Love The Ones Your With

I'm going to be honest, Yankee fans. There are few things I find more off-putting than someone trying to imagine all of the greatest players in baseball - who are still under contracts with their respective teams - eventually signing ridiculously huge deals with the Yankees.

As Craig points out in disgust this morning, there's an article, nay glorified slideshow, on FOX Sports by Bob Klapsich which does just that. I can only assume that Bob wrote the piece just after he completed an exhaustive list of which of his friends' wives he'd like to bone and why.

Here are the 10 guys he lists:

10. Prince Fielder

9. Tim Lincecum

8. Albert Puljos

7. Joe Mauer

6. Dustin Pedrioa

5. John Lackey

4. Carl Crawford

3. Cliff Lee

2. Carlos Beltran

1. Johnny Damon

Aside from Damon, who was already a member of the team, how many of these guys are ever going to end up on the Yanks? Two? Maybe?

Lackey just signed a 5 year deal, Mauer appears close to an extension that will keep him with the Twins basically forever, and the Giants just re-upped with Lincecum. We have a great second baseman, thanks, so we don't need Pedrioa (regardless of how hard he may appear to try). Beltran would have been nice back in 2005, but not anymore, and the Cardinals aren't going to let Puljos walk after giving Matt Holliday $120M. I doubt the Yanks are going to sign Fielder solely to DH considering first base is taken for the next 7 years. Crawford and Lee are possibilities but I'd be really shocked if the Yanks opened up the coffers for more than one of them.

I know Bob is just trying to do his job of attracting pageviews over at FOX and that I'm ostensibly helping him out with that goes by linking to the piece, but this is really the lowest common denominator. I'm sure there are a certain contingent of Yankees fans who want every great player in the Major Leagues to don an white interlocking NY on a navy blue cap; those who aren't content to have the highest payroll in the Major Leagues and above average players at every single position - All-Stars at most. But I'm not one of them.

I like the team we have. Most every team would love to have any member of the Yankees' infield, any of their top four starters and especially their closer. So why don't we start writing articles picturing Mark Teixeira as a Royal, CC Sabathia as an Astro or Mariano Rivera as a Marlin? Probably because it wouldn't make people enraged enough to click through to the slideshow and leave angry comments.

Best Catcher Of the 00's

A fortunate oversight on the part of Matt Waters and Rob Neyer provides an opportunity for us to give some love to Jorge Posada. Waters' left the catcher off his All-2000 team, Neyer re-posted the list offered his opinions but didn't notice that catchers were omitted. In turn, this allowed Neyer to dedicate a whole post to that one position.

Neyer reluctantly assumed that Pudge Rodriguez would have been top dog, like I think most people would have, myself included:

Let's talk catchers now, though. One commenter commented, "Pudge, no one even close."

Is that right, though? My gut reaction was that Pudge has had some pretty ineffective seasons in this decade, and someone else must be at least close to him.

Someone is. More than close.

My first reaction when I saw the OPS+ comparison between the two was, "really?". Jorge's 129 is significantly higher than Pudge's 113. Much of this is because Pudge's MVP Season was 1999 and he has steadily declined as a hitter ever since. His great years in Texas in the late 90's positively influence your image of Pudge in the Aughts, but they doesn't help his actual numbers. 

This exposes the arbitrary nature of all-decade teams or what have you. The eras in baseball, like the generations in society, all flow together as new people are always coming and going. This list does make you think about how underrated Jorge Posada is, though. 

I hate talking about "over/underrated" because it's so subjective, but I think this one is pretty clear. When you first read the title of this post, how long did it take you to get to Posada? My first reaction was Pudge, then Piazza. Jorge is right under my nose, but he was sort of invisible in all of this. I don't know why that is. He was a well above average hitter, not just for a catcher, in every single season and he averaged over 140 games through 2007. Posada has made 5 All-Star teams in the decade, which is that many considering Albert Puljos came up in 2001, has made 7 and the one year he wasn't voted in, he finished second in the MVP voting. 

Still I think that if it takes you longer than it should to rank a player at the top of a list, even the list in contained to an arbitrary timeframe, that would mean that they are by definition, underrated. 

I'll leave you with Neyer's conclusion, because he sums it perfectly. 

So it's Posada vs. Rodriguez in a fight to the finish. And while the finish won't be until October of 2009, I have a hard time believing that Pudge can do enough in the next four months -- or has done enough with his glove and arm over the last nine seasons -- to make up for that 16-point gap in OPS+.

Ivan Rodriguez is going into the Hall of Fame. Posada isn't, and shouldn't; he just happens to have played the lion's share of his fine career in a single decade.