I can't even think of a clever mocking headline

For this truly absurd article. Let the title wash over you.

It’s Time for the Cardinals to Trade Pujols

Now you, being an intelligent (see: brain having) person would say, "Mr. Jensen, why in holy Hell would the Cardinals trade the best fucking hitter on the planet?"

My answer: They wouldn't because they are not morons.

I love boldness. I loved the Angels trade for Mark Teixeira (.383/.472/.617 in 16 games). I loved the Manny Ramirez trade for both the Red Sox and the Dodgers (for whom Ramirez has delivered .424/.514/.780 in 16 games).

Yup, those trades were pretty cool.

I hate apathy. I hate the fact that the Twins again doomed themselves to missing the playoffs or exiting quickly because they didn’t upgrade.

That link is to an article Mr. Jensen wrote about how the Twins - who lead the AL Central as of writing - don't care about winning because they don't have like five Series rings.

The Twins payroll is like a haypenny and they make the playoffs regularly despite having a large roster turnover and being in a small market. They didn't win the World Series? Not-trying pieces of shit.

I hate that the Rays didn’t seize the moment by trading for someone other than Chad Bradford. No, they couldn’t have foreseen that Carl Crawford, Troy Percival and Evan Longoria would all go down right around the same time. But they should have had the foresight to know they were operating near 100% utilization for 115 games and that they couldn’t keep it up.

Again: Small market = not making dumb trades because you can't eat them like the Sawx and the Yanks.

And, yes, boldness doesn’t always mean success. The Dodgers boldly signed Andruw Jones (an OPS+ of 34!). The Reds boldly spent a ton of money on Francisco Cordero (decent year with a 3.90 ERA and 23 saves, but the Reds are 55-70. But at least the Dodgers and Reds were trying, and that needs to be respected.

Boldness >>>>> Winning.

So where am I going with this? The Cardinals need to trade Albert Pujols, that’s where. It’s a bold, bold move – and it’s what the Cardinals need to do if their goal is to win a World Series in the next five years.

Replace "bold" with "fucking idiotic" and I totally agree.

The Cardinals have a good team. They’re 70-57. That’s good enough to lead the National League East or West, but in the newly elite National League Central it’s good for third, behind Chicago and Milwaukee. They’re two games behind Milwaukee for the Wild Card.

Too good to re-tool, you say? You’re wrong. St. Louis faces certain early elimination in the playoffs, and it’s doubtful they’ll make it. Here’s why – it’ the starting pitching. Here are the Cardinals post-season options:

Scott Jensen has a crystal ball with which he knows exactly what will happen in a three round crap shoot of baseball playing.

The playoffs are pretty silly. The first round is best three of five - fluketacular. And the next two are best of seven - slightly less random, but where the non-best team can still win.

And nobody thought the Cardinals were going to be good, especially with the billion injuries they have. So they're kind of happy to be where they are, I think.

So what we have here is a) rag-tag crew of so-so pitchers (Lohse, Looper, Wellemeyer and Pineiro) who don’t strike anyone out and will fail in the playoffs

Crystal ball...

and two injured frontline pitchers (Wainwright and Carpenter).

Who will be back next year and probably good.

The Cardinals have a load of minor league pitching talent ... but most of them are very young – one to three years away from contributing at the Major League level and it’s unknown whether any of them (or Wainwright) will be an ace.

I guess his crystal ball doesn't translate to which minor leaguer will be an ace.

No one knows who will be an ace, ever. They only guess. And one to three years away and Pujols will be a crusty 29-32 years of age. Dear God! Get that man a walker!

So let’s trade Pujols and see what happens.

I like to think this is how every trade goes down. Fuck thinking.

That leaves us with the Red Sox.

Jensen is from the New England area. Do with that fact what you will.

They have the money. They have the talent. And they have a history of being bold (signing Daisuke Matsuzaka, trading away Manny Ramirez). Here’s the trade:

St. Louis trades

• 1B Albert Pujols
• RP Russ Springer

to the Boston Red Sox for

• 1B Kevin Youkilis
• SP Josh Beckett
• RP Jonathan Papelbon

This is, as the kids say, reDONKulous. Youk is a fine player, Paps is a pretty great closer and Beckett is a solid starter. But Pujols is far and away the BEST HITTER PLAYING BASEBALL.

He's 28. Actually younger than Youkilis.
He has one MVP, should have another, and has only finished lower than fourth (ninth) once in seven seasons, soon to be eight.
His career on base in .424 with a .620 slugging - that's a 1.044 OPS, which is elite.
He has 308 homers in eight seasons, good for 41/162 games.
He's God.

The Cardinals trade one of the best hitters in the game’s history.

Re-read that.

Once more.

Got it? OK. You may now stop reading.

They get an ace pitcher and post-season performer in Beckett. They get an elite closer in Papelbon. And they get a premium first baseman in Kevin Youkilis.

I think Jensen's Sox fandom is starting to show here. Beckett has a career 115 ERA+ meaning he is a slightly above average MLB pitcher.

Sheets (115), Zito (116), Carpenter (112), Garcia (111), Burnett (110) and Schmidt (110) all have similar ERA pluses. Aces.

"Premium" - of exceptional quality or greater value than others of its kind. Youkilis - career OPS of 118. Others: Millar (114), Huff (116), Konerko (115), Chavez (117). Exact opposite of premium.

Someone else fits the discription of premium other than Youkilis but I can't think who...

And they improve their chances of making and advancing in the playoffs over the next five years.

The Cardinals trade one of the best hitters in the game’s history.

I honestly cannot think of more than a handful of players as untouchable as Pujols. Trading him for parts - however good they may be - is foolish. Beyond foolish. Even those cordial Cards fans would riot in the streets if this happened.

It would be a bold trade for both teams. The Red Sox would be giving up three important pieces of their core. The Cardinals would be giving up one of the game’s best ever hitters. But both teams would be better,

Dubious. In fact, the Cards would almost certainly be worse. Not having the best hitter in the game today will do that.

White Sox use voodoo magick (home runs, good pitching) to win games

"They just aren't clicking" is one my (least) favorite sports writer cliches. It's use comes from this thought process:

*writer's brain*
"I can't think of any reason why this team/player isn't doing well. They have all the talent in the world and should be better, but I don't feel like looking up stats or coming up with a real answer so I'll just write 'they just aren't clicking.' Beautiful."

The White Sox, apparently, just aren't clicking.

THE UNLIKELY WINNING WHITE SOX

Have...
one of the top five MVP candidates in Carlos Quentin
the third best run diff in baseball at +80
the AL's third best OPS at .786
174 homers, first in all of baseball
70 quality starts, second in the AL
a 1.30 WHIP, third in the AL

That + rest of your division playing like poop = first place. Not that difficult.

I mean, really, the Sox? The Sox are good enough to be in first place -- evidently -- but nothing about this team screams "division winner," let alone "World Series."

The Twins, meanwhile, are screaming DIVISION WINNER from the rooftops. What follows is the Sox lineup along with their HRs. How the fuck are they in first!?!?!?

OF Quentin - 33
OF Dye - 28
DH Thome -25
OF/1B Swisher - 17
3B Crede - 17
OF Griffey Jr. - 15
C Pierzynski - 11
SS Cabrera - 6
2B Uribe - 4

Their lineup is painfully one-dimensional, tailored to their hitting-friendly home park, U.S. Cellular Field.

That dimension being hitting home runs, a.k.a the best result a hitter can get.

GM: "One thing I don't want on my team is hitters that hit too many home runs. You need guys who can bunt, run, sacrifice, buntacrifice, stealandrun..."
Fans of that team: *collective groan*

This isn't the NBA where there are only so many shots to go around on a team. Each hitter is an isolated incident with a home run being the best possible outcome. A lineup with nine hitters who have 30 homers each is fucking nuts while one with two guys with 30 and a bunch of David Eckstein's sucks.

Their rotation has a 4.07 ERA, right in the middle of the AL pack,

But they have the second most quality starts, third best WHIP and fifth best OPS allowed. They seem fine to me.

with a bit more power pitching than most and a little more control than others. Their bullpen is pretty good (3.49 ERA), but it's not great.

Jenks is pretty good. A 0.97 WHIP and 24K/10BB with 25 saves in 28 tries. Linebrink, also pitching well. He's got 19 holds, a 0.92 WHIP and 33K/6BB. Even the ageless Octavio Dotel is pretty nasty with his 75K/24BB in 54 innings and a 1.15 WHIP.

Three very good to awesome pitchers (at least this season) in your bullpen = pretty good, not great. They don't have K-Rod!!!!

They're tough to beat in The Cell (42-19) but awful away from it (26-33).

Sounds like every team!

Teams "in the hunt" with similar records on the road:

Tampa 29-31
Boston 28-35
Minnesota 26-31
LA Dodgers 26-32

You shitty ass division/wild card contenders. Play better on the road!

They hit a lot of homers -- 172 of them, the most in baseball, including four straight Thursday afternoon against the Royals -- but when they don't hit them, they stink.

Maybe because hitting homers is awesome and when it doesn't happen it dramatically decreases ANY team's chances of winning. Except Anaheim, they're so plucky!

They have little speed. They're not particularly good defensively.

Both instrumental in "winning the right way." Not doing so causes sports writers to be confused.

Yet the Sox, despite the quadruple shots on Thursday, aren't clicking like Williams would like them to click. They aren't clicking, in fact, like the probably less-talented but seemingly just-as-good Twins are.

Clicking clickers click well on click trip.

The Twins have a +47 run diff. which, while not awful, is not what a first place team should have. They're lucky. And not as good as the Sox.

And, pretty soon, Williams won't be able to make another trade to try to better this team. Pretty soon, we're going to have to accept the Sox for what they are.

A divison contender that hits a metric ton of homers and has a solid staff?

Ken Williams being dumb

Right before the trade deadline, Williams made another bold move, trading for Griffey. Critics wondered why Williams would put the 38-year-old Griffey in centerfield, a position he hadn't played in years, and pointed to his lack of production at the plate. ... Williams also talks about the "threat" of Griffey in the lineup.

/Ken Williams being dumb

The Sox run out a lineup that relies almost solely on swinging for the fences. When they hit a home run, they are 61-28. When they don't, they are 7-24.

This is a junk stat. The Sox won last night 2-1. Guess what? They didn't hit a homer.

Here's my stat: The White Sox are 69-53 when scoring at least zero runs. They are 0-0 when scoring less than zero runs.

In the postseason, it's imperative to have other ways to score when the home runs dry up.

No, no it's not. They should be living by the sword and dying by the sword. I don't want Quentin up there bunting over Pierykksiyrznski with one out. That is dumb.

But the Sox's reliance on power has come at the cost of speed on the basepaths. Gone are the days of Scott Podsednik swiping 40 or 50 bases. The Tigers are the only team in the AL that has stolen fewer bases than the Sox.

Scott Podsednik was and is an awful baseball player. He has a career .337 OBP - .329 this season. He's like a worse Juan Pierre, which is saying something. Pods also gets caught a lot, including 23 times (with 59 steals) in that magical 2005 season. In 300+ PA going back to '07 (so what if he was hurt) he has an astounding 22 steals and 8 CS. *foghooooooooorn*

Is a chip on the shoulder, a so-so pitching staff and a big-swinging lineup enough to win the division? Is it enough to do more?

Yes?

Teams that are better than the 10-6 Giants coming into '08: None, according to fools

Ahh football season. Just when baseball is wearing out it's welcome, it comes along to stem the boredom and boost post numbers with awful writing.

Cold Hard Football Facts is quickly becoming my favorite site. Not because it's good or anything, but because it's so damn fun to read what drivel they espouse as fact.

CHFF boasts the most accurate power rankings on the web.

Differ, I beg to do it.

1. NEW YORK GIANTS (14-6)

Oh God, it begins already.

Look, the Giants won the Super Bowl. Hooray! Making them number one for the last power rankings of '07: fine. But look just at the record. 14-6. They were 10-6 pre-playoffs. 10-6. 10-6. 10-6. I can't type that enough.

The Redskins - a team in their division - were 9-7, one lousy game worse than the Giants. If that 17-24 loss versus the G-men in week three goes the other way, hey, maybe the Skins win the Super Bowl at 10-6 and are the best team in football come the 2008 season.

Nope, number 15. One game. Eight points.

But wait, there's more!

2007 vs. quality opponents (including playoffs): 5-5

5-5. Winning percentage of .500 against quality opponents. The Patriots were 9-1 against quality opponents. And they lost one fucking game all season. Number two team. Sorry biggest margin of victory in points per game, only team in the modern era to go 16-0 and lost the Super Bowl on a string of insane plays.

Giants are better.

Last year’s highlight: Fought hard in Tampa on wild-card weekend, but just fell short against the favored Bucs and bowed out of the postseason early … oh no, wait, they won the goddamn Super Bowl!!!

Let me hypothesize for a moment.

There are two teams, the Blue Pork Mayans and the Glue Engrid Smyrniots. The Mayans barely squeak into the playoffs and win a bunch of playoff games (barely) on the road to the Super Bowl.

The Smyrniots were one of the top one best teams ever to play a regular season of football. They outscored opponents by a record 19.7 points/game in the regular season and finished 16-0, going to 18-0 before the Super Bowl...

OK, I'll stop this "hypothesis," this fucking happened. The fact that the Patriots are not number one is a joke - an unfunny one at that.

6. Green Bay Packers

They do know Favre is gone, right?

The moment Rodgers throws an INT - nay, the moment he doesn't throw a TD while driving a pickup, wearing blue jeans and waving the American flag, he will be booed relentlessly. Call me crazy, but I don't see them as a "Dominant Dozen" (CHFF's awesome tier system. The only other tier? "The fucking rest." Seriously, it's the "Tepid Twenty.") team.

Cold, Hard Football Facts: Why all the white noise surrounding Brett Favre? Consider this: The Packers reached the playoffs 11 times and suffered only one losing season in his 16 years at the helm. In the 16 years before Favre arrived, the Packers reached the playoffs just once and enjoyed only three WINNING seasons.

So without him number six team in the NFL? Got it.

Witches, we hunt them

From what I can only assume is the NY Post of the UK, the Daily Mail seems like a pretty insane publication. They have been key engineers in the ever-growing fear-mongering machine aimed at these new fangled Ptendo360 video games for a while now, producing absurdly sensationalist anti-video game propaganda.

But this takes the cake and just may be the most uneducated, incorrect and just plain dumb pieces of writing I have ever read.

PARENTS HORRIFIED AS MOST VIOLENT VIDEO GAME EVER TO LAUNCH ON 'FAMILY FRIENDLY' WII

A new computer game tipped to be the most violent ever is being released exclusively on the so-called 'family friendly' Wii console.

So-called. Those Nintendo assholes, with their simple interface, group intensive party games, annoying safety measures to insure no pedophiles kidnap your kids and a long history of being the most family-friendly console. So called.

Nintendo will dramatically transform Wii's image with the release of ultra violent video game MadWorld which, 'revolves around the themes of brutality and exhilaration', according to its creators.

That sounds fucking awesome.

Ever heard of a little title called "No More Heroes?" A game in which during the first five minutes of playing, the protagonist CUTS A MAN IN HALF - THE LONG WAY - WITH A GODDAMN LIGHTSABER. That was a pretty violent little number. Which came out in January of 2008.

Or how about Manhunt 2 in which one mimics the motion of stabbing someone? That was October of '07. That game is pretty violent.

Summary: violent stuff comes out, even on the precious bastion of purity that is the Wii in the quagmire of *duh duh duh*

Video. Games.

Players in the 'hack and slash' game, which is due for a UK release in early 2009, can impale enemies on road signs, rip out hearts and execute them with weapons including chainsaws and daggers.

Again, fucking awesome. Weird thing is, all this sounds like it was culled from the ~2:00 trailer for the game...

But they wouldn't drum up fear from a game they haven't played, would they? That's like me saying "'Tropic Thunder' will kill your wife, eat your babies and curb-stomp your dog" without seeing the film first.

Mediawatch-UK, Britains longest running pressure group campaigning for decency in TV, films and games, said MadWorld will 'spoil' the Wii.

Jason Cook - Cape Cod's longest running metacommenter on stupidity, said Mediwatch is sensationalist and ignorant.

Really now, "spoil the Wii?" They do know no one is forced to buy, open and play this game, right? In fact, I am sure it will receive an M rating just so our children can't get it easily.

I imagine this is like what happened when people didn't know anything about movies...

"Porn will spoil the movie industry!!"

John Beyer, director of Mediawatch-uk, said: 'This game sounds very unsavoury.

Tee hee, unsavoury. Next we'll have my favourite ice cream flavour!

'I hope the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) will view this with concern and decide it should not be granted a classification.

'Without that it cannot be marketed in Britain. What the rest of world does is up to them.We need to ensure that modern and civilized values take priority rather than killing and maiming people.


Values like "free speech" be damned. They do have that in the UK, right?

Nintendo's Wii has enjoyed phenomenal success as an innocent alternative to complex - and often violent - role play video games.

No More Heroes: Wii exclusive. Manhunt 2: uses Wii motion controls to realistically simulate murder. Resident Evil 4: zombie decapping fun for the whole family!

Violent games exist on the Wii. It's not just WiiSports/Fit, which the mainstream media (and presumably DAILY MAIL REPORTER who wrote this) clearly don't know.

With a repatoire of mostly sports games the basic graphics and easy-to-use motion sensor remotes have become hugely popular with young children and families.

*meeting at the Daily Mail newsroom*

Earl Wigglebottom, Editor of the Daily Mail: "I say Mr. Penniworth, the Wii by Nintendo is a delightful machine, capable of wondrous feats of merriment!"
Penniworth: "Cheers sir. But I have heard rumblings that there is a dreadful title on the horizon, one which threatens to ruin this joyous device."
EWEotDM: *spits tea* "Guffaw! Speak verily of this title in your latest article, the public must know of this menace."
Penniworth: "Cheerio sir." *tips bowler, twirls cane while walking away*

Of the Wii's top 50 scoring games on Metacritic.com (I know, a number of sports titles are probably near the bottom, but bear with me) a whopping eight of them could be considered sports titles. There are RPGs, platformers, third-person shooters, puzzle games, first-person shooters and every other genre under the sun on the Wii.

Daily Mail writers may want to "do research," "call people," "use the internet" or "have half a brain" prior to sitting down and writing. I heard that's what journalists do.

MadWorld is a third person game where players control a character called Jack in a virtual world called Varrigan City which is under siege by a group of terrorists known as The Organizers.

The alternative world has been turned into a twisted game show called Death Watch where citizens must kill one another to survive - and win.

That sounds like a fantastical premise that my non-existent seven-year old brother could parse from reality.

The action in MadWorld - developed by PlatinumGames and published by Sega exclusively for Nintendo - is entirely in black and white. The only other colour is red for all the blood.

Super non-realistic visuals to go along with an over-the-top-premise?

Number one threat to the UK - MadWorld.

Players use the Wii remote to control the violent on-screen actions as central character Jack executes his way through the game.

Thanks for telling me controllers control games. "Players use the Xbox 360 controller to control..."

I assume Mr. Penniworth's hope was that paranoid-stricken parents will read this as "Players will begin muscle memory for murder at an early age" but since it's unclear as to what level of motion control the game will have - a fact absent from this article - he can't say that. Damn those ethics I hear so much about.

Sean Ratcliffe, Vice President of Marketing, SEGA of America, Inc, said: 'MadWorld pushes the envelope with its extreme content but takes a step away from the dark and serious nature of most mature games.'

Sounds like a thoroughly responsible answer.

A spokesman from Nintendo, said:

Who shall remain nameless to insure our credibility scores stays at a solid zero.

'Wii appeals to a wide range of audiences from children and teenagers to adult and senior citizens, anyone from 5 - 95, as such there is a wide range of content for all ages and tastes available.

A responsible, logical answer.

'Mad World will be suitably age rated through the appropriate legal channels and thus only available to an audience above the age rating it is given'

Fucking monsters.

Every 2008 Olympics conversation ever

Guy #1: "Hey, did you see [popular Olympian] [do whatever he/she does] last night?"
Guy #2: "Yeah bro, [Michael Phelps] was awesome. But how about [someone who overcame some form of adversity]?"
Guy #1: "I know, crazy coming back from [cancer/missing limb/communism/shortness] and getting to the big stage."


Guy #1: "That opening ceremony was the shit!"
Guy #2: "I hear that, but I feel conflicted cheering for a country that treats Tibet so poorly."
Guy #1: *nods in agreement*

Guy #1: "Did you see [obscure sport that no one knows the rules and is never played outside of Olympics]? It was pretty rad."
Guy #2: "Totally, [one name heard during broadcast] is one hell of a [fencer/water polo player/target shooter]."

Guy #1: "The smog in Beijing is awful!"
Guy #2: "Yeah, thank God we live in LA."

Guy #1: "Did you see Kobe, LeBron and company the other night?"
Guy#2: "Are Jordan and Magic still on the team?"

This homer knob goes to 11

Francisco (whom is now known as "Frankie," probably due to the desire to Americanize everything) Rodriguez is the crown prince of cashing in big-time on the Jerome Holtzman invention - the save. I don't think any modern pitcher has benefited more from that pointless stat.

He has 42 this season and is "on pace" to "fucking destroy" Bobby Thigpen's record of 57 with 65. Wheeeeee trivial numbers are fun!

Anyway, those overachieving Angles are loving this Frankie dude, to the point of calling him the AL MVP front-runner. The same league with Josh Hamilton, Grady Sizemore, various Sox of the Red coloration, and a ton of other infinitely way more deserving guys.

But Jeff Miller of the OC Register says, "Hey, don't shoot the messanger!"

He was an All-Star, could be a record-setter and might even be an MVP?

Really? No kidding. There’s a possibility Francisco Rodriguez could be the next MVP of the American League.

If this happens - even with all the really great MVP candidates on crappy teams that for some reason aren't valuable - the MVP will lose the last shreds of meaning it still holds.

A pitcher, whose job is to perform when his team is winning by 1-3 runs, who pitches all of 70-90 innings during the season should only win the MVP under extreme circumstances. Most of them involve the phrase "Dennis Eckersley-type season."

That’s not our opinion;

Oh ok, you're good then. Might want to quote it though.

that’s the opinion of Peter Gammons, a Hall of Fame journalist who knows more about the infield fly rule than we know about our own spiritual beliefs.

What's there to know? There. Took me ten seconds.

Why not Rodriguez for MVP? Honestly, where would the Angels – the still offensive-challenged Angels – be without their ninth-inning door-slammer?

I don't know, probably like 1-2 games worse. Still holding a 10+ game lead on the division and the best record in baseball despite getting insanely lucky with your +47 (seventh in baseball, less than the Yankee who are currently in third in the AL East) run differential.

Seriously, the dude's job is to come in with nobody on and get three guys out before giving up 1-3 runs. It isn't that difficult. I am sure Scot Shields could handle it just fine.

The guy has successfully closed 42 of his team’s baseball-best 62 victories. He has a ridiculous 12 more saves than the next closest reliever.

This is more a condemnation of the Angels than anything. Good luck winning every single game 1-0 in the playoffs!

Mostly because of Rodriguez’s 28 walks, many Angels fans are convinced he’s shakier than a jet plane made of Jell-O.

He has 28 walks? In 48 innings?!?!? That is puke on my keys awful.

True, starters Josh Beckett, Roy Halladay and Greg Maddux are among the pitchers with fewer bases on balls than Rodriguez. That, too, is rather ridiculous.

Your 2008 MVP, folks!

Eck's MVP year: 80 IP/11BB (!!!!!!):93 K/0.91 WHIP/196 ERA+
K-Rod's "MVP" year: 48 IP/28BB:51 K/1.25 WHIP176 ERA+

Eck had a fucking 9:1 strikekout to walk ratio. K-Rod's is <2:1. That is - in not so many words - disgusting.

Eck also never, not once, walked more than 13 in his seasons as a closer. K-Rod walks the hell out of guys, 33/162 games to be exact.

Again: True, starters Josh Beckett, Roy Halladay and Greg Maddux are among the pitchers with fewer bases on balls than Rodriguez. That, too, is rather ridiculous.


Starters, who are going to pitch somewhere between two and three times as many innings as K-Rod, will have less walks than him.

Your 2008 MVP!

But how truly shaky can he be when 15 of his saves have come in one-run games?

After walking the bases loaded on 12 straight.

You want consistency? He has had at least 10 saves in each of the first four months of the season. Seventeen times Rodriguez has followed a save one day with another the next day.

What a hero, pitching one inning on back-to-back nights. And that 10 in each month is totally cool. And pointless.

I've made up a stat. It's called an "extend." One gets an extend only when his team is up by 1-3 runs in the seventh inning or later and he drives in a run. Neat, huh? There will be a new position called "extenders" who come in close games to put them out of reach. Free-agent extenders will be highly sought after commodities, to the extent that they make more money than actual good players. Eventually, player who accrue the magic number of 300 extends will be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Sorry, Halo fans, but Rodriguez isn’t as wobbly as most of you believe he is, even as he unleashes another wicked looking pitch while apparently attempting to screw himself into the ground.

Let me boil down those previous three paragraphs:

Daming stat, stupid quasi-stat, stupid quasi-stat, bullshit.

Argument made.

When you’re 42 out of 45, that simply isn’t possible. When you’re that dependable, you aren’t a concern. Not even close. Instead, you might be an MVP.

*Jeff Foxworthy voice* You might be an MVP if...

you blow a playoff game walking in the game-winning run.
you have way worse stats than other, more deserving, valuable players - even those who play the same position as you (Joe Nathan, Hammer of God Rivera).
you play on a team where any other competent player could do 99 percent as good as job as you can.
you are going to make a bazillion dollars in free-agency thanks to an arbitrary, junk stat.

I'd like to "overpay" at a Cafardo family yardsale

Then maybe I could get some Styx vinyl on the cheap.

You're all sick of the Manny deal, so let's put the nail in the coffin.

For years, the Red Sox have not been able to deal Manny Ramírez because they couldn't receive fair market value for him.

And you know something? They didn't get it this time.

I would say they received between 80-90 cents on the dollar for Manny - who is 36 and likely to make some major bank next season. Not bad.

But I'll give the Red Sox credit for this: They made an organizational determination - the players, the manager, the front office, the owners - that this Ramírez disturbance was different and far more volatile than the others and perhaps would linger.

You see, this trade wasn't about "value" or "economics" or "things are aren't mumbo jumbo."

Theo Epstein took a beating for it [trading Nomar/Manny] then and will likely take another now,

He's not, at least not from the media - who have a teensy bit of sway among the Boston fans.

but if you truly understand what had become an untenable situation with Ramírez, then you understand why Epstein overpaid to get rid of someone he felt was bringing down his team.

But of course, you can't understand for you are not a SPORTSWRITER! *thunderclap*

Obviously, the hope is that this is addition by subtraction, that the bad karma that had seeped into the Sox clubhouse has been exorcised and Jason Bay will bring a breath of fresh air.

Karma. Exorcism. Fresh air. Seepage. Are you sure the Red Sox clubhouse septic tank isn't busted?

There's no denying that the Red Sox gave up far more than they hoped to make this deal happen with the Dodgers and Pirates.

Allow me to deny.

Hansen (major league career): 72 IP/39BB:58K/6.15 ERA/1.67 WHIP/75 ERA+

Moss ('07 AAA): 493 AB/66 R/139 H/41 2B/16 HR/61 BB:148 K/.834 OPS

Summary: Hansen is a fairly below average reliever (at this stage) with few redeeming qualities other than he throws hard. Moss has a very solid OPS and 2B power but those strikeout to walk numbers are gross. He has power-hitter numbers without the HRs.

Here it comes...

Meh.

They gave up Brandon Moss, one of the most popular players among the brass and manager Terry Francona.

Ahhhhh, the important "popularity" stat. Moss leads Pawtucket in that.

They gave up Craig Hansen, one of their recent first-round draft picks,

And as well as know, first rounders always pan out.

who has all the potential in the world, but somehow couldn't get it done.

"Somehow couldn't get it done" is sportswriter code for "I don't want to/don't know how to look up stats."

"Somehow couldn't get it done"'s AAA numbers: 104 IP/56BB:91K/1.27 WHIP/36 ER.

Perhaps in Pittsburgh, a low-key market, Hansen will flourish,

Or rot.

and we expect Moss will do what David Murphy has done in Texas - play well and get his career off the ground.

Murphy is batting in a lineup with an All-Star at literally every position, including like three MVP candidates, and he isn't even doing all that well.

His 55 runs created is tied with players like Luke Scott, Lyle Overbay and Aaron Rowand. His cool 100 OPS+ means he is an exactly average MLB player. Even his traditional line (.263/14/67) is pretty yawn-worthy.

A year from now, we may all be saying: How on earth could they have given up on Manny and a good player like Moss and a good young reliever like Hansen for Jason Bay?

I can make a bold-faced promise that a year from now - assuming Manny doesn't go Carlos Beltran circa Houston in '06 and the Sox miss the playoffs - they won't be bemoaning the loss of ~5.00 ERA/sub-2:1 K:BB/1.40 WHIP Hansen and .260/14/70/150 K Moss.

But that just goes to show you how dire the situation with Ramírez had become before the Sox shipped him to the Dodgers at the trade deadline yesterday.

So dire, so so dire.

Manny = 36 years old, wants 20 million each year for the next two and then some absurd $900 million deal over four years in 2010.

Bay = 30, cost-controlled at ~$14 million over the next two years.

Economics? Getting oldonomics? Thuganomics?

No, direness.