This Week in (Dumb) Baseball: The Hot Stove edition
Don't wanna be dumb? Here are a few lessons this MLB offseason. You're welcome.
By
Matt Snyder
•
6 min read
Even in a short week for Thanksgiving, Monday brings us This Week in (Dumb) Baseball.
As regular readers already know, this feature has the title, sure, but it's mostly for fun-- a fact that eludes the masses but remains the case. For example, if you tell me to "quit whining," you are missing the point. I'm mostly chuckling to myself as I write these things (with some exceptions, of course).
For all This Week in (Dumb) Baseball columns, click here.
1. Don't freak out about Hot Stove language
Let's use Marlins ace Jose Fernandez and his status with the club this offseason as a vehicle for a discussion that should be had every offseason in general.
Here is Marlins president David Samson on Miami's WINZ last week (via Slater Scoops):
"We're definitely not shopping Jose Fernandez, not a chance. He's not available," Samson told DeForrest.
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"I don't see it as possible of him going anywhere, but teams come up with some crazy ideas, so it's our responsibility to always listen," Samson said.
That might sound contradictory, but it's actually not. This is two different things entirely.
Sure, Samson didn't do himself any favors with how he worded this, but what he said in and of itself isn't wrong.
The main point is that the team is planning on keeping Fernandez this offseason unless completely and utterly bowled over. This leads to the secondary point, which is that teams should always listen to calls on players. They'd be foolish not to.
For example, we know the Cubs are open to dealing position players for cost-controlled pitching. What if Theo Epstein and/or Jed Hoyer call and say, "you know what? We'd throw you Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Jorge Soler and Kyle Schwarber for Jose Fernandez."
No, the Cubs aren't going to do that and I probably went overboard with the example, but please take in the overarching point. If you completely shut down every discussion before it comes up, you miss out on a potential landslide deal. You never know what another team might offer before listening. It costs you nothing to listen but time. I'm a big opportunity cost guy, but most of the time the conversations would just be a quick "no thank you." That doesn't hurt anything.
Through this lens, I would never bad mouth a team for "listening." In fact, quite the opposite, I'd rather bad mouth teams who would never listen.
[Aside: Don't you hate fantasy baseball owners in your league who will never even listen on certain players? They don't know what you're going to offer. Ridiculous!]
We can go past this and remember certain points to keep in mind throughout the early months of the offseason. Here are two that come to mind immediately:
- Just because teams have talked about a trade doesn't mean either side -- and it certainly doesn't mean both sides -- seriously considered it. If someone called the Angels and said "we'd like to trade for Mike Trout" and new GM Billy Eppler said "surely you jest" and hung up immediately, they technically talked about a Mike Trout trade, right?
Again, I've used hyperbole, but just remember that when we hear about two teams having discussed a trade it's possible that one team was a lot more excited about it than the other.
- Players recruiting players doesn't generally mean much unless there's some sort of strong personal connection and a player answering a question point blank means literally nothing. Like if someone says "would you like to play with David Price next season?" What do you think the player is going to say? "Nah, screw that. I'd rather we run out five lesser pitchers on a daily basis."
2. "Stop it, Dad!"
I love picturing a Thanksgiving discussion where Scott Van Slyke helplessly asks his father what in the bloody hell he was doing on the radio this past week. That is, when he said the following:
"This is just between you and I. When the best player -- the highest paid player on the Los Angeles Dodgers -- goes to the GM and ... is asked what are [the needs of the Los Angeles Dodgers], this particular highest-paid player said, 'The first thing you need to do is get rid of Puig.' That's all you need to know."
Yeah, that was Andy Van Slyke. The highest-paid player is Clayton Kershaw. How could Andy know this unless his son told him?
Meanwhile, Scott Van Slyke is no star. He's 29 and hit .239/.317/.383 in part-time action last season. Players like him have been released for less.
It's highly unlikely the Dodgers' front office would come down on Scott for this, but it's just a bad look. I'll reiterate my intro here because I want it on record without anyone misconstruing: I'm not angry and, in fact, I think this is hilarious. A father just unwittingly -- with a "this is between you and (me)" on the radio -- and indirectly sells out his son. And Kershaw!
Of course, there's a conspiracy theory in here, isn't there?
What if Scott wanted his father to do this?
Futher, there's a deeper conspiracy theory that Kershaw gave word to Scott to give word to his father in order for this to become a public thing and Kershaw to have plausible deniability.
That would be stellar.
Instead, what we see on the surface is probably what actually happened, and that's pretty dumb -- even if it's funny.
And now, let us wash away the dumb with fun!
Monday marks the great Luis Tiant's 75th birthday, so let's use him as our theme.
Baseball card of the week
Folks, this is a freaking Fu Manchu.
Bow to its greatness. That's how you do it. Gimme hundreds of these over the long beards over-running the majors right now.
Emotional throwback video
Tiant's father -- from Cuba -- gets to watch his son pitch for the first time in the bigs, and it happens to be in the World Series.
Back-to-back season juxtaposition of the week
Tiant in 1968 was 21-9 with a 1.60 ERA. He led the AL in ERA, shutouts (nine), ERA+, FIP and hit rate (only 5.3 per nine innings).
In 1969, Tiant was 9-20 with a 3.71 ERA. The latter doesn't sound horrible, but he led the majors in home runs allowed and walks.
Right in the middle of his prime, that's a bit odd. Tiant did go through injury issues for the next few seasons before leading the majors with a 1.91 ERA in 1972. I'm sure he had to deal with a bunch of simpletons screaming "STEROIDS" at him all year because that's the only possible way a player can bounce back after three off-years. Right? Right?
On that fun little trolling tangent, let's shut it down for the week. Have a great Thanksgiving week, whatever that means for you in particular. There's no right or wrong way to do it, so long as it's satisfying. Remember, this is a "to each his or her own" zone.
Suggestions (dumb stuff, random videos, baseball cards, pop culture rankings topics, etc.) or hate mail? Feel free to hit me up: matt.snyder@cbs.com or you could always go to Twitter (@MattSnyderCBS).
