Sean Smith of baseballprojection.com will not be updating his Chone projections or WAR pages this offseason because he has taken a job with a team. Good for him and for more nerds making headway in baseball, bad for those of us who wanted to see the projections. Where’s he going and what will he be doing there? “I can’t tell you which team, and I can’t tell you what I’m working on, so please don’t ask.”
Unsurprisingly, Albert Belle has a lot to say about LeBron James’ return to Cleveland. Surprisingly, it’s all pretty reasonable.
As Meredith pointed out via email, the embarrassing photos of Cole Hamels page has been incomplete since the Phillies blog The Fightins went offline a couple weeks ago. It’s all fixed now, and as an added bonus there’s a new photo at the bottom.
If you’re a fan of baseball and urban decay, don’t miss David Roth’s write-up about abandoned Bernie Robbins Stadium in Atlantic City. I passed the place on my way out of town in July and thought, “holy hell, what happened here?” Now I know.
As a member of the N.Y. media I’m contractually obligated to say something about Derek Jeter today, so I’ll start with this amazing Photoshop montage from the Daily News:
That’s partnered in the print edition with Mike Lupica’s column about, well, something. I guess it’s about how the Yankees don’t want to give Derek Jeter the money Derek Jeter wants but maybe Derek Jeter wants too much money, only stretched out to like 900 words and with a bunch of quotes from rival executives incredulous that the Yankees won’t overpay for a 36-year-old shortstop who can’t field anymore.
The Yankees are doing exactly what they should be doing.
Apparently, since Brian Cashman reportedly told Jeter and his agent to look around for a better deal and come back to him, Mike Francesa suggested the Mets need to sign Jeter to make a splash, or something silly like that. It’s almost too ridiculous to even merit a response, but here’s one anyway:
Signing Derek Jeter to make a splash is the opposite of what the Mets need to do. If Jeter has a three-year, $45 million deal on the table to play for the Yankees, it will require more than that to pry him away. The Mets, by all accounts, don’t have that type of money, and even if they did they shouldn’t spend it on Jeter.
Jeter, despite his defensive issues, is undoubtedly still a very good player. But according to just about everyone he’s not interested in switching positions anytime soon, and the Mets already have a very good player at shortstop. If the Mets had more than $15 million available with which to upgrade their team in 2011, they likely sign Orlando Hudson and an innings-eating starting pitcher, a pair that would likely combine to add more wins than Jeter.
And a multi-year deal would mean the Mets had Jeter on their hands for at least his age 38 and 39 seasons as well. For a lot of money.
It makes no sense.
Cool. And as Rob Neyer points out, Votto’s comments probably reflect the growing number of baseball players who grew up reading about the sport on the Internet and with access to way more information than their predecessors. Though, for what it’s worth, Ralph Kiner knew batting average was overrated too.
Alderson doesn’t have to be told that all of this has caused the Mets to have become irrelevant. To change that, the manager is going to be a most important part of the process. The Mets’ hierarchy all decided that Collins, twice fired, with no postseason games on his managerial resume, is the right man to make them relevant again. There is nothing to suggest he isn’t just another retread manager and not the kind of difference-maker the organization so desperately needs.
– Bill Madden, N.Y. Daily News.
What does Madden mean by “relevant” here?
I feel like the term is thrown about by sportswriters and talk-radio hosts pretty frequently, and I’m never sure exactly what it means. I mean, I know what the word “relevant” means, I just don’t know when it pertains to sports teams. Is it just a stand-in for “worth writing about”?
Does Sandy Alderson really know that the Mets are irrelevant, and should he be charged with restoring their relevance? Seems like he should work on making them better, to hell with everything else.
Does “relevant” just mean good, though? Because if Madden’s saying, “Sandy Alderson knows the Mets have not been that good the last few years and he should try to make them good,” then I agree wholeheartedly. I don’t think the manager really is a most important part of that process, but I’m willing to agree to disagree on that point.
I’m pretty sure when the Jets hired Rex Ryan, people said he made them relevant again. Is that because he filled up columns with his bravado and made sportswriters all over the Metro area forget the snoozefest press conferences of the Eric Mangini Era? Or is that because he helped make the Jets good?
I should mention that none of these questions is rhetorical. I really want to know what everyone means when they say a team is relevant or irrelevant, how it’s different from good or bad, and why it matters.
Because if we’re to define relevant as “having significant and demonstrable bearing on the matter at hand,” as Merriam-Webster does, and the matter at hand is New York sports or the consciousness of the New York sports fan, then the Mets and Jets are perpetually relevant as far as I’m concerned. Since I root for those teams and follow them closely regardless of whether they win or lose, they always have significant and demonstrable bearing on me — at least in as much as any sports team can.
So there’s that. Color me ambivalent. Hopefully Collins demonstrates the player-development skills that earned him regards for his role as Minor League Field Coordinator, and not whatever characteristics made the Angels run him out the door in 1999. And here’s the friendly reminder that the manager probably doesn’t matter as much as we think.
Pretty compelling evidence, though technically he referred to a moon made of ribs, not a moon eating ribs. Via Rob Neyer.
Meaning Shin-Soo Choo and all his teammates should now be exempt from their mandatory military service. But who will play Choo in the movie?
Tedquarters 