flyingelvii {l Wrote}:Your Moneball paranoia is classic. He was a damn good player by pretty much any way you measure it. Douche, sure, sweaty, yes, grossly outperformed his contract, yes. But thank you for taking offense to a baseless quip regarding Ramiro Mendoza. You're feigned disinterest is quite transparent.
And, yes, Ramiro Mendoza contributed to the 2004 World Series. Not significantly, but he did. Which was my original point about Youk. Thank you for taking offense.
In typical fashion, claimed victory on minutiae rather than the point. And the typical "You're scared of stats because you correctly pointed out that Moneyball prematurely proclaimed Youkilis as the poster boy of sabremetrics."
Youk performed to his contract, and then when he got a big contract, he miraculously started performing to that. After the Sox had already won two World Series.
I could give a shit about Ramiro Mendoza other than the fact that he contributed about as much to the 04 WS as Youk did. And you and I for that matter.
Fact is that Youk was an average player for most of his career that was deified by stat geeks and pink hats. On top of it, he sucked as a person and a teammate. Adding in that he contributed nothing to 2004 and was just another guy on the 2007 team, I see no reason to stand up and cheer the douche, which was really the point that got lost in analyzing whether Youk's 7 HRs in the regular season in 04 made any difference in the Sox winning a title.
"We remind everyone that Boston College fired a perfectly good coach because he went on a job interview, and deserves all of this." Spencer Hall