I would dearly love to give this week's award to Rob Dibble, as suggested by faithful reader Jack Davis, based upon Dibble's moronic commentary about Chone Figgins being a more valuable player than David Ortiz. Unfortunately, Dibble made his comments on TV, and no one seems to have written them up so I can link to them, so he'll have to settle for honorable mention this week.The award instead goes to Keith Foulke, whose season is now officially over. With not one, but two, bum knees going into the last off-season, Foulke decided not to do anything but rest them, despite the requests of the team that he get one or both of them scoped. The disastrous results of that decision have affected the Red Sox all season. Their bullpen is still in disarray, and they are now more likely than not to miss the post-season largely because the bullpen has stunk worse than it did back in the days when it was patrolled by Rich Garces after a night of eating homemade refried beans. Hurt, ineffective, and short-tempered with the fans. Yup, this year was pretty much the trifecta for Foulke.
I may have to rename this award in Flanagan's honor. In it's short existence, this is the third time Flanagan has been named, a record. Some fools are just born to greatness.This week, he made the inane choice of Mike Sweeney as Royals Player of the Year, apparently unaware that David DeJesus is so far ahead of Sweeney that you could just about fit Mark Teahen's production in the gap between them.And, in the same column, he labeled Emil Brown as "a fourth outfielder anywhere else", meaning that he believes there are 87 other major league outfielders better than Brown. Apparently he is unaware that Brown's OPS is 33rd among all MLB outfielders with at least 350 plate appearances and 13th among AL outfielders on that list.Research, Jeff, research. Some people in the newspaper business actually find it helpful. Try it sometime.
Hey, multiple winners! I'm sure their moms are proud.This past week, Bradley and Kent offered themselves up as the new poster children for how to be a bad teammate. First, Kent questioned Bradley's hustle for not scoring from first on a double, despite two key facts:1. Bradley was already playing hurt, and;2. The Dodgers won the game.But since it cost Kent an RBI on the stat sheet, he felt the need to chastise Bradley, despite never having acted as a clubhouse leader before and being assured of having his comments taken as exactly what they were, bitching.For Bradley's part, he decided to play the race card. What he said may be completely true, but since his manager asked him to let things settle, and since injecting race into any discussion is going to keep things inflamed, I'm thinking Milton could have exercised more prudence.Kent, of course, then decided to go with the "some of my best friends are black" defense, making him look really guilty.All in all, a great week for the Dodgers.
Ol' Jeff is always good for a moronic tidbit or two, and he certainly delivered on that expectation today. He claims that this year's Royals might be the worst offensive team the franchise has ever fielded. In that speculation, he may turn out to be correct, but not because of the voodoo batting average and steals stats he cited. Remember, this is the man who thought Ken Harvey should be the Royals' regular first baseman, so we're not dealing with an expert in baseball offense. It's about runs, Jeff, and the Royals are last in the league. Their average of 4.20 runs per game is about 13% worse than the average of other teams in the league. That's bad, but it's not the worst in club history. That dubious honor goes to the 1996 team (15.0%) followed by the 1995 team (14.5%) and the 1992 team (13.6%). This year's club would be fourth-worst in franchise history, so this could still get worse. (FYI - The math is mine, but the raw stats came from here.) Give them a few weeks, Jeff, and you might finally be right about something. You just won't understand it.
Just because I can. And because every time he opens his mouth, he sounds like a flaming ass. I especially like the part about him having a bad reputation because the media are mostly white. Yeah, Gary, I'm sure that's it. It has nothing to do with you lying about decking a teammate in Milwaukee, or admittedly dogging it in the field to force a trade, or your admission of steroid use that you want us all to forget, or your veiled threats at the Red Sox pitching staff a couple of weeks ago, and on and on. No, you're just misunderstood by us prejudiced white folks. Just the man trying to keep you down. Again.
We're going away from baseball for the first time because the situation simply demands it.For much of last week, Kietzman dedicated a great deal of time on his afternoon radio show to a story no one else in the local media cared about. He kept trying to get at the incident in the University of Kansas' football program that instigated the recent internal investigation and resulted in several relatively minor NCAA violations being self-reported, along with a few minor self-imposed sanctions. Kietzman wanted more. He wanted to know what triggered the investigation in the first place, even though the initial questionable activity was later proven not to be a violation, which the NCAA had already announced. Kietzman, in his own words, went to lengths he's never gone to before in his career, writing a letter to the government of the state of Kansas, citing open meetings laws in an attempt to dig up the details on the incident. He stated plainly on his show that whatever the incident was, it must be embarrassing to the university for them not to disclose it, and went on to imply several times that it could involve, in his words, "academic fraud" or "embezzlement". All of it turned out to be a big fat nothing, the incident being nothing but the result of some coaches meeting where they are drilled on NCAA regulations. Nothing sinister or embarrassing about it, but Keitzman pursued it with extraordinary zeal. Why? Here's the motivation he never bothered to disclaim on his show; Keiztman is a K-State grad, and, at least at one time, was a K-State football season ticket holder. He therefore has a personal interest in embarrassing KU's football program, which now regularly lands top in-state prospects that K-State seeks. On top of that, Keitzman is part owner of a radio station that serves as an affiliate for K-State football broadcasts, so he's also got a financial interest is seeing KU football embarrassed. K-State football is helped by embarrassments to KU's program, and a strong K-State program helps line Kietzman's pockets.To practice what I preach, I'm a KU alum and football season ticket holder. I suspect that Kietzman's old journalism instructors would have wanted him to make a similar disclaimer.
On Sunday morning, on ESPN's show "The Sports Reporters", Jason Whitlock spouted his opinions about a few baseball topics, like who will win the AL East, and Barry Bonds' status. I can think of few columnists with lesser qualifications to offer such opinions than Whitlock. Though he is supposed to be a general sports columnist, he has steadfastly refused to cover baseball. You remember it, it's that little thing called America's pastime. He works for the only daily newspaper in a city with just two major sports teams, one of which is not currently in season, yet he has managed to write just three columns since May 1st that were related to major league baseball in any way. He wrote as many about the NFL even though they're not in season. He wrote a whopping seven about the KU basketball program's off-court problems, even though they're not in season either. He wrote a dozen columns about the NBA even though there is no NBA franchise in this city. Hell, he wrote two columns about auto racing, for crying out loud, but could manage just three on the only major sport currently playing. And of those three, two weren't even really about baseball - one was about players and the media and one was about coaches with off-field problems. That baseball happened to be the straw that stirred Whitlock's thoughts for those columns was happenstance, nothing more than a convenient vehicle for him to use to spout his social commentary. I'm tired of this buffoon. It's clear he wants to be a national media figure and has little use for KC anymore. It's time he moved on, because his credibility in Kansas City is shot.
Of the 30 players drafted in the first round of Major League Baseball's June draft, just five remain unsigned. Of these five, two have leverage with their teams because they are in high school and can still choose to go to college, one is a college junior with similar leverage because he can still return to school, and one is represented by Scott Boras, who holds out every client he has. That those four remain unsigned is not surprising. The fifth remaining unsigned player is the Royals' first pick, Alex Gordon. Despite assurances from the Royals that cost would not be a factor in their draft, they are the lone remaining team with an unsigned draft pick who has limited negotiating leverage. I mean, he was the second pick in the draft. What would he hold out for, number one? It's not like one extra spot higher in the draft would make up for a full year of lost income by returning to college, so Gordon pretty much has to sign or lose a lot of money. The fourth pick in the draft, another college third baseman, Ryan Zimmerman, signed quickly with the Nationals. The fifth pick, yet another college third baseman, Ryan Braun, signed less than two weeks after the draft with the Brewers. You read that correctly - the small market Brewers and the MLB-owned Nationals both found the money to sign their picks, players also chosen in the top five of the draft who played the same college position as Alex Gordon. The skin-flint Devil Rays have signed their pick, Wade Townsend, who is represented by the same agents as Alex Gordon. The rudderless Pirates have signed their pick. The disastrous Reds have signed their pick. The poor-mouth Marlins have signed THREE first round picks. The perpetually cash- strapped A's signed their first round pick the day after the draft. What more do you need, Allard? Cough up the dollars and get this guy onto a minor league roster while there's still some season left. In case you haven't noticed, the team could kinda use the help, and Gordon isn't going to develop very fast if he's playing video games in his parent's basement in Nebraska instead of facing Double A pitching.
I would dearly love to give this week's award to Rob Dibble, as suggested by faithful reader Jack Davis, based upon Dibble's moronic commentary about Chone Figgins being a more valuable player than David Ortiz. Unfortunately, Dibble made his comments on TV, and no one seems to have written them up so I can link to them, so he'll have to settle for honorable mention this week.
