"We Knew... They Just Can't Make A Play" - Joe Kelly Absolutely Unloads On The New York Yankees, Says They're MAYBE The 9th Best Playoff Team
Hand up I forgot Joe Kelly was still in baseball talking all his shit, and that's because he's easy to forget. But then I double checked the numbers and turns out he's still playing, which is great for Joe Kelly. Truly amazing that in the modern day of analytics and predictability, a guy with -0.6 WAR in his last 235 games going back six full seasons, can still find himself in a major league bullpen. Even more amazing is that he made $45,000,000 to be objectively bad. That's actually pretty awesome if you think about. Some would even say the American dream and I really mean it. You get paid all that money to sit around and talk shit. Which reminds me.
I blogged about Joe Kelly back when he drilled the Astros players. You can read the full thing here but general point is that I thought it was cool that Joe Kelly took matters into his own hands and hit a couple players. I thought he was a regular Joe protecting the public interest in the game we all love. So I said shit like that, and then I started getting feedback from active, real MLB players that I was a douchebag for defending Joe Kelly. Something like that. It wasn't well received and ever since, I've been hesitant to go down this path again.
But then you see that clip above. The smug man in oversized glasses. We're the Dodgers baby. We know everything. It completely ruins an otherwise very interesting message that the Dodgers re-ranked the playoff seeds and had the Yankees 8th or 9th. That was very willing to say the Guardians were an objectively better baseball team and that they can't even throw the ball around the infield. With a cheap laugh no less about winning a couple games. LOL. It was almost a good series.
This guy is so fucking smug that he's lucky to throw 100 and be super rich and fancy and enjoying California weather and another World Series championship.
At the same time, even if he's objectively unpleasant, I still want to support Joe Kelly for talking shit like this publicly because it never happens in baseball. And obviously we're still so far behind NBA and NFL as a sport and culture. But this is a step in the right direction to come out after beating the Yankees in the World Series and tell everyone they sucked in the first place. It's not perfect and the messenger could be a little more polished/welcomed. However the overall ethos carries the right tone and spirit to make the league marginally more interesting and competitive.
Joe Kelly doesn't have the capacity to move the needle but imagine this kinda shit coming from Shohei Ohtani before playing the Padres in the Division Series. Or Kyle Schwarber taking out Mets fans on Philly sports talk radio before 2025 opening day. Or Joe Altuve telling everyone in the Bronx to suck his Mexican cock before a double header because he wants to and he can say whatever he wants.
That's a significantly more interesting MLB and I really don't think we're asking too much. Just looking for a little more beef between the lines. Is that too much to ask?
No.
So let me ask this instead.
Do you personally like Joe Kelly talking this level of organizational shit about the New York Yankees? Or do you think he's an overpaid bum that's lucky to wear the same uniform as his teammates? Or is it a little bit of everything?
Personally I say all the factors make this extremely bush league but end of the day, I kinda like that a whole lot.