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.