Previously when covering a Lowell Cohn column on this site, he was angry over Colin Kaepernick's contractual demands. I wouldn't say Lowell is a Kaepernick-hater, but he's not a fan of the guy at all. Lowell seems pretty old-school, so he's taking a few shots at Billy Beane through the years as well. Lowell is not happy with the Billy Butler signing. On his personal blog, Lowell provides the same article, but uses the sarcastic title "A's Win World Series Early" as if Billy Beane had come out and stated that, yes, the A's will now win the World Series. The title is less sarcastic in his article on the "Press Democrat" site. Either way, Lowell is unimpressed with the Billy Butler signing. Obviously Billy Beane would have been better off simply not trying to improve the A's team. I'm sure that would have made Lowell much happier.
The Oakland A’s are a great offseason team. One of the best.
Considering the A's are a team that generally stays out of the free agent market and don't make a splash in the offseason with big trades or throwing money around, I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. If anything, the A's are a great regular season team. That I can see.
No club wins a pennant or a world championship in the offseason like the A’s.
If Lowell is referring to teams that do great things in the offseason and then underperform during the regular season, he's factually incorrect. That's not what the A's do. If Lowell is referring to the A's making a splash with big trades and big signings in the offseason that don't pay off, he's still factually incorrect. That's not what the A's do either. Something about Billy Beane makes baseball writers crazy.
The A’s, under the stewardship of Billy Beane, just pulled off another
major offseason coup. They signed former Royals DH Billy Butler to a
three-year contract.
Considering Butler is 28 years old and was signed for three years at $30 million and his career line is .295/.359/.449, and last year was the worst year of his career, I would say it isn't a bad signing. Lowell will use terms like "coup" to try and overstate the case in order to disprove something no one else believes. It's his only chance to be sarcastic and misstate the opinion of Butler's signing as a part of his anti-Billy Beane agenda.
People are falling all over themselves praising Beane because he did it
again, won the American League title before November came to a close.
This is so special.
Really, Lowell? People are "falling all over themselves praising Beane"? Look at the fawning on this SB Nation site. Then if you do a search for "Billy Butler signed by A's" and the praise for Beane is vast that it is almost non-existent. Then if you do a search for "Billy Butler A's win American League title" and you find...umm...well, no one saying the A's have won the American League title. In fact, most of those articles point out that Butler is just one piece of the puzzle if the A's want to compete again in the American League.
The A’s also are a great pre-September baseball club. Take last season.
They were 28 games over .500 in early August. Their phenomenal record
was virtually unheard of and they were outscoring opponents by an
obscene margin and many experts were calling them a great team and
everyone was praising their platoon system of batting. Believe me, the
A’s don’t get enough credit for what they do before September year in
and year out.
Writes Lowell Cohn with only the slightest hint of condescension. He won't be giving the A's credit for much longer, that's for sure. Billy Beane has the reputation for using methods to build the A's that Lowell finds scary and new (even though they are old by now, of course) and Beane's method of building the A's team can't exist without every failure of the A's during Beane's tenure also being pointed out.
I would like to add something else. This signing of Butler — more on his
stats in a moment — is Beane’s best offseason signing since he nabbed
closer Jim Johnson before last season.
There we go. There's a mention of an A's player who didn't work out. Of course, it wouldn't be Lowell Cohn writing this if he wasn't somewhat factually incorrect. Johnson wasn't signed by the A's, they traded for him. The A's gave him $10 million in arbitration for one season and then later released him during the season. It's not exactly a historically terrible blunder that will drag the franchise down for years to come.
But Lowell's point is that just last season Billy Beane paid a player $10 million and that player ended up being a disappointment. So Billy Beane isn't perfect. YOU GOT HIM NOW, LOWELL! Now go for the kill by pointing out that Beane has (gasp) probably signed other players who didn't make the All-Star team. Just be sure to ignore all the free agent signings and trades that Beane has made which worked out.
Johnson had 50 saves for Baltimore the year before Beane got him. And
Johnson lasted almost to August before the A’s released him.
Fire Billy Beane! He made a mistake!
Maybe it’s unfair to compare the Butler and Johnson signings because,
obviously, Johnson came to the A’s with more recent success than Butler.
If I’m being unfair to Butler, forgive me.
You are not forgiven and you are being unfair. It's unfair to compare Butler to Johnson because one was a 30 year old relief pitcher and the other is a 28 year old DH/1B. It's unfair to compare Butler to Johnson because Billy Butler has had success every year in the majors except for 2014. It's clearly an outlier year on his resume.
Here’s the big point. A’s fans should no longer mourn the loss of Yoenis
Cespedes because now they have Butler, a man who slugged, slammed,
smashed nine home runs last season in 151 games.
I'm not sure if a person can smell sarcasm, but I am definitely getting a strong whiff of sarcasm from Lowell Cohn right now. Butler hit 21, 15, 19, 29, and 15 home runs the five full years before 2014 though. Of course, why would Lowell pay attention to Butler's entire career when he can choose one year of that career to represent his talent in an unfair way?
It’s an astonishing accomplishment. I mean, sure, Beane ruined the A’s
chances last season when he traded Cespedes for Jon Lester and Jonny
Gomes,
Sure, this is an opinion and not a fact.
but now he’s back on track with Butler who, in addition to his nine big
dingers last season had 15 the year before. It’s hard to find sluggers
like that.
Comparing Butler and Cespedes by one statistic isn't exactly a fair comparison (which is obviously Lowell's intent). I'll dive deeper since Lowell is too lazy to do this.
Butler has a career line of .295/.359/.449. Cespedes has a career line of .263/.316/.464. You know what? Let's talk easy numbers that Lowell understands. Strikeouts are bad, right? Butler has struck out once every 6.2 at-bats in his career. Cespedes has struck out once every 4.4 at-bats in his career. Walks are good, right? Butler has walked once every 10.1 at-bats in his career. Cespedes has walked once every 14.0 at-bats in his career.
Billy Butler averages 38 doubles over his career in a 162 game season and Cespedes averages 32 doubles over his career in a 162 game season. Cespedes has more raw power and Butler is more of a gap hitter who gets on-base. There should be no real comparison between the two, especially since they don't even play the same position. Yet, in an effort to rub Beane's nose in the dirt, Lowell insists on a comparison. Butler isn't a slugger.
One other thing, Butler is making $6.667 million next year and turns 29 in April. Cespedes is making $10.5 million next year and turns 30 in October when he will be a free agent.
In a conference call, Beane explained why he made this epic Butler deal.
“He’s a right-handed, middle-of-the-lineup guy, which is really hard to
come by these days. His age (28), certainly his body of work over the
last few years. He stayed very healthy his whole career. Bats are rare,
not the easiest thing to come by these days.”
"Epic"? This isn't an epic deal. If Lowell wants to see an epic deal maybe he can pay attention to what Yoenis Cespedes will get on the open market next summer or look at the $36 million over four years that Beane gave to Cespedes when he had zero track record of success in the majors.
Beane acknowledged Butler’s nine big flies last season was a bit
underwhelming. Beane admitted he didn’t know why Butler’s power numbers
fell off. He referenced Butler’s 2012 season when he hit 29 home runs
with 107 RBIs.
In fairness, 2012 wasn’t that long ago.
But why be fair when there is an agenda to be pushed? Lowell doesn't really like Billy Beane and wants to discredit any successes he has while also pointing out all of Beane's failures, as if the A's haven't been one of the most successful regular season MLB teams over the last decade with one of the lowest payrolls in the majors.
Beane kept talking about Butler’s “body of work” — like Butler was a
novelist or composer — to deflect attention from recent history.
Sort of like how you aren't mentioning Cespedes home run and walk rate have decreased every year he's been in the majors and he's essentially becoming a powerful hitter who can't get on-base? How some of his comparables are Craig Monroe, Bubba Trammell and Larry Sheets? You don't mention how some of Butler's comparables are Harold Baines, Will Clark, John Olerud, Alvin Davis, and Nick Markakis?
Beane admitted Butler’s two so-so years in a row drove down his value so
the impoverished A’s could afford him. Now, we understand the logic of
this move. It was good Butler had only 66 RBIs last season and pretty
much sucked. That made him available to Oakland.
RBI's are the product of having people on-base that can be driven in. Butler isn't a big RBI guy and isn't a big home run guy. Don't criticize him for what he isn't going to be, while ignoring what he can be.
To put middle-of-the-lineup Butler’s stats in context, compare him to
Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford, that known power hitter.
I get continuously frustrated with these baseball sportswriters who have no fucking clue how to use numbers and notice outliers in a set of data. How terrible were the math teachers at public schools in the 1960's and 1970's? Prior to last year, Crawford had never hit more than 9 home runs in a season. Lowell is taking the best power year of his Crawford's career and the worst power year of Butler's career and trying to make them the same type of hitter. It doesn't work that way.
True, Crawford mostly batted eighth, just before the pitcher, which means he’s the worst hitter among the regulars.
Crawford actually batted seventh mostly. He had 212 plate appearances as the 8th hitter and 255 plate appearances as the 7th hitter. But again, what are facts when Lowell has a point he wants to prove? I bet he misses the days when everybody believed what he wrote and refused to do research to find out if Lowell was too lazy to do research in backing up his claims. Those were the good ol' days.
But a comparison with Butler seems warranted. Last season, Crawford hit
10 home runs, one more than Butler. Crawford’s slugging percentage was
.389. Butler’s was .379.
Crawford's career slugging percentage is 0.359 and Butler's is 0.449. I know, I know, I am daring to use statistics from years prior to the 2014 while outrageously acting like neither Brandon Crawford and Billy Butler were rookies last year. How dare I act like two players who have played multiple years in the majors aren't rookies in order to allow Lowell to push his agenda!
Maybe Butler can help the A’s improve from September on. They are not so
good at “from September on.” In 2012 and 2013, they got run out of the
playoffs in the Division Series.
Lowell thinks that Billy Beane should figure out how to build a team that wins in October. Since Lowell is so smart, maybe he can figure out how to build a team that will win every year in October and then share it with the rest of the MLB teams. I'm sure they would love to know how to do this.
Last season, despite having a terrific record for a long time, they
finished 10 games behind the Angels and got dismissed — yes, dismissed —
in the wild-card game by Kansas City.
They weren't exactly "dismissed" by the Royals. The Royals threw a late comeback on the A's to win the stupid one-game Wild Card playoff. In fact, if Lowell wants to talk about what Billy Butler has done most recently, perhaps he would mention Butler was 2-for-4 with two RBI in the American League Wild Card game. To do that would be giving Butler and Beane credit, so no matter if Butler helped the Royals win the one-game playoff against the A's, Lowell won't mention this. He sure as hell will mention the Royals beat the A's in that game, but won't reveal how. Narratives and agendas. That's all that matters.
It is distressing when a team wins the World Series in the offseason but can’t win the wild-card game on Sept. 30.
The A's have never won the offseason. I don't know where Lowell gets this from.
Some of the blame goes to Beane. He loused up the team by trading
Cespedes. Hardly anyone knew it at the time. I sure didn’t. Beane should
have known. It’s his job to know.
Yes, it's Billy Beane's job to predict the future and know that a risky trade he made would not pay off. I don't know if he loused up the team by trading Cespedes. He wanted a proven ace to carry the A's through the World Series. As seen by Madison Bumgarner's performance in the postseason, Beane clearly had the right idea about finding an ace. Again, Lowell won't mention Beane's idea to find an ace who would put the team on his back worked out for the Giants.
And there’s something else. Beane is more intrusive than other GMs. What
does intrusive mean in this case? I believe Beane involves himself in
the day-by-day managing of the club. He doesn’t phone manager Bob Melvin
once the game starts and tell him what to do. Nothing like that. But he
gets involved with the lineup. And I imagine he’s the one who insists
on strict platooning — which sometimes takes a hot batter out of the
order.
I don't know if this is true or not, but neither does Lowell. He has no idea if Beane is more intrusive than other GMs. He's just making a guess that (shockingly!) goes to prove the point he wants to prove. Look at the language Lowell uses here to make it seem like he knows something about Beane that he doesn't in fact know. He's guessing.
Beane is more intrusive than other GMs.
That is a statement of fact. Beane IS more intrusive than other GMs.
I believe Beane involves himself in the day-by-day managing of the club.
This statement shows that Lowell is guessing and passing it off as fact. "I believe Beane involves himself..." He's guessing, he doesn't know like he indicated in the previous sentence.
But he gets involved with the lineup.
Another statement of fact. Beane gets involved with the lineup, which other GMs tend to do as well. Lowell appears to know this is a fact and not an opinion. But wait...
And I imagine he’s the one who insists on strict platooning —
"And I imagine..." Lowell gives himself away that he's making statements of fact and then admitting that he doesn't know those statements are true. It's what he "believes" or "imagines," which is so clearly far from the facts that he presents them to be that no credible sportswriter could pretend he is doing anything here other than guessing.
But don't worry, here comes the kicker. All of the speculation, it leads to Billy Beane pulling hot hitters from the lineup and directly affecting whether the A's win games. Not only is Beane a terrible GM who can't win in the postseason, he is personally responsible for the lineup decisions that causes the A's to lose games. Lowell is taking his guesses and coming to the conclusion he desperately wants to reach.
which sometimes takes a hot batter out of the order.
You hear that? Billy Beane sometimes takes a hot batter out of the order because Lowell "imagines" that Beane is the one who insists on strict platooning and "believes" that Beane involves himself with the day-to-day managing of the club. Can you believe what Billy Beane does? Based on the potentially imaginary tale that Lowell has just spun, he is removing batters from the order, which causes the A's to lose games. WHEN WILL THIS MADNESS BE STOPPED?
And of course, Beane only gets intrusive and insists on strict platooning in the postseason, because otherwise Lowell would have to admit IF Beane is intrusive on Bob Melvin's decisions then they tend to work out a lot. But Lowell wants it both ways. He wants to blame Beane for being intrusive, blame him for the team's failures, while also shutting Beane out for getting any credit for the A's success in the regular season. What agenda? Lowell ain't seen no agenda.
This meddling is noticeable. I notice it. You notice it. The players
notice it. There’s the rub. Beane runs the risk players will lose
respect for Melvin, a perfectly respectable man and a fine manager.
Beane should think about this.
But he won't think about this because HE'S A MONSTER! Beane insists on taking the A's to the postseason and running the team his way. What GM other than Beane would have such a huge ego?
But he doesn’t have to think about it right now. The baseball season is
months away and life is wonderful and the A’s just won the World Series.
Nobody said that. You are setting the expectation so you can later knock Billy Beane down when/if that expectation isn't met.
Lowell's agenda in regard to Billy Beane is so transparent it's almost laughable. He sets a high expectation that no one else has set for the A's, just so he can brag when Beane doesn't meet this expectation. Then Lowell creates a narrative based on his own assumptions in order to make Beane look like a controlling overlord. What a joke.
Showing posts with label oakland a's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label oakland a's. Show all posts
Friday, December 26, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
7 comments Bleacher Report Thinks Billy Beane Should Be On the Hot Seat, Even Though I'm Not Entirely Sure What the Hell That's Supposed to Mean
I'm not entirely what it means for a GM or head coach to be on the hot seat. Well, I know what it means, but when someone writes or says, "He should be on the hot seat" is there like an official checkmark on a board in a backroom somewhere that needs to be checked off for that GM or manager to be on the hot seat? So when a writer says "It's finally time for Billy Beane to be on the hot seat," what the hell does he/she/it expect to happen? Does A's management come out and indeed confirm that Billy Beane is on the hot seat? Anyway, this author thinks that Billy Beane should finally be on the hot seat. He doesn't get why Beane has been considered untouchable. After all, derp, there are no World Series rings on Beane's fingers. Yeah, the A's could certainly do better in the playoffs but so could Bobby Cox's Braves teams, yet he and John Schuerholz are considered legends inside baseball circles. It's just a matter of once officially placed on the hot seat, are the A's going to really find someone who can do better than Beane? Maybe, maybe not.
The fact the author thinks Billy Beane deserves more criticism is rich. Anytime the A's fail to win a playoff series there are snarky comments on Twitter and around the Interwebs about "Moneyball" and Billy Beane's failures to win a title. Criticism is fair, but Beane already gets criticized if a person is willing to pay attention.
"Every form of strength is also a form of weakness..."
- Michael Lewis, Moneyball, quoting Bill James
Because no discussion of Billy Beane would be complete without an immediate mention of "Moneyball." Also, nice way to start the column off with a quote that is never fully explained in the body of the column. At no point is this quote referred to again or elaborated upon.
In baseball, there is no such thing as an untouchable general manager.
In baseball, anyone can get fired. That's your knowledge for the day. Bleacher Report, out!
Just like the players and coaches, a GM must stand behind his results—and pay the price when the results aren't there.
For years, Billy Beane of the Oakland A's has challenged that notion.
By having success, he has challenged the notion that if he didn't get results then he would have to stand behind not having the results he does get? 11 winning seasons in 17 years as a GM. That's not shabby.
But as his "Moneyball" legend grew and the successful seasons piled up, Beane became, well, something close to untouchable.
I would normally ask for a citation, but this is one of those Bleacher Report articles that is written using assumptions that may or may not have a factual backing. Has Beane been untouchable or has he not gotten fired because he's gotten results? Is Bill Belichick untouchable or has this question never had to be answered because he has always met the expectations for the Patriots with results that please Robert Kraft? Saying Billy Beane has become close to untouchable can't be proven. He could have been on the hot seat if the A's didn't make the playoffs three years ago. The author doesn't know, that's my point.
Nearly two decades later, he owns a sterling resume: 11 winning seasons and eight playoff appearances, all while working with a perennially undersized payroll.
The answer is in the question. Beane owns a sterling resume, yet the author wonders if he has become untouchable. He's gotten results, so that explains why he hasn't been on the hot seat in Oakland...you know, even though I'm still not sure how to know if Beane was ever on the hot seat or how to officially put him there.
In 2003, Michael Lewis wrote the book on Beane's innovative methods, spelling out how Beane and his team identified undervalued players through advanced statistical analysis and signed them on the cheap. Eight years later, Moneyball became an Oscar-nominated flick starring Brad Pitt.
Has Brad Pitt become, well, something close to untouchable? Does the fact his movies generally tend to make money mean that he should keep getting work in Hollywood? WHY IS BRAD PITT SO UNTOUCHABLE?
There are many measures of success; getting Brad Pitt to play you in a movie about how smart you are is pretty high on the list.
Also high on the list? Having a run of 11 winning seasons and 8 playoff appearances as the GM of a small market team. Yeah, I would include that.
Oakland has never advanced past the ALCS on Beane's watch, and it has been dropped in the division series six times.
This is a definite blemish. There's no doubt about that. There is also no doubt that the A's are probably not in a position to fire their GM for not advancing the team to the World Series. No offense to the A's, but if you look at other teams in the same situation as the A's in terms of payroll, there aren't a lot of World Series recent victories or appearances in there.
So maybe Beane is guilty of not helping the A's advance as far as his reputation states he should help the A's advance, but even not grading on a curve (in terms of how the A's are small market) the A's have been a pretty successful franchise over the last 17 years in terms of games they have won.
It's obviously impossible to know, but could another GM have done better for the A's during that 17 year time span? Based on the record of other teams with payrolls similar to the A's, I think there is an argument to be made that another GM could not have had the same type of sustained success Beane had.
This year, the A's didn't even make it that far, losing in the wild-card playoff to the upstart Kansas City Royals.
It was a one game playoff, where ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!
This was the year Beane declared, unequivocally, that it was time to "go for it," per Richard Justice of MLB.com. "It" was the ultimate prize, the brass ring that has eluded Beane: a Commissioner's Trophy.
The A's went for it and they didn't win the World Series. Trading for Jon Lester was a risk, but not something that Beane should lose his job over. It was a risk, not a terrible trade.
To hook Lester, Beane dangled Cuban slugger Yoenis Cespedes, a key cog in an Oakland offense that led MLB in scoring at the time.
Beane felt like it was important to have great starting pitching in the playoffs more than it was important to have Cespedes in the lineup. There is something to be said for having great starting pitching. Unfortunately, the A's didn't win their division and they ended up in the ridiculous one game Wild Card playoff, so their starting pitching depth didn't matter in that one game.
And Beane seemingly didn't need Lester;
A team doesn't need more starting pitching until that team needs more starting pitching. It's funny how a team with a lot of starting pitching all of a sudden wouldn't mind having another ace in the playoffs. The Dodgers started Clayton Kershaw on three days' rest in the NLDS. Think they wouldn't mind having another starter they don't "need"?
he already had a stacked rotation, augmented by another 2014 acquisition, Jeff Samardzija, who came over from the Chicago Cubs for a bushel of top prospects.
So obviously Billy Beane should be fired for putting together too much of a great rotation. How dare he put together a great rotation for the purposes of winning the AL West! Unforgivable! If the A's had not traded Cespedes then they would have won the World Series this year. Obviously. Cespedes would have made a 10-11 game difference in the standings.
Clearly, Beane was betting the farm (quite literally)
No, not literally. If it were literally then Beane would be gambling away an actual farm. He's not literally gambling and there is no farm where livestock or food is sold in the transaction for Lester. So no, this is not literal, but still metaphorical. Lester was traded for an MLB player and a draft pick. Even metaphorically, he wasn't traded for "the farm" because no players from the A's farm system were traded. Samardzija was traded for prospects, but that trade was for the future as well as the present since he is not a free agent until 2016. The A's can trade him and get prospects for him or keep him and hope he contributes to another playoff run. So no, literally there was no gambling away the farm.
on the "you can never have too much pitching" axiom.
We are halfway through this column and it's still not clear why Billy Beane should be fired or on the hot seat other than "He didn't win the World Series this year" and "He tried to acquire too much pitching and it didn't work out."
And if the A's are going to put Beane on the not-real "hot seat" for not winning the World Series then they just may as well fire him. Putting him on the hot seat for not winning the World Series seems unrealistic to me given the circumstances in Oakland.
Then, Oakland started losing.
This is a lie. Oakland was losing before the Jon Lester trade and Beane made the trade in order to stop the losing and shake up a team he was hoping wasn't stagnating. He saw some of the A's hitters overperforming and thought he may need to improve the pitching staff to compensate. He probably thought it was easier to find impact pitching than an impact hitter. So "Then, Oakland started losing" is a statement that is a lie.
To be fair, the losing started before the Lester deal.
No, not to be fair, but to be honest. You are being dishonest by stating the A's started losing after they acquired Lester. It's called "lying." To indicate the A's started losing after the Lester deal is a lie, so there's no "being fair," there is "being honest."
After going 59-36 in the first half, the A's limped to a 29-38 finish.
The A's hitters regressed to scoring 3.9 runs per game in the second half from the 4.9 runs per game they were scoring in the first half. The pitching staff gave up 3.3 runs per game in the first half and 3.7 runs per game in the second half. So both pitching and hitting regressed for the A's. For the sake of argument, Cespedes hit .269/.296/.423 with 5 home runs and 33 RBI as a Red Sox player. He had an OPS+ of 100 and WAR of 1.3 with the Red Sox as well. So he would have helped the A's, but I'm not sure it would have been enough to make up 10-11 games in the standings.
Still, the Athletics headed to Kansas City with Lester, their ace in the hole, set to pitch. Here was the moment for Beane's all-in strategy to pay off, for all the second-half slumping and subsequent second-guessing to go up in a puff of playoff magic.
And it didn't work. Lester pitched 7.1 innings and gave up 6 runs. Interestingly, the A's did score 8 runs and the bullpen blew the lead the A's had. So I'm not sure where the criticism of Beane by the author should come into play. The author says the A's had enough pitching already, so they shouldn't have traded offense for Lester. Yet, the A's scored enough runs to win the Wild Card game, but it was the A's pitching and bullpen that lost the game for them...twice.
I won't excuse that Lester didn't pitch well, but the author seems to believe Beane should be on the hot seat for making a move for pitching that the A's didn't need to make, while giving up offense. Yet, the A's scored enough runs in the Wild Card game, it's just the bullpen that blew it for the A's in the end. Maybe Beane just should have traded for more bullpen help rather than starting pitching.
Or not. Lester failed to deliver on his big-game pedigree, surrendering six earned runs, and the A's lost a 12-inning heartbreaker, 9-8.
Yes and no. Lester did fail to deliver, but the A's were up 7-6 when he left the game and the got the lead in the 12th inning again before the bullpen blew the game...again. So chalking the A's loss up to Lester like he was the reason the A's lost the game isn't completely true. Lester didn't pitch well, but the A's also lost the game due to the bullpen giving up the lead twice.
Now, as the dust settles and Oakland watches the rest of the 2014 postseason from home, it's time to ask: Is Billy Beane finally due for a spin in the hot seat?
Yes, it's FINALLY time to ask. Thank God someone has the guts to ask the hard questions. Should Beane be on the hot seat, even though I'm not entirely sure what this means or how a GM is officially placed on the hot seat? SHOULD HE?
This isn't a question of whether he'll be fired. He won't be.
So what's the point of him being on the hot seat then? If he's not going to be fired, what the hell kind of use is calling a press conference and saying, "Billy Beane is on the hot seat"?
It's also not the first time Beane misfired on a midseason move.
I don't know if I would consider the Lester trade a misfire. Also, if the author is suggesting that Billy Beane should be on the hot seat for making a bad trade then there wouldn't be an employed GM working in any sport today. Every GM, especially one like Billy Beane that has been in the position for 17 years, is going to make a bad trade. It comes with the territory.
In 2008, he dealt closer Huston Street and a young outfielder named Carlos Gonzalez in a package that netted Matt Holliday from the Colorado Rockies. Holliday wound up playing a mediocre half-season in Oakland before the A's traded him to St. Louis.
This was not a very good trade for Beane. Yet, it happened six years ago and he has continued to put together A's teams that make the playoffs. Again, if every GM had one bad trade counted against them there would be no GM's that lasted beyond a couple of seasons in sports.
But after years of being treated mostly as an unassailable genius, does Mr. Moneyball deserve more scrutiny going forward?
He gets scrutiny every single season after the A's don't make the playoffs or are eliminated from the playoffs. Sportswriters take great joy in watching Beane fail. Given the situation, I think he gets scrutiny and I think the expectations for the A's team from management are being met.
The answer to that question relies on another question: Was Beane primarily responsible for Oakland's second-half collapse?
Probably not. If so, he should be credited with the A's great first half of the season as well.
Newsweek's John Walters thinks so:
If you click the link, then you will see the typical Beane bashing column where the author makes repeated references to "Moneyball" and admits he doesn't know what WAR is. It also includes this head-shaking paragraph:
It almost feels as if Beane is that investor who would rather die a poor man while constantly upgrading his stock portfolio than cash out at some point and enjoy the riches he had devoted so much energy to accruing. As if the never-ending game of team-building in a cost-effective way is more important than the actual game itself. It’s as if he has forgotten what the ultimate goal of this entire endeavor is: to win a World Series.
What exactly "cashing out at some point and enjoying the riches he had devoted so much energy to accruing" would mean, other than making zero moves at the trade deadline, is a mystery to me. Basically this idiotic author suggests that it was fallacy for Beane to try and improve his team as he began to see issues appearing. This "Newsweek" article works under the assumption the A's issues wouldn't have appeared without the trade for Lester.
One other note about that column. The author of the "Newsweek" column includes the following quote,
What's virtually certain is that the A's won't have Lester next year. The 30-year-old left-hander is set to hit the open market, and his price tag will almost surely be too rich for Oakland's small-market blood.
He was a rental. A gamble. And a gamble that ultimately didn't pay off.
The fact the author thinks Billy Beane deserves more criticism is rich. Anytime the A's fail to win a playoff series there are snarky comments on Twitter and around the Interwebs about "Moneyball" and Billy Beane's failures to win a title. Criticism is fair, but Beane already gets criticized if a person is willing to pay attention.
"Every form of strength is also a form of weakness..."
- Michael Lewis, Moneyball, quoting Bill James
Because no discussion of Billy Beane would be complete without an immediate mention of "Moneyball." Also, nice way to start the column off with a quote that is never fully explained in the body of the column. At no point is this quote referred to again or elaborated upon.
In baseball, there is no such thing as an untouchable general manager.
In baseball, anyone can get fired. That's your knowledge for the day. Bleacher Report, out!
Just like the players and coaches, a GM must stand behind his results—and pay the price when the results aren't there.
For years, Billy Beane of the Oakland A's has challenged that notion.
By having success, he has challenged the notion that if he didn't get results then he would have to stand behind not having the results he does get? 11 winning seasons in 17 years as a GM. That's not shabby.
But as his "Moneyball" legend grew and the successful seasons piled up, Beane became, well, something close to untouchable.
I would normally ask for a citation, but this is one of those Bleacher Report articles that is written using assumptions that may or may not have a factual backing. Has Beane been untouchable or has he not gotten fired because he's gotten results? Is Bill Belichick untouchable or has this question never had to be answered because he has always met the expectations for the Patriots with results that please Robert Kraft? Saying Billy Beane has become close to untouchable can't be proven. He could have been on the hot seat if the A's didn't make the playoffs three years ago. The author doesn't know, that's my point.
Nearly two decades later, he owns a sterling resume: 11 winning seasons and eight playoff appearances, all while working with a perennially undersized payroll.
The answer is in the question. Beane owns a sterling resume, yet the author wonders if he has become untouchable. He's gotten results, so that explains why he hasn't been on the hot seat in Oakland...you know, even though I'm still not sure how to know if Beane was ever on the hot seat or how to officially put him there.
In 2003, Michael Lewis wrote the book on Beane's innovative methods, spelling out how Beane and his team identified undervalued players through advanced statistical analysis and signed them on the cheap. Eight years later, Moneyball became an Oscar-nominated flick starring Brad Pitt.
Has Brad Pitt become, well, something close to untouchable? Does the fact his movies generally tend to make money mean that he should keep getting work in Hollywood? WHY IS BRAD PITT SO UNTOUCHABLE?
There are many measures of success; getting Brad Pitt to play you in a movie about how smart you are is pretty high on the list.
Also high on the list? Having a run of 11 winning seasons and 8 playoff appearances as the GM of a small market team. Yeah, I would include that.
Oakland has never advanced past the ALCS on Beane's watch, and it has been dropped in the division series six times.
This is a definite blemish. There's no doubt about that. There is also no doubt that the A's are probably not in a position to fire their GM for not advancing the team to the World Series. No offense to the A's, but if you look at other teams in the same situation as the A's in terms of payroll, there aren't a lot of World Series recent victories or appearances in there.
So maybe Beane is guilty of not helping the A's advance as far as his reputation states he should help the A's advance, but even not grading on a curve (in terms of how the A's are small market) the A's have been a pretty successful franchise over the last 17 years in terms of games they have won.
It's obviously impossible to know, but could another GM have done better for the A's during that 17 year time span? Based on the record of other teams with payrolls similar to the A's, I think there is an argument to be made that another GM could not have had the same type of sustained success Beane had.
This year, the A's didn't even make it that far, losing in the wild-card playoff to the upstart Kansas City Royals.
It was a one game playoff, where ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN!
This was the year Beane declared, unequivocally, that it was time to "go for it," per Richard Justice of MLB.com. "It" was the ultimate prize, the brass ring that has eluded Beane: a Commissioner's Trophy.
The A's went for it and they didn't win the World Series. Trading for Jon Lester was a risk, but not something that Beane should lose his job over. It was a risk, not a terrible trade.
To hook Lester, Beane dangled Cuban slugger Yoenis Cespedes, a key cog in an Oakland offense that led MLB in scoring at the time.
Beane felt like it was important to have great starting pitching in the playoffs more than it was important to have Cespedes in the lineup. There is something to be said for having great starting pitching. Unfortunately, the A's didn't win their division and they ended up in the ridiculous one game Wild Card playoff, so their starting pitching depth didn't matter in that one game.
And Beane seemingly didn't need Lester;
A team doesn't need more starting pitching until that team needs more starting pitching. It's funny how a team with a lot of starting pitching all of a sudden wouldn't mind having another ace in the playoffs. The Dodgers started Clayton Kershaw on three days' rest in the NLDS. Think they wouldn't mind having another starter they don't "need"?
he already had a stacked rotation, augmented by another 2014 acquisition, Jeff Samardzija, who came over from the Chicago Cubs for a bushel of top prospects.
So obviously Billy Beane should be fired for putting together too much of a great rotation. How dare he put together a great rotation for the purposes of winning the AL West! Unforgivable! If the A's had not traded Cespedes then they would have won the World Series this year. Obviously. Cespedes would have made a 10-11 game difference in the standings.
Clearly, Beane was betting the farm (quite literally)
No, not literally. If it were literally then Beane would be gambling away an actual farm. He's not literally gambling and there is no farm where livestock or food is sold in the transaction for Lester. So no, this is not literal, but still metaphorical. Lester was traded for an MLB player and a draft pick. Even metaphorically, he wasn't traded for "the farm" because no players from the A's farm system were traded. Samardzija was traded for prospects, but that trade was for the future as well as the present since he is not a free agent until 2016. The A's can trade him and get prospects for him or keep him and hope he contributes to another playoff run. So no, literally there was no gambling away the farm.
on the "you can never have too much pitching" axiom.
We are halfway through this column and it's still not clear why Billy Beane should be fired or on the hot seat other than "He didn't win the World Series this year" and "He tried to acquire too much pitching and it didn't work out."
And if the A's are going to put Beane on the not-real "hot seat" for not winning the World Series then they just may as well fire him. Putting him on the hot seat for not winning the World Series seems unrealistic to me given the circumstances in Oakland.
Then, Oakland started losing.
This is a lie. Oakland was losing before the Jon Lester trade and Beane made the trade in order to stop the losing and shake up a team he was hoping wasn't stagnating. He saw some of the A's hitters overperforming and thought he may need to improve the pitching staff to compensate. He probably thought it was easier to find impact pitching than an impact hitter. So "Then, Oakland started losing" is a statement that is a lie.
To be fair, the losing started before the Lester deal.
No, not to be fair, but to be honest. You are being dishonest by stating the A's started losing after they acquired Lester. It's called "lying." To indicate the A's started losing after the Lester deal is a lie, so there's no "being fair," there is "being honest."
After going 59-36 in the first half, the A's limped to a 29-38 finish.
The A's hitters regressed to scoring 3.9 runs per game in the second half from the 4.9 runs per game they were scoring in the first half. The pitching staff gave up 3.3 runs per game in the first half and 3.7 runs per game in the second half. So both pitching and hitting regressed for the A's. For the sake of argument, Cespedes hit .269/.296/.423 with 5 home runs and 33 RBI as a Red Sox player. He had an OPS+ of 100 and WAR of 1.3 with the Red Sox as well. So he would have helped the A's, but I'm not sure it would have been enough to make up 10-11 games in the standings.
Still, the Athletics headed to Kansas City with Lester, their ace in the hole, set to pitch. Here was the moment for Beane's all-in strategy to pay off, for all the second-half slumping and subsequent second-guessing to go up in a puff of playoff magic.
And it didn't work. Lester pitched 7.1 innings and gave up 6 runs. Interestingly, the A's did score 8 runs and the bullpen blew the lead the A's had. So I'm not sure where the criticism of Beane by the author should come into play. The author says the A's had enough pitching already, so they shouldn't have traded offense for Lester. Yet, the A's scored enough runs to win the Wild Card game, but it was the A's pitching and bullpen that lost the game for them...twice.
I won't excuse that Lester didn't pitch well, but the author seems to believe Beane should be on the hot seat for making a move for pitching that the A's didn't need to make, while giving up offense. Yet, the A's scored enough runs in the Wild Card game, it's just the bullpen that blew it for the A's in the end. Maybe Beane just should have traded for more bullpen help rather than starting pitching.
Or not. Lester failed to deliver on his big-game pedigree, surrendering six earned runs, and the A's lost a 12-inning heartbreaker, 9-8.
Yes and no. Lester did fail to deliver, but the A's were up 7-6 when he left the game and the got the lead in the 12th inning again before the bullpen blew the game...again. So chalking the A's loss up to Lester like he was the reason the A's lost the game isn't completely true. Lester didn't pitch well, but the A's also lost the game due to the bullpen giving up the lead twice.
Now, as the dust settles and Oakland watches the rest of the 2014 postseason from home, it's time to ask: Is Billy Beane finally due for a spin in the hot seat?
Yes, it's FINALLY time to ask. Thank God someone has the guts to ask the hard questions. Should Beane be on the hot seat, even though I'm not entirely sure what this means or how a GM is officially placed on the hot seat? SHOULD HE?
This isn't a question of whether he'll be fired. He won't be.
So what's the point of him being on the hot seat then? If he's not going to be fired, what the hell kind of use is calling a press conference and saying, "Billy Beane is on the hot seat"?
It's also not the first time Beane misfired on a midseason move.
I don't know if I would consider the Lester trade a misfire. Also, if the author is suggesting that Billy Beane should be on the hot seat for making a bad trade then there wouldn't be an employed GM working in any sport today. Every GM, especially one like Billy Beane that has been in the position for 17 years, is going to make a bad trade. It comes with the territory.
In 2008, he dealt closer Huston Street and a young outfielder named Carlos Gonzalez in a package that netted Matt Holliday from the Colorado Rockies. Holliday wound up playing a mediocre half-season in Oakland before the A's traded him to St. Louis.
This was not a very good trade for Beane. Yet, it happened six years ago and he has continued to put together A's teams that make the playoffs. Again, if every GM had one bad trade counted against them there would be no GM's that lasted beyond a couple of seasons in sports.
But after years of being treated mostly as an unassailable genius, does Mr. Moneyball deserve more scrutiny going forward?
He gets scrutiny every single season after the A's don't make the playoffs or are eliminated from the playoffs. Sportswriters take great joy in watching Beane fail. Given the situation, I think he gets scrutiny and I think the expectations for the A's team from management are being met.
The answer to that question relies on another question: Was Beane primarily responsible for Oakland's second-half collapse?
Probably not. If so, he should be credited with the A's great first half of the season as well.
Newsweek's John Walters thinks so:
If you click the link, then you will see the typical Beane bashing column where the author makes repeated references to "Moneyball" and admits he doesn't know what WAR is. It also includes this head-shaking paragraph:
It almost feels as if Beane is that investor who would rather die a poor man while constantly upgrading his stock portfolio than cash out at some point and enjoy the riches he had devoted so much energy to accruing. As if the never-ending game of team-building in a cost-effective way is more important than the actual game itself. It’s as if he has forgotten what the ultimate goal of this entire endeavor is: to win a World Series.
What exactly "cashing out at some point and enjoying the riches he had devoted so much energy to accruing" would mean, other than making zero moves at the trade deadline, is a mystery to me. Basically this idiotic author suggests that it was fallacy for Beane to try and improve his team as he began to see issues appearing. This "Newsweek" article works under the assumption the A's issues wouldn't have appeared without the trade for Lester.
One other note about that column. The author of the "Newsweek" column includes the following quote,
“Every form of strength is also a form of weakness.”
—Billy Beane, Moneyball
This is the same quote that was attributed to Bill James in the beginning of the column. It's interesting to see the Bleacher Report author cite a column and then use a quote from that column and use it in his own column. It's essentially an example of the shameless nicking and use of another writer's column to create a column idea that Bleacher Report writers are famous for (in my mind, at least).
What's interesting is the "Newsweek" writer attributes this quote to Billy Beane, while the Bleacher Report writer attributes it to Michael Lewis, quoting Bill James. It seems someone didn't get their citation correct. The "Newsweek" writer attributed it to Billy Beane and that's not right. From my research, it seems Bill James is the one responsible for that quote. Not that a writer for "Newsweek" should take the time to make sure his citations are correct of course. He's way too important and ravenous to bash Billy Beane for his faults as a GM to ensure his citations are correct.
Beane himself defended the Lester trade, even after Oakland's exit. "Simply put," he told The San Francisco Chronicle's John Shea, "if we don't have Jon Lester, I don't think we make the playoffs."
Yep, that's a potentially true statement. The A's made the playoffs by 1 game and Lester went 6-4 with a 2.35 ERA in 11 starts and 76.2 innings. Without him, is it possible the A's don't win two more games? It's entirely possible. His WAR for Oakland was 1.9. But of course, the author is too busy pointing out how the one game Wild Card didn't go the A's way and ignoring the responsibility of the A's bullpen to worry about little questions like, "Would the A's have made the playoffs if Beane had not made the Lester trade"?
What's virtually certain is that the A's won't have Lester next year. The 30-year-old left-hander is set to hit the open market, and his price tag will almost surely be too rich for Oakland's small-market blood.
Cespedes would probably have been too rich for Oakland's blood if the A's had tried to keep him past the 2015 season. That's how it goes for the A's and the fact they won't have Lester after the 2014 season doesn't mean Beane should be on the hot seat for making the trade for Lester that may or may not have worked out.
He was a rental. A gamble. And a gamble that ultimately didn't pay off.
It happens; no one bats 1.000, whether at the plate or behind a desk.
But you...you wrote this...this entire column. It was based on the idea Beane should be on the hot seat because the Lester trade didn't work out and the A's didn't win a playoff series. Now you are saying no one bats 1.000, as if Beane should be excused for the very trade you claim should put him on the hot seat.
Still, as the A's regroup from another once-promising, ultimately disappointing campaign, it's time to move their lauded GM out of "untouchable" territory.
I didn't even know he was in "untouchable" territory. I'm pretty sure the idea Beane is untouchable is an assumption that the author is working under in order to better argue his point of view in this article. I don't think any GM is untouchable, but the idea Beane should be on the not-real hot seat for daring to take his small market team to the playoffs for three straight years without a series victory is silly. He may have not literally bet the farm on Lester and it didn't work out for one reason or another, but it's not a reason to consider replacing him as the A's GM. Could his replacement do better?
Still, as the A's regroup from another once-promising, ultimately disappointing campaign, it's time to move their lauded GM out of "untouchable" territory.
I didn't even know he was in "untouchable" territory. I'm pretty sure the idea Beane is untouchable is an assumption that the author is working under in order to better argue his point of view in this article. I don't think any GM is untouchable, but the idea Beane should be on the not-real hot seat for daring to take his small market team to the playoffs for three straight years without a series victory is silly. He may have not literally bet the farm on Lester and it didn't work out for one reason or another, but it's not a reason to consider replacing him as the A's GM. Could his replacement do better?
Friday, June 27, 2014
0 comments Lowell Cohn Forces Derek Jeter Into the Role of the Anti-PED Icon We All Needed
The Derek Jeter Over-Appreciation Tour is still going on. Don't worry. The face of baseball and the face of a clean, anti-PED player is still present and making the world a safe place to love traditional, old-school baseball where the players took amphetamines that in no way enhanced their performance rather than take PED's that did enhance the players' performance. Derek Jeter has become so over-praised that it's almost hard read anything about him at this point. To merely point out what a great player he was isn't enough. There has to be more. The writer has to go over the top and make Jeter into more than he may have wanted to be. He's not a Hall of Fame shortstop, he's the antidote to PED use, despite the fact he played on Yankees teams chock full of PED users. Even if his teammates didn't, Jeter played the game the right way. He's the PED icon that will save "the kids" from using PED's even though he couldn't save a fairly large number of his teammates from using PED's. Lowell runs the typical gamut of Jeter praise and tries to overwhelm the reader with new, additional Jeter praise. After all, Jeter can't just be appreciated, he has to be a deity.
The A’s are presenting a Derek Jeter tribute today, as they should. This is the last time Jeter will play in Oakland unless the A’s and Yankees meet in the playoffs. He turns 40 in a few weeks and he is retiring after this season and he’s on a farewell tour — just like Mariano Rivera last season.
Except Rivera retired while still playing at a high level while Jeter is one of the worst performing regulars in the majors. Nevermind the idea Jeter may have stayed one year too long. No sportswriter has the balls to question The Jeter or indicate he stayed too long. It's blasphemy and would not be tolerated.
Why is he important?
If you have to ask, then you don't know. If you don't know, then you hate America, babies, drug-free school zones, children who try to make a better life for themselves by getting an education, puppies, kittens, warm spring days, cancer survivors, a cozy blanket on a cold night, old people holding hands while in wheelchairs, and more importantly than anything else, you hate The Jeter. Ask why he's important? No need. If you have to ask, then you aren't worthy of knowing the answer.
For starters, he’s the face of baseball. Whatever it means to be the face of a sport, he’s it for baseball. It’s how he carries himself. With dignity.
Actually, the face of baseball would be 40 years old since it seems the sport is skewing older and older. That's not a good thing. I would think baseball writers would be eager to make a guy like Mike Trout the face of baseball, but the sport clings to it's past so tightly sometimes I think it becomes more threatened by the future when the real threat is the desperate clinging to the past it so reveres.
With class, although “class” is an outmoded concept in our times.
Yeah, it's been that way since baseball let all those foreigners into the game. Fucking foreigners all being not classy and celebrating their outstanding plays on the field. Babe Ruth didn't celebrate his achievements. He just went out and performed well on the field, did his personal sexy business with the shady ladies in private, and then had a few beers. That's class.
And when a man is the Yankees’ leader, he figures big in the national pastime.
Next year the face of baseball will be Masahiro Tanaka, which will piss Lowell Cohn off in some way I am sure.
You know the deal. He labored quietly at his craft, honored baseball while the bloated phonies made the headlines. The bloated phonies include Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Jeter’s infield partner Alex Rodriguez.
Jeter quietly labored and wanted nothing to do with bloated phonies like Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi who helped shape and build Jeter's legacy as a winning winner who only won when he needed to win. While these bloated phonies were cheating to enhance their own personal achievements, Jeter was using these bloated phonies to win games and World Series as a team. It wasn't about Jeter, it was about how Jeter could use these bloated teammates to win World Series as a group. It wasn't about just one person, but it was winning World Series on the back of his bloated teammates, which in turn helped Jeter's legacy.
There are a ton more bloated phonies, but those are the notable ones. Jeter was not one of them — is not one of them. I have no idea if he illegally took performance-enhancing drugs. But I doubt it.
Jeter was above all of this PED use. He wanted nothing to do with it and the very idea he is the least little bit complicit in his teammates' use of PED's is ridiculous. Sure, the entire sport was probably complicit in some way or another, but Jeter didn't have time to rat on teammates while laboring quietly at his craft.
Bonds so bloated he barely could field his position. Bonds so bloated you wondered if there was a human being in there.
Jeter hits singles. He hits doubles to the gaps.
And no player who used PED's would ever hit a double or a single. Home runs are the only natural result of a player using PED's. In no way could PED's take a player from a strictly singles hitter to a player who had doubles power in the gaps, specifically to the opposite field. Lowell Cohn being the scientist he is, knows this is true. PED's cause home runs and nothing else. So a guy with little power who used PED's wouldn't turn into a doubles hitter. Not at all. He would turn into a 50-home run machine.
He does the little things, although calling what he does “little” does a disservice to him and the game. He plays baseball the right way.
He wears his glove on the correct hand and uses a wooden bat to hit. The right way. No other way.
Watching him in the batter’s box or at shortstop brings you back to the beginnings of his sport, to what baseball was and should be.
You mean back to the beginnings of the sport when Jeter would not have been able to play in the majors because he is half-black, half-white? Yes, seeing Jeter in the batter's box does take me back to when Jeter would have possibly had to play in the Negro Leagues. What a great memory.
Jeter is the healthy antidote to the fictions and the cheating of the bloated phonies which degraded baseball.
Lowell Cohn wants Jeter to be the healthy antidote to the bloated phonies. There are other players who are the antidote to the cheating phonies, but when discussing Derek Jeter, hyperbole and exaggeration must be used in order to overstate the case. The hyperbolification (not a word, I know) of Jeter's career has done more to ruin Jeter's legacy than it has done to help his legacy, at least in my mind. The lengths writers will go to make Jeter seem like the anti-PED poster child, the guy who played the game the right way, and the very best example of perfection in all things baseball overshadows Jeter's accomplishments that made him great. He becomes more of a fairy tale than a talented baseball player. The same writers who are dousing Jeter in hyperbole are telling the reader to not ignore what a great player Jeter was, all while skipping over Jeter's statistics and accomplishments in favor of hyperbole.
Not particularly impressive. But he is — or was — a great athlete. And he’s a genius at his sport. Oh, “genius” has been overused around here, although Jeter is one. Maybe “winner” is a better word. The ultimate winner.
Actually, the ultimate winner would be a player like Yogi Berra. He won 10 World Series titles. I hate to belabor this point, but stating that Jeter is the antidote to bloated phonies and also claiming he is the ultimate winner is perfectly fine. But for the sake of honesty, it has to be mentioned that part of the reason Jeter is the ultimate winner is because he won a few World Series with the help of the same bloated phonies that Lowell Cohn rails so hard against. I realize it's sac-religious to point out Jeter is the ultimate winner partly because of PED users, but unfortunately it is the truth. Of course when Lowell Cohn is drawing a thick line between the face of baseball and the bloated phonies, he will make no mention these two parties overlap in some ways. Sure, it would be honest, but it doesn't fit the intentions of Lowell's narrative.
Like what happened in 2001. Online they call it The Iconic Oakland Flip Play. I was there for the iconic flip and I never saw anything like that before or since.
I always thought Jeter's catch into the crowd against the Red Sox in 2004 was the better defensive play. It was dangerous, a difficult catch, and also showed his ability to make an outstanding defensive play. The Flip Play was great and showed excellent instincts, but I really think Jeremy Giambi is safe if he slides. This is obviously arguable, but while the Flip Play showed Jeter's defensive instincts I thought his dive into the crowd better described him as a player and was actually the better defensive play.
Spencer threw the ball to home plate. It was not an elegant throw. It missed not one cutoff men. It missed two cutoff men.
This is not playing the game the right way. If Jeter were throwing the ball in this situation he would have hit both cutoff men. He would have managed to throw the ball "the right way" to where the ball would go into the glove of both players.
Flew over their heads. We’re talking Tino Martinez and Alfonso Soriano. When Giambi crossed the plate the game would be tied.
Yes, we are talking about Alfonso Soriano, noted defensive specialist at second base. The same Alfonso Soriano who was moved from second base to the outfield as soon as possible by the Texas Rangers.
He caught the throw barehanded in his right hand. Now comes the iconic part. As he sped into foul territory sprinting away from the plate, he somehow flipped the ball backhanded to catcher Jorge Posada who caught that sucker and administered a swipe tag on Giambi who never slid. The Yankees won the game 1-0 and won the next two games and eliminated the A’s.
I'm really not trying to downplay the backhanded throw, but Jeter is a shortstop. Shortstops make backhanded throws to start double plays, it's part of the requirements at the position. I'm not saying Jeter's backhanded throw wasn't great, but he was practiced at it due to having played the shortstop position for his entire career.
Jeter’s play was extraordinary because no one expects the shortstop to be at the first-base line in case the outfielder misses two cutoff men. Jeter was heads up in the extreme and the play was and is a monument to athletic poise.
One can not disagree with this. Still, if Giambi slides I don't think this play will be talked about for years (decades, inevitably) to come. Nothing can take away it was a great play of course.
Jeter had mastered the basics, had gone beyond the basics with the iconic flip. Giambi failed at the very basics. He didn’t even slide. And that means Jeter deserved to succeed more than Giambi. It was a case of the impeccable defeating the slovenly.
This is the type of thing I am talking about. Derek Jeter can't just make a great play on the field, his play has to mean something more than just a great defensive maneuver. The Flip Play has to teach a great moral lesson to our nation as a whole. Rather than let the play stand as a great defensive play by a Hall of Fame shortstop, it has to be much more than that. This is an example of where a sportswriter feels the insatiable need to hyperbolize Jeter's career and why Jeter's accomplishments get lost in the need to one-up other sportswriters to glorify him.
That flip has become the landmark play of Jeter’s great career.
His great play was a fielding play — it rivals Willie Mays’ catch in center field off Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series. Jeter’s play was all about smarts and desire and feel. He had a feel for the play, for the victory, for baseball.
Again, Jeter had a feel for victory partially because some of his teammates had a feel for using PED's. I'm sorry, it's difficult to hear Jeter described as the anti-PED poster boy and as a winner. He didn't use PED's, but some of his success is tied to the PED use of his teammates. This goes for other MLB players as well, but no other MLB players have sportswriters drawing such a thick, dark line between themselves and other PED users, while being referred to as "the ultimate winner." For any player who played during the Steroid Era, the line between the clean players and PED users isn't as thick and obvious as sportswriters want it to be.
Today, when the A’s present their video tribute to Jeter they will not show the iconic flip. Too many bad associations for A’s fans.
The A’s are presenting a Derek Jeter tribute today, as they should. This is the last time Jeter will play in Oakland unless the A’s and Yankees meet in the playoffs. He turns 40 in a few weeks and he is retiring after this season and he’s on a farewell tour — just like Mariano Rivera last season.
Except Rivera retired while still playing at a high level while Jeter is one of the worst performing regulars in the majors. Nevermind the idea Jeter may have stayed one year too long. No sportswriter has the balls to question The Jeter or indicate he stayed too long. It's blasphemy and would not be tolerated.
Why is he important?
If you have to ask, then you don't know. If you don't know, then you hate America, babies, drug-free school zones, children who try to make a better life for themselves by getting an education, puppies, kittens, warm spring days, cancer survivors, a cozy blanket on a cold night, old people holding hands while in wheelchairs, and more importantly than anything else, you hate The Jeter. Ask why he's important? No need. If you have to ask, then you aren't worthy of knowing the answer.
For starters, he’s the face of baseball. Whatever it means to be the face of a sport, he’s it for baseball. It’s how he carries himself. With dignity.
Actually, the face of baseball would be 40 years old since it seems the sport is skewing older and older. That's not a good thing. I would think baseball writers would be eager to make a guy like Mike Trout the face of baseball, but the sport clings to it's past so tightly sometimes I think it becomes more threatened by the future when the real threat is the desperate clinging to the past it so reveres.
With class, although “class” is an outmoded concept in our times.
Yeah, it's been that way since baseball let all those foreigners into the game. Fucking foreigners all being not classy and celebrating their outstanding plays on the field. Babe Ruth didn't celebrate his achievements. He just went out and performed well on the field, did his personal sexy business with the shady ladies in private, and then had a few beers. That's class.
And when a man is the Yankees’ leader, he figures big in the national pastime.
Next year the face of baseball will be Masahiro Tanaka, which will piss Lowell Cohn off in some way I am sure.
You know the deal. He labored quietly at his craft, honored baseball while the bloated phonies made the headlines. The bloated phonies include Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa and Jeter’s infield partner Alex Rodriguez.
Jeter quietly labored and wanted nothing to do with bloated phonies like Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, Alex Rodriguez, Andy Pettitte and Jason Giambi who helped shape and build Jeter's legacy as a winning winner who only won when he needed to win. While these bloated phonies were cheating to enhance their own personal achievements, Jeter was using these bloated phonies to win games and World Series as a team. It wasn't about Jeter, it was about how Jeter could use these bloated teammates to win World Series as a group. It wasn't about just one person, but it was winning World Series on the back of his bloated teammates, which in turn helped Jeter's legacy.
There are a ton more bloated phonies, but those are the notable ones. Jeter was not one of them — is not one of them. I have no idea if he illegally took performance-enhancing drugs. But I doubt it.
Jeter was above all of this PED use. He wanted nothing to do with it and the very idea he is the least little bit complicit in his teammates' use of PED's is ridiculous. Sure, the entire sport was probably complicit in some way or another, but Jeter didn't have time to rat on teammates while laboring quietly at his craft.
Bonds so bloated he barely could field his position. Bonds so bloated you wondered if there was a human being in there.
Jeter hits singles. He hits doubles to the gaps.
And no player who used PED's would ever hit a double or a single. Home runs are the only natural result of a player using PED's. In no way could PED's take a player from a strictly singles hitter to a player who had doubles power in the gaps, specifically to the opposite field. Lowell Cohn being the scientist he is, knows this is true. PED's cause home runs and nothing else. So a guy with little power who used PED's wouldn't turn into a doubles hitter. Not at all. He would turn into a 50-home run machine.
He does the little things, although calling what he does “little” does a disservice to him and the game. He plays baseball the right way.
He wears his glove on the correct hand and uses a wooden bat to hit. The right way. No other way.
Watching him in the batter’s box or at shortstop brings you back to the beginnings of his sport, to what baseball was and should be.
You mean back to the beginnings of the sport when Jeter would not have been able to play in the majors because he is half-black, half-white? Yes, seeing Jeter in the batter's box does take me back to when Jeter would have possibly had to play in the Negro Leagues. What a great memory.
Jeter is the healthy antidote to the fictions and the cheating of the bloated phonies which degraded baseball.
Lowell Cohn wants Jeter to be the healthy antidote to the bloated phonies. There are other players who are the antidote to the cheating phonies, but when discussing Derek Jeter, hyperbole and exaggeration must be used in order to overstate the case. The hyperbolification (not a word, I know) of Jeter's career has done more to ruin Jeter's legacy than it has done to help his legacy, at least in my mind. The lengths writers will go to make Jeter seem like the anti-PED poster child, the guy who played the game the right way, and the very best example of perfection in all things baseball overshadows Jeter's accomplishments that made him great. He becomes more of a fairy tale than a talented baseball player. The same writers who are dousing Jeter in hyperbole are telling the reader to not ignore what a great player Jeter was, all while skipping over Jeter's statistics and accomplishments in favor of hyperbole.
Not particularly impressive. But he is — or was — a great athlete. And he’s a genius at his sport. Oh, “genius” has been overused around here, although Jeter is one. Maybe “winner” is a better word. The ultimate winner.
Actually, the ultimate winner would be a player like Yogi Berra. He won 10 World Series titles. I hate to belabor this point, but stating that Jeter is the antidote to bloated phonies and also claiming he is the ultimate winner is perfectly fine. But for the sake of honesty, it has to be mentioned that part of the reason Jeter is the ultimate winner is because he won a few World Series with the help of the same bloated phonies that Lowell Cohn rails so hard against. I realize it's sac-religious to point out Jeter is the ultimate winner partly because of PED users, but unfortunately it is the truth. Of course when Lowell Cohn is drawing a thick line between the face of baseball and the bloated phonies, he will make no mention these two parties overlap in some ways. Sure, it would be honest, but it doesn't fit the intentions of Lowell's narrative.
Like what happened in 2001. Online they call it The Iconic Oakland Flip Play. I was there for the iconic flip and I never saw anything like that before or since.
I always thought Jeter's catch into the crowd against the Red Sox in 2004 was the better defensive play. It was dangerous, a difficult catch, and also showed his ability to make an outstanding defensive play. The Flip Play was great and showed excellent instincts, but I really think Jeremy Giambi is safe if he slides. This is obviously arguable, but while the Flip Play showed Jeter's defensive instincts I thought his dive into the crowd better described him as a player and was actually the better defensive play.
Spencer threw the ball to home plate. It was not an elegant throw. It missed not one cutoff men. It missed two cutoff men.
This is not playing the game the right way. If Jeter were throwing the ball in this situation he would have hit both cutoff men. He would have managed to throw the ball "the right way" to where the ball would go into the glove of both players.
Flew over their heads. We’re talking Tino Martinez and Alfonso Soriano. When Giambi crossed the plate the game would be tied.
Yes, we are talking about Alfonso Soriano, noted defensive specialist at second base. The same Alfonso Soriano who was moved from second base to the outfield as soon as possible by the Texas Rangers.
He caught the throw barehanded in his right hand. Now comes the iconic part. As he sped into foul territory sprinting away from the plate, he somehow flipped the ball backhanded to catcher Jorge Posada who caught that sucker and administered a swipe tag on Giambi who never slid. The Yankees won the game 1-0 and won the next two games and eliminated the A’s.
I'm really not trying to downplay the backhanded throw, but Jeter is a shortstop. Shortstops make backhanded throws to start double plays, it's part of the requirements at the position. I'm not saying Jeter's backhanded throw wasn't great, but he was practiced at it due to having played the shortstop position for his entire career.
Jeter’s play was extraordinary because no one expects the shortstop to be at the first-base line in case the outfielder misses two cutoff men. Jeter was heads up in the extreme and the play was and is a monument to athletic poise.
One can not disagree with this. Still, if Giambi slides I don't think this play will be talked about for years (decades, inevitably) to come. Nothing can take away it was a great play of course.
Jeter had mastered the basics, had gone beyond the basics with the iconic flip. Giambi failed at the very basics. He didn’t even slide. And that means Jeter deserved to succeed more than Giambi. It was a case of the impeccable defeating the slovenly.
This is the type of thing I am talking about. Derek Jeter can't just make a great play on the field, his play has to mean something more than just a great defensive maneuver. The Flip Play has to teach a great moral lesson to our nation as a whole. Rather than let the play stand as a great defensive play by a Hall of Fame shortstop, it has to be much more than that. This is an example of where a sportswriter feels the insatiable need to hyperbolize Jeter's career and why Jeter's accomplishments get lost in the need to one-up other sportswriters to glorify him.
That flip has become the landmark play of Jeter’s great career.
His great play was a fielding play — it rivals Willie Mays’ catch in center field off Vic Wertz in the 1954 World Series. Jeter’s play was all about smarts and desire and feel. He had a feel for the play, for the victory, for baseball.
Again, Jeter had a feel for victory partially because some of his teammates had a feel for using PED's. I'm sorry, it's difficult to hear Jeter described as the anti-PED poster boy and as a winner. He didn't use PED's, but some of his success is tied to the PED use of his teammates. This goes for other MLB players as well, but no other MLB players have sportswriters drawing such a thick, dark line between themselves and other PED users, while being referred to as "the ultimate winner." For any player who played during the Steroid Era, the line between the clean players and PED users isn't as thick and obvious as sportswriters want it to be.
Today, when the A’s present their video tribute to Jeter they will not show the iconic flip. Too many bad associations for A’s fans.
And you can feel sad, if you must. Sports memories linger.
Like a smelly farts, bad columns linger too. Hopefully these types of columns will go the way of Jeremy Giambi once Jeter is done with his Over-Appreciation Tour and is officially retired.
Like a smelly farts, bad columns linger too. Hopefully these types of columns will go the way of Jeremy Giambi once Jeter is done with his Over-Appreciation Tour and is officially retired.
Whatever you do, remember Jeter as he deserves to be remembered. The common man who took the bloat out of baseball.
How did Derek Jeter take the bloat out of baseball if players used PED's the entire time Jeter was an active player? This is another good example of hyperbole used in reference to Jeter. He didn't take the bloat out of baseball, he was a baseball player who didn't take PED's. Jeter didn't take the bloat out of baseball because players continuously used PED's while he was an active player. Jeter didn't even manage to take the bloat out of his own Yankees team and part of his five World Series titles were contributed to by PED users. Stop making Jeter more than he truly is by using hyperbole and creating him into something he never has been.
How did Derek Jeter take the bloat out of baseball if players used PED's the entire time Jeter was an active player? This is another good example of hyperbole used in reference to Jeter. He didn't take the bloat out of baseball, he was a baseball player who didn't take PED's. Jeter didn't take the bloat out of baseball because players continuously used PED's while he was an active player. Jeter didn't even manage to take the bloat out of his own Yankees team and part of his five World Series titles were contributed to by PED users. Stop making Jeter more than he truly is by using hyperbole and creating him into something he never has been.
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