Stan McNeal is old and doesn’t know anything
This is one of the most banal pieces of crap sportswriting I’ve seen in a while. It’s by Stan McNeal in Sporting News, which is more than one hundred years old and is getting damn crotchety in its old age. Get a load of this cranky shit this dude is "hoping" for:
1. Joe Mauer stays with the Twins.
Yeah, that would be sweet, wouldn’t it? Everybody likes Joe Mauer, and everybody likes the Twins, and it would be cute and cuddly if he stuck around. But now watch Stan blow this way out of proportion:
Losing Mauer to a major market would not only be a blow to the Twins and their new ballpark but to the entire game.
A blow to the entire game, you say? Yeah? Why’s that? Because more people would get to see an awesome catcher play baseball?
So the Twins should open up their checkbook. They’ve got their outdoor ballpark set to open, and since they didn’t pony up for a retractable roof, there should be an additional $100 million or so to spend on the reigning A.L. MVP.
You don’t know much about high finance in the world of baseball, do you, Stan. Here’s an insider’s tip: $100 million is nearly the entire amount of money the Twins spent on Target Field. The rest of it was paid by the Hennepin County taxpayers (congratulations on your new, higher taxes, Hennepin County residents!). Here’s another insider’s tip: baseball contracts aren’t just a dollar value, but also, like, a number of years, and your proposal kind of makes it sound like you think the Twins should offer Mauer a one-year extension for $100 million. So what do you mean? Five years? Seven? Ten? Those are unpossible, difficult, and easy for the Twins to handle, in that order.
Over the next 10 years, he will put enough butts in the seats to prove more than worth it.
Oh, ten. Okay. Yes, if the Twins can sign Mauer to a ten-year, $100 million contract, they should do so. Just checking real quick… yeah, looks like Matt Holliday, who put up comparable numbers last year, is three years older, and plays a position way up the defensive spectrum, got a deal just like that. So the Twins should be golden!
What? He actually got 7/$120M? Fuck. Hate to spoil this for you, Stan, but it’s not looking like it’s going to be super easy to get Mauer locked up for 10/$100M after all.
And he’ll be worth more than $10M/year for the next ten years in terms of attendance? You’re sure of that, Stan? Now, this is tough to argue in future terms, but we can look at past seasons. On page 190 of the Baseball Prospectus book "Baseball Between the Numbers" is a breakdown of the cash value to the team provided by every additional regular-season win, and they value that at $747k (they arrive at this value through a lot of really complicated analysis I’m not going to get into here, but suffice to say they’re a lot smarter than me and Wrongway Jones here). Joe Mauer’s WARP1 in 2009 — his MVP year — was 8.1, meaning he was worth 8.1 more wins than a AAA callup. That means Mauer brought the Twins $6,050,700 in revenue, well shy of even your highly rosy $10M cost.
The reality of things is much more complicated, and involves playoff odds and on and on, but here’s the catch: do you really think Joe Mauer is still going to be worth 8+ wins to his team as a 37-year-old catcher? Because that is what he will be at the end of this 10/$100M deal.
Nerd digression ends. Back to mockery.
2. Ichiro Suzuki hits third in the Mariners’ lineup.
I love this one. This is so absurdly, batshit insane. And get the reasoning:
For three reasons: 1. To prove Ichiro isn’t as selfish as he sometimes is made out to be.
To prove Ichiro isn’t selfish, he will hit in the spot in the lineup generally reserved for the team’s biggest superstar. The spot where Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, and Derrek Lee hit. As a display of humility.
2. They have Chone Figgins to lead off, and he reached base more than even Ichiro last season.
He did — his OBP was .395 to Ichiro’s .386. That difference isn’t a whole lot. And, for what it’s worth, Ichiro has a 15-point career advantage (.378 to .363).
3. To see Ichiro have a 25-homer, 100-RBI season to go with all those 200-hit campaigns.
I… what? To see Ichiro… I’m sorry, I need to read that again. Did that really say what I think it said?
3. To see Ichiro have a 25-homer, 100-RBI season to go with all those 200-hit campaigns.
I just can’t… I mean, Ichiro?
3. To see Ichiro have a 25-homer, 100-RBI season to go with all those 200-hit campaigns.
3. To see Ichiro have a 25-homer, 100-RBI season to go with all those 200-hit campaigns.
3. To see Ichiro have a 25-homer, 100-RBI season to go with all those 200-hit campaigns.
3. To see Ichiro have a 25-homer, 100-RBI season to go with all those 200-hit campaigns.
3. To see Ichiro have a 25-homer, 100-RBI season to go with all those 200-hit campaigns.
That is the most insane thing I’ve ever heard. Ichiro Suzuki has 84 career home runs. In nine seasons. His season high is fifteen, and you think that dropping him two places in the batting order will produce a 25-homer season? You clearly don’t know anything about baseball.
3. To not have to type "steroids" or "performance-enhancing drugs" for the rest of the year.
If Ichiro Suzuki hits 25 home runs, you will be typing those words more times than you ever have in your eighty-four years on this earth.
5. Matt Holliday says it was all about the money.
Uh-oh. It’s about to get cranky in here.
The Cardinals are expected to sign the slugger to a long-term contract as soon as this week. When the news conference is staged, both sides can be expected to play happy and Holliday will go on about St. Louis being a great baseball town with wonderful fans and the ideal fit for him. If that’s true, why have negotiations plod along for nearly three months?
I mean, I agree. It was pretty shitty of Holliday to drag the negotiations out like this, when he could have signed up and helped the Cardinals win some games these past few months.
Also — and I know this is a crazy idea — but maybe the negotiations dragged out because there was no benefit to ending them early, and millions of dollars to be gained by waiting. I mean, I don’t know about you, but if I received a contract offer for a job that didn’t start for five months, and I had reason to believe that I could get several million more dollars just by, like, waiting a while before I signed it, I think I’d probably hold off. Clearly, Stan, you don’t know anything about business.
And while on the topic of Cardinals’ press conferences, I’d like to see Mark McGwire talk about the past, finally.
And how does this fit in with your desire not to write about performance-enhancing drugs? Stan, honestly. I’m starting to think you don’t even know anything about what’s coming out of your mouth.
7. Jamie Moyer wins 15 games. The older I get, the more I root for the old guys.
Oh, you’re old? No fooling? I wouldn’t have guessed. That aside, I actually agree with this: I think it would be cool if 47-year-old Jamie Moyer has a good year. And finally Stan isn’t whining about some damn thing!
9. No more instant replay.
You’re whining again, Stan. And being really fucking old. And senile, I think; do you not remember the 2009 postseason, Stan? How the umpires blew, like, a fuckton of calls? Like, including this absolute stunner? Holy shit does baseball need some type of replay/challenge mechanic. Stop being a complete fucking luddite.
While we’re at it, no more designated hitter.
And no more of that god-awful rock and roll music!
No games played in sub-30 temperatures (that I’m covering, anyway).
And why don’t they make that punk kid Tim Lincecum cut his hair and sit up straight!
No more tantrums by Milton Bradley.
Also: no more tantrums by ninety-year-old boneheads who write for the Sporting News.
No more one-sided trades forced by economic disparities.
I agree. It was totally unfair that those poor, small-market Tigers were forced to trade Curtis Granderson for no good reason. I mean, it’s not like it’s their fault that they gave out a metric fuckchunk of terrible contracts! The Yankees should pay for this transgression!
And remember that time when those evil, huge-market Cardinals forced the poor, innocent Athletics to give up the washed-up corpse of Mark Mulder? And how all the A’s got in return was Dan Haren, Kiko Calero, and Daric Barton? Totally unfair.
And please, no more chest-thumping, especially after someone hits a home run with his team losing.
God, I’m with you here. Especially if it’s a three-run homer, since, as we all know, you can’t win ballgames with that shit. Doesn’t help the team at all. It’s just to pad your personal stats. REAL baseball players would bunt every time they come up to bat with the team losing. Even if the bases are empty. They’d bunt for a hit, then steal second, third, and home on three consecutive pitches. And then they’d steal fucking first from the dugout just so they could score again.
10. The Twins meet the Rockies in the World Series.
That would actually be really cool. The Twins and the Rockies are good, fun, young franchises with a lot of talent.
A Series that didn’t end until Thanksgiving because of snow would be enough to convince TV honchos to tighten the October schedule. Wouldn’t it?
Oh lord, he’s just whining again. Stan, cool it. Go take a nap, man. It’s past your bedtime.
