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Short, fast, white, no power, and a Yankee: I wonder what the Fire Joe Morgan guys will think of Brett Gardner? Whatever it is, I'm sure it's backed up with plenty of numbers!

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Let's get one thing straight. I love(d) Fire Joe Morgan as much as the next pretentious internet baseball fan. You can look through my various crappy postings and find their influence all over the place.

I love Joe Posnanski's stuff, too, so much that I wrote a Joe Posnanski Drinking Game a while back as a loving tribute (although I'm snot sure he took it that way... assuming that he knows I exist). But sometimes Joe writes things that bug me (e.g., his bizarre apologies for Pete Rose) and I make smartass remarks about it and people think I "don't like" Poz/JoPo. So let's get one thing clear:

JOE POSNANSKI IS MY FAVORITE SPORTS JOURNALIST, AND, NO, THAT ISN'T INTENDED TO DAMN HIM WITH FAINT PRAISE.

It's the same thing with the Fire Joe Morgan guys. The blog was great. I had a very brief and friendly email exchange with Junior a long time ago (that he undoubtedly doesn't remember). At one time I liked The Office so much that I wrote an extremely long post comparing the 2008 Royals with The Office. And even though the post-3rd season drop off of that show somewhat resembles the 2009 Royals, I still like it, them, and the Royals (for some reason).

I LIKE FIRE MORGAN AND GENERALLY FIND THE WRITERS TO BE FUNNY

But a person can only take so much. Like many of you, I am enjoying today's FJM Reunion at Deadspin. But then I read Junior's post about some other blogger's post about "scrappy" players. Yeah, I agree with Junior's underlying point that "scrappy" doesn't make a player good or not. I also realize his main beef is with the writer of the post, not the players. I realize how silly and predictable it is for some blogger (me) to write a quasi-Fisking of another blog's Fisking of another blog. Given that the intertubez are a lot like junior high, I also realize how stupid it is for me to "take on" a writer who is smarter than me, funnier than me,  and (most of all) more popular than me. But I just can't resist. I mean, maybe the FJM guys somehow missed my award-winning (if after-the-fact) article on Walks, Defense and the New Moneyball, but I was late to the game myself. An aside about Nyjer Morgan (4.9 WAR this season) in Ken Tremendous's introductory post this morning is one thing... but then Junior has to go and pour salt in the wound...

Okay, it's not all that bad. I fact, I have no problem with most of it, even if it's a bit tired after all this time.  Junior is right about many of the guys. I'll just give the Bleacher Report blogger's rankings, then a gist of Junior's comments.

#10. Eric Byrnes is terrible at this point in his career. Yup.

#9. Nate McLouth It's interesting how Junior doesn't  have much to say about Nate McLouth other than the blogger he's ripping on wrote something "boring" about McLouth. For one thing, McClouth is a decent (>3 war) player... but no comments about McLouth's joke of a Gold Glove award in 2008? Not a huge deal, but a bad portent of things to come.

#8. Augie Ojeda. Funny comments about the stupidity of saying "knows how to play the game." Ojeda is actually a good defender, even if he can't hit, so he's a decent utility/stopgap guy.

#7. Aaron Rowand, a player not as good as he once was. Right on, if gratuitous.

#6. Reed Johnson, another crappy utility guy.

#5. David Eckstein. What a surprise (both for the inclusion and Junior's comments). Junior (admittedly) isn't breaking any new ground. But you know what's interesting? Certain media members have no doubt been annoying in their deification of Eckstein, but in terms of actual value, prior to 2008 he always delivered more value than he was paid for to his teams. A 4.0 War season for the World Champion 2002 Angels is pretty impressive. But even his stopgap 1.5 WAR years are good for the money -- and that's the main lesson, post-Moneyball, of sabermetrics -- a player being "good" or "bad" for his team is finally relative not only to what he contributes on the field, but how he's paid relative to that value. I'm not saying that Eckstein was/is actually a great player, of course, and FJM got a lot of great laughs out of mocking the way he was and is glorified by some sportswriters. But the truth is, having David Eckstein on your team at those salaries fro 2002-2007 was a pretty good idea. And that's a big difference in how the sabermetrically-savvy fans (the "real" sabermetricians always knew this) think in 2009 as opposed to, say, 2006.

#4. Chone Figgins. Junior says "Chone Figgins is pretty good." He's right. Looking at the FJM archives, you see they aren't that hard on Chone, and kind of like him. But that's an interesting contrast with

#3. Brett Gardner. This is the big one. It's awesome. Junior writes:

It's got to be tough when you're the worst player on your team and you arbitrarily get picked to be on a list of scrappy players because you're super white and you're the worst player on your team. He would also be the worst player on like 12 other teams.

I'm kidding, of course. A-Rod is the worst player on the Yankees, and in baseball history in general.

If you write any article about baseball and it's not a list of terrible players and Brett Gardner is in your article, you shouldn't write the article.

Love the A-Rod non sequitur. So 2006. But, um "Brett Gardner is terrible?" Now, I admit I haven't looked at Gardner's WARP3 or VORP or whatever advanced stats FJM liked to throw down back in the day (note that when I got my appendix removed earlier this summer, I also didn't go to a barber), but when I look at Gardner's WAR I somehow fail to see "terrible" player. 2.0 WAR is about average over a full season. Gardner is 2.0 WAR in only 248 PAs so far this season, and 1.1 WAR in 141 PAs in 2008. If you prefer comparing to average, Gardner has been above average both seasons.

Now, granted, less than 400 PA over two seasons is a very small sample. I don't want to be guilty of assuming current performance = true talent (I'm sure Junior is using a very sophisticated in-season projection tool). But still, he was projected at around .315 wOBA before the season, and even if you think he's "only" about a +12 defender in CF (his career UZR/150 is about +27), that's still a league average player. How is that "terrible?" How is that worse than Jose Molina? Heck, 2.0 WAR it's half a win better than his teammate Melky Cabrera has put up in much greater playing time. It's also about as good as FJM hero Adam Dunn has been this season, and way better than he was last season. I love Adam Dunn as a hitter, but as a player he's barely average... well, he's a perfect avatar of the prime FJM era, as Dunn was undervalued as a player at the same time VORP was a decent "total value" stat. Or when The Office was one of the better shows on TV.

Again, it's a small sample. Brett Gardner probably isn't quite as good as the stats have him as being so far this season. Flukes happen. For example, I once found something in an episode of  Parks and Recreation funny. But you can't just say that Gardner is terrible because somebody called him "scrappy" and fits the "profile" (short, white, no power) of the guys that FJM loves to hate. And writing a column ripping someone else for not paying attention to stats while calling a player who is above average both offensively and defensively so far this season is just, well, something just like what FJM would have called out "back in the day."

#2. Shane Victorino. Apparently, nine Albert Pujols would beat a team with Shane Victorino on it. Outside of the question of how Albert $8 would do in CF, HAHA VICTORINO, YOU AREN'T AS GOOD AS ALBERT PUJOLS! YOU SUCK! Way to take down that moron. 3.4 WAR = TEH SUCK

#1. Dustin Pedroia. Junior's right. Pedroia helps his team by being good. Weird how Junior doesn't bring up Pedroia's "whiteness" here. It's probably because that isn't a factor for Red Sox fans (like the writers of FJM), given the racial tolerance and openness historically displayed by the Red Sox franchise, fans,  and the city of Boston as a whole.

Then he ends with another rant about Eckstein, which isn't as fun as it should be, perhaps because it is about as tired as a sitcom love story after 5-6 seasons.

Okay, this wasn't as fun as I thought it would be (although it was a lot more enjoyable than the reliever post I've been muddling with for a few days). The Gardner thing was the only truly egregious silliness. Unless they bring up Nyjer Morgan again...

It's nice to have you guys back. If by some weird coincidence you manage to see this, please don't hurt  me. But do take a look at FanGraphs when you get the chance. I hear this "sabermetrics" stuff is pretty cool.