Random Thoughts

I realize no one gives a shit what I think, and for fear I am slowly turning this spot into The Big Lead, I really don't want to make a habit of this but there is nothing out there that has deeply offended me right now. Rather than write a whole write up about five lines in a column that offended me, I would rather do some quick hit random thoughts from around the Internet. I promise if Simmons is worth being snarky about tomorrow, I will post him or something else tomorrow which is snarky that involves cursing and smart ass comments.

I like to number things so...

1. The most obvious story in the world is happening. The Red Sox and the Yankees are in a bidding war for Mark Teixeira, or at least are planning on being in a bidding war.

By the time this is over, win or lose, the Red Sox effectively will have made Mark Teixeira the largest contract offer in the history of your storied franchise.

Boston or New York are actually two places Mark Teixeira could work well, as long as the spotlight is not on him all too much. As long as he has other players deflecting some of the expectations for the team away from him, he should do fine. I guess this is why you hire Scott Boras. For the Red Sox this makes sense because they could move "Youk" back to 3B and play Tex at 1B, and the Red Sox would be incredibly tough next year defensively and offensively. They could swallow paying someone paying a lot of money for production that does not always equal what they pay.

I am not down on Mark Teixeira, I think he is one of the top hitters in Major League Baseball. I don't believe he is worth the amount of money he will be paid. I was very excited when my favorite team acquired him and I just think I was a little disappointed in that he wasn't the franchise changer I was expecting. I am not sure he can be that at his next stop either.

The Yankees could do it in a big way, too, giving Teixeira the kind of money that would put him in the clouds with Alex Rodriguez.

The Yankees are a horrible location for Tex and he does not deserve the kind of money A Rod makes. I am too lazy to look up stats but I don't think Tex is worth this type of money. The Yankees are insane to give him anything close to A Rod's pay scale when they have massive holes in their starting rotation. I don't see how having a great 1B is going to help the Yankees when they have to outscore every team in the league again.

Whatever happened to both these teams starting to build through their farm system and staying away from big purchases like Tex? I think the best thing for the Yankees is to go find good pitching and Tex will end up in Boston with a huge contract and Bill Simmons can love Scott Boras again. Don't get me wrong, he is a great player and one of the best at the 1B position but I just wonder what will happen when he has to get a 2 run double in a close game and not a 7-2 game.

2. Hello New York Jets, welcome to Hell. Brett Favre has not made up his mind about playing in 2009. There is a shocker.

"I haven't even thought about it," Favre said when the prospect of playing in 2009 came up.

I would not be shocked if Brett Favre retired in mid season this year and then wanted to come back as a free agent and be signed by another team. So him not thinking about whether he wants to play next year doesn't surprise me either. This story is not going away any time soon.

"I have people - friends, family - who ask me all the time about next year.

Probably because you never make a decision or when you do make a decision, you take it back a few months later. Hopefully Brett can see how this is very confusing for everyone.

When the Jets made the deal for Favre this summer it was understood that it might be a one-year marriage,

If/When the Jets make the playoffs, because they are going to, the Jets are going to want Brett Favre back as their quarterback for another year because of this. So we are going to have a chance to look forward to will he/will he not retire through the whole offseason. I think the least Brett owes the Jets is to tell them before the NFL Draft occurs. There is no way Jets fans are happy with Kellen Clemens as the QB the year after they have made the playoffs, so really Brett has them right where he wants them.

3. Mike Mussina retired. The question now is whether he will be elected to the Hall of Fame. I am horrible with this Hall of Fame question stuff because I don't think John Smoltz, Jack Morris, or Omar Vizquel should be in, but Bert Blyleven should be. You can discount my opinion if you would like. I would put Mussina in the dreaded "Hall of Very Good."

4. Peter Gammons wants to know why Hanley Ramirez got so few votes for MVP.

It's not as if the Marlins existed in another universe; their 84-77 record was a half-game better than the Dodgers', and they did it in the best division in the National League -- the division with the world champions.

If only Hanley had gotten traded to the American League and tore up the league for 1/4 of a season, then maybe someone would consider him the MVP. Right Manny?

The real reason Hanley Ramirez did not get any more votes than he did is because the MVP award is useless and pointless like every other postseason award. It is voted on by sportswriters, who as far as I can tell, don't really pay attention to that many teams. Woody Paige did not know who Huston Street was and every other voter seems intent on ignoring statistics from the new millenium to determine which player is more valuable. Not exactly geniuses voting for the award.

But Hanley Ramirez 11th? Only Pujols and Berkman had more runs created. His OPS of .940 was the best of any NL middle infielder, better than Utley's .915.

I love it when sportswriters use cherry picked statistics when it helps their point but ignore the stats when it is not convenient.

Ramirez's job wasn't to drive in runs -- it was to create them. He reached base 40 percent of the time, hit 33 homers, stole 35 bases and led the league with 125 runs.
And he did it with average defensive skills at a critical defensive position.

I have no idea how Ramirez's "job" with the Marlins is supposed to support his case for more MVP votes or how he is just average defensively is even relevant to the MVP discussion in a positive fashion. If someone knows, please tell me. The fact he is average defensively seems to hurt his cause a little bit I would think.

5. Buster Olney says a fifth year on a contract could land A.J. Burnett. I say giving him three years is risky.

In other words, at the end of the '08 season, he was throwing better than he has for any extended period in his career.

This screams "contract year performance" to me. Burnett has been offered 4 years $54 million by the Jays. I don't think a small sample size at the end of a contract year should motivate someone to give Burnett insane amounts of money to sit on the bench injured.

Burnett, who turns 32 in January, made 34 starts and 35 appearances and threw 221 1/3 innings, all career highs.

I can't figure out if it is impressive Burnett hit career highs at the age of 32 or whether this is a reason to stay away from signing him. Leave it to the Yankees to offer a 32 year old with a consistent injury history a five year deal that lands him on the team.

He has had three seasons in his career in which he pitched more than 173 innings.

Three seasons in eight seasons he has pitched 173 innings, which at 6 innings per start comes to an average of 28 appearances. That's not bad, but more than half the time he never makes it to this many appearances.

He has had five seasons in which he has thrown fewer than 173 innings.

Including, since 2001, seasons of 23, 120, 135, and 166 innings. If I were looking for an injured pitcher to start for me, I would look at Ben Sheets before A.J. Burnett. To no one's surprise, the Yankees disagree. Apparently Carl Pavano never happened to them.

The Yankees are so intent on adding pitching that in the end, the guess here is that they will do what it takes to separate themselves from the other bidders

If the Yankees were so intent on adding pitching wouldn't you think they would actually draft some decent pitching rather than gamble on free agents?

6. Let's get some Woody Paige mailbag action going...

Hey, Woody. Rumors of a Matt Holliday trade had been circulating for a while, but they always included a prospective ace (Ben Sheets, CC Sabathia, Cole Hamels, etc.).

I am sure someone can provide me with a link, but other than Woody proposing it in his column, I have never heard a single rumor of Matt Holliday for CC Sabathia or Ben Sheets. I have never heard nor will I ever hear of the Phillies trading Cole Hamels for Matt Holliday. Clearly, this is why Woody is able to work in Colorado and be a success, he can just make shit up and his loyal readers believe him.

What I don't understand in the Carlos Gonzalez part is the Rockies already have been talking about Dexter Fowler as the next sure-thing center fielder, and now they get another young center fielder.

Woody in his exhaustive research fails to see that Gonzalez also plays right field and he actually played this position more in the minors than center field.

I'll even add this. When the Rockies went to Tucson in the beginning of the franchise, I wrote that they were making a big mistake because I had gone to spring training in Arizona for years, and I knew that the players in Phoenix wouldn't make the trip over to Tucson. So the Rockies' spring training fans got shortchanged in Tucson. They never saw Barry Bonds (uh) and the other stars because they wouldn't ride the bus to Tucson, and I think it hurt the Rockies having to make all those bus trips to the Phoenix area.

Now, the Rockies are thinking about moving spring training to Phoenix because of their lousy facilities (which they were when the Rockies went there in the first place) and because they "don't want to make all those bus trips from Tucson to Phoenix." Hello!

Now Woody is criticizing the team's choice of Spring Training facility, using this to prove what a poorly run organization it is. He is insane. How the hell does a bus trip hurt the team anyway?

The Rockies should change their name to Colorado Toast.

(Bengoodfella grabs his keyboard and bangs it against his head repeated--dkk2902920202411502565613121```47n,cmxc,dad.d;dd1d2)

This neither makes sense nor is funny. He gets paid for this. I am done...not forever, but with Woody Paige...for today.