The White Sox announcers are fucking shit

We all know I hate Hawk "I invented the batting glove" Harrelson for various reason that range from poor analysis to obnoxious made up words to downright racism (he has often claimed on air, usually when the Sox play the Mariners, that Asians have patience built into their genetics). However, let's just put that stuff aside for now. Let's just pretend Hawk's announcer VORP is 0. Let's give him a clean slate and only use what he said in today's game as justification for why Hawk is just not a very good announcer.

What irks me so much as to write a post about his ramblings today? Well, amongst other things, Hawk tried to rationalize and justify Matt Kemp batting 9th (again) today because of his high strikeout totals (he has a team-leading 62). You do not rationalize the fact that Joe Torre is a fucking moron. You do not just ignore the fact that, despite a 24% strikeout rate (which is no where near as whiffingly as Chris Davis (45.3%) or B.J. Upton (29.6%) or Carlos Pena (36.3%), all of whom bat in the top or heart of the order), Matt Kemp CONTINUES to post a quality .165 ISO, clip line drives at an elite 21.3% rate, walk 10% of the time and post a .385 wOBA. To put those numbers in perspective, Matt Kemp leads the active Dodgers line up in offensive production. Only Manny Ramirez (.466 wOBA), who is currently serving a 50-game suspension for the use of PEDs, has more offensive value than Matt Kemp. And yet, Matt Kemp persistently bats in the bottom third of the Dodgers line up -- behind Russell Martin (.310 wOBA), Mark Loretta (.291 wOBA), Rafael Furcal (.295 wOBA), James Loney (.325 wOBA), Andre Ethier (.355 wOBA), Juan Pierre (.363 wOBA), Casey Blake (.371 wOBA) and Orlando Hudson (.372 wOBA).

Did I mention that Matt Kemp also has a ridiculous 7.0 speed score and Carlos Beltran-like 85.7% success rate with stolen bases? Cause he's also got that going for him.

So to everyone out there who hates Matt Kemp for whatever reason, I have just one thing to say to you. You simply cannot, no matter who you are (bad manager, bad TV announcer, etc) or how hard you try, justify batting Matt Kemp ninth. Or eighth. Or seventh for that matter. It's even very hard to make a case for Matt Kemp batting as low as fifth or sixth in the line up. Kemp is a heart of the order kind of guy with a top third of the order skillset. Plain and simple.

So fuck Russell 10 Extra Base Hits Martin.

Oh, and in case you didn't watch the game, Matt Kemp went 1-4 with a 3 run home run. Quite the bottom of the order material, right?