What Better Way to Separate Onesself from the Steroids Era Than to Eliminate the DH?

Contributor:  Bombykol

With the announcement that Bud Selig will step down as commissioner in 2012 comes hope for eradication of the designated hitter.  False hope, in all likelihood, but things of this nature are fun to dream on.  With that, allow me to offer up a proposal to baseball neotraditionalists everywhere.

* No DH will be employed in its traditional conception, American or National League.

** That said, the rules must be homogenized.  Convincing arguments have been made (particularly by the good folks at Baseball Prospectus) that the DH not only has engendered a talent disparity between the leagues but, correspondingly, a payroll disparity as well.  Quality bats are expensive, and as a direct repercussion of necessity-driven payroll augmentation American League lineups are more potent.  This dramatic difference between leagues/conferences is a phenomenon that is exclusive to baseball, and it is completely ridiculous.  As such, the following proposal applies to AL and NL alike.

*** Once per game, each team will be allowed to deploy a designated hitter to bat for the starting pitcher.  This would not require the pitcher be removed from the contest, nor would it remove the designated hitter from being eligible to enter the game as a pinch-hitter or defensive substitute later in the game.  Such an action would only be allowed for the starting pitcher, as to not significantly reduce strategy classically associated with N.L. bullpen management.  Long live the double switch!

No more.

With that, I would like to submit my candidacy for the Commissionership of Major League Baseball in 2012.  Now all I need to do is figure a way to become 25-30 years older before that time.  And a prominent lawyer or union head.  And a minority.

As a coda, Commissioner Bombykol will--if elected--be adopting the (slightly modified) Bill James proposal limiting throws over to first to one per batter, and four per inning.  Any further pick-off attempts will result in an unconditional "ball" being added to the count.  Additionally, time between innings will be reduced to 60 seconds, and only one mid-inning pitching change will be allowed per game.  Further, this pitching change will only be allowed if the current pitcher (a) started the game, or (b) has allowed a run, or three baserunners to reach base during his outing.

Sacrifice bunts will no longer be an official statistic, and will be scored as simple put-outs.  This makes more sense than the current convention, as significant statistical evidence has demonstrated that sacrifice bunts confer no advantage (except to the defense/pitcher).  Also, N.O.B.s will be eliminated for all home teams, the Toronto Blue Jays will be forced to re-adopt their old insignia and color scheme, slotting will be eliminated in favor of a draftee salary scale, Ned Colletti will be forced to donate $1,000 to charity for every HR hit by Carlos Santana for the remainder of his Cleveland tenure, the Oakland Coliseum will be demolished and Milton Bradley will be barred from the competitive play.

So let it be written.   So let it be done.

Call Me Ishmael

Contributor: Wally

The fad of apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic movies (e.g. 2012, The Road) looks to be in full swing.  But, if I may speak for White Sox fans everywhere--The Cult of Oz, if you will--we could care less.  When we want to entertain frightening notions, we turn to the Sox 2009 depth chart.  Which just got a little deeper.  And by "deeper," I mean "fatter," as yet another superfluous bench player was added to the puzzle, gaping holes in the starting lineup be damned.

Gimmick bet of 2010: Can Jones outslug his BMI?

Andruw Jones, Kenny Williams's white whale.  Or, more accurately, his second white whale; Williams always wanted Ken Griffey Jr.  Finally, once Junior's skills had deteriorated enough, Williams netted him...for Danny Richar and Nick Massett.  Not exactly the kind of package the M's were looking for back in Junior's heyday.  Well, history has repeated itself, as it so often does on the south side of Chicago (see: Everett, Carl; Alomar, Roberto and Sandy).  Kenny wanted Andruw real bad back in 2004, no surprise as the young Jones was a bona fide 50 HR threat at that point in time.  Now Jones looks more like a fifty (read: .050) ISO guy; the shine is off the apple.

Alright, reality check time.  Five years removed from a World Series victory, the 2010 Chicago White Sox could hypothetically field a lineup that looks like this:

C: A.J. Pierzynski
1B: Mark Kotsay
2B: Jayson Nix
3B: Mark Teahen
SS: Omar Vizquel
LF: Andruw Jones
CF: Brent Lillibridge
RF: Alex Rios

Ugh...may this day never come. For those of you that haven't been following the hot stove, one or more of these names may seem out of place.  A recap the Sox's 2009 F/A acquisitions is in order...

Player I: Kotsay, a 34 year-old (come December) first baseman (and likely a communist):

'09 (BOS):  74 AB,   3 XBH,  .257/.291/.324, .216 EqA, -0.5 WARP3
'09 (CWS): 113 AB, 10 XBH, .292/.349/.434, .267 EqA, 0.1 WARP3

Player II: Vizquel, a 43 year-old (come April) shortstop/second baseman who debuted the year after my birth:

'07: 513 AB, 18 2B, 51 RBI, .246/.305/.314, .226 EqA, 3.8 WARP3
'08: 266 AB, 10 2B, 24 RBI, .222/.283/.267, .196 EqA, -0.6 WARP3
'09: 177 AB,  7 2B, 17 RBI, .266/.316/.345, .238 EqA, 1.2 WARP3

Player III: Jones, a 33 year-old (come April) center fielder weighing 437 pounds:

'07: 572 AB, 27 2B, 26 HR, 83 RBI, .222/.311/.413, .251 EqA, 2.8 WARP3
'08: 209 AB,  8 2B,   3 HR,  21 RBI, .158/.256/.249, .171 EqA, -2.0 WARP3
'09: 281 AB, 18 2B, 17 HR, 43 RBI, .214/.323/.459, .259 EqA, 0.6 WARP3

***Net WARP3 for ALL THREE PLAYERS over the past THREE YEARS: 3.1 (note, that includes four seasons in the realm of the negative...)

What a haul!  I feel like I'm having blood let from my abdomen.

But wait a tic...these numbers don't tell everything, do they?  What about leadership, experience, gusto, balls!?!?  Normally, I'd tell you that you're in the wrong place, but today I'm going to attempt to simplify things, pop-psyche style.  Why?  Because these relatively abstract virtues are the only things White Sox management has used to try and sell me on these signings, production be damned.

More importantly, how am I gonna do it?  By labeling people with nebulous, highly arbitrary titles of course!  Consider this more than just an olive branch--consider it a collection of stereotypes interspersed with mysterious acronyms...

• Mark Kotsay = "Clubhouse guy"


• One small statistical caveat: Should probably be left in the clubhouse, like a shower caddy or "Jugs" magazine.  His last decent season on the field came five years ago, when he manned center field in Oakland.  Last season, when the White Sox played him in the OF, his UZR/150 was -27.1.


• Omar Vizquel = "Eager tutor"


• Practically microscopic caveat: Do as I say, or rather, as I am no longer capable of doing.  Even that may be too kind; Omar was never much of a hitter.  Case in point: he holds a career .327 OBP with an ISO mark of .066.  And he's nearly 43 years old, making him only two years younger than Mark McLemore.  And Ozzie Guillen.
  


• Andruw Jones = "Fatty"


• Tiny little Cheesy Poof of a caveat: Jumbo Jones is a one-tool power hitter who, after July 29, didn't hit a homer en route to posting a .160/.270/.210 the rest of the way.  A power hitter who can't hit for power is one of the more tragic figures in nature.  It's comparable to being a "one-tool" emperor penguin whose shtick is flight.
  

Bottom line: Mark Teahen is the White Sox best off-season pick-up, by quite a wide margin.  And Mark Teahen doesn't do anything particularly well.  In fact, this is a profound understatement.  His defense is abhorrent at second and in the outfield--though he has showcased his versatility by being below-average at third as well--he can't run, has no power to speak of and is old enough for one to confidently say he has peaked.  With Dayan Viciedo currently on the Andruw Jones diet, here's to hoping Brent Morel arrives quickly, and that his dismal minor-league OBP is less of a harbinger of things to come than his torrid AFL performance.

True, the pieces Chicago gave up for Teahen, Chris Getz and Josh Fields, have been are prime "don't let the door hit you in the ass" candidates from their early days in the show.  Nevertheless, there is value in cheap contracts.  That is, controlling players for multiple years at reasonable salaries has value most non-Yankee teams; in all liklihood, Getz and Fields would have given the Sox more value over the length of their contracts than Teahen will over the length of his, at less cost.  While Teahen will be a subpar starter for one more year under his current deal, plus an arbitration year (in which his salary will most likely be in the 4-5 million dollar range...wayyy more than he is worth), the two newest Royals are playing for nearly league-minimum salaries.  What's more, they have actual value if deployed correctly.  Getz is best suited for a utility role (he is average-below-average at 2B and 3B, well below-average at short), especially one where his one above-average tool, footspeed (25/26 SB/SBA), can be utilized.  Fields, on the other hand, while a defensive sieve at third, has value as a platoon bat at first base, DH or right field, as he more than holds his own against southpaws:

218 PA, 193 AB, 9 2B, 16 HR, 38 RBI, .285/.356/.580 (OPS+ 157)

That's a damn fine line for a guy who is a veritable wind farm against righties.  I quite honestly wish we would have kept him; a .580 SLG is more than a mere usable piece, it is a full-blown asset, particularly given our death of proven power hitters.  Assuming we don't sign a full-time DH, why did we not see the value in having Fields partake in a fluid time-share situation with Konerko, Flowers and a free agent third basemen, e.g. Joe Crede (who can no longer be counted on to play every day anyways), Bobby Crosby (ditto) or Troy Glaus (who may even be available as a NRI come spring time)...?  I'm confused.  Especially as doing this would allow the Sox to move Beckham to short and Ramirez to center (with Getz still manning second), thus allowing the circumnavigation of useless, no-upside signings like Andruw Jones.  Additionally, this improves the D in several significant ways: Beckham goes back to his natural position, Ramirez pulls a B.J. Upton in moving off short (where he was below average), and Jones, who at best profiles as a corner OF, does not force Rios to play out of position in CF (neutralizing his defensive value).  Now where did I put my uppers?

...At least this means we won't grossly overpay for Chone Figgins, right?  I'd assume so.  Barring a blockbuster Konerko trade (which ain't happenin'), no more "major" moves are in store for Chicago's infield...not unless one of these new pieces is moved first, also unlikely, being as they have no value whatsoever.  With that in mind, may I be the first to commend Kenny Williams on a job (hopefully) done this off-season.  Seriously, please stop.  Even Dayton Moore thinks you're out of control.

We Have Not Gone Silent...!

Contributor: Migs and Wally (alternating paragraphs)

M: I am drunk, my friends.  Watching television.  Particularly, a commercial starring Luke Wilson, who has become surprisingly fat since I last saw him (in "3:10 to Yuma," nonetheless).  I haven't really moved since the Vikings game concluded this afternoon.  Five hours ago.  Complete and utter domination by the "Purple Reign."  The 2009 Vikings' offense has more wrinkles than Pat Summerall's balls.

W: The '09 Vikings is the first team since the '98 Vikes that I can honestly say has the ability to immobilize me for long stretches of time.  Unless you count teams that send you into fervent rages, only to leave you comatose shortly afterward.  Then throw the '99-'08 Vikes, the '07 Red Sox, any team Milton Bradley is on and every single White Sox team after the year 2000, even the title winning bunch (fuck you Jurassic Carl).

M: Creationism is hilarious.  Unless it's coming from the mouth of Carl Everett, at which time it becomes frightening, stupefying and infuriating at the same time.  It's a profoundly strange and unsettling feeling.  Like watching Carl run the bases while brainstorming the multitude of better ways his salary could have been put to use.  How many people could've paid their rent for the price it took Carl to be a hoodlum asshole?

W: But we digress.  Javier Vasquez, yet again (but for entirely novel reasons) has driven me to drink.  And the worst part about Javy's Cy Young vote (2nd place on one ballot): it was fucking deserved.  That's right, Javy posted a FIP of 2.77, besting that of Chris Carpenter by .01 in a considerably tougher division for pitchers.  The same Javy Vasquez who could not win a game last September against the offensively hapless Minnesota Fairweathers.  KLaw, you have outdone yourself yet again.  On the other hand, Wally sir, time to admit that you were wrong about Vasquez.  I'm sending you my tab.

M: I hate Jon Heyman.  For reasons that should be obvious to anyone who has (1) read the previous paragraph, and (2) read anything on Jon Heyman's Twitter account, which is literally inundated with stupidity.  Twitter blows.

W: Stupidity has reached epidemic proportions in America.  I propose succession of a colony of enlightened individuals; may I also suggest we use Maine as a geographic locale.  Why?  Lobster, of course.  Lobster kicks serious ass.

M: Last weekend I met Ron Coomer (who will not be invited on the succession).  This week, Mason Jennings (which was infinitely cooler than meeting Ron Coomer).  I've become a magnet for minor celebrity!

W: Moving on, Fangraphs has convinced me Mike Cameron is a better free agent than Jason Bay.  Wha-what?  That's right kiddies!  This ain't fantasy baseball.  Fantasy sports blow.

W: Cameron once hit four home runs against the White Sox (three off Jim Parque, noted steroid abuser).  Actually, I'm not certain "abuser" is the correct term.  If Killer Cam knocks three out of the park against you, Comiskey be damned, you should seriously consider taking more steroids.  Like, say, Winstrol-Stanozolol.  That stuff seems like it kicks ass.  If you don't mind looking freaky as shit in about five years (lookin' at you Sammy, you moisturizing motherfucker).  I think I'm losing my goddamn mind.  Case in point:

M: Bruce Villanch makes me want to curb stomp kittens.

W: Fat hipster.  There's an oxymoron.  Hey, let's talk censorship.  Words that should be banned:

MOIST (Unless followed by the words chocolate cake and/or vagina)
CHUNKS (Again, allowable if preceded by chocolate)
PUSS (Chocolate puss?  Puss chocolate?  Uh, no.)
AFTERBIRTH (Ditto chocolate afterbirth.  Yuck.)
ECOFEMINISM (Mmm...chocolate ecofeminism)

M: Words that should be promoted:

BLEBBING
wOBA
SKOL
PROCLIVITY
JAMBALAYA

Ugh.  I can't believe Perkins is so far away.  I'm going to go lie down on the freeway.

An Unabashed Homage to FJM: Part VI (Bill Plaschke and the English language go together like feminists and subtlety)

Contributor: Wally

After the Twins and Cardinals went out with nary a whimper in round one (along with our adopted and adored Colorado Rockies), Midwest baseball fans were officially resigned to bandwagon jumping for the duration of the '09 season.  What's more, with the final four teams hailing from New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Anaheim, many of us at the Alliance have paid as much attention to the peerlessly engrossing Arizona Fall League as we have to the World Series.  Here to fill us in on the Phillies NLCS drubbing of the Dodgers (the 'Ticklefight in Tinseltown, if you will) is the LA Times' resident guru of overwrought, flowery self-indulgence.  What follows are samplings from the annals of Plaschke:

OCTOBER 17, 2009

Destiny is not always about a fireworks show.  Destiny is sometimes about a fight.

When, pray tell, is destiny about a fireworks show?  Or, for that matter, a fight?  And what in sweet hell does it even mean for destiny to be "about" something?  This is complete and utter nonsense. Linguistic auto-fellatio even, masturbatory pontification masquerading as journalistic insight.  Ugh.  Additionally, this column was written to affirm Los Angeles' "team of destiny" status, a cliche so hackneyed that any team christened with it should be immediately doomed to defeat by the Baseball Gods.  How felicitous the Dodgers were smitten.  Next column!

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Nowhere, fast.  So describes the journey of the 2009 Dodgers, which ended Wednesday in a recognizably battered heap in the darkest part of a familiar dead end.

There has to be a better way of saying that; there just has to be.  How about this: 'For the second year in a row, Philadelphia represents the end of the line for the languid Los Angeles Dodgers, who have fallen into an alarming rut.'  Better, right?  That took six-and-a-half seconds.

As for LA: that's karma, bitch.  Don't act like this it's novel.  Winter, 1997.  Roger Clemens spurns the Red Sox and signs with the Blue Jays.  The Baseball Gods are, of course, pleased (thou shalt fuck Boston), and they orchestrate Jose Canseco's arrival in Toronto.  The two hit it off, bing-bang-boom: consecutive Cy Young's.  Karma.  Kirby Puckett, on the other hand, convinces everyone he's one of the game's true "good guys," while spending nights and off-days going all Steve Phillips on bitches.  Well Kirby, you can't hide from the Baseball Gods.  Enter Dennis Martinez, "El Presidente," the reckoner.  POW!  Lights out.  Karma.

(By the way, I know Clemens signed in '97 and Canseco in '98, a year after the Rocket's forth Cy Young.  And I know that this puts my argument in rather firm discord with the basic facets of chronology.  But seeing as no other world religion appears concerned with factual congruity, I think I'll just leave it.)

Again it was the Philadelphia Phillies dancing on the grass.  Again, it was the Dodgers staring from the dugout.  Again, it was three wins and three light years from a World Series.

Again it was the readers straining to parse out coherent thoughts from Plaschke's preposterous sentence/paragraphs (*note: average paragraph length in a Bill Plaschke column: 1.002538 sentences).

Out on the Citizens Bank Field, the Phillies were bubbly wet and giddily swaggering after a 10-4 pounding.

I entered "bubbly wet" into my search bar, just to see what happened.  A sampling of the returns:

• Fartsinajar.net (no comment)
  
• Babycenter.com's page on 'pyloric stenosis' ("All babies spit up--in a bubbly, wet-burp way. Forceful or projectile vomiting...")
• Chicago.backpage listing for 'Super bubbly and wet Italian and Spanish mix' ("...ready to please you right now!"  I bet.)
  
• Urban dictionary entry for "wet dump" (again, no comment)
  
• Acid reflux board index: "Why do I have so much phlegm?" (ditto) 

Yet this wouldn't be Plaschkeland if blame were not arbitrarily assigned to a key lineup cog that produced substandard superficial statistics (i.e. batting average) over an inconsequentially small sample size (i.e. five games).  Nevermind that Matt Kemp, Rafael Furcal, Russell Martin, Casey Blake and Ronnie Belliard all posted OPS's under .690 in both the LCS and the playoffs as a whole; Manny (.792 playoff OPS), you got some splainin' to do.

Ramirez hit .263 this series with one extra-base hit and countless blown opportunities, and talk about faith.

Not sure how faith entered the discussion, but hey, that's Plaschke.  The man's not afraid to keep his readership on their toes with a malapropos verbal hedge every few sentences.

The Dodgers must spend the winter praying that Ramirez relearns to hit with an untainted body.

Boom!  Just when you'd begun to suspect this "column" was actually a list of characteristically puerile tweats from Tim McCarver, Plaschke serves up a little continuity between sentences.  Get it?  Faith...prayer!  Now the previous sentence almost makes sense.

(In all fairness, the sentences themselves are less nonsensical than we've come to expect from Bill.  Unfortunately, they're ass-backwards, which is straight from Bill Plaschke's SentenceFuck: A Beatwriter's Guide to Histrionics.  How about this: "blah blah blah must spend the winter praying blah blah blah...talk about faith!"  More coherent, right?  That took 1.2 seconds.)

To his point, I'm sure sentiments on the vitality of Manny's aging, nonsteroidal body are echoed by much of Tinseltown.  But Ramirez's OPS numbers in the three full months following his reinstatement read .931, .881, .892.  Remember Ryan Howard, Bill, the Subway-slangin' behemoth you've written so glowingly about in the past?  He had a .931 OPS in 2009, up from an .882 showing in '08.  And what about Chase Utley, Raul Ibanez and Jayson Werth--the heart of the Phillies lineup--fresh off a defacing the LA pitching staff?  .905, .899 and .875 OPS's, respectively.  Perhaps Plaschke should spend his offseason pondering the rather spectacular aberration that was the 37 year-old Ramirez's 1.232 OPS in 2008 (222 PA's), as this was 200 points higher than ManRam's career average, and over 100 OPS points higher than Albert Pujols has managed in any one season.  A .900 OPS is damn good for a soon-to-be 38 year-old; no other Dodger managed even an .870 clip in '09.  What's more, this wasn't terribly difficult to foresee: Manny's OPS offerings during his final two seasons in Boston were "only" .881 and .927.  We all know that Manny B. Manny is the favored punching bag of Bill Plaschke...still, there have to be others to blame, right?  RIGHT?!?  You bet your ass there are...let me take you back a few days.  Next column!

OCTOBER 19, 2009

For the Dodgers to fufill [their] promise, the first bit of education must occur in the front office, which needs to realize something that everyone from here to Nicaragua now understands.  They need an ace, or they will continue to be NLCS jokers.

Get it?  Because Vicente Padilla is Nicaraguan!  And he embarrassed himself and his countrymen by going 1-1 with a 3.63 ERA and a 0.923 WHIP in the postseason (wait, que?), before returning to his homeland and sustaining a gunshot wound to the leg.  (By the way, that last thing is true.)

The fact that they had to start castoff Vicente Padilla in Wednesday's critical game makes one sort of statement.  The fact that Padilla was a complete wreck, giving up six runs in three innings, just confirms that statement.

Padilla had gone 4-0 with a 130 ERA+ in seven regular season starts with the Dodgers, logging 8.7 SO/9 (while walking only 2.7).  In the 14.1 postseason innings he pitched coming into game five, Padilla had given up eight hits, culminating in a grand total of one earned run (a Ryan Howard solo homer).  How was Joe Torre forced to start Vicente Padilla?  That's like saying James Lipton was forced to pop a trouser-ripping erection during the critic's screening of There Will Be Blood.  Rather, Torre was compelled to start Padilla, most-likely overwhelmingly so, by a deep-seated preference for shitty veterans.  If the history of Torre has taught us anything, it's that his Achilles heel is an over-reliance on mediocre journeymen (see: Pierre, Juan, '08), often in lieu of uber-talented young enigmas (see:  Kemp, Matt, '08).  Enter Clayton Kershaw.  After an admittedly rough game one start, Torre could have thrown Kershaw on five days rest for game five, yet on the basis of a shaky game one performance, he had been exiled from the rotation.  If you want to criticize a decision, start there.  Or question the thought process behind awarding Hiroki Kuroda the game three start, bumping Randy Wolf to game four and effectively squelching any chance he had of starting multiple games in the series.  Obviously this is an easy move to lambaste in retrospect, as Kuroda turned in a Don Larson performance in that lone postseason start (that's Don Larson circa 2009, two months after his eightieth birthday).  And there is logic to pitching a right-hander against a heavily left-handed Phillies lineup, though Ryan Howard's performance may have single-handedly justified throwing a southpaw.  But Wolf was the Dodgers most consistent pitcher over the course of the regular season (214.1 IP, 1.10 WHIP, 129 ERA+), and their second most effective starter behind Kershaw.

On a blustery night featuring timid Dodgers offerings and furious Phillies hacks amid an angry stadium awash in blue blood, you know what I would have liked to see?

Certain arctic fish have antifreeze glycoproteins in their blood, rendering their plasma a rather brilliant cyan.  I would like to see a liter of it dumped on Plaschke's keyboard every time a potential metaphor enters his maundering little mind.  Not an act of malice, just a visual reminder that he is a pompous, rambling boob.

I would have liked to see those Dodgers prospects whom they liked more than Cliff Lee.  Who are those guys?  Where are those guys?  They needed to be here, and we needed to see why.

I assume Plaschke is referring to the only rumor linking Cliff Lee to the Dodgers that I was able to find: a July Ken Rosenthal report stating that the Dodgers were looking to deal a package including James Loney and either Clayton Kershaw or Chad Billingsley for Lee and Victor Martinez.  So the Dodgers didn't pull the trigger because of some kind of morose, misguided fascination with James Loney?  And where are these prospects you speak so ambiguously of?  Oh, you made them up so that you wouldn't have to reconcile your asinine point with Loney's .353/.421/.706 NLCS line?  While it is reasonable to conclude prospects would need to be included for this package to entice (seriously, James Loney?), the fact of the matter is no prospects were mentioned in the Lee-to-the-Dodgers rumor.  And Cleveland is not trading their two best players for established, vanilla major leaguers; trades like this just don't happen.  Mark Shapiro knows his team is going into rebuilding mode.  As such, they need high-upside young talent, not predictably mediocre veterans who will be over thirty years old by the time the Tribe can reasonably expect to compete.  Perhaps a relative youngster like Billingsley makes sense, but only when packaged with an 'elite' double or triple-A prospect such as Ivan Dejesus, Scott Elbert, Andrew Lambo (who has struggled this season), James McDonald (ditto as a ML starter), or Ethan Martin, plus some combination of lower-level minor league talent.

That's all.  Or, as Bill Plaschke would say, "On a cold Wednesday afternoon, littered with incongruent thoughts and the smell of hope rising with the refreshing vitality that merely three days left until the weekend can infuse...dumpster babies."

An Unabashed Homage to FJM: Part V (Return of the Jonesys!)

Contributor: Wally

Alright all you dreamers and creamers out there, it's time for the 2009 Jonesys, featuring Minnfarction fav "cardiac" Todd Jones, the sheriff of contemporary Christian entrance music!  In the spirit of redemption, Jones starts off the column by fessing up to a pretty shitty prediction he made back in April, that Frankie Liriano (5-13, 5.80 ERA) would win the '09 American League Cy Young Award.  "Boy was I wrong," Jones admits with the aw-shucks nonchalance of someone for can listen to MercyMe without entertaining sociopathic thoughts.  No, looks like the Cy will be headed somewhere else in the American League Central...to Detroit!  Wait, what?  Evidently Zach Greinke's 203 ERA+ isn't enough to vault him ahead of Verlander (132 ERA+), who just "[couldn't have] come up bigger in his final two starts of the regular season."

Verlander's last two starts: 15.2 IP, 7 ER
Greinke's last seven starts: 48.0 IP, 6 ER

Not exactly a convincing start for the sheriff, but if Todd Jones would've been pulled every time he loaded the bases with less than two out, we'd have to strike a good number of those 319 career saves from the record book.  Plus, we all deserve our fair shot at redemption...

Best Trend: The death of the OPS fascination and the rebirth of going with guys who just flat-out play.

Y'know, real men like Willie Bloomquist, the ultimate multi-positional grinder.  The man grinds so hard, all he has is nubs where his appendages should be.  Arte Moreno didn't even mind him grinding his 19 year-old wife Carole during the Angels ALDS celebration, despite the fact that Bloomquist plays for the Royals.  That's just how he operates...he even grinds street organs in his spare time.

In response to sheriff Jonsey, let me offer one small critique.  Despite what the stubbliest of real men may believe, OPS is not the pinnacle of sabermetric achievement; it is a crude analytical tool at best.  And its pervasiveness in mainstream sports journalism (and the occasional telecast) does not represent any kind of radical, revelatory movement, as would be implied by Jones' assertion: "the days of trying to reinvent the wheel are on hold."  Think of it more like a compromise between intelligent baseball analysis and curmudgeonly old-schoolish batting average dependence.  The minute I hear Joe Buck drop a wOBA or EqA on us, I'll write a thousand word treatise on why I have been, and remain a jackass.  But seriously Jonesy, "reinventing the wheel?"  The two basic tenets of an OPS evaluation are (1) getting on base, and (2) hitting with power...not exactly avant-garde concepts in the realm of baseball thinktankeries.  In fact, strip a player of these abilities and you're left with...Willie Bloomquist.

Biggest Suprise: The Rockies

"They went all 1980 U.S. hockey team on us," Jones claims.  Again, a small nugget of constructive criticism is called for: this is staggeringly stupid.  The only similarity between the 2009 Colorado Rockies and the "Miracle on Ice" squad is that they both trained in CO.  Oh, and each team had a player with the surname of Baker; Jeff and Bill, respectively (strangely enough, Bill went on to play defenseman for the 1981 Colorado Rockies ice hockey club, now the New Jersey Devils).  But that's about it.  The U.S. Olympic hockey team was a group of amateur no-names led by a legendary coach (Herb Brooks) who improbably overcame the juggernaut Soviet Union team before defeating Finland for the Gold.  The Colorado Rockies, on the other hand, were a relatively recognizable group of professionals (led by $16.6 million-man Todd Helton) who won the prestigious National League wild card over the San Fransisco Giants (they of a .257/.309/.389 offensive output).  Following this resounding victory, Rocktober was swiftly derailed by the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLDS, who prevailed three games to one.  

As for their coach, Jim Tracy is a virtual lock to win NL Manager of the Year.  He did, after all, post a 74-42 record following the firing of 2007 NL M.O.Y. second-runner-up Jimmy Buffett.  That said, manager is a vastly overrated position, trailing only Ryder Cup captainship and 'being Ned Colletti' in terms of sporting overratedness.  Tracy's sterling record in 2009 has as much to do with his managerial ability as did his 135-189 stint with Pittsburgh several years ago: not much.  Players decide the games; managers only have two real jobs.  The first is managing arms, which most skippers regularly fuck up with intransigent pitch counts, a stubborn instance on using closers exclusively in the ninth inning and overly-active situational mixing and matching.  The second is putting their team in the best possible position to score runs, which most also fuck up by unnecessary sacrifice bunting and traditionalist lineup structuring that awards inferior hitters with more PA's (god forbid Joe Mauer should hit in the two-hole over Alexi Casilla).

Best Story: Derek Jeter (breaking Lou Gerhig's record for hits by a Yankee)
  
In his final AB of the season, Ken Griffey Jr. spanked hit number 2,747 up the gut.  Junior was lifted for a pinch runner, but following the game he took a lap around the field before being hoisted on his teammates' shoulders and carried into the dugout.  All in all, a pretty cool exit (should he choose to accept it) for a man that has meant a lot to the game of baseball.

Jeter's run at Gerhig, while interesting due to the fact that the Yanks hit king has less than 3,000 hits, saw him vault ahead of Dave Parker, Bill Buckner and Rusty Staub (Le Grand Orange).  Blown away?  Probably not, because this record is more surprising than it is impressive.  Jeter still ranks 'only' 49th on the all-time hits list, trailing such immortals as Vada Pinson and Harold Baines.  Dare I ask, was The Captain's 2,722nd hit really that big a deal?  I've written at length about Jonsey's rather robust boner over Jeter (see "An Unabashed Homage to FJM: Part III: I Would Gladly Tickle Derek Jeter's Balls as He Fucks My Girlfriend"), so I'll just leave this one to fester.  Moving on...

Breakout Performer: Hanley Ramirez

Let's play a little game.  Which of the following seasons constitutes the most breakout-ish of potential breakout seasons?

(a) .301/.400/.540, 125 R, 92 BB, 34 2B, 33 HR, 67 RBI, 35 SB
(b) .332/.386/.562, 212 H, 125 R, 48 2B, 29 HR, 81 RBI, 51 SB 
(c) .292/.353/.480, 185 H, 119 R, 46 2B, 11 3B, 17 HR, 51 SB 
(d) .342/.410/.543, 197 H, 101 R, 42 2B, 24 HR, 106 RBI, 27 SB

OK, I admit that was a dumb fucking question.  The reason is that a "breakout" season is context-dependent; Albert Pujols just enjoyed arguably his finest season, yet no one is advocating that he has finally 'broken out.'  Thus, the answer to aforementioned nonsensical question is, "whatever came first" (c, in this case, having occurred in 2006).  Being as this was his statistically-weakest season, we could conceivably justify calling 2007 (b) his breakout, a damn fine choice, being as this was the first in a line of three consecutive seasons in which his OPS+ exceeded 140 (145, 146, 151).  (*Fyi, (a) = 2008, (d) = 2009.)  True, 2009 Hanley did set career highs in BA (by ten points), OBP (also by ten points) and SLG (by negative nineteen points); that said, how was this season anything but business as usual for HanRam?  Put differently, how can one argue that a player who has posted WARP3's of 8.3, 9.2 and 7.8 the past three years "broke out" in year three?  That's kinda like saying that The Doors 'broke out' with "The Soft Parade," Harrison Ford 'broke out' in "Temple of Doom," or Tim Tebow is 'breaking out' in '09 (excluding backne considerations from rampant steroid abuse).

Biggest Disappointment: The Royals

I was very disappointed with the presidential campaign of Cynthia McKinney.  Apparently starring in American Blackout gets you all of 0.12% of the vote, and 30,000 less tallies than a man who views homosexuality as a moral perversion and regards Martin Luther King Jr. as a communist.  But back to the Royals...giddyup Jonsey: "I really thought they'd be better.  They have good parts, they're just missing something." I totally agree, if by "they have good parts" you mean, their roster is a cataclysmic abyss from which no light or heat can escape, and by "missing something" you mean missing a catcher, shortstop, third baseman, power-hitting corner outfielder, first baseman (so Billy Butler can DH), three starting pitchers, multiple bullpen arms and a competent GM.  The Royals had five good pieces in 2009; Greinke, Joakim Soria, Robinson Tejada, Butler and Alberto Callaspo.  None of their other pitchers have VORP's above ten, and none of their other hitters have OBP's greater than .340 (in fact, THREE regulars--Olivo, Betancourt, Jacobs--finished the season below .300).  With an FIP of 2.33, Greinke would have won approximately 37 games if Moore could've fielded a lineup of nine Oscar Salazars.  According to my calculations.

They Deserve Better (2010 Season): Minnesota Twins Fans

"They will freeze outside in April and September.  Bad decision not to get a retractable roof.  Good luck."  First of all, I'm pretty sure the retractable roof idea came up in discussions, and...secondly, well, you know, with global warming and all...and the irrefutable effects of urban heat islands, um...I mean, if you can somehow swap out the majority of your blood plasma with beer, then I guess you could trick yourself into...maybe, y'know...

Aw, nevermind.  Maybe we'll be warm when Selig moves our first snowed-out weekender to Miller Park.  Other than that, we're probably fucked.  Skol Vikings.