Why Fire Joe Morgan should never die

"The internet has given everyone a voice, yet not everyone deserves a microphone."

A friend of mine said this to me the other day, and I couldn't agree more. Here at AN, anyone who wants to can say just about anything as long as it follows the guidelines of the site. Do we all agree universally on anything? No. But it is fascinating to hear what other people think and you can even learn a thing or two and perhaps even change your mind on a certain topic based off another person's argument. Ultimately, every single post here is the viewpoint of the person writing it, however, its not paid journalism or anything. No one's "job" is on the line (unless you are spending your regular job day making posts, like I'm doing right now----OOPS!), and most of all, we aren't getting paid to do the analysis, humor, interviews etc. Its all just because we love the game. Its this reason alone that I'm not a huge fan of people nitpicking other people's posts or calling them out for hypocrisy or inconsistencies: no one writing posts is making any money out of it here, and no one is forcing you to read the posts and respond, and if you write stuff here thinking you are journalist of some kind, then you are only deluding yourself.

Actual paid journalism however, is a whole different thing.

The internet "digital media" era has indeed opened the doors to the joe average fan who might actually have some writing skills, and the old hard-copy media, the old fashioned "journalists" are getting called out for making money and taking jobs away from people who are better than they are at their jobs. The old, greying, "writers"  are fighting back from this not by assessing the changing ways of the world and improving their game, but by staying rigid and even getting more arrogant about their position as a paid writer by writing and saying (and in Joe Morgans' case: winning Emmys)  pieces that have no logic or real thought behind them, they have turned almost into radio shock jock DJ's. They do what they do to make that word count, to make copy, and to sensationalize non-sensational things. They know they are a dying breed, and there's literally millions of young, hungry writers out there who can out-write, out-analyze and basically out-do them at their job. And they aren't getting paid a dime to do so. The old school guys are perpetually on their high horses, scoffing at those who do research, form valid logic streams that perhaps don't follow "traditional baseball" ones, and basically do the job they should be doing, whilst they blabber on about completely irrelevant and insult us by passing their ignorant, poorly (if at all) researched and uneducated views as something I should pay money to read.

In this case, its perfectly fine to tear these guy's pieces to shreds.

For the uninitiated, that's what they did over at www.firejoemorgan.com, a no longer active blog (its writers got a little tied up with their new day jobs: writing for the hilarious TV show Parks & Recreation), that was an utterly spectacular takedown of America's "finest" baseball "journalists", both ruthless and beautiful in practice. On the site they would systematically take apart (often line-by-line)  poorly written and/or thought out pieces of paid journalism citing lacks of logic, ridiculous olde tymey baseball paradigms, making fun of old-school trains of thought and generally pushing forward how outdated and ridiculous many of those trains of thought are (and how irrelevant they are to the game today) and how it can even hurt players careers by having a writer critique a player based off absolute nonsense logic that doesn't break the players performance into the simple (and what truly matters) "how does having this guy on your team help win you games?". Nope, instead we get fluf pieces about small white guys who cant play very well but "have tons of heart" and "was a punter in college therefore he's the toughest guy in the game!" (nevermind the 620 OPS from an OF position). I find it perfectly fine to tear down these last bastions of lunacy because lets face it: baseball for years, made little sense. We are slowly but surely (Thanks Zack Greinke) going about changing the broken logic and irrelevant stats championed by these old, outdated writers, who have refused to do the right thing and change with the times and instead become even more hard-headed in their anti-change rhetoric. That's why they need to be made fun of with extreme prejudice.   

CLIFF NOTES Simply put: FJM was based off the theory that there's many sportswriters out there who get paid simply to exist as a person. Sometimes words will fall out of that persons mouth or appear via pen to paper. Those people get paid a lot of money to do this (and win Emmys). Sometimes those words are about baseball. Most of the time, they have no fucking idea what they're talking about. This is one of these times...

If you read just the headline, you'd assume Bruce Jenkins might have written something somewhat positive about the A's on the known hater-of-everything-Athletics, the SF Chronicle. You would, of course, be wrong. But there was plenty of other things written in here that insulted the intelligence of the average baseball-loving person in general. So here's what inspired this post:

The A's have developed an annoying habit of generating excitement in the offseason, then unveiling a slipshod product when it matters.

21 words appear here. When put together they form not Voltron, but a highly arrogant and pure gossipy trash of a sentence lacking any real facts. Bruce, I assume you are specifically talking about last year, when Holliday, Giambi, O-Cab & Nomar came aboard. Literally nothing was done the year before that, so why you wrote "habit" is beyond me. If you want to go back to 2004 when Beane was the most talked about person in baseball by blowing up his vaunted "Big 3", that led to a ALCS appearance a mere 2 years later, there goes your spiteful "slipshod product" comment too. Listen Bruce, we know you hate the A's, we know the A's "annoy" you and everyone at sfgate.com, how about actually coming up with a real deal Holyfield argument that shows how big mean and evil the A's are, and why you dislike them so? No, that cant happen because you cant come up with those reasons other than "This is GIANTSTOWN! They arent the GIANTS! They need to get out of GIANTSTOWN!"

Perhaps this winter will prove to be no different, but the A's are building the foundation of a boldly refreshing plan - and they have a definite edge over the Giants in the construction process to date.

Comparing Billy Beane vs Brian Sabean in terms of constructing a team eh? THIS IS DANGEROUS TERRITORY! I HAVE NEVER HEARD SUCH FARCE! EXPLAIN YOURSELF FURTHER!

There are basically two ways to screw up a team's offensive identity, and thanks to our two-team market, we got both of them last year. The Giants were the reckless free swingers, a weak-hitting team lacking any semblance of discipline, embodied by Aaron Rowand's futile swing at a low-and-outside strike three. The A's, clinging to a tedious obsession with on-base percentage, produced a lineup of reasonably thoughtful hitters doing nothing for weeks on end.

Getting on base and not making outs is "tedious"? Huh? Also: A's were ranked in 11th in the AL in OBP last year and bought in noted OBP hater Orlando Cabrera in addition to members of the "nuh uh, Im swingin away!" club in Kurt Suzuki, Mark Ellis and Bobby Crosby. I have no idea what a "thoughtful hitter" is, let a reasonable one either. Kind of a weird piece of unresearched, uninspired writing here Bruce...

Neither team will get back into playoff contention if such nonsense continues. The Giants, beyond the dismissal of hitting coach Carney Lansford, haven't taken a single stride toward a more potent attack. That's guaranteed to change - Brian Sabean isn't about to let the winter pass without one or two moves - but payroll restrictions could turn them into unsatisfying, back-page news, back there with the bowling scores and toupee ads.

The Giants offense nonsense: having terrible hitters being terrible at hitting.

The A's offensive nonsense: having hitters who try to not make outs (which I guess really is tedious, I understand this though coming from a Giants fan, Tim Lincecum is awesome, why waste time hitting when you'd rather be watching him pitch?) .

(also: love how it was Lansford's fault that Sabean bought in such worthless hitters.)

(We'll take it all back if Mark DeRosa signs to play third base and Pablo Sandoval moves to his rightful spot at first. That will take care of two spots quite handsomely, if only scratching the surface of work to be done.)

Mark DeRosa at 3B in 2009: -5.6 UZR

Pablo Sandoval at 3B in 2009: -4.1 UZR

I don't have any idea why you would keep Sandoval there and bring in a legit 1B like LaRoche on a 1-2 year deal, then keep Sandoval at 3B until his defense gets as bad as...uhhh Mark DeRosa's? Sandoval at 3B and Delgado at 1B > DeRosa at 3B and Sandoval at 1B, every day of the week. Now if you were playing up DeRosa's ability to many positions poorly, then you would have a better point. By the way, can I have a writers job somewhere? I mean, I only just made more sense using facts and research than Bruce did here, soooooo.....

So far, the big noise out of the Giants' camp has been their abhorrent paranoia over the A's designs on San Jose. Whether it's snobby elitism from Bill Neukom or some preposterous threat of a lawsuit, the Giants don't seem to understand that they own the Bay Area, and always will, and have a gold mine of a ballpark that virtually guarantees a wondrous, season-long atmosphere for baseball until the end of time. Protecting time-honored interests is understandable, but their overbearing stance is standing in the way of progress.

Wow. They actually came out and said it. This is really historic. If you've read the sheer arrogant lunacy from the mind of Ray Ratto over the years, this is basically been at the heart of everything about the A's he's ever written. Its also wild that Jenkins doesn't appear to want the A's completely jettisoned from the bay, but supports a move to SJ. This is maybe the most realistic and logical thing written in this piece. The only part that is incorrect was saying the "Giants always will own the Bay Area", they didn't own it until the new park was built. They almost were forced to move to Tampa Bay in 1993 remember? That whole era from 68-00 they didn't own anything except the city. I grew up in San Jose, and I wasn't the only A's fan there, it was about 50-50 despite the Giants inane "territorial rights" (no other 2 team town has any such claims by the way).

A's fans have grown too skeptical of Billy Beane's desperate maneuverings to place much faith in the future, but there are hints of change. It's possible that sometime next summer, the A's will have power-hitting sensation Chris Carter at first base and Michael Taylor, the heralded 6-foot-6, 250-pound prospect recently acquired from Toronto, at a corner outfield spot. If these guys are for real, they're going to give the A's a distinct local edge in starting-lineup appeal unless Sabean pulls off the unexpected.

Sabean can always go sign Matt Holliday. Why we get to read that getting a aging, worse defensive 3B than Sandoval instead of about how he should throw lots of big dollar bills at Holliday is beyond me. But yeah, the A's are definitely going to be a radical offensive team when Carter, Taylor and Cardenas come up. The Giants have Posey, so thats 2 good hitters, the rest would be nice to fill out with a Matt Holliday kind of player or comparable. Quit crying over Jason Bay, the dude knows he cant play LF anymore and will be a DH. Holliday is good to go, so get him.

So many of the names contributing to last year's malaise - Jason Giambi, Nomar Garciaparra, Daric Barton, Bobby Crosby, Jack Cust, Travis Buck - are either absent or passe. There's hope for a solid young infield, eventually, with Adrian Cardenas at third base, Cliff Pennington at shortstop and Jemile Weeks at second. Scouts like the potential of Landon Powell and Sean Doolittle. The raw but talented pitching staff (116 games started by rookies) speaks for itself.

 Cardenas isnt going to be at 3B unless he drastically improves his defense, but the sentiment is nice.

Division favorites? Hardly, but it's nice to see a bunch of highly regarded A's prospects on the verge of something interesting. Who knows, we might even get a miracle and watch them all play together for four or five years.

The Giants believe that no matter what happens in the offseason, their pitching will keep them in contention - and they're probably right. The A's will need a few breaks, but they have to be pleased with recent developments.

 Yup, cant really hate on this too much. But keep reading...

The Angels keep losing big talent (Mark Teixeira, Francisco Rodriguez, John Lackey, Chone Figgins, most likely Vladimir Guerrero) without gaining adequate replacements. This has to catch up to them eventually, and though they have an adequate farm system, there's little proof that it ranks any higher than Oakland's heading into 2010.

The Mariners had it all going for a while this winter. They stole Figgins, made a huge deal for Cliff Lee (4-0, 1.56 for the Phillies in the postseason), cleared some room for No. 1 draft choice Dustin Ackley (a pure hitter out of North Carolina) and cherished another season of clubhouse harmony, fashioned so masterfully last season by Ken Griffey Jr. and a revitalized Ichiro Suzuki.

The last bit is weird because Ichiro's WAR over the last 5 years goes: 3.2, 4.9, 5.7, 4.1, 5.1. No idea how "revitalized" it is being that he just had an off year in 08. But the foreboding introduction of the Mariners review seems a little odd "had it all going for them" implies that John Z traded Felix Hernandez to the Yankees for Chad Gaudin. Was it anything like that? Hmmm I wonder what he's talking about... 

General manager Jack Zduriencik earned a ton of well-deserved praise for changing the Mariners' identity, but it must have gone to his head. He traded for Milton Bradley. Zduriencik decided that unlike all those other executives and managers over the past decade, he could turn Bradley into a prince. What a foolish, team-wrecking notion.

AH how did I miss the line "cherished another season of clubhouse harmony"??? Of course that's where this is going. I remember how those 72-74 A's got along so famously! What about those 78 Yankees that they even made a fucking miniseries about? All a bunch of fun loving, really nice citizens there. What about the last time the Giants had a relevant team? Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds were always giving each other foot massages in the dugout huh? Team chemistry is one of the stupidest fucking notions in baseball. If they play well and are brawling in the dugout, NO ONE CARES. Even in the fictional film "Major League" the characters Dorn and Vaughn get in a brawl after Vaughn bangs Dorn's wife YET THEY MAKE UP AFTER THEY WIN. This is fiction, but after all we know about how crazy some of these players are, you cant assume that something like that hasnt happened before in real life. Having angry players who are good at baseball means you win games, bottom line.

John Z "turning Bradley into a prince" is a spectacularly shitty and smarmy piece of writing too. Basically if any GM called Beane and said "Hey I'll give you the 08 OPS leader for Eric Chavez--" the GM would suddenly hear his doorbell ring and there Beane would be, with the paperwork all ready signed and with those little "sign here" tags all over it. That's EXACTLY what happened here, Silva is the worst, most useless pile of crud masquerading as a ballplayer as any, and he was signed to a feverishly stupid contract. John Z would have traded him for Matt Stairs, he would have traded him for Brian Anderson, he would have traded him for Bobby fucking Crosby. Instead he gets the OPS leader from 2008? You don't ever turn that down, no matter who he is, no matter who you are.

Milton Bradley has had, a checkered career. He's like a non-threatening version of Dick Allen. Both can play, one had to deal with actual racism and geniune vendettas, the other just doesnt take no shit from anyone: fans, umpires, Billy Beane, etc. Sure he goes off from time to time, but does it affect his performance on the field? NOT ONE IOTA. In fact, he never did anything on the field in his time in Oakland, SD or Texas that showed he was hurting the team, he wasnt trashing his teammates to the press, so what the hell is the problem here? He might do weird things, that because he's under such a convoluted microscope in retrospect most of the doubts on Bradley are generally unwarranted. He's a weird dude yes, but is he worth having on your team? Yes.

Oh, and John Z got rid of the most worthless contracted, most uselessly overpaid SP in baseball, the Latin Darren Driefort, in the process of obtaining the AL's league leader in OPS not 1 year ago. John Z has every right to let it go to his head. Don't really understand the Morrow trade just yet though...

Bradley's latest firestorm won't be ignited right away. Griffey, Bradley's longtime idol, will make sure of that. But in signing Bradley to a two-year deal, the Mariners dropped a mine field into their master plan. The Cubs, with Bradley out of their clubhouse, will have one sensational Christmas.

The Cubs added a completely terrible SP, and made their OF worse. Bradley leaving makes them a worse team, and they arent getting better. A "sensational Christmas"? Its just a guy who didn't get along with a notorious psycho manager, he's not the boogeyman. He can really play baseball excellently well too. I seem to remember people saying the same things about after his OAK/SD year about how bad Texas a move it was for Texas. He went on to be the best hitter in the league that year. Did you ever think that he might just have something to prove? A rule of the game is: never piss off a really talented player, and hate-stories like these are only going to inspire Milton to play better---ahhh there it is, Bruce KNOWS that Bradley moving back into the AL West has a large propensity to come back and bite us, and Im pretty sure we will have to read about how badly Beane lost the Andre Ethier trade some more come August after Bradley has hit like 8 HR against us during the year.

Thanks for the Christmas present Bruce, really, thanks.