Has there ever been a full time baseball writer that knew less about the game than Tony Massarotti?
Felger and Mazz - Creating False Naratives one day at a time
- Thread starter HomeBrew1901
- Start date
I hate to pile on, but these two talking baseball means that I turn the dial. It's obvious that they are both trying to push buttons ("It's not a complete afternoon unless you're mad at one of them!"), but it's just as obvious that they don't really understand the game of baseball. I have some small reservations about the Crawford deal, but why would I even bother to contemplate their opinions on the matter? On the ride home I heard tony say that Crawford has no power, because he has never hit more than 19 HRs, as if doubles and triples have zero to do with power. Then they both started talking about how Victor Martinez had almost as many RBI as Crawford in less time, so therefore he's a better power hitter, and I turned on NPR.
I like Felger through most of his warts, but his lack of baseball acumen combined with his button pushing schtick...no thanks. Mazz is useless.
I like Felger through most of his warts, but his lack of baseball acumen combined with his button pushing schtick...no thanks. Mazz is useless.
Today on 98.5 (and no exaggeration here):
Mazz: remember game 7 in 2004?
Felger: which one, against Cleveland?
To make matters worse he couldn’t name the guys who hit hr for the Sox that night in Yankee Stadium-what a fraud
Mazz: remember game 7 in 2004?
Felger: which one, against Cleveland?
To make matters worse he couldn’t name the guys who hit hr for the Sox that night in Yankee Stadium-what a fraud
I was in the car for a few minutes and thought that I'd tune in to hear what they were saying. As soon as I jumped in my car Danny from Quincy (WHAT A GET -- TAKE THAT, EEI!) was bitching that this Crawford signing proves, PROVES, that the Red Sox can compete with the Yankees when it comes to acquiring talent and that the Teixeira apologists are all losers. Mazz kept saying "You're right, you're right!"
I know that the Hub narrative is to hate on the Sox, and the club gives a few opportunities to do so, but to rip the Red Sox for spending money (which was your entire argument as to why they sucked this summer) on two very good players is ludicrous and begins to inch you into Borges-on-the-Pats territory.
I flipped to EEI and Ordway was ragging on Twitter ("Do I need to know when you're taking a dump Joe Haggerty!") and while that joke would have been funny in 2008, it was miles ahead of the discourse on the Hub.
I'm really disappointed in Mazz, I really am.
I know that the Hub narrative is to hate on the Sox, and the club gives a few opportunities to do so, but to rip the Red Sox for spending money (which was your entire argument as to why they sucked this summer) on two very good players is ludicrous and begins to inch you into Borges-on-the-Pats territory.
I flipped to EEI and Ordway was ragging on Twitter ("Do I need to know when you're taking a dump Joe Haggerty!") and while that joke would have been funny in 2008, it was miles ahead of the discourse on the Hub.
I'm really disappointed in Mazz, I really am.
I can say that I've enjoyed today's Big Show more than any in recent memory. It's far from perfect, but it's miles ahead of Felger and Mazz, and better than a lot of the crap the Big Show used to spew. Bradford and Haggs are great guests.
This isn't meant to be another pile-on, but to be taken more as constructive criticism:
The narrative of "Felger and Mazz" has to change from what it was in August of '09. Because even though that was only a little over a year ago, the sports scene in Boston has changed quite a bit. The Patriots are 10-2 and back at the top of the NFL. The Red Sox have once again gone toe-to-toe with the Yankees and seemed to have opened up another "World Series window."
In August of 2009, the Patriots hadn't won a Super Bowl in 5 years, had some questionable drafting classes, clearly had conflict in the locker room, and all of it was ignored on EEI.
In August of 2009, the Red Sox were on their way to getting swept in the ALDS by the Angels. They lost out on Teixeira, and were set to enter a season (2010) in which interest in the team would be at its lowest since 2001.
WEEI still had 15 minute commercial breaks, and was running out a parade of Larry Johnson, Smerlas, and DeOssie in the afternoons 3 out of 5 days per week.
But the fact is, EEI has improved a bit since that time. Today Bradford and Haggerty are on "The Big Show." I haven't heard Larry Johnson on "The Big Show" in months.
The point is, this show's narrative has run stale in regards to the top two teams in the market. We get the picture, and in a lot of regards, the picture has been addressed by the teams. Now, Felger has been spot-on with the Patriots this year in my opinion, but he needs to fast forward the clock on the Red Sox. He needs to do it quickly too, because these two talking baseball is really the definition of "troll radio."
The narrative of "Felger and Mazz" has to change from what it was in August of '09. Because even though that was only a little over a year ago, the sports scene in Boston has changed quite a bit. The Patriots are 10-2 and back at the top of the NFL. The Red Sox have once again gone toe-to-toe with the Yankees and seemed to have opened up another "World Series window."
In August of 2009, the Patriots hadn't won a Super Bowl in 5 years, had some questionable drafting classes, clearly had conflict in the locker room, and all of it was ignored on EEI.
In August of 2009, the Red Sox were on their way to getting swept in the ALDS by the Angels. They lost out on Teixeira, and were set to enter a season (2010) in which interest in the team would be at its lowest since 2001.
WEEI still had 15 minute commercial breaks, and was running out a parade of Larry Johnson, Smerlas, and DeOssie in the afternoons 3 out of 5 days per week.
But the fact is, EEI has improved a bit since that time. Today Bradford and Haggerty are on "The Big Show." I haven't heard Larry Johnson on "The Big Show" in months.
The point is, this show's narrative has run stale in regards to the top two teams in the market. We get the picture, and in a lot of regards, the picture has been addressed by the teams. Now, Felger has been spot-on with the Patriots this year in my opinion, but he needs to fast forward the clock on the Red Sox. He needs to do it quickly too, because these two talking baseball is really the definition of "troll radio."
And now "Curt in the car" calling in. Today's show has absolutely been a home run.
They're killing them all day, then Felger goes: "Well, they should still win the World Series."
Mazz: "At the end of the day, there should be a lesson learned. Would you rather have Bay at 4/60 or Crawford?
Using HRs as a measure of who is a better baseball player is the dumbest argument this side of "No, my dad can beat up your dad."
Don't these guys realize that the days of the 3-4 Manny-Ortiz type sluggers in the middle of the order are over with?
Mazz: "At the end of the day, there should be a lesson learned. Would you rather have Bay at 4/60 or Crawford?
Using HRs as a measure of who is a better baseball player is the dumbest argument this side of "No, my dad can beat up your dad."
Don't these guys realize that the days of the 3-4 Manny-Ortiz type sluggers in the middle of the order are over with?
I now understand the praise for Mike Francesa. He is just as agenda driven as these guys, their superior as a blowhard, and much more of a bully. But goddammit, he seldom makes a fool of himself in this way. He is cunning in the same way that a skilled trial lawyer who has no case is cunning. He carves with a stiletto. These guys wield sledgehammers, leaving the room a bloody, senseless mess.
Felger and Mazz: The owners made Theo do these moves. This isn't the way he would do things.
click!
click!
Someone called in on the Bay talk and said, they wanted "all around players" to which Felger or Mazz - I think Felger said, what about Holliday then? As if Holliday is a good fielder.... What they don't talk about are his XBH, his slugging, OPS - not all products of HR's.
I got stuck in work late today, and tuned in about quarter past 5 without seeing this thread. And the 10 minutes I had were priceless. At least it showed that Felger knows when to bail out a co-host. This is, ladies and gentlemen, Tony Mazz trying to explain advanced defensive metrics.
Mazz: "Look, there's this stat for preventing runs, you take the runs saved and subtract the runs lost, and you add them together, and it gives you an idea of how many runs that player stopped from scoring over the course of the season. It's like +/- and Carl Crawford was, using this, at 19 runs saved, second in the league for left fielders behind Brett Gardner."
Felger: "Is that that figured out the same way as UZR?"
Mazz: "No. Well, sometimes, with it you..."
*pause for a half second in which I imagine Maz made a pretty pathetic face, like "Why did you ask me to explain this?"*
Felger (interjecting): "BUT TONY! I THOUGHT THESE STATS WERE WORTHLESS!"
Mazz (getting right back on track now): "You're right, Mike, I don't believe in them, and I think they completely overrate defense, but the folks who ran Jason Bay out of town because of his defense, well... with that they have to feel justified in giving this guy Manny Ramirez money!"
Mazz: "Look, there's this stat for preventing runs, you take the runs saved and subtract the runs lost, and you add them together, and it gives you an idea of how many runs that player stopped from scoring over the course of the season. It's like +/- and Carl Crawford was, using this, at 19 runs saved, second in the league for left fielders behind Brett Gardner."
Felger: "Is that that figured out the same way as UZR?"
Mazz: "No. Well, sometimes, with it you..."
*pause for a half second in which I imagine Maz made a pretty pathetic face, like "Why did you ask me to explain this?"*
Felger (interjecting): "BUT TONY! I THOUGHT THESE STATS WERE WORTHLESS!"
Mazz (getting right back on track now): "You're right, Mike, I don't believe in them, and I think they completely overrate defense, but the folks who ran Jason Bay out of town because of his defense, well... with that they have to feel justified in giving this guy Manny Ramirez money!"
I'm with the crowd that switched back to EEI today, which killed me because I've never liked the Big Show. But having Bradford today was huge to get some rational baseball analysis.
F&M's agenda with Red Sox is now brutal to listen to. It kills me that they(and a lot of the media in general) still badly underrates, and sometimes ignores altogether, defense. More specifically range.
Oh UZR, RUZ, LMNOP, hahaha. I guess if you can't/don't want to understand it, it's irrelevant.
Just because defense is harder to see in statistics, doesn't mean it's not important fellas. I almost understand Felger not getting it, because I don't consider him a baseball guy, but what's Mazz' excuse? If he can't bring solid baseball analysis to the show, what's he there for?
F&M's agenda with Red Sox is now brutal to listen to. It kills me that they(and a lot of the media in general) still badly underrates, and sometimes ignores altogether, defense. More specifically range.
Oh UZR, RUZ, LMNOP, hahaha. I guess if you can't/don't want to understand it, it's irrelevant.
Just because defense is harder to see in statistics, doesn't mean it's not important fellas. I almost understand Felger not getting it, because I don't consider him a baseball guy, but what's Mazz' excuse? If he can't bring solid baseball analysis to the show, what's he there for?
I guess they're targeting me because I've enjoyed them this week. But I don't particularly care for Sox management so a lot of that stuff probably bounces right off me.
I actually listened to the podcasts of these two and tocuher and rich in the last week or so. I was SHCOKED by how stupid and ill informed these two were and how listenable the other guys were. I cannot listen to WEEI ever.
Felger and Mazz sounded like two guys at a south shore bar arguing about sports. not good
Felger and Mazz sounded like two guys at a south shore bar arguing about sports. not good
This might be slightly off tangent but I ask what your problem is with the management? I ask seriously. You consistently mock the Red Sox owners., Rocco This group has produced two World Series trophys, and has improved the ballpark experience. While the rest of the owners are playing checkers, this group is playing chess. HWL have consistently given the ballclub the best chance to win. Is your problem with them, that they appeal to "the pink hats"? Well they did get rid of the Dentist and some of his hokey promotions. In my opinion, I do not understand how any Red Sox fan would have any strong dissatisfaction with Henry, Werner or Lucchino. What more would you want them to do that would meet your approval?
[quote name='richgedman'sghost' timestamp='1291991134' post='3287951']
This might be slightly off tangent but I ask what your problem is with the management? I ask seriously.
[/quote]
He's mad they didn't sign Teixeira. /mazz
This might be slightly off tangent but I ask what your problem is with the management? I ask seriously.
[/quote]
He's mad they didn't sign Teixeira. /mazz
Let's not get carried away, it was only a week or two ago that I flipped to WEEI and heard Butch Stearns voice on the Big Show and almost pulled a muscle undoing my error.
You're correct, but to be fair, I think he was only there hosting the Friday show after Thanksgiving.
Very perceptive, I think.
Reminds me of a common refrain from Ordway last decade -- that sports talk radio does better when teams are doing well than when they are doing poorly. He should have been more precise -- 'EEI's brand of STR does better in these circumstances, which seem to be prevailing again.
What Ordway didn't acknowledge but seems quite obvious is that a certain amount of vitriol is required to keep things going. At 'EEI, that was directed to moronic callers, of which there has always been an ample supply. The hosts' anger was directed to them for being unfairly critical of the local teams. That doesn't play well when there is a lot to criticize fairly.
Similarly, the complete foolishness that we have seen from Felger and Mazz the past few days, weeks and months does not play well when the local teams prosper. Particularly when the fools purport to be living up to a higher standard than their competitors and, in fact, probably have a more perceptive audience than their competitors. This is a perfect storm for a stumble and, eventually, bad ratings.
Felger made a very telling comment a few days ago, at the start of the show. He mentioned to Mazz, rather enthusiastically, that they "were able to keep their edge" despite positive news for the Sox. As though this were the most important thing in dissecting the happenings of the local teams? Not being right, or even thought provoking. Nope, it's all about Felger and Mazz wanting to 'keep it real'.
If The Big Show goes heavy on McAdam and Bradford co-hosting come March/April, I might end up switching back to EEI in the afternoons.
If The Big Show goes heavy on McAdam and Bradford co-hosting come March/April, I might end up switching back to EEI in the afternoons.
To take this comment a step further, it doesn't matter if Mazz is correct and Teixeira would have come to the Sox 2 years ago for the same money, it didn't happen and the Sox made up for that mistake by getting Gonzalez.
Let it go, what's done is done and nothing else is going to change that.
I'm with SJH, just turn it off. I didn't even give them a chance today. Felger said something in the last minute about taking on the commentators of the Red Sox, and I just turned it off.
My afternoons were going just fine before they decided they needed to piss me off. If I wanted to be pissed off, I'd talk to my girlfriend more.
My afternoons were going just fine before they decided they needed to piss me off. If I wanted to be pissed off, I'd talk to my girlfriend more.
Felger: "Anybody could have offered CC 7 years and 142 million. It's not about scouting, white papers, or negotiating acumen. It's about the ownership. Theo had nothing to do with it."
Um, a big reason Theo came back after that bizarre episode back in '05/'06 is because he had guarantees that ownership/management (mainly Lucchino) would give him free reign over personnel moves. Now, obviously, he has an operating budget and needs to run big deals by Henry and Co., but to suggest they dictated this move to Theo also suggests that Theo acquiesced something he RESIGNED over.
But, of course, the people who find themselves nodding their heads to this stuff neither remember that nor care.
But, of course, the people who find themselves nodding their heads to this stuff neither remember that nor care.
Idiocy, as Merlins notes. Felgers is being a c*** about this, pure and simple.
Bye-bye for a while.
I keep telling you guys that Felger doesn't improve with more exposure. His schtick was novel when he started but he doesn't know when to stop. Moderation is not a word in his vocabulary and if you told him it was a virtue he'd tell you that his job is to get ratings and create controversy, or rather to create controversy and get ratings. He doesn't care how asinine he sounds or how unsound his arguments are as long as those calls light up the switchboard. And his recent ratings triumph proves his point. He doesn't care. (I don't actually know this since I don't know him but it seems apparent if you listen to him long enough.) He doesn't care about the soundness of what he's saying. Sometimes he's right (Moss; he was pro-Brady during the Brady-Bledsoe controversy; and what else......?), but most of the time he's just ill-informed about boat loads of stuff and has a million outlets to demonstrate it. If he just talked about football, and was on for an hour or two during the day, he'd be fine. But listening to him talk about baseball or hockey -- and I used to think he knew something about hockey but he doesn't, he just has an interest in it which distinguishes him from everyone else on Boston sports radio -- listening to him talk about them is torture. I find I've been turning back to WEEI as much as I hate them.
Not to sidetrack the discussion, but wasn't the primary reason regarding FO leaks to the media?
I do think Theo has free reign over personnel moves, but he still has a budget. It's a high one, but it's there, and if he were to go over that budget I'm sure he'd need approval from Henry.
This is no secret, it's Felger's philosophy on life. He thinks it's his job to "keep the owners honest". He's a crusader in his own mind. It's both irritating and adorable.
Felger knows nothing about baseball, it is simply embarassing. It's like listening to GW Bush debate, he has a couple of talking points he repeats over and over, relevant or not. The Bob Montgomery moment when he was on EEI was hard to trump, but he did it with his Cleveland in 04 gaffe last week.
Here's the great news. We have choice! We have competition! When F&M sucks we can go over to The Big Show. When the Big Show sucks we can go to F&M. When they both suck... well we're no worse off than we were before.
We've come such a long way from the EEI only awful cohost days. I'd add that it beats the hell out of DC sports radio, except for the part where listing to Skins fans go insane is awesome.
We've come such a long way from the EEI only awful cohost days. I'd add that it beats the hell out of DC sports radio, except for the part where listing to Skins fans go insane is awesome.
Competition is excellent for us. I love being able to switch stations when I'm not into whatever one show is talking about. I never turn off T&R though because they are awesome
Folks, Blacken is apparently on a maniacal quest to exterminate the entire cat population of North America in the next 6 months. And also single handedly resuscitate the profitability of the U.S. Postal Service.
Today is one of those days where I wish Felger had a little less Sox hate and a little more Yankee hate. Man this is a day to rip the Yankees a new asshole. Cliff Lee turns down fifty million dollars to go play with the friggin Phillies? Are you kidding me? And the Yanquis are left with a rotation thats 2/5ths Jobba Chamberlain and AJ Bernett? I mean cmon Felger.........dig deep for some New York hate today.
Since the Phillies beat the Yanks for Lee, it's far more likely Felger and Mazz will slam the Sox again over Teixeira.
Two comments...
1) I want to find a New York Mazz, who will live the next half decade swearing that if the Yankees had just spent an extra million a year, they would have absolutely had lee.
2) Did anyone read Mazz's article on Boston.com about how good the Pats are the other day? About halfway down the comments section, I practically spit up my coffee when I saw "Yeah, but imagine how good they'd be if they signed Teixeira two years ago!"
1) I want to find a New York Mazz, who will live the next half decade swearing that if the Yankees had just spent an extra million a year, they would have absolutely had lee.
2) Did anyone read Mazz's article on Boston.com about how good the Pats are the other day? About halfway down the comments section, I practically spit up my coffee when I saw "Yeah, but imagine how good they'd be if they signed Teixeira two years ago!"
I'm getting a kick out of Felger's Quixotic attempt to drum up criticism of the Patriots this afternoon. Really grasping at straws, it's hilarious. "They should have drafted X and Y in 2009". Not much mention of their 2010 draft, for whatever reason.
It's funny that he hates any pre-draft talk but is obsessed with this post-draft talk.
What's the difference? His premise is he hates pre-draft talk because you just don't know, so then he loves post-draft talk years down the line because you do know. So what's the whole point then? You could do this for every team i every draft spot and get no where.
I'm lost. And bored.
What's the difference? His premise is he hates pre-draft talk because you just don't know, so then he loves post-draft talk years down the line because you do know. So what's the whole point then? You could do this for every team i every draft spot and get no where.
I'm lost. And bored.
This probably belongs in another thread, but I'm just happy to have a choice now. The Big Show has gotten much much better lately while Felger and Mazz have just gotten annoying. They are taking the worst thing they learned on EEI and brought it to TSH, which is find one talking point and drill it into the ground so much that I can't listen anymore.
Yesterday I turn on the F&M and get the same Fire Julien/No heart/same game 7 result Bruins talk. Immediately flipped over to The Big Show and got to hear some interesting takes with Merloni and Ordway talking about Lee and the Yankees.
I'm with Phenom, TSH gets the first shot but I have little patience and no issue flipping stations.
Yesterday I turn on the F&M and get the same Fire Julien/No heart/same game 7 result Bruins talk. Immediately flipped over to The Big Show and got to hear some interesting takes with Merloni and Ordway talking about Lee and the Yankees.
I'm with Phenom, TSH gets the first shot but I have little patience and no issue flipping stations.