Posted by Brian Joseph on Friday, April 17, 2009 at 12:53 pm

Who needs Power Rankings when we’d much rather talk about Nick Swisher pitching, Manny being Manny and the dangers of naming your kid Bradford? We even get on the Milton Bradley “diss” train but he asked for it… Really!

Plus, there’s our continuing love affair with the MLB Network and more in this week’s Baseball Blogrometer:

Toronto Blue Jays/Baltimore Orioles

The Blue Jays and Orioles somehow muster up the strength to labor on despite the fact neither of them have any shot in hell at winning the American League East since the Red Sox, Yankees and Rays have all been dubbed the top three teams in baseball by, well, almost everyone. At some point, my newspaper will stop misprinting the standings which, for some inexplicable reason, keeps putting the Jays and O’s on top of the AL East.

Nick Swisher

We never root for an injury here at the Blogrometer but there is a consolation prize to the injury to Xavier Nady — MORE NICK SWISHER! An early unscientifc poll has already declared Swish the top offseason acquisition over the likes of CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett… mainly because Swisher pitched a nearly flawless inning in a blowout, loved his grandma and dated a Playmate. While there’s a pretty good chance that Swish will wear out his welcome like he did in Chicago but it’s doubtful Joe Girardi will deliver a classic quote like Ozzie Guillen did in Chi-town — “I have to put the best lineup out there to win the game… To me, the best lineup right now is without (Swisher).”

MLB Network

The only carryover from last week although they did slip a bit. This list from majorleaguejerk.com of the “10 Reasons Why MLB Network Is Better Than ESPN” kept MLB Network on the list and near the top but if Matt Vasgersian keeps saying ridiculous things like “I think Billy Ripken is the only person I know that is brave enough to suggest both leagues adopt the DH rule” and not mean it tongue-in-cheek, there’s a good shot a steady diet of Harold Reynolds won’t even be able to overcome the damage done.

Patrick Schuster

Schuster, a left-hander from J.W. Mitchell High School in New Port Richey, Florida, is 7-0 with a 0.66 ERA. Okay, it’s high school, I know. But what about the fact that Schuster has thrown back-to-back-to-back no-hitters… does that impress you enough for him to grab this spot? I can hear Patrick’s mom now: “Patty, there is some man named Scott Boras on the phone who would like to give you some advice.”

Clovis West High School

There’s a newspaper somewhere in this country that does a Top 10 Power Rankings for MLB teams every week with Clovis West High School listed at #10, I know it! So far this season, Clovis West has notched three no-hitters in six regular season games. Is it a shock that two of the three pitchers are Division I prospects? Didn’t think so.

Manny Ramirez

Some people would put Manny on or near the bottom of their list for his comments this week about wanting to finish his career with Cleveland. Doesn’t Manny know he is on the “bad guy” list and can’t get away with saying such a thing like Ken Griffey Jr. did for a few years in Cincinnati? Most athletes who want to go back to their original team are called class acts. In this case, the bulk of the response has been that’s just “Manny Being Manny.” I’ll be in the minority and say, like Junior, this is a move worthy of at least a little respect.

“WBC”onspiracy Theories

The WBC has claimed another victim — Dice-K Matsuzaka is on the DL! The WBC has been blamed for injuries to Ichiro and Matsuzaka, the rusty effort put in by Jimmy Rollins so far and the collapse of the stock market. OK, maybe not the last one but it’s hard to find a team that hasn’t pointed a finger at the WBC this year and blamed it for their woes. Too bad Jake Peavy or Jeremy Guthrie didn’t get the memo.

Baseball Cheaters

HomeRunDerby.com proves once again that no one really cares if an athlete does something illegal unless it involves the statistical record of a larger-than-life New York baseball star set during a time where 40% of the current Major League rosters wouldn’t have been allowed to actually participate. So, in honor of Wednesday’s Tax Day, HomeRunDerby.com detailed the history of tax cheats in Major League Baseball. At the top of the list: golden boy Derek Jeter who dodged New York taxes by claiming to be a resident of Florida despite owning a $13-million apartment at Trump Towers in NYC. Maybe when Jeter finally breaks the Yankees’ all-time record for hits, we’ll use this little nugget to bring him down, too.

Bradford Campeau-Laurion

In this odd story about a man being booted from Yankee Stadium during the singing of “God Bless America” one thing is obvious –men shouldn’t have hyphenated last names. While we’re at totally avoiding the real story because it’s really just a “he said, she said” mess that will likely never be resolved, Bradford isn’t that masculine of a first name either.

Milton Bradley

Even though Bradley is not a guy I like to be tough on since it seems to be the hobby of everyone else with the capability of writing a story about his career, I can’t let this one go. Milton, you can’t start the week by saying you’ve outgrown your history of angry outburts and end it with getting tossed from your first game at Wrigley… in your first at-bat!

Dodgers Fans

Deadspin detailed a series of stories on violence at Opening Day at Dodger Stadium. “Shockingly” the story has garnered little disdain from some of the bigger sports news outlets and it’s doubtful the behavior of the fans in L.A.. These incidents followed a series of incidents during last year’s playoffs that also involved knives and threatening and loud, obnoxious behavior from fans in Los Angeles. I guess if you can’t start out a story, “What would you expect from a city that booed Santa Claus” it’s really not worth mentioning, right?

Gary Tanguay

While this tidbit from Dan Lamothe of Red Sox Monster at MassLive.com is more about the speculation of Justin Masterson’s blogging future I can’t get past Comcast SportsNet’s Gary Tanguay’s comment during an interview with Jonathan Papelbon where he asks Papelbon about the possibility. After asking Papelbon about Masterson’s blogging potential, he follows up with “Does he ever swear?” Is this a ******* requirement now to write a blog? I mean why the **** does Tanguay think this is any kind of appropriate ******* question to ask when asking about Justin ******* Masterson’s ******* blogging future?

John Rolfe’s “Joba Love”

John Rolfe of Sports Illustrated loves being the New York stereotype so much (Rolfe: “Yes indeed, we are surly bastards.”) that he forgives (defends?) Joba Chamberlain for his insensitive comments about Yogi Berra, his rude comments about New Yorkers and even seems to dismiss his little “flub, foul-up and blunder” of a DUI. Maybe David Wells II does get put under the microscope a little bit more than others, but since this incident is on tape, it’s probably best just to leave it alone. Maybe even consider the timing of defending a guy who committed, how did you refer to it? Oh, yeah! “That little DUI incident last October.” Hmmm… when’s a better time to defend a DUI? How about never!

Yahoo’s Answer Man

More from the files of the truly ridiculous. What do you ask Royals shutdown closer Joakim Soria in an interview? If you’re Yahoo’s Answer Man — David Brown — you ask Soria if there are tall people in Mexico, did he see “Nacho Libre” and does he go to Taco Bell. It’s a shame Brown ran out of time, I’m sure he would have gotten to the Joakim’s recollections of Speedy Gonzalez and if Soria knew anyone that swam across the border.

ESPN

Note to the Worldwide Leader in sports: As an organization that prides itself in being the leading sports news gathering source in the world, a little sensitivity might be warranted. Hat tip to Deadspin for picking up on ESPN’s careful attempts to be sensitive when covering the death of Nick Adenhart only to leave a NASCAR commercial about “the rush of the crash” in the ad rotation throughout their coverage and then run a poll on the front page of their website asking what the most serious early injury would be in reference to the Pennant race.

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