What’s weird to me is how much Bert cares. I mean, I understand that he wants to be in the Hall of Fame and he feels that he deserves it. He does.

But given that election to the Hall is intrinsically a measure of what OTHER PEOPLE think of you, I don’t get why Bert cares about it that much.

This is a guy who wore an “I (heart) to fart” t-shirt, dropped the F-bomb on network television, and allowed one of the players to shave his head. It seems to me that he doesn’t care what other people think.

He should relax about the Hall. Because as MarkW said, he “should be in and everyone who has a clue knows it.” That’s more important than the plaque, I think.

I for one wasn’t worried about the Twins ever signing some type A free agent and overpaying for them… so it doesn’t bother me they’ve been standing pat.

Bottom line, Bert should be in and everyone who has a clue knows it.

In addition to Young declining offensively and defensively in each of the last 4 years, his offensive numbers are inflated by the Rangers’ home park, and he has the worst contract in baseball (outside of Zito). He’s not moving, and the Twins better not try to make it happen.

FanGraphs put Lowe’s market value at 4 years, $57-60M, so the Braves managed not to overpay an aging Boras client. Good for them; Lowe is probably a better signing than Burnett.

Kawakami supposedly has a really nice curveball — but apparently the ball is smaller in Japan than it is in the US. People are wondering whether he’ll still be able to get the same action with the larger ball. I don’t blame the Twins for passing on him, even if a lot of people saw the opportunity to drop $25M on a league average pitcher.

I understand where Bert’s coming from, regarding the Hall of Fame. He wants to get in, and it’s pretty clear to anyone willing to pay attention that he deserves to be there. He’s one of the best pitchers of all time, and the fact that he’s not in the Hall of Fame is not a blight on his record; rather, it’s a blight on the Hall itself. That said, I think we’re not that far away from a day when people stop caring about the Hall of Fame entirely. It’s meaningless, and is just one final way for newspaper-sportswriters to make themselves feel important. It’s just as dumb as All Star voting and Gold Glove voting, and people put way too much stock into it. When 28 people can vote against RICKEY HENDERSON (are you kidding?), it takes away from the entire institution. When Boston has pumped enough pro-Red-Sox sentiment into the “national” media that they can start pushing a-little-better-than-mediocre corner outfielders into the Hall just because he played for the Red Sox, it makes the Hall of Fame seem to matter just a little less.

Really, who cares?

mlb network: Probably not worth it right now, but maybe once the season starts. They’ve been re-running some World Series games, which is cool, and they’ve had some good interviews with current players, but content is a little light since it’s the offseason. It showed up for free with my basic cable package last week, so you might be able to preview it.

Also, is the mlb network worthwhile? I’m thinking about buying it.

I was watching the new MLB network Monday, and I actually heard one of the writers (Jon Heyman?) claim “it’s not about numbers and stats” when explaining why he didn’t vote for Bert for the Hall. That’s probably why Bert’s so frustrated- some of these guys aren’t even thinking rationally.