Chris asked what the “Eddy Curry Fat” wheel in the header photo is about. It’s from the following episode of The Nooner, from when SNY’s Studio B was under construction, and highlighted by an unbelievable and scene-stealing turn by former SNY.tv digital sales dude Joey Pops:
As you can see, I really needed a haircut. The next day I appeared in another episode, one that no one but me has ever found funny:
If you check back here often, you’ve probably noticed the new photo of the back of my head and a portion of my desk on Twitter. The photo is courtesy of Matt Cerrone, and stemmed from a discussion we had over precisely what niche I was aiming to fill in an already-crowded blogosphere.
In short, I have none. Maybe I’ll figure that out in time. I enjoy writing a column on SNY.tv and will continue to do so, but my priorities at work don’t always allow the type of time required to hash out a full-length column.
So that’s what the photo is about. Because of my job, I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk and thinking about sports. So the photo in the header is what the back of my head looks like when I sit at my desk and think about sports.
And this blog, I suppose, is what the inside of my head looks like when I sit at my desk and think about sports. It’s a home for my scatterbrained drivel, and I sense Matt was eager to help with it at least partly because it means that same drivel won’t be yelled at him from across this office while he’s trying to get work done.
This is also a place to aggregate some of the video stuff I do, mostly so my parents and wife will know where to find it. So here’s what the front of my head looks like when I sit at someone else’s desk and talk about sports:
Marty Noble has a new Mets.com mailbag out today, and in it, he discusses Angel Pagan:
He was a productive offensive player last season. But his errors — of omission, commission and in thinking — were so many, assessing his skills can’t be done so readily.
I don’t know. Maybe that’s true. Pagan did make a few really terrible mental mistakes in 2009. But were they really so bad as to take away from the value he added to the team?
Not nearly. Bill James Online, which relies on video scouts from Baseball Info Solutions to judge how many plays a defender makes above or below the average player at his position, had Pagan as a +12 left fielder, a +7 center fielder and a +1 right fielder. Presumably, that includes the penalties levied against Pagan for his blunders.
And on the basepaths? The same site has him as a +12 baserunner, meaning he gained 12 more bases with his feet than the average player would in similar situations. (Note: I initially botched — by a lot — my reading of his stats page. I wrote that he was +35, which is his career total.)
He was thrown out on the bases four times, which isn’t great. But I’d guess that a player so aggressive on the basepaths will always be more prone to the occasional gaffe. So while everyone was so busy chastising Pagan for the times he cost the Mets runs with his baserunning, they forgot to celebrate all the runs he actually earned the team with his legs.
So essentially, there are ways to assess readily assess his skills despite his lapses in concentration. I’m not saying we should take the Bill James Online stats as gospel, but since they do weigh both his positive and negative contributions, they provide a lot of assistance in figuring out how to value his tendency for the baserunning or defensive yip.
And the verdict shows that Pagan, when you combine his plus defense and plus baserunning with his .837 OPS, was pretty damn good in 2009.
Should the Mets count on it going forward? Maybe not. But they certainly shouldn’t hold against Pagan all the nonsensical sanctimony about him playing the game the wrong way.
Incidentally, the first question in Noble’s mailbag regards Carl Crawford’s “personality and leadership” and is posed by a Queens resident named “James K.” Could this be James Kannengieser, Amazin’ Avenue writer, occasional TedQuarters commenter and sabermetric knight-errant of the Mets’ blogosphere? James, are you baiting Marty Noble?
This is a completely subjective matter of little real import, but I’ve been talking to a bunch of Mets fans about World Series possibilities, and a shocking number would favor the Phillies over the Yankees.
What? No. No.
You’re killing me. The Yankees are annoying, and they’re the Mets’ crosstown rivals, and we’re all sick of certain elements of their fan base acting like entitled ingrates. I know what that’s about.
But the Phillies are the Mets’ actual rivals. They’re like the worst type of evil. And they won the World Series last year! Have you ever been to a game at Philadelphia as a Mets fan? Do you know how much worse it would be if they won a second World Series? It would be the worst thing that ever happened, bar none.
The Yankees have plenty of annoying players, but the Phillies have Shane Victorino. Are you really going to put yourself in a position of rooting for Shane Victorino? SHANE VICTORINO?
No. No, no, no.
Certain Yankee fans are going to be obnoxious and entitled regardless of whether they win this year, because the Yankees have 26 world championships to their credit. But one of the only things we, as Mets fans, have on the Phillies is that they’ve endured years and years of phutility.
Do you really want to lose that to stop the Yanks from winning No. 27?
I don’t. I’m not even rooting against the Yanks in the ALCS. These are probably four of the bottom six teams I’d care to see left in the playoffs (the Red Sox and Braves are the others), but there is no team I’m rooting against harder than the Phillies. Not even close.
John Harper and Wallace Matthews both wrote columns this week about A-Rod’s magical development of clutchness, specifically about how getting his steroids use off his chest and playing “under the radar” all season relieved the pressure that prevented A-Rod from performing in the playoffs.
But maybe A-Rod’s just performing in the playoffs because he’s one of the very best players in baseball.
Look: A-Rod had a couple of very bad postseasons in 2005 and 2006. That’s true. But those two bad stretches accounted for a total of 29 at-bats, hardly a reasonable sample size upon which to gauge his ability in the clutch. In 2007, A-Rod posted an unspectacular but solid .267/.353/.467 in the ALDS, but since he already had the unclutch label, all anyone wanted to see was how he didn’t come through.
And of course, they saw him “tight” and “pressing” and all of those vagaries we almost always notice when we have it in our minds that a player is struggling.
It’s the whole rabbit or duck thing again.
In A-Rod’s case, I saw it too. It really looked to me like A-Rod was somehow not programmed to come through in those situations.
Betting on it continuing, though? For the one of the best hitters of this era? Not a smart wager.
So now Harper is trying to take credit for having called, so to speak, A-Rod’s postseason dominance. But you know who else called it? The wisest of sportswriters: math.
It’s called regression to the mean. Good baseball players, when given a large enough sample of at-bats, will usually perform like good baseball players. Even if there is some mental hiccup standing in their way, the large majority of players will overcome it and again perform like they always do, because overcoming mental hiccups is an important aspect of reaching the Major Leagues.
Now A-Rod’s career postseason line is .294/.384/.519, remarkably similar to his career .305/.390/.576 line. His postseason record is notable only for his one notable postseason record: Most nonsensical columns inspired.
According to a New York Times article, baseball’s unwritten rules don’t actually exist. And good. Unwritten rules are the dumbest thing in the world, and I include the silly gentleman’s agreement-type rules that prevent players from bunting to break up no-hitters and such. If it’s important enough to be a rule, make it a rule. If not, I want my team exploiting it for a competitive advantage.
Apparently Kris Jenkins’ knee injury could end his season. I think that might be extraordinarily bad.
Mike Silva wonders if Tony Bernazard joining forces with Scott Boras will negatively impact the Mets. I tend to doubt it. Silva reminds us that the Mets were a “persona non grata” with Boras after Steve Phillips poo-pooed A-Rod’s demands, but I always understood it to be other way around. Say what you will about Boras, he’s an amazing businessman, and he knows better than to alienate one of the teams with the most money to spend on his players.
Was it really so obvious to everyone that the Mets should have signed Randy Wolf last year? Maybe, but I missed it. He was coming off his first healthy season in five and hadn’t been much above average since 2002.
Tedquarters 