The Futility Infielder

I try very hard to steer clear of any head-on political content in this blog. An astute reader could certainly cobble together a good idea of where I stand based on the views I've aired regarding, say, stadium finance, gays in baseball, and the politicization of the Hall of Fame. But I started writing about baseball in order to get away from writing about politics and the culture wars, desiring to find a common bond among people who might otherwise disagree and seeing a need to shed the stridency which ran rampant through much of my writing and drained the joy I took from the endeavor. That desire has served me well for the past three and a half years, allowing me to build up a nice little audience and make a fulfilling sidelight out of this site.

Despite my better impulses, I cannot let Tuesday's results pass without comment, if only because I know that I won't be able to write about the relatively trivial matters of baseball which capture my fancy until I vent my spleen. Feel free to disregard this post, or to vote with your feet either before or after I've aired my views, but don't expect a knock-down, drag-out exchange in the comments thread. Debating politics via this blog is a far more futile endeavor than the major league career of Enrique Wilson, and I've no intention of wasting further energy once I fire off this volley. Sad to say, it's just as unlikely you'll change my mind at this juncture as that I'll change yours.

I'm absolutely devastated, disgusted, and revulsed not only by the thought of four more years under George W. Bush but also by the incredible polarization of this country. While I certainly believe that reasonable minds can disagree on a wide range of policy issues, I simply don't understand how anybody could look at the facts and think that we are safer today after four years under Bush, when 9/11 and the Iraqi debacle are direct results of the man's brazen ignorance and incompetence, and the U.S. is viewed with contempt by the enlightened democratic countries that should be our allies.

I used to joke that I lived in New York City to get away from the crazy fundamentalists populating the rest of the country. Now, it's no laughing matter. I feel far more endangered by what those zealots can produce via electoral politics -- especially with regards to this band of certified thugs who have just "won" and will do ever more to put Americans in harm's way -- than anything I might face on the darkest, most dangerous streets of New York City.

Right now, writing about the first flicker of the hot stove flame feels like a hapless attempt at a coping strategy. As I've said before under similarly bleak circumstances, I would give anything to be yawning through a pitching change right now. I would watch a Red Sox victory parade and like it, paint my face and wear Jheri Curl while eating a vat of Boston Baked Beans, if it guaranteed a different electoral result.

On that note, as the possibility of a Kerry presidency had dawned, I had imagined scribbling a short post about how such a victory was better -- exponentially better -- than winning four straight World Series. Now, staring at this most bitter and brutal defeat, I feel as though my team has lost, its stadium has been razed, and its players have been fed to the lions in front of a hostile Coliseum crowd. We do live in two different Americas, and I'm less optimistic with each passing day that the gap will ever be bridged.

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Obligatory baseball content for those of you who have read this far without being completely repulsed...

I partook in yet another two-part Yankee-themed roundtable on Bronx Banter with assorted professional and amateur hooligans. The first part dealt with the Yanks' collapse and the character issue which guest writer Chris DeRosa so eloquently addressed the other day. The second part pondered the future of the Yanks-Sox rivalry and how the victory might impact both the Boston front office and the team's devoted fan base.

Since that was written, there have been either one or two changes on the Yankee coaching staff, depending upon which sources you believe. Bench coach Willie Randolph will get his long-awaited chance to manage, and he'll do so in fine fashion. He'll take the helm for the Mets, the team he followed as a youth, and in doing so become the first African-American manager of a New York City baseball team. A perennial candidate who's probably interviewed for a dozen jobs over the years, Randolph might have been better served by managing for a year or two in the minors. Then again, even winning at that level hasn't helped open doors for former Yankee coach Chris Chambliss.

The Mets are a mess right now, having made some dubious contractual decisions over the past several years and in sore need of sweeping such graybearded clubhouse lawyers as Al Leiter and John Franco aside (whaaat, you mean there isn't a market for mobbed-up 44-year-old lefty relievers with 5+ ERAs?). Shortstop Jose Reyes and third baseman David Wright represent a promising pair of talented young ballplayers, but the Mets squandered a good chunk of their future by trading pitcher Scott Kazmir to Tampa Bay with all of the get-rich-quick panic of a team in a pennant race, which the Mets clearly were not. Here's hoping that Randolph gets a fair shot at turning the team around before the irrational expectations of the Wilpon family get the better of the organization yet again.

The piece of Yankee coaching news that's up in the air is whether pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre will return, a topic I've spoken out against. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported -- based on "a person who spoke to one of Stottlemyre's colleagues" -- that he'd decided to step down. Today that story was contradicted in the Daily News, which said that Mel has yet to make up his mind. Waiting in limbo is Columbus (AAA) pitching coach Neil Allen, who pitched for manager Joe Torre as a Met, and who appears to have done some nice work with pitchers that the organization's upper echelon is nonetheless afraid to hand the ball to.

For all of the drums I and other Yankee bloggers have banged over the years, here's a real non-sequitur: Derek Jeter, winner of the AL Gold Glove Award at shortstop. Though his accumulated reputation in the media and among fans directly contradicts any numerical evidence of such fielding prowess, Jeter's 2004 stats nonetheless support the conclusion that he played considerably better defense this year than in the past (a 27-run swing according to his Baseball Prospectus Fielding Runs Above Replacement figure). With the shifting of Alex Rodriguez both out of the competition and directly to Jeter's direct right, a tandem of better second basemen on his left, and the near-complete turnover of the Yankee starting rotation from a strikeout-heavy gang to one that put the ball in play, explanations for that improvement abound. BP's Clay Davenport tracks the improvement within his system, while Mike "Baseball Ranter" Carminati explores the more traditional fielding measures. Both reach a similar conclusion: though his previous performance was awful, he didn't have a bad year with the glove, and worse choices abound even among this year's awards.

Not the least worthy candidate to win an election this week, in other words...