Okay, well maybe Bleacher Report didn't specifically attempt to make a list of lazy minority baseball players, but I figured the tabloid-ish title was appropriate when discussing a Bleacher Report article/column/slideshow. The author compiles a "Least Likely to Hustle" team and it has one white guy on the team, whose presence on the list is fiercely debated in the comments. You don't call David Wright lazy apparently. This team consists of players who are not going to hustle and work hard on the baseball field. Ironically the very idea of writing a slideshow on the laziest players in MLB is a very lazy column idea. In writing this slideshow I would place the author on a "Least Likely to Think Hard for a Column Idea" team.
A lot can be said about a player who runs his hardest every time he takes the field.
And most of what will be said is in the form of useless hyperbole followed by the regular use of synonyms for the word "gritty."
Some players simply don’t hustle around the bases; they usually takes
their time, especially if they hit a routine ground ball to the
shortstop.
Chipper Jones occasionally didn't hustle out ground balls to second base or to first base. He's not an active player and isn't on this list, but not surprisingly I've never heard him called lazy for failing to run these ground balls out. I mention this because one instance of not hustling got a couple of players included on this "not hustling" team, so I would think Chipper's periodic jogs to first base could have earned him a spot.
Want an example of a player who hustles? Bryce Harper. He arguably hustles more than any other player in baseball.
Want an article filled with hyperbole? Look no further than this column where the author says Bryce Harper "arguably" hustles more than any other player in baseball. It's good the "arguably" was included because there's no fucking way to determine which player actually hustles the most. Arguably, this is a dumb sentence.
If there were a team that wasn’t likely to hustle, here are the players who would be on it.
Let's start the slideshow! The team is broken down by position, so it's just like a real baseball team! Well, there are no relief pitchers represented, so it is broken down like a real baseball team from the early 1900's when starting pitchers always threw a complete game.
Carlos Santana, Cleveland Indians
Let's find out why Santana made this team...
Santana is much better known for his power from behind the plate.
Because Santana hits a solid amount of home runs—55 over the course of
his four-year career including four so far in the 2013 season—he gets to
round the bases at his leisure.
So Sanchez is lazy because he hits a lot of home runs. Boy, Babe Ruth must have been really, really super lazy then.
A bunch of catchers could qualify for this position on this team, but
Santana fits relatively well. Watching video of him, even just from this
season, it’s obvious that he doesn’t round the bases as quickly as he
could.
So video, unlinked in this column of course, show that Carlos Santana doesn't round the bases as quickly as he could? Maybe I will search for my own evidence.
This is the only video evidence I could find and I wouldn't call that being lazy, but being dumb about base-running. There was an incident on August 30, 2012 where Santana was benched for a lack of hustle, but that was one incident and he seemed contrite. I guess one incident of not hustling is enough to make this list. In fact, if you Google "Carlos Santana hustling" then the fourth link that comes up is this very article. This is the Bleacher Report dream. The article written about how Carlos Santana doesn't hustle can be cited as evidence he doesn't hustle when doing an internet search on the topic. Those algorithms really work!
So Carlos Santana doesn't hustle because one time he didn't hustle. Plus, there is a bunch of video out there proving this point is true. Go look for it because the author doesn't have the time or energy to link it as proof what he is saying is correct.
Carlos Lee, Free Agent
Carlos Lee is currently one of many players without a major or minor
league contract, and we’re well past the offseason and spring training.
Is there still a chance that he signs a deal? Sure, but teams may be
concerned with his hustle.
Or they may be concerned he is 36 years old, not a good defensive player, and hit .264/.332/.365 last year. His salary demands could also be the reason.
Spoiler alert: the salary demands appear to be the reason Carlos Lee isn't signed. Yes it is true, the author wonders whether it is Lee's lack of hustle that wards teams off from signing him, then links an article where Lee's salary demands are stated as being the main reason he hasn't signed a deal with a team. So the author proves his own hypothesis wrong. Brilliant writing.
Although he can probably still hit, there’s still the perception that he lacks hustle, according to an April 2012 article on Fox Sports Houston (h/t YardBarker).
Why does the perception become a reality? From the article:
Often maligned for his real or perceived lack of hustle in the past it
can not be denied that Lee can still hit the ball better than the
average player.
This perception doesn't mean Lee lacks hustle. So why is he on the "Least Likely to Hustle" team?
So even with his five times on base and two RBIs his game on Tuesday was not flawless.
He has brought leadership and yes, hustle, to the young Astros and so far is a role model to be followed.
So the article linked to provide evidence that Lee still lacks hustle actually goes out of its way to mention that Lee in fact DOES hustle. Again, brilliant writing. Bleacher Report has landed a great writer.
Maybe he sees that if he wants to change his mind and play more he needs to change perceptions.
Astro fans know what those perceptions are. Carlos Lee can hit, but doesn't always (or often) hustle.
Again, it is a perception and the author is needlessly and foolishly buying into this perception by placing Lee on his team of players who don't hustle. Way to reinforce a perception that may or may not be true.
Also, I love the idea of Bleacher Report citing Yardbarker for a column link. It's like the "The National Enquirer" citing "US Weekly" about whether Jennifer Aniston is pregnant or not.
Lee is in actuality a happy go lucky guy who plays the percentages. He
knows how fast he has to run to get to a ball and make a play. He knows
when false hustle is just to make him look good, but really not
productive. The problem is that when he measures his running effort it
appears to be lack of hustle.
But again, reinforcing a perception with the only evidence this perception being true is the existence of a perception is ridiculously bad writing. The appearance of not hustling in the past doesn't serve as evidence that Lee doesn't hustle now. The author basically says, "There is a perception Lee doesn't hustle so that means he doesn't hustle and that's why he is on this list."
Ken Davidoff of the New York Post wrote in March that Lee hasn’t been willing to sign for a low-base salary.
So maybe the fact Lee doesn't want a low base salary is the reason he has not been signed yet? So why would the author believe it was Lee's lack of hustle when he cites a column specifically stating a very good reason why Lee hasn't been signed...that reason being he isn't willing to sign for a low base salary? I can't answer my overly-long question either.
Robinson Cano, New York Yankees
Robinson Cano might be one of the best players in baseball, but there’s
no guarantee he’s going to leg out a double instead of taking it easy by
stopping at first base. He has, however, hit at least 40 doubles in
each of the last four seasons.
(Bengoodfella's brain explodes)
So let me get this straight. There is no guarantee that Robinson Cano is going to leg out a double instead of stopping at first base, but he has hit 40 doubles over the last four seasons. Isn't that the guarantee that Robinson Cano will try to leg out a double? What more would the author need? Cano obviously legs out doubles since he has hit at least 40 doubles over the last four seasons.
He was benched for a lapse in attention back in 2008.
Five years ago. He was benched for a lapse in attention five years ago. Five years ago is five years ago, and not considered recent.
Through 20 games this season, Cano is hitting .325/.378/.614 with six
home runs and 14 RBI in a depleted New York Yankees lineup. It would be smart to assume that Cano might make more money on the open
market this upcoming winter if he showed a little more effort this
season.
It would be even smarter to assume a guy hitting .325 with an OPS of .992 is already expending a lot of effort. Of course asking a person who randomly says Robinson Cano doesn't hustle to be smart is probably asking too much.
David Wright, New York Mets
All it takes is one lapse for a player to end up on this list.
Unless you are Chipper Jones and then you would have permission to jog to first base as much as you want.
Well, back in 2009, he didn’t act professionally on one night.
You mean four years ago on one night David Wright didn't hustle!? One time out of over a thousand games he has played in the majors Wright didn't hustle and this means he is not likely to hustle. I guess one time is now a trend.
In a late-September game against the Florida Marlins—yes, they were
still the Florida Marlins back in 2009—Wright was benched after a lack of hustle, according to Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post. Wright reportedly apologized to his teammates for not giving it his all.
“That’s
just a mental mistake,” Wright said of the baserunning blunder—who took
his time going home from third base on what was an easy play. “That’s
my fault, and I take responsibility. It won’t happen again.”
Sorry, you just made the "Least Likely to Hustle" team because you didn't hustle one time four years ago. Hey, someone has to play third base in this terrible idea for a fictional baseball team.
In the comments when he was questioned about Wright as a selection to make this team the author said that he asked quite a few "FC's" and they named Wright as a third baseman who didn't hustle. "FC's" are "featured columnists" at Bleacher Report. So take that for what you think it is worth. Wright is the only non-Hispanic/African American player on this list. It's not racist, just interesting regarding what this could say about the perception of white athletes.
B.J. Upton, Atlanta Braves
Back in 2008, the center fielder was benched a pair of times by his former manager, Joe Maddon.
Again, this was five years ago. I'm sure a bunch of FC's named Upton as a member of this team though. FC's can't be wrong.
Upton told reporters that he thought that there were two outs and that’s
why he didn’t put a ton of effort on the play. He also said he was
“stunned” to get pulled from the game.
He's going to be even more stunned to be named to a team for players that don't hustle because he didn't hustle a couple of times as a 23 year old.
Alex Rios, Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox used to be managed by Ozzie Guillen, who didn’t
have the best relationship with outfielder Alex Rios. Guillen didn’t
care for the way that Rios failed to hustle on plays. Now, Guillen isn’t
the manager, but Rios still takes his time occasionally.
Oh, so he doesn't hustle on occasion even after Ozzie Guillen no longer manages the White Sox? Let's look at the evidence the author has for this...
Guillen benched Rios back in 2011 after he didn’t hustle on the basepaths.
But you...you said that Rios still takes his time occasionally now, even after Guillen is no longer the manager of the White Sox. The only evidence you use of Rios not hustling is from when Guillen was the manager. How are we to believe the author that Rios still doesn't hustle now if he can't cite evidence he is telling the truth about Rios not hustling now? Maybe the author just asked the FC's and they said Rios still doesn't hustle.
David Ortiz, Boston Red Sox
I'm guessing this is the reasoning for saying David Ortiz doesn't hustle.
But there is somewhat of a correlation between being a DH and putting 100 percent effort into running the bases.
But is there a correlation? I know the author says it, but is this a fact or an opinion? I'm betting this is an opinion. I don't know any FC's though, so my opinion doesn't count.
He frequently doesn’t run out ground balls to the infield because he
knows there’s a slim chance he'll be able to beat the throw.
Ortiz has had injury issues lately, which could prevent him from hustling hard.
I don't see how an Achilles tendon injury on a 37 year old would in any way prevent him from running at full speed 100% of the time. Inconceivable.
But in all honesty, it’s ugly watching him try to score from second or
turn a single into a double. He’s probably just going to get thrown out
no matter how hard he runs.
(Bengoodfella's brain re-explodes)
So David Ortiz doesn't hustle, but mostly because he has injury issues, but even if he did hustle he would get thrown out anyway? Doesn't the author's acknowledgement that Ortiz tries to score from second or tries to turn a single into a double contradict his contention Ortiz doesn't hustle? I think I am using too much logic. I'll never completely understand this column by using logic.
Hyun-Jin Ryu, Los Angeles Dodgers
I’m not sure if pitchers have to hit or run the bases in Korea,
If only there were a thing called "the Internet" where such answers could easily be found. If only.
Ryu hit a ball weakly down the third-base line but barely even jogged to
first base despite the ball being live. He was thrown out with ease,
and the crowd gave him quite a few boos as he returned to the dugout.
It was a bad effort, but nearly every National League pitcher at some point barely runs down the first base line in an effort to not get hurt running. So there could be 50 pitchers in this spot, but the author chose a Korean pitcher who didn't hustle in his very first National League start, which was also his first start in the United States. Interesting.
This "team" didn't have a relief pitcher on it and there are certainly relief pitchers who have to bat or could be seen as lazy. I guess the author didn't want hustle to find any lazy relief pitchers.
Showing posts with label Scrappiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scrappiness. Show all posts
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Saturday, November 10, 2012
5 comments I Guess the San Francisco Giants World Series Win Ends The Statistical Revolution in Baseball
Bruce Jenkins is not a fan of using statistics to judge players. He prefers to use dust, sweat, tears and hustle to judge a baseball player. Bruce has a history of needlessly bashing Sabermetricians and telling statistics-loving baseball fans to,
"Strip down to those fourth-day undies...,"
and
head downstairs (to "your mother's basement and your mother's computer,"
These insults are both not only creative, but also incredibly accurate. Those people who love using statistics to evaluate baseball players rarely take showers and don't even have enough money to purchase their own computer. Though I have always wondered why an insult like this always refers to a person going to "his mother's basement" or some variation of this insult. Are we to assume this person's blind devotion to statistics not only caused his parents to split (I don't read as many references to "your parent's basement"), but also forced his/her mother to move the computer away from a general area of convenience in the house into the basement? More importantly, why would a person take their clothes off to head to their mother's basement? I'm not sure that makes sense due to some basements not being heated. You know what, better not to answer that question.
So Bruce sees the San Francisco Giants' second World Series title in three years as a major victory for scouting players based on the eye test, rather than by using statistics. This is because Brian Sabean and the Giants don't employ those stupid stat-collectors who live in their mom's basement and don't rely on those assholes for what "the stats say." Bruce Jenkins says the Giants are a purely eyeball-based team when it comes to scouting, thank you.
This is a nice narrative for Bruce Jenkins to spin if it were true. One look at the Giants front office reveals a guy named "Yeshayah Goldfarb" his job description is defined as (according to his bio on the Giants team site),
He helps run the minor league operations on a day-to-day basis and provides analytical and statistical analysis for, but not limited to, player acquisition and development.
His job title is "Director, Minor League Operations/Quantitative Analysis," which in the opinion of Bruce Jenkins is just a fancy way of saying he lives with his mother, has never kissed a girl, and wears "Star Trek" shirts everyday of the week (or whenever his mom does his laundry). In fact, the Giants credited Goldfarb with helping them to win the 2010 World Series, which is a little fact that Bruce Jenkins either intentionally or conveniently forgot. Either way, this championship is a huge victory for the anti-stats crowd because Bruce Jenkins chooses to view it that way, even if the Giants do employ a person whose job is to look at those dreaded statistics and provide input into acquisitions or roster moves. Let's read about Bruce Jenkins wallowing in this incredibly (not) important (non-)victory.
In a scene from the film "Moneyball," a half-dozen A's scouts sit around a table, tossing out opinions. With their haggard faces and old-school lingo, they are made to look like fools, a bunch of washed-up alcoholics whose time has passed.
Having seen the movie, I don't recall the whole "alcoholic" part represented in this movies as it relates to these scouts. Knowing Bruce Jenkins is writing this article based on an alternate reality where the Giants don't employ a numbers-cruncher, so maybe he has an alternate reality "Moneyball" where the grizzled scouts miss on seeing a prospect because they were all too drunk at a bar. This is as opposed to the stats geek who did not miss on the prospect because this stats geek (like all stats geeks) lives in his mom's basement and can't drink alcohol like a real man does due to his overly-sensitive stomach which can only handle milk and that really diluted tea his mom has ready for him every morning as he wakes at 9:30am. Perhaps that is the world in which Bruce Jenkins lives and viewed this alternate-reality "Moneyball" film.
The Giants' world championship is a victory for John Barr, Dick Tidrow, Bobby Evans, a cadre of sharp-eyed scouts and especially general manager Brian Sabean, who learned his trade in the Yankees' system and surrounds himself with people who don't merely know baseball, but feel it, deep inside.
These people feel baseball, deep inside, much like how someone feels indigestion in their stomach or vomit rising deep inside their throat.
They all played the game, somewhere along the line, and if you throw a binder full of numbers on their desk, they don't quite get the point.
Since it is physically impossible to throw a binder full of numbers on a desk, seeing as how numbers aren't tangible objects, many people wouldn't quite get the point. Now if there were binder that had paper in it with numbers written on them, that would make more sense, as well as be more understandable.
All stupid joking aside, every scout has his way of evaluating a player, but if a GM throws a book of numbers on a table and the scout says, "I don't get the point of looking at these numbers" then that scout needs to be fired. At some point, the scout needs to realize he doesn't have to love the numbers or use them, but understand their point.
The beauty of baseball is that it can be dissected in a thousand ways, each an engaging enterprise in its own way.
Baseball can be dissected in a thousand ways, but Bruce Jenkins knows there is only one certain way it can be dissected and scouted correctly. He's open-minded about how to dissect the game as long as you do it his way.
The stat-crazed sabermetricians, as they are called, invent specific methods of evaluation without needing to witness the action in person. Numbers, they believe, tell the entire story -
This is repeated constantly by the anti-stats crowd, yet I would like to see them present one quote from a Sabermetrician where he/she says any variation of, "I don't need to see the game, I only need my statistics." I have a feeling such a quote doesn't exist but it doesn't stop guys like Bruce Jenkins who choose to invent this position of the stats crowd in order to help prove their point.
The modern-day general manager bears no significant resemblance to Sabean, rather an especially sharp accountant who can draw up contracts, analyze a salary structure and study esoteric numbers with the best of them.
And this approach by modern-day general managers never works, which is why the San Francisco Giants have won the last 10 World Series titles.
It's a new breed of geeks, in essence.
Versus the old brand of closed-minded geezers who always oppose change, new knowledge or doing anything that is slightly uncomfortable for them. It's always a fun battle.
Privately, they scoff at the likes of Sabean - although, as far as we can tell, the Giants take home the rings.
So not only does Bruce Jenkins create fictional points of view that stat geeks have, but he also knows the internal thought process of stat geeks. He certainly doesn't sound like he is straight making shit up, does he?
I'm not sure a lot of people are scoffing at Brian Sabean at this point. Since Sabean bears no significant resemblance to the modern-day general manager that other MLB clubs employ, those 10 straight World Series titles by the Giants certainly speak well for Sabean.
The San Francisco model is based on visual evidence, not statistics, and it clearly works
The model isn't based on statistics, as long as you don't want to include the guy in the Giants front office whose very job with the team is to sort through statistics and give his opinion based on that. The same guy who is credited with helping the Giants win the 2010 World Series. Maybe part of the visual evidence model that Jenkins supports is to look at pertinent facts when making an argument and ignore those facts which don't support your argument.
Those people wouldn't understand what the Giants saw in Gregor Blanco, a longtime disappointment, as he tore up the Venezuelan winter league.
Perhaps they saw, and I am just taking a guess here, that Blanco was tearing up the Venezuelan winter league? Blanco also hit .244/.333/.344 with 103 strikeouts in 453 plate appearances in the majors, so he was a good acquisition who actually played below his career averages for the Giants, except in the "home runs" category.
They wouldn't necessarily spot the massive heart inside Sergio Romo,
I don't know. A massive heart inside Sergio Romo sounds like a concerning health problem.
The Giants drafted Romo in the 28th round in 2005 and he is one of those late round selections who have worked out really well. I'm sure he was drafted solely based on a grizzled scout seeing his massive heart and not based on his collegiate performance.
or what Hunter Pence's relentless energy brings to a contending team.
Those people who love statistics wouldn't know about Hunter Pence's relentless energy and what it brings to a contender, but would know about he has a career line of .285/.339/.475 and is a two-time All-Star. It is interesting to see Bruce Jenkins acting as if the Giants traded for Pence this year based on his relentless energy and this was an attribute only the most grizzled scout could have noticed and Pence's statistics don't reflect he is a quality baseball player. It doesn't take just eyes and ears to see Hunter Pence is a good baseball player. A binder full of statistics could tell a scout that as well. Good try to make it seem like Pence is a diamond in the rough though.
The Giants look at the face, the demeanor, the background, the ability to play one's best under suffocating pressure -
And given Pence's career line of .210/.244/.272 in the playoffs I can see why they immediately acquired him. This line doesn't tell what Pence's energy and heart have done in the playoffs under suffocating pressure though, it only tells a statistics-based story that he hasn't been very good in the playoffs. Pence's performance in the playoffs means nothing, it is his heart and relentless energy while not getting on-base in the playoffs is what brings him value.
all the components "Moneyball" lamely holds up to ridicule.
Again, if you don't understand an opposing point of view then it is best not to ridicule this point of view. "Moneyball" doesn't hold these components up to ridicule. They hold the insistence you can quantify these components in any meaningful way to determine how a player will perform as ridiculous...because it is ridiculous. I've been through this quite a few times, but much of the anti-statistics crowd doesn't even completely understand what they are arguing against. They fail to understand "Moneyball" (which is a generic term really) doesn't hold evaluating a player's background or demeanor as lame, but when evaluating a player (as PART, not ALL) to discuss a player's background and quantify it into any meaningful metric to evaluate that player is very difficult to do.
If you try calling Sabean a genius, he'll laugh in your face. Baseball is an enterprise of failure, both on and off the field, and it's a game of humility. He doesn't pretend to know everything, he'll gladly recount his misfired decisions over the years,
How humble...unlike those completely unhumble drooling cellar-dwelling numbers freaks. You know, those generic works of fiction that anti-statistics writers create in their mind to not only show they don't understand this Sabermetrics point of view, but are willing to act like bullies to discredit this point of view.
But he won't stop trusting his eyes.
Or the guy he pays to be on his staff who is responsible for quantitative analysis. Ignore this man's existence though when it disproves your main point. "Ignore all evidence that may lead someone to a different conclusion than you have reached." Is that a pillar of journalism I just haven't heard about because I have been too busy sitting in my mom's attic in my underwear looking at binders full of numbers?
He'll finance the plane flights, rental cars, motel rooms and other staples of a scout's lonely existence.
Mostly because that is his job as the General Manager to finance the scout's lonely existence.
Also, this "lonely existence" crap...this is 2012 where you can talk to nearly anyone at any time or even see someone face-to-face at any time. There aren't many lonely existences left unless a person chooses this path. So I don't see scouts sitting sadly in hotel rooms unable to talk or hear from their loved ones.
The Giants trade the numbers for humanity, as the howls of skepticism tone down to a whisper.
It's the end of the statistical revolution as we know it. The rebellion has been squashed. Let them eat their favorite kind of cyber-cake!
Before I stop writing, Murray Chass has chimed in on the MVP race in the American League. Not shockingly, he wouldn't vote for Mike Trout.
Proponents of WAR, which means “wins above replacement,” insist that the Angels’ terrific rookie Mike Trout should obviously win the award. Those of us who use common sense, not common statistics, say the winner should be the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera.
As usual, smart people agree with Murray Chass and if you have a differing opinion from Murray then that means you simply don't use common sense. It's clear Murray is an old-media type and never had to deal with people telling him his point of view was wrong in the past. He's used to writing a column and then sitting back smiling happily at what an intelligent and well-thought out point of view he has. He's like a child who has never been told "no," so it isn't his fault he believes his point of view is the only smart point of view.
The Trout supporters would vote for him because he had the top WAR rating among all players. That thinking only reinforces my view that to satisfy stats zealots a list of statistics should be used to determine award winners and Hall of Famers.
Framing those who use Sabermetrics as zealots...nice. Has anyone else noticed the amount of bullying that old-media columnists use to oppose the Sabermetric crowd? It's very unbecoming. They often use junior high-type insults in criticizing statheads for living in their mom's basement and not having a life outside of their interaction with a computer. Here Murray calls statheads "zealots" and other old-media types will use similar words to describe the opposing point of view. It's essentially journalistic bullying, which apparently these writers find acceptable.
The reason the stats zealots would like this system is it would eliminate members of the Baseball Writers Association as voters.
IT'S ALL A CONSPIRACY! STOCK UP ON CANNED GOODS AND GET THE BOMB SHELTER READY!
Not that Murray's opposition to the use of Sabermetrics is based on fear of losing his place in baseball's writing hierarchy or anything like that. His distaste for Sabermetrics doesn't result from fear. Not at all.
That’s right, the stats zealots are envious of the baseball writers because they get to vote for these things and the zealots don’t.
Yes, it is envy that causes a person to have an opposing point of view from Murray. Pure envy. We all want to be Murray Chass. The delusions never end, do they?
That is not to say that new-age statistics haven’t started creeping into the award decisions of some of the BBWAA voters, presumably the younger, less experienced ones.
This is only the natural reason that new-age statistics have crept into award decisions. It couldn't be because there are open-minded voters who don't mind using new techniques to evaluate players.
This is part of what I find absolutely astonishing about old school writers who refuse to adopt any statistical methods, or even accept these alternative methods of evaluating players exist, is that in any other profession this could be a cause for being fired or forced to adopt the new methods. If I refused to adopt new methods in my job then I would be forced to adopt these new methods whether I liked it or not. I realize Murray isn't currently employed by a newspaper, but somehow in sports journalism the inability to accept change is not seen as a negative.
Arguments can be made about the relative value of players to their teams, but if one candidate leads his team to the playoffs and another candidate doesn’t, the latter player’s value comes into question.
The Angels won more games in the regular season than the Tigers did. This argument that Cabrera's team made the playoffs is probably the worst way of arguing on his behalf. Again, it's clear Murray rarely has had to defend his point of view, because he is very bad at it.
As good as Trout was this year, what did he do for the Angels? They were only on the fringe of the American League West race, and they began dropping back in the A.L. wild-card race in mid-August and getting back in it when it was too late.
Well, they certainly had a much better record when Trout was playing for them from late April until the end of the season. I ain't no expert, but I would say that means something.
To me, the beauty of the BBWAA’s m.v.p. voting is it challenges voters to study and think about the contributions players made to the success of their teams.
But ignore any statistics-based argument. The beauty of the BBWAA's MVP voting is the ability to stay willfully ignorant to any information they don't believe supports their chosen player's candidacy for the award and only study and think about the information they choose to focus on.
Should Trout, for example, be penalized in m.v.p. consideration because the Angels weren’t good enough to take advantage of what he did for them?
No, he should not. Should Trout be penalized that his team won more games than the Tigers, yet didn't make the playoffs because the Angels play in a division with the Rangers and A's?
What fans and new-age nerds should understand, if they don’t already, is most valuable players is not the same as player of the year.
"Nerds." Another attempt at journalistic bullying.
Also, what the fuck is "player of the year," other than an award Murray Chass simply just made up? Is Murray trying to make a point by comparing the MVP to a fictional award that Murray simply made up?
But he is not the most valuable player, no matter what WAR says. WAR, you see, does not have a vote in this election.
And WAR is very jealous of this fact. Guard tight to your old ways, Murray. Ignore any new information. That and your attempts to bully those who you disagree with says enough about you that I'm not sure I would want you to agree with me.
"Strip down to those fourth-day undies...,"
and
head downstairs (to "your mother's basement and your mother's computer,"
These insults are both not only creative, but also incredibly accurate. Those people who love using statistics to evaluate baseball players rarely take showers and don't even have enough money to purchase their own computer. Though I have always wondered why an insult like this always refers to a person going to "his mother's basement" or some variation of this insult. Are we to assume this person's blind devotion to statistics not only caused his parents to split (I don't read as many references to "your parent's basement"), but also forced his/her mother to move the computer away from a general area of convenience in the house into the basement? More importantly, why would a person take their clothes off to head to their mother's basement? I'm not sure that makes sense due to some basements not being heated. You know what, better not to answer that question.
So Bruce sees the San Francisco Giants' second World Series title in three years as a major victory for scouting players based on the eye test, rather than by using statistics. This is because Brian Sabean and the Giants don't employ those stupid stat-collectors who live in their mom's basement and don't rely on those assholes for what "the stats say." Bruce Jenkins says the Giants are a purely eyeball-based team when it comes to scouting, thank you.
This is a nice narrative for Bruce Jenkins to spin if it were true. One look at the Giants front office reveals a guy named "Yeshayah Goldfarb" his job description is defined as (according to his bio on the Giants team site),
He helps run the minor league operations on a day-to-day basis and provides analytical and statistical analysis for, but not limited to, player acquisition and development.
His job title is "Director, Minor League Operations/Quantitative Analysis," which in the opinion of Bruce Jenkins is just a fancy way of saying he lives with his mother, has never kissed a girl, and wears "Star Trek" shirts everyday of the week (or whenever his mom does his laundry). In fact, the Giants credited Goldfarb with helping them to win the 2010 World Series, which is a little fact that Bruce Jenkins either intentionally or conveniently forgot. Either way, this championship is a huge victory for the anti-stats crowd because Bruce Jenkins chooses to view it that way, even if the Giants do employ a person whose job is to look at those dreaded statistics and provide input into acquisitions or roster moves. Let's read about Bruce Jenkins wallowing in this incredibly (not) important (non-)victory.
In a scene from the film "Moneyball," a half-dozen A's scouts sit around a table, tossing out opinions. With their haggard faces and old-school lingo, they are made to look like fools, a bunch of washed-up alcoholics whose time has passed.
Having seen the movie, I don't recall the whole "alcoholic" part represented in this movies as it relates to these scouts. Knowing Bruce Jenkins is writing this article based on an alternate reality where the Giants don't employ a numbers-cruncher, so maybe he has an alternate reality "Moneyball" where the grizzled scouts miss on seeing a prospect because they were all too drunk at a bar. This is as opposed to the stats geek who did not miss on the prospect because this stats geek (like all stats geeks) lives in his mom's basement and can't drink alcohol like a real man does due to his overly-sensitive stomach which can only handle milk and that really diluted tea his mom has ready for him every morning as he wakes at 9:30am. Perhaps that is the world in which Bruce Jenkins lives and viewed this alternate-reality "Moneyball" film.
The Giants' world championship is a victory for John Barr, Dick Tidrow, Bobby Evans, a cadre of sharp-eyed scouts and especially general manager Brian Sabean, who learned his trade in the Yankees' system and surrounds himself with people who don't merely know baseball, but feel it, deep inside.
These people feel baseball, deep inside, much like how someone feels indigestion in their stomach or vomit rising deep inside their throat.
They all played the game, somewhere along the line, and if you throw a binder full of numbers on their desk, they don't quite get the point.
Since it is physically impossible to throw a binder full of numbers on a desk, seeing as how numbers aren't tangible objects, many people wouldn't quite get the point. Now if there were binder that had paper in it with numbers written on them, that would make more sense, as well as be more understandable.
All stupid joking aside, every scout has his way of evaluating a player, but if a GM throws a book of numbers on a table and the scout says, "I don't get the point of looking at these numbers" then that scout needs to be fired. At some point, the scout needs to realize he doesn't have to love the numbers or use them, but understand their point.
The beauty of baseball is that it can be dissected in a thousand ways, each an engaging enterprise in its own way.
Baseball can be dissected in a thousand ways, but Bruce Jenkins knows there is only one certain way it can be dissected and scouted correctly. He's open-minded about how to dissect the game as long as you do it his way.
The stat-crazed sabermetricians, as they are called, invent specific methods of evaluation without needing to witness the action in person. Numbers, they believe, tell the entire story -
This is repeated constantly by the anti-stats crowd, yet I would like to see them present one quote from a Sabermetrician where he/she says any variation of, "I don't need to see the game, I only need my statistics." I have a feeling such a quote doesn't exist but it doesn't stop guys like Bruce Jenkins who choose to invent this position of the stats crowd in order to help prove their point.
The modern-day general manager bears no significant resemblance to Sabean, rather an especially sharp accountant who can draw up contracts, analyze a salary structure and study esoteric numbers with the best of them.
And this approach by modern-day general managers never works, which is why the San Francisco Giants have won the last 10 World Series titles.
It's a new breed of geeks, in essence.
Versus the old brand of closed-minded geezers who always oppose change, new knowledge or doing anything that is slightly uncomfortable for them. It's always a fun battle.
Privately, they scoff at the likes of Sabean - although, as far as we can tell, the Giants take home the rings.
So not only does Bruce Jenkins create fictional points of view that stat geeks have, but he also knows the internal thought process of stat geeks. He certainly doesn't sound like he is straight making shit up, does he?
I'm not sure a lot of people are scoffing at Brian Sabean at this point. Since Sabean bears no significant resemblance to the modern-day general manager that other MLB clubs employ, those 10 straight World Series titles by the Giants certainly speak well for Sabean.
The San Francisco model is based on visual evidence, not statistics, and it clearly works
The model isn't based on statistics, as long as you don't want to include the guy in the Giants front office whose very job with the team is to sort through statistics and give his opinion based on that. The same guy who is credited with helping the Giants win the 2010 World Series. Maybe part of the visual evidence model that Jenkins supports is to look at pertinent facts when making an argument and ignore those facts which don't support your argument.
Those people wouldn't understand what the Giants saw in Gregor Blanco, a longtime disappointment, as he tore up the Venezuelan winter league.
Perhaps they saw, and I am just taking a guess here, that Blanco was tearing up the Venezuelan winter league? Blanco also hit .244/.333/.344 with 103 strikeouts in 453 plate appearances in the majors, so he was a good acquisition who actually played below his career averages for the Giants, except in the "home runs" category.
They wouldn't necessarily spot the massive heart inside Sergio Romo,
I don't know. A massive heart inside Sergio Romo sounds like a concerning health problem.
The Giants drafted Romo in the 28th round in 2005 and he is one of those late round selections who have worked out really well. I'm sure he was drafted solely based on a grizzled scout seeing his massive heart and not based on his collegiate performance.
or what Hunter Pence's relentless energy brings to a contending team.
Those people who love statistics wouldn't know about Hunter Pence's relentless energy and what it brings to a contender, but would know about he has a career line of .285/.339/.475 and is a two-time All-Star. It is interesting to see Bruce Jenkins acting as if the Giants traded for Pence this year based on his relentless energy and this was an attribute only the most grizzled scout could have noticed and Pence's statistics don't reflect he is a quality baseball player. It doesn't take just eyes and ears to see Hunter Pence is a good baseball player. A binder full of statistics could tell a scout that as well. Good try to make it seem like Pence is a diamond in the rough though.
The Giants look at the face, the demeanor, the background, the ability to play one's best under suffocating pressure -
And given Pence's career line of .210/.244/.272 in the playoffs I can see why they immediately acquired him. This line doesn't tell what Pence's energy and heart have done in the playoffs under suffocating pressure though, it only tells a statistics-based story that he hasn't been very good in the playoffs. Pence's performance in the playoffs means nothing, it is his heart and relentless energy while not getting on-base in the playoffs is what brings him value.
all the components "Moneyball" lamely holds up to ridicule.
Again, if you don't understand an opposing point of view then it is best not to ridicule this point of view. "Moneyball" doesn't hold these components up to ridicule. They hold the insistence you can quantify these components in any meaningful way to determine how a player will perform as ridiculous...because it is ridiculous. I've been through this quite a few times, but much of the anti-statistics crowd doesn't even completely understand what they are arguing against. They fail to understand "Moneyball" (which is a generic term really) doesn't hold evaluating a player's background or demeanor as lame, but when evaluating a player (as PART, not ALL) to discuss a player's background and quantify it into any meaningful metric to evaluate that player is very difficult to do.
If you try calling Sabean a genius, he'll laugh in your face. Baseball is an enterprise of failure, both on and off the field, and it's a game of humility. He doesn't pretend to know everything, he'll gladly recount his misfired decisions over the years,
How humble...unlike those completely unhumble drooling cellar-dwelling numbers freaks. You know, those generic works of fiction that anti-statistics writers create in their mind to not only show they don't understand this Sabermetrics point of view, but are willing to act like bullies to discredit this point of view.
But he won't stop trusting his eyes.
Or the guy he pays to be on his staff who is responsible for quantitative analysis. Ignore this man's existence though when it disproves your main point. "Ignore all evidence that may lead someone to a different conclusion than you have reached." Is that a pillar of journalism I just haven't heard about because I have been too busy sitting in my mom's attic in my underwear looking at binders full of numbers?
He'll finance the plane flights, rental cars, motel rooms and other staples of a scout's lonely existence.
Mostly because that is his job as the General Manager to finance the scout's lonely existence.
Also, this "lonely existence" crap...this is 2012 where you can talk to nearly anyone at any time or even see someone face-to-face at any time. There aren't many lonely existences left unless a person chooses this path. So I don't see scouts sitting sadly in hotel rooms unable to talk or hear from their loved ones.
The Giants trade the numbers for humanity, as the howls of skepticism tone down to a whisper.
It's the end of the statistical revolution as we know it. The rebellion has been squashed. Let them eat their favorite kind of cyber-cake!
Before I stop writing, Murray Chass has chimed in on the MVP race in the American League. Not shockingly, he wouldn't vote for Mike Trout.
Proponents of WAR, which means “wins above replacement,” insist that the Angels’ terrific rookie Mike Trout should obviously win the award. Those of us who use common sense, not common statistics, say the winner should be the Tigers’ Miguel Cabrera.
As usual, smart people agree with Murray Chass and if you have a differing opinion from Murray then that means you simply don't use common sense. It's clear Murray is an old-media type and never had to deal with people telling him his point of view was wrong in the past. He's used to writing a column and then sitting back smiling happily at what an intelligent and well-thought out point of view he has. He's like a child who has never been told "no," so it isn't his fault he believes his point of view is the only smart point of view.
The Trout supporters would vote for him because he had the top WAR rating among all players. That thinking only reinforces my view that to satisfy stats zealots a list of statistics should be used to determine award winners and Hall of Famers.
Framing those who use Sabermetrics as zealots...nice. Has anyone else noticed the amount of bullying that old-media columnists use to oppose the Sabermetric crowd? It's very unbecoming. They often use junior high-type insults in criticizing statheads for living in their mom's basement and not having a life outside of their interaction with a computer. Here Murray calls statheads "zealots" and other old-media types will use similar words to describe the opposing point of view. It's essentially journalistic bullying, which apparently these writers find acceptable.
The reason the stats zealots would like this system is it would eliminate members of the Baseball Writers Association as voters.
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Not that Murray's opposition to the use of Sabermetrics is based on fear of losing his place in baseball's writing hierarchy or anything like that. His distaste for Sabermetrics doesn't result from fear. Not at all.
That’s right, the stats zealots are envious of the baseball writers because they get to vote for these things and the zealots don’t.
Yes, it is envy that causes a person to have an opposing point of view from Murray. Pure envy. We all want to be Murray Chass. The delusions never end, do they?
That is not to say that new-age statistics haven’t started creeping into the award decisions of some of the BBWAA voters, presumably the younger, less experienced ones.
This is only the natural reason that new-age statistics have crept into award decisions. It couldn't be because there are open-minded voters who don't mind using new techniques to evaluate players.
This is part of what I find absolutely astonishing about old school writers who refuse to adopt any statistical methods, or even accept these alternative methods of evaluating players exist, is that in any other profession this could be a cause for being fired or forced to adopt the new methods. If I refused to adopt new methods in my job then I would be forced to adopt these new methods whether I liked it or not. I realize Murray isn't currently employed by a newspaper, but somehow in sports journalism the inability to accept change is not seen as a negative.
Arguments can be made about the relative value of players to their teams, but if one candidate leads his team to the playoffs and another candidate doesn’t, the latter player’s value comes into question.
The Angels won more games in the regular season than the Tigers did. This argument that Cabrera's team made the playoffs is probably the worst way of arguing on his behalf. Again, it's clear Murray rarely has had to defend his point of view, because he is very bad at it.
As good as Trout was this year, what did he do for the Angels? They were only on the fringe of the American League West race, and they began dropping back in the A.L. wild-card race in mid-August and getting back in it when it was too late.
Well, they certainly had a much better record when Trout was playing for them from late April until the end of the season. I ain't no expert, but I would say that means something.
To me, the beauty of the BBWAA’s m.v.p. voting is it challenges voters to study and think about the contributions players made to the success of their teams.
But ignore any statistics-based argument. The beauty of the BBWAA's MVP voting is the ability to stay willfully ignorant to any information they don't believe supports their chosen player's candidacy for the award and only study and think about the information they choose to focus on.
Should Trout, for example, be penalized in m.v.p. consideration because the Angels weren’t good enough to take advantage of what he did for them?
No, he should not. Should Trout be penalized that his team won more games than the Tigers, yet didn't make the playoffs because the Angels play in a division with the Rangers and A's?
What fans and new-age nerds should understand, if they don’t already, is most valuable players is not the same as player of the year.
"Nerds." Another attempt at journalistic bullying.
Also, what the fuck is "player of the year," other than an award Murray Chass simply just made up? Is Murray trying to make a point by comparing the MVP to a fictional award that Murray simply made up?
But he is not the most valuable player, no matter what WAR says. WAR, you see, does not have a vote in this election.
And WAR is very jealous of this fact. Guard tight to your old ways, Murray. Ignore any new information. That and your attempts to bully those who you disagree with says enough about you that I'm not sure I would want you to agree with me.
Saturday, October 13, 2012
12 comments Jerry Green Puns it Up, Goes to War Over WAR
Jerry Green is an old-school sportswriter. I say that not only because he is semi-retired, but also because he doesn't like the use of advanced statistics to judge a baseball player. Jerry appears to enjoy the use of older statistics and plain ol' logic when judging a baseball player. Obviously no one can argue with the use of logic since what is logical or not logical is dependent on someone's point of view. For example, I don't think it is logical to criticize the use of WAR to judge a player when the sportswriter doing the criticizing doesn't understand what the statistic means. That's logical to me. Jerry Green thinks Miguel Cabrera's MVP credentials over Mike Trout are logical, but mostly he just hates the use of advanced statistics.
For the record, with a gun to my head I would probably vote for Mike Trout as MVP, but it isn't the end of my world if Miguel Cabrera gets the AL MVP award. I don't believe the Triple Crown automatically means Miguel Cabrera should be the MVP, but I think a reasonable case can be made for Trout and Cabrera. I simply don't like Jerry Green's method of determining Cabrera is the American League MVP because it seems close-minded.
The talent is true. He plays with rare versatility in a game that dissects the skills of its athletes...
Yet he climbs fences, stretching above walls, to catch balls ordinary outfielders could never reach. He runs with the verve and the speed of a sprinter. And for most of this current season, he led the American League in batting.
Mike Trout is the finest ballplayer to reach the major leagues in the past half-century.
Let's get ready for the proverbial "but" to enter the discussion. It's never good when someone sits down and starts overcomplimenting you to the point it becomes awkward. There's usually a "but" towards the middle of that discussion that takes the conversation into a whole new direction.
In my judgment, Trout is the most talented player to enter the big leagues since Willie Mays joined the New York Giants in May 1951.
But he isn't MVP. Shit, did I just spoil the ending of this column?
Trout arrived in the majors on April 28 this season, from the Salt Lake Bees of the Pacific Coast League. Shipping him to a farm club was an obvious gaffe out of spring training by the often strategically challenged Angels.
Games won by strategically challenged Angels this year: 89 games, which would have been enough to win the AL Central if only Anaheim wasn't located in California.
Games won by Detroit Tigers this year led by Miguel Cabrera: 88 games, which wouldn't have been good enough to win any other division in the majors this year.
Indeed, measuring the old-fashioned numbers that we the purists still regard as sacred — batting average, runs batted in, home runs — Trout's rookie stats are superior to those compiled by Willie Mays 61 years ago.
Advanced statistics show this to be true as well. But those advanced statistics are evil we will soon learn.
No matter what — he must be the unanimous choice for the rookie of the year award. But MVP? Not this season.
Here's the "but" sentence. Mike Trout is the greatest rookie since Willie Mays, but there is an award for that and it is called the "Rookie of the Year" award. This is as opposed to Miguel Cabrera who wins the fictional "Triple Crown" award and the American League MVP.
The "no-matter what" boils down to Miguel Cabrera's season — and the ancient baseball rarity revered as the Triple Crown.
I understand, know and appreciate baseball history. So I am not blind to the accomplishment that Miguel Cabrera has achieved this year. There is a reason I wouldn't hate it if Cabrera won the MVP award. The fact Cabrera won the Triple Crown is just fantastic and is a sign he had a great year. I don't know if the fact Cabrera won the Triple Crown makes him the MVP. A perfect game is also a baseball rarity and Matt Cain threw one this year. Should he win the National League Cy Young award for this?
I get the Triple Crown is a season-long accomplishment, as opposed to a perfect game being only over one game, and Cabrera did have a great season. The Most Valuable Player is about which player had the best season and which player was the most valuable. Fortunately, because he was called up in late April we get an idea of how valuable Mike Trout was for the Angels. They were 6-14 before Trout got called up and 80-56 after he got called up. Granted, this wasn't all because of Mike Trout. Albert Pujols hitting like he is used to hitting had something to do with it. In my opinion, Mike Trout was the most valuable player in the American League this year for reasons that go beyond this. Yes, his WAR is incredibly high, but he also excelled in five phases of the game and in my opinion was more valuable to the Angels than Cabrera was to the Tigers. Even if it is a small sample size you can see how the Angels played before and after he was called up to the majors.
Cabrera is destined to lead the American League batting for the second successive year. He surpassed Trout a few weeks ago. Cabrera likewise is due to top the league in runs batted in. He is challenging Josh Hamilton for the AL's home run championship, the third segment of the Triple Crown. He tied him with his 43rd Saturday.
You can break it down into segments of the Triple Crown to basically restate the case, but the fact remains the same that Jerry Green is using Miguel Cabrera's Triple Crown as why he should win the MVP. He isn't including defense and that "lost art" old-school writers are conveniently forgetting to bitch about being a lost art right now, stolen bases. I find it that funny. For a few years now we have heard old-school, Sabermetric-hating writers talk about the lost art of the stolen base. They say more teams need to stop trying to hit home runs and start "manufacturing runs," using speed, guile and grit. Now "manufacturing runs" is all-but-forgotten when it comes to a player old-school baseball writers don't think should win the MVP award. Suddenly, stolen bases are giving a Sabermetric-candidate (which is what Mike Trout basically is) a better chance of winning the AL MVP and I don't hear much discussion about this lost art of stolen bases anymore.
Plus, Cabrera is powering the Tigers toward the postseason, the pennant playoffs — the qualifying tests leading to the World Series.
Great point! Why isn't Mike Trout leading the Angels to the playoffs? Is it because he just isn't the team leader that Miguel Cabrera is? Or is it because Mike Trout is the only decent player on his team so he has had a chance to shine on a bad team?
Well actually, the Angels won 89 games this year while the Tigers won 88 games. I heard this point of view given by an ESPN analyst recently during a Yankees-Red Sox game. The analyst said Cabrera was the MVP because he is leading his team to the playoffs. He said this despite the fact the Angels have won more games than the Tigers. This is conveniently not mentioned. So the only reason Cabrera is powering the Tigers towards the postseason is because the Tigers play in the AL Central. In every other division, the Tigers wouldn't even qualify for the Wild Card in either the American League and would be tied for the Wild Card in the National League. So if Jerry Green really finds it persuasive to say Cabrera is powering the worst playoff team in the majors to the playoffs, a team that has won 1 fewer game than Mike Trout's team, then I shouldn't really argue with that kind of idiocy. It's a losing deal...and yet I continue.
Cabrera is the American League's MVP. Not the multi-talented Mike Trout.
The guy who can hit the baseball slightly better than Trout is the MVP, not the guy who can hit the baseball only slightly worse than Cabrera, yet run and field better. I think I got it.
And the Angels, it appears with a few games left this season, are not destined to reach the postseason. If the Angels fail, incidentally, it would be because they shipped Mike Trout to the minors for a few weeks out of spring training.
This is arguable and actually makes a case for Trout as MVP. The Angels still could have gotten off to a 6-14 start without Trout, but the odds are very good they would have won more games with Trout in the lineup. Of course, I find it interesting that Green doesn't think Mike Trout is the AL MVP, but also states if the Angels had called him up for the first 20 games of the season they would be in the playoffs. Seems like he is kind of valuable to the Angels, especially considering the Angels had a better record than the Tigers even without Trout being eligible to play in a little over 12% of the season.
This sort of thinking, of course, has baseball watchers — many with opinions similar to mine — condemned as reactionaries and opponents of progress.
No, I just think Jerry Green is not paying attention to three tools of the five-tool player that Mike Trout has shown himself to be. I do think it is bizarre Jerry Green touts how Miguel Cabrera is leading his team to the playoffs when any smart sportswriter should immediately notice two issues with this statement:
1. The Angels won more games than the Tigers this year. Again, the Tigers have the worst record of any division winner and they probably play in the worst or second worst division in the majors as well.
2. Jerry Green believes the Angels would have won more games if they had put Mike Trout in the starting lineup coming out of Spring Training. So not only does Jerry Green believe Trout is very valuable to the Angels, but the whole argument of "Miguel Cabrera led his team to the playoffs" becomes even more short-sighted and meaningless knowing this.
ESPN claims that Trout merits the MVP award — despite Cabrera's possible Triple Crown — on the basis of WAR.
I base my MVP vote on the idea that Mike Trout was (what I believe) the difference in the Angels season being sort of a disappointment or a big disappointment...and yet the Angels still won 89 games. I also base it on the fact I think Trout was not only the most valuable player, but also he was valuable in five phases of the game, while Cabrera was valuable in two phases of the game.
This is not the kind of war that Ted Williams fought in twice amidst his Triple Crown-style seasons. Or the war that brought Willie Mays into the Army during his career.
Ugh. Not really that funny. Jokes like this make me a little "green" when reading Jerry's columns. Get it? That's humor.
It is that relatively new "Moneyball" style of crackpot Sabermetrics stat described as wins above replacement. Whatever that means.
I hate those crackpot Sabermetric stats. They aren't nearly as reliable as using RBI's or a team's record to show why an individual should be the American League MVP. If you can't use data that is reliant on other players on that team's performance to measure an individual's worth then what is the point of life?
WAR — and there are versions disseminated by both websites Baseball-Reference.com and fangraphs.com — includes more skills than pure hitting and hitting for power. Stolen bases are considered, a number that actually can be counted.
WAR is by no means perfect, but it does encompass a player's all-around contribution to a team, including stolen bases.
Fielding likewise counts.
Just how fielding figures in … well, you look and watch. And then guess, and perhaps the guess works. Or doesn't.
Everyone knows fielding shouldn't count now and has never counted when determining the value of a baseball player. It's not like old-school sportswriters have ever allowed defense to count when determining the MVP or who gets in the Hall of Fame.
I guess Jerry Green doesn't see defense as part of baseball since it takes some effort to quantify the value of a player's defense. Who wants to put effort into voting for a postseason award? I never knew defense wasn't a part of the game of baseball, yet scrappiness and non-quantifiable attributes like leadership and clutchness are a part of the game and should be factored into a player's favor when discussing his value.
I realize I just sort-of created a straw man argument, but it feels so good.
And then the figure person tries to measure how an ordinary replacement player might compare to the established high-skilled player.
If you can't understand how to figure WAR then how is it possible to criticize what you don't understand? Didn't Jerry Green listen to Bob Dylan in the 1960's? Don't criticize what you don't understand. WAR is measuring how many more wins over a replacement player (AAA or AAAA player) a certain Major Leaguer adds to his team's win total.
Once upon a time, the MVP was not decided on the basis of some imaginary numbers that are jammed into a murky, invented stat such as WAR.
This is nonsensical. All calculations are invented in some fashion. Batting average and ERA aren't "naturally occurring" statistics which require no calculation. WAR requires more calculation than some other statistics, but don't be afraid of it because it requires a little bit more work to understand. WAR isn't invented any more than other statistics are invented and it doesn't use imaginary numbers. WAR uses real numbers in the same way figuring out a player's ERA or batting average figures real numbers.
Were there no Calculus or Advanced Algebra classes when Jerry Green went to high school? I wonder this because I can see old-school sportswriters like Murray Chass and Jerry Green standing up on their desks at the age of 17 rebelling against "these imaginary and invented numbers" their Calculus teacher is forcing them to learn. At some point this opposition to difficult numbers to calculate speaks to a lack of education in terms of math and science. Calculating WAR isn't any different than the other "imaginary" calculations which created "invented" formulas used in high school math and science.
Unlike WAR there is no stat in Sabermetrics known as LOGIC.
There is no statistic in any sport called "LOGIC." In the land of invented statistics using imaginary numbers the use of "LOGIC" would be the king of invented statistics and imaginary numbers because there is no way to quantify what "LOGIC" really means since it is subjective to each individual person. For example, logically even if I disagree with something I take the time to understand it so I know exactly what I am disagreeing with.
And oops, WAR does not figure in baseball's most important statistic — finishing in first place during the regular season.
Hey Jerry, does your LOGIC statistic figure up how bragging the Tigers are finishing in first place with 88 wins in a weak division is a better showing than the Angels coming in third place in a stronger division with 89 wins? Because my LOGIC statistic says 89 games won is more than 88 games won, so bragging the Tigers won their division isn't the best way to campaign for Miguel Cabrera as the MVP. It's a losing argument, especially if we consider Jerry Green states the Angels would have won more than 89 games if Mike Trout had played in the majors for the entire month of April.
The Tigers are aimed — likely — for a first-place finish in their division now that all the white flags in Detroit have been ripped down.
Maybe Jerry Green doesn't have access to the Interwebs to find out the Angels won more games this year than the Tigers. If the Angels played in the AL Central, they would have won this division. I can't repeat how stupid this "the Tigers won their division" argument is when it comes to Miguel Cabrera's candidacy for AL MVP.
A ballplayer who leads his team to a first-place finish — nothing could be more valuable.
Other than a ballplayer who leads his team to a third-place finish with more wins than the ball-player who led his team to a first-place finish, while playing in 22 less baseball games?
There is no doubt that Mike Trout is first over Miguel Cabrera in both WAR I and WAR II.
But Cabrera is first in the American League.
Consider your point not made and LOGIC states you have failed to persuade me with your argument. Mike Trout was slightly more valuable than Miguel Cabrera was this year. I don't even need statistics to say this because I know it from watching both of them play (ouch, there is the old-school sportswriter "I saw them both play and that tells me all I need to know" argument used against an old-school sportswriter). Mike Trout's team won more games and Mike Trout stole more bases and played better defense, while still hitting at an extremely high level. If you can't beat them, use their own LOGIC against them.
For the record, with a gun to my head I would probably vote for Mike Trout as MVP, but it isn't the end of my world if Miguel Cabrera gets the AL MVP award. I don't believe the Triple Crown automatically means Miguel Cabrera should be the MVP, but I think a reasonable case can be made for Trout and Cabrera. I simply don't like Jerry Green's method of determining Cabrera is the American League MVP because it seems close-minded.
The talent is true. He plays with rare versatility in a game that dissects the skills of its athletes...
Yet he climbs fences, stretching above walls, to catch balls ordinary outfielders could never reach. He runs with the verve and the speed of a sprinter. And for most of this current season, he led the American League in batting.
Mike Trout is the finest ballplayer to reach the major leagues in the past half-century.
Let's get ready for the proverbial "but" to enter the discussion. It's never good when someone sits down and starts overcomplimenting you to the point it becomes awkward. There's usually a "but" towards the middle of that discussion that takes the conversation into a whole new direction.
In my judgment, Trout is the most talented player to enter the big leagues since Willie Mays joined the New York Giants in May 1951.
But he isn't MVP. Shit, did I just spoil the ending of this column?
Trout arrived in the majors on April 28 this season, from the Salt Lake Bees of the Pacific Coast League. Shipping him to a farm club was an obvious gaffe out of spring training by the often strategically challenged Angels.
Games won by strategically challenged Angels this year: 89 games, which would have been enough to win the AL Central if only Anaheim wasn't located in California.
Games won by Detroit Tigers this year led by Miguel Cabrera: 88 games, which wouldn't have been good enough to win any other division in the majors this year.
Indeed, measuring the old-fashioned numbers that we the purists still regard as sacred — batting average, runs batted in, home runs — Trout's rookie stats are superior to those compiled by Willie Mays 61 years ago.
Advanced statistics show this to be true as well. But those advanced statistics are evil we will soon learn.
No matter what — he must be the unanimous choice for the rookie of the year award. But MVP? Not this season.
Here's the "but" sentence. Mike Trout is the greatest rookie since Willie Mays, but there is an award for that and it is called the "Rookie of the Year" award. This is as opposed to Miguel Cabrera who wins the fictional "Triple Crown" award and the American League MVP.
The "no-matter what" boils down to Miguel Cabrera's season — and the ancient baseball rarity revered as the Triple Crown.
I understand, know and appreciate baseball history. So I am not blind to the accomplishment that Miguel Cabrera has achieved this year. There is a reason I wouldn't hate it if Cabrera won the MVP award. The fact Cabrera won the Triple Crown is just fantastic and is a sign he had a great year. I don't know if the fact Cabrera won the Triple Crown makes him the MVP. A perfect game is also a baseball rarity and Matt Cain threw one this year. Should he win the National League Cy Young award for this?
I get the Triple Crown is a season-long accomplishment, as opposed to a perfect game being only over one game, and Cabrera did have a great season. The Most Valuable Player is about which player had the best season and which player was the most valuable. Fortunately, because he was called up in late April we get an idea of how valuable Mike Trout was for the Angels. They were 6-14 before Trout got called up and 80-56 after he got called up. Granted, this wasn't all because of Mike Trout. Albert Pujols hitting like he is used to hitting had something to do with it. In my opinion, Mike Trout was the most valuable player in the American League this year for reasons that go beyond this. Yes, his WAR is incredibly high, but he also excelled in five phases of the game and in my opinion was more valuable to the Angels than Cabrera was to the Tigers. Even if it is a small sample size you can see how the Angels played before and after he was called up to the majors.
Cabrera is destined to lead the American League batting for the second successive year. He surpassed Trout a few weeks ago. Cabrera likewise is due to top the league in runs batted in. He is challenging Josh Hamilton for the AL's home run championship, the third segment of the Triple Crown. He tied him with his 43rd Saturday.
You can break it down into segments of the Triple Crown to basically restate the case, but the fact remains the same that Jerry Green is using Miguel Cabrera's Triple Crown as why he should win the MVP. He isn't including defense and that "lost art" old-school writers are conveniently forgetting to bitch about being a lost art right now, stolen bases. I find it that funny. For a few years now we have heard old-school, Sabermetric-hating writers talk about the lost art of the stolen base. They say more teams need to stop trying to hit home runs and start "manufacturing runs," using speed, guile and grit. Now "manufacturing runs" is all-but-forgotten when it comes to a player old-school baseball writers don't think should win the MVP award. Suddenly, stolen bases are giving a Sabermetric-candidate (which is what Mike Trout basically is) a better chance of winning the AL MVP and I don't hear much discussion about this lost art of stolen bases anymore.
Plus, Cabrera is powering the Tigers toward the postseason, the pennant playoffs — the qualifying tests leading to the World Series.
Great point! Why isn't Mike Trout leading the Angels to the playoffs? Is it because he just isn't the team leader that Miguel Cabrera is? Or is it because Mike Trout is the only decent player on his team so he has had a chance to shine on a bad team?
Well actually, the Angels won 89 games this year while the Tigers won 88 games. I heard this point of view given by an ESPN analyst recently during a Yankees-Red Sox game. The analyst said Cabrera was the MVP because he is leading his team to the playoffs. He said this despite the fact the Angels have won more games than the Tigers. This is conveniently not mentioned. So the only reason Cabrera is powering the Tigers towards the postseason is because the Tigers play in the AL Central. In every other division, the Tigers wouldn't even qualify for the Wild Card in either the American League and would be tied for the Wild Card in the National League. So if Jerry Green really finds it persuasive to say Cabrera is powering the worst playoff team in the majors to the playoffs, a team that has won 1 fewer game than Mike Trout's team, then I shouldn't really argue with that kind of idiocy. It's a losing deal...and yet I continue.
Cabrera is the American League's MVP. Not the multi-talented Mike Trout.
The guy who can hit the baseball slightly better than Trout is the MVP, not the guy who can hit the baseball only slightly worse than Cabrera, yet run and field better. I think I got it.
And the Angels, it appears with a few games left this season, are not destined to reach the postseason. If the Angels fail, incidentally, it would be because they shipped Mike Trout to the minors for a few weeks out of spring training.
This is arguable and actually makes a case for Trout as MVP. The Angels still could have gotten off to a 6-14 start without Trout, but the odds are very good they would have won more games with Trout in the lineup. Of course, I find it interesting that Green doesn't think Mike Trout is the AL MVP, but also states if the Angels had called him up for the first 20 games of the season they would be in the playoffs. Seems like he is kind of valuable to the Angels, especially considering the Angels had a better record than the Tigers even without Trout being eligible to play in a little over 12% of the season.
This sort of thinking, of course, has baseball watchers — many with opinions similar to mine — condemned as reactionaries and opponents of progress.
No, I just think Jerry Green is not paying attention to three tools of the five-tool player that Mike Trout has shown himself to be. I do think it is bizarre Jerry Green touts how Miguel Cabrera is leading his team to the playoffs when any smart sportswriter should immediately notice two issues with this statement:
1. The Angels won more games than the Tigers this year. Again, the Tigers have the worst record of any division winner and they probably play in the worst or second worst division in the majors as well.
2. Jerry Green believes the Angels would have won more games if they had put Mike Trout in the starting lineup coming out of Spring Training. So not only does Jerry Green believe Trout is very valuable to the Angels, but the whole argument of "Miguel Cabrera led his team to the playoffs" becomes even more short-sighted and meaningless knowing this.
ESPN claims that Trout merits the MVP award — despite Cabrera's possible Triple Crown — on the basis of WAR.
I base my MVP vote on the idea that Mike Trout was (what I believe) the difference in the Angels season being sort of a disappointment or a big disappointment...and yet the Angels still won 89 games. I also base it on the fact I think Trout was not only the most valuable player, but also he was valuable in five phases of the game, while Cabrera was valuable in two phases of the game.
This is not the kind of war that Ted Williams fought in twice amidst his Triple Crown-style seasons. Or the war that brought Willie Mays into the Army during his career.
Ugh. Not really that funny. Jokes like this make me a little "green" when reading Jerry's columns. Get it? That's humor.
It is that relatively new "Moneyball" style of crackpot Sabermetrics stat described as wins above replacement. Whatever that means.
I hate those crackpot Sabermetric stats. They aren't nearly as reliable as using RBI's or a team's record to show why an individual should be the American League MVP. If you can't use data that is reliant on other players on that team's performance to measure an individual's worth then what is the point of life?
WAR — and there are versions disseminated by both websites Baseball-Reference.com and fangraphs.com — includes more skills than pure hitting and hitting for power. Stolen bases are considered, a number that actually can be counted.
WAR is by no means perfect, but it does encompass a player's all-around contribution to a team, including stolen bases.
Fielding likewise counts.
Just how fielding figures in … well, you look and watch. And then guess, and perhaps the guess works. Or doesn't.
Everyone knows fielding shouldn't count now and has never counted when determining the value of a baseball player. It's not like old-school sportswriters have ever allowed defense to count when determining the MVP or who gets in the Hall of Fame.
I guess Jerry Green doesn't see defense as part of baseball since it takes some effort to quantify the value of a player's defense. Who wants to put effort into voting for a postseason award? I never knew defense wasn't a part of the game of baseball, yet scrappiness and non-quantifiable attributes like leadership and clutchness are a part of the game and should be factored into a player's favor when discussing his value.
I realize I just sort-of created a straw man argument, but it feels so good.
And then the figure person tries to measure how an ordinary replacement player might compare to the established high-skilled player.
If you can't understand how to figure WAR then how is it possible to criticize what you don't understand? Didn't Jerry Green listen to Bob Dylan in the 1960's? Don't criticize what you don't understand. WAR is measuring how many more wins over a replacement player (AAA or AAAA player) a certain Major Leaguer adds to his team's win total.
Once upon a time, the MVP was not decided on the basis of some imaginary numbers that are jammed into a murky, invented stat such as WAR.
This is nonsensical. All calculations are invented in some fashion. Batting average and ERA aren't "naturally occurring" statistics which require no calculation. WAR requires more calculation than some other statistics, but don't be afraid of it because it requires a little bit more work to understand. WAR isn't invented any more than other statistics are invented and it doesn't use imaginary numbers. WAR uses real numbers in the same way figuring out a player's ERA or batting average figures real numbers.
Were there no Calculus or Advanced Algebra classes when Jerry Green went to high school? I wonder this because I can see old-school sportswriters like Murray Chass and Jerry Green standing up on their desks at the age of 17 rebelling against "these imaginary and invented numbers" their Calculus teacher is forcing them to learn. At some point this opposition to difficult numbers to calculate speaks to a lack of education in terms of math and science. Calculating WAR isn't any different than the other "imaginary" calculations which created "invented" formulas used in high school math and science.
Unlike WAR there is no stat in Sabermetrics known as LOGIC.
There is no statistic in any sport called "LOGIC." In the land of invented statistics using imaginary numbers the use of "LOGIC" would be the king of invented statistics and imaginary numbers because there is no way to quantify what "LOGIC" really means since it is subjective to each individual person. For example, logically even if I disagree with something I take the time to understand it so I know exactly what I am disagreeing with.
And oops, WAR does not figure in baseball's most important statistic — finishing in first place during the regular season.
Hey Jerry, does your LOGIC statistic figure up how bragging the Tigers are finishing in first place with 88 wins in a weak division is a better showing than the Angels coming in third place in a stronger division with 89 wins? Because my LOGIC statistic says 89 games won is more than 88 games won, so bragging the Tigers won their division isn't the best way to campaign for Miguel Cabrera as the MVP. It's a losing argument, especially if we consider Jerry Green states the Angels would have won more than 89 games if Mike Trout had played in the majors for the entire month of April.
The Tigers are aimed — likely — for a first-place finish in their division now that all the white flags in Detroit have been ripped down.
Maybe Jerry Green doesn't have access to the Interwebs to find out the Angels won more games this year than the Tigers. If the Angels played in the AL Central, they would have won this division. I can't repeat how stupid this "the Tigers won their division" argument is when it comes to Miguel Cabrera's candidacy for AL MVP.
A ballplayer who leads his team to a first-place finish — nothing could be more valuable.
Other than a ballplayer who leads his team to a third-place finish with more wins than the ball-player who led his team to a first-place finish, while playing in 22 less baseball games?
There is no doubt that Mike Trout is first over Miguel Cabrera in both WAR I and WAR II.
But Cabrera is first in the American League.
Consider your point not made and LOGIC states you have failed to persuade me with your argument. Mike Trout was slightly more valuable than Miguel Cabrera was this year. I don't even need statistics to say this because I know it from watching both of them play (ouch, there is the old-school sportswriter "I saw them both play and that tells me all I need to know" argument used against an old-school sportswriter). Mike Trout's team won more games and Mike Trout stole more bases and played better defense, while still hitting at an extremely high level. If you can't beat them, use their own LOGIC against them.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
4 comments Nick Cafardo Wants Red Sox to Toughen Up, Grit it Out Toughly, and Then Grittily Toughen Themselves Up for a Tough Year
I probably should assume this column is a joke. No self-respecting writer would write the word "tough" over and over when talking about a baseball team. That would be crazy wouldn't it? No self-respecting writer would simply say the Red Sox should just toughen up and in his column about toughness completely ignore other less-relevant variables such as the team hitting or pitching the baseball well. Because no self-respecting writer who takes himself seriously would do this and obviously the idea toughness is all a team needs has got to be addressed, Nick Cafardo takes this burden upon himself. Grittily and tough-like. That's what this column is.
No, it isn’t football or hockey, or boxing for that matter, but toughness matters in baseball.
Grit matters too! Don't forget grit! Toughness matters more than pitching or hitting ability. Why did the Rangers lose the World Series for the second straight year? They weren't as tough as the Cardinals. The Cardinals were as tough as nails. As tough as a steak from Golden Corral. Tougher than an angry black bear protecting her young.
(I just tried to write like Rick Reilly. Seriously...anyone can write like Rick Reilly does. What I just wrote is exactly how he writes and I just did it for free. What does Reilly have no other writer has? When did smugness become a marketable trait for a writer and allows him to demand millions of dollars in compensation?)
The toughness to get through injuries.
Sure you needed Tommy John surgery, John Lackey, but you should have toughed it out like Adam Wainwright on the World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals did. Wait, he didn't tough it out? Well I'm sure the rest of the Cardinals roster toughed and gritted out some major injuries in order to win the World Series that Red Sox players were too wimpy to get through. After all, the Cardinals had Nick Punto on the roster. It doesn't get much grittier than him.
The toughness to play in this market. The toughness to go the extra mile when you’re dog-tired.
I always enjoy it when sportswriters call for a professional sports team to be tougher. It's easy to ask the local team to become tougher when the most hazardous injury you could incur while working at your sportswriting job is a papercut that just won't freaking heal. It always amuses me to read writers who think attending a sporting event with a head cold is "toughing it out" criticizing professional athletes for not being tough enough.
The toughness to perservere and make sure that slumps don’t prolong themselves.
Really slumps that tend to perservere have very little to do with toughness. If Cafardo can explain why one player slumps and another player does not then he probably wouldn't be making a living as a sportswriter right now. He would be working for a major league baseball team. I would also like to add the Red Sox pitching was their downfall last year, not any prolonged slump by a batter. So unless Cafardo thought the Red Sox pitching wasn't tough enough, and that's why the staff had a bad September (which I think he actually believes), this point of perservering through slumps is irrelevant.
Some of that toughness left the Red Sox when Jonathan Papelbon signed a lucrative four-year deal with the Philllies.
I can't believe the Phillies paid $1.4 million additional each year in Papelbon's contract specifically for toughness. Sure, he is a great closer and his ability to celebrate after closing a game out was well worth the $900,000 per year that was set aside in Papelbon's contract. I do think the Phillies way overpaid Papelbon's market value toughness. Especially since Papelbon's toughness has decreased from a 91 in 2008 to a 82 last year. The Phillies are probably really glad to have Papelbon's toughness and to a much lesser extent his ability to pitch well.
The good news is that they got some of it back when Ben Cherington signed Mark Melancon and Andrew Bailey.
Need to see the true faces of toughness? Look no further than here and here. Who cares how these guys pitch? They are going to be so damn tough on the mound, the opposing batters may not even swing at a pitch because they are cowering in fear at the toughness being displayed by these two relief pitchers. After all, look at how much these two pitcher's toughness helped the Astros and A's when it came to winning games last year.
The tradeoff of utility guys - Nick Punto for Jed Lowrie - was a 180 for the Red Sox.
Punto's career batting line: .249/.325/.327 and he is 33 years old.
Lowrie's career batting line: .252/.324/.382 and he is 27 years old.
I'm not sure how I see this move is a 180. It seems like Punto is a less powerful, slightly older version of Lowrie. What am I missing?
Punto is as tough as nails and should fit well on this team.
That's right. Now I know what I am missing. Lowrie is a huge pussy, while Nick Punto isn't just as tough as nails, he actually eats nails and sometimes drywall, but only if it is necessary to prove his toughness.
One of his best friends is Kevin Youkilis, who shut it down last season after a sports hernia, sore hip, and back issues got the best of him.
Wimp!
Youkilis is as tough as they come, and his presence in the lineup should ramp up the team’s toughness meter quite a bit.
On a much lesser note, I bet Kevin Youkilis will also be good at playing the game of baseball, which may also help the Red Sox become a better team. I know actually being good at baseball is always secondary to toughness, but let's not overlook the awesome combination of toughness and actually being good at the game of baseball Youkilis brings to the Red Sox.
We know about Dustin Pedroia’s toughness and willingness to play through anything.
We also know Pedroia hit .307/.387/.484 with 21 home runs, 37 doubles, and 26 stolen bases. Who cares about that though? Look at his toughness!
Adrian Gonzalez has a quiet toughness about him. You think his shoulder wasn’t hurting the second half of the season when his production was way down?
I wouldn't know if Gonzalez's shoulder was hurting him because he is so quietly tough that he wouldn't tell us if his shoulder hurt or not.
Marco Scutaro might be the toughest guy on the team. This guy will play through anything. Know why?
Because you are using hyperbole to make this contention up?
Does a strained oblique count as "anything?" It must not because Scutaro certainly didn't play through a strained oblique last year. I feel like while over-hyperbolizing Scutaro's toughness, his stint on the disabled list from 2011 needs to be mentioned in regard to Scutaro's toughness and how he will "play through anything."
Because he has never taken his career for granted.
Gritty, gutsy, hustling, scrappy.
Part of that toughness, that dirt-dog mentality, is giving 100 percent effort.
Get rid of those lazy players like J.D. Drew. He takes his career for granted every single day. He doesn't have a dirt-dog mentality, he has a velcro-cat mentality! Fucking asshole.
We know some big guys feel they’re so slow that they wouldn’t beat out a grounder even if an infielder bobbled the ball, so they tend to not bust it down the line.
These guys aren't grinders! They have no place on this scrappy, gritty Red Sox team apparently comprised entirely of the most hustling, ass-busting team of white guys ever to put their dirt-dog uniforms on, which they do in order to honor baseball by playing the game the way it should be played. Fuck you Carl Everett and Manny Ramirez, you buncha lazy, career-taking-for-granted jackasses! We need more hustling, gritty players. Where's Kevin Millar at when you need him? He hustled and gritted the 2004 Red Sox to a World Series victory. It wasn't the skill of that team which caused them to win the World Series. That was a bunch of dirt-dogs who would do anything to win games, including being really fucking good at baseball if that's what it absolutely came to.
But consequences for not running balls out? You bet. Valentine has a history of fining players for dogging it. He’ll make those rules very clear to his players in spring training.
If you went through the list of things wrong with last year's Red Sox team, (which wasn't a bad team by the way. It was a very good team) players not hustling and dogging it would probably be 8th or 9th on the list.
I wonder if one of the fines coming from Valentine for "dogging it" is that certain player has to read this column 100 times over and then write a 5 page report on what it means to him.
Is there anything worse than a player jogging to first on a routine grounder, and the infielder bobbles the ball but still throws out the lazy runner?
As long as we don't include all the other things that are worse than this, no, this is absolutely the worst. I sure wish I could recall more times this anecdotal event has occurred, but it sure sounds terrible. If teams had more gritty players and fewer me-first players who aren't tough...(pauses wistfully thinking about this) baseball, well no, the world as a whole would be a better place.
Don't you hate it when a team is in the lead for the AL Wild Card and that team's pitching completely falls apart during the month of September and eventually that team blows the AL Wild Card? That is a better and more accurate anecdote to describe why the Red Sox did not make the playoffs last year.
Or a batter hitting a popup but still getting thrown out when the infielder drops it because he didn’t run it out?
You mean we get TWO anecdotal examples in one column of incidences that occur on the baseball field maybe 2-3 times per year, yet is being treated as if it happens every game? How lucky are we? I will never take this column for granted.
How many times a year does a player get thrown out after not running out a popout that was dropped? The Red Sox didn't lose the Wild Card last year because a batter didn't hustle to first base, a batter didn't run out a popup or because starting pitchers drank beer and ate fried chicken in the clubhouse. The Red Sox lost the Wild Card because their pitching was terrible in September. So being super-duper really tough and gritty can only help as much as it also helps to have really good pitching and batting.
Maybe you don’t see these things very often, but you see them often enough.
Great point. If only the Red Sox batters had hustled more last year it could have made absolutely zero difference in the year-end result. Unless you are a part of the group that thinks Carl Crawford should have caught the fly ball that let in the winning run during the last game of the season. We all know Mike Greenwell would have caught that ball in the air and then hit a 6-run home run to win the game in the very next inning.
You really come to appreciate players like Pedroia, Alex Rodriguez, and Derek Jeter who run out every ball as hard as they can. They play the game right.
Do you know who doesn't play the game right? 6-year olds playing T-ball. Most everyone else older than 6-years old who play baseball understands the basic rules and plays the game "right." Now there are varying degrees of skill and ability each person playing the game of baseball possesses, but not playing the game of baseball with a high level of skill or not running hard isn't playing the game "wrong."
Pedroia doesn’t have blazing speed, but he can make the infielder rush the throw and at times beat out balls that other guys wouldn’t because they don’t run hard.
Pedroia also hits the ball very well and isn't a pitcher, so it wasn't his fault the Red Sox missed the playoffs last year. I just want to be clear about this since I take the idea from Cafardo about how "the Red Sox need to toughen up" as actually meaning "I'm going to make up a reason that doesn't have to do with pitching to use as to why the Red Sox missed the playoffs last year."
The Red Sox didn’t exactly train hard last spring.
It is always funny when sports columnists can point to reasons AFTER the season is over as to why the team didn't succeed. Where was this "the Red Sox didn't train hard in the spring" and "need to toughen up" columns back in early April?
Valentine wasn’t specific but he said he’s always run spring training the same way.
Hiding in the dugout with a disguise on?
Valentine is expected to have a meeting with Tim Bogar, his bench coach, who will run spring training, to make sure they’re on the same page. Bogar is likely to have a lot of ideas after the Terry Francona regime, but we’ll see if that meshes with Valentine.
Enough about all of this "ideas" and boring talk about how Valentine will run Spring Training. Let's get to the major issue we all want to know:
Are the Sox tough enough?
They need more dirt-dogs. I know that for sure. I always knew, and can finally reveal what I knew back then but didn't say it because I didn't want to say so that doesn't mean I am making it up, that Carl Crawford was never going to work out for the Red Sox. He's not a grinder. He's used to things being handed to him, just like the Red Sox handed $140 million to him last summer. Dustin Pedroia would have done pushups or run an entire marathon in order to receive this money, but Carl Crawford, who is not a hustler/grinder/scrappy little guy, just took the money smiled and went about his business not training hard during Spring Training.
They have a first baseman who wants to play every game.
Jacoby Ellsbury would prefer to play every 4th game, while John Lackey just wants to eat fried chicken in the clubhouse and nurse his "injured" elbow that required major surgery. The worst part is that asshole Jed Lowrie didn't want to play any games at all last year. Zero games. That's how many games he requested to participate in. He isn't tough enough.
They have a second baseman who never gives up on anything. The shortstop plays in pain. The third baseman is as intense as anyone in the game. The catcher (Jarrod Saltalamacchia) can take a beating. The left fielder plays hard. The center fielder shed his image of not being tough with a tremendous breakout season.
I hope Nick Cafardo knows every single one of these players, except the shortstop, were on the Red Sox team last year. So if Cafardo thinks all of these players are tough enough this upcoming year, they were also tough enough last year. Which brings me back to the whole issue of why the Red Sox didn't win the AL Wild Card last year and it most likely was the 5.84 ERA the Red Sox pitchers had in September. I'm just guessing at this being the cause of course. It very well could have been the overwhelmingly lack of toughness and absence of grit.
The pitching staff needs to reestablish its toughness after the shenanigans of last season.
"Reestablish its toughness." I think what Nick Cafardo really means is "pitch better so they give up less runs and give the Red Sox a better chance to win."
The September collapse shed a new light on the Sox. They need to come out and play as if everyone is fighting for a spot on the 25-man roster. They need to show the effort and the hunger of the Tampa Bay Rays.
OR the Red Sox could just not collapse in September, so the Rays never would have made the playoffs and we would be talking about how the Rays may not have the payroll resources to keep up with the Yankees and Red Sox. It's toughness though. That's the issue. Apparently the key to playing good baseball isn't skill, hard work, or any other variable that involves improving the player's skill set. It is toughness. Being tough and playing through injuries improves a player's skill set more than repetition or any other variable related to increasing a player's skill level ever could.
We need to see that grit that Valentine has talked about.
I really hope this upcoming year Red Sox pitchers are caught eating grits and drinking beer in the clubhouse on their off day and then claim they were wanting to be one of the players Nick Cafardo was talking about who needed more grits. This would amuse me.
The 2012 season is a good time to show it. Collectively.
Or the Red Sox could just try to avoid another historic collapse by not pitching poorly during one month of the season. Either way works I guess.
No, it isn’t football or hockey, or boxing for that matter, but toughness matters in baseball.
Grit matters too! Don't forget grit! Toughness matters more than pitching or hitting ability. Why did the Rangers lose the World Series for the second straight year? They weren't as tough as the Cardinals. The Cardinals were as tough as nails. As tough as a steak from Golden Corral. Tougher than an angry black bear protecting her young.
(I just tried to write like Rick Reilly. Seriously...anyone can write like Rick Reilly does. What I just wrote is exactly how he writes and I just did it for free. What does Reilly have no other writer has? When did smugness become a marketable trait for a writer and allows him to demand millions of dollars in compensation?)
The toughness to get through injuries.
Sure you needed Tommy John surgery, John Lackey, but you should have toughed it out like Adam Wainwright on the World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals did. Wait, he didn't tough it out? Well I'm sure the rest of the Cardinals roster toughed and gritted out some major injuries in order to win the World Series that Red Sox players were too wimpy to get through. After all, the Cardinals had Nick Punto on the roster. It doesn't get much grittier than him.
The toughness to play in this market. The toughness to go the extra mile when you’re dog-tired.
I always enjoy it when sportswriters call for a professional sports team to be tougher. It's easy to ask the local team to become tougher when the most hazardous injury you could incur while working at your sportswriting job is a papercut that just won't freaking heal. It always amuses me to read writers who think attending a sporting event with a head cold is "toughing it out" criticizing professional athletes for not being tough enough.
The toughness to perservere and make sure that slumps don’t prolong themselves.
Really slumps that tend to perservere have very little to do with toughness. If Cafardo can explain why one player slumps and another player does not then he probably wouldn't be making a living as a sportswriter right now. He would be working for a major league baseball team. I would also like to add the Red Sox pitching was their downfall last year, not any prolonged slump by a batter. So unless Cafardo thought the Red Sox pitching wasn't tough enough, and that's why the staff had a bad September (which I think he actually believes), this point of perservering through slumps is irrelevant.
Some of that toughness left the Red Sox when Jonathan Papelbon signed a lucrative four-year deal with the Philllies.
I can't believe the Phillies paid $1.4 million additional each year in Papelbon's contract specifically for toughness. Sure, he is a great closer and his ability to celebrate after closing a game out was well worth the $900,000 per year that was set aside in Papelbon's contract. I do think the Phillies way overpaid Papelbon's market value toughness. Especially since Papelbon's toughness has decreased from a 91 in 2008 to a 82 last year. The Phillies are probably really glad to have Papelbon's toughness and to a much lesser extent his ability to pitch well.
The good news is that they got some of it back when Ben Cherington signed Mark Melancon and Andrew Bailey.
Need to see the true faces of toughness? Look no further than here and here. Who cares how these guys pitch? They are going to be so damn tough on the mound, the opposing batters may not even swing at a pitch because they are cowering in fear at the toughness being displayed by these two relief pitchers. After all, look at how much these two pitcher's toughness helped the Astros and A's when it came to winning games last year.
The tradeoff of utility guys - Nick Punto for Jed Lowrie - was a 180 for the Red Sox.
Punto's career batting line: .249/.325/.327 and he is 33 years old.
Lowrie's career batting line: .252/.324/.382 and he is 27 years old.
I'm not sure how I see this move is a 180. It seems like Punto is a less powerful, slightly older version of Lowrie. What am I missing?
Punto is as tough as nails and should fit well on this team.
That's right. Now I know what I am missing. Lowrie is a huge pussy, while Nick Punto isn't just as tough as nails, he actually eats nails and sometimes drywall, but only if it is necessary to prove his toughness.
One of his best friends is Kevin Youkilis, who shut it down last season after a sports hernia, sore hip, and back issues got the best of him.
Wimp!
Youkilis is as tough as they come, and his presence in the lineup should ramp up the team’s toughness meter quite a bit.
On a much lesser note, I bet Kevin Youkilis will also be good at playing the game of baseball, which may also help the Red Sox become a better team. I know actually being good at baseball is always secondary to toughness, but let's not overlook the awesome combination of toughness and actually being good at the game of baseball Youkilis brings to the Red Sox.
We know about Dustin Pedroia’s toughness and willingness to play through anything.
We also know Pedroia hit .307/.387/.484 with 21 home runs, 37 doubles, and 26 stolen bases. Who cares about that though? Look at his toughness!
Adrian Gonzalez has a quiet toughness about him. You think his shoulder wasn’t hurting the second half of the season when his production was way down?
I wouldn't know if Gonzalez's shoulder was hurting him because he is so quietly tough that he wouldn't tell us if his shoulder hurt or not.
Marco Scutaro might be the toughest guy on the team. This guy will play through anything. Know why?
Because you are using hyperbole to make this contention up?
Does a strained oblique count as "anything?" It must not because Scutaro certainly didn't play through a strained oblique last year. I feel like while over-hyperbolizing Scutaro's toughness, his stint on the disabled list from 2011 needs to be mentioned in regard to Scutaro's toughness and how he will "play through anything."
Because he has never taken his career for granted.
Gritty, gutsy, hustling, scrappy.
Part of that toughness, that dirt-dog mentality, is giving 100 percent effort.
Get rid of those lazy players like J.D. Drew. He takes his career for granted every single day. He doesn't have a dirt-dog mentality, he has a velcro-cat mentality! Fucking asshole.
We know some big guys feel they’re so slow that they wouldn’t beat out a grounder even if an infielder bobbled the ball, so they tend to not bust it down the line.
These guys aren't grinders! They have no place on this scrappy, gritty Red Sox team apparently comprised entirely of the most hustling, ass-busting team of white guys ever to put their dirt-dog uniforms on, which they do in order to honor baseball by playing the game the way it should be played. Fuck you Carl Everett and Manny Ramirez, you buncha lazy, career-taking-for-granted jackasses! We need more hustling, gritty players. Where's Kevin Millar at when you need him? He hustled and gritted the 2004 Red Sox to a World Series victory. It wasn't the skill of that team which caused them to win the World Series. That was a bunch of dirt-dogs who would do anything to win games, including being really fucking good at baseball if that's what it absolutely came to.
But consequences for not running balls out? You bet. Valentine has a history of fining players for dogging it. He’ll make those rules very clear to his players in spring training.
If you went through the list of things wrong with last year's Red Sox team, (which wasn't a bad team by the way. It was a very good team) players not hustling and dogging it would probably be 8th or 9th on the list.
I wonder if one of the fines coming from Valentine for "dogging it" is that certain player has to read this column 100 times over and then write a 5 page report on what it means to him.
Is there anything worse than a player jogging to first on a routine grounder, and the infielder bobbles the ball but still throws out the lazy runner?
As long as we don't include all the other things that are worse than this, no, this is absolutely the worst. I sure wish I could recall more times this anecdotal event has occurred, but it sure sounds terrible. If teams had more gritty players and fewer me-first players who aren't tough...(pauses wistfully thinking about this) baseball, well no, the world as a whole would be a better place.
Don't you hate it when a team is in the lead for the AL Wild Card and that team's pitching completely falls apart during the month of September and eventually that team blows the AL Wild Card? That is a better and more accurate anecdote to describe why the Red Sox did not make the playoffs last year.
Or a batter hitting a popup but still getting thrown out when the infielder drops it because he didn’t run it out?
You mean we get TWO anecdotal examples in one column of incidences that occur on the baseball field maybe 2-3 times per year, yet is being treated as if it happens every game? How lucky are we? I will never take this column for granted.
How many times a year does a player get thrown out after not running out a popout that was dropped? The Red Sox didn't lose the Wild Card last year because a batter didn't hustle to first base, a batter didn't run out a popup or because starting pitchers drank beer and ate fried chicken in the clubhouse. The Red Sox lost the Wild Card because their pitching was terrible in September. So being super-duper really tough and gritty can only help as much as it also helps to have really good pitching and batting.
Maybe you don’t see these things very often, but you see them often enough.
Great point. If only the Red Sox batters had hustled more last year it could have made absolutely zero difference in the year-end result. Unless you are a part of the group that thinks Carl Crawford should have caught the fly ball that let in the winning run during the last game of the season. We all know Mike Greenwell would have caught that ball in the air and then hit a 6-run home run to win the game in the very next inning.
You really come to appreciate players like Pedroia, Alex Rodriguez, and Derek Jeter who run out every ball as hard as they can. They play the game right.
Do you know who doesn't play the game right? 6-year olds playing T-ball. Most everyone else older than 6-years old who play baseball understands the basic rules and plays the game "right." Now there are varying degrees of skill and ability each person playing the game of baseball possesses, but not playing the game of baseball with a high level of skill or not running hard isn't playing the game "wrong."
Pedroia doesn’t have blazing speed, but he can make the infielder rush the throw and at times beat out balls that other guys wouldn’t because they don’t run hard.
Pedroia also hits the ball very well and isn't a pitcher, so it wasn't his fault the Red Sox missed the playoffs last year. I just want to be clear about this since I take the idea from Cafardo about how "the Red Sox need to toughen up" as actually meaning "I'm going to make up a reason that doesn't have to do with pitching to use as to why the Red Sox missed the playoffs last year."
The Red Sox didn’t exactly train hard last spring.
It is always funny when sports columnists can point to reasons AFTER the season is over as to why the team didn't succeed. Where was this "the Red Sox didn't train hard in the spring" and "need to toughen up" columns back in early April?
Valentine wasn’t specific but he said he’s always run spring training the same way.
Hiding in the dugout with a disguise on?
Valentine is expected to have a meeting with Tim Bogar, his bench coach, who will run spring training, to make sure they’re on the same page. Bogar is likely to have a lot of ideas after the Terry Francona regime, but we’ll see if that meshes with Valentine.
Enough about all of this "ideas" and boring talk about how Valentine will run Spring Training. Let's get to the major issue we all want to know:
Are the Sox tough enough?
They need more dirt-dogs. I know that for sure. I always knew, and can finally reveal what I knew back then but didn't say it because I didn't want to say so that doesn't mean I am making it up, that Carl Crawford was never going to work out for the Red Sox. He's not a grinder. He's used to things being handed to him, just like the Red Sox handed $140 million to him last summer. Dustin Pedroia would have done pushups or run an entire marathon in order to receive this money, but Carl Crawford, who is not a hustler/grinder/scrappy little guy, just took the money smiled and went about his business not training hard during Spring Training.
They have a first baseman who wants to play every game.
Jacoby Ellsbury would prefer to play every 4th game, while John Lackey just wants to eat fried chicken in the clubhouse and nurse his "injured" elbow that required major surgery. The worst part is that asshole Jed Lowrie didn't want to play any games at all last year. Zero games. That's how many games he requested to participate in. He isn't tough enough.
They have a second baseman who never gives up on anything. The shortstop plays in pain. The third baseman is as intense as anyone in the game. The catcher (Jarrod Saltalamacchia) can take a beating. The left fielder plays hard. The center fielder shed his image of not being tough with a tremendous breakout season.
I hope Nick Cafardo knows every single one of these players, except the shortstop, were on the Red Sox team last year. So if Cafardo thinks all of these players are tough enough this upcoming year, they were also tough enough last year. Which brings me back to the whole issue of why the Red Sox didn't win the AL Wild Card last year and it most likely was the 5.84 ERA the Red Sox pitchers had in September. I'm just guessing at this being the cause of course. It very well could have been the overwhelmingly lack of toughness and absence of grit.
The pitching staff needs to reestablish its toughness after the shenanigans of last season.
"Reestablish its toughness." I think what Nick Cafardo really means is "pitch better so they give up less runs and give the Red Sox a better chance to win."
The September collapse shed a new light on the Sox. They need to come out and play as if everyone is fighting for a spot on the 25-man roster. They need to show the effort and the hunger of the Tampa Bay Rays.
OR the Red Sox could just not collapse in September, so the Rays never would have made the playoffs and we would be talking about how the Rays may not have the payroll resources to keep up with the Yankees and Red Sox. It's toughness though. That's the issue. Apparently the key to playing good baseball isn't skill, hard work, or any other variable that involves improving the player's skill set. It is toughness. Being tough and playing through injuries improves a player's skill set more than repetition or any other variable related to increasing a player's skill level ever could.
We need to see that grit that Valentine has talked about.
They have the players with that grit.
Grit or Grit(s)? I ask this because I'm getting pretty hungry right now.I really hope this upcoming year Red Sox pitchers are caught eating grits and drinking beer in the clubhouse on their off day and then claim they were wanting to be one of the players Nick Cafardo was talking about who needed more grits. This would amuse me.
The 2012 season is a good time to show it. Collectively.
Or the Red Sox could just try to avoid another historic collapse by not pitching poorly during one month of the season. Either way works I guess.
Friday, July 22, 2011
5 comments This Just In: Peter Bourjos Is Fast, Probably Not Great at Baseball
Bill Plaschke wants us to know that Peter Bourjos is fast. This seems to be the only positive characteristic worth describing when it comes to Bourjos from Bill Plaschke's point of view. Plaschke also does his best to frame Pourjos as a baseball Peter Pan of sorts who hasn't quite grown up. He wants us to believe this is an admirable quality. So Bill and his ever-so-slight lisp will now write one sentence paragraphs desperately killing space in an effort to let us know just how fast Peter Bourjos truly is.
In the comments on Monday we were discussing the scrappiest players in the majors now that Lord Scrapstein Von Gritt has retired---I mean, refused to play if he can't start for a team. I submitted Peter Bourjos' name as one of the scrappiest players because he is so fast and he shows the correct amount of grit to performance required. See, a scrappy player can't be too good at baseball or else he isn't considered a scrappy player who gets the most out of his ability. I'm not sure why this is.
How fast is Peter Bourjos?
So fast he just took your sister's virginity and had a sandwich while you read this sentence?
(The sandwich will be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as we will later learn)
In the first at-bat of his life, he singled to center, caught the ball and tagged himself out.
Why Bill, that could never happen! Do explain further! Is this a true story?
True story. It was his T-ball debut, and he was accustomed to chasing down his own hits when playing at the park with his father. So when he knocked the ball into the gap, he sprinted into the outfield, picked it up, and ran it back to the infield.
That's some scrappy shit right there. I like how Plaschke says he "knocked the ball in the gap." This is T-ball. The kids out there are generally 4-8 years old. The entire field is a gap to them.
"I gave the ball to some kid on the other team and he was like, um..." said Bourjos.
"Um...I'm six years old, I don't get the irony of this. Can I go home and watch 'Star Wars' now?"
How fast is Peter Bourjos?
Oh, so we are doing this again huh? This is a one sentence paragraph that is a repeat from a previous one sentence paragraph. I say this just in case anyone thinks Bill Plaschke is an incredibly creative writer.
So fast that this little-known Angels center fielder has pulled up alongside that famous Dodgers center fielder as one of the two most exciting players in Southern California this summer.
This is measured on the Plaschke Excitement Scale 3001. Bill will watch a certain player's best ten plays and scream encouragement as he watches each play with a basin at his feet. At the end of the 10 highlights, whichever basin ends up with the most spittle from Bill slightly lisping and screaming is one of the most exciting players in Southern California. Just in case you were wondering how the two most exciting players in Southern California were determined.
Let's look at Peter Bourjos line as of the All-Star break to see how he and Matt Kemp are the two most exciting players in Southern California:
.272/.323/.397 with 79 strikeouts and 18 walks...but he does have 6 triples. This is one exciting player, especially if you lower your expectations for "an exciting player in Southern California" tremendously.
Here are some other non-exciting Anaheim Angels players...
Jered Weaver 11-4 with a 1.86 ERA, 0.912 WHIP and 199 ERA+
Dan Haren 10-5 with a 2.61 ERA, 0.953 WHIP and a 142 ERA+
Jordan Walden 20 saves with a 2.84 ERA
Despite the fact Weaver is the All-Star Game starter for the American League, he just isn't as exciting as a guy who is superfast and is better suited as a fourth outfielder. That's what Bill wants us to believe.
Actually, Bourjos isn't even the most exciting centerfielder on the Angels team. That would be top prospect Mike Trout. Of course actual performance doesn't matter to Bill Plaschke or else Howie Kendrick or one of the four pitchers on the Angels pitching staff (including Scott Downs) would be exciting players. But no, it is Peter Bourjos because he is fast, while these other players are just good at the game of baseball.
So fast that his game rhymes with the pronunciation of his last name — gorgeous —
His game is not gorgeous. Unless someone finds a lot of beauty in a guy with leadoff hitter ability who manages to strikeout a lot and get on-base at a 32% clip.
He leads the league in highlight video catches. And he surely leads the league in causing a middle-aged columnist's daughters to scream.
So he's like a boy band member who plays baseball. I got it. This is irrelevant to his ability to play baseball. Jeff Francoeur had the ladies screaming for him because of his looks. A few years later in his career, he had both ladies and men screaming at him because he was terrible at the game of baseball.
Bourjos walked off the field, took off his cap and smiled into the crowd with messy black hair and the cherubic face of a 12-year-old who had just left an ice cream truck.
What's the deal with Plaschke writing about how Bourjos plays like a kid, talking about the sex appeal of Bourjos and then comparing Bourjos to a pre-teen with a cherubic face? This concerns me. There are other columnists who do this sort of things as well. Talk about how an athlete "plays the game like a kid."
At some point do some sports columnists develop a fascination with pre-teen boys playing baseball? Is that why Plaschke led off the story about Bourjos playing T-ball? I wonder if he asked for a T-ball team picture from Bourjos? If so, that's some creepy shit. Many players who seem to enjoy playing the game of baseball get compared to a pre-teen child playing the game of baseball, as if this is the highest form of a compliment an athlete can receive. Would Bill Plaschke rather be covering a Little League game rather than an Angels/Dodgers game? If so, why? To stare at the boys and how much fun they are having?
What if I wrote Abby Wambach played the game of soccer like a 12 year old girl? Then I mentioned it in another column how another female athlete played the game like a pre-teen girl and how Wambach had a doll face like a 12 year old girl would. At some point, you would wonder, "Does Ben want to watch a group of pre-teen girls play sports? If so, why?"
Among the thousands standing and cheering were my two daughters who were shrieking, "Who is that?"
I imagine both of Bill Plaschke's daughters don't have goatees nor a ever-so-slight lisp...though I guess I can't guarantee this.
I figured I should eventually get back down to Angel Stadium to find out.
Well naturally. It's not like you could spend this time writing a quality column.
I met Bourjos in an empty dugout Thursday afternoon for an interview that began with him thanking me.
Bourjos probably thanked Plaschke because he couldn't believe merely being fast, tickling Plaschke's pre-teen fetish and having a low OBP could get him such attention.
I explained to him that it is Angel fans who are having fun, especially all those young women who congregate on the field-level seats before the game to cheer Bourjos while he stretches, girls holding up signs such as, "You Have My Dad's Permission To Marry Me!"
How cute!
Just once, I'd like for a baseball player to take a fan up on this offer. I would like to see the player accept the women's proposal and move all of his stuff into her house the next day and then start helping her plan their wedding. The player should just be a general pest around the house and leave all of his clothes and other stuff everywhere and have his friends over after games to make her life pretty much a living Hell. That'll teach her to make random marriage proposals. I think I would pay to see this happen. Maybe then the people who make the cutesy "Marry Me" signs will think twice before bringing into the stadium. Probably not though.
Not really. Bourjos has a chance to one day become one of the symbols of baseball's post-steroid era, a sandlot kid who actually looks and acts like a kid.
I am 17% sure Bill Plaschke has a pre-teen boy fetish. Stop saying he plays like a kid. It's stupid and nonsensical. Also, it really is becoming creepy to me. I know the whole idea behind this thought is kids play the game just for the fun and it is pure and all of that crap. But, Peter Bourjos is a grown man who gets paid to play baseball. Stop comparing him to child for kicks.
I also greatly dislike all of this "symbol of baseball's post-steroid era crap" for players who just try really, really hard. The best symbol of baseball's post-steroid era are the following players:
Albert Pujols
Prince Fielder
Dustin Pedroia
Kevin Youkilis
Ryan Howard
Carl Crawford
Evan Longoria
Ryan Braun
Josh Hamilton
Matt Kemp
Troy Tulowitzki
Andrew McCutchen
Adrian Gonzalez
Brian McCann
Mike Stanton
Jose Bautista
Jay Bruce
Joey Votto
Mark Teixeira
Robinson Cano
These are all batters who hit the baseball really well and haven't been linked to steroids. These are the players who are the model for the post-steroid era. Not Sam Fuld. Not Peter Bourjos. Not any player who seems to try really hard, but players who put up great offensive numbers and haven't been linked to steroids.
How about Howie Kendrick? He plays for the Anaheim Angels. Why isn't he exciting to watch? Why isn't he a model for the post-steroid era?
He is a baseball junkie who literally lives across the street from the Anaheim stadium. His pregame meal includes a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
Does he drink milk with his peanut butter and jelly sandwich? I bet he does. Then he has macaroni and cheese as a snack between innings, not just any macaroni and cheese, but the special kids size servings that are in the shape of Toy Story 3 characters or Lightning McQueen. Then he stares at the "Fresh Beat Band" poster in his locker.
Are we sure Peter Bourjos isn't mentally handicapped? The only grown men I know that act like children are either emotionally stunted men or men who have some sort of mental handicap that doesn't allow them to function as an adult in society. Either way, I'm still uncomfortable with Bill Plaschke's (and other sportswriters) fetish that involves celebrating a player who has child-like qualities. It's creepy and if I were Peter Bourjos I would believe it to be a bit demeaning as well.
His destination on a recent day off in Southern California? Where else? Disneyland.
Where else? How about a place adults go...or at least a place adults without children may go? Disneyland is great, but the fact Peter Bourjos goes to Disneyland in his spare time has little to nothing to do with his ability to play baseball nor does it have much to do with how he plays the game of baseball. It does meet Bill Plaschke's need to make Bourjos seem like a child though.
Since his recall to the major leagues last August, it is the Angels who have been thankful, for an energy and athleticism reminiscent of past Angels center fielders Gary Pettis and Devon White.
I think I know what will make the Angels even more thankful. The fact Mike Trout has now been called up to the majors and he brings the ability to be very, very good at baseball to the Angels. Not that they need skill on the roster any more than energy of course.
"There have been times where I've been so focused on watching him chase down a ball, I realize I'm not standing in the right place," said first baseman Mark Trumbo, grinning.
One time Trumbo was watching Bourjos chase down a fly ball and realized he was standing in the women's bathroom. Bourjos has that type of ability. Like a child. Like a kid. Like a little kid playing on a swing, his hair waving in the wind, a big smile on his face, his small little hands gripping the swing. It's almost too much for Bill Plaschke to handle.
It's not always good, as Bourjos left the field with an apparent hamstring injury Thursday after an eighth-inning RBI double against the Seattle Mariners. He hurt himself after stopping suddenly between second and third base, the right decision also proving to be a painful one, the roaring crowd suddenly silenced.
Shit! Now we have to call up the best minor league player, Mike Trout! What are we going to do if he comes on the roster and only provides home runs and RBI's? We need to teach him to have energy and run really fast so he can learn to be one of the two most exciting players in Los Angeles. What a disaster!
The Angels are hoping the injury isn't serious, because they are serious about chasing a championship with a guy who used to practice wild catches while flying off a diving board into swimming pool.
Wow, that is some super specific criteria for what the Angels are looking for in a player to help them chase a championship. Actually...that's perfect. Because my cousin Tim used to do that off diving boards as well. He loves to practice wild catches off the diving board, so maybe the Angels could give him a tryout to replace Bourjos. He doesn't jump off the diving board and make wild catches like a little kid, which could be a huge drawback in the eyes of the Angels.
The biggest problem in Bourjos' game is the game itself.
Read that again. We have gone 75% of this column with how great Bourjos is for the Angels and how the Angels can't be serious about chasing a championship with him not being healthy. Then it turns out the biggest problem with Bourjos is that he isn't a good baseball player. It's like my biggest weakness when it comes to playing in the NBA is that I am not good enough to play in the NBA. Otherwise, I'm golden.
It requires more than catching and running. It also requires hitting.
But...he plays like a kid. Child-like. Disneyland. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Diving boards. Kid. Child. Fast. Bengoodfella sad.
Entering Thursday, Bourjos had a flailing career on-base percentage of .286 with 119 strikeouts and just 24 walks.
Yet according to Plaschke, the Angels are serious about trying to get a championship with him in the lineup. Yet, it seems his playing everyday with Vernon Wells in the lineup would do nothing but hurt the Angels chances at a championship. So everything Bill has told us so far while fawning over Bourjos seems to be pretty incorrect. Bourjos is fast, but is he really THAT important to the Angels? This is why this is bad journalism. It's like journalistic fluff piece self-pleasure. Plaschke writes and writes, but in the end this is just a fluff piece. It's just a useless piece of writing.
For him to maximize his Angels career, he has to eventually bat leadoff, but those numbers make that impossible.
So Bourjos is a scrapper who doesn't even get the most out of his talent? David Eckstein and Darin Erstad laugh in your face. Faker.
So Bourjos is a fast guy who doesn't get on-base and can't walk enough to hit leadoff, but also doesn't have enough power to hit anywhere in the middle of the order? Sounds like it is a real shame he got injured and the Angels had to call up Mike Trout.
"I know this, and I'm working on it all the time," he said. "Every day, shortening my swing, being more selective, I'll just keep working."
The joy in his voice makes him difficult to doubt.
That's why you don't listen to the joy in his voice and see the results on the field. We can't do that, it may ruin the illusion Plaschke has tried to create.
The serenity in his father's voice confirms it.
Oh dear God. Bourjos may very well improve because he is only 24 years old, but it's just really weird to talk about the joy in Bourjos voice and the serenity in his father's voice. I don't know why, it just is. I wonder if Plaschke has conversations with other sportswriters and talks about a player's child-like qualities...
(Bill Plaschke calling T.J. Simers) "You know T.J., that Peter Bourjos has a cherubic face and the cutest little hands."
(T.J. Simers sitting on Marcus Thames' front lawn) "I don't know much about Bourjos, but (starts yelling in the direction of Thames who is getting in his car) I KNOW MARCUS THAMES SUCKS!"
(Plaschke) "It is just like Bourjos is so fast, like a kid. A little blonde-haired kid that doesn't care about anything, but having fun and playing the game. It's just inspiri---"
(Simers) "HOW'S IT FEEL TO GET CUT THAMES. HUH?---WHAT? TRESPASSING? UP YOURS, I'M NOT TRESPASSING! I'M A JOURNALIST, JACKASS!"
(Plaschke) "Sounds like you are having real trouble T.J. Everything okay?"
(Simers) "Yeah, I just approached Marcus Thames to do an interview and he refused again. All I did was tell him how bad he sucked, what's his problem?"
(Plaschke) "Thames doesn't play like a little boy. I doubt Thames was good at T-ball too. His little feet probably didn't run around the bases with his 6 year old tongue hanging out as he ran---"
(Simers) "Bill, you are scaring me just a---NO FUCK YOU, THAMES! I DON'T GIVE A SHIT IF YOUR KIDS ARE AROUND. THEY ARE JUST LITTLE PIECES OF SHIT WHO CAN'T PLAY THE FIELD LIKE YOU! WHY WON'T YOU DO AN INTERVIEW WITH ME?"
(Plaschke) "Kids? There are kids there?" (gets in his car and drives to Marcus Thames house while still talking on the phone with Simers)
(Simers talking to Plaschke en route) "Bill, we have been concerned about you for a while. You talk about children way too much and how grown men play the game like children."
(Plaschke) "But, Bourjos plays the game like a kid and eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, like a child does. It's precious and cute to see a man act like a kid. It makes you want to dress him up like a 10 year old boy and---"
(Simers seeing Plaschke's car pulling up to the Thames house) "Bill, I am calling the police. I can see from here you aren't wearing a shirt. Why not? You talk about players playing like children way too much and it concerns everyone. HEY MRS. THAMES, YOUR HUSBAND CAN'T FIELD A BASEBALL WELL ENOUGH TO PLAY ON A CONSISTENT BASIS! CAN HE FIELD HIS POSITION IN BED? PROBABLY NOT! ONE INTERVIEW IS ALL I WANT. BE FAIR TO ME."
(Plaschke starts crying) "I want to watch men play like kids. It just isn't fair more players don't play like children. I want to go back to junior high school and not get chosen last in softball...just once...so I could have played like I was a child."
(Simers calls the police to pick up Plaschke and follows the Thames family to the grocery store while yelling out the window) "HEY THAMES, JUAN RIVERA REPLACED YOU! ASSHOLE! ONE INTERVIEW IS ALL I ASK AND YOU WON'T DO IT. WHY?"
"The thing that I like most about Pete's game is how he handles failure," said Chris.
I guess once you've gotten used to the failure, it becomes easier to handle. Rim shot!
"To him, every day is a new day, a new challenge, a chance to start over again."
Like a child. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Thus supplying the definition of fast forward.
Umm, no. That's not the definition of fast forward. The definition of fast forward in this context is "a rapidly changing situation or series of events."
This quote is actually supplying an example of a tired cliche. Much like talking about a player and how he "plays the game like a kid" and overstating a player's importance to a team because the fans like him are also tired cliches.
In the comments on Monday we were discussing the scrappiest players in the majors now that Lord Scrapstein Von Gritt has retired---I mean, refused to play if he can't start for a team. I submitted Peter Bourjos' name as one of the scrappiest players because he is so fast and he shows the correct amount of grit to performance required. See, a scrappy player can't be too good at baseball or else he isn't considered a scrappy player who gets the most out of his ability. I'm not sure why this is.
How fast is Peter Bourjos?
So fast he just took your sister's virginity and had a sandwich while you read this sentence?
(The sandwich will be a peanut butter and jelly sandwich as we will later learn)
In the first at-bat of his life, he singled to center, caught the ball and tagged himself out.
Why Bill, that could never happen! Do explain further! Is this a true story?
True story. It was his T-ball debut, and he was accustomed to chasing down his own hits when playing at the park with his father. So when he knocked the ball into the gap, he sprinted into the outfield, picked it up, and ran it back to the infield.
That's some scrappy shit right there. I like how Plaschke says he "knocked the ball in the gap." This is T-ball. The kids out there are generally 4-8 years old. The entire field is a gap to them.
"I gave the ball to some kid on the other team and he was like, um..." said Bourjos.
"Um...I'm six years old, I don't get the irony of this. Can I go home and watch 'Star Wars' now?"
How fast is Peter Bourjos?
Oh, so we are doing this again huh? This is a one sentence paragraph that is a repeat from a previous one sentence paragraph. I say this just in case anyone thinks Bill Plaschke is an incredibly creative writer.
So fast that this little-known Angels center fielder has pulled up alongside that famous Dodgers center fielder as one of the two most exciting players in Southern California this summer.
This is measured on the Plaschke Excitement Scale 3001. Bill will watch a certain player's best ten plays and scream encouragement as he watches each play with a basin at his feet. At the end of the 10 highlights, whichever basin ends up with the most spittle from Bill slightly lisping and screaming is one of the most exciting players in Southern California. Just in case you were wondering how the two most exciting players in Southern California were determined.
Let's look at Peter Bourjos line as of the All-Star break to see how he and Matt Kemp are the two most exciting players in Southern California:
.272/.323/.397 with 79 strikeouts and 18 walks...but he does have 6 triples. This is one exciting player, especially if you lower your expectations for "an exciting player in Southern California" tremendously.
Here are some other non-exciting Anaheim Angels players...
Jered Weaver 11-4 with a 1.86 ERA, 0.912 WHIP and 199 ERA+
Dan Haren 10-5 with a 2.61 ERA, 0.953 WHIP and a 142 ERA+
Jordan Walden 20 saves with a 2.84 ERA
Despite the fact Weaver is the All-Star Game starter for the American League, he just isn't as exciting as a guy who is superfast and is better suited as a fourth outfielder. That's what Bill wants us to believe.
Actually, Bourjos isn't even the most exciting centerfielder on the Angels team. That would be top prospect Mike Trout. Of course actual performance doesn't matter to Bill Plaschke or else Howie Kendrick or one of the four pitchers on the Angels pitching staff (including Scott Downs) would be exciting players. But no, it is Peter Bourjos because he is fast, while these other players are just good at the game of baseball.
So fast that his game rhymes with the pronunciation of his last name — gorgeous —
His game is not gorgeous. Unless someone finds a lot of beauty in a guy with leadoff hitter ability who manages to strikeout a lot and get on-base at a 32% clip.
He leads the league in highlight video catches. And he surely leads the league in causing a middle-aged columnist's daughters to scream.
So he's like a boy band member who plays baseball. I got it. This is irrelevant to his ability to play baseball. Jeff Francoeur had the ladies screaming for him because of his looks. A few years later in his career, he had both ladies and men screaming at him because he was terrible at the game of baseball.
Bourjos walked off the field, took off his cap and smiled into the crowd with messy black hair and the cherubic face of a 12-year-old who had just left an ice cream truck.
What's the deal with Plaschke writing about how Bourjos plays like a kid, talking about the sex appeal of Bourjos and then comparing Bourjos to a pre-teen with a cherubic face? This concerns me. There are other columnists who do this sort of things as well. Talk about how an athlete "plays the game like a kid."
At some point do some sports columnists develop a fascination with pre-teen boys playing baseball? Is that why Plaschke led off the story about Bourjos playing T-ball? I wonder if he asked for a T-ball team picture from Bourjos? If so, that's some creepy shit. Many players who seem to enjoy playing the game of baseball get compared to a pre-teen child playing the game of baseball, as if this is the highest form of a compliment an athlete can receive. Would Bill Plaschke rather be covering a Little League game rather than an Angels/Dodgers game? If so, why? To stare at the boys and how much fun they are having?
What if I wrote Abby Wambach played the game of soccer like a 12 year old girl? Then I mentioned it in another column how another female athlete played the game like a pre-teen girl and how Wambach had a doll face like a 12 year old girl would. At some point, you would wonder, "Does Ben want to watch a group of pre-teen girls play sports? If so, why?"
Among the thousands standing and cheering were my two daughters who were shrieking, "Who is that?"
I imagine both of Bill Plaschke's daughters don't have goatees nor a ever-so-slight lisp...though I guess I can't guarantee this.
I figured I should eventually get back down to Angel Stadium to find out.
Well naturally. It's not like you could spend this time writing a quality column.
I met Bourjos in an empty dugout Thursday afternoon for an interview that began with him thanking me.
Bourjos probably thanked Plaschke because he couldn't believe merely being fast, tickling Plaschke's pre-teen fetish and having a low OBP could get him such attention.
I explained to him that it is Angel fans who are having fun, especially all those young women who congregate on the field-level seats before the game to cheer Bourjos while he stretches, girls holding up signs such as, "You Have My Dad's Permission To Marry Me!"
How cute!
Just once, I'd like for a baseball player to take a fan up on this offer. I would like to see the player accept the women's proposal and move all of his stuff into her house the next day and then start helping her plan their wedding. The player should just be a general pest around the house and leave all of his clothes and other stuff everywhere and have his friends over after games to make her life pretty much a living Hell. That'll teach her to make random marriage proposals. I think I would pay to see this happen. Maybe then the people who make the cutesy "Marry Me" signs will think twice before bringing into the stadium. Probably not though.
Not really. Bourjos has a chance to one day become one of the symbols of baseball's post-steroid era, a sandlot kid who actually looks and acts like a kid.
I am 17% sure Bill Plaschke has a pre-teen boy fetish. Stop saying he plays like a kid. It's stupid and nonsensical. Also, it really is becoming creepy to me. I know the whole idea behind this thought is kids play the game just for the fun and it is pure and all of that crap. But, Peter Bourjos is a grown man who gets paid to play baseball. Stop comparing him to child for kicks.
I also greatly dislike all of this "symbol of baseball's post-steroid era crap" for players who just try really, really hard. The best symbol of baseball's post-steroid era are the following players:
Albert Pujols
Prince Fielder
Dustin Pedroia
Kevin Youkilis
Ryan Howard
Carl Crawford
Evan Longoria
Ryan Braun
Josh Hamilton
Matt Kemp
Troy Tulowitzki
Andrew McCutchen
Adrian Gonzalez
Brian McCann
Mike Stanton
Jose Bautista
Jay Bruce
Joey Votto
Mark Teixeira
Robinson Cano
These are all batters who hit the baseball really well and haven't been linked to steroids. These are the players who are the model for the post-steroid era. Not Sam Fuld. Not Peter Bourjos. Not any player who seems to try really hard, but players who put up great offensive numbers and haven't been linked to steroids.
How about Howie Kendrick? He plays for the Anaheim Angels. Why isn't he exciting to watch? Why isn't he a model for the post-steroid era?
He is a baseball junkie who literally lives across the street from the Anaheim stadium. His pregame meal includes a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.
Does he drink milk with his peanut butter and jelly sandwich? I bet he does. Then he has macaroni and cheese as a snack between innings, not just any macaroni and cheese, but the special kids size servings that are in the shape of Toy Story 3 characters or Lightning McQueen. Then he stares at the "Fresh Beat Band" poster in his locker.
Are we sure Peter Bourjos isn't mentally handicapped? The only grown men I know that act like children are either emotionally stunted men or men who have some sort of mental handicap that doesn't allow them to function as an adult in society. Either way, I'm still uncomfortable with Bill Plaschke's (and other sportswriters) fetish that involves celebrating a player who has child-like qualities. It's creepy and if I were Peter Bourjos I would believe it to be a bit demeaning as well.
His destination on a recent day off in Southern California? Where else? Disneyland.
Where else? How about a place adults go...or at least a place adults without children may go? Disneyland is great, but the fact Peter Bourjos goes to Disneyland in his spare time has little to nothing to do with his ability to play baseball nor does it have much to do with how he plays the game of baseball. It does meet Bill Plaschke's need to make Bourjos seem like a child though.
Since his recall to the major leagues last August, it is the Angels who have been thankful, for an energy and athleticism reminiscent of past Angels center fielders Gary Pettis and Devon White.
I think I know what will make the Angels even more thankful. The fact Mike Trout has now been called up to the majors and he brings the ability to be very, very good at baseball to the Angels. Not that they need skill on the roster any more than energy of course.
"There have been times where I've been so focused on watching him chase down a ball, I realize I'm not standing in the right place," said first baseman Mark Trumbo, grinning.
One time Trumbo was watching Bourjos chase down a fly ball and realized he was standing in the women's bathroom. Bourjos has that type of ability. Like a child. Like a kid. Like a little kid playing on a swing, his hair waving in the wind, a big smile on his face, his small little hands gripping the swing. It's almost too much for Bill Plaschke to handle.
It's not always good, as Bourjos left the field with an apparent hamstring injury Thursday after an eighth-inning RBI double against the Seattle Mariners. He hurt himself after stopping suddenly between second and third base, the right decision also proving to be a painful one, the roaring crowd suddenly silenced.
Shit! Now we have to call up the best minor league player, Mike Trout! What are we going to do if he comes on the roster and only provides home runs and RBI's? We need to teach him to have energy and run really fast so he can learn to be one of the two most exciting players in Los Angeles. What a disaster!
The Angels are hoping the injury isn't serious, because they are serious about chasing a championship with a guy who used to practice wild catches while flying off a diving board into swimming pool.
Wow, that is some super specific criteria for what the Angels are looking for in a player to help them chase a championship. Actually...that's perfect. Because my cousin Tim used to do that off diving boards as well. He loves to practice wild catches off the diving board, so maybe the Angels could give him a tryout to replace Bourjos. He doesn't jump off the diving board and make wild catches like a little kid, which could be a huge drawback in the eyes of the Angels.
The biggest problem in Bourjos' game is the game itself.
Read that again. We have gone 75% of this column with how great Bourjos is for the Angels and how the Angels can't be serious about chasing a championship with him not being healthy. Then it turns out the biggest problem with Bourjos is that he isn't a good baseball player. It's like my biggest weakness when it comes to playing in the NBA is that I am not good enough to play in the NBA. Otherwise, I'm golden.
It requires more than catching and running. It also requires hitting.
But...he plays like a kid. Child-like. Disneyland. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Diving boards. Kid. Child. Fast. Bengoodfella sad.
Entering Thursday, Bourjos had a flailing career on-base percentage of .286 with 119 strikeouts and just 24 walks.
Yet according to Plaschke, the Angels are serious about trying to get a championship with him in the lineup. Yet, it seems his playing everyday with Vernon Wells in the lineup would do nothing but hurt the Angels chances at a championship. So everything Bill has told us so far while fawning over Bourjos seems to be pretty incorrect. Bourjos is fast, but is he really THAT important to the Angels? This is why this is bad journalism. It's like journalistic fluff piece self-pleasure. Plaschke writes and writes, but in the end this is just a fluff piece. It's just a useless piece of writing.
For him to maximize his Angels career, he has to eventually bat leadoff, but those numbers make that impossible.
So Bourjos is a scrapper who doesn't even get the most out of his talent? David Eckstein and Darin Erstad laugh in your face. Faker.
So Bourjos is a fast guy who doesn't get on-base and can't walk enough to hit leadoff, but also doesn't have enough power to hit anywhere in the middle of the order? Sounds like it is a real shame he got injured and the Angels had to call up Mike Trout.
"I know this, and I'm working on it all the time," he said. "Every day, shortening my swing, being more selective, I'll just keep working."
The joy in his voice makes him difficult to doubt.
That's why you don't listen to the joy in his voice and see the results on the field. We can't do that, it may ruin the illusion Plaschke has tried to create.
The serenity in his father's voice confirms it.
Oh dear God. Bourjos may very well improve because he is only 24 years old, but it's just really weird to talk about the joy in Bourjos voice and the serenity in his father's voice. I don't know why, it just is. I wonder if Plaschke has conversations with other sportswriters and talks about a player's child-like qualities...
(Bill Plaschke calling T.J. Simers) "You know T.J., that Peter Bourjos has a cherubic face and the cutest little hands."
(T.J. Simers sitting on Marcus Thames' front lawn) "I don't know much about Bourjos, but (starts yelling in the direction of Thames who is getting in his car) I KNOW MARCUS THAMES SUCKS!"
(Plaschke) "It is just like Bourjos is so fast, like a kid. A little blonde-haired kid that doesn't care about anything, but having fun and playing the game. It's just inspiri---"
(Simers) "HOW'S IT FEEL TO GET CUT THAMES. HUH?---WHAT? TRESPASSING? UP YOURS, I'M NOT TRESPASSING! I'M A JOURNALIST, JACKASS!"
(Plaschke) "Sounds like you are having real trouble T.J. Everything okay?"
(Simers) "Yeah, I just approached Marcus Thames to do an interview and he refused again. All I did was tell him how bad he sucked, what's his problem?"
(Plaschke) "Thames doesn't play like a little boy. I doubt Thames was good at T-ball too. His little feet probably didn't run around the bases with his 6 year old tongue hanging out as he ran---"
(Simers) "Bill, you are scaring me just a---NO FUCK YOU, THAMES! I DON'T GIVE A SHIT IF YOUR KIDS ARE AROUND. THEY ARE JUST LITTLE PIECES OF SHIT WHO CAN'T PLAY THE FIELD LIKE YOU! WHY WON'T YOU DO AN INTERVIEW WITH ME?"
(Plaschke) "Kids? There are kids there?" (gets in his car and drives to Marcus Thames house while still talking on the phone with Simers)
(Simers talking to Plaschke en route) "Bill, we have been concerned about you for a while. You talk about children way too much and how grown men play the game like children."
(Plaschke) "But, Bourjos plays the game like a kid and eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, like a child does. It's precious and cute to see a man act like a kid. It makes you want to dress him up like a 10 year old boy and---"
(Simers seeing Plaschke's car pulling up to the Thames house) "Bill, I am calling the police. I can see from here you aren't wearing a shirt. Why not? You talk about players playing like children way too much and it concerns everyone. HEY MRS. THAMES, YOUR HUSBAND CAN'T FIELD A BASEBALL WELL ENOUGH TO PLAY ON A CONSISTENT BASIS! CAN HE FIELD HIS POSITION IN BED? PROBABLY NOT! ONE INTERVIEW IS ALL I WANT. BE FAIR TO ME."
(Plaschke starts crying) "I want to watch men play like kids. It just isn't fair more players don't play like children. I want to go back to junior high school and not get chosen last in softball...just once...so I could have played like I was a child."
(Simers calls the police to pick up Plaschke and follows the Thames family to the grocery store while yelling out the window) "HEY THAMES, JUAN RIVERA REPLACED YOU! ASSHOLE! ONE INTERVIEW IS ALL I ASK AND YOU WON'T DO IT. WHY?"
"The thing that I like most about Pete's game is how he handles failure," said Chris.
I guess once you've gotten used to the failure, it becomes easier to handle. Rim shot!
"To him, every day is a new day, a new challenge, a chance to start over again."
Like a child. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Thus supplying the definition of fast forward.
Umm, no. That's not the definition of fast forward. The definition of fast forward in this context is "a rapidly changing situation or series of events."
This quote is actually supplying an example of a tired cliche. Much like talking about a player and how he "plays the game like a kid" and overstating a player's importance to a team because the fans like him are also tired cliches.
Monday, July 11, 2011
6 comments Wanted: One MLB Team To Hire a Scrappy, Hustling Ex-World Series MVP
You all have probably felt the void. The patron saint of Bottom of the Barrel, David Eckstein, currently doesn't have a job playing professional baseball. As the ex-co-owner of David Eckstein's Baseball-Reference page, we need to keep David in our thoughts at this time. It doesn't appear he is struggling emotionally, but I think he's just keeping on a scrappy face for us. As Mike DiGiovanna tells us Eckstein isn't retired, but has made a decision not to play baseball at this point. Then DiGiovanna goes Eckstein-crazy over David Eckstein's massive amount of grit and starts writing gibberish.
I do realize my Twitter page says I am the proud co-owner of David Eckstein's Baseball-Reference page, and I don't plan to update it. I figure if Eckstein can continuously live off his 2006 World Series MVP award and "helping" the Angels win the 2002 World Series I can live off once co-owning his Baseball-Reference page. Let's see what's new in Scrappy McFuckstein's world.
David Eckstein is not playing baseball, but the scrappy 36-year-old infielder
It's like a disease or a reflex. Whenever a sportswriter says "David Eckstein," the word "scrappy" has to appear somewhere in the sentence. Actually, it is just lazy writing to fall back on a description like that since simply saying "....not playing baseball, but the 36-year-old infielder..." would suffice.
who helped the Angels win the 2002 World Series and won World Series most-valuable-player honors with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2006 has not officially retired.
It's always awkward when a player hasn't officially retired and he doesn't currently have a job with a team yet. At a certain point, you need to save face and just officially retire, because very few things are sadder than a player who can't get a job with a professional team but insists he hasn't retired. I would probably rather see a player get a job with another team and struggle than a player who insists he isn't retired, but can't seem to find a job. At some point, this refusal to submit to reality leads a player to Japan, Russia or another country to play professionally in another league.
What's sadder to think about in these two situations:
-Stephon Marbury retires when getting no interest from NBA teams and goes about his life.
-Stephon Marbury doesn't retire and is now playing for the Foshan Dralions in China.
Personally, I think combined with his bizarre offseason webcam antics last year, it is more sad Marbury is playing in China. Think about how you felt when you learned Allen Iverson was going to play basketball in Turkey. Personally, I was sad.
I'm not sad about Eckstein not currently having a job, simply because it prevents the media from shoving the typical "scrappy, plays the game right, and he hustles" storylines down my throat. Apparently, even when Eckstein isn't officially retired, we still get the same stories about him, so maybe there is no avoiding this crap.
Nor has the game retired him, like it has so many veterans who simply fade away.
Wow, this is uncomfortable. Yeah...it has. If no MLB teams want to pay him to play for them in a capacity Eckstein believes he deserves, he may still have the game running through his grit-based veins, but the game doesn't appear to want him at this time.
Eckstein, who played the 2009 and 2010 seasons with the San Diego Padres, got an offer to sign with a club four weeks ago and turned it down.
I can understand that decision though, look what club offered to sign Eckstein.
David Eckstein wants you to know Rancho San Diego Little League, David Eckstein won't just sign with any team. Quit offering him the position to compete at shortstop on the 11-12 team. Little Jimmy Morell will move to second base from shortstop if you want David Eckstein on your team because an ex-World Series MVP won't compete with anyone for a starting job.
He said he received more offers — including major league deals —last winter than he ever has a free agent but has spent the last few months working for his wife,
This is getting even more sad. When a player has to explain, that yes, he is receiving offers from Major League teams, and yes, he wants to continue to play baseball it tells me two things:
1. The player is getting offered a minor league deal.
2. Eckstein's ego believes he deserves more than a minor league deal. So assuming this is correct, I am supposed to feel sympathy and be able to relate to a baseball player who miscalculates his own current skill set? No thanks, I won't do that.
So I am sad that Eckstein, a guy who claims to only think about the team and just loves to play the game of baseball, has too much ego to accept a lesser role on a team.
and not diving around infields and driving up pitch counts.
And OPSing 0.647 last year, while getting on-base at a 0.321, which is the lowest percentage of his career.
"I made a decision not to play," said Eckstein, who was in Angel Stadium on Wednesday to visit his brother Rick, the Nationals' batting coach.
Are there any physical reasons? "No," Eckstein said.
Gritty. Hustling. Eckstein.
Asked whether he hoped to play again, Eckstein, who also visited Manager Mike Scioscia and several players in the Angels clubhouse, shrugged his shoulders.
"As soon as some team panics because of a lack of infield depth and chooses to give me a Major League deal to where my ego is satisfied, I will play again. Mainly it is just about what I believe myself to be worth, not what my actual worth may be. Have I ever mentioned I have read all the press about how awesome I am and I believe it all?"
"It totally has to be the right situation, but when you say that, it's like you're disrespecting the clubs that have talked to you," Eckstein said.
You certainly sound like a bit of a diva who doesn't want to compete for a job or take a minor league deal because you are "too good for that" or don't perceive that as your current value. Of course, this is David Eckstein, so he would NEVER be guilty of doing this because we've been told for years just how perfect and unselfish he truly is.
Much of David Eckstein's value goes well beyond statistics —
And here we go with this crap again...
I have always found it interesting many of the same people who defend David Eckstein against the ire of the grit-hating public are also people who love the intangibles of a player, but these people also don't enjoy going beyond basic statistics to evaluate a player. Maybe I'm stereotyping here, but that's the way I feel. It is the use of statistics when it goes to prove a point these people want to prove. Statistics show that Player X is better than Player Y when determining the Cy Young/MVP, which is why wins and RBI's aren't misleading numbers. This is while Player Z may only have 35 RBI's, but his value can't be measured in statistics because it isn't convenient for the point trying to be proven.
When it is convenient to see CC Sabathia has 21 wins and Felix Hernandez has 13 wins that's when the statistics speak for themselves, but once a player seems to exhibit some sort of scrappiness then the statistics no longer speak for what that player provides to a team and that player has intangibles.
So basically, if Felix Hernandez was a short (most likely) white pitcher who "got the most out of his ability" then everyone would have supported him to win the Cy Young last year. Unfortunately, only intelligent people supported and helped him win the Cy Young.
his grit and desire,
No other players care as much as David Eckstein cares. It's an intangible he has which can't be measured, but is measured to be more than anyone else currently playing baseball.
his knowledge of and instincts for the game,
"He does what it takes to win."
his willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of the team by advancing runners with ground-ball outs.
Listen here people! David Eckstein is not afraid to get a ground ball out. While Rickie Weeks is trying to get a base hit to selfishly get himself on-base, David Eckstein cares more about the team than himself and doesn't care if he gets on-base as long as the runners advance. Trying to get a base hit to advance the runners is selfish, getting out to advance the runners helps the team in a way trying to selfishly get on-base doesn't.
It appeared several teams focused on Eckstein's statistics, which are not overwhelming — he had a .280 average, .345 on-base percentage and 1,414 hits in 10 big league seasons —
What? Why would a team focus on a player's statistics when paying him to play baseball? Albert Pujols is a great baseball player, but the smart teams won't focus on this when he becomes a free agent and will focus on the delicious chocolate chip pancakes he makes in the clubhouse before games. THAT'S the real value to the team, breakfast creations, not his selfish insistence on getting on-base at the expense of the team. These are the intangibles that make Albert Pujols worth millions, not getting all over-focused on his statistics.
Given the choice between signing Rickie Weeks to play second base and signing David Eckstein, the stupid teams would choose Weeks based on the simple premise he is actually very good at his job and is the better baseball player. The smart teams don't focus on statistics and choose Eckstein because you can't measure his value with a tangible benefit, but you measure his value using only non-existent measurements called intangibles.
and not his overall value.
Did David Eckstein pay Mike DiGiovanna to write this column? No sportswriter worth a crap would actually write teams pay too much attention to a player's statistics and not the player's "overall value." Aren't statistics part of a player's overall value? How can any person with a straight face truly believe Eckstein has more grit and desire than another player? Eckstein seems to be trying really hard because he is so damn small and he seriously has the weakest throwing arm I've ever seen on a grown man.
If Eckstein had so much grit and desire why doesn't he grit it out and desire to play professional baseball in situation he doesn't feel is ideal? What kind of leader, who claims he loves the game of baseball so much it hasn't left him, avoids any situation he feels isn't good enough for him to play baseball? A real leader would accept a job that pays him to play baseball, because he loves the game so much, and then use his leadership abilities to help the team out. A player who was really willing to sacrifice himself for the betterment of the team would accept a situation that isn't "right" if it makes the team better. Eckstein doesn't seem to want to do any of these things.
"I think in this game you get to a point where you know what you can do, and you want to be in a situation where people believe in you," Rick Eckstein said.
Translation: Eckstein wants either (a) a Major League contract, not a minor league contract and/or (b) an opportunity to start for a MLB team. It isn't selfish to want this, but it is also hard to believe if Eckstein is truly holding out for this then he is as selfless and team-oriented as we are made to believe. If Eckstein's skill set was as great as we are led to believe and he only cares about the team as much as we are led to believe, then I would think any opportunity he received to play in the majors would be welcome.
"David has been a great attribute to baseball for 10 years. He brings a certain element to every team he's been a part of, and at some point, what he brings, people don't see it as a value. So, he's decided [he won't play]."
This scrappy, hustling, team-oriented-only guy is taking his ball and going home because teams don't see just how fucking great he is. Sounds pretty selfish and not selfless doesn't it?
Does Rick Eckstein, who seven months ago donated a kidney to another Eckstein brother, Kenny, think David will play again?
"If the right situation presents itself, absolutely," he said.
Rick sounds about as insufferable as I imagine David Eckstein truly may be.
"David knows who he is. It's that simple."
Here's a startling revelation. We know who David Eckstein is as well. He is a career .280/.345/.355 hitter with a career OPS+ of 83 and WAR of 21.2 for his career.
Eckstein, the clutchiest of postseason players, also has a .278/.345/.335 line in the postseason. If this performance could be measured by statistics, which I am constantly told it can't, I would say he is about as good in the postseason as he is in the regular season.
It seems the rest of the majors know who David Eckstein is as well, and based on this knowledge, it may explain why a major league contract or starting job isn't being handed to a declining 36 year old second baseman. I think the problem is that David Eckstein and those around him can't accept who Eckstein is. It certainly seems that way.
I hope this is the last David Eckstein "hustle, grit, scrappy, intangibles, the statistics don't matter" piece I ever read. I doubt it though.
I do realize my Twitter page says I am the proud co-owner of David Eckstein's Baseball-Reference page, and I don't plan to update it. I figure if Eckstein can continuously live off his 2006 World Series MVP award and "helping" the Angels win the 2002 World Series I can live off once co-owning his Baseball-Reference page. Let's see what's new in Scrappy McFuckstein's world.
David Eckstein is not playing baseball, but the scrappy 36-year-old infielder
It's like a disease or a reflex. Whenever a sportswriter says "David Eckstein," the word "scrappy" has to appear somewhere in the sentence. Actually, it is just lazy writing to fall back on a description like that since simply saying "....not playing baseball, but the 36-year-old infielder..." would suffice.
who helped the Angels win the 2002 World Series and won World Series most-valuable-player honors with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2006 has not officially retired.
It's always awkward when a player hasn't officially retired and he doesn't currently have a job with a team yet. At a certain point, you need to save face and just officially retire, because very few things are sadder than a player who can't get a job with a professional team but insists he hasn't retired. I would probably rather see a player get a job with another team and struggle than a player who insists he isn't retired, but can't seem to find a job. At some point, this refusal to submit to reality leads a player to Japan, Russia or another country to play professionally in another league.
What's sadder to think about in these two situations:
-Stephon Marbury retires when getting no interest from NBA teams and goes about his life.
-Stephon Marbury doesn't retire and is now playing for the Foshan Dralions in China.
Personally, I think combined with his bizarre offseason webcam antics last year, it is more sad Marbury is playing in China. Think about how you felt when you learned Allen Iverson was going to play basketball in Turkey. Personally, I was sad.
I'm not sad about Eckstein not currently having a job, simply because it prevents the media from shoving the typical "scrappy, plays the game right, and he hustles" storylines down my throat. Apparently, even when Eckstein isn't officially retired, we still get the same stories about him, so maybe there is no avoiding this crap.
Nor has the game retired him, like it has so many veterans who simply fade away.
Wow, this is uncomfortable. Yeah...it has. If no MLB teams want to pay him to play for them in a capacity Eckstein believes he deserves, he may still have the game running through his grit-based veins, but the game doesn't appear to want him at this time.
Eckstein, who played the 2009 and 2010 seasons with the San Diego Padres, got an offer to sign with a club four weeks ago and turned it down.
I can understand that decision though, look what club offered to sign Eckstein.
David Eckstein wants you to know Rancho San Diego Little League, David Eckstein won't just sign with any team. Quit offering him the position to compete at shortstop on the 11-12 team. Little Jimmy Morell will move to second base from shortstop if you want David Eckstein on your team because an ex-World Series MVP won't compete with anyone for a starting job.
He said he received more offers — including major league deals —last winter than he ever has a free agent but has spent the last few months working for his wife,
This is getting even more sad. When a player has to explain, that yes, he is receiving offers from Major League teams, and yes, he wants to continue to play baseball it tells me two things:
1. The player is getting offered a minor league deal.
2. Eckstein's ego believes he deserves more than a minor league deal. So assuming this is correct, I am supposed to feel sympathy and be able to relate to a baseball player who miscalculates his own current skill set? No thanks, I won't do that.
So I am sad that Eckstein, a guy who claims to only think about the team and just loves to play the game of baseball, has too much ego to accept a lesser role on a team.
and not diving around infields and driving up pitch counts.
And OPSing 0.647 last year, while getting on-base at a 0.321, which is the lowest percentage of his career.
"I made a decision not to play," said Eckstein, who was in Angel Stadium on Wednesday to visit his brother Rick, the Nationals' batting coach.
Are there any physical reasons? "No," Eckstein said.
Gritty. Hustling. Eckstein.
Asked whether he hoped to play again, Eckstein, who also visited Manager Mike Scioscia and several players in the Angels clubhouse, shrugged his shoulders.
"As soon as some team panics because of a lack of infield depth and chooses to give me a Major League deal to where my ego is satisfied, I will play again. Mainly it is just about what I believe myself to be worth, not what my actual worth may be. Have I ever mentioned I have read all the press about how awesome I am and I believe it all?"
"It totally has to be the right situation, but when you say that, it's like you're disrespecting the clubs that have talked to you," Eckstein said.
You certainly sound like a bit of a diva who doesn't want to compete for a job or take a minor league deal because you are "too good for that" or don't perceive that as your current value. Of course, this is David Eckstein, so he would NEVER be guilty of doing this because we've been told for years just how perfect and unselfish he truly is.
Much of David Eckstein's value goes well beyond statistics —
And here we go with this crap again...
I have always found it interesting many of the same people who defend David Eckstein against the ire of the grit-hating public are also people who love the intangibles of a player, but these people also don't enjoy going beyond basic statistics to evaluate a player. Maybe I'm stereotyping here, but that's the way I feel. It is the use of statistics when it goes to prove a point these people want to prove. Statistics show that Player X is better than Player Y when determining the Cy Young/MVP, which is why wins and RBI's aren't misleading numbers. This is while Player Z may only have 35 RBI's, but his value can't be measured in statistics because it isn't convenient for the point trying to be proven.
When it is convenient to see CC Sabathia has 21 wins and Felix Hernandez has 13 wins that's when the statistics speak for themselves, but once a player seems to exhibit some sort of scrappiness then the statistics no longer speak for what that player provides to a team and that player has intangibles.
So basically, if Felix Hernandez was a short (most likely) white pitcher who "got the most out of his ability" then everyone would have supported him to win the Cy Young last year. Unfortunately, only intelligent people supported and helped him win the Cy Young.
his grit and desire,
No other players care as much as David Eckstein cares. It's an intangible he has which can't be measured, but is measured to be more than anyone else currently playing baseball.
his knowledge of and instincts for the game,
"He does what it takes to win."
his willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of the team by advancing runners with ground-ball outs.
Listen here people! David Eckstein is not afraid to get a ground ball out. While Rickie Weeks is trying to get a base hit to selfishly get himself on-base, David Eckstein cares more about the team than himself and doesn't care if he gets on-base as long as the runners advance. Trying to get a base hit to advance the runners is selfish, getting out to advance the runners helps the team in a way trying to selfishly get on-base doesn't.
It appeared several teams focused on Eckstein's statistics, which are not overwhelming — he had a .280 average, .345 on-base percentage and 1,414 hits in 10 big league seasons —
What? Why would a team focus on a player's statistics when paying him to play baseball? Albert Pujols is a great baseball player, but the smart teams won't focus on this when he becomes a free agent and will focus on the delicious chocolate chip pancakes he makes in the clubhouse before games. THAT'S the real value to the team, breakfast creations, not his selfish insistence on getting on-base at the expense of the team. These are the intangibles that make Albert Pujols worth millions, not getting all over-focused on his statistics.
Given the choice between signing Rickie Weeks to play second base and signing David Eckstein, the stupid teams would choose Weeks based on the simple premise he is actually very good at his job and is the better baseball player. The smart teams don't focus on statistics and choose Eckstein because you can't measure his value with a tangible benefit, but you measure his value using only non-existent measurements called intangibles.
and not his overall value.
Did David Eckstein pay Mike DiGiovanna to write this column? No sportswriter worth a crap would actually write teams pay too much attention to a player's statistics and not the player's "overall value." Aren't statistics part of a player's overall value? How can any person with a straight face truly believe Eckstein has more grit and desire than another player? Eckstein seems to be trying really hard because he is so damn small and he seriously has the weakest throwing arm I've ever seen on a grown man.
If Eckstein had so much grit and desire why doesn't he grit it out and desire to play professional baseball in situation he doesn't feel is ideal? What kind of leader, who claims he loves the game of baseball so much it hasn't left him, avoids any situation he feels isn't good enough for him to play baseball? A real leader would accept a job that pays him to play baseball, because he loves the game so much, and then use his leadership abilities to help the team out. A player who was really willing to sacrifice himself for the betterment of the team would accept a situation that isn't "right" if it makes the team better. Eckstein doesn't seem to want to do any of these things.
"I think in this game you get to a point where you know what you can do, and you want to be in a situation where people believe in you," Rick Eckstein said.
Translation: Eckstein wants either (a) a Major League contract, not a minor league contract and/or (b) an opportunity to start for a MLB team. It isn't selfish to want this, but it is also hard to believe if Eckstein is truly holding out for this then he is as selfless and team-oriented as we are made to believe. If Eckstein's skill set was as great as we are led to believe and he only cares about the team as much as we are led to believe, then I would think any opportunity he received to play in the majors would be welcome.
"David has been a great attribute to baseball for 10 years. He brings a certain element to every team he's been a part of, and at some point, what he brings, people don't see it as a value. So, he's decided [he won't play]."
This scrappy, hustling, team-oriented-only guy is taking his ball and going home because teams don't see just how fucking great he is. Sounds pretty selfish and not selfless doesn't it?
Does Rick Eckstein, who seven months ago donated a kidney to another Eckstein brother, Kenny, think David will play again?
"If the right situation presents itself, absolutely," he said.
Rick sounds about as insufferable as I imagine David Eckstein truly may be.
"David knows who he is. It's that simple."
Here's a startling revelation. We know who David Eckstein is as well. He is a career .280/.345/.355 hitter with a career OPS+ of 83 and WAR of 21.2 for his career.
Eckstein, the clutchiest of postseason players, also has a .278/.345/.335 line in the postseason. If this performance could be measured by statistics, which I am constantly told it can't, I would say he is about as good in the postseason as he is in the regular season.
It seems the rest of the majors know who David Eckstein is as well, and based on this knowledge, it may explain why a major league contract or starting job isn't being handed to a declining 36 year old second baseman. I think the problem is that David Eckstein and those around him can't accept who Eckstein is. It certainly seems that way.
I hope this is the last David Eckstein "hustle, grit, scrappy, intangibles, the statistics don't matter" piece I ever read. I doubt it though.
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