Mozeliak Should Get the Credit 01.06.10

For more than five months — or ever since he hocked the Cardinals' top-shelf farm prospects in a midseason trade for All-Star Matt Holliday — John Mozeliak has essentially been walking around with only one very expensive shoe in his hand. Where does Burwell get this stuff? Mozeliak has been walking around with a shoe in his hand??? Jesus. Suffice to say, Burwell puts his foot in his mouth yet again.

Now he has a complete pair.

Trading for Holliday was a pretty big deal, but until the Cards GM got the high-priced free –agent Hey Burwell, lord knows what you were doing at Virginia State back in the 1970s, but I sure as heck know mastering the English language was not one of them. Look, the noun “free agent” has no hyphen. However, if you choose to use it as an adjective, include a hyphen. It sure is a good thing you haven’t been using the phrase “free agent” for the past thirty-nine years… slugger to agree to a new contract Tuesday, the verdict on this expensive midsummer shopping spree was an incomplete deal. To make this high-risk, high-reward acquisition pay off in a big way, it wasn't enough to merely trade for his short-term services.

Holliday had to be retained.

From the start back in July, you had to believe this was always a two-part process. Mozeliak received very high marks for making the impressive deal after the All-Star break, having the nerve to deal off some very valuable assets from the farm system to insert a much-needed All-Star bat into the lineup as legitimate protection for the best player in baseball, Albert Pujols.

So Part 1 of the deal worked out fairly well, with the Cards rolling to an NL Central crown, before the abrupt first-round exit in the playoffs. Burwell, I’m tired. Do I even bother to mention your subtle errors? There should be no comma after the word crown, but I can only blame you so much. I mean, the Post-Dispatch has editors. And this thought scares me. There are people who proofread your work. This is a finished product. What on earth do your columns look like when they first reach the editor’s desk?

Yet there's a very good reason they called it high-risk, high-reward. And now here's Part 2, and with the completion of these marathon negotiations with mega-agent Scott Boras, Mozeliak secured the most significant asset on the club's offseason wish list. Pujols and Holliday together for the next seven years? That's as potent a 3-4 combo as there is in baseball.

And with the completion of the deal, it's time to recognize how Mozeliak has skillfully established himself as the new power source of this franchise. With his typical subtle style that emphasizes smart results over flashy style, Mozeliak has in a little more than two years on the job moved to the forefront of the organization by proving that he has mastered the art of the deal. Slow down there, Gilligan. I can’t edit this sentence- you know why? Because reading it aloud caused me actual physical pain. I’m not trying to be funny here. Something happened. My health declined. You are the only columnist that makes me think, “Gee, if I were illiterate, I’d actually be a healthier man.”

Early in his tenure, he had to overcome the troublesome perception that he was a powerless ownership pawn. It's hard to imagine how anyone could believe after the events of the last five months that Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. could think that anyone else in the front office is a more shrewd decision maker. Nor should anyone believe anymore that his voice can be drowned out by the powerful opinions of manager Tony La Russa or Sabermetric guru and scouting director Jeff Luhnow. Start the clock. It’s now 9:03 P.M. I have been asked why I don’t point out every Burwell error, and here’s why. There’s not enough time in the day. Literally. Let’s go through all the errors in this paragraph. (1)He should use “early on”. (2)He should use a hyphen in “powerless ownership pawn.” (3) He should refrain from introducing could/could/should/can be clauses into the English lexicon. (4) He should include a comma before Jr. (5) He should not include the word “anymore”. (6) He should avoid the passive use of the phrase “can be drowned out”. (7) He should capitalize “Scouting Director” since it is a formal job title. That’s seven errors in three sentences. It’s now 9:15 P.M. Extrapolating, this means that Burwell is average 81.655 errors per column, or 9,855 errors per year. I apologize to both my fans (yes, Burwell, our audiences are the same size), but I simply do not have the endurance to keep up with you. I would have to devote about 845 hours per year (that is roughly 35 days!!!!), or 9.5% of my life (literally)- to keep track of them all.

But Mozeliak seems to have saved the best for last, silencing the shrill voices outside his organization — the always impatient, constantly grumbling, never-satisfied lunatic fringe (?) of Cardinal Nation whose constantly woebegone (WOE IS THE READER! BE GONE BURWELL!) nature could find a flaw in the Mona Lisa's smile. Overlooking the fact that the FLAW in the Mona Lisa’s enigmatic smile is the main source of its popularity, I want you to observe how much anger and disdain Burwell has for Cardinals fans displeased with spending a hundred dollars per game which in turn makes the Cardinals the FOURTH most profitable organization in baseball. Remember now, the Cardinals are supposed to be notorious cheapskates who follow the overly prudent marching orders of DeWitt. This is the same lunatic fringe that was convinced the organization would never let Mozeliak make an impact Hey Burwell, impact is still a noun! deal for Holliday in the first place. Burwell, let me ask you this- how would you write this paragraph differently if the owners of the Cardinals were actually paying you off to write this column?

Now, in the face of the gloom-and-doom pessimists who were convinced that DeWitt would never open his wallet to re-sign Holliday, Mozeliak landed the biggest top-shelf talent in the free agent market, and he did it without being fleeced by the most challenging agent in baseball. The seven-year, $120 million deal is not only fair, but quite generous considering that no other team was a serious contender for Holliday's services. YES! Yet another Burwellian fallacy! The definition of fleecing is: “swindling exorbitance, namely the taking advantage of generosity.” Burwell argues that Boras does not take advantage of the Cardinals, and then points out the excessively generous offer Holliday receives. I must take this moment to extend the definition of the Burwellian fallacy. Not only is it an argument that has no correlation between cause and effect, but it also includes arguments that contain inherent contradictions.

Without a hint of panic, Mozeliak accomplished the primary goal.

Of course he had a Plan B if Boras tried to drag this thing out interminably Can’t you just see Burwell sitting next to an SAT prep book, trying to include five-syllable words in his columns to bolster the facade of intelligent sports journalism?,and I'm sure Plan B would have been just fine. But whatever Plan B was, it was never going to be as good as Plan A. Hold your breath- Burwell just reached the conclusion that back-up plans are not as good as primary plans… PULITZER PRIZE!

So even as all the other free-agent options began to disappear around him, Mozeliak kept working on THE plan. And even while Boras utilized every page out of the agent's playbook for (he should use OF instead of for) clever, grandstanding, public- negotiating tactics, Mozeliak never moved off his own quiet game plan. No matter what Boras said, Mozeliak essentially always replied with an impassive public shrug. These two sentences are just bad. I’m starting to wonder if the Post-Dispatch editors made it through the last round of layoffs…

It proved to be the perfect public posture, because the object of this negotiation was never about beating Boras, or humiliating Boras or winning the hearts and minds of the grumbling Cardinal masses who wanted nothing less than for the GM to come out of this with Holliday's contract (on the cheap of course) in one hand and Boras' decapitated skull on a stake in the other. When I get to this paragraph, I feel like, up until this point, I have been complaining about a rainy day a month before Katrina hit. I am scared to edit this paragraph. I feel like it’s a game of Jenga- if I touch any of this- the whole damn thing is going to fall apart... Boras’ decapitated skull on a stake? Where did that come from? And Burwell called Rush Limbaugh angry…

If you observed this process in its entirety, you could see that Mozeliak understood this most important element. Maybe if this was some slappy utility guy who was on the downside of an unremarkable career, a cutthroat GM might not particularly care whether or not he could sign the player to a fair and (at least by baseball standards) non-insulting deal. Read this paragraph out loud three times and see if you can detect any semblance, even a pulse, of intelligent thought.

But there's no gain in doing that to a player who's considered one of the true cornerstones of this next championship build-up. It's shortsighted and totally unnecessary to squeeze too tight. Burwell could make himself useful by travelling to Guantanamo Bay and reading his columns aloud. I have never, in my entire life, seen the phrase “squeeze too tight” used in an intelligent (and I use that term rhetorically) argument. You never want a player who's going to spend the next seven years with the organization walking away from the negotiating table feeling like he's been fleeced.

Smart general managers understand that, which is why the Holliday deal turned out to be as sweet as it appears to be. Re-signing Holliday at the right asking price is just smart baseball business. What we've just witnessed are the first critical steps in a big-picture plan that tells me Cardinals ownership is quite serious about ensuring that a powerful team will be assembled around Pujols that will entice him to be a Redbird for life, and that this franchise is sincere about trying to collect a bit more World Series hardware around here in the not-so-distant future. Burwell, you couldn’t sound intelligent if they pluncked you next to Jim Rome- wait, bad example. I don’t know what to say anymore. I mean, these columns certainly are not people-friendly. Maybe they’re environmentally-friendly? Because it’s the same-old recycled bloviations week after week…

01.03.10 Bruce's Return Recalls Heydey

The hardest part about change isn't imagining what can lie ahead. That's always the easiest part. The most difficult part about transition is never imagining the possibilities: it's simply letting go of the past.
As you can see, Burwell yet again provides his loyal following with a textbook example of effective introductory-paragraph writing.Not only does our dear Bryan manage to confuse his audience before even introducing his topic, but he uses more convoluted cliches than Robert de Niro in Brazil.

No, we're not talking about the short-term past: If you are a Rams fan, you can't wait to get rid of the hideous nightmare of the past few seasons just as quick as you can.
If you would direct your attention to the last sentence of Burwell’s “introductory” paragraph, you will notice that our little journalist follows his colon by beginning the word “it’s” with a lower case letter. And as you can see in this example, Burwell chooses to capitalize the first letter in “If” following the colon. To give an anology, Burwell is like the Roulette player that places an equal bet on both red and black, believing that he is hedging his bets against loss and thus ensuring success. However, in Burwell’s case, the ball always lands on double zero. Surprisingly, the Burwellian approach violates standard journalistic practices. The NYPL Writer’s Guide states that a writer should always be consistent following colons within a body of work, and the APA states that a writer should also capitalize following a colon. Burwell's grammatical style is truly the COLONoscopy of modern-day sports journalism.

On this, the final day of what could be (oh, please make it so) an imperfect 1-15 season, what most folks are thinking (of) are the ways to purge ourselves of misery of all this losing.
Congratulations on the parentheticals, Mr. Burwell. You have just used a rhetorical device.
They're dreaming of a No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft. They're dreaming that GM Billy Devaney will become the smartest guy in the room, weaving (?) all sorts of personnel magic over the course of the next few months.

They're wondering how he will be able to draft a stud like Ndamukong Suh in the first round, and then keep on collecting the impact (to you aspiring English students out there, note that impact is a noun, not an adjective, and your professor will surely deduct points) players of the next generation throughout the rest of the draft in order to restore this once-great franchise to a semblance of its brief, but glorious past. (Burwell should write brief yet glorious past, but bringing up such a minor quibble with Burwell’s grammatical style is like complaining about room service shortly before the Titanic sinks).

But the funny thing is, on the same day they're imagining those giddy possibilities, they're once again being reminded of that sensational past. Effective English writers do not use the passive tense because of the lack of agency- I would provide an alternative way to express this thought, but as usual, the latter half of this Burwellian fiasco that he calls “sentences” is completely superfluous and adds nothing to the argument, so there would be no point in providing an alternative.

And you know what?
It's hard to let go. This is the first sentence Burwell writes that has absolutely no grammatical mistakes. Note the complexity. (If only it weren't so hard for the Post-Dispatch to let go of a certain someone...)

Today, another integral piece of The Greatest Show on Turf returns to town for a cameo farewell. Isaac Bruce, now 37 years old, will most likely only be a ceremonial contributor for the visiting San Francisco 49ers. He returns to the indoor stadium he once electrified as one of the leading characters in one of pro football's most exciting offensive eras. His head coach, Mike Singletary, who ought to know better (no qualification offered for this statement), had to be coaxed into putting Bruce on the active roster for today's game by the younger wide receivers who understand the symbolism and importance of what this final act of the Greatest Show actually means.

Bruce will be on the field before the game as an honorary captain. Of course, there will be cheers. Probably polite and passionate, long enough to recognize that the 45,000 diehards who braved the frigid weather to watch an otherwise uneventful (How does he know the game will be uneventful? BURWELL THE SEER! BURWELL THE PROPHET!) game still remember how good it used to be, and how big a deal Bruce was in his heyday here.

The sad thing is, it just won't be the same.

It will not be like it used to be when the Edward Jones Dome used to be filled to the roof, and the place fairly trembled with sellout crowds that who (REMOVE WHO) generated enough noise to mimic a jet engine. POETIC BURWELL! It won't be the same as it was when Bruce was sprinting toward the endzone and down on the Dome floor you could actually feel the earth move. Students, in much the same way you would not want to learn geography from the arrangement of football divisions (Rams in NFC West, Cowboys in NFC East, etc.), DO NOT use this past sentence as a basis for learning basic verb tenses. It won't sound as chilling and exciting and crazy and out of control and explosive as it used to be when this place rippled with that distinctive roar:
BRUUUUUUUUUUUUCE!!!! I would correct Burwell’s use of the triple and, but I will give Burwell the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was using anaphora to elucidate his argument, because I’m sure the Post-Dispatch hired him for his pervasive use of such complex literary devices.

But how cool would it be if today that moment was recreated? AVOID PASSIVE!

The last members of that great Rams team are rapidly disappearing from the NFL. Only a handful are still sprinkled around the league, and today, two of them — Bruce and Rams defensive end Leonard Little — will both be taking their final bows. And all I hope is that they both get to experience one last trembling moment from a city that once was the toast of the NFL but now has hit on hard times. In third grade, students learn about sentence fragments and run-on sentences. This is a textbook example that McGraw-Hill should include in their fourth-grade edition. If you have extra time at home, try to diagram this sentence…

I hope they both are in uniform, and get to play significant minutes. I suspect that Little will find a way to will his beaten up body (WTF) to get out there, and I doubt that Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo would have any qualms about finding a way to get him suited up and active for the final game of his career.

I just hope that Singletary shows that same common sense. He is a man who used to play the game with a sense of its history, played the game like every single play mattered. He played that middle linebacker position in Chicago with the sense that he fully understood the legacy of the job and its meaning in NFL history. Burwell’s argument that how Singletary played middle linebacker in the ‘80s for the Bears should somehow affect his decision-making as coach of the ‘49ers is called a non sequitur, from the Latin “it does not follow.” In lay men’s terms, the absence of a correlation between cause and effect is called a Burwellian fallacy.

And now he needs a little reminder of what contribution Isaac Bruce made to NFL history and his unique place in the legacy of The Greatest Show on Turf in St. Louis. What does this line even mean? Burwell’s argument is that if he can show Coach Singletary how great Bruce was a decade ago, he should get to play in the final game this season. Because Ted Williams hit .400 for the Red Sox in 1941, that should serve as the basis for starting him in the late 1950s? On Friday before the team departed for the road trip, it didn't sound like Singletary was ready to concede a thing. When asked what Bruce's contribution would be on Sunday, the coach said, "It could be the coin toss and that's it. Or he could play the first play or he could play the first series. I'm good with it either way. I told (offensive coordinator Jimmy Raye) he and Isaac will talk and figure it out. Maybe he'll play, maybe not. I want it to be very respectful. The wideouts coming to me obviously shows how they feel about him. I wanted to honor that." Burwell’s use of quotes in an article is always a smart decision, because he is not providing his audience with his own writing. Write and encourage Burwell to use quotes, quotes, quotes.

Well, then honor him, Mike. Burwell just used the literary device known as apostrophe. Also, there is an added sense of irony here. Since no one reads Burwell’s columns, he is able to address people specifically without alienating a potential audience.

Just make the decision (to) Play (lowercase) Isaac Bruce.

If he can play one play, play him one play. If he can play one series, play him one series. If he can go for the entire game, then let him do his thing so that this city can give him a proper tribute. I am not in good enough shape to sprint at the end of this marathon and give this paragraph the proper rearrangement that it surely deserves, but take solace in knowing that this entire paragraph could be summed up with the sentence "Allow Bruce to play as long as he can."

We want to hear that roar again.

BRUUUUUUUUUCE!!! You gotta wonder what goes through Burwell’s head when he writes (RAT TAT TAT). But I gotta wonder what makes B squared decide to use nine U’s in Bruce instead of ten? Eight? Surely Burwell does not just pick a random number.

As usual, analyzing Burwell is not a one-man job- I need help. If you notice any other mistakes, please note them in the comments section below so I can add it.
-Tim