Archive for category Free Agency
The Curious Case of Chan Ho Park.
Posted by WTT in Ballplayer Lifestyle, Breaking News, Enemies, Free Agency, Phillies Rants on February 28th, 2010
The long and puzzling odyssey of Chan Ho Park’s stay in free agency ended last week when he signed with the New York Yankees. Here’s my take on this surprising development:
See, usually this would piss me off. I wanted to react with the old, “Oh, you’re too fucking good for our team? Had to take more money from the fucking YANKEES? Asshole.” But then, as I watched “1.2 million dollars” scroll across the screen I simply said, “What the fuck?”
I'm not sure if greed is a deadly sin, but if you have really stupid financial advisors and agents, then it definitely is.
For the last few months, I’ve been wondering why the Hell Chan Ho Park wasn’t a part of the Phillies’ 2010 plans. Charlie Manuel spoke about durability issues, which was uncharacteristic for the usually protective manager. Still, Park was excellent after being moved from the rotation and seemed like a logical fit for a team needing help in solidifying its bullpen. So, let’s take a look at exactly how this played out.
1. Phillies offer $3 million dollars.
2. Chan Ho Park’s people say ” no thanks.”
3. Ruben Amaro says “fuck you.”
4. Chan Ho Park’s people wait for a better offer.
5. That offer never comes.
6. Park signs with Yankees for just over $1 million.
The only thing we don’t know at this point is whether or not Park’s people called Ruben Amaro back sometime in January with contrition, offering massages, manicures, and free “happy-ending” coupons in return for that initial offer.
A special 4DR Welcome to Jose Contreras and Friends!
We do know, however, that the Phillies had moved on by the time Park had lowered his demands and now the Phillies can only hope that the additions of Dennys Baez and Jose Contreras will fill the hole left by the departure of Chan Ho Park.
And we also know that Chan Ho Park’s people fucked this one up.
The “Fuck You” Signings
Posted by Dickie Assburn in Enemies, Free Agency, Mic'd Up, NL East Reviews on February 27th, 2010
I’m really glad my blogmates decided to stop hitting the slopes and start hitting the keyboard. PS – blogmates is a fag way of saying Bay Slugga and WTT, btw. The site was too empty with just one tiny little Dick.
It is with great pride that I announce that I am currently heading into my second year as a contributor (is that what you call people who write filth like the shit we post here?) on 4DR… or as you Yankees/Red Sox fans put it: my second year as a Phillies fan!
A couple of days ago, I noticed that that douchebag Rod Barajas signed with the Mets. Strangely, this was the Mets scariest offseason acquisition. Before you say anything, yes — I do remember that they signed Jason Bay. But he looks Hopper from A Bug’s Life? How can you be scared of that face?
Don't know what's worse: Bay's odds of finding a grasshopper to fuck in New York or Hopper's odds of being mentioned on any other baseball site
But anyway, back to Rod Barajas. He’s fucking pathetic. Do you know what he is? Do you want to know what he is? He’s not a grasshopper — no, he’s something much worse. He reminds me of the girl that went out with a guy once that didn’t treat her as good as she thought she deserved to be treated… so she started doing whatever she could to make the guy realize what he’s “missing out on,” up to and including: a) trying to make his life a living hell, and b) sleeping with his friends. You would think it’d piss the guy off, right? No, because the guy has moved on to bigger and better things… like reaching the World Series twice in two years.
I swear the guy is on a mission to kill the Phillies… but he’s irrelevant. Sure, he will piss you off when he randomly decides to go Joe Mauer on us, but there’s a reason why we all say “FUCKING ROD BARAJAS… WHAT THE FUCK” when it happens: he sucks. And now he signed with the Mets because he’s still pissed off that he can’t be with us, even though he’d try to leave the Mets in a second if we offered him a roster spot… poor girl.
Another “fuck you” signing? Billy Wagner. He claims he hates the Phillies and their fans so much, yet he keeps playing for teams that play us more than any other team in the majors. Pat Burrell was right: he really is a rat. Only a rat would keep going back to the well (the N.L. East) so many times for cheese even though it didn’t like the way it tasted the first time around. Did you see how much he freaked out when the Mets shipped him off to the Red Sox last year? Any other player would give up jerking off for a year if they had the opportunity to leave the Mets for the Red Sox… but not Billy. Look for him to tear his rotator cuff and sign an incentives-laden deal with the Gnats in the winter of 2011.
"Three words, y'all: fuck you"
Billy Wagner really didn’t need to sign in the N.L. East. He could’ve found work somewhere else… something I cannot say for Eric Bruntlett, who signed with the Gnats. That’s more of a “fuck ME” though, right?
He reminds me of Freddie Prinze Jr.’s career circa mid 90s-now. He was in these ‘really big at the time’ movies like I Know What You Did Last Summer, which was like, totally da bomb, and then he was part of I Still Know What You Did Last Summer, which was kind of big but wasn’t cutting it during that era… kinda like how the Phillies won, and then went back to the show, and lost. The correlation here is that Freddie Prinze Jr. got kicked out of stardom because people realized two things: a) the current formula wasn’t going to keep working, and b) he couldn’t act for shit. The Phillies realized: a) you can’t keep platooning Eric Bruntlett anywhere near a baseball diamond and expect to keep winning, and b) he couldn’t play baseball for shit. Therefore, ties were cut, and the once-was-our-own Berenstein bear is now somebody else’s problem.
Bruntlett would've played a better Fred, I swear
Foreign brides, old men, and shitty fans = Major League Baseball
Posted by Dickie Assburn in Ballplayer Lifestyle, Enemies, Free Agency, Media and Press, Mic'd Up on February 10th, 2010
There’s been a lot of amusing talk about contract extensions in baseball as of late. For some reason or another, there’s just been a flurry of activity on the topic of teams and players renewing their vows.
Twins owner Jim Pohlad reportedly said that he was not in on the Joe Mauer negotiations. The Twins obviously want to lock Mauer up for life, and if they don’t, Minnesota should/could be handing Pohlad the death penalty. Jim Pohlad is a big business guy – he’s not just the owner of the Twins. He is an entrepreneur, goddammit!!!!! His philosophy: fuck a Joe Mauer; I’m rich, bitch!!
However, you would have to be a pretty dumb motherfucker not to realize that Mauer is a healthy, strong investment, even if you don’t give a flying shit about your fanbase. Pohland is acting like Joe Mauer is some sort of mail order bride. He’s all “Hey, reporter, listen: I’m ordering a slut from Russia, but I don’t know her name and I’ll never speak to her. I won’t even sleep with her. I’m going to have my minions order her, and my customers will give her some ‘wear and tear’ for the next 8-10 years… but make no mistake about it: I don’t know the bitch.”
... I have nothing to say about this.
I’m just surprised Pohlad wouldn’t be doing everything in his personal power to keep Mauer. Point blank: if you can find a Russian slut of Mauer’s caliber, you get her. Pay her whatever she wants – she’s worth it. And if she bats like .365 on the side? Even better!
BTW – While reading the comments on this story on ESPN, I saw a lot of Yankees fans trying to take some weird high road by saying “Hey! Yankees Fan Here! Hope Mauer stays in Minnesota – it’s only right!” It was like a bad high school movie where the star, male-model high school QB is famous for banging every girl in school, but won’t take the blonde valedictorian’s virginity because “she’s too good for it.” News flash, Yanks fans: When/If Posada retires to the deserts of Egypt to pursue a career as a camel and your farm system runs dry (and before you say anything, I know you might have a great catcher waiting in the wings), you’ll be blueprinting escape routes for when you kidnap Joe Mauer out of Minnesota on $500,000,000,000 ransom. I know this. You know this. Joe Mauer knows this.
Face it: you buy everything you remotely need, and that will never change. I don’t have a problem with the Yankees doing this, but their fans need to shut the fuck up. You can’t have it both ways. You run your baseball team like Dynasty Mode in MLB The Show, and it’s been the running joke made of Major League Baseball since I learned how to shit.
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Side notes:
Cashman came out and said he isn’t extending Jeter or Rivera because they signed contracts and need to play them out. It’s a good statement to make. I’m glad he’s being honest. I hate when players feel the need to get new contracts before they’ve finished their existing ones… however, I feel that there was more to it than the whole ‘honest is the best policy’ deal.
"Yeah uhh... don't ask me for money if you're a 35-year-old shortstop... sass me again and I'll buy Hanley Ramirez, dick"
Jeter is going to want to play baseball for a long time. He’s a great player and he’s been a hitting machine. He probably won’t get Rose’s record, but he’ll get pretty damn close. SS is a skill position and to expect Jeter to play there into his 40s would be ridiculous. I know he practices hard as fuck and is a great player and all that shit… yadayadayada THE YANKEES WON’T WANT HIM PLAYING SHORTSTOP WHEN HE’S 40-SOMETHING YEARS-OLD!!! That much is a no-brainer. If Jeter wants to stay a Yankee, he’s going to have to accept a demotion to the bench/DH role in the next 3-4 years (I give him this much time because he is, as I’ve said, Derek Jeter.) One has to assume A-Rod would become DH eventually when he can no longer man the hot corner, and when that happens, Jeter is out. I doubt he’ll want to be a bench player, and I doubt the Yankees will want to pay him an 8-figure amount to be a bench player.
Yankees fans: thank you in advance for somehow thinking that what I ‘clearly said’ was that Derek Jeter actually dated Nick Cannon, that A-Rod invented the AIDS virus, and that Brian Cashman killed 2pac, Biggie, and Kangaroo Jack.
PS – you you all suck cock. LOL
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In other news… I forgot this website is supposed to be about the Phillies. We re-signed Clutch Chooch to a nice 3-year extension. Senor Octubre will be in full effect well after the end of the Mayan calendar, and that’s awesome.
Lest We Forget
Posted by Dickie Assburn in Enemies, Free Agency, General Thoughts, Playoffs and World Series on January 27th, 2010
Off-season baseball writing sucks dick. No one gives enough of a fuck to read any of it, the writers resort to talking about hypothetical signings and trades, and everyone essentially shits themselves trying to keep their job in a mostly dead market.
Well, I don’t get paid, I don’t give a fuck about ‘good journalism’, and I think hypothetical trades are stupid.
I realized today that I forgot about Ben Francisco. I also forgot about Greg Dobbs. Whenever I think about the Phillies throughout the day, I usually just think of our pitching. What I think about is pretty typical, like “why did the Phillies sign Jose Contreras?” The Phillies pitching staff is starting to look like a retirement home.
From left to right: Contreras, Moyer... and uh... I guess I exagerrated a bit
Ben Francisco went 0-for-11 during the postseason. Who does that? Honestly? I must admit that I was very surprised the Phils got as far as they did. NO ONE could hit off the bench. Francisco flat-lined, and I frequently forgot that Dobbs still played for us. Stairs was a drunken waste of a bench spot. Hopefully Gload can help us out in that department, because we really need it. When it stopped being fun to say “Ben Frann-cisss-cooo,” I decided it was time to suggest that we throw batteries at him a la J.D. Drew.
My Super Sweet 2010 Season
BTW… how is Durbin making over 2 million dollars this year? I know I wrote about this already, but come ON. He sucked!
Chase announced that he’s going to be more willing to take breaks during the season than he has been in the past. If he can do this effectively (and by that, I mean doing it to the team’s and his advantage) then I will be happy with that. Chase has a distinct history of trying to play through/hide injuries and he’s clearly a huge part of our team.
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The Yankees signed Randy Winn today, who will likely spell the end of Johnny Damon’s time with the team. I think moves like these make baseball interesting from year to year. The lost Cabrera and Damon but gained Granderson and Winn. As far as offensive production, it’s a wait-and-see game this season for the Yanks. Granderson hasn’t played on teams that are as offensively gifted as the Yankees in the past, but he’s seen production similar to Damon’s over the course of his career. The difference is that he doesn’t bat in as many runs and he hasn’t been doing that for as long. The batting average is pretty inconsistent (last year it sucked), but he does have some power in his bat. I say he could top out around 82 RBIs, but I’d probably bet on less.
Offensively, I doubt they skip a beat by losing Damon. Sure – he had a good playoffs, but I don’t think he ever made/broke a team he was on. He’s always been a ‘pretty good’ player. However, I still hate that monkey-looking motherfucker about as much as I hate Pedro Feliz. I hope he signs with some shitty ass team in the AL so I don’t have to see him too much. If he and Pedro Feliz fucked, they’d make the most monkey-looking children ever created… and we all know Pedro would deliver it.
I found this on the net... it really captures how much of a bitch Pedro is
Jamie Moyer… or lack there of.
Posted by Dickie Assburn in Free Agency, injuries on January 11th, 2010
Not too long ago, Jamie sprayed champagne all over the walls. This year, it's feces.
I figured the first post of the new year should include a popped bottle of champagne. It seemed/seems timely, so why not?
Alright, that’s all I’m going to say about champagne.
Is Jamie Moyer dying? Seriously – his blood is deteriorating, he’s old as shit, and I feel like he shadily gets rushed to the ER bi-weekly. Is it just me, or is the guy that’s projected to be our fifth-starter going to be warming up before games in a tomb?
In other news… The Phillies signed Danys Baez to a two-year deal and hope he can pick up the slack. The bullpen sucked last year and that is no secret. Brad Lidge is the poster child for nervous ninnies around the globe and clips of Pujols rocking his shit into night have resurfaced. Life has certainly sucked in that department for mole boy and Phils fans alike.
What is our bullpen going to look like? I can’t just sit around and accept that Ruben is going to scrape up some sourpuss that is pissed off in March over the fact that he couldn’t command a reasonable offer to match his skill set. I hate bargain hunting. Sure – it is troubling to some that a team that’s been to the World Series two years in a row can’t just go out and sign someone GOOD if they want to, but I’ve already spoken about why we can’t do that.
Chad Durbin? J.C. Romero (don’t give a fuck if he took drugs; can he still play)? Who else? Kendrick? Bastardo?
I will point out that projecting bullpen stats for most teams is a fools’ game. With that said, I will be quiet before going any further.
Doug Glanville is now a writer for the NY Times
Posted by Dickie Assburn in Ballplayer Lifestyle, Free Agency, Media and Press on December 28th, 2009
Wow - what a lineup
I just stumbled upon an article by Doug Glanville, the Phils former beloved center fielder, on nytimes.com. I usually just assume every sports player is exactly the same: a spoiled douchebag dumbass that will waste all of his money on boos and sluts within 10 years of ‘retirement,’ or that period where they stop working after age 36. Dougie clearly proved me wrong. He writes rather eloquently and gives pretty brilliant insight into the lives of professional athletes. His last two articles are about why people like Tiger Woods fuck 80 other women instead of the one that has their kids, and about baseball’s culture of free agency. He chronicles his dealings with Ed Wade and his negotiations during the summer where he decided to leave the Phillies for the Rangers. Like I said: it’s a good read, so check that shit out.
Check out that shitty ass lineup in the picture, btw. We fucking sucked!
Also – not sure if anyone heard, but Ruben basically said Chan Slut Park isn’t returning. I don’t know what the fuck he’s been thinking lately. The only negotiations I’ve heard out of the China-man’s camp are the ones with his attorney. He’s apparently suing some shitty old baseball player, claiming that he lent old whitey some large 6-figure amount and never had it paid back to him. It smells a little fishy (I guess I should say ’sushi’ here… just remember: he’s Chinese – hahaaa!!!) to me. This reportedly happened years ago and now Chan’s chanting at Chad Kreuter with some sort of “give me my fucking money NOW BITCH” campaign. Get yours, Chan Slut. I guess I can’t blame you.