Showing posts with label Anaheim Angels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anaheim Angels. Show all posts

Monday, July 16, 2007

I Am Bill James and I Am Smarter Than You



Greetings, fuckwits. You are all lucky enough to be in the presence of the most freakishly intelligent man in the history of professional baseball. I find your invitation to the Pasadena Shrine of the Eternals appropriate, and thus, I’ve decided to actually show up and do a little Q & A. It’s not quite the baseball Hall of Fame, but that will obviously come in time. My minions call me "The Sage of New Hampshire," and this gives me the right to pass on a hearty “fuck you” to Warren Buffet, "The Sage of Ohmaha." Whereas I’m the sage of my own state, he’s only a sage of a city, so I own his ass. What do you mean New Hampshire doesn’t count as a state? Lick my balls.

For years I’ve been saying things like “It’s entirely possible to be completely successful in the baseball business without ascribing to any of my work.” I, much like the vast majority my followers (just look on Internet message boards everywhere), am reversing this statement, and saying that it is total bullcrap, and anyone who doesn’t follow in-depth statistical baseball analysis should automatically lose the right to watch a game of professional baseball. I mean, why watch when you can't possibly understand everything what's going on? In some cases, said person should lose the right to breed, because he/she might have a son, and that would pervert this glorious eugenics of baseball I’m striving to achieve, here. Baseball is not for the plebs, people! It is for we happy few, we band of egg-heads, who have never played an ounce of the game professionally yet still by the light of our incalculable intellects, know absolutely everything there is to know. On to your almost certainly dumb questions.

What’s your opinion of Darin Erstad, and considering his track record with the Angels, isn't a player like that valuable on a championship team?

Haha. HAHAHAHA. BWAHAHAHA!! In the Dark Ages, hordes of roving barbarian Cossack tribes in what is now Southern Russia would conquer neighboring peoples, and in a fit of sport, would throw their infant children to hungry wolves and watch them be eaten. That’s what I’d do to Darin Erstad, if I had a time machine, which by the way, I’m inventing, and fuck you, it’s already patented, because it’s a motherfucking time machine. Darin Erstad blows donkey balls. He can’t hit, he can’t field, and he can’t play. And who gives a monkey-shit about how he “hustles” and “won championships”? I don’t know how many times I have to say this: if I can’t put it in a spreadsheet, dickhead, then it DOESN’T.FUCKING.EXIST.

Look where that little bitch is right now-- trying to avoid getting DFA’ed by the Chicago White Sox (or CHA for any of you non BP subscribing cock goblins). Any team that steals, bunts, and gives consistent AB’s to Scott Podsednik, deserves a punch right in the pussy. Darin Erstad sucks, he should die, next question.

Are you impressed with Brewers 1B Prince Fielder, and what does his progression mean for smaller market teams?

According to the tools that I invented (praise me) such as VORP, RCAA, Win Shares, and other super-cereal-statistics given by me solely to the Boston Red Sox to be unleashed like a tactical nuclear warhead, I can tell you that Prince Fielder is the best overall player in terms of everything, relative to cost. Yea and what else is new? What this means for smaller market teams is that it is time to stop spending big money on marquee free agents if your team is filled with a bunch of crap players. The only way to make your team succeed is to undergo a harsh rebuilding process where nearly each and every one of your core players is acquired through the draft. What if you can't draft, or afford the outrageous signing bonuses top picks get nowadays? Too bad bitch. Now, this rebuilding typically takes around five years, and by that time your fans will either be gone, rooting for the Yankees, or giving their energies to a different sport, but how is that my fucking problem exactly? I just make the rules, if you don’t like the way how they’re used, then tough testicles. After all, the best part about sitting in an ivory tower is pissing on the people below you.

Mr. James, you’ve never apologized for your criticisms of the Dowd report, despite Pete Rose proclaiming his guilt and affirming everything written in its findings. Don’t you think that as one of the leading voices in baseball theory, you have an obligation to speak your piece on a corrupting influence in the game?

No comment, next question, and fuck you.

Horrors of horrors, the New York Yankees haven’t won a World Series in seven whole years. Isn’t it better to let A-Rod opt out, and try to rebuild the team around pitching and defense? The guy isn’t at all clutch!

I remain unconvinced about the theory of “clutch” and it’s usefulness to baseball analysis. But what I do know is that you are a drooling, dribbling, retard. According to my statistics (again, praise me) Rodriguez is the best all-around player in the game. Consider that with the dollars Texas has contributed, and Rodriguez is a relative bargain for New York. There are some indicators that in a short series, pitching and defense wins (the sample sizes are too small obvi), but your belief that the Yankees should rid themselves of their best player in order to achieve this is somewhere between the stupidest idea that’s ever defiled the sanctuary of my glorious mind, and guganuafia’a, which is stat-speak for “you are a dumbshit.” But sure, fuck it, boo the fucker and drive him away. It makes my job a hell of a lot easier.

In closing, I’d like to thank Pasadena, but truly, I am already an “Eternal.” It was a nice ceremony, with balloons and sangria, but I was expecting something more… regal. After all, I am the father of statistical baseball analysis, the most important man in baseball, and (according to some people) the finest living being on the planet. Armchair net jockeys everywhere use my teachings like a voodoo talisman against any who would dare say that it's important to steal when the team can't seem to score. I’m like Kim Jong Il from the North Korean perspective, except I look like the gay guy who won the 1st Survivor competition. Next time, I hope you change your veneration practices accordingly, and try hard not to be so stupid.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Sink the Ship Faster



Andy Pettitte is saying the New York Yankees don’t “care” enough, Kyle Farnsworth is breaking things with practice bats, Scott Proctor is swearing at the media, and murmurs in the Yankee clubhouse say that Roger Clemens is missing the strikezone due to cataracts in his eyes, and forgetting pitch signs due to general senility. To put it mildly, the Bombers are facing an outright mutiny not seen since The Bronx Was Burning. Naturally, cackles of schadenfreude are heard from the usual suspects, but the question begs-- who is the savior who can bring the Highlanders back from the brink of elimination? What paragon of virtue and ability can rally the Yankee troops, and start a wild ride that will end deep into October with a World Series victory? Why, Shea Hillenbrand, of course.

Just when you think things have absolutely hit rock-bottom, Yankees GM Brian Cashman is apparently very close to agreeing to acquire the worst DH in the American League this side of Johnny Damon. Hillenbrand is a guy who:

1. Sucks, to put it mildly
2. Got in a fist fight with his manager
3. Wrote on the white-board of the Toronto locker room “The ship is sinking, play for your contracts.”

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like the perfect guy to bring on when a ship actually is sinking! Before you know it, the media locust swarm will be crowded around Hillenbrand’s locker like flies are to feces, and the “Shea-Hey Kid” will be saying, candidly, how doomed the team really is. That'll be great for morale I'm sure. Also, as much as I’d like to punch Joe Torre in the face (and this year, the feeling has occurred more often than not) it’s not like I would actually do it. Hillenbrand would. We haven’t seen a Yankee geriatric go down in violence since Don Zimmer in 2003, and how did that work out?

Oh yea, like that.


I’m not very persuaded by the arguments that there are some players that just know how to “win.” But there are some out there that just know how to lose. This is a guy who has only once played on a team that’s finished the season with an above .500 record, and has never sniffed playoff baseball. Is that, keeping in mind the other flaws mentioned above, really the kind of guy a team would want in a foxhole during a pennant race? I’m certainly not a baseball player, but I sure as hell wouldn’t think so.

All is not great in Yankee land. The team is on the verge of dropping three-of-four to being swept entirely by the Orioles, A-Rod opt out talk is continuing to buzz, the bullpen is surrendering wins like they’re frog-blooded Frenchmen, and meanwhile in Detroit, Gary Sheffield is slowly earning the nickname “the 12th Street Riot.” However, there is still a lot of time left in the season, and former New York teams have done pretty amazing things in the 2nd halves of some baseball years. If the team acquires Shea Hillenbrand, however, then the fall of freaking Rome will pale in comparison to the circus of suck that will plague baseball's most expensive debacle until the end of their first season without the playoffs since 1994.

While we're at it, let's bring back Showalter.


Hat-Tip: The essential MLB Trade Rumors.
Snoozing Torre courtesy of nomaas.org.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Scott Boras Smokes Crack



Scott Boras, baseball super-agent for Alex Rodriguez, Barry Zito, and the soon to be free agent Carlos Zambrano, has a new idea that could have only come from the mind of someone using powerful and deadly mind expanding drugs. Some might say it’s strange for someone so rich and influential to be under the influence of such substances, but ever since Ed Muskie got all whacked out on Ibogaine in 1972, anything is possible in America if there is enough corruption involved. New York scribe Bob Klapisch describes the idea in depth: Expand the World Series to nine games, with two of the 1st nine games in presumably neutral grounds and warm-weather cities to enhance the stature of the game. This will give high-profile business types yet another glory-hole to suck-off their high level clientele.

First off, this plan is complete and total lunacy. Baseball is supposedly already planning on extending the playoff format to seven-game series in the division and championship series. Throw in an extra two games in a warm weather city will push World Series games deeper into November, which will make fantastic television when the Red Sox, Yankees, Cubs, (and if God is kind) the White Sox and O’s will be playing in the snow. Second thing, unless the games are played in outer-space, can there really be a neutral ground in baseball? A site like Florida has the Marlins and future powerhouse D-Rays, Texas has the Rangers, and even though no one in California takes baseball seriously, it’s still got three five teams in state. If the Braves play the Tigers in Miami, who is going to have more fans in attendance—the team that plays a few hundred miles away, or a team that plays in the city that’s the US equivalent of Port-au-Prince?

Believed to be your average Haitian.

And do you know what’s worse outside of this general insanity? It’s that the doddering old nincompoop Bud Selig is actually taking the time to humor him. In case everyone didn’t already know, the labor-vs.-management struggle that in many ways has been the history of professional baseball, makes the mass genocide between the Hutus and the Tutsis look like a skirmish between the Hatfields and the McCoys by comparison. This is the guy who has been drastically driving up the price of free agents for years, now has the ear of the principal negotiator for ownership? Bart Giamatti would be rolling in his grave.

Maybe Boras has his motives. Maybe he thinks that by expanding the stature of the Series it’ll make baseball more popular, his players higher in demand, and ere go, himself more rich. Maybe by playing a game always in Florida, teams can just transport a 600 pound (and by that time, client) Miguel Cabrera via semi-truck instead of a much more dangerous private jet. That’s an Aalyiah tragedy waiting to happen. But more realistically, Boras is smoking crack. Tina Turner said that crack was for poor people, but is there really any other explanation, here? Crack makes the mind feel crazy things—paranoia, mania, and fanatically greedy. All these were in play when he came up with this blasphemous idea. Lay off the crack Scotty, and our game will be just fine.

"Remember kids, don't smoke crack."


UPDATE: There are five California baseball teams: LA, San Fran, Anahiem, San Diego, and Oakland/Freemont. Thanks to Ben, Rob I., and the people who e-mailed.