While the General Managers' Meetings continue at the O'Hare Airport Hilton, there's not much worthwhile to pass along other than irresponsible rumor mongering based on vague and non-specific quotes. MLBtraderumors.com can keep you up to date with what's going on outside the nation's busiest airport. Here are some links to get you through the night:- AL Gold Gloves were announced today. Mark Teixeira took home his third, Derek Jeter his fourth. The gnashing of teeth over this has already begun, but let's remember, the Gold Glove is largely popularity and reputation based and not steeped in the evolving, if imperfect, defensive metrics. Hey, at least a designated hitter didn't win this year.
- Joel Sherman reports that Johnny Damon won't give the Yankees a home team discount. I'm not going to put too much stock into this at this point. First of all, it's based on what Scott Boras says. Secondly, this is typical early posturing in free agent negotiations. Thirdly, we'll continue to discuss this at length here as the Hot Stove League moves on.
- Over at River Ave. Blues, Joe Pawlikowski expresses far more succintly what I was driving at yesterday morning. This morning, Joel Sherman wrote that it appears to be the Yankees' current preference.
- Our buddy Jason at Heartland Pinstripes has a great look back at his favorite moments of this very enjoyable 2009 season.
- Rebecca Glass at This Purist Bleeds Pinstripes has an in depth four part series in an attempt to quantify just what Mariano Rivera has meant to the Yankees in the post-season. She consolidated all four parts into one post over at RAB.
- This one came through BBTF over the weekend (I swear on all that is holy that I don't read OK Magazine). A-Rod's special lady friend's kind-of-dad, Kurt Russell, weighs in on the Yankee third baseman. Normally I would dismiss this as just another Hollywood asshole giving us his opinion on something we didn't ask for in the first place, but Russell actually knows a little baseball, spending three years in the Angels' organization until a shoulder injury ended his career. He's also the uncle of former Met Matt Franco.
- Hideki Matsui reportedly will not return to Japan for next season. Be that as it may, his former club - the Yomiuri Giants - won their 21st Japan Series over the weekend. The Giants have often been called the Yankees of Japan, and not surprisingly, the two clubs have had a collaborative agreement over the past seven years.
- In non-baseball news, the Hockey Hall of Fame held its induction ceremonies yesterday. Earlier this year I took a look at the two inductees with area ties: former Rangers defenseman Brian Leetch and Devils General Manager Lou Lamoriello. You can watch the acceptance speeches here, or read about how these two nearly teamed up after the lockout.
That's it for tonight Fackers. See you in the AM.
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Thanks for the link.
ReplyDeleteBest part of Lou's induction? That a bunch of players "snuck out" to go see it.
The most surprising part is that he didn't have a problem with it. In his heyday Lou would have fined all of them. He's softening.
ReplyDeleteI'm a little late with this but...
ReplyDeleteI don't normally read Rob Neyer's articles, nor remember his name if I did read one. But he sucks. The two articles he did on the Al Gold Gloves and the NL Gold Gloves were completely laughable. Its worth noting how ridiculous they were.
He has a gripe about the Gold Gloves being a 'popularity contest' rather than really merit based. I'm with him on that. He goes on to say who did and didn't deserve the nod, calling out such players as Jeter, Mauer, Teixiera, and Ichiro in favor of other deserving players. Its hard to guage who is the best fielder, so of course debate is welcome. I don't think Jeter is the best fielding SS in the AL anymore, but the others are plenty good. What annoys me is how Neyer rips these guys' choices with quick stats on why they were chosen. Neyer offers his own replacements WITHOUT ANY STATS! He notes Placido Polanco as the Official 2B choice "because he only made 2 errors all year" but wishes it went to Dustin Pedroia because Polanco is "nowhere near as good".
Oh, and Neyer makes a point to say how stats are overlooked in favor of hitting stats and MVPs.
Yet his case for 2B is Pedroia.
He makes a case for Franklin Gutierrez "Who spent the entire season catching everything in sight and racking up phenomenal numbers" rather than Adam Jones "who played well in CF in 2008, but was (at best) average in 2009"
On the NL side, Neyer calls for Pujols to have won 1B over Adrian Gonzalez (of his 7 errors to Pujols 13). He then makes a case for Chase Utley, who has yet to win. His case; Utley has been ... "arguably the league's top defensive second baseman for five seasons running. And not over the last five seasons; I mean in each of the last five seasons." Orlando Hudson was chosen this year. Statistics, Rob?
For a guy who wishes Gold Gloves were voted on by more defensive merits over reputation and hitting, he offers ZERO stats to back up his own choices. Instead, he gripes on reputation playing a factor, yet his own choice is Albert Pujols because "he is the best all-around player in the game today."
How many ways can a Senior Writer at ESPN contradict himself in 2 articles with less than 500 words in each??!!