By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
August 10, 2016
Current Channel 20 minimum-wage teleprompter reader Rob Parker has given the DSR many a gift over the years. One of the best scoops the DSR ever uncovered was the fact that the so-called “journalist” took a $5,000 payment from former Pistons GM Joe Dumars while working as a columnist for the Detroit News.
Breaking the news that Dumars helped bail Parker out of his failed book project led to our first cease-and-desist email, but not the last. Parker’s buffoonery has given this website plenty of fodder over the years. Who could forget the dipshit getting fired at the News for asking Rod Marinelli if the Lions head coach regretted that his daughter didn’t marry a better defensive coordinator?
And then lying to the public and his bosses about his “great” relationship with the head coach when Marinelli didn’t take kindly to Parker insulting his son-in-law Joe Barry. And then there was the infamous First Take incident where he called Robert Griffin III a “cornball brutha” while Waab was still at ESPN — another gig he lost because of his stupid mouth.
And then there was the time that Parker tried to run me over with his beat-up Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot of the 24 Seconds bar in Berkley.
But lost in Parker’s compromised ethics, his poor timing for jokes, his despicable racial comments and his failed local businesses are his HORRIFIC sports takes. The guy is as clueless about the Tigers, Lions, Pistons and Red Wings as he is about maintaining a gig.
With the announcement yesterday of Prince Fielder’s retirement from baseball, I thought it would be an opportune time to revisit Parker’s constant comments lamenting the fact the Tigers traded away the rotund slugger a few years back.
Now, before Prince suffered his latest neck injury, which prematurely sent him home to his kids on a full-time basis, I had made the point on a recent DSR Podcast that the Ian Kinsler for Prince trade might be the SECOND BEST in Detroit sports history behind only the Miguel Cabrera deal with the Marlins.
Even if Fielder were healthy, the acquisition of a probable future Hall of Fame second baseman for Prince was thievery. By Fangraphs‘ measure, Kinsler has put up a WAR of 5.2, 4.2 and a partial 4.4 through this season. That’s a total Win Above Replacement of 13.8 in less than three seasons.
Meanwhile, in that time, Fielder had a WAR of -.3, 1.6 and -1.8. In the three injury-plagued season that Prince played in Texas, he actually had a NEGATIVE WAR, meaning he wasn’t even playing at a Replacement Player level.
To put it more succinctly, Kinsler has provided the Tigers about $84 million in value while the son of Cecil Fielder basically should have paid the Rangers to allow him on the field. That’s how stark the difference has been between the two since the trade that ALSO saved the Tigers MONEY.
Yep, somehow Dave Dombrowski unloaded a majority of Fielder’s albatross of a contract AND acquired one of the best second basemen in all of baseball. Unreal.
And since Kinsler has been exponentially better than Fielder OFFENSIVELY since the trade, do we even have to discuss the chasm between the two defensively, or the fact that Kinsler lives and dies on the diamond while Fielder was over the crushing 2013 ALCS loss to the Red Sox before the series was EVEN OVER?!??!?!
Of course, Parker doesn’t see it this way. If you need any further evidence of what an imbecile this dope is, here are a series of Tweets from Parker crying over the fact the Tigers dealt away Fielder for Kinsler ….
And my personal favorite of them all ….
Just jaw-dropping shit. Nothing is more ass-backwards than these comments. Not even Parker’s career trajectory. There have been some awful takes in the history of the Detroit sports media, but this one has to rate in the top one percent.
You’d almost have to think that Prince paid for a new carburetor or transmission when that Cherokee broke down or some shit. Nothing else is plausible.
Poor WXON. That station used to be the home of Gomez Addams, Benson DuBois and Louie DePalma. And now they are stuck with a guy who allegedly used to buy the cheapest ingredients for his failed hot dog joint.
How the mighty have fallen.
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