My Morning in Exile

NBC: where commenters defend Derek Jeter’s defensive abilities by calling me a “BALD IDIOT!!!!”:

  • Before there was Strasburg, there was Ben McDonald. Oh, and Boras. Boras is the freakin’ alpha and omega.
  • Is Jorge Posada a Hall of Famer? Sure. Why not?
  • The post in which I channel all of the New York tabloid sportswriters for some reason. I don’t know what happened. It just came out that way.
  • La Russa v. Twitter
  • If you go to Target Field, be sure to bring marshmallows.
  • Finally, let’s just say no to ads on baseball jerseys, OK? Good.
  • And I may be bald, but they think Derek Jeter has range, so who’s the bigger idiot?


    14 Comments
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    Charles Kitchen
    14 years ago

    I would have been much more offended by the negative nabobs attack, personally.

    aleskel
    14 years ago

    re: Teixiera and the Yankees

    as a Yankee fan, I’m loving Teixiera’s performance so far (his style of play reminds me of Tino Martinez, who was a very underrated contributor to the championship teams), but I think you go a bit overboard in the “something different with the Yankees” territory. Tex’s takeout slide was great, but you see those all the time – the only difference is that Tex’s actually worked. Most experienced shortstops (unlike the rookie Andrus) would probably have been in a better position to avoid the slide.

    And I think you give short shrift to previous Yankee signings, particularly ARod (who plays VERY aggressively on the basepaths). Effort and attitude have never really been the issue in previous seasons – health and age were.

    J.W.
    14 years ago

    Yeah, that’s sad. People love to hide behind the anonymity of the internet and toss insulting, condescending, offensive comments out there, don’t they you Braves-loving JERK!!! No, I kid. We love you. Derek Jeter’s range has improved though, strangely. He’s currently at just a smidge below average apparently. This is from statisticinamagician.com (http://www.statisticianmagician.com/?p=148):

    “The most surprising thing may be that the Yankees SS, according to UZR/150 has actually made a positive impact defensively.  Granted, a very small “positive” impact.  And if you glance at the base UZR, he has a number of -0.1 next to his name.  Meaning that he has been basically average.”

    kendynamo
    14 years ago

    i dont see the big deal about putting ads on uniforms.  itll look weird at first but if they dont go overboard we’ll get used to it pretty quickly.  i wore a team sponser in little league and no one seemed to care.  and why should outfield fences be any less scared than a uni?  so yeah, ads on unis, or in on the stadium, or on the bases themselves, all a big fat meh.

    themarksmith
    14 years ago

    No, the better question is—Can you be bald and an idiot and still be right about Jeter? wink

    Craig Calcaterra
    14 years ago

    Ken—- despite my slagging on the NBC commenters, one of them had a good point this morning: baseball uniforms and the teams and game they represent ARE themselves a brand, so why dilute the product you’re selling?

    OK, that’s a business argument, and I’m obviously arguing aesthetics. I’m not hypersensitive when it comes to commercialization, but I’d like to think that there is a line that can be drawn somewhere to mark a distinction beteween commercial and non-commercial activity. Yes, baeball is basically selling us a product. But I’d like to at least pretend that the moment of the pitch, the swing, the hit, the run or the catch isn’t being done for a commercial purpose. Maybe that’s a fiction or fantasy I have created for myself, but let’s at least leave a few square feet of the baseball experiences uncluttered with ads, cool?

    As with anything like this, YMMV.

    Craig Calcaterra
    14 years ago

    J.W.: Given where the commenter was coming from, if I had even suggested that Jeter was an average fielder this year, I would have been equally pilloried. Jeter has gold gloves and rings, you see, so any criticism of him makes you an idiot Jeter hater who doesn’t know nothin’ about nothin’, see?

    Wooden U. Lykteneau
    14 years ago

    Exactly. Why Charlie Silvera keeps getting passed over in the HOF veterans committee is baffling to these “fans.” The guy has SIX World Series rings!

    J.W.
    14 years ago

    Craig:

    I really hope you didn’t think I was trying to defend that commenter or suggest he would listen to anything approaching common sense, intelligence, stats, etc. I think that commenter and his ilk are really just terrible. I was just adding, in an unrelated fashion, that Jeter has surprisingly been kinda sorta ok this year defensively. I’m sure that commenter has never heard of UZR/150 or anything like it. And had you tried to use actual numbers to support an argument he would have been even more outraged. So yeah, no I’m not in any way defending his crappy crappy behavior or anything like it.

    Craig Calcaterra
    14 years ago

    Oh, I didn’t take it that way, J.W.

    BTW: if you didn’t notice, I blockquoted your comment (with a slight edit for clairity) from this morning about the Teixeira thing over at NBC.  One of the commenters thinks you’re being unfair to A-Rod.  Whatevs.

    J.W.
    14 years ago

    Whoa. I’m quite honored. I hadn’t gotten a chance to get over to NBC yet (the boss is lurking today). In fairness to the commenter, I was taking an easy shot at A-Rod there, really just for the sake of writing the words “flailing and failing” but yeah, whatevs indeed. I think the thing with A-Rod is that he’ll act like he’s fired up and try to barrel into second (or something else equally fired-up-ish) but he’s not really feeling it and therefore never quite manages to do it right. The make up of thid 2009 team feels rather 1998-ish at times.

    Joe
    14 years ago

    I am the “statistician magician” or so my name says.  And Jeter was a little less “poor” last season, and has been decent enough this season.  Maybe whispers of his lack of range has made him just a tad more aware of where he has positioning himself. There is little doubt that he will be a below-average SS by the end of the season.  But improved from a few years ago?  maybe…

    Rob in CT
    14 years ago

    I’m amused by the ongoing battles over Jeter’s defense.  The statistical analysis community has been right about Jeter for a while, and their viewpoint has finally begun to permeate the mainstream (with the inevitable hysterical backlash from some people who think he’s God).

    And yet… as that occurs, Jeter puts up 1 1/3 seasons (2008 and so far in 2009) of perfectly average defense.  If this continues, he will manage to make everybody wrong, in that he’s no gold glover, but he’s not terrible either. 

    That’s really funny to me.

    kendynamo
    14 years ago

    its totally cool with me bro.  if i had to check a box yes or no for uniform sponsors, all things being equal id definitely check no, mostly for aesthetics but also for a little bit of the other reasons you nicely put.  im just saying if, in a hypothetical, ads did show up on uniforms, more so than they already with the with swooshes and addidas and rawling logos everywhere, i doubt i’d care.