So the Phillies are letting Brett Myers walk, and you can feel pretty confident that the biggest reason he’s not sticking around is he was a giant pain in the ass during his Philly tenure.

But let’s give credit where credit is due. Myers’ parting words were classy:

“I was just like, `OK, thanks for putting up with my (stuff),’ ‘’ Myers said. “He thanked me and wished me and my family well.

“I’ll miss the guys on the team and the fans who have supported me. Hopefully I’ll be playing against the Phillies and when I do I want the roughest treatment the fans can give me – when I’m pitching. I’m an opposing player – you have to give it to me.’’

Don’t worry, Brett. We’ll boo your ass. But you saved an NLDS, so we’ll refrain from throwing any batteries.

One of the things that always piques my interest is a conversation in regards to “value”. It can be discussed in the abstract sense (leadership, personality, energy, grittitude) or more specifically (WAR, Runs Created, Runs Prevented, Ass Slaps Dished Out To Teammates).

But in my mind, whether you fall into the “pay for intangibles” camp or not, one thing we all ought to be agreeing upon is that salary matters. A guy on a rookie contract is far more valuable than a veteran making $20 million if their on-field production is equal. Having the former allows the GM to go out and spend that money on filling another need for the team.

So I hope to have several of these types of discussions throughout the early portion of the Hot Stove calendar. Today, I’m kicking things off with one guy who I think is one of the most interesting cases – Chone Figgins.

It would not surprise me to learn that the majority of baseball fans still consider Figgins to be a fairly young player. Fact is, he’s not. He didn’t get his first taste of the bigs until he was 24 and didn’t have his first full season until he was 26. By the time Spring Training comes around, Figgins will be 32 years old. For a player whose speed is often touted as the most desirable aspect of his game, this does not bode well for Chone nor anyone who signs him to a multi-year deal.

Looking at the greatest baseball website of all time, they have Bip Roberts, Patsy Tebeau, Jack Rothrock, Mookie Wilson, and Sam Mertes as Figgins’ top statistically comparable players through the age of 30. Out of those five, only Mertis was able to produce at the league average level once they hit 33 years of age and that year (1906) was still a steep dropoff from his previous levels of production.

Another aspect of Figgins’ reputation that I personally feel is overvalued is his versatility. Is there value to this? Absolutely, as long as he isn’t awful (I mean, Adam Dunn can call himself a shortstop. Doesn’t mean you want him there). It does give managers and GMs some flexibility when you know that a certain player can be moved around the diamond without much negative repercussions.

But is Figgins really that player? Or is it essentially a myth that continues to be propagated? We know that Figgins is a pretty good third baseman. Both UZR and +/- has him as above average at the position. He is also respectable at second base as well, although information is limited due to the fact that he doesn’t play second very often anymore. And as he grows older, we’ll see him there less and less. He hasn’t played SS or CF since 2006, and again, as he approaches his mid-thirties, we should expect this to continue. So at this point, he’s pretty much a 3B full time who can be a 2B in a pinch (think Mark Teahen, but, you know, good).

However, there is one aspect of Figgins’ game that does tend to age well. His plate discipline has actually been improving over these past couple of seasons. In 2007, Figgins swung at 22.3% of pitches thrown outside the stroke zone according to FanGraphs. For a guy with as little power as Figgins, this is too high. So he came back in 2008 and performed much better, to the tune of 16.5% and followed that up with a 14.9% this season, 4th lowest among all qualified hitters. This is important since not only has this resulted in a career high .395 OBP in 2009, it allows him to maintain a higher than normal BABiP (making contact with pitches out of the zone will often end poorly unless you are Vlad Guerrero).

So with all this information at our disposal, I ask – what’s the value of Chone Figgins? Since 2007, FanGraphs calculates that he has been worth a total of $50.9 million, with a high of $27.4 million in 2009 (while getting paid a paltry $5.78 million). But with Figgins finally eligible for free agency, would you pay Figgins $50 million over the next three years?

Let the discussion begin!

The Yankees are World Champions again, but it’s not the same this time. Evil Empire? I wish; at least “evil” is interesting.

Instead, what we have is the rise of the boring over the bad. Somehow, Yankeefication has become synonymous with boringification. Johnny Damon: went to the Yankees, became boring. Mark Teixeira: is boring, and thus is perfectly suited for the Yankees. Joba Chamberlain: has a mother who dealt meth. Yet somehow is boring anyway.

Even Alex Rodriguez is boring. You’d think a top slugger who dates starlets could at least manage to be mildly intriguing. And yet Kate Hudson was pretty boring to start with, and is now made even more boring by her association with A-Rod. The news that A-Rod has not one, but two, portraits of himself as a centaur? That should be, if not actually interesting, then perhaps titillating. (If you snoozed through Mythology 101, a centaur is a mythical beast that is half horse, half douchebag.) But it’s completely boring.

The Yankees aren’t even interesting in New York, where the Mets seem to have a lock on mental stimulation. The Mets may have failed spectacularly this year, but at least they failed in a way that engaged the frontal lobe. Sure, the Yankees won the World Series, but they won it dully: They essentially just scored a lot of runs. And yet, not enough runs so as to actually be remarkable.

And in fact, that’s in line with their one-note “strategy” for success over the 2009 regular season: just score a lot of runs. In the middle of the pack in pitching, defense, and baserunning, the Yankees ranked first in MLB in both on-base percentage and slugging percentage. And as the only team in MLB to score more than 900 runs this season, their games were interminably long even before Jorge Posada started making 4 trips to the mound per at-bat.

Most mind-numbing of all is the debate we’re sure to be inflicted with, post-Series, about the payroll disparity between the Yankees and the Rest. Yes, it’s pretty wearisome when a team wins just by buying the best talent available. But it will be even more tedious to rehash the same tired arguments about salary caps and payroll limits.

What would save the Yankees — and the free, baseball-loving world — from this state of ennui? A better Red Sox team in 2010. Let’s face it: the Yankees only manage to be exciting when they have a worthy foe.

Let’s hope that Theo pulls out all the stops to give the Boring Bombers a run for their (oodles and oodles of) money. Because right now, even hating the Yankees is boring.

Last week, I wrote this somewhat silly Metro column about why Red Sox fans should root for the Phillies. I was being glib and slightly facetious. But tonight, I really do think that everyone in their right mind should be rooting for the Phillies — specifically, for Pedro Martinez.

There’s nothing like a good sports redemption story, and Pedro’s tale has all the ingredients. He has crazy hair, says crazy things, has a crazy secret love child. He is winless in his last 5 playoff starts at Yankee Stadium, dating back to 2003. He once admitted that the Yankees were his “daddy.” And he’s also one of the best pitchers of all time. (Remember that time back in 2000 when he posted an ERA+ of 291?!? Well, I do.)

And yet despite his sustained dominance — three Cy Youngs, eight All-Star picks, nine seasons with 200+ strikeouts including two seasons with 300+ strikeouts — he always retains the flavor of the underdog. Maybe it’s his diminutive size. Maybe it’s the arm-hanging-by-a-thread thing that’s made it seem for 10 years like every great game might be his last. Maybe it’s because he’s come thisclose to an MVP (in 1999, denied by voters who didn’t think a pitcher should win), thisclose to a perfect game (in 1995, when, after retiring 27 batters, the game was still scoreless) and now, just maybe, thisclose to being the only pitcher to win a Cy Young and a World Series ring in both leagues. Or maybe it’s because we remember that he was just the younger, smaller brother from a poor town in the Dominican; the one who might, with luck, one day be nearly as good as Ramon.

“I’m someone who wasn’t meant to be,” he said, “And here I am on the big stage.”

Here’s hoping he gets to take a well-deserved curtain call.

For months now, everyone has been talking about how second baseman Akinori Iwamura’s $4.85 million 2010 option might be too expensive for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to pick up, especially with the explosive emergence of Ben Zobrist (your 2009 MLB leader in WAR). But all the speculation I’ve seen has focused on whether the Rays would pick up Iwamura’s option or let him walk.

Nobody mentioned the smarter move, which would be to simply trade Iwamura to a team that found his $4.85 million price tag acceptable. But of course the Rays and GM Andy Friedman were ahead of the curve on this one, and it’s clear that they have been thinking trade for several weeks now, and never even entertained the idea of letting it get to the stage of picking up the option or not.

Instead, they shipped Iwamura to the Pirates today for cost-controlled reliever Jesse Chavez. This move makes sense for both sides. The bullpen was an issue at several points last season, and the Rays were definitely in the market for an arm, so Chavez is a useful addition, especially when their only viable option with Iwamura was going to be to let him walk and get nothing. Meanwhile, the Pirates get a league-average to slightly above league average at a not-unreasonable price to serve as a one-year stopgap at second while they continue to rebuild.

Last night’s World Series contest between the Phillies and the Yankees featured five solo home runs — one apiece from Hideki Matsui, Nick Swisher, and Carlos Ruiz, and two for Jason Werth.

Is there anything in baseball more boring than a solo home run? I mean, sure, it can be pretty darn interesting in the right context, like if it’s a walk-off solo home run or something. Or if it kills a seagull mid-air. But to me, a game with five solo homers tells you a) that the pitchers are throwing strikes and generally keeping runners off the bases and b) that they’re still not really pitching well enough to make the game interesting as a pitchers duel. For these reasons, I consider that a game with five solo shots has to be one of the most boringest kinds of games to watch.

Unless you were a Yankee fan, the most interesting parts of last night’s game were a) the appeal on A-Rod’s homer in the 4th (a two-run homer, let’s note) and when Jimmy Rollins tore up the basepaths in the 2nd, stealing second off of Andy Pettitte and swiping third (he then had to go back to second after Chase Utley fouled off the pitch). That’s about it.

Yes, the game was close enough to maintain suspense until the late innings. But I hope that tonight’s game offers something a little more interesting than the sight of one ballplayer trotting around the bases…five different times.

So here’s the deal: Today the New York Post Daily News ran this gossip item and I know it’s last minute, but it’s Halloween and if nobody shows up to Citizen’s Bank Park dressed as half-A-Rod-half-horse, then we Phillies fans have dropped the ball.

Honestly, if anybody else commissioned a portrait of himself as a centaur, I’d say, “that guy is awesome. I want to have a beer with him and vote for him for president.” But we all know A-Rod has no sense of humor. So this is just kind of…weird. Still funny, but I’m pretty sure I’m laughing at him and not with him.

Last night, two Phillies players tried on new looks. Ryan Howard showed up for the game rocking the playoff beard, and Chase Utley brought back the slicked back hair.

Howard’s new look was somewhat unexpected, as he’s been hot lately and if there’s one thing Crash Davis taught us it’s that you never mess with a winning streak. Howard’s new scruff paid dividends in the first inning, when he stroked a double to right field. He added a single later on, and struck out twice.

Utley’s return to hair gel was a little less surprising, as he struggled in the NLCS, and a change was arguably in order.

I know Sarah cringes whenever Chase slicks back his locks, but I don’t mind. Granted, it’s not his best look. But when Utley globs on the gel, you know it’s business time. It’s what I like to call his Michael Corleone look. Remember how in the beginning of “The Godfather,” Pacino’s Michael is a newly discharged marine, still a little wet behind the ears and more than a little naive about the family business? That’s who this Utley, with the short hair, reminds me of. But by the end of the movie, Michael has been transformed into a cold, ruthless businessman/killer. That’s slicked-back-hair Utley. He’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse. The offer? You’re gonna throw the ball, and he’s gonna hit it out. Capiche?