Monday Afternoon Linkdown

Why is it that no one ever bothers to think about the other side of the foam finger transaction?

Ross from NYYSI reconsiders some of the previous recommendations he made for standing room only and cafe seating tickets at Yankee Stadium.

I know the demolition of the Old Stadium is going on, but every time I see a new picture of it like this one over at Baseball Think Factory it's still hard to believe how little of it is left.

Quite relevant to these linkarounds, Dave Allen at Baseball Analysts put together a diagram displaying how the top 200 baseball blogs (according to Ball Hype) are related. We are mentioned in the post because of all the links we give out - one of just a few blogs that do a comprehensive round up of other sources. Here is the visual with all of the blogs named (we are "FY"). Allen plans to explore the interrelation of baseball blogs further and I'm looking forward to him continuing the series.

First Ozzie Guillen pulled the cheapshot move of making Javier Vazquez change his glove because it had three colors on it and then he complained about Nick Swisher pumping his first after he hit the go-ahead home run on Saturday (h/t BBTF). For good measure, Guillen also said that Swisher was a "horseshit player" for him in Chicago. In a related story, Ozzie Guillen is a petty bitch.

Did the '09 Yankees have an inflate fly ball rate because they were swinging for the fences at the New Stadium? Pat Andriola from THT revisits one of his old posts with some new data.

Tommy Rancel from Bloomberg Sports takes a look at what's wrong with Javy Vazquez. Frankie Pilere's opinon: probably something mechanical.

Tim Marchman thinks the same thing is causing Jake Peavy's struggles.

Why is Alfredo Aceves owned in 37% of Yahoo fantasy leagues but only 5% on CBS and 2% at ESPN?

What is it with old columnists starting an article with a one sentence sentence? In this case, it's a really, really bad one to begin with.

Who wants to tell Rob Parker that Austin Jackson is going to come crashing back to earth really soon so he probably shouldn't be gloating about the Curtis Granderson trade just yet.

Drunk Jays Fans uncovered video of people doing the wave at Wrigley Field. Is nothing sacred anymore?

Red Sox fans think their team has a better chance of winning the AL East than the Yankees (via Jonah). Alternate title: why text polls during baseball games are still terrible.

Ken Rosenthal wears little boy pants. Literally.

At Big League Stew, Dave Brown uses a dubious assumption to demonstrate the problems with a flawed statistic.

This seems like a pretty sweet option, but for $3000 you could buy you own pool table and have it for the rest of your life.

I'm not sure if he knows it, but Morgan Ensberg just FJM'd Tracy Ringolsby.

Andy from the Baseball-Reference blog reviewed the MLB At Bat iPhone app and comes out a little lukewarm on it. I don't have it, I just use the one from FanGraphs.

Tom Tango wonders how good scouts really are. Not baseball ones, the people who review and rate products for Consumer Reports.

Dan McQuade at Walkoff Walk lampoons the pointless "Keys to the Game" segment that seemingly every network does. I'm with you, Dan.

Spencer Hall did the Kentucky Derby and came back with some great pictures.

This probably came one leg of the Triple Crown too early considering the Preakness takes place in Baltimore, but Deadspin captured a fantastic phenomenon on Twitter: #WireDerbyHorseNames. My favorites from the ones that Deadspin mined out: Proposition Joe, Where's Wallace? Money Be Green, Much Obliged, 40 Degree Day, PAN-demic and Tweedy Impertinence.

I could probably spend on day on this, so here are a few of my suggestions:

Preach On Walon, Stringer's Bells, Brianna's Burden, Miss Anna, Yvette's Brisket, Wassup Latrice?, And I'm Not Even Greek, Cutty's Jim, The Western District Way, Come At The King, Butchie's Bar, Leakin' Park, No Lake No Trout, Girls In The Can, Mr. Lyon, Entrapping Bodie, McNulty's Lumina, The Boy Marlow, Trifilin' Bird, Ain't Gotta Dream No More, Goodnight Hoppers...

If I ever own a horse, I'm coming back to this post to name it.

Back in a while with the preview.

Divisional Realignment Is Not The Answer

As you've likely noticed, even though Spring Training is in full swing, there still isn't an awful lot to talk about just yet. Traditional media always has the "best-shape-of-his-life" or new pitch story lines to fall back on. We've resorted to filling space by making fun of Kevin Youkilis, writing about hockey, or just not writing much at all.

The indefatigable Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports filled his column inches last week with a radical divisional realignment proposal. Beyond the fact that involves Rosenthal, realignment talk is something that gets under my skin. I realize that it's extremely difficult for teams like Baltimore and Toronto to share a division with the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays, and play nearly sixty games a year against those three teams thanks to the unbalanced schedule. But rather than making reactionary realignment proposals that would be rendered moot when the balance of power inevitably shifts, there are more fundamental changes that baseball could undertake to level the playing field.

Consider that all else being equal, a team in the AL West has a one in four chance of winning the division, plus a one in fourteen chance of earning the Wild Card spot, for an overall 32.1% chance of reaching the playoffs. Meanwhile, a team in the NL Central has just a one in six chance of winning the division, plus a one in sixteen chance of earning the Wild Card spot, for an overall 22.9% chance of making the playoffs. Sure, the Pirates have been an extremely poorly run franchise for nearly twenty years. But compared to a club in the AL West, they have a nine percent handicap before the first pitch of the season is even thrown.

Beyond the disparity in league and division sizes, certain teams are also at a disadvantage when it comes to the gimmick of interleague play. Given the haphazard rotation of interleague matchups on a yearly basis, some teams luck into a cupcake schedule, while others have a more difficult row to hoe. Additionally, the designation of interleague rivals mean teams get an additional series against a predetermined opponent, usually geography based, regardless of the quality of that opponent. Yet all these things count equally in determining division and Wild Card winners.

The Wild Card presents another problem. All teams in a given league compete for a single Wild Card spot, yet all teams do not play equitable schedules. Aside from the inequities of interleague play, the unbalanced schedule makes it tougher for the second place team in say the AL East to win the Wild Card than it is for the second place team in the AL Central.

Lastly, the fact that division winners are guaranteed playoff spots creates the potential that more deserving teams miss the post-season. Last year, San Francisco, Texas, Florida, and Atlanta finished the regular season with records better than or equal to the Twins and Tigers. While the latter two clubs battled it out in an exciting play in game for the AL Central title, the other four clubs were off making tee times. Similar scenarios have the potential to play out every year. Before the '94 strike, the Rangers were on pace to take the AL West with a sub .500 record.

When divisional play was instituted in 1969, it made sense. Over the course of that decade, both leagues had expanded from eight to twelve teams. The fifty percent increase in size made another post-season berth worthwhile, and splitting the leagues into divisions was a natural way to identify two division champions as the post-season worthy teams. But moving to four playoff spots starting in '94 actually made the divisional system obsolete. Making those divisions unbalanced and awarding a playoff spot to a second place team was a less than ideal way of going about things. As laid out above, there are several systemic disadvantages to that system.

Baseball should do away with divisions. They should do away with interleague play. They should do away with the unbalanced schedule. Go back to the pre-1969 format. No divisions, just two leagues. The top four teams in each league make the playoffs. The top seed plays the number four seed in the first round, no more stupid rules that the Wild Card team can't play a divisional opponent in the Division Series. Having the best record in the league should have a reward, and it should be the path of least resistance to the World Series. Changes like that would do far more to increase competitive balance than changing around the divisions every time the balance of power changes.

Best Of Luck Peter Gammons

As we mentioned very briefly yesterday, Peter Gammons has announced that after more than twenty years he's leaving ESPN at the conclusion of the Winter Meetings. Shortly after the initial announcement, the predictable news broke that Gammons will be joining both MLBN and NESN.

First off, I have great respect and admiration for Peter Gammons. Many Yankee fans loathe the man for what they perceive to be blatant pro-Red Sox bias. Frankly, I don't see it. I find it akin to the anti-Yankee bias many find with Joe Buck or other on the national stage. Are we that accustomed to John Sterling, Suzyn Waldman, and Michael Kay blowing sunshine up our ass that we can't stomach anything that's not definitively pro-Yankee?

Regardless, this isn't about other baseball journalists. I find Peter Gammons to be exceedingly genuine, and I think he's one of the best, if not the best ambassador the game has. Yes, I do find him to be somewhat Red Sox centric, but I don't consider it a bias, and I don't think it negatively impacts his work. Part of what appeals to me about Peter Gammons as a baseball analyst is that I find him to be genuine. That he's a fan of the game and someone who truly cares about baseball at large is evident in his work. Much of that is because in many ways Peter Gammons is still the kid he was growing up in Massachusetts as a big Red Sox fan. Even as a national baseball journalist, that's still part of who he is. And I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll take Gammons' slight bias as part of his character anyday - far better than the wooden delivery of Ken Rosenthal, the smarmy-ness of Jon Heyman, or even the smooth professionalism of guys like Tom Verducci and Buster Olney, who I actually like. Gammons is a fan who was fortunate enough to become one of the top journalists in the game. Isn't that what so many fans dream of doing?

Whatever your feelings on Gammons, this is a huge gain for MLBN. Let's face it, ESPN is becoming an absolute joke. It's about who's "now" or "next", or having an LA studio so Snoop or the Jonas Brothers can narrate the Top Ten each night. With Gammons gone now, Olney is the only baseball TV personality there I repsect. Most baseball fans have spent the past year raving about how good MLBN is, especially in comparison to ESPN and Baseball Tonight. This only further solidifies that position. ESPN is shifting more and more towards entertainment; MLBN is legitimate baseball analysis.

Yes MLBN has an advantage as a single sport network, and yes MLBN is not without their share of on-air morons, but I'll take MLBN over BBTN any day. In grabbing the likes of Costas, Verducci, even Rosenthal, and now Gammons, MLBN is truly making a mark for themselves.

Best of luck to Peter Gammons in his new endeavors. I certainly look forward to seeing him as part of the MLBN.

When Twitter Is Too Much: The 2009 Winter Meetings

There are times when Twitter can be a useful tool - an advantageous manifestation of technology that can help people relay information where other forms of media can not keep up or go at all. And then there are situations like Major League Baseball's Winter Meetings where the frequency of communication far exceeds the amount of information and those fishing for the latest tidbits from Indianapolis are coming up with a lot of old boots.

Let's assume that the 2009 Winter Meetings ultimately produce the same amount of trades, signings and other types of announcements that this summit yielded in each of the past couple of years. Maybe slightly more or, if you read the first-person accounts from the first day this year, slightly less - but we'll call it even. Given this assumption, what function does Twitter serve?

It has become the central source for breaking news. Within that though, the sources are fragmented, with Joel Sherman, Ken Rosenthal, Jon Heyman, Tim Brown and Buster Onley leading the way, countless others at a second tier and the untamed masses below that hungry for any dispatch the above can provide. There is an inherent power structure and it gives reporters the ability to post news essentially as soon as they find it out.

Once that news item gets stuffed into 140 characters (and somewhat mangled in the process), it gets passed around infinitely faster. Tweets get re-tweeted and shortened and re-tweeted again, echoed and dissected, posted to blogs and commented on. So in the time that it used to take reports to file a blog post back in the old days - 10 or 15 minutes, say -that tidbit has already traversed Twitter, reaching far more people that it previously would have and is going to be up on MLBTR very shortly.

However, there isn't any more news than there has been in the past, remember? So much of the messages that get tumbled through that cycle above are half-truths, speculation or worst of all, intentional misinformation.

The instantaneous nature of the media also produces the typical results of a game of telephone as shown by our friend Joe at RAB yesterday. The originating source says one thing, and since each person who discusses the rumor feels the need to rephrase it so as to not to simply regurgitate what was already said, and things that were intentionally vague at first become more and more certain without regard to the actual probability of occurrence.

In a way, this is similar to the quest for intelligence in preventing terrorism. We don't know what we're looking for; we just assume that there are bits of information that need to be uncovered which will predict things that are going to happen. Giving every CIA agent the ability to continuously feed information back to headquarters isn't necessarily going to lead to better information, just more of it.

At the Winter Meetings, there isn't just the ability to feed information, there is the pressure to do outdo every other reporter there. So ultimately (at least on the baseball side of this analogy), we spend more time overreacting to things that were never going to happen than analyzing the things hat actually do.

Kevin Kaduk from Big League Stew did a good job of summing it up this morning:

Not to sound too crotchety here, but it used to be that reporters had an entire day before the next edition — or at least a few hours before the next blog post — to sift through all the B.S. and decide which passed muster and which didn't. The result would be a piece that would float a few possiblities that we'd be able to consume and mull over.

Now we have a conflicting wall of noise that's often hard to translate. Want to write a blog post that takes an analytical look at the pluses and minuses of a proposed deal from your local beat reporter? Want to chew it over with fellow message board posters? Better make it quick, because by the time you even write a title, there'll be 18 additional tweets that will make your item obsolete before you hit publish.

Ironically, I started brainstorming for this post yesterday afternoon, so even writing about Twitter is subject to this reality.

But I agree with 'Duk's larger point in that sometimes the quest for instantaneous information is actually detrimental, particularly when there is little in the way of actual news and an incredible amount of white noise to wade through. In this case, the hunger for information is leading to more of it, while the amount of worthwhile tidbits remains the same.

Obviously, the Twitter train is already roaring full speed ahead and it's going to take a while for this dynamic to change. Our buddy Jason suggested that reporters rate the validity of their rumors on a scale of 1-10, and that might work in a perfect world, but people aren't going to want to attach a number rating to a rumor that might get thrown back in their face eventually. If you read between the lines, they already hedge their bets by using non-definitive wording like "possibly" and saying that teams are "in talks".

My solution to this problem is to follow from a distance and at the risk of not being the first person to discuss possible deals, not waste time fretting over spurious rumors. Your mileage may vary, but I'll trade the continuous ups and downs of reeling in the line - whether it be for boots or lunkers - for the certainty of cutting into the fish once it's on my plate.

Waiting For The Hot Stove To Cook

Good morning Fackers. Well the long holiday weekend is behind us and we're back at the daily grind. While we slowed things down over the weekend the Hot Stove rumor mill kept a churning. The Roy Halladay machine kept rolling: he'll accept a trade to the Yankees, The Red Sox don't want to lose him to the Yankees, the Jays want a Major League ready arm and bat, and on and on and on.

Oh yeah, we also heard that the Blue Jays like Jesus Montero. Well, no kidding. You know who else likes Jesus Montero? The other 28 clubs in Major League Baseball. That's some ground breaking journalism there Heyman. Oh yes, the Blue Jays might be interested in Baseball America's number three overall prospect if they were to trade their ace pitcher. Surprise, surprise.

Meanwhile, an entirely different Hot Stove rumor broke, ramped up, and flamed out, all before the turkey carcass was picked clean. On the heels of his failure to reach a contract extension with the Marlins came the rumors that Josh Johnson was on the market. On Friday, ESPN's Keith Law speculated as to what the Marlins could get in exchange for Johnson (a lot) and things just snowballed from there. Next came word that the Marlins were "very willing" to move him for the right package. Almost immediately, contrary reports came out. Amazingly, it was chief rumor-mongerer Ken Rosenthal who broke what as of now is the going story: that the Marlins have no intention of moving Johnson prior to Opening Day.

I have to admit, I was intrigued by the possibility of Josh Johnson. Not that Roy Halladay isn't an outstanding pitcher, but as RAB's Mike Axisa pointed out last week, opportunities to acquire young, talented pitchers like Johnson are rare.

I hate to keep striking the same chord that we've been strumming all off-season thus far, but there's rarely any merit to these rumors. At this stage in the off-season, virtually everyone is up for grabs. Teams float weather balloons to see what the market is for a particular player or a particular type of player. But the truth of the matter is that this is dead time right now, and the national baseball writers have to write about something until the real moving and shaking starts happening.

The good news is that it's about to start happening. Today is the final day of November. Teams have until tomorrow to offer arbitration to their free agents. Once that's done, teams will know who amongst the Type A free agents carry draft pick compensation. Armed with the knowledge, the real free agent courting process will begin in earnest, leading into the Winter Meetings December 7th through 10th. Once the top free agents sign, market value will be established, the lesser free agents will fall in, and in some ways, the trade market will be determined as well. It's only a matter of days before the Hot Stove really starts cooking. Until then, I'm filing everything away as near baseless rumors.

Everybody Do The Link Around

The Yankeeist has an interview with Alex Belth and Cliff Corcoran from Bronx Banter. It delves into the very beginnings of the Yankee blogosphere and gives some insight into the Banter Crew that you can't find anywhere else.

Big League Stew takes an in-depth look at BABIP.

A victory for potheads and statheads alike: Tim Lincecum wins the NL Cy Young.

Joe Posnanski hands out his special brand of anti-awards for managers, pitchers and the least valuable player in each league.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but Jason Bay is headed for pure, unadulterated free agency.

It doesn't much matter but Andy Pettitte finally filed his papers and is headed there as well.

Bud Selig says "some teams lost money" last year. He could have just said "the Tigers".

The Shyster breaks out a secondhand story about the corporate culture at GM as a way of explaining that Bud Selig might be trying to cut the fat out of the playoff schedule but he's the reason it's there to begin with.

This is why Ken Rosenthal gets paid the big bucks:

The [Yankees], according to one rival executive, plans to pursue free-agent relievers Rafael Soriano, a right-hander, and Mike Gonzalez, a lefty. The Yankees have liked both pitchers in the past.

However, another source with knowledge of the Yankees' thinking says the team prefers to address any bullpen holes from within, using the same strategy that they employed successfully last season.

He gives precedence to a quote from a "rival executive" over a "source with knowledge of the Yankees' thinking". How could you possibly justify citing an executive for another team when someone who knows what the Yanks are thinking offers a directly contradictory quote? Because Rosenthal knows that linking the Yankees - however tangentially - to free agents unequivocally equals pageviews. And that's what business aboard the internets is all about.

Just for good measure, let's take a look at how every pitcher who threw more than 10 innings out of the bullpen for the Yankees in 2009 was acquired.

• Mariano Rivera (international free agent)
• Phil Hughes (drafted - 2004)
• Alfredo Aceves (international free agent)
• David Robertson (drafted - 2006)
• Brian Bruney (signed as a free agent, assigned to the minors)
• Phil Coke (drafted - 2002)
• Damaso Marte (trade)
• Mark Melancon (drafted - 2006)
• Jonathan Albaladejo (trade)
• Edwar Ramirez (purchased from an independent league team)
• Chad Gaudin (trade)
• Jose Veras (free agent, assigned to minors)
• Sergio Mitre (free agent, assigned to minors)
• Brett Tomko (free agent, assigned to minors)

The only guys in there that were signed to multi-million dollar free agent deals were Mariano Rivera (who they were never going to let walk) and Damaso Marte who they locked up while they still had exclusive negotiating rights with last year. It's clear what the Yankees philosophy for their bullpen is and it doesn't involve acquiring expensive free agent relief pitchers like Soriano and Gonzalez.

/end rant

Now make like the NL Cy Young winner and, in the words of Ray Charles, go get stoned.

Debunking Another Hot Stove Rumor

Good morning Fackers. As we've discussed, this is a slow time of year for baseball news. There was a time when the major free agent signings happened around Thanksgiving time, but since the advent of the new CBA in 2002 and now the conclusion of the World Series occurring in November this year, the Hot Stove League kicks off a bit later than it used to. The big signings may occur even later this year if the predictions of widespread non-tenders prove to be true, potentially flooding and devaluing the free agent market.

All of that, combined with a relatively uneventful General Managers' Meetings means that we have a perfect storm for irresponsible rumor mongering. Sportswriters have column inches to fill and we dorky bloggers have to have something write about as well. Joe at River Ave. Blues tried to prep all of us for this on Wednesday, and just yesterday Jay had to illustrate why Joel Sherman's various Curtis Granderson trade scenarios are asinine.

There's another "rumor" that hasn't gained a lot of steam just yet, but I've heard it mentioned a few times - most recently by champion baseless rumor creator Ken Rosenthal - and it's just stupid enough to make me want to nip this one in the bud before it gets off the ground. In the event that Johnny Damon walks, Chone Figgins has been mentioned as a potential replacement.

Chone Figgins is a good baseball player, don't get me wrong. He hits for good average, walks a bunch, has good speed, steals a lot of bases at a decent success rate, and is versatile. That's not what I'm taking issue with here - except for maybe the last point. Figgins is versatile; he has at least 25 appearances at every defensive postion except pitcher, catcher, and first base.

But, if Figgins were to replace Damon, that means Figgins becomes the Yankee left fielder because there's no way he's replacing Alex Rodriguez at third base. The problem with that is that Chone Figgins has exactly 36 career appearances in left field with 242.2 defensive innings logged - or the equivalent of about 27 games. Of those 36 appearances, exactly one of them has come over the past three seasons, and it lasted all of two plate appearances and zero outs.

So to recap, in the event the Yankees let Damon walk - over money, over years, over age, over some combination of the three - we are to believe that they will pursue the soon-to-be 32 year old Figgins, who is by no means a left fielder, to play left field despite the fact that it would require a commitment of three or four years at about $10M to $12M per. Sorry, I'm not buying that one for a second, not even in light of the equally ridiculous Robinson Cano trade suggestions that could potentially open second base for Figgins.

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In unrelated news, yesterday morning I mentioned how the outrighting of Freddy Guzman and Josh Towers was largely preparation for the Rule 5 draft. Later in the day, Mike at River Ave Blues and Chad Jennings at LoHud both took far more in depth looks at the situation. Be sure to give them a read if you haven't already.

How Not To Conduct An Interview, By Mark Grace

On the Bats Blog at the New York Times, Richard Sandomir points out something that never ceases to annoy me about the postgame interviews conducted by network reporters:

Fox needs a question coach for Mark Grace. One of the failings of many sideline/stadium reporters is that they do not jot down good, solid, clear questions to ask the stars of a game.

There usually isn’t much time to prepare, but coming up with three pertinent thoughts to frame as questions, or as leading statements, shouldn’t be as hard as a nervous Grace made it when he interviewed Jimmy Rollins after the Phillies’ 8-6 win against the Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series on Monday.

Sandomir uses Grace as an example and transcribes some example from last night, but you could easily switch his name with Kim Jones, Ken Rosenthal or countless other reporters. (Here's a clip of the Rosenthal & Grace interviews from last night). It seems as though, in the cutthroat world of TV journalism, interviewers are constantly trying use their queries to display how smart they are as opposed to asking questions that lead to good responses.

Since the best baseball players - the ones most likely to be interview after the game - are interviewed so frequently during the season, they answer the questions - or in many cases weak leading statements - with relative ease. The player knows what the interviewer is getting at and usually obliges them with the type of vague and vapid answer they think they are looking for.

ESPN has actually tried to correct this problem by hiring an interview guru named John Sawatsky to conduct seminars on the proper way to interview (sort of like the "question coach" Sandomir suggested). Here is an 8 minute radio segment and accompanying article from NPR from back in 2006 on that very subject.

Sawatsky is a full time employee in Bristol and has his own office, complete with a giant question mark on the door. Max Kellerman used to talk about the "Sawatsky Technique" on his old radio show on 1050AM in New York, but would struggle to take the advice, like he did in his botched interview with Floyd Mayweather after the Juan Manuel Marquez fight.

In the seminars, Sawatsky uses interviewers like Barbara Walters and Larry King as examples of exactly what not to do. Don't ask long-winded questions (or worse, make long-winded statements) or pose inquiries that only demand a "yes" or "no" response. Ask only one question at a time. Try to learn, not validate your own opinion. Don't try to insert yourself into the interview, because the interview isn't about you:

The best questions, argues Sawatsky, are like clean windows. “A clean window gives a perfect view. When we ask a question, we want to get a window into the source. When you put values in your questions, it’s like putting dirt on the window. It obscures the view of the lake beyond. People shouldn’t notice the question in an interview, just like they shouldn’t notice the window. They should be looking at the lake.

Makes sense, doesn't it? No one wants to hear Ken Rosenthal or Kim Jones awkwardly attempt to interject their observations on what just happened. They want to hear what the player was thinking. Typically the athletes don't really have anything interesting to say either, but maybe if the people interviewing them could put some effort into crafting questions that would provoke some thoughtful responses, that wouldn't be the case.

Quotes From Last Night: Game 2 Edition

Presented without comment. Please react in the comments as you see fit:

Jerry Davis (in reference to Brian Gorman's call on Ryan Howard's play in the 7th): "The objective is to get it right, we asked each other what we had seen and the replay confirmed we got it right"

Ryan Howard: “Did I catch it? Well, they called him out. [winks]”

Dave Cameron: The first two Jeter bunt attempts will be criticized by members of the statistical community as part of the reflexive don’t-bunt-ever strategy that has gained too much popularity, but they were the right play. The two-strike bunt attempt really was a bad idea (the additional cost of a foul turning into an out reduces the odds enough to make swinging away more likely to produce a single run, which was the original goal), but the first two stabs at it, Jeter was making the right play.

Jimmy Rollins (via The Fightins): "I was expecting some of that [Philadelphia rowdiness] here, but it was very tame and civilized, really. "You only had one big cheer, and that was on home runs."

Rollins was asked if this feels "more like a World Series" than last year's Series with Tampa Bay.

"When we get to Philly, it will," he said. Because the atmosphere will be so different? "Exactly."

Ken Rosenthal: Is it too late to reopen the old Yankee Stadium one more time?

Pedro Martinez was in the house Thursday night — Pedro Martinez, the old Boston devil. The crowd of 50,181 mustered a few spontaneous, "Who's your daddy?" chants. But more often than not, the fans needed a prompt from the stadium organ to get going.

Bob Raissman: Wonder how they felt about Fox's Tim McCarver and Joe Buck basically saying the joint had all the audio ambiance of a morgue. The voices were not talking about the building's acoustics. During Game 2 of World Series Thursday night, they were talking about Yankee fans (at least the ones who can still afford a ticket) who checked their mouths at the door.

John Gonzalez, Philly Inquirer: Scariest looking guy in the entire park, though, was A.J. Burnett. When did he remember how to pitch?

I got a text from my buddy Fearce before the eighth inning that pretty much summed up what I was thinking: "I don't know what to do when I can't really complain about bad calls or the announcers hating Philly. Feels weird."

Charlie Manuel: "We can hit Rivera. We've proved that. He's good. He's one of the best closers in baseball, if not the best. He's very good. But I've seen our team handle good pitching, and we're definitely capable of scoring runs late in the game."

Pedro Martinez (via The 700 Level): "I didn't feel strong. I've been under the weather the last couple of days. That's not an excuse. I felt good enough to make pitches and that's what I told them and they trusted me. But I was going to take this start. When I chose this team it was to pitch in the World Series. I'm extremely happy to have had the opportunity."

A Few Pitching Moves

The excitement is building as we head towards the first pitch of Yanks-Sox Round 4. Jay will be back in a bit with the preview, meanwhile I'll be hitting the road momentarily so I can watch tonight's action in person.

In the meantime, here are few notes regarding the pitching situation:

The Yanks signed Russ Ortiz to a minor league contract yesterday (I'd link to Tyler Kepner's original Tweet on this, but apparently Twitter is being destroyed by cyber terrorists as we speak). I'm hopeful that this move is only to provide some depth for the beleaguered Scranton rotation. Ortiz was once a good pitcher, but hasn't been for quite some time now. Over the last five seasons, he's posted an ERA+ of 67 over 312.2 innings, almost all of which were spent in the weaker hitting National League. I'm no fan of Sergio Mitre, but if this is the alternative, I say keep running Sergio out there.

In another move yesterday, Paul Byrd, who we pegged as a target Tuesday morning, signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox yesterday. Byrd finished last season with them and Ken Rosenthal has indicated Byrd could be Big League ready by September 1. Knowing Rosenthal, that probably means September 1st of 2010.

Old friend Brett Tomko, who I jokingly identified as a 5th starter candidate Tuesday, signed a minor league deal with Oakland. I'm sure Billy Beane and Bob Geren will treat him far, far better than then mean old Yankees.

And just for the hell of it since I forgot to mention them Tuesday- Tom Glavine and El Duque are both available. Neither has thrown a Major League pitch this year (El Duque hasn't since 2007), but these are two guys I've thoroughly enjoyed watching through the years. Unfortunately either would get lit up like a Christmas tree pitching in the AL East.

Game 106: Wasted Words

After the off day and the shift in the rotation, it will be Andy Pettitte on the mound for the Yankees tonight up in the Rogers Centre. Pettitte has a solid run over his past three starts, even though he's taken two no-decisions and a loss. He's thrown 20 innings, given up 16 hits, struck out 23 and walked only 3. His ERA over that span has been 2.70 and as the fine fellows at The Yankee Universe note, his FIP is only 1.86. They attribute some of Pettitte's success over that span to the fact that he's been throwing to Jose Molina, but that won't be the case tonight as Jorge Posada will be doing the catching.

This is the first time the Yanks have played the Blue Jays since the trade rumors about Roy Halladay started swirling. The two teams had just wrapped up a four game series which the Yankees won 3 of when Ken Rosenthal wrote that article on July 7th. One of those contests took place on the 4th of July, when the Yankees scored 5 runs off of Halladay and won in extra innings (in what might be the last game started by Chien Ming Wang as a Yankee, no less). Despite the successful outcome that day, I think most Yanks fans were either excited about the slim chance of acquiring Halladay or at least the possibility that he would be gone from the AL East.

Hundreds of blog posts and columns were devoted to the subject and it generated literally millions of pageviews for sites like MLBTradeRumors.com, but in the end we're right back where we started. Halladay was not "a goner" like Rosenthal assured us and the process did stop even though Lil' Ken claimed it was "nearly impossible" for it to. (Props to Craig from Shysterball who never bought it to begin with.)

Great job, Ken. Think of all the time, thought and writing that was wasted as a result of your breathless speculation. Next time a General Manager says he's "leaning more towards listening", why don't you try not blow blow it completely out of proportion? It would save us all some time.

You seem really sure 'bout something I don't know,
Take that load off, looks like chests about to go.
Your wasted words so absurd,

Are you really Satan, yes or no?

"(Leaning) More Towards Listening"

At around 8:00 yesterday morning, Ken Rosenthal started chumming the water, and it's been a non-stop feeding frenzy ever since.

Let the Roy Halladay sweepstakes begin.

Oh, I bet this is going to be juicy!

"We have to see what's out there," Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi says. "I'm not saying we're going to shop him. But if something makes sense, we at least have to listen. We're (leaning) more toward listening than we've ever been."

Or not... And with that one lukewarm, non-committal quote from the Jays' GM, the baseball blogosphere was off to the races.

MLB Trade Rumors was the first to pick it up, and from there it has spread like wildfire with scribes from all over the country tripping over themselves to interview Ricciardi and talk to other sources to get the next tasty tidbit.

Who are the most likely potential trading partners? What about his no trade clause? Who's salaries might the other teams have to take in return? The Phillies might get him!

Are we the only ones not buying Rosenthal's original line of reasoning here?

Ricciardi says the Jays will not trade Halladay if they do not receive the right offer, knowing that the team's best chance of competing next season is with the pitcher at the top of the rotation.

C'mon.

Hmmm. You make an excellent point Ken. "C'mon". I hadn't thought of that. The two perfectly reasonable statements from Ricciardi above now make no sense at all. And you did it with just with one simple, informal contraction.

Once this process starts, it's almost impossible to stop.

Except in the case of say, Jake Peavy, who you reference in your article when talking about what the White Sox would be willing to trade.

Rest assured, the Jays are assembling prospect lists and preparing to assign their scouts to investigate rival farm systems. Halladay is a goner. It's just a matter of when and where.

Well, no shit, Ken. That "when and where" could be two weeks from now, this December, next season, next offseason or when he finally retires from the game of baseball. Thank you for that bold prediction.

-----

In PeteAbe's post about this, he said

J.P. Ricciardi played it exactly right yesterday.

He put the word out that he would be willing to discuss a deal for Roy Halladay and then picked up his cell phone a few times over the course of the day to reiterate that to ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Fox Sports.com.

No fool is Ricciardi. Within a few hours, it was the biggest story in baseball. Halladay became the hot topic on sports-talk radio stations in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Chicago along with a few hundred blogs, including this one. Everybody was trying to figure out who their teams can send to Toronto for the respected right-hander.

It’s called building a market.

Did he play it exactly right, though? Cause it kinda seems like Ken Rosenthal just blew a harmless quote out of proportion, thereby creating a pointless media shitstorm over something that may or may not happen. Since when do you have to build a market through the media? I'm pretty sure the market for a pitcher who eats AL East line-ups and shits complete games was already there.

Does it really do Ricciardi any good to have every member of the baseball press foaming at the mouth awaiting the next tenuous detail of the trade? Is it a good thing that Rosenthal is making it seem like the Jays have no choice but to trade him?

Ask Kevin Towers how that worked out for him.

Game 62: New York, New York

It's a nice Saturday afternoon and we'll see our second New York - New York match-up of 2009. Today's game can't be any sloppier than yesterday's can it?

Fernando Nieve will start for the Mets in place of the recently DL'd John Maine. After a respectable rookie season for the Astros in 2006, Nieve has only pitched 12.2 MLB innings since, beset by both injuries and ineffectiveness. It would be awfully nice if the Yanks would hang a crooked number on him this afternoon.

And they may well need it. In 18 career regular season starts against the Mets, Andy Pettitte is 8-4 with a 3.46 ERA and 1.23 WHIP. But, Pettitte has not been particularly sharp of late. He's been battling a balky back, and has been allowing base runners at an uncomfortble rate. His WHIP currently sits at 1.53 and in his last five starts he's given up 35 H and 16 BB in just 29.2 IP. Still the team has gone 4 and 1 in those games, with Pettitte registering three of the victories. As Joe Girardi likes to say, Andy has a way of bending but not breaking. Hopefully he'll have a little extra room to bend today in opposing a replacement level pitcher.

Two updates courtesy of Pete Abe: Bruney tossed a perfect inning in AA earlier this afternoon. He threw 8 of his 12 pitches for stirkes and hit 94 MPH. Secondly, Damon returns to the line-up today, but it's Nick Swisher, not Brett Gardner, who takes a seat on the bench.

Regarding Swisher, perhaps it's a delayed benching for his numerous boneheaded plays earlier this week. But if Girardi wouldn't sit him in May when he was slumping horribly, I find it odd that he chooses to now. As for the pinch hitting situation last night, Abe also relays that Girardi's rational was indeed that Swisher has poor numbers against K-Rod, and that he hoped Gardner would get on and steal second. I still say that Swisher's 11 at bats mean very little and that Damon was more likely to reach base and steal second than Gardner. But I digress.

With Johan Santana going for the Mets in Sunday's finale, it'd be nice to put the series away today and be playing with house money tomorrow.

Today's game is on FOX, so it's pick your poison time: Buck, McCarver, and that little weasel Rosenthal on the tube or Sterling and Waldman on the dial. Jeez. I think maybe I'll listen to Howie Rose on the FAN.

The particularly poignant video I wanted to use today can't be embedded. You can view that one here, or view the Letterman performance of the same song below. Or view both. One way or another, enjoy the game.



Love don't play any games with me
anymore like she did before
The world won't wait, so I better shake
that thing right out there through the door
Hell I still love you New York

Lil' Ken Offended By Yankee Stadium

It really must be a slow news cycle, because writers are publishing their bold predictions of things that will happen this season. This one comes courtesy of Ken Rosenthal (er, Rosensquirrel) and is boldy titled "These things will happen this season":

The New Yankee Stadium Will Be Offensive
I'm not talking about how the park will play; that's to be determined. I'm talking about the Yankees opening their monument to excess in the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression. And no, I'm not forgetting about the Mets and — ahem — Citi Field.

Clearly the Yankees should have cancelled plans to move into the New Stadium based on the fact the fact that the economy sucks. They should have haulted construction when the Dow went below 8,000 and it was 3/4 completed. Nevermind the fact that the construction of the New Stadium actually stimulated the local economy by creating more construction jobs and will continue to by adding more coconcession positions dues to increased points of sale.

And how is that "offensive", exactly? Because the Stadium is extremely nice? Because the best tickets are $2500 each? You know, the seats Ken gets fucking PAID to sit in everytime he covers a game...

(h/t The Sports Hernia)

Click through and read the rest of the article because Ken is certain that A-Rod will not make it through the season, that "there will be no surprise teams" and that Gary Sheffield will hit his 500th home run (he's at 499).