Just this morning, we predicted that some reporter somewhere would make note of the fact that Bay Area native and resident CC Sabathia attended a game of his home-town Golden State Warriors as a sign that he maybe, might, could sign with the Giants. Little did I realize it would be ESPN national baseball writer Jayson Stark. In a blog post that lists every reason why the Giants shouldn’t sign Sabathia and then posits that they might anyway, Stark plays up the fact that CC went to a Warriors game. When will the media ever learn?
Open Thread: I should have an MVP vote
Justice was served in baseball land today, as the mythical beast known as Albert Pujols won his second NL MVP award. While the BBWAA should be commended for giving the award to the right guy, I still have a beef with the voters, specifically Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Not only did Mr. Haudricourt have Pujols at #7 on his ballot (somehow behind THREE other first basemen), he managed to have three Brewers on his ballot. (h/t KLaw)
Three Brewers on his ballot. Three Brewers.
So, let’s get this straight. A writer who covers the Milwaukee Brewers for a living used three of the ten votes on his MVP ballot to vote for players who play for the local team he covers. If that’s not fishy enough, Haudricourt also claims that he likes “to weight (sic) my voting to teams in the playoff hunt because I think that puts more pressure on players and separates the men from the boys,” which would be perfectly reasonable if he didn’t have Carlos Delgado three spots ahead of Pujols on his ballot. Let’s review.
Carlos Delgado: .271-.353-.518, 71 XBH, 124-72 K/BB ratio, 38.2 VORP for a team that finished 1 GB of the Wildcard
Albert Pujols: .357-.462-.653, 81 XBH, 54/104 K-BB ratio, 98.7 VORP for a team that finished 4 GB of the Wildcard
But Mike, Carlos Delgado didn’t start hitting until midseason, you say. Well, let’s look at their stats after Delgado finally started hitting at the end of June:
Delgado: .308-.392-.626, 47 XBH, 80 RBI
Pujols: .356-.444-.664, 50 XBH, 73 RBI
LOGIC FAIL. Pujols still has him beat, and this doesn’t even consider his Gold Glove caliber defense. I wonder if Pujols’ 7th place vote has anything to do with him residing in the same division as Haudricourt’s beloved Brew Crew? If writers can not put their personal biases aside, they should not be voting for baseball’s major awards, period. Pujols was far and away the best player in the game this year (Hanley Ramirez finished second in VORP at 79.4), and to have him seventh on a MVP ballot is just ignorant.
/rant
Meanwhile, back in the Bronx, the Yanks managed to pull off some under-the-radar roster moves over the weekend. Are you ready? Here it goes: Jon Albaladejo, Andrew Brackman, Chien-Ming Wang, and Jorge Posada were activated from the 60 day DL. That’s it. Groundbreaking stuff, I know. The Depth Chart is up to date; they need some starting pitching. Like, bad.
Elsewhere, the first free agent came off the board as LHP Jeremy Affeldt inked a 2 yr, $8M deal with the Giants. Great signing by Brian Sabean, locking up an effective and underrated bullpen arm before the reliever market exploded. And because Affeldt was a Type-B free agent, we now officially have a Sandwich Round in next year’s draft. Make sure you check out our 2009 Draft Order Tracker as free agents sign throughout the winter.
So here’s your open thread for the night. Talk baseball, Browns-Bills, Rangers-Senators, whatever you like. Just don’t be a dick.
If you screw up, we will find you
When we heard about the Rookie of the Year award results yesterday, we also found out that three writers voted for the Reds’ Edinson Volquez despite his ineligibility. He had 80 innings of ML ball heading into 2008, thus disqualifying him as a rookie. I could make some sweeping generalization about how this exemplifies the state of mainstream baseball coverage, but I’d like to keep the criticism focused on the guilty party. Thankfully, Keith Law outs the guilty parties.
To Jeremy Cothran of the Newark Star Ledger, John Klima of the Los Angeles Daily News, and Jay Paris of the North County Times (San Diego), please inform us why you should continue to serve as a baseball writer. After all — and this applies especially to Cothran, who graduated college just three years ago — there are plenty of people who want your job, and would actually bother to do the requisite research.
Longoria, Soto take home ROY honors
No surprise here, these two were clearly the head of the rookie class in their respective leagues. Here’s where it gets ridiculous though: Edinson Volquez received three second place votes despite NOT EVEN BEING ELIGIBLE FOR THE FREAKING AWARD!!! He passed the rookie limit of 50 IP last September, yet some esteemed members of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America decided he was so awesome that his eligiblity should be prolonged.
These people are paid to write about baseball. What a joke.
From the ‘You Don’t Say’ Department
The headline on Ken Davidoff’s Saturday column: Mets deeply regret letting Kazmir go to Rays. You don’t say. Next, Ken’s going to write about how most Americans deeply regret those subprime mortgages. Did we really need an 800-word article with that headline?
Joba arrested for DUI
Title says it all. Joba was arrested for DUI early Saturday back home in Nebraska, thankfully no one was hurt. Idiot.
Update (11:15pm): PeteAbe will update this post with more info as it becomes available.
Who cares about Hank
Tom Fornelli of AOL’s Fanhouse wrote about the Hank Steinbrenner outburst yesterday. The short of is that Hank, in an interview with The Post, claimed that he was the one in charge of the Yankees and everyone else was just a lowly employee of him. It was clearly Hank’s sad effort at imitation. George Steinbrenner, he is not.
So here’s my question about Hank: Why do so many Yankee writers and bloggers get into a tizzy when he opens his mouth? Sure, there’s an economic argument to it; Hank’s stupid comments sell newspapers and generate site traffic. But does anyone really think this guy is still serious? After all we’ve seen over the last few months, does anyone actually believe he’s in charge of the Yankees? I know I don’t.
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