Blog Days of Summer

So we’re in the dog days of sports right now, the Jays are well out of the race after coming up short in a pretty good series against Boston. Now it’s all about whether AJ Burnett and Roy Halladay can each win 20 games. They will not, by the way, in case you were still wondering. Burnett shouldn’t even be at 16 with a 4.46 ERA and while Halladay has won his last four decisions, he might start wearing out with nothing to really play for. Oh, and because Cliff Lee has won 20 games not only is he the Cy Young winner but should also win the MVP, in both leagues, as well as the MacArthur Genius grant and a Nobel prize. I like pitcher wins too, I want both Burnett and Halladay to win 20 but it’s like an Academy Award: just as an actor’s performance in a movie is the same whether they win an award or not, so is a pitcher’s performance the same whether their team scores 10 runs or 2.

It’s kind of hard to be really optimistic about this team going into next year. Going into this season, we knew their bullpen and starting rotation would range from very good to excellent. It was. We knew their defence would be excellent and it also was. The question mark was about the offense; on paper it should have been pretty good but it was all based on the assumption they’d be healthy and play to their career numbers. Neither happened as Wells played very well when healthy but missed a lot of time with wrist and knee problems. Overbay and Rios both struggled; Overbay just hasn’t found his 2006 form where he hit .312 with 22 homeruns and 92 RBI’s while Rios’s power declined (on pace for just 12 HRs after 22 last year) and lack of patience (just a .339 on-base percentage) continued. Rolen was the big question mark because of a inability to stay healthy over the last few years, and the question was answered as he’ll likely only play 110 games and is on pace for 9 HRs. Frank Thomas was released early this year, Reed Johnson was released in the offseason to make way for Shannon Stewart, who was injured, ineffective, and then released as well. Matt Stairs and David Eckstein were just traded…man, that’s a LOT of offensive problems!

What do they do next year? The biggest need is at DH and maybe shortstop, depending on who the DH is. If they get Jason Giambi, Adam Dunn or Mark Texiera (none of that will happen, to be clear), then Scutaro and McDonald can platoon at short because you can’t sacrifice too much defence with such a groundball-heavy pitching staff. Then again, this team could probably use all the offense they can find. Hmm. They will get a full season of Adam Lind, and maybe Travis Snider, either of which can DH. After that though, the real promise of this team going into next season isn’t offensively, it’s pitching. Scott Downs has been incredible this season, posting a 1.25 ERA in 64.2 inning (going into tonight), Brandon League’s velocity is back around 98 mph, Jesse Carlson has been an excellent lefty specialist (1.99 ERA now!), and they’ll get Casey Jansen and Jeremy Accardo back for next year. BJ Ryan has made things interesting but has still converted 25 of 28 save opportunities. For the starters, Dustin McGowan and Shawn Marcum will be healthy, David Purcey has flashed some top-notch stuff (well, mostly that one start against Seattle, 8 IP, no walks, 11 K’s on 94 pitches. Seattle absolutely sucks though). Burnett will likely be gone but that money saved could go into getting a big DH bat, if there’s one out there. Offensively, that’s probably the best reason to optimistic going into next year since Rolen, clearly, isn’t going to ever be the player he was three years ago. The pitching and defense are just SO good, it makes the offensive display even more tragic this year since this should have been a playoff team. Another goal I probably won't keep is to work out what this team's winning percentage would have been with a league-average offence at the end of the year. That'll be depressing, so I won't keep it.

Pound for Pound

No, not Richard. I'm talking about Canadians and our inability to keep any sort of perspective on our medal count at the Beijing Olympics. It was a long while before we won our first medal, none until Day 8 when we won three, but since then the results have come in pretty fast. As of this post we have thirteen medals, well short of the overall medal leader U.S. (79) and gold medal leader China (43). We're seventeenth overall and this has caused, at least to a lot of people I've talked to in person, a lot of anxiety. "Yeah, but look how many more the U.S. and China have. Our athletes are choking/not funded enough while our government doesn't fund them enough/doesn't fund them properly." Bitch bitch bitch. Honestly. We're a pretty small country, remember? Our population is 1/50 of China and 1/10th of the U.S. and we have around 1/6th of the medals those countries have. We're pretty lucky that we're even able to COMPETE in all the events, let alone win some, given how bloody cold it is here. Have some pride Canadians! Pound-for-pound we're pretty damn good!

But how good, exactly? I was going to let it go, assuming we've done better than most other countries with maximizing our resources, but now I'm curious as to where we stand in terms of medals per population ratio. There's other ways to determine medal efficiency of course, you could look at funding per medal or facility square footage but I don't have those numbers. Looking at population is still a good measuring stick; it basically tells us how much success a given country can produce with the resources they have. It also ignores a countries' spending methodology and simply looks at results, and after we've determined who's done the best with what they have that you'd go and look at how they've allocated their resources. I'll look at the top twenty countries in the current medal standings, which will of course change but I'm interested in this NOW, not in a week, so we're rolling ahead. Also, the medal rankings are done by the number of gold medals, not total medals won, so I just went with that list. I didn't realize that until after I'd done all the copying and pasting, but it's still the official rankings so whatever. The population numbers come from Wikipedia, which uses the most recent census figures.

Country	Medals	Population	Population per one medal
Jamaica	5	2804332	560866.40
Australia	35	21370000	610571.43
Netherlands	13	16408557	1262196.69
Slovakia	4	5379455	1344863.75
Great Britain	33	60587300	1835978.79
South Korea	24	49044790	2043532.92
Czech Republic	5	10403136	2080627.20
France	29	64473140	2223211.72
Canada	13	33351000	2565461.54
Ukraine	17	46372700	2727805.88
Romania	8	22246862	2780857.75
Germany	28	82217800	2936350.00
Italy	19	59619290	3137857.37
Russia	42	142008838	3381162.81
United States	79	304909000	3859607.59
Kenya	8	34707817	4338477.13
Poland	8	38116000	4764500.00
Spain	9	45200737	5022304.11
Japan	22	127433494	5792431.55
China	76	1321851888	17392788.00

China, not surprisingly, comes in a distant last with 1 medal per 17,392,788 people and a big KUDOS to Jamaica for abstaining from their other interests to lead the way, just ahead of the always impressive Australia. Canada finishes in a rather pedestrian 10th place, meaning that relative to the other top 20 countries in the medal standings, we couldn't be more average. So, in keeping with the stream-of-conscious approach to this entry, I've proven myself pretty wrong but won't re-write the introductory paragraph. Still, compared to the two top countries, China and the U.S., we're pretty darn efficient. Compared to some of our little brethren though, we've got some efficientizing to do and so perhaps some of the national complaining has merit.

But it's still pretty damn cold here, so there.

Cy Young

The important thing to remember about keeping a blog is to post something on a fairly regular basis. Not too regular though, then people won't check in all the time. Psych studies show that conditioned responses are strongest when the subject is rewarded in random intervals, and while they might take a little longer to develop, those associations will last a lot longer than if the subject were rewarded each time. For example, if you checked my blog every two days and there was always a new entry, your behavioral pattern would change pretty quickly. You'd immediately see the benefit in visiting the site and would do so on a regular basis. However, if I stopped posting anything and you kept visiting, you'd stop visiting pretty quickly since you'd realize there was no reward. With rewards coming on a regular basis the subject learns quickly but then drops off just as quickly. Yet if you visited every two days and I was posting on a random basis, where sometimes you'd find nothing and other times find two or three new postings, you might take a little longer to develop a long-term habit but would also take longer to stop visiting entirely if no new postings were coming.

Of course, this all means little when I haven't written anything at all, regularly or randomly, in almost two weeks. But things have been busy, so whatever.

More picking on Jays announcers, but this time because they're right and I hate them for it. Let me explain. AJ Burnett won tonight against Detroit, going six innings, giving up four earned runs, eight hits while striking out six and walking one. On August 9th Roy Halladay pitched six and a third innings, gave up one earned run, ten hits while striking out six and walking two. Halladay had the better start of course, a few more hits but three less earned runs, and took a loss while Burnett was credited with a win tonight. In Halladay's start, the Jays made two errors in one inning, stretched out Halladay and making him throw way more pitches than necessary as Cleveland came back and won. Tonight, Burnett and the Jays were down 4-1 in the top of the seventh when Toronto scored four times, added another in the ninth, and got excellent bullpen work to seal the victory. So, who "earned" the decision more? Halladay was let down by bad defense and zero run support (only six hits and zero walks against Paul Byrd, who has a 4.53 ERA this year and a batting average against of .282). Burnett finished six innings, gave up three homeruns (solos, luckily) and left with his team down three. Only because he was the last pitcher in the game for Toronto was he given credit for the win, since the Jays scored four in the very next half-inning to go ahead in the game. Had they scored those runs in the eight inning, rather than the seventh, Brandon League would have received credit for the win and Burnett would get a no-decision. In other words, only by virtue of the offense's timing did Burnett receive a win decision.

Back to Jamie and Pat. I can't remember if it was tonight or last night, but they mentioned how the Jays' lack of offense was costing Roy Halladay wins and as a result could cost him the Cy Young this year. This is so frustrating because it reflects the mindset of so many baseball people, journalists and otherwise. Wins are a terrible way to judge a pitcher's value, as I tried to illustrate in the examples above. If Roy Halladay throws nine shutout innings but Rios drops a ball in the ninth to allow a run to score, and the Jays don't score any runs at all, Halladay gets a loss. If Mike Mussina gives up eight runs in five innings but the Yankees score fifteen, he gets the win. Which performance is better? Pretty obvious. So the fact that Halladay could lose out on Cy Young consideration because of factors beyond his control, such as errors and run support, would be tragically ignorant on the part of the voters.

So, how close is he now? Right now the conversation for best pitcher in the American League comes down to Halladay, Cliff Lee, and Mike Mussina. For a control comparison we'll throw in AJ Burnett's numbers, because he happens to be tied for second in the AL in wins. Here's the breakdown, with AL rankings in parentheses:

ERA: Halladay-2.72 (3rd), Lee-2.45 (1st), Mussina-3.27 (10th), Burnett-4.62 (26th). So a pitcher with a 4.62 ERA can be second in the AL in wins, eh?

Walks and Hits Per Innings Pitched (WHIP): Halladay-1.05 (2nd), Lee-1.08 (3rd), Mussina-1.20 (13th), Burnett-1.44 (31st). Halladay's second in the AL to Justin Duscherer's 0.99, which is ridiculous. Anything around 1.20 is considered "good," so Halladay and Lee are firmly in "excellent" category while Mussina is just "good." Burnett is what we call "BAD." Shawn Marcum, for interest's sake, is actually fourth.

Innings Pitched: Halladay-182.0 (1st), Lee-161.2 (3rd), Mussina-140.1 (32nd), Burnett-157.2 (7th). Some big seperation here, as Halladay has two more starts than Lee and one more than Mussina, but has put up the equivalent of two complete games and change over Lee and nearly five complete games more than Mussina. Suddenly the incremental differences between Halladay and Lee's ERA and WHIP are more substantial, since Halladay's put up very similar numbers in a greater sample size. Halladay also has seven complete games while the next highest, James Shields and Kevin Slowey, are tied with three. The ability to not just be very very good, but also very very durable, is a pretty important factor. It's the difference between Greg Maddux and Jose Lima. You'd take either at their ABSOLUTE BEST, but which one plays for your dream team?

Strikeouts: Halladay-155 (2nd), Lee-128 (8th), Mussina-96 (24th), Burnett-165 (1st). Neither Halladay or Lee are big strikeout pitchers, both use location and try for bad contact, but strikeouts are an easy way to determine how successful a pitcher is on his own, without relying on defense. Mussina's getting left behind...

On-base percentage against: Halladay-.278, Lee-.274, Mussina-.306, Burnett-.339. I didn't include league rankings because Foxsports includes relievers, which are a whole different deal because the sample sizes will be far smaller. Halladay and Lee are basically the same while Mussina is a jump up and Burnett another jump up from that. .339 would be a bad on-base percentage for a batter, but you'd still expect a pitcher with 15 wins to be lower, wouldn't you? No you would NOT, because wins don't matter!

I wrote a long post about AJ a short while ago so it should be clear that I like him, but it should now also be clear that he's a substantial ways behind Roy Halladay. It's only August so there's a long ways left in the season for the Cy Young to be determined of course, but listening to the Jays commentary prompted me to retort and defend Halladay's performance this year. As Burnett piles up the wins and strikeouts he'll start getting mentioned in the Cy Young race as well, great for him, but as you can see right now it's not even close. Halladay and Lee are the class of the AL, Mussina is having a very good year in his old age, and even Justin Duchscherer would be in the discussion if he had more innings because his numbers are awesome. You'd have to give the current edge to Halladay, who has far more innings and strikeouts at this point. So even when you see Halladay stomp off the mound after his team screws him out of a win, know that his team hasn't screwed him out of being the best pitcher in the AL, at least at this point.

Rance Mullinicks and other silly things

Jamie Campbell and Rance Mulliniks seem like REALLY nice people. If I were older and had a daughter who brought either one of them home, I would probably wait until they'd finished cleaning my house and cooking my steak before burying them in the backyard. They're just so bland, if you could listen to pablum it would sound like these two. They're also homers in the worst way, sometimes you need to watch for a good hour to see who the Jays are actually playing, and yet there's something very harmless about it. They're never rude, never rip players or managers for mistakes and seem more like old people in church than baseball announcers. It's baseball Sunday school I guess. If you go to Sportsnet.ca (why not go now?) and check out the selection of blogs kept by the Ryerson grads they employ, you'll see Jim Lang's asinine "thoughts" on Moneyball, Sean McCormick bravely fighting the Good Oiler Homer Fight (bless that boy), Mike Toth fusing his incredibly annoying hyperactive on-air personality with shot-gun topic sentences, pun-filled contrarianism, and out of the mist Campbell's blog that consists of saying nice things and apologizing for others. Disappointingly though, Campbell's latest entry does not end with his trademark "what do you think," as though the internet is full of to-do gentlemen in smoking jackets with British accents politely waiting for their chance to respond. Campbell and Mullinicks are the nicest people in the world, but that doesn't mean they don't say stupid things.

I've wanted to do a live-blog of a Jays game, with Mulliniks rather than Tabler (who, I think, is turning into a very good announcer), but I'm always at work when the games are on. It's becoming a real nuisance so I might not be able to do it at all. The job I mean, the live-blog of Mulliniksianisms is an imperative.

Here's a sample:

"As crazy as it seems, I don't think you have to give in." On a 3-1 pitch to Ian Kinsler, the best hitting second-baseman in baseball, with one out and the BASES LOADED in a one run game. Um, no. You give in and throw a damn strike. Walking in runs is BAD, and given that Kinsler has a batting-average-on-balls-in-play of .336 (over the last 365 days), you stand a 66.4% chance of getting him out by making him put the ball in play.

"[As a baserunner on first, none out] Unless I sense that I can make it to third on a single, I shouldn't go." Sensible. Any specifics on HOW one should decide this? No?

After Josh Hamilton throws an absolute cannon, on the fly from rightfield, to throw out Marco Scutaro trying to go first to third, five minutes of crosstalk occurs between the two about the right way to take third base on a single before Mulliniks bothers to say "And a pretty nice throw by Hamilton." This throw was video-game, cartoon super-hero, what-Roberto-Clemente-must-have-looked-like Good. In other words, the throw was not "good" at all. It was awesome. Just say it. Saying nice things about the other team can be a "good" way to announce games too!

"No disrespect to Hamilton [after choosing Bradley Hamilton over the city of Hamilton in a "Which Hamilton would you choose" contest (wait, WHAT?)], they do have a great football team." Combined record from 2005 to present: 13-47. There are girl's softball teams that are better CFL teams than the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. This one was Campbell actually, guilty of being ridiculous and, again, WAY TOO NICE.

Commercial time. What in the holy hell is the deal with that stupid Rogers' commercial where the two unlikeable yuppies are bickering over whether to get Blackberries for their company? Black Yuppie is on board, it's the cost of doing business, but White Yuppie isn't so sure. Apparently getting a phone means companies need to re-think their caffeine-office paradigm. Why do Blackberries mean the end of the Columbian Dark Roast? What the hell does that have to do with getting office phones? WHO IN GOD'S NAME DOES YOUR BUDGET?

Brad Wilkerson just made a friggin' great catch! Wow! Except that no, he did not, he caught a ball that hit the top of the fence then bounced into his glove. Well sold by Wilkerson, the Jays get a break as replays clearly, CLEARLY show he trapped it and quickly raised his glove for the umpire. Even Campbell comes up with a true-blue, clearcut opinion, pulling a hamstring in the process, and definitively says Wilkerson trapped it. But...

"Even with that replay it's very hard to tell" says Rance, who has not updated his eye prescription since his playing days.

"He just struck the umpire out." I don't know what this means, but Rance disagreed with a ball-four call. He's right, it was a strike, but I just thought it was an odd thing to say.

"Awfully close." Mullinicksian reaction to a replay of Scott Downs picking off Travis Metcalf at first base. Metcalf was very obviously safe. Jays 2, Umpires 0. Campbell, dictated by his BE NICE perogative, says nothing. Hey! One of you two baseball guys! ADDRESS THE CONTROVERSY BEFORE YOU! THAT'S WHERE THE STORIES ARE!

Commercial time, and another one doesn't make any sense. Couple of yuppies running around the house turning off sprinklers, running bathtub water, and ovens cooking a huge-ass turkey. Why? Because they were SUPER YOUNG and VIRILE and SPONTANEOUS and were having S-E-X. Great. Except that Cialis, the product in question that raises said roof, doesn't take effect for four to five hours. And she was making a TURKEY, that's like, what, five hours of work? Their "maritals," I'm afraid, have all the spontaneity of an accounting firm's office supply order meeting.

EMAIL IS JUST $15 BUCKS A MONTH MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!

B.J. Ryan is on to save the game. After blowing last night's game in hilarious fashion, he's SURE to bring the heat this time! Oh, solid single to rightfield on a baloon down the middle. Ryan is pretty big right? Physically, I mean. When he's twirls the ball around in his hand while getting the sign it looks like he's holding a golfball. So why can he only throw 90 mph? If Josh Hamilton really wanted to hit one of of Yankee Stadium at the Homerun Derby, he should've brought Ryan as his pitcher.

Ryan gets the save, due largely in part to getting a called strike three on Chris Davis that could generously be described as a "bloody awful" call. Barajas caught the thing with his catching arm fully extended. Jays 3, Umpires 0. Rance?

"Chris David doesn't like the call." He does not, because if Chris David were right-handed instead of left-handed, he would be on first base and rubbing his bruised ribs. Just SAY IT! No?! Curse you, bland homers.


I think that's a fair sampling of the Silliness on Sportsnet. Just an unwillingness to show any outright opinions of the stickier elements during the game, which I realize is expected from guys who travel with the team and see the players every day. But these were obvious bad calls and while Campbell did at least address the Wilkerson trap neither seemed aware or willing to connect the dots and state that the Jays, overall, really benefited from some shoddy umping (shumping?) tonight.

I felt bad for mocking Nice People so I did some research and realized that Rance was actually a pretty good hitter back in the day. I remembered him at the end of his career when he was the reason Pat Gillick decided that the DH spot shouldn't be a liability anymore, and proceeded to get Dave Winfield for 1992. If you look back over his earlier career though, he put up some very good seasons. When? 1984 was one! .324/.383/.440 with a 124 OPS+. What I can't figure out is how in the world he managed a .440 slugging % when he only hit THREE homeruns all year. Another one? 1988 was probably his best overall, hitting .300/.395/.475, 143 OPS+, 12 HR's and 48 RBI's. Those are some excellent on-base percentages by the way (.383 and .395), that basically means he got on base 40% of the time. I guess when he says Rios should keep his damn hands in he's not talking out of his ass.

A.J. Burnett against the world

I like watching AJ Burnett, when he's pitching well that is, more than anyone else on the Blue Jays' staff. Out of Halladay, Marcum, McGowan, and Litsch/Purcey/Parrish, Burnett makes hitters look the worst but again, when he's actually pitching well. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with watching Halladay, but it's a different kind of excellence (and a better kind, to be sure, than almost any else's in baseball). Halladay can get six outs on five pitches; since 2001 he's average a ground ball out/fly ball out ratio of 2.27, as a reference point this year's leader is Brandon Webb at a freakish 3.34 and at a distant second, Aaron Cook of Colorado's 2.33. Halladay's ability to avoid high pitch count innings (this year averaging 14.26 pitches per inning, 6th in the majors), move the game along quickly, and pound the strike zone has made him the best candidate to succeed Dave Stieb as the franchise's best pitcher (some would say he's the best now, but I disagree and will prove it another time.)

Halladay's strength is picking corners, cutting fastballs all over the strike zone and forcing bad contact. Burnett's strength is just filthy stuff which he uses to get more strikeouts, which lead to higher pitch counts and shorter outings. Halladay will go through a lineup and make them all feel like they "just missed that one" because they made contact. Burnett, and I say WHEN HE'S ON as loudly as I can type it, makes hitters look like small children swinging shovels at flies. 98 mph fastball, a curveball that starts out as a beanball and ends up in the dirt, and, apparently, a changeup that he learned and never throws because, I guess, that would make him too good. There's nothing as satisfying as watching the vaunted Yankees totally overmatched by Burnett's A game, and this is exactly why J.P. Riccardi should absolutely not trade him. They bought him so they'd have someone to follow up Halladay in those series against the Yankees and Red Sox (and now the Rays too), and every time you watch Jesse Litsch get run out of the game after four innings and 100 pitches against those teams, you're reminded why you need real pitching to win divisions.

Oh yeah, sometimes Burnett sucks. Sometimes he nibbles the corners and walks too many guys, he throws way too many pitches when he's up 0-2 in the count, and even Ben Zobrist can hit homeruns off 98 mph heaters when they're down the middle. Oh, and he gets hurt a lot, making over 30 starts in a season just once. And he's more inconsistant than Brett Favre's retirement plans; in his 20 starts this year (prior to tonight) he's given up five earned runs or more in six starts. And yet he's given up two earned runs or less in nine other starts, so there's been some stellar performances in there as well. This is not a great pitcher, there aren't any stats out there that suggest he's been under-rated or under-appreciated, but this is, as the refrain with AJ always goes, a tremendous talent. He should end up with 15 wins this year, which usually means nothing since wins are such a bad way of measuring a pitcher's performance, but in this case it might actually be indicative of AJ's value. See, when AJ's on, he's lights-out good and when he's bad he's terrible, so when he gets a decision in a game it'll be after giving up something like seven runs over four innings or none over eight. In other words, he EARNS his decisions. The irony, therefore, is that wins, a useless measurement, might say more about him than good stats like WHIP or ERA+, since with Burnett those numbers will be based on extreme performances. His performances are better approximated by flipping a coin than averaging out previous performances.

So keep Burnett because, while he might not ever become the pitcher his talent would indicate, he's exactly what the Jays will need to keep pace in the American League East. I like Jesse Litsch and Shawn Marcum, they're both good control pitchers who've done well with the stuff they have. They just don't have the stuff to mow through a lineup, any lineup, like Burnett and Halladay, and even McGowan some days, are able to. It's true that with Burnett you are indeed flipping a coin to see what kind of performance you'll get, but at least you know that getting heads might get you 8 innings, 10 K's and 2 hits. Lots of pitchers can do that against Seattle or Kansas City, but there aren't many with the stuff to do it against the AL East's big spenders.

The Sporticourse Principle

Can we talk? Honestly? Thanks, you’re such a good listener, even though you probably don’t know me very well. I just have to get this out, I’ve had a kind of revelation and I need to explore it. I’ve spent most of my life under the assumption that I was a creative, artistic, big picture person, best suited to a lifestyle full of ideas and expression. This assumption allowed me to shrug off late-high school struggles with math, physics and chemistry and instead embrace the more forgiving, subjective nature of social sciences and humanities. Choosing that path years ago provides now provides me with a built-in excuse for lower professional expectations while still maintaining a sense of arrogant altruism, since money “just doesn’t mean that much to me.” It also lets me tell anonymous lies on the internet.

I have a book that, every time I read it, changes me a little bit. Most of us have a book like that, or a movie, maybe something counter-culture, like Fight Club (either the book or movie), something uplifting and reassuring like the Shawshank Redemption or, speaking of altruism, the Bible. For me it’s the Dilbert Principle. Scott Adams’ 1995 book is my Lord of the Rings, something that needs to be re-read every few years for its central message to remain. I’m reading it right now during my breaks from work and realized that I’ve miscast myself throughout my entire life. Adams, in his chapter on office personalities (the book’s at work so no exact quotes for you), describes engineers as having a singular goal in human interaction: proving their mental superiority over others by explaining complex ideas. That, and finding their true happiness in electronic toys and gadgets. I already knew that I valued electronics way too much, my home theatre system is worth more than my car or university degree (in dollars, the arrogance you get with a political science degree is priceless), but reading the description of engineers and their social goals seemed surprisingly familiar.

But this is a sports blog, you say! There’s no room for self-centered epistemological meditations! Just tell us whether or not Souray’s contract will cripple the Oilers in the last few years so we can call you a Nazi in the comments section! Well, this DOES relate to sports because I’m realizing that it’s only in this area where my engineering tendencies take over. I started this blog because I hoped that, after a few years of practice, I’d be able to write something as insightful and educational as Joe Posnanski, something as funny as the guys at FireJoeMorgan, or contribute something as unique as Loxy's Hot Oil or MBK (it pays off to comment). In other words, I knew where the ceiling was, knew how far I had to go to analyze sports as well as the best. I was humble, I knew that people are out there who know more, a LOT more, about sports than I do. My problem is that I can’t recognize them when I see them.

Baseball is a great sport to talk about because statistics are so well measure and maintained. The complexity is measuring player value is staggering at first, but if you take a little time to understand what VORP, WHIP and OPS+ are all about you’ll be pleasantly surprised to find that a lot of people who talk about baseball are idiots. Now you’re smarter than they are, and happier as a result. But hockey’s harder, you can’t quantify performance the same way because the sport doesn’t break down into short, measurable increments. Now, you’ll find yourself listening to the same stupid arguments about “leadership” and “great teammate” and “clutch performer” in any sport. In baseball though, you can refute this nonsense pretty easily but in hockey you have to grit your teeth knowing your counter-argument won’t be much better. But this is summertime, which means baseball, which means baseball on the TVs every night at work (home theatre sales, for disclosure’s sake), which means LOTS of arguments over player performance. Now I’m in sales, I have to be nice to people, listen to what they have to say, make them feel welcome but I will be DAMNED if I’m going to let them say that Alex Rodriguez sucks in the post-season (39 games, .279/.361/.483, 7 home runs, 17 RBI’s). That’s the engineering side right there, no matter what the social situation the primal need is there to say NO YOU’RE WRONG HERE’S IMPENETRABLE LOGIC SHOWING YOU WHY. I DON’T CARE IF WE’RE NOT FRIENDS ANYMORE I DON’T EVEN KNOW YOU. I’M NOW ADDING VOLUME TO MY EXCELLENT ARGUMENT. I WIN. Totally disregarding the nuances and subtleties of the social context, my only goal is to explain in great detail how WHIP and ERA+ show how Pedro Martinez was more dominant in 2000 than Bob Gibson was in his famous 1968 Cy Young/MVP season.

Of course, the temptation is just to sit back, rationalize oneself, and assume that all sports fans are like this, none of them just “let it go,” never pass up a chance to one-up someone else with greater knowledge or “better” stories, even if that person is in the middle of interviewing you for a job. Yeah, that’s probably true, fans are by nature deranged and dangerously volatile, they can’t be held responsible for their suddenly crippled social skills when someone says Bernie Williams should be in the Hall of Fame (correct answer: No). It’s not just me, we’re all arrogant and belligerent. Right! Right? Right.

What is an athlete's legacy at the end of their career? As a fan, do you watch your favorite player's retirement ceremony and think, damn, what a great hitter that sonofabitch was, he had the broadest shoulders, squarest jaw and dirtiest uniform I did ever saw? Do you think about his character, his willingness to block shots, hold the line, and take a hometown discount? Do you associate him, or her, with their greatest victory, their first memorable appearance or their fall from grace?

I ask these questions of you, the reader, because it's pretty clear that to athletes it doesn't matter what you think. It's not to say they ignore you with any degree of disrespect, but that clearly an athlete has a different mindset entirely from what their legacy should entail. That paradigm doesn't fit into the heroic or legendary or larger-than-life motif that fans place athletes into, but rather one that's perhaps more akin to you with your career. For athletes, the sport they play is a job, a preposterous one that could only exist within our weird little world, but still a job where you have to show up every day, work overtime, miss your family, and get yelled at by your boss.

The idea that I have any kind of insight into the mind of a pro athlete is absurd; the closest resemblance I have to a friendship with a pro athlete was serving Dan Hamhuis sweet and sour pork once. Hey, it was a small town. I defy you though to argue with the assessment that an athlete's understanding of their place in history (well, sports history anyway, which exists in a parallel universe) is pretty damn different than how the rest of us would like to place them. Especially in light of Brett Favre's public displays of indecision that would make a social sciences grad shake their head. This is, of course, the catalyst for this little ramble, but it really illustrates the point that athletes live in their own little world.

And not a bad world to live in, if you can. Oh, in case you were wondering, this IS a blog and not an essay, and if I want to start a new paragraph with "And," or ":-)" or the Batman symbol then BOOYA for me. Favre finished the 2006 season on a down note, his completion percentage and his touchdown/pass ratio was the worst of his career, and his quarterback rating was 72.7 (25th in the league, all stats here). So when he hummed aloud about whether he was coming back, people seemed quite reasonably bummed out that he'd be leaving after a bad season. Not a great way to remember a sure thing Hall of Fame player. But Favre did come back, and 2007 was a tremendous year for him and the overachieving Packers. His QB rating was 6th in the league at 95.7, 4th in passing yards, 6th in yards/game, posted the BEST completion percentage of his career and nearly doubled his TD/pass rating (more stats here). His name was tossed around as an MVP candidate as he took one of the youngest teams in the NFL and brought them within one OhGodPunchMeInTheFace interception (his own, obviously) of going to the Super Bowl. Heady days for the Cheeseheads as the great Favre had proven he wasn't finished, was still great, and left the loyal Wisconsinites in a perfect position regarding his future and their memory of him: if he retired, he did so near the top of his game, if he came back he was doing so in a position to lead his team, not drag it down just for one last painful hurrah.

Then he did retire, and people were surprised but seemed pleased and impressed. It's hard to leave something you love, and Favre was doing it not far from his peak years. Aaron Rogers could now take over, once three years' worth of clipboard splinters heal. Favre would fade into memory and legend, wearing a cowboy hat or a cheesehead, a big belt buckle and flannel shirt while driving a combine or something. Anyone from Wisconsin? Is that right, or offensive?

Favre is now back, wants to either play for the Packers (which means Start, not Backup like that chump Rogers, who's only been prepping all summer to be the starting QB for one of the most notable sports franchises in North America) or be released to play elsewhere. Some in the media do not seem to agree with Favre's decision, and that's kind of the point. NOBODY wants Favre to come back now, and certainly not this way, forcing the team and management into shuffling around the deck chairs to accompany the way-too-late requests of Combine Belt Buckle Man. So Favre said, presumably in the same voice as the captured alien in Independence Day, "release me," and the Packers said No. This "legacy" stuff is pretty hard for Favre to grasp obviously, not quite realizing that when you move on to other things, other things won't be there when you come back. Who can say if a player should be able to unretire and play until they absolutely suck, like Rickey Henderson or Tom Poti, if they really want to? Fans and media can't, and wouldn't be listened to anyways. It's a different world they play in. It's their job, not ours.

Kevin Lowe kills the whole town

I am SO tired of talking about hockey. Not because I don't get excited about the draft and free agency, because I REALLY do, but because it's 30 damn degrees outside and I don't want to find myself looking forward to winter for any reason. Until the Blue Jays start resembling a team that's in any way enjoyable to watch, the pennant races heat up and the CFL season builds some more momentum (Esks-Stamps last weekend!? Huh!? HUH!!! Aw yeeeeeah!), it's more stuff about hockey to talk about!

Brian Burke got very upset when he felt that his rhubarb had been rubbed by another man. Meaning, of course, that he didn't appreciate another GM poaching his property, since hockey players, as you well know, were brought over from Africa on the Middle Passage. Now, that Burke has said some pretty mean things about Kevin Lowe, and has taken his time getting all of his hurt feelings out as it's been a little less than a year since Pennergate and he still won't shut the hell up about it. Some of those things were personally and professional insulting (last line) to Lowe, some were high-handed and self-serving, while others were simply stupid and contradictory. Lowe sat piously at his desk, polishing his Stanley Cup rings that he earned on the ice rather than in a Lazy-Boy, and said little in the hopes that Burke would turn his bile at the Toronto media, or GM's overpaying players, or a small puppy.

Until yesterday. Scorched Earth policy indeed. I'd rather he hadn't ripped Duck fans, if only because now all Burke has to do is say something high-handed and self-serving like "If Kevin Lowe wants to criticize me that's fine, I'm a big boy, I can take it. What I won't stand for is having our terrific fans and wonderful city ripped by a jealous, petty individual who is tired of never getting a tan." That, of course, implies that compared to Burke, hockey fans in Anaheim can't take criticism and are small, weak individuals. Still, that's the angle Burke will probably play, and hopefully Lowe doesn't apologize or anything. *Shudder*

Good God

When I worked at a gym, selling memberships and making people feel bad about themselves, I got a glimpse into the mechanics of where these amazing stories about ordinary people going through unbelievable problems with their monthly gym payments came. What I saw was an industry of independently-owned businesses which were managed by guys who worked out in squalor their whole lives and wanted to Move On Up. They were like, Damn, that guy raised prices AGAIN, I'm not paying $11.50 a month for this place, let's go off and Make Our Own Gym. So you have gym guys now acting in a management capacity when instead you should have, say, ANYBODY ELSE. Like an accountant, or someone with sales management experience, or someone with a background in marketing, or a corporate finance grad, or... this is fun isn't it? There's a long list of choices, as long as the amount of time you want to toss out random qualifications ("Welder!" "Cable repair man!" "Drifter!") that would be better than a holier-than-thou fitness maniac with -8% body fat who can't understand why you have to cancel your membership with this new job, couldn't you just work 14 hours THEN come in five days a week? You've got a cousin or something, right? Can't they water your six kids for you? Broken leg? You've got TWO, suck it up! No? Well just die then.

The same inmates running the asylum motif exists in the NHL, and was never more evident than July 1st, 2008. Ex-players in management, in their own minds still blocking shots and picking fights to defend their honor, leap at the chance to do whatever's necessary to better their brethren. This CBA was supposed to hinder this behavior. In a cap system, a player isn't really paid a salary, they're paid a percentage of the cap space. Players have a portion of their salary held in escrow so that, at the end of the season, if league earnings have decreased the players take home the designated percentage less than their salary indicates. It's that "cost certainty" we heard so much about during the lockout, a way to make absolutely positively sure that general managers could managed to keep salaries under control this time and not pay more than what league revenues could sustain. Well, those GM's showed us! They were insulted by the league and players' attempts to hamstring their efforts to reduce the league to six teams, owned by the six richest kings of Europe, and steely-eyed and eagle-determined, they set their minds to finding new and hilarious ways of making the sane among us smash our faces into our keyboards each time we re-load TSN.ca on July 1st. At the rate ticket prices keep going up you'll only have six people attending games, arguing about what to do about this maddening Prussian quagmire.

Cristobal Huet is a nice person who recycles his bottles, watches friends' houses when they're out of town, and is rarely found punting puppies into nearby ravines. I wish him nothing but the best. Cristobal Huet now has a greater annual salary than Martin Brodeur, having signed yesterday for four years, $5.6 million per year with Chicago (all signings, with commentary, can be found here). This is fucking ridiculous. He'll be 33 when the season starts, and while coming a season where he did win 33 games for Montreal and Washington, before that never won more than 19. He's never played more than 52 games in a season, which indicates than while he doesn't have the miles that other 33 year old goalies might have, he was likely NOT GOOD ENOUGH to warrant more icetime than that. At least Nikolai Khabibulin was coming off a Stanley Cup.

Wade Redden is 31 years old, coming off a season of 38 points, +11, and averaged 22:13 of ice time per game. An above average defenseman for his career though showed signs of slowing down last season. The Senators tried to move him at this year's trade deadline and last year's draft, say the rumors, but he wouldn't waive his no-trade clause. He rejected an offer from the Sens prior to July 1st of, I believe to be, two years, $9 million if I remember correctly. So good player, wearing out, thanks for the great years on the Ottawa blueline, see if Detroit will sign you and give you one last shot at a Stanley Cup. Except that the New York Rangers woke up and thought, this is terrible. We've become only the 3rd most embarrassingly run team in New York City! How did that happen? Maybe we can't top the Mets firing Willie Randolph at 3 am while he was on the West Coast, or Isiah Thomas burning the Knicks into the ground with awful signings and sexual harassment suits, but by God, people will NOTICE US NOW! Six years, $6.5 million per season later, the Rangers have themselves Wade Redden until he's 38 which, according to the Sens management fans and media, has been his age for a few years now. This is maybe the worst free agent signing I can remember. This isn't a case of gambling on a player and having him not pan out, this is the Rangers paying for somebody that EVERYBODY knows is running out of time and will be, at best, a 30 point player with injury problems for the next six years. At least Sheldon Souray can hurt people with his shot.

The Leafs are in full rebuild mode and are paying a lot of money to do it. Darcy Tucker was bought out, Brian McCabe is being forced out of town, re-signing Sundin seems like an afterthought, and they recently waived Kyle Wellwood and Andrew Raycroft. This team is going after Tavares and damn anybody who gets in their way, like say, their own good players. The first step in a rebuilding mode is, of course, to sign bad players to replace the bad players you just got rid of. Oh, and pay them a little more will ya? Jeff Finger signed a four year deal worth $3.5 million and Niklas Hagman to a four year, $4 million deal. Ha ha! That's not 3.5 and 4 total you big silly, that's PER YEAR. Finger is 28, just finished his second season in the NHL, had 19 points in 72 games, and was so impressive for the Avs in the playoffs that they sat him for five of their ten games. Hagman had 41 points last year and 29 the year before that (both in 82 games) which is nice, except that Darcy Tucker had 34 in 74 games last year and 43 in 56 the year before that and was making $3.5 million per season. Won't the Leafs be so much better this year with Finger and Hagman than McCabe and Tucker.

There were some very good signings yesterday, like Colorado getting Tucker for two years, $2.5 million each, Chicago overpaying but at least getting the best defenseman in Brian Campbell, and Brian Rolston going back to the Devils for maybe a year too long (four years, $20 million) but at a fair market value. No I'm not going to pull numbers to justify that, but I did see him score lots of goals against the Oilers and all with slapshots, even on tip-ins and wrap-arounds. I just saw that Hossa went to Detroit for $7.4 million on a one year deal, which is great for Detroit. A really odd choice for Hossa though because, in a sport where you're one shift away from ending your career, you'd think it wise to take the long-term, big money deal on the table. The rumor was that Edmonton was the highest bidder on Hossa, offering $63 million over seven years. That's WAY too much, kind of glad they didn't get him, but if you're Hossa why wouldn't you take that? I know winning a Stanley Cup is important, but you'd think at some point in the next seven years Edmonton will be a contender, maybe even this year (!?). Man. Detroit. So smart/lucky.

Quick comment on the two other trades the Oilers made yesterday. After getting Visnovsky and making me share my sad feelings late at night while drinking scotch, Lowe traded Raffi Torres for Gilbert Brule and Joni Pitkanen for Eric Cole. Both are great deals, principally because now I won't have to misspell Pitkanen "PitkOnen," anymore, which I realized I've been doing this entire blog. Torres was a salary dump and was probably being dangled at the draft for a mid-round pick. Getting Brule instead is excellent, a former 6th overall pick and Vancouver Giants star, he's struggled in Columbus (139 games, only 10 goals and 18 assists while -25) but is still very young (21) so there's still time for him to revitalize. He's a lottery ticket in other words, and the payout could be huge. Oh, and he's from Edmonton.

Erik Cole has one year left before unrestricted free agency, which was likely the same amount of time they'd have had with Pittckonyn if they'd re-signed him, since it sounded like they were far apart and thus any deal would be only for one year. They finally get another scorer, one they've wanted for a while apparently, and have another option on the second powerplay unit. Guess he'll also replace Curtis Glencross too, who played well for 20 games or so but wanted too much money for the Oilers. Remember Scott Fraser? Of course you don't. Even if Glencross continues to develope, hopefully not for the Flames as rumors suggest, he still wouldn't have been as good for the Oilers this year as Erik Cole will be. So great trades on paper, this team looks pretty complete until game eight of the season when Souray hurts his shoulder, Moreau breaks both his arms, Garon gets lupus and Roloson goes back to letting in one bad goal every four periods, and Gagner and Cogliano get sent to the minors. Hey if we prepare for it, it won't happen right?

TSN now says that Carolina re-signed Pehttquonnin for three years, $12 million, under July 2nd transactions. Couldn't we have afforded that?

Free Agency, RFA's, and a tough goodbye

Start your engines for tomorrow, because that's when teams starting throwing inexplicable amounts of money at old players coming off career seasons in a contract year. Ryan Malone already cashed in, getting seven years and $31.5 million ($4.5 million/year) after seasons of 27, 16, and 22 goals. Not bad. I don't want to be one of those complainers always rolling their eyes at pro athlete contracts, but look at the market. Consider the absolutely childish fit Brian Burke pulled (and continues to pull whenever TSN baits him with questions about Kevin Lowe, which is as often as possible) when Penner got $4.25 million last year. Penner was coming off a season of 29 goals, played all 82 games, hardly saw any powerplay time (only 9 goals on the PP), and is three years younger. You could make the argument that Malone was the more proven commodity, but really, if you're an NHL GM, are you going to throw big money at a guy who scored 29 goals on the third line in his rookie season, or at the guy who scored less while playing with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin? I like Malone, him and Penner are pretty similar players (okay fine, I'd rather have Malone, he broke his nose twice in the same game and barely missed any time so yeah, of course I want him more than the Penner who sleepwalks through way too many shifts), but numbers-wise Penner is the better investment. Of course, Edmonton also paid three picks for Penner, but that's not what Burke said he had a problem with.

So I dunno, Hossa to Vancouver, Jagr to Vladivostok, Sundin to the Leafs (in December though, don't rush Mats!), Campbell to the LEAFS (yeah, out on a limb baby!), Sakic to the Avalanche (duh), Naslund to the Wings (I'm not going to bother checking to see if this is even possible under the cap, but he's Swedish so it's either Vancouver or Detroit), and Demitra to the, um, Senators. It's all madness anyways so it's more fun to watch than try to predict and make sense out of. Who thought the Rangers would get both Drury and Gomez last year? Or that Philly would get Briere, Timonen, and Hartnell? There's no way to predict any of the ridiculousness, so there's a half-serious attempt before the storm hits.

Since Kevin Lowe became the first GM to ever, in the history of the known universe, sign a player to an offer sheet, the talk around the NHL, or rather from the brilliant analysts on TV, is how the whole free agency landscape has changed. And that's somewhat true, since teams are now locking up their young stars, sometimes after just their second seasons, to long-term deals to avoid any poaching (ex. Ovechkin, Crosby, Malkin's is coming soon, Ryan Getzlaf, Corry Perry). So rather than having a player go through a standard three year entry-level contract, then a moderate raise in a no-competition negotiation, before finally cashing in when they reach unrestricted free-agency, they get rich after year two. So yeah, things have changed for the young stars, but have things changed for the not-ready-for-primetime players? And what is this change based on? An actual change in strategy or just fear and paranoia?

If you account for the actual events that have occurred to stimulate this sudden shift in free agency and career contract structure, there haven't been too many. There's probably a reason for that. Lowe signed two players to offer sheets last year, one team matched (Buffalo with Vanek) and one didn't (Anaheim of course). This was BIG NEWS, because this NEVER HAPPENS. Actually though, it does. Trivia: other players have been signed to offer sheets before. Yeah I know. Shocking. Some actually changed teams. But only now, because Brian Burke threw the most public tantrum since I couldn't find the droids I was looking for, has the entire salary structure in the NHL apparently changed. It's flattering to think that Kevin Lowe is the most influential GM in NHL history, but come one. This whole fuss is still about an irregularity because non-superstar RFA's just don't get poached that often. It's not like everything will change because Lowe did it, and to suggest it will is to suggest that GM's watched Lowe and thought "Really? You can DO that? I'M gonna do that TOO, I HATE sitting through two boring-ass days at the draft each year. Looks like an extra round of golf!" There was Kesler two years ago, and Chris Gratton and Joe Sakic before that in 1997. That's it, and to re-emphasize, there's a good reason for this. It's a pretty big risk and a really big cost to go hunting for young RFA's when, if you draft properly, you could end up with someone younger, cheaper, and possibly better.

Some sad news today though. Jarret Stoll and Matt Greene were traded for All-Star defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky. Stoll is coming off a year where he had 36 points in
81 games, a -23 plus/minus, and saw his role diminish into a third-line checker, both because of performance and the emergence of Cogliano and Gagner. Greene had one assist in 41 games and played on the third defensive pairing, though does project as a 4th defenseman. Visnovsky had more points than both last year (41), and had seasons of 58 and 67 points before that. Lots of people hate this trade for Edmonton, thinking that the Oilers got softer or something. Those people are idiots, and are happy to prove it by posting their "thoughts" on TSN's Your Call. Edmonton clearly wins this trade, they get one of the top 10 defensemen in the NHL and only gives up depth players whose roles are already filled. Just like the Pronger trade of years ago, they gave up some depth to get top-end talent. Great trade.

It's a sad trade for the same reason the Pronger and Peca trades were bittersweet. Edmonton lost Eric Brewer and Mike York and later traded away Marty Reasoner for Sergei Samsonov at the trade deadline. Obviously the 2006 Finals run was amazing, an entire spring of uncharted territory for a city that was starved for hockey success. Edmonton earned it, having gone through the agony of nearly losing the team, trading away fan favorite after fan favorite, suffering the humiliation of being one of the NHL's great franchises yet being on the outside of all serious hockey talk. Free agency, deep playoff runs, individual awards, these were not discussions that involved the city of Edmonton. 2006 was a reward for a lot of suffering, not everything we wanted but far more than we could have ever hoped for. And yet despite the success, the attention from the entire hockey world, the awe and praise for 16,839 Oh Canada-singing fans, the re-ascension of the long-dormant Oilers into a major force in the NHL once again, something was missing. A lot of players went into that Finals run, but a lot more of them weren't around to reap rewards borne from years of futility. 2006 was about Pronger, Roloson, Smyth, Smith, and Horcoff, but it was also about Weight, Joseph, Marchant and the recently traded Reasoner, Brewer and York. I predict right now that the Oilers will win the Northwest and make some noise in the playoffs this season. It'll be great to watch, another generous reward for two pretty tough seasons, but it'll be missing a few pieces. I long thought of Stoll as a future Oiler captain and Greene at times indeed looked like the heir apparent to Jason Smith. After Ryan Smyth, Stoll was my favorite Oiler, and any success the team has with Visnovsky will always have the same twinge of sadness that the 2006 Oiler team had. Godspeed good sirs, you'll be missed!

The Draft!

Got to watch the draft while at work, and glad I did. Very entertaining, lots of trades with perhaps more to come. Calgary did what was necessary and moved Tanguay's salary while picking up Mike Cammalleri. There had been rumors earlier about Jarret Stoll possibly going to L.A. for Cammalleri, which would have been an amazing pickup for Edmonton. Calgary downgrades slightly I'd say, but saves some cap space to presumably go towards Daymond Langkow. The Leafs give permission to the Canadiens to talk to Mats Sundin, though after Sundin made it clear he wanted to be a Leaf and didn't believe in being a rental and abandoning his team, it would be hard to see him actually going there, or anywhere else. I think he'll either retire or re-sign in Toronto. Either would be fine, it would pretty hard for Leaf fans to see him refuse a trade at the deadline, one that would have brought the Leafs a huge package of picks and prospects, only to see him bolt at the end of the year. Olli Jokinen to Phoenix was a surprise, kind of looked like they were going to stick with their rebuilding plans as they appeared to be going well, but looks like they're going for a playoff spot right now, and certainly more if that Southwest division fades. More trades are rumored and Edmonton has some names in play so maybe today there'll be more news.

The draft itself went as planned as far as player order, but teams were trading up and down like crazy. You have to wonder about the mindset of the New York Islanders though, here they are at 5 with a chance to pick either Luke Schenn or Nikita Filitov and they trade down not once, but TWICE down to the 9th spot. Sure, accumulating depth picks in later rounds is nice but there's something to be said for drafting top-end, possibly NHL-ready talent. Especially for the Islanders, at team with few blue-chippers besides Kyle Okposo. The Leafs did well in moving up to get Schenn, who I thought was Canada's best defenseman at the World Juniors, the Oilers did the expected and grabbed Jordan Eberle, and the rest of the teams made picks that made Pierre McGuire happy, which is the most important thing. Because this is THE DEEPEST DRAFT IN YEARS presumably most teams will be labelled "winners," but I have to think the Islanders blew it by not picking the best player. Drafting is about asset accumulation, and those assets are never rated more highly than they are at draft time. Grab Filitov or Schenn and trade them later, you might be able to get more for them than just trading the draft position. I still remember when Edmonton had a chance to draft Zack Parise, they instead traded down to get a few extra picks that became Marc Pouliot and JF Jacques. Jacques has fallen behind, Pouliot played well at the end of last season but Parise has 63 goals the last two seasons. Yeah, mistakes get made, but everybody thought Parise was a much better player than Pouliot, so why not grab Parise and flip him for somebody else, and still draft Pouliot later? Then at least you've made a trade where you sold high, rather than selling just a draft slot. It's just odd to see teams tank at the end of the year to get a higher draft slot, then trade it away for depth picks.

Cito Gaston is the new manager of the Toronto Blue Jays! The most successful coach in team history, also described as a terrific batting coach, also brings back Gene Tenace as hitting coach, who's probably the best hitting coach the team has ever had. So things are looking up!...except that their first game, against Godawful Pittsburgh Terribles, sees them go 12 innings without scoring a run for their best pitcher. I don't know about you, but I LIKE steriods in baseball.

Potpourri

The news that Glenn Healy will be leaving TSN to take a job with the NHLPA will undoubtedly do greater wonders for TSN's ratings than any theme song acquisition could. Just fabulous news; just as TSN's hockey coverage will enjoy even greater exposure this year the broadcast quality will improve considerably, even if Healy's spot is left entirely vacant. "I'm Chris Cuthbert along with Maggie the Monkey, here in beautiful Raleigh...."

The sale of the Edmonton Oilers to Bruce Wayne is complete. Who knows what this will really mean for the team and city. Maybe nothing. Maybe he's crazy. But maybe not. His promises were spend to the cap, pitch in for a new rink, and build a new training facility at the U of A. Well, the team already spends near the cap, arena development is proceeding slowly, and good for the U of A I guess, since that won't really benefit the average person. Yes yes, raising the city's profile as a world class sports city and all that, but so would a giant Easter Egg, or a giant dinosaur, or a giant whatever in God's name this thing is. Check that link out. I'll wait.

Toronto Blue Jays baseball, as of today: 12th in the AL in RBI's, 13th in homeruns and 12th in runs scored despite being 5th in OBP, 3rd in walks and 6th in stolen bases. So they get runners on, they often advance without sacrificing an out, then...nothing. The team is two games below .500, 9.0 games out of first place (and currently in last), despite having a pitching staff with the 3rd best earned run average, 3rd fewest runs allowed, 3rd fewest homeruns, and the 3rd lowest opponents' batting average. Feel the excitement!

NHL draft on Friday, MSNBC has the Oilers picking some nobody Swede or Swiss or something instead of local AJHL star Joe Colbourne or flashy center Jordan Eberle. Yeah, that's why nobody reads their hockey coverage. TSN promises a ten-hour draft preview on Thursday, where Dreger and McKenzie articulate reasoned analysis of each team's needs, Duthie will mock them and himself, Milbury will predict that Tampa will trade the top pick for Joni Pitkonen, who will then be signed to a 15 year contract, and McGuire will periodically come roaring into frame, inches from the camera, telling all of Canada how important it is to provide puck support and be Dion Phaneuf. Duthie will raise one eyebrow and segue to Darren Dutchyshen with a pithy comment. Dutchy will talk about boxing and Canada changes the channel. Meanwhile, at Sportsnet, Millard will be covered in spit while Kypreos argues for the immediate trade of Stamkos since, in three years, Tampa won't be able to afford both him AND another player, while Watters bellows his agreement while blaming Richard Peddie for 9/11. Tumbleweeds ripple through the studio.

At least Americans are watching hockey...

I don't post many videos but this one belongs here. Take it away, good sir:

"The Hockey Song?"

Who the hell calls it "The Hockey Song?" TSN does, now. It's now official, after some hope that CBC might still be able to renegotiate a deal that would save the Hockey Night in Canada theme, CTV stepped up and "saved" the song by purchasing it from "legendary" octogenarian jingler Paul Anka, I mean, Dolores Claman. How noble.

I have pretty mixed feelings about this. I'm glad the song will survive, somewhere, but this whole process really illustrates the campiness of the product. It's a 30 second jingle, written 40 years ago. How much money should a person honestly believe that to be worth? I'm sure CBC isn't blameless in all this, considering their history of penny-pinching Canada's favorite program, but really, consider the balls on this woman, holding CBC ransom for between $2.5 and $3 million dollars after 40 years of collecting royalties for a song she was ludicrously lucky enough to have land on Canada's favorite show, and holds its inflated value as a result. What she failed to understand, as will TSN when they realize ratings haven't skyrocketed as a result of their use of the song, is that nobody gives a crap about the song itself. Oh we love the song, it is Canada's second national anthem, it's justifiably considered iconic and a unifying part of Canadiana. Except that there's something much more iconic, of far greater value and historical significance than the song, and that's the fucking show itself. The song won't retain much of it's lustre when it's divorced from HNIC because Canadians only like the song because of what we associate it with. We watched Hockey Night in Canada before 1968 (since 1952 actually), I'm pretty sure we can manage without your little jingle.

Hmm, maybe my feelings are more "numerous" than mixed. It's sad to see a part of Canadian tradition fractured over greed, but when you're reading public negotiations and leveraging of a cultural symbol for more royalties it's easier to just say the hell with it. The audience will determine the value of the product, not a copyright company or Scott Moore. I don't think there'll be any significant ratings changes as a result of the song being used by another channel, I can't see anyone getting confused and thinking that now Hockey Night In Canada is on TSN and Ron Maclean has been replaced by wit-machine James Duthie, and now the show is on two or three days a week instead of Saturday night. Despite holding this opinion now (and holding it vengefully as in the paragraph above), it'll be very interesting to see if this will hold true. Maybe this will change the hockey viewership balance of power in Canada. Maybe that old hag was right. Nah.

The other issue with the song changing channels is the type of production attraction in question. The appeal of HNIC is tradition, knowing you'll see the same features as were shown twenty years ago. Typical first intermission interviews of some kid playing his first game on HNIC and saying Hi to his parents and friends back home in Moose Jaw, talking about how they watched HNIC growing up and how amazing it is to be on it now. Don Cherry ignoring (pick one) Crosby/Sundin/Jagr/Lemieux's first period hat trick and instead showing Gary Roberts blocking a shot on his one and only shift, then forgetting that sports are a distraction from the real world and forcing us to relive a recent soldier's death in (pick one) Iraq/Kosovo/Iraq/Afghanistan. The round table discussions in the second intermission where Al Strachan's "sources" are saying that Mats Sundin has agreed to waive his no-trade clause and will be going to the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters of the Japanese Pacific League while Scott Morrison wonders how hard it would be to throw Strachan out a window. The folksy video intro, highlighting HNIC's past, kids playing pond hockey and a general casual, old-fashioned feel to the broadcast. The show knows its appeal and plays on it, and that's fine with us. The former theme song, one has to think, is only a small part of that appeal.

Contrast that with TSN's broadcast, a super-hip, cutting-edge production featuring seizure-inducing opening graphics, a clever and ironic host, pop culture references galore and a massive staff of newsbreaking "insiders." Well okay, just Dreger and McKenzie, but that's two more than CBC and Sportsnet. To be sure, this is an ESPN-style show for the spastic ADHD generation. Mixing that with Canada's best known symbol of sports tradition with make for interesting gumbo. The saving grace is that TSN's previous hockey theme was pretty lame and will now get a big boost, as did their play-by-play announcing when Chris Cuthbert came over and Glenn Healy was tragically eaten by a pack of wild boars in my imagination. Don Cherry did some "work" for ESPN during these playoffs, wonder if a few more years will see him and Milbury beating the hell out of each other while Duthie spins a pun.


Oh, and who cares what Tiger Woods thinks about the NHL and hockey in general. He excels at a sports that real athletes play when they retire. There, add that to the multitude of cheap shots he's taken after knocking hockey. I'd like to think that mine's at least better than Milbury calling him Tiger Wuss. I thought hockey shows had writers?

June 5th, not bad

Nice to see the season end as early as it did. Much better than in 2006 when the Oilers-Canes series lasted until about the middle of September. Kudos to Wings I guess, but that's enough of that for a while now. Time for that franchise to have a prolonged slump, the place wasn't sold for early round games and I don't know if it was the TV feed or not, but the building sounded awfully quiet. Much louder in Pittsburgh anyways, though I did notice that when watching games on CBC HD, the crowd noise was much more drowned out than on regular CBC. So well done to the Detroit Braves, now get lost.

Apparently the Penguins are going to have to trade Malkin, let Hossa go, raise ticket prices to match oil and whore Sidney Crosby out to a thousand fat chicks just to get under the salary cap, which seems to be $8.71 million dollars. This is so stupid and yet it's everyone's favorite rumour. I'm listening to Nick Kypreos right now, yelling away at Darren Millard about how STUPID it would be to pour $20 million dollars into two players in the cap system. Next to Nick is Bill Watters, vigoriously agreeing and calling Richard Peddie a rapist. Oh wait, a commercial break for Millard to clean spit off himself. Ug. Ray Shero is the GM of the Penguins, and a regular reader of this blog. Listen to me, Mr. Shero. Your team was lucky enough to plummit into depths of Godawfulness reached only by the Leafs in the fantasies of the rest of Canada. As a result, you've been able to draft in the top two four years in a row. You have two of the three best young players in the NHL, and they both play center. You are SO LUCKY to have the CHANCE at having and re-signing two players good enough to merit $8.7 million a year (for Crosby). Like Denzel says in Training Day:
"Okay, the dick lines up straight like that right? To the right of it and to the left of it are pockets, right? In those pockets are money. Look in either one of 'em, pay the bill."

Now, if you want to trade Malkin because he had (until the finals) a terrific playoff, an MVP-nominated season, took over the Penguins midseason when Crosby got hurt, and established himself as either the 1 or 1A center Pittsburgh, well that's different. That's not what Nick and Watters are saying by the way, they think he HAS to go because having the two best young centers in the NHL, with the cap leaping every year and a new arena coming to Pittsbugh in two years (I think), is foolish. It's a different argument to say he should go because it's the best time to trade him. I don't like fantasy sports mentality lots of people take with team rosters, the coldness that goes into discussing trading players, but whenever you're talking about trading a player at his peak there's always a reason to listen to that argument. That's Malkin now, he's at the absolute peak of his tradeability, the only way he'd have higher trade value is if he was already locked into a long-term contract. That's impossible, given that this is his second season. So perhaps the fantasy mentality isn't a bad one in this case.

Kypreos, in his infinite SCREAMING, I mean, WISDOM, apparently was told there was an offer from Los Angeles, Malkin for Dustin Brown and Anze Kopitar. That's a good trade, a GREAT trade even, if you look at it in a vacuum. If you're Shero, you certainly consider it if you lose Hossa because you're replacing a big winger with another big winger, albeit one with less scoring skill but much more checking ability. That trade also looks good, even necessary, if the Penguins don't re-sign Ryan Malone either. Malone's a restricted FA who, if you listen to Kypreos and Watters, and you have to because if God spoke to you directly it wouldn't be as loud, will want $5 million. If you make that trade, you're committed to Malone, Fleury, Stall, Orpik, etc. and, this is my whole point here, if you're going to trade Malkin, a 21-year old 106 point player, you better be fucking sure. And not just sure of the trade itself, but of the effect that trade will have on your team. This proposed deal probably won't happen and is only meant as an example to illustrate this fact: there's two kinds of trades. Ones you can look at on their own, just the players and picks involved, and ones that you have to evaluate based on not just the transaction, but the ripple effect afterwards. If you trade Malkin to sign Fleury, Stall, Malone, you better not just get the right players back but hope that those three are worth it as well.

With hockey done and the eternal NBA season mercifully ending soon, baseball takes center stage. BJ Ryan has blown his last two save opportunities, including today where, after the retiring the first two batters, blew a two-run lead to the Yankees. I don't like seeing people lose their jobs, I like organizational stability with coaches and managers having enough time to implement a team culture, like Joe Torre in New York or Bobby Cox and Leo Mazzone (until 2005). That said, JP Riccardi has to go at the end of this year. Manager John Gibbons was on pretty thin ice last year but has shown a greater willingness this year to try a few things, like stealing bases, hit-and-run, and bunt. Now for most teams those are bad things, products of old-fashioned ignorance of the percentages that exist within baseball over the course of a season. For the Blue Jays, a team who can't score runs (4th worst in runs in the AL), can't hit with runners on base (4th worst in runs batted in) and can't hit homeruns (3rd worst), these are necessary risks you have to take. Any port in a storm.

Back to Riccardi. Releases struggling Frank Thomas who they still have to pay $8 million to hit for Oakland, and in the off-season released Reed Johnson, a favorite of all Jays fans, in favor of Shannon Stewart. The choice was Stewart's offense over Johnson's defense, except that at this point Johnson is on pace to hit .266 with 5 homers and 65 RBI's, while Stewart's on pace for .253, 3 HR's and 37 RBI's. Johnson is also one year removed from a .390 OBP, so his offensive production is just FINE thank you, he has better outfield range than Stewart and can actually get a ball from the outfield to home plate without looking like he needs to lie down with a damp cloth afterwards. Riccardi also overpaid Vernon Wells, WAY overpaid AJ Burnett, and made the bizarre decision to give John MacDonald a contract extension, then sign David Eckstein who can hit a little better but defend worse, THEN trade for Marco Scutaro ALL TO PLAY SHORTSTOP. Scutaro's been a pleasant surprise actually, Eckstein is short and tries hard and people like that I guess, and MacDonald is, of course, the best defensive shortstop in baseball (no I won't source that because while he's pretty friggin' close, no stat in the world will back me up on that). But how many mediocre shortstops/utility infielders does one team need? The payroll keeps getting higher and while the pitching is fantastic, it's coming pretty cheap so all the cash is going into the team's terrible "offense." What happens when Marcum, McGowan and Litsch want new contracts? Oh, and their draft record sucks and they never bring in any impact Canadians (that's draft-wise, Stairs doesn't count). Anything else?

Raffi Torres, Denis Grebeshkov, Rob Schremp, Taylor Chorney and a 1st round pick for Evgeni Malkin. Yeah? Of course "yeah," because this year's draft is SHAPING UP TO BE THE DEEPEST DRAFT IN YEARS. If you don't believe me, flip on Hockeycentral and YOU WILL SOON BE A TRUE BELIEVER! KALI MAH!