Brief tidbit on Mike Pelfrey

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I’ve already said my piece on Mike Pelfrey and the illusory nature of his supposed regression in 2009, but Howard Megdal passed out an interesting factoid via email that I figured I’d, in turn, pass along:

One of the actual knocks against Pelfrey from 2009 could be that his walk rate ticked up a tiny bit, from 2.87 BB/9 in 2008 to 3.22 BB/9 in 2009. Not a huge change and maybe not even a significant one, but not a good trend, for sure.

But as someone Howard corresponds with named Alan Topal (must give proper credit here on the Internet) points out, Pelfrey intentionally walked eight guys in 2009 after intentionally walking only one in 2008.

So Pelfrey’s unintentional walk rate held fast at 2/83 BB/9.

So that’s cool.

Items of note

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Pam Anderson can focus on making movies with Tommy Lee, David Hasselhoff can get drunk and eat cheeseburgers, and Yasmine Bleeth can disappear into obscurity: Bay Watch is over. I’ll have more in a bit, but for now, enjoy what Sam Page and Keith Law have to say.

Darrelle Revis and Chad Ochocinco’s Twitter war is escalating. I love Ochocinco, as has been well-documented, but Darrelle Revis is going to shut down his entire account, I bet. Kudos to the Daily News for the “Revis and Butt-head” headline.

This kid goes to Susan Sarandon’s Ping-Pong club and takes Ping-Pong way too seriously. At every mall in China — and there are a ton of mall in China — there are little kids getting uber-serious Ping-Pong lessons from pros. It seems way less fun when there’s yelling involved, unless it’s the type of hilarious yelling I do when I’m losing at Ping-Pong.

Great story in the Times about Buddy Bailey, an American who has caught on as a baseball manager in Venezuela.

Your early Jets-Bengals preview

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How surprised was I that the Jets beat the undefeated Colts on Sunday? So surprised that I didn’t even shave to film the Jets-Bengals preview today. Also I didn’t think we’d be doing it on a Tuesday, for what it’s worth. Plus I know you like handsome man-stubble. It’s a tribute to Mark Sanchez. Whatever, just watch the video.

Bay Watch now unofficially over

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As you may have heard by now, Mike Francesa reported today that the Mets will announce after the weekend that they’ve agreed to terms with Jason Bay.

Francesa did not state the terms, and so I’ll reserve judgment on the deal until we find out what they are. If they’re reasonable, then good. If they’re not, then not good.

One hilarious aspect about signing a player whose last name is also a noun is it means great things for the local tabloids. Flushing Bay will obviously be a popular headline in the coming years, but I’m hoping the Post editors will have some clever tricks up their sleeves.

In addition, Bay also rhymes with tons of stuff, so they have that to play with too. It’s all a rich tapestry. Between him and David Wright, it gives local newspapermen their best combination of headline-fodder players since the invaluable Jae Seo-Ty Wigginton duo graced the 2003 and 2004 clubs.

My favorite from that era, I should mention, came after Seo pitched a gem with the Mets firmly out of the race one year — I think 2003, because I’m pretty certain I was working in the deli at the time — and the post ran “SEO WHAT?” Classic.

Hypothetical question

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Reading, via MetsBlog, Jon Heyman’s report that Carlos Zambrano is “eminently available” got me thinking, and not just about how it directly contradicts earlier reports.

For Zambrano to be traded, he’d have to waive his no-trade clause, and I wonder, if I was in his situation, if I’d want to.

On one hand, signing a contract with a club with a no-trade clause guarantees the right to play out the contract with that club. So it’s not like it should make him a bad guy to exercise that right. On the other, I can’t imagine it’d be that great a feeling to stick around an organization when you know it doesn’t want you.

I don’t know Zambrano, but judging by some of the things he’s said and done, it’s safe to say he’s, ahh, unique. He hates Gatorade dispensers, for one thing. And he’s vowed to retire after his current contract is up so he could spend more Mother’s Days with his family, which is nice.

The whole concept of “trading,” as has been well-documented, is weird. It’s not something that happens in most occupations. Of course, most occupations don’t come with five-year, $91.5 million contracts, so there’s a trade-off there.

But I’m pretty sure I’d be a little taken aback if one day some SNY bigwig came over to my little nook of the office and was just like, “hey Ted, bad news, man. We’re trading you to NESN for Eric Ortiz. Now pack up your stuff and uproot your family.”

And if that same bigwig said, “of course, you have the option of staying here, but, you know, we’d really like to get rid of you and we’d much rather have Ortiz, but if it’s so important to you that you stay in your home in the city you love, well, I guess that’s OK,” I honestly don’t know what I’d do.

Zambrano apparently owns a home in the Chicago area. He has had a bit of a rocky relationship with Cubbie fans, but he’s never played for any other team.

So would you stay at your job, knowing that your bosses and possibly your co-workers didn’t want you around anymore, provided that your only other option was moving to a whole other city somewhere in a different part of the country?

What if this was really it?

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What if the Mets really did nothing this offseason, and couldn’t sign Jason Bay or Bengie Molina or Joel Pineiro or whoever else? How bad off would they be? Let’s take a (completely theoretical) look:

Catcher: Josh Thole (L), Henry Blanco (R)

First base: Daniel Murphy (L), Nick Evans (R)

Second base: Luis Castillo (B)

Third base: David Wright (R)

Shortstop: Jose Reyes (B)

Left field: Angel Pagan (B)

Center field: Carlos Beltran (B)

Right field: Jeff Francoeur (R)

Bench: Alex Cora (INF), Chris Carter (OF/1B), Anderson Hernandez (INF), Omir Santos (C)

Starting pitchers: Johan Santana (LHP), Mike Pelfrey (RHP), Oliver Perez (LHP), John Maine (RHP), Jon Niese (LHP)

Bullpen: Francisco Rodriguez (RHP), Kelvim Escobar (RHP), Ryota Igarashi (RHP), Pedro Feliciano (LHP), Bobby Parnell (RHP), Sean Green (RHP), Brian Stokes (RHP)

That’s assuming a lot of things, of course. Health is the main one. Obviously Reyes, Beltran, Santana, Escobar, Perez, Niese and Francoeur all have some major to minor question marks attached to them, injury-wise.

And it’s assuming the Mets would give Thole the opportunity to start the season in a platoon, which I doubt, plus carry three catchers, which I also doubt. But it’s an arbitrary and theoretical exercise anyway.

But that said, does the team look downright terrible? It would be counting on a whole lot of things to fall the right way, of course.

One minor positive to the 2009 season might be that it forced Omar Minaya to pick up a good deal of pitching depth to handcuff the current crop of injury-prone starters. This club wouldn’t include Nelson Figueroa, Pat Misch, Fernando Nieve and Tobi Stoner, all of whom could be stashed in Buffalo for when one of the “mainstays” inevitably goes down.

Is the team, on paper, good enough to compete with the Roy Halladay-bolstered, reigning-champion Phillies? Not by a long shot. But it would give Thole, Murphy, Evans, Pagan and Francoeur opportunities to show whether they deserve to be parts of the Mets’ long-term plans while allowing more impressive prospects deeper in the system to develop at higher levels.

Which is not to say it’s a plan I’m advocating. But I also don’t think it would be the worst idea in the world.

A trip to Revis Island

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Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis, if I haven’t mentioned here before, is unbelievably good. Thanks to Jets Twit, via Gang Green Nation, we can now see just how good thanks to this handy table. Here is what Darrelle Revis has done to opposing wide receivers this season:

That does not bode well for TedQuarters hero Chad Ochocinco.

The folks at ProFootballFocus.com (h/t to Will Davidian) grade every NFL player on every play on a scale of -2 to +2. (Full disclosure: I’m not entirely sold on their methodology because they seem to think Kerry Rhodes can tackle, which he clearly cannot.)

By their rankings, Revis is the best corner in the league by a wide margin. In coverage, Revis scores a 30.6. The next closest cornerback, Charles Woodson, scores a 17.8.

According to their stats, when the ball is thrown in Darrelle Revis’ general direction, opposing QBs post a 31 QB rating. 31. Thirty One. That means Darrelle Revis makes every quarterback he faces look worse than JaMarcus Russell. And that’s really, really, really bad.

Anyway, you don’t need numbers to tell you Revis is awesome. Just watch the game Sunday night.

Items of note

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Mike Francesa will have a “major, major update” on the Mets today. Joe Janish takes some stabs at what that could mean.

MGL continues his exhaustive study of aging in baseball. It’s long, and mostly confirms what you probably would have guessed, but definitely worth a read.

Howard Medgal likes the Kelvim Escobar signing.

You’re damn right dinosaurs shot venom. Now I just want to find out about the eyeball lasers, then I’ll be able to confirm once and for all how awesome dinosaurs were.

The Beefy 5 Layer Burrito: Soft focus

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I saw an ad for the Beefy 5 Layer Burrito during last night’s Jets’ game, so I went out to the Worst Taco Bell in the World in nearby Elmsford, N.Y., today to try it out.

The Beefy 5 Layer Burrito is a burrito filled with refried beans (you know, like in pintos and cheese), taco beef (the standard stuff), nacho cheese (plain old nacho cheese, the stuff that comes with nachos), sour cream (ie Supreme) and shredded cheese (which you may recognize from every Taco Bell product ever).

Wait, hold on. Burrito, beans, ground beef, nacho cheese, sour cream, shredded cheese? What is this, 1992? Honestly, when was the last time Taco Bell introduced a new menu item that didn’t involve a Chalupa shell or Gordita flatbread or crispy red strips or Zesty Pepper Jack sauce? Everything in the Beefy 5 Layer Burrito has been on the Taco Bell menu in some capacity since the dawn of time.

In fact, I’m damn near shocked Taco Bell hasn’t rolled out the Beefy 5 Layer Burrito before. It’s basically just all the soft things from Taco Bell’s classic selection of items, so if you’re ever mandated by a dentist to shy away from crunchy or crispy foods, I heartily recommend it.

Other than that, though, it gets a resounding meh. It’s from Taco Bell and it’s loaded up with staples of Taco Bell cuisine, so it is, of course, delicious, but it lacks any sort of distinguishing feature. It’s certainly a lot of good food for 89 cents, and that’s cool. But it’s just a giant heaping mishmash of Taco Bell stuff, and just tastes exactly like anything else you’d get at Taco Bell, only without any crunchiness whatsoever.

Which is awesome, don’t get me wrong. It’s Taco Bell, like I said. But I’ve come to expect more at this point. Like Lava Sauce. Throw some Lava Sauce on that baby and you’d have a seriously awesome burrito for .89 cents. As it is now, it’s merely a tasty but somewhat bland reminder of how far Taco Bell has come since my childhood.

Hall of Fame robble robble robble

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Apparently Hall of Fame ballots are due soon, so Hall of Fame voters are posting their ballots on Twitter and Hall of Fame voter naysayers are all up in arms over who the Hall of Fame voters voted for.

As area wiseass @samtpage put it: “@famoussportswriter your hall of fame ballot is wrong!”

Here’s my thing about the Hall of Fame: There’s a big group of guys who obviously deserve to be in, the Babe Ruths and Tom Seavers. There’s a bigger group of guys who obviously don’t deserve to be in, the Roger Cedenos and Andy Stankiewiczes. Then there’s another group of guys who might deserve to be in, and for every one you can pick out a better player who isn’t in or a worse player who is, and that’s where the debate lies.

I always kind of liked it that Jim Rice wasn’t a Hall of Famer because he always struck me as a perfect benchmark for offensive production not meriting Hall of Fame entry. If you’re a significantly better hitter than Jim Rice, you make the Hall of Fame. If you’re not, you don’t.

But I failed to consider the fear, of course.

Anyway, the most important thing is that it’s not really important at all, and the Hall of Fame is just a fun thing to talk about and a nice place to visit and not at all a good justification for any heated rhetoric. Normally it’s a debate I find fun and interesting, but this year, for whatever reason, it has grown tiresome. I suspect Twitter is partly responsible. It seems like Twitter makes everyone angry, or at least exposes everyone’s anger. Or maybe 140 characters just force everyone to seem rude.

Whatever it is, I’m finding it difficult to care too much about the Hall of Fame balloting. I’m more concerned with the general direction of the Hall, anyway. The way I see it, there’s about a 50/50 chance that in five years, the Hall of Fame is completely meaningless.

If Barry Bonds and his ilk are shunned from the Hall for a crime they were clearly allowed to commit, the Hall of Fame will be rendered a silly, whitewashed pageant. It will have no more value than the Gold Glove, something that might look nice on a plaque but will mean nothing to anyone who knows anything about baseball.