I’m saying that given the way the players are picked and the game is played, it’s stupid to try to make it count. It’s typical Bud Selig, I guess: the 2002 tie was embarrassing, so MLB made up a solution that created a different problem without solving anything. That’s separate from the discussion of whether Wainwright was serious or kidding and whether he did anything wrong considering the way Jeter is hitting this year. For that matter if the All-Star managers were playing purely to win, Jeter wouldn’t have been leading off.
Exactly.
Wainwright’s biggest sin was verbalizing what everyone knows: that the All-Star Game is a piece of fluff, a thinly-disguised exhibition. The fact that this amusing circus actually has consequences for the real playoffs doesn’t change that.
I don’t think it should count either, but we are stuck with the fact that it does. Since it does, I would prefer that the players treat it like a game that counts and play to win.
As far as what Wainwright did, I get why he did it. I don’t get why he felt a need to announce it to the world. Considering Jeter’s integrity and love for the game, I doubt he would appreciate the charity, even though he would never say so. No true competitor wants to succeed because the opponent took it easy on them.
Then again, Wainwright sucked tonight anyway. If he doesn’t give up those three runs, there’s a pretty good chance the National League wins the game.
There was a similar controversy in Cal Ripken, Jr.'s last All Star Game. He hit the first pitch he saw for a home run, and people suspected Chan Ho Park had deliberately grooved it. At least Park wasn’t dumb enough to say he had done it.
It’s amazing that Wainwright would say such a thing - if his goal was to ensure that Jeter got a hit in his last ASG, he cheapened the result by admitting it, and drew the ire of everyone who cares the least bit about MLB. He backpedaled when Erin Andrews asked him about it, but I’d guess most people think he really did it. Nice way to piss everyone off and taint the game.
Maybe they should give Wainwright an IQ test along with his next PED test.
Apparently not.
I don’t blame Wainwright for grooving it to Jeter, and it really wouldn’t matter if he could have gotten the rest of the batters out. It’s an exhibition game, after all. I wish he would have kept quiet about it, but not a big deal.
My first impression when Jeter first was on camera- WTF is up with that cap? Then we see the other players- oh I get it, they have special caps for the game. Don’t like it. Part of the fun of the game for me has been to see the uniforms of the teams we don’t see much of, this kind of spoiled it.
Once again, FOX decides that American sensibilities don’t allow them to see and hear the Canadian national anthem. Too bad, it’s a lovely song. One gets the impression that if they got the Olympics, they’d pixellate the names of other nations from their uniforms.
Once again, FOX decides that its announcer is the only one capable of doing the player introductions over the PA. I wish they’d cut that out, it used to be nice to hear what other PA announcers sound like.
One good note- no Tim McCarver. God I don’t miss his whiny pukey voice.
Impression on seeing the Selig interview- those animatronics are getting pretty good. He was pretty lifelike- except he always looks like he’s suppressing a shit when he talks.
I didn’t watch the ASG because I thought the Nats were treated shabbily. As it was approaching, I actually told myself that I’ll make good use of this break from the season, but by Monday night of this week I was in deep withdrawal and ended up watching Knuckleball on Netflix. Tonight’s gonna be rough, maybe watch some of Ken Burns’ series.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the only thing my DBacks are good for this season; helping other teams’ players set records or “firsts”. Come on-the* pitche*r hit a grand slam?
I agree. And it’s Joe Buck. If you watch any normal game he announces, he almost never takes the St. Louis Cardinal dick out of his mouth. I have never heard anyone fellate a player or team as much as he does, and that includes John Madden/Bret Favre.
Regarding Jeter, I like him well enough as a person, and while he’s a great hitter, he’s not really all that great a defender (I know stats don’t seem to support my allegation, but his range has never really been all that great). He’s made up for that by playing smart. The relay he made against Oakland several years ago is an example. But, since he plays for the Yankees, he’s the second-coming.
It may be too late now, but ESPN classic has been showing episodes of the vintage TV show Home Run Derby. If you’ve never seen it, check it out if you can. “Vintage” players in their prime, competing for real money.
Huh?
The stats absolutely DO support your allegation. It’s generally the anti-stat brigade that persists with the claim that Jeter has been a great defensive shortstop. The reason that so many people call Jeter a good defensive player is that they remember the occasional balletic leap-and-pirouette-and-throw, or his gutsy dive into the stands, or “the flip” to get Jeremy Giambi at the plate in the 2001 ALDS.
All those things are great, but Jeter has been a below-average fielder for basically his whole career. According to Baseball Reference, he has not only been below MLB average; he has been worse than MLB replacement level in the field for 17 out of his 20 seasons. According to Baseball Prospectus, he’s never had a season with FRAA (Fielding Runs Above Average) in the positive numbers, and for much of his career he was costing the Yankees between 15 and 25 runs a season with the glove.
Of course, as with all other comments about MLB players, we have to remember context. The fact that he’s abelow-average MLB defensive shortstop simply means that he’s not quite as good as the best 10 or 20 defensive shortstops in the world. And none of that means he hasn’t been a great player and, as i said earlier, a lock for the Hall of Fame. He had some truly great seasons with the bat, he was a team leader who won a bunch of World Series rings, and from 1996 through 2012 he averaged 152 games a year.
No argument, mhendo, though I was mistakenly thinking that the sabremetrics went the other way regarding his defense. I DO wonder if someone will vote against him for the HoF. They’ve never elected anyone unanimously.
Of course they will. Much better players than Jeter have failed to get in unanimously.
I don’t think there has ever been a unanimous selection.
And Jeter won’t be the first.
mhendo, you’re misunderstanding what you’re being told if you dismiss it as being from the “anti-stat brigade”. A more accurate term would be the “Keep a perspective brigade”, thanks.
The great plays at critical times that you mentioned yourself are central to his legacy, even if you might prefer to edit them out as statistical outliers. He really did come through and make his team win when it mattered most, and that’s why he’s considered one of the greatest players of his time. Regular-season numbers? Tell us about October, please.
You’re funny. In a “laughing at you and not with you” kind of way.
Again, for the umpteenth time, you demonstrate your fundamental misunderstanding of statistics.
No-one “edits out” Jeter’s good plays. What they do, in their statistical analysis, is consider ALL of his plays, both mundane and magnificent, amazing and average and awful.
Please point me to the place where i have ever denied this. Hell, in the very post you are responding to i refer to his big-time plays as “great,” and earlier in this thread i called him “a star” and “a great player and a probable first-ballot Hall-of-Famer.” I know that you love to demonstrate your Joe Morgan-ness when it comes to ignorance about what Sabermterics is, and what it does, but when you actively and intentionally misrepresent my position, you just embarrass yourself.
Yeah, regular-season games only comprise about 96 percent of Jeter’s playing career. What can they really tell us about his performance anyway? :rolleyes:
One would be wrong.
It’s Bumgarner’s second slam of the season
Can someone explain to me why the Yankees’ farm system is so barren? This isn’t the 1980s when they made a maddening habit of trading away prospects for aging, suspect “name” players. Their farm system produced some great players in the 90s, but it’s been awful the past 10-15 years. Is it just their philosophy to say they’ll go out and get free agents and screw the whole “building from within” concept? Or are they bereft of any decent talent scouts? I’m looking at Keith Law’s Top 50 prospects list and they 1 player on it (#46.) You’d think there’d be at least one person with influence in the front office who remembers how Gene Michael built the team that won 4 WS in the 90s.
I’ll be interested to see if his experience in the ASG will affect Puig in any obvious way. Either he’ll come out like a tiger for the second half, or be all screwed up, or have a similar second half to his first, and he’s such an enigma to me that I don’t have a prediction.