Abreu is Not Even Close to the Problem

If anyone out there blames Bobby Abreu for the rampant incompetence of the Philadelphia Phillies organization and its players they ought to be looked at psychologically. Argue me on that in the comment section, please, so I can prove your complete and utter lunacy.

For eight years, Abreu has done nothing but put himself in the Top 10 in Phillies history in just about every offensive category in the book. That's a long history, kids. Given time to play out his career here, he'll be the top name on most of them. But those are just stats, and in a town so starved for a winner it has people nestling to the teet of Arena Football, horses, and roller derby, no one gives a cheesesteak about stats. They see Abreu and they see a guy whose sliding technique is subpar, so when he goes into second and shortens up his slide (which costs him the bag from time to time), he is called lazy. They see a guy who won a Gold Glove last year and they blame him for it. Let's get something straight, he didn't pay to have himself named the Gold Glove rightfielder. They voted. He won. It's a popularity contest, and after the Home Run Derby, he was popular. End of story.

Many people will bring up his meager numbers with runners in scoring position in the 8th and 9th inning in games. And those numbers are putrid, but how many of those at bats come when they already have a lead, or when they are down by 6 runs. I know the stats for "meaningful" ABs probably won't be much better, but come up with something that means something before you use it as an argument.

The fact is on the whole, Abreu is hitting .340 with runners in scoring position (RISP) and his OBI, which stands for Other Batters In, is 19.6%, which is 9th in baseball. That stat means that 19.6% of the time there are people on base when Abreu bats, they have found themselves a seat on the pine after crossing home plate after that at bat. He has seen 1,815 pitches, second to only Kevin Youkilous of the Red Sox. That is invaluable to a team that strikes out as much as the Phillies. That is invaluable to a team that does not hit well against good pitching. Working the count is something everyone on this team should take a lesson in. Perhaps if other Phillies learned how to work a count, they too would have a .438 on-base percentage. That's Abreu's by the way -- 4th in baseball.

Another complaint about the Phillies you often hear is that we haven't seen a career .300 hitter since Richie Ashburn. Ummmm, Bobby's career average is .302, comparable to Don Mattingly, whose stats are going to look like Mario Mendoza's next to Abreu's by the time Bobby's said and done. And Mattingly never led anyone anywhere either, but in New York, he's the second coming of Christ.

Bobby's lackadaisical play around the wall has raised the ire of a town that says, "If you are going to suck, then you better get bloody doing it, God damn it, because I pay good money to come down here and watch this crap so you better give me everything you have." Well, that is all he has. It is not in his nature, as a Latino player, to give up the body for the baseball. So, get over it you neanderthals. I want someone who is going to break a leg for you as much as the next guy. But honestly, if that's your reason for wanting him out of town, you should give up your tickets, stop going to games. In fact, stop watching all together. You're clueless. Of course you want to see the heart and hustle of an Aaron Rowand, sacrificing bones and noses at every turn. But people have different make-ups. He never whines about the heat he takes. He never complains about being here after hearing it from the ignoramous Phillies blowhards in right field. He comes and plays his game every day. And every year, his production is among the best in baseball. He is solid in the community. He has never beaten his wife because he's single. He has done NOTHING but get turned into the whipping boy for a franchise that can't get its head out of its own ass long enough to do things right and realize what's wrong with this team. Hey, Mike Schmidt, sound familiar?

If they can get Philip Hughes, and he MUST be a part of the deal, then you think about moving Bobby because it frees salary up to get a top notch starter in the off-season and you get that prospect, which they need. Plus, you have to start the reconstruction somewhere. Otherwise, you leave Bobby right where he is, being as consistent as he has been for 8 years. Stop listening to Howard Eskin. The man has never picked up a bat or a ball in his life. He gathers info and reads trends. He's a Vegas linesmaker at best. He knows nothing about sports.

They should be looking to trade Pat Burrell and his 80 strikeouts to 74 hits, even if it's for a bag of baseballs. The team just has to take on his full salary, because that's the money that was misspent. With Randy Wolf's 9 million, and Burrell's 11, and Mike Lieberthal's 7.5, and David Bell's 4.5, and maybe even Corey Lidle's money, they should be able to go out and load up on starting pitching. If you know ANYTHING about baseball, you know that pitching wins, and the Phillies haven't had any since Lefty retired.

At that point, with a rotation that features Free Agent, Myers, Free Agent, Lieber, Hamels (with Madson back where he belongs in the pen and Gio Gonzalez waiting in the wings), I would be quite happy with Victorino starting in left and leading off, and I could care less who they get to play 3rd, but they might be able to get Shea Hillenbrand for Lidle right now. I won't even care who catches because we'll have a core lineup that is just as good with a starting rotation we can count on. Without Burrell, Lieby and Bell, and say they get Hillenbrand, here's a potential lineup for next season, and I have no problem with it if we have a solid starting rotation:

Victorino LF
Utley 2B
Abreu RF
Howard 1B
Hillenbrand 3B
Rollins SS
Rowand CF
Coste C (why not, he's earned his shot, I'd rather spend on pitching than overpay for Benji Molina)
Pitcher

That is a lineup with much smaller holes than this current lineup. The point is pitching. Abreu bashers are just whiners who don't know enough about baseball to complain about the real reasons this team doesn't win. Stop complaining for the sake of complaining, or three years from now, when the Mike Timlins, Bud Smiths and Placido Polancos of the world are either wallowing in the minors or playing for other teams, and Bobby is tearing it up somewhere else, you'll find yourself wondering why we ever got rid of him in the first place. Remember, he doesn't WANT to leave.

Is It Any Wonder?

Every year at this time, teams from both leagues line up to load up on trading deadline talent before July 31. It's that perennial sign that says: "We think we're in it. We think we can win this damn thing." Most times, teams are smoking more crack than Whitney Houston on a bender thinking they are a contender. But there are a few teams from year to year that actually are, and most years, especially of late, those clubs come out of the American League.

Lets talk about what the word "contender" means. In the American League, a contender is 15 or 20 games over .500 at the break. A contender has three starting pitchers that anyone outside the home city have ever heard of. A contender puts 35,000 asses in the seats every night and has five-tool players and closers and set up men who are old enough to drink.

In the National League, on the other hand, a "contender," apparently, is anyone who is still able to field a team after the All-Star Break. A contender is anyone fourth place or above in their division. A contender is anyone that at any point in the season, has won more than one game in a row. In the National League, the Phillies, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Brewers, Braves and Marlins are contenders. None of these teams is remotedly playing .500 ball, by the way, except the Rockies, and lets face it, I have a better chance of scaling the face of the Grand Canyon than they do of actually contending for a World Series Championship.

So, is it any wonder that the National League is the red-headed stepchild to the American League right now? If you are a free agent in the off-season that will garner any value, would you not want to go play with the big boys? Only the Mets are going to pay you in the NL. The Phillies might, but only if mediocrity placates your personality from head to toe.

So, is it any wonder that any real talent that might find itself available at the deadline ends up in the American League? In the AL, 10 teams are toast already, so they aren't truly afraid to deal inside the league. But in the NL, with everyone thinking they are still alive, they don't want to give up real talent to anyone that might be fighting for that all-important wild card.

For instance, the two names most mentioned as the heat turns up this summer are the Phils Bobby Abreu and the Nats Alphonso Sorianio. If the Phils decide to bow out and deal their on-base machine for prospects, there is not a shot in hell he ends up anywhere in the National League. He'll be involved in the big rivalry up north, or he'll end up in Anaheim. Same with Soriano, who may have an outside shot at ending up a Met, but more realistically will head back to his home in the AL. So, say they are both dealt. What just happened? The National League welcomes more young, "talented" but unproven prospects to water down the baseball further, while the AL adds two proven, All-Star caliber studs.

And we wonder why the AL dominates the NL? At this point it's nothing but a pattern, and there's seems to be a lot of cloth.

Bruschetta vs. Croissants

Please, for one second don't think that I could really care less who wins the long, drawn out World Cup, which will mercifully come to an end when Italy takes on France in the Finals Sunday night in Berlin. Don't get me wrong, I rooted internally for the Americans and tipped my Miller Lite to a few people in the bar when they tied Italy, but all in all, it's not our sport. It's the rest of the world's, and I'm happy for them for being so in love with it. But France? F'n France? I'd rather Iraq win this thing.

Here's my take on soccer. I don't like it because of the way most kids start playing it in this country. It reeks of overprotectiveness and fear. It vomits the word yuppie. It's the soccer mom scenario in full bloom, where young children are forced out onto fields to run around like electric football players for 3 hours watching a ball go back and forth like a pinball inside a circle of what looks more like midget rugby players than would-be soccer stars. Most of these kids are forced to play by their parents, who drive a Beamer and a minivan and won't let their kids climb the lowest branches of a tree because they might fall down one foot.

I hated those kids when I was young. I still hate them now, and the thing is, it's not their fault. I coach 8-10 year olds in football, and many of them play both sports. Five years ago, during my first season coaching and in our first playoff game, we had a kid named Brian who missed about 3 practices a week due to soccer because his mother didn't really want him playing football and she obviously was more of a man than her husband. And that's fine. The kid had speed too, for a nine-year old, he could really motor. We're down 6 on our own 40 with one last chance so we decided to go to the air, a rarity at that level of football unless you have that special kid. Brian was a wing, and he slipped out into a flag pattern untouched, wide open. Our QB rolled left and actually set his feet, followed through, and gunned a strike down field to the futbol-er waiting about 20 yards away.

He dropped it. Game over.

Now, here is what I will never forget as long as I live. And while I preached afterward that we win as a team and lose as a team, I wanted to piss myself in laughter when this moment happened. The quarterback, having his season shattered, walks off the field and without a hint of sadness or surprise in his visage, says to me, "What do you expect? He's a soccer player."

That will always live in my mind about how kids grow up playing that sport in this country. Until you get to a certain level, the sport only preaches "activity" and friendship and fun. Sure, those are great, and they should be a huge part of every organized sport. But what about team work? What about commitment? What about the discipline? Those are what I learned in sports. Those are what European and South American soccer players learn, because it's their bread and butter. They have nothing else. If your kid isn't making it in soccer, he's probably not going to fulfill daddy's dreams. Daddy won't have anyone to live vicariously through.

It's just not our sport. That's all. And lets get something straight now. These men playing in the World Cup are some of the world's most amazing athletes. Their stamina and endurance are dumbfounding. Their passion is unwavering. In a country as large as ours, you're going to find a bunch of people to throw out there and not embarrass themselves, just like China does in basketball, or South Africa might in baseball. But it doesn't mean we're a soccer nation.

So, here we are, with Italy and France, and all this hullabaloo over one match, where men will give their all running around a field as big as Rhode Island for an hour and a half+ for it more than likely coming down to a set of one-on-one battles where one guy shoots at a net bigger than Shaquille O'Neal's garage from 8 feet away, with only about a 25% chance of hitting it. Wow. That's exciting.

But for the record, go Italy. You have better food. You have better mustaches. You provide better immigrants with funnier stereotypes. You provide organized crime, which gives us movies like the Godfather, and Donnie Brasco. You have towns where the cabbies drive boats, and your country is shaped like something, unlike France, which is just shaped like Arizona but tilted. For all that, and the thought of the words French and dominance being linked in any sentence wanting to make me puke shards of my own pelvis -- "Italia! Italia!"