IMFM Exclusive: Jeter Rebuffed by Yanks, Signs 5 yr. contract with Westhill Thunder Bunnies

Derek Jeter has yet to be fitted for his new Westhill softball threads but his passion is infectious, the girls say.

After rejecting the Yankee's front office offer of $15 million/yr for 3 years, Derek Jeter wasn't happy to get Brian Cashman's advice to shop around for a better contract. Not surprisingly, a prideful Jeter took his talents to the free agent market, guided only by his agent, Casey Close, and an exaggerated sense of self-worth.


Jeter "will be reviewing" his liquor fueled decision-making and negotiating strategies

Enter the Westhill Thunderbunnies of Onondaga County, New York. T-Bunnies GM Larry Glasscok knew that after six straight 4th place finishes, his Westhill lineup needed some clutch pop at the shortstop position as much as it needed an injection of gritty leadership. While Jeter was seeking a minimum of four more years and perhaps as much as six more, at approximately $20 million per season, Glasscok played the market perfectly and offered 5 years at $17 million annually, landing the overrated,  sometime tax cheat Jeter without so much as offering a no-trade clause. "I'm aware of Jeter's career-low 2010 .270 batting average, laughable defensive range, and general decline," said Glasscok, "but Samantha, Britney and Chloe  laugh and fool around way too much on the bench and these girls could benefit from Derek's leadership and intangibles."


Rumors that Jeter will fire his agent Casey Close, left, are unconfirmed.

In related news, minor television star Minka Kelly released a statement breaking off her relationship with the known herpes spreading ex-Yankee. "I am a little too good looking" to be associated with a guy with "that bad a haircut and such an alarming portfolio of sexual illnesses who doesn't have any money," the actress was quoted as saying.


Kelly: "I'm done with this mo"

Cleaning Up the Me(t)ss: Sandy Chosing Among Fun Loving Criminals for Ceremonial Moneyball Skipper Position

 
Choosing the next Mets manager is an art more than a science.

The word in the Mets blargoshpere seems to be that Sandy Alderson is getting closer to a decision on who will be the next chump to stand in the Mets dugout.  According to various speculative reports, Wally Backman looks like an also-ran at this point.  Backman's past DUI, domestic violence, and bankruptcy problems are well known, and are not the worst of his crimes. Admittedly, getting slugged by a lady trying to protect his wife from Backman's violent rage, having his arm broken with his own world series 1986 baseball bat no less, has to be up there, but the details are still unclear. No, putting things in historical perspective, "classic alcoholic" and Mets 1986 hero Backman's major crime from where I sit would be appearing in a reality show that degrades the game of baseball and shames America. There is no louder way to cry "I HAVE PROBLEMS WITH JUDGMENT" than to participate in this kind of crap.


Managerial candidates are fighting each other tooth and nail to get a chance to associate their careers with the Wilpon's offensive machine. 

These days, GMs have plenty of options when looking for a substance abusing, judgment impaired manager.  If Alderson is looking for more of a Tony La Russa, fall-asleep-at-a-stoplight-during-spring-training-type-of drunk manager, well it is looking like high-strung, tightly-wrapped, apparent front-running candidate Terry Collins can fill those shoes (hopefully not with his own vomit). Maybe a guy that, though his vehicle is hobbled with a flat tire, just "keeps driving" (according to the police reports of Collin's 2002 arrest in Augusta GA) is just the man the Mets need. Here's the rest of Collin's resume, according to Bill Madden:

As a manager, fired by both the Angels and Astros, his high-strung, tightly-wrapped persona quickly wore thin with his players. Said one longtime Astros operative: "We had a fairly young team (when Collins was the manager) that you would think would be easily impressionable early on. But that wasn't the case. They just never could relate to him." It was the same in Anaheim with the Angels where, after two second-place finishes in '97 and '98, Collins found himself constantly bickering with his players (who petitioned the GM, Bill Bavasi, to fire him), and then had a meltdown at the end of the '99 season when he tearfully resigned, admitting he'd lost the team.

Impressive!  However, Madden is not really being fair to Collins in terms of his fit with the Mets. Collin's managed China's team in the 2009 World Baseball Classic, so he knows how to manage a truly, miserably, awful team, filled with players who don't know how to play the game.  Then again, the Mets would be getting a guy who planned on retiring when he stepped down as the coach of the Orix Buffaloes in 2008.

 

No Chinese players petitioned for Collin's removal, as far as we know. 

 

Clint Hurdle, once marked as one of the final three candidates for the Mets job, has moved on to brighter pastures, and accepted the Pittsburgh Pirates managing post. That's right, we live in a world where the Pirates opening is easier to fill than the Mets, and where a person could decide that the Pirates organization is the better landing spot. Even as far as the Mets have fallen in recent years, Hurdle's decision shows that he must be smoking something.

 

What do I want? Other than some idea of why so many compromised candidates show up on Sandy's list of finalists? Perhaps in the end, if Alderson truly doesn't give a steaming Oliver Perez what the fans want, then that is the best process I could imagine.  After all, America has enough inmates running the asylum. We don't need a GM who listens to an enabled bunch of jokers with on-line diaries and delusions of grandeur. We aren't the ones who will get fired if he picks the wrong guy. 

 

Tell your story walking?

***

Apparently Alderson is having luck taking a different approach to Carlos Beltran than the past regime. They met yesterday in Puerto Rico, according to reports.  Reaching out to Beltran is bound to have better results than whatever Omar's strategy was.

***

Not too many will commit to attacking Subway's latest pitchman, the immortal Mariano Rivera. One reason I love advanced metrics or technologically-enabled baseball analysis, when I love it, is articles like a recent examination of the "Mo Zone." As the old saying goes, get a holy frying pan and every thing starts to look like a sacred cow (ok it's actually something about a hammer and everything looks like a nail), so we need to be wary of analytic hubris. But it's about time someone took this sucker down.  It's a lot easier to be a hall of fame, lights-out strike machine if you get this kind of strike zone charity. He wouldn't be the first pious bastard to benefit greatly from the industrial umpire-media complex, but any further questions into Mariano Rivera's success would be welcomed in these parts, mostly because I'm an embittered bastard.

BBWAA Honors, Humbles Itmetsforme with Best Sports Blog Award

Your author poses with his latest accolade. 

Thank you! Thank you!

I hereby accept the award and thank the Baseball Writers of America for selecting my blog for this prestigious honor. In era of corporately compromised blogs, blogs devoted to publishing pictures of athletes' private parts and ruining America's drunk young women, blogs aimed at the hopelessly nerdy, and blogs over-committed to particular fan segments such as the advanced metric lovers, or the semi-literate, I believe my work truly stands out because it reaches out to all those who have an intense love of the game such that they don't care to have it illuminated in any meaningful way.  And today you honor me, baseball writers, as I no doubt have inspired you over the years.



I also want to thank Derek Jeter, who, although he gets a lot of gruff in this space for cheating on his taxes, having herpes, and possessing the worst haircut anyone I know has ever seen, has to be credited with paving the way for the writers' recognition of my efforts over the past five years. Thanks old pal. To all your haters, if the fifth glove fits...

Cleaning up the Me(t)ss: Alderson Must Revamp Medical Staff

 
 The Mets need a new, healthy look. (Really is this anymore idiotic an idea than the picture below?)

Now that that clubhouse cancer, Charlie Samuels, and that top step dancer, Jose Reyes, have each been taken care of, Alderson needs to turn his attention to more pressing matters. Yes, Sandy got the (moneyball) band back together. Now, everyone will be distracted by the manager search, but I say Alderson needs to start chopping with the medical staff. Ray Ramirez needs to go, whether the past 4 years of debacle are his fault or not.  Anyone that fails a pop quiz on how to deal with player concussions should be let go too.  And Mets medical director Dr. David Altchek too. Injuries are part of the game, but there is a medical malaise hanging over this team, and communication never seems to happen smoothly.



The whole Beltran thing. The whole Bay thing. The whole Reyes in LA thing. Catastrophic hammy roll-ups.  Etc. It's much to much bumbling to be a coincidence. Some fresh faced wellness czars.  Some healthy hot water bottle haulers. Some competent and communicative medical specialists. Hell, someone to give out celery and carrot sticks in the clubhouse. Take care of it, Sandy.


Mets medical director Dr. David Altchek, pictured.

Cleaning Up the Me(t)ss: NYPD, Queens DA offer Sandy a Hand

K-rod (shown above) will need to find a new roomie soon...maybe in prison?

We didn't know it at the time, but after K-Rod was ordered by a judge to stay away from his own house, he moved in with then Mets long time clubhouse manager Charlie Samuels, and thus tied the Mets' embarrassing criminal past to their embarrassing criminal future. This franchise bumbles every facet of its existence, almost like they planned it. As we know now,

Samuels was gambling on football and possibly baseball, investigators believe.
“There is some indication he was” betting on baseball, the person said, adding, “Whether he was betting on the Mets is unclear.”

Insert obligatory betting on the Mets joke here.  The New York Times report leads me to believe that Samuels might be just the tip of the iceberg of distraction coming Sandy Alderson's way this winter. Some of the Mets' most beloved stars have already been implicated (Krud, Jeff Francoeur, Mike Piazza's father).  Wouldn't it be great if it turns out the Mets were throwing games? At least we could better appreciate how the franchise with abundant resources has managed to squander the little talent they have and pile up the loses with a listless brand of baseball only a motherf** could love for most of the last 20 years.


Next week's news: Samuel's child smuggling ring

In any event, Saul "LOL" Katz and his underlings, the Wilpon boys, will probably need to make a new hire, and it should be made in the proud tradition of Kirk Radomski and Samuels.  Allow me to help with a few suggestions to get you started.



Top 10 Clubhouse Manager Replacements for Charlie Samuels Who has Been Suspended For Gambling on Baseball, Stealing Equipment and Other Stuff

10. Jimmy "Big League Chew" Bonanno
9. Mr. Peter Rose (no relation)
8. Dominic Valila (hey even Jeromy Burnitz got a second chance)
7. John Franco's kid
6. Matthew Cerrone
5. Alderson will exploit market inefficiencies--probably hire slob who doesn't know how to iron
4. Michael Jordan
3. Charlie Samuels (hey, he still owes us money)
2. Dwight Gooden (probably needs $$)
1. Mike Murphy, proven champion club house manager

 
Ah, the tools of Mets equipment management

Look, if I were Mets media and communications honchos, VP of "Media Relations" Jay Horowitz (really--this guy still has a job?) or VP David "No Obstruction" Howard, I'd be looking over my shoulder.  The Wilpons woke up recently and realized something stank in Denmark; how long til they recognize that the smell isn't gone? Is it possible to guide a team to a worse image/public relations/reputation?  We all know the Mets are a fucking disaster, but isn't anyone in charge of making sure the clubhouse hasn't been infiltrated by criminals? (And I don't mean the ones under 3-4 year contracts with vesting options.)

 
ZOMG the Mets want to talk to me on the phone FTW! Thank god I have caller ID.

Will saying these things get me in on those conference calls the Mets are starting to make to co-opt to certain high profile blogs to help push lousy ticket packages to see a shitty team, sometimes from seats that they won't admit are obstructed (what better salespeople than trusted and "independent" fans?), and puff me up a bit with my own importance? Or maybe an invite to sit in the dugout or a luxury box with Saul LOLKatz and have some Shake Shack would get me to stop criticizing? Probably not. But I'm not so sure I want to be on their speed dial when the feds bust Mr Met for kiddie porn or meth cooking. You know, guilt by association and all.


Gambling on baseball, still the second most heinous thing Samuels ever did.