You gotta feel for the guy.

Today, it was announced that the San Diego Padres released center fielder Jim Edmonds. The team had stumbled out of the gate in 2008 to a thus-far-disappointing 12-23 record and felt that they needed to make a change.

Prior to the season, we had speculated that Edmonds would be a “boom-or-bust” addition to the Pads, and clearly, the organization already labeled him the latter. Edmonds was batting an abysmal .178/.265/.233 line prior to today. Admittedly, I am yet to see a San Diego game this year, but the article (linked above) mentions how it wasn’t just poor offense that did him in:

While Edmonds once made spectacular catches while with the Cardinals and Angels, he clearly lost a step or two and simply couldn’t catch up to fly balls.

Again, not having seen Edmonds play, it’s difficult for me to comment much on this, except to say that I’m sure his decline on defense is made far more visible by the very spacious outfield at Petco Park.

For those of you now wondering if your team should sign Jim, there are things to note:

PRO: Edmonds has a .227 BABiP this year, which is well below his career norm (more in the .300 area). So there’s room for improvement.
CON: His BABiP has been decreasing annually since 2004, so it might not be much of a fluke.
PRO: His line-drive rate is as good, if not better than, his prime, so when he makes contact, it’s been solid a good portion of the time.
CON: He’s also making contact on fewer occasions. His strikeout rate is at 23.3%, which is higher than his career norm. And he always was very strike-out prone to begin with. Combine this with a BABiP trending down, and it’s a big warning sign.
PRO: But he’s back to seeing 4.2 pitchers per plate appearance! The old, more patient Jim is back!
CON: Despite this, he’s still not walking as often as he used to. Besides, when you’re batting .178, it doesn’t matter much anyway. You’re still an offensive liability.
PRO: But the glove! THE GLOVE! In a smaller outfield, he can still be a good defensive player, right?
CON: Probably not. At least not in center field. Even last year, playing in Busch Stadium which has much less space in center towards the corners, it was becoming clear that those Gold Gloves were a thing of the past.

So is this it for Jim? Knowing what I mentioned above, would you still take a chance on him?

Yesterday, the Pittsburgh Pirates continued their attempts to wash themselves clean of former GM Dave Littlefield’s reign of terror by releasing pitcher Matt Morris, who the Bucs acquired in early August last season in a trade with the San Francisco Giants. A month after the deal, Littlefield was fired. And now Morris follows suit.

We here at UmpBump mocked the deal for many reasons, including (but not limited to):

1. The Pirates were on the hook for a prorated portion of Morris’ 2007 salary of $9.5M PLUS his 2008 salary of an additional $9.5M. Littlefield pulled the trigger without having San Francisco assume any financial obligations.
2. It actually made Brian Sabean look like a decent General Manager, when the vast majority of the Giants GM’s moves show otherwise.
3. Pittsburgh was going nowhere in 2007. No one - especially not Matt Morris - was going to change that.
4. The deal absolutely reeked of a GM in panic mode. Littlefield was trying desperately to save his own job and didn’t care about the organization’s future in the slightest.

So it really came as no surprise that Morris bombed in Pittsburgh. He made 16 starts for the Bucs, during which he compiled a 3-8 record to go along with a 7.04 ERA. I kind of feel badly for Morris since he’s kind of a victim of circumstance. But then I remember that he’ll still receive his paycheck until the end of the year. So, he’s OK. Pirates fans? Not so sure I can say the same for them. They have a genuine right to be pissed.

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.
- Agent K

I admit it completely. I am not a guy that the average baseball fan would enjoy bringing to a ball game:

1. I will not do the wave. In fact, I was at the Mets-Braves game on Saturday and seriously questioned the logic of the guys in the right field Mezzanine seats at Shea trying to start the wave. In the ninth inning. Of a one run game. Do you guys have any interest in the outcome of the inning at all???
2. I won’t get drunk at a game. Beers are too expensive, and when my choices are Bud, Bud Light, and Bud Select, I will most likely choose “none of the above”. Besides, there’s a game going on. Focus, people.
3. I do not jump up and down at the sight of the Pepsi Party Patrol shooting t-shirts out of a cannon. Nor do I understand people who are sitting all the way in the back of the sections who do so. I mean, do you understand at all that there’s no way in hell that a t-shirt is coming your way? It’s not a matter of being vocal. It’s just physically impossible. Plus the t-shirts are crap.
4. I refuse to boo. It’s a worthless exercise.

I can go on and on regarding why I’m no fun at a baseball game. But it’s that fourth reason that I want to address right now.

A lot of Mets fans spent all winter fuming. We basically had six months to stew over “the collapse”. When April rolled around, the general fanbase was out for blood. The team had let us down in September. The manager and coaches had let us down. The front office executives let us down. And the fans wanted to let them know it. So what have Met fans done consistently in April?

They booed. A lot. They even booed Johan Santana, who had the audacity to allow five runs in one game. I’m serious. These people are nuts.

But the guy who has taken the brunt of it has been Carlos Delgado. Prior to last night’s game, the Mets first baseman had the line of .186/.276/.256. That’s not a typo. Carlos Delgado was slugging .256. And the fans booed him after every out he made at the plate.

This changed yesterday afternoon, when Delgado cranked two homeruns against the Braves in the Mets 6-3 win. Following his second round-tripper, the fans stood up and cheered loudly, begging Delgado to give them a curtain call.

But Delgado would not come out. He celebrated in the dugout, taking high-fives from teammates with a grin on his face. But he ignored the fans’ request (and then, they predictably booed him). And I didn’t blame him one bit.

I’m not sure when it came to pass that the fans started feeling entitled to things. We’re entitled to a team that contends each and every year. We’re entitled to an owner who’s willing to spend every dollar to make that happen. We’re entitled to a team that not only excels on the field, but also shows fire. When we don’t get these things (at least here in NY), the fans become upset. And I don’t know why. Maybe it comes down to ticket prices. We’re paying more and more each year and as a result of paying that price, maybe we expect too much.

But the fact remains that booing a player is not going to get him “untracked“. It only creates resentment. It only makes New York less appealing. The players are not our monkeys. They’re not going to, nor should they, oblige to our every whim. So why should Delgado care as to what we think? When we didn’t show any signs of support when he was down, why should he appreciate any level of goodwill that we may show? It’s incredibly condescending to expect otherwise.

The part that really bothers me is the mob mentality. If these fans met Delgado one-on-one, I’d bet that each person would gushing at the chance to meet a real Met. But because the baseball writers and bloggers have nothing else to write about, all the fans hear is how underachieving and lackluster this team is. Hence, the booing. Individually, we’re genuine human beings. Together, we turn into jackasses.

So what does Carlos Delgado owe us Mets fans? Nothing he doesn’t owe himself. We treated him like crap and we’re surprised when he doesn’t beg for our approval? Please. You reap what you sow.

NOTE: The one thing I can’t help doing at a game is air drumming to “Enter Sandman” when Billy Wagner comes out. It’s early Metallica. The apex of rockitude. I will not sit idly by. Thank you.

As if this whole Roger Clemens-Mitchell Report fiasco couldn’t get any weirder, it’s being reported in the NY Daily News this morning that not only was Clemens cheating on his wife for ten years starting in the early 1990s, he was actually carrying on the affair with singer Mindy McCready… beginning when she was 15 years old.

This is going to get downright awkward.

Of course, for his part, Clemens is denying that the relationship between he and McCready was ever sexual. His lawyer, Rusty Hardin, has said:

“(Clemens) flatly denies having had any kind of an inappropriate relationship with her… He’s considered her a close family friend… He has never had a sexual relationship with her.”

Right. It’s totally normal for a (then) 28-year old man to start hanging out with a fifteen year-old girl. Like it was totally normal when Lester Burnham did it. And that turned out well.

Here are some details as best I can gather:

1. He first picked her up in a Fort Myers karaoke bar after hearing her sing. What the hell is a fifteen year old doing in a bar anyway?
2. Clemens used to take her on road trips during his time with the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees and Astros. I’m sure it was completely innocent. She’s just a family friend.
3. McCready used to received FedEx boxes filled with cash, courtesy of Mr. Clemens.
4. They “partied” with Michael Jordan and Monica Lewinsky. I’m not sure why this part is news.

But of course, this accusation is going to spill over into the courtroom on a totally unrelated issue. The legal fisticuffs going on between Clemens and Brian McNamee will surely bring about more on this. For one, the Clemens defense team had been trying to portray the Rocket as the ultimate family man - one who would never put his family in harm’s way by tarnishing his own reputation by using performance-enhancing drugs. Now that argument becomes very difficult to back up.

Moreover, believe it or not, Jose Canseco’s credibility (who’d a thunk it?) comes into question as well. The soon-to-be action star has been in Clemens’ corner throughout this whole issue. Although Canseco had outed several players as steroid-users in Juiced, Clemens wasn’t one of them (although he does say that the two had discussed the topic). More recently, Canseco has come out and denied that Clemens attended “the party” at his home back in 1998, one that has become a major crux in the legal proceedings. But in Juiced, Canseco wrote of Clemens:

Here’s something you probably don’t know about Roger Clemens: He’s one of the very few baseball players I know who never cheated on his wife. I was amazed by him, to be honest. His wife should be very proud of him…

I went out with him a bunch of times when there were beautiful women around, and he had a lot of opportunities and never took them. I was with him enough times to realize: This man never cheated on his wife. He was one of the rarities, the anomalies, in baseball. I can hardly think of anyone else who never cheated on his wife.

For those of you who dislike Clemens and Canseco, Happy Birthday.

Earlier this week, I had expressed some concern over the lack of information regarding Parker, the mascot of the Fresno Grizzlies, who had threatened to not come down from the top of Fresno’s tallest building unless the seats were packed for Opening Day.

Today, I learned that Parker’s threat may have actually worked.

I found the mascot’s blog (yes, he has a blog) and saw that not only did he participate in the Opening Day festivities (he’s off the ledge!), but also that the Grizzlies did pack over 13,000 (or so Parker claims) fans. Just to make sure, I looked up the info on Chukchansi Park and learned that it has a seating capacity of 12,500. So unless Parker is the biggest liar since Neil Armstrong (you did nothing of consequence, sir), it was a standing room only event. During which he wore ladies’ clothes. 

So please be assured. Parker is alive. And he’s not crazy in the least. He just likes wearing women’s clothes from time to time.

It’s never really fair to expect Cy Young winners to repeat their performances in the upcoming year. Yes, from time to time, they succeed in doing so. But more often than not, there is a bit of a regression because that’s just how baseball works. No matter how good you are, there’s just only so much that you can control. What broke your way one season might not the next. It’s a cruel way of looking at the game, but just like any other sport, there’s just a limit to how good anyone can be on a consistent basis.

With that said, something appears to be wrong with C.C. Sabathia.  It’s not something that’s appearing on the radar gun since, by all accounts, he’s still in his normal mid-90s on fastballs. It’s not something that can be explained away by a diminished strikeout rate because while it is a bit lower than the past couple of years, it’s not out of the norm, especially considering we only have four 2008 starts with which to work. And looking at ESPN.com’s numbers, Sabathia is getting hitters to two strikes as often as he usually does. It’s just that a fewer number of guys are getting to strike three. My bet is that sooner or later, that will correct itself.

But there are some statistical data that ought to raise some eyebrows. On this chart (left), we have some information on Sabathia’s performance over the past three seasons.  Sure, nearly everything there in 2008 looks ugly. But his walks per nine in particular is a cause for concern. Seven walks per nine innings pitched isn’t going to win you many ball games. In 2007, Sabathia walked an amazingly low 37 hitters over 241 innings. He’s up to 14 walks already in 18 innings. You’d have go all the way back to August of 2005 to find a four-game stretch where Sabathia had allowed so many free passes.

Then there’s that homeruns per nine. In ‘06 and ‘07, he posted good numbers here as well, but not so much this year. I usually wouldn’t advocate putting too much stock into this so early in the season. We’re only talking about five dingers here. Ordinarily, it wouldn’t be much of a concern since these things do happen. But it is worth mentioning how badly C.C.’s been tagged over these past four starts. And it’s BAD.

So this chart (left) makes sense. The increase in BABiP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) obviously is directly correlated to the batting average. All those walks we just talked about is a big reason why almost 1/2 the guys that Sabathia has faced this year is getting on base.

But aside from that? The stats look like he’s been throwing batting practice. He’s inducing far fewer groundballs than usual, and the line drive percentage shows that he’s getting tattooed, which helps explain the high BABiP as well (that, and suspect defense).

By the way, I don’t mean this to sound like a complaint, but I really want this pitch f/x data to be tabulated and available quicker.  I know it’s an incredibly tedious process and very few people are dedicated enough to do these kinds of things. But I want more information on C.C.’s 2008 than what’s currently available!!! Thank you.

There are two popular explanations here: 1) he’s a free agent at the end of the year and it’s messing with his head, and 2) including the playoffs, he pitched over 256 innings last year and his arm is shot. But I’m not convinced entirely by either argument. For one, Sabathia’s going to get paid no matter what. If this continues, it probably won’t compete with Johan Santana’s deal, but longterm security is still in his future. Maybe it’s because my head can’t wrap around the difference between $70 million and $100 million, but C.C. was reportedly offered something around $70 million for four additional years just a few months ago, and that’s going to buy you some very nice things. As far as last year’s innings totals are concerned, if his arm was indeed shot, then why no drop in velocity (if that is indeed true. Again, pitch f/x would have been useful here. Still not complaining though.)?

Sabathia sounds like he doesn’t know what’s going on either.

“It’s not mechanical. My velocity is fine. I just can’t command both sides of the plate.”

If it’s true that he can’t command both sides of the plate, then isn’t it mechanical?

Simply put, there’s no really obvious explanation here that makes much sense to me.  If I had to guess, despite the fact that he is currently destroying my fantasy season thus far, it is a mechanical problem and those can be righted. So I expect him to be OK soon. But the team should really do their due diligence and ask him to get a physical exam. Guys with his build don’t tend to last very long as elite pitchers.

I’m worried.

I’m worried because I’ve heard rumors of a suicidal* bear. I’m worried because I’m in New York while this particular grizzly lives in Fresno, California so I can’t see for myself what’s going on. But here’s what I know.

Last Monday, the front office executives of the San Francisco Giants AAA-affiliate, the Fresno Grizzlies, received a note. It appeared that just a few short days before the Grizzlies were to host their first home game of the season, their mascot, Parker, went ballistic.

For some reason that’s yet to be fully explained, Parker decided to fortress himself off atop Fresno’s tallest building. His demands were simple.

Pack the house on Opening Day or else. Or something a little less threatening.

Again, I don’t live anywhere near Fresno, so I’ve been relying on the internets to send me information on the status of Parker and his mental well-being. Thus far? Silence.

I’ve been checking Fresno’s game reports every day for the past few days, but not a mention of the attendance at the games nor Parker’s current whereabouts. I can only assume that the lack of information means that Parker’s desperate plea went unheeded, and the crowds did not arrive. Which means that Parker must still be on top of that building. For the eighth day in a row.

Oh the humanity.

So to the front office executives of the Fresno Grizzlies, please let me know what’s happening to Parker. Is someone feeding him? Does he have any books to read? Has he given up yet and thus begun making less difficult demands like asking for tickets to a Jimmy Buffett concert?

I need to know. Thank you.

*Despite the fact that the press release corresponding to this never states that Parker is suicidal, let’s read between the lines, people. This is a bear looking to off himself.

Any respectable kid growing up in the late 1980s knew how to hold his/her own while playing RBI Baseball on Nintendo. This 8-bit game featured players that not only looked exactly alike but also waddled around in the same manner like there was a horrendous hemorrhoid epidemic. It also had the kind of music that came to define Nintendo games - you know, tunes that actually only last 12 seconds but are played on loop no matter what’s going on on screen. It was also known as the game where you could never, ever lose to the computer, as properly demonstrated by this YouTube clip:

Since the computer is an idiot, if you want a challenge playing this game, you need to face real live people. You need… a tournament.

Good thing there is one.

The Fifth Official RBI Baseball Championship of the Universe Tournament (COTUT) will be taking place on June 21-22, 2008 at the most regal of locations, the Best Western in Des Plaines, IL. But of course, you’re not there for their wonderful amenities like AM/FM clocks or “direct dial telephones”. You’re there for blood.

It’s going to be a 32-person tournament and as of this writing, there are 13 more spots left! If any of you are cavalier enough to enter the gauntlet*, registration info can be found here. And may the spirit guide you to victory.

*Actually, if any of you do register, let us know! Would love to hear how this things works.

About a year ago, I wrote a post here on UmpBump to express my utter dismay at how my Mets had begun playing Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” during the 8th inning at Shea. For one, I never, ever want to copy the Boston Red Sox (aside from that whole “winning championships” thing. That would be kind of cool). Secondly, it’s an incredibly annoying song that’s exacerbated by the choreographed movements (it ain’t dancing, people) of the audience.

On the other hand, I love the practice of Rickrolling. For those who are still unfamiliar with this wonderful phenomenon, it’s essentially a prank involving cultural icon Rick Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up”, a tune that just gets sexier by the day. In fact, I currently have it as the #3 sexiest song of all time, preceded only by Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses at Night” and Billy Ocean’s “Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car”.

So you can imagine how elated I was when I learned a few days ago that the people over at Fark.com were going to Rickroll the New York Mets, who was conducting an online poll as to what song the fans wanted to hear this year during the 8th inning.

Replace Neil Diamond with Rick Astley? It’s too good to be true!!!It’s like Black Sabbath replacing Tony Martin with Ronny James Dio!

Well, the votes were tabulated and the results were announced yesterday. And it was too good to be true, like Tony Martin coming back to replace Ronny James Dio (I’ll stop this horrible analogy now).  Despite “Never Gonna Give You Up” winning the online voting with over 5 million votes, the Mets have changed the rules of the game. Instead of giving me a song that will make me giggle uncontrollably every time I’m at Shea this year, they’ve decided to have a run-off. Why? Because the majority of the votes didn’t come from Mets fans, but rather, from people with an actual sense of humor. As MetsBlog.com explains:

Instead of declaring Astley the winner, the team will hold a live, run-off vote.

Tomorrow, during the eighth inning, they’ll play Never Gonna Give You Up, followed by Living on a Prayer on Wednesday, I’m a Believer on Thursday, Movin’ Out on Friday, Sweet Caroline on Saturday and Build Me Up Buttercup on Sunday.

What? Those are my choices? If I don’t get Rick, I’m left with 1) a Bon Jovi song that’s overplayed and abused at karaoke bars across the world, 2) a song that was written by Neil Diamond and performed by a fake television band that initially didn’t even sing or play their own music, 3) a Billy Joel song that’s actually about how pathetically pretentious it is for people to try and pass their lifestyles off as being better than it actually is, 4) the song that I wanted to be replaced from the get-go, and 5) a song that was forever ruined by Ben Stiller.

And you want to know what the kicker is? I’m going to be at Shea this Saturday where I will have to listen to, you guessed it, “Sweet Caroline”.

I think Neil Diamond’s ghost is haunting me. What? He’s not dead? Huh. Fooled me.