This will be an admittedly brief column. My baseball team had their first playoff game last night and I had the ball on the bump. We fired the first salvo, winning the game 3-1 and putting a stranglehold on the three game series. Also, before the game, I was named Lefthanded Pitcher of the Year for the Greater Toronto Baseball League and received a plaque for the honour.
It’s much better than the World’s Worst Lover award I won last year.
Joey Votto, a Toronto native and first baseman for the Cincinnati Reds, is quietly putting together one of the best offensive seasons in recent, non-Steroid era, history. I’m not exactly sure how one puts together a year like this quietly (if Arod was in the same position, the New York media would be proclaiming him God), but Votto has managed to do just that.
Part of the reason is due to the fact Votto abhors the limelight and he plays for the Reds who, before this season, were best known for a bowl haircut, gambling, and a virulent racist as an owner.
A cover story in Sports Illustrated has given steam to the Votto hype machine and the North American media has slowly but surely created a ‘Triple Crown Watch’ during every Reds game.
As of this morning, Votto leads the National League in batting with a .327 average, tied for third in home runs with 32 (three behind Albert Pujols), and is first in RBIs with 97. The last person to lead all three categories for their league was Carl Yastrzemski for the Boston Red Sox in 1967.
It’s a wonderful accomplishment and harkens back to the romanticized notion of baseball being larger than life and such feats captivating a nation.
Unfortunately, this is where stat nerds like CSzem and Gretzpo (honestly, how they’ve ever experienced a woman’s warmth is beyond me) will bitch and moan that metrics like batting average and runs batted in don’t accurately capture a player’s offensive worth and other like bullshit.
You know what? I don’t give a fuck. Let’s take baseball back from these fantasy morons and celebrate the numerical accomplishments that have been heralded since the game began 150 years ago. If I have to read one article deriding Votto’s season because his VORP or Win Share rating isn’t very good, then I’m going to commit a homicide.
Nothing fancy, just shoot some guy in the head in broad daylight and suffer the consequences.
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4 comments:
Well done sir. Well done.
I am big enough to admit that back at the beginning of the year when you announced 2010 as the year of Tewks I was a little sceptical as to what that meant. You can’t blame me given your history of over confidence (I’m being polite) that you continually demonstrate. Well you certainly have proven on the baseball front it’s absolutely the year of Tewks.
Beer is on me and congrats on a great year.
AG
RBIs are a completely archaic stat.
RBIs are about who hits in front of you ... more guys getting on base means more RBI opportunities. If you want to get an idea of a player's contribution to his team, you need to use stats that are a function of HIS performance... not just his team's.
Joey Votto's VORP (64.0) is actually fantastic, and trails only Albert Pujols (65.7) in the NL.
His UZR rating (3.5) places him 3rd in the NL (ahead of Pujols, though).
His OPS is also ahead of Pujols, as he leads the NL with a 1.029.
His Win Shares are first in the NL as well, and his WAR rating is first in all of MLB, even ahead of Miguel Cabrera who holds the AL lead in just about all of these categories.
Sometimes advanced statistical metrics are your friend, Tewks. Even if this would require something slightly above the Grade 9 Math skills you obviously needed to get into Queens.
Bachelor Pad Dave had a huge hard on after he learned about your pitching performance last night!
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