Father & Son Dumb-Fuckery!!

I owe FireJoeMorgan.com so much. I really do. If I ever get big and make money and have hot chicks in tiny bikinis tossing poon tang at me like my last name was Baldwin, I'm going to have to Fed-Ex my sloppy seconds to Ken Tremendous or something. I'm not even joking. I'm not stealing any of their jokes today, just taking advantage of some guys they enlightened me to.

Lowell and Iggy Cohn... the highly decorated, award-winning and extremely crusty Press Democrat Columnist and his wise-ass, sabermetric-hating bastard traitor of a college-age son Iggy. In the battle of the generations, who will win?!

Here's a hint.... NOBODY!!!! Because they always fucking agree in these columns.

Iggy and Lowell ask if the Giants are a better team without Barry Bonds. Iggy and Lowell say, yes, the Giants definitely are a better team without Bonds.

How much of a "better team" are the Giants are without Barry Bonds? Well, by "better team", do you mean "completely and utterly fucked team that's sure to finish dead last?" Then yeah, they're a much better team.

We understand some will disagree, especially baseball fans who relate to the game through numbers and not personalities. Bonds allegedly would put up good numbers for the Giants this year. Even if that's true - and it's not certain Bonds can hit anymore -- Iggy and Lowell don't care. They say ixnay on Bonds.

Yeah, fuck numbers. I still believe that if you could clone David Dellucci, your team would win 700 games a year. I realize that no team plays 700 games a year, but I think that other teams within a 300 mile radius of all that grit and hustle would win more games through osmosis. The bottom line here is that Bonds would allegedly OPS over 1.000 again which is allegedly better than what 99.99999% of other baseball players in the universe are allegedly capable of doing. Allegedly. Fuck Bonds and his numbers. Fuck him in his snobby, snarky, unfriendly ass with his VORP and WHIP and EQA and DERA and whatever other computery numbery acronyms you've got!! Nerds!!

2B: RAY DURHAM. There is no way the Giants play anyone besides Durham if Bonds is on the team. No Eugenio Velez, no Kevin Frandsen even if he were healthy. They'd be stuck with Durham because they'd be trying to win now with veterans - I know that sounds ridiculous, but it's true.

By golly gosh Lowell! That DOES sound ridiculous! Because it's complete and utter bullshit!!! Especially when Kevin Frandsen got into 109 games last year with Bonds (and none this year without him) and posted a shitty .269/.331/.379 with 5 homers and 31 RBI in 264 at bats!
And Eugenio Velez, who's playing this year, has been good for .212/.250/.331, no typo there. His OBP is .250. And he's 26. So is Frandsen.

Shitty old Ray Durham, who you'd be stuck with because of Barroids, has been good for .264/.347/.379, which isn't amazing, but looks like a Pujols line when compared to Eugenio Velez!!!

CF: Dave Roberts, who is not currently a factor. OK, so it would be Randy Winn. Center field is the key test of the To-Bonds-Or-Not-To-Bonds issue. Would the Giants have gone for Aaron Rowand, a terrific player, if they had re-signed Bonds? No way. They pay Rowand $60 million over five years.

So the Giants don't waste $12 million a year on Aaron Rowand? Why don't we see what you think of that contract after a couple more years of Rowand running into fucking walls to save 5 runs a season. And even with that said, Rowand's having the best start of his career, and his OPS is .937. That's only 108 points worse than what Bonds did last year.

The Giants pay their team a little more than $76 million. How much would Bonds cost? I don't believe for a second Peter Magowan would pay for both Bonds and Rowand on a team that would not make the playoffs anyway. Bonds would rule out Rowand, and that would be sad. Why? Assume Bonds can hit better than Rowand - an assumption, not a certainty. Rowand still hits very well and he's a much better fielder and, get this, he's a team player. He's exactly the kind of player any team wants in center field - he's someone you can build around.

How much would Bonds cost? Umm... basically free at this point. He wants to play. He says he'd come very cheap if anybody would ask him. We don't have to assume that Bonds will hit better than Rowand... because we use numbers to evaluate players performance instead of their personalities.

Numbers say the following:

Bonds : Rowand :: Durham : Eugenio Velez

Others things that numbers say:

Bonds : Rowand :: A-Rod : Jeter
Rowand : Walls :: Ted Kennedy : Lakes
Ted Kennedy : Rowand :: Something : Something else unrelated to the first something
This joke : Not funny anymore :: Bill Clinton : Masturbating furiously as we speak

Okay, maybe numbers don't say all of that, but you get the picture. The last piece of this argument is the "team player" shit. Let me just run over to baseballreference.com and check out Aaron Rowands WONTP stat... you know, Wins Over a Non-Team Player. While I'm there, I'll check his VOAH (Value Over Adolf Hitler.) Oh.. that's right, these stats don't FUCKING EXIST, because it makes no fucking difference whether or not you're a team player.

The 1978 Yankees fucking hated each other. The coach and the cleanup hitter were getting in fistfights. Billy Martin was pulling lineups out of his fucking hat. And they won the World Series.

Is the without-Bonds team better? Yes, marginally. It's younger. Bruce Bochy gets to develop Velez. At least Lewis can run after balls in left field as opposed to Bonds who stood there like a statue. Lewis is developing into a pretty good hitter.

You can go look if you want. Trust me, the without-Bonds team isn't better. It's littered with 26-year old non-prospects with .250 OBPs like Velez, who might one day develop into a 30 year old with a .280 OBP. Fred Lewis is developing into a slightly above average major league hitter and he can run after fly balls!!! Yayyyyyy Fred Lewis!!!! The without-Bonds team won't win more than 70 games. Ever. Unless it gets some serious help.

The real issue is why another team doesn't sign Bonds. The A's come to mind. Some teams could use him - could put up with him - as the last piece in a playoff team.

Umm... The A's are rebuilding. They're not "one piece away" from anything. Their GM has a PLAN (that involves numbers)... so they're still able to play competitive baseball while they rebuild, but they're not one piece away from the playoffs. What the fuck are you talking about?

Note to readers: As you notice Iggy and Lowell have not been arguing with each other the past few weeks. We like each other. We are thinking of changing the name for this blog from Cohn vs. Cohn to the Cohn Zohn. The Cohn Zohn has been suggested by one of our faithful readers. We still could dispute a topic in the Cohn Zohn - we'd let readers know this was an argument, etc. We would make the change to the Cohn Zohn but don't actually know how to do it. Stay tuned.

Awwwww that's so sweet! Iggy and Lowell love each other!! And they're going to change the name of the blog to "The Cohn Zohn!!!" Oh, I'm so excited!! But let me get this straight... Iggy Cohn, the witty, wise-guy, smarty-smart college-age son doesn't know how to change the NAME of a FUCKING BLOG!? Are these people Amish? Ahhhh... I see what's going on here.

Iggy is college-age. He's not actually enrolled in a college though. My guess is that Iggy is actually living abroad, building wells to provide clean water to people in Third World Nations! Iggy has never actually SEEN a baseball game, because he's wayyyy too busy with his humanitarian projects, but he does make time to talk to his dad, Lowell every now and again, and his father is obsessed with this Baseball thing, so Iggy just listens and agrees with whatever his pop says. Pop is so proud of Iggy's work. And Iggy loves pop's blog too. Even though he has no idea what a fucking tool he looks like in it.