Mainstream media and bloggers react to A-Rod

Smart, rational reactions:
Rob Neyer - My favorite
Tom Tango - 2nd favorite
Beyond the Boxscore
Mets Police
Shysterball
Boogiedown Baseball
Mets Tailgate - Genius
Mike's Mets
Phil Allard - Great job Phil pointing out what a piece of trash this Selena Roberts is. First Duke lax, now this.
FanGraphs
Anthony Rieber

Poor reactions:
Jay Mariotti - What a shock...
Joel Sherman
Jerry Brewer
Ken Davidoff
Bill Madden
Jayson Stark - Stark's outrageous headline: "A-Rod has destroyed game's history"
Ted Keith
Bill Madden - Again! And even sillier the 2nd time around.
Wallace Matthews - If you look up the definition of 'moron' in the dictionary...

I'll add more as I come across them. Noticing a trend here? It's pretty much just the traditional mainstream media sportswriters who are outraged over this. The progressive, rational bloggers/analysts have it right. Not that this is anything out of the norm when it comes to baseball analysis.

Mets sign RHP Freddy Garcia - Rotation still needs help

The Mets signed right-handed starting pitcher Freddy Garcia to a minor league deal, according to Adam Rubin at the Daily News. Reportedly, Garcia can make as much as $8-9 million if he makes the team and reaches a bunch of incentives. Those better be some lofty incentives if the Mets are to pay $8 million to a guy who has pitched a combined 78 innings (majors and minors) over the last 2 seasons due to injury.

This is a good pick-up, especially if Garcia can return to his workhorse 1999-2006 form. He has a career FIP of 4.22 in 1700+ innings, and I could see him making 10-15 starts this year. I really hope Ben Sheets is signed as well. It doesn't seem like the Mets have any interest in Andy Pettitte (unfortunately), so I'll give up on that pipe dream. I've said it over and over again, but at this point Oliver Perez at any more than $9 million a year just isn't going to cut it.

Links: Mets free agent news, Carlos Delgado in 2009, Bert Blyleven vs. Jack Morris, and more Hall of Fame

Some links to check out while you ponder whether Bert Blyleven's Hall of Fame case is helped or hurt by the shirt he's wearing in this picture:

1) Peter Botte of the Daily News (via MLBTradeRumors) had some thoughts/rumors about the Mets free agent pursuits. Here they are, with my brief thoughts as well:

- The Mets are probably not interested in Andruw Jones: Good!
- They're "not even in" on Manny Ramirez: The only way I want Manny is if they fail to land Ben Sheets or Andy Pettitte. In that scenario they would have to drastically upgrade the lineup.
- They won't have an agreement with Oliver Perez anytime soon: Hopefully the only agreement they have with Ollie is for 3 years, $15 million or less.
- They've been in contact with Randy Wolf and Jon Garland: Neither of these guys thrill me, but they aren't that big a step down from Perez.
- They've talked with Freddy Garcia: Meh. I say sign him, but only if Sheets or Pettitte is signed as well.

2) Brian Joura at FanGraphs writes about what to expect from Carlos Delgado in 2009. He thinks Delgado's poor 2007 and first couple months of 2008 were a result of his wrist injury. After some great LD% and BABIP analysis, he concludes that we should expect a similar offensive output from Delgado in 2009 as 2008. This means about 30-35 HR, and a .265/.350/.510 line. Works for me.

3) Joe DelGrippo at NY Baseball Digest wrote a hilariously awful piece yesterday about why he would vote for Jack Morris but not Bert Blyleven for the Hall of Fame. Joey D. manages to insult many readers in the process. He wrote the piece in response to a comment I made on a previous post of his, and it is just terrible. Joey D's main argument is that Morris had a higher win % than Blyleven. This, as we all know, is an awful way to evaluate a pitcher. Check out the comments section - there's 24 comments and the only one's not completely ripping Joey D. a new one are the 2 he made himself. Here is a snippet from the post:

"Too many people are so wrapped up in statistics, especially the new stats that seem to spew out of every sabermetric bloggers mouth. Those bloggers are guys who mostly never played the game at any decent level above Little League, but they know the OPS+ of every guy not in the HOF but should be based on WARP 3."

Right. So basically he's saying stats are stupid, then goes on to tell us about Morris's win % and average W-L record each season. These are, ya know, stats. For the last time, Blyleven pitched 1000 more innings than Morris, with a higher K rate, lower BB rate, lower HR allowed rate, and MUCH lower ERA. Blyleven had a 2.47 postseason ERA and Morris a 3.80 ERA. It's no contest. If Mike Silva, proprietor of the recommended NY Baseball Digest, had any sense he'd either have a little chat with Joey D. or kick him off the site altogether.

4) I'm pretty obsessed with this Hall of Fame stuff. I have an utter contempt for the sportswriters who vote on the HOF and refuse to learn about or use modern statistics to evaluate players for their ballots. King Kaufman at Salon shares my sentiments:

"It's one thing to criticize the new stats. But it's another thing to simply dismiss them without bothering to figure out what they're all about. And then to try to pass this off as wisdom. It's what's going on in the world we're covering. In what other profession do practitioners brag about their ignorance regarding current events and developments? In what other area of journalism is lack of awareness a mark of distinction? Cut it out, fellow writers. Do your job. Engage with your material. Stay current. Learn about things you don't understand. Ignorance isn't a virtue. It's not something to brag about. It's something to fix."

I couldn't agree more. These men get paid to write about sports and have the privilege (not the right) to vote on the Hall of Fame. And many of them wear their lack of statistical knowledge as a badge of honor. Get with it guys. Modern medicine no longer practices phrenology or uses leeches as a cure; modern baseball writers should not be using W-L records, batting average and RBI to evaluate players.

Links: Closer Music, Schneider's Defense, Hall of Fame, and a Rickey Drinking Game

Here's some links while wondering if Francisco Rodriguez loves the smell of napalm in the morning:

1) SNY's Ted Berg makes some non-traditional suggestions for Francisco Rodriguez's entrance music. Here is part 1 and here is part 2. These are my favorites:

"1. 4'33" - John Cage: Cage's piece, for the unfamiliar, consists of four minutes and thirty three seconds of no music at all. This would require a whole lot of fan participation. If everyone -- every fan, every vender, every usher, every bathroom attendant -- could remain silent while the pitcher walked in from the bullpen and threw his warm-ups, well, that'd be about as badass an entrance as I could imagine.

1. Ride of the Valkyries - Richard Wagner: As far as I know, no closer has even considered something classical and so, while using "Ride of the Valkyries" to herald impending doom a la Apocalypse Now may be old news in some settings, on a baseball field it'd be brand new. And triumphant."

Can't argue with his #1 choice - I wrote a few months back that Ride of the Valkyries would be my entrance music.

2) Adam Rubin at the Daily News posted a reader's email which claimed that Brian Schneider was the cause of the Mets bullpen failures in 2008. The stats presented seemed cherry-picked and strange to me, but before I could take a closer look samt at Amazin' Avenue posted a rebuttal. Needless to say, I'm with samt on this one - Schneider is not Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate, but he certainly did not make Aaron Heilman and Pedro Feliciano serve up gopher balls last summer.

3) The 70 year-old Hall of Fame voter named Corky Simpson who left Rickey Henderson off of his ballot regrets doing so. He says it was just an oversight and not an attempt to make a statement. Apparently he does not regret including Matt Williams on his ballot. Additionally, Simpson has some choice words for the Internet and presumably bloggers:

"I think of the literature on the Internet in the same way that I think of the literature on the walls of public bathrooms. With the exception that the literature on the walls of public bathrooms is a little higher class."

And

"The Internet is like a sewer. It’s very necessary, but you wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time there."

Someone please tell me why people like this are determining who gets into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

4) Fantasy baseball website Razzball gives us the "Rickey Henderson Hall of Fame Speech Drinking Game." It's pretty hilarious and my favorite is:

"Tells a story using himself in the 3rd person: chug a beer"

Better get a 30-rack ready for Rickey's big speech.

Minor griping - NL Cy Young Award

Times are slow in Mets universe, but I can never pass up a chance to gripe at the BBWAA (the group of writers that votes on postseason awards) for their poor award voting. Yesterday, they rightfully voted Tim Lincecum the NL Cy Young winner. My ridiculously minor and borderline pointless complaint is with who came in 2nd and 3rd in the voting. Take a look at the stats of the following two mystery players:

X: 226.2 IP, 3.30 ERA, 1.20 WHIP, 2.82 K/BB, 0.52 HR/9, 139 ERA+
Y: 234.1 IP, 2.53 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 3.27 K/BB, 0.88 HR/9, 166 ERA+

Somehow, player X finished 2nd and player Y finished 3rd. If you haven't guessed by now, player X is Brandon Webb and player Y is our own Johan Santana. I tried not to cherrypick my stats too much here, but these are some of the major stats I look at when evaluating pitchers. The only difference between these two was their meaningless W-L records: Webb went 22-7 while Santana went 16-7. It's nice to see some progress here, evidenced by Lincecum taking down the award. However, these voters really have to stop being blinded by W-L record. It's pitiful.

The two NY writers who voted were David Lennon of Newsday and Adam Rubin of the Daily News. Lennon's decent ballot went:

1. Santana
2. Lincecum
3. Brad Lidge

Rubin's questionable ballot omitted Santana completely:

1. Lincecum
2. Webb(!!!!!!!!)
3. Lidge

Seriously Adam, your Daily News page says you're a graduate of the Wharton School of Business at UPenn, and you really think Brandon Webb and Brad Lidge were more deserving of the Cy Young Award than Johan Santana, the guy who led the league in IP and ERA? Really?! Hopefully you're not voting again anytime in the near future.

Manny wants to get paid

In a post to his blog, Adam Rubin of the Daily News writes:

"Free agent-to-be Manny Ramirez said his 2009 employer will be determined by the best financial offer. “I want to see who is the highest bidder,” Ramirez bluntly said. “The (price of) gas is up, so I’m up,” he added with a laugh.

He later quipped: “I’m looking for a seven-year deal. I want Alex money,” refering to A-Rod. Asked how old he’d be at the end of a seven-year deal, Ramirez gleefully added: “Forty-three.”"

While I applaud Manny for being honest about what he's truly looking for ($$$$$$$$$), I am still torn if I want him on the Mets. Yes, even a Manny unmotivated by his contract year will still be good for .300/.380/.550 and 35 HR. However, he is a butcher in the field (Dewan's +/- system rated him the worst OF in baseball from 2005-2007 by a wide margin), and will likely require a 5-6 year commitment. Even a 41 year old Manny will probably go .280/.350/.500, but he will be an unmoving object in the OF by then.

To reiterate what I outlined in my offseason recommendations, if the Mets could sign Manny to a 3-4 year contract at $15-18 million a year, I wouldn't be opposed. However, he wants (and will undoubtedly receive) too many years and just too much money. If he doesn't wind up with the Mets, let's hope he doesn't sign in the NL or, God forbid, with the Phillies.

A New Apple for Citi Field

According to Adam Rubin and Anthony McCarron of the Daily News, the current Shea Stadium home run apple will be replaced with a new one when Citi Field opens next year. They write:

"The Mets had hoped to keep their intentions quiet for now about whether they would transfer the apple from Shea to their new stadium or commission a new one. But they inadvertently upstaged their own announcement. An official with ties to the team revealed on a late-night airing of a special about Citi Field on SNY that it will, in fact, be a new apple celebrating longballs."

The current apple is now 28 years old, and looks kind of old and dented. I have no problem replacing it, as long as the top hat it rises out of remains. No trip to Shea is complete without seeing that big flashing red apple.

Any thoughts on what the Mets should do with the old apple? Donate it to a museum? Put it in Times Square to use as the new ball to drop on New Year's Eve? Give it to Keith Hernandez for the backyard of his house out east?

Apologies to the people over at savetheapple.com, who originally brought attention to the future status of the beloved apple. They wanted to move the original to Citi Field, but hey, a new apple is better than no apple.

The Jerry Manuel Era

Obviously, the Mets have played better since Willie Randolph’s firing, going 45-26 under Jerry Manuel. They were just 34-35 under Randolph. In general, I believe that a manager usually has a minimal impact on his team’s performance. He makes the lineup and pitching changes, but after that it’s pretty much up to the players. However, I tend to agree with John Harper of The Daily News when he writes:

“The bottom line is performance, and this is a team that suddenly seems to have big plans for October. Eleven weeks later, it's hard to imagine the Mets playing at this level if they hadn't changed managers.”

Is there any possible way the Mets would be where they are with Randolph still managing? Heck no. Enough has been written about the Randolph firing to fill a book, so I won’t cover it too much here. Suffice it to say that Randolph was never the right fit for the Mets, as his goal was to become the next Joe Torre: completely stoic, no fun, all business. That doesn’t work for the Mets or their fan base. Will Leitch touched on this nicely in an article from New York Magazine soon after the firing.

I also believe that winning produces a fun, relaxed clubhouse - not the other way around. So when people point to the “everyone loves each other” Mets clubhouse as a reason for the success, I have to say that if the Mets were losing, the clubhouse would not seem so jovial. Additionally, Dan Warthen deserves credit for the pitching staff’s improvement. Rick “15 Minutes” Peterson just wasn’t doing the job any longer.

What is the point of this post? It’s an excuse to put up some more statistics, this time showing the Mets’ pitching and hitting as a team before and after Randolph’s firing:

Pitching:
Willie's Mets: 4.14 ERA, 1.90 K/BB, 7.05 K/9 innings, 1.01 HR/Game
Jerry's Mets: 3.79 ERA, 2.18 K/BB, 7.42 K/9 innings, 1.04 HR/Game

Hitting:
Willie's Mets: .257/.333/.395, for a .728 OPS, 39.9 AB/HR
Jerry's Mets: .276/.346/.440, for a .786 OPS, 28.5 AB/HR