Results tagged ‘ Andy Pettite ’
Jon Heyman has the balls to falsely accuse Andy Pettitte of being dishonest
By Craig Calcaterra @ Hardball Talk
Last week a lot of people got it totally wrong about Andy Pettitte when they said that he changed his testimony on the stand during the Roger Clemens trial. As I demonstrated with reference to Pettite’s actual 2008 testimony, Andy Pettitte did not change a thing about his testimony. He was entirely consistent.
Jon Heyman was one of the guys who got it wrong then, Tweeting that Pettitte “suddenly” changed his testimony. I guess that’s understandable as a heat of the moment reaction, especially given how it was being played up initially on Twitter and elsewhere. But now Heyman has had a week to actually, you know, look at the facts. And he either hasn’t bothered to or else he has and doesn’t care, because he’s still wrong:
Suddenly on the stand in federal court last week, Pettitte changed his story about Clemens. And remarkably, he changed it from one day to the next. It is fair to assume he wasn’t being completely truthful one of those two days.
Under questioning by government lawyers, Pettitte, who’s trying for a baseball comeback with the Yankees, said Clemens told him about Clemens’ own HGH use while the pair were working out together back in 1999 or 2000. That was a powerful point against Clemens.
Then only one day later, under questioning by Clemens’ lawyers, Pettitte said he may have misunderstood the key HGH conversation. In fact, it’s now 50-50 he misunderstood, he answered to Clemens attorney Michael Attanasio. “I’d say that’s fair,” Pettitte lamely answered to Attanasio.
He goes on to accuse Pettitte of “bending the truth” to help a friend. He calls Pettitte’s testimony a “pathetic change-up,” “sudden amnesia,” and a “lame, less-then-honest performance.” There is something lame, pathetic and less-than-honest here, and it’s Heyman’s approach to this story.
As I demonstrated last week, Pettitte’s answers at trial were entirely consistent with his 2008 testimony. He did not change it. He did not say “50/50″ in 2008 because he was not asked to put a probability on the matter then. Why? Because he wasn’t being cross examined in 2008, he was being deposed. It’s a basic legal point that Heyman would understand if he took a moment to understand basic legal procedure. Not that he has to, of course. But if you’re going to go accusing people of perjury as Heyman clearly does here, you probably should.
The point here is that there is absolutely nothing inconsistent with Pettitte’s 2008 testimony and his “50/50″ testimony last week. In 2008 he said he was uncertain. Last week he said he was uncertain. Last week, however, someone thought to ask him how uncertain. They suggested “50/50″ and Pettitte agreed. If only a government lawyer preparing the witness had thought to ask him that maybe they wouldn’t have called Pettitte to the stand in the first place.
Heyman goes on to say that this is the last straw for Pettitte’s Hall of Fame case in his eyes. That he may have voted for Pettitte despite his win total and his HGH history because the postseason performances were so money that they outweighed it. But now?
Now, though, his own sympathetic HGH story comes into serious question. If he’s willing to suddenly misremember under oath for a good buddy, it’s easy to think now Pettitte only admitted to what he had to admit to. Maybe Pettitte isn’t quite the truthteller we gave him credit for, and maybe there is some other explanation for how his fastball velocity increased to 93/94 mph somewhere in the middle of his career. I’d say the chances are 50-50 (at best) that Pettitte misremembered his own supposedly very limited usage.
Setting the “Pettitte used more steroids than he said he did” accusation aside, this is Jon Heyman, publicly changing his Hall of Fame vote for Andy Pettitte based on something (i.e. a change in sworn testimony) that never happened.
I guess this shouldn’t surprise us coming from a guy who still thinks, evidence be damned, that Jack Morris pitched to the score and that Bert Blyleven wasn’t a very good pitcher.
But it’s certainly a new, unprofessional low for a guy who is just flat out known for always trying to set a new standard for a lack of professionalism.
I mean, at least he never accused Blyleven of committing a crime.
I think Andy Pettitte is making decent progress, guys
I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Andy Pettitte is getting close to ready to join the Yankees. The other day he was sharp as a tack in an extended spring game. Here was his line from another one today:
Sure, Pirates minor leaguers, but you still can’t get much better than that.
Source: Hardball Talk
Yet Another Example of Why Bleacher Report Is Laughably Bad
Bleacher Report is always good for a moronic, ill-conceived and even more poorly supported article on a daily basis and two days ago was no different.
This piece 0f shit was title “Andy Pettitte: 10 Reasons the Yankees Need Him Back ASAP“. Let us begin with the mockery!
First observation, it’s been ten games. Ten whole games. One 16th of the season.
Anyone that claims it is time to hit a panic button in any way, shape or form is just retarded. Just 100%, drooling on themselves, shitting in their own pants, licking the window kind of retarded.
Yet the piece says the “Starters Aren’t Getting The Job Done” and “C.C. Isn’t Getting The Job Done“:
Out of the nine games the New York Yankees have played, they only have two quality starts. With all that talk of a deep and talented rotation, you’d think they’d have more than that…
…As a team, the Yankees’ ERA is 3.93, good for 16th in the majors. A team ERA of 3.93 isn’t bad, but being 16th overall is something the Yankees didn’t picture themselves being with the rotation they have.
You know who also only has two quality starts out of their rotation so far? Boston. The much ballyhooed Phillies & Rays rotations have three.
As for C.C., he has always been a slow starter to the point his career ERA in April is over 4.10. It hits 3.99 for May for his career then never eclipses 3.60 for any other month, wrapping up with a sub-3.00 ERA for September/October.
Kuroda and Nova appear to be fine and Garcia has been horrific, but as a fifth starter you can minimize the damage he does.
The only true source for concern is Hughes, where the author says “Phil Hughes Still Needs Some Work“, but even that has to be analyzed closer than just looking at a box score. His first start was just a handful of pitches away from being a quality start and his second was a mixed bag of everything that didn’t make sense.
He pounded the strike zone, missed a ton of bats and gave up six runs in three innings somehow.
It didn’t help that he was getting pinched badly by the home plate umpire (image to the left: lots of green inside the box =’s a terrible job at home plate) and appeared to get frustrated with each passing moment. As he got more of the plate in response the batters got more of the ball.
He deserves another start or two to see if he reverts to game one form or if this is a sign of things to come, which means Andy has zero need to rush himself back.
He does cite one area of concern with “the Overworked Bullpen“, but he doesn’t really explain how a 39 year old pitcher who hasn’t pitched in two years, one whom he rushed back ahead of schedule is supposed to alleviate this issue.
Does he think Andy is going to miraculously come in and be able to go eight innings per start on an unlimited pitch count?
Yeah, I didn’t think so either.
The distorted ratio of innings logged by starters vs. relievers is also a little deceptive because nearly one-third of it has been logged by the impressive David Phelps, a converted starter serving as long relief.
One, he is a starter so he can pull it off. Two, he has plenty o’ options so we can send him down and bring up Warren (or another one of our high end arms) to replace him for a week or two if we feel the need.
He cites the oft mentioned adage “Lefties Are Always Welcome“, which isn’t entirely untrue, but then mucks up the rationale behind it.
He talks about how it forces teams to adjust their lineup (or gives a manager a built ion rest day for certain starters), doesn’t mention the big factor for their success with the Yankees is the stadiums dimensions (most notably Death Valley in left-center) and then says something about the Brett Gardner – Andruw Jones platoon (it’s actually an Andruw Jones – Raul Ibanez platoon Skippy).
I don’t give someone credit for landing on the right spot if they take an extra five miles to get their because they just walk around in random geometric circles people, it just isn’t in my nature.
He leans on the old Joe Torre philosophy of “Youth Is Bad!” and seems to think of the Yankees plethora of mid-20′s high end arms in their system as a bad thing when he states “The Pitchers of Youth“:
Phil Hughes and Ivan Nova are both 25 years old. David Phelps, the long man in the bullpen, is also 25. Then there’s Michael Pineda, Adam Warren, Manny Banuelos and Dellin Betances.
They’re all young guys who could be expected to take on higher roles should the rotation continue to perform poorly. A good amount of them still need some more seasoning in the minors before being in the majors.
This seems to ignore the fact that the best pitchers in the big leagues, with the exception of a handful are all young now. The days of everyone having entire rotations of early to mid-30′s veterans are long gone and the league is littered with young, powerful, high impact arms.
There is no reason the Yankees shouldn’t get in on that mix with the overload of talent they have on their big league roster and in their system. Phelps is already showing his promise working out of the bullpen, Warren looked great this spring, Pineda looked fine this spring (the velocity issue was overblown to me, he had an ERA of 3.31 until his last start and developed the injury) and Betances/Banuelos are waiting in the wings.
All of these would be better short term options than rushing Pettite back even so much as one week early.
The author circles back to the same argument, just put in a different package with “Veteran Leadership” as if Andy is the only one with it lol. He doesn’t mention that C.C. is just as much of a vet, as well as the current ace, Kuroda has been pitching for 15 years at a professional level, Mo is still around, Garcia is a wily veteran or the fact some of these other guys were on that ’09 roster who made a title run.
He then blathers on about the “Comeback Fire”:
The guys who comeback have a fire in them and are still hungry for more. They want to prove they’re not done. They want to prove they can still do what it takes to win games. That hunger is different from the competitiveness in active players.
Really? See: Roger Clemens that last time (and his nearly 5.00 ERA), Jim Plamer’s comeback attempt in 1991 and so on. I mean, try citing ONE example of some comeback player tearing the league up if you’re going to spout this nonsense.
Then this rocket scientist says:
The New York Yankees, for the first time in a long time, have more pitching than they know what to do with. Compare that to last season when the Yankees were begging for pitchers. Heck, compare that to the last decade. I mean, really, Sidney Ponson and Jaret Wright?
Anyway, all those pieces mean that the Yankees can pull off a trade if they need to. When Pettitte comes back, a couple of guys are going to become expendable. The sooner he returns, the faster the Yankees can decide whom they can part with.
El oh el. Yeah. Because for the first time in decades you have a system flush with young talent and you’re going to part ways with one of them when a guy nearing forty returns for what is most likely going to be a half of one season?
Maybe, just maybe you can fetch something for Garcia on the open market but he is the only piece I’d even remotely consider moving unless I got another high end, young arm in return. And nobody is going to trade that for Garcia.
Stop. Writing. About. Baseball. Now.
The ONLY part of this turd I agree with is this sentiment:
If nothing else, Pettitte’s comeback is a nostalgia trip to the glory days of the New York Yankees. This is one last ride for Pettitte and he wants to do it in style—hopefully with a championship at the end of it.
Indeed. But you don’t change your philosophy, you don’t trade off younger pieces on a nostalgia trip. You let Andy get ready at his pace then work him into the fold.
Now was it really that tough to come to that conclusion?
