Cheech Tremendous

570. "It's so cool that Shawn Michaels stood up to Vince McMahon and dressed him down in front of the whole locker room. It's about time someone told Vince off." Maybe when the teenagers who inhabit that folder get a real job they'll realize that it's not always easy to get along with your boss. He might say some mean shit once in a while, but you have to deal with it if you want to get anywhere. Otherwise, just quit. There's nothing gained by being a jerk right back.

At least he was on target with that title.

Vince McMahon shouldn't treat his employees, especially one as loyal as Shawn, this way. That being said, he is the boss and it's inappropriate for Shawn to act this sort of way to him in front of the entire locker room.

I can't wait until John Mayer titles his next album "Cracker." I like Nas and enjoy his music, but this comes off like a stupid publicity stunt. It's a ploy to get people talking and he should be above that stuff by now. He's setting himself up for some unnecessary backlash.

Clipse haven't released anything new since last November. Hell Hath No Fury is, however, leaps and bounds better than any album I've heard this year. Okay, you know, I tried. I really did. But that album fucking sucks. I kept it in my car thinking maybe one day I would get what everyone else was hearing but that album really REALLY fucking sucks. There. I said it. I agree 100%. I used to be a big rap fan back in the day, but just completely lost interest the past few years. I went and picked up the Clipse album after everyone creamend themselves over it and just couldn't figure out what the big deal was. I listened to it three or four times and just couldn't get into it. At all.

How could Joe Torre look bad in all of this? They were asking him to take a paycut of 1/3. Too add insult, they only offered him a one-year deal (has any manager ever been offered one year?) when he implied that he wanted to manage until he was 70 and then filled the thing with performance clauses like he was some middle reliever trying to break his way back into baseball. It's an insulting offer. Look at it this way. What if the A-Rod opts out this offseason and the team says this: "A-Rod, we love what you've done during the regular season. You've won us a lot of ballgames, but we are about winning the World Series. We want you to come back. Here's our offer: 1 year, $18 million and we'll give you a bonus if we have some postseason success. Heck, we'll even bring you back for another year if we win the Series!" That's akin to the Joe Torre offer.

That would imply that the Yankees want to have Torre back and just miscalculated on how much it would take to resign him. That doesn't appear to be what's happening here. It looks like the Yankees made a conscious decision to not bring Joe Torre back, but rather than just come out and say that, they gave him a ridiculous lowball offer that they knew he would reject. That way they come out looking like the good guys for trying to bring Joe back when they never had any intention of having him return. It's all a ploy to save face for getting rid of a Yankee icon. Too bad that the whole thing is completely transparent to the general public. Everyone involved looks like a clown. Big Stein looks like the crazy, babbling grandpa by having the team totalling ignore his ALDS statement, Hank and Hal look like media buffoons for muffing this thing up and Cash looks like he had his balls cut off by Levine and upper management. The whole thing is a farce.

The Yankees' biggest problem now is not finding a new manager but trying to find some way to save face for the organization. This could hurt their position greatly in negotiations with Mo, Posada and A-Rod. The organization looks terrible at the moment and that could create a backlash from fans and players alike in the offseason. Just a terrible miscalculation on their part.

I know the Yankees made Torre a nice offer, but to suggest that he take a pay cut and include an option that only vests if he makes the World Series is a slap in the face to a man who has done so much for the team. Either you want him back or you don't. Don't jerk him around with some half-ass offer filled with performance clauses after he just took your team to its 12th consecutive playoff appearance. A classy move by a classy guy. I'm not a Yankees fan but I've always been impressed by the way Torre has handled himself and his position. He will end up just fine.

Was watcing ESPNews at lunch. The breaking news crawler said "NYY and Torre close to deal" and had Jayson Stark to discuss Torre's return. Then they have full page on-screen grapic which read " Torre set to return" while they were playing the conference call announcing that he had turned down their contract offer. Why jump the gun and make yourself look foolish?

Joe Torre turns down the Yankees' one year offer.

I can't believe we are going through another phase of Theo Epstein's not a good GM. Not only from fans, but also Dan Shaugnessy, who implied recently that Epstein is, or at least should be, on the hot seat. In his five years running the team, they've made the playoffs four times, been to the ALCS three times and won their first World Series title in 86 years. He has a lot of payroll flexibility, I admit, but that doesn't guarantee success. There are other teams out there with $100 million payrolls that put much worse teams on the field. Everyone is quick to criticize his free agent signings, but look at the players he passed on resigning: Pedro, Damon, Mueller, Nixon, Foulke, and Cabrera. All of them signed for decent to big money other places and shit the bed. Where's the credit for identifying players that aren't worth resigning? The problem with being a big market GM is your mistakes become big mistakes because of the payroll you are working with (look at Cashman's critics regarding his work with the Yankees). If you suck somewhere like Pittsburgh, no one really notices.

Not funny.

So did anyone catch Tim McCarver once again mentioning that more multi-run innings start with a homerun instead of a walk? Is he dense or something? I can't believe that someone around baseball as much as him has so much difficulty grasping this easy concept.

That is in danger of getting eliminated. Are we now judging teams by what they do over a five game stretch instead of what happened for the past six months? That's preposterous.

Marc Stein's latest column indicates that it is inevitable that the Kobe Bryant is traded and that it should happen before the season starts.

550. They think this shirt is cool.

I don't know if you can fairly assess an offseason based on one postseason series. The Sox certainly didn't lool too vulnerable during the division series versus the Angels. If the Sox made a critical error however, clearly it was leaving Clay Buchholz off the postseason roster in favor of underachieving veteran pitchers. While Matsuzaka and Wakefield fall flat, there's a hot prospect collecting dust the Sox could have used. The Red Sox' medical staff has a fairly rigorous strength and mobility testing program that they employ with all their young pitchers. According to front office, Clay Buchholz failed all of these tests towards the end of the season, necessitating he be shut down. The normal course of action for his sort of fatigue was two weeks off coupled with two weeks of rehab. He wouldn't have been ready for the ALDS or ALCS. We could second guess that decision based on the possibility of losing out on a championship, but six good years of Clay may be worth more than a few high leverage outings in the postseason. As for Theo's offseason, you don't judge it by one series. The offseason moves transformed them from a 3rd place team in the AL East to the best overall record in baseball. Lugo and Drew were failures in year one monetarily, but were upgrades over their predecessors on the field. Dice-K and Okajima bolstered weaknesses and the decision to let Loretta go in favor of Pedroia was an excellent one. The hiring of John Farrell as pitching coach is often overlooked, but the results are undeniable. Like all of Epstein's previous offseasons, it's a mixed-bag of underperforming free agents, excellent prospect development and good long-term decision making.

That's the most hideous thing I've ever seen.

Did I fall asleep and end up in 2003? What's with the no pitch, all power-hitting Red Sox?

How can the Red Sox' pitching blow up this badly in three straight games? I know it's not a great staff, but it's a good one and I've never seen them like this.

Chris Chambers is highly regarded for his speed and agility and that one Pro Bowl selection, but he's never been a good receiver. He drops passes and runs bad routes. He led the league in incomplete passes intended for him last year by a good margin. According to Football Outsiders, he was dead last among receivers in both DPAR and DVOA. He has never even been league average in catching passes intended for him. You attribute that to his QB, but he's played with 5 different starting QBs and his numbers haven't improved. At some point, you have to pin that on the player.

Kaz Matsui had an OPS+ of 87 this year, which is actually lower than his first year with the Mets. He didn't play out of his mind at all. He was the exact same player he's always been, just aided by his numbers at Coors Field.

My only concern, as I pointed out earlier, is how the pitching talent develops in future years. It doesn't take long for good young pitching to turn into always hurt mediocre flameouts. As a case study, look at last year's Florida Marlins. The top four pitchers were Dontrelle Willis, Scott Olsen, Josh Johnson and Anibal Sanchez, all between the ages of 22 and 24. Their ERA+s ranged from 107 to 152 and one could argue that staff was superior to the current Rockies'. A year later and Willis is a mess physically with all his peripherals headed in the wrong direction. Scott Olsen is a head-case who is punching himself a ticket out of the league and Johnson and Sanchez are in injury limbo. Who knows what they come back as. There's just no way to predict what these young guys have in their future.

I'll be interested to see what Al has to say on the subject, but they don't strike me as a future powerhouse in the NL. It's a team with a strong enough core that they can continue to compete in the division and for the wild card and I guess that's all they really have to do to be an actual contender. I don't think this roll they are on is indicative of them being the class of the National League, however. Looking at the roster, Matt Holliday is a stud, but I wouldn't expect him to put up these kind of numbers every year. Brad Hawpe has the career trajectory of a future platoon player and Willy Tavarez is okay as a stopgap in center, but he's not a long-term solution. As for the infield, Tulowitzki is the rock in the middle, but nothing else is that inspiring. Garret Atkins is a nice player, but let's see what they do with him now that top prospect Ian Stewart is knocking on the door (2B maybe?). Helton is on the downside of his career and Matsui and Torreala are filler. Ianetta is the likely catcher of the future. The pitching side is strong, with tons of young talent. I don't know how many of these guys are future stars. Oftentimes with young pitching the future years are filled with injury and diminishing marginal returns instead of improving results. It's the nature of relying on young hurlers. Their future success lies in the how the pitching develops long-term and how well the system can keep supplying them with adequate players.