Bill Simmons- Still Dumb, Still a Hypocrite

Ho hum. This is all I could find to complain about on teh interwebs tonight, and it's pretty standard stuff. But I must continue my mission to make all four of our readers (note the plummeting BallHype ranking, down more than 100 spots in just 2 weeks! We need to get linked on The Big Lead again) hate The Sports Guy just as much as I do.

Go ahead, Bill. Tell me about unfortunate teams and annoying fans.

Which brings us to the difference between suffering and insufferable. When Celtics fans like me were pulling the woe-is-us routine after last May's NBA lottery, outsiders found it distasteful that any fan base that had been fortunate enough to have enjoyed the Russell, Havlicek and Bird eras could complain about anything. In our defense, it was almost worse to have lived the high life (16 titles) before falling on hard times (14 mostly terrible years) than never to have lived the high life at all.

No. No, no, no, no. That's not a defense. It's funny, this paragraph comes at the end of a long segment in which Bill acknowledges that fans of the Bills, Pirates, Blazers, have basically nothing positive to hang their hats on in the last 20 years. Which is great. Good to hear him admit that, especially in the context of his (until this season) constant bitching about the Celtics. Yet at the same time, here he is claiming it's "almost worse" to be a Celtics fan. This is a consistent pattern frequently repeated by Simmons- even when he's stumbling towards being right, he inevitably careens into Boston-homerism mode and ends up being hideously wrong.

We knew what we were missing: big playoff games, the sound of a sold-out crowd, rooting for a franchise that meant something.

Whereas... fans crappy teams have no idea what that kind of environment is like. It's not as if, you know, they can watch other teams enjoy those things on television basically each and every fucking night of the entire year (minus the playoff games, which can only be watched on like 75 or so fucking nights of the entire year). Go ahead, ask a Royals fan to describe a playoff game. See if they can tell you what a packed, loud, baseball stadium looks and sounds like. I'm guessing they have more than a vague understanding of one thanks to TBS and FOX. Now, granted, very few if any of them have probably ever seen such a game in person and felt the energy that accompanies it. But what percentage of Red Sox or Yankee fans have been to a playoff game? Two? One? Probably less than that. So their understanding as a group isn't that much more sophisticated. They've just had the pleasure of knowing their team was involved in the big games several times over the course of the past 15 years or so, whereas the Royals fans do not. But it doesn't mean the latter "don't know what they're missing." They have brains and imaginations. I'm sure they can put two and two together and come up with a vague idea of what a Royals playoff game would be like.

And because there were more of us, our suffering made us loud -- and, yes, insufferable.

Thank you. See, here he is, on the doorstep of admitting something that's long overdue. And yet, he still manages to blow it:

Same goes for Knicks fans now. In a sports world that is increasingly defined by big money and big markets, the Knicks play in the richest, biggest market of all.

This is true. But Bill's favorite teams play in the 5th largest market in the US (as of 2004, according to this website). And of course they also have legions and legions of bandwagon fans nationwide (arguably more than New York or any other city's teams), not to mention the world's largest and most influential sports network in their back pocket. So it's not much of a different situation.


You can't drown out their fans and can't reason with them, so don't even try. They will just have to figure out for themselves that they're lucky they don't live in Buffalo or Pittsburgh, where nobody hears you at all.

This is the ambiguous ending to the piece. Is he saying that he realizes the exact same thing applies to Boston fans, so maybe they need to shut the fuck up every once in a while if their precious Celtics don't go to the NBA Finals for a whole twenty years? Or worse, if their beloved "Patties" can't win the Super Bowl every single year (see Simmons's sour grapes/woe is us analysis of last January's AFC Championship Game)? If so, great. But this statement is too vague to be purposely vague. It's like he admitted earlier in the article that big market/popular teams get a disproportionate amount of press... but once he arrives at its conclusion, he feels it's necessary to make a distinction between New York fans the rest of those fans that like popular teams. Assuming that's the case, then this flagrantly obvious and glaring piece of hypocrisy has somehow slipped from his brain to his fingers to your computer screen undetected. It's truly astonishing that this is America's most popular sportswriter. Is the average sports fan just not annoyed by Boston fans? I guess so.

Too bad for me that I am, huh? My blood pressure is through the roof because of this topic.

There Is No Excuse for This

A blockbuster deal that happened today sent Cabrera and Willis to the Tigers.

SportsCenter just announced that the Marlins gave the Tigers "their two best players".

Hanley Ramirez had the highest fucking VORP in the NL last year.

Dontrelle Willis had a 1.60 WHIP last year.

Would Hanley Ramirez be more hyped if he and Jose Reyes swapped teams.....oh I wonder......

Scoop and America's Most Racist University

ESPN's big-name black writer takes on big-name black issue: Notre Dame

Considering the failures that Notre Dame and Washington endured this year, I don't know where to start. But I thought this article was worth a link. I am a little bit annoyed by one of Scoop's admissions:

I will admit I have waited three years to write this column.

I am trying to think of the sensible approach to rationalizing this comment - there must be a large segment of the sportswriting world that is waiting for Weis to fail in the same way they accuse others of waiting for Willingham to fail.

Obviously the situation at ND is pitiful at this point - but can you start a column where you purport to go to Notre Dame to find out "the real story" and then admit you've harbored this sentiment for three years?

Are The Reds Sure They Hired the Real Dusty Baker?

Because new Houston Astros manager Cecil Cooper is on ESPN being interviewed by Karl Ravech and Peter Gammons, and he sure sounds a whole lot like ol' Dusty. Here's the first ten or so words out of his mouth, when asked how he generically feels about his team's chances in 2008.

"We've got a very exciting team. We're going to steal some bases..."

Well, it's looking bleak, Astros fans. Your new manager's first priority/thing he's excited about is SBs. Hopefully he also has ideas about how to improve Houston's 4.68 team ERA and .330 team OBP from 2007. But he didn't really address that during the interview.

Ragging on the Mets: If You're Going to Do It, Don't Be A Moron About it

I once read an article by Larry Dobrow. It sucked. Let's see about this one:

Last year at this time, the New York Mets were the prohibitive favorites to rep the National League in the 2007 World Series. As late as early June, the Mets were on the verge of shedding their traditional other-team-in-town status and steamrolling everything in their path.

There is no way the Mets will ever shed their other-team-in-town status, until they get the World Series deficit to a more favorable ratio... and since it currently stands at 26-2. Might be a few years.

And then, they weren't. They played .500 ball from that point, showing the self-contentment of an overfed zoo animal and the urgency of a guy just exiting a toilet stall. Everyone dotes on the September collapse, but the Mets could have gone 0-for-the-month if they hadn't taken the summer off.

Actually, everyone dotes on the right answer, and savvy columnist Larry Dobrow is an idiot. On September 12, the Mets were 21 games over .500 with a record of 83-62. Over the last three weeks of the baseball season, they won only five games. No wonder everyone dotes on that.

Given that the National League is about to get more competitive -- hello, Brewers, Dodgers, Diamondbacks and Rockies -- can we Save This Franchise?

I guess the Dodgers are getting more competitive because they hired a New manager. For example, their owner was quoted:

"I think we're in good position right now," McCourt said. "We don't have to make a deal. We made the biggest move we needed to make in signing Joe."

Yeah. Sure. The Mets need to make more moves because the Dodgers signed a manager. Also- note that the four teams that Larry cites are NOT in the Mets' division.

I think we can. Martha, get me my protractor, my analysis cloak and my Metsie stamp set.

Wow. The implications of the existence of an "analysis cloak" are staggering. Alert the media!

Wait - don't.

Short-term outlook: Most of these "Save This Franchise" dispatches have taken a look at organizations that are beyond help -- the Pirates, Reds and their ilk. The Mets, after last September, are perceived as a team in disarray. That's an irresponsible suggestion, bordering on moronic. The Mets will win their division by a wide margin and should be installed as the easy favorite to claim the pennant.

Fuck you, Larry. The Reds rule. Whoops. Sorry. Larry actually makes a decent point here: that the Mets are still a solid team, although his suggestion that they should be the favorite is an exaggeration.

Assets: They have best young three-player core in the majors (David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes). They have capable veterans at first base, second base and in left field. Their rotation is anchored by two 25-year-old starters, who averaged eight strikeouts per inning in 2006, and Pedro Martinez, still cowboying up, down and all around after all these years.

Pedro cowboyed it up, down and all around to the tune of 28 IP in 2007.

Even if trigger-happy general manager Omar Minaya doesn't lift another finger -- for that to happen, he'd have to be kidnapped, felled by a stroke, or suspended by an evil arch-nemesis in some kind of viscous jelly -- they resemble an 88-win team ... which, not so coincidentally, is what the Mets were in 2007. If they had won one more game in September and the Phillies had won one less, none of these conversations are happening.

I actually kind of like Larry's point here. The Mets seem to be an above-average team, and their late-season slump doesn't seem to fit with the rest of their season. I don't know what their Pythag W-L was (anyone know?) - perhaps the late slump was just regressing to their expectation. Larry's last sentence is sensible - most of the doomsayers wouldn't be doomsaying if the Mets hadn't missed the playoffs.

They recently improved by subtraction when the Braves took the aging and ineffective Tom Glavine off their hands. I wonder if the Mets sent a thank you note or perhaps a fruitcake.

Tom Glavine was almost perfectly averagely effective last year - 96 ERA+, though I think it's insignificant that he is "aging", since he's "thrown over 180 innings every year of his entire career". So I don't think either of those adjectives are accurate.

Also, for the geographically impaired, the Mets reside in New York, where their TV and marketing intake pays for an awful lot of $4.97 quarts of milk. This is an advantage akin to being born with a silver spoon in your mouth and a platinum umbilical cord dangling below your navel.

True. You'd think the Mets could parlay that advantage into more success, like how the Yankees parlay their even larger market share into a steady stream of World Series titles!

No, the Mets don't have the ticket, merchandise or broadcasting revenue streams that their privileged cross-town rivals do.But when you remove New York Post back covers from the equation, they're not competing with the Yankees.

Duh.

Their real competitors are the two National League teams that can match them resources-wise, the Cubs and Dodgers. Those are the only ones who, like the Mets, can spend stupidly without consequences. If the Braves or Brewers hand out a dumb long-term contract that occupies 15 percent of their payroll, they're screwed. If the Mets do the same, they can swallow it and move on.

Duh. Except that they're really competing with teams like the Rockies and the Brewers, who manage to be successful with half the resources and who, I suspect, have organizations that are simply more competent at assembling winning baseball teams.

Liabilities: They're old and creaky at a handful of key spots. The aforementioned vets -- Carlos Delgado, Moises Alou and Luis Castillo -- have all seen better days, especially defensively. If Delgado's bat doesn't gain back the speed it lost last season, they'll be power-deficient from the left side of the plate.

Luis Castillo has never seen better days. He has only had an above-league-average OPS in three of his ten seasons - and for a speedy guy, he's only scored 100 runs ONCE (!).

Can you win a pennant while being power-deficient from the left side of the plate?

As has been mentioned several zillion times, the depth in the starting rotation and bullpen doesn't inspire confidence. Counting on Orlando "El Dorque" Hernandez to give you 175 injury-free innings as a fourth starter is like counting on a wedding band to pull off "Paranoid Android."

Quite the pop culture reference, Larry. Though I think, as I mentioned, Tom Glavine has no problem throwing over 175 injury-free innings, but you don't seem to like him because he's old.

As for the 'pen, they're sure putting a lot of eggs in the Duaner-Sanchez--won't-go-on-any-more-late-night-munchie-runs basket.

Yawn. I'm hungry.

This team could probably use more 'tude, I guess. When the going got rough last September, the Mets collectively looked like they needed a hug and a warm bowl of soup.

Yes. That's what they need. More 'tude. YOU WERE DOING SO WELL, LARRY! You identified real problems in the Mets' team! Now you are telling me they need hugs! If Richard Fucking Simmons had been on the 2007 Mets, they would've made the playoffs.

That wasn't the case when things didn't go their way in 2005. They got up, dusted themselves off and started swinging, literally and metaphorically. Besides, I'm from the school that five-game winning streaks tend to cure most chemistry and attitude issues.

I am from that school too. Still, Larry should've supported this point with a stat about how the 2005 Mets actually overcame losing streaks so as to support his assertion that they "literally" did overcome something.

Larry goes on to suggest some solutions, most of which involves the Mets "being aggressive" an "using their market power" which is pretty much "what the Mets have done in the past". I'd write about it, but it gets boring.

Actually, this article isn't all that bad, though it doesn't really say much. I just have a baseball jones and even 80 degree weather in Baton Rouge winters isn't enough to satisfy me.

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.

Why Bother Supporting Your Claims With Evidence or Explanations? That Takes Too Much Time

CNNSI.com's Stewart Mandel is mad about this year's BCS bowl matchups. He's sure they're all going to suck. I strongly disagree, as I think every game except USC/Illinois will be close and entertaining. (See below for some probably-going-to-blow-up-in-my-face predictions vabout them.) But that's not why I'm writing this. I'm writing it because Stewart flagrantly violates arguably the most basic rule of analytical writing. I'm pretty sure I learned it in 4th or 5th grade: if you're going to write about your opinion, you have to say why you hold that opinion. See, that's the format. First you make a point. Then you give some kind of evidence that justifies that point. Mandel gets lost somewhere between those two steps, and the result really pisses me off.

Meanwhile, you'd be hard-pressed to find too many fans who would describe this year's other BCS matchups (besides the title game) as "compelling."

Virginia Tech, No. 3 in the final BCS standings, is playing Kansas, the No. 2 team in the Big 12 North. No. 4 Oklahoma's reward for beating the No. 1 team in the country Saturday night (Missouri) is to face a West Virginia team that lost to 4-7 Pittsburgh the same night. No. 5 Georgia went from an anticipated title date with Ohio State in New Orleans to the undercard a week earlier against Hawaii. And do you think USC's Carroll, whose teams have made mincemeat out of their previous Big Ten Rose Bowl foes, is losing much sleep over those Illinois game tapes?

Little to no analysis is given as to why these games supposedly won't be good. Apparently because Kansas lost to Missouri they are terrible. Meanwhile VaTech's disastrous performance against LSU is conveniently ignored. Sure, it was like three months ago. It was also by 41 points! Forty fucking one! West Virginia lost to 5-7 Pitt, so they're ostensibly unworthy of lining up against Oklahoma. Sure, OU lost to 6-6 Colorado. But that's totally different. Georgia/Hawaii is going to suck, uh... because... Georgia thought they were going to play in the title game, and now they're not. (Nevermind that just like Kansas is the #2 team in the Big 12 North, Georgia is the #2 team in the SEC East.) The USC/Illinois matchup, well yeah, he's got me there. Probably will be a blowout. Still, that's three cheap shots taken at three BCS games with absolutely no justification. None.

But wait, there's more. Mandel then has the nerve to conclude his diatribe with this completely outrageous endorsement of the "plus one" quasi-playoff plan. (I have no problem with the "plus one," I just have a problem with this shitty, unexplained logic.)

Imagine, if you will, the potential bowl lineup if such a format existed. Right now, rather than lamenting the colossal letdown of this upcoming postseason, we'd be salivating over, say, an Ohio State-Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl and an LSU-Virginia Tech rematch in the Sugar Bowl -- with the added excitement of knowing two of those teams would meet each other the following week.

Oh, OK. Ohio State-Oklahoma, unlike West Virginia-Oklahoma, would be making us "salivate." Because apparently to him, it's abundantly clear that OSU is way better than WVU. Or they match up more salivation-inducingly with Oklahoma. Or something. How are are we supposed to know if he can't take the time to explain? Same for LSU-VaTech. Earlier in the article he described the OSU-LSU championship game matchup in this fashion:

Whichever team, Ohio State or LSU, wins the Jan. 7 title game, there will be a significant faction of the public that questions its legitimacy.

Now, we just add two more two loss teams and one more game and everyone should magically feel 100% better about the legitimacy of whoever ends up being crowned champion. Sounds totally reasonable. Not only that, but the matchups suddenly go from being boring to "thrill a minute," "plan your evening around this," "be careful not to shit your pants" exciting. Huh.

Is all this crap self-evident, and I'm the stupid one for not being able to see it? Or is Stewart Mandel just full of crap, and trying to make an argument for the plus one game without utilizing any logic or support whatsoever?

Oh, and before you accuse me of hypocrisy because I'm ripping Stewart for not explaining himself while failing to provide my own explanation for thinking the actual BCS games this year will be exciting: (Obviously these are outrageously simple at best but at least it's better than what Mandel does)

USC/Illinois: Yawn. Stanford over USC gets more ridiculous every time I think about it. Illinois beat Ohio State because no one could tackle Juice Williams. USC won't have the same problem.

LSU/Ohio State: Stewart never says this game won't be exciting, just that it won't definitively settle all debates about who should be #1, so I don't think I need to say much. LSU's loss to Arkansas exposed some of their weaknesses, but Beanie Wells is hardly Darren McFadden. They're clearly going to be the underdogs, but OSU's defense is pretty awesome. Should keep things interesting.

Georgia/Hawaii: This is exciting on the surface because just like last year's Fiesta Bowl, it's a high scoring WAC team matching up against a traditional powerhouse. So I'm excited about that (as anyone should be, at least on some minimal level) no matter how imbalanced the matchups on the field look. In any case, Georgia is probably going to win, but I'm not sold at all on Mathew Stafford. He misses a lot of open guys. Colt Brennan is the shit and he showed it against Boise State. Knowshon Moreno and Thomas Brown should rack up big yards, but the game will be played indoors and on fieldturf so the Warriors will be moving the ball as well. If Brennan has time to throw Hawaii's going to put up at least 35. Can Georgia match?

Kansas/Virigina Tech: Obviously, Kansas is really going to struggle to score much. Fortunately they have a very underrated defense that's going to hold VaTech's offense in check as well. Kansas CB Aqib Talib is a bad man and future NFL starter. I've seen four Hokie games this year and they don't seem to have much at the offensive skill positions. Tyrod Taylor gets a lot of snaps considering he sucks. Brandon Ore crumples as soon as he gets touched half the time. If Kansas makes too many mistakes early, it could get out of hand, but I think Todd Reising is capable enough of not coughing up the ball that it should be interesting well into the second half.

West Virginia/Oklahoma: Since they seem to be on national TV every single weekend, I've seen WV absolutely embarrass several teams this year. Sure, they haven't played a team like Oklahoma, but as long as Pat White is healthy their offense can move the ball on anyone. Oklahoma is, of course, dangerously good in their own right. Stupid Bob Stoops. Stop looking so smug already. I can't explain WV's meltdown against Pitt other than to say it was a rivalry game, Pitt got up for it, and Westy choked. But like I already mentioned, I also watched Oklahoma absolutely shit the bed against Colorado in October. Bad games happen. If Westy doesn't have a hangover from the Pitt disaster (which is likely given that they have a month to forget about it) they're more than capable of beating the Sooners. Will they? Probably not. But it's going to be a good game as long as White doesn't get knocked out.

I will probably look back on this and laugh at myself 6 weeks from now, after LSU blows out OSU, Georgia blows out Hawaii, Oklahoma blows out West Virginia, VaTech beats Kansas like 4-0, and Illinois/USC turns into a triple OT thriller. Sigh. Such is the wonderful world of sports predictions. That's why we here at FireJay like to stay away from anything that resembles original ideas and instead spend all our time hating. I'm really going out on a limb here, I hope it doesn't come back to bite me too hard. Remember, all I'm claiming is that these games will be interesting and fun. That shouldn't be too much to ask for.

Uhhhhh.....You Sure, Jimmy?

Rollins batted .296 with 30 homers, 94 RBIs and 41 steals from the leadoff spot, helping Philadelphia rally from a big September deficit to win the NL East. He led the league in runs (139) and triples (20), becoming the second consecutive Phillies player to win the MVP following Ryan Howard last year.

"I was like, if he can win it I can win it. The only thing he can do better than me is hit home runs further than me," Rollins said.

Apparently not important: 1) Hitting home runs way more often than you, 2) Getting on base way more often than you, 3) Offense.

Congratulations, Jimmy Rollins, on leading all MVPs through history in outs recorded!

Bill James must have been watching waaaay too much Sportscenter...

Because there is no other explanation for this piece of trash he penned for Sports Illustrated.

As most people know, Bill James is the legendary Baseball Statistician who helped revolutionize the way fans, teams and (some, but not many) journalists look at the game of baseball. So what in the world is James doing writing a statistically un-sound article on the merits of clutch hitting?

I'll be the first one to admit it: I've been watching waaaaaaay too much ESPN lately. It's mainly because I got this Sick-Ass HDTV. I keep ESPN on basically 24/7 because it's the only sports channel in High Def. Although I love to watch me some sweet ass sports highlights in HD, I've felt stupider with every passing week since I got my new TV. I find myself arguing with perfect strangers at the grocery store about how Tom Brady is clearly the greatest QB ever and that A-Rod isn't worth the money because he hasn't won a World Series. The way I've been acting is the reason I believe that Bill James has been glued to the couch 24/7, in his underwear with a bag of Funyuns rested on his belly, watching ESPN. Because honestly, I never, ever EVER thought I'd see Bill James sucking off David Ortiz for being "clutch." And that's even taking into consideration that he works for the Red Sox.

Back in the early days of sabermetrics, when dinosaurs roamed the American League Western Division, we made a very fundamental mistake. A friend of mine wrote an article asserting, essentially, that clutch hitters don't exist. At the time, we lacked any real ability to study the issue. We didn't have access to play by play of the games. No one could plausibly assert that clutch hitting did exist, because we couldn't document it without access to the game accounts, but Dick Cramer had finagled access to a couple of seasons of old data, studied the data and concluded that it didn't. There was nowhere for the discussion to go.

First of all, I personally don't buy into the fact that baseball players are robots who will always hit in a manner that matches their overall statistical profile. Guys get streaky. Sometimes is seems like they know what's coming and can always get contact and usually a hit. Other times players can psyche themselves out into swinging at bad pitches. I'll even buy into the fact that some players hit worse under lots of pressure. After all they are humans. But I will never, ever, ever believe that there are players who unequivocally hit BETTER when under more strenuous situations. It simply doesn't make sense.

It was about seven years after that before we began to have access to play by play, long before the data began to come on line, the discussion had stalled out at the assertion that clutch hitting did not exist.

The discussion has been premised upon an assertion, rather than flowing from the question itself. What I have been trying to do for the last couple of years is to back up, define a clutch situation, begin accumulating data, and gradually go down the other path.

Some people find this confusing. "Why are you publishing this clutch data," they will ask, "when you don't have any reason to believe that there is such a thing as a clutch hitter?" But that's the thing: We're publishing the data because we don't know.

This has all been done before. People have tried to shit all over A-Rod because supposedly he's the kind of guy who hits home runs exclusively when the Yankees are up 10-2. Bill Simmons did the same thing with JD Drew this year. He talked about how un-clutch and terrible Drew was, despite Drew's relatively productive season. I mean it was no mystery that Drew underperformed based on his career numbers, but Simmons made him out to be the devil because "he always grounded into double plays when we needed a hit." Larry, on this very Blog, pointed out Simmons' terrible reasoning. For example, Drew had terrible numbers in the batting with the bases loaded statistic. But he performed close to his season averages in the "close and late" category.

The problems with typically used "clutch" hitting metrics is going to be the same problems you'll have with any new clutch hitting metric that comes out. They depend on subjective paremeters and small sample sizes.

The other question everybody asks now is "How do you determine what is a clutch at-bat?" I'll have to stiff you on that one for right now. I'll explain it generally and leave the details for some other time.

"Clutch" is a complicated concept, containing at least seven elements:

1. The score

2. The runners on base

3. The outs

4. The inning

5. The opposition

6. The standings

7. The calendar.

Now what the hell is going on here? James seems to be implying either that

1) readers of SI are too stupid to understand the criteria for "clutch hitting"

or, the more likely scenario

2) James cherry picked his own criteria for clutch hitting that amounts to nothing much more than the notoriously flawed "close and late" batting stat.

Sometimes people look at things like batting average with runners in scoring position, batting average with runners in scoring position and two out, batting average in the late innings of close games. Those things are all interesting, but Tampa Bay playing Texas in April is not the same as San Diego playing Los Angeles in September.

Yeah tell that to the 2007 Brewers or Marlins. Both teams, out of playoff contention, relished the role of spoiler and pulled out all the stops to beat teams like the Padres and Mets, respectively. What about players on non-contending teams who feel pressured to bat well at the end of the season to get that extra few million on their contract extensions? Are these players also not under pressure?

We made up a system giving weight to each of these seven factors; not saying it's perfect, but you have to start somewhere. Baseball's most famous clutch hitter is David Ortiz, so let's start with him. The Big Papi's batting record in clutch Situations, over the last six years.

This is the first "proof" by James that Clutch hitting exists.



Let's see here, lemme pull up some Ortiz stats....


DAVID ORTIZ


2002
Clutch Hitting: 50 AB, 1.025 OPS
Regular Season: 412 AB, .893 OPS



2003
Clutch Hitting: 75 AB, 1.016 OPS
Regular Season: 448 AB, .961 OPS


2004
Clutch Hitting: 62 AB, 1.139 OPS
Regular Season: 582 AB, .983 OPS

2005
Clutch Hitting: 72 AB, 1.172 OPS
Regular Season: 601 AB, 1.001 OPS


2006
Clutch Hitting: 46 AB, 1.170 OPS
Regular Season: 558 AB, 1.049 OPS


2007
Clutch Hitting: 89 AB, 1.042 OPS
Regular Season: 549 AB, 1.066 OPS


Not only is Ortiz super duper clutch, but he's also really damn good at hitting ALL OF THE TIME.


So it appears as if Ortiz has been, on average, about 100 points higher in OPS over the past 6 seasons in so-called Clutch situations. There are, however, several problems here. First off, James doesn't reveal what exactly defines "clutch." He lists what criteria he uses to define "clutch," but let's be honest here: it's a completely subjective term with subjective parameters. And what good will this new stat be to us? How can you possibly define clutch so that it gives us a good idea of added value in terms of extra wins? The idea of Sabermetrics is to take as big of a sample size as possible, in order to eliminate natural fluxuations in the wonky, sometimes random, game of baseball. Then we can turn those samples and correlate it to number of runs, and therefore wins, a player contributes. This new clutch statistic seems to serve no real purpous besides patting James' best buddy Ortiz on the back for being SO FREAKING AMAZING.


Furthermore, it's almost as if James has never heard of the statistical phrase "sample size." I don't have a direct link, but I remember reading something James wrote a few years ago. Basically, he said that there have been players who have had massively productive seasons (like a 200 point increase in OPS) that were primarily a product of luck. He cited the usual suspects, like an unusually high BABIP, as reasons for the spike in performance. Fine, whatever, that's fair and probably a good argument. But the problem here is that James' explanation of "luck" was used on players who had like 650 PAs over the course of the season. But now, James expects us to believe that Ortiz is a pure clutch badass based on 450 PAs, cherry-picked by an unknown formula, over the course of six seasons.


James goes on to list some other players, including Juan Pierre, that preliminarily show that "clutch DOES matter." Frankly, I don't buy it. James has done a lot of important things for baseball statistics, but this one is highly suspect right from the get-go.

This is Nitpicky, But.....

Heyman has laid out all the possibilites for where Santana's going next year.


1. Yankees 2:1
2. Red Sox 5:2
3. Angels 10:1
4. Dodgers 15:1
5. Mets 20:1
6: Field (which should catch all possibilities otherwise, but...)25:1
7: Twins: 7:1

Which leaves the remaining 1.64% chance that Santana either retires before next season, disintegrates spontaneously, or decides that he would actually be a better shooting guard than pitcher and that Kevin Durant really needs some help in Seattle.