Media: All-Star Break shenanigans with Dan Shaughnessy's column of DOOM!

Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe tends to go overboard with everything. Hell, he's the guy who wrote The Curse of the Bambino! Personally, I like Dan Shaughnessy for entertainment value. I'm sure I'd hate him if I were a Red Sox fan -- but I'm not, so the relationship is just fine.

This morning, Dan Shaughnessy fired out a tweet with a link to his latest column titled, What happened to the Red Sox?, and I knew it would be too good to pass up. It was certain to be rife with Mayan prophecy and criticism of Adrian Gonzalez which I never fail to find interesting.

Let's have some fun with Dan Shaughnessy's doom and gloom . . .


 The Red Sox are a trainwreck [sic].

There is no better train-wreck in cinematic history than the one given to us by the creators of The Fugitive with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. Actually I can't substantiate that claim. Fugitive was the first film with a train-wreck to pop into my head. It occurred in Chicago. Not Boston. But Tommy Lee Jones went to Harvard . . . which really doesn't matter.

It’s about the third-highest payroll in baseball and not a single playoff game victory since 2008.

The precise date of the Red Sox last win was October 18th, 2008. On this date Nickleback had the only "rock" song in the Billboard 100. This does not make the Red Sox "Nickleback sympathizers" and lovers of all that is douchey in music . . . unless we pretend it does.

It’s about a franchise that has become a parody of itself, led by an ownership group that has lost all sense of accountability.  

I fackin' love parodies and yar outta yar fackin' tree if you don't appreciate a gawd damn pissah of a parody about ow-a Sawx. Accountability. Fackin accountability!

The last-place Red Sox are 43-43 at the All-Star break.

Wait a minute. Doom and gloom over a .500 record at the All-Star break? What the fuck is wrong with Shaughnessy?

Josh Beckett and Jon Lester should be embarrassed. They have come back from the disgrace of September 2011 and done almost nothing.  

I will cut these guys some slack/ Until we bring beer and fried chicken buckets back! And Josh Beckett won the last Red Sox playoff game on October 18th, 2008. Hello? Nickleback?!

Adrian Gonzalez? Six homers at the break. An OBP of .329, with 64 strikeouts and only 23 walks? All this for the bargain price of $154 million? Gonzo has been part of two of the worst collapses in hardball history over the last two Septembers and I’m beginning to think this is not bad luck.

Oh, Adrian. Mopey Adrian. The idea of pinning two September collapses on Adrian Gonzalez is patently absurd. But far be it from me to stop Dan Shaughnessy from doing it. This is what I came for, Dan. Thanks for delivering.

Now Crawford tells us that he eventually will need surgery on the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing elbow.

Now it's elbow issues for Carl Crawford? I bet he wants to shoot himself in the face over all of these injuries.

Why wait? This is a lost season and it’s not like Carl had any impact last year. There’s no sense rushing to get back to hop aboard this southbound train.

The second best train-wreck in cinematic history occurs in M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable. I can't substantiate this either I just really liked the film. And it popped into my head second.

Excellent work bringing the train metaphor full circle. Around the train-track of life. So to speak.

Happy All-Star break.

Some Guy Ranks The Padres After Their Busy Winter

 Not that we should in anyway care about what a Red Sox beat reporter thinks about the Padres but I'm going back to the "Nick Cafardo" well, so to speak . . .

From the same Nick Cafardo column where I found the statistic used for yesterday's Gwynn Numbers: Strikeout Minutiae:

28. PADRES - Josh Byrnes took over as GM for Jed Hoyer and made some moves to change things for the financially strapped team, which lost closer Bell. Byrnes acquired Quentin from the White Sox, and got promising first base prospect Yonder Alonso from the Reds in the Latos deal, which also brought in righty Edinson Volquez.

I don't think any of this is unfair. I can hardly quibble with someone picking the Padres as the 28th best team in a 30 team league. I think they'll be better than that but I'm not taking umbrage with their placement by the Boston Globe's, Nick Cafardo.

But if you read the assessment of the Padres as related to the other 29 teams it looks out of place. With every other team Cafardo proffers an opinion. He gives his perspective. There's none of that with his blurb on the Padres which I find strange considering that the Padres were one of the most active teams this off season. The Angels, Marlins, and Rangers all spent more money than the Padres but were matched or surpassed in terms of activity.

I'm not offended as a Padres fan but as a reader. If you're going to proclaim to be an expert on every team in MLB at least continue with an opinion on each team since you have decided to rank them all.

For example: "The Padres were one of the more active teams during the winter but it won't help at all in 2012."

I would disagree with it but at least there would be an element of honesty to the column which was clearly mailed in when it came to ranking team #28.

Editor's Note: Nick Cafardo is a member of the Baseball Writer's Association of America. Members of the BBWAA elect players to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He covers the Boston Red Sox. Obviously.

An Austin Hedges Thought

In a lengthy column about a bunch of crap mostly related to the Boston Red Sox a statistical gem unearthed itself.


From Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe:

From the Bill Chuck files: “Over the last four seasons, there have been four players with at least 1,000 at-bats who have cumulatively hit .220 or lower: Jeff Mathis (.193), Andruw Jones (.213), Jason Varitek (.218), and Kelly Shoppach (.220).’’ 

 Since three of those guys are catchers I immediately thought of 2011 2nd round draft pick Austin Hedges -- the belief in his "once in a generation" defense but the questions about his bat.

Jeff Mathis, Jason Varitek, and Kelly Shoppach were also taken in either the 1st or 2nd rounds of the draft and made it to the Majors. None of them can hit. At all. 

Jason Varitek deserves a pass because he's ancient whereas Mathis and Shoppach are relatively young. Kelly Shoppach is 31 but hasn't hit in three years. This is in starch contrast to Mathis -- who has never hit.

I prefer Hedges becoming Varitek. Maybe the captain of a World Series winner? In any case, I think we'll see Austin Hedges in San Diego if his glove is as advertised, for no other reason than Jeff Mathis' employment.


Happy thoughts for a Monday.