After the title ("Harden Could Be Big Prize"), the first paragraph consists of two words, in bold and italics:
Rich Harden...
I'm not really sure what to make of this. It will be come clear later in the column, but only MUCH later, so in the meantime, let's just assume that Peter is harboring a strange heterosexual man-crush on him.
Indians general manager Mark Shapiro is doing the right thing, collecting due diligence should he decide that trading C.C. Sabathia will bring him more than two draft choices. Cleveland is in the process of thoroughly scouting eight organizations, from the Yankees to the Red Sox to the Cubs to the Dodgers.
Didn't believe me that Gammons continues to befuddle? Consider:
a. "Due diligence" cannot be "collected".
b. As much as he would like to, Shapiro does not get to "decide" whether trading Sabathia brings him more than two draft choices.
c. The last sentence should be six (or even five) words. Five points to the person who can figure out which six.
d. Connection to Rich Harden? Later? Okay, then.
Without Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner, Jake Westbrook, Adam Miller and a defined bullpen*, it may be impossible** for the Indians to seriously challenge*** in the American League Central. Shapiro has made it clear to other general managers that he is prepared to move sooner rather than later, which increases the value of Sabathia (who has a 2.21 ERA over his past eight starts) because if another team acts quickly, it could have the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner for an additional 4-6 starts.
*I feel like this problem is easily rectified.
bullpen –noun
| 1. | Baseball.
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**If something "may be impossible", wouldn't that make it...possible? I think perhaps Peter should have stuck with "unlikely". I know he doesn't think it's actually impossible, considering we are not yet halfway through the season and it's not like there's a team in that division running away with it.
***The construction "seriously challenge" is retarded. Either they'll challenge for the title or they won't. Unless he's saying that it's only a "serious challenge" if they get within a certain distance of first place, say, three games, and anything more than that is, I suppose, a "lighthearted challenge" or a "half-assed challenge".
Alright, now we're two paragraphs, and aside from the weird opening words, still no mention of Harden. Obviously there's a connection here, since he and Sabathia are both good pitchers who may well be traded to a contender this year, but of course, we've seen Gammons make a habit of not tying his columns to their titles until he's well into his rambling. Naturally, by the time we get to this point, we have no idea what he's saying, which is why he of all people should probably stick with addressing the title as soon as possible. But, I digress. On with the nonsense.
It did not appear the Yankees would leap into the Sabathia market with a Phil Hughes or a multi-prospect package, but that may change if the right foot injury that Chien-Ming Wang suffered on Sunday afternoon turns out to be a multi-week problem.* Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina are likely to be gone at the end of the season. Payroll will come tumbling off the books as they move into the Taj Mahal of ballparks** and even if they do not include Hughes, there are enough prospects from Ian Kennedy to Alan Horne (once a Cleveland draftee) to Austin Jackson to Mark Melancon to get a trade done. Shapiro is not going to get the package the Indians got for Bartolo Colon (Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Cliff Lee), but that was one of the most one-sided deals of the last decade.***
*This sentence's verb tenses are out of whack. "It did not appear that the Yankees would [trade for Sabathia]..." implies that this appearance was in the past, and presently they would consider it, but then in the second half, he says that "it may change if [Wang's injury] turns out to be a multi-week problem," implying that as of right now, the Yankees remain uninterested in dealing for Sabathia. From reading this, I have absolutely no idea whether the Yankees are considering it as of now. Nitpicky, yes, but the greatest baseball writer of his generation should be nitpicked, no? I hate to bring up the same analogy again, but if a young, budding sportswriter submitted this drivel, an editor would tear it to shreds.
**"Taj Mahal of ballparks"? Seriously?? What makes a stadium that HASN'T EVEN OPENED YET the Taj Mahal? This is the ol' ESPN Northeast Bias at its worst.
Also, re-reading it, the analogy doesn't even make sense. It's easy to compare ballparks, because there are thirty of them (not including ballparks that are defunct, minor-league, amateur, independent, etc.), and lots of information about each one is readily available . But what, exactly, is comparable to the Taj Mahal? How many palaces are there in the world? Do we know anything about them? I refuse to believe that the new Yankee Stadium will be so glorious and magnificent that no other ballpark can even compare. I know, I'm rambling, but this kind of retarded analogy, like much of Gammons' writing, makes sense for about six seconds, but I reread it and it makes less and less sense the more I read it. Am I the only one (besides Foist) who closely examines Gammons' writing and realizes that he makes no sense?
***There is a huge, gaping hole in this argument. Most of this paragraph is about next year's Yankees (the new ballpark, Pettitte and Mussina likely being gone, etc.), and how these aspects would lend themselves nicely to a Sabathia trade, but as everybody knows (and Gammons says), Sabathia will be a free agent at the end of THIS year. The missing link would seem to be that the Yankees would only trade for him if they can sign him to an extension, but it has already been reported that the Indians will not grant a potential trading partner an exclusive contract negotiating window. As we will soon see, however, this is not the most egregious case within this column of Gammons leaving an important piece of information out of a paragraph. Are you on the edge of your seat? Me, too.
[Paragraph listing other potential suitors for Sabathia. Still no word on Harden.]
Rich Harden …Oh, here's where he must tie in Harden.
Sometime in the next month, Braves GM Frank Wren and Bobby Cox will decide whether or not they can stay within hailing distance of the Phillies, considering all their injuries. Wren plans to do similar due diligence to what Shapiro has initiated, and if the Braves are buried too far in the NL East, they will see if they can get more than they would with two draft picks*. Agent Scott Boras is not likely to do a trade and sign deal, unless the Angels were to decide they could DH Casey Kotchman each day and were willing to deal right-handed pitcher Nick Adenhart, as the Braves need to start retooling their arms.
So after another, apparently Tourette's Syndrome-induced outburst of Harden's name, we get a paragraph only superficially related to either the title or the previous paragraphs. Now we're talking about the Braves, and how they might also be in trouble. Where did this come from? But, more importantly...
*WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? "They will see if they can get more than they would with two draft picks." Is somebody on the Braves going to be a free agent? Why, in an article ostensibly based around Harden and Sabathia (again, hard to tell), is Gammons bringing up an anonymous free agent-to-be on the Braves and NOT naming him?? This makes me very angry. I refuse to look it up, because Gammons (presumably) already knows who he's talking about, so how hard would it be to stick his name in there?
After some consideration, I'd be willing to give Peter a pass on this one (if it weren't for his countless other sloppy mistakes). It's a pretty ridiculous mistake to make, considering that the name of the player in question is the key to the entire paragraph. The question is, where are the goddamn editors? If it weren't for a lack of spelling errors or more obvious grammatical flaws, I would posit that there is simply no way that anybody read this over before it was submitted. Given the unlikelihood of this scenario, however, I am utterly dumbfounded that somebody could have read this paragraph and approved it.
The Dodgers were encouraged by two Brad Penny outings and were talking about trying to deal him for a bat (the coaching staff suggested a deal for Robinson Cano), but the shoulder problems that troubled Penny after his superb April have cropped up*, and he is now likely unmoveable.**
*If the shoulder problems have been troubling Penny since the end of April, then how did they just "crop up"? I don't even know what he means here. Did the shoulder troubles get worse? Is he referring to the beginning of April when he says that the problems cropped up? Why on earth would he use the phrase "cropped up", anyway?
**Ha. One paragraph after I suggested that the lack of spelling errors renders the scenario that Gammons simply has no editors extremely unlikely, what does Peter do? That's right, misspells a word!
No one really* believes Junior Griffey is really* going to leave Cincinnati, and just what the Reds can get for Adam Dunn is unclear; even if Boston were to lose David Ortiz for the rest of the season, his lack of contact scares them** for a mid-lineup hitter***, and might instead look**** at a count worker like the Marlins' Josh Willingham, who is arbitration-eligible at the end of the season and can fill in at DH, first base, left field and even be an emergency catcher.***** Coco Crisp is hitting the way he did in Cleveland, and when he, J.D. Drew and Jacoby Ellsbury are in the same outfield, they have the best defense in the game.******
*Really?
**Another high-school grammar lesson: "Boston", although full of many people, is a singular city, and requires a singular pronoun.
***Earth to Peter: There are major league baseball teams besides the Red Sox, many of which could use an offensive machine such as Dunn. Also, the phrase "his lack of contact scares them for a mid-lineup hitter" is ass-backwards and I have no idea how to fix it because it sucks so bad.
****Following the rules of subject-verb agreement, I believe the noun for the predicate "might instead look" is...Adam Dunn's lack of contact! Well-played, sir.
*****Considering how many asterisks are in this sentence, it has to rank up there with the worst sentences Gammons has ever written. I didn't even mention the startling lack of parallelism in the list at the end. Well, until now.
******Rich Harden? Still AWOL.
The Cubs, who are serious about acquiring another starting pitcher, may not have enough to get Sabathia, have let the Padres know they're interested in Randy Wolf and Greg Maddux and even let it be known to the Mariners that if they want to discuss Erik Bedard, they want in. In time, if Toronto never gets hitting and keeps sitting near the bottom of the standings, the Jays may deal A.J. Burnett rather than allow him to opt out of his deal in November; if I were the Mets, I'd be trying to unload the system along with Carlos Beltran for Alex Rios and Burnett.*
This paragraph is all over the place. Cubs...Blue Jays...blah. This whole column is just a bunch of extremely loosely connected points about what players various teams might or might not trade or trade for. Seems to me like a much better option for Peter would be to just list all the teams he wants to discuss in bullet form and mention all the players each team might trade or trade for. This option would also eliminate the need for Peter to construct coherent sentences and paragraphs, which, if you've read this far, you already know is not his forte.
*Perhaps this is why Gammons is not a GM. He knows a lot about baseball, but this proposed deal seems way off. Why would they unload their reputedly loaded farm system and star outfielder (who, granted, isn't performing up to par) for a lesser outfielder and an injury-prone starting pitcher? For that matter, if the Mets are eager to rid themselves of Beltran, what would Toronto want with him?
Rich Harden …
Ok, a third time? Really? Tell me you're finally going to actually write about him. You will? Oh, thank goodness.
A call came in Sunday morning that said, "Billy Beane has the single most important piece to trade* to win the World Series. But the question is, how many songs do you let Slowhand play before a string breaks."**
*Should be "trade for", assuming that Gammons means that Beane isn't the one planning on winning the World Series by trading Harden.
**If it's a question, where's the question mark?
Also, Slowhand? Broken strings? Nice obscure musical reference. Thankfully, Gammons' bio informs us that he is a "gifted musician". Given how much his bio extols his writing, I will take this musical "gift" with several grains of salt, thank you.
Hello, Rich Harden.* Beane is right** -- Harden is the most dominant pitcher in the American League right now. Nine starts; the last time he had more than that was 2005. Seven quality starts. 11.31 strikeouts per nine innings. 53.1 innings pitched, 40 hits allowed. Has started against Boston twice, the Angels, Detroit and Atlanta once. He has a career 35-18 record, but he's had a career in which his starts have gone from 31 to 22 to nine to seven before 2008.*Hi!
**Gammons didn't say who made the call that "came in" Sunday morning, but couldn't we logically assume it was not Beane, since the caller refers to him in the third person? Assuming that's true, it's not Beane who's right, it's the mysterious caller.
Actually, now that I think about it, how devious and Billy-Beane-like would it be for Beane to leak an "anonymous" phone call to the most famous baseball writer on the planet telling him that Harden is the best possible trade option for a team with World Series aspirations in order to raise Harden's stock? And how funny would it be if Gammons were in on the ruse and then accidentally ruined it by exposing his "anonymous" tipster the very next paragraph?
I was going to deconstruct this whole argument, using statistics and everything - Harden might be a slightly more attractive option for teams because he won't be a free agent like Sabathia would at the end of the year, but purely in terms of winning the World Series this year, I don't see how you could make the case that Harden's a better option than Sabathia, especially given Harden's fragility (which Gammons does mention later, but only at the end after lovingly floating his name a few times throughout his column). But if Gammons is in cahoots with Beane, that changes everything, doesn't it? Moneyball even mentioned instances when Beane would float rumors to Gammons in order to gauge interest/raise value/whatever. Hmmm...
