Category Archives: Words

You will not tell me what to do, Karen Jacobsen

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To anyone with a GPS system, a singer opening at a Manhattan cabaret next week may sound familiar.

Karen Jacobsen, who will be belting out ballads at the Laurie Beechman Theatre on 42nd St., is the soothing voice that tells Garmin owners when to make a turn.

– Edgar Sandoval, N.Y. Daily News.

I guess I should first mention that I hate the GPS device, like probably more than it is rational to hate a machine. It was sort of a necessary evil when I moved to Westchester because my wife and I were so unfamiliar with the area, but I always prefer to map out routes on my own before going anywhere.

Still, every so often — less frequently now that I’ve got the lay of the land — I wind up trying to get someplace in a rush, or trying to get someplace unfamiliar starting from a location that’s not my house, and just plug the address into the stupid thing. Then I can be almost certain it’s taking me on some dumb route that totally fails to consider where there’s likely to be traffic, but I have no way of getting out of it because I’m all disoriented because of the machine.

Anyway, one of the worst parts about it is Karen Jacobsen’s obnoxious tone when you miss a turn or something. You can tell she gets really pissed off, and she’s all, “Make a U-Turn,” or whatever. Don’t tell me what to do, lady! I’ll turn when I damn please. Do you not see the Wendy’s up the road? I’m going to that Wendy’s. Stop judging me.

I long ago switched the settings on my Garmin to use the female German voice, even though I don’t understand a lick of German. German just sounds hilarious to me, and I always feel like I’m in good hands with the Fraulein.

I do kind of wonder what Jacobsen’s cabaret act sounds like, and if her hit single is something like, “In 200 Feet, Turn Left.”

Further fearmongering: Sulky outfielders

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Apparently Mike Francesa asserted yesterday that Angel Pagan “sulked” about moving to right field after Carlos Beltran returned in July.

This came as news to me, and, apparently, many others around the Internet. I didn’t listen to the show, but I’d guess Francesa cited vague “sources” (sawces?) and/or conflated Pagan with Jeff Francoeur, who came out and announced that he wouldn’t sulk about moving into a reserve role, then pretty much did. Or perhaps it was Francesa himself sulking when Beltran returned.

My understanding is that Beltran is something of a mentor and hero to Pagan. David Waldstein reported in July that “Pagan practically worships Beltran and says it is an honor to play alongside him every day.” Doesn’t really sound like sulking.

And when Beltran holds a fundraiser for the Carlos Beltran Baseball Academy in Puerto Rico on Saturday, Pagan will be in attendance (along with Jose Reyes and Sandy Alderson).

About that, briefly: According to the press release, Beltran donated $2 million to help fund the academy, which will open Aug. 1 on a 19-acre campus in the town of Florida, Puerto Rico.

The school aims to prepare its 120 high-school aged students for college as well as for the Major Leagues, and will feature “state-of-the-art housing facilities supervised at all times, a computer center, WiFi technology, language laboratories emphasizing English, an interactive library, among others. The multi-use recreational and athletic facilities will house baseball fields, indoor batting cages, pitching mounds, dugouts, gymnasium, swimming pool, running track, locker room, among other; all in an eco-friendly environment.”

Anyway, apparently Francesa endorsed trading Pagan because of the sulking and because his value is currently high. The latter part is true; Pagan has never appeared more valuable than he does now, under team control via arbitration through 2012 and coming off a season and a half of excellent play in the Mets’ outfield.

I love watching Pagan play so I’d prefer he go nowhere. And since I’m not certain Beltran will ever again be able to expertly cover Citi Field’s vast expanses like Pagan can, and the Mets don’t have a Major League ready young center fielder who can, it seems like it would be difficult for the Mets to get a return on Pagan that would offer as much value to the club.

Of course they should listen, because, as mentioned, Pagan’s value is high and the Mets have plenty of needs. If some GM wants to come blow them away with a package of prospects or an excellent young pitcher locked down for four years or something like that, then, you know, great.

But I’m not sure either is likely to happen, so I’m looking forward to seeing Pagan back in a Mets uniform (and hopefully in center field) in 2011.

Other things to fear: Rookie catchers

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Cashman met with Posada in Manhattan this week to tell the veteran to, as usual, prepare to catch, but the team’s first option is to have youngsters Jesus Montero, Francisco Cervelli and Austin Romine compete in spring training for the two primary jobs.

It is quite a risk to team an expensive, mostly veteran staff with such inexperienced catchers. But it is indicative of how much the Yankees believe Posada’s defensive game has slipped in all areas.

– George King and Joel Sherman, N.Y. Post.

Is that really “quite a risk”? First off, shouldn’t a veteran staff be precisely the type that wouldn’t be hurt by pitching to young catchers, and the perfect way to provide an inexperienced backstop the reps he needs to accumulate all those lauded and nebulous staff-handling skills?

Second, it’s really hard to tell if those skills really require so much experience. Yankees pitchers yielded almost identical OPSes with Cervelli and Posada behind the plate in 2010 — .724 and .719, respectively.

And Cervelli was way more often charged with handling Javier Vazquez and A.J. Burnett — not only the two worst Yankee starters last season, but the two reputed as most volatile. Burnett yielded a .755 OPS when pitching to Cervelli and a 1.034 OPS when pitching to Posada. For Vazquez: .777 to Cervelli, .930 to Posada.

You could certainly make the case that those figures are only the byproducts of small-sample size fluctuation, since, like I said, neither Burnett nor Vazquez threw a whole lot of pitches to Posada.

But what you can’t really argue is that the veteran Posada was better for the shakier elements in the Yankees’ rotation than Cervelli was.

And while we’re at it, let’s look around the league. Mets pitchers yielded a .756 OPS while pitching to Rod Barajas and a .703 mark pitching to Josh Thole. Giants pitchers: .683 to Bengie Molina, .675 to Buster Posey. Reds pitchers: .788 to Ramon Hernandez, .649 to Ryan Hanigan. Tigers pitchers: .735 to Gerald Laird, .731 to Alex Avila.

Now it could certainly be that the latter, less experienced player in each of those instances earned his promotion to the big leagues by demonstrating a precocious ability to handle pitchers in the Minors, and there’s selection bias at play.

I have no doubt that the ability to handle a pitching staff and call games is at least marginally important, even if many games are now called from the bench. Pitchers coming off good games constantly praise their catchers’ plans for opposing hitters, and the catcher is generally expected to be the first line of defense against a mound meltdown.

But I guess what I struggle to understand is why you need some set amount of Major League experience before you’re deemed apt to do those things. Certainly, time served should help with knowledge of opposing hitters, but so does video scouting, pre-series meetings with coaches, and a bevy of other factors. It’s hard to see why a smart and driven young catcher — good enough to get to the Major Leagues and want to stay there — should present any “risk” to any staff, no less a veteran one.

Word is Montero’s defense leaves a lot to be desired. And Cervelli actually ranked below Posada, dead last on those catcher defense rankings I linked earlier. But Sherman and King aren’t really referring to the measurable aspects of their defense.

Turkey terror

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The Mets appear to be in the hands of smart, capable men who embrace objective evaluation. The McRib is flying off the shelves at McDonald’s. Joe Morgan will no longer pollute Sunday Night Baseball with nonsense. Cee Lo Green’s album dropped yesterday. We’ll have space tourism by the end of next year.

This is a wonderful time to be alive.

But have no fear: We’ve still got something to fear.

And it’s turkeys.

According to the Daily News, a flock of wild turkeys that escaped from a psychiatric  institution — I s@#$ you not — are terrorizing parts of Staten Island.

“It was straight out of ‘Cujo,'” said dental assistant Gina Guaragno, 23. “I’m sitting in my car Facebooking on my phone when turkeys jumped on my windshield.

“I screamed like I was being murdered. They just kept looking at me like it was their car. I felt trapped. I was so scared.”…

Standing 2 to 4 feet high, the brown-feathered fiends meander between houses and linger for hours outside some homes….

Some seniors are too terrified to leave their homes, City Councilman James Oddo said.

Four-foot high (can that possibly be true?) wild turkeys running amok on Staten Island, just crapping and squawking and strutting around like they own the place. Trapping you in your car while you’re innocently making verbs out of websites. Yeah, I’d file that under terrifying.

One solution the Daily News article suggests is “harvesting,” which is, well, exactly what it sounds like. I don’t imagine wild turkey tastes all that great (as opposed to Wild Turkey, which is delicious), since even regular turkey is overrated and wild turkey probably isn’t all plumped up on whatever they feed the domesticated ones.

But you’ve got to step up, Staten Island. PETA’s not going to like it, but it’s time for some vigilante justice. Clearly these beasts have no natural predators on the island, and if you don’t stop them soon, eventually a couple will make its way onto the ferry or over the Verrazano and unleash fury on the rest of the boroughs.

I just wonder what Mary Ann DeFrancesco thinks about all this.

Stop caring about the Gold Glove award

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Yes, Derek Jeter won the Gold Glove again. No, he didn’t deserve it.

Yes, the awards are more based on reputation than evidence. They also, for some reason — perhaps laziness on the part of the voters — seem to unfairly reward incumbents. And there’s no doubt that there’s an offensive component at play, even though they theoretically reward defense.

But really, who cares? Does anyone that knows anything about baseball still really think the Gold Gloves always go to the best fielders at every position? They’ve been a meaningless pageant for years, maybe always. They’re a joke. Use them for jokes if that’s your thing, or just stop paying them any mind.

There are much better ways to determine good fielders, and even better-researched awards.

The future: Finally happening?

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A production facility that would build the world’s first fleet of commercial spaceships is set to begin construction Tuesday at the Mojave Air and Space Port.…

Virgin Galactic, which says it has taken reservations and deposits from more than 380 people, hopes to make its first passenger flight next year from the yet-to-be finished Spaceport America in New Mexico.

The craft is to climb to the edge of space, about 60 miles above the Earth’s surface.

At that suborbital altitude, passengers experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth. The price for the experience: $200,000. The carrier plane, which resembles a flying catamaran because it has two fuselages, and the six-passenger rocket ship are in the midst of a test-flight program in Mojave.

– W.J. Hennigan, L.A. Times.

Well it’s about freaking time if you ask me. Space! Sign me up for space tourism — once the price comes down and they’ve worked out all the kinks, of course. Unless someone has $200,000 lying around, in which case I’m willing to forgo the waiting-on-the-kinks thing.

Seems appropriate that the news should come down on what would have been Carl Sagan’s 76th birthday.

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore, we’ve learned most of what we know. Recently, we’ve waded a little way out, maybe ankle-deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return, and we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff.

Look at this thing:

A potential fit?

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I saw this post on MLB Trade Rumors, about how Edgar Renteria would be willing to move to second base, and it got me thinking.

The Mets would be wise to sign a middle infielder of some sort this offseason. We know this. None of the various in-house options at second base — Ruben Tejada, Daniel Murphy, Justin Turner, Reese Havens, and, lest we forget, Luis Castillo — is yet appealing enough to merit a place in the Opening Day lineup.

And not only will they need to find someone who is, they’ll also need to make sure they’ve got a solid backup to Jose Reyes at shortstop.

So I got to thinking maybe Renteria could fill both the team’s needs. He could open the season at second base and be the backup shortstop, provided Murphy is on the Major League roster somewhere and deemed capable of filling in at second.

Renteria got $10 million dollars for his efforts in San Francisco in 2010, a sum befitting a postseason hero but hardly appropriate for an injury-plagued middle infielder who played in only 72 games. I have no idea what Renteria will cost moving forward, though I’m near-certain it’ll be way, way less than $10 million.

Renteria is hardly a good hitter at this point, but he’s not terrible for a middle infielder, either. His .707 OPS in 2010 fell just shy of the league average for second basemen, though it marked his best season in three.

He would likely make up for his hitting at least a bit with his defense. He can still capably cover shortstop, the toughest position on the field, so presumably he could more than handle second base.

The ideal fit for the Mets would be a guy that would be willing and able to assume a full-time bench role if and when one of the young internal candidates proves worthy of playing every day. I don’t know Edgar Renteria personally so I have no idea if he fits that description, but I know he has a reputation as a great clubhouse guy and that he considered retiring after the 2010 campaign due to his various aches and pains.

So if the cost isn’t prohibitive, Renteria might make a nice option for the Mets’ 2010 middle infield.

Incidentally, Renteria is indisputably the all-time best of the nine Major League players to ever hail from Colombia. It’s sort of amazing how Renteria is just a bit better than fellow Colombian shortstop Orlando Cabrera in just about every category: Renteria has a .287/.344/.400 career line, Cabrera’s is .274/.320/.395; Renteria has 2252 hits, 135 home runs, 887 RBIs and 290 steals, Cabrera has 1948, 118, 803 and 208; and now Renteria has played for two World Series winners, Cabrera only one.

But perhaps Cabrera takes solace in his dominance in the sacrifice-fly category. Oddly, Cabrera has been in the top 10 of his league in sacrifice flies in each of the last five seasons, and led the American League in the category in 2006, 2007 and 2009.

The tremendous Ryan brothers

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Rob Ryan, speaking from the Browns’ facility near Cleveland, pointed to his early victories as a college assistant (Tennessee State over Morehead State) and noted that he owned more Super Bowl rings than Rex (two to one). Rex Ryan said in a telephone interview that he triumphed the last three times they stood on opposing sidelines and that he had never lost to Rob in the N.F.L.

The trash talking even extended to whiffle ball, a Ryan family pastime.

Rob: “I absolutely kill him. His bat’s tardy.”

Rex: “He’s delusional. I buckle him with the knuckle curve. He’s never been the same since I hit him in the head with a golf ball when we were 10.”

– Greg Bishop, N.Y. Times.

I imagine come Sunday the Ryan vs. Ryan angle will be so blown out that we’ll be sick of hearing about it, but before then, enjoy this tremendous read from Bishop.

Also, I’ve mentioned this here before, but every time I see Rob Ryan I think, “man, Thor really let himself go.”

It’s like Ocean’s 11, except instead of robbing casinos, they’re building a farm system

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Sorry but I’m trying to avoid the ubiquitous “getting the band back together” reference, even though Blues Brothers is a much better movie. Anyway:

The Mets hired Paul DePodesta today to be their Vice President of Player Development and Amateur Scouting. Cool.

The press release says this:

“Paul has one of the top analytical minds in the game and also has a strong background in more traditional aspects of player development and amateur scouting,” said Alderson.  “He will help establish direction, standards and continuity in all areas of our player development domestically and internationally.  Paul -– working together with J.P. Ricciardi and John Ricco -– also will advise me generally on other matters related to baseball operations.”

Alderson and DePodesta worked together in San Diego for two-and-a-half years.  DePodesta joined the Padres in July 2006 as a Special Assistant for Baseball Operations before being promoted to Executive Vice President in November 2008.

“I am thrilled to reunite with Sandy during this exciting time for the Mets,” said the 37-year-old DePodesta.  “I know first-hand the type of vision and leadership he brings to a franchise.  This is a tremendous opportunity to help develop a winning culture for the Mets and our fans.”

Nearly everybody has a really strong opinion on the Mets’ managerial search

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I’m getting a lot of email and reading a lot of blog posts telling me exactly what direction the Mets’ should go with their managerial search, but I’m struggling to muster up much passion on the subject. I already endorsed Tim Bogar. Doesn’t sound like that’s happening.

Here’s the thing: If we accept that 1) A Major League manager’s success has a lot more to do with the talent on his roster than his actual in-game managing and 2) Different leadership styles resonate in different ways with different people, then it’s difficult to eliminate any candidate just based on his past performance.

Bobby Valentine could hardly get out of third place when he managed the Rangers in the late 80s and early 90s, and Joe Torre entered his tenure with the Yankees with a career managerial record of 894-1003. Did they learn something from those stints that helped them in New York? It’s certainly possible. Or maybe they just had better teams and/or players more open to their motivation.

Who knows what the Mets will need for 2011 and beyond? Perhaps they’d respond to the fiery buntsmanship of Wally Backman or the calm prodding of Bob Melvin. Most likely the difference wouldn’t make a difference of more than a win or two in any case, since most Major Leaguers tend to be pretty apt self-motivators, what with making the Major Leagues and all.

What I’m certain of is that associating candidates with former bosses is a blisteringly bad way to evaluate them. So Terry Collins worked for Omar Minaya. So Chip Hale worked for Jerry Manuel. Who cares? George Washington worked for someone named Robert Dinwiddie once. Did the Continental Congress hesitate to name him Commander-in-Chief because they didn’t want “another Dinwiddie guy”?

Also, just because someone has one quality in common with a former Mets manager does not necessarily make him a bad choice to manage the current Mets.

Though it’s not at all surprising, it’s still kind of amazing the way the media and blogosphere work. Like three weeks ago, everyone seemed certain Sandy Alderson was the right choice for the Mets’ GM spot. Now that he’s faced with his first big decisions, all the same people want to doubt him and assume he’s moving in the wrong direction. Huh?

I mean, it strikes me that the best way to determine the best possible manager from the available candidates would be to sit down and talk with them all a bit: See who’s on board with the organizational philosophy and whose personality seems like it would appeal to the players and media.You know, some sort of interview process.

So you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t get all huffy about the Mets’ new manager, whoever it may be. I’ll wait until June for that, when I have a much better sense of exactly how he’ll be pissing us off. Until then, I’m going to try out having faith in the Mets’ front office for the first time this millenium, and just sort of assume that Alderson is doing a more thorough vetting of the potential candidates than anyone else will.