Responses to Responses and a Cup of Tea

#1. Silly Nemesis, Jenny's a Commie, when are you going to get over that? That aside, I believe a good part of the economic argument here is over irresponsible spending which affects your beloved free market in exactly the predicted way: driving up prices for all and making it difficult for those with less income to compete in the market. Now, far be it from me to argue that there should be any kind of controls over the Yankees' spending. I'm just arguing that it gives me the inalienable right to hate them and, in fact, makes me right and them wrong.

#2. I may be wrong, as I haven't been too involved in the Jeter wars so far, but isn't the issue his DEFENSE? I mean, given the Twins offense, I'd take him as our DH in a second... but do I want his bumbling black hole right up the middle? No. Case in point, The Hardball Times Revised Zone Rating. Note Jeter cuddling up with Hanley Ramirez at the bottom. Also, the even better Ultimate Zone Rating (available publicly only through 2003, so give me a break) shows him as the WORST shortstop in the league. Noting THAT, if I had to pick MY players I'd take before Jeter, they'd be:

Miguel Tejada: .298/.349/.422 and an .860 RZR
Jose Reyes: .303/.375/.456 and an .883 RZR
Edgar Renteria: .336/.392/.487 and an .813 RZR
Carlos Guillen: .315/.379/.527 and an .804 RZR
Michael Young: .305/.356/.409 and an .816 RZR

And so that you don't call me out, here's Jeter's line: .327/.400/.456 with a .774 RZR. That gives him a better batting average than 4 of my guys, a better on base percentage than all of them, and a better slugging percentage than 2 of them. So yes, he is a better hitter than most of them. But he is a WAY worse fielder. In case you like graphs, check out THIS. Pay special attention to the blue dotted line on the bottom... that's Jeter falling on his ass every time a fly ball comes his way.



#3. I LIKE this link, originally linked by Nemesis. I disagree with opening it up so wide as to allow teams to free-flow and move as they please, but I do think that giving a share of revenues to visiting teams sounds like a good compromise. I especially appreciate that the writer singled out the multi-annual Yankees/Twins home run derby. Maybe that's not where you were trying to go with that, but I'm glomming on to it.