Category: Sports

I Kind Of Saw This One Coming…

Derek-Jeter-Wallpaper

Mo isn’t out the door yet and now the Derek Jeter haters are trying to push him out while insulting him along the way. I love it when they use phrases like “vastly overrated” to describe him.

Overrated? Probably. He essentially is worshipped in New York and nobody is worthy of tha, even if he is a “biracial angel” lol.

“Vastly” overrated? Lol, not even close.

I am sure that now those haters are going to tell us with an absolute level of certainty that he would barely have 2000 hits if he played in KC his entire career, rather than 3300+.

All of the Jeter haters just need to remove their heads from their collective asses.

Defensively he IS overrated as hell and his Gold Gloves are a farce. But the Gold Gloves in general are a farce so nobody gives three shits. Anybody besides me remember the year the Orioles Rafael Palmeiro won one for 1B despite the small fact he played DH in all but like 3 games?

He wasn’t carried by great teams, he was one of many who helped make teams great.

The biggest knock on him was always that “he wasn’t even the best SS of his era, derp”.

Then alll of the clowns that were named as being superior (Afraud, Tejada, Nomahhh) either came up hot for PEDs, were named by Canseco for using PEDs or just flat out fizzled out while Jete kept on chugging.

Here is “Mr. Overrated’s” resume:

— 9th on all-time hits list, will be 7th if he can just come back and collect 2 hits next season, as high as 5th if he can get 100+ hits next year. But yeah, that means a whole EIGHT guys were better so he HAS to be vastly overrated!!

— RoY 1996 (he comes out swinging, over .300 and nearly 200 hits. But of course he only hit .360 w/ an OBP well over .400 in the playoffs that led to their winning the WS so he was definitely “carried”)

— 13 All-Star appearances (first of which came in 1998 where he hit .324, amassed 200 hits for the first of 8 times in his career while helping the Yankees go an amazing 125-50 when counting their post-season run to yet another WS title in a series win over SD where he hit .353 with an OBP near .500).

— In 2000 he became the only human being ever to win World Series MVP and All-Star MVP in the same calnder year.

— Career batting average well over .300? Check.

— Career OBP near .400? Check.

— Career post-season batting average handly over .300, all done in a sample size that is over 700 ABs…or in other words, an ENTIRE SEASON’S WORTH OF AT-BATS versus ONLY the best competition? Check.

— Career filled with moments where when the lights shined brightest he stepped up and provided the “Mr. November”, “The Flip” kind of moment? Check, check and more checks.

To claim he is vastly overrated throws up the “I’m a fucking douche bag” signal faster than Ed Hardy shirts, “blowouts” & fist pumping in the club.

Yes, Joba Chamberlain Could Start In This League

Joba ChamberlainOh noes…”Joba Chamberlain thinks he can start.

I saw this one float around the blogosphere and just knew it was going to draw the idiots out of the woodwork.

Sure enough if you do a quick Google search you get anything and everything under the sun trying to either stir up some sort of faux controversy or flat out acting like he’s nuts to think so.

But here’s the thing…

…Dude really could start in this league if he wanted to.

I Split W L W-L% ERA G SV IP H R ER HR BB SO WHIP SO/9 SO/BB
as Starter 12 7 .632 4.18 43 0 221.2 227 117 103 25 101 206 1.480 8.4 2.04
as Reliever 9 6 .600 3.18 172 4 181.0 159 69 64 14 55 202 1.182 10.0 3.67
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/26/2013.

Poll every GM in baseball if they’d like a guy who could give them 175 Innings Pitched of 4.10-ish ERA baseball with nearly nine strikeouts per nine innings pitched and I am willing to say every last one of them would tell you they’d like to have that guy if the price was right.

People just seem to forget how effective the guy could be when toeing the rubber every fifth day when given the chance.

In the 2008 season that saw the Yankees basically treating him like a human yo-yo (“You’re a starter! No…you’re a reliever! No..you’re a ticket rep!”) in June/July he tore off a 9 start run where he was THE guy anchoring the rotation.

Rk Gcar Gtm Date IP H R ER BB SO ERA
23 42 68 Jun 13 6.0 6 1 1 4 2 2.48
24 43 73 Jun 19 5.2 4 1 1 3 9 2.36
25 44 78 Jun 25 6.2 6 0 0 1 7 2.03
July IP H R ER BB SO ERA
26 45 84 Jul 1 4.0 5 2 2 4 6 2.22
27 46 89 Jul 6 6.0 4 3 3 4 5 2.45
28 47 93 Jul 11 6.2 7 3 3 0 9 2.62
29 48 97 Jul 19 6.0 6 1 1 1 8 2.52
30 49 102 Jul 25 7.0 3 0 0 1 9 2.30
31 50 107 Jul 30 6.0 5 2 1 0 6 2.24
100.1 87 32 29 39 118 2.60
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/26/2013.

That is one hell of a nice stretch for a starter. The most runs he gave up in a start were three (twice) and for every start like that he had one where he gave up nothing.

And that wasn’t the only time in his short career as a starter where he rattled off a solid 10 start run.

Rk Gcar Gtm Date IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
June IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
10 71 51 Jun 1 8.0 4 2 2 2 5 1 3.71
11 72 56 Jun 7 6.0 5 3 3 1 4 0 3.79
12 73 61 Jun 12 4.0 1 2 2 5 3 0 3.84
13 74 66 Jun 18 6.0 7 3 3 4 6 0 3.89
14 75 71 Jun 24 6.1 7 3 2 0 5 1 3.81
15 76 76 Jun 30 5.1 9 3 3 3 4 1 3.89
July IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
16 77 81 Jul 5 3.2 9 8 3 1 1 2 4.04
17 78 86 Jul 10 4.1 9 5 4 1 4 1 4.25
18 79 91 Jul 19 6.2 3 1 1 3 8 1 4.05
19 80 96 Jul 24 7.0 2 1 1 3 6 0 3.86
20 81 101 Jul 29 8.0 3 0 0 2 5 0 3.58
157.1 167 94 83 76 133 21 4.75
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 2/26/2013.

The only real hiccups in that stretch was a two game stretch where his defense yielded six unearned runs & forced him to hit high pitch counts well before normal.

Shortly thereafter the rest was, as they say, history. Injuries kicked in and he just wasn’t able to catch much of a break.

So while I don’t think he could ever be the stud at the top of the rotation some once thought he was destined to be, I have no doubt that Mr. Chamberlain could land a job in a starting rotation somewhere if he saw fit to do so.