Stupid Yankee decisions du jour

I'll make this quick since I do want to escape the office, but my fellow bloggers alerted me to two lousy decisions the Yanks made today:

• Yanks Claim Ponson Off Waivers (from Sliding Into Home)
• Now THIS is the Kind of Thing You Should Try to Announce at 3:15 AM (from Eephus Pitch)

Ponson? What, his 10+ ERA last year just makes you drool? So what if he was having a decent year in Texas, prior to getting cut for behavior unbecomming a teammate.... I feel dirty.

And the link from Emma Span's Eephus Pitch is priceless.... The Yanks are putting a @#$%^& Hard Rock Cafe in TNYS. Seriously, a Hard Rock? Just a terrible decision. I'll try not to get all food snobbish on you, but putting a Hard Rock in Yankee Stadium, when you have so many better options, just sucks. If you have to put a chain in, put a Houston's or something else. Shoot, why not just put a Linens 'N Things in the Bleachers and a Christmas Tree Shops in the bullpen and we can call the Stadium "The Great American StripMallPark".

grrrrrrrr.....

Bud is damn pleased with himself

In an ESPN.com interview, Bud announced that he's quite pleased with himself (emphasis mine):

Q: You have always referred to yourself as a purist. Are you on board with the momentum toward instant replay? How much of a role should it play in your mind?

A: Well, I don't know. The GMs voted 25-5. I guess the only thing I would say if we do it -- and I've made no decisions, because I'll agonize over that -- it will be a most limited way. I know other sports are using IR and I have different thoughts on that. I am a purist, but I'm the same purist that went to interleague play and the wild card. I took a terrible pounding for that; now everybody loves it. Those who were critics forgot they were critics. And there is revenue sharing, so I'm probably the greatest agent of change in baseball history … but I don't want to tamper with the game. I'm sensitive about that. If there's something I'm convinced will help the game, I'll do it, but I haven't quite gotten to that area yet.

Now, I think he happens to be right about that claim, but it was just interesting to hear it come directly from him.

Revenue sharing has changed the economics of the game more than anyone could have predicted. It's rare that a top player actually hits free agency these days, with so many players getting locked up earlier and longer than ever. Teams are buying out free agent years early to get the valued "cost certainty".

The wildcard is a profound success, period.

Interleague remains oft-debated, but the attendance figures don't lie. People dig it. Hank hates it. I'm OK with it, but I could easily live without it.

I still hate the changes (and lack of changes) in the All Star game. If I were Commish for a day, I'd do the following about the All Star Game:

• Eliminate the World Series home field advantage gimmick. PERIOD.
• Eliminate mandatory representation by every club. It was one thing when there just twenty-something teams, but with 32, too many inferior players are being named at the expense of more qualified players. OR:
• Expand the roster sizes to accomodate the expansion in the number of teams. If you do this, you can keep mandatory representation. Open the rosters to 35 and eliminate the handwringing.

The "new" Bud

Seems that Selig has undergone a makeover. No longer the schlubby, haphazard, nutty-professor look. He's now sporting the Corporate Baron 'do/look. Was he on "Queer Eye"? "What Not To Wear"? "Extreme Makeover"? "10 Years Younger"? "Stylish Executive Hairdo's for 2008"?

Seems that he found the miracle of Aquanet or some other grease.

Before:


After:

Of course, he still prefers button down collars with his ties, but still...this is progress!

One final Willie thought

Was reading Buster's blog earlier and this just jumped out at me and smacked me in the face (emphasis mine):

It was a Mets' bloodbath in the New York papers today for the team, in the aftermath of the strange press conference of Omar Minaya, in which he said he made the decision to fire Willie Randolph Monday morning -- despite the fact that everything down to the identity of the replacement coaches had been in the papers and on Web sites beginning on Friday. Randolph told Bill Rhoden he has his doubts about whether it was Minaya's call. Randolph also had a very different take on what his conversation with Minaya was on Sunday evening, before he got on the team bus:

"I actually asked him," Randolph said, "I said: 'Omar, do this now. If you're going to do this, do this now. I know you've got a lot of pressure on you, but if I'm not the guy to lead this team, then don't let me get on this plane.' I did say that to him."

How on Earth could Minaya let Willie get on the plane after Willie said that to him? The only rational answer is that the Wilpon's pushed Minaya to do it... but even still, why did Minaya let Willie get on the plane? Why?

This is just mean

Had to post this, taken from The SportsHernia's comments section, which is up to their usual goodness, suggesting that THIS would have been a better way to fire Willie.

Wednesday programming note

Was at Radio City Music Hall last night, attending a speech/Q&A by former President Bill Clinton, so I didn't see a pitch of any game. I'm trying to get caught up on the night I missed.

Whatever your political leanings, it's easy to see why Clinton was so popular. He's an amazing speaker, engaging, and charasmatic. I was completely riveted. I found it amazing what he's been able to do since leaving office. His Foundation has been a champion of health-care related activities around the world that is nothing short of incredible.

Unrelated thought: Thank goodness the Giants won the SuperBowl.

I need your vote

The whole Mets shamockery had me thinking: How much does Johan regret signing the long term deal? (I know the trade would never have happened without him signing but allow me to wonder what if for a moment).

That being said, there's poll to the upper lefthand side of this site and I'm hoping you take 3 seconds to vote.

The question is: Who will win more playoff games over the next 7 years (the life of Johan's contract): Mets or Twins?

This gets the the whole issue of the Mets wafer-thin farm system, the advancing age of their core, the ineptitude of ownership/leadership, etc., relative to the creative thinkers who manage to reinvent the Twins every few years. Can the Mets cash (remember that new stadium!) overcome?

It's NOT all about the Yanks, Hank

"My only message is simple: The National League needs to join the 21st century," Steinbrenner said. "They need to grow up and join the 21st century. I've got my pitchers running the bases, and one of them gets hurt. He's going to be out. I don't like that, and it's about time they address it. That was a rule from the 1800s."

Oh lord. How do Yanks fans like me even begin to defend this? We can't. We have to suck it up as if WE PERSONALLY uttered this nonsense. Hank's an embarrassment. From the 1800's? HUH? Try 1972, numbnuts.

Talking like HIS TEAM (the Yanks) is the only one to have their pitchers running, or somehow HIS players are worth more than anyone else's makes him look like an even bigger, pompous jackass than he probably already is.

To anyone daring to read this: We all do not feel this way. We KNOW stuff happens. We hate that Wang got hurt. It sickens me. But we know it's part of the game.

But just know that nearly all the Yanks fans I know look at Hank as a pathetic caricature of his father and don't take his proclamations and utterances seriously. The dialogue of a mad man.

Hank, just shut up. Please. And grow up, please.

I'm officially angry.


Related rants by me:
For the love of all things holy...SHUT UP!
Memo to Hankenstein
It's NOT all about the Yanks, Hank (with better pics)

Classless and clueless

It's going to be widely discussed today so there's no need for me to spend that much time on it, but just to weigh in: The Mets organization proved itself to be both classless and clueless in firing Willie last night (actually, this morning).

I heard a few interesting things on my way into work today on ESPN Radio that I wish I could have recorded and replayed here. I won't quote since I'm going by memory, but here's the gist of what I heard:

• Steve Phillips: The Mets organization works backwards in coming to executing a decision. They made the decision to fire Willie and then the worked backwards to figure out when to do it. They didn't want to do it on Memorial Day. Not on Father's Day, either. So they let Willie fly across the country and then whacked him AFTER he won, AFTER he spoke to the press, finally the press release was issued at 3:15am. So that was their plan, as pathetic as it was. They actually decided this was the best way to do this. Let that ruminate for a moment. The way this was done has made Willie a martyr, even in the eyes of the fans who wanted Willie ousted.



• Bill Madden: The way this execution took place was the worst, "undignified, astrocious" in his 30 years of covering NY baseball, and that includes all of the Boss' pathetic, ill-timed firings. His interview was amazing in its insight and brutality. He basically skewered the entire front office. He tossed a grenade on Tony Bernazard, the ass't GM. All of the Latin players seek out Tony, not Willie. Tony would hang out with buddy Manny Acta when the Mets would travel to DC. Madden puked on Jeff Wilpon for being angry that Willie got a better contract than Wilpon wanted him to get. The backbiting that Madden described is terrible and proves there's a systemic problem within the Mets dis-organization. There's a poll on Madden's Daily News site that has the vote of 82% - 18% against the timing of the firing. That 18% thought the timing was right may give you some insight to the craziness that Mets fans are.
  
  
• Jayson Stark: "An abomination". 'Nuff said.

UPDATE: Buster Olney's blog is out and he defines the issue beautifully in his opening paragraph:

The personnel meetings the Mets hold are said by participants to run on for hours, the discussion often turning circular and pointless. And maybe that's when it starts to happen in their organization when they get to the point where the staff members are so beaten down emotionally and intellectually that they don't have the ability to stand up and scream: Are you people crazy? Are you serious? Because this is a really bad idea -- no, no, wait, let's go one step further: It's really just flat-out nuts.

Make no mistake about it; this sort of thing happens in conference rooms and board rooms of companies daily, across the world. But, luckily for us, the Mets do it in clear view of knuckleheads like me.

Anecdote of the day

Loyal reader Osmodious shared a story in the comments section of my recent posting "Hating Boston: Not just for NY'ers anymore". Far be it from me to withhold the rants of a fellow madman, particularly one who is not a Yankee fan, with a great anti-RSN rant:

We went to Baltimore over Memorial Day and saw the Yanks play the Orioles... two rows in front of us was a Red Sox fan (who looked like something out of the D&D Monster Manual, in the 'Gnomes and Dwarves' section) and his troglodyte wife. They were the loudest and most obnoxious people in the entire ballpark...and there were a LOT of Yankee fans there!

Seriously, this asshat ruined the game for scores of people (many of whom actually MOVED to get away from him). Kevin Millar is a hero but Johnny Damon is a traitorous bum...yeah, whatever (these are the same types that boo ARod, forgetting that he was willing to take a pay CUT to play there but their management screwed it up!).

People badmouth Yankee fans, but the fact is that Yankee fans are also BASEBALL fans. Red Sox fans are masochistic retches that are incapable of feeling anything other than the huge chip on their shoulder. I have seen Yankee fans cheer an opposing player for a 'Web Gem'...and I have seen Red Sox fans shout obscenities to Jorge Posada in the batter's box about his son's medical condition. Sick, sick people.

Thanks, Os.

Hating Boston: Not just for NY'ers anymore

See, it's not just NY'ers who find Boston fans insufferable, annoying, etc. The good folks in Philly, always a barometer of sanity within their fandom, had some fun things to say about our Sawx brethren:

I see people. I see annoying people. I see annoying people wearing blue hats with a red B on the front.

And they're . . . they're . . . everywhere!

Yes, it is the seemingly annual invasion of the denizens of Red Sox Nation. (Motto: In Us We Irritate.) It is a nation whose currency is based on being cloying, self-important, pompous, overly loud and, regrettably, ever-present, and the economy is great. Axis of Evil? You make your list of nations that belong and I'll make mine.

Wait, there's more contempt, and far be it from me to withold it:

There's nothing cuddly or cute about a team with a $133 million payroll. You can't be an underdog if you spend like the Kennedys. If the Red Sox - who struggled to draw one million fans under the penurious final seasons of Yawkey family ownership - were once a cold-water walk-up on Kenmore Square, they are now a gated compound on the Cape.

Oh, I know. The fans sing songs together and have other adorable rituals, and tend to overlook small things like the fact that Manny Ramirez is one of the most selfish, self-indulgent players in the game. Ah, c'mahn. He's a Sawk.

Well, self-indulgence loves company, so much so that somewhere around 15,000 fans nationwide have sent in their $15 to become official citizens in the nation, complete with membership cards and newsletters and probably a secret lyrics sheet.

Knights of the Roundtable

Only regret is that I wasn't invited, but this roundtable at Biz Of Baseball is worth the read. Of course, I have no reason to have expected an invite in the first place....

Shyster was invited (damn him!) and focused on a big topic of mine: The Draft (rule IV). Clearly, we're of the same mind, even if the system has been bent to benefit my rooting interests more than most...

I fear we are approaching a day of reckoning with respect to the Rule IV draft. It's original purposes -- to put a cap on signing bonuses and provide a means of parity-encouraging talent redistribution -- have largely been thwarted as as teams which pick high in the draft are increasingly unable or unwilling to pay the bonuses demanded by the players and their agents. This phenomenon, in turn, has allowed the richest and best teams to enhance their already-strong farm systems. I'm no wizard when it comes to this stuff, but it seems to me that revenue sharing money has to be tied to talent acquisition and development somehow, or else we're going to see an increasing talent disparity as time goes on.

I think Craig buries within the "unwilling" line the fact that MLB has set "guidelines" for slotting values. But these guidelines are merely recommendations. The ADA's recommendation that I floss twice a day carries the same threat as MLB's/Selig's recommendation. With the Yanks, Sox, Tigers and some others leveraging their resources with no fear of retribution, they are able to draft players who, based upon their talents alone, should be drafted much higher.

The system is indeed broken but don't yell at me for my team ignoring it. Can't say I didn't tell you.

Ugh

Not much more I can say about Wang's injury and the possible scenarios than "ugh". I've chronicled many of his starts this year and he's established himself as the ace of the Yanks' rotation. Losing him for any extended period of time will certainly hurt the Yanks chances (even further) of catching the Sox/Rays.

feh.

Let's go to the videotape

With all due respect to Warner Wolf's patented call, it seems that MLB is willing to be very NHL-like and make a rules change on-the-fly. Color me stunned.

MLB presented the August date to umpires on Wednesday, for the purpose of using replay on "boundary calls" -- was a fence or wall cleared or was a ball fair or foul? -- for home runs.

The matter still must be bargained between MLB and WUA officials before replay's implementation.

"It's all premature," MLB spokesman Rich Levin told USA Today. "Nothing has been decided yet."

Might it not happen? Yep. Might it happen? Yep, too. Stay tuned.

More Sosnick, Bruce-Almighty style

With a very real fear of me sounding like a Sosnick-Cobbe shill, take a read:

Recent Jay Bruce Blog on Yardbarker.com.

Importance of agents

submitted by JayBruce on February 13, 2008

What's up everyone? Sorry I haven't been writing too often lately but I've been busy with traveling and getting down to Florida. Today, being that spring training is about to start I'm going to write a little about the importance of my agent, Matt Sosnick. Having a reliable agent means everything when it comes to taking the pressure off of yourself and just making life much easier for you during both the season and the offseason. I can call Matt about anything imaginable and he will help me out with it. A few months before the draft back in 2005, I was with the Boras agency. All that I had heard about them was great things, and seeing some of the players they had was an attraction from the start. After a while things weren't working out too well between us, for no other reason than the difference in opinions we had about certain things. The Boras corporation is great for certain people, just not for me. When I switched over to Sosnick Cobbe, I saw the immediate differences I was looking for in an agent. They treat everyone in the company like family, and they are there for anything I need. I feel very strongly about this agency and its presence in the baseball world for many years to come. You guys should check out the website and learn a little more about the agency and the players that are represented.

It's about the wood, stupid

Evidently, the splintering maple bat epidemic is due to inferior wood and wood drying techniques, not the type of wood. In other words, "it's about the wood, stupid".

Every time [Sam, the company’s founder and the father of maple bats] Holman sees a maple bat break into three or more pieces, he said, it could be a sign that the maple was not dry enough before the bat was made. Holman’s company uses a vacuum kiln designed to thoroughly dry maple and help the bats remain durable and not splinter into dangerous pieces.

What about safety for the fans? Looks like Moose has our interest at heart:

Holman said M.L.B. could address the safety concerns for fans by extending the netting from behind the plate to the ends of the dugout. That possibility is expected to be discussed.

“We’ve been saying that for 10 years,” Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina said. “We’d like the fans to be able to go home with their teeth.”

(H/T to Art Martone at the Providence Journal blog for the lead)

Quick! To the Matt phone

How do I go about explaining one of the cooler moments that I've experienced recently?

Earlier today, I received an email from someone portraying himself as "Matt Sosnick". [I know Matt Sosnick as the agent for Jay Bruce, Dontrelle Willis and up until last week, Josh Hamilton.] In the email, "Matt Sosnick" asked for my phone number so he could give me a call. Could be spam, could be one of you knuckleheads having a good prank, could be a hoax. Except in the email, there was a copied roster of players, all with hyperlinks back to Sosnick's firm's website. OK, could still be a prank (I'm a suspicious sort). I checked the website and saw that it was just that, a direct copy/paste. Super-sleuth that I am, I dug a bit into the StatCounter and saw a number of IP addresses that were coming from the same place in California. All of these addresses visited my Josh Hamilton posting from last week during the day today, right about when the email arrived. So, I sent along my cell number. And waited. Anxiously.

An hour or so later, I get a call from a California area code and it's none other than Matt Sosnick himself. The subject of Jerry Crasnick's "License To Deal". I'm giddy. I wasn't sure if he was calling to complain or calling me to discuss the situation or what.

Matt was calling to thank me for my posting and support in the face of his abrupt and baseless firing. He doesn't so much care about his public perception, like any good agent, but the rationale and timing about his dismissal clearly bothered him and his partner, Paul Cobbe. The Sosnick-Cobbe firm has a handsome list of MLB players, but is really just a smaller player in the agent business so a loss of a guy like Hamilton (and his pending commissions) hurts not just on a professional level, but a personal one, too. Maybe moreso.

As I mentioned in the posting:

I was taken aback and insulted that he'd switch his agent, one who presumably stuck with him and helped him to get this far, right as he's about to hit the lottery for himself (and his agent!). The other side of me understands, no matter how much I dislike the rationale.

Matt shared with me that Hamilton called him and told him he had a dream that "Jesus told him to switch agents". I'm not making this a religious issue, and I don't have a problem with anyone following their beliefs, but it seems awfully un-Christian-like to dump the people who have supported you through your worst times, your lowest lows. Matt had been in negotiations on Hamilton's behalf, with his obvious permission, right up until Hamilton canned him. Matt has every right to fight for any commission earned, and while I am not a lawyer, it seems that if Matt & Paul carried the negotiations to the point of signing, they should be paid the commission, not whomever Hamilton chose at 11:59.

Again, Matt could not have been nicer. The fact that he took the time to personally call me said a lot to me about him as a person, reinforcing the image crafted by Crasnick in the book. The pain he and Paul (and the rest of his team) must be feeling is still fresh and it hurts. If I could give him an "attaboy, go get 'em" pat on the back, I would have. This is a guy who cares deeply about his players, and treats them as family. While losing Hamilton hurts (see ya, multi-million dollar commission), I hope the reputation of Sosnick-Cobbe Sports grows as a result. They deserve it.

Matt, thanks for taking the time, more time than you probably expected but I appreciated it. I wish you and the rest of your team all the best. And if you are looking to staff up in NY, I know a guy....


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

UPDATE: Matt was also kind enough to grant permission for an interview at some point soon. If you have any questions you'd like me to ask him, please post them here in comments or email me.

A view inside Cuba's baseball prison

This is a doozy of an article by "Moneyball" author Michael Lewis and it's worth a read. But, print it out and read it as time permits. It's worth it.

“There’s at least half a billion dollars of baseball players in Cuba right now and probably a lot more,” says Joe Kehoskie, an agent who has represented a number of Cuban big-league players.

Gimme a break

Newflash: The New Yankee Stadium (TNYS) construction efforts are $400M short.

This infuriates me. Now, I know things cost more in NY than most other places on the planet and let's just say that construction in and around NYC isn't exactly the most, um, efficient, from a cost and timing perspective. I won't get into the whys but let's just agree that things are more difficult, expensive, time consuming, frustrating to get done/fixed/built around here. It just is. They can add new lanes to highways in San Diego in a week but it takes years to fix an on/off ramp in NYC (I'm looking at you, Willis Avenue Bridge exit off the FDR North and the Throgs Neck Bridge).

What really steams me is the fact that the Yanks are turning to the public to foot the additional cost overruns.

State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky of Westchester, whose committee investigates publicly funded projects, said that the Yankees now say that if they don't get another $400 million in public financing the club might not be able to finish the stadium.

Why so mad, you ask? Because the general public will be again asked to foot the bill yet due to the prices of the seats at TNYS, most of the general public won't be able to afford going to see the team in the stadium they helped fund. Because the Yanks operations are a cash flow machine and I think they should have to foot the bill of their overruns. Because they should be responsible for delivering a stadium on budget or they should have to cover their own mismanagement or mistakes in budgetary forecasting.

Turns out, there is an IRS ruling that prohibits the additional funding of stadiums by the public, past a certain point (if you have any insight into this, please share it with me so I can post it here to remain as accurate as I can be!):

Janel Patterson of the New York City Economic Development Corp. that is working with the Yankees said the project isn't threatened. But she said the city is working to relieve an Internal Revenue Service regulation that prohibits more public debt to be incurred for the stadium. Brodsky said that IRS change also is being sought to help stadium and arena projects for the Mets and Nets.
......
Brodsky said Seth Pinsky, president of the city's Economic Development Corp., "told me that the Yankees have said they may not complete the stadium if this issue not resolved." Brodsky, chairman of the state Assembly's committee governing public authorities and their borrowing, criticized the closed-door dealing for millions of dollars to benefit the Yankees in the face of public transit and other needs that aren't being funded fully.

Puh-lease!!!! TNYS won't be completed due to cash? Yeah right. They'll make too money NOT to have it done on time.

I've been in favor of TNYS for a while now but at some point, the digging into the public coffers for a private entity has gotta stop. Let Hankenstein and his widening kingdom foot the bill. They are the ones who will reap the benefits anyways.

Why soccer doesn't work here

Very interesting comparison done by fellow blogger and friend of the site Ron Rollins, discussing how the soccer finals being decided by penalty kicks would look if we took that same approach with MLB.

But this is why, in my semi-humble opinion, that soccer will never catch on with true American sports fans. There's no walk-off home run allowed, no 3-pointer at the buzzer, no Hail Mary with no time left on the clock. As Americans, we want more from our champions than an skills contest at the end.

Definitely worth a read.

(and that it gives me a chance to post good anti-soccer pics)