Monthly Archives: October 2009

A more thorough hatred

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This is a completely subjective matter of little real import, but I’ve been talking to a bunch of Mets fans about World Series possibilities, and a shocking number would favor the Phillies over the Yankees.

What? No. No.

You’re killing me. The Yankees are annoying, and they’re the Mets’ crosstown rivals, and we’re all sick of certain elements of their fan base acting like entitled ingrates. I know what that’s about.

But the Phillies are the Mets’ actual rivals. They’re like the worst type of evil. And they won the World Series last year! Have you ever been to a game at Philadelphia as a Mets fan? Do you know how much worse it would be if they won a second World Series? It would be the worst thing that ever happened, bar none.

The Yankees have plenty of annoying players, but the Phillies have Shane Victorino. Are you really going to put yourself in a position of rooting for Shane Victorino? SHANE VICTORINO?

No. No, no, no.

Certain Yankee fans are going to be obnoxious and entitled regardless of whether they win this year, because the Yankees have 26 world championships to their credit. But one of the only things we, as Mets fans, have on the Phillies is that they’ve endured years and years of phutility.

Do you really want to lose that to stop the Yanks from winning No. 27?

I don’t. I’m not even rooting against the Yanks in the ALCS. These are probably four of the bottom six teams I’d care to see left in the playoffs (the Red Sox and Braves are the others), but there is no team I’m rooting against harder than the Phillies. Not even close.

Maybe your whole premise is silly

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John Harper and Wallace Matthews both wrote columns this week about A-Rod’s magical development of clutchness, specifically about how getting his steroids use off his chest and playing “under the radar” all season relieved the pressure that prevented A-Rod from performing in the playoffs.

But maybe A-Rod’s just performing in the playoffs because he’s one of the very best players in baseball.

Look: A-Rod had a couple of very bad postseasons in 2005 and 2006. That’s true. But those two bad stretches accounted for a total of 29 at-bats, hardly a reasonable sample size upon which to gauge his ability in the clutch. In 2007, A-Rod posted an unspectacular but solid .267/.353/.467 in the ALDS, but since he already had the unclutch label, all anyone wanted to see was how he didn’t come through.

And of course, they saw him “tight” and “pressing” and all of those vagaries we almost always notice when we have it in our minds that a player is struggling.

It’s the whole rabbit or duck thing again.

In A-Rod’s case, I saw it too. It really looked to me like A-Rod was somehow not programmed to come through in those situations.

Betting on it continuing, though? For the one of the best hitters of this era? Not a smart wager.

So now Harper is trying to take credit for having called, so to speak, A-Rod’s postseason dominance. But you know who else called it? The wisest of sportswriters: math.

It’s called regression to the mean. Good baseball players, when given a large enough sample of at-bats, will usually perform like good baseball players. Even if there is some mental hiccup standing in their way, the large majority of players will overcome it and again perform like they always do, because overcoming mental hiccups is an important aspect of reaching the Major Leagues.

Now A-Rod’s career postseason line is .294/.384/.519, remarkably similar to his career .305/.390/.576 line. His postseason record is notable only for his one notable postseason record: Most nonsensical columns inspired.

Items of note

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According to a New York Times article, baseball’s unwritten rules don’t actually exist. And good. Unwritten rules are the dumbest thing in the world, and I include the silly gentleman’s agreement-type rules that prevent players from bunting to break up no-hitters and such. If it’s important enough to be a rule, make it a rule. If not, I want my team exploiting it for a competitive advantage.

Apparently Kris Jenkins’ knee injury could end his season. I think that might be extraordinarily bad.

Mike Silva wonders if Tony Bernazard joining forces with Scott Boras will negatively impact the Mets. I tend to doubt it. Silva reminds us that the Mets were a “persona non grata” with Boras after Steve Phillips poo-pooed A-Rod’s demands, but I always understood it to be other way around. Say what you will about Boras, he’s an amazing businessman, and he knows better than to alienate one of the teams with the most money to spend on his players.

Was it really so obvious to everyone that the Mets should have signed Randy Wolf last year? Maybe, but I missed it. He was coming off his first healthy season in five and hadn’t been much above average since 2002.

Buffaloed

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OK, everyone’s going to pile on Mark Sanchez for his crappy performance in that miserable, awful Jets game. And they should, he threw five interceptions.

But it’s not like he was getting much help from Dustin Keller. Honestly, that was just a brutal, brutal performance from the tight end. How many catchable passes did he not catch? And how poorly timed was that offsides penalty?

And Rex Ryan? Not such a good job, either. First off, someone’s got to take the blame when the team makes 14 penalties for 96 yards, and it might as well be the head coach. Also, using up a timeout for a bad challenge to gain like 10 yards? Awesome move, dude. I know it didn’t end up mattering, but c’mon.

How about that Jets’ run defense? All offseason we heard all about how hard-hitting Gang Green would be this year, and for a while, it appeared to be true. Then it turned out that the only people they were hitting hard were defenseless receivers and quarterbacks who had already thrown the ball. Maybe try actually tackling, guys. I don’t know. Maybe that’s not in Rex Ryan’s lauded defensive scheme.

Lito Sheppard got burnt up like Ricky Williams on multiple occasions. Not in the fun way, either.

Basically the only people who shouldn’t take heat for this one are Darrelle Revis, who’s great (despite the holding calls), Thomas Jones, and the Jets’ offensive line, who gave Sanchez enough time to make some downright Favrey decisions.

Do you know how bad the Bills are? The Bills are terrible. The Bills were trying to lose that game; the Jets just wanted it more.

I’m not willing to call this season over or say “same old Jets” just yet, because the team looked awesome in its three wins and I’ve got to assume there’s some sort of learning curve for a rookie head coach and a rookie quarterback. This one was awful, though.

Oh, but the game’s Least Valuable Player award has to go to Dick Enberg. I’m sorry, dude, how is it that you can’t pronounce Sanchez? Have you not heard this surname like a million times by now? And please, could you tell me one more time about if Mark Sanchez has ever played in cold weather before? I’m just not sure I got it the first seven times.

I’m sick of that storyline already and it hasn’t even hit the papers or talk-radio yet. But it’s coming soon, I’m certain. I can’t wait.

Maybe, just maybe this kicks the team in the jocks and they wake up to shut some people up. But that Kris Jenkins injury is terrible. If he’s out, Rex Ryan’s going to have to suit up himself to jam up the interior, and based on his performance tonight I’m not sure that’s ag ood idea.

And that beautiful young rookie quarterback is now working against public perception, maybe for the first time in his life.

Destiny is calling, Mark Sanchez. Will you accept the charges?

Valhalla, I am coming

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I planned on checking out some of Westchester’s ample and beautiful bike trails today, but it’s 43 degrees and raining here, so I’ll have to sit inside, watch football and eat Buffalo wings all day.

What a pity.

The single greatest thing about being an American, I think, and probably the only thing that reliably makes me feel patriotic, is the confluence of Buffalo wings and football. It is, without a doubt, a synergistic relationship. Both things are independently amazing, but together, they’re Biblically awesome.

One of the millions of fascinating things about Buffalo wings is that they’re one of the few spicy foods invented in a cool-weather climate. Traditionally, our spiciest (and often best) foods come from hot places. Think Mexico, Thailand and Jamaica.

I’m guessing this is because meat spoils faster in hotter temperatures, and so historically, spices were used both to preserve the meat and mask less-than-fresh flavor. I have no evidence of that, of course, but it seems to make a lot of sense. Plus hot peppers grow in warm climates.

But Buffalo wings come from Buffalo, which is a cold place. According to legend, they were first served at Anchor Bar in Buffalo and from what I understand, before they were first served at Anchor Bar, people didn’t even eat chicken wings at all. They were used only for soup stock.

Each member of the Bellissimos, the family that owns Anchor Bar, tells a different Buffalo wing creation myth. That’s another interesting thing about the Buffalo wing, I guess. I’ve been to Anchor Bar and eaten they’re wings, and they’re pretty good. Not the best wings I’ve ever had, but tasty enough to make me believe that they could start the wonderful trend that has since consumed the country.

The most interesting thing about Buffalo wings, of course, is how ridiculously delicious they are. And football is upon us, so I have to stop writing about Buffalo wings and start consuming Buffalo wings.

The purpose of this post, though, was to give a shoutout to the best wings I’ve found so far in the Westchester area. One of the saddest parts of leaving Brooklyn, for me, was leaving behind the amazing Wing Wagon on Flatbush and 7th Ave. in my old neighborhood of Prospect Heights.

But I was lucky enough to stumble upon So Dam Hot last week, and it proved to be a worthy successor to the throne of Local Place that Provides Me Delicious Buffalo Wings.

Also, it’s in Valhalla, which means every time I go there I get Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” in my head. So that’s an added bonus.

Matt Holliday and the ghosts of Citi Field

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According to Ken Davidoff, Matt Holliday is reluctant to sign with the Mets this offseason because it’s hard to hit at Citi Field.

Here’s the issue: No one can really be sure that’s the case.

Looking up and down the Mets’ 2009 roster, it appears to be true. After all, Daniel Murphy led the team in home runs with 13.

Then again, looking up and down the Mets’ 2009 roster will reveal a whole slew of guys who have never hit for any appreciable power.

Moreover, and for like the eight millionth time, the 2009 Mets both hit more and allowed more home runs in Citi Field than they did on the road.

Park factors vary pretty greatly from year to year, and there are a lot elements that affect them. But ESPN.com’s park factors for 2009 showed that Citi Field reduced run scoring by about six percent. So yeah, it played as a pitcher’s park, but not exactly the cavernous vacuum of offense that so many have made it out to be. In fact, it played a whole lot like Shea did in 2008.

Baseball players are a chatty and superstitious sort. I don’t know much about Matt Holliday’s temperament, but I know that baseball players around the league appear to be legitimately afraid of ghosts in the Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee.

So it’s not hard to argue that word of phenomena that may not actually exist can spread quickly around the Majors.

I imagine the book on Citi has something to do with David Wright’s weird year. But I’m unwilling to chalk up his power outage to the park alone, since, again, he home runs at a (slightly) higher rate at home than he did on the road.

What was especially telling about Wright’s season, I think, is that he hit as many balls the other way as he pulled. Many fans nostalgic for some earlier era of Wright that may never have existed will argue that Wright should be driving the ball to the opposite field, but looking at his career splits will show that he has hit for much, much more power while pulling the ball.

Wright said a number of times that he was trying to go the other way more often to cater to the ballpark. (Edit: As Ceetar points out in the comments section, Wright may not have actually said this. I thought I remembered him saying it a few times, but I can’t find any evidence of it online. That appears to be mostly Jerry Manuel’s beat.) I have no idea if that’s true and that had something to do with his diminished power numbers, or if it was a function of the way the league was pitching him or the product of a strange one-year fluctuation. In any case, most of the actual baseball players and former baseball players I’ve spoken to say players should just hit the way they know how to hit, and not worry about adjusting to park conditions that may or may not actually exist.

And, you know, that makes a lot of sense.

Especially since, if Wright hit more like we all know Wright can, future Matt Hollidays won’t fear the specter of Citi Field’s home-run sapping dimensions.

Hold everything

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In a column for the Chicago Tribune this morning, Phil Rogers suggests the Cardinals could look to trade Albert Pujols.

Excuse me?

Pujols made a couple of odd and un-Pujolsy comments recently about his future with the Cardinals, saying essentially that he’s in no rush to sign a contract extension. But everything I’ve heard suggests that Pujols is a St. Louis-lifer. He went to high school in Independence, MO, and junior college in Kansas CIty, plus he’s all set up with restaurants and charities and his family in Nellyville.

But we can dream, huh?

Rogers suggests the Mets as a possible suitor in trade or free-agency, mostly because few other teams could afford what Rogers speculates he’ll cost. The Cardinals owe him $16 million for 2010 and have a $16 million option on his contract for 2011, which they’d be crazy not to take.

For some reason, though, and maybe this is some sort of schoolboy fantasy, I always get the feeling that the money is secondary to Pujols. He seems like he might be the one professional athlete with legitimately higher priorities. Like dominating.

Pujols is, according to Rogers, going to see Dr. James Andrews about his long-lingering elbow pain. That baffles me for a couple of reasons: First, if it really hurts, why is he still so awesome? Would he be even better if his elbow was fixed? Second, I was led to believe that Albert Pujols doesn’t feel pain.

Speaking of which, here are some true things about Albert Pujols. Forgive me if they sound like a Chuck Norris list:

1) In his first college game, Albert Pujols hit a grand slam and turned an unassisted triple play.
2) Albert Pujols’ career OPS+ (172) is higher than any single season in Mets’ team history.
3) In a series of coordination tests in 2006, Pujols not only scored remarkably high, but got better at the tests with practice and showed little fatigue. In one test, Pujols was asked to depress a tapper as many times as he could in 10 seconds. He tapped so hard he broke Dr. Desiree White’s tapper. Then, he fixed it for her.
4) Albert Pujols got a 100 on his U.S. citizenship test.
5) There’s also this.
6) In seven career Buddy Walk days, when the Cardinals host area children with Down Syndrome, Pujols — the St. Louis Buddy Walk chairman — has hit .393 with six home runs and 13 RBI.
7) Albert Pujols’ restaurant has 45 HDTVs.

Video: Bills-Jets preview

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Yesterday, I got on the horn with Brian Bassett from The Jets Blog to preview the Bills and Jets.

Essentially, if the Jets lose this one, they’re not nearly as good as I thought they were after the first quarter of Week 1, when I — normally a huge skeptic when it comes to the Jets — announced to my wife that they were Super Bowl-bound.

The Bills are terrible. Watching Eric Mangini and Dick Jauron match wits in last week’s Browns-Bills matchup was like watching a chess match between, well, between Eric Mangini and Dick Jauron. It might have been the worst football game I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a ton of really, really bad football games.

Did you know that in ten years, from pee-wee to high-school football, I played on a total of one winning team? And yet every single one of those terrible, terrible clubs executed better and protected the quarterback more successfully than the Bills and Browns.

Someone, I forget who, said on Twitter that it was setting football back 50 years. I don’t think that’s appropriate. It wasn’t football. It was like some new sport where someone just threw 22 random huge dudes out on a field and watched to see what happens. It’s called Ham!Smash! and Eric Mangini is its greatest mind and motivator.

Anyway, here’s the video. J-E-T-S.

From the Wikipedia: the Count of St. Germain

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Don’t ask what silly Wikipedia tangent brought me to this page, but it’s fascinating so I figured I’d share.

From the Wikipedia: the Count of St. Germain

The Count of St. Germain was an 18th-century man about town in London and also possibly in India. He was a charmer, for sure, and apparently a pretty talented violin player.

But the most interesting thing about the Count of St. Germain was that he either was immortal, or — more likely — was able to convince lots of people that he was immortal. Both are pretty impressive.

In fact, in some religions, people believe the Count was also Plato, St. Joseph (ie Jesus’ stepdad), Merlin, Christopher Columbus and English philosopher Francis Bacon, whom many believe to be responsible for writing all the plays attributed to Shakespeare. I’m skeptical, but if the Count was even three of those guys, that’s a pretty crazy resume.

The Wikipedia claims he supposedly dictated a book in 1670 even though he wasn’t “born” until 1710. It’s a pretty confusing Wikipedia page in general.

In any case, the Count of St. Germain should be lauded for his immortality or, at the very least, his ability to make Wikipedia editors suggest his immortality.

Fun fact: Pretty soon after I started writing for SNY.tv, I added myself to the Wikipedia page for Rockville Centre, New York, under “Notable Residents” in a vain attempt to drive up traffic. I briefly frolicked among the ranks of Dave Attell, Billy Donovan, Joan Jett, Segway inventor Dean Kamen, Sandy Koufax, Billy Idol [citation definitely needed] and Howard Stern.

Then, a couple months later, someone took me off the list of notable former Rockville Centre residents. I mean, I get that I’m not as notable as Billy Idol, but c’mon. Who took me down? It’s just messed up.

And to add to my frustration, two people I know pretty well have since been added to the same list, presumably not by themselves. They are ESPNews anchor and area stickball legend Kevin Connors and Taking Back Sunday drummer and incredibly nice dude Mark O’Connell, and they are both clearly more notable than me.

Tim Wakefield’s contract: Awesome

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Not enough people are familiar with the terms of Tim Wakefield’s contract. Check it out.

According to Cot’s Baseball Contracts, in 2006 Wakefield signed a one-year, $4 million contract with recurring club options. Every option is for another one year and $4 million, and every time the club picks up his option, an option for the next season is added.

So basically Tim Wakefield and Theo Epstein have determined that Wakefield’s knuckleball services are worth $4 million a year, and Epstein has the option to retain Wakefield at that rate for as long as he’s effective or until he retires.

The Sox exercised his $4 million option for 2007, 2008 and 2009, and, according to WEEI, they’ll do it again for 2010. Cool.

The Majors should always have a knuckleballer, so Wakefield has to keep it up until one of the Charlies Haeger and Zink assumes the mantle.