Bleacher Creature Feature

#46: "Boom Boom Boom Boom"

28 August 2003

It's blindingly obvious after his last two outings that his back has not healed properly. Both Mel Stottlemyre and Jorge Posada have complained about him to the press, which is very unusual for the pair of them. And, tellingly, Boomer gets paid a bonus for each start he makes, which gives him a major incentive to insist that his back is fine even when it isn't.

However, two straight starts where he got shelled, where he's been leaving his pitches over the plate, and where he's been walking people right and left after being the best control pitcher ever for the first four months of the season, are pretty good indicators that missing one turn in the rotation wasn't enough. He needs to shut it down, possibly for the rest of the season.

I have to admit, I find the sports player urge to play through pain to be the stupidest thing in the entire world. What possible benefit is there to playing at less than your best instead of resting and healing so you can be at your best? There are times where it's appropriate -- in the postseason, for example, when there is no tomorrow, as it were -- but for the most part is does more damage, both to the team and to the player, than speaking up in the first place.

Perfect example: last year, Orlando Hernandez did not tell the Yankees his back was acting up, and proceeded to cough up eight runs to the Devil Rays. How was he helping the team or himself by not communicating his injury?

Hernandez was unceremoniously traded in the off-season, and he hasn't been missed. If Wells wants his option picked up, he needs to be a team player. If not, he's not doing the team any good, and they should drop him like a stone.

Funny, nobody's talking about the Angels' "team chemistry" this year. The 2002 Champs are, to my mind, the poster children for the abject stupidity of the "team chemistry" concept. The Angels have fielded virtually the same team for the past three seasons. Nobody talked about their great chemistry in 2001 when they finished a distant third to the record-breaking Mariners, and this year they made a point of not changing their team overmuch because of the great team chemistry they had when winning the wild card and then the World Series -- and they're languishing in third place behind the Mariners again, despite having the same "team chemistry" they had when they won it all in '02.

Of course, what actually happened was that everything came together for the Angels last year, and they had a hot streak in October. The advantage of the playoffs is that that sort of thing can happen and give you a World Championship. Does it tarnish the Angels' accomplishment? Of course not. They earned that trophy -- but it's also no guarantee that you can sustain it. That's the difference between a team that has everything go right and luck out and a team that can sustain excellence the way the Indians did in the early-to-mid-1990s, the way the Braves have since 1991, the way the Yankees have since the mid-1990s, and the way the A's have been the last couple of years.

Todd Zeile supposedly agreed to join the Yankees because he thought the Yankees were going to trade Nick Johnson.

I have to say that I never bought any of the rumors that had Johnson as part of a trading package, because Nick is precisely the kind of homegrown player the Yankees cling to for dear life, to wit, one with high expectations who meets all of them when he hits the big team (SEE ALSO: Derek Jeter, Alfonso Soriano, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Jorge Posada).

The fact that Zeile thought the Yankees would keep his 37-year-old declining skills around and trade one of their future stars (who is currently leading the team in OBP, albeit in fewer plate appearances because of his hand injury, and who has a .944 OPS, and who has been carrying what passes for the Yankee offense the last couple of days against the White Sox, getting a double, a home run, and two walks, and scoring half of the teams' runs) shows a level of self-delusion that would be touching if it hadn't been so costly for the team. Luckily, the Yanks have been very good about fixing their mistakes, having now gotten rid of Zeile, Raul Mondesi, Sterling Hitchcock, Juan Acevedo, Armando Benitez, and Jesse Orosco.

Speaking of Benitez... There's a general dichotomy in baseball analysis these days, mostly characterized as "statheads" versus everyone else, which is misleading. The non-statheads also use statistics to justify their positions, the difference is that the statheads try to determine what the stats really mean and whether or not other stats are more useful, whereas the non-statheads just quote high (or low) numbers and point to that as evidence. Either that, or they cite intangibles, which usually are self-fulfilling arguments.

As a general rule, I fall on the stathead side of things, but there is one exception, and that's Benitez. Yes, on paper, Benitez is the better pitcher than Jeff Nelson, and on paper it looked like a bad trade, but this is one case where I have to go with the gut instinct. Having watched Benitez for years as a Met and (briefly) a Yankee, I couldn't help but feel like the game was lost every time he came in. Yes, when he's on, he's magnificent, but when he's off, hoo boy is he off, and usually disastrously so. Benitez is a head case -- I still remember his macho fuck-you attitude to Tino Martinez after he beaned Tino in the back in 1996.

Besides, on the Mariners, he's one of several talented relievers, and amidst the Sazaki/Hasegawa/Rhodes/Soriano gang, he'll be able to blend in and do his job. Being the focus as the setup man for Mariano Rivera in New York was just asking for trouble. Brian Cashman, wisely, declined trouble's invitation and flipped Benitez for Nellie.

NEXT: "Random Thoughts"

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