in big spots (in which case the expressed displeasure is for the decision, not the player)

totally fair. i agree 100%. sometimes it's just obvious that someone shouldn't be on the field/court/rink. booting seems very justified in that case. ok, great! i really like what the sports guy is doing here. i'm enjoying this column.

Our favorite teams are extended families. There's no way you'd boo a family member at a Little League game, so why is it okay to boo someone on your favorite team? What's the goal? To make him feel worse than he already does?

great points, i really see where simmons is coming from. booing often feels therapeutic, but really, what does it accomplish when it's directed at your team's players?

oh shit, wait. while i was copying and pasting pieces from simmons' article, it looks like i missed the fourth item of his list of times when it's ok to boo. crap.

4) if he happens to be named Tim Thomas or J.D. Drew.

oh no. no no no. i shouldn't have let my guard down. i can already feel this turning into a huge disaster. this will end poorly. let me spoil the ending for you before we get there. basically, bill is saying: "hey, it's mean to boo your team's players and really doesn't accomplish anything! the only times it's ok to do, in my mind, are 1) good reason, 2) good reason, 3) good reason, and 4) because boston fans are different than other fans." i know it's not clear yet, but trust me, you'll see eventually. this is exactly what bill is getting at. (and you can disregard the tim thomas reference, that's a throwaway joke. this column is all about drew.)

From time to time, a respected veteran even upbraids the fans for badgering a player. Jason Varitek recently begged Red Sox fans to stop booing the beleaguered Drew, saying, "I wish the fans understood how much power they have. They can help J.D. Drew."

Of course, Drew is a poor choice for our sympathy because of his contract (obscene), demeanor (lifeless) and clutchness (nonexistent).

so this is why drew is the exception to simmons' "the only 3 times you can boo players on your own team." because he's being paid a lot of money, because he's not an outwardly emotional player, and because he hasn't been "clutch" by simmons' estimation this year. WOW. hold on one second.

ok, i'm back. you know, i did some research, and the results were stunning: j.d. drew is actually the only player in any sport ever to sign a big free agent contract, not be "clutch" during his first season with his new team, and not be a fiery emotional guy! who'd have known! the only guy ever!

(huge tangent, skip this if you just want to get on with the simmons hatred.

sarcasm aside, here are the numbers on drew and his "clutchness" this year.

full season: .270/.373/.423
"close/late" situations: .277/.377/.385
2 outs, runners in scoring position: .213/.404/.427
at bats when either team's lead 4 runs or less: .277/.385/.416
at bats when the margin is more than 4 runs: .231/.292/.461

overall, not at all what you want from a high-paid corner outfielder, but not exactly bottom-of-the-barrel-worst-player-ever-cut-this-guy-already numbers. just kind of subpar. note that his OPS and batting average are both much lower when one team is leading by 5 or more than when the game is closer than that. as for "close/late", it's a bit of a crude stat. it includes all plate appearances in the 7th inning or later when the game is tied, the batter's team is ahead, or they're behind but the tying run is on base, represented by the batter, or in the on deck circle. so, for example, pretty much any at bat in extra innings counts. or if your team is trailing by 3 in the 8th inning and you're batting with guys on 1st and 2nd, etc. drew has been pretty "meh" in those situations. let's see how some other red sox have fared.

manny ramirez, "close/late": .197/.310/.361
kevin youkilis, "close/late": .182/.321/.348
mike lowell, "close/late": .262/.323./.357
david ortiz (king of clutch, most clutch player ever, first ballot HOF because he hit like 3 walk-off HRs in a week in july 2006) "close/late": .263/.371/.395

hmmmmmmmmmm. interesting. like i said, "close/late" is a crude stat, and all 5 of these guys only had about 90 PAs this year to formulate those numbers. but it's pretty interesting to me nonetheless. i mean, 90 PAs isn't a ton but it's not nothing either.

i know, i know, the fact remains: boston fans hate drew regardless. so let's let bill finish up telling us why it's ok to make him an exception to the booing rules. don't say i didn't warn you: it's going to be because boston fans are special and different than other fans.)

In a recent column, I joked about my new book, Caught Looking: My 100 Least Favorite J.D. Drew Late-Inning Strikeouts, and received hundreds of e-mails from readers who wanted to write the foreword. J.D. has always rubbed his fans the wrong way, even the mellow Dodgers faithful, who practically spit their Pinot grigio at him last season.

remember that sentence and the context: dodger fans are pretentious, and drink pinot grigio during baseball games.

He's such a beautiful player to watch: He's got all five tools and a perfect swing. It's almost insulting to think anyone so gifted could finish with a lower OPS than Dustin Pedroia. When he fails, he isn't just failing himself; he's failing the baseball gods who gave him those gifts.

as is every talented major league player when they fail. and, as i showed in my tangent, 4 other key red sox hitters (2 of whom make even more money than drew, and 1 who makes around 2/3 as much) have failed just as much or even more than drew has when games were on the line this year.

After he signed for $70 million, every logical baseball watcher believed Boston fans -- who have a storied history of responding poorly to players who keep getting hurt --

here's where the "special/different" talk starts. yes. only in boston do fans respond poorly to highly paid players who get injured frequently.

-- would eventually regard J.D. the same way PETA supporters would now react to the sight of Michael Vick's exiting a Petco.

obligatory (bad) vick joke.

After a recent game against the Yankees, during which Drew performed the trick of supergluing his bat to his left shoulder right before a third strike, my father, who was in attendance, told me he'd never heard a local athlete get booed more loudly and with more venom.

bill's dad, a recurring character in his columns: master of anecdotal bullshit.

Hearing Dad describe the hatred as "palpable" made me feel bad for Drew -- for about three seconds. Then I remembered how he has enraged me so often this season. I can't watch the Sox while holding the remote anymore because I'm afraid he might force me to whip it across the room.

how dare he! how dare he put up a .270/.373/.423 split at age 31, when his career split is .284/.390/.500! what an asshole! how dare his close/late splits be the same as "big papi's" and better than "lowell's", "manny's", or "youk's!" what a selfish dick. he should give back all the money he made this year, and personally call and apologize to simmons and every other red sox fan.

But just for the hell of it, let's say Boston fans took Varitek's advice. Let's say they cheered Drew every time he came up, and every time he killed an inning, they reacted like Little League parents and shouted things like "Keep your head up, buddy!" and "Don't worry, we didn't need those runs!"

from earlier in this exact same fucking article:

Our favorite teams are extended families. There's no way you'd boo a family member at a Little League game, so why is it okay to boo someone on your favorite team? What's the goal? To make him feel worse than he already does?

bill, do you even have an editor? or are you just trying to sneak contradictions like this through to prove that you're a total badass to your buddies j-bug and hench? you even used the exact same goddamn "little league" comparison. you cannot be serious.

How long could that show of faith last before they turned on him again? A week? Two? Can you ask 35,000 loyal fans who are paying as much as $312 a ticket to sympathize with a $14 million-a-year guy who has killed more rallies than the National Guard? Probably not.

i asked you to remember 2 things from earlier in this posting. do you remember what they were? here, like that little league contradiction, i'll cut and paste them for you.

1. Now everyone is fair game, helpless victims of these 10 words: "Hey, I'm paying a lot of money for this ticket!" When we direct venom at our own guys, though, the results can be spectacularly unproductive.

2. J.D. has always rubbed his fans the wrong way, even the mellow Dodgers faithful, who practically spit their Pinot grigio at him last season.

so, you shouldn't be allowed to boo just because you paid money for a ticket. and dodger fans are soooooo pretentious (the AUDACITY!! pinot grigio at a baseball game... how stuck up!). but people who would pay that price to see a red sox game are presumably unpretentious, and furthermore, since they're paying that kind of money, the rules go out the window for them. bill is flaunting contradictions with reckless abandon here. makes me cry. everything was going so well for a little while back there. the wheels just came off as soon as j.d. "the human embodiment of the verb choke" drew came up.

i really don't have the energy to finish out the column. let's briefly summarize, just to see how ridiculous this whole thing looks.

first, my concessions:
1. drew has not been as terrible as simmons would have you believe, but definitely is not worth what the red sox are paying him.
2. simmons doesn't flagrantly and outwardly state that boston fans are "special/different." but come on, read between the lines. anyone who reads him regularly can see this column is just dripping with the tone of "this situation is different because it's happening to red sox nation!" if you disagree, leave a comment. i dare you.
3. bill simmons really bothers me. i didn't actually come into the article with an open mind, as i originally stated. sorry. i mean, i had an open mind about whether booing your own team is ok or not... but not about simmons himself.

all that in mind, here are bill's absolutely inane points.

1. bill thinks there are only a few times you should boo your own team's players. i mean, you wouldn't boo your own family members at a little league game, and your team's players are like family!
2. j.d. drew is the only exception to this rule (besides tim thomas). i mean, come on! what do you want boston fans to do, cheer him on like family at a little league game? this is boston red sox baseball we're talking about here!
3. boston fans are paying good hard earned money to see ortiz, ramirez, lowell and youkilis OPS .776, .671, .680, and .669 respectively in close/late situations and this doesn't bother them. when drew OPSes .762 in those same situations, it's an absolute travesty.
4. "the hills" is a great show.

yeah. all that seems about right. gag me, espn. please either hire someone to tell simmons when his columns are full of nonsense, or ban him from writing about boston's teams. seriously, it'll make the sports journalism world a much better place.

Extra: "Killer Instinct Necessary to Win Divisions"

Wallace Matthews has a great theory as to why the Mets are faltering.

These Mets lack a killer instinct

There you have it. The New York Mets are finding themselves out of the NL East league because they have no killer instinct, as evidenced by them not killing anything lately.

Pity poor Willie Randolph. Try as he might, he can't turn these sleeping dogs into pit bulls.

I'm going to go ahead and skip to the last sentence of the column real quick.

But deep down, he's got to know that no matter how much he whips them, he can't turn this litter of pussycats into a pride of lions.

This is basically the same dumb metaphor. I've got one! "No matter how many dumb metaphors Wallace Matthews puts into his articles, he still can't turn his writing into something that makes any sense"

Right now, he's got three gamers - David Wright, Moises Alou and Paul Lo Duca - and a clubhouse full of Mister Softees who wouldn't have survived one day in the crucible of Brownsville, where Randolph's character was forged,

Let's have a one-player draft between you and me Wallace. You can go first and pick either of these two players.

Mister Carlos "Softee" Beltran: .276/.355/.527 EqA: .302. WARP: 8.1 Good at fielding? Yes

Mr. Paul "Gamer" Lo Duca: .276/.314/.284 EqA: .247. WARP: 2.8. Good at fielding? Not particularly

Now normally I'd say Beltran is a better guy to have, but....

Catch: The latter is FIERY and has KILLER INSTINCT

Now I see why you want Lo Duca.

Side note: Why is Moises Alou considered a "gamer"? He's about the last guy on the Mets roster someone would label a "gamer", except like Jose Valentin or something. The guy is 41 years old and is bad at fielding! (I heard somewhere good fielding is what makes a "gamer") So which is it? "gamer" = killer-instincty, hussle-y, gritty? Or "gamer" = good at baseball? Either way, you're wrong.

let alone the walk in the park that is the National League East.

Or, at least, should be.

The NL East isn't like, amazing, but it's hardly the NL Central, the only true, "walk-in-the-park"-y division.

Their non-performance against the Washington Nationals, a team with nothing to look forward to but winter vacation, was inexcusable considerng the gap in talent and payroll between the two teams.

Yes, and no bad teams ever beat any good teams in a best of 3 series. The Marlins actually aren't 6-0 against the Cubs this year, because there is no such thing as "variance" or "small sample size".

When you factor in that the Mets not only should want to beat such a team, but desperately need to, it borders on the shameful.

The Mets want to beat the Nationals, as opposed to other teams.....whom they are indifferent to beating.

All season, the Mets have taken a day or two off each week, hence their inability to put together a five-game winning streak until two weeks ago.

And yet, they and their fans have been lulled into a false sense of security by the weakness of their division, which has kept them in first place every day of the season since May 16.

Here's the problem. It's hard to call the 2nd best division of a 3-division league "weak", especially when the difference between the best teams and the worst teams is far less pronounced than it is in the AL.

But now, faced with their first real test, they are floundering like a prizefighter who has won 35 setups in "preparation" for a title fight. And every time you think you have seen their worst performance of the year, they surprise you by taking it one step lower. And who knows when it will bottom out?

I would imagine that if it hasn't already, it would have to be sometime in the next week, Wallace.

And what's the "title fight" here? Playing the Washington Nationals? This comparison does not hold water.

Read on if you want to. It's a bunch of garbage about how the Mets don't "look like a playoff team" and "don't care about winning". Piss off, Matthews.

mike celzic fails to understand irony

the venerable msnbc.com journalist known as "hatguy" wrote this article back on sunday, but it's definitely still worth reviewing. re: mr. april (you know exactly who i'm talking about), and the possibility that his agent scott boras has already been talking with the cubs about him being a part owner upon retirement in addition to playing there for the rest of his career. now, follow along and see if you can find the irony.

The big magazine article is out, the denials are in place and Alex Rodriguez, near the end of one of what may be his greatest season as a hitter, is once again the center of controversy, seemingly without even trying.

how does he do it? i've always assumed it's because he has a job with every major media news outlet. so whenever he so much as takes a piss, he immediately goes to the offices of all these media outlets and gets a story about himself published. i mean, what other possible explanation is there for all the exposure he gets?

“Great players with great demand create great rumors,” Boras told the Associated Press, and even that denial reeked of spin and ego, as if this sort of thing is to be expected.

non sarcastically- yes, this particular rumor is a little bit outside the scope of the norm. it's not everyday you hear about a player possibly negotiating to own one of the most valuable teams in sports before he even plays for them. i acknowledge that. at the same time, i'm still comfortable saying:

sarcastically- how dare scott boras imply that a popular and hyperexposed player like a-rod (who plays in new york to boot) is often at the center of media firestorms! what is he, high? great players in great demand don't creat great rumors. we all know how it really works- shitty players not in demand at all create great rumors. did you hear journeyman reliever rudy seanez recently bought a new TV? true story, i read about it on teh internets.

What’s got to be annoying to the Yankees is the timing of this – a week before the playoffs. When the story should be about the Yankees’ remarkable comeback from 14.5 games back to the brink of the AL East title, it’s about A-Rod. It always seems to be that way.

funny how that works. i'm curious- what's your theory about why people constantly talk about arod, mike? maybe you and several hundred of your fellow sportswriters should write columns containing your explanations for this strange phenomenon for several years, and let the fans read them and decide. that might help clear things up because i currently have no idea. none. and for me it would kill two birds with one stone, because personally i feel like i don't know enough about a-rod. he's really kind of underexposed. what's his personal life like? does he have a girlfriend? do he and derek jeter hang out ever? please, someone link me.

i really don't have enough energy to address any of the other central points of the article. to sum it all up-

1. yeah, scott boras is a sleazy guy.
2. yeah, if this rumor is true, it's a sleazy thing to do.
3. yeah, the timing of it is maybe a little bit questionable.
4. but far and away, most importantly- here we have yet another goddamn column about arod. more specifically it's one about something related to him that hasn't even been verified. and within it- this column made out of guesswork, theorization, and vague attempts at serious analysis- hatguy has the gall to fucking complain about how arod is always in the news. unbelievable.

my parting shot, unrelated to the central idea of the piece-

He’s an incredible baseball player, but stuff like this sure does make him annoying, sometimes to distraction. He’s like the guy who cuts the cheese in a crowded elevator and doesn’t get why everybody’s trying to get away as far away from him as possible and making faces – after all, the odor doesn’t bother him.

who the hell does hat? who is this imaginary guy mike's referring to? i'm a 23 year old bachelor who still usually thinks bodily function jokes are funny. i have a lot of brash and crude friends who think pretty much the same way. and when we're hanging out together in private, we often laugh at any "cheese" that might get "cut" by one of us. yet i still have to say that i definitely don't know anyone like this guy, who would react as mike describes to a fart released among strangers. i'm pretty sure even the brashest and crudest of my beer swilling, self scratching, profanity using, about-their-appearance-and-demeanor-not-caring friends would be embarrassed to pass gas in a crowded elevator. this ridiculously off point "don't you readers know exactly who i'm talking about?" analogy kind of makes me wonder what celzic does when he lets one loose in a crowded public place. *shudder*

cbssportsline forces its writers into awkward arguments

(preamble: given my relative lack of knowledge about the bears compared to pnoles and chris w, this post could easily blow up in my face. we'll see what happens. mostly i had the idea of making it based on the ridiculous premise of the position pete prisco had to defend. my analysis might suck, but it's still a funny situation. alright, roll the tape.)

in today's flashy, loud, "who's now", in-your-face, people-screaming-at-each-other-all-the-time, "no spin zone"-emulating sports media, there are few things more annoying than the awkward "head to head" segment. everyone knows what i'm talking about: two analysts are asked the same question, almost invariably take opposing viewpoints, and simplistically duke it out with each other for about 30 seconds. then they move on to the next subject. sometimes, like on "pardon the interruption," it works pretty well. but when this happens, usually it's a function of a genuine (or at least genuine looking) rapport between the two combatants. i wholeheartedly feel like mike wilbon and tony kornheiser are good buddies who love talking about sports and just happen to disagree a lot. most of the time, though, these kind of segments seem forced and obnoxious. PTI is the exception rather than the rule.

sadly, it would seem that some media firm has done market research saying viewers love people shouting at each other in split screen, so this is the way things are going to be. we have to live with it. so, given that that's the case, let's try to look on the bright side of things! sometimes it can create some pretty hilarious situations, such as during this printed exchange between cbssportsline.com's pete prisco and clark judge.

Should the Bears have benched Rex Grossman?

this is where the comedy comes in- some jackass editor came up with this question, and as a result, someone's got to defend grossman. pete, this is pretty much the journalistic equivalent of being o.j. simpson's legal team. how are you going to work your way out of this one?

No. That might sound crazy considering how he has struggled, but three games does not make a season.

right. but it does make almost 20% of a season, and when you lose two of those three games and one of your division rivals goes 3-0, it makes for a 2 game deficit. furthermore, grossman does have a very recent (hint: it was last year) full season of absolutely maddening inconsistency and overall slightly subpar performance on his resume. in 2006 he completed only 54.6% of his passes, had a TD/INT ratio just slightly over 1, and sported a very "meh" 73.9 QB rating. in fact, those stats can be broken down further when you separate his starts in weeks 1-5 (completed 61% of his passes, 10 TDs against 3 INTS) to the rest of the regular season (51% completions, 13 TDs and 17 INTS). in three playoff games he was very pedestrian (56% completions, 3 TDs and 3 INTs, 197 yards a game). so, grossman has sucked this year. aaaaaand, since right around last halloween, he's also sucked. i'm aware that the bears as a team aren't built in such a way that they require a 350 yard/3 TD performance out of their QB game in and game out. and i'm not saying brian griese is going to be much better. but can you really defend grossman from a "he just needs more time... let's not do anything drastic after 3 measly games" perspective?

Plus, I blame the coaching staff.

please elaborate.

Grossman hit Bernard Berrian in the hands in the second quarter for what should have been a long touchdown pass. Berrian dropped it.

i wasn't aware berrian was part of the staff. also, let it be known that grossman is the only QB ever to have one of his WRs drop a potential touchdown pass. this fact should be acknowledged by any grossman detractors.

Then with his team down 10-3, he passed them to the tying touchdown.

this is pretty much true.

After the Cowboys made it 17-10, Cedric Benson fumbled and Dallas turned that into a field goal.

ok...

Then it went bad. Grossman's first pass on the next series was picked by Anthony Henry and returned for a touchdown. Game over.

you're not helping grossman's case.

The rest really went downhill, but it didn't matter.

true. the bears probably were out of the game, down three scores with less than 12 minutes to play.

It doesn't matter if it's Grossman or Brian Griese. You can't succeed as a quarterback in a system designed to make the quarterback play it safe.

trent dilfer (during a half season in which he never cleared 300 yards) and brad johnson (during a season in which he cleared 300 yards once) have super bowl rings. now, i realize 300 yards is an arbitrary point to choose whether or not a QB is "playing it safe" or not. but i think it's pretty generally established that those two guys were "game managers," not "gunslingers," and each made few enough mistakes to take their teams to titles. obviously the 2000 ravens and the 2002 bucs had amazing defenses. it's not like dilfer and johnson carried the teams to titles all by themselves. i'm just saying... this sentence, about how QBs can't succeed while playing it safe, is a crock of crap. in fact, it's patently false, as long as "leading your team to a super bowl title without putting up manningesque numbers" qualifies as being a successful quarterback.

The Bears think they can just win by playing good defense, running the football and mixing in a special-teams return or two by Devin Hester.

i'm not sure they could win it all by doing that, but they could definitely win a lot of games. the injuries their defense has sustained hurt that prospect, as has cedric benson's spotty play. but stranger things have happened than a team with an awesome defense and a home run threat like hester winning a lot of games by playing conservative offense.

At some point, the coach has to let the quarterback do more than just manage the game. Grossman never got that chance. It's unlikely Griese will get it either.

again, not sure i agree with that. maybe with the bears' d hurting, and benson struggling, the playbook needs to be opened up a little bit. but not a ton. especially with griese or grossman or kyle orton in charge.

meanwhile, clark judge, you have the oh-so-enviable position of taking the counterpoint and explaining why it's good grossman was benched. your thoughts?

Are you kidding me? The Bears were getting nothing from the position.

[middle of column omitted]

I don't know if Brian Griese will be better, but I do know he won't be worse.

good enough for me. i'm sold.

unaware the NL west even existed, several baseball "experts" are asked to evaluate it

this will end badly. from jon weisman's "fungoes" blog on si.com- NL West- Rockies in the Discussion. now let me just clarify- i have no problem with weisman himself. the blog itself looks pretty good overall. rather, i have several large problems with all of the people he interviewed for the piece. seven different "smart baseball people" were asked the same question. how many different ways they can be wrong/tragically oversimplistic in answering it? (sorry, this ends up being pretty long... if you don't care about the NL playoff picture, you might want to skip it. but i have no regrets about writing it. three quarters of the analysis in here is absolute baloneyshit. i had to do what i had to do.)

Flying around the bend like Franz Klammer at Innsbruck '76, the Colorado Rockies, with an eight-game winning streak capped by a three-game sweep at San Diego this past weekend, are still vying for a medal with one week remaining in the regular season.

when's the last time you saw a baseball team compared to an olympic skier? just saying.

If the Rockies can get over the hump, do they become the worst nightmare for their potential NL Central and NL East playoff opponents? Or do Arizona and San Diego still offer the biggest challenge? Sunday, I asked several online baseball writers for their thoughts:

and it would seem none of them did any research whatsoever before offering their answers.

Rich Lederer, Baseball Analysts: Arizona has the best record in the National League since the All-Star break, yet it has been well-documented that the Diamondbacks sport a negative run differential. San Diego has allowed the fewest runs in the majors, although skeptics say that is in large part due to the fact that the Padres play their home games at spacious Petco Park. Colorado has the longest current winning streak in baseball, but is still four games back in the West.

ok... good start. where are you going with this?

Hey, it's the playoffs. Throw out the analysis and logic, and bring on the Ouija board.

is that how you got your job?

Anything can happen come October.

thank you for the epic cliche. you must work for FOX's self-promotion department. i can just hear joe buck saying this in his douche-iest "playoff voice."

My hunch is that Colorado would do the best in the postseason, but the Rockies have to get there first.

a hunch. good. again, how did you get your job? however, i do have to give this guy some credit. he clearly doesn't know anything about the NL west; but he more or less admits to it. wait until you see how some of these other clowns try to fake their way through the fact that they have no idea about any of these three teams.

(side note- can you imagine anyone offering analysis like this about one of baseball's more loved-by-the-media divisions? it would sound ridiculous. "who's the favorite in the AL east? the yankees have been really good since may, but the red sox are really good too! let's throw out the analysis and logic and say... shoot, the yankees, i guess. no! wait. red sox. yeah, i'm going with the red sox. on a strong hunch." sigh. welcome to baseball in the year 2007.)

David Pinto, Baseball Musings: Which would I least like to face? The Arizona and Padres offenses just don't produce. They're both around 4.45 runs per game, near the bottom of the league. Adjusting for parks, however, gives San Diego an edge. San Diego's lineup sends good hitters to the plate, where that's not true for the Diamondbacks.

san diego-
team OPS: .727
team OPS+: 98
top 3 individual OPSes on the team: 1.004 (m. bradley, in limited action), .824 (a. gonzalez), .792 (k. kouzmanoff)
number of regulars with an OPS+ of 100 or greater: 6 (including bradley and mike cameron, both injured)


arizona-
team OPS: .735
team OPS+: 89
top 3 individual OPSes on the team: .859 (m. reynolds), .826 (e. byrnes), .819 (c. jackson)
number of regulars with an OPS+ 100 or greater: 5 (including the injured orlando hudson and chad tracy)

san diego has the edge in OPS+ despite having a lower raw OPS because they play half their games at petco park. other than that, the sole big difference is bradley, who is now out for the year. to give pinto the benefit of the doubt, i'll assume he gave his answer before bradley got hurt. but his answer is tragically simple anyways. "san diego has good hitters, arizona does not." use your brain buddy. reynolds and byrnes (whose SBs add an extra dimension of offense) aren't good hitters, but gonzalez and kouzmanoff are? look at the numbers, moron.

[Jake] Peavy and [Chris] Young make a terrific 1-2 punch in the rotation, but Young hasn't pitched well since returning from his injury.

young since his return, including a disastrous outing last night- 48 IP, 34 ER, 6.33 ERA. yeah- i'm gonna go ahead and say he's not really pulling his weight in the "1-2 punch" combo. sadly, the rest of david's analysis is pretty inoffensive, although still extremely oversimplified. but let's skip it and get to the real idiots.


Joe Sheehan, Baseball Prospectus: San Diego by just a little bit, mainly for the edge Jake Peavy has on Brandon Webb, and their having the best offense of the three teams.

that's all joe offers. that's it. peavy is better than webb (true, but how significant is that really? san diego's ace is probably the best SP in the league, and arizona's ace is like the 5th best... what a difference maker.) and san diego has the best offense of the three. before we take that as fact and move forward, let's just make sure it's true.

runs/game:
colorado 5.21
san diego 4.44
arizona 4.42


batting average:
colorado .278
san diego .248
arizona .250


OBP:
colorado .353
san diego .320
arizona .320


SLG %:
colorado .434
san diego .407
arizona .415


oooooooooooooooooooook. thanks for the analysis, joel. baseball prospectus is held is incredibly high regard by so many dedicated baseball fans (read: intense SABR people, who love numbers more than anything when it comes to proving a point). and this is the kind of guy they employ? almost makes me want to side with the joe morgans and jerry crasnicks of the sports journalism world.


D.J. Short, MetsBlog.com: I feel that the Diamondbacks are the biggest threat, simply because of Brandon Webb, who had a 42-inning scoreless streak earlier this year. Something tells me that he could be Orel Hershiser of 1988 revisited.

d.j. and joe from baseball prospectus should have compared answers before submitting. so webb is the singular reason he favors the d'backs. besides the fact that liking a team more than another based on one SP is pretty dumb (even when it comes to the postseason), what about the fact that peavy has a better ERA and WHIP this year? i guess because he didn't have a long scoreless inning streak, his season long dominance isn't worth as much.

(again, just like with the guy who picked the rockies on a hunch, can you imagine this kind of analysis being applied to one of baseball's more media friendly divisions by a so called baseball expert? "yankees or red sox? i'm going yankees, for one reason and one reason alone- i think chien-ming wang is slightly better than josh beckett." that would NEVER happen. welcome to the NL west.)

Led by a scrappy Eric Byrnes, the D'backs show a lot of fight and are more of an offensive force than the Padres.

review those numbers i just gave in response to joe from baseball prospectus, and tell me how this is true. well, the "offensive force" part anyways. the scrappiness part? i gotta admit- eric byrnes is scrappy as hell. he's like a version of david eckstein that actually plays above average baseball and even spends time in the sun occasionally. have you ever seen the way he somersaults on his followthrough every single time he's trying to throw out a baserunner from left field? plus, his jersey always has dirt on it. always. i think he practices his headfirst slide during pregame warmups. what a jackass. what a scrappy, gritty, gutty, hustlerific jackass.

The Mets have dominated the D'backs at Bank One Ballpark in recent seasons, including taking three of four there in May, but all the stats in the world mean nothing once the playoffs begin.

this wasn't asked, but thanks for telling us about how the mets have fared against them. also... the rockies... not really part of the question, then? ok.

Dave Studeman, The Hardball Times: I'd pick San Diego and Arizona over Colorado, because their pitching staffs are built for the postseason: ace starter, good No. 2 and 3 starters, deep bullpen.

the san diego and arizona bullpens are definitely awesome. and they both have an ace. however- let's look at these allegedly sweet no. 2 and no. 3 starters.

san diego
no. 2- chris young, who i've already discussed (6.33 ERA since august 1)
no. 3- greg maddux, 4.10 ERA, 1.24 WHIP (very solid), 6.29 september ERA in 5 starts (not solid), only a 101 ERA+ because of petco (shockingly unsolid)

arizona
i'm not as familiar with the d'backs rotation, so i'll just list the credentials of their next 3 best pitchers after webb, and we'll try to figure out who no. 2 and no. 3 are.
doug davis- 4.27 ERA (ok...), 110 ERA+ (ok...), 142 Ks in 187 IP (pretty good...) 1.60 WHIP (that is awful, for a potential #2 or even #3 guy)
livan hernandez- 4.85 ERA (that kind of sucks), 97 ERA+ (nope), 1.56 WHIP (not even close), 87 Ks in 200 innings (wow)
micah owings- 4.49 ERA, 1.31 WHIP, 102 Ks in 146 IP (and a grand slam!)

so i guess owings is probably the #2, and davis is #3... i guess. are those the kind of guys you expect to carry you through the playoffs? i guess, as that one idiot said, "anything can happen in october!" and look at how good jeff weaver, jeff suppan, and anthony reyes were last year for the cardinals. still... neither of these top 3s are even close to elite as far as the whole league goes. although they've fallen out of the playoff picture, the dodgers have a much better 1-2-3 (penny, lowe, billingsley). the braves have an edge with smoltz, a rejuvenated tim hudson, and chuck james. the mets are comparable to both with perez, maine, and glavine. hell, i'll even take what the cubs have to offer with zambrano, lilly, and hill over what the d'backs are running out there. and all that's only in the NL. i mean, this whole argument only exists because chris young and maddux are hurt. were they healthy, the padres would be way better than all these teams in this department. but both have been hurt and performing poorly for a signficant amount of time, and these "experts" should know that.

Of the two, I'd give a slight edge to the Padres because their offense seems just a bit better, and I think a visiting team might have a hard time adjusting to their ballpark.

might have a hard time adjusting how? is the batter's eye covered with pictures of baseballs? is the outfield made out of trampolines? pathetic. and again, imagine this kind of analysis being offered re: the yankees and red sox. it's sad to realize the depth of information offered about certain teams just dwarfs that offered about other very talented and "significant" (as in, playoff worthy) teams.

Bob Timmermann, The Griddle: A question as puzzling as this requires a nap. And after thinking about the topic, I started napping. But once awake, the answer became no clearer.

unfunny. get to your answer.

Each team, if viewed objectively, looks like it should not be able to make the playoffs.

this is nonsense. what is the difference between objectively and subjectively viewing a baseball team's chances at making the playoffs? any act of trying to predict the future is inherently subjective.

I would have originally tabbed the Padres because of their pitching, but I'm just not sold on it.

although you probably don't know why, you are right. i've got $5 that says bob doesn't know young and maddux have been hurt recently.

I would have to go with Arizona because they actually have a manager (Bob Melvin) who seems to best be able to wring out the most from the talent he has available. The Padres are reminding me a lot of the 2004 Dodgers -- in a bad way.

thank you for that great piece of non-analysis. the rockies weren't picked to finish above .500 or 4th in the division by anyone during before the season started, but the fact they're going to do both has nothing to do with clint hurdle. bud black? terrible manager. couldn't wring water out of a wet sponge. (sarcastic joke does not apply to the fact that black just tackled his best hitter on the field, tearing the guy's ACL)

And I think the Rockies are not as formidable once Matt Holliday (who missed games Saturday and Sunday with a strained left oblique muscle, but will try to return Tuesday in Los Angeles) is subtracted from the lineup.

the rockies are not as good when their MVP candidate doesn't play. who'd have thunk? so he missed 3 games, all of which the rockies won, and now he's supposed to be back. and... this works into your answer.... how?

Ken Tremendous, Fire Joe Morgan: I think it's unquestionably the Padres. Although Young hasn't been quite as good since the injury,

young, pre-injury: 20 starts, 1.82 ERA, 0.99 WHIP
young, post-injury: 9 starts, 6.33 ERA, 1.39 WHIP

slight discrepency there.

he still has a WHIP of 1.06 for the season,

not relevant, since he's obviously not the same pitcher since he's been injured.

and he and Peavy are easily the best 1-2 combo in the division.

when healthy, yes. now, no.

No one on the entire team can hit, but no one on the Diamondbacks can hit either, and they only have one good pitcher.

at least all of that is vaguely correct.

Assuming the Pads make the playoffs, I wouldn't be shocked if they went to the World Series.

considering this is baseball, where even the best teams only win 2/3 of their games, and you only need 7 wins to get through the LDS and LCS, i wouldn't be shocked if any of the eight teams that make the playoffs go to the world series. also... the rockies? part of the question? i guess not.

so, finally, let's summarize: weisman asked seven baseball experts whether the padres, diamondbacks, or rockies present the biggest playoff challenge to teams from the NL east and NL central in the postseason.

-2 want to choose based soley on either peavy or webb, 1 of whom picked the padres because peavy is better than webb
-3 think chris young is helping the padres win games right now
-1 thinks the padres have the best offense out of all three teams
-3 fail to mention the rockies at all, despite the fact that they're a single game behind the padres for the wild card
-6 of them fail to mention arizona or san diego's bullpens, both of which are amazing
-1 thinks the diamondbacks don't send good hitters to the plate, but the padres do
-1 made their choice on "a hunch" after "throwing out analysis and logic"
-1 wants to remind us that all the stats in the world don't mean anything once the postseason begins
-1 required a nap before coming up with his answer

ah, online sports journalism. you've gotta love it.

eat a dick espn...

Okay, this is from a complete homer's perspective, but here it goes... go here and check out the NL MVP fan poll on ESPN.com. Click the link to vote for the NL MVP. Notice the names they give. Hmmmmm.... I feel like there might be someone missing. Like maybe someone who's number two in BA and OPS, number one in hits and extra base hits, and number 4 in runs scored and HRs. Oh, what's that you say? He plays at Coors field? Fuck him then I guess.

Eat a big fat dick ESPN.