Bissinger Had a Point, Bloggers Suck.

If you read most baseball blogs critically, you start to notice two things. 1) The self assured tone. Apparently everyone with a blog knows everything as a black ink fact. 2) The judgemental self affirming bullshit. It goes like this, Blogger hates Player A, Player A plays poorly,  The Blogger writes, “See I told you Player A was no damn good!” Then, if Player A plays well, The Blogger writes, “Player A got lucky, Player A is only good in scenario x, Player A’s success is the fluky product of a small sample size.”

Jason Giambi has gotten his OPS up to .809. This despite a batting average of only .183. Giambi leads the Yankees in HR with 7, and is on pace for about 30. Has Jason been good in 2008? Well no, not really, his EQA of .280 is nowhere near as good as we had all hoped it would be. When you are paying a dude $23 million, you might expect an OPS of significantly higher than .809, however over the last 7 the big G has an OPS of  1.544. In other words, recently he’s been showing signs of life. But instead of talking about that, the folks at Was Watching, keep advocating his release, and comparing him to Cano who has been a SHIT TON worse this season than Giambi, an absolutel fuck ton, like 100 points of EQA worse. This stuff gets me so pissed off, that I won’t even get into the Was Watching treatment of Cashman over the fact that Rasner is pitching well.

Also, those holier than thou guys at NoMaas are ripping IPK for his cocky as shit press conference after he pitched a one hitter against a bunch of Triple A fry cooks. Given the fact that Kennedy seemed to be pitching scared while he was in the Bronx, I think a healthy dose of over-the-top swagger might actually help him.

This just points out the fact that it doesn’t matter what color Crayon you draw with, idiocy comes through inhb all formats.

Off the cuff.

I’m bullish on:

Farnsworth. He’s allegedly added a cutter, his delivery looks smoother, he’s only given up 2 runs in his last 9 and 2 thirds. I think he might have a career year. Also, he’s walked only 8% of the batters he’s faced this season so far. The only other year in which his BB rate was less than 10% was 2001and he finished that season with an ERA+ of 151.

I’m bearish on:

Robbie Cano. As with Melky Cabrera, I’ve always been a little skeptical of Cano’s supposed utility. Unlike Melky, Robbie has done nothing to make me eat my words. Early in the season, Joe Morgan and Jon Miller were ranting about how Cano was the best hitter on the Yankees next to A-Rod. So far this season, he’s the worst hitter in baseball. I think the slump has gone on so long, that he’s got to be suffering mentally over it, and that makes me think that it’s gonna be a long summer for Robbie. Either the league has figured him out, and he’s taking for fucking ever to counterpunch, or he refuses to make some sort of adjustment. Reminds me of Soriano. What is it with these secondbasemen?

Steady as she Mows.

….them down!

Watching Joba get beat last night made me think about Mo. And thiking about Mo always leads me to the same internal debate, is Mariano Rivera the best pitcher I’ve ever seen? I think the answer is yes. Pedro was as sickeningly dominant in his prime, and he was a starter, which is almost inarguably a harder row to hoe.

Still, the all time leader in ERA plus is Pedro with and Adjusted ERA+ of 160. Mo’s is 196. The reason Mo is not the all time leader is that he hasn’t pitched enough career innings to qualify. But, that’s gonna change, probably this year. Mo has thrown 966 innings in his career, the cut off for qualifying is 1000 innings and 3000 batters faced, (Mo has faced 3879 batters,) so conceivably, by the end of this season, Mariano Rivera is gonna be the best pitcher of all time as judged by ERA+. What’s crazy is that it’s not like he’s gonna sneak past Pedro by a few points. We’re talking 36 points of ERA+. That is insane.

Still, he’s not a starter. So how can he be the greatest pitcher of all time? Starting pitchers are more valuable to their team, of that there can be no doubt. Also, starters have to navigate their way through the oppositions lineup 3+ times a game if they want to be really effective. Mo has to do it largely 3 or 4 batters at a time.

But still, Mo has been around forever, and he’s been dominant forever check out his ERA+ by season:

If you judge Mo by his own standards, he had a couple of “tough seasons” in the middle of his career, but what’s amazing to me is his consistency:

A dip in the middle, and then a marked resurgence, shows me that Mo made some adjustments along the way.

Just for fun, I did the same graph for Pedro’s career, and you’ll note a difference. Pedro’s chart peaks in the middle as one might expect. His 2000 season was really incredible as his ERA+ that season was 134 points higher than his career median.

What I take away from this, is that both pitchers have been historically excellent, and they’ve been excellent throughout their careers. Every season, and not really a bad one in the bunch by league standards. But Mo seems to me to be a bit steadier. His peaks aren’t that out of line with his career averages he’s just been machine-like for 13 seasons. Maybe it’s a stretch to say “best pitcher ever” but he’s damn close, and I don’t care how badass Joba is, if you expect him to somehow replace Mo, you’re going to be deeply disappointed.

Careful What You Wish For

I think that there’s a decent chance that this is Brian Cashman’s last season as Yankee GM. Actually, I think this is an inflection point, and either Cash is gone after this season, or he re-ups and we’ll have him to kick around for a LOOOOOONG time.

I know that there are some prominent annoying bloggers and writers who have spent the last few years taking shots at Cashman whenever they get the chance. These kinds of fans seem to want to see Cashman gone, never to darken Yankee-land again.

And you know what? I hope they get their wish. I think Brian Cashman is one of the smartest GMs in baseball. Is he perfect? Is he infallible? No way. Does he have a moderately long list of moves that haven’t panned out? Sure.

But given the fact that Cashman is in charge of baseball’s highest payroll, he is going to make big bets. And when you make big bets, your failures are often spectacular. Not only that, but holding the fact that the Yankees haven’t won the WS since 2000 against him, is asinine. So much of success in the postseason is luck dependant that you can’t really blame the GM for a team’s bats going to sleep for 20 innings at a time. It’s fluky by nature.

The Flip Bondy piece I linked to above mentions that the White Sox won the WS with a bunch of Yankee castoffs. I fail to see how that’s Cashman’s fault. First of all the Sox’s Championship season was the definition of a fluke. The team saw career seasons from all their starters, and almost miraculous season’s from it’s corps of relievers. Since they won the Series, what has that group of Yankee castoffs done? Not very much, 90-72 was good enough for a third place finish in 2006, and then a disaster in 2007 as they flipped the script and finished 72 and 90.

Then, Bondy goes on to say that the A’s, Jays and Cubs have squeezed some good juice out of Ted Lilly. Ok, so why is that an indictment of Cashman and not of the Yankees coaches? It doesn’t make much sense.

At the end of the day though, I kinda hope that these idiots get what they want. I hope Cash bails, and builds a respectable winning team in Washington. He has ties to the area stemming from his days at Catholic U. Meanwhile, who’s gonna run the Yankees? Who’s gonna temper Hank’s Boss Jr. inclinations? Jean Afterman? Damon Oppenheimer? Really, who are the Yankees gonna replace Cash with? You need someone who is super smart, and SABR inclined. You need someone who will not be afraid to push back on his owner(s.) You need someone who is unflappable and level headed.

As we’ve seen so far in 2008, just replacing a leader because we’re all sick of him (Joe Torre) doesn’t mean the new blood (Girardi) is gonna magically get better results. But for those who like to clamor for Cashman’s head, I hope you enjoy the post Cashman era, because it’s gonna suck.

Just Like That.

They’re back to mediocre thanks to a three game sweep of the Mariners. It’s tempting to say, “well shit, it was the Mariners,” but this team has gotten smacked around by less than the Mariners this season, so I’ll take a sweep, regardless of the victim.

The Yanks are a game over .500 and 3 games back of the Red Sox, who broomed the Rays this weekend. After a day off today, the Indians visit the Bronx. Pettitte, Wang and Moose are scheduled to take the hill, but Igawa could surface.

Generation Tres, or the Three Amigos or whatever is on hold, but the bats are showing signs of waking up. Let’s hope they don’t hit the snooze button.

Srsly.

Saved by the Stress Fracture

The Phil Hughes story, was just about to end very badly. Hughes was about to be sent down to the minors. Fans would grumble, and whine about the trade that didn’t happen. Steve Lombardi would continue to bash Brian Cashman for betting the future on Hughes.

But Phil caught a break, literally. He’s not going to touch a baseball for a month, so my guess is he’s gone for 6-8 weeks. That means, that the story arc gets new life. Now we can watch his rehab, and hear from the team and anonymous scouts that “the life on his fastball is back, his location is way better than it was pre injury” blah blah blah. Then we can all wait in anticipation as he makes a few minor league tuneup starts, and then we can all hope to see the Phil Hughes we were promised when he returns to the big league club.

Fun times!

Welcome to the Buzz-saw.

If you are remotely in step with sports blogging and sports writing, you’ve probably heard about the idiocy that transpired on HBO a few nights ago. Essentially, Bob Costas and Buzz Bissinger ganged up on Will Leitch with a fair amount of fury and venom. In their view, Costas and Bissinger are the ‘old guard’ and Leitch is an irresponsible douchebag who says what he wants without accountability! And that type stuff just does not go down smooth in Costas Bissinger land.

Lost in all of this is the real point. This isn’t really about highly skilled professionals who want to preserve the integrity and standards of their holy profession.

This is about money and this is about fear.

See, the pros like Costas and Bissinger, and Murray Chass and on and on, hate bloggers not because they think they are sucky writers, although I’m sure they do think that, because when you make up your mind that you hate something, you don’t really care what the truth is. No, the point is that the pros feel threatened.

Forget about sports for a minute, let’s pretend you were a chef. Let’s say you were a highly trained chef, the kind of guy who studied at Le Cordon Bleu, and apprenticed at the elbow of Willibald Reinbach, and you worked really hard, and you got a job that paid you handsomely for your creations.

You worked at the finest restaurant in town, and you made a good living, and people told you that your food was sublime, and everyone wanted to eat at your restaurant, and you won awards for Excellence in Cheffery. It was good times for you, because for some reason, only professionally trained chefs were allowed to cook for people. Let’s say that only professionally trained chefs could have access to the kitchens and ingredients, and most importantly diners.

Then one day, something changed. Now anyone could open a restaurant and in droves, people who simply loved to cook did. These new restauranteers were not like you. Many of them didn’t have formal training. Some of them were really food poisoningly shitty, some of them were mediocre, and some of them were just as good as you, some even better, and…and here’s the catch, many of them were willing to cook for people for FREE. They didn’t expect a salary to cook for people. They just loved cooking and wanted to share their cooking with other people.

Meanwhile you’re pulling down your six or seven figure salary, and you’re starting to notice a buzz, you’re noticing that some of your regulars aren’t as regular as they once were. Oh, you’re still packing the house, but the line outside is a little shorter maybe. Across the street at Amatuer’s Cafe, they’re giving shit away.

How would you feel?

You’d feel threatened as fuck. And that’s why Bob Costas, and Buzz Bissinger, and Murray Chass hate bloggers, because bloggers do what they do, and very often they are willing to do it gratis. And Murray Costas Bissinger Chass, is Afraid that someday his employers are going to figure this out. And then, ‘oh shit!’ what is he going to do to pay the rent?

For a long time, I believed that the “old guard” would always have an advantage over the unwashed masses because of access. Being a pro gets you press credentials, and press credentials get you acess to the real newsmakers. But I think that’s starting to break down; enterprising bloggers will find a way around that, they will find access on their own and if you don’t believe me, read Bronx Banter, or any of Will Carrol’s stuff.

The democratization of media is one of the most interesting things that’s happened in the history of society, (the other most interesting thing is the willingness of american parents to tart up their daughters to sell shitty pop songs,) and it’s really just getting it’s legs. If I were Murray Chass, or Bob Costas or Buzz Bissinger, I’d be scared too. Because things ain’t what they used to be, but that’s the way of the world, and shouting at a guy on national television just because you can, is pathetic.

Finally, the arrogance of many sportswriters is absurd, when you consider that their job is essentially to write articles about grown men playing kids games. The fact that they act like theirs is such a reverant mission is bizarre to me. But what the fuck do I know? I’m just an idiot with a blog. And a journalism degree.

A Dark Sunny Day

It’s sunny and brisk here in Chicago this morning, and my mood regarding the Yankees is depressed. I don’t see any latent firepower, I see Posada and A-Rod on the DL. I think that Jeter is hurt, either that or he’s insane. He’s gotten so hackish that it’s close to enraging.

I don’t think this team has another gear. I think this is a .550 team. Wang and Chamberlain may be the best things we have to look forward to for the next 5 months. Ugh. Maybe Melky a little too.

Phil, Yer Up

Let’s liveblog Phil Hughes start tonight shall we?

If you’re just joining I’m Schteeve and I’ll be doing play-by-play, to my right is curmudgeonly yet lovable Dutch Peters with the color.

Hughes is in a spot of trouble early in this one having surrendered a 6 pitch walk to Curtis “The Sparkplug” Granderson, followed by a single by Placido Polanco.

Phil gets the first out of the inning by whiffing Gary Sheffield but it goes from bad to worse as he now has to face Magglio Ordonez. Dutch you’re an ex big league pitcher, what is going through Hughes’ mind right now.

Dutch: *Hic*

Right you are! Well, four batter in, and Phil Hughes finds himself down 2-0. After a wild pitch allowed Granderson and Polanco to move to second and third respectively, Magglio plates them both with a single to shallow center.

Dutch: The kid’s a bum! *Hic!*

Interesting perspective Dutch, but we’ll have to pick that up next half inning, cause the kid just got the other kid, Meee-gel Cabrera to ground into a double play. Hey he woulda fit right in on the Pinstripers! I kid. We’ll be back after this.

Dutch: Wheres my cigar box, dammit!?

Bottom 1

You all know the old baseball saying, “ya got to know when to hold them.” Well Kenny Rogers is holding a baseball and he’s ready to get things going! Johnny Damon strikes out looking and I don’t think he liked the call. Dutch do you…

Dutch: Fucking umpires are all COMMIES!

…You said it! Wow Dutch you’re a pistol. So with one down, here’s Derek Jet…check that, Derek Jeter apparently wanted to give his time in the batters box to Bobby Abreu so he chose to surrender his…what’s that? Oh…Oh I see. He didn’t actually forfeit his at bat, he just swung at the first pitch again, and grounded out to the pitcher.

In any case, Abreu has worked the count full. They say Bobby Abreu is a great two strike hitter, they also say he’s afraid of the wall. Dutch, who do you believe?

Dutch: John McCain! *hic*

Well, we can talk politics later, but here in baseball land, Bobby Abreu just singled to right. And that brings up Hideki Matsui, the Pride of Japan.

Dutch: I used to know a girl named The Pride of Japan, she could….

ALLLRIGHT! Save that one for later Dutch. Matsui is what they call a professional hitter. Dutch what does that mean?

Dutch: It means they pay the asshole!

It certainly does, and speaking of that Kenny Rogers has to pay, because he just gave up a hit to Matsui and both the runners advance on an error by Jacque Jones.

Dutch: What the fuck kinda name is Jacque??

I’m not sure big fella, but Jason Giambi thinks ‘Kenny Rogers’ is Spanish for Cy Young, as he flies out meekly to right. That’s it for the New Yorkers, we’ll be back in a bit!

Top 2

And we’re back! Phil Hughes is too, and he just got Carlos Guillen to ground out to second after a 7 pitch at bat. On the bright side, Dutch, Edgar Renteria flew out to right on the first pitch he saw. Phil should remember to send him a thank you note, don’t you think Dutch?

Dutch: I never say thank you!

Well you’re welcome anyway! As a matter of fact you’re welcome to stop drinking any minute now. I kid. Back to the action, Hughes is pitching to “Pudge” Rodriguez.

Dutch: If I were called “Pudge” I’da been on the fuckin juice too!

Good point old timer, “Juice,” I mean “Pudge” singles to right and that brings up Jones. Dutch, Jones has a .292 OBP don’t you think Phil Hughes should just go right after him here?

Dutch: I don’t know what the fuck Oh-Bee-Pee is you sissy!

Of course you don’t, and neither does Jones as Hughes strikes him out looking. Back after a few words!

Bottom 2

Welcome back! The score is 2-0 Detroit, and Kenny Rogers is “dealin’” to Shelley Duncan.

Dutch: Shelley?? Does she have nice tits? *hic*

No but HE has a nice eye. Rogers kept trying to get him out away, and Duncan kept fouling them off, and eventually drew the walk. And that will bring up, Phil from Accounts Payable? Oh, sorry, check that, it’s actually Morgan Ensberg, and he is a professional baseball player. Did not know that, thanks to our crack research department. Ensberg flies out to deep left field, and that brings up the pride of San Pedro de Marcoris, Robinson Cano.

Dutch: I used to know a girl named Marcoris!

Alright Dutch that’s enough, you’re incorrigible.

Dutch: What, I was just gonna say she was a nun.

Well ok, that’s very nice.

Dutch: She was a nun until she met me in a Best Western in Iowa! HA!

What a lovely story, Robinson Cano hits one high and deep in the air to right! Way back! And Lay Down Sally, we’ve got ourselves a ball contest! Tie game 2-2!

Dutch: I wonder if I kept her phone number?

Maybe you can look for it later Dutch, in the meantime, any observations about the home run by Cano?

Dutch: He spanked that ball like it was the neighbor’s kid!