Rich Lederer is trying to take Bob Welch’s 1990 Cy Young award away from him and give it to Roger Clemens.

Over my dead body.

Welch’s 27 wins was the most ever in the AL in the DH era. That alone should be enough for the Cy Young, in my book.

TangoTiger chimed in with saying that Welch should get some team award for most wins, because wins are a team stat. My reply:

Don’t give me that “team award” nonsense. There is only one award for pitchers, and that’s the Cy Young. So that’s the award I’m giving Welch.

Both Boston and the A’s were good teams in 1990. With a little luck, Clemens (or Stewart) might have won 27 instead of Welch. But he didn’t have that luck, did he? At some point, you gotta reward what people *actually* do (win *actual* games), instead of what they might have done with better luck in some Monte Carlo simulation.

Clemens matched up against Dave Stewart *five times* in 1990 (twice in the playoffs), and lost all five, including the final game where he showed up wearing that stupid eyeblack and got himself thrown out of the game.

I saw all five of those games. If you want to impress me enough to give you a Cy Young with 21 wins when I have pitchers with 27 and 22 wins, you have to beat me every once in a while, and not go all psycho on me when it counts the most. My 1990 ballot goes: Welch, Stewart, Clemens, in that order.

No doubt Clemens had some great peripheral stats in 1990, and no doubt Clemens was the better pitcher over his career. I wouldn’t even argue with you if you said he was the best pitcher ever. But 1990 was the year the A’s kicked Clemens’ ass from coast to coast, and there’s no way I’m letting him get a 1990 Cy Young, if I have anything to say about it.

The Random Diamond Note Generator has one sentence structure that goes: “RANDOMPLAYER will miss RANDOMNUMBER days after he accidentally swallowed a RANDOMFOOD whole.”

This has now actually happened in real life: Danny Putnam of the Stockton Ports will miss seven days after he accidentally swallowed a grape whole.

Eerie.

Let me also take this opportunity to point out that while some diamond notes now cost money to read, Humbug’s Diamond Notes are, have been, and shall remain, free.

Mark Kotsay agreed to a two-year extension today. He is signed through 2008, with a no-trade clause through 2006. He’ll make about $7 million a year. To which I say: Ahh!

Having Kotsay out in center is so comforting. If a ball is hit in the air towards center, I don’t even worry. If the ball is catchable, Kotsay will catch it. He’s like the feeling you get after a long hard day of work, and then you finally put your head on that soft, cold pillow, and put the warm covers on. Complete relaxation and comfort. He’s a security blanket.

So we know now that Kotsay won’t be traded; if Jay Payton is indeed traded to Oakland, he’ll likely be traded elsewhere right away. Dodgers? Cubs? Rockies? Yankees? Still waiting for this whole puzzle to fall into place…

I’m not going to get all worked up about the rumored Jay Payton-for-Chad Bradford trade until I hear the other shoe drop. This is not the first time these two have been involved in a trade rumor with each other; there was a similar rumor at the Winter Meetings when Payton was still with San Diego. That deal fell through, but we can guess that Beane indeed likes Payton. This is one trade rumor that does seem to have teeth, but it still doesn’t seem that this is all that Beane has in mind.

Since Payton is a likely free agent at year’s end (there’s a team option), and since it’s unlikely Bradford would have been around next year, either, on the surface this would be strictly a trade for 2005. Does this trade, on its own, improve the A’s playoff chances?

Justin Duchscherer and Kiko Calero have a tight grasp on the A’s RH set-up jobs, so Bradford would probably have been competing with Keiichi Yabu for playing time during mop-up duties, which would not have added much to the A’s playoffs chances.

Jay Payton is essentially Eric Byrnes with better defense. But Byrnes isn’t playing much, except against lefties, so just upgrading Byrnes doesn’t help much. Would Payton replace Kielty or Swisher in the lineup? Unlikely; Payton’s gone after this year; you’d still want to play the guys who are still going to be around next year.

The only thing that makes sense is if Payton pushes Kielty or Swisher to DH, and Hatteberg gets sent to the bench. That improves the A’s offensive power and defensive range (at the likely expense of some OBP), yet doesn’t kick any part of the A’s future out of the lineup. Relegated to bench duty: Byrnes, Hatteberg, and Durazo (if/when he gets back from the DL), all of whom would be gone next year anyway, (as would Payton).

It would be an incremental improvement, but what’s the point of that? The Angels are running away with the AL West, and there’s a gazillion teams ahead of them for the wild card, including the Yankees and the Twins. Beane should be focusing on improving the team for the future, and if it also helps the present, too, that’s a bonus.

Getting Payton gives Beane choices. He could flip Payton elsewhere, or keep him and trade Byrnes or Kotsay without appearing to give up on 2005. If they trade Kotsay, that might give them the money to exercise Payton’s option, and he could play CF in 2006 while the A’s wait for Javier Herrera to mature. Or whatever.

Payton-for-Bradford? Meh. Not bad, but not exciting. Payton-for-Bradford and then Byrnes/Hatteberg/Durazo/Kotsay for prospects–OK, wake me up when that happens.

Some short sentences. My flu bug has got me shrinking, so I’m a little weak. If I keep shrinking at my current July rate, you’ll have to look for by blog entries in Minusland by September. Where’s my Vita-Wonk?

There’s no reason to remake Bad News Bears, but there is a reason to make another film based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, my favorite book as a kid. Simple reason: they didn’t get it right the first time. The trailers don’t give me much confidence they got it right this time, either, though: still too much focus on Wonka, which makes everything weird and creepy (typical of Tim Burton). But if you want to make the story magical, which is what I loved about it, you have to look at everything through the innocent eyes of Charlie Bucket. I’m sure I’ll see the movie, and thanks to the trailers, I’m fully expecting to be disappointed.

I’ve probably watched more TV the last five days than the last five months put together. The A’s weren’t on TV the last two days, either, so that didn’t help. That Twilight Zone marathon the other day was good stuff. It was more surreal than that Surreal Life marathon. I don’t know why I kept watching that, but I was bored, I guess. I watched some of the new Battlestar Galactica series yesterday; it’s better than the old one, I think. Saw a few episodes of Star Trek:DS9 that I had missed.

The A’s faced the GoodTedLilly yesterday, and got shut out. It happens. They beat the BadTedLilly a month ago, so these things even out.

Here’s hoping the Blue Jays face the Unhittable Rich Harden, and the A’s can even out their record at .500 again.

Looks his victims in the eyes
Says he must apologize:
“Sorry for the needless scare
I gave to cameras everywhere.”

There is much discussion around these parts, especially over at Will’s place, about how sports teams are reluctant to give press access to Internet writers. Part of that, I’m sure, is the problem of pure volume: lots of people would like access, but there’s only so much room.

I found an interesting entry by Mark Liberman on Language Log about Sports Interviews as Rituals, that sheds some more light on this issue:

…when I listen to recordings of journalistic interviews, I rarely get the impression that anyone is trying to learn anything new. The journalists already know what the stories are. Their questions are not designed to discover any new facts or ideas, but rather to get quotes that will fit in to designated places in the frameworks of logic and rhetoric that they have already erected.

As they say, read the whole thing. There are many interesting points. One of the most fascinating to me is that there is a implicit agreement between the interviewer and interviewee regarding the content of the interview and the context in which their quotes will be used. When that unspoken agreement is violated, people get angry.

Part of the problem with getting press access for bloggers is the fact that there are no established ground rules. Bloggers can write about whatever they want. They have a completely different set of incentives from newspaper writers. It’s like letting a complete stranger into your house; if you have no idea if they’ll behave the way you expect, you’re not likely to let them in.

Eventually, established bloggers will get regular press access. But only after the product has been rendered predictable 99.9% of the time. Teams will let bloggers into the locker room the moment they understand exactly what will be coming out of it.

Is that remaining 0.1% worth the effort?

The A’s got back to within one game of .500 by beating the White Sox 7-2 Sunday afternoon, victimizing Mark Buehrle with the luckiest inning the A’s will get all year. Trailing 2-0, they did practically nothing right, but still scored four runs.

• Eric Chavez led off the sixth with an infield single.
   
• Bobby Kielty followed with a hard hit grounder that Pablo Ozuna had a chance to field for a double play, but the ball hit the second base umpire, and the A’s had two runners on instead of two runners out.
   
• Eric Byrnes was overanxious and tried to clobber a changeup, got way out in front and hit a weak grounder back to Buehrle. Buehrle had a shot at another double play, but he couldn’t get a good grip, and threw the ball into center field. Chavez scored, Kielty went to third, and Byrnes ended up at second.
   
• Nick Swisher hit a ground ball to the one infielder who could hold the runners and prevent a run, grounding out to third.
   
• Keith Ginter hit a grounder back at Buehrle. It bounced off him between the mound and shortstop for another infield single. Kielty scored, Byrnes to third.
   
• Mark Ellis tried to get clever and bunt in Byrnes from third, but he bunted the ball in the air to Konerko for out 2.
   
• Jason Kendall grounded a single through a big hole between the first and second baseman, driving in Byrnes.
   
• Mark Kotsay doubled just past Paul Konerko down the first base line, scoring Ginter.
   
• Bobby Crosby struck out to end the inning.
   

Innings like this are lucky, but I’m not going to apologize for it. First of all, the White Sox make me sick (I had tickets for the game today, but didn’t go), so I don’t feel sorry for them at all.

Second, this was luck as the residue of design. The A’s don’t strike out much; they put the ball in play; lucky hits and double plays are natural outcomes for that kind of team. I’ve seen the A’s hit into a lot of double plays, including three DP’s this game. The A’s were due for some lucky hits. So this inning felt good, like payback.

Some fishermen in Thailand caught and ate a record-sized catfish.

The catfish may be the largest freshwater fish ever caught.

I’ve finally gotten around to reading Guns, Germs, and Steel, a great book. How did Europeans conquer North America? With germs, more than with firepower.

Right now, I’m lying at home, suffering from some germs of my own. I feel like crap, and not just because the A’s had their winning streak broken by Jon Garland and the White Sox.

I’ve had a fever twice this year, once during spring training in Tucson, and again this weekend. Both times I got sick, the White Sox were in town, playing the A’s. Coincidence? I think not.

The White Sox were 53-25 going into tonight’s game, but according to Baseball Prospectus’ Adjusted Standings, they should have been 10 games worse, about 43-35. How are they defying the numbers?

Germs, I say! The White Sox are a carrier, like fleas, mosquitos and rats. And like European conquerors, they spread disease wherever they go, rendering their opponents in a weakened state, so that they can win despite their mediocre talent.

Damn parasites. Begone! I hate you.