Baseball Tonight is Back

This is great news everyone. I know it's been on for like two-three weeks now, but I have been ignoring it so I don't get angry at the stupidity of some of the analysts. First stupid commentary of the year has to be Eric Young.

He was talking about the Phillies and how they have replaced Pat Burrell with Raul Ibanez. The first argument he had was that Ibanez plays better defense, true, but how many players don't play better defense than Burrell. Here's where he gets dumb. Raul Ibanez will play more games than Burrell, hinting that Burrell didn't last the whole season last year. While this is essentially true, Burrell only missed six games, stupid.

Ok, I need a new paragraph for this bold, yet simpleminded argument. Ibanez hits right handers and left handers well, while Burrell does not. EY didn't provide any stats to back this up (surprised?), but I am assuming he was referring to the batting average splits. While this is true,( Ibanez hit .305 against lefties and .288 against righties, Burrell hit .279 against lefties and .238 against righties) it might be the worst way to look at it. Let's look at some more important stats.

Burrell Ibanez
OBP- .367 .358
SLG- .507 .479
OPS- .875 .837
VS RHP
OBP- .351 .353
SLG- .492 .479
OPS- .843 .837
VS LHP
OBP- .406 .368
SLG- .545 .497
OPS- .951 .865

Ok, these stats tell me that Ibanez doesn't lose too much against lefties or righties, but by no means does he provide better offense against either one in comparison to Burrell. Burrell slugged better and OPSed better than Ibanez on both accounts. So that argument is completely nullified. While Ibanez might be considered better for the Phillies because he slightly better in left field (he still sucks), this shouldn't be a major deciding factor. One thing that EY didn't point to is the fact that Raul Ibanez is more likely to decline in the field and at the plate. He is 37 years old for christ's sake. Pat Burrell is only 32. For some reason analysts feel a need to man crush on the team that just won the world series. How do you overlook that, Raul is old.

Ok that was just a tidbit of what we are going to do with TV personalities. I will start watching BTN on a regular basis. John Kruk and Steve Phillips are next.