Comment Winter Olympics: Thanksgiving, Albert Pujols and the new CBA

'Twas a slow, easy week for the judges, who nonetheless will get holiday pay for going through the little chatter we had and picking out a trio of medalists.

And who are those medalists?

--The bronze goes to Poppy, who has been with us since the very beginning on April 16, 2007:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all my fellow turkeys.

Told you it was a slow week.

--The silver goes to Islander505, who mixed social commentary with one of his favorite baseball riffs.

In response to last week's gold medalist Sandy opining, "Me, I say get a better education so that you don't have to take a job in retail for $10 an hour," I-505 wrote:

Education is overrated. Thanks to the centralization of power within the federal government in the form of a Department of Education as well as the proliferation of hundreds of billions of dollars in student-loan programs for higher learning, a college degree in 2011 has no greater value than a high school diploma did 60 years ago.

The student loan program has done nothing more than to protect and insulate the "higher learning industry" (i.e. colleges and universities) from the challenges of a free and competitive marketplace, guarantees them 100 percent enrollment, removes any incentive to "improve their product"; all of which has resulted in "graduates" entering the labor market with degrees that are generally regarded as "So what?" by potential employers.

The "housing bubble" of the past decade is a perfect microcosm of what has happened to education over the last half-century. The idea that "everyone is entitled to a home" resulted in overinflated property values which eventually crashed. So too, has the idea that "everyone is entitled to higher education" destroyed the value of "a better education".

Just my opinion.

Albert Pujols is overrated, too.....and that's a fact.

Man oh man. That's like walking from New Mexico to Florida just to get a quart of milk. 

--The gold goes to Whynot, who offered his take on the spending restrictions in baseball's new collective bargaining agreement:

I don't like the way the new CBA seems to limit teams from building through the draft. Maybe it won't turn out that way since it will also restrict the big-money teams from using their dominance by getting early -round talent in the later rounds. I guess we'll see.

Of course, when the Mets finally had a front office that understood this concept, it seems it will no longer be the value-added proposition it had become.

--The Yankees are bringing back Freddy Garcia. As I wrote in the story, re-signing Garcia doesn't end their search for more pitching, but it does allow them to be a tad more discriminiating when it comes to asking prices on the free-agent and trade front.

It was a pleasure watching this version of Garcia pitch so often in 2011, although not as fun as watching Garcia in his prime, but I was curious whether Garcia - given his reputation as a smart pitcher who defeats teams with his savvy as well as his diminished stuff - is a guy who consistently outpitches his peripherals.

Looking ahead, in other words, could the Yankees reasonably expect a duplicate performance of what they received from Garcia in 2011, which was quite valuable?

The answer: Not really. Garcia's ERA (3.62) exceeded his FIP (4.12) and xFIP (4.36), the two predictive measures incorporating strikeouts, walks and home runs. That's not a shocker, given that we knew Garcia wasn't winning awards for his strikeouts-to-walks ratio. Furthermore, his BABiP of .292, when matched against his line-drive percentage of 22.3 percent, indicates that Garcia benefited from some good luck.

So what about Garcia's 2010 with the White Sox, which was really the full debut of "Crafty Freddie"? His ERA (4.64) was a lot closer to his FIP (4.77) and xFIP (4.41). His BABiP of .290 against a 21.1 percent line-drive percentage. once again indicates good luck - just a touch less than 2011.

Conclusion: Not much of one. The numbers are mixed. The best guess at this point is that Garcia won't match what he did this past season, and that the Yankees will wind up paying him more for less. But I wouldn't bet a week's salary on it.

--Have a great day.