Now that a day passed, it's abundantly clear that Curt Schilling got screwed.Tomase calls Ozzie Guillen's selection of Mark Buehrle over Schilling "inexcusable". It's the wrong choice, that's for sure -- but that's Ozzie's perogative.
There's no excuse for leaving Schilling off the American League All-Star squad given his stature, his remarkable comeback from a career-threatening ankle injury and the fact he's the ace of maybe baseball's best team.
IP H BB K ERA AVG OBP SLG
CS 114.1 110 14 102 3.54 .253 .277 .423
MB 116.2 125 28 51 3.86 .275 .318 .434AL Rankings: CS MB
ERA 13 20
WHIP 5 22
K/BB 1 36
AVG 21 31
OBP 5 22
SLG 29 35
OPS 16* 30(*: Tim Wakefield is 8th.)Schilling's superior control and high number of strikeouts account for the huge difference in some of those categories. Looking at everything else, I'd find it hard to call the choice "inexcusable". But the odd thing is that Tomase offered exactly zero evidence to back up his argument against Guillen's choice. In fact, the only pitching stat in the entire article is Kansas City's Mark Redman's ERA.
(By the way, has anyone in Chicago tasted "The Effen Ozzie GuillenTini" at the Kit Kat Lounge and Supper Club? The drink -- assorted fresh fruits and vodka -- is served with a complimentary copy of the Sun-Times sports section.)
And speaking of Redman, Jayson Stark says it's
Time to abolish the dumbest rule in baseball: The one that says every team deserves its own All-Star. ... We have to have our standards, don't we? ... Of the 52 pitchers in the American League who have pitched as many innings as Redman has (74), just eight have higher ERAs than he does (5.59). ...Obviously, the Royals played games that count in only six of those 12 months (and that includes this month), but it's still pretty bad.
And in the last 12 calendar months (starting last August), Mark Redman has won a game -- any game -- in exactly one of them. (That would be last month, when he ripped off five straight wins -- after going 17 starts in a row with zero wins.)
In those other starts, Redman was blown out in a few of them and pitched poorly in many more. And his team can't hit (they are slugging .398). But there were some good outings in there -- such as May 7 against the White Sox (7-6-2-1-6). Anyway, why focus on wins and losses anyway? This isn't the 1870s.
Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon would agree. He studied at data showing where David Ortiz hits the ball and positioned his fielders accordingly. "It's the age of information. It's no longer the Industrial Revolution. With information available, why even subscribe to this stuff if you're not going to use it." Ortiz is 9-for-42 (.214) against the Devil Rays this year.
Before striking out in the seventh inning last night, Mike Lowell had gone 47 plate appearances without a whiff (since June 19). ... Kevin Youkilis is the sixth Red Sox player to hit at least four leadoff homers in one season, joining Nomar Garciaparra (five, 1997), Dwight Evans (five, 1985), Mike Andrews (four, 1970), Tommy Harper (four, 1972-73), Bernie Carbo (four, 1975) and Ellis Burks (four, 1987).
Wily Mo Pena played center field and went 1-for-3 with an RBI, two runs and two walks in Pawtucket's 8-7 win over Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. ... If all goes well with Matt Clement's Gulf Coast League outing today, he'll pitch for Portland on Sunday. ... The Red Sox reached 50 wins in 79 games or fewer for the 9th time in 106 seasons, and the first time since 1986 (51-28).
4 comments:
Guillen's decision to select his own player (Buehrle) in the face of superior numbers posted by the one passed over (Schilling) is not the first time (nor will it be the last) that a defending LCS manager will interpret the powers vested in him by the league to be akin to those of a ruling monarch.
As the expression goes, what good is power if you can't abuse it? Guillen will scoff at all of the comparative stats, and will no doubt cite certain intangibles that he feels Buerhle will bring to the team as a member of the defending World Champions.
Schilling got screwed, plain and simple, and it's high time that MLB evaluate the manner in which it allows managers to select their staffs and reserves for the All Star Game, including the "one from all" rule.
Of course, taking on such weighty matters requires steady, decisive leadership to broker dialogue, consensus, and action. As long as Bud Selig remains as Commissioner, it would be foolish to expect any changes to the system...
Or, as Ozzie has been wont to say, "It's a language problem." Right Ozz.
Also, the roster decisions were made on Friday - back when Buerhle's ERA was 3.22. It's now over a half-point worse, thanks to his implosion at Wrigley on Sunday.
There's been so much focus on how the "one rep from each team" is terrible for the ASG, but this year it really only led to one bad pick, Mark Redman. And every year the manager gets a lot of crap for his picks, but Guillen only had three spots to fill - of course, being Ozzie, he picked only White Sox, but at least they were reasonably worthy (Konerko, Jenks, Buehrle). If anything, the worst part of the selections was the voting, by both the fans and the players.
I'm a Curt fan, and he would have been a good selection, but so would Mussina, VerLander, Bonderman and Liriano. Ozzie has the right to pick his guy. Yes: Rogers and Redman should take a back seat to Curt in an ideal world, but I have to say I get sick of these arguments every year, as if its the first time a qualified player didn't get chosen. Lighten up!
Now Nomah WAS screwed....
Post a Comment