I Cry Fudge

I don't like being wrong when it comes to baseball. But whenever you have opinions on a sport that involve predictions on unknown outcomes, you are going to be wrong once in awhile. But what I really hate is the combination of being wrong on a subject and ignorant fools being right. And in the case of one Pat Burrell, that is starting to look like it is the case.

After a sizzling start to the season, Burrell has been in an atrocious slump since around April 25. In May he hit .179/.360/.410. For the season, his batting average is .225 and his slugging percentage is an ungodly .388. Yes his OBP is still at .388, which leads the team, but this team needs him to have an OPS of .880 if he is going to hit out of the five hole. If it didn't completely defy conventional wisdom, I would actually like to see him hit ahead of Utley and Howard in the 2 hole. Because on nights that Helms/Barajas are hitting behind him, him being on base does not matter that much. In the field, he is what he is: a below average fielder with little mobility due to his previous injuries.

Should Burrell be traded? Well, I don't think this current Phillies team is going to make the playoffs and Burrell is signifcantly overpaid, so I definitely would not be opposed to it. It is not like the Abreu situation, where they could get more for him if they waited til the offseason. Unless Old Man Gillick is lying, the trade market for Pat Burrell is not exactly bullish. If they can find a team that is willing to take on the remainder of his contract, that would be enough for me.

Dennis Deitch from the Delaware County Daily Times had this to say about the #5 spot in the lineup:

The big question is, why? Why does Burrell continue to hit fifth? There would seem to be three players who could be considered as replacements for Burrell in that spot - Aaron Rowand, Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino.

Rowand and Rollins have a few notable statistics on their side - for instance, that their slugging percentages (.495 and .496) are nearly 100 points better than Burrell's. While Victorino doesn't have a high slugging percentage (.378), he does have speed, and it would seem that putting a speedy player behind Howard in the order wouldn't be such a bad thing, since there were at least 58 instances last season where the guy hitting behind Howard came to the plate with the bases empty and thus would have an opportunity to steal a base if he reached first.

Rowand's SLG in May: .396
Rollins' SLG in May: .400

Both of which were lower than Burrell's bad SLG in May.

But the comment about Victorino is just mind blowing. You want to put a "speedy" hitter behind Howard because the object is to steal a base if no one is on? Victorino has already had over 120 at bats this year with the bases empty (God Jimmy Rollins stinks). So if you want Victorino to be up with the bases empty, why would you move him from his current position in the order?

Do you hate being employed?

Phil Sheridan in the Inquirer today in his article about the shame of Lancaster (other than the guy who shot all those Amish), Floyd Landis-

"Professional bicycle racing is a filthy sport and, in a perfect world, the Tour de France would go away and never come back. Certainly there is no reason for anyone to watch cycling's premier event with any faith that it is clean."

Using that logic, we can also get rid of the Super Bowl, the World Series, the NBA Finals, whatever the NHL calls their thingy, the Olympics, the World Cup, The Daytona 500, the World Series of Poker, Mr. Olympia, and Bill Bob's Big Ol' Rodeo Showdown. If fact, in the spirit of cleanliness, lets just get rid of sports. There, done. Congrats, Phil- you're now out of a job.

As long as there have been ways to cheat and sports, there have been athletes willing to combine the two, starting with the Greek discus thrower Steroidicus in 487BC. This is not going to change, especially as the financial stakes of sports reach ever more ridiculous levels. These are competitive people looking for an edge, legal or not. It shouldn't be okee dokee to cheat, but if you think you're ever going to watch a completely "clean" sporting event you are, in the words of Steroidicus, out of your fucking mind, and if we banned dirty sports, Phil, you'd be out of a fucking job.

Let's Reward Mediocrity!

Ed Snider had the following to say about the NBA Draft Lottery:

"There should be just one Ping-Pong ball per team," Snider said. "Teams should not be rewarded for being inept."

You're right Ed. Instead of trying to improve teams that are currently not competitive, let's help out the teams that aren't good enough to make the playoffs, but yet not bad enough to have a chance in the current lottery system.

This obviously has nothing to do with the fact that the Sixers are looking at a few years of being in the 10-14 position in the lottery does it? If a team like Charlotte or Memphis drafts at #4 or worse every year, it is unlikely that they will get better. If teams in these small markets don't get better, their attendance will drop and the team will eventually have to move.

If they are going to change the lottery, I would recommend grouping the teams into four "slots". The teams with the worst, second worst, and third worst records are grouped together have the same chance of winning the lottery, teams 4-6 have the same chance which is less than teams 1-3, etc. This way the only dumping that teams do is between "tiers" and it doesn't give teams as much incentive to drop games.

Math At Work

This gem was printed today by the Philadelphia Inquirer in its Letters section:

Donovan McNabb has been injured four of the last five seasons at the end, including the injury in the championship game against Carolina everyone seems to overlook.

So statistically, there is an 80 percent chance he will not be there at the end of the 2007 season.

Wow.

Nerd Alert

Here are some random Phillies Phun Phacts Phrom the Phuture of Now:

• Jimmy Rollins' batting average has increased from .294 to .314 since April 28. In that same span of time, his OBP has increased from .368 to ........ .368. Which seems very difficult to do if not for the fact that,
• Rollins has walked once in the last 24 games. If you pro-rate that over the course of the season, you are looking at a total of 7 walks.
  
• Wes Helms continues to do his best David Bell impression. Though he is hitting a respectable .284, his OBP is now at .318 and his SLG is at .343, almost 100 points less than his career average.
  
• The Phillies lead the major leagues in OBP, yet are only 11th in baseball in runs per game. A lot of this has to due with Howard's season long slump and the power twins, Burrell and Helms, having a difficult time this year mustering up more than singles.
  
• Cole Hamels could strike out Jesus Christ with his changeup.
• Shane Victorino probably had the greatest 4 day span of any major league baseball player from Hawaii. He went 10 for 17 (.588 BA), had a SLG of .824, got his picture taken at the Golden Gate Bridge with his imaginary friends, and stole six bases. Benny Agbayani, eat your heart out.
  
• Despite popular believe to the contrary, Freddy Garcia does not have the ability to move large objects with his mind.
  
• Rod Barajas is on pace for 92 walks. Coming into this season, Barajas had a total of 85 walks for his career.
• Rod Barajas still stinks, though.

Don McKee is Back!

From his column today, 5/6:

I made an unaccountable blunder last week, saying no team from New York City (or Philly or Boston) was in the NHL or NBA playoffs this spring. All this while the New York Rangers were advancing to Round Two of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

He admits he was wrong. At least that is a start.

The aftermath was one of the biggest surprises I've had in 32 years with this paper. I got more than 150 e-mails, a dozen questions on the Philly.com Web site and several angry phone calls.

Shocking that people who read a newspaper as large as the Philadelphia Inquirer would actually care that the columnists actually get their facts correct. Especially in hockey town like Philadelphia.

So it would appear that readers of The Philadelphia Inquirer are more interested in the New York Rangers than they are in the Eagles, Phillies, 76ers, Flyers and Penn State (my usual topics) combined.

No, you arrogant asshole, it appears that readers of The Philadelphia Inquirer are concerned when one of the writers comes up with an inane statistic THAT ISN'T EVEN FACTUALLY CORRECT. And that the paper itself would not have anyone to actually check the facts, either.

Maybe it shows you that people don't give a, pardon my french, hootenany about your old man opinions, but they do want the facts printed in their newspaper to be correct.

From Jim Salisbury’s article in the Inquirer today-

It's been nearly six months since the team traded for Freddy Garcia and manager Charlie Manuel uttered the words "I'd say we picked us up an ace."

Garcia hasn't pitched like anything close to one in his first four starts for the Phils.

This is retarded for two reasons- one, Charlie Manuel obviously doesn’t know what constitutes an ace pitcher. Garcia has had one great season in his career, and that was in 2001 when he threw 238 2/3 innings and had a 3.05 ERA. Maybe 9/11 really messed him up, because he hasn’t had an ace-like year since then (okay, maybe 2004 before he got traded from Seattle). Two, why would you believe Manuel when he said they picked up an ace? All anyone had to do is check out Garcia’s career stats and he or she would clearly see that while he has been a very reliable, decent starter, he ain’t no ace.

What the Phillies and everyone else should have expected Garcia to be is an innings-eater who starts 30+ games a year and pitches just well enough to give you a chance to win if you have a good offense, which the Phillies do. But to expect him to come in here at age 32 (while pitching half his games in the hitter’s haven that is Citizen’s Bank Park) and have something like an ERA in the 3.50 and under range is sheer looniness because nothing in his past points to that being a reasonable expectation. Also, it doesn’t matter that Garcia won 17 games last year, because wins are almost pointless as a pitching stat; he had great run support in most of the games he started in 2006. But he didn’t pitch all that well.

Yes, Garcia has been horrid this year; he should be much better than the garbage he’s been tossing. Maybe it’s the tendonitis in the bicep still messing him up, or maybe it’s that Philadelphia just seems to sap the talent and liveliness out of the athletes who come here with its plentiful fatty foods and miserable fan base. But there’s still plenty of time for him to turn it around and turn into the non-ace that he truly is.