I listen to a lot of sports talk radio throughout my workday.  Ill informed callers are an "occupational hazard."  Ill informed hosts are a nuisance.  Sports talk radio has the ability to report upon, commentate upon, and even shape the sports landscape of a given market.  It is irresponsible for someone in this type of position to distribute any type of misinformation.  Sure, the medium is a little more rapid fire.  I'm not here to jump up and down if someone says Brian Robert's BA is .328 when it's .322; however, I am here to call people out when they declare Derek Jeter a more valuable player than Brian Roberts.  I hope you enjoy some of my postings.  Hopefully, I can find some of the drivel I've sent via e-mail to friends and other bloggers, and hit the ground running with this thing. 

Example of an entry I made after the Perlozzo firing

ESPN1300 host plays the role of apologist

I have been told by a certain someone that I am an apologist of sorts, upset at writers and commentators for picking on my team. My pet peeve is really people who are paid to make educated comments on a subject getting it all wrong.

Yesterday on ESPN1300, local host Steve Malewski (sp) fielded a call from someone complaining that the Orioles needed to make a trade because the Orioles organization has not created a genuine big time bat. Steve Malewski quickly offered up the name of Nick Markakis, end of argument you caller peasant. The caller retorted that Markakis is good to average. Well nobody decided to offer hard evidence, so I'll take the bull by the horns. Here is the VORP of each American League right fielder:

Magglio Ordonez 47.3
Vladimir Guerrero 35
Alex Rios 20.7
Michael Cuddyer 17.7
Casey Blake 17
Nick Markakis 10.9
Bobby Abreu 9.2
Jose Guillen 7.4
Milton Bradley 5.4
Sammy Sosa 3.3
Delmon Young 1.1
Jermaine Dye -.3
WillyMo Pena -.5
Emil Brown -3.6

That's 6 out of 14. Seventh or eighth place is average. Nick is slightly above average. That said, the Orioles would be better off if they fielded nine Nick Markakises, so this post is not intended to bash him.

About two weeks ago, when the Mets were bad:

Thankfully Omar Manaya Doesn't Employ WFAN
660 WFAN hosts Joe and Evan just declared that Jermaine Dye would be a good fit for the Mets because Shawn Green doesn't cut it. The second part may be true, but let's see if Jermaine Dye is the answer.

Jermaine Dye is coming off a ridiculous season. He had a career year at 31. He's a free agent after this season. You won't simply be able to give up Shawn Green to get Dye. You'll likely have to deal a pitching prospect. Do you really want to do that?

But here's the kicker. Jermaine Dye 2006 won't be playing for the Mets. Jermaine Dye 2007 will. That said, it would still be better than the woeful Shawn Green, correct?

OPS
Green .796
Dye .716

VORP
Green 11.5
Dye 0.0 (The ChiSox are just as well to call up their AAA RF based upon this year's performance)

A team of 9 _____ scores x runs
Green 5.62
Dye 4.07

So make that trade Joe and Evan. You'll be out a pitching prospect (Great idea since Pedro and Glavine are spring chickens) and saddled with a less valuable bat. Or you can let Omar do his job.

To prove I won't play favorites:

I guess I'm Picking on the FAN today
Let me say this first, I love Chris "Mad Dog" Russo. He is the stereotypical sports talk host. To him, the 6th inning of a Tuesday game against the Rockies might as well be the G8 talks on global terrorism. But he just made one of them comments that ruffle my feathers a bit.

Russo was fielding a call about Roger Clemen's legacy versus that of Tom Seaver. Now I understand that waiting for the host to google something is not good radio, but this apparently was something that spilled over from yesterday. So he did have some time to right his ship.

The argument he made was a tad ridiculous. What were their ERAs in their worst seasons? Huh?!? Angelina Jolie spent a couple years of her life carrying Billy Bob Thornton's blood around her neck and hugging a toilet after partying. Heck I'm sure she still let's loose on News Year's Eve. Should she be remembered for that night of partying, or the other 364 days when she's adopting Cambodians? Unless her puke finds its way to Cambodia and poisons 365 Cambodian children, it's the latter.

But I digress. Certainly I can settle the score, right? Is there a statistic, adjusted for era, that allows me to compare pitchers against their peers? Folks, I present to you the ERA+ for Roger Clemens and Tom Seaver:

Clemens 144
Seaver 127

Clemens' ERA is 44% better than the all time average. Seaver's is 27% better. I know it's only one metric, but it's certainly better than what they did in their worst season. Actually no, that's wonderful for my argument. INCLUDING Clemens' worst season which was worsde than Seaver's, Clemens ERA+ is still 17% better!

http://www.baseball-reference.com/leaders/ERAplus_career.shtml

As you can see here, the better argument is whether Johan Santana can match Clemens as his career progresses.