Daily Wallace Matthews Rant

The Shakespeare of the NY sports journalism scene (cough***HACK***cough) is up to his knee jerk reactionary best once again. Over the past week he has written articles about how the Yankees would be better off without Arod and how Roger Clemens needs to pitch a shut out every time to avoid being a bust. Now he has shifted his short sighted views to the sputtering Mets, particulary slumping Carlos Beltran. Granted Beltran had a disappointing first season with the Mets and is currently mirred in an awful stretch, but as far as Matthews is concerned the 2006 baseball season never happened. Afterall, why let facts get in the way of a perfectly horrible argument? To quote Matthews:

"Despite the seven-year, $115-million contract, making him the highest-paid player on the team with baseball's third-highest payroll, not a whole lot has been asked of Beltran. And that has worked out just fine, because so far, Beltran hasn't provided all that much."

Wait, maybe I'll give Matthews the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he is just referring to Beltran's production this season...uh oh:

"Mets fans, who were rough on Beltran in his first season here as part of some strange tribal ritual of passage - Tino Martinez and Jason Giambi went through it in the Bronx - but since then have been remarkably tolerant of Beltran's production, or lack thereof."

Last year, Beltran had one the best offensive season in theNY Mets history. For those who like counting numbers Carlos batted .275 with 41 HR and 116 RBI. He scored 127 runs and swiped 18 bases. That stat line obviously impressed the MVP voters as Beltran finshed fourth in the balloting. The Sabermetricians will look to his .388 OBP .594 SLG and 153 OPS+ as proof that he had a great year. Beltran trails only Mike Piazza, Darryl Strawberry, John Olerud, and one freaky Bernard Gilkey season, for highest single season OPS+. That is pretty good production, but I can understand how Wallace Matthews forgot about it since he was preoccupied with Arod all last season. If fact, amazing enough Matthews takes time out of his vitirol fueled Beltran rip to take a pot shot at Arod:

"This can no longer be shrugged off as a temporary slump; for the past six weeks, Beltran has been so lost, it's a wonder he can find his way to the ballpark. Over that time, the Mets are a .500 team (20-20).And you thought Alex Rodriguez was the most overpaid Scott Boras client in town"

I CAN'T SAY THIS ENOUGH....AROD IS NOT OVERPAID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Arod has won one MVP with the Yankees and is seemingly on his way to a second. The Texas Rangers are paying a chunk of his salary. He isn't even the highest paid Yankee- that would be Clemens followed by Jeter- yet he is far and away the most productive. Plus why is Matthews so obsessed with how the Yankees, a team without any meaningful budget, pays one of their players? It doesn't effect Matthews' life or anyone else's in any tangible way since Arod's salary has no bearing on ticket pricing or what other players are acquired, yet Matthews feels the need to mention Arod's salary in every article he has ever written. Arod has simply become Matthews' white whale. Maybe its jealousy of Arod's talent or Matthews' projecting his own inner inadequacies outward, but Matthews is going after Arod with the same incoherent ferver that Joseph McCarthy went after "communists" with and we all know where that got him.