I’d say this is as good a time as any to gush about the guy who will become — if he isn’t already — the best position player the Mets have ever had.

In the 868 games he’s played, he’s racked up 143 HR, 575 RBI, and 126 SB, while hitting at a .308/.391/.517 clip. Of course, during the SNY broadcast of tonight’s game, Gary Cohen had to put Wright in company with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio, saying that only those three New York players reached 1,000 hits in that few games with that many home runs. That’s stretching it a little bit, but Wright’s career is certainly off to an awesome start and anyone that booed him this past week deserves to have beer poured on his head.

Looking at those HR and SB totals got me thinking that Wright could possibly become a member of the 300-300 club — a club I didn’t realize included Reggie Sanders and Steve Finley until I just looked it up. Sure, it might also include Barry and Bobby Bonds, Willie Mays, and Andre Dawson, but those two other guys kinda sour it, don’t they? At least if we’re talking about Hall of Fame status. Both of them are behind even Jim Rice in career WAR!

But then I thought of another stat to add to that club: a .300 average. That eliminates all but Willie Mays (yes, Barry Bonds’ career average is only .298). If David Wright somehow manages to maintain that all-important .300 number, people will be talking about him in company with Willie Mays all the time. The Hall of Fame couldn’t be far behind.

Sure, I may be perpetuating the idea of these stupid arbitrary clubs, but even I have to admit they’re kinda fun sometimes. Everyone loves round numbers, and the beauty of a .300-300-300 club cannot be denied. I probably should have named this post after the idea because it’s so awesome.

Plugging Wright’s career stats into the quick and dirty Bill James career assessments formula, he has a 91% chance of reaching 300 HR, and a 72% chance of reaching 300 SB. I’d say the former percentage is spot-on, but even I’m not that optimistic about 300 SB. I feel like a player’s SB totals decline faster with age than his HR counts, but I forget if this has actually been proven or not. But it seems obvious, doesn’t it? Either way, the .300 average might be the toughest to end his career with.

Admittedly, the 300-300 club is going to explode in the next few years, as Alex Rodriguez, Alfonso Soriano, and Carlos Beltran are all locks. And Mike Cameron and Bobby Abreu will probably enter it as well. Even Derek Jeter has a shot. But out of all those, A-Rod and Jeter (the two Yankees, of course) are the ones who would be hitting over .300. And A-Rod isn’t a lock for that batting average milestone, since he’s signed with the Yankees for I believe the next 28 years. He’s bound to continue his decline and he’s sitting at only .305 right now.

In ten years we might be looking at a snazzy .300-300-300 club that everyone can love, and it will possibly contain Mays, A-Rod, Jeter and Wright.

Man, people will only hate New York even more once this is plastered all over ESPN. But I hope you’ll remember you heard it here first.*

*Or at least pretend that I’m actually the first person to ever say this. I did the requisite Googling and I didn’t find anything, but nothing on the internet is original.

When the inevitability of this matchup became clear, I had no doubt in my mind that I’d be rooting against the Phillies. My allegiance would be with New York City in the battle against the shithole that is Philadelphia. Philly might have Rocky and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but fuck them, I thought. Their fanbase is probably the worst group of human beings collected this side of an African dictatorship. And they’re not too bright, either.

This is not to mention the team itself. I’ll just quote myself here:

Shane Victorino is a little piece of shit Hawaiian who plays dirty; Jimmy Rollins runs his mouth and wins MVPs due to it, even when he doesn’t deserve it; Ryan Howard is an overrated slugger who strikes out on a lefty slider seemingly every time I see him at the plate; and Brett Myers beats his wife and puts his kid in a Confederate flag shirt.

The Phillies advancing through the postseason on the back of Ryan Howard — while Chase Utley throws away double play balls — is a personal nightmare for me. Utley is a better baseball player than Howard, yet he will probably never win an MVP award, and everyone is on Howard’s jock due to his performance in nine games. Cole Hamels received the same treatment last year and he turned in a down year in 2009 and has now been supplanted by a 38-year-old in the rotation. Pedro Martinez may be no ordinary 38-year-old, but it’s still quite a shift in one season. The small sample size of the postseason means jack shit.

This brings us to the Yankees, and Alex Rodriguez’s tale of redemption. This is where I start thinking it’d be fantastic if the Yankees lost. Who wouldn’t want to see A-Rod fail miserably in the World Series and watch the entire Yankees Universeâ„¢ turn on him once again? I get chills imagining the boos that would cascade down if he grounded into a double play to end Game 7. Isn’t it beautiful to envision the typical Yankee fan turning on a player just as quickly as he was deified? Two series may have seemingly wiped out any bitterness of postseasons past, but a 2-20 performance by A-Rod culminating in a World Series loss would only bring back the cries for A-Rod’s head. He would have proved himself yet again to not be a True Yankeeâ„¢.

Is hope for this outcome enough for me to root for the Phillies? It just might be. You may be asking why I hate A-Rod so much, and it’s a reasonable question. It’s not the money, because every baseball player makes too much money. It’s not his sexual history, because anyone who has sex with Madonna has to be scarred for life. It’s that everything, EVERYTHING he does looks rehearsed and devoid of true joy. Maybe it’s just his face — and my urge to punch it — that clouds my judgment, but I see him as some soulless entity who was created solely to be very, very good at baseball.

An addition consideration is that perhaps I still hate the Braves more than the Phillies. Sure, the Phillies embarrassed the Mets in 2007 and 2008, but that was just as much (if not more) a product of the Mets collapsing than it was of the Phillies rallying. Should I hate the Phillies for the Mets’ bullpen being worthless last year? Or for Jose Reyes forgetting how to hit in September of 2007? Maybe I truly appreciate the team the Phillies have put together, even if I hate them. The organization didn’t sit on its hands after a World Series championship — they went out and got Raul Ibanez (which I thought was a bad move, admittedly), and then during the season picked up Cliff Lee and Pedro Martinez for peanuts. They built a championship team without shelling out almost half a billion dollars for three players.

I didn’t know where I’d end up at the end of this post, but it looks like I’m falling on the side of the Phillies. I don’t even know myself anymore.

- It only took a week with the iPod Touch to NOT care about the iPhone again. The Touch is already fucking up when it comes to playing my music and videos, so I’ll just assume the problems could only get worse with a device that also needs to make phone calls. I’m just glad I didn’t pay for it. Fuck Apple.

- I’ll admit that for whatever reason, getting a new iPod made me attempt to get into podcasts. I’ve been going mostly with informational ones; what a goddamn nerd I am. I actually found a 15 minute podcast on blinking interesting.

- Mark Sanchez went from hyped draft pick to immediate savior to bum rookie in record time.

- I had the first urge to play a video game in two months just now, but I decided to watch classic Simpsons instead.

Owner: Take this object, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: [worried] Ooooh, that’s bad.
Owner: But it comes with a free Frogurt!
Homer: [relieved] That’s good.
Owner: The Frogurt is also cursed.
Homer: [worried] That’s bad.
Owner: But you get your choice of topping!
Homer: [relieved] That’s good.
Owner: The toppings contains Potassium Benzoate.
Homer: [stares]
Owner: That’s bad.

I think I made the right choice.

- Wait, the NHL has started? There’s still an NHL?

- Fantasy football (or any sport for that matter) leagues consisting of only 5 teams do not work. And I say this because I am winning my 5-team league — when I wasn’t even present for the draft.

- Did I mention I won my roto fantasy baseball league by 12 points? That’s going to be a pickup line from now on. 12 POINTS!

- Totally fuck awesome movies I saw for the first time in the past month: City of God and 28 Days Later. The former being one of the best gangster (that qualifier might not even be needed) movies ever, and the latter being one of the best zombie movies ever — both shot brilliantly stylized. Nice to see I’m catching up with this decade’s classics just before the decade is over.

- THE BOOK is required reading for any baseball fan with a semblance of nerdiness — and also baseball managers. *cough* Joe Girardi *cough*. (Actually, *cough* pretty much every single manager *cough*.) You’ll never look at the game the same way again.

- Kate Hudson’s magic vagina isn’t enough for A-Rod.

The Yankees pitching staff has done well for me in fantasy the past two days, what with a combined 15 and 1/3 scoreless innings from Burnett and Sabathia. Conversely, I’m glad that I don’t have K-Rod on either of my fantasy teams. I’m also glad I haven’t watched the past two Mets games, and Bobby Parnell’s first ML start is the only reason I’m tuning in at the moment.

K-Rod is regressing in a spectacular fashion. The first half of the year was not his true performance level, but even I didn’t expect him to have a stretch like this. Everyone was praising Minaya early this year for getting K-Rod at a “bargain” price, but it’s only going to look worse and worse as the contract runs its course, if this disturbing trend line continues:

Fangraphs

K-Rod’s XFIP by year:

2004: 2.63
2005: 2.97
2006: 3.22
2007: 3.53
2008: 3.71
2009: 4.27

XFIP, according to Hardball Times:

Expected Fielding Independent Pitching. This is an experimental stat that adjusts FIP and “normalizes” the home run component. Research has shown that home runs allowed are pretty much a function of flyballs allowed and home park, so xFIP is based on the average number of home runs allowed per outfield fly. Theoretically, this should be a better predicter of a pitcher’s future ERA.

So yeah, K-Rod is only going to get worse, so his signing can be put in the corner with Oliver Perez’s. Oh, and the Angels’ closer this year is tied for the league lead. Saves and closers as a whole are such a joke (except Mariano Rivera).

So I wanted to originally add some commentary to each picture, but Firefox is acting up when I try to add pictures, so I figured I’d try out this NextGEN Gallery plug-in.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

12►

But really, this entire post is just an excuse to post this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8zSXVHELTY

So if you’re reading this, you probably care about A-Rod and baseball, which means you know the news this weekend concerning the two. Four anonymous sources have confirmed that A-Rod tested positive for anabolic steroids in 2003. Something that never should have been made public, but has been leaked nonetheless. And the MLB network was loving every minute of it. It was great to watch someone else other than the guys on ESPN talk about the fallout of such a revelation, especially Bob Costas. I don’t know where the internet community stands on the tiny dude, but I unequivocally approve of the MLB network bringing him on board.

Getting back to the topic that will be talked about incessantly during Spring Training — I’m not surprised at all, and I don’t understand how anyone could be. I think the only player that would surprise me with a similar revelation would be Omar Vizquel.  Now granted, this type of evidence certainly wouldn’t hold up in a court of law, but whoever is leaking this information certainly doesn’t want to get in trouble, so I can understand the anonymity. I have no problem assuming that the allegations are true, even if it almost makes me feel bad for A-Rod at this point. There were apparently 103 other guys that tested positive, but his name is the only one leaked? Isn’t all the Madonna, shemale-loving, and Joe Torre book shit enough? Oh well, I guess $25 million a year can alleviate the pain somewhat. I’m just extremely curious about the rest of the list. 104 guys tested positive when they knew there was going to be testing — can you imagine how many guys were taking them in the years leading up to 2003? Christ.

That’s the bigger deal here. A-Rod taking steroids is a big blow to all the people that held him up as the poster boy for being the great clean hope of breaking Bonds’ HR record, but 104 players tested positive? And this was supposed to be kept under wraps forever and now has leaked to the public? The Players’ Union must be PISSSSEDDDD. But you reap what you sow, and this whole era has become such a goddamn shitshow that it’s pretty much a joke at this point. The problem was ignored for so long that now the media and even the freaking U.S. Government can’t let go of it. It feels like so long ago that McGwire made a fool of himself on national television, and I don’t see this blowing over any time soon, especially if that list of 104 players is made public knowledge.

At this point, I’m starting to lean towards allowing all these juicers in the Hall of Fame. Guys in every era took stuff to get an edge, amphetamines being the drug of choice in the 70s and 80s for the most part. If you keep all the alleged roiders out at this point, you’re going to missing a massive part of baseball history, quite honestly. Just stamp CHEATER on their plaques. Acknowledge that they were the best out of an entire pool of cheaters. Is that punishing guys that stayed clean? For the most part, I don’t think so, as there are guys that made it in without cheating. Possibly it hurts the borderline guys that never juiced, but shit, what can you do? I can see writers voting for those type of guys in 10-15 years, anyhow.

One thing that stands out to me in all this steroid talk: you never hear Manny Ramirez mentioned, on either side of the debate. I just find it interesting. I guess everyone just agrees that Manny being Manny does not include taking PEDs.

The Yankees-Indians Game 2 showdown featured a classic pitcher’s duel. Up the 8th inning, the only mistake that had been made was Fausto Carmona throwing a slider to Melky Cabrera. Andy Pettitte showed why the Yankees brought him back. Honestly, he never should’ve been allowed to leave. He pitched out of a leadoff runner reaching base almost every inning until Joba Chamberlain came in with an out in the 7th, who subsequently finished up the inning easily. It looked like Cabrera’s solo HR might hold up. Then the bugs came.

They first showed up during Carmona’s 8th inning work, but he didn’t seem all that phased by them. By the bottom of the inning, however, the bugs were in full-out assault mode. It was like God sent down a plague to sabotage Joba. I would figure a Native American would be in tune with nature or some crap like that, but the bugs turned out to be the toughest opponent Joba had faced all year. At one point, it looked like he had 30 bugs making a home on his neck, with another 50 on his hat. It was disgusting. I can only imagine what it looked like HD. He was waving his hand, stepping off the mound…and throwing wild pitches. On his second wild pitch of the inning, the Indians tied up the score 1-1.

Seeing that insane turn of events, I have to agree with this Busted Tees shirt.

Carmona continued not to be phased by the bugs and finished up 9 innings of 3-hit ball. An incredible performance. Rivera came in and tossed a couple of tense innings, but as one could have predicted, he was as calm as always, acting as if the bugs weren’t there. The problem for the Yankees was after Rivera. Luis Vizcaino came in blew the game pretty handily in the 11th inning. The Yankees are in trouble.

Obligatory side note: A-Rod was 0-4.

The sequel was a Red Sox-Angels Game 2 that also turned out to be a low-scoring, close game. Not quite as masterfully pitched, but Fenway isn’t exactly a pitcher’s park. I missed the beginning of the game where most of the scoring occurred due to the length of the Yankees-Indians game, but I was there for the rest. The Indians may have benefited from some divine intervention, but the Red Sox got some help from a real fan. In the fifth, Angels catcher Jeff Mathis reached into the stands for a fly ball only to have it snatched basically right out of his glove by a young Red Sox fan. It would’ve been the second out, so the Red Sox were able to score from a sacrifice fly later in the inning and tie the game at 3-3. The kid got high-fives as he walked up the stairs, one of the people being Stephen King. He will no doubt be the most popular kid in school. I wonder if his teachers will ask for his autograph.

The score remained 3-3 until the bottom of the 9th. Julio Lugo led off with a single. On a hit-and-run, Lugo was able to get to second on a grounder to shortstop by Dustin Pedroia. It was time for K-Rod. He quickly got the second out by striking out Kevin Youkilis. With 2 outs and the winning run on second, Mike Scoscia decided to walk David Ortiz for the fourth time in the game. It was left to a battle between Rodriquez and Manny. After a first-pitch curve for a ball, K-Rod reached back and chucked a fastball…right down the middle. Manny hit it out of the stadium and onto the Massachusetts Turnpike. He Lidge’d K-Rod.

So every series is now 2-0. I only hope at least one of them reaches a Game 5.

Now for more A-Rod material.