Fuckin' ESPN...

In the midst of dealing with a hard-on the size of a house at the possibility of Manny Ramirez coming to Miami to play for the Marlins, I noticed something fishy about The World Wide Leader's reporting on the story. Early in the afternoon, the only place this rumor/story(?) was being reported was at Baseball Prospectus and, later, Sports Illustrated. Now I know we're generally pretty hard on SI in general and Jon Heyman in particular, (and by "we" I basically mean Passive Voice) but to their credit SI/Heyman had the professionalism and decency to mention BP's breaking of the story.

Jon Heyman, you are frequently a dumbass and/or unfunny, but today you're a righteous dude.

You do see where this is going, don't you?

ESPN reported the story on their website (or at least "updated" it, whatever that means) at 8:47 PM. They cited "sources" that told "Buster Olney." No mention of SI. No mention of BP. Nothing.

On behalf of BP, and I think, most of the blogosphere-- Fuck you, ESPN, you unprofessional bunch of cunts.

Bread and Butter

I'd estimate 90% of my posts are about things seen on SI.com, and there're two guys in particular. One showed his butterball face yesterday, and the other had some thoughts today. It's Jon Heyman, and I actually only have two quibbles today. One was:

A Barry bad way to go out

Not acceptable. The other was:

Josh Hamilton ... wow. That's all I'll say about that. OK, maybe one more thing: How does Justin Morneau go home with the Home Run Derby trophy if everyone knows that Hamilton outdid him by about a mile (in home-run distances)?

Even though Justin Morneau is from New Westminster and wears Canucks shirts at batting practice...yeah, it's silly. But, uh, shit gets silly when slates get wiped clean and "champions" are decided based on a tiny sample size. Where was your outrage then, Heyman? Let me have my small, British Columbian fun.

Help me out here.

Jon Heyman is doing a funny, I think. Regarding the A-Rod+Madonna thing (which is evidently consuming my life), he has this to say:

Dominating the pages of the New York tabloids is the reputed hookup of the Material Girl (Madonna) and baseball's Material Man (Alex Rodriguez). However, the latest distraction doesn't seem the be affecting the Material Man's on-field performance so far. It should be interesting to see if the MG has All-Star tickets.

No, it shouldn't be interesting. But more importantly, I'm curious about "Material Man". Heyman's evidently proud of it, because he used it twice. Is that a reference to A-Rod's big salary? Is there any other (funnier) explanation that I'm missing? I'm going to guess that there isn't, because that would be just the kind of thing I could see Heyman chuckling to himself about for many minutes after thinking of. Horrible sentence, sorry.

I tried a bunch of puns with "Heyman" and none worked

Jon Heyman thinks Mike Scioscia is the best manager in the bigs. He very well might be right; I have no idea. Heyman kinda sorta insinuates that Scioscia is the most important cog in the Angels' machine ("Scioscia is, undeniably, both the face of and the force behind the franchise"), but it's not horrible until we get:

Yet, the team truly learned how to turn the page after the arrival of Scioscia, the first to successfully preach the one-day-at-a-time cliché here. The greatest example came after the Angels followed a 16-4 Game 5 defeat in the 2002 World Series by coming back from a 5-0 seventh-inning deficit to win Game 6. They won the title the next day, and have remained a consistent winner since.

Using clichés: Leader! And explain how that's "one-day-at-a-time".

Scouts who regularly follow the team say that's false modesty, that Scioscia employs any strategy at his disposal to give the Angels an edge.

Maybe I'm being picky, but doesn't every manager do that? At the very least, shouldn't they? If they're not, then by all means this is valid. But if that's the case, maybe the article should be about the epic shortcomings of the other 29 managers. I dunno. He goes on with some talk about base-stealing, and then BAM!:

He is no Moneyball player, and scouts applaud that the Angels championship was won on speed and strategy, not waiting for the walk.

Ohhhhhh hell yes. Jon Heyman, you smooth master of the anti-Moneyball arts. You can go for months without mentioning the book, and then like some sort of ninja snake, or something, you strike in the night, while we're least suspecting it and anyway this is going nowhere.

Two things:
1) I can't believe this still needs saying, but Moneyball≠A walking manual.
2) Prove to me, Jon Heyman, that "speed and strategy" and walking are mutually exclusive things. But first, let me say: This link.

Anyway, on with the rest of today's column.

My Managerial Rankings

...
5. Lou Piniella, Cubs. Just as Leyland had his Colorado, Piniella had his Tampa. But when he has the right team, he knows how and when to go for the jugular.

This sounds awwwwwwfully close to saying, as Heyman never directly would, that most any manager can do well with a good team, and most any manager can do poorly with a bad one.

Scout's take: Jair Jurrjens

"He's the real deal. He has a plus fastball, a plus change up and plus poise. The only knock is he has a mediocre breaking ball.''

Disappointing, I must say. Three sentences, and two are sorta worthwhile. What happened to the old guy? Although I'd still argue "real deal" is hauntingly meaningless.

Fire Jon Heyman's Scout

Because he sucks:

Scout's Take On...

Yunel Escobar, Atlanta Braves: "He's solid in all phases of the game - hitting, fielding, everything. He can do everything. He doesn't have the blazing speed like Jose Reyes. He's not flashy. But he can do everything well. He doesn't try to do too much. He makes good contact, and he shows a lot of discipline at the plate. He's impressed me. He's a good all-around player.''

Notice that J-Hey has dropped the "in-depth" part. This of course gives the scout much more leeway to meander about and tell us nothing. My attempt to translate:

"He's good at everything, including the 2 things he's most commonly relied upon to do, plus everything. He can do everything. He's not insanely fast, and he's not a meaningless term. But he's good at everything. He doesn't do a meaningless thing. He's good at part of his job, and he's good at a more general part of his job. I think he's good. He's good at everything."

The only useful thing we really learn is that he's disciplined at the plate and maybe, if we're being generous, that he's not very fast. "Makes good contact" is meaningless (Frequent contact? Hits it hard when he does?) and the rest is just various restatements of "all-around good".

Seriously, I hate this guy.

Audit Jon Heyman

I think Jon Heyman and I have been in a communication-less marriage for 31 years, because every little thing he does pisses me off at this point.

So [Johnny Cueto's] gem Thursday, where the only blemish was Justin Upton's solo home run in the sixth inning, almost seemed to come out of the blue for the Reds. Though, not to the scouts who've been following him.

The pitiable, primitive Reds simply could not fathom that their #2 pitching prospect (after fellow stud-to-be Homer Bailey) could pitch a good ballgame. But those wise old scouts just nodded slowly, sagely. It had been foretold in the scriptures, after all. They knew this day would come long before Johnny Cueto's mother had met Johnny Cueto's father.

Scout's take: Cueto

(At least once a week, I'll provide a scout's in-depth look at a player.)

"His arm action is as clean and loose as you can get. When you see this guy, you think he can be a guy who goes deep into a game or [can] be a closer. He has a better arm than Homer Bailey, who was a No. 1 pick. He's legit. He's where he should be. A lot of scouts will say he's a little on the small side. But that arm is big. He has an explosiveness to his fastball that's a treat to watch.''

(What emphasis? Who's asking?)

Translation: "Good mechanics, he seems like he can be good for both long and short periods of time, he's better than a good guy, he's good, ????, some say he's small but I say he's good, his fastball is good".

When shoved through a useful information filter: good mechanics, good endurance, fast fastball.

Useful information not included: what type of pitches he throws (other than an erection-inducing fastball) and which he's relatively good at, whether he has good control, whether he's a groundball/flyball/strikeout pitcher, nebulous-but-maybe-important stuff like competitiveness.

And while I have this soapbox, what the hell does "good/big arm" mean anyway? Fast thrower? Can throw for long periods of time? Movement on pitches? Heyman, your stupid scout didn't help me much.

• Ryan Zimmerman was considered a fabulous defensive third baseman when he was drafted out of the University of Virginia in 2005, but a lack of power (he hit just five home runs in his final season there) gave some teams pause. (But as one scout pointed out, Virginia plays in a "pasture.") Zimmerman has already hit two big home runs this season for the Nats.

HOLY FUCKING SHIT HE'S ON PACE FOR 81 DINGERS!
I'm not here to say Ryan Zimmerman's not going to be awesome, but it's been 18 ABs. Why not "AJ Pierzynski's lack of not-being-an-asshole gave some teams pause. Pierzynski has already hit .529 this season for the White Sox". Because it's ridiculous? I thought so.

Brian Bannister may turn out to be a bigger loss to the Mets than Scott Kazmir.

Great work, Jon. You've identified the other half of a 2-option situation. And you've stated your position in vague enough terms that you'll look clever if it goes down, but no one will remember if it doesn't. Let me be the first to say that you may be involved in a freak broken bat incident at a Phillies game in July.

Jon Heyman is a Lazy Bitch

A few days ago, I made a "joke" concerning this Jon Heyman article thing. I specifically thought this

Troy Tulowitzki had a big spring, hitting six home runs. "He's got a swagger about him. He believes,'' one AL scout said. "He's got a lot of Jeter in him.'' It's harder to think of a better compliment.

was funny, for immature reasons. [I actually didn't notice until now that it says "harder" rather than "hard". Neither here nor there.]

Anywho, imagine my surprise when I refreshed firejoemorgan for the 114th time today to find yesterday's Jon Heyman thoughts getting Junior'd:

Tulowitzki appears determined to win the Gold Glove after losing out to Jimmy Rollins last year.

"He has a swagger about him -- like Jeter,'' one AL scout said, paying about as high a compliment as you can pay.

"Swell", thought I, "I sort of beat FJM to it!" Then I realized that no, I hadn't. The J-Hey Kid just reused his goddamn scout quote from two days before and, worse, added his own shitty "what a good compliment, fwah fwah fwah" commentary.

To sum up: Jon Heyman sucks worse than I'd imagined.

hehehe numba 2

From the same Jon Heyman article as the previous post:

• Troy Tulowitzki had a big spring, hitting six home runs. "He's got a swagger about him. He believes,'' one AL scout said. "He's got a lot of Jeter in him.'' It's harder to think of a better compliment.

Here's hoping Tulo's got a lot of Valtrex in him, too.

Prah Dikshuns Numba 2

Jon Heyman weighs in with his season predictions. To my mostly untrained eye, there appears to be about 5 heavyweights in the AL, and pretty much any 3-team combo of Detroit, Cleveland, New York and Boston would be a completely acceptable prediction to make the playoffs. Jonnie m'boy, take us away:

AL EAST
1. Red Sox
2. Yankees

Uh huh.

AL CENTRAL
1. Indians
2. Tigers

Alright.

AL WEST
1. Angels
2. Mariners

Okiedoke. Looks good. So, we've got Sox, Tribe and Lackey's Lackeys. Who's it gonna be for the Wild Card, Yanks or Tigers (you can all see where this is going, can't you?):

Wild Cards: Mariners, Rockies

You know, it may be that in six month's time, Jon Heyman'll look pretty clever, and I'll look like a dink for making fun of him. But it doesn't seem likely. Actually, I'm just going to link to everything Vegaswatch (a godlike site) has said about the Mariners recently. I'd especially like to pirate one crucial, crucial line: "their Pythag record [last year] was 79-83".

The Mariners are going to need unimaginably good fortune to win 90 games this year, and even more for the Yanks and Tigers (and, since we're jaunting through Fantasyland, Toronto and Tampa Bay) to not reach 90. I'm sorry, that was a really awkward sentence. But don't let that distract you: bad prediction.

Now I feel like I gotta pull my weight...

Quick-- name three or four players the Yankees are really glad didn't retire before spring training in 2007. Did you name Johnny Damon? Congratulations! You are:

a) Retarded and/or
b) Jon Heyman

When Johnny Damon walked out of spring training early last year, he thought he was walking away from the game, SI.com has learned. The Yankees explained Damon's absence early last spring as "personal reasons,'' and there was a lot of wrong speculation about something or other happening with Damon's family that would necessitate the time off.

The reality is, according to Yankees clubhouse sources, Damon just wasn't sure if he wanted to keep playing and was actually seriously considering walking away from the final three years of his $52-million, four-year contract. Nobody does that, but Damon almost did.

"I was just exhausted .... Burnt out,'' Damon told SI.com Tuesday. "[Retirement] definitely crossed my mind.''

After a few days, Damon decided to return. "I knew these guys needed me,'' Damon said with a smile. How true that was.

Yeah, because that's not at all self-serving. I'm guessing the Yankees would rather have that money come off the books. As the good folks over at AtHomePlate point out, Johnny Damon, has pretty much zero value when he's not playing centerfield, where he played all of 48 games last year and had an OPS+ of 97. But hey Heyman, Johnny just knew these guys needed him. Certainly, more than that asshole, Rodriguez. Man, what a dickhead he is.