DHL Dan CCXVII - Hall Of Fame Worthy?

That's the question Shank has about former Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia:

Is Dustin Pedroia a Hall of Famer? We asked him about his chances.

Picked-up pieces while ever-grateful that we emphatically said “no” to the 2024 Olympics . . .

▪ This weekend in Cooperstown is a reminder of why baseball’s Hall of Fame is the one fans care about most, and how it’s nice that we’re back to real baseball discussions (dare we say “arguments?”) regarding who qualifies for diamond immortality.

For too many years it’s been about closed-door lobbying by small committees, performance enhancers, and/or the dreaded character clause that asks BBWAA voters to consider factors other than what a guy did on the field. This is how we got a Hall that features Harold Baines but does not include Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Alex Rodriguez, or Manny Ramirez (you can add Curt Schilling, whose debatable candidacy was blown up by his own big mouth).

... So what about Boston’s own Dustin Pedroia? The diminutive second baseman is eligible for the first time this winter and faces a high hurdle for admission.

Why is it every single fucking time I read a Shank column about Pedrioa, he has to mention his height in some sort of negative fashion? It's unprofessional and nauseating - to hell with Shank for that 'need' to constantly bring it up whenever he writes about Pedroia.

The Dustin Pedroia Retirement Column

Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia finally calls it a career. Since Shank is generally incapable of anything resembling a respectful retirement-type ending when it comes to a local athlete signing off, he wisely turns it over to two guys who know him best, Theo Epstein and Curt Schilling Tito Francoa:

Two guys who know him well have the highest praise for Dustin Pedroia

Theo Epstein and Terry Francona are busy guys with important jobs, not always eager to talk about their Red Sox years, which were important but did not end well.

Just a friendly reminder - Shank was uniquely instrumental in the former's departure from the Red Sox with the infamous 'Dirty Laundry' column. How Shank got Tito Francoa to co-write his book with him after that bullshit will forever be a mystery on par with Jimmy Hoffa's true burial site.

Both responded immediately when I reached out Monday regarding the retirement of Dustin Pedroia.

“It’s a combination of sadness and real appreciation,” Epstein said of a player he drafted in the second round out of Arizona State in 2004. “It’s tough to see someone like him, whose heart would allow him to accomplish anything he wanted, not go out on his own terms.

“But at the same time, it gives everyone an opportunity to think back at everything he accomplished and everything he meant to the Red Sox and how this entire era wouldn’t have been possible without him.

Probably for the best to let them do the talking for Shank, who could not help himself over the years and took some juvenile potshots at Pedroia because of his height. To my recollection, today is the first time he ever put that into its proper context and not made it sound like the juvenile potshot it otherwise is.

The End Is Near

Shank asks the question which has been fairly obvious for a while.

Is this the end for for Dustin Pedroia?

Original column spotted at 10:45 PM - any further questions about Shank not having an editor?

NEW YORK — Are we nearing the end for Dustin Pedroia?

No one takes any pleasure in this prospect (except perhaps for Shank - ed). But there was a sense of doom and gloom when Pedroia was taken out of the lineup after flying to right field in the top of the second inning Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.

This was the first game Pedroia started in the field since Friday at Fenway against the Orioles. His left knee has not come around the way the Sox hoped.

I love Pedroia as a player, and even more as a person who would take absolutely no shit from Shank.

Dan Shaughnessy, Still An Asshole - XXVI

Once again, Shank cannot write a column about Dustin Pedroia without insult:

FORT MYERS, Fla. — We all know the little kid who loves baseball more than anything.

Maybe you were that kid. Maybe you walked around the house with a Wiffle Ball bat in your hand all day. Maybe you slept in your uniform the night before your first Little League game. Maybe you got a new mitt for Christmas and put a ball in it and tied it up for the winter so it would have a good pocket for spring. Or maybe you wore your baseball pants when you rode your bike to school.

Maybe those were things you watched your own kids do.

Thursday in Fort Myers, Dustin Pedroia was that kid.

Nearly every time Shank does a column on him, he needs to point out Pedroia's height. This time it was a sly, subtle dig, but it doesn't make Shank any less of a douchebag when he does it.

The rest of the column is a fucking insult.

Let's Get Small

In his annual column about Dustin Pedroia, The CHB tries -- and fails -- to get the former AL MVP to discuss his health, Jon Lester, the Red Sox' chances in 2015, and playing with abandon.

Shank calls the interview a snore session. The same could be said for his column.

Warning Issued

Oh Henry! Does The CHB Need a Reading Comprehension Course?

The CHB says John Henry's assertion that his comments on giving contracts to players over 30 were "overblown" is, in The CHB's typically elegant style, "baloney." Is his representation honest?

Here's what Henry told Bloomberg last summer: “We had a certain discipline for the first five or six years that really paid big dividends, and we got away from that,” he says. “We learned a lesson in ever-growing, long-term contracts with free agents.”

Here's what Ben Cherington added: [It] was a recommitment to a long-term strategy built on data, performance analysis, and finding hidden value. “In my conversations with John, he has always stressed that it’s really hard to predict the future. He sees the game objectively. He was able to really look down deep into the engine and be impervious to all the pressure coming from outside.”

Says Henry: “We went back to what had made us great for a very long time.” That, reads the article, meant the Red Sox "got on base more often than any other team in baseball, saw a ton of pitches, rarely swung, and crushed the balls they did swing at, especially fastballs.

Referencing a study “Can’t Buy Much Love: Why Money Is Not Baseball’s Most Valuable Currency,” in which author Martin Kleinbard found a weak correlation between payroll disparity and winning, Henry said, "To me, the most important thing this study shows is that virtually all of the underpaid players are under 30 and virtually all the overpaid players are over 30. Yet teams continue to extravagantly overpay for players above the age of 30.”

So is The CHB correct? Of course not. Henry at no time said the Red Sox will or will not sign expensive free agents. All he said was that he agreed with the study.

Moreover, Henry correctly pointed out that the Red Sox are best when they grind out at bats. In 2013, Boston led the AL in OBP at .349. In 2014, they were eighth, at .316. In 2013, they were fifth in the league in homers at 178. In 2014, they were 12th, with 123. The two weakest spots for the Sox were outfield and 3B, and in signing Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez they have managed to get the two best available free agents to play those positions in 2015. That sounds consistent with Henry's statements. They now have exactly five players under contract after the 2015 season: the two aforementioned plus Dustin Pedroia, Clay Buchholz (who has a cheap team buyout clause) and Allen Craig (who almost certainly will be traded before then).

So yes, The CHB is being completely disingenuous in his criticism. What else is new?

Oh and then there's this: "Maybe this is what happens when radio studios are populated by fan-boy 'comedians' and 'professional' announcers suck up to local team ownerships in a quest for employment." Fan boy watch! It's always a pleasure knowing how much this site gets under his pale skin.

Great Timing, Shank!

Dan Shaughnessy, eight days ago:

When he was American League MVP in 2008, Pedroia batted .326 with 17 homers, 83 RBIs, 54 doubles, and 213 hits. But his slugging percentage has gotten lower in each of the last four seasons and he went into Friday’s game hitting .265 with an on-base percentage of .338.

Dustin's batting average over the last ten games? .433.

Dropoff

A day or two behind one of the local sports talk radio topics, Shank wonders - what's up with Dustin Pedroia?

NEW YORK — Dustin Pedroia has a message for those who believe he is in steady, irreversible decline.

“I’ll be the same player that I am — the same player that you’ve seen — until I’m dead, OK?’’ Pedroia said while sitting in front of his locker before Friday’s Red Sox-Yankees series opener at Yankee Stadium. “That’s basically the bottom line.’’

He has spent his entire professional career being cocky and defiant. That’s the way it goes when you are 5-foot-nothing and clubhouse security guys won’t let you into the room because they don’t believe you’re a big leaguer. So now that his offensive numbers are sliding, now that he is 30, there is speculation that Dustin Pedroia might never again be the same player.

Why Shank needs to tar an otherwise halfway decent column with another cheap shot about Pedroia's height is beyond me.

Check that - it's not beyond me - Shank's just a dick...

The Obligatory Dustin Pedroia Column

Our Man Shank keeps rolling with his third consecutive column in as many days, an interview with the Red Sox starting second baseman.

FORT MYERS, Fla. — He’s 30 years old now. He’s the de facto captain of the Red Sox. He’s what Derek Jeter has been with the Yankees for the last two decades. He’s the everyday leader.

Most important, Dustin Pedroia is healthy again. Pedroia had surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb last November, and Sunday he made his first appearance in the Red Sox clubhouse.

“Everything went good with the surgery,’’ said Pedroia. “They put a pin in it for four weeks, but now the pin is gone. I kind of got a late start, but the rehab was great. I feel healthy. No setbacks. Everything’s great.’’

Pedroia has seen fire and rain in his seven-plus seasons in Boston. He was a rookie when the Sox won the 2007 World Series. He was Most Valuable Player of the American League when the Sox got to the seventh game of the ALCS one year later. (“A huge letdown. We were four or five innings away. You don’t want that feeling. Once you win, you want to stay there and be on top all the time. It gives us something to push for.’’) He lived through the final days of Terry Francona, the clown show of Bobby Valentine, and the worst-to-first redemption tour of 2013.

I'm sure he'll work in something from "Sweet Caroline" in the next column...

The Spin Doctors

There must have been a blue moon last night; Shank actually sat down and interviewed an athlete, in this case it's Dustin Pedroia of the Boston Red Sox. Pedroia gives his side of the story with respect to the Palace Revolt from late last month, which does not mesh with the story as it came out last week (that players, led by Pedroia, wanted manager Bobby Valentine fired).

Exactly one year ago, Dustin Pedroia was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, captured flying through the air as he turned a double play. The Red Sox were finishing up a stretch in which they went 39 games over .500, and the headline accompanying Pedroia’s image was “Heart of the Red Sox.’’

Tuesday night, Pedroia came home to Fenway Park, wearing the scars of his first public flogging by the beast of Boston baseball. He went 1 for 5 against the Angels in another demoralizing 5-3 loss as the Sox dropped five games under .500.

Unlike, say, those uplifting 11-2 losses...

Pedroia was crushed by fans and sports talk radio jockeys last week when news leaked of the Palace Revolt from late July.

Let me remind the readers who one of the sports radio talk jockeys is, just so you know who's stoking this fire.

Fenway folks got angry when it was reported that Pedroia led the “fire Bobby” storm that swept across Red Sox Nation. Boston’s former MVP was characterized as a bad guy in the clubhouse and reminded again that he’s the one who said, “That’s not the way we do things here,” when Valentine attempted to light a fire under Kevin Youkilis.

He took a couple days away from the media when the Sox lost two of three in New York. I caught up with him in the Sox dugout three hours before the series opener against the struggling Angels.

The column gets better from there, primarily due to Shank's silence until the end paragraph, where he slides in a Buffalo Springfield song reference. Time for Shank to update his iPod list, if he knows what an iPod is....