Feb
10
Open Thread: Death By Snow
ByApparently someone upstairs screwed up and sent all the extra snow to the Northeast instead of Vancouver for the Olympics. It started late last night and it hasn’t stopped since. Good thing the store on the corner is open, otherwise I might go hungry.
All the local teams sans the Knicks are in action, but I’m honestly not sure if any of the games have been postponed due to the weather. Use this open thread to keep yourself occupied while you wait for the end of days snow to subside.






UConn’s gonna get slapped the fuck around tonight and it is not going to be pretty.
Hell to the yes
Shut it, you.
6 day weekend for me. Snowday today, snowday tommorow, staff development friday, and presidents day monday= 6 days of awesome
Snow was a total bust in Mass.
It was awesome in jersey
Everything in/around Boston shut down in anticipation too. Ruined my whole day on account of a little rain.
I’m up on the North Shore of Boston for a few days meeting with clients and it mostly drizzled with a few flurries in between. There has been no accumulation.
I didn’t listen to the weather reports and the Governor’s warnings and just did business as usual.
You’d think New Englanders would be a little tougher when it comes to winter weather. But so many people up here are such pussies about snow. Maybe that’s a good thing because most have no clue how to drive in the white stuff.
Maybe that’s a good thing because most have no clue how to drive
in the white stuff.the white stuff is incidental
hahahaha aint that the truth
I fucking knew this was going to happen too.
Unfortunately my building closed for the day and I had to call it quits anyway.
We’ve gotten around four feet of snow in Northern Virginia since Friday. I believe they’ve measured over 53 inches at Dulles, which would be the all-time record.
Thoughts on this concept car? http://planet-irl.com/2010/02/.....n-chicago/
Will they get Adam West to drive it?
It would make for a nice promotional opportunity.
eh
Pretty cool design. But it does stretch the idea of an “open wheel’ race car way beyond credulity.
I saw drawings of this design over a year ago in one of the car magazines. Interesting to see the concept move forward.
Will the Indy Car sanctioning body or Formula 1 ever approve this design?
There’s a chance, at least from the IRL. There are a few other proposals for the 2012 chassis from Dallara, Swift, and Lola (http://www.openwheelworld.net/.....hp?id=8139) but it’s most likely just one of the companies will be allowed to design the spec.
Ha how about that deal the Braves offered Damon?
1 year, 4 mil with 2 mil deferred.
Absolutely hilarious, and it might even be less money than that http://blog.mlbsecrets.com/201.....-his-list/
Where does this rank among historically bad negotiations?
I laughed my ass off too. Any word on offers from Detroit?
http://msn.foxsports.com/mlb/l.....o=10880521
posted by bexarama in the open thread.
There’s absolutely no way this was written other than to generate page views and comments. Even for Bob Klapisch it’s just too patently ludicrous and pandering to exactly what everyb fan in baseball hates about the Yankees. He really must have needed a boost in hits or something.
In case you don’t feel like reading it’s a slideshow of 10 players Who would look good in pinstripes.
Prince
Lincecum
Pujols
Mauer
Pedroia- Pedroia plays harder and has a greater emotional investment in the day-to-day outcome of his team. In other words, he cares more than Cano Lol.. at what point does this become racist?
Lackey-
Crawford
Lee
Beltran
Damon.
Looks like someone needed to hit a quota.
Pedroia plays harder and has a greater emotional investment in the day-to-day outcome of his team. In other words, he cares more than Cano
In other words, he’s not as good as Cano, so the MSM will overemphasize the grit factor.
The fact that it’s a slideshow bothers me almost as much as the conceit of the article, talk about a shameless way to drive up pageviews.
You know who looks good in pinstripes? This gal:
http://serenaaw.files.wordpres.....tripes.jpg
Very nice.
Pedroia cares more because he gets his uniform dirty and dives whenever possible, even if he can’t get anywhere near the ball. That’s why he cares more.
Honestly, they’re both about equal. Cano’s got the better bat, Pedroia’s got the better glove.
All of this.
Plus the fact that he’s white and really tiny.
the tininess gives him the underdog factor
underdog factor + grit + being white = media darling
plus he’s never thrown a ball off of his own foot while on his back on the outfield grass.
“Honestly, they’re both about equal. Cano’s got the better bat, Pedroia’s got the better glove.”
Since Pedroia became a regular in 2007:
wRC+
Cano:
2007: 119
2008: 86
2009: 128
AVG: 111
Pedroia:
2007: 120
2008: 133
2009: 118
AVG: 123.66
UZR150
Cano:
2007: 11.3
2008: -7.0
2009: -5.2
AVG: -0.3
Pedroia:
2007: 4.4
2008: 10.5
2009: 10.6
AVG: 8.5
SB/CS:
Cano:
2007: 4/5
2008: 2/4
2009: 5/7
AVG: 3.66/5.33
Pedroia:
2007: 7/1
2008: 20/1
2009: 20/8
AVG: 15.66/3.33
Value:
Cano:
2007: $20.7M
2008: $2.2M
2009: $19.7M
AVG: $14.20M
Pedroia:
2007: $15.7M
2008: $30.1M
2009: $23.3M
AVG: $20.03M
This is obviously a very cursory look at the numbers, but I think they show that Pedroia’s better than Cano. He’s a much better fielder and baserunner, and they’re probably closer with the bat than we like to admit.
I’m curious how many of us, if we were starting a team from scratch and not favoring Yankees just because of emotional attachment, would select Cano over Pedroia to play 2B. I wouldn’t.
Wow. Great post Mondesi.
Thanks, much appreciated. Those comments below made a good point about the home/road splits, though, which I didn’t think to address in my comment.
PS: See below, I think I was wrong.
depends on where they are playing. Pedroia’s career OPS at Fenway is 140 points higher than it is on the road (.896 to .756 whereas Cano’s home/road split is .816/.820) with nearly twice as many doubles. Methinks the Monster has been very friendly to him
Bingo. Not to mention when you take out 2008, the numbers are A LOT closer.
The home/road split is definitely a good point. Like I said, that was a cursory review of the numbers, I certainly didn’t intend to imply it was conclusive.
Re: 2008, though… I figured someone would say something like you said, and I pondered mentioning it in my comment… But, I mean, it happened. And that was actually why I decided to actually show the numbers for each of 2007, 2008 and 2009, so I’d be fair and be showing the numbers/comparison of their highs and lows and not just the averages (which were skewed by Cano’s 2008). I know it was an outlier, but it happened and it’s part of the historical record, we can’t just overlook it. That level of volatility is something that has to be considered when discussing Cano’s value as a player. Yes it skews the numbers, but it should skew the numbers. Because of the nature of his game (the low walks, ‘swing if you can see it’ approach, there’s a lot of volatility built into his game.
Yep, you’re 100% right. I just think 2008 IS the outlier. He’s shown the ability to have a high BABIP and 2008 was uncharacteristically low, which brought everything else down.
You know, the home/road split thing was a huge omission/mistake on my part. I seriously just wrote that post quickly and didn’t think about it, I didn’t write it with an agenda to prove Pedroia is better than Cano or anything like that. I think when the numbers are looked at in that context, then yeah, you can very reasonably say that Cano is the better hitter. The baserunning and fielding comparisons still go easily to Pedroia, but definitely not the hitting, which is the most important tool of the three. Thanks to you guys for pointing that out, that was a major brain-fart on my part.
The home/road split issue is important enough that I’ll take back my choice above, I wouldn’t take Pedroia over Cano. Cano’s the better choice.
Interesting fact, Pedroia has NEVER hit a 400 foot homerun
Another interesting fact:
the Yankee Stadium Special he hit off Joba in the first game of the awesome 4-game sweep in August was the first and to date only opposite field home run he has ever hit
I really should fact check before I make assumptions
it was the first opposite field home run of his career. He hit another off Matt Garza about a month later
If you’re starting a team you’d choose Cano, the ceiling is just higher. He has better hands, more power, and a better arm. I’ll grant you Pedroia has all the intangibles.
Pedroia does not have a better glove. There are times Cano botches routine chances but there are times he’s absolutely sensational. His arm is better, more accurate and turns the double play better than anyone I’ve seen in years. He goes back on fly balls better and has a better relay arm. His demeanor is to be easy going and appears lazy. He clearly needs to hit better in the clutch, if he does the sky’s the limit. The misnomer is he’s a great hitter and not a great fielder and that’s just not true. If you watch every game as I do there are times he amazes me in the field. I’ll admit he needs to be more consistant.
Cano does in fact have more natural ability defensively as I think his arm is stronger and he gets to some balls and Pedroia couldn’t imagine fielding but Dustin is BY FAR the more consistent of the two. He almost always fields everything cleanly
Yeah, thanks for re-posting this. The entire thing needs to be FJM’ed pretty thoroughly. As Accent Shallow said in the open thread, the entire basis of the article is “Really good players would be really good on the Yankees, news at 11.” Other really, ummm, interesting things to point out:
1. Fielder, whose father played in the Bronx from 1996-97, has the Yankee blood lines,
Aren’t Prince Fielder and his father estranged?
2. Another pipe dream here, because baseball really needs Mauer and the Twins to stay married for a long, long time. His hypothetical defection to the Yankees would be enough to hand a generation of fans over to MMA, or the WWE, or bowling. It would start an insurgency that Bud Selig could never quell.
Errrr holy hyperbole, batman. You know who it would make really happy? YANKEES FANS! You might have heard there are kind of a lot of us. Not that I think we’re getting Mauer, but it wouldn’t be ZOMG TEH END OF BASEBALL!!!!!! if this happened.
3. Yes, we know the Yankees have the more talented second baseman in Robinson Cano. The Bronx incumbent is smooth, super-cool and has a hitting DNA to die for. But Pedroia plays harder and has a greater emotional investment in the day-to-day outcome of his team. In other words, he cares more than Cano.
Others have talked about this better than I could, but that’s… um… at best it’s horrendously racially insensitive. The entire point of this article was so stupid, but it was what Klapisch just wrote about with Cano vs. Pedroia that made me go, “Wow, this is one AWFUL article.”
4. But in a big game or big series, we’d put our money on Lackey before Vazquez. & lining him up behind Josh Beckett and Jon Lester gives the Sox the best front-line rotation in the American League.
As Fack Youk showed with their Javy clutch vs. Lackey clutch article, and those here at River Ave Blues did last night with the projected WAR, these are a. an irrelevant point and b. not necessarily true.
5. They love Lee’s 4-0 record and 1.56 ERA in last year’s postseason, including his two wins over the Yankees in the World Series.
I am not trying to diminish what Cliff Lee did in the postseason, but let’s not forget that one of those wins over the Yankees was a game where he gave up five runs in seven innings when the bottom of our lineup consisted of Gardner, Molina, and the pitcher.
6.
Instead, George Steinbrenner preferred Randy Johnson, which everyone now realizes was the wrong horse to pick
WOOOO RETROSPECT!!!!
7. #1 is Johnny Damon? Really? You have an article that includes Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer and the #1 guy you want to go back to the Yankees is Johnny effing Damon? He was a good player but he’s not in their league.
But the Bombers needed to be more aware of what Damon did for the clubhouse; how he helped change the climate around Alex Rodriguez.
But… but… but… Joe Torre said in his book that everyone came to him crying about how they didn’t want Johnny on the team any more!!! I’m so confused, I don’t know what to believe!!! (I think Johnny was a good clubhouse guy. I also think you could have a team of 25 GREAT clubhouse guys and if they all relatively suck at playing baseball, it won’t get you anywhere. And I don’t think one guy was what turned it around for Alex Rodriguez.)
the fact that a compromise wasn’t reached was a failure that Damon and the Yankees will ultimately regret
ZOMG are you a prophet? What are the lottery numbers in two weeks?!
I did have to laugh at this comment:
He become clutch when a pop up fly ball became is a home run in the billion dolllar softball park..
Not overlooking the fact that he was way better at home than on the road, his biggest hit (vs. Lidge) and his two home runs in the postseason happened… not in Yankee Stadium.
That was long (TWSS), apologies. ._.
Haha, nice job.
I think I would be a pretty good clubhouse guy…should the Yanks sign me? I’m only 25-30 pounds overweight with bad knees.
Gonna pimp my own article for a minute here in this open thread:
http://www.theyankeeu.com/2010.....ists-14913
I wrote a post on latent racism in sports, and was hoping to get some thoughts on it, because it is an issue I have thought about a lot.
Moshe, nice piece. I saw that Verlander/Felix comment and discussed in a open thread a while back, then saw the Cano nonsense today. Well done addressing it.
http://riveraveblues.com/2010/.....ent-768471
I hadn’t seen your comments. I am glad other people noticed it without prodding.
Yeah. The more we dug into the facts, it looks like Verlander would be more likely to be fazed by the contract. There’s simply nothing to back up what that anonymous baseball person said.
Woha. I was just gonna link your article in response to pat’s post.
That’s a really fantastic article. Thank you for sharing it. One other thing I’ve noticed is that guys like Carlos Zambrano get called mental cases when they attack water coolers and whatnot, and when Paul O’Neill did it, it just showed how much he cared. Like you, I’m a huge Paul O’Neill fan, but it still annoys me to this day.
Part of that was the dynasty.
A lot of non-Yankee fans did thing O’Neill was a mental case / whiner.
They definitely think he’s whiny, but O’Neill destroying a water cooler wouldn’t get played over and over and over and OVER again like I’ve seen with the clip of Zambrano destroying the Gatorade machine.
great article. It’s crazy how often people say things without it even occurring to them that what there could be underlying racial biases conducting those opinions. I will say, however, in Pedroia’s defense, that the impression that he “cares” more could just as easily be derivative of (and in fact is more likely derivative of, IMO) the fact that Pedroia is short, dives a lot, and seems to be playing at the absolute peak of his possible potential (although whether or not this is true or not is debatable, but people do assume that short guys who aren’t particularly fast or strong probs can’t hit more HRs or steal more bases than Pedroia does), while Cano appears to have limitless offensive talent because of how effortless his swing looks and the success he has had while appearing to play so effortlessly. People wonder “why isn’t he better” based on his playing style, and conclude that he can get complacent. With Pedroia, people wonder “how is he playing so well” based on his stature, and come to the conclusion that he is a hard worker/gamer/gritster, which is backed up, however invalidly, by the frequency of his diving efforts on ground balls.
The Verlander/Felix comment is absurd though. I mean, for heaven’s sake he could have at least semi-saved his ass by saying it was because he thought Felix could have work ethic issues because of minor weight issues he has carried with him, but he legitimately crossed out any reason for which Felix “could” complacent while Verlander “won’t” other than race. Amazing.
That’s a fair point on the Pedroia thing. Honestly, I think he is the perfect confluence of factors, being white, always dirty, and short.
Moshe- I just commented over at TYU. That’s an amazing post, good for you. That post is why blogging is such a good thing – voices like yours, on issues like that, should be heard. If anyone is reading this comment and hasn’t been convinced by the rest of these comments to go and read Moshe’s post, please do.
Seconded on all counts.
Bravo, Moshe. Excellent article. I’m sharing this with as many people as I can.
Nice… But maybe next time you shouldn’t bother sharing it with Short Circuit.
Ken Davidoff of Newsday tweets that the Nationals will guarantee Wang $2MM, with a chance to more than double that through incentives.
That’s not a great deal compared to Sheets.
Ben Sheets’ upside >>> Wang’s upside
Five times the guaranteed money more upside?
Yeah, why not? When healthy, Sheets is one of the best pitchers in the game.
That is part of it.
I also think there is a lot better chance than Sheets is healthy next season than there is for CMW.
Both pitchers at the height of there abilities, Sheets is worth a lot more but not 5X as much.
For 2010….these deals seem about right, although honestly I didn’t think Sheets would get quite as much guaranteed as he did.
Sheets and Wang both have their injury issues, but they’re very different.
Sheets has the disadvantage of his body being composed entirely of glass, which could be a problem over the course of the Major League season. Wang has had two separate shoulder surgeries, albeit 8 years apart. He did have shoulder issues in 2005, however.
From a health standpoint, I think I’d take Wang. Yes, shoulder surgery is risky, but if Wang is finally recovered from the baserunning fiasco in Houston, I expect him to continue without missing much of a beat — he may never be the same pitcher, but he should be consistently making starts. With Sheets, I don’t think we’ll ever see that.
I disagree, and I think most teams did as well (given the fact that several teams were willing to gaurantee a roster spot + serious money).
Shoulder injuries are bad news for pitchers, much more difficult to predict than elbows. Based on that alone, I would take Sheeets (health-wise) for 2010, but you also have the fact that he is ready to start the season, unlike CMW.
That’s fair enough, but I still can’t see guaranteeing Sheets $10M when he goes on the DL after every other start.
Ben Sheets never won more than 13 games in a season. Wanger did it twice in a row. For whatever that’s worth.
Ehh, not much.
Put Sheets on the Yankees and he’d win 13+ many times. Put Wang on those Brewers teams and he wouldnt win 13 games either
If we’re strictly talking “upside,” I think based on the report, Wang could make 5-6 after incentives. At that point, if both pitchers pitched the whole season, I think yes, I’d rather pay Sheets 11 or 12 over paying Wang 5 or 6.
I’m just saying that 2mil guaranteed + 2mil in incentives isn’t great compared to what the other injury rebound pitchers have gotten this offseason. If I’m Wang I wait till midseason for a contender to need another pitcher.
Bedard got 1.5m guaranteed, coming off shoulder surgery. And Bedard’s better than Wang, so their contracts are comparable.
Sheets missed all of last season, but it was an elbow non-TJS that pitchers recover from better than shoulder surgeries.
Sheets got an absurd, absurd contract. $10M? When he didn’t even pitch in 2009? Incredible.
on the other hand, if he is healthy there is a decent chance of that looking like a steal
But the guy didn’t pitch at all in 2009, and is incredibly injury prone. Regardless of upside (which is considerable), there’s no way he should have gotten that kind of guarantee.
Exactly, I mention Bedard’s contract lower. ($1.5 mil + $7 mill incentives)
Sheets pitched 339 innings, in 55 GS since 07
Bedard pitched 346 innings in 58 GS since 07
Sheets has 264 SO in that time
Bedard has 383 SO in that time
Sheets’ deal is looking crazier and crazier
since 07 their records are similar, but Sheets was one of the best pitchers in the game from 04-07
I’m not saying they didn’t overpay in guaranteed money, but Sheets >> Bedard
I think it’s because Oakland saw what MLB made Florida do, forcing them to spend money, and didn’t want to have to do that.
I completely agree, why guarantee anywhere near that much for a guy coming off a fairly serious elbow injury, who didn’t throw one inning the year before.
Bedard got $1.5 mil + $7 mill incentives, I guess I just don’t understand the Sheets contract at all.
Sheets is ready to step right into the rotation on Opening Day. Bedard and Wang aren’t.
Don’t you think Sheets got way too much guaranteed money though? Even compared with Harden’s $6.5MM next year, with $3.5MM. Who pitched a 141 innings last year.
Well, look at it this way. Oakland without Sheets goes nowhere. Oakland with Sheets has a fairly good chance of being pretty good. If he’s healthy by the trade deadline and they’re not really in it, he’s a guy they’ll trade and get some good prospects for. So really, they only need him to be in relative health until July.
UConn his seriously helpless against a zone.
They are also seriously helpless in their passing game. They also lack the ability to penetrate the paint and don’t shoot enough from outside.
I’m a big fan of UCONN (have one of my degrees from the school and grew up in CT) but they are not a Championship caliber team this year. I doubt that they will make it to the big dance despite knocking off #1 Texas.
I graduated in May.
For ’10, I thought they could be a Sweet 16 team and they definitely have the talent for it but…they just can’t put it together. They look sloppy as fuck out there.
They look sloppy in almost every game.
At the beginning of the season I had high hopes that this very young team would get much better as the season progressed, the players matured and they started to gel as a unit. But they haven’t at all. If fact, they have regressed.
I don’t know if Calhoun’s health driven limbo has hurt but it can’t help.
This team looks like it’s going to the NIT.
Dyson is the most worthless player in recent memory.
*Note: I’m a HUGE UConn fan.
Didn’t go to work today. Not thrilled about burning the vacation day, but no need to be driving in this.
I wish some of this snow would come to Killington, its been dry as a bone here for a month.
Vermont isn’t slammed with snow? Strange.
We’ve barely had any lately.
I am currently sitting in Adolescent Psychology (required for education majors). Started at 6:00, going to 9:15… I really want to kill myself. Even with my netbook, it’s physical agony sitting in this class.
at least you have wireless in your lecture hall
What school doesn’t?
The School of Hard Knocks.
SUNY Downstate–they have wireless in the building, but there is no signal in the lecture hall where I have 90% of my classes
Hah! I’m at SUNY Brockport. We’re shitty, but not *that* shitty.
I think they block it intentionally. Still annoying though
hush yoself son. I bake bagels from 5am-1pm err’day.
I asked this in the thread last night but it was pretty much after it died down, so… what’s the best way to measure defense pre-2002 when UZR got introduced? FRAA?
Not sure about best but TotalZone is pretty good.
shhhhhhh.
we’re not too big on discussing pre-2002 defense ’round these parts. it messes with our circuitry as spreadsheet-reading robots.
i lol’ed
The same one that is the best today.
Gold Gloves.
wait, are you suggesting that Rafael Palmeiro wasn’t the best fielding first baseman in 1999?
RIP Captain Phil Harris, Cornelia Marie skipper, from the Discovery Channel’s Deadliest Catch. He was so cool, in a crazy uncle kind of way.
I was shocked that a chain-smoking workaholic, who ingested as much caffeine as oxygen, would die at an early age.
Hah – I know, we all saw it coming… still sucks!
Bummer.
Why are these guys saying Stanley Robinson has NBA prospects? Look, the guy’s athletic as fuck but skill wise, he’s nothing special at all. He’s an inconsistent shooter who falls in love with his shot all too often and is rather ineffective on offense when not on a fast break.
He had a good tournament or 2. It’s the same reason we MUST SIGN MATSUI AND DAMON!!! WS MVP AND 2 STEALS ON ONE PLAY!!!!
He probably won’t amount to much, I’ll give you that. But the potential is there. He’s long and athletic. That’s pretty much what an NBA prospect is. He’s not Rudy Gay good. Probably not Tyrus Thomas good either. But if he puts it all together (big if), he’ll be a solid NBA player.
Begging to differ: the reason he seems so limited is because he is too passive. He’s not in love with his shot. He just depends on his guards to get him the ball in scoring position. In an NBA style setting he’d be hitting 15′ jumpers all day and owning the fast break in the meantime.
The problem this year is the guards are so bad and selfish that the only time he touches the ball are when he gets an O rebound, on an alley-oop, or when the the post passes it back out to him.
Also, this year his 3pt% is pretty good.
http://www.fangraphs.com/leade.....38;month=0
Don’t throw Robbie Cano strikes, he’s just going to hit it somewhere.
I think this might be one of Robbie’s weaknesses, since if you throw him a lousy strike, he’s more likely to hit it weakly than he is to swing and miss.
I would agree Robbie’s all about BABIP, but that’s because he doesn’t walk much. That tells me that he has amazing ability to make contact, but would do himself a world of good if he would lay off pitches out of the zone and take his walks.
2009 Twins/Tigers one-game playoff or 2007 Rockies/Padres one-game playoff?
I thought the 2007 game was better, though they were both classics.
I enjoyed the 2009 game more because the outcome directly affected the Yankees.
was ’07 the Holliday phantom touch of home game?
Yeah, but the Padres’ catcher didn’t tag him either and Trevor Hoffman had already pretty spectacularly crapped the bed.
And FWIW I hadn’t seen the 2007 game (I was abroad during the 2007 postseason) until MLB Network had it a few weeks ago. I’m pretty sure it was even more crazy and epic than the 2009 game.
Trevor Hoffman: more saves, but couldn’t carry Mariano Rivera’s jock.
Well Trevor Hoffman never blew a World Series game!!! He’s better!
/someone actually told me this’d
Since not everyone will know what a dope that person was:
http://www.baseball-reference......0200.shtml
Good game.
For the record, I think the “Trevor Hoffman sucks in a big game” stuff is overblown. The dude pitched for the Padres for a million years, how many “big games” could he ever have really been in? But… he’s not Mariano Rivera. No one is.
I should note that nothing makes me more irrationally pissed off than people – Boston fans, Yankee haters, the generally clueless – coming up with incredibly stupid reasons to try and disprove the fact that he’s the best relief pitcher ever.
by “he” I mean Mariano obviously
Phew. For a minute there I thought you were referring to all those assholes disparaging Joe Borowski.
hee.
And by “he” I mean “He” cuz I’m talking about Mo and all.
Johnny Damon’s 4 mil with 2 deferred (after turning down 2/14 with the Yanks) makes me wonder about some of the worst contract moves of all time.
-Nomar turns down 4 year/60 mil extension from the Sox in 04 and signs for 1 year/8.25 mil with the Cubs the next season. He made 35 mil total in the 4 years after he left the Sox.
-Ray Knight (negotiating his own deal) signs with the Orioles for 500K, after the Mets offered him 800K.
Any others?
Jody Reed rejected a three year contract offer by the Dodgers of $3.8 million for three years for the 1994 baseball season. He wound up signing for the major league minimum in the neighborhood of $100,000 with the Brewers. He did earn $750,000 with incentives that season but still took a huge loss since he would have earned over $1.2 million if he had accepted the Dodgers offer.
Dammit Nomar, why didn’t you take that deal?!
. . .and the Sox have been looking for a SS ever since then. PLUS, they traded away one of the best SS in Baseball in the Beckett deal.
You have a point, but it’s not like the corpse of Nomar could have been their SS all these years either. But if Nomar signs that extension, they probably don’t trade him, and I don’t have to hear heaving-bosom praise about Dave goddamn Roberts.
There is no mistake like a Juan Gonzalez mistake. Turned down 8/140 in 2000, made about $20M the rest of his career.
That has to be one of the worst if not THE worst.
Boom. That’s a great one.
I can’t believe that. How badly would that have killed Detroit? He was last a great player in 2001, and last healthy/useful in 2003, and retired after 2005!
(I believe he came to ST 2007 with St. Louis, where he hit fine, but couldn’t play the field)
Latrell Sprewell
Well at least he has his tremendous Dada Spinner shoe money to feed his family.
In fairness to Ray Knight, isn’t quality of life a factor here. I mean, it is The Mets.
Sheeeeeeiiiiit.
/ClayDavis’d
Obviously the worst contract move of all time is Bay turning down the Red Sox offer to sign for more money with the Mets.
/Gammons’d
Beruit offered less.
UCONN is making it a game. They’re going to make me eat the words I posted earlier in this thread.
This is definitely NOT the face of a person who cares about the game. This picture just shows the laziness of the heartless non-caring bastard of Robinson Cano.
http://www.cnycentral.com/uplo.....onCano.jpg
He’s smiling. How dare he!
He’s so lazy smiling and caring. You use more muscles when you frown you know. So so lazy.
He probably just struck out. He smiles when he strikes out because he doesn’t care.
That must have been when scrappy white underdog Larry Bowa was forcing him to care.
Let’s fucking go, UConn. Salvage my faith in you.
storm the court more imo.
Get Rautins fouled out and they have a chance to win.
Cashman extends hand.
Damon: What’s that supposed to mean?
Cashman: I’m offering you a draw.
Damon: Draw? You’ve got to be kidding me.
Cashman: You’ve lost. You just don’t know it.
Damon: I’ve lost? Look at the board.
Cashman: I have. Take the draw and we’ll share the championship. Take the draw.
Damon: Move.
Cashman: Check. Good game.
Check Mate is game in chess.
A “Searching for Bobby Fischer” reference. LOL…nice.
I’ve never seen the show before, but when does Ugly Betty get her frickin braces off?
I wouldn’t start watching now, since it’s getting canned.
I have no intention to. But, doesn’t she work at a fashion magazine or a modeling agency or something? Where the hell are those damn traveling pants when you need them?
I’m not sure, I just know Salma Hayek is involved, and I’d like to get in her traveling pants.
No kidding. I’ll even watch Salma in that movie where she’s an artist with a caterpillar eyebrow.
You think she’s had any plastic surgery? I don’t care of anything, but I’m curious.
She’s curvalicious.
If she has, the Dr. did a damn fine job.
She’s pretty jiggly. Too jiggly for plastic surgery.
If you look at photos of her over the years, she definitely looks bigger.
Breast enhancement surgery with saline instead of silicon can still look “natural”.
Bottom line . . . I’m not sure.
After she had her kid, she got swoll, yo.
What a shot.
That was from what 27′?
Christos Schwarz on google buzz
Go Huskies!!!!
I love Kemba Walker, and I think he’ll be something really special in the next year or two, but is it a law that his being from the Bronx must be mentioned any time he does something?
Did you know Dioner Navarro was an All-Star?
Thank you, Michael.
Modern Family never ceases to amaze me. I love this show.
Sofia Vergara AND Salma Hayek…..now we have a proper fiesta.
Aye dios mio……….
Does anyone have any links I discussing the Yanks as bidders for the new Cuban sensation, Adeiny Hechevarria? ESPN has only identified the Angels as serious bidders.
I haven’t heard or read anything. I’ve read that they are still in on Rafael DePaula though.
I have a headache from agruing this with my firends:
Brooklyn Decker or Bar Rafaeli
arguing……friends
long day
B-Dek, all day.
Push.
/Wilbon’d
I actually said it my Nick Bakay voice.
Decker
All hot blondes are interchangeable
Bar Rafaeli by a thousand. Come on that’s not even a debatable.
agreed. all around better
Huh, these are girls. Never would have known from their names . . .
Yeah. I had no idea what was being discussed. At first I thought it was general contractors or dive bars.
What ever happened to “normal” names? (The Israeli girl gets a pass. Unless of course that name is weird in Hebrew, too.)
Anyone here a big metal fan? I just love Slayer. LOVE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....re=related
They’re still gettin it done man.
‘tallica
Big fan of Enter Sandman, though not for any music-related reason
+42
SLAYER!!! I’ve been playing Seasons and Decade of Aggression all day, since I’m penned up in the house, buried under 53″ of snow here in Maryland. FYI, JoPawl is a big metal fan, too.
hard to think in this snow, when i’m melting here in Brazil. 86°F at 1:20 am
Huh, and here I thought Brazil was on EST.
Learn something new every day.
Fun Fact: All of South America is east of Daytona Beach.
the standard Brazilian time have 2 hours of diference to the EST
but we’re in “Daylight saving time” (i don’t have idea what is the name for it in USA)
when the baseball season starts, our “DST” ends and yours starts, making 1 hour of diference.
Hah, we call it Daylight Saving time too.
Man its freezing down here in Miami, almost 40 degrees tonight!!
Maybe you and Andy can meet up and cuddle to stay warm.
/bitter in the Northeast
It’s cold, I’m not gonna lie. It will be in the 20′s tonite. I know I’ll get no sympathy, nor do I deeserve any, but cold is cold.
I grew up in NY, but I lived in Daytona from ’01 – ’06, then spent a year in the desert, then moved to Atlanta until April of last year. Now I’ve moved to Maryland and winter is killing me! I’ve grown so soft. Hopefully my next move will take me north of the Mason-Dixon and my blood will get thicker.
It’s no longer the Mason-Dixon line. It’s the IHOP-Waffle House line.
That’s funny, because I just found a Wa-Ho in Frederick… I didn’t realize that they came this far north. Now I know!
Which do you like better?
Personally I like waffle house.
Must say watching the new Baseball Seasons on MLBN which is about 2004 and its alot easier to watch that collapse now that the Yankees won the WS this past year. I will never get completely over it but its alot easier to stomach now.
Also forgot how amazing Beltran was that post-season. Holy shit was he on fire that October.
I’m impressed that you watched that. How was it? I’ve liked the other Baseball’s Seasons but I just… couldn’t… watch… that one.
Yeah I know I dont blame you, I told myself I wasnt gonna watch it either but it was the replay at 11 pm and there wasnt anything else to watch so I said fuck it.
It was great like all the other ones to be honest, it wasnt all just the Red Sox so that helped. Also it did show Arod dominating the Twins and highlights of the first 3 wins of the ALCS so it was alot more balanced than I thought it would be.
It’s funny how everyone in the media like SUDDENLY remembered this year that he’d dominated the Twins and the Red Sox for the first three games in 2004 as opposed to trotting out the “he sucks in the postseason” thing. Stupid.
Good to know it wasn’t just a Sox love-fest. What else happened that year? Randy Johnson’s perfect game and I guess, from the commercials, Ken Griffey Jr. hitting his 500th home run and Greg Maddux winning his 300th game. I love Maddux, I’m still not watching it, though.
And in the epilogue thing that they always do, did they mention the Yankees winning in 2009? Cuz they should have. Hmph.
Next Baseball’s Seasons: 1998 plz, MLBN?
Not sure if anyone saw this, but on MLB.com’s shop, they have jerseys with the 2009 World Series patch and they already (apparently) assigned numbers to Javy and Randy Winn. Javy has 31 and Winn 22. There goes my hope of having Winn wear 18.
Oh and Nick Johnson has been assigned 26.
what about Hoffmann and Thames?
22 makes sense for Winn, since 2 was unavailable.
I’m surprised that Nick Johnson didn’t try to buy #36 off of Edwar, though… Edwar’s probably never going to actually need it again.
While the list of stupid moves the Royals make is endless. Letting Krazy Kyle compete for a rotation spot is certainly towards the top of that list.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/articl.....8;c_id=mlb
Amazing about 2004. Posada couldn’t have made a better throw to nail Roberts in the 9th inning of game 4. He just barely got his hand in an eighth of a second before Jeter tagged him. Thats the difference between a 4 game sweep one way, and led to a 4 game sweep the other way.
Torre being like “Mo throwing over to first warmed Dave Roberts up, everyone knew he was going to steal then” in The Yankee Years and then not calling for a pitch-out will haunt me forever. (sobs)