Let’s call this is a pre-emptive strike. Whenever you set players loose for the off-season, a few of them are bound to do stupid things or get caught doing things that are considered illegal, immoral, and/or dumb. Really, whenever you set any group of people loose for a few months with few responsibilities and essentially no supervision, they’re bound to do things that are considered illegal, immoral, and/or dumb, but with baseball players (or professional athletes, in general) the media gets to have a field day with their hijinx. Then comes the outrage from journalists and anyone else with an opinion on how people should live their lives, and it gets even better when they add the line “What will our kids think?”, implying that anyone in the limelight should be perfect angels that demonstrate how our children should act. The idea is that the professional athletes are “role models” for our kids, and they have this clause in their contract that states that they are supposed to be more perfect than the rest of us are. Well, guess what? That’s bull $#!t.

Let’s start with a look at models (no, not people like her, though let’s do on second thought … okay, are we back?) and why we like them anyway. Albert Bandura institutionalized (he didn’t really come up with it, but he was the first to become famous for what he said on the subject) the idea of observational learning into what was called the Social Cognitive Theory. The idea is that a significant amount of what we learn is by observation (again, this isn’t brain-busting, but there’s plenty of good stuff if you want to read more on the subject), and you observe models. Anyone can be models. Parents, teachers, older brothers, and Jack the Ripper can be models of behavior. Essentially, one watches someone do something, and by paying attention and having the physical ability to do it, one can then do what was modeled. Yet, we aren’t monkeys and will not necessarily do what we see. We have to be motivated to do it. There has to be a reward or resulting consequence that we find useful or positive, and if there is such a reward, we will try to model the behavior.

click “view full post” to read more

Everyone loves uber-prospects. To some, the prospect of a dominant, young, home-grown player plying his trade for their favorite team is a thing of beauty. For others, the thought of trading him for some established mega-star of the moment fills their head with sweet dreams at night. And Jesus Montero certainly fits the bill; a 20 year old who tore up AAA for half a season last year, is almost universally praised as the best hitting prospect in baseball, and, for now, plays catcher is a wonderful thing indeed.

So how will Montero fit into the Yankees long-term plans? The most obvious answer is that he takes over for Jorge Posada as the teams catcher and, hopefully, becomes the second coming of Mike Piazza. But, in addition to praising Montero’s bat, most reports are also very down on his glove. Most every person who follows Yankees prospects closely that I’ve talked to tell me in no uncertain terms that Montero is just a flat out awful catcher. Not that he won’t ever to develop into a serviceable backstop, mind you, just that he’s really awful right now.

(click “view full post” to read more)

And so the Jeterian posturing begins, says Hal Steinbrenner:

“Who knows?” he said. “You just never know with these things. Both parties need to be happy with the deal, and that may make things more complicated, I don’t know. There’s always the possibility that things could get messy.”

There’s only a few ways this gets messy regarding Jeter:

1. The Yanks try to lowball Jeter and try to get him to sign at the “market” rate for what a 36 year-old, on-the-decline shortstop would otherwise get if his name wasn’t Derek Jeter. The $6 million/year being thrown about towards the end of this season, for example…
2. Derek Jeter expects to be paid in line with the man to his right on the infield. Said differently, his own pride gets in the way of reality. Said differently again, the same ego that has driven Jeter to excel for this long has no eyes, ears or conscience and wants to be paid for everything it represents rather than everything it can produce over the next few years.
3. Either side tries to use the press to their advantage rather than keeping this in-house. If either side tries to publicly embarrass the other, it will get messy, and fast. This should be done behind closed doors and done quickly. There’s no reason for this to drag out.

(click “view full post” to read more)

Over the next few days I’ll be taking a look at some players currently on the roster who may be used in trades this off-season. This is the first installment.

Nick Swisher is apparently a very polarizing figure. Some fans love him, whether because of what he does on the field or off of it (or both) while others seem to despise the guy. His most recent former team, the Chicago White Sox, couldn’t get rid of him fast enough, dumping him in New York for a return of a bag of balls, a sack of bats, and an “I Love NY” t-shirt after Ozzie Guillen publicly feuded with Swisher over his batting average and fondness for drawing walks when opposing pitchers would throw him four balls.

His reception with the Yankees organization has been much warmer, but there are apparently no shortage of fans that don’t like the guy. In the past 2 weeks, I’ve heard just about everything you could imagine about Swisher. He can’t hit in October. His defense is bad. He’s a clown who doesn’t take the game seriously enough. He changes his haircut too much (yes, I really saw that one). All of these people agree; Nick Swisher has to go (and be replaced by either Carl Crawford or Jayson Werth).

(click “view full post” to read more)

Yesterday was not a good day for Texas Rangers president “Chuck” Greenberg. First, Chuck directed a wild rant against Yankees fans, calling us “either violent or apathetic”. (Yes, I know that from the quote, it sounds like he can’t make up his mind what to call us. So to clarify, Chuck said that some of us are violent, others of us are apathetic, and we’re all one of these things or the other.) Chuck added that neither of these qualities are desirable in a fan base, as if we were too stupid to figure this out for ourselves.

Later yesterday, Chuck apologized for his earlier rant, saying that Yankees fans “are among the most passionate and supportive in all of baseball.” Then Chuck’s day ended as his Rangers team proceeded to lose the World Series. All in all, you really have to feel sorry when a guy has this bad a day, and I’d probably feel worse for Chuck if he hadn’t begun his day by insulting me.

I don’t mean to make things any worse for Chuck Greenberg, but let’s take a closer look at what Chuck said about us Yankee fans. Jason here accused Chuck of “backtracking”, as if insulting Yankee fans in one breath and praising us in the next can fairly be characterized as “backtracking”. Sorry Jason, I don’t see the “backtracking”. OK, I’ll admit, when Chuck called us “supportive”, it might have sounded to you like he regretted calling us “apathetic”. But to me, it sounded like he was completing his original thought. I think Chuck meant it both times. He thinks Yankee fans are both “apathetic” and “supportive”.

The words “apathetic” and “supportive” may sound like polar opposites to you and me, because neither one of us is President of a baseball team. But Chuck is President of the Texas Rangers. He is a money guy, a wealthy lawyer from Pittsburgh who led the ownership group that bought the Rangers out of bankruptcy this year. (You think you’ve had an up-and-down year? How about the Rangers?) When Chuck thinks of the Yankees, he’s not thinking of the Yankees’ tradition, or its fans, or its players. He’s thinking about the Yankees’ money, and how that money fuels baseball’s system of revenue sharing.

(Didn’t you just know I’d bring this discussion around to the topic of revenue sharing?)

(click “view full post” to read more)

Given his rather inflamatory comments earlier today, Rangers’ president Chuck Greenberg nearly tore a hammy during this backpedal:

Hours after going on radio, Greenberg retreated, calling both Hal Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ managing general partner, and Randy Levine, the Yankees’ president, to apologize for his remarks.

Greenberg then issued a formal apology in which he stated that he “unfairly and inaccurately disparaged fans of the New York Yankees.’’

“Those remarks were inappropriate,’’ the statement added. “Yankees fans are among the most passionate and supportive in all of baseball.’’

Mr. Greenberg, if you want to hate the Yankee fans, do it. Just do it right. Do it with conviction, even if we vehemently disagree. We can handle and respect hate (RedSox fans have been doing/saying worse for longer) much more readily than we tolerate politician-like backtracking. Make a stand, man and defend it if you believe in it. Otherwise, you look like a wuss.

How’s that shoe taste?

In what can surely be viewed as a major upset, the Yankees own Brett Gardner was named by Bill James, John Dewan and an impressive cast of baseball minds as the top defensive left fielder in MLB, surpassing free-agent-extraordinaire Carl Crawford. According to the Fielding Awards:

In the big upset of the awards, Gardner unseated three-time winner Carl Crawford by 10 points in the scoring. The judges recognized his speed and skill in covering the spacious left-field territory in the Yankees new stadium.

Very impressive! Other Yanks who ranked at least in the top five for their position:

• Mark Teixeira, 4th for the first basemen

Yep, that’s it. Although, somehow Robinson Cano finished a disappointing sixth overall in the second base pool. Joe Posnanski, the uber-writer from SI.com, didn’t even think Cano was worthy of a Top 10 vote, which I found both surprising and unfortunate.

Curtis Granderson nabbed an 8th place for the centerfielders. One voter had him as high as #2 while he was completely left off of three other ballots.

(click “view full post” to read more about the Fielding Bible, the voting, etc.)

Yankee fans are hardly perfect, but to lob a grenade like this one, while your team is still playing, is just low:

“I think particularly in Game 3 of the World Series they just blew away anything I’ve seen in any venue during the postseason. I thought Yankee fans, frankly, were awful. They were either violent or apathetic, neither of which is good. So I thought Yankee fans were by far the worst of any I’ve seen in the postseason. I thought they were an embarrassment.”

I was at Game 3 of the ALCS with Will and while there was plenty of anti-Texas Rangers jeering (no different than the anti-Yankee stuff we hear over the TV, every game), I saw nothing close to “violent” or “apathetic”. Just witness to Cliff Lee dismantling our team. I didn’t see this, though. Then again, I am not the owner of the opposing team sitting in the front row for all to see and jeer.

Mr. Greenberg, it must be nice having the most perfect fans in all the wholest world ever.

Other teams have fans who puked on someone intentionally, or attacked an opposing coach, or thrown things on the field, or fought with cops, or dumped beer on an opposing player, or generally be so unruly that the team banned alcohol as a result, or berated the bullpen.

In other words, every team’s fanbase has their bad apples.

Or everything Philly gets called out for.

I totally get the anti-Joba stuff out there. We all want to see “2007 Joba” again. However, I think we’re all fairly well adjusted to the fact that the 2007 Joba, fire-breathing, saliva-spraying demon ain’t coming back. Injury, misuse, whatever. But what I don’t quite understand is why so many of us are willing (eager?) to send a 25 year old away for the nearest bag of baseballs is beyond me. Case in point:

There will be no important jobs waiting for him. If he isn’t traded, Chamberlain will enter spring training as a member of the bullpen with a chance to be the eighth-inning guy, but with no guarantees.

OK, Joba might not be the heir apparent to Mo anymore. That’s fine. Can’t he just be a useful piece of the team and we can put the 2007 season further in our rearview mirrors? His numbers this year weren’t great, but they were better than most of the MSM (and hypercrazy fanboys) would like you to believe:

This is a guy who had a great deal of “bad luck” as evidenced by the high BABiP in the first half and was saved by some good luck in the second half. Whether you believe in luck as an outcome or as something self-generated, the guy did put up a GREAT 4.63 K:BB ratio in the second half… and a 2.86 ratio in the first half is pretty darned good, too. So why is everyone ready to ship this guy out?

(click “view full post” to read more)

You think the NY press/beat writers are notoriously rough on the guys they cover? They ain’t got nothin’ on this Philly writer:

[Chase Utley's] defense at second base has gone from acceptable to poor. His offensive production is deteriorating at troubling speed.

So exactly what was so outrageous again about the notion of moving Utley to the outfield earlier in his career?

Just replace Utley’s name in there and you have every anti-Jeter screed over the last year or three. Although, with this case regarding Utley is flat out wrong. Just ask Bill at Crashburn Alley, who FJM’s the heck out of this madness:

It’s Chase Utley overkill here at Crashburn Alley. But the “Utley sucks” meme has continued to spread and it must be stopped. Jack McCaffery shot the most recent salvo of stupid, titling his article “It’s time for Phillies to move Chase Utley to the outfield”. Take a minute to let that soak in. Really immerse yourself in the aura of that statement; respect the courage it took to actually send that to his editor; respect his editor for not returning the file back to McCaffery with “LOL” next to it.

Bill is an excellent writer (and a good guy, btw) and is more than able to weave his facts in with his case and in doing so, completely pulls the pants down on McCaffery’s misguided, nevermind-the-facts-I-speaketh-the-truth (ie: Lupica-esque) drivel.

The Jeter-hysteria will soon reach a fever pitch because unlike Utley, his defense really IS fading fast along with his offensive production. But barring some bizarre change in organizational philosophy (or trading for Tulowitzki), Jeter will remain a shortstop. The outfield isn’t calling anytime soon. Just more money.

Not much to add to this, but George King is reporting that the Yankees have come to a 3 year agreement with hitting coach Kevin Long to retain his services. Long will be getting a raise as well, and it’s probably warranted. By all accounts Long is a fantastic coach, and he’s had a track record of success since taking the job, most notably with guys like Nick Swisher, Curtis Granderson, and Robinson Cano. It seems that one of the best things fans can hear about a player sometimes is that he’s been working with Long.

Not a big surprise, but it’s good to know Long will be plying his trade in the Bronx a while longer.

This is going to cause some heads to explode today:

World Series Game 4 helps FOX to Sunday prime time win with an 11.3/18 household rating and share.

That’s from Dan Bell, the Vice-President of Communications for Fox, so while I haven’t seen it confirmed anywhere else yet, it would seem reasonable that Fox would know the overnight ratings before everyone else.

So, to reiterate; the NFL decided to break tradition and schedule a Sunday night game opposite the World Series. Not just any game either, but a match-up of the last 2 Superbowl champions. It was a pretty good game too. And…the World Series beat it in the ratings. So everyone proclaiming that baseball is dead and the NFL is going to kill it or whatever the variation of that now is has some head-scratching to do this morning.

Also, for all the hand-wringing about the start time of playoff games, baseball experimented with a 6:57 EDT start time for Saturday’s game 3, and it was the 2nd lowest rated World Series game in history. Keep this is mind the next time you read one of those columns premised on the notion that baseball is in dire straits and has to do X, Y, and Z things that the writer wants to save itself.