Capitol Punishment: I Am Not An Animal!--A Washington Nationals Blog

Saturday, April 12, 2008

I Am Not An Animal!

Waaaaah! Waaaaah! Waaaaah!

35 Comments:

Figgedy first!

By Anonymous, at 4/12/2008 6:21 PM
I don't know what the hell your problem is Chris. Every single diabetic person I know is pushing 3 bills! And there's no way to stop it!

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/insulin-and-weight-gain/DA00139

Dammit you know it all link! Get out of my post! No way to stop it.

By Harper, at 4/12/2008 6:34 PM
I hope Dmitri's got his reaching broom and special dialing wand...

By DCSportsChick, at 4/12/2008 6:37 PM
Chris - you're way too harsh on Dmitri. The guy had all sorts of problems 2 years ago, and with the exception of this serious medical condition that he's battling, he turned his life around. Also, with everything that sucks about the franchise and its management, Dmitri's performance last year was one of very few bright spots - doesn't he deserve a break for that? Shouldn't the wrath be saved for Kasten and the Lerners who deserve it?

By Anonymous, at 4/12/2008 8:53 PM
There's plenty of wrath to go around.

(How long can a player continue to ride on the glory of a good season?)

By Chris Needham, at 4/12/2008 10:24 PM
This is neither funny nor an issue if Genius Bowden hadn't handed him $10 million for the next two years.

But Captain Leatherpants did just that, so it's both hilarious and a big problem.

"Gas, brake, honk; gas, brake, honk; honk, honk, punch; gas, gas, gas."

By Rocket1124, at 4/12/2008 10:36 PM
I have no problem with you ragging on Dmitri for not producing this year. It's the whole "because he's fat" thing that's totally off base. He's no fatter now than he was last year. There were no comments from you or anyone else about his weight this year, until it was announced that he reported at almost 300 pounds. Then the chorus began. THREE HUNDRED POUNDS! THAT'S INEXCUSABLE! But the dude was nearly that heavy last year, and no one seemed to care - because he produced. Find some other reason to rag on him, because the more you harp on the fat thing the more it appears you're doing it just because you know it would be totally politically incorrect to get on him for being diabetic.

Here's an idea. Percentage-wise, he probably gained as much age this year as he did weight. So harp on him for getting old instead. It would be a simple substitution to replace Homer Simpson with Grampa Simpson in your illustration, and you're in business.

By An Briosca Mor, at 4/12/2008 10:40 PM
Yeah. Nobody made any fat jokes about Dmitri last year. I didn't see a single one.

Or perhaps you weren't reading last year, when I said that Dmitri's physical conditioning was going to be a problem for the Nats.

PS: In the ranks of trolling, throwing out the "you're using fat as a proxy for diabetes" argument might be the stupidest yet. Yes, I hate diabetics. All of 'em. Round those orange-juice-sippin' pancreatic miscreants and shoot 'em all! I can't believe you're on to me, and figured my plan out!!!

By Chris Needham, at 4/12/2008 10:48 PM
Odd. I just took a look at the predictive post you linked from last year, and the words 'fat" and 'weight' don't even appear in it at all. (Perhaps the Find function on my browser is broken. Damn, I knew I should have bought a Microsoft product instead of this Mac...) And here's the extent of what you said about Dmitri's conditioning: Dmitri had a great year, but given his career highs, his age, his physical condition and his nagging injuries, it's going to be really hard to duplicate it. Way to go out on a limb with your predictions! But if you want to claim victory based on that, well I'll concede then. It's your blog after all.

And I apologize for being off my game tonight, troll wise. That's what sitting through a two hour rain delay (thankfully my seat is under cover at least) followed by four runs off the starter before the second out of the game is recorded will do to you. Maybe I need to option myself back down to Svrluga's blog to work on my mechanics...

By An Briosca Mor, at 4/12/2008 11:47 PM
I'm not a physical trainer, nor did I stay at Holiday Inn Express last night, but I do know that weak abdominal muscles lead to back problems. This can be exacerbated by above-normal* weight as represented by fat in the belly, because of the mechanics of the hips and lumbar spine.

So looking at Dmitri, his back pain comes as no surprise to me.

Now, if I could arrive at this conclusion based on the shreds of evidence available to fans, don't you think the Front Office could have made a better evaluation of Dmitri's future with the club based on substantially more and better evidence?

It doesn't matter why he is not producing, the fact remains that he is not producing, thus the club suffers as a result.

[*] Normal in the statistical sense. A Gaussian distribution.

By Bote Man, at 4/13/2008 12:23 AM
On a somewhat different subject, it's been nice knowing you Jason Bergmann.

I waited out the hour and a half rain delay at the stadium yesterday, and it didn't take me long to regret it. By the sixth inning, I and most of the rest of the crowd couldn't take any more.

By Anonymous, at 4/13/2008 10:59 AM
If Dmitri, with his diabetes, could not be expected to play for under 300 pounds, then what was all that talk (before the offseason), from both Dmitri and Bowden, about how he was going to slim down to 240 so Dmitri could help out in the OF and become more nimble around the 1B bag? Was everyone just kidding? Or was this a serious misjudgment by the front office?

I agree somewhat with Dmitri that we shouldn't obsess too much over weight, and that the world would be a weird place if everyone took the same beanpole shape. However, let's make an exception for professional ballplayers, who do have to report in shape.

It's the Nats' fault for the big contract if there was nothing Dmitri could do about his weight. And don't the Nats monitor their players in the offseason?

However, it's Dmitri's fault if "obsessing" over his weight could have produced much better results, even with the challenges of diabetes.

Bottom line: let's just say the Nats should have signed Dmitri for a lot less, given his age and poor conditioning. This would not be as big a problem if Dmitri did not "eat" a large share of the off-season aquisition budget.

By Anonymous, at 4/13/2008 11:02 AM
While I agree clearly this MLB.com article makes DY sound like a fool, and I've always tended to think the DY signing was dumb, I'm actually starting to think it was, well, not quite smart, but basically just an insignificant flier that really in the long run doesn't matter much whether it works out or not.

If we could have traded DY for true prospects, then clearly that would have been smarter, but I doubt seriously that anyone would have given any prospects for Dmitri.

On the other hand if you're going to keep him, it's not an unreasonable contract, and he would have gotten that somewhere else, I'm sure. $5 mil on the FA market is what you pay for a guy who has talent but is injury prone or otherwise a risk. If it wasn't for the diabetes, Dmitri would have cost 2-3 times as much. Shoot Cliff Floyd got $3 mil.

Anyone out there thinking that $5 mil on the FA market would have made a difference is kidding themselves. $5 mil/year on the FA market gets you Jason Kendall, Pedro Feliz, Randy Wolf, or Tad Iguchi. Those are bad players, declining, hurt or all 3. It's not quite enough for Octavio Dotel, Keith Foulke, or Geoff Jenkins. And it's not nearly enough to get you Jose Guillen.

$5 mil is also not a terribly significant amount of money for the Nationals. It definitely didn't stop us from getting some other worthwhile piece. There just weren't any other FAs out there that would make us any better.

And if we trade Nick in a month, and Dmitri can come back and give us .290 and 10 HR over the last 90 or so games, it'll actually be a good move at market value that will give us 3-4 more wins.

By Steven, at 4/13/2008 12:19 PM
Forget about D'meat. The Nat's major problem is Do Luca.
He must be cut. Today. Before the start of this afternoon's game. Even then its not too soon.
Cut Do Luca!

By Anonymous, at 4/13/2008 12:36 PM
J. Flores sent to AAA to work on hitting the breaking pitch. PLoD and Estrada look to be here for the duration, lucky us!

By Bote Man, at 4/13/2008 1:22 PM
There's plenty of wrath to go around.

Here's the grapes, and here's the wrath!

Meanwhile, the Braves summon from the pen Jeff Bennett, who lost 50+ pounds in a single offseason.

By Anonymous, at 4/13/2008 1:57 PM
Two points:
1. Lo Duca is still a better hitter than Flores is at this point. At least Lo Duca works the count if nothing else. Schneider didn't do that, and Flores is still a .230 hitter. How many times did we get pissed off about those weak left-side dribblers Schneider would hit in the infield. Lo Duca is at least better than that.

2. Kearns still sucks and, FOR GOD'S SAKE, don't hit him cleanup. He looks like he is swinging a bat about 8 ounces too heavy.

By Anonymous, at 4/13/2008 2:51 PM
Meanwhile, the Braves summon from the pen Jeff Bennett, who lost 50+ pounds in a single offseason.

Lot of good that's done him today, eh? Think he could play outfileld if the Braves gave him $5M?

And boy, if that Glavine wasn't so fat he might not have hurt himself.

By An Briosca Mor, at 4/13/2008 3:09 PM
I'm at a loss for words.

We just demoted our best hitter to work on his mechanics. In his place remains a guy who is "more experienced" both at the plate and behind it, yet he has a .212 average and caught 20% of all stolen base attempts.

Are we actually trying to field a serious team? Can anyone actually argue that we are?

By Anonymous, at 4/13/2008 4:08 PM
While signing Dimitri was bad, signing LoDuca makes that look like a stroke of genius. Bote man: don't give up hope of seeing Flores again; there is a clause in the rules of baseball allowing players to be designated for assignment! When PLoD got hit on the hand, I was screaming 'please be broken, please be broken. . .'

Guys, gotta start getting our heads around 100-losses!

Oh, yea. We won today, or did the Braves lose? Either way, a rare Curly W is in the books!

By Anonymous, at 4/13/2008 6:21 PM
i was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes four years ago. i weighed 295 pounds on my 6'0" frame. i was taking seven pills-three different types of meds-to try to control my blood sugar numbers, and they did to an extent. "normal" blood sugar counts are 75-125. mine started at 340. after taking the pills, by numbers got down to 150-200 on a reguar basis, but i had not put any effort to lose weigh. last March i started using Nutrisystem and lost 50 pounds by November. my numbers are now 110-125, and i've gone from taking 7 pills in three different meds to one pill a day.

i look better from losing the weight, but even more, i AM better.

if Dmitri is not being counseled to lose weight, he needs a new doctor. the MLB.com article makes him look uniformed and in denial. the BEST WAY to control Type II Diabetes is LOSE WEIGHT.

i have been more willing to give Dmitri the benefit of the doubt withhis health issues as i suffer from the same lifestyle disease. but when we were in spring training we ran into a group of Nats in a local restaraunt and D'Meat was drinking red wine, which happens to be THE WORST thing a diabetic can put into their system. i could understand if it were a family celebration or some other big event. but this was a Thursday.

i will defend him no longer.

Dmitri, lose some weight. if not for your livelihood, do it for your life.

fyi, Jim Bowden is the idiot here.

By Anonymous, at 4/13/2008 6:29 PM
Very well said.

By Chris Needham, at 4/13/2008 7:09 PM
What would a player with the same career history who produced at Dmitri's level in 2007 have been worth on the open market last year? Surely at least $5M. What did Dmitri make last year? I don't know offhand, but it had to have been less than $1M. So I think that at least $5M of Dmitri's two-year contract could be looked upon as a deferred payment for his performance last season, when by all measures he was way underpaid. Does knowing that ease anybody's pain on how much he is being overpaid for his performance so far this year? He could yet be back this year and next year. No one knows, do we?

But I guess we do know that the Lerners are too cheap to ever give a bonus to someone who vastly exceeded his job description, don't we Chris? How do we know that? Just because they are, right?

By An Briosca Mor, at 4/13/2008 8:00 PM
Another piss-poor effort at trolling.

That's two nights in a row. I'm really disappointed in your efforts there.

By Chris Needham, at 4/13/2008 11:21 PM
The ignorance about diabetes here is staggering. I normally enjoy reading your blog, but to rush on here with the stupid Homer Simpson gif and idiotic fat jokes while ignoring the realities of diabetes is embarrassing to you, Chris. And any wiseass response to this that you may post ain't gonna change that fact, Jackson. Of course losing weight is important to controlling diabetes, but many diabetes medications make that already challenging task HARDER, DUMBASS. Are you so utterly brain dead and hating on fat people that somehow this basic point is eluding you? I have had to battle with this disease myself and I am currently on the right track but this sort of insensitive, narrow minded misinformed crap is unneeded and helps NO ONE. This post (and whatever torching, pinheaded response you cook up to my post) represents a truly low and sad moment for you, pal. Why don't you inform yourself about serious illnesses before shooting your damn fool mouth off next time, 'KAY? Stick to stupid, unimportant things like baseball in the future that might be better suited to your feeble little mind.

By natsagainatlast, at 4/14/2008 3:06 AM
Hey, natsagainatlast, scroll up four posts and read what someone else with diabetes had to say. You are entitled to your opinion, but
calm down, read, maybe think, and then write a response before winging out a knee-jerk response.

Also, this isn't about diabetes, it's about something "unimportant" like baseball, that seems to at least be worth a few moments of your free time to read and write about.

DY is underperforming, because he's injured which may be because he's overweight, which may be because he has diabetes, which may be exacerbated by poor physical conditioning and self-discipline (or maybe some magic other reason no one can think of.)
None of those qualifiers change the fact that he is not performing up to expectations set in place for him.

By Matt Bergfield, at 4/14/2008 4:04 AM
I thought DY was "underperforming" because the team decided to start Nick Johnson and just use DY as a pinch hitter. So even without these problems his impact on the team would be minimal this year (at least until the team trades NJ). Because of this I have a hard time seeing how DY dealing with health issues is hurting the team.

By Anonymous, at 4/14/2008 7:17 AM
Because of this I have a hard time seeing how DY dealing with health issues is hurting the team.

You're right in that the only real harm to the team in this whole situation has been the loss of Dmitri's pinch hit bat off the bench, and in the grand scheme of things with Wily Mo's and Dukes's bats also out because of injury that doesn't really amount to all that much. Probably a much bigger impact than the mere loss of Dmitri's bat was that it took the team a week to decide to put him on the DL, and they ended up playing shorthanded that whole time. (Which they also did due to indecision on DLing Cordero.) But the blame for that doesn't fall on Dmitri, it falls on management. They're the ones who made that decision.

I'm waiting for Chris's blog post on Friday May 2, when he will tally up the money lost to reduced attendance at the previous night's DYoung bobblehead night thanks to him being on the DL, the extra cost to the team to retrofit more layers of fat onto 15,000 bobbleheads, and the resulting overtime costs to the team for having to bring in additional trash pick-up and cleaning crews to handle the thousands of bobbleheads left littering the stadium (because they were just too heavy for the recipients to carry home) and the cleanup of all the aisle railings in the stadium (because the Lerners were too cheap to spring for the "melts in your mouth but not on your hands" chocolate coating for the bobbleheads). Then, using a complex Excel spreadsheet linked to baseball stats and pseudostats going back to 1875, Chris will extrapolate from there that Dmitri's excess body weight has cost the team enough money over and above his already excessive salary for them to have signed three-fifths of a league average starting pitcher who would have added 2.6987 additional wins to this season's total. That one should be a blog post for the memory books!

By An Briosca Mor, at 4/14/2008 8:19 AM
ABM,

Seeing as how you believe the Lerners should give players bonuses when they out-perform their contract value, I hope you demand - equally as fervently - that the players who underperform RETURN money to the team for such underperformance. I would love to receive $1 for every game I attended from FLop and the outfielding Ryans.

By OleShu, at 4/14/2008 8:47 AM
Natsagaininlastplace,

Hey, buddy, pal, sorry, jack, if I've offended you, old friend.

(Old friend, I hope, for the sake of your diabetes, pal, that you hadn't, dude, downed a bottle of rum, my friend)

By Chris Needham, at 4/14/2008 8:50 AM
Enough about Dimitri - looks like we're getting another mysterious WMP bump to get Bowden gloating. How soon before he takes credit for last nights win?

By Anonymous, at 4/14/2008 9:03 AM
I am nature's greatest miracle!!

By Anonymous, at 4/14/2008 9:04 AM
OleShu, either I have a writing problem or you have a reading comprehension problem. Which is it? I never said that I believe the Lerners should give bonuses when players outperform their contract value. I merely suggested that they might have done so in this particular case.

Reading between the lines is always a risky thing to do, so when venturing off into that no-man's-land of meaning it never hurts to read and fully understand what's written in the lines one is trying to read between. Although admittedly that's not nearly as much fun.

By An Briosca Mor, at 4/14/2008 10:06 AM
i bet the Z-man, manny acta, jon rauch, saul rivera, ronnie belliard and several others can't WAIT to hear how much they will receive under the newly-unvelied ABM/Lerner "deferred payment performance" plan!

underperformers (cough, FLop, cough cough) are clearly at no risk for repayment, as ABM already made clear, so i am flabbergasted why this revolutionary program has not been reported on elsewhere or even shouted from the mountaintops by the very able PR crew assembled at One Lerner Center!

i don't think i'm jumping to conclusions here because it seems a safe assumption that what's good for the (overstuffed) goose must certainly be good for all these overachieving ganders!

alternatively, if no such program exists, perhaps the wide-eyed optimists will have to concur that signing dameathook to a $10M extension was, you know, stupid and not a deferred payment for great performance. LOL!

By DCPowerGator, at 4/14/2008 12:44 PM
Just a bit of information... The problem with diabetes is that it has a range of symptoms and responses toward standard treatments. I know many people who gained a tremendous amount of weight and that was a symptom of diabetes. I, on the other hand, lost a tremendous amount of weight (lost 100 lbs. in a year) as a result of my diabetes. Once diagnosed it takes a while to treat it, some trial and error. My blood sugar levels are under control since I've taken meds. but I am constantly fighting not to gain weight... It was and is a real struggle to not eat and drink what others are eating and drinking around me. :-) It's really not that easy.

By Abelisto, at 4/15/2008 3:40 PM

Saturday, April 12, 2008

I Am Not An Animal!

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