When Smart People Say Stupid Things About Stupid People Saying Stupid Things

Sometimes, even when stupid people say stupid things, those stupid thing get trumped by someone else saying something even stupider. Take yesterday, for example, when Jack McKeon, David Samson and Dan Le Batard all combined to have the stupidest conversation known to man.

Each week, Samson joins Dan on his radio show to chat about baseball, movies and other various things that make David Samson sound especially creepy. Yesterday, during the interview, Dan read McKeon’s comments about Ricky Nolasco aloud. Comments Samson apparently hadn’t heard yet.

“I guess that’s why you’re 10-11 or 11-10 or whatever,” McKeons said of Nolasco, who fell to 10-11 with Wednesday’s loss. “That’s why you’re not a 20-game winner. You’ve got to concentrate. You’ve got to make pitches. Sooner or later, you’re in the big leagues four or five years, you got to be better than that.”

“You can’t let .220 hitters take care of you all the time,” said McKeon, referring to Gonzalez, a .238 hitter. “With two strikes with Gonzo, throw the ball a foot outside or a foot over his head and he’ll swing at it. He was going to trick him, I guess. You throw him that soft stuff and he’s going to hit it, but we keep giving it to him.”

What happened next was as puzzling as McKeon’s commets were stupid. (I don’t have the exact exchange handy, but as soon as the podcast goes up, I’ll link it for you.) After reading the comments and asking for his thoughts, Samson angrily said something along the lines of, “Well, that’s not going to help his trade value any.” And then went into full-on damage control mode, spinning the comments and saying all of the right things, as if this were something that needed spinning.

How many GMs were sitting by their radio, putting the finishing touches on a deal for Ricky Nolasco, only to hear a 400-year-old manager who nobody takes seriously, say exactly what the season’s box scores already say about Nolasco, and think to himself, “WAIT! WHAT AM I DOING?!?”

This whole thing was a non-issue. Were Jack’s comments dumb? Obviously. When aren’t his comments dumb? But, what exactly do you expect from Jack McKeon? This is what he’s been doing all season. It isn’t like he mentioned an undisclosed injury or hinted that Nolasco is a nightmare for pitching coaches to work with. He said that sometimes Ricky’s pretty bad. This isn’t top-secret information and I’m pretty sure David Samson knows that McKeon’s outburst should have zero impact on potential trades this offseason. If he doesn’t, then the organization has bigger problems than an old man with a broken filter.

The person I’m most disappointed in, though, is Le Batard. Dan would never be considered a dumb person, and this is usually the kind of thought process where his brilliance shines through… So why wasn’t he able to sniff out something so obvious? Why didn’t he point out how benign McKeon’s comments actually were? Why would he even bring up something so meaningless in the first place, when his show purports to be above typical sports talk radio sensationalism?

Jack saying what he said was idiotic at best, since nothing good can come of it, but the reactions of both David Samson and Dan Le Batard were equally as stupid. Of course, if there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Florida Marlins organization this year, it’s that they seem to do an exceptional job of manufacturing in-house controversy.

At least they’re good at something, I suppose.