The Buhner.com Blog

B.J. Ryan, coming off one year of closing for the Baltimore Orioles and his only All-Star Game appearance, has signed a five year deal with the Toronto Blue Jays for $47 million dollars. Ryan, who will turn 30 in a month, has a career 16-19 record with a 3.54 ERA and 42 saves in 405 career appearances, but has an ERA of 2.60 over the last three seasons, with batters hitting .209 against him, and averaging over 12 Ks per nine innings pitched.

That last part is pretty damned impressive. Ryan, a former 17th round pick by Cincinnati, is unique in that unlike many other relievers/closers currently in baseball, Ryan wasn’t a starter in the minors - although his time in the minors was short anyway. After beginning his career in ‘99 in AA, he was promoted to AAA, then pitched in a game for the Reds before being traded to Baltimore in a deal for Juan Guzman. Ryan bounced back and forth between AAA and the Orioles that season and next before settling in full time with the Orioles, originally as a situational lefty, then progressively moved into a setup role until eventually being moved into the closer role full time last season. This recent jump has been one of the things that has alarmed “experts” with the signing - Ryan’s lack of experience in the closer role.

Ryan took his pitching to the next level in 2004, when he settled down his control (dropping his walks per 9 innings from 5.15 to 4.83 to 3.62) while increasing his strikeouts and dropping his ERA down a full run two seasons straight (4.68 to 3.40 to 2.28). When he was moved into the closer role in 2005, he maintained his 2004 form, presumably justifying a five year deal, averaging $9.4 million per season.

Now whether or not Ryan is worth $9.4 million a year isn’t at issue here - it’s how the “value” came about, and a few misguided opinions. A popular misconception is that somehow the Yankees are at fault here, mainly because any time a team spends money, especially above perceived “market value”, it has something to do with the Yankees. In this case, there are two separate fingers blaming the Yankees for this one:

1) The Yankees were interested in signing Ryan, so the Blue Jays had to bid high in order to get him away from the free-spending Yanks.

Sure, the Yankees were interested in signing Ryan - their bullpen isn’t exactly great, so they’d definitely be interested in a pitcher averaging 12 ks per nine innings, especially one who’s left handed. But with the Yankees having a Hall of Fame caliber closer already under contract, they came right out and told Ryan that they wanted him in a setup role. Ryan wasn’t interested in being a setup man, so that pretty much ended negotiation, especially since Ryan had interest from other teams. Tom Gordon went through this before he originally signed with the Yankees, but few teams were willing to take a shot on Gordon as a closer, and the Yankees were willing to give Gordon fair market value for him to go into the setup role. That wasn’t feasible for Ryan, as they was plenty of suitors for Ryan, and the Yankees, despite what some might believe, wouldn’t pay $9 million a year for a setup man.

2) The Blue Jays had to sign Ryan above “market value” in order to compete with the huge payrolls of the Yankees and Red Sox have.

That’s an even dumber argument. While I understand the perceived “need” to sign Ryan might be there for Toronto, the need to “spend money” isn’t there. If anything, it hurts the team competing with the high-payroll teams even more. Putting so much of your alloted payroll into one player will prevent the team from signing other players of need. While having a good closer is a nice thing to have, it wasn’t the most pressing need for Toronto this offseason. Miguel Batista was Toronto’s closer last season, where he blew 8 saves in 39 opportunities (79.48%) Ryan in Baltimore blew 5 in 41 attempts (87.8%). Was that increase worth a $47 million dollar investment on a team that had zero players with 100 RBI or runs scored last season? A team that started Gregg Zaun at catcher 121 times last season? Of course, this is a team who signed Corey Koskie to play third despite having Eric Hinske signed to a multi-year deal, then trading for Shea Hillenbrand, assuring that the team had three starting third basemen, securing $10 million into that three headed monster. Yet going into 2006, the Blue Jays second highest paid player (behind Roy Halladay) will be their closer, which is like buying a top grade refrigerator and not having enough money to buy groceries.

Yankee haters rejoice, though. Thanks to Billy Wagner signing with the Mets, the Phillies have looked toward Gordon to potentially be their new closer, leaving the Yanks to compete with a team who is willing to pay market closer value to a player who they wanted to sign as their setup man. Now, with the market value of a closer apparently set in the 9-11 million range (by Ryan and Wagner), and a team (in Philadelphia) that doesn’t have the financial restrictions of a small market team, we’ll see in fact if the Yankees are willing to shell out closer money to a middle reliever, or whether the Yankees just get used as a bargaining ploy by Gordon’s representation to get more guaranteed money from Philadelphia.

Two years ago I wrote a post about the “wholesome” Christmas song I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus, revealing it for what it was - a deeply disturbing song about infidelity.

After careful consideration, I’ve discovered it’s not the worst Christmas song out there. That would be the classic Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Not technically a “Christmas” song - Baby’s premise is simple - a male/female duet with the male trying to convince the female to stay longer at his place of residence. Originally recorded by Margaret Whiting & Johnny Mercer back in 1949 for the movie “Neptune’s Daughter”, it’s one of those songs that no one actually knows the lyrics to, but the title is often quoted as a part of popular culture.

In the song, the woman is trying to leave, but the man insists that she stay longer because of the (apparently) frigid conditions outside. While the woman seems to think that he only means for a short period of time, the man’s “reasoning” is flawed - the temperature isn’t going to get any warmer as the night progresses. The man knows this though. He wants her to spend the night, and potentially much more.

Not only that, but he’s slowly liquoring her up. “Well maybe just a half a drink more” she relents as he says “put some music on while I pour.” However, just a few lines later, she asks “say, what’s in this drink?” Just alcohol? Or maybe something more? She later goes on to imply that she can’t resist his advances, especially after taking the drink. “I wish I knew how/To break this spell/I ought to say no, no, no, sir/At least I’m gonna say that I tried.” From that last line, we can see that she’s giving in, despite constant resistance, and possibly under chemical influence.

A bit progressive for 1949, eh?

So Fisher-Price has these cool LazyTown figures, exclusively at KMart. You know, since you need a reason nowadays to go to KMart. Well, the figures are exclusive, so they’re hard to find, and they never showed up in the KMart in Bridgehampton. Unhappy coincidence, I thought, and we treked to a few other KMarts on the Island (there aren’t that many) to see if we can find them. To our dismay, we found the dressup outfits and the lameass sampler DVD (we watch the show - we don’t need your stinkin’ DVD), but no figures.

Finally, I hit eBay after Tara talks to a few of her friends outside of this area to see if they saw any (no luck there either) and sure enough, these things (which Nick.com is retailing for $12.99) are going for $35+. It doesn’t necessarily mean this is what they’re going for (the initial wave of eBay post Thanksgiving is the strongest) or that there won’t be more in the future (Nick doesn’t seem to be great with their marketing or know their audience), but right now, these things are gold.

It’s just a little disappointing, since I know Cole would really love these things (especially a Sportacus one), and at this rate, Santa ain’t bringing him one. I guess I’m getting prepared for the Christmases of the future with kids.

It was only a month.

Around the beginning of September, I came off watching an Oakland/Yankees game where the Yanks got tagged for a 12-0 defeat. Pissed off at hearing how the Yankees were horrible despite their payroll, and whether Torre would be back, whether Cashman would be back, and then looking at the looking at the lineup Torre trotted out there, it all came to a boil.

Torre had to go.

So I began writing, justifying why Torre needed to go (an obvious unpopular stand to take as a Yankee fan). I traced back to the days of Showalter, and pointed out issues that I had with Torre and his usage of players, and how the front office was bringing in talent and how Torre was handling it.

And it just snowballed. Endless analyzation. Rambling. ADD doesn’t help the fact, and having to leave it and come back prevents coherence, so I’d have to go back, figure out where my roll was, and then try to pick it up from there. The more info I wrote, the further back I’d have to go. It got to the point where I dreaded that post.

But the thing is, I couldn’t write about anything else. The guilt with that thing is that when I went to write about something else (the World Series, for example), the Spinning Tires in the Bronx post was right there in my “drafts” section. Hell, as I write this, there’s three other posts there. One I know I’m not going to finish (about Dusty Baker and the Cubs), and two others I intend on finishing.

So I finally took the Bronx post and put it in the “pages” section. Read it at your own risk. I don’t consider it an actual “post”, but I don’t want to throw it away. I may come back to work on it some day, I might leave it as is.

But at least it’s out of the queue now, and I can get back to normalcy. If you’re interested, it’s here.

Well, turkey day is over, and we’re back to work again. I woke up early yesterday morning to drive out to East Meadow so that we could get there early enough to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade. Cole didn’t get to bed the night before until like 11:30, then woke up a few times during the night, so my ass was dragging.

My in-laws got new carpet, and the house looks very nice with it (such an improvement just carpet makes, it’s amazing), but in putting in the carpet, the TV in the living room was gone. I’m not sure if it’s a permanent thing or no one had gotten around to moving it back, but it just left the day lacking. I mean, it’s Thanksgiving - the holiday where you watch TV in the morning to watch parades, eat dinner at lunchtime, then watch TV in the afternoon to watch football teams you’d never want to watch on a regular Sunday (oooh, the Lions!)

So I spent the day waiting for food (abnormally sticking my nose in the kitchen and actually taking an interest in the food being prepared) and hooking up the family computer so I could find out proper cooking time for cauliflower (which I somehow didn’t know from memory, revoking my “raised in a farming community” license).

My kid got clocked in the head because his cousin was running around and smacked into him. Again. Just like every time we go there. Be careful around an 18 month old? Unthinkable!

But the food was good. Real good. There’s usually a 3/10 chance that I’ll actually like turkey, and this one hit that 3 (and there was damn good gravy backing it up anyway, just in case). I loaded myself with two big ol’ servings and promptly passed out soon after eating (I told you I was tired).

No leftovers though - the disadvantage of going somewhere else for Thanksgiving. Oh well.