Joe Morgan is as bad at analysis as he was good at baseball...

Joe Morgan was a great baseball player. A first-ballot hall-of-famer, and deservedly so. He could do everything. Over the course of his 22 seasons, he hit for average, hit for power, took walks, and did it all while playing excellent defensive 2nd base. For over two decades, he was one of the very best players in baseball.

He's also very possibly the worst game analyst in baseball history. He's been doing the ESPN Sunday night games for many, many years now, and the next time he says something insightful, or perceptive, or interesting, or intelligent, will be the first. He's just absolutely insufferable. And stunningly unable to appreciate the demonstration of skills that led to induction into Cooperstown.

The number of things that he doesn't know is just comical sometimes. I don't watch the Sunday night games unless the Red Sox are playing, in large part because of Joe's "analysis". Gems like this:

Miller: The Boston Red Sox, you think of as a team that can hit, they've always hit. This year they're second in the league in batting average, 3rd in slugging and number 1 in on-base percentage, which might be the most telling stat of all, Joe.

Morgan: I think that's a surprising statistic to me, you know, on Boston, 'cause that's not normally the way they play the game...You're showing them there first in on-base percentage, that also brings a point that they're taking more pitches, they're making the pitchers throw more strikes now, making them throw more pitches early in the game. All of that goes hand-in-hand with being maybe a better offensive team, maybe even better than they were last year, 'cause they were more free-swingers last year.

2005 Red Sox - 1st in AL in OBP, 1st (3.88) in pitches/plate appearance
2004 Red Sox - 1st in AL in OBP, 1st (3.93) in pitches/plate appearance
2003 Red Sox - 1st in AL in OBP, 2nd (3.83) in pitches/plate appearance

Nothing like having the facts to back up your arguments, huh?


And this, during Ramirez' AB in the 1st, where Mussina had already given up 2 hits, including a mammoth home run to Ortiz.

Mussina's pitching well, he's throwing well. He hasn't made any mistakes.

That's all well and good, but not two minutes earlier, talking about Ortiz' HR, he'd said:

And then he tried to come up and in, which I think is where they want to pitch to Ortiz. Watch, he tries to get the fastball in, and it's not in enough.

So he throws the fastball in, "not in enough," and two minutes later, even though the pitch was "not in enough" and hammered into the upper deck, Mussina still "hasn't made any mistakes."

That's just the top of the first. There was more, much more, but I can't sit through it again.