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From a Baseball Prospectus Chat today:

"Dave (NJ): Jerry Manuel... Was he this bad in Chicago?

Christina Kahrl: He was, and he will be. That the Mets were impressed with him was proof they didn't remember that this was what happened last time around: Manuel aced his interview, says all the right things in a conference room, and then handicapped his ballclub with his fascination with ways of insinuating himself into the ballgame. I know it means something to Mets fans if I label the man "Torborgian," but that's what you're working with, with a dash of braggadocio to spice things up a bit."

Unnecessary usage of "braggadocio" aside, Kahrl is spot on. It seems like Jerry is more concerned with projecting his personality onto the events of a game rather than giving his team the best chance to win. His on-the-field job is to create the best possible lineup and make smart substitutions, and he's failing horribly at both. I'm fine with the post-game joking and "gangsta" talk, as long as that stuff doesn't make its way into game management. Link via jasondg.

6 months ago Best_infield_ever_tiny James Kannengieser 25 comments 0 recs  | 

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I like her response to the Phillips stuff

It makes sense now: Phillips is an attention-craving whore!

by meigs1414 on May 18, 2009 3:13 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Same chat, fyi
brian (Brooklyn NY): Steve Phillips spent the better part of 3 hours yesterday telling America about every short coming and misplay Carlos Beltran has ever had in his career. Is there a more under appreciated superstar playing in a big market than Beltran?

Christina Kahrl: There are a lot of Steve Phillips questions in the queue, and I think the best response I can come up with is that, as sympathetic as I might be that filling air time is a challenge on any network, this was just silly. Beltran’s a superb ballplayer, an incredible ballplayer, and a big part of the reason why the Mets will contend. But saying that doesn’t really get ratings, does it now?

by jasondg on May 18, 2009 3:13 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

Does saying stupid stuff really get them ratings either?

Like I can understand how harping on players like TO or Ron Artest get them ratings, well I don’t really understand but I get that it somehow magically works, but how does downgrading Beltran help ratings.

by Gina on May 18, 2009 3:20 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I dunno --

Mets-bashing seems to be in vogue.

by jasondg on May 18, 2009 3:23 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I get that it's in vogue

but why would it bring viewers in? I have a hard time imaging casual sports fans tune in because steve phillips is bashing random players for no reason.

by Gina on May 18, 2009 3:27 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

that would be good TV if it were truly RANDOM players

I would tune in to see Steve Philips pick a name out of a hat and then spend three hours making fun of… Santiago Casilla!

by JoshNY on May 18, 2009 3:31 PM EDT up reply actions   1 recs

Maybe the act of Steve Phillips being a moron

pulls in viewers. For example, the fake press conferences were atrocious, but I couldn’t stop watching.

by jasondg on May 18, 2009 3:32 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

yeah those things were like bad car crashes

you don’t wanna look, yet you can’t turn away.

by meigs1414 on May 18, 2009 3:43 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I doubt it

but Steve Phillips advancing a line of thought shared by a (scarily) significant number of Mets fans — that Beltran is not really all that good because he lacks “the 6th tool”, grit and should probably be traded for a “grittier” player (I can’t believe he actually said that) — certainly advances his own (perceived) agenda of bashing the Mets whenever possible.

"The definition of edge is going out there and getting a few wins, and then all of a sudden you don’t have to worry about anyone talking about edge anymore," Wright said. "That's a thing in the past. Go ask Omar about that."

by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on May 18, 2009 3:30 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Actually

I went to the postgame Metsblog thread just to see what the comments section felt about last night’s disasterpiece, and even they were (generally) able to properly identify everything that was wrong with watching last night’s game, including Phillips and Manuel’s awful decision.

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Meddler on May 18, 2009 3:44 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

You've got a stronger stomach than I

"The definition of edge is going out there and getting a few wins, and then all of a sudden you don’t have to worry about anyone talking about edge anymore," Wright said. "That's a thing in the past. Go ask Omar about that."

by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright on May 18, 2009 3:49 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

Haha

Yeah I wasn’t sure if it was a good idea, but I was pleasantly surprised. Steve Phillips is not only dumb enough to make Joe Morgan sound smart, he’s dumb enough to elevate the level of dialogue in the Metsblog comments section. He deserves a Nobel Prize or something (or maybe just a Darwin Award, though I imagine that would also require some sort of medical procedure).

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Meddler on May 18, 2009 3:54 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

its TV

saying stupid stuff always gets ratings.

by Endys Game on May 18, 2009 3:33 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

I guess it might

Kahrl is right, the sports media really doesn’t have a lot to talk about sometimes, so they invent things. I now know what it must’ve been like to be a Red Sox fan and have to deal with the idiotic talk about being “cursed”. But with that meme gone, they need something else, and dumbass Minaya just gave them ammunition with his “edge” comments.

So just like the Red Sox, we’re going to have to deal with this lunacy until the Mets win it all. A scary thought.

And of course, the Mets are far from the only victims of this silliness. A-Rod, anyone?

2009 Mets: maybe its the Phillies turn to have a terrible bullpen?

by Greenpoint Ian on May 18, 2009 4:20 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

It's far too charitable

to assume this is part of a ratings conspiracy.

by TheBigStapler on May 18, 2009 4:24 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

you may be right but there is also a saying that applies here

Never attribute to malice what can also be attributed to mere stupidity

by Endys Game on May 18, 2009 5:00 PM EDT up reply actions   1 recs

+1

Well put

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Meddler on May 18, 2009 5:01 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

you are 100 % right

Don’t credit me :) However I have used this before and have used it often in the past. Its called Hanlon’s Razor. The exact quote I think is Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. It appears in a lot of sci-fi novels of which I have read far too many.

by Endys Game on May 18, 2009 5:33 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

It was in Ted Berg's piece by the way

I swear I wasn’t trying to plagerize him. I had the quote in my mind today and honestly forgot where I read it. I figured somebody said it about Nancy Pelosi or somebody important, not an ex hack GM who can’t get another job and can’t make sense on TV Feel free to take back your Rec Meddler.

by Endys Game on May 18, 2009 5:39 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

If there was a conspiracy

It was that they were trying to re-establish Joe Morgan’s credibility. There was nothing in that broadcast that would ever make me want to listen to a Steve Phillips broadcast again. If a game I don’t really care about is on, and he’s broadcasting, I’m not going to want to watch only because that man is so insufferable to me at this point.

Part of Kahrl’s point was that they have to fill air time, but that wasn’t even an issue here. He was just ranting. It wasn’t like a GK&R broadcast or even a different three-team ESPN broadcast, he wasn’t even stopping to breathe. He was talking straight through important PAs and completely ignoring the game. No one even noticed that it was kind of odd that Bruce Bochy was using a lefty against three of the elite lefty-mashers of the era. They have these numbers right in front of them, but they were too busy talking about something completely unrelated to the actual game. No one questioned why the highest leverage PA of the game went to Angel Pagan, who had all of 15 PAs so far this year, only one of which was in the major leagues, because while the Mets were batting, they were talking about Pelfrey’s balks two innings earlier. It was almost like Play-by-Play would go out the window for a few innings at a time, and it was just a Steve Phillips-Joe Morgan freeform between awful powerpoint presentations and occasional game notes from Miller. Maybe they think bad graphics that look like powerpoint presentations might drum up some ratings, or that Steve Phillips has some kind of edgey “Shock-Broadcaster” persona when he does Mets games, but they’re wrong, and this can only hurt their viewership.

okay, deep breath and, a few Oms, and….. [/rant]

"All energy flows according to the whims of the great magnet

What a fool I was to defy him"

-HST

by Meddler on May 18, 2009 5:33 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

"filling air time is a challenge on any network"

I love everything else she said here, but this gets a giant WTF? from me. It’s not hard to just call the fucking game. But the ESPN team seems to bend over backwards to ignore what’s happening on the field — they air lengthy pre-recorded segments on useless “discussion point” topics, bury the game in a split-screen micro-window to report on things that happened elsewhere and earlier and in other sports, and even when they’re covering the game the camera spent at least as much time pointing at the managers and the dugouts and the stands and Beltran standing around in center field as it did pointing at the field of play, showing the pitcher and the batter and the baserunners. (Just to take a single example of many, Matt Cain’s attempted squeeze bunt in the 5th went by without a single shot of the runner at 3rd because ESPN was busy split-screening some nonsense about basketball.)

Broadcasting baseball is simple. Show the game as it happens; call and analyze the game as it happens. Trying to keep the mythical “casual fan” tuned in by condescending with a thousand distractions is a losing battle, because you can’t be interested in watching the game if the TV won’t show it to you.

by anonymous on May 18, 2009 5:46 PM EDT up reply actions   1 recs

I'm coming to believe

that they themselves are barely “casual fans”.

by SupT on May 18, 2009 6:29 PM EDT up reply actions   0 recs

more sweet uberpwnage

itd be sweeter if she was just bashing a butt head announcer and not the manager of the team but its always nice to hear more informed opinion.

HELLO HELLO MR WILPON. WE WANT THE MANSION NOT THE CONDO.

by kendynamo on May 18, 2009 3:32 PM EDT reply actions   0 recs

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