As you would expect, MLB.com is no longer selling their Mets’ 2007 NL East Division Champions shirts. I assume they’re on their way to a thrift store in a far-off country where no one knows or cares.
But as compensation, they are selling some wonderful 2007 AL Wild Card paraphernalia for Yankee fans with no sense of dignity.
Celebrate mediocrity!
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November 8, 2009 - 12:25 pm
Here we go again. Time for another edition of our semi-annual “What They Need” series, where we play GM for all 30 teams. As usual, we’ll be suggesting subtle tweaks for some squads, and major overhalls for others. There’s already movement going on in the Hot Stove front, so there’s no time to waste!
Here’s a [...]
September 3, 2009 - 11:20 am
The 2003 Los Angeles Dodgers had one of the greatest pitching staffs the game of baseball has ever known. At the height of the steroids era, in a season when 104 players would test positive for performance enhancing drugs, the Dodgers hurlers posted a 3.16 ERA, good enough for an insane 128 team ERA+, and [...]
August 31, 2009 - 11:19 am
Okay, so at a time when most people are debating whether or not the Washington Nationals can even break .500 next season, this is going to sound more than a little crazy, but I think the Nats have an outside chance at contending next season.
I’m not saying it’s going to happen, but I am saying [...]
June 29, 2009 - 9:30 pm
We here at Umpbump have done quite a few all-time teams. We’ve also cataloged quite a series of Hot Baseball Wives. In this post, I will attempt the acrobatic feat of bridging the twain. Yes, reader: The All-Hot Team.
For reasons of attention span, or specifically, the lack of it, I am focusing on current major [...]
September 20th, 2007 at 2:11 am
If Tony LaRussa yanks a guy for swinging 3-0, imagine what he would have done if he was Lugo’s manager.
Probably would have had another sip from his flask.
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September 20th, 2007 at 2:22 am
Yeah, these are the kind of little things that Lugo always does which never show up in the box score.
I love Sabermetrics and all the fancy new stats it has given us, but Julio Lugo is Exhibit A for why the Baseball Prospectus approach *alone* will never be enough to totally understand the game of baseball (not that the BP people ever claimed it is).
Sometimes you just have to watch the games to fully realize that a certain player is a moron.
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September 20th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Where’s Carlton Fisk when you need him?
“Let me tell you something, you little shit. There’s a right way and a wrong way to play this game. You’re playing it the wrong way, and the rest of us don’t like it. Someday, you’re going to get this game shoved right down your throat.”
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September 20th, 2007 at 10:14 am
We need players who want to win. Lugo and Drew are guys that the front office likes becuase they are so “even” and don’t get too high or too low, blah blah blah.
All that means to me is that the Red Sox are basically paying a premium for guys who replace hustle with apathy. We are paying extra money so the players who are on our team don’t care if they win or lose.
But hey, its all about how you play the game anyway, right???
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September 20th, 2007 at 11:01 am
Panic Panic Panic, it’s everywhere!
Manny does this all the time – he’s “just being Manny” and people joke about it.
Julio Lugo does it and people are ready to throw him in the harbor. The Sox blew it last night, just like they’ve blown it for the last two months.
Don’t blame Lugo for your team’s woes. Just blame him for being a shithead and hitting his wife with a telephone.
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September 20th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Zvee, to echo Nick’s “sometimes you just have to watch the games,” the fact that Manny has these “Manny moments” does not mean that they are akin to Lugo’s screw ups, does not mean that Manny’s contribution to the team is akin to Lugo’s, and it does not follow that Manny gets a free pass.
If you follow the Red Sox at all, you know that Manny’s occasional base running mistakes to not usually include a lack of hustle down the first base line in close games, with the bases loaded, in the second half of September (in fact, “Manny Moments” are usually not about hustle and more about taking a leak inside the Red Sox outfield wall). If you follow baseball at all, you know that despite limited defensive capabilities and occasional mental gaffes, there are vast differences between Julio Lugo and Manny Ramirez. These differences are so obvious I trust I do not need to surface them here. And finally, if you have ever followed the “Manny being Manny” storyline, then you know that a) fans and press alike have in fact expressed plenty of outrage when one of Manny’s gaffes has proved costly to the club and b) said storyline has nothing to do with the fact that, this season, Julio Lugo’s only real contribution to this ballclub has been his ability to run and last night he couldn’t even do that.
Manny has nothing to do with it. Manny has been out with an injury. As I mentioned in the post, there’s plenty of blame to go around for what went wrong last night, but if there is one person you cannot blame, it’s Manny Ramirez.
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September 20th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
We can argue all day which is worse, Manny being Manny (ie., one good sneeze away from a coma), or Lugo being lazy. But the reality is the most important difference between Manny Ramirez and Julio Lugo is that Manny hits about 100 points higher.
It’s a lot easier to get away with being a space cadet when you’re pounding the crap out of the ball.
Same thing with J.D. Drew. Sure, he looks apathetic now. But if he were hitting .310, he’d look cool under pressure.
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September 20th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Lugo at least had the good grace to bounce his helmet in fury after dicking himself out of an RBI and the team out of a game-tying run. It may be a slim straw, but I will grasp at it all the same.
As for Manny, I’m not going to argue about “which is worse” because frankly, I still fail to see why Manny and Lugo should even be compared in this context.
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September 20th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Needless to say, Ward, you are of course right about the perception of “apathetic” vs “cool under pressure.”
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September 20th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Gabe Kapler wants back in! Put him at short. That man is made of heart and hustle.
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September 20th, 2007 at 10:08 pm
Yes, Zvee, your comment is a bit off the mark, methinks. Red Sox fans don’t love Manny *because* he fucks up from time to time; they love him *despite* his fuckups. The whole idea of “Manny being Manny” is more or less an explicit acknowledgement of precisely the point you just made – Red Sox fans realize that they put up with more from Manny because he is one of the best hitters of all time. But Lugo just sucks all around.
Also, I can’t agree with the idea that if J.D. Drew were hitting .310, people would say he was “cool under pressure.” Even when Drew had his career year with the Braves in 2004, hitting .305 and 31 homers, I don’t remember anyone complimenting his on-field demeanor. He was still known for his apathetic approach, such that when the Dodgers signed him that very offseason, there was much concern among LA fans and media about Drew’s reputation as an apathetic player, despite the numbers he had just put up.
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October 3rd, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Oooh…I might have to buy one of these!
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October 4th, 2007 at 11:04 am
And there wasn’t any Red Sox Wild card paraphernalia in 1998, 1999, 2003, 2004 and 2005?
You’ve been ‘#2′ a good many times more than the Yankees, thank you very much.
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October 4th, 2007 at 11:13 am
For your viewing pleasure, a shot of the Boston locker room in 2004 after they clinched the Wild Card:
http://tinyurl.com/2xmkj2
Hmmm, you’re right, that DOES look a bit over the top.
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October 4th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Pete, I can state with all honesty that I am no Red Sox fan. In fact, if someone held a gun to my head and made me pick between the Yanks and Sox to root for this postseason, I’d probably pick the Yankees. Hell, I even devoted an entire post to explaining why Curt Schilling is hate-able.
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October 4th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
Pete, you still haven’t answered the question I asked you in response to your comment under my “Cookies for Rookies” post. Who would you have picked for AL ROY?
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October 4th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
@5 IMO Delmon Young DOES qualify – at least that’s what I’ve been led to believe by every other media outlet – and I think he beats Pedroia nearly across the board.
Having seen both of them 19 times this season, I think I can make a fair assessment based on that as well.
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October 4th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
@4 – I was just using that as an example, but I think considering the events of this past September, we’d be seeing a similar scene in the Mets clubhouse had they backed into the playoffs as well.
And yes, there’d be hats too. And Mets fans would buy them.
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October 4th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
And I’d STILL be making fun of it.
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October 4th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Hindsight’s a bitch, eh?
Good luck next year! ;)
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October 4th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Ugh, another Delmon Young rooter, eh? Let’s not even talk about his whiny-little-bitch moments. Even if he were a paragon of virtue I would still think the excitement over him was a tad overinflated. Yes, he has a lot of RBI—he’s also hitting at a prime RBI-garnering spot in the lineup. He hits well enough (fourth in AVG of all rookies with enough at-bats to qualify, after Pedroia, Willits, and Tulowitzki). But that’s it. He never walks. Not a power threat. His defense is acceptable, but it’s not going to help him win any prizes. And the schmancy stats (eg, VORP) don’t favor him at all. Aside from the RBI, why do you like this guy? Because he doesn’t play for the Red Sox?
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October 4th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
>> Let’s not even talk about his whiny-little-bitch moments. >>
Oh, you mean like Pedroia when A-Rod knocked him on his keister during a DP? ;-)
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October 4th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
But Pete, why do you like him?
I mentioned the A-Rod/Pedroia thing in my rookies post. All these different comments threads are getting very intermingled and confusing!
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October 5th, 2007 at 9:58 am
>> But Pete, why do you like him? >>
I never said I ‘liked’ him. I don’t much care for ANY player that doesn’t play for my team. All I said was that IMO he deserved the award more than Pedroia, and that’s from seeing both guys play over the course of about 19 games a piece.
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October 5th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Come on, Sarah. Come on now, Pete.
BOTH your teams are equally unlikable.
But Pete, to be fair, there are 162 games in a season. Not 19. There were 143 games you missed. And when you take all 162 games into account, Delmon Young was the worst starting RFer offensively in MLB. There were 21 RFers who came to bat at least 500 times this season. Young finished dead last in OBP (which means he was most likely to make an out out of the 21) and also dead last in Slugging % – and this includes KCs Mark Teahen who somehow hit 7 HRs this year still stayed in the lineup as a RFer.
And I’m assuming that most of the time that you saw Young play this year was the 18 games TB played the Yankees. During those 18 games, Young hit .299 but had no homeruns and 7 RBIs. It’s nothing special. And in the 15 games that Pedroia played against the Yanks, he had a better batting average, better OBP, and better slugging with the same number of HRs (0) and RBIs (7). So it’s not like Young actually played better in those times you saw him.
Trust me when I say this – the last thing I want to do is further inflate the ego of Red Sox fans. But as for this year, Pedroia was a better player. I do think that when it’s all said and done that Delmon has a good shot to have the better career.
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October 5th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
Paul, both teams may be “equally unlikable” in the current context (or are you referring to their fans?) but there’s no doubt that Yankees have been unlikable for longer, giving them the edge in that dubious contest. :)
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October 5th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
>> but there’s no doubt that Yankees have been unlikable for longer, giving them the edge in that dubious contest. :) >>
‘Unlikable’ for winning 26 championships is understandable, but becoming ‘equally unlikable’ for winning but *one* in the same amount of time?
Now that’s an accomplishment! ;)
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October 5th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Just more grist for Red Sox Nation’s endlessly grinding insecurity mill! :)
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