Max Kellerman's Monday Musings Vol XLIII -Batting Orders, Developing Players and Developing One's Self

As many of you who live on the East Coast are aware, a major snow storm hit today and wreaked havoc with our schools, jobs and lives. Although I did not get a chance to listen to the entire show today, Max Kellerman touched on a couple of important points which I would like to put my own spin on.

Max talked to Joel Sherman about possible changes to the Mets batting order. They theorized that Luis Castillo could be batted in the 9th spot in the order, thereby leaving Jose Reyes as the leadoff hitter, while still giving him the opportunity to drive in base runners. The Cardinals tried this with some success recently (they even inspired a blog called http://www.pitchershiteighth.com/). I don't know how seriously the Mets are considering it, but there are some advantages to it if the number seven hitter can be selective in his at bats.

There was more talk about Brett Gardner (proclaimed by Max as a "stud" last summer, but played more like a spud). Max has somewhat tempered his raving about Gardner as he now states that Gardner is a fourth outfielder. Still Max spoke about the continuation of Gardner's development and how he could replace Johnny Damon and be a good lead off hitter as Gardner is purportedly a Brett Butler clone. Based on the minor league stats compiled by Gardner and Butler I have to disagree with Max. In four ML seasons (347 games) Butler had a .338 BA, .913 OPS and had 302 BBs and only 183 Ks. By comparison over his four ML seasons (381 games) Gardner has a .290 BA, a .774 OPS, 233 BBs and 287 Ks. The only similarities between the two (other than their first name) is that neither hit for power.

Max also talked about the Juan Marques v Michael Diaz fight which he called on Saturday night, proclaiming it as the best sporting event of the year. He made a point of stating that it was a better show than the Superbowl, but this might have something to do with the media hype over February's SB being better than the prior year. Since I did not see the fight I can't comment on whether it was entertaining, but Max's brief description of the match made it sound thrilling. As per Max, both fighters came out firing punches from the opening bell and although Marquez was ten years older than Diaz, he was able to knock him out in the Ninth round.

Max had an interesting take on Johan Santana and his cancelled MRI and elbow issues. Max theorized that the reason why Santana was magically "all better" after 35 pitches in a bullpen session is that the Mets wanted to keep him out of the World Baseball Classic and that by claiming injury, they could save face for Santana and the team so that no one would be upset that Santana was held back from the meaningless tournament. (One of the update guys had a great line that the Yankees were playing an "exhibition exhibition game" tomorrow against Team USA).

Back to the snow issue - Max led the show off with a rant about how rare snow days are and that he only had three in his entire public school career. He then digressed to talk about how pressure packed the school day was and that it was "unnatural" for kids to sit at desks for six hours before being turned loose for recess. (I hope one day to hear Max talk about how he let Esther ditch school and not do her homework, but this is quite a few years off). As part of the recess discussion, Max noted that when kids go to recess, even before they make teams to play sports, they flail their arms and run and scream. Max opined that this was a universal phenomenon and that it was related to kids needing to express energy after being cooped up in school.

Max's discussion of recess is firmly grounded in Torah thought. I recall a high school rebbi who talked to us about using our time off productively so that we would have the ability to sit when we returned from gym/recess/vacation. Indeed, the etymology of the word recreation bears out this principle - as refreshment in body or mind, as after work, by some form of play, amusement or relaxation. By engaging in recreational activity, we re-create ourselves so that we can return to productive activity.

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