Roy Halladay. Nice guy. Great pitcher. Just not worth it.

Alright, I don't usually post in response to satirical weblogs, but I just couldn't help it with this one. It Is High, It Is Far recently opined that it would be wiser for the Yankees to let Boston land Roy Halladay, sign John Lackey, and keep our prospects for ourselves (or for a future trade for Josh Johnson or Felix Hernandez). And while it's satire (partly), they make an excellent point. Roy Halladay will cost everything, leaving the Yankees nothing for Johnson and King Felix or for their own ballclub (as far as prospects are concerned).

Some points are in order:

1. Roy Halladay is 32 years old, and will be 33 by next summer. The buzz around the baseball internets is that Halladay could be a starting pitcher who ages well, because of the effectiveness of his two-seamer, which works like a sinker (his curve and cutter are pretty nasty, too). Halladay isn't an ace because he simply throws hard, he throws strikes and get guys to ground out a whole heck of a lot (Fangraphs). Even with this data, I go back to the fact that he's nearly 33 years old. And he wants a contract extension upon being traded. That means he'll be pitching in pinstripes until he's 36, and maybe even longer. With CC and AJ signed for the next few years, that doesn't seem like smart business sense: having a bunch of 30 year old pitchers (i.e., players who tend to break down faster or more often than their better-hitting peers) with longish contracts.

2. Roy Halladay will cost the Yankees Jesus Montero and either Joba or Hughes. Jesus is the real deal (Yankee Universe), and if he manages to stick around at catcher (which is still up in the air), he will rake at a usually offensive-thin position. The Yankees have had Jorge Posada so long (and Matt Nokes/Mike Stanley before that) that most fans forget what it was like to trot Don Slaught and Bob Geren and even Joe Girardi out there to catch and not hit. Parting with Jesus Montero would be easier for a King Felix type because he's only 23 (twenty-three!) years old. Likewise, Johnson is nearly 26. These guys are just hitting their prime. Halladay is not. He is in his decline years. You don't trade Jesus for decline years. You just don't.

3. If the Yankees trade either Joba/Hughes and Jesus to Toronto for Halladay, the Red Sox get Josh Johnson or King Felix. This will happen. It's not a matter of if these guys will get moved, it's a matter of when. Florida and Seattle simply cannot afford to keep these boys around anymore than they could afford to sign CC Sabathia last year. If the Yankees trade for Doc's declining years, the Red Sox get one of the two young aces. They will have kept their prospects, while the Yankees will have dealt theirs. It's a simple matter of investment of available resources. If the Yankees trade cheap and effective resources for Doc Halladay, the Red Sox will have cheap and effective resources for Felix and Johnson. This is simple economics. Also, it will break our hearts when 37-year-old Halladay pitches a gutsy 7 inning, 4 run performance but still loses in the ALCS to a breathtaking Felix Hernandez (8 IPs, 5 hits, 1 ER) in his 27-year-old prime. It will kill us to lose to the Red Sox like that. Especially if Jesus hits 30+ HRs in Toronto that year (instead of safely out of sight in Seattle). That will kill us doubly. As many of those HRs will come against us.

That's alot of words on baseball, which is unusual for this site. But dammit if that satirical weblog didn't get me going. Let the Red Sox pay for Halladay. Even if they don't overpay, it will put them out of the running for the young aces, with (fingers-crossed) thousands of innings left on their beautiful, cherbiclike arms. If we could magically know that Joba, Hughes and Jesus will amount to nothing, then this trade would be a no-brainer. (But then it'd be a no-brainer for Toronto, too.) But we know nothing, other than how much upside these kids have. Don't trade them for someone's decline years. Keep them. Sign Lackey. Or Sheets. Or maybe Duchscherer.

Keep the kids. Unless King Felix falls in your lap. Then ship 'em out to Singapore.

(Pic courtesy of this blog, whose name is confusing.)

Milestones & Rebranding

That last post on the Pixies was my 100th on the new blog. I guess it's not so new anymore. Considering the old one had around 400 posts, I've still got a ways to go. Also, I need a new name for this kiddo. The New Xanga just isn't cutting it anymore...

However, if I kept it for another four or five years, it might become ironic. Right?

Right?!

Slicing Up Eyeballs

The Pixies on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon earlier this week performing "Debaser" and "Hey".





Alls I want to know is, who the hell are these foks on the fake fire escapes behind them?

[via Slicing Up Eyeballs]

The other (other) black guy: Kenan Thompson

This is exactly what ought to happen when the kid from All That and the 1997 smash hit film Good Burger takes over Saturday Night Live.



p.s. Happy Thanksgiving

Friemblies: Jeff Magnum and Elephant 6

Jeff Magnum at the Knitting Factory in 1998 courtesy of Merge Records [via Pitchfork].



Jeff Magnum's disappearance is still one big ball of mystery to me. I didn't get into Neutral Milk Hotel until after Jeff stopped touring and recording, but I can see why he still has such a rabid fan base. He's the kind of performer he throws himself completely into his act. And on top of that, his affiliation with the Elephant 6 Collective puts him into that awesome-est of musical cliches that really, actually work: friends making music together. It's why, ten years later, I'm still obsessed with David Bazan, Damien Jurado, Rosie Thomas, Sufjan Stevens and Daniel Smith, even if some of their recent material has been a bit uneven. They're not the sort to be unaffected by their music. And they don't mind handling background vocals for their peeps.

Too cool

While you were busy freaking about Lea Michelle and Chris Colfer killing "Defying Gravity" on last week's Glee, Toshiba was sending armchairs into space. Yes, I realize that this is a commercial for a television set that I do not care about and won't be able to afford until 2027, but it's still 82 flavors of awesome. Video is below. Plus bonus video further down about how they pulled it off.





"Blah, blah, blah. Toshiba's the shiz. I'm such a wanker."

Great commercial though.

friemblies

Alex Belth at bronxbanterblog has a short post about Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks and nostalgia this morning, inspired by a Q&A in the NY Times with the men behind "The 2,000 Year Old Man." Check out Alex's thoughts and snippets of the bit from YouTube. What struck me most came at the end of the Times article, with this interplay between Brooks and Reiner:

Q. Sixty years later it seems you see a lot of each other now.

REINER Yeah, we got that big screen [gestures to incredibly large flat-screen monitor] to look at television.

Q. So you come here, Mel, and you watch TV together?

BROOKS Almost every night. He’s got a wonderful housekeeper-cook and we decide on a menu and a movie.

Q. What did you watch most recently?

BROOKS We watched last night “The Peacemaker.” With Nicole Kidman and, come on. [He gestures to Mr. Reiner.]

REINER George Clooney.

BROOKS Right. It was two and a half stars at the most. Good performances, very silly, you know.

REINER We look for movies with the line “Secure the perimeter.”

BROOKS Yeah, we like movies that say, “Secure the perimeter” and/or “You better get some rest.”

REINER “Lock all doors!”

BROOKS “I want a five-block seal!”

I need to watch more movies with funny friends. Seriously.

Date Night

I hope to Jebus this is rated R because I don't think I can handle a PG-13 version of Pineapple Express minus the stoner comedy and gratuitous violence, no matter how much Tina Fey it's got.

Watch the trailer for Date Night via Apple.com

Sometimes, you've gotta break the rules.

I don't get this. How is it kosher for American actors (Serious Actors!) to do 30-second spots, overseas, for high-end European coffee machinery, but not for, say, Burger King?

...

I just answered my own question, didn't I.

via TV Squad

Best show on TV. Srsly.

There is nothing else like Friday Night Lights on television right now. I mean, I'm talking The Wire and Deadwood good. Except you can watch this one with the kids. Thank you 8 pound 6 ounce new born baby Jesus, for bringing us East Dillon football. Amen.

On why newspapers need to keep copy editors on the payroll

 From the desk of Mike Lupicia:

The Yankees had won the World Series again, and they all came running for Mo Rivera and this was all the Yankee Stadium night you could ask for now. Any Stadium. Rivera had gotten the last out of another Series, and now players from one of the great Yankee teams, which is exactly what this one became in the end, seemed to come running from everywhere, maybe even from across the street, on the night when the Yankees were finally back to being the Yankees again.

I've read this paragraph five or six times now, and I still have no idea what it means. It's in English, right? I think those are words. I'm sure those are words. I see nouns and verbs and even punctuation. But what does it mean?

And the kicker? Mike Lupicia is not a blogger. Mike Lupicia is a sports journalist. Good luck with that, newspaper industry.

Never thought I'd see this...

Click for the bigger pic.

Basically a commercial for FOX, but I can live with it.

Absolutely gross product placement to lure both baseball fans and the patriotic, but come on...it's the cast of Glee singing the national anthem! Watch this show patriotic baseball fans! Your national anthem just got owned. Chalk another one up for corporate synergy!

Via TV Squad

They don't love you like I love you

 
Via Brian's Fun with Robots, Rogue Wave covers "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Beautiful stuff for your post-Halloween festivities.