… on whether, the next time the Yanks come to Fenway, some Sox fan throws an umbilical cord at A-Rod?
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The collected thoughts of sportswriter, bookworm, & food critic Keith Law
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Or a placenta…
Yeah, I understand that when he took steroids he couldn’t even look at the needle.
^Hahahahahahah!
I won’t take odds on that, but I can only imagine the t-shirts being made as we type . . .
Why stop at a an umbilical cord or a placenta? Why not go for broke and throw a screaming baby at him? I’m sure four or five guys would be able to toss Hank Steinbrenner that far…
From your chat:
Players who have “learned” patience (significantly increased their walk rate over their first few seasons):
Ozzie Smith
Jose Reyes
Jim Edmonds
George Brett
Robin Yount (actually a great example)
I just took a cursory look at some players off the top of my head, and it appears to happen fairly often. Gomez may not become the 2nd coming of Rickey Henderson, but there’s no reason he can’t improve enough to be a very good big leaguer.
Yount was a big-league regular before he turned 19, and didn’t show good patience until the year after he won an MVP award.
Edmonds was never impatient to Gomez’ degree. Same for Brett. Smith is close to that – drew 47 walks his first full year – and never struck out either.
Reyes is a valid counterexample to my claim. He went from Gomez-level impatience to 77 walks … but is on his way back down at the moment, and I wouldn’t hazard a guess where he’s headed.
Keith — unrelated question to this particular post: I saw in your chat that you mentioned that you were a fan of the Smiths. Solid choice, but I’m wondering if you ever got into Modest Mouse at all? They are one of my all time favorites, and Johnny Marr recently joined them since their last album. They’ve been pretty prolific so it shouldn’t be too hard to find something along your tastes.
Also, re: the Pixies, you have GOT TO give them a chance. Alternative music in the 90’s would not exist if it wasn’t for them. In fact, Kurt Cobain stated that ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was his attempt at writing a Pixies song. I’m not really a huge Nirvana fan, but the Pixies fingerprints are all over half of the music that came out of that decade. Even Bowie covered them.
Re Pixies: It’s that I haven’t given them a chance. It’s that I don’t like their music.
Modest Mouse is OK. I’ve liked some of their singles, album tracks less so.
Forget radio singles and crap, see a live show and go see Mute Math before you die. Best live show hands down!
My point was that there are plenty of players who start off impatient, and develop more patience. I know very few cases will be perfectly analogous to Gomez.
i’m not quite sure what you mean by Reyes being “on his way back down”. If you parse his stats (BB rate, K rate, BABIP) they;re pretty flat versus 2007 and he’s really just a handful of hits away from where he was last year.
I’m looking for guys who started off hacktastically, like Gomez, and became acceptably patient. There are definitely examples of players who were borderline-patient and became more patient, but Gomez is on pace for fewer than 20 walks.
Cesar Cedeno
That’s a good one.
Actually makes a pretty good comp for his ceiling too (as unlikely as he may be to reach it).
Keith, are you worried about Carlos Beltran’s slow start? His power production is awful (.382 SLG, only 2 HR), but he’s still getting on base (.363 OBP). Is this an example of a small sample size or is this a serious problem for the Mets?
Keith, can you make it a policy in your chats that no one is allowed to ask about Ben Revere until he actually, you know, does something substantial?
Keith –
Since nobody else has said anything, absolute highest kudos on the Suede/Brett Anderson reference Thursday. Personally I think “Filmstar” would be a bit more drama-inducing as entrance music, however.
I think the fact that it’s so difficult for people to come up with more than one or two good examples of players that developed patience really demonstrates the long odds that Gomez has to overcome.
Juan Pierre in an extraordinarily small sample size.
Keith, you mentioned in your Chat that you use Kosher Salt for everything except baking. What makes baking different from other cooking uses for salt?
Pierre never struck out a ton either.
Jeff, Kosher salt grains are larger than table salt, and don’t always dissolve properly when baking, sometimes leaving you with salt clumps. Also, the measuring system is different.