Bobby V adds fuel to Yankees-Red Sox fire

Adding Bobby Valentine to the Rivalry between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox is like adding kerosene to a bonfire. It’s going to create an awesome explosion.

Even though I hate the Red Sox, I think hiring Valentine to be their manager is a great move. Valentine is a brilliant baseball man who brings instant credibility to a team most recently known for a historic collapse and a lot of behind-the-scenes nonsense. Bobby V simply isn’t going to tolerate any foolishness, even from the star Red Sox players, who definitely need a kick in the ass. It’s a good thing John Lackey will miss the 2012 baseball season due to Tommy John surgery because he would find himself firmly in Valentine’s crosshairs.

Valentine is also not going to allow the Red Sox to be pushed around by the Yankees in any way, shape or form. When he was managing the Mets, Valentine took great pleasure at needling the Yankees at every opportunity. And that was only during six games a year in the regular season (and a wonderful World Series, of course). Now that he is managing the Yankees’ archrival and his team is playing them 18 times a year, I fully expect Valentine to take his disdain for the Yankees to the next level.

Spring training can’t get here fast enough.

Thanks to the US federal government for the Bobby V photo.

Happy Birthday Mariano Rivera!

Mariano Rivera is used to striking fear in the hearts of opposing batters, but he recently unintentionally struck fear in the hearts of New York Yankees fans.

First, Rivera unveiled that he will be having surgery soon, not on his Hall of Fame-bound right arm, but on his vocal cords. Normally this would not be much of a concern as Mariano prefers to let his pitching talk for him. But as Mariano noted, nothing is simple when it comes to surgery.

But the scarier comment came when Mariano left open the possibility of retiring after the 2012 baseball season. He didn’t commit one way or the other, but hanging up his pinstripes is clearly on Rivera’s mind, much to the terror of Yankees fans and the hopeful glee of opposing hitters all around baseball. As much as we hope that a David Robertson or a Joba Chamberlain can eventually step up to take over the closer’s job, we know in our hearts that Mo is simply irreplaceable.

In our heads, we know the day is coming when Mo will not be closing games for the Yankees. But in our hearts, we all want Mo to keep going until he is at least 50, which gives us another eight years of not having to worry about the 9th inning of baseball games as so many other teams do. It may sound completely unrealistic, except that Mo really hasn’t shown any signs of fading. He marched right up to the all-time saves record without breaking stride. Mo is too humble to care about numbers, but the now 42-year-old has achieved a record that will likely never be broken.

Happy Birthday, Mo!

Solid move by Yankees to re-sign Garcia

Get ready for more Freddy!

The New York Yankees made a solid move by re-signing Freddy Garcia, who more than earned his pay bump after helping to keep the Yankees rotation together in the 2011 regular season. Garcia should have been the #5 starter, but was forced into the #3 spot due to the injuries to Phil Hughes and the inconsistency of AJ Burnett.

Does re-signing Garcia solve the Yankees’ rotation shortage? Absolutely not. The Yankees and Brian Cashman are still looking for a starter to slot in behind CC Sabathia. They don’t seem terribly excited about available free agents such as CJ Wilson and Mark Buehrle, neither of who will come cheap, and don’t really want to spend ace-type money on either one of them. But this being the Yankees, I imagine one of those guys will be in pinstripes relatively soon.

Who else will end up in the Bronx? Stay tuned.

Jeter will be scapegoat for forced All-Star play

Call it the Derek Jeter rule: players voted to the All-Star team must participate in the game, unless they have a really good excuse.

Jeter was roundly, and I thought unfairly, criticized for his decision to skip this season’s All-Star game, including by an unnamed baseball official. Bud Selig did some major damage control at the time by claiming he was not angry that the captain of the New York Yankees decided to blow off the game. But I think Selig’s true feelings were revealed by the fact that baseball’s new labor contract mandates that players voted to the team must participate unless they are injured or otherwise excused. Get ready to see some interesting doctors’ notes and excuses.

I wonder how Jeter will feel about this change as he will be made the scapegoat for this rather restrictive rule, but we will probably never know. I thought Jeter was emotionally spent after his grueling climb to the 3,000 mark and had every right to take a few days off to mentally recharge for the second half of the year. Plus, Jeter may have been making a last-ditch effort to fix his fraying relationship with then-girlfriend Minka Kelly by spending the time with her on her turf (she was filming the now-cancelled Charlie’s Angels reboot in Miami). I can’t blame Jeter if he decided trying to salvage his long-term relationship was more important than playing in the All-Star game.

I don’t like the idea of forcing players to participate in the All-Star game. In a season of 162 games, half of which are played on the road, players should not be penalized for having a great season by being forced to participate in the game when they would rather spend their limited time off with their families. I don’t think players should have to justify that decision.

But in the grand scheme of things, being forced to play in the All-Star game is a small price to pay to keep the baseball peace.

Happy Thanksgiving folks!

Baseball keeps the labor peace

Major League Baseball gave its fans an early Christmas present: a new labor contract that will avoid the lockout problems seen in football and basketball.

Rather than subjecting their fans to public animosity and bickering, MLB learned from the mistakes made by the National Football League and National Basketball Association and came to what looks to be a very fair and quick agreement. It ensures that there will be no interruption (or threat of interruption) to the game of baseball at a time when baseball’s popularity is on the rise again.

It looks like Bud Selig is the big winner as he got almost everything he wanted, including the addition of two wild cards to the playoffs and draft and signing changes designed to rein in exorbitant spending. He got the players’ union to agree to institute testing for human growth hormone, even though the new agreement is being criticized for the lack of in-season random testing. Selig did have to finally give in on expanded replay, which he has resisted for years. But I think he will eventually come to terms with the fact that instant replay is best for the game of baseball. Overall, Selig now comes off as the wisest commissioner among the Big Three American sports, understanding that a contentious labor negotiation simply wouldn’t fly with so many people out of work and struggling to make ends meet.

The New York Yankees were portrayed as one of the losers in the new agreement because of new taxes to be imposed on teams that overpay for draft picks. But the Yankees and Brian Cashman are sensitive about criticisms that they pay their way into the playoffs every year and have begun trying to limit their payroll and expenditures. And anything that forces the Yankees to be more disciplined in their spending is probably a good thing for us fans who bear the brunt of excessive spending through higher ticket prices.

I’m proud to be a baseball fan today. My sympathies go out to my uncles and all the other basketball fans who continue to needlessly suffer.

Ryan Braun a deserving MVP winner

I believe Ryan Braun is a very deserving winner of the National League Most Valuable Player award. Not everyone agrees.

Those who think that Matt Kemp should have been the MVP point to his slightly superior statistics and the fact that Braun hit in the lineup ahead of the mighty Prince Fielder. But Braun’s numbers were pretty close and the fact that he played on the first Milwaukee Brewers’ team to win their division in almost 30 years and helped lead that same team to the best record in franchise history obviously had an impact on the baseball writers. The vote wasn’t even that close.

No question Kemp had a fantastic year and losing the MVP award doesn’t take anything away from that. He handled the loss pretty well, expressing what seemed to be genuine praise for Braun. Plus, Kemp has better things to worry about, like how he is going to spend all the money the Los Angeles Dodgers are now paying him to play baseball.

I have to admit that I was rooting for Braun over Kemp. While the individual statistics play a key role, I take the word valuable to heart and will always support the guy who is playing for a winning team versus a non-contender. Plus, I thought Braun handled the Jose Reyes controversy wonderfully, showing a lot of class by declining the opportunity to criticize Reyes for bowing out of the last game of the New York Mets season after one at-bat just so he could win the batting title.

As hard as I’ve been on the baseball writers recently, I think they got both MVP winners right (although Curtis Granderson’s fourth place finish in the vote stings a bit). Well done.

Thanks to the Dana Files for the Wikipedia photo.

Granderson's 4th place MVP finish disappointing

OK, I definitely understand why Justin Verlander won the American League Most Valuable Player award. What I don’t understand is the fourth place finish for Curtis Granderson.

The ace of the Detroit Tigers received almost half of the first-place votes, ensuring his victory in a tight competition. Of course, one writer took it upon himself or herself to ignore the rules and left Verlander off the MVP ballot completely, likely due to a mistaken personal belief that pitchers should never win MVP awards, even though they are eligible. Not a surprise at all.

What was a surprise was the relatively poor showing for Curtis Granderson of the New York Yankees. Granderson finished fourth while his teammate Robinson Cano finished in sixth place. I was rooting for Granderson and thought that if he didn’t win, he would finish second to Verlander. How on earth could he finish behind both Jacoby Ellsbury of the Boston Red Sox and Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays? The Red Sox collapsed in September and even if Ellsbury wasn’t directly responsible for that epic failure, he was a key member of a team that blew a substantial lead in the wild-card race. And I don’t care how many home runs Bautista hit. The Blue Jays finished 16 games behind the Yankees in the AL East division so why did he get so many votes?

The Yankees were the best team in the American League in the regular season. How their two best players could finish no higher than fourth in the MVP vote is mind boggling. Perhaps Cano siphoned off some votes from Granderson. There is no doubt that Cano is the best player on the Yankees. But Granderson carried the team at a time when everyone else, including Cano, was struggling.

If the award is really about the player that is most valuable to his team, then guys on teams that fail to make the postseason should not receive MVP votes. The definition of MVP is left up to the interpretation of the writers, unfortunately, but the word valuable seems pretty clear to me, which is why Granderson’s fourth-place showing is so disappointing. Perhaps it’s time to institute an explicit definition of MVP so that players are not at the mercy and whim of the writers.