Bill Madden, terrible sports writer for the NY Daily News is a 2009 Spink Award finalist.Winners of the Spink award get mention in a permanent exhibit at the Baseball Hall of Fame, though they are not actually considered Hall of Famers. When you see ESPN call Peter Gammons a “Hall of Fame” writer, they’re referring to his Spink Award.
They also get to become lifetime members of the Veterans Committee, so you’d generally like for them to be not idiots. Unfortunately Bill Madden is already there as a “historian”. I realize it’s asking a lot for baseball experts to actually be experts but it’s hard to take a guy seriously when he picks the Braves to win 90+ games in 2008 and 2009 and writes things like this:
While the Phillies and Mets have been consumed with stalking each other, the Atlanta Braves, who used to own the NL East, quietly re-armed over the winter with an overhauled starting rotation and also added a quality bat (and clubhouse presence) in longtime Angel left fielder Garret Anderson.
Garrett Anderson: Such a quality bat, the Braves only wanted him when they couldn’t get Ken Griffey Jr. In 2009.
Let’s also familiarize ourselves with some of his recent work about local teams. From last year, in an article blasting the Yankees draft strategy:
And the beat goes on. In this year’s draft, the Yankees took pitchers with their first three picks: No. 1, Gerrit Cole, whom they did not sign because their scouts obviously didn’t get to know the kid’s makeup or his family situation; No. 2, Jeremy Bleich, who’s going to need Tommy John surgery; and No. 3, Scott Bittle, whose arm problems were so severe they elected to pass on signing him.
He still goes on tangents about how Gerrit Cole’s father is a “billionaire” and says that’s why the Yankees should not have drafted him. Too bad it’s not true! Even if it were, what bearing does that have on whether you draft a guy?
Also not true was that Jeremy Bleich was going to need TJ surgery immediately after being drafted. I don’t even think Bill Madden has sources sometimes, he just makes things up.
From today, in an article about how the Yankees should trade the whole farm (that is horrible and needs to get better according to Madden) for Roy Halladay he takes a look at what some other teams can offer up for Doc:
The Angels have the makings of an attractive package for Halladay in shortstop Brandon Wood, catcher Mike Napoli and their top pitching prospect, righthander Trevor Bell, who has a 1.57 ERA in his first six starts at Triple-A.
It takes three seconds to look up a list of the Angels top 10 prospects. Even with the untimely passing of Nick Adenhart, you will not find Trevor Bell topping any lists in 2009. Or 2008. Or even 2007. He’s doing well but he hasn’t skyrocketed to the top.
From the same article:
The Giants have been talking to the Blue Jays about a pitching-laden deal from their end involving lefty Jonathan Sanchez (who tossed a no-hitter last Friday) and their ’07 No. 1 draft pick, righthander Tim Alderson, in which they would take Rios back as part of the deal. It would appear the Giants don’t have enough parts to get a deal of that magnitude done.
Maybe you just shouldn’t evaluate prospects and organizational talent depth if you have no clue what you’re talking about and don’t want to invest some time into research. Just ask an intern to go look this stuff up for you if you can’t be bothered to do it yourself.
The one credit I will give him is that he thinks the Yankees are wasting Phil Hughes in the bullpen. Broken clock and all that, especially when he says
Once they made the decision to keep Hughes up here and have him work out of the bullpen, thus depriving him of the necessary innings he would have gotten in his primary starter’s role, it stands to reason the Yankees would want to take full advantage of his often overpowering strikeout repertoire. It is rather remarkable how quickly and easily Hughes has adapted to short relief.
Come on man, how long have you been writing about baseball? It’s not remarkable, it’s the expected result when you put a starter with great stuff in the bullpen. The whole paragraph seems like a set up for “It should be no surprise…” but instead it becomes “It is rather remarkable…”. The conclusion is right there and instead a completely different jump is made. Argh.
I’m picky and irritable, it’s true. I spend too much time reading lots of opinions and information about baseball. But I really hate when people who are put in a position of being an authority on a subject are so consistently lazy and pass that information on to people who rely on them for information. It’s not even about being wrong sometimes because that happens to everyone. Things like the notes about prospects in the Halladay article today are just pure laziness.