Rick Morrissey’s Reverse Causality-palooza

Rick Morrissey, apparently dissatisfied with Mike Downey being considered The Worst Sports Columnist In Chicago Sports History, is challenging for the title. To wit: Milton Bradley should come with a recorded warning similar to the ones you hear on television for prescription drugs. “The most common side effects of having Bradley on your team include nausea, headaches, ulcers, skin rashes, depression, suicidal thoughts, bubonic plague, the collapse of the Federal Reserve and the end of Christmas. Teams that have a history of high blood pressure, anxiety, winning, losing and breathing should not take Bradley. Ask your doctor if Milton is right for you. If your doctor says Milton is right for you, she likely has been writing prescriptions for her own use.” Rick Morrissey’s columns should come with a recorded warning similar to the ones you hear on television for prescription drugs: “The most common side effects of Reading Rick Morrissey’s inept prose include nausea, headaches, ulcers, skin rashes, depression, suicidal thoughts, bubonic plague, uncontrollable rage and severe erectile disfunction. Readers that have a history of being swayed by formally flawed and rhetorically duplicitous argument, handwringing moralizing, unsubstantiated assertions about winning, overreactions to losing and self-aggrandizing pronouncments should not read Rick Morrissey. Ask your local English professor if Rick Morrissey is writing in English. If your doctor says Rick Morrissey is right for you, your doctor is probably Rick Morrissey.” The Cubs will have to pay some or most of what’s left on Bradley’s deal to trade him, but that’s not the story. The story is that somebody will take him off the Cubs’ hands. Amazing. No, the story is that the Cubs can’t wait to pay a fellow who OPS’ed >.900 in two straight season to OPS >.900 for someone else. No matter what else they do in the offseason, nothing will top that. So if the Cubs swing a trade for Albert Pujols, CC Sabathia, Josh Beckett, and Zach Greinke, Rick will still be sitting there going, “Well, that trade was okay, but at least Jim got rid of Milton Bradley.” Good to know. At least Rick’s flashing his dumbfuck credentials right up front. This won’t be a matter of addition by subtraction. This is the only true statement in this entire column. This will be multiplication by subtraction. I’m trained as a philosopher, not a mathematician, but I’m pretty sure that’s impossible. The Bradley-free Cubs are going be a lot better next year. I’m sorry, but I’m going to need to see you provide some proof of this assertion. They will be what they were supposed to be this year: a playoff team. Aaaaand your “proof” is a total non sequitur. Actually, this is fun. I’ll try some, you folks play along at home: “The Bradley-free Cubs are going be a lot better next year. Also, cake.” “The Bradley-free Cubs are going be a lot better next year. The bulb in my desk lamp just burned out.” “The Bradley-free Cubs are going be a lot better next year. Wrigley Field is a crumbling relic and reeks of urine and stale beer. No, wait, that’s just my office chair.” I know I’m playing into your genetic tendencies toward optimism, Cubs fans. But this is not emotional manipulation. I dare say the Cubs could field the same team next season minus Meltdown Bradley (all right, and Kevin Gregg) and be a factor in the playoffs. I say that for three reasons: A) they have enough talent, B) the odds of so many players having down years two seasons in a row are slim and, C) for reasons I can’t explain, I like to use the words “I dare say.” Trust me when I say that I have read some crappy writing over the last year, but of the crappy writers who have written crappily, Rick might be the crappiest. It’s also nice that as Rick trashes Bradley, he uses the best reason for not getting rid of Bradley (“the odds of so many players having down years two seasons in a row are slim”), as a reason why the Cubs will be better without Bradley. Rick, it’s usually wise not to cite as evidence an assertion which refutes your underlying premise. Don’t look for the Cubs to make a lot of offseason moves. They have big contracts on the books, and they will have new owners that Major League Baseball approved Tuesday who are spending $845 million to get their hands on the franchise. There wouldn’t seem to be a lot of walking-around money left in the Ricketts family’s pockets after that big a purchase. The team is going to look very much like this year’s team, with perhaps a run producer added to the mix. Okay…this just seems like filler. I thought we we were learning how the absence of a guy with a lifetime OPS+ of 116 was going to make the Cubs better. And that’s OK. The pitching staff, with Ryan Dempster and Ted Lilly, will be solid. Carlos Zambrano won’t be going anywhere, and if you’re expecting him to change his stormy behavior, you’re as goofy as he is. In essence, the Cubs paid $91.5 million for an unpredictable weather system. But if they can squeeze some extra victories from him in between his outbursts, that will be a victory. Ah, yes, the inevitable Zambrano insult.After all, what would a column about Milton Bradley’s absence making the team better be without an irrelevant cheap shot at Carlos Zambrano? Alfonso Soriano can’t possibly be as bad as he was offensively and defensively in 2009. It’s not humanly possible. His numbers were so down from his career averages that a bounce-back year seems inevitable. And this is coming from someone who isn’t a fan of the guy and his $136 million contract. Wow. This is real progress, Rick. You’ve stepped outside your biases and recognized how probability works. Too bad you can’t do the same for Milton Bradley. So much for progress. As for Bradley, I feel silly for having backed the acquisition of an arsonist in the name of lighting a fire under a team that was swept in the first round of the 2008 playoffs. That makes you feel silly? After the miles of newsprint you’ve wasted with your inane, intellectually dishonest and inept drivel, supporting Milton Bradley makes you feel silly? Just…wow. I learned two sports lessons in the past year: False. —Never be dismissive of an athlete who takes someone else’s words and actions, no matter how seemingly innocuous, and uses them for a lifetime of motivation. It works, as Michael Jordan reminded us in his Hall of Fame induction speech. Isn’t that what you’re doing by chasing Bradley out of town? Well done, Rick. You really learned the hell out of that lesson. —Never underestimate the damage a peculiar, dotty, self-centered ballplayer can do to a clubhouse. Chemistry matters in baseball. It’s time for you to learn a philosophical lesson, Rick: It is always illicit to multiply entities where it is unnecessary to do so. Lou Piniella is going to be a better manager without having to worry about what Bradley will or won’t do next. Yes, I’m sure Milton Bradley not being around will keep Lou from banishing players to the doghouse, and bunting too much. Is there any evidence for these assertions coming? Right now, it just seems like Rick is tossing out as many groundless statements as possible in the hopes that one or two of them turn out to be true. Because of he can’t write that “I Told You So” column when the 2010 Cubs make the playoffs, he’ll have to file that boilerplate away for good, seeing as it’s not going to work with Jay Cutler, either. The players will be better for it too. How so? I mean, they were so much better for it close 2009 that they managed to get themselves swept in a DH by the Pirates. Evidence, Rick. You need it. I’m sure neither Piniella nor general manager Jim Hendry was [sic] happy about the media campaign to get the Cubs to hire Ryne Sandberg, but that’s what happens when you have a hugely disappointing season. People want solutions. Again, I’m struggling to see what this has to do with Milton Bradley not being on the team next season, and how that will make the Cubs better. It certainly seems that, in lieu of evidence, Rick prefers redherringly tautologous tripe. Hendry might be tempted to make changes just to placate the masses. But one spectacularly unpleasant season doesn’t necessarily translate into two spectacularly unpleasant seasons in a row. I realize that would be in keeping with the franchise’s history of nightmarish surprises, but it’s highly unlikely. To which I can only reply “The tags are the ‘essential’ denoting phrases for individuals, but empirical descriptions are not, and thus we look to statements containing ‘tags,’ not descriptions, to ascertain the essential properties of individuals. Thus the assumption of a distinction between ‘names’ and ‘descriptions’ is equivalent to essentialism.” Because context-free Kripke makes about as much sense as Rick’s masturbatory non sequiturs. Sign Reed Johnson, keep your fingers crossed he stays healthy and, for heaven’s sake, play the man. Just as there is such a thing as chemistry in a clubhouse, there are people who are winners. Johnson is one of them, and he has ability. Once again, Rick has now asserted that there is such a thing as clubhouse chemistry without providing so much a shred of proof that this nebulous thing exists. Moreover, Reed Johnson is terrible, and as for the ‘Reed is a winner” argument, what does that even mean? That his presence on the baseball diamond causes the team to win? That by his doing the little things right (which he doesn’t) the team wins? What does it mean, and where is the proof of it? Fortunately for fangraphs, we can tell you, Rick, just how many wins Reed Johnson is worth. This season, this winner was worth all of 0.5 wins. Half a win. Last season, in his best year as a Cub, the ball of stubbily winnerness that is Reed Johnson was worth 1.3 wins, or 0.1 win better than Milton Bradley has been this year, in the worst year of his career. I guess that means Milton is also a winner. Let Gregg wander off. Okay, fine, but you said getting rid of Milton Bradley was going to make the team better. What does that have to with Kevin Gregg? Hope and pray Carlos Marmol can handle the closer role. I’d rather just count on his otherwordly K/9. Hope, prayer and no Milton Bradley: not a bad slogan for 2010. Hope, prayer and no positive cash flow: not a bad slogan for the Chicago Tribune.