Let me get a few things out of the way before I tackle this Scott Miller article on Giancarlo Stanton making a deal with the devil.
1. Giancarlo Stanton could have turned down the amount of money the Marlins offered. If he has a good season, an offer like that would have been there in the future. Not the near future (2017 at the earliest), but in the future.
2. $325 million is a lot of money and Stanton has to like the organization or believe in the direction of the team enough to sign the contract. Perhaps he shouldn't believe in the Marlins, but he's not exactly going all-in. The contract is specifically back-loaded for the Marlins to sign other players around him. They may not do this, but Stanton has the option of becoming a free agent at the age of 31. He is underpaid in the early part of the contract, but cashes in later in the contract.
3. Jeffrey Loria is a cheapskate asshole who doesn't deserve to own an MLB team. Okay, he isn't always cheap. He spends money to give the illusion he isn't cheap, but then trades the money and players away, all while hording revenue sharing.
4. Giancarlo Stanton has a 1.94% chance of ending his career with the Miami Marlins. Probably less than that, most likely because I just completely made that percentage up just now. He will be traded or he will opt-out of the contract after six years.
5. This is a perfectly reasonable contract for a player of Stanton's age and ability. In fact, if Stanton continues his progression then I actually think the Marlins will have gotten a good deal here, even in the later years when Stanton averages a salary of $31 million per year. I know, it sounds crazy, but we live in a world where a 31 year old catcher (32 on Opening Day) gets $82 million for five years and a 31 year old second baseman gets $240 million for ten years.
6. So in terms of signing a deal with the devil, Stanton signed a great deal for him with a no-trade clause and an opt-out, so it was signing a deal with the devil while also making a lot of money and keeping future options open. If anything, this is a bad deal for the Marlins in the future. They now have $325 million tied up in a player for thirteen years, who they can't trade and can simply leave the team when he is 31 years old. If Stanton hates the direction of the team, he can pout and demand a trade prior to the time his opt-out clause kicks in. Would anyone blame him? I doubt it. The Marlins have just gotten themselves an albatross contract they can't simply trade away without the player's approval.
So I disagree with Scott Miller. It was a deal with the devil, but a deal with the devil that works out well for the player signing the contract. He gets paid (and yes, he is underpaid now, but he is well-paid later) and can control his destiny. Isn't that what nearly every athlete wants?
7. Seriously, Jeffrey Loria is a joke and Miami Marlins fans deserve better than him.
8. This contract is tradeable prior to the opt-out kicking in. A-Rod is off the Yankees' payroll after the 2017 season. After paying A-Rod $20 million, I don't think the Yankees would worry about giving a 28 year old outfielder $31 million per year or more. In fact, I think this contract could make Stanton more easily tradeable. Teams know he's locked-in for a long period of time, he's young enough to where he won't regress dramatically halfway through the contract, and they don't have to worry about what they may have to pay him in the future
Anyway, here is the Scott Miller article.
I hope Giancarlo Stanton has this contract written in blood. Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria's blood.
Yeah, murder Jeffrey Loria and then write the contract in his blood!
Think about it. We know Loria. We've watched his act. Things are never
as they appear. Come on, 13 years and $325 million? This guy is a
carnival barker.
While I do agree, Stanton chose to sign with the Marlins and his agents are Wasserman Media Group, which is a very experienced firm. They know what they are doing and I doubt that Stanton signed a contract that is actually worth $32.50 instead of $325 million. Loria is a joke, but this money appears to be real.
It would come as absolutely zero surprise if the contract is written in
invisible ink and by the end of year one, suddenly all the words
mysteriously have vanished and Loria sends his club president/trained
monkey David Samson out to declare that the deal really was for 13 years
and $32 million and damn right, they're taking it to arbitration.
I get it, but this is a real contract and I really do believe it is beneficial to Giancarlo Stanton. It seems there is a list of protections in the contract. There is no guarantee of team success of course, but there's no guarantee of team success no matter where he decided to sign or where he got traded to. Stanton seems to like playing in Miami for some reason. That's what this contract tells me.
Some view this as the richest contract in professional sports history.
I view it as a hostile takeover of Stanton's life.
Maybe, but Stanton knows what he is getting into. Perhaps the money has blinded him to the realities of staying with the Marlins for 13 years. But again, he can leave after six years and it wouldn't surprise me to see the Marlins trade Stanton even next year. But again, Stanton appears to have a no-trade clause in his contract, so he controls his destiny. The Marlins have never been shy about trading players, so the only risk is that Stanton wants out and the Marlins won't let him leave prior to his opt-out. That could happen with any team Stanton got traded to or signed with. The difference is Stanton knows he's with the Marlins for at least six years. It's a risk, but not a deal with the devil.
Go ask Jose Reyes. Or Mark Buehrle. Or any of the other Marlins who were
there in the spring of 2012, opened the new ballpark, ingested Loria's
promises…and then watched his spectacular lies light up the night sky in
Miami like a Fourth of July fireworks display.
Right, but they still got paid and Stanton knows about Loria's lies, which is why there is a reported no-trade clause. Ask Jose Reyes and Mark Buehrle about whether they wanted a no-trade clause. Stanton got one. Not that it matters in this discussion, but the Marlins didn't do poorly in that trade with the Blue Jays either. They got Henderson Alvarez and Adeiny Hechavarria. Justin Nicolino did pretty well in the minors this year as well. So that was some shit on the part of Loria, but the Marlins got talent back in return.
That wasn't a fire sale. That was a Way of Life for Loria, same as how he hoodwinked the Florida taxpayers into building him a new ballpark and then traded away the stars they had paid to see.
And now Loria has signed a star player for the fans to come see. Throw in the really good young pitching staff the Marlins have and it looks like they could be pretty good during the 2015 season. Maybe, just maybe, the Marlins will build around Stanton. They may not, but Stanton can leave after six years if the Marlins don't build around him.
But time after time, reality inconveniently winds up telling a different story.
Now, things are going to be different?
Maybe, maybe not. If things aren't different and the Marlins trade away the stars of their team then Stanton is in a pickle. He would have ways at that point of forcing the Marlins' hand. If the Marlins trade away the expensive players, then Stanton is THE expensive player on the roster and has the ability to essentially choose his destination.
He is a franchise player, a big bat in an era of diminishing offense
and a one-of-a-kind slugger who makes even the giant Marlins Park look
small. He is smart and well-spoken. He's the kind of player anybody
would love as the face of their franchise and the type of offensive
weapon that can deliver a World Series title to his town.
He led the NL with 37 homers and a .555 slugging percentage in 2014.
He is only 25, which means that he should have many more good years in
this 13-year deal than, say, Albert Pujols ever was going to have with
the Los Angeles Angels (10 years, $240 million starting with his age 32 season) or Miguel Cabrera is going to have with the Detroit Tigers (eight years, $248 million beginning with his age 33 season).
Therein lies my point about why Stanton didn't make a deal with the devil. He signed a long contract, but it's a contract that would cause contending teams to give the Marlins really good offers if Stanton ever ends up on the trade block. His contract isn't an albatross if it all goes wrong and Loria decides he wants to have another fire sale. Stanton gets paid and his contract looks good to opposing teams who want a franchise player who is under the age of 30.
But the Marlins? Really?
While I agree that signing with the Marlins doesn't seem like a brilliant idea, it's hard to turn down that money and Stanton does have some protection if the Marlins start to tank again. Who is to say the Marlins won't have a good, albeit cheap, team on the field for the next couple of years? Who is to say the Marlins don't give Henderson Alvarez a contract extension? Jose Fernandez has Scott Boras as his agent, so there's no deal prior to free agency going on there.
This Stanton deal makes the Reds and Mariners look like Walmart greeters.
Maybe Stanton was blinded by the money that was being offered. It's not like Robinson Cano signed a deal with a Mariners team that has a vast history of success. I understand the Marlins have a shady history of signing players and holding fire sales, but they do have a quality core of young players on a 77-win team.
Check that. The only way it makes
sense is if you trace it back to Loria's thirst for attention and his
ostentatious appetite that led to the production of a 2003 World Series ring larger than most of the jets at Miami International Airport.
Obviously Jeffrey Loria has a huge ego. He owns an MLB team after all. If Loria wants attention, he has gotten attention. Giancarlo Stanton got a 13 year $325 million contract. So it's not like he was left empty-handed.
He also clearly views the rest of the world as if we all just stepped from the set of Dumb and Dumber To.
Great relevant pop culture reference.
Really. According to documents leaked to Deadspin a
couple of years ago, the Marlins raked in $92 million in revenue
sharing in 2008-09—and spent a combined $58 million on payroll. Not long
after that boondoggle was made public, the Marlins agreed to allow MLB and the players' union to monitor its finances for three years.
These are facts from the past and I don't doubt that Loria has changed. Scott Miller is complaining that Jeffrey Loria doesn't spend money, then he spends money, and Scott Miller complains that "Oh NOW, Loria opens up his wallet and spends money on players, but I don't think he'll do it in the future."
I don't like Loria and think he is a joke. I think there is a 50-50 chance that the Marlins build around Stanton. I also think Giancarlo Stanton has signed a large contract that ensures he gets paid a lot of money to play baseball, while also protecting himself from one of Loria's fire sales. He can opt-out at the age of 30 and go get another huge contract on the open market. Sure, he's stuck for a few years, but he was going to be stuck until after the 2016 season anyway. He would have been 27 years old at that point. So he exchanged being stuck in Miami for four more years for a ton of back-end money and the chance to be a free agent again in six years.
Clearly, the treasure map for Stanton is buried deep within that pile of $325 million:
1. He will receive a blanket no-trade clause, something Loria has never done in Miami.
2. The deal reportedly allows Stanton to opt out after six years.
Either way, he can opt-out when he is 31 years old. That's plenty of time to get a new contract on the free agent market, PLUS if the Marlins think Stanton is leaving then they will simply trade him. The problem then lies in the fact Stanton can choose his next team, as opposed to being traded to a team he doesn't want to play for. Yes, Jeffrey Loria is an asshole, but Stanton has done a good job of getting paid while also protecting himself in the future. This isn't a 13 year deal with the devil.
One industry source with whom B/R spoke Monday predicted a heavily
back-loaded contract with the Marlins privately hoping Stanton opts out,
thus leaving what would be a very high average annual value on the
table.
So what's the problem then? How is this a deal with the devil if Stanton gets paid and then can leave to go play for another team in free agency? It's absolutely typical for the Marlins to sign a player to a big deal and then immediately want to get rid of that contract. I fail to see the problem or where this is a deal with the devil. If the Marlins start a fire sale then the most expensive contract (as is their history) will go first, so Stanton will be traded. If the Marlins continue to compete, Stanton is getting paid and can opt-out of the contract if he chooses to. If the Marlins don't build around Stanton, he's gone in six years. For now, the Marlins have cheap team-controlled players and time to make any contract extension offers.
One thing that would encourage Stanton to opt out is what everyone in the MLB
will be closely watching: If the Marlins truly are going to pay Stanton
in the neighborhood of $25 million a year, can they afford to put a
decent, competitive team around him?
With revenue sharing, I think they can absolutely afford it. Will they put a competitive, decent team around him? That is the question that remains to be answered. One thing that won't have to be answered is Stanton won't have to worry about trade rumors surrounding him or playing to earn a new contract after the 2016 season. That much is for sure.
From A-Rod and the Rangers to points beyond, time has proven that teams don't win when one player is soaking up 25, 30 percent or more of the payroll.
I understand this. I will also acknowledge this is a bit of a different situation because the Marlins are so young and talented. Teams don't often win with a player taking up that much of the payroll, but the Marlins only have Stanton taking up so much of the payroll because they have a really, really young team. Look at their contract commitments. There are some good players who aren't earning much money on that list. So while it's easy to say the Marlins can be different, they can be different.
Stanton got grumpy on Twitter
when the Marlins were breaking up the 2012 team. You've got to believe
now that Loria has promised him (with a straight face) a competitive
team.
I just hope Stanton doesn't have a dog.
He might have a dog. He is just richer now. It's a trade he was willing to make. Again, Stanton is NOT locked in to the Marlins for 13 years. They CAN NOT simply trade him away to wherever they would like. The fact the Marlins would want to cut payroll (which is Miller's point) means Stanton would be traded. Therefore, as long as the Marlins don't trade every cheap contract that really doesn't save them money in the short-term, Stanton is in a good position. His contract is the one the Marlins would want to move because there are no expensive players to trade other than him. So the Marlins either will trade their young players when they get more expensive through the years, keep those players and increase payroll, or trade Stanton. The worst of those situations, trading the young players as they get expensive through the years, also happens to coincide with Stanton's opt-out becoming an option.
Remember Buehrle and his pit bull? The pitcher signed a free-agent deal
with the Marlins in good faith. He didn't get a no-trade clause. And a
few months later, the club shipped him to Toronto.
Yes, I fucking remember. I also remember Giancarlo Stanton has a no-trade clause so even if he has a dog, he can't be traded to Toronto. Son of a bitch, pay attention to the whole "no-trade clause" part of the contract. Don't ignore it for the sake of snark.
They don't allow pit bulls in Canada, so when Buehrle joined the Blue Jays, the poor guy had to leave his pooch behind.
BUT STANTON CAN CHOOSE WHICH TEAM HE GETS TRADED TO!
At least Stanton has his no-trade. So maybe you can take a dog out of the equation. But you can't take the dog out of Loria.
I would agree Loria is a dog. I also believe that the Marlins don't have many contracts right now they can get rid of through trade. The only contract that the Marlins would traditionally get rid of is Stanton's contract. If the Marlins get rid of Stanton's contract then he didn't make a deal with the devil because he can control his destination. The only way Stanton made a deal with the devil is if the Marlins trade guys like Jose Fernandez and Henderson Alvarez as soon as they get expensive in arbitration. It could happen, but the sooner these players get more expensive, the sooner Stanton's opt-out shows up on the horizon.
Showing posts with label Scott Miller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scott Miller. Show all posts
Monday, December 1, 2014
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
0 comments Scott Miller Isn't Sure a Designated Hitter Should Win the MVP
Scott Miller isn't so sure that a designed hitter should ever win the MVP. This is an interesting problem because designated hitters already have a barrier entering the Hall of Fame because they don't play the field and now there are baseball writers like Scott Miller who think a DH shouldn't be the MVP. Tradition-minded voters (those same ones who possibly don't like the DH and wouldn't vote for a DH as MVP) like using a player's achievements like top-5 MVP finishes as a reason a player should or should not be elected into baseball's Hall of Fame. So what's a DH to do when he doesn't get enough MVP votes because he doesn't play a fielding position, yet otherwise his statistics show that he deserves election into the Hall of Fame? A DH is already behind because some MVP voters won't give him an MVP vote because he's a DH, which then affects his Hall of Fame candidacy. It appears that Scott Miller is one of those voters.
What's interesting, and I will show this in some more depth in a minute, is that Scott Miller is one of those baseball writers who thinks great defense should not be thought of as being on par with a great offensive season when it comes to voting for the MVP. Yet Miller holds the fact a player doesn't play defense at all against a player when he is only a DH. Fielding your position is only important in the MVP balloting when it needs to be important I guess. It's better to be a bad fielder who puts up great offensive numbers than a DH who doesn't field at all and puts up great offensive numbers.
No. Heck no. Hail no.
So if Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown as a DH in 2012 and Mike Trout played centerfield that season, then Trout should have won the MVP? But of course not! I do not believe Scott Miller would have then voted for Trout.
Unless…
Ah yes, a caveat. There's always a caveat.
There is one avenue toward the MVP award if you are a DH, and one avenue only: A slugger must stack up offensive numbers so massive that they dwarf everything else in his path, from whomever is the runner-up in slugging percentage and homers to that year’s Super Bowl’s television ratings.
OK, so that last part is an exaggeration. But not by much.
If it's not an exaggeration by much then it's not really an exaggeration. So to win the MVP award in either the National or American League a DH has to be the most valuable player in either the National League or the American League? To be the MVP a player has to be the MVP.
Unless...
What if Player A is a league average fielder at his position? He provides no positive differential to his team and no negative differential. If Player B is a DH and out-hits and out-MVP's Player A, but not by a whole lot, then why in the hell would Player A receive the MVP award simply because he played defense? His defense had no positive impact for his team (and this goes doubly for a player who actually had a negative impact for his team on defense), so he essentially had the same impact as a player who is primarily a DH.
It's weird how Scott Miller says, "Yeah, but a DH doesn't play defense at all" and then doesn't seem to care that much about defense in any other regard when it comes to voting for the MVP. Yeah, he considers defense, but overwhelmingly considers offense and other factors when it comes to voting for an MVP. Here is an example of this when it comes to the Miguel Cabrera-Mike Trout 2012 AL MVP debate.
Far as I'm concerned there is no wrong answer here, they each deserve an MVP award. But you've gotta pick one, and based on the most dangerous bat in the game and season-long production, Cabrera is the choice here.
His Triple Crown chances in these final days notwithstanding, Cabrera keeps opposing managers awake nights and rival pitchers on high alert. Nobody -- including Trout -- has carried his club all season like Cabrera, who, into Sunday, was hitting .342 with 36 homers, 36 doubles and 114 RBI over 127 games since May 10.
When you read Scott Miller mention defense with any sort of indication that defense had a real impact on his hypothetical MVP vote, just tell me.
Trout was not with the Angels in April, and Torii Hunter has been their best player in September. Trout has had his worst overall month in September, batting .255/369/.436 with five steals...If it's a Player of the Year award, I go Trout. But if you include both April and September, it is Cabrera -- barely -- who encompasses the word valuable in its totality for all six months.
Miller's logic doesn't make a ton of sense here. I mean, Player of the Year goes to Trout, but MVP goes to Cabrera. I try not to be distracted by this logic and reasoning, but it seems like the same thing to me. Notice that Scott Miller says the MVP race was very close, there was no wrong answer and he uses mostly batting statistics to advocate for Cabrera as the AL MVP. Let's say that Cabrera was a full-time DH. Using the reasoning earlier where Miller said a player who was a DH would have to stack up numbers "so massive they dwarf everything in his path" then he would NOT have voted for Cabrera if he were a DH and had won the Triple Crown, right? Cabrera didn't dwarf Trout's numbers. How come I don't believe Miller would have not voted for Cabrera if he were a primary DH in 2012 though? Especially since he used mostly batting statistics to justify his choice of Cabrera as the AL MVP? So I think Miller is talking out of both sides of his mouth in this situation.
Here is another article about Cabrera after he was named AL MVP in 2012. Notice Miller mentions defense in this column, but mostly discusses hitting. Can I really believe that Miller would have suggested Cabrera was not the 2012 AL MVP as a full-time DH if he had won the Triple Crown because he didn't "dwarf everything in his path"? I can not.
The award is not Player of the Year. It is not Most Awesome Overall Skills.
It's not Most Awesome Overall Skills (well, yes it is) according to Scott Miller, but when it comes to a DH all of a sudden those Most Awesome Overall Skills are really factored into his MVP vote.
In the end, in a nutshell, here it is: Nobody combined overall statistics, badass lineup presence and value to his team more than Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera.
Trout came close. Very, very close. Close enough that if he were to have won, well, then, that's the way it would go and we all should accept that because he absolutely is deserving, too.
Cabrera did not dwarf Trout's numbers, so therefore if Cabrera were a full-time DH then Trout would have gotten Miller's hypothetical vote (Miller didn't have a vote during the 2012 season), right?
But set aside, for just a moment, the fact that Cabrera this year became the first player to win baseball's Triple Crown since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. Because a player should no more be automatically awarded an MVP for a Triple Crown than he should for posting an historic WAR number.
It is about many different things, and how they all fit together into the overall package.
Which is totally different from a player who should win Most Awesome Overall Skills. The "Overall Package" is completely different from "Most Awesome Overall Skills" in Scott Miller's head.
Cabrera posted his Big Boy numbers in the midst of a position change, and yet many of those supporting Trout, in citing his extraordinary defense (and oh man, is it ever), have gone overboard bashing Cabrera's defense while failing to acknowledge the whole position change thing.
Plus, despite their narrative, Cabrera is not the butcher at third base they'd have you believe. He not going to win any Gold Gloves anytime soon, but he did make a couple of plays down the stretch that helped the Tigers win the AL Central.
See? Defense is important to Scott Miller until he decides defense isn't important. A DH needs to play defense in order to be considered the MVP, but as long as a position player makes "a couple of plays down the stretch" then there's no need to consider defense for a position player. Defense counts until it doesn't.
But you can also stack arguments for Cabrera as high as the green-eyed Tiger prowling atop the Comerica Park scoreboard. And while I enjoy the new frontiers Sabermetrics have opened and while I am not anti-math … the batting title, the ERA race, those statistical departments are about the math and nothing but.
The MVP award? That factors in other variables as well, some of which simply are not quantifiable. Sorry.
And of course there is no way a DH can have other variables that aren't quantifiable which would lead Scott Miller to vote for him as the MVP. I fail to believe Miller would have not voted for Cabrera in 2012 simply because Cabrera hypothetically could have been a full-time DH. I don't believe it.
So there is proof Miller uses defense as important to the MVP race until he decides not to anymore and my speculation that Miller probably wouldn't heed his own words in voting for Cabrera (were he a DH) in the 2012 AL MVP race. Back to the article about why a DH shouldn't be MVP...
Which brings us to Detroit’s Victor Martinez, who is doing everything so far this season except fly the Tigers’ broken charter from Boston to Cleveland.
After May 18's games, Martinez ranked fifth in the majors with a .331 batting average, fifth in slugging percentage at .595, tied for ninth with 10 home runs and seventh in OPS at .973. As the Tigers roll in the AL Central, he’s popping up on television so often you’d think he had changed his name to V. Martinez and was hanging out with Donald Sterling.
Weak joke.
Now despite Martinez’s early momentum, he leads the AL in only one department (batting average) and is tied for the lead with the White Sox’s Jose Abreu in another (slugging percentage). His 25 RBI are well behind teammate Miguel Cabrera’s 39.
How dare Victor Martinez come up to the plate and not drive in runners because Miguel Cabrera has already driven in all the base runners! If Martinez had any decency he would bash Cabrera in the head with a baseball bat prior to the game just to jump ahead of Cabrera into the #3 hole and drive in more runs. That would make him the MVP, but alas, he doesn't do that and settles for driving in fewer runs than Cabrera partially because Cabrera has already driven in the runs that Martinez would have had an opportunity to drive in.
See how RBI's work? A player can't run up insane RBI totals if there are no players on-base to drive in.
And being that Martinez bats directly behind Miggy in the Tigers lineup, most of his RBI chances are going to continue to vanish just before he comes to the plate the way those delicious works of art disappear from the plates at Lafayette Coney Island in Detroit.
And this is absolutely something that should not be held against him when it comes to Martinez's MVP candidacy.
So while he’s absolutely in the early-season MVP discussion, he’s got some work to do. Much work to do, being that he’s a DH.
Martinez has to obliterate all other MVP candidates with his numbers, because he doesn't play defense, but of course a player who plays great defense doesn't get credit for this great defense if he doesn't have exactly comparable numbers (during cherry-picked months as well) to another position player. Defense is really important, unless it's not important. Crappy defense is okay, not playing defense at all is not okay.
There have been years in which a full-time DH has made a case to win an MVP award, and most of those bids recently have been made by Boston’s David Ortiz. Big Papi’s 2004-2006 period was a masterpiece, a time in which his successive RBI numbers were 139/148/137 and his homer numbers were 41/47/54.
Yeah, but Ortiz may have only been the most valuable player in the AL that year which doesn't mean he was the Most Valuable Player in the AL, because he didn't lay waste to his competitors for the MVP award.
In ’06, Ortiz out-homered Morneau 54-34, out-RBI’d him 137-130, out-OBP’d him .413-.375 and out-WAR’d him 5.7-4.3. But Morneau had a significantly higher batting average than Ortiz (.321-.287) and in two key departments contributed defensively because he played first base in 153 games (and DH’d in only four) and his Twins won the AL Central, while Ortiz’s Red Sox finished third in the AL East.
Boy, playing defense and being on a winning team certainly does hold a lot of sway for an individual award in Scott Miller's mind. Notice how Ortiz was the better hitter, but Morneau played defense and his team won their division. If only Ortiz had played the field he would have had a better shot at being MVP for the 2006 season. And really, who cares if Morneau contributed positively to his team on defense? That doesn't matter, does it?
And over the past couple of decades, award voters (members of the Baseball Writers’ Assn. of America, of which, full disclosure, I am) have increasingly appeared to value contributions toward a contending team.
Because it does make sense to weigh the achievement of a team overall heavily when determining an individual player's performance. In baseball, one player doesn't have the ability to pitch and hit at all nine spots in the order, so it makes sense to judge one player on the talents of his teammates.
Given those parameters, the deck remains badly stacked against a DH winning the MVP award.
Which means a DH won't be able to accumulate those important top-5 MVP finishes or win one of those MVP awards that Hall of Fame voters care about so greatly. So the idea a DH can't win the MVP could affect that player's candidacy for the Hall of Fame, which seems a little unfair.
And these parameters by the way, are all very silly and arbitrary...
Because by definition, if the pool of candidates is going to be narrowed to those playing for playoff teams, that will nearly automatically eliminate the MVP outliers from bottom-division teams (see: Andre Dawson for the 1987 Cubs).
The pool of candidates should not be narrowed to only those who play for playoff teams. A player could be the most valuable player on any team in the AL/NL and his team still not make the playoffs. The playoffs are a team achievement, I can't emphasize this enough.
And once the pool is whittled to players with contending teams, odds are astronomically against a DH given that he is not contributing defensively.
So a player who doesn't play defense can not be the most valuable player on his team. Someone should tell that to David Ortiz and the Red Sox, because they may disagree. I would also like an explanation how David Ortiz could win the MVP award in the World Series, but not for the regular season. Is it because he played a few games at first base during the World Series and therefore this made him more valuable (regardless of whether he played first base well or not)?
Is this right? I think it is. Yes, DH is a legitimate position and unquestionably should be considered in the MVP debate. But all things being equal, it’s not a fair fight.
A DH should be considered in the MVP debate, but he just shouldn't get any votes for being the MVP. Sure, makes sense. I would bet if Miguel Cabrera were a full-time DH then he would still win the MVP on a year where he won the Triple Crown. It also pisses me off that playing defense very well or very poorly has the same impact on Scott Miller. Defense is important and is a reason why a DH should not be the MVP, but defense isn't so important two player's defensive contributions should be factored in over hitting in any way.
Given that the past three AL MVPs have come from Detroit (Cabrera in ’13 and ’12, Justin Verlander in ’11)
Verlander only plays once every fifth day, which apparently is perfectly fine when it comes to him winning the MVP. Maybe a DH like Ortiz should field a position every fifth day and then he would get more MVP votes too. Victor Martinez better start stealing some time in the field now. Who cares if Martinez plays well or not in the field, that doesn't matter. He just has to be on defense, because it's an important part of the game of baseball, but not important enough to be used to differentiate between two MVP candidates like Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera.
well, if any DH is going to win an MVP award anytime soon, you’d figure he would be tiger-striped.
So basically a DH should not win the MVP award because that DH would have to play for a contending team, and even if he plays for a contending team, he still isn't contributing enough to the team by not playing defense. A player has to contribute on defense to win the MVP. Of course, even though defense is really important and it can lose the MVP award for a player it isn't important enough to help a player win the MVP.
What's interesting, and I will show this in some more depth in a minute, is that Scott Miller is one of those baseball writers who thinks great defense should not be thought of as being on par with a great offensive season when it comes to voting for the MVP. Yet Miller holds the fact a player doesn't play defense at all against a player when he is only a DH. Fielding your position is only important in the MVP balloting when it needs to be important I guess. It's better to be a bad fielder who puts up great offensive numbers than a DH who doesn't field at all and puts up great offensive numbers.
1. Should a DH ever win an MVP Award?
No. Heck no. Hail no.
So if Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown as a DH in 2012 and Mike Trout played centerfield that season, then Trout should have won the MVP? But of course not! I do not believe Scott Miller would have then voted for Trout.
Unless…
Ah yes, a caveat. There's always a caveat.
There is one avenue toward the MVP award if you are a DH, and one avenue only: A slugger must stack up offensive numbers so massive that they dwarf everything else in his path, from whomever is the runner-up in slugging percentage and homers to that year’s Super Bowl’s television ratings.
OK, so that last part is an exaggeration. But not by much.
If it's not an exaggeration by much then it's not really an exaggeration. So to win the MVP award in either the National or American League a DH has to be the most valuable player in either the National League or the American League? To be the MVP a player has to be the MVP.
Unless...
What if Player A is a league average fielder at his position? He provides no positive differential to his team and no negative differential. If Player B is a DH and out-hits and out-MVP's Player A, but not by a whole lot, then why in the hell would Player A receive the MVP award simply because he played defense? His defense had no positive impact for his team (and this goes doubly for a player who actually had a negative impact for his team on defense), so he essentially had the same impact as a player who is primarily a DH.
It's weird how Scott Miller says, "Yeah, but a DH doesn't play defense at all" and then doesn't seem to care that much about defense in any other regard when it comes to voting for the MVP. Yeah, he considers defense, but overwhelmingly considers offense and other factors when it comes to voting for an MVP. Here is an example of this when it comes to the Miguel Cabrera-Mike Trout 2012 AL MVP debate.
Far as I'm concerned there is no wrong answer here, they each deserve an MVP award. But you've gotta pick one, and based on the most dangerous bat in the game and season-long production, Cabrera is the choice here.
His Triple Crown chances in these final days notwithstanding, Cabrera keeps opposing managers awake nights and rival pitchers on high alert. Nobody -- including Trout -- has carried his club all season like Cabrera, who, into Sunday, was hitting .342 with 36 homers, 36 doubles and 114 RBI over 127 games since May 10.
When you read Scott Miller mention defense with any sort of indication that defense had a real impact on his hypothetical MVP vote, just tell me.
Trout was not with the Angels in April, and Torii Hunter has been their best player in September. Trout has had his worst overall month in September, batting .255/369/.436 with five steals...If it's a Player of the Year award, I go Trout. But if you include both April and September, it is Cabrera -- barely -- who encompasses the word valuable in its totality for all six months.
Miller's logic doesn't make a ton of sense here. I mean, Player of the Year goes to Trout, but MVP goes to Cabrera. I try not to be distracted by this logic and reasoning, but it seems like the same thing to me. Notice that Scott Miller says the MVP race was very close, there was no wrong answer and he uses mostly batting statistics to advocate for Cabrera as the AL MVP. Let's say that Cabrera was a full-time DH. Using the reasoning earlier where Miller said a player who was a DH would have to stack up numbers "so massive they dwarf everything in his path" then he would NOT have voted for Cabrera if he were a DH and had won the Triple Crown, right? Cabrera didn't dwarf Trout's numbers. How come I don't believe Miller would have not voted for Cabrera if he were a primary DH in 2012 though? Especially since he used mostly batting statistics to justify his choice of Cabrera as the AL MVP? So I think Miller is talking out of both sides of his mouth in this situation.
Here is another article about Cabrera after he was named AL MVP in 2012. Notice Miller mentions defense in this column, but mostly discusses hitting. Can I really believe that Miller would have suggested Cabrera was not the 2012 AL MVP as a full-time DH if he had won the Triple Crown because he didn't "dwarf everything in his path"? I can not.
The award is not Player of the Year. It is not Most Awesome Overall Skills.
It's not Most Awesome Overall Skills (well, yes it is) according to Scott Miller, but when it comes to a DH all of a sudden those Most Awesome Overall Skills are really factored into his MVP vote.
In the end, in a nutshell, here it is: Nobody combined overall statistics, badass lineup presence and value to his team more than Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera.
Trout came close. Very, very close. Close enough that if he were to have won, well, then, that's the way it would go and we all should accept that because he absolutely is deserving, too.
Cabrera did not dwarf Trout's numbers, so therefore if Cabrera were a full-time DH then Trout would have gotten Miller's hypothetical vote (Miller didn't have a vote during the 2012 season), right?
But set aside, for just a moment, the fact that Cabrera this year became the first player to win baseball's Triple Crown since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. Because a player should no more be automatically awarded an MVP for a Triple Crown than he should for posting an historic WAR number.
It is about many different things, and how they all fit together into the overall package.
Which is totally different from a player who should win Most Awesome Overall Skills. The "Overall Package" is completely different from "Most Awesome Overall Skills" in Scott Miller's head.
Cabrera posted his Big Boy numbers in the midst of a position change, and yet many of those supporting Trout, in citing his extraordinary defense (and oh man, is it ever), have gone overboard bashing Cabrera's defense while failing to acknowledge the whole position change thing.
Plus, despite their narrative, Cabrera is not the butcher at third base they'd have you believe. He not going to win any Gold Gloves anytime soon, but he did make a couple of plays down the stretch that helped the Tigers win the AL Central.
See? Defense is important to Scott Miller until he decides defense isn't important. A DH needs to play defense in order to be considered the MVP, but as long as a position player makes "a couple of plays down the stretch" then there's no need to consider defense for a position player. Defense counts until it doesn't.
But you can also stack arguments for Cabrera as high as the green-eyed Tiger prowling atop the Comerica Park scoreboard. And while I enjoy the new frontiers Sabermetrics have opened and while I am not anti-math … the batting title, the ERA race, those statistical departments are about the math and nothing but.
The MVP award? That factors in other variables as well, some of which simply are not quantifiable. Sorry.
And of course there is no way a DH can have other variables that aren't quantifiable which would lead Scott Miller to vote for him as the MVP. I fail to believe Miller would have not voted for Cabrera in 2012 simply because Cabrera hypothetically could have been a full-time DH. I don't believe it.
So there is proof Miller uses defense as important to the MVP race until he decides not to anymore and my speculation that Miller probably wouldn't heed his own words in voting for Cabrera (were he a DH) in the 2012 AL MVP race. Back to the article about why a DH shouldn't be MVP...
Which brings us to Detroit’s Victor Martinez, who is doing everything so far this season except fly the Tigers’ broken charter from Boston to Cleveland.
After May 18's games, Martinez ranked fifth in the majors with a .331 batting average, fifth in slugging percentage at .595, tied for ninth with 10 home runs and seventh in OPS at .973. As the Tigers roll in the AL Central, he’s popping up on television so often you’d think he had changed his name to V. Martinez and was hanging out with Donald Sterling.
Weak joke.
Now despite Martinez’s early momentum, he leads the AL in only one department (batting average) and is tied for the lead with the White Sox’s Jose Abreu in another (slugging percentage). His 25 RBI are well behind teammate Miguel Cabrera’s 39.
How dare Victor Martinez come up to the plate and not drive in runners because Miguel Cabrera has already driven in all the base runners! If Martinez had any decency he would bash Cabrera in the head with a baseball bat prior to the game just to jump ahead of Cabrera into the #3 hole and drive in more runs. That would make him the MVP, but alas, he doesn't do that and settles for driving in fewer runs than Cabrera partially because Cabrera has already driven in the runs that Martinez would have had an opportunity to drive in.
See how RBI's work? A player can't run up insane RBI totals if there are no players on-base to drive in.
And being that Martinez bats directly behind Miggy in the Tigers lineup, most of his RBI chances are going to continue to vanish just before he comes to the plate the way those delicious works of art disappear from the plates at Lafayette Coney Island in Detroit.
And this is absolutely something that should not be held against him when it comes to Martinez's MVP candidacy.
So while he’s absolutely in the early-season MVP discussion, he’s got some work to do. Much work to do, being that he’s a DH.
Martinez has to obliterate all other MVP candidates with his numbers, because he doesn't play defense, but of course a player who plays great defense doesn't get credit for this great defense if he doesn't have exactly comparable numbers (during cherry-picked months as well) to another position player. Defense is really important, unless it's not important. Crappy defense is okay, not playing defense at all is not okay.
There have been years in which a full-time DH has made a case to win an MVP award, and most of those bids recently have been made by Boston’s David Ortiz. Big Papi’s 2004-2006 period was a masterpiece, a time in which his successive RBI numbers were 139/148/137 and his homer numbers were 41/47/54.
Yeah, but Ortiz may have only been the most valuable player in the AL that year which doesn't mean he was the Most Valuable Player in the AL, because he didn't lay waste to his competitors for the MVP award.
In ’06, Ortiz out-homered Morneau 54-34, out-RBI’d him 137-130, out-OBP’d him .413-.375 and out-WAR’d him 5.7-4.3. But Morneau had a significantly higher batting average than Ortiz (.321-.287) and in two key departments contributed defensively because he played first base in 153 games (and DH’d in only four) and his Twins won the AL Central, while Ortiz’s Red Sox finished third in the AL East.
Boy, playing defense and being on a winning team certainly does hold a lot of sway for an individual award in Scott Miller's mind. Notice how Ortiz was the better hitter, but Morneau played defense and his team won their division. If only Ortiz had played the field he would have had a better shot at being MVP for the 2006 season. And really, who cares if Morneau contributed positively to his team on defense? That doesn't matter, does it?
And over the past couple of decades, award voters (members of the Baseball Writers’ Assn. of America, of which, full disclosure, I am) have increasingly appeared to value contributions toward a contending team.
Because it does make sense to weigh the achievement of a team overall heavily when determining an individual player's performance. In baseball, one player doesn't have the ability to pitch and hit at all nine spots in the order, so it makes sense to judge one player on the talents of his teammates.
Given those parameters, the deck remains badly stacked against a DH winning the MVP award.
Which means a DH won't be able to accumulate those important top-5 MVP finishes or win one of those MVP awards that Hall of Fame voters care about so greatly. So the idea a DH can't win the MVP could affect that player's candidacy for the Hall of Fame, which seems a little unfair.
And these parameters by the way, are all very silly and arbitrary...
Because by definition, if the pool of candidates is going to be narrowed to those playing for playoff teams, that will nearly automatically eliminate the MVP outliers from bottom-division teams (see: Andre Dawson for the 1987 Cubs).
The pool of candidates should not be narrowed to only those who play for playoff teams. A player could be the most valuable player on any team in the AL/NL and his team still not make the playoffs. The playoffs are a team achievement, I can't emphasize this enough.
And once the pool is whittled to players with contending teams, odds are astronomically against a DH given that he is not contributing defensively.
So a player who doesn't play defense can not be the most valuable player on his team. Someone should tell that to David Ortiz and the Red Sox, because they may disagree. I would also like an explanation how David Ortiz could win the MVP award in the World Series, but not for the regular season. Is it because he played a few games at first base during the World Series and therefore this made him more valuable (regardless of whether he played first base well or not)?
Is this right? I think it is. Yes, DH is a legitimate position and unquestionably should be considered in the MVP debate. But all things being equal, it’s not a fair fight.
A DH should be considered in the MVP debate, but he just shouldn't get any votes for being the MVP. Sure, makes sense. I would bet if Miguel Cabrera were a full-time DH then he would still win the MVP on a year where he won the Triple Crown. It also pisses me off that playing defense very well or very poorly has the same impact on Scott Miller. Defense is important and is a reason why a DH should not be the MVP, but defense isn't so important two player's defensive contributions should be factored in over hitting in any way.
Given that the past three AL MVPs have come from Detroit (Cabrera in ’13 and ’12, Justin Verlander in ’11)
Verlander only plays once every fifth day, which apparently is perfectly fine when it comes to him winning the MVP. Maybe a DH like Ortiz should field a position every fifth day and then he would get more MVP votes too. Victor Martinez better start stealing some time in the field now. Who cares if Martinez plays well or not in the field, that doesn't matter. He just has to be on defense, because it's an important part of the game of baseball, but not important enough to be used to differentiate between two MVP candidates like Mike Trout and Miguel Cabrera.
well, if any DH is going to win an MVP award anytime soon, you’d figure he would be tiger-striped.
So basically a DH should not win the MVP award because that DH would have to play for a contending team, and even if he plays for a contending team, he still isn't contributing enough to the team by not playing defense. A player has to contribute on defense to win the MVP. Of course, even though defense is really important and it can lose the MVP award for a player it isn't important enough to help a player win the MVP.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
2 comments Scott Miller Is Thrilled Albert Pujols Makes the 500 Homer-Club Credible Again
Haven't we read things like this before? Haven't we read a "Thank God, Player A is clean and breaking records because it makes up for records during the Steroid Era" column before? Some writers just either (a) don't learn or (b) won't let the Steroid Era drop. It's over. It's been over. What is worse in this column by Scott Miller is that he does the whole "Albert Pujols hasn't been affiliated in any way with steroids so it's not fair to lump him in with them" dance (which I agree with by the way...agree 100%), but this isn't the position he takes when it comes to voting for Hall of Fame inductees. Weird how that works isn't it? Rumors of PED use are partly what keeps Scott Miller from voting Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza into the Hall of Fame, but he chooses to believe Albert Pujols when he says he hasn't used PED's during his playing career. After all, Albert Pujols sued Jack Clark for suggesting he used PED's. Who would actually take the time to sue a person accusing them of using PED's if that person wasn't truly innocent of these charges (ahem, Lance Armstrong)?
Anyway, I think Pujols is clean too. That's not what this is about. It's about Scott Miller not giving the benefit of the doubt to other players who haven't tested positive for PED's and his insistence the 500-homer club means something once again.
By far, the most toxic part of the steroid era was the way it grotesquely distorted Major League Baseball's record book.
It's incredibly toxic! The records are a mess and there's no way to simply ignore the records set during the Steroid Era. We need Congressional input on how to resolve this perilous situation immediately!
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, some of the game's most revered numbers were twisted and turned as if standing in front of a fun-house mirror operated by the worst kind of skanky carnies and shyster gypsies imaginable.
But hey, at least Scott Miller isn't being dramatic about the record book being tainted by PED users.
Now comes Albert Pujols blasting his way into the 500 Home Run Club, and do you believe?
I never stopped believing. Though if Fred McGriff had just hit seven more home runs then Jon Heyman would totally believe in the 500-homer club again.
Do you believe in the credibility of 500 again?
I never stopped believing. Barry Bonds didn't 263 more home runs simply because he used PED's. That's not how it works. Bonds would have surpassed 500 home runs whether he obeyed Nancy Reagan and said "no" to drugs or not.
Do you believe in the purity of Pujols?
I'm not sure I believe or don't believe in the purity of any baseball player. I just watch the sport and try to enjoy it as much as I can. One thing I certainly don't believe in is the teeth-gnashing over the loss of innocence when it comes to baseball's records. Those records lost their innocence many years ago. You know, back when blacks weren't allowed to play baseball so pre-1947 baseball players didn't set their records against the best baseball players in the United States. These records could have also lost their innocence since everyone and their brother was using greenies during the 1960's and 1970's. Or it could be that baseball and it's records never lost it's innocence because this innocence never actually existed.
Once upon a time, the 500 Club meant something. And I'd like to think, a decade into the toughest performance-enhancing drug testing program in any sport, that it again means something.
Thank you so much for saving baseball, Albert Pujols.
In fact, strike part of that last sentence. I know it means something.
In fact, strike part of that last sentence. Thank you so much for saving the world as a whole.
Say what you will about the Los Angeles Angels' franchise player, but Pujols has been tested, tested and tested again—just like everyone else—since the program began in 2004. So far, so clean. Furthermore, his name did not turn up in BALCO records, and it wasn't lurking in the Biogenesis files.
Oh okay, well that's an interesting point of view coming from a Hall of Fame voter who refuses to vote for Jeff Bagwell or Mike Piazza. Here is a good summary of Scott Miller's Hall of Fame ballots.
As the site I linked said,
Miller’s HOF columns put him firmly in the “no suspected PED users in the Hall” camp. Read his 2013 column for the full details on his position.
Great idea! Let's read the full details on his position while attempting to reconcile his "Albert Pujols must be clean because he's never tested positive" position with this "Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza have suspicion around them so who cares if they have never tested positive" position.
Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza: Did they do steroids? Loads of speculation, no proof. I want to vote for both, but I'm just not going to rush into it.
I don't know entirely what this means. Bagwell and Piazza are either Hall of Famers or they aren't Hall of Famers. Their numbers aren't going to get any better or worse in the next year or so. It certainly sounds like Scott Miller isn't going to vote for them because there is speculation, no proof, that they used PED's. Interesting how he's so quick to defend Pujols but he isn't willing to vote for Bagwell or Piazza to be in the Hall of Fame when there is nothing but speculation surrounding their PED use.
For me, each is in sort of a holding pattern. I want to give it a few more years, and see if any more of the Steroid Era vagaries clear.
Well of course. It makes sense. Give it another year, which Miller did, and then see if any of the speculation they used steroids clear up.
Spoiler alert: Nothing changed in regard to the "Steroid Era vagaries" and Scott Miller still didn't vote for either player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. In lieu of additional information that Piazza or Bagwell didn't use PED's Miller is working under the assumption the speculation is correct and they did use PED's. Not voting for either player because of speculation surrounding their PED use and defending Albert Pujols' 500-homer record as "clean" because there is no proof he used PED's is quite simply an inconsistent position. Either Miller believes the speculation or he doesn't. Yet he feels the need to pick and choose which speculation he believes rather than stick to his "tested and tested...so far, so clean" reason for stating Albert Pujols has saved the 500-homer record for all of mankind.
Okay, so back to Albert Pujols and how he saved the 500-homer club from not being credible.
And when former St. Louis Cardinal Jack Clark, on The King and the Ripper Show—which he co-presents—irresponsibly said last summer that he knew for a fact that Pujols juiced, Pujols not only angrily denied it, but said he would sue. And then he followed through with that threat, filing suit in a St. Louis court last October.
Lance Armstrong sued anybody and everybody who suggested he used PED's to win the Tour de France. He ruined the lives of quite a few people when suing them as well. The ability to hire an attorney and file paperwork doesn't mean Albert Pujols is an innocent guy. Again, I don't have any reason to believe Albert Pujols has used PED's, but Scott Miller is using circumstantial evidence to point out why Albert Pujols CLEARLY never used PED's while withholding his vote from potential Hall of Fame inductees due to their suspected ties to PED use. Maybe Piazza or Bagwell should have sued someone for suggesting they used PED's and Scott Miller would then decide to vote for them to enter the baseball Hall of Fame.
Sadly, in our cynical world today, even all of that is not proof positive.
Yes, sadly there are baseball writers who have a Hall of Fame vote that withhold that vote based upon speculation and rumors. It's sad to hear about. Scott Miller must never go around mirrors if he thinks he isn't one of these cynical people.
The dirty, chronic liar Ryan Braun, among his many acts of treachery, did some serious damage to the game's clean players as well. Because after listening to Braun's righteous indignation that was pure, unadulterated horseradish, we're now inclined to believe in a guy's outer shell of honesty even less than we were before.
Yes, "we" are less inclined to believe in a guy's honesty than before. Thanks for speaking for me. I, and the rest of the public, are unable to speak for ourselves because we are mouth-breathing morons who are unable to understand our own opinions and feelings.
It says something—to me, at least—that Pujols not only followed through with his threat to sue Clark, but also pressed forward until Clark finally waved the white flag and apologized in February.
You are ignoring my straw man argument though! What about those eligible for the Hall of Fame that have only been suspected of PED use and it's never been proven? How can Miller reconcile these two positions? He crusades for the ABSOLUTE INNOCENCE of Albert Pujols and holds him up as a champion for the 500-homer club and a person who gave credibility back to the MLB record book, but won't let Jeff Bagwell into the Hall of Fame despite the lack of solid evidence he used PED's?
That we even need to cover this ground before talking about Pujols' swing, his career and his healthy legs in 2014 is too bad, but that's where we are thanks to his recent predecessors.
Well, that and writers like Scott Miller have already set the precedent that a player with even a whisper of PED use won't be elected into the Hall of Fame. We can thank these people as well for any suspicion surrounding Albert Pujols. Miller fails to see the irony of this.
Of those 11 players to crack 500 since '99, seven were blatant cheats: Rafael Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Manny Ramirez and, yes, Gary Sheffield. (He admitted using Bonds' BALCO supply once before he knew what it was, so believe what you will there.)
And of course after using Bonds' BALCO supply one time it immediately turned Gary Sheffield into a superhero hitter who had superpowers to hit a baseball. One use of steroids is like turning a baseball player into a living version of The Hulk.
That leaves Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Thome, Frank Thomas (who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame later this summer)...and Pujols.
Thank God they can make the 500-homer club credible again. I was deeply worried my overly-moralistic soul would never be right again concerning the baseball record books being clean and clear of cheats. You know, because the only cheats in the baseball record books are PED users.
Nobody had ever hit Nos. 499 and 500 in the same game until Pujols, rejuvenated at 34, belted a Taylor Jordan changeup over the fence in the first inning and deposited another meaty Jordan offering over the fence in the fifth.
Boy, if this were 2021 and Pujols failed a drug test in 2016 then I think we would look back at this "rejuvenated" comment and laugh at the obviousness of Pujols' PED use, much like the home run chase in 1998 is laughed at now.
Again, I believe Pujols has not used PED's, but one decade's "rejuvenated" slugger is another decade's "clearly cheating" slugger. The language doesn't change, the knowledge that player had help in being rejuvenated changes though.
The Angels spilled out of their dugout en masse and flocked to greet Pujols at the plate.
More evidence Pujols is clean. Zero of their teammates ever flocked out to greet and congratulated PED users on their accomplishments as they happened.
He is the third-youngest player to hit his 500th, behind only A-Rod* (32 years, eight days)
See the asterisk beside A-Rod's name? HOW FUCKING CUTESY IS THAT?
and Jimmie Foxx (32 years, 337 days).
Where is the asterisk noting that Foxx set this record while not playing against the Negro League players?
It is totally different this year. It would be too much, at this stage, to ever expect to see the MVP Pujols of 2008-09 re-emerge. But what he's showing right now is what he's shown us since his debut for Tony La Russa in 2001:
Oh, Pujols played for Tony La Russa. Hmmm...interesting. I bet if Jeff Bagwell played for Tony La Russa that would be more evidence that he did use PED's, given La Russa's history of managing players who were revealed to have used PED's.
No other sport does numbers like baseball. From 714 to 755 to .400, from 31 and 56 to 500, and beyond.
And no other sport is more contradictorily (is that a word?) sanctimonious about the numbers in their sport. No other sport's writers think the more they talk about the past the better chances the past will simply be erased, as opposed to just dealing with the past and moving on.
Do you believe?
I believed before. They are just numbers. I consider a lot of old-time records to not be credible since they were set while MLB was consciously preventing Negro Leagues players from competing in the majors. That's just how I feel. I don't go around saying those old-time records are totally not credible and act like a pompous ass about it. Albert Pujols hasn't saved the 500-homer club and Scott Miller needs to apply his "Innocent until proof of guilt" to Jeff Bagwell at the very least or else he is coming off as a hypocrite.
Pujols has given us no reason not to, and because of that, it was a night of celebration, unlike so many 500s over the past decade.
Well, they were nights of celebration until it was found out a few years later they should not have been. Lack of evidence is lack of evidence unless it comes to Hall of Fame voting apparently.
Anyway, I think Pujols is clean too. That's not what this is about. It's about Scott Miller not giving the benefit of the doubt to other players who haven't tested positive for PED's and his insistence the 500-homer club means something once again.
By far, the most toxic part of the steroid era was the way it grotesquely distorted Major League Baseball's record book.
It's incredibly toxic! The records are a mess and there's no way to simply ignore the records set during the Steroid Era. We need Congressional input on how to resolve this perilous situation immediately!
Suddenly, in the blink of an eye, some of the game's most revered numbers were twisted and turned as if standing in front of a fun-house mirror operated by the worst kind of skanky carnies and shyster gypsies imaginable.
But hey, at least Scott Miller isn't being dramatic about the record book being tainted by PED users.
Now comes Albert Pujols blasting his way into the 500 Home Run Club, and do you believe?
I never stopped believing. Though if Fred McGriff had just hit seven more home runs then Jon Heyman would totally believe in the 500-homer club again.
Do you believe in the credibility of 500 again?
I never stopped believing. Barry Bonds didn't 263 more home runs simply because he used PED's. That's not how it works. Bonds would have surpassed 500 home runs whether he obeyed Nancy Reagan and said "no" to drugs or not.
Do you believe in the purity of Pujols?
I'm not sure I believe or don't believe in the purity of any baseball player. I just watch the sport and try to enjoy it as much as I can. One thing I certainly don't believe in is the teeth-gnashing over the loss of innocence when it comes to baseball's records. Those records lost their innocence many years ago. You know, back when blacks weren't allowed to play baseball so pre-1947 baseball players didn't set their records against the best baseball players in the United States. These records could have also lost their innocence since everyone and their brother was using greenies during the 1960's and 1970's. Or it could be that baseball and it's records never lost it's innocence because this innocence never actually existed.
Once upon a time, the 500 Club meant something. And I'd like to think, a decade into the toughest performance-enhancing drug testing program in any sport, that it again means something.
Thank you so much for saving baseball, Albert Pujols.
In fact, strike part of that last sentence. I know it means something.
In fact, strike part of that last sentence. Thank you so much for saving the world as a whole.
Say what you will about the Los Angeles Angels' franchise player, but Pujols has been tested, tested and tested again—just like everyone else—since the program began in 2004. So far, so clean. Furthermore, his name did not turn up in BALCO records, and it wasn't lurking in the Biogenesis files.
Oh okay, well that's an interesting point of view coming from a Hall of Fame voter who refuses to vote for Jeff Bagwell or Mike Piazza. Here is a good summary of Scott Miller's Hall of Fame ballots.
As the site I linked said,
Miller’s HOF columns put him firmly in the “no suspected PED users in the Hall” camp. Read his 2013 column for the full details on his position.
Great idea! Let's read the full details on his position while attempting to reconcile his "Albert Pujols must be clean because he's never tested positive" position with this "Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza have suspicion around them so who cares if they have never tested positive" position.
Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza: Did they do steroids? Loads of speculation, no proof. I want to vote for both, but I'm just not going to rush into it.
I don't know entirely what this means. Bagwell and Piazza are either Hall of Famers or they aren't Hall of Famers. Their numbers aren't going to get any better or worse in the next year or so. It certainly sounds like Scott Miller isn't going to vote for them because there is speculation, no proof, that they used PED's. Interesting how he's so quick to defend Pujols but he isn't willing to vote for Bagwell or Piazza to be in the Hall of Fame when there is nothing but speculation surrounding their PED use.
For me, each is in sort of a holding pattern. I want to give it a few more years, and see if any more of the Steroid Era vagaries clear.
Well of course. It makes sense. Give it another year, which Miller did, and then see if any of the speculation they used steroids clear up.
Spoiler alert: Nothing changed in regard to the "Steroid Era vagaries" and Scott Miller still didn't vote for either player to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. In lieu of additional information that Piazza or Bagwell didn't use PED's Miller is working under the assumption the speculation is correct and they did use PED's. Not voting for either player because of speculation surrounding their PED use and defending Albert Pujols' 500-homer record as "clean" because there is no proof he used PED's is quite simply an inconsistent position. Either Miller believes the speculation or he doesn't. Yet he feels the need to pick and choose which speculation he believes rather than stick to his "tested and tested...so far, so clean" reason for stating Albert Pujols has saved the 500-homer record for all of mankind.
Okay, so back to Albert Pujols and how he saved the 500-homer club from not being credible.
And when former St. Louis Cardinal Jack Clark, on The King and the Ripper Show—which he co-presents—irresponsibly said last summer that he knew for a fact that Pujols juiced, Pujols not only angrily denied it, but said he would sue. And then he followed through with that threat, filing suit in a St. Louis court last October.
Lance Armstrong sued anybody and everybody who suggested he used PED's to win the Tour de France. He ruined the lives of quite a few people when suing them as well. The ability to hire an attorney and file paperwork doesn't mean Albert Pujols is an innocent guy. Again, I don't have any reason to believe Albert Pujols has used PED's, but Scott Miller is using circumstantial evidence to point out why Albert Pujols CLEARLY never used PED's while withholding his vote from potential Hall of Fame inductees due to their suspected ties to PED use. Maybe Piazza or Bagwell should have sued someone for suggesting they used PED's and Scott Miller would then decide to vote for them to enter the baseball Hall of Fame.
Sadly, in our cynical world today, even all of that is not proof positive.
Yes, sadly there are baseball writers who have a Hall of Fame vote that withhold that vote based upon speculation and rumors. It's sad to hear about. Scott Miller must never go around mirrors if he thinks he isn't one of these cynical people.
The dirty, chronic liar Ryan Braun, among his many acts of treachery, did some serious damage to the game's clean players as well. Because after listening to Braun's righteous indignation that was pure, unadulterated horseradish, we're now inclined to believe in a guy's outer shell of honesty even less than we were before.
Yes, "we" are less inclined to believe in a guy's honesty than before. Thanks for speaking for me. I, and the rest of the public, are unable to speak for ourselves because we are mouth-breathing morons who are unable to understand our own opinions and feelings.
It says something—to me, at least—that Pujols not only followed through with his threat to sue Clark, but also pressed forward until Clark finally waved the white flag and apologized in February.
You are ignoring my straw man argument though! What about those eligible for the Hall of Fame that have only been suspected of PED use and it's never been proven? How can Miller reconcile these two positions? He crusades for the ABSOLUTE INNOCENCE of Albert Pujols and holds him up as a champion for the 500-homer club and a person who gave credibility back to the MLB record book, but won't let Jeff Bagwell into the Hall of Fame despite the lack of solid evidence he used PED's?
That we even need to cover this ground before talking about Pujols' swing, his career and his healthy legs in 2014 is too bad, but that's where we are thanks to his recent predecessors.
Well, that and writers like Scott Miller have already set the precedent that a player with even a whisper of PED use won't be elected into the Hall of Fame. We can thank these people as well for any suspicion surrounding Albert Pujols. Miller fails to see the irony of this.
Of those 11 players to crack 500 since '99, seven were blatant cheats: Rafael Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Manny Ramirez and, yes, Gary Sheffield. (He admitted using Bonds' BALCO supply once before he knew what it was, so believe what you will there.)
And of course after using Bonds' BALCO supply one time it immediately turned Gary Sheffield into a superhero hitter who had superpowers to hit a baseball. One use of steroids is like turning a baseball player into a living version of The Hulk.
That leaves Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Thome, Frank Thomas (who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame later this summer)...and Pujols.
Thank God they can make the 500-homer club credible again. I was deeply worried my overly-moralistic soul would never be right again concerning the baseball record books being clean and clear of cheats. You know, because the only cheats in the baseball record books are PED users.
Nobody had ever hit Nos. 499 and 500 in the same game until Pujols, rejuvenated at 34, belted a Taylor Jordan changeup over the fence in the first inning and deposited another meaty Jordan offering over the fence in the fifth.
Boy, if this were 2021 and Pujols failed a drug test in 2016 then I think we would look back at this "rejuvenated" comment and laugh at the obviousness of Pujols' PED use, much like the home run chase in 1998 is laughed at now.
Again, I believe Pujols has not used PED's, but one decade's "rejuvenated" slugger is another decade's "clearly cheating" slugger. The language doesn't change, the knowledge that player had help in being rejuvenated changes though.
The Angels spilled out of their dugout en masse and flocked to greet Pujols at the plate.
More evidence Pujols is clean. Zero of their teammates ever flocked out to greet and congratulated PED users on their accomplishments as they happened.
He is the third-youngest player to hit his 500th, behind only A-Rod* (32 years, eight days)
See the asterisk beside A-Rod's name? HOW FUCKING CUTESY IS THAT?
and Jimmie Foxx (32 years, 337 days).
Where is the asterisk noting that Foxx set this record while not playing against the Negro League players?
It is totally different this year. It would be too much, at this stage, to ever expect to see the MVP Pujols of 2008-09 re-emerge. But what he's showing right now is what he's shown us since his debut for Tony La Russa in 2001:
Oh, Pujols played for Tony La Russa. Hmmm...interesting. I bet if Jeff Bagwell played for Tony La Russa that would be more evidence that he did use PED's, given La Russa's history of managing players who were revealed to have used PED's.
No other sport does numbers like baseball. From 714 to 755 to .400, from 31 and 56 to 500, and beyond.
And no other sport is more contradictorily (is that a word?) sanctimonious about the numbers in their sport. No other sport's writers think the more they talk about the past the better chances the past will simply be erased, as opposed to just dealing with the past and moving on.
Do you believe?
I believed before. They are just numbers. I consider a lot of old-time records to not be credible since they were set while MLB was consciously preventing Negro Leagues players from competing in the majors. That's just how I feel. I don't go around saying those old-time records are totally not credible and act like a pompous ass about it. Albert Pujols hasn't saved the 500-homer club and Scott Miller needs to apply his "Innocent until proof of guilt" to Jeff Bagwell at the very least or else he is coming off as a hypocrite.
Pujols has given us no reason not to, and because of that, it was a night of celebration, unlike so many 500s over the past decade.
Well, they were nights of celebration until it was found out a few years later they should not have been. Lack of evidence is lack of evidence unless it comes to Hall of Fame voting apparently.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
0 comments Scott Miller Says the Dodgers Need to Control Their Crazy Mexican Outfielder
Yasiel Puig has become a somewhat polarizing figure among sportswriters because he has a tendency to do some really great things on the baseball field and then also some really stupid things on the baseball field. Lately, it seems sportswriters have been very concerned that Yasiel Puig is going to do something stupid to hurt the Dodgers in the postseason. It's very nice these sportswriters are so worried about Puig hurting the Dodgers chances of winning a playoff game, but it's just an example of a baseball player who needs to mature a little bit because he hasn't even played a full season in the majors. Scott Miller doesn't see it that way and thinks Puig will never be like Kirk Gibson.
You can see it coming from here to the autumn leaves.
Crowd screaming. National television cameras blazing. Game 4 … or 5 … or 6 of the playoffs.
But definitely not Game 3 or Game 7 of the playoffs. This hypothetical situation would never happen in Game 3 or Game 7.
And Yasiel Puig runs into an out, overthrows a cutoff man, commits some egregious mistake that costs the Dodgers the game.
ALL ON ONE PLAY! Puig is such a danger to the Dodgers, the Dodgers organization, and children in general that he can run into an out, overthrow the cutoff man, and commit another egregious mistake all on one play. After the game, Puig will try to save a six-year old boy from choking on a hot dog and somehow manage to kill the six-year old boy AND his nine-year old brother. Puig is a dangerous man.
Maybe even costs them the playoffs.
As well as America's claim to sovereignty from a foreign nation's rule. Once Puig is done screwing up in the playoffs, America will be run by the Canadians.
The Dodgers go home for the winter. Their fans are left hugging only their chipped and faded 1988 World Series champions coffee mugs.
Actually they will probably begin to prepare for the upcoming Lakers season and enjoy the California sunshine.
And Puig jets off to join a South Beach conga line for the winter. Party on!
Hoo, boy.
See, Puig joins a conga line because he is Cuban! Cuban people join conga lines.
I like to play a game called "Is this statement a little racist?" Let's play that game substituting people of a different nationality or race into this sentence to see if this statement by Scott Miller could be a little racist.
"And B.J. Upton jets off to join an Alabama gospel choir for the winter."
"And Shawn Green jets off to start his tour of kosher delis for the winter."
"And Shin-Soo Choo jets off to run over innocent pedestrians with his car."
Eh, maybe Miller's sentence isn't necessarily racist, but it's pretty ridiculous writing to indicate that Puig doesn't care about winning games and only wants to join a conga line. Sportswriters complain from time-to-time that pro athletes don't have fun while playing on the field, but then when a pro athlete does have fun while playing on the field a writer like Scott Miller claims the player only cares about joining a conga line.
Puig clearly has the talent to lead the Dodgers to an October title. And he clearly contains the recklessness to push the team bus straight over a cliff. Self-made man meets self-destruction, head on.
The Dodgers need to learn to control their pets better. Baseball isn't entertainment and Puig certainly isn't 22 years playing in his first season in the majors. Is it possible that Puig could do something stupid in the playoffs? Of course, but this concern isn't worth discussing in an entire column.
Do you think they haven't tried? School is in session every day with Puig. Manager Don Mattingly talks with him. Coaches lecture him. General manager Ned Colletti schools him. Teammates from Juan Uribe to Adrian Gonzalez try to teach him.
And Puig won't listen? The Dodgers must bench him or release him immediately.
So what do you do if you're the Dodgers?
Wine and dine him even more?
Sit him down indefinitely?
I say execute him or just, again, immediately release Puig so he can join that conga line that he so desperately wants to be a part of.
Sit him down for six innings, then insert him into the game in a sixth-inning double-switch?
Wait. They did that last one Tuesday. And Puig emerged from his time out to immediately stroke a game-winning home run.
The Dodgers certainly aren't going to be able to teach Puig a lesson if he insists on making the Dodgers a better team by performing well. There has to be another way to teach Puig a lesson at the expense of Puig's Dodger teammates and the team's goal of winning...
He showed up 35 minutes late Tuesday. He was in the worst slump of his career, only 2 for 17 in the first four games in Philadelphia and Miami, striking out in four of his previous 11 at-bats.
Puig was in a slump? This is clearly a fatal personality flaw that only a lecture from Don Mattingly could correct. You know, you sign these players from overseas thinking they will never go into a slump like every other MLB player never goes into a slump...then it turns out this player from overseas loves playing baseball AND he makes mistakes on the field? It's just not worth it when you can sign an American-born player who never goes in a slump, never makes a mistake and is very, very serious about the sport of baseball.
The weekend Phillies series was a kaleidoscope of errors and misjudgments: Puig missed two cutoff men, was picked off a base and was thrown out attempting to advance on a shallow pop fly.
Full disclosure: Puig-mania annoys the hell out of me. Not sure why, but it does. Still, Puig is a 22 year old player coming from Cuba to play in America. He's entitled to a few mistakes and I have faith he will mature.
Yet with each home run and highlight-reel moment, the monster grows.
All of Puig's success on-the-field is really starting to make him think he is good at baseball. He needs to be knocked down a peg or two for some reason.
Biggest question this season now is this: Can the Dodgers eke a Kirk Gibson moment out of Puig this October before they get a Frankenstein moment?
YASIEL PUIG WILL NEVER BE KIRK GIBSON!
This is an interesting Frankenstein reference. Frankenstein was essentially created by Victor Frankenstein, so is Scott Miller suggesting the Dodgers have created Yasiel Puig? I think that's kind of a backwards way to look at Puig's talent since it seems completely obvious Puig has a lot of raw natural talent that needs some sort of molding and shaping. It seems Puig isn't a Frankenstein and Scott Miller wants the Dodgers to turn him into their very own creation like Frankenstein.
Yet this late-night carousing, cutoff-man missing, curfew busting phenom borders on going berserk-o out of control. Did you see the tantrum he directed at plate ump John Hirschbeck after striking out Monday in Miami?
Miller conveniently leaves out that Hirschbeck tried to pick a fight with Puig.
The fact Hirschbeck picked a fight with Puig is irrelevant. Look at that wild and crazy Puig pissing off umpires! No other MLB batter has ever gotten angry with an umpire before!
"All the things that we see are part of the maturity of a guy coming from a different country who is in the major leagues all of a sudden and having huge success," Mattingly told reporters in Miami. "And part of our job is to help him mature and handle all that.
"And I don't know if we can do that overnight."
I think we know that answer to that one.
Probably "no" because people very rarely will just magically mature overnight. It takes time.
Scouts last year watched minor-league games in which Puig opted to chill in the bullpen, rather than run all the way to the dugout from right field, during half-innings in which he wasn't going to bat. Playing for Double-A Chattanooga in April, Puig was arrested for reckless driving, speeding and driving without proof of insurance. The police report said he was driving 97 mph in a 50 mph zone.
Clearly, the Dodgers need to find a way to go back in time to April so they can ensure Puig doesn't get arrested for speeding. Has anyone said Puig is completely matured? He needs to mature, but I don't understand the sudden need for the Dodgers to stage an intervention with Puig as if he were an alcoholic on the brink of destroying his life.
The Dodgers' task is to keep him playing at close to 100 mph while preventing him from driving 100 mph.
Which so far they have managed to do while Puig plays in the majors. Also, I get what you did there Scott Miller. Great use of italics and a clever way of writing. Kudos.
Last thing they want to do is break his spirit on the field, or go all Larry David and curb his enthusiasm.
I think someone needs to rein in Scott Miller's use of pop culture references such as this one.
Best -- and most realistic hope -- simply is that they can smooth out the rough edges.
Well I don't know, Puig is 22 years old. There's not much maturing and smoothing of the rough edges that happens when a person is so old and still immature.
They are not going to completely remake him. You wouldn't want to completely remake him.
No, the Dodgers wouldn't want to completely remake Yasiel Puig. Of course they aren't the ones writing an entire column declaring the Puig needs to change his ways immediately or else he will singlehandedly cause the Dodgers to lose a playoff game. If anyone wants Puig to be remade it seems to be Scott Miller.
Talent like this is rare, and it doesn't play at half-speed.
Problem is, neither do the mistakes.
Great point. If Puig can't play the game of baseball without making any mistakes is it even worth having him on the roster? We wouldn't want Puig to be the first MLB player to ever cost his team a playoff game. **
**As long as you ignore other MLB players like Lonnie Smith who arguably cost his team a playoff team...except that playoff game was a World Series game.
You can see it coming from here to the autumn leaves.
Crowd screaming. National television cameras blazing. Game 4 … or 5 … or 6 of the playoffs.
But definitely not Game 3 or Game 7 of the playoffs. This hypothetical situation would never happen in Game 3 or Game 7.
And Yasiel Puig runs into an out, overthrows a cutoff man, commits some egregious mistake that costs the Dodgers the game.
ALL ON ONE PLAY! Puig is such a danger to the Dodgers, the Dodgers organization, and children in general that he can run into an out, overthrow the cutoff man, and commit another egregious mistake all on one play. After the game, Puig will try to save a six-year old boy from choking on a hot dog and somehow manage to kill the six-year old boy AND his nine-year old brother. Puig is a dangerous man.
Maybe even costs them the playoffs.
As well as America's claim to sovereignty from a foreign nation's rule. Once Puig is done screwing up in the playoffs, America will be run by the Canadians.
The Dodgers go home for the winter. Their fans are left hugging only their chipped and faded 1988 World Series champions coffee mugs.
Actually they will probably begin to prepare for the upcoming Lakers season and enjoy the California sunshine.
And Puig jets off to join a South Beach conga line for the winter. Party on!
Hoo, boy.
See, Puig joins a conga line because he is Cuban! Cuban people join conga lines.
I like to play a game called "Is this statement a little racist?" Let's play that game substituting people of a different nationality or race into this sentence to see if this statement by Scott Miller could be a little racist.
"And B.J. Upton jets off to join an Alabama gospel choir for the winter."
"And Shawn Green jets off to start his tour of kosher delis for the winter."
"And Shin-Soo Choo jets off to run over innocent pedestrians with his car."
Eh, maybe Miller's sentence isn't necessarily racist, but it's pretty ridiculous writing to indicate that Puig doesn't care about winning games and only wants to join a conga line. Sportswriters complain from time-to-time that pro athletes don't have fun while playing on the field, but then when a pro athlete does have fun while playing on the field a writer like Scott Miller claims the player only cares about joining a conga line.
Puig clearly has the talent to lead the Dodgers to an October title. And he clearly contains the recklessness to push the team bus straight over a cliff. Self-made man meets self-destruction, head on.
The Dodgers need to learn to control their pets better. Baseball isn't entertainment and Puig certainly isn't 22 years playing in his first season in the majors. Is it possible that Puig could do something stupid in the playoffs? Of course, but this concern isn't worth discussing in an entire column.
Do you think they haven't tried? School is in session every day with Puig. Manager Don Mattingly talks with him. Coaches lecture him. General manager Ned Colletti schools him. Teammates from Juan Uribe to Adrian Gonzalez try to teach him.
And Puig won't listen? The Dodgers must bench him or release him immediately.
So what do you do if you're the Dodgers?
Wine and dine him even more?
Sit him down indefinitely?
I say execute him or just, again, immediately release Puig so he can join that conga line that he so desperately wants to be a part of.
Sit him down for six innings, then insert him into the game in a sixth-inning double-switch?
Wait. They did that last one Tuesday. And Puig emerged from his time out to immediately stroke a game-winning home run.
The Dodgers certainly aren't going to be able to teach Puig a lesson if he insists on making the Dodgers a better team by performing well. There has to be another way to teach Puig a lesson at the expense of Puig's Dodger teammates and the team's goal of winning...
He showed up 35 minutes late Tuesday. He was in the worst slump of his career, only 2 for 17 in the first four games in Philadelphia and Miami, striking out in four of his previous 11 at-bats.
Puig was in a slump? This is clearly a fatal personality flaw that only a lecture from Don Mattingly could correct. You know, you sign these players from overseas thinking they will never go into a slump like every other MLB player never goes into a slump...then it turns out this player from overseas loves playing baseball AND he makes mistakes on the field? It's just not worth it when you can sign an American-born player who never goes in a slump, never makes a mistake and is very, very serious about the sport of baseball.
The weekend Phillies series was a kaleidoscope of errors and misjudgments: Puig missed two cutoff men, was picked off a base and was thrown out attempting to advance on a shallow pop fly.
Full disclosure: Puig-mania annoys the hell out of me. Not sure why, but it does. Still, Puig is a 22 year old player coming from Cuba to play in America. He's entitled to a few mistakes and I have faith he will mature.
Yet with each home run and highlight-reel moment, the monster grows.
All of Puig's success on-the-field is really starting to make him think he is good at baseball. He needs to be knocked down a peg or two for some reason.
Biggest question this season now is this: Can the Dodgers eke a Kirk Gibson moment out of Puig this October before they get a Frankenstein moment?
YASIEL PUIG WILL NEVER BE KIRK GIBSON!
This is an interesting Frankenstein reference. Frankenstein was essentially created by Victor Frankenstein, so is Scott Miller suggesting the Dodgers have created Yasiel Puig? I think that's kind of a backwards way to look at Puig's talent since it seems completely obvious Puig has a lot of raw natural talent that needs some sort of molding and shaping. It seems Puig isn't a Frankenstein and Scott Miller wants the Dodgers to turn him into their very own creation like Frankenstein.
Yet this late-night carousing, cutoff-man missing, curfew busting phenom borders on going berserk-o out of control. Did you see the tantrum he directed at plate ump John Hirschbeck after striking out Monday in Miami?
Miller conveniently leaves out that Hirschbeck tried to pick a fight with Puig.
The fact Hirschbeck picked a fight with Puig is irrelevant. Look at that wild and crazy Puig pissing off umpires! No other MLB batter has ever gotten angry with an umpire before!
"All the things that we see are part of the maturity of a guy coming from a different country who is in the major leagues all of a sudden and having huge success," Mattingly told reporters in Miami. "And part of our job is to help him mature and handle all that.
"And I don't know if we can do that overnight."
I think we know that answer to that one.
Probably "no" because people very rarely will just magically mature overnight. It takes time.
Scouts last year watched minor-league games in which Puig opted to chill in the bullpen, rather than run all the way to the dugout from right field, during half-innings in which he wasn't going to bat. Playing for Double-A Chattanooga in April, Puig was arrested for reckless driving, speeding and driving without proof of insurance. The police report said he was driving 97 mph in a 50 mph zone.
Clearly, the Dodgers need to find a way to go back in time to April so they can ensure Puig doesn't get arrested for speeding. Has anyone said Puig is completely matured? He needs to mature, but I don't understand the sudden need for the Dodgers to stage an intervention with Puig as if he were an alcoholic on the brink of destroying his life.
The Dodgers' task is to keep him playing at close to 100 mph while preventing him from driving 100 mph.
Which so far they have managed to do while Puig plays in the majors. Also, I get what you did there Scott Miller. Great use of italics and a clever way of writing. Kudos.
Last thing they want to do is break his spirit on the field, or go all Larry David and curb his enthusiasm.
I think someone needs to rein in Scott Miller's use of pop culture references such as this one.
Best -- and most realistic hope -- simply is that they can smooth out the rough edges.
Well I don't know, Puig is 22 years old. There's not much maturing and smoothing of the rough edges that happens when a person is so old and still immature.
They are not going to completely remake him. You wouldn't want to completely remake him.
No, the Dodgers wouldn't want to completely remake Yasiel Puig. Of course they aren't the ones writing an entire column declaring the Puig needs to change his ways immediately or else he will singlehandedly cause the Dodgers to lose a playoff game. If anyone wants Puig to be remade it seems to be Scott Miller.
Talent like this is rare, and it doesn't play at half-speed.
Problem is, neither do the mistakes.
Great point. If Puig can't play the game of baseball without making any mistakes is it even worth having him on the roster? We wouldn't want Puig to be the first MLB player to ever cost his team a playoff game. **
**As long as you ignore other MLB players like Lonnie Smith who arguably cost his team a playoff team...except that playoff game was a World Series game.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
3 comments David Eckstein Made Obsolete By Evolution of Scrappier, Grittier, Gutsier David Eckstein
Oh boy. Have you come to the right place for all your pun, Eckstein, Red Sox, Yankee Stadium and pitching win needs! No, we're not a subidiary of Sportscenter, but if it's cliches, lack of thought, and an absolute contempt for your readership you're looking for, look no further than Bottom of the Barrel favourite,Scott Miller. For those of you not acquainted with Scott, he writes for Sportsline and is suitably terrible.
Weekend Buzz: Boston's Pedroia playing like league MVP
this would be the "Buzz" for people who don't actually follow baseball.
"Um...Yankees right? Like "da Sawx"? Eckstein...puns...October (THERE'S ONLY ONE OCTOBER!)"
You'll catch on quick, trust me.
The Weekend Buzz as you were digesting the Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket while preparing to watch this week's Republican National Convention, because whatever side you're on, we can all agree that the more informed we are, the better off we are...
o...k? Remarkably serious Scott.
1. Dustin Pedroia, Willie Shoemaker and mint juleps
what do they have in common? Nothing. Scott doesn't explain, I'm not even joking.
The Red Sox have found their balance in the aftermath of eighty-sixing Manny Ramirez, and no small part of it comes from their gymnast-looking second baseman who, in a season devoid of obvious AL Most Valuable Player candidates, is more and more looking like one.
Pedroia is 21st in OPS, 16th on RC/27, 15th in XBH and hey, what about this dude?
"I never thought I was going to walk a (bleeping) jockey," Guillen told reporters. "Walking a guy who just came from being on top of Big Brown.
"Right now, he's on a roll. This guy right now is on fire. No matter what you throw up there, he's going to get it. I can't believe you can change professions in one year, go from the Kentucky Derby to the Boston Red Sox ballpark."
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Translating Ozzie Guillen, of course, what that means is that the White Sox manager is thoroughly impressed with Pedroia.
oh that Ozzie! He is so inimitable isn't he? One of the games true characters! Ho! Ho! Ho! Yes, he is indeed a larrikin! No...not larrikin, that's not the word, what is it? Oh yeah, retarded that's right. Let's quote him in my column in order to boost my already shaky case. After all, Mariotti's gone, someone has to quote Ozzie now.
He's marveling at Pedroia's knack for being a nuisance, cringing at Pedroia's penchant for pest-ism.
awwwwwwww! Look at de widdle Pedwoya! He can bawewy hold the bat, it's bigger than him! He's such a cutey-wutey widdle gymnast/jockey/pest/nuisance. I could jwust eat him up wid a spoon!
Seriously, how fucking patronising are these sportswriters? He's an athlete and a grown man. Stop treating him like a lap dog, he's not something to marvel at and gawk at like it's a miracle he's playing here at all. He's a major league baseball player, treat him with the appropriate respect.
I mean fuck, all that's missing here is a David Eckstein reference.
Pedroia? He led the AL through Sunday in batting average (.327) and led the majors in runs (106) and hits (183). His appearance in the cleanup spot Saturday and Sunday marked only the fourth and fifth times since 1956 that a Red Sox second baseman hit in that slot.
what's amazing is how much effort Miller went to get that 1956 stat and yet he won't glance for a moment at OPS. It's pretty staggering, almost all of this is irrelevant and the article presents a terrible case for Pedroia, who is like the fourth most valuable Red Sox.
2. Sanford's sons: Huge week for a couple of kids from Sanford, Fla.
Shortstop David Eckstein, Most Valuable Player of the 2006 World Series, re-joined a real, live pennant race when Toronto mercifully traded him to Arizona.
and there it is.
And talk about lending some support in the dog days of a season gone sour for the Nats. Just back from Beijing, Eckstein no doubt arrives with plenty of stories. For instance ...
"You can order any type of dog you want," Eckstein said. "I didn't want to try any of that."
Woof.
get it? GET IT? Dog days of August - eating dogs? Fuck Miller has this writing thing down, what a smooth transition.
3. Yankees announce season ticket prices for new ballpark: Let's just say, you could take your family of four to Italy and it would set you back less than taking them to a game at new Yankee Stadium.
it's funny because it's false. Apparently.
5. Carlos Zambrano misses Sunday start with tired arm: Listen, Carlos. You think your arm is tired? That fatigue is NOTHING compared to the generations of antsy Cubs fans who are expecting great things in October. So rest up. Get a massage. Have some warm milk. Whatever. JUST BE BACK AND BE RESTED BY OCTOBER OR THEY'LL SEND THE GOAT AFTER YOU!
oh yeah, the Cubs, add that to the list of cliche's. By the way, this is what Miller is paid for. This is "analysis". It's only #5 of ten, it's only going downhill kids, brace yourselves.
6. Philadelphia acquires Matt Stairs: Good idea for a club still trailing the New York Mets by one game in the NL East. Now, instead of running the same ol' treadmill each day, they can take the Stairs.
I swear to God, it says it. Go look for yourself. This is the quality of your sportswriting America.
7. The onion rings were extra: Minnesota knew the monster 14-game, 15-day trip would be a turning point in its season, and you know how it is on the road. You'd better eat well.
So when the Twins, battling a tired bullpen and the Chicago White Sox, acquired reliever Eddie Guardado from Texas for a kid pitcher named Mark Hamburger last week, Guardado asked Rangers general manager Jon Daniels this:
"You traded me for a hamburger?" Guardado said. "Where's the fries and milkshake, at least?"
Hamburger is his LAST name AND it's a FOOD. Genius.
Thanks folks, he's available for bar-mitzvah's and weddings!
Weekend Buzz: Boston's Pedroia playing like league MVP
this would be the "Buzz" for people who don't actually follow baseball.
"Um...Yankees right? Like "da Sawx"? Eckstein...puns...October (THERE'S ONLY ONE OCTOBER!)"
You'll catch on quick, trust me.
The Weekend Buzz as you were digesting the Barack Obama-Joe Biden ticket while preparing to watch this week's Republican National Convention, because whatever side you're on, we can all agree that the more informed we are, the better off we are...
o...k? Remarkably serious Scott.
1. Dustin Pedroia, Willie Shoemaker and mint juleps
what do they have in common? Nothing. Scott doesn't explain, I'm not even joking.
The Red Sox have found their balance in the aftermath of eighty-sixing Manny Ramirez, and no small part of it comes from their gymnast-looking second baseman who, in a season devoid of obvious AL Most Valuable Player candidates, is more and more looking like one.
Pedroia is 21st in OPS, 16th on RC/27, 15th in XBH and hey, what about this dude?
"I never thought I was going to walk a (bleeping) jockey," Guillen told reporters. "Walking a guy who just came from being on top of Big Brown.
"Right now, he's on a roll. This guy right now is on fire. No matter what you throw up there, he's going to get it. I can't believe you can change professions in one year, go from the Kentucky Derby to the Boston Red Sox ballpark."
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Translating Ozzie Guillen, of course, what that means is that the White Sox manager is thoroughly impressed with Pedroia.
oh that Ozzie! He is so inimitable isn't he? One of the games true characters! Ho! Ho! Ho! Yes, he is indeed a larrikin! No...not larrikin, that's not the word, what is it? Oh yeah, retarded that's right. Let's quote him in my column in order to boost my already shaky case. After all, Mariotti's gone, someone has to quote Ozzie now.
He's marveling at Pedroia's knack for being a nuisance, cringing at Pedroia's penchant for pest-ism.
awwwwwwww! Look at de widdle Pedwoya! He can bawewy hold the bat, it's bigger than him! He's such a cutey-wutey widdle gymnast/jockey/pest/nuisance. I could jwust eat him up wid a spoon!
Seriously, how fucking patronising are these sportswriters? He's an athlete and a grown man. Stop treating him like a lap dog, he's not something to marvel at and gawk at like it's a miracle he's playing here at all. He's a major league baseball player, treat him with the appropriate respect.
I mean fuck, all that's missing here is a David Eckstein reference.
Pedroia? He led the AL through Sunday in batting average (.327) and led the majors in runs (106) and hits (183). His appearance in the cleanup spot Saturday and Sunday marked only the fourth and fifth times since 1956 that a Red Sox second baseman hit in that slot.
what's amazing is how much effort Miller went to get that 1956 stat and yet he won't glance for a moment at OPS. It's pretty staggering, almost all of this is irrelevant and the article presents a terrible case for Pedroia, who is like the fourth most valuable Red Sox.
2. Sanford's sons: Huge week for a couple of kids from Sanford, Fla.
Shortstop David Eckstein, Most Valuable Player of the 2006 World Series, re-joined a real, live pennant race when Toronto mercifully traded him to Arizona.
and there it is.
And talk about lending some support in the dog days of a season gone sour for the Nats. Just back from Beijing, Eckstein no doubt arrives with plenty of stories. For instance ...
"You can order any type of dog you want," Eckstein said. "I didn't want to try any of that."
Woof.
get it? GET IT? Dog days of August - eating dogs? Fuck Miller has this writing thing down, what a smooth transition.
3. Yankees announce season ticket prices for new ballpark: Let's just say, you could take your family of four to Italy and it would set you back less than taking them to a game at new Yankee Stadium.
it's funny because it's false. Apparently.
5. Carlos Zambrano misses Sunday start with tired arm: Listen, Carlos. You think your arm is tired? That fatigue is NOTHING compared to the generations of antsy Cubs fans who are expecting great things in October. So rest up. Get a massage. Have some warm milk. Whatever. JUST BE BACK AND BE RESTED BY OCTOBER OR THEY'LL SEND THE GOAT AFTER YOU!
oh yeah, the Cubs, add that to the list of cliche's. By the way, this is what Miller is paid for. This is "analysis". It's only #5 of ten, it's only going downhill kids, brace yourselves.
6. Philadelphia acquires Matt Stairs: Good idea for a club still trailing the New York Mets by one game in the NL East. Now, instead of running the same ol' treadmill each day, they can take the Stairs.
I swear to God, it says it. Go look for yourself. This is the quality of your sportswriting America.
7. The onion rings were extra: Minnesota knew the monster 14-game, 15-day trip would be a turning point in its season, and you know how it is on the road. You'd better eat well.
So when the Twins, battling a tired bullpen and the Chicago White Sox, acquired reliever Eddie Guardado from Texas for a kid pitcher named Mark Hamburger last week, Guardado asked Rangers general manager Jon Daniels this:
"You traded me for a hamburger?" Guardado said. "Where's the fries and milkshake, at least?"
Hamburger is his LAST name AND it's a FOOD. Genius.
Thanks folks, he's available for bar-mitzvah's and weddings!
Saturday, July 19, 2008
3 comments Scott Miller Mails It In
So, predictably enough, we have a slew of columns looking back at the first half of the season (although it's significantly more than half now) and making predictions of what is to come this baseball season. What I find irritating about many of these columns is that there are just a bunch of claims made with little to no evidence to support them. It's not like evidence couldn't be found, it's just abject laziness, "trust me guys, I'm a professional".
Scott Miller is one such individual.
Plenty of storylines to fuel intriguing second half
NEW YORK -- No. Florida's Dan Uggla did not whiff three times, commit three errors and ground into a double play, nominating himself for Worst All-Star in History. Right?
And the National League did not cede home-field advantage in the World Series to the AL for a sixth consecutive year. Right?
And George Steinbrenner didn't bawl his eyes out during one very sentimental and touching victory lap around Yankee Stadium during the very cool pre-All-Star Game ceremony befitting of legends. Did he?
It was all just a dream, wasn't it? A dream bridging a wholly unexpected first-half with -- dare we say it -- this handful of things to watch in the season's second-half.
this is a popular, misleading strategy. The whole "OMFG you guys it's been SO insane, SO crazy, you should totally pay even MORE attention this season because THIS season, ANYTHING could happen, unlike the normal, boring predictable season." It's all very drama queen like and is very popular. Dan Uggla had a bad game, the AL won the All-Star Game, the owner of the Yankees was emotional that this is the last year they are playing at arguably the most storied venue in American sports. These are not groundbreaking events. It's certainly not warranted for you to doubt their validity as genuine events in the external world Scott, please calm down.
The Angels are leading the AL West, the Cubs are leading the NL Central, the Diamondbacks are kinda leading the NL West (huge dissapointment) and the Phillies are leading the NL East. That is to say four of the six divisions are led by the winners last year, if anything that's higher than most years. I remember last year the ONLY team to return to the playoffs was the Yankees. Oh, and the Red Sox are looking good for a playoff spot too. Can we please be talked to like we're adults instead of children watching a toy commercial?
1. Someone get the Rays some sunblock!
It was getting awfully hot under the glare last time we saw them.
Never before has Tampa Bay won more than 70 games in one season, yet the Rays won 55 before the break. But they sure looked like the old Rays, the ones everyone in the game loved to kick around, in losing seven in a row before the break.
A harbinger of things to come for Joe Maddon's squad? Or a simple dry spell that strikes everyone during the course of a wickedly long season?
"The break couldn't have come at a better time for us," admitted Evan Longoria. Tampa Bay's rookie sensation. "We needed to get away from it, get our minds right."
No kidding. The thinking here is it may be too much to expect Tampa Bay to finish with the game's best record, which the Rays held for most of June, but this team is talented enough to stick around for the long haul. And we're talking 2008, not 2009 or 2010.
there you go kids, the thinking is that they can't keep it up. What is that thinking? Never you worry your pretty little heads about it. Carl Crawford is having his worst year since 2003, considering he's just one year away from the mythical, Bill James blessed age of 27, you would think his OPS of .696 is in for a big boost (career average of .763). He's even struggling on the basepaths (23/7 against season totals of 50/10, 58/9, 46/8 in recent years). That should help, particulary because the Rays are kind of a mediocre offensive club and Crawford remains their best hitter.
There's nothing THAT surprising about the rotations performance either. Here's what I found about Matt Garza. Sure, Kazmir is having a career year (3.04 ERA, half run below career, finally got his walks under control, 3.36/9 innings vs 4.03/9 innings for his career, he leads all AL starters in K/9 with 9.87, he's seventh in batting average against in the AL) but he's always been good and is young and improving, there's no reason to be surprised by this. Shields too is in a similar boat, although he's basically replicating last year, literally the definition of not being surprising. Every reason to think these guys can keep playing well, Dan Wheeler has long had a reputation as a very good reliever.
Here are other hitters playing worse than last year;
Akinori Iwamura (OPS down from .770 to .729, mainly due to power issues, very difficult to imagine he'd be worse after a year adjusting to American pitching, seems likely to rebound to at least match 2007's production. That means an OPS of something like .830 the rest of the way)
Carlos Pena (the fall off from last year was inevidible, but it is probably much worse than the Rays hoped after signing him for 6 million in the offseason. He's currently keeping his place on the strength of 14 home runs, but offering little else. It's difficult to see him hitting .234/.337/.431, he's only thirty and you'd hope that average in particular has got some ability to rise)
Cliff Floyd (actually hitting with more power than next year, but only OBPing .345, the second worst result since 2002. He's 35 so this may be it, there's no reason to feel he must rebound, but I'm just saying that this is the fourth hitter relatively underperforming and Tampa Bay has endured)
Jonny Gomes (a player the Rays might actually have been relying on somewhat considering he's 27, has been terrible, worst year of his career, he's essentially useless at .185/.292/.395)
Rocco Baldelli (consider him a write-off myself and never thought he was that good even when he did play but some people, probably some in the Rays organisation too, think he's the best thing since sliced bread. He hasn't played this year and may be available for the second half)
Iwamura, Crawford and Pena were probably considered their three most important position players at the start of the year. ALL are underperforming, in Pena and Crawford's case, significantly so. Admittedly their pythag is only fifth in the majors and they are terrible on the road where they play 58% of their remaining games, but there are plenty of reasons to keep the faith. At the very least, if you don't think they will, reference this stuff.
B.J. Upton says he knew this spring that the Rays had enough talent to win, but that the biggest question was whether they thought they were ready to win. With Upton, Carl Crawford, Longoria and superb pitchers Scott Kazmir, James Shields, Matt Garza and others, Tampa Bay already has answered the question.
I think you'll find Crawford hasn't been a particulary key cog in this team so far but yes, I suppose confidence was an issue for this club, sure.
Now the Rays, who have already swept Boston, the Cubs and the Los Angeles Angels, among others this year, stand ready for their next test, as Upton envisioned it: Do they have enough maturity to win during the stretch run?
"I see what he's saying," Longoria said of Upton. "We don't have a lot of guys with postseason experience, with big-game experience. We're going to have to find ways to lean on each other. We've played some big games this year. Just not playoffs."
I'd be more concerned about the looming Yankees, AL East in general, the offensive dependency on a few players and all those road games, but that's me.
Miller then talks about the Cubs which is inoffensive, if uninformative, but then this...
3. About those 1,000 runs scored ...
They're taking the bulldozers to old Tiger Stadium as we speak (sniff, sniff). But will manager Jim Leyland be able to prevent his underachieving club from being reduced to rubble before '08 expires?
Once figured to break all sorts of scoring records, the Tigers instead are 47-47 at the break, third in the AL Central and have been whitewashed a major league-leading 10 times. As summer's humidity settles in, it's still difficult to see Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Guillen, Marcus Thames, Curtis Granderson, Pudge Rodriguez and the rest failing to put on scoring clinics. Justin Verlander is dominating again.
well I wouldn't be relying on I-Rod for offense at this stage of his career and it's weird he doesn't mention Polanco (former batting champion in 2005, and I'm just gonna guess his .341 was also league tops in 2007, could well be wrong) even if it is empty average and Edgar Renteria (getting paid 10 million to OPS .637) but my main point here is how can you not mention that they are 47-39 since losing their first eight?
That record compares favourably with all of the AL heavyweights, and of special note, particulary well with Chicago (50-38) and Minny (51-37).
4. Question for the Phillies
Given the way the New York Mets and Florida hung around .500 most of the first half, shouldn't Philadelphia own far more than a measly half-game lead over the Mets and a 1½-game margin over the Marlins?
Doesn't this suddenly appear to be the most tenuous grip on first place of any division leader?
Will the Phils live to regret a lost opportunity?
OK, those are questions, plural, for the Phillies.
and not very good ones.
First things first, the Marlins are going nowhere, their Pythag is five full games worse than their actual record, while the Phillies have actually been unlucky to the extent of three games. Secondly, the Mets have a pretty awesome team and this should be a two horse race. The Phillies haven't blown anything, if you told them they'd lead the NL East at the All Star break, I think they'd be over the moon considering their biggest rival just got the best pitcher in the game.
"It's a long season, and you're going to have your ups and downs," second baseman Chase Utley says. "I try to focus on the positives. We're still in first place. The Mets are playing really well. Florida is playing really well.
I am certain Utley was baited into this response, the positives are many, and easily outweigh the negatives, it doesn't mean they are going to run away with what is a pretty good division.
"We need to continue to improve if we want to make the playoffs."
Yes, indeedy. And probably the two best starting pitchers available, Sabathia and Harden, already are off the trade market. The Phillies tried hard to get Sabathia. Then they regrouped, and they're talking with Seattle about Erik Bedard and have inquired about Toronto's A.J. Burnett. But there are character and health concerns surrounding both.
I'm not saying Joe Blanton is Brandon Webb, but I'd sure as hell prefer him to A.J.Burnett, the Phillies have already had just about the worst luck with injuries in the majors over the past two years, getting Burnett would be just asking for it.
if Philadelphia doesn't make the playoffs, it almost certainly means the Mets will, and there's no shame in that, but Philly is very well positioned. Ryan Howard obviously will OPS better than .835 (his Iso Power is down to .277 from .316 last year and .346 two years ago, it's not just the average). He's already OPSing 1.234 in July, he has ten homers in his last 63 ABs. But what Miller suggests here is that the Phillies have frittered away some position of absolute strength and that's just not true.
They have a 1.0 game lead now, they had a 2.0 game lead a month ago. Two months ago they were third in the division. To paint them as a prohibitive favourite who is choking is ridiculous.
5. Is Jerry Manuel a licensed miracle worker?
The Mets were the polar opposite of Tampa Bay as the first half finished, closing with nine consecutive wins and newfound optimism.
Outfielder Moises Alou likely is out for the season, but Ryan Church will be back and the Mets still boast ace Johan Santana. Manuel has organized his bullpen and loosened his clubhouse. He likes the music turned up and the moping turned down.
Biggest difference between the way the Mets started the season (disappointing) and the way they finished it (hotter than a $3 bill)?
"For me, you're a little snakebitten after what happened last September and then with our slow start," third baseman David Wright says. "You lack confidence as a team. Once we took three of four from Philadelphia, then we beat Tim Lincecum (San Francisco's ace) and took three in a row from the Giants and three in a row from Colorado, you get that swagger back. You go out expecting to win."
Randolph's famous, controversial music ban, so widely reported in the media, was clearly the reason for the slow start. If only he knew the secret. I also notice David Wright doesn't mention Manuel once in what is a lengthy answer, great reporting there Scott.
False swagger alert: Remember, the last six of the Mets' nine consecutive wins were authored against woeful NL West clubs. Give them credit for winning games, because you play who the schedule tells you to play. But gobbling up NL West teams is like wolfing down a bowl of tapioca pudding. Tastes good, no nutritional value.
well yeah it has value, they just made up like five games in less than two weeks. "Give them credit, but don't give them credit." On the fourth of July, the Mets were 42-44, they then won ten straight to make up 5.5 games and tie for the NL East lead. They've since slid back ever so slightly, but I think if they win the NL East by two games, they'll consider those games pretty fucking valuable Scott. Also, no mention of Manuel at all, aside from his love of loud music, even the episode that sings his praises doesn't mention him, it's like he realised it was a mistake the moment he wrote it.
6. Big Papi's wrist
When we last saw the Red Sox, David Ortiz was just resuming batting practice after mucho missed time because of a wrist injury. That's the sort of thing that could nag a big slugger like Ortiz for the rest of the season, because a hitter can't exactly protect his wrist. Consequently, it's also the sort of thing that could really nag a team like the Red Sox, who have just settled back into first place as they gun for a third World Series title in five seasons.
fair enough.
The Red Sox may be the new Yankees, but Ortiz is the key.
with all due respect, I think you will find it is Jason Varitek, Scott.
If he's back slugging within a month, as Ortiz and the Sox expect, everything is copasetic. If not, the Red Sox have a Papi-sized hole in the middle of their lineup.
I'd like to think Scott Miller typed "good" into his word processor before pressing f7.
So, your point is, if Ortiz is good, it will help the Red Sox, and if he's not, it will be bad for them. I'm glad you're on our team man, if these powers of analysis fell in the wrong hands, I shudder at the possibilities.
"Hopefully, everything will come through the way I'm expecting," the optimistic Ortiz says.
And his wrists did look strong as he signed an autograph for singer Sheryl Crow a couple of moments later.
I've seen enough, colour me sold.
7. Tick, tick, tick
That's not Uggla's glove about to explode, it's the approaching trade deadline. Don't get too excited, all you rumor-mongers, because it's difficult to envision any deals matching the juice the Cubs and Brewers already have provided in dealing for Harden and Sabathia.
But, for those who love July 31 and all days approaching it ... there are a few names worth watching who could impact the division races.
Pittsburgh has a pair of outfielders it may move, Jason Bay and Xavier Nady. The New York Mets sure could use one of them. So could Arizona, with Eric Byrnes out for the season.
*yawn* literally the same names and same teams I've seen everywhere. All you need to mention is Matt Holliday to complete the set of obvious, uninteresting names. Also, glove about to explode? What?
Toronto's Burnett could be the next starting pitcher to go, but he comes with a warning label because of his frequency of disabled-list trips and because of the out clause in his contract. He can opt out after this season, which could make him an expensive three-month rental ... or, if he bombs in a new locale, could leave the acquiring team stuck with a bad contract. Either way, it isn't much of a winning situation if you trade for him.
you've just witnessed the most obvious insight in the history of journalism, remember where you are right now.
Colorado is continuing to consider whether to deal outfielder Matt Holliday...
there he is, well done.
who reminded again with his solo shot in the All-Star Game that he can flat-out rake.
in all fairness, he has 15 home runs, is fourth in the NL in hitting and fifth in OPS. If you needed reminding that he can rake, you probably shouldn't be in the position to make trades for a professional baseball team. You also probably shouldn't be the kind of person who is mesmerised by a single home run.
Then there is some Barry Bonds stuff which has been beaten to death. No reflective baseball column would be complete without a Bonds mention. Perhaps he needs to be invited to the All Star Game, hit a home run so some GM can see and go "oh yeah, that reminds me, Barry Bonds can flat-out rake".
Scott Miller is one such individual.
Plenty of storylines to fuel intriguing second half
NEW YORK -- No. Florida's Dan Uggla did not whiff three times, commit three errors and ground into a double play, nominating himself for Worst All-Star in History. Right?
And the National League did not cede home-field advantage in the World Series to the AL for a sixth consecutive year. Right?
And George Steinbrenner didn't bawl his eyes out during one very sentimental and touching victory lap around Yankee Stadium during the very cool pre-All-Star Game ceremony befitting of legends. Did he?
It was all just a dream, wasn't it? A dream bridging a wholly unexpected first-half with -- dare we say it -- this handful of things to watch in the season's second-half.
this is a popular, misleading strategy. The whole "OMFG you guys it's been SO insane, SO crazy, you should totally pay even MORE attention this season because THIS season, ANYTHING could happen, unlike the normal, boring predictable season." It's all very drama queen like and is very popular. Dan Uggla had a bad game, the AL won the All-Star Game, the owner of the Yankees was emotional that this is the last year they are playing at arguably the most storied venue in American sports. These are not groundbreaking events. It's certainly not warranted for you to doubt their validity as genuine events in the external world Scott, please calm down.
The Angels are leading the AL West, the Cubs are leading the NL Central, the Diamondbacks are kinda leading the NL West (huge dissapointment) and the Phillies are leading the NL East. That is to say four of the six divisions are led by the winners last year, if anything that's higher than most years. I remember last year the ONLY team to return to the playoffs was the Yankees. Oh, and the Red Sox are looking good for a playoff spot too. Can we please be talked to like we're adults instead of children watching a toy commercial?
1. Someone get the Rays some sunblock!
It was getting awfully hot under the glare last time we saw them.
Never before has Tampa Bay won more than 70 games in one season, yet the Rays won 55 before the break. But they sure looked like the old Rays, the ones everyone in the game loved to kick around, in losing seven in a row before the break.
A harbinger of things to come for Joe Maddon's squad? Or a simple dry spell that strikes everyone during the course of a wickedly long season?
"The break couldn't have come at a better time for us," admitted Evan Longoria. Tampa Bay's rookie sensation. "We needed to get away from it, get our minds right."
No kidding. The thinking here is it may be too much to expect Tampa Bay to finish with the game's best record, which the Rays held for most of June, but this team is talented enough to stick around for the long haul. And we're talking 2008, not 2009 or 2010.
there you go kids, the thinking is that they can't keep it up. What is that thinking? Never you worry your pretty little heads about it. Carl Crawford is having his worst year since 2003, considering he's just one year away from the mythical, Bill James blessed age of 27, you would think his OPS of .696 is in for a big boost (career average of .763). He's even struggling on the basepaths (23/7 against season totals of 50/10, 58/9, 46/8 in recent years). That should help, particulary because the Rays are kind of a mediocre offensive club and Crawford remains their best hitter.
There's nothing THAT surprising about the rotations performance either. Here's what I found about Matt Garza. Sure, Kazmir is having a career year (3.04 ERA, half run below career, finally got his walks under control, 3.36/9 innings vs 4.03/9 innings for his career, he leads all AL starters in K/9 with 9.87, he's seventh in batting average against in the AL) but he's always been good and is young and improving, there's no reason to be surprised by this. Shields too is in a similar boat, although he's basically replicating last year, literally the definition of not being surprising. Every reason to think these guys can keep playing well, Dan Wheeler has long had a reputation as a very good reliever.
Here are other hitters playing worse than last year;
Akinori Iwamura (OPS down from .770 to .729, mainly due to power issues, very difficult to imagine he'd be worse after a year adjusting to American pitching, seems likely to rebound to at least match 2007's production. That means an OPS of something like .830 the rest of the way)
Carlos Pena (the fall off from last year was inevidible, but it is probably much worse than the Rays hoped after signing him for 6 million in the offseason. He's currently keeping his place on the strength of 14 home runs, but offering little else. It's difficult to see him hitting .234/.337/.431, he's only thirty and you'd hope that average in particular has got some ability to rise)
Cliff Floyd (actually hitting with more power than next year, but only OBPing .345, the second worst result since 2002. He's 35 so this may be it, there's no reason to feel he must rebound, but I'm just saying that this is the fourth hitter relatively underperforming and Tampa Bay has endured)
Jonny Gomes (a player the Rays might actually have been relying on somewhat considering he's 27, has been terrible, worst year of his career, he's essentially useless at .185/.292/.395)
Rocco Baldelli (consider him a write-off myself and never thought he was that good even when he did play but some people, probably some in the Rays organisation too, think he's the best thing since sliced bread. He hasn't played this year and may be available for the second half)
Iwamura, Crawford and Pena were probably considered their three most important position players at the start of the year. ALL are underperforming, in Pena and Crawford's case, significantly so. Admittedly their pythag is only fifth in the majors and they are terrible on the road where they play 58% of their remaining games, but there are plenty of reasons to keep the faith. At the very least, if you don't think they will, reference this stuff.
B.J. Upton says he knew this spring that the Rays had enough talent to win, but that the biggest question was whether they thought they were ready to win. With Upton, Carl Crawford, Longoria and superb pitchers Scott Kazmir, James Shields, Matt Garza and others, Tampa Bay already has answered the question.
I think you'll find Crawford hasn't been a particulary key cog in this team so far but yes, I suppose confidence was an issue for this club, sure.
Now the Rays, who have already swept Boston, the Cubs and the Los Angeles Angels, among others this year, stand ready for their next test, as Upton envisioned it: Do they have enough maturity to win during the stretch run?
"I see what he's saying," Longoria said of Upton. "We don't have a lot of guys with postseason experience, with big-game experience. We're going to have to find ways to lean on each other. We've played some big games this year. Just not playoffs."
I'd be more concerned about the looming Yankees, AL East in general, the offensive dependency on a few players and all those road games, but that's me.
Miller then talks about the Cubs which is inoffensive, if uninformative, but then this...
3. About those 1,000 runs scored ...
They're taking the bulldozers to old Tiger Stadium as we speak (sniff, sniff). But will manager Jim Leyland be able to prevent his underachieving club from being reduced to rubble before '08 expires?
Once figured to break all sorts of scoring records, the Tigers instead are 47-47 at the break, third in the AL Central and have been whitewashed a major league-leading 10 times. As summer's humidity settles in, it's still difficult to see Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Guillen, Marcus Thames, Curtis Granderson, Pudge Rodriguez and the rest failing to put on scoring clinics. Justin Verlander is dominating again.
well I wouldn't be relying on I-Rod for offense at this stage of his career and it's weird he doesn't mention Polanco (former batting champion in 2005, and I'm just gonna guess his .341 was also league tops in 2007, could well be wrong) even if it is empty average and Edgar Renteria (getting paid 10 million to OPS .637) but my main point here is how can you not mention that they are 47-39 since losing their first eight?
That record compares favourably with all of the AL heavyweights, and of special note, particulary well with Chicago (50-38) and Minny (51-37).
4. Question for the Phillies
Given the way the New York Mets and Florida hung around .500 most of the first half, shouldn't Philadelphia own far more than a measly half-game lead over the Mets and a 1½-game margin over the Marlins?
Doesn't this suddenly appear to be the most tenuous grip on first place of any division leader?
Will the Phils live to regret a lost opportunity?
OK, those are questions, plural, for the Phillies.
and not very good ones.
First things first, the Marlins are going nowhere, their Pythag is five full games worse than their actual record, while the Phillies have actually been unlucky to the extent of three games. Secondly, the Mets have a pretty awesome team and this should be a two horse race. The Phillies haven't blown anything, if you told them they'd lead the NL East at the All Star break, I think they'd be over the moon considering their biggest rival just got the best pitcher in the game.
"It's a long season, and you're going to have your ups and downs," second baseman Chase Utley says. "I try to focus on the positives. We're still in first place. The Mets are playing really well. Florida is playing really well.
I am certain Utley was baited into this response, the positives are many, and easily outweigh the negatives, it doesn't mean they are going to run away with what is a pretty good division.
"We need to continue to improve if we want to make the playoffs."
Yes, indeedy. And probably the two best starting pitchers available, Sabathia and Harden, already are off the trade market. The Phillies tried hard to get Sabathia. Then they regrouped, and they're talking with Seattle about Erik Bedard and have inquired about Toronto's A.J. Burnett. But there are character and health concerns surrounding both.
I'm not saying Joe Blanton is Brandon Webb, but I'd sure as hell prefer him to A.J.Burnett, the Phillies have already had just about the worst luck with injuries in the majors over the past two years, getting Burnett would be just asking for it.
if Philadelphia doesn't make the playoffs, it almost certainly means the Mets will, and there's no shame in that, but Philly is very well positioned. Ryan Howard obviously will OPS better than .835 (his Iso Power is down to .277 from .316 last year and .346 two years ago, it's not just the average). He's already OPSing 1.234 in July, he has ten homers in his last 63 ABs. But what Miller suggests here is that the Phillies have frittered away some position of absolute strength and that's just not true.
They have a 1.0 game lead now, they had a 2.0 game lead a month ago. Two months ago they were third in the division. To paint them as a prohibitive favourite who is choking is ridiculous.
5. Is Jerry Manuel a licensed miracle worker?
The Mets were the polar opposite of Tampa Bay as the first half finished, closing with nine consecutive wins and newfound optimism.
Outfielder Moises Alou likely is out for the season, but Ryan Church will be back and the Mets still boast ace Johan Santana. Manuel has organized his bullpen and loosened his clubhouse. He likes the music turned up and the moping turned down.
Biggest difference between the way the Mets started the season (disappointing) and the way they finished it (hotter than a $3 bill)?
"For me, you're a little snakebitten after what happened last September and then with our slow start," third baseman David Wright says. "You lack confidence as a team. Once we took three of four from Philadelphia, then we beat Tim Lincecum (San Francisco's ace) and took three in a row from the Giants and three in a row from Colorado, you get that swagger back. You go out expecting to win."
Randolph's famous, controversial music ban, so widely reported in the media, was clearly the reason for the slow start. If only he knew the secret. I also notice David Wright doesn't mention Manuel once in what is a lengthy answer, great reporting there Scott.
False swagger alert: Remember, the last six of the Mets' nine consecutive wins were authored against woeful NL West clubs. Give them credit for winning games, because you play who the schedule tells you to play. But gobbling up NL West teams is like wolfing down a bowl of tapioca pudding. Tastes good, no nutritional value.
well yeah it has value, they just made up like five games in less than two weeks. "Give them credit, but don't give them credit." On the fourth of July, the Mets were 42-44, they then won ten straight to make up 5.5 games and tie for the NL East lead. They've since slid back ever so slightly, but I think if they win the NL East by two games, they'll consider those games pretty fucking valuable Scott. Also, no mention of Manuel at all, aside from his love of loud music, even the episode that sings his praises doesn't mention him, it's like he realised it was a mistake the moment he wrote it.
6. Big Papi's wrist
When we last saw the Red Sox, David Ortiz was just resuming batting practice after mucho missed time because of a wrist injury. That's the sort of thing that could nag a big slugger like Ortiz for the rest of the season, because a hitter can't exactly protect his wrist. Consequently, it's also the sort of thing that could really nag a team like the Red Sox, who have just settled back into first place as they gun for a third World Series title in five seasons.
fair enough.
The Red Sox may be the new Yankees, but Ortiz is the key.
with all due respect, I think you will find it is Jason Varitek, Scott.
If he's back slugging within a month, as Ortiz and the Sox expect, everything is copasetic. If not, the Red Sox have a Papi-sized hole in the middle of their lineup.
I'd like to think Scott Miller typed "good" into his word processor before pressing f7.
So, your point is, if Ortiz is good, it will help the Red Sox, and if he's not, it will be bad for them. I'm glad you're on our team man, if these powers of analysis fell in the wrong hands, I shudder at the possibilities.
"Hopefully, everything will come through the way I'm expecting," the optimistic Ortiz says.
And his wrists did look strong as he signed an autograph for singer Sheryl Crow a couple of moments later.
I've seen enough, colour me sold.
7. Tick, tick, tick
That's not Uggla's glove about to explode, it's the approaching trade deadline. Don't get too excited, all you rumor-mongers, because it's difficult to envision any deals matching the juice the Cubs and Brewers already have provided in dealing for Harden and Sabathia.
But, for those who love July 31 and all days approaching it ... there are a few names worth watching who could impact the division races.
Pittsburgh has a pair of outfielders it may move, Jason Bay and Xavier Nady. The New York Mets sure could use one of them. So could Arizona, with Eric Byrnes out for the season.
*yawn* literally the same names and same teams I've seen everywhere. All you need to mention is Matt Holliday to complete the set of obvious, uninteresting names. Also, glove about to explode? What?
Toronto's Burnett could be the next starting pitcher to go, but he comes with a warning label because of his frequency of disabled-list trips and because of the out clause in his contract. He can opt out after this season, which could make him an expensive three-month rental ... or, if he bombs in a new locale, could leave the acquiring team stuck with a bad contract. Either way, it isn't much of a winning situation if you trade for him.
you've just witnessed the most obvious insight in the history of journalism, remember where you are right now.
Colorado is continuing to consider whether to deal outfielder Matt Holliday...
there he is, well done.
who reminded again with his solo shot in the All-Star Game that he can flat-out rake.
in all fairness, he has 15 home runs, is fourth in the NL in hitting and fifth in OPS. If you needed reminding that he can rake, you probably shouldn't be in the position to make trades for a professional baseball team. You also probably shouldn't be the kind of person who is mesmerised by a single home run.
Then there is some Barry Bonds stuff which has been beaten to death. No reflective baseball column would be complete without a Bonds mention. Perhaps he needs to be invited to the All Star Game, hit a home run so some GM can see and go "oh yeah, that reminds me, Barry Bonds can flat-out rake".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)