“I don’t care, but sometimes it would be nice to say something positive,” he said. “But all the time it’s negative things, you know? Sometimes, you know, people should say something that’s positive. But every time it’s something negative . . . bring it up, bring it up, bring it up. Why?

“I understand you (the media) are going to write whatever you want . . . but I come here every day and bust my ass . . . if things don’t work out sometimes, that’s the way it’s going to be. You understand? But sometimes you bring up the same things . . . You get tired of that.”

There are a lot of ways to go with this one. The easy way, the time-honored way, is simply to remind Lugo that it was his decision to sign a four-year, $36 million contract to play for the Red Sox. It’s like that line from the film “Airplane!” in which a Jack Kirkpatrick-like character says, “They bought their tickets. They knew what they were getting into. I say, let ’em crash!”

On the one hand, I agree that a multimillionaire should be able to handle a critical journalist or two, on the other hand, I hate it to be critized by others when I’m already hard on myself, so I feel some sympathy for Julio Lugo. And seriously, what do the journalists expect him to say, really? Aren’t they asking their stupid questions just in order to have someone loose his self-control? Because Lugo’s outburst is certainly a better story than his errors, right?

Link: Julio Lugo lets it go

Sure, players — especially in today’s game — don’t want to be known as career Minor Leaguers. But I think if you ask those who have experienced that fate, they look back at their careers with joy and pride. I would think that most of them, particularly the old-timers, would be thrilled to be enshrined in a Minor League Baseball Hall of Fame.

There are certainly plenty of variables to consider. Who gets in? What are the criteria for entrance? Do players with Major League experience qualify? What about those enshrined in Cooperstown who did something noteworthy while in the Minors?

All of those things can be ironed out if this conversation were to continue. For now, though, I think I’ll stick to guys who spent all or most of their careers in the Minors and can be found on the leaderboards. I’ll include some executives and make one large exception to the "Major League" rule I just set. After discussing it with my MiLB.com colleagues (a special shout out goes to Jason Ratliff and our resident historian Kevin Czerwinski. If you haven’t been reading his Cracked Bats series, you’re missing out), here’s a worthy inaugural class for the Minor League Baseball Hall of Fame:

[…]

Jigger Statz: Playing his entire career for the Los Angeles Angels, one of the best Minor League teams of all-time, Statz holds Pacific Coast League records for games (2,790), hits (3,356), doubles (595), triples (137) and runs (1996). He finished his career with a .315 batting average over 18 seasons and won league MVP honors in 1932. The 1934 Angels were voted the best Minor League squad of all time, with Statz as their center fielder.

Personally, I really like the idea. Maybe change the name from hall of fame to something a little different to get all the traditionalists of your back, but in itself, remembering those who played (mostly) for the love of the game instead of the big bucks has a nice touch to it.

Link: Perspectives: A Minors Hall of Fame?

There are only two teams in Major League Baseball with 10,000 wins: the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs. That is an incredible mark for any professional sport team. No other team has reached that figure. Of course, the reason for that is that MLB teams play more games.

The importance of 10,000 wins may go relatively unnoticed and brushed off. However, just take a look at how many teams have been around just as long as these two franchises and see how far away they are from the 10K win mark.

The Phillies are the exact opposite of the Cubs. They have reached the 10K loss mark and are counting. The Cubs may be the definition of hapless, but the Phillies have them beat in terms of franchises Ls.

The San Francisco Giants have the most wins in MLB history, but only a .538 winning percentage. The Yankees have the highest winning percentage at .557, but are still 605 victories from the 10K mark. Surprisingly, the Pirates, Reds, Dodgers, Cardinals, and Braves are closer to that figure than the Bronx Bombers and will likely reach that mark first.

Teams should be promoting this mark more as teams get closer. History is very important, and fans should realize just how far the history of their favorite team extends. Players may not take too much stock in the record, but for fans, this could be exciting. After all, the Pirates can’t really beat the Yankees at anything right now, so they might as well reach the 10K mark first.

Nationally televised game against the Yankees. The Mets led 4-0 going into the ninth and Willie Randolph decided to make sure nothing strange was going to happen, so he brought in his newly acquired toy, Billy Wagner. The next fifteen minutes or so must have played out in front of Willie like a car accident. The squeal of the tires (Giambi, single), the crunch of metal (ARod, walk), the shattering of glass (Cano, RBI single), a moment of eerie silence (Cairo, fly out) and then the repeated blaring of the oncoming sirens (Cabrera, walk – Stinnett, walk and run – Williams, HBP and run). He pulled Wagner from the game, but that didn’t stop the ensuing groundout from scoring the tying run in a game the Mets would go on to lose 5-4. Wagner’s line? 1/3 IP, 2 H, 3 BB, HBP, 4 ER.

Anybody who watched that game would undoubtedly agree with Rob that closers just don’t pitch with the same intensity when they enter in non-save situations, and as a result they don’t pitch as well. The problem is that one well chronicled national television meltdown does not a point prove. In fact, it’s exactly the kind of anecdotal evidence that allows the observer to assume that a piece of “conventional wisdom” must be true without bothering to actually check the facts. Fortunately, I’m just the kind of guy who likes to test the “conventional wisdom”.

Here is Billy Wagner’s career pitching statistics broken down into save and non-save situations:

	Innings	ERA	K/9	WHIP
Save	438.2	2.36	11.97	1.00
Non-Save	344.1	2.38	11.59	1.01

Well would you look at that? It turns out that over his career Billy Wagner is EXACTLY the same pitcher regardless of what the game situation is when he enters. […] Maybe the reason Billy Wagner is a great closer is simply that he’s very good at hurling a baseball at frightening speeds toward home plate

You have to love this stuff. Caimano goes on and presents the numbers of some other big name closers, too, so check out the whole article.

Link: Is There Really A “Closer’s Mentality”?

Bartender Tanya Moran said the argument spilled outside, and at least one person in a group that included Beaudoin began chanting "Yankees suck!" when they saw a Yankees sticker on Hernandez’s car.

Hernandez, 43, allegedly gunned her car and struck Beaudoin and his friend Maria Hughes, 21. Hughes had only minor injuries, which Beaudoin’s sister Faith said was because her brother shielded his friend.

Hernandez, of Nashua, was arrested at the scene. She acknowledged she had been drinking and refused to take a breath-alcohol test, said Morrell, a senior assistant attorney general. Hernandez said she had been in an argument with the group.

"She indicated to police that she wanted to scare this group of people. She thought they would get out of the way," Morrell said.

Dan Lamothe of the Red Sox Monster blog petitions the Red Sox to conmemorate the late fan.

Given Beaudoin’s rooting for the Boston Red Sox and his apparent heroic actions before death, we ask that the Red Sox consider honoring Beaudoin’s memory with — at the very least — a day in his honor. It seems like a fitting, honorable tribute, and one that would give Beoudoin’s fellow Red Sox fans and baseball fans in general a chance to mourn one of their own.

Links: Yankees fan accused of running down and killing Red Sox heckler, A move to honor the life of Matthew Beaudoin, late Red Sox fan, Sign the petition

Sandberg was the no-brainer choice for induction. His FBHOF score is best of any second basement, and best of any middle infielder not nicknamed A-Rod. Ditto his Peak Score, and his Career Total tops all second basemen as well. “Ryno” is simply the best fantasy second basemen we’ve seen. The life-long Cub batted 2nd or 3rd throughout most of his career, recording power and speed numbers not common for any infield position, let alone second base. He has six seasons of 25+ home runs under his belt and seven seasons of 25+ stolen bases. Additionally, Sandberg scored 100 or more runs seven times and reached the 80 RBI milestone six times, achieving 100 on the nose twice. […]

Finally, it also needs to be pointed out that he finished best at his position 5 times and in the top-5 and additional seven times, giving him 12 very good seasons. In fact, in only the strike shortened 1994 season did he fail to be considered a fantasy worthy second basemen.

Catch all the other inductees over at Razzball and the FBHOF.

Link: The Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame, Second Basemen Inductees, The Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame, Third Basemen Inductees, The Fantasy Baseball Hall of Fame

Trades like Joe Nathan, Francisco Liriano and Boof Bonser for A.J. Pierzynski leave moments for pause. And Sabean’s never-ending revolving door of aging veterans (Michael Tucker, Moises Alou, Omar Vizquel, Steve Finley and Reggie Sanders among others) make you wonder if owner Peter Magowan’s main money-making venture is the manufacture of Metamucil, and the primary purpose of the baseball Giants is to produce new and familiar poster children for the product. […]

Sabean brought the Giants a wild-card tie-breaker, a wild card, three NL West division championships and a National League Pennant. Most importantly, he turned around a chronic loser (six losing records in seven years). […]

Sabean turned the Giants around quickly, and gave the team a good decade of winning results. He obviously had a good strategy, built primarily around Barry Bonds and trading away his younger talent for proven veterans to fill out the lineup. […]

Zito was a good choice to build around, but he hasn’t panned out yet. Aaron Rowand is a good centerfielder, but he’s not the big-name draw that a large-market club needs to show strength.

Sabean obviously made a good choice signing Bonds, although at the time he could not have known that he would become the steroid-enhanced slugging machine in San Francisco. I can also understand that he brought in aging veterans while the Giants window of opportunity with Bonds in the lineup was wide open. I can even summon up some small understanding for the Pierzynski trade, although Pierzynski had a .804 OPS in the year before the trade - pretty good for a catcher but hardly enough to give a team a serious push. However, there is no reason why Sabean had to give this insane contract to Barry Zito.

Link: Sabean has managed affairs quite well

When teams are lucky, they usually play above their Pythagorean record, which is a won-loss recorded calculated based on the number of runs scored and runs allowed. Their actual record is 15-13, but their expected won-loss record is 12-16. In other words, they’re three games over where they "should" be, which means a correction in their luck "should" be coming in the future.

A big reason teams play over their heads in terms of their Pythagorean record is a good record in one-run games. That figure stands at 6-3 for the Marlins, which means they’re slightly lucky. Teams should have a winning percentage of about .500 in these types of games. However, the Marlins are at .667. In other words, they’re slightly lucky to be in the position they are in. They should expect a regression to the mean sometime this year.

It’s difficult to argue that a team that has been outscored by 18 runs in only 28 games is that good. Marlins fans should enjoy the ride while it’s happening. We may see more than 6,000 at the ballpark one of these nights.