ARod A Pathological Liar

• A very brief note about Alex Rodriguez's press conference:

I'm not getting into any in depth stuff about ARod's press conference because the story's already beyond tiresome; I was pretty well on the mark with my "preview" of the charade yesterday before it took place. One thing I'll say is that ARod is either totally surrounded by sycophants who aren't bright enough to advise him to tell the truth and get it over with; or he won't listen to anyone who isn't an enabler. He's not telling the truth about what happened and I'll add one prediction to this whole thing: He's going to be asked about it all year and his list of excuses and anthology of stories are going to change by the day; Alex Rodriguez is never going to give the real story because he's incapable of differentiating from the truth and what he wants to be the truth. This would all go away if he made the simple statement:

"I tried it to see if it worked; it was a mistake and I wouldn't do it again."

Don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
Let's move onto some more interesting subjects, shall we?

• Ian Kennedy does not know when to shut up:

Has everyone seen this article from the NY Times the other day about Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy----link?
The guy does not understand the concept of keeping his mouth...shut!!!!
Here are the relevant quotes from the article:

“I’m probably more driven,” Kennedy said. “I wouldn’t say I was content last year; it’s nice knowing you have a spot. But this year, knowing that I can compete to possibly be the first guy called up, I think that’s going to bring the best out of me this spring.”

“The whole year was a learning process,” Kennedy said. “I think if you’re not confident in yourself, who’s going to be confident in you? I believe in myself. That’s why it comes off wrong or it’s perceived wrong by some people.

“People that know me know that I try to be as humble as I possibly can, but you’ve got to believe in yourself.”

Good grief!!!
Rookies who come up and do well are barely allowed to yap this much; and after the way he pitched last season and how he was raked over the coals for his nonseniscal statements and borderline indifferent reaction to getting pounded in a game against the Angels in August...

"It's always disappointing, but it's my first bad outing in a long time, since the All-Star break," said Kennedy, whose previous seven starts were in the minor leagues.

"I felt like I made some good pitches and got out of the second inning. I am not too upset about it. You move on, and I have already done that. I am not going to look too much into it."

...you'd think he'd have been told by someone to answer with the following well-practiced cliche to any and all questions posed to him this spring: "I had a terrible season last year in all facets; I worked hard over the winter and hopefully I can learn from my mistakes and reward the Yankees for their faith in me." And that's it!!! He doesn't get it.
Veteran players only tolerate a big mouthed rookie if he performs. The Red Sox put up with Dustin Pedroia because he's the type of player who performs better when he's being obnoxious; Kennedy seems to be missing the fact that he was terrible last season; and the simple reality is that he's not all that good to begin with.

I don't know if anyone from the Yankees has spoken to him (my guess is they have), but he's either not listening, not comprehending or is too arrogant to believe what they're telling him. I was against giving Kennedy away as some were advocating last season, but after this it's clear that something's not getting through and I'd try to rehabilitate his career at Triple A and hope someone wants to ante up a couple of prospects for him. He's a hopeless cause.

• Something strangely funny (and sad) about MLBlogs:

I haven't posted anything there other than links to my new site and I'm still getting close to the same amount of hits as I did when I was laboring to write interesting and coherent analysis. On the one hand it's funny; on the other I was clearly spending a chunk of the past three years wasting my energy.