I Am Fuckin Smart

As if you didn't know.
This is gonna be fun.

Back in April I was listening to the old AM radio when Michael Kay came on and starting shooting his big fat mouth off about how he disagreed with all the pundits who were picking the Red Sox to win the AL East and the World Series. Kay argued that the Yanks were much better and went through a point-by-point analysis of just why he believed what he did. His speculation about both teams enraged me, so I wrote about it and shot off my own big fat mouthvia a blog post. Today, I get to re-review that post. And wouldn't you know it, through the art of selective review, I was right and Michael Kay was way the fuck wrong. I am delighted to present that recap to you today.

First, Kay started by suggesting that the Yankees lineup had no holes while the Sox were chalk full of them. Here's what I wrote:

1. Doug Mientkiewicz is not a hole in the yanks lineup
Kay went through the lineups and asked where the hole in the Yanks lineup. He compared it to a Red Sox lineup that apparently looks like the Bengals secondary (I'll address the Sox lineup holes later). He concluded that the Yanks have no holes in their lineup. Erroneous. Mientalphabet is perhaps the worst offensive first baseman in baseball. He didn't rank in the top 30 for any positive hitting statistic last year amongst first basemen. Over the last 3 years, he's hitting .230 against the AL East. I think everyone can agree that he's horrible.... The larger point is that Kay would have gained more credibility had he conceded that Mientalphabet is the hole and moved on. He didn't.

Pretty sweet, eh? Well, as it happened Dougles got hurt and only put together 166 ABs. Prior to the injury he was hitting a robust .226 and was a GLARING hole in the bottom of that lineup. After the injury, he put together a terrific September (hitting over .400) and ended the season with a .277 average but mostly in a platoon and late inning sub role. Doug went 0-6 in limited postseason play. I think it was safe to say that Doug was not a roaring success and was the largest hole in the lineup. I'm not taking a full victory there but I think I was more right.

Kay's second point was this: 2. The Red Sox lineup is full of holes, namely Crisp, Varitek & Pedroia
To that I said this:

Let me start by saying that I have no idea what to expect out of Tek or Crisp, so I'm not going to defend them. I'll say that I'm fine with Crisp playing crappy because I want to usher in the Jacoby Ellsbury experience as soon as possible. Tek is a whole 'nother ballgame. They don't need Tek to be great, they just need .250 and a .350 OBP, that's it (that'd be a miracle). But to knock Pedroia? Why? I'd circle Pedroia as a question mark for sure, but a hole? Kay supported this assertion by correctly noting Pedroia hit .200 in the majors last year. What he failed to mention is that it was over the course of 31 games and 89 ABs as the Sox nosedived out of playoff contention last year. I don't say that to make excuses for him, just to point it out (and maybe to offer some context).... Through his amateur and minor league career, Pedroia's never hit below .300 when given 100 or more ABs and he K's about half as many times as he draws walks. Don't get me wrong here, Pedroia has proven nothing and is a question mark for sure. His progress will go a long way towards determing the fate of the Sox this season. To argue he's a "hole" in the lineup in the number 9 slot and then say that Doug Mientkiewicz is not? Let's be reasonable.

I am going to stop and give myself a LARGE and LONG slow clap for these remarks. I mean, that was pure genius because EVERY SINGLE THING I SAID WORKED OUT AS I SUGGESTED. Coco played crappy, Jacoby was ushered in. And that looks like it will work out ok. All Tek needed to do was hit .250 and .350 OBP, Tek hits .255 with a .367 OBP and they win the world series. Pedroia hit .317 with 520 ABs and is likely to be the AL rookie of the year. Again, my point wasn't merely to predict how I thought these guys were going to do (though I did a fine job), but was to responde to the idea that these guys were "holes in the lineup" while the Yankees had no holes. I win.

This will be quick. Michael Kay said that Julio Lugo would have 35-40 errors this year. Here's what I wrote:

Kay said Julio Lugo could make 35-40 errors this season. Really? Is that even possible? It's been almost a decade since the last player had 35 errors. Julio Lugo is not a great defensive shorstop by any stretch of the imagination. He gets to a lot of balls but his throwing mechanics border on shameful. That being said, the most errors he's ever had in a season is 25. Over the 150+ games he'll play this year, he'll likely get close to that again... If he had just said that Lugo is a downgrade from Gold Glover Alex Gonzales, I'm on board 100%, but he was on a roll I guess.

Lugo had 19 errors.

Isn't this fun? It's fun for me.
Kay next stated that Johnny Damon would hit 30 home runs this year. I laughed. Now, Kay didn't know that Johnny's body would break down like Redskins secondary, but he should have (I did). Let's see what I said:

3. Johnny Damon will hit 30 home runs this year
When I first heard this I was shocked. 30? That's Giambi territory. I checked the stats and realized that Damon had hit 24 (I thought it was closer to 20) last year and was hurt most of it. So I guess I'm less shocked than I was initially. The fact remains that Damon's hit more than 20 home runs only twice in his career and he's not a 27 year-old 3-hole guy. He's a leadoff man who's turning 33 this year, misses ten games due to injuries every year and plays the other 150 hurt. I like Damon and love how hard he plays, but if he hits 30 home runs this year I'll walk down Broadway nude and dish out free reach arounds.

Let's just say my weekends have been reach around free. Damon hit 12 home runs in 141 games and looked every bit the 33 years he's walked this earth.

Kay was FAR from done. Here's where he went next:4. Yanks bullpen is light years better than the Sox. To which I responded:

With apologies to Brian Bruney and Jeff Karstens, how the F is the Yankees bullpen that much better than the Sox. I'm not blaming Kay solely for this one. Everyone is saying it, but then they aren't explaining why the Sox bullpen is so bad. The Sox have Brendan Donnelly, J.C. Romero, Okajima, Lopez, Pineiro and long-man Kyle Snyder, with Papelbon closing. Of course Mo is light years better than Papelbon, but how is the combo of Farnswoth, Proctor, Meyers, Vizcaino and whatever other scrub they go to next any better than what the Sox are throwing out there? Meyers is a one hitter guy and he can't get that one hitter out (Ortiz says hello). Kyle Snyder can pitch 5 innings out of the pen if necessary while Scott Proctor was so overused last year that while warming up for a game against the Orioles his arm actually flew into dead yankee alley, or whatever it's called back there. Let's reserve judgment on this one. Both the Yankees and Red Sox have bullpen question marks. Fair?

No need to really get into this, but I was right. Except for the part about Mo being light years better than Paps. But well, as we can see, people make mistakes.

Kay said Posada's production will not drop off. I actually said:

Kay may be right here.

We were both wrong. He was better. 50 points over his career average, 50 points over his OBP average and 50 points over his slugging percentage average. An absurd season.

Moving on, Kay noted:6. The problems with the Yanks rotation are overexaggeratedI laughed:

Holy shit. This one made me laugh out loud. Ok Michael, how would you characterize the Yanks rotation? Solid? Stable? How about Clusterfuck? So far, they lost their best starter for a month due to a hamstring injury (and that's if they don't panic and bring him back too soon when they fall into 3rd place going into May), they have two starters on the downside of their careers who are both coming into the season with significant injury concerns in Mussina and Pettitte, their uber-prospect looked shaken when he realized that you can't just throw a flat 97 mph fastball past a major leaguer and now he's not even the first pitcher they'd call up if necessary, and the last time they're opening day pitcher pitched in a major league game Brad and Jennifer were still married. I've got a question: What is positive about this staff? Name one thing. I'll even give you a minute... ready? I didn't think so. If the Sox lineup has holes, then the Yankees' rotation is a hole. One giant stinking septic tank of a hole.

Again, dead right. They started horrendously because of this staff and the team only put things together when they started killing the ball. Even after the staff got healthy and added Clemens they were in the bottom half of the league for starters ERA the rest of the way and lack of starting pitching (again) as the excuse for bowing out in the playoffs.

Kay came out of nowhere (literally nowhere because he used no facts) and finished with this gem:7. Schilling can't pitch late into games anymoreAgain, I REALLY laughed:

This one is comical. First, Schilling hasn't pitched fewer than 5 innings in any game he started since May of 2000. That's the longest such streak in the majors. Of his 31 starts last year, Schilling pitched 7 innings or more 17 times. Comparing that rate to some of the other horses from last year: Wang 19, Mussina 14, Bonderman 18, Sabathia 18; he doesn't look half bad. Is he the 9 innings and 130 pitch guy he was even 3 years ago? Nope. Is he still the guy who'll get you into the 8th and ninth inning with a lead and very few walks, most likely.

Now, "late into games" is a subjective standard, but using my standard above, he got through 7th inning in 11 of his 24 starts. A dropoff from his previous year but still not too shabby considering he missed a month with an injury and showed up to camp 30lbs overweight (Wang only went 7+ 12 times). The biggest thing for me here was that Kay made this claim despite the information I provided EXACTLY TO THE CONTRARY originally (not that he was relying on the information I provided). His claim was actually completely wrong.

Anyhoo, that's about all of that. I can't believe how much I cleaned house with that analysis and given that these days I'm so rarely right about much of anything, I needed to point out how right I was for my own ego. Lord knows I don't really want to get into some other predictions I made.