Tom Weir Is An Idiot

Obviously, the title of this post isn’t clever or amusing. Well, I beg to differ on the amusing part. I still find it funny when anyone is called an idiot. A little bit of me chuckles each time. But I digress.

Tom Weir (left) is, indeed, an idiot.

(Disclaimer: This post will be about as journalistically sound as an episode of Family Guy. I read a Tom Weir article yesterday and just wanted to vent.)

Most of you are probably wondering who the heck Tom Weir is. Tom Weir is a sports writer for the national newspaper, USA Today. Alongside Reid Cherner, they cover all sports for their Game On! blog on USAToday.com. Tom also proved yesterday that he doesn’t know a whole lot about baseball.

That’s right, I said it.

Ok, I’m sorry, that’s unfair to say. I should have said Tom Weir knows NOTHING about baseball.

Tom wrote a blog post yesterday all about why Felix Hernandez does not deserve the Cy Young Award because of his record.

I’ll go ahead and quote the first few paragraphs from his rant:

The AL’s Cy Young winner will be announced tomorrow and it probably is going to land in the hands of Felix Hernandez, the proud possessor of a 13-12 record.

And that will drive me a little nuts.

Make no mistake, Hernandez had a heckuva season for a Mariners team that often looked like it was recruited from a Seattle animal shelter. He ranked first in most of the key statistical categories: ERA (2.27), innings pitched (249.2), strikeouts (232), opponents batting average (.212). He tied for the league lead in starts (34) and was third for complete games (6).

But his win-loss record was one game above .500, and 13 victories is a total that most past Cy Young winners would consider an off year.

Allow me first to take a few cheap shots at Tom.

Tom, you don’t wear deodorant which causes you to smell like a mix of body odor and gasoline. Your wife (if you’re married) looks like Madonna if she took a peek into the Arc of the Covenant. Your mistress is even uglier than that. Her face looks like a smashed Milk Dud with thick eye brows. Tom, you thought the movie Baseketball was a documentary on a new Olympic sport. You’re more obsessed with your bicycle than Pee Wee Herman… And just as creepy. You’re from Nashville and we all know people from Nashville are idiots… Wait. I’m from Nashville. Well, crap. We have one thing in common. You win this round, Weir.

Ok, I’m done with the cheap shots for now. I just had to get my frustrations out. Keep in mind, a majority of those cheap shots were made up. Except the one about his bicycle and him being from Nashville. Those were actual facts about his life.

Allow me to further argue against Tom and his Cy Young opinion.

Tom ends his post by saying these words:

But for me, 13 wins by a starter just doesn’t compute to a Cy Young award.

It lowers the bar on the most important stat in sports.

First of all, to call the win-loss record for pitchers the most important stat in baseball is like calling what the weather is outside, the most important stat in golf. There are some things that are just out of your control. In fact, I’d be willing to say that a win-loss record isn’t even a stat. It’s more of a summary.

Felix Hernandez, even though he was first in nearly every statistical category that is important to pitchers, doesn’t deserve the Cy Young Award because his team couldn’t support him at the plate enough to get him victories? And in the American League, too, where Felix doesn’t have a chance to bat for himself to help his own cause.

So, if I go into a job interview (Which, if USA Today is hiring, I take back everything I’ve written. Hire me, please?) and have the absolute best interview of my life and the company decides not to hire me, than it’s my fault? Felix went out 34 times this season, pitched more innings, struck out more batters, had a lower ERA, and held his opponents to a lower batting average more than any other pitcher in the American League and only wound up with 13 wins because he doesn’t have an offense behind him like, say, a C.C. Sabathia with the New York friggin’ Yankees does.

C.C. could go out on any given night, give up 7 runs, walk 6 batters, and strikeout 1 in 6 innings and still get a win. And just because he won makes him a better pitcher than Felix, who could go out and pitch 8 innings, give up 1 run, strikeout 12, and walk 1, and get a loss. Does that make sense Tom?

In 8 of Felix’s 12 losses, he gave up 3 earned runs or less. One of those losses, he had 0 earned runs and still got the loss. Is that his fault? Is that his fault that he has an offense behind him that can’t manage 3 runs. There are about 6 guys in the Yankees’ roster that can manage 3 runs with one swing of the bat (with runners on obviously… Well, now that I think about it, they could probably score 3 runs with one swing of the bat with no runners on. That’s how good the Yankees’ lineup is).

Gah, Tom. I would absolutely hate to get your interpretation on the movie Inception. Or heck, even your interpretation for Megamind 3D.

Your brain obviously doesn’t function right to determine a Cy Young winner solely off a stat summary that he has absolutely no control over.

Remember a kid named Zack Greinke? He only won 16 games in 2009. Did he not deserve the Cy Young? He had a 2.16 ERA with 242 strikeouts, but yeah, you’re probably right. His win-loss record with the Kansas City Royals (a team that has, a lot of times, scored negative runs) is much more important than any stat that he actually has control over.

Tom, stick with riding bikes and writing about bikes, because obviously your theories on baseball prove you to be an idiot.