Category Archives: Sports

Jeter and the Yankees: Who Completes Whom?

jeter.pngDerek Jeter is a free agent the way your car is in Delaware while driving down I-95. It is a necessary but temporary state of affairs and will not last long. No sane person thinks Jeter will be anything but a Yankee when all is said and done. Everyone accepts that the Yankees will overpay to keep in the Bronx, and I have no problem with that. Hell, it ain’t my money. Give him a billion dollars a year for all I care.

However, the technical possibility that Jeter could play for another team, like any mention of Jeter period, is enough to set off sports scribes, like a gritty whistle only they can hear. Just witness the harrumphing when some folks dared suggest his Gold Glove award might not be justifiable. Professional moron Craig Carton got his panties in a knot and protested angrily that Jeter had made only 6 errors in 2010, blissfully unaware of just how useless the error stat is to assess a player’s fielding ability.

Most of the ink spilled has been along the lines of what Peter Gammons tweeted last week: “The Yankees need Jeter’s brand. Jeter needs the Yankee brand”. He repeated this nearly verbatim when appearing on Mike Francesa’s show last week. I heard Jared Max, the sports update guy on WCBS News Radio (the Yankees’ flagship station), talk about how the Yankees would benefit from, among other things, having Jeter get his 3000th hit in pinstripes.

Would they? Is this really a partnership of equals? I would say not, and I think the early returns would indicate this as well.

Jeter definitely needs the Yankees, but the Yankees do not need him–and this has nothing to do with his worth as a player. It has to do with legacy. Jeter has one to protect, and the Yankees don’t. Or rather, their legacy can not be dented by anything Jeter related. Sign him for a 100 years or trade him to the Yakult Swallows–either way, the Yankees will remain the Yankees.

When I hear people insist otherwise–that the Yankees need Jeter as much as he needs them–it reminds me of a line from The Simpsons, when Krusty tried to pawn off his long-lost daughter’s violin: “It isn’t worth much money, but the sentimental value is through the roof!”
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The Baseball Gods Bow to Math

I have done a complete 180 on my feelings about the Mets since the end of the season. 2010 couldn’t have gone worse, but even more frustrating was the fact that it seemed like there was no hope in sight. As necessary as the departures of Omar Minaya and Jerry Manuel became, those moves in and of themselves did not inspire me with confidence, because it seemed the real issue with the team was its tone-deaf, thoroughly unprogressive ownership.

Then they hired Sandy Alderson as their general manager, and my outlook changed from that second onward.

sandy.png* Apologies to whoever crafted my favorite Photoshopping of the 2008 presidential campaign.

Sandy Alderson is the architect of how modern front offices operate. There are
very few teams whose operations are not influenced in some way by what
he did with Oakland in the 1980s. Would Bill James-ian thought and top-down management made its way into the game anyway? Perhaps, but Alderson did it first, and it wasunbelievably revolutionary when he did it. To me, him running the Mets is like getting Frank Lloyd Wright to design my house, or Steve Albini to produce my album. (Full disclosure: I have neither a house nor an album.)

My biggest beef with the Mets in recent years has been how out of touch they were with the way competitive teams are constructed in the 21st century. I was frustrated by their complete rejection of anything remotely sabermetric. I was baffled by their seeming inability to attract top baseball minds to the richest media market in the country. While the Boston Red Sox–a team with comparable financial resources–assembled a juggernaut front office full of some of the best talent evaluators and number crunchers in the game, the Mets had their VP of player personnel challenging minor leaguers to shirtless brawls.

Overnight, all of these gripes were addressed, and then some. The fact that Alderson’s first hires were J.P. Ricciardi and Paul DePodesta, two Billy Beane acolytes prominently featured in Moneyball, is astounding. This not only creates a surplus of brain power in their organization, but also makes the Mets an attractive destination for an up-and-coming executive or talent evaluator, which they definitely were not this time last year. The Mets have already taken a quantum evolutionary leap. One second they were making crude stone tools, the next they were mapping the human genome.

Does the addition of Sandy Alderson mean the Mets will compete in 2011? I haven’t the slightest idea. The answer to that question depends in large part on Johan Santana, whose recovery from shoulder surgery remains a huge question mark. If he misses significant time, or is a shell of his former self, it’s going to be very hard for the Mets to win. I do think Alderson has the ability to improve this team right now. Whether they’ll improve enough to be a playoff team next season remains to be seen.

But even before he’s made a single personnel move (aside from picking up Jose Reyes’ option), I can say I feel more optimistic about this team than I have in a very, very long time. Because in the grand scheme of things, how the Mets do next year is not as important as how they set themselves up for the future, and they’ve already put themselves on the right track to do this.

The selection of Alderson as GM means the team will have a coherent philosophy and direction for the first time in a very long time, perhaps since the days of Frank Cashen. In both Oakland and San Diego, Alderson implemented organization-wide standards and goals, and there’s no reason to think he won’t do the same in New York. This is not as ground-breaking an idea as it once was, but the Mets have not attempted it in a long time, if ever.  After years of being lost on the backroads of baseball, Alderson’s hiring shows the Mets have finally decided to pull over and ask for directions.

The Mets couldn’t have indicated more clearly that they’ve made a break from The Old Way of doing things. Omar Minaya’s approach to building a team was a lot like Ed Wood (as played by Johnny Depp)’s approach to filmmaking: “It’s not about the little details, it’s about the big picture!”

Acquiring big time free agents like Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran? No problem. Surrounding those big time free agents with a supporting cast? Not so much. Even his backup/bench signings were “name” guys like Alex Cora and Jeff Francoeur, and he overpaid by several factors for the privilege, getting replacement level (or worse) production for sums that could have brought in several better players.

His administration would not–or could not–multitask. One problem area would be identified and targeted for each offseason, at the expense of everything else. Like 2009, when the Mets reacted to the bullpen woes of the previous year by signing Frankie Rodriguez and trading for J.J. Putz–and doing virtually nothing else, resulting in another lost season (though an injury epidemic of biblical proportions helped).

I have no such fears with Alderson. I have such faith in his abilities, in fact, that I’m totally indifferent to the managerial search. Before he was hired, I worried the Mets would take somebody for ticket-selling purpose, like Wally Backman. Now I feel that if Backman does wind up with the job, it’s because he was deemed the best man for the job.

My biggest concerns with Alderson are external: How will his regime be treated by the headline-hungry, chaos-loving sports press and an impatient fanbase that doesn’t necessarily know (or care) about his résumé? If the Mets are mediocre in 2011 (a distinct possibility), will fans and scribes alike scream MONEYBALL DOESN’T WORK! And will the Wilpons, who seem at times overly sensitive to criticism, get antsy if such an outcry occurs?

We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it. I have no expectations the Mets will sign a big-time free agent this winter, and yet I am filled with hope for their future. Weird, huh?

The Video Game Community Protests Derek Jeter

mario.jpgHey, Derek! It’s-a me, Mario! Whassamatta for you with these-a comments in-a the newspaper? People say these-a advanced metrics show you can’t play-a the shortstop no more, and whatta you say? “I don’t know. I don’t play video games.”

This makes-a the Mario very sad. Why you gotta tell-a the lies? Mario remembers you used to come home from-a school everyday and play with him. You used to blow in Mario’s cartridge when-a he wasn’t working right. You even did-a that thing with the Q-tip and the alcohol, even though you knew it didn’t-a work.

And you used to play with all of Mario’s friends, too. Samus, Kid Icarus, Simon Belmont, those two meatheads from-a the Bad Dudes. We all had such a great time together! Why you turn-a your back on us? You think playing the video games makes you a nerd? You think it’s-a something you outgrew now that you’re such a big shot, playing the baseball with-a your fancy buddies?

Maybe you so-a defensive because you really are a nerd! Mario remembers you getting a subscription to-a Nintendo Power every year for-a your birthday. You filled in all-a the blank squares on your Legend of Zelda map! You memorized all-a the fatalities in Mortal Kombat! You used to have-a the poster for Maniac Mansion taped to-a your wall! You beat Final Fantasy III in 10 days and bragged to your friends at school about it!

You had-a the TurboGrafx 16. Nobody had-a the TurboGrafx 16!

Mario even has a picture of you playing the video games with-a your good friend Tiger Woods. Take a good look, Derek. Try and deny me again after you see-a this!

jetertiger.jpgmario.jpgSure looked like you played video games back-a then, Derek!

I am so angry at-a you right now! I feel just as-a small as I hit by a hammer thrown by a jumping turtle! Your betrayal, she hits me in my soul, burning me up like a flaming barrel!

Alla you old friends is-a mad at you too, like-a the Donkey Kong. I remember you used play-a the Donkey Kong Country all day long, and now you stab-a that poor monkey in the back. Go ahead, Donkey Kong, tell-a him how you feel.
donkeykong.jpg[Donkey Kong and all permutations of the phrase Donkey Kong, images of the character Donkey Kong, and any other likeness in a medium now existing or yet to be developed are the exclusive property of Nintendo of America, and any unauthorized use of Donkey Kong in any form even in the form of a dumb catch phrase, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law]