“Still Life with Violin and Music,” By William Harnett (1888)

Over at Pinstriped Bible, our man Cliff takes a look at the Yankees starting rotation:

Of the pitchers who have yet to reach the majors, there are two basic groups, a quartet of middling arms that have reached Triple-A and the three Killer Bs, the team’s top pitching prospects, none of whom has spent a full season at Double-A. The former group consists of David Phelps, D.J. Mitchell, Hector Noesi, and Steve Garrison, all of whom will be 24 this season. Noesi and Garrison are on the 40-man roster. Phelps and Mitchell are not. Garrison is the lone lefty. Noesi is the only fly-ball pitcher among the bunch. Phelps is the most ready having posted a 3.17 ERA in 11 Triple-A starts last year with an outstanding 4.73 K/BB. Per a recent conversation with Baseball Prospectus’s Kevin Goldstein, Garrison is the weakest of the bunch, and none of them have stuff as good as Nova’s.

The other three arms, of course, are Dellin Betances, Manny Banuelos, and Andrew Brackman. I don’t expect the Yankees to jump any of the three of them to the majors given that they have combined to make just 20 Double-A starts, but if the Yankees get desperate enough during the season, and one of the above is simply dominating in Trenton, they may have no other choice, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, which we very well might given the fact that the Yankees would have difficulty fleshing out a four-man playoff rotation right now, never mind a five-man unit that will allow them to keep up with the Red Sox over a 162-game season.

[Photo Credit: Zimbo]

I went to pick up chicken soup in my neighborhood last night and when I went to pay I wished the cashier a happy new year.

“Got any resolutions?” she said?

“Yeah, to be kinder to myself.”

“Oh,” she said, and looked at me. “That’s really cool.”

I surprised myself with that answer. Sometimes, you are honest when you don’t mean to be.

I walked outside and the street was clogged with cars. One guy, four cars behind the putz who stopped in the middle of the street, started leaning on the horn. “That’s not going to help,” I said to nobody.

I walked across the street and saw a man in a wheelchair yell, “That’s not going to help!”

I smiled as I walked past him and shrugged, “Sometimes, people can’t help themselves I guess.”

The man glared at the traffic. “Moron.”

“Yeah, you know it’s just so tempting, though. You are irritated, stuck in traffic, it’s the end of the day, and you’ve got that horn right there. How can you not press it?”

“Well, I’m tempted to throw a brick through a window but that doesn’t mean I’m going to do it.”

“Point taken.”

New York is a funny town.

[Picture by Bags]

Exciting news, sports fans: the Yankees have claimed RH reliever Brian Schlitter from the Cubs. I can’t remember who Chicago was playing at the time – maybe the Mets, possibly the Dodgers – but I remember taking note of Schlitter during a game last season and thinking that the announcer, whoever he was, ought to be going very, very carefully.

I would like to start brainstorming now in preparation for the coming season. On Twitter, SNY’s own @OGTedBerg has already offered up “It’s a Schlitt Storm!” and “This game has gone down the Schlitter.” @d_limonene suggested the phrase “Schlitt the bed.” To which I would also like to add:

HorseSchlitt.

Anyway, one day — maybe in April, maybe July, possibly September — John Sterling is going to slip up on this, and it is going to be beautiful. Yes, apparently I’m 12 tonight.

Your new Hall of Famers:

Roberto Alomar — and (at long last, love) Bert Blyleven.

Barry Larkin’s totals were third-highest, with 62.1% of the vote (short of the 75% needed, but in good shape to get in a few years down the road); Jack Morris managed 53.5%, Lee Smith 45.3% (…seriously?), and Jeff Bagwell 41.7%, so get ready to have that fun discussion all over again next year. You can see the full results over at the BBWAA’s high-tech website of the future.

According to Jay Jaffe’s JAWS system and series of articles over at Baseball Prospectus, there were eight deserving candidates on the ballot this year: Roberto Alomar, Jeff Bagwell, Bert Blyleven, Barry Larkin, Edgar Martinez, Mark McGwire, Tim Raines, and Alan Trammell. I wasn’t so sure about Raines and Trammell initially, but I’ve completely come around on Rock over the last year and I’m edging towards being convinced on Trammell. It’d help if the guy had a better nickname, which I believe is not a factor JAWS takes into consideration, but it really ought to be. That’s something I’ll have to bring up with Jay, and I won’t have to wait long because he’s chatting live over at BP this very moment.

For those of you who are sick of reading and debating about the Hall of Fame, exhale. For those who aren’t, have at it in the comments. What would your ballot look like?

Originally, blogging inherently meant not only being an outsider but an amateur. Now that the idiom has been co-opted by professionals in the mainstream, it is something different. Or, a blog can be many things–started by an amateur at home, or part of a reporter’s job. Being an amateur means anything goes and so a lot of blogs are not memorable, and many don’t last, but being an independent blogger also grants you a freedom that professional journalists don’t enjoy. I’ve found that the best bloggers have standards and are at least professional in their amateur approach.

In the baseball world, there is a select group of guys who were blogging when I started Bronx Banter back in 2002 that are still going–Geoff Young, Jon Weisman, Aaron Gleeman and David Pinto to name a few. Rich Lederer is one of that crowd. Ah, Rich. Woolly Bully himself. The man who relishes a good fight, a guy who isn’t afraid to piss people off. He’s got chutzpah, I’ll tell you that. We began an on-line friendship in 2003 when we both brought our blogs to all-baseball.com. And Rich has been campaigning for Bert Blyleven’s Hall of Fame candidacy ever since.

A bunch of the all-baseball crew met at the winter meetings in Anaheim back in 2004 (that’s Rich as the Incredible Hulk).  Here is how Alex Ciepley described Rich, a big, middle-aged guy who was the very opposite of the nerd-in-the-basement-blogger stereotype:

Rich’s Weekend Winter Meetings Beat was in full effect again Saturday morning. Fresh off an evening in which he had managed to both raise and lower Scott Boras’ ire, Rich was all smiles, eager for another day of baseball highs.

SI’s Tom Verducci was apparently a Lederer target, and I joined Rich, Jon, and Verducci in mid-conversation. Verducci has the glow of an athlete, a rare claim among the writers in the room. Steve Finley had the glow when walking through the lobby on Friday night. Matt Williams, standing alone outside the hotel’s glass doors, has the glow. Even the old-timers, Lou Piniella and Felipe Alou, have it. Verducci, too — if you didn’t know his gig you might think he was a retired outfielder looking for a job.

Verducci might not have known Rich’s gig, either, as Rich directed the conversation towards Verducci’s Hall of Fame ballot. I knew there was trouble ahead as soon as Verducci admitted he’ll only vote for a couple guys this year, and that some of Rich’s favorites weren’t among them.

Sandberg? Close but no cigar.

Blyleven? (Now the kicker.) Not even close.

For those who aren’t familiar with Rich’s player fetishes, Blyleven may top the list. He wrote a beautiful and memorable piece detailing Blyleven’s qualifications last year, and I braced myself when hearing Verducci say Blyleven was “never dominant” during his career. Did Rich’s hair just stand on end? Dum-dum-dum-dum-dee-du-wah. Here it came: 5th in career strikeouts. 9th in career shutouts. Top 20 in a host of other categories. Was Rich able to convince Verducci of the case for Blyleven, or is Rich himself only the lonely on this one?

(For what it’s worth, Verducci thinks Blyleven will get in today, though I don’t know if he was personally influenced at all by Rich’s arguments.)

I remember calling Rich at one point, maybe in 2005, and told him, “Hey, you might want to give this Blyleven thing a rest. You don’t want to be just known as the Blyleven guy.” But I was thinking about Rich as a professional writer and he never had any such aspirations. He is a hobbyist, albeit one with roots in the professional game (his father was a journalist as well as a public relations man for both the Dodgers and Angels). Rich took on the Blyleven cause because he honestly felt that the voting process for the Hall was not completely kosher.

Rich recently told John Paul Morosi of Fox Sports:

“The only problem I have with the word ‘campaign’ is that it makes it sound like this was orchestrated with Blyleven’s blessing, and that couldn’t be further from the case,” Lederer said over the phone this week. “I’ve talked with Bert, and I’ve emailed with Bert, but we’ve never even met in person.

“I’m not even sure how to describe it. I don’t know if ‘campaign’ is the right word or not — I’m kind of at a loss. It’s just something I got behind, because I felt he was very deserving. And this is a way for me to follow in the footsteps of my dad, to put to use my love of baseball and analysis. It’s been fun.”

…“The Internet flattens the world a little and allows someone like me to have a say, an audience, and indirectly participate in the discussion,” Rich Lederer said. “I enjoy that. If not for the Internet, it would be next to impossible for me to have an impact on those types of things. It’s been a great vehicle. People say there have been more words written about Bert’s candidacy than anyone else in the history of the Hall of Fame.”

Lederer is one of the spawn of Bill James (as are many contemporary baseball writers from Rob Neyer and Joe Sheehan to Joe Posnanski), using reason and data to build his case. He has been tireless in his advocacy of Blyleven–something I hope the pitcher appreciates. But I think Rich is after something more than just building a case for his guy, he wants the fundamental voting process to change, to be more considered and thorough. And because of the Internet and places like baseball-reference.com, the information is available. It’s foolish to think that all of the baseball writers will change their approach but some of them might.

Rich is not alone–Jay Jaffe, Jonah Keri, and Craig Calcaterra have helped lead the charge. Still, Rich put in the work and deserves kudos for his efforts. I was wrong when I told him to back off stumping for Blyleven. Not bad for a rank amateur!

The halftime score at the Garden tonight: Knicks 72, Spurs 69.

Runnin’ and gunnin’. This is fun.

Final Score: Knicks 128, Spurs 115. Good night at the Garden against the best team in the NBA.

(Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

I have to admit that when I first saw the headlines that Orioles reliever Alfredo Simon had a warrant out on him in connection with a fatal shooting on New Year’s Eve, my first reaction was to make a crack along the lines of, well now nobody could say he wasn’t an intimidating presence on the mound. But I’m glad I refrained because now Simon has turned himself in and the more I read about the case, which is still fairly muddled at this point, the sadder it all seems. The shooting was first reported as taking place after a dispute but is now apparently being viewed as an accident, according to authorities, and exactly how it happened is fairly unclear – Simon himself says that it occurred while he was trying to break up a fight between two other people, but his lawyer told The Baltimore Sun that because Simon was firing into the air, he couldn’t have shot the victim in the chest, and that the bullet must have come from another gun. I, of course, have no idea what happened, except that  it wasn’t good.

The touching aspect of the article – at least, touching if we’re assuming that if Simon is guilty of anything,  the shooting was indeed an accident, however stupid – is that Simon’s teammates are stepping up to help. Miguel Tejada found Simon’s lawyer and is footing the bill, with some possible assistance from former teammate Julio Lugo.

Olivares’ representation of Simon is being bankrolled by former Orioles star Miguel Tejada, a compatriot who befriended Simon before being traded to the San Diego Padres in July. Tejada said by telephone Monday morning that he spoke with friends in the Dominican Republic to help him choose a firm that could best help Simon. Tejada said he expects to pick up the bill, although former Orioles infielder Julio Lugo also has taken an active role, he said, and may help with the expenses. Lugo accompanied Simon to the police station Monday.

“Alfredo is a kid I really love a lot,” Tejada said. “He is in trouble right now, and that’s what we do, we stick together. We wanted some big company attorneys, there are some good ones here in the Dominican and this is a special case.”

Tejada said he spoke with Simon on Sunday and that the pitcher is doing well, given the circumstances. “He is fine,” Tejada said. “He told me he doesn’t have anything to do with it, he is not the one to do it, and I believe him. I tell him I am with him and if there’s anything he needs, I am here.”

Lugo said he advised Simon to surrender after he had fled from the scene. “He is scared because he recognizes that he fired shots, although they went into the air,” Lugo said…

I was thinking that this was an impressive display of team loyalty, players putting their money where their mouths are and having each other’s backs when the chips are down. And then I remembered that Miguel Tejada is a grump who’s been tied to steroids and convicted of lying to congress, and Julio Lugo has been on my scumbag list since he was arrested for domestic violence back in 2003 (he was acquitted after his wife changed her story and testified on his behalf, but I’ll let you decide for yourself whether to believe that she hit her own head on a truck).

The moral of the story is, people are complicated.

I know it’s a cheap move on my part to dog pile on this guy, cause I’m certain he’s going to take a beatin’, but yo, Barry Stanton gets the Gas Face:

Nice ballot, dude:

Sometimes nothing does the trick like a plate of spaghetti.

Food 52 delivers…again.

Simple pleasures: word life.

Over at Baseball Prospectus, John Perrotto discusses his Hall of Fame Ballot.  Here is his comment on Barry Larkin:

Barry Larkin—Put it this way: If Derek Jeter had range, he’d be Barry Larkin. That’s not a knock on Jeter, just how little Larkin was appreciated because he played away from the spotlight with the Reds during his entire 19-year career. He won nine Silver Sluggers, three Gold Gloves, and had a .371 OBP.

We are all keenly aware of the myopic view of Jeter . . . the “winner” . . . the “heart and soul” of the Yanks recent run of excellence . . . the “nice guy”.  We are also aware of Jeter’s warts . . . the DP machine at the plate . . . the lack of range.

So, let’s play a little “what if” game . . . you are the GM of an expansion club, and you can have either Larkin or Jeter‘s entire career exactly as it has played out.  Which one do you take?

(image: Baseball Almanac)

R.I.P, Pete Postlethwaite, a wonderful actor who was wonderful in many things, most recently “The Town.”

Saying goodbye is never easy. Just ask Andy Pettitte who is taking his own sweet time to announce his retirement (this just in…Bernie Williams still hasn’t officially retired).

According to Brian Costello in the Post:

“We’ve been moving forward as if he’s not playing,” Cashman said. “He may tell us otherwise at some point, but, no, this week we’re not expecting to hear anything from Andy. He’s already given us the courtesy on several occasions of telling us don’t count on him and he’s not expecting to play. It’s not official, but he didn’t want to hold us up.”

…”He might call and say, ‘Hey, I want to play,’ but I don’t expect a call with him telling us, ‘Hey, I’m not playing,’ because he’s kind of already told us don’t count on me playing,” Cashman said.

A few weeks ago, Steven Goldman was exhausted by this story:

They Yankee with the third-most wins in team history has been waffling all winter, and his indecision has been accorded more weight than it deserves. A 39-year-old pitcher who made only 21 starts the previous season, no matter how good, only deserves to be accorded so much projected value.

One of my coworkers was cleaning out her old — apparently very old, as you’ll see – papers over the weekend, and she found this and brought it in for me:

As you can see, in 1987  a full, 81-game plan would set you back $750 per seat for the season, and all the plans come out to $10 per game or less for lower box seats. For that you would’ve gotten to see Lou Piniella manage the bombers to an 89-73 record, nine games behind Detroit; that was the year Mattingly set a record by hitting home runs in eight consecutive games, and also six grand slams in the season. I was too young to be paying attention back then, but I’ve heard about it enough that I feel like I was.

Put it on my Diner’s Club…

“The Fighter” comes with the usual boxing movie cliches, both in and out of the ring. There is one fight sequence that looks ripped out of “Raging Bull” but only one (perhaps it was an homage). And there are a couple of scenes with Christian Bale, and one with Mark Wahlberg, that made me wince. But these cliches are minor and in no way disturbed my enjoyment of what I think is a rousing movie.

Wahlberg plays a passive character and has the right brand of natural understatement to make his performance convincing. Christian Bale is featured in the showier role, and I generally dislike this kind of character and performance but I thought he was believable. The women rule the movie, though, especially Melissa Leo and Amy Adams. And David O. Russell directs with his usual flair, his eye for the telling detail, and his sharp sense of humor.

I thought “The Fighter” was really funny. The score was great. Nothing too deep but a good picture of the boxing life. A simple story well told.

On that note, let’s kill the Beat of the Day while we’re at it:

One of the enduring images I have of my grandfather on my father’s side is of him leaning against the window of Zabar’s. It was a Saturday afternoon in the early 1980s, a time of day when nobody in their right mind would venture inside. Grandpa was a pragmatic man. He waited outside while my grandmother bought Nova and was throwing bolos inside.

I’ve always tried to be practical like him but sometimes I’ll throw caution to the wind. Like last night, when I thought it’d be fine to stop by Fairway on the way back uptown to the Bronx. Late afternoon, Sunday. Brilliant. In no time, I was sweating like a madman, navigating around the crowded store. I couldn’t have just gone to the market a few blocks north, owned by Fairway no less. No, I had to be clever.

As I came to the end of my shopping list, I was standing in the organic department. I realized that I had to go back downstairs for English muffins. I wanted to throw a punch or at least a punchline. Some gallows humor was called for. I looked up and there was Tina Fey and her family, a daughter with big, beautiful eyes, and her husband, a short, nice-looking guy. Who else would appreciate a good Fairway joke but Tina Fey? But I was dripping with sweat and had bad breath. And I didn’t have anything funny to say. If I tried to say anything to her I’d come across even dorkier than Liz Lemon. I didn’t want to blow up her spot but even more than that, I just wanted to get my English muffins and vamoose.

Anyhow, it was a New York moment.

I like hot chocolate as much as the next person but don’t ever go out of my way for it. Yesterday, a friend brought me to a snooty chocolatier called Jacques Torres and got me a hot coco.

I had no idea hot chocolate could be so good. It was like drinking from Willy Wonka’s chocolate river, off-the-chain sinful, and a treat that is worth the trip.

[Photo Credit: The Gothamist]

Eh, Sacramento is close enough to the Bay Area for me…

Bonus Beats…

Feel the vibe.

More Keith…

It’s Wait ‘Til Next Year for the Yanks.

They were a good team in 2010, but they didn’t play well down the stretch and got hammered by the Rangers in the 2010 ALCS.

Were they too old? Did they play tight–a reflection of their manager according to Joel Sherman? Did they just not have heart or character or those championship intangibles?

Nah, they just got their asses kicked, that’s all. Happens, man, even to the best of them.