Say It Ain't So Johnny!

According to this article in SI.com, Johnny Damon contemplated retiring during last years spring training. For those of you who remember, Damon had left the camp for personal reasons that were never specified. Apparently, that was what they were. Johnny Damon is my favorite Red Sox player to date, so I'm happy he stayed put.

I also got a chance to read the article about Jeter being the worst shortstop posted below. Clearly they left gangster out of their calculations. Do you want to know who the best short stop is according to the U-Penn study? Why, Clint Barmes of course. That was my guess. The slick-fielding Clint Barmes. Who the heck is Clint Barmes?! He sounds made up! I had to look him up and apparently he's a short stop for the Rockies. Seriously? He's not even the best short stop on that team! There's a reason they're using Tulowitski. So, why is he the best short stop? Well, the study used the ability to field flyballs, line drives, and ground balls and assigned a percentage value to each. Flyballs were 33%, line drives were 25%, and groundballs were 42%. However, they missed something rather large. Clint Barmes, played 12 games at short stop in 2003, his rookie year. The Rockies felt that was too much so they limited him to 9 games at short in 2004. After regaining their confidence in him, they let him play 80 games at short, almost a full half season in 2005! My point is that its a small sample size to compare with a player who starts in 150 games every season. Jeter has played more games in one season than Barmes did in the entire stretch between 2002 - 2005. In the last two seasons, Jeter has played more baseball than Barmes has in his entire career. My question is, where does Julio Lugo rank in all this? Way to go U-Penn!