Huge hat tip to Ted Burke for pointing me to this clip. When the Rockies score seven or more runs, Denver-area Taco Bells sell four tacos for $1 with the purchase of a small drink.
So in this video, Jason Giambi not only wins the game in walk-off fashion for the Rockies, he also defeats the intolerable Jonathan Papelbon and secures discounted tacos for everyone in the Denver area. Straight heroism.
Plus, look at the score box graphic around the 22-second mark. Dancing tacos. That’s awesome.
They should be rewarded for the most awesome thing ever. So ominous:
All the walk-off losses on the road is indicative of an eighth-inning guy. That’s where an eighth-inning guy pitches. It’s basically that simple. If that eighth-inning guy is the guy, he pitches the tie game on the road. At home, the closer pitches the tie game because you get a chance to bat. That’s just the way that works. I mean, that’s baseball.
– Jerry Manuel.
OK. Exhale.
That’s baseball?
The Mets’ absurd and quixotic quest for this elusive “eighth-inning guy” has crippled them all year. It forced Jenrry Mejia into the big leagues before he was ready, Fernando Nieve into an ungodly amount of work, and now Pedro Feliciano and Elmer Dessens into situations they should never face.
That’s not baseball. Not good baseball, at least.
Look: Some teams have an eighth-inning guy. If you have two awesome relievers, great, make one the closer and one the eighth-inning guy. Shorten the games. And yeah, you might be better served using one of them in higher-leverage spots in the sixth or seventh when the starter tires and there are men on base, but whatever. The eighth inning and ninth inning of close games are pretty big spots. By all means, use your two best relievers there.
But if you don’t have some distinct second-best reliever, or hell, even a second decidedly good reliever, holy crap, don’t force it. There’s no need at all to anoint someone “eighth-inning guy” if he’s not cut out for it.
Pedro Feliciano is a valuable bullpen arm who can pitch nearly every day and retire tough lefties with unbelievable reliability. I am a fan of Pedro Feliciano. He is very good at his job.
But he is not capable of reliably getting right-handers out, nor has he ever been. He should absolutely not be facing right-handed hitters with the game on the line.
And look, before you ask: I’m not even certain what I would’ve done there. Presumably Bobby Parnell was unavailable after pitching in three of the last four games, clearly next in line for the Nieve treatment. And Jerry’s not getting much help from the front-office, with his team already man-down and carrying three catchers and a crappy bullpen.
But if K-Rod needs work badly enough to come in with the Mets down one run in the eighth inning Tuesday, why is he not allowed to pitch with a tie game on the line on Thursday? Hell, he was warming up. Is it — heaven forbid! — that a save situation might arise without K-Rod available to nail it down? Because, you know, managing to a pointless stat, that’s baseball.
Also a big part of baseball: Throwing your entire bullpen under the bus when you’ve mismanaged it all season. The Mets aren’t suffering walk-off losses on the road because they need an eighth-inning guy, they’re suffering walk-off losses on the road because they think they need an eighth-inning guy.
Sagiv at Fire Jerry Manuel covered last night’s game with his unique brand of vitriol. Check it out (language furiously unsafe for work).
Tejada had a 10-game hitting streak, but his biggest contribution was on the defensive end. The folks at Baseball Info Solutions tell us Tejada had 19 balls hit to him in double play situations at second base this month.
He turned 12 of them into twin killings, a conversion rate of 63 percent. That’s a significant improvement over Castillo’s 47 percent conversion rate (the major league average for a second baseman is 52 percent).
Simon uses one stat to quantify something that’s pretty clear to every metric and eyeball in the world: Ruben Tejada is a better defender than Luis Castillo. Castillo’s certainly got experience on the 20-year-old, but Tejada appears able to mitigate his lack of familiarity with the position with his impressive range and excellent instincts.
Thus far, Tejada has not embarrassed himself with the bat, either — no small feat for a player his age in the Major Leagues. It’s still a tiny sample, but Tejada’s .269/.329/.328 line is not terribly far off the league-average .264/.333/.386 mark.
Whether Tejada can keep that up remains to be seen, though it’s not as if his Major League offensive performance is a massive improvement over his respectable Minor League history. But he appears to rely on slapping the ball to the opposite field, so it’ll be interesting to see if the league adjusts to him with a little more exposure.
If he can maintain this performance, though, he should remain starting at second base even if and when Castillo returns. Though Castillo is likely to improve upon his meager offensive line this season and be a better hitter than the rookie, Tejada’s defense makes up for the difference in production.
Castillo has not yet started a rehab assignment and is apparently recovering slowly — in that he can ever truly “recover” — from his injury, so this could be immaterial.
But if it does happen — assuming Jose Reyes’ injury is as minor as the Mets are making it out to be — how will the team handle it if Castillo returns and Tejada is still playing this well? It sets up a fascinating test for a front-office on a recent run of reasonable decision-making. Castillo will have less than $9 million owed to him over the remainder of his contract. Is that little enough for the Mets to stomach cutting him free, eating the sunk cost?
But wait! Castillo is a switch-hitter and a better offensive player and baserunner than Alex Cora. Cora is on the team because he can back up Jose Reyes at shortstop, but Tejada could just as easily slide over when Reyes needs a rest and fill that position more aptly than Cora, with Castillo replacing Tejada at second.
So if Castillo returns and Tejada still appears a better bet to be playing second base everyday, Cora should be the odd man out. But can the Mets cut Mr. Vesting Option himself, the catalyst of all clubhouse chemistry?
I’m guessing no. But they’ve been surprising me since the day Mike Jacobs got cut.
I’m such a loser.
One of the ways you know you’ve really “made it” in life is when you have a sandwich named after you. There’s the Stephen Strasburger, the Scott Baio and all the wonderful celebrity-themed encased meats available at Hot Doug’s, just to name a few. There is truly no greater honor than having your own sandwich, and that is something we should all be so lucky to experience.
So, it should come as no surprise that LeBron James(notes) has a sandwich named after him. He’s hugely famous, he’s marketable and the world could always use another delicious sandwich. Well, the Carnegie Deli — one of New York’s legendary sandwich shops — made the “LeBron MVP,” a five pound hunk of turkey, pastrami, corned beef, brisket, cheese, lettuce and tomato on rye that goes for $19.95.
Don’t insult me, Carnegie Deli. Here on SandwichQuarters.net we know better than to be impressed by sandwiches notable only for their ridiculous size. And this is pretty ridiculous:
Look: I get the appeal of the famous old-timey New York deli. I’ve been to Carnegie and Katz’s and they made for enjoyable outings. But they’re selling the emperor’s new clothes. Everyone needs to come clean: the sandwiches aren’t that good.
I hate to admit that there’s such a thing as “too much meat,” but in some contexts, it happens. Just piling tons and tons of meat on a sandwich does not make it a good one. Remember what I said yesterday? It’s about proportions. Does anyone want just a mouthful of undressed, uncheesed, unbreaded sliced corned beef?
Well, yes, but it’s not as good as the perfect bite of some combination of meats, cheeses, vegetables, dressings and bread that make for a truly great sandwich. If LeBron James is a man of distinguishing sandwich taste, that monstrosity will do nothing to woo him.
The Knicks, who just threw away two whole seasons in an effort to sign LeBron James and still don’t know if they can, should be ashamed of themselves. The NBA, which has engineered a free-agency system that allows and often encourages teams to do otherwise unconscionable things like tank entire seasons, should be ashamed of itself. The players, who have all been groomed to believe these max contracts are their birthright, should be ashamed of themselves, but that’s clearly not about to happen.
But we, the sporting public, should be the most ashamed. Because what we have allowed this league and these players to do to us is thoroughly shameful….
These players wouldn’t spit on you if you were on fire. You’re the fool and they’re all playing you for it. Can you imagine if you found out the CEOs of three different high-profile banks got together in secret with a mortgage calculator to discuss which one of them was going to buy your mortgage loan? Or if the presidents of three different Ivy League colleges got together to decide which of them was going to accept your application and which one was going to accept your neighbor’s?
Well, you’d think it was an outrage. The people who hold all the power hanging out together, lighting up cigars and laughing about how great it was all going to turn out for all of them no matter what happens, no matter whose feelings get crushed in the process.
Graz’s scathing teardown of the NBA free agency system is definitely worth a read. I don’t know that I’m as worked up as he is over the current nonsense since, to me, the fault lies wholly on the league for creating this situation. The players and teams are doing their best to take advantage of it, as they should be expected to. But it’s a stupid system regardless, one that appears in need of an overhaul. I’m not saying I know how to fix it, but I’m certain it’s broke.
From the people who brought you sex-for-tickets and intentionally-vomiting-on-children comes this much more reasonable-seeming legal proceeding, against the Phillie Phanatic.
A 75-year-old woman is suing the mascot for injuring her arthritic knees when he climbed over her at a Reading Phillies game.
First of all, I’d like to point out that clearly “Reading Phillies” is an oxymoron. And I know it’s not pronounced like that.
Second, the Philly Inquirer article linked above lists the Phanatic as a “bird-anteater hybrid.” A) Who knew? B) It looks nothing like a bird, and the resemblance to an anteater is tenuous at best. It just looks like some big stupid green thing.
I hope this lady wins and the Phanatic loses his shirt, mostly because I want to see him running around without his jersey on, but also partly because screw the Phillie Phanatic for climbing all over a 75-year-old woman. The Phillie Phanatic is a menace who deserves to be punished. You don’t see Mr. Met getting all handsy.
I do have a bit of contention with the woman’s lawyer, though. It seems like he might be on a single-minded campaign against mascots, for some stupid reason.
“[The Reading Phillies’] mascot is Screwball, and it’s like he’s on Valium,” Speicher said. “They say Screwball has the energy of Perry Como.”
Ahh, why do you have to take potshots at Screwball when your case is against the Phanatic, dude? Screwball has really been working to fight his prescription drug habit, and I’m sure the last thing he needs is some big-shot big-city lawyer taking swipes at his reputation.
Speicher better watch out or he’ll feel the wrath of a hot-dog cannon from point-blank range.
If you ever see me complain about having to go a baseball game for work, please find me and punch me in the face. There is nothing more loathsome than when reporters or broadcasters paid to cover baseball whine about the heat or long games or the crummy press-box food. You’re watching baseball for a living, bro. No one’s saying your job is easy, but don’t pretend you’re so great at what you do that you couldn’t be replaced by someone from the legions who would kill for the opportunity.
I try not to express too much excitement over the awesome aspects of my job here because I fear it will sound like bragging. But it never stops amazing me that I am allowed to do some of the things I get to do. It’s crazy.
I spent two hours this morning in a conference room at a Connecticut country club talking baseball with Ralph Kiner for an upcoming series of web videos. We watched old clips from Kiner’s Korner and used them as jumping-off points for discussions about the sport and its history, plus Ralph’s personal memories.
It was amazing. I don’t want to scoop the videos as I’m hoping you’ll watch when they come out, but Ralph talked about everything from train travel to pitch counts, and even got into a tiny bit of his history of dating celebrities. Plus he mentioned how batting average is overrated because it doesn’t include walks, just in case his .946 career OPS wasn’t enough to endear him to sabermetricians.
It’ll make for quite a few videos, so I had to film a bunch of opens and introduce him many times. I asked him if being introduced as “Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner” ever got old, and he said, “how could that ever get old?”
It was cool.
Lee, Lee, Lee, Lee, Lee, Lee, Lee, Lee, Lee! We’re talking f@#$in’ Lee!
– Tenacious D/SNY.tv the last three days.
Has SNY.tv offered four takes on Cliff Lee in the last three days? Yes. You might say it’s a hot topic around these parts. And maybe that’s my fault and we shouldn’t be running so many columns about the same topic, but whatever. It’s on my mind too.
Check out Howard Megdal, Dan Graziano and Sam Borden on the pitcher, making a variety of reasonable points.
But the point I want to reiterate — one I touched upon earlier this week but failed to drive home, I think — comes in Mike Salfino’s take. He writes:
Madden says the Mets “would be well-advised not to make a trade for him unless they can sign him.”
Signing Lee long-term is a minus to the deal, not a plus. If the Mets’ resources were limitless, this would not matter. But overpaying Lee badly down the road, again the likely outcome, will hamstring future pennant pursuits.
Those negotiating windows are not what they’re cracked up to be. It’s not like the Mets are going to get the exclusive negotiating window and be able to sign Lee for far less than what he’ll get on the open market. Everyone involved — and most importantly, Lee’s agent — is smarter than that. A team that trades for Lee with a negotiating window will still have to sign him for a deal similar to the one he’s likely to get in free agency. And since Lee is one of the best pitchers in baseball right now, that’s going to be huge.
Reader and commenter Chris M made a great point via email about this. He argued that the Mets will inevitably pursue an ace — with the “ace” label — this offseason, so they might as well sign Lee if they can snag him. They’re not going to find anyone better on the free-agent market, he pointed out, and they’d have to give up even more young players to trade for anyone else.
But that seems a bit fatalistic to me. That’s just urging the Mets to do the least-dumb thing, since Lee is legitimately awesome and will probably provide at least a reasonable return on his contract for the first couple of years.
To me, the team should worry less about labels and more about putting the best team it can on the field for now and the foreseeable future. I don’t see how offering a long-term deal to Lee assures that. As Salfino points out, it seems more likely to hinder it down the road.
If you look, you will be hard-pressed to find a World Series winner that didn’t have a pitcher who could reasonably be called an ace. So it’s easy to argue, “Well, all World Series winners have aces, so the Mets must make sure they have an ace.”
Only it doesn’t really work like that. Pitching is a fickle thing, difficult to predict. And one ace, no matter how good, will only get you so far. You need to secure as many good pitchers as you can and hope that one performs like an ace instead of overpaying one with a recent history of ace-like performance and assuming he’ll continue it.
Tedquarters 