Young Professional Athletes Might Be Dicky

And that’s ok.

So Papelbon is cocky, so what? His team is the defending WS champ. He’s a pretty good pitcher. <a href=”Usually. He’s like 11 years old, I’d expect him to be cocky.

What’s he supposed to say, “Frankly we look good on paper, but I’m telling you guys, this season is gonna be horseshit. My fastball sucks since I got off the Winstrol, Papi ate himself into a coma twice last week, nobody has heard from Manny in months, and he actually hired Benecio del Toro to wear his uniform and show up at camp, but it only fooled us for like 2 days. And Beckett is totally gay.”

Or even worse, he could give a standard issue Jeter Style answer like,

“Well, it’s gonna be a tough division and we’re gonna have to play our game, and hope we’re blessed, and take it one game at a time and…..”

I don’t like the Sox, but ripping a 10 year old relief pitcher because he thinks his team is gonna kick your teams ass is silly.

10 Reasons You Should Read This Blog Someday

10. Someday I’ll post something other than a bunch of cheap shots at bad bloggers.  Actually, maybe I won’t. Bad bloggers deserve to get shit on just as much as the bad sportswriters, players and managers they like to skewer. So, ya know, game on bitchpots!

9. 300% more profanity than those goody two shoes over at Bronx Banter. I’m just playin’ ya’al I love those Bronx Banter dudes.

8. You can leave comments here! Those TV writin’ sumbitches at FireJoeMorgan can’t say that!!

7. Excessive use of exclamation marks!!!!

6. Cool level headed analysis of the game we all love. Ok, actually more like insane hot under the collar analysis of the game we all love, but what’s the diff, right?

5. Dick Jokes. Lots and lots of em.

4. Whenever I don’t have anything interesting to say, which, let’s face it, will be most of the time, I’ll write a halfway funny list.

3. Fewer pie charts than those ReplacementLevel bean counters.

2.  I don’t obsessively hate Joe Torre the way soooommmmme people did.

1. You are bored enough to be here now, you’ll be bored enough to come back someday. 

Establishing Baseball KPI

Unlike a lot of baseball fans, I like making decisions and shaping my opinions on facts. I’m borderline obsessed with the idea of KPI. Simply put KPI are component parts of a system, that if performing as expected or intended will ladder up to the success of that system.

One thing I’m going to do between now and Opening Day, is take a look at the KPI for the Yankees. What are the variables and component variables that we should keep our eyes on to judge how well the Yankees are doing, and what course corrections are needed as the season progresses?

I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats.

First off, what does KPI stand for? Well, I’m glad you asked. KPI stands for Key Performance Indicators. So, if you are going to try to identify KPI for winning baseball games, you would logically look at runs scored and runs allowed.

Ok, cool, but what are the KPI for RS and RA? Well, for RS you would probably look at team OBP, SLG, BA, HR, SB, TB, and see which of those variables correlate most positively to Runs. But then suppose you want to go deeper. What are the KPI for OBP for instance, maybe things like, Pitches Per Plate Appearance, the incidence of certain (hitters) counts, quality of opposing pitchers, inning in which the opposing starter left the game. It goes on and on.

I will be running correlations on as many variables as I can think of to try to figure out where the Yankees strengths and weaknesses are, so here’s what I ask, if there are variables you would be interested in seeing correlated to either RS or RA, let me know in the comments and I’ll include them in my analysis. My goal in doing this is to eventually take Brian Cashman’s thankless and heart disease inducing job. Just kidding, I’m just bored, lol.

It’s Okay to Laugh at Yourself

Really, it is.

So Steve Lombardo over at “Was Whining” finally took note of my “Him Bashing” and lit me up but good in a post entitled “>Who’s Bashing Who[sic]?”

To make it even better, a bunch of his readers came to his defense and internet yelled at me for “getting personal” or some stupid shit.

First off, if I wanted to get personal I would have called him mean names, or questioned his sexual preferences, or wondered aloud if perhaps Brian Cashman had once had a one night stand with his sister and then after repeated promises to call her, up and changed his cell number. So please, when I get personal and cross the line, you dipshits will know it.

Also, in very typical internet fashion, Lombago only excerpted the portion of my rant that supported his claim that I was bashing him (really? you think? wow, you’re a fucking genius!) Yes, I was bashing him. I’m not sure why this is worthy of comment, it isn’t as though I attempted to cleverly disguise my disdain for his opinions, I flat out said it.

Also, it’s oh so Strawmanish. There was not one word that addressed the true meat of my point, that just questioning every single little thing Cashman does without presenting a cohesive alternative POV is not particularly hard, or productive.

What really galls me, is that I’m pretty sure that presenting controversial opinions that don’t really make much sense is the mission of that blog. In order to get readers or hits, or kilobytes (I’m not really up to speed on all the internet lingo) Lombardi says things like, ‘Phil Hughes should have been traded for a rosin bag!!!’

 Then he sits back and watches douchebags like me fire up the “What the fuck is wrong with you???!!!” machine.”  But when I say something agressive, I’m the asshole. Ok, cool, I’ll be the asshole, I don’t mind.

Look, when you publish your opinions in a public forum, you better damn well be ready to get bashed from time to time. As I type this, I’m reasonably sure I’m going to get blasted by someone, when they eventually read it, which will be never, but anyway, what the fuck was I talking about?

EDIT: I was so correct! See the comments on the post below this one. Damn it, I’m superb.

Oh yeah, so you have a blog about the Yankees in which you bash Cashman non stop, and when I call you out on it and suggest that you must not really enjoy following the Yankees all that much, you get all offended. Wonderful. Congratulations. Have fun with your half a glass of water.

I can’t believe, what I just saw.

Oh man, what a Super Bowl. I mean, what can you say about it? I’m a big Giants fan, have been for years, and watching them come from nowhere to get to the Super Bowl, and then knock Tommy Handjob, err, Handsome all over the field last night, wow. Good times.

 Ok, baseball.

 So I have this weird fascination with a blog you may be familiar with, called   Was Watching.

It’s written by this guy called Steve Lombardi who pretends to be a Yankee fan, but all he does is take shots at Brian Cashman, Phil Hughes, Giambi, and…come to think of it, I can’t think of anyone he seems to really be a fan of. Here’s a post I made on his blog today. Then I remembered I have my own blog, so I’m reposting it here.

Steve, I’m not really sure I get your agenda. It’s pretty much understood that if you have 12 hot pitching prospects, like 10 of them are going to wash out. There’s nothing groundbreaking there.

So what is your point? That Cashman is/was wrong to emphasize stockpiling young pitching talent because it isn’t a “sure thing?” What’s the alternative? The “old school Yankee way” of overpaying for every past his prime free agent?

How would YOU run the team if it were your job? Your ad hoc cherry picked skepticisms are kinda pointless because you offer no alternative blueprint.

I’m really tired of the petty and foolish Cashman bashing. When the Yankees used to go out and trade for or sign every Kevin Brown, Javy Vaszquez, Felix Heredia, Aaron Boone, Jason Giambi, etc. people used to moan about the fact that the team was just a bunch of hired guns, and “oh my wouldn’t it be nice for once if we had a team full of home grown fellas we could all rally behind.” So now that Cashman is doing more of the latter than the former, where are the fucking ticker tape parades in his honor?

Where are all the small market beat writers thanking him for staying out of the Santana circle jerk?

Where are all the bloggers who pissed and moaned about the Yankees buying championships?

Are you happy that you are the ringleader of the new breed of Yankee basher? Because that is what you are. I would HATE to be a “fan” of your ilk. Who takes issues with almost everything the team does, yet doesn’t have a POV on how to plot a true alternate course.

If you would come out and say,

“look, I think Cash is full of shit. The Yankees should forget this ‘build the farm’ nonsense, and instead get the best available free agent, no matter the cost in prospects. Then you are trading unknowns for knowns, and that’s the way to build a winner.”

I’d respect that. I’d disagree with you, but I’d respect that you have a real idea of how you would shape the team’s future. But you don’t, you just snipe and snipe and snipe.

So, have fun “rooting” for the Yankees, if that’s what you call it.

Right?