Cherry Picking

I was perusing some recent sports-related posts on Google and came across the following headline—Player Backs Torre: “A-Rod Is A Jerk”— on RealGM, so I immediately clicked on the link.

Here’s what this player had to say, from RealGM:

Los Angeles Times – Lisa Guerrero of the Los Angeles Times spoke with an unnamed player that agreed with Joe Torre’s accusations in “The Yankee Years” that Alex Rodriguez “is a jerk.”

“Look, Alex is a jerk. Torre’s insights are probably 100% accurate about how his teammates feel about him, but there’s no reason to air that dirty laundry in a book,” the player told Guerrero.

You can read the full, sourced article, here. Now, doesn’t the headline seem a bit inaccurate? From what I can tell, the unnamed player is stating that, although Alex may be a jerk—something he clearly cannot attest to—Joe Torre broke the cardinal clubhouse rule by airing him out in public. RealGM is wrong to use this as the main headline because it’s fairly obvious that the player DOESN’T agree with Torre and his decision to “go public” with closed door happenings. In fact, the general tone of the article on Torre was about how sports figures like Floyd Mayweather Jr. disagree with Torre’s actions.

Cherry picking, indeed.

39 is the new 26

Mariano Rivera’s K/9 in 2008 was 9.81.

That’s his highest K/9 since 1996 (10.87). In 1996, Mariano was 26. In 2008, Mo was 38. He also had his lowest BB/9 this past season—a sparkling 0.76. Basically, Mariano Rivera, at the age of 38, had an otherworldly 12.83 K/BB, which was tops in all of baseball. In fact, no one has had a better K/BB since 1990, when Dennis Eckersley put together a K/BB of 18.25 (73.1 IP, 73 K, 4 BB).

To be honest, last season was a quiet one for Rivera because he did what he normally does and that’s rip through the competition. However, although a normative year performance-wise, it could go down his best statistical season, which would be an amazing feat given his age and the severity of his shoulder injury.

Torre’s talk with Larry

If you missed ‘Larry King Live’ yesterday, here’s an edited transcript of Larry King’s conversation with the legendary controversial, Joe Torre.

Catching up with Chase Wright

Chase Wright spoke with Kevin Kernan and, although his future with the Yankees is a bit hazy, it seems like he’ll be just fine.

KR: Matsui for Washburn, Juan Cruz

From Ken Rosenthal (FOX Sports):

The M’s and Yankees briefly explored a Washburn-for-Hideki Matsui exchange earlier in the offseason, but the discussions never progressed because Matsui at $13 million is even more expensive than Washburn at $10.35 million this season.

Glad that never came to be, as it would have been a financial bust in this market and Matsui, while more expensive than Washburn, is definitely worth it in comparison (if healthy). I’ll gladly take Andy Pettitte and his $5.5 million base salary to fill out the rotation.

KR also had some other interesting bits:

• Regarding Juan Cruz, Rosenthal states that the Yankees aren’t interested in him, at least not right now. They feel comfortable with Bruney and Marte in the 8th inning, he claims. Although some think Marte should be a situational lefty and nothing more, I think his stuff would work well in bridging the gap to Mo.
• The players’ union is worried about the current market and wonders if teams are engaging in collusion. To be honest, it wouldn’t surprise me.
• Although Matsui probably isn’t headed to Seattle anytime soon, Bobby Abreu could be instead. The Mariners are still trying to free up payroll in order to sign a bat. Whether that’s Bobby or Adam Dunn remains to be seen.

Rundown: Torre on Larry King

Joe Torre went on “Larry King Live” and defended his forthcoming book, The Yankee Years, noting that he is proud of it, despite the negative reactions from Yankee fans and the baseball community. Torre even went so far as to defend the book while leaving the CNN set, saying that he made the book “without violating any confidences.”

Wow, really, Joe? Really? Come on…