Backhanded Compliments.

"One NL scout said it's an insult to David Eckstein to keep talking about what an overachiever he is. 'He's not an overachiever,' the scout said. 'He's just a very good ballplayer.' "

Dude, don't be insulted.

In 2006, this overachiever had a .344 slugging percentage and 23 whole runs batted in.

Imagine if he'd merely achieved. He might have had negative runs batted in.


"Randolph is likely to get a three-year extension. And why not? He easily outmanaged Joe Torre."

The term "outmanaged" is typically used when one manager's team faces another manager's team head to head.

In the playoffs, Randolph may have outmanaged Little and La Russa. Randolph didn't outmanage Torre, because the Mets never played the Yankees.

But, yeah, I think we can safely assume that Randolph would have outmanaged Torre had their teams met in the World Series.

Give Willie an extension and a raise.

Or maybe Minaya should give the raise and three-year extension to a cardboard cutout of Randolph instead. Because we can similarly safely assume that a cardboard cutout of Willie Randolph would have outmanaged Joe Torre.