They Call Them Tatersalad

They have been scouting Proctor and the other Yankees relievers, but their initial feeling is no one is too appealing.

But what is most interesting is how much the Yanks like Betemit. Last year, they tried to pry the switch-hitter from the Braves, who ultimately dealt him to the Dodgers on July 28 for Danys Baez and Willy Aybar.

Now that I've quoted some real, live, New York hacks that know nothing about what they are writing I am going to quote an imaginary being that knows what he's talking about,

What’s taters, Precious? What’s taters, eh?

What do Gollum quotes have to do with baseball? Nothing. It was just funny, and the blog background happens to have a LOTR theme to it so I figured I'd have to do a tie-in sometime.

Taters are what Betemit has been hitting at the decent rate of 1 every 14.2 at bats with quite a few of those coming off the bench. I'm guessing the Yankees want those taters at DH because they don't believe in Andy Phillips and Jason Giambi might be staying away for a while longer. Give up already, guys. That winning thing? Not gonna happen this year. The playoff thing? Not gonna happen either. Wildcard? Nyet!

Can't really blame the Yanks for dreaming. What I can't understand though is why every rumor involving the Dodgers is flat out ridiculous. The Kemp or Loney for Dotel rumor at least has the justification of KC fans not having any hope for the foreseeable future. The Scott Proctor for Wilson Betemit is just plain ridiculous because we're going to need his power starting at third or coming off the bench in the playoffs. If we need another reliever we can just call up John Meloan without trading anybody. Yep, the dodgers have more from where Jonathan Broxton came from in the late inning reliever department. Meloan has a higher K rate, lower BB rate, and a lower whip than Broxton.

The big, red state is the worst. Evan Grant actually gets paid for re-writing the same rumor he didn't even come up with himself week after week. I'm not kidding. The rumor is basically Mark Teixeira and sometimes Gagne for James Loney, Chad Billingsley and/or Clayton Kershaw and started as far back 05/30/07 but may be even older, is here (by a different author for the same paper, of course. Evans can't even claim originality points for inventing it) and is repeated June 20'th here, June 27'th here, on July 3 it's here, yep, again on the 4'th, the 5'th, 10'th 13'th and today on the 18'th. Just because you close your eyes, click your heels, and repeat 'there's no place like home' a bunch of times does not mean you will end up in Kansas. Grant also seems to have forgotten this rule: You never get anything back for Boras clients, you just continue to pay them after they've left (...cough...A-Rod...cough). He finally gets real and calls himself a simpleton in the last article. I think he repeats his stories more than Forrest Gump repeats anecdotes handed down to him from his mother.

To all you ha-ha funny GM's of other teams that like to call sportswriters drumming up ridiculous rumors to ameliorate your fans because your team is losing and to all the sports writers dumb enough to write anything aforementioned GM's call and tell you, or you sportswriters that just make up your own ridiculous material because no GM's ever call you...My G.M. may be a little dumb, but he's not stupid, so stop kidding yourself that you're getting Matt Kemp or Chad Billingsley in exchange for your 30 something middle relievers or overpaid malcontent, or players in their walk year. He may have traded for Danys Baez, Jae Seo, and Lance Carter but he also turned around and traded them away (Carter was DFA'd and is still in AAA I think) and in addition pulled off Cesar Izturis for Greg Maddux. For some reason last year, it didn't take Russell Martin, Matt Kemp, James Loney, or Jonathan Broxton to get a pretty good starting pitcher in his walk year to make a playoff run. Why should it take an emerging, young star to get a middle reliever? Maybe I'm dreaming though.

'Ya know, maybe it's some kind of initiation thing. New G.M.'s go through a 3 or four year period of being the rumor punching bag for the league until they earn their chops. So maybe this isn't personal or anything. What I do know is that even kids on the playground at recess don't trade their Matt Kemp card for another kids' Scott Proctor card, even if the kid holding the Kemp card is a devout Yankee fan. Now one more quote from Gollum:

Leave now and never come back!