Arbitration

Our discussion of men’s grooming habits last week naturally led to a poll covering the topic. We asked which of our subjects had the best look. 11 of you sounded off. The results? Baffling. Mind blowing. Makes us feel like we’ve smoked crack recently. Of the 11 votes, 5 of you legitimately chose Brian Wilson’s Porn-Bush. We want the 5 of you to close your eyes and play a little imagination game with us. Are your eyes closed? Now imagine you’re alone in a quiet room with your significant other. Your significant other has tied you to a chair. You literally cannot move any part of your body. Your significant other approaches you for a sexy, smoochie. But wait…he/she has a beard the size of an afro sported by many of the actors in Jackie Brown. The beard is getting closer to you. The beard actually touches your lips before their lips can (Lisa just moaned and said, “eww, this is making me itch”). The beard grazing your face feels like a brillo pad and still, their lips haven’t touched yours yet. In fact, their lips can’t reach your lips through the beard because the beard has now taken control of everything. The beard wants to take over the world now. Wants to run for President of the United States. Wants to eat everyone’s firstborn child. Wants to bring about the apocalypse. You can’t escape. Remember, you’re tied to a chair. You’re doomed to face a lifetime of beard suffocation. This is worse than the Salem Witch Trials. You wish you were dead.

Now open your eyes. Still feel warm and fuzzy about your choice? Hmmm? We didn’t think so. The runner up with 4 votes was Justin Verlander’s Gentlemanly Scruff. In Verlander, we trust. Cole Hamels’ Compromise and CJ Wilson’s Effortless Sex each earned 1 vote. Really? The name of Wilson’s look was called “Effortless Sex.” No one bought into that? No. Why would you do something that makes sense? You a-holes bought into a porn bush with food stuck in it. No one voted for Will Rhymes’ Lack of Commitment, Brian McCann’s Proper Beard, Jayson Werth’s Sherwood Forest, or Barry Zito’s Magnum PI Stache.

Tim Lincecum and the Giants are finally closer to a contract agreement that would enable the parties to avoid a salary arbitration hearing. “Industry sources” (who are these industry sources they’re always talking about anyway? Are they fans? Stadium garbage pickers? Grounds Crew members? Concession stand employees? Front office staff? Training staff? Other players? WHO? WHO are these people?????) have confirmed that talks between the club and Lincecum have progressed quite nicely. For a 1-year contract, Lincecum requested $21.5 million and the Giants countered with $17 million. Seriously, Lincecum? $17 million for 1 year’s worth of work is a pretty sweet deal. Take it. Don’t complain. And don’t grow a porn-bush. We’re begging you.

Before we go into the rest of this week’s baseball notes, let’s talk arbitration. Admittedly, when you combine our college educations, you get a BFA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing, a Minor in History (Western Civilization), and 2 years at Nassau Community College studying Liberal Arts. Basically that’s a sh*t ton of useless knowledge and creativity (because we’re “artists”). We have zero smarts when it comes to business or anything related to the legal system. After hearing this term, “arbitration” over and over every offseason and stumbling upon it again when reading about Tim Lincecum, Serena had enough. She Googled “What the f*ck does arbitration mean?” If you knew Serena at all, you’d know that that’s legitimately what she Googled. Apparently, to make a bunch of legal jargon short and sweet, arbitration is basically when two disputing parties agree to let someone else decide the fate of the argument. For example, if we were fighting about whether to order our 10 cent wings Hot or Super Hot, we’d call in Chris, the bar back, to “arbitrate” and make the decision for us. We’d agree to do whatever Chris decided. If we’ve got this concept right (and we think we do), this means that if Tim Lincecum and the Giants have to go to a salary arbitration hearing, a person or persons would determine Lincecum’s salary and Lincecum and the Giants would have to comply with whatever the decision is. Super. Now, here’s why we should be on this arbitration panel:

• We’re awesome. We don’t ever stop being awesome.
• We own suits. Therefore, we’ll look extremely professional while arbitrating your salary or whatever it is you want us to arbitrate
• We like 10 cent wings which means we’re fiscally responsible. We’re not going to overpay athletes for simply playing a game. C’mon. Like we should pay you to play Monopoly or something. Please. You’ll get a salary that we feel is acceptable for what you contribute to the world. So, Timmy? If the Giants are offering you $17 million, you should take it because there’s no way in hell we’re giving you that much money to pitch once every 4-5 games in one season. You’ve got to be out of your goddamn mind. You’ll make the equivalent to a secretary. $35,000/year. If you make it to the World Series, we’ll give you $30 worth of Taco Bell. Anything on the Taco Bell menu that your heart desires…totaling $30. Not $31. Not $30.99. Not $30.01. $30 (including tax). We can discuss a raise after conducting a performance evaluation at your next arbitration hearing in 2013 just like every other hard working American in this country.
• Even though we hang out at a bar every Monday night, we still manage to get up for work on time. We even get dressed and comb our hair. This means that we’re responsible adults…we think. Or it might mean that we have a drinking problem. We’re going to stick with “responsible adults.” Just go with it.
• We work out so when sh*t gets out of hand during the arbitration process, we will be able to exert force and authority in order to reign it in and stay on track.
• We’re inherently lazy. Why will this benefit you? Any time spent away from eating, drinking beer, sleeping, or other bedroom-related activities is pretty much a nuisance to us. Therefore, we will not allow this drag on any longer than it has to. You’ll be in and out before you know it.

And that is why you should vote TBB for Arbitration! TBB 2012! Peace out!

Elsewhere in the league. The Oakland A’s have reportedly shown interest in Manny Ramirez. If you recall, Ramirez retired last season rather than face a heavy suspension for testing positive for steroids a second time around. A real class act. Awesome. Like that stadium needs to be made even uglier. Good job, folks. Keep up the good work out there in Oakland. At this rate, your team will never get a new stadium. At best, someone will blow up the Coliseum and never rebuild it. You’ll be homeless. Exactly how many stupid decisions does a team need to make before their decision-making rights are revoked?

Apparently, Ryan Braun was in Midtown last night. Lisa was also in Midtown last night. She could’ve banged a professional baseball player. Then we would’ve blogged about it so that you could’ve shared in the magic of their night. God, how the fates toy with our emotions. ANYWAY, Braun was in town receiving his NL MVP Award. During his acceptance speech, Braun spoke briefly of the situation regarding the positive results of his drug test. Of course, he denied ever doing steroids (But really, are you going to admit to taking steroids while accepting an award congratulating you for your performance?) and spoke a lot of crap about character and being humbled by this experience and all that mumbo jumbo. Listen, we’re not trying to take away from his eloquent speech here, but let’s face it. We don’t really care. What we care about is the fact that he was in Midtown and Lisa did not hit that sh*t when it counted. Steroids or not. Feel free to Google his acceptance speech though. It’s quite intelligent sounding, which says a lot considering that he is a professional athlete and a power hitter to boot. Power hitters are usually dumb as dirt. Just look at Alex Rodriguez. Good-looking and talented, sure. But he shouldn’t talk anymore. He should remain seen and not heard.

Cyndi Lauper is singing our song: “The phone rings in the middle of the night. It’s a major league baseball team begging us to make things right. Oh, MLB, you know we’re still #1. The TBB just want to arbitrate. Oh, the TBB just want to arbitrate.”

So…We Still Don’t Work for the MLB

So last we week we had a brief, yet fiery rant about the retardation of adding more wild card teams. Regardless of our ranting, kicking, and screaming, if we’re to listen to Bud Selig’s nonsense, it appears as though we’re getting additional wild card teams in 2012 whether we want it or not. We asked you if you’d embrace more wild card teams and 3 of you feel as strongly as we do, being that this idea is “literally the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” 1 individual loves wild card teams because “they’re the bestest.” However, the truly brilliant part of this poll is that someone actually voted for, “Well okay, but only if they’re first forced to compete in the Tri-Wizard tournament for the Goblet of Fire, which will take place at Hogwarts…naturally.” Thank you for that. There are no words to convey to you how hard we laughed.

This year’s MVP’s have finally been announced, but there wasn’t anything surprising about the outcome. Joey Votto secured the NL MVP and the only thing shocking about it is that he pummeled reigning MVP, Albert Pujols by a landslide (31 votes to 1). Josh Hamilton took AL MVP, beating the second place Miguel Cabrera by 17 points.

Finally, after days, weeks, months of BS, the Mets have finally announced their new manager and no, it’s not the TBB. We must confess that we’re not really sure where we went wrong during our interview process. On Tuesday, Mets confirmed that 61 year old Terry Collins would be taking over Jerry Manuel’s former position. His previous managerial experience includes the Houston Astros (1994-1996) and the then Anaheim Angels (1997-1999) with a win-loss record of 444-434. Personally, we think that the Mets have made a big mistake choosing Collins over us. Combined, we’re 60 years old. We’re energetic and have many more years of experience under our belts, having managed several different teams from the stands, living room couches, and bar stools. We’ve even called the bull pen from our personal cell phones, selflessly using our own daytime minutes for the sake of the team. PLUS, we write a baseball blog. Granted, a baseball blog filled without a lot of malarkey, but does HE write a baseball blog? No. We think not.

We know that you probably don’t care about what we just talked about. We’re guessing that you want us to go off on this whole Derek Jeter/Yankees marital trouble situation. Fine. We’ll play a little ball with you, but we’re not going to spend a ridiculous amount of time covering it. Newsday, New York Times, Daily News, ESPN, ESPN.com, and MLB.com are covering it enough. Brian Cashman refuses to comment on what Jeter’s camp is asking for or confirm if the Yankees’ offer is really 3 years/$15 million, but he has said that they’ve offered Jeter a “fair and appropriate” deal. He’s even gone so far as to suggest to Jeter that he should test the market if he feels cheated. Jeter’s agent has called the Yankees’ negotiation tactics “baffling” (which Cashman appears to be a bit stung by). You probably expect us to snarl over the Yankees’ selfishness and insensitive handling of the situation. Sorry, but it’s not going to happen. Oh, sure. We definitely see Jeter’s side of the coin here, but we can also understand the position that the Yankees are in as well.

The Victim’s side of the story (if you can call Jeter a “victim”): Jeter’s been an important figure in the Yankees’ franchise for his entire career. He’s been a member of the 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2009 World Series teams. He was the 1996 Rookie of the Year and became team captain in 2003. He’s won 5 Gold Gloves at short stop with them (though there are plenty of people willing and able to argue against him winning them). He’s an 11-time All Star and a 4-time winner of the Silver Slugger Award. He is the all-time hits leader among short stops and the Yankees’ all-time hits leader, having passed Lou Gehrig in 2009. Most Yankees fans love him and from what we can tell, he’s highly respected and well-liked by his teammates. Perhaps even non-Yankees fans and non-Yankees players like him. However, we can’t really confirm that now can we?

The Yankees’ side of the story: They realize what Jeter’s done for the team over the span of his career. The organization may be run by wealthy and arrogant businessmen, but they’re not foolish. However, Derek Jeter is 36 years old. He’s currently playing an infield position that requires a player to cover a good chunk of ground and as you get older, it becomes more difficult to do so. Hey, we’re not knocking the over 30 crowd here. We’re not quite at 36 yet and even we notice a difference in staying in shape. We can no longer eat a carton of ice cream without seeing it creep into our butts. It sucks. We miss our high school physiques. Plus, while he’s a decent fielder, it’s his offense that makes Jeter special. 2010 was NOT a good year at the plate for him. What if that’s a sign of things to come? Sure, it could just be an off year. Lots of players have them and then rebound the following year just fine. But still…what if it’s not? We’re not 100% confident that Jeter can switch positions. Switching positions to begin with is a difficult transition (make fun of Alex Rodriguez’s move from short to third all you want, but trust us. That wasn’t easy and the job’s he currently doing at third should be commended regardless of how you feel about him personally), but some people don’t have the athletic prowess to do it successfully. So if Jeter can’t switch positions and he’s no longer hitting well, are the Yankees really expected to keep Jeter for more than 3 years and pay him large sums of money simply out of loyalty?

We’re not saying that either side is more right or more wrong. We’re just saying that both sides have a point. We hear rumors here and there that the Red Sox and Mets might make an offer just to make the Yankees squirm, but the Mets just recently committed themselves whole-heartedly to Jose Reyes and we personally feel that Red Sox fans would rather slit their own wrists than see Derek Jeter in a Red Sox uniform.

When all is said and done, the fact remains is that both camps should’ve kept these dealings private. Jeter is a popular player and whether anyone likes it or not, he’s currently the face of the franchise. He’s high-profile, high-paid, and famously “Yankee.” His pending free agent status was news well before the season ended. The public back and forth crap does nothing for either side’s situation and it’s now almost at the point of embarrassing. This morning, the back page of a local newspaper didn’t address the Mets’ new manager, the spiraling New York Giants, or the endless amount of luck the Jets seem to be in possession of. It screamed Derek Jeter. Going forward, both parties should shut up and just let us know when a decision’s been made. That’s all anyone really cares about anyway.

Movement Around the League:
According to reports, Victor Martinez is ditching the Red Sox for the Tigers. If this is true, this leaves a pretty big gap behind the plate for the Sox to fill and Jason Varitek is most definitely not their answer.

Several players have been offered arbitration this week, including the Rangers’ Cliff Lee and Frankie Francisco, Red Sox’s Mike Lowell, White Sox’s Paul Konerko and JJ Putz, Phillies’ Jayson Werth, Twins’ Carl Pavano, Jesse Crain, and Orlando Hudson, and the Yankees’ Javier Vazquez. We’ll rattle off a few names that did NOT get arbitration (though this doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re leaving the organization): Jason Varitek, Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte, Hideki Matsui, Bengie Molina, and Vlad Guerrero.

Finally, we’d like to wish a happy birthday to The Favorite’s brother and Brownie Maker.

Have a Gobble, Gobble Thursday filled with good food, friends and family, and great football!